The three free-standing silo structures known as Silos Nos 2, 3 and 4 stand prominently on Haly Street, Kingaroy, within the larger Peanut Company of Australia peanut processing plant which occupies a truncated rectangular block bounded by the streets Haly, Jarah and Alford Street East and the Kingaroy/Kilkivan railway line formation. The plant within the silo structures is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. For effective operation of the silos this plant is replaced and upgraded from time to time.
Extending over eight levels (boot pit, six floors and a gallery), each silo structure consists of nests of storage bins to the north, an elevator tower to the south and accommodates plant associated with the receipt, sorting, feeding, storage and despatch of peanuts. Silo No. 2 incorporates a working house to the south of its elevator tower. Silos Nos 2 and 3 are linked by an overhead enclosed walkway at gallery level. This walkway accommodates a conveyor plant to transport peanuts between the two silos. Elevated loading/despatch platforms sheltered by suspended steel framed awnings stand to the base of the elevator towers to Silos Nos 3 and 4 and to the east and south sides of the working house to Silo No. 2. The railway tracks of the former siding run between Silos Nos 2 and 3 and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The white painted concrete and brick silo bins stand on a reinforced concrete floating slab and consist of round bins 20 feet (6.2 metres) in diameter and 85 feet (26.35 metres) to the top of the cone and interstitial star shape bins 75 feet (23.25 metres) to the top of the cone. Peanuts are dropped in from a conveyor belt at the gallery level and released from the hoppered base at the ground floor. Silo No. 2, with a capacity of 4372 tons (3966.21 tonnes), has 24 round and 14 star shape bins, Silo No. 3 has a capacity of 5200 tons (5283.44 tonnes) in 27 round and 16 star shape bins and number four has a capacity of 2200 tons (2235.3 tonnes) in 12 round and 6 star shape bins.
The bins in each silo are crowned by a steel- and timber-framed shed clad with metal sheeting and are distinguished by high narrow gabled ridge roofs. Each shed accommodates the gallery space which houses the conveyor belt and associated plant that drops the nuts into the storage bins. A timber-floored platform runs along each side of the conveyor and the space is lit by steel-framed windows to the east, west and north. Hoppers at the base of the bins empty onto conveyor belts that transport the peanuts for despatch.
The elevator towers are steel- and timber-framed, clad with metal sheeting and lit by steel-framed windows to each level. The towers accommodate flights of steel and concrete stairs and the elevator plant associated with hoisting the peanuts from the boot pit to the gallery conveyor belts.
The working house of Silo No. 2 is constructed of reinforced concrete, sheltered by a hipped roof clad with metal sheeting. Banks of steel-framed 12-light windows light each of the five levels. Square in plan, the working house accommodates plant, flights of steel and concrete stairs and a passenger lift with a handsome decorative metal door housed within a weatherboard clad lift shaft.
Many original steel-framed 12-light windows with a fixed louvre vent and a pivoting central section have been retained, notably in the working house and the elevator towers.
","history":"The Kingaroy Peanut Silos located in Haly Street, Kingaroy are a group of three concrete silos (Nos 2, 3 and 4) that were constructed between 1938 and 1951 by the Queensland Peanut Marketing Board for storage of peanuts before their processing and marketing. These large structures dominate the skyline of Kingaroy and the surrounding landscape. They are widely recognised symbols of the peanut growing and processing industry in Queensland that developed as a commercial enterprise in the South Burnett centred upon Kingaroy and which has been managed from this town since the 1920s.
Although initial pastoral settlement in the Kingaroy area commenced in the 1840s when Taabinga station [QHR600647] and Burrandowan station [QHR600967] were taken up, the town of Kingaroy owes its establishment to the arrival of the Kilkivan branch railway in 1904. In 1898 the only resident in the vicinity of Kingaroy was Daniel Carroll who had selected a 160 acre block abutting the 3430 acre (1388.07 ha) Kingaroy Paddock selection in 1891 and built a hut and yard for his horses. By 1900 he had erected a cottage and had selected further blocks of land adjoining his original portion. In 1902 a provisional school opened in Kingaroy with about twenty pupils. Once the Kilkivan branch railway reached the 56 mile peg near the corner of the Kingaroy Paddock in 1904, the railway terminus was the impetus for the establishment of Kingaroy township. Both Carroll and Arthur Youngman, owner of the Kingaroy Paddock, auctioned town blocks at public auction during 1904. When the first train arrived, there were only three buildings - Carroll's new hotel, the Carrollee, FC Petersen's store and Carroll Cottage [QHR601901]. After the arrival of the railway Kingaroy quickly developed as a service centre with the establishment of commercial premises such as shops and hotels. These were soon followed by public buildings, churches and schools. The seven years during which Kingaroy was the railhead were sufficient for it to establish a lasting dominance over neighbouring townships.
Peanuts have been grown in Queensland since Chinese cultivators planted them on the Palmer River goldfield in the 1870s. Small acreages were grown by several farmers in the South Burnett from about 1901 and these peanuts were sold to confectioners and shops in Brisbane, Maryborough and Rockhampton. From circa 1920 significant acreages in the South Burnett became devoted to peanut growing.
A major boost to the peanut growers was the establishment of the Marrickville Margarine Company's oil expression plant at Marrickville, New South Wales in 1921. The company purchased almost the entire 1921-1922 crop in the South Burnett and may have created the demand which made the establishment and growth of the industry possible. Further stimulus was provided by the establishment of other companies, such as Nut Foods Pty Ltd in 1924, to produce peanut products such as peanut paste and salted and roasted peanuts that entered this business around this time.
Subsequently, more farmers in the South Burnett began peanut-growing. In 1922, 61 tons were produced, rising to 75 tons in 1923 and to 231 tons in 1924. This increase in peanut growing coincided with a fall in the price received by farmers for maize, which had been their primary cash crop. However, in 1924 merchants were not prepared to pay what growers considered a reasonable price for the increased quantity of peanuts claiming there was a glut and offering prices as low as ½ pence/lb. Consequently growers refused to sell at a price insufficient to meet the costs of production. A meeting of growers held at Memerambi decided to approach the Minister for Agriculture and Stock to obtain approval for the formation of a Peanut Board under the Primary Products Pools Act 1922. Board members were elected and a strategy for marketing the current crop was established.
This strategy involved transforming the crop into a marketable condition to supply quality lines and deliver the product throughout the year as the market required it. The Board did this by deshelling, grading, culling and storing the peanuts. Meanwhile, the establishment of the Queensland Peanut Marketing Board was gazetted on 23 August 1924. The result for the first year of operations was satisfactory with growers paid approximately 4 pence/pound.
During the period 1919 to 1924 production for the whole of Queensland increased from 57 to 448 tons. The other areas in Queensland producing peanuts were Moreton, Port Curtis, Edgecombe, Rockingham, Cape York Peninsula and the Darling Downs/Maranoa divisions. Peanuts were grown in areas such as the North Coast region where fruit farmers grew 1-2 acres (0.4-0.81 hectares) of peanuts as a side-line to their fruit production. Over time the peanut industry became concentrated in three areas of Queensland. The South Burnett, with Kingaroy as the headquarters of the Board, storage and treatment facilities, was the main area. A second area was in Central Queensland, especially along the coast, with Rockhampton as its centre. The third centre was on the Atherton Tableland with the Board's depot being located in Atherton.
Storage was one of the main needs of the South Burnett peanut growers. Silos were necessary to hold the nuts in dry storage, treat them if affected by damp, protect them from pests and allow controlled distribution so that the market was not flooded one year and short the next. Initially, the Peanut Board leased local barns and nuts were treated in the Railway's Grain Shed in the Railway Yard at Kingaroy. Realising that more permanent arrangements were required it was decided to build a block of silos, complete with treatment plant and machinery. The Board imposed a levy of ¼pence/pound on peanuts delivered to the Board to cover the cost. In order to build the silos the growers formed the Queensland Peanut Growers' Cooperative Association Ltd. The Association issued shares to the growers in lieu of the levy received from the Board. In this way the growers themselves became the owners of any assets bought or built with the proceeds of their levy.
The Association was formed and registered under the Primary Producers' Cooperative Associations Act 1923 to 1926. Between September 1926 and August 1928 land fronting Haly Street and the railway line to the south was acquired as a site for operations. Located near the commercial centre of the town and adjacent to the railway line, the future headquarters of the Peanut Board was well sited for loading and unloading of produce. Accordingly a timber-framed and -clad silo (No. 1) was constructed in 1928 together with a long shed which housed machinery for cleaning, grading and shelling peanuts. A long shed built at the same time, called the 'Dump', had a storage capacity of a further 1,200 tons.
The industry continued to develop steadily with regulation by government and growers alike. Lobbying of the State and Commonwealth governments by the Board resulted in embargos against the importation of peanuts and supportive legislation. In August 1930 the Queensland Government issued an Order-in-Council constituting a Peanut Marketing Board for 10 years to control all sales of peanuts produced in Queensland. Marketing problems were overcome finally with the passing in 1939 of The Peanut Industry Protection and Preservation Act by the Queensland government which ensured that the Board held control over the planting, grading, treatment and marketing of peanuts in Queensland through the health provisions of the Federal Constitution.
Continued expansion of the peanut industry necessitated the building of additional storage space at Kingaroy. By 1937 the crop was in excess of 4000 tons and the chairman of the Board estimated that in the following year it would be around 7000 tons. This was an enormous increase from Australia's peanut production in the early 1930s, which was 800 tons per year. In 1937 additional land bounding the Queensland Peanut Growers' Cooperative Association Ltd's original purchases was acquired. Plans for the proposed set of modern concrete and brick silos were drawn in September 1937. A meeting of the Board and growers in the following month approved their construction. The silos, estimated to cost approximately £50 000, were to be ready for the next peanut crop. The engineers were Thomas Robinson & Son Consulting Engineers, Sydney in association with Macdonald Wagner consulting Engineers Sydney and Brisbane. They were built by Kell and Rigby, which also constructed the Kingaroy Council Chambers, located opposite, at the same time. No 2 Silo consisted of 38 silo bins in total: 24 round bins each 20 feet (6.1m) diameter and 85 feet (25.91 m) high (to top of the cone) plus 14 star shape bins being 75 feet (22.86 m) high (to top of the cone). This silo was constructed and opened during 1938 at a cost of £57 750 of which £46 000 was advanced by the Commonwealth Bank under State Government guarantee.
The outbreak of war marked the beginning of a period of rapid development. The Commonwealth initially planned to commandeer the whole peanut crop for oil making purposes. However, as peanuts could be and were being imported in sufficient quantities for oil production, the Board challenged the acquisition order by recommending that Queensland peanuts be used mainly for edible purposes and only diverted to oil production should the need arise. This was accepted by the Commonwealth Government and from 1943 until the end of the war the crop was sold by the Board under the control of the National Security Regulations.
By 1947 peanut production had reached a new peak with 1116 growers planting 52 000 acres which produced 23 164 tons of peanuts valued at £1 048 965 14s 7d. This rapid expansion of the peanut industry in the 1940s again created storage problems. To solve this, two new silos were planned. The first of these (No. 3 Silo) was completed late in 1948 at cost of between £100 000 and £110 000 and with a capacity of 5200 tons. It was built on lot 138 (3 roods 26 and 6/10 perches), which had been created from a road closure, the Deed of Grant for which was issued to the Queensland Peanut Growers' Cooperative Association Ltd after it was acquired for £216 4s 8p on 6 August 1928.
The second block (No. 4 Silo) was completed by 1951 although its machinery was not installed until June that year. Its capacity was 2200 tons and its cost upon completion was approximately £54 000. The loan for the construction of both silos was guaranteed by the Queensland Government.
On 6 February 1951 fire destroyed No 1 Silo and the Dump, while No 2 Silo and No 4 Silo were damaged. No 2 Silo was repaired and the workhouse of No 4 Silo was repaired and re-equipped with treatment machinery. A bag shed and general purpose shed were later built on the site previously occupied by the Dump.
Between 1959 and 1980 Queensland produced almost the entire Australian peanut crop with the South Burnett producing just over half the State's production in 1979-80.
In 1992 major changes took place in the peanut industry. The marketing of peanuts in Queensland was de-regulated and the Peanut Marketing Board, which was a statutory marketing authority, was wound up on 27 May 1992. At that time the Board transferred all its assets, property and liabilities to the Queensland Peanut Growers' Co-operative Association Ltd. The Peanut Marketing Board became PMB Australia Ltd and later, in 1997, became the Peanut Company of Australia (PCA).
Since then, the PCA has remained the leading supplier of peanuts in Australia, engaged in researching, growing, storing, processing, value-adding and marketing the product.
The Kingaroy Peanut Silos have been a long-standing symbol, not just of South Burnett and Kingaroy but also of the Queensland peanut industry. Images of the silos have been promulgated since as early as 1938 and remain an easily recognised image in Queensland.
","criteria":"The Kingaroy Peanut Silos are important in illustrating the large-scale development of the peanut industry in Queensland. Since the 1920s the South Burnett district has been the headquarters of the Queensland peanut industry, a major agricultural industry for the State.
These silos were built in 1938, 1948 and 1951 and reflect the constant growth of the peanut industry in that period.
The Kingaroy Peanut Silos are a striking physical manifestation of the Peanut Company of Australia and its precursor organisations, with the headquarters of the company located in Kingaroy, since 1927. These organisations have controlled and developed the peanut industry in Queensland and Australia since its inception.
|The intactness, integrity and magnitude of the Kingaroy Peanut Silos, configured in cylindrical and star-shaped bins, and their proximity to the railway line make them an exceptional example of storage silos.
|Standing tall above the Kingaroy skyline these 42 metre high silos dominate the townscape and the landscape of the South Burnett as a landmark visible from great distances. Lit by the rising and setting sun they glow dramatically at dawn and dusk transforming their appearance from functional structure to monumental sculpture.
Their recognition as an aesthetic landmark for the region is evidenced by the use of artistic images of the silos for tourism promotional purposes.
The Kingaroy Peanut Silos are important for their symbolic quality and aesthetic contribution to the South Burnett landscape. The silos are a long-standing and an easily recognised symbol of Kingaroy and have value to the people of south-east Queensland as a distinctive symbol of Kingaroy, the headquarters of the Australian peanut industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":27,"place_ref":602809,"name":"Kingaroy Butter Factory (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"67 William Street","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The former Kingaroy Butter Factory complex stands at the northern end of William Street, Kingaroy north west of the CBD of Kingaroy and adjacent to the formation of the Kilkivan/Kingaroy railway line. The complex comprises the main butter factory shed, 1940s cheese factory, ice works shed, former office, amenities and cold stores shed, modern cheese making facility and a number of other sheds and structures.
An early engine (maker's plate LG Terne Engineers of Glasgow) stands near the front gate and the entrance forecourt accommodates carparking. The site works off a road running centrally through the complex with an ancillary road to the west side. The roads and carpark are bitumened and concrete drains and edges run along the spine road.
The significant structures are the Main butter factory shed, 1940s cheese factory (east and west sheds), ice works shed and former office, which are described individually below.
Main butter factory shed
The main building is a rectangular timber framed and chamferboard clad building with a slab on ground concrete floor throughout. The timber frame stands on a low concrete upstand that runs around the perimeter of the shed. A moulded timber cornice runs around the parapet that screens the sawtooth roofs behind. The sawtooth roofs are clad with corrugated metal sheeting and have south facing clerestory windows; most are glazed, some house fixed timber louvres or are clad with corrugated metal sheeting. An additional narrow rectangular raised gable roof with glazed windows to the east and west sits over part of the centre of the shed.
The south, east and west elevations are notable for full height pilasters marking out bays which to the southern part of the building are punctuated by smaller pilasters which terminated in a lower cornice that is now removed. The smaller pilasters define the loading dock openings - three to the west, five to the south and six to the east. A continuous concrete ledge projects around the southern third of the building below the dock openings. Eleven original large timber braced-and-ledged vertical sliding doors remain to these openings providing access to the dock within. Rainwater heads and downpipes run down these elevations.
The south elevation is distinguished by four sets of timber framed upper windows with glazed and fixed timber louvres to the upper face. The west elevation is punctuated by a number of openings including timber framed casement windows to the mezzanine office. Reflecting the receipt/despatch activities of the factory processing, the east elevation accommodates a number of hatch openings at various points along the length of the building. A number are now boarded over. Hooded exhaust vents protrude along the northern end of the elevation. The blank north elevation is clad with horizontal chamferboards and metal sheeting.
The building accommodates substantially intact functional spaces reflecting the various stages in the handling and processing of milk products including engine, plant and machinery rooms, testing rooms, chill rooms, cold stores, salt room, packing rooms, cream platform, churn room, main room, receiving and despatch docks and a mezzanine office.
Throughout the main building linings generally are vertical or horizontal tongue and groove boarding or fibrous cement sheeting with cover strips. The roof is generally framed with timber trusses supported on corbelled timber posts.
The southern end accommodates the receiving and despatch docks, main room, cream platform, churn room, chill and cold rooms, salt room, packing rooms, testing rooms and the office mezzanine. Concrete platforms, approximately 700mm above the level of the main room, run along the east, south and west sides and form the receiving and despatch docks. These docks service the former railway siding to the east and vehicle loading area to the south and west. The deck of the cream platform is formed by the concrete ceilings of the chill and cold stores, salt room, packing and other rooms below. A fibrous cement sheeted partition runs part the way down the west side and stout timber posts continue around the perimeter. The posts to the west side carry large metal brackets that supported the pulleys and belts once associated with the motors for the churns which stood on the floor below. The main room now accommodates machinery and equipment for the current oil pressing business. The chill/cold stores, salt room and packing rooms retain original features including hatches, doors and doorways, concrete upstands and floor drains.
The office mezzanine, supported by the structure of the storage spaces below, is timber framed and partly screened by partitions clad with vertical tongue and groove boards. The ceiling to the southern end is lined with fibrous cement sheeting ceilings and accommodates lattice ventilation screens to the cream platform.
The northern end, formerly accommodating engine, plant and machinery areas, has exposed roof framing (some unpainted) and horizontal unpainted chamferboard linings to the interior walls. Some spaces are lined with insulation panels, have new fittings and there is new concrete screed to some floors. Some floors show evidence of tracks and plant and machinery fixings.
1940s cheese factory
The 1940s cheese factory stands to the northern end of the site and is comprised of two sheds each clad with fibrous cement sheeting and sheltered by gabled roofs clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Three circular roof vents project from the west shed and two inverted tubular exhaust vents protrude from the east. The west shed and the southern third of the east shed have a painted perimeter concrete upstand, approximately 450mm high. Both sheds have fixed timber louvre vents to the north and south gable ends.
West cheese factory shed
Lettering, The Cheese Factory 1941-1946, is painted to the upper part of the south elevation of the west shed. A slab on ground concrete floor runs throughout with an elevated concrete dock to the south end. Sash windows punctuate the east, west and north sides and a horizontal sliding braced and ledged timber door opens from the south dock. Horizontal sliding metal doors open to the west and north. The interior has exposed painted timber roof trusses. The ceiling and upper walls are unlined and the lower walls are lined with fibrous cement sheeting with cover strips over the joins. A narrow band of wire mesh runs along the upper west and part of the east walls. Approximately mid-way along the east wall, a solid timber framed and lined door with a robust handle and latch provides access between the two sheds.
East cheese factory shed
This is the smaller of the two sheds, the southern third has a slab on ground floor and the rest of the shed stands on low timber stumps and is accessed by a recent ramp to the north side. The cavities in the walls are filled with sawdust for insulation. The east elevation is distinguished by three mid-height small square windows; and a low hooded hatch and a horizontal sliding metal door at the south end. The shed has a suspended timber floor and dark honey-coloured horizontal unpainted pine lining to the interior walls on which lighter shadows reveal the locations of vertical supports for the storage shelfing that once lined the room. A solid timber framed and lined door with a robust handle provides access to the south end of the shed. A concrete drain runs along the east side of the shed.
Ice works shed
Standing to the middle of the site, the former ice works shed is a small rectangular structure with a painted perimeter concrete upstand, timber framed walls clad with chamferboards and is sheltered by a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A timber door and a set of timber framed casement windows are accommodated to the west elevation, there are doorways to the middle of the east and south elevations and the shed butts against the new cheese making facility to the north. The interior has a concrete tank to the west and an elevated concrete dock to the east side. Equipment and machinery associated with the ice works remains in the shed including the ice block moulds.
Former office
A small square timber framed building standing on low timber stumps, clad with timber weatherboards and fibrous cement sheeting and sheltered by a hipped tiled roof, the former office building stands to the south of the complex. Notable features include the front porch entrance and cantilevered timber framed window hoods.
","history":"The Kingaroy Butter Factory, a large timber clad building located in William Street, Kingaroy was built by contractors Waugh and Josephson in 1926, replacing an earlier factory established in 1907, on behalf of the Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company.
From the late 1800s, a number of critical factors enabled the expansion of the dairy industry into one of Queensland's principal primary industries by the interwar period. These included: government resumption and repurchase of land from pastoralists for the purpose of agricultural selection; the introduction of mechanical cream separators in the 1880s; Babcock testing to accurately measure cream content in milk; The Meat and Dairy Encouragement Act 1893 which made provision for government loans to construct butter and cheese factories; and the Department of Agriculture and Stock's use of a ‘Travelling Dairy' to demonstrate techniques and equipment to potential dairy farmers throughout Queensland. This period also saw the introduction of sown pastures such as paspalum and Rhodes grass and the cultivation of fodder, to improve milk yields and to provide adequate feed during the less productive months of winter.
Effective transport infrastructure was essential for dairy products to reach their desired markets. The extension of Queensland's rural railway network enabled more efficient transportation of dairy produce, facilitating the establishment of local butter and cheese factories in close proximity to railway lines. The first shipment of butter to Britain occurred in 1895 and from 1903 government subsidisation of a fortnightly shipping service to the United Kingdom improved Queensland's butter exporting capabilities.
The arrival of the Kilkivan branch railway to the ‘56 mile peg' in 1904 was the impetus for the establishment of the township of Kingaroy and a catalyst for the rapid expansion of dairying in the surrounding district, then an emerging but relatively small scale industry in the South Burnett. Within two years of opening, Kingaroy Station was sending 10 tons of cream weekly to Maryborough, while some farmers were also sending cream to Nanango.
By the early 1900s, co-operatives, where groups of local producers banded together to establish factories, were becoming the dominant form of ownership of cheese and butter factories, a pattern that defined the Queensland dairy industry for much of the 20th century. The Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company (MCDC) was producing butter and ice at its Maryborough factory from February 1901, with the decision to form a co-operative made in 1898. During 1905, a group of local Kingaroy dairy farmers met with directors of the MCDC and lobbied for the establishment of a branch factory at Kingaroy. The directors of the company entered into agreement to build a factory in early 1906, with 1525 shares in the company allocated to dairy farmers and other shareholders from the Kingaroy district. Company representatives selected a site in June of that year along the railway line on the northern outskirts of Kingaroy. The owner of the property, Tom Reen, donated one acre for the factory site, with the company purchasing another nineteen acres at £10 per acre. By October construction had begun on the building, a railway siding and a 12,000 gallon well, with the factory producing butter by March 1907.
The Kingaroy Butter Factory soon became an essential component of MCDC's operations, reflecting the suitability and productivity of the South Burnett district for dairying. The 1913 half yearly report of the MCDC noted 465,887 lbs (211,766.8 kg) of butter had been produced at Kingaroy in the first half of the year, almost twice as much as at Maryborough and nearly 100,000 lbs more than at Biggenden (built by the MCDC in 1911). The MCDC also opened factories in Mundubbera (1916) and Wondai (1931). Throughout its history, the Kingaroy Butter Factory was the largest producer of the MCDC's five factories. By 1929, the Wide Bay district, in which the South Burnett was included, was second only to the Moreton district in Queensland milk production.
In May 1925 the directors of the MCDC visited Kingaroy to announce plans to construct a new factory building with modern machinery. At an estimated cost of £18,000-£20,000, sourced from butter profits, local shareholders expressed their dissatisfaction with this arrangement, as the decision had been made without their consultation. The company directors argued that the new factory would increase productivity and increase returns to suppliers. While some shareholders voiced intentions of separating from the company prior to, and following the announcement of the new factory, this ultimately did not occur and the building proceeded.
The building was constructed by Brisbane contractors Waugh and Josephson, with the final cost of £47,000 more than doubling the original estimate. The construction of the building was not put out to tender and a later inquiry into secret commissions in the dairy industry implicated former Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company Director WA Shultz in receiving payments from Waugh and Josephson for the award of the contract.
The new factory was officially opened 7 October 1926 by William Forgan Smith, Minister for Agriculture and Stock. The factory was opened for inspection and a marquee was erected on the factory grounds, with a large crowd in attendance.
The building of the new Kingaroy factory occurred during a period of modernisation for butter manufacturers. By the end of the 1920s, most Queensland butter factories had been remodelled or were new buildings of brick and concrete, replacing earlier timber structures. The emphasis on producing high grade butter saw the need for more churns within factories to maintain outputs, as the lower temperatures required meant churns were turning longer than previously. In addition to upgrading buildings and equipment, greater attention was paid to ensuring butter was of a high standard, through stricter grading and by employing processes of pasteurisation and neutralisation. Increasing numbers of trained staff were working in factories.
The manufacture of butter followed a fairly typical process at factories throughout Queensland. Once cream cans were received at a loading dock and weighed, the cream was tested to determine its grading (choice, 2nd or 3rd), before the cans were emptied into vats and cleaned for return to the supplier. The cream was then pasteurised, cooled and pumped to storage vats, before being sent to the churns. The resulting butter was refrigerated, parcelled into butter boxes and forwarded by rail for export or distribution into local markets.
In order to preserve butter during storage and transportation, the production of ice was a necessary component of operations. This process occurred at Kingaroy in a small timber building adjacent to the main building. In addition to the factory's needs, ice was also sold for other commercial and domestic uses.
In the years following the construction of the new factory, butter production increased markedly, from 50 tons per week during 1926-1927, to 98 tons per week during 1928-1929. The factory reached its peak weekly production of 99 tons and 12cwt during 1929-1930, then a record for Queensland butter production. In 1931, it was Queensland's largest butter factory in terms of production, a time when close to 1000 suppliers were selling cream to the factory. In 1932-33, Kingaroy exported a higher average grade of butter than any other Queensland factory. Throughout the 1930s, the factory won numerous awards in Australia and England for the quality of its butter. During 1938-9, a record year, almost a third of all Queensland's butter was produced in the Wide Bay-Burnett, with Kingaroy the fifth largest producer in the state.
In the 1930s Kingaroy Shire had a burgeoning peanut industry and was a well established centre for maize production, but it was dairying that was the principal primary industry. As a measure of the industry's growth, the payment to Kingaroy factory suppliers in its first full financial year was £5723. By 1934 this had grown to £157,785. At the end of 1933, cream suppliers to the factory were being paid eight pence per pound for first grade cream, seven pence for second grade.
The interwar period saw the dairy industry expand greatly in Queensland. Between 1927 and 1937 the total number of dairy cattle rose by 50%. By the 1930s, dairying was Queensland's most widely spread agricultural industry and the state's second most profitable export industry from 1936 to 1941, accounting for 20% of primary production. By the late 1930s, around one in eight Queenslanders were living on dairy farms. In 1938 there were five co-operative butter factories in the South Burnett: located at Nanango, Kingaroy, Murgon, Wondai and Proston. While butter factories enabled the production and export of dairy products, numerous small farms reliant on family labour to milk herds twice daily for generally modest returns, were the backbone of the industry.
During World War II, butter factories throughout Queensland were engaged in the production of cheese. The Kingaroy, Nanango and Murgon factories all produced cheese during this period. Varying sources give the commencement date for production of cheese at Kingaroy as 1941 or 1942, ending in 1946. Between March 1942 and November 1944, 1.135 million pounds of cheese was produced. An annexe was built to the rear of the main building, containing two rooms; the larger for production and the lesser for maturation and storage, with walls lined with hoop pine timber, infilled with sawdust for temperature control. After cheese production ceased the annexe was used to produce buttermilk powder.
By 1950 the farms of the South Burnett were stocked with 130,000 dairy cows, ten percent of the Queensland total. The Kingaroy Butter Factory maintained an average production of 75 tons of butter per week until the early 1950s. Factory improvements in this period included the purchase of a new butter wrapping machine for £2000 in 1950, and the installation of stainless steel equipment for treating cream in 1956. Such improvements, however, were not enough to protect the factory from the beginnings of a wider decline of Queensland's dairy industry, as demand and prices for butter began to drop. The downturn worsened in the 1960s, with a reduction in cream suppliers diminishing output. The transition towards the production of milk rather than cream, requiring larger herds and new equipment, saw many smaller scale farmers leaving the industry. In Kingaroy Shire cream suppliers fell dramatically, from 265 in 1965 to 155 in 1969. Correspondingly, between 1960 and 1968 the number of dairy cows in the Shire fell from 23,885 to 12,225. Export opportunities also became restricted, culminating with the end of preferential trade agreements with Britain following its entry into the European Common Market in 1973.
The late 1960s saw the beginning of closures of butter factories in the Burnett region. The Proston Butter Factory, a branch of the South Burnett Dairy Co., closed in 1967. The Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company closed their branch factories at Wondai and Biggenden in February 1969. By 1976 dairy farmers in the South Burnett numbered under 400 and of these, 211 were bulk milk suppliers. The average age of a dairyman was 55 and two dairy producers were leaving the industry per week.
While Kingaroy's supply benefited in the short term from Wondai's closure, ultimately it was not enough to sustain the business. In May 1977 it was announced that both Nanango and the Kingaroy butter factories would close and that all cream supplies would be diverted to Murgon. With a large number of suppliers leaving the industry, and manufacturing and other costs dramatically increasing, it was no longer economically viable for the factories to stay open. By the time of Kingaroy Butter Factory's closure, there were only 38 suppliers and only one and a half tonnes of butter produced a week, a far cry from its interwar heyday.
For a time after closing, the factory operated as a milk collection point for the Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Association. In 1989 the market milk operations and the factory was sold to Suncoast Milk, a subsidiary of Queensland United Foods. For a period during the 1980s a rear section of the building leased by Kidd's Cabinet Makers. From November 1986, Graham Helmhold began leasing the front of the building for the operations of his company Proteco, one of Australia's major cold pressed oil processors. Proteco purchased the property in 1995. This business has since changed ownership. From 2002-2009, dairy processing returned to the site, with Kingaroy Cheese using part of the main building for cheese making. This business was taken over by Kenilworth Country Foods. Also on site is a peanut roasting operation. The former detached office (c1950) functions as a sales outlet for South Burnett produce.
","criteria":"The former Kingaroy Butter Factory (1926) is important in demonstrating the growth of the dairy industry in the Wide Bay-Burnett, one of Queensland's most important dairy producing regions during the twentieth century. Replacing an earlier factory built in 1907, the Kingaroy Butter factory was among Queensland's largest and most awarded butter producers during the dairying boom of the interwar period.
The former Kingaroy Butter Factory illustrates the evolution of Queensland's dairy industry during the interwar period, when most butter factories were remodelled or rebuilt in response to a rapid expansion of cream production and the need to adopt modern manufacturing processes.
The cheese making annexe (1941) is important in demonstrating the accelerated programme of cheese production that occurred in Queensland during World War II.
|The former Kingaroy Butter Factory complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics and processes of a butter factory, a significant type of industrial activity in Queensland's history. The place is situated adjacent to a railway line, formerly served by a siding to enable transportation of its products. The intact internal arrangement of the main factory building incorporates a loading dock, storage platform, testing, churn, cold storage and packing areas, original mezzanine office and the provision of rear space for the factory's plant. Adjacent associated buildings, including the cheese annexe (1941), office (c1950) and ice manufacturing shed, illustrate activities interconnected with the production of butter on the site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":118,"place_ref":602566,"name":"Klondyke Coke Ovens","alternate_name":"Klondyke Coking Ovens | Klondyke Beehive Coke Ovens","street_address":"Parker Lane","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-03","description":"The Klondyke Coke Ovens are located at North Ipswich. Access is most easily gained via the corner of W.M. Hughes and Musgrave Streets, walking down the hill and then following the pathway around to the right for approximately 200 metres. The path splits in two, with the left (upper) fork going to the ovens and the right (lower) fork going past the brick retaining wall.
The ovens are built into the hillside above Mihi Creek and north of the nearby Ipswich Railway Workshop area. The ovens form a large earthen covered mound of approximately 23 metres in length, 6 metres in width and 2 to 3 metres in height. The mound is heavily covered with vegetation and leaf litter. It is difficult to identify from a distance and the ovens are not visible until in close proximity.
There are twelve ovens arranged in two rows, six ovens in each row back to back. They have a domed shaped appearance. They are 3.45 metres in diameter and 1.65 metres in height. The ovens are constructed of brick and have individual flues. They exhibit various degrees of collapse with two ovens being completely caved in. The ovens have been subject to vandalism such as removal of bricks to form fireplaces and graffiti is evident.
The rubble used to fill between the ovens is visible in some sections and consists of a combination of bricks and various sized rocks.
On the downslope side, towards Mihi Creek, a brick wall of approximately 5 metres in length and between 2 to 3 metres in height, marks a drop from the mound containing the ovens down to a levelled area. The wall has been subjected to heavy graffiti.
Brick debris, coal and coke is strewn around the site as are metal remnants of machinery such as skips, railway lines, crushing machinery, trammel screens, conveyor buckets and trolley parts.
Bricks used to construct the ovens are imprinted with a large 'R' in the centre of the otherwise flat, face of the brick.
","history":"The Klondyke Coke Ovens were part of the Klondyke Colliery located at North Ipswich and were built in the 1940s. Coke production at Klondyke originally commenced in the 1880s. The site had two widely separated periods of coke production and several changes of ownership and names. Its last change of ownership and name occurred in 1948 when the pit had only a small area left to be worked and production ceased in the early 1950s. The site has been lying unused for many years and the coke ovens are overgrown with vegetation.
The discovery of coal in Queensland dates from 1825 when outcrops were observed by Major Edmund Lockyer on the banks of the upper Brisbane River. Two years later, when Ipswich was settled as a convict outstation, known as Limestone, the presence of coal was noted between the convict settlement and Brisbane by Captain Patrick Logan. The following year, explorer Allan Cunningham also marked several outcrops on the Bremer River on his survey map for Governor Darling.
Coal was one of the first minerals in Queensland to be commercially mined. Mining originally commenced at Goodna in 1843 with the West Moreton Coalfield at Ipswich following in the early 1850s. Development of the coal mining industry in Queensland was slow and the quality could not match the quality of coal being produced at Newcastle for use by coastal steamers. However, as coal was required for transport and industrial use, there was remarkable growth of mining to the north and east of the town from the mid-1870s onwards. A symbiotic relationship developed between Queensland Government Railways and the coal industry. Queensland Railways was the coal industry's largest customer since coal supplies were essential to the functioning of the rail network. At the same time rail transport was essential to the viability of coalmines as a coal mine could not survive commercially unless it was directly linked to the rail network. Therefore in Queensland, development of the coal industry was closely linked to the growth of the rail network.
A by product of coal mining was the production of coke. The production of coke was usually regarded as a somewhat unimportant side industry to the actual mining of coal. Unlike coal mining, it was not regulated by legislation and as such no systematic records were kept of the early coke production industry in Queensland. Coke is used as both a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore and is produced from baking bituminous coal in ovens at temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The coke ovens erected on the West Moreton Coalfield were exclusively of the beehive type, so called because of their domed appearance. Beehive coke ovens consisted of a brick dome with a small circular opening (an exit flue) at the apex, and a larger arched opening at one side to permit charging and drawing. They were usually constructed in double rows known as batteries. The space between ovens was usually filled with rubble and earth to provide insulation and the whole battery surrounded by a stone retaining wall to resist the outward thrust of the brick domes. The Klondyke ovens had a capacity of four to five tons.
Coke ovens were charged and emptied in a set pattern. Coal was shovelled into an empty oven to a height of approximately 0.6 metres and ignited. The door was bricked up or closed with an iron plate and plastered with a small hole left for the temporary admission of air. The upper layer of the coal burnt and initiated the distillation of volatile material from the ovens as they met the air supply drawn in through the top of the charging door. The dome was heated to a high temperature and assisted in carbonizing the charge by radiating its heat to the coal. The operation of the distillation and immediate combustion proceeded until the whole of the volatile matter in the coal had been evolved, which took about three days. The coke was then cooled by inserting a water sprinkler through the air hole in the door and was withdrawn manually with rakes. Almost two tonnes of coal was required to produce one tonne of coke.
Using beehive coke ovens for coke production was a common practice for many years. However, advances in coke production technology meant beehive coke ovens technology was outdated by the early 1900s. Despite this, beehive coke ovens continued to be built in the Ipswich coal fields well into the mid twentieth century. There are a number of possible reasons as to why this may have been the case. The more advanced technology enabled the use of coke production by-products but was a more expensive production option. It is possible that the simpler and more economical technology of the beehive style oven was sufficient for production needs on the Ipswich fields. The material and labour shortages bought about by the Second World War may also have been another factor in choosing to remain with beehive technology, they were cheap to build, bricks could be obtained to construct them and they did not require a large labour force to work them. A third possibility is that the coal pit did not have a long enough supply of coal left in it to warrant investing in expensive coke production methods.
The Klondyke Colliery was one of a number of collieries within the West Moreton Coalfield at Ipswich and was one of the longest running. Originally part of the Chuwar field, the first mine on the site, in 1871, was known as Eastwood mine after its owner, John Eastwood. The Eastwood mine was worked until 1877 and then, due to the owner's interest in other mines, laid idle for several years until it was sold to Brydon, Jones & Company in 1884, who renamed the site Mihi mine after the nearby Mihi Creek. It was at this time that the first battery of coke ovens were constructed on what would become the Klondyke Colliery site. The battery was built on the hillside above Mihi Creek and remained in use until 1891 when attention was diverted a new coal development. It was 1908 before the site was mined again, this time by Paul Francis. In 1923 Francis sold the site to a partnership of miners and a barrister who created and floated the company, Klondyke Collieries Limited.
As Klondyke Collieries Limited, coke production at the site flourished. Although it is not known exactly when coke production recommenced at the site, records state in 1942 several new coke ovens were constructed at Klondyke to meet the increased demand for coke for smelting purposes. Records show in 1945 and 1946, Klondyke and Bowen in northern Queensland were the only coke producers in Queensland with Klondyke turning out approximately a sixth of Queensland's coke production. In 1948 the site changed hands again and was renamed Moreton colliery and worked until the early 1950s which was when the pit's supply was exhausted. After the closure of the site, coke production was taken over by the nearby Haighmoor site which remained in production for a further 15 years as Queensland's only cokeworks other than Bowen.
The bricks used to construct the ovens are imprinted with a trademark 'R' and appear to have come from the local brickworks, Rylance Colliery. Rylance Colliery was established in the 1880s and in 1931 expanded to include a brickworks. The company was sold in 1985 and is now known as Claypave.
The land the ovens stand on is now owned by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines. Since production at Klondyke ceased in the early 1950s, the ovens have fallen into a state of disrepair, becoming overgrown with vegetation and subject to vandalism.
","criteria":"The Klondyke Coke Ovens are a good representation of the coke production industry in Queensland. They were one of only two collieries producing coke in Queensland during the 1940s. They are important in demonstrating the development of Queensland's coal mining industry and its role in the evolution of Queensland's history.
|As an industrial archaeological site and a relatively intact example of its type, the Klondyke Coke Ovens have the potential to yield information that will contribute to a greater understanding of Queensland's industrial history and will aid in comparative analysis of similar places.
|The Klondyke Coke Ovens are typical, in scale and type, of coking ovens that were common in the 19th century to the mid 20th century. They exhibit the principal characteristics of beehive coke ovens being dome shaped with individual flues and built in a row in a back-to-back pattern.
|The relatively intact Klondyke Coke Ovens represent a process of coke manufacture in Queensland that was once common but has since been superseded by new technology and is now uncommon.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":121,"place_ref":602572,"name":"Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company Ltd (former)","alternate_name":"Boral Hancock Plywood | Australian Fabric Manufacturers Ltd","street_address":"42 and 42B The Terrace","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-19","description":"The buildings are situated above the northern bank of the Bremer River within a large industrial area that follows the river down a slight hill. Called "the Top Mill" by the current occupiers, the former buildings of The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company are situated on the highest part of the industrial area.
The mill is a large, high walled, rectangular brick building with several extensions and subsidiary buildings added, adjoining the main building.
The main entrance to the mill lies to the north west, and is accessible from the corner of Lamington Parade and The Terrace. The wrought iron entrance gates display The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company insignia. The brick wall adjacent to The Terrace has been painted and is a substantial feature in the streetscape of this small industrial area.
To the left of entrance is the main mill building. This structure is a large rectangular building constructed of light red common bricks laid in English bond. It has a sawtooth roof of sixteen sections. On the western side of the main mill building the wall is exposed and four inlaid brick features in cream brick made to resemble arched windows.
Two smaller, single story, brick extensions have been added to the west wall of the main mill, and lead into the main building internally. These buildings have corrugated iron roofs and clerestory windows. These two buildings are aligned north-south, in contrast to the rest of the factory that is east-west.
There is evidence of the demolished brick chimney on the south east corner of the mill. There is a remaining furnace at the base of the chimney; this has been bricked up and is inaccessible due to the storage of plywood surrounding it. There are concrete blocks on which machinery was mounted outside of the steam room. The brick exterior walls contain rows of large sash windows. On the eastern wall these windows have been built approximately three meters off the ground. They now contain glass louvers. On the north and south walls the windows are placed closer to the ground, approximately one meter from the ground; these windows were once timber framed sash windows but are now either louvers or have been bordered up by timber panels.
The interior of the factory is made up of a large open area with several smaller rooms leading from it. The walls throughout are painted brick. Internally, the spaces lead into one another.
The main part of the mill is a large open hall, formerly housing machinery. Timber trusses support the roof, which is unlined. In places the timber beams have been replaced by steel. The floor is concrete.
In the south east corner room a boiler and industrial steam engine were once housed here and were used to power the factory's machines. The large brick chimney and furnace were situated next to this boiler room in the south east corner of the factory. The roof in this room is high to accommodate the steam power machinery.
Beside this room was the wool grading room. Originally it had a timber floor, raised one meter from the existing cement floor. The room is now used as a storage room by the plywood company.
Beside this room to the west was the scouring room. Initially this room contained large cast-iron vats for the scouring process. These were sunk into the floor and were two meters in depth, but have been floored over with cement.
The factory offices still remain intact at the north east corner of the main factory building. Within these brick offices is an original walk-in safe with original iron frame. The walls are plastered. The plastered ceiling of the first office has a small vent; this has a wrought iron cover displaying The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company's insignia. Above all the interior doors in the office are louvered panelled windows.
","history":"The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company is situated in North Ipswich on level land overlooking the Bremer River. It was established in 1875 and the factory was the first woollen manufacturing plant in Queensland.
Ipswich commenced as a convict outstation known as 'Limestone' in 1827. After free settlement began in 1842, the township developed as an important commercial centre because of its location at the head of navigation of the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers and at the junction of routes to the Brisbane Valley and the Darling Downs. Goods from these regions were channelled through Ipswich en route to the coast and this trade contributed significantly to Ipswich's rapid growth and prosperity. By 1875 an efficient railway had been constructed in Ipswich, increasing Ipswich's value as a commercial centre in Queensland.
In 1875 The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company established a woollen mill in Ipswich due to the existence of an efficient wool delivery system. The company bought 7.25 acres and 17 perches of land at the bend of the north bank of the Bremer River. The position of the mill was imperative to its future success; the mill was built meters from 'The Basin' on the Bremer River. 'The Basin' is a man made bight in the Bremer River to allow large ships to turn around. This facilitated the loading and unloading process of shipped goods. Being situated beside the river, the mill had a reliable water source for its steam engines. The railway was also close by.
The timber factory was built and production of woollen Tweed commenced in 1877. To highlight the importance of the mill for Queensland at that time the factory was officially opened in 1877 by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Arthur Kennedy.
Queensland's manufacturing and industrial base was expanding at this time; the woollen industry was at the forefront of this. The pastoral sector of the industry was succeeding and more and more land in Australia was opened up and utilised by sheep graziers. Larger numbers of sheep were grazing, successful breeding programs were ensuring better quality wool, and ovine diseases were being eradicated due to strict quarantine measures and improved veterinarian and environmental knowledge by farmers.
The establishment of the woollen mill in Ipswich provided a centrally located processing plant for the raw wool produced on the Darling Downs. Prior to the building of the woollen mill the raw wool was sent for processing to Melbourne, Sydney or Adelaide (all of which already had well established wool processing plants), but this was costly and inefficient. The Ipswich mill allowed raw wool to be processed locally, benefiting the Darling Downs' sheep graziers. It was also an important indicator that the Queensland economy was developing beyond the supply of raw materials, and vertical integration was occurring, in this case for the sheep industry.
In an effort to encourage successful industry in Queensland, the Government offered the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company a bonus of £1,000 for the first 1,000 yards of cloth produced. The mill initially produced only unfinished cloth, this, however, changed as a lack of demand for unfinished cloth forced the company into establishing its own clothing works.
The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company produced good quality wool products. Tweeds, flannels, worsteds, blankets, rugs, and apparel were the advertised products of the factory. In an advertisement in the Queensland Times from 1879, the directors of the company advertised the purity of their cloths, 'they are manufactured from Queensland Merino Wool. Free from shoddy mixtures of cloths gathered from prisons, hospitals, lunatic and other asylums'. Many woollen manufacturers in this period followed a practice known as using 'shoddy'.. This entailed pulling apart and recycling discarded woollen products such as knitted goods which would then by woven with newly spun wool. There was demand for this product as it was inexpensive, but The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company did not want to be associated with such a means of woollen production, as their advertisement suggests.
In 1881 additions were made to the mill. These were designed by influential Ipswich architect and businessman, Samuel Shenton, who was at the time a director of the mill - a position he held for many years (1875 to 1891). He was also Ipswich mayor for several years (1871, 1872 and 1889). It was not only Shenton who was involved with the mill, as other prominent business and political leaders in Ipswich played a large role in the direction of the mill including several Ipswich mayors. The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was regarded by many of the most prominent members of Ipswich as an important industry to be associated with, as well as a sound financial investment.
By 1887 The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was mentioned in the official Tender for Public Service to the Queensland Government. An entry in the Queensland Government Gazette dated 20 January, 1887, stated the supply of serge, Tweed, blankets and rugs was to be supplied by The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company at an annual fee of £600 for the requested amount of goods. In a subsequent letter from the mill's management to the Government it was stated the products that the Government would receive from the mill would be of a far higher quality than those that they received previously from other manufacturers. This may be a reflection on the poor quality of wool products available to many Queenslanders prior to the establishment of The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company.
In 1890, the wooden factory was replaced by spacious brick and iron buildings. These buildings were designed by eminent Ipswich architect, George Brockwell Gill. Gill designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (QHR 600565), 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomas, St Paul's Rectory, The Ipswich Club (QHR 600581), The Ipswich Technical College, and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator (QHR 600596) in 1936.
The newly built brick factory was a very large addition to the North Ipswich landscape. In early photographs the mill dominates The Terrace beside the Bremer River. The high west wall was built with arched, light brick 'built in' window facades that ran down the length of the side of the building to create an attractive feature in the brick work. A tall, brick, industrial chimney rose from the south east corner of the mill. Within the tall walls various types of industrial equipment processed the wool. The mill was designed to admit maximum possible daylight and ventilation inside the building, before the use of electric light. To do this, large panelled windows were included within the vertical segment of the sawtooth roof. Along the east, west and south walls large windows were built in.
Within the woollen mill buildings the wool was cleaned, spun, and woven on large industrial machines into various forms of cloth. Much of this was then manufactured as garments such as shirts, trousers and suits. Unfinished fabric was also sold. These machines were steam driven. The mill had its own steam engines and boiler for power generation. The steam engine was located beside the large brick chimney in the south east corner of the mill. The machines were secured to great wooden supporting beams that ran below the ceiling.
The wool processing within the mill consisted of various stages: sorting and grading, scouring, drying and dying, carding, combing, spinning, weaving, brushing, and sewing. Each stage was carried out in a separate area of the mill, with each process flowing onto the next in a hierarchical structure; this was a design feature to facilitate efficiency in the mill. In the two smaller south rooms the wool was sorted and graded to determine how it would be processed; the scouring vats were located in the south west room, and here the wool was cleaned of impurities and steam dried and dyed if required. The remainder of the process was carried out in the main area of the mill. The mill contained ten carding machines; these large machines broke up the wool and removed impurities. The combing process further organised the woollen fibres. The largest machines in the mill were the spinning mules on which the wool was spun. The wool was then woven into fabrics on the weaving looms. The woven fabric then went through shaving machines to give the cloth a fine finish. Finally, the fabric would be sewn into various products.
By the end of the nineteenth century Ipswich was experiencing a boom in industry, employment, and wealth. Major manufacturing and industrial plants such as the North Ipswich Railway Workshops (QHR 601526), coal mines, Australia's first cotton mill, and Ipswich Town Wharves (QHR 602567) were major contributors to this success. By 1891 Ipswich's population had reached 13, 059, making it the fourth largest town in Queensland at that time.
Whilst most industry in Ipswich provided employment opportunities for the adult males, the cloth industry employed hundreds of women. The largest single employer of female labour in Ipswich was The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company; in 1891 the firm employed 152 women of a total of 226 employees.
Those living in Ipswich at this time patronised local industry; the flannel made by The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was a favourite cloth used by the women for making work clothes for men. The garments made within the mill were also popular with the industrial workers and miners in Ipswich. Known as 'Ipswich Grey Flannels', these were woollen shirts and a standard item of dress for Ipswich men. The woollen mill held a contract with Queensland Railways for the supply of serge for their employee uniforms, as well as with the Queensland Police for the manufacture of serge uniforms.
The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company played an important role in the war effort during the First World War. Many of the industries in Ipswich suffered during the War due to reduced numbers of employees and minimised profits, but The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was an exception; the high number of female employees ensured minimal staff reductions caused by the war. The factory was extremely busy throughout the war making army blankets and cloth for military uniforms.
By 1919, as a reflection of the success of the woollen mill in North Ipswich, it was the very first factory to have electric light installed. This meant that the mill could remain productive for longer each day, thus increasing productivity and ultimate profits, as well as benefiting the employees. 80% of the mills products were sold in Queensland. The flannels and blankets, named Ipswich Flannel and Poinsettia Blankets, were renowned throughout Australia for their high quality.
During the 1930s Depression the woollen mill was still in production, acting as an important employer at a time of extreme unemployment throughout much of the world. A reflection of this can be seen in an advertisement in The Queensland Times from 1935 when Australia was still feeling the effects of financial recession. The advertisement claimed The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was tripling its output; the directors had decided to sell the garments at a lower price for the benefit of the consumer. Special lines included Coat and Trousers, and Full Suits, Worsted Suits, either Custom Made or Ready Made. It was claimed the customer was purchasing 'Pure Wool and No Rubbish'. Statistics reveal the cloth and clothing manufacturing industry in Queensland actually increased its employment numbers over the Depression years rather than being forced to decrease them as so many other industries had to do.
The Second World War saw the woollen mill playing a similar role to that of the First, making blankets and cloth for the armed services. During the war years the Federal Government declared dismissals forbidden from vital or 'protected industries' such as the cloth manufacturing industry; prices and wages were pegged. For the workers this was a favourable climate to demand improvements. A larger number of females were employed in the mill during the war due to decreased male employment.
Ipswich was an important centre for the union movement in this period, especially in the several textile mills scattered in the area. The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was involved in this movement. In 1942 employee displeasure brimmed over into a major worker's strike in the woollen mill. To strike in the midst of a world war that enveloped all Australia was not seen in a favourable light by the general public, and the media sentiment at the time regarding the strike at the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company reflects this; rhetoric such as 'War work held up' and 'a most unfortunate stoppage in the supplies for the army' was used. The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company continued to have industrial disputes in 1943 and 1945.
Many of the windows in the building were changed in the mid twentieth century from timber framed sash windows to louvers. The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company was still in production up until 1968 when the company changed hands to The Australian Fabric Manufacturers Ltd. Further construction was undertaken with modern steel framed buildings designed for wool scouring being erected in the 1970s or early 1980s. In 1984 Hancock Bros Pty Ltd purchased the older part of the woollen mills, designating it "the top mill" and the newest parts of the mill complex were purchased first by Prunda Pty Ltd and then Terrace Furniture.
The industrial machinery once used within the mill has long been removed. The factory now produces plywood and the machinery used for this production is vastly different to that once used for woollen cloth manufacture. The steam engine was removed to the North Ipswich Railway Workshops Museum (QHR 601526) when the mill was taken over by the plywood company. The manager's house, once situated north east of the site, was recently moved to the Mining Museum at Kholo for display as "The Queenslander". The mill is now manufacturing plywood for Boral Hancocks. The chimney was removed by the Boral Hancock Company as it had become unstable and unsafe.
","criteria":"As the first woollen mill in Queensland, and an early example of large scale manufacturing, the mill played an important role in the development of the Queensland textile industry and is important in illustrating early vertical integration for the sheep industry in Queensland.
The textile industry was traditionally a major employer of women and The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company continued this tradition as it was the largest employer of women in Ipswich in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The mill's placement in Ipswich demonstrates the importance of Ipswich as a trading centre, receiving raw wool from the Darling Downs and passing the manufactured product on to Brisbane for distribution.
As a producer of uniform fabric and blankets for the armed forces in both the First and Second World Wars, The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company made an important contribution to Australia's war effort. It has also been important as a supplier of Railway and Police uniforms.
|Built on the elevated corner of a bend in the Bremer River the large brick exterior walls of the mill are a landmark in North Ipswich and have been since the brick structure was built in 1890. Due to the mill's distinctive size, setting and compositional qualities it is clearly visible from many areas around Ipswich.
|The practice of woollen manufacturing in major textile centres such as Northern England was to have key processes carried out in separate manufactories. The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company is the first manufactory of its type in Queensland which processed the fibre from raw wool to textiles and garments.
The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company is rare as it was the first woollen mill in Queensland.
|The Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company is important as an early and substantially intact example of a woollen mill in Queensland. The mill is sitting on the bank of a river for both transport and water for steam driven machinery, and its layout provides evidence of its operations. Within the mill are components that allow the reading of the hierarchical movement that occurred within the plant; the large steam engine room with furnace, the wool grading room, the scouring, drying and dying room, the large open halls in which the carding machines, spinning mules, weaving looms, shaving machines were once held, the sewing area and storage rooms all follow a purpose designed floor plan that was not changed for the duration of the woollen mill's existence.
The mill is an example of the work by prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill. Other notable work by Gill includes the Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (QHR 600565), the Ipswich Technical College, the Ipswich Club (QHR 600581), the Hotel Metropole (QHR 600567), and 'Brynhyfryd' House.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":138,"place_ref":602569,"name":"Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"over Bremer River between Tallon Street, Sadliers Crossing and Dixon Street","suburb":"WULKURAKA","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"This high-level steel, concrete and timber railway bridge over the Bremer River between Tallon Street, Sadliers Crossing and Dixon Street, Wulkuraka was built between 1900 and 1902. It is located approximately 25 miles 30 chains (40.02 kilometres) from Roma Street. Its total length is 412 feet (229.8 metres) plus the timber trestles. It has long approaches to allow for flood flows on the Bremer River.
The outer approach spans of timber longitudinals are supported by common timber trestles, both braced and unbraced. The inner approach spans are of riveted continuous rolled steel joists and riveted deck-type continuous plate girders and underslung cross girders supported on concrete piers. The two mains spans are each of 150 feet (45.7 metres). They are riveted 13-panel double-intersection through Pratt trusses (Whipple trusses) supported on concrete piers. The stylistic concrete piers are cement rendered. There are dressed stone cutwaters embedded in concrete to the upstream leading edges.
A cantilevered pedestrian footbridge is attached to the upstream side of the bridge. It has wrought iron stanchions, chain wire and timber top-rail balustrades on both sides. Timber access stairs and mid-landings are attached to each end of the bridge.
The rail line consists of straight double tracks.
","history":"The Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge, which crosses east-west over the Bremer River between Tallon Street, Sadliers Crossing and Dixon Street, Wulkuraka, is a steel truss, concrete and timber bridge designed by Chief Engineer Henry Charles Stanley. Dating from 1902, it is the second bridge to cross the Bremer River at this site.
In the early 1860s the colonial Queensland government decided to establish a railway as a means of developing the colony. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers considering the very poor state of Queensland roads. Priority was initially given to creating a rail link to the coast for the well-established and economically-important Darling Downs pastoral region. The river port of Ipswich was chosen as the eastern terminus of the railway. Located at the head of navigation, at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley, it was the major inland port serving these areas.
The Queensland government began its railway network when it passed a Railways Act on 3 September 1863 This 1864 Railway Act authorized construction of the section from Ipswich to the Little Liverpool Range. Narrow gauge (3 feet 6 inches) was chosen as Queensland's uniform gauge. On 3 January 1864 tenders closed for the first section of the railway from Ipswich to Bigge's Camp. The contract was subsequently awarded to the well know British railway builders Peto, Brassey and Betts whose price of £86,900 was the lowest of five tenders.
Construction of this 21 mile (34 km) section from Ipswich, via Walloon, to Bigge's Camp (later named Grandchester) at the foot of the Little Liverpool Range commenced in February 1864 and the line was opened in July 1865. This initial route from Ipswich differed from that followed by the present railway. Ipswich station was located immediately north of the present one, and the line proceeded due north, with an immediate crossing of the Bremer River to the area now occupied by the railway workshops. It then turned west around the north bank of the river, with bridges over minor creeks such as Mihi and Ironpot creeks. The Main Line was subsequently extended to Gatton (June 1866) and Toowoomba, via ascent of the Main Range, by May 1867.
The rail link from Ipswich to Grandchester remained a vital part of the Main Line but within the first decade of the operation of the line from Ipswich to Toowoomba it was decided to build a deviation near Ipswich. In 1875 the first six kilometres were replaced by a new line only half its length that crossed the Bremer River west of Ipswich at Sadlier's Crossing. This deviation was part of the extension of the line from Brisbane to Ipswich that opened in October 1874. The old line was retained as far as North Ipswich to serve the locomotive and carriage sheds and workshops.
Upgrading of the Main Line continued. In 1891-1892 the original 40 pound iron rails were replaced with harder wearing steel rails. Similarly all bridges on the Main Line were upgraded around the turn of the century to carry locomotives over twice the weight of the original ones. In 1899 it was decided to duplicate the rail track between Ipswich and Wulkuraka, to regrade the section between Ipswich and Rosewood and to raise the level of the Sadliers Crossing Rail Bridge so flood waters could not inundate it as happened in 1893. As a result of the disastrous 1893 floods Whipple trusses, like that used on the Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge, were preferred for railway bridges until the introduction of through Pratt trusses.
The new bridge was designed while Henry Charles Stanley was Chief Engineer for Railways (1892 to 1901). Stanley was an important early engineer in Queensland. Born and trained in Scotland, he was appointed to Queensland Railways in 1863. After working as chief engineer on several lines, Stanley became responsible for the whole of the colony's railway network in 1892. During the 1890s a number of large metal truss rail bridges were constructed to cross major streams making the connection of important towns and resources possible. In this way they were vital to the operation of the transport system and the development of the state as a whole. Many of these early bridges have since been replaced.
The contract for the Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge was awarded to J McCormick and Sons. Material and plant for the new bridge were purchased in February 1900. The timber work for the bridge was completed and the 33 foot (10.06 metres) and 50 foot (15.24 metres) steel plate girder spans were in position in 1901. The work was completed in March 1902 and the current bridge over the Bremer River at Sadliers Crossing came into usage. Its double track operated as two single tracks, one towards Rosewood and the other for the Brisbane Valley branch line.
The Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge is a two span Whipple truss bridge with continuous rolled steel joists. It is the second longest span of its type in Queensland (45.7 metres), the longest being the former Burdekin River Rail Bridge at Macrossan (600442). The Whipple truss was developed by Squire (CE) Whipple as a stronger version of the Pratt truss that was designed by Thomas and Caleb Pratt in 1844. The basic identifying features of the Pratt truss are the diagonal web members which form a V-shape. The centre section commonly has crossing diagonal members. The Pratt truss and its variations are the most common type of all trusses. One of these variations is the Whipple truss, which was patented in 1847, and is also known as the "Double-intersection Pratt" because the diagonal tension members cross two panels, while those on the Pratt cross one. The Whipple truss was popular with the railroads as it was stronger and more rigid than the Pratt.
Duplication and regrading of the track between Ipswich and Grandchester began in July 1914. When completed, the two single lines were converted into double track operation between Ipswich and Wulkuraka.
The bridge has not been substantially changed since its completion in 1902. In 1956 repairs were made to the bracing of No.1 truss. In 1965 plans were prepared for replacing the longitudinals supporting the track with transoms and this work was completed during the following year. In 1977 plans were prepared to replace the corbels on piers 9 and 17, and in 1994 the corner braces were removed to allow for the passage of over-height containers.
The bridge was known earlier as the Red Bridge because of its paintwork and accordingly there is still evidence of red oxide paintwork to steel members of the bridge.
Since the early 1960s there has been little construction of steel bridges by Queensland Rail. Once pre-stressed concrete bridge girders were proved adequate for rail use they became almost universal.
","criteria":"The Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge, opened in 1902, is important in demonstrating the evolution of the railway network in Queensland. This rail network, established in the 1860s, was vital for the development of the colony through opening land for closer settlement and freighting produce and resources to Queensland's ports. From the 1890s the preferred design of large metal rail bridges to cross major waterways underwent several changes, to withstand flooding and to meet increased load requirements. Early bridges and track on the Main Line from Brisbane to the Darling Downs, which was one of Queensland's most important lines, were upgraded to accommodate heavier, more powerful engines as freight traffic and tonnage increased from the 1890s. Sadliers Crossing Bridge, replacing an 1875 bridge, was built as part of this upgrading.
|The Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge is a good example of a railway bridge designed by the Department of Railways and Public Works while Henry C Stanley was Chief Engineer of Queensland. The bridge is highly intact and provides important physical evidence of early twentieth century railway bridge design and construction in Queensland. Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge demonstrates the evolution of the principal characteristics of steel railway bridges around the turn of the twentieth century, especially the change from the Pratt truss to the Whipple truss to the through Pratt truss, which increased the strength of the structure.
|The Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge is a rare surviving example of the use of riveted double-intersection through Pratt trusses (Whipple trusses), and is the second longest span of this type in Queensland. This bridge and the former Burdekin River Rail Bridge (600442) are the only parallel chord examples of the Whipple design extant in Queensland. A variant of the Whipple truss design, using hogback trusses, is used in the Albert Bridge [QHR 600252], Indooroopilly and the Alexandra Bridge [QHR 600799], Rockhampton.
The cantilevered pedestrian footbridge and access stairs attached to the upstream spans is a rare example of its type and is still in use.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":177,"place_ref":602210,"name":"Old Laura Homestead","alternate_name":"Laura Homestead","street_address":"Lakefield National Park","suburb":"LAKELAND","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The elements that make up Old Laura Homestead include station buildings, stockyards, structural foundations and footings, native and introduced trees and vegetation, and the homestead grounds.
Main House:
The main house is a two-room high-set timber-frame building clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The building is elevated on bush timber stumps of a local ironwood. Two upstairs bedrooms form a central core with enclosed verandahs on three sides. The upstairs floor is of pit-sawn boards on a pit-sawn frame. Upstairs rooms are externally clad with wide horizontal chamfer boards, beaded on the inside at joints to give a narrow pattern on the interior. The rooms are internally clad with narrower horizontal boards that also form the ceiling. Internal cross-wall partitions are clad in corrugated iron on sawn timber studs. Bays of timber louvre shutters enclose the front and sides of the upstairs verandah area above the former handrail. Corrugated iron cladding has been added below the handrail. The verandah area also contains corrugated iron push-out shutters. A gable hip roof clad with corrugated iron covers the central core of the building. Roof rafters are of sapling bush timber. Original purlins are pit sawn, with some milled timber purlins introduced c1940 and in 1986.
The underfloor space is the main living area and is partly enclosed at the rear with kitchen, dining, storeroom and bathroom facilities that are variously clad with corrugated iron, asbestos cement and plyboard sheets. The house is surrounded by an open lean-to corrugated iron verandah that shades the front and sides of the underfloor space. The verandah awning frame is of bush timber saplings. A recent steel mesh security screen encloses the entire underfloor area at the external edge of the verandahs. A recess in the security screen at the front of the house allows visitors to view three interpretive panels containing photographs and historical information. The ground floor is of cement. The house is equipped with a corrugated iron water tank on a concrete base, and also with an underground septic tank. The house is wired for DC generator power with lighting.
Workshop and Saddle Shed:
The alignment of the outbuildings varies slightly from the main house to match the alignment of the adjacent yards.
The workshop and saddle shed combine to form a large covered work space to serve a number of functions - garage, workshop, stables and saddle shed. A feature of these buildings is the use of corrugated iron bow roofs. The workshop is constructed of heavy bush timber uprights and bearers supporting the central bow-roof section, descending to skillion roof sections on each side of the shed. The building, which was used at various times as a workshop, garage, storeroom and living quarters; is open except on the eastern side where corrugated iron partitions form two lock-up rooms fitted with sawn timber storage shelves and corrugated iron push-out shutters. The floor for the storerooms is of concrete. The remainder of the building has an earth floor. Timber shelves for tools and spare parts extend along one wall. The interior of the workshop also retains a heavy timber anvil stand. A low-set timber tank stand is located at the southern end of the workshop adjacent to the horse yard site. As Laura station covers mainly black soil and sandy country the stock horses did not require shoeing. There has not been a smithy for shoeing at the homestead since the early 1940s.
The adjoining saddle shed is similarly built with bush timber uprights and top plates, though of lighter construction. Roof rafters and purlins are of milled timber. The shed is covered with a shallow bow-roof central core with lean-to roofs on all four sides. The shed is open on all sides. The shed was at times used as stables for the manager's and owner's race horses during the 1950s and 1960s. Timber racks for the storage of harness and saddles are keyed into the uprights. Many of the racks have been removed. A timber 44 gallon drum rack for the storage of molasses and fuel drums is located at the rear of the saddle shed.
Meat House:
A small building of conventional meat house design with an enclosed butchering room at the core, shaded on all four sides by an overhanging pyramidal roof. The building is supported by bush timber uprights and top plates of local ironwood. Roof rafters and purlins are of milled timber. The lower walls of the butchering room are clad with corrugated iron on a milled timber frame. The upper sections are enclosed with flyproof wire gauze. The interior of the room is dominated by a large tree-trunk chopping block. A high-set bush timber bench for curing salt corn beef is located outside the room under the verandah roof. The floor of the meat house is of cement and the floor under the verandah is of antbed and cement.
Stockmen's Quarters:
A small building supported by early bush timber uprights and top plates. The building was almost completely rebuilt in 1986 using new milled timber and new bush timber saplings as rafters. A new iron roof and a wall were added. The corrugated iron walls with push-out shutters survive from the original construction. Existing doors and internal partitions are of recent construction. The floor of the quarters is of cement with cement haunching around the base of the iron to stop the entry of snakes. Three Aboriginal families, including two with children, were living in the quarters during the 1960s.
About 30 metres north of the stockmen's quarters is the site of a demolished building that contained a concrete floor and corrugated iron walls and roof. This building accommodated up to six families of Aboriginal stockmen during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1960 the building was converted into a white stockmen's quarters, and by the late 1960s it become an ablutions block. The building was bulldozed post 1979 and the floor is still evident as a pile of broken concrete north of the site.
Stockyards and Dip:
The homestead contains an extensive set of horse and stock working yards which demonstrate a continuous process of adaptation, replacement and repair over the span of the station's operating life. The sections of the yards for handling horses are located at the eastern end closest to the saddle shed. The horse yards include a round breaking-in yard. The cattle killing yard with a ruined butchering gallows is also located in this section, close to the meat house.
The central core of the cattle yards comprises crushes for de-horning, cutting, drafting, dipping, and branding. Surrounding the stock working facilities of the central core, are the receiving, forcing and holding yards. The de-horning and cutting crush, cattle dip and stock loading ramp are in better condition than most sections of the yards, possibly through having remained in use and repair until the closure of the station. The loading ramp was built in the early 1960s and is the most recent structure. The most substantial feature of the yards is the cattle dip, which is of the conventional design and construction. The dip was built during the O'Beirne's tenure and is the earliest surviving structure within the yards. The walls of the dip are of concrete with concrete rendered steps and pit. Bush timber uprights and rafters support a corrugated iron roof that covers the dip itself. Steps lead out of the dip to a concrete-surfaced draining and pound yard. Beyond the dip is a large circular holding yard over 50 metres in diameter which forms a significant feature of the stockyards.
The stockyards are mostly constructed of local Cooktown Ironwood posts keyed for five rail panels. Many of the keyed rails have over the years been damaged or removed and replaced with rails that are hitched to the posts with fencing wire. A number of different configurations are evident with the use and re-use of timber fence rails. An early and significant section of panels is located at the northern end of the large tailing, or cooling, yard alongside the present access track where several heavy ironwood posts still stand. The posts are toggled and keyed for quick removal and replacement of rails. The unchecked actions of termites and the introduction of fire management practices in recent years have made it more difficult to understand the chronology of the changes that have occurred in the stockyards.
Milking Yards and Dairy:
These yards form a part of the domestic precinct at the eastern end of the homestead area and are separated from the stockyards by the main house and grounds. It is difficult to fully understand the former layout of the milking yards because of recent fire damage to posts and uprights. The yards appear to have included a fowl run in addition to the milking yards and dairy.
The cement floor and bush timber uprights of the dairy remain, though the timber posts are severely fire-damaged. Scattered sheets of iron cladding from the dairy can be found on the ground. Timber fence posts of the milking yards are evident adjacent to the dairy on its northern side. One of two surviving log stock feed troughs, for salt and molasses, is located on the site. The yards were enclosed with K wire mesh on bush timber posts. Most of the K wire mesh within the yards has been removed or damaged. There is widespread use of K wire mesh throughout the station, particularly in stockyards. The mesh is effective pig fencing and may have been used around the homestead to prevent damage by feral pigs. The remains of a pigsty is located at the far eastern end of the yards fenced by lengths of low corrugated iron sheeting. Sheets of iron lie scattered around this area. A ship's tank for watering is also located in the vicinity.
Grounds and Surroundings:
The homestead grounds contain introduced trees and evidence of former gardens and maintained lawns. Posts of the former fence around the house remain standing, including the front gate posts with a pole of the former trellis alongside. This fence was originally covered with K wire mesh. There is no evidence of a tennis court that was constructed in front of the house, just beyond the fence, in 1945. The tennis court was made of antbed and had a high wire fence around it. Close to the house, alongside the front fence, is a concrete collared well, the bush timber uprights of an elevated tank stand, a windmill base, the concrete floor and stumps of a lighting generator and a 44 gallon fuel drum rack. The oil engine for the generator is now on the verandah of the main house. Adjacent to the present car park is a yard enclosed with a post and K wire mesh fence that was formerly used as a stallion paddock, and as a plot for growing experimental pastures including Townsville stylo.
The gravel surface of the former Battle Camp road remains visible between the main house and the outbuildings although the alignment has recently been ploughed and rehabilitated. The road, which was put through the homestead during construction, was later re-routed and now by-passes the homestead around the western end of the stockyards. The eastern end of the former east-west airstrip is evident about 200 metres north of the main house. The earth airstrip is now covered with sapling and shrub regrowth.
Plantings of introduced trees are concentrated around the house and outbuildings. The main house is surrounded by three mature frangipani trees and two large mango trees. Some of these trees were planted in the 1920s and 1930s. The house yards also contain a small mature mango tree, a large eucalyptus tree and a bean tree. A further three mature mango trees shade the stockmen's quarters and the workshop. Most of the mature native trees within the homestead area are locally occurring eucalyptus varieties including blackbutt, with some box and ironwood.
The Laura River bank is located immediately below the homestead grounds and yards. The river bank in this area contains a mixture of native and introduced plants within a gallery forest environment dominated by mature mango trees in the early fruit garden area. The fruit garden also contained custard apples. This area is a habitat for the spectacular Corypha utan palm which reaches its southern-most regional extent on Lakefield National Park. The homestead potato garden occupied a cleared flat among the mango trees and is now used as an occasional camping area.
Graves:
The sites of three graves are claimed to exist within the homestead area. The locations of these graves are shown on the site plan of the homestead contained in this study. The grave of Mick O'Keefe is identified by remnants of bush timber stumps (not insitu) and a bent star picket on the fence nearby. O'Keefe was a white stockman who died at Laura homestead in the early 1940s after a fall with a horse on Olive Vale station. The grave of an unknown Aboriginal stockman near the branding yard is identified by the occurrence of an area of redder sandy soil. The graves of Polly Seagren, who was buried in 1954, and another Aboriginal woman are located between the cattle dip and the top of the river bank in an area which was subsequently enclosed by yards.
","history":"McDermott and O'Beirne (1879-1924)
\nThe earliest record of an official application for a license to occupy a new run on the lower Laura River was made by Peter McDermott and Fergus O'Beirne on 14 October 1879. Occupational licenses were granted for twelve month terms and could be converted to form part of a pastoral lease once the run had been stocked to one quarter of its grazing capacity. Brixton and Fox Vale (Old Fairview) runs on the Little Laura River, Boralga Spring and the better grazing country on the Kennedy River at Lakefield and Breeza Plains, had already been occupied and unofficially stocked by this period.
\nMcDermott and O'Beirne were cousins from Ireland who had travelled overland from Rockhampton to Cooktown where they established a butcher's business and resided. O'Beirne was accompanied by his wife, Mary, and two small children, John and Julia. Their third child, Margaret, was born in Cooktown in 1880 and was followed by four other children - Matthew, Fergus, Roderick, and Kathleen.
\nThe license to occupy the Laura run by the firm of McDermott and O'Beirne was authorised by the Commissioner for Crown Lands for the District of Cook on 23 October 1879. A lease document was applied for in August 1880 for a 21 year period. The lease was issued in July 1881. The early homestead on Laura run was a building of slab construction. Part of the original structure was incorporated into the present house when it was constructed in 1902 and was probably demolished in the 1930's during erection of a new kitchen.
\nOn 10 March 1883 an application for a lease for Laura, Lakeview and Upper Laura runs, was applied for by William Hartley on behalf of Peter McDermott and Fergus O'Beirne and approved. The station was officially carrying 250 cattle in 1883. Peter McDermott died in 1884. The headstone on McDermott's grave at Laura Native Mounted Police Camp, shows that his death occurred on 12 July 1884. The headstone inscription also shows that McDermott was aged 39 years and was a native of Elphin, Roscommon, in Ireland. O'Beirne was probably from the same district.
\nFergus O'Beirne acquired the leases of the runs associated with Laura station for he is listed as lessee from 1886 to 1892. In 1892 the Laura leases were transferred to the Queensland National Bank. Transfer of early pastoral leases to banks was the equivalent of taking out a mortgage, and it would appear most likely that a loan was granted to Fergus O'Beirne at this time. The run file shows that in 1892 a mortgage for £879 was taken out on Laura which in that year had a declared value of £1,200. This loan from the Queensland National Bank was most probably associated with the purchase of cattle, or the purchase of runs, or improvements to runs, rather than with the construction of the earliest portion of the present homestead at Laura. By 1894 it was recorded that the Laura herd had been built up to about 8,000 head with the purchase of new stock from Dunbar station when the district was hit by cattle tick.
\nFergus O'Beirne's death occurred in 1896 and his family continued to operate the station in conjunction with their Cooktown butchering business.
\nThe year of construction of the present Old Laura main house is given as 1902 by Vivienne Gostelow in a narrative history of the district titled Sunshine and Shadow. This appears to be the only record of the year of construction of the present house. There is no reference to the house on the run file. Mrs Gostelow's husband took up management of Violet Vale station, near Musgrave telegraph office, in the late 1940s. In her book she writes that both houses were constructed by the same builder (possibly Charlie Weiss), Laura in 1902 and Violet Vale in 1911.
\nIn 1908 Laura Holding commenced over an area comprising Laura and Primrose No.2 runs. The lease was issued to O'Beirne and Company for a term of 30 years, with Julia Beddek, Matthew O'Beirne, Mary Margaret O'Beirne and Kathleen Rose O'Beirne all listed as shareholders in the company. The O'Beirne family bought Lakefield and Breeza Plains in September and October 1908. In 1910 Kennedy Pastoral Holding, comprising Lakefield station, was acquired by O'Beirne and Company. All of these holdings were converted into one property called Lakefield Holdings in 1914. Laura station was still separate. The Laura and Lakefield leases remained with the O'Beirne family to 1925.
\nGrogan Family (1925-1959)
\nAfter 46 years under the O'Beirne family, control of Laura station changed for the first time in 1925 when it was acquired by brothers Bernard Grogan and David Grogan. The Grogan's acquired the leases for both Laura and Lakefield runs.
\nThe Grogan family had butchering businesses in Cooktown and in Mossman. The father, Patrick Grogan, was a miner, publican and butcher who was closely associated with the Limestone district on the Palmer River Goldfield. Groganville, the town which developed in association with the rich Anglo Saxon mine and in which he held several blocks at the time of its survey in 1889, was named after him. Grogan later had businesses in Thomborough and Mount Mulligan.
\nIn 1930 David Grogan left the property and was replaced in the shared lease arrangement by a younger brother, Patrick Grogan. In October 1934 Bernard and Patrick Grogan were issued a new lease over Laura Holding (Laura and Primrose No.2 runs) for a term of 30 years.
\nIn 1941 the lease for the Laura Holdings was transferred from Patrick and Bernard Grogan to Patrick Grogan. To avoid evacuation to Townsville upon the outbreak of war with Japan, Patrick Grogan decided to move his family from Cairns to Laura homestead which he considered would be safer than Townsville. In October 1942 Kennedy Pastoral Holding was sub-divided into two parts with the southern part (part Laura station) being transferred to Patrick Grogan. The two families did not have a close relationship.
\nAfter World War 2 Patrick and Doreen Grogan remained on at Laura until 1948 when they returned to Cairns. George Watkins and Jack Dwyer, from Kalpowar station, took over management of Laura station from about 1949 to 1952, initially with the intention of buying the property. Jack Dwyer and his wife Mavis were living at Laura homestead during this period. The Laura Holding lease was surrendered in February 1949 for a new lease, Laura Pastoral Development Holding, issued to Patrick Grogan in January and combining the Laura and Kennedy (Lakefield station) holdings. In the early 1950s the various leases were acquired, in part or whole, by the Mossman Butchering Company.
\nIn 1950 Patrick Grogan took up a dairy farm near Malanda and ended hic direct involvement in the running of Lakefield and Laura. In 1952 George Ahlers returned, with his wife and young children, as manager of Laura Holdings. By this period there were still two white stockmen, Bluey Cowan and Pluto Sykes, and about six Aboriginal stockmen and their families living at Laura homestead. About 1954 George Ahlers left Laura to manage the whole station from Lakefield homestead. From 1954 to 1960 Laura homestead was occupied by various caretakers including John Alexander and Herb Denford of the Mossman Butchering Company. In 1957 Lakefield station, with Laura Holding, was transferred to the Mossman Butchering Company in which the Grogan family had shares. These shares were sold to the Mossman Butchering Company in 1958. George Ahlers held an interest in the Mossman Butchering Company and remained as the manager of Lakefield station until the property was sold in 1960.
\nRecent Leaseholders (1960-1978)
\nIn 1960 the Lakefield lease passed to James, Susanne and David Rollinson and Robert and Margaret Whelan who jointly held the property until 1966 as Rollinson Whelan and Company. The Rollinson and Whelan families were related. The Whelan's lived at Laura homestead and the Rollinson's lived at Lakefield where they erected a large shed and fitted out half of it as a new house. There were 13,000 head of cattle running on the combined holdings at the time of the purchase from the Mossman Butchering Company. About 3,500 to 4,000 were on Laura station, the remainder were on the better fattening country of Lakefield.
\nRollinson and Whelan set out to introduce new stock management practices on the property and began programs of dip yard construction and rebuilding, and a different approach to the use of yards. Broncoing was stopped and the cattle were worked along the watercourses that formed the central core of the property. The first ramp on the station for loading cattle from yard to truck was built at Lakefield in 1960 The partners planned to take advantage of opportunities for shipping fat cattle south on the Wewak, through neighbouring Marina Plains. Small numbers of breeding stock were also brought in on the Wewak and walked upriver to Laura station. Whelan installed a sawmill for cutting ironwood and rebuilt the dip yards at the Twelve Mile Yard and Caulders Yard. Caulders Yard was never completed The yards at Laura homestead were also repaired and patched up.
\nRollinson and Whelan took advantage of the generous credit on offer from stock agents such as Dalgettys during the early 1960s. Sale of existing stock was the main source of income for repaying the agents and all available stock were mustered and sold during their tenure. When the credit flow dried in the mid 1960s the agents called for the sale of the property.
\nLakefield Cattle Company
\nIn late 1965 or early 1966, the Lakefield-Laura lease was transferred to the U.S.-based Lakefield Cattle Company of Midlands, Texas, which was associated with a scheme by a Sydney-based company, Gunn Rural Management, to purchase and manage properties in Cape York and the Northern Territory for U.S. investors. The nearby Silver Plains station was acquired by the company at the same time. The Lakefield Cattle Company was not registered as an Australian company.
\nTipperary Land Corporation
\nIn the early 1960s, the Tipperary Pastoral Company which owned Tipperary station in the Daly River district of the Northern Territory, was purchased by a syndicate of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur investors. The Tipperary Land and Exploration Company was formed about 1965. An equity interest in this company was allotted to Sir William Gunn, of Gunn Rural Management, who became managing director. The remainder of shares were held by U.S. investors. In June 1968, Tipperary station was purchased by the Tipperary Land and Exploration Company. By 1969 the Lakefield-Laura and Silver Plains properties, of the Lakefield Cattle Company, were merged through an exchange of shares to become the Tipperary Land and Exploration Corporation.
\nThe Tipperary Land Corporation invested $1.5 million in the Peninsula properties in acquisition and improvements. Gunn Rural Management, on behalf of the U.S. owners, initiated a program of large scale development on Lakefield involving the construction of roads and fencing and the improvement of pastures and breeding. The open range system of grazing with year-round mustering, which had been practiced on Laura and Lakefield since before the Grogan brothers took over the properties in 1925, came to an end in an effort to control calving and reduce stock losses. Areas of suitable country near Lakefield homestead were cleared and planted with Townsville stylo for pasture improvement and with lucerne and other feed crops. Old Laura homestead continued to be occupied as an outstation. New outstations were established at New Laura and Bizant, where contract musterers were employed until 1974. New Laura was planned as the bull breeding base for the station, centred on Caulders Lake and yards.
\nThe Tipperary Land Corporation's primary interest was in agriculture and oil exploration and investment in both these areas was unsuccessful on the Peninsula. Development of Lakefield station failed to reach fruition due to over-capitalisation and a slump in the Australian cattle market in the early 1970s. The payment of award wages to Aboriginal station workers became law in 1970 causing social and economic upheaval with many families on Lakefield-Laura having to leave for the Laura, Cooktown and Coen fringe camps, and the reserves. The last caretakers of Old Laura were Bill Crisp and his wife, who were withdrawn by the company in 1973 when the homestead was finally abandoned.
\nIn 1974 or 1975 the Tipperary Land Corporation was acquired by the Sydney-based investors, Anderson and McCormack who may have had an interest in the agricultural and pastoral development of Tipperary station. In 1975 the Tipperary Land Corporation sold Lakefield-Laura and Silver Plains to a Sydney-based company, Stereotype (No.142) Pty Ltd which became Bizant Pty Ltd. It is understood that the principals of this group were Anderson and McCormack who were also involved with the Tipperary Land Corporation. No new development was undertaken on the properties and the purchase bore similarities with the so-called 'bottom of the harbour' investment schemes that were prevalent during the period. This company surrendered the leases to the Queensland Government in 1978 for the establishment of the Lakefield National Park which was declared on 25 October 1978 and gazetted on 27 October 1979.
\n","criteria":"
Laura Station played an important role in the establishment of a pastoral industry on Cape York Peninsula, as one of the earliest pastoral holdings on Cape York Peninsula to operate under a license to occupy a new run of crown land. The place has associations with the development of Cooktown as a regional centre the Palmer River Goldfield, and with the establishment of transport and telegraphic communications on Cape York Peninsula.
The establishment of Laura Station contributed to the dispersal of Aboriginal people in the Laura district, and to the disruption of a traditional lifestyle, and to economic and social dependence on the Cape York Peninsula pastoral industry.
|Laura Station contains a rare surviving example of an early Cape York Peninsula pastoral station house that is still structurally sound and in an intact and essentially original condition. The place contains outbuildings and yards which typify traditional methods of construction that are no longer practiced, and which demonstrate a continued reliance on the superior qualities of local building materials.
|Laura Station represents an early example of the Cape York Peninsula 'timber and iron' pastoral homestead tradition. The main house demonstrates regional construction characteristics of the time of its erection. The house, lean-to verandah, workshop and saddle shed, meat house and stockmen's quarters, station stockyards each demonstrate the principal characteristics of these types of place.
|Laura Station has strong and special associations for Aboriginal people through traditional affiliations with the land. The place also has strong and special associations for Aboriginal people through cultural and social ties with the homestead, and through economic dependence on the station as a component of the regional pastoral industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":239,"place_ref":602242,"name":"Barclay's Battery","alternate_name":"Mount Coolon Gold Mines Battery | Barclays Battery","street_address":"Collinsville road","suburb":"MOUNT COOLON","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-17","description":"The place extends from the northern perimeter of Mount Coolon township, northeast along Police Creek to include the weir and the former Hammond house. The mill site includes a square brick chimney, concrete foundations of a 10 head stamp battery, two mortar boxes, gas producer, two-cylinder gas engine (partly demolished), one-cylinder Crossley engine, ball mill and a steel vat. Timber, stone and concrete foundations of the cyanide plant are located south of the mill, closer to the Mount Coolon Hotel.
Plant:
·\tOne-cylinder gas engine with flywheel - Crossley Brothers Limited Manchester (cylinder block removed).
·\tMortar box - Hudson Brothers Engineers Clyde N.S.W. 1897.
·\tMortar box - Walkers Limited.
·\tTwo-cylinder cross compound gas engine and flywheel (not intact).
·\tBall mill.
·\tGas producer.
","history":"Mount Coolon is situated approximately 130km south-west of Collinsville, and 200km north of Clermont. Luke Reynolds, a jackeroo from Yacamunda station, discovered gold there in 1913. Thomas Coolon was the first to peg a claim in 1914, but other claims were quickly taken up, including one of the most active prospectors, James Barclay.
James Barclay mined gold, at what became the Native Bear lease, from 1914 when he constructed a 5 head battery on the present site at Police Creek, 2.4km from the mine. In 1917, the Sydney lease owners Hooke and Sutherland erected 10 stamps nearby, and Barclay consolidated claims to form the Native Bear lease, which was the most valuable section of the gold lode. That same year Barclay erected another 15 head of stamps, two Cornish boilers, machinery, an assay plant and smelting furnace and a 23m chimney made out of 200,000 local bricks at his Police Creek battery. Barclay had begun operating a cyanide plant by 1918.
A township called Koala (now Mount Coolon) was surveyed on Police Creek in 1917. Mount Coolon is largely remembered in North Queensland folklore as a result of the multiple murder-suicide that took place in November 1918. This incident generated Australia-wide attention and notoriety, as the calculated shooting cost the lives of five men. The offender, Thomas Coolon, had lost his gold mining claim following an application for forfeiture by an individual named Thompson, which was then upheld by the mining warden's court.
Seething at the perceived injustice of Thompson's action, and the court's subsequent dismissal of an appeal, Coolon armed himself, shot Thompson and one of his workers and later two other hands at the Sydney battery before turning the gun on himself. That he made a will that same morning, and arranged for Barclay to provide for his wife before taking his own life, conferred on the murders an aura of tragedy in which newspaper feature writers revelled for over fifty years. (Doug Hunt, "Industrial Conflict at Mount Coolon, 1935", in B.J. Dalton, ed., Lectures on North Queensland History No.5, James Cook University, 1996, pp.36-37.)
In 1921 over 2100 ounces of gold were produced and by 1922 there were 12 adjacent leases on the Mount Coolon lode. However most of the gold came from Barclay's Native Bear lease and kept the battery operating on two shifts per day, crushing from 7 to 8 tons per shift. Barclay's battery output for 1921 was 2546 tons of stone crushed yielding 1707 ounces of gold and 400 tons of tailings cyanided yielding 425 ounces, the total valued at over £7000. In 1922 Barclay erected another 10 head of stamps.
The slow development of the Mount Coolon goldfield was attributed to the absence of a custom battery, so in 1924 an Empire ball mill was erected on a site near the Mount Coolon battery on Police Creek, while Barclay installed a powerful gas suction engine early in the year to replace the steam power plant to run all his plant and equipment. The Sydney battery was still operating on Police Creek, making a total of three working mills.
By June 1932 Mount Coolon Gold Mines had taken over all the batteries and mines on the lode and built a new dam (the existing one) on Police Creek. Mr Cec Hammond, a teamster carting lime and wood to the company's plant, lived in the cottage near the weir.
In 1932 Mount Coolon had the highest gold production in Queensland and the Mount Coolon Gold Mines No Liability Company, who had bought out Barclay, had erected a large reduction and cyaniding plant 2.3km south of the town.
At Mount Coolon in 1935, a six-month industrial conflict occurred which marks an important milestone in Queensland's industrial relations history. Analysis of the events leading up to and during this strike ably reveals many of the difficulties and tensions associated with isolated mining operations in semi-arid Australia.
The dispute, which involved only some one hundred employees, also throws a glimmer of light on management tactics; relations between the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) and employers; collaboration among mining companies; and the alignment of ideological forces in the Queensland labour movement in the 1930s. (Hunt, op.cit., p.36.)
This strike was to acquire all the hallmarks of a bitter and drawn our industrial action in which rank and file unionists were pitted against not only the mine's management, but also other workers, and more particularly their own union - Australian Workers' Union (AWU). This industrial action had been initiated by local action in April 1935, without any reference to the union organisation or leadership at either the district or state level. The trouble was exacerbated by the oppressive living conditions of this semi-arid region, compounded by the severe drought during the summer of 1934-35.
In the late 1930s the Mount Coolon goldfield was also significant as a profitable concern for its parent company, Gold Mines of Australia, which in turn, was the catalyst for the early growth of the mining giant, Western Mining Corporation. However, by 1941 those operators left on the field had disposed of most of their machinery and abandoned their leases.
In 1947 prospecting recommenced for alluvial gold and bismuth, and alluvial gold was treated in new plant installed by L.F. White.
","criteria":"Barclay's Battery is located within the Mount Coolon goldfield. The remaining structures and features demonstrate the evolution of the gold-mining industry in north Queensland, including the growth, upgrading of operations, and subsequent company takeovers often associated with early mining endeavours, through to the eventual decline of operations at this isolated location in 1941.
|The battery site comprises a brick chimney, ball mill, stamp mill remains, and rare cross compound gas engine which demonstrate some of the machinery functions of mining operations that were carried out at Mount Coolon.
|The battery is associated with the isolated mining community of Mount Coolon and several important historical events in Queensland's history. Mount Coolon is well known for a multiple murder-suicide in 1918, following a claim-jumping incident leading to a mining court case and unsuccessful appeal, the tragic results of which attracted Australia-wide attention. Mining operations at Barclay's and the rest of Mount Coolon goldfield are also significant as they are associated with important aspects of Queensland industrial relations history, with a six-month strike in 1935 revealing many of the difficulties and tensions associated with isolated mining operations in semi-arid regions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":320,"place_ref":602243,"name":"Content Mine","alternate_name":"Content Block Mine","street_address":"Gulf Developmental Road","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"The Content Mine is located 4km northwest of Croydon on the southern side of the Gulf Development Road. The area around the mine has been heavily disturbed in recent times by road construction and modern mining activities. While most of the vegetation has been cleared, to the north and east of the site there is a sparse coverage of trees, predominantly Eucalyptus spp regrowth.
The main concentration of machinery and concrete foundations are located to the northwest of the site, about 40-60 metres southwest of the current Gulf Development Road. However there are a number of shafts, most of which have filled with water, and one which is timbered with sawn hardwood, situated on the southern side of the former Gulf Development Road. The use of sawn timber to line the shaft is rare on the former Croydon goldfield; most timbered shafts in the area used locally cut sapling logs. Surviving sawn timber shaft linings are rare in Queensland.
The southeast corner of the site has been truncated as a result of the construction of a large open cut pit during 1980s mining activities, which has since filled with water.
The site has been much disturbed in recent times and stone boiler mounts, concrete compressor footings and a portable steam engine are the only evidence of Cuthbert's capital investment in the mine. The presence of the iron pump balance may be indicative of water problems in the mine, although there is no evidence of a pump bed at the collar of the surviving shaft.
Most of the plant has been removed from the place and the area, which is located immediately alongside the Gulf Development Road, has been subjected to considerable disturbance. All evidence of mullock heaps has been removed from the site. The two compartment timbered main shaft has partly caved at the surface. A group of concrete and bed log machinery mounts are aligned with the shaft including foundations for a winding engine and an air compressor. A twin cylinder portable steam engine and the remains of a stone mount for a Cornish boiler are similarly aligned. A section of a lightweight iron pump balance is located on the place. An above ground concrete tank contains evidence of cooling tower footings.
Plant:
·\tTwo cylinder portable steam engine - no brand.
·\tIron pump balance (not in situ).
","history":"Located on the Croydon Goldfield, the Content PC was opened in 1887 by Croydon businessman and mining investor FW Cuthbert as part of the True Blue and Isabella complex of mines at Croydon and it operated until the end of World War One. Production and profitability of the Croydon Goldfield declined from 1900, the field being largely abandoned by 1915.
Croydon is situated in the heart of the Gulf Savannah, 562km west of Cairns, approximately 176km west of Georgetown and 144km south east of the port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Europeans first explored this area in the 1860s: McKinley searched for lost explorers Burke and Wills in 1862 and JG McDonald explored a route from Carpentaria Downs to the Gulf in 1864. Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from the markets. An overland telegraph line was constructed from Cardwell to Normanton between 1869 and 1872. This passed through the Croydon district and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields.
Gold was first discovered on Croydon Downs Station, which had been taken up by W. Brown in 1881. In the latter part of 1883, two of his employees found quartz carrying gold. However it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from WC Brown, prospected the area and discovered 20 payable reefs. The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under the administration of the Department of Public Works and Mines.
Hundreds flocked to the area. By 1887 the population of the district had peaked at 7000, and by 1897 it still had the third highest population in north Queensland after Charters Towers and Townsville. From 1890 to 1910, gold output from the Croydon reefs were second only to Charters Towers. Total production from inception until 1947 was 772, 374 ounces. By 1909 however, production began to decline and by 1914, the population at the turn of the century had halved.
Residents on the Croydon Goldfield faced many hardships including inadequate supplies of water; pasture grasses and timber for fuel and constructions purposes. Isolation was also a major problem until the Croydon to Normanton railway was completed in 1891. The area was subject to droughts and floods, and even a cyclone in 1906. During the 'crash' of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, many miners were thrown out of work. Despite all these difficulties, the 1890s were productive years for Croydon. Pugh's Almanac of 1900 listed 3 banks, 6 blacksmiths, 5 bakers, 6 commission agents, 4 newsagents, 6 carriers, 2 chemists, 6 drapers11 share brokers, 18 hotels and 4 watchmakers, among many other assorted businesses. Other townships were established at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flannigan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs.
The Content Mine was established in 1887 by FW Cuthbert, a Croydon grocer, mining investor and mining director. The mine remained under Cuthbert's proprietorship throughout its life; public companies never invested in it. Cuthbert was the last of Croydon's influential mining men. He was known for his openness to new ideas such using the diamond drill to test his geological theories. His use of rock drilling machinery to make large, low-grade ore bodies pay through economies of scale was unusual in north Queensland. His personal qualities and business enterprises were important for the success of mining activities on the Croydon Goldfield.
In its first year of operation the Content mine produced 30 tons of quartz yielding 27 ounces of gold. The first equipment installed at the mine was a 12 horsepower steam engine imported in 1891 at a value of £500.
In 1892, during a widespread economic depression, the Isabella and the Content were employing 150 men, but in that year the Content only produced 206 ounces of gold. Along with the True Blue and Isabella the Content had pumping machinery and these were known as the premier mines on the field in 1893.
For the rest of the decade the Content produced an ounce of gold per ton of stone crushed. The most profitable years were 1894 with 897, 344 ounces in 1895 and 256 ounces in 1896. Production was sparse until 1900 and 1901 when 288 and 511 ounces were produced. By constantly pumping, Cuthbert produced profits and expanded operations. One history of the Croydon Goldfield acknowledged the success of Cuthbert's Content Mine:
This big low-grade reef was patiently developed over a decade, paying the occasional profit or breaking even. Cuthbert stayed with it, working it on an increasing scale; he even introduced rock drills in 1912. After 1905 it became the field's biggest producer of ore, if not of gold. It supported around 25-30 miners in a period of chronic depression on the field. However it had to crush at customs mills a couple of miles away and its output of 2-3000 tons a year was hardly impressive. Low grade ore needed to be worked on a larger scale to be consistently profitable over a long period, and cheap milling was essential. Often the Content made a profit simply because it hit a patch of richer stone. However it did show how working more of the low-grade reefs might have prolonged the field's life.
In September 1900, Cuthbert applied for a new lease of the Content (which included the Content Block mine) and commenced sinking a shaft striking the reef at 85m. He then spent over £10,000 on equipment and development work before he received any returns. If the Content had been owned by a company it would have been abandoned, but Cuthbert believed in its potential and was ultimately rewarded.
Substantial poppet legs and a winding engine were erected in 1903 on the frontage line and the two shafts were being worked together. They produced 1,252 ounces of gold from 1,306 tons of stone. The mine produced well in 1904 and 1905 yielding 5,571 ounces at under £2 per ounce from 2,206 tons of stone and 3,253 ounces respectively. However, like every Croydon mine, 1906 was a disappointing year for the Content. Heavy development work was underway. £4,418 was made in profit from 2,246 ounces in 1907. By 1908 it was the most productive mine on the Croydon field producing 2,770 tons of stone yielding 7,203 ounces of gold valued at £10,625. It held its own through 1909 with a profit of £6,091 from 3,465 ounces of gold.
Extensive development work was done in 1910 to follow the reef and it was the highest producer on the field with 3,031 ounces from 2,707 tons of stone. By 1912 the Content was producing one third of the total gold production on the Croydon Goldfield. It also employed the largest number of miners of any mine on the field - 32. An air compressor was purchased from Charters Towers in 1912 together with a 40HP Babcock boiler from the Federation mine for a total of £3,000.
In 1912 the Mines Department stated that Cuthbert's foresight in developing the Content mine showed that capital, judiciously expended, would give good returns on the Croydon Goldfield because undoubtedly there were other lines of reef which would probably give the same results if worked on the same scale and method.
The Content was earning Cuthbert, as owner, a considerable income up to1912. From then on water was a problem and the faces of the stopes were unpromising. Cuthbert sought to re-open Waram's shaft in 1914, which had been discontinued 20 years before. Production was all inferior stone and eventually Cuthbert gave up the struggle, closing the mine on 24 January 1918 after a continuous run of over 16 years. The final crushing was of 231 tons of stone, which yielded 1,058 ounces of gold valued at £1,843. The Content was the last of the large productive mines on the Croydon field.
Officially, the Content reef yielded 65,130 ounces of gold from 35,521 tons of ore between 1886 and 1918 and most of this derived from Cuthbert's Content Block mine. However, the bullion gold yield is quite deceiving: from the 60,235 ounces of bullion gold, only 23,822 ounces of fine gold was derived and the balance was almost all silver.
The plant was removed c.1918 and transferred to the Iguana Consols to prospect for the lost Iguana reef. The layout of the plant there mirrors the arrangement at the Content.
","criteria":"The Content Mine at Croydon, developed under the proprietorship of mining entrepreneur FW Cuthbert, is significant in Queensland history as the longest operating mine (1887-1918) on the important Croydon Goldfield. In addition, Cuthbert's willingness to trial, and then use, the latest mining technologies (such as new drilling machinery), allowed mining activities of large, low-grade ore bodies to be shown to be profitable.
|This demonstrates an unusual pattern for Queensland gold mines, making poorer ore payable by mining and treating it along with richer ore, instead of just extracting the richer ore. Even on Charters Towers Goldfield, only a handful of mines achieved this level of development. The timbered shaft at the southern end of the Content Reef (south of the former Gulf Development Road alignment) is very rare, being early (late 19th century) and lined with sawn timber boards. It is important in demonstrating its type and early gold mining techniques that are no longer practised.
|Surviving fabric associated with early mining activity at this site includes the foundations of the winding engine, compressor and compressor cooling tower, which indicate the scale of operations at the Content Mine.
|The Content Mine has a special association with the life and work of FW Cuthbert, a Queensland (and later New Guinea) mining entrepreneur who played a significant role in the success and history of the Croydon Goldfield.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":325,"place_ref":602586,"name":"Einasleigh Copper Mine and Smelter","alternate_name":"New Einasleigh Copper Mine | Lynd Copper Mine","street_address":"Daintree Road","suburb":"EINASLEIGH","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-12-11","description":"Overview
The Einasleigh Copper Mine site is a mix of very early workings and those of the exploration crews in the 1970s and the past year or so. Concrete engine mounts, the mill, a slag 'floor', ore dumps, steel framed sheds and evidence of the change rooms and toilets from the 1970s are intersected by drill pads from exploration in 2005.
In the grass beyond the main mine site are traces of the 1970s work camp: a concrete slab floor and a power pole. They are adjacent to an elaborate concrete fountain derived from an earlier occupation period.
Sitting out on the flats are the remains of a stonewalled building, which retained its corrugated iron roof into the 1960s. It is presumed to have been an explosives store.
The mine was serviced by the rail link from Almaden and there is limited evidence of the line between Einasleigh rail station and the mine itself. This is due to a combination of events: removal of the rail track, the construction of an airstrip at some stage west of the mine, frequent grass fires and souveniring of the sleepers. However, a trail of dog spikes once used to secure the line is discernible along part of the east west access that presently passes the isolated multitubular boiler.
Within Copperfield Gorge, the foundations of a water pump, a boiler mounting and water pipe securing saddles have been recorded.
Main Shaft
The main shaft was originally developed as a three-compartment shaft: one manway and two for skips. Although the original size is not stated they were commonly about 6 feet by 18 feet (1.8m x 5.4m). Due to collapses during the period between WWl and 1970 the actual opening is now substantially larger. There is a section of concrete collar on the east side of the shaft extending down about 2.5 metres. The shaft is blocked about 9 metres below ground level.
Parts of the steel headframe erected in 1971 remain: a rudimentary structure above the shaft with one leg proud of the ground and another loosely positioned. A post and wire fence has been erected around the shaft for safety.
Traces of some of the original headframe's footings are evident. Two sheave wheels, 1120mm diameter with a 120mm diameter and a 120mm deep rim lie on a nearby rubble heap. Both have sections of rim missing and some buckled spokes.
Winding Engine
The original winding house is identifiable by its foundations. It would seem probable that the footprint of the building could be identified if surface deposits were carefully cleaned back. The chimney at 7951211N 193762E (by GPS) is probably part of that structure. Photographs from around 1910 show that the foundations supported a steel chimney. The chimney is no longer extant.
Primary Crusher
The concrete mounts for the crusher are immediately north of the main shaft.
Blacksmith shop and tanks
The original blacksmith's workshop floor was a 7 x 7 metre slab. It appears to have been partially capped with additional concrete at some later stage, or stages, possibly when modified as a workshop in the 1970s. This structure is steel framed and sheeted with corrugated iron. It is currently used for storing hay.
Stone magazine
A drystone building is located just below the cliff top SSW of the former blacksmith shop. It is assumed to have been an explosives magazine. The building stands around a metre high. Several rocks lie adjacent and downhill suggesting a significantly higher building initially. The wall thickness ranges from 600 to 750mm thick with an internal space of about 2 x 2.9 metres. This was accessed via a doorway 850mm wide. The floor appears to have been built out from the cliff and levelled using a mix of basalt boulders (the whole site is strewn with large quantities) and soil. Neither evidence of an access to the doorway nor of the roofing remains.
Mill
The former mill is located north of the main shaft, beyond the crusher, and is now represented by a series of engine mounting blocks and a concrete floor. A discarded 4 x 4 truck tray has been dumped on part of the floor.
The Mill chimney base, a ring of clay bricks at ground level, has a base diameter of 3600mm.
Part of a disintegrating corrugated iron shed, possibly from the 1970s, stands on the southern end of the mill foundations. Debris is scattered in the adjacent area.
Smelter
The vicinity of the smelter has been severely impacted on by drilling rigs and the 1970s mining activities. Some smelter equipment and parts of the foundation remain intact and, significant among them, are parts of a poured slag floor. It extends NE to the edge of the slag dump itself. Carefully pouring the slag, so that it retained a smooth top, ensured that the hot slag could be moved rapidly across the dump as required. Drums related to the process are scattered in adjacent areas.
Assay Lab
The former assay laboratory stood southwest of the main shaft. A stone chimney and associated brickwork remain amidst a scatter of crucibles and other material.
South Shaft
The south shaft is situated at the edge of the riverbank overlooking the Copperfield River. The shaft appears to have collapsed at about 25 metres down. The timber pigsty collar is intact but skewed toward the river. It measures about 1200 x 2400 mm suggesting it was a two-compartment shaft. Timbers were all about 400mm diameter. Corrugated iron sheets were attached to the external wall of the pigsty to retain soil and rock. Machined wire nails were used to secure many of the timbers suggesting that it probably dates from the early - mid 20th century.
There appears to be a rough track along the cliff top developed by clearing basalt boulders that scatter the surface of most of the site. This may have been a pedestrian access or a tramway for hauling to the mill.
North Shaft
A small shaft is located 25 metres north of the main shaft. Its purpose is unclear but may have served as a ventilation and supply shaft. It is fenced and appears to have collapsed internally.
Fountain and caravan site
The fountain was presumably built in the early 20th century but is adjacent to a caravan parking area probably used in the 1970s. A concrete slab and a nearby power pole and metre box identify the caravan pad. There is a short length of steel picket fencing to the south of the fountain.
The fountain is 1100mm high x 1600mm diameter. It comprises a base section of concreted basalt rocks concreted in as a 720mm high dished receptacle from which the central fountain-stem 580mm rises. There are pipes present that suggest it was a low-pressure system relying on water cascading from the upper to lower bowl.
Limited stonework is visible in the area suggesting that there were garden beds around the water feature.
The power line appears to have run to this site from a route possibly passing the old Assay Lab. There is one power post still standing.
Stone building
A large stone building is situated 350 metres NNW of the main shaft. While its function is unclear it is generally accepted that this windowless structure was probably the main explosives magazine. The building apparently retained a corrugated iron roof until the 1960s.
The floor area is 3.7 x 4 metres and has a 1 metre wide doorway on the SW wall. One section of the NW wall has collapsed to 1.4 metres above floor level (plus 410mm above ground level) but for the most part it varies between to 2 to 2.1 metres high. The walls are about 500mm thick. The upper course is recessed to hold the roof frame.
Multitubular boiler
A solitary multitubular boiler with no distinguishing marks, lies in bushes about 150 metres from the main shaft. The key measurements are: diameter 1.7 metres; length 4.06 metres; central valve 850mm high x 750 mm; and 41 tubes in 7 rows (11 x 1, 4 x 2, 3 x 2, 3 x 2, 2 x 2, 2 x 2, and 1 x 2).
Its original location may have been at the smelter or mill although its size suggests it would have only been a medium capacity unit.
Survey mark and cattle yard
Within about 4 metres of the northwest corner peg for Lot 2 and the southwest corner of Lot 1 and within Lot 1, is an old survey blaze reading vertically 'MHL 1893 (?) 420, on a large tree. The scar has substantially healed suggesting it relates to early 20th century mining activity.
The tree is within a small set of post and rail yards with a small loading ramp facing east. These yards appear to have been constructed around 1920 to 1940.
There is a scatter of domestic refuse in an area to the south and within Lot 2. The scatter appears to contain a mix of material from the early 1970s and earlier with at least one bottle appearing to date from the 1920s.
Railway line
A branch line from the Einasleigh Railway Station to the mine site was in existence in the late 1970s. After cutting across the plain west of the town it runs directly to the mine roughly parallel and south of the boundary of Lots 1 and 2. It then curves slightly, passing south of a bulldozed mound (circa 1970) and terminates at the extant buffer stops just to the north of the north shaft.
Within the rubble mound there are still several posts in situ that probably relate to the railway bin ore bin site. Between there and the buffers are traces of railway sleepers and dog spikes. The latter are found at intervals along the route outlined above. Currently it is a vehicle track that leads towards the fountain. Its actual route is less identifiable as one leaves the mine site.
Pump station, Copperfield Gorge
A pump mount and former boiler mountings within and to the west of the Copperfield Gorge. Several concrete pipe, hold-down footings exist at various locations on the gorge bank. They were probably supplying water to the mill and railway station. The steam water tower was sited near the Einasleigh station but there is no indication of the water source.
The boiler mounting site is located at 7950826N 193503E, being about 470 metres from the main shaft on a 29° MN bearing.
'Eastern shaft'
A small shaft, about 2 metres square, was identified on the eastern side of Copperfield Gorge. While there is no reference to it in the historical material, it was extant before the 1970s mining activity in the area. It is partially fenced with pickets and barbed wire. There is a length of bush timber lying over the top. The shaft has water at about 8 metres and there is solid material at around 12 metres.
","history":"The Einasleigh Mine and Smelter is located in Etheridge Shire, some 360 kilometres from Cairns. The site is an area of around 4 ha, situated 1 kilometre north of Einasleigh Township, on the west bank of the Copperfield River at its junction with the Einasleigh River. It is located about 500 metres north of the Copperfield Gorge.
Australia's copper industry was in its infancy when Richard Daintree discovered the copper deposit near the basalt wall at the head of the Copperfield River watershed in 1867. He secured a freehold title over 120 acres. The lode was stripped by open-cut where it protruded from the river bank and 31 tons picked ore was sent to smelters at Cockle Creek for a return of 22% copper with 3 ounces of silver and 12 dwt of gold per ton.
Although located adjacent to the confluence of the Copperfield and the Einasleigh Rivers this mine was initially known as the Lynd Copper Mine as Daintree believed that the adjacent river was the Lynd.
The Lynd Mine was a small operation. According to one account a shaft was sunk in 1867 and 'a drive at he 30-ft level showed the lode to be 23 feet in width and to consist of spongy metallic copper.' Daintree and his partner William Hann worked the mine in a 'desultory fashion' for a few years but by 1898 the site was reported as deserted by surveyor Robert Logan Jack.
By 1900 the mine was back in production when William Woodhead from Broken Hill acquired freehold title and floated it publicly. Now known as Einasleigh Freehold Copper Mines Ltd, development of the mine began with a new shaft sunk to 61 metres. A new headframe was erected, along with a 24m-boiler stack and gantry. Machinery including winding gear and a water-jacket blast furnace at a cost of 12,517 pounds was brought from Mareeba. The smelter's furnace was blown-in in 1901 but the operation was soon closed down because of the siliceous nature of the ore, transportation costs and the high cost of fuel. Prior to the opening of the rail line in 1910, fuel for the smelters was brought in by camel trains.
The mine reopened in 1906 as the New Einasleigh Copper Mine, a subsidiary of the Chillagoe Company. Number 3 level was developed in 1908 and 50 men were employed on the mine site. Employee numbers doubled in 1909 to 105 men and productivity leapt to an impressive 10,913 tons of ore.
The isolation of the mine again made the operation marginal. All supplies had to come either 462 kms overland from Townsville or via Cairns for 192 km along the Chillagoe line to Almaden, and then carted by bullock team another 190 kms to the mine. Coke, which was vital for smelting cost from 12 to 14 pounds to land at the mine and limestone had to be carted for over 48 kms. After treating 860 tons of ore, smelting was abandoned even though 191 tons of copper matte had been produced.
The Mines on the Chillagoe field had proved inadequate even to keep the smelter supplied, let alone make a profit, and it became increasingly urgent that the Chillagoe Company obtain ore supplies elsewhere. In 1907 construction began on a railway to the Etheridge field, principally to bring ore from the Einasleigh mine and tap known copper deposits around Charleston (later Forsayth). Once the railway was opened in 1910 Einalsleigh ore could be railed directly to Chillagoe.
The opening of the new Etheridge railway to Forsayth in 1910 allowed for the daily transportation of ore to Chillagoe as the route passed by the Einasleigh Mine. This boosted development of the site: new offices and houses were built. The main shaft was extended to 119m and worked from 4 levels by 87 men, while a further 30 men were employed above ground. A change-house with a concrete floor was erected. Machinery was upgraded, including a new Babcock and Wilcox boiler, and construction of a concentrating plant large enough to deal with the expected 150 tons of ore a day, was started.
By 1911 ore production was not meeting expectations and the Chillagoe Company bought out the mine from its subsidiary and installed an Elmore flotation unit. Until the invention of the floatation process, the extraction of metal depended upon being able to handpick the material in order to be economical.
The flotation process depends on the properties of minerals surfaces and the manner in which they differ in the degree by which their surfaces can be wetted. It takes best advantage of such differences by suitable choice of the solution. Ore is first ground to a powder, which is introduced to a series of tanks (known as flotation cells) holding a solution containing oils. This solution is constantly agitated and air is pumped through. In the resulting froth the particles of copper minerals adhere to the raft of air bubbles on the surface, while the majority of worthless rock (gangue) sinks. The material is skimmed from the surface froth.
Lionel Ball, assistant government geologist, deemed the installation of the floatation unit a 'complete failure'. Mine development continued in an unsystematic manner and the quality of the ore produced declined. Untreated ore was sent direct to the Company's smelter, 120 miles away, and in 1911 the Company had to reduce railway freight on ore by 50% to keep the mine working. This seemingly uneconomical and inefficient practice was, according to Ball, due to the Mine's small reserves and the great expense of erecting smelters at Einasleigh. The Chillagoe Company's motives were largely due to its need for the Etheridge's ore and railway revenue, and to further open up the Etheridge field. Whatever the case, by 1913 the Einasleigh Mine was the main supplier of copper ore to the Chillagoe Smelters.
Development of the mine continued to progress throughout 1913 in most levels of the mine and the mineshaft was being extended. Below ground, No. 1 level (120 ft) extended beneath the river and was stulled to reduce the risk of ingress from the river. No. 2 level (170 ft) had various drives linked to the south shaft and included the 'Big Stope' (120 ft long and up to 40ft wide) below this level with copper contents as high as 10%. No. 3 level (269.5 ft) had five almost continuous stopes in one formation. The ore-bodies at No. 4 level were below payable limit and at No. 5 level (482 ft) the 'Big ore-body' was 300 ft distant from the shaft. No. 6 level (582 ft) was under development.
The Chillagoe Smelters closed in February 1914 along with the Einasleigh Mine.
In 1919 the Queensland Government took over the Chillagoe Smelter and reopened the Einasleigh Mine under the terms of the Chillagoe and Etheridge Railways Purchase Act of 1918, at a cost of 100,000 pounds. By December it was at full output, providing three-quarters of the copper ore treated at the smelters thereby keeping the Chillagoe Smelters going. By 1920 the mine employed 100 men and was producing 450 - 500 tons of copper ore per week. However, the drop in metal prices in 1920 from 120 pounds to 72 pounds per ton, and the drain on the mine's reserves, led to the mine being closed in 1922.
At this time the whole of the Chillagoe Field, the Chillagoe Smelter and mining operations generally in State-owned enterprises were losing considerable amounts of money. The election of a conservative government in 1923, opposed to State owned enterprises led to the closure of the Smelter until 1926 when a Labor government was returned to power.
Mining on the Etheridge as a whole generally declined after this time despite the reopening of the Chillagoe Smelter. While other mines on the Etheridge were rejuvenated periodically after this time, no attempts to mine the Einasleigh occurred until the early 1970s. This was due to the heavy depletion of its reserves in the 1920s by the Chillagoe Smelters.
In the early 1970s Combined Mining and Exploration N.L conducted operations at the Einasleigh Mine to reinitiate earlier mining works. By the end of 1970 the Mine had produced 134,257 tons of ore returning 8,107 tons of copper (overall grade 6.04%), 131,284 oz of silver (0.98oz per ton), and 22,288 oz of gold (0.34 dwt per ton). Maximum staffing during this period was 16 employees, and a manager, W.J. Collins.
Development of the mine by Combined Mining and Exploration was undertaken over a 13 month period from October 1970 to November 1971, including 'mine rehabilitation and exploration' and activities which were regarded as rectifying the site. Due to more stringent occupational health and safety measures much of the site had to be upgraded to comply with safety standards. Where suitable foundations were already present from previous operations, structures were built over the top, thus reusing existing infrastructure.
During the early part of 1971 activities included the installation of bearers for an air winch, installation of 3,000 ft of polythene plastic water liner to work as a reticulation system for the camp, and a concrete floor for the power house being poured to the south of the main shaft and an area cleared for a garage/workshop. The workshop/storeroom area was completed and an ablution block was adapted from concrete engine beds remaining from previous operations. Mullock, soil and oxidised material were spread over much of the site during this time to provide a safer working surface. Mullock was also spread out between the main shaft and river, covering the Daintree shaft mouth.
In February 1971 the steel tripod was put over the main shaft, and in March a tramway was installed between the main shaft and the river bank. A flat-top trolley was acquired to run on the railway.
In June 1971, a new steel headframe was built over the shaft collar with a cross head made up to run in the main shaft. It is not known what the cross head was supporting. The air winch was repositioned and a winch house almost directly west of the main shaft was made. Extra timber and lagging was placed at the entrance of the mine shaft due to fears of falling rocks. Safety concerns also led to replacement of the old pulley-sheave with a new gin-wheel. Ladder ways and timbering in the shafts were substantially upgraded as most had split due to water logging. Most of the metal infrastructure such as pipe work and bolts had corroded due to their long period of saturation, and were replaced.
From March to November 1971, the mine was continuously dewatered in stages, ultimately down to 700 ft, No. 6 level. Water samples taken from 300 ft showed very low copper content, and when "two diamond-drill holes directed to intersect the main ore body at approximately 700 ft failed to intersect ore," operations at the mine ceased.
Today, an area including the site of the former Einasleigh Mine is leased by Copper Strike Ltd. The Company proposes to develop a new mine.
","criteria":"The Einasleigh Mine and Smelter is significant in Queensland history as the first base metal mine in Queensland and the first mine in the rich mining province of North Queensland. It was the only copper smelter on the Etheridge mining field and it became one of only three base metal mines owned by the State during the period of State enterprises. It was essential to the operation of the Chillagoe Smelters under the ownership of the State and the Chillagoe Company, and the Etheridge Railway was built primarily to link it with the Chillagoe Smelters.
|Although the surface elements have been adversely impacted upon during the late 20th century it is expected they are still of sufficient standard to be able to yield information that will contribute to an increased understanding of early mining and smelting history.It is highly likely that sub-surface workings could provide some indications of any special techniques adopted when working beneath two large rivers.
|The Einasleigh Mine, apart from being one of the earliest copper mines in Queensland, can still demonstrate the industrial processes associated with, in particular, copper extraction in a remote location. Although most buildings and plant have been removed or renovated, the site still explains the copper extraction process. The slag dump, blast furnace mount and associated artefacts are significant, while the stone magazine and one room stone hut are noteworthy.
|The mine is the reason Einasleigh township came into being and is important to that community.
|The early association with Richard Daintree is particularly significant as he is regarded as an important administrator, explorer and photographer in Queensland. It is also important for its association with the Chillagoe Company, as the railway to Einasleigh was one of the solutions to the shortage of ore on the Chillagoe field.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":349,"place_ref":602554,"name":"WH Paxton & Co. Offices and Warehouse (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"10 River Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"The former WH Paxton & Co. Offices and Warehouse comprises a number of attached timber structures located on the bank of the Pioneer River, fronting River Street. The northern ends of these structures are constructed on a timber-decked wharf jutting into the river, supported on concrete and timber piles driven into the mud. The place is visible from the river and from Forgan Bridge, and contributes to the historical streetscape along River Street.
\nThe premises comprises three sections: at the western end of the site, a two-storeyed, timber-framed building (1899), originally designed as offices and sample room on the upper floor and as a store on the ground floor; an attached single-storey warehouse (c1899) on the east side of the office building; and a large volume, timber-framed warehouse extension (c1912), attached to the eastern end of the 1899 warehouse.
\nOffices, sample room and store (1899)
\nThis two-storeyed, timber-framed building has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. All the exterior walls are clad with metal sheeting, some corrugated iron, but much of it later ribbed steel which appears to have replaced early corrugated iron.
\nOn the upper level on the west and north sides of the building there is an open verandah, overlooking the Pioneer River to the north. This has a separate roof clad with corrugated iron, and supported in part on early bracketed timber posts. Part of the verandah on the western side of the building retains an early dowel balustrade. A flagpole is attached to this part of the verandah. The exterior wall of the upper floor, where sheltered by the verandah, is of exposed timber stud-framing, lined with chamferboards. Several timber-framed windows and timber French doors open onto the verandah from the first floor offices. Beneath the upper floor verandah the lower level, enclosed with corrugated iron sheeting by at least 1937, is now clad with later ribbed steel sheeting.
\nThe entrance to the office building is at its south-west corner on River Street. It is marked by a timber batten arch and is accessed via a short timber stair. Just inside the entrance there is a timber staircase to the left. This is of two straight flights with a landing in the middle, and accesses the northern end of the upstairs verandah. There is a concrete strong-room or safe with a thick steel Chubb door near the front entrance, between the staircase and the exterior metal cladding.
\nThe former store on the ground floor has been converted into offices with a suspended ceiling and modern fit-out.
\nThe first floor area retains its early timber floorboards, interior partitioning, picture rails, and deep skirting boards. Early panelled timber doors and moulded timber architraves also exist throughout this level. The ceiling is lined with early, narrow, jointed timber boards.
\nWarehouse (c1899)
\nThis single-storeyed, timber-framed structure with a hipped roof adjoins the east side of the two-storeyed building. Roof and walls are clad with metal sheeting, much of it later ribbed steel. It has the same early, closely boarded lining to the eaves as the office building.
\nA c1937 photographs shows a loading area under a wide cantilevered, skillion awning along the River Street frontage of the c1899 warehouse and part of the 1899 office building; however, no evidence of this awning and loading dock appears to survive.
\nWarehouse extension (c1912)
\nThe warehouse extension at the western end of the site is attached to the c1899 warehouse. It occupies a large space and is fully enclosed with metal cladding except for doorways. It has a timber-framed double gable roof supported on stout stop-chamfered timber columns and trusses. The roof, like the exterior walls, is clad with later ribbed metal sheeting. The eaves are lined with widely spaced timber boards to assist with ventilation of the roof space.
\nThe interior is unlined. The floors are timber but in sections have been covered with concrete; some of the timber flooring survives beneath the concrete.
\nDespite the internal alterations on the lower level of the two-storeyed section, and the later exterior cladding, the structure retains its early form and still demonstrates its early function as the offices, sample room, store and warehouse of a key Mackay shipping agency and general wholesaler at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
\n","history":"
This former offices and warehouse, constructed in 1899 with c1912 additions, was built for wholesale merchants and shipping agents WH Paxton & Co, which from the late 1880s was a subsidiary of McIlwraith McEacharn & Co. The 1899 sections were designed by Mackay architect Arthur Rigby and constructed by Charles Porter (office building) and Joseph Vidulich (warehouse). The 1912 warehouse extension was designed by Brisbane architect Montague T Stanley.
Mackay was declared a port of entry and clearance in February 1863, following the opening of the Pioneer River district to pastoral settlement in 1862. Early activity centred on the south bank of the river, along River Street. Stores were constructed to receive wool from the hinterland and dray-loads of copper from Peak Downs. With the establishment of the sugar industry in the hinterland in the late 1860s local agitation for improved facilities at the river port resulted in the construction of a government wharf at River Street, Mackay, opened in September 1868.
Despite several inquiries and reports on the need for improved deepwater port facilities, activity associated with the successful operation of the port of Mackay remained centred on River Street until the mid-twentieth century. Wharves, warehouses, offices, ships' chandleries, boat builders, hotels and boarding houses created a busy precinct along the waterfront and at the northern ends of the streets feeding into River Street, such as Wood, Sydney, Brisbane, Carlyle and Tennyson streets.
Following the opening of the railway from Mackay inland along the Pioneer River valley in 1885, a much-used branch line was continued along River Street to service the port area. A new brick customs house was constructed in 1901 in the centre of the riverfront precinct to replace the timber customs house built in the 1860s.
WH Paxton & Co. was one of several large merchantile firms established in River Street to serve the shipping trade at the port of Mackay. These included Shepherd's Anvil Stores Pty Ltd (established 1873); James Croker & Sons (established 1889); J Michelmore & Co. (established 1891); and the offices of the Adelaide Steamship Company (erected in 1900).
William Henry Paxton came to Mackay in 1874 as manager for W Sloane & Co., a Victorian-based company with interests in a number of Mackay district sugar mills. By 1876 he had established WH Paxton & Co. as shipping, insurance, stock and station and general agents (including the agency for W Sloane and Co.) and wholesale merchants (including general hardware, wine and spirits, and produce). By 1886 the firm was trading in goods as diverse as plantation rice, flour, teas, maize, hessian bags, coal, tobacco, golden syrup, sugar and rum.
WH Paxton also held substantial mining interests, being a director of the Mount Orange Copper Mining Company, formed in 1877, and a shareholder in the Mount Britton Goldfield Company Limited, registered in 1882. He was mayor of the Municipality of Mackay in 1880. In 1883 he left Mackay for England and subsequently died in Melbourne in 1887.
Paxton had obtained the Mackay agency for the lucrative trade with the Australian-owned Australasian Steam Navigation Company (the ASN Co.). In 1887 the ASN Co. merged with the Queensland Steam Ship Company Ltd (the QSS Co.) as the largely British-owned Australasian United Steam Navigation Company (AUSN Co.), which became Australia's largest and most successful coastal shipping line. When news of his death reached Mackay in August 1887, flags over the AUSN Co.'s steamers in port were flown at half mast as a mark of respect.
Despite the early death of the firm's founder, WH Paxton & Co. continued to expand its operations in Mackay. By 1888 WH Paxton & Co. was also the Mackay agent for the British India and Queensland Agency (the BI & Q Agency), a subsidiary of the British India Steam Navigation Company (the BI Co.). The BI & Q Agency, registered in London but with the head office located in Brisbane, was formed in 1885 and had managed the merger of the ASN and QSS companies. Its principal proprietors were MacKinnon, McKenzie & Co. (British proprietors of the BI Co.), Gray, Dawes & Co. and McIlwraith McEacharn & Co. (based in Melbourne and London).
In August 1889 McIlwraith McEacharn & Co. of London, Antwerp and Melbourne, which had acquired the Rockhampton-based firm of Walter Reid & Co. in 1881, purchased WH Paxton & Co. at Mackay. As in Rockhampton, where McIwraith McEacharn & Co. continued to operate under the name Walter Reid & Co., the firm continued to operate in Mackay as WH Paxton & Co.
McIlwraith McEacharn & Co. operated their own shipping interests between the United Kingdom and the Australia-Pacific zone in association with the BI & Q Agency, in which it held an interest, and the AUSN Co. The firm was significant in developing the frozen meat trade between Australia and Britain. Along with the Adelaide Steamship Company and Howard Smith, McIlwraith McEacharn & Co. and the AUSN Co. were significant pioneers of Australia's coastal shipping.
WH Paxton and Co.'s offices and warehouse were located near what is now 25 River Street until 1899 when new, larger, purpose-designed premises were constructed for the firm at 10 River Street, on a site acquired by the ASN Co. (later the AUSN Co.) in November 1865, and adjacent to what was by then the AUSN Co. wharf.
The new premises were designed by prominent local architect Arthur Rigby. The materials remained modest: timber-framed, with single-skin walls of corrugated iron or chamferboard. The two-storeyed section, constructed by local builder Charles Porter, was completed in August 1899. The attached single-storeyed warehouse, erected by Joseph Vidulich, was completed a little later.
The two-storeyed building contained storage space on the ground floor and offices (general and manager's) and sample room on the first floor. One of the features of the office building was the provision made for ventilation and light:
"The main office - 41 ft long and 31 ft wide, and 14ft from floor to ceiling - contains 15 windows, and is lined with pine suitably varnished. In the centre of the roof is a fret-work ventilator 25 ft long by 2ft 6 in wide, of elaborate design."
In June 1912 Brisbane architect Montague T Stanley, son of former Colonial Architect FDG Stanley, called tenders for the erection of additions and alterations to WH Paxton & Co.'s premises in Mackay. This was likely when the double-gabled warehouse extension was constructed, and reflects the expansion of the company in the early decades of the twentieth century as the Queensland economy boomed.
Other warehouses, wharves and offices were built along River Street in the early years of the twentieth century, making River Street a hive of shipping and port activity. The Adelaide Steamship Company had constructed warehouses by 1900; J. Michelmore & Sons had erected their landmark warehouse and main office building in River Street, at the end of Sydney Street; and James Croker & Sons had constructed their own wharf by 1917.
In December 1914 McIlwraith McEacharn & Co. transferred title to 10 River Street to WH Paxton & Co. Ltd, likely in connection with wider corporate amalgamations in the Australian coastal shipping industry at this time. In 1914 the BI Co. combined with the Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O) in one of the biggest shipping mergers in British history. Although the BI Co. initiated and retained the dominant interest in this merger, the combine traded under the P&O name. The subsidiary AUSN Co. retained its name but as a consequence of the merger, its management passed from the BI&Q Agency (in which McIlwraith McEacharn held a substantial interest) to MacDonald Hamilton & Company, P&O's Australian agents. At Mackay, however, WH Paxton & Co. remained the shipping agent for the AUSN Co. and also picked up the P&O line of steamers.
Between 1914 and 1946 P&O acquired more than a dozen shipping companies and by 1929 WH Paxton & Co. was the Mackay shipping agent for the AUSN Co., P&O Branch Service (via the Cape and Suez), the Eastern and Australian Steamship Co, and the Union Steamship Co. Ltd of New Zealand, as well as agent for the insurance company Lloyd's of London and sub-agent for Anglo Saxon Petroleum Co. Ltd.
A Souvenir of Mackay and District published in 1937 described WH Paxton & Co. as one of the largest companies of its kind in Queensland, but the firm's connection with the shipping trade was about to decline. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s extensions to Queensland's railway network reduced the dependence of the Mackay region on sea transport. Furthermore, the opening of a Mackay deep-water harbour in 1939 changed the focus of port activity from the River Street wharves to the harbour and much of the riverside stores and infrastructure gradually became redundant. Until the late 1950s, however, River Street remained dominated by the long-established firms of Michelmore & Co; Shepherd's Anvil Stores; James Croker & Co. and WH Paxton & Co.
As Australia's coastal shipping trade declined in the 1960s, McIlwraith McEacharn joined with the Adelaide Steamship Co. in 1964 to create Associated Steamships Pty Ltd. By the 1970s WH Paxton & Co. was experiencing losses in its wholesale department due to changes in shopping practices from the 1950s and the shift from coastal shipping to rail and road transportation. By 1975 the firm had been wound down, and 10 River Street was sold by July 1980. The building remained in use by APG, a company dealing with curtains, blinds and similar household furnishings. During its occupation of the building the warehouse floor was cemented and the initials 'APG' were painted on the roof of the office building.
In 1983 a new levee bank was constructed along River Street and the landmark J Michelmore & Co. warehouse was the first of the early shipping agency and wholesale importer premises to be demolished. Subsequently demolished structures included Shepherd's Anvil Stores Pty Ltd and James Croker & Sons' Victoria Wharf. Hotels along River Street, including the Prince of Wales, Leichhardt and the Crown and Anchor, were demolished more recently.
WH Paxton and Co.'s Offices and Warehouse survives as one of the few remaining places associated with the former shipping activity along River Street, which consolidated the importance of Mackay as a river port between 1863 and 1939. Other surviving buildings along the eastern end of River Street connected with former port activity include the Customs House (1901), the former Adelaide Steamship Company offices (1900) and Hossacks Store (formerly a ships' chandlery).
","criteria":"Constructed in 1899 with c1912 additions, the former WH Paxton & Co. Offices and Warehouse is significant for its association with Mackay as a major Queensland river port in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It demonstrates the pattern in Queensland's early settlement of establishing ports in sheltered rivers (for example, at Brisbane, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Ingham and Normanton), most of which were later replaced by deep water ports at the mouth of the river.
|The former WH Paxton & Co. Offices and Warehouse is significant as one of few surviving structures (including Mackay Customs House, QHR 600669) illustrative of the relationship between the Pioneer River, the sea trade, and the prominence of Mackay as a city river port in Queensland from the 1860s to the 1950s.
Very few warehouses constructed on timber wharves survive in Queensland's former river ports, and the wharf structure may date to the 1860s (this has not been confirmed). The former WH Paxton and Co. Offices and Warehouse on its timber wharf on the Pioneer River is now a rare surviving example of a type of structure once common in Queensland.
|The former WH Paxton & Co. Offices and Warehouse remains important in demonstrating many of the principal characteristics of a building designed to accommodate shipping offices and a wholesaling enterprise that combined warehousing, offices and display spaces within the one premises. The warehouse sections retain large interior volumes and well illustrate the use of heavy timber columns, bearers and trusses to support the roof. At the northern end the offices and warehouse spaces are constructed on a timber wharf over the Pioneer River, illustrating the close connection between the former shipping agency and Mackay's sea trade.
|The place is significant for its long and special association with WH Paxton & Co., a longstanding Mackay-based mercantile company important in Queensland's economic history. Established in 1876, WH Paxton & Co. was associated with the place from 1899, when the structure was erected as purpose-built offices and warehouse for the company, until the firm's closure c1975.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":351,"place_ref":602603,"name":"Pioneer Shire Council Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 WOOD STREET","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-07","description":"The Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) is a small, reinforced concrete building in the Art Deco Style on Wood Street.
The Wood Street facade is divided into three sections. The central section has 3 round arches on square pilasters, two free standing and two half-width engaged on the outsides. These pilasters are fluted with a zigzag cut, and topped with a square capital of coloured glazed terracotta featuring a stylised design representing sugar cane, nautilus shells and perhaps palm fronds surrounded by a zigzag border. These glazed terracotta panels are part of a row of seven beneath the roofline. The words 'PIONEER SHIRE COUNCIL' appear in low relief above the glazed panels and central entrance section. The front rises to a horizontal parapet.
Each side section is a square tower slightly higher and marginally in front of the centre section. These are decorated with low relief coffering. Three slit windows are let into each. A wooden, tapering square section flagpole is mounted towards the outer edge of each side.
A light well is constructed in the side elevations admitting light to the interior. The building is attached to the former Post Office (Telstra Building) on the northern side by a metal roof forming a covered driveway.
Five steps lead up to the entry porch or veranda, at the back of which is a single central door of glass and aluminium. Original detailing, believed to be of pressed metal, on the ceiling of the porch is intact, while the floor features later tiles.
The front entrance opens to a central passageway that leads to the rear of the original building. The layout of the original building has a strong symmetry about the axis of the central passageway with various rooms opening to either side. A strongroom is located in an office on the northern side of the building. Original ceiling fabric is extant above the later suspended ceilings.
At the rear of the original building the space that was once the Council chambers is now subdivided into several rooms. A decorative archway remains at the rear extent of the original building.
Behind the original 1935 building to the east is a later two-storey metal framed and clad building that also extends above the original building in the area that comprised the former council chambers. This extension is not significant.
","history":"The Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) was constructed to a design by Harold Vivian Marsh Brown in 1935 and occupied by the Council until 1994 when the Shire amalgamated with the Mackay City Council.
John Mackay and John McCrossin first explored the area in which the Pioneer Shire was located in 1860. Returning to the area in 1862, Mackay established and subsequently lost, the extensive pastoral holding he had named 'Greenmount'. The township of Mackay, originally named Alexandra, was surveyed in June 1863. The first town allotments were offered for sale from the police station in Bowen in October 1863. Two years after the establishment of Mackay, the first sugar was planted on the Pioneer Plantation, introducing to the region its key agricultural product and industry.
The first local government body formed in the Pioneer Valley region, the Mackay Municipal Council, met on 1 December 1869.
The Pioneer Divisional Board was proclaimed in November 1879, the same year the Divisional Boards Act was enacted and first met in the Mackay School of Arts building on March 13 1880. The Act established local government boards to administer parts of the State. In many cases these divisions surrounded regional towns or cities, some eighteen of which had been incorporated by 1878.
The offices of the Pioneer Divisional Board were located within the boundaries of another local government area, the City of Mackay. Shire/town relationships of this type were and are not uncommon in Queensland. Other examples are the former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers (1912-13) that remain in Cairns following and the North Rockhampton Borough Chambers (1885) in Rockhampton.
When formed, the Pioneer Division consisted of three subdivisions, each of which returned three members. The board's first members were JE Davidson (chair), MH Black, R Martin, EM Long, W Hyne, A Kemmis, DH Dalrymple, D Lacy and ES Rawson. A number of these men owned sugar plantations.
Office space for the new Pioneer Divisional Board was rented in the School of Arts. A divisional clerk and a clerk of works were appointed. The Board held meetings on the second Tuesday of each month. Throughout the 1880's and subsequently, many of the Pioneer Divisional Board's members were involved in the sugar industry. Robert Walker of Fairleigh Plantation, the second chairman, was one of the sugar pioneers. Walter Paget, a councillor from 1883 and chairman from 1885 to 1890 and 1901, constructed with his brother Arthur a sugar mill at Nindaroo Plantation. Like DH Dalrymple, Walter Paget entered State Parliament, serving as a member there until 1915.
In the late 1800's those involved in primary production required strong local government organisations to establish the road infrastructure needed to transport goods into and out of a region. As the sugar industry in the Pioneer Valley expanded, bridges became a priority. From 1886 through the Joint Bridges Board, responsibility for bridges was shared between the Pioneer Divisional Board and the Mackay Municipal Council. The first Sydney Street Bridge was completed in August 1887. Constructed in 1888, the Barnes Creek Bridge was also a responsibility of the Joint Bridges Board.
By 1884 a total of 19,320 acres of land in the valley was being used to grow sugar cane, processed in the main through privately owned plantation mills. A downturn in the sugar industry, attributed to an oversupply of beet sugar in Europe and the phasing out of Melanesian indentured labour, led to a move away form the plantation system and towards efficient central mills. Following recovery from the downturn, the Mackay region experienced a period of moderate growth, from mid 1885 to the 1920s, in both sugar production and population.
The Pioneer Divisional Board office relocated from the School of Arts building after its first purpose-built timber office building was constructed in 1889 on the western side of Wood Street.
A number of significant changes to the local government of the region occurred in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. The Local Authorities Act (1902) widened the powers of local governments, giving these bodies more extensive powers over roads and bridges as well as responsibility for the impounding of animals, the generation of electric and gas lighting and control over traffic.
Mackay was declared a town in 1902, making the municipal council now the Mackay Town Council. Mackay was declared a city in 1918.
In 1903 the Pioneer Divisional Board became the Pioneer Shire Council, its subdivisions subsequently renamed divisions. During this period, as a means of opening the Upper Pioneer Valley to closer settlement, the Pioneer Shire Council funded the extension of the Pioneer Valley railway line from Pinnacle to Finch Hatton. This extension was opened on 21 September 1904. The Queensland government completed the last extension to the Pioneer Valley line, west to Netherdale, after its takeover of the Finch Hatton section on 1 July 1910. This action made more land available for sugar cane growing, as well as allowing tourists easier access to the Eungella Range.
During these two decades the boundaries of the Pioneer Shire were reduced when the Sarina Shire was formed to its south on 1 January 1912. Mirani Shire, excised from the western section of the Pioneer Shire, established its offices in Mirani in 1913.
Members of the Pioneer Shire Council were also members of the wider community and supportive of regional growth. William Kirkup of Walkerston owned a store and bakery while serving as chairman initially from 1902 to 1907, then for a range of years until 1927. Robert Kippen was a carrier, plantation supervisor, storekeeper, dairyman and publican, as well as shire chairman 1907 to 1908, then 1914-15 and 1921-24. Another publican with sugar and pastoral interests, Edward 'Ned' Hannan, served as a member of the Mirani and Pioneer Shires for various periods between 1905 and 1946. Councillors also looked after the interests of the Shire through representation on the Harbour Board following its formation in 1896.
Mackay and the Pioneer River district experienced a period of considerable economic growth during the interwar years. In part, this was due to continued expansion within the sugar industry. Adding impetus to this was the connection of Mackay by rail to Rockhampton, in 1921, and Townsville in 1923. By 1923 the population of Mackay was 6,350 and the district some 15,000. The close relationship between the two local government areas continued.
During the 1930s major public works projects were undertaken in the Mackay region. Work commenced on a new Outer Harbour for Mackay in 1935. The following year work began on a new bridge over the Pioneer River at Sydney Street, to replace the earlier one damaged in the 1918 cyclone. When completed was named the Forgan Bridge after the mother of the local MHR and then Premier of Queensland, William Forgan Smith.
Growth of its administrative section during this period of regional economic growth prompted the Pioneer Shire Council to relocate its offices, this time to the opposite side of Wood Street in Mackay. Designed in the Art Deco style by prominent local architect HVM Brown, the Pioneer Shire Council Building was erected by W Guthrie for a cost of £2,337. The new office was officially opened to business on Monday March 18 1935.
Harold Vivian Marsh Brown (c.1907-1992) was born in Mackay. Educated at the Mackay High School and the Brisbane Technical College, from 1926 to 1930. He worked as an articled pupil of Cavanagh & Cavanagh in Brisbane, being registered as an architect in 1930, before establishing his architectural business in Mackay around 1932. In the years to 1940 Brown designed approximately thirteen buildings in Mackay, including a number of fine examples of the Art Deco style. These include the Kane & Legge Building in Brisbane Street (his own office), Chaseley House, the Imperial Hotel, the CWA building, the RSL Memorial Hall in Sydney Street, Black's Building, Maguire's Hotel in Wood Street, the Holy Trinity Anglican Church Rectory and Hall (later the Masonic Club) in Gordon Street, the Hotel Mackay in Victoria Street and St Mary's Catholic Church & Presbytery in Mackay South.
Harold Brown's Art Deco council building served the Pioneer Shire adequately until the 1950s when conditions again became too cramped. In 1958 a decision was made to extend the building towards the rear of the site. A second storey has since been added in one of the two refurbishments, which have been undertaken since the 1950s.
The Pioneer district continued to grow post-war. In 1966 Mackay's population was 18,640 while the population of the Pioneer Shire was 19,990. By the early 1990s the Shire had reached 40,592 while Mackay city housed 23,056.
In March 1994 the Pioneer Shire amalgamated with the Mackay City Council and the Pioneer Shire Council Building was vacated. Gordon White, the last Pioneer Shire chairman, had held the position since 1983. Following the amalgamation he served as mayor of Mackay City until 1999.
","criteria":"The Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, specifically the development of the provision of services and infrastructure to rural Queensland through the establishment of divisional boards and shire councils.
The Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) situated in central Mackay is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, specifically the administrative relationship between a shire council and an adjoining town or city council. It is a good surviving example of rural shire council building made redundant by the absorption of the rural shire into the town/city shire within which it's office was located.
Constructed in 1935 during a major program of beautification and modernisation of services when Mackay was the fastest growing town in Queensland, the Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) is tangible evidence of this period of growth and modernisation.
|As one of his earlier Mackay buildings, the Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) illustrates the principal characteristics of the work of prominent Mackay architect Harold Vivian Marsh Brown. As the designer of 13 buildings during the interwar period HVM Brown made an important contribution to the commercial centre of Mackay.
The Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) is good example of the Art Deco style transplanted to rural Queensland. With its geometric façade stylised decoration, terracotta tiles and prominent lettering it demonstrates the characteristics of this style.
|As one of a number of Art Deco style buildings constructed in Mackay and many sugar industry towns during the interwar period, and for the contribution the Art Deco façade with tropical motifs makes to Wood Street, the Pioneer Shire Council Building (former) is important because of its aesthetic significance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":470,"place_ref":602689,"name":"Conondale Timbers Sawmill","alternate_name":"Mill Workers Cottages | Conondale Timbers","street_address":"Aherns Road","suburb":"CONONDALE","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"(Only a partial inspection of the site was conducted and no inspection was made of the interiors of the cottages.)
\nAt the corner of Aherns Road and Harper Creek Road in the Mary Valley some 15 kilometres northwest of Maleny and five kilometres south of Conondale, the Conondale Timbers mill site comprises a level elevated area which falls steeply to an area of river flats along Elaman Creek. Structures associated with the sawmilling operations are on the elevated portion of the site and include the sawmill shed, crane, burning area, ablutions shed, six workers' cottages, timber racks, petrol bowser, storage tanks and an assortment of sheds. There are a number of items of equipment, machinery and vehicles scattered and stored about the site.
\nA pair of timber entrance gates open onto the site from Aherns Road. The property is fenced by timber, barbed wire and electric fences. There are grassed areas across the site and a scattering of trees and other plantings. Cattle graze on the lower river flats.
\nSawmill shed
\nThe site is dominated by a large open gable roofed shed framed with timber trusses supported on square timber posts. The roof is in two parts, the east portion is larger and higher and both roofs shelter a raised timber platform supported on timber stumps. A lower skillion roof lean-to to the north of the shed shelters the former engine and boiler sheds. Roofs are clad with corrugated galvanised iron, the sheeting to the north side of the larger gable roof is more recent.
\nThe raised timber platform accommodates gantries, benches, saws, trolleys, tracks and stacking areas of the mill operations. Two earth mounds to the south of the shed facilitate loading of logs onto the platform by fork lift. A conveyor belt travels west from the centre of the platform to a burning area adjacent. The burning area is unroofed and enclosed with sheets of corrugated iron. A small room to the northeast corner of the platform is timber framed and clad with weatherboards and accommodates the saw sharpening facilities. Part of the platform extends unroofed to the east with a set of trolley tracks running out along the southern side - this extension gives the mill the capacity to saw very long logs. A set of timber stairs descends from the northeast to the engine room. A set of timber stairs also descends from the west side of the platform. The area below the platform accommodated the transmission shafts, pulleys and other elements of the steam driven operation. This area was not accessed but it appears that some equipment may remain while other components are stored elsewhere on the site.
\nOperating as a working mill, machinery and equipment accommodated on the platform includes a framing saw, breakdown saw, number one saw, docking saw, associated benches, trolleys and tracks. Saw sharpening equipment, benches and associated accessories are housed in the saw sharpening room.
\nThe former engine and boiler sheds are immediately north of the main shed. Each of these spaces has a concrete slab floor and they are separated by an area of dirt floor. Concrete blocks stand to the middle of the concrete slab floor of the engine shed. Openings in the wall between the engine shed and the main shed and in the floor of the platform of the main shed indicate access for former shafts, belts, pulleys, ducts and other components of the early steam powered system. A range of equipment, machinery and other items are stored in the engine and boiler sheds.
\nCrane
\nThe crane stands to the northwest of the mill shed, the timber arm able to swing across this area of the site lifting logs to the platform. The motor is housed in a small shed near the crane.
\nWorkers' cottages
\nA row of five timber cottages runs along the south boundary of the property and one timber cottage stands to the northeast of the entrance gate. All are timber framed and clad with weatherboards oiled with a red oxide. Each of the group of five cottages stands on low timber stumps and is sheltered by a corrugated galvanised iron clad gable roof. Spaces between the cottages are partly or fully enclosed and roofed. The most easterly cottage of the group has a small timber deck to the north and the next two cottages west are connected by an enclosed space. The fourth cottage along has a timber clad extension running along the south side. There is a mixture of timber and aluminium framed windows throughout. A number of galvanised iron water tanks stand to the north of the cottages and downpipes are a mixture of PVC and metal.
\nLarger than the other dwellings, the cottage at the entrance gate has a corrugated galvanised iron clad gable roof and an enclosed verandah to the south.
\nThe sawmill is privately owned and not accessible to the public.
\n","history":"
The Conondale Timbers Sawmill near the town of the same name in the Sunshine Coast region is a large operating hardwood mill constructed in the early 1930s. It comprises the mill shed and equipment, plus ancillary structures including workers' housing. The mill was originally powered by steam, but has now been converted to electricity.
\nSawmilling was a major industry on the North Coast hinterland in the 1930s: the coastal area between Brisbane and Gympie contained the highest concentration of sawmills in the State. More hardwood was cut on the North Coast than anywhere else in Queensland. Improvements in the road network and mechanised transport in the 1920s made sawmilling in remote areas such as Conondale more viable from the later interwar period.
\nThe Conondale sawmill was built by M.R. Hornibrook Pty Ltd to supply timber for the Hornibrook Highway project that linked the Redcliffe Peninsular with the Brisbane suburbs of Brighton and Sandgate across the mouth of the North Pine River and Hays Inlet. At the time, M.R. Hornibrook Pty Ltd was among the most prominent civil engineering firms in Queensland. From 1918, Manuel Hornibrook and his company (formed in 1926) constructed a number of drainage and water supply systems for Brisbane and regional councils. By the early 1930s, their civil engineering projects had included a number of prominent bridges including an eight-span reinforced concrete bridge at Howard, the Grey Street (William Jolly) Bridge in Brisbane and an eight-span reinforced concrete bridge over the Coomera River. After completion of the Hornibrook Highway project, the company joint ventured with Evans Deakin and Company to build Brisbane's Story Bridge and they built a 47-span railway bridge over the Pioneer River in Mackay. After World War II, the company was involved in the construction of Bulimba B, Tennyson and Townsville power stations and was a major contractor for construction of the Sydney Opera House.
\nThe Hornibrook Highway was built during a period when many roads in Southeast Queensland were being upgraded to accommodate increased motor vehicle usage. Prior to 1920, roads were funded by Shire Councils. The demand for better quality roads to accommodate motor vehicles promised to place an intolerable financial burden on the councils. This burden was alleviated to a large extent after the establishment by the State Government in 1920 of the Main Roads Board. This board entered into joint funding arrangements with Shire Councils and a number of road upgrades were undertaken from 1921. The Hornibrook Highway was one of the most important of these. It made an important contribution to the development of Redcliffe.
\nThe Hornibrook Highway included a long timber bridge (Queensland Heritage Register 601246) across Hay's Inlet and the mouth of the North Pine River between Brighton and Clontarf. At the time, it was Australia's longest bridge and was claimed to incorporate more hardwood than any other bridge of its kind. To provide more than 2.5 million super feet of timber needed for the bridge, Hornibrook secured large stands of hardwood, purchased a mill at Mapleton and built the Conondale mill in the midst of large tracts of standing timber. The Conondale mill was designed to produce decking.
\nThe original layout of the mill has been largely preserved and follows the basic design principles for steam powered sawmills of the era. The break-down saws, comprising a frame saw and large circular saw were designed to make the initial cuts along the logs to create long slices of timber ('flitches'). These saws are located close to where the logs entered the mill near a loading platform at the side of the shed. The number one and the pendulum docking saws which converted the flitches into boards of the required cross-section and length are located further inside the shed. A small room for sharpening saws is built into a corner of the main shed.
\nThough the steam engine and transmission are now removed, the plan and construction of the mill reveal their former location. The boiler and engine sheds are extant, the latter containing the foundations of the steam engine. Power was transmitted to the saws and saw sharpening grinder from the steam engine via transmission shafts, belts and pulley wheels. The original transmission shafts and pulleys, though removed from the shed, remain on the site.
\nMost of the extant saws are original including the frame, circular break-down, number one and docking saws. The saw sharpening equipment is also original. All of this equipment was designed to be steam driven via flat belts and pulleys. The original transmission system continued to be used when the shed was first electrified: a large electric motor was simply connected to the main transmission shaft. Later, the transmission system was rendered redundant when the single large electric motor was replaced by smaller electric motors mounted directly onto each saw. As part of this upgrade, the original flat belts and pulley wheels on the saws were replaced by 'V' belts and pulleys which transmitted drive directly from the saw mounted motors.
\nIn addition to the main shed a number of structures originally built by M.R. Hornibrook Pty Ltd remain extant. These include a former ship's crane used in the construction of the mill and the mill workers' cottages. The five cottages along the southern boundary are in their original location while the cottage near the entrance gate has been shifted from elsewhere on the site. The group of five dwellings originally stood as detached two-room cottages, each with a veranda to the east and a fireplace projecting to the north. They have been altered since construction. Later work has been carried out on the far east cottage including the addition of enclosed space to form a larger residence and the addition of a small entrance deck allowing it to be used as an office.
\nThe mill has been in continuous use since the 1930s. Following completion of the Hornibrook project, the mill continued to be operated by the Hornibrook subsidiary, Hamilton Sawmills. In the 1960s, the sawmill was purchased by Thurecht and Sons and then the Green family trading as Conondale Timbers. During the 1970s, the mill cut native hardwoods for use in house framing. About a third of production was brush-box used for flooring. It is one of the oldest known operating mills in the Sunshine Coast region.
\nThe sawmill is privately owned and not accessible to the public.
\n","criteria":"
The impressive scale of the sawmill shed with its prominent gable roof, substantial timber elements and towering crane and the tough industrial aesthetic projected by the weathered timber and corrugated galvanised iron elements give the mill site a powerful physical presence in the landscape and stands as a dramatic surprise in the quiet rural setting otherwise notable for its rolling timbered hills, grassed paddocks and smaller domestic and rural structures typical of this part of the Mary Valley.
|The Conondale Timbers Sawmill (early 1930s) is important in demonstrating the development of the State's timber industry insofar as it exemplifies sawmills established on the North Coast (now the Sunshine Coast) when it was one of the most important timber producing regions in the State. In the 1930s, when the mill was established, the North Coast produced the most hardwood in the State and contained more sawmills than anywhere else in Queensland. The mill drew on the area's abundant hardwood resources to supply the construction of the Hornibrook Bridge.
As a sawmill established to supply wood for the Hornibrook Bridge (1932 - 1935), the mill is also important in demonstrating the development of Queensland's road systems in the 1930s. The Hornibrook Bridge was built during a period following the establishment of the Main Roads Board (1920) when roads in South East Queensland were being upgraded to accommodate increased motor vehicle usage. The Hornibrook Bridge improved motor vehicle access to Redcliffe and so made an important contribution to its development.
|The sawmill was built by M.R. Hornibrook Pty Ltd to supply hardwood for the Hornibrook Bridge. As such, it has special association with one of the State's most important civil engineers and with the bridge, one of the most important engineering projects of the interwar period. Hornibrook constructed the William Jolly Bridge and played key roles in the construction of the Story Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. The Hornibrook Bridge was a major engineering accomplishment; at the time it was Australia's longest bridge. It had an important influence on the development of Redcliffe.
|The mill is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a steam driven hardwood sawmill of the 1930s with associated staff accommodation. The site includes the main sawmill shed housing the saws, benches and trolleys, the boiler and engine sheds, staff housing, log yard, crane and a creek from which water was drawn for the steam engine. Within the sawmill shed, the original layout of the mill has been largely preserved and follows the basic design principles for steam powered sawmills of the era. A saw sharpening room remains extant within this shed.
Though the steam engine and transmission system have now been removed, the plan and construction of the mill reveal their former location. Most of the original saws and ancillary equipment are also intact though modified to accommodate electric power. Extant saws include Canadian, frame, number one and pendulum docking saws arranged to allow efficient movement of the logs through the mill.
|The mill is one of the earliest known sawmills still operating in the North Coast region. It is uncommon in the region for its earliness, the intactness of its original fabric and layout, and its continuity of operation as a sawmill since the early 1930s. Economic and environmental factors, including the deregulation of the timber industry from the 1990s, have meant that intact sawmills from the interwar era are endangered and have become increasingly rare.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":514,"place_ref":602709,"name":"Public Air Raid Shelter, Landsborough Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cribb Street","suburb":"LANDSBOROUGH","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"The Landsborough Railway Station's public air raid shelter is situated on the southern end of the north-bound platform at Landsborough Railway Station on the Sunshine Coast line between Mooloolah and Beerwah.
The air raid shelter is a simple, box-shaped building constructed entirely from reinforced concrete. It is rectangular and symmetrical in plan and measures approximately 12.8 x 3.7 metres and is oriented north-south along the platform.
The shelter is accessed from the east by recessed entrance corridors at each end of the building. These are formed from internal blast walls which turn 90 degrees into the main internal space of the shelter. The floor of the internal space is bare ground and some graffiti has been applied to the internal walls over time. It has an internal height of approximately 2.5 metres.
The reinforced concrete walls and roof are approximately 300mm thick and 150-175mm thick respectively and have an off-form finish to both interior and exterior faces. The roof is flush with the walls and tapers to the outer edges. Eleven dog-legged ventilation slots are located along both the eastern and western elevations. The southern-most access corridor has been sealed with a recent solid-core door and the northern-most corridor, accessed via two concrete steps down to the shelter, has been closed off with a recent galvanised steel security gate.
The shelter is surrounded by a maintained garden to the south and west at ground level and by the raised concrete and bitumen station platform on the northern and eastern sides.
","history":"The reinforced concrete air raid shelter at the Landsborough railway station, built in 1942 by Queensland Rail, was designed to provide shelter, in the event of a Japanese air raid, for train passengers waiting at the railway station during World War II.
The Landsborough district was first settled in the 1870s and the North Coast railway reached Landsborough from Caboolture in February 1890. A railway station building was erected and by 1893 Landsborough was a refreshment stop for passengers, as it was approximately half-way between Brisbane and Gympie. Between 1890 and the 1930s Landsborough was an important transport centre for holiday makers at Caloundra to the east, and for farmers in the Blackall Range to the west.
During World War II the Landsborough station saw increased activity due to the military camps located in the area. An Australian Imperial Force bulk store was erected in Landsborough in May 1941, but after December 1941 military units were also stationed on the North Coast as part of the defence of Moreton Bay and Brisbane against the Japanese, and for training prior to deployment in the South West Pacific Theatre. For example, the Royal Australian Navy maintained a Signal Station on Caloundra Head, the Americans maintained a Radar Training School at Caloundra from early 1942 until 1943, and Australian artillery units trained at Battery Hill. Fortress troops were stationed on Bribie Island, Volunteer Defence Force units trained in the hinterland, and the 7th Division Australian Imperial Force also trained in the district in 1942, before being replaced by the 3rd Division (Militia).
There were about 2000 American troops, and up to 10,000 Australian troops, in Landsborough Shire at any one time, before training camps were relocated to the Atherton Tablelands in 1943. Many troops in the area would have arrived and departed from Landsborough railway station, and numerous troop trains also passed through Landsborough on their way to North Queensland, with some stopping for refreshments. After the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 many Australian and American troops and supplies were railed north on the single railway line to Cairns. In Mid 1942 a troop train full of American soldiers broke down at the Landsborough station.
The North Coast railway line was extremely busy during the war, and trains heading north and south on the single line had to be co-ordinated. The Caboolture to Gympie section had reached saturation point even before the war, and there was no scope for building crossing loops for trains to pass each other. However, 30 crossing loops were built between Maryborough and Cairns between 1940 and 1945. Ammunition trains had priority, followed by troop trains, and then civilian trains. Due to the resulting delays, the Allied Works Council erected special eating houses and kitchens, and temporary showers and toilets, alongside appropriate stations to cater for bored troops.
The construction of an air raid shelter at Landsborough railway station was probably linked to this increased wartime traffic, as well as to government regulations regarding the safety of the population. Regulation 35a, an amendment to the National Security (General) Regulations of the National Security Act 1939-1940, was notified in the Commonwealth Government Gazette on 11 December 1941 (as Statutory Rules 1941 No.287), and authorised each State Premier to direct 'blackouts' and to 'make such provision as he deems necessary to protect the persons and property of the civil population'.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Queensland's Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area (235 were built). Another 24 local governments in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be constructed according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1 (135 public shelters were built). Where local authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction.
A large number of businesses also built air raid shelters. The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 required the owners of any building in the coastal areas where over 30 people would normally be present at any one time to build shelters either within the building, or adjacent to it. At mines where over 30 people would normally be present on the surface, trench shelters were required near the pithead; and any powerhouse, gas works or pumping station related to the public supply of electricity, gas, or water was also required to build shelters.
Early in January 1942 the engineer P.H. Ainscow reported to the Lands Administration Board, Department of Lands, regarding the building of air raid shelters. He noted that concrete public shelters had been built close to railway stations at Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Gladstone, and Bundaberg, and recommended that shelters should be built near any important stations where large numbers of people waited for trains, for example at Innisfail and Mackay. In Australia the process of building public air-raid shelters at railway stations during World War II seems to have been unique to Queensland, probably because in early 1942 the state's railway network was the most vulnerable to Japanese air attack.
However, there was disagreement over who was responsible for building shelters at railway stations. In early February 1942 Queensland Railways claimed that local authorities should build public shelters near railway stations, rather than Queensland Railways having to build them on railway premises. At a conference in late February, the Secretary for Health and Home Affairs, E.M. Hanlon, stressed that if Queensland Railways did not act on building public air raid shelters it would make it harder for the State to insist that other businesses and local authorities do so. It was recommended that the department of Public Works proceed to construct shelters on or adjoining railway premises, with the numbers to be decided on by Public Works in consultation with the Commissioner for Railways.
On 2 March 1942 a memorandum from the Undersecretary of the Department of Public Works reported that Queensland Railways had already built shelters for its employees at some of the larger train stations, and it recommended that a further 28 full size public surface shelters, three half size shelters, and three sets of trenches, be built outside Brisbane. Most of the recommended surface shelters and trenches were on the North Coast railway line, at 19 stations from Nambour to Cairns. Shelters were also recommended for Mt Morgan, Kingaroy (trenches), Southport (two), Ipswich, and Toowoomba (two). Landsborough was not mentioned in this list. It was also noted that shelters had already been built (presumably those for railway employees) at Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, and Toowoomba (two).
By 23 March 1942 work on the public air raid shelters was in hand, after the Department of Public Works and Queensland Railways agreed to proceed in accordance with plans acceptable to both departments. Financial responsibility was accepted by Queensland Railways on the understanding that Commonwealth subsidies would be available.
A basic plan for Queensland Railways air raid shelters, dated 24 March 1942, shows a 42' long reinforced concrete shelter that was 12' 0.5" wide. The walls were 12" thick, with the front and back walls both having 11 dog-legged ventilation holes set high in the wall; and the roof, set flush with the side of the walls, was 6" to 7" thick. No concrete floor is indicated on the plan. The two entrances were 2'6" wide, and were located at each end of the front face of the shelter; recessed 3'6.5" back from the front wall. Internal blast walls form entrance corridors at each end that make a 90 degree turn into the main internal space of the shelter, which was 32'11" long by 10'0.5" wide, being 8'5" from floor to ceiling. This design is similar to the "pillbox" shelters used in the main streets of Brisbane.
The drawing was signed by Charles Da Costa, the Principal Railway Architect. Da Costa had been a specialist in reinforced concrete design for some time. He trained as a pupil of T. S. Martin of Sydney from 1905, joining Queensland Railways in 1907 as a Junior Draftsman. After retrenchment in 1921, he began private practise as an architect and structural designer in Brisbane. Later he worked for Burns Philp and Company, and in 1935 he rejoined Queensland Railways as an architect. He became Principal Architect in 1938 and retired in 1955.
From existing records, it appears that public air raid shelters at a number of railway stations, both within and outside Brisbane, shared a similar pillbox design. Known shelters of this type include the surviving shelters at Maryborough, Landsborough, Shorncliffe and Toowoomba, and demolished shelters at Gaythorne, Sandgate, Yeerongpilly, Caboolture, and South Brisbane. A possible pillbox shelter appears on a 1961 map of Townsville station, but it is labelled as a "Records Office". A 1948 Queensland Railways plan for converting an air raid shelter into a platform waiting shelter also shows the pillbox design. Other known post-war air raid shelter conversions include Shorncliffe (toilets), Sandgate (refreshment stall), and Caboolture (toilets).
The dimensions of the shelter at Landsborough match exactly the March 1942 plan signed by Da Costa, whereas the shelter at Shorncliffe has an overhanging roof slab. The surviving Maryborough shelter (two were built) appears to be a variant of the standard pillbox, where the doorways are close to the front wall and open directly into the main interior space of the shelter (facing towards the centre), rather than facing towards the rear of the shelter and leading into the narrower end sections. The Toowoomba railway station's two public shelters (one of which still exists) also used this entrance design.
Shelters appear to have been built at large stations, busy suburban commuter stations, and stations which had refreshment rooms. The latter would have been a vulnerable target for aircraft while passengers were disembarked for a meal. Queensland Railways station plans indicate that at least 23 stations on the North Coast line between Brisbane and Cairns had refreshment rooms at some time before World War II. At least five of these stations, plus possibly Townsville, had one or more air raid shelters marked on post-war site maps. These stations were Caboolture, Landsborough, Maryborough, Gladstone, and Rockhampton.
Of the public shelters built along the North Coast line, only the shelters at Landsborough and Maryborough still exist. In the Brisbane metropolitan area, most railway public shelters were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s, and only the Shorncliffe shelter has survived. The only other known surviving railway public shelter in Queensland is at Toowoomba railway station.
","criteria":"The place is a rare surviving example of a public air raid shelter built by Queensland Railways during World War II. It is one of only two railway station shelters surviving on the North Coast railway line, the other being located at Maryborough. Only four such shelters survive in Queensland, the only Australian state to build air raid shelters at railway stations.
|The shelter is a good example of a public air raid shelter designed by Queensland Railways during World War II to provide protection for the travelling public during air raids. Characteristic of air raid shelters constructed in Queensland, it is sited to accommodate a floating population concentration, is rectangular in plan, has reinforced concrete blast walls and roof, two entrances to the same side and dog-legged air vents to the long sides.
|The Landsborough Railway Station Public Air Raid Shelter is important as a surviving component of the Air Raid Precautions that were implemented as part of the defence of Queensland during World War II. Designed to afford protection for civilian and military travellers at Landsborough railway station in the event of a Japanese air raid, the shelter is important in demonstrating the impact of World War II on Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":654,"place_ref":602682,"name":"Crohamhurst Observatory (former)","alternate_name":"SEQ-1F 4","street_address":"131 Crohamhurst Road","suburb":"CROHAMHURST","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"A site visit was not granted to this property. This description is based on information observed from the property boundary and obtained from the photographic collection at the Cultural Heritage Branch, Queensland Environmental Protection Agency.
Crohamhurst Observatory is sited on the southern side of Crohamhurst Road north of Peachester and adjoins Crohamhurst State Forest. The Observatory is set on the summit of a dome-shaped hill on maintained, open lawn and is surrounded by mature hoop pine trees.
Crohamhurst Observatory comprises a 1935 observatory building and numerous in-ground meteorological devices. A gravel driveway leads from the front gate on Crohamhurst Road to the observatory building.
The observatory building is a single-storey timber-framed structure set on low timber stumps. It is rectangular in plan with verandahs to the north and east which have been enclosed with weatherboard cladding and casement windows. It has a hipped roof with louvred gablets to the north, east and west and a small gable over the entry. The roof is clad in corrugated fibre-cement sheeting and has no eaves gutters. Cladding to all elevations is weatherboard. A shed-like structure has been added to south-west corner of the building.
The internal walls and ceilings of the observatory building are lined with fibre-cement sheeting with timber cover strips. Internal doors are timber joinery and the floor has been lined with linoleum. Some half-height walls and counters open on to the enclosed verandahs.
Several meteorological devices are visible around the site including a Stevenson Screen to the north-east of the observatory building which consists of a small louvred timber enclosure set on a steel frame approximately 1.2 metre high. To the north of the Stevenson Screen are the remains of other meteorological devices which consist of a concrete strip with various pipes cut off at ground level sunk into it.
To the east of the observatory building are other meteorological devices including deep earth temperature pits formed from clay pipes covered with sheet metal caps which protrude approximately 300mm out of the ground. A 1952 memorial plaque to the east of the observatory building marks the site of a telescope which has been removed. Other elements include a concrete sundial stand to the west of the Stevenson Screen.
A grassed pathway leads along the treed fence line to Crohamhurst Creek. A row of mature hoop pines has been planted along the northern fence line. Entry to the site is marked by a miniature Stevenson screen serving as a letterbox.
","history":"Crohamhurst Observatory was constructed in 1935 on Inigo Jones' property Crohamhurst, near Peachester. It was built for use by Jones as the site of solar and planetary observations and weather measurements used in long-range weather forecasting, and as the headquarters of his forecasting service. As such it is important in demonstrating the role of weather observing and recording in the history of Queensland and is a rare example of land use for long-range weather forecasting purposes. Inigo Jones was a well-known long-range weather forecaster throughout Australia from the 1920s until his death in 1954 and Crohamhurst Observatory has a special association with his life and work.
Meteorological observation and recording by Europeans in Australia commenced with the arrival of the First Fleet and spread across the continent with the tide of settlement. By the end of the 19th century the importance of meteorology was recognised and most colonies had established their own meteorological services, including Queensland from 1887. They prepared daily weather charts, issued forecasts and had begun the development of a climatological data bank. Following Federation, the Commonwealth Government assumed national responsibility for meteorological services when legislation creating the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology was passed in 1906. From its inception until the late 1980s the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology concentrated upon providing accurate short-term weather forecasts and creating a record of Australian weather observations. Finally in the 1990s, Australian scientists emerged as experts in the preparation of seasonal outlooks for the practical application to agriculture and other sectors.
Interest in predicting long-range weather trends dated from the middle of the 19th century, at the same time that meteorological observation was establishing itself as a scientific pursuit to enable daily weather forecasting. The appearance of spots on the surface of the sun had been the source of conjecture for a long time. Around the middle of the 19th century it was recognised that the number of sunspots increased and decreased on a regular cycle of around 11 years. The hypothesis was that as the sun dominates our experience of weather, then the sunspot cycle might set in motion regular changes in the Earth's climate. Consequently, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many scientists and enthusiastic amateurs embarked on the hunt for climatic cycles, believing that if such patterns could be found, then it might be possible to forecast the weather months, perhaps years ahead.
In Queensland, German-born MLA, Theodore Unmack, who took control of the Postmaster-General's department, including the weather office, in 1890, became 'convinced of the vast importance of seasonal forecasts' to Queensland. He asked the Queensland Government Meteorologist, Clement Wragge, to investigate and in particular to examine the work of Austrian scientist, Eduard Bruckner, who claimed to have discovered a 35-year cycle in the climatic records of Europe. Although initially sceptical, Wragge began to investigate the use of this 'Bruckner cycle', combined with the well-known 11 year sunspot cycle, as the basis for long-range weather forecasting.
Other climatic cycle research in the second half of the 19th century related fluctuations in atmospheric pressure with rainfall. These 'teleconnections' between weather conditions in different parts of the world such as simultaneous drought in India and Australia, named the Southern Oscillations, were documented and their potential use in seasonal prediction demonstrated. This was later recognised as a climate predicting tool in conjunction with the El Nino (ENSO).
Meanwhile, there was a growing clamour for long-range forecasts in Australia from those dependent upon the land, especially from farmers, which the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology did little to fulfil. This appetite was met in part by Inigo Jones who from 1923 until his death in 1954 provided long-range seasonal weather forecasts from Crohamhurst and Brisbane, depending on his residence.
Inigo Owen Jones was born in England at Croydon, Surrey in 1872, the son of civil engineer, Owen Jones and his wife, Emilie Susanne, née Bernoulli. Arriving in Brisbane on 4 November 1874 on the ship Darling Downs, Jones resided in Brisbane while his father was employed by the Queensland government as an engineer designing roads and railways. Later the family resided in Owanyilla near Maryborough, and Gympie. He was educated from age 11 until 1888 at the Brisbane Grammar School and completed the University of Sydney Junior Examination.
In 1888 he left school to take up employment at the Queensland Meteorological Bureau working for Clement Lindley Wragge, who had been appointed Colonial Meteorologist in 1887. At the Queensland Meteorological Bureau, Jones was trained in taking weather readings. He worked there until his family left Brisbane in late 1892 to take up residence on a property near Peachester, that they named Crohamhurst after Lord Goschen's Surrey estate.
Although engaged in agricultural work on his parents' property for the next 35 years, Inigo Jones continued his daily weather recordings. He achieved lasting recognition of his meteorological observations when on 2 February 1893 he recorded the highest daily rainfall in Australia (35.71 inches or 907 mm) at Crohamhurst.
Motivated by his understanding that farmers and pastoralists needed reliable long-range weather predictions, Inigo Jones pursued the previous work on long-range weather forecasting undertaken by his mentor, Clement Wragge. From 1923 onwards Jones issued the long-range weather forecasts, based on astronomical observations and the repetition of weather cycles, for which he became famous. Through his correspondence with Cyrus Macfarlane the science writer for Brisbane's Daily Mail newspaper, Jones gained his first weather forecast publication. In 1927 Inigo Jones moved to Brisbane where he was paid for articles and forecasts printed in three Brisbane newspapers. He also published articles in the Producer which was issued by the Council of Agriculture, in Country Life from 1931 and in The Land from circa 1936. He resided in Brisbane with his family until Easter 1935.
Recognition and support of Inigo Jones' work came in the late 1920s. In October 1928 the Queensland Government appointed Jones as director of the Bureau of Seasonal Forecasting of the Council of Agriculture. In the same month the Inigo Jones Seasonal Weather Forecasting Trust was formed with contributions from governments and industry, with the Lord Mayor of Brisbane as Chairman. The Trust raised funds to further Jones' research and successfully lobbied the Queensland State Government to provide an annual subsidy. In 1931 a branch was established in Sydney also with its Lord Mayor as chairman. In 1942 the Long-Range Weather Forecasting Trust, a non-profit body, was established by organisations within primary industry and with further financial assistance from the Queensland Government to enable Jones to pursue his research at Crohamhurst until his death in 1954.
Although two Ministerially-commissioned investigations concluded that his forecasting methods had no scientific basis, the demand for his forecasts remained and after his death the service continued.
Jones' long-range forecasts were based on a complicated series of cycles linking planetary movements and sun spots. He saw the whole solar system as simply a vast electromagnetic machine automatically controlled by the magnetic fields of the planets, which applies among other things, to the seasons. Therefore, if it were known what the conditions were when the same planets stood in the same relation in the past, we could know what conditions would arise now and in the future.
Jones' forecasts were widely distributed and acclaimed during the 1920s and 1930s. Tim Sherratt, one of Inigo Jones' biographers regarded Jones as the most celebrated amongst the ranks of Australia's 'weather prophets'. Another biographer, John Hogan, wrote in 1969 that of all the non-official weather forecasters who had practised in Australia, particularly in the field of long-range forecasting, there was no-one so widely known throughout the whole continent, and with so great a following of supporters, as Inigo Jones, whose forecasts were in great demand. In 1938 the Land newspaper organised a survey of its readers' opinions of Jones' predictive powers and over the following months published extracts from many. Of the 102 letters received from all over rural New South Wales, only three opposed government funding for Inigo Jones and most attested his accuracy. According to the Canberra Times, Inigo Jones was 'one of the outstanding figures' of the 1939 Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) meeting in Canberra. Jones was a determined battler whose 'fight for recognition as a long range forecaster' had begun in the early 1920s. Although he had received some support from the Queensland government, the newspaper noted that Commonwealth authorities had been 'stubbornly turning deaf ears to his claims'.
Newspaper cartoons' such as the Weg's Day cartoon which appeared in the Melbourne Herald Sun on 14 January 1954 lampooning the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau's forecasting in favour of Inigo Jones' predictions attest to Jones' high profile as a weather forecaster.
Jones won recognition from rural and financial organisations such as the Graziers' Association of NSW, the Queensland Council of Agriculture, CSR Co, and Dalgety and Co, and received much encouragement in his work, as well as aid to finance his observatory so that his work might continue. He held memberships to a number of esteemed overseas organisations. Jones was elected a Fellow of the Astronomical Society in November 1935. He was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and a member of the Astronomical Society of France the American Meteorological Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Australia New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Jones also was a member of a variety of Queensland societies that reflected his wide-ranging interests the Queensland Astronomical Society, Royal Society of Queensland, Historical Society of Queensland and the Town Planning Association of Queensland.
Jones' persistent attempts to have his predictive methods recognised as soundly based, by any substantial body of accredited scientific opinion, failed. A committee of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology reviewed his system in the late 1930s but rejected his ideas. In the early 1950s persistent agitation for official recognition of Jones' forecasting methods led to the Federal Minister for the Interior establishing a committee to conduct a Departmental investigation into Jones' activities and claims. This committee showed that Jones¿ forecasts had only a 50 per cent chance of being correct. Biographer, Tim Sherratt, believes that even if Jones' predictions were not valid, he was providing farmers with data on average seasonal conditions in a form that they could use and understand. It may have been that not only the content of his forecasts was important, but the way landholders integrated them with their own knowledge of the local environment.
The observatory building at Crohamhurst, which was financed by the Seasonal Weather Forecasting Trust and the Colonial Sugar Refining Co., was opened on
13 August 1935 by the Queensland Governor Sir Leslie Wilson, Inigo Jones' friend and supporter. The Queensland government helped with operating expenses and declared the site a reserve for scientific purposes. Other funding was obtained through money earned from the press and by direct gifts from persons and institutions.
The observatory building was sited on a dome-shaped hill adjoining the road. Jones explained in 1937 that the building was designed to enable maximum comfort under the climatic conditions. The observatory was built of fibro-cement for roof and walls, open to the north and east for light and air passage, and closed to the south and west, where double walls kept out the cold and hot winds. There were verandahs along the east and north elevations. The building consisted of a large computing room and a laboratory and provision was made for additions when required at the south-east corner. Sited near the observatory were Jones' deep earth temperature pits, consisting of drilled holes lined with clay pipes, from which he took temperature readings at varying depths up to 10.67 metres (35 feet) below the earth's surface. These observations were designed to ascertain the 'solar constant of radiation'. Temperature readings were also taken from the nearby Crohamhurst Creek. A Stevenson screen (a vented box) housed instruments such as a thermometer for measuring temperature, barometer for measuring barometric pressure and hygrometer for measuring humidity. Three telescopes were used for solar observation.
The purpose of Crohamhurst Observatory was to take daily observations of the sun and of all weather conditions. These were used to test the possibility of the immediate solar control of the weather; to test the application of these possibilities to the weather of Australia; to issue forecasts to those newspapers and publications that supported the observatory; and to test the hypothesis of seasonal repetitions through cycles.
By the mid-1940s Jones, in his seventies, was considering the fate of his property and his life work after his demise. Jones wrote to the Department of Forestry offering land for forestry purposes in December 1946. He had already made experimental tree plantings on his property including a row of hoop pines on the northern boundary, and believed the land best used for that purpose. The offer was later increased to include 100 acres in total. This land was transferred to the government on 14 October 1947. In January 1950 Jones approached the Forestry Department again to offer more land to be held as a reserve for forestry until after the demise of himself and his wife. This land included that upon which Jones' house and garden stood. This offer was accepted and the land was leased by Inigo and his wife Marion.
Following Inigo Jones' death on 14 November 1954 the area was gazetted as Timber Reserve 743 (124 acres) which included the area previously described as part Portion 158. After his wife Marion passed away on 2 June 1960 the land of Crohamhurst farm, but not the separate Observatory reserve, was returned to the Forestry Department for forestry usage. The whole reserve was named 'Crohamhurst Forest'.
In his latter years Jones had been concerned about the continuation of his work and keen to train an assistant for this purpose. A house designed by Jones' son-in-law was built in 1951 approximately 40 metres from the Observatory. This was occupied by Jones' assistant, and in 1953 he employed (Robert) Lennox Walker who, following Army service in World War II, had trained and worked as a forester and surveyor in Victoria and Queensland.
Crohamhurst Observatory continued operations after Inigo's death when his work was assumed by Lennox Walker. In August 1993 Walker applied to freehold Special lease 41606 and the area which included the historic Crohamhurst Observatory. This was freeholded when Walker purchased the land and the commercial timber from the Crown. The building subsequently left the ownership of the Walker family and has ceased to be used as a centre for long-range weather forecasting.
Inigo Jones' role in the field of long-range weather forecasting in Queensland continued to be recognised well after his death. On 25 February 1982 the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia unveiled a plaque at Crohamhurst Observatory to commemorate Inigo Jones. This is located on the site of the platform he used for astronomy observations.
Recent changes to Crohamhurst Observatory include an extension to the south-west and enclosing the northern verandah. Equipment and charts used by Jones have been removed in recent years. However, the deep earth temperature pits and the Stevenson screen which sheltered instruments from direct sunlight, wind and rain, remain in situ.
","criteria":"Crohamhurst Observatory with its observatory building and surviving meteorological equipment dating from the 1930s is important in demonstrating the evolution of weather forecasting and recording in Queensland. It is the site of nationally-recognised long-range weather forecasting undertaken for dissemination throughout Australia and provides important early evidence of the techniques used.
The establishment and funding of the Crohamhurst Observatory with support from businesses, government departments and individuals demonstrates the growing community belief, starting in the nineteenth century, that through scientific research and understanding, humans could solve all problems, including withstanding future weather events through long-range weather prediction.
It also demonstrates the importance of long-range weather forecasting to the rural communities of Australia which encouraged and largely financed the observatory. This enthusiasm and demand is evidenced by the wide distribution of these forecasts throughout Australia in journals, newspapers, published material and correspondence.
|Crohamhurst Observatory is rare as the only known long-range weather forecasting observatory in Queensland. Its purpose-built observatory building and surviving open-air meteorological apparatus including deep earth temperature pits, Stevenson Screen and other meteorological devices provide rare surviving evidence of the early practice of long-range weather forecasting, an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Crohamhurst Observatory has a strong association with the life and work of Inigo Jones, well-known long-range weather forecaster throughout Queensland and Australia, from the 1920s until his death in 1954.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":668,"place_ref":602152,"name":"Warwick General Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wentworth Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"The northern end of the Warwick General Cemetery has the oldest graves and from the northern end the cemetery is divided into the old section which includes the Pagan, Jewish, Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian, Catholic and Church of England sections. The southern end towards Lancaster Street is also divided into sections. The highest point of the Warwick General Cemetery is dominated by the Mitchner Memorial with the land descending gradually down to Wentworth and Lancaster Streets and the council depot and on the western elevation the terrain declines to a flatter area used as the lawn cemetery.
The Wentworth Street cyclone wire fence is divided by gates hinged on sandstone pillars that mark the entrance to each section. Within the monumental cemetery roads and pathways form a grid pattern and dividing it into denominational sections, while a road separates the lawn graves from the monumental sections. At its northern end this road curves separating the pagan and Methodist sections before straightening near the central north south road.
The most prominent structure in the cemetery is the Mitchner Memorial Shelter-shed, to one side of the central roadway and in the Church of England section. This memorial is octagonal in shape with 430-mm English bond brickwork with fine white pointing. The openings on the four points of the compass have gothic arches while alternative walls have a pair of smaller unglazed gothic arches.
Surmounting the octagonal corrugated iron roof is a ventilated octagonal timber belfry with a bell installed. The belfry and roofs have wide low-pitched gables over each door. Each corner is delineated by buttresses and stuccoed bands give an horizontal emphasis. The arch of all openings also has stucco surround. These bands are external and internal.
The floor is concrete while the ceiling is tongue and groove with eight iron ties radiating out from a central circle. Long timber pew-like seats abut walls. A sandstone vault is centrally located, on each end is a marble plaque with cross and the eastern aspect has a marble tablet inscribed:
The William Mitchner Memorial
This shelter shed is the gift of William Mitchner for the benefit of the public
Under this stone lies his body
Born August 2nd 1841
Died Jude 1st 1918
A marble bust stands on a marble slab above the sarcophagus.
Complementing this 1926 rest area and nearby on the south is an E-shaped columbarium [c.1972], protected on the east by a modern garden.
Many of the tombstones are by local stone masons, including James McCulloch, and others were transported from afar. Gravestones vary from simple upright tablets to more elaborate late Victorian types, including obelisks, broken columns, Celtic and Calvary crosses, urn-topped columns, horizontal slabs with tablets and more modern heart shaped memorials. War graves are simple white slabs with the brass tablet.
An unusual memorial is a bodystone, a horizontal tombstone in the shape of a burial casket. An 1908 memorial in memory of a wife who died shortly after her marriage is a marble angel that appears to drops fresh flowers onto his beloved's grave. A 1924 memorial to a young man features a football and a broken column symbolising a life cut short. A large 1939 monument near the Lawn Cemetery has a pink granite base below crafted sandstone with an urn framed by columns. The 1942 grave of a farmer who studied taxidermy has a small kingfisher in a glass-fronted niche at the base of his heart shaped polished black granite headstone. This tombstone is further embellished with fern sprays and a dove in flight.
Inscriptions can provide biographical information, personal history and cause of death. The 1866 gravestone of Elizabeth Diamond Hammersley includes that she died at Glengallan and was a servant to John Deuchar. The words on the McLeod tombstone, which includes the names of a three-year old and 8-month old child who both died in September 1864, suggest an epidemic or tragedy. A rough headstone of a man killed accidentally has the words 'Thy Will Be Done'. Martin Otto Roggenkamp's inscription not only provides date of birth and death it also includes his occupation of painter. Inscriptions often include place of birth, words such as 'native of Westmeath, Ireland' and 'born Taunton Somerset England'. Inscriptions also reveal if it is a monument for a single person or several persons, and usually provides the relationships. In the Jewish section there is a memorial to two young children. The inscription is in both Hebrew and English. The few extant Chinese memorials are tablets with inscriptions in Chinese characters.
Grave plots can be for a single person or a family group. Some of the older graves have cast-iron picket fencing such as the Clark family's which also has a gate. The majority of graves have a concrete kerbing.
While pine trees are along the road beside the Lawn Cemetery few exist in the older parts of the cemetery. Graves often seem crowded in this older section and the paths and graves do not have the rigid grid layout as in the post-1930s sections.
The cemetery is well maintained, however, in the older sections some monuments have deteriorated and others lean at oblique angles.
","history":"The first section of the Warwick General Cemetery was surveyed in 1850, when the town of Warwick was officially laid out, and the earliest burial is understood to have been in 1853. Warwick General Cemetery is located to the west of the CBD, on an elevated area near a bend in the Condamine River. While the size of the cemetery has changed it has always been organised with denominational sections and includes monuments and memorials pertaining to those who lived in Warwick and the surrounding district, including the prominently situated William Mitchner Shelter-shed.
Alan Cunningham's exploration of the southern Darling Downs in 1827 first revealed the potential of the Darling Downs for pastoral and agricultural usage. In the 1840s pastoralists moved into the area, and in the late 1840s the township of Warwick was established by the NSW colonial government as an administrative and service centre for the surrounding pastoral district. An initial survey of the town was undertaken in 1849, with further survey in 1850. The latter included 8 acres reserved as general cemetery, to the northwest of the township. The first sale of Warwick town lots took place in July 1850.
While deaths and burials occurred in the region and there are early graves on pastoral properties, the first known burial in the Warwick General Cemetery was that of Thomas Howard in 1853. On 23 February 1864 a Deed of Grant was issued to three trustees for 2 acres of land for sole use as by the Church of England. It does not seem that the other denominations acquired such a document. Subsequently an area to the west and north to the Condamine River of the burial grounds became a reserve for extension of the general cemetery.
Management of this cemetery has often been controversial. A visitor to the region complained in 1859 that the cemetery needed a pig-proof fence. Complaints about the cemetery continued with comments about locals using it for their dairy cows being raised by an alderman in Council in late March 1867. The 1865 Cemeteries Act provided for the regulation of cemeteries throughout Queensland and required Trustees to make by-laws in accordance with the Act. After public meetings in January 1868 the names of five denominational Warwick General Cemetery trustees were gazetted in June 1868. The Trustees formulated regulations and charges. Prior to this no cemetery records existed, however, cemetery transcriptions revealed 11 burials in the Methodist section, 5 in the Presbyterian, 19 in the Catholic and 25 in the Anglican section, pre-1868.
In 1898 the Trustees believed that more land for burial purposes was required. As the area reserved for extension included low-lying land liable to flood from the Condamine River they asked for Portions 328 and 333 to the south of a road and the road adjoining the cemetery to be added as it would allow extension of the Church of England and Roman Catholic sections. Warwick Cemetery Reserve was gazetted on 10 June 1899; it included the additional land. However it was not until 25 March 1908 that the Queensland Governor signed a Deed of Grant in Trust that named five Trustees for a Cemetery Reserve of 56½ acres.
The Trustees' income was derived from sale of gravesites, interments and donations and they had to pay the sexton's salary and maintenance costs. They were conservative with expenditure - for example not fencing the additional land until overcrowding warranted this in 1903. However, in 1911 the cemetery Trustees used 500 pegs of recent design manufactured locally by R Reyburn Warwick Foundry to replace wooden grave pegs. By 1917 Prickly Pear became a major problem for the Trustees. To assist with its eradication they sought permission, unsuccessfully, for selling off about 26 acres.
In January 1914 the Cemetery Trustees proposed erecting a cemetery rest-house. Local architects Dornbusch and Connolly had prepared plans and specifications and had estimated the cost of the timber structure with red asbestos roof tiles at £100. The core was to be 12-foot wide with 6-foot arms stretching out on the four compass corners, and was to be located where two pathways intersected at right angles. An earlier scheme was for a shelter to stand near the centre, on an intersection where the principal roadways intersected. The structure would 'harmonise with the foliage of the trees'. While the community obviously felt the need, a shelter-shed was not erected until a bequest from William Mitchner enabled its construction.
A dominant landmark, erected in 1926, the octagonal William Mitchner Shelter-shed is a single-storey, brick and tin building situated in the middle of the Warwick General Cemetery. German born William Mitchner of Allora died in Toowoomba on 1 June 1918. Under his will, £1,500 was to be used to erect a memorial shelter-shed. He left explicit instructions in his will, including that it was to be built of brick and was 'to contain in the left hand wing thereof a marble monument with an emblem of a simple marble cross resting thereon, the said monument to be surrounded with iron railings and to be inscribed as follows: - 'This Shelter-shed is the gift of William Mitchner for the benefit of the Public' and the date of his birth and death. The shelter shed was to include a vault for his body and on or near this a plaster bust of himself. To enhance the structure he wanted an appropriate steeple, bell and belfry. The vault and bust were to cost £150 and bell could cost between £150 and £200. The Cemetery Trustees were to invest £200 and use the income for the maintenance of the shelter and bust. The bell was to be tolled whenever a funeral was approaching. He also set aside £800 for a smaller shelter shed at the Allora Cemetery.
William Mitchner, born on 2 August 1841 in Germany, arrived in Allora about 1872 where he gained employment as a fireman or engineer in fellow German Francis Kates' flourmill. Later he was a storekeeper in the shop that was replaced by the Commercial Hotel. He acquired interests in Allora, Warwick and Toowoomba and his death certificate gave his occupation as an investor. His inventory for probate revealed an estate of over $30,000. Mitchner left bequests to both the Warwick and Toowoomba hospitals, money for the Anglican and Catholic churches in both Warwick and Allora and money for the erection of an Anglican Church in Hendon.
He also left money to his relatives and hometown in Germany. As Australia was at war with Germany in 1918 legal problems arose from this bequest. The distribution of his estate went to the Full Court in Brisbane in 1921 and on appeal to the High Court of Australia in 1922. Perhaps these legal issues explain why the memorial shelter shed was not put out to tender until 1926.
Established Warwick architects Dornbusch and Connolly, who accepted the tender of Phil Thornton for £1,236 in February 1926, designed the William Mitchner Shelter-shed. This octangular brick and cement structure was designed with a bell tower and seating accommodation inside. It did not have the wing's detailed in Mitchner's will but the shelter-shed does include a vault with marble crosses at ether end and marble plaque giving his details but no iron railing. In 1926 the Warwick and Allora Cemetery Trustees agreed to share the cost of a clay model for the bust. However, it is thought that Charles Astley created the Allora Mitchner bust and Petrie's Stonemasons were involved with the Warwick sculpture.
As the Cemetery Trustees died, moved out of the district, or resigned, the pertinent religious denomination appointed their replacements, although these appointments were not always gazetted. By September 1936 there were only two gazetted Trustees even though Churches had nominated new appointees. Meanwhile, there had been no Trustee meeting since 24 December 1933 and the Warwick City Council had been looking after the cemetery. While it was government policy to vest Cemetery Reserves in local councils, the Trustees were keen to retain their positions believing that as volunteers they saved taxpayers money especially as the cemetery was in the Shire of Rosenthal and not within the Warwick City boundaries.
Warwick City Council complained in February 1938 to the Lands Department about the cemetery's condition. A memo from the Toowoomba Land Office to Brisbane commented that the Cemetery Reserve comprised 52½ acres including the original 8 acres. The Trustees had recently surveyed 5 new sections with spaces for 500 graves marked off in good order and proper alignment. The southern boundary fence, along Lancaster Street, was renewed and a painted sawn picket fence with suitable gates was erected along the eastern boundary, Wentworth Street, and the northern and western boundaries were adequately fenced. A properly formed gravelled roadway lead from the main entrance and most paths were well maintained although some were much overgrown with grass. The shelter shed containing the remains of William Mitchner in a vault was being repaired and painted at the time of inspection.
It was in 1938 that the Warwick City Council proposed the construction of a sewerage treatment works in the northern section of the cemetery. The Council sought Lands permission to divide the cemetery into two land parcels, with the southern part for Cemetery purposes and the northern for its Sewerage Treatment Works. For various controversial reasons, it was not until late 1940 that legislation was passed that vested Warwick City Council as the new Trustees of the cemetery. The Council's sewerage works were completed during the 1940s.
In 1948 the Warwick City Council and Imperial War Graves Commission agreed to the establishment of a War Graves Civil Cemetery within the Warwick General Cemetery, a section to be dedicated to memorials to those lost in the First and Second World Wars. Initially this was for 21 plots.
Council set aside a section of land for a columbarium in 1964. However, the first internment was not until 1972.
In the early 1970s the Warwick City Council established a council depot for machinery and road making materials on part of the northern cemetery reserve, between the cemetery and the sewerage works. By 1974 the Cemetery Reserve was being used for three functions: that of Cemetery, Works Depot and Sewerage Treatment Works. Because it was necessary to gazette the three different uses of this reserve the Deed of Grant upon Trust for the Cemetery was surrendered in 1976 so that Lands could re-survey the land, dedicate roads and issue new Deeds of Grant.
Gazettal of the Warwick Shire Council as Trustees of the three reserves did not occur until 16 May 1997. At this time the former cemetery reserve bounded by the Condamine River in the north, Wentworth Street, Lancaster Street, Taylor Street and Lots 325 and 326 became a reserve for sewerage, a council depot and a reserve for cemeteries, crematoriums and mortuaries. The cemetery was reduced to an area of 13.63 HA (30 acres) and is separated from the depot by a road. While it is still located to the west of the CBD, it no longer includes the low-lying area adjoining a bend in the Condamine River as that area is used for other local government purposes.
In the late 1990s the Australian War Graves office refurbished the Warwick War Cemetery [located within Warwick General Cemetery] for $30,000 and this section includes a new lawn cemetery, columbarium and memorials to all fallen servicemen. It was re-opened on 12 April 1998, the same day that 28 trees were planted along Wentworth Street, opposite the Warwick War Graves, and dedicated in honour of the 28 original 'Dungaree' recruits who departed Warwick on 16 November 1915 for service in the First World War.
There are many extant early graves and memorials in this burial ground. They include an 1863 grave of James Jackson who is credited with the founding of Freemasonry in Queensland. His grave is still maintained by the Warwick Masons. An early doctor, Dr Jonathon Labatt born in Ireland in 1808 and died in 1869, lobbied for a vaccine institution on the Downs. Accidents often caused deaths. Octavius Frederick Farquharson aged 22 was buried in 1867 after a fall from his horse.
Andrew Fitzherbert (Herbert) Evans died in 1870; he was Warwicks first Clerk of Petty Sessions and he purchased the land that became the first part of the Cemetery Reserve. St George Richard Gore William who died in 1871, was an early pastoralist, the district's first state parliamentarian and Queensland's first Minister of Lands and Public Works. Scottish born John Deuchar worked for the pastoralist Leslie brothers before established his own merino sheep station in 1855 and in 1867 built his two-storey homestead, the well-known Glengallen [600007]. Deuchar was responsible for monuments in memory of his many employees and servants. He died in 1872 and was survived by his wife who is also buried in the Deuchar family plot. Another politician's grave is that of James Morgan who died in 1878. Morgan was instrumental in Warwick becoming a municipality in 1861, was an alderman in the first council, editor of the Warwick Argus, and the local state politician 1869-70 and 1873-76. Not all graves are those of important people, a South Sea Islander was buried in 1879 and another in 1881, and an 1880 grave is that of James Caulfield who died as a result of a railway blasting operation.
There are numerous children's graves as child mortality used to be high. The Clark family contains a gravestone to three children; Maria died in 1866, her 3-year old brother and an 18 day old sister on 21 August 1872. Their father, Charles Clark moved to the Darling Downs in 1861 where he and a partner established the first flourmill in Warwick. In 1868 Charles and his brother George bought Old Talgai which became well known for high-grade merino wool.
Warwick General Cemetery includes monuments for immigrants such as that of Frederich Reimers. He was born in Schleswich-Holstein in 1839, settled in the municipality of Warwick during the 1860s becoming a local cabinetmaker and undertaker. He died in 1915. Warwick's first stonemason, Scottish born John McCulloch established his business in 1863 on the corner of Wood and Dragon Streets. He was responsible for many of the cemetery monuments and his name is associated with masonry buildings such as St Marks Church, the courthouse, town hall and railway goods shed. He died in 1918.
A 1944 grave is that of Monsignor Michael Potter who founded the Warwick Catholic Young Men's Society in 1894. He was nicknamed 'the Builder', as he was responsible for the construction of several rural churches, and Warwick's St Marys Cathedral and Christian Brothers College. The Sterne family plot includes Warwick born Henry Sterne who died in 1954. He was an Alderman for 28 years and editor of the Warwick Examiner and Times for 29 years. Buried beside him is his second wife Elizabeth Sterne OBE who was involved with various community organisations such as the Country Women's Association.
Early pastoralists imported Chinese to work as shepherds, servants and gardeners and after the discovery of gold and tin in the district more Chinese moved to the area. Between 1875 and 1897 there were 24 Chinese buried in the pagan section, with a further 20 between 1990 and 1919. While many of the remains of those interred in this cemetery were later sent home to China and other markers have been lost, there are still marked graves in the pagan section of the cemetery. The Council is currently considering how to fence this area and recognise the contribution of these immigrants to the development of the district.
","criteria":"Warwick General Cemetery is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history in that it provides evidence of the occupations, social status and demography of the Warwick district, particularly displaying the diversity of the town's cultural, religious and ethnic groups since the 1850s.
Warwick General Cemetery has significance as one of the oldest cemeteries in Queensland. Brisbane's two oldest extant cemeteries are Dunwich Cemetery gazetted in 1849 and the Nundah Cemetery which dates from the 1840s. The Toowoomba Drayton cemetery like that at Warwick was surveyed in 1850. Thomas Ayers was buried in the Drayton cemetery on 11 September 1850 and the earliest know Warwick Cemetery burial occurred in 1853.
|Warwick General Cemetery survives as a good example of its type, with a variety of headstones and monuments illustrating changing public attitudes to commemoration of the dead. While monuments and headstones vary in size, quality and condition they reflect the social, religious and architectural history of Warwick from the 1850s to the 21st century.
|The form and design of the shelter-shed and its dominating central position exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community as do the diversity of headstones, grounds, and formal arrangement of graves.
|The large masonry Mitchner Shelter-shed, designed by prominent Warwick architects Dornbusch and Connolly, was a given to the community by William Mitchner for the benefit of the community as a roofed rest area for use during internments, when visiting, refuge from the weather and as a meeting place. It has a special association with the Warwick community for social, cultural and spiritual reasons.
|The cemetery has a special association with many notable individuals and families who have contributed to the historical evolution of Warwick and district and to the mythology associated with pastoral and pioneering life.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":691,"place_ref":602199,"name":"Oddfellows Home Hotel (former)","alternate_name":"Harp of Erin","street_address":"cnr Wantley Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-07-06","description":"Located on the corner of Wantley Street and Wood Street, the main road out of Warwick to the south and west, the Oddfellows Home Hotel is a single storey timber building with a corrugated iron hipped roof. U-shaped in plan, it is positioned near the southwest corner of a large block, close to the street alignments.
\nThe building has been built in stages and is somewhat modified. It is a timber framed building set on very low stumps and clad in chamfer boards. The building is at the level of the footpath on Wood Street and falls slightly to the rear. Originally a simple L-shaped plan of two single storey wings, the building has been extended at the eastern end of the Wood Street wing. The oldest part of the building is clad in very wide chamfer boards, approximately 10-11 inches and lined with wide horizontal beaded boards.
\nThe steeply pitched roof is timber framed and clad in painted corrugated iron. It has no overhangs as the former hotel was originally built with verandahs. The front verandahs were replaced by enclosed skillion roofed bays which have recently been demolished. On the western or Wantley Street elevation the floor, framing and stumps of the enclosed bay remains. The rear U-shaped verandah is of relatively recent construction. The low pitched roof of this verandah conceals the top of a transom light over a rear door.
\nThe south elevation facing Wood Street is clad in the wide chamfer boards and has three sets of timber framed French doors with transom lights, flanked by double hung windows. Two brick chimneys protrude from the roof, the one closer to the street corner being a double flue. A cut in the chamfer boards on the Wood Street elevation, in line with the easternmost chimney, shows the extent of the original hotel. The Wantley Street elevation is also clad in the wide chamfer boards. Openings in this wall have been recently altered in association with the demolition of the enclosed bay. They consist of a partly glazed timber door flanked by double hung windows of different sizes. The main entrance to the building is located on the street corner in a short section of wall placed at 45 degrees to the adjoining walls. A pair of timber panelled doors with a transom light open directly into the interior of the building.
\nThe Wantley Street wing including the room on the corner is presently a single space as most of the internal dividing walls have been demolished. A hatch in the timber floor leads to an excavated subfloor area retained by timber slabs which may have once been a cellar. A brick fireplace is located in the centre of the eastern wall of the corner room. It is part of a double fireplace also facing into an adjoining large room used for meetings and activities. This activities room, located in the Wood Street wing, has three sets of french doors and an additional brick fireplace at the eastern end. A kitchen lined with cement sheeting is positioned on the northern side of the activities room. At the western end of the kitchen is a short hallway leading to the rear verandah and at the eastern end is a small storage room. A door beside the eastern fireplace in the activities room opens into the eastern wing, the addition to the Wood Street wing.
\nThe eastern wing is clad in narrower chamfer boards and lined with VJ timber boards. Its eastern elevation has double hung windows with metal hoods. Consisting of a row of four adjoining rooms accessed from the rear verandah, this wing has single skin partition walls of vertical VJ boards with belt rails.
\nSome rooms of the building, notably the Wantley Street wing, are in a state of partial demolition. Recent works include the removal of doors and windows and the creation of new openings, the repair of some areas of floor with wide wallboards, the insertion of steel beams where existing walls have been removed and the demolition of some ceilings. The wallboards in the Wantley Street wing have been removed and partly repositioned with the back of the beaded boards facing into the rooms. Much of this wing is unlined. Some partly constructed new work adjoins the building. This work includes timber framing for a toilet block and access ramps to the rear verandah.
","history":"The building formerly known as the Oddfellow's Home Hotel and located at the corner of Wood and Wantley Streets, Warwick, is of timber construction and was built in 1876 for Louis Muller.
\nThe allotment on which this building is situated was first alienated in 1861 as Allotment 1 of Section 55, parish of Warwick, county Merivale [1r 35p], by John May of Rosenthal, at a cost of just over £3. Warwick, located on the traditional land of the Githabul people, was proclaimed a municipality in that same year and over the subsequent 20 years it was consolidated as a regional centre of the southern Darling Downs. This growth is reflected in the number of public houses that were established in Warwick during the 1860s and 1870s to cater for the town's expanding population. One of these establishments was the Oddfellow's Home Hotel built in 1876 for Louis Muller. Following the discovery of tin at Quart Pot Creek, Stanthorpe, in 1871, Muller spent a couple of years there as a miner before moving to Warwick where he first appears as licensee for the Prince of Wales Hotel on the corner of Percy and Wantley Streets in 1873. Extant title documents do not make it clear when Muller purchased from John May the allotment which contains the present building, however in April 1876 his application for licensing a 'a new house' on the corner of Wood and Wantley Streets was deferred because the building was not completed. In July 1876, Muller inserted an advertisement in the Warwick Examiner and Times announcing the opening of his hotel. It was described as 'large and commodious, and offers comfortable accommodation for boarders', and it was promoted as a place 'where all who call there will find every comfort, and where they can rely upon obtaining Really Genuine Liquors'. Muller was a prominent member of the Rose Lodge of Oddfellows in Warwick and he named his hotel after this secular association. While there is no documentary evidence indicating that meetings of Oddfellows were held at Muller's hotel, a function for the Star of the Downs Lodge in 1878 was hosted at the Oddfellow's Home Hotel and it is clear that through Muller a connection with the society was maintained.
\nWhen Muller died in May 1886, the license for the hotel was registered in the name of his wife, Frances Muller, who held the property until 1889 when it was transferred to John Joseph Henry. Henry's brother, James, was licensee for the hotel from 1891 to 1892, before John Henry was again registered as the hotelkeeper until 1895. Warwick rate books indicate the property was valued at £260 in the mid-1890s and in 1896 Alexander Joseph Stephens is listed as occupier of the property. In 1897 title documents show Bernard Hughes, a local farmer, as owner of the property and it was around this time that the hotel was renamed the Harp of Erin, under which sign it operated until de-licensed in 1947. Rate books for 1898 record Alexander Stephens as the owner and occupier of the hotel and the following year title to the property was registered to Catherine Stephens, wife of Alexander. At this time improvements valued at £100 were made to the property and Catherine Stephens maintained the hotel until 1904 when it was leased to Thomas Olsen.
\nWhen Catherine died in April 1905 her estate was held in trust by Robert Cox. Following the expiration of Olsen's lease in 1910 several new lessees were appointed until Mary Cantwell, wife of Daniel Cantwell, became the hotelkeeper in 1918. Six years later, title to the property was transferred to Bernard Alexander Stephens and Ernest Joseph Stephens, and the latter became sole title holder the same year. Ernest sold his share in 1925 to John McDonnell, who that same year transferred the property to Daniel Cantwell. The hotel was delicensed in 1947, and Cantwell and his wife continued to live there. After Cantwell died in 1948 the property was registered in the name of Patrick Joseph Cantwell. During the 1950s the building was used as low-budget accommodation for boarders and some internal modifications carried out. When Patrick Cantwell passed away the property was transferred to his wife, Dorothy May Cantwell, in 1976 and the following year it was sold to the Churches of Christ. Until the mid-1980s the building was used as a shelter for homeless people and by 2004 it was used as a meeting house and as a centre for local community activities. In 2024 the former Oddfellows Home Hotel remains in the ownership of the Warwick Church of Christ.
","criteria":"The building formerly known as the Oddfellow's Home Hotel was constructed in 1876 for Louis Muller, a hotelkeeper of Warwick. It is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history insofar as it is representative of the emergence of Warwick as an important regional centre of the Darling Downs. The site remains as surviving evidence of the early development of the municipality of Warwick in a period of both economic and demographic expansion.
|The building provides a relatively well-preserved and rare example of early Queensland hotel architecture and is one of the oldest surviving public houses in Warwick.
|Despite alterations and additions over the years, much of the original fabric and features of the building remain intact, which gives it individual aesthetic value and makes it a valued part of the historical character of the local area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":693,"place_ref":602585,"name":"St Mary's Presbytery","alternate_name":"Former Father JJ Horan's Private residence | St Marys Catholic Presbytery","street_address":"142 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-31","description":"Standing to the south edge of the CBD of Warwick on the northern half of a one hectare block bounded by Palmerin and Percy Streets and Stewart Avenue, St Mary's Presbytery is a commanding presence in the neighbourhood. The presbytery is an integral part of the Warwick Catholic parish precinct which is spread across two adjacent town blocks and includes an imposing sandstone church, an earlier sandstone church now used as a parish hall, primary school and playgrounds, tennis and squash courts, a bowls club and residential apartments. The first floor verandah and belvedere of the presbytery afford sweeping views of Warwick and the surrounding district. There is a white painted timber fence across the block to the south of the presbytery separating it from the Southern Cross Bowls Club facilities (bowling green and associated structures) and lowset residential apartments which are not included in the heritage listing.
A two-storey residence with the ground floor verandahs standing on low brick stumps, the presbytery is constructed of red brick with the exterior now rendered and painted. (A portion of the face brick exterior remains behind hinged doors to the lower wall of the upper east verandah.) The building has verandahs to three sides on each floor and is distinguished by a handsome belvedere which crowns the main pyramidal roof. Curved roofs shelter the belvedere and verandahs. All roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting, the corners decorated with acroteria. Two painted brick chimneys rise through the main roof.
Addressing Percy Street, the front elevation is symmetrical about a projecting gable-roofed porch to the upper storey below which a small hipped roof shelters the ground floor main entrance steps. The projecting porch is crowned by a metal cross to the apex of the gable and is distinguished by decorative fretwork (incorporating a cross motif) to the arches and infill to the paired chamfered timber posts.
The upper verandah is punctuated by pairs of chamfered timber posts carrying plain square timber capitals and the solid balustrades are clad with weatherboards and lined with vertical tongue and groove boards. Later rendered masonry arches frame the ground floor verandahs and detract from the otherwise elegant understated presentation of the building. The verandahs to the east on both levels are enclosed with banks of sash windows to the upper storey and banks of glass louvres to the ground floor. The verandah ceilings are lined with ripple iron and the ceiling to the projecting porch with timber boarding. The rear elevation is clad with weatherboards.
Clad with chamferboards, the belvedere is defined by projecting pilasters to the corners which carry a moulded timber cornice continuous around all elevations below sets of decorative paired eaves brackets. Narrow round sash windows punctuate the east and west elevations matching a pair of round sash windows to the north. The bullnosed roof is crowned by a small open viewing platform screened with a low decorative cast iron surround & this is all that remains of the decorative cast iron that earlier embellished the building.
The interior is characterised by an elegant austerity with commodious rooms, decorative metal fireplace grates within marble or timber mantelpieces and quality moulded panel doors and etched glass fanlights. The front and rear doors are flanked by etched glass side lights. Door and window joinery retains much of its original hardware. The main and attic staircases have fine turned balusters and newel posts.
The plan is organised around a central hall which travels through to the rear enclosed verandah and later extension which houses the kitchen/dining and utility spaces and parish office. The hall accommodates a timber dogleg staircase with a half landing. A large double hung sash window lights the stairwell. A reception room and two offices open off the hall on the ground floor and four bedrooms and an enclosed rear verandah work off the hall at the upper level. A narrow rectangular cement rendered brick cellar sits below the hall and is accessed through a timber door under the main stair.
The reception room is a generous space running the length of the east side of the ground floor. Two fine cedar doors with etched glass fanlights open into this room from the hall. The room has a plain plaster ceiling and moulded cornice, a later wallpaper finish to frieze height on the plastered walls and a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece and decorative metal grate. A set of french windows open onto the enclosed verandah to the east which now functions as a small conservatory. Two commodious offices are accommodated to the west side of the ground floor and fireplaces in each room share the double-sided chimney. These rooms have plain plastered walls and timber lined ceilings and each has a double hung sash window to the west verandah. The front office has an additional window to the north verandah.
There are four spacious bedrooms to the upper floor. Those on the west accommodate fireplaces that share the double-sided chimney and have plain plastered ceilings and double hung sash windows to the verandahs. Those on the east side have timber boarded lining to the ceilings and double hung sash windows to the enclosed verandah which now functions as a sleepout. The enclosed rear verandah accommodates a dormitory style bedroom to the southwest end, a utility space to the middle and a line of bathrooms working off a narrow corridor to the east side. A pair of wide french windows open from the upper hall onto the north verandah.
A narrow timber stair ascends from the north of the upper hall to the attic space accessed through a hinged hatch timber door. The attic is lined with painted horizontal beaded tongue and groove boards and houses a small water tank. An unpainted timber door to the north connects to the belvedere viewing room which is lined with painted horizontal beaded tongue and groove boards and houses an unpainted timber cupboard and low bench. A steep timber step ladder rises to the roof space of the belvedere from which a shorter narrow step ladder ascends to the small open viewing platform crowning the belvedere. A removable hatch gives access to the platform.
The presbytery stands in a large yard with a range of shrubs and trees screening the front elevation and lining the front path to the main entrance. The large open grassed yard to the west has a scatter of shrubs along the southern fence line. A four car concrete block garage and a small low-set timber shed stand along this fence line to the southeast of the house and a timber four car garage stands directly east. A recent green powdered coated moulded aluminium fence with pale face brick piers runs to the north and west boundaries. These garages, shed, plantings and fence are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance and are not included in the heritage listing.
","history":"St Mary's Presbytery, Warwick, was built 1885-1887 to the design of local architects Wallace and Gibson for parish priest Father James Horan.
By the late 1850s, Warwick was the principal urban settlement on the southern Darling Downs, a service centre for the surrounding agricultural district. In 1862 Warwick became a large separate parish within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brisbane, a year after the town became Queensland's fifth municipality. Early Catholic services began in Warwick at the Horse and Jockey Inn in 1854 with Father McGinty, one of only two Catholic priests in Queensland, travelling from Ipswich to celebrate mass. McGinty continued to service the parish from Ipswich until 1862. Dr John Cani, later first bishop of Rockhampton, was the first permanent parish priest in Warwick and during his posting the first St Mary's Church [QHR 600958] was constructed, opening in 1865. The order of the Sisters of Mercy arrived in 1874 assuming the role of schooling previously conducted by lay teachers from 1867.
Father James Horan was appointed parish priest of Warwick in 1876. Horan was born at Gormanston, Ireland on 1 January 1846 and studied in Dublin and Versailles before his ordination in January 1868. Shortly after entering the priesthood Horan left Ireland for Queensland, arriving in Brisbane in July. Horan and his brothers Matthew and Andrew - respectively parish priests of Gympie (1868-1923) and Ipswich (1873-1924) - were nephews of James Quinn, first Bishop of Brisbane (1861-1881). From 1868-1872 James Horan performed duties in Rockhampton, Fortitude Valley, Maryborough, Mount Perry and the Peak Downs. In 1872 and 1874 he travelled with Bishop Quinn on Episcopal missions to the north of Queensland as his chaplain. By 1873 he was private secretary to Quinn, a position he held until his arrival in Warwick.
On 2 May 1880 the foundation stone for a presbytery in the grounds of St Mary's Church was laid by Bishop Quinn. The architect for this building was Andrea Stombuco who had previously designed a number of Catholic buildings in the diocese of Brisbane. By August 1881 construction had begun on an elaborate two-storeyed freestone building, featuring towers over the main entrance and the rear wings. However, in the same month Quinn died and work on the presbytery stopped soon after.
Adopting the policy that underpinned the reconstruction of the Church in Ireland, Quinn had actively promoted the expression of Catholicism in Queensland through imposing and expensive ecclesiastical buildings. Quinn's three Horan nephews shared this enthusiasm for large building projects, as illustrated in Gympie by St Patrick's Church (1883-1887) [QHR 601503], in Ipswich by St Mary's Presbytery (1876) [QHR 600577], and in Warwick by the scale of the proposed 1880 presbytery, described as 'beyond compare' the largest of any dwelling in the town. Quinn's successor, Robert Dunne (Bishop and later Archbishop of Brisbane 1882-1917), opposed such ostentatious displays, which had nearly bankrupted the Brisbane diocese. One of Dunne's early actions as Bishop was to restrict and control building activities throughout the diocese.
In July 1885 Horan purchased land comprising allotments 13 and 14 of Section 46 on the corner of Percy and Palmerin Streets, almost opposite St Mary's Church. In September 1885 a parish meeting convened by Dunne discussed the question of proceeding with the presbytery in the church grounds, on a reduced scale. Although money was pledged and a 'large and influential' committee was formed, construction did not resume. While there appear to have been later parish intentions of proceeding with the earlier presbytery, this never eventuated.
The following month, on 10 October 1885 local architects Wallace and Gibson called tenders for the woodwork of a two storey brick dwelling on Horan's property at the corner of Palmerin and Percy streets, Warwick. William Wallace and Richard Gibson were in partnership as builders and contractors from 1876 and worked on Catholic churches at Leyburn and Goondiwindi. By the mid-1880s they were in practice as architects and building surveyors in Warwick with work that included the St George's Masonic Hall (1887) [QHR 600952]. Stonemason John McCulloch, who had worked on the earlier presbytery, was awarded the contract for the brickwork. McCulloch worked on many prominent religious and civic buildings in Warwick including the Court House (1885) [QHR 600949], St Mark's Anglican Church (1867-1870) [QHR 600943], Our Lady of the Assumption Convent (1892-93) [QHR 600953] and the Warwick Town Hall (1888) [QHR 600961]. The presbytery was built during a pronounced period of prosperity for Warwick and the surrounding agricultural district. The second half of the 1880s was characterised by a wave of development and many of the town's most imposing buildings date from this time.
Horan is likely to have taken up residence by the end of 1887, visiting Brisbane in November to buy furniture for the presbytery after a fund raising concert was held by pupils of St Mary's School. The building has functioned as the Warwick parish presbytery since its construction.
A photo thought to date from the 1890s provides evidence of its appearance soon after its construction. The two-storeyed building, constructed of red brick, was surmounted by an imposing tower of timber over the entrance porch and a hipped iron roof. Iron lacework adorned the verandahs on both floors with timber weatherboards enclosing the corners and rear of the building. A description of the presbytery in 1888 noted the 'charming panoramic view' from the tower and the 'handsomely furnished' 14 rooms. Although the building included a central tower over the entrance, there is no known documentary evidence to suggest Stombuco's earlier design was appropriated by Wallace and Gibson. While perhaps less grand than the Stombuco design, the presbytery was still a large and highly prominent residence for Warwick, an assertive expression of the Catholic presence in the town and the centrality of the priest to the parish community. Set in spacious grounds on the corner of Warwick's principal thoroughfare, the visual dominance of the presbytery made it a landmark within the townscape.
St Mary's Presbytery fulfilled a range of functions within the parish. As well as the residence for parish priests and their curates, the presbytery was the centre for parish administration. It was used occasionally for wedding ceremonies, provided accommodation for visiting catholic dignitaries and was a social space for hosting important guests. The suitability of Warwick's temperate climate for recuperation saw the presbytery used in this manner by Archbishop Dunne over the summer of 1893-1894. During World War II, soldiers were camped in and around Warwick and chaplains attached to the army used the presbytery as their base.
The Warwick presbytery was one of a number built in Catholic parishes throughout Queensland in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. These varied from modest timber houses in small settlements to more impressive dwellings located in important regional towns with larger catholic communities. Many nineteenth century presbyteries were replaced during the extensive building programme that characterised the reign of Archbishop James Duhig (1917-1965). Presbyteries dating from the 1880s that continue to function as residences for Catholic priests in Queensland are uncommon.
James Horan died at the presbytery in May 1905. By the end of his time in Warwick he had been instrumental in the construction of Our Lady of the Assumption Convent, St Mary's School, extensions to St Mary's Church and timber churches in Emu Vale, Clifton, Allora and Goondiwindi. Among Queensland priests, Horan was Archbishop Dunne's key supporter in promoting Irish catholic rural settlement. The increase in Warwick's catholic population from 11.4 percent in 1881 to 32.1 percent in 1911 illustrates his effectiveness in this regard. In accordance with Horan's will, the presbytery was sold by the estate executors to Archbishop Dunne, Father Andrew Horan and Father James Benedict Breen on behalf of Warwick parish for £3,235, with the proceeds of the sale forwarded to the construction of the Christian Brother's College that opened in Warwick in 1912. In 1951 title of the presbytery was transferred to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba.
Monsignor Michael Potter, who was posted as a curate to Warwick in 1891, was appointed parish priest after Horan's death. Potter continued the enthusiasm for parish building with major projects including a new St Mary's Church (1926) [QHR 600959] and additions to the convent. Potter resided in the presbytery for over fifty years until his death in 1944.
In 1948 Father Michael Mahon was appointed administrator to the parish of Warwick. During the early years of Mahon's administration a substantial renovation program was undertaken on the presbytery. The brickwork of the presbytery was rendered and painted white. The decorative iron railings on the verandahs were replaced with timber weatherboards on the first floor and solid arches on the ground floor. At the rear of the building a single-storeyed timber kitchen/dining area and an office space were added. The rear ends of the verandah on the eastern side of the presbytery were enclosed to provide extra accommodation on the first floor and a sitting room on the ground floor. Basins were installed in the first floor bedrooms and a garage was built on the eastern side of the building. A hay shed at the rear of the property was replaced by a bowling green and clubhouse. More recently, a set of units have been built adjacent to the bowling green. Both the units and the bowling green are privately leased. An additional concrete block garage with a coloured metal sheeting roof has also been added behind the presbytery.
In the second half of the twentieth century, a succession of priests resided at the presbytery. St Mary's Presbytery continues to function as the dwelling of Warwick's resident priest and as administrative centre for the parish.
","criteria":"St Mary's Presbytery, erected in 1885-1887, is important in demonstrating the growth and prosperity of Warwick, an important regional centre for the Southern Darling Downs, during the prosperous second half of the 1880s when many of the town's most prominent buildings were constructed.
St Mary's Presbytery is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland. The presbytery illustrates the consolidation and regional importance of the parish of Warwick in the late nineteenth century following its establishment in 1862.
|St Mary's Presbytery is important as an uncommon example of a Queensland presbytery from the 1880s that has maintained its use as a dwelling for a parish priest. Most presbyteries built in the colonial era in Queensland were replaced, reused or sold during the twentieth century.
|St Mary's Presbytery has a special association with the Catholic community of Warwick, having been the residence of successive priests and curates of the Warwick parish since 1887.
|St Mary's Presbytery is important as a fine example of a large nineteenth century presbytery in an important regional Queensland town. The building occupies a prominent position in the town, in close proximity to the parish church. The scale of the building, its large verandahs and multiple rooms demonstrate the presbytery's primary function of accommodating parish priests and curates, its capacity to provide hospitality for guests and ability to operate as administrative centre for the parish. Externally the scale of the building and its tower are designed to impress and to reinforce the Catholic presence in Warwick, while the plain internal finishes are illustrative of the more austere existence associated with religious vocations.
|St Mary's Presbytery has a special association with Father James Horan, parish priest of Warwick from 1874-1905, for whom the building was erected. Horan was an important figure in the early development of the Catholic church in Queensland and influenced the strong pattern of Irish land settlement in the Warwick district.
|St Mary's Presbytery is important because of its aesthetic significance. Set in spacious grounds on a corner along Warwick's principal thoroughfare, the visual dominance of the presbytery, enhanced by its imposing central tower, makes the presbytery a landmark within the townscape. The presbytery makes a strong contribution to a precinct of catholic buildings extending along Palmerin Street, an assertive expression of the Catholic presence in Warwick and the centrality of the priest to the parish community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion D | Criterion H | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":768,"place_ref":602153,"name":"Allora Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Allora Clifton Road","suburb":"ALLORA","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"Farms surround Allora Cemetery which is just over 3 kilometres northwest of Allora. Pepperinas along the Allora Clayton Road cyclone wire fence define the western boundary, as does a wet weather creek on the southern side.
This cemetery has the usual grid of roads and paths with signposts delineating each denominational section of the monumental burial ground. A central driveway is lined by evergreen cypress like trees and at the northern end a road separates the lawn cemetery from the Methodist and Catholic monumental sections. There is a brick columbarium near this entrance.
Facing the road and beside the central entrance is the largest memorial, the Mitchner Shelter-shed. A pedestrian gate and concrete path leads to this structure which is 5 metres square with 215 mm solid brick walls of Garden Flemish bond that are approximately 3 metres high. The corrugated iron roof rises to a square timber steeple capped by a domed mushroom and finial.
The main entrance, which faces west towards the road, has a central arched entrance separating a pair of arched glazed openings. The rear eastern wall also has a gothic arched opening. The northern and southern walls each have an off-centre rectangular double hung sash window. The exterior walls with pairs of corner buttresses are not painted except for the buttresses oblique planes.
The internal rear wall has a marble plaque stating that William Mitchner gave the shelter as a gift for the benefit of the public and that he was born 2 August 1841 and died 1 June 1918. The interior brickwork is painted. The concrete floor has been treated with terrazzo and the ceiling is fibro. The structure is hollow except for the blockwork walled toilet.
To the north and slightly further down the central roadway is a gravediggers shelter. It has a corrugated iron hip roof supported by timber posts and includes a small lockable shed.
Inscriptions on memorials reveal that many of the early settlers came from England, Scotland, Ireland and a few from Wales and Germany and other European countries. There are monuments and family grave plots pertaining to pioneers, immigrants and locally born, ministers, bank managers, teachers, publicans, builders, farmers and benefactors to the community.
Gravestones vary from simple upright tablets to more elaborate late Victorian types. There are obelisks, Celtic and Calvary crosses, urn-topped columns and horizontal slabs with tablets. There are single and family plots, while a few have cast-iron picket fencing many have concrete kerbing. Some are the work of Warwick monumental masons like James McCulloch and others were transported from afar.
The cemetery grounds are well maintained although some monuments show deterioration and others have collapsed.
","history":"Allora Cemetery on Allora Clifton Road is north west of Allora. While the cemetery was established in 1864 the oldest headstone dates from 1867. It has always been organised with denominational sections and includes monuments and memorials pertaining to those who lived in Allora and the surrounding district, including the William Mitchner Shelter-shed
Alan Cunningham's exploration of the southern Darling Downs in 1827 first revealed the potential of the Darling Downs for pastoral and agricultural usage. In the 1840s pastoralists moved into the area and shepherds on Goomburra Run built huts at the base of Allora Mountain where it was easiest to cross the Dalrymple Creek. It became a popular camping place for teamsters on the Warwick Drayton Road and was the beginning of Allora Township. The first inn was built in 1857 and the town was surveyed in 1859 with the first town land sales on 5 March 1860. During the 1860s as Allora became a service centre to the surrounding black soil farms the town acquired a police station, post office, national school, cemetery and courthouse.
In 1869 Allora was granted municipal status, but the railhead bypassed the town being established instead at Hendon. During the 1870s a flour mill, school of arts, saddlery and sawmill were opened. Allora continued to develop as the administration and service centre for the township and local wheat and dairy farmers.
The first burial in Allora Cemetery was that of John Rhinehart in 1864. Unfortunately the timber cross marking has grave has long since disappeared. Dr Sadjucis, a German, was the Allora doctor in the 1860s. He had a heart attack while on horseback at Spring Creek and was buried in Allora cemetery. However, the oldest extant headstone is that of Clifton Station Manager Charles Henry Bullock, who was buried in the Church of England section in 1867.
An area of 16 acres 1 rood 15 perches was surveyed for a Cemetery Reserve at Allora in October 1879, but it was not gazetted until 1893. It seems that the Allora and Clifton councils managed the cemetery. The 1865 Cemeteries Act provided for the regulation of cemeteries throughout Queensland and required Trustees to make by-laws in accordance with the Act. However, it was not until July 1893 that public meetings were called to discuss electing of Cemetery Trustees so as to bring the local cemetery under this Act. The initial Trustees where Thomas Kennedy, James Dougall, William Deacon, James Dean, Patrick Kelley, Robert Cooke and Joseph Nemeth. The Allora Cemetery Reserve with seven Trustees was gazetted on 23 September 1893.
In line with government policy, the Allora Cemetery Trustees requested in February 1915 that the cemetery be placed under the control and management of the Allora Shire Council. This occurred on 13 March 1915. Since the amalgamation of local government areas in 1994 the Warwick Shire Council manages the cemetery.
The most prominent memorial, a convenience for the first stage of a burial ceremony and a retreat from the weather, was erected during 1925-26. It is the rectangular brick William Mitchner Shelter-shed located near the front gate and beside the central pathway. German born William Mitchner of Allora died in Toowoomba on 1 June 1918. Under his will £800 was to be used for the erection of a shelter-shed that included a sarcophagus, bust of himself and belfry. The bell was to be tolled whenever a funeral was approaching. His will directed that this shelter-shed be similar to but smaller and less expensive than the brick shelter-shed to be constructed at the Warwick Cemetery. Also the amount the amount of £150 was to be invested by the Allora General Cemetery trustees to provide income for the shelter-shed's maintenance for 50 years.
William Mitchner, born on 2 August 1841 in Germany, arrived in Allora about 1872 where he gained employment as a fireman or engineer in fellow German Francis Kates' flourmill. Later he was a storekeeper in the shop that was replaced by the Commercial Hotel. He acquired interests in Allora, Warwick and Toowoomba and his death certificate gave his occupation as an investor. His inventory for probate revealed an estate of over $30,000. Mitchner left bequests to both the Warwick and Toowoomba hospitals, money for the Anglican and Catholic churches in both Warwick and Allora and money for the erection of an Anglican Church in Hendon. For various reasons no Anglican Church was erected at Hendon and in the 1990s the invested money totaling over $50,000 was given to Allora's St Davids Anglican to assist with its maintenance.
Allora Shire Council called a public meeting for 28 February 1920 to discuss accepting the Mitchner cemetery bequest, as the Council felt it was not appropriate; probably because of Australian involvement in World War I. At the meeting some felt that they should refuse the bequest, however, it was suggested a shelter-shed would be a useful convenience. The meeting agreed to ask the Mitchner Trustees to pay for calling tenders, preparing plans and specifications and then the calling another public meeting.
Mitchner also left money to his family and hometown in Germany. As Australia was at war with Germany in 1918 legal problems arose from this bequest. The distribution of his estate went to the Full Court in Brisbane in 1921 and on appeal to the High Court of Australia in 1922. The Full Court ruled that the bequest to the Warwick Cemetery Trustees was valid but with the Allora Cemetery wanting to modify the design, as the amount was insufficient, the court felt this needed further examination. Perhaps these legal issues and cost of erecting the memorial explain why the Mitchner Shelter-shed was not put out to tender until 1925.
On 3 October 1925 the Allora Shire Council Cemetery Trust called tenders for a brick and concrete shelter-shed for the Allora Cemetery, to comply with the William Mitchner bequest. Plans and specifications were available from the shire office and tenders closed 17 October 1925. By May 1926 the Cemetery Committee had agreed to a tender for the bell in connection with the Mitchner bequest and the Warwick Cemetery Trustees had agreed to share the cost of a clay model for the bust. However, it is thought that Charles Astley created the Allora Mitchner bust and Petries Stonemasons were involved with the Warwick sculpture. The bust has disappeared and the bell no longer tolls.
While it is usual for the family of the deceased to pay for the memorial this is not always the case. Alexander Cameron (1840-1882) was the first Allora Municipal Council clerk from 1860 to his death and in appreciation his fellow townsmen erected a small obelisk over his grave. His family plot also includes a small tablet in memory of his wife who died in 1944. Rev James Boyd Morrow (1856-1893) was the Allora Presbyterian Minster from 1888 to shortly before his death in Brisbane. A cortege of 50 buggies and 200 horsemen met the train at Hendon to escort the coffin back to Allora and his parishioners later erected an 18-foot high obelisk on a massive pedestal.
Irish born Samuel Gordon (1822-1902) became a Goomburra Station shepherd in 1858 and for a few years lived in a hut where Allora now stands. Gordon purchased the Drayton and Raff Streets corner in the first Allora town land sale. In 1864 he built Allora's second hotel, the Princess of Wales. Gordon's tombstone includes names of children, several of whom died before they were six years of age. Australian Joint Stock Bank manager Travers Robert Goff was only 43 when he died in 1907. His eldest daughter Helen Lyndon writing under the pseudonym Pamela Lyndon Travers created Mary Poppins.
Allora Cemetery includes memorials for townsmen and the surrounding district including pastoralist George John Edwin Clark (1834-1907). He and his brother Charles purchased Old Talgai Station in 1868 and it became well known for high-grade merino wool. In 1876 George helped establish the Warwick Examiner and Times and was the Warwick member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1867-8. Brought up an Anglican he became a priest of the Catholic Apostolic (Irvingite) Church with a private chapel at Talgai. His son George Carr Clark (1864-1942) remained at Talgai until 1910 and is also buried in this rural cemetery. An early pioneer was William Naish (1838-1918) who worked as a shearer and fencer on Talgai Station where he found the Talgai Skull in 1886.
Edward Anderson (1822-1908) was one of the first Allora aldermen and mayor in 1870 and he was also responsible for many of the early buildings. Irish born Henry Ludgate (1840-1929) emigrated and joined the Queensland Police in 1865 and was transferred to Allora in 1874. Although he had several transfers his family stayed in Allora and after his retirement he served as an alderman from 1900 to 1913.
Many of the early pioneers still have descendants in the district. James Gwynne (1815-1875) and his wife Rhoda (1828-1912) arrived in Allora in 1862. Mrs Gwynne opened the first school and together they opened the first Allora Post Office. Publican John Holmes (1837-1901) was established in Allora by 1862 and was licensee of the Dalrymple, Crown and Royal Hotel at various times and some of his family still have business interests in Allora. William Deacon (1839-1927) and his wife Anne arrived in Allora in 1867 where he became the first Allora State School teacher. Mrs Deacon was active in Methodist Church affairs and wrote under the pen name of Patience Brown while William is better remembered as a successful businessman who served 39 years on the local Council. Bookkeeper George Shooter (1861-1942) and his wife Leila (1869-1955) worked on various stations before moving to the district as share farmers. Descendants still farm on part of what was Talgai West.
Mortality rates for children used to be very high, and like all cemeteries there are graves for the very young. Many are small plots and often have small tombstones like that of 9 month old Mary Ann Holmes who died 9 February 1867 and 15 month old Mabel Hancock who died 30 November 1887.
Some graves do not have headstones including those of Queen Charlotte and Kitty Kitty. It is believed that these were the last local Aboriginals and they were buried in the southeastern corner of the cemetery.
Allora Cemetery includes a columbarium and lawn cemetery. Mark Brelsford was buried in the latter in 1996. Brelsford, a plumber by trade, collected historical information and using pen and ink sketched many of the districts heritage places and he was responsible for two books Land of the Leslies and Sandstone and cedar.
","criteria":"Allora Cemetery is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history in that it provides evidence of the occupations, social status and demography of the Warwick district, particularly displaying the diversity since the 1860s of the town's cultural, religious and ethnic groups.
|Allora Cemetery survives as a good example of its type, with a variety of headstones and monuments illustrating changing public attitudes to commemoration of the dead. While monuments and headstones vary in size, quality and condition they reflect the social, religious and architectural history of Allora from the 1860s to the 21st century.
|The form and design of the shelter-shed exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community as do the diversity of headstones, grid layout with a central avenue of evergreen trees and layout of paths.
|The masonry Mitchner Shelter-shed was a given to the community by William Mitchner for the benefit of the community as a roofed rest area for use during internments, when visiting, refuge from the weather and as a meeting place. It has a special association with the Allora community for social, cultural and spiritual reasons.
|The place has a special association with several notable individuals and families who have contributed to the historical evolution of Allora and district and to the mythology associated with pastoral and pioneering life.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":1013,"place_ref":602371,"name":"Tabletop Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"To be determined","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-04-13","description":"Tabletop Cemetery is situated on the corner of two formed station roads which provide access to the site. The terrain is slightly undulating and consists of finely grained sandy soil. Eucalypts and other native trees are scattered throughout the area and tussocky grasses provide a dense ground cover during much of the year. Although the cemetery lies within an area heavily grazed by cattle, its perimeter fence protects the site. Native birds and animals also utilize this area.
Of the 23 potential burial sites identified within the cemetery, only five have headstones and only three are enclosed with iron railings. The three graves that have iron enclosures have been re-painted white in recent times. Identified graves date from between 1889 and 1904.
Stone piles, mounds, or shallow depressions are representative of the possible burials within the cemetery. While it has not been properly determined whether these are actual burial sites, no similar features (i.e stone piles, mounds) were seen to occur naturally outside the confines of the cemetery.
The identifiable headstones within the fenced cemetery all face to the east, and all the individual graves (including the stone piles and mounds) are aligned in an east -west direction.
Grave 1.
James Crameri, died 14 November 1904. This grave has a marble headstone with inscription and is surrounded by an iron railing, painted white in recent times.
Grave 2.
Henry Aldolphous Hasenkamp, died 19 October 1893 (child, aged just under 11 years). Similar to the Grave 1, Grave 2 has a marble headstone with inscription and is surrounded by an iron railing painted white. In addition, this grave is marked by a scattering of clam and other sea shells.
Grave 3.
A grave enclosed with an iron railing. This grave is marked by strap diagonal framing on its railings and has a sandstone headstone which is now illegible. Four stone mounts are visible, one for each railing corner post, and the marks on these suggest that at some stage this grave may have been slightly repositioned. A tree has grown up through the strap diagonal framing at the headstone end of the grave.
Grave 4.
Catherine Lahy, died 10 June 1889 (child, aged 2 years). The grave is identified by a solid sandstone headstone rounded at its top and inscribed with a cross, and an earth mound.
Grave 5.
Robert Fitzmaurice, died 29 April 1889 (child, aged 4 years 8 months). The grave can be identified by a simple stone headstone. Included on its inscription is a large cross.
Grave 6.
This grave consists of a solid rectangular stone headstone in the style of a Chinese grave marker, and similar in form to Chinese graves which are evident in the Croydon town cemetery. However, there is no visible inscription on this headstone and so the ethnicity of this grave cannot be confirmed.
","history":"Tabletop Cemetery is one of 6 cemeteries that served the Croydon district after it was declared a goldfield in 1886. The cemetery is situated near the former township of Tabletop, approximately 19 kilometres northeast of Croydon. The cemetery covers an area of approximately 1260 square metres, but was never gazetted as a cemetery reserve. Twenty-three potential burials have been identified in the cemetery, and at least one of the graves may be Chinese.
The Croydon field was one of the last of the north Queensland gold rushes of the nineteenth century. After a peak in gold production in 1900, mining declined over the next two decades. There was a small revival during the 1930s depression and again from 1988 to 1991. The present population of the district is approximately 300.
Croydon is situated in the heart of the Gulf Savannah, 562km west of Cairns, approximately 176km west of Georgetown and 144km south east of the port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Europeans first explored this area in the 1860s: McKinley searched for lost explorers Burke and Wills in 1862 and JG McDonald explored a route from Carpentaria Downs to the Gulf in 1864. Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from the markets. An overland telegraph line was constructed from Cardwell to Normanton between 1869 and 1872. This passed through the Croydon district and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields.
Gold was first discovered on Croydon Downs Station, which had been taken up by W. Brown in 1881. In the latter part of 1883, two of his employees found quartz carrying gold. However it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from WC Brown, prospected the area and discovered 20 payable reefs. The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under the administration of the Department of Public Works and Mines.
Hundreds flocked to the area. By 1887 the population of the district had peaked at 7000, and by 1897 it still had the third highest population in north Queensland after Charters Towers and Townsville. From 1890 to 1910, gold output from the Croydon reefs were second only to Charters Towers. Total production from inception until 1947 was 772, 374 ounces. By 1909 however, production began to decline and by 1914, the population at the turn of the century had halved.
Residents on the Croydon Goldfield faced many hardships including inadequate supplies of water; pasture grasses and timber for fuel and constructions purposes. Isolation was also a major problem until the Croydon to Normanton railway was completed in 1891. The area was subject to droughts and floods, and even a cyclone in 1906. During the 'crash' of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, many miners were thrown out of work. Despite all these difficulties, the 1890s were productive years for Croydon. Pugh's Almanac of 1900 listed 3 banks, 6 blacksmiths, 5 bakers, 6 commission agents, 4 newsagents, 6 carriers, 2 chemists, 6 drapers11 share brokers, 18 hotels and 4 watchmakers, among many other assorted businesses.
Other mining townships were established at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flannigan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs, with Croydon acting as the main administrative and commercial centre. Members of the outlying communities would visit Croydon on Saturday nights to shop, conduct their business and socialise.
As on many other Queensland goldfields, a Chinese community was formed at Croydon, congregating on the north west fringe of the town. At the end of 1888 Mining Warden Towner reported that Croydon had a population of 3500 of whom 300 were Chinese, Cingalese, Malay or African. This figure is surprising given that the Queensland Goldfields Amendment Act of 1878 excluded Chinese people from new fields for three years unless they had made the discovery. However it appears that the level of Chinese involvement at Croydon was confined to the service industry and in occupations such as gardeners, carriers, bakers and cooks. Racial tension was high at times and is reflected in a race riot in 1886 and later by the formation of the Anti- Chinese League in early 1888.
In Tabletop the town baker, Jim Sing conducted business for over eight years until 1900. It is significant that, in a region that experienced racial discord, a person of likely Chinese heritage is buried amidst Europeans in the Tabletop cemetery.
Tabletop township, located approximately 19 kilometres north-east from Croydon, was surveyed in 1887. Along with Croydon it was among the first areas on the Croydon Goldfield to be developed. A daily horse-drawn coach service between Tabletop and Croydon was soon established.
Mines serviced by Tabletop township included the Federation, Day Dawn, Mount Morgan, Bobby Dazzler, Happy Jack, Rising Sun, Ace of Hearts, Star of Hope, Black Diamond, Blackbird and Lady Jane. Two large mills operated during its peak years, the 5-head Day Dawn on the southern side of town, and the 12-head Catherine on the northern side.
In 1888 a small provisional school opened at Tabletop. This was the first provincial school on the goldfield, with Croydon provisional school opening one year later. By 1889, 20 children attended the Tabletop school and numbers evened out at 22 until the late 1890s, indicating a stable family community. As with many gold towns, almost overnight Tabletop emerged as small service town, with 8 hotels, a post office, 5 stores, 2 blacksmiths, 2 billiard saloons, a chemist, 2 produce dealers and a police presence. This supported a population of approximately 500 miners, their families and supporting industries, all initially enthusiastic about mining prospects in the district. However, the community quickly declined to around 220 and declined further after the mid 1890s. While the post office operated from 1887 to 1911, businesses in the town began to close from as early as 1893, a trend which continued through to 1900. By 1920, only the Tabletop Hotel remained.
The Tabletop community interacted socially with the nearby smaller townships of Golden Valley and Carron. Race meetings in particular were popular and Tabletop combined with Golden Valley in 1889 to form the Tabletop and Golden Valley Racing Club. The community was spiritually supported by both Church of England and Roman Catholic clergy based in Croydon as well as by the Primitive Methodist clergy based at nearby Golden Valley. A Senior Sergeant and Constable maintained law and order and their presence in town is represented in the Tabletop cemetery.
In 1893 Henry Hasenkamp was posted to Tabletop as the Senior Constable, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Inspector of Slaughterhouses. He was accompanied by his wife Mary and family.. Not long after they arrived their ten year old son, Henry Adolphous died on 19 October 1893, about 3 weeks short of his eleventh birthday. He was buried in the Tabletop cemetery. The next year Henry and Mary erected a simple headstone and encircled the gravesite with an iron railing. The grave mound was lovingly decorated with small clamshells and a few larger "Bailer" shells.
Families associated with mining communities often led a migratory lifestyle and many suffered the loss of a child due to the primitive living conditions and lack of medical supplies and expertise. Consequently, individual child burials (ie not within a family plot) are common in remote burial grounds - poignant reminders of the harshness of frontier living and the temporary nature of many early mining towns.
","criteria":"Dating from c1887, Tabletop Cemetery demonstrates and contributes to our understanding of the pattern and nature of settlement in small frontier mining towns. Established prior to any officially surveyed cemetery, this small burial ground served the township of Tabletop from the mid-1880s until the township declined in the 1910s. The cemetery is an important record of the historical development of the area and demonstrates in the surviving identified graves (including the graves of two children and a Chinese person) the ethnicity, occupations and social status of the inhabitants of a small satellite township on the Croydon goldfield. The place is important in demonstrating the nature of life on the Croydon goldfields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly the high infant and child mortality experienced in early mining settlements.
|Tabletop Cemetery is one of a group of 6 cemeteries located on the former Croydon goldfield, and is still legible as an early burial ground. 23 potential burial sites have been identified, with remnant surviving fabric including 6 graves with headstones or grave markers, one of which is in the style of a Chinese grave marker. At least three of the graves have iron-railing surrounds. The place has the potential to yield information about the early history of the inhabitants of the field; in particular, a clearer understanding of ethnic, social, and religious background and attitudes within the mining community, through further investigation of the placement, inscriptions, type of materials used, or information relating to the deceased such as age or religion.
|Tabletop Cemetery has social significance for its symbolic value to the Croydon community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":1143,"place_ref":602351,"name":"Braeside Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Crystal Mount Road","suburb":"ROSENTHAL","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-08-23","description":"Braeside Homestead is located about 28 kilometres south of Warwick just west of the New England Highway, along Crystal Mount Road, overlooking Turner's Creek to the east. It comprises a complex grouping of timber structures, including the main residence with multifarious additions and extensions, outbuildings, yards, fencing and gardens. Most of the buildings date to the last quarter of the 19th and first two decades of the 20th centuries.
The core of the main building, which likely dates to the mid-1870s, is a rectangular, timber-framed, timber-clad and timber-lined building which faces east toward the creek. It is set on low timber stumps and has deep exterior chamferboards, a steeply pitched hipped main roof with two double brick chimneys, and a front central projecting gable over an enclosed former front entrance. The roof of this gable has timber shingles beneath later corrugated iron cladding. The interior is lined with wide, single-beaded, tongue and groove timber boarding.
At the northern end of the main house is an early 20th century bedroom wing, with heavy timber infill to the gable end, which faces north. Prior to the early 1950s, this wing extended further west, with a second north-facing gable. This second gabled section is now located about 100 metres to the west on the homestead block, and is occupied as a separate residence. In its place is a small timber laundry extension.
At the southern end of the core building is another early 20th century timber extension. This has a pyramid roof clad in corrugated iron., and external chamferboards narrower than those of the 1870s section. Like the core and the northern wing, the southern extension also rests on timber stumps, but at a greater height than the core, and there are steps leading down to the foyer connecting this extension to the 1870s building. The southern extension comprises one large room - living room/ball room/billiard room - with a high, coved ceiling lined in narrow tongue and groove timber boarding. In the eastern wall is a bay window overlooking the garden, and glass doors opening onto the southern verandah of the house core.
Opening off the southern end of this extension is an idiosyncratic timber 'tower', about one and a half storeys in height, with a steeply pitched pyramid roof of galvanized iron with a top finial and acroteria to the corners of the guttering. It is square in form, and has narrow windows at the top, just below the eaves. These are separated on the exterior by decorative timber brackets. There are verandahs with timber posts and capitals and corrugated iron roofs to the front [east] and side [south] of the tower. Later glass doors open to both verandahs. Internally the tower comprises one room, lined with the same narrow, vertically jointed tongue and groove timber boards as the southern extension, and opens directly into this room via a simple timber arch in the northern wall. Like the rest of the complex, the 'tower' is set on timber stumps, but higher than those of the larger southern extension. This 'tower' now forms the principal entrance to the residence.
Behind the 'tower' room, to the west, is a bedroom wing which appears to be the remnant enclosed northern verandah of an earlier dormitory wing which was destroyed by fire c1950s. This has an open verandah along the southern side.
Attached or semi-attached to the rear [west] of the core are a number of weatherboard-clad structures, including kitchen, study, meat house and garage. Most of these have hipped roofs clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The meat house roof is gabled. There are two red-brick chimneys, thought to date to the 1950s, in this section of the homestead.
The main house is set within gardens which include an early carriage path from the south with remnant early hedging; a number of mature trees likely to date to the 19th century; a tennis court in the southwest corner of the garden; and terraces with stone retaining walls along the bank to the creek.
To the west/northwest of the house are a number of outbuildings, which include an early two-storeyed timber barn relocated from its original location closer to the house, and an early single-storeyed two-roomed cottage also formerly located closer to the house.
Between these outbuildings and the main house is an L-shaped timber cottage with a front gable with heavy timber infill. This cottage was formerly part of the northern bedroom wing of the main residence.
There are numerous yards and sheds adjacent to the principal outbuildings and Rose Cottage. On the southern perimeter of the homestead block, along Crystal Mountain Road, is a timber paling fence.
","history":"The block on which Braeside Homestead is situated was taken up in 1869, during the opening of large tracts of Rosenthal run to selection in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The homestead itself was established in the mid-1870s. From 1879 to 1901 the property was developed as a model stud farm by Queensland pastoralist, politician and businessman William Allan. It is not certain who named the property, but by 1887 Braeside was identified in the local electoral roll as both the grazing property and a locality.
In the earliest years of non-indigenous settlement on the southern Darling Downs, Braeside was included within the Leslie brothers' mid-1840 ambit claim for Tulburra run, and from c1841 was part of the North British Australasian Investment Co.'s Rosenthal run, excised from Tulburra.
Under the provisions of the Alienation of Crown Lands Act of 1868, James Adam Veitch of Warwick selected two blocks along Turner Creek from Rosenthal Run in 1869. These comprised selection 286 (containing the site of Braeside Homestead - 1280 acres of first-class pastoral land and 1280 acres of second-class pastoral land) selected on 25 August 1869 and adjacent selection 295 (320 acres of first-class pastoral land and 320 acres of second-class pastoral land) selected on 15 September 1869 - making a total of 3290 acres. Under the conditions of selection, Veitch had to pay an annual rental of £96 per annum on selection 286 for a period of ten years, commencing 1 July 1869, and had to make improvements. Once these conditions were satisfied, he could apply for freehold title.
The Darling Downs Bailiff for Crown Lands first inspected selection 286 on 16 December 1875, to ascertain proof of the fulfilment of the conditions of selection. At this time boundary rider Henry Steel had been in residence on the block from 1 January 1870, acting as bailiff for JA Veitch, 'sheep overseer' of Glengallan. The property was stocked with 1000 sheep and 224 head of cattle, property of the selector. Improvements consisted mainly of fencing and sheep yards, and there was a two-roomed slab hut with a bark roof, chimney, verandah, and 'bush furniture', which was the residence of Steel and his wife. The inspector's report and neighbours' declarations satisfied WC Hume, the Darling Downs Commissioner of Crown Lands, who in February 1876 issued Veitch with a certificate of fulfilment of the conditions of selection. The next month Veitch signed over his interest in the leases of selections 286 and 295 to South Toolburra grazier Bertie Chiverton Parr, who immediately paid off the outstanding debt and gained freehold title in July 1876. Parr likely named the property, and also appears to have acquired a number of adjacent selections which became part of Braeside.
A little over a year later, in September 1877, Parr conveyed selections 286 and 285 [totalling now 3188 acres 3 roods, some land having been excised for roads] to Francis Henry Needham of Warwick, for the sum of £1200. This was the value of the property when first acquired for selection in 1869, suggesting that no substantial improvement, such as a house, had been erected by this date. In February 1878 Needham registered a £1600 mortgage on the property from George Arthur Needham, which he likely raised to purchase and/or improve the property. It was possibly Needham who erected the first house [as distinguished from the earlier slab hut] on Braeside.
Needham was the second son of the Hon. Francis Henry Needham. Socially he was extremely well connected, having married Grace Gore, daughter of the late aristocrat and pioneer Darling Downs squatter St George Richard Gore, at Warwick in June 1873. Needham was resident in the Dalveen district by 22 September 1876 - whether this was at Braeside has not been established, but it is possible he was managing the property for Parr - and was influential in selecting a site for the location of Dalveen Railway Station in October 1878. However, he retained title to selections 286 and 295 for less than two years before selling them for £1500 to pastoralist William Allan in July 1879.
Allan, the well-educated son of an Edinburgh lawyer, arrived in Australia c1857 aged about 17, to work for his uncle Alexander Campbell in Victoria. Allan gained his pastoral experience principally at his uncle's property and at Bundure Station in the Riverina. In 1869 he purchased the lease of Geraldra Station, near Bland Creek in New South Wales, and in 1871 established a lucrative stock and station agency at Young in New South Wales. Late in 1871 he married Emily Mate of Tarcutta Station, New South Wales, the daughter of successful Albury storekeeper, station owner and politician, Thomas Hodge Mate. The marriage consolidated Allan's social, business and political connections in the colonies.
In 1874 Allan joined the second wave of southern pastoralists to move into Queensland, with the purchase of Whyenbah and Woolerina Stations on the Balonne and Maranoa rivers. Pastoralists of Allan's generation were the pastoral improvers of Queensland, replacing the pioneer land grabbers of the 1840s and 1850s.
In purchasing Braeside, a well-watered grazing property on the southern Darling Downs, from FH Needham in 1879, Allan was able to concentrate on stock breeding and improvement, developing the property as a model stud farm, his pastoral headquarters, and his family's permanent place of residence. At Braeside Allan established a purebred Hereford Cattle Stud and bred black Merino and Lincoln sheep, the wool selling well on the London market. He took a great interest in developing the stud, keeping detailed herd books. His bulls had a reputation for hardiness and longevity, and were in demand with graziers. Braeside Stud was sufficiently significant to Queensland to be featured in the Department of Agriculture's Queensland Agricultural Journal of September 1899. At this time the property totalled about 12,000 acres, and included Mount Crystal. The Hereford cattle stud numbered over 1,000, all descended from high-class imported English stock. In addition there was a fine Jersey dairy herd at Braeside, and some cropping for home consumption, on the creek flats. The house was set amid extensive gardens and an orchard.
In the 1880s Allan established a close business connection with the mercantile firm of BD Morehead & Co. In December 1881 he nominated Boyd Dunlop Morehead of Brisbane and his brother-in-law William Henry Mate of Tarcutta Station, New South Wales, as trustees for Braeside, and in 1882 was made a partner in the firm of BD Morehead & Co. In 1886 he was appointed managing partner.
In addition to his building up of the Braeside stud, his other Queensland pastoral interests, his involvement with BD Morehead & Co., and world trips with his family in 1875 and 1883, Allan was actively involved in community and political spheres. He was a President of the prestigious Queensland Club in Brisbane, the Brisbane Chamber of Commerce, and the Eastern Downs Agricultural and Horticultural Association. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society of Queensland, and a committee member of the Royal Agricultural Society and the Queensland National Association. He was also a major in the Darling Downs Mounted Infantry Regiment [volunteers] and a prominent freemason. Through his work with the Darling Downs Pastoralists' Association, the United Pastoralists' Association, the Federated Employers' Union of Queensland [all of which he helped form] and as Vice-President of the Pastoralists' Federal Council of Australia, Allan took a significant role in defeating the shearers' strikes of the early 1890s and maintaining the pastoral status quo. He served as Member of the Legislative Assembly for the Darling Downs from November 1881 to October 1883 and from September 1887 to May 1888, prior to his election as MLA for Cunningham in May 1888. He held this seat until March 1896. As may be expected from his pastoralist and mercantile activities, he was a McIlwraith Nationalist and a Coalition Conservative, and while never holding a portfolio, his social, pastoral and business connections enabled him to wield considerable personal influence. In March 1897 he was appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council, a position he retained until his sudden death in October 1901. It is likely, given Allan's popularity and strong social, commercial and local political profile, that he entertained regularly at Braeside.
Following William Allan's death his wife Emily remained at Braeside for several years, with AW Allan [Alexina W Allan, the Allan's eldest child?], managing the property. In September 1906 the property was transferred to George Edward Bunning, manager of Darr River Downs Station in Western Queensland. Bunning and his family resided permanently at Braeside for only a few years, having made Brisbane their principal place of residence by 1911 and leaving Braeside to the supervision of managers. Photographic evidence reveals that substantial extensions to the main homestead, which include a northern bedroom wing, and on the southern side an idiosyncratic 'tower' and a large public room which may have functioned as a ballroom, living room or billiard room, were constructed between 1899 and 1918, and were most likely erected for the Bunning family. By 1918, Braeside Homestead comprised a substantial group of buildings, with a complex series of additions, extensions and renovations. The majority of these structures survive although some have been relocated within the homestead yards.
Bunning subdivided Braeside in the mid-1920s. The bulk of the property, including the block containing Braeside Homestead [subdivision 1, portion 192, par Rosenthal, co Merivale, comprising 1226 acres 3 roods 19 perches], was transferred in February 1925 to Englishman Harold Priest, who retained it for only a few years. During this period his brother Alfred, a London painter of some repute, stayed and painted at Braeside. Early in 1928 Priest sold Braeside to George Gilbert Cory of Gordonbrook and Cormanshurst. The Cory family retained and occupied Braeside for over 20 years until it was transferred in 1951/52 to Kenneth William Lloyd. In 1951 the western end of the northern bedroom wing of the main house was relocated about 100 metres to the west, to form a separate residence [now called Rose Cottage] for Mr and Mrs Leighton, who managed Braeside for the Lloyds.
In 1954 the property, then reputedly comprising about 7,000 acres, was transferred to Cecil Raymond Hardman Lockwood, who ran it with a staff of 6 or 7. It is understood that an early shingled dormitory building, evident in photographs taken between 1918 and 1922, was destroyed by fire in the 1950s. Lockwood sold Braeside in 1972. Several subsequent rapid changes in ownership to 1983 saw the property decline. In the late 1990s Braeside Homestead was developed by the Lindsay family as a 'home stay'.
","criteria":"Braeside Homestead is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland history. The property was developed as an important Hereford stud in the last two decades of the 19th century, during a significant period of pastoral improvement in Queensland, and is illustrative of the dominance of Darling Downs stud farms in livestock breeding in Queensland in the 19th and early 20th centuries. William Allan's work at Braeside made a major contribution to livestock improvement in this State.
|Braeside Homestead comprises a substantial complex of timber structures set within gardens and yards, which has evolved over time. It remains substantially intact, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. The timber buildings are worthy of further investigation and analysis, and have the potential to contribute significantly to our understanding of the construction and design of timber buildings in rural Queensland from the 1870s to the early 1900s.
|The placed has strong aesthetic value, engendered by the materials, complex form, garden and creek-side settings, and surrounding rural environment.
|Braeside Homestead is important also for its association with pastoralist, businessman and politician William Allan, who contributed significantly to stock improving and conservative politics in Queensland, and who wielded strong personal influence in pastoral, mercantile and political circles.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":2499,"place_ref":602368,"name":"Charleville Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"King Street","suburb":"CHARLEVILLE","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-07-12","description":"Charleville Railway Station is located on King Street, on the southeastern outskirts of the township. The buildings and structures of cultural heritage significance include the passenger station (1957) and the goods shed (1888 with later modifications). The passenger station is a substantial concrete reinforced building opening onto King Street, the goods shed is a corrugated iron building south west of the station on the opposite side of the railway lines and the weighbridge is a small structure north east of the passenger station.
Passenger Station
The passenger station is a long single storey building running parallel to King Street. It has a simple, relatively severe architectural style. The walls are cream and are constructed of reinforced concrete. The hipped roof is clad with red terracotta tiles. A section of the building at each end is recessed from the front elevation. The roof line is broken at these points. The main entrance is located in the middle of this elevation and opens onto a car park off King Street. It is topped with a parapet and shaded by a cantilevered awning. A bronze-sheeted lantern elevator symmetrically placed above the entrance vestibule, projects from the roof. A raised platform runs the full length of the elevation facing the railway lines. This is shaded by a cantilevered awning.
The entrance façade is the most prominent feature of the front elevation. Together with its parapet, it projects slightly forward of the front of the building. Access is obtained through three flat arches placed symmetrically about the centre of the façade. A tall narrow window is located on each side of the three arches. Each of the entrances is very similar in form. A pair of maple double doors within each arch is approached via two granites steps and a shallow alcove. The double doors open in the middle and are topped with a pair of louvred fanlights. Each door comprises eight lights separated by narrow mullions with a pair of chrome push rails placed horizontally across the door about halfway up. A wide stainless steel panel is fitted to the bottom of each door. The words 'Charleville Railway Station' are formed from projecting metal letters on the parapet above the awning over the entrance. A centrally positioned flag pole is fitted immediately above these words.
Large steel framed windows with reeded obscure glass open from the front elevation. Most of these windows comprise eight lights with horizontally pivoting sashes to maximise ventilation. Apart from the front entrance, there are a further three doors along the front of the building. Each entrance is bracketed with fluted pilasters and provided with a shallow concrete step. They are all fitted with double wooden doors and a pair of louvred fanlights above. Each door has a small fixed window near the top.
Like the front elevation, the platform elevation of the station presents a long, low aspect. A wide cantilevered awning with exposed, steel supporting girders extends the full length of this elevation. A series of doors and windows open onto the platform. The windows are similar in design to those in the front of the building. Louvred fanlights are fitted above each of the doors. Public access to the platform is gained through a set of collapsible metal gates.
The front entrance opens into a spacious vestibule with a high ceiling and a polished terrazzo floor. A ticket office opens into the vestibule which functions as the main thoroughfare for passengers moving through to the platform. Maple plywood panelling lines the walls to a height of approximately two metres. A series of painted wooden benches are placed around the walls. A ladies waiting room opens from the vestibule. This is a large room provided with wooden benches. The women's lavatory is accessed through this room.
The remaining rooms are functional in style with undecorated concrete walls and simple fittings. The fibrous plaster ceilings are high and large louvered windows are positioned high in the internal walls to allow airflow through the building.
Two garden beds are positioned along the side of the car park close to the edge of King Street. These bracket the main entrance and from the street. Trees frame the entrance façade.
Goods Shed
The Goods Shed is a large, unlined, corrugated-iron and steel clad building. It has a gabled roof clad in new steel cladding supported on original trusses. Along the elevation opposite the rail, the roof projects and is supported on angle struts. The building is designed for access by both road and rail goods transport and encloses a large open space which functions as a goods storage area and loading docks. A newer office is attached to the outside of the shed at the south western end.
Access by road transport is gained by a series of large steel roller shutters. Six doors are spaced along the elevation opposite the railway lines towards the south east. Another door provides access via a new concrete ramp through the north eastern end. All of the doors open onto a raised, concrete platform inside the shed which extends about two thirds of its width for its full length.
The shed is built over a railway line. The rail enters the south western end of the shed and runs the full length of the internal concrete platform before exiting from the north eastern end. The original, large, hinged wooden doors open outwards to provide access into the shed for rolling stock.
The office located at the south western end is a small lined room outside of the main part of the shed. Double swinging glass doors provide access from the office into the main part of the shed. Another door opens to the outside of the building. A long, waist high counter runs almost the full width of the room facing the double doors. An enclosed corner of the room functions as a supervisor's office.
","history":"Charleville Railway Station was established by the Queensland Government in 1888 as part of a rail link to service Western Queensland. Structures of cultural heritage significance at the station include the passenger station, opened in 1957 and the goods shed, the core of which was completed in 1888. These structures reflect the historic importance of Charleville as a western railway station.
In Australia, government fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and providing social benefits. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers. An added incentive for rail development in Queensland was the very poor state of the roads. In wet weather especially, this hampered the transport of freight. Railway development became the province of government because of the doubtful economics of building and operating a rail service for the widely distributed, sparse population of rural Queensland. In most cases the capital costs were high in relation to the potential revenue likely to be raised from passengers and freight. These economies imposed a limit on the expansion of railways into remote areas.
The government initially gave priority to developing a railway west of Brisbane. As well as providing graziers and farmers with a more efficient transport link to the coast, railways were seen as a key to encouraging closer settlement west of the Great Dividing Range. The first section of rail, opened on 31 July 1865, was between Ipswich and Bigg's Camp, 34 kilometres west of Ipswich. By February 1868 the rail was extended to Dalby in the Darling Downs. With a railhead provided for the squatters in this region, extensions further west ceased while the railway was developed elsewhere. It was 1876 before construction of the railway westward from Dalby recommenced. The rail was opened to Roma in 1880, Mitchell in 1885 and Charleville on 1 March 1888. With the opening of the rail to the west, the train became an important transport link for passengers and freight.
There were a number of factors that contributed to Charleville's importance as a rail terminus. Situated on the banks of the Warrego River, a natural stock route from New South Wales to Western Queensland, Charleville was already an important regional centre. Moreover, it was to remain the main western rail terminus for at least a decade. The economies of extending the line further west were doubtful. In any case the depression of the 1890s precluded further railway construction for some years. An extension to the line was opened in 1898. However, it was designed to intercept cross-border trade with New South Wales so it was south southwest from Charleville to Cunnamulla rather than west. A further development west did not begin until 1911 when a line to Quilpie was commenced as part of the ill-fated Great Western Railway scheme. Until the opening of this line in 1917, Charleville remained the most western railhead. Also, Charleville was made a locomotive depot due to its distance from the closest existing facility at Roma.
Charleville's importance meant that the station was provided with more than the usual station facilities. By August 1888, most of the station structures were completed. These included platform, tank, booking and telegraph offices, goods shed, stationmaster's house, and guards, enginemen and firemen's cottages. Engine and carriage sheds were moved from Mitchell to Charleville. Cattle and sheep yards were in place by January 1889 and by 1916, a 50-ton weighbridge had been added to the complex. The weighbridge currently on the site is 40 tons and appears to post-date 1976.
The original wooden station building was destroyed by fire on 6 July 1954 and the engine shed was blown down in a severe windstorm in October 2003. Most of the other 1888 buildings appear to have been either removed or demolished.
The Goods Shed has survived a serious fire and has undergone significant modification. On 4 April 1900, a fire destroyed the entire contents of the Goods Shed, then rented from the Government by N Nielsen. It seems that no substantial modifications were made to the structure as a result of this fire. The shed has been upgraded at least twice since that time. In the 1920s, an extension of some 12 metres by 3.7 metres to the platform at the eastern end was approved. Then in 1962, major white ant damage in the office and deterioration of the timber platform was reported. Repair work was delayed because a complete rearrangement of the yard was under consideration but as this did not proceed, tenders were called for renovations in 1974. Substantial changes were made to the structure including a new goods office, reconstruction of much of the timber platform, a new concrete platform and a new toilet.
Following the destruction of the original passenger station, a new station building was opened in 1957. It was designed by Queensland Railways Department's architectural office under the supervision of Charles Da Costa and erected by K D Morris and Sons, Brisbane. Da Costa had been a specialist in re-inforced concrete design for at least thirty years. He trained as a pupil of T. S. Martin of Sydney from 1905, joining Queensland Railways in 1907 as a Junior Draftsman. After retrenchment in 1921, he began private practise as an architect and structural designer in Brisbane. Later he worked for Burns Philp and Company and then, in 1935 rejoined Queensland Railways as an Architect. He became Principal Architect in 1938 and retired in 1955. Charleville Railway Station may have been one of his last designs before retiring.
The building was more substantial than its predecessor. It was built in an era of economic prosperity augmented by a wool industry that was booming in the mid-1950s and in an environment of Government investment in post-war rehabilitation of rail infrastructure. However, at the opening ceremony, the Honourable T Moore indicated that the new building also reflected the continued importance of Charleville as a western railhead:
'Mindful of the important contribution made by the Charleville district to the earnings of the Railway Department (the revenue from outward and inward traffic for the last financial year totalled £ 246, 856 and £ 186, 369 respectively) and the wealth of the State generally, the Government decided that the wooden station building which was destroyed by fire in 1954 should be replaced by a modern structure, worthy of this prosperous and progressive town and district, one which would meet, for many years to come, the increasing needs of the Department's customers and a building which would provide the maximum of comfort for travellers to and from the West...'
Charleville was the third busiest goods station on the Western Line after Quilpie and Cunnamulla and the busiest passenger station at the time, earning £26 810 in revenue from passengers in 1954/55 ahead of Roma (£17 346) and Dalby (£10 816).
The station, as designed in 1954, was a large building almost 92 metres long and 12.5 metres wide with a 162.7 metres long concrete platform shaded with cantilever awnings extending well beyond the northeastern end of the building. A 46 metre long loading dock was built at the north end of the building with access to King Street. The entrance opened to a spacious terrazzo tiled vestibule located in the centre of the building. Some 26 other rooms made up the building including Tranship Room, Cloak and Luggage Room, Parcels Office, Station Master and Assistant Station Master's Offices, Clerks' Office, Telegraph Room, Ticket Office, Ladies Waiting Room, Refreshment Rooms, Store Rooms, Guards and Porters' Rooms, Mail Room and Lavatories.
The design of the building, according to Moore, was influenced by the local climate. The reinforced concrete walls were designed to insulate the interior against extremes of temperature. The building was provided with projecting eaves to provide shade and large windows to capture breezes.
The furniture in the building, a quantity of which is still extant, was manufactured partly by contractors and partly by the railway's Northgate workshops.
Charleville is the only station of its design on the Queensland Rail network. Hughenden also has a large concrete station. However, it was built some ten years earlier than Charleville, is less than half the size and is made of pre-cast concrete beams not reinforced concrete.
With the greater use of other modes of transport such as road and air coupled with a decline in rural population, passenger numbers on the Western Line have declined sharply since the 1950s. Passenger traffic through Charleville is now much less than it was when the station was built in 1957.
","criteria":"Charleville station is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. Opened in 1888 when the rail link to Western Queensland was first built. Charleville station was the western rail terminus, serving goods and passenger traffic. It remained the terminus for a decade and one of the most important stations on the Western Railway until at least the 1960s.
The complex, which includes a goods shed (1888) and a substantial, concrete passenger station (1957), provides physical evidence of the historic importance of rail as a transport link to the coast and of Charleville as a busy railway station servicing Western Queensland. Charleville was the third busiest goods station and the busiest passenger station on the Western Line prior to the 1960s. The substantial scale of the passenger station in particular is indicative of an era of rehabilitation of rail infrastructure that occurred in an environment of economic prosperity in Queensland following World War II.
|The passenger station is significant for its rarity value. It is the only station of its design and the only station on the Queensland Rail network with reinforced concrete walls, designed to accommodate the climactic conditions of Charleville.
|The passenger station building (1957) remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. These characteristics include the use of reinforced concrete exterior walls to insulate the interior against temperature extremes; design features such as projecting eaves to shade the windows and large windows to capture breezes; and the interior arrangement of rooms that provided for clear demarcation between public areas, offices and service rooms. It is also a good example of the work of Queensland Rail design staff under the supervision of Charles Da Costa in the 1950s.
|The passenger station building and the front grounds, including a small garden along the road alignment, have aesthetic value. The building exhibits a visually pleasing symmetry in the street elevation and in its garden setting makes an important contribution to the streetscape of King Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":2632,"place_ref":602563,"name":"Yeppoon Station Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"James Street","suburb":"YEPPOON","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-04-18","description":"The station complex is located on the northern side of James Street at the western end of the main commercial precinct.
The passenger station is a long gable-roofed chamferboard building with a corrugated galvanised iron roof with square 'fascia' gutters. On the street side, the roof extends to form a shade supported on timber posts by solid timber brackets. Large decorative brackets are spaced at regular intervals under the eaves. The lowset building is set on concrete stumps. Concrete steps lead up to doorways, a small timber landing is situated adjacent to a boarded up window of the ticket and freight office. Several metres from the building, two long sandstone block steps, topped with concrete run along half the length (western end) of the building. Some panelled doors remain, but the door to the ticket and freight office has been replaced with a flush sliding door. Windows are 4-pane colonial sash. The platform side has a curved shade supported on timber posts with plain struts and concrete bases. A section on the eastern end is enclosed with battens to form a storage area for a forklift. The platform on which the station building sits is concrete edged and is of compacted soil topped with blue metal gravel and is furnished with a single timber bench seat bearing the word 'YEPPOON' in black letters. Two similar seats are placed on the street side of the building. On either end of the building a timber sign is mounted off the wall at an angle, painted dark green and with raised letters painted beige to match the building bearing the name 'YEPPOON'.
The ticket and freight office, located at the western end of the building is a large rectangular space with walls and ceiling lined with tongue and groove boards. A set of cupboards is built in to the western end of the room to waist height. It has four doors and a safe located in the centre, below the window to the waiting room. Wall-mounted timber shelving is located to the right of the window. The room contains a mix of modern and original furnishings and fixtures. Two panelled timber doors with square fanlights above open to the platform. Two windows open to the platform and two to the street side.
The former waiting room is adjacent to the ticket and freight office and is enclosed to the platform side by timber battens with a door offset to the eastern end. It has a window opening to the ticket and freight office.
The parcels room is a large open space with centrally located double timber doors opening to the outside of the building on either side. The western wall is lined with four shelves. The roof and walls are lined with tongue and groove boards. The floor is of timber boards. The wall to the platform side has exposed framing.
At the eastern end of the building are male and female toilets with doors opening to the platform side.
","history":"In 1867, residents of Rockhampton signed a petition asking the Surveyor-General to mark out a town at the nearest point on the central Queensland coast where they might be able to enjoy a day at the beach. Although Yeppoon, then known as 'Bald Hills', was proclaimed as a Town Reserve, as a watering place for Rockhampton on 30 April 1868, for many years access to it was difficult, the first road with culverts being built in 1878. It suffered in its rivalry with Emu Park (declared a Town Reserve on 9 January 1869), where land was taken up by influential Rockhampton businessmen and squatters from further west who built holiday houses there. These two resort towns were among the first in Queensland and the first on the Barrier Reef lagoon.
Pastoralists and selectors were the first to settle and develop the Yeppoon area. The first land sale was held on 4 August 1873 when P. F. McDonald, the pastoralist and investor bought 15 of the 17 blocks sold, and local selectors two. Yeppoon town site lay in a hollow between steep hills, below the line of dunes, and in wet weather it was swampy. The only large enterprise was the Yeppoon Sugar Plantation, which in its twenty years of existence was handicapped by the lack of roads and rail. Yeppoon with a higher rainfall than Rockhampton or Emu Park, and fertile soil, became an agricultural area with land near the town occupied by selectors within 10 years of its proclamation and surrounding areas being used for grazing.
The beginning of the 1880s brought changes to the district as people began to take more of an interest in the town. Between 1881 and 1884, it was predominantly residents of the area who purchased the remaining 30 town lots. These lots had not sold at the first land sales in 1873. When an additional town area was surveyed in 1881, however, these lots had all sold out by 1885.
The first length of rail line in the region was opened to Westwood some thirty miles (fifty kilometres) from Rockhampton in 1867. The line was extended beyond the coastal ranges in 1872, reaching Emerald in 1879. The Central Railway was progressively extended further west reaching Longreach in 1892, and remained an isolated railway system, with no connection to the southern division of Queensland railways until 1903.
In Brisbane a railway line to Sandgate was completed in May 1882, later extended to Shorncliffe, giving residents access to the beach. It is one of the few surviving seaside stations; others including Pialba, Urangan, Cleveland, Southport, Tweeds Heads and Coolangatta have been demolished.
Following this southern success, the Rockhampton owners of holiday houses at Emu Park also wanted a railway. Their petitions were successful and a rail link from North Rockhampton to Emu Park was approved in 1885 and opened in December 1888. The railway also served the Lakes Creek Meatworks and gold mining at Cawarral and New Zealand Gully. It ensured that Emu Park gained the holiday traffic, and the township grew rapidly.
Yeppoon residents and the Sugar Plantation agitated for an extension to Yeppoon, for without it rail travellers continued to take the train to Tanby, then coach to Yeppoon. In 1890 a survey for a rail corridor to Yeppoon was undertaken and a second in 1900. The extension to Yeppoon was approved, and the first section of five kilometres from Sleipner (New Zealand Gully) to Mount Chalmers was opened in November 1908 to transport workers, supplies and metal. The next 27 kilometres to Yeppoon was opened on 20 December 1909, in time for the Christmas traffic. The official opening was by the Governor, Sir William McGregor on 21 January 1910.
The passenger station, engine shed and a carriage shed were built in 1909. A parcels and luggage room were added in 1910. By 1943 the complex included a goods shed, station master's house, guards' quarters, drivers' quarters, forkline and loading ramp. The goods shed was relocated within the railyard in 1966.
Tourist services to Yeppoon and Emu Park departed from the passenger-only Archer Park station [600777] in Rockhampton. Also serving other passenger services to Mount Morgan, St Lawrence and Mackay it closed in February 1970.
On the first Rockhampton-Yeppoon train 128 passengers travelled, paying three shillings and ten pence for a second-class fare. On Boxing Day 1910, 700 people attended the traditional races on Yeppoon Beach. Large group picnics brought full trains to Yeppoon on weekends. An exceptionally large one was a Railway workers' picnic on the beach in 1924 which 3,500 people attended. . The railway with fares much cheaper than the coach, opened Yeppoon to all classes and brought rapid progress. Betty Cosgrove has written: 'very few working class people went to Yeppoon until the 20th century', but it became more popular than Emu Park with an ambience more tolerant and welcoming. The train to Yeppoon became the predominant means of travel to Yeppoon until after World War 2.
The siting of Yeppoon railway station one kilometre from the beach was not for the convenience of holiday makers, but for freight handling. On flat land on the edge of the town it allowed the loading of produce including cattle which could be yarded on the western end of the complex. Its position did not deter residents and visitors from 'meeting the train', a practice continued from that of meeting the coach from Rockhampton. Passengers were the interest, and people 'dressed' for the train's arrival.
Pineapples became a major crop in the district and the main freight carried. In 1953 a cannery opened at Koongal, Rockhampton, to which pineapples were railed. When it closed pineapples were railed to the cannery at Northgate in wagons adapted for bulk transport.
Boarding schools for girls were opened in Yeppoon in 1917 and 1923, allowing families on the Central Railway line to send their daughters direct to Yeppoon. During the most fearful period of World War 2, when a Japanese invasion seemed imminent, St Faiths School was evacuated to Barcaldine in February 1942 , with girls, beds, desks, pianos and boxes of books sent west by rail. The boarders from St Ursula's college were similarly evacuated to Our Ladies' College at Longreach.
With approximately 70,000 American troops in the Rockhampton district, troop movements within the district were by road, but soldiers on leave patronised the train. On Sunday 20 September 1942 all seaside trains out of Rockhampton were cancelled, as lines and rolling stock had to be available for transport of the troops who were then moving out to New Guinea. The camp sites were quiet until March 1943.
Peak passenger numbers were in 1950 with 40,083 passengers. After World War 2 car ownership became widespread, the Rockhampton-Yeppoon road improved and passenger travel on the railway fell. In 1964 the service to Emu Park closed and the station building has been demolished. Also in 1964 the weekday service to Yeppoon was provided by rail car and passenger services withdrawn in the 1970s. Up until the 1970s the lack of an all weather sealed road over the Drummond Range to Central Western Queensland ensured that the railway line remained the best method of holiday transport from the west to Yeppoon which had gained the unofficial title of "rouseabout's Bondi". The line has been used sporadically for freight or tourist services since. Occasional special heritage trips were made in the early 1980s.
In 2004 QRail announced that pineapple traffic would be put onto road transport and the Yeppoon line would be closed and dismantled. Investigation found that a possible commuter/tourist service would not be viable. By mid 2007 work had commenced on removing rails, sleepers, signals and other infrastructure.
","criteria":"Yeppoon Railway Station is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. The terminal of branch line opened in 1909, it is important surviving evidence of a rail service to a seaside resort. Passengers from Rockhampton and throughout Central West Queensland used the service to Yeppoon. The line also contributed to coastal development serving mining, agricultural, educational and pastoral interests in the area. In particular it was important in the establishment of Yeppoon as a centre for boarding schools to service Central Queensland. It recalls an era when the railway played an important role in conveying day trippers to the seaside and complements Archer Park [600777], the principal point of departure for passengers on this railway.
|The Yeppoon station building is important as a rare surviving and substantially intact seaside resort station, comparing with Shorncliffe and Pialba and others including Urangan, Cleveland, Southport, Tweeds Heads and Coolangatta since demolished. The extant earth platform is also rare in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":2940,"place_ref":602687,"name":"Sweeney's Reserve","alternate_name":"Sweeneys Reserve","street_address":"Old Dayboro Road","suburb":"PETRIE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-12-11","description":"Sweeney's Reserve is a grassy, partially wooded park on the north bank of the North Pine River in the outer Brisbane suburb of Petrie. The reserve is equipped with barbeques and a playground. Access is possible by foot along a concrete path that runs through the reserve from adjacent green areas or by vehicle via a bitumen roadway.
The roadway enters the reserve mid-way along its northern boundary and continues in a circuit through the park. The entrance comprises two tall wooden posts engraved with the name of the reserve. A brick lavatory block stands to the east of the access road near the entrance.
The eastern end of the reserve comprises a peninsular of land formed by the curve of the river and a wide inlet. Here, the terrain is open, quite level and grassy and the river banks are low. The edge of the water is largely obscured by a thick growth of mangroves.
The former river crossing is located at the eastern end of the reserve. The route of the old road is traced by a raised grassy embankment that curves through the reserve to the present entrance. A grove of camphor laurel trees grow over and beside the embankment where it passes through the central part of the reserve. A wooden bridge crosses a small gully that cuts through the embankment.
The playground and barbeque areas are located in the central part of the reserve near a bitumen car-park. These facilities are recent. The greater part of this section of the reserve is shaded by large trees which blend with the camphor laurels growing on the embankment.
The western end of the park is dominated by a fenced off-lead area for dogs. Another brick lavatory block is located close to this.
The banks of the river are quite accessible for the most part, though mangroves of varying density grow along it. A combined concrete canoe launching area and fishing spot is located on the bank towards the eastern end of the reserve.
","history":"Sweeney's Reserve is a picnic ground located on the banks of the North Pine River in the suburb of Petrie on the northern edges of greater Brisbane. It was used as a rafting ground in the early period of the timber getting industry. Later, the Brisbane to Gympie Road crossed the North Pine River here and the park contains the remains of this road. The remnants of timber bridge piles are located in the adjacent reach of the river. During the interwar period it became a popular picnic and bathing spot maintained by T.P. Sweeney, the owner of small kiosk in the reserve. The picnic ground is named after him.
The area may have been used by timber getters as early as the 1840s. The Pine River area was among the first in Queensland to be logged: convict timber getters were recorded in the area in 1824. The north coast region had a long-lived timber industry, eventually developing into one of the State's most productive timber regions by the middle of the 20th century.
Since timber was the most viable and easily accessible natural resource it was one of the first resources to be exploited by settlers. As a consequence, timber getters entered undeveloped districts which had few, if any roads. So rivers like the Pine were crucial to the viability of the industry. Not only did the sought-after soft woods generally grow in river valleys, but the rivers also represented the most practical way of transporting logs out of the district to market. Rafting grounds were places were logs were assembled in rivers and floated downstream to the sea.
The present Sweeney's Reserve was probably being used as such at least as early as 1859. The Winn family began logging in the district at about this time and family members indicate that the location was used for this purpose. However, it was probably used as a rafting ground before this. When travelling through the area in 1858, Tom Petrie encountered John Griffin, a local pastoralist, carting logs to the tidal reaches of the North Pine River from where they could be rafted out to sea. The encounter took place not far from the present Sweeney's Reserve. Griffin was probably headed for this location which, at the time, was the closest point of the river influenced by tides and the nearest point from where logs could have unobstructed passage to the sea. Given that loggers were recorded on the Griffin property as early as 1847, it is possible that the rafting ground had been in use for some time.
The location meets the essential criteria for a rafting ground: it is close to the 'head of navigation', that is, logs could have clear passage to the sea from here; access to the water is easy because the banks are low; there is a wide expanse of relatively flat ground adjacent to the river where logs could be handled and temporarily stored; and the river can be forded here so that both banks could be used.
The river ford's use as part of a route probably commenced as early as 1860. After Tom Petrie, the district's first settler, established his nearby Murrumba homestead in 1859, he marked a route to Bald Hills which probably crossed the river at the present Sweeney's Reserve. At the onset of closer settlement in 1862, the ford was surveyed as a road reserve suggesting that the route was well established by this time.
By 1865, the ford probably formed part of the main northern route to Maryborough. This route had been first established in the 1840s to provide access to the Archer Brothers' Durundur Station and it later extended to Maryborough via the Mary River. The original North Pine River crossings on this route were some distance upstream. However, the Select Committee Report on Roads (1863) and Pugh's Almanac (1865) suggests that a route via the present Sweeney's Reserve was emerging as a favoured alternative by the mid-1860s although the road was unformed and very poor. The original crossing points probably continued to be used for some time.
The importance of the ford in the current Sweeney's Reserve grew after the discovery of gold at Gympie Creek in 1867. Prospectors initially travelled to the gold fields via the Durundur road or by sea. By 1868, a more direct land route to the gold fields was marked via the ford and Petrie's homestead. This was the forerunner of the present Gympie Road. Cobb and Co commenced using the route from this time and Murrumba was their first coach stop. Since the ford could only be crossed at low tide, it is believed that Tom Petrie operated a punt across the river. The ford was now part of the main Brisbane to Gympie road as well as probably being part of the earlier northern route via Durundur.
For a time, the ford possibly vied with other crossings further upstream. However, the establishment of a nearby hostelry by Petrie in about 1870 suggests that a growing volume of traffic was using it. In 1872, the opening of a post office in the hostelry marked the beginning of the small settlement of North Pine (now Petrie) near the ford.
In 1877, a low level bridge was built next to the ford. It was named 'Sir Arthur's Bridge' after the governor of Queensland, Sir Arthur Kennedy, who performed the opening ceremony. 320 feet (97.5m) long and 18 feet (5.5m) wide, it cost less than £2500. The ford continued to be used by travelling stock until well into the 20th century.
The bridge was designed by the Inspector General of Roads, Mr J. F. Byerley. It was largely undistinguishable from other similar scale bridges of the era except for the innovative design of the piles which are still visible at low tide. These were encased in eight to twelve inches (20.3 to 30.5cm) of concrete from three feet (91.4cm) below the bed of the river to three feet below the corbels. This was designed to protect the piles from the attacks of a marine insect called teredo navalis or cobra. A similar method was used on a bridge over the Logan River at Waterford. The road at the approaches to the bridge was formed on long embankments; these are still extant in Sweeney's Reserve. The bridge remained part of Gympie Road until 1936, when a higher bridge, less subject to flooding, was completed further downstream and the road was diverted to cross there.
The reserve's popularity as a picnic spot may date from the arrival of the North Coast Railway line in March 1888. The railway greatly improved accessibility to places outside of Brisbane and it soon became the preferred means of land travel for medium to long-distances. Access to the rail network remained crucial to the development of tourist locales until late in the interwar period. Given its close proximity to Brisbane, it is likely that pleasure trippers began to visit North Pine soon after the railway opened. The reserve was an easy walk from the Petrie Railway Station and it was heavily used by picnickers at least as early as 1912. By 1921, the council had erected lavatories and two bathing sheds on the reserve. Joe Findlay, a returned serviceman, operated a kiosk selling refreshments. Over 1000 people from Brisbane and the surrounding districts visited the spot each Sunday during the Christmas holidays.
In 1924, the changing use of the reserve was officially acknowledged when the section of land not occupied by the road was gazetted as a recreational reserve. The Land Commissioner also granted Pine Shire Council control of it recognising that they were maintaining the amenities. At the same time a lease agreement was established with Findlay for the land occupied by his kiosk.
Thomas Patrick Sweeney's long involvement with the reserve began in about 1926 when he became lessee of the kiosk. Sweeney's interests soon extended to the whole of the reserve on which his livelihood depended. In 1928, when a flood washed away the bathing sheds and lavatories, Sweeney erected temporary structures clad in calico. It was noted in official correspondence that he was 'using practically the whole of the area of the reserve'. When it was declared a sanctuary for the protection of birds and animals in 1929, Sweeney was appointed an officer under the Animals and Birds Acts 1921 to 1924.
In 1932, Sweeney was granted a special lease on a 'peppercorn' rent for all of the reserve. Pine Shire Council had relinquished control in 1931 to avoid the on-going cost of replacing and repairing amenities washed away by the annual flooding of the river. Under the terms of the 21 year lease, Sweeney had to allow free public access, erect suitable amenities and act as caretaker of the reserve.
Sweeney lived with his family in his house on the reserve probably until his death in 1969. During much of his long tenure, the reserve remained a very popular picnic and swimming spot and he continued to operate his kiosk. It was a favoured location for families from Brisbane and the local area, for companies' annual picnics and school break-ups. In the late 1920s, a local band played on alternate Sundays. Swimming in the river was the main attraction: races were held, rope swings were tied to overhanging trees for the benefit of swimmers, and locals swam there on hot summer nights. The Sweeney's pet emus and kangaroos were another attraction.
By the 1950s, the popularity of the reserve was declining. The post-war period saw a major change in leisure destinations stemming from increased annual holidays, increased car ownership and better roads. Resorts on the north and south coasts now became the favoured weekend destinations for Brisbane people. In 1957, it was reported that the reserve was overgrown with groundsel and that it was almost impossible to drive a car into it. When his lease expired in 1958, Sweeney, now aged in his 70s, was informed that it would not be renewed.
Pine Rivers Shire Council regained control of the reserve in 1961 but Sweeney, his wife and a daughter were allowed to continue living there. In 1974, the kiosk was dilapidated and disused; it was probably removed about this time. Sweeney's daughter, Patsy Eviston, continued to live at the reserve until the 1990s when she died. Their home was demolished soon after. Sweeney's Reserve is now maintained by the council as a popular picnic spot for families in the Petrie area.
","criteria":"Sweeney's Reserve is important as a former river crossing of Gympie Road, an early rafting ground, and a picnic and swimming spot dating to the interwar period.
The reserve contains the remnants of the North Pine River crossing of Gympie Road as it existed between the 1870s and 1936. As the one of the earliest known remnants of the main coastal road north from Brisbane, the reserve provides uncommon evidence of the evolution of a route that was important in the development of the State's road network.
As the location of a rafting ground from as early as 1859, the reserve is important in providing rare surviving evidence of the early period of the timber industry in the coastal region north of Brisbane. The North Coast was one of the first areas to be exploited for its timber and it developed into one the State's most productive timber regions by the middle of the 20th century. Due to the ephemeral nature of their activities, little evidence remains of timber getters' activities during the earliest period of the industry.
The reserve is also indicative of leisure activities when the train was the primary means of transport. Located within walking distance of Petrie Railway Station, a short train trip from the city, the reserve was typically visited during the interwar period by over 1000 people on Sundays who combined a train trip with a day by the riverside picnicking and swimming.
|The reserve is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of rafting grounds where logs were assembled and floated to the ocean. It is located close to the highest navigable portion of the river: from here, logs could have unimpeded passage to the sea. Access to the water is easy because the banks are low, there is a wide expanse of relatively flat ground adjacent to the river where logs could be handled and temporarily stored, and the river could be forded so that both banks could be used.
|As the site of the North Pine River crossing of Gympie Road from the 1870s until 1936, the reserve is an archaeological site that has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of this important road and the traffic that passed along it. For much of the period that the site was used as a river crossing, Gympie Road was the main route north from Brisbane.
|A large riverside reserve with clumps and groves of shady mature trees and open grassy flats, scattered with picnic areas and playgrounds, Sweeney's Reserve is valued for its peaceful park setting. Popular for relaxing, playing, picnicking and other informal leisure activities it offers pleasant vistas within and out.
|The reserve is important in containing a rare recognisable remnant of Gympie Road as it existed prior to 1936. This takes the form of a raised embankment, formed in 1877, that traces the road approach to the bridge that crossed the North Pine River there. The remains of the bridge piles (1877) are also extant in the bed of the river. The road remnant was preserved after the position of the road was altered in 1936 due to the continued use of the area as a recreational reserve.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":2961,"place_ref":602541,"name":"Flecker Botanical Gardens","alternate_name":"Fitzalan's Botanical Gardens | Edge Hill Nursery | Cairns Botanic Gardens","street_address":"Collins Avenue","suburb":"EDGE HILL","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-02-02","description":"The Flecker Botanic Gardens is bounded by Collins Avenue and McCormack, Goodwin and MacDonnell streets. Some plantings in this area need to be considered with respect to their possible age. The corner of Collins Avenue and McCormack Street along the western boundary has a group planting including two very large hoop pines Araucaria cunninghamii, a Cook pine Araucaria columnaris, a sausage tree Kigelia pinnata, and a large fig tree Ficus spp. The association of these species in botanical gardens was not uncommon in the late 19th century, as at Queens Park, Maryborough.
Further north of this group of plants, towards Goodwin Street, the association of a particularly large rain tree with a blue quandong, a damson plum, a clump of bamboo of the same species as that in the Fitzalan Gardens and mature mangoes, is seen.
Rainforest understorey plants line the creek bank and pathways in this area and again the association of a blue quandong, paperbarks and a Leichhardt tree is seen. The 1960s figure-of-eight walkway has persisted and Fitzalan Creek is crossed by two footbridges. The southern portion of the gully area has the oldest paving. A variety of paving materials are used, including bricks, concrete slabs and concrete "crazy paving." Retaining walls reflect this pattern: log retaining walls and concrete stone pitching in southern parts give way to block walls in northern areas.
The materials used in this work are simple in contrast to the workmanship evident in its execution, which is of an outstanding quality. Railings made of galvanised pipe are placed as needed. Over time a number of these have been replaced with timber railings. Where necessary banks are retained with a variety of materials, predominantly small concrete slabs approximately 75mm high x 300mm long x 250mm deep, laid into the banks. Garden beds and path edges are built up and retained with flat and smooth rivers stones, generally the size (but not the shape) of lawn bowls balls, bedded horizontally.
Walking areas such as footbridges and steps are rendered "non-slip" with the application of exposed aggregate concrete utilising large river-washed pebbles approximately 20 to 50 mm in diameter.
Understorey plantings in the Fitzalan Creek gully area have no doubt changed over time. Today aroids, gingers and Asian species dominate the head of the gully and a variety of tropical ground cover species enjoy the canopy provided in the lower area of the gully by remnant vegetation including impressive specimens of the paperbark Melaleuca leucadendron, damson plum and Leichhardt trees.
There are three open lawn areas within the Flecker Botanic Gardens: an area immediately adjacent to the main entry off Collins Avenue; a large open space used for open-air performances and large gatherings in the northeast area of the site adjacent to McDonnell Street; and a tree and shrub lined linear space along Goodwin Street. The main entry lawn has a large teak tree Tectona Grandis, planted in 1946, as the centre lawn specimen and the remnants of a large yellow poinciana Peltophorum pterocarpum to the northeast of this. The latter tree shows the scars of significant storm damage over time and today provides the support for a collection of epiphytic plants.
Along the MacDonnell Street boundary and immediately adjacent to the open-air performance area, are a number of very large and mature trees including a Bayur tree Pterospermum acerifolium, a multi-trunked mock orange Murraya exotica, a Cassia javanica, and a multi-trunked Tar tree. These specimens are particularly mature and are species that could well have been used in earlier planting schemes.
Buildings have a minimal visual presence on this site. The 1968 Munro-Martin Fernery is constructed of galvanised pipe framing approximately 50mm in diameter with a central barrel vault and side aisle areas sheeted with galvanised steel mesh and enclosed externally with shade cloth. Timber lattice panels flank the front entrance. The fernery is in clear view across the lawn from the main entrance gate to the Flecker Botanic Gardens. Adjoining the Munro-Martin Fernery to the west is the George Watkins Orchid House (1986) constructed from similar materials but on a smaller scale. Neither of the structures housing the fernery or the orchid collection is considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The commemorative entrance gates (1982) are constructed with decorative stonework.
Other built elements in this area of the gardens lie buried under the exuberant foliage and are "discovered" when wandering the various pathways. These include the red brick curator's office and information centre (1950s), a restaurant (1987) and two toilet blocks. The placement and scale of these buildings on the site is significant, rendering them unobtrusive in the landscape. However, the structures themselves are not considered to be of high cultural heritage significance. Fencing around this area of the gardens is not significant.
","history":"The Flecker Botanic Gardens, a public reserve south of Mt Islay in the Mt Whitfield Range, was established in the mid-1880s as part of a recreation reserve, just a decade after the town of Cairns was first surveyed in 1876 as a port to service the Hodgkinson goldfield. Although never officially gazetted for botanic garden purposes, Botanic gardens were developed in the recreation reserve at its inception. The work of botanist Eugene Fitzalan in the 1880s and 1890s, Cairns City Council nurserymen and curators from the 1920s and naturalist Dr Hugo Flecker from the 1930s to the 1950s, has contributed to the development of the gardens as a significant Botanic and recreation space in Cairns. Of cultural heritage significance the garden area is bounded by Collins Avenue and McCormack, Goodwin and McDonnell Streets.
In 1884 the Cairns Progress Association had advocated for a Botanic garden to be established in the vicinity of Cairns. During the 19th and early 20th centuries botanic gardens were considered important for recreation, the preservation of indigenous vegetation, the display of native flora and fauna, and the acclimatisation of economically useful plants. In November 1886 an area of about 71 acres (29 hectares) west and south of Mt Islay, comprising suburban sections 71, 74, 75 and 76 (surveyed in 1885), was gazetted as a temporary reserve for recreation under the control of Cairns Municipal Council (established in 1885). This land comprised the southern and western foothills of Mt Islay and a lowland swamp.
Previous non-indigenous use of the land had been restricted to timber cutting, the forming of tracks through the rainforest scrub to assist with timber extraction, and Chinese market garden cultivation in the northeast corner of the reserve. The site was located approximately three miles (5 kilometres) from the centre of Cairns adjacent to the recently surveyed Cairns to Kuranda railway right of way, which would make it publicly accessible. In April 1887 suburban section 68 was added, to create a reserve of over 97 acres (about 40 hectares). A further 11 acres (4.45 hectares) was added in May 1892, when swampy land lying between the recreation reserve and the railway line was incorporated into the reserve, including an area at the foot of Mt Islay, west of Saltwater Creek, previously cultivated by Chinese market gardeners under special lease.
In December 1886 the Cairns Municipal Council came to an agreement with Eugene Fitzalan, a trained botanist, to establish an ornamental garden on the recreation reserve, sufficiently attractive to entice the public. In return Fitzalan was permitted to sell refreshments (which would enhance the public appeal of the gardens) and to operate a private commercial nursery from the reserve. He was appointed caretaker of the reserve with a nominal annual salary of £5.
Eugene Fitzherbert Albini Fitzalan (1830 - 1911) was born in Londonderry, Ireland and was a botanical collector in England and Mexico before arriving in Australia in 1849. He was a keen orchid collector, and on at least one occasion collected with Baron von Mueller, who regarded Fitzalan's specimens very highly. Fitzalan had at least two orchids named after him by von Mueller. He made many botanical expeditions in Victoria and along the Queensland coast on the Spitfire in 1860, at Mount Elliot with botanist John Dallachy in 1863 and in the Daintree area in 1875, before arriving in Cairns in 1886. He developed nurseries in Geelong, Brisbane and Bowen and collected specimens for the Herbarium of Victoria. A number of Fitzalan's specimens were sent to Kew Gardens, London, where they were examined by taxonomist George Bentham for inclusion in the botanical volumes of Flora australiensis. At least nine plant specimens were named after him: Atractocarpus fitzalanii; Eria fitzalanii; Euulophia fitzalanii; Lepistermon fitzalanii; Macropteranthes fitzalanii; Musa fitzalanii; Psychotria fitzalanii; and Randia fitzalanii. The latter is a native gardenia that today is used extensively for commercial purposes.
Fitzalan developed about 5 acres (2 hectares) in the northeast of the reserve as an ornamental botanic garden (known variously as Rosebank or Fitzalan's Botanical Gardens), largely on the site of earlier Chinese market gardens. An 1891 survey plan indicates that Fitzalan's early gardens were located on section 75, just south of Collins Avenue, below what is now the Tanks Arts Centre. This was a short distance from the railway line near the cutting at the Three Mile, where the Edge Hill Railway Station was constructed in 1888-1889. Access to the gardens was made easier in 1887 when a crossing was made over Saltwater Creek.
Between 1887 and 1891 Fitzalan landscaped the ground, planted colourful garden beds and constructed a perimeter fence to keep out goats. He built a small cottage in the garden and established the Edge Hill Nursery, constructing a long shed roofed with coarse canvas in which he raised seedlings and cuttings and in 1887 cut a main garden path, about 9 feet wide, through the reserve at his own expense, planting specimen and fruit trees along its length. In 1891 this pathway was surveyed as Edge Hill Road (Collins Avenue from 1934). He also formed other paths opening off this track, including a circular walking track through the rainforest.
Among the plants cultivated by Fitzalan were 50 varieties of roses, 11 varieties of hibiscus, orchids, ferns, rain trees, native myrtle and local plants from the adjacent Mt Whitfield Range. He also grew coffee, and grafted orange, lemons and mangoes, which he made available to residents of the area. He exported large numbers of orchids, palms and palm seeds, ferns and other plants to Europe, and received specimens from other parts of Australia to trial in a tropical environment. Fitzalan relinquished his caretaker role in 1897 due to poor health. In 1906 the Cairns Council Nursery was established. The function of this nursery was the propagation of plants and shrubs to supply municipal needs.
Fitzalan's garden and nursery continued on this site under the curatorship of James Morgan (1897 - 1900) and Charles Gurd (1901 - 1906) until it was moved to its current site in 1906. Charles Gurd continued as curator until 1923 when Les Wright was appointed nurseryman.
In December 1921 the reserve was declared a permanent recreation reserve of 109.5 acres (just over 44 hectares) under the trusteeship of Cairns Town Council. In 1923 Les Wright was appointed as Council's nurseryman a position he held until 1947. Wright was permitted to construct a house (no longer standing) on the reserve, adjacent to the nursery.
From the early 1930s there were community calls for the establishment of a formal botanical garden within the recreation reserve. Momentum came largely from Dr Hugo Flecker (1884 - 1957) and the North Queensland Naturalist Club, which he founded in 1932. Melbourne-born Flecker was a radiologist with a strong interest in natural history, especially toxic plants and animals. He undertook valuable work on the Queensland Finger Cherry and the Tar Tree and identified the deadly box jelly, Chironex fleckeri. From 1935 he contributed a weekly column to the Cairns Post on behalf of the Naturalist Club, in which he publicly advocated the establishment of a Botanic garden at the recreation reserve.
In 1933, with encouragement from the Queensland Government Botanist, Cyril White, Flecker established the North Queensland Naturalists' Club Herbarium in the grounds of the council's nursery in the recreation reserve. The club's collection grew from around 1,600 specimens in 1937 to about 5,000 in 1950 and an estimated final collection size of around 10,680 specimens. The collection proved popular with visitors, enhancing their experiences of the gardens. Until 1949 specimens were housed at the gardens in a storeroom supplied and erected by the Cairns City Council, then the collection was moved to the former Kuranda Barracks on the Cairns Esplanade. It returned briefly to the Cairns Botanic Gardens from 1967 to 1971, but is now fully incorporated in the general collection at the CSIRO Division of Forest Research at Atherton.
In 1934-35 a significant advance was made with around 25 acres (10 hectares) of the reserve on the lower slopes of Mt Islay cleared of heavy undergrowth and planted with young trees. The mayor of Cairns advised that the reserve would be planted with "permanent trees which are noteworthy for their ornamentation and their regularity of design, planted at pre-determined distances, so that they will provide permanent avenues of great beauty." Trees and shrubs of a less "permanent" nature were to be removed and relocated to other parts of the reserve allowing for the development of avenues lined with pine, acacia, palms, Poinciana and others. This project continued until 1940 when part of the recreation reserve (suburban section 74, north of the council nursery) was converted to a Quarry Reserve for war purposes and part of the 1930s gardens work was destroyed by quarrying. It appears that oil palms, poincianas, hoop pines, two rubber trees, a Dillenia, a Schizolobium, an Indian mango, a Wongi plum, a Terminalia and a Malay Apple were planted during this period by Les Wright.
As part of the re-development and in common with formal Botanic gardens, in 1936 the Cairns City Council established a zoological garden in the reserve, to display native birds and animals. This enhanced the appeal of the gardens to visitors, locals and tourists alike, and was popular with American and Australian soldiers during World War Two. Les Wright was appointed curator. Succeeding curators continued to build up the collection but the zoo was closed in 1953 for economic reasons.
Following Wright's death in 1947, Tom Mitchell was appointed to the curator's position. He held this position until his death in 1953. A red brick house was built for Mitchell in the early 1950s. This house today houses the Garden's information centre and administration offices. Mitchell died in 1953 and the position was taken up by Jim Gould until 1966.
In 1966 Cairns City Council appointed Vince Winkel as Curator of Parks, Gardens and Reserves, a position he held until 1984, and in March 1967 adopted a five-year plan to develop 8 acres (3.24 hectares) in the northwest of the Edge Hill reserve as a small botanical gardens. Collins Avenue and McCormack, Goodwin and McDonnell streets bordered the site. Winkel designed the new garden, laying out a figure-of-eight walkway. The site was cut diagonally by a small creek over which a bridge was erected, and the banks of the creek were planted with various trees including Cassia, Bauhinias, Parka, Caesalpina, Tabebuia and Semecarpus australiensis, known as the Tar tree.
Galvanised pipe railings were placed as needed and where necessary banks were retained with a variety of materials, predominantly small concrete slabs. Garden beds and path edges were built up and retained with flat and smooth river stones. A variety of materials were used for paving in this area: bricks, broken concrete slabs set into the path, and concrete "crazy paving." Walking areas such as footbridges and steps were rendered "non-slip" with the application of exposed aggregate concrete.
The focal point in the centre of the figure of eight was a fernery, constructed in 1968 to house the fern collection of the early and influential Munro-Martin family. It featured a miniature waterfall and pond with water lilies and fish. Near the fernery was the Curator's office which housed the Flecker Herbarium, a grass hut used as a shelter shed, and a picnic area with swings and a large dug out canoe for children to play in.
In 1971 the Cairns City Council named its new garden the Flecker Botanic Gardens to commemorate Dr Flecker's contribution to botany. (The name has since been applied to the whole of the recreation reserve). At this time there was a collection of over 100 different species of native orchids growing on a line of palms, and over 100 species of palms including oil palms and royal palms in the area facing Collins Avenue. North of this area and facing McCormack Street was a densely wooded area containing earlier plantings. After 1966 this area was cleared of lantana and undergrowth and pathways established. Among the plantings at this time were coffee, tea, cocoa, tumeric, ginger, curry leaf and other medicinal plants including Taraktogenos from Burma. The largest tree in this area at this time was the Samanea saman or Rain Tree from South America, and well advanced were two Hevea brasiliensis, a source of rubber, ready for tapping. A "fine specimen" of breadfruit was growing in front of the curator's office in 1973.
In 1974 the Flecker Botanic Gardens was listed in the International Directory of Botanical Gardens, following an invitation received from the Association of Botanical Gardens (now The Botanic Gardens Conservation International) in Edinburgh. At this period the gardens held an amazing variety and quantity of ferns, some of which were exceptionally rare. Flecker Botanic Gardens remains a member of this Association.
During the 1970s the Flecker Botanic Gardens contributed to plant exchanges with overseas agencies, the acclimatisation of plants, and cataloguing plants for ready reference. Visitor experience and enjoyment was enhanced with the addition of aviaries in 1974 to house pheasants, peacocks and bush turkeys, and the children's playground was extended with the installation of a tree house.
In 1982 new entrance gates were erected at the 1971 Flecker Botanic Gardens to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the North Queensland Naturalists' Club.
Cyclones have had a significant and devastating effect on the flora of the botanical gardens. In February 1986 cyclone Winifred caused extensive damage and many trees, some nearly 100 years old, were severely damaged. A number of plants were lost at this time to theft.
Following the cyclone a three-year plan was implemented by Cairns City Council to upgrade the gardens. This included the redevelopment of the Munro-Martin Fernery and the orchid propagation house; tree labelling including Braille tree labels; continuation of botanic records; construction of paving; and an Aboriginal wild food walk. A restaurant was constructed near the curator's office, opening in January 1987. At this time tourist operators considered the Flecker Botanic Gardens the third most popular tourist attraction in the region, with a visitor rate of 100,000 per annum.
Public awareness of the gardens increased with the formation of the Friends of the Botanical Gardens in 1989. During the 1990s the educative function of the botanic garden was emphasised. Interpretative services and guided walks were introduced and an annual Botanical Garden Festival introduced.
Flecker Botanic Gardens continues its important Botanic role, extending its collection of endangered species from the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and providing assistance to both national and international scientific work. The garden maintains national and international memberships such as the Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation, and Botanic Gardens Conservation International, and is noted nationally and internationally for its collections of palms, gingers and aroids.
","criteria":"The place demonstrates the development and continued management of a botanic garden in a regional city as a theme in the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history. The Flecker Botanic Gardens (earlier Cairns Botanical Gardens) was established in 1886 as part of a recreation reserve. From the 1930s the Flecker Botanic Gardens has fulfilled the traditional functions of a botanical gardens, including increasing horticultural knowledge about local plants with a view to developing their economic potential, sharing of this knowledge and seed stock with like-minded institutions nationally and internationally, providing an attractive and educative venue for public recreation, and in some instances providing plant material to the public.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial wet tropics public botanical gardens that has evolved over time, including early groupings of exotic and indigenous plantings (early to mid 20th century) and the botanical display garden, designed and developed by curator Vince Winkel in the 1960s. Important characteristics also include: infrastructure associated with displaying the gardens, especially that dating from the 1960s-1980s (including the figure-of-eight walkway, other pathways, retaining walls, footbridges, paving, railings, drainage systems, and raised and built up garden beds); the provision of specialist displays; specimen plantings of trees and shrubs; and the incorporation of open lawn areas within the design. The current Gardens, developed during the 1960s demonstrate plantings, displays, plant collections, bridges and visitor facilities similar in concept to other regional botanic gardens.
|The visual display of the plant material in the Flecker Botanic Gardens captures the exuberant ambience associated with imagery of the "lush tropics". Large trees, both native to this habitat and exotic, provide the planting structure and canopy framework for the understorey collection and display of colourful orchids, gingers, aroids and ferns. The natural topography of gentle foothill and slopes, creek, gully and swampland has been sensitively incorporated into the design of the display. The aesthetic of the site has quietly evolved with, and emerged from, its natural environment rather than being designed to dominate and overpower its space in the landscape. This contributes to the enduring charm of the place as a recreational venue.
|The place has a special association with the work of naturalist Dr Hugo Flecker in the mid-20th century. The North Queensland Naturalist Club was established in1932 by Dr Flecker. He housed its extensive herbarium collection in the gardens from 1933 until 1949. This collection returned to the Flecker Botanic Gardens briefly from 1967 to 1971. It is now incorporated into the CSIRO collection.
Since the 1930s, the place has had a special association with the work of the Cairns City Council in developing and promoting the Botanic gardens as a place of recreation and, since the 1960s, as an internationally recognised source of scientific information and education in the wet tropics of Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":2962,"place_ref":602511,"name":"99 Grafton St","alternate_name":"The Bookshelf, Fishtail Silks | Ruth Women's Bookshop, Andrew's Barber Shop, | Former Cairns Chinatown","street_address":"99 Grafton Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-27","description":"99 Grafton St, Cairns is located on the western side of Grafton Street, between Shields Street and Spence Street. The building is constructed of hand made brick and divided into two shops. The hand made bricks are irregular in size, bright red and indicate clay high in iron. They are wood-fired and some bricks display variations of colour within the brick indicating uneven firing temperatures. There are also kiss marks present on some of the bricks where they have been stacked close together. The bricks themselves display the use of river sand in the clay and occasional largish fragments of stone. On the outside of some the bricks a definite pattern of fabric similar to canvas or cotton drill is imprinted indicating that the bricks were laid out on canvas or cloth sheeting, rather than on a Hack Barrow. Some have marks like trowel marks, others have scrape marks and some evidence of hand and finger marks usually made when the brick is handled when soft. There are also plug joins on some bricks where two different plugs of clay have been placed into the mould during the molding process and signs of damage from being handled or dropped before drying. The bricks are laid in a variation of English garden wall bond also known as Colonial bond. They are not second hand and are not consistent with the size or scale of modern brick making techniques. They are more consistent with an earlier period before the 1930s.
The bricks are not laid by an expert bricklayer which is indicated by an irregular variation of the header courses from 4 rows apart to 12 between the stretcher rows. The mortar is quite hard and struck in the same way consistent with a building in Abbott Street built the late 1880s. The Southern wall runs back from the front to the back past the main roof at a similar height but becomes a parapet end to the skillion roof. The hand made bricks are in all brick elevations, the side rear and front of the shops and in the parapet section over the skillion at the back. The place shows an early construction method with the wall top plate for the roof tied down with hoop iron straps which come down from the outside and are built into the mortar course two brick courses down.
The shop front has a wide awning that extends out over the footpath. Two doors fronting Grafton Street, which are set off centre, provide access to each shop. Next to each door is a large display window. The front window on the southern shop has been replaced with a window incorporating louvres but the northern shop moulded outer timber window frame remains original but has been modified from four panes to a single pane. Above each door is another smaller window, possibly originally a hopper. A brick parapet was made prior to 1927 and the mid section of the parapet raised at the front sometime after. There are 2 steeply pitched corrugated iron gabled roofs over each shop, of uniform height. The gabled roof on the northern shop has remained the same but the southern shop has been altered to a similar pitch. There is patchy flat metal flashing against the parapet. The rear skillion and framing is old and slightly bowed.
The interior of the shops incorporate a timber ceiling at an approximate height of 11 ft or 3360 mm and is made out pine of ex-6 inch beaded tongue in groove boards. The shops are each divided into two sections, the main commercial area of the shop in the front and a smaller back room large enough for storage, a small kitchenette or small bedroom. In the northern shop there is evidence of the use of wide boards for lining in the back room. Some sections of internal lining have been removed due to termite damage and remaining boards also show damage. In the back portion of the northern shop a timber stud frame is lined with more modern sheet lining panels. This covers some of the walls and the ceiling. The southern shop shows signs it was once divided into three rooms and the lining is not original.
The building has a concrete floor that is roughly laid in irregular sized sections. At the back of the shop a low door leads out to a garden. Between the floor and the door a concrete lip has been built.
Two small timber framed windows with a wrought iron lintel are visible on the southern wall of the southern shop. The sill appears to be constructed of rendered brick and is consistent with other places constructed pre-1900 around Cairns. Metal bars cover the window, which are not considered part of the original structure. The double hung sash windows are constructed of Silky Oak
","history":"99 Grafton Street, Cairns is thought to have been constructed in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. The existing building was constructed of handmade bricks and divided into two shops with multiple gabled roof of differing heights. At the time of construction the building formed part of a much larger group of buildings which became known as Cairns Chinatown. At the time it was known as Lot 2, Allotment 18, Section 27, Sachs Street, (in 2019 Grafton Street on Lot 2 SP272572).
\nOne of the first Chinese businesses in Cairns was established in Abbott Street by Mr Andrew Leon (whose Chinese name is thought to be Leong Chong) soon after his arrival in 1876. The earliest known evidence of Leon in Queensland is his baptism in 1868 before his marriage to Irish–born Mary Piggot in February 1869, and his naturalisation in September 1869 in Bowen. At the time he was a cook, stating that he was 24 years of age and had been in Australia for three and a half years.
\nIn 1878 Leon took up Portion 52 (Selection 6), south-east of Cairns; now the site of the Earlville Shopping Centre. In 1879, he selected Portion 75 (Selection 15) adjoining to the south. Leon procured the services of 60 Chinese men to clear the land in 1879. At this time he formed either a cooperative or a partnership with around 80 Hong Kong investors, known as the Hap Wah (Joint Venture) Company, to cultivate Leon’s selection. This was the first large scale plantation in North Queensland producing both cotton and sugar. Leon had experience in the sugar plantations of Cuba. The mill, known as 'Pioneer', had undertaken a trial crushing by early April 1882, before full production commenced in June. The cotton crop was processed first and four tons were exported to Hong Kong in 1882, followed by 110 tons of sugar in February 1883. When the Hap Wah enterprise closed, the plantation land was sold in April 1886 to Charters Towers businessman Thomas Mills. The milling equipment was sold to Noakes brothers of Bundaberg in December 1887. From the mid-1880s Leon concentrated his business interests in Sachs Street, Cairns.
\nLeon was an innovative agriculturalist and businessman. He established substantial orchards above the Barron River Valley after the sale of the sugar plantation. He represented the Cairns Chinese community on official occasions, presenting welcome addresses from the Chinese community, acted as an interpreter in court, and provided the means for preserving cultural linkages as one of the principle trustees for the Lit Sung Goong Temple.
\nThe growing agricultural industry in the Cairns region supported a large number of Chinese in industries such as market gardening and shop keeping. In 1886 the Chinese population of Cairns accounted for 60% of all farmers and 90% of all market gardeners, and Sachs Street was recognized as a focus for Chinese activities. Chinese businesses in Sachs Street included boarding houses, gaming houses, opium dens and merchant stores.
\nIn October 1886, Leon acquired Allotment 18, Section 27, on Sachs Street originally taken up by Patrick Halligan in 1882. The Lit Sung Goong Temple was constructed on part of the property, opening in January 1887 and the allotment was subdivided in 1890.
\nIn 1892 Leon took out a substantial mortgage with the Queensland National Bank for two hundred pounds (and further advances) on Subdivision 2 (Lot 2) Allotment 18. The next year four shops were noted for the first time in the Cairns Municipal Rates Book on Lot 2, Allotment 18. It is unclear if the current building (99 Grafton Street) dates from this period or the early 1900s, when it is identified in the Cairns Municipal Council Rate Book as a brick building. A Chinese bricklayer Lee Bat was noted by the Cairns Post in October 1896 as working in the district and the Cairns Argus noted that the Temple on Lot 1 had a ‘great brick oven’.
\nLeon leased the property to merchants Lee Yan, a consortium of five brothers. One of the brothers Lee Yan brought his wife and a child servant from China in 1895, the first Chinese women to arrive directly from China to live in Cairns’ Chinatown. In 1896 Mrs Lee Yan gave birth to a son, the first Chinese-Australian child born in Cairns. They then lived behind an adjoining timber building until 1902.
\nIn late 1902 Leon took out another loan for two hundred pounds, this time with the Bank of North Queensland. Two shops on the site were subleased to a Chinese man and a Japanese prostitute O'Kunato in 1903. This was the beginning of a long association with the property being used to house women who worked as prostitutes. Three Japanese women worked at different periods from the shop until 1922 after which European women then took up tenancy. They lived and worked in either one or both sides of the building for the next forty-four years. In 1922, the last of the Japanese women tenants, Osangi, left the shops. In her place, Mrs Miller took up residence and she lived and worked there under the euphemism of \"domestic duties\" for the next ten years.
\nIn October 1908 Leon entered an arrangement with Goon Chew who had placed a caveat over the land until it was purchased by another leading merchant Willie Ming in 1911, who also took over Leon's mortgage. The place was resold in 1914 to Neils Schmidt who died shortly after and it passed to his beneficiaries, who owned the property until mid-1925. Andrew Leon died in 1920.
\nThe property was then bought by merchant Frank Lee Chin in a private agreement because he took out a loan with the previous European owners. In the 1930's Sachs Street was renamed Grafton Street through the efforts of the city's alderman to ‘clean up’ the image of the area. In 1932 Frank Lee Chin sold the property to John Hasting Reed, although Reed died before the transfer was formalised. In 1934 it was transferred to Olive Vera Bradley (nee Shang). Chinese shopkeepers and women tenants continued to live in the building until the Second World War. After the Second World War the shops were utilized commercially.
\nIn the 1950s the Deeb brothers bought 99 Grafton Street and minimal changes were made during this time. The addition to the parapet, may have been added during this period. In the late 1960s the northern shop was occupied by a self-service Laundromat and the southern shop by an electrical repair shop.
\nIn the 1970s the northern building was rented by Andronicos Stylianou who operated a successful barber shop from the premises for thirty years. At the time he moved in, the owners were required by the local Council to replace an existing timber stud frame wall with horizontal boarding. This wall had windows which were removed at the same time. This was replaced with a cement block wall with window openings and louvres in the block wall with metal frames. At the time, the roof ceiling was supported and the corrugated roof replaced. An internal wall built to assist business operations was later removed after Stylianou had vacated the premises. A number of different businesses have operated on the site since the early 2000s, including a clothes store, charity bookshop and a restaurant.
\n","criteria":"
99 Grafton St, Cairns is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the building reflects Queensland's early multicultural society, specifically the important role of early Chinese settlers in the development of commercial activity in the Cairns region.
|99 Grafton St, Cairns is important in demonstrating rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage. 99 Grafton Street and the building at 55 Grafton Street, the former Sun Wo Tiy building, are thought to be the last remaining structures directly associated with the former Cairns Chinatown. 99 Grafton Street is a rare surviving example of Queensland Chinese cultural heritage.
|99 Grafton St, Cairns has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history. The building has undergone modification and elements of the original style may still exist underneath new additions. The bricks used to construct the building could provide additional information on early bricks and brickmaking techniques in Queensland. Sub-surface archaeological deposits, including Chinese artifacts, are expected on the allotment.
|99 Grafton St, Cairns has a strong or special association with a particular cultural group for social, cultural and spiritual reasons. As the last remaining small commercial building of the former Cairns Chinatown the Cairns Chinese Community have expressed a strong association with the place as it represents a tangible link to the activities of the former Chinese community who lived and worked there. Many residents have direct family ties to these early Chinese settlers.
The Cairns Chinese community occupied Cairns Chinatown primarily from the 1880s to the 1950s, however the Chinese connection with this portion of Grafton Street has in many ways never been broken. Today, the office of the Cairns and District Chinese Association Inc. is located at 103a Grafton Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":2977,"place_ref":602536,"name":"Bolands Centre","alternate_name":"Boland's Departmental Store | Boland's Building","street_address":"Lake Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-04-07","description":"The Bolands Centre comprises a three storey concrete building (Building A), erected in 1912/1913 on the corner of Lake and Spence Streets, and a 1960s single storey building (Building B) of brick and COLORBONDâ sheeting on Spence Street. The latter is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Historically the centre has been associated with a number of other buildings on adjoining allotments that together formed an extensive department store established by the Cairns merchant, Michael Boland.
Building A
Above the street level the exterior of Building A is executed in a grandiose, ornate style employing an eclectic mix of Classical and Romanesque design elements. The façade is asymmetrical, with the top two stories tied together by a blind arcade incorporating Romanesque arches with exaggerated keystones and pilasters surmounted by composite capitals. The façade also incorporates horizontally arranged panels of relief-moulded interlocked circles at the juncture of the ground and first floor, similar panels of relief-moulded arches at the juncture of the first and second floor, and the Boland's name in prominent relief lettering beneath the parapet. The façade is painted in cream with some details picked out in dark green. The rear of the building is clad in yellow COLORBONDâ sheeting.
On the first floor façade the fenestration consists of pairs of arched windows, contained within arched recesses, alternating with rectangular windows arranged singly or in groups of two or four. Transoms divide these windows horizontally into three sections. The majority are filled with modern clear glass or glass louvers, but in the semi-circular transom lights of the arched windows early, opaque, textured glass is retained. The Lake and Spence Street corner of the building is pierced by a single rectangular window which is blocked out with a panel that supports an illuminated sign reading: 'Bolands Centre'.
On the second floor level the fenestration is dominated by triple arched windows and large, arched windows divided by three thick, radiating concrete mullions. A large, round window also perforates the façade at the Lake and Spence Street corner. All the windows at this level are filled with modern, clear glass set in aluminium frames.
The street level shop fronts have green marble facing and modern, rectangular glass shop windows. The awning is a flat-roofed cantilevered type supported above by tubular metal braces fixed to the facade, and incorporating non-structural; singly arranged, fluted, iron columns ornamented with Corinthian capitals and cast-iron fringe. The footpath is of concrete and clay brick pavers.
The building's roof is flat and sheeted with modern COLORBONDâ iron. It is surrounded on the south and west sides by an ornamented parapet incorporating finials and arches, and on the north and east sides by a plain parapet. Below the ornamented parapet runs an eave supported by closely spaced corbels. Projecting from the roof is a centrally located elevator house comprising a square-based tower and projecting wing, and a tower for the freight elevator shaft on the northeast corner.
Internally the building consists of series of shops of various sizes on the ground floor and business offices on the first floor. The main entrance foyer on Spence Street still retains early black and white floor tiling and has some white-painted wood arching, elaborate plaster cornices and ceiling mouldings. Above the suspended ceiling of the first floor there are still substantial remains of the original ceiling, including decorative, pressed metal panels and scrolled concrete capitals associated with some of the internal columns.
The second floor, which cannot be accessed by the public, retains its original open plan. The ceiling consists of permanent formwork of curved corrugated iron sheets resting on exposed iron beams. These are supported by thick, plain, squared columns. The floor is concrete and shows traces of previous rubberised coverings and red paint. A walk-in Chubb safe room with an external wooden bench stand against the eastern wall. The centre of the floor is pieced by a square well hole surrounded by an intact silkyoak balustrade constructed in an angular style with pinnacled newell-posts. The view through the well hole to the ground floor is now blocked by the suspended ceiling of the first floor. The original staircase connecting the second and the first floor has been replaced by a metal ladder. The staircase was originally attached to the northern wall, near the goods lift shaft. A partial outline of the staircase in the paintwork on the wall indicates it was constructed in a style matching the balustrade of the well hole.
The paintwork on the internal walls of the second floor, which is peeling extensively, shows a range of colour layers, including light yellow, light blue and white. The windows in the rear walls have silkyoak architraves and most are double-hung, four-pane sashes glazed with opaque hexagonal wired glass. A number of these windows have had the lower sash permanently raised, with the opening filled with metal-framed glass louvers, while a small number have had their panes entirely replaced by glass louvers.
The electric passenger elevator car and associated shaft and machinery remain in situ. The elevator car is constructed of dark-stained English oak. On the second floor and in the elevator house there is a lift shaft enclosure with panelling, doors and decorative frieze of dark-stained English oak. The elevator house is accessed by a wooden staircase that runs up the side of the second floor lift well enclosure. The intact motor and control unit are intact and sit within the roof space of the elevator house, which is accessed by an iron ladder leading to a hatchway. The windows within the electric elevator house are double-hung and glazed with hexagonal wired glass. The bottom sashes are single paned, while the top sashes are triple paned.
The freight lift shaft is still visible on the second floor but the mechanism has been removed. There are, however, the remains of the attachment system evident in the roof space.
Building B
The adjoining Building B is a single storey Besser-brick and iron structure. At street level it shares the same awning, green marble facing and window style as Building A. Above the awning the façade is covered in cream-painted COLORBONDâ iron. Internally the building is subdivided into modern retail outlets. Due to its late construction and extensive internal modifications it is of relatively low cultural heritage value.
","history":"The Bolands Centre, a large reinforced concrete former department store, was erected in 1912/13 for Michael Boland, an Irish immigrant who migrated to Australia in 1881 and became a leading merchant in Cairns. The building was designed by the Cairns architect Edward Gregory Waters, and for many years was the tallest structure in the city. It is the last surviving example of a large, early 20th century department store in Cairns.
Michael Boland was born in 1863 in Ireland. He came from an impoverished rural background but at the age of fifteen moved to Dublin to study business for a year. Around 1879 he emigrated to Australia, initially lodging in Melbourne, then moving briefly to Queanbeyan, New South Wales, where he gained practical experience as a grocer in his uncle's store. He then travelled north, arriving in Cairns in 1882, where he bought a small allotment in Lilly Street. Between 1882 and 1887 he became involved in a number of economic ventures within the Cairns district. These included a contract to clear Spence and Bunda Streets in Cairns in 1886, and in 1888 establishing the Camp Oven Creek Hotel at Barron Gorge during the building of the Cairns to Herberton railway line. He also held a selection on the Russell River, north of Innisfail, and was reputed to have spent time tin-mining at Bloomfield and working on the construction of the Cape York telegraph line. From these ventures he accumulated sufficient capital to return to Cairns by 1890 and establish a modest grocery shop in leased wooden premises in Abbott Street, which was the initial commercial centre of Cairns.
In 1893 Michael Boland, like many people at the time, struggled to keep his business viable in the face of a world recession and the temporary closure of the National Bank of Queensland. Conditions were made more difficult in Cairns by the onset of the so-called 'store wars', an intense competitive struggle between five key merchant firms: Michael Boland, Burns Philp & Co., G.R. Mayers & Co. and two newly opened co-operatives, the Co-operative Cash Stores and the Cairns Co-operative Store Co.
Michael Boland's business survived these difficulties and in 1898 shifted to a 40 perch allotment in Section 4, at the northeast corner of Lake and Spence Streets. As the Cairns grew, businesses moved from Abbott Street to adjoining streets, and in particular to Section 4, which was later referred to as 'The Golden Block'' due to its high concentration of prominent firms. Boland was among the first merchants to make this transition. In Spence Street, on the eastern portion of this land, Michael Boland built a single-storied timber shop which he ran as a general store. Boland also constructed three smaller, adjoining shops that he leased out to various small businesses. The western section of the allotment, which fronted Lake and Spence Streets, consisted of a sand ridge and low-lying swamp, and remained vacant.
By 1901 Boland had acquired an adjoining property fronting Lake Street, which contained three shops. Further down Lake Street, Michael Boland's brother, John, established a co-operative grocery and general store.
From these small beginnings Michael Boland gradually emerged as a pioneer of commerce in Cairns and built up an extensive business empire, which included investments in mining and the Cumming Brothers Butchery. His firm was among the biggest importers and retailers in Far North Queensland, dealing with an extensive range of goods, many sourced directly from overseas manufacturers.
The contribution of the firm to the prosperity of Cairns and its district was considerable. Until the link to the state railway system was made in the early 1920s, Cairns remained a relatively isolated community accessed primarily by sea, and the Boland firm was instrumental in satisfying many of its material needs. It was also a major employer while its lines of credit allowed many early sugar growers to survive the hard years of this industry's infancy.
Michael Boland was among the most prominent citizens of Cairns. He was elected to the Cairns Municipal Council in 1896 and was briefly appointed a director of the local Penny Savings Bank in 1899. He was a high-profile supporter of worker's rights, the Labour Party and early unionism, and also had some association with the local Chinese community, in 1904 giving money to help effect repairs to one of the temples and acting as the receiver for the firm of Sun Shun Lee during its liquidation.
Among Michael Boland's most significant roles was his association with the Cairns Harbour Board. In 1899 Boland, with his friend and fellow merchant, Callaghan Walsh, began publicly agitating for the formation of a Harbour Board. They saw this as essential for the growth of trade in Cairns, but faced strong opposition, in particular from one of Boland's fiercest commercial rivals, A.J. Draper, who argued that such a move was premature for the community resources at the time. Following heated public debate, Boland and his faction were successful in establishing the Provisional Harbour Board in 1899, but it took six years of further lobbying before the Cairns Harbour Board was constituted on 20 December 1905. It had its first meeting on 28 February 1906. The Board consisted of 9 members, two representing the Town of Cairns, and 7 representing outlying regions. Both Boland and Walsh were elected as the members for Cairns, and in 1909 Boland was elected chairman. Over the ensuing years the Harbour Board played a critical role in developing Cairns into a major port in North Queensland by improving wharf facilities and implementing the dredging of the harbour to allow deepwater birthing.
In 1902 Boland's business had grown sufficiently to warrant major improvements to his existing premises and construction of a spacious single-storied concrete shop fronting Spence Street, the first large concrete building erected in Cairns. The construction of this store necessitated the partial demolition of the original wooden shop. The new building carried an ornate façade with pediment and parapet, and a bullnose verandah. The verandah had paired columns with decorative brackets, and a frieze of rectangular fretwork. When completed the upgrade permitted Boland to begin the process of transforming his business from a simple general store into a large emporium with separate grocery, haberdashery and hardware departments. Department stores represented a new approach to retailing and were becoming prominent in all of Queensland's main centres and represented a new approach to retailing. The traditional retail business that had dominated Queensland's 19th century retail landscape was centred on a relatively narrow range of products and activities, and in its design and layout gave little consideration to consumer psychology. The department store, however, offered an extensive range of goods and services and created for the consumer an encompassing retail environment that was enjoyable and encouraged shopping.
By 1909 Michael Boland's department store had proved successful and he expanded his business into his adjacent three Lake Street stores, displacing the earlier tenants. Then in 1911 he commissioned Cairns architect Edward Gregory Waters to draw up plans for a new building to be built on the site of the swamp at the vacant corner of Lake and Spence Streets. Waters, who had previously worked in Rockhampton, Mount Morgan and Gympie, was active in Cairns from 1909 until 1917. While in Cairns he worked as the Cairns Harbour Board Engineer. He was a specialist in ferro-concrete construction and was responsible for a number of prominent buildings in Cairns, including the Central Hotel and St. Josephs Convent.
The plans for Michael Boland's new building were approved by the Cairns Town Engineer in May 1912 and JT Bullock was awarded the contract for the construction. Reflecting Boland's increasing wealth and social status, the building was to be an impressive structure of reinforced concrete, the first three-storeyed building in Cairns. Although Boland had pioneered all-concrete construction methods in his 1902 building, in 1912 Cairns was still a town of timber, brick and corrugated iron and the use of concrete for the new building was still a comparatively early use of reinforced concrete in Queensland. Due to its strength and insulating qualities, concrete construction proved highly suitable to the tropical climate and cyclonic conditions experienced in North Queensland and in later decades dominated its building industry.
The construction work, carried out during 1912 and 1913, was a major undertaking that elicited interest from the local press. The swamp at the site was drained and filled but due to the unstable nature of the ground the building sat on a floating foundation laid with girders rather than traditional piles. The walls, floors, internal columns and decorative details of the facade were cast in moulds. The Portland cement used for the building was imported in casks from England and poured using an innovative concrete roller mixer with an independent hoist system. An English firm, Dorman, Long and Co., who later supplied steel for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, prefabricated the steel work for the building.
The building was rectangular in plan, and when completed measured 27.6 metres by 19.8 metres, with the long axis oriented along Spence Street. The remaining section of the early wooden store had been demolished and the new building was connected internally to the 1902 store. It also had entrances on both Spence and Lake streets. The bullnose corrugated iron awning of the 1902 emporium was extended along both street frontages of the new building and repeated the earlier paired columns, pierced frieze and other decorative elements.
At ground level the Lake and Spence Street façade carried large, rectangular shop windows of clear plate-glass imported from England. On the first and second floor levels the facade was executed in an imposing, ornate style, based predominantly on Classical and Romanesque elements. On the upper storeys the fenestration consisted of a combination of fixed and top-hung sash windows, with a single round window incorporated into the façade at the Lake and Spence Street corner at the second floor level. Immediately above the awning there was also a series of narrow, rectangular, bottom-hinged windows. Early photographs suggest the upper storey windows were filled with opaque glass.
The rear (north and east) walls of the building were unornamented and pierced by rectangular, double-hung, four-pane sash windows. Early photographs indicate that the building was painted in light, neutral colours with the name 'Boland's' picked out in darker colour under the parapet and on the east wall. The north wall carried the line 'Boland's Departmental Store'.
The roof of the building was flat and of poured concrete construction, and as such was the first known example of this type of roof in Cairns, and among the earliest in Queensland. It was waterproofed by a layer of bitumen and drained by five openings on the parapet on the north side, which connected to two down-pipes. This space was accessible to the public and was referred to as the 'plateau' in Waters' design proposal, and as the 'roof garden' by staff members. During World War I musicians used it as a stage for patriotic performances. Along the Spence and Lake Street sides the roof was protected by an ornamented parapet incorporating finials, arches, and balustrades of interlocked concrete circles.
The building was installed with an electric passenger elevator, the first to be included in any building in Cairns, and among the earliest examples of this technology in North Queensland. The motor and control unit were housed on the roof in a centrally located square tower with a lower wing projecting from the west side. Waters' design called for a two-tier, ogee-style roof but it is unclear whether this was ever built, and from at least the 1920s the elevator tower had a shallow, hipped roof.
The interior of the building was open plan, with the floors and roof being supported by iron girders and large internal columns of reinforced concrete. The floors, like the roof, were of concrete slab construction, and also early examples of their type in Queensland. A well hole passing through the centre of the first and second floors helped conduct air and light through the building. The upper floors were accessed by wooden stairs as well as the electric lift.
The building was completed in time for the 1913 Christmas trade, with the shop windows carrying brilliant displays of electroplated Birmingham silverware. The new building marked the development of Michael Boland's business into one of the first modern department stores in North Queensland. It allowed the further organisation and growth of separate departments providing customers with an extensive choice of goods and services. The firm was able to cater not only to the local trade but also to visitors from all over the vast hinterland for which Cairns was the centre.
The building also gained recognition as a city icon, and the intersection of Lake and Spence Street became known as Boland's Corner. Physically, through its height, mass and striking style, the building dominated the streetscape.
The ongoing success of firm was marked in 1915 when the Articles of Association of Bolands Limited were filed at the office of the Register of Joint Stock Companies and a branch store in Babinda was opened. In 1923, however, the firm suffered the loss of Michael Boland, who died of a heart condition in 1923. Control of the department store passed to his three sons: Thomas, William and James. Thomas assumed the position of head manager while the other brothers acted as departmental managers. Under their direction the firm continued to grow and by Cairns' jubilee in 1926 the store at Spence and Lake Streets boasted 15 departments and buying offices in London, New York, Kobe and all the Australian states.
During this period Thomas Boland initiated a number of cosmetic and functional alterations to the store, among the first being painting out the 'Departmental Store' sign on the northern face, and installing a freight lift shaft, which could be seen as an extra tower on the northeast corner of the building's roof. In 1929 extensive remodelling of the interior was undertaken. The architect responsible was E.H. Boden, and G.A. Stronach was the builder. New shop fronts incorporating polished stone veneer and large square shop windows were also installed by Burns, Johnsson and Humphreys. The total cost of the renovations was estimated at £19, 000. Other changes included the installation of electricity at the end of the 1920s, and during the 1930s the awning frieze was changed from fretwork to a solid panel carrying the Boland name, and the balustrade on the parapet was converted into a solid wall.
Another important change occurred in 1936/37 when, as part of the firm's 75th anniversary celebrations, the store was extended to the east onto part of an adjacent allotment. This new two-storey wing, designed by VM Brown and constructed by WC Kyanastan, was also constructed in reinforced concrete. It was 19.8 metres wide and 19.5 metres deep. It possessed a concrete first floor with a large central well hole, large plate-glass windows and a roof of wood and iron. The façade incorporated lineal motifs, large rosettes and starburst medallions, and three glass doors opening onto small concrete balconies with ornamental iron railings. Along the street frontage there was a cantilevered awning.
During World War II the Bolands firm felt the effects of disrupted shipping and the rationing of goods. During this period the first floor of the east wing of the store was occupied by the American navy.
In the post-war period the firm experienced a resurgence trade and prosperity. During the 1950s new furniture and toy departments and a mezzanine floor were installed in the three-story building. Sometime after 1950 the original awning was replaced by a flat, cantilevered awning. In 1962 the 1902 store was demolished and replaced by a new building and the frontages and fittings of the other buildings were updated. By this date Bolands Ltd was the largest department store in Cairns, employing 100 staff.
At various times the store was damaged by natural elements. Until the Cairns City Council put in new drainage, the Lake and Spence Street corner was subject to flooding in the wet season, and in the 1930s and 1955 the ground floor was inundated. In 1924 three large windows on the Spence Street side of the main store building were mysteriously smashed, reputedly by lighting, and in 1951 a fire broke out on the top floor, damaging the ceiling and wooden partitions. As it aged, the roof also began to leak badly, and was eventually covered with COLORBONDâ sheeting.
Thomas Boland retired in 1963 and the directors of the firm sold their shareholding to the Sydney-based firm of David Jones Ltd. David Jones appointed Thomas's son, Terry, as manager of the store. In 1967 David Jones installed a cafeteria, milk bar and small goods section on the ground floor and the largest chilled water air-conditioning plant in North Queensland. David Jones gradually replaced the Bolands logo in the newspaper advertising but never removed the Boland name from the building.
Title to the Spence/Lake Street corner block was transferred to David Jones in 1979 but the firm's occupation of the site ceased in 1984 when it relocated to new premises at Earlville. During the 1970s and early 1980s the Bolands Building had steadily become redundant as the Cairns central business district, along with other Australian centres, suffered the effects of a nation-wide drift of retailing activity to the suburbs. Soon after the departure of David Jones the building was acquired by the Kern Brothers Corporation, which significantly remodelled it at a cost of $2, 000, 000. Aware of the building's iconic status, the new owners retained the first and second floor façades, and the open-plan interior of the second floor. The lower levels were converted into individual shops on the ground floor and offices on the first floor. Other internal changes included the installation of false ceilings, the removal of the old internal staircases, and the closure of the passenger elevator. Externally, the ground street shop frontages were remodelled in an imitation Victorian period style. New windows and facades carried arched decorative panels, and the awning was fitted with non-structural, reproduction Classical columns and cast-metal friezes. A third entrance was created at the Lake and Spence Street corner. The entire building was repainted externally with a special paint selected to minimise future deterioration.
The building re-opened as the Bolands Centre in May 1985 with considerable fanfare. The redevelopment was lauded as a landmark example of adaptive re-use of an historic building and emerged as a key event that stimulated the revival of the Cairns central business district during the late 1980s and 1990s. In 1987 the Prettejohn family bought the building and since 1991 it has been managed by Pearce Coleman & Associates. The last major changes to its fabric occurred in 1999 when the north and east faces of the three-storied building where clad in COLORBONDâ which blocked all window openings on these elevations. Around this time the ground floor shop fronts were once again remodelled.
","criteria":"The Bolands Centre, constructed in 1912/13, is significant as it demonstrates the growth of Cairns as a centre of commerce in Queensland, and the evolution of Queensland's retail industry. The building was erected to house a large department store during the early twentieth century, a period of strong economic growth in Cairns, and a time when department stores, offering a wide range of goods and services, were being established in Queensland. During the 1980s the Bolands Centre was remodelled and led the rejuvenation of the Cairns central business district following a national drift of retail business from town centres to the suburbs.The place is significant because of the inclusion of a number of innovative ideas. In its scale and striking design the building represented a creative achievement for Cairns at the time. The construction process was a major undertaking and required some technical innovation. The building was one of the earliest large commercial structures in Far North Queensland to be entirely constructed of concrete, a practice that would later become common due to the capacity of concrete to cope with the tropical climate and cyclones. The structure was also the first large building in Cairns, and among the earliest in Far North Queensland, to incorporate an electric passenger elevator. When it was completed the Bolands Centre was to be among the first modern department stores in Far North Queensland. In later years it continued to incorporate new technologies and ideas.
|The Bolands Centre is a rare surviving Far North Queensland example of a large, pre-World War I department store. Department stores were established in Brisbane and the main provincial centres of Queensland, including Cairns, but the Bolands Centre is the only extant example in Far North Queensland. Although remodelled on its lower floors, its façade remains intact, elements of the original ceilings survive, and the top floor, with associated elevator machinery, has remained undeveloped.
|The Bolands Centre is important in demonstrating the principle characteristics of large department stores of the pre-World War I period. Its size and ornate detailing reflect the social aspirations and entrepreneurial strategies of the business elite who built such stores, while the surviving internal elements, particularly the undeveloped top floor and elevator, demonstrate the layout, design principles and technology employed. The Bolands Centre is also associated with work of Edward Gregory Waters, a prominent Cairns architect who designed the building and was responsible for a number of important structures within the city.
|The building has aesthetic value due to the height, scale and the detailing of the façade, which is largely intact. The façade is of cast concrete executed in an ornate style, based an eclectic mix of Classical and other design elements, which projects an imposing, elegant presence on the streetscape.
|The place has social significance as an iconic landmark due to its size, aesthetic appeal and longevity within the streetscape of Cairns, and the role it has played in the business life of Far North Queensland.
|The Bolands Centre has direct associations with Michael Boland and his family, who built it and managed it for many years. Michael Boland was an early and important entrepreneur who established a large, long-lived commercial empire in Cairns and became one of the community's leading citizens.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3050,"place_ref":602834,"name":"Cairns Technical College and High School Building","alternate_name":"Cairns State High School","street_address":"Sheridan Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-05-09","description":"Cairns Technical College and High School is a three-storey building at the southern corner of a complex of buildings of Cairns State High School. Called Block A in 2014, it stands on the corner of Sheridan and Upward Streets, northwest of the nearby Cairns CBD. It is an imposing, brick and concrete structure with two equal wings abutting the street alignment and framing a large, grassed quadrangle behind.
The building's strong street presence is derived from its assertive massing, grand proportions, symmetrical composition, and its cohesive, restrained use of a Neo-Classical style that references 17th Century Italian palazzo and Palladian idioms. Symmetrical around a diagonal corner axis, the building is carefully articulated into two parts: a ground floor podium rendered to resemble channel-jointed ashlar; and glazed facebrick upper floors that are expressed as one, through rendered window detailing that spans both levels. This is capped by a rendered entablature and a projecting cornice. The building is elegantly composed with a central pavilion that accommodates the primary vertical circulation and reception areas, flanking wings that accommodate the classrooms, and end pavilions that accommodate the secondary vertical circulation. The dark brickwork is English bond with a dark mortar and the pale, painted render has high-quality moulding. The aluminium-framed windows and metal hoods to the street elevations are more recent while some ground floor windows retain original decorative iron screens.
The building has a hipped roof clad with metal corrugated sheets and the room layout is arranged with classrooms or offices facing the streets (south-west and south-east sides) and a verandah on the opposite side (north-west and north-east sides) providing circulation.
Flanking the end pavilions are lower sections; a two-storey section at the end of the Sheridan Street wing and a one-storey section at the end of the Upward Street wing. The ground levels of these contain toilets. The first floor (1972 addition) above the toilets on the Sheridan Street wing is not of cultural heritage significance.
Built to the street alignment, the main entrance is through an arched entry set within the truncated corner of the central pavilion. Either side of the entry is a large, metal sconce lamp. Above the entrance are two giant order Ionic columns that flank a tall window into a stair hall inside. The timber-framed window has fine timber glazing bars dividing the sash into multiple panes. The double-leaf entrance doors, which retain original hardware, are timber with glazed panels and prominent moulding. A small entrance hall with a patterned terrazzo floor and rendered walls contains a terrazzo stair with a decorative iron balustrade and clear-finished timber handrail, rising to a first floor foyer at the rear of the building. The ground floor understorey is enclosed to form classrooms, offices, and storerooms. Some original fixtures and fittings are retained.
Two concrete columns with minimalist, stylised capitals frame the entrance from the stair well into the first floor foyer. This room has a terrazzo floor, rendered walls, and a flat plaster ceiling with moulded plaster cornice. A reception window is framed with clear finished timber and the room is hung with clear finished timber honour boards some of which are memorials to past students, teachers, and local citizens.
Throughout the building, the brickwork has finely-shaped corners and the rendered walls have stop-chamfering. Verandahs run the length of the rear elevations giving access to the rooms and to concrete stairs at each end of the building. The stairs have decorative iron balustrades and timber handrails. The floors of the circulation areas are polished concrete with a painted margin. The walls are face brick and parts retain original ceilings of sheets and battens in a decorative pattern. The verandah wall retains some original timber, double-hung sash windows with fanlights into the classrooms. Air conditioning units have been wall-mounted on the verandah wall and penetrations have been made by removing fanlights. Some doors into the classrooms are original timber double-leaf doors with fanlights.
The layout of the first floor has been altered. Partitions and a suspended ceiling have been introduced and original partitions have been demolished. The first floor retains the general office and the principal's room, but the former classroom, science room and lecture room in the Upward Street wing have been replaced with small offices, and the domestic science rooms in the Sheridan Street wing have been replaced with offices, a print room and a uniform store. The second floor retains classrooms.
The large quadrangle behind the building provides an attractive setting, comprising a flat lawn with perimeter stands of large palms.
The other buildings and structures on the school site are not of cultural heritage significance. The modern covered walkways within the heritage boundary, to the rear of Block A, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Cairns Technical College and High School building was constructed in 1941 as a purpose-designed facility for state-run secondary and technical education in Cairns. It was designed by the Department of Public Works as part of the government's unemployment relief program during the 1930s and was built using day labour during a period of pronounced construction in Cairns. This commanding, three-storey brick building at the corner of Sheridan and Upward Streets is an important element in the city's streetscape.
\nTrinity Bay, traditional country of the Yirrganydji people, was chosen as the port for the Hodgkinson goldfield in 1876. The first settlers arrived in October that year and Cairns became a port of entry on 1 November 1876. Its future as a regional centre was almost stifled by competition from Port Douglas; however, the announcement of Cairns as the preferred terminus for a railway in September 1884 assured its future as the main settlement and port for far north Queensland. It was declared a municipality in 1885.
\nState education in Cairns began in 1878 with the opening of Cairns Central State School in Aplin Street.[1] The government (initially the New South Wales Government, and then the Queensland Government from 1859) played an important role in the provision of formal education from 1848 and over time it strengthened and expanded its provision of state education. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[2]
\nEstablishing schools was considered an essential step in the development of early Queensland communities. The formal education of Queensland children was seen as integral to the success of a town, the colony, and the nation. Land and construction labour was often donated by the local people and schools frequently became a major focus within the community as a place symbolising progress, for social interaction, and as a source of pride. Also, the development and maintenance of schools frequently involved donations and work by teachers, parents, and pupils. Due to their significant connections with the local community, schools have occasionally incorporated other socially important elements such as war memorials and halls used for community purposes. They also typically retain a significant enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers. Social events involving a wide portion of the local community have often been held at schools, utilising the buildings and grounds - such as fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, sporting events, reunions, and dances.
\nAs in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. This helped to ensure consistency and economy. The standard designs were continually refined by government architects in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in their approach to climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components.
\nHigher education in Cairns was offered by private schools from at least the 1880s. Citizens of Cairns agitated for a state high school from around 1915 and in February 1917 Cairns State High School was established as a secondary department on the grounds of the Cairns Central State School (then called the Cairns Boys' State School).[3]
\nIn Queensland, the government was slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II, when secondary education was generally accepted as essential and was more widely provided for.
\nFrom their introduction, the design of high school buildings was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works. Initially, high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings to save expense. The first purpose-built high school buildings were constructed in 1917 and were large, elaborate buildings that were variations of a standard design introduced in 1914, as well as vocational education buildings built to standard designs.
\nBy 1918 the high school in Cairns was considered inadequate and a separate high school was requested.[4] At the same time, the Cairns Technical College (a private institute established prior to 1899) was looking to move out of their accommodation within the Cairns School of Arts. The Department of Public Instruction took over the operation of Cairns Technical College, combined it with the high school, and created Cairns Technical High School in 1924.[5] This occurred at other technical colleges in Queensland after the Technical Instruction Act 1908 empowered the government to take over technical colleges run by local school of arts committees. The government had taken an active interest in technical education from the early 1900s. This came from a wide-spread concern about the growing industrial success of Germany, attributed to its extensive technical education program[6], and from Queensland's growing manufacturing sector, which created a need for a more skilled workforce in a variety of trades. After 1908 the government expanded their provision of technical education, establishing new colleges in several centres, including Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Mackay. Over the 20th century, the government expanded its provision of technical education to form an integral element of their program. Cairns Technical High School began teaching students from 28 January 1924 in new timber buildings on a large central site on Sheridan Street, officially opened 2 June 1925 by the Minister for Public Instruction, Thomas Wilson.[7] The site had been reserved for a number of civic uses including a school as early as 1910.
\nCairns experienced a major phase of development during the 1920s and 1930s. It was declared a city in 1923, when it had a population of 8000. This rose to 12,000 by 1933, and 15,700 by 1941. Factors contributing to prosperity in Far North Queensland, and increased building activity in Cairns, included: the Cairns hinterland Soldier Settlement Schemes of the 1920s; the continued success of the local sugar industry; the expansion of wharf facilities; ships bringing tourists from the southern states; the completion of the rail link to Brisbane in 1924; the opening of the Gillies Highway (1926) and the Captain Cook Highway (1933); the extensive re-building necessitated by cyclones in the 1920s; and the poor condition of earlier timber structures.
\nIn particular, the city centre became dominated by masonry and reinforced concrete structures during the interwar period. Important civic buildings were constructed, most in a Classical architectural style, intended to re-affirm the power and presence of government in the community. These included the Court House (1921) [600376], Cairns City Council Chambers (1930) [601576], Public Offices (1936) [600376], Customs House (1937) [600377], and Cairns Technical College and High School. The construction of these buildings by the State Government reflected the confidence in the growth of Cairns as an important regional centre during the interwar period.
\nAs the population of Cairns grew over the interwar period, the existing timber buildings of Cairns Technical High School were unable to accommodate the student population. A new brick building was designed by architect Nigel Laman Thomas of the Department of Public Works in July 1938.This was one of an important group of brick school buildings designed during and immediately after the Great Depression as part of the government's unemployment relief program. This program began in 1932 when newly-elected Premier William Forgan-Smith instituted a capital works program focussed on building modern infrastructure to provide relief work for unemployed Queenslanders. The ‘improvement' of schools was a primary aspect of the scheme.[8] The relief work program ended in 1938, transitioning into a permanent, long-term, capital works program. It was under this program that the new brick building for the school was designed and built.
\nThe pattern of brick school buildings in prosperous or rising suburban areas that had begun in the early 1900s continued during the 1930s on a much larger scale. The 1930s buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys high above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan and had Neo-Classical stylistic elements and a prominent central entry. They were able to be built in stages if necessary. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber school buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all brick school buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used for covered play space, storage, toilets and other functions. However, the Cairns building is unusual in that it was built on a corner, and also right to the footpath, which increases its streetscape presence.
\nThe Department of Public Works and the Department of Public Instruction in Queensland were extremely enthusiastic about the brick school buildings designed in the 1930s. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment.[9]
\nThe marble foundation stone of the new brick building for Cairns, which reads ‘Cairns Technical College and High School', was laid on 7 October 1939 by Henry Adam Bruce, the Minister for Public Works and Public Instruction.[10] The building was constructed using day labour and cost over £30,000[11] and was officially opened 5 February 1941 by Attorney General, John O'Keefe.[12] It was described as ‘magnificent' and a reminder that ‘education and democracy go hand in hand'.[13] The school continued to use the old timber buildings, which were altered to accommodate a new intermediate school. Also, new technical college workshops for engineering and plumbing trades were completed, and tennis courts were added to the grounds.[14] The school was the only purpose-built state high school north of Townsville until 1960.[15]
\nThe new building had two long, narrow wings forming an L-shape abutting the Sheridan and Upward Street boundaries, with a prominent central entry diagonally facing the intersection. Designed in a Neo-Classical style, the three-storey structure was brick and concrete with a hipped roof.[16] The exterior had a rendered base and had upper levels of face brick with rendered dressings. The entry had a round arched opening with giant order Ionic columns above, flanking a tall window into a stair hall. Glazing throughout the building was timber-framed and featured fine, timber glazing bars forming multiple panes.
\nThe ground floor understorey was largely open, providing a protected playing area and also accommodating a teachers' room, a girls' retiring room, and a students' reading room. Toilets for girls and female teachers were located in a single-storey section at the end of the Upward Street wing of the understorey, while toilets for the boys and male teachers were located at the end of the Sheridan Street wing. The first floor housed the principal's room and domestic science rooms (dressmaking room, dining room, cookery room, laundry, and drying room) in the Sheridan Street wing, and a general office, classroom, science laboratory and lecture room in the Upward Street wing. The second floor accommodated five classrooms (three connected by folding partitions), bookkeeping and typewriting rooms, drawing room, and a teachers' room. Hat and coat rooms were on each floor and the building had a central main entrance hall and terrazzo stairs. The classrooms faced onto the streets (south-west and south-east) and circulation was via an 8ft (2.4m) wide verandah on the opposite side (north-west and north-east).
\nContemporary reports stated: the building would ‘appeal to the aesthetic taste, and the dimensions of the building [were] commensurate with the rapid progress of the city, besides being a valuable asset from an educational point of view'.[17]
\nThe new building for Cairns Technical College and High School opened during World War II, but the war had only a minor effect on the operation of the school. Cairns became an important supply and repair centre during the war, and a US Army hospital was built near the school on land that in 2014 is the school oval. Also, part of the school site near Grove Street was used as a military prison,[18] and air raid slit trenches were dug in the school's playing fields. While the military presence increased, the civilian population decreased. In early 1942 over one third of Cairns' population evacuated the city. Also, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942[19] (although this decision was soon reversed[20]). Because of these factors, Cairns Technical College and High School opened a month late in 1942, with a much-reduced student population. The intended opening of the intermediate school in 1942 was also delayed.[21]
\nIn 1946, memorial prizes were established at Cairns Technical College and High School in honour of past students killed in World War II. Schools in Queensland were a prominent community social focus and often became a location for the addition of war and other memorials. Most often, honour boards for past students killed in war were hung in prominent locations on the walls of school buildings, through money raised from within the local community. These became important places for remembrance ceremonies for the school and wider public. Also, it was not infrequent that Queensland schools received bequests from past students. This was the case at Cairns and the school established honour boards and memorial prizes from funds donated in memory of past pupils, teachers, and local citizens. At times these were considerable amounts, providing for perpetual annual prizes and substantial memorials. Over time, additional memorial boards were erected in the first floor foyer of the Cairns Technical College and High School building, recording the names of Dux winners, head prefects, and champion athletes.[22] [23]
\nIn 1946 Mr M McGrath, principal of the Cairns State High and Intermediate School reflected that the school was 'now a very complex institution comprising a technical college, a junior teachers training college, the high school and the intermediate school'.[24]
\nIn the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. Reflecting the connected growth of suburbanisation and a move towards a decentralised population in urban centres, new high schools were located in suburban areas rather than the centre of town. The grounds were large, greater than 12 acres (4.8ha), providing ample room for sports facilities. The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but high schools also included purpose-built science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums. These were also built to standard plans but were specific to their use and not a continuation of previous designs.[25]
\nCairns' population continued to increase in the post-World War II period: rising from 16,644 in 1947 to 21,018 by June 1954, with the percentage increase being greater than any other Queensland city for that period.[26] Post-war migrants from Europe were housed at the Immigration Holding Centre on Hartley Street. The city also expanded physically. The anti-malarial drainage scheme undertaken southwest of Severin Street during World War II allowed the suburbs to expand westwards after the war. Tourism to Cairns also increased in the 1950s and 1960s, with the Great Barrier Reef being promoted as a destination by the Queensland Government. The ‘Sunlander' rail service, a tourist service between Brisbane and Cairns, began in 1953; an underwater observatory was opened on nearby Green Island in 1954; and in the early 1960s the Bruce Highway was bitumened to Cairns.
\nAfter the 1950s, the Cairns Technical College and High School grew considerably and many new buildings were added. Also, alterations to the Cairns Technical College and High School building were made, including enclosing part of the understorey for a tuckshop (1966), and an extension above the toilets of the Sheridan Street wing to accommodate home science classrooms (1972). The extension used bricks similar to those of the 1941 portion but it was in a contemporary style. The addition of floors above one-storey toilets was an occurrence at other brick Depression-era schools and was possibly an intention of the original design, to accommodate future expansion.
\nTechnical education expanded from the 1960s through a concerted push by the State Government. In 1974 all Queensland technical colleges were renamed Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Colleges. In the early 1980s the Cairns TAFE College moved off site to new premises. This allowed the high school to expand into the entire site. The earliest timber buildings were demolished and new buildings were constructed in their place.
\nIn 1990 alterations were made to the Cairns Technical College and High School building including; enclosing the understorey for Special Education rooms, removing and replacing doors and windows, and removing and adding new internal partitions and accordion doors. After 1995, metal awnings were added to the classroom windows of the Sheridan and Upward Street facades.
\nOver time, many new buildings were constructed at the school. As part of the Australian Government's Building Education Revolution (BER) program, Cairns State High School received funding for the construction of a new multi-purpose hall. The BER program was the key element of the Australian Government's $42 billion \"Nation Building - Economic Stimulus Plan\", developed in response to the global financial crisis. The hall, standing to the north of the Cairns Technical College and High School building, was completed by 2011.
\nIn 2014 the Cairns Technical College and High School building is known as Block A and continues in use as a teaching building for the school.
","criteria":"The Cairns Technical College and High School building, constructed in 1941 (in 2014 called Block A of Cairns State High School), is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education in Queensland and the associated evolution of education architecture.
Purpose-designed to accommodate secondary and technical classes, the place is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government's initial approach to the provision of secondary and technical education in the first half of the 20th century, by accommodating both streams in the same buildings.
Designed as part of the Queensland Government's unemployment relief program of the 1930s, the building is important evidence of this important state-wide initiative.
The place is important evidence of the interwar period of prosperity and growth in Cairns, the principal regional centre in far north Queensland. This period in Cairns was marked by the construction of a number of masonry buildings designed in Classical styles.
|Notable for its substantially intact exterior, the place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a brick school building designed by the Department of Public Works during the 1930s. The principal characteristics include having an expressive and skilful Neo-Classical styling, three-storeyed form, high-quality design, materials and construction, plan layout with north facing verandah, teacher's rooms, hat and cloak rooms, south facing classrooms that are well ventilated and day lit, and understorey play space.
|The place is important for its aesthetic significance and has a dignified streetscape presence brought about by its assertive massing, Neo-Classical styling, and prominent corner location emphasised by an impressive and elegantly-composed facade. The grassed quadrangle to the rear provides an attractive setting for the building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3064,"place_ref":602832,"name":"Grove Street Pensioners' Cottages","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28D Grove Street","suburb":"PARRAMATTA PARK","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-08-24","description":"The Grove Street Pensioners’ Cottages occupy a southeast-facing 0.33ha site on Grove Street in the Cairns suburb of Parramatta Park. Seven individual cottages are arranged in a crescent addressing Grove Street, linked by a curved driveway, while an eighth cottage stands alone in the western corner of the site. Residential development surrounds the site to the southwest and northwest, largely screened from view by trees, and Lily Creek lies to the northeast. Driveways accessing properties to the rear of the site adjoin the northeast and southwest boundaries.
\nFrom the exterior, the cottages appear almost identical. Small in scale, they are single storey, timber-framed buildings on low concrete stumps. Each has a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting with raked eaves. The walls and eaves are clad in pre-painted vinyl panels replicating timber boards. Original windows are timber-framed, three-light casements of patterned glass, and louvres to the stove recess. The front verandahs have been enclosed with louvres above balustrade height. A short flight of steps to the front door has a modern metal handrail, while the rear steps retain their timber balustrade. Non-significant elements of the exterior include: louvre windows to the verandah enclosure and rear bathroom addition; roof ventilators; security screens to doors and windows; vinyl cladding; and metal handrails.
\nThe interior of each cottage contains four rooms – an enclosed front verandah, a kitchen with original stove recess, a bedroom, and a bathroom extension. All have been renovated at different times and contain a variety of linings, fittings and fixtures. Surviving early fabric includes: framed and ledged timber board doors; early locks and door handles; kitchen cabinets; chamfered architraves; and flat wall and ceiling linings with cover strips. Non-significant elements of the interior include: ceiling fans and lights; bathroom fit-outs; and modern shelving and cabinets.
\nThe cottages are surrounded by lawns and garden beds with mature trees (including mango trees) lining the rear boundary. Garden beds adjacent to each cottage vary in layout and extent, and the site contains a wide variety of tree and plant species. The western end of the site is characterised by dense clusters of vegetation and mature trees, including a large fig tree to the north of Cottage 8. In the centre of the front gardens are trees and shrubs remaining from an earlier garden layout and a 1989 plaque laid by Cairns City Council in appreciation of the work of KP (King) Glendon in establishing and tending the garden for 14 years.
\nA curved bitumen driveway links the cottages along their south-eastern side, following the path of an earlier unsealed driveway. Fencing enclosing the site is not of heritage significance.
\nThe identical cottages in their curved layout and garden setting are an attractive feature of the Grove Street streetscape.
","history":"The Grove Street Pensioners’ Cottages were built by Cairns City Council from 1953 to c1958 as part of a state government-subsidised scheme for providing affordable accommodation for old age pensioners. Located on a reserve in Grove Street in the Cairns suburb of Parramatta Park, the complex comprises eight small timber cottages arranged in a curved layout surrounded by lawns and gardens. They were the first of their type to be built in Cairns and are an important surviving example of a largely intact pensioners’ cottages scheme.
\nThe city of Cairns in tropical far north Queensland was established in 1876 as a port to service the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields, and its first local authority, the Cairns Divisional Board, was established in 1879. Initial progress was slow until the establishment of a local sugar industry and the opening up of the Atherton Tablelands' mineral fields in the early 1880s. Early industries in the region, such as sugar farming and timber harvesting, created a demand for improved transport facilities to the harbour. In 1885 Cairns was constituted a municipality, and the announcement that Cairns was to be the terminus for the Herberton railway established the town as the principal port in the region.[1]
\nProgress and growth continued in the early 20th century. The Cairns Municipal Council became the Cairns Town Council on 31 March 1903, which in turn became the Cairns City Council on 13 October 1923. By this stage the population had reached 8000. This rose to 12,000 by 1933, and 15,700 by 1941. After the disruption of World War II, post-war optimism and prosperity saw development increase and the population grow to 21,018 by June 1954. Of this number, 2099 Cairns residents, (approximately 10% of the population) were aged 60 and over.[2]
\nQueensland’s social fabric is supported by a network of social security and welfare services provided by the State and Commonwealth Governments and voluntary organisations to disadvantaged persons. Until the late-19th century, however, no such government aid existed in Queensland, with most of the responsibility for providing relief falling upon voluntary organisations. In the 1890s, the Queensland Government provided residential institutions and subsidies to voluntary organisations in aid of orphans, the mentally ill, the destitute, the aged, and the infirm. A Benevolent Institution at Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island (established 1866, closed 1945), operated with minimal services and at times could not meet demand for admission. Factors such as increased longevity and the 1890s economic depression saw many families unable to care for aged relatives, and with the system of private charity proving inadequate, the Queensland Government was forced to act. [3]
\nIn 1907 Queensland implemented a system of non-contributory age pensions, followed shortly after by the Commonwealth Government, which provided a national system in 1909. The intention of the pension scheme was to provide relief for the aged poor that did not involve the stigma associated with charitable aid, or take away individuals’ freedom. The age pension was initially 10 shillings a week, available to males and females aged 65 years and over (lowered to 60 years for females in 1910) and to persons aged 60-64 who were permanently incapacitated for work. It was subject to a character and residence test with limitations imposed on income and property.[4]
\nThe site of the Grove Street Pensioners’ Cottages in the Cairns suburb of Parramatta Park has a long history of accommodating poor and aged Cairns residents. It was originally part of a railway reserve, with the first stage of the Cairns railway line (constructed 1886-87) running through it. The railway line was deviated in 1910-11 to its present position on the north-eastern side of Lily Creek, and over the following decades negotiations and disagreements about how to use the former railway land (known as the Martyn Street reserve) took place between Cairns City Council and the State Government.[5]
\nIn 1921 part of the Martyn Street reserve, south of Grove Street, was allocated as a site for old age pensioners to reside.[6] Pensioners’ reserves, where old age pensioners unable to afford other forms of accommodation could build themselves a hut or shelter to live in, existed in many Queensland towns and some suburbs of Brisbane in the early 20th century. Administered by the local authorities, who issued permits to pensioners wishing to reside there, it was a cheap but ultimately inadequate way of housing the poorest members of the community. Self-built huts were not connected to water or electricity and were vulnerable to bad weather and being destroyed by fire. Several pensioners’ reserves existed at different times in Cairns, including one at Bungalow.[7]
\nA proposal to provide better accommodation for Cairns pensioners was considered by Cairns City Council in September 1926, when the Works Committee recommended that three cottages be erected by the council, to be let at a nominal rental to approved local pensioners. An article in the Cairns Post on 27 November 1926 stated that the council had approved the scheme, however whether or not these cottages were constructed is unclear, as shortly afterwards the pensioners were relocated further north within the Martyn Street reserve, to an area on the southern side of Charles Street. By September 1928 this area had been partly fenced and a water source provided. It was here that the pensioners established themselves, living in tents and small self-built huts.[8]
\nBetween 1910 and 1950 the number of old age pensioners in Queensland rose from 8,561 to 45,937. As the population grew and the pension rate failed to keep pace with rising costs of living, pensioners found it increasingly difficult to afford decent accommodation. A Courier Mail article printed in June 1950 summed up the housing plight faced by hundreds of pensioners living a ‘hand to mouth’ existence, with a lack of proper accommodation forcing many of them to live in small rooms with inadequate facilities. Homes for the aged were too few to handle the number of pensioners seeking accommodation, with at least 1000 waiting for admission to homes in the Brisbane area alone.[9]
\nFrom the 1920s the State Government had established institutions for the aged, infirm and/or destitute in different parts of the state. The first purpose-built government home for the aged, named ‘Eventide’, was opened at Charters Towers in 1929, providing accommodation for 150 inmates. Unlike the Dunwich asylum, which housed inmates in large dormitories, Charters Towers inmates were provided with ‘single and double huts, each having its own small garden plot’. In 1945, the Dunwich asylum was closed and the inmates transferred to a former Royal Australia Air Force (RAAF) station at Sandgate. Also named ‘Eventide’, this institution became the principal government aged care facility in southern Queensland. A third ‘Eventide’ was opened in Rockhampton in 1950, offering similar hut accommodation to Charters Towers, arranged within a complex including hospital wards, a workshop/library, a recreation building and kitchen, dining, bathing and laundry facilities.[10]
\nThe alternatives to Government-run institutions were benevolent institutions and homes for the aged run by charities and religious organisations. Early examples were often housed within converted residences, such as at Hanworth Home for the Aged, established in 1913 [QHR 601026].[11] A new type of charitable institution, similar to the Charters Towers ‘Eventide’, was established in 1936 in the Brisbane suburb of Chermside, due to the combined efforts of Methodist social advocate Reverend Harold Wheller and philanthropist/businessman George Marchant. Chermside Garden Settlement consisted of 20 cottages in a garden setting, with communal dining room and laundry buildings, and grew rapidly to include a chapel, bowling green and a further nine cottages within four years.[12]
\nDespite the growing number of facilities available, in the mid-20th century there were still not enough places to accommodate all pensioners in need, and the regulated lifestyle offered by institutions did not appeal to able-bodied pensioners who wished to live independently. To encourage the construction of more affordable housing for pensioners, in 1945 the Queensland Department of Health and Home Affairs implemented a state-wide scheme to assist local authorities with constructing cottages. The scheme offered a pound-for-pound subsidy and, where necessary, made loan money available. The cottages were intended for pensioners who were able to care for themselves and desired to live independently in their local districts. The grant of the subsidy was subject to approval by Cabinet, and it was the responsibility of the local authority to secure the site, prepare plans and erect and maintain the cottages.[13]
\nBy September 1953, cottages had been built at Innisfail (11 units), Cloncurry (6 cottages), Inglewood (1 cottage), Texas (1 cottage), Warwick (8 cottages), Toowoomba (22 units), Mareeba (10 cottages), Ipswich (12 units), and Mackay (12 cottages under construction).[14] Other towns known to have carried cottage schemes through to completion include Maryborough, Atherton, Bowen and Blackall.[15] The types of accommodation constructed varied. In Toowoomba, eleven timber United States army buildings were relocated to West Street and converted into duplex cottages, each housing two couples. This was one of the first schemes completed, with units available from December 1947.[16] In Innisfail, fibro-clad single and double units, and one four-unit cottage for women only, were built in different locations in the town so that the pensioners would be ‘part of the normal fellowship of suburban life.’[17] In Mackay, a ‘model settlement’ of 12 cottages and a communal laundry was designed by architect Karl Langer, built in a low, bungalow style serviced by a winding road.[18] In Cloncurry, six rectangular, concrete and brick cottages were constructed in a row on the edge of town.[19] While in Brassall, Ipswich, six double units, with tiled roofs and brick chimneys, were completed in 1953, each unit containing a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom and verandah.[20] Cottages were let for an affordable rent, and pensioners interested in occupying them made an application to the local authority. Some schemes only permitted all males or all females to reside there, while others provided for mixed groups and married couples.
\nNot all proposed cottages schemes went ahead as planned and local authorities had different views about the concept. In Barcaldine, a scheme to build 6 cottages did not progress due to building costs and the unwillingness of local pensioners to pay rent for them.[21] In Bowen, the Town Council was forced to defer building their ‘model village’ for years due to delays in obtaining approvals and rapidly rising construction costs, with only three out of six planned cottages eventually built in c1954.[22] While in Townsville, the City Council stated the opinion that homes for the aged were a better system than pensioners’ cottages, and that the Federal Government’s Social Service Fund were the proper authority to fulfil the obligation to house pensioners.[23]
\nIn Cairns, lobbying on behalf of local pensioners began in 1947, when a branch of the Australian Pensioners’ League (APL) was formed in July.[24] The League played an important role in improving the living conditions of Queensland pensioners by lobbying local, state and federal governments on issues such as raising the minimum pension rate, abolishing the means test, and improving social benefits. One of the first acts of the Cairns branch of the APL was to request that Cairns City Council have the Martyn Street reserve officially gazetted as a Reserve for Pensioners’ Homes, which took place on 4 September 1948. The reserve, of approximately 2.9ha, was bounded by Grove Street to the southeast, Lily Creek to the northeast, Charles Street to the northwest, and private properties to the southwest.[25]
\nThe following year, in December 1949, a deputation of the Cairns branches of the APL and the Australian Labor Party requested that Cairns City Council erect cottages for single and married pensioners on the reserve that could be let for a nominal rental. In arguing their case, the deputation pointed out the poor living conditions of the pensioners currently occupying the reserve, and stood up for the rights of Cairns pensioners to stay residing in the area, rather than relocating to a state-run institution in another region. In response, the Mayor of Cairns stated that council had already begun investigating costs and would consider the matter when more information was available.[26]
\nProgress towards constructing the cottages was slow. In mid-1950 a deputation of the Cairns Pensioners’ League approached the Member for Cook, Mr C F Wordsworth, who wrote to the Cairns City Council urging them to take action, saying: ‘These elderly people are living under conditions unworthy of a city the size of Cairns. They are not seeking charity but feel entitled to the provision of huts and lighting on a rental basis. Such facilities have been provided for pensioners at Mareeba.’ The Mayor, Ald W H Murchison, replied that an amount for a cottage scheme had been placed on the council’s loan budget, and in December 1950 the council passed a resolution to borrow £1500 for erecting six cottages.[27]
\nApproval for this loan and the £1500 state government subsidy was granted in February 1951, and the Mayor announced that tenders for erecting the cottages would be called shortly. Plans were prepared and submitted to the Department of Public Works for approval. However, the Department’s objections to aspects of the cottage design delayed progress for over a year. A frustrated Cairns Mayor, Ald W J Fulton, defended the cottage plans, explaining that the designs were based on those of the Anderson Street diggers’ homes, which had been found very satisfactory.[28]
\nThe diggers’ homes scheme that provided a basis for the pensioners’ cottage designs was undertaken by the Cairns and District branch of the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) in 1937. Built to house ‘burnt-out’ former soldiers, the scheme comprised six small timber cottages, fully furnished with electricity, water and space for gardens, erected in a row off Anderson Street. The site also included a community hall and a communal bathroom. The scheme was funded by public donations and the land was donated by the Mayor, Ald W A Collins.[29]
\nThe Mareeba pensioners’ cottages scheme referred to by Wordsworth had been constructed in 1950. Consisting of ten cottages in a row (two for married couples, eight for single occupants) the Mareeba scheme was held up by advocates of the proposed Cairns scheme as a good model to follow.[30] Neither the diggers’ homes nor the Mareeba cottages survive today.
\nIn early 1953, after resolving the various design and loan issues with the State Government, Cairns City Council commenced work on the Grove Street cottages. The approved plans and specifications, dated October 1952, were for small, individual cottages containing two rooms - a kitchen and bedroom - each 10 by 8 feet (3m by 2.4m), as well as a stove recess and an 8 by 5 feet (2.4m by 1.5m) front verandah. They were to be timber-framed, clad in chamferboards with a gable roof clad in corrugated asbestos cement sheeting. Standing on low concrete stumps, access was to be via front and rear timber stairs. Internally, floors were to be of hardwood, walls and partitions lined with plywood, and the ceilings and stove recesses lined with fibrous cement sheeting. Joinery consisted of framed, ledged and braced timber doors, timber casement windows with ‘obscured fancy glass’, and glass louvres to the stove recesses. The cottages were to be laid out in a crescent formation, with plenty of space for gardens at the front and rear. Two earth closets and a laundry/shower block were to be located behind the cottages.[31]
\nThe site for the cottages was facing Grove Street at the southern end of the pensioners’ reserve, away from the existing pensioners’ huts. Construction of the cottages took place in stages, with the first cottage (the centre cottage today), one laundry block and one earth closet completed by November 1953. In April 1954, a contract to construct four cottages (two each on either side of the existing cottage) and one earth closet was signed by contractor L Davey and the work was likely undertaken in late 1954. In September 1954, Cairns City Council announced its intention to borrow an additional £500 to defray the cost of erecting the pensioners’ cottages.[32]
\nAerial photographs show the remaining three cottages (one at either end of the crescent and one set behind at the southwest end) and laundry building at Grove Street were built after May 1957, concurrent with a second pensioners’ cottages scheme being constructed in Cairns for women and married couples, located in Pease Street. The Pease Street site was first investigated by council in early 1954, and construction of the first stage of pensioners’ cottages commenced there in late 1956. Cairns City Council meeting minute books from 1955 to 1958 refer to applications for additional loans (with matching subsidies from the state government) and the use of day labour to erect pensioner cottages, but there is no distinction made between the two sites. The Grove Street site was likely completed in 1958, comprising a total of eight cottages, seven of which were arranged in a crescent and linked by a curved driveway; two laundry buildings; and two earth closets. The Pease Street site grew to comprise 15 cottages, arranged in two straight rows; and an unknown number of outbuildings.[33]
\nAs the first pensioners’ cottages to be built in Cairns, the Grove Street cottages set the pattern for further pensioner housing to be built in the region. The cottages constructed in Pease Street followed the same plan, with a larger version for married couples. In 1954, Mulgrave Shire Council invited tenders for a single pensioners’ cottage each at Yorkeys Knob, Gordonvale, Babinda and Bramston Beach, with the design to be similar to those being erected in Cairns. Mulgrave Shire Council went on to tender for construction of cottages at Machans Beach and Edmonton in 1957. None of the Mulgrave Shire cottages survive today.[34]
\nAccommodation at the Grove Street reserve was increased substantially during the 1970s and 80s, when the remainder of the reserve land between Grove and Charles streets was subdivided and developed in stages by the Queensland Housing Commission. These developments took the form of long blocks of single storey units in a garden setting.[35]
\nThe gardens surrounding the Grove Street pensioners’ cottages varied in use and layout over the decades, and by the 1970s included clusters of large trees at the western end of the site. In 1989 Cairns City Council added a plaque to the front gardens in line with cottage 4 (the centre cottage), dedicated to former resident Keron Glendon, who ‘established this garden and caringly tended it for 14 years’. In 2017, surviving trees and shrubs from Glendon’s garden remain near the plaque.[36]
\nOf the many pensioners’ cottages schemes built in Queensland in the 1940s and 50s, most have been demolished or replaced by more modern accommodation. Known surviving schemes include: Toowoomba (9 out of 11 duplex cottages); Brassall, Ipswich (original 6 duplex units); Blackall (original 4 cottages); Warwick (original 4 single and 2 duplex cottages); Atherton (original 2 cottages); Pease Street, Cairns (7 out of 15 cottages – 3 single cottages, 4 married couples’ cottages, some relocated on site) and Grove Street, Cairns (original 8 single cottages).[37]
\nThe Grove Street cottages remain in their original layout surrounded by gardens and mature trees, and have undergone some alterations and additions over the decades. In the 1980s a bathroom extension was added to the rear of the bedroom of each cottage, and the front verandahs were enclosed. The laundry/shower blocks were subsequently used for storage, and have recently been demolished. All cottages had their roof sheeting replaced by 1990 and the exterior walls have been covered with vinyl panels replicating timber boards. Other additions include roof ventilators and security screens. In 2017, most of the Grove Street Pensioners’ Cottages continue to be occupied by elderly pensioners and the site remains under the trusteeship of Cairns Regional Council.[38]
","criteria":"The Grove Street Pensioners’ Cottages, constructed from 1953 to c1958, are important in demonstrating the widespread movement to provide affordable housing for old aged pensioners in the 1940s-50s in Queensland. Pensioners’ Cottages schemes, which were built by local authorities with the aid of a State Government subsidy offered from 1945, were an important social welfare initiative that allowed pensioners to lead independent lives in their local districts, and were an alternative to aged care homes and institutions.
\nThe Grove Street cottages were the first of their type to be built in Cairns and are important surviving evidence of a largely intact pensioners’ cottages scheme.
|The Grove Street Pensioners’ Cottages are an excellent and largely intact example of a pensioners’ cottage scheme, and are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type of affordable, independent accommodation constructed for aged pensioners in the 1940s and 50s. This class of place comprises multiple, small, single or duplex residences of few rooms, of similar or identical appearance and with a simple plan form, arranged on a single site with open space for gardens, and often including communal laundry and/or bathroom facilities.
\nThe Grove Street site retains its original layout of eight single cottages in a spacious garden setting, connected by a curved driveway. The cottages retain their identical external appearance, original form and plan layout, and most original joinery and materials, with some alterations and additions over time.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3074,"place_ref":602825,"name":"Oribin Studio","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16 Heavey Crescent","suburb":"WHITFIELD","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-10-11","description":"The Oribin Studio stands in the south-west corner of a long wedge-shaped block, with a sharply angled front boundary along Heavey Crescent. A creek flows through the property from behind the studio to the south-east corner before passing beneath Heavey Crescent. A temporary timber bridge crossed the creek in 2012, with the rear portion of the property remaining open lawn fringed by vegetation. The block slopes gently down from the rear northern boundary towards the creek, then slopes up towards the road. To the west is the large estate of a private residence, to the north-east is Oribin's first house, while to the east on the corner of Heavey Crescent and Mullins Street is a two-storey residence. All surrounding properties are heavily vegetated. A gravelled driveway area has been created on the eastern side of the studio, while stones and large boulders form garden beds between the studio and the street. The main entrance is along the western wall, while a timber deck at the eastern corner provides access through a 1980s extension to the north-east side.
The studio is diamond-shaped in plan with the central axis orientated north-west to south-east. The interior layout consists of a living room at the front, a bathroom and storage to the rear, and a kitchen and dining area in the 1980s extension. A room on the lower level has been used as a bedroom, and the remaining underfloor area is used as a laundry and additional storage space.
The base of the studio is constructed from rough-cast concrete and stone walls, with later weatherboard walls and timber screens enclosing most of the formerly open space beneath the cantilevered studio. The remaining floor, wall and roof structures are constructed primarily of timber.
On the upper level, the symmetrical front walls consist of two main elements: a weatherboard-clad ‘prow' at the base, and inward-sloping angled glazed walls. Constructed from diagonal timber rails and long sheets of clear glass, the weight of the roof is supported by round metal posts standing behind the facade, allowing the glazed walls to support themselves with no vertical mullions. These walls turn the corner at each end, with ornamental red panels filling the gap between the end of the glazed walls, the ceiling and the side walls.
Of the two original side walls, which angle outwards from their base and converge to a sharp point at the rear corner of the studio, the western wall remains the most intact. The lower portion is clad in timber weatherboards with pairs of casement windows occupying the upper portion to ceiling height. Containing no glass, the windows are enclosed by plywood shutters ornamented with triangular pieces of timber and secured from the inside. Each shutter has an angled top to accommodate an upside-down triangular fanlight of yellow patterned glass above each pair. Timber rafters supporting the roof are exposed on the underside of the plasterboard-clad eaves, with the ends cut away in a zigzag pattern. Where the rafters pierce the wall structure, the gap beneath is in-filled with yellow patterned glass and triangular timber wedges. A triangular light fitting remains over the main entrance door.
The north-eastern side wall is now an internal wall, with one of the former casement windows now a doorway, the shutters removed, and the rear two bays enclosed. The triangular fanlight pattern has been replicated in timber on the exterior wall of the 1980s extension, but does not contain glass.
The sharply angled rear corner of the studio has windows similar to the front glazed walls, with horizontal timber rails and supported by a round metal post set back from the corner.
The ridgeline of the gable roof, which is clad in corrugated metal sheeting, follows the central axis of the studio, ascending from the rear corner to its highest peak over the front glazed walls. The timber rafters are exposed on the interior, running perpendicular to the side walls.
On the interior, the floor of the main room is tiled and ceilings and most walls are lined with flat plasterboard sheeting. Dividing the large front living room from the rear bathroom is a v-shaped concrete wall of the same finish and materials as the base structure. The bathroom contains recent fixtures and fittings.
The main roof has been extended over the 1980s extension, which is positioned a few steps below the main studio level. The end walls of the kitchen have timber doors set within a glass and timber screen that contains a different type of yellow patterned glass to that used for the original studio. The decks at either end of the extension are constructed from timber with timber balustrades. The extension and decks are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Along the western side of the studio is a covered pergola that is a replacement of an earlier open timber pergola. A stone paved floor and low retaining walls line the western edge of the studio, including original triangular garden beds of rough-cast concrete. At the southern end, a series of concrete steps and retaining walls lead down to the underfloor area. One of the concrete walls of the base structure has three diamond shaped openings enclosed with removable timber blocks.
Changes to the studio over time include the loss of original timber desk joinery, the addition of timber sunscreens attached to the front glazed walls, and installation of security and fly screens to the windows. The loss of some original panes of yellow patterned glass has resulted in replacement panes of different hues and patterns.
Despite its small size, the studio is a landmark building in the street, standing out against a backdrop of tropical vegetation.
","history":"The Oribin Studio was designed in 1960 by Cairns architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin for himself as his architectural drawing office, from where he ran his practice between 1960 and 1973.[1] Located in the post-World War II suburb of Whitfield in Cairns, the studio is a small two-storey structure addressing Heavey Crescent, surrounded by tropical vegetation and a small creek which runs through the property. Together with Oribin's first house (1958), which he designed for himself on the same property, these two buildings signalled the beginning of Oribin's residential work,[2] which was characterised by experimentation with innovative forms, structures, materials and techniques for dealing with the tropical climate of far north Queensland. The design of the studio displays the influence of the works and philosophies of Frank Lloyd Wright, an internationally renowned American architect who had a profound impact on generations of architects.
\nEdwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin was born in Cairns in 1927. As a teenager during World War II, he spent time in Brisbane where he obtained work with the Allison Aircraft Division of General Motors rebuilding aircraft engines. Returning to Cairns in 1944, Oribin commenced architectural training with Sid G Barnes, Chief Architect of the Allied Works Council for North Queensland, whose training gave Oribin a solid grounding in structural design and construction. In 1950 Oribin moved to Brisbane to work and study, and on 10 February 1953 he obtained his registration as an architect in Queensland, returning to Cairns the following month to begin a partnership with Barnes. This partnership lasted until Barnes' death in 1959, after which Oribin continued practicing on his own.[3]
\nOribin undertook a wide range of work in north Queensland between 1953 and 1973.[4] Throughout his career, he was devoted to experimenting with different structural and aesthetic ideas, drawing inspiration from a wide variety of Australian and international publications. Characteristics of Oribin's work included meticulous detailing, structural creativity and concern for the modulation of light.[5] He was also known for his model- making skills and superb craftsmanship, often creating objects himself.[6]
\nThe city of Cairns in tropical far north Queensland was established as a port in 1876. Located on the banks of Trinity Inlet, the early growth and development of the town was restricted by its topography, which consisted of large areas of low-lying swamp land encircled by mountains. Substantial reclamation of sand dunes and swamps took place over the decades to allow the township to expand.[7] After the disruption of World War II, post-war optimism saw suburban development increase and the population grow to over 25,000 people by 1961.[8]
\nIn the late 1950s Oribin chose to construct his first house (and later studio) in a new post-war suburban area on the slopes of Mt Whitfield, north-west of the Cairns CBD. This land, encompassing most of the present-day suburbs of Whitfield and Edge Hill, was first surveyed in 1883.[9] Separated from the main township by low-lying swamp land, the lower slopes of Mt Whitfield were one of the few elevated areas of land available in Cairns, with views over Trinity Bay. Over time, the area was developed as agricultural land and sugarcane farms.[10] One of these farms was owned by William Collins (Mayor of Cairns from 1927 to 1949), who built a large house known as Sylvan Brook on a hill.[11] From the 1950s the Collins' land was subdivided in stages for housing development and in 1973 the suburb of Whitfield was formally declared.[12]
\nIn late 1957 Eddie Oribin and his wife Joyce purchased two adjoining lots in a new subdivision,[13] one of which had several unusual features, being much larger in size than neighbouring lots and irregularly shaped, with an acutely angled corner at the intersection of Heavey and Mullins streets. A small creek protected by an easement ran through the property, cutting off the south-western corner. These site conditions played a key role in determining the siting and orientation of the house (constructed in 1958) and studio.
\nAs an architect and designer, Oribin was particularly influenced by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), a famous and widely published American architect who practiced from the late 1880s until his death in 1959. Over his long career, Wright had a major influence on American architecture and designed some of its most famous buildings, such as the Robie House, Chicago (1908-10), Falling Water, Pennsylvania (1937-39) and the Guggenheim Museum, New York (1959). He is also famous for his leading role in developing the Prairie School style and his ideas about ‘organic' architecture.[14] Organic architecture can be briefly defined as an architecture that is both visually and environmentally compatible, closely integrated with the site, and which reflects the architect's concern with the processes of nature and the forms they produce.[15] Buildings designed to this philosophy made use of local materials, responded to the local topography and climate to produce comfortable conditions, and were organised so as to form an organic, integrated whole.[16]
\nThrough publications such as newspapers and architecture journals, Wright's influence spread around the world. Early proponents of his style in Australia were Chicago-based architects Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahoney Griffin, famous for winning the international competition to design the city of Canberra (1912), who had worked for Frank Lloyd Wright in America.[17] Several young Australian architects influenced by Wright were designing in an organic idiom in the 1950s, particularly in the southern states, but it was not until the 1960s that there were enough examples of organic architecture for an organic style to be discernible in Australia.[18] A 1969 journal article, which included Oribin's first house as an example, displayed the wide variety of forms, materials and interpretations of organic philosophy that were employed by Australian architects, with features such as clearly expressed timber structure, textured brickwork, free massing and complex geometries that complemented natural elements of the site.[19]
\nIn 1959 Oribin designed a studio separate from his house from which to run his solo architecture practice. Like his first house, designing the studio was an opportunity for Oribin to put into practice his most creative and technical ambitions and create a working environment that suited his needs, with a large, well lit office and service and storage areas. In common with other architect's personal projects, the studio was also a showpiece of Oribin's skills and design philosophies.[20]
\nConstruction was completed in 1960 and the studio served as Oribin's personal drawing office until 1973.[21] Located on the opposite side of the creek in the south-west corner of the property, the studio was a small, two-storey timber and concrete building, accessed by a timber walkway connecting it to the house. The studio layout consisted of a two rooms on the upper floor that were used as the drawing office, with built-in desks lining the edges of the main south-east facing glazed walls. The ground floor was partially enclosed with concrete walls and used as a carport.[22]
\nThe design of the studio was greatly influenced by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, in particular by his Unitarian Meeting House (1947-51), built for the First Unitarian Society in Madison, Wisconsin.[23] The inspiration for the meeting house design is said to have been the shape of hands folded in prayer.[24] Sited on a knoll in a rolling, partially wooded setting overlooking farmland, Wright used broad sweeping lines and natural materials, including rough-faced stonework, to help integrate the church with surrounding nature. The traditionally separate elements of spire, sanctuary and parish hall were amalgamated into one unbroken space, with the spire becoming a great, upward sweeping, glass-enclosed prow. A triangular module was used to order the plan and deep overhangs on all sides shielded the large windows from direct sun.[25] In recognition of its innovative design, the Meeting House was placed on the United States ‘National Register of Historic Places' in 1973.[26]
\nDrawing inspiration from Wright, Oribin adapted the Meeting House concept to the site and the Cairns climate, utilising local materials. Like Wright's design, the studio was designed to a triangular module, in this case using a 30º/60º grid that fans out towards the south-east.[27] The building was raised up on a concrete and stone base, above the potential flood levels of the adjacent creek, with the access walkway from the house passing beneath the cantilevered studio and up a series of concrete steps on the southern and western sides. The heaviness of the concrete structure, which features large random stones, provided a visual anchor to the soaring characteristics of the studio above. Glazed walls with diagonal glazing bars angled back from a weatherboard 'prow' and a sheet metal-clad roof with pointed ends and deep eaves sailed over the whole structure. Side casement windows, protected by shutters, provided cross-ventilation and surrounding trees and vegetation helped shade the studio as they grew. The glazed walls of the drawing office provided good, consistent daylight and views towards the house and Heavey Crescent.[28]
\nOther Oribin buildings that display a similar angular ‘Wrightian' influence upon their design are two of his churches, the Mareeba Methodist Church (1960) and St Andrew's Memorial Presbyterian Church, Innisfail (1960, QHR 602332); both are highly detailed, utilise unusual and creative structural methods, and carry through triangle and diamond motifs to all aspects of the design.[29]
\nDuring Oribin's years working from the studio he designed many houses for clients in the suburbs surrounding Mt Whitfield, each very different in structure and form.[30] He also designed a library in the suburb of Stratford (1969, demolished c2008), two motel projects, including the Hides Hotel-Motel extension in Lake Street, Cairns (1967), and several large commercial projects in collaboration with other architects, such as the Cairns Civic Theatre (1972-74).[31]
\nIn 1971 the Oribins subdivided their property into three lots; one lot containing the house, another the studio, and a third was created from the vacant land on the corner of Mullins Street and Heavey Crescent.[32] These were sold between 1972 and 1973. Oribin closed his architecture practice in 1973[33] and the family moved into a new house designed by Oribin at Edge Hill, completed in 1974.[34]
\nOver time, the original connection between Oribin's first house and the studio has been obscured by the construction of a residence on the corner lot, the removal of the original bridge walkway and the growth of trees and vegetation on the site. Changes to the studio include the removal of the original desk joinery in the main room and the installation of a bathroom. A 1980s extension contains a kitchen, and a timber deck and stairs have been added to the eastern corner. The lower level has been enclosed with weatherboards to provide additional accommodation. Timber fins attached to the glazed wall were added to provide additional sun protection and privacy. The studio is used as a private residence in 2013.
\nOribin's significant contribution to Queensland architecture was recognised by the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2000, when the new ‘Building of the Year' award for the Far North Region was named in his honour.[35] In 2013 the Oribin House and Studio received the ‘Enduring Architecture Award' at the Australian Institute of Architects' Queensland Architecture Awards.[36]
","criteria":"The Oribin Studio (1960) is a definitive work of Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin, providing a valuable insight into the life and work of a significant Queensland architect, who produced a range of innovative and unique buildings in north Queensland between 1953 and 1973. Built in close proximity to the first house he designed for himself, the studio demonstrates the evolution of Oribin's skills and design philosophies in the early stages of his career. Oribin's contribution to Queensland architecture is recognised by the Australian Institute of Architects' establishment of the Eddie Oribin Building of the Year Award for the Far North Queensland region.
The studio is important in demonstrating the influence of international architectural trends upon Australian architects in the mid-20th century, in particular the concept of organic architecture promoted by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).
|The Oribin Studio retains the characteristics of an architect's office, including a large, well-lit working space and service and storage areas. Designing the studio for himself, provided Oribin an opportunity to realise his most creative and technical ambitions.
The creativity, craftsmanship and attention to detail evident in the studio's design are characteristic of the works of Oribin, whose buildings are remarkable for their geometrical complexities, unconventional roof forms, innovative use of materials and structural systems, and manipulation of natural light and ventilation.
|The Oribin Studio has aesthetic significance for its picturesque attributes as a building of exceptional architectural quality nestled amidst tropical gardens on the bank of a small creek. Extensive glazing, intricate timberwork and wide eaves accentuate the tropical character of the building, while the folded planes and sharp lines of the upper portion give the building the impression of reaching to the sky, in contrast to the solid concrete base anchoring it to the ground.
|The Oribin Studio is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative achievement utilising unusual structural methods and sculptural form to produce a compact yet highly complex design in harmony with the climate and its surrounds. The front angled glazed walls of the studio are particularly remarkable for their aesthetic treatment. At the 2013 Queensland Architecture awards, the studio and adjacent house were awarded the ‘Enduring Architecture Award' by the Australian Institute of Architects.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3103,"place_ref":602801,"name":"ED Miles Mining Exchange (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"65 Mosman Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The ED Miles Mining Exchange (former) is located at the northern end of the main commercial district on Mosman Street in Charters Towers, a street dominated by late nineteenth century buildings. Bounded by commercial properties to the north and south, this single storey timber building with rendered masonry façade embellished with classical detailing, is built to the front and side alignments. With dual street access, the allotment extends through to Bow Street where a large steel framed, metal clad skillion-roofed structure covers the rear of the site and a detached strong room.
\nThe former mining exchange is clearly discernible as two volumes (1887, 1901) marked by dual pediments on the parapet and separate gabled roofs clad in corrugated metal sheeting, with the larger 1887 portion lit by a generous roof lantern. A curved awning roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and supported on slim decorative cast iron posts extends over the footpath along the width of this building and the adjoining premises to the north. Four of six cast iron columns and a large proportion of a delicate cast iron valance with brackets and pendants survive to the mining exchange building section of awning. A continuous moulded string course also extends across the length of the mining exchange building façade and the adjacent premises.
\nOn the main façade, pilasters, a plinth and semi-circular fanlights over openings mark the extent of the 1887 building and distinguish it from the square headed openings of the 1901 addition. A continuous sill extends across the front of both sections and all openings are framed with rendered mouldings. The 1887 portion comprises a double-leafed timber entrance door with a well-worn concrete threshold flanked by windows either side containing pairs of large timber casement (replacement) windows. The 1901 addition has double-hung timber windows with frosted glazing.
\nThe remainder of the building is timber framed and lined. Exterior walls are single skin with externally exposed stud framing lined internally with boards detailed with double beading. Internal partitions are also single skin with stop-chamfered studs and these, together with the ceiling, are lined with single-beaded tongue and groove boards. The rooms are generally without cornices except the 1901 addition which has a timber cove. Some joinery is painted, including four-panelled doors, French doors to the exterior and double hung windows. That which is clear finished includes cedar windows in the north-west (front) and south-east (rear) walls of the 1901 addition and the architraves, reveals and fanlights of the large bi-folding door opening.
\nThe 1887 portion of the building comprises a large public area (11 m wide) with a substantial painted cedar counter on the left hand side. A central hallway (1.8 x 11.3 m) separated from the public area by a pair of timber doors leads to the rear of the building and provides access to four rooms, two on each side which are interconnected with doorways. In the hallway wall, a slot exists into the area behind the counter, most likely for the quick transmission of documents. The front left-hand side office (former chief clerk's office) behind the public space has timber shelving with labels indicating it was used to store wine and spirits. Bathroom and laundry facilities have been fitted within the rear right-hand side room (former Millican's office) and there is a sink and cabinet located in the adjacent room (former board room), none of which are of cultural heritage significance.
\nWith a 150 mm higher floor level, the 1901 extension comprises two large rooms (7 x 4.2 m each) connected by a large opening with fanlights above. Cedar bi-fold doors which originally graced this opening have been removed to the World Theatre - the Former Australian Bank of Commerce (QHR 600407) in Mosman Street. Access to the front room is from the public space of the 1887 structure, and to the rear room from the rear yard and through a short transverse corridor within the former board room.
\nA notable feature of the 1887 building is its provision of natural light and ventilation. The large, tapered-wall roof lantern (8 m high) with operable windows straddles the hallway and front two offices, bathing them in natural light. Fanlights are located above all doorways and there is a variety of high level windows in external timber walls throughout as well as timber fretwork ceiling roses in each of the rooms. An unusual ventilation device is located in the rooms along the windowless north-eastern built-to-boundary wall. In the corners of each room, triangular ventilation ducts (1.2 m high) draw air from beneath the building as well as from the hallway through holes in the partition walls into the rooms.
\nThe strong room (11 x 3 m) is located on the north-eastern boundary. It has a concrete floor, thick masonry walls and a heavy steel entrance door facing the main building. Divided into two rooms by a concrete partition wall and second heavy metal door, the western end is constructed of externally rendered brickwork and the remainder is of concrete with a vaulted ceiling (2.5 m high) throughout, laterally braced with metal tie rods. Wall vents provide air circulation to the larger western room and the eastern room contains evidence of timber shelving for storage, a timber cupboard and an early ceiling mounted metal light shade.
\nThe rear yard is surfaced with concrete and is sheltered by steel awnings. These elements are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n","history":"
The former ED Miles Mining Exchange in Charters Towers was built in 1887 and extended in 1889, 1891 and 1901, to house the business established by ED Miles in 1883, and managed in partnership with Joe Millican from 1887. This was the first of a number of long standing mining exchange businesses established during the 1880s in Charters Towers, and thought to be the most successful business of this type in Queensland, operating from 1883 until it was liquidated shortly after the death of Miles in 1922.
The Charters Towers gold deposits were first discovered in December 1871, by an Aboriginal boy named Jupiter who accompanied prospectors Hugh and Adam Mosman [1] and John Fraser, who were later joined by George Clarke. Jupiter found a rich vein of gold laden quartz. [2] Mosman travelled to Ravenswood in early January 1872 to register the claim which he named Charters Towers, honouring the Gold Commissioner, William Charters. By March 1872 Commissioner Charters had issued 25 prospecting area permits in the vicinity of Mosman's claim [3] and the rush began.
Two settlements were established, one which became Charters Towers and another four miles (6.4 km) distant which became Millchester. Charters Towers began with a number of stores, hotels and a butcher shop along a track that was to become Mosman Street, with the population reputedly 3000 by August 1872. [4] There was rivalry between the two settlements, particularly after the courthouse was established at Millchester in 1873. [5] However Charters Towers soon dominated. Its town survey was undertaken in November 1874 marking out allotments in a ‘T' formation, [6] with the mines and the provision stores of Mosman Street on one axis, and the road to Millchester marked by Gill Street on the other. Charters Towers was declared a municipality in 1877 encompassing one square mile centred on Mosman Street. [7] It included new churches, the Oddfellows and Good Templar Lodges, 21 hotels and 57 shops.
In the meantime, it had become evident the procurement of gold from the deep seams of Charter Towers required substantial machinery to crush quartz and sink shafts. This required working capital to find the gold, finance machinery and to pay the wages of workers employed on these time consuming processes. The Queensland Gold Fields Act 1874 and Gold Mining Companies Act 1875 allowed for combinations of leases, claims and syndicates in order to work their leases at great depths. The legislation also underpinned the establishment of permanent settlement which would attract capital investment to the field. [8] Early ‘no liability' companies were floated but were short-lived, known as ‘no reliability companies' by the banks which refused to finance them. Most mines were run by syndicates with financial backing by the town's businessmen. [9] A number of share-brokers operated around town in the late 1870s, regularly advertising in the Northern Miner newspaper. Company shares were available to the general public, and this initiated the role of mining agent whose sole purpose was acting as secretary of these companies and dealing in their shares. From 1881 the Charters Towers Town Clerk Edward David Miles also filled the role of secretary for a number of these companies and by 1882 company mining became the norm in Charters Towers.
ED Miles, having first advertised his services in February 1882 [10] became a full-time mining agent in February 1883 and established an office adjacent to the Miner's Arms Hotel in Mosman Street. [11] A native of Wales, he came to Australia in 1862 attracted by the Victorian gold rush. He initially worked in Castlemaine and then moved to Ballarat. In 1875 he moved to Charters Towers and was employed as an engine driver, a miner and worked in the store of John McDonald. He was appointed town clerk in 1880. The first mining company he represented was the Day Dawn Prospecting Claim (QHR 602200), one of the most successful in Charters Towers. [12] Established in 1875 and floated as a limited liability company in October 1881 it later realised a record production of £1,000,000 worth of gold in 1898. [13] In May 1883 ED Miles was reporting to the Queenslander newspaper on 15 companies in Charters Towers, listing himself as secretary to five of these. [14]
Mining secretaries ensured the companies complied with the relevant legislation and regulation and kept board members informed of their legal responsibilities. They were the company's named representative on legal documents and it was their responsibility to ensure company directors operated within the law. It was also their responsibility to register and communicate with the shareholders to ensure dividends were paid and company records maintained, such as lists of directors and shareholders and annual accounts. [15] In mining towns, mining exchanges dealt in mine shares, whereas stock exchanges dealt in a variety of enterprises. Nevertheless, to deal in a stock exchange one had to be a member and Miles, as well as operating his own mining exchange, was later a member of the Charters Towers Stock Exchange. [16]
The growth of both Gympie's and Charters Towers' gold fields led to the establishment of brokerages in both towns and in Brisbane, dealing in mining shares. Mining exchanges had operated in Ballarat, Victoria since 1857. [17] Like Charters Towers, Ballarat's success came through the formation of mining companies to finance the deep sinking of mines. [18] The establishment of the first dedicated mining exchange building in Ballarat was initiated by the local Borough Council in 1864 in a renovated building. [19 & 20] Even when a more substantial building was constructed in 1888 (VHR HO65), it was still located on land owned by the local council. [21]
There were a number of early mining exchanges in Queensland, none of which were established by local councils. Former Ballarat businessman and publican, Henry Farley had a mining exchange and hotel in Gympie in 1868. [22] He then established the Mining Exchange Hotel in Stanthorpe in 1872. [23] Another exchange was reported in Gympie in 1872. [24] By 1881 there were 112 mining companies operating in Gympie, [25] and Crawford and Rohde operated an exchange here from 1882 to 1885. [26] Crawford then built his own building in 1885 from which he operated as mining secretary and commission agent. [27] Another building in Gympie, Smithfield Chambers (QHR 602777) housed mining secretaries from 1895 and later the Gympie Stock Exchange Club. Other mining exchanges were established elsewhere in Queensland including; Thorp in Ravenswood, Clifton & Cohen Croydon and Barker & Frew also in Croydon, all established in 1887. [28] Thorp also operated in Charters Towers. His Ravenswood exchange burnt down in 1901 and he replaced the building in 1903, although he appears to have not operated a mining exchange from the new building (QHR 600452). Miles's 1883 business was initiated prior to more substantial operations, such as the Brisbane Evening Mining Exchange (March 1884); the Stock Exchange in Gympie (10 July 1884); and the Brisbane Stock Exchange (23 July 1884). [29] An early attempt to establish a stock exchange in Charters Towers began operating in the billiard room of the Crown Hotel in July 1885, but was a relatively short lived operation. [30] Business was booming in Charters Towers by 1886, when British speculative investment in mining shares increased following the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London where gold and ore samples were exhibited.
Miles' mining exchange business is thought to be the first of this type outside of Gympie, operating until shortly after his death in 1922. In 1884, Miles employed Joe Millican as assistant secretary, [31] who became a partner in 1887. [32] The Northern Miner newspaper described Miles's business character as ‘honest...exhibiting perfect sobriety...patient and unwearied industry and attention to business down to the minutest details.' [33]
In February 1887 ED Miles released plans for his new office designed by local architect WG Smith Jnr. The report in The Northern Miner included the following description for the building to be located on a vacant allotment between the Imperial and Empire Hotels in Mosman Street:
The building will be 52 x 36 feet wide [15.8 m x 11 m], clear on the inside, and will be divided into six separate offices with a hallway six feet [1.8 m] wide hall running through; the verandahs at the back and front will be 10 feet [3 m] wide with a bedroom on the back verandah for one of the clerks. At the left-hand side of the main entrance will be the public room 21 feet [6.4 m] long whilst at the rear of this are two offices each 15 x 15 feet [4.6 m x 4.6 m]. On the right hand side is another office 15 x15 feet [4.6 m x 4.6 m], and next to this is the board room 25 x 15 feet [7.6 x 4.6 m], and there is another 15 feet [4.6 m] square room at the back of the board room. The walls will be 16 feet [4.9 m] high and the front and the wall near the Imperial will be of brick, whilst the other two will be composed of wood. The front of the building will be something like Mr Hunter's Exchange, but a little higher, and the verandah roof, which has a nice ornamental edging, will come lower in order to protect the front of the building form the afternoons' sun. The offices can be entered either from Mosman or Bow streets.
The contractor was Ben Toll, and Smith supervised its construction. [34] By mid July 1887 the company had relocated to its new premises. [35]
A feature of the interior is the use of a ventilation system, likely to be a variation of the Tobin tube, developed in England in the 1870s and patented by Martin Tobin in 1873. Ventilation is achieved through the installation of horizontal tubes under the floor, connected to vertical tubes attached to the internal walls to a height of just over one metre, drawing fresh air into the room and circulating it. [36] At the ED Miles Mining Exchange, the system was probably installed at construction. It complements the more traditional ventilation methods including ventilated ceiling roses, fanlights, operable high-level windows, and a large roof lantern with operable glazing that were included within the building.
The architectural firm WG Smith & Sons was established in Townsville in 1886 by William George Smith Jnr and Snr. Smith junior designed a number of buildings in Townsville and Charters Towers. These include the Band Pavilion in Lissner Park (QHR 600397) and the Masonic Lodge (QHR 600411) in Charters Towers, and Osler House (QHR 600931) and the Choral Society Buildings (QHR 600933) in Townsville. He also designed St Mary's Convent in Charters Towers for the Sisters of Mercy. [37]
An economic downturn occurred in 1888 because of a decrease in overseas investment and a continuing drought which led to the closure of crushing machines due to lack of water. The slump was short lived because of the development of the Brilliant Reef. It had been financed by Richard Craven and GM Ievers who had profited from the British investors of 1886 and they were able to manage the mine for themselves. In 1889 Brilliant Reef, mined to a depth of 3000 feet (914 m), became the biggest producer in the field.
Charters Towers was at its economic peak in the late 19th century, and according to Government Geologist Robert Logan Jack, was the third largest gold producing area in Australia, after Ballarat and Sandhurst (Bendigo). [38] Many new buildings were completed and other mining agencies established. The T-junction of Mosman and Gill Streets became the financial district of Charters Towers. For one block to the east, north, and south were eight banks, the post and telegraph office, two assayers' offices, and four solicitor's offices. Share-brokers occupied the Royal Arcade, and other offices were located in Mosman and Bow Streets. The Royal Arcade (QHR 600406) was built in 1888 and by 1890 the Stock Exchange operated from the building.
During the late 1880s to early 1890s three other mining agencies and exchanges built offices in town. Ernest Hunter bailed out the early stock exchange and established a mining exchange in Mosman Street in March 1886, [39] before occupying his own purpose built office by December. [40] In 1887 Hunter and Albert Harte formed a partnership while Harte then formed another with his former secretary Alan Bright. Both agencies were in Mosman Street. [41] The Hunter and Harte partnership was dissolved early in 1891. Hunter relocated to Croydon and Harte to Brisbane. McCallum and Ineson began business as a general draper and milliner in 1885, turning to share-broking for mining companies in 1890. The company built offices in Bow Street in 1892, designed by WG Smith. [42] The building was later occupied by the Commonwealth Bank. Alan B Bright built a new mining exchange in Mosman Street in 1896, designed by CW Smith. [43] Bright died in 1903 but his business continued to operate into the mid-1950s. [44]
ED Miles and Company were agents for the Brilliant Reef and the neighbouring shafts by 1891, including the St George, Brilliant Block, Brilliant Freeholds, Brilliant Central, Brilliant St Patrick and Queen. Of the 58 mining companies listed in the Northern Mining Register newspaper share list in March 1891, ED Miles and Co. managed 24. Alan Bright managed only nine companies and there were other small operators in town. [45] By September 1891, Miles was secretary to 31 mining companies as well as being the office for three London based companies and local organisations such as the Charters Towers District Hospital and Cemetery Trust, with Miles secretary to both organisations. His partner Joe Millican was mayor at this time. [46] ED Miles became mayor in 1897. At that time the Queenslander newspaper suggested that ED Miles and Co had, for some time, held the leading place among mining agents and brokers in the state. [47]
The growth in business necessitated an expansion of ED Miles's premises. With responsibility for so many secretarial roles and agencies a strong room for the books and securities was necessary. In 1889, a detached fire-proof strong room was built designed by Tunbridge and Tunbridge. [48] It was constructed with walls 2 ft (600 mm) thick with an arched roof of brick and a massive iron door. [49] The strong room was later extended in reinforced concrete, although a date for this is yet to be found.
By 1891 the company had two partners and 17 employees, and was reputedly the largest business of its type in Queensland at the time. [50] Extensions to accommodate its expansion were reported in the Northern Mining Register:
The offices which are of brick, lined with wood, and lofty to provide ventilation have a frontage of 40ft (sic) to Mosman-street by a depth of 80ft and recent additions include a room for the corresponding clerks, a room for the share-broking department and a private apartment for members of the staff. The front office is 15ft by 40ft [12.1m x 4.6 m]. On the right hand side on entering, the end of the office is cut off by a counter over which all transactions took place. On the left hand side cash and calls are received. Though there is no very great attempt at ornamentation the office is fitted with very handsome cedar polished counters, and is at the same time commodious and comfortable. In this part of the building four clerks are engaged...A pair of polished cedar spring doors cut off the private offices from the one devoted to the public and open on a hall way, running the length of the building. On the left hand-side, after entering the hall, is the office of the chief clerk, Mr J Mortimer Hastings in which directors' meetings are held. Mr Hastings takes the directors' meetings and attends to the correspondence; on the right of the hall is the large board-room in which meetings of shareholders takes place and where in the daytime six clerks are engaged under the supervision of Mr JD Macfarlane, who attends to the Warden's Court business, advertising, the despatch of call and dividend notices, and the transaction of insurance and general business. Mr Miles and Mr Millican occupy comfortable offices at the rear of the chief clerk's and board-room respectively. Attached to the main building is the room occupied by the three correspondence clerks, two of whom are shorthand writers. [51]
No architect has been identified in relation to this extension. A number of architects were practicing in Charters Towers at the time including Tunbridge and Tunbridge, WG Smith and WH Munro.
In 1899 Charters Towers was the second most economically important city in Queensland with a population of over 26,000 and an internationally noted goldfield. The gold yield for the state had risen dramatically following the development of the Brilliant Reef and in 1891 it rose from 123,000 ounces (3487 kg) to 218,000 ounces (6181 kg). It reached its all time peak during 1899 of 319,572 ounces (9059.7 kg) yielding over £2,000,000 by the end of the year. [52] This boom also led to the establishment of the School of Mines which opened in March 1899. ED Miles, in his role as president of the Mining Institute, laid the foundation stone. [53] The School of Mines (QHR 600402) was based on the model of the Mechanics Institutes in Ballarat and Otago in New Zealand, which taught the necessary skills to existing and potential mine employees.
By September 1901 yet another extension to the ED Miles & Company building was underway, designed by Walter Hunt. [54] The building then extended the entire length (18 m) of its street frontage on Mosman Street, abutting the Empire Hotel. Hunt had relocated to Queensland from Kiama in New South Wales in mid 1899, [55] working in Charters Towers, and later established a practice in Townsville with CD Lynch [56] and undertaking work throughout North Queensland.
Further impact on the processing of ore in Charters Towers came with the Federation drought (1895-1902). The Burdekin River dried up, leading townspeople to build a weir, completed by the end of 1902. Miles was chairman of the water board. [57] Despite these problems, the mining warden reported an increase in gold production at the end of 1902, largely due to the development of the Queen Cross Mine, for which [58] ED Miles and Co. was secretary.
Miles was appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council in July 1902. [59] From 1905 Miles's parliamentary work necessitated his relocation to Brisbane, initially living in Kinellan House in New Farm, then at Nyrambla in Ascot. Joe Millican carried on the business.
Despite Charters Towers being declared a city in 1909, the downturn in mining from 1914 and its cessation in 1917 contributed to a steady decrease in population during this time. [60] A town that had boasted a population of 25,000 in 1900, when it was the second largest in Queensland, was reduced to just 13,000 by the end of World War I. Between 1914 and 1918 more than 900 homes and business premises were removed from Charters Towers. Many were dismantled and transported by train to Townsville or Ayr where they were re-erected. Others were relocated to various places in Western Queensland. [61]
Gold production had been the mainstay of the Queensland mining sector in the 1890s amounting to 85 per cent to 92.8 per cent of mining production during the decade. Apart from a brief spike in production at Mount Morgan in 1888-9, Charters Towers consistently out-produced the other major gold mining areas of Ravenswood, Gympie and Mount Morgan between 1880 and 1913, [62] but figures for all centres declined in the early 20th century. Charters Towers' production of 96,046 oz (2723 kg) in 1912, fell to 42,777 oz (1213 kg) in 1916 and reduced further to 8095 oz (22.9 kg) by 1919. [63]
Mining companies began folding: the Mills Day Dawn United, the New Queen Central, Moonstone and Telegraph in 1916. [64] The New Brilliant Freehold Company went into liquidation in 1918. ED Miles and Thomas Mills were appointed liquidators. Miles died in 1922 during the winding up of the company, which dragged on to 1926. Joe Millican replaced Miles as liquidator [65] and having retired to Sydney had liquidated the partnership of Miles and Millican sometime in 1922. [66]
Miles's obituary declared that ‘there were few offices of dignity, importance or influence in Charters Towers with which Mr Miles was not at one time or another associated'. He had been an alderman and mayor, chairman of the Charters Towers Water Board, member of the Townsville Harbour Board, president of the Charters Towers Chamber of Commerce, the Mining Institute, and the Mine Owners Association and secretary of the Charters Towers Hospital Board for over 20 years, and District Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge and member of the Manchester Unity International Order of Oddfellows. [67] He was also the chairman of the association which established the School of Mines (QHR 600402) in Charters Towers in 1900. [68] He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Council until his death on 10 March 1922, shortly before the abolition of the upper house on 23 March.
His partner Joe Millican was also a significant asset to the community being an alderman from 1888, the year after he became Miles' partner, and then becoming mayor in 1890. He was vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and the Charters Towers Stock Exchange, member of the executive of the Charters Towers Pastoral Agricultural and Mining Association, a member of the Manchester Unity International Order of Oddfellows, and either chairman or director of numerous mining companies and a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly briefly between 1907 and 1908. [69]
The ED Miles and Co. building was purchased in 1928 by the North Queensland Racing Association (NQRA) [70] which had formed in Charters Towers in 1886. [71] The NQRA reported it paid £400 and the offices were described as comprising a strong room, large board room and roomy offices, some of which would be made available for letting. [72] The NQRA relocated its headquarters to Townsville in the 1960s. By 1965 the 1891 addition at the rear of the building had been demolished and an L-shaped structure (later demolished) was built behind the strong room. [73]
The property was then sold to Bartlams Limited in 1966. Bartlams was involved in the sale of livestock and real estate, as well as being wine and spirit merchants, generally servicing western Queensland grazing properties. Bartlams had previously operated from part of the former Burns Philp building (QHR 600409) in Mosman Street from 1944 until 1966. [74] Transferred again in 1974 to Albert Claude Oates, the former ED Miles building was then used for the operation of ‘Independent Tyre Dealers'. The property was sold again in 1988 and the new owners lived in the building for a period. During this time, a large steel-framed structure on a concrete slab was constructed behind the building, facilitating tyre fitting and wheel balancing/alignments etc. The building was later leased to ‘Beaurepaires' who vacated the building in 2011.
There remain four known mining exchange buildings in Charters Towers: Hunter's (later Hunter and Harte) in Mosman Street, built in November 1886; [75] the ED Miles and Company's in Mosman Street, (1887); Ineson and MaCallum's in Bow Street, (1892); and Alan Bright's in Mosman Street (1896). The former ED Miles building retains a significant proportion of its original fabric and configuration, whereas the interiors of the other buildings have been altered.
Throughout Australia, there are only three mining exchanges on state heritage registers: The Beehive building in Bendigo (1872, Victorian Heritage Register H0686); The Ballarat Mining Exchange (former) (1887, Victorian Heritage Register H0391) and the former Brown's Mart in Smith Street Darwin, which housed a mining exchange between 1887 and 1910 (Northern Territory Heritage Register, File H96/0014). Within the larger category of stock exchanges, the former ED Miles and Company building remains rare, with only the former Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street listed on the Victorian Heritage Register (H0034) and the former Adelaide Stock Exchange (ID11580) on the South Australian Register. Identified extant Queensland Stock Exchanges include those at Charter Towers (QHR 600406), Toowoomba (QHR 601319) and the Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club [QHR 602772, Australian Joint Stock Bank (former)/Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club (former)].
","criteria":"The former mining exchange building of ED Miles and Company, reputedly the largest share-broking company in Queensland for almost 40 years during the deep reef mining operations in Charters Towers, is significant in demonstrating the importance of mining exchanges in the evolution of Queensland's gold mining industry, a major contributor to Queensland's wealth. Established by Edward David Miles in 1883, the company provided management and share-broking services for mining companies in the Charters Towers goldfields, which was the highest producing gold field in Queensland, and the third largest in Australia. ED Miles and Company was reputedly the largest of its type in Queensland. The building, constructed in 1887, is a rare surviving and representative example of a highly intact purpose-built building, designed, constructed (1887) and thrice extended (1889, 1891 and 1901) for the purpose of operating a mining exchange.
|The ED Miles Mining Exchange (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a mining exchange - a key activity in a prosperous gold mining town - including a public reception space with counters near the entry, interconnecting offices, board room, and large strong room. The highly intact and rare building is located within the financial district of Charters Towers.
|The ED Miles Mining Exchange (former) has the potential to contribute significantly to our understanding of the development of 19th century passive ventilation features used in the construction and design of buildings in Queensland's hot dry areas. This building features a variation of Tobin Tube ventilation incorporated with high ceilings, part-height interior partitions, ventilated ceiling roses, operable fanlights, high-level windows and a large roof lantern with operable glazing.
|The ED Miles Mining Exchange is an important component of the commercial precinct of Mosman and Gill Streets, Charters Towers, comprising a collection of 19th century gold era buildings of significance to Queensland. Situated at the northern end of this precinct, the building is an intact example of a small-scale commercial structure with modestly decorated façade and street awning, contributing to the variety and character of this townscape.
|The ED Miles and Company mining exchange is rare as one of four known buildings of this type in Queensland, all located in Charters Towers; it being the most intact of these.
|The ED Miles Mining Exchange (former) has a strong association with its founder Edward David Miles and his partner Joe Millican. Miles established his mining exchange business serving the Charters Towers deep reef gold mining in 1883, with Millican made partner in 1887, after completion of the building. Both men underpinned the success of ED Miles and Company, which provided services to 31 mining companies during the 1890s, outperforming others in town and reputedly the largest company of its type in Queensland, operating for 35 years from this building. While both men were active in many community organisations, both served local government and were Members of Parliament, the significance of the ED Miles Mining Exchange rests with their involvement with and importance to the Queensland gold mining industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3235,"place_ref":602627,"name":"Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers Railway Station","alternate_name":"Signals, Crane and Subway | Charters Towers Railway Station","street_address":"Enterprise Road","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-30","description":"The railway station is located near the intersection of Enterprise Road and Gill Street (the main street of Charters Towers) and a pedestrian underpass runs under the railway line where it crosses Gill Street. The Charters Towers railway station now consists of a flat-roofed 1980s office building and bitumen paved concrete platform, located north-east of the east end of Gill Street. There are other modern structures around the railway yards, but these and the 1980s office building are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. However, located with the office building is the signal cabin, and located within the signal cabin is a mechanical signal frame of cultural heritage significance.
The fully interlocking McKenzie and Holland 20-lever mechanical signal frame in the signal cabin at the Charters Towers Railway Station is a rare surviving example of an operational mechanical safety system for managing railway traffic. The levers on the signal frame work an underfloor interlocking mechanism which is linked to points (tapering rails, used to transfer the train from one set of tracks to another), points indicators, crossing lights and signals around the railway station. The signalling equipment is located both sides of the Gill Street crossing, and a 10 ton crane south-west of the crossing also remains as a reminder that Charters Towers was once a thriving gold-mining town.
Although most of Queensland's railway signalling is controlled by computers, the interlocking system at Charters Towers is still controlled from a McKenzie and Holland low-level duplex tappet signal frame, numbered 21, which was manufactured in Melbourne. Its underfloor mechanism uses the duplex tappet system, with 5 inches between levers, similar to the frame at Ascot Railway Station [QHR 602195], whereas the frame at the Kuranda Railway Station [QHR 600755] uses t-bar interlocking. The current 20-lever signal frame manipulates the points and signals of the station. Warning bells sound as a train approaches the station, and staff set the required levers to guide a train through the station or into a siding. The levers operate the points either manually, by long metal pull rods, or by activating an electric motor to change the points, while the semaphore signals are controlled by wires connected to the signal frame. Electric light signals and crossing lights are also operated from the signal frame.
A metal key, in the shape of a small metal rod, can be removed from a lock attached to the signal frame. This immobilises the signal frame levers, and the key can be used to unlock a smaller mechanical ground frame to the north-east of the station. This key lockout system is rare. The ground frame at Charters Towers, north-east of the station, has two levers on a small metal platform, and is used to control access to a siding.
The significant elements within the heritage boundary are as follows:
Signal frame, interlocking mechanism, and connecting rods and cables:
Located in the signal cabin of the station, the McKenzie and Holland mechanical signal frame consists of 20 large red, blue and black levers, each tagged with a metal plate listing its number and function. The levers pivot between forward and back positions in a curved metal frame, with slots for each lever. Each segment of the frame between the levers is embossed with the words 'McKenzie & Holland Melbourne'. The interlocking mechanism is concealed under the floor of the cabin. Long metal rods with metal guides run north-east alongside the platform from the signal cabin to a set of points near the end of the platform. These rods mechanically link the signal cabin to the points, and to the nearby semaphore and points indicator. Cables also run to two semaphore towers south-west of Gill Street.
Points, points indicators, and semaphore towers:
At the north-east end of the platform is a metal semaphore tower with a lantern, a set of points, and a points indicator. The points indicator is a lamp contained in a red and white painted metal box, and wire cables and a chain connected to the points activate the semaphore arm. Further along the track to the north-east are two sets of points, both controlled by electrical motors activated by lever 11 of the signal frame in the signal cabin. To the south-west of Gill Street are three sets of semi-trailable points - which either can be manually operated or can allow trains through before resetting themselves; three points indicators (black box with white chevrons); and two cable-operated semaphore towers.
Electric light signals:
There are two signal poles north-east of the platform. These originally carried signal arms and kerosene lanterns, but they now display electrical lights. The lights at the level crossing are also controlled from the signal frame.
Ground frames:
North-east of the platform, beyond the two electric light signals and the first set of electrically operated points, is a mechanical ground frame with two large levers. This activates two points for a dead-end siding south of the main lines. The most southern of these points, activated by a metal rod running from the ground frame, is attached to a points indicator consisting of a revolving red disk and a lantern.
Pedestrian underpass:
Just to the south-west of the station building, but north of Gill Street, is a concrete pedestrian underpass (1890). Stairs descend at each end to an ovoid tunnel, which is truncated along its base by a pathway. Concrete walls with capping mark either entrance.
Crane:
The large metal crane (c1900), on a concrete base, stands south-west of Gill Street, south of the main railway lines. It is surrounded by a small timber platform. A metal plate on the bottom of the crane reads 'To Lift 10 tons'.
","history":"The Charters Towers Railway Station was established in 1882 as the terminus of the railway from the port of Townsville to the high-yielding Charters Towers Gold Field (proclaimed in 1871). Although the early buildings on the site have been replaced by late twentieth century structures, the railway yards retain three elements important in illustrating the functioning of this place as the transportation hub of what was Queensland's largest and wealthiest gold-mining town at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: a rare surviving operational mechanical safety system for managing railway traffic; an uncommon 1890 pedestrian underpass; and a large 10-ton crane (c1900) also now considered to be rare.
Surveying for a railway inland from Townsville to Charters Towers began in 1875; construction commenced in 1879; and the line to Charters Towers was opened on 4 December 1882. Subsequently extended as the Great Northern Railway, the line reached Hughenden in 1887, Cloncurry in 1907, and Mt Isa in 1929. A south-west extension from Hughenden reached Winton in 1899.
The railway to Charters Towers boosted the town's prosperity by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials. Branch lines and sidings radiated out from the railway station to the various gold mines around the municipality, which boomed during the 1880s. Charters Towers continued to prosper throughout the depressed economic conditions of the 1890s with a peak production of 319,572 ounces of gold in 1899, and a population of around 26,500 the same year. After 1899 there was a steady decline in gold production. In 1912 the Warden reported that the extreme depth for profitable mining had been reached, and most mines had been abandoned by 1916. The last of the big mines, the Brilliant Extended, closed in 1917, but small mining operations continued to be serviced by the Venus battery, which was owned by the Queensland government from 1919. By 1921 Charters Towers¿ population had decreased to 5,682.
The history of the Charters Towers Railway Station reflects the rise and fall of the city, and the station was once a substantial complex. In 1901, the railway yards north of Gill Street included an office and refreshment room with a carriage shade over the tracks; a carriage shed and two engine sheds; a coal stage, workshops, kerosene store, sheep yards, several residences and a number of sidings. There were two sets of railway gates across Gill Street. South of Gill Street by 1905 there was a goods shed, another engine shed, a 2-ton crane, a pedestrian overbridge, and more sidings. By 1985 there were also two signal cabins, located at each end of the old station building, plus a signalling hut near the pedestrian underpass. The signal frame once operated in two parts, and was relocated from elsewhere in the yard when the new station building was constructed in the mid 1980s, and the new signal cabin was commissioned in 1987. All of the early buildings and the sidings to various gold mines have been removed.
Although the railway station complex is much smaller than in its heyday, evidence of its former importance survives in the form of a multitude of short sidings in the yards, and the mechanical interlocking system. In addition, an 1890 concrete subway for pedestrian traffic, constructed adjacent to the south-west end of the station building at what was then known as the Queenton Crossing, still exists. The station has also operated a 10-ton crane at various times. The existing 10-ton crane, with a small timber platform, stands south-west of the Gill Street crossing and is similar to a smaller Ransomes and Rapier 5-ton crane supplied to Yuleba in 1902 (not extant). The Charters Towers crane may date from the same period. Hand operated, it was one of heaviest cranes used by Queensland Railways, and it is a rare example of its type and capacity, comparable to other large cranes at Jandowae, Trinity Wharf in Cairns [QHR 601790], and Cloncurry.
Before railway 'safeworking' systems were computerised and centralised in Queensland, mechanical signals were controlled from signal cabins, which dealt with the traffic on a particular block of railway line. Signal cabins coordinated signals that indicated whether or not a section of track was clear of other traffic. Early signals were mechanical, while later signals were operated electrically. The most common form of mechanical signal was the semaphore signal. These consisted of a metal framed tower with one or more arms that could be inclined at different angles, with the arm at the horizontal signalling "danger", or do not proceed. Mechanical signals were usually worked by a wire cable running from the signal box, although electrical or hydraulic operation could be used for more distant signals. At night, lights were necessary, and kerosene lamps with movable coloured spectacles displayed different colours, including green (proceed), yellow (prepare to find next signal red), and red (stop). Later, electrical coloured lights were used. Smaller points indicator signals, which confirmed whether or not points had been switched, could be used for shunting within a railway yard, and the most common form was the rotating disk signal. These could also contain a kerosene lamp for night operation.
To coordinate signals so that is impossible to give a 'clear' signal to a train unless the route is actually clear, the signals could be interlocked. An interlocked yard is a railway yard where semaphore or coloured light signals are controlled in such a way that the signals will not allow a train to proceed unless the points that operate in conjunction with the signals are correctly set. A mechanical interlocking device, located under a mechanical signal frame, is a system of rods, sliding bars and levers that are configured so that points cannot be changed in conflict, thus preventing movements that may cause a collision or other accident. For example, unless two levers for a section of main line running past a loop siding are set to 'stop' (clearing that section of main line), then a third lever controlling the points for the loop siding cannot be moved, and any train on the siding cannot enter the main line.
Large levers on the signal frame enabled operators to manually move points, signals or crossing gates. The earliest designs used various ingenious and patented methods to interlock the levers. In later electro-mechanical interlocking, where the points and signals were moved by electricity or electro-pneumatically, the signal frames had much smaller levers. Every interlocking installation is individual and unique to the location controlled, and the location and configuration of signal frames at a particular train station may vary over time, as needs change.
McKenzie and Holland (originally McKenzie, Clunes & Holland) were one of the earliest signalling contractors in Britain and supplied many railway companies. In 1873 they introduced a new design of lever frame that would set the style of all frames to come. A dogleg on the shape of the levers allowed them to stand upright in the frame when in the normal position, which made them easier for a signalman to reach. The style of locking mechanism used by McKenzie and Holland from 1873 was known as cam and soldier locking, but cam and t-bar locking was introduced in 1886, and in the early 1890s McKenzie and Holland adopted tappet locking.
At the International Exhibition in Sydney in 1880, Arthur Orpen Herbert, the Commissioner for Queensland Railway, was impressed by a display of McKenzie and Holland interlocking machines. Queensland ordered equipment for Roma Street and Ipswich stations and this arrived in October 1881. Charters Towers initially needed a complex interlocking system because of its gradient, and the system of tram tracks that used to run to the station from various mine sites. A number of dead-end lines or 'traps' were necessary as 'roll away' protection for loose wagons. Although 169 Queensland railway stations had interlocking by 1918, mechanical interlocking technology eventually became obsolete, as electrical interlocking or electro-pneumatic systems replaced it. Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) signalling systems now control most of the network. This is an electronic version of interlocking where the signals and points controlling movement, and the allocation of a block of track to a particular train, are operated from a remote location by computer.
","criteria":"The fully interlocking McKenzie and Holland 20-lever mechanical signal frame (established circa 1890s and now located in a modern signal cabin) at the Charters Towers Railway Station, along with its associated underfloor mechanism, linkages, points, points indicators, and signals, both mechanically and electrically operated, is evidence of the evolution of signals technology and railway safety systems in Queensland. The manually operated two-lever ground frame, signals and points are also significant as examples of mechanical signalling technology.
The system of interlocked signals is surviving evidence of the former size and complexity of the Charters Towers Railway Station and yards. The multitude of sidings, which required interlocked signals, was a product of the extensive mining and commercial activity in Charters Towers during the late nineteenth century. The presence of a pedestrian underpass (1890), usually a feature of large metropolitan railway stations, also is evidence of the extent of activity at the Charters Towers Railway Station when Charters Towers was Queensland's largest and wealthiest gold-mining town.
|The interlocking and signalling equipment at the Charters Towers Railway Station is a rare surviving example of a mechanically operated railway safety system. The 10-ton crane (c1900) is a rare example of a large crane formerly used by Queensland Railways, and the concrete pedestrian tunnel is also an uncommon nineteenth century example of its type.
|The interlocked signalling system is a good surviving example of how train safety was managed prior to the advent of computerised systems. Each aspect of the system, from the signal frame's levers and its key lock-out system, through its linkages to the various points, points indicators and signals, demonstrates the functioning of early signals technology and its safety mechanisms. The interlocking system enabled humans to mechanically manipulate the signals, while precluding the possibility of collisions caused by human error.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3307,"place_ref":602564,"name":"Dalby Swimming Pool Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"58 Patrick Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-03-20","description":"The pool complex is in a parkland setting to the rear of Dalby War Memorial and Gates [600441] and adjacent to Myall Creek. It is part of a large recreational precinct which includes a bowls club and croquet club.
The open-air pool complex is approached from Patrick Street by twin paths that divide behind the war memorial, to which the pool pavilion forms a backdrop. A formal arrangement of garden beds and flagpoles fills this space.
The symmetrically placed entry pavilion is a single storey rectangular building spanning the width of the pool complex. It has a hipped roof with gables at each end of the front and a central gabled porch leading to turnstiles and the pool area. This area contains granite panels commemorating the opening of the pool complex. The building is clad with weatherboards on the lower section with panels of fibrous cement sheeting above. It is lit by six pane casement windows. The south-east part of the building contains a service area and kiosk and club meeting rooms are located in the north-west end of the building.
The rear of the building also has a central gabled porch and a timber pergola over a paved area that separates the building from the pool
Positioned between the entry pavilion and the main pool, and at right-angles to the latter, is a children's pool measuring 15.2 metres by 8.4 metres. It has recent additions of fibreglass rocks and play features. The main pool measures 50 metres by 15.2 metres. Concrete concourses and lawns surround the pool and a spectators' stand is positioned along one side, with changing rooms beneath. There is a brick plant room at the far end of the pool.
Also located within the pool complex grounds is a pool caretaker's residence. This is a small, high-set, timber cottage with an enclosed front verandah.
The Arthur G Obst Stand is not the original structure and is not considered significant.
","history":"The Dalby Swimming pool complex was constructed in 1936 and is the earliest identified Olympic standard pool in Queensland constructed outside Brisbane.
Dalby was one of the earliest European settlements on the Darling Downs. The township was surveyed in 1853, the first land sales took place in 1857, and the town was proclaimed a municipality in 1863.
Dalby has a long association with swimming as a sport. Initially, a swimming hole in Myall Creek was used, but in 1902 an artesian bore was sunk on the bank and baths were built nearby to take advantage of the bore water. The Dalby Amateur Swimming Club was formed in 1912. In 1920 a new bore was sunk and in 1924 a public baths [the Dalby Bore Baths] was constructed close to it. This facility closed in September 1938, possibly because the new Olympic Pool had supplanted it.
From the 1910s, swimming as both a competitive and recreational sport gained rapidly in popularity in Queensland, and indeed, world-wide. In 1908 the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) was formed with the goals of standardising the rules for swimming, diving and water polo, obtaining control of world records, and ensuring the direction of Olympic Games competitions for swimming, diving and water polo.
Swimming was given further impetus by the 1924 Olympic Games held in Paris. An 8-lane pool measuring 50 metres in length by 20 metres in width was specially constructed at Tourelles for swimming events, setting the Olympic standards. Swimmers hoping to compete internationally now needed a pool of this size in order to practice effectively. The precise requirements to meet Olympic pool standards have since been refined and cover width, depth, and temperature and light densities.
In Brisbane, the Fortitude Valley Baths were rebuilt in 1925-1926 to the Olympic standard, being 50 metres in length and 22 metres wide. [This structure no longer survives.]
By the 1930s swimming was a glamorous sport internationally, with sport and medal winners such as Duke Kahanamoku, Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe becoming Hollywood celebrities. In Sydney, four Olympic-standard pools were constructed in the 1930s, municipal councils taking advantage of loans and other financial incentives offered by a government keen to create work by encouraging civic building projects. The pool buildings and surrounds of the new Olympic pools were architect designed. A notable survivor is the North Sydney Olympic Pool Complex opened on 4 April 1936.
Design problems with the new large pools included the provision of adequate water filtration and the prevention of algae. The firm of AH Pierce & Co., still associated with commercial pools, imported calcium hypochlorite from England and pool builders took a keen interest in others' pool designs. Pool facilities usually comprised an Olympic-standard pool for recreation and competitions, a smaller pool for children, diving tower, spectators' stand, men's and women's changing rooms and club meeting rooms.
By the early 1930s Dalby was experiencing renewed growth and prosperity, reflecting extensive land reclamation in the surrounding district in the wake of the eradication of the prickly pear cactus. This noxious weed had wasted thousands of hectares of agricultural and grazing land in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Annual Report of the Department of Public Lands identified Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles as the towns experiencing the most progress. Under the Intermittent Relief Scheme established during the Depression, the Department of Works remodelled and added to the Dalby State School. The Dalby Court House and Police Station were also built in the first half of the 1930s.
In 1933 Dalby Town Council formed an Olympic pool committee. The idea for a pool and tennis courts in Dalby had been suggested in correspondence to the Council by the Dalby Chamber of Commerce in 1931. The Dalby Town Council appointed William J Reinhold as the consulting engineer and Clifford E Plant as the architect. Plant is noted for the Kings Beach Bathing Pavilion [QHR 601513] and the Redcliffe Bathing Pavilions Group, designed and constructed in the 1930s.
Excavation work commenced on 1 July 1936 and the first patrons were admitted late in October of that year. The complex was completed at a cost of £11,500 and was officially opened on 14 November 1936 by Frank Cooper, MLA, Minister for Public Instruction, before a crowd of approximately 2,000 people. Commending the Dalby Town Council on its initiative, Cooper commented that there was no town twice or even 10 times the size of Dalby that had a swimming pool like theirs.
At the time, the pool was the most modern in Queensland, using the latest filtration and chlorinating equipment to treat the artesian water used to fill the pools. In March 1938 the Lord Mayor of Brisbane visited Dalby with the Chairman of the Brisbane Parks and Baths committee in order to inspect it before planning similar pools for Brisbane, though it was some years before such plans were implemented.
The opening of the Dalby pool gave an impetus to regional swimming and a number of swimming clubs were formed including the Dalby and District Swimming and Life-Saving Club, and the association of the pool with community sports clubs continues. The first major swimming carnival was held in February 1937. During the Second World War, aircrew from No. 12 Squadron stationed nearby received their forced landing at sea training in the Dalby pool.
The 1956 Melbourne Olympics led to an increased interest in competition swimming and most surviving early Olympic pools in Australia date from the preparation for, or interest stemming from, these games. Between 1949 and 1960, Dalby district swimmers gained approximately 100 places in Queensland swimming and diving championships. The pool was visited and used by a number of famous Australian swimmers including Dawn Fraser, Murray Rose and members of the Konrad family. During 1957-8 the Dalby pool recorded an annual attendance of 143,167.
The original timber spectator stand for the pool was replaced by a concrete stand in 1971 and named for a former pool manager and coach, Arthur G Obst.
In 1983, the pool area underwent renovation. This work included the replacement of the circulation pipe work, the plant room and water treatment plant, the concrete concourses around the pool and the substitution of skimmer boxes for scum gutters. More recently, the pools have been lined with fibreglass and fibreglass features have been added to the children's pool.
The Dalby Pool Complex remains the venue for large swimming carnivals, one of which, the Dalby Open, attracted 1734 nominations in 2002.
","criteria":"The Dalby Swimming Pool complex, constructed and opened in 1936, is important in demonstrating the development of competition swimming in Queensland. As an Olympic standard pool built in the 1930s, it illustrates the surge of public interest both in competitive and recreational swimming during the interwar period.
As a facility which demonstrated how artesian water might be used to the advantage of a community, the Dalby Swimming Pool also is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history.
It is also important in illustrating the 1930s expansion of civic work in the former prickly pear belt, following the eradication of this pest in the late 1920s and early 1930s. As land cleared of prickly pear cactus was utilised for agriculture, grazing and dairying, towns throughout the prickly pear belt, especially Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles, experienced renewed growth and prosperity.
|The Dalby Swimming Pool Complex has a strong association with the community of Dalby and the surrounding area as an important sports venue for swimming events, enabling Dalby swimmers access to wider Australian competition, and has at times attracted Australian/international swimming stars.
|The Dalby Swimming Pool complex is rare as the earliest identified surviving Olympic-sized swimming pool complex in Queensland. It is the earliest known Olympic Pool complex constructed in Queensland outside Brisbane, and retains its two pools (competition and children's), entrance pavilion, and caretaker's residence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3367,"place_ref":602399,"name":"St John's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St John's Church of England | St Johns Anglican Church | St Johns Church | St John's Church","street_address":"153 Cunningham Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Geographically, the building is aligned on a northwest-southeast axis but this description treats this axis as the west-east liturgical axis, e.g. the northwest elevation is regarded as the west for liturgical purposes.
St John's Church stands prominently to the corner of Cunningham and Drayton Streets, Dalby and is set within extensive grounds. An elegant composition in the Gothic revival idiom, the building is sheltered by a steeply pitched roof clad with fibrous cement shingles and the buttresses and external walls are of brown facebrick embellished with white cement copings and mouldings.
Cruciform in plan, the transept accommodates a clergy vestry and a choir vestry and the west end a baptistery flanked by entrance porches. The nave is lit by lancet windows five of stained glass and one of coloured glass to the north and two of stained glass and two of coloured glass to the south. Both vestries are lit by lancet windows of coloured glass. Circular lights are over the external entrances to the vestries and oval lights decorate the internal doorways from these spaces the light over the south entrance now without its coloured glass. Internally, these windows are embellished with plain hood moulds. The east end accommodates the Mulholland memorial window, a fine stained glass window comprising three vertical arched panels crowned with three diamond-shaped lights depicting the Transfiguration. The Geizel memorial window, depicting St Cecilia, lights the baptistery.
The nave walls are plastered down to dado height beneath which is red face brick. The ceiling is lined with battened fibrous cement sheeting with a narrow decorative panel running along the underside of the ridge. Large curved timber brackets spring from oversized corbels to support the roof beams.
The altar, with decorative timber panelling to the sides, stands on a raised platform within the chancel which is lined to dado height with decorative cedar panelling. The church accommodates fine furniture including cedar pews and pulpit from the 1876 church, chairs, kneelers and lecterns. Other liturgical items include a silver communion plate, candlesticks, sanctuary lamp and processional cross.
A wing accommodating more seating opens to the south from the sanctuary. This is part of the Frank Knight Memorial Hall, a rectangular brick extension to the south of the church. This extension is not of cultural heritage significance.
The shrubs, trees, rectory, parish office and bell tower within the church grounds are not of cultural heritage significance. The property is bounded to Drayton and Cunningham streets by a low brick fence with decorative metal entrance gates. These elements are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"St John's Church, Dalby is a brick church constructed in 1922-1923 to the design of Harry Marks and is the third church of this name on the site. The previous timber church, built in 1876, remained on the site in a modified form as part of a former parish hall, until it was demolished in February 2003.
The site of St John's Church is part of a continuing tradition of Anglican worship established during the first years of European settlement on the Darling Downs, which began in 1840. At this time the Downs were part of New South Wales and fell within the Diocese of Newcastle. The Reverend John Gregor visited the area, holding services in camps and private homes from 1840 until his death in 1848. The energetic Reverend Benjamin Glennie succeeded him and his first service on the Downs was held in the parlour of the Bull's Head Inn at Drayton in 1848, there being no church. On 25 May 1851, Glennie held the first service in the Dalby area in the home of Hugh Ross. From then on, regular services were held in such diverse venues as private homes, a woolshed and the courthouse. Glennie was responsible for the Anglican pastoral care of the Darling Downs from 1850 to 1860. He laid the foundations of a parochial system on the Downs by establishing congregations, buying strategic sites and building churches.
Glennie approached his Bishop for permission to buy land for a church in Toowoomba and in February 1853 gained permission to collect subscriptions for buildings in other towns on his tours throughout his parish, state aid for the construction of church buildings having ceased in 1852. He envisioned four churches, each dedicated to one of the evangelists, in the four major towns of the Downs. This vision was eventually fulfilled by St Luke's at Toowoomba (1856), St Mark's at Warwick (1857), St Matthew's at Drayton (1859) and St John's at Dalby (1866).
The town of Dalby developed on the site of a crossing over Myall Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River. Here Henry Dennis, seeking grazing land for his employer, Charles Coxon, camped in 1841 soon after the first land was taken up on the Darling Downs. A small settlement grew up around 'the Crossing' and became a recognised township in 1854. In 1863 Dalby was proclaimed a municipality and developed as the main centre of the northern Downs. The railway reached Dalby in 1868 and it grew in importance as the railhead for the surrounding pastoral and agricultural industries.
In June 1858, Glennie wrote to his Bishop asking him to secure a piece of land at Dalby for a church. In 1859, the government granted a two-acre block of land at the corner of Cunningham and Drayton streets for a church, school and parsonage. In 1860 the first parish priest, Reverend Edmund Moberley, was appointed and in 1863 a parsonage was built in Patrick Street where 27 acres [11 hectares] of Glebe land were also held. In 1866 a small brick church with an iron roof was built on the corner of Cunningham and Drayton Streets to the design of WC Wakeling. Due to insufficient funds, it was built to only half the size originally intended and in 1874 developed cracks due to movement of the foundations, which proved inadequate for the soil conditions. It soon became unsafe and it was decided to replace it with a timber church rather than undertake repairs.
The next church was designed by architect Willoughby Powell, opened on 5 November 1876 by Bishop Hale and consecrated in 1878. The church, a rectangular timber building sheltered by a shingled roof and set on stumps, faced Cunningham Street.
In the early 1920s, during a period of economic expansion in Queensland, the congregation decided to replace this church with a brick building and the foundation stone for the third church on this site was laid in August 1922. The 1876 church was moved and extensively modified to serve as a parish hall and Sunday school. Furniture, fittings, stained glass and ornaments were transferred to the new church. Stained glass windows taken from the 1876 church and installed in the 1922 church include one now in the baptistery depicting St Cecilia (donated in 1901 in memory of Mrs Geizel) and the Mulholland Memorial window, a representation of the Transfiguration, now at the east end of the church. Both were to the design of EA Milford, a prominent Sydney churchman.
The new church was designed by architect HJ (Harry) Marks. He was one of a remarkable family firm of architects that had a lasting effect on the appearance of Toowoomba, being responsible for a large number of public, private and commercial buildings. James Marks arrived in Queensland in 1866 and first set up in practice in Dalby, moving to Toowoomba in 1874. He entered into partnership as James Marks and Son with his eldest son Harry, who joined his father's practice in 1903, and Reginald who joined in 1910. Charles Marks, James' grandson, also worked as an architect in Toowoomba. Harry Marks was particularly interested in providing good ventilation and natural lighting and these are features of buildings designed by him.
In order to prevent a recurrence of the foundation problems that ruined the first church, the Dalby site was excavated to a depth of 8 feet when a bed of solid yellow clay was discovered. The foundations were put in with reinforced concrete built on arches. The building contract was let to J and F Muller of Toowoomba at an estimated cost of £4123. Memorial windows (Geizel and Mulholland windows), pulpit, altar and lectern and much of the furniture were transferred from the old building to the new one. The building of the church was funded from a building fund formed by gifts of money and land by Mr Osborne, to whose memory a stained glass window is installed in the sanctuary. Other gifts included a silver communion plate (Mr and Mrs Drury), candlesticks (Cecil Plains parish) and a sanctuary lamp (Mr and Mrs Fortescue - in memory of their son, killed in the Great War). The foundation stone was laid in August 1922 by the Governor-General, Baron Forster of Lepe, and Archbishop Sharpe dedicated the new church on 19 August 1923. Decorative red cedar panelling donated by Mr CG Knowles was installed to dado height in the sanctuary and chancel by 1931. The church was consecrated on 11 August 1935.
The Frank Knight Memorial Hall is a brick extension constructed in the 1960s to provide more seating for congregations and a parish hall. The northwest end of the hall accommodates a rectangular room with seating. Part of the south wall of the church, from the vestry to the east wall, was removed to connect this wing directly with the church.
Recent work to the church includes the installation of six split-system air conditioning units in January 2005 and the installation of four new stained glass windows in April 2008.
","criteria":"The site of St John's Anglican Church is important for its association with the early development of Dalby and of the Anglican Church in Queensland, being associated with a group of four early Anglican parishes established on the Darling Downs during the 1850s and 1860s and dedicated to the evangelists - St Matthew, Drayton [600837], St Mark, Warwick [600943], St Luke, Toowoomba [601878] and St John, Dalby. Important as part of a continuing tradition of Anglican worship on the Darling Downs, St John's Church (1922-1923) is the third church building for the parish of St John on this site.
|Sited prominently in an open grassed setting on a corner in the heart of Dalby, the elegant, well-composed St John's Church, with its steeply pitched roof, fine brickwork and decorative embellishments, is a striking presence in the streetscape of Dalby. With fine stained glass windows, well-crafted furniture, decorative timber panelling and handsome timber roof brackets, the interior of the church provides a contemplative setting for religious observances.
|St John's Church is a fine example of a church in the Gothic revival idiom comprising a number of elements typical of this style including a steeply pitched roof, pointed arches, external buttressing to walls, decorative mouldings, lancet windows and fine stained glass.
A number of fixtures and fittings gifted to the church from parishioners reflect the importance of the church to the parish including memorial stained glass windows, church furniture and liturgical items.
Designed by leading Toowoomba architect Harry Marks, one of a family of prominent Queensland architects, St John's Church is a fine example of his ecclesiastical work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3464,"place_ref":602754,"name":"Dalby Fire Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"21 New Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-10-08","description":"The Dalby Fire Station is located in the southern corner of a large land parcel addressing New Street about halfway between Cunningham Street to the south-east and the Highway to the north-west. Starlings Lane runs along the rear of the block.
The fire station building comprises a core (1935) constructed on reinforced concrete foundations with an upper structure combining elements of steel, reinforced concrete framing and brickwork. It has a gable roof behind a parapet on two sides. It has brick two-storey additions along its north-western side (1953) and its rear (1976), both of which have skillion roofs. A steel garage with skillion roof has been installed along its north-westernmost side and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The core's façade addressing New Street is symmetrical and employs painted cement-render in making its various classical motifs. It features twin garage doors on the ground floor flanked by rendered pilasters. On the first floor these pilasters flank a 1.8 metre wide balcony, the long opening to which is decorated by four tapered ionic columns and a wrought iron balustrade. The name of the building is displayed in raised lettering across the entablature and the date of construction, 1935, is featured in the parapet above. The exposed stretcher bond brickwork to the balcony is tuck pointed, while above the two French windows and single glazed door are soldier courses of glazed brick. Its floor is unpainted concrete. The central single-leaf door has twelve lights, while those either side of it have eight lights in each leaf. All these feature textured and semi-transparent glass, while the rectangular fanlights are clear glass.
The 1935 core is constructed with solid brick walls on the ground floor and cavity brick walls on the upper level, reflected in the varying brickwork bonds employed on the south-eastern side façade still visible: English bond below with headers picked out by dark colouring and stretcher bond above. Also on this façade a continuous concrete lintel separates the levels. The latter additions are completed in stretcher bond and also use continuous lintels.
The gable roof of the 1935 structure is clad in metal sheeting, falling to a parapet wall along the south-eastern side and to a central gutter on its north-western side, which also serves the skillion roof of the 1953 extension. The north-western side of this extension has a parapet. The original chimney pierces the gable roof of the 1935 core. Only one original six-light, double-hung timber window remains, internalised by the extent of the 1953 extension, while all others are double-hung aluminium. The lintels to these windows are largely rendered and painted. Access to the building is via a side door on the south-eastern facade or via a rear door facing Starlings Lane and the north east.
Inside the 1935 core a large area at the front houses two fire appliances with hooks, racks and shelves either side for equipment. To the rear of this space are a communications and operations office and a stairway leading from the north-eastern corner to the upper level. The stair has its original timber balustrade and has been enclosed underneath for storage. The office walls are lined with laminated board panelling, revealing only the outline of the original fireplace and chimney. Ceilings are 4.26 metres high and feature original timber cover strips over fibro sheeting, with decorative cornices and suspended fluorescent lighting. The 1976 rear extension houses a small office and ablution facilities on the ground floor, while the 1953 extension accommodates further space for a fire appliance and a workshop at the rear. In the garages the floors are painted concrete. A roll-a-door at the rear of the 1953 garage provides access to the rear of the allotment. An undercover parking space is provided immediately outside this door, under the 1976 first floor.
On the upper floor of the 1935 extension at the rear are a kitchen, living area, bathroom and toilet. At its front over the garage space are two bedrooms, one of which has been enlarged to include the corridor space that led to the balcony on New Street. The upper level of the 1953 extension contains bedroom and training spaces, while that from 1976 contains bedrooms and a balcony.
Other than the internal stair, access is gained to this upper floor balcony via an external steel staircase. The floor levels differ between the later extensions and the 1935 building core, the former being lower.
The fireplace in the upper level living room retains its original Wunderlich glazed brick and rendered concrete surround. The kitchen, bathroom and toilet fittings are not original. The front two bedrooms have built-in wardrobes, while the former third bedroom is used as a storeroom. All internal walls and ceilings are clad in fibrous cement sheeting. Ceilings throughout the upper level are 3.2 metres high. The areas on the first floor of the 1953 addition are accessed via doors cut out of the original window openings in the north-western wall of the 1935 building. The opening between the lounge and the training room has been widened to accommodate two six-light French doors with opaque textured glass.
Vehicular access is either via New Street along the north-eastern side of the fire station or through double gates on Starlings Lane.
","history":"The Dalby Fire Station is located in the town of Dalby, about 80 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba in south-east Queensland. A two-storey, predominantly brick structure, the core of the station was built in 1935 to a design by Toowoomba architect Matthew Williamson. Located on the northern edge of the town's business centre the building addresses New Street and is equidistant from Cunningham Street, the main street, and the Bunya Highway or Condamine Street as it runs through the town. It and its associated structures occupy a 2023 square metre allotment backing onto Starlings Lane. Cunningham Street features a number of significant commercial buildings including the Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (QHR 601018), the former police station and courthouse complex and St John's Anglican Church (QHR 602399). The 1935 brick fire station replaced a 1920 timber structure and was extended in 1953 to provide an extra garage and workshop on the ground floor and an upstairs recreation area. Further extensions along the rear of the building were undertaken in 1976.
The town of Dalby was laid out by Surveyor EO Moriaty in 1852; part of the expansion of pastoral activities on the Darling Downs. Due to problems with flood levels, a second town survey was completed the following year and the Town Reserve declared in 1855. It was gazetted as a municipality on 29 August 1863. The extension of the Toowoomba railway to Dalby in 1868 led to a boom that only deflated when the line was extended west in 1877. Further prosperity occurred as a result of the Agricultural Land Purchase Act 1894, which opened up substantial tracts of land previously held by the early pastoralists. This led to closer settlement around Dalby and its development into a major regional centre.
The first Dalby Fire Brigade was formed in 1882, but was short-lived because of the failure of local insurance companies to contribute to its financial support. The second Dalby Fire Brigade was initiated under the Fire Brigade Amendment Act 1902 at a meeting in March 1915, and its board was gazetted on 24 July. By October 1916, the fledgling brigade had received its first government subsidy and a manual fire engine was purchased the following year. Land for the fire brigade was acquired in New Street (Allot 3 Section 6) in January 1920. It had been originally taken up in 1863 by John Donovan and transferred to local butcher James Ryan in 1885. It is conjectured that the cottage now utilised as the fire station office was built in 1889 when Ryan took out a mortgage on his property. The land was transferred to Ryan's daughter Margaret in 1910, and in 1919, about six years after she had married and moved to Sydney, she placed the property in the hands of trustees Dalby Mayor James Duncan Morris and Alderman Walter Robertson Hunter, both fire brigade board members. The agreement allowed for the board to build on the site and take out mortgages to finance any improvements. Tenders were called for construction of this first fire station in January 1920 and building proceeded at a cost of £95. A simple timber garage with a galvanised iron gable roof was erected. Local builders Draney and Co were contracted to enlarge this building in 1923 to provide a board room, which eventually housed the new fire truck purchased six years later.
During the early 1930s the Dalby region experienced renewed growth following the eradication of the prickly pear pest with the introduction of the Cactoblastis Cactorum moth in 1925. The prickly pear had devastated the region from the late 19th century and its destruction led to the recovery of thousands of hectares of agricultural land and the Department of Public Lands reporting rapid expansion of agriculture, grazing and dairying around Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles.
After the election of the Forgan-Smith state government in June 1932, part of its funds were channelled into what were considered 'sound' public projects providing long-term community benefit, rather than into short-term maintenance projects such as those funded through the Intermittent Relief Scheme. Projects funded directly by the Queensland Department of Public Works included additions to the Dalby School (1935), and a new courthouse and police station (1934). The town's stock of commercial and ecclesiastical buildings was also augmented at this time with: a Bank of New South Wales and National Bank (both no longer extant), the Dalby Swimming Pool Complex (QHR 602564), the Dalby Council Offices and School of Arts (QHR 601018), a Presbyterian Church, the Star Theatre (no longer extant) and a Catholic Presbytery (no longer extant).
The Fire Brigade Act of 1931 had allowed for boards to make by-laws and those devised by the Dalby Fire Brigade Board were gazetted in August 1934, providing administrative guidelines for the board and firemen. At the board meeting of June 1934, the secretary Mr HE Thorley presented preliminary plans for a two-storey brick fire station, the estimated cost for which being between £2,500 and £2,800. In August 1934 Toowoomba architect Matthew Williamson produced the final plans for the fire station. Williamson's other Dalby projects included the Presbyterian Church (1933), the Star Theatre (1936, no longer extant) and a number of shops and private dwellings. He was also responsible for numerous projects in Toowoomba, including the Trades Hall (1934) in Russell Street, as well as buildings in Miles, Crows Nest and Oakey.
In November 1934, it was reported that a loan had been secured from the Commonwealth Bank, when the tender of £2,482 /8/- submitted by local builder G Ficken was accepted. Before construction was completed, the Forgan-Smith government approved for local authorities and other local bodies - such as hospital, harbour and fire brigade boards - a reduction of 1% in the interest rates of all loans with rates over 4%. This presumably aided the construction of other fire stations and community infrastructure across the state during the 1930s.
The Dalby Fire Station was formally opened on 16 November 1935 by the Home Secretary Mr EM (Ned) Hanlon. It was 51 feet 8 inches (15.6 metres) long and 32 feet 4 inches (9.8 metres) wide and built on concrete foundations and footings with concrete floors on a base of broken stone to the appliance rooms and timber flooring elsewhere on the ground floor. The structure comprised some rolled steel and reinforced concrete components, including continuous wall lintels. The ground floor accommodated two fire appliances behind folding timber doors with a recreation room and open timber stairway at the rear. On the interior of this level there was silky oak interior wall panelling to a height of 6 feet 6 inches (2 metres). The upper level had a kitchen, living room, lounge room, three bedrooms, a bathroom and balcony to the street. Fibro sheeting and plaster variously lined the walls of the upper level, with ornamental cornices. The fireplaces on both levels were detailed with Wunderlich bricks and all windows were timber. The external brick walls were solid on the ground floor and included a cavity above the wall lintel. There were glazed brick soldier courses to openings on the first floor and glazed brick sills to the front of the building. The original paintwork to the concrete walls was to be lime wash tinted with burnt sienna, while the lettering on the front was to be finished with gold leaf.
Prior to the completion of the Dalby Fire Station in 1935 only four other two-storey, brick fire stations had been built in the state's capital, Brisbane. The sole survivor of these is the 1927 Albion Fire Station (QHR 602246), which along with a station at South Brisbane was apart of the network rationalisations undertaken after 1921 by the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board. During the interwar years a number of two-storey fire stations were also built in Brisbane of timber and fibro, including: an upgrade to the Ithaca Fire Station in 1928 (QHR 601199); a new station at Yeronga in 1934 (QHR 602144); and three at Coorparoo (QHR 600569), Nundah (QHR 602119) and Wynnum (QHR 602143) built in 1935, 1936 and 1938 to the same plan. Generally the layout of all these structures provided accommodation for fire appliances on the ground floor, and a recreation room, kitchen, bathroom and dormitory space, and accommodation for officers and their families on the first floor. The 1935 Dalby station was smaller than some of the Brisbane stations, with space for two fire appliances and a recreation room on the ground floor and living quarters for the chief officer and his family on the upper floor. Accommodation for firemen was provided in a three bedroom cottage on the site built using materials from the 1920 to 1929 fire station garage.
By 1949 it was evident that a larger station was required at Dalby to house a new fire engine, and that more bedrooms were needed in the firemen's quarters. Funding was acquired in stages over the next few years from both government and private sources. The extension was built in brick along the north-western side of the fire station during 1953. It included a third engine bay and workshop on the ground floor and a recreation area on the first floor. The new addition was 60 by 16 feet (15.7 by 4.7 metres). Additions were also made to the timber firemen's quarters. At this time the adjacent timber low-set cottage was occupied by the mechanic/caretaker.
The property owner Margaret Sara (nee Ryan) died in Broken Hill in 1953 and the property was transferred to the Dalby Fire Brigade Board on 11 May of the following year.
In an effort to better co-ordinate the management of fire brigades across Queensland, the Queensland Fire Brigades Boards Association was formed in 1962-63. The Fire Brigade Act 1964 legislated for Fire Boards to become Body Corporates. The first Queensland Chief Fire Inspector was appointed and the State Fire Services Council was formed as the state moved towards the standardisation of equipment and facilities.
The Dalby Fire Brigade continued to upgrade its equipment, with a new fire engine in 1956/7, another in 1965, two-way radios in 1966, and a salvage vehicle in 1967/8. A concrete block smoke room was built in 1970. In mid-1975 tenders were called for further additions to the rear of the main station building to provide a storeroom, board facilities, toilets and office accommodation for the regional fire safety officer (recently appointed) and the chief officer. Dalby builders, JR Perry and Co, were awarded the contract at a cost of $35,974. The 14.7 by 5 metre extension was completed in mid-1976. Extensions to the fire tower were built in 1978 and a new fire engine was also purchased.
The Fire Services Act 1990 led to the amalgamation of a number of departments. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board ceased to exist after June 1990 and the management of the 21 metropolitan stations and the 81 fire boards across the state were amalgamated into the Queensland Fire Services. A further amendment to the Act in 1996 created the Fire and Rescue Authority. The Emergency Services Legislation Act 2001 dissolved this Authority and vested its assets with the State.
The self-contained living areas on the first floor of the Dalby Fire Station continued to be occupied by the Chief Officer or Captain until the late 1990s. The cottage was occupied by one of the firemen until the mid-1990s. At that time it was restumped and ramps were added at the front, when it was converted into an area office of the Department of Community Safety's Queensland Fire and Rescue Service South Western Region. The former men's quarters were relocated to Rangemoore Winery in December 2000. The accommodation areas of the fire station are now used by visiting emergency services personnel, officers attending courses from regional towns as well as by visiting relieving officers. In 2009 a temporary garage was erected on the north-western side of the fire station to accommodate a new tanker appliance.
Dalby is now one of 42 fire stations in the South Western Region, which includes the major towns of Toowoomba and Warwick, and extends west through Cunnamulla and Quilpie to the border with the South Australia. It remains an operational auxiliary fire station, although no longer permanently houses fire brigade staff.
A desktop survey comparing the fire brigade and station files held by the Queensland State Archives, the current listing maintained by the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service of its fire stations, historical images featured on Picture Australia and current street views on Google Maps revealed that the station at Dalby is the oldest remaining regional fire station still in operation. Only one remaining interwar station was possibly constructed earlier, that at Warwick, however it is no longer in use. There appear to be three others remaining in operation in regional Queensland: at Innisfail (1937), Charleville (1938) and Gympie (1940). The six stations built before the Dalby and Warwick stations - those at Rockhampton, Barcaldine, Gladstone, Cunnamulla, Cairns and Maryborough - have all been demolished.
","criteria":"The 1935 core of the Dalby Fire Station - comprising a two-storey brick, steel and concrete structure with a classically influenced street façade - is the oldest surviving, and longest operating, fire station in regional Queensland. The 1935 building core, with its 1953 and 1976 extensions, demonstrate the evolution of fire fighting services in the state's regional towns.
|The Dalby Fire Station demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional interwar fire station including: a central location in the town; ground floor accommodation for the fire appliances and operational facilities; and first floor living accommodation for the chief fire officer. The 1935 Dalby Fire Station core and its 1953 and 1976 additions exemplify the evolving functions of a regional fire brigade which has operated continuously from this New Street site since 1920.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3545,"place_ref":601053,"name":"FDA Carstens Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-09-09","description":"The FDA Carstens Memorial is located on a traffic island in the centre of Macrossan Street, Port Douglas, in the principal business precinct between Grant and Wharf Streets. The monument is positioned approximately 90 metres from Grant Street and 190 metres from Wharf Street. The island that it stands on is approximately 10 metres x 6 metres.
The memorial comprises a square base with truncated corners, square pedestal, a shaft in the form of a Grecian column, and bust, all in Carrara marble, and stands approximately 5 metres high to the top of the bust. The whole rests on a concrete plinth.
The pedestal features a lion head and leaded inscriptions on each of the four sides. On the northern face the inscription reads: A vigorous advocate of the construction of the Mossman Tramway. Chairman of the Port Douglas Hospital Committee. 1892-1893. Above the lion head on this face is the lettering: Carstens Memorial. The lettering on the southern face reads FDA Carstens. Arrived in Port Douglas 1886. Visited his native land 1899-1903. The inscription above the eastern lion head reads IN MEMORIAM and below the lion head: FDA Carstens. Born 9 August, 1838. Died 20 September 1906. The western face reads above the lion head FDA Carstens, and below the lion head Elected to the Douglas Divisional board 1888, 1891-1893, Chairman 1893-1898, member of the Douglas Shire Council 1903-1906. Below the northern and southern lion heads are semi-circular wreaths. The monument originally incorporated a fountain with water flowing from the mouths of the lion head on the eastern and western sides. Below each of these lion heads was a small marble bowl, since removed.
On the eastern side of the base is the inscription Erected and presented to the Douglas Shire Council by his loving wife, Pauline Carstens. On two sides in small lettering at the base is the lettering Melrose and Fenwick and on another corner Townsville.
The column above the pedestal comprises a small base, shaft and capital. On the base are carved garlands of leaves, flowers [including hibiscus and daisies] and bows. The shaft of the column is fluted and features wreaths and crossed banding, and the capital is in extrapolated Ionic style. Above the capital rests a life-size bust of FDA Carstens.
","history":"The memorial was erected c1907-08 to honour Friederich Detleip Andreas Carstens, a Port Douglas publican and former Port Douglas Divisional Board Chairman. It was commissioned and paid for by his widow, Pauline Carstens, and presented c1907-08 to Douglas Shire Council as a public memorial drinking fountain. The work was carried out by the prominent Townsville-based monumental masonry firm of Melrose and Fenwick, who designed, constructed and supplied memorials and headstones throughout North Queensland in the first half of the 20th century.
FDA Carstens was born on 9 August 1838 in Olpinitz, Denmark, to wealthy parents. He was well educated, attending the Heidelberg University in Germany. As a young man he developed health problems, and decided to immigrate to Queensland to a more congenial climate. In 1866 he commenced business in Brisbane as a general merchant. He then moved with his first wife Catherine to Dalby and built a hotel there. He also operated a successful butchery in Dalby, buying out his competitor. At Dalby he commenced his career in public life, being elected a member of the municipal council. Continued ill health prompted a move to North Queensland, where he purchased a hotel at Herberton, on the Atherton Tablelands, prior to moving to Port Douglas in 1886 where he purchased the Exchange Hotel. The Exchange was the leading hotel in Port Douglas; the only two-storeyed hotel in town, boasting the only underground cellar. The Carstens resided on the premises.
FDA Carstens very quickly engaged in local politics. He served on the Douglas Divisional Board in 1888 and again 1891-1898, and on the Douglas Shire Council 1903-06. From 1893 to 1898 he served as the Chairman of the Douglas Divisional Board and was instrumental in the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill and the Port Douglas and Mossman tramway. Fellow councillors almost unanimously regarded Carstens as fair minded, energetic and having the best interests of the district at heart.
In 1895, as Divisional Board Chairman, Carstens stridently advocated for the tramway, extracting a loan of £22,000 from a reluctant government. The construction of a tramway between Mossman and Port Douglas serviced both communities, and allowed expansion of the district's agricultural and sugar industry. Carstens was actively involved in other community organizations, and served as Chairman of the Port Douglas Hospital Committee in 1892-1893. His personal interest in horse racing led him to become secretary of the Jockey Club.
Carstens' wife Catherine died at age 56 in 1895, and in 1897 he married Pauline Pratt. There were no children from either marriage.
Between 1899 until 1903 Carstens journeyed overseas, touring Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Denmark. Upon his return he served on the Douglas Shire Council until his death, after a long illness, in 1906.
After Carsten's death his widow commissioned North Queensland's leading monumental masonry firm Melrose and Fenwick Ltd. of Townsville, to construct a public monument to honour the memory of her husband. No expense was spared when she ordered the memorial. It was made of imported Italian Carrara marble, and featured carved lion heads on all four sides, two of which were drinking founts, and a life-size bust of her husband. The structure was made in block sections with pipes inserted into the base and then shipped and reassembled in Port Douglas. Mrs Carstens presented it to the Douglas Shire Council c1907-1908 and it was erected in the centre of the main street of Port Douglas, opposite the Exchange Hotel.
Around the same time Pauline Carstens also erected a very ornate and expensive gravestone on her husband's grave. It is the only grave in the Port Douglas cemetery to have a small marble boarder surrounding the plot with a jacquard marble and granite covering to the plot. The headstone is a large, detailed and ornate angel carved from Carrara marble.
In 1911, five years after Carstens' death, a cyclone crossed the coast causing extensive damage to the buildings of Port Douglas, including the top floor of the Exchange Hotel. Amidst the chaos, the monument stood firm and unscathed. Upon reconstruction the Exchange Hotel second story was never re-built.
Very little is known about the circumstance of presenting the memorial to the Douglas Shire Council or the arrangement made by Pauline Carstens for the memorial to be placed in a public thoroughfare. Douglas Shire Council minute books reputedly were destroyed in a fire c1908 and again by the 1911 cyclone. There are very few remaining copies of the local newspapers, the Port Douglas and Mossman Record or the Post Douglas and Mossman Gazette, for the period between 1905 and 1910.
By the late 1960s, the marble bowls beneath the founts had been removed and the fountain no longer functioned. The late 20th century North Queensland tourism boom, however, sparked renewed interest in the conservation of the memorial. In 1999 the Douglas Shire Council, in collaboration with the Port Douglas Restoration Society Incorporated, began to explore ways in which to conserve the monument. A report was commissioned and under the guidance of a restoration consultant, Mr. Peter Maxwell, the marble was cleaned. It was decided that the water feature would not be restored to working order due to the difficulties of replacing or cleaning the internal piping without damaging the stone.
","criteria":"The FDA Carstens Memorial at Port Douglas, a decorative marble memorial drinking fountain erected c1907-08, is important in demonstrating part of the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of a period in which public memorials honouring prominent local citizens was an acceptable expression of public sentiment. This was particularly evident in North Queensland, where distance focused local loyalties.
The memorial is important in contributing to our knowledge of a body of similar public memorial drinking fountains of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, illustrating public taste and social values of the period.
|North Queensland public memorials similar in concept to the Carstens Memorial at Port Douglas have been erected to honour Dr EA Koch [Cairns, 1903] (601681); Dr Lloyd [Mackay, c1907 drinking fountain]; and WJ Castling [Townsville, 1908 drinking fountain] (600934). Mention should also be made of the earlier memorial to frontier heroine Mrs Mary Watson [Cooktown, 1886 drinking fountain] (600421).
The FDA Carstens Memorial is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type: a decorative marble drinking fountain comprising a pedestal and shaft surmounted by a bust, with traditional lion head founts and relief work which includes traditional motifs such as laurel leaves, oak leaves, forget-me-nots and daisies but also incorporates an unusual tropical motif, the hibiscus flower.
|The memorial is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. When originally installed it was a prominent landmark in Port Douglas due to its location in the centre of the main street of the town, its height, and its stark white marble grandeur. In 1999, conservation work was carried out to clean the marble and enhance the immediate area surrounding the memorial, indicating that the community still values the aesthetic appeal.
The FDA Carstens Memorial is important in demonstrating the high quality of the work of North Queensland monumental masonry firm Melrose and Fenwick. The decorative details on the memorial were likely executed by their artisan Harry Orton who was renowned for intricate relief work.
|Erected in memory of Friederich Detleip Andreas Carstens, the memorial has a special association with the life and work of a man who contributed substantially to the advancement of the Port Douglas and Mossman region between 1886-1906, enabling the district to grow and prosper through his involvement with the Douglas Divisional Board and his role in promoting the construction of both the Mossman Central Mill and the Port Douglas and Mossman tramway.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3847,"place_ref":601546,"name":"Ingham Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"35-39 Palm Terrace","suburb":"INGHAM","lga":"HINCHINBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The Ingham Court House is a two storeyed rendered brick and reinforced concrete structure with a generally symmetrical façade to Palm Terrace and a less formal asymmetrical grouping to Davidson Street. The fibro-cement sheeted roof has a characteristic ventilated hipped gable arrangement with strongly expressed eaves, in form and pitch reflecting that of the neighbouring earlier court house, which however is no longer clearly visible. The main ridge as built is a departure from the architect's intention as seen in the working drawings, which show a curved ridge of a type which became popular some decades later.
The north (Palm Terrace) elevation is rhythmically articulated with brick piers, protecting vertical windows and the outer walls of the upstairs Juvenile Court and witness rooms and downstairs offices.
A central entry at ground floor level leads up to a ground floor public space and an elegant bifurcating staircase, whose intermediate landing forms a projecting foyer space protecting the entry below, and is expressed with a generous glass wall overlooking the street. Smaller upper windows on the western elevation are protected by overhanging eaves and those on the ground floor have light horizontal window hoods, those rooms being mainly toilets and ancillary services. A similar projection occurs on the eastern elevation where windows are larger and to a projecting single storeyed wing housing secondary offices, with a separate podium entry from the street. The south elevation continues the pattern of large vertical windows to the upper floor, serving the Court Room and the general office on the ground floor.
The corner site includes lawns and large trees to the rear of the building, with a row of vigorously growing palms partly obscuring the front façade.
Generally the interiors are intact and impressive, particularly in view of the inadequate system of construction supervision customary at the time. The interior generally has timber framed floors, rendered brick wall, painted panels and lightly detailed timber. The influence of Scandinavian modernism may be seen in the understated blond timber finishes and joinery, and the lightness and precision of the planar composition of court room fittings. The main staircase is light and airy, with grey terrazzo treads and risers and an almost freestanding handrail tracing a playful line within the generous volume containing the stairs. The stair well creates a remarkable focus in a finely contrived sequence of spaces.
","history":"The Ingham Court House was designed in 1948 by John Hitch of the Queensland Department of Works. The building replaced an earlier court house on part of the site which was retained for other purposes.
The earlier court house was constructed in 1915 and was single storeyed timber building. Following construction of the 1948 Court House, the 1915 building was taken over by the Police Department and altered. The 1948 building was located on the corner of Park Terrace to the north and Davidson Street to the east. It was deliberately designed to establish a more impressive civic streetscape and to signify a self conscious post war progressivism and expansion. Designed in 1948, its completion took about five years owing to post war shortages of building materials, particularly bricks.
John Hitch qualified as an architect in England in 1938 and served as a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF during World War II. His early work was influenced by Scandinavian and other prewar streams of modernism. He later won a design competition for government buildings in Reykjavik, where he had served during the war. The buildings were later featured on a series of Icelandic postage stamps.
On demobilisation, Hitch worked as a specialist valuer in compensation claims for UK buildings requisitioned during the war years. In 1947 he was one of about six UK architects recruited for the Queensland Department of Public Works and fulfilled a three year contract in Queensland until 1951. By then he was apparently the last of the group remaining in Queensland some of the others having broken their contracts and returned to the UK. Hitch entered private practice for some years with Theo Thynne. For most of his time in Brisbane he combined a diverse architectural practice with part-time teaching of Design to senior years in the University of Queensland Bachelor of Architecture course. In 1962 he left the Brisbane practice, at that time being the partnership of Hitch and Sinnamon, and joined Bates, Smart and McCuthcheon in Melbourne where he remained until retirement.
John Hitch's time with the Queensland Government, then considered something of a backwater, produced a number of significant and innovative designs. The Department's excessive division of labour and particularly the exclusion of design architects from site visits even in the initial design stage were unwelcome impediments, which Hitch contested with occasional success. The Ingham Court House was his first design project for the Department and he contrived a site visit there, during a near cyclone. His resulting design attempted to incorporate innovative climatic design with "a 'contemporary' design acceptable within the departmental and ministerial understanding" and successfully achieved what he called "newly established post-war imagery of a public building".
The Ingham Court House was designed and constructed as a two storeyed brick and reinforced concrete structure with an impressive entrance and stair hall to the first floor court rooms. Sun control was effected within the building by recessed wall surfaces broken by piers and horizontal metal sun hood spaced to promote convectional air flow. Mechanical ventilation equipment was installed within the roof space under a curved ridge line. This innovative roof profile, which was apparently a casualty of an on-site design change, was a response to cyclonic wind speeds, and anchored down to reinforced concrete perimeter beams.
","criteria":"The Ingham Court House represents an early expression of a Government intention to develop a progressive and sophisticated image through its postwar building program. The building was designed by John Hitch, one of the young English architects recruited by the Department of Works in 1947. The Ingham Court House can be seen as one in a sequence of provincial court house buildings including Tully (1945) and Bundaberg (1956) and also designed by Hitch, by then in private practice. The place is significant for its place in this history of public architecture and government policy and as an important stage in the work of its architect,
|as well as for its aesthetic qualities of architecture
|and its technical innovations particularly in climatic control in the tropics.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3908,"place_ref":602257,"name":"Collingwood Water Race","alternate_name":"Annan River Company Water Race","street_address":"To be determined","suburb":"ROSSVILLE","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-04-13","description":"During its operation, the water race extended from an intake dam near the head of Parrot Creek at about 315768E 8252434N, northward around the western side of Mount Walker, to sluicing faces south of Rossville, a distance of approximately 11 km by map. The length of surviving race is approximately 8 kms.
In 2005, the Collingwood Water Race was located and surveyed in three sections: near its start point (between 315324E 8253163N and 315151E 8253315N); at its midpoint high on the south-western slopes of Mt Walker above Shipton's Flat (between 312801E 8254039N and 312359E 8254336N); and at its lower end on the north-western slopes of Mt Walker (between 312389E 8255393N and 312999E 8255831). All of the surveyed sections of the race were covered with medium to dense rainforest.
The race now comprises on average a 1 m deep ditch about 1.8 m in width with a 2 m wide bank on the downhill side made up of the excavated material - earth and small rocks. However in some places the ditch is up to 2 metres deep. Sections where the race crosses gullies have been bridged with timber fluming. In the surveyed sections a number of the timber upright supports for the fluming remain standing, but no fluming has survived.
There is also evidence of the use of explosives during construction and/or maintenance of the race in the form of blasting scars on rock faces along the race.
In the mid-section of the race (north of Shipton's Flat) there is some evidence of stone pitching.
A second race of slightly smaller dimensions is constructed a consistent 20 m below the main race to catch overflow or seepage.
While the intake point at the head of Parrot Creek was not surveyed, at 315223E 8253206N (approximately 600 metres north-west) the race passes through a bedrock tunnel situated in dense rainforest. The form of the race changes into a deep cutting at the tunnel entrance, about 15 metres long and three metres deep. The section of tunnel that remains intact is about 30 metres long, 1.5 metres wide and 1.2 metres high. A rectangular shaft, presumably an air intake shaft, marks the point at which the tunnel has become blocked and is impenetrable. Further along the race to the west, sections of the tunnel have collapsed entirely.
The lower end of the race was recorded at 312999E 8255831N, at a point about 60 m past where it is crossed by a four-wheel drive track on the northern side of Mount Walker. Evidence of the race close to Rossville is indiscernible and either has been obliterated or was never constructed formally, as the natural contour of the hillside would have taken the water down to the sluice face.
","history":"Construction of the Collingwood Water Race commenced in 1902 for the Collingwood Company but was halted within the year. The project was re-commenced and completed in 1905-06 for the Annan River Company. On completion, the race was 11 kms in length. The purpose of this project was to enable sluicing of tin bearing deposits on the northern face of Mount Walker in the Annan River Tin field.
During the 1870s gold dominated mining activity in northern Queensland and few prospectors were interested in base metals. However, in the late 19th century there was a general shift in North Queensland exploration and development activity towards tin, lead, silver and copper. Tin mining was particularly attractive as it employed mining and crushing techniques similar to those used for gold. Tin was first worked commercially in North Queensland by the Chinese. Probably as early as the wet season of 1876-7 and certainly by 1878, declining gold yields had encouraged Chinese miners to test the tin deposits on Granite Creek and Cannibal Creek, southeast of Maytown.
Tin discoveries in 1880 on the banks of the Wild River led to the development of Herberton and from here fossicker's fanned out reporting new finds every year. Discoveries were made at locations nearby throughout the 1880s, then Charles Ross discovered tin in 1885 at Mount Amos, south of Cooktown, and then at Mounts Hartley, Leswell and Romeo on the upper Annan River. North of Cooktown tin sluicing commenced on the Annan River in 1885, and a small rush followed in 1886.
For a few years, the rugged country of the Annan River's upper waters was able to sustain a small but vibrant tin mining industry, with lucrative tin deposits obtained directly from underground lodes, or from the creek beds and banks by sluicing in the fast flowing streams. However, this was labour intensive and dangerous work. In addition, high cartage rates on stores was a drawback to tin mining in the district.
As the accessible deposits were exhausted along the lower banks of the creeks, miners turned to the more difficult extraction of tin bearing deposits of sand and gravel from the higher terraces of the creek banks. This form of mining demanded alternative sources of water to that of the creeks below. The higher terraces could only be worked economically by bringing in water from a higher point, which then could be used to wash off the alluvial overlying the tin-bearing wash by carrying it over the face of the banks. This process necessitated expensive outlay in the construction of races to procure water for operations. Races fed water into pipes, which narrowed into a nozzle which forced water out into a strong stream. This was then used to blast the overburden down into the river or the tin-bearing wash down into the creek.
The most impressive of these structures was the Annan River Company's water race. Construction had commenced in 1902 for the Adelaide-based Collingwood Company, which planned to divert water from the southern face of Mount Walker over a distance of 11km to its leases on the northern face of the mountain. Nearly 40 men were employed on the construction. However, the Collingwood Company quickly ran out of working capital and construction ceased. A Melbourne-based company, the Annan River Tin Mines Company NL, resurrected the project in 1905, commencing work on 22 November. More than 150 men were employed to erect fluming over valleys and to construct a road up the range. In one place the race was tunnelled through a hill. Completion of the project in 1906 enabled the Annan River Company to commence sluicing on the former Collingwood leases and at Mount Leswell. Hydraulic sluicing began in January 1907 with water coming from the head of Parrot Creek.
However, in 1909 the Annan River Company withdrew and for some years the race was let on tribute to four miners: D Francis, M Davies, F Trevorrow and R Yeatman.
Floods damaged the race in 1910 and in 1911-12 the Annan River Company spent £14,000 installing new sluicing boxes and repairing the race and fluming. Operations were successful in 1913 after sluicing commenced on 13 January, treating 35,000 cubic yards of earth from the Collingwood face for 23.5 tons of tin valued at £2,967 and 33,500 cubic yards of earth from the Daly face yielded 32 tons of tin valued at £3,884.
Sluicing took place for about five months each year. A new sluicing plant and pump were installed in 1914, along with 1,830m of 50cm diameter spiral riveted pipes. A sawmill was set up on site to cut timber for the race. Shortage of water prevented continuous operations in 1915 and because of falling tin prices and lack of labour the whole of the plant was dismantled in September 1916 and removed to Cooktown.
Extensive repairs to the race were undertaken in 1917 and following bushfires in 1918, 5,500 feet of timber was used to repair the damage. Seven and a half tons of tin was obtained in 1918, but lack of labour was a problem for future operations. In 1919 the race was diverted to the Winifred United Claim but only 19cwt of tin was produced from 800 tons of dirt.
A cyclone in 1920 caused extensive damage to the race, necessitating the renewal of 3,050m of timber at a cost of £700. Sluicing commenced on 20 March 1920 and continued until the water ran out on 11 August 1920. Twelve tons of tin were obtained in this period. The Collingwood leases were then let on tribute again, but in 1921 the tunnel through the hill collapsed due to heavy rain.
The Annan River Company sold out to J Kerr, J Baker and R Yeatman in September 1921. The new owners spent four months repairing the race. However production was declining year by year and there was little activity after 1923.
","criteria":"The Collingwood Water Race is significant in Queensland's history as one of the longest water races recorded in North Queensland. It was constructed in 1902 and 1905-06 to enable sluicing of tin bearing deposits on the northern face of Mount Walker in the Annan River Tin Field. The Collingwood Water Race is important in demonstrating the evolution of early 20th century tin-mining practices in Queensland.
|The Collingwood Water Race is the only Queensland race recorded which was constructed with a second race below to catch overflow. The extent of the race (originally 11 kms in length, now 8 kms surviving) is unusual also, most races being of much shorter lengths.
|The water race is representative of practices used for the extraction of base metal resources in north Queensland and is significant as an early example of the effort, both manual and financial, that was applied to mine base metals in a remote location reliant on seasonal rains. Many of the principal characteristics of the race survive, including the two channels or ditches (surviving for close to its original 10km extent), excavated material forming banks on the downhill side of the race, evidence of blasting along the sides of the race, a rock tunnel, a ventilation shaft to the tunnel, stone pitching, and remnant flume supports and fluming.
|Natural and cultural landscape values combine along the route of the water race from its head on Parrot Creek to its end point on the northern face of Mount Walker above the Rossville town site, engendering aesthetic significance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3944,"place_ref":602591,"name":"Gairloch Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Old Bruce Highway","suburb":"INGHAM","lga":"HINCHINBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-17","description":"The Gairloch Bridge is a low level concrete bridge. It is simple and unadorned in appearance with no posts or balustrades.
The superstructure has the appearance of a shallow concrete slab about 5.7m wide. The roadway atop this slab is edged with concrete curbing and covered with worn bitumen. At each end of the bridge, there is a pair of reflective guide posts fixed into the curb, one on each side of the road. The steel plates that make up the base of the superstructure are clearly visible on its underside.
Fourteen concrete pillars support the superstructure. These taper slightly from a wide base and are curved in cross-section in the direction of water flow. There is a wide raised band around the base of each pillar and a narrow band around the top. The cement that is an element of the pillars has eroded, exposing the pebbles that form part of the concrete's composition.
At the southern end of the bridge, the road passes through a deep cutting. The sides of the cutting are lined with sections of brick, stonework or loose rocks. Some of the stonework and bricks are coated with cement.
The bridge crosses the Herbert River at a point where, for most of the year, it is wide but quite shallow. Dense vegetation covers the river banks at either end of the bridge.
","history":"The Gairloch Bridge is a low level road bridge across the lower Herbert River near Ingham in north Queensland. Completed in November 1891, it was an innovative design by the prominent Queensland Government architect and bridge engineer, Alfred Barton Brady.
The Herbert River valley was first occupied by pastoralists in the mid-1860s. Sugarcane farming, now the dominant industry in the area, commenced during the early 1870s. By the late 1880s, the Ingham area had become one of Queensland's top sugar producers with some five mills operating in the Herbert River district.
From as early as 1885 the Hinchinbrook Divisional Board and residents of the area called for the colonial government to construct a bridge across the Herbert River to improve access for growers on the north side of the river to the region's seaport south of the river mouth at Dungeness. Unsuccessful in persuading the government to fund the construction, the board decided to raise the finance itself, and in June 1888 asked the Government Engineer for Bridges to prepare plans for the bridge.
The bridge was designed by Alfred Barton Brady, an English-born civil engineer and architect who migrated to Australia in 1884. From 1885 he held a position as Assistant Engineer for Bridges with the Railways Department in Queensland before being appointed Acting Engineer for Bridges in the Department of Mines and Works in June 1889. In the Department of Mines and Works and its successor departments, Brady had a distinguished career rising to the position of Government Architect and Engineer of Bridges in 1892 and Undersecretary in 1901. He held this position until his retirement in 1922.
The contract for construction of the bridge was awarded to James Graham of South Brisbane who commenced work early in 1890. Following a number of delays, partly caused by the frequent flooding of the river, the bridge was completed at a cost of £7,737 and opened for traffic on 4 November 1891.
The Gairloch Bridge was the first road bridge designed by Brady as Engineer for Bridges in the Department of Mines and Works. Other bridges designed by him included the Burnett River Bridge at Bundaberg, Victoria Bridge in Brisbane (no longer extant), and the Lamington Bridge in Maryborough (1896, QHR 600721). The Lamington Bridge was a Wunsch-system structure of reinforced concrete, the first such design in Australia.
The bridge at Gairloch, which pre-dates the Lamington Bridge by five years, demonstrates one of the earliest uses of concrete in bridge construction in Queensland. Prior to the introduction of reinforced concrete to Australia in the 1890s, concrete as a component of bridges took the form of un-reinforced abutments, piers and mass concrete culverts, the earliest known being railway culverts constructed in South Australia in 1878. In 1882, concrete culverts were used on the Warwick to Stanthorpe railway line in Queensland. The original bridge across the railway in Edward Street, Brisbane, designed by FDG Stanley in 1887 had concrete abutments. The concrete piers and abutments of the Gairloch Bridge, designed in 1889, are among the earliest known in Queensland. From c1890, the greater availability of locally made Portland cement made the use of this material in bridge construction much more common.
The Gairloch Bridge is a submersible bridge designed to withstand inundation during major floods. It is the first submersible road bridge known to have been designed by Brady who is recognised for his important contributions to the development of this type of bridge. The shorter, submersible bridges were a cost-effective alternative to designing longer bridges above major flood levels, which often inundated a considerable area either side of the river. The principal difficulty of submersible bridges was that debris accumulated against the bridge during floods and this, in combination with the force exerted by the water, could cause major damage. Brady developed designs to avoid trapping debris and to present the least possible obstruction to the flow of flood waters. To date, it remains common practise to design less important bridges to withstand flood submergence.
The Gairloch Bridge incorporated a number of features that were innovative at the time. For the decking, Brady used 33 foot (10m) lengths of steel trough plate, 12 inches (30cm) deep, riveted together and securely bolted down to the concrete string-courses. The troughs were then filled with tarred metal. The curbs and posts were of hardwood. Brady argued that this design had important advantages in flood conditions due to its greater weight and because the steel troughs eliminated the need for girders, the bridge offered less resistance to the flow of flood waters. This design option was more costly than a bridge using the more conventional timber decking and superstructure, but Brady argued that the maintenance cost of his design would be less. The Gairloch Bridge is the only known road bridge of this design in Queensland.
Against the expectations of its designer, the bridge did not perform well initially. On 11 June 1892, the Queenslander reported that it required 'rather a large amount of money to keep it in repair'. A major flood in 1894 resulted in two sections of iron troughing being lifted and doubled over by the force of the flood. This necessitated the complete renewal of the roadway with layers of concrete and tarred metal. Then, in 1927, a record flood completely destroyed the northern approach to the bridge. In 1929, the bridge roadway was resurfaced and the hardwood curbing was replaced with concrete.
The inconvenience incurred by the periodic inundation of the bridge eventually prompted the construction of two high-level bridges across the lower Herbert River: one linking Halifax with Macknade and Ripple Creek in 1927; and in the late 1960s another was built upstream from the Gairloch Bridge. Despite its early set-backs, the 1891 low-level bridge has survived in the long-term and this has been attributed to its innovative design, which presents a small obstruction to flood flow. The bridge continues to be used.
","criteria":"Gairloch Bridge, constructed in 1890-1891, is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement in North Queensland in the late nineteenth century. By the late 1880s, the Herbert River valley was one of Queensland's most important sugar producing areas. As the first bridge across the lower Herbert River, built to provide access to the region's port for growers on the north side of the river, the Gairloch Bridge is closely associated with the establishment of this important industry in northern Queensland.
As an early, experimental submersible bridge, the Gairloch Bridge is important in demonstrating the evolution of bridge design in Queensland and exemplifies how the colonial authorities responsible for bridge building responded to the extreme conditions of the north Queensland wet season. Submersible bridges evolved as a cost-effective solution to the problem of bridging rivers that were seasonally subject to extreme flooding, and remain common in Queensland.
As one of the state's earliest extant bridges incorporating concrete, the bridge also demonstrates the evolution of the use concrete in bridge construction in Queensland. The Gairloch Bridge is an example of the earliest use of concrete, where it was restricted to applications requiring only compressive strength such as piers and abutments. The introduction to Queensland of reinforced concrete a few years after the bridge was built broadened the applications of concrete to include components requiring tensile strength.
|The Gairloch Bridge is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical innovation for its time. The key design feature of the bridge is its superstructure. Steel troughs were placed longitudinally on concrete piers to form the decking of the bridge while at the same time acting as structural members. This eliminated the need for girders, thereby reducing obstruction to flood borne debris. The design is also innovative for its early use of concrete in the piers, abutments and string courses.
|The Gairloch Bridge is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of submersible bridges: it is a low level bridge, crossing only the main channel of the river, and is designed to present the least possible obstruction to flood waters and debris.
The bridge is also important as the earliest known example in Queensland of a road bridge designed by the notable architect and engineer, AB Brady. The bridge was designed soon after his appointment as Engineer of Bridges in the Department of Mines and Works. Other important bridges designed by Brady include the third Victoria Bridge in Brisbane (no longer extant) and the Lamington Bridge in Maryborough (1896, QHR 600721).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3965,"place_ref":602230,"name":"South Sea Islander Wall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Grange Road","suburb":"BARGARA","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-10-01","description":"The South Sea Islander Wall, Grange Road, Mon Repos, is approximately 1580 metres in length, of which 307 metres is within the Mon Repos Conservation Park. Approximately 20 metres of the eastern or seaward end of the wall has been covered by drifting sand. A gap of 88 metres exists in the wall near its mid-point, with no obvious evidence that a wall previously existed in the area.
The wall has an average height of approximately 1.4 metres, an average width of approximately 1.8 metres at the base and an average width of approximately 1.2 metres at the top surface.
The wall is of similar construction to that at the former Sunnyside Sugar Plantation on Windermere Road [Sunnyside Sugar Plantation (former) Remains, QHR 601700]. There are believed to be only 6 similarly intact dry-rubble walls surviving in the Bundaberg district, of which the Mon Repos wall is a good example.
","history":"The South Sea Islander Wall, Mon Repos was constructed in the c1884 probably using South Sea Islander labour.
Mon Repos Sugar Plantation was established in 1884. By 1887 Mon Repos was Millaquin Refinery's major juice supplier. A relative latecomer to Bundaberg's sugar boom, Mon Repos Plantation was owned by Augustus Purling Barton. Barton was born into upper class English society in 1834 and arrived in Melbourne in 1855. In 1863 Barton had taken up Moolboolaman station in the Kolan. Barton led the life of a squatter for about twenty years. Then, in the early 1880s, he acquired a stake in the Woongarra. He constructed a large home which he intended as a coastal retreat or town house, where his family could get away occasionally from station life. He named the home 'Mon Repos' [French for 'My Rest'].
The first cane from Mon Repos plantation was harvested in 1882 and crushed at neighbouring mills. By 1884, Barton was operating his own juice mill. Over the years, he expanded his plant. During 1886, Barton had acquired Drynie, a small mill in the Burdekin district and re-erected it with additions in the Woongarra. Mon Repos plantation soon absorbed its neighbour Duncraggan. In 1887, Barton's juice mill was one of Millaquin refinery's major suppliers of juice. Mon Repos juice mill was converted to a complete sugar mill in 1887-88 and Barton continued to expand. Summerville mill and plantation were acquired in 1892, with the mill closing and the cane from the plantation crushed at Mon Repos. Two years later, Barton absorbed The Grange plantation.
In 1896, the Queensland National Bank gained control over the Millaquin refinery. In 1899, the negotiations began between Barton and the Queensland National Bank, an agreement was reached, and the Bank purchased Mon Repos mill and plantation. The name Mon Repos was changed to Qunaba [from Queensland National Bank]. Bundaberg Sugar Pty still owns a parcel of land on which the wall is located.
Barton was very much in favour of using South Sea Islander labour. The Woongarra area was covered with rocks, which were gathered and stone walls built around the cane fields. South Sea Islanders had been working on other sugar plantations in the Bundaberg district from at least the mid-1870s. They were not brought directly to Bundaberg until 1879, but prior to this planters obtained Islanders via Maryborough, whose sugar industry had been established in the late 1860s.
Herbert Turner later wrote of the work of South Sea Islanders in clearing the land on Woongarra farms:
. . . a large portion of the Woongarra land contained more or less loose rocks. After the tree stumps had been collected in heaps and burnt, the next job was to deal with the stones. Where possible they would be broken into convenient size for handling, loaded onto drays, and carted to the farm boundary lines, and there built up as stone wall boundary fences averaging five feet in height and four feet in width. A number of these stone walls are still in existence. The large stones would either be drilled and blasted with dynamite to a convenient handling size, or snigged by horse team to the boundary line. [Turner, 1955]
Local tradition also records that:
Wooden sleds, pulled by draught horses, followed around the paddocks as the land was being cleared. Rocks unearthed during this process were placed on the sled. Big rocks which would not fit on the sled would be broken up with spalling hammers. These pieces would then be placed on corn bags, an Islander on each corner, which would then be carried to the sled. When full, the sleds were taken to the end of the paddock where they were unloaded. [L'Oste-Brown, 1995]
The dry-rubble boundary walls were constructed in layers, with larger stones placed around the outside and smaller stones used for the infill. This seems to have been a common construction method in the Woongarra, but the origin of the technique has yet to be established. The South Sea Islander Wall, Mon Repos was constructed in the c1884 probably using South Sea Islander labour.
","criteria":"The South-Sea Islander Wall, Mon Repos, survives as important evidence of the enormous contribution made by South Sea Islanders to the establishment of a viable sugar industry in Queensland. In particular, it remains as testament to their contribution to the development of the sugar industry in the Bundaberg region, one of the most affluent sugar districts in the state. The wall is also important physical evidence of the manual nature of this contribution, for without the availability of indentured labour, Woongarra Scrub farmers could not have converted their lands to an activity as initially labour-intensive as sugar growing.
|The boundary wall, which is over one and a half kilometres metres in length, survives as one of the longest, most intact examples of its type in the Bundaberg district, which around the turn-of-the-century was chequered with such structures. Further, the South Sea Islander Wall, Mon Repos is significant for its rarity.
|The place is significant also for its potential to contribute to further study, and better understanding, of the role of South Sea Islanders in Queensland history.
|Although diminished in length, what survives is substantially intact, and provides a good example of dry-rubble wall construction employed in the Bundaberg district in the late 19th century.
|Importantly, it has a strong association for the present local South Sea Islander community with the experiences of their ancestors in Queensland.
|The place has an important association with the exploitation of the large South Sea Islands workforce employed in the Bundaberg district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3969,"place_ref":602763,"name":"St Michael and All Angels Church","alternate_name":"St Michael and All Angels Anglican Church","street_address":"2-6 Alford Street","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-09-17","description":"St Michael and All Angels Church, Kingaroy is a very intact example of an early twentieth century timber-framed church and is positioned on a largely flat site to the east of Kingaroy's main retail street. Its grounds are triangular in shape and are bound to the east by the former Kingaroy-Nanango railway easement and by Alford Street to the south. The church is oriented along an east-west axis with the entry porch to the west. The towering silos of the Peanut Company of Australia stand to the north of the church grounds and form a dominant backdrop to the place.
The church building is laid out in a typical cruciform plan with a central nave formed by a long, steeply gabled roof. This main roof is dissected by another gabled roof slightly lower in height which forms the north and south transepts. The northern transept contains a side-chapel and southern transept contains a vestry. Aisles are formed to the north and south of the nave by lower lean-to roofs running along its length. A gabled entry porch with hipped returns provides a protective covered entrance to the church from the west.
The roofs to the church are clad with recent terracotta roof tiles and external walls are clad with weatherboards. It is supported on a mixture of timber and concrete stumps approximately one metre from the ground. Gutters are formed in metal with a quad-profile and drain to recent square profile downpipes.
The main elevation (facing west) of the church is symmetrical in form with the entry porch projecting out from the main gabled structure. A timber-framed bellcote crowns the ridge of the main roof above the entry porch and is clad to match the main roof. Bracing fixed between the roofs' bargeboards form decorative ends to each of the projecting gable roofs. The entry porch is accessed via steps from the south and by a recent timber-framed ramp from the north. Decorative post brackets form arched openings on the porch which is enclosed to handrail height with weatherboards.
Windows with frames decorated at the top to make an arch and filled with leadlighting illuminate the length of the nave. Stained glass windows are positioned in the side chapel and chancel walls. The shapes of the arches formed by carved frames in windows throughout vary depending on the width of the opening. Clerestory coloured leadlight windows are located on the northern and southern walls above the chancel. Crosses are fixed to the top of the bellcote and to each apex of the gabled roofs. Timber-framed steps lead from the southern side of the building to the vestry and on the northern side to the side-chapel. A pair of simple, ledged, double doors provide access into the church from the double entry porch via the ramp and stairs. The interior timberwork is unpainted.
The building's exposed timber framing dominates the interior of the building. Scissor-braces fixed to pairs of rafters supporting the roof cross the width of the nave and the north and south transepts. Metal tie-rods are located at regular intervals in the ceiling space which is lined with unpainted v-jointed boards. The aisles are divided from the nave by a colonnade of timber arches supporting the main roof formed from timber posts and decorative timber brackets. The chancel is separated from the nave and crossing by a timber framed chancel arch with a variation of a rood screen formed in timber supporting a wooden crucifix. All timberwork is unpainted.
The chancel is slightly raised and contains the altar which is formed from carved English oak. Early inset panels of paintings of angels have been relocated behind the altar to the eastern wall where dark timber panelled wall linings with lightly coloured cover strips are located. Intricately detailed candlesticks and an altar cross rest on the altar and timber communion or altar rails are located in front of it.
A baptistery is located to the west of the side chapel with an intricately carved marble font. An early pulpit (located to the north of the chancel) and early pews positioned in the nave and the crossing are made from red beanwood. Organ pipes are located near the southern transept facing towards the nave. A timber hymnal board is fixed to the wall at the western end of the nave near the entry. The floor is carpeted.
Garden beds planted with roses lie to the west of the church where a large, timber cross has been positioned. A spray of trees follows the boundary of the site creating a barrier to the railway siding. A simple timber framed entry arch is located on the Alford Street boundary where a recent concrete path leading from the street to the entry porch and vestry has been constructed.
","history":"St Michael and All Angels Anglican Church, located in Alford Street, is an elegant timber building designed by architect Colin Deighton and erected between December 1910 and 1911. Its intact timber interior exhibits superior craftsmanship. The land on which the church is sited was donated by Arthur Youngman of Taabinga [QHR 600647] who also contributed to the church's building fund.
Settlement in the Kingaroy area commenced in the 1840s when Taabinga and Burrandowan [QHR 600648] stations were taken up, and was followed by agricultural land selection from the 1880s. Selectors grew maize and raised pigs, which were sold at Kilkivan - the nearest railhead - for many years. With the approach of the rail line from Kilkivan, transportation of produce to markets became more feasible and the struggling agricultural settlements of the South Burnett became viable.
The town of Kingaroy owes its establishment to the arrival of the Kilkivan branch railway in 1904. In 1898 the only resident in the vicinity of Kingaroy was Daniel Carroll who had selected a 160 acre block abutting the 3430 acre Kingaroy Paddock selection in 1891 and built a hut and yard for his horses. By 1900 he had built a cottage and had selected further blocks of land adjoining his original portion. In 1902 a provisional school opened in Kingaroy with about twenty pupils. Once the Kilkivan branch railway reached the 56 mile peg near the corner of the Kingaroy Paddock in 1904, the railway terminus was the impetus for the establishment of Kingaroy township. Both Carroll and Arthur Youngman, owner of the Kingaroy Paddock, sold town blocks at public auction during 1904. When the first train arrived, there were only three buildings - Carroll's new hotel, the Carrollee, FC Petersen's store and Carroll Cottage [QHR 601901]. After the railway arrived Kingaroy quickly developed as a service centre with the establishment of commercial premises such as shops and hotels. These were soon followed by public buildings, churches and schools. The seven years during which Kingaroy was the railhead were enough for it to establish a lasting dominance over neighbouring townships.
During the first four decades of the 20th century the South Burnett was a rapidly developing agricultural area in the Wide Bay district. The railway facilitated the clearing of the land for agriculture and timber became the major industry for some years with teams hauling logs to the Kingaroy railway yards. From circa 1910 the Wide Bay region's maize production was the second highest in the state, following the Darling Downs. It was the fourth largest wheat producing area and the fourth largest cotton producer in the state. During the 1920s the embryonic peanut industry became headquartered at Kingaroy. In 1929 the Wide Bay district's milk production was the second highest in the state after the Moreton district. By 1938 dairying in the Burnett district was burgeoning, having the second largest number of dairy herds and of dairy cows in Queensland after Moreton district. By 1941 Kingaroy was the largest town in the South Burnett region.
Initially, Anglican services and Sunday School in Kingaroy were conducted by Reverend PS Wigram of Nanango parish in a hut that stood on the site now occupied by Carroll's buildings in Haly Street. However, with the rapid growth of the Kingaroy congregation a church became essential. Circa 1910 the congregation was offered two pieces of land for this purpose; one by Dan Carroll and the other by Arthur Youngman of Taabinga, who also was willing to make a donation to the building fund. Youngman's offer was accepted and a Diocesan grant was obtained for the Church's construction. Architect Colin Deighton, who was assistant to JH Buckeridge, the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane Architect between 1887 and 1901, designed the church. Deighton designed a number of country churches and St Colomb's Anglican Church at Clayfield in Brisbane.
The foundation stone of St Michael and All Angels Church was laid on 10 November 1910 by the Venerable RR Rivers, Archdeacon of Toowoomba. Construction of the building, which was to seat 250 worshippers, began in December 1910 and was completed in 1911. Its cost, including furniture, was almost £2000. The church was dedicated by Archbishop Dr Donaldson in 1912 at a service attended by members of the whole community which regarded its opening as a great event for the growing township. In 1912 the Brisbane Diocese newsletter, The Church Chronicle, stated that St Michael and All Angels Church was 'a really beautiful Church - one of the best wooden buildings in the Diocese'.
The church was built in a cruciform plan with few internal wall planes, an arched ceiling space formed by an exposed scissor-braced roof frame and a tall nave and arched windows giving the illusion of verticality.
The timber interior of St Michael and all Angels Church is believed to have been milled at Taabinga. The red beanwood pulpit and pews were made from timber from the Atherton Tableland. The vicar, the Rev PS Wigram, who was a member of a wealthy English family, received gifts for the church. These included a carved English oak altar with inset panels of the angels painted by members of his family; an altar cross and candlesticks from Venice; and the chalice and paten, which were gifts from his godparents. A picture of St Peter, painted by a German artist, was presented by another English friend of the rector.
Some time after 1912 the Nanango parish was divided into three - Nanango, Kingaroy and Wondai - each served by its own priest. A house for the rector (pre-1935) and later a hall were constructed on the site to fulfil the needs of the growing congregation. A wheelchair access ramp has been added to the northern side of the entry porch. On 14 November 1993 the church was consecrated by Bishop Clyde Wood.
The development of a peanut storage and processing plant by the Peanut Board and Peanut Growers' Cooperative Association on adjacent land began in 1927.
The success of the Kingaroy-based peanut industry has resulted in a large industrial site becoming the backdrop to the church. This juxtaposition highlights the aesthetically pleasing nature of St Michael and All Angels Anglican Church.
The church has served the Anglican community in the Parish of Kingaroy since its establishment in 1910.
The church has served the Anglican community in the Parish of Kingaroy since its establishment in 1910.
","criteria":"St Michael and All Angels Anglican Church illustrates the growth and prosperity of the township, which resulted from the extension of the railway line to Kingaroy in 1904. Kingaroy's role as the terminus of the rail line for the subsequent seven years consolidated its position as the major town of the South Burnett region, which evolved into one of Queensland's major agricultural districts during the first decades of the 20th century.
The construction of St Michael and All Angels Anglican Church between 1910 and 1911, to serve the spiritual needs of Kingaroy's rapidly expanding population, is associated with this period of significant growth in the district.
|St Michael and All Angels Church has considerable aesthetic value being a well composed building in a cruciform plan. The Church is significant for its high degree of creative achievement in its interior craftsmanship. The highly intact, unpainted timberwork of the roof framing, walls and ceiling linings displays great artistic value. The church contains many finely crafted elements including an exposed roof frame which dominates the interior, ornate timber colonnades, rood screen, chancel arch, carved English oak altar, pulpit, bishop's chair, pews, panels of the angels and crucifix. Elaborately decorated candlesticks, chalice and paten and a painting of St Peter are also housed in the church.
Its steeply pitched roof crested with an ornate bellcote makes a strong impact in the streetscape.
|St Michael and All Angels Anglican Church is an excellent example of a timber-framed church, which at the time of construction was considered one of the best timber buildings in the Brisbane Diocese. Highly intact, it demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 20th century Anglican church utilising a Latin cross plan with the northern transept accommodating a chapel, the southern transept a vestry and the western end an entry porch.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3975,"place_ref":601390,"name":"Royal Mail Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Archernar Street","suburb":"HUNGERFORD","lga":"BULLOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-08-31","description":"The Royal Mail Hotel is a single storey building with a timber frame clad and roofed in corrugated iron. It has two major elevations with a corner entrance and a wing extending to the rear forming a U shaped plan.
The main entrance is on a truncated section at the north eastern corner and the gabled roof and awning is truncated to match. A wide awning supported on timber columns runs around both main elevations and the corner. The corner entrance opens onto the bar which has a high ceiling, is lined with pine boards and has 12 pane sash windows. A double sided brick chimney is between the bar and the original sitting room. The bar fireplace is formed with a brick arch and is in regular use. That to the room behind is lined with ripple iron. A room adjoining the sitting room was also part of the original living quarters, but is now used as a store room. The cellar survives and is reached by a handmade ladder. Shelving for kegs has been cut out of the earth.
The original dining room is now living quarters for the licensees. The ceiling and most of the walls are lined with ripple iron as is the pub kitchen and a private bedroom. Modern sliding doors have been added to the kitchen and living quarters. There are 3 guest bedrooms approximately 12' square. 2 rooms are lined with pine boards, but the other is ceiled and lined largely with ripple iron, a material that has also been used in parts of the bar and dining area.
The outbuildings are clad with corrugated iron and consist of 2 bathrooms and an unused washhouse. Bathroom fittings are early and feature ripple iron lining and a claw foot bath. The former staff quarters has lost its cladding to all but one wall and is used as a storage shed.
","history":"The Royal Mail Hotel was granted its first license in 1874, a year before Hungerford was gazetted as a township. The town lies on the border between Queensland and New South Wales, on the east bank of the Paroo River, and was a customs post on an important early stock route running between Queensland and the markets in Victoria and South Australia.
In the 1830s pastoral settlement in New South Wales pushed northwards and in the early 1840s sheep runs were established on the Darling Downs. In the 1850s and 60s the pastoral industry continued to expand in what became the colony of Queensland in 1859. Once pastoral stations had been established in Queensland, the transport flow began to reverse as products in the form of wool and livestock were moved to southern markets. The Victorian gold rush greatly increased the demand for beef from the 1850s. One major north-south stock route connected north west Queensland with Victoria following natural watercourses. It began in the Gulf country and passed through Cloncurry and Longreach, down the Thompson to the vicinity of Windorah, south to Hungerford and Bourke, then down the Darling River to Wilcannia and overland to Hay.
Hungerford is approximately 200 kms south of Cunnamulla and the same distance north of Bourke in New South Wales. It is named after Thomas Hungerford, later an MLA, who camped there with his brother while in the district and early references to the place are as 'Hungerford's Camp'. Being on a major route and near a watercourse, it was an excellent location for a wayside inn, catering for drovers and carriers as well as pastoral workers. Such inns provided food and accomodation for people and horses and it was usually possible to obtain the services of a blacksmith, leave or collect messages and gain information on the condition of the road ahead. Hotels were also an important source of company and conviviality in isolated areas. Their services made the development of regular supply routes possible, which made a major contribution to the way in which areas were opened up for European settlement.
The first license for the Royal Mail Hotel was issued to John George Cooke on 6 November 1874. He was also the postmaster following an earlier attempt to set up a service based on a property at 'Hoodsville', a few miles away. The name of the hotel is particularly apt as several publicans served in this capacity over the years, besides supporting a later Cobb & Co mail and passenger service. The first post office was established at 'Hungerford's' on 1 January 1876. The mail delivery contract was won by Michael McAuliffe who travelled between Bourke, Hoodsville and Hungerford's via Ford's Bridge, Yantabulla and Brindingabba, a distance of 150 miles on horseback, once a week. Responsibility for the delivery and processing of mail moved from one colony to the other for many years because the exact position of Hungerford in relationship to the border was uncertain.
The border between New South Wales and Queensland was not officially surveyed until 1879-1880. When the Royal Mail was built, it was thought to be in New South Wales and licence fees were paid in that colony from 1874 to 1879. The survey revealed that the land was part of Queensland and from 1880 the hotel licence has been issued in this state. The town survey shows the hotel with yards and outbuildings close to the 'Wilcannia Track'. Near the hotel was a blacksmith, stock yards and 'gardens' presumably for vegetables. Isaac Foster, who had acquired the hotel from Cooke in 1876, formalised his ownership by purchase of the hotel allotment and an adjoining lot in September 1880.
Other allotments in the block containing the hotel were reserved for police, post office and customs buildings because Hungerford was one of the 14 settlements along Queensland's borders used as customs posts until the colonies were federated in 1901. The customs post monitored the payment of duty on such goods as wool but also acted to prevent smuggling which was common because duty on alcohol in Queensland was high. The size of the town survey and the government reserves suggests that it was thought that the town would become larger and more important than actually occurred. New South Wales surveyed a 'twin town' to Hungerford on the other side of the border, designated 'Berriwinnia', although it was not developed. Customs posts on state borders were not needed after Federation and it may be that if it had not occurred Hungerford may eventually have achieved its projected size.
Beginning in 1882, Cobb and Co ran weekly buggies between Hungerford and Eulo and Thargomindah and Hungerford transporting mail, goods and passengers. The route officially ran between post offices in each settlement, but nearby hotels were commonly used by coach companies to change horses and accommodate passengers and this was the case with the Royal Mail hotel. Isaac Foster died in 1882 and the license passed briefly to two other men before being taken up by Charles Wethered who held it until 1889, when it was taken over by Thomas G. Foster, who was possibly a relative of Isaac. By this time the Royal Mail had competition in the form of the Commercial Hotel, built in 1885. The railway had by then reached Cunnamulla and with the coach link, provided access to larger centres.
Over December and January of 1892-3 Henry Lawson and a friend walked from Bourke to Hungerford and back. In spite of writing about the bush he had little real experience and is thought to have been goaded into the trip by public comments to that effect made by Banjo Paterson. He found the country harsh and did not care for Hungerford from which he wrote a despairing letter to his aunt saying that he was finished with the bush. Even so, this trip proved the inspiration for a number of his early stories and poems so that Hungerford may be said to have contributed to the Legend of the Bush developed in the late 19th century by such writers as Lawson.
.
Lawson described Hungerford in a short story of that name which appeared in While the Billy Boils in 1896:
The town is right on the Queensland border, and an interprovincial rabbit-proof fence - with rabbits on both sides of it - runs across the main street... Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both the pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it - we had asked for English ale.
The post office is in New South Wales, and the police barracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything if there's a row going on across the street in New South Wales except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition warrant applied for; and they do not do much if there's a row in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border, where the pubs are.
Hungerford was quite prosperous as a small centre though, and in 1895 Cobb and Co upgraded its service between Hungerford and Thargomindah to a coach route. In this year John Logan became the licensee of the Royal Mail. He also purchased the large adjoining reserve on which the blacksmiths and yards had been located in 1880. In 1897 he acquired title to both the hotel allotments and took out a mortgage of £250 on all 3 lots, a total of £750. The purpose of this loan is not known, but it may have been at this time that the hotel was moved to the reserve allotment or a new building constructed or recycled from the old. The current hotel contains features such as windows which are consistent with an earlier building date, but has been added to and adapted over the years using traditional techniques and materials, so that a construction date is difficult to ascertain.
John Logan died in 1907 and his widow, Margaret, became the licensee. By this time, the town had passed its peak when it had a population of over 100 and a magistrate's court, police station, post and telegraph office, a school, 4 churches, several shops and 3 hotels.
Following Federation, border customs posts were no longer needed. The early years of the century were also very dry and although the Wilcannia Track originally had many waterholes and springs, widespread tapping of the artesian basin caused the level of springs to fall and dry up. An attempt to sink a bore at Hungerford was abandoned at 850 feet. The Cobb & Co service to Hungerford was discontinued in 1904 and by 1915 Hungerford had been bypassed and was merely a turn off on the Cunnamulla to Thargomindah coach route.
The hotel was sold in 1928, though the original 2 lots (105 and 104) were not and were taken over by the Bulloo Shire Council in 1971. The Royal Mail has since had several licensees, the current owners having purchased the hotel in 2000. The town population has in recent years been as low as 10 and the Royal Mail has been the only hotel for most of the 20th century, drawing custom from local people and seasonal pastoral workers. Following the opening of nearby Currawinya National Park, custom is being increasingly drawn from tourism.
","criteria":"The Royal Mail Hotel illustrates the pattern of development of Queensland in several ways. It was built as a wayside inn serving an early stock and trading route and provided the foundation for a service town as did many such inns. The hotel also illustrates the role of Hungerford as a border post before Federation and held a New South Wales licence until the border was officially surveyed in 1879. As a hotel catering for coach teams and passengers and a postal receiving office from time to time, the hotel illustrates the ways in which communications functioned in remote areas in the 19th century.
|The Royal Mail Hotel is now uncommon in Queensland as a coaching inn still trading.
|The hotel complex has the potential to reveal information about the operation of 19th century hotels in Queensland.
|It is a good example of a vernacular hotel in a remote township as it preserves examples of early building techniques and has changed little in the last century
|The Royal Mail Hotel is important as a vernacular building whose form, scale and materials make a substantial contribution to the built character of Hungerford and which is a landmark well regarded by the community.
|It is important for its long connection with the community of Hungerford and the surrounding area as a venue for many social events.
|The settlement of Hungerford, including the Royal Mail Hotel, is important for its connection with the life and work of Henry Lawson; Hungerford being the subject of one of his popular writings that contributed to the Australian view of the bush at the end of the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":3983,"place_ref":602805,"name":"Myall Park Botanic Garden","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Myall Park Road","suburb":"GLENMORGAN","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"Myall Park Botanic Garden is located approximately 7 kilometres north-west of Glenmorgan in the Western Downs region, Queensland. Within its 132.3 hectare property boundary is a garden landscape of Australian flora of approximately 90 hectares. The site is mostly flat, fenced along its property boundary, and includes a cluster of small timber buildings close to its eastern boundary. The site, formerly part of a large pastoral property is largely surrounded by a rural landscape used for grazing and cropping.
\nRetained local brigalow-belah vegetation provides a bush setting for the botanic garden. The garden comprises thousands of ex situ Australian arid, semi-arid and dry tropical plants, mostly indigenous to other parts of Queensland and Australia. While the aesthetic of the garden is reflective of an uncultivated inland bush landscape, there is an underlying formality in the layout. The garden is organised into approximately 72 divisions, defined by timber corner pegs. Within the original divisions laid out by David Gordon, plants are grown according to their species, in some instances on raised gravel beds, and are located adjacent to other divisions within their genus. More recent divisions established in the garden generally feature plants from different genera; this occurs in response to soil and climatic variables within the garden or for a particular educational or scientific focus.
\nSoil types within the garden include neutral grey brigalow soil, light loams over clays, red lateritic acid gravel, and a layer of blue/grey clay. Some plantings, including some of the oldest in the eucalypt divisions, may not initially appear their age because of the growing conditions and the particular characteristics of the plants. Plants are often marked with a timber stake with identification tags that include their species and planting date.
\nReflective of natural growing conditions, established plants receive minimal maintenance. Ground cover, where it exists, is generally not mown in the majority of the grounds, to foster and shelter any unassisted germination. Within the garden, plant labelling and interpretative signage is intentionally unobtrusive.
\nLarge water tanks on tall stands are positioned within the garden. Early galvanised steel irrigation pipes are laid throughout the garden and retain sprinkler heads, although these are not in use. A dam for the garden's water purposes is situated on the north-west boundary of the property.
\nA looping gravel drive circulates through the site, entering from the eastern side of the property and broadly follows the edges of the garden, as laid out by David Gordon. A number of dirt walking paths meander through different sections of the garden.
\nThe original Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' is located in a grevillea division close to the western edge of the garden. Together with the other Gordon hybrids, it features in the ‘The Gordon Grevilleas Walk'. Examples of the parent plants Grevillea bipinnatifida and G. banksii, are planted directly adjacent. Grevillea ‘Sandra Gordon' and G. ‘Merinda Gordon' are planted nearby, although these are not the original plants.
\nThe gallery and toilets (1995) and the old sawmill shed (mostly reconstructed) near the entry of the park are not of cultural heritage significance although they are important components in the current day activities of the garden. A number of artworks (not of cultural heritage significance) are located throughout the garden.
\nNear the eastern edge of the garden, south-east of the gallery is the cluster of buildings comprising Terpersie Cottage (former nurseryman's residence), the nursery, the garage, and the single men's shearers' quarters. To the south of this group is Avochie Cottage.
\nTerpersie Cottage is a small low-set single-storey timber residence. It has a multi-hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a weatherboard exterior. A large brick chimney is on the eastern side and a screened porch is on the north-eastern corner. The building is highly-intact, with very little alteration evident.
\nThe nursery comprises two single-storey timber-framed buildings connected by a covered entry to form an L-shape around a fenced yard. The long wing accommodates the potting room (slab-on-ground), seed storage room - a timber lined room, and a rear laundry and toilet. The potting room is unlined and includes timber benches clad with metal sheet, timber shelving and early gardening paraphernalia. The concrete floor has spoon drains now partially filled with cement. The seed room contains built-in silky -oak cupboards with many drawers containing seeds collected over a long period of time, most labelled with plant names. Some garden related archival records are also housed in the seed room.
\nThe other wing of the nursery accommodates the misting house - a timber framed glasshouse with a concrete slab floor. The lower part of the walls is lined internally with fibre cement sheets. Above this on the side walls are clear glass operable louvres and on the end wall is a large timber-framed pivot window surrounded by fixed clear glass. The roof is clad with overlapping sheets of rippled, fixed glass and near the ridge are clear glass operable louvres. The roof is sheltered externally by a shade cloth mounted on a metal framing. This shade cloth is a later addition, replacing the original louvred panels. The room contains raised timber benches/boxes for plants that incorporate plastic irrigation pipes with misting nozzles. The floor retains spoon drains under the plant benches. The nursery yard retains four hardening bays. These are large timber ‘boxes' on legs that have a sheltering frame covered in shade cloth.
\nAt the south eastern corner of the nursery yard is a garage. This is a single-storey, slab-on-ground building with a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It comprises three bays with a fourth bay accommodated in a lean-to on the eastern side. The exterior is weatherboards and the interior is unlined. The garage contains approximately 70 plastic tubs that temporarily holds the herbarium collection of Myall Park. The collection is comprised of thousands of pages of pressed plant specimens mounted on paper. Individual specimens, record collecting locations and dates, and botanical information.
\nTo the north-east of the garage is the single men's Shearers' Quarters, an L-shaped single-storey low-set timber building with a chamferboard exterior and a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The long wing accommodates the shearers' bedrooms each with a timber built-in cupboard. The bedrooms are accessed from a long eastern verandah that is enclosed at either end for a bathroom. The short wing accommodates the cook's rooms including a kitchen with a stove recess retaining an early cast-iron stove and early built-in kitchen cupboards. At the junction of the two wings is a dining room with a servery into the kitchen and a large brick fireplace. The chimney breast has an external apron that holds a laundry copper.
\nTo the south of this group is Avochie Cottage, a single-storey low-set timber residence with a chamferboard exterior and a multi-gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It accommodates three bedrooms, kitchen, lounge, bathroom, toilet, and a verandah on the southern side. It has two large brick chimneys; the kitchen chimney retains an early cast iron stove.
","history":"Myall Park Botanic Garden, Glenmorgan, a large garden devoted to the growing of Australian flora, was established in 1941 by David Gordon (1899-2001).
David (Dave) Morrice Gordon (AM) was born 9 July 1899, the fifth of nine children for James and Agnes Gordon. In 1910 the Gordon family moved to the Western Downs region from Talbot, in the Central Goldfields region of Victoria. The Gordons took up a ‘prickly pear selection' known as ‘The Lagoons' (later Lesmoir) on the Balonne River, as part of a group settlement. The rapid infestation of the prickly pear plant Opuntia stricta led to abandoned properties and surrendered large pastoral leases in affected areas of Queensland. In response, the state government introduced prickly pear selections, where land either infested or partly affected was offered for lease at good terms. Group Settlement Schemes, where three or more parties selected in the same parish, were promoted as part of this process. By the beginning of 1909, 870,849 acres (352,420.087 ha) had been taken up as prickly pear selections, the majority being in the Dalby Land Agent's district, where the Gordons settled.[1]
The planting of Australian flora in gardens and house settings began early in Queensland and other Australian colonies, but it was not until the latter decades of the 20th century, that their popularity became widespread and gardens devoted to Australian flora became common. From the middle of the nineteenth century, large tall trees from the Araucaria family such as the bunya and hoop pines, and fig trees were widely planted, or in some instances, retained on properties after clearing. Ferns and palms suitable for indoors or simple ferneries became increasingly popular in the late 1800s. The nationalist sentiment of the Federation era influenced a wider appreciation of Australia's flora and fauna, with native plants and animals appropriated as patriotic symbols in architecture and the decorative arts and crafts. While horticulturalists, botanists and other gardening writers increasingly advocated the use of natives in gardens, most household gardeners preferred to plant out their gardens with plants that reminded them of their largely European origins. For people who were interested, only a small number of nurseries stocked a sufficient range of Australian plants. In the early 1900s Australian flora was more likely to be seen in decorative architectural elements of domestic housing than in gardens.[2]
Though their collections were not always extensive, one type of place where Australian flora could be found was in Queensland's botanic gardens. A network of experimental botanic gardens all initially named Queen's Park, were established throughout Queensland from the mid-1850s. Walter Hill, the first Superintendent of Brisbane's Botanic Garden [QHR 600067], played a key guiding role, advising regional botanic gardens, lobbying governments for support and corresponding with like-minded institutions including the Melbourne Botanic Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England. Sustained by annual government grants, local residents were trustees of these early gardens and professional gardeners were employed to develop them. While part of the horticultural purpose of these places was to provide public spaces of ornament and beauty for recreation and education, research and experimentation into the utilitarian qualities of plants were also major functions.[3]
From a very early age, Dave Gordon was interested in Australian flora. Nurtured by his father's own interest, by the age of seven he was helping to collect seed and raise native trees in Talbot. At the age of 15, following the death of his father and the enlisting of his brother Jim for military service during World War I Gordon became largely responsible for running ‘The Lagoons'. In between developing the family property for wool production and completing schooling by correspondence, Gordon further developed his interest in native plants through extensive reading, seed collecting and experimental plantings.[4]
In late 1926 the Gordons acquired Myall Park, comprising part of the combined blocks of Cobblegun, Lower Cobblegun and Miggabaroo, that in turn were formerly part of the large Murilla consolidated pastoral run. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Gordon improved Myall Park and acquired more property to increase wool production capacity. In 1940 a pre-existing house on the property was relocated to a ridge just west of Myall Creek and enlarged. Single men's shearing quarters were also built nearby, which were used as temporary accommodation by the Gordon family before the house was completed.[5]
On pastoral properties producing wool, the provision of accommodation for seasonal workers during the shearing season was a necessity. Shearers' quarters were built to varying standards all over Queensland from the 1840s. The Shearer's and Sugar Worker's Act 1905 was the first Queensland legislation to prescribe minimum standards for ‘proper and sufficient' seasonal worker's housing. The Workers' Accommodation Act 1915 and subsequent amendments extended these provisions. Requirements for quarters included a location away from other buildings used for pastoral purposes, suitable building materials, provision of a verandah, sleeping rooms for workers of a minimum size and height, and separate kitchen, dining room and cook's quarters.[6]
To the south-west of the house, Gordon's long term vision was to establish a large garden of native plants. The site did not suit grazing purposes and featured aspects desirable for growing the type of arid and semi-arid plants favoured by Gordon. Well-drained, the area was largely unaffected by humidity and frost, had access to water, and featured a range of soil types. While beauty and climatic suitability were important considerations, Gordon also consciously chose particular inland plants for conservation purposes, because of their vulnerability in their natural habitat from land clearing and grazing practices.[7]
The prickly pear infestation was successfully controlled across Queensland by 1933 after the introduction of the Cactoblastis moth in the mid-1920s. Wool production increased and prices gradually recovered following the worst years of the Depression. Transport links were improved by the extension of the branch railway line from Dalby to its terminus, the newly surveyed town of Glenmorgan, seven kilometres south-east of Myall Park in 1931. These factors meant by the beginning of the 1940s Gordon could devote more time to establishing his garden. In 1941 the first garden plantings commenced, including Needlewood Hakea leucoptera, Scarlet Bottlebrush Callistemon macropunctatus) and Silver Cassia Senna artemisiodes and species of Acacias and Eucalypts.[8]
Gordon's interest brought him into contact and correspondence with fellow native plant (and wildlife) enthusiasts from across Australia, including botanists, horticulturalists and naturalists. By the early 1940s he was providing specimens and corresponding with the Queensland Herbarium. Another early contact was George Althofer, who with his brother Peter, established Nindethana, one of Australia's earliest commercial nurseries dedicated to native flora at Dripstone, New South Wales. Gordon ordered many of his first plants and seeds from Nindethana and continued to do so over many years until Myall Park became more self sufficient in the mid-1960s.[9]
While a private garden, the Myall Park Botanic Garden was a serious botanic undertaking from its beginnings. The singular emphasis on collecting and growing native flora was an important step in the evolution of Queensland's botanic gardens. Myall Park was only one of a handful of larger scale gardens with a botanical focus established in the first half of the twentieth century in Queensland. Others were Laurel Park Bank in Toowoomba (1932), originally a private and later council owned garden with a large collection of exotics; Anderson Park in Townsville (1932) a council owned collection of native and exotic tropical flora (mainly trees); and Adele's Grove, Albert Lestang's private experimental botanic garden. Located along Lawn Hill Creek in savannah country 200 km southwest of Burketown, by 1939 Lestang had planted over 1000 species of exotic and native plants, shrubs and trees. Lestang corresponded with Dave Gordon and sent him Grevillea and Acacia seeds, before his garden was almost completely destroyed by fire and flooding events in the early 1950s.[10]
The 1950s were the key decade of development for Myall Park. Gordon was able to invest more time and money in the garden because of a boom in wool value that saw prices triple between 1947 and 1951.[11] By this time 26 000 sheep were being shorn annually and Gordon was able to leave much of the responsibility of the property's day-to-day operations with an overseer. A timber residence for the overseer and family (now known as Avochie Cottage) was constructed in the early 1950s, south of the shearer's quarters.[12] One hundred and twenty-eight hectares were fenced to prevent livestock from entering the garden. While much of the fenced area was cleared for growing purposes, with the managed garden taking up about 90 hectares, some existing brigalow-belah vegetation was retained, providing a bush setting for the garden.[13]
In 1952, Dave Gordon married Dorothy Gemmell. Born in 1930, Dorothy was raised in Glen Aplin in the Granite Belt region, and was from a family of keen naturalists. Sharing her husband's interest in Australian flora, she strongly supported the development of the garden, assisting in numerous garden-related correspondence, preparing Australian flower displays for regional shows and events and acting as a guide and host to many of Myall Park's visitors. Prior to her marriage Dorothy had studied art, and for a period was an art teacher at Fairholme School in Toowoomba. Her immersion in garden-related activities influenced the development of her art, especially the production of botanic watercolours. Her work appeared in The Bulletin, and she was commissioned by government officials to produce art as gifts. Through her involvement in art groups who often visited Myall Park, she drew local attention to the beauty of the garden.[14]
In 1951, Gordon employed English horticulturalist Len Miller, an assisted migrant soldier who worked as a gardener for Bristol Council, providing accommodation for him and his wife Ivy in a new timber house, (later called Terpersie) at Myall Park. Miller's first project was to plant out and record 1000 plants that Gordon had accumulated. By this time a makeshift nursery was in operation. Miller also assisted Gordon in collecting plant specimens and seeds. Initially done locally, over 1952-53 Miller travelled to New South Wales and Victoria, collecting and exchanging plants with nurseries and other enthusiasts. In 1954, Len and Ivy Miller decided to leave Myall Park. Gordon offered the Millers a contract to travel to Western Australia to places he had identified for plant collection. Between September 1954 and May 1955, the Millers collected over 700 herbarium specimens, 500 seed species and many cuttings. Collecting both cuttings and seeds meant the garden could grow plants true to their parents and raise seeds that could exhibit diversity. Complementing Gordon's existing specimens and seeds, Len Miller's collection came to comprise a substantial proportion of the Myall Park herbarium.[15]
Alfred (Alf) Gray replaced Len Miller, working from 1954 to 1957 at Myall Park. Gordon met Gray in 1951 while visiting nurseries and native plant enthusiasts in Victoria and New South Wales. Gray, a forester, nursery manager, seed collector and propagator, was highly regarded by the time he arrived at Myall Park. As officer-in-charge at the Wail Forest Commission Nursery in Western Victoria (1946-54), Gray had pioneered arid land revegetation through provenance seed harvesting and native plant supply.[16]
Gray's work at Myall Park focussed on seed raising, with planting and watering work in the garden the responsibility of Gordon. While Gray was working at Myall Park the infrastructure to support the functions of the garden were improved. Drawing on his prior experience, Gray designed suitable nursery structures. According to Gordon, he built for Gray the types of structures that the Victorian government would not supply for him at Wail in Victoria.[17] The nursery comprised a single-storey timber building with a potting room and a seed storage room, connected by a covered entry to a timber-framed glasshouse/misting room with a concrete slab floor. The timber building was constructed first and the glasshouse was a later addition. A yard to the rear of the buildings housed four large timber hardening bays. The nursery was built by Harry Howe, with the assistance of cabinetmaker Bill Dunmall, who fitted out the vermin proof seed storage room with silky oak cabinet drawers. Cypress pine milled on the property was used in the construction of the buildings. A catalogue system was used to record seed source and date, supplier and usage. Details of propagations, planting locations and survival rates were all recorded. Around this time a large single room, lined with tall cupboards and work benches was constructed at the Gordon family residence house, to provide an art space for Dorothy and to store herbarium specimens. The house is now located within the Myall Park pastoral property, just outside the Botanic Garden boundary.[18] The herbarium specimens formerly located in the house are now held by the Myall Park Botanic Garden.
In 1952 Gordon commissioned the damming of a section of Myall Creek, northeast of the house and garden, to increase water supplies. This was done in 1952 by Joh Bjelke-Petersen (later Premier of Queensland 1968-87), who was working at Myall Park as a contractor clearing vegetation. Over time Gordon filled the artificial lake with native waterlilies from the local area and beyond. Like the Gordon house, the lake is now located within the Myall Park pastoral property. While the garden featured plants that usually received little rainfall in their natural habitats, an irrigation system was installed to assist with acclimatisation after planting out, and to counter any long-term drought conditions. The water system used a network of water tanks on high stands connecting to galvanised piping and hundreds of above ground sprinklers. During particularly dry and hot periods, up to half of the water in the 25,000 gallon (113,652.297 litres) main tank would be used in a day.[19]
Gray was also sent on collecting trips by Dave Gordon. During one three month trip, seeds and detailed growing conditions were collected for more than 1000 species. By the time Gray left Myall Park in 1957, he (like his predecessor Len Miller) had made a major and important contribution to the development of the garden and herbarium. Many of the plants that grow in the garden derive from seeds collected by Gray and Miller. Albert Robinson replaced Alf Gray and worked for ten years in the garden, continuing propagation projects and cultivating existing plants. Bob Doney also worked in the Myall Park garden during the 1960s.[20] Gordon's employment of nurserymen for what was, at this time, essentially a private hobby, illustrates his passion and serious investment in the garden.
A range of methods were used at Myall Park to provide successful raising and growing conditions, including the preparation of special growing beds, and experiments with soil structure and composition.[21] The influence of Gordon's father was evident in the layout of the garden, through the practice of planting in clumps rather than lines. The garden was organised into divisions and Gordon methodically planted as much of a genus as was available together in the garden. Beyond aesthetic and environmental benefits, this planting method was also a way of encouraging natural hybridisation. The genus Grevillea had been a focus during plant collecting trips and in 1963 a new Grevillea hybrid appeared in the garden. Displaying the low growing characteristics of the Grevillea bipinnatifida, together with the vibrant flame coloured flowers of the G. banksii, and the ability to flower throughout the year and attract birds, the hybrid featured highly desirable attributes for gardeners. Gordon named the hybrid Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' after his eldest daughter (who died aged 16 from illness in 1969) and distributed it freely to nurseries in Brisbane and Sydney, without payment. Two other hybrids, named after the Gordon's other daughters, Grevillea 'Sandra Gordon' (also a popular garden plant) and G.'Merinda Gordon' were also produced at Myall Park.[22]
With its appealing characteristics and adaptability, Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' became a very popular plant in Australian gardens. It was the first plant registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1973. In 1984 the journal Australian Horticulture acknowledged its impact; ‘Market-wise it was a winner. The public readily gave it a place in their gardens. Landscapers looked upon it as ‘a gift from above' and it was planted by the tens of thousands'.[23] The Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' is the floral emblem of the Western Downs Regional Council and in 2006 was chosen as the floral emblem for the ‘Year of the Outback'.
The garden was well established by the early 1960s, with plantings maturing and self sown species proliferating where space was available. The ‘grandiose scale' of Gordon's efforts to conserve and grow inland native plants had been acknowledged by the mid-1950s [24] and visitors became increasingly common at Myall Park. Among the visitors were influential native plant garden advocates Jean ‘Correa' Galbraith, Thistle Harris and landscape designer Edna Walling. In addition to visits from specialist interest groups, naturalists, botanists and scientists from institutions like the Queensland Herbarium, experts from other disciplines also conducted research at Myall Park, including world bee authority Dr Charles Michener.[25]
The gardening activities at Myall Park in the post-war decades occurred at a time when the use of native plants in Australian gardens, after decades of advocacy by enthusiasts, became more popular. Increased environmental awareness, availability of native plants in nurseries, architectural fashions for bushland settings for houses and garden designs reflective of natural Australian environments all contributed to this popularity. For some gardeners, this meant accommodating a few natives among a predominance of exotics. For the most fervent, only native plants were considered suitable for their gardens. The Society for Growing Australian Plants (of which David Gordon was a life member) was established in Melbourne in 1957 and rapidly grew to become a national body with state branches. Many other specialized native plant interest groups flourished throughout Australia.
The 1970s were a period of inactivity in the Myall Park garden. Dave Gordon was unable to work in the garden following the onset of severe arthritis. The decline in wool prices meant less money could be spent on the garden, and no gardeners were employed during this period. Other than occasional minor maintenance and intermittent irrigation during very dry periods, no planting or nursery work occurred. The inherent climatic resilience of the type of plants in the garden meant that although there were some losses, many survived.[26]
In the 1980s, Dave Gordon's health improved and he was able once again to spend time in the garden. Nurseryman Reg Carter was employed to operate the nursery and propagate seed cuttings and plants. This renewed activity coincided with the increased recognition of Myall Park as a significant botanic garden in ex-situ conservation of rare and endangered plants. In 1987 Gordon was made a Member of the Order of Australia ‘in recognition of service to horticulture and conservation, particularly in the growing of Australian flora'. A notable visitor during this period was Professor Grenville Lucas, Keeper of the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, accompanied by staff from the Queensland Herbarium, who acknowledged the unique importance of the collection.[27]
Dorothy Gordon's most important body of work was a collection of 48 botanical watercolours of Australian flora. Following her death in a car accident in 1985, a book of this work, Australian Wildflower Paintings, with botanical notes by Dave Gordon was published in 1988, with the assistance of a Bicentennial grant and Meandarra Arts Council. In 1991 the collection was displayed in the Queensland Pavilion at the Osaka Garden Expo.
Shortly after the first Myall Park Botanic Garden Open Day in September 1988, Gordon approached friends and family to help determine the future management of the garden. The first meeting of the Myall Park Botanic Garden Committee was held in October, marking a new phase of activity. A ‘Friends of Myall Park Botanic Garden' association was formed in 1991 to assist with funding and to encourage volunteer work both on and offsite. In 1992, the Committee became an incorporated company limited, with a Board of Directors. In 1994, 132 hectares was excised from the Myall Park pastoral property and granted to Myall Park Botanic Garden Limited, to hold the land in trust for Garden purposes.[28] Over five decades the garden evolved from a unique private garden devoted to inland native plants, to an extensive botanic garden with important conservation values.
There is no formal accreditation of Australian botanic gardens. The organisation Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand Incorporated defines a botanic garden as: '...gardens open to the public which grow plants for public enjoyment, scientific, horticultural, conservation or educational purposes, and which have local, national or international roles.[29] Between 1970 and 2009, twenty-seven botanical gardens were established or commenced throughout Queensland. While some of these gardens contain a mix of Australian and exotic species, an increasing number concentrate only on Australian flora, and display vegetation from their particular bioregion.[30]
Following Federal government grant funding in 1995, an art gallery designed by Brisbane architect Brian Donovan was opened, housing a permanent display of Dorothy Gordon's original botanical watercolours. Within the grounds of the park the former shearer's quarters and overseer's residence (Avochie Cottage) are used for visitor accommodation.[31]
Dave Gordon died in 2001 at the age of 102, having made an outstanding contribution to the fields of Australian flora conservation and horticulture. The Myall Park Botanic Garden Limited has been active in preserving Dave Gordon's legacy. Approximately 20 new divisions have been established under their directorship. Onsite caretakers and volunteers from across Queensland play a large role in maintaining the garden, nursery, seedbank and herbarium, and records. Research and other partnerships have been fostered with academic institutions, local government and other community groups. The park has widened its research, education and interpretation activities beyond flora to encompass broader biodiversity values.[32] Over 200 species of birds have been sighted at Myall Park, evidence of its importance as a wildlife refuge. Members of the group Birds Queensland have been longstanding visitors to the garden for bird watching and recording.
Myall Park is also a popular venue for artists, photographers, local schools and other interest groups for a range of cultural activities. At the 2009 Open Day, Clocked Out (ensemble-in-residence at Queensland Conservatorium) and the Australian Voices choir collaborated on "Grevilleas of Myall Park", inspired by the flora of the park. Commissioned artworks are located throughout the garden.
","criteria":"Myall Park Botanic Garden is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's private and botanic gardens. Established in 1941 by David Gordon, the garden developed from a unique private garden of native plants to an extensive botanic garden with significant conservation and horticultural values. In its earliest decades of development, the garden's scale and singular emphasis on collecting, growing and experimenting with native plants was unparalleled in Queensland. It is thought to be Queensland's oldest garden wholly devoted to Australian flora.
As the place where the hybrid Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' first appeared, one of Australia's most popular and widely planted cultivars, the garden is closely associated with the increasing use of native plants in Australian gardens from the 1960s. The first plant registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1973, the parent Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' remains in the garden.
Myall Park Botanic Garden has fulfilled many of the traditional functions associated with botanical gardens since the 1940s; increasing horticultural and scientific knowledge about flora, sharing information, seed and plant stock with like-minded institutions, experts and enthusiasts, providing an attractive and educational venue for public recreation (since 1988); and in some instances, providing plant material to nurseries and the public.
|The successful creation of the hybrid Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon', encouraged through a deliberate planting process, was an important technical achievement in the field of Australian floral horticulture in the 1960s. The first plant registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1973, it is now one of Australia's most popular and widely planted native plants. The parent Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon' remains in the garden.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden's important collection of garden plants, seed bank, herbarium specimens and detailed records, includes ex situ examples of Australian arid, semi-arid and dry tropical flora rare or threatened in their natural habitats in Queensland and other Australian states. The age and scope of this botanic garden is unique in the history of Queensland's gardens.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden's layout, flora, infrastructure, early gardening implements and collection of seeds, herbarium specimens and detailed records have the potential to yield important information related to historical horticultural practices and the conservation and knowledge of Australian flora.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden is important in demonstrating both the principal characteristics of botanic gardens in Queensland and significant variations within this place type. The garden's collection of living plants, complemented by the seed bank, herbarium specimens and detailed records, nursery and residence are all important elements shared with other botanic gardens. Contrasting with the more formal design features commonly associated with botanic gardens, it is located within a setting of local vegetation. The layout of the garden is organized into divisional sections without hard edged borders or lawns. Minimal maintenance practices on the plants and garden beds are more reflective of natural growing conditions.
The highly intact 1950s purpose-built nursery complex - housing potting and seed storage rooms, glasshouse, hardening bays and early gardening implements, together with the garden's irrigation infrastructure - illustrate the spaces, processes and structures used to establish and maintain the garden. The residence (Terpersie) located adjacent to the nursery demonstrates the provision of accommodation for the garden's nurserymen and their families.
The shearer's quarters are a good example of the type of worker's housing provided on pastoral properties following the introduction of workers accommodation legislation in Queensland in the early twentieth century. Highly intact, its principal characteristics include the building's location away from other buildings used for pastoral purposes, provision of a verandah and separate sleeping rooms for workers, kitchen and cook's quarters, and dining and bath rooms.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden has a special association with David and Dorothy Gordon. David Gordon AM (1899-2001) established the garden and was responsible its development for over 50 years. His wife Dorothy Gordon (1930-85) assisted David Gordon in the development of the garden for over 30 years, and promoted Australian flora through her botanical art. The Gordon's played an important role in fostering the appreciation of Australian flora for horticulture and conservation in Queensland and the nation.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden is important for its aesthetic significance, exhibiting picturesque qualities. It has distinct integrity as a cultivated landscape of only Australian native plants. It is a living place, constantly evolving, supporting a diversity of flora and fauna, and varying with the seasons. As such, it offers a changing mix of evocative and complex experiences that delight all the senses.
The importance of the aesthetic experience of Myall Park Botanic Garden has been demonstrated over many years in its popularity as a tourist destination and its inspiration for artists, writers, photographers, and musicians.
|Myall Park Botanic Garden has a special and longstanding association with gardening and Australian flora and fauna enthusiasts and experts. The garden's horticultural and conservation values have been recognised and appreciated since the 1950s. The garden has been a site of inspiration, education and research for naturalists, botanists and scientists and a range of specialist interest groups including the Society for Growing Australian Plants, the Australian Garden History Society and Birds Queensland.
Through their involvement as custodians, volunteers and supporters, the Myall Park Botanic Garden Limited, the Friends of Myall Park Botanic Garden, and the regional community have strong associations with the garden.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4014,"place_ref":602255,"name":"Maytown","alternate_name":"Maytown Township","street_address":"Maytown Town Reserve and Palmer Goldfield Resources Reserve","suburb":"PALMER","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-06-01","description":"Maytown
\nMaytown is located on the north bank of the Palmer River south of its junction with Butcher's Creek. It is located approximately 55km southwest of Laura. The town reserve contains a high concentration of building platforms and remnant footings, and various archaeological features and artefact scatters. Some street alignments are easily discernible with Leslie Street, the main street through the centre of the town, featuring carefully laid stone kerbing and channelling. Structural remains within the township itself include:
\nA stone commemorative cairn and a replica of a miner's hut have also been constructed by the PRHPS in the centre of the town in Duff Street. Southeast of the town is the site of the Warden’s residence.
\nTown Wells
\nWithin the Palmer River itself are two town wells:
\nCemeteries
\nThe main Maytown Cemetery is located southeast of the town, with a Chinese cemetery immediately adjacent to the European section.
\nSlaughter Yards
\nApproximately 500m north east of the township is One Mile Creek. Situated close to the creek are the remains of the Maytown Slaughter Yards. The yards consist of a double row of thirteen timber posts (with five rail holes) erected in an east-west alignment. The posts are 4m apart. All but two posts are upright. Some posts still have nails, bolts and wire with ‘Cobb & Co.’ hitches still attached. There are remnants of flagstone flooring at each end of the yards and many spent cartridge shells at the western end.
\nChinese Occupation
\nSeveral Chinese occupation sites are located at the top of a very steep gully into One Mile Creek:
\nNear the junction of One Mile Creek and the Palmer River, two Chinese graves are situated on the eastern side of the creek. One grave has been exhumed. Next to this grave is an upright marker stone indicating another possible grave, though no mound is evident.
\nImmediately north of Maytown, Butcher’s Creek runs in a general northeast to southwest direction before it meets with the Palmer River. A number of archaeological sites are located along this creek and within the broader township area including:
\nSouth of the Palmer River, notable archaeological sites include several intact and exhumed Chinese graves.
\nKilns
\nFurther inland along Butcher’s Creek are three structures, possibly charcoal kilns all of similar design, though their exact purpose remains unknown.
\nAnother stone structure of unknown function is located on the edge of a small gully, close to the second charcoal kiln on Butcher’s Creek. Three walls remain with the open side facing the gully. Internal measurements are 1.6x1.6m. The structure may have been a cooking oven.
\nRifle Range
\nApproximately 1km southeast of the town are the remains of the Maytown Rifle Range. Remains include the rifle range butt and firing mounds spaced at 200, 300, 400 and 500 yard intervals.
\nBoatshed Complex
\nThe Maytown Boatshed complex consists of three key elements - the remnants of the shed, a ‘corduroy’[1] ramp and a mooring in the river.
\nFeatures not of State-level heritage significance
\nModern mining features, concrete slabs, fencing, interpretation signage and reconstructed elements are not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Maytown, approximately 120 kilometres southwest of Cooktown, was established on the banks of the Palmer River, north Queensland, in 1874. Known as Edwardstown until 1878, the township became the dominant settlement on the Palmer Goldfield, Queensland’s premier 19th century alluvial goldfield. Maytown’s population peaked at over 1,500 residents in 1876, and the township featured most of the goldfield’s facilities and administrative services. The population declined significantly in the 1880s and into the 1890s due to the end of alluvial mining and the unprofitability of reef mining ventures on the Palmer Goldfield. By the mid-1920s few people remained, and most of the buildings were removed by the 1940s. Maytown’s last resident departed in the 1950s.
\nGold mining played a major role in the economic and geographic development of Queensland in the late 19th century. Between 1873 and 1906, Queensland's gold and metal exports regularly exceeded that of wool. Prior to 1865, little thought had been given to the prospect of gold in North Queensland, but as settlement spread north to Townsville, alluvial gold was discovered on Star River Station (1865), in the Cape River area (1867), on the Gilbert River (1869) and at Etheridge (1870). The country to the north of these finds was systematically explored for pastoral potential and mineral deposits from the early 1870s. In 1872, William Hann led a Queensland Government-sponsored expedition into Cape York, the territory of the Western Yalanji people.[1] Expedition surveyor Frederick Warner located gold on a tributary of the Mitchell River, about 450km from Townsville, in August 1872. The tributary was named the Palmer River after then Premier of Queensland, Arthur Hunter Palmer.[2]
\nEncouraged by the report of gold, James Venture Mulligan led a prospecting party in June 1873 to investigate the Palmer River deposits. Mulligan’s party located some of the richest alluvial deposits in North Queensland, returning to Georgetown with 102oz (2.89kg) of gold. News of the find quickly spread and triggered a rush to the area, and a 2,000 square mile (5,180km2) was proclaimed in 1873. Travelling conditions were difficult, and unprepared miners died en route from lack of supplies, drowning, or confrontation with the Kuku-Yalanji and Kuku-Mini people.[3]
\nUnlike other goldfields in Australia, the rush to the Palmer predated pastoral settlement of the region. The nearest major centre was Townsville, over 450km to the southeast. Cooktown, established as the goldfield’s port, was 200km east over difficult terrain. To accommodate and provision the influx of miners, small canvas towns sprang up across the goldfield. Most of the diggings were concentrated around Upper Camp, a settlement near the junction of the Palmer River and Butcher’s Creek. The well-grassed site which was selected by John Edwards in September 1873 to open a butcher’s business, supplying miners with meat. Promising alluvial deposits and quartz reefs were found nearby, turning Upper Camp into a large settlement, known as ‘Edwards Camp’ or ‘Edwards Gully’. A gold commissioner was stationed there in 1874. The Palmer’s Gold Commissioner Howard St George roughly surveyed the town in the same year, and renamed it ‘Edwardstown’.[4]
\nThe name ‘Maytown’ emerged in late 1874, after a post office and police barracks on the outskirts of the township were granted the name. The name was gradually adopted for Edwardstown, to the chagrin of the miners.[5]
\nUnprecedented alluvial gold returns were reported from the Palmer; between March and September 1874, 78,429oz (2,223kg) of high quality gold passed through Cooktown customs. Sensational reports of the goldfield’s wealth spread, encouraging a population increase from around 800 in February 1874 to an estimated 6,000 in December. 118 miners’ rights were issued on the Palmer in 1873, leaping to 2,643 in 1874. With the majority of this mining activity centred on Maytown, Gold Warden Phillip Sellheim moved his camp there in July 1875. Sellheim’s residence, a small weatherboard structure housing himself and his family, stood east of the township near the site of the goldfield’s first ore processing battery, the Pioneer. [6]
\nAs the new administrative centre of the Palmer, Maytown grew rapidly: its building works and population doubled within a month, and by October, Maytown was ‘assuming the proportions of a populous and prosperous township’.[7] As the mining population continued to increase, surveyor James Reid was despatched to Maytown in December 1875 to survey allotments around the Edwardstown machine site, ‘or rather to lay out in symmetrical order the straggling and irregular collection of hotels, stores, &c., that are already on the ground,’ as the Daily Northern Argus noted.[8] Reid’s survey altered the original proposed township layout marked by St George, to the outrage of business owners whose buildings stood within the old alignment. [9]
\nThe Palmer’s gold returns peaked in 1876 and 1877, and it became the highest producing alluvial goldfield in Queensland.[10] Its population climbed above 20,000, and Maytown grew correspondingly. Sellheim encouraged the establishment of a school and social institutions including a Miners' Institute Library and School of Arts.[11] An assay office and three banks were opened, cementing Maytown’s position as the Palmer’s financial centre.[12] Twelve hotels, 17 stores, three bakeries, three tobacconists and stationers, a butchery, blacksmiths, chemists, doctors, jewellers, billiard-rooms and a lemonade factory lined both sides of the ‘tolerably straight and wide’ main street, Leslie Street, for a distance of about 500m.[13] A £600 courthouse and a ten-patient hospital were opened, and a telegraph extension line began.[14] A new police barracks and lock-up were also built within the township in 1876.[15]
\nThe township’s water supply came from two wells in the Palmer River.[16] Cattle, driven to the goldfield from neighbouring pastoral stations, were held in yards on the edge of Maytown to supply the butcher.[17] Sly-grog establishments were also scattered throughout the township.[18] An 1876 census recorded the township’s population at 1,500 people, swelling on Sundays when goldfield miners visited the township for provisions and entertainment.[19]
\nA number of the stores and businesses in Maytown were operated by Chinese merchants and professionals, and vegetables were grown in a Chinese market garden planted on the edge of Butcher’s Creek.[20] Favourable returns and a direct steamer service between Cooktown and Hong Kong (inaugurated in 1875) encouraged regular immigration from China to the Palmer. By 1877 an estimated 18,000 people formed the largest Chinese community in Australia, and comprised nearly 90% of the Palmer’s population.[21] Maytown was the only township on the Palmer with a predominantly European population (approximately 900 Europeans and 300 Chinese); by 1883, this had changed to a reported 300 Europeans and 4,000 Chinese.[22] A ‘joss house’ temple was built circa 1878,[23] and remnants of Chinese settlement, including graves, cooking ovens and kilns, are evident in and around the township. [24]
\nThe cost of transporting building material to the Palmer was prohibitive, and the trouble and expense was rarely considered necessary by transitory alluvial miners. Despite ‘several good substantial buildings’, most of Maytown’s pre-1880 structures were canvas, bark or rough-cut local timber, giving the township an appearance ‘more like a great fair than anything else’.[25] The main bakery, on an allotment partway up Leslie Street, featured one of the township’s only brick structures, a baking oven.[26] The most imposing building in the township was the Queensland National Bank’s galvanised iron structure.[27]
\nThe expansion of reef mining activities in the early 1880s encouraged the construction of permanent structures in Maytown.[28] The company-operated reef mines which dominated the Palmer offered reef miners relatively stable employment, allowing them to settle for longer periods than the alluvial miners. Though a much smaller population than the alluvial miners, their stability encouraged the development of a permanent town with a greater range of educational and entertainment facilities and services. Timber was imported for new building work, and tenders called for public buildings.[29] Town lots were offered for sale from 1883, and Leslie Street was kerbed and channelled.[30] The warden’s quarters were improved for a new warden, who arrived in 1880. Substantial timber and iron stores were built for Chinese storekeepers in 1880, and new iron fronts installed on other stores.[31] A local divisional board hall was built, hosting a school of arts library, balls and social events.[32] A three acre hospital reserve and a seven acre cemetery, both southeast of the township on the bank of the Palmer River, were gazetted in February 1883, although both were already in use.[33] A school, which had operated briefly in 1878, reopened in 1882 and a reserve for it was gazetted in April 1883.[34] A new police station was also completed in 1883. Reserves for a new School of Arts and post and telegraph office were proclaimed in 1885; the new post office was built four years later, and the School of Arts moved into the old post office.[35] East of the township, a rifle range was opened for Maytown’s Excelsior rifle club (1886-1901).[36] The 640 acre town reserve was officially proclaimed in 1890.[37]
\nMaytown’s growth came at the end of the Palmer’s boom. Gold warden WO Hodgkinson proclaimed the field’s alluvial deposits ‘exhausted’ in 1883.[38] The collapse of alluvial mining operations, as well as restrictive legislation and tariffs introduced to Queensland in 1877,[39] reduced the Chinese population precipitously. The Palmer’s reef mines proved far less profitable than anticipated. After an unfavourable report in the Palmer’s reef mines in 1884, much of the mining activity and external investment ceased. Maytown’s Bank of New South Wales branch closed in 1884.[40] The total mining population on the goldfield dropped from 3,303 in 1881 to 946 in 1883, and to 542 in 1885.[41] By 1886 Maytown’s population was 154 Europeans and 450 Chinese. Reef mining revived briefly in the early 1890s, but its returns were limited, and as a proposed railway failed to eventuate, the goldfield’s population continued to fall.[42] Only 11 business licences were issued for the goldfield in 1891, from a high of 477 issued in 1876.[43] The mining warden’s office closed in 1893, as did the Queensland National Bank branch. The warden’s quarters were sold and removed in 1899.[44] By the end of the 19th century, the Palmer’s importance as a gold-producing field had been severely diminished, though it remained the fourth-highest producer in Queensland.[45]
\nA small population remained in Maytown, which in 1900 featured a branch of the Government Savings Bank, a state school, courthouse, hospital, police barracks, one hotel, eight stores (four Chinese, four European), a baker, saddler and the School of Arts (renamed the Miners’ Institute).[46] Reef mining activity continued intermittently through the first half of the 20th century, but by 1920, Wah Chong and Company's was the only store still open in Maytown. The school and police station closed in the 1920s.[47] The post office and mail routes operated until 1945. In 1948 residents of nearby towns, affected by postwar material shortages, successfully applied to remove Maytown’s abandoned buildings for reuse.[48] The last Maytown resident left in the 1950s.[49]
\nIn the 1980s and early 1990s, reconstruction and interpretation work was undertaken on some parts of Maytown. Signage identifying the location of former structures and other features was erected by members of the Palmer River Historic Preservation Society (PRHPS). The PRHPS also erected a commemorative cairn, a replica of a miner’s house in the centre of township in Duff Street, undertook reconstruction works on two kilns and erected protective shelters.[50]
\nBoatshed
\nA ferry service across the North Palmer River at Edwardstown was commissioned at after the wet season of 1873-74. The first road to Edwardstown approached the township from the south, necessitating a river crossing to reach the mining camps on the left-hand branch. While the river often stopped flowing in the dry season, during the wet season the track became difficult to traverse or impassable without a vessel. In October 1874, the Engineer of Roads AC Macmillan recommended that ferries should be established over the four major rivers that affected access to the field: the Laura, Normanby, Kennedy and Palmer Rivers. The 18ftx15ft (5.5x4.4m) vessels were to have a capacity for 18 people. The Commissioner of Work approved the construction in October 1874 and the vessels arrived in mid-December, in time for the next wet season. Privately operated punts for bulk carriage of supplies were considered too slow and costly.[51]
\nThe Laura to Maytown coach road, which opened in 1876, provided a route from Cooktown to Maytown from the north, but a boat remained vital for Maytown’s access to the southern parts of the field and new gold discoveries on the Hodgkinson field and Limestone (Groganville). The Hann Divisional Board, created in 1879, assumed responsibility for the river crossings.[52] The board commissioned its own boat for the crossing in 1884.[53] By 1890 the boat was stored ‘about one mile from town’, conveying mail and passengers across the river during the wet season.[54] The ferry service was operated by lessees, often Chinese men.[55] The boat was lost in floods on multiple occasions, but was generally recovered. In 1894, the ferry was washed away, and the board commissioned two iron boats to be made in Brisbane at a cost of £39 each. One boat was sent to the Coen goldfield (which was also under their jurisdiction); the other, to Maytown.[56]
\nLocal sources indicate that the ferry service continued to operate into the 1930s, although by that time there was no ferry master and passengers rowed themselves. The last ferry, the May-Belle, was recovered in 1973 and donated to the James Cook Museum. It is listed on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels.[57]
","criteria":"Maytown (established 1874 as Edwardstown, now an abandoned settlement) is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland’s history, particularly the development of north Queensland. Maytown was founded beyond the pastoral frontier and became the principal settlement on the Palmer Goldfield, and was critical in supporting mining activity and other settlements in the region. The Palmer goldfield was Queensland’s premier alluvial goldfield in the late 19th century and Queensland’s fourth highest producing goldfield in the 19th and 20th centuries.
|The extensive and largely intact stone kerbing and channelling within Maytown is rare on north Queensland goldfields. The stone kerbing and channelling survives as testimony to the desire for a permanent settlement in the region.
\nThe ruins of the Maytown Boatshed is significant as rare and early surviving evidence of the transportation network that was developed to service the Palmer goldfield. The isolation and harsh seasonal conditions of the field necessitated the quick development of an all-weather transport and communication network. The archaeological remains of this ferry service are the only known surviving example of a ferry service dating from the earliest period of colonial occupation of north Queensland.
|Maytown has potential to contribute new knowledge that may lead to a greater understanding of important aspects of Queensland’s history through historical and archaeological investigations. Archaeological investigations of surviving features may increase our understandings of industrial, commercial, administrative and domestic conditions on an extensive, early, remote and important goldfield. Such investigations may also reveal important information on European and Chinese activities on the Palmer Goldfield and assist in comparative analysis with other settlements (permanent and ephemeral) which survive on other early goldfields found across Queensland.
|Maytown demonstrates the principal characteristics of an abandoned settlement established on an extensive 19th century goldfield. As the commercial centre for the Palmer Goldfield, Maytown still contains extensive ruins of commercial, residential, industrial and administrative infrastructure, including the police station and school, European and Chinese cemeteries, telegraph poles and extensive flagstone flooring that illustrate the associated planning and layout of the town. Other characteristic features include fringing campsites, Chinese graves, remnant ovens and kilns.
|Maytown demonstrates the principal characteristics of an abandoned settlement established on an extensive 19th century goldfield. As the commercial centre for the Palmer Goldfield, Maytown still contains extensive ruins of commercial, residential, industrial and administrative infrastructure, including the police station and school, European and Chinese cemeteries, telegraph poles and extensive flagstone flooring that illustrate the associated planning and layout of the town. Other characteristic features include fringing campsites, Chinese graves, remnant ovens and kilns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4039,"place_ref":602424,"name":"Sandgate Baptist Church (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6-8 Flinders Parade","suburb":"SANDGATE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-11-21","description":"The church stands close to the sea front at the corner of Cliff Street and Flinders Parade and is a prominent and well-known landmark in the area.
A timber fence encloses the church grounds and there is a pair of iron gates set at the street corner in line with the main entrance to the church. The building exhibits the principal characteristics of Carpenter Gothic style through its plan and various elements including its timber construction, steeply pitched roof, prominent timber gables and pointed arch motif to windows and doors.
The building is constructed of timber, cruciform in plan, and set on concrete piers. The space between the piers is filled with concrete block work.
The steeply pitched gabled roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and has an octagonal lantern and spire set at the roof crossing. This is clad in decorative pressed metal sheeting and has timber louvres set in panels at the base. The projecting gables to nave and transepts ends are decorated with fretwork panels above arched timber framing and have a rose window set with pink and blue coloured glass. Pairs of lancet windows set with obscure glass and sheltered by label mouldings also light the church. The main entrance porch has projecting gables over the door and flanking arched windows. There are smaller porches to the transepts and rear.
There is an entrance vestibule and two pairs of arched timber doors set with lead light open into the main body of the church. The walls and ceiling are lined with beaded boards and the roof is supported by hammer beam. The floor is presently carpeted and there is a low platform at western end. This has gothic influenced panelling at the rear and has a small room on each side of the platform with the doors concealed in the panelling. Office rooms with a small gallery above have been constructed in the northern transept.
There is a modern metal garage at the southwest corner of the building and a single storey modern brick hall to the rear of the church. There structures are not considered to have heritage significance.
","history":"The former Sandgate Baptist Church is the second Baptist church in Sandgate and opened on Christmas Day 1887.
Baptists first arrived in Queensland in 1851 and were established in Brisbane by 1855. A church was constructed for them in Wharf Street, Brisbane in early 1859, soon after the arrival of Reverend B G Wilson. From this church, preaching stations were begun which developed into suburban churches. From 1868 open-air Baptist services were being held at Sandgate on the shore in the vicinity of the 1887 church.
In September 1852, J C Burnett made the first survey of the Sandgate area and the first sales of land were held in 1853. By 1858 there were 25 people living there and a hotel and shops had been established. In the 1860s, as access to the area improved, Sandgate developed as a seaside town on the English model providing salubrious sea air and a refuge from the oppressive heat of a Brisbane summer. Early Governors of Queensland and other prominent citizens spent holidays at Sandgate and there were guesthouses and houses available for rent from an early date.
By 1871 Sandgate had a population of 155 and in 1872 the first Baptist chapel, a small building in Loudon Street, was built. Within two years the settlement had a school and was linked by coach to Brisbane three times a week. By 1877 coaches travelled between Sandgate and Brisbane twice a day. In 1880 Sandgate was declared a town and in 1882 was connected to the capital by train. This dramatically reduced travel time to less than half an hour and boosted Sandgate's popularity as a place of residence and for holidaymakers and day-trippers.
By 1886 the population of Sandgate had risen to 1598 and the congregation of the Baptist chapel had increased to a point where it had outgrown the chapel in Loudon Street. A church member, George Phillips, donated a triangular piece of land consisting of 27 perches near the sea front at the corner of Flinders Parade and Cliff Street. It was agreed early in 1887 to form a Baptist Church separate from the Wharf Street church in Brisbane and the new building was constructed to the design of prominent Brisbane architect, Richard Gailey.
Gailey was trained as an architect in Londonderry, Ireland, and settled in Brisbane in 1864. He established his own practice in 1865, and over the next 60 years built up a thriving business, working until his death in 1924. He designed many hotels and commercial buildings, but also designed numerous churches. A staunch Baptist, he donated his services for a number of church buildings including the City Tabernacle in Brisbane. He is thought to have designed for first Baptist chapel in Sandgate.
A local builder, William Street, constructed the new church at a cost of £1300, the spire being erected by steeplejack Mr Collins. It originally had a shingled roof and was lit by kerosene lamps. A substantial building in the township, it seated 350 and probably served visitors and holidaymakers as well as the local community. Because it was one of the largest buildings in the developing town, the church was also sought after as a meeting place by a number of organisations, including the Freemasons. The first Masonic Lodge in Sandgate met there from 1894 until they acquired their own lodge in 1920.
Renovations to the church were undertaken in 1928, 1945 and in 1986 when a major renovation project was completed in time for the centenary of the opening of the church. Over time the church roof was replaced with slate, then iron sheeting and finally with coloured metal sheeting. The original kerosene lighting of the church was in turn replaced by gas, then electricity. The structure, however, remains substantially unchanged since its completion.
A modern metal garage adjoins the rear of the church and there is a single storey brick hall to the rear.
","criteria":"The former Sandgate Baptist church is important in demonstrating the development of the Sandgate area, an early settlement close to Brisbane that became a popular seaside resort serving the city. The church was built in 1887 following the boom in Sandgate's population as a consequence of its connection with Brisbane by rail. It is the second Baptist church in Sandgate and reflects the growth of the Baptist Union in Queensland, replacing a small chapel built in 1872. The size and quality of the church reflect not just the growth of the area but the importance given to religious observance in nineteenth century Queensland.
|The former Sandgate Baptist church is an excellent and substantially intact example of a timber church of its era in the Carpenter Gothic style.
|It has aesthetic value as a well-composed building on a landmark site on the seafront. In its form, scale and detail it makes an important visual contribution to the built character of Sandgate, a fact acknowledged by its popularity over the years as a subject for photographs.
|The former Sandgate Baptist church has a long association with the people of Sandgate and the surrounding district, being a place of worship and a meeting place for community groups for over a hundred years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4067,"place_ref":602504,"name":"Union College","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"38 Upland Road","suburb":"ST LUCIA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-12-06","description":"The University of Queensland is located on a large allotment on a bend of the Brisbane River at St Lucia. The Great Court is sited to dominate the rise of the land and have a commanding view of the surrounding campus buildings, the playing fields and the river beyond. The residential colleges are grouped to the south along the river with Union College set slightly further back.
Union College comprises several buildings. The two main buildings are linear in form and have an extruded appearance. The facilities block is a single-storey building facing north-east, which flows through underneath the lower storey of the residential block. The structure has a steel sheeted roof supported by an off-form concrete portal frame infilled with Mt Coot-tha bluestone. This type of structure creates a large open-plan internal space. The floors are parquetry, the ceilings are lined with strawboard and the joinery is blackbean. There is a distinctive brick fireplace with four arched openings over a central hearth.
There are courtyards formed between the angles of the buildings. Raised areas set with trees and surrounded by bluestone retaining walls preserve original hillocks on the site. The existing major trees have been supplemented by plantings of other trees, shrubs and flowering plants
The residential block is a three-storey building supported on off-form concrete pilotis. Sections of it are infilled below as the ground level drops away, but the three storey residential section is constant. The plan form of the building follows different angles, facing variously north-east, east, and north, creating courtyards that contain large mature trees and gardens. The pilotis support dark manganese brick internal walls. Open stairwells with off-form concrete external balustrades are located at regular intervals along the building. The external areas of off-form concrete have been painted. Windows are metal framed, with the original windows composed of a large panel spanning the window space at the top with two smaller windows below. All are pivoted horizontally and double-glazed with Venetian blinds enclosed. Most of the upper panels of the original windows have been replaced with triple hopper windows. The roof is reinforced concrete, and ceilings are sprayed vermiculite.
The former staff house lies between the accommodation and facilities blocks and echoes the form and materials of the accommodation blocks. It is .is a two-storey building constructed of brick and off form concrete with steel framed windows.
","history":"The Union College building at the University of Queensland campus was built in five major stages between 1964 and 1972 to the design of James Birrell, Staff Architect for the University between 1961 and 1966.
Proposals for a Queensland university were first made in the 1870s, but the idea did not have strong public or government support in a new colony where tertiary education was not a funding priority. An Act of State Parliament eventually established the new University of Queensland on December 10, 1909. Sir William MacGregor, the incoming Governor of Queensland, was appointed as the first Chancellor. Before his arrival, it had been decided to purchase and renovate 'Fernberg', a house at Bardon, as the new Government House and to use the vacated government residence and part of its grounds at Gardens Point for the University. This was a controversial decision and many thought that the building and domain were unsuitable and too small for the purpose. There was little room for expansion and there were conflicts with the neighbouring Brisbane Central Technical College. In 1910 the first teaching faculties were created and in early 1911 the first students enrolled, although relocation was already being discussed.
Victoria Park had been chosen in 1906 as a campus site, though the high cost of preparing the steeply sloping land for building presented problems and Yeronga Park and St Lucia were also considered as options. In 1926 the difficulty of obtaining a suitable permanent site was solved when Dr James Mayne and Miss Mary Mayne made £50,000 available to the Brisbane City Council to resume land at St Lucia and present it to the University. In 1930 the University Senate handed over Victoria Park, less eleven acres reserved for a medical school, to the Brisbane City Council in exchange for the St Lucia site.
During the years of the Depression that followed, government funding and staff numbers were reduced, although student enrolments trebled between 1923 and 1933. There was no prospect of building on the new site until 1935 when the Premier, W. Forgan Smith, announced that the Queensland government would undertake construction. The University Senate committee produced a preliminary design and the Sydney firm of Hennessy, Hennessy & Co was appointed as architects for the project. They produced the Great Court plan with its sandstone, classically inspired buildings that remains central to the University and which influenced later building.
The foundation stone was laid in 1937 but the Second World War disrupted work and the main building was used as the headquarters of General Sir Thomas Blamey, head of the Australian Defence forces. Work had re-commenced by 1948 and the Forgan Smith Building was officially opened in May 1949 followed by other major buildings of the Great Court in the 1950s and 60s.
Residential Colleges to accommodate the students had been established for some time on the edges of the inner city area but it was intended that they should relocate when permanent sites were available on the new campus. Sites had been allocated for Emmanuel, St John's, King's, St Leo's, Duchesne and Women's Colleges, although the war had halted construction plans, as it had the development of the University buildings. Religious institutions ran all but Women's College and all accommodated only a single gender.
In 1943 the University of Queensland Student's Union planned a non-denominational Union College as an alternative to traditional religious colleges. It was expected that after the war student numbers would increase greatly and that accommodation would be in short supply. A Student Housing Committee was formed. It was intended that the new college should be owned by the Union, run by a Warden elected by the students and approved by the university Senate, and governed by a representative body of students. However, land had only been allocated at St Lucia for the six colleges existing when plans were drawn up in the 1930s. High building costs also delayed the construction of a new building and the Union opened a student hostel in rented premises in Wickham Terrace in 1947. By 1950 the hostel had gained College status and in 1952, the Union requested that land be allocated for the college on the St Lucia campus. Land opposite the St John's College site and bordered by the no 1 oval and a grove of native trees was reserved for Union College in December 1952. Building schemes were considered in 1953, but the cost was too great and the Union purchased two large houses in Wickham Terrace in April 1956, after the premises they had formerly rented was sold.
In January 1958, a sub committee was set up to consider building schemes, though these could not be implemented until the 1963-66 triennium. The buildings at Wickham Terrace had proved to be a good investment and the loan was paid out by 1960. It was decided to survey the St Lucia site, though the University's Staff Architect, James Birrell, questioned its suitability. He suggested that 'if the Union College were built along the west frontage of the Tree Reserve in buildings artfully arranged to avoid destruction of trees, it would be on elevated ground, not overlooked by surrounding country, associated only with residential development and on good foundation.' This new site was approved and transferred to the college in December and Birrell began preparation of plans for the college.
James Peter Birrell was born in Melbourne and studied architecture at Melbourne Technical College. Following World War Two he worked as a draughtsman for the State, then the Commonwealth Works Departments. As a cadet architect with the Commonwealth Department of Works he was accepted as a fourth year student at the University of Melbourne. After graduating in 1951 he graduated and worked briefly as Resident Architect at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. In 1952 he co-founded Architecture and Arts with Peter Burns, Helen O'Donnell and Norman Lehey. Transferred to Canberra, he worked on the design of schools, telephone exchanges, group housing, and alterations to the Canberra Repertory Theatre. Moving back to Melbourne in 1953, he worked on post office buildings. Birrell exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society and helped to organise a tour for them before being transferred to Darwin to take charge of the Commonwealth Department drawing office. Here he designed schools, hospital extensions, shopping centres and various ancillary structures.
In 1955 he resigned from the Commonwealth Works Department and was appointed Architect in Charge of the drawing office of the Brisbane City Council's Architectural Branch. While with the Council, he designed a large number of public buildings, many of which were illustrated in national design journals, and included such innovative buildings as the Toowong Municipal Library [602011], the Centenary Pool [601240] and the Wickham Terrace Car Park [601511].
Birrell was Architect to the University of Queensland from 1961-66, overseeing the university's second major phase of construction development. Beginning part time lecturing at the University's Department of Architecture and at QIT, he also worked on the Master Plan for the expansion of the University. His most notable buildings designed in this period include Union College, the JD Story Administration Building, Staff House and the Agriculture and Entomology Building (now the Hartley Teakle Building). As part of his work for the University, he designed the James Cook University in Townsville in 1963, and continued to design buildings for the St Lucia campus. In 1965 Birrell was appointed President of the Australian Planning Institute. In 1966 he designed the Union Theatre and Hartley Teakle Building before moving into private practice.
By July 1963, Birrell had developed a plan for Union College that he believed would:
Provide a residential collegiate atmosphere without undue institutional appearance. This has been achieved by meandering the dormitory block in a more of less rambling fashion so that it encloses in effect two cloistered courtyards, one of which overlooks no 2 oval across the top of the communal facilities building and the other, the residential section of Upland Road. Incidentally, this meandering avoids the removal of any substantial trees.
The facilities block has been arranged along even contours one floor lower than the dormitory building so that at no point are the bedroom outlooks detrimentally affected. Service entrance is at the north so that service facilities are grouped against the future substation area that adjoins the sites, hence buffering incompatible areas from the College. The facilities block requires the removal of two trees only.
This plan represented the cutting edge of international ideas on architecture in respect of its form and the mode of its construction and generated a considerable amount of interest in the building and design industries.. It achieved a combination of good quality design and economy while responding imaginatively to its site. In an era when buildings in Queensland were generally constructed on a cleared and levelled site, not only the placement, but also the design of the college buildings was influenced by the existing topography and vegetation, which became part of the design. Union College would have an impact on the funding of college buildings throughout Australia. The tender of T J Watkins was accepted in June 1964 and the first stage was still being completed when Education Minister, Jack Pizzey, officially opened it in July 1965. The first stage comprised part of the Common Facilities wing residential blocks and staff quarters at a cost of £240,000 (480,000). The new college was adjudged one of the ten best buildings in Australia for 1965 by the Australian Journal of Architecture and Arts.
Union College marked a departure from the design of other residential colleges on campus. Innovative features ranged from the large one piece pivoting windows to the flat roof intended to be used for living and recreational space. Forms were simple and robust and the stone, timber, off form concrete and metals chosen were intended to weather to soft tones of grey with contrasts in texture.
The college was not only innovative in its form and use of materials and in its response to the site, but also in concept. Previous designs for student accommodation in Queensland were more conservative and had followed traditional institutional models. Union College had courtyards, recreational and tutorial facilities and student units, providing a modern lifestyle for adult students. As an extension of this approach, in 1968 Union College became the first coeducational residential college in Queensland. Although this was a controversial move in the conservative atmosphere of the time, this and other features of life at Union College, innovative in the 1960s and 70s, are now the norm as university accommodation more closely reflects daily life in the wider community.
Extensions were carried out during the 1963-66 triennium including extending the facilities wing, landscaping and constructing the warden's residence on the ground floor of block F. The tender of C P Hornick and Sons was accepted in May 1966 for an overall cost of $77,463.
The next stage comprised construction of Block C (floors GHJ and KLM). The tender of Harris James was accepted in July 1967 and the work was completed in June 1968 at a cost of $412,815. Half of the rooms in this residential block were made available to women students, though they were at first accommodated on different floors to the men.
In June 1968 the Brisbane City Council purchased the two old college buildings in Wickham Terrace at a cost of $265,000. Planning for the 4th stage of construction began in 1969. This was to complete the residential wings and build units for married tutors and tutorial rooms. Federal funding of $150,000 was granted for this stage (PQR floors) and the tender of C P Hornick was accepted in December 1969. The completed cost was $397,344.
Plans were then begun for the completion of the college (XYZ floors). Harris James tender was accepted in January 1973 and work was finalized in 1974. The college as a whole was estimated to have cost $1,500,000 to build.
In the late 1990s a detached brick function room with a tiled, hipped roof was constructed to the rear of the kitchen. It was also designed by Birrell, but does not match the earlier buildings in form or materials.
Some changes have taken place, though the buildings are substantially intact and retain their character. The off-form concrete has been painted with sealant. Trios of hopper windows have replaced the majority of the large pivoted windowpanes that formed a distinctive feature of the design. An unsympathetic security fence has been added at the south.
The landmark trees, which were an important part of the original design concept, remain though secondary planting of has been added.
","criteria":"Union College marks an important stage in the modern development of the University of Queensland. An innovative residential college designed in 1963, it was modern and functional in concept and construction and responds to the vegetation and topography of its site. It marked a departure from college design on this campus and reflected international ideas on architecture.
|Union College was highly praised at the time of its building as visually pleasing, well conceived and innovative structure.
|Union College was highly praised at the time of its building as visually pleasing, well conceived and innovative structure. The design was innovative in its interaction with the site, in its form and use of materials and represented a high degree of creative achievement, recognised by a High Commendation award by Arts and Architecture journal as one of the best ten new buildings in Australia at the time.
|Union College has social significance as an important component of university life to the many people who have resided there as students or as teachers and administrators. It also represented a departure from tradition in the provision of a modern lifestyle for students and as the first residential college in Queensland to offer accommodation to both men and women.
|Union College is important as a major work of James Birrell, an architect of national stature and repute, and is evidence of his thought and practice. Birrell was Staff Architect for the University of Queensland when he selected the site and designed Union College and was involved with the master planning of the campus. He had a design philosophy that integrated structures and landscape as evidenced by this building. The work of James Birrell, particularly for the Brisbane City Council and the University of Queensland is widely held to be influential and innovative.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4100,"place_ref":602256,"name":"Mount Elliott Company Metallurgical Plant and Mill","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Via Sheaffe Street","suburb":"CLONCURRY","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-17","description":"The place contains the remains of an electrolytic reduction plant comprising five groups of structures.
The primary crusher and ore dump group situated to the south comprise an ore dump site, earth loading ramp, concrete surfaces, tanks and building foundations. An iron flotation unit is located on the site (not in situ).
To the north are the concrete mounts and foundations of a wedge roasting furnace. These structures include a flue and iron chimney base and a vertical boiler alongside a concrete tank.
Adjacent to the west is a large concrete leaching vat 20m square and 3m in height, which was originally equipped with a gantry crane. The walls of the vat are supported by heavy concrete buttresses.
To the north are four circular leaching vats of concrete construction each 11m in width and 3m in height.
The northern group of structures is located alongside to south of the Cloncurry - Mount Isa railway. This group comprises concrete surfaces and foundations of the electrolytic works, a rendered brick flue and base of an iron chimney and three concrete tanks each approximately 15m² by 1.5m in depth.
The fifth component of the site is the foundations of a former laboratory building, constructed with mud brick walls with cement render on exterior and interior surfaces.
Plant equipment at the site includes a vertical boiler (no brand) and flotation unit (not in situ) (no brand).
","history":"During 1924-25 the Mount Elliott Company and Hampden Cloncurry negotiated a scheme of amalgamation but this fell through when Mount Elliott acquired the Mount Cuthbert properties. In 1926 Hampden Cloncurry conceded defeat and offered its assets for sale by tender, most being acquired by Mount Elliott, who finally gained control of virtually the entire Cloncurry copper field and belatedly fulfilled W.H. Corbould's vision of 1909 for amalgamation. But it was too late: funds were exhausted and prices were low (Hore-Lacey 1981:175). The company decided to use the English Mackay process to utilise the low-grade ores of the district. This was a new form of electrolytic smelting.
In 1926 the company started building the first 1,000 ton per year unit of a large electro-chemical copper treatment plant at Cloncurry on the outskirts of the town adjacent to the railway line. This comprised crushing, roasting furnace, leaching vats and a cell house section and was completed in April 1927.
The 6m diameter Mackay modified wedge furnace had seven roasting and one drying hearths. The furnace was connected to a Wilson pressure-type gas producer, which delivered gas to the roasting furnace as fuel to roast the ore. The furnace plant was enclosed in a steel building 11m by 11m and 12m high. In the leaching plant there were two reinforced concrete tanks 9m by 18m by 3m deep and four reinforced concrete solution storage tanks 9m in diameter and 3m deep. The plant for the electrolytic deposition of copper from the leaching solutions was in a two-storey steel building, 15m by 18m and 13m high. On the second level there were 24 wooded tanks 3.7m long, lined with lead, and containing electrolytic cells, cathodes, and anode bars. On the ground level were three wooden solution circulating tanks.
The power plant was located 4.5m from the electrolytic plant and housed in a steel building 9m by 18m by 9m high, with the boiler in a separate building. The plant included a Babcock and Wilcox boiler with a 37m steel chimney stack. A Belliss and Morcom compound engine was directly connected to a 400kw alternator. A spray cooling plant consisting of a concrete reservoir 18m by 18m and 1.5m deep with a series of spray pipes and nozzles operated from an electric centrifugal pump, was designed to cool 30,000 gallons of water an hour (QGMJ 15 Jan 1927:27).
However, before the plant was actually commissioned, instructions were received from London to close down without even a trial run. Apparently, the £128,000 construction expenses had been too high and it was considered that the capacity was insufficient for profitability (Hore-Lacey 1981:175).
It has been asserted (Blainey 1960:56) that the company had infringed a foreign patent, but cost factors may have influenced the decision to close the plant.
References:
Blainey, Geoffrey. 1960. Mines in the Spinifex, p.56.
Hore-Lacy, Ian (ed). 198 1. Broken Hill to Mount Isa, the Mining Odyssey of W. H. Corbould, p. 175.
Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 January 1927, p.27.
","criteria":"Its construction testifies to the optimism held by the company for a centralised modern plant to service all their scattered ore reserves across the region.
|The Mount Elliott Company Metallurgical Plant is significant in Queensland's history as the only recorded surviving evidence of an early electrolytic plant.
The laboratory remnants associated with the plant are architecturally uncommon, being made of ant bed adobe bricks.
|(Criterion under review)
|The process was Mr H.S. Mackay's own invention and the plant was designed in London. It was the first plant of its kind ever built and Mackay supervised its construction at Cloncurry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4161,"place_ref":602444,"name":"Hamilton Town Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"36-42 Racecourse Road","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The former Hamilton Town Hall is on a corner block, with the entrance to the Library from Racecourse Road and the entrance to the Hall from Rossiter Parade. Itl consists of a series of linked single-storey structures comprising the original brick main building (Hall and Library), a timber Supper Room, and the 1973 brick annexe. The main building is a load-bearing face brick structure with a timber-framed floor and a timber-framed terracotta tiled roof. Externally the building features English-bond face brickwork contrasted by a rendered base, string courses and entablature. Both street elevations are emphasized by a pedimented frontispiece. The original balustraded parapet is now missing, as are the metal palisades and gates to both street alignments.
Library (formerly Council Chambers)
The entrance to the library consists of a vestibule with Art Nouveau-styled leaded glass windows and tessellated/encaustic floor tiles. Some floor tiles are replicas laid down in 2004. Only a small section of the border pattern consists of the original tiles, the others being specially made replicas laid in 2004. Panels in the French doors opening into the library and sections on either side of the doors are all matching leadlight.
Internally, the Library has been substantially altered by the removal of walls and doorways. However, the 'Reliance' strongroom with steel doors remains in working order. The main windows to both street facades are original Diocletian windows and sashes. The interior features shallow coffered ceilings with plaster rose. Picture rails remain in some rooms, and the section of the library with the strongroom is half paneled. The original open verandah to the north of the library has been unsympathetically enclosed with timber boarding and glass louvres.
Hall and Supper Room
The Hall, across the rear of the library, is much more intact and features a fibrous plaster ceiling with coffered timber beams. Two large roof ventilators are built into the Hall roof.
The Supper Room is a small single-storey timber-framed weather board clad structure with a timber floor close to the ground, paired casement windows, and a gabled, corrugated iron roof. Internally, the Supper Room is an open space with cupboards and a sink underneath the windows at the rear of the room. It is linked to the Hall by a dressing room, and a recently constructed covered walkway of no heritage significance incorporating ornate timber detailing which is neither original nor authentic and has unsympathetically altered two of the original large Hall windows.
Annexe
The Mobile Library Service Annexe is a modern cavity brick concrete slab on ground structure with a tiled roof. The building in its scale, form, materials and detailing are all unsympathetic to the main building to which it is attached. It is not considered to have any heritage significance
","history":"The Hamilton Town Hall, a single-storey brick building comprising Council Chambers and public hall, was erected in 1920 for the Hamilton Town Council. It was designed by M.T. Stanley, and is one eight remaining Town Halls from the twenty that were built prior to the formation of Greater Brisbane in 1925
When Moreton Bay was opened for free settlement in 1842, local government was controlled from Sydney, using British Imperial Government policy. The Municipality of Brisbane was not proclaimed until 1859, and the first Council was elected in the same year. As settlements sprang up around Brisbane a desire for separate municipality status developed, and in 1879 the Divisional Boards Act provided for a number of new autonomous authorities adjacent to Brisbane. By 1891, 21 local authorities had been created in the Brisbane metropolitan area under this legislation. These consisted of the City of Brisbane as well as a municipality, shires, divisions, and one borough.
In 1890, the Hamilton Division separated from Toombul, although the Hamilton Divisional Board initially conducted its business from the Toombul Divisional Board Offices. Andrew Petrie was appointed the first Chairman. The Board became a Town Council in 1904 and the first Mayor was J.B. Charlton. In 1917 the Council purchased 64 perches (approximately 1600square metres) of land in Racecourse Road with the intention of building Council Chambers and a Public Hall. In 1919 plans and specifications for the new building were received from Montague Stanley, son of F.D.G. Stanley, the well-known colonial architect. At a special meeting, amendments were made, including a wider front door and the use of Australian manufactured materials. A tender from Messrs McArthur & Walker for £6,894 was accepted and the current mayor Alderman George Rees laid the foundation stone on 26 September 1919. Extra walling and iron railing with a double gate along Racecourse Road was added to the plan and the building was completed in 1920 for a cost of £8,873.
The Town Hall accommodated Council Officers as well as providing Council Chambers and a public Hall. There were a kitchen and a strong room, but it is not known if the Supper Room was constructed at this time. An Honour Board for local residents who had contributed to The First World War was erected in the Council Offices.
With rapid population increases, small local governments found it ever more difficult to fund and administer their responsibilities effectively and economically. The development of services such as roads, transport, water supply and sewerage could only be efficiently managed by an overarching authority. A move to amalgamate local authorities began in 1902 when the division of Booroodabin rejoined the city of Brisbane. The idea of amalgamation was promoted throughout the 1900s and culminated in the City of Brisbane Act of 1924, when Hamilton was one of the towns and shires who joined to form the Brisbane City Council. The first Greater Brisbane Council was elected on 21 February 1925 and the Hamilton Town Council was disbanded.
The Town Hall then became the property of the Brisbane City Council and since that time has had various uses. During 1925/1926 it is recorded as a Council Depot in the Post Office Directories. From 1927 it was known as the School of Arts and provided a venue for social events. The building was headquarters for the Australian Army Survey Corps during World War Two. After the war, major alterations were made to the Council Chambers to create the Hamilton Municipal Library. The Hall continued to be used for various social activities. Additions were made to the northern end of the Hall in 1973 to accommodate the Mobile Library Service. Further changes in 1987 included alterations to the dressing room and a covered walkway between the Supper Room and the Hall. The former Town Hall still houses the City Council's Hamilton Library and it is used by an amateur theatrical group and by other local groups for meetings and social activities. Though its use as a venue for functions and gatherings and as a local library, the building has long associations with the cultural and social life of the area.
","criteria":"Hamilton Town Hall is important in demonstrating the pattern of Brisbane's development, in particular the construction of civic buildings for the local authorities that predated the formation of the Brisbane City Council in 1925. It is important for its association with the development of the Hamilton district, and is evidence for its growth and prosperity in the early twentieth century.
|Hamilton Town Hall is important as a good example a town hall of the Interwar period.
|As a handsome and well-composed public building on a prominent site, Hamilton Town Hall is important for its landmark quality and its formal two-street facade makes a substantial contribution to the character of the area.
|Hamilton Town Hall is important to the community. The building has social significance as a centrally located civic building which has been a focal point for social and community functions for over eighty years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4173,"place_ref":602788,"name":"Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre","alternate_name":"Fortitude Valley Baby Clinic & Nurse Training Centre","street_address":"112 Alfred Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-08-12","description":"The Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre, formerly the Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic, is a two-storey brick structure with part basement, located on a sloping site facing north-west and fronting Alfred Street. The building is in an Arts and Crafts style and sits slightly back from its front boundary behind a brick fence with tall, capped piers and a simple, timber gate.
\nThe building has a hipped roof of corrugated, asbestos cement sheet with projecting, ventilated gables at the ridge. The exterior front and side walls are red face brick in English bond to the basement and front verandah, and stretcher bond up to the sill level of the first floor, above which the treatment is painted, pebble-dash stucco to the timber eaves. Face brick quoining extends the height of both levels and the upper level windows have face brick lintels. Windows are typically timber casements of eight panes with fanlights and cement rendered sills. Some windows/fanlights have been removed and replaced with fixed panes or sheet material for ventilation ducts. Most are shielded by steel mesh security panels on steel frames attached to the building. Two upper-level windows on the north-east elevation have timber hoods. Mounted on the building at ground floor level are many air-handling units with ducting running up the face of the building.
\nA cement render plaque on the front façade reads 'BABY CLINIC TRAINING CENTRE, ERECTED 1923 AD, HON W McCORMACK, HOME SEC.Y'. The rear verandah on two levels, supported on an English bond brick wall, is enclosed with painted weatherboards and a variety of windows, some of which date to the 1927 enclosure. A 1940 timber fire stair runs down the rear elevation from the upper level to the ground floor but not to the rear yard.
\nEntrance is through a central verandah flush with the Alfred Street façade. On both the ground and first levels, the verandah is timber and has simple, painted timber battening, balustrade, and weatherboards. The verandah is partially enclosed by timber casements, fixed glass, and sheet fixed behind the balustrade. The ground floor retains an early, steel, expandable security gate and early timber bench. The front door has been replaced with a modern one but the original may survive in the doors that are stacked in the basement.
\nThe room layout corresponds very closely to the 1940 reconfiguration. This comprises a large central space with stair that is a reception area on the ground level and a waiting area on the upper level that gives access to rooms on three sides.
\nThe building retains its original partitions, constructed of cement plaster on vertical steel rods and metal lathe. The rooms on the enclosed front and rear verandahs have walls lined with vertically jointed tongue and groove boards
\nThe ceilings throughout the core of the building are lined with flat sheet and timber cover battens in a simple geometric pattern and on the upper level there are ventilation panels that have been sheeted closed with the grille potentially surviving behind. The ceilings to the enclosed verandah are lined with vertically jointed tongue and groove boards with the exception of the front ground floor which has a ceiling lined with ripple iron. No original ceiling fittings have been retained with modern light fixtures and ceiling fans found throughout. The cornice is a square, timber cover strip. Internally, windows and doors have distinctive, tapered timber architraves. Generally the doors have 3 panels and are high-waisted, and almost all retain their original hardware including keyhole covers. Those opening onto the now enclosed verandahs are french with low waists and twelve lights in the upper section of each leaf. Door panel mouldings and skirtings differ between the original building and later extension. Windows, where original, are multi-paned, retain original hardware, and most have had their glass painted out. The skirtings are timber and are a simple ogee in the oldest part and a simple splay in the 1938 extension. The floors are linoleum sheets and tiles, or carpet throughout. The original crows ash timber flooring may survive underneath. The central spaces on both levels have chair rails and the first floor waiting area contains a picture rail.
\nMost of the original fittings remain including plumbing items, joinery, architraves, dado rails, and an impressive silky oak staircase. The enclosed portion of the front verandah on the ground floor also contains many early items that have been gathered over time and relate to baby clinic functions including baby-weighing scales, metal cots, photos of nurses, and a variety of furniture. The basement contains some early or original doors removed from the upper levels.
\nThere is narrow vehicular access to the rear of the site along the south-west side of the building. Nothing remains of the original garden. The rear boundary is shared with the Fortitude Valley Railway Station and has a high chain wire fence with barbed wire security.
\n","history":"
The Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre was constructed in 1923 as a baby clinic, maternity and infant nurse training centre, and administrative headquarters for baby clinics in the state and has been operating continuously for child health care since. It was the first purpose-built maternal and child welfare nurse training centre in Queensland following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922 which was part of a national and international movement to improve the health of mothers and babies.
Queensland infant death rates were high at the turn of the 20th century. Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner, the Brisbane Children's Hospital's first resident medical officer appointed in 1889, was instrumental in reducing the death rate through his work on developing a diphtheria antitoxin which he introduced to Brisbane in 1894. Dr Turner then embarked on a further public health campaign, educating mothers in the hygienic preparation of food, particularly for those infants not breast fed [1], as diarrhoea remained a major factor in infant deaths.
Such initiatives reflected a growing international move towards the reduction of infant mortality through maternal education. Both England and Germany established Schools for Mothers in 1905. In New Zealand, the Royal Society for the Health of Women was founded in 1907 by Dr Frederick Truby King. His emphasis was on the promotion of breast feeding, the training of nurses in maternal and infant welfare and the education of parents in domestic hygiene. [2]
In 1908 Dr Turner established the first infant welfare clinic in Brisbane. [3] He saw up to 100 babies a week, free of charge, although this clinic was a short-lived operation due to a lack of funds. [4] Ongoing lobbying for the establishment of baby clinics was undertaken by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Women's Electoral League and the National Council of Women. Following a child welfare conference in Sydney in 1916, the establishment of three (later expanded to four) Queensland baby clinics was announced by the Home Secretary John Huxham in August 1917. [5] At that time there were 11 clinics in New South Wales and one in Victoria. [6] South Australia had adopted the English/German model of the School for Mothers, opening its first Institute in Adelaide in September 1911. [7] Huxham travelled to Sydney and Melbourne in January 1918, to assess these clinics in preparation for planning the Brisbane baby clinics. [8]
The first Queensland Government baby clinic opened in a rented cottage in Brunswick Street, near Robertson Street, Fortitude Valley [9] on 8 March 1918, managed by Matron Florence Chatfield of the Diamantina Hospital. In the early decades of the 20th century Fortitude Valley was a popular residential area. It had become an important commercial and retail district in the late nineteenth century following its establishment in the 1850s with the expansion of the settlement of the town of Brisbane. The three other clinics opened shortly after at Woolloongabba, Spring Hill and West End. [10]
Public health and social reform was implicit in the growth of the town planning movement and in mid-1918 at the second Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane, a display provided advice on bathing, clothing and proper nutrition of infants. [11] The organiser of this conference was Charles Edward Chuter, an officer of the Home Secretary's Department, who was to have a significant impact on the Queensland health system. Charles Chuter initiated the funding of facilities for mothers and infants through the Golden Casket lottery, where profits were allocated to the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund. The government assumed management of lotteries in 1920.
The profits generated through the Golden Casket facilitated the implementation of the Maternity Act 1922. The introduction of this Act was a turning point in health services for women and children in Queensland. It provided for the establishment of maternity hospitals and baby clinics throughout the state. The policy had four aims: to decrease the death rate of mothers and babies, to increase the birth rate, to increase outback settlement, and to train mothers in how to care for children. A Labor government initiative, the Maternity Act 1922 had been formulated in a social and political context where the issue of fostering and developing a healthy and virile population was closely linked to the economic development of the state.
On 22 January 1923 the Daily Standard declared that Labor's noblest legislation was about to take practical form with the construction of a maternal and child welfare clinic and training school for nurses in Fortitude Valley. A brief for the clinic had been prepared by Chuter and included the accommodation of a lecture room, the usual equipment for a clinic, and a ward with three beds to accommodate mothers. It was to be the headquarters of the Maternal and Child Welfare Clinics in Queensland and the distribution centre for supplies and literature. The building was designed by Queensland Department of Public Works' architect, Cecil James Virgo (1895 - 1976). His work includes a number of fine public buildings of the interwar period - Coorparoo State School (1929-34), Mackay Central State School (1933, QHR 601911), Milton State School (1935), and Toowoomba North State School (1937).
Virgo's work is representative of the high-quality design that the Department produced during the interwar period. Typically the work was classically inspired though executed in contemporary styles with a conscious emphasis on giving institutional buildings a domestic character. These were constructed with high-quality materials and workmanship to achieve economical but long-lasting buildings.
A site in Alfred Street Fortitude Valley containing two cottages was purchased from local merchant TC Beirne for the sum of ¿850. The new site was in a central location close to the shopping area and to public transport with the Brunswick Street Railway Station directly adjacent. At that time a cottage near the corner of Alfred Street was refurbished for use as the clinic, while the second cottage was sold for removal enabling the construction of the new purpose-built clinic and nurse training centre. [12] The brick building of two-storeys and basement was commenced in 1923, and was nearing completion in October when it was discovered that the Brisbane City Council intended to sewer the area, delaying it being finished while the drainage was altered. The Department of Public Works reported on 4 January 1924 that the building was completed, pending the connection to the sewerage. Matron Chatfield moved in on 15 January, although the opening of the new clinic was delayed until October 1924 waiting for drainage approvals. The building cost ¿5,000. [13]
The new Fortitude Valley Baby Clinic and Nurse Training Centre (now known as the Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre) had a timber verandah on both levels at the front and rear with timber lattice screening. The ground floor contained the clinic with waiting room and doctor's and treatment rooms as well as the resident nurses-in-training accommodation with a day room, bathroom and kitchen. The first floor held the training centre with a large lecture room and ward to house three mothers and their babies, the Superintendent Nurse's bedroom and a sitting room. The basement was used for storage and laundry. Brisbane City Council's Parks Division laid out the grounds at a cost of ¿20 that was borne by the Home Secretary. The floors were originally stained and polished timber, but by November 1925 a request was made to purchase linoleum to be installed throughout, because the slippery floors were considered dangerous to mothers and children. [14]
The first nurses at the centre were trained elsewhere. Nurse Barron, trained at the Karitane Nursing School in New Zealand, was the head of the establishment. Three other nurses trained at the Tresillian Child Welfare Centre in Sydney. The first four month training course for Queensland nurses commenced at the end of 1924. It produced eight graduates, trained in the Truby King Mothercraft system, followed by a further eleven in 1925. [15] These nurses went on to run new baby clinics [16], including those at Rockhampton, Townsville, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Cairns, Maryborough, Bundaberg Gympie, Mackay, Charters Towers, Woolloongabba and Warwick all constructed between October 1923 and February 1930. Apart from the Cairns clinic, the remaining ten regional clinics were of a standardised design. Thirty-five maternity wards were built in hospitals across the state at this time. [17]
In 1925-26 the Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre had the highest number of attendances and visits to new-borns compared with others in operation located in Herschel Street Brisbane City, West End, Woolloongabba, and Wynnum South. As headquarters for Queensland's baby clinics, administration of the clinics was performed from the building until around 1942 with clinics being sent 'rules' attempting to standardise the quality of health care throughout the state. [18] Dr Turner was appointed part-time director of the Department of Infant Welfare in July 1926 and he and Nurse Barron began travelling the state lecturing and writing about the need for high standards of infant care.
By July 1927 the number of patients attending the clinic for treatment had increased and accommodation was insufficient. The front verandah was enclosed with asbestos cement sheeting and venetian blinds for more room. In the same year the rear verandah was enclosed with sliding sashes to form a bedroom for the Superintendent Nurse and her previous room was converted to an office. With increased staff numbers, the rear verandah on the ground floor was enclosed with sashes to form a dining room. In 1928 a portion of the ground floor, front verandah was enclosed with sashes to give mothers and their babies' greater privacy from the street.
The Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre was expanded in 1929 to include ante-natal care [19] (pre-birth health care) and during the 1930s the accommodation at the clinic was regularly overtaxed. A large clinic was planned for South Brisbane at this time but was never built. Legislation introduced in 1932 made it compulsory for all births to be notified to the district registrar within 48 hours. The registrar then had to inform the nearest clinic within 24 hours.
In 1933 the building was painted externally and the old kalsomine paint was removed from the interior walls, which were then repainted.
The baby clinic system continued to expand during the 1930s. Nurses travelled the state in a specially fitted out rail car, equipped as a baby clinic, lecture room and staff quarters. A number of regional sub-centres were established from 1929, and these were also accessed by nurses travelling by rail. By 1938 the rail car was limited to the north-west corner of the state and the remainder was serviced by 26 baby clinics and 78 sub-centres. Both Dr Turner and Nurse Barron retired in 1938. In 1939 the name of the service was changed from the Department of Infant Welfare, to the Maternal and Child Welfare Department.
In 1938, a 4.5 m wide two-storey extension with basement was added to the Alfred Street building along the entire south-western side adding many new rooms and additional space. The extension was designed by Public Works architect Francis Lionel Jones in matching style and detail to the original building. The verandah roof was altered so as to be continuous from the main roof. In 1940 the upper level, front verandah was enclosed with casements and a fire stair was added to the back verandah. This extension was used as a Mothercraft home. The 1938 Annual Report of the Acting Director of Infant Welfare, Dr THR Matthewson, reported that the Alfred Street Clinic had taken in some premature and delicate babies and their mothers, including a set of triplets, all of whom had made satisfactory progress. There was a demonstrated need for a designated mothercraft home, but at that time the service could only be offered during the time that nurses were in training, which only occurred for eight months of the year.
In 1938 Dr Matthewson initiated an informal correspondence service for mothers unable to attend local clinics. [20] The following year he reported that lectures and demonstration of infant feeding were given to four doctors at the request of the British Medical Association, and that Lady Cilento, Lecturer in Mothercraft at the University of Queensland, attended the Alfred Street Clinic with her class of medical students on two occasions for demonstrations on care, management and feeding of infants. [21]
During the war, the clinic service particularly monitored families who had to be evacuated from areas where invasion seemed imminent. The petrol shortage led to an establishment of clinics in every suburb, amounting to 38 by 1942. Dr Matthewson was permanently appointed to the position of Medical Director in August 1941. At that time the facilities at the Alfred Street building were overcrowded. The Department of Defence which had occupied the Lady Lamington Hospital, vacated it, allowing for the Director, Superintendant, clerical staff, the nurses in charge of the correspondence centre, and ante-natal service to be relocated to this building. The correspondence service was able to be formalised from the new location.
The Mothercraft residential service could then be properly established at St Paul's Terrace, and housed 29 mothers and 53 infants during its first year, compared with 18 mothers and 31 infants who had been housed at Alfred Street the previous year. The Training School was relocated to St Paul's Terrace in 1942, and nurses accommodated in a nearby boarding house. [22] A second Mothercraft Home opened in Clayfield in 1943. Mothercraft facilities were expanded with the opening of 'Unara' in Toowoomba in 1947, the Jefferis Turner Home in Ipswich in August 1952, and the Rockhampton Home in September 1952.
By 1950 the infant mortality rate was reduced to fewer than 25 deaths per thousand births. New clinics were established in regional centres and many of the early clinic buildings were either extended or sold and larger buildings provided. Dr Jean McFarlane, who had become Deputy Director General in 1957, began regular television appearances in the early 1960s advising mothers on the management of their babies. [23] By 1975, Queensland recorded the lowest ever recorded infant mortality rate of 15 deaths per 1000 live births.
Major changes in the function of the Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre occurred from this time. During 1975 some administrative staff relocated to the first section of a new building under construction on the site of the former Lady Lamington Hospital, in St Paul's Terrace. It opened in November 1977 and included a Mothercraft Home and Nurse Training Centre. In 1978 the Maternal Child Welfare Service celebrated its 60th Jubilee. During this time the Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre continued to operate as a baby clinic although the use of the entire building had somewhat diminished since the 1941 relocation of the administrative, training and residential functions. Consequently little alteration has been made to the building fabric since then. In 1997, the directorate of Queensland Health's Oral Health Service moved into the building and in 2011 occupied the upper level and two offices on the ground level. [24] Community Child Health Services continues to occupy the remainder of the ground level of the building.
","criteria":"The Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre (1923) is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland Government health and social policy as it was the first training centre for maternal and child welfare nurses in the state, the headquarters and administration centre for all other baby clinics in the state, operated as one of the first baby clinics, and provided accommodation for mothers. Built as a Queensland Government initiative following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922 and with funding from the state-operated lottery, the Golden Casket, it is important in demonstrating the government response to the early twentieth century Australia-wide movement to educate mothers in infant welfare and domestic hygiene, aimed at reducing the infant mortality rate.
|The Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre is highly intact and important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built maternal and child welfare clinic, which include the spacious waiting area, doctor's room, treatment room and nurse accommodation. It also includes a nurse training centre incorporating a lecture room, and mother and baby accommodation consisting of wards, sitting room and laundry and ironing rooms.
The Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre is a good example of an interwar Queensland Department of Public Works institutional building characterised by good quality design and materials and constructed economically with discreet use of decorative treatments to achieve a domestic scale and character well suited to its use.
|Remaining as one of the two operational child health clinics from a group of 13 built across the state between 1923 and 1930, the Fortitude Valley Child Health Centre is significant for being highly intact and, as of 2011, having been in continuous use as a child health centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4178,"place_ref":602812,"name":"Murgon Civic Centre","alternate_name":"Murgon Public Hall","street_address":"62-70 Lamb Street","suburb":"MURGON","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The Murgon Civic Centre is located on the corner of Murgon's main intersection and comprises a public hall, former library (now offices) and four shops. A central clock tower gives the building prominence in the streetscape and acts as a pivotal point with shops extending from it to south-west along Lamb Street and with the public hall and library extending from it along Gore Street to the north-west. The Murgon Civic Centre is a stately building with a strong presence in Murgon, forming part of the Murgon shopping precinct, and at the rear is bordered by the railway lines to Kilkivan and Proston.
The Civic Centre has Art Deco design features including a streamlined appearance, horizontal and vertical banding, simple geometric decoration and three-dimensional massing which emphasise important elements such as entrance ways. The street-facing elevations have stepped parapets and are finished in roughcast cement render with decorative elements accentuated with contrasting paint colours.
Public Hall
The public hall is a double height space with a rectangular footprint. It comprises an auditorium, mezzanine and supper room. The main elevation is symmetrical and links to the former library via a low screen wall. It is constructed with a masonry frame and is finished with a roughcast cement render. A stepped parapet with geometric banding partly conceals a gabled roof which covers the auditorium space and is clad in painted corrugated metal sheeting.
Each end of the main elevation is emphasised with a projecting tower. The northern-most tower accommodates the auditorium entrance which has recessed double doors sheltered by a cantilevered masonry awning with decorative edging. The entrance porch is accessed via a short flight of stairs framed by wide columns with decorative horizontal banding. Plaques commemorating the opening of the building have been fixed to the columns below a chevron motif. Vertical banding rises above the awning to stylised lettering forming the words ‘PUBLIC HALL'. The northern-most tower reads as another entrance mirroring the form of the southern end but is in-filled with a multi-paned window above a solid base decorated with a three-dimensional chevron motif. Vertical banding rises above a second-level angled metal-framed window. The parapet of each tower is decorated with parallel sweeping curves.
Tall masonry buttresses formed by the building's concrete frame punctuate the elevation between the towers and frame tall metal-framed windows with truncated tops. Transoms decorated with horizontal banding divide each of the window bays. Two secondary entrances are sheltered by smaller cantilevered awnings. The hall is set on a solid masonry plinth and is separated from the footpath by a low garden bed. Metal rain-heads drain from gutters concealed behind the parapet.
A supper room is located at the rear of the building and is a long lean-to structure attached to the auditorium. It has a corrugated metal roof and is clad with weatherboards. It is punctuated with simple timber-framed casement windows. Gable ends of the main building are clad in fibrous cement sheeting. Recent single level change rooms, a loading dock and a small kitchen extension have been added to the library end of the building. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Internally the building comprises a foyer space with a mezzanine level above (seating 100 people), an auditorium (seating 300 people) and a stage located at the library end. The auditorium is a wide space with a flat, recently installed, acoustic panelled ceiling with recessed lighting. Walls, finished with hardset plaster, are punctuated by the street-facing windows. These are mirrored on the opposite wall, which separates the auditorium from the supper room, by openings filled with timber screening forming a chevron pattern. The stage is simply detailed and lined with fibrous cement sheeting and accessed via double steel-framed steps. The mezzanine level is accessed via simple timber-framed, enclosed-riser stairs. It has little decoration and is furnished with early fixed seating. The foyer space is simply detailed with a flat ceiling lined with fibrous cement joined with timber cover strips. It contains a small box office and double doors provide access into the auditorium.
The supper room is a lofty space with exposed roof framing consisting of triangular timber trusses supported on the auditorium's concrete frame and bracketed off the external wall. Walls and raked ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting joined with timber cover strips.
Floors throughout the public hall are lined with clear-finished hardwood tongue and grove boards.
Former Library
The former Library building is a timber-framed building of a more domestic scale with a stepped parapet masonry facade. It is low-set with a hipped roof clad with painted corrugated metal sheeting. The roof is partly concealed by the parapet wall which is finished with rough-cast cement render. The parapet is simply decorated with horizontal banding. A curved cantilevered street awning supported on a steel frame shelters a centrally-placed entrance door with timber-framed casements on either side. A curved garden bed separates the building from the footpath. Other elevations are plain with walls clad in fibrous cement sheeting.
Internally the building comprises several office spaces. Walls and ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting joined with cover strips and floors are lined with carpet. Internal doors are panelled timber. Cornices and picture rails are simply detailed and formed from timber.
Shops
Four shops run along Lamb Street with the clock tower located above the corner shop. The shops are timber framed with masonry external walls which form a parapet to the roof behind. A recent curved street awning supported on steel posts has been installed. The roof slopes away from the street to the north-east and is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The clock tower mirrors the design of the public hall entrance projections with vertical banding rising to the clock face. The clock face is square and is flush with the facade.
The two central shops retain some original shopfront glazing. Central, recessed timber-panelled shop doors with multi-paned glass remain to these shops. They are framed by sheet glass shop windows with multi-paned horizontal glazing above. Internally ceilings and walls are unchanged and lined with fibrous cement sheeting joined with timber cover strips. Floors are lined with vinyl sheeting.
The corner shop is covered with advertising or in-filled with sheeting and access into the shop is via a metal roller-door. Sheet glass remains either side of the entrance. The fourth shop space has been substantially altered in accordance with the needs of a modern banking facility and an ATM has been installed into the front wall. Early awning windows punctuate the south-east elevation.
On Gore Street a large conifer shields the building (not considered to be of cultural heritage significance) and a low concrete-formed garden bed filled with flowering shrubs separates the public hall and the library building from the footpath. A loading dock and bitumened service road accesses the complex adjacent to the library building and leads to a bitumened carpark at the rear of the supper hall.
The building overlooks the Royal Hotel on the opposite side of Gore Street and the Murgon War Memorial to the south.
","history":"The Murgon Civic Centre, located on the corner of Murgon's principal intersection, Lamb and Gore Streets, was built in 1938 - a period of civic pride expressed in the building of town halls and council chambers throughout Queensland - to serve this important South Burnett town. Designed by Brisbane architect Clifford Ernest Plant, the Murgon Civic Centre was constructed by Maryborough builder HG Neilsen. Comprising a hall, former library, four shops and a corner clock tower, this Art Deco complex makes a major contribution to the streetscape of Murgon.
The town of Murgon grew around the location of an unattended siding on the railway line from Kilkivan, which opened on 14 September 1903. The railway was the crucial causal factor in the vast influx of selectors who took up land excised from Barambah Station in 1902 and again in 1913 and provided the stimulus for the development of Murgon as a service centre. The railway facilitated selectors sending their produce - maize and pumpkins, pigs, cattle and dairy products - to markets.
Within the first decade of the town's existence two hotels opened, various stores operated, a combined newsagent, tobacconist and barber's shop opened, a Methodist Church was completed and Murphy's Hall was hosting meetings of the Salvation Army and other religious groups. Murgon's butter factory opened in 1913.
Further stimuli to Murgon's development were the creation of the Shire of Murgon and the construction of two branch lines from Murgon to Proston and to Windera. The new shire was formed from parts of Weinholt and Kilkivan Shires on 16 January 1914, with Murgon as its administrative centre. The Murgon Shire Chambers were located in Macalister Street by 1919. The two branch rail lines were completed in February 1923 and in March 1925 respectively, making Murgon an important railway junction.
By the mid- to late-1930s Murgon was rapidly expanding as a service centre for its surrounding agricultural community. The Shire of Murgon, covered 271 square miles and had a total population of 4000. Major improvements to the town of Murgon during the decade from 1928 to 1938 amounted to £255,000. In 1938 dairying in the Burnett district was burgeoning, having the second largest number of dairy herds and of dairy cows in Queensland after Moreton district. By 1941 Murgon was the second largest centre in the South Burnett with a population of 1091; after Kingaroy, the largest town with 2300 persons.
By 1938 plans for the construction of a civic centre at a cost of £10,500 were underway. Tenders were called by the architect, CE Plant, in September 1937 and closed in January 1938. HG Neilsen's tender was accepted. Building took place during 1938 and the Murgon Town Hall was officially opened on 16 December 1938 by the Minister for Agriculture, FW Bulcock. The opening was celebrated with a ball and supper to which all residents of the shire were invited. The building incorporated a main auditorium, library, reading room, and Returned Soldiers' League room along Gore Street, a corner clock tower, and five shops facing Lamb Street. Part of the building was situated on the site of the original School of Arts building and several shops. These were removed to the show grounds and redeveloped under the supervision of CE Plant. The new town hall took over many of the functions of the old School of Arts.
Town halls of varying design and dimension are landmarks of Australia's cities and suburbs, shires and towns. They have been important as social venues and focal points for their communities and also for the administration of local government. However, it is from an architectural viewpoint that they are probably best remembered.
Numerous town halls were constructed across Australia during the second half of the 1930s as an expression of civic pride when the economy was once again on a more secure foundation after the Great Depression. During the late 1930s many Queensland country towns were engaged in erecting or remodelling civic buildings. More than 20 centres built new shire and council buildings while shire halls at Wambo, Boulia, Woongarra, Gympie, Cunnamulla and Aramac were remodelled. Within the last two years of the 1930s, more than £177,000 was spent on new shire and council halls and nearly £20,000 was outlaid on alterations to existing buildings. This building programme was encouraged by the Queensland Government through subsidies to councils.
In Queensland the design of these town halls spanned the spectrum from strict axial classicism (Childers) to Goondiwindi Civic Centre's highly personal and rich Art Deco-inspired style [QHR 600531]. Typical was the vertically or striated masonry façade, found for example in the Johnstone Shire Hall at Innisfail [QHR 601579] (1938) and in the Rockhampton Town Hall [QHR 601572] (1941); both of which were substantial buildings serving prosperous centres of primary industry. According to architect Ian Sinnamon, author of Putting on a brave front: Queensland between the wars, the Murgon Civic Centre, though more humble in size and resources, is a virtuoso piece of its kind. It and the Johnstone Shire Hall are the only known 1930s Art Deco reinforced concrete municipal buildings of this style and scale in Queensland.
The Murgon Civic Centre is one of the interwar shire chambers and town halls that are fine examples of the influence of modern architectural styles in Queensland townscapes. Incorporating elements of the jazz-influenced Art Deco and the machine-age vision of the Moderne, these buildings were built as expressions of confidence in a bright and modern future. Stylistic elements of Art Deco and the Moderne include decorative treatments like geometrical motifs, decorative vertical banding and a streamlining of the building form. These features are evident in many prominent civic buildings throughout the State including the Kingaroy Shire Chambers, Goondiwindi Civic Centre [QHR 600531], Southport Town Hall [QHR 601649] and Gayndah Shire Hall [QHR 602124].
Architect CE Plant, designed a number of public buildings in south-east Queensland during the 1930s. These include the Kings Beach Bathing Pavilion, Caloundra [QHR 601513], Dalby Swimming Pool Complex [QHR 602564], five bathing pavilions on the Redcliffe peninsula and the Sandgate Bathing Pavilion (demolished). Born in Cheadle, England in 1885 Plant was articled as a pupil and then architect's assistant in England from 1902. He was employed by the Queensland Government in the Department of Railways as a draftsman 1911-14; was employed as an instructor by the Central Technical College; served during World War I (1915-20) before returning to the Central Technical College and working for the Department of Railways during the 1920s. Plant became registered as an architect in Queensland from 1929. His architectural practice however, dated from October 1926 and in the following year he designed premises in Adelaide Street, Brisbane for auctioneers Blocksidge and Ferguson. He produced many residences in Brisbane during the 1920s and 1930s, some influenced by the Spanish Mission style, while other works explored contemporary architectural styles such as the Moderne and neo-Georgian.
The exterior of the Murgon Civic Centre is quite intact, although some alterations have been made and the complex has been repainted.
The Library building has had a number of functions since 1938. It housed some high school classes before the Murgon High School was built in 1945 and acted as temporary shire council offices circa 1952 to 1964 until the Shire Council Offices were erected diagonally opposite on Gore Street in the early 1960s. After the building's completion the library transferred there from the Murgon Civic Centre. Currently, the former library is used as office space. Its asbestos roof was replaced with corrugated metal sheeting after 1995.
The town hall continues to be used for its original purpose. Internal alterations to the hall were made in 1972 by Stuart Reed and Associates. Air conditioning, sound proofing and new electrical systems have been added. New changing rooms and a new loading dock were added to the northern end. On either side of the stage, new walls and new openings were added and partitions were removed, altering access to the wings. The kitchen has been refitted.
Of the five shops, only the two occupied by the Commonwealth Bank have been substantially altered internally. The shops' original flat awning with signage along the street frontage has been replaced with a convex sheet metal awning.
","criteria":"Murgon Civic Centre (1938) is the result of the growth of Murgon as a major service town in the South Burnett region in the inter-war period. It is important in demonstrating the development of agricultural settlements and establishment of their service towns in rural Queensland up to World War II through the Queensland government's policy of closer settlement of the land facilitated by branch railway lines.
The Murgon Civic Centre is also important in demonstrating the widespread pattern in Queensland of expressing civic pride through building council chambers and town halls during the 1930s. While some were Depression-era relief projects, others, such as Murgon Civic Centre, were built in the latter part of the decade, when economic conditions had improved and expectations for a prosperous future were high.
|The Murgon Civic Centre is important for its contribution to the townscape of Murgon. Situated at the principal intersection the clock tower is designed to address the corner and ensure the complex's prominence in the streetscape. The Art Deco influences - linear form, stepped skylines, chevron motifs and decorative horizontal banding - enhance the aesthetic appeal of the complex.
|The Murgon Civic Centre is a good, representative and intact example of a regional Art Deco and Moderne-inspired civic centre. It is one of a group of fine town and shire halls built throughout Queensland in the 1930s in response to improved economic times post-Depression.
The Murgon complex displays the principal features of these civic buildings, combining a public hall, library (now offices) shops and a clock tower. Like other town hall complexes, it is the focal point of the community and is located near the centre of the town on the corner of Murgon's principal streets.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4230,"place_ref":602553,"name":"Mango Avenue","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mango Avenue (between Whittles Lane and Heidke Street)","suburb":"EIMEO","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-31","description":"Mango Avenue is characterised by an avenue of mature mango trees (Mangifera indica) extending approximately 150m along the road reserve, between Whittles Lane and Heidke Street, heralding the approach to the Pacific Hotel that sits atop a prominent headland (formerly the site of the Eimeo Hotel).
The trees are large mature trees of about 15-20 metres tall. There are 16 trees on the western side of the road reserve and 18 on the eastern side, with a large Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) adjacent to the northernmost tree on the eastern side of the avenue. The canopies of the trees meet, forming a well-shaded tunnel along the road as well as overhanging adjacent properties, despite the spacing of the trunks being sometimes irregular. The trees commonly have evidence of severed lower branches and some sport street numbers for adjacent house blocks.
The road is a narrow strip of bitumen running roughly north-south. There is no curbing and little formal delineation of adjacent property entrances or boundaries on the east side. A concrete pathway exists along the western side of the road reserve, west of the trees. Property entrances on both sides of the roadway are simply sporadic gaps between the tree trunks.
","history":"The avenue of mango trees at Eimeo, north of Mackay, was established probably in the 1880s by Jeremiah Downs Armitage, owner of the beachside Eimeo hotel/boarding house, to delineate the track leading from the main road through his property to the hotel.
The Pioneer River district was taken up for pastoral and agricultural purposes from 1860. In 1862 a settlement was established on the south bank of the river; in 1863 this was surveyed as the township of Mackay, the first sale of town lots was held, Mackay was gazetted as a port of entry, and a customs house was opened. The town prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre, drawing business from nearby pastoral holdings and the sugar plantations being developed along the river from the late 1860s. In the 1880s the population expanded as the Queensland economy enjoyed a boom and government settlement programs attracted agricultural immigrants to the colony. The Pioneer River sugar industry was flourishing and Mackay was emerging as an important regional centre.
Jeremiah Armitage came to Mackay in the early 1870s, and took up a 105 acre (42.5 hectare) selection with ocean frontages, about 9 miles (14.5 kilometres) north of Mackay, which he named after the island of Eimeo (Moorea) near Tahiti in the Society Islands. The land was selected in the name of Nancy Armitage (spinster), who gained a deed of grant to the property in 1876. Following her marriage in 1881, title was transferred early in 1882 to Jeremiah Downs Armitage. In 1874 he was recorded as a Mackay timber merchant, but had turned his attention to fruit growing by the 1880s.
To supplement his income as a fruit grower, Armitage developed Eimeo as one of the Mackay district's first tourist destinations. In April 1880 he opened a newly completed boarding house on a promontory overlooking the sea on three sides (later known as Eimeo Hill). The house sat in a 9 acre (3.6 hectares) garden stocked with fruit trees, and visitors were invited to enjoy "sea bathing, yachting, fishing and shooting". He may have licensed this building for a short period, as he held a publican's license for the Eimeo Hotel, Eimeo, in 1889-1890.
Armitage is believed to have planted an avenue of coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) and another of mango trees (Mangifera indica) along the track through his property leading to the boarding house/hotel. The mango is a large tree indigenous to India and South East Asia. As well as producing an edible fruit, the mango is an excellent shade tree. Walter Hill, first superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, is credited with its introduction to Queensland and it was cultivated widely in North Queensland by early settlers, as a specimen tree in botanic gardens, as a household fruit tree, and as a shade tree along streets and in public parks.
From January 1885 Jeremiah Armitage, fruit grower, conducted the first postal receiving office at Eimeo. By 1891 this duty had been transferred to Mrs Kemp of the Sea View Hotel.
Contemporaneously with Armitage's license for the Eimeo Hotel, William George Kemp held a license for the Seaview (or Sea View) Hotel at Eimeo from 1887 to 1894. This was transferred to Mrs ER Kemp in 1894, then to WJ Clemments (or Clements) in 1895 and to PA Christiansen in 1896. Seaview Beach (now Bucasia) was located just west/north-west of Eimeo Hill. Kemp Street at Bucasia commemorates Mr and Mrs Kemp, early licensees of the Seaview Hotel.
On 21 August 1890 Armitage advertised Eimeo for sale. The property then consisted of 105 acres, the Beach Hotel, a large residence and numerous fruit trees. No license for the Beach Hotel has been identified. The hotel did not sell at this time.
In October 1890 J Armitage was appointed Superintendent of Coconut Planting by the Queensland government, to plant and manage coconut palms on coastal islands for the use of shipwrecked sailors. He appears to have held this position for a short period only, someone else being appointed to the position in July 1892.
Armitage was declared insolvent in 1893, at which time his Eimeo property passed to his mortgagor, the Queensland National Bank, which leased the whole of the land to Robert Bridgman from 1895. Bridgman conducted the boarding house at Eimeo. Armitage retained some connection with the area, being listed as an apiarist at Eimeo in the 1900 Queensland Post Office Directory. He died in Brisbane in 1919.
In 1905, George Francis Bridgman obtained title to the property, which was transferred in 1913 to Mackay publican Martin Hassett, and in 1915 to another Mackay hotelkeeper, William Thomas Eyles. From at least Eyles' occupation, the business was known as the Eimeo Hotel.
In November 1919 title to the whole of the property was transferred to Charles Louis Albert Brown, who carried out the first subdivision of the 105 acre property in 1920, creating a number of beachfront residential allotments. In the mid-1920s the track leading to the Eimeo Hotel at the northern end of the property was surveyed as a public lane, which became known as Mango Avenue.
In 1923 the bulk of the property, including the Eimeo Hotel, was transferred to Arthur James Wallis Mowlam, then to James Amstead in 1926. Their names are perpetuated in nearby streets.
As the use of motor vehicles expanded in Queensland from the 1920s, Eimeo beach and the Eimeo Hotel, easily accessed from Mackay by road, gained in popularity with both local residents and tourists as recreation venues. The Queensland Government Intelligence and Tourist Bureau's 1929 publication The Mackay District, North Queensland (2nd edition pp29, 31) confirms this popularity and suggests that the Mango Avenue trees were well established by the late 1920s:
"In close proximity to Mackay are many splendid beaches. Some of them are beautifully situated, surrounded by coconut palms, and reached through avenues of mango trees. The two most popular seaside resorts are Eimeo and Slade Point. Both of these are within easy motoring distance. Eimeo is about 9 miles north-west of Mackay, and can easily be reached by motor-car in half an hour. The drive to Eimeo is interesting all the way. At Eimeo there is a comfortable hotel, where every attention is paid to visitors. The hotel is situated on a beautiful headland, and commands charming views on all sides. The grounds of the hotel are extensive and well laid out with many varieties of fruit trees, while the approach thereto is laid out with stately coconut palms. Excellent shooting and fishing may be enjoyed here, and a motor-boat is available for conveying parties around one or other of the beautiful bays in this vicinity."
In late 1932 title to the hotel site, on a reduced parcel of just under 9 acres (3.6 hectares), was transferred to Mrs Lavinia Walters, who demolished the building and constructed a new Eimeo Hotel in 1934, using some of the materials from the demolition. She purchased an old Anglican parish hall and moved it to the site to form an annex, and built an open-air dance floor and skating rink on the property. She is credited with being instrumental in having a bitumen road built between Eimeo and Mackay in 1938.
In the early 1940s, during World War II, the Eimeo Hotel was occupied by American servicemen on rest and recreation leave from New Guinea. The present Pacific Hotel on the site dates from 1954.
The coconut palms were removed in the 1990s, but the mango trees along Mango Avenue, between Whittles Lane and Heidke Street, survive and remain a tourist attraction.
","criteria":"The circa 1880s mango trees along Mango Avenue at Eimeo provide important tangible evidence of an early phase of North Queensland tourism, little of which survives in built form. It is associated with the 1880 establishment of one of the Mackay district's first seaside resorts, the Eimeo boarding house/hotel, during a period of strong economic growth in the region.
They are important also in illustrating the use of the mango as a shade tree and for street beautification in tropical Queensland.
|Once constituting the private entrance to the Eimeo boarding house/hotel, this avenue of Mangifera indica, now over 120 years old, remains an excellent example of a grand-entrance avenue of trees in a coastal setting.
|As an approach avenue of substantial shade trees that leads to a site closely linked to the recreational history of Mackay, the place has long been appreciated for its aesthetic significance. The dramatic tunnel effect of driving through the shady avenue when approaching or leaving the Pacific Hotel (formerly the site of the Eimeo Hotel) generates an aesthetic response known to have been enjoyed by visitors since at least the 1920s, and likely much earlier.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4397,"place_ref":602766,"name":"Mackay General Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cemetery Road","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-11-19","description":"The Mackay General Cemetery is an 8.9 hectare reserve, located west of the inner city area of Mackay at the far western end of Shakespeare Street. It is bounded by Hume Street to the west, Cemetery Road to the south, Holland Street to the east, and to the north by cane fields that extend to the Pioneer River. The part of the reserve determined to be of cultural heritage significance is that used for burials, excluding the north-west corner where crops are being grown and there are no burials. The site is largely flat apart from a gully near the western end that contains a drain way. The main entrance is from Holland Street, at the intersection with Shakespeare Street. From here a curving central drive runs west through the centre of the cemetery, lined with trees on one side. The edges of the cemetery are unfenced; however rows of trees line the footpaths on the southern and eastern sides. The only buildings on the site are a shelter shed, located adjacent to the central drive in the centre of the cemetery, and some recent sheds.
The cemetery is laid out in a grid and subdivided into denominational sections, with specific areas designated for Church of England/Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and Catholic burials. A section for minority and ethnic based religions is located in the far western corner. Newer burial sections are located north of the central drive, while a series of grass roadways run north-south between the denominational sections, linking the central drive with Cemetery Road.
A variety of monuments are found throughout the cemetery, including upright slabs, obelisks, crosses, angels, urns and bibles. They are constructed in a variety of styles and materials and feature a wide range of inscriptions in a number of languages. Headstones are made of marble, sandstone, iron, granite, and concrete. Grave surrounds include iron fencing or lacework but are predominantly concrete. Monuments and grave surrounds in the protestant sections are generally painted white.
An unusual locally made monument is a memorial to several members of the Cameron family. This elaborate cast iron, classical style aedicule is surmounted by a cross. Other monuments of note include several smaller cast-iron grave markers with iron lacework borders. These rectangular panels have inscriptions in relief, frequently laid out in wavy lines. More recent headstones and graves are less ornate, such as slab and desk variations.
There are a number of Muslim graves in the cemetery. One of these consists of a raised slab clad with ornate ceramic tiles; it has a diamond shaped headstone. Two others each consist of a concrete slab with small, simple upright headstone at each end.
The graveyard population comprises a wide variety of people including returned soldiers, Aboriginal people, South Sea Islanders, Japanese, Javanese, German, Maltese, Italian, French, English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish immigrants.
The work of a number of monumental masons is represented in the Mackay General Cemetery. The majority of mason-marked graves indicate that most people contracted the firm of Melrose and Fenwick. Other masons represented include J. Hanson of Sydney, J. Petrie & Son of Brisbane and of Townsville, A.L. Petrie of Toowong, F.M. Downes, Bowser Co Ltd., Brett & Nott, A.M. Rappell of Mackay, Jaceurs & Son of Royal Park Melbourne, B. & .H. Jennings of Rockhampton, Lowther & Sons, W. Robertson & Co. of Mackay, J. Simmonds of Brisbane, C.M. & C. Mackay Iron Works and F.M. Allan of Rockhampton. A number of war graves plaques have been placed on the graves of Australian servicemen by the Australian War Graves Commission.
Plantings throughout the cemetery are largely confined to the perimeter and central drive. An avenue of mature Camphor Laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) lines the northern side of the central drive. A cluster of other mature trees are found along the Holland Street boundary, north of the main entrance. A few lone trees are also randomly located in some burial sections (such as Methodist section no.1).
The shelter shed has a rectangular hipped roof, clad in corrugated iron and supported by square posts. Decorative arches span between the posts and a solid balustrade runs along the north and south edges with timber bench seating along the inner face.
A wide, grassy gully, with concrete drain at the bottom, separates Methodist section No.3 and Catholic section No.2 near the western end of the cemetery.
Views of farmland are obtained to the north, forming a picturesque backdrop to viewing the cemetery. Other picturesque effects are created by the curving central drive with its avenue of trees.
","history":"The Mackay General Cemetery was the Mackay region's principal cemetery and is one of the earliest regional cemeteries in Queensland. Its site was surveyed by licensed surveyor and Mackay identity T Henry Fitzgerald in late 1865. Closed to new burials in the 1990s, it is the burial place of about 15,500 people.
\nThe cemetery was surveyed soon after the township of Mackay was established on the banks of the Pioneer River. The first town allotments were sold in 1863 about two years after the Pioneer Valley began to be settled by pastoralists. Fitzgerald considered that the cemetery site was suitable because, as he stated, it was 'nearly a mile from the town boundary. The greater portion of it is quite dry and comprised of rich black soil in which it will be very easy to dig graves.'
\nThe earliest documented burial in the cemetery occurred in July 1866. The Mackay deaths register, in which that burial is recorded, notes two earlier burials (October 1864 and June 1865) there. It is possible that these occurred at the Mackay General Cemetery before it was officially surveyed; however, it is more likely that they took place at one of the cemeteries that ceased to be used after the General Cemetery was opened. Mackay General Cemetery is one of the earliest major cemeteries in the region, being contemporary to South Rockhampton (1860, QHR 601131) and West End at Townsville (1865, QHR 601475).
\nFrom the 1870s, the cemetery was divided into sections according to religious denomination and included an alien section. This typical feature of cemeteries established in late Victorian times was a vestige of the control formerly exercised by the Church of England (now known as the Anglican Church) over burials which originally took place in churchyards. Initially in Australia, the Anglican Church had control of public cemeteries. This situation was disputed by other denominations and began to change from the 1820s with the establishment of denominational areas within cemeteries. Then, from the 1840s, culminating in the Queensland Cemeteries Act 1865, government legislated for the transfer of responsibility for administration of cemeteries from the church to an appointed board of trustees. Typically, cemeteries established from the late 20th century have not retained denominational divisions.
\nThe Mackay Cemetery Trust was appointed in 1870 and on 4 April 1873 the rules and regulations for the Mackay Cemetery were gazetted. The first trustees were local luminaries T Henry Fitzgerald, John Spiller (Pioneer Plantation), David Hay Dalrymple (Mayor of Mackay), George Smith and William McBryde (Secretary). The cemetery continued to operate under a board of trustees until 1934 when legislation was introduced that handed the control of cemeteries to the local authorities.
\nThe general layout of the cemetery began to take shape from 1877 when tenders were called for cemetery roads; the present main road into the shelter shed dates to 1882. The Camphor Laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) that line the main central road date to 1899. Fences, lych-gate, mortuary chapel and iron gates were also erected in the late 19th century, but none of these are extant. Buildings in the cemetery including the tool shed and shelter shed date from the late 20th century.
\nThe layout of the Mackay General Cemetery is typical of that employed in late Victorian cemeteries both in Australia and Britain, which were strongly influenced by the principles of the cemetery design movement encapsulated in the book by horticultural journalist, author and landscape architect, John Claudius Loudon, On the laying out, planting and managing of cemeteries (1843). Above all Loudon recommended a practical approach to cemetery design that was responsive to the nature of the selected site; so on level sites formal layouts of orthogonal grave rows, walks and drives were employed, while on hilly sites broad sweeps were used to ease gradients. Other standard features included a central carriageway lined by evergreen trees, as were other paths in preference to groupings of trees, leading to a focal structure in the centre of the cemetery, use of plant species with some symbolism related to death or mourning, and a grid pattern of graves accessible by paths or roadways. The aesthetic qualities of these layouts represented a shift in the preferred balance of formal and informal elements within the cemetery landscape towards an increased degree of formality and often symmetry, which had a practical advantage in being easier and less expensive to lay out.
\nThe wide variety of elaborate monuments was also a feature of late Victorian cemeteries and reflected popular taste at the time. From the interwar period the trend was towards simpler more economical monuments and away from curbing and fenced plots. This trend culminated in the development of low maintenance lawn cemeteries after World War II with plaques set close to, or flush with the ground. An exception to this trend was the reappearance, towards the end of the 20th century, of more elaborate monuments associated with some ethnic populations.
\nThe variety of monuments and inscriptions reflects the changing demography of the Mackay region from its earliest days until the closure of the cemetery in the 1990s. A range of ethnic and cultural groups came to Mackay to work in the region's main industry: sugar cane growing and processing.
\nSugar cane was introduced to the Mackay area in 1863 and soon developed into a major industry. By 1872 Mackay mills produced 40 per cent of the total Queensland sugar production and 37 per cent of its rum. Heavy regulation of the sugar industry from 1915 ensured the prosperity of the region. It has become one of Queensland's main sugar cane growing areas and produces about a third of the sugar in Queensland. The state produces most of the nation's sugar.
\nSouth Sea Islanders were the earliest and most numerous of the ethnic groups who came to the region to work in the sugar industry. First brought to the Mackay area to provide cheap manual labour in the 1860s, they remained a major presence until the trade in Islander labour ceased in 1904. Mackay hosted the largest population of South Sea Islanders in Australia.
\nOther ethnic groups employed in the sugar industry included Javanese (from the 1880s), Singhalese (Sri Lankans) (from the 1880s), Japanese, and southern Europeans, notably Maltese (from 1912) and Italians. Over 1000 Japanese migrated to Australia between 1888 and 1901 to work in the sugar cane industry; for a short time in the 1890s a Japanese consular official was established in Townsville. Chinese and Indians were also a presence, as in most other places in north Queensland.
\nThe cemetery contains South Sea Islander, Japanese, Javanese (Muslim) and Singhalese graves. The Japanese graves date to the early 20th century. South Sea Islander graves in the cemetery include that of Kwailiu Fatana'ona (John Fatnahoona), who was recruited from Malaita in the Solomon Islands to work in the cane fields of the Mackay district and was buried in 1904 aged 40 years. The Muslim graves include a slab design finished with decorative tiles in a manner that is typically Indonesian. There are also Italian and Maltese graves. For some of these ethnic groups, particularly the Japanese and Javanese, graves are the only extant physical evidence of their presence in the Mackay region between the late 19th and early 20th century.
\nThe cemetery also contains a number of graves of early identities in the region. The graves of people associated with the establishment of the sugar industry include plantation and mill owners, Gustav Muller of Hilldale, Charles Walker of the Dumbleton Plantation, Charles King of Meadowlands Plantation and Mill, William Williams of the Lorne Plantation, and James Carey of the Racecourse Mill.
\nOther notable burials include monuments for: Andrew Diehm who accompanied the explorer William Landsborough on his explorations of the Burdekin and Bowen area; Houston Stewart Dalrymple Hay, the Harbour Master and Pilot for Mackay in the 1870s for whom Dalrymple Bay and Hay Point are named; and former mayors of Mackay including Henry Black (after whom Black's Beach is named) who held the office three times. Many of the district's early clergy are buried in the cemetery including the Catholic priest, Father Pierre-Marie Bucas.
\nIn the early 1950s the Pioneer Shire Council decided to close the Mackay General Cemetery and to open a new cemetery in Brickworks Court, Glenella, on the north side of the Pioneer River. The first burial at the new cemetery took place on 11 September 1951. Following subsequent burials it was discovered that the soil at the Glenella was not suitable for burials and the council decided to re-open the Mackay General Cemetery for a further two years. The last burial took place at Glenella on 17 June 1952. In 1953 the Council exhumed more than 60 bodies from it and re-interred them in the Mackay General Cemetery.
\nIn the 1990s it was decided that no further plots would be sold in the Mackay General Cemetery. Walkerston to the south-west of Mackay remains open for those who wish to bury their deceased loved ones and to erect burial vaults; otherwise the Mt Bassett Lawn Cemetery, opened in 1953, has replaced the Mackay General Cemetery.
","criteria":"The Mackay General Cemetery is one of the earliest cemeteries established in the Mackay Whitsunday region (1865), and having been in continuous use for more than 140 years until the 1990s when it closed, remains its largest. The cemetery therefore provides important evidence of the history and demography of this key sugar producing region (one of Queensland's oldest and largest) in particular its cultural and ethnic diversity.
The cemetery contains the graves of people from a range of the ethnic groups employed by the sugar industry through time, including South Sea Islanders, Javanese, Singhalese (Sri Lankans), Japanese, Maltese and Italians. For some of these groups, the graves in this cemetery are the only extant physical evidence of their presence in the Mackay region between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The cemetery is also important in demonstrating the evolution of burial practices over this period. The progressive layering, development and diversity of styles of memorialisation within the cemetery document changing attitudes to death and fashions in funerary ornamentation since the 1860s.
|The chief cemetery of Queensland's oldest and largest sugar producing region, Mackay General Cemetery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century public cemetery in continuous use for more than 140 years. These comprise: its denominational divisions including an alien section intended for non-Christian burials, the layout of graves in a grid divided by paths and roadways, the central carriageway lined by evergreen trees, and the variety of monuments illustrating a range of religious and cultural preferences through time. These key characteristics combine to create an atmosphere of repose and reflection, a quality recognised as important to properly honouring and remembering the dead by many Queenslanders.
The cemetery contains examples of a range of key monumental styles dating from the late 19th century until the 1990s. These include the ornate Cameron monument, made locally from cast iron, and the work of numerous monumental masons from throughout Queensland represented there.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4507,"place_ref":602642,"name":"Sugar Research Institute & Residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"239 Nebo Road","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-03-14","description":"The Sugar Research Institute is located along Nebo Road, the main southern highway in and out of Mackay.
\nGeneral Description
\nThe Sugar Research Institute complex is made up of the Main Building, attached Garages, Directors Residence, and Workshop. A covered walkway to the west links the Main Building to a Conference Hall and office/laboratory building. A free-standing laboratory/office building is located behind this group. A corrugated, galvanised iron shed/garage is located at the south east extremity of the site, adjacent to the rear vehicle entrance. A small caretaker's cottage is located at the south west corner.
\nThe Main Building, attached Garages, Directors Residence, and Workshop were constructed in 1953, with the west wing added in 1966. This addition is not readily perceived from the exterior as it has followed the original design intent. The difference in construction period is more apparent from internal finishes and fittings.
\nLandscape Features
\nThe dominant landscape feature is the double row of royal palms [Roystonea regia] that line the roadside perimeter of the site. A low face-brick fence runs along the roadside boundary with pillars marking the entrances. A circular bitumen drive is centred on the front entrance of the building.
\nThere are several large established trees adjacent to the Director's Residence and scattered about the site. Planting beds are located immediately in front of the two wings of the main building and within the circular driveway. There is an established, fenced-off domestic garden behind the house.
\nThere is a rear entrance to the site off the west boundary with a bitumen drive linking the various buildings through to the basement access.
\nThe balance of the site is a fenced off paddock to the south.
\nMain (Institute) Building
\nExterior
\nThe Institute is a two-storey face-brick building with a sub-floor basement. The building is best described stylistically as being 'stripped classical', given its symmetrical massing and emphasised classical portico. The classical idiom is maintained through the use of white marble for the entrance steps and cladding to the walls, columns and ceiling of the portico. Two pedestals intended to support sculptures flank the entrance which would have further emphasised the classical theme.
\nLow pedestals either side of the marble stairs have a rough textured finish. This finish appears to be a recent application.
\nThe portico has a central glazed double door with sheet bronze finish. Surrounding the door, the portico is fully glazed in bronze framing. There is a marble spandrel panel above door height with obscure glazing above this.
\nThe windows to the east and west wings of the northern façade are made up of 15 pairs of vertically proportioned, painted timber windows set between painted plastered columns at ground and first floor. At each level, a painted concrete canopy projects over the windows. There is a painted concrete sill which projects slightly.
\nThe face-brick wall is capped with what appears to be a painted sheet metal coping (probably covering the original coping).
\nThe east elevation has been plastered and painted. Three painted timber framed windows at ground level serve the Directors Office. The frames of two smaller windows to the toilet have replaced with aluminium.
\nA vertical construction joint divides the south (rear) elevation marking the junction of the 1953 and 1966 construction phases. The slight difference in the colour and texture of the bricks is apparent.
\nThe south elevation is occupied almost entirely by two continuous bands of windows following an identical pattern to the north elevation but without the projecting centre bay. At ground floor level two doors interrupt the pattern at the eastern end and toward the centre two window bays have been removed and in filled with fibre cement boarding and an aluminium window. At the western end a vehicle ramp leads down to a roller shutter door to the basement.
\nThe only penetration in the west elevation is a doorway inserted to link to the covered walkway to the Conference Hall. The words 'Sugar Research Institute' are fixed to the wall at first floor level.
\nThe roof of the Main Building is a low-pitched Dutch gable covered with corrugated, asbestos cement roofing sheets. It is set behind a substantial parapet wall on all four sides. Four prominent, sheet metal rain water heads are set symmetrically on the surface of the brickwork on both of the north and south elevations and drain into sheet metal, rectangular section, surface mounted downpipes.
\nInterior
\nBasement
\nThe basement is a utilitarian space extending under the west wing of the Institute. It is accessed from a staircase below the main staircase in the entrance hall and from a vehicle ramp at the south west corner at the rear of the building. There is also an open well at the northwest corner of the building which gives access to ground and first floor from the basement. A goods hoist and beam are suspended below the first floor ceiling. A steep, steel industrial staircase and balustrade connects the three levels.
\nThe walls and ceiling are unfinished concrete and the floor has a smooth cement render finish.
\nThe plant located in the basement is presumably part of the air-conditioning installation and electrical distribution. Other plant and installations presumably relate to the laboratory functions on the first floor.
\nGround floor
\nThe ground floor of the Institute building is primarily made up of offices, lecture rooms, and other administrative spaces. All open off a central corridor running the length of the building from the central entrance hall.
\nThe entrance hall is an impressive double volume with the marble finish of the portico carried through to the stair treads, skirtings and the internal masonry faces of the window wall. The floor has a glass mosaic finish in a simple two-tone grid pattern with a ceramic tile skirting. The walls generally have a rough plaster and paint finish. The ceiling, as for most of the building, is made up of gypsum plaster panels with acoustic perforations.
\nThere is a timber lined opening into the adjoining office which served as an enquiries counter. This office also contains a strong room, the door manufactured by Ajax safe manufacturing company of Sydney.
\nGlazed double doors open off the south wall of the entrance hall into a library/lecture hall [Named the ETS Pearce Library]. There is an etched border to each glass panel and what appears to be stylised sugar crystal etched in the centre.
\nOffices opening off the corridor are cross ventilated with vertical, adjustable, obscure glass louvers in timber frames above door head height. The louvers as well as some fixed glazing panels also provide borrowed natural light for the corridor.
\nThe different construction periods of the east and west wings is evident in the finishes and fittings. In the earlier east wing more is made of timber finishes, in particular the use of panelling (in the director's office) where Queensland Silky Oak veneer panels are framed with Queensland maple. Queensland maple is used throughout the building for skirtings, architraves, jamb linings, hand rails and fittings.
\nThe office partition walls are of painted framed hardboard to both wings. The west wing however appears to have undergone more change and ad hoc rearrangement of the walls. The east wing retains much of the original layout and fabric.
\nDoor handles to the east wing are a distinctive lever type while those to the west wing are plain, stainless steel knob-sets.
\nThe toilets in the east wing are largely in original condition. Floors are glass mosaic with ceramic tile skirtings. Cubicle panels are terrazzo. Splash-backs to the hand basins and to the urinal are ceramic tiled. Walls are painted. Cubicle doors are painted timber with an unusual scalloped top and bottom. Towel rails and toilet roll holders appear to be original and match the door furniture. A number of the sanitary fittings appear to be original.
\nVinyl (possibly asbestos) floor tiles were used throughout the building. A number of offices have been carpeted, usually directly over the vinyl. In some areas the vinyl tiles have been replaced with new tiles.
\nCeilings are generally gypsum plaster with acoustic perforations and may be fixed directly to the concrete slab. In the west wing there is some variation in the size and pattern of the panels.
\nAir conditioning has been introduced into the offices in an ad hoc manner but without serious damage to the fabric. A duct runs above the window head on the south elevation of the east wing. In the west wing ducting has been located above a lowered ceiling to the corridor. Elsewhere ducting and plant have been hidden behind walls and in sections of lowered ceiling.
\nFirst floor
\nThe first floor of the Institute building is primarily made up of laboratory and ancillary spaces. A central corridor opens off the upper level of the entrance hall. The corridor merges into large laboratory spaces at the end of each wing.
\nThe upper level of the entrance hall is in the form of a gallery overlooking the entrance. The words 'ER Behne Laboratory' are located on the south wall at the head of the stairs. The words 'ER Behne Laboratory' are located on the south wall at the head of the stairs. The laboratory is named for Edmund Rowlands Behne who was on the Board of Directors of the Institute from 1949-1975 serving as Deputy Chairman between 1964-1973 and as Chairman from 1973-1975.
\nThe colours of the glass mosaic floor below are repeated, without the grid pattern. The steel balustrade and timber hand rail continue round the gallery. Male and female toilets open off the east side of the gallery.
\nAs with the ground floor, the east wing is the more unified in its detail design and use of fittings and fixed furniture. While laboratory fittings in both wings are in similar configurations, their detailing, fittings and tap ware are distinctive. The fittings in the east wing are generally more robust and carefully detailed. Those in the west wing are a mix of open benches and units similar to those in the east wing. There has been a considerable amount of alteration to all the laboratories with the installation of equipment such as fume cupboards and electrical installations.
\nThe laboratory at the eastern end of the east wing has a quarry tile floor which may be a later addition. Elsewhere floors are vinyl tile, some of which show signs of heavy use.
\nAs with the ground floor air conditioning has been introduced to various parts of the upper floor in an ad hoc manner. Some areas have lowered ceilings concealing the ducting while in other areas (mainly the east wing) the ducting has been located in the roof space.
\nGarage Building
\nThree single garages are linked at ground level via a short passage to the east wing of the Main building. The north wall is plastered and painted with the words 'Sugar Research Institute' fixed to the top of the wall. The plaster has horizontal coursing marks. The remaining walls are face-brick. The roof is low pitched, hipped, covered with corrugated asbestos cement tiles and set behind parapet walls. There is a marble coping to all the parapets.
\nThe garage doors are roller shutters, but the timber frames indicate that there were originally side-hung double doors.
\nThe interior of the garages was not viewed.
\nDirector's Residence
\nThe Director's residence is attached to the garage building. It has a hipped, corrugated asbestos cement tiled roof which is contiguous with the garage roof; however over the house the parapet wall gives way to overhanging eaves. Walls are face-brick and doors and windows are timber casements and painted white.
\nBrick stairs lead up to the recessed entrance. The lawn is ramped up to the bi-fold doors of the living room. At the rear of the house a raised semi-enclosed, covered patio area opens onto an informal garden area. The garden is enclosed with pool fencing.
\nInternally the Directors residence has generous living and dining areas located to the east of the entrance and the bedroom wing to the west. The bedrooms open to the north off a long passage while bath room, toilet and kitchen open to the south. A servery area is located between the kitchen and dining room.
\nThe living/dining areas have fixed timber shelving and cupboards and in each bedroom an entire wall is fitted out with cupboards, shelving and drawers. The kitchen fittings are similarly ample. The joinery is generally of a high standard. Several units have a painted finish but it is likely that all were originally varnished.
\nFloors are timber and appear to have been sanded and sealed with a polyurethane finish. Bedroom floors have been carpeted. The kitchen and bathrooms have recent vinyl sheet coverings. Walls are generally plastered and painted. Ceilings to the bedrooms appear to be original plaster board with rounded cover strips and moulded cornices. The living/dining area appears to have a recent plasterboard ceiling. The passage and entrance area has a recent lowered ceiling to accommodate air conditioning ducting.
\nWorkshop
\nThe workshop building has a short covered link to the rear of the Main building and forms part of the original construction. It has subsequently become totally enclosed by later structures forming covered parking areas and workshop extensions. The hipped roof of corrugated asbestos cement tiles and the face-brick external walls however remain largely intact although there have been door and window insertions.
\nInternally the building consists of several rooms with bench space and stainless steel sinks. One room is fitted out as a darkroom.
\nCharles Young Conference Hall
\nThe Charles Young Conference Hall and laboratories is a single storey brick building located to the west of the main building and connected via a covered walkway. The covered walkway is the strongest feature of the building forming a veranda and covered entrance to the Conference Hall. It consists of a heavy painted concrete canopy and projecting beams supported on dressed concrete columns.
\nThe conference hall has a large span roof with a pre-coated profiled steel roofing sheet covering. It follows a roughly mansard form rising above low parapets.
\nThe Conference hall building is a simple rectangle with a covered walkway on the east side. Walls are rectangular face-brick panels with narrow, full-height slot windows in between. These windows are all covered with a decorative, pre-formed aluminium sheet sun-screening. Areas opening on to the veranda have full-height aluminium framed glazing and doors.
\nA wing of offices and laboratories extends to the east of the hall behind the Main (Institute) building. This wing has a low pitched gabled roof finished as for the hall roof with boxed-in eaves. Walls are of face-brick. Windows and doors are aluminium framed.
\nInternally the conference hall is a large clear space with vinyl floor tiles, face-brick walls and large coffered ceiling panels. The hall is well provided with conference facilities.
\nThe office/laboratory area has vinyl tile floors; exterior walls are plastered and painted while all internal subdivision of spaces is made up of light aluminium framed partitioning system with timber ply panels and clear glazing above door head height. Fittings are generally made up of Formica finished panels on steel framing.
\n","history":"
The Mackay Sugar Research Institute was constructed in 1953 by builder Don Johnstone to a design by prominent architect Karl Langer. Initially, only one section, the eastern wing, was constructed, with the second or western wing opened in August 1966. Mackay architect HVM Brown prepared plans for the second stage of the building in 1963 based on Langer's original design.
\nFollowing the exploration and mapping of pastoral runs in the Mackay district in the early 1860s, the fertile land was soon reduced to smaller selections. It was found that the region was particularly suited to the growing of sugar cane and by 1870 the production of sugar was the region's principal industry. The development of the industry was assisted by the opening of a State Nursery in 1889. Originally built to explore the suitability of diverse forms of agriculture, the 'Lagoons' site became the centre for research into cane varieties and more efficient methods of production. Renamed the Mackay Sugar Experiment Station and including laboratories and residences, it was transferred to the Te Kowai mill site in 1935.
\nThe Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations had been formed in 1900 as part of the Department of Agriculture and Stock with its work financed by levies on sugar growers and millers, matched by government funding. It co-ordinated the research carried out in the three sugar-growing regions of Mackay, Cairns and Bundaberg comparing cane varieties, sampling soils and fostering better farming and irrigation methods. Millers, represented by the Australian Sugar Producers' Association, became increasingly dissatisfied with their lack of control over the direction and activities of the Bureau. This was somewhat deferred by the formation of the technology branch of the Bureau.
\nEstablished in 1929, the Queensland Society of Sugar Cane Technologists held its first conference at Cairns in 1930, convened by Norman Bennett of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. This was after preliminary meetings of the representatives of 16 sugar mills, six engineering firms and the Central Cane Prices Board. Other absentee mill owners were reputedly uncertain about disclosing trade secrets that such an alliance might bring but the formation of the group was in the face of 'stark ruin, with overseas prices on which cheap labour countries could not exist. To some it appeared that the expansion of the previous period had been a mistake...' a situation which was to repeat in years to come. By 1948 both the Queensland Cane Growers' Council and the Australian Sugar Producers' Association were again concerned and angry because the Bureau had lost a string of highly skilled personnel [including two directors], to more highly paid jobs.
\nIn 1949, the Australian sugar industry comprised mainly small cane farms located along the continent's tropical and sub-tropical Queensland and New South Wales coastline. The 5.5 million tonne cane crop, almost entirely grown in Queensland, was crushed by 34 raw sugar mills, most of which were owned co-operatively by growers. The highly regulated sugar industry was still recovering from material and labour shortages caused by World War II and was endeavouring to reassert its position in the world marketplace as a steady, consistent supplier of raw sugar. To achieve this goal, the industry's leaders determined they would have to expand cane production and the factories would have to improve sugar recovery and increase processing rates. The key was a speedy improvement in technological standards. As the government refused to entertain a proposal to place the Bureau of Experiment Stations outside the public service the Sugar Producers' Association formed a committee to draft the constitution for a new sugar industry funded and controlled research institute.
\nSugar Research Limited was incorporated on 22 February 1949 with 22 companies representing 24 mills as original subscribers, although some smaller mills joined soon thereafter and the Colonial Sugar Refinery provided an annual payment. The inaugural board of Sugar Research Ltd first met in March 1949 with its most pressing tasks being the appointment of a director and establishing a centre for research.
\nDr HW [Bill] Kerr, who had joined the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations in 1928, progressing to be the director from 1933 to 1943, was appointed the first Director of the Sugar Research Institute [1949-61]. Kerr was the driving force behind the establishment of the institute and well known in the Australian sugar industry for his important achievements. He developed and implemented soil analytical procedures for the assessment of available phosphorus, potassium and total replaceable bases. He introduced to sugar agriculture a system of replicated experiments, with statistical analysis and interpretation of results. Kerr was a member of the Queensland Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (from 1979 the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists) from its establishment in 1929 until his death in 1992.
\nThe board decided to establish the Sugar Research Institute's central laboratories in Mackay, as an acknowledgement that Mackay in 1949 was both the largest sugar growing district [out of the three main sugar growing areas - Bundaberg, Cairns and Mackay] as well as being the geographical centre of the Australian sugar industry. The board invited Dr Karl Langer to discuss building plans.
\nKarl Langer was born in Vienna in 1903 where he lived until migrating to Australia in 1939 with his wife Gertrude. Langer studied architecture in Vienna graduating in 1926. During this time he had worked in the office of Josef Frank, who was to be come well known in Swedish modernism. In 1933 Langer was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis entitled 'Origins and Development of Concrete Construction'.
\nAt the outbreak of World War II, Langer and Gertrude arrived in Sydney in May of 1939 proceeding to Brisbane in July. Langer left employment with Queensland Railways in 1946 to establish his own architectural practice. He worked throughout Australia and was the initiator of many influential urban design ideas such as the site for the Sydney Opera House and the pedestrianisation of Queen Street. He was the designer of buildings such as Main Roads Building, Spring Hill; St Peters Chapel, Indooroopilly; Lennon's Broadbeach Hotel on the Gold Coast, and worked in the regional centres of Queensland as an architect, town planner and landscape architect.
\nThe name Karl Langer is now synonymous with modernist architecture in Queensland and his connection with Mackay predates the building. Langer had been offered the position of assistant town planner in the Brisbane City Council in 1944 but the controversy and publicity surrounding this appointment brought him to the attention of the Mackay council which commissioned him to revise that city's town plan.
\nLanger was also an acquaintance of the secretary of the Sugar Research Institute and was engaged to design the building with offices, boardroom, drawing office and a library and lecture room on the ground floor. The first floor was to house research laboratories. The design provided a single storey utility building, an annexe to the main structure, containing workshops, stores and a machinery room. Later, a second wing could be added to the main building providing additional workshops and laboratory space to cater for expansion of the research institute.
\nA residence for the director was planned next to the laboratories. According to the original plans for the main building and utilities building the tender for the director's house was described as being 'under a separate tender.' However this may refer to the construction of the building being under a separate tender rather than its design which is also attributed to Langer. Mrs Betty Kerr, HW Kerr's wife, discussed with Langer the need for some alterations to the design of the residence. One particular change related to the need to block the view to the kitchen from the front door. Prior to Mrs Kerr requesting this change a person at the front door was able to see through to the kitchen.
\nLanger's plans also provided for the landscaping of the site as well as the provision of a caretaker's cottage. Whilst Langer's plans provided for a caretaker's cottage it is unclear if the existing building which was used as a caretaker's cottage was purpose-built or if the building was already existing when the land was purchased by the institute. The stylistic indicators of the building including its hipped roof, lack of sunhoods due to wide eaves and its corner casement windows suggest a date of mid to late 1930s.
\nLanger's pioneering use of climatic design in Queensland can be seen in the main institute building in the decorative restraint evident in the facade detailing and composition, the efficient but spacious planning of the building and the consideration given to a northern orientation. The northern orientation allowed for improved shading in summer and better light in winter. With the laboratories located on the southern side of the building this orientation allowed for a more even distribution of light to these areas.
\nPost-war shortages of both skilled labour and materials caused costs to escalate. The new director insisted that the director's residence both accommodate his wife and family of five children plus their maid and 'be of a type appropriate to the status of director' and suitable for entertaining guests from overseas. Escalating costs meant that Kerr was asked to modify his expectations and the institute building was completed in stages.
\nThe sugar industry, in 1949, was on the threshold of the buoyant sugar markets of the 1950s and in 1950 Justice Mansfield was appointed to head a Royal Commission for the orderly expansion of the industry. Most mills prepared ambitious plans.
\nThe Sugar Research Institute - 'a monument to the Australian sugar industry' - was opened on Saturday, 22 August 1953 by then Federal Treasurer, Sir Arthur Fadden. More than 100 official guests attended the opening during which Fadden stated that 'there was no industry in Australia better organised than sugar production' and that 'sugar is not only a Queensland industry, not only a national industry, but an international industry of great importance'.
\nThe building provided an environment for chemists and engineers to scientifically study the milling process in co-operation with its practical application. The Institute's focus from its establishment was to find solutions to industry problems via a program of short-term research and strategic design and construction projects. As a non-government funded research institute, the Sugar Research Institute is comparably rare. CSR was involved in experimental research, so whilst the Sugar Research Institute is not the only example of a private research institution, it is still unusual.
\nThe landscaping of the Institute was part of Langer's design, which included the planting of royal palms [Roystonea regia] along the roadside perimeter. The palms were planted in 1954 [a total of 58 at the time] to represent each of the Institute's member mills. The second half of the building, the mirror image of the first side, was completed to Langer's original design and opened in August 1966. Mackay architect Harold Vivian Marsh [HVM] Brown prepared plans for the second stage of the building in 1963.
\nTwenty-five years after being established, Institute-researched improvements in mill technology had tripled sugar production. By 1972 the Institute had developed improvements in cane transportation by improving scheduling, and reducing operating costs and capital expenditure; milling research that improved extraction through improved performance and reductions in capital expenditure; clarification studies that reduced losses and lime consumption; sugar quality; effluent treatment; elongated grain and filterability penalties and air pollution by developing suitable equipment to meet the standards set.
\nThe institute's annual general meetings and technical conferences were always well attended providing opportunities for mill personnel to discuss any issues with factories and to liaise with colleagues. The meetings and conferences were held in the main building in the library/lecture hall on the ground floor, the ETS Pearce Library, until the Charles Young Conference Hall was opened. Eddie Pearce was the General Secretary of the Australian Sugar Producers' Association and was a major contributor in the establishment of the Sugar Research Institute.
\nOn 31 August 1973 the Charles Young Conference Hall and laboratories were opened by Rex A Patterson then Minister for Northern Development. The hall and laboratories is located to west of the main building and is connected via a covered walkway. The building was named in honour of Charles Young in recognition of his services as founding Chairman from January 1949 to August 1973.
\nThe 1990s were a time of economic stringency and an uncertain future. Destabilisation in world markets and changes in US sugar import quotas led to industry restructuring and streamlining in areas such as sugar industry research funding. The Sugar Research Institute, whilst reduced in staff numbers and outsourcing some contracts continued its research and development.
\nAs reported by the Environmental Protection Agency's Sustainable Industries Unit in October 2004, the Institute developed more efficient condensers for sugar mills. Researchers at the Institute had observed that some vapour condensers operated more efficiently than others, requiring less cooling water flow and subsequently less electrical power for the cooling water circuit. The Institute obtained funding through the Sustainable Energy Innovation Fund to analyse the operation of several existing vapour condensers at sugar factories, to develop an improved condenser design to increase efficiency and to monitor the performance of two new condensers built with the new design.
\nTwo prototype condensers were constructed and installed. Compared with conventional designs, the units achieved reductions in cooling water flow rates. By adopting design modifications, the Institute estimated the cooling water flow would be reduced by up to 12%, yielding a proportional reduction in energy consumption for water pumping and cooling tower fans leading to annual energy savings. Besides the two prototype condensers three other condensers at Millaquin and Tully Sugar Mills were subsequently constructed and installed for the 2004 crushing season.
\nIndividual researchers from the Sugar Research Institute have also received peer recognition, including the prestigious Sugar Industry Technologists Crystal Award presented to Dr Peter Wright in 2003. The Crystal Award is presented to individuals who have contributed notably to the technological advancement of the sugar refining industry.
\nDr Wright began his career as a sugar technologist with the Sugar Research Institute in 1957. He is the first Queenslander, and the fourth Australian to receive the Crystal Award. Sugar Industry Technologists Inc was founded in the United States in 1941 by several North American sugar refineries. It has since grown to become an international association with a combined membership of approximately 100 corporate sugar refining companies and corporate allied companies with over 500 individual members worldwide.
\nOn 1 July 2005, Sugar Research Limited, trading as Sugar Research Institute, entered into an exclusive affiliation with Queensland University of Technology, providing stakeholders with access to research and consulting facilities. By June 2006 the sale of the property was finalised with the research work of the Institute being transferred to Brisbane.
\n\n
\n
","criteria":"
The sugar industry, its processes and way of life has made an influential contribution to the pattern of Queensland society and environment.
\nMackay Sugar Research Institute is significant for its part in the development of Queensland's sugar history as a non-Government sugar industry funded and controlled research centre with the construction in 1953 of the eastern section of the main Institute Building, the Director's Residence and a Utilities Building and in 1966 the western section of the main Institute Building and later in 1973 the construction of the Charles Young Conference Hall.
\nThe research undertaken at the Sugar Research Institute continued, complemented and surpassed the earlier Sugar Experiment Station. The construction of the Sugar Research Institute provides tangible evidence of the commitment that was given by the sugar industry to sugar research and particularly, the development of the Mackay district as the geographical centre for sugar research and production in Queensland.
|The Mackay Sugar Research Institute in particular the Main Building, the central part of the workshops, Director's Residence and the circular driveway is significant as a good example of the work of the important and influential architect Karl Langer. It is an inventive and pioneering solution to the problem of architectural design in Queensland under post-World War II building restrictions. Through the decorative restraint evident in the facade detailing and composition, the efficient but spacious planning of the building including its northern orientation, the main institute building is an excellent example of Langer's pioneering the use of climatic design in Queensland.
|The Mackay Sugar Research Institute is significant for its landmark quality including the royal palms [Roystonea regia] that line the roadside perimeter of the site and for the landscape design of the Nebo Road frontage, including the lawns, drive, and low brick fence. The palms were planted in 1954 and represent the Sugar Research Institute's member mills.
\nThe institute building is significant as an example of Karl Langer's work where the decorative restraint evident in the simplicity of the facade detailing and compositional qualities creates particular visual merit. Despite the surrounding area being largely built up, the Sugar Research Institute maintains its distinctive aesthetic qualities [namely its setting, form, composition and condition] and consequently retains it landmark quality in its position along Nebo Road.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4616,"place_ref":645608,"name":"Cleveland No.1 Cemetery","alternate_name":"Pioneer Cemetery | Cleveland Cemetery (No. 1) | Redlands Heritage Pioneer Cemetery | 700008 | Scott Street Park","street_address":"11 Lisa Street","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"The Cleveland No.1 Cemetery constitutes Scott Street Park and a vehicular access track running north-south to the park from Queen Street. Surrounded by residential allotments and located between Lisa Street (west) and Scott Street (east), the entire area is grassed with numerous large shade trees, consisting mainly of eucalypt species. No headstones or obvious signs of grave plots remain visible. A mound, approximately three metres wide runs south along the vehicular track from Queen Street and angles from the northwest to southeast across the identified cemetery reserve towards the playground located in the southeast quadrant of the park. The mound is approximately 40-50cm high at its apex and is likely related to the installation of services such as water into or through the park.
\nA playground area is also located within the park and measures approximately 10m x 15m. It is delineated by concrete edging and filled with sandy loam to approximately 10cm depth below the current ground surface. The installation and use of the playground equipment is unlikely to have caused major subsurface disturbance. There is a bench and a water tap situated adjacent to the north of the playground area, and timber bollards used to delineate the park area. None of the modern elements installed in the park are of archaeological importance.
\nAdjacent to Lisa Street is a memorial plaque commemorating the early burials in the cemetery. The plaque is installed on a white concrete base and is surrounded by a white timber picket fence approximately 1m high. The inscription on the plaque consists of lead letters and reads:
\n'IN MEMORY OF SOME 25 PIONEERS RESTING HERE.
\nSYDNEY A. LYONS. 1816-61. FATHER OF QLD PRESS.
\nJ. NEALE. FISHERMAN. WILLIAM RAE. PUBLICAN.
\nJOHN DAWSON. ANDREW WHELAN. BLACKSMITH.
\nROBERT HAMILTON. BRIDGET CLAREY. CHILD.
\nHENRY BOTTOMLEY. CARPENTER.
\nWILLIAM SHERRIN. 1862-64.
\nGEORGE SHERRIN. 1844-66.
\nERECTED BY SENIOR PUPILS, CLEVELAND PRIMARY SCHOOL
\n& COURTESY OF REDLAND SHIRE COUNCIL.
\nCENTENARY YEAR OF EDUCATION 1975.'
\nAn interpretation sign is installed adjacent to the memorial stone at the Lisa Street access to the park.
","history":"Cleveland No.1 Cemetery, comprising an area now known as Scott Street Park in Cleveland, is the site of the first cemetery established on the mainland in Redlands. Throughout the operation of the cemetery between 1858 and 1873, at least 11 burials are known to have occurred (it is unknown if these have been removed or reinterred to the Cleveland No.2 Cemetery). The place has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of the early history and demography of European settlement in the Redlands region, and of burial practices from this time. The place is currently parkland and includes a memorial to people interred at the cemetery.
\nPrior to European settlement, the Cleveland area was part of the traditional land of the Quandamooka People.[1]
\nCentred on Cleveland, the area which was to later become Redland Shire was one of the earliest areas in Queensland to be opened to free settlement following the closure of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement in 1842. Its location on the shores of Moreton Bay saw substantial efforts to establish Cleveland as the official port for the Moreton Bay District.
\nCleveland was declared as a township in December 1850. The first land sales took place in 1851. The earliest European settlers in the area had interests in pastoralism, business and shipping.[2]
\nA site for the first cemetery in Cleveland was surveyed by H. Rawnsley in December 1858 on a site bounded by Wellington, Queen, Russell and Smith Streets, within section 83, Parish of Cleveland. Seven separate sections were surveyed for various denominations including Church of England, Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Roman Catholics, Jews, and 'Various Denominations'.[3] By 1864 the population of the Cleveland Township was 145, with the main occupations being labourer, farmer and timber-getter.[4]
\nThe cemetery was used until 1873 when it was deemed to be unsuitable due to the 'swampy nature of the soil'. Section 112 immediately across Wellington Street to the west was gazetted as the new cemetery.[5]
\nThere are 11 identified burials in Cemetery No.1 in the 15 years between its establishment in 1858 and its replacement in 1873, including:
\nSystematic historical research into individual burials has not been undertaken. The exact number of burials at the cemetery remains unknown. It is also unknown whether any burials were removed and reinterred at the Cleveland No.2 Cemetery.
\nThe most prominent of the known individuals buried in the cemetery is Arthur Sidney Lyon, who died in Cleveland on 22 October 1861.[7] Note that he is incorrectly recorded on memorial stone and interpretation signage at the cemetery as Sydney Arthur Lyons. Lyon established the Moreton Bay Courier with partner James Swan with its first edition released on 20 June 1846. The Moreton Bay Courier later became The Courier-Mail. Lyon apparently resigned as editor in December of the following year following arguments with his partner [8], however he is still listed as the publisher for the newspaper until its purchase by Theophilus Pugh in May 1861.[9] Lyon went on to establish and run the Moreton Bay Free Press from 1849 to 1855, the Northern Australian in Ipswich from 1855 to 1858, followed by the Darling Downs Gazette from 1858, presumably until his death in 1861.[10]
\nBy 1903, the original section 83 had been divided into four lots of around five acres each. The 1903 survey plan of the cemetery identifies a surveyed rectangular area within the cemetery reserve area containing 23 lines, possibly indicating graves. It is uncertain whether these markings represent the actual number of graves visible at the time of survey or whether they indicate a general acknowledgement of the presence of graves.
\nIn October 1905 land in Section 83 was offered for sale except the cemetery which was withheld from auction because of its previous use. Cleveland Shire Council objected to the sale of the land 'on the grounds that several people have been buried therein and that it was once used for a cemetery. Unless absolutely necessary, a reserve of this description should never be alienated'.[11]
\nThe council objected again to the lease of the land in 1924, and raised the issue again in 1937. A cemetery reserve was finally gazetted as R1436 on 11 September 1937 with access provided from Queen Street.[12]
\nA memorial with the names of ten persons interred in the cemetery was erected at the site by teacher Merv Beitz from Cleveland State School as a practical history exercise for his class. The plaque on the memorial was supplied by Redland Shire Council. By the memorial was erected there were no headstones or other grave markers at the site.[13]
\nIn 2024, the cemetery site is situated in Scott Street Park and is surrounded by residential development. It comprises a grassed and landscaped space with a recent playground.
","criteria":"The Cleveland No.1 Cemetery is an important aspect of Queensland's history being the site of the first cemetery established on the mainland in Redlands, one of the first areas opened up to free settlement in southeast Queensland. The cemetery is important historically as the burial site of Arthur Sidney Lyon (1861) who was known as 'The Father of the Queensland Press'. Lyon established the Moreton Bay Courier, amongst other early newspapers.
The importance of the cemetery to the community was memorialised in 1975 through the installation of a memorial stone identifying those known to have been buried at the No.1 cemetery. The presence of interpretive signage demonstrates a continuing community association with the place.
The Cleveland No.1 Cemetery has the potential to provide new and important information that will contribute to our understanding of the early history and demography of settlement in the Redlands region. Archaeological investigations at the site have potential to reveal subsurface evidence of the actual location and number of burials in the cemetery. Such investigation may answer important research questions about the organisation and layout of the cemetery and how this differed from the original plans. Archaeological investigations also have the potential to reveal information about whether graves were later moved to the nearby (and later) Cleveland No.2 Cemetery.
Additional archaeological investigations have potential to contribute to the comparative analysis of burial practices across Queensland and through time. Important research questions can be formulated about the actual burial practices in early satellite settlements and regional communities.
Archaeological investigations at the site have potential provide important information about social structures within an important and early European settlement in Queensland's history. Social structure will be expressed through the pattern of burials and layout of the cemetery.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":4688,"place_ref":602837,"name":"Isisford District Hospital (former)","alternate_name":"Isisford Hospital","street_address":"6 St Agnes Street","suburb":"ISISFORD","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-09-09","description":"The former Isisford Hospital is located in an elevated central position at the corner of St Agnes and St Helena Streets in the small town of Isisford, western central Queensland. It comprises a spacious complex of lowset, single storey, timber-framed and clad buildings sheltered under corrugated iron roofs and interconnected by verandahs and covered ways. The buildings include: the 1892 building; 1909 pavilion female ward; 1924 maternity ward; 1950s operating theatre, 1950s morgue and 1961 kitchen wing. Mature plantings in the vicinity of the hospital include a Kurrajong (Brachychiton populneus), Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus Macrophylla) and a Eucalyptus sp.
The 1892 building is positioned laterally under a gabled roof between the 1909 pavilion ward to the west and the 1950s operating theatre to the southeast. Its timber frame, clad internally with chamferboards, is exposed to the southern enclosed verandah with the remainder of the building clad in weatherboards or flat sheeting. Its western end has been extended under the adjacent 1909 ward verandah and rooms reconfigured to accommodate an outpatients clinic. The eastern end is covered by the interior walls and ceilings are lined with flat sheeting, floors with vinyl and joinery has been replaced. The southern verandah, providing access between the buildings, is enclosed with lattice and the northern verandah has been enclosed to form a waiting room and pharmacy. Access to the building is from the north via a concrete ramp.
The 1909 pavilion female ward is a long rectangular building under a hipped roof, encircled by wide verandahs generally enclosed with lattice. It is of exposed frame construction, clad internally with wide, v-jointed tongue-and-groove-boards with a coved pressed metal ceiling and polished timber floor. One room wide, it retains its early joinery: a pair of French doors with fanlight at each end and four along each side. A centrally located nurses' station, separating the two ward rooms projects onto the western verandah opposite the entrance to the building. This space is lined with flat sheeting, has doors and viewing windows into the wards and a pair of doors providing access to the eastern verandah. A secondary set of stairs is located on the southern verandah adjacent to the bathroom. These facilities in the southwest corner have a 1950s fitout including laminate panelling and terrazzo floors. A similarly finished 1950s kitchen addition and two staff rooms are located on the northern verandah.
The 1924 maternity ward, a standard five-bed design, without a septic ward, has a hipped, corrugated iron roof with vented gablets and is attached to the north end of the 1909 female ward by a short covered way. The main entrance is located on the eastern verandah with secondary stairs on the western verandah. V-jointed tongue-and-groove boards line external walls, sheltered by verandahs, and internal walls and ceilings. Joinery generally remains intact except for the replacement of casement window sashes with sliding aluminium windows. Floors are lined with vinyl. Alterations are minor and include: the fitout of the former duty room with kitchen cabinets; openings formed in the north and south walls of the former sterilising room; removal of the partition wall between the single bed wards; sheeting over wall vents between the single and two-bed ward rooms; enclosure of the northwest verandah; and lattice screens and vertical louvres to verandahs.
Later buildings on the site date from the 1950s and have low pitched corrugated iron roofs and wide eaves. The operating theatre attached to the southern end of the 1909 pavilion ward is clad in weatherboards and comprises an entrance hall, operating theatre and ancillary space with flat sheet linings and terrazzo floors. Parallel and to the east of the theatre wing is the 1960s kitchen, attached to the southeastern end of the 1892 building's verandah. Clad in weatherboards, this building houses a kitchen, dining room and living quarters accessed from an open verandah to the east and a lattice enclosed verandah to the west. The roof of this wing extends to the north beyond the 1892 wing and over the former emergency room of the outpatients clinic, forming a verandah along its north and eastern sides. The 1950s morgue is a small detached building clad in weatherboards on a concrete slab to the west of the 1909 ward.
The hospital sits within expansive grounds and large established trees surround the hospital complex. These including a Kurrajong (Brachychiton populneus) tree to the north of the 1892 building and a Moreton Bay Fig tree (Ficus macrophylla) and a Eucalyptus sp. to the west of the 1909 ward.
","history":"Isisford District Hospital (former) is a timber-framed and -clad complex with corrugated iron roofing, located in western central Queensland. Established in 1892, with additions between 1902 and 1961, it functioned as a hospital to 1970 and as a clinic until 2011. It is a fine example of a district hospital and demonstrates the evolution of Queensland district hospitals from the 1890s in accordance with changes to community needs, health practices and hospital legislation.
\nExplored during the 1840s and 1850s, the Isisford district, centred on the Barcoo River, was settled by pastoralists from the mid-1860s. In 1874 William and James Whitman established themselves at the site of Isisford and called the place ‘Whittown'. Pastoral development south along the Barcoo River brought workers, drovers and teamsters, boosting Whittown as a service centre. In 1878 the town was surveyed and renamed ‘Isis Ford'. During the 1880s further development in the region occurred. Wool production increased, bringing more shearers into the district. Construction of the Central Western railway line from Rockhampton brought transportation closer with each stage completed - reaching Jericho in 1885, and Barcaldine in November 1886.[1]
\nThe requirement for a hospital and a doctor, to serve the medical needs of the town and district, was recognised by 1887. In 1891 a provisional hospital committee was formed. It quickly raised £400 with another £800 promised. A public meeting in October 1891 appointed a permanent hospital committee,[2] which by April 1892 had complied with the regulations of the Hospitals' Act 1862 and was eligible for a government subsidy. An application for a site on which to erect the hospital buildings was made to the Department of Public Lands and a hospital reserve was subsequently created. In September 1892 the committee had £1000 in funds available and the hospital was under construction.[3] At the end of October 1892, the committee was advertising for a matron and a wardsman, and by February the following year the hospital was treating patients.[4]
\nIsisford District Hospital's plan, location and siting on a large reserve occupying a rise to the south of the town centre, followed the accepted principles for late nineteenth century hospitals.[5] As a series of interconnected buildings, it conformed to the popular pavilion plan for hospitals, comprising a series of detached pavilions, designed to provide light and fresh air. Like other small Queensland hospitals, the wards and rooms of the Isisford District Hospital were enclosed by wide verandahs, while kitchen, bathroom and toilet facilities were contained in semi-detached blocks.[6] The design of hospital buildings, and their location and siting, was influenced by the widely accepted miasmatic theory of disease, which postulated that disease was transmitted by breathing air that was contaminated. Therefore, good ventilation and sanitation would reduce the spread of disease. An essential element of a good hospital site was an elevated position on a generous area of land, preferably on the outskirts of a town. The elevated site was advantageous in catching breezes and enhancing the flow of fresh air through the wards. A large hospital reserve, well removed from the urban centre, was believed to minimise the effect of noxious and foul vapours. Hospital reserves at this time were almost invariably on the outskirts of a town and comprised an extensive area of land, well in excess of what was required, with the main block and out-buildings occupying less than a tenth of the total reserve.[7]
\nManaged by its committee, with the support of the wider community, the Isisford District Hospital provided valuable medical service for the next 52 years. Funds were raised through subscriptions from members of the community, shearers' contributions, donations of goods and money, and fund-raising events, such as concerts.[8]
\nIsisford and its surrounding district grew over the three decades following the hospital's establishment. In 1901 Isisford's population was 270, rising to 356 in 1907 and peaking at 388 residents in 1921.[9] Growth in selector numbers in the Isisford district between 1902 and 1926, stimulated by the western progress of the Central Western railway line, combined with a run of good seasons, provided two decades of sustained prosperity.
\nThis growth was reflected by several additions to the hospital. A morgue building was added by September 1903.[10] In 1908 tenders were called for addition of a female ward.[11] In May 1913 an additional building was being erected. The purpose of this building is not mentioned in any reports, but matron and nurses' quarters were being furnished in October 1913 and a 1927 newspaper article notes the earlier addition of nurses' quarters to the original hospital.[12]
\nWide-ranging, long-term changes to hospital management in Queensland resulted from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) coming to power in Queensland in 1915 and governing almost without interruption until 1957.[13] In April 1916 several Queensland newspapers carried the story that the Queensland Government intended to take over the management of the Isisford District Hospital.[14] A new committee had been appointed which included two government representatives. However, this made little difference to the management of the hospital - the committee still funded the hospital through fund-raising and donations, supplemented by government subsidies for buildings and maintenance.[15]
\nDuring World War I the Isisford District Hospital Committee struggled to retain a doctor. Believing it would be easier to keep a doctor in Isisford if accommodation could be provided, the committee in 1918 set about funding a doctor's residence, subsidised by the Queensland Government. It was erected by the beginning of 1921.[16]
\nNot long afterwards the attributes of the hospital were listed by the Western Champion newspaper:
\nIf there is one institution in Isisford of which the town and district people may feel proud it is the hospital. The fine block of buildings is erected on an elevated central position, and a beautiful breeze appears to always prevail around the spacious verandahs. It is over 30 years since the Isisford Hospital was founded - certainly in a small way at first, but the buildings have been gradually added to and improved until now the hospital is worthy of a place in much larger towns... The hospital in Isisford appears altogether too large and well-appointed for the size of the town, but still in years to come it may be too inadequate. There are male and female wards, in addition to private wards... operating theatre... dispensary.... The nurses and matron's private rooms are very snug. The northern verandah is well-curtained, and here the nurses have a very comfortable open-air sleeping apartment.... Separating the staff's apartments from the wards is a wide lounge, running the whole length of the building.... The kitchen is commodious and well equipped, and all the doors and windows are gauzed. There is ample verandah space - a most commendable provision on the part of the designers of the building. There is also a lock ward - a separate building, not long erected at a cost of £400 ... and arrangements are well forward for the erection of a maternity ward and also an infectious diseases ward. The hospital water supply is well provided for ... by means of several large tanks, while a ‘hospital' cow supplies all the milk that is necessary. The building is lighted throughout with acetylene gas.... A very fine new residence (which adjoins the hospital) has just been erected and furnished at a cost of about £1700 for the doctor.[17]
\nThe next major development of the Isisford District Hospital followed the passing of Queensland's Maternity Act 1922, the state's response to the Australia-wide and international movement to reduce infant mortality and improve maternal health.[18] The Act established a network of free maternity hospitals throughout Queensland, managed under the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund, financed through the profits of the state-run lottery, the Golden Casket, established in 1920. The Act sought to decrease the death rate for mothers and babies; to increase the birth-rate; to expand outback settlement, and to train mothers how to care for children, thereby developing a healthy population.[19] Over a 15 year period an extensive network of maternity wards and hospitals throughout the state changed maternity services in Queensland from privately run nursing homes or home births to public hospitals. ‘By 1940 almost all women in Queensland had access to a government-built maternity facility. No other state government developed such a comprehensive network of maternity facilities'.[20]
\nPriority in the provision of maternity wards was given to the more remote and isolated communities. Isisford was in the first group of towns to receive a maternity ward.[21] Isisford District Hospital, received a standard plan five bed maternity ward (without a septic ward annex) designed by the Department of Public Works, erected in 1923-24 and opened in January 1925.[22] The maternity ward ‘comprised a labour ward, sterilising room, duty room and two two-bed wards which opened onto a verandah. The building was connected to the main block by a covered walkway'.[23] It cost, with furniture, approximately £1600. The cost of its maintenance was to be met by the Isisford District Hospital Committee.[24]
\nIn 1927 the growth of the Isisford District Hospital was described by the Longreach Leader:
\nThe original hospital building is now used for two female wards and a kitchen. Additions since opening have been nurses' quarters, two female wards, operating theatre, isolation ward, maternity ward and doctor's residence. The institution is equipped with electric lighting and Xray plant. Staff comprise a medical officer, matron, two nurses and the domestic staff namely yardsman, cook, housemaid and laundress. There are four general wards - public and private ward for males and two similar wards for females.[25]
\nFurther health legislation, which altered hospital and medical services in the state, was enacted during the 1920s and 1930s by the Queensland Government. The Hospitals Act 1923 established the model for future management of hospitals through district boards.[26]
\nHowever, in the 1930s the Isisford District Hospital was still supported by the fund-raising efforts of its committee, showing the importance of the institution to the district.[27] Throughout the 1930s the Isisford Hospital Committee undertook alterations and additions to improve the hospital including alterations to the maternity ward in 1933 increase ventilation in the building the addition in 1935, of reticulated water, after the council's weir was completed in October 1934.[28] [29] [30]
\nPost-World War II was a period of great change to hospital funding and operations in Australia. Queensland's Health Act Amendment Act 1944 ended any voluntary hospitals still operating and gave the Queensland Government complete control of the hospital system. Local authorities were relieved of any financial responsibility towards the maintenance of hospitals, and their representation on boards was reduced to one member with the remainder appointed by the government.[31] Isisford Hospital came under the control of the Blackall Hospitals Board.[32]
\nStaffing became an issue again post-World War II, which prompted the community to fund-raise to resolve this problem. There was no doctor at Isisford Hospital between December 1945 and May 1946[33] and when the remaining medical staff resigned because of over-work, the hospital temporarily closed.[34] This prompted the committee to send a letter of complaint to EM Hanlon, Chief Secretary (Premier) in May 1946 about the lack of staff at Isisford Hospital due to bureaucratic inefficiency.[35] At the same time a series of public meetings were held and Isisford established the Isisford Hospital Benefit Fund from June 1946 - a voluntary subscription list for the purpose of endowing the nursing staffs' wages at £5 per person per calendar month, as compensation for the extra cost of living in the isolated district.[36] As a result of the wage bonus, the Matron returned and two double-certificated nurses and an assistant nurse were obtained. Thereafter, the extra £5 per month made it possible to retain a full nursing staff.[37] However, it still remained difficult to get doctors appointed through the centralised system and to retain them.[38]
\nPost-World War II, Isisford's population rose and its facilities developed due to good seasons and a boom in wool prices. However, the 1956 shearers' strike led to the loss of shearers from the town thereafter.[39]
\nStarting in 1948 and continuing into the 1950s, extensions were made to Isisford Hospital including: a kitchen, operating theatre and an extension to one of the 1892 buildings.[40] Blackall Hospitals Board was advised by the Department of Health and Home Affairs that its plan for remodelling the Isisford Hospital had been approved; there was also approval for installation of an X-ray plant at Isisford.[41]
\nIn early 1956 the Isisford morgue was damaged by a windstorm and the Blackall Hospital Board recommended that a new morgue building should be erected. In the same year the 1892 ward building, was removed.[42] By 1958, a new operating theatre with terrazzo floor, designed by Brisbane architects Fulton & Collin was completed.[43] Remodelling and additions, including kitchen and laundry, occurred at Isisford Hospital in the 1950s and 1960s.[44]
\nFor Isisford, the 1960s and 1970s were a period of decline. The last full-time resident doctor left in 1959.[45] By 1961 the population had fallen to 293, and continued to fall, especially with the 1965 drought, reaching 169 in 1971.[46] This resulted in a loss of services; for example, in 1979 the Isisford Post Office was downgraded to an unofficial post office.[47]
\nOn 14 September 1970, the Queensland Cabinet decided that Isisford Hospital in future would operate as an Outpatients' Centre with a number of holding beds and a dental clinic.[48] The facilities on the hospital site at this time were: a general section with a private ward (one bed), male public ward (four beds), female public ward (4 beds); a maternity section with a public ward (two beds), two private rooms and a labour ward; outpatient department; operating theatre block; Xray department; dental clinic; kitchen and dining room block; laundry block; boiler house; morgue; storerooms; nursing staff quarters in the quarters provided for the medical superintendent; and male staff quarters in the kitchen/dining room block. The public ward and nursery in the maternity ward was used by the Matron as a bedroom and sitting room, and the private rooms had been converted to a Dental Clinic because maternity cases were transferred to the Blackall Hospital. Later, the medical superintendent's residence was removed.
\nIn 1996, a survey of the heritage buildings under the administration of the Queensland Department of Health identified the Isisford Hospital Maternity Ward as of state heritage significance. It concluded that the building was substantially intact. The 1909 pavilion ward was also identified as a significant twentieth century pavilion ward.[50]
\nIn the twenty-first century, a further reduction of services to the region occurred with the closure of the Jericho-Yaraka railway line and its replacement with 280 km of sealed road from Blackall to Windorah. Queensland Rail ceased operations on the Yaraka line in November of the same year.[51] In 2006 Isisford's population was 262[52] - its level in the 1960s and 1970s.
\nThe Isisford Clinic in the former Isisford District Hospital closed in 2011, when it was replaced by a new Isisford Primary Health Clinic located nearby on the corner of St Agnes and St Helena Streets, still within the former hospital reserve. In 2014, its future use has yet to be determined.
\nIn 2014, the former Isisford District Hospital retains fabric from its earliest phase through its development over the ensuring 70 years. Part of the original hospital is at the core of its pavilion plan. The 1909 pavilion ward is intact and now uncommon. Of the 78 twentieth century pavilion hospitals and wards identified in the1996 Queensland Health Heritage Survey, this ward is one of fewer than 21 extant. The 1924 maternity ward is one of no more than 13 former standard plan maternity wards remaining from the 71 that were built according to the standard 5/9 bed plan between 1923 and 1936. Of the existing standard plan maternity wards, most have been substantially modified and no longer demonstrate the principal characteristics of the standard plan, whereas the Isisford Maternity Ward remains one of the most intact standard maternity wards.[53]
","criteria":"The former Isisford District Hospital (1892-1970) is important in demonstrating the evolution of the provision of hospital and medical services to rural communities in Queensland during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The original 1892 building, 1909 female ward, 1924 maternity ward, 1950s morgue, operating theatre and 1961 kitchen extension resulted from the increasing needs of the developing community, changing health practices and evolving government policies regulating hospital services.
The former maternity ward (1924) is important in demonstrating the development of maternity services in Queensland as a result of the Maternity Act 1922. This building, located in an isolated western town, also demonstrates the extensiveness of the 1922 policy.
|The former Isisford District Hospital maternity ward is an uncommon and intact example of a standard plan Department of Public Works maternity ward; a design that was once common. Of the 71 maternity wards erected in Queensland, it is one of the two most intact maternity wards surviving.
\nThe 1909 pavilion ward is an uncommon and intact example of a twentieth century pavilion ward; a design that was once common.
|The former Isisford District Hospital is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a district hospital in Queensland. Located on a large, elevated site at a distance from the town centre, the hospital includes wards, operating theatre, maternity ward, sterilising room, dispensary, morgue, staff accommodation, kitchen and laundry facilities.
The Maternity Ward is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a standard plan five bed maternity ward built as a result of the Maternity Act 1922. These are the labour ward, sterilising room, duty room (nursery), two single bed wards, one two-bed ward, and an ancillary wing connected by verandahs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5016,"place_ref":602659,"name":"Walkerston State Butcher's Shop (former)","alternate_name":"Walkerston State Butchers Shop (former)","street_address":"13 Dutton Street","suburb":"WALKERSTON","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-03","description":"The former Walkerston State Butcher shop is a small timber building on the north side of Dutton Street, and its street awning, supported by timber posts, projects over the footpath. The front section of the original building has exposed timber framing, whereas the rear section is clad in weatherboards. A later rear extension is clad in both fibre cement sheeting and corrugated iron.
The front facade of the shop has a central doorway, with a large timber-framed four-panel window to the right of the door. The western side of the shop also has a timber double-door entrance. A metal window hood is located above the sash window at the end of the western wing of the rear section of the shop.
The original shop has a T shape, with the head of the T to the rear. The corrugated iron gabled roof thus has wider eaves towards the front of the building than it does to the rear. The gables have been vented at each apex by wedging the weatherboarding slightly open. The skillion roofed street awning has a timber valance, and the rear extension also has a skillion roof. An open skillion carport extends further to the rear behind the enclosed addition.
Internally, the shop has an open area to the front, measuring about 4.8m square, with a mansard-profile timber ceiling. Between the top of the side walls and the ceiling, sheets of perforated material have been set between the timber framing to provide ventilation. A doorway at the rear of this space leads into a kitchen, with modern fittings, which occupies the eastern rear wing of the building. A doorway to the left leads from the kitchen into the western rear wing, now used as a small storeroom. Both wings have sash windows that have been sealed. The west wing also has a rear-facing sash window that has been sealed after the addition of the rear extension. Both wings have mansard-profile timber ceilings.
A doorway from the kitchen leads into the rear skillion addition. The rear addition appears to have had a serving window that has been sealed, facing the rear yard, to the west of the carport. The interior of the kitchen and the rear addition are clad in plasterboard sheeting, but the remainder of the interior of the shop has vertical timber boarding. To the northeast of the rear of the shop is a raised concrete slab, which may cover an old well. Further to the rear of the shop is a large fig tree, which has two ingrown steel rails on its northern side, one vertical and set in the ground, the other set at a diagonal down into the tree. Two small rectangular open-top concrete vats stand in the northwest corner of the allotment.
A recent flat-roofed carport structure connects the front of the western side of the shop to the neighbouring building, and is not historically significant.
","history":"The small timber former State Butcher's shop, built in 1922 in Walkerston, just west of Mackay, stands on the north side of Dutton Street, and is one of the last of the old shops remaining in the town.
The City of Mackay is named for John Mackay, who entered the valley of the Pioneer River in 1860 and established a pastoral run there the following year. In 1862 a settlement was begun on the south bank of the river and by 1863, Mackay had been surveyed and the first lots of land sold. It was gazetted as a port of entry and a customs house was opened. The town prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre, drawing business from nearby pastoral holdings and the sugar plantations being developed along the river. The 1880s saw an expansion in population as the Queensland economy enjoyed a boom and people poured into the colony. The sugar industry was also booming and Mackay continued to develop as an important regional centre.
Walkerston started in the 1860s as a staging centre for teamsters between Mackay and Nebo, and most of the land around Walkerston was selected in the 1860s. F.H. Wilson set up a boiling-down works in 1867, and a number of buildings were present by the time Walkerston received a Post Office in 1876. In this year Walkerston had a population of 200, compared to Mackay's 2000. A brickyard was also established around this time, and a Provisional School was opened in 1874. Walkerston had two names until 1881: 'Alsatia' applied to the area east of Bold Street; and 'Walkerston' applied to the area west of Bold Street.
The development of Walkerston was aided by the Pioneer Railway, which reached Mirani in 1885. The presence of seven sugar mills nearby (Alexandra, Pleystowe, Cassada, Branscombe, Lorne, Palms, and Palmyra), built between 1868-1883, also boosted Walkerston's economy during the 1880s.
Three State butcher shops were opened in Mackay during 1922, and Walkerston received its own State butcher shop in the same year. In 1915 TJ Ryan's Labor government won office in wartime Queensland on the strength of promises to improve living standards - principally by addressing the problems of high commodity prices, price-fixing and the emergence of monopolies. The Labor party in general and Ryan and his Treasurer, EG Theodore, in particular, advocated public ownership of key economic activities, in competition with private enterprise, but at fair prices. They argued that by operating at a reduced profit margin the cost of goods and services provided by State-run enterprises would be reduced, and that the flow-on effect would be to reduce and stabilise prices for similar goods and services provided by the private sector.
In the period 1915-1925 the Queensland Government instituted or acquired a diversity of business enterprises, including a State Insurance Office, a Public Curator's Office, the Golden Casket State Lottery, sawmills and joinery works, mining and fishing ventures (including a string of State Fish Shops), a hotel, a sugar mill, cold stores, plant nurseries, cattle stations and a network of butcher's shops, the process being formalised with the passing of the State Enterprises Act of 1918. These activities were part of a broader, pragmatic Labor platform, which advocated State intervention in the private sector to protect individuals against capitalist exploitation, not as a means of involving workers in the control of production, or of raising wage levels. Labor politicians regarded State enterprise as 'State capitalism' rather than 'State socialism'.
In 1915 cattle-raising was one of the principal economic activities of the State. Believing that all Queenslanders should have access to meat at fair prices, and needing to maintain a regular supply of cheap meat to the Allied fighting forces, the Ryan government introduced a State-wide system of State-owned butcher's shops which proved to be among the more successful of the numerous State enterprises. The first State butcher's shop was opened in Roma Street, Brisbane, on 12 November 1915, and soon other shops were established in Brisbane suburbs and in regional centres such as Rockhampton, Gympie, Townsville, Charters Towers, and Mount Morgan, following the railway lines via which frozen meat was distributed to the State butcheries.
From 1915 to 1929, 90 State butcher's shops operated in Queensland for various periods, mostly in leased or purchased premises. In fairness to established butcheries, when the State intended to open a butcher's shop in a town or suburb, inspections were made of existing butcheries, to assess the possibility of State acquisition. The peak number of shops operating at any one time was 72, in 1922-23.
Only seven purpose-built butcher's shops appear to have been constructed in Queensland, each built to an individual design. The first purpose-built State butchery was included within the brick Central State Fish Market, South Brisbane (1917-18). Another purpose-built State butchery, also made of brick, was opened in Roma [602155] in September 1919 after an expenditure of just over £4,000. The Booval State Butchery, built of timber, opened in July 1920, after expenditure of £600; and the Ayr State Butchery opened in July 1921. The latter was constructed of brick and wood, with a cost of just over £2,000. The design included a shop, breaking down room, cold store, engine room, change room, store, fuel shed and a condenser house.
The remaining three purpose-built State butcheries opened in 1922. The Mackay State Butchery, built of timber and fibre-cement, opened in May 1922, with a construction cost of just over £2,600. The Mackay (South Side) State Butchery, George Street, was also built of timber and fibre cement, and opened during August 1922, with a construction cost of £327. The timber Walkerston State Butchery opened during November 1922, with a construction cost of about £536.
Cold stores and additions were erected at various butcher's shops, but no other purpose-designed shop was constructed. Initially the State butcher's shops were supplied with frozen meat from meatworks companies, but from 1921 they purchased their own stock, which they killed at their own slaughter-yards, ensuring that the State butcher's shops were supplied always with fresh meat at very competitive prices.
Despite benefits such as the provision of employment, assistance to small farmers and small business, and the provision of cheaper meat to thousands, the State Enterprises scheme as a whole proved an economic failure. Some State enterprises had been purchased at an inflated price; others were located in unsuitable areas or were badly managed; others suffered the effects of economic recession, or of the mid-1920s drought. Following the passing of the Profiteering Prevention Act of 1920, other mechanisms were in place for controlling prices. By 1926, Labor premier William McCormack had declared publicly his intention of disposing of unprofitable State Enterprises, although little action was taken at the time. Some of the State butcher shops were disposed of in the period 1926-1928, and when Labor was defeated at the 1929 election, the in-coming Country/Progressive/Nationalist coalition government disposed of most of the remaining State Enterprises, including the 39 remaining State butcher's shops, which ceased trading as of 30 June 1929.
In their 14 years of operation, the State butcher's shops sold over £5 million worth of meat and had made an overall profit to the Treasury of £185,000, but when interest and other charges were factored in, they lost about £6,000. However, this pales by comparison with the combined £2 million loss sustained by the State stations and the State-acquired Chillagoe railway, mines and smelter.
The Walkerston State Butcher shop was built on land previously owned by Annie and William Barwise (publicans at the nearby Duke of Edinburgh Hotel). Title for 19.87 perches of this land was registered to The Commissioner for Trade on 6 November 1922 (the Memorandum of Conveyance had been produced on 3 August 1922). On 12 September 1922 a letter from the Commissioner of the Queensland State Trade Office, W.H. Austin, to the Under Secretary and Director of Public Works, had requested further work on the State Butchery at Walkerston ('now nearing completion'), through the District Foreman of Works at Rockhampton. The works requested were: a paling fence on the front alignment, with post and wire fencing on other three sides; a stable building of timber with an iron roof, containing two stalls with slip rails in front, a feed room (with wooden floor and door), and open space for one cart; and a hardwood cover for the well. An ice chest was also supplied by the Department of Public Works by 4 December 1922.
Title for the land was transferred to Albert A. Cook, John H. Baker, and Kenneth W. Baker in February 1925, and was then transferred to Albert A. Cook and John H. Baker in May 1928. Although the local history 'Sugar from the Scrub' claims that the shop was not used as a butcher 's shop after 1928, its subsequent owners were butchers, and it may have continued trading as such.
During its more recent history the Walkerston shop has been used as a Pizza shop, and it currently sells Dance Supplies A skillion section clad in fibre cement sheeting has been added to the rear of the shop at some stage, resulting in the boarding over of a rear sash window. A carport is attached to the rear skillion addition, and a more recent carport structure has also been added to the west side of the shop, connecting with the neighbouring modern building.
No equipment related to butchery remains in the shop, although a large fig tree to the rear of the property, near High Street, has metal railings embedded in its branches, possibly used for butchering carcasses. There are also two small concrete vats sitting at the northwest rear corner of the property, purpose unknown.
","criteria":"The former State Butcher's Shop at Walkerston, erected in 1922, is a result of the political and economic experiment embodied by the State Enterprises Act of 1918. Between 1915 and 1925 successive Queensland Labor governments established various State enterprises, with the network of State butcher's shops being among the more successful of these experiments. The highly co-coordinated, statewide system of State butcheries provided cheaper meat to thousands of Queensland families between 1915 and 1929.
|As one of the last of the old shops in Walkerston, it makes an important contribution to the built character of the town.
|The place is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a modest example of a purpose-designed State butcher's shop of its era. The large front window, the street awning, and ventilation at the top of the walls also reflect the design of butcher shops of the period. The large roof overhang above the front section also appears to be an attempt to reduce the temperature within the shop.
|The timber Walkerston shop was one of only seven purpose-designed State butcher's shops constructed 1917-1922 - most of the State butcher's shops operated from leased or purchased premises. The only other known surviving State butcher, at Roma, is a larger, brick building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5021,"place_ref":602177,"name":"Unara","alternate_name":"Unara Community Health Centre","street_address":"9-13 Tourist Road","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"Unara is a large, low-set timber residence constructed in 1906, that has elements of the Federation Bungalow style and is now part of a larger complex of buildings. The former residence has two wings added, a northern wing in 1954 and a southern wing in 1962, and an extension to the kitchen wing at the back. Until recently there was also a brick building that was constructed in 1974 but has now been demolished and only the floorslab remains. There is also a separate laundry and workshop building.
The original planning of the house is substantially intact and later additions are clearly articulated. Verandahs on the north and east have been enclosed and the building is entered from a doorway on the north-eastern elevation. Many of the rooms have been lined with hardboard and fibro. Several large, well proportioned rooms with high ceilings have elements of original fabric remaining, these include pressed metal ceilings, leadlight windows, tiled fire places and other decorative elements. There are original doors throughout, these are generally four panel doors with Art Nouveau style finger plates and lock furniture. There are a number of styles of windows, including many timber sash windows and a variety of recent styles such as sliding and casement windows.
Basins have been added in a number of the rooms, along with built-in cupboards and some new partitions. Two kitchens have been added and are generally equipped with basic timber joinery and stainless steel benches.
The exterior of the building is characterised by the large multi-gabled roof clad in corrugated steel with projecting gable ends with timber and roughcast infill and cupola-like corner treatment. There are also a number of large bay windows, one of which has multi-paned coloured glass windows. There are three red brick chimneys with high level square openings. The verandahs have been enclosed with fibro, however, the rest of the building is clad in chamferboards. The house is set on concrete stumps and is accessed via timber stairs. The stair on the northern elevation appears to be the original entry stair and has a timber balustrade and handrail. A concrete path leads from the entry gate on Tourist Road to these stairs and then along the eastern side of the house and 1954 wing.
Vehicle access to the site is provided on the southern end of the site and a large expanse of gravel driveway occupies this end of the site. Also on this side of the site are mature trees including a Kauri Pine and other pines and a Liquid Amber. Along the Eastern elevation is a tall camellia hedge and two large camellia shrubs flank the entry path. At the rear of the site are a large Magnolia tree, oak tree, long leaf pine and a timber tank stand covered with wisteria.
","history":"Unara is a substantial timber residence built in c.1906 for Sir Littleton Groom and prominently located at the top of the Range on Tourist Road near the junction of the Warrego Highway.
Groom acquired the site on the edge of the Toowoomba Range overlooking the Lockyer Valley in 1904 and named the property Unara. The planning of the house was typical of the period, with a central hallway providing access to the principal rooms including a drawing room, study, dining room and bedrooms. The kitchen, pantry and servants quarters were located in a rear wing. A verandah surrounded the front section of the building. The main entrance, with a projecting gable roof, was situated on the northern side of the building.
When the residence was built for Groom, he was a prominent figure on the Darling Downs. He was born in Toowoomba on 22 April 1867, son of William Henry Groom, who had various political offices including Mayor of Toowoomba and member of the Legislative Assembly. Henry Groom won the seat of Darling Downs in the first Commonwealth Parliament but died soon after taking office. Littleton Groom took over his father's seat in a by-election and held it until his death in 1936 with the exception of the period 1929-32. Prior to entering Parliament, Littleton Groom practised as a lawyer, having studied arts and law at Melbourne University. He was admitted to the Queensland Bar in 1891. During his time in Federal Parliament Groom held various portfolios including attorney-general, home affairs, trade and customs and external affairs. He was knighted in 1924 and Groom served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1926 to 1929.
Following Groom's death in 1936 the residence was vacated by his wife and rented. It was later sold and converted into a guest house. In December 1945 the Division of Maternal and Child Health in the Department of Health purchased the property for £7682 for use as a Mothercraft Home. Similar homes were established during the 1940s at Clayfield, Sandgate, Ipswich and Rockhampton. These homes were intended to provide care for premature babies and for mothers requiring more intensive assistance in caring for infants.
Additions and alterations were undertaken to suit the new use. Many of the internal walls were sheeted with hardboard. The ceilings were also sheeted with the exception of the principal rooms which had pressed metal ceilings. In 1954 a wing was erected on the northern side of the building for staff quarters. This wing was completed for a cost of £12,000. Another wing with nine rooms was erected on the southern side in 1962. A new laundry and workshop was constructed in 1974. The mothercraft Home was closed in 1977 and the buildings were utilised as office accommodation by other divisions of the Health Department. The property was fully occupied and demand for additional accommodation resulted in the erection of a demountable block in 1986 at the rear of the site. The property was occupied by a variety of community health and allied health services until 1999 when the building was vacated.
The grounds are landscaped with mature shrubs, trees and hedges, lawn and pathways. It is probable that the pattern of landscaping, particularly the mature trees, date from the Groom period.
","criteria":"Unara, a substantial timber residence built in c.1906 is significant for its strong association with Sir Littleton Groom who was a prominent figure in the Darling Downs for more than 30 years. For many years, he was the most senior Queensland conservative politician in the Commonwealth Parliament during its first decades and was well known at both state and federal level.
Unara is important in demonstrating the development of Toowoomba and in particular the desirability of the Range as a location for the residences of prominent and affluent citizens of the city.
|Unara has aesthetic significance which derives from it's pleasing design and setting within a large garden with mature trees, hedges, lawn and shrubs.
|The significance of Unara and its association with Sir Littleton Groom is enhanced by its location in the city and in relation to the Groom Memorial immediately opposite the property in a small park at the junction of the Warrego Highway and Tourist Road.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5033,"place_ref":645613,"name":"Adolphus William Copper Smelter and Dee Township","alternate_name":"Dee Copper Mine Smelter | 700013","street_address":"C/- \"Copper Hills\"","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-05-13","description":"Smelter
The remains of the smelter are located on the western aspect and on the upper slope of a low hill in dry stony ridge country above Oaky Creek. The area surrounding the smelter ruins is infested with lantana and rubber vine, limiting visibility in places. The area has been heavily overgrazed and is continuing to degrade with evidence of severe topsoil erosion.
Components of the smelter include a largely intact brick chimney stack and associated brick rubble, a collapsed brick stack, two collapsed reverberatory furnaces, a slag pile, and scattered metal and other artefacts. A dry stone retaining wall flanks the western side (down slope) of the smelter site and is constructed from locally sourced stone and measures 0.8 - 1.0m in height.
The stack measures 16m in height and features a square based (1.8m x 1.8m) stack design with a brick pedestal foundation measuring 2.0m x 2.0m. The interior of the stack is made from imported yellow to orange-red Cumbernauld firebricks laid in a header bond arrangement. The exterior structure is made from locally made clay bricks (no makers mark or 'frog' evident) arranged in a modified English bond coursework pattern.
The stack has been braced at set intervals from the top down to approximately half height. Angle iron is used and is formed by two pieces with short overlapping angle pieces at the join and is held in place with a looped and threaded rod. This bracing appears to be held in place by clamping to the stack fascia rather than direct attachment to the brickwork.
The lower half of the stack is braced internally with two sets of four heavy steel rods running horizontally through each side of the stack and protruding from the brickwork near each corner. Clamping plates are sited flush with the brickwork then packing/washers with square sided nuts are used to tighten the bracing against the brick work. These clamping plates have 'AWCS' stamped onto each corner suggesting at least partial on-site manufacture in a blacksmith's or smelter workshop.
Other archaeological artefacts are found close-by to the stack, including an a iron crucible (carrying/lifting jig/frame) a post with large neat mortise work, suggesting a professional carpenter may have been employed to erect a timber building encompassing parts of the smelter works, and a slag pile/slope to the south. A fig tree, located adjacent to the intact chimney stack and impacting on the brickworks, features historical graffiti.
The remains of the second brick chimney stack, which collapsed in 1954, are located to the east of the intact stack. This is now visible as a partially collapsed brick base, a brick pile and scatter of 'Cumbernauld' and locally made bricks, and remnant structural timbers.
The remains of the reverberatory furnaces are in an advanced state of decay and are mostly collapsed. The furnaces are made with 'Cumbernauld' firebricks and feature a large amount of slag build-up. These firebricks have also used to help keep the base brickwork intact. Iron beams, possibly from a local light rail track, have been rammed into the ground in certain places to help stabilise the furnaces. Fig tree and rubber vine are extensive in this area and are invading some elements of the brickwork and in other places helping to stabilise it.
The ruins of a small cottage interpreted as the smelter manager's cottage are located approximately 150m east and upslope from the intact chimney stack. The site is near the crest of the hill and features a brick floor or foundations, a brick chimney and ships tanks. The cottage measures approximately 6.2m long and 4.9m wide and was constructed of local bricks. The remaining in-situ elements are the foundations of the cottage and/or part of a brick floor. The lack of bricks scattered adjacent to the cottage suggests that parts may have been made from local timbers, or bricks were taken from the site and reused elsewhere.
A bottle tree located at the site of the manager's cottage features historical graffiti dating to the period of smelter operations. Engraved on the tree is 'W.A. Mine 1874'.
The cottage chimney measures 4.4m in height and has a 1.5m square base. Brickwork is stepped above 1.5m. A ships tank (1.2m x 1.2m) is located next to the cottage ruin. The tank has a circular access hole with a drop-in lid and was possibly used for water storage, possibly runoff from the cottage roof.
Located down slope and approximately 75-100m west-northwest of the cottage ruins is a scatter of metal, mostly scrap iron such as bolts, metal plating and sheeting, rail tracks and rail cut offs, and a crucible basket. This area has been tentatively interpreted as a 'workshop' attached to the smelting operations. Material is spread across the slope for 50m, with a brick scatter to the south, metal artefacts concentrated in the centre, and a brick stockpile (local and firebricks) situated at the northern end. Fragments of stoneware were recorded immediately upslope from the 'workshop' area.
Dee Township
The abandoned Dee Township is located about one kilometre southwest of the smelter area. The township area consists of the remains of at least 3-4 buildings. Two chimneys interpreted as belonging to two distinct domestic structures have been identified. One chimney is still intact and stands approximately 3m in height. A second chimney located approximately 8m distant to the intact chimney is mostly collapsed, the remains standing 1.3m in height. A third structure interpreted as the 'bakehouse' was recorded 40m south of the intact domestic chimney. This site featured base/footings of a chimney stack and short wall remnants, a floor measuring 5.3m x 4.0m, five ships tanks (1.2m x 1.2m each) scattered immediately north and northeast of the site, and small quantities of broken glass, stoneware and ceramics located down slope.
A fourth feature is located to the northeast of ruins of the two domestic structures. A cobbled surface of un-worked locally sourced cobble stones is located adjacent to a modern access track. The surface follows the natural slope, suggesting that it is not a building foundation. The surface measures 18m long and 7m wide. Close to the cobbled surface is a steel bucket made from riveted folded iron sheeting and strapping.
It is probable that other residences and structures within Dee Township were tent huts, and evidence of these structures may remain in shallow subsurface deposits around the identified elements of the township.
","history":"The Adolphus William Copper Smelter, located 45km southwest of Rockhampton, was one of a number of small copper operations established in central Queensland during the boom - bust period in international copper prices in the early to mid 1870s. The smelter operated between 1874 and 1876. The associated Adolphus William Copper Mine had a fluctuating history, being worked on and off between 1872 and the late 1870s, (possibly as late as 1879) then again in the early and mid 20th century. Little information exists for the associated Dee Township, which is believed to have been occupied during the 1870s boom period and was quickly abandoned when the mine and smelter closed for the first time. The last copper mining occurred in the area in 1940, and in 1942, the copper deposits in the area were declared unprofitable.
\nCopper was the first metal commercially mined in Australia, commencing in South Australia in 1844. In Queensland, the Peak Downs Copper Mine at Copperfield, near Clermont in Central Queensland, opened in 1862. It was Queensland's first successful copper mine and the first successful copper mine outside South Australia (Blainey 1981:128).
\nThe early copper industry, like most Australian mining operations, always had to export its mineral products and was therefore at the mercy of international copper price fluctuations (Kerr 1992:1). A series of small copper mines and smelters were established in Queensland during a copper boom - bust period in the early - mid 1870s. These operations were established during a period of high international copper prices when the mineral was valued at as much as UK¿95 per ton (Pearson 1994a:15). The first mine established during this period was at Mount Perry, southwest of Bundaberg. A mineral freehold had been established at Mount Perry in 1870 and a 'copper rush' soon followed. A smelter was erected in 1871 and its reverberatory furnaces were operating by 1872 (Pearson 1994b:72).
\nThis 'copper rush' and an extended period of high copper prices resulted in a rapid establishment of a number of additional copper mines and smelters in central and southern parts of Queensland. Operations commenced at Kariboe Creek, between Monto and Biloela in 1871 and Mount Orange southwest of Mackay in 1871. In southern Queensland, mining began at Mount Coora and Mount Clara (QHR600640) to the west of Gympie in 1872 and Teebar northwest of Gympie in 1873.
\nCopper had been found close to Oaky Creek (sometimes also spelt Oakey Creek), southwest of Mount Morgan by William MacKinlay, head stockman of the pastoral run over the area Calliungal, held by Hugh Robinson. MacKinlay had walked the Dee Ranges, along the river and creeks, fossicking for gold, but instead found a copper lode (Grabs 2001:6-7). The year of actual discovery is not known, but rights to mine copper here were acquired by the Scottish Australian Mining Company in 1870 (Christmas c.1980:1). Samples of copper ore sent to Wales for assay proved the value of the ore. Mineral freeholds were taken up to cover the copper deposit which extended about two kilometres in length (Christmas c.1980:1). The Adolphus William Copper Mine, located on the top of a steep slope north of Mackay Creek, southwest of Mount Morgan, opened in about 1872 (Pearson 1994b:1-2).
\nIt is not clear when the nearby and associated Dee Township site was first occupied, but it is likely that it was utilised during the 1870s boom - bust period, and then quickly abandoned (Pearson 1994b:31).
\nA smelter was constructed at Adolphus William in about 1874. Smelting is a process of extracting a metal from it's ores by heating ores in a reducing environment such as a furnace (Ritchie 1997:22). Smelting is a standard method for treating copper ores which are heated to melting point where the higher density copper metal is separated from the lighter ore (Ritchie 1997:22). At the Adolphus William, two chimneys were built to provide the necessary draught for smelting ore with wood to fuel the furnace sourced from throughout the local area (Christmas c.1980:1). Two small reverberatory furnaces were installed at the smelter. The reverberatory furnace was the predominant copper smelter technology in use in central Queensland and across the State until the 1890s, when the water-jacket blast furnace technology developed in the United States of America became more common (Pearson 1994a:21).
\nThe reverberatory furnace was a Welsh technology and was essentially a masonry hearth with a roof erected over it (Bell and McCarthy 1994:3). The Welsh process happened to be very well suited to the rich carbonate ores that characterised the early copper discoveries. Finely crushed and concentrated copper ore is mixed with the flux (chemicals or other substances added to a load of ore and fuel) and spread on the hearth, under which an intense fire is lit in a firebox situated at one end of the furnace, allowing a flame to pass over the ore (Bell and McCarthy 1994:3; Ritchie and Hooker 1997:20). Common practice from the period was to fire the furnace for up to twenty-four hours, following which the matte (the intermediate product of the smelting process consisting of 40-55% copper) and slag were extracted from separate openings and at different levels on the sides of the furnace (Bell and McCarthy 1994:3; Ritchie and Hooker 1997:20).
\nCopper smelting in 1870s central Queensland was an experimental undertaking due to isolation from required materials, equipment, expertise and a need to adapt existing technologies to suit the local environmental and economic conditions. Smelter men who came to Queensland were more likely to rely on 'craft' knowledge of smelting than on written instruction and would adapt their approaches to solve problems in personal and idiosyncratic ways (Pearson 1994a:22).
\nCrucial for the durability and efficiency of reverberatory furnaces was construction by skilled bricklayers and good quality firebricks - both of which were in short supply in Australia at the time (Bell and McCarthy 1994:3). The furnaces at Adolphus William were constructed from firebricks made in Cumbernauld, Dunbartonshire, Scotland by the Cumbernauld Fire-Clay Company (Gemmell 1986:39, Lewis n.d.).
\nThe copper metal from the smelter was hauled on a government road built about 1874 to a rail head at Westwood for transport to Rockhampton (Christmas c.1980:1). The first six tons of copper reached Rockhampton in December 1876. Production between 1875 and 1877 totalled 203 tons of copper from 1790 tons of ore (Ridgeway 1942:1-2).
\nMost mines, smelters and associated settlements from the initial 'copper rush' period closed down before the end of the same decade, as international copper prices fell to near UK£60 per ton in 1879. Copper prices continued to fall to a bottom of UK¿40 per ton in 1886 (Pearson 1994a:15). Only top producers were able, to some extent, break the dependence on high prices. Flanagan's at Kariboe Creek and Great Blackall quickly ceased smelting in 1874, Mount Clara (and possibly Mount Coora as well) by 1875, and Mount Perry by 1877 (Mount Perry was revived again in the late 1880s). The Adolphus William Copper Mine, and probably the smelter, had closed by 1876 (Pearson 1994b:27-28) though one account by Christmas (c.1980:2) suggests that the mine continued operations until 1879. By 1879 a weekly mail service to the area from Rockhampton had ceased and the site appears to have been deserted at this time.
\nA second copper boom occurred in the central and southern Queensland regions in the period 1897 - 1907, with mines and smelters established at places such as Sundown, Glassford Creek (QHR602389), Mount Hector, Mount Chalmers, Mount Cannindah, and at Mount Morgan (QHR600751). A number of these mines were taken over by overseas capital in this period. At the same time smelters were established in the northern region, notably at Mount Garnet, Chillagoe and Mount Molloy in the Mount Isa District (Pearson 1994a:15).
\nThe adjacent Adolphus William Copper Mine, then known as the Dee River Mine, was worked again in the early 20th century, until 1915. In 1917, 20.5 tones of ore were again mined from old dumps at the Adolphus William and again in 1918 a further 99 tons of ore were mined for a yield of 17 tons of copper (J.A.B. 1971). It is unclear when mining of copper at Dee River Mine finally ceased, though Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Ltd took up three leases in the Dee River area in 1926 - these did not proceed due to the company's liquidation. Its successors, Mount Morgan Limited and Morgan Mining and Industrial Co. Pty Ltd, also had leases and options over the area (Christmas c.1980:2). The mine was again worked in 1940 and produced 2.4 tons of copper from 29.8 tons of ore which was smelted at Chillagoe (Ridgway 1942:2).
\nA number of shafts were driven to the areas north and west of the smelter remains. These shafts included the 'Little Blow', 'Yellow Ore', 'Big Blow', 'No.1 Shaft', 'Tunnel', 'Sunday Places', and 'Morehead's Shaft'. All shafts were reportedly partially or completely collapsed by 1942 (Ridgeway 1942:2). The mine area was heavily disturbed by subsequent prospecting (costeans and test cuts) during various attempts to rework the copper lodes in the area in 1917, 1927 and 1940. Due to the limited remains, degree of degradation, and extent of disturbance, the collapsed shaft remains are not considered included in this recommendation.
\nWith an increased need for copper during World War Two, the Dee River and old Adolphus William workings were again considered for re-mining, but it was concluded that mining would not appreciably increase the production of copper nor would it be profitable (Ridgway 1942:2).
","criteria":"The Adolphus William Copper Smelter and Dee Township has the potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history including a better understanding of early copper smelting practices in central Queensland, and aspects of life on and around a 19th century copper smelter site. Mining and associated industries such as smelting had a major role in stimulating the development of local, regional and state economies and underpinning the growth of central Queensland. For most of the period 1860s - 1890s, central Queensland was the predominant copper producing area of the State.
The Adolphus William Smelter and Dee Township is a rare surviving example of a copper smelter and township complex from the early phase of copper mining in central Queensland, one of the most intact examples of its type, and is representative of copper smelting practice in central Queensland during this period.
The reverberatory furnace was the predominant copper smelter technology in use in Queensland and Australia until the 1890s and the central Queensland region featured by far the greatest number of smelters of this type. The Adolphus William is one of only three reverberatory furnace smelter sites that survive with some degree of integrity in central Queensland and from this period - the others being the remains of Flanagan's Smelter at Kariboe Creek, southeast of Biloela, and Mount Orange Smelter southwest of Mackay. The Adolphus William survives with a degree of intactness and integrity not evident at these other locations, as, unlike other remnant smelter sites in central and southern Queensland it was not reopened or reused following closure. Archaeological investigations of the Adolphus William will provide the opportunity to examine this influential smelting technology through the application of archaeological techniques to the remaining structures and archaeological deposits, and a rare opportunity to illuminate aspects of local adaptation of copper smelting technologies in Queensland through further analysis of the archaeological remains.
The Adolphus William Copper Smelter and Dee Township complex is the only known smelter and township complex from this period in central Queensland's copper mining history where an associated abandoned township survives with researchable archaeological integrity and potential. The Dee Township has obvious surface remains and reasonable integrity translating to good archaeological research potential. The Dee Township exhibits the primary characteristics of a number of mining fields of the 19th century where a specific township site was developed due to the presence of a mine, but was then quickly abandoned once the mine closed. Archaeological investigations within the Dee Township may reveal important insights into life on an early mining and smelting operation which is otherwise unobtainable at other sites of this type or is otherwise undocumented. Excavations on and around the several relatively intact living floors, the town bakery and indeterminate cobble path or foundation area at the lower end of the town has potential to provide more reliable dates of occupation and archaeological artefacts that provide a better picture of life in remote mining settlements of this type.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5036,"place_ref":602723,"name":"Dawson Valley Colliery (former)","alternate_name":"Baralaba Coal Mine","street_address":"Morgan Street and The Esplanade","suburb":"BARALABA","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"The Dawson Valley Colliery (former) is located in the southern Bowen Basin, 160km south-west of Rockhampton and 180km west of Gladstone. It is situated on the right bank of the Dawson River within the Baralaba town limits. Harcourt and Morgan Streets run into the site.
There are about fourteen structures on the site, many relatively intact and others in a ruined state. There are also a number of moveable items associated with the former mine such as underground locomotives. Timber and corrugated iron are the main building materials. Floors are of concrete, timber and earth. The main extant structures are: the headframe; crushing and screening plant; surface crib room; fan house; winder and compressor house; transformer yard; block making plant; electrical and drill store; workshop; fuel, pipe and electrical detonator sheds; change-house; toilet block; explosives magazine; and detonator magazine.
Headframe and shaft
This structure comprises a quite intact coal bin with inclined tramway to a shaft covered with mesh. The headframe and the conveyor to the crushing plant and loaders are in ruins to the east of the coal bin.
The coal bin is a large box-like structure with an open top raised on stumps about three metres above the ground. It has exposed studs and bracing with wooden board infill and flooring. Extending from the west of the bin on an incline from the top of the bin to the ground is a tramway supported on a wooden frame. The tramway consists of three steel rails: two are laid quite close together with respect to the third. Towards the top of the tramway, running alongside the rails are the remains of a ladder.
The wreckage of the headframe contains the remains of the tippler mechanism and the rails on which the coal skips ran. These remain relatively intact. At the bottom of the headframe is a long steel 'I' beam with sliding winch block used to move coal skips onto and off the underground tramway.
Crushing and screening plant
This plant consists of three main parts: a separating and crushing plant; and two screening plants with free standing coal bins.
The separating and crushing plant is located immediately to the north of the headframe. A collapsed conveyor is located between the headframe and this plant. A crusher, made of steel, is mounted in a two level wooden frame with a flat corrugated iron roof. It sits above a hopper constructed of wooden planks. A steel chute at the top of the crusher funnels the coal into two layers of angled vibrating wire screens powered via a belt and an electric motor. From here, oversized coal slides across the top screen into a crushing mechanism and onto a conveyor. The screening and crushing mechanism is intact. An operator's platform and electrical switchgear is intact at the south of the plant.
A damaged conveyor supported on a steel frame made of angle iron starts at the bottom of the crushing plant and slopes upward to end in mid-air above the remains of a screening plant. The belt of the conveyor is missing except for a portion at the upper end. This is draped over a wide pulley wheel at the very end of the conveyor. The pulley wheel is powered via a chain (still extant) and an electric motor mounted on a frame above it.
The first screening plant, which is mostly ruined, comprises a screening mechanism resting on the ground surrounded by, and partly covered with collapsed wooden beams. The screening mechanism consists of a steel bin with a mesh floor, sitting on a base of steel girders. The bin is attached to the base by pivots and coiled steel springs. This enables the bin to be rocked backwards and forwards on its base. A partly collapsed steel framed conveyor leads from this plant to the top of a second screening plant and bin.
The second screening plant consists of a large bin constructed of heavy wooden planks, with a wide, open top tapering to a long, narrow chute at the bottom with two discharge trapdoors. This is supported on a wooden frame. There is a platform on the east side covered by a corrugated iron skillion roof. Steel drive shafts extend from the platform to the trapdoors at the bottom of the chute. A ladder with wooden runners and steel rungs is fixed to the side of the structure reaching to the top. Panels of steel mesh lie on the ground underneath the bin.
Surface Crib Room
The surface crib room and stores are located next to the headframe and shaft. It consists of a small, three roomed building, rectangular in plan view, with a wooden frame clad with corrugated iron and rough concrete floors. It has a skillion roof. A space of approximately 0.5m between the north wall and the roof is in-filled with mesh.
Two doors at the south elevation provide access to the two rooms comprising the core of the building; the doors are ledge and brace. Window openings at the south, east and west elevations are covered with hinged corrugated iron flaps. There is a veranda at the north elevation; a portion of this has been enclosed to form a third, small room. A door, clad with corrugated iron, opens through the north wall of this room.
Wooden benches at about waist height line most of the walls of the larger room. Long, low wooden seats are fixed to these. The smaller of the other two rooms has a wooden floor. There are no fixed furnishings in these rooms. An electric copper converted from a 44 gallon drum is located in an open veranda at the north western corner of the building.
Fan house
The fan house is located south of the headframe. It mostly consists of a large cylindrical, steel fan housing mounted on concrete plinths. The eastern end of the housing is flared and open; a large multi-bladed fan is visible inside. A smaller, hollow plinth supports this end of the housing; a smaller fan is visible inside. The west end of the housing becomes square in cross-section and tapers to a wedge shape. A larger concrete plinth supports this end of the housing. A small, open ended corrugated iron structure mounted on top of the housing contains an electric motor.
Attached to the south side of the plinth is a small, wood framed shed with a gabled roof; it is clad with corrugated iron. This contains a concrete footing, switchboard, control panel switchboard, and a vacuum gauge.
Winder and compressor house
The winder and compression house is located approximately 56m to the east of the headframe. Overall dimensions are about 16.5m by 8m. It consists of two joined, gable roofed sheds of equal size. They have wooden frames and are clad with corrugated iron and asbestos sheeting. The roof lines of both sheds run north to south.
The main entrances into the building are via the north elevation. Two large ledge and brace wooden doors open into the east shed which houses the compressor equipment. A tall rectangular window opens above each of these. To the right of the doors a smaller opening provides access to the west shed which houses the winding equipment. There is a small skillion roofed room, clad with corrugated iron and asbestos sheeting, projecting from the front of the building to the right of this door. Access into this room is via a door at the west end.
A long narrow opening runs the full length of the east elevation. This is covered with steel mesh and shaded by a sloping corrugated iron awning. An air receiver (a long cylinder for holding pressurised gas) is located beside the building next to this elevation. It is about 6m long.
There are two windows opening into the south elevation. Both are covered with corrugated iron. A rusted corrugated iron water tank elevated on a wooden stand is located close to the wall of the west half of the elevation.
The west elevation has a large rectangular opening through which the drums of the winders are visible. Some corrugated iron sheeting to the left of this opening is missing. To the right, there is a narrow skillion roofed, corrugated iron extension.
The interior of the shed housing the winding gear contains the double drum winding engine with cable extant on the drums, a platform and controls for the driver, a large electric motor and electrical switch gear including the main circuit breaker for underground. These are all intact. The floor is concrete except where the cable spools are located; here the floor is dirt.
A small annex to this shed contains the air supply for the braking mechanism on the winding engine. It contains an air receiver tank and electric motor.
The compressor shed contains a single cylinder, dual acting compressor powered by an electric motor, a three cylinder compressor, a large main switchboard and separate switchboards for the main fan and one of the compressors. All are intact. The floor is concrete.
Transformer yard
Immediately to the south of the winding and compressor house is an enclosed electrical supply yard. The yard is fenced with wooden posts and chain wire mesh with strands of barbed wire near the top. Entry into the yard is via double, steel framed gates with chain wire mesh infill. A small white coloured metal sign on the gate bears the words 'Danger 22,000 Volts' in red lettering.
Just inside the gates is a pair of tall wooden posts joined at the top by a steel beam. Beyond this and running down the centre of the yard is a row of four tall wooden posts joined at the top and at mid height by wooden beams. The two end posts are taller than the rest and have short wooden cross-arms near the top. A single transformer is located at the north east corner of the yard. There are wooden posts around it; these are joined at the top and at mid height by wooden beams. Electrical insulators are mounted on the uppermost beams.
Block making plant
This is located just to the east of the winder and compressor house. It is a small skillion roofed, timber framed structure, about 5m by 7m, partially clad with corrugated iron.
The west two thirds of the structure are open sided. The roof is supported by wooden posts; wooden rails attached with fencing wire to the posts at about quarter height and at half height surround the open area with the exception of a section in the middle of the west side. A small cantilevered skillion extends from half of the west end of the roof. Beneath the skillion is a concrete footing supporting a steel frame made of angle iron; a small electric motor is located next to the east side of the footing under the main roof.
The east third of the structure is enclosed with corrugated iron to form two rooms. The larger west room has wooden shelving on two sides and a concrete floor. It is accessed via a door in the east elevation. The south room, accessed through a door in the south elevation has a concrete floor and is empty. The top third of the west wall of the enclosure, under the skillion roof, is open and in-filled with chain wire mesh.
Electrical and drill store
This building is located about 40m north west of the winder and compressor house. Its overall dimensions are approximately 13m by 6.5m. It is a large shed with a wooden frame, gable roof and corrugated iron cladding; the roof line runs east-west. There are door openings at the east and west elevations and window openings along the long, north and south elevations. All window and door openings are shaded by narrow strips of sheet metal, the windows have wooden sills. Many are covered with sheets of corrugated iron. Some are metal framed sash windows; others have no window frames or glazing. Remnants of wooden boards run along the tops of the north and south elevations. The west elevation has an unpainted wooden barge board. There is no guttering on the roof.
Internally the building is divided into three: the electrical store, a central room and the drill and hardware store. The floor is concrete.
The electrical store is located at the western end of the building. It contains only one set of wooden shelves, located at the eastern wall. There is an assortment of electrical parts and equipment scattered on the floor and against the walls.
The larger room at the western end is the drill and hardware store. There are six sets of 'pigeon box' shelves fixed to the west, north and east walls. A short wooden wall at right angles to the south wall creates a bay where drill bits and legs for air drills are stored. Some of the shelves are labelled with chalk to indicate the names and sizes of items. Many parts and items of equipment remain extant in this area.
Workshop
The workshop is located immediately to the north of the electrical and drill store. It is a long wood framed building measuring about 13.5m by 9m with corrugated iron cladding. The roof has a very low pitch consisting of two skillion roofs that overlap at the apex. There are three door openings along the north elevation and a single door opening at the east elevation. Some sections of sheeting are missing along this side; in some places the gap has been in-filled with steel mesh. Window openings along the south elevation have been covered with sheets of corrugated iron.
The interior encloses a large open space and four small rooms. It contains three workbenches, a drill stand, a shelf with nuts, bolts and spare parts, a lathe bed and an air receiver (about 2.2m by 05m). A largely intact, Jenbach JW15 underground locomotive and spare locomotive engine are also located in the workshop.
There are four small rooms in the workshop. The plumber's store contains shelves holding assorted plumbing fittings. The hose store contains a few coils of air hose sitting on pallets. The miscellaneous store contains an electric motor, pump impellers and machinery bearing blocks. The fourth room contains rock dust or cement in some 24 bags, a large galvanised iron funnel, bag hooks and unused railway car couplings. This room has an elevated loading platform with a wood board floor.
Fuel, pipe and electrical detonator sheds.
These three sheds are joined to form a single composite structure. All have skillion roofs. They consist of the fuel shed, a wooden framed, corrugated iron shed; the pipe rack storage cage, an open sided structure with a corrugated iron roof; and the detonator store, a small weatherboard shed elevated on short stumps.
The fuel shed is raised on short stumps and has a wooden floor. Access into the shed is via ledge and brace doors in the west elevation. Windows open into the north and south elevations. These are covered with corrugated iron sheeting. Benches are located against two walls in the interior. There is shelving beneath three benches containing various machine parts. Parts are also lying on the floor. Chalk marks on the walls indicate oil types.
The west wall of the pipe rack storage cage is common with the fuel shed. Approximately 30cm of the upper section of this wall is not clad and is in-filled with steel mesh. The other three sides have no cladding and are enclosed with steel mesh. Horizontal boards at approximately one third and two third height are attached to all sides outside the mesh. A steel framed mesh gate provides access through the south elevation. Internally, much of the space is occupied by a steel rack comprising three vertical posts, each with several projecting, flat horizontal prongs.
The detonator store is about 1.8m square and 2.4m high. The door into the shed is located in the south elevation. The interior is lined with sheeting.
Change house
This building is a long wooden framed gabled roof structure clad in corrugated asbestos sheeting. The walls on all sides are painted in the traditional Mount Morgan tri-colour, light green/pale yellow, a black band and ochre.
Entry into the building is gained through two ledge and brace doors towards the eastern end of the north elevation and a single ledge and brace door at the western end of the south elevation. There are two windows in each elevation. They are wooden framed sash windows with four glazed panels. The windows on the north and south elevation have curved, galvanised iron hoods.
The interior of the building is divided into four rooms, roughly equal in size: lamp room, drying room, shower room and change room. All have concrete floors.
The interior of the lamp room is unlined. It has benches around most of the walls; there are shelves beneath two of these. There is hinged counter that pivots up to close an opening in the wall beneath sash windows.
The interior of the drying room is unlined. A low bench is fitted to the walls and a three sided standing frame with seats and clothes hanging pegs is arranged around a centrally located Metters Jumbo fire heater. All seats have boot racks beneath them. Clothes hanging pegs are fitted to the walls.
The shower room is divided into three parts consisting of a central corridor with communal shower areas on each side. The corridor is separated from the shower areas by elevated partition walls. Five shower heads are extant in each of the shower areas and two hand basins in the corridor.
The change room has a concrete floor and is fully lined with Masonite. There is a low hardwood bench around the interior walls and three evenly spaced standing frames with back to back seats and eight clothes hanging pegs on each side. All seats have boot racks below them. The walls also have clothes hanging pegs.
There are two water tanks on high stands at the eastern elevation. One is raised higher than the other. Another water tank at the west elevation is set on a low stand. A boiler stands some distance from the north of the building. It is connected to the change house by a long length of water pipe, raised more than two metres above the ground.
Toilet block
The toilet block is located immediately to the east of the change house. It is a small wooden building with a corrugated iron, gabled roof. It consists of two sections: about one third of the eastern part of the building comprises a single room; the rest of the building consists of the lavatory. The building is clad with weatherboard.
There are three entrances into the building. Ledge and brace doors open into the west and east elevations. At the south elevation, there is an opening into a small porch. Two four paned sash windows open into the south and north elevations at the east end. Rows of small, high, frosted glass windows open into the south and north elevations at the lavatory end.
The small porch provides access to a corridor from which access is gained to a room containing a urinal and wash basin and two lavatory cubicles. The doors into the cubicles are ledge and brace. Urinal, pedestals and wash basin are extant. This end of the building is lined with vertical wooden boards.
The small room at the other end of the building is unlined. The room contains a wooden bench, some shelving and a wooden locker. A charging station for the cap light battery packs is lying on its side in a corner at the western end of the room together with broken cap lights and battery packs.
The explosives magazine
This is located at the northern extremity of the site, about 100m north of the main group of colliery buildings. It consists of a small inner weatherboard building with a corrugated iron, gabled roof within a wooden framed outer shed clad with corrugated iron. The outer structure also has a gabled roof. Both structures are elevated on short stumps.
The door into the outer structure is located at one of the end elevations. The word 'Explosives' is marked with red letters above the door. The walls at the side elevations and the other end elevation do not reach the roof, leaving a gap of approximately 30cm. The inner building is lined with vertical wooden boards. It has a ledge and brace door and small square windows into each gable.
The detonator magazine
This is located a short distance south of the magazine. It is a small wooden framed structure in a ruined state. It is approximately one metre high and one metre on each side. Partly clad with corrugated iron, it had a skillion roof which is no longer extant. A low concrete curb surrounds the structure. A small, partly ruined ledge and brace door is located at the west elevation.
Mine related artefacts extant on the site include two coal skips, a timber skip, two underground locomotives (including the one in the workshop), ore cars, transformer, jinker, air winch, and air receiver. An assortment of tools and parts are located in the electrical and drill store including: drill bits, a jack hammer, block and tackle and various electrical parts and equipment.
The structures and artefacts are in a large site, set in open woodland. Shrubs and small trees are interspersed among the structures. Residences of the Baralaba Township are located close to the east boundary of the site.
","history":"The Dawson Valley Colliery (former) (established 1921) is located in the Dawson River basin close to the township of Baralaba in Central Queensland. The Dawson River basin forms part of the Bowen Basin coal fields.
The Bowen Basin covers an area about 600km long and 250km wide extending from Collinsville in the north to south of Moura in Central Queensland. It contains about 70% of Queensland's coal. These are deposits of the Permian age and are the most important commercial deposits in the State, producing almost 100% of the State's coking coal and 60% of its thermal coal. In 2006-7, the State's top ten collieries for production were located in the Bowen Basin.
Coal was first discovered in the Bowen Basin by Ludwig Leichhardt who in 1845 observed coal in the bed of the Mackenzie River. After non-Indigenous settlement of the area in the 1860s coal was found at Blair Athol, in the north of the Basin, and near the present town of Blackwater. A colliery opened at Bluff in 1905, but struggled to remain viable. Successful commercial exploitation in the Bowen Basin did not begin until the 1920s.
The search for coal in the Dawson River basin began when Benjamin Dunstan, Assistant Government Geologist, was commissioned to search west of the Rannes Range. In 1899 he reported on a coal seam found in the bed of the Dawson on Nulalbin Station and hoped to prove anthracite coal which was favoured for the ships of the Royal Navy. As news of his discovery spread, there was a scramble for licences and by 1901, 63 leases were registered. However, coal samples tested by the Royal Navy were disappointing.
The Queensland Government developed the first coal mine at Baralaba. Development of the mine was dependent on construction of a railway line, which began into the valley in 1910 and was approaching the river in 1917. The State Coal Mine opened in 1916, supplying coal to the Railway Department of a quality that was increasingly criticised. The flood of 1928 inundated the mine which then closed down.
Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited successfully applied for mining leases at the present mine site. By 1921, under the management of Alexander Campbell, the company was mining the Dunstan Seam and sending coal to the boilers at Mount Morgan mine from three tunnels at the rate of 150 tons a day, with over 90 men employed. The mine temporarily closed in 1929 due to the liquidation of the old Mount Morgan Company, but was re-opened in 1932 by local independent miners working as the Dawson Valley Coal Company on tribute to the new company, Mount Morgan Limited.
Mount Morgan resumed control of operations in 1936, improving ventilation and modernising machinery. The Mine had opened four tunnels into the Dunstan Seam and another, unsuccessfully, into the Dawson Seam. Production from these amounted to 357,838 tons. This phase of the operation continued until 1944 when working became difficult. Mount Morgan Limited (later its subsidiary Morgan Mining and Industrial Company Pty Ltd) then closed operations in tunnels two, three and four and moved to the new number seven tunnel, continuing operations until 1969.
The extant shaft and many of the surface structures on the site date from the second phase of operations that commenced in 1944 at tunnel seven. The headframe and coal bin were constructed in c1944 of local timber, with the exception of the four main timber legs. The main legs were 78ft (about 24m) long turpentine poles from Fraser Island. A large part of the headframe collapsed in 1993. The workshop, electrical and drill store, and winder house were probably built about the same time as the headframe. The compressor house was added to the winding house probably in c1956. The extant screening and crushing plant remains date to the early 1960s.
In addition to mining plant, buildings on the site originally included a manager's residence, electrician's residence, three three-bedroom cottages, single men's quarters and another dwelling. None of these buildings remain extant.
After c1946, when the mine was mechanised, mining changed from the bord and pillar system to the breast method. A diesel locomotive and skips transported the coal from the chutes to an underground pocket from where it was hoisted to the surface. In 1968 54 men were employed.
Trial export shipments to Japan and Holland occurred in 1961 and 1962, and production peaked in 1965 at 42 465 tons (38 523 tonnes), 40% of which was exported. Small amounts were also sent to Malaysia and Thailand. Exports of 20 000 tons (18 143 tonnes) per annum through the port of Gladstone continued till 1968.
Work ceased at the mine in 1969, with the conversion of the Mount Morgan reverberatory furnace to oil firing, and the development of better situated export coal mines. By June 1968 the three areas worked in the Baralaba district had produced 1,240,440 tons of coal. Mount Morgan Limited was acquired by Peko Wallsend Ltd in 1968, which closed the colliery on 9 March 1969.
","criteria":"The Dawson Valley Colliery (former) (1921 - 1969) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's coal mining history. As the first successful underground coal mine in the Dawson River Valley and one of the first in the Bowen Basin, it provides important evidence of early commercial coal mining in these areas. The Bowen Basin is Queensland's largest and most productive coal field.
The mine is also important in demonstrating the development of coal mining techniques in Queensland. It is typical, in scale and type, of mines prior to the late 1950s. Underground mines like the Dawson Valley Colliery became less common during the 1960s following the introduction of large-scale open cut methods.
|The former colliery is important for its association with Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited and Mount Morgan Limited. The Baralaba mine was initially developed to provide fuel for the boilers and smelters at Mount Morgan Mine [QHR 600751], and later produced coal for export. It provides evidence of the scale of operations at Mount Morgan, once Australia's most productive gold and copper mine and it contributes to our knowledge of the company's interests beyond the Mount Morgan mine.
|The former colliery is one of only two relatively intact former mines known to be extant from the underground phase of coal mining in the Bowen Basin. It is also uncommon in Queensland for its relatively high level of intactness.
|The former colliery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the above ground layout and structures of a typical underground coal mine of the mid twentieth century. Most above ground structures associated with the mine are extant, many of them relatively intact and containing equipment. Structures include: surface crib room; fan house; winder and compressor house; transformer yard; block making plant; electrical and drill store; workshop; fuel, pipe and electrical detonator sheds; change-house; toilet block; explosives magazine; and detonator magazine. The head frame is extant, but partially collapsed. Also extant on the site are a range of artefacts associated with the mine consisting mainly of underground locomotives, coal skips and coal cars. The mine is an excellent example of the mining process and living conditions associated with underground mines of the period.
|The former colliery is significant for the potential the site has in providing information on underground coal mining and its working conditions and about the use of evolving technology in the coal mining industry in Queensland. As an extensive industrial landscape produced by the shafts, abandoned machinery and structures, the colliery is important as an archaeological site with the potential to yield further information about the layout and use of the mine site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5070,"place_ref":602389,"name":"Glassford Creek Smelter Sites","alternate_name":"Glassford Creek Copper Smelters","street_address":"off Many Peaks Road","suburb":"MANY PEAKS","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"The Glassford mines, the Blue Bag and the Lady Inez and smelters are accessed via a track leading to Glassford Creek from the Monto-Many Peaks Road. The smelters are located approximately 7.5 kilometres along the track from the last farmstead. Beyond the last farming property, the road is a four-wheel drive track that crosses Glassford Creek several times.
The smelter 1 site has a standing chimney with a height of approximately 18 metres. The smelter area is very overgrown with vegetation covering the collapsed remains of the smelter's brickwork. Little can be interpreted, though it does appear that this is the site of the reverberatory furnaces. Adjacent to the smelter and the chimney is a series of at least 6 pits. It is possible that there could be more pits but the area is covered by galvanised iron from the roof of the collapsed work's building. The six pits that are visible are in two rows of three, each of the pits is two metres in width, with their lengths increasing from 1 metre to 2 metres to 2.5metres. Adjacent to the pits are the remains of standing and collapsed posts and roof trusses of a 7 metres by 7.5 metres building. A three hopper feed bin that may be the remains of a spitzkasten classifer is located near the chimney. A small slagheap covers an area 29 metres by 20 metres. Approximately 66 metres to the southwest is a flat area accessed by a road that runs south towards the Lady Inez Mine and northwest towards Smelter 2 and the Blue Bag Mine. This flat area could be an ore sorting/storage floor.
The Smelter 2 site has a standing chimney connected by the stone base of a short horizontal flue to a standing brick smelter-support structure, which presumably supported a water-jacket furnace as referred to in the literature. This structure is 9 metres long by 2.5 metres wide and 3 metres tall. It is partitioned into two sections, with a sloping internal floor inclined down to two access holes in the front face at ground level. Part of the front wall of the structure has collapsed. A series of engine footings are located near the smelter, and a large boiler with tall chimney attached has fallen off one of these engine beds. The associated slagheap extends over an area 48 metres by 32 metres, and consists of pavement-like slag poured into formwork, as evidenced on other water-jacket smelter sites. The slag formwork at the edge of the slagheap is old railway rails.
Behind the smelter and the engine sites is a stone retaining wall up to 1.8 metres high. Above this wall is a flat area that appears to have been an ore sorting or treatment floor. To the east of the smelter area is a 28 metres long tip of mullock, and to the east of that again is a large area of mullock and ore dump that has been cut through in several places. The cutting was shown in the 1941 plan of the site. A track noted in 1941 as a tramway leads off to the Blue Bag Mine in an easterly direction. There are several areas with mullock around them on the hill slope above Smelter 2 that may be filled-in shafts.
","history":"The Glassford Creek copper lode was discovered in 1893. Initially it was mined for silver then in 1896 for gold and subsequently for copper. The two most important lodes on the Glassford field were the Blue Bag Mine in the north and the Lady Inez Mine in the south. Practically all production on the field came from these two lodes with the Blue Bag Mine the major producer.
In 1897, a ten-head battery was erected at Glassford Creek. This led to a total of 560 tons of ore being mined for a return of 166 ounces of gold. When copper sulphides soured the amalgamating tables crushing was discontinued and prospecting reverted to copper. An 1897 plan suggests that the gold battery was located within the vicinity of the later copper smelters.
In 1900, the Boompa Copper Company made plans to erect reverberatory smelters. When the reverberatory furnaces were completed in 1903 it appears that smelting commenced and continued through to 1908. Water-jacket furnaces were built but do not appear to have been completed until 1906. The mined ore was put through a rock-breaker and over shaker tables where it was handpicked prior to going to the smelter.
The Boompa Copper Company went into liquidation in 1908, and in 1915 the water-jacket smelter was dismantled. Residues in the bases of the furnaces were leased out with 8 tons of copper matte being recovered. The amount of matte recovered in this salvage operation indicates that the methods implemented by the company were inefficient and that the smelters were either ineffectively managed or poorly constructed. The salvage of the matte resulted in a yield of 1 ton 11 cwt of copper, 80 ounces of gold and 113 ounces of silver. This salvage operation was carried out in conjunction with similar work at the Mount Hector smelter, which suggests that the Glassford Creek and Mount Hector mines had a common leaseholder at this time.
Originally the Blue Bag Mine operated as an open-cut, however when operations became dangerous as the removal of overburden increased the depth of the open-cut, shafts and tunnels were excavated from the base of the open-cut to afford access to the ore.
The available demographic figures show that the movement of people in and out of the Glassford area was closely aligned to the success and otherwise of the mines. For example, at the beginning of 1907 Glassford had a population of 346 but by the end of that year numbers immediately prior to the Boompa Copper Company going into liquidation had declined to 40.
In 1916 Hunting and Clark took over the Blue Bag Mine and a new shaft was sunk. From the 227 tons of ore sent for treatment they received a return of 22 tons of copper valued at £2,552, 119 ounces of gold valued at £480 and 155 ounces of silver valued at £19. At the end of 1916 the mine was sold to a southern syndicate for floating. At this time it appears that there were approximately 25,000 tons of ore in the dumps located within close proximity of the smelters.
When WA Doyle made application in 1918 for assistance to re-establish the copper smelters Government Geologist Ball undertook investigations, the result being that there was insufficient ore to warrant a re-establishment of the smelters.
However, further mining was undertaken at the Blue Bag Mine and at the Lady Inez Mine after 1920 with the mined ore being shipped to Chillagoe for treatment. Plans were made to install a new plant and powerhouse but these plans did not eventuate and mining ceased in 1921. Following this the Department of Mines took over the machinery. By 1941, all the buildings in the village of Glassford had been removed, the mining plant dismantled and most of it shipped elsewhere with only the remnants of the water-jacket furnace remaining on site.
At the Miriam Vale and Monto community workshops conducted in the 1990s as part of the Comprehensive Regional Assessment for the South East Queensland bio-geographic region's Regional Forest Agreement, Glassford Creek Smelter Sites were considered to satisfy the threshold indicators for National Estate social value.
","criteria":"The remains of the Glassford Creek smelter reflect a typical pattern for small copper fields in Queensland, with initial prospecting followed by more substantial but short-lived company development, tailing off into small-scale mining often recovering values ignored by earlier miners.
|The Glassford Creek Smelters Sites are well preserved for their age and type, and provide uncommon and endangered evidence of this scale of a copper mining enterprise.
|The Glassford Creek Smelters Sites have the potential to provide information that will further existing knowledge of the nature of mining technology utilised during this period of Queensland's mining history.
|The Glassford Creek Smelter Sites are considered by the regional community to be a significant part of the history of European settlement in the Boyne Valley. The Smelter Sites are valued as an historical asset not only for the connection that they provide with the past but also for their educational and interpretational values.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5090,"place_ref":602491,"name":"Norton Goldfield","alternate_name":"Milton Goldfield","street_address":"Norton Road","suburb":"NAGOORIN","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-10-27","description":"The Norton Goldfield is accessed via Norton Road which exits the village of Nargoorin to the east. Travel along this roadway in a northeast direction for approximately 12 kilometres.
The gold roasting furnace site consists of four parallel 22 metres by 2.75 metres brick plinths with collapsed brick arched roofs, interpreted as being roasting furnace bases. The plinths are separated by approximately 5.25 metres spaces between them, one of which at least is paved (the others are largely covered with soils and rubble). The furnaces fed in pairs into two chimneys via brick and stone flues, interconnected with a cross flue between each pair. The furnace bases have flat floors that appear to have been 2 metres wide internally, with arched roofs about 1.5 metres high, and the floors step up towards the flue-end by one course of brick every 3 metres. There are vaulted tunnels/boxes under two of the furnaces about 2 metres from the end opposite the flues, but there are no apparent fireboxes. The furnace bricks are not firebricks, and there is no vitrification or slag deposit in them, suggesting they were used for roasting rather than smelting.
One chimney remains upslope of the furnaces, to 10 metres height. Downslope of the furnaces is a brick paved area, with water tanks and machinery footings stepping down the slope from it. Close to the creek are footings and base-logs that may have been the footings for a water pump.
The remains of another furnace is located some 45 metres to the east. This furnace is approximately 16 metres long, with a rubble plume extending another 35 metres, possibly indicating a fallen chimney and the extension of the kiln itself.
The four conjoined furnaces, together with the separated one, are interpreted as being the five 'reverberatory' furnaces built in 1886.
On the banks of Norton Creek are the remains of a 375 yards long water-race that is said to have been associated with the arrasta. The water-race appears to have been lined along its sides with bricks as remains of these can be seen in some sections.
The 10-head stamper battery with steel frame is located about 80 metres from the creek. A concrete engine footing is located adjacent to the battery to the southeast. The posts for a partly-collapsed gantry, level with the top of the battery, lead south 22 metres, then in a series of separate low embankments back to a mine adit 120 metres to the south. This appears to be the support embankment for a tramway linking the mine and is not demonstrated.
Some small brick rubble piles around the area may indicate other buildings. The area is also dotted with more recent core-drilling pads, is quite eroded and an upgrade of the access road to the adjacent opencut mine tends to confuse the interpretation of the historical remains.
A concrete-lined brick tank is embedded 2 metres deep into the hillside, and may be a header tank for battery water.
","history":"The Norton Goldfield was originally part of the Milton pastoral run that had been taken up by William Henry Walsh, who had named the property for his childhood English home. Walsh was elected a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1859. His opposition to the separation of Queensland from New South Wales ensured that he did not become a member of the first Queensland Parliament.
George Williams and Charles Lett discovered gold on the Milton (Norton) Goldfield in 1871. Proclaimed on 12 May 1879 the field comprised 107.6 square kilometres and extended west from the Many Peaks Range to the Boyne River. The field is located approximately 35 kilometres south of Calliope and is said to have been named after Albert Norton, a member of the first Calliope Divisional Board.
No information appears to be available on the goldfield until 1878 - 1879 when it was reported that there were 60 miners and two three-head stamper batteries in operation on the field. Carmichael who was to be active on the field for many years had set up these batteries.
Most of the gold extracted from the Norton field came from reefs although some alluvial gold was won from a gully running through the township of Norton and from Naylor's Gully. Norton goldfield reefs were located to the north and south of the Norton Creek; to the north the principal reefs were the Advance, Who'd-Have-Thought-It, Hickey Claim, Carmichael's Gully, Marodian, Rands and Emu, while to the south the reefs included Frampton's (also known as Martin's), All Nations, Never Never, Little Wonder, Chandlers, Bald Hill, Brigham Young, Hans Big Dyke, New Constitution, Old Welcome and Galena Reefs. Silver was also mined at Norton.
The ores at Norton were complex; they contained gold, silver, lead, copper and zinc in varying concentrations, and various methods were explored and tried to maximise gold retrieval, or to retrieve the other minerals.
In 1884 the Frampton United Company was formed in an attempt to establish a chlorination plant but the following year Wattle Creek on which the crushing operations depended dried up and crushing operations were halted. In 1886 five reverberatory furnaces were set up at the Frampton United Company lease, to be operated in conjunction with a chlorination plant for gold retrieval. Frampton United Company then erected a barrel chlorination plant and with the 5 reverberatory furnaces achieved a throughput capacity of 60 tons per week at a cost of £3,000.
Because the miners did not like the smelting work, kanaka labour was employed to operate the furnaces. It appears likely the furnaces were used to roast the ores, rather than actually smelt them, as the ore would have had to be friable to be chlorinated successfully. The ore was first crushed in a 'dry crusher' and a 10-head battery, before roasting. This chlorination works was closed down in 1891, possibly because the nature of the ore changed and the components absorbed too much chlorine. No further reference is made to roasting ore.
In 1888 a 10-head stamper and a 'dry crusher' were installed but these proved a failure. In 1889 the Advance Company went down 400 ft and erected roasting and chlorination plant but following an unsuccessful attempt to treat 70 tons of ore this plant was abandoned in 1890. The continued failure was probably due to a high amount of calcite in the ore.
The Conran Gold Mining Company took over from Frampton United Company in 1891 and the chlorination works were suddenly shut down possibly because of a change in the composition of the ore. By 1893 only minimal work was being undertaken including surface collection.
In 1895 Carmichael again tried chlorination but failed once again. Still further attempts were made to make the field payable and in 1899 Carmichael erected a water-jacket blast furnace but the results were not satisfactory probably because a qualified metallurgist was not employed to manage the blast furnace.
Although an application was made for a further 2 leases no work carried out until 1902 following the opening of the road to Bororen that provided direct access to the North Coast Railway. In 1903 Marodian Gold Mining Company acquired a lease of 40 acres but by 1904 had ceased operation.
In 1906 Carmichael erected a water-jacket blast furnace to drive off lead and zinc which would leave a copper matte containing the gold and silver. Between 1906 and 1918 several small groups worked the mines with the ore being sent to Port Kembla for treatment. It was during this period that German army engineer Johan Gundolf erected a water-driven crushing mill (known as an arrastra) and a 375 metres water-race along the banks of Norton Creek.
In 1918 Frampton Mine, one of the more consistent operations at Norton employed four men to work the mine and although a 10-head stamper battery had been acquired this was not set up until 1923. In 1924 tramlines were laid down connecting the mine and the battery. In 1927 it was reported that a good crushing plant was available but the owners were unable to proceed with crushing. In 1928 a crushing of 4 tons of ore was sent to Port Kembla for treatment. The return from this was 14ounces of gold and 20 ounces of silver.
The last Norton Goldfield returns appear to have been in 1941, when the Frampton mine was re-opened by TH Smith and the ore sent to Chillagoe for treatment.
While official reports of the returns are patchy available figures show that 8,776 ounces of gold were mined on the Norton Goldfield during the period 1879 -1941.
","criteria":"The Norton Goldfield is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's mining and settlement patterns from the late 1870s through to the 1940s; its success, failures and eventual abandonment closely linked to the difficulties encountered in treating the ore.
|The Norton gold roasting works is an unusual aspect of gold mining, not represented at any other known sites in southern and central Queensland. The operational association between the battery and the mine is uncommon and rare.
|The technological evidence of the attempts to treat difficult ore bodies has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's mining history and metallurgy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5207,"place_ref":602209,"name":"Sundown Tin and Copper Mine","alternate_name":"BBS-2D 4","street_address":"Little Sundown Creek","suburb":"STANTHORPE","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The tin mine area consists of the open cut, with a grided shaft in its floor, and a collapsed adit at the base of its work face. Above the open cut is the main shaft, located on a bench cut into the hillside, with a mullock tip, tripod steel poppet head and older timber shaft-head staging, over a three-compartment shaft. The concrete pad supporting one of the poppet legs is inscribed with the names 'T Fredrick, S. Lynn, F. Meehan, GRM Kane'. Adjacent to the shaft is a cutting dug into the wall of the benched area, which appears to have been used as a store or crib room. On the other side of the shaft is a bench cut into the slope, with a 'Herman' winding engine facing the poppet legs.
The mill area consists of two sets of stepped concrete floors, identified on plans as the 'New Works' (29.5 x 6.5m), and the 'Old Works' (42x9m) 24m further to the west. These concrete floors have concrete machinery foundations, troughs and the bases of timber vats or tanks. The Old Works has the foundations for a stamper battery.
The ruin of a furnace, taken to be the Merton Furnace for arsenic roasting, is located above the New Works area, and consists of a collapsed large brick furnace, built with 'Campbell' fire bricks, with a horseshoe shaped flue leading from it. The flue, which is collapsed, was an above ground 1.8m wide vault tunnel, and approximately the 200ft length referred to in the literature. The height could not be determined. At the other end of the flue from the furnace is a large brick pile and 14m long plume of rubble consisting of a fallen chimney. The curve of the flue is supported on a platform built of stone, and a large number of 2.95m-long iron pipes lay scattered in this area. There is slag underlying part of the furnace, and it may have been built on top of the first reverberatory furnace slag heap.
Between the 'arms' of the flue is an area of burnt and disturbed ground, which may be the site of the second reverberatory furnace, as a 12 x 19m slag heap extends from in front of this area. No ground features indicating the size or specific design of this smelter could be seen, but the loaf slag forms indicate the slag was cast into sand moulds, typical of reverberatory furnace practice.
East of the furnace are a number of sleepers, lengths of wire cable, and the base of the structure which could be the flying fox used to bring tin and copper ore to the mill site. However, this area of the site has been extensively disturbed by more recent bulldozing and earth moving activities.
The two dams are located below the Old Works site, and are earthen dams, riveted with timber on the downstream side, and both are broken. A large amount of tailings sand lines the creek above the dams, leaching the metallic salts and having a strongly sulphurous smell.
The Copper Mines are located about 140m east of the furnace site, and consist an adit near the creek, and a series of 3 shafts along the line of the reef running roughly s-w to n-e over the crest of the ridge, and mullock associated with the shafts. The main shaft is a three-compartment shaft. There is a collapsed ore bin and shute, and some concrete machinery pads, but no other substantial above- ground remains.
","history":"Tin was discovered at Sundown in 1893, and a reward claim was granted for 40 acres, but at that date there was no machinery on the ground. Mining had ceased in 1894 for want of equipment, and copper prices were at rock-bottom at that time.
The copper and tin deposits were on opposite sides of Little Sundown Creek, and were mined from different shafts. With rising prices the mine was operating again in 1897, and much development work was carried out in 1898. By 1899 a smelter must have been erected, as 470 tons of ore was smelted for 53 tons of matte containing 30% copper and 50oz silver per ton, and 20 men were employed. More ore was raised in 1900, but the mine was under exemption through 1901 -03, a time of low copper prices.
In 1904 the mine was described as having an open -cut on the tin portion, and on the copper section a tramway ran down 7 chains from the mine to the reverberatory furnace. The only building standing besides the furnace was the assay office. Firewood was swung across the creek to the furnace on wire ropes. The copper adit was driven 270ft, with winzes and drives off it, and a shaft connecting to the surface 60ft from the portal. The most recent smelting of 150 tons of ore produced 25 tons of matte containing 29% copper and 76oz silver and 6 dwt gold per ton matte. Mining recommenced in 1904, but was abandoned again in 1907, this time reputedly due to falling tin prices, though copper fell dramatically in 1907 as well. However, Kershaw and Dodds intended to erect a crushing works at the site the following year.
The mine was worked under tribute in 1909 - 1910. In 1911 -1912 work recommenced, with both copper and tin prices resurging. A road was cut to the site, and a shaft sunk in the bottom of the tin mine, which had previously been mined largely by open- cut. The old smelter was described as still being in good condition in 1913, but mining was clearly slow .
In 1914 the mine was taken over by the Sundown Tin and Copper Mining Company (N.L.) which erected a 10- head battery driven by a suction-gas plant, and built two fines dams. No work had been done for some time on the tin portion, but some had been going on for copper. In 1915 a calciner was erected, together with 'another' Wilfley concentrating table and a 5ft Berdan crushing pan, and a new shaft was sunk on the tin deposit. The new tin shaft had poppet legs errected over it in 1916, and a 16hp Tangye winding engine and vertical boiler were installed. That year 69.5 tons of tin and 26 tons of copper concentrates were produced.
Work carried out in 1916-17 included the construction of flues for saving arsenic, the electric lighting of the mines and mill, the construction of a new concrete dam, a new elevated double rope line form the new tin shaft to the mill, new self feeders at the mill, and the redressing works was to be remodelled and shifted from its present location at the mill to the calciner. The battery consisted of the 10 head stamper, 4 classifiers, 5 Wilfley tables, 2 Berdan pans and several buddles. The single reverberatory furnace was used to calcine the tin concentrates and drive of arsenic and sulphur. In 1917 a Merton calciner was erected and flues for arsenic recovery constructed. It is likely that these replaced the old reverberatory furnace and calciner. Arsenic became and important product of the mines, the demand escalating during the prickly pear infestation. New shafts were sunk at both the tin and copper mines. The lack of water reduced output in 1918, only 23 tons of tin and 12.5 tons of copper concentrates being produced, but the new shafts were continued, the three compartment copper shaft having poppet legs and ore bins erected, and a cableway built to the battery bins. A new reverberatory furnace was built and a water pipeline laid to the Severn River. The Merton Furnace was described in 1918 as being for the roasting of arsenic concentrates, with the arsenic being condensed in 200ft of 'mud flues', while the new reverberatory furnace was for copper smelting.
Production in 1919 and 1920 was modest, and in 1921 the smelter treated 100 tons of ore yielding 20 tons of matte containing 37% copper, and 60oz silver per ton. Air compressors and rock drills were obtained, and the calciner and reverberatory furnace were in working order. 30 tons of arsenic and 5.4 tons of copper were produced in 1922, and 200 tons of arsenic in 1923. In 1924 the furnace and part of the mill was leased by Arsenic Limited to O.C Roberts Limited, who remodelled the furnace to treat high-grade ore, as a result of the Prickly Pear Land Commission letting a 12 month contract for the supply of Roberts Improved Pear Poison, which was manufactured at Wallangarra. The ore was to come form the near by Beecroft Mine.
The arsenic works ceased operation in 1925, and tin does not seem to have been mined after 1923. There is no reference to copper after this date either.
","criteria":"The Sundown Mine is of historical importance because of its combination of tin, copper and arsenic production, the primary product at any given time varying with the prevailing market condition. Thus at one site is a microcosm of the forces influencing the pattern of most mining in this region of southern Queensland. The Sundown Mine together with the Beecroft Mine and the Jibbenbar State Arsenic Works, is associated with the prickly pear eradication program.
|The remains of the Merton Furnace and condensing flue are rare pieces of the technology demonstrating arsenic extraction in Queensland. The arsenic mill and furnace, together with the nearby Jibbenbar and Beecroft mines, demonstrates a rare aspect of mining in Queensland, and the fact that the mine was aimed at producing toxic material puts the site at considerable risk from future contaminated site rehabilitation, so it is endangered.
|The site has the potential to yield information about the highly volatile base metal mines industry. The combination of metals produced at the mine increases the potential of the site to contribute worthwhile research results.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5265,"place_ref":602713,"name":"Mossman District Hospital","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Johnston Road","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-12","description":"The Mossman Hospital is a complex of lowset buildings set on a level site on the western outskirts of Mossman. Cane fields and the Main Coast Range form a backdrop to the buildings which are set amongst spacious grounds of tended lawns and tropical gardens. A sweeping driveway, framed at access points by concrete formed gateways, approaches the main wing which is dominated by an extensive concrete façade with arched openings in the Spanish Mission style.
The core of the complex consists of a series of 1930s and 1940s buildings of timber framed construction with exterior walls formed in reinforced concrete together and newer buildings infilling spaces that previously separated the earlier pavilions. Early buildings include the Main Wing (c1930), the Maternity Wing (c1930) and the former Female Ward (built c1930 as nurses' quarters and now the Community Health Building) which face the east; former Nurses' Quarters (1936, now the Dialysis Building) to the north-east; an Operating Theatre (c1940) and Kitchen block (c1930) behind the Main Wing; and a Doctor's Residence (c1930) set apart to the south. Staff quarters (c1949) are located to the west of the main building.
A large, t-shaped building, constructed in 1991, now links the Main Wing and Maternity Wing together and another building, constructed in 1965, links the Main Wing to the former Female Ward. Both the 1965 and the 1991 buildings sit forward of the c1930 buildings. An early covered walkway (c1936) links the former Female Ward to the former Nurses' Quarters.
Main Wing c1930
The Main Wing is a long, narrow, symmetrical building of timber-framed construction with external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete. It has a large hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting with gablets at each end. The concrete walls are finished with a smooth render painted white and are punctuated with a series of arched windows to an enclosed verandah space. These frame a larger arched central entranceway. The building is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. The external concrete walls extend down to the ground and are finished with a concrete plinth running around the base of building. A suspended concrete-formed ramp runs across the front of the building leading to a secondary entrance at the southern end. The arched entranceway is trimmed in red/ochre-coloured paint and is accessed via concrete formed splayed steps. The words 'MOSSMAN DISTRICT HOSPITAL' is lettered above the opening. Box gutters run behind the length of the parapet wall and large painted metal rain heads are located at the southern and northern ends. Decorative features include brackets located between the windows and the top of the parapet wall, a circular Maltese cross motif pressed into the walls below each of the windows, and scalloped edging and a circular motif above the entranceway.
The southern elevation has similar details to the front including concrete-formed parapet walls, arched steel-framed windows, decorative brackets and the Maltese cross detail.
The Main Wing consists of a central bank of offices, meeting and consultation rooms with long corridors formed by enclosed verandahs running along the length of the eastern and western sides. The enclosed verandahs have early fabric visible including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to internal walls and ceilings, and pairs of panelled timber French-light doors with glazed fanlights above. The inside face of the external walls are finished with smooth cement render similar to the outside and the Maltese cross motif is also visible. On the eastern verandah early floorboards that have been painted are visible. On the western verandah the floor has been lined with a recent resilient floor finish. Generally, most internal walls within the office and consultation areas appear to be early and formed from v-jointed boards though many have been lined up to two metres from the floor with resilient finishes. Ceilings are early v-jointed boards. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent. Some glazing to the French-light doors has been painted.
Maternity Wing c1930
The Maternity Wing is a smaller building to the south and is connected to the Main Wing via the 1991 extension. Like the Main Wing its principal elevation is to the east and it is of a timber-framed construction with external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete and finished in a smooth cement render. It is asymmetrical in layout with a projecting gable to the east hidden behind a parapet wall with a scalloped profile. The remainder of the roof is hipped and clad in corrugated metal sheeting with a gablet to the northern end. An L-shaped verandah, with pairs of arched openings and timber slat balustrades capped with a bread-loaf profile handrail, runs the length of the building and runs around to the north where it adjoins the 1991 extension. It is accessed via concrete formed steps. The building is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. Like the Main Wing, the external concrete walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth. It has large arched openings to provide ventilation to the sub-floor area. The Maternity Wing has similar detailing and decorative features to the Main Wing including decorative brackets between the arched openings and the top of the parapet wall, scalloped edging and a circular motif above the projecting gable.
The northern elevation has similar details to the front elevation including concrete-formed parapet walls, arched verandah openings, timber slat balustrades and decorative brackets. A recent timber deck joins the Maternity Wing in this area to the 1991 extension.
The Maternity Wing consists of a maternity ward surrounded by verandahs on three sides (east, north and west) with a small projection to the west. It appears to have been re-roofed when the 1991 extension took place. The internal fabric appears to be original though some internal doors have been replaced. The verandah to the west has been enclosed to form a corridor that links the Maternity Wing to the 1991 extension.
Both the unenclosed and enclosed verandahs have early fabric visible including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings and pairs of panelled timber French-light doors with glazed fanlights above. Floors to the enclosed verandah to the west have been covered with a resilient floor finish. The rear wall appears to have been altered during the 1991 extension.
Generally, most internal walls within the ward appear to be early though some have been lined up to 2metres from the floor with resilient finishes. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent.
A small room (use unknown) has been built post-1991 to the south of the maternity wing and has similar detailing to the older areas.
Former Nurses' Quarters c1930 (Community Health Building)
This building is located to the north of the Main Wing. An additional wing was added in 1991 to the rear (west).
Like the Main Wing and Maternity Wing its principal elevation is to the east and it is of timber framed construction with external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete and finished with a smooth cement render. The main elevation is symmetrical in layout with central concrete-formed steps leading to a verandah which extends the length of the frontage. The front parapet wall is punctured by three large arched openings with pairs of narrow arched bays in between. Timber slat balustrades capped with bread-loaf profile handrails are located either side of the central opening. A timber slatted gate is located at the stop of the steps. The building has a hipped roof and is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The front corners of the roof extend beyond the wall line and wrap around the front parapet wall. Gutters to the eaves are recent and have a square-profile.
Like the other c.1930 buildings it is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. Its external concrete walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth with large arched openings to provide ventilation to the sub-floor area. It has similar detailing and decorative features to the other buildings including decorative brackets, scalloped top edges to the parapet wall and a circular motif above the entrance.
The northern elevation has similar details to the front elevation including concrete-formed parapet walls, arched openings and decorative brackets. Recent aluminium windows have been inserted into the arched openings along this elevation. The southern elevation opens into a courtyard space created by the adjacent c1965 building. It is edged by an open verandah with arched openings and timber slat balustrades.
The building consists of offices surrounded on all four sides by verandahs. The verandahs to the east and south remain open while the verandah to the north has been enclosed to form offices. The verandah to the west has been enclosed to form a corridor between the former Female Ward and the 1991 extension. All of the verandah spaces have intact early fabric including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings, floorboards and pairs of panelled timber French-light doors with glazed fanlights above.
Generally, most internal walls within the office spaces appear to be early though some have been lined up to two metres from the floor with resilient finishes. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent.
Medical Superintendent's Residence c1930
The Doctor's Residence is located to the south-west of the Main Wing and is set amongst tropical foliage beyond the bitumen drive. Like the other c1930 buildings it is a timber-framed building with external walls formed in reinforced concrete but is of a more domestic scale. It is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. The external walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth with large arched openings providing ventilation to the sub-floor area. It has simpler detailing and decorative features than the other buildings.
Its principal elevation is to the south where a parapet wall, finished with a smooth cement render, conceals a hipped roof which is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The parapet wall wraps around each corner to the east and west. The main elevation is symmetrical in layout with a central concrete-formed set of steps leading to a verandah that extends the length of the frontage. Three arched openings are located on each side of the steps. Diamond-shaped infills are located below handrail height. A recent aluminium gate is located at the top of the steps and other openings have been screened with aluminium framed flyscreens.
On the northern elevation the hipped roof extends beyond the wall to an ogee profile metal eaves gutter. The roof shades a secondary entrance which leads via concrete formed steps on to a small porch. Details are similar to the main elevation with arched openings and diamond-shaped infills repeated. A c1950s bathroom building has been constructed immediately in front of the remainder of the elevation. It is a simple, timber-framed structure clad in profiled fibre-cement sheeting and supported on concrete stumps.
On the eastern elevation a second set of concrete-formed steps leads via an arched doorway to the southern verandah. Octagonal and arched-shaped openings are located on either side of the doorway all of which have been enclosed with screens. One arched opening has been enclosed with a timber window. A circular motif is located above the doorway where some curved detailing appears to have been removed.
The western elevation has similar details with concrete parapet walls arched openings with diamond-shaped infills to the verandah. Metal window awnings have been added above the window openings.
Though access to the interior of the residence was limited, much of the interior fabric and layout remains intact including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings. Early floorboards are visible from the sub-floor area.
Kitchen block c1930 (remodelled c1949)
The Kitchen block is small building located behind the Main Wing. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and external walls of rendered reinforced concrete. Openings appear to be early and are both arched and rectangular with decorative metal window hoods located on the south elevation. A decorative circular motif is located in the gable to the south. A decorative metal-formed eaves bracket supports the roof in the south-west corner.
Internally ceilings are lined with v-jointed boards but walls appear to have been re-lined when refurbishments have taken place. Some internal walls appear to have been removed.
Former Nurses' Quarters c1936 (Dialysis Building)
The former Nurses' Quarters is a separate pavilion building linked to the former Female Ward via a timber framed covered walkway. It is sited to the north-east and is T-shaped in plan. It has been refurbished and painted recently.
This building is of a similar construction to the other c1930 buildings with timber-framing to internal walls, roofs and floors and external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete finished with a smooth cement render. Its principal elevation faces the south and is symmetrical in layout with two sets of concrete formed steps accessing the front verandah which runs the length of the building. Each set of steps has walls of reinforced concrete with an over-sized scroll detail. The building has a hipped roof concealed behind the parapet walls with gablets at each end and is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The verandah roof is supported on square reinforced concrete posts and has balustrades also formed in reinforced concrete. At the eastern end, part of the verandah has been enclosed with aluminium windows with a recent metal awning above while at the western end two openings are screened with timber lattice panels.
The building is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. Again, the external concrete walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth. Large arched openings provide ventilation to the sub-floor area. It has similar detailing and decorative features to the other c1930 buildings including decorative brackets between the verandah openings and the top of the parapet wall and scalloped edging features above the openings. Circular moulding formed from concrete emphasises the entrance points. Openings on the verandah have been altered where it appears early door openings have been enclosed with aluminium windows and sheeted to floor level. Painted floorboards are exposed but it is unclear if these are recent.
The eastern and western elevations have similar details to the front elevation. Parapet walls with decorative brackets extend half-way along the length of the building. Verandah openings have been enclosed with aluminium windows which are covered with a metal awning. For the remainder of these elevations the hipped roof and recent metal square-profile eaves gutters are exposed. On the northern (rear) elevation exterior walls end at the soffit line where the hipped roof extends to the eaves gutter. Openings on this elevation appear to have been altered and recent steps and ramps added. A recent projection has been built in the north-west corner of the verandah.
The building was originally laid out as nurses' living quarters with verandahs on all four sides. This layout generally remains but the internal dividing walls have been removed to form a central open-plan space and some verandahs have been enclosed to form office spaces and corridors. Much of the early fabric remains in these areas including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings, timber panelled French light doors with glazed fanlights above. Some internal openings have been sheeted over with recent v-jointed sheeting. Those internal walls remaining have been lined to two metres high with a resilient finish along with all internal floors. Early floor boards are visible from the sub-floor area. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent.
A courtyard space is located behind the building to the south surrounded in part by a low reinforced concrete wall.
Walkway c1936 (connecting former Nurses' Quarters and former Female Ward)
The walkway links the former Nurses' Quarters and the former Female Ward and is a timber-framed structure with half-height walls and a curved roof. It is supported on concrete stumps and the sub-floor area is enclosed with timber lattice panels. Timber posts support the roof framing which is unlined. Large eaves overhangs are formed with timber eaves brackets which may have been added later. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The timber framing to the external walls is sheeted with fibre-cement sheeting and capped with a bread-loaf profile handrail. Early hardwood floorboards are exposed.
Operating Theatre c1940
The operating theatre is a small building located between the former Female Ward and the Main Wing. It is accessed via a covered walkway. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and external walls of rendered reinforced concrete.
The main operating room retains original rendered and painted walls with floors and walls lined up to approximately one metre with tan-coloured terrazzo which also appears to be early. Some openings into this room also appear to be original; others have been altered. Ancillary rooms off the main theatre room have been re-lined.
Staff Quarters c1949
This building is located to the west of the 1991 extension. It is of similar construction to the c1930s buildings but has simpler detailing and little decoration. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and external walls of rendered reinforced concrete which extend to ground level. Rectangular ventilation slots mark the sub-floor area. Eaves gutters are recent and square in profile. External windows are aluminium framed glass louvres with recent security grilles fixed to the exterior to the western and eastern elevations with some sliding windows on the western and northern elevations. The entrance area is located on the western elevation and is accessed by a concrete-formed ramp. The entrance door has sidelights of timber lattice. Some early fixed timber louvres are located on the eastern elevation.
The building consists of offices and staff quarters and many internal walls appear to be in their original positions. Ceilings of fibre cement sheeting throughout the building appear to be early. Much of the original fabric to the eastern enclosed verandah remains including fibre-cement sheeted walls and ceilings and hardwood floorboards.
Setting and grounds
The Mossman Hospital buildings are surrounded by expansive lawns and spacious grounds. The long east-facing main façade overlooks a large tended lawn scattered with established trees and is set apart by a u-shaped bitumen drive. Two vehicle and pedestrian access points are marked by reinforced concrete gateways finished in a smooth cement render. These consist of a large central arch adorned with decorative brackets and a Maltese cross motif is set over the drive with two smaller arches on either side for pedestrian entry. The perimeter of the complex is enclosed with a recent aluminium tubular fence with a tubular steel fence at the rear, which is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Pathways through the complex are generally concrete. Garden beds with colourful foliage plantings are located throughout the complex and mark entrance points to the buildings. These are generally defined with concrete edging.
Unobstructed views to the canefields and Main Coast Range to the west are a feature of the site and form a backdrop to the hospital buildings. These buildings and their spacious setting are clearly visible from the complex's entry points.
Non-significant elements
Various buildings have been added to the site over time and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. These include the c1991-1992 T-shaped building located between the Maternity Wing and the Main Wing; the c1965 building located between the former Female Ward and the Main Wing; the Services Building to the rear of the site; the X-Ray building located between the Kitchen block and the Operating Theatre; and the new Morgue.
","history":"Mossman District Hospital was built c1930 by contractor JJ Riley for the Port Douglas Hospitals Board, and was opened on 23 August 1930 by JAC Kenny MLA, the State member for Cook. It was constructed to plans prepared c1925 by the Department of Public Works for a standard pavilion-type timber and galvanised iron hospital, and amended c1928 by Cairns architects Hill and Taylor to incorporate evocative Spanish Mission style concrete façades.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70km north of Cairns. Port Douglas was established in 1877 as an alternative to Cairns as a service port to the Hodgkinson goldfield that had been proclaimed on 15 June 1876, but with the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line 1882-1891, Port Douglas gradually declined as a town and port. The Mossman district, although initially taken up as homestead selections supplying fodder, maize and tropical fruits to the goldfields, converted to sugar-growing in the 1890s and prospered in the early twentieth century.
The township of Mossman was created from a private subdivision made following the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill on the Mossman River in 1894-1895. By 1910 the township comprised little more than the Exchange Hotel, a store, butcher's shop, hall and timber church, clustered around the sugar mill. These buildings and most of nearby Port Douglas were severely damaged by a cyclone on 16 March 1911. In the aftermath, businesses at Port Douglas gradually gravitated to Mossman and by 1920 the district's major services - including the Douglas Shire Council offices - were located in Mossman. In the 1920s the Court House and banking facilities moved from Port Douglas to Mossman, which by the end of the decade was the administrative centre of the shire. The town was given an additional boost with the completion of the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in 1933.
Prior to 1930 the district hospital was located at Port Douglas. Constructed c1878, it was administered by a volunteer Hospital Committee and funded through local subscriptions, fund-raising and donations. Public hospitals were not yet a responsibility of the State, and although government assistance was given with the design of hospitals and payment of a resident medical officer's salary, funds to construct and conduct the hospital were raised locally. Public hospitals at this period were regarded as charitable institutions, and patients were means-tested.
The Hospitals Act 1923 gave the State government greater administrative responsibility for health care and the ability to fund the construction of hospitals. Funds from the Golden Casket lottery scheme established in 1920 were available, but used predominantly for the construction of maternity wards and baby clinics.
The Hospitals Act also introduced the concept of district hospitals. Existing local hospital committees could particulate in the new system, evolving into local hospital boards that included local and State government representatives.
From 1913 the Douglas Hospital Committee held meetings month about at Port Douglas and Mossman, reflecting the expansion of the hinterland community. From January 1923 the community was advocating construction of a hospital in Mossman, especially a maternity hospital.
In late 1924 the Douglas Hospital Committee made the decision that they would maintain the hospital at Port Douglas, but not extend or develop it any further, in anticipation of a new hospital being constructed at Mossman. By late January 1925 the Department of Public Works had prepared plans for a proposed Mossman hospital, to comprise a main block, maternity ward and nurses' quarters. These were single-storeyed timber buildings, high-set on timber stumps, with wide surrounding verandahs, and connected via covered ways. The plan was of the pavilion-ward type, reflecting contemporary thinking on hospital design. From the 1860s to the 1930s almost all hospitals erected in Queensland were pavilion plan - developed in Europe and England in the 1850s - based on the principles of providing good ventilation, light and sanitation, and on selecting a generous area of land, preferably elevated and on the outskirts of a town, to achieve this.
In the early twentieth century Queensland developed a variant of the pavilion plan hospital, the principal characteristics being: high-set timber construction; medium-to high-pitched roofs clad in corrugated iron, wide surrounding timber verandahs; ceiling vents and roof ventilators to assist air flow; the combination of male and female wards within a single pavilion, separated by smaller rooms such as matron's room, doctor's room, nurses' room and single bed private wards; and bathrooms, toilets and kitchens contained in semi-detached blocks off the main pavilions. In hospitals constructed after 1925, the provision of an operating theatre and an x-ray room became standard. Between 1901 and 1938, 78 pavilion plan hospitals/wards were erected in Queensland; by 1996 only 23 (just under 30 per cent) were extant and substantially intact; of the others, one had been removed from the site and the remainder had been demolished.
By January 1926 a large, level site off Johnston Road, about half a mile (0.8km) south-west of the centre of Mossman, had been acquired for the new hospital. A plan of the proposed hospital layout for the site was prepared by Public Works in April 1926, positioning the main building close to the centre of the site, facing east, and accessed from Hospital Street. To the north of the main building, connected via a covered way, were the nurses' quarters, and to south, also connected via a covered way, the maternity ward. At the western side of the site, and not physically connected to the main building, were a number of ancillary buildings, structures and facilities: a doctor's residence (with private driveway off Johnston Road), tennis court, wardsman's quarters, water supply pump house, drying green, laundry and powerhouse, incinerator, and morgue. The buildings were spaced well apart, to allow for future expansion on the site.
In April 1926 the Douglas Hospital Committee (established under the Voluntary Hospitals system) was replaced by the Port Douglas Hospitals Board (formed under the 1923 Act). Through 1926 debate between the Board and the State government centred on whether the Port Douglas hospital buildings would be re-located to Mossman, or new construction approved. The Department of Public Works estimated a cost of £20,868 to erect an entirely new hospital and £18,016 if the nurses' quarters and doctor's residence were re-located from Port Douglas. Local estimates were called, which proved lower than Works had anticipated, and in October 1928 the Board accepted from the government a loan of $14,000 for construction of entirely new hospital buildings.
However, the Board also referred the Works Department design to Cairns architects Hill and Taylor, to prepare an alternative scheme in concrete based on the original plans. Richard Hill and Arthur John Henry Taylor were in partnership in Cairns from 1927 to c1940, with a branch office in Townsville 1933-1939. The partnership was resumed in 1945 but was dissolved in 1952. During the interwar years Hill and Taylor developed an extensive practice in northern Queensland. Their work included the Cairns City Council Chambers (1929-1930, QHR 601576); the Johnstone Shire Hall at Innisfail (1935-1938, QHR 601579); the Barron Valley Hotel (1940) at Atherton, and buildings at several district hospitals besides Mossman, including Boulia (emergency operating theatre, 1936), Cairns (nurses' quarters, 1937), Mareeba (new hospital building, 1937), and Proserpine (new hospital building 1939-1940, QHR 601573).
For the Mossman Hospital, Hill and Taylor proposed replacing the planned timber balustrades to the verandahs with decorative, arcaded concrete verandah façades in the Spanish Mission style popular at the time. They argued that the concrete exterior would be less expensive to maintain, would save on fire insurance costs, and would better withstand cyclonic weather. The Department of Public Works approved the amended design and in mid-1929 extended the loan to £16,000.
Spanish Mission style architecture was popularised in Australia from the late 1920s. The emphasis on wide colonnaded or arcaded verandahs and white stuccoed exterior walls set against lush gardens (as popularised in the Californian version of the style), translated well to Australia's warm climate, particularly in Queensland. In utilising this idiom for the Mossman Hospital, Hill and Taylor created the illusion that the buildings were of a more substantial construction than was the reality - being principally timber-framed, clad and lined structures - and the white-walled buildings in the garden setting against a mountain backdrop proved to be extremely picturesque. It is the only Queensland public hospital constructed with a Spanish Mission exterior.
Decorative embellishments were kept to a minimum (to reduce costs and lessen maintenance) and included: curved concrete arches to the verandahs; moulded Maltese crosses in the front balustrades; a curved parapet defining the central entrance, with the raised lettering 'Mossman District hospital'; and concrete arches defining the entrances off Hospital Street and Johnston Road.
When opened in 1930, the hospital comprised: a main building with male and female wards, operating room, dispensary wing, outpatients wing, and kitchen wing; maternity ward; nurses' quarters; and medical superintendent's residence. The hospital was soon operating at capacity, a reflection of the growth of the Mossman district during the 1930s, and extensions were necessary within a few years. About 1936 new nurses' quarters were erected just inside the entrance to the site off Hospital Street, north of the drive, and at this time the 1930 nursers' quarters were converted into a female ward. A new operating theatre was constructed c1940 (Hill and Taylor called the tenders for this late in 1939). By 1946 the former nurses' quarters at Port Douglas (a detached timber building) had been moved onto the site and located just inside the main entrance gate, to serve as the Board Room and Secretary's Office for the Port Douglas Hospitals Board. Also by this date, an isolation block had been constructed at the north-west corner of the site, connected via a covered way to the female ward (1930 nurses' quarters). New staff quarters were erected c1949 on the western side of the site, north of the doctor's residence. In 1965 the outpatients wing/former dispensary at the northern end of the main building was demolished and replaced by a new building that provided accommodation for administration, outpatients and a dental clinic.
Major renovations and additions to the main building were made in 1992, when a large extension was constructed to the rear of and between the main building and the maternity ward, so that the formerly detached maternity ward was made part of the main block.
In 2009 the hospital remains a working facility.
","criteria":"The construction of the Mossman District Hospital (c1930 with 1930s and 1940s additions) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being surviving evidence of the impact of the Hospitals Act 1923 in expanding the provision of hospital facilities in rural Queensland.
The place is important also in demonstrating the consolidation of Mossman as the administrative and service centre of Douglas Shire, at the expense of Port Douglas. This in turn reflected the importance of sugar cropping and milling in the district during the first half of the twentieth century, generating the income and population to support a district hospital in Mossman during the interwar period.
The Mossman District Hospital remains important evidence of a pavilion plan hospital of the early twentieth century. Of the 78 pavilion plan hospitals and wards erected in Queensland between 1901 and 1938, only 23 (just under 30 per cent) were extant and substantially intact by 1996. At the Mossman District Hospital, the original layout of separate but walkway-connected single-storeyed pavilions remains evident, despite later infill additions, illustrating a particular philosophy of hospital design popular in Queensland during the first four decades of the twentieth century. The principal c1930 pavilions - main wing and kitchen block, maternity ward, original nurses' quarters, and doctor's residence - remain in situ, as do the 1936 nurses' quarters, c1940 operating theatre and c1949 staff quarters, and retain their early form and much original fabric. The use of deep surrounding verandahs is important in illustrating the adaptation of pavilion ward design to a sub-tropical climate.
|Retaining much of the attractive original exterior detailing in the Spanish Mission style, and set in lush gardens against a spectacular mountain backdrop and with early decorative concrete arches to the street entrances, the Mossman Hospital and grounds is significant for its strong aesthetic appeal, which has been a valued characteristic of the place since 1930. It is the only Queensland public hospital designed with Spanish Mission style exteriors. The incorporation of similar stylistic elements into recent additions to the hospital is illustrative of the significance of the early aesthetic values of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14776,"place_ref":600001,"name":"St George's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Georges Anglican Church","street_address":"Main Street","suburb":"BEENLEIGH","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-skin timber church is a one storey building on low concrete stumps with steeply pitched galvanised corrugated iron gable roofs. It is now prominently located facing Main Street in the Beenleigh Historical Village.
\nThe church is rectangular in plan with an attached chancel on the northern end. The chancel is narrower in width and has a lower roof than the nave. A gabled porch located on the western side is the only point of entry.
\nThe walls consist of vertical jointed (VJ) boards fixed to an exposed stud frame that is decoratively patterned with cross bracing. Inclined timber members fixed above the bottom plate shed water away from the walls, protecting structural timbers. The raked soffits are lined with diagonal beaded timber boards that continue internally to form a raked ceiling.
\nThe entry and front facade gable are decorated with curved and diagonal timber members. Four timber steps lead to the timber entry porch. Arched double doors constructed of diagonal timber boards open directly from the porch onto the main space of the church. This space is interrupted only by a screen enclosure in the south west corner. The chancel has a raised timber floor and is framed by a chancel arch.
\nThe rafters are exposed below the diagonally boarded ceiling. Trusses are formed where timber tie beams are attached to the underside of four of the rafters and connected back to the walls by curved timber braces.
\nTall slender casement windows are arranged in groups of three in the end walls and singularly in the side walls. A replica of the original timber bell tower is located in front of the church.
\nThe external painted turquoise colour applied to the exposed stud framing and cross bracing does not reflect an earlier scheme and is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"St George’s Anglican Church, Beenleigh was built in 1875 for the local congregation. Designed by prominent architect Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, the single storey timber church is of single skin construction, with exposed stud framing and decorative cross bracing.[1] In 1981 the church was relocated from nearby Tansey Street to its current location at the Beenleigh Historical Village.
\nIn 1826 the Moreton Bay penal colony commandant Captain Patrick Logan began to explore the area of what is now Beenleigh and concentrated mainly around the Logan and Albert rivers.[2] Later timber getters moved into the area in search of cedar and hardwoods in the 1840s but it wasn’t until 1864 that the first European settlers took up land under the Sugar and Coffee regulations.[3] This was a government scheme designed to encourage the growing of these crops which could prove lucrative if the crops could be grown successfully. Sugar cane had been introduced at the onset of European settlement in the late 18th century in places such as Sydney, Port Macquarie and Norfolk Island but commercial viability was limited due to the crops failure to thrive in these areas.[4]
\nFollowing the success of Captain Louis Hope’s planted sugar crop in 1862, the population of the Beenleigh area grew and 39 leases were granted in the first few months of the scheme’s operation.[5] The emerging settlement of Beenleigh received its name after the home in England of prominent local plantation owners Francis Gooding and John Davy, whose sugar plantation was providing the necessary ingredients to the local production of rum. This commodity was encouraged by the government, as it received revenue from taxes, was easier to transport compared to beer or wine and was popular amongst the growing population of the district. With these new industries bringing employment, the population of the area was further expanded with the recent of migration of many German settlers, which were later to develop into the communities of Beenleigh, Bethania and Logan.
\nIn 1859 the state of Queensland separated from the state of New South Wales. Brisbane became the new seat of the Anglican Diocese, with its first Bishop being Edward Wyndham Tufnell.[6]
\nThe following year state funds to support the Anglican Church ceased, putting financial pressure on local church leaders unaccustomed to the processes of self-funding.[7] Due to the increasing spiritual needs of the now enlarged Beenleigh settlement, a committee was formed to provide the impetus needed for a dedicated structure devoted to a place worship. In 1872 a committee was formed to begin the process of erecting the new Anglican Church, with Rev. D. Desbois as chairman.[8] Tenders however could not be called until three quarters of the subscriptions required to build the church were actually payed for.[9] The acre of land that the church was to be constructed upon was donated by a local community member, Michael Tansey.[10]
\nThe design for the Gothic-style timber church was provided by prominent Queensland architect FDG Stanley. FDG Stanley was responsible for the design of many Queensland church buildings for different denominations including St Patrick's Church [601503], Gympie; St Paul's Presbyterian Church [600310], Spring Hill; as well as smaller examples like St David's Anglican Church [602061] in Allora. Although never officially appointed as a Diocesan architect, Stanley designed many Anglican churches in the 1870s and 1880s. St George’s Anglican Church is among Stanley’s earliest surviving Queensland ecclesiastical designs. [11]
\nStanley’s design featured the distinctive external framed ‘single-skin’ construction technique that evolved in Queensland from the mid-1860s. In this period, architects RG Suter, working for the Board of General Education in Brisbane and RHO Roehricht, as chief draftsman for the Great Northern Railway at Rockhampton, were exploring similar architectural ideas for what was initially called ‘outside studding’. Exposing the structural frame and the outside face of the internal lining improved the architectural expression of buildings and allowed for economic construction. Schools and churches built using this technique were a key influence in the widespread adoption of exposed frame timber construction throughout colonial Queensland.[12]
\nThe church was constructed and completed by September 1875 by Messrs Wohlsen and Ehlers at a cost of £250 and was the first religious building erected in the Beenleigh.[13] When completed, the church was described as:
\n‘a substantial wooden building, with the studding outside, the sides of vertical pine boards and a roof of ironbark shingles laid on boards… The floor is of yellowwood. The Communion table, reading and preaching desks are of polished cedar and the seats of ‘Noosa pine’ [kauri].[14]
\nAdditional costs necessary for the church building included the seats and desks made by Mr. J. Philips at £40 and a Harmonium (organ) at £40[15]. On September 23rd 1875 the first public service was held at the church. Included in the opening were 15 members from Brisbane’s St Johns choir, and Reverends DA Court , R. Creyke and J. Sutton. Rev. James Gilberton became the first priest in charge with A. Pietzcher and E. Thorne lay assistants[16].
\nFrom 1875 until 1957 the church became a focus point for the community, not only as a place of worship but as a social hub for the wider Beenleigh community. Over this period the church was to undergo multiple administrational changes, with control over church affairs administered by the Anglican Church Mission (1910), Parish of Beaudesert (1912) and Anglican Church Mission (1934) respectively. In 1952 the church made an appeal for funds to erect a more modern church with other funds to be allocated to the repair of the current structure.[17] From 1957 the centres of Woodridge, Slacks Creek, Kingston and Beenleigh were amalgamated in the Mission District of Beenleigh[18] which oversaw construction of the new St George’s Anglican Church next to the original building in 1964, the year Beenleigh was officially declared a parish.[19]
\nIn 1975 the original church building was classified by the National Trust and by 1978 was included in the Australian Heritage Commission’s Register of the National Estate.[20] By this time the structure was in poor condition and the Anglican Church was considering demolishing the building. Approaches were made to the Albert Shire Council and local business people to save the church. In 1981 the council approved a request from the Beenleigh and District Historical Society for the original church building to be removed from Tansey Street to the historical village site in Main Street, Beenleigh.[21] The Beenleigh and District Historical Society have been custodians of the church building since this time.
","criteria":"St George’s Anglican Church (1875) is important in demonstrating the development of Beenleigh as a regional centre in the mid-19th century.
\nThe first church erected in Beenleigh (relocated 1981), it is important in demonstrating the development of the Anglican Church in Queensland in the mid-19th century.
|St George's Anglican Church, an early ecclesiastical work of prominent architect FDG Stanley, is a fine example of a single-skin timber church with exposed stud framing and cross bracing, demonstrating the decorative possibilities of this type of construction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14777,"place_ref":600002,"name":"Bethania Lutheran Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Church Road","suburb":"BETHANIA","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single storey church is constructed of handmade bricks, rendered internally and externally and has steep gable roofs sheeted with galvanised corrugated iron. The brick walls are strengthened with engaged brick piers visible externally. The exterior plaster is raked to suggest stone construction.
\nThe original timber bell tower is positioned opposite the entry doors to the church. A railway line runs adjacent to the property and a timber footbridge allows pedestrian access across this line. Several graves established prior to the railway line still exist in front of the church and on the other side of the line. The cemetery is now located at the rear of the church.
\nThe building consists of a rectangular double height nave with square projections at both ends. The gable roofs over the two projecting rooms are lower than the nave roof. At the eastern end is a 1972 concrete block entry vestibule that replaced a timber entry porch. It is rendered to match the rest of the building and has double entry doors located on its eastern face. The original entry doors have been removed. On the western end is a private room that contains the staircase leading to the pulpit.
\nThe pulpit located at the western end of the main space has been built as a balcony above the altar. This arrangement is original but the fabric has been reconstructed.
\nAt the eastern end of this space, over the original entry is a timber mezzanine which has been extended to twice its original size. The mezzanine is reached by a steep timber staircase. The raked ceiling has a plywood lining that replaced painted sheet metal. Two steel tie rods connect the roof structure above the wall level.
\nThe church has tall pointed arched windows in the side walls. Stained glass hopper windows replaced the original casement windows in 1972. The end walls and the attached vestibules have small pointed arched windows.
\nThe church has suffered some alterations. Fabric has been replaced but the original forms have been maintained.
","history":"The church was built in 1872 from locally sourced handmade bricks, timber and shingles.
It replaced an earlier slab church built in 1864 when a shipload of German immigrants first settled in the area and gave it the name Bethanien. The graveyard next to the church has graves dating from 1866. In 1875 the railway line was built, passing close to the church and over the site of the earlier building.
The shingle roof was replaced with iron in 1907 and the new pulpit was built in 1926. For the centenary celebrations in 1972 major renovations were undertaken. A new iron roof, a plywood ceiling, new lighting and leadlight windows were installed. The church, although still used, is no longer the major worship centre of the parish.
","criteria":"Bethania Lutheran Church is significant for its association with the German settlers and the continuing association with the Lutheran community in the area.
|Bethania Lutheran Church is significant as the oldest Lutheran Church in Queensland.
|Bethania Lutheran Church shows evidence of handmade materials and rudimentary construction techniques used by the area's pioneers.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14779,"place_ref":600004,"name":"Pimpama & Ormeau War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Pacific Highway","suburb":"PIMPAMA","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Pimpama Memorial is prominently located in the grounds of the Pimpama Uniting Church facing the Pacific Highway approximately halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
The stone memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue. It is surrounded by a low fence of evenly spaced white painted concrete posts linked by steel rails, also painted white.
It sits on a base step with margined, rough stone faces. Surmounting this are two smooth faced steps, the lower one having the words Pimpama and Ormeau Honour Roll relief carved on the front face.
The pedestal comprises a recessed square of marble plates with sandstone columns at each corner with foliated carved capitals and simple moulded bases. The front plate bears the leaded names of the seven local war dead, and the east side plate bears a commemorative inscription and a patriotic verse. This is capped by a cornice with curved pediment detail upon which sits a square sandstone plinth. Crossed flags (The Australian and the Union Jack) are carved in relief on the front face of the plinth and show remains of red, white, blue and gold paint.
Surmounting the plinth is the digger statue. The soldier stands to attention with his head bowed and his rifle reversed. The hands are crossed and resting on top of the rifle. He is supported by a tree trunk which is located behind and to one side of him.
","history":"The Pimpama and Ormeau War Memorial was erected by local residents in the grounds of the Pimpama Uniting (previously Methodist) Church. The masons were A L Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane who were responsible for many War Memorials throughout Queensland. It cost £154, which was raised by public subscription.
Pimpama was originally part of the pastoral run of Beaudesert. When the railway line was constructed between Brisbane and Southport in the 1880s, the towns of Pimpama and Ormeau prospered.
The Methodist church was constructed away from the town centre in 1880 by David Coulter who arrived in the district in the 1870s. The War Memorial was erected in 1919 in the grounds of the church cemetery, (gazetted in 1923) in remembrance of the six local men who lost their lives in the First World War. It has been relocated within the church property many times, most recently in 1993. Despite this, it continues to be a prominent landmark in the area.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
Of those produced by masonry firms, A L Petrie and Son of Toowong were the most prolific. They were the largest masonry firm in Queensland at this time and were responsible for many First World War memorials throughout the state. Some statues differed in detailing, although most were supplied on a range of standard pedestals. The pedestal at Pimpama is an early example of the style that was first used for the memorial at Ebbw Vale.
Information Note 1 - Following the relocation of the memorial within the church property in 1993, the Ormeau Pimpama War Memorial Committee sought professional advice on repair of the sandstone digger statue which had substantially deteriorated. At that time the arms were failing, as were the head and the hat. All of the available options for remedial work were considered to be only short term solutions. Permission was granted to commission a sandstone replica of the original statue. The rifle, which had already been replaced due to earlier vandalism, was retained. The new digger was produced by R C Zeigler Monuments of Toowoomba during 1994 and unveiled on ANZAC Day 1995. The original digger was given to the Miles Historical Village.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|Erected in 1919, the memorial at Pimpama demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|This particular statue is also of aesthetic value, both for its high level of workmanship and design, and as a highly visible and well-known landmark in the area. It is rare for its inclusion of an unusual inscription and patriotic verse.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and probably is Queensland's best known digger memorial.
|It also has special association with the monumental masonry firm, A L Petrie and Son as evidence of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14780,"place_ref":600005,"name":"Boer War Memorial and Park","alternate_name":"War Memorial Park | Queen's Park","street_address":"Warwick Street","suburb":"ALLORA","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Boer War Memorial is situated in a small park in Allora facing Warwick Street, in which memorials to the two World Wars are also found. The park is enclosed by a substantial brick and wrought iron fence along Warwick Street with a centrally placed gateway formed by brick newels with plaster finials and with an iron gate. The Boer and First World War memorials are towards the southern, Warwick Street side of the park and the Second World War Memorial is located toward the northern, rear of the park centrally placed between the others.
The Boer Memorial stands 15 feet from the ground and comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue. The memorial is surrounded by a low fence, consisting of evenly spaced bollards linked by steel rods.
The sandstone memorial sits on a base step with picked stone faces, margined and chiselled around. Surmounting this is a smooth faced stone step with plinth, on the faces of both of which are marble plaques with details of the opening of the statue and the names of the Allora men who took part in the war along with the names of the fallen with details of their death. The plinth supports the shaft of the memorial comprising a recessed square pier which features a wreath on the southern facing side and has a base element comprising a cyma recta moulding with foliated carving. Also projecting from this base at the four corners of the pedestal are free standing round columns with simple Doric order bases and capitals. These support a cornice with curved pediment detail above which on the southern side is carved ornament of foliated scrolls and a central anthemion element.
Surmounting the pedestal is the digger statue, which is slightly smaller than life size. The soldier stands to attention and with his head bowed his rifle reverse. Unusually for this type of statue the mouth of the soldier his open and he stands alone, without the traditional tree stump support. WP MACINTOSH is carved onto the side of the plate on which the soldier stands.
The World War One Memorial, again constructed largely from smooth faced sandstone and marble, comprises a three-part pedestal on the central part of which sits an obelisk. The central part of the pedestal projects from the flanking elements and the whole sits on a three stepped base. Simple round columns with Doric order bases and capitals are found on each corner of the pedestal. Small carved field guns are mounted on the side tops of the pedestal flanking the obelisk which rises from the centre. The obelisk comprises a square planned shaft with various mouldings on its faces above which is a cornice of a cyma recta moulding with foliated carving. Surmounted on this is the obelisk, of smooth faced sandstone; a tapering column with carved shields affixed to the north and south.
The World War Two Memorial, which sits to the rear of the park is a simple obelisk, with a base of two sandstone steps surmounted by two white marble steps the upper one with a simple carved moulding at the top on which sits the tall tapering column of white marble on the south side of which a wreath and gun are carved.
","history":"The War Memorial Park in Allora contains memorials to the Boer War, unveiled in 1904; World War I unveiled in 1921 and also a later memorial to World War II and more recent international conflicts with which Australia was involved.
The land on which the memorials are now situated was part of a larger package of land bound by Dalrymple Creek, Warwick, Raff and Church Streets, which was proclaimed a park for recreation in the Government Gazette of 12 July 1902. However, early survey maps of Allora, dating from 1879 show this area of land set aside for recreational purposes. In 1903 a small section of the park in the south western corner was officially set aside as a Drill Shed Reserve.
Three digger memorials to fallen soldiers were built in Queensland following the Boer War which lasted from 1899 until 1902. The memorial at Allora was the first planned in 1904, followed in 1908 by a memorial at Gatton and, lastly, a memorial in Brisbane unveiled in 1919. Although the term 'digger' came into popular use only after World War I it is still thought to be appropriate to use the term describing figural memorials constructed commemorating soldiers from the Boer War. Many other types of memorials, including avenues of trees, bells, plaques and obelisks were erected in Queensland following the Boer War.
The construction of war memorials in Queensland became more widespread after the Boer War, when the State sustained the loss of 67 soldiers on the battlefields. Following World War I the practice of erecting monuments to the fallen soldiers became a major community concern and the rise of Australian nationality increased the fever with which these memorials were built during the inter-war period.
The unveiling of the Allora Boer War Memorial on 19 August 1904 proclaimed a public holiday in the district, was carried out by Colonel Harry Chauvel (later General and Sir). Chauvel is thought to be one of the most distinguished of Queensland soldiers. Memoirs written by him about his service in the Boer War indicate that he was interested in what he considered an English tradition of honouring fallen soldiers with memorials.
With the British race, more perhaps than with any other, the spirit of veneration for those who gave their lives for their country is very pronounced...This spirit was brought home to me immediately after the South African War when ...I toured the battlefields of Natal. I came across everywhere parties of British officers arranging to erect memorials...Incidentally these suggested to me the idea of erecting a memorial cairn on the first battlefield of my own regiment; with the result that there stands on a rocky kopje in the north of Cape Colony...the first Australian War Memorial erected on a battlefield.
Indeed, the speech with which Chauvel unveiled the Allora Memorial laments the fact that it was one of the very few memorials in Queensland erected at that time to commemorate the Boer War.
The base and pedestal of the Boer Memorial was constructed by Mr J McCulloch of Warwick, to designs of WP Prout. The Allora Boer War Memorial is thought to have cost about £134 which was raised by a committee formed for the memorial's construction. Sandstone used for the project was obtained from Mr Midson's Yangan quarry, near Warwick.
The digger statue was sculpted by William P Macintosh. Macintosh was a prominent sculptor who, after his arrival in Australia in 1880 from Edinburgh where he studied anatomy, began training in Sydney at modelling classes of Lucien Henry, and later life drawing classes with Julian Ashton. He undertook many architectural sculptures in Sydney from the 1890s, including work on the Queen Victoria Markets. His arrival in Brisbane in 1903 was prompted by a commission for the sculpture on the Lands Administration Building, and shortly after this he carried out work for the Allora Boer Memorial. Other significant Queensland projects completed by Macintosh include figural sculpture on the former Government Savings Bank of 1920 and the various devils on the Government Printing Office completed in 1910-11.
Immediately following the erection of the Boer War Memorial the committee who organised its erection thought it befitting to enhance the reserve in which the memorial stood, so that it might be considered a park. At this stage what then became known as the Memorial Park was bounded by the Creek and Raff Street. 120 trees were donated to the committee for the park by Mr McMahon, the curator of the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane and the Mayor of Allora also donated trees which were planted along Raff Street and became known as the 'Mayor's Row'. It is not known whether any of the trees donated by Mr McMahon or the Mayor of Allora remain extant today.
A further addition was made to the park in 1921 when a World War I memorial was constructed. This was built in the form of an obelisk and is signed WJ Prout. Prout was a proprietor of the Brisbane Monumental Company who specialised in various types of monumental design and construction. This memorial was unveiled by General JC Robertson in mid November 1921.
A third memorial to fallen soldiers of World War Two was constructed in the form of an obelisk, with sandstone base and marble shaft.
","criteria":"The Boer War Memorial is an immensely important Queensland sculpture. It is the first of only three digger statues built to commemorate the involvement and death of Queensland soldiers in the Boer War of 1899-1902. The memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state, which became prolific after the First World War but, in 1904 when the Allora Boer War Memorial was constructed were quite rare.
|The digger statue is uncommon in composition and detailing and is one of the only known memorials sculpted by Sydney sculptor WP Macintosh.
|The three memorials in the Memorial Park, Allora demonstrate the principal characteristics of war memorials in Queensland with appropriately use of various symbolic elements.
|The Boer War and World War I Memorials are of aesthetic significance both individually and as complementary sculptures with common ornamental and compositional detailing.
|The Memorial Park has special importance for the community commemorating local involvement in the major wars of this century.
|The memorials have special association with various people of importance to Queensland including Sir Harry Chauvel who unveiled the Boer War Memorial; William Macintosh who carved the digger and was responsible for much significant architectural sculpture on various Queensland Government buildings; as well as to all the soldiers mentioned on the memorials.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14781,"place_ref":600006,"name":"Talgai Homestead","alternate_name":"Talgai","street_address":"Talgai Homestead","suburb":"ALLORA","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Talgai Homestead, located approximately 6 kilometres west of Allora on the Dalrymple Creek Road, consists of the homestead and grounds, an office/store and the remains of a stone weir on Dalrymple Creek. The homestead has views across a valley to the east.
The homestead is a large single-storeyed U-shaped sandstone building with a corrugated iron hipped roof and verandahs all round. The verandahs have lesser pitch skillion roofs, with the verandahs to the outer side of the building having paired round cast iron columns with timber capitals, and the verandahs fronting the courtyard having square timber posts. The sandstone ashlar is dressed around openings and has rock-faced finish to the outer verandah walls and picked finish to the courtyard walls. The building has seven rock-faced sandstone chimneystacks, and french doors with glass fanlights and sash windows open onto the verandahs from most rooms. The main entry is on the northern side and is accessed via a flight of stone steps with a timber arch between timber posts. The entry door assembly consists of a panelled cedar door with glass fanlight and sidelights with cedar framing.
The east elevation has a verandah with a deep central loggia created by the projection of the northern and southern wings beyond the east cross wing. This loggia has two pairs of cast iron columns, centrally located along the line of the verandah wall, supporting a timber truss beam. The ceiling to this space has timber boarding, raked at the sides, with a central pendant lamp. Each projecting wing has a square timber bay with sash windows to floor level.
The southern verandah of the northern wing has been enclosed with chamferboard, french doors and some glazing to accommodate service rooms off the kitchen, and the western end of this wing has notched stonework for the originally intended extension. The southern verandah of the southern wing has been enclosed with chamferboard and large areas of glazing along much of its length to accommodate sitting rooms and ensuite bathrooms for the adjacent guest rooms.
Internally, the ceilings are boarded and raked at the sides, and the building has rough rendered stone walls, panelled cedar doors and ornate timber fireplace surrounds. Circulation throughout the building is mainly via the verandahs, and the southern wing has been refitted as guest rooms. The eastern wing contains two sitting rooms, one of which houses a grand piano which is the only surviving original piece of furniture in the homestead. The northern wing contains a formal dining room at the eastern end adjacent to the main entry, and an informal dining room at the western end which has two skylights. An office and large kitchen are located in the mid-section of the wing, and are accessed from the main entry via an arched doorway and corridor. A cellar with a concrete floor is located under the mid-section of the northern wing, and is accessed by a timber stair located in the southern verandah.
The grounds include a clay tennis court to the east of the homestead, an avenue of Bunya Pines to the south, and the remains of a sandstone slaughter house/acetylene store consisting of an L-shaped wall with two sash windows and a concrete floor to the west. A circle of sandstone blocks in the ground to the west of the courtyard may be the remains of a well. A gravel driveway enters the home paddock to the northeast of the homestead, and swings along the northern side bordering a pond with fountain to access a carpark to the west. A large Olive tree is located on the northern side of the kitchen, and a concrete water tank is situated adjacent to the western end of the northern wing. Palms are located either side of the entry pathway from the driveway.
Staff quarters are located to the northwest of the homestead. This single-storeyed building has a hipped corrugated iron roof and weatherboard cladding, and was originally the stables/carriage house. A large metal water tank (originally from a railway station) is located at the western end of the building.
A sandstone office/store is located to the north of the home paddock. This building has a corrugated iron gable roof, with an office at the southern end, store at the northern end and a basement located centrally. The office is accessed via a doorway on the eastern side, and has a boarded ceiling which is raked to the collar beam, timber floor, whitewashed walls, louvred windows, and a central fireplace on the southern side. The store is accessed from both east and west by double timber doors, and has exposed beams and rafters, earth floor, casement windows and a central raised timber platform, under which is located the basement. The basement is accessed via an external sandstone stair on the western side, and has ventilation slits on the eastern side and a stone flagged floor.
A timber cottage with a hipped corrugated iron roof and front verandah is located to the northeast of the office/store on the opposite side of the driveway. A shearing shed with a hipped corrugated iron roof is located to the east of the office/store.
The remains of a stone weir across Dalrymple Creek is located southeast of the homestead. The western side is extant, but the eastern side has been washed away. The line of the footings for the weir is visible in the stone embankment of the creek bed, and the remains of a water control mechanism is located at the western end. The property also has an airstrip to the south of the homestead.
","history":"Talgai Homestead was built in 1868 for George Edwin Clark, then owner of that part of the old Talgai run which lies east of the present Toowoomba-Warwick rail line and was designed by prominent Queensland architect R.G. Suter. This substantial sandstone homestead was first known as 'East Talgai' the second of three 'Talgais' to be constructed on what was part of the original 'Talgai' run taken up by E.E. Dalrymple in 1840.
Ernest Elphinstone Dalrymple was part of the first wave of European settlers, who included Patrick and George Leslie, and George and John Gammie, to drive stock to the newfound Darling Downs area on receiving instructions from explorer Alan Cunningham who first recognised the potential of the area for pastoral settlement in 1827. These early squatters overlanded their stock through the New England district from Sydney as access to the Darling Downs through the penal settlement of Moreton Bay was not allowed, nor was any settlement within 50 miles of the penal colony permitted. This group of pastoralists were instrumental in settling the land which in subsequent decades was to become Queensland's prime pastoral and agricultural district and which also became a seat of political power in 19th century Queensland.
Dalrymple only held the Talgai run until his death in 1844 after which Talgai passed through several owners, possibly being owned by the Gammie brothers at one point. In 1862, the property was divided, with the southern portion becoming 'North Toolburra' and Clark and Hamner acquiring the portion known as Old Talgai where they ran a high-grade wool merino stud. This partnership was later broken and the property remained in Hamner's possession until his death, when it passed to the Queensland Cattle Company, and later to Lucht, who sold it to George and Charles Clark in 1865.
The Clark brothers divided the land again, George taking East Talgai and Charles taking the western portion, on which the Old Talgai homestead had stood. In 1874 Charles Clark constructed his own home, Ellinthorpe Hall (the third Talgai) on this western portion of the run and this homestead later became known as 'West Talgai'. Charles Clark left Talgai in 1890, the western portion of the land eventually being subdivided for closer settlement with the homestead falling into decay and the sandstone blocks from the ruins of the homestead being used to construct a modern home at Flagstone Creek
When George Clark secured the eastern portion of the Talgai run in 1865 the only structure on the land was an old shepherd's hut. It was under George Clark's direction that the grand East Talgai Homestead and its many outbuildings were erected.
The stone building situated near the entrance to Talgai was apparently built as a residence for the architect, Richard George Suter and his wife, during the construction of the homestead and the property's huge woolshed. This building later became a storehouse and residence for the station storekeeper.
Richard George Suter (1827 - 1894) trained as an architect in London under his father after completing a Bachelor of Arts at Trinity College Cambridge in 1850. By 1865 Suter was working for Brisbane's leading architect Benjamin Backhouse while establishing his own practice. Suter was one of Queensland's most prolific and prominent architects of the late 19th century and was responsible for such grand designs as Jimbour House (Suter & Voysey 1873), St Mark's Church, Warwick (1867 - 70) and is recognised for his influence on the standard designs of schools in Queensland with the Board of Education using his designs almost exclusively until 1875. After a decline in his success, Suter moved to Melbourne in 1876 and became a priest for the Catholic Apostolic Church, where he died of heart disease in 1894.
Talgai Homestead was built of sandstone and covered sixty squares. The original roof was of shingles and the verandahs of hand and pit-sawn spotted gum, with cedar doors and architraves. Unlike the usual design for that period, the kitchen was attached to the main house.
George and Ellen Clark lived an affluent life at the grand East Talgai. The homestead was richly furnished and featured antique pieces which were probably a part of Ellen's dowry. George Clark was active in local affairs and Queensland politics, sitting on the Warwick Bench of Magistrates, holding an official position on the St. Marks Church Committee as well as the Warwick School of Arts, the Warwick Hospital Committee and the Royal Agricultural Society. He also had a short-lived but very controversial period as a member of Queensland Parliament. During this time, he set up the 'Warwick Examiner and Times' newspaper which was a pro-squatter vehicle and was constantly engaged in editorial clashes with the 'Warwick Argus' established by James Morgan, the former Talgai manager and a staunch anti-squatter advocate.
George Clark was involved in accusations of collusion with the Survey Office in 1871, allegedly using his position to avoid the restrictions of the Land Act 1868 to acquire additional land for his East Talgai run.
During the 1860s and 1870s Talgai was becoming what was arguably the most successful sheep stud in Queensland producing immense amounts of quality merino wool and trading in high quality rams which were exported to Tasmania and Germany. Talgai peaked in its production during the 1880s when stock figures reached 20 000 sheep and 3000 Devon cattle.
Talgai Station was a fully developed self-contained estate village during the 1880s. It incorporated employee's cottages, a smithy, stables, barn, woolshed, slaughterhouse, dairy and school. Beside the Olive tree, which still remains today near the back gate of the property, George also constructed a stone chapel which was used for family worship but was never consecrated. This chapel was pulled down in 1942 as, according to George's son, George Carr Clark's will, the sandstone was to be used to construct a tower for St Marks Church, Warwick, however this never came to pass. Talgai had three different watering systems which serviced the crops, the kitchen garden and formal English garden. Talgai also had vines of table grapes and an orchard of stone fruit.
It was in 1886 when a major anthropological discovery was made at Talgai. William Naish, fencing contractor, inadvertently discovered a skull where heavy rain had scoured out a creek bed. It was not until 1914 that Professor Edgeworth David, Professor of Archaeology at Sydney University on paying a visit to Talgai, presented a theory that the skull was 20 000 years old and provided a 'missing link' in the evolutionary chain. Interest in the skull and the site at which it was found persisted until the 1960s, during which time the CSIRO and the Queensland Museum had conducted archaeological surveys at the site. Interest in the skull waned in the following decades as newer theories eclipsed those attached to the Talgai Skull. The original skull is housed at the Sydney Museum.
George Clark died in 1907 and the property passed to his son George Carr Clark at which time he sold-off 5000 acres of Talgai and purchased 'Yanna' station on the Warrego. About 2000 special stud ewes remained at Talgai and the stud sires were bred there and transferred to Yanna for fattening. Aberdeen Angus stud cattle were introduced to Talgai in 1916 and ultimately became the main business of Talgai.
In 1934 both the cattle and the sheep studs were sold at public auction, leaving about 750 acres on the homestead block around East Talgai house. George Carr Clark resided there with his wife and various family members until his death in 1942 when the entire property was sold.
In 1968 Talgai was acquired by Mr and Mrs D Panton who undertook extensive restoration work. Talgai Homestead now operates as a function and luxury accommodation centre.
","criteria":"Talgai Homestead is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as it reflects the earliest phase of pastoral settlement on the Darling Downs which significantly influenced the subsequent development of the region as the prime agricultural and pastoral region in Southeast Queensland. Talgai homestead also reflects the immense wealth that the early pastoralists were able to amass from wool production on the Darling Downs.
|Talgai Homestead is a rare surviving example of the early affluent development by squatters on the Darling Downs which was a feature of this pastoral district in the mid to late 19th century.
|Talgai Homestead has the potential to yield information about Queensland's history due to the age and former complexity of the settlement. The scope for further archaeological discoveries, (similar to that of the Talgai Skull) and discoveries through historical research has realistic potential.
|Talgai Homestead is a good example of an affluent pastoral settlement demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 19th century homestead complex.
|Talgai Homestead has significant aesthetic value as a well composed substantial stone residence in a picturesque setting of landscaped gardens showing a high level of skilled design. The building's aesthetic significance draws largely on its contextual setting for the overall effect of balance.
|The homestead has a special association with the life and work of prominent 19th architect R.G. Suter as a significant example of his work. It is also has a long association with the Clark family who established the station and homestead and who were an influential family in the evolution of the Darling Downs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14782,"place_ref":600007,"name":"Glengallan Homestead","alternate_name":"Glengallan Head Station | Glengallan","street_address":"New England Highway","suburb":"GLENGALLAN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Glengallan Homestead is located on the southwestern slope of Mt Marshall at the mouth of a wide valley, running west from Cunningham's Gap, near the junction of the Cunningham and New England Highways approximately 15 kilometres north of Warwick. The fenced area of land on which the homestead is located is accessed via an easement from the New England Highway to the southwest. The homestead is currently in a ruinous condition but is undergoing conservation works.
The homestead is a long, narrow two-storeyed ashlar sandstone structure, built on an approximately north-south axis, with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The symmetrical principal elevation faces in an easterly direction overlooking the valley and towards Mt Dumaresq in the distance, which it resembles in silhouette. The rear elevation has projecting sandstone blocks on the north and south ends, indicating the intended two-storeyed extensions which were never built and which would have formed a U-shaped plan. The building originally had a timber shingled roof, and some of these shingles remain under the corrugated iron sheeting.
The building has the remains of double height verandahs to the north, east and south. The most intact section of verandah is located at the northern end, with the southern end almost completely missing. The ground floor verandahs have paired, narrow ornamental cast iron columns, which were produced by the Russell Foundry of Sydney, in front and to either side of a tubular cast iron column which was intended to support the load above. These columns are currently in place only to the northern end and part of the western side, and are supported by sandstone plinths which in turn are supported by a footing wall. The paired Russell Foundry columns were also located on the first floor verandah where they acted as structural members. The inside face of the columns had timber panelling which, to the ground floor verandah, aligned with expressed false beams in the timber panelled ceiling. The ground floor columns support a timber web truss, which in turn supports the first floor verandah above. The first floor verandah had cast iron balustrades, also produced by the Russell Foundry, which have been removed.
The ground floor verandahs originally had a fixed timber louvred panelled frieze, which was the remnants of a louvred system intended to have panels which ran in tracks located at the side of the columns allowing the verandah to be enclosed, but where venetian blinds were installed instead. The ground floor verandahs had timber floors which have been removed, and a central set of sandstone steps accessing the main entrance on the eastern side.
The east and south walls have smooth faced sandstone blocks, while the north and west walls have picked faced sandstone. Both floors have french doors with arched fanlights opening onto the verandahs, with three sets of doors either side of the central entry, and all arched headers have expressed vermiculated keystones. The central entry has double doors with sidelights, and an arched fanlight with coloured glass segments surmounted by an expressed keystone carved in relief with the initials JD 1867 surrounded by a garland of leaves. The doors and sidelights have timber lower panels with etched, arched glazed upper panels. The french doors are similar and open inwards. Originally these doors had a second set of doors which opened outwards and contained a timber lower panel with an upper panel of copper mesh, presumably as an insect screen. The ground floor north and south elevations have a projecting sandstone bay with a central french door flanked by a tall, narrow sash window.
The ground floor western wall has timber panelled doors with arched fanlight at the north and south ends. A similar doorway is located in the centre under the internal staircase, but the door is missing. These doors are accessed by rough sandstone steps and a timber ramp, and a stone lined stormwater drain is located in front of and running parallel to this wall. A tall sash window is located above the central door, with a smaller sash to either side. This symmetrical elevation has two chimney stacks which have picked faced sandstone to the base, and smooth faced sandstone above surmounted by a large cornice with curved capping pieces. The western wall has marks in the sandstone above the northern door which indicate the roof profile of the covered way which was originally located connected there.
Internally, the building has a symmetrical plan with a central hall and stairwell flanked by the former dining room on the north and former drawing room on the south. The first floor has a bedroom at either end, separated from the stairwell by an ante room and linked by a short hallway. The plaster finishes are thought to be original, but have suffered much water damage.
All the masonry walls are plastered, and on the first floor the non-masonry walls are lath and plaster. The ceilings are lath and plaster, and all rooms have plaster cornices, with the widths and designs varying in different rooms. Principal rooms have ornate central plaster ceiling roses, with the dining room containing two roses which would have been positioned above a central table. Throughout the building, the skirtings, architraves, doors and floor boards are cedar. Doors are panelled with etched, arched glass fanlights, and evidence of early decoration include brackets for curtain rods.
The drawing room originally had a white marble fireplace surround with relief carving of fruit, and the dining room had a black marble fireplace surround, both of which have been removed. The main bedroom, on the south, has a cedar fireplace surround and evidence of a shelving unit which was located between the chimney breast and adjacent wall but was probably not an original fitting. The adjacent ante-room housed a bathroom, and surviving evidence include vertically jointed timber panelling and a cedar surround for a shower rose. The bathroom originally housed a slate bath and flushing toilet. The northern bedroom has a vertically jointed timber partition wall which divides the room in two but which does not reach the ceiling height. This room had a cedar fireplace surround which has been removed, but the register grate is in place. The adjacent ante-room is thought to have been a nursery or dressing room.
The stairwell contains a U-shaped curving cedar staircase which as been partly restored. A protective timber cover and temporary handrail has been installed, with the original turned cedar balustrade and handrail in place to the first floor landing. The stair is lit by a tall sash window.
To the west of the homestead is the office/store. This single-storeyed sandstone building has a hipped corrugated iron roof, which originally had timber shingles, and a cellar. The stonework consists of a rough alternation of thick and thin bands, and the northern elevation has a central entrance flanked by a window to either side. A second entrance is located on the eastern side facing the homestead, two windows are located on the southern side, and the cellar is entered from the west via a flight of seven sandstone steps, but the original entrance door has been removed. The building has air vents to the cellar just above ground level. Internally, this building originally had two rooms with separate entries, but the internal wall has been removed. The walls are plastered and a ceiling has been installed. Remains of cobbled paths around the building are evident.
Cultivation of the paddocks above the homestead has resulted in the site being mantled in 300mm of black soil. Some of this overburden has been removed, but the majority of the site has been protected and the position of early structures may be able to be identified with further investigation. Excavations have been undertaken to the site of the cedar wing and kitchen complex, stables, stormwater drains and sewerage system, and to a large part of the area north and west of the office. The site boundary fence passes across the corner of the partly excavated area of the stables.
The remains of the gardens include two Norfolk Island Pines appear to mark the position of the original entrance gates and stone pillars to the northeast of the homestead. The form of the raised tennis court and curved drive can be determined, and a number of mature trees are located at the northern end of the homestead. Remains of the orchard, to the south of the homestead, include a number of gnarled and twisted fruit trees.
","history":"Glengallan Homestead, built 1867-68, is located on the southwestern slope of Mt Marshall at the mouth of a wide valley, running west from Cunningham's Gap, near the junction of the Cunningham and New England Highways approximately 15 kilometres north of Warwick.
This valley was the original Darling Downs, discovered and named by explorer Allan Cunningham (1791-1839) in 1827 in honour of the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Ralph Darling (1775-1858), and the name Darling Downs was later used to identify the surrounding region of open rolling country with rich and deep soils. Cunningham found a gap in the dividing range, and the following year, while visiting Moreton Bay, he found a gap which he thought was the same one he had discovered previously, and which became known as Cunningham's Gap.
This open country had been carefully and deliberately maintained by the Aborigines in what has been called firestick farming, an annual pattern of controlled burns to protect certain resource areas and pasture for native grazing animals. The Aboriginal burning pattern was disrupted within the first years of the runs being taken up, and the local Aboriginal population were soon killed off.
The unsettled districts outside the nineteen counties around Sydney had been thrown open to squatters by the 1836 licence system. This system proved ineffective and in 1839 a new Act was passed. This Act provided for an annual licence fee to be paid, determined per head of stock on the run, and also provided administration by Commissioners of Crown Lands. However, the squatters still had no permanency of land tenure, and in 1847 Orders in Council were introduced which allowed further 14 year leases for established unsettled runs on payment of an annual fee per head of stock. The Orders in Council also gave the run holders the pre-emptive right to purchase the land for its fair value in an unimproved state at less than one pound per acre at the completion of the lease. Pre-emption was allowed to continue until 1868, and meant that nearly all the best land, creek frontages, water holes and portions guarding leasehold areas were pre-empted. It allowed the squatters to hold onto their land, but also plunged many of them into debt often resulting in financial ruin.
Patrick Leslie (1815-1881) born at Warthill, Aberdeenshire Scotland, the second son of William Leslie, ninth laird of Warthill and eight of Folla, had sailed from London in 1834 and arrived in New South Wales in May 1835. He gained pastoralist experience under the Macarthurs of Camden, and in 1836 went to manage the property of his uncle Davidson on the Krui River at Colleroi. By 1839 Leslie had rented Dunheved farm at Penrith, and when his brothers Walter and George arrived he decided to look for new land north of the limits of settlement. In 1840 he started with a large party for the Clarence River district, and then resolved to look at the Darling Downs. With one companion, a convict named Murphy, he followed Cunningham's trail and relocated the Darling Downs and decided on the area that was to become Toolburra and Canning Downs for his first station. Walter Leslie and Ernest Dalrymple followed with the flocks, and in 1840 the Leslies became the first settlers on the Darling Downs.
Ernest Dalrymple took up a run next to the Leslies, and all runs on the Downs were taken up by June 1841. The Leslies originally selected all the land which became Toolburra, South Toolburra, Glengallan, Gladfield, Maryvale, Warwick and Canning Downs, and had taken up a far greater area than which they were entitled under a New South Wales licence. They had to dispose of the areas that became Glengallan, Sandy Creek and Fred (Bracker) the German's Creek (Rosenthal) to the Aberdeen Company.
The Leslies negotiated permission to bring supplies from the Moreton Bay settlement, even though it was not open to commerce. The settlement opened in 1842 however, and thereafter all the Downs squatters (run holders) were free to have supplies sent in and wool sent out to Ipswich, from where they could be transported by river to Brisbane.
In 1841-42 the Leslie brothers sold approximately 42,000 acres to brothers Colin and John Campbell, Scottish immigrants, who named it Glengallan Run. The Leslies noted they had disposed of the buildings and the right of the lower part of the run for which we had no use and we got 250 pounds for it. This description may have included Glengallan, Fred the German's Creek and Sandy Creek.
By 1844, Campbell and Co were in liquidation, but the partnership recovered and after 1844 it appears that licences for Glengallan were issued in the sole name of Colin Campbell. Another brother, Archibald, managed the property from 1845-48 and during this time the stock numbers increased considerably, but disease broke out in 1847. Glengallan was offered for sale in November 1847, but this was not successful.
The Campbell's first encampment had been at Freestone Creek, an area which has become known as Campbell Plains, but it proved unsuitable for sheep due to wooded areas and dingo habitat. The camp subsequently moved to Glengallan Creek, known as Gap Creek, near the slope of what became Mt Marshall. It has been suggested that their c.1842 residence, described as a rude but substantial hut, would have been close to the site of the present homestead being close to the creek but above flood level, with expansive views of the surrounding area and a relatively flat terrace of land, but the exact location has not been positively identified. The 1846 diary of the New South Wales Commissioner for Crown Lands, Darling Downs District, stated the run was 120 square miles with 15,000 head of sheep, 400 cattle and 30 horses. In 1848, a NSW Government Gazette noted Colin Campbell holding leases for Glengallan totalling 60,000 acres. Glengallan was located in a pivotal position on the main roads, which have changed slightly in position, from Toowoomba/Drayton heading towards the south and from the Downs properties heading towards Cunningham's Gap.
The NSW Government Gazette published a list of transfers of runs dated 11 October 1848 recording the transfer of Glengallan from Colin Campbell to the unrelated Robert Tertius Campbell (1811-1887) with whom Colin Campbell banked, and it appears that the three Campbell brothers died in 1853. Robert Tertius Campbell, whose father was a Director of the Bank of New South Wales, was related to the Campbells of Duntroon in the Monaro district, and had been lessee of Jondaryan in 1845, gained the lease of North Branch of Swamps Run in 1849, and continued leasing Canning Creek until 1852. The NSW Government Gazette dated 30 July 1852 recorded that RT Campbell transferred his interest in Glengallan to his partner Charles Henry Marshall, who had previously been his managing clerk and whom he took into partnership in Glengallan it appears in 1849-50. RT Campbell then moved on to the newly opened Burnett District.
In December 1851 and March 1852, the artist Conrad Martens (1801-1878), who had arrived in Sydney in 1835, stayed at Glengallan during the course of his five month trip to the Brisbane area and the Darling Downs in search of painting commissions. He travelled through the country making pencil drawings, many of which he used as the basis for water colours and oil paintings, which he executed on his return to Sydney. These drawings and paintings are some of the few illustrations of Queensland during this time, and his sketches of Glengallan show the main homestead as two timber buildings surrounded by verandahs and situated close together.
Charles Henry Marshall (1821-1874), who was born in Mauritius and had a background in London and Devon, was appointed Magistrate in 1849-50 and took John Deuchar into partnership in 1855. Marshall was an active member of the Church of England, and in 1858 gave 11 acres of land in Warwick to the church as the site for a parsonage and glebe. A parsonage, named Hillside, was built on the site for Reverend Benjamin Glennie. Marshall seems to have lived at Glengallan until 1865, when Deuchar bought out his interests and he retired from the partnership and departed for England, but was to return to Australia due to Deuchar's financial difficulties in 1870.
During their partnership, Marshall and Deuchar established the famous Glengallan Merino flock and Shorthorn stud.
John Deuchar (1820-1872) was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and with his sister Beatrice migrated to New South Wales in 1839. He gained pastoral experience in the Hunter River district and c.1842 drove sheep from Maitland to the Darling Downs for the Aberdeen Co, and later for the North British Australian Co. From 1844 he was overseer at Goomburra, and after two years with the support of Walter Grey of Ipswich, he bought Canal Creek well stocked with Talgai Merinos. In 1848 Deuchar sold Canal Creek, and succeeded Fred Bracker as manager of Rosenthal for the Aberdeen Co, and became travelling superintendent of the company's properties. In 1829 Bracker, from Mecklenburg, Germany, had brought to New South Wales a flock of Saxon Merinos of the Rambouillet family from Prince Esterhazy's Silesian flock for the Aberdeen Co. On Rosenthal, Deuchar had the first two thoroughbred Merino rams on the Darling Downs; Camden Billy from John Macarthur's stud at Camden Park, already there when he took over, and German Billy, which he brought with him from Canal Creek. A fine Merino stud was developed from a blend of Spanish Negretti Cabana and Rambouillet strains, developing long, superfine wool. Deuchar began breeding cattle, especially Shorthorns, and brought to Rosenthal Lord Raglan, the first imported Shorthorn bull to reach the Downs, and well bred cattle from the Australian Agricultural Co's properties farther south. He also developed a horse racing stud, and his stallion Grey Arab, bought from one of the Aberdeen Co's properties, sired many fine horses which Deuchar rode successfully at race meetings both on the flat and over fences.
In 1855 Deuchar went into partnership with Marshall on Glengallan, and continued his stock breeding. His overseer William Anderson had been at school with him and had come to the colony on the same ship. Deuchar insisted on building up his own teams of employees, and on taking over Rosenthal and Glengallan he dispersed the families on the properties and replaced them with other employees already known to him.
In 1857 Deuchar married Eliza Charlotte Lee, the sister of Dr Washington Lee of Warwick, in Paddington Sydney, and travelled to Europe in 1858-60 where he purchased stock which would become important in building up Glengallan's flocks. In Germany Deuchar selected ten rams and ten ewes from the flocks of Baron Von Malzahn at Lenschow in Mecklenburg, of which Marshall made a further selection of ten rams and fifteen ewes in 1862, the last time that outside blood was introduced and the Glengallan Merinos were bred up from this stock.
By 1865 Marshall and Deuchar had pre-empted 18,172 acres, which rose to 31,166 acres by the end of 1867. This was 66% of the total run area which totalled 44,800 acres, being the highest percentage of pre-empted selection of land of any run in the 1860-1874 period.
By 1864 the Glengallan Head Station complex included two houses, stables and a kitchen, with new stables having been built prior to 1858. In 1866 it was described by Kate Hume, a visitor, as the house has been added to, till it resembles a village, connected by verandahs and covered ways!
Glengallan Homestead was constructed in 1867-68, and it is thought that Deuchar had been planning his house for some time. The extant office/store building with cellar was constructed in 1864 by local builder Miekeljohn from local sandstone, and is thought to be both experimental and an integral part of the total envisaged precinct. A variety of sizes of sandstone block was used, unlike the regular masonry of the house or the irregular stonework of the verandah foundation. It has been suggested that the cellar was experimental in determining the movement and depth of the black soil, and that subsequently cellars were not chosen for the main house. It appears that the cellar was a cold store, and that the dry goods store was above, with the estate office.
Deuchar had intended to build a much larger house, possibly in a U-shape plan, although he only had time and resources to build one wing of Glengallan Homestead. Unconfirmed reports state that a massive hole was dug for the foundations, up to 20 feet wider than the building, till sandstone was reached. On this sandstone a massive platform of basalt rubble was laid, and the outer and dividing walls were then constructed and the intervening spaces refilled to ground level. During construction the Warwick Examiner and Times noted in November 1867 that Glengallan will be one of the most splendid gentlemen's residences in the colony.
The sandstone for Glengallan Homestead was quarried on the property, from an area now known as Swan Creek at Yangan, and the verandah sandstone, much coarser and softer, comes from Karcaruda, which was a former settlement and railway siding near Swan Creek.
The construction of Glengallan was supervised by Warwick builder Thomas Wood, possibly for architect Charles Balding who, based in Ipswich, had opened a temporary office in Toowoomba and his practice extended to the Darling Downs. Balding had designed Gooloowan in Quarry Street, Ipswich, for Benjamin Cribb, which was built in 1863-64 and is noted as being similar to Glengallan. It has also been suggested that Richard George Suter (1827-1894) may have been involved, possibly taking over from Balding who left the colony in 1867. Suter later designed Jimbour House (QHR 600941), a two-storeyed sandstone homestead built 1873-74.
Deuchar had two suites of furniture made at Ebenstons in Queen Street, Brisbane, for the drawing and dining rooms. The fact that local materials and a local manufacturer were used was publicised in the Brisbane Courier in August 1868. Reports of the cost of the house vary between £5-12,000, and a gala opening party was held on 16 September 1868. The Deuchars hosted many social events during their time at Glengallan, and house guests included Governor Bowen and his family. Deuchar had envisaged the ground floor rooms as drawing room (north) and ball room (south), but were actually used as drawing room (south) and dining room (north) with bedrooms on the first floor.
Nine months after the opening party, Glengallan was offered for sale. The cost of the pre-emptive purchase, building a grand house, a drought, and buying Marshall out of the partnership all contributed to Deuchar's financial ruin. In early 1865 Deuchar had taken over sole control of the management of Glengallan, and contracted to buy the property by taking out a mortgage with Marshall payable in ten years.
Deuchar was unable to pay instalments on the mortgage and Marshall foreclosed in 1870. Deuchar also owed other creditors, and may have had to leave all the contents at Glengallan when he and his family left. Deuchar retired to Mile End in Warwick where he died of pneumonia aged 50 on 11 September 1872, survived by his wife, two daughters and six sons.
During Deuchar's occupation, the servants quarters and buggy shed were built, and the gardens and avenue of trees were laid out. The house water supply and sewerage disposal system was also developed, with the water being pumped from the creek using a 2.5 horse-power Bailey engine, and the pump appears to have been set on a sandstone block platform. The water was pumped to a holding tank below the bathroom, then up to a 200 gallon lead lined wooden roof tank supplying cold water for bath, shower and flushing toilet on the first floor. The large size of the roof tank was probably due to the type of toilet system used, a rare feature at the time, which had been invented in 1778 and required high water pressure. The pump was also used to irrigate the gardens around the house.
During the next 20 years, the two early houses were demolished, and the covered way to one of the houses was truncated. A rear wing, known as the cedar wing, was built to provide guest rooms, estate office, cook's bedroom and housekeeper's room. The kitchen was built adjoining the side of the covered way, but separate from the stone house, and was set on stumps with a large chimney at its eastern end. The bath house was built against the western end of the south verandah.
Marshall returned in 1870 and remained until 1873 when he took WB Slade into partnership and again retired to England where he died in August 1874. The partnership continued however, with Marshall's share transferred to his widow Charlotte Augusta Dring Marshall, until 1904 when the property was sold.
A new woolshed was completed to the northwest of the house in 1873, being approximately three times the size of the present woolshed. The earliest position of the woolshed is noted in 1859-60. The 1873 woolshed is noted as having a T-shape plan and could accommodate 22 shearers, and was described in 1892 as being a hardwood structure, with a shingle roof, that could accommodate 1,000 sheep. The exact position of the washpool has been disputed, but some sources indicate that it was located upstream from the house. Clean wool was abandoned in favour of greasy wool with the cessation of sheep washing in 1870s.
During WB Slade's time at Glengallan, many changes occurred resulting from the increased diversification of the property into dairying and crops. In the open areas fostered by the Aboriginal land management practices, prior to European settlement, a pasture dominated by nutritious grasses had developed. These grasses did not survive intensified stocking, particularly when fencing became a standard practice, and less nutritious grasses took their place. A gradual decline in the carrying capacity was noted during the period 1860-1880, and the solution was to improve the feed and as a result lucerne became a major crop.
From 1842-1868 any cultivation was limited to paddocks lower than the house and closer to the creek. After 1868, Deuchar's pump, installed to deliver water to the house, was used to irrigate nearby fields. After 1880, the benefit of lucerne as a fodder crop was recognised and the cultivation of wheat and other grains began to assume importance. For the following 80 to 90 years, many of the paddocks above and near the house were cultivated for crops, and much soil was washed away.
William Ball Slade (1843-1938) was born in Somerset, England, and after some legal training migrated to Sydney in 1861 where his elder brother was practising as a solicitor. After pastoral experience in New South Wales and Queensland, Slade married Sophia Thompson on 1 March 1873 at St Mark's Church of England Warwick, and that year became manager and partner of Glengallan. Deuchar had established notable Shorthorn and Merino studs, and between the droughts of 1872 and 1902 Slade developed the Shorthorn stud to over one thousand pedigree females, one of the largest in the world. The Merino stud had such prestige that Slade maintained a closed flock until 1916. During that time he developed a heavier-fleeced flock, with wool that was stronger, of greater length and often brighter. He kept another line of Merinos of Vermont strain, separate from the Glengallan foundation stock, and also bred Lincolns. He exported stud Merinos to the Cape of Good Hope in 1888, a connection which was long continued.
Many more staff were required at Glengallan, even though shepherding was abandoned in favour of fenced paddocks, and sheep washing ceased in the 1870s. Glengallan concentrated on stud sheep and cattle, with fat lambs becoming important once rail transport and refrigeration came into the economic realm. One of Slade's achievements was to transform Glengallan from a traditional pastoral stud property to one where intensive cultivation of lucerne and other fodder supported not only the stud stock but also wethers bought for fattening from western properties, and he was praised by contemporaries as the best manager in the Darling Downs. Further diversification included dairying and a substantial piggery.
At some point it appears that the main flow of Glengallan Creek became diverted down Backwater Creek, for what reason is not known. By 1892 three dams had been constructed on Glengallan Creek to provide irrigation to the paddocks. Water was still being pumped from the creek in the 1890s, but by the early 1900s water was being supplied by a bore on the northwest of Mt Marshall to a holding tank near the woolshed, and the house water system was reliant on rain water. The original timber shingles to the roof of Glengallan were sheeted over with corrugated iron and stormwater drainage was introduced. Pipes were installed at both the northwest and southwest corners of the house, with the northwest pipe feeding into the stone lined channel that runs along the west side of house with sandstone capping pieces. Pipes also fed into the roof tank.
In 1885 Glengallan covered 42,000 acres, and from 1896 to 1904 Glengallan was progressively broken up into smaller units. After the original leases had expired in the 1860s, lease holders were permitted to acquire large areas by pre-emptive claim and further purchases. Considerable pressures were put upon the pastoralists due to demand for smaller land holdings, eventually resulting in the Selection Acts of the 1860s and 1870s which forced them to borrow heavily, and the fluctuation of wool prices meant that it was difficult for them to make a profit. The Agricultural Lands Purchase Act of 1894 was the instrument by which many of the large estates on the Downs were broken up. Under this Act, the Glengallan partnership restored its capital and recouped drought losses in three major subdivisions between 1895 and 1904, when the partnership came to an end. Slade actively offered his property to the Government and lobbied local Members of Parliament to assist in ensuring his offer was accepted.
In 1904, after the three major subdivisions, Slade retained 3,000 acres and repurchased the Glengallan Homestead block, reportedly between 1,275 and 2,000 acres in size, from the Government for £ 10,265. Later in 1904, Slade transferred the Glengallan Homestead and accompanying 482 acres to GH Gillespie, a member of the well known firm of Victorian Millers. It appears that by 1907, Clara Gillespie was farming the Glengallan Homestead portion with her son Alexander Frederick Gillespie.
Slade named his smaller estate East Glengallan, built himself a residence and continued with the Glengallan Merino and Shorthorn studs. Slade acquired properties near Warwick and at Gore, towards Inglewood, for his family. In 1912 East Glengallan was subdivided with the eldest son Oswald Carey Slade (1882-1956) managing the Merino stud. Slade's other son Adrian also managed or was proprietor of award winning studs.
WB Slade is celebrated as the archetypal Anglo-Australian patrician of Warwick, and was patron, office-bearer and benefactor of show societies, his church, Masonic Lodge and the Warwick branch of the Royal Society of St George. His great avocation was cricket, and he donated Slade Park to the Queensland I Zingari Cricket Club, which formed 1868 and of which he was one of the first members and Captain for almost 30 years. He established annual cricket matches at Glengallan and a pavilion was constructed. In 1932 he was appointed CBE, and he died 18 April 1938 and is buried in the Warwick cemetery. His name is remembered by the Slade School, Warwick.
Slade established a school, which had opened by 1886, and paid for its construction, desks, furniture and teacher. It was taken over by the Education Department in 1891, and was closed and relocated in 1904 when that portion of Glengallan was purchased by the government. Slade also gave 2 acres to the Anglican Church, and St Andrew's Church was opened in 1908. St Andrew's was described as a weatherboard church that could accommodate 200 people, painted dark red with pale green glass casement windows and a vestry at the western end. The church has since been relocated to St David's, Allora, and is attached to the hall.
The only alteration made to Glengallan Homestead by Slade is thought to be the timber partition in the first floor northern room to accommodate children's bedrooms.
By 1904 the structures at the head station consisted of Glengallan Homestead, with the rear cedar wing, kitchen and bath house attached, sandstone office/store, two storeyed stables, buggy shed, and servants quarters. The garden comprised a tennis court (often used for cricket practice) to the northeast of the house, a gravel/cobbled semi-circular drive lined by semi-circular garden beds and an extensive shrubbery, a lawn with a central circular garden, a tree lined drive (planted by Deuchar), and a box hedge separating the formal garden from the productive gardens. An orchard was located on the southern side of the house and was terraced down to Glengallan Creek which was fringed with willows. A vegetable garden was also located on the southern side or behind the house. Glengallan was described as giving the appearance of a picturesquely scattered township, and included many outbuildings and a large complex of structures nearer to the woolshed.
Clara Gillespie was declared insolvent in July 1910, and it appears that the property was transferred to her son Alexander Frederick Gillespie in January 1912. It is noted that financial problems plagued AF Gillespie, and during his occupation of the property there appears to have been no new buildings erected and some may have begun to deteriorate. It appears that the Glengallan Homestead portion was transferred to Oswald Carey Slade (son of WB Slade) in July 1918, and AF Gillespie died in 1926-27.
Oswald Carey Slade installed a manager, and it is recorded that the Atkinson family lived in the main house in 1927. Another manager and his family occupied the house from 1931 until he retired due to ill health in 1944-45. This was the last family to live at the house. During OC Slade's ownership, the property further deteriorated with the area between the house and the office/store turned into a farmyard.
In 1919, Glengallan was described as being approached via a winding drive over a quarter mile long, with magnificent pine trees lining either side of the drive, a neat picket fence of 270 yards surrounds the garden area, broken by a substantial gateway of stone pillars and iron gates. It was also described as having cobbled areas to the north side of the house and approaching the office/store doors, a fernery, small vineyard, homestead enclosure and adjacent small paddocks irrigated by pipes which were supplied by elevated tanks filled by a pump, stables with feed room and harness room, buggy shed for three vehicles, and a couple of six-room cottages for married men and their families. By this time, much of the infrastructure which originally supported Glengallan would have been disused or much modified.
The two-storeyed stables burned down, probably in the late 1920s, and a stone paved and corrugated iron roofed shed was erected partly over the site. This was possibly also the site of the earlier stables as sketched by Conrad Martens in 1852, which were also possibly built on the site of the c.1842 stables. In the early 1930s the first floor of Glengallan House was unoccupied and the servants quarters, a long narrow timber building comprising rooms opening onto a verandah, was demolished. The stone pillars and iron gates were removed in 1940 to Leslie Park in Warwick. In 1946 the kitchen and bath house were removed to other parts of the property, and later that year the cedar wing was dismantled and sold to Eddie Mogridge of Tanneymorel, and it has subsequently been moved to Swanfels. The remains of a cemetery is located at a distance from Glengallan House to the southwest, but the date of establishment is not known.
Oswald Carey Slade was childless, and in 1931 he transferred East Glengallan to the Anglican Church, subject to a life tenancy.
In 1949 Mr and Mrs OC Slade gave Glengallan Homestead to the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church had plans to dismantle Glengallan and use the materials to build a War Memorial Science Block at the Slade School in Warwick, but this did not eventuate. The school leased the property to various people for farming purposes.
After the property was accepted by the Anglican Church, no development was seriously attempted. Glengallan Homestead was left often open and used as shelter by goats and birds, and many of the fittings were removed. In 1972 the property was transferred to the Smith family. Glengallan was left unoccupied, its remaining gardens were turned into paddocks, and the slow creep of soil from cultivated paddocks above was allowed to continue. The only visible structures were the main house and the sandstone office/store.
A 1975 report noted that the structure was in reasonably good condition, some sheets of corrugated iron had blown off the roof and the verandahs had deteriorated. By 1983 the southern verandah had collapsed and the eastern verandah was unstable, water was entering the building and more corrugated iron sheets were missing.
In 1983, a group of fourth year architecture students from the University of Queensland made a set of measured drawings of Glengallan House. These were followed up by a conservation analysis funded by a National Estate Grant in 1983, 1984 and 1986, carried out by the Department of Architecture University of Queensland. Recommendations for the conservation and management of Glengallan were made, but no organisation was willing to undertake them. In 1993 Glengallan House and its surrounding grounds were gifted to the non-profit Glengallan Homestead Trust which was formed in 1993.
Since then archaeological excavations have been carried out, mainly involving the drainage, water and sewerage systems. However, works have also been carried out resulting in some damage to the property. These works include the removal of black soil overburden, the provision of water, power and telephone, the installation of a toilet block and septic system, excavation for rebuilding of verandah walls, the construction of a shed, and the verandahs have been largely removed. The roof has been repaired, with some new structural members being inserted, and resheeted with corrugated iron with some of the original timber shingles being retained insitu.
","criteria":"The district surrounding Glengallan Homestead was part of the area Allan Cunningham discovered and explored in 1827. The Glengallan Run was part of the first Darling Downs run, selected by Patrick Leslie in 1840, and was established and named by brothers Colin and John Campbell in 1841-42. The approximate site of the present homestead appears to have been established c.1842, and since that time has been located in a pivotal position on the main roads, which have changed slightly in position, from Toowoomba/Drayton heading towards the south and from the Downs properties heading towards Cunningham's Gap.
The homestead was built in 1867-68 by John Deuchar who, with partner Charles Henry Marshall, established the famous Glengallan Merino flock and Shorthorn stud. The breeding tradition established by Deuchar was further developed by William Ball Slade who maintained the pre-eminence of the Glengallan stud from 1873 until the property was sold in 1904. Slade also transformed Glengallan from a traditional pastoral stud property to one where intensive cultivation of lucerne and other fodder supported not only the stud stock but also wethers bought for fattening from western properties. Further diversification included dairying and a substantial piggery, and Slade was praised by his contemporaries as the best manager on the Darling Downs. Slade was also described as the archetypal Anglo-Australian patrician of Warwick, being a patron, office-bearer, benefactor and member of numerous societies, clubs, the Masonic Lodge and Anglican Church.
|Glengallan Homestead is a two-storeyed sandstone structure and as such, with the exception of Jimbour House [600941], is a rare example of a Queensland homestead of that period which were mainly single-storeyed timber structures. Although the homestead was built as part of a larger, uncompleted design, the grand architectural concept can be appreciated and, with its picturesque siting, the building is recognised as a landmark in the surrounding rural landscape.
|The site contains archaeological remains which could provide further information concerning the living conditions on the property and the development of the homestead and associated complex of buildings from the 1840s.
|The homestead and surrounding landscape provide evidence of the way of life of a large Darling Downs Station, from its establishment to eventual decline, and the building is symbolic of the power and prestige of the Darling Downs squatters in the mid to late nineteenth century.
|As a ruin of a grand homestead, which has strong associations with the history and pastoral development of the Darling Downs, the building has unique aesthetic and cultural attributes and has been the subject of much community concern and recent conservation action, as reflected in its current administration by the Glengallan Homestead Trust Ltd.
|The fabric of the building exhibits a sophisticated design approach, and the detailing of the materials reflects a fine quality of craftsmanship. Some elements of the building were technically innovative for the time, particularly the verandah louvre system and french doors with insect screens, reflecting a consideration for the Queensland climate and conditions.
|As a ruin of a grand homestead, which has strong associations with the history and pastoral development of the Darling Downs, the building has unique aesthetic and cultural attributes and has been the subject of much community concern and recent conservation action, as reflected in its current administration by the Glengallan Homestead Trust Ltd.
|The district surrounding Glengallan Homestead was part of the area Allan Cunningham discovered and explored in 1827. The Glengallan Run was part of the first Darling Downs run, selected by Patrick Leslie in 1840, and was established and named by brothers Colin and John Campbell in 1841-42.
The homestead was built in 1867-68 by John Deuchar who, with partner Charles Henry Marshall, established the famous Glengallan Merino flock and Shorthorn stud. The breeding tradition established by Deuchar was further developed by William Ball Slade who maintained the pre-eminence of the Glengallan stud from 1873 until the property was sold in 1904.
Slade was also described as the archetypal Anglo-Australian patrician of Warwick, being a patron, office-bearer, benefactor and member of numerous societies, clubs, the Masonic Lodge and Anglican Church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14783,"place_ref":600008,"name":"Aramac War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lodge Street","suburb":"ARAMAC","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial dominates the main intersection of Aramac. It is surrounded by sandstone kerbing and corner posts and then by another enclosure comprising granite corner posts linked by double metal rails. A metal flagstaff is located at the south-west corner of the enclosure.
The granite and Ulam marble memorial comprises an obelisk surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on a square base of rock-faced grey granite, slightly higher than the surrounding sandstone wall.
The remainder of the monument is of Queensland Ulam marble. The obelisk sits on a slightly larger base comprising a single smooth-faced step with an angled top surmounted by a larger tapered smooth-faced block with cyma recta moulding to the top. The step has a leaded inscription on the front face and the larger block bears the leaded names of the 132 men who served in the First World War, including the 15 dead and 11 wounded, whose names are recorded on the front face.
Rising from the base is the obelisk, slightly tapering towards a plain cornice. On the lower front face is a leaded AIF badge and the dates of the First World War.
Surmounting the obelisk is the digger statue, which is life-sized. The soldier stands with his head bowed. His hands are crossed on top of a reversed rifle which rests on his left boot. A tree stump is located behind and to the side of the right leg for support.
","history":"The Aramac War Memorial was unveiled on 12th April 1924 by Shire Chairman, E W Bowyer in lieu of the State Governor who was unable to attend. It was designed and executed by monumental masonry firm, F M Allan and cost £700 in total; £580 for the monument and £48 for the fence. Funds were raised by the Memorial Committee, a group of mostly young women who held entertainments and collected public subscriptions. The stone memorial honours the 132 local men who served in the First World War, including fifteen dead and eleven wounded.
The memorial serviced the whole of the Aramac Shire and is located in the main intersection of the town of Aramac. It is of a comparatively large scale and dominates the small town.
The area of Aramac was first settled in the late 1850s after the area was discovered by Nathaniel Buchanan and William Landsborough. The town reserve was gazetted on 26 June 1869. Settlement was slow and sheep and cattle stations difficult to establish due to the remoteness of the area and the lack of water. By the late 1870s most land settlement had taken place.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The maker of the Aramac War Memorial, F M Allan was located in Rockhampton and was responsible for many war memorials in Central Queensland. This memorial and the one at Bundaberg are the two most intact digger memorials still remaining in their original settings at intersections.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|Erected in 1924, the memorial at Aramac demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|This memorial is of particular significance as it is extravagant in scale and design in comparison to the size of the town. It is a dominant landmark in the area and is an uncommon example of a memorial still situated in its original and intact setting.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Rockhampton masonry firm, F M Allan as an example of their work.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Rockhampton masonry firm, F M Allan as an example of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14784,"place_ref":600009,"name":"Mt Cornish Homestead","alternate_name":"Mount Cornish Homestead","street_address":"Mt Cornish Homestead","suburb":"MUTTABURRA","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","history":"Mount Cornish was established on the head of the Thomson River in 1872 as an outstation of the Bowen Downs property which was taken up by William Landsborough in 1861. The Edkins family, along with 12 000 head of cattle were sent to manage Bowen Downs Station, from which Mount Cornish was later resumed. Prior to the construction of a wooden house in 1876, the Edkins lived in a simple mud hut with a roof of bark. In 1883,a stone section was added to the wooden house. It comprised two rooms surrounded by a verandah. The white stone was quarried approximately one mile from the site and it is thought to have been constructed by two highly skilled German masons. Mount Cornish was partially resumed in 1889. The property was again divided in 1895 and this was followed by droughts which lasted until 1902. Bowen Downs was partially resumed after the lease expired in 1927 and continued to operate as a sheep and cattle run until the 1960s.
","criteria":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14785,"place_ref":600010,"name":"Hou Wang Miau","alternate_name":"Joss House | Atherton Chinese Temple | Hou Wang","street_address":"Herberton Road","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The temple complex is situated in an open, grassed area which is the site of the former Chinatown. Its positioning suggests that geomancy was used to select the most auspicious site and alignment for the buildings. The complex consists of a temple, hall, kitchen and store constructed of corrugated iron and local timbers in a traditional Chinese form.
The buildings are marked off from the street by an ornamental picket fence and gate which have been reconstructed from photographs and archaeological investigation. The temple building is fronted by a pagoda consisting of the upper section of the original roof mounted on a new base. Inside, the space is divided into an entrance area separated by doors from the area which contains the altar and a heavenly well. This is a section of raised pagoda roof which is designed to admit light and to allow incense to rise from the large burner below. It is glazed to keep out rain and is supported on posts which display a deliberate irregularity to symbolize human imperfection.
The interior of the temple is lined with unpainted cedar and is decorated with carvings, painted metal wall panels and temple furnishings which were imported from China. Much of the carving is embellished with vermilion and gold paint.
On the left side of the building as one faces the altar, a door provides access to the adjacent community hall. This is a plainer, more functional building and contains a bedroom for the caretaker, and a room for meetings and ceremonial banquets. There is a clerestory similar to the one in the temple and evidence of Chinese notices and graffiti survive on the unpainted walls. Behind the hall are two small buildings which contained a store and kitchen. Both are timber framed and clad, unpainted inside with earth floors. The kitchen has a galvanised fire recess. Much of these two buildings has been reconstructed.
The buildings are raised on hardwood stumps. Structural members are made of black bean (Castospermum australis) and the ceilings, wall linings and joinery are made from red cedar (Toona australis). Red Penda and Kalantis have been substituted for these no longer common timbers where reconstruction work was necessary for conservation. Both of these timbers are very close to the original in appearance.
Paths edged with upturned bottles, an indentation which indicates the position of the pig roasting pit and archaeological remains survive. Artefacts which were placed in temporary storage are being replaced in the temple as they are conserved. These include carvings, carved banners and the temple bell on its stand. There are also substantial archaeological collections.
","history":"The Hou Wang temple was built in 1903 by the community of the Chinatown at Atherton using local materials for construction and furnishings ordered especially from China. It provided a social and spiritual focus for over a thousand people in the township and the surrounding area.
Atherton Chinatown was one of many small settlements that developed in Australia during the nineteenth century as homes for the Chinese sojourners who arrived in great numbers to work on the goldfields. Most of these Chinese were males who came from poor areas in south west China and intended to work here until they had gathered enough capital to assure their financial security on their return home. For mutual support and to maintain contacts with their homeland, they lived and worked together, creating such Chinatowns within European settlements, or on their fringes.
Chinese diggers flocked to north Queensland in the 1870s in large numbers following the discovery of gold on the Palmer River and on the Hodgkinson. They were regarded with suspicion and hostility by Europeans, who they greatly outnumbered, and were barred from working on newly discovered mineral fields. Because of this, and as the Palmer River field was faded in importance, most Chinese moved south looking for other means to make a living.
They arrived in the Atherton area in the early 1880s, working with European timber getters, and set up a camp on the opposite side of Piebald Creek to the tiny European settlement of Prior's Pocket. In 1885, this area was surveyed and officially named Atherton. Land sales took place and although the Chinese were not allowed to own land, many entered into leases with Europeans and began farming. They grew fruit and vegetables to supply nearby towns and pioneered the growing of maize in north Queensland, which became an important commercial crop. Chinatown grew to service Chinese people in and around Atherton and by 1897 was a thriving residential and commercial centre.
In the 1890s, it was decided to built a temple to serve what was now quite a large community. Funds were collected and furnishings were ordered from China. In 1903, the temple was constructed of local cedar and black bean timber and corrugated iron. Brick was the material usually chosen for temples in Australia and the painting of the front wall to resemble this material suggests that the community would have preferred brick, had it been readily available. The temple complex consisted of a temple dedicated to the god Hou Wang, a feasting hall, kitchen and store. It had living quarters for a caretaker and provided accomodation for those visiting the temple from the outlying district. During the 1900s, when Chinatown was at the height of its importance, the temple was a social and spiritual centre for over a thousand people.
Following the First World War, Chinese leases on agricultural land in the district were revoked in favour of soldier settlers. During the nineteen twenties, most of the inhabitants of Chinatown and the surrounding farms moved south or to nearby coastal towns. Many of the buildings in Chinatown were demolished and removed, some being reused locally. A caretaker remained at the temple which was used by a few old men who remained in the township.
Although some repairs were carried out, without a community to support it, the temple fell into disrepair. A cyclone in 1956 blew away the pagoda, which was replaced by a lean-to. Damage also occurred from water leakage. In the 1960s artefacts were removed from the temple, including the image of Hou Wang and other gods. Some of these artefacts have since been returned. The temple was used intermittently for worship until the early 1970s and contains objects connected with this later use. The land on which the temple stands was purchased in 1965 by several local Chinese families.
In 1975, the National Trust of Queensland, who had been aware of the temple for some time, gained funding to begin investigative work. In 1977 the area was surveyed, as the Fong On family had offered the temple to the Trust to ensure its preservation. At about the same time cataloging of the remaining artefacts in the temple began. The temple was transferred to the Trust in 1980 and conservation work on the buildings began. It is now interpreted as a place museum.
","criteria":"As a temple complex which serviced a major Chinese settlement and farming community on the Atherton Tablelands, it is important in demonstrating the role which the Chinese played in the development of north Queensland.
|It is the only surviving timber and iron temple in Queensland; is the only temple outside China known to be dedicated to Hou Wang and contains a substantial number of original artefacts.
|It has the potential to contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history by demonstrating aspects of the lifestyle and beliefs of Chinese sojourners in Queensland.
|It has aesthetic qualities which are valued by the community and reflects the cultural traditions that the Chinese brought with them to Australia.
|It has a special association with the Chinese community of Atherton who made an important contribution to the development of agriculture in the area.
|It has a special association with the Chinese community of Atherton who made an important contribution to the development of agriculture in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14786,"place_ref":600011,"name":"Chinatown","alternate_name":"Cedar Camp","street_address":"Herberton Road","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The site is approximately 4.5 hectares in area and is located on the gently sloping area to the south of Piebald Creek and to the east of the Herberton Road. The site comprises Lot 2 on RP897109 facing Herberton Atherton Road to the west and extending southward to form the northern and eastern boundaries of the Hou Wang Temple site (600010). Lot 3 RP912545 faces Herberton Street and is site on the southern boundary of the temple site.
The location of the site appears to have been selected with the aid of geomancy as evidenced by its relationship to natural features such as the Herberton Range and the creek.
It is located on dark grey clay soils and the northern, low-lying portion is subject to inundation during wet seasons. Vegetation cover is mainly guinea grass, lantana and clumps of Japanese sunflowers. There are some eucalypts, tea-trees and grevillea and the area is dotted with mango trees introduced by the Chinese. The ground close to the temple is regularly cut to keep the grass low. Dense vegetative cover occurs over much of the site and may help to protect the extensive scatter of artefacts above ground. Evidence of occupation includes wells, buildings sites and possibly plantings.
Interpretative signs which mark key sites and illustrate aspects of life in Chinatown were erected by the National Trust in 1996.
","history":"This open area surrounding the Hou Wang Temple was the site of a Chinese settlement which was established in the mid 1880s. It grew to service Chinese tenant farmers in the Atherton area and peaked in importance in the early 1900s when there were over a hundred buildings on site. Its decline began after the first world war when Chinese-held agricultural leases were revoked in favour of returned servicemen and most Chinese left the area. By the late 1940s, virtually all buildings had been removed.
Atherton Chinatown was one of many Chinese settlements that sprang up in Australia during the nineteenth century. The Chinese began to arrive in large numbers following the first gold rushes of the 1850s. Most of them came from provinces in the south east of China where conditions were harsh. Almost all were male and many were poor, having borrowed the money for their fares from Chinese guilds. They hoped to make enough money to pay off their debt, to send money home to their families and to eventually return themselves with enough capital to secure their futures. For mutual support and to maintain contacts with their homeland, they lived and worked together, creating Chinatowns within, or on the fringes of, European settlements.
The discovery of gold on the Palmer River in 1873 led to an influx of miners to far north Queensland. Many of these were Chinese and by 1877 there were 17,000 Chinese on the Palmer River fields, vastly outnumbering the other diggers. Europeans felt threatened by their numbers, by their willingness to work for low recompense and because the Chinese maintained their own culture. Restrictions were placed on Chinese immigration and they were denied access to new mineral fields. Because of this, and as alluvial gold began to peter out on the Palmer field, the Chinese moved away and looked for other ways to earn money.
Tin was discovered on the Wild River in 1880 which gave impetus to the development of the Atherton Tablelands. This is an area of volcanic plateaux, set in the Great Dividing range, which has a mild climate and fertile soil. It was originally heavily forested and a group of Chinese, working with European timbergetters, moved into the Atherton area in the early 1880s. They established a settlement called Cedar Camp across Piebald Creek from the Europeans and a short distance from the tiny settlement of Prior's Pocket. In August 1885, this area was surveyed, renamed Atherton and land sales began.
Queensland legislation prevented Chinese land ownership, but many of them entered into leasing arrangements with Europeans. The newly cleared land could not be ploughed, but was well suited to the hand cultivation methods favoured by the Chinese, who became successful farmers. They supplied the developing town of Herberton with fruit and vegetables and pioneering the growing of maize, which became an important commercial crop for the area. The rents which they paid the land owners also provided a valuable source of income during the difficult economic period of the 1890s.
Atherton's Chinatown is on a lease originally granted to Frederick Loder in 1887 and which was transferred freehold to Edward Jasper Loder in 1890. By 1897, there were over 180 Chinese living on the site which developed as a short main street lined with small timber and iron shops and houses. At the height of its development, around 1909, commercial premises located here included corn merchants, food and general goods stores, a herbalist, two gambling dens and a place of entertainment which employed musicians. There was also a Tong society meeting hall and a temple. At the time, this was the social and commercial centre for over a thousand Chinese people who were living in the Atherton district.
In 1911, the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the declaration of a republic in China caused divisions in the Chinatown society. The authority of the Tong, which acted as an administrative body, was undermined, gambling crept in and there were violent incidents. Some Chinese moved away at this point. There was also increasing local pressure to have the land reserved for European use as the mild climate was thought to be particularly suitable and the land was now ready for ploughing or for dairying. Following the First World War, leases farmed by Chinese were made over to soldier settlers and most of the Chinese moved south or to nearby coastal towns. During the 1920s many buildings were demolished or moved for reuse elsewhere. A handful of old men remained in the settlement until the late 1940s and the temple continued in intermittent use until the mid 1970s. The land on which Chinatown stood was purchased by a group of local Chinese families and was eventually purchased outright by the Fong On family, who had originally lived in the town. The National Trust of Queensland obtained a grant to carry out research on the site in 1975 and the temple was offered to them by the Fong On family in the following year to ensure its preservation. This donation was finalised in 1980.
In 1991 John Fong On subdivided Lot 2 on RP740536 gifting the remained of Lot 2 to the National Trust of Queensland and seeling the newly created Lot 3 RP912545 to the Atherton Shire Council. This part of the site contains no buildings. Since the subdivision reports suggest that Lot 3 may contain archaeologically interesting material.
In the years since then the temple complex has been researched and conserved as a place museum. A number of research projects have also been carried out on the town site by the Material Culture Unit of the James Cook University. These included research and documentation of the settlement and temple by Latif Ibrahim in 1981, a 1986 project to map remaining surface relics and the original street, and excavations undertaken in 1991 and 1992. Although some damage has been done to the site by the casual digging of collectors in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it is believed that some areas remain undisturbed.
","criteria":"Chinatown, Atherton is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history in that the Chinese were pioneers of agriculture in north Queensland and as such played an important role in the opening up of the Atherton area for settlement.
|It is a major Chinese settlement site in tropical Queensland and has never been built over. Such a concentrated site of Chinese occupation is rare in Australia making Chinatown an important archaeological site.
|It has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history by demonstrating the formation of, and life within, a large Chinese settlement in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14787,"place_ref":600012,"name":"Atherton War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Kennedy Highway","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in one of the main intersections of Atherton facing the RSL building. It is located within a park setting and is complemented by a gun or 'war trophy', a flagstaff, flower beds and poinciana trees.
The painted sandstone monument comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on an octagonal base consisting of three smooth faced steps of the same height surmounted by a larger step, also smooth faced. Rising from this is a tall square pedestal capped by a large and simple cornice. The pedestal displays leaded marble plates on the front and rear faces. The front plate bears the names of the 67 men from the district who fell during the First World War and the plate at the rear bears the names of the 35 fallen from the Second World War.
The pedestal is surmounted by a digger statue in an animated pose. The figure is striding forward with the right arm raised. The remnants of a rifle (now missing) can be seen in the left hand. The figure is wearing a tin helmet and gas mask and is supported by a pile of rocks.
","history":"The Atherton War Memorial was unveiled on 1st May 1924 by Chairman of the Tinaroo Shire, Mr Grau. It is thought to be designed and executed by Melrose and Fenwick, the leading monumental firm in north Queensland at the time. Funds for the memorial were raised mainly by the local women, with the Atherton RSL contributing £100. Excess patriotic funds allowed Atherton to expand its existing hospital into a larger war memorial hospital.
The stone memorial honours the 67 local fallen of the First World War. On Anzac Day, 1954, a plate was added to pay tribute to the 35 local fallen of the Second World War.
Initial attraction to the area of Atherton was due to the availability of timber, with a saw mill established in the early stages of development. The town was surveyed in 1885, several years after the discovery of tin in the tableland. Atherton became a large agricultural producer, providing much of the foodstuffs for the surrounding mining population. This was further enhanced by the arrival of the Chinese in the 1900s who continued to clear and cultivate the land for agricultural use. Major development occurred in 1903 and in the 1920s and 30s and the town continued to be a base for the surrounding mining sites.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The statue at Atherton is unusual in that it portrays the digger in action. The monument suggests victory rather than reverence and mourning which is more familiar to Australian war memorials. Other details are also unique to this memorial such as the inclusion of a gas mask, a tin hat rather than a slouch hat and rocks as support instead of the ubiquitous tree stump. The digger originally carried a rifle with a fixed bayonet in his left hand.
The monument was formerly located in the town's main intersection of Main and Vernon Streets. However it was re-located two blocks north-east to the grounds of the RSL in the early 1980s. Despite this, it remains a significant landmark within the town.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|This memorial is unique as the only digger statue in Queensland in an animated pose.
|Erected in 1924, the memorial at Atherton demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|It is of aesthetic significance both for its high degree of workmanship and design and as a dominant landmark within the town.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14788,"place_ref":600013,"name":"Head Teacher's Residence, Atherton State School (former)","alternate_name":"Principal's Residence (former) | Enterprise House | Atherton Provisional School","street_address":"42 Mable Street","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Head Teacher's Residence is located next to the former Atherton State Primary School on part of a 2.515 hectare allotment (2NR7968) at the corner of Mabel and Vernon streets near to the centre of town. It is a single-storey, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad building set on steel, square-section posts supported on pad footings. It has a complex hipped roof with ventilated gablets and clad in corrugated metal sheeting.
In plan the building comprises a core of rooms with an L-shaped verandah on its south-west side, an enclosed verandah on its north-east side and a small wing projecting off the rear corner.
The north-western elevation to Mabel Street is the building's front and composed of the side of the enclosed verandah with a window, a central bay with gabled roof and a tripartite window arrangement of three casements and the broad, open verandah. The three-part window has a timber-bracketed, metal sheeting-clad hood. The verandah has stop-chamfered timber posts and dowel balustrading with solid top rail, while its ceiling is lined with tongue-and-groove boards. A series of French doors open onto the verandah. The north-eastern elevation features a gablet towards the rear under which are two double-hung sash windows, and the enclosed verandah with a series of casements and a timber double door at the top of the access stair here (timber).
The open verandah runs along the south-western side of the building, with a roof ridge running parallel to the verandah length and finished with gablets at each end. Over the verandah the roof is broken-backed. The walls to the verandah are single skin. On the south-eastern elevation there is a recent ramp leading off the end of the verandah (replacing timber stairs no longer extant). A small room projects off the north-eastern corner and has a separate skillion roof and stands on a concrete slab-on-ground. Its north-eastern and north-western walls are clad in corrugated metal sheeting (where mesh had been originally). A single door opens onto the back yard.
Public access to the former residence is via a gate in the chain-wire fence on Mabel Street, along a concrete path, up a short flight of timber stairs leading to the open verandah and through a wide door with glazed panes. Through the front door is a short hall. Three rooms stand on the south-western side against the verandah, while a further two stand along the north-eastern side. The central room has been made a reception with insertion of a counter. Beyond the latter to the north a verandah has been enclosed as two small rooms, the single-skin, once-exterior wall still visible. At the rear, north-eastern corner are three small rooms leading into a kitchen.
The main rooms of the residence are predominately lined with vertical tongue-and-groove boards on the walls and ceilings. There are also simple timber strip cornices and skirtings throughout. Similarly, the main rooms have polished timber floors with carpet laid over some areas. The walls of the three small rooms at the rear, the last of which is reached via a short flight of timber stairs, are lined with flat sheets. There are linoleum squares on the floor in this area leading into the kitchen, with timber boards likely underneath, except in the former laundry which stands of a small slab that is finished with paint.
The early doors are four-panelled and have glazed fanlights above. The French doors are low-waisted with two large lights each side divided in two by a mullion. They also have glazed fanlights above. There are a number of double-hung windows throughout with two lights, each divided in two. A number of double casements are used in the enclosed verandah. A secondary entrance here comprises a short flight of timber stairs. A French door opens at the top of these stairs and on either side are fixed, four-paned windows. Most doors and windows have original hardware.
The yard of the former residence is grassed and fenced, with a few trees lining the perimeter in the north-eastern and south-eastern corners. There is a very gentle slope from Mabel Street toward the east. A concrete retaining wall about half a metre high follows the Mabel Street alignment, with short stair in the centre. It turns the corner along part of the Vernon Street alignment.
There is a skillion-roofed garage in the south-eastern part of the yard facing Vernon Street. It is clad in profiled sheeting, stands on a slab and has large double timber doors.
","history":"The former Atherton State School Head Teacher's Residence was built in 1913 to accommodate the large family of the school's head teacher at the time, Joseph Johnson. Its design was the product of the Queensland Department of Public Works under the leadership of notable architect Thomas Pye. Atherton is located in Far North Queensland about 50km south-west of Cairns. It is one of the principal towns of the highland area known as the Atherton Tablelands, the main industries of which are agriculture, dairying and tourism. After the school was relocated in the mid-1980s, the land on which the residence and school buildings stand became a local government reserve and the site has been available for community purposes since 2009.
In 1880 tin was discovered at the site of Herberton, on the present day Atherton Tablelands, bringing Europeans into the area including a number of timber-getting teams seeking valuable cedar. They established small camps including one named Prior's Pocket. In 1883 agricultural blocks were opened for selection in the area and requests were made for a survey of Prior's Pocket to allow the establishment of a township. This was surveyed in 1885 and renamed Atherton. The first land sale took place on 23 February 1886, when 84 town lots were sold. Atherton was on the path of the railway being constructed from Cairns and by 1888 it was seen as a future terminus for agricultural produce and timber. The town developed rapidly and the need for a school was soon felt.
Colonial governments played an important role in the provision of formal education. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.
The provision of schools to provide formal education to Queensland children was considered an essential step in the development of early communities; integral to the success of a town, the colony, and the nation. Land and construction labour was often donated by the local people and schools frequently became a major focus within the community as a place symbolising progress, for social interaction, and a source of pride. Also, the maintenance of schools frequently involved contributions of time and effort from teachers, parents, and pupils.
Provisional schools were introduced in 1869 to provide education to communities with small, scattered student populations and limited financial capacity, and were often constructed on rail lines or in mining areas. If there were between 15 and 30 pupils, and the community could provide a school building, the government would provide a teacher and equipment.[1]
In 1890 a school committee was formed at Atherton and an application made for a provisional school to meet the needs of the growing community. The Committee raised £65 for the school, which was constructed as a simple two-room timber building and opened in 1891 on a site at the corner of Mabel and Vernon streets.[2] The school suffered a setback in 1895 when the teacher resigned. It was closed, and the children sent to school at Carrington until a new teacher was appointed and the school reopened in 1896.
Although the progress of the railway took longer than initially expected, when it arrived at Atherton in 1903 it brought prosperity and more families to the township. By 1904 the Atherton Provisional School was the biggest in the state by a considerable margin, far exceeding the minimum numbers required for the establishment of a state school, and its status was upgraded.[3] A new school building was completed next to the provisional school in 1906 and the old building was extended and adapted as a residence for the head teacher. The state school formally opened in 1906 with Richard Hooper as head teacher.
By this period, the Atherton Tablelands had become the main maize growing area in Far North Queensland and this was the chief agricultural pursuit around Atherton.[4] Chinese tenant farmers dominated the industry, and a sizeable Chinatown (QHR 600011) developed.[5] Although dairying in the Tablelands was not a significant industry until World War II, the industry showed some early promise[6] with establishment of the Golden Grove Butter Factory built just north of Atherton in 1909. In 1913 it had 110 registered suppliers.[7]
Atherton had 1186 residents when Joseph Johnson commenced as head teacher at the school in 1911, and moved into the old residence with his wife and seven children.[8] One of his sons, Joseph Jacques Johnson, was also employed as a pupil teacher.[9]
It soon became evident that the residence was inadequate for the Johnson family. In August 1911, Johnson wrote to the Under-secretary for Public Instruction complaining that it was too small and uncomfortable and its condition was so deteriorated that one of his sons had fallen through a floorboard.[10] In September, the Works Department's Inspector of Works for the Northern District confirmed the poor state of the building and recommended a new residence be constructed.[11] The following month, the family moved to a rented property and in 1912 the old residence was sold and removed from the site.[12]
As in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings, which helped to ensure consistency and economy. The standard designs were continually refined by government architects in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Until the 1960s school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components.
Design and construction of school buildings was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works from 1893.[13] Its staff refined the Department of Public Instruction's existing practice of using standard plans and documentation to eliminate the expense of preparing site-specific documents for every school.[14] In 1909, new standard designs for school residences were developed by the department in response to persistent criticism of the old designs by the School Inspectors. One inspector commented in 1904: ‘I believe this want of comfort in the matter of residences to be one of the causes why teachers are so reluctant to accept schools in the Western parts of the State.'[15] In order to make the residences more comfortable, the verandas were enlarged, and, in larger residences, a rear veranda was designed to be used for dining or as a sleep-out.[16]
The design of the head teacher's residence at Atherton differed considerably from the standard designs. As well as being quite different in room layout, the ten-roomed timber and corrugated iron house was larger. It had four bedrooms, a sitting room and a dining room whereas the largest of the standard designs from the period could have up to four bedrooms but only by converting the sitting room to a bedroom.[17] Why the house was made larger than normal may have simply been due to the size of the family it had to accommodate, or that it accommodated a pupil teacher as well as the head teacher. Nevertheless, its design was consistent with the resolve to improve the comfort of teacher residences that had motivated the development of the 1909 standard plans.
Tenders were called for the new residence in March 1913 and the following month the £670 tender of H Boyle was accepted. Following its completion, the Johnson family moved in on 25 October 1913.
The Department of Public Works at the time of construction of the former residence was led by AB Brady, the Government Architect. In 1912, the Works department had a team of 21 draftsmen and one draftswoman under the supervision of the highly competent Thomas Pye as Deputy Government Architect.[18] During the early 20th century, this team produced a substantial body of high quality work including the Land Administration Building (QHR 600123), the former Queensland Government Savings Bank (Family Services Building; QHR 600111), the George Street additions to the former Government Printing Office (QHR 600114), 'A' Block in the Central Queensland Institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Rockhampton Campus (1914) (QHR 600789) and Windsor State School (1915 to 1916) (QHR 600991). Many of the finest public buildings in Queensland were designed at this time.[19]
Of the school residences built between 1893 and 1914, 19 are extant, and of these, 16 were built to a standard design. After 1914, the standard designs changed and in the late 1920s two types were introduced that resembled the residence at Atherton in form and plan arrangement. The earlier standard residences (1893-1914) were low-set with simple hipped roofs, featuring a verandah along the front of the house with rooms stacked behind. To increase the capacity of these houses, a verandah was added at the rear. Later designs (those used after 1914) featured hip-and-gable roofs and were high-set. The overall form of the residence at Atherton and its plan arrangement are similar to the post-1914 types, but is low-set like the earlier types.
Johnson remained at the school until his death, aged 66, in the Atherton Hospital on 6 November 1930. Mr AJ Beck replaced him as head teacher in December that year (formerly of Dallarnil State School). The following year the Atherton State School became a Rural School and provided manual training and domestic science classes. A new head teacher, Mr Gilchrist, formerly of Silkwood State School, was appointed in 1934.[20] The school continued to expand with the addition, in 1951, of the first wing of a new school building to accommodate a High Top. This was progressively expanded until 1963, even after the opening of the new state high school at its present site in 1959.[21]
In 1984 a new State Primary School was opened and grades 5 to 7 moved to the new school site in Armstrong Street. In 1985 grades 1 to 4 followed them and the Mabel Street primary school was closed.[22] The National Trust of Queensland entered the residence in its register in that year.[23]
The land occupied by the school was gazetted as a reserve for Local Government purposes in 1988 and responsibility for the buildings passed to the Atherton Shire Council. The former head teacher's residence became Enterprise House in 1997 and accommodated various government offices including one for the Department of Primary Industries. A deed of grant of the land was made to the Tablelands Regional Council in 2009.[24]
The former residence at Atherton remains substantially intact in 2013. It has been restumped with steel columns and the veranda on the north-eastern side of the house has been enclosed to make two rooms. A doorway from this enclosed veranda into the bedroom facing Mabel Street (north-west) was closed and a doorway into the former dining room moved towards the west. The former pantry was remodelled into a toilet and a nearby doorway into an adjacent bedroom closed. Access into this room is now provided via a new doorway directly into the kitchen, whose stove recess has been removed and replaced with a bank of windows looking over the rear yard. The former bathroom has been opened into the adjacent kitchen and the former washroom at the rear was partitioned to form a store and exit lobby. A ramp has replaced stairs leading off the rear of the south-western verandah.
References
[1] Burmester, P., Kennedy, M. & Pullar, M. ‘Queensland Schools: a heritage conservation study.' A report for the Department of Education, November 1996, pp.5-6. [EHP report collection H-QLD/031.]
[2] ‘The Tableland Above the Range: Atherton', Cairns Post, 21 March 1891, p.3.
[3] Annual Report of the Secretary for Public Instruction, 1904, p59, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1905.
[4] Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1911-12, volume 2, pp808, 928 - 929.
[5] M Gilmore, ‘Thematic History: Agriculture in Far North Queensland, 1880 to 2005', unpublished report prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency by Tablelands Research and Consultancy Services, July 2007, p9, 12 ; S Robb, ‘Thematic History: Chinese Settlement in Far North Queensland, unpublished report, EPA Cultural Heritage Branch State-wide Survey , nd, p9 - 10; Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1911 - 12, volume 2, p793.
[6] Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1911-12, volume 2, p916.
[7] J Wills, ‘State-wide Survey Thematic Histories, Dairying in the Far North', unpublished report, Environmental Protection Agency, nd, p1, 5, 7.
[8] The Northern Miner, 7 July 1911, p4; letter J Johnson to Undersecretary of Public Instruction, 30 September 1911, Queensland State Archives, item 13702.
[9] Annual Report of the Secretary for Public Instruction, 1912, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1913; Return of all schools, 1912, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1912, Vol 1, p1044; Townsville Daily Bulletin, 4 March 1914, p6; 23 March 1915, p5; Cairns Post, 26 March 1917, p4.
[10] Letter, J Johnson to Undersecretary of Public Instruction, 19 August 1911, Queensland State Archives, item 13702.
[11] Telegram, Inspector of Works, Fraser, to Government Architect, 6 September 1911; follow up report, Fraser, 7 September 1911, Queensland State Archives, item 13702.
[12] Letter J Johnson to Undersecretary of Public Instruction, 30 September 1911; Official authorisation to H W Mocatta to remove the residence, Queensland State Archives, item 13702; Cairns Post, 29 November 1911, p4.
[13] H-QLD-031, ‘Queensland Schools: A Heritage Conservation Study', unpublished report for the Department of Education, 1996, Executive Summary, pp18, 27.
[14] Report H-QLD/031, p5.
[15] Cited in Report H-QLD-031, p27.
[16] Report H-QLD/031, pp26 - 27.
[17] Architectural drawing, Atherton State School - Teacher's residence, 1913, Queensland State Archives, item 579446; Report H-QLD-031, pp 40 - 41.
[18] Queensland Blue Book, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1913, Vol 1, p646; D Watson and J McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A biographical dictionary, (Queensland Museum, Brisbane: 1994), pp 20, 149, 150.
[19] Draft entry for Mount Morgan Court House (former) and Police Precinct (QHR 600745), and entries for the Challinor Centre (QHR 601821), and 'A' Block, Central Queensland Institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Rockhampton Campus (QHR 600789).
[20] ‘Scholastic Appointment', Cairns Post, 1 August 1934, p. 6.
[21] QSA item 125268, batch files - Atherton State School; QSA item 579450, architectural drawings, Atherton State School, item 125268, batch files - Atherton State School, item 597740 batch files - Atherton State School; ‘The New School', Supplement to the Tablelander, September 1985, p33.
[22] Atherton Centenary Committee, Tall Timber and Golden Grain 1885 - 1985, (Atherton, Qld.: Atherton Centenary Committee, 1985), p14 - 15, Sunday Mail, 1 September 1985, p28; Supplement to the Tablelander, September 1985, p33.
[23] ‘Atherton', The Sunday Mail, 1 September 1985, p.28.
[24] Certificate of Title reference 49018780; Deed of Grant, title reference 40059213.
","criteria":"Completed in 1913 and unusual in being built to a non-standard design, the former Head Teacher's Residence, Atherton State School, is important in demonstrating the prominence of Atherton as a regional centre in northern Queensland, particularly in the first part of the 20th century.
The size of the residence and the amenity it provided to the head teachers who occupied it - characteristics that can still be read in the building 100 years after its construction - also exemplify the Queensland Department of Public Works' policy from 1909 of improving the comfort of these types of residences to encourage teachers to remain in their positions in regional schools.
|The former Head Teacher's Residence at Atherton is important as a rare example of one that followed a non-standard design by the Queensland Department of Public Works. There were 19 extant school residences built 1893 and 1914, and only three of these follow a non-standard design.
|Highly intact in terms of the important characteristics of this class of cultural place-namely the internal layout of its rooms, fabric and setting-the former Atherton head teacher's residence is a fine example of a purpose-built school residence designed by the architectural office of Queensland's Department of Public Works.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14789,"place_ref":600014,"name":"Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post","alternate_name":"Camerons 1 Ton Survey Post","street_address":"Barwon River","suburb":"MUNGINDI","lga":"BALONNE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post is a timber post 2.7 metres high and roughly square in section and is shaped into a pyramid at the top. It is carved with 'J. CAMERON GS' running upwards on one face and 'LAT 29 ' on another.
","history":"Cameron's 1 Ton Survey post was erected in about 1882 on the bank of the Barwon River and marks the official survey of the border between Queensland and New South Wales.
The need for an official survey of the border had been recognised for many years but the work was not begun until mid 1879, when officers from both colonies met at the town of Barringun in New South Wales which was close to the border (Latitude 29°S). The surveyors were JB Cameron and J Conder, Trigonometrical Surveyors, from New South Wales and GC Watson, Surveying Commissioner of Crown Lands, Warrego District, from Queensland.
John Brewer Cameron was born in Scotland and immigrated to Victoria with his family in 1853. Noted for being athletic and adventurous, he travelled first to the Victorian goldfields and then to New Zealand. Returning to Victoria, he joined a government geodetic surveying party working in the area near Mount Baw Baw. This experience decided him to take up a career in surveying. Following his training, he went to Fiji as a surveyor in 1869, then returned in 1872 to Victoria where he specialised in surveying and geodesy. By 1879 he was a First Class surveyor in the Trigonometrical branch of the NSW Lands Department and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of New South Wales. In this year he undertook his most notable commission, to survey the border between Queensland and New South Wales.
The survey work began at Zero obelisk at Barringun, the division of work between the surveyors being described by Cameron in a letter to his uncle, Ewen Cameron:
Mr Watson is responsible for chainage while I am for the astronomical portion in finding true meridian, giving true bearing, setting off the chords, and finding latitude at every convenient site.
After observations at Barringun to determine the latitude, the team began surveying the border in a westerly direction to the intersection with the border with South Australia at Longitude 141° E, known as Cameron's Corner. This was a distance of 235 miles over difficult country. Watson and Cameron did not get on and they had to contend first with flooding in both the Warrego and Paroo systems and then drought. Health problems and shortages of both food and water added to their problems. Watson withdrew at the one hundred mile post, but Cameron was determined to carry on. This section of the survey took 12 months and 15 days to complete and details of it were given in the first Annual Report of the NSW Department of Lands 1880 Appendix 1.
In 1881 Cameron returned to Barringun to survey the easterly section to the Barwon River. This 200 mile survey was easier with good water and grass available throughout. When the survey was complete Cameron commemorated the event by placing a wooden post weighing one ton and carved with his name on the river bank. It became known as Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post. Although this was not the first border survey, it was the official survey.
In 1883 Cameron moved to New Guinea where he carried out important surveys under the direction of Sir William MacGregor. He died in 1897 in Brisbane during a return trip to New Guinea and is buried in the Toowong Cemetery.
","criteria":"Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post marks the first official survey of the border between what were then the separate colonies of New South Wales and Queensland when an accurate definition of the border was important for legal and economic reasons. It illustrates a remarkable feat of surveying in the nineteenth century and is a reminder of the extraordinarily difficult conditions under which many early surveyors worked.
|Cameron's 1 Ton Survey Post is rare as one of the largest timber survey posts in Australia and marks the termination of the survey by John Cameron, at Latitude 29°.
|As a commemoration of one of his most notable accomplishments, the survey post has an important association with the life and work of John Brewer Cameron, whose work contributed to the development of Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14790,"place_ref":600015,"name":"The Anchorage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wagoo Road","suburb":"ST GEORGE","lga":"BALONNE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Anchorage property is situated on Wagoo Road in the Balonne Shire of south-western Queensland. The residence's front façade looks across the road to the Balonne River, as it winds its way north-east out of the town of St George. St George is approximately 116km south of Surat, which is 80km south of Roma.
The Anchorage is a two-storey timber house raised off the ground by low stumps. Its core is L-shaped and has a hipped roof. On the ground floor a kitchen in the western corner fills the 'L' to make a square, and is separated from the main part of the house by a breezeway. It is roofed separately with a simple hip. Generous verandahs surround the main part of the house and are also roofed separately. They connect to each end of the breezeway. All roofs are clad in corrugated galvanised iron. On the upper level the verandah edges are made with cast iron balusters and baluster panels, and tapering stop-chamfered timber posts. Below, fitted between each post, are deep, arched valances made of lattice. These have cast iron fringes and brackets.
The exterior walls to the main house and the kitchen are clad in chamferboards. The verandah floors are lined with shot-edge timber boards. The ceilings to the lower level verandahs are also lined with timber boards. On the upper level, the underside of the verandah roof is unlined and the rafters are exposed. The front door is on the eastern façade, which looks across to the road and the river beyond. The door is low waisted with four panels, and surrounded by glass and timber sidelights, and a pivoting glass fanlight. The windows opening onto the ground floor rooms of the main house are large double-hung sashes, with a single pane in each sash.
Inside, on the ground floor, the main core of the house consists of four large rooms disposed either side of a central hallway. This hallway opens, at the end opposite to the main door, into the breezeway that separates the main house from the kitchen. A cedar stairway leads from this hall to the level above, completing its half-turn using winders. The joinery throughout the house is cedar, but it is otherwise constructed with the pine, possibly cypress, cut and milled by the owner's company. There is a further straight stair situated on the rear, north-western verandah. On the upper level there are six rooms disposed around the hallway, two to the right after leaving the stair, and four to the left. Each room opens onto the encircling verandahs, as do each end of the hallway.
A small skillion-roofed structure has been attached to the rear, north-western façade of the house. Also, in the yard area adjacent to the south-western facade of the kitchen, is situated a small meat house. This structure has a pyramid roof clad in corrugated iron, and supported in part by chamferboard clad walls and timber posts. A narrow zone between the underside of the roof and the wall cladding is open to encourage ventilation.
","history":"The Anchorage is a two-storied timber house built in 1903 for Andrew William Nixon.
\nThe district in which The Anchorage homestead is located was first explored in 1846 by Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, while trying to find a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Mitchell established a base camp on the site of the present town of St George and in April 1846 St George crossing was named after Mitchell discovered the Balonne River on St George's Day.
\nTwo years later, in 1848, the New South Wales government granted the first St George leases to settlers who established cattle and sheep runs in the area, but it was not until 1863 that St George was surveyed as a township. Although the effects of droughts and floods as well as frontier hostilities initially hindered the development of St George, it was described in Pugh's Almanac of 1880 as 'a thriving township'. By 1888, St George was 'a large township' and Pugh's Almanac considered it to be 'the centre of a flourishing pastoral district'. The 1880s was a period of growth in St George and was at that time a place of opportunity for new arrivals.
\nAndrew William Nixon was one who found success in the district. He was born to Scottish parents at Adelong in New South Wales in 1854. Nixon was apprenticed as a blacksmith in Corowa before moving to Melbourne and then to Jerilderie where he established his own blacksmithing business around the time the Kelly gang of bushrangers was in the area. By 1882, Nixon had made his way to St George with his family and was working in the district on contract work, including the construction of the first bridge across the Balonne River in 1890. Nixon reputedly amassed a small fortune from his contracting and having previously obtained shares in the Australian Steam Sawmills on the Balonne River, he eventually bought out the other shareholders and developed the sawmills into a profitable business. Towards the end of the 19th century, the mills became less viable as the supply of timber in the area diminished and Nixon redirected his energies towards agricultural pursuits. He accordingly purchased 320 acres upon which he erected a homestead and made a viable living from cultivating the land. He then took up about 90,000 acres in the surrounding district, some of which had originally formed part of the 'Cypress Downs' and 'Mona' stations. This acquisition allowed Nixon to expand his pastoral enterprise and its location near the Balonne River provided water for both irrigation and for the steam engines of his sawmill, which today remain on the property.
\nNixon began construction of The Anchorage in 1903, situated on a 16,000 acre parcel of land on the western bank of the Balonne River and surrounded by a plantation of orchard trees and a flower garden. It was reputedly his third house in the area and is constructed primarily from local cypress pine, which was milled in the Australian Steam Sawmills under the direct supervision of Nixon. Built by Arthur Bennett, this grand house was a reflection of the development of St George by the early 20th century, as well as an indication of Nixon's personal burgeoning fortune. The 12 rooms of the homestead were apt accommodation for Nixon's large family, and were described in The History of Queensland by Matthew Fox as 'large, lofty, and well-ventilated, every attention having been paid to the important considerations of health and comfort in their design. The additional offices and outhouses have also been planned with a view to convenience and fitness, each for the purpose to which it is allotted'.
\nNixon remained for many years an active participant in local community life, serving at various times on the Balonne Shire Council and the local hospital board, as well as vice-president of the Balonne Pastoral and Agricultural Association and a number of other community groups. Following Nixon's death in 1951, The Anchorage estate passed to his son, Andrew William Nixon, as administrator of his will. Andrew William Nixon junior died in 1962, after which title is registered in 1969 in the names of his siblings, Marston Alma Nixon, Isabella Ellen Nixon and Charles David Nixon. When Charles David Nixon passed away in 1970, title to his portion of the land was bequeathed to his sisters as joint owners, before Isabella Ellen Nixon was registered as the sole owner of the property in 1974. Four years later, title was transferred to Gureba Pty Ltd, a holding company for SH Andersen & Sons, after which it became a sheep and cattle property. The property has since changed hands a number of times, with a lot reconfiguration separating the Anchorage homestead from the earlier large landholding.
","criteria":"The Anchorage demonstrates the development of the St George district in the early 20th century, being a modern and quite urban homestead built on what was one of the first properties producing commercial agricultural crops in the area. It is also of interest as the home of Andrew William Nixon, a saw miller, who personally selected and supervised the cutting of timber used in its manufacture, thus providing an example of building practices in this era.
|The Anchorage has considerable aesthetic appeal as a well-designed and constructed building made of local materials and as a grand house designed in response to contemporary views regarding health and climate.
|The Anchorage is important for its association with Andrew William Nixon, a local pioneer and influential member of the community who made a considerable contribution to the development of the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14791,"place_ref":600016,"name":"Kilbirnie Homestead","alternate_name":"Kilburnie","street_address":"Argoon-Kilburnie Road","suburb":"CALLIDE","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kilbirnie homestead is close to the Boundary Hill Mine Road and consists of a complex of timber residential and working buildings including a house, detached kitchen and several sheds. The site also has two graves.
The main dwelling is a timber house raised on high timber stumps, which has had rooms built underneath. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. There is an encircling verandah to the upper level with a separate roof supported on timber posts. Subsidiary L-shaped bedrooms are built into each corner of the verandah so that there is an open section in the centre of each elevation. The handrail across these verandah sections is timber, with steel mesh filling the area below. This upper floor contains a living room, main bedroom and two smaller bedrooms in the core section. Original decorative colour schemes survive and include stencilled stylised iris on the upper walls of the living room and a stencilled dado in the bedroom to the north.
On the ground floor the central section between the stumps is built in with vertical corrugated iron sheeting, creating four rooms including a dining room and storerooms. The area surrounding this core is concreted and serves as a verandah. There is a detached bathroom beside the house at the northwest corner. This is constructed of ripple iron with a curved corrugated iron roof.
To the rear of the house, and connected with it by a covered walkway, is a single storey slab and weatherboard building set on low timber stumps. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. A verandah runs between two projecting rooms along the long axis of the building facing the house. The rear of the building and the rear portion of the southern end have been clad in weatherboard. This building serves as a detached kitchen building, though it contains other rooms. The kitchen has been extended at the northern end and also into the verandah room on the northeast corner. Internal walls of corrugated iron divide the rest of the building into a store and large nursery room. This room has a series of polychrome stencils of 'Japanese' figures and birds applied as a frieze.
The residential buildings are separated from the working buildings by a timber picket fence. There are three sheds surrounding a yard area to the rear of the kitchen building.
The shed on the southern side of the yard has a pole frame and a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. Two walls are of drop log construction and the building is open on two sides.
The shed to the west of the yard is a rectangular building with a gabled roof and shallow side aisles, the southern side of which is open, the roof being supported by timber posts. The roof is clad in corrugated iron, as is the western wall. It has a pole frame and has walls variously of timber and corrugated iron.
The building to the north of the yard has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron and has a skillion roofed extension on its northern side. The main part of the building is constructed of dropped slabs with vertical slabs to the extension. The wall on the southern side has gates into the yard and this building may have housed animals.
To the north of the complex are the burials of Elizabeth Campbell, who died in 1913, and of John Campbell, who died in 1943. The graves have matching headstones and are enclosed by decorative iron railing protected by a modern steel pipe enclosure
","history":"The buildings comprising Kilbirnie homestead are a series of vernacular timber structures erected by the Campbell family in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Leichhardt explored the Callide and Dawson Valleys in 1844. Thomas Archer took up Eidsvold run and Charles Archer moved further north settling in the region of what is now Biloela. Other European pastoralists soon followed them in the 1850s, when this district was still a part of New South Wales. In 1869, the Department of Public Lands authorised the opening for selection of land from the runs of Winterbourne and Thalberg on the headwaters of Callide Creek. They were approximately 23 square miles each. A Promise of Lease for the two areas passed quickly through several hands, but in 1877 both runs were leased to Thomas Cadell.
Settlement in the area prospered and the service town of Banana was established in the 1860s. In 1880 the Banana Divisional Board was formed. On 12 May 1883 John Campbell applied for a 10-year lease on an area of 12 square miles from the Thalberg run under the Settled Districts Pastoral Leases Act of 1876. Campbell had arrived in Brisbane in 1873 when he was 23 years old. Soon after his arrival, he married his fiancée, Elizabeth Brydges, who had accompanied him from Ireland. After working briefly on a sugar plantation on the Mary River, he obtained a position working as a shepherd and general hand for Robert Bell on Dumgree Station. While working at Dumgree he obtained sheep of his own and ran them on land rented from Bell. Capital from the sale of these sheep allowed the Campbells to set up their own property.
In 1884 Campbell was granted a 10-year lease for his selected land, which he called Kilburnie. After having prepared the materials needed, he began to construct a six roomed house, stockyard and fences on the land, with help from a bush carpenter named Bryce Kilpatrick. In 1885, when the house was completed, he was able to move his wife and children from Dumgree to their new home. The following year, 6 square miles, being about half of the Kilbirnie run was resumed. Campbell protested this on the grounds that it was unwatered and therefore unsuitable for selection. He was allowed to exercise his right of grazing on the land and in 1889 was offered a Occupation License for the resumed portion and subsequently held occupation licenses for the whole.
Campbell raised cattle and Clydesdale horses at Kilbirnie and by 1892 had constructed stables and other outbuildings and had a horse paddock and a paddock under cultivation. He had also erected about 4 miles of fencing. The first house had been built directly on the ground and suffered extensive white ant damage, so that it was moved and rebuilt in 1901. It was possibly at this time that the rear of the building was clad in weatherboards. In 1902 a license to erect a hayshed and stockyard and to make a dam was granted. In 1903 a license to erect a house of 12 rooms was approved, the former house being now used as a kitchen wing.
At this time, Kilbirnie was also a coach stop. Until Biloela was founded in 1924, Banana was the main town in the district. From 1897, mail had been delivered to the area by G H (Bob) Fry. By the early 1900s, demand was sufficient for him to operate a 3-seater wagonette, known locally as Fry's mail coach, over the route between Gladstone and Banana. This took two days and the coach stopped at Kilbirnie for morning tea and a change of horses. This service continued until made redundant in 1928.
In 1921 an anomaly was discovered between the land described officially as Kilbirnie and the land actually worked by Campbell. This was resolved in favour of the land in use. In 1924, 9267 acres were resumed in connection with the Burnett Settlement Scheme. At the time the property had grown to 48 square miles by the addition of land held by occupation lease.
Elizabeth Campbell died in 1913 after having had eight children. John Campbell died in 1943 at the age of 98. The house continued in the ownership of family members, although it was unoccupied for some 20 years from the 1970s and an overseer was employed to care for the property. A new generation of family members, great grandchildren of John and Elizabeth Campbell, are now living in the house.
","criteria":"Kilbirnie homestead illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early homestead in the Leichhardt Pastoral District, which has remained in use, it has associations with the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Kilbirnie homestead complex provides a record of an evolving pastoral property from the slab buildings of first settlement in the 1880s to a comfortable house of sawn timber. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of such a homestead group well, comprising a main house with detached kitchen, associated outbuildings, graves and fences and illustrates the building techniques traditionally used for these.
|Kilbirnie homestead has a special association with the life and work of four generations of the Campbell family who, as early pastoralists, contributed to the development of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14792,"place_ref":600017,"name":"Greycliffe Homestead","alternate_name":"Greycliffe","street_address":"48 Gladstone Road","suburb":"BILOELA","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Greycliffe homestead is now located on the corner of Gladstone Road and Lawrence Street, Biloela. The site has several other buildings on it including a slab hut, a new timber shelter for machinery and a concrete toilet block.
The homestead is a single storey timber building set on low timber stumps. The roof is hipped and clad in corrugated iron. The house is constructed of timber slabs on a pole frame and has an encircling verandah incorporating subsidiary rooms. There is a tourist office in the room on the front left hand side of the verandah. The rear verandah has storage rooms and a kitchen. At least one room has a modern steel security door and some rooms are lined with modern material.
The core of the building consists of a large living room with a fireplace at one end. This has a simple timber mantelpiece and is brick lined. There are two bedrooms separated by a passage. The fabric ceilings have not survived the removal. There are timber steps to the front of the building and the rear is reached by a ramp.
","history":"Greycliffe homestead is a slab dwelling formerly on Greycliffe station and relocated to Biloela where it has served as the headquarters of the Banana Shire Historical Society association since 1979.
Leichhardt explored the Callide and Dawson Valleys in 1844. Thomas Archer took up Eidsvold run and Charles Archer moved further north settling in the region of what is now Biloela. Other European pastoralists soon followed them in the 1850s, when this district was still a part of New South Wales. In 1863 Frederick Barton took up Greycliffe.
It is not certain when William Nott moved onto the run, but in 1871 he married Sophia Collins. Their first two children died, but in November 1875 Helen Brenda Nott was born and as she was the only one of their subsequent children not to have been born on Greycliffe, the Nott family may have moved to Greycliffe in 1876. In January 1877 Alfred David became the first of seven more children born on the property. In 1878 the lease was transferred to Frederick Brackner, but in 1879 Nott acquired the lease himself. In 1884 he took up further land and in later years further leases extended the run.
The original form of the house was a large rectangular room with a fireplace at one end. This was extended and eventually included two bedrooms separated by a passage in the core section, an encircling verandah with subsidiary rooms and a detached kitchen. The rooms were ceiled with stretched calico and walls were decorated by gluing chintz directly to the timber.
In 1903, William Nott died and the eldest of his surviving sons, William Ingliss, managed the property. His two brothers and a sister, Emma, served overseas in WWI while another sister, Jessie, helped to run the station.
In the 1920s the homestead was repaired and the roof shingles were replaced by corrugated iron sheeting. In 1923, Frederic Nott and his family moved to Darling Plain and in 1924, Bill Nott also moved away, although Greycliffe remained in the family. In 1929 Sophia Nott died aged 83. Emma and a nephew, Robin Nott, lived on the property. In 1972 she died at the age of 92, being the last person to live in the homestead building. When Robin Nott also died, his wife and sons took over the running of the property. It was sold in the late 1970s.
After the sale of Greycliffe station, the Banana Shire Historical Society feared that the vacant homestead might decay or catch fire. They therefore acquired the building in 1979 and removed it from the site in two sections. At the time this approach to preserving buildings was considered by many to be a valid way to save places valued by the community. It was relocated 37 kilometres away at Gladstone Road, Biloela where it became premises for the Society. It is open to the public by arrangement. The detached kitchen has not survived the move.
","criteria":"Greycliffe homestead illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early homestead in the Leichhardt Pastoral District, it has associations with the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Greycliffe demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early homestead building constructed from materials found on the property and illustrates the building techniques traditionally used for such buildings.
|The homestead is valued by the community as demonstrated by the project to preserve it as an important part of the history of the area, and it is associated with the historical society whose focus it has been since the late 1970s.
|Greycliffe homestead is associated with the Nott family who, as early pastoralists, contributed to the development of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14793,"place_ref":600018,"name":"Barcaldine War Memorial Clock","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Ash and Beech Streets","suburb":"BARCALDINE","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in the middle of the intersection of Ash and Beech Streets, Barcaldine and is an dominant feature in the streetscape. It stands on a concrete pad with rough hewn stone posts at each corner.
The memorial stands 12 feet high and comprises a base surmounted by a pedestal and clock.
The marble (probably Ulam) memorial sits on a stepped base of rough hewn granite. Above this is a smooth faced marble step capped with cyma recta mouldings and a leaded unveiling inscription on the front face. This is surmounted by a marble plinth carved to represent chamfered blocks and capped with a simple cornice.
Rising from the plinth is the pedestal comprising recessed square plates of a finer marble with engaged pillars at each corner. The recessed plates bear the leaded names of the 292 local men who served in the first World War, including the 38 fallen whose names are recorded on the front face.
The clock sits above the pedestal. There is a clock face on all four faces which are illuminated at night. Each face is surrounded by a laurel wreath and foliated carving is located in the bottom corners. A hood mould over each face creates a domed surface on which sits a large cable moulding. This is crowned by a smaller dome surmounted by a marble sphere.
","history":"The Barcaldine War Memorial Clock, a major regional memorial was unveiled on 21st May 1924 by the then Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan. It was designed and executed by A L Petrie, monumental masons of Toowong, Brisbane at a cost of £524. The marble and granite memorial honours the 292 local men who served during the First World War, including the 38 fallen.
Settlement in the area of Barcaldine began in 1886 due to the extension of the Central Railway. In 1891 the town was the site of one of Queensland's most significant events, the shearer's strike which caused widespread unrest and ultimately lead to the formation of the Labour Party. Shortly after this, artesian water was discovered, causing an influx of people followed by a rush of development, including a brewery, meat processing plants and other new industries.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although many different types of war memorials were erected throughout Queensland, there are few of the clock type. The form of a clock was decided upon by public ballot held in 1922 after the Barcaldine Shire Council initiated the proposal for a memorial.
This is a particularly ornate type of war memorials. Although no others have been located in Queensland, the design is described in A L Petrie's records as clock tower number two design. The monument was originally surrounded by four granite posts, however these have been removed at some stage, as has the original street light. In 1992, the monument was damaged by a storm and the clocks were replaced by Synchronome Pty Ltd.
A L Petrie and Son were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland at this time and produced many memorials throughout the state.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|This memorial is of particular significance as it is one of the few clock type war memorials and the only one of this style in Queensland.
|Erected in 1924, the memorial at Barcaldine demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|It is of aesthetic significance both as a dominant landmark in the streetscape and for its high level of workmanship, materials and design.
|The Barcaldine memorial has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event
|It also has special association with monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son as an example of their workmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14794,"place_ref":600019,"name":"Shearers' Strike Camp Site, Barcaldine","alternate_name":"The Strike Camp | Shearers Strike Camp","street_address":"Bank of Lagoon Creek","suburb":"BARCALDINE","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The campsite is approximately 3 km north east of Barcaldine and situated on the south side of Lagoon Creek. It is lightly treed, mainly with gidgee, and the only visible evidence of its use during the Shearers' Strike is the remains of a camp oven made of ant bed, a blazed tree and a light artefact scatter, some of which is subsequent to the strike.
The strikers were not the first people to camp on this site and Egloff observed and recorded artefacts from previous Aboriginal use of the site. It has also since been used for camping by drovers.
The blazed tree, a coolabah, is on the north-eastern margin of the camp site. The main stem of the tree is dead, but it has put out a limb from the base which, when inspected in November 2000, was growing reasonably well. It received assessment and treatment from a tree surgeon in 1993. The blaze at the base of the trunk cut in 1891 has grown over to some extent but is still clearly visible although the inscription can no longer be seen.
","history":"The Shearers' Strike camp site was the focus of the 1891 confrontation between capital and labour in the pastoral industry. Although the strike was not successful and some leaders were gaoled, the event had major political consequences. In the following year the first endorsed representative of labour was elected to the Queensland Parliament and the strike was a key factor in the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
Barcaldine sprang up in 1886 as the terminus of the Central Railway from Rockhampton. The area was already settled by pastoralists and had previously been centred on Blackall. Large sheep stations were like small townships with their own working facilities, stores, workers' accommodation and tradesmen such as blacksmiths. The owners and managers of such properties had considerable power to dictate terms to an itinerant workforce recruited for the shearing season. Poor working conditions, low pay and the threat of competition from cheap foreign labour caused discontent within the industry.
Barcaldine was a natural focus for the development of unionism. As the railhead, the town drew many seasonal and casual workers. Besides shearers and hands there were navvies who had worked on the construction of the railway and carriers who had found their work reduced by it. Difficulties in finding work and financial hardship helped to build a sense of mateship and mutual support amongst sections of them. In 1887 the Central Queensland Carriers Union was formed at Barcaldine and the Queensland Shearers' Union at Blackall. Within a year it had 1300 members, indicating a perceived need for collective bargaining to obtain fair terms and working conditions. In 1888 the Central Queensland Labourers' Union was formed at Barcaldine. These three unions were the driving force behind the strike of 1891.
In Brisbane, the Trades and Labour Council was formed in 1885 and in 1889 became the Australian Labour Federation. At Barcaldine in the same year the Pastoral Employers' Association was founded and introduced reduced rates of pay. Many workers now joined unions and only severe wet weather in 1890 delayed a confrontation. By January 1891 union representatives had gathered at Barcaldine for meetings and pastoralists were trying to circumvent union rules by pressing shearers to sign freedom of contract forms. A strike was called and employers began to import non-union labour from the south. In February strikers, a number of whom were armed, gathered at Barcaldine.
Although camps were set up during the course of the strike from Cloncurry to the NSW border, the focus was on Barcaldine and the main camp on the southern bank of Lagoon Creek is said to have held up to 1000 strikers, some of whom were accompanied by their families. They were well organised and set up tents in rows with a cleared area between. Strikers were issued with food, soap, tobacco and salt and an oven made of ant bed was constructed to provide fresh bread. Provision was even made for recreation with a library tent set up and games such as cricket being played. Feelings amongst the strikers ran high and a tree was blazed on the north eastern edge of the camp and painted with the words 'United we stand. Divided we fall. A.L.F. the strike camp 1891 W. Vincent, E Car...'.
The government responded to the crisis by sending police and soldiers and the strikers drilled and staged torchlight processions in the town, where there was considerable support for them. In March 1891 the situation escalated as carriers and railway workers went out in sympathy and military reinforcements arrived. Barcaldine became the focus of the whole country's interest and armed conflict was expected. Towards the end of March an old law was used to arrest all members of the strike committee for conspiracy. With the leaders gone, heavy rain and sickness in the camp and with the shearing season underway using labour brought in under military escort, the strikers began to disperse. The strike leaders were tried and most received heavy sentences. On June 15, the strike was officially called off. Although the strike had failed, it had far reaching effects. In the following year, Thomas Joseph (Tommy) Ryan (not to be confused with Thomas Joseph Ryan, Premier of Queensland 1915-1919) became the first endorsed labour candidate to be elected to the Queensland Parliament. Because the strike unified the labour movement it was a key event in the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
The strike has retained a central place in the history and mythology of Barcaldine. In 1982 a re-enactment of the strike using townspeople was staged. In 1987 the Tree of Knowledge Committee was formed to commemorate the strike and set up a granite and bronze monument near the famous tree where workers met at the railway station. In 1988 an archaeological survey was carried out by Brian Egloff of ANU to accurately identify the correct location of the camp site. In 1991 a detailed survey and excavations were carried out. Artefacts found dating to the strike include metal containers, bottles, ammunition and horse and shearing equipment. The most visible artefact of the strike is the remains of the ant bed camp oven.
The centenary of the strike in 1991 was a major event which drew Labor politicians from around the country and saw the opening of the Workers' Heritage Centre.
","criteria":"The Shearers' Strike Camp Site was the focus of the 1891 Shearers' Strike, a confrontation between capital and labour that was a major event in Queensland's history. The strike was a watershed in the development of organised representation of labour in Australia and the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
|The Strike Camp Site has the potential to provide evidence of the material culture of shearers' lives in the late 19th century.
|The Strike Camp Site is closely linked with the cultural identity of Barcaldine and has a strong association with its people, many of whom are descended from participants in this event.
|The Shearers' Strike Camp Site at Barcaldine has a special association with the history of the Australian Labor Party and with Trades Union in Queensland. It also has a special association with the life and work of William Hamilton and George Taylor, convicted strike leaders who went on to become prominent Labor politicians, and with many of the other participants in this event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14795,"place_ref":600020,"name":"Barcaldine Masonic Temple","alternate_name":"Comet Masonic Temple | Masonic Temple Barcaldine","street_address":"24 Beech Street","suburb":"BARCALDINE","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Masonic temple is located on the west side of Beech Street, Barcaldine. It is a two storey, timber framed building set on low stumps with a gambrel corrugated iron clad roof with triangular dormers on the north and south sides. The exterior is clad plainly in vertical corrugated iron on the back and sides.
The most striking feature of the building is the elaborate treatment of the front, which is clad with horizontal timber boards painted to mimic ashlar masonry. The gable facing the front has scalloped barge boards and finials. The facade is divided into three bays by fluted timber pilasters supporting a scalloped entablature below the eave. It has a central entrance sheltered by a pediment porch and flanked by sash windows. The upper storey has high round arched windows to each bay. The sides of the building have large windows on the ground floor and small high openings on the floor above.
The interior is clad with tongue and groove timber boards and is very intact, retaining the original colour schemes. The ground floor, which is used as a supper room, exhibits a brown dado with hand painted floral frieze. Above this is are horizontal tongue and groove boards painted ochre yellow. The room has a series of shallow arched enclosed beams supporting the upper floor. At the rear of the ground floor there are ancillary rooms situated in either corner. Between them is a central entrance which has a section of hit and miss flooring, presumably for the clearing of mud from boots.
From here a timber stair with a simple slatted balustrade rises in an L form to the upper floor landing off which a dressing room opens directly into the lodge room. This has partially curved ceilings that rise to a boarded ceiling set between moulded ribs which spring from mock pilasters at the side walls. The ceiling between has been lined with what appears to be 'caneite' sheet. The wall panels are a mix of horizontal and diagonal boards set above a simple dado. It is lit only by small high windows down the sides and by the three semicircular windows at the front.
","history":"The Masonic temple at Barcaldine was constructed in 1901 as the second temple of the Comet Lodge, the first having been moved from Dingo Creek in stages following the growth of the railway line.
Freemasonry spread from New South Wales into Queensland in individual lodges. The first Freemason's lodge in Queensland was established in 1859, shortly before Separation from New South Wales. New lodges were formed as settlement spread and Freemasonry was carried along newly built roads and railways by Masons who were working on them. In 1876 Robert Ballard, Chief Engineer with the Central Railway pushing westwards from Rockhampton and a handful of other Masons, established the Comet Lodge No 1680 at Dingo Creek. The lodge is possibly unique in that it holds its warrant almost 300 miles (kilometers) away from the town for which it was granted. The railway workers who were members carried their building with them, dismantling it and moving it in railway trucks to be bolted together again in a new settlement as work progressed. In this manner it moved to the new railway camp at Cometville in 1878, Emerald in 1879, Bogantungan in 1881, Pine Hill in 1883 Jericho in 1885 and finally came to rest in Barcaldine in 1886. It was then refurbished.
A new and larger temple was constructed in 1900 for a cost of £720 and is said to have been based on the original. It was dedicated in 1901 and continued to make an important contribution to the life of the town as a venue for social interaction. Conservation work was undertaken on the building in the early 1980s, when the painted 'masonry' effect on the facade was reinstated.
","criteria":"The Masonic Temple is important in demonstrating the rapid growth of towns along the path of the railway and a reminder of the way in which Freemasonry was established in many western towns by the workers constructing those lines.
|It is a remarkable demonstration of adapting a classical vocabulary to a vernacular style and available materials and the painted mock stonework on the front is a very rare technique in Queensland.
|The Barcaldine temple is important as a characteristic and intact example of a regional Masonic temple, a category of building often prominent in both the streetscape and social life of many country towns.
|The Barcaldine temple is important as a characteristic and intact example of a regional Masonic temple, a category of building often prominent in both the streetscape and social life of many country towns.
|The Masonic Temple, Barcaldine, has a special association with both lodge members and with the Freemason's movement in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14796,"place_ref":600021,"name":"Tree of Knowledge","alternate_name":"Barcaldine Tree of Knowledge","street_address":"Oak Street","suburb":"BARCALDINE","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Tree of Knowledge is a ghost gum (Eucalyptus papuana) situated outside the railway station in the main street of Barcaldine. The canopy spread shown in early photographs has been reduced by the loss of major limbs, but the tree is now in good health. At the foot of the tree is a plaque which says: This plaque commemorates the loyalty, courage, and sacrifice in 1891 of the stalwart men and women of the west from whom, beneath this tree, emerged Australia's labour and political movement.
The Tree of Knowledge is protected by a modern metal fence and the area surrounding it is bordered by a low rail composed of evenly spaced lengths of log and is landscaped with flowering shrubs. This area also contains a flagpole and a bronze and granite monument symbolising shear blades which was erected in 1991 to commemorate the centenary of the Shearer's Strike.
","history":"The Tree of Knowledge is a ghost gum located in front of the railway station at Barcaldine, under which the workers of the 1891 Shearer's Strike met. An icon of the Labor Party and Trades Unions, it symbolises the foundation of the organised representation of labour in Queensland.
Barcaldine sprang up in 1886 as the terminus of the Central Railway. The area was already settled by pastoralists and had previously been centred on Blackall. Large sheep stations were like small townships with their own working facilities, stores, worker's accommodation and tradesmen such as blacksmiths. The owners and managers of these stations had considerable power to dictate terms to an itinerant workforce recruited for the shearing season. Poor working conditions, low pay and the threat of competition from cheap foreign labour caused discontent within the industry.
Barcaldine was a natural focus for the development of unionism. As the railhead, the town drew many seasonal and casual workers. Besides shearers and hands there were navvies who had worked on the construction of the railway and carriers who had found their work reduced by it. Difficulties in finding work and financial hardship helped to build a sense of mateship and mutual support amongst sections of them. In 1887 the Central Queensland Carriers Union was formed, and discussions leading up to this are said to have been held under the gum tree which provided shade where carriers waited at the front of the railway station. At the same time, the Queensland Shearers' Union was formed at Blackall. Within a year it had 1300 members, indicating a perceived need for collective bargaining to obtain fair pay and working conditions. In 1888 the Central Queensland Labourers' Union was formed at Barcaldine. These three unions were the driving force behind the strike of 1891.
In Brisbane, the Trades and Labour Council was formed in 1885 and in 1889 became the Australian Labour Federation. At Barcaldine in the same year the Pastoral Employers' Association was founded in response and moved to reduce pay rates. Many workers now joined the unions, pushing membership of the Shearers Union over 3000 and the Labourer's Union to 2,250. Only severe wet weather in 1890 delayed a confrontation. By January 1891 union representatives had gathered at Barcaldine for meetings and pastoralists were pressing shearers to sign freedom of contract forms. A strike was called and employers began to import non-union labour from the south. Strikers, some of whom were armed, gathered at Barcaldine and set up a camp at Lagoon Creek and other places around the town.
The government dispatched police and soldiers to the area and the strikers responded by drilling and staging torchlight processions in the town. The tree in front of the station, the Tree of Knowledge, was the location of many meetings and a focus for protest. In March the situation escalated as carriers and railway workers went out in sympathy and military reinforcements arrived. Barcaldine became the focus of the whole country's interest and armed conflict was expected. However, heavy rain which limited movement and the arrest of leaders slowed momentum and strikers began to disperse. On 15 June the strike was officially called off. It had failed, but was to have far reaching effects. The following year, T.J. Ryan became the first representative of labour to be elected to the Queensland Parliament and soon after the Labor Party in Queensland was formed.
Because the area beneath the Tree of Knowledge was the scene of actions and decisions which had a profound effect on the future of labour and politics in Australia, it has become an icon of the Labor Party and Trades Unions. It is also important to the people of Barcaldine as a symbol of the town's identity and historical importance. This is reflected by the name chosen for the commemoration committee formed in 1987, the Tree of Knowledge Development Committee, and by the care given to the tree. In 1990 it was discovered that the tree was infested by termites and other insects and had severe health problems. Treatment by a tree surgeon, pest control and flushing of the root system with thousands of litres of water gave the tree a new lease of life. This treatment was completed in late 1993.
In 1991, there were major celebrations at Barcaldine to mark the centenary of the Shearers' Strike. In preparation for this, the area around the tree was landscaped and a memorial to the strikers erected within the enclosure.
","criteria":"The Tree of Knowledge was a key site during the Shearer's Strike in 1891, a confrontation between capital and labour that was a major event in Queensland's history. The strike was a watershed in the development of the labour movement and the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
|The Tree of Knowledge is closely linked with the cultural identity of Barcaldine and has a strong association with its people.
|The Tree of Knowledge has a special association with the history of the Australian Labor Party and with the Trades Union movement in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14797,"place_ref":600022,"name":"St Peter's Anglican Church and Hall","alternate_name":"St Peters Anglican Church and Hall","street_address":"85 Elm Street","suburb":"BARCALDINE","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Peter's church is located on the southern side of Elm Street and is parallel to the road, running on an east-west axis. It is a timber building, rectangular in plan with an apsidal sanctuary at the eastern end. To the western end is a baptistery flanked by small porches. It has a steeply pitched gable roof clad with corrugated iron which extends to cover the vestry on the southern side. The roof is crowned with an octagonal louvred turret and spire and the eaves are supported by curved timber brackets. The external walls are clad in narrow weatherboards. There is a bell tower at the south east corner between vestry and sanctuary.
The internal walls of the church are lined with painted tongue and groove boards and the roof is ceiled with 'caneite'. The flooring is 1½" wide tongue and groove hardwood.. Separating chancel and nave is an open timber rood screen composed of six timber posts supporting the rail and rood and linked by Gothic tracery. The posts are decorated with shields bearing heraldic devices.
Windows to the side walls are narrow and rectangular. There are a number of stained glass memorial windows including five above the altar depicting the Ascension and scenes from the life of St Peter installed in 1918, a Resurrection from 1918 and that in the baptistery donated in 1913. The fittings are original and include a stone font inscribed ' An offering to the Glory of God from the children of the church of St Peter, Jarrow to the church of St Peter, Barcaldine'. The lectern is a copy of that in Exeter cathedral and was carved and donated by Mr G. Lloyd-Jones of Ilfracombe in England. The richly embroidered altar frontal dating from the 1900s was also an English gift.
The hall is located a short distance from the eastern end of the church and at right angles to it. It is a rectangular timber framed building clad in fibre-cement sheeting with a weatherboard pattern and with a corrugated iron roof. The western side has been extended by a lean to and the original double hung windows have been replaced with louvres. The double timber doors of the entrance facing Elm Street are sheltered by a gabled porch. This building has narrow timber floor boards and a caneite ceiling similar to those in the church and the wall between the hall proper and the extension has exposed studs.
","history":"St Peter's Anglican Church is a substantial timber church located prominently in Barcaldine and was dedicated on 28 October 1899.
Barcaldine was established in 1886 with the arrival of the railway, although the area had previously been settled as a pastoral district centred on Blackall. For three years Barcaldine was the railhead, bringing a large number of workers, carriers and businesses to the town. Although two blocks of land between Yew and Elm Streets were shown as church land on the first town plan, there was no church built and in 1892 the whole district was still under the care of a single priest living at Blackall. A Mission was opened in 1893 based on Longreach and the priest from this or from Springsure visited Barcaldine from time to time, using local halls for worship or visiting stations in the area. Because of the difficulty of finding priests to serve in areas away from major towns, religion had little place in everyday life.
The Brotherhood of St Andrew, known as the Bush Brothers, was established by the first Bishop of Rockhampton to address the problem of supplying pastoral care to a huge, sparsely settled and poor diocese. In 1897 he attended a conference in London for bishops serving abroad. Since 1883 a 'mission' scheme had operated in Bethnal Green, a poor part of London, and he thought of adapting this idea for Queensland. St Andrew's Mission House was set up as a base in Longreach to provide practical and spiritual support for the Brothers who travelled where they were needed and remained unmarried during their term of service. Their first charges were the towns of Aramac, Ilfracombe and Barcaldine. Some well-known Brothers served the area including the famous 'fighting parson' Rev. Frederick Hulton-Sams, known for his boxing skills. He was killed in France in 1915 when taking water to the wounded. A memorial to him and to Guy Roxby, a young Brother who died while serving the community, are in St Peter's church.
At first, services at Barcaldine were held in the court house. In 1898 a handsome bequest from England, known as the Marriott bequest, contributed £250 to the cost of a church and a committee was formed to begin the work. Plans were draw up with input from Archdeacon Halford, by Edwin Hockings of Rockhampton who had also designed the Mission House at Longreach. The cost of construction escalated as a severe fire in Longreach in October 1898 raised the demand for labour and materials. Work began in mid 1899 and the contractors for the building were Messrs. Meacham and Leyland of Barcaldine. St Peters was dedicated on 28 October, 1899, the feast of St Simon and St Jude, although the building was not quite finished. To reduce costs, the church was built in two stages. The first stage included sanctuary, chancel and a short nave. An unusual feature is the open rood screen, uncommon in Queensland churches and believed to be the only one in western part of the State.
A number of the furnishings for the new church came out from England including a lectern copied from that in Exeter Cathedral. The font was a gift of the children of Archdeacon Halford's old parish of St Peter, Yarrow-on-Tyne in England. Halford became the Bishop of Rockhampton in 1901 and was the first bishop consecrated in Queensland. The church was served by Brothers who travelled from Longreach and spent a month at a time in Barcaldine, living in the vestry and eating at the hotel.
A parish hall had been built by 1909 although church records do not record the exact date of construction. It was used between 1909 and 1911 for the privately operated Barcaldine High School, the first secondary school in western Queensland and one which catered for both boys and girls. While the venture did not last, it was succeeded by the Barcaldine Grammar School in 1915, which was run by the Church and which also used the hall for classes. The school closed in 1918 for want of a teacher, but the ideal of a church school to serve the western districts was not abandoned. In 1922, St Peter's School opened with boarding facilities for both boys and girls and an extra classroom built beside the hall. Its peak enrolment of 62 children was reached in 1923 and the school struggled financially during the hard years of the twenties finally closing in 1932. The buildings constructed for it were used during World War Two for girls evacuated from St Faith's, Yeppoon, but have not survived.
In 1913 the church was completed by extending the nave and adding a baptistery, porch and turret. At this time the church was also painted, improvements were made to the pulpit and a stained glass window was placed in the baptistery. The extension cost £400 and Meacham and Dryer were the contractors.
It was considered that the pastoral care provided by the Brothers was preparatory to the formation of a parish and in 1914 Barcaldine became a parish in its own right.
St Peter's church has associations with many local families who raised money, acted as Sunday School teachers, helped to organise events and participated in them as well as attending services. Particularly in the era before modern transport and communication made social contact easier, the church provided a social as well as a spiritual focus for its congregation and had a number of clubs to cater for different ages and interests. Events such as balls, picnics, bazaars and an annual flower show were well supported. Schemes to sustain church finances even included the purchase of cattle which were given the church registered brand and then raised on various stations in the area before being sold. An Anglican Far Western Mission was run from St Peters from 1964-1969 by Rev. Frank Neubecker who was able to visit outlying places for one week a month by flying in a light plane, named the Saint Michael.
Numbers of communicants began to fall in the 1980s, exacerbated by a downturn in the rural economy. In 1990 the church could no longer afford a parish priest and the Archdeacon came over from Longreach to hold services on a monthly basis. Worship is now led by an honorary deacon and two unordained women. Changes to the church have been minimal. A new porch and entry was constructed in 1961 and a new rectory was built in 1977.
","criteria":"St Peter's church and hall, which was also the venue for the first secondary school in western Queensland, illustrate the growth of Barcaldine and the way in which communities in the west worked to build and sustain places of worship.
|The rood screen in St Peter's church which separates nave from chancel is thought to be the only screen of its type in western Queensland.
|St Peter's Church demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional timber Gothic Revival church and retains its original furniture and fittings. The hall is also a characteristic example of a timber church hall of its era.
|St Peter's Church has aesthetic significance as a picturesque Gothic church on a prominent town site.
|St Peter's Church and hall have a strong association with the people of Barcaldine and the surrounding area for spiritual and cultural reasons having provided pastoral care and developed social contacts in the region for over a hundred years.
|As one of the earliest charges of the Bush Brotherhood, St Peter's church has a special association with the life and works of many members of that important institution.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14798,"place_ref":600023,"name":"Welford","alternate_name":"Welford Homestead | Welford Station | Welford Downs | Welford Downs Station","street_address":"Welford Homestead","suburb":"JUNDAH","lga":"BARCOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Welford is a former pastoral station located in the Welford National Park, approximately 50km southeast of Jundah in central west Queensland. Welford comprises the homestead complex, the shearing complex, and the remnants of outstations and other sites of occupation with archaeological evidence that illustrate the extent and nature of historical activities and could yield important information relating to living and working there during the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. The surrounding landscape is characterised by open red and brown earth dotted with tufty grass, mulga (Acacia aneura) and desert bloodwood (Corymbia terminalis), with gidgee (Acacia cambagei) generally concentrated along the mix of ephemeral and permanent water sources that traverse the land.
\nThe homestead complex stands on high ground overlooking Welford Waterhole about 200 metres to its south and is accessed via the Welford Homestead Road (off Jundah Quilpie Road) from the west. Welford Waterhole is part of the braided course of the Barcoo River that runs approximately east to west in this area and forms the southern boundary of the former pastoral station land holding.
\nFrom the homestead complex, the shearing complex is located approximately 2.3 kilometres to its west-northwest, the Adaford homestead site is approximately 13 kilometres to its west-southwest, the Lily Hole yards site is approximately 12 kilometres to its west-northwest, the Gap Creek hut and bore site is approximately 13.5 kilometres to its north, the Sawyer Creek hut site is approximately 27 kilometres to its north-northeast, the Sawyer Creek bore site is approximately 24.4 kilometres to its northeast, and the Stock Route yards site and Old Jedburgh homestead and yards site are approximately 19 and 22.5 kilometres to its east-northeast.
\nFeatures of Welford of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nHomestead complex
\nThe homestead complex comprises a collection of buildings and associated landscape features relating to the core occupation of the extensive former pastoral station. At the centre of the homestead complex is the residence, surrounded by its garden and mature plantings, with the meat house and shed to its west and tank stand to its south. The workers quarters, showers and workshop stand in a separate area approximately 45 metres to the north of the residence, and the former yards are located approximately 200 metres to its west. The former blacksmith’s workshop sites are located approximately 60 metres and 120 metres to the south of the residence, the former early yards site located approximately 900 metres to its northeast, and historical dump sites are located approximately 700 metres to its east near airstrip) and 350 metres to its northwest.
\nThe open space surrounding the homestead complex is uninterrupted by later development. New buildings and amenities have been added within the homestead complex that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance. They include a stone cottage (1980s), fenced pool (1984) and tennis court (earth surface, 1984) to the east of the residence; and a stone cottage (1980s) and donga (c2000) to its south, in the vicinity of the southern former blacksmith’s workshop site.
\nResidence (pisé de terre core, by 1881)
\nThe residence is a one-storey building with an L-shaped plan, comprising a rectangular pisé de terre core (by 1881) with its long elevations facing east and west, and a later extension (1989, not of state-level cultural heritage significance) joining its northwest corner. The core has a timber-framed hip roof (originally a gable roof form, rebuilt after fire, 1956) clad in corrugated metal sheets and separate, similarly-clad roofs over the verandahs that encircle it. The front (east) verandah is semi-enclosed with timber-framed gauze screens (rebuilt when verandah widened, after 1973) and overlooks a large open lawn. The rear (west) and end (north and south) verandahs are enclosed (after 1973).
\nInternally, the long, narrow core comprises three rooms and a hallway. At the northern end is the dining room, with the lounge in the middle and the main bedroom at the southern end. The hall runs east-west, between the dining room and lounge. The rooms and hall are accessed via French doors that open directly onto the enclosed verandahs, with the dining room and lounge also accessed via louvred timber dual doors to the hall. The lounge is square in plan and has a window in its western wall and a fireplace (after 1973) in its southwest corner. The northern enclosed verandah contains a kitchen, and the southern enclosed verandah contains an ensuite bathroom, utility, and storeroom.
\nThe pisé de terre walls of the core are 500mm thick and extend above the level of the verandah roofs. The walls are lightly bagged (with likely traditional lime render and/or lime wash finish) and the door and window openings are bevelled on both sides of the frames, with wide unlined thresholds and embedded timber lintels above. Rooms in the core have high ceilings and the ceilings in the verandahs are raked. Floors in the core and rear enclosed verandah are timber boards.
\nFeatures of the residence of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nResidence garden and views
\nThe residence is set within landscaped grounds, comprising open grassed areas, stone-edged garden beds, and mature trees and other plantings, that contrast with the surrounding natural landscape. The garden extents are formalised in part by stone and concrete lawn edging, and a decorative cast iron lacework fence along its southwest perimeter. Evidence of historical fence alignments and structures include trellis-framed entrances to the garden on its northern side and the remnants of a former bough shelter near the southeast corner of the residence. Access between the residence and garden is via numerous openings in the enclosed verandahs, with the screened front (east) verandah overlooking a large open lawn.
\nFeatures of the residence garden of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMeat house (c1950s)
\nThe meat house is a small, one-storey timber-framed and -clad outbuilding with a pyramid roof, standing on the western side of the residence. Square in plan, it comprises a one-room core (former butchering room) with a concrete slab floor, surrounded by overhanging eaves. It is accessed by a single door on its northern side and has screened openings above sill level for ventilation on all sides.
\nFeatures of the meat house of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nShed (c1950s)
\nThe shed is a small, one-storey timber-framed outbuilding with a skillion roof, clad in corrugated metal sheets. It stands on the western side of the residence, to the immediate north of the meat house. Rectangular in plan, it is accessed via a single door at the eastern end of its southern side.
\nFeatures of the shed of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTank stand (c1950s-60s)
\nThe tank stand is a tall, metal-framed structure supporting an elevated timber-framed tank platform topped with corrugated metal sheets, located on the southern side of the residence.
\nFeatures of the tank stand of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nWorkshop / machinery shed (c1950s-60s)
\nThe workshop / machinery shed is a large, one-storey outbuilding with a gabled roof, standing approximately 45 metres north of the residence. Rectangular in plan, with its long elevations facing north and south, it has a large opening on its southern side. The shed has a tubular metal frame, with metal open web trusses, and is clad in corrugated metal sheets. The nature of the construction of this shed’s framing and cladding is indicative of the necessity of utilising materials and techniques at hand on a remote pastoral property. A narrow concrete path runs between the shed and the residence garden to the south.
\nFeatures of the workshop / machinery shed of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nWorkers quarters (c1920s-40s) and shower block (c1940s)
\nThe workers quarters is a one-storey, timber-framed building with a transverse gable roof that continues over its front (south) and rear (north) verandahs, located approximately 20 metres west of the workshop / machinery shed. It is clad in corrugated metal sheets – predominantly standard gauge, with ripple iron on its verandah walls. Lowset, it stands on metal posts and is accessed via concrete steps. The verandahs are semi-enclosed with wire mesh on fixed timber frames. The interior comprises two rooms, each with a small window in the gable end wall and timber-boarded doors accessing both front and rear verandahs.
\nThe shower block stands approximately 10 metres north of the workers quarters, with a narrow concrete path connecting the two structures. It is a one-storey, gable-roofed outbuilding, with a timber and metal frame, clad in corrugated metal sheets. It is accessed on its western side by a single door and has timber-framed windows in its gable end walls. An elevated water tank is attached to the southern end of its eastern side. The interior comprises an open dressing area in the centre, a toilet cubicle at the northern end and a shower cubicle at the southern end. It has a concrete slab floor.
\nFeatures of the workers quarters and shower block of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRemnant built features, and known or potential archaeological evidence
\nAreas around the homestead complex where there are remnants of early built features, and other known or potential archaeological evidence that illustrate the nature and extent of historical activities and could yield important information relating to living and working at Welford include:
\nFeatures of the homestead complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of the homestead complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nShearing complex
\nThe shearing complex comprises a collection of buildings and associated landscape features relating to the annual shearing of the flock and occupation of the complex by shearing teams. At the eastern end of the complex is the shearing shed, with the sheep yards on its eastern and southern sides and fenced paddocks fanning out to the north and south (towards the riverbank). The shearers quarters and shower block stand in a separate area approximately 130 metres southwest of the shearing shed, with the toilet located approximately halfway between, and the shearers dump site is located approximately 300 metres west of the shearing shed.
\nSheep yards (c1940s-50s)
\nThe sheep yards comprise a collection of rectilinear and curved fenced enclosures and runs for organising and controlling sheep, connected to the northeast corner (sheep entry) and southeast corner (shorn sheep exit) of the shearing shed. A tank stand, sheep dip and spray race, and associated runs, are located along the western side of the yards. Larger, fenced paddocks fan out to the north and south (towards the riverbank).
\nFeatures of the sheep yards of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nShearing shed (c1940s-50s)
\nThe shearing shed is a large, one-storey, corrugated metal-clad building, with a layout of functional areas that illustrate shearing processes. It comprises a rectangular gable-roofed core, with its long sides facing north and south, and two skillion-roofed wings – one attached to the eastern end of its northern side and one centred on its southern side. Large openings, sheltered by skillion roofs, wrap around the southeast corner of the core.
\nThe eastern half of the core has a raised timber floor and contains the shearing area – sheep entered a series of holding and catch pens via the northeast corner, were shorn by shearers using one of six mechanised shears along the shearing board, and exited via chutes into runs on the southern side. The shaft-driven shearing machine was powered by an engine housed in the southern wing.
\nThe western half of the core has a concrete slab floor and contains the wool room – where the fleece was processed, graded, and pressed into bales. A later extension at the western end of the core contains the wool bale loading area. It has a dirt floor and a higher gabled roofline, supported on tubular metal web trusses, and a large loading door in its western wall.
\nNatural light and ventilation are facilitated via large openings that wrap around the southeast corner of the shearing area, and windows along the north and south walls of the wool room. Movable heritage items including several cast iron stoves and equipment associated with shearing processes, are stored in the wool room and loading area.
\nThe nature of the construction of this shed’s framing and cladding is indicative of the necessity of utilising materials and techniques at hand on a remote pastoral property.
\nFeatures of the shearing shed of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nShearers quarters, shower block and toilet (c1940s-50s)
\nThe shearers quarters is a one-storey, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad building, with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. It has a rectangular core that is oriented north-south, with verandahs attached to the northern end of its east and west sides and to its southern gable end, and a small bay projecting from its western side. The verandahs are semi-enclosed with wire mesh on fixed timber frames. Lowset, it stands on metal-clad stumps and is accessed via concrete steps.
\nThe interior accommodates individual shearer’s bedrooms at the northern end and separate cook’s bedroom in the southwest corner that are accessed via openings in the verandah walls, and kitchen, dining room and lounge at the southern end that are accessed via openings in the western side and southeast corner. The shearer’s bedrooms have windows flanking their bedroom doors. The doors and windows are timber-framed, and the timber-boarded doors are ledged and braced. The rooms have high ceilings and the walls are lined with narrow, vertical timber boards.
\nThe shower block stands approximately 10 metres south of the shearers quarters. It is a small, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad outbuilding, with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. It is entered via an opening on it northern side, and the interior comprises a wash basin area and shower cubicle with corrugated metal partitions. A metal ‘donkey’ for heating water stands to its west.
\nThe toilet block stands approximately halfway between the shearing shed and shearers quarters. It is a small, timber-framed build with a skillion roof, clad in corrugated metal sheets. It contains two cubicles, each with a timber-boarded door.
\nFeatures of the shearers quarters, shower block and toilet of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRemnant built features, and known or potential archaeological evidence
\nAreas around the shearing complex where there are remnants of early built features, and other known or potential archaeological evidence that illustrate the nature and extent of historical activities and could yield important information relating to living and working at Welford include:
\nFeatures of the shearing complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of the shearing complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nOutstations and other ruins
\nVarious outstations and other ruins are dotted across the former pastoral station. These sites retain the remnants of early built features, and other known or potential archaeological evidence relating to life at Welford from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries. These sites illustrate the nature and extent of pastoral activities and associated occupation and have the potential to contribute important information about the early and evolving history of the place, the living and working conditions of its occupants and the nature of outstation life at Welford.
\nAdaford Homestead site (built 1917 or 1918)
\nAdaford Homestead site is located approximately 700 metres north of the Barcoo River. The site comprises the remnants of a small residence (built 1917 or 1918, destroyed by fire 1925), with an associated scatter of artefacts; a dump site approximately 60 metres to its southwest, on the edge of a drainage channel; a ship’s tank and artefact scatter approximately 50 metres to its north; and the remnants of yards or stables approximately 170 metres to its north. A timber post-and-wire fence runs north to south through the site, which is located on the historical border between the Adaford and Welford Downs leaseholds (c1882).
\nLily Hole yards site (by 1908)
\nLily Hole yards site is located adjacent to the southern bank of Lily Hole, a permanent waterhole on the Barcoo River, in the vicinity of a horse paddock and yards shown on the 1909 survey plan. Square in plan, the remnant yards (by 1909) extend approximately 50 x 50 metres and comprise a functional layout of interconnected fenced enclosures and runs. The fencing around the perimeter and the larger yards on the eastern side is constructed of timber post-and-wire, and the fencing forming the curved yards and runs on the western side is metal-framed.
\nGap Creek hut (between 1919 and 1959) and bore (by 1922) site
\nGap Creek hut and bore site is located on the eastern bank of a bend in Gap Creek. The site comprises the remnants of a small residence (between 1919 and 1959), with an associated scatter of artefacts; a bore site (by 1922) approximately 60 metres to its north; a dump site approximately 100 metres to its southeast, on the side of a small gully; and the remnants of a steam engine nearby. A tall timber post (possible telegraph remnant) stands beside a small concrete pad, between the hut and bore sites.
\nSawyer Creek hut site (by 1922)
\nSawyer Creek hut site (by 1922) is located approximately 100 metres east of Sawyer Creek. The site comprises the remnants of a small residence, with an adjacent inground water tank; the remnants of a bough shelter; and an associated scatter of building materials and other artefacts.
\nSawyer Creek bore site (by 1922)
\nSawyer Creek bore site is located between two distributaries of Sawyer Creek. The bore site comprises the remnants of two inground water tanks, a windmill and associated water troughs.
\nStock Route yards site (by 1922)
\nStock Route yards site (by 1922) is located on the northern bank of the Barcoo River, approximately 300 metres west of the junction with Sawyer Creek. The historical stock route runs along the southern bank of the Barcoo River. The site comprises the remnants of two separate yards, both rectangular in plan and one larger than the other, and an associated scatter of artefacts. The larger yards are approximately 80 x 100 metres and incorporate the remnants of a bough shelter. Located approximately 70 metres to the southeast, the smaller yards are approximately 35 x 80 metres.
\nOld Jedburgh homestead (by 1909) and yards (by 1947) site
\nOld Jedburgh Homestead and yards site is located approximately 150 metres northwest of the Barcoo River. The site comprises the remnants of a residence (by 1909), with an associated scatter of artefacts; and the remnants of yards or stables (by 1947) approximately 150 metres to its southwest.
\nFeatures of the outstations not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of the outstations and other ruins not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nWelford (Welford Downs station), established in 1873,[1] is located in Welford National Park in central west Queensland. The place is important in demonstrating the pastoral development of this region from the 1870s. The homestead residence, built after January 1875 and before July 1881, is an early example of the use of pise de terre (rammed earth) construction, a common building method in western Queensland during the 19th century, due to shortage of materials, but an uncommon construction method elsewhere in the colony. Other station infrastructure and sites of historical occupation, date from the late 19th to mid-20th century.
\nThe land along the Barcoo River is part of the traditional lands of speakers of the Birriya[2] and Kungkari[3] languages, with Wangkumara and Boonthamurra country to the south. The Barcoo River provided a natural boundary. The word ‘Barcoo’ is likely a Birriya and/or Kungkari word for ‘river’.[4] Welford National Park is currently recognised as part of the traditional lands of the Bidjara People.[5] Within Welford National Park, there are numerous examples of Aboriginal cultural heritage, including ceremonial sites, artefact scatters and earthen and stone arrangements. Ceremonial sites are part of a network of significant places, including natural features, which together form a larger ritual landscape. They are visible remains of areas where important and often sacred rituals were performed.[6]
\nEuropean exploration of the Barcoo River began in the 1840s and 1850s. In 1846, Sir Thomas Mitchell explored downstream about as far as current day Isisford before turning back and naming the waterway ‘Victoria River’.[7] In the following year, Edmund Kennedy’s expedition attempted to follow Mitchell’s ‘Victoria River’ to the Gulf of Carpentaria. He received the name ‘Barcoo’ from a local man during his attempt,[8] but found that the river travelled south-west joining the Thomson River to form Cooper’s Creek (now known as Cooper Creek) and then flowed south-westerly. Both Mitchell and Kennedy described the watershed of the Barcoo favourably.[9] In 1858, Augustus Charles Gregory, while searching for Ludwig Leichhardt, crossed the Warrego and Barcoo Rivers. When unable to proceed further west because of drought, he trekked down the Barcoo River, Cooper Creek and Strzelecki Creek investigating this inland river system.[10] His description of the area, after travelling through it in extreme drought, was not as favourable as his predecessors’.[11]
\nEuropean settlement in the Barcoo River-Cooper Creek area, part of the Mitchell Pastoral District, began in the 1860s.[12] Pastoralist-explorers travelled ahead of their flocks and herds ready to take advantage of any suitable ‘unsettled’ land they found.[13] In 1861, James Thomas Allan with Ernest Davies and party left the Dawson River and travelled through the northern Warrego district to the Barcoo River. Allan’s party reached the permanent stretch of water that Mitchell had named Douglas Ponds, examined the surrounding country, then hurried back to lodge their lease applications. They became the first settlers on the Barcoo River when Allan established Mount Enniskillen and Elizabeth Creek stations,[14] while Davies occupied Northampton Downs.[15] One of the first pastoral properties established in the Isisford District was Isis Downs on the upper Barcoo River, which was established c1865 and leased from 1 January 1867 by Charles Lumley Hill, W St John Holberton and W B Allen.[16]
\nEconomic depression from 1866 almost halted pastoral expansion throughout Queensland, until reviving in the early 1870s and continuing until the mid-1880s.[17] In August 1872, the Rockhampton Bulletin newspaper reported that in the previous few months, several thousand square miles (more than 7000sq km) of country along the Barcoo River had been occupied by pastoralists.[18] One of them was Richard Welford, who had arrived in central Queensland from England in 1863. In 1871, he occupied two runs (Henley and Walton) on the north bank of the Barcoo River, approximately 80 miles (128.8km) down-river from Isis Downs. He leased three more pastoral runs in 1872 (Marlow Bridge, Mortlake and Wandsworth), each of 50 square miles (129.5km2), which together provided a frontage of 10 miles (16.1km) along the lower Barcoo River.[19]
\nIn Queensland and Australia-wide, incursion into, and occupation of, Aboriginal peoples’ lands ‒ whether by explorers, pastoralists, miners, or settlers ‒ often resulted in violent conflict, dispossession and the destruction of the traditional way of life. As European occupation of Queensland progressed from the frontier in the south east (1820s to 1840s) to the north and west in the ensuing decades of the 19th century, conflict followed on each new frontier.[20]
\nTo eliminate resistance as Europeans occupied the traditional lands of Aboriginal peoples, the Queensland Native Mounted Police (Native Police), comprising European officers and Aboriginal troopers, operated on the frontier. They ‘dispersed’ (killed) Aboriginal people purportedly in reprisal attacks for theft, killing of stock, or murder; at times assisted by colonists. Initially established in 1849 and funded by pastoralists in the Clarence River and Darling Downs districts of New South Wales, to protect their herds, flocks, property and lives, this police force continued to operate after the establishment of the Colony of Queensland in 1859. In 1864, with the commencement of the Police Act 1863, the Native Police came under the control of the Commissioner of the Queensland Police Force and continued its role into the early 20th century.[21]
\nThe Barcoo River area experienced increasing frontier conflict in the early 1870s as European settlement intensified. While, similar to many places, the number of Aboriginal people who were victims of frontier violence in the area is not recorded, a letter to the Colonial Secretary in May 1872 from Lumley Hill of Isis Downs revealed the extent of the conflict in the Barcoo area in this period. He cited eight people ‘murdered by blacks [Aboriginal people] during the last 16 months’ and compared this with the previous three years or more, when less than three such cases occurred. However, he attributed the previously lower number of incidents to the ‘active and efficient officer’[22] of the Native Police at the time, whereby ‘every case of hut robbing and sheep stealing was promptly checked and punished'.[23] Lumley Hill also intimated he had attacked Aboriginal people: ‘I really found myself compelled to take strong measures myself for the protection of my own life and property’.[24]
\nIn April 1872 Welford and his stockman, Henry Hall, were killed on Walton run, allegedly by ‘a runaway trooper from some northern detachment [of the Native Police]’[25] and local Aboriginal people. The bodies of Welford and later Hall were discovered by Welford’s friend, Edward Decimus Harries, and pastoralist, Charles Rome.[26] The deaths resulted in one or more punitive reprisals against local Aboriginal people by the Native Police, who were stationed approximately 60 miles (96.6km) from Isis Downs, accompanied by European settlers.[27] Harries accompanied the Native Police tracking the Aboriginal people from Welford’s property to their camp southeast of the Barcoo River, described as ‘near the [Cheviot] range up Powell’s Creek’, where they found one of Welford’s horses hobbled and also found ‘one gun that had been carried about 10 miles’.[28] Harries also stated in 1910 that the former Native Police trooper implicated in the murder was found dead in Sedan waterhole [south of the Barcoo River] and it ‘was supposed afterwards he was killed by the blacks [Aboriginal people] themselves’.[29] The Aboriginal population in the area was markedly reduced by the early 1880s.[30] Welford’s grave is located on the south (left) bank of the Barcoo River, on land that is not part of Welford National Park.[31]
\nDying intestate, Welford’s runs, stock and personal effects were sold at public auction on 12 August 1872. The leases and 290 head of cattle were purchased by Thomas and Charles Rome, of Northampton Downs station on the Upper Barcoo.[32] In the same month, the Rome brothers applied for an occupation lease for Welford Downs run (named after Welford), which was located downstream from and adjacent to Welford’s Henley run.[33]
\nA few years later, the Rome brothers offered Welford Downs station for sale. Advertisements in January 1875 show that Welford Downs station comprised 16 runs totalling 841 square miles (2178.18km2) that were operated together as a cattle property.[34] At this time, the improvements on Welford Downs were: ‘a good house (stone), horse yard, new stock yard…also horse paddock one (1) mile square, nearly finished’.[35] In April 1875, the Rome brothers withdrew Welford Downs station from sale,[36] but sold some of the station’s runs – Marlow Bridge, Mortlake and Wandsworth – to David McConnel of Cressbrook.[37] Also in 1875, Thomas and Charles Rome subdivided Welford Downs run into Welford Downs and Welford Downs South; the former on the north (right) bank of the Barcoo River and the latter on the south bank.[38]
\nIn July 1881 Welford Downs station was widely advertised for sale as ‘magnificent sheep country’.[39] The listed improvements included the first reference to its pisé de terre homestead house:
\nAt the Welford Head Station, which overlooks a splendid sheet of water, is a large well-built Pisé house, with detached kitchens, complete out offices, bachelor’s quarters, store, men’s huts, blacksmith’s forge, large stockyards and three horse paddocks.[40]
\nPisé de terre (or pisé) is an ancient building method in which loam mud (earth of low clay content) is rammed into a temporary formwork to create rock-like walls.[41] Compacting earth in this manner forces soil particles together so they ‘adhere to each other due to molecular and capillary forces and form a hard mass. Conventionally no additives or strengthening fibres are used [as] in most cases the earth contains sufficient natural moisture to ensure adequate compaction’.[42]
\nThis method was traditionally used in many Mediterranean and Near Eastern countries and Zhejiang Province of China. The use of pisé in more recent times is mainly attributed to its ‘rediscovery’ in France during the mid-18th century. This building method was used in England from about 1787 and in the USA from about 1810-15. In Australia, its use is traced back to the 1820s in Tasmania and examples of the construction method are found in most Australian colonies.[43] Pisé is one of three types of earthen building construction in Australia from the colonial period, the others being mud brick (adobe) and cob.
\nThe advantages of this style of building are its utilisation of an available building material (earth) in an environment lacking conventional materials; its durability in arid conditions;[44] its regulation of interior temperatures in a climate of extremes providing ‘coolness in summer and warmth in winter’;[45] and its ease of construction.[46]
\nAlthough not widely used across Queensland, construction of buildings using pisé was common during the colonial period in western Queensland, where building materials were limited. A variety of pisé buildings were constructed there during this period, but most have not survived.[47]
\nThere are five known extant colonial pisé buildings in Queensland: Welford Homestead residence (constructed after January 1875 and before July 1881); the original Boorara Homestead residence, Hungerford (1866);[48] Ray Homestead residence, Eromanga (1885);[49] Boorara Homestead residence, Hungerford (1880s);[50] and Bedourie Pisé House (QHR650098; 1896). In addition, there may be another nine extant pisé buildings, the status of which has not been confirmed for more than 30 years.[51]
\nCharles Rome, who had become the sole lessee of Welford Downs during 1882,[52] sold Welford Downs and Sedan stations in September 1882 to Cudmore, Swan and Co (comprising South Australia-based partners James Frances Cudmore, William Robert Swan and others). At the time, these stations totalled about 1000 square miles (2590km2); plus 14,000 cattle, 220 horses, plant, and all improvements.[53] A photograph of Welford homestead taken in the 1880s shows the pisé residence with a steeply pitched gabled roof and French doors opening onto its open-sided, skillion-roofed verandahs. A stone kitchen building stood to the rear (west).[54]
\nOrganisational change in the pastoral industry was underway during the 1880s as companies replaced pastoralists as lessees[55] and amalgamated vast pastoral holdings. Welford was joined with Cudmore, Swan and Co’s existing holdings: Gooyea run (later renamed Milo), east of the Barcoo River, and the adjoining run, Tintinchilla,[56] to form a combined property of 5100sq miles (13,209km2).
\nAs Cudmore had overextended himself financially by buying Welford Downs, he needed additional partners.[57] An offshoot company of Cudmore, Swan & Co, namely, Elder, Pegler & Co was formed in 1882 to work Gooyea and Welford Downs with cattle.[58] These companies amalgamated in 1886 to form Milo & Welford Downs Pastoral Company, which comprised the shareholders of the two parent companies.[59] Cudmore’s new partners insisted that Milo and Welford Downs change from cattle to wool production, which required expensive improvements.[60]
\nIn moving to wool production, the new company followed the trend of rapid expansion of sheep-raising in Queensland during the 1880s, which resulted in wool becoming Queensland’s most important export by pound (£) value, between 1887 and 1899.[61] The Mitchell, Maranoa and Warrego pastoral districts grew to account for 50% of the colony’s flock, while the Mitchell pastoral district’s percentage of the Queensland flock rose from 4% in 1870 to 38% by 1892.[62]
\nHowever, wool producers in Queensland faced many difficulties from the 1880s and into the early 20th century. Between 1884 and 1886 wool prices fell and drought occurred. From the late 1880s, rabbits emerged as another threat, reducing the wool clip.[63] The relatively low wool prices of the 1880s, combined with adverse seasons, increased the indebtedness of pastoralists.[64] By 1886 Cudmore’s debts exceeded £200,000 necessitating transfer of his interest in Milo and Welford Downs to Sir Thomas Elder, Robert Barr Smith, William Robert Swan and Augustus Henry Pegler in 1888; and removing him from the partnership. Subsequently, in 1889, the lease was transferred to Elder, Smith and Swan.[65]
\nFrom 1890 to 1915, the Queensland government resumed land from large pastoral leaseholds to create smaller landholdings, adding another economic pressure for existing leaseholders.[66] In 1893, Welford Downs station lost 642.25sq miles (1663.42km2) to resumption and consolidated its 46 runs into a single run comprising 1900 square miles (4121km2).[67]
\nDue to low wool prices after 1893 and economic depression, further re-organisation of pastoral holdings occurred from 1896, with many pastoral properties repossessed by their mortgagees; turning banks and pastoral finance companies into major property owners.[68] The surviving companies, such as Milo & Welford Pastoral Company, became owners of a large proportion of Queensland.[69] In 1900, the company converted into the limited liability company, Milo & Welford Downs Pastoral Company Ltd, with capital of £187,613 held in £1 shares and leases comprising 4343.25sq miles (11,249km2).[70]
\nMeanwhile, the Federation Drought between 1898 and 1905, which was severe throughout western Queensland caused large losses. For Milo & Welford Downs Pastoral Company, the seven years of drought cost about £173,000 in stock losses, as well as large sums expended on horse feed and the destruction of wild dogs and rabbits.[71]
\nNevertheless, by 1912, the Mitchell, Maranoa and Warrego pastoral districts had recovered from the drought and were carrying two thirds of the Queensland sheep population. Wool returned to its former position as Queensland’s biggest export commodity by value after gold production fell from its peak between 1900 and 1904. Wool production in Queensland peaked in 1909 at £4.8million in exports, climbing to more than £5.2 million in 1913.[72] In that year, the Mitchell pastoral district carried by far the largest percentage (38%) of Queensland’s sheep population.[73]
\nFurther resumptions of Welford Downs station took place during the first half of the 20th century after survey for this purpose in 1909. The resultant mapping showed Welford homestead with: a building immediately west of the residence (most likely its stone kitchen); station buildings between the house and its permanent waterhole (Welford Waterhole) to its south; an ‘Old Garden’ and an ‘Old Whip’ (a simple type of crane) on the north bank of the waterhole. All these features were located within a large, wire-fenced, horse paddock that also enclosed most of the waterhole. Situated to the homestead’s northeast, adjacent to, and south of, the east-west stock route, were cattle yards.[74]
\nIn 1910, resumption of Welford Downs station occurred. Milo & Welford Downs Pastoral Company Ltd surrendered the existing Welford Downs lease to the Crown and was granted a new lease for a reduced holding of 2800sq miles (7252km2) until 31 December 1944. Under the terms of this new lease 700sq miles (1813km2) were resumed in 1918 and a further 450sq miles (1165.5km2) were resumed in 1925.[75]
\nMilo & Welford Downs Pastoral Company sold Welford Downs to the Button brothers (Mervyn Percy, Thomas Cecil and Leslie Moreton) in 1918.[76] By 1921 the Button brothers owned Adaford, Welford Downs, Corrib and Achill on the Barcoo River. Welford Downs remained leased and managed by their descendants until 1991.[77]
\nAfter enduring adverse conditions between 1913 and 1937-38, Queensland’s pastoral industry experienced its greatest boom for decades immediately after World War II. The industry’s share of Queensland’s total production, rose from 22% in 1945 to 42% in 1950 (it had not comprised more than 40% of the total since 1918), reaching its post-war pinnacle during the ‘wool boom’ of 1950. Afterwards, production fell progressively, and over the next 20 years wool prices generally declined until 1970-71.[78]
\nThe shearing shed located approximately 2.3 kilometres northwest of the Welford homestead is noted on survey plans by 1969, and archaeological evidence indicates the complex was in use from the late 1940s.[79] On wool-producing pastoral properties, the provision of accommodation for seasonal workers during the shearing season was a necessity. Shearers' quarters were built to varying standards all over Queensland from the 1840s. The Shearer's and Sugar Worker's Act 1905 was the first Queensland legislation to prescribe minimum standards for ‘proper and sufficient' seasonal worker's housing. The Workers' Accommodation Act 1915 and subsequent amendments extended these provisions. Requirements for quarters included a location away from other buildings used for pastoral purposes, suitable building materials, provision of a verandah, sleeping rooms for workers of a minimum size and height, and separate kitchen, dining room and cook's quarters.[80]
\nAfter World War II, reduction in the size of Welford Downs and a change of ownership occurred again. At the beginning of 1951 a further resumption of 152.25sq miles (394.3km2) by the Queensland Government occurred when the lease was re-issued, leaving the area at 2490sq miles (6449km2).[81] In 1964, Welford Downs was purchased by Thomas Cecil Button’s grandsons, Ron and Ian Button, from T C Button’s children: Viv Button, Joy Garde, Jeff Button and Jean Poole.[82] Between 1964 and 1971 Ron Button managed Welford Downs, followed by Ian Button as manager from 1971.[83]
\nA number of changes to the homestead took place during the second half of the 20th century. After the homestead was damaged by fire in 1956, its roof was replaced with a flatter hip roof.[84] The old stone kitchen was demolished, most likely in 1963, after heavy rains made it unsafe.[85]
\nThe pastoral sector received a brief respite from the competition from synthetic fibres in 1972 and 1973, but its recorded share of total production fell throughout most of the 1970s.[86] In 1974, a minimum reserve price was introduced to provide growers with a guaranteed minimum price for their wool. The Australian Wool Corporation (AWC), purchased all wool not meeting minimum reserve price at auction. During the 1980s exceptional seasons and high demand led to wool production increasing to over 1000 million kilograms and the reserve price increased from 640 cents per kilogram to 870 cents/kg. Loss of sales led to the eventual demise of this system in the early 1990s.[87]
\nAerial and other photography undertaken in 1973 showed the evolution of the homestead complex since 1909. A kitchen wing extended west from the northern end of the western wall of the homestead residence, replacing the earlier stone kitchen. The residence was protected on three sides (north, south and west) by medium to large trees, while on the east stood a fenced garden with lawns and shrubs. The verandahs encircling the residence had timber floors and were semi-enclosed with timber-framed mesh screens. At the residence’s southwest corner stood a rainwater tank on a stand. A meat house and a skillion-roofed shed were located nearby. The early station buildings such as the blacksmith workshop had been removed; replaced by a workshop/machinery shed running east-west, fuel store, worker accommodation and a shower block, all located north of the homestead residence. An east-west runway was sited west of the homestead complex.[88]
\nDuring the 1980s, the guest cottage and school were constructed of stone and gidgee, while in 1984, a swimming pool and tennis court were installed at the homestead complex.[89] In 1989, major renovations to the residence commenced with a new wing including three bedrooms added.[90] The verandahs on the northern, western, and southern sides of the pisé de terre core were enclosed and clad in chamferboards, with timber-framed doors and windows that, like the exterior of the new wing, mimicked traditional detail. New amenities included a bathroom in the former southern verandah and a kitchen in the former northern verandah, both with slate tile floors. The eastern verandah was widened and enclosed with new timber-framed gauze screens, and the floor tiled.
\nMore land was added to the property in 1987 when the owners, Ron and Ian Button purchased the lease of the adjoining station operated by Jedburgh Pastoral Holding.[91] This large property included the land fronting the Barcoo River originally leased by Richard Welford as Walton and Henley runs.
\nIn 1991 the Queensland Government resumed Welford Downs for a national park. Welford National Park, comprising approximately 124,000ha, was gazetted on 30 April 1993.[92]
\nIn 2023, Welford homestead complex includes: the early pisé de terre residence (constructed between 1875-1881), which is used for national parks management purposes; a meat house (c1950s); a skillion-roofed shed (c1950s); water tank stand (c1950s-60s); and swimming pool (1984), tennis court (1984), all within a garden setting including mature trees and lawn. North of the homestead residence is a transverse-gable, timber workers dwelling (c1920s-40s); shower block (c1940s); a workshop/machinery shed (c1950s-60s; and extended eastward after 1973); a stone (eastern) cottage (1980s); a stone (southern) cottage/school house (1980s). South of the homestead residence are the stone remnants of the former blacksmith’s workshop site (forge by 1881). An airstrip with an east-west runway, constructed after 1969 and by 1973, is sited about 200m northwest of the homestead residence.[93]
\nMore features exist at a distance from the homestead complex. About 2.3km west are a shearing shed with yards, including a sheep dip and a spray race (erected after 1909 and before 1969) and with associated shearers’ quarters, former meat house, shower block and toilet (after 1909).[94] A former polocrosse ground/complex (c1972) is located approximately 8km west of the homestead complex. In 2011 this was described as having ‘collapsed horse yards, loading ramp, bough shed bar, timber log seats and corrugated iron toilet, near the Jundah-Quilpie Road on the northern bank of the Barcoo River’.[95]
\nAt more distant locations throughout the national park, are remnants of the property’s pastoral function over more than a century. These include four former dwellings: Old Jedburgh Homestead ruins (by 1909), Sawyer Creek Hut ruins (1922/1947), Gap Creek Bore Hut ruin (between 1919 and 1959), Adaford Homestead site (built 1917 or 1918, destroyed by fire 1925);[96] four stockyard remnants: Lily Hole (by 1908), Welford Homestead old yards (by 1909), stock route yards (by 1922), and yards near Old Jedburgh Homestead ruins (by 1947); two old water bores: Gap Creek (by 1922), Sawyer Creek (by 1922); windmills; three former rubbish dump sites: former homestead west (now air strip; late C19th-); former homestead east (c1940s/1950s-), shearing complex (1945-); livestock fences and dog netting; remnant machinery; and the headstone and grave of Jedburgh overseer, James Andrew Roberton (born c1885, died 1910; location unknown).[97]
\nIn 2023, Welford homestead complex continues to serve as a Ranger station used by Parks for management of Welford National Park.
\n","criteria":"
Welford (established early 1870s) is important in demonstrating the pattern of colonial occupation and settlement of central west Queensland by pastoralists and its subsequent development into one of Queensland’s most important wool producing regions. Comprising an early homestead complex, an associated shearing complex, and the remnants of outstations and other sites of historical occupation, the place in its layout and fabric illustrates the extent and nature of activities undertaken there from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.
\nWelford homestead residence (1875-1881), of pisé de terre (rammed earth) construction, is important in illustrating an early response to the environment by settlers, through use of a building method that utilised available materials and was suited to western Queensland’s arid climate.
|Welford homestead residence is a highly intact 19th century pisé de terre building, a form that was common in western Queensland but uncommon elsewhere in the colony, and is now rare. The house is one of only five known surviving 19th century pisé buildings in Queensland.
|Welford contains archaeological evidence that can contribute to our understanding of the life and work of central west Queensland pastoralists. Due to the age and extent of the site, Welford has the potential to provide information on the early history of the place, including early interactions between First Nations Peoples and settlers, those who lived and worked there, the nature of outstation life, and pastoral practices over time. The site contains the remains of outstations, hut sites and buildings, yards, bores, blacksmith’s workshop sites, as well as dump sites and artefact scatters, which date from the early phase of European occupation at Welford. Welford homestead residence also has the potential to contribute significantly to our understanding of the pisé de terre construction method as a rare and early example of this construction technique in Queensland.
|Welford homestead complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early and evolving pastoral homestead complex in Queensland. Built as the head station of a large run in proximity to a permanent water source, the intact homestead complex retains its 19th century residence, garden with mature trees and other plantings, workers quarters, various associated outbuildings and ancillary structures, yards and fences. The relationships between these features contributes to an understanding of pastoral station life.
\nWelford homestead residence is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of 19th century pisé de terre construction in Queensland. A rare surviving example of this building method, it retains its use of locally sourced material (earth) compacted to form thick rock-like walls.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14800,"place_ref":600025,"name":"Springsure Hospital Museum","alternate_name":"Springsure Hospital","street_address":"13 Woodbine Street","suburb":"SPRINGSURE","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Springsure Hospital, now the Springsure Hospital Museum, is situated at 13 Woodbine Street, Springsure, located adjacent to the present Springsure Hospital. The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a Queensland hospital in that it stands on elevated ground away from the town centre. The Victorian Georgian style building is substantially intact and is comprised of a single storey brick building with an attached timber annex.
The main brick building constructed c. 1868 comprises two sections. The western section is the former six-bed ward designed on the pavilion plan. Offices and a storeroom are located within the eastern section and a verandah extends the full lengths of the main elevation, the western elevation and part of the northern elevation. The building is constructed of locally manufactured bricks in English Bond style with stonework forming the foundations beneath floor level. The stonework of the foundations has been used to level the floor of the main building, as there is a fall in slope to the west; the eastern section of the building is at ground level, the western section is on timber stumps.
The main room that is the former ward area demonstrates the principles of the pavilion design with its promotion of sanitation and cross-ventilation. The ward is designed to accommodate six beds of single depth against the walls each bed would have had a French door between it and the next bed. There are three French doors, each with a window above on each of the southern and northern elevations, each of the doors opening to the verandah. The building has three fireplaces, a feature that is rare for Central Queensland. Two of the fireplaces are in the ward, the third in the former office.
The eastern section of the main building comprises two rooms on the south and two small rooms with an open passage between on the northern side. A modern toilet is located on the northern verandah. Quoins are a feature of the main building on the western side and sash windows feature flat arches and keystones. Gothic style scalloped timber bargeboards decorate the steeply pitched roof of the main building; the roofline over the verandahs is a less steep pitch, the entire roof being of corrugated iron overlying well preserved wooden shingles.
The annex is situated immediately to the west of the main building and is of two rooms with a verandah along the eastern elevation with a decorative spandrel along its western edge. The timber-framed building weatherboard clad and roofed with corrugated iron features external framing on the southern and eastern elevation.
The grounds in front of the complex are landscaped with native shrub and trees.
","history":"The Springsure Hospital was constructed in c1868, as a response to the needs of the local community.
In 1844 Leichhardt traversed an area to the east of what is now Springsure, naming the Expedition Range, Albinia Downs and Comet Creek as he went. Some two years later Major Mitchell entered the area and named further features in the classical style (such as Salvator Rosa) while the following year Leichhardt attempted to explore the area again but was forced back by floodwaters.
While the Leichhardt Pastoral District was officially opened up to settlement on 10 January 1854, William Landsborough subsequently in 1858 explored the Comet River through to the area that is now Springsure.
In 1863 surveyor Charles Gregory laid out the plan for Springsure, the town reserve taking in an area of 50 square miles centred on the springs of Springsure Creek. As pastoral enterprises proved successful, more and more settlers streamed into the area and by the time the 1864 census was taken the Springsure Police District recorded a total of 720 persons, 619 of them male, with only 34 of the 720 people actually residing in the township of Springsure. By the late 1860s it became apparent that a hospital was needed in the district.
The Springsure Hospital was erected c1868 as a response to needs of the local community who set up a committee of volunteers to manage the project. The hospital was to be run by governors, each governor to subscribe a minimum of one pound per year towards the running of the hospital. From those subscribers, a committee responsible for the affairs of the hospital was to be elected, the committee to be comprised of a president, a secretary and other officers. On 7 October 1868, William Henry Hinton, Louis Meyer and George Pultney Malcolm Murray were appointed trustees. Patients able to pay for their treatment would be required to do so whereas those unable to afford treatment would receive the medical care required regardless.
In 1868, the hospital was opened. Its feature characteristics were those of the pavilion plan, a plan first designed and implemented in France in the mid 19th century. The Lariboisiere Hospital had opened in Paris in 1854. Following promotion of the pavilion plan by Florence Nightingale who recognised its advantages for the recovery of soldiers suffering from the effects of the Crimean War, almost all hospitals constructed in Queensland in the 1860-1880 period were built to incorporate the features of the pavilion plan.
The principal design characteristics of the pavilion plan were to provide good ventilation and sanitation for the benefit and recovery of patients. The Springsure Hospital was no exception and today is the oldest surviving hospital constructed on the pavilion plan in Queensland and is the first hospital constructed in inland Queensland.
The hospital was erected as a small cottage type hospital that incorporated the pavilion plan ward with other facilities including an office, surgery, dispensary and a store within the one main building. At its inception the hospital comprised a brick building with a shingle roof with its main section housing a ward that accommodated six beds. To promote cross ventilation, French doors were located along the northern and southern sides of the main ward, with a verandah encircling three sides of the ward. Each of the beds was positioned between each set of French doors to ensure that the patients were afforded adequate ventilation.
Initially a husband and wife team, Thomas and Ellen Cahill were appointed as wardsman and matron and continued in these positions until the mid 1870s.
In 1871 the census for the Springsure Police District recorded 1098 people, 370 of whom were residing in the township of Springsure. In that year the doctor treated a total of 48 cases and the government 'helped out' with a contribution of £300. Accordingly in the 1870s the hospital was expanded to meet the growing needs of the community with an extra ward added in 1879 to bring the number of beds to seventeen. The central Board of Health requested that the Hospital Board appoint a health officer at its own expense but the Board refused stating that a health officer was unnecessary as Springsure was a healthy and well-drained district.
When banks crashed in the 1890s the Hospital Board had its money locked up and as a result was forced to arrange overdraft. Despite this by 1897 the Hospital Board was in a position to employ its first trained nurse, Miss Alice Kemp and in 1900 as a response to a Central government requirement that Boards take positive action Dr Neilson was appointed health officer at a cost of £25. Despite the hospital having been in operation since the late 1860s it was not until 1902 that the deeds to the land were received.
The 1884 Health Act made local governments responsible for the treatment of infectious disease, mainly because of the "miasma" theory of disease transmission, which blamed infectious diseases on noxious vapours arising from poor sanitation and bad drainage - both local government responsibilities. This also gave Councils responsibility for inoculations such as the program organised by the Bauhinia Shire Council in response to the 1919 flu epidemic. Councils were also expected to provide hospital wards for the treatment of infectious diseases. In 1920 the Bauhinia Council provided £200 to the hospital to make improvements to the isolation ward.
Expansion continued apace with the erection of separate staff quarters in 1914. Improvements to the district's health services continued throughout the 1920s with establishment of an ambulance brigade and with Miss Hammond opening Westray as maternity home in 1921. As part of a statewide response by the government to the Maternity Act 1922 and as existing facilities were becoming less than adequate, in 1924 the State Government constructed a maternity ward at the Springsure Hospital. In 1925 a new complex housing wards and a kitchen was constructed adjacent to the 1868 brick building. Although the State Government was providing some health facilities for the Springsure community, in 1923 local authorities were expected to meet some of the shortfall between income and expenditure for their local hospitals through precepts, such as the £100 provided in 1924 by the Bauhinia Shire Council. The Council continued to take responsibility for inoculation campaigns, providing diphtheria inoculations for the community free of charge in 1931. . Local government responsibility for hospital finances only ceased after the Hospitals Act of 1945.
When the depression affected the financial status of the hospital to the point where it was likely to close a public meeting was called to make arrangements for a further input of voluntary contributions. Strong hostility towards the possibility that the hospital could come under the control of the state in the late 1930s instigated the Bauhinia Council to pledge a £400 per annum to ensure that the hospital continued to be maintained under the voluntary system
When a new hospital was constructed in 1938 the former hospital building was used for recreation and as a dance hall for the nurses. During the 1970s new staff quarters were erected and in the 1980s when the original brick building was identified as being surplus to the needs of the Hospital Board the site was subdivided. A reserve was created comprising the 1868 building and the adjacent 19th century timber annex. The Bauhinia Shire Council was appointed trustee. Restoration work was undertaken in 1988 and on 19 August 1989, the Honourable Mike Ahern MLA, Premier and Treasurer of Queensland opened the Springsure Hospital Museum. The Museum is furnished to resemble an early rural hospital; it has a collection of medical equipment, photographs and other records.
In 2004-2005 the Springsure Hospital Museum is closed to the general public for safety reasons.
","criteria":"Erected c1868, the former Springsure Hospital is important in demonstrating the development of health facilities in 19th century Queensland. The hospital was erected as a local initiative and managed by a voluntary committee. The building is significant in that it illustrates the rapidity with which the principles of the pavilion plan were adopted in Queensland. The first hospital constructed to the pavilion plan had only opened in Paris in 1854. The plan had only become widely accepted in Britain in the mid 1860s following the efforts of Florence Nightingale and others to promote the advantages that the plan incorporated for the sick.
|The former Springsure Hospital is significant as a rare surviving example of a hospital complex erected in the 19th century. Of more than 90 public hospitals erected in Queensland in the 19th century, only ten buildings are known to survive. Within this group, the former Springsure Hospital complex is the only example of a small cottage type hospital that combined a small pavilion ward with other facilities in the one main building. Not only is the former Springsure Hospital the first inland hospital constructed in Queensland it is also Queensland's oldest surviving hospital designed on the pavilion plan. While an extensive number of pavilion plan hospitals were constructed, few have survived development in the 20th and 21st centuries.
|With its verandah encircling three sides of the main ward and with French doors to the northern and southern sides of the building, creating cross ventilation, the former Springsure Hospital is significant as a good example of the pavilion plan design which aimed to promote cross ventilation and sanitation for the benefit and recovery of patients. Not only does the hospital incorporate the latest hospital design of its time it was also adapted to take into account the climatic conditions of inland central Queensland.
|The former Springsure Hospital, now the Springsure Hospital Museum, is valued by the community for the role it played in the establishment of health services and in the provision of medical training facilities. The site is important to the people of Springsure and surrounding area for its role as the principal site of public health care, the birth, life and death of the people of the area and in providing recreational facilities following its decommissioning as a hospital. Such facilities were valued not only for their functional role in caring for the sick, but also as symbols of progress and as evidence of civilising forces at work.
The former Springsure Hospital is valued by the community as one of the earliest surviving buildings in the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14801,"place_ref":600026,"name":"Old Rainworth Stone Store","alternate_name":"Rainworth Head Station Store | Old Rainworth Fort","street_address":"Wealwandangie Road","suburb":"SPRINGSURE","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Old Rainworth Stone Store is located on Burnside approximately 10 kilometres by road from Springsure. It is accessed by travelling south along the Dawson Highway towards Rolleston for approximately 8 kilometres then taking the Wealwandangie Road for a further 2 kilometres.
The Old Rainworth Stone Store has undergone partial reconstruction. It is a single-storey structure with a corrugated iron broken hipped roof with a U-shaped verandah encircling the entire western elevation and part of the southern and northern elevations. Constructed of locally quarried basalt, the stones are mortared with a pise of calcified basalt that comes from beneath the black soils of the district The building contains six rooms, a cellar and a loft. The unlined walls vary in thickness from 35 to 45 centimetres.
The main room on the western side of the building is accessed through double timber doors made of diagonal boards, and which have original fittings. The main room has a timber floor and windows. The timber frame of an interior partition wall with a connecting doorway remains. From the main room a set of timber stairs lead to the loft. The treads are narrow (13 centimetres) and there are no risers. A recent handrail of debarked bush timber has been installed for safety purposes. The loft has a timber floor.
The encircling verandah has stone flooring and a set of timber stairs lead from the western side down to a cellar. The cellar walls and floor are of stone and several vents are set into the walls.
The eastern section of the building is comprised of three rooms. The walls and flooring of each of the end rooms are of stone while the centre room has an earthen floor with an exterior wall of horizontal slab timbers.
To the south west of the building are the remains of what appears to have been an arbor; this is constructed of debarked bush timbers. Immediately to the west of this is the site of the former Rainworth Homestead. No surface remains are apparent.
","history":"The Rainworth store is a single-storeyed, rectangular stone structure built in 1862 for Jesse Gregson as a storehouse on Rainworth Station in the Diamantina district of Queensland. It was built adjacent to Rainworth Creek, close to the boundary of Rainworth and Cairdbeign and is now part of the Old Rainworth Fort Tourist Complex on Wealwandangie Road, about 8 kilometres from Springsure.
In 1844 Leichhardt explored an area to the east of what is now the township of Springsure, naming the Expedition Range, Albinia Downs and Comet Creek. In 1846 Major Mitchell travelled through the area and in 1847 Leichhardt attempted to explore the area again, but was forced back by floodwaters.
While the Leichhardt Pastoral District was officially opened to settlement on 10 January 1854, it was only after William Landsborough explored the Springsure area in 1858 that pastoralists began to take up runs in the vicinity.
Following a reconnaissance into the Leichhardt Pastoral District in late 1860 by Queensland's Surveyor-General Augustus Charles Gregory and William Kellman, the flat-topped hill south of present day Springsure was named Rainworth. Gregory subsequently took up a number of leases in the district, paying the rent on Wallaroo, Norwood, Emu Plains, Osmondthorpe and Yarra No.2 in March 1861. Gregory did not hold these leases for long, and in September 1862 the rents were paid by lessees Jesse Gregson and Alexander and William Busby, who called the combined runs Rainworth Station.
While travelling out to Sydney from England in the mid-1850s, one of Jesse Gregson's fellow passengers was Alexander Busby, who invited Gregson to visit him at Llangollen Station near Cassilis. Failing to find work in Sydney, Gregson took up Busby's offer and soon gained employment at Collaroy, a nearby property, where he learnt stock management and was appointed head overseer by 1858. In May 1860, as Busby's partner, he overlanded 5,000 sheep to a new station in Queensland, which he named Rainworth, near the future town of Springsure. By June 1861 Jesse Gregson was living on the property as manager and was in partnership with Alex and William Busby as lessees. Gregson described the run in his diaries:
I made my head station and called it Rainworth after the hill on the opposite side of the creek. It was a lovely tract of open country. A little creek fed by a stream flowed southerly to join Cona Creek. There was sparse timber, a stunted Downs box in patches all around, which without diminishing the open character of the country added to its beauty. Down the valley were clumps of tea tree scrub here and there. Opposite was the strikingly picturesque hill which Gregory had named Rainworth and which some seven or eight hundred feet above the level of the adjacent country. Behind our camp was another isolate hill called Mt Cassilis, the distance between the two hills being perhaps one and a half miles.
Rainworth Head Station was established on the Norwood East run, just north of the boundary with Cairdbeign Station and west/northwest of Rainworth Hill. At that time the Cairdbeign-Wealandangie Road to Springsure passed through the property, and the head station was established near where this road crossed Rainworth Creek. The first head station buildings were constructed of timber.
On 17 October 1861, a few months after Gregson had taken up occupancy at Rainworth, the local Kari people attacked the nearby pastoral property of Cullin-la-ringo. In that attack 19 people, including women and children, were killed. Of the 22 people on Cullin-la-Ringo that day three survived: a station hand and two shepherds. Edward Kenny, one of the surviving shepherds, rode to Jesse Gregson at Rainworth to raise the alarm and to seek help. Within days the former owner of Cullin-la-ringo, PE MacDonald, accompanied by a troop of Native Mounted Police, led reprisal attacks against the Kari people.
Construction began on a stone store at Rainworth in 1862, following the Cullin-la-ringo massacre. Its primary function was as a defensible storehouse. The builder was an Englishman, George Goldring, who with his son had arrived at Rainworth in 1862, and was employed initially as a bookkeeper. He left Rainworth in 1868.
To construct the store, Goldring burned lime, made bricks and collected basalt boulders. He bound the walls with a mortar mix of sand, lime and a holding element obtained from crushing calcified basalt. It is believed that the roof was clad with galvanised iron, which was amongst the earliest use of this material in the district. The Rainworth Store is the only known stone building erected by Golding in Queensland.
By 1867 Gregson had established the necessary plant and buildings at Rainworth. In that year he entered into a new seven year partnership with the Busbys and commenced fencing 20,000 acres of Rainworth land using wire, which he claimed was the first use of wire fencing in the district.
Jesse Gregson contributed significantly to the development of the Springsure district. He served as postmaster for the district until January 1864, when a post office was opened at the town of Springsure, surveyed in 1863. He was a member of the Springsure Road Trust, praised in 1864 by the Engineer of Roads in the Northern District, Frederick Byerley, for completing the work on their section of the Rockhampton to Springsure road within cost. At Cairdbeign on 4 January 1865, a meeting of prominent landholders Archibald Buchanan, Robert Patton, William Thomson, Peter McIntosh and Jesse Gregson decided to form a local agricultural society to improve the quality of livestock.. Gregson was the inaugural Secretary of the Society.
In 1874 Alexander Busby, who was on the board of the Australian Agricultural Company, one of the largest pastoral and mining companies in Australia, recommended Gregson for the position of Company Superintendent. Gregson left Rainworth to take up this position, which he held from 1875 to 1905.
After the Gregson family left Rainworth in 1874, the property was offered for sale but there were no buyers and James Nesbit was appointed the manager. From 1862 the partners had held a mortgage with The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney and the lease was transferred to the Bank on 1 June 1877.
Government land policy at this period encouraged the resumption of large pastoral leaseholds for closer subdivision, but existing lessees could apply for pre-emptive selection as freehold, to protect improvements such as head station homesteads and shearing sheds. In November 1877 the Rainworth Head Station blocks, on Portions 1 and 1A, parish of Rainworth, county of Denison, were surveyed as pre-emptive selections. At this time improvements on portion 1A, which contained the head station buildings, totalled £2,836/15/- and comprised: a ten-roomed house of wood/weatherboard and shingles ('W & S'), valued at £750; a kitchen building with bath and saddle rooms, valued at £250; a stone store with cellars, granaries, meat rooms and dairy, valued at £1200; a number of slab and iron huts valued at £100; yards and 1 mile of 2 and 3 rail fencing, valued at £130; a water race and garden valued at £250; and 4.75 miles of 6 wire fencing valued at £156/15/-. The property was still operating as a sheep station, with lamb folds established close to the head station buildings.
Deeds of grant for portion 1A (containing the head station buildings) and portion 1 were issued to the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney in September 1878 and April 1880 respectively. In May 1888 title was transferred to Francis Hamilton Beadon Turner, who also acquired the lease of the consolidated Rainworth holding. It appears that until 1919 the lessees of Rainworth Station also owned the freehold of the Rainworth Head Station.
Title to the head station freehold passed to Dalgety & Company in 1904, then to Francis Bayntun Starky (grazier of Sydney) and Prosper Charles Trebeck (Stock & Station Agent of Sydney) in 1912.
Alexander McLaughlin (grazier of Burnside near Springsure) acquired the Rainworth Head Station freehold in 1919, and the property has been owned by his descendants ever since. It appears that from this time the freehold was known as Old Rainworth.
In 1940 Alexander McLaughlin divided his holdings amongst his children. Two of his granddaughters inherited Burnside and in 1973 purchased Old Rainworth. The McLaughlin sisters, concerned about the deterioration of the old stone store and wanting to restore and conserve its heritage, established a Committee for the Preservation of Old Rainworth Fort. Stonemason Gino Sandrin was employed in 1981 to restore the building. He used original stones that he shaped, using cement to help hold them in place.
In April 1980 the National Trust Journal described the Old Rainworth Stone Store. Constructed of local material, the bluestone walls were held together with a mortar of clay and the external walls with a mix of clay and limestone. It was single-storeyed with a loft and a cellar. The building appeared to have been constructed in two stages, the inner rectangular section first with the surrounding outer walls added later. It was rectangular in plan with a perimeter verandah. Originally the shorter sides of the rectangle were stone, however, weathering had caused these external walls to collapse. Windows and doors were timber framed and suspended floors were of cypress with massive log bearers. A timber framed calico partition created a main room. The stone store measured approximately 17 by 14 metres with the stone walls about 300 to 400 mm in thickness. The roof was corrugated iron.
In 1987 the Old Cairdbeign homestead, constructed in the 1870s, was demolished and re-erected at Old Rainworth, which was being developed as an historical tourist complex. Springsure timber worker Robert Young re-built the homestead between 18 July and 31 October 1987.
Archibald Buchanan was the first owner of Cairdbeign and his was the first homestead built on Rainworth Creek. By 1881 the head station had been moved about 20 kilometres southeast of Rainworth and a new large slab house of seven rooms erected, using some timber from a barn at the former head station on the creek. Some of these slabs with joggles cut for holding benches can still be seen in the old Cairdbeign homestead at the Rainworth historical tourist complex.
The former Cairdbeign School also has been relocated to Old Rainworth.
Neither Cairdbeign Homestead nor the Cairdbeign School are considered to be of state-level cultural heritage significance.
Old Rainworth now functions as a tourist facility and has a special association for tourists and visiting school children.
","criteria":"The Old Rainworth Stone Store illustrates the pattern of early non-indigenous settlement in Queensland, where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. Because of the distance of Rainworth Station from a major settlement, lessee Jesse Gregson had the stone building erected in 1862 to store and protect supplies brought twice a year from Rockhampton. Its construction illustrates the need on pastoral properties for the provision of adequate storage facilities in harsh climatic conditions remote from the source of supply.
|The Rainworth Stone Store is a rare surviving mid-19th century stone building constructed for the purpose of storing provisions for lengthy periods. In addition, comparatively few stores on pastoral properties were constructed in stone in Queensland at this period.
|The Rainworth Stone Store is a rare surviving mid-19th century stone structure in Queensland, which has the potential, through physical investigation and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of stone buildings of this period, way of life on a pastoral property in a remote area, and about the people who erected such buildings.Archaeological deposits associated with the former homestead have the potential to contribute information on the lifeways of an operative pastoral property of the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century.
|The Rainworth Stone Store remains substantially intact and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a fortified store on a remote and early pastoral property. These characteristics include the use of traditional European building techniques combined with local materials with inherent insulation qualities.
|Rainworth Stone Store is an asset valued by the community as one of the earliest surviving buildings in the area and for its connections with the past. Forming part of a tourist attraction, Rainworth Stone Store is recognised as a significant part of the history of the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14802,"place_ref":600027,"name":"Nindooinbah Homestead","alternate_name":"Nindooinbah House | Nindooinbah","street_address":"Nindooinbah Connection Road","suburb":"NINDOOINBAH","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Nindooinbah house, located in extensive gardens on a rural property, has distant views to the southeast across a lagoon and valley towards the surrounding hills. Buildings and structures related to the pastoral activities of the property are located to the northwest of the house.
A single-storeyed timber construction set on low timber stumps, the house is clad in wide chamferboards and has painted corrugated iron roofs. It has an E-shaped plan consisting of three rectangular wings around a northwest courtyard and a central entry porch. A timber pergola leads to the semi-enclosed entry porch which adjoins the verandah. Most rooms are accessed from the continuous verandah through wide french doors.
The original L-shaped building now forms the eastern corner of the house and contains the main bedroom and attached bathroom, drawing room, smaller bedrooms and the 'telephone' room, once the original dining room. The 1906 addition copies many of the details of the original house including balustrading and external wall cladding.
The northeast wing contains bedrooms and bathrooms. The addition is clearly separated from the original house by a corridor that links the courtyard verandah with the northeast verandah. The southeast wing, facing the garden and the view, houses the original drawing room and dining room and the new dining room, guest room and toilets. The Dods' designed dining room, adjacent to the 1858 building, has features not found elsewhere in the house; silky oak panelling, a vaulted ornamental plaster ceiling, bay windows protruding onto the verandah and other decorative details including an inscription over the fireplace. The guest room, next to the dining room, has original carpets, wallpapers, fabrics and furniture made from a bunya pine felled to make way for the extension. The south west wing, narrower than the other two wings with a verandah only on the courtyard side, contains the kitchen, ancillary rooms and servants quarters. A bedroom has been built into the northern corner of the verandah.
The roof of the house, hipped at the eastern and southern corners, is terminated by a double gable on the northern corner and a single gable on the western corner. The gables are decorated with oval shaped ventilation panels. Three brick chimney stacks protrude above the roof.
The large gardens and sweeping lawns that surround the house, based on the original planting schemes, are a mixture of a formal and picturesque layout. Avenues of palms mark paths to the house and specimen trees such as figs and bunya pines frame distant views. Formal flower beds are planted close to the house on the southeast and northwest sides. The garden contains a tennis court, fish pond and various pavilions. These include recent additions of a studio on the knoll in front of the house, once a cottage attached to the managers house, a tea house built over a new pond to the south of the house and a new fernery replacing a demolished bush house near the pond. The kitchen gardens, greenhouse, laundry and water tanks are on the southwest side of the house adjacent to the service wing. The boundaries of the garden are marked by a timber fence and elaborate timber gateways that show the influence of the fashionable taste for chinoiserie.
Buildings related to the pastoral and agricultural activities of the property are located outside the formal gardens. These include a single-storeyed timber manager's house, storage sheds, an old timber wool shed, the remains of a stable and butchers shop and associated machinery and timber cattle and horse yards. A residence located beside the entry to the property is a single-storeyed weatherboard building with enclosed verandahs on three sides.
The wool shed is a single-storeyed building, clad in weatherboards and set on timber stumps. The large hipped roofed central space or nave has attached skillion roofed wings on three sides. Beneath the corrugated iron roof are remains of the earlier shingled roof. In the northwest part of the building are remnants of the original slatted timber floor. Most of the space under the skillions has been converted into bedrooms and a dining room lined with tongue-in-groove boards. The northern end of the building has subsided and parts of the fabric are in poor condition.
The house, especially the fragile interiors and furnishings are remarkably intact. The garden is well maintained. Outbuildings related to the activities of the property continue to be used and maintained.
","history":"The first stage of this one-storeyed timber house was L-shaped and built about 1860. After extensions by Robin Dods in 1906-7 the house was E-shaped. The homestead included a woolshed, stables, quarters and other out buildings and yards.
In 1842 Paul and Clement Lawless held the depasturing license for Nindooinbah. They sold it to Alfred William Compigne in 1847 when the run was about 16 square miles (41.44 square kilometres) and carried over 4,000 sheep.
In 1858 Compigne purchased, by pre-emptive right, 640 acres (259 hectares). He used his lease holdings and freehold land to raise large mortgages and with some security of tenure, it is probable that the L-shaped homestead and outbuildings were constructed about this period.
Compigne was a member of the first legislative council and at the time of his death in 1909 was the last remaining original member of the council.
In 1862 Robert Towns held the mortgage for Nindooinbah and in 1867 he foreclosed on Compigne and soon after sold Nindooinbah to William Duckett White whose son Ernest was living on the property. At this stage the house was valued at £2,000 and there was £1,000 of improvements.
In 1901 William Collins, son of John Collins of Mundoolum, renewed his Nindooinbah lease. William and his bride honeymooned in Japan and on their return took up residence at Nindooinbah, though the house was in a very dilapidated state. Collins purchased the property, in 1906, and employed the eminent Brisbane architect, Robin Dods, to extend the house. His alteration were sympathetic to the original house, he changed the french doors and added an en-suite to the master bedroom but altered little else. In 1918 the entrance porch was extended.
The detached kitchen was moved about 1906 and became the gate house. Adjacent to the house are bush houses and fernery. A bamboo bush house was demolished in the 1950s though the irrigation system that feeds water from the laundry to it remains. A play house built in the 1950s has been adapted for use as a garage.
About 1984 a Japanese tea house in a man-made lagoon was constructed, the house repainted externally and much of the Edwardian garden designed by Dods replanted. The gardens include a grotto, tennis court, and garden sheds.
Other buildings on site but beyond the homes enclosing fence includes an artists studio and flag pole, the managers house, garages, men's quarters, woolshed, cattle yards and remains of the stables, butchers shop, cold-room and icemaking room.
The woolshed was built as a permanent structure by 1857. It probably included shearers quarters and a dining room. From about 1863, the weather and other factors led most of the local squatters to utilise their runs for depasturing cattle rather than sheep, hence the woolshed has been used as men's quarters and storage for many years.
Of the original local squatter homesteads only Nindooinbah and Mundoolum remain and both have been and remain the homes of the Collins family or their descendants. The woolshed is probably one of the oldest in Queensland and its quality and intactness make it very rare.
","criteria":"Nindooinbah House is an example of a homestead as country residence displaying the changing affluent lifestyle and tastes of the squattocracy.
|Nindooinbah House is an example of rare surviving fabric of an 1850s squatter dwelling and woolshed.
|The sheds, out buildings and other remains provide evidence of the continuing pastoral and agricultural activities of the property.
|Nindooinbah House is significant for the superbly maintained gardens, which are an accomplished design, providing an appropriate setting for the house in the landscape.
|Adding to the significance of Nindooinbah House is the intactness of the interior, including furniture and fittings, and the high quality of the materials, craftsmanship and detailing of the house.
|The property has associations with squatters AW Compigne, R Towns, WD and E White and the Collins family.
|It is an important example of the work of the architect RS Dods, which demonstrates his skill in adapting an older building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14803,"place_ref":600028,"name":"Beaudesert War Memorial","alternate_name":"War Memorial Beaudesert","street_address":"William Street","suburb":"BEAUDESERT","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated on a traffic island in the intersection of Brisbane and William Streets in the centre of Beaudesert. The island is enclosed by a fence comprising rough-cut porphyry blocks, margined and chiselled, with pyramidal tops. These are linked by decorative metal chains. A narrow garden bed is located outside the fence line.
The sandstone memorial stands 33 feet high and comprises a substantial pedestal surmounted by a digger statue and an obelisk. Sandstone lions on rough-cut porphyry bases are located at two corners of the triangle, facing outwards. In front of the east facing lion is a metal drinking fountain.
The monument sits on a sloping rough-cut step with a flat top plate with semi-circular edges. Surmounting this is a smooth-faced step with chamfered top, above which is the pedestal dado. This is smooth-faced, rectangular in plan and divided into five bays of equal height and varying width. The end and central bays project outward, with the central bay of the front face projecting further to form a pedestal for the digger statue. The whole of the pedestal is capped by a shallow cornice.
The front face of the pedestal dado displays marble plates bearing the leaded names of the local men who served in the First World War. Additional plates bear the names of those who died in the Second World War, creating a total of 557 names. Small bronze plaques attached to the second step commemorate the Malayan, Korean, Borneo and Vietnam conflicts. The foundation stone is located on the lower section of the rear central bay.
Surmounting the front central bay is a life-sized digger statue. He stands completely at ease, with his collar unbuttoned and a pipe in his right hand. The left hand holds a rifle which is slung over the left shoulder. He is described as 'just released from duty'.
The digger statue stands in front of an obelisk which rises from a smooth-faced square plinth with a shallow cornice. On either side of the plinth rest stylised scrolls with bronze AIF badges on the front faces. The obelisk tapers sharply to a pyramidal apex and has bronze wreaths positioned on each face. Below the wreath on the front face, the words THE GREAT WAR 1916 TO 1919 appear in bronze.
","history":"The Beaudesert War Memorial was erected between 1919 and 1921. It was designed by Standard Masonry Works of Melbourne and constructed under the supervision of Brisbane architect, A H Conrad. The stone memorial records the names of the 524 local men who enlisted during the First World War, including the 91 who died as well as the names of those who died in the Second World War. It cost £1,340 and was the fourth most expensive memorial in Queensland.
The cost of the monument and the number of enlistments is reflective of the strong patriotism of the district. The number of enlistments is above both the state and national averages and the cost is comparatively high for a rural district.
The memorial is situated on a triangular piece of land at the centre to town. This site was originally part of William Duckett White and George Robinson's Beaudesert Run and was at the intersection formed where the roads from Nindooinbah (QHR 600027), Telemon and Kerry Stations met the Brisbane Road. Beaudesert was one of the few private Queensland towns. It was never gazetted, and buildings were erected before surveying and subdivision occurred. This corner site has always been triangular in form.
By 1908 the site was a fenced grass enclosure on a road reserve and in about 1913 a tree was planted on the site, in honour of William Tutin Walker, a local businessman. Walker arrived in the district in 1865 and established a sugar plantation with Captain Robert Towns. He became an important member of the community, sitting on both the Divisional Board and the local Council.
In May 1918 a public meeting was held and the Beaudesert and District Soldiers' Memorial Fund Committee was formed to raise money for the construction of a district war memorial.
The committee acquired the use of the triangular site from the Council in 1918 and arranged for the Walker tree to be moved. By February 1919, £786 had been subscribed and design tenders were advertised in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne papers.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The design for the Beaudesert memorial was open to a nation-wide competition. Brisbane architect A H Conrad of Atkinson and Conrad was employed to examine the designs and supervise the memorial's erection. The designs were also subject to public scrutiny.
Arnold Henry Conrad was born in Melbourne in 1887. He came to Queensland and worked for the Government as a draftsman and architect. In 1918 he entered a partnership with Henry Atkinson which continued in various forms until 1939. It is not known to what extent he contributed to the design of the Beaudesert War Memorial, although it is known that he made slight alterations.
The successful design was submitted by Standard Masonry Works of Melbourne however they were not able to carry out the construction and in June 1920 Brisbane masons W E Parsons accepted the construction tender.
On 10 December 1919, the foundation stone was laid by the Mayoress of Beaudesert, Mrs H L McDonald and the completed work was unveiled by the Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan on 28 September 1921. A flagpole, trench mortar and field gun were subsequently installed but the military hardware disappeared during the Second World War. Since 1922 plaques for ensuing military conflicts have been added.
The site is regarded as a reserve and in 1925 three trustees were appointed, the Mayor of the Town of Beaudesert and the Chairmen of Beaudesert and Tambourine Shire Councils. In 1953 the Beaudesert Shire Council was appointed the Trustee and has been responsible for the maintenance of the memorial since.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|This particular memorial is also of aesthetic significance, as one of the most elaborately and unusually designed monuments in Queensland still surviving in its intact surrounds. It is of uncommonly large scale and forms a dominant landmark within the townscape
|Erected between 1919 and 1921, the memorial at Beaudesert demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland although the digger is unusual as it is portrayed in an unusually relaxed stance.
|This particular memorial is also of aesthetic significance, as one of the most elaborately and unusually designed monuments in Queensland still surviving in its intact surrounds. It is of uncommonly large scale and forms a dominant landmark within the townscape.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and with monumental mason W E Parsons as a good example of his work.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and with monumental mason W E Parsons as a good example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14805,"place_ref":600030,"name":"All Saints Memorial Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Tamrookum Church Road","suburb":"TAMROOKUM","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single storeyed timber chapel, located on a hill with views to the surrounding countryside, is situated in well maintained grounds containing mature trees, flower gardens and a cemetery. The entry to the site is through a heavy timber gateway hung with double timber entry gates.
The building, a traditional latin cross plan, has a hardwood frame set on a concrete base and is clad in oiled hardwood weatherboards. The construction is characterised by the use of massive timber structural elements and delicate detailing. The steep concrete tiled gable roof consists of a main roof over the nave and chancel and smaller gables over the transepts and the two entry porches.
These entry porches are located at the western end of the northern and southern elevations and are linked to the transept by narrow verandahs. Two additional entries, accessed via the verandah, open into the transepts. Verandah posts and balustrades are simple sturdy timbers adorned by an undulating timber beam. The beam is positioned below the top plate and supported on splayed brackets attached to the verandah posts. Decorative timberwork on the verandahs and the gable ends is painted white providing a strong contrast to the dark walls and the plain form of the roof.
At the western end, the roof, extended to cover the verandah, dominates the low walls. An effect that is emphasised by the low head height of timber casement windows on the north, south and west elevations. On the eastern end the roof steps back, stained glass windows are placed high in the eastern facade and the wall appears tall relative to the roof.
At the entry porches steps that are cut into the concrete base lead to double timber doors opening onto the north and south sides of the entry vestibule. This vestibule, an extension of the nave, is separated from it by an ornamental timber screen. Decorative timber screens also define the entries from the transept into the nave. The interior of the church, furnished with the original timber pews, is lined with unpainted cedar and has a coloured concrete floor. The raked timber lined ceiling, truncated at the peak, is supported on timber trusses that are a combination of a queen and king post system. The bottom chord of the trusses is a heavy tie beam supported on timber wall brackets.
The interior is dimly lit through domestic scaled casement windows with diamond patterned glazing bars and green glass. The only natural light that falls from above, illuminating the ceiling space, is through the stained glass windows behind the altar. The altar and altar screen positioned against the rear wall of the chancel are on a raised floor behind an ornamental timber rail. Rooms in the transepts contain disused rainwater tanks.
North of the building is a rectangular fenced area that contains the tombstones of the Collins family. The most prominent of these, a centrally located cross on a pedestal, is that of RM Collins and his immediate family. The fence is wire mesh on a pipe frame sitting on a concrete upstand with gates located under arched trellises. The burial area of locals and friends of the family consists of 4 rows of graves situated in the lawn adjacent to the western boundary of the grounds. Monuments are in good condition.
The grounds are bounded by a timber post and rail fence. A caretaker's cottage and outbuildings are located to the east, just outside the fence. The building and grounds are in excellent condition.
","history":"This family owned timber church designed by RS Dods, was erected by August 1915 when it was dedicated by the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, St Clair Donaldson, in memory of Robert Martin Collins (1843-1913).
The first Tamrookum squatter was John Campbell and the lessee from 1848 was William Barker. In 1872 he paid £325 for portion 343 and was issued with a Deed of Grant for 1,000 acres (404.69 hectares) which included the homestead (demolished in 1931) and church site.
Pastoralist John Collins of Mundoolum, acquired the land in 1878 and in 1879 his eldest son Robert Martin Collins took up residence after his marriage to Arabella Smyth. RM Collins became the owner in 1886.
RM Collins and his brothers established vast pastoral interests in Queensland and the Northern Territory. He was a founding partner in the North Australian Pastoral Company and a pioneer of the frozen meat industry. He was a parliamentarian from 1896 to 1913 and was responsible for the establishment of Lamington National Park, proclaimed in 1915 after his death.
The site for the church and family graves overlooking Tamrookum homestead was selected by RM Collins just prior to his death. The church was built for RM Collins family at a cost of £2,098, by William Bywater of Brisbane. The sand, gravel and stone used to construct the 3 foot foundation wall came from the property as did all the timber except for that employed for the pews and altar triptych.
This church includes many memorial gifts such as the triptych, carved altar rails, fonts and communion utensils. The stained glass windows were designed by English church architect, Sir Richard Lorimer, and made by Una Adamson.
The double entrance gates hewn by broadaxe, the flagpole and sundial all come from the homestead which was demolished when Arabella Collins died. The yards and some of Tamrookum's outbuildings remain.
Electricity probably replaced gas for illumination during the 1950s. The original split shingle roof was replaced by tiles in 1964. A plaque, the gift of the Queensland Women's Historical Association, giving a brief history of the church was unveiled in 1967.
The grounds include two burial areas. The oldest contains graves for station employees, family friends and locals. The other burial area is the family enclosure and RM Collins was the first to be buried here. The oldest monuments are Susan Goodwin's (1895) a servant, Grenville Arthur Kingsley (1898) son of novelist Charles Kingsley and friend of RM Collins and the grave of Constable George Doyle and Albert Dahlke, an employee, who were killed by the Kenniff brothers in 1902.
A section of the back row in the older area contains unmarked graves for non-europeans including the 1913 grave of Salingo, a Kanaka, and the graves of William (1928) and Emily Williams (1927), local aborigines employed by the Collins. A memorial stone (1991) that names the William's descendants is located outside the nearby Tamrookum Memorial Hall.
The timber chapels at Yandilla and Cressbrook (QHR 600503) and the stone St John the Evangelist at Mundoolum are the only remaining privately owned Anglican churches in Queensland. Both St Johns and All Saints are memorial churches and both Cressbrook and All Saints are Dods designs.
","criteria":"The commemorative structures in both the church and cemetery add to the significance of All Saints Memorial Church.
|All Saints Memorial Church is significant due to the landmark quality of the gardens and the siting of the chapel and is a rare example of a privately owned chapel.
|All Saints Memorial Church is an important work of significant Australian architect RS Dods, demonstrating his skill at designing in timber and his personal style.
|The accomplished design, the high quality of the materials and workmanship and inventive detailing combine to produce a unique aesthetic achievement.
All Saints Memorial Church is significant due to the landmark quality of the gardens and the siting of the chapel and is a rare example of a privately owned chapel.
The quality of the stained glass work and association with R Lorimer and U Adamson contribute to the significance of the All Saints Memorial Church.
|The accomplished design, the high quality of the materials and workmanship and inventive detailing combine to produce a unique aesthetic achievement.
|All Saints Memorial Church is significant due to its close association with the Collins family and RM Collins.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14806,"place_ref":600031,"name":"Deep Creek Railway Bridge, Chowey","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mungar - Monto Line","suburb":"DEGILBO","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Deep Creek bridge is a concrete viaduct with an 80 foot (24.4m) concrete arch flanked by two smaller 15 foot (4.6m) arches, with the track run on sleepers and ballast in a trough. It has the date of construction, 1905, cast into the sides.
- Embankment.
- 1x15 foot (4.6m) concrete arch, ballasted top, concrete abutment, common concrete abutment.
- 1x80 foot (24.4m) concrete arch with 4x15 foot (4.6m) spandrel arches, ballasted top, common concrete abutments.
- 1x15 foot (4.6m) concrete arch, ballasted top, concrete abutments, common concrete abutment.
","history":"The Mungar - Gayndah Branch was built only as far as Degilbo before the financial depression of the early 1890s halted the rail construction program. Construction resumed in 1905 under the Railway Department's day labour program. William Pagan was Chief Engineer at the time. Construction began on the Degilbo to Wetheron extension in February 1905. William Pagan inspected the extent of the construction and preparatory work on the Deep Creek bridge in March 1905. The bridge was completed and the line opened by 21 December 1905. Pagan described the bridge in his annual report for that year as "a concrete bridge of somewhat novel design".
The bridge represented a substantial development in concrete arch bridge design. It followed the 33 foot spans used in Swansons Bridge on the Main Line near Toowoomba and the 47 foot span at Petrie Terrace road overbridge. It was followed by two substantial concrete arch bridges on the Main Line near Lockyer.
","criteria":"This concrete arch bridge has the third longest span of its type in Queensland and was the third bridge of its type to be constructed in Australia. The bridge frames the rocky valley of the creek and its innovative design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan.
|This concrete arch bridge has the third longest span of its type in Queensland and was the third bridge of its type to be constructed in Australia.
|The bridge frames the rocky valley of the creek and its innovative design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan.
|The bridge frames the rocky valley of the creek and its innovative design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14807,"place_ref":600032,"name":"Blackall Masonic Temple","alternate_name":"Lodge on Hawthorn | Blackall Masonic Temple","street_address":"Hawthorn Street","suburb":"BLACKALL","lga":"BLACKALL-TAMBO REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Blackall Masonic Lodge is located in the centre of a level site at the corner of Hawthorn and Garden Streets. Its axis runs east west and it faces west and is parallel to Garden Street. It has a rectangular plan form and is two storeyed and supported on timber stumps. It has a gabled roof with a verandah on the north, west and east sides supported by 4" chamfered timber posts at 6' 0" centres. Bougainvillea are located on the north and south sides and at the south west corner of the site. The boundary fence consists of short tubular posts with chain suspended between, this replaced an earlier timber and chain wire fence. The original single rolled steel entrance gate which was located on the axis of the building in Hawthorne Street has been replaced with a set of low double gates which have maintained the rolled steel beehive pattern. What appear to be original gate posts have been relocated inside this gate.
The ground floor walls rise to approximately 15' 0" and have an exposed frame 4" x 2" stud wall at 18" centres. Above this and the verandah the upper level is clad in horizontal mini profile corrugated galvanised iron and above this the gables have rusticated boards. Three double hung windows are located in west and north elevations and there are four windows in the south elevation. Each of these have quadrant form hoods in galvanised iron. The roof and verandah are clad in corrugated galvanised iron. A narrow timber stair runs from the upper level across the back of the building.
The building is entered via a set of double timber doors centrally located in the west elevation and accentuated by a steep pitched verandah gable over. The entrance opens into a hall that contains a half turn timber stair with landings that rises to the temple on the upper floor. To the south of the entrance is a store room and to the east is the supper room entered through a set of timber double doors. Symmetrically located each side of the supper room are french doors that open out onto the north and south verandahs. The floors are 6" tongue and grooved timber boards. The walls to the supper room are horizontal beaded boards and the ceiling is the exposed heavy joists of the upper floor with hearing bone strutting.
The stair leads to a landing at the upper floor, off this to the south is a dressing room and to the east is the temple which is accessed through a single timber door. The walls of the temple are lined in horizontal beaded boards. The ceiling is lined in the same material and follows the rafter line to the level of the collar ties and is horizontal from this point. The space is painted in the traditional light blue. The furnishing within the temple consist of side benches for the brethren with a raised dais at the east end which has a shallow curved front with a centrally located Masters chair and a number of bentwood chairs either side. Further to the sides are more substantial chairs to accommodate the immediate Past Master and visiting Masters. Immediately in front of the Master is the altar and to the left is the Secretary/Treasurer. Forward of this is seating for the Senior and Junior Deacons and on the left hand side seating for the Senior and Junior Wardens. At the opposite end of the temple is the Tilers chair and forward of this is the black and white tiled square and siting on this is the ceremonial tripod supporting a pulley and stone block.
","history":"The Masonic temple is the second temple in and around Blackall and was completed in 1908.
Freemasonry spread from New South Wales into Queensland in individual lodges. The first Freemason's lodge in Queensland was established in 1859, shortly before Separation from New South Wales. New lodges were formed as settlement spread.
Blackall was surveyed and gazetted as a town in 1868. It served as a commercial and social centre for pastoral stations in the surrounding area and was the major western town until eclipsed by Barcaldine, which was founded to serve the terminus of the Central Railway in 1886.
Freemasonry was established in Blackall in May 1887 when a group of seven masons met at the Methodist Church, whose Minister was a Freemason, in order to found a lodge. By the end of the year there were 32 members. The first candidate initiated, James McKenzie, provided a brick building in Short Street to be used as a temple. This was used until 1905-6 when the owner required the building for other purposes. It was demolished in 1958.
For a time, the lodge then met at the former Government Lands Office, but this was not convenient and it was decided to construct a new building. A.E. Hewer, R.E. Burton and J.H. Hart donated an acre of land in Hawthorne Street and a two storey building was erected on it. Furniture which is still in use was donated by A.H. Whittingham. The new building was dedicated on 3 August 1908 and cost £1603 including the supply of gas and running water.
Members of the lodge were mainly prominent townsmen and managers and overseers from outlying stations such as Mt Marlow, Northampton, Emmet Downs, Terrick Terrick, Ravensbourne and Bloomfield. Attendance at lodge meetings was a major undertaking for many members who had to travel great distances, often over poor or non-existent roads. The fellowship associated with Freemasonry was very important to men living in areas of isolated or scattered settlement or in jobs which were itinerant or seasonal. Lodges hosted social events, contributed to local charities and provided opportunities for local businessmen to meet socially, all of which made an important contribution to the life the town.
The temple has remained much as it was when constructed, although new gates and posts were installed in 1987.
","criteria":"The Masonic temple is important in demonstrating the development of Blackall in the nineteenth century and the spread of Freemasonry through Queensland in the wake of European settlement.
|The Blackall temple is important as a characteristic and intact example of a regional timber Masonic temple, a category of building prominent in the streetscape and important in the social life of many country towns.
|The Blackall temple is important as a characteristic and intact example of a regional timber Masonic temple, a category of building prominent in the streetscape and important in the social life of many country towns.
|The Masonic temple, Blackall, has a special association with those Freemasons living in and around Blackall and with the Freemasonry movement as an early temple in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14808,"place_ref":600033,"name":"Blackall Woolscour","alternate_name":"Woolscour Blackall","street_address":"4km northeast of Blackall","suburb":"BLACKALL","lga":"BLACKALL-TAMBO REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located in a rural setting approximately 4km north-northeast of Blackall on the eastern side of the railway line, the woolscour complex consists of a number of timber framed corrugated iron sheds, varying in size and complexity and serviced by an artesian bore, settling ponds, a railway spur line and sheepyards.
The major structures are the centrally positioned main building where the shearing, scouring and associated processes took place, an adjacent wool storage shed situated on the western side of the main building, extensive sheepyards adjoining the northeast corner of the main building and a dispersed group of accommodation and service buildings located about 100m to the southeast of the central group of buildings.
The main building, a large L-shaped conglomeration, is comprised of a series of attached sheds with timber trussed gable roofs. These sheds form a sequence of spaces through which the wool passed, beginning on the sheep's back in the northeast corner and ending in the southwest part of the building as baled wool. Areas associated with the successive phases of the wool processing, the shearing, classing, scouring and drying and pressing, are defined by changes in floor level and separate roofs.
The largest space, a long rectangular skylit shed, contains machinery and equipment for scouring, fellmongering and drying and a small office in the southwestern corner. To the east of this space, at the northern end, are the classing area and adjoining shearing board. These three attached sheds form the triple gable of the northern facade. The raised timber floor of the shearing board which is reached from the sheepyards by a timber ramp, steps down gradually to an earth floor in the scouring area.
On the southeast side of the main building, the inside corner of the L, are a number of ancillary structures. These include a free standing gable roofed work area and attached to the eastern wall of the scouring shed, a blacksmith's room, an engine room and a roofed area associated with the boilers. Further to the east is a large ash heap and the remnants of a trolley way, once used to cart timber to the boilers.
At the southern end of the scouring area is the only two storeyed part of the complex. Roughly square in plan it consists of an upper level wool room; a central open space bounded on the east and west by individual compartments; and an open plan lower level containing a wool press. A timber loading platform is located just outside between the western wall of the two storeyed section and the railway spur line. The spur line runs through the centre of the complex between the wool storage shed, a rectangular building with a double gable roof supported by rows of columns and the main building.
The scour buildings contain extensive machinery and equipment, including steam engines, boilers, cast iron tanks, dryers, wool presses, and a complex system of belts, pulleys and shafts.
The group of smaller scale buildings to the south east of the main building is comprised of a kitchen, shearer's quarters, toilet block, shower block and meat preparation shed. Excepting for the meat preparation shed which is a square planned, hipped roof enclosure, these buildings have simple gable roofs. The shearer's quarters has a verandah on the western side. The kitchen has attached skillion roofed spaces on the northern and eastern sides. A water tank and stand is located beside the shower block.
A shallow pitched corrugated iron roof on timber posts situated just south of the main building, shelters the head of the artesian bore and the generating plant. Bore water which falls into an adjacent settling pond is distributed via a series of drains.
A fuel depot, an elevated timber and corrugated iron shed, is sited southwest of the main complex where the spurline rejoins the railway line.
The former manager's residence, a single-storeyed gable roofed timber building with skillion roofed verandahs, is located on a nearby property, to the west of the railway line. The front verandah has wide overhangs and is enclosed with insect screens. A number of structures are attached to the rear verandah, the largest being a gable roofed wing with verandah.
Nearly all of the structures associated with the Blackall Woolscour remain largely as built in their original position. The building fabric shows signs of age and wear including the accumulation of dust and lanolin, the effects of weathering and some decay of structural elements.
","history":"The Blackall Woolscour, a collection of large sheds containing shearing and scouring equipment built for the Blackall Proprietary Woolscouring Company, commenced operations in 1908 at a cost of about £20 000. Situated 4km outside Blackall adjacent to the newly opened railway line the scour continued to operate until its closure in 1978.
Wool scouring, one of the methods for cleaning impurities from wool after shearing, began as an alternative to sheep washing in Australia in the 1840s and had almost replaced it by the 1890s. Initially scouring was done by manual methods such as pot and stick or hand box, but by the early 1890s steam driven mechanised scouring dominated the industry.
In Australia the large mechanical scours were generally located in the major urban centres. Western Queensland was the exception with the construction of mechanical scouring plants in Charleville, Barcaldine, Ilfracombe, Blackall, Longreach, Winton, Julia Creek, Richmond, Maxwelton and Alba near Hughenden between the late 1890s and the early 1920s. Of these Blackall scour is the only one to remain intact and was the last to cease operating.
Scouring, probably using the hand box method, began in Blackall in 1893 when
WH Banks established a scour near the town bore. Operations were transferred in 1900, after disputes with the town council over water leases, to Duneira, Banks's property.
Construction of the railway line to Blackall began in 1905. The same year the Blackall Proprietary Woolscour Co. was founded by five members of the local grazing and business community with JH Hart as chairman and in December tenders were advertised for the sinking of a bore "not more than three miles from the township of Blackall". The scouring and shearing shed was erected by Renshaw and Ricketts, Rockhampton builders, using hoop pine from Maryborough.
The plant, offered for sale in 1913, was acquired by Western Queensland Meat Export Co. The Melbourne based company which already owned a boiling down works and a wool scour in Barcaldine made progressive improvements and modifications to the machinery to increase the efficiency of the scour and therefore its capacity, more than doubling the 1913 output by 1918 to 7640 bales, the largest output in its history. The years of peak production were 1916 to 1920. Business declined in the 1920s with other scours in the region closing temporarily or permanently. The general management of the scour was overseen by AM Ferguson from 1913 until his death in 1933. Members of the Ferguson family continued to manage the complex until 1957.
WQMEC continued to operate the scour, mostly at a profit, until 1964 when it was sold to K Austin of Glencoe Station. In 1974 CF Thomas Pty Ltd bought the scour and it was closed in 1978 after a storm caused damage to the boiler. Subsidiary activities of the scour included fellmongering, the removal of wool from dead sheep skins; selling petrol for the C.O.R. Company and farming in the 1950s. Shearing was also carried out as a separate activity and wool could be classed and pressed without being scoured. The shearing board is still in use.
In 1988 Blackall Shire Council took out a 99 year lease. The site has since been subdivided to allow the Historic Woolscour Association to purchase most of the buildings and a substantial amount of associated property. The wool storage shed, on an adjoining property, is currently used by a pet food manufacturer. The bore remains the property of R Politch.
","criteria":"The Blackall Woolscour is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history being part of a once flourishing secondary industry which developed in western Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th century in conjunction with the spread of the railway.
|The place demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage (i) as the only known surviving example of an early 20th century mechanised woolscour in Australia; (ii) for the unusual intactness in an early 20th century rural industrial complex of machinery and equipment which is still substantially in situ.
|The Blackall Woolscour demonstrates the principal characteristics of mechanised woolscours in western Queensland including: (i) an abundant supply of bore water; (ii) the rural setting adjacent to the railway line; and (iii) the dispersed character of the complex with large scale central buildings and scattered outbuildings.
|The Blackall Woolscour exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community including:
\n(i) the evocative character of the buildings, machinery and setting due to the intactness of the site, the extensive use of timber and iron construction and the visible effects of age and use on the building fabric;
\n(ii) the contrast between the simple utilitarian building forms set in an open landscape and the complex internal arrangements of spaces, levels and intricate machinery; and
\n(iii) the well detailed construction of the main building and the examples of bush carpentry in the ancillary structures.
|As a well designed and efficiently organised example of the first generation of fully mechanical scours, the Blackall Woolscour demonstrates a high degree of technical achievement at the time of its construction.
|As a place of interaction between the rural and town communities the Blackall woolscour has a special association with the people of Blackall and the surrounding Shire providing a social, cultural and economic focus in the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14809,"place_ref":600034,"name":"Coochin Coochin Homestead","alternate_name":"Coochin Coochin","street_address":"1370 Boonah-Rathdowney Road","suburb":"COOCHIN","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","history":"In 1842, the area known as Delhunty's Plain was settled as a pastoral run by David Hunter and his partner James Fyffe. In 1844, the lease was transferred to John Kent, who was first to re-use the traditional name of Coochin Coochin. The main section of the homestead was constructed some time in the 1840s.The homestead was moved to its current position in 1871. In 1883, the property sold to James Thomas Marsh Bell, part owner of Camboon Station in the Dawson Valley acquired the property in partnership with F C Hyde. In the 1920s, Coochin Coochin Homestead became the social focus of the area, hosting many large parties and entertaining many notable visitors. From the end of the Second World War until 1965, Coochin Coochin operated as a small dairy with a maximum of sixty milking cows. The property is currently owned by the Bell family.
","criteria":"Coochin Coochin, established in 1842 as Dulhunty's Plain, was one of the earliest pastoral runs of the Moreton region. The earliest fabric at Coochn Coochin homestead dates to the 1840s. The place has strong historical significance as important evidence of the first wave of pastoral activity in Queensland (at that time the Moreton district of New South Wales), and is important in illustrating the evolution of the pastoral way of life in Queensland.
|Coochin Coochin Homestead is a sprawling complex of structures, forms and landscaping elements, which retains a high degree of integrity and intactness. It is well maintained and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places: early and evolving pastoral homesteads in Queensland. The main house (comprised of connected pavilions dating mainly from the 1840s, 1880s and the early 1900s), extensive garden, meat house and hay sheds, and the physical relationships between these elements, are important in illustrating a particular way of life associated with pastoral activity. Of special interest is a tree yard, famous for a series of plantings by distinguished 20th century visitors, initiated by Lord and Lady Chelmsford when they visited in 1907.
|The homestead complex occupies a picturesque setting amidst national parks, and the house sits within an attractive established garden. The homestead has been enhanced over 150 years of working life and is of strong aesthetic significance, engendered by its setting, its rustic forms and materials, and the juxtaposition of forms.
|Coochin Coochin has a special association for the Queensland community as one of the earliest stations established in this State. The place is well-known in Queensland, and has been described in numerous heritage and history publications.
|The place is important for its association with the Bell family, who have owned Coochin Coochin since 1883, and have made a significant contribution to the development of Queensland pastoralism and agriculture. ET Bell was a prominent member of the community, serving as Member for Fassifern in the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1913 to 1930, and on numerous boards. The Bells were renowned for their hospitality, attracting many distinguished visitors to Coochin Coochin through much of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14810,"place_ref":600035,"name":"Boonah War Memorial and Memorial Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Park Street","suburb":"BOONAH","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a Memorial Park in Boonah, addressing the intersection of Park and Yeates Streets. The park is enclosed by a substantial brick and wrought iron fence with concrete dressings painted white. Wrought iron gates are located at the front and rear corners and are flanked by white painted pillars with ball finials. All wrought iron has been painted silver. The park is laid out formally on a diagonal axis running from the intersection of Park and Yeates Streets to the opposite corner. A central red painted concrete path with white painted concrete kerbing leads to the memorial which is surrounded by symmetrical tiered garden beds, also kerbed. The memorial is flanked by two war trophies and a flagstaff is located on the south western side.
The memorial is mainly of coarse Ulam marble and comprises a pedestal surmounted by an obelisk and a digger statue.
It sits on a marble base comprising two shallow steps and a third, deeper one, all smooth-faced. The foundation stone is located on the front face of the top step.
Surmounting the base is the pedestal. It sits on a marble step which has square projections at each corner. These each form a base for free-standing columns of red polished granite with marble Doric Order capitals and bases. The columns support a large cornice which is surmounted by four marble corner urns. In the centre of the columns are recessed marble plates, the leaded names of the 374 local men who served in the First World War. The names of the 69 dead are located on the north east face and the rear face is reserved for the names of nurses and chaplains.
Projecting from the centre of the pedestal is the marble obelisk, approximately 20 feet high and slightly tapered. It has stop chamfers to each corner and stands on a marble base with cyma recta mouldings. It is capped by a marble Ionic order capital and has a wreath carved around the leaded dates of the war on the lower section of the front face.
Surmounting the obelisk is the digger statue, which is slightly smaller than life-sized. The soldier is standing at ease with his head bowed and his hands resting on his reversed rifle, which rests by his right foot and is held by his body. A tree stump is located behind the left leg for support.
","history":"The Boonah War Memorial is a major regional war memorial and was unveiled on 31 July 1920 by the Prince of Wales who was visiting with Mrs G A Bell of nearby Coochin Coochin Station (whose three sons served in the First World War). The marble and granite memorial was designed and executed by F Williams and Company and honours the 374 local men who served during the First World War, including the 69 dead.
The town of Boonah was established as support for the pastoral runs in the area, of which Coochin Coochin was the first. Prior to the establishment of the town, all stores were brought by bullock dray from Ipswich twice yearly. After the extension of the railway to Dugandan in 1887, the surrounding district was rapidly populated and the town of Boonah prospered.
On 19 May 1920, the foundation stone for the memorial was laid by General Sir W Birdwood. The monument was erected at a cost of £600 which was raised by public subscriptions organised by a memorial committee. The specifically designed memorial park was opened on Anzac Day in 1922 with the unveiling of the fence by war hero and politician Captain Arnold Weinholt.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The Boonah memorial was designed and executed by well known and highly regarded Ipswich masonry firm, F Williams and Company.
The digger statue on the Boonah Memorial is represented in the casual stance synonymous with Williams diggers.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|Erected in 1920, the major regional memorial at Boonah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The memorial in its setting is of aesthetic significance both for its high level of workmanship, design and materials and as a dominant landmark within the townscape. It is an uncommon example of a war memorial that survives as part of a specifically designed and intact memorial setting.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and has special association with Ipswich masonry firm F Williams and Company as evidence of their work.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and has special association with Ipswich masonry firm F Williams and Company as evidence of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14812,"place_ref":600037,"name":"Cotswold Cottage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Boonah Road","suburb":"MAROON","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The ruins of Cotswold Cottage are located in the Maroon district of Boonah Shire. They comprise the remains of a cottage constructed largely of squared rubble uncoursed.
Very little of the formerly six-roomed structure survives. Still standing is the southern thick rubble wall of a former small square room (a former living area) at the northern end of the cottage, and part of the eastern wall of this room. The southern wall is 600mm thick, consisting of two external layers of squared rubble with a hearting or core of smaller rubble off-cuts and mortar. In this wall there is a low doorway, which has a lintel of three thick timber slabs.
Parts of the lower sections of the other three walls of this room survive. The internal stones are extant to a height of up to one metre, but the outer layers have collapsed. The position of a window opening in each side wall is discernible. There are indications that the collapsed northern wall formerly incorporated a chimneystack.
External to this room are a number of hardwood posts, two each to the east, south and western sides respectively. They are tenoned at the top. Their layout is suggestive of their having supported a veranda roof extending around three sides of the living space at the northern end of the house.
South of the principal standing wall are remnants of the eastern external wall of the southern section of the cottage, reduced to a approximately 500mm in height, and of similar materials and construction as the standing wall.
The cottage ruins are located on an elevated site in a cleared paddock close to Cotswold Road. Stones that appear to be part of the former walls are scattered over a wide area surrounding the ruins. A number of native trees including Flindersia australis (Crow's Ash) and Flindersia collina (Leopard Ash), some probably dating from the construction of the cottage, are growing nearby. There is evidence that some of these trees may have originally formed a windbreak near the western edge of the homestead paddock. A copse is located to the southwest of the ruins and a Crow's Ash tree about 50 metres to the north. A fallen tree is located between these. A further mature Crow's Ash is located to the east of the ruins close to a boundary fence. South of the property, Mount Maroon forms a dramatic backdrop to the ruins.
","history":"Frederick William Cook built Cotswold Cottage in the Maroon district in stages between 1888 and the late 1890s, as his family's home. The former six-roomed stone and slab house is now a ruin.
According to family descendants, Cook was a carpenter by trade who in 1878 emigrated to Australia from the Cotswolds in England under assisted passage. By 1883 he was working as a joiner in South Brisbane. In 1888 he took up selection 690 (160 acres) in the Maroon district near Boonah in southeast Queensland. Cook's brother, Thomas, took up several adjoining selections around the same time.
The area had been long recognized for its fertile soil, but had been locked up in pastoral leases prior to the 1868 Crown Lands Act, which opened the land to closer settlement. The first selectors had arrived in the Boonah region in the 1870s and by the late 1880s Maroon had emerged as an agricultural community. Cook moved his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children from Brisbane to Maroon in June 1888. According to family descendants Cook built a slab hut close to the present location of the stone ruins to house the family while the stone and slab cottage was under construction, which also was commenced in 1888.
Named Cotswold Cottage after Cook's home district in England, the walls of the residence were constructed from iron bark slabs and stone obtained from the property. To bind the stones, he used a mortar mix of clay and cow manure. Three open fireplaces were built into the stone walls. The cottage was constructed over a number of years beginning with the southern end of the house, now completely destroyed. A Bailiff of Crown Lands report dated 20 October 1893 notes that the house comprised four rooms. Further additions were built after this date, including a semi-detached living room. The extant wall is the remains of an internal southern wall of this room. C Gillies, FW Cook's great-granddaughter, described the house in its final form:
In all the house measured 18.3 metres x 7.6 metres. It consisted of two bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, sitting room and workshop. With the exception of the kitchen, all interior walls were painted with white wash, mixed with milk and tinted to the required colour. Fred painted a lino pattern on the floor of the dining room - this section of the house has now been demolished. The house was completely roofed with shingles, hand cut from timber standing on the property each one carefully trimmed and fitted into position. They measured 46cm x 13cm and were 1.3cm thick.
The most unique feature of the stone house was its windows. The glass used in many of them consisted of 15cm x 10cm lantern slide plates. Each plate was fitted into a miniature frame and these were then joined together to form a complete window.
The above is consistent with an oral description provided by Cook's grandson, Lemuel Cook, and with the physical remnants on the site.
On his selection FW Cook cultivated maize, potatoes and fruit, but was unable to support his family solely from the property. He also worked as a builder in the Maroon district, constructing many community buildings including the provisional school and its furniture.
By February 1899 Cook was able to apply to purchase his selection and in June a Deed of Grant was issued in his name for Portion 72v, being agricultural selection 690.
The property was transferred to Cook's son, Edgar, in June 1922. After FW Cook's death in 1937 the cottage fell into disrepair. In 1954, title to the property was transferred to James Weatherall, whose family had resided in the Maroon district since the late 19th century. No further use was made of the cottage.
","criteria":"Selector FW Cook constructed Cotswold Cottage in stages between 1888 and the late 1890s. The ruins of this place are important in demonstrating the transplantation and adaptation of traditional English stone construction techniques using local materials. Cook was a builder from the Cotswold district in England and at his Maroon property he used locally obtained iron bark slabs, stone and a mortar mix of clay and cow manure for the walls of the house. He used a range of flooring techniques and finishes, including stone paving, bitumen and floorboards hand-painted to resemble linoleum. The place contributes to our understanding of early house construction techniques employed by small-scale immigrant selectors in rural Queensland, especially the use of local and recycled materials, and to our understanding of past lifestyles.
|The remains of the cottage have the potential to yield further information that will contribute to an understanding of the evolution of and external influences on, vernacular Queensland buildings. This potential is enhanced by surviving documentary evidence, including a family history written by the great-granddaughter of the builder of the cottage and recorded recollections of the builder's grandson. These sources provide details of finishes and how the place functioned. This information combined with remnant fabric has the potential to contribute further to our understanding of a way of life no longer common.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14813,"place_ref":600038,"name":"Mitchell War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cambridge Street","suburb":"MITCHELL","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is located in a park setting and is surrounded by cast iron posts with decorative finials.
The sandstone and granite memorial sits on a stepped concrete base with the cast iron posts fixed into the lower step. Above this is a smooth faced step capped with a cyma recta moulding. The front face bears the words Their Name Liveth Forever More.
Surmounting the base is a smooth faced step with a chamfered central section on each face. The non-chamfered corners provide bases for columns with Doric order capitals and bases which surround a recessed plates of red polished granite. The plates bear an inscription and the cut and (originally) gilded names of the 51 local who served from the First World War. The uppermost section of the front plate bears a AIF badge.
The four columns support a large entablature comprising a smooth faced fascia and a concave cornice. Each corner is surmounted by large acroteria. Positioned in the centre of the entablature is a red granite column which sits on a square base step. It has a simply moulded base and no capital and is capped by a polished red granite sphere.
","history":"The Mitchell War Memorial was unveiled in 1927. It was designed and produced by monumental masonry firm A L Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane and honours the 51 local fallen of the First World War. It cost £464, which was raised by local residents.
The Mitchell Downs run was taken up during the 1850s. A Post Office opened at Mitchell Downs in 1865 with mail services commencing for the surrounding district at this time. The Reserve for the town of Mitchell was gazetted in 1869, on the site of the Mitchell Downs head station, the owners having erected another homestead further west. The Division of Booringa was gazetted in 1879 and Mitchell became the administrative centre for the Division and later the Shire. The Western Railway line was extended to Mitchell in 1885, and Mitchell consolidated its position as the business centre of the surrounding pastoral district.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
There were many different types of memorials erected in Queensland, however this is the only known one of this design. The design is unusual, as are the materials.
The memorial was made and presumably designed by the Brisbane monumental masonry firm of A L Petrie and Son. At this time, they were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland and supplied many memorials throughout the state.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|The memorial is an unusual design and is the only one of its type in Queensland.
|Erected in 1927, the war memorial at Mitchell demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|It is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship, materials and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with monumental masonry firm, A L Petrie and Son as an example of their workmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14814,"place_ref":600039,"name":"Boulia Stone House","alternate_name":"Stone House Boulia","street_address":"Pituri Street","suburb":"BOULIA","lga":"BOULIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Boulia is a small township in far western Queensland, some 300 kms south of Mount Isa, with a population of about three hundred. The Stone House is situated on the corner of Pituri and Hamilton Streets, one block from Herbert Street, the main street of Boulia.
Although the majority of the surviving buildings of the town date from the 1930s or later, there are some remaining early timber structures, such as the core of the Post Office (1885). The only other evidence of stone construction nearby is the ruins of the Native Police Barracks some 25 kms from the town.
The external walls of the house are of local sandstone and limestone with lime mortar weathered by the red sand. The stonework is laid as random rubble to courses, and squared at edges and openings.
The cottage has a core of four stone rooms, with a timber kitchen and enclosed verandah extending to the rear between stone blade walls. The hipped corrugated iron roof features ridge cappings of corrugated sheet beaten flat. There is an open verandah to the front of the house, paved in stone similar to the walls.
Entry to the house is by a pair of glazed French doors which open onto the front verandah. There is a matching opening where a second pair of doors apparently once were. The windows to the house are double hung, with some sashes missing and an assortment of pane arrangements. Other doors are low-waisted four panel doors. The joints of the roof framing are bolted, and the joints of the window frames are pegged.
The interior walls have been plastered. There is presently no ceiling, exposing the timber roof framing to view. The timber top plates show markings of being pit sawn. The front two rooms and the rear verandah have concrete floors, and the other rooms timber. Through a timber trapdoor to the rear of the house, steps lead down to a basement room. It has a low head height, exposed stone walls and an earth floor.
The house presently contains a wide variety of museum artefacts and display cases, demonstrating aspects of early western lifestyle.
The grounds are partly grassed, and have some small trees. To the rear of the site are sheds containing other museum functions. The site is presently enclosed with a high wire mesh fence. At the front of the site is a large sign introducing the museum, and giving background information on the Stone House.
","history":"It is local tradition that the building was constructed in the mid 1880s for one of three possible uses. It may have been constructed by Ernest Eglington, Police Magistrate, as temporary accommodation for the Police Magistrate and Court House; by James Edward Jones as a store for Burnell and Jones, Merchants and Storekeepers; or as a private dwelling for Jones.
By the mid 1870s settlement had spread throughout north and west Queensland. Although wool and sheep prices improved in the early 1870s other problems, such as isolation, high carriage rates, shortage of labour and distances from markets remained serious. However, by 1873 capital for improvements became available from southern investors which led to a greater consolidation of the pastoral industry particularly in Western Queensland.
By 1877 a small settlement had been established on the bank of the Burke River. A community of tents sprang up around a store established by Ernest Henry, probably in the vicinity of a former carriers camp on the Boulia Waterhole. By 1879 a town reserve had been proclaimed. This reserve, of 1,280 acres, was resumed from the Bulla Bulla No.2 and No.4 Runs.
The town developed slowly although a mail run to Cloncurry started fairly quickly. The town was surveyed in 1882 by Government Surveyor Hartnell and the first land sales took place in 1883. Government facilities were established soon after. In 1883 a clerk of petty sessions was appointed and a telegraph station constructed in 1884.
The introduction of the Crown Land Act 1884 brought some changes to the small community. Part of the role of the 1884 Land Act was to provide for resumptions from pastoral holdings and to make 'Agricultural and Grazing Farm Selection' a basic feature of permanent land settlement. While pastoralists in the western districts were not subject to this act they could apply to have their leases consolidated. Many pastoralists welcomed the idea of consolidation because the advent settlers would provide a stable source of labour.
By 1891 Boulia had developed into a substantial community. In the Queensland Postal Directories it was described as a pastoral town on the banks of the Burke River with a population of 150. There was a police magistrate, clerk of petty sessions, one sergeant of police, three constables and a tracker, post and telegraph office, a line repairer, two hotels, (The Australian and the Royal), a saddler and three storekeepers. By 1893 a school and progress association had been established.
The land on which the Stone House was constructed was purchased by Henry Sanders Shaw in March 1884. James Edward Jones, owner of the land for twenty years, purchased the site in 1897. The land was sold in 1917 to William Thomas Cobley Lilley and repurchased by James Edward Jones' family in 1939. The property remained in the hands of the Jones family until 1978 when the Shire of Boulia purchased it.
The date of construction is unknown, but local folklore indicates that it was constructed in the mid 1880s by either storekeeper, James Edward Jones or Police Magistrate, Ernest Eglington. The idea that James Jones designed and constructed the building in 1885 is repeated in a news article published in 1979. Another report suggests that Ernest Eglington built the house c1884 as a temporary court house and barracks until the official government buildings were constructed.
Yet another local story holds that three stonemasons, from Armidale, NSW, were employed to work on the building which apparently took four years to construct. The stone is believed to have been quarried from nearby Limestone Ridge, while the roof framing timbers were cut at a local saw pit, and the iron roof sheeting carried by rail to Hughenden then by dray to Boulia. The house was reputedly constructed without nails.
While the above information may be correct, James Jones did not purchase the property until 1897, and, although he may have leased the land from Henry Shaw, there is no record of a lease on the titles information. It is known, however, that Jones took out a mortgage of £230 eight months after purchasing the property in January 1897.
Burnell and Jones, Merchants, appear in the Queensland Post Office Directories for Boulia in 1889. They continued as storekeepers in a partnership until the 1894-95 issue of the Directories after which only JE Jones is identified as a storekeeper. James Jones remains a storekeeper until 1913 when he is identified as a butcher. From 1920 to 1933 he is a gardener in Boulia.
The purchase of the block on the corner of Pituri and Hamilton Streets and the dissolution of the partnership with Burnell coincide with James Jones taking a mortgage on the property. It is possible that he constructed the house at that time. A further possibility is that the building was constructed as a store, by James Jones, with two entrances and a cellar for the storage of perishable goods.
Conservation work on the building was funded by a National Trust grant in 1976-77. The work was planned by National Trust architects and the plaster and masonry repairs were carried out by Brisbane plasterer Gino Sandrin.
After repair works were completed the building was converted to a museum and opened in the mid 1980s. In 1987 Boulia Historical Society was formed to assist with the running of the museum. In February 1994 the roof was damaged in a severe storm.
","criteria":"Built in the mid 1880s, the house reflects the growth of Boulia and district after the consolidation of properties under the Crown Land Act 1884, is illustrative of the boom in sheep and wool production after the drought, and is evidence of the role of Boulia as a commercial centre for the district since that time.
Reputedly taking four years to build, it is an example of the utilisation of local materials for construction in remote areas, and is part of the late nineteenth century stone building tradition of central Australia which stretched into western Queensland.
|The Stone House is recognised as one of Boulia's oldest surviving buildings, and is also the only stone building extant in the township. It is greatly valued by the local community as one of their few identified historic places. Because of the role they the house has played in the commercial and public life of the town, this value is demonstrated by its purchase by the local Council, and its establishment as the local museum.
|The Stone House is recognised for its aesthetic qualities, and its contribution to the character of the Boulia townscape. Much of the early building fabric still exists, and the external stone walls in particular reflect the colours and textures of the region.
|Before being bought by the Boulia Shire Council, the house remained in the Jones family for at least 70 of its 90 years, and members of that family still live in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14815,"place_ref":600040,"name":"Moonah Creek 'Hanging Tree'","alternate_name":"Killing Tree; Butchering Tree; Hanging Tree;","street_address":"Ardmore Station","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"BOULIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-08","description":"Commonly known as a Ghost Gum (Eucalyptus papuana) due to its whitish bark, the tree known as the Hanging Tree is located about 10 metres from the bank of Moonah Creek, close to the Urandangi-Mount Isa Road, where it stands in a landscape of grasses, Gidgee Gums, Ghost Gums and Coolibahs.
A March 2003 report stated that the tree was dead. It stood approximately eight metres in height, had lost two of its four major limbs and that the limb that held the 'gallows beam' had fallen and lay broken on the ground. The beam itself was missing. The tree trunk had bad termite damage and a large crack running through it.
","history":"This Ghost Gum (Eucalyptus papuana) near the bank of Moonah Creek and the road connecting Urandangi to the Diamantina Development Road is located on Oban Holding in the parish of Moonah. According to oral history from Queensland's northwest Aboriginal communities, near the turn of the 19th century local police used the tree as a gallows from which they hanged 15 Aborigines as a reprisal for cattle spearing.
Oban Holding is situated on the Barkly Tableland, an area that has been used successfully for pastoral purposes since the 1870s. As in other parts of Queensland there was tension between pastoralists and the indigenous people, who were in competition for land and resources. Relations between the two groups were often strained, especially during the 1880s.
According to local oral history two policemen stationed at Urandangi, aided by Aboriginal trackers, rounded up a mob of Aborigines reputedly involved in cattle spearing. Using a gum tree they built a timber gallows and hanged these Aboriginal people as an example.
From 1898 to 1902 there were two police constables and a native tracker stationed at Urandangi, the nearest police station at the time when this event is said to have occurred. Under the Aborigines Protection and the Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897 police in remote and northern areas were also Protectors of Aborigines.
Representatives of the Waluwarra Aboriginal Corporation have extensive oral history relating the incident. However, no documentary evidence has been identified that gives the names of the people hanged, or whether there were more than 15 Aborigines involved in the cattle spearing.
It is not clear whether the Native Police were involved but there is no documentary evidence in the 60 years (1848-1913) during which the Native Police operated in Queensland that they ever hanged anyone. Many incidents have been recorded of native police shooting Aboriginal people, but not hanging them.
It is also possible that the Moonah Creek tree was used for the butchering of cattle. Killing or butchering trees are found on many properties. Usually a timber horizontal beam was tied into a fork in a tree or scarfed in, using an axe to mortice it in. Sometimes the tree would then grow around it, as occurred with the Moonah Creek tree. A timber vertical post sometimes supported the far end of the horizontal beam, to give the structure greater strength and stability.
In 1984 the tree was entered in the National Trust of Queensland's Register of Significant Trees for its reputed association with the hanging of Aboriginal people. The nominator wrote that he had first seen the Hanging Tree many years prior and described it as a beautiful Ghost Gum that over the years had grown around the timber beam, which could be seen clearly in 1964.
","criteria":"According to local oral history, at the turn of the 19th century local police hanged 15 Aboriginal people from this tree near the bank of Moonah Creek on Oban Station, as a reprisal following a cattle spearing incident. Tension between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples was characteristic of the Queensland frontier, often resulting in tragic confrontations as the competition for land and resources escalated. While no documentary evidence of the hangings at Moonah Creek has been found, local Aboriginal people are convinced that the hangings took place and that the tree is a conflict site illustrative of the violent history of frontier relations in Queensland. The place has a strong association with the local Aboriginal community (the Waluwarra nation) and the regional community generally for its historical and social values.
|According to local oral history, at the turn of the 19th century local police hanged 15 Aboriginal people from this tree near the bank of Moonah Creek on Oban Station, as a reprisal following a cattle spearing incident. Tension between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples was characteristic of the Queensland frontier, often resulting in tragic confrontations as the competition for land and resources escalated. While no documentary evidence of the hangings at Moonah Creek has been found, local Aboriginal people are convinced that the hangings took place and that the tree is a conflict site illustrative of the violent history of frontier relations in Queensland. The place has a strong association with the local Aboriginal community (the Waluwarra nation) and the regional community generally for its historical and social values.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14816,"place_ref":600041,"name":"Bowen Harbour Board Building (former)","alternate_name":"McDonald Hamilton & Company | Queensland Transport","street_address":"6 Herbert Street","suburb":"BOWEN","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Bowen Harbour Board Building (former) is located on the corner of Dalrymple Street and Herbert Street, the main street of Bowen. It is on the outskirts of the commercial area, and overlooks Port Denison to the south-east.
It is a two-storeyed masonry building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. A single-storey wing projects from the rear of the building, with gabled roof and brick chimney. There is a timber verandah on the two street sides, which also returns to the rear of the building.
At the corner is a hexagonal turret with a pyramid roof and views over the bay.
The external masonry walls are finished with rough-cast in panels between shallow pilasters. The windows are double-hung timber, with 4-pane upper sashes and 2-pane lower sashes.
The verandah posts have post moulds and brackets, and a fibro valance. The underside of the verandah is corrugated steel.
The original main entrance from Herbert Street is raised several steps above the footpath. Recessed from the alignment the front doors are a pair of half-glazed French doors. A series of French doors provide access from the upper level to the verandah.
The interior features silky oak counter, partitions, cupboards and staircase. The rear door to the stair has coloured glass panels.
A new entrance was installed in 1998. The entrance is through the side facade, off Herbert Street giving wheelchair access.
","history":"The former Bowen Harbour Board building was constructed in 1921 for Bowen shipping agents McDonald Hamilton & Company.
During the second half of the nineteenth century the expansion of settlement in North Queensland caused increasing problems with the carriage of freight to and from southern supply centres. In response to this problem the New South Wales Government, in 1859, offered a reward for the discovery of a suitable harbour north of Port Curtis (Gladstone) that could be more easily accessed by northern settlers. Captain Henry Daniel Sinclair, owner of the Santa Barbara, who in August 1859 departed Sydney in order to locate such a suitable harbour, undertook this mission. On the 15th October 1859 Sinclair's party found such a site, and subsequently named it Port Denison. The first settlers began arriving as early as 19 March 1861. The settlement was officially proclaimed on the 11th April 1861, and named Bowen after the Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. The township of Bowen quickly grew to support the northern pastoral industry as a strategically placed supply centre and over the course of several decades the town developed into a thriving commercial port.
One contributing factor to the town's success was the management of its harbour, and therefore the efforts of its harbour board. The prospect of an official harbour board was first considered in 1913, when dissatisfaction among the Bowen Chamber of Commerce led to an inquiry into the financial arrangements of the port. The inquiry, dated November 27th 1913, found the current port revenue situation lacking, with the revenue at the time being insufficient to provide for the upkeep of the wharf, let alone improvements. As a result, the Bowen Harbour Board Act of 1914 was gazetted on September 1st 1914. The first meeting of the Board was held on March 22nd 1915 in the Shire Hall, and the Board's by-laws were gazetted on July 15th 1915. Changes made to the system of revenue collection, such as charging for berthage, and changes to the haulage system, quickly resulted in the Harbour Board's revenue substantially increasing, and then annually increasing for a prolonged period thereafter. This in turn allowed further expansion of port facilities through the construction of new cargo sheds and facilities to accommodate the expanding range of export materials.
As the port developed so did the role of the Harbour Board. By 1933 the Board was seeking a new location for its offices. The building selected by the Board was constructed in 1921 for ship owners/agents, MacDonald Hamilton and Co., who occupied the site until closing their business in Bowen in 1930. When the Bank of New South Wales and the Australian Bank of Commerce merged in 1929, they purchased the building. In 1931 they moved back to the original Bank of New South Wales and auctioned the building to the Bowen Harbour Board for 1150 pounds In the same year, the upper floor of the building was leased, for one pound per week, to a Mr A. V. Murrey (the only other bidder at the auction), who was the secretary of Bowen Consolidated Mines, Bowen Salt Ltd., Bowen Fire Brigade and the Bowen Chamber of Commerce. After his death in the 1950's his son Dennie Murray took over the lease, and remained until his death in 1960, at which time he was replaced as secretary by Mr Lew Head.
The Harbour Board building has sustained damage from cyclones on numerous occasions, including damage to its roof in 1959, after which the building was roofed with galvanised iron.
In 1963, Bowen Consolidated Mines moved from the building. They purchased the former Adelaide Steamship Company building next door and relocated. Bowen Salt Ltd. then took over the lease of the upper floor of the former MacDonald Hamilton & Company building until their own office accommodation was provided at the salt works on June 23rd 1965.
After Bowen Salt Ltd moved the upper story of the premises remained vacant until July 26th 1967, when the Bowen Historical Society was offered the use of the area at a rental of 20 cents per week. The Society remained there until relocating to their current building in 1979. After this period the upper level of the premises was used variously by shipping agents, a solicitor and the Art's council in the establishment of the Dalrymple Gallery.
The Harbour Board occupied the first floor up until March 30th 1985, at which time the Harbour Board was officially abolished as the port had been superseded by ports such as Townsville and was now obsolete as a commercial port. At this time the building was taken over by the Harbours and Marine Department.
In 1988 the building was restored at an expense of $200,000 to house the Department of Harbours and Marine, and was further renovated in 1994 by Q-Build in conjunction with Project Services in order to add air conditioning and internal fit out.
In February 1998 the Queensland Heritage Council gave approval for the renovation of the ground floor. Works included construction of a new main entry, removal and re-positioning of the existing counter, provision of a new door opening and the provision of a set down area to the footpath on Dalrymple Street for vehicle inspection purposes.
Queensland Transport now occupies the front offices of the building.
","criteria":"The former Bowen Harbour Board building, constructed in 1921 for Bowen shipping agents MacDonald Hamilton and Company and occupied by the Bowen Harbour Board for sixty four years, has had a significant association with the development and consolidation of Bowen Harbour. The building has also made a major contribution to the commercial, social and cultural life of Bowen because of the occupation of office space by companies and community organisations such as Bowen Consolidated Mines Ltd, Bowen Salt Works, Bowen Historical Society, and the Arts Council's Bowen Art Gallery.
|The Harbour Board building located close to the harbour in Herbert Street, makes a substantial contribution to the historical commercial streetscape of Bowen. Its two-storey height, verandah detail and the octagonal turret with a pyramid roof make it a feature of the area close to the harbour.
|The building has also made a major contribution to the commercial, social and cultural life of Bowen because of the occupation of office space by companies and community organisations such as Bowen Consolidated Mines Ltd, Bowen Salt Works, Bowen Historical Society, and the Arts Council's Bowen Art Gallery.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14817,"place_ref":600042,"name":"Bowen River Hotel","alternate_name":"Heidelberg Inn","street_address":"Strathbowen-Leichhardt Range Road","suburb":"COLLINSVILLE","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Bowen River Hotel was built in the 1860s from local timber and originally roofed with bark. It comprises two buildings connected by a covered walkway, and is an example of careful bush carpentry and skilled jointing fixed with wooden pegs. The complex comprises two buildings connected by a covered walkway. A verandah extends round three sides of the main building, while a small verandah opens off the main room on the northern corner of the second and smaller structure.
Both buildings are raised on low stumps, some of which have ant caps, and flooring laid on a rough timber frame, rather than an earthen floor. It would appear to be an early example of this technique. Horizontal slabs of split timber have been used to construct the walls and the hipped roof and skillions over the verandahs are of corrugated iron.
A post and rail fence encloses what was once the front yard of the hotel. The building sits in a rural landscape with White Cedar and Burdekin Plum trees near the house and Oleanders along the front fence.
","history":"Phillip Sommer and his partner John Harvey pioneered the area in 1862. They established a sheep and cattle run on Heidelberg, a selection of ninety five square miles taken up by James Mead in 1861 but never stocked. Sommer had moved to Dotswood Station north of Charters Towers by 1866 and the Bowen River Hotel was operating from his Heidelberg homestead by 1865 with George Burnes as publican.
It was constructed on the supply route to Central Western Queensland which passed through the Kennedy District. Licensing information from the Port Dennison Times indicates that it was probably one of two hotels built at much the same time in the same area. An inn called the Heidelberg was built at 'the lower crossing place' while the Bowen River Hotel was constructed higher up on top of the steep bank of the River. The building was donated to the National Trust of Queensland in 1974 by Ted Cunningham of Strathmore Station and restoration of the rear wing was carried out by Mr George Stewart at that time. Since the 1970s the structure has been left exposed to vandals and campers.
","criteria":"Its significance is enhanced because of its connection with the pastoral development of the Kennedy Region and Central Western Queensland.
|The building is one of very few surviving country hotels constructed using bush carpentry techniques.
|The Bowen River Hotel is representative of a transitional type of timber construction which led to the development of a distinctive style of architecture in Queensland.
|The building is one of very few surviving country hotels constructed using bush carpentry techniques.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14819,"place_ref":600044,"name":"Bowen Court House","alternate_name":"Bowen Courthouse; Court House Bowen","street_address":"30 Williams Street","suburb":"BOWEN","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Bowen Court House is a two storey classical revival building constructed of rendered brick, with a corrugated galvanised iron roof. It is located on the corner of Williams and Herbert Street, the main street of Bowen, and addresses both streets with major facades
The building is 'H' shaped in plan, with a small single story projection to the east corner which was originally a kitchen and bedroom. The wings are now occupied by offices and the court room is in the centre section, rising through both stories with a mezzanine level public gallery at the south east end.
The walls of the court room are rendered and scored up to a moulded plaster dado, and have painted brickwork above. The ceiling is lined with beaded tongue and groove boards divided by exposed stop-chamfered beams, with turned knobs at the intersections. The space has 4 pane, horizontally pivoting windows to the upper section and large double hung windows with arched heads in the lower section. Centred on each long side of the court are pairs of four-panel entry doors. The furniture of the court room includes the bench, jury benches, press box and dock all constructed from beaded tongue and groove boarding, and a silky oak witness stand.
The upper level offices have ripple iron ceilings, moulded timber architraves and chimney pieces. The internal doors are four-panelled with toplights and glazed french doors with toplights open onto the verandahs. There is a timber staircase with turned balusters in the north-west block, and a similar new stair in the south-east block. Ceilings in the lower level are fibrous plaster or masonite with cover strips.
The south-east verandah has masonry arches, infilled with cast iron panels, and a timber floor. The north-west verandah is timber, with a timber balustrade and lattice, and weatherboard toilet rooms at the northern corner.
","history":"The Bowen Court House is a substantial masonry building in classical revival style, prominently located on the corner of Herbert and Williams Streets, Bowen. It was built in 1880 to house the Northern Supreme Court, the Bowen Post Office and Government Offices. Since 1899 it has functioned as a District and Magistrates court.
In 1859 the government of New South Wales commissioned Captain H.D. Sinclair to find a suitable site for a port to support the pastoral development of the Kennedy district. He selected a place on Port Denison, an inlet of the Coral Sea, although Queensland became a separate colony before settlement took place. The new township, designated a Port of Entry, was formally established on 12 April 1861 and named after Sir George Ferguson Bowen, Queensland's first governor. The first pastoral run in the area, Strathmore, was taken up in the same year by the Cunningham family who were quickly followed by other graziers eager to establish grazing properties. A Police Magistrate was appointed to serve Bowen in late 1860 and a temporary courthouse was constructed. Bowen soon became a major administrative and commercial centre and was declared a municipality on 17 March 1863 in the courthouse. This was merely a small slab hut without a verandah and which was not weather proof. After local agitation, tenders for a Court House were called in October 1864, though a building was not constructed. Two other northern ports were established in 1864, at Cardwell and Townsville.
In Nov 1865, Bowen became a District Court area. Judge Long Innes, later to become Attorney General and Judge of the Supreme Court of NSW, was appointed as Bowen's first District Court Judge. He arrived in early 1866 and held court in the Municipal Chambers. Because of the financial crisis taking place in Queensland in 1866, the planned courthouse did not go forward and in early 1867, the judge made unauthorised changes to the Court House to improve conditions.
In 1874, recognising the rapid development of North Queensland, due largely to the discovery of gold, the Supreme Court Act increased the number of judges in Queensland to 4, of which 1 was to reside in Bowen as 'the Northern Judge'. The Bowen Supreme Court formally opened before His Honour Mr Justice Sheppard on 21 Oct 1874. The Supreme Court first sat in Townsville on 12 Feb 1875, Bowen 26 Feb 1875, and Cooktown 29 May 1876.
Queensland developed as a series of ports linked to inland resources. Bowen was disadvantaged, despite its excellent harbour, because it was located on a flood plain and the Burdekin River flooded regularly, cutting off the port from the hinterland for extended periods. Bowen's importance decreased in the 1870s following the success of Townsville, which had better access routes to pastoral mining and centres, particularly the major goldfields at Charters Towers and the Palmer River.
By May 1877, all the government buildings in Bowen had become dilapidated and it was recommended that it would be more economic in the long term, allowing for the tropical climate, to construct new buildings in masonry. The site selected for the new court was considered the best in town and plans were completed by July 1879. Presumably for reasons of economy, the new building was to house several different functions in different parts of the building. A large court room occupied the centre of the building, rising to its full height The south wing was occupied by the Post Master, the ground floor containing the office, kitchen and servant's room, and the upper floor sitting and bedrooms. The lower floor of the north wing was designed to house officials of the Supreme Court, and the upper floor was shared by the Survey and Roads offices, with bedrooms for Court Officials.
The building was designed in the Colonial Architect's office during the time when FDG Stanley was the Colonial Architect. Within the office, the design of the building is attributed to GS Connolly, who later became Colonial Architect himself. Both architects excelled in the classical revival style chosen, which was thought well suited to public buildings intended to convey a sense of stability and dignity, particularly a court which represented the power of the law. The building is on a corner site and designed so that the major street elevations each represented a separate function housed within the building; that to Herbert Street representing the Court and that to Williams Street the Post Office. The two elevations are linked stylistically by the use of arcades.
The tender of builders Southall and Tracey for £8023 was accepted and work was completed by July 1881. The old court buildings were sold in 1884. Soon after this, however, the pre-eminence of Townsville as the major town in North Queensland was recognised in the 1889 the Supreme Court Bill which provided for the appointment of a second northern judge and the relocation of the Northern Supreme Court to Townsville. This occurred on 1 December 1899, although Townsville did not have a purpose designed Court House. Since this time the Bowen Court House has functioned as a District and Magistrate's Court.
The building has remained substantially unchanged since construction, and has continued in use as a court house, but has undergone some minor additions and alterations. A verandah was added to the north-west elevation in 1913, and the balustrades and posts have been altered, however, the building is generally very intact and still has the main components of its early furniture.
","criteria":"The Bowen Court House is important in demonstrating the early prominence of Bowen, being considerably more grand than other early courts at Townsville and Charters Towers; both of which towns were to eclipse Bowen. As the first Supreme Court outside Brisbane, it also illustrates the way in which a legal system was established and government services provided in the developing north of the colony. The inclusion of a second function as a Post Office indicates both the need for economy and the importance given to the role of communications services.
|The court house remains substantially unchanged since completion and retains the major components of its original furniture, which is now rare.
|The building is a good example of a government building of its era with offices and accommodation provided for judges and court officers and for other government officials.
|Bowen Court House is an important component of the streetscape of Bowen. It is a well designed and prominent public building and an excellent example of the high quality work produced by the Colonial Architects office.
|It is associated with the life and work of GS Connolly (1847-1901) and FDG Stanley (1839-1897) of the Colonial Architects office who made a great contribution to the building of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14820,"place_ref":600045,"name":"Dunaverty","alternate_name":"Carvarmore","street_address":"21 Birkbeck Street","suburb":"ALBION","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located on the corner of Birkbeck and Hudson Rd, Dunaverty is a picturesque chamferboard cottage with a hipped corrugated iron roof. In its corner position and with its rich external detailing, the residence is prominent in a street of modest cottages along Birkbeck St, and makes a picturesque contribution to the streetscape.
The house is L-shaped in plan, with a wing extending out to the north east. It has a front verandah overlooking Birkbeck St to the south-west, a side verandah along the south eastern frontage, and an enclosed verandah in the northern corner. The building has a hipped roof, with gently curved verandah awnings.
The front elevation presents a richly decorated face to the street framed by mature palms. The verandah has cast iron posts with floriated capitals, and richly detailed cast iron valances and balustrade panels. The main entrance has a projecting barrel vault supported on paired posts, which has a finely carved fretwork panel with thistle motifs and a unicorn in a crest. The end panels of the verandah thistle motifs encircling a lion in a crest. The main roof has a scalloped timber trim and carved double eaves brackets. The front entrance has coloured glass surrounds with etched thistle motifs, and is flanked by projecting bay windows.
The north-west elevation facing Hudson Rd has sash windows protected by hoods on shaped timber brackets with fretwork panels which also incorporate the thistle motif. The rear verandah is enclosed with vertical timber louvres, but the fretwork end panels remain visible. Timber French doors and casement windows open onto the verandah to the south-east. Two richly detailed brick chimneys surmounted by barley-twisted terracotta chimney pots are visible from the rear of the house.
The house has three bedrooms and a rear kitchen along the south-western side; a central entrance hall, and a joined living and dining room to the north-east. The interior contains fine decorative detailing. It has cedar joinery throughout. The fanlights above the four doors to the front of the house are made of fretwork panels which incorporate the thistle motifs, and nicknames of Fraser's family: Nellie, Charlie, Mima, and Katie. The house has timber ceiling roses throughout which also incorporate thistle patterns, as do the coloured glass panels to the hall door (no longer extant). Much of the ironmongery in the house, particularly the door hinges and some escutcheons are decorated with floral patterns.
Dunaverty is an intact 'boom era' middle class residence with fine idiosyncratic detailing which makes a picturesque contribution to Birkbeck St.
","history":"Dunaverty was built in 1887 by builder and real estate entrepreneur Archibald McNish Fraser.
Fraser arrived in Brisbane from Argylshire in Scotland in 1880, aged 22, having completed his building apprenticeship, but with little money. He began his career in Brisbane working as a building contractor in Brisbane and Cleveland. Fraser built up his business, and by the mid 1880s had begun to move into real estate. Within two years of his arrival, he married Jemima Barclay, and in 1885 he purchased the Dunaverty site from his father-in-law, ganger John Barclay. He formally launched his own real estate business called the Onward Real Property Mart in 1887, the same year that Dunaverty was completed. By 1888 he had been made a J.P.
In 1888 the Aldine History of Queensland praised Fraser as exemplifying a breed of young Brisbane entrepreneurs who had risen to affluence from modest beginnings, saying: "...It is with pride the city looks upon the prosperity of many such young men..."
Fraser personalised Dunaverty with the decorative detailing. Much of the glass and timberwork incorporates Scottish thistle motifs. The fanlights over the four doors to the front of the house incorporate the nicknames of three of his five children (two were born whilst the Frasers lived at Dunaverty) and his wife: Nellie, Charlie, Mima, and Katie (Ellen, Charles, Jemima and Christina). The house may have been built to showcase Fraser's business.
The Fraser family moved out of Dunaverty during the recession in the early 1890s to Exeter St, West End. The family lived in a number of residences in South Brisbane and Highgate Hill in the following years. Dunaverty remained the property of the Frasers until 1912. Archibald McNish Fraser died in 1918.
After the Fraser family moved out of Dunaverty, the house had new tenants almost every year. In 1912 Dunaverty was bought by William McGregor, when it was renamed "Carvarmore". Again it was not occupied by its owners until it was sold again in 1925. The south-east verandah may have been added around this time. Dunaverty changed hands several times until the current owners bought it in 1998.
The previous owner added a polygonal room to the southern corner, and bathroom and laundry structures to the rear of the house. Until the current owners purchased the property, Dunaverty was a rental property, as it had been for much of the time since it was built. The house remains intact as a boom-era residence with personalised detailing. However, during 1998 the house was vacant, and some of the cedar joinery and ironmongery was stolen.
","criteria":"It has a strong association with one of Brisbane's 1880s immigrant entrepreneurs, Archibald McNish Fraser. The house is a fine and intact example of a 'boom era' 1880s timber residence which contains fine personalised detailing and which makes a picturesque contribution to the Birkbeck St and Hudson Rd streetscape.
|The house is a fine and intact example of a 'boom era' 1880s timber residence which contains fine personalised detailing and which makes a picturesque contribution to the Birkbeck St and Hudson Rd streetscape.
|The house is a fine and intact example of a 'boom era' 1880s timber residence which contains fine personalised detailing and which makes a picturesque contribution to the Birkbeck St and Hudson Rd streetscape.
|It has a strong association with one of Brisbane's 1880s immigrant entrepreneurs, Archibald McNish Fraser.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14821,"place_ref":600046,"name":"Farrington House","alternate_name":"Clifford House; Farrington","street_address":"39 David Street","suburb":"ALDERLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Farrington House is a single storeyed timber house with accommodation provided in the attic and underneath. The house is prominently sited on a hill top in Alderley, with expansive views of the surrounding areas.
The building is almost square in plan, with verandahs on four sides, partially enclosed on the southern and western sides. The corrugated iron gabled roof is punctuated with three dormer windows each on the tapering northern and southern sides. The gable ends of the buildings feature narrow timber balconies, with hipped awnings, flanked by multi pane casement windows. Overhanging eaves and the decorative barge boards of the gables are supported on paired timber fretwork brackets. The single skinned external walls of the principal floor of the house are cross braced. Gable ends are clad with chamfered timber boards, and the underneath of the building is clad with tongue and grooved boarding.
The south elevation of Farrington House houses the principal entrance which is via concrete stairs leading to a gabled section in the verandah awning, featuring a fretwork panel and with a finial. The verandah awning is supported on paired stop chamfered timber posts with mouldings, and fretwork brackets and infill panels between the paired posts. A cast iron balustrade, signed with John Grase Registered December 14 1883 NO14.1, is surmounted by a bread loaf handrail. These same details are found on the gable balconies.
The front door is half glazed with a leadlight panel incorporating the words Farrington House and Dulcius ex Asperis. French doors flank this and are also found leading from all other rooms opening onto the verandah.
Internally, the house is arranged around a central hallway which extends from the front door to a rear door, and is comprised of an entrance section separated from the stair section by a plaster arch lined with cedar moulding. The half turn cedar stair, has turned newel and balusters and arrives in a central open balustraded well on the attic floor. Generally the interior walls are of beaded board to the ground floor and tongue and groove on the floor above; the floors are timber board and joinery of stained cedar. Ceilings on the ground floor are generally plaster, whilst those above are beaded board.
To the west of the central hallway are the formal dining and drawing rooms, separated by a four leaf folding cedar doorway, with six panelled doors. A dark grey marble chimney piece, denoting the former dining room, features early encaustic tiles and cast iron fire place. These rooms and the hallway are distinguished from others in the house by high skirtings boards and more elaborate cornices.
","history":"Farrington House is a single storeyed timber building with attic which was apparently built in about 1882 for Frederick Waters Wilson.
Wilson was a wealthy biscuit manufacturer and champion wedding cake designer. His company FW Wilson & Co, Steam Biscuit Manufacturers (est. 1874), was the first steam biscuit factory in the colony. Wilson utilised some of his 13 acres (5.2 hectares) for farming.
Apparently the property was rented from the mid 1890s till 1915 when David Henry Rhoades, a furniture manufacturer and retailer of Fortitude Valley, subdivided the estate so that the land was reduced to 2 acres (0.8 hectares).
Colonel Henry William Lee lived at Farrington House from 1917 to 1930. Lee, a schoolteacher, was a foundation member of the Queensland Teachers Union and was on the University Senate from 1920 to 23. His eldest daughter Iva Ada was the first woman resident at Women's College studying pharmacy. Farrington House provided a social venue for Lee's children, several of whom were married there. It was during the Lees' occupation that the house was converted from kerosene lighting to electricity and the telephone installed.
Over the next two decades Farrington House changed owners frequently until purchased by the Baptist Union of Queensland. From 1948 to 1956 it was known as Clifford House, and used by the Baptists as a residence for the elderly. It subsequently became a rooming house and flats. Originally a detached kitchen and laundry were linked to the dwelling by a covered way, and beyond was a brick bathroom.
The house has been substantially renovated during its life, and has been returned to its stautus as a private residence. Though little remains of the original garden and orchard, the well is still viable and the position provides 360? views of Brisbane from this prominent hill-top house. Recently two stained glass windows, signed by Messrs Ashwin and Falconer, Stained Glass Artists, 314 Pitt St Sydney NSW of c1882 were removed from the house.
","criteria":"Farrington House demonstrates the growth of the Alderley area, and typifies the evolution of many large Queensland homes, through family home, rental property and refuge uses.
|The building is of importance for its architectural quality, as a picturesque version of a late nineteenth century Queensland house, which remains intact in form. The house, situated on a prominent site in Alderley, is a local landmark.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14822,"place_ref":600047,"name":"Chateau Nous","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Rupert Terrace","suburb":"ASCOT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This two-storeyed rendered masonry house, with a flat sheet metal roof concealed behind a parapet wall, sits on a level southeast corner site in Ascot. The building shows a strong Functionalist approach in its design, with architectural and decorative elements including brick banding, which is now painted over, curved corner walls and windows, glass bricks and contrasting vertical and horizontal elements.
The entrance is on the south, recessed below a flat concrete awning supported by large concrete brackets. Directly above is a projecting angled alcove, with windows to the first floor, which culminates at the parapet. The building has terracotta tiled roofdecks with solid upstands and metal tubular railings to the southeast and northwest. The north side of the building sits on a face brick base with a dining terrace on the northeast, below the main bedroom, which overlooks the lawn tennis court to the north. The entrance to the subfloor air-raid shelter is located on the east below a projecting rounded pediment.
The building has metal framed casement windows, some of which have geometric leadlight panels with some windows set in curved walls. French doors, of both metal and timber frames, open onto decks which are shaded by recent metal framed canvas awnings. Awnings also shade windows to the west on the first floor. A recent timber framed carport with brick bases is attached to the western face, and trellises built in the same style are located at the south entry and at the north overlooking the tennis court.
Internally, walls are plastered and most rooms have decorative plaster ceilings. An Art Deco influence is evident with a nautical design, consisting of three concentric circles with intersecting rippled or straight lines, which is used in the wrought iron stair railing and repeated in the leadlight french doors opening off the foyer, is outlined in brass strips in the main bathroom's aggregate floor and is depicted on the chrome hood of the fireplace.
The foyer has a marble tiled floor which continues into the lounge and dining rooms and borders the carpeted stair. The foyer and stair walls are panelled with timber veneer to first floor height and the door into the kitchen has a glass porthole. The entrance door has a sandblasted panel with the inscription CHATEAU NOUS, and all doors and architraves are stained timber with chrome door hardware.
The lounge has a corner brick fireplace with a chrome hood and mirrored panels above the mantelpiece. The south wall has twin rows of vertical glass bricks and the east wall is rounded. A vertical row of glass bricks is located in the south wall of the informal dining room, which also has a servery to the L-shaped kitchen which has been refitted. The original garage is used as a guest bedroom, but retains the timber and glass garage doors which have also been reproduced for the more recent garage located on the northwest.
The former servants quarters are used for sewing and storage. The cork tiled family room extension is accessed from the kitchen, the junction of which has a lightwell which provides natural light and ventilation to the main bathroom above. The stairwell has a vertical row of glass bricks which is now backed by rice paper screens to the family room and bedroom above.
The first floor breakfast room has timber veneer wall panelling and a dumb waiter cabinet, which is no longer used. The projecting angled alcove above the entry is located in this room. The main bedroom extension has relocated the original bedroom window to the north wall and has a curved east wall with replica leadlight windows.
The main bathroom has green Vitrolite wall panels with a mauve bath and basin. The children's bedroom, which was originally a deck, has a flat concrete awning to its internal entrance and an internal window to the adjoining bedroom.
The grounds include an inground concrete swimming pool to the southeast and a lawn tennis court with timber and wire fencing to the north with dressing sheds built between these at the east. A low rendered masonry garden wall runs along both street frontages with a higher masonry wall screening the pool area.
","history":"Chateau Nous is a two-storeyed rendered masonry house with a flat sheet metal roof concealed behind a parapet wall. An earlier house on the site was relocated in 1937 when the property was purchased by Brisbane dentist George Stewart and his wife Eileen.
They employed architect Douglas Francis Woodcraft Roberts to design the building. Roberts had travelled, worked and studied in the USA and designed the building from a Functionalist approach. His design was considered ultra modern for Brisbane in 1938, and incorporated many of the latest architectural trends and materials with a strong Art Deco influence to the interiors.
The house was noted for its all electric kitchen with appliances arranged in one line, and an electric dumb waiter servicing an upstairs breakfast room. The Stewarts employed four full time staff; two maids, a nurse and a gardener.
Additions to the building started within two years of its completion, with the enclosure of the dining room, and of the balcony over the servants quarters for a billiard room. During the Second World War a reinforced concrete air raid shelter, which the Stewarts shared with their neighbours, was constructed.
After Dr Stewarts death in 1962 the building was rented until Brisbane architect Noel Robinson purchased it in 1979. An inground swimming pool was added and in 1985 an adjoining block of land was purchased. The following year a large extension in keeping with the architecture of the building and consisting of a family room, remodelled kitchen, terrace, garage, master bedroom and ensuite was added to the north, as well as a grass tennis court.
","criteria":"Chateau Nous demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in that it is an early example of Functionalist domestic architecture in Brisbane. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Functionalist building.
Chateau Nous is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution of the building and grounds, through scale, form and material, to the local streetscape and Ascot townscap, through the quality and intactness of the original Art Deco interior elements and as an example of both Functionalist and Art Deco design.
Chateau Nous is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative achievement for the late 1930s in Brisbane, in its adoption of Functionalist architecture.
Chateau Nous has a special association with architect DFW Roberts, as an unusual example of his domestic work, being an early use of Functionalist architecture in Brisbane.
|Chateau Nous demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in that it is an early example of Functionalist domestic architecture in Brisbane.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Functionalist building.
|Chateau Nous is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution of the building and grounds, through scale, form and material, to the local streetscape and Ascot townscap, through the quality and intactness of the original Art Deco interior elements and as an example of both Functionalist and Art Deco design.
|Chateau Nous is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative achievement for the late 1930s in Brisbane, in its adoption of Functionalist architecture.
|Chateau Nous has a special association with architect DFW Roberts, as an unusual example of his domestic work, being an early use of Functionalist architecture in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14823,"place_ref":600048,"name":"Windermere","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"14 Sutherland Avenue","suburb":"ASCOT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Windermere is a substantial picturesque single-storeyed chamferboard residence with corrugated iron roofs. The house sits on a rise and is set back from Sutherland Avenue, overlooking gardens which contain mature trees and a tennis court. The building and mature trees contribute to the Ascot townscape.
\nThe building has been added to and altered over the years, but the core of the house and its principal frontage to the street remain substantially intact in form and detail. This core comprises a 'public realm' of formal entertaining areas to the south, separated by a generous corridor/entry hall from a 'private realm' of rooms for family use. The house also has two more recently added wings which extend out to the rear: part of the southern wing is a 1930s addition. The house has wide verandahs to the south and the east, which connect via a gazebo in the south eastern corner. A verandah to the north east is now partially enclosed. The house has multiple projecting bays: large faceted bays to the north east and southwest, which project out beyond the main roof line; a bay to the north encircled by a faceted verandah; a small step-out bay to the north and two small faceted bays either side of the front entrance.
\nExternally, the house has picturesque and fine detailing. The large projecting bays have faceted roofs, battened eaves, shaped timber eaves brackets, and are crowned with tall finials. The verandahs have cast iron balustrades, chamfered timber posts with timber capitals, and mortice and tenoned lattice spandrels, curved timber valances, and timber-lined ceilings. The gazebo to the south east corner of the house has an ogee roof topped with a large turned finial. The base of the house is enclosed with lattice panels. The eastern (front) elevation has a central entrance stair which arrives under a projecting pediment supported on paired posts. The wide cedar entrance door is framed with sidelights and fanlights.
\nThe 'core' of the house has high timber lined ceilings, and timber lined floors and walls with picture rails throughout. The house contains fine detailing, including cedar joinery, etched and coloured glass windows, timber ceiling roses, mouldings and marble fireplaces with hand-painted tiles. The corridors have fine cedar arches with scalloped edges. The timber sash windows have frosted edging with patterned corners. Several fanlights also have coloured glass. Timber French doors open onto the verandahs.
\nThe grounds contain some large mature trees, including Bunya pines and Camphor Laurel. The Sutherland Avenue frontage has a finely decorated fence with substantial gateposts.
","history":"Windermere was built on land first alienated in 1855 by pastoralist James Sutherland. Sutherland owned many acres in the Toombul parish and land in the city. He worshipped at the Fortitude Valley Wesleyan Methodist Church to which he left an annual legacy when he died in 1875. Sutherland appears to have built a three bedroom dwelling on the site called \"Hillside House\". The house was rented in the late 1870s and in the early 1880s surveyor Henry St John Woods address was Windermere. On Wood's taking up the position of government surveyor at Maryborough in 1885 the house became vacant.
\nIt is believed that Windermere was demolished and a new house was built for Sutherland's daughter Ruth and her husband solicitor John George Appel on the site c 1886. The house may have been designed by architect Richard Gailey, although this remains unsubstantiated.
\nJohn Appel married Ruth Sutherland in 1879, and shortly afterwards was admitted as a solicitor. He retired from practice around ten years later to become a pastoralist and politician. He was a member of the Hamilton Shire Council in 1890-1908, and was chairman twice: after Hamilton became a municipality he was twice mayor. Appel had farming interests in the Nerang area, and in 1902 he also became a member for six years of the Nerang Shire Council. Appel stood for and won the seat of Albert in 1908, and joined the ministry as secretary for mines and public works, finding his true metier as home secretary in 1909, retaining this portfolio until 1915.
\nWindermere was owned by Charles Frederick White for five years from 1918, during which time it was rented. In 1923 it was the house was bought by George Kermode Jeffrey and his wife Lillian. During the 1920s the detached kitchen wing and servants quarters were demolished, and the eastern verandah enclosed.
\nFrom 1928 until 1967 the property was owned and inhabited by Dr Ellis Murphy and his wife Mary (daughter of T.C. Bierne). Dr Ellis was a physician to the Brisbane Hospital from 1938 to 1954, and part-time Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland from 1950-54. He was knighted in 1967.
\nIn 1967 Windermere was purchased by Barbara and Trevor Cottee. In 1984 it was bought by Robert Geoffrey Bentley and his wife, and again sold in 1986 to Peter Maloney and wife. During the 1980s, the house underwent substantial modifications which included the reconstruction of the front stairs, the addition of a bathroom and study in the northern section of the house, the demolition of the rear laundry and bathroom, works to the rear of the house, and the re-decking of the front verandah. In 1994 the residence was bought by T &D Weeks, and extensive reburbishment of the gardens, rear wings, front verandah and interior was undertaken. The place subsequently changed hands in 1998, 2002 and 2014 and remains in private ownership.
","criteria":"Windermere is an excellent example of the type of home built for the prominent families during the 1880s boom period. It has a strong association with prominent Queensland politician/pastoralist John Appel, and notable Brisbane physician Dr Ellis Murphy. The picturesque residence and mature trees contribute to the Ascot townscape, and the residence contains fine internal detailing.
|Windermere is an excellent example of the type of home built for the prominent families during the 1880s boom period.
|The picturesque residence and mature trees contribute to the Ascot townscape, and the residence contains fine internal detailing.
|It has a strong association with prominent Queensland politician/pastoralist John Appel, and notable Brisbane physician Dr Ellis Murphy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14824,"place_ref":600049,"name":"Glen Lyon","alternate_name":"Marist Fathers Monastery | Glenlyon | Glenlyon House","street_address":"34 Glenlyon Drive","suburb":"ASHGROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Glen Lyon is a large two-storeyed brick residence which is rendered to resemble ashlar. It has a hipped tiled roof, which originally was clad with slates. Wide verandahs on three sides at both levels are ornamented with cast-iron balustrading and Corinthian pillars.
At the front and north-eastern side, sets of white marble steps with urns lead to the lower verandah, which is paved with black and white marble. Bay windows to both levels on the front elevation have wide, rectangular, sashed windows, and the front entrance incorporates side panels and a fanlight of stained glass. Kitchen and bedroom wings at the rear enclose a courtyard containing a well.
Marble fireplaces are a feature of the interior, and the joinery is mainly of oak. Hand-painted decoration is visible on one of the ceilings. An elaborate stained glass window above the central staircase bears the motto of the first owners - Semper fidelis (always faithful) - but the lion's head family crest formerly located beneath this has been replaced by depictions of the Virgin Mary and Child.
Adjacent to the residence is a chapel which was formerly a billiards room, gun room and cellar. It is a small rendered brick building with a corrugated-iron hipped roof, bay windows, and arched porches. Most of the windows contain stained glass.
The detached brick dairy is externally intact, but has been converted into a toilet block. The former servants' quarters remains, as does the well.
The house and outbuildings remain on a much reduced site of approximately .78 of a hectare.
","history":"This two-storeyed residence, the second oldest in the Ashgrove area, was erected in 1876-7 for Alexander Stewart, a partner in the merchant firm of Stewart & Hemmant. It was the centrepiece of a 250 acre (100 hectare) estate acquired by Stewart in 1875 and 1876. The property, which extended along both sides of Enoggera Creek, was named Glen Lyon after Stewart's birthplace in Scotland.
Probably designed by architect James Cowlishaw, the original plans were modified when financial considerations forced Stewart to have a more modest residence erected.
At Glen Lyon, Stewart created a country estate. Within a few years the property contained a dairy herd, fowl runs, duck pond, an orchard and vegetable garden and an assortment of outbuildings. A well was sunk, detached servants' quarters and a dairy were constructed at the rear of the main house, and a coachman's cottage, known as the Lodge, was erected near Waterworks Road.
An avenue of bunya pines, which still stand, was planted the length of the front drive (now Glenlyon Drive). The present entrance gates are not the original; wrought iron gates set in pillars of granite, which formerly fronted Waterworks Road, have been removed to Stuartholme Convent.
A detached billiards room was constructed in the 1880s or early 1890s, and the grounds around the house were landscaped. Steps led from the billiard room to a tennis court.
Alexander Stewart died in 1918 and the property was subsequently sold. Most of the estate was purchased by developer T M Burke who gradually subdivided it as the Glenlyon Estate. The house and immediate surrounds were purchased by the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane. From about 1927 the house was rented to the New Zealand province of the Society of Mary (Marist Fathers), who purchased it in 1930. The Marist Fathers sold Glen Lyon c2003 and it currently functions as a private residence.
","criteria":"Glen Lyon is one of the earliest residences in the Enoggera Creek area, and is closely associated with the development of the suburb of Ashgrove.
|Glen Lyon is a rare and substantially intact late 1870s country house with associated outbuildings and gardens, and an avenue of trees.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14826,"place_ref":600051,"name":"Raymont Lodge","alternate_name":"Drysllwyn | Raymont Residential College","street_address":"47 Cadell Street","suburb":"AUCHENFLOWER","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Situated on the crest of a rise overlooking Auchenflower, Raymont Lodge is a large, two-storeyed red brick residence built in the Federation style. The building has a half-gabled roof of broad profile, rolled edge iron sheeting with a projecting hipped bay to the northeast and southeast, a pedimented entry porch to the northwest and elaborately detailed chimneys.
The building has deep verandahs with arched masonry arcades and timber balustrade to the north, east and west. The entry porch is approached via a wide flight of steps and has paired columns to the first floor supporting the pediment. French doors with fanlights and step-out sash windows open onto the verandahs. The timber panelled main entry door is set in a large arched brick opening with stained glass fanlight and sidelights. A bathroom opening off the southeast verandah has a similarly elaborate doorway.
The interior features decorative stained glass, ornate plaster mouldings and finely detailed cedar staircases, joinery, panelling and fireplace surrounds.
The building is approached via a paved drive and turning circle from the northwest, with most of the recently constructed buildings being located to the north, east and south of the building leaving the Cadell Street aspect intact. The grounds contain a number of mature trees, with an inground concrete swimming pool to the northwest.
Although much of the site has been subdivided and sold for suburban housing, remnants of the original landscaping survive, as does a section of masonry perimeter fence, with iron entrance gates, which extends to the corner of Cadell Street and Park Avenue, returning along the latter.
","history":"This large, two-storeyed brick residence was built c. 1904-05 for mining entrepreneur William Davies. Around the turn of the century Davies, who had been involved in the gold industry in Gympie, moved to Brisbane, and in 1903 he purchased the Auchenflower site.
Architect Claude Chambers whose Brisbane work spanned fifty years (1885-1935) won a competition to design the residence. The building was large and spacious, and the main interior spaces were richly decorated. The ground floor contained dining, breakfast and drawing rooms, library, kitchen, bathroom laundry and storerooms. On the first floor were located a main bedroom with dressing room and bathroom, two other bedrooms, another bathroom, a visitor's room, and servant's bedroom. Verandahs on two levels enclosed the building on three sides. The grounds contained a formal garden.
During the 1930s part of the property was subdivided for residential development. The Davies family resided at Drysllwyn until February 1942, when it was leased to the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association for use by Somerville House as a day school. Somerville House had been forced to vacate temporarily their property at South Brisbane for use as Administrative headquarters for the United States Army.
In 1944-45 the property was acquired by the Methodist Church, and converted into a hostel for country girls studying in Brisbane. The hostel was opened in August 1945 and the building renamed Raymont Lodge, in honour of Mrs E Raymont who had made a substantial bequest to the Methodist Church.
The hostel was run under the auspices of the Central Methodist Mission. A parsonage for the Superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission was erected in the western corner of the property facing Cadell Street. By the 1960s a new dormitory wing had been added to house both male and female students.
During the 1980s major changes occurred on the site with the Uniting Church relocating its state headquarters and Trinity Theological College in the grounds. A three storey brick office building was erected at the rear of Drysllwyn and facing Bayliss Street. As well, a new residential building was built to promote accommodation for tertiary students. Conservation work was undertaken on Drysllwyn during this period.
Drysllwyn currently provides office space, meeting rooms and a student common room for the Trinity Theological College.
","criteria":"Raymont Lodge is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial federation style residence.
Raymont Lodge is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the quality and craftsmanship of its main interior spaces and the streetscape contribution of the building and grounds.
Raymont Lodge has a special association with the life of mining entrepreneur William Davies, the domestic work of architect Claude Chambers and the benevolent work of the Methodist Church.
|Raymont Lodge is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial federation style residence.
|Raymont Lodge is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the quality and craftsmanship of its main interior spaces and the streetscape contribution of the building and grounds.
|Raymont Lodge has a special association with the life of mining entrepreneur William Davies, the domestic work of architect Claude Chambers and the benevolent work of the Methodist Church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14827,"place_ref":600052,"name":"Moorlands","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"451 Coronation Drive","suburb":"AUCHENFLOWER","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Moorlands is a large, two storeyed, rendered brick building, with timber belvedere and an attached service wing to the rear. It stands prominently on a hill overlooking the Brisbane River at the Toowong Reach, in substantial grounds fronting Coronation Drive.
\nThe main roof is clad with slate, but the steep turreted roof of a corner observation tower is sheeted in broad-profile galvanised iron. Four double chimney stacks rise above the roofline.
\nThe southeast and northeast elevations, with views of the river, feature verandahs on both levels, an elaborate timber belvedere at the corner, and a projecting gable with bay windows in the front (southeastern) elevation. The verandahs and tower are detailed with double timber posts with shared capitals and timber brackets, a balustrading of fine cast iron, and a timber valance.
\nInternally the walls and high ceilings are plastered and painted, with plaster ceiling roses in every room and arches in the hallways and in front of the bay windows.
\nThe principal rooms feature elaborate cornices, paper friezes and timber moulding picture rails, which once were decorated in polychrome and gilding. Only the principal front room retains the original decoration.
\nMost rooms contain a fireplace with glazed ceramic tiles and a marble surround. Extensive cedar joinery (particularly the fine staircase and folding doors on the ground floor), is employed throughout the interior. Fretwork balustrading panels in the stairwell feature the intertwined letters PM and on the base newel are carved the words sursum corda (lift up your hearts). The stairwell is lit by a large stained glass window of elaborate design.
\nThe internal arrangement of rooms survives, including the cellars beneath the kitchen.
\nA number of mature trees including bunya, poinciana and jacaranda are remnants of an earlier landscaped garden. The multi-storeyed Wesley Hospital complex is situated adjacent to the building.
","history":"Moorlands was constructed in 1892 for the Mayne family of Brisbane. It replaced an earlier timber residence on the site which was known as Moorlands Villa.
\nMary Mayne, widow of Patrick Mayne, had purchased the earlier house and almost six hectares in 1878. Patrick Mayne was a prominent Brisbane resident in the 1860s-70s who owned a butcher shop in Queen Street, served as an alderman and speculated in property. Mary Mayne and her five children resided in Moorlands Villa until her death in September 1889.
\nFour of the children, James, William, Isaac and Mary, continued to occupy the property and decided to build a new house. The foundation stone was laid by Mary Mayne on 3 June 1892. Beneath this was placed a time-capsule, enclosing newspapers of the day and a statement explaining why the house was being built.
\nThe building was designed by architect Richard Gailey, and erected by contractor Arthur Smith. The ground floor contained porch, vestibule, staircase hall, drawing room, parlour, dining room, smoking room, cloakroom, serving room, pantries and kitchen. The basement housed cellars, dairy, stores and laundry. A vestibule, ten bedrooms and several bathrooms were located on the first floor.
\nMoorlands remained the property of the Mayne family until 1940, when it was bequeathed to the University of Queensland, to which the family also had donated funds in the 1920s to purchase the St Lucia campus.
\nUnited States service personnel and the Australian Army occupied the Moorlands property during the Second World War and erected huts in the grounds (since removed). In 1947 the building was sold to the Brisbane Legacy War Widows and Orphans Fund, and accommodated war-orphaned children and widows until 1971.
\nThe Methodist (later Uniting) Church bought the property in 1971 and the Wesley Hospital, which opened in March 1977, was built in the grounds behind the house. Moorlands was renovated and converted to office accommodation for the Blue Nursing Service. In the 1990s it was the head office of the Uniting Church's Division of Aged Care and Domiciliary Services.
\nFollowing road widening in the 1970s the front fencing was removed and the gates and gate posts (replicas of the originals) were relocated higher up towards the main building.
","criteria":"Moorlands is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial 1890's brick residence.
\nMoorlands is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its landmark quality, contribution to the Coronation Drive streetscape and to the riverscape of the Toowong Reach of the Brisbane River.
\nMoorlands has special association with the Mayne family, major benefactors of the University of Queensland, and with the domestic work of architect Richard Gailey.
|Moorlands is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial 1890's brick residence.
|Moorlands is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its landmark quality, contribution to the Coronation Drive streetscape and to the riverscape of the Toowong Reach of the Brisbane River.
|Moorlands has special association with the Mayne family, major benefactors of the University of Queensland, and with the domestic work of architect Richard Gailey.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14828,"place_ref":600053,"name":"Bardon House","alternate_name":"Franciscan Sisters' Convent","street_address":"41 The Drive","suburb":"BARDON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bardon House and St Mary Magdalene's Hall are located within the grounds of St Joseph's School, Bardon. Bardon House is located on a rise above The Drive to the south, near the intersection with Cecil Road. Originally situated overlooking Ithaca Creek, it is now partly surrounded by school buildings to the west, north and northwest. The open space that extends between the House and the Hall to the east, enhances the setting of the two buildings; in 2017 the area is in use as a carpark. The Hall is situated adjacent to and facing the main entrance to the school off The Drive, and a lawn area to the front is bordered by a low brick fence. Due to its elevated position, Bardon House is a prominent feature along The Drive and makes an important contribution to the streetscape. An important feature of the place is the views formed by the relationship between Bardon House, its surrounds and the hills of the Taylor Range to the west.
\nBardon House
\nBardon House, an example of Victorian Gothic-styled architecture, is a two-storeyed stone structure that has a complex steeply pitched roof, with intersecting gables and dormer windows. The roof was originally shingled, but is currently sheeted with ribbed decking, and the chimney stacks have been removed. The gables have decorative fretwork bargeboards, and the dormers have louvred window units. The building has an L-shaped plan, with the main wing facing northeast and a service wing at the rear to the south. A single-storeyed gabled extension has been added to the rear southern wing, and lean-to additions to the western side.
\nThe building is constructed of a combination of coursed and uncoursed squared rubble, with the remains of tuck pointing, and rough faced sandstone quoining to corners, doors and windows.
\nThe northeast elevation has a central projecting gable, and an enclosed verandah to the ground floor. The gable has a central louvred window, surmounted by a sandstone relieving arch, with a stepped sandstone moulding below. The enclosed verandah has a corrugated iron lean-to roof, fibrous cement cladding, and louvred and casement windows.
\nThe southeast elevation has a wide gable end to the main wing, with a narrower projecting gable adjacent to the south. A lean-to verandah is located adjacent to the southern wing. The wide gable has a large multi-paned leadlight sash window to the ground floor, with evidence of a former window hood, surmounted by a sandstone relieving arch. The first floor has a smaller casement window surmounting a stepped sandstone moulding, with a narrow lancet to the apex. The narrower gable has a central door to the ground floor, which is no longer used, with a fanlight and squared sandstone moulding forming the upper part of an architrave. The first floor has a narrow lancet window, with glass louvres, surmounting a stepped sandstone moulding. The lean-to verandah has been enclosed with timber lattice at the northern end, and has square timber posts and timber rail balustrade.
\nThe northwest elevation has a gable end to the main wing, with two courses of sandstone forming a base, and a large louvred window to the ground floor surmounted by a sandstone relieving arch. The first floor has a smaller casement window surmounting a stepped sandstone moulding. A small square window opening, with glass louvres lighting a non-original toilet, has been inserted to the south of the casement window. External plumbing is also visible.
\nThe lean-to addition to the western side of the rear wing has a corrugated iron roof, fibrous cement cladding, louvred windows and a brick base. A single-storeyed southern extension is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork, with a corrugated iron gable roof. The southern end of the southeast verandah has been enclosed with fibrous cement cladding, and has casement windows and French doors onto the verandah.
\nInternally, the ground floor of the main wing has a large central room (chapel), with a smaller room either side, and an enclosed verandah lined with fibrous cement sheeting along the northeast. The northern room has a central partition wall, which divides the space forming two bedrooms, and which bisects the fireplace surround and window. A staircase and hallway is located within the intersection with the southern wing, which has a living room with a verandah on the southeast. A kitchen and music room with verandah forms the later extension to the south. The western side has a lean-to addition, containing a dining room, laundry, bathroom, store and hallway, and is lined with fibrous cement sheeting. The ground floor of the building has mainly rendered masonry walls, pressed metal ceilings, and French doors with fanlights opening onto verandahs. The joinery is painted throughout, but reportedly is of cedar, and includes panelled doors, some with fanlights, architraves, skirtings and some fireplace surrounds. All fireplaces have been filled in.
\nA small room adjacent to the staircase has an external door which is no longer used, and a pivoting window with coloured glass panels opening onto the southeast verandah. This room may have formed part of the original entrance foyer, but the original arrangement in unknown. The staircase is early, but not original, and consists of a narrow dog-leg with winders, narrow turned timber newel posts and slim timber balusters. The wall to the south of the staircase has fibrous cement sheeting. The rear kitchen area has been altered, with a small room forming a two-way pantry, and a door and window to the western addition being removed.
\nInternally, the first floor contains bedrooms with a hallway along the southwest side and a bathroom at the northwest end. Walls and ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting, with the rake of the roof sloping to approximately window sill height. A partition wall divides the central room into two bedrooms, bisecting a dormer window. The northwest bathroom, toilet and bedroom were also formed by a partition wall dividing a larger room. A large bedroom, to the southwest of the stairs, is accessed by a short hallway extension of the landing.
\nA carport is located on the southern side of the western lean-to addition, and a timber fence encloses a western garden. A large mango tree is situated near the southwest corner of the house. Modern concrete block retaining walls align approximately parallel to the northeast and southeast sides of the house, forming a landscaped platform containing lawn areas and garden beds with hedges and shrubs.
\nSt Mary Magdalene's Hall (Lyon’s Hall)
\nThe Hall is located on a steeply sloping site, with the front entrance on the southwest at ground level, and the rear of the building supported on a combination of tall concrete stumps and modern metal posts. It is a single-storeyed weatherboard-clad and tile-roofed structure comprising: a rectangular gable-roofed core with raised ridge ventilation; a hip-roofed bay with a projecting gabled porch framing the entrance; a large faceted bay containing a stage at the rear; and an office in the eastern corner. External stairs access the office and the northeast corner of the hall. Windows comprising glass horizontal louvres, with flat-sheeted fanlights, are evenly spaced along either side. Part of the understorey has been enclosed, with a combination of painted blockwork and flat sheeted walls, and has timber-framed casement windows.
\nThe front porch sits on a brick plinth, which is accessed by a concrete ramp, and has a sheeted and battened gable infill. A marble foundation stone is embedded in the brickwork; it reads: ‘ST MARY MAGDALENE’S | THIS FOUNDATION STONE WAS BLESSED AND LAID BY THE RIGH REVEREND MONSIGNOR BYRNE, V.G. | 5TH SEPTEMBER 1926’. A modern metal plaque is also fixed to the brickwork; it reads: ‘LYONS’ HALL | FR RAY LYONS | Bardon Curate from 1937, Bardon Parish Priest 1954-1977’.
\nThe interior layout comprises a large open hall space, with storage and a modern kitchen in the entrance bay. The raised stage is accessed by timber steps and framed by a bulkhead surround. The interior features decorative timberwork throughout. The walls are of stained timber vertical boards to dado height, above which the walls are sheeted with a pale coloured material with dark stained cover strips placed in a symmetrical pattern. The ceiling features open timber trusses and is lined with dark stained timber boards which are diagonally laid with lattice ventilators at either end.
\nOther Buildings
\nOther buildings, structures, pathways, and sheds, and modern partitions and joinery, within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Bardon House, a two-storeyed stone residence, was constructed in 1863/64 by Joshua Jeays, builder, architect and early mayor of Brisbane. It is thought that he constructed it for his wife Sarah, who died prior to its completion.
\nJoshua Jeays (1812-1881) arrived in Moreton Bay from England with his wife Sarah and four children in 1853. Born in Leicestershire, he trained as a carpenter and builder and worked in London before emigrating. Jeays established himself independently as a builder and contractor in Brisbane from 1857 after dissolving his earlier partnership with JW Thompson, securing contracts for many notable early Brisbane buildings including Old Government House [QHR 600118]. After retiring in 1864, he continued to operate his stone quarry at Woogaroo, where some of the finer stone for Bardon House was quarried. He was also involved in local politics, becoming an alderman of the Brisbane Municipal Council in its foundation year, 1859 and serving as Mayor in 1864-65. From 1854, Jeays resided with his family at a house on North Quay.[1]
\nThe first half of the 1860s was a period of strong growth for Brisbane in the newly established colony of Queensland. Immigration boosted the population dramatically (more than doubling between 1861 and 1864 to over 12,000) and many substantial public and private buildings were constructed during this time. The urban environment of Brisbane's fledgling town centre, where residential dwellings co-existed in close proximity with commercial and industrial activity, was characterised by congestion, noise, and poor sanitation, common among other developing towns and cities in mid-19th century Australia.[2]
\nDuring this period ‘villa estates', located in the suburban periphery in then semi-rural settings - on elevated locations such as along ridgelines, and in some instances with river frontage - became an increasingly popular type of dwelling for Brisbane's more affluent residents. This demographic included senior public servants, professionals and successful business people. The flight to residential villa estates by the affluent was a development pattern that occurred internationally during the Victorian era. Key elements of villa estates included large and comfortable houses, associated outbuildings such as servant's quarters and stabling, expansive garden settings, and a ‘good road to town’.[3]
\nIn November 1862, in the first land sales for the area, Jeays acquired two Country Lots (Portions 301 and 302) ‘on Ithaca Creek’ before purchasing the adjacent Portion 300 from Francis Lyon in early 1863. Comprising 38 acres (15.38 ha), Portion 300 was the property on which Bardon House was constructed.[4]
\nBardon House is thought to have been constructed by Jeays during 1863/64. The name is derived from Leicestershire County’s highest landmark, Bardon Hill, close to Joshua and Sarah Jeays’ respective home towns of Loughborough and Beeby.[5]
\nSarah Jeays died in July 1864 while her husband was serving as the mayor of Brisbane; Joshua Jeays retired from business shortly afterwards and never resided at Bardon House, remaining at North Quay until his death in 1881.[6]
\nJeays advertised a ‘Stone-Built Suburban VILLA RESIDENCE’ (sic) for lease in February 1865, with similar adverts appearing in subsequent months in the Brisbane Courier. By early 1866, Jeays’ daughter Sarah and husband [Sir] Charles Lilley (later Premier and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland) resided there. A family notice marking the birth of a son (Arthur) in March 1866 is the earliest documented reference to the place being called Bardon.[7] The Lilley’s occupancy of Bardon House appears to have ended by mid-1867, when Jeays was again advertising Bardon:
\n‘…a stone Villa, containing ten rooms beside coach-house, stables, out-offices, and garden, and 40 or 90 acres of land securely fenced.’[8]
\nThe kitchen wing connected to Bardon House (to the south of the stone building) is built of brick. It has not been established if this was an original component of the house when first built, or if it was constructed later.
\nThereafter, a succession of notable Brisbane residents and their families occupied the property for various periods of time. This included Thomas Harlin (First headmaster of Brisbane Boys Grammar School), and [Sir] Thomas Mc Ilwraith (later Premier of Queensland). John Stennett (of pharmaceutical firm Elliot Brothers) and his family occupied Bardon House from 1878-1886. Stennett bought just over 32 acres of land of portion 301 shortly before Joshua Jeays death in March 1881, later building a new residence Northam (demolished) in 1886. Subsequent tenants from the mid-1880s to early 1900s were stock and sharebroker Brownlow Cole, customs officer Charles William Rich and Johannes Christian Brunnich, a government agricultural chemist.[9]
\nJoshua Jeays died in March 1881 with the land that comprised his Bardon estate remaining in the ownership of the Jeays/Lilley family until 1911.[10] From 1903 Bardon House was leased to Arthur Exley who lived there with his wife Elizabeth, five daughters and son until 1925, one of the longest tenants at the property. Exley had an extensive career with the Department of Public Instruction (1886-1928) and was the headmaster of the nearby Ithaca State School [QHR 650022] when his family moved to Bardon. Elizabeth played a prominent role in the community, especially in relation to social services for women and children, helping to establish the first Queensland branch of the Anglican missionary organisation the Mothers Union and the District Nursing Association.[11]
\nThe recollections of the youngest Exley daughter Joyce of Bardon in the early 1900s, provide a glimpse into the layout and features of the property at this time:
\n“… The house itself was approached by a drive whose gate was at the top of the drive and descended to the house enclosed by a bamboo drive—bamboos on either side of the road… the house grounds were about an acre with large trees—Bunya Pine, Moreton Bay Figs on either side of a circular carriage way to the front door. There was a terrace to the right [north] of the house the length of the long side verandah… A gate led to the back garden—two huge bamboo clumps and a vegetable garden which was in turn enclosed in the house acre. Below were stables—a carriage house, a coal shed, three horse boxes, a cow bail and cow sheds—and a forbidden loft. On the rise which is on the corner of Cecil Road and The Drive was a ‘man’s room’, a cottage sized room, mostly used by us children as a playroom.[12]
\n\n
Repairs are thought to have been made to the house c.1910s, including the replacement of the original shingle roof with asbestos slates. Around this time pressed metal ceilings replaced some sections of plaster and lathe ceilings that had failed.[13]
\nFollowing the death of owner Edwyn Lilley in 1911, Arthur Exley, master builder Arthur Barltrop and solicitor Patrick O’Sullivan acquired the Bardon property holdings and formed the company Bardon Estate Limited, subdividing much of the land for new housing. Allotments were offered for sale in four stages between 1912 and 1921. As part of this subdivision, the original Bardon House driveway was gazetted as a road (The Drive). Five acres (2.023 ha), comprising parts of the original portions 300 and 301 were retained as surroundings for the house.[14]
\nThe Exleys remained at Bardon house until the property was purchased by Archbishop James Duhig, for the Roman Catholic Church in 1925 for £2250. This occurred during a period of unprecedented growth in building and land acquisition by the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland. Duhig was appointed as Archbishop in 1917 having previously had served as Co-adjator Archbishop to his predecessor, Archbishop Dunne since 1912. It was from this time that Duhig planned immense growth within the Church. This growth was manifest by the large number of churches, schools, convents and presbyteries built increasing the church's presence in Queensland. In addition to new buildings, Duhig keenly acquired a number of Brisbane’s earliest substantial and prominent residences (such as Bardon House) for church purposes.[15]
\nThe parish of Bardon was declared in 1926, the 38th Parish of the Archdiocese, the same year suburb was officially designated. The first mass was celebrated at Bardon House in March 1925 by Monsignor Lee of nearby Rosalie Parish. It was held in the central room of Bardon House, with the mantelpiece and table substituting as an altar.[16]
\nAppointed in 1925, Father Max Irvine, the Chaplain at Stuartholme Convent, became the first Parish Priest, and resided at Bardon House. By the following year, services were no longer held in Bardon House, as a church-school (St Mary Magdalene's, originally spelt Magdalen) was constructed within the grounds. Architect John (J.P. or Jack) Donoghue designed the new building, which was constructed by V Robinson. Donoghue (1894-1960) was an articled pupil with Hennessey and Hennessey, and later associate, and went on to design many buildings for the Catholic Church across Queensland, both in independent practice (1926-1937) and in the subsequent partnerships of Donoghue and Fulton (1937-1946) and Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards (1947-1960). A contemporary newspaper article on ‘new architect’ Donoghue indicates that the church-school may have been Donoghue’s earliest work as a lone practitioner.[17]
\nThe foundation stone for the church-school was laid at a ceremony in September, with the building officially opened on 7 November by Archbishop Duhig. It was a timber structure with a tiled and ventilated roof, built on a sloping site to the east of the house. At the time of its construction it was considered to be a ‘temporary arrangement,[18] but went on to serve as the parish church for nearly 40 years. A new St Mary Magdalene's church was constructed in 1963 on the grounds below Bardon House, designed by parishioner and architect Brian Hackett. The timber church was retained as a hall for school and parish purposes. A plaque at the entrance of the building indicates it was renamed ‘Lyons Hall’ c1977 in honour of long serving parish priest Fr Ray Lyons.[19]
\nWhile the intention was for the 1926 church to also be used as a school, this did not occur until 1938. Parish Priest, Dr O'Donoghue vacated Bardon and nuns of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (Franciscan Sisters, invited by Duhig) moved in on January 19, 1938 to establish a convent and new primary school, to be known as St Joseph’s. St Joseph's School was opened on January 24th 1938, with 31 male and female pupils. By the end of the year, a separate school building [located between Bardon house and the church, since demolished] was constructed on the site, its erection made possible through an anonymous donation of £1000. The church was used for teaching pupils from this time and an area under the building was later enclosed as classroom space.[20]
\nAs part of its adaptation for convent and school use, the north facing verandah of Bardon House was enclosed to accommodate a classroom. The eastern verandah was enclosed with lattice around this time, while stone walls of the enclosed verandahs were also rendered. Further modifications related to its use as a convent from c.1950s included: internal lining of upper floor walls and ceilings with sheeting, and addition of bathroom; partitioning of some bedrooms; addition of built-in cupboards; re-roofing of the kitchen wing with corrugated iron; addition of a verandah to the east of the kitchen, and removal of western verandahs and ground floor bathrooms, replaced by the addition of new utility wing. By 1979, the slate roof had been replaced by flat pan metal roof and the (once prominent) chimneys had been removed.[21]
\nFrom the post-war era onwards, St Joseph's School developed and grew. A range of school buildings and sporting facilities have been constructed on the grounds since this time. Most structures on the school site now date from post-2000 era. The earliest surviving school building is the 1958 Forrest building, immediately west of Bardon House.
","criteria":"Bardon House (c1863/64) is important for the evidence it provides of the way of life of prosperous citizens in the outer suburbs of Brisbane in the early decades of Queensland's history. In 1925, Bardon House was acquired for use as a convent and church for the new parish of Rosalie, and as such, demonstrates the evolution of the Roman Catholic church in Queensland. This is also demonstrated by the adjacent St Mary Magdelene's Hall which was constructed in 1926 as the first parish church. It remained in use until a new church was constructed in 1963.
|Bardon House is a Victorian Gothic style stone house with a complex steeply pitched roof of intersecting gables and dormer windows and is an uncommon example of this style of architecture in Queensland.
|The house is of aesthetic significance due to its prominence in the streetscape and for its fine workmanship and architectural style. It is important as an early example of a fine quality 1860s Queensland residence of masonry construction and fine joinery.
\nSt Mary Magdelene's Hall is also of aesthetic significance for its high degree of internal detailing.
|The house and the hall are significant for their association with the local parish, and with the Roman Catholic Church who have been the owners of Bardon House, St Mary Magdelene's Hall and the grounds since 1925.
|Bardon House is significant for its association with its first owner, Joshua Jeays, who was a prominent Brisbane builder, architect and politician.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14829,"place_ref":600054,"name":"Cintra House","alternate_name":"Cintra","street_address":"23 Boyd Street","suburb":"BOWEN HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cintra House is a two-storeyed masonry house dating from the 1860s, with double-storeyed verandahs on two sides and with a corrugated metal roof. A gabled service wing extends off the rear. The eastern elevation features a double-storeyed faceted bay (possibly 1890). The present two-storeyed verandah running along the northern and western sides, has cast-iron balusters, double posts, and frieze. On the lower level, the latticed valance replaced an earlier scalloped tongue and groove valance at the time of refurbishment. The capitals to the lower level posts were removed at the same time. A small verandah above the entrance porch is of similar design and materials as the main verandah.
Internally the house has been renovated with little of the earlier fabric surviving. It now consists of two reception rooms and a dining room on the ground floor and five bedrooms upstairs. A modern kitchen is located in the service wing.
The house is situated in a prominent hillside position. The sweeping north lawn is lined with a row of mature palm trees.
","history":"The original Cintra, a two-storeyed Georgian influenced stone house, was built in 1863-64 for George Webb to a design by Benjamin Backhouse. It comprised four rooms on each level, surrounded by a ground floor verandah.
In 1877 the property was bought by Boyd Dunlop Morehead, a successful pastoralist and businessman who was Premier of Queensland 1888-90. To accommodate his growing family, Morehead extended the house to the south. This extension now forms a separate residence. A rear service wing is thought to have been built in the 1870s. Possibly about 1890 he added the faceted bay on the eastern side. The old verandah was replaced with two-storeyed verandahs along the northern and western sides.
Morehead died in 1905 and in 1912 Cintra was acquired by railway contractor and businessman Acheson Overend. In 1925 he sold Cintra which was then divided into two, the connection to the southern extension being dismantled. The southern extension eventually, with alterations and additions, became the Cintra Nursing Home.
Cintra House became Our Lady of Victories Convent in 1927. From 1966 to 1973 it was the headquarters of the Queensland Motor Sporting Club. It was refurbished subsequently and became Cintra House Galleries until 1987 when it returned to its original use as a family home.
","criteria":"A large "villa" residence which embodies structural and stylistic changes from the 1860s, reflecting changing affluent lifestyle and tastes.
|Its landmark quality as one of Brisbane's most commanding hilltop residences.
|Its association with Boyd Morehead.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14830,"place_ref":600055,"name":"Miegunyah","alternate_name":"Beverley Wood","street_address":"35 Jordan Terrace","suburb":"BOWEN HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Miegunyah is a single-storeyed timber house (c.1885) surrounded by a verandah with cast-iron balusters, wide filigree posts and valances. Bay windows at the front do not extend to the hipped roof which is in corrugated iron.
Entry is via a projecting gabled portico with a fretwork pediment. The house is highset at the front with brick piers and honeycomb brick infill. The stairs and portico base are in solid masonry ornamented in classic detail including arches with keystones.
The exterior of the timber stables at the rear has been conserved while the interior has been altered to provide caretaker accommodation.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber residence was built around 1885 on land owned by William Perry, a successful ironmonger and merchant who lived at nearby Folkstone. Perry had bought the land in 1875, and the house was occupied by his adult sons Herbert and George who built Perry House (QHR 600103).
Miegunyah remained in the Perry family until 1926, and several changes of ownership followed to 1966. The house was saved from demolition by the Queensland Womens Historical Association, who by 1967 had raised sufficient funds to acquire the building. They refurbished the house and later opened it as a house museum dedicated to the pioneer women of Queensland. The interior has been partly returned to its original layout and colour scheme.
","criteria":"Miegunyah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial single storeyed 1880s residence, including stables and garden. The fine quality of the residence exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
Miegunyah is significant for the association between the building and the Perry family, prominent Brisbane merchants and also with the work of the Queensland Women's Historical Association.
|Miegunyah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial single storeyed 1880s residence, including stables and garden.
|The fine quality of the residence exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|Miegunyah is significant for the association between the building and the Perry family, prominent Brisbane merchants and also with the work of the Queensland Women's Historical Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14831,"place_ref":600056,"name":"The Holy Triad Temple","alternate_name":"Sarm Sung Goon | Breakfast Creek Joss House","street_address":"32 Higgs Street","suburb":"ALBION","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The temple is a rectangular, rendered brick structure with a complex triple roof of Chinese terracotta tiles. A feature of this roof is the elaborate ceramic ornamentation, incorporating Chinese historical and mythological characters, on the ridges and barges.
The interior comprises three sections: an entrance, a sky-lit middle section, and the temple proper with its carved altar and figures of the gods of wealth, medicine and knowledge. Internal decoration is elaborate, and includes exposed carved and gilded timber supports, and furnishings such as silks, embroideries, lanterns and lamps.
In the 1965-66 restoration, the middle roof section, which had been removed, was repositioned. Much of the original interior decoration, which had been either salvaged or vandalised, was replaced.
The temple survives in a back street sandwiched between the Breakfast Creek Hotel, Albion Park Racecourse and light industrial development, with the former vista across Breakfast Creek lost. A plain concrete block building has been constructed adjacent to the temple, and the grounds have been concreted and enclosed with a brick fence and gateway.
","history":"The Temple of the Holy Triad was constructed in 1885-86 for the Cantonese Chinese community of Brisbane.
In the 1880s sizeable numbers of Cantonese settled in Brisbane. They were most conspicuous in small businesses (particularly in Fortitude Valley and along Albert Street), and in market gardening (especially on the flats around Breakfast Creek and Eagle Farm). By 1888 Brisbane depended almost entirely on the Chinese for its supply of fresh vegetables.
Construction of the temple was an attempt by the leaders of Brisbane's five Cantonese clans to provide their people with a community focus. The elaborate triple roof was imported from China by Quong Nam Tai & Co, Brisbane's most prominent Chinese trading firm, and the building was erected by Chinese artisans.
The temple was opened on 21 January 1886, and remained the focus of Chinese community activity in Brisbane for nearly sixty years. This was followed by a period of declining interest and neglect until the formation in 1965 of the Chinese Temple Society.
The society undertook work on the temple and it was re-opened in June 1966. It today offers a focus for various Chinese communities.
In the second half of the nineteenth century Chinese immigrants erected temples on most of the principal Queensland goldfields and ports. Only three temples survive in Queensland from this period: the Breakfast Creek temple, the small Chun Lo Goon temple at Rockhampton, which has been removed to the city's Chinese Garden; and the Hou Wang temple at Atherton. The latter is smaller than the Breakfast Creek temple and is constructed of local materials.
","criteria":"The Temple of the Holy Triad is significant as evidence of the development of Chinese settlement in nineteenth century Brisbane.
|The Temple of the Holy Triad is significant as a rare example of a nineteenth century Chinese temple in Queensland.
|The Temple of the Holy Triad is significant as a rare example of a nineteenth century Chinese temple in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14832,"place_ref":600057,"name":"Breakfast Creek Hotel","alternate_name":"Breaky Creek Hotel","street_address":"2 Kingsford Smith Drive","suburb":"ALBION","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Breakfast Creek Hotel is an ornate, two-storeyed, rendered masonry building with cement dressings and corrugated iron and sheeted roofs. It comprises a main building with verandahs to the south, west and east (1889), and a brick service wing extending to the rear (early 1900s) with timber extensions (c1926). The building is prominently located at the junction of Breakfast Creek Road and Kingsford Smith Drive, and at the confluence of Breakfast Creek and the Brisbane River. Its rich external decoration and prominent crested mansard roofs at the corners, combined with its location, gives the building landmark status in the Breakfast Creek townscape.
The 1889 building is extravagantly detailed. The Breakfast Creek Road frontage to the south has projecting end bays with vermiculated stone quoins which flank a ground floor loggia and first floor verandah. These bays have mansard roofs with crested widows walks. The western bay has a doorway framed by pilasters and a pediment, with windows framed with pilasters above. The eastern bay has a two-storey height faceted bay window. The loggia has round columns and cement extrados.
The building is encircled with a deep cornice with scrolled brackets and dentils, surmounted by a parapet with circular motifs. The parapet supports five pediments. The central pediment has an arched panel inscribed with the words Breakfast Creek Hotel, which is topped with an arched gable which is embellished with acroteria. The central pediment is flanked by two triangular pediments with scrolls inscribed with the words W.M.G and AD 1889. The east and western elevations also have triangular pediments.
The verandahs around the building have intricately detailed cast iron balustrades, and columns with valances. The columns are paired, and have floriated capitals, hexagonal bases, and fluted shafts. The verandah to the west is supported on cast iron columns with cast iron valances and spandrel panels.
The 1889 building has two large bars on the ground floor either side of an entrance hall and offices and meeting rooms upstairs, and contains some rich internal decoration. The entrance hall has a decorated arch with a female figure on the keystone, a terrazzo floor with the letters BCH inlaid at the door, cedar stairs with richly turned balusters and newels at the northern end, and four timber framed doors with etched glass with floral motifs leading to the bars. The western bar has a terrazzo floor, and is decorated with black and white polished ceramic tiles, and etched glass and coloured glass windows with floral motifs. The eastern bar has coloured glass windows over mirrors along its eastern wall, and a bay window with etched and coloured glass.
The stairs to the upper floor also give access to the service wing at half-landing level. The doorway has coloured glass surrounds with painted allegorical figures and geometrically patterned coloured glass panels. There is a pressed metal ceiling above these stairs.
The upper floor of the 1889 building contains large meeting rooms and smaller offices either side of a small east-west corridor and a wider north-south corridor; both have central decorative arches. There is a large room in the south east corner which has a fireplace with marble surrounds, and another in the south west corner which has a decorative plaster ceiling and full-length sash windows.
The rear service wing, containing the kitchen and service areas, is brick with cement dressings, and has a brick-on-edge string course at first floor level. It has a hipped corrugated iron roof with decorative timber eaves brackets. This service wing has been extended at ground floor level to the east, with a single-storeyed timber pavilion with a pitched roof containing a dining room.
The dining room opens to the outside with large timber folding doors on two walls. It is lined with coloured polished ceramic tiles and has a plaster ceiling with a rounded stepped cornice, and pilasters with staggered flat capitals with rounded ends.
","history":"This large, two-storeyed brick hotel was constructed in 1889 for William MacNaughton Galloway, an Edward Street seaman's outfitter who served as president of the Breakfast Creek Bridge Board from 1887 to 1889, and as Mayor of Brisbane from 1889 to 1890.
The site initially was part of a larger subdivision of 9 acres which was alienated in 1845 and acquired by Thomas Hennessy, carpenter, of Brisbane, in 1849. By 1862, and probably much earlier, Mrs Hennessy had established a Breakfast Creek Hotel on part of this property. Whether this was on the site of the 1890 building is not clear. A traffic bridge across Breakfast Creek was established as early as 1848, and the early hotel was located in its vicinity. Publican Michael Campbell took over the Breakfast Creek Hotel in 1863, but the business does not appear to have survived to the late 1860s.
Galloway's hotel was erected during a period of growth in the Breakfast Creek area associated with quarrying, timber-milling, the construction of the Albion racecourse, and the opening of the new Breakfast Creek Bridge on 24 May 1889.
Tenders were called in April 1889 by architects George S Simkin and John Ibler, and the foundation stone was laid on 18 May 1889. The successful contractors were Thomas Woollam and William Norman with a price of £5,300. Described as a family hotel, the Breakfast Creek Hotel opened on 17 May 1890. At the time, the building occupied a commanding position at the northern end of the new Breakfast Creek Bridge, visible from the city, Albion and Hamilton approaches. The interiors were considered very fine, the fittings in the bar on the ground floor of the west wing being particularly impressive. Large folding doors between the east wing dining and commercial rooms on the ground floor, could be opened to create a large banqueting room. Above the staircase landing was a partition containing a stained glass medallion depicting Lady Macbeth, framed by two enamel-painted allegorical figures. There were ten bedrooms and a large drawing room on the first floor, all of which had extensive views of the Brisbane River, Breakfast Creek, and surrounding country. At the rear were the kitchen, servant's rooms and stables, the latter floored with hardwood blocks set in cement. With the ground being particularly damp, the whole of the subfloor was occupied by cellars, the walls and floors of which were constructed of concrete, and in effect forming the foundations.
Following William Galloway's death in 1895, his wife Anne retained the hotel license until 1901, before removing to Southport. In 1900 she sold the property to Perkins Brewery, but remained the lessee for another year. The two-storeyed eastern wing at the rear dates from around the turn of the century, and may have been erected following the transfer to Perkins.
Publican Michael John McGuire held the lease from 1901 to 1917, and since 1926, the lease and license of the Breakfast Creek Hotel have been held principally by members of the Cavill family. In 1926, Brisbane architect Richard Gailey called tenders for alterations and additions to the hotel, and a cold room was constructed in 1930.
The Breakfast Creek Hotel has become a Brisbane landmark, and remains the only hotel in Brisbane which still offers beer 'off the wood'. Its 20th century clientele have included an assorted mix of waterside workers, fishermen, railway workers, policemen, journalists, lawyers, bookies, petty criminals and politicians.
","criteria":"The Breakfast Creek Hotel is closely associated with the development of the Breakfast Creek area in the late 19th century, and with prominent Brisbane personality WM Galloway.
|It is a fine example of late 1880s boom-era commercial architecture in Brisbane, and one of few known works by Brisbane architects Simkin & Ibler.
|It is a fine example of late 1880s boom-era commercial architecture in Brisbane, and one of few known works by Brisbane architects Simkin & Ibler.
|The Breakfast Creek Hotel is an ornate, richly detailed building which assumes landmark status in the Breakfast Creek townscape. It contains some rich internal detailing, including cedar stairs, coloured and etched glass, decorative mouldings, and coloured tiles.
The Breakfast Creek Hotel survives as an integral element in a grouping of culturally significant places at the junction of Breakfast Creek and the Brisbane River, including Newstead House (1846) and Park [600265], the Temple of the Holy Triad (1886) [600056] and Breakfast Creek Bridge (1889).
|It is one of the best-known hotels in Brisbane, and in the 20th century has been associated with working-class and labor party groups from waterside workers to politicians.
|The Breakfast Creek Hotel is closely associated with the development of the Breakfast Creek area in the late 19th century, and with prominent Brisbane personality WM Galloway.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14833,"place_ref":600058,"name":"Brisbane Arcade","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"160 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Brisbane Arcade connects Queen and Adelaide Streets in the block between Edward and Albert Streets. The facades at each end have similar features - both are three storeys high and five window bays across, of face brickwork with cement dressings, and use plain classical details.
\nThe Queen Street facade has triangular Classical pediments at parapet level above each end window bay. These end bays are separated by flanking brick pilasters and have cantilevered balconies on both levels with wrought iron railings consisting of vertical balustrading. The openings contain timber framed multi-paned windows and french doors which open onto the balconies. Ornate floral mouldings are situated on the pilasters to either side of the upper level openings. A deep bracketed cornice runs between the base of the pediments separating the parapet from the remainder of the facade. The parapet has raised sections at each end and in the centre where there is the name 'BRISBANE ARCADE' in raised lettering.
\nThe Adelaide Street facade has a similar arrangement of openings, but has arched windows in the end bays of the top floor with keystones that extend to the cornice line. A similar cornice occurs above all the other window openings as sun hoods. Cantilevered balconies occur only on the first floor level at each end and in the centre. These have wrought iron railings with diagonal balustrading.
\nThe entry to the arcade is central on both facades. The three storey sections extend only part of the distance into the block from both ends and are linked by the two storey arcade. The basement of this central section is currently in use as a food outlet. Some of the ground floor shops have been changed from the traditional materials polished timber shopfronts and lead-light windows to be replaced by marble and other modern products. The central space features a distinctive patterned terrazzo with brass inlay floor finish and timber-battened panel ceilings, it has a void running along the length of the arcade and in this area the roof is raised to admit light through clerestory windows and the metal roof trusses are left exposed. The arcade thoroughfare is crossed by a central walkway linking the galleries on each side, this upper level also features the polished timber shopfronts and lead-light windows with timber boarded ceilings and balustrades of timber posts with decorative metal infill panels. The upper level is accessed by stairs at each end which retain their original terrazzo finishes. The roof structure above the arcade consists of lightweight exposed steel trusses, and natural light is allowed into the space through clerestory windows on each side.
","history":"The Brisbane Arcade was opened in 1924. It was constructed at a cost of £70 000 for James O'Neil Mayne and Mary Emelia Mayne whose father, Patrick Mayne, had purchased the property as two adjoining allotments in 1853 (allotment 2 of section 10, with a frontage to Queen Street) and 1854 (allotment 17 of section 10, with a frontage to Adelaide Street).
\nThe arcade was designed by Richard Gailey Jnr, and built by J & E L Rees (Queen Street section), & Forsyth and Speering (Adelaide Street section). It provided a pedestrian and commercial link between Queen and Adelaide Streets. The arcade contained shops with frontages to Adelaide and Queen Streets, 20 shops on the ground level of the arcade, and a further 20 on the first floor. The building also contained office accommodation on the first level. The Arcade was one of a number of building projects in Queen Street during the 1920s including Ascot Chambers in 1924 (QHR 600089); Tattersalls, 1925 (QHR 600093) and the Regent Theatre, 1928 (QHR 600140).
\nWith the deaths of James (1939) and Mary Mayne (1940) the University of Queensland became the beneficiary of the property. In 1983 the arcade was extensively refurbished. The alterations included the addition of a timber panelled canopy, stained timber doors and leadlight glass in the shopfronts. In 1990 the shopfronts on the ground floor were replaced and many of the interiors were altered.
","criteria":"The Brisbane Arcade is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 1920s purpose-built shopping arcade in the central business district of Brisbane.
The Brisbane Arcade is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community and those interested in retail design, in particular the quality of its design, use of materials and craftsmanship displayed in the main internal space and street facades its contribution to the central business district townscape, and the Queen Street and Adelaide Street streetscapes.
|The Brisbane Arcade is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 1920s purpose-built shopping arcade in the central business district of Brisbane.
|The Brisbane Arcade is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community and those interested in retail design, in particular the quality of its design, use of materials and craftsmanship displayed in the main internal space and street facades its contribution to the central business district townscape, and the Queen Street and Adelaide Street streetscapes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14834,"place_ref":600059,"name":"Former Queensland Government Offices (Anzac Square Building)","alternate_name":"State Government Offices; The Murdoch Apartments/Hotel; Rendezvous; ANZAC Square Building","street_address":"255 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Former Queensland Government Offices (Anzac Square Building) is a seven-storeyed masonry and steel structure containing offices and ground level shops. Situated at the south-western end of the block bounded by Ann, Edward, Adelaide and Creek streets, the building forms an integral part of a design which includes a memorial square and offices for the Commonwealth Government. The square is part of a larger open space which links the Central Railway Station and the GPO.
\nThe building consists of the repetition of six units of similar design around a central courtyard. The lower two storeys form a podium built to the property alignment. The podium is faced in Helidon sandstone with a granite base. The five upper levels are divided into six towers each separated from the next by deep recessed bays which act as light courts. The external brick walls of the upper levels are channelled and rendered to resemble the banded sandstone of the podium. The steel frame of the building supports the walls which are not loadbearing.
\nThe building has repetitive facades which are articulated vertically and horizontally. Vertically they are divided into base, middle and top. Horizontally the longer Edward Street and Anzac Square facades are divided into three by the recesses which form light courts while the Adelaide and Ann Street facades are divided into two. Towers located at the rear of the light recesses protrude above the general parapet level. The composition of the facades is emphasised by the restrained use of classical detail. A moulded projection marks the junction between podium and middle levels. The upper level features classical balustrading and cornices. The middle and upper levels are a lighter colour than the base with the exception of the spandrel panels under the windows. The darker colour and slight recessing of the spandrel panels causes the spaces between the windows to appear as simplified pilasters.
\nWrapping around two thirds of the Edward Street and all of the Adelaide Street facades is a steel framed copper sheeted awning. The awning steps down the Edward Street elevation following the slope of the pavement. It is supported on metal tie rods and has pressed decoration including a coffered ceiling, rosettes and acanthus leaf friezes.
\nIn the centre of the Edward Street facade on the street level is a shopping arcade which is also an entrance to the building. The arcade has mosaic tiled floor with patterned border, a coffered plaster ceiling and timber and glass shop fronts. Two more entrances are located on this elevation. Double timber doors, positioned below the recesses between each unit, open onto long corridors leading to small lift foyers.
\nA vehicle entrance with ornamental cast iron gates is located on the ground level of the Adelaide Street facade. It leads to the central courtyard. Flanking this entrance are two pedestrian entrances which lead via corridors to lift foyers. The main foyer space in the building is on the northern side of the vehicular access and features a grand staircase leading to the first floor level. Most of the remainder of the Adelaide and Edward Street facades at ground level is occupied by shops. Original shop fronts have plate glass windows with copper-clad glazing bars and timber panelling.
\nThere are two entrances from Anzac Square. These are similar to the entrances from Edward Street and are located between each unit.
\nThe site originally sloped steeply from Ann Street down to Adelaide Street and was excavated to create a flat platform. The Ann Street facade is five storeys, with a further two storeys and a mezzanine located below pavement level. In the centre of this facade is a prominent arched portal. This entrance is faced in smooth sandstone and its simplified modern design, without mouldings or banding, contrasts with the external finishes of the remainder of the building.
\nAll of the building's entrances lead to the middle of the building where they are connected by a main corridor which wraps around the central courtyard. Vertical circulation is via stairs and lifts along the main corridor.
\nAlthough most of the office spaces have been altered since construction, the public spaces of the building retain their original finishes. These interiors are enriched by the use of simplified classically-derived ornament and richly patterned materials. The foyers and hallways on the lower levels feature marble panelling on the walls, and black and white mosaic tiles on the floors with black marble skirtings. Staircases, columns and pilasters are also of marble. On the upper levels terrazzo is used instead of marble. The staircases have cast iron balustrades with timber handrails and marble or terrazzo treads. Steel casement windows are used throughout with the exception of Units 3 and 4 which have timber casements. Internal walls are generally double brick with a rendered finish. The former caretakers flat located on the roof is of lightweight construction with a corrugated iron roof.
\nThe external walls of the central courtyard are rendered and painted. At each level above the ground are two concrete balconies with simple metal handrails which cantilever into the courtyard.
","history":"The Former Queensland Government Offices (Anzac Square Building) was built in stages commencing in 1931 and completed by 1959. It forms an integral part of the design by JS Murdoch, Chief Architect of the Commonwealth, for the block bounded by Edward, Ann, Creek and Adelaide streets and consisting of separate state and federal government offices flanking a memorial square.
\nPrior to the construction of the Queensland Government Offices the site was occupied by the old Normal School, near the Edward and Adelaide streets corner, and a fire station at the corner of Edward and Ann streets. The land for the Normal School was originally granted in 1852 to the Board for National Education. Further grants were made to the Board of General Education in 1861. The Normal School opened in 1863. The school acquired more land along the Ann Street frontage in 1871 but in 1889 the allotment at the corner of Ann and Edward Streets was dedicated for a Fire Brigade Station Reserve. A fire station, designed by HW Atkinson, was built in 1890.
\nThe Commonwealth Government owned much of the remaining part of the block. Around 1910 it was investigating a proposal to create a square in front of the Central Railway Station [QHR 600073] that would serve as a fitting entrance to the city. The idea of a square dedicated to the memory of the Anzacs was first raised soon after the Gallipoli campaign in 1916. A committee was formed in 1919 by Lt Col DC Cameron to lobby for the creation of a commemorative square that would occupy the entire block. In 1921 the Commonwealth Standing Committee on Public Works decided to erect a National War Memorial as part of the redevelopment of the block.
\nIn 1923 JS Murdoch proposed a layout for the block which included a central square flanked by rectangular office blocks of similar appearance. An alternative design was produced by the former Deputy Government Architect Lt Col T Pye later in the same year. This scheme, featuring a semicircular drive with triangular planned offices in the northern and western corners of the site, was sent to the federal government for consideration.
\nMurdoch subsequently sent three alternative designs to the Brisbane City Council and the State Public Works Department. One of these was adopted to coordinate the design of the block. Design guidelines were established allowing for the construction of seven-storeyed buildings consisting of a two-storeyed base faced in granite and sandstone and upper walls of brick or concrete rendered to imitate stone. Detailed design and documentation of the Queensland Government Offices was carried out by the Architectural Branch of the Queensland Public Works Department, in accordance with the guidelines, under the supervision of AB Leven. Elevations were designed to match the proposed Commonwealth Government Offices [QHR 600064].
\nBy 1928 land in the centre of the block, with frontages to Ann and Adelaide Streets of 228 feet, was dedicated for the purpose of public park under the control of Brisbane City Council. A national competition held in 1928 to design the Anzac memorial and square was won by Sydney architects Buchanan and Cowper. By 1929 the designs of Anzac Square and the Queensland Government Offices had been finalised. Anzac Square was opened in 1930 [QHR 600062].
\nThe Normal School and adjacent Army Drill shed were demolished by 1930. The site was excavated at the corner of Edward and Adelaide streets in preparation for the first stage of construction of the new Queensland Government Offices; Units 1 and 2. In the final design a two-storeyed podium formed the base for six five-storeyed towers connected by a corridor which wrapped around a central courtyard. Each tower block constituted a unit. Eighteen tenders were received on March 25, 1931 for the construction of Unit 1, located in the centre of the Edward Street facade, and Unit 2, on the Edward and Adelaide streets corner.
\nThe lowest tenderer, AH Mason with a price of 19 3844 pounds 13 shillings, was accepted on April 14 1931. The contract time was two years. Emphasis was placed on the use, where possible, of local products in line with the government's \"Queensland Made\" policy. Timbers such as silky oak, Queensland satiny, rose walnut, yellow wood ash, rose mahogany, maple and walnut bean were incorporated into the designs for parquetry flooring and wall panelling in the various offices. Many of the public spaces were lined with marble supplied by the Ulam Quarries near Rockhampton. Services in the new building included lifts, intercommunicating telephone systems, pneumatic despatch tube system, mechanical ventilation and vacuum-cleaning system. Units 1 and 2 were occupied by the Public Curator and the State Government Insurance Office in June 1933.
\nConstruction of Unit 3 commenced in 1934, using day labour, and was finished by 1937. The design took advantage of the street frontages in Units 1, 2 and 3 by including small shops and an arcade on the ground floors of the Edward and Adelaide Street elevations.
\nDuring 1940/41 approval was given to proceed with the construction of the fourth unit. This unit, located in the centre of the Anzac Square frontage, was to accommodate the Titles Office, Stamp Duties Office, State Advances Corporation and Bureau of Rural Development. Despite a pressing need for office accommodation, work was stopped due to war induced shortages of materials, especially steel. In 1944 the exposed steel frame was encased in concrete and a concrete floor was poured to provide weather protection for the frame. Construction proceeded slowly and Unit 4 was not finished and fully occupied until 1948.
\nTenders were called during 1948 for the final stage of the building, Units 5 and 6 on Ann Street. The contract was let but it was not expected to be finished for two years due to shortages. The fire station was demolished in 1950 and the site excavated. Work halted in 1952 due to restrictions of Loans Funds. Building recommenced in 1954 and was completed by 1960.
\nWork on the Commonwealth offices commenced in 1934 and 2 units were completed and occupied by 1936. No more work was done on the project. In 1968 at the request of the Commonwealth government both the State Government and the Brisbane City Council, as trustee of the square, agreed to abandon the design covenants governing the block and a fifteen storey office building was constructed on the corner of Creek and Ann streets.
\nDuring the 1970s a number of redevelopment schemes were proposed by the Brisbane City Council for Anzac Square but were not built. The Queensland Government Offices underwent a major refurbishment in the early 1980s when many of the original interior fittings, including the timber paneling and flooring, were removed or concealed. In the mid 1980s raised walkways were constructed across Anzac Square which partly obscure the view of the adjoining facade of the Queensland Government Offices.
","criteria":"The Former Queensland Government Offices (Anzac Square Building) is an integral part of a larger design, the conception and execution of which involved the cooperative efforts of three tiers of government.
\nThe building is representative of the policies and priorities of the Queensland Government of the 1920s and 1930s, having a strong association with the \"Queensland Made\" ethic and daylabouring employment schemes. Its long period of construction demonstrates the commitment of successive state governments to the completion of an ambitious and unified undertaking. The staging of the construction is evident in the form of the building, clearly divided into six units.
|Anzac Square and the adjoining Queensland and Commonwealth Government Offices constitutes the most important Queensland example of the Anzac memorial movement and shows the extent of the monumentalism of this national building program. The architecture of this group demonstrates the formality and solemnity deemed necessary to commemorate the sacrifice of Australian soldiers in war. This aesthetic, drawn from the western classical tradition, was considered consistent with the expression of the functions of government.
\nIt is a prominent example of a large public building designed in the 1920s, which has been in continuous use as shops and government offices since construction.
|The building, through its restrained style, imposing bulk, symmetrical composition and judicious use of classical detail, is consistent with and contributes to the aesthetic qualities of Anzac Square and the Commonwealth Government Offices.
|The Former Queensland Government Offices (Anzac Square Building) is a major example of the work of the nationally important architect JS Murdoch and an example of the high quality of design and construction achieved by the Queensland Works Department under AB Leven, especially the external facades and the internal public spaces which have been little altered since first built.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14835,"place_ref":600060,"name":"South African War Memorial","alternate_name":"Boer War Memorial","street_address":"228 Adelaide Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The life-size bronzed statue depicts a Queensland Mounted Infantryman. Uniform and accoutrements show meticulous attention to detail, such as the Queensland hat-badge and emu plumes affixed to the slouch hat, and even the horse on which the trooper sits marked with the Queensland Government "QG" brand.
On two sides of the trachyte pedestal large bronze plaques contain the names of the eighty-nine Queensland soldiers who lost their lives in the South African war.
","history":"The first overseas conflict in which colonial Queensland troops were involved occurred during 1899-1902 in South Africa. The Queensland Government despatched volunteer contingents of mounted infantrymen to the war to aid the forces of the British Commonwealth involved in the armed intervention. Eighty-nine Queenslanders died during the war. In the years after the war a public committee was established to erect a memorial to the fallen, but the funds raised were insufficient and the project lapsed.
In 1912 James Laurence Watts, a Brisbane sculptor, was commissioned to provide "an equestrian statue in bronze" for the South African Fallen Soldiers Memorial Committee. His commission was conditional on his final design being scrutinised by a panel representing "no less than four areas of expertise", which included art, veterinary surgery, architecture and soldiery. The statue, which depicts a fully equipped mounted trooper of the Queensland contingents to South African war, was sent to England to be bronzed, but the outbreak of World War I delayed its return. Watts meanwhile was also commissioned to provide another memorial in London to Queenslanders who died in South Africa.
Finally in 1919 the completed statue returned to Brisbane and was placed in a position of prominence atop the rise at the intersection of Turbot and Edward Streets, where it faced towards the Botanical Gardens and dominated the street vista. The pedestal on which the statue sat was constructed by local firm Lowther & Sons. Queensland Governor, Sir Hamilton Gould-Adams unveiled the memorial in December 1919. The African War Veterans Association of Queensland organised annual marches to the statue on 31 May, Anniversary Day, the anniversary of the signing of peace in South Africa. The marches were followed by commemorative services on the site.
After creation of Anzac Square in 1930, the African War Veterans Association made a number of approaches for the memorial to be moved to the square. This was done in early April 1939 in time for the Anzac Day ceremonies of that year, Lowther & Sons reassembling the pedestal.
The memorial still stands in Anzac Square, fronting Adelaide Street. In 1991 restoration work was carried out on behalf of the Returned Services League.
","criteria":"The South African War Memorial is significant as the only memorial in Brisbane dedicated to all members of the Queensland contingents who died during the South African conflict, and one of the few South African War memorials in the state. The Memorial reflects the strong parochial feeling still evident in post-Federation Queensland and of a continuing attachment to British Imperialism.
|The South African War Memorial is significant as the only memorial in Brisbane dedicated to all members of the Queensland contingents who died during the South African conflict, and one of the few South African War memorials in the state.
The South African War Memorial is significant as a rare example of the work of Brisbane sculptor J L Watts and as part of a group of war memorials in Anzac Square which retain considerable significance to the public.
|The Memorial reflects the strong parochial feeling still evident in post-Federation Queensland and of a continuing attachment to British Imperialism.
The South African War Memorial is significant as a rare example of the work of Brisbane sculptor J L Watts and as part of a group of war memorials in Anzac Square which retain considerable significance to the public.
|The South African War Memorial is significant as a rare example of the work of Brisbane sculptor J L Watts and as part of a group of war memorials in Anzac Square which retain considerable significance to the public.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14837,"place_ref":600062,"name":"Anzac Square","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"228 Adelaide Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Anzac Square, occupies an area of more than .5 of a hectare between Ann and Adelaide Streets. It lies in a band of pedestrian access space extending from Central Station through four city blocks. On the river side of Anzac Square are Post Office Square, the GPO precinct and St Stephens Cathedral grounds.
The Square is formally arranged. From a small stone wall edged by formal gardens on Adelaide Street, three paths, separated by lawns and mature trees, converge on a large elevated Shrine at Ann Street. These paths represent the three branches of the armed forces, Army, Navy and Air Force. Trees along these paths include Palms, Bribie Island Pines and Bottle Trees - the latter were donated by Colonel Cameron, former Light Horseman and active lobbyist for the square.
A dominant feature of the Square is the Shrine. It is a adaptation of the classical Greek temenos (sacred enclosure) and tholos (circular shrine) comprising a circular colonnade of Helidon sandstone on a three-tiered base of Queensland granite, and stands approximately 7 m high on a paved forecourt extending to the Ann Street footpath. Eighteen Doric columns support a circular entablature externally ornamented with rosettes and internally inscribed with the names of battlefields where Australian soldiers fought. The colonnade is enclosed by cast iron railings that span the columns. Within the circular enclosure a bronze urn houses the Eternal Flame - a symbol of faithful remembrance.
Beneath the Shrine is a large crypt containing the Shrine of Memories, a memorial of the Second World War, and several other memorials dedicated to various Queensland contingents of the armed forces.
Twin stone staircases wrap around the Shrine, descending to the level of the Square. On either side of the staircase are shallow tiled reflecting pools - symbols of tranquillity and renewed life. Large sandstone retaining walls rise from the lawns of the Square to the footpath under the Shrine.
The Queensland Women's War Memorial is located in the western wall of Anzac Square, below the Shrine of Remembrance. It consists of a relief panel in Helidon sandstone depicting a military procession. The panel is surmounted by a centrally placed bronze laurel wreath and the inscription 'Erected by the women of Queensland in memory of those who lost their lives through The Great War 1914-1918'. A sandstone and stone pedestal supports a bronze and sandstone drinking fountain mounted on upturned bronze dolphins - symbols of renewed life.
The equestrian memorial of the South African War dominates the entry to the central path at Adelaide Street. A life-size bronzed statue, it depicts a Queensland Mounted Infantryman. On two sides of the trachyte pedestal large bronze plaques contain the names of the eighty-nine Queensland soldiers who lost their lives in the South African war.
Memorials to the Korean and Vietnam wars are also located in the Square.
The Square is flanked by State Government Offices to the south and Commonwealth Government Offices on the north. These are generally of restrained classical design and sympathetic in scale to the space, except the 1970s Commonwealth Government highrise extension on Ann Street. They frame vistas through the Square to the GPO in the east and Central Station to the west.
","history":"Australia's involvement in World War I exacted a heavy toll in death and injury. Of a relatively small population of about five million people, 60,000 troops were killed and 152,000 wounded. Australia's casualty rate of 68.5% was the highest of the Allied forces.
The idea of a large memorial park and monument in the centre of the city commemorating those who had participated and died in the Great War was first raised in 1916. The original plan was to use the whole city block bounded by Ann, Edward, Adelaide and Creek Streets for the Square but as negotiations with Federal, State and local governments continued throughout the early 1920s, a smaller site was determined. In 1928 State and Federal governments agreed to grant lands for the Square and to erect flanking buildings to a co-ordinated design.
Anzac Square commemorates all Queenslanders who participated in war, not just Brisbane residents. In 1928 a competition for the design of a Shrine of remembrance was won by Sydney architects Buchanan and Cowper. Construction proceeded over the following two years and on Armistice Day 11 November 1930 the Governor Sir John Goodwin dedicated the Shrine and the Square. In 1933 the Square was declared a Reserve for Park purposes and the Brisbane City Council was appointed trustee of the site.
In 1932 the Queensland Womens War Memorial was unveiled. This memorial was an initiative of the Brisbane Women's Club and funded by public subscription. It was designed and executed by Daphne Mayo with assistance from George Harvey.
A memorial commissioned by the 9th Battalion (AIF) Association was mounted in the Crypt and unveiled by the Governor-General Lord Gowrie on 17 August 1937. Commemorating the battalion's 45 officers and 1048 other ranks who lost their lives in the war, it was undertaken by former Brisbane sculptor W Leslie Bowles at a cost of £500. Bowles was noted for his memorial work, having been head sculptor at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra during the years 1924-31.
In 1939 a memorial commemorating Queenslanders who served in the South Africa conflict 1899-1902 was relocated to the Square. This memorial, featuring a fully equipped mounted trooper originally stood near the intersection of Turbot and Edward Streets. It was designed by James Watts and sat on a pedestal constructed by local firm Lowther & Sons.
During the 1960s and 1970s various proposals were made to alter the Square as part of the redevelopment of property on the opposite side of Adelaide Street. These plans met with considerable public resistance. After a protracted public debate, a compromise plan involving limited encroachment on Anzac Square was agreed upon. This work was completed by 1984 and included the construction of a pair of elevated pedestrian bridges to Post Office Square, enlarging the crypt under the Shrine, and the realignment of the Adelaide Street entrance to the Square.
Originally envisaged as a First World War memorial, Anzac Square has become a repository for memorials of other wars. In 1984 the Second World War Shrine of Memories was relocated in the enlarged crypt under the Shrine and during 1988 memorials to those who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars were erected in the square.
Anzac Square remains as the focus of armed services commemorations, particularly on Anzac Day.
","criteria":"Anzac Square, a State memorial to those who participated in overseas armed service campaigns and the site for major commemorative occasions is significant as a rare example formal urban design of such a scale and degree of unity.
|Anzac Square, a State memorial to those who participated in overseas armed service campaigns and the site for major commemorative occasions is significant as a rare example formal urban design of such a scale and degree of unity.
Anzac Square is significant as one of the few examples of Australian war iconography which include servicewomen.
Anzac Square is significant as it contains the only memorial in Brisbane dedicated to all members of the Queensland contingents who died during the South African conflict, and one of the few South African War memorials in the state.
|Anzac Square, a State memorial to those who participated in overseas armed service campaigns and the site for major commemorative occasions is significant as a rare example formal urban design of such a scale and degree of unity.
Anzac Square is important for its contribution to the central city area as a large open space, combining green and built elements.
Anzac Square is significant as examples of the work of Queensland artists and sculptors Daphne Mayo, L Watts and W L Bowles.
|Anzac Square, a State memorial to those who participated in overseas armed service campaigns and the site for major commemorative occasions is significant as a rare example formal urban design of such a scale and degree of unity
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14839,"place_ref":600064,"name":"Commonwealth Government Offices","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"232 Adelaide Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Commonwealth Government building, situated in Adelaide Street adjacent to Anzac Square, is a seven storeyed masonry building. It has a concrete encased steel frame with a polished granite base, sandstone cladding with banded rusticated coursing to second floor level, and upper levels of rendered brick imitating the stonework below.
The top storey is visually separated by balconies across its openings and a large projecting cornice incorporating dentil blocks. Antifixae are regularly spaced along the upper surface of the cornice. The recess between the wings facing Anzac Square extends down to the third floor level which has an arched opening and a flat roof. The lift tower situated at the back of the recess extends above the parapet line of the remainder of the building. It culminates in an archway with a keystone, and then steps inwards to a flat top.
The entry facade to Adelaide Street has its end window bays visually separated. Entries occur at the base of these bays, the major public entry on the right. Plain giant order pilasters occur to either side of the fourth and fifth floor windows of these bays. Cable moulding is a decorative feature of the facade around each entry. The windows are all steel framed casements. Granite steps lead to the recessed entry doors which are bronze sheeted with adjoining bronze and copper panelling. The entry screens are wrought iron.
The ground floor lobby is lined with imported marble while the floor is formed of black and white mosaic tiles. The upper level lobbies use terrazzo instead. Some of the moulded plaster ornamentation is visible at the tops of the columns, on the faces of the pilasters, and under the beams on the ground floor. The upper floors have drop panels on two sides of the columns and on the face of the pilasters. A timber Commonwealth crest has been installed between the doors of two of the refurbished lifts in the lobby.
","history":"This building, the first offices owned by the Commonwealth Government in Brisbane, was erected from 1933 to 1936. It formed part of a 1920s-1930s local, state and federal government re-development of the inner city Brisbane block bounded by Ann, Edward, Adelaide and Creek Streets, resulting in the construction of Anzac Square (1928-30) flanked by imposing State and Commonwealth Government Offices.
In the 1910s the Commonwealth Government had acquired the land between Ann and Adelaide Streets and fronting Creek Street, then occupied principally by commercial buildings, with the intention of erecting substantial Commonwealth offices on the site. There is some indication that this early scheme may have included the establishment of a public square opposite Central Railway Station.
A proposal was mooted in 1916 to develop a large memorial park and monument in the centre of Brisbane to commemorate Queensland sacrifice and participation in the Great War, and a committee was formed in 1919 to lobby for the creation of a commemorative square to occupy the whole of the land bounded by Ann, Edward, Adelaide and Creek Streets. Negotiations in the early 1920s between the Brisbane City Council (which wished to develop the park), the Queensland Government (which owned the southern part of the block) and Commonwealth Government (which owned the northern section) resulted in a smaller area determined for the park, which was to be flanked by similarly designed Commonwealth Government Offices to the north and State Government Offices to the south. In 1923 JS Murdoch, the Chief Architect of the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs, prepared an overall design for the precinct, as well as designs for Commonwealth Government Offices on the north side of the proposed square.
In the mid-1920s both the State and Commonwealth governments dedicated part of the block to become a public park under the control of the Brisbane City Council, and Anzac Memorial Park was developed on the site in 1928-30.
In 1927 the Commonwealth Public Works Committee agreed to erect a seven storey building to cover the whole of the remaining Commonwealth property between Adelaide and Ann Streets and fronting Creek Street. The existing buildings on the site were demolished in 1928, but the downturn in the economy delayed construction. In 1933 the State Government requested that building begin in order to provide work for the unemployed. Financial stringency called for the modification of the plans, and only two wings of the original design were built for a cost of £90 000. This work was completed in 1936, and provided 35 000 ft² (3 252 m²) of office space. With its restrained use of co-ordinated Classical detailing, the building complemented the adjacent Anzac Square and the State Government Offices (designed by the Queensland Government Architect's Office in keeping with Murdoch's overall scheme, and erected in stages between 1931 and 1960).
In 1968 the government abandoned the prescribed design for completion of the Commonwealth Government Offices and in 1972 instead erected a new 15 storey office block on the corner of Ann and Creek Streets. In the 1980s the exterior of the building was refurbished.
","criteria":"Commonwealth Government Offices is important in illustrating the expansion and centralisation of Commonwealth bureaucracy in Queensland in the early 20th century. As an integral part of the Anzac Square precinct re-development of the 1920s and 1930s, the place is important evidence of early co-operation and co-ordination between local, state and federal governments. Construction of the Commonwealth Government Offices is significant also as an important government job-creation scheme in Queensland during the 1930s depression.
|Commonwealth Government Offices is an accomplished example of a 1930s Neo-classical government office building in Brisbane, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type.
|Aesthetically, it is significant for its coherence in design, scale and materials with Anzac Square and the adjacent State Government Offices.
|Commonwealth Government Offices is also significant as an example of the government work of distinguished architect JS Murdoch.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14840,"place_ref":600065,"name":"Brisbane City Hall","alternate_name":"City Hall Brisbane","street_address":"64 Adelaide Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Brisbane City Hall, located at the corners of Ann, Adelaide, and Albert Streets, is a large building in the Classical Revival style. Constructed between 1920 and 1930 its tower was the tallest structure in the inner city until the 1960s. The building is axially arranged around a central circular concert hall with its main architectural features located centrally on each of the three facades. The spaces formed between the rectilinear outer plan form and the inner circular one are used as lightwells to courtyards. The clock tower centred above the entrance portico is the predominant feature of the building and stands around 90m above street level. It houses a set of Westminster chimes, sheet copper clocks of 5m diameter and an observation tower. On top of the tower's copper pyramidal roof is an open metal sphere that housed a red neon light, which in the past served as an air navigation beacon. The buildings other main architectural feature is its copper dome roof over the auditorium which is supported on a brick base and is 31 metres in diameter remaining unobstructed by columns.
The symmetrical front facade has a central pediment supported by well proportioned giant order Corinthian columns, and this now forms the entry porch. The tympanum features a sculpture by Daphne Mayo depicting early settlement. The removal of the granite entry stairs and the partial concealment of the base, owing to the construction of the King George Square carpark, diminished the overall scale of the front of the building and removed its previous spatial relationship with Albert Street.
To either side of the front entry porch the building has a colonnade of columns with Ionic capitals. On the side facades pilasters have been used instead. The centrally located entries on these facades still manage to exhibit a scale approaching that of the front. The base of the building, now partly obscured by the King George Square carpark, features semicircular headed windows with wrought iron grilles.
The foliage surrounding the building is distinctive and adds to the overall quality of environment nearby. Of particular note are the Cuban Royal Palms in front of the King George Square facade. These have become almost synonymous with the building over time and incorporated into the City Council logo. The Adelaide Street facade is covered in a large part by a climbing plant (Monstera deliciosa).
Internally the building has many fine spaces. These include the Main Auditorium which seats over 1500 people, has a gallery level, and contains a large organ that pre-dates the building. The main casework for this was designed by architects Hall and Prentice and is constructed from Queensland maple. The panels over the choir stalls were sculptured by Daphne Mayo. The King George Square entry foyer has a high vaulted ceiling with ornamental plaster work. Other details include a mosaic tiled floor and a panelled dado of coloured marble around the walls. The main staircase is constructed of Australian, Italian and Belgian marble, with newel post hewn from solid blocks of Sicilian marble. The woodwork in the entry is crafted from Queensland timbers. The entry vestibules off Ann and Adelaide Street have leadlight panels located centrally on the first floor level designed by William Bustard. Two of these occur in the Adelaide Street vestibule and a duplicate of one of these is in the Ann Street vestibule. The Council Chambers feature an Oxy-copper steel plate ceiling supported on pillars of Australian marble, and furniture carved from rich Queensland timbers.
City Hall is built predominantly of local materials: Helidon freestone for the walls of the upper three storeys; Enoggera granite for the ground floor and basement; local timber for the internal joinery; and local Darra cement.
The Classical entry portico along with the dominant Clock tower and the large central auditorium with its copper dome all contribute to making this a fine municipal building.
","history":"Brisbane's first Town Hall was opened in 1864 in Queen Street, however, by 1882 it was considered inadequate. The construction of new municipal chambers, however, was retarded by controversy over the location of the new hall - Adelaide Street or Petrie Bight. Town Planners and many citizens favoured the latter site, now Centenary Place, as development of the Central Business District was expanding northwards. The present site was chosen, despite its swampy conditions, as it was largely council land and required minimal resumptions. In 1909 architects Corrie, Atkinson and McLay designed the new town hall, but their contract was terminated when Brisbane property owners refused to sanction the £180 000 loan required for construction.
To generate public enthusiasm for the project a foundation stone was laid by Governor Gould Adams on 3 February 1917, although a new design had not been drawn. On 22 July 1917 Council voted to employ architects TR Hall and GG Prentice to design municipal offices and a public hall which would be a credit to the city for generations. By November 1919 Hall and Prentice had submitted their design estimated at £480 000. The plans featured a clock tower, 300 feet high, topped with a sculpture of the "Angel of Peace". The Ann and Albert Street facades were crowned by a group of life size statues depicting a chariot drawn by prancing horses and the building corners were capped by two copper domes.
A second foundation stone was laid on 29 July 1920 by the Prince of Wales. A time capsule was placed beneath the stone which contained coins, newspaper clippings and council records. Arthur Midson and Sons' tender of £119 870 for the foundation was accepted. Wet conditions made work difficult and despite continuous pumping of the site, one workman drowned during an inspection. Excavations to a depth of 54 feet were required before bedrock was reached.
The contract for the construction of the superstructure was given to DD Carrick who submitted the lowest tender of £506 375. In 1923 the plans were modified to cut costs, eliminating the chariot statues. DD Carrick signed the new contract on 10 March 1924 and work commenced almost immediately. By late 1927 Council staff began to occupy the building and on 24 January 1928 the first meeting was held in the chambers. On 8 April 1930 Governor Sir John Goodwin opened the Brisbane City Hall. It was proclaimed a "symbol of civic pride", "an inspiration for citizenship" and an "edifice which for grandeur, dignity and architectural effect was without its peer in the Commonwealth". The sculpture on the tympanum which depicted the settlement of Queensland, was crafted by local artist Daphne Mayo. Its unveiling on 17 December 1930, completed the construction of City Hall.
The construction of King George Square was first proposed in the 1930s and the area was marked for "civic purposes" on the 1959 Town Plan. In 1962 negotiations began for the acquisition of properties for demolition and the following year initial plans were drawn. Albert Street was closed in 1966 and plans were finalised in 1968. King George Square was officially opened on 18 March 1975, as the forecourt to the City Hall. The transfer of council departments to the Brisbane Administration Centre after 1976, allowed the renovation of City Hall and its partial conversion to a community centre. On 9 March 1977 the Art Gallery/Museum on the ground floor was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. Since then the administration offices have been converted to function rooms, as originally intended; Council Chambers redecorated; and the central library, clubrooms and kindercraft day nursery have been added.
","criteria":"Brisbane City Hall is historically significant as the Brisbane City Council chambers and offices since 1930 and the symbolic focus of the municipality, it provides a sense of place for the Brisbane community.
|Brisbane City Hall is a fine example of a Classical Revival civic building with a modern steel and concrete structure.
Brisbane City Hall is a well known example of the work of Hall and Prentice.
Brisbane City Hall is constructed almost entirely of local building materials, the City Hall is a tribute to local architects, contractors, tradesmen and artists.
|Brisbane City Hall with its clock tower and King George Square as its forecourt create a landmark in Brisbane.
|The building contains notable technical achievements ranging from the span of copper dome roof over the auditorium, the height of the clock tower and the unique foundations that were designed to alleviate the problems of a water hole on the site.
|Brisbane City Hall with its clock tower and King George Square as its forecourt create a landmark in Brisbane.
|Brisbane City Hall is a well known example of the work of Hall and Prentice.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14841,"place_ref":600066,"name":"Albert Street Uniting Church","alternate_name":"Albert Street Methodist Church","street_address":"319 Albert Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Albert Street Uniting Church is built of red brick with trimmings in white Oamaru limestone, now painted, and has a slate roof. It is an example of a Victorian Gothic Revival church with its cruciform plan shape, steeply pitched roof forms, the imposing spire beside the entry, and the heavy buttressing of the facades.
The entry to the church is from an open porch with three Gothic arches at the end of the nave. Similar arcades exist down the sides of the church. A single large Gothic opening with fine tracery is located above the entry porch. To the right of the entry is a tower rising to the octagonal spire which has tall dormers on four of its faces and four pinnacles at the corners of its base. The top of the spire has a wrought iron finial.
The roof on the nave also has small dormer ventilators. A side entry is to the right of the base of the tower and has a broad Gothic arch with a steeply pitched parapet topped by a cross. The end of each transept has a rose window in the gable end above a pair of Gothic arched windows that in turn are above groups of smaller openings.
Internally, the nave floor slopes down towards the pulpit and the walls are rendered, with a timber boarded dado. The galleries contain tiered seating and are supported on cast iron columns with ornate capitals. The main ceiling and gallery soffits are diagonally boarded and finely carved timberwork is incorporated into the gallery railings, roof structure and furnishings.
The focus of the interior is the pulpit and organ. The pulpit is raised several metres above the floor, and reflects the importance in the Methodist tradition that was given to preaching. Above and behind the pulpit is a large decoratively painted pipe organ which reflects the value placed by Methodists on music and singing.
","history":"The first Methodist church in Brisbane, a modest brick chapel, was constructed in 1849 on the corner of Albert Street and Burnett Lane. It was replaced in 1856 by a larger building. By the early 1880s the congregation had grown substantially and in 1884 purchased a site on the corner of Albert and Ann Streets. A competition was held for the design of a new church which was won by G H M Addison.
The church was built for a cost of £10,000 by contractor Thomas Pearson & Sons. Other tradespeople included Petrie & Son (joinery), and Exton and Gough (stained glass windows). In keeping with the importance placed on music in Methodism, a large pipe organ was installed. It was built by George Benson of Manchester for a cost of £1,000. Five foundation stones were laid by prominent congregation members on 18 August 1888 and the church was officially opened on 8 November 1889.
In the 1920s a marble honour board was erected in the front entrance vestibule commemorating the members of the congregation who served in World War 1. Additional stained glass windows were installed as memorials in 1944 and 1947. Restoration work was undertaken in 1974-75 and involved the replacement of the slate roof. Further repair work on the building has recently commenced.
In 1907 the church became known as the Central Methodist Mission in recognition of its wider responsibilities as the main Methodist church in the city. The congregation has been involved in a variety of welfare activities and has developed an extensive network of accommodation and other services for aged people.
The church served as the symbolic centre of Methodism in Queensland. The Annual Conference was opened each year in the church and significant occasions for Methodists were celebrated there. With the formation of the Uniting Church in 1977, the church was renamed Albert Street Uniting Church.
","criteria":"As an excellent example of a Victorian Gothic Revival church, climatically adapted with side colonnades and front porch; and internally a good example of the major attributes of the Methodist tradition.
\nFor its association with the Methodist Church in Queensland.
\nAs a dominant element on the corner of Albert and Ann Streets, and for its contribution to the townscape at King George Square.
\nAs one of the major works of the architect G H M Addison.
|As an excellent example of a Victorian Gothic Revival church, climatically adapted with side colonnades and front porch; and internally a good example of the major attributes of the Methodist tradition.
As one of the major works of the architect G H M Addison.
|As a dominant element on the corner of Albert and Ann Streets, and for its contribution to the townscape at King George Square.
|For its association with the Methodist Church in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14842,"place_ref":600067,"name":"Brisbane Botanic Gardens","alternate_name":"Walter Hill Fountain; Queen's Park; Botanic Gardens Brisbane","street_address":"147 Alice Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-02-03","description":"The Brisbane Botanic Gardens, occupying 20 ha, is bounded by George, Alice and Edward Streets and the Brisbane river. They comprise three major sections: the former Queen's Park along Alice Street, the Botanic Gardens proper [adjacent to the river], and the former Government Domain at the rear of the Queensland University of Technology [formerly part of the grounds to Old Government House].
Set in undulating grounds, the gardens are bordered by mature shade trees which also create avenues and groves. A lake and formal lawns, gardens and structures provide a diversity of passive recreational activities. A series of interconnecting paths link a riverside concourse with other perimeter paths.
The gardens contain an avenue of Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwilli) planted in the 1850s and an avenue of Weeping Figs (Ficus benjamina) planted in the 1870s. It also contains a number of other rare plants, particularly palms and figs - some in formal planting arrangements within the lawns, others within mass planted gardens - and an avenue of Cook Pines (Araucaria cookii).
A low stone wall (1860s) surmounted by an iron railing fence runs the length of Alice Street and extends into George Street. Large iron gates provide entry at George, Albert and Edward Streets. A cottage c1900s, with Arts and Crafts decorative elements, is located at the southern end of the gardens on a hill known as Residence Hill. This building is surrounded by trees and shrubs, some of which are survivors of late 1850s and early 1860s plantings.
In a hollow to the north of Residence Hill, is the Walter Hill fountain. It stands on a stepped octagonal base of three tiers. The body of the fountain continues this shape but tapers towards its top. The lion shaped drinking fountains, presently not functioning, and basins are of white marble in contrast with the freestone of the rest of the structure.
To the south of Residence Hill is a 1980s grassed amphitheatre facing a stage beside the river. Other structures for public convenience and recreational use are dispersed throughout the gardens.
","history":"Much of the present-day Botanic Gardens was surveyed and selected as the site for a Public Garden in 1828 by the NSW Colonial Botanist Charles Fraser. During the convict period, part of the land was used for growing crops.
In 1855 a portion of several acres was declared a Botanic Reserve. In the same year Walter Hill was appointed Curator of the Botanic Reserve, and began an active planting and experimental program. He made a major contribution to the development of commercial crops in Queensland including tobacco, sugar, grape vines, wheat, tropical fruits, fibrous, dyeing and tanning plants and tea, coffee and spices. He encouraged the work of the sugar pioneer John Buhot which culminated in the first production of granulated sugar in Queensland in April 1862. Hill also supported the work of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society which was formed in 1862, and the Botanic Gardens was the propagation and distribution point for the Society's imports.
By 1866 Hill had succeeded in having the extent of the Botanic Gardens enlarged to approximately 27 acres (11 ha). A 10 acre (4 ha) strip along Alice Street was not part of the Gardens but served as a park and sporting field known as Queen's Park.
Early building work in the area included a Superintendent's cottage in the late 1850s, a platform for a battery of cannon in the early 1860s, a stone and iron fence around Queen's Park in 1865-66 [utilising stone from the old gaol on Petrie Terrace], and a drinking fountain in 1867. The fountain, designed by Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin, was erected only a year after reticulated water from the Enoggera reservoir was introduced to Brisbane. It later became known as the Walter Hill fountain.
Scientific activity was complemented by public recreational use of the Gardens, along with the Domain (on the southern boundary of the Gardens) and Queen's Park. By the 1880s, some of the scientific work previously performed by the Botanic Gardens was being carried out by the Queensland Acclimatisation Society at Bowen Park. The Herbarium and Botanic Library were moved from the Gardens for a period but were returned in 1905 when John Frederick Bailey was appointed Curator of the Botanic Gardens.
Extensive dredging of Gardens Point in 1915 removed about 9 acres (3.6 ha) from the Domain and Botanic Gardens but in the following year the amalgamation of the Gardens, Queens Park and part of the Domain resulted in a new Botanic Gardens of about 50 acres (20 ha).
The City of Brisbane Act of 1924 transferred responsibility for the Botanic Gardens to the Brisbane City Council, but the Herbarium remained as part of the Department of Agriculture and Stock.
Since the opening of the Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens in the mid 1970s, the Brisbane Botanic Gardens has become principally a recreational venue. Re-development of the Gardens in the late 1980s saw the introduction of new recreational structures and restoration work on the former Queen's Park fence.
","criteria":"The Brisbane Botanic Gardens are historically important as the most significant, non-Aboriginal cultural landscape in Queensland, having a continuous horticultural history since 1828, without any significant loss of land area or change in use over that time. It remains the premier public park and recreational facility for the capital of Queensland, which role it has performed since the early 1840s.
|Plant collections date to the 1850s, many having been planted by Walter Hill, the first Director of the Botanic Gardens. Many of the specimens are either rare in cultivation or of great maturity or both. Many important plant introductions to Queensland, of both an agricultural and ornamental nature, can be traced directly to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and the work of its early curators.
|These gardens are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an evolving public and botanical garden dating from the mid-19th century, containing the most extensive mature gardens in Queensland. There are a number of historic structures in the gardens, including the Walter Hill Drinking Fountain (1867), the former band pavilion (1878), the boundary stone walls, gates and cast iron railings (1865-85), the former bear pit shelter (1905), the former curator's residence (1909) [now the kiosk], the riverwall from Edward Street to the Domain (1918), the southern stone staircase on the riverbank (1918-19) and the middle and northern stone staircases (both 1923-24). The place also contains a number of historically significant early engineering projects, including the stormwater drainage system (1865 onwards), reticulated water supply from Enoggera Dam (1867) and underground electricity supply for lighting purposes (1907).
|The Brisbane Botanic Gardens are significant as a Brisbane landmark and for their visual amenity and natural wildlife values as the major verdant landscaped area in the city's central business district.
|Many important social events have taken place within the gardens, and the place is generally held in high regard by the local community and is a popular destination for visitors to Brisbane.
|The place has a special association with the pioneering work of curators Walter Hill (1855-81), Philip MacMahon (1886-1905), JF Bailey (1905-1917) and Ernest Walter Bick (1917-1939).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14843,"place_ref":600068,"name":"Public Works Depot","alternate_name":"Smellie & Co Warehouse | Britannia Foundry","street_address":"210 Alice Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This two storeyed building, situated in Alice Street, is of brick construction with a rendered facade and a galvanised iron roof.
The facade has semi-circular arched windows on both levels. There are eight openings on the upper level and three to each side of a central square carriage way on the lower level. All the arched openings have moulded architraves, sills, and ornamented keystones. An opening on the ground floor has been converted to a doorway. A pilaster of vermiculated quoins runs down the northern end of the facade. A frieze and dentilled cornice extend across the building and are surmounted by two simple triangular pediments with scroll-like brackets to each side.
The rear elevation had a circular opening and four rectangular ones, all of which have been blocked up. A steel escape stair and aluminium framed glazed doors have been inserted on the exposed side of the building facing the yard.
The interior of the building has been altered but still shows evidence of it's original construction and use. Some cast iron columns incorporating brackets remain at the front of the building on the ground floor. The timber trusses of the two gable roofs are exposed on the upper level.
","history":"This building was constructed c1887 for the engineering and iron founding firm of Harvey Sargeant & Co. Harvey, Sargeant & Co was founded in 1880 and was part of the fledgling heavy engineering industry in Queensland. It produced ironworks, brick making machinery, girders, and agricultural machinery. The ironworks necessary for much of the building boom carried out in Brisbane in the 1880s were supplied by Harvey, Sargeant, & Co.
In 1885 the company purchased a site in Alice Street for a foundry and a building was erected c1887. Called the Britannia Foundry, it was one of several foundries in the street, including Smellie & Co, and Smith, Forrester & Co, who operated the Queensland Ironworks.
Harvey, Sargeant & Co went into insolvency in 1892, but a new company was formed to continue operating the foundry. In 1903 the business moved to new premises in Alice Street. The firm remained in this part of the city until 1966 when it moved to Sherwood, and now trades under the name of ANI-Sargeant.
In 1909 the property was purchased by Smellie & Co, a firm which imported machinery and farming equipment, for use as a warehouse. Smellie's owned adjacent properties in Alice and Edward Streets (QHR 600092 and QHR 600097). In 1945, Smellie & Co sold the building, along with its other properties to the Queensland government. The Department of Public Works has used this building as a workshop, and more recently for storage.
","criteria":"The building also provides evidence of engineering and foundry works which previously were a major activity in the Alice Street area.
|The Public Works Depot is significant as an example of an intact 1880s industrial building with a decorative facade.
|The Public Works Depot is significant for its contribution to the Alice Street streetscape along with neighbouring Old Mineral House [600092].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14844,"place_ref":600069,"name":"Parliament House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"69 Alice Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Parliament House is located at the intersection of George and Alice Streets and comprises the main wing, fronting George Street and a wing constructed at a later date, fronting Alice Street. It is an imposing three storeyed masonry building in Classical Revival style.
The entire building forms a dominant landmark at the northern end of the Government Precinct along George Street and is complemented by other nineteenth century buildings in the immediate area, including the Queensland Club [600113] and the Mansions [600119]. It also has a strong physical relationship with the Botanic Gardens [600067] opposite.
The original part of the building is constructed of dressed Woogaroo freestone. The arcades are of Murphy's Creek sandstone and the porte cochere is of Helidon white sandstone.
The George Street facade is symmetrical in design, comprising central and end pavilions connected by colonnaded wings.
The central pavilion has a porte cochere at ground level, above which is a balustraded terrace. The upper two storeys are surmounted by an entablature and parapet. The roof is square domed with decorative iron cresting and a dormer window with sandstone surrounds is centrally located on each of the four elevations.
The two end pavilions are symmetrically designed on both the front and end elevations, with three elongated arched windows on the ground floor, three windows surmounted by triangular pediments of the first floor and three smaller windows on the second floor. String courses are located at sill height and quoins demarcate each corner. This section is also surmounted by an entablature and parapet, which surrounds a mansard roof with decorative iron cresting.
The wings are slightly set back and connect the central and end pavilions. They comprise colonnades on the ground and first floors, a balustraded terrace to the second floor, and are also surmounted by an entablature and parapet. The roofs are gabled with centrally placed ventilation fleches.
The Alice Street range is similar in design to the wings of the George Street range, with colonnades to the ground and first floor levels, and a balustraded terrace to the second floor. The south west end is capped with a mansard roof, matching those on the George Street range. The Alice Street range varies from the George Street range, by the inclusion of decorative panels of relief carved stonework depicting Queensland flora, including a staghorn keystone above the central entrance. The south west elevation has a timber verandah with cast iron balustrades to all three levels.
The rear of the building faces a central courtyard surrounded by Parliament House and the annexe building. The rear elevations are less decorative in design, and a timber verandah with cast iron balustrades, similar in design to that on the Alice Street range, runs the length of the George Street range.
Internally, the rooms express the exterior massing, with the George Street range containing the primary rooms. The grand stair rises at the rear of the central pavilion, and libraries are located at the front on the first and second levels. At the landings of the grand stair are large stained glass windows depicting Queen Victoria and other subjects. The first floor of the connecting wings contains the Legislative Assembly at the north west end and the Council Chambers at the south east end. These spaces are open to the second level, on which the press and public galleries are located.
The south west end of the Alice Street range houses a cellar in the basement , a dining room and bar on the first floor and a billiard room on the second floor.
The remainder of the areas comprise offices of Members of Parliament and support staff, corridors and service areas. Secondary staircases to the public and press galleries are located within the wings on either side of the central pavilion. A concealed spiral staircase is located in offices at the south east end of the George Street range, allowing access from an office of the ground floor to the Council Chambers gallery of the second floor.
All rooms have ornate plaster cornices and ceiling roses which vary in design. Most offices have marble mantelpieces, with variations in the stone type and design in each of the ranges, and all areas have cedar joinery. Some offices in the Alice Street range are divided by cedar folding doors.
Alterations to the fabric, such as the lowering of ceilings to allow for air conditioning ducting is apparent in most areas. Original cornices and ceiling are visible in services cupboards. New lighting, decorative finishes and soft furnishings have been introduced into most areas.
","history":"The main wing of Parliament House (facing George Street) was erected between 1865 and 1867 as the seat of Queensland government after separation in 1859. It was designed by Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin and is the most substantial building erected in this period. The wing facing Alice Street was constructed between 1887 and 1889, supervised by Colonial Architect, G Connolly.
Prior to separation, Moreton Bay was included in an electoral division which encompassed all areas north of Port Macquarie. By 1851 Moreton Bay had elected a Member to the Legislative Council of New South Wales, and when separation occurred the region was represented by nine Members.
In 1859, the colony of Queensland was granted separation from New South Wales and a constitution was established, based on the English Westminster system. This provided the need for a legislature in two chambers, and conversion of the previous prison barracks in Queen Street was undertaken to fulfil this.
This proved unsatisfactory and in 1864, a Commission was established to host a competition for a new House of Parliament. The committee members decided upon 20 000 as the amount which competitors should endeavour to make the basis of the probable cost. Entries were received and the design of Benjamin Backhouse was considered to be most suitable. However it proved to be too costly and the design of Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin was selected instead. This decision caused much controversy and the Commission was eventually forced to alter the previous plans and call for a new design. In December 1864 the Queensland Daily Guardian reported that the whole of the designs are to be rejected and an entirely new and original design has been adopted. The new building design is more imposing, more appropriate and will afford more accommodation.
Tiffin's new design comprised four ranges around a central court, with the Legislative chambers in the George Street range and government offices in the remaining ranges. The arrangement of space, both of the building as a whole and within the individual chambers is indicative of the way in which Parliamentary proceedings were, and still are, conducted
The building was to be erected on what was then part of Queens Park, adjacent to the Government Domain and the Botanic Gardens. The foundation stone was laid on July 14 1865 by Governor Bowen and work commenced on the George Street range.
In 1865 the Brisbane Courier described the George Street range as being 304 feet long by 86 feet deep at the centre......by 103 feet in height to the top of a curved mansard roof over the libraries and the grand staircase.
Now described as Classical Revival in style, it was then described as renaissance as adopted in the Louvre and Tulleries, but of a less ornate character and more in keeping with the position of the colony. The external walls are constructed of freestone from Mr Jeays quarry at Woogaroo and the roof was originally of English slates..... the ridges and mansards terminated with iron cresting.
Internally, the Courier described the building as plain and substantial, however finishes included large stained glass windows by Messrs Chance of Birmingham featuring portraits of the Queen, the Prince and the Princess of Wales, large and ornate sunlights, also imported from England, cedar doors with panels of open bronze work, and ornate plasterwork.
By 1867, the work was complete, although due to financial constraints, only the George Street range had been constructed.
Tiffin retired from the position of Colonial Architect in 1869 and was succeeded by F D G Stanley. The building remained as constructed until 1878 when additions were made including the construction of archways and colonnades to the George Street facade and erection of the stone and iron palisade fence to the George and Alice Street frontages.
In 1887 it was again decided to make additions to the House and the Alice Street range was constructed, completed in 1889. The Colonial Architect at this time was George St Paul Connolly, who supervised the work. Although the extension conforms to Tiffin's original design principals, it shows slight variations in the form of relief stonework panels comprising staghorns, eucalyptus leaves, gum nuts and convolvulus. The designer of these is thought to have been Thomas Pye, chief draftsman of the Department of Public Works at the time. The sculptor is unidentified, having been employed by the contractor Daniel MacDonald.
The abolition of the Legislative Council in 1922 rendered the Council Chamber obsolete. Although rarely used, the space remains intact.
The multi-storey parliamentary annexe at the rear of the original building was erected in 1979, followed by the addition of the porte cochere to the George Street range in 1981. The new porte cochere was based on Tiffin's original design, although it was increased in size to allow for the passage of cars.
In 1982, the building was renovated at a cost of thirteen million dollars. This included extensive refurbishment of all areas, including the addition of air conditioning in all rooms, the installation of security and fire protection services and externally, the replacement of finishes such as the tessellated tiles to the ground floor arcades and the original copper sheeting to the roof with a new material.
","criteria":"Parliament House was constructed between 1865 and 1867 as the seat of Queensland government after separation from New South Wales in 1859. It is unique as the first and only purpose built Parliament House in Queensland and, as the continuing seat of Parliament, is immensely important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history. At the time of construction it was the largest and most imposing building in the state, indicating of the sense of permanency and ambition felt by the government of Queensland at that time. Its nearest rival in scale and style was Government House (600118), previously completed in 1862.
|It is unique as the first and only purpose built Parliament House in Queensland and, as the continuing seat of Parliament, is immensely important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history.
|Parliament House demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type, and the design and plan and illustrates the way in which Queensland Parliament operates. The planning of the Chambers in particular, demonstrates the hierarchy of Parliamentary proceedings.
|The place is a significant landmark in the city of Brisbane, both alone and as part of an immediate precinct at the intersection of Alice and George Streets. It also forms part of a larger Government Precinct extending from Old Government House to the Law Courts.
Parliament House is of considerable aesthetic significance due to its landmark qualities and for its high degree of design and workmanship, including exterior details and internal features such as stained glass windows and cedar joinery.
|The design and construction of a building of this scale at such an early stage in the history of Brisbane demonstrates a high degree of creative and technical achievement.
|As the seat of Queensland government and the place where virtually every significant political decision has been made over the past 130 years, Parliament House has strong associations with the people of Brisbane and the State of Queensland.
|It also has special association with the architects involved in its construction, including Charles Tiffin, F D G Stanley, G Connolly and Thomas Pye who is thought to have designed the relief panels on the Alice Street wing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14846,"place_ref":600071,"name":"Ann Street Presbyterian Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"141 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ann Street Presbyterian Church is a rendered stone and brick building set well above Ann Street and King George Square with a ornate render and cast iron wall and steps down to Ann Street. The roof, of ribbed galvanised iron, consists of a series of steeply pitched gables. The windows are generally tall lancets, with a few rounded-headed ones. The front elevation contains two portal doors inset within semi-circular arches with ogival mouldings and patterned decoration in the render, and a rose window above. The words 'Ann St. Presbyterian Church' are set in render above the door.
Timber detailing, fittings and furnishings feature prominently in the interior. The ceiling comprises diagonal boarding with regularly spaced fretwork panels above exposed timber trusses. Broad timber arches are located along the side walls of the transepts. A timber screen divides the entrance porch from the main body of the church. The floor slopes gradually down from the entry to the communion table, elders court and pulpit. A large pipe organ dominates the eastern wall.
The 1936 hall and offices and the third transept of the church do not form part of the listing.
","history":"The first major contingent of Presbyterians to arrive in Queensland came as part of JD Lang's immigration scheme in the late 1840s. The first Presbyterian services were conducted in a house at Kangaroo Point until 1851 when a small timber church was opened at South Brisbane. For the benefit of North Brisbane residents, services were also conducted in the School of Arts building on the corner of Queen and Creek streets.
In 1854 the congregation purchased three allotments in Ann Street and four years later a simple stone building, erected by Joshua Jeays for a cost of £960, was opened and became known as the Ann Street Presbyterian Church. A fire on 21 December 1871 destroyed all but the stone walls of the church. It was rebuilt, partly with stone from the earlier church, during 1872-1873. The church was formally reopened on 26 October 1873.
In 1897 major alterations and additions were undertaken. Designed by AB Wilson, the work included the addition of buttresses, double transepts, a basement, the construction of stone steps and fence at the front, plastering of the exterior, and the installation of a rose window in the front wall. Further work was undertaken to the interior in 1903 to accommodate and a new organ, and between 1903-14 a third transept was added.
In 1936 a two storeyed extension, adjoining the northern end of the transepts, was built. Designed by DFW Roberts it comprised hall and offices. As well as offices for the parish it also contained the central offices of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland. Buttressing was also added to either side of the front of the building to match that on the later transepts. This work was completed for a cost of £6,000.
During the mid 1960s, the future of the church was threatened when the Brisbane City Council sought to acquire the site as part of the redevelopment of King George Square. Church and community pressure, however, ensured the survival of the building.
","criteria":"The Ann Street Presbyterian Church is significant as one of the oldest churches still in use in Queensland, it is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of churches in Queensland's history.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of the Presbyterian tradition as a church building, with a harmonious sequence of later additions.
|The church is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community including the quality and intactness of the interior of the church and the contribution the church makes to the townscape and to King George Square.
|As the site of continuous Presbyterian worship since 1858, the Ann Street Presbyterian Church has a strong and special association with the Presbyterian community for social, cultural and spiritual reasons.
|The church has a special association with architect AB Wilson who was associated with the Presbyterian church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14847,"place_ref":600072,"name":"Brisbane School of Arts","alternate_name":"Servants Home (former); School of Arts Brisbane","street_address":"166 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The School of Arts building is a two-storey masonry building elevated above Ann Street. The lower level is of coursed rubble masonry with red brick quoins and string courses. The upper two levels of the building are entirely brick, with the arched headed openings symmetrically arranged. The rolled iron hipped roof is surmounted by a 15 foot (4.6 metre) lantern light with projecting eaves.
The entry stairs and front and side verandahs contain timber balustrades of diagonal crossed pieces and circular brackets below the eaves. The verandah roof drops in a shallow curve from below the eaves brackets of the main roof to its gutter line.
The double height lecture hall and three classrooms (1884) have face brick with timber floors, roof trusses, and corrugated galvanised iron roof. The library extension (1908) is constructed in a similar manner and consists of a double height room with a lantern roof light.
The building was restored in 1984-1985. Few interior fittings and furnishings remain, but the organisation of the internal space is relatively intact. Rooms on the ground floor are used for exhibitions while the first floor contains offices and a craft gallery. Original roof strutting is visible in the uppermost floor of the 1860s section and staircases and fireplaces have been retained. The tiered seating and balconies in the first floor of the lecture hall remain.
","history":"This building was erected in 1865-66. Known as the Servants Home, it provided accommodation for single adult females who had migrated to Queensland and were awaiting employment as domestic servants. Designed by H Edwin Bridges, the building comprised a ground floor and two upper galleries. All four elevations were identical. A notable feature of the interior was the lantern above the void in the two upper floors which provided natural lighting to the building. A 6,000 imperial gallon (27,300 litre) tank under the roof service the building with water. The contractors were Messrs Butler and Forster.
In 1873 the property was purchased by the trustees of the North Brisbane School of Arts for £1,000. The building was let to tenants for several years before it was converted to a school of arts. In 1877 contractor Blair Cunningham added verandahs and other modifications designed by Richard Gailey for a cost of £1,377. The new School of Arts building was opened on 17 May 1878.
The North Brisbane School of Arts was established in 1849 and its first premises were located on the corner Queen and Creek Streets. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it played an important role in the cultural life of the community. The School of Arts provided a library for members, conducted public lectures, and organised classes in a wide variety of subjects.
To meet the needs for technical education classes, a hall was added to the rear in 1884. This space was used for the Brisbane Technical College which operated under the auspices of the School of Arts until 1902 when the government took responsibility for technical education.
The lending library was a major activity of the School of Arts. In 1908, to make room for an increase in the number of books, an extension, designed by Messrs Atkinson and McLay, was built beside the hall.
Membership of the School of Arts steadily declined during the 1920s and 1930s. To increase revenue, shops were built in front of the building in 1937. In 1955 a brick upper storey was added to the shops with connections to the School of Arts building. The verandahs were removed at this time.
In 1966 trusteeship of the property was transferred to the Brisbane City Council which continued to operate a public library at the site until 1981. In 1983 the front offices and shops were demolished and restoration work undertaken. The building was re-opened on 13 February 1985 and is currently let to various community groups.
","criteria":"The School of Arts is significant for its association with the North Brisbane School of Arts which played a prominent role in the cultural life of Brisbane during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|The building remains as a rare surviving example of an inner-city masonry building of the 1860s.
|The School of Arts is significant for the successful integration of the extensions under various architects, especially the verandahs designed by Richard Gailey.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14848,"place_ref":600073,"name":"Central Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"270 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Central Station complex has been substantially altered, with the most intact section being the facade fronting Ann Street. This section is an example of Federation Free Style architecture. The complex fronts Ann Street and is bounded by Edward, Turbot and Creek Streets. The clock tower of the Ann Street frontage aligns with the war memorial opposite and the entire building provides a backdrop for Anzac Square [600062]. The Ann Street building of Central Station comprises a symmetrically designed building with a central section and clock tower, flanked by two storey intermediate wings on either side. It is of face brick, coloured red, with decorative elements of stone and a cream coloured brick. A side wing is located on the Creek Street side of the main building. As a working railway station, the entire complex has undergone much alteration, and little remains of the original station. Internally, the spaces are also substantially altered, with little original fabric remaining. The most intact internal area is located at the southwestern end of the Edward Street wing of the building, now used as a bar.
","history":"Central Station was constructed as the inner city link of the Queensland railway network, operational from 18 August 1889. The first Station building at Central was of timber and corrugated iron with pitched roof and segmental barrel vaulted roof over the platform serving Roma Street. On 12 May 1899, a contract was let for a permanent building. It is thought that the initial design was conceived in the architectural section of the Railway Department's Chief Engineer's Office, however the architect is unknown. The additions of the clock tower and awning were designed by former Colonial Architect, J J Clark. The initial complex comprised two through tracks and a dock with two tracks on either side. In 1909 the dock platforms were converted to provide two additional through tracks. No further substantial changes were made to the complex until 1914 when the Edward Street side wing was extended. Shortly after, a second storey was added to the side wing at the Creek Street end of the building. Work of a minor nature was then carried out until the 1970s, when substantial alterations to the complex took place. This included the construction of Railway Centre in the 1970s, followed by the construction of the Sheraton Hotel in the 1980s.
","criteria":"The Central Railway Station was opened in 1889 as part of the connection of Roma Street through Central to Brunswick Street, Bowen Hills and Mayne. The extant building was erected in 1899 to replace the previous temporary timber and corrugated iron building. The complex demonstrates the evolution of the history of Queensland by being representative of the development of railway usage in Queensland.
|The building has a special association with architect, JJ Clark who was responsible for the final design of the building.
|It is a significant landmark in the city of Brisbane, both alone and as part of a precinct which includes The Shrine of Remembrance, Anzac Square [600062] The Queensland Government Offices [600059] and the General Post Office [600148] through Post Office Square.
The Central Railway Complex is of considerable aesthetic significance due to its landmark qualities and for its high degree of design and workmanship, including exterior details such as decorative stonework, brickwork and rendering, and internal features such as ornate column capitals and ceilings in southwestern end of the Edward Street wing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14849,"place_ref":600074,"name":"Masonic Temple","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"311 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Masonic Temple located in upper Ann Street is built in the Classical Revival style. It is rectangular in plan form with its short elevation facing Ann Street. The front facade features six fluted giant order Corinthian columns supporting a rich entablature and pediment. Between the two central columns are lead-light steel framed windows and the main entry door at the base of the building. The sliding entry doors are bronze and heavily studded. In the bays between columns to either side of the entry are two bronze flagstaffs. The lower portion of the front is a grey granite base containing the foundation stone. The rest of the building has a concrete frame structure encased with both brick and sandstone. The front facade above the granite base is sandstone from Yangan, Queensland. The initial structure was designed to allow for the possible addition of extra storeys at a future date.
Internally on the ground floor level directly behind the entry is the Hall of Remembrance with its central urn surrounded by eight free standing Tuscan columns arranged in a circle. Above this is a floor of lodge rooms arranged around a central corridor, and on the level above there are supper rooms arranged in a similar fashion. The top level is mainly taken up by the Grand Hall, a large symmetrical open space with a vaulted coffered ceiling and stepped seating facing the centre. The walls of the hall are surrounded by evenly spaced paired Corinthian pilasters. The floors are connected by a staircase consisting of varying coloured marble, white Carrara and black Buchan for the main stair with a green dado. A multi-coloured marble mosaic is a feature of the landing. The stair also features a wrought iron balustrade with polished timber handrail, and is top lit from above.
The symmetrical facade and overscale columns give the building great presence as part of the streetscape in this portion of Ann Street.
","history":"The Masonic Temple was constructed between 1928 and 1930. In April 1921 the United Grand Lodge of Queensland was formed by the union of the 281 Freemasons' lodges in Queensland. To commemorate the union the Grand Lodge agreed to construct a centrally located temple. In December 1921 land in Ann Street, with a 77 feet (23.5 metres) frontage and depth of 148 feet (54.1 metres), was purchased. In December 1922 an additional 6.3 perches (159.4 square metres) was acquired to make the site symmetrical. The total cost of the land was £6 874.
In June 1923 a competition was held to produce a design for the temple. On 8 December 1924 the plans of Lange Powell (Freemason) of Atkinson, Powell and Conrad, were chosen from the 16 entries submitted. The design provided a four storey building, with a basement for the caretaker and storerooms. The ground floor held the executive offices of the Grand Lodges of Queensland, a library and a museum. In the centre of the large circular vestibule was the Urn of Remembrance to Brethren who died in First World War. The first floor comprised supper rooms and the second held the lodge rooms. The Grand Lodge room, approximately 91 by 71 by 32 feet (27.7 by 21.6 by 9.7 metres), on the top floor, seated 1100 people, and was described in the Architecture and Building Journal in February 1928 as the "largest and finest of its kind in Australia". The tender of £101 171 from Messrs George A Stronach and Son, builders, was accepted.
On 25 April 1928 Most Worshipful Brother Justice Charles Stumm laid the foundation stone. A capsule was placed beneath the stone which contained copies of the 4 Metropolitan newspapers of 24 April 1928, duplicate cheques contributed by Lodges and Brethren, a copy of the Grand Master's speech and coins. Building commenced in May 1928. The temple was completed in 1930 at a cost of £103 000, plus £10 000 for furniture. Freemasons throughout Queensland contributed towards the expense. On 9 December 1930 Sir John Goodwin, Governor of Queensland, unveiled and dedicated the memorial urn and the following day the Temple was opened and dedicated as a memorial to fallen Brethren, a symbol of Masonic unity in Queensland and as a monument to Freemasonry in Queensland. Since 1930 the hall has been the centre of Masonic activity in Queensland.
","criteria":"The Masonic Temple was built as a monument to Freemasonry in Queensland and as a World War I memorial and is held in high esteem within the Masonic community.
|The Masonic Temple is an exceptional example of a Masonic Temple in Australia, it is the only dedicated Grand Hall in Australia which is capable of accommodating a Grand Installation.
|The Masonic Temple is a fine example of a Classical Revival building designed by LL Powell with particularly fine workmanship evident in its details.
\nThe building is significant for its substantial intactness both externally and internally.
|The Masonic Temple is significant for its contribution to the streetscape of Ann Street brought to prominence by the scale of its facade with its giant order Corinthian columns.
\nThe Masonic Temple is significant for the grandeur of its internal spaces especially the Grand Hall and the Court of Remembrance around its Memorial Urn.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14850,"place_ref":600075,"name":"St Martin's House","alternate_name":"St Martin's Hospital | St Martins House","street_address":"373 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Martin's House is built on stone foundations with external walls of brick with sandstone facings, and is roofed with terracotta shingle tiles. The building is organised in plan so as to create a series of protected courtyards around the south transept of St John's Cathedral. This maintains the continuity of the system of closed spaces that surround the Cathedral on three sides.
\t
The massing of the building is centred on the service tower which has radiating wings. The tower has three levels and a basement while the remainder of the building is two storeyed. The facade oriented towards the cathedral is the most ornate, with a conical roof over the operating theatre, but that towards the south west with its cloister is also an important part of the building. Openings are a combination of square headed and semi-circular, segmented, and Gothic arches.
The exterior is enhanced by the quality of the detailing including: the corbelled brickwork, cruciform rain-water spouts, and the statue of St Martin of Tours in a niche in the western gable.
Arts and Crafts elements are clearly evident, and visually there are many similarities with the house most identified with that movement in the United Kingdom, the Red House by Philip Webb. Gothic elements are also present and St Martin's complements the other buildings which form the cathedral group.
Internally almost all the evidence of the building's use as a hospital has been lost in its change to office and residential use. Although the joinery has been retained, the northern wards and central corridor have been combined into one large office area and suspended ceilings installed. The original top floor kitchen has been converted into living quarters. The southern verandah is enclosed, and a fire stair has been constructed behind the facade facing Ann Street.
","history":"St Martin's House was built as a hospital by the Anglican Church as a memorial to those who had fought in World War 1. The name St Martin's Hospital was chosen as the Armistice had been signed on St Martin's day.
Designed by Lange Powell, St Martin's Hosptial was built by local contractor Thomas Keenan & Son for approximately £46,000 ($92,000). It was an accomplished design by an eminent local architect with an eclectic repetoire. It was opened and dedicated on 28 November 1922. The hospital was run by the Sisters of the Sacred Advent to care for the sick, and contained seven main wards, single rooms and two operating theatres. The main kitchen was built on the top floor, while smaller kitchens were installed on each floor for food distribution.
A children's wing was added in 1940. In 1945 a statue of St Martin, designed by William Bustard and crafted by Jack Muller was set in the Ann Street wall of the hospital.
In June 1971 the hospital was closed, and the patients moved to a new hospital at Zillmere. During the 1970s, plans to demolish the building were thwarted by a public campaign led by the Save St. Martin's Committee.
Recently the building was renovated, and in November 1990 St Martin's House was opened as the administrative headquarters for the Anglican Diocese. The top floor was converted to living quarters for the Precentor.
","criteria":"St Martin's House is significant as a memorial to World War I servicemen and women. The building also survives as evidence of the nursing activities of the Sisters of the Sacred Advent
|St Martin's House is significant as a highly accomplished building displaying characteristic Arts and Crafts massing, fine detail and workmanship, and a range of major materials. The building forms an integral part of a group of ecclesiastical buildings and spaces.
|St Martin's House is significant as a highly accomplished building displaying characteristic Arts and Crafts massing, fine detail and workmanship, and a range of major materials. The building forms an integral part of a group of ecclesiastical buildings and spaces.
|St Martin's House is significant as a fine example of the work of eminent architect Lange Powell, and a major work of Thomas Keenan, builder.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14851,"place_ref":600076,"name":"St Johns Cathedral","alternate_name":"St John's Cathedral","street_address":"413 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St John's Cathedral is a Gothic revival building in the manner of French Gothic cathedrals, highlighted by the use of a chevet. The external stonework is porphyry (Brisbane tuff) from Windsor quarry. The interior stonework is Helidon sandstone, while the openings and ornamental stonework are New South Wales sandstone. The roof is constructed of terracotta shingles.
The building is laid out in the form of a traditional cross with a double aisle on either side of the nave, with chapels flanking the ambulatory at the sanctuary end. The transepts have flanking turrets. Two more turrets flank the sanctuary end of the building. The buttresses on the building are relatively small in proportion to the height of the nave, a characteristic of later Gothic cathedrals. Diminutive flying buttresses are used at appropriate points. This resulted in some failures during the initial construction, and has been a contributing factor in the later stages of the building having been completed using a steel frame structure.
The most dominant internal feature is the 18 m high stone ribbed vaulted ceiling. In the nave these are sprung from a clerestory level. A gallery runs above the inner aisles on each side of the nave. Two small Gothic arched openings occur for every larger one below running down each side. The transepts are similarly vaulted but without aisles. The crossing consists of a broad stone vault based on an almost square plan form. Beyond this is the choir which extends in the same width as the nave to an apsidal end. This is surrounded by an ambulatory and flanked by two small chapels. The northern Lady Chapel has slender compound columns detached from the walls supporting the quadripartite vaulting system. A circular tracery window is a feature of the end wall of the northern transept. The stained glass has a wide variety of styles, artists and dates. The choir stalls are ornately carved timber elements. The communion rails, the work of L J Harvey are of Queensland maple.
St John's Cathedral is the centrepiece of a complex comprising The Deanery [600078], Webber House [600079], Church House [600077] and St Martin's House [600075].
","history":"Construction of St John's Cathedral began in 1901 and has proceeded in several major stages to the present.
When the Diocese of Brisbane was created in 1859, St John's Church in William Street became the Pro-Cathedral. Preliminary plans for a cathedral were made by the first Bishop of Brisbane, Edward Tufnell, in the 1860s, but never came to fruition. In 1885 William Webber was consecrated the third Bishop of Brisbane, and throughout his episcopacy devoted considerable time and energy to the cathedral project. Webber chose the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887 to launch a scheme to raise subscriptions towards the building of the cathedral. He made five trips to England to raise funds for the construction of St John's Cathedral.
Webber engaged noted English architect John Pearson to design the Cathedral. Pearson was widely recognised for his expertise in Gothic Revival architecture and was responsible for the design of Truro Cathedral. Pearson's design was in the spirit of thirteenth and fourteenth century English Gothic with many characteristics of French Gothic.
The estimated cost of the first stage, including the sanctuary, side chapels, transepts and one bay was £33,000. Despite considerable fund raising efforts, by 1898 £22,875 was still required to build the first section. In 1899, as a result of several factors the Church decided to build the Cathedral on an elevated site in Ann Street. The Pro-Cathedral land was purchased by the government in the same year for £33,000 and this provided the funds to purchase the new site.
Pearson died in 1897, leaving his son Frank to continue the design work and Robin S Dods, was appointed supervising architect. The foundation stone was laid by HRH, George, Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) on 22 May 1901. [1] The contract for the first stage was awarded to Peter Rodgers from Ballarat in April 1906. Work commenced immediately [2] and was completed in 1910. The remains of Webber, who had died in 1903 before his dream was fulfilled, were re-interred under the High Altar. The pulpit and cross were designed by Frank Pearson and crafted in England. The first three canon stalls were carved in England from Indian teak. Additional stalls, carved by Colin Blumson in Queensland maple, were added in the 1950s and 1960s.
Work commenced on the second stage in 1957, when foundations of two bays of the nave and side aisles were laid under the supervision of architects Conrad & Gargett. This work cost £9639. The stonework for this section did not commence immediately. In 1965 a contract was let and the work completed in 1968. On 22 November 1968, the extensions were consecrated by Archbishop Strong. The foundations for the final bay and west towers were constructed during these extensions.
A set of eight bells have recently been hung in the north-west tower. These bells were cast in 1876 by Messrs John Warner and Sons, London, and were initially housed in a timber belfry in the grounds of the Pro-Cathedral. They were then re-located in a timber belfry (designed by Robin Dods) in the cathedral grounds before being placed in their present position.
Further work began in June 1989 and involves the extension of the nave, and the construction of two western towers, central tower and porches. This retains the external form of the original design of the reinforced structure.
References
[1] 'Cathedral Foundation-Stone', The Queenslander, 1 June 1901, p. 1024; 'Cathedral Foundation-Stone', Brisbane Courier, 23 May 1901, p. 5.
[2] 'Queensland News', Morning Bulletin, 20 April 1906, p. 5; 'The Mail Bag', The Queenslander, 21 April 1906, p. 34.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the Anglican church.
|As a rare and scholarly attempt of an authentic essay in a French Gothic Cathedral, it demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of the ecclesiastical work of English architect JL Pearson
|It exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including:
(i) the quality of materials, details and craftsmanship of the building and its associated furniture, fittings and artwork;
(ii) its position as the centrepiece of a well integrated group of ecclesiastical buildings and spaces on an important city site; and
(iii) the level of craftsmanship exhibited by the vaulted stone ceilings and the ornate timber carving on the choir stalls.
|As the focal point of Anglican worship in Brisbane and the seat of the Archbishop, it has a strong and special association with the community.
|It has special association with Bishop Webber and his vision of a grand Cathedral.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14852,"place_ref":600077,"name":"Church House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"417 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Church House is a two storeyed building, constructed in brick with some relieving stone courses and dressings to the windows. The steeply pitched gable roof is tiled and finishes at the southern end with a low raking parapet. The other end features a simple gable indicating the proposed second stage extension.
It is essentially Gothic in its overall form, especially the dominant high pitched roof and narrow lancet windows but has been greatly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. The upper storey of the Ann Street facade has three cantilevered concrete balconies with wrought iron balustrading and an oriel window. The eaves overhang of the roof skirts around the gable ends as a sunhood. The fenestration on the upper level has square heads while the lower level has gothic arches apart from a side doorway which has a semi-circular arch. The main entry off Ann Street is a broad gothic arched opening with stone trimmings.
Internally, most of the original fabric remains. Changes have included some modern partitioning and surface ducted air-conditioning.
","history":"In 1899 the Church of England acquired property in Ann Street for the construction of a cathedral, day school and church offices. In 1909 Church House, to a design of Robin Dods, the diocesan architect, was built as the Diocesan Offices for the Diocese of Brisbane. It was stage one of a complex which was also to include a Synod Hall. The complete design followed an L-shape plan and would have extended the building close to Webber House (QHR 600079), creating a small closed space around St John's Cathedral. The design was applauded by fellow architects and displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition at London in 1910.
Church House is still used as offices and currently houses the Diocesan Archives and Social Welfare department of the Diocese.
","criteria":"Church House is significant for its association with the Anglican Diocese since 1904.
|Combining the Arts and Crafts manner, Church House is significant for its well resolved design and detail, forming an integral part of an ecclesiastical group of buildings.
|Combining the Arts and Crafts manner, Church House is significant for its well resolved design and detail, forming an integral part of an ecclesiastical group of buildings.
|Combining the Arts and Crafts manner, Church House is significant for its well resolved design and detail, forming an integral part of an ecclesiastical group of buildings.
|Church House is significant as an important work of prominent Brisbane architect Robin Dods.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14853,"place_ref":600078,"name":"The Deanery","alternate_name":"Adelaide House","street_address":"417 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This two storey residence with attic has external walls of 600mm thick random porphyry (Brisbane tuff) with sandstone facings. It has a symmetrical plan form with a nearly pyramidal hipped roof with hipped attic dormer windows. Two of these face the river and another pair face Ann Street to the rear of the building. Chimneys rise from the end hips of the main roof.
The two-level timber verandahs have shallow hipped roofs at the upper level with the one facing Adelaide Street having a gable section in line with the entry at the ground floor level. French doors open to the verandahs which have timber posts and detailing. The side verandah has paired posts compared to the verandah over the entry which has individual ones. The original entry, which now faces the sheer drop to Adelaide Street has a freestone pilastered entrance porch, flanked by two Doric columns at the front. The entry door is surrounded by leadlight windows.
The house has a high degree of integrity internally, despite alterations to room layouts at various stages which involved both the removal and additions of walls and doors. Some original fireplaces remain, as does most joinery including the staircase, which is painted white. The side verandahs have been enclosed.
","history":"This residence, originally known as Adelaide House, was constructed for Dr William Hobbs who arrived in Brisbane in May 1849 as the ship's surgeon on board the Chasely, the second of Reverend John Dunmore Lang's immigrant ships. Hobbs was a prominent medical figure. In 1853 Hobbs commissioned Andrew Petrie to build a two storey house on a hill overlooking the river.
When Sir George Bowen was appointed Queensland's first Governor in 1859, Government House was still being planned. As an interim measure, Adelaide House was rented by the government for £350 per year, as the Governor's residence. On 10 December 1859, the proclamation creating the colony of Queensland was read by Bowen on the first floor balcony of Adelaide House where he was sworn in as Governor by Judge Lutwyche. On the completion of Government House in lower George Street in 1862, Dr Hobbs returned with his family to Adelaide House.
In the 1880s excavations for the extension of Adelaide Street destroyed Dr Hobbs's garden and left the house close to the steep cutting, prompting the family to move in 1883. From 1883 until 1899 the property was let to various tenants and for a period was used as a day school and later a boarding house.
In 1899, the property was acquired by the Church of England and was used as a Church Institute, a book depot and Diocesan Registry. With the construction of Church House (QHR 600077) in 1909, Adelaide House was renovated and the verandahs, to a design of Robin Dods, were added. After the consecration of St John's Cathedral (QHR 600076) in 1910, Adelaide House became the residence for the Dean and known as The Deanery.
Alterations and renovations costing £4,000 were undertaken in 1954. Also a double garage was built, replacing the coach house and stables. The Dean moved into the northern section of the building and the Precentor occupied the southern half. Recently, the Precentor moved to nearby St Martins House (QHR 600075).
","criteria":"The Deanery is significant as Queensland's first Government House and the site where Queensland was proclaimed a colony.
|The building is also a rare example of an 1850s residence.
|The Deanery is significant as an example of the work of Andrew Petrie who constructed many of Brisbane's early buildings.
|The Deanery is significant for its association with Dr Hobbs, a prominent medical figure in nineteenth century Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14854,"place_ref":600079,"name":"Webber House","alternate_name":"Cathedral Schools and St John's Institute","street_address":"439 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Built in 1904, as part of the St John's Cathedral complex, Webber House is a three storeyed masonry building with steeply pitched slate roofs. While the roof form and windows give it a Gothic appearance, the details, mixture of materials, scale of elements, external spaces are influenced by the contemporary Arts and Crafts movement.
The massing of the building consists of steep gable roofs gradually stepping up at right angles to each other until they reach the tall three storeyed central gable portion. The stonework appears generally in the lower part of the structure up to the top of the first level and then appears in strips and around the window openings in the brickwork above. The fenestration is predominantly Gothic arched but some square headed openings and small quatrefoil vents appear high up in some of the gable ends. Two of the gable roofs have lower portions of a lesser pitch, creating a form of sun hood. Immediately below the eaves line of this feature of the roof is a band of glazing separated in one case by the tops of buttresses when they occur, and in the other by timber posts.
Internally, a spacious stairwell leads to the upper floors. The top floor features a steep boarded ceiling above timber trusses which are supported at each end on three turned timber columns.
Fretting stonework to the ground floor has been cement-rendered to imitate the original pick-faced and margined stones. The building is generally intact both externally and internally.
","history":"In 1899 the Church of England acquired property in Ann Street for the construction of a cathedral, day school and church offices. On 19 October 1904, the foundation stones were laid for a building known as the Cathedral School and Church Institute. It was constructed by Worley and Whitehead of Ipswich to a joint design of John S Murdoch and the diocesan architect Robin S Dods. Murdoch, who was an architect for the State Works Department (1894-1903) took leave of absence to design Webber House and also St Luke's Anglican Church in Charlotte Street (QHR 600083).
Stone from St John's Pro-Cathedral in William Street (demolished in 1904) was re-used for the foundation stones, and in the front and rear walls. The main doors, most of the gothic style windows and the roof trusses were also re-used.
The ground floor contained the assembly hall and at the rear were two covered playsheds. The second floor included the institute reading room, two schoolrooms and the teachers' room. The top storey was one large room for the institute. In all, accommodation was provided for 300 children.
The Sisters of the Sacred Advent conducted a school in the premises from 1936 until 1941. During the Second World War the building was occupied by the Australian Army Engineering Corps and the Army Medical Department and was subsequently used for Cathedral activities and meeting hall.
In 1969-70 the building was renovated and the verandahs were enclosed. It was named Webber House in honour of William Webber, third Bishop of Brisbane (1885-1903). Webber had been instrumental in initiating the development of the cathedral precinct.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|Webber House is significant as an excellent example of a creative architectural design in the Arts and Crafts manner re-using materials from the Pro-Cathedral. The building forms an integral part of the cathedral complex.
|Webber House is significant as an excellent example of a creative architectural design in the Arts and Crafts manner re-using materials from the Pro-Cathedral. The building forms an integral part of the cathedral complex.
|Webber House is significant as an example of the work of two prominent Queensland architects, John Murdoch and Robin Dods. The building is also significant for its association with Bishop Webber who was instrumental in the development of the Cathedral complex.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14855,"place_ref":600080,"name":"Credit Union Australia Building","alternate_name":"RACQ Building | Queensland Brewery Co","street_address":"501 Ann Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The three storeyed brick building is prominently located on the corner of Ann and Boundary Streets, opposite Centenary Place. It is built with applied Art Deco motifs influenced by the Functionalist movement.
Horizontal strip windows delineate levels on the two street facades and contrast with the vertically expressed elements of the corner tower. This tower forms a prominent entry and also serves as the location for vertical circulation. A chevron motif is regularly spaced around its upper portion.
The Ann Street facade has a cantilevered awning over a ramp providing access to a second entry.
The main entry vestibule is a three storeyed void with a corner entry at the ground floor level and a second inner entry parallel to Ann Street. This makes the lower portion of this space asymmetrical. The original glass blocks of the corner piece have been replaced by curved plate glass. The lower portion of the three storeyed space is of concrete block while plaster is located above marked to simulate blockwork. The ceiling is plaster and has a decorated cornice and a vertical light fitting suspended from its centre. The stairwell is walled with plaster marked in a similar way to the upper portion of the entry vestibule. The stair has polished timber handrails with a metal balustrade and brackets. The passenger elevator is predominantly intact. Only some of the original timber veneer partitioning remains in the general office space.
Despite the loss of some of its integrity the building is still an indicator of the beginning of the stylistic influence of the European Modern Movement in Queensland. It is also prominent for the manner in which it is designed to take advantage of its location on a corner site.
","history":"This building was constructed between 1940 and 1942 for the Queensland Brewery Company. Designed by H S McDonald of Addison and McDonald, it replaced the company's headquarters in Queen Street, Petrie Bight. Half the ground floor and the first floors were used as administrative offices, while the remainder of these floors and the top storey provided cellars, a wine and spirits department, cooperage and goods handling and loading facilities.
The design was a departure from accepted forms for commercial buildings in Queensland at the time. McDonald fused the assertive curves and angles of the Art Deco with the flowing horizontal lines of the Functionalist movement. This latter style was characterised by its simple geometric shapes, its light colours and large glass areas. The building also exemplified the use of new materials like the original glass brick of the circular entry tower and the synthetic stone of the original signage. Both these elements have since been removed.
In February 1966 the property was purchased by the Royal Automobile Club of Australia (RACQ). Architects Cook and Kerrison & Partners adapted the building for its new use. The offices on the ground floor were occupied by customer services, the first floor accommodated the RACQ insurance staff, and the second floor provided management offices and two board rooms.
In 1980 the property was sold to the Australia Post and Telecom Credit Union, although RACQ leased the building for three years until their new offices were constructed. Credit Union Australia purchased the property in 1983, and undertook further modifications.
","criteria":"The Credit Union Australia Building is significant as a relatively rare example of a landmark building with Art Deco embellishments. The building is significant as an example of the work of H S McDonald who played a role in the introduction of Functionalist style to Queensland.
|The Credit Union Australia Building is significant as a relatively rare example of a landmark building with Art Deco embellishments. The building is significant as an example of the work of H S McDonald who played a role in the introduction of Functionalist style to Queensland.
|The Credit Union Australia Building is significant as a relatively rare example of a landmark building with Art Deco embellishments.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14857,"place_ref":600082,"name":"Charlotte House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"139 - 145 Charlotte Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This timber frame, brick and cement render warehouse with four storeys and basement stands in Charlotte Street close to another warehouse building, Harrolds Marine [600081]. At the north-eastern end of the building a highly differentiated bay marks a carriage entrance.
Large pilasters separate six window openings and the carriageway bay. Three of these pilasters mark the ends of the building and the carriageway bay and are distinguished, by greater ornamentation, from the five 'minor' pilasters. At basement and ground floors, the pilasters are fluted whilst those at the upper levels carry a Greek linear pattern.
Two protruding string courses, one above the ground floor and another above the second floor, define the three sections of the building. The underside of the upper string course carries a row of fine dentils and an inscribed Greek pattern. Fluted brackets mark the ends of the building and the carriageway bay which is further distinguished by a richly moulded pediment above the first string course. Above the minor pilasters of the upper floor the painted lettering 'Charlotte House' is surmounted by a moulded cornice. The major pilasters extend to deeply fluted brackets and at the roof line, another pediment marked '1886' distinguishes the carriageway bay. The point of this pediment and the line of each of the eight pilasters is accented on the roof by acroteria.
Behind the building is a two-storey brick store which was constructed as part of the original project.
While substantial internal alterations were carried out on the building in 1964, both the structure and the facade remain intact. The timber framing, floor joists and herringbone strutting are evident on the underside of the first floor carriageway.
","history":"This four storeyed warehouse was erected in 1888-89. Built for Wallace Warren & Co, merchants, importers, bonded warehousemen and shipping agents, Charlotte House was designed by J J Lough. In the early 1880s, Lough had been in partnership with Benjamin Backhouse in Sydney and his unusual choice of Greek and Egyptian motifs for the building reflects similar work by Backhouse in Sydney on a warehouse for Dalton Brothers in the late 1870s.
The construction of this warehouse in Charlotte Street reflected the emergence of the immediate area as a warehousing precinct. Formerly known as Frogs Hollow, by the late 1880s, the area was dominated by warehouses and also industrial buildings.
Between 1889 and 1894, Wallace Warren & Co operated their business from the building but following the depression of the early 1890s, they were declared bankrupt in 1894. The new owners, the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, leased the building to various tenants including Crescent Packing Co which processed and packaged coffee and spices there, bag manufacturers Joyce Brothers, and C E Babbidge, a printer and stereotyper. Between 1911 and 1919 the prominent Sydney-based tea merchants, Inglis Ltd, distributors of the Billy Tea brand, occupied part of the building. Their distinctive sign covered the entire length of the southern wall.
From 1912 to 1963 the building was owned by the ironmongers Robertson Tait & Co then by its successor Wilson Tait, wholesale hardware merchants.
The new owners in 1963, Charlotte House Pty Ltd, carried out extensive internal alterations in 1964. Currently, the building is occupied by a variety of commercial tenants.
","criteria":"Charlotte House is significant as it provides evidence of the emergence of the Frogs Hollow area as a warehousing precinct. The building remains as a reminder of this previous function of the area.
|Charlotte House is significant as a rare and good example of a late nineteenth century warehouse, with an intact facade which incorporates Greek and Egyptian motifs.
|Charlotte House is significant as a rare and good example of a late nineteenth century warehouse, with an intact facade which incorporates Greek and Egyptian motifs.
|Charlotte House is significant as a rare and good example of a late nineteenth century warehouse, with an intact facade which incorporates Greek and Egyptian motifs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14858,"place_ref":600083,"name":"Pancake Manor","alternate_name":"St Lukes Anglican Church | St Luke's Anglican Church","street_address":"10 Charlotte Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a finely detailed brick building in the Romanesque style whose predominant feature is the massive relieving archway containing vertical openings at the end of the chancel. It has a complicated roof form combining both hips and gables, along with a small octagonal tower near the entry. The roof sheeting is rolled iron. The plain brickwork is punctuated by bands of different coloured brick and the occasional use of stone around windows and doors. The building has the unusual arrangement of having entries to both floor levels at the chancel end in an attempt to optimise the building's orientation. The major entry to the upper church level is defined by a recessed porch.
The exterior and interior finishes of the building are particularly intact, despite the building's change of use, installation of kitchen facilities, and inappropriate interior door and external signage.
","history":"This church was constructed in 1904. This site was purchased in 1903 by the Church of England for a new mission church. Prior to this, the mission had rented rooms throughout Brisbane and St Lukes provided its first permanent home. On 3 February 1904 the dedication stone of St Lukes Cathedral was laid by His Excellency, Sir Herbert Chermside, Governor of Queensland. St Lukes served as a temporary cathedral between the demolition of St Johns Pro-Cathedral, 1904 and the opening of St Johns Cathedral in 1910. Architect, John Smith Murdoch, was commissioned to design a church which would utilise fully the limited site area. Murdoch, who was an architect for the State Works Department (1894-1903); Chief Architect for Home Affairs (1919-22) and Chief Architect of the Commonwealth (1926-30) took leave of absence to design St Luke's and Webber House. St Lukes was purpose built for the Mission headquarters, providing meeting rooms in the basement. John Steward & Co constructed St Lukes which was dedicated on 14 August 1904 by the Administrator, the Venerable AE David, Archdeacon of Brisbane. On St Thomas Day, 21 December 1904 Saint Clair George Alfred Donaldson was enthroned as Bishop of Brisbane in St Lukes. The ceremony was well attended by prominent clergy members and as the church could only seat 402 people, entry was restricted to ticket holders only.
After 1910 St Lukes served its intended purpose as the headquarters of the Anglican Church Mission. The Mission was an evangelistic group which worked amongst the disadvantaged supplying food and shelter for the destitute and saving young girls from moral degradation. It also provided ministering to districts without parishes or churches. It ran several youth clubs, including the Newsboys Club, providing social companionship and spiritual guidance for the members. In 1908 the Overseas Girls Club was founded and later the hall was used as a meeting and recreational venue for the Girls Friendly Society. During the First World War Canon David Garland, resident Chaplain of St Lukes, was Director of the Soldiers Church of England Help Society and the Mission corresponded with servicemen at the front. An Anzac Club was opened at St Lukes for returned soldiers and the hall was used for Sunday teas and dances. On 18 June 1917 a Nurses Honour Board was unveiled in St Lukes War Chapel in recognition of those who served in World War I. During the Second World War St Lukes provided a meeting place and Saturday night dances for soldiers stationed in Brisbane.
St Lukes remained the Mission Headquarters until the 1950s and the meeting place of the Synod of the Diocese until 1977, after which St Lukes was no longer needed for church purposes. In 1979 St Lukes Church was converted into a restaurant.
","criteria":"St Lukes was purpose built as a hall with meeting rooms to assist the Church of England Mission in its role of providing Christian charity to the community and ministering to districts without parishes or churches.
St Lukes has religious significance as the Anglican Pro-Cathedral, 1904-1910, as the Mission Headquarters, 1904-1950s, and as the meeting place of the Synod of the Diocese until 1977 and socially significant as a recreational venue for Anglican youth groups and World War I and World War 2 veterans.
|The quality of its polychrome brickwork and picturesque roof forms make the building visually appealing, and is a successful example of a building designed to fulfil the dual purpose of both Mission headquarters and Church.
|The quality of its polychrome brickwork and picturesque roof forms make the building visually appealing, and is a successful example of a building designed to fulfil the dual purpose of both Mission headquarters and Church.
The scale and materials of this building form a visual complement to the other buildings in the precinct, notably the red facebrick facades of John Mills Himself and the John Reid and Nephews buildings.
|The quality of its polychrome brickwork and picturesque roof forms make the building visually appealing, and is a successful example of a building designed to fulfil the dual purpose of both Mission headquarters and Church.
|St Lukes has religious significance as the Anglican Pro-Cathedral, 1904-1910, as the Mission Headquarters, 1904-1950s, and as the meeting place of the Synod of the Diocese until 1977 and socially significant as a recreational venue for Anglican youth groups and World War I and World War 2 veterans.
|The church was designed by John S Murdoch who was commissioned by the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane to design St Lukes and Webber House in 1904.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14859,"place_ref":600084,"name":"John Mills Himself Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"40 Charlotte Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"John Mills Himself is the tallest of a group of brick buildings in Charlotte Street extending from the Pancake Manor (600083) to George Weston and Sons (600085). It consists of two buildings connected by an open timber stairway. The portion fronting Charlotte Street is three storeys high with a face brick and render street elevation and a tall decorative parapet. The ground floor has an entry to either side of a central window with a plinth of darker brick. The window sills are the same dark brick. The remainder of the facade is divided by brick pilasters into a large central bay flanked by narrow bays. Between the first and second floor is a horizontal band of blue ceramic tiles broken only by the pilasters. The end brick pilasters continue through the parapet to become tall freestanding columns, while the central two support a triangular classical pediment. Below the pediment in the tall parapet are the words "John Mills Himself" picked out in raised rendered lettering. The timber doors and windows on the facade are original.
The upper portion of the side walls extend in a tall flowing double curve to support the parapet. Behind the front section the building is only two storeys high. The top level has natural light from a central clerestory. Under the clerestory internally some roof trusses are partially exposed. The ceiling is timber boarding. Modern office partitioning has been added to the internal spaces in the three-storey section of the building.
At the rear is a separate building facing a laneway from Elizabeth Street. This is two storeys above a basement and has two loading bays centrally on its rear facade. A projecting gantry is located centrally in the end gable. The basement runs the length of both buildings. This building has an exposed structure with large scale timber beams and columns, timber joists separated by herring-bone strutting and exposed timber trusses.
","history":"The confidence and optimism caused by Queensland's economic prosperity between 1908 and 1914, found its expression in the redevelopment of inner city areas like Charlotte Street where light industry workshops replaced timber residential and business premises. Small industrial businesses, such as John Reid and Nephews (engineers), George Weston (metal merchants) and John Mills (printer)(QHR 600084) built their premises in Charlotte Street on the fringe of the commercial centre, in 1912-13, 1915 and 1918, respectively.
In July 1918 this site was purchased by John Charles Mills. Mills traded as Mills and Green, printers and stationers from 1907-8 in Adelaide Street, but on dissolution of the partnership, he traded alone, under the name John Mills Himself. During World War I his business expanded and he established a large warehouse at Newstead. In 1919 he moved to Charlotte Street and constructed his office, printery workshop and warehouse on this site previously occupied by Markwell's cottage. By the 1920s the business was well established, attracting clients such as Steele Rudd. Mills leased the remainder of the building to related businesses, including the Gresham Publishing Company Ltd from 1920 to 1933 and the Press Etching Company, blockmakers and process engravers from 1921 to 1941. Other rooms were leased to clothing manufacturers, mapmakers, watchmakers and lantern slide makers.
After John Mills' death in 1934, his business was continued by his sons, John and Sam Mills. During World War II part of the building was used as a gymnasium for the National Fitness Movement. In recent years it has been occupied by a variety of tenants associated with the arts. The property remained in the Mills family until the 1980s.
","criteria":"John Mills Himself Building is significant as an example of the redevelopment of Charlotte Street in the early twentieth century as a light industrial precinct.
|John Mills Himself Building is significant for the contribution the scale, texture and form of the building makes to the streetscape.
John Mills Himself Building provides a visual complement to other brick buildings nearby including George Weston, John Reid and Nephews and the Pancake Manor.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14861,"place_ref":600086,"name":"St Andrews Uniting Church","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church","street_address":"131 Creek Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Andrew's Church is a substantial brick and concrete building, occupying a prominent Brisbane CBD site on the corner of Creek and Ann Streets. The building is constructed in alignment with the footpath and covering most of the property allotment.
The church is a well-composed building, relying more for its character relying on the intrinsic characteristics of natural materials and the bold massing of simple forms than on ornamentation and decoration, which are often characteristic of ecclesiastical architecture. The architect, Payne, was much influenced by the late Victorian interest in Romanesque architectural styles, and this influence is most obvious at St Andrews' in the repeated use of the semicircular arched opening, vaulted and domed ceilings, sparse use of Celtic and Norman ornamentation and sophisticated face brickwork.
The building is asymmetrically arranged, with principal facades to both Creek and Ann Streets. It is a loadbearing brick structure with concrete foundation and basement substructure. Concrete detailing is found throughout the building, and includes door and window surrounds, tracery, stairs, roof detailing, internal vaulting and dome and internal corbelling. The building's ecclesiastical function is apparent in the traditional cruciform floor plan, with transepts extending from the north-south running nave, to the east and west, the western transept facing Ann Street. A rectangular wing, housing the early Session House, abuts the northern end of the building, also with principal entrance to Ann Street. The unglazed terracotta tiled roof of the church is gabled over the nave and transepts, with the Session House separately gabled with end to Ann Street. Complementing the forms of the steeply pitched gabled roofs, is a square planned tower at the principal corner of the site, and turned through 45°, thus truncating the corner of the building and providing a suitable position for a corner entrance. The tower houses the principal semicircular arched doorway at ground level, accessed via several concrete steps, above which are several elongated rectangular and small circular openings with large semicircular arched openings near the cornice line. A simple concrete parapet, with ribbed detail and four simple corner pinnacles, surmounts the tower and partially conceals the pyramidal roof that has a concrete apex surmounted by a fine wrought iron finial.
The asymmetrically composed western facade of the building, addressing Ann Street, comprises the gabled ends of the western transept and, at the northern end, an entrance porch abutting the smaller gabled end of the Session House. Between the entrance porch and transept is a recessed wall, forming part of the wall of the nave of the church, which is externally buttressed with two tapered brick projections, extending to the sub floor level. The buttresses extend out from the building to be aligned with the transept face and have semicircular arched openings at their bases, forming a cloister-like external court adjacent to the hall in the basement of the church. The gabled transept end has three semicircular arched window openings, elongated and extending over much of the length of the gabled end. The entrance porch is square planned projection, with a simple roof and housing a semicircular arched doorway providing access to an internal porch leading to the narthex of the church. Above the doorway are several concrete bands one of which is pebble dashed, above these are three small circular windows in a horizontal line with concrete surrounds. The gabled end of the session house is visually dominated by a projecting bay window or oriel, at first floor level. Below this at ground floor level is a semicircular arched doorway providing entrance to the session house and a tripartite window arrangement of small equally sized rectangular openings, glazed with stained and coloured glass.
The Creek Street facade of the building comprises the gabled southern end of the church that is symmetrically composed. Dominant on the face of the gable is a bowed projection, forming the external wall of the corridor at the rear of the chancel and following its rounded shape. The projecting rounded shape of this feature is reflected in the base and support of the large semicircular arched opening, through which it projects. On the face of the projection are a number of elongated semicircular arched windows, filled with stained and coloured glass panels, and beneath these are a number of decorative brick bands. The bowed base of the arched opening has a series of window openings, like slits, which provide natural lighting to the corridor within. The base of the archway is supported on a concrete corbel. Below this projection, at street level, are three semicircular arched door openings, fitted with collapsible steel gates, with ornamental ironwork in the head of the archway. Flanking these openings are two arched openings fitted with four windows glazed with square multi-paned glass panels.
The principal entrance to the building is via a large semicircular arched doorway that is at the base of the tower, turned to run diagonally to the building. A double timber door from this entrance provides access to a small circular entrance vestibule from where two curved concrete stairs lead to the choir and vestry to the east and to the church auditorium on the western side. The vestibule, which has a concrete ceiling and floor, features lettering around the concrete cornice, 'ENTER INTO HIS GATES WITH THANKSGIVING'. This arrangement was not intended as the usual entrance for the congregation to the church, which was planned through two doorways from Ann Street providing access to an encaustic tiled porch with a concrete stair leading to the narthex, or outer chamber of the church auditorium. The narthex houses many fine architectural details including three stained glass panels in semicircular arched openings, supplied by FW Ashwin & Co. Three timber doors in the southern wall of the narthex provide entry to the auditorium.
The church interior is in the traditional ecclesiastical cruciform plan, with shallow transepts formed at the southern end and expressed externally by the gabled projections to Ann Street and on the opposite side of the building. The body of the church is entirely open with a raked timber boarded ceiling, clad with ruberoid matting, and arched roof trusses which, like most of the joinery in the building, have been stained to a dark timber colour. The transepts, lower in hight than the body of the church have large window openings, some of which have been fitted with stained glass panels. At the rear of the church, on the northern wall are three large tripartite window opening arrangements fitted with stained glass panels, featuring stories from the life of Christ.
Dominating the interior is a large and fine organ, found, in Presbyterian manner, raised in the chancel of the church and almost filling the entire cavity. A round headed chancel archway separates the apsidal chancel from the body of the church and provides the springing point for a semi-domical ceiling in the chancel area. The silky oak organ case is a fine piece of joinery designed by the architect of the church and featuring carved panels and gold lettering and very well integrated with the other altar furniture, choir seating and other joinery in the building. The chancel area comprises a number of tiers, with elders' and minister's seating on the lowest level, and choir seating, protected by a wrought iron balustrade, above.
At the rear of the chancel and expressed externally in the bowing projection in the arched opening on the Creek Street gabled section of the building, is a narrow corridor providing access to each side of the choir stalls and also between the principal stairs of the building. The narrowness and low lighting afforded through slits to Creek Street, make this corridor and associated spaces seem catacomb-like.
Characteristic of the church auditorium level of St Andrew's Church is the high quality and innovative and unusual design of the internal joinery. The stair joinery, doors, windows and their framing, along with church seating, wainscotting, benches, and other fittings are very well designed pieces, original to this building and contribute to the building's outstanding design.
Beneath the church auditorium and entered from an open entrance porch off Creek Street access to which is provided through three large semicircular arched doorway openings is the church hall. The interior of the hall is dominated by a double row of large concrete piers, and is flanked on the eastern side by an open courtyard along the Ann Street retaining wall boundary that is braced with a system of buttresses aligned with the internal columns in both auditoria.
Housed in a two storeyed section abutting the northern side of the building, the Session House, is the administrative core of the church, with the original session room and ladies' parlour. Though these are has been recently renovated to provide some modern office accommodation, many of the early spaces have been retained.
","history":"St Andrews Church was constructed in 1905 for the local parish of the Presbyterian Church previously located on land now used as part of Brisbane Central Railway Station. The building was designed by innovative architect, George D. Payne.
The Presbyterian congregation who eventually built St Andrew's, constructed their first church at the corner of Wickham Terrace and Creek Streets in 1863. This building, designed by Benjamin Backhouse, was known as the Union Presbyterian Church in commemoration of the amalgamation of the Church of Scotland, Free Church and United Presbyterian Church to form the Presbyterian Church of Queensland. The first minister appointed by the congregation was James Love, an Irishman who started preaching in the School of Arts building in Ann Street upon his arrival in Queensland. The congregation at the Union Presbyterian Church remained in their small sandstone church until 1887 when a new larger church designed by Willoughby Powell was constructed. This building was an ornate early English Gothic structure of brick, prominent in early photographs of Brisbane, which featured attached buttressing terminating in pinnacles above an open parapet and a large tower in the north west corner.
Unfortunately, only ten years after the construction of their new church the congregation learnt of plans to quadruple the lines at Brisbane Central Railway Station, meaning the land on which the church was built was to be wholly or partially resumed. By 1900 firm plans were laid for the expansion of Central Station and negotiations began between the church and the Railway Commissioner over compensation. A deal was made for the payment of £20,000, paid to the Supreme Court and payable to the church on proof that the money was to be used for the acquiring of land and the construction of a substitute church. The former church was available rent free until October 1903 when plans for the railway station were to be realised.
A new site for the construction of their third church was found by the elders of the Presbyterian congregation on the corner of Ann and Creek Streets. The land was then occupied by a manufacturing plant and the land belonged to William Perry, who had leased the property from the original holder of the Deed off Grant, Henry Murray in 1875. In November 1884 Perry purchased the property and a quick succession of owners follows until the land was bought by Charles Elliott of Melbourne in December 1888. In July 1894 the Australian Mutual Provident Society became the owners of the property and it was they who appointed elders from the Presbyterian congregation as trustees of the site in 1901. After the Presbyterian Church Property Act of 1909 the property was vested in the Presbyterian Church of Queensland in February 1911.
Thus, after 1901 the former Wickham Terrace Presbyterian congregation became the owners of the land on the corner of Ann and Creek Streets and plans for the construction of a new building were made. The minutes of a meeting held on 8 July 1902 record the following resolutions; that a church be constructed on the site at a cost of between £8000 and £10,000 and that a competition be held for a design for the church open to Brisbane architects. The sum of £100 was to be expended in prize money, awarding the winner and three commended works. The competition stipulated that seating be provided for 500 people with provision for 200 additional attendants. Other facilities were to include an organ, choir stalls, a hall underneath the church, a minister's vestry, ladies parlour, choir room, toilets and a session room. The building was to be of brick or stone with pricing provided for both schemes. Further requirements were for three entrances from Ann Street, one to the administrative areas and two to the body of the church and an entrance from Creek Street also giving access to the hall beneath the church. During October 1902 the results of the competition, which was judged by Brisbane architect, Claude Chambers, were published in local newspapers and weekly journals and these nominated George D Payne of the Public Works Department as the winner of the competition with other local architect VC Voller coming second and architectural partnership, Addison and Corrie, being awarded third prize.
George D. Payne, the winning architect, was employed at the time within the Queensland Public Works Department, after moving to Brisbane in 1898 from New South Wales where he was in private practice after a period of employment with architectural partnership, Lowerish and Moorhouse. During his professional life in Sydney he entered many competitions and, despite the poor economic conditions, maintained a reasonably successful practice. Payne was a foundation member and inaugural president of the Sydney Architectural Association. In March 1898 Payne took a position as a temporary draftsman in the Public Works Department where he was involved in the design and construction of several outstanding public buildings in Queensland including the Rockhampton Customs House, the Townsville Customs House, detail work on first floor verandahs of the Warwick Post Office, and the East Brisbane State School. In February 1901 Payne was appointed assistant to Thomas Pye, the District Architect of the Southern Division, but soon after, under notice of retrenchment, entered the competition for the design of St Andrew's Church. After he was announced winner in late 1902 he remained at the works department until December 1902 when he resigned to undertake construction supervision of his winning design. After construction of the church, Payne continued in private practice but failed to "attract work of a scale commensurate with his talent." It is therefore for the work at St Andrews on which his state and, indeed, national reputation as an innovative and highly skilled architect is based.
Construction on the church began in late 1902, after the tender of Messrs A Lind and Son, assisted by foreman Alexander Anderson, for * was accepted, and continued until 27 August 1905 when it was opened for public worship. Payne remained involved in the project throughout construction and it is perhaps for this reason that the finished building is characterised throughout by well integrated and sophisticated detailing. A lengthy report in a Presbyterian newspaper, The Messenger commemorating the opening of the church comments on public comment of the building, likening criticism from some corners to that experienced by the opening of Westminster Cathedral (1895-1903); the Roman Catholic Cathedral located in central London. This was designed by John Francis Bentley, and constructed in polychrome banded brickwork in the manner of Byzantine or Early Christian churches, quite different from the usual Gothic tone of churches of the time in that part of Europe. The article says, "there is no denying that it (St Andrew's) is unique as far as the Commonwealth is concerned. It has no prototype that we know", and continued on to describe the style of architecture as "a phase of early Christian or early Romanesque, that had its best expression in simplicity and severity of detail which relies for effect on the impressive dignity of the grouping of masses, forms, proportion, and which excludes all extravagant and unnecessary ornament." Those design features of St Andrews' which are of the Romanesque style, include the previously discussed massing of bold forms; the use of simple geometric shapes; semicircular arched openings; the half domed interior to the chancel area; vaulting in the narthex and in the hall beneath the church; the general heaviness of many of these features rendered in face brick and the sparse use of Celtic and Norman ornamentation.
Design of churches during the Victorian period in Britain and her empire was dominated by a revival of the forms and inspiration of the Gothic movement. The Gothic church of the thirteenth and fourteenth century came to be a symbol of the power and glory of the church in a time when such characteristics were seriously threatened. Toward the end of the nineteenth century a new direction was taken, emphasising the influence of an earlier period of church building; early Christian ecclesiastical architecture, most obviously that of Byzantine and Romanesque periods. It is after manner that Payne conceived his design for St Andrew's.
Of the many fine features in the completed church the most remarkable are the semi-domed chancel, the organ and several panels of stained glass. The ceiling of the chancel was formed from a semi dome of concrete with a 28 feet span and, supposedly, marking the introduction of the groined vault into Queensland. The organ is a spectacular example of the work of Austral Organ Works, in a silky oak case designed by George Payne and built by Messrs JD Campbell and Son for £1440. The kinetic electric blower installed in the organ was apparently the first installed in Australia and relies on a rotary action, combining a series of duct fans to eliminate noise from operation. The prominence and importance attached to the organ reflects the significance of music in the Presbyterian church, particularly at the time of the construction of this building. Three stained glass windows in the narthex of the church are of particular note as the work of prominent Sydney stained glazier, FW Ashwin and Co. The central panels represent the Burning Bush and flanking it are two figural windows, one of John Knox and the other of John Calvin, both of who were associated with the early development of Presbyterianism. Ashwin and Co. also provided other, unspecified, leadlighting for the building and the total sum of their contract was £66.
The newly constructed church was much admired in Brisbane, and remains one of the most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in the state.
There was a universal feeling expressed by those present who had not previously seen the interior that they had not dreamed that it would be so magnifical, the austerity of the exterior scarcely preparing them for the fine effect of the chancel, with its shining brass and gleaming silver and burnished gold, the splendid sweep of the interior arches, the spacious auditorium unbroken by a single pillar, and the lofty roof, where sunbeams glinted and shadows came and went.
Very few changes have been made to St Andrew's Church since its construction was completed in 1905. As the fiftieth anniversary of the congregation approached in the 1914, small changes were made to improve the acoustics, ventilation and natural lighting of the building. These alterations included laying a ruberoid flooring, providing new window openings, and installing electric fans at the northern end of the auditorium. A large stained glass window was installed at the northern end of the auditorium, above the narthex, in 1921 in celebration of another anniversary.
Following the formation in 1977 of the Uniting Church in Australia, from the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational religions, St Andrew's Church is now a Uniting Church. More recent changes to the building include the conversion of the session house and ladies' parlour into contemporary office space.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Uniting Church, formerly Presbyterian, is a large centrally located church that demonstrates the growth of Presbyterianism in Queensland, particularly in Brisbane where it was the home of one of the largest congregations for many years. The building, constructed in 1905 following expansion at Brisbane Central Railway Station, illustrates the growth of this area of the city.
|St Andrew's Church is a rare example of the Brisbane work of the renowned and fine architect, George D. Payne and has special associations with him. Though Payne practised in Brisbane for many years after construction of St Andrew's, none other of his buildings are of comparable prominence.
|The building is an excellent example of the turn of the century development in ecclesiastical architecture that saw the emergence of strong early Christian, Romanesque and Byzantine influences, where previously a Gothic language dominated. The building is one of the earliest ecclesiastical buildings in Brisbane that employs this Romanesque detail and form, influenced by trends in both England where Westminster Cathedral had been erected, and America where the influential architect, HH Richardson was practicing in a style now known as American Romanesque.
Other features contributing to the significance of the church are the early church seating, elder's seating and altar furniture and other early details and fittings. The building is good and characteristic example of a Presbyterian Church with an open auditorium, prominent organ and tiered chancel arrangement.
|St Andrew's Church is a landmark in Brisbane, dominating the Ann and Creek Streets streetscape, employing strong architectural forms, including steeply pitched gables and a tower, on a prominent site. The building has many prominent features of aesthetic and historical importance including the stained glass windows, organ and the internal domed ceiling of the chancel.
|St Andrew's is a well-designed building of outstanding architectural merit, it is innovative and well composed with a sophisticated and well-integrated level of original detail.
|The building has special associations with the Uniting and Presbyterian Church as a place of worship for about ninety years and as the home of a congregation that was established in the 1860s.
|St Andrew's Church is a rare example of the Brisbane work of the renowned and fine architect, George D. Payne and has special associations with him. Though Payne practised in Brisbane for many years after construction of St Andrew's, none other of his buildings are of comparable prominence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14862,"place_ref":600087,"name":"Eagle Street Fountain","alternate_name":"Mooney Memorial Fountain","street_address":"118 Eagle Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This highly decorative drinking fountain stands on a triangular piece of land at the junction of Queen and Eagle Streets. The foundation and steps are 3.9 m square and built of porphyry (Brisbane tuff). The base is 2.1 m square and built of granite from Mount Alexander in Victoria.
It has four corner columns on its granite base, with richly foliated capitals and raised pedestals, surmounted by four Gothic arches which support a foliated and ribbed spire. The spire, which was originally topped by an ornate finial, rises to 10 m above the ground. The portion between the columns and below the arches is of sandstone ashlar, and this is where the plaques are located. Three lions heads above ornate basins, all of white Sicilian marble are located between the base of the piers on three sides of the fountain. The water supply through the heads was regulated by a system easily accessible by the removal of a single stone.
Although the fountain originally dominated the Eagle Street corner, the scale of recent adjacent high-rise buildings has lessened its visual impact. However, a large fig nearby supports its present claim as a landmark.
","history":"This fountain, erected between 1878 and 1880, was designed by the City Engineer, WH Chambers. It was built at a cost of £627 as part of measures to enhance the visual character of that part of the city. The fountain was funded by the Brisbane Municipal Council and public subscriptions. The fountain incorporated local porphyry (Brisbane tuff), Murphy's Creek sandstone, and imported granite and marble. Inscribed on the fountain were the names of the Aldermen in the 1879 Council, the City Engineer, the Town Clerk, and William Webster, the sculptor.
The fountain popularly became known as the Mooney Memorial Fountain. This name arose through donations given at the time towards a memorial to James Mooney, a volunteer fireman who had lost his life while fighting a fire in Queen Street in March 1877. The official Mooney Memorial, however, was erected above Mooney's grave at Toowong Cemetery using funds raised publicly by his friends and fire-fighter colleagues.
When the Eagle Street fountain was restored in 1988, a special tablet was inscribed as a dedication to James Mooney and to other firemen who had lost their lives in the line of duty.
","criteria":"The Eagle Street Fountain is significant as an excellent example of a Victorian era public monument and amenity of careful and ornate design and fine materials and workmanship.
Situated at the intersection of Queen and Eagle Streets, the Eagle Street Fountain is significant for its landmark value.
The Eagle Street Fountain is significant for its association with James Mooney, a volunteer fireman who had lost his life while fighting a fire in Queen Street in March 1877.
|The Eagle Street Fountain is significant as an excellent example of a Victorian era public monument and amenity of careful and ornate design and fine materials and workmanship.
|The Eagle Street Fountain is significant as an excellent example of a Victorian era public monument and amenity of careful and ornate design and fine materials and workmanship.
Situated at the intersection of Queen and Eagle Streets, the Eagle Street Fountain is significant for its landmark value.
|The Eagle Street Fountain is significant for its association with James Mooney, a volunteer fireman who had lost his life while fighting a fire in Queen Street in March 1877.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14863,"place_ref":600088,"name":"The Port Office","alternate_name":"Stamford Plaza | Harbours and Marine Building","street_address":"39 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Port Office is a two storey, 1880s building which features restrained Classical detailing combined with decorative cast iron work. The building has a prominent entry porch with an extensive elevation facing Edward Street. It has three gable ended projecting bays connected by verandahs. The walls are rendered brick while the roof is sheeted in rolled iron. The lower floor level features plain circular columns supporting the verandah and keyed pilasters. The upper level verandah has slender cast iron columns.
The building has austere Classical detailing with Roman arched openings and a string course in the form of a cornice that runs the perimeter of the building above the ground floor windows. The building has circular ventilator openings in each gable end. Above the roof are chimneys of varying heights, and decorative cast iron ridge cresting. The building is now separated from the river by the Heritage Hotel.
Internally, the building has been extensively renovated and adapted to include ground level specialty shops and a restaurant and bar on the top floor. Two of the shops on the ground floor have had mezzanine levels inserted. Otherwise original ceiling heights have been retained.
","history":"The Port Office was built in 1879-80 to a design by FDG Stanley, the Colonial Architect. It replaced an earlier building nearby. The contractor was John Petrie who had tendered £8,811 for the work. The building was erected on land adjoining the old Port Office. A slipway and wharves for use by the Department were adjacent. In 1885 a two-storey extension was constructed at the rear of the building.
In 1929 the building was extended to provide more space for the Department of Labour which had occupied the building since 1906. A tide marker on the wall of the building since the turn of the century was damaged during the 1974 floods but was later replaced.
In 1988 the property was leased to a private company and the building became part of the Heritage Hotel complex. Extensive renovations were undertaken including the removal of all post 1880 additions, and the addition of the end balconies which were shown on the Colonial Architect's original plans.
","criteria":"Evidence of the expansion of maritime trade in the late 1870s and its importance to the developing economy of the colony.
|An example of the work of Colonial Architect FDG Stanley, and of building contractor John Petrie.
|Its contribution to the streetscape as part of a maritime precinct.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14865,"place_ref":600090,"name":"109 Edward Street","alternate_name":"Metro Arts Centre | Coronation House | Community Arts Centre","street_address":"117 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a five storey brick building with a basement level. The internal structure consists of timber floors and columns. The street facade is divided into five bays by plain broad pilasters. The central and outside bays contain tall, narrow paired windows, while the wider intermediate bays contain three wider windows. All window openings are square-headed. The facade features austere classical detailing with string courses dividing the floor levels.
The ground floor level features, on the western side, a cart entrance and internal laneway which leads to a rear courtyard. The simple parapet has stepped sections above the central and outside bays. The sides of the building have no ornamentation but have a regular pattern of window openings. The rear of the building has an internal hoist and motor under a curved corrugated iron roof with hinged landings at each level.
The building is substantially intact, particularly the upper floors, with visible evidence of the timber columns and beams, timber flooring, brick walls and service hoist. Considerable settlement of the upper floors is evident. Alterations to the building include the removal of some floor structure and the insertion of partitioning to accommodate a cinema and cafeteria.
","history":"This warehouse was erected in 1890 for Captain George Poynter Heath, who had purchased the site in 1871. The first tenant was George Myers & Co, general importers of china, glass, earthenware and other household products. In March 1902 the upper levels were substantially damaged by fire but were later repaired.
The warehouse was subdivided in 1907 to accommodate other tenants. In 1912, Myers & Co purchased the building and became the sole occupants. The firm remained in the building until 1930 when it was forced into liquidation. Between 1931 and 1937 the building was vacant. In 1938 the building was renamed Coronation House in celebration of the coronation of George VI. It was occupied by various tenants including manufacturing agents and importers.
During the latter part of World War 2, sections of the building were occupied by the Commonwealth Department of Supply and Shipping. In March 1949 the property was acquired by the Commonwealth of Australia and was used by various Commonwealth government departments.
By the early 1970s the building was regarded as unsuitable for government offices and by 1976 all government departments had moved elsewhere. In that year, work began on converting the building into a community arts centre. In July 1981 the Community Arts Centre was officially opened, and contained theatre, two art galleries, rehearsal rooms, workshop spaces, meeting rooms, dark room, printing shop, cinema and restaurant. Further work was undertaken in 1988 to provide additional facilities for artists. The building was renamed the Metro Arts Centre in 1988.
","criteria":"The Metro Arts Centre is significant for the evidence it provides, along with other surviving nineteenth and early twentieth century warehouses, of the scale of the former warehousing area in that part of the city.
|The Metro Arts Centre is significant as a good and rare example of a late Victorian warehouse.
|The Metro Arts Centre is significant as a good and rare example of a late Victorian warehouse.
|The building is also significant for its visual contribution to the character and continuity of the Edward Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14866,"place_ref":600091,"name":"Catholic Centre","alternate_name":"Edwards Dunlop Building","street_address":"149 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This polychrome brick and stone Federation era building comprises four storeys with a basement.
The upper three levels are encompassed by giant order pilasters that separate the window openings. These have plain capitals that support cut stone semi-circular arches over the top windows. The parapet has four shallow concave curves punctuated by projecting piers at the centre and ends.
The street facade has three entrances. The main entry on the western end is emphasised by a projecting stone pediment and another served as a carriageway. The windows to the major ground floor space are shaded by the later addition of a deep corrugated iron sun-hood supported on cast iron brackets.
The windows to the basement are separated by rusticated stone piers and protected by cast iron picket screens.
The rear of the building has been painted and has a tall T-shaped arched tank stand located centrally at the top.
Internally elements of finely detailed original joinery survive. Timber posts, beams and brick walls are unpainted.
","history":"This building was erected in 1900 for Edwards Dunlop & Co Ltd, a Sydney based paper merchandising firm. The architects were probably the Sydney firm Slatyer & Cosh. The building featured an electric lift, modern fire fighting equipment and an extensive telephone system.
The company occupied the building on 1 January 1901, the day of Federation. It was an apt moment, as Federation removed many of the obstacles to intercolonial trade, allowing Sydney-based companies like Edwards Dunlop to more economically tap the Queensland market.
By 1910 the company was considered to be the largest paper wholesaling firm in the state. It was the contractor to the Queensland Department of Public Instruction, supplying text and exercise books and wall maps to schools around the state. The company acquired adjoining portions of land in 1925 and 1957, taking their block in an L-shape to Charlotte Street.
In 1974 Edwards Dunlop moved to premises at Eagle Farm, and in the following year the building was purchased by the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane. Renovations and modifications were undertaken which included the installation of a new lift and stairs, the construction of video and radio studios, and the provision of access to St Stephens Cathedral. The building is currently occupied by various Catholic organisations.
","criteria":"The Catholic Centre is significant as a Federation era warehouse with a finely detailed face brick and stone facade, much intact internal structure, and joinery.
The Catholic Centre is significant for its contribution to the Edward Street streetscape, which here is dominated by late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings.
|The Catholic Centre is significant as a Federation era warehouse with a finely detailed face brick and stone facade, much intact internal structure, and joinery.
|The Catholic Centre is significant for its contribution to the Edward Street streetscape, which here is dominated by late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14867,"place_ref":600092,"name":"Old Mineral House","alternate_name":"Smellie & Co Warehouse","street_address":"2 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Old Mineral House, situated on the corner of Edward and Alice Streets, is a five storeyed building of rendered brick, with a cast iron and timber internal structure and timber flooring.
The street facades are visually divided by rendered vertical bands imitating stonework into three bays in Edward Street, and five in Alice Street. The ground floor level is rendered to simulate broad segmental arched openings with keystones, some containing a pair of windows and others single large openings. The main entry is in the central bay of the Edward Street facade and has a semi-circular arched opening with flanking pilasters supporting an austere projecting entablature and cornice. Paired window openings are situated in the bays on the first and second floors. These are spaced to fit the size of each bay and have rendered quoined surrounds.
A frieze with a cornice above marks the top of the original building. The same bays are continued above this to the new parapet but contain different types of window openings. On the fourth level each bay has three window openings consisting of a wide central one, flanked by narrower openings separated by small pilasters, while on the fifth level, the openings are arched. Another cornice runs around the top of the building at parapet level. Classical pediments free of ornament are situated at the parapet level of the central bay of each street facade. The parapets step to a raised central section which stands above these.
Internally the building's structure is predominantly intact. It consists of cast iron columns supporting timber beams on the lower levels and timber beams and columns on the additional upper levels. The staircases and lifts are more recent additions.
","history":"This warehouse was constructed for the firm of Smellie & Co in 1888 with extensions in the late 1890s.
RR Smellie & Co was established in the 1860s as a foundry and engineering works in Alice Street, producing cast iron products for the building industry, and equipment for steamships and locomotives. In the 1880s, RR Smellie & Co altered the orientation of its business, concentrating on importing machinery, implements, and general hardware supplies. The repair and manufacturing plant of RR Smellie & Co was continued by Smith, Forrester, and Co. In 1882, the company became known as Smellie & Co.
The change in direction of the business meant that Smellie & Co required warehouse space. A double-storeyed warehouse was constructed further along Alice Street circa 1884 but these premises proved to be too small as the business prospered in the 1880s. In 1888 a new warehouse, designed by Richard Gailey, was built for the company on the corner of Edward and Alice Streets in 1888. A three storeyed building, it was erected by William Anthony who had tended £6,987 for the project. The warehouse stocked a diverse range of hardware, engineering requisites, and farming equipment. Two storeys were added to the building in the late 1890s as a result of the continuing expansion of the company's business.
In 1930 this building was leased to ACB Limited, drapers, and in 1935, the Department of Public Works became lessees. The Queensland government purchased the property in 1945, along with a number of buildings owned by the firm in the area. Smellie & Co Pty Ltd went into voluntary liquidation in 1946.
The Department of Public Works has used this building for a variety of purposes since 1945. These uses have given the building its various names - Naval House, the Industrial High School, and Mineral House.
","criteria":"As an example of a intact late Victorian era warehouse with classical detailing
For the disciplined manner in which it articulates the corner and terminates both the Alice and Edward Street streetscapes
For its association with the firm of Smellie & Co, a prominent Queensland importing, engineering and iron founding firm of the nineteenth century
|As an example of a intact late Victorian era warehouse with classical detailing
|For the disciplined manner in which it articulates the corner and terminates both the Alice and Edward Street streetscapes
|For its association with the firm of Smellie & Co, a prominent Queensland importing, engineering and iron founding firm of the nineteenth century
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14868,"place_ref":600093,"name":"Tattersalls Club","alternate_name":"Tattersalls","street_address":"206 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Tattersalls Club is a three and four storeyed building with frontages to Edward and Queen Streets.
The Edward Street façade is in the Classical Revival style and in materials and detail is linked with the neighbouring Ascot Chambers. The central three bays on the upper two levels have flanking giant order pilasters, with double pilasters, at each end. The two outer sections have arched openings on the top level and a cantilevered balcony with cast iron railings. Below the cantilevered steel awning the building has modern shopfronts to each side of the arcade.
The later Queen Street façade is in the Art Deco style and comprises three bays separated by giant order pilasters. The parapet has the name TATTERSALLS CLUB. The building has stone facing on a concrete frame. Recent additions are aluminium sun-hoods to the windows of the upper two levels. Below the building's cantilevered awning are modern shopfronts. The recent renovation of the arcade has seen the reinstatement of the Daphne Mayo frieze above the shopfronts.
The upper floors of the Edward Street building contain the main hall. An ornate fibrous plaster vaulted ceiling supported on timber trusses spans the hall and the back wall contains another frieze by the Daphne Mayo. The upper gallery contains a barber shop, turkish baths, card room, reception rooms and library. The dining hall located on the upper floors of the Queen Street building has a 10.7 m high ceiling and walls decorated in grey and white marble. This space features wall paintings by local artists. The arcade on the ground floor dates from the 1990 refurbishment.
","history":"These clubrooms were constructed for the Tattersalls Club of Brisbane in 1925-26, with extensions in 1938-39 and 1949.
Tattersalls Club was formed in November 1883, following the model of sporting clubs established in Britain. It was particularly concerned with horse racing, and the club held its first race meeting in 1884. Tattersalls Club met in the Australian Hotel at the corner of Queen and Albert Streets from 1883 until 1888 and then subsequently leased various premises as its clubrooms. Tattersalls made several inner city property investments, the sale of which financed the acquisition of a site in Edward Street for new clubrooms, as well as a 6 feet by 64 feet right of way to Queen Street.
The new clubrooms were designed by Hall and Prentice, architects for Brisbane's new City Hall, and the contractors were Green and Sons. Erected at a cost of £41 000, with an additional £5 000 spent on fittings and furnishings, Tattersalls Club was opened on 28 July 1926 and provided billiard, card, reading and dining rooms for its members. The main hall was modelled on the repository at Tattersalls auction room in London. Sculptor Daphne Mayo executed the decorative plaster frieze entitled The Horse in Sport along the wall of the Queen Street entrance passageway.
In 1936 an adjoining property in Queen Street was bought for £18 500 to enable the clubrooms to be extended. Constructed by J Hutchinson and Son, to the designs of T R Hall and L B Phillips, these extensions contained a new dining room and were opened on 27 June 1939. The dining room featured a 10.7 m high ceiling, marble walls, Queensland maple and silky oak, and murals created by local artists W Bustard, C H Lancaster, P Stanhope Hobday and Melville Haysom, depicting the Australian landscape. In 1949 further Queen Street property was acquired and again the club expanded with the provision of a library and new offices.
In 1990 Tattersalls was refurbished with altered floor levels at a cost of $5,000,000. A new Queen Street entrance was constructed, and incorporated a vaulted ceiling and the Daphne Mayo friezes from the original entry.
","criteria":"The club buildings are significant for their close association with the Tattersalls Club, one of Brisbane's most prestigious social and sporting clubs.
They are an important illustration of the importation and translation of English social traditions to Queensland, remaining a substantially intact example of a traditional gentlemen's club providing luxuriously appointed rooms and facilities for its members.
|They are an important illustration of the importation and translation of English social traditions to Queensland, remaining a substantially intact example of a traditional gentlemen's club providing luxuriously appointed rooms and facilities for its members.
The buildings are significant for the quality and intactness of the interiors on the upper levels, which incorporate Queensland materials and works by local artists.
|The friezes are the work of prominent Queensland sculptor, Daphne Mayo, and are considered particularly good illustrations of her work. The façades are good examples of the Classical Revival and Art Deco Styles by important Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice, and later, Hall and Phillips.
|The friezes are the work of prominent Queensland sculptor, Daphne Mayo, and are considered particularly good illustrations of her work. The façades are good examples of the Classical Revival and Art Deco Styles by important Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice, and later, Hall and Phillips.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14869,"place_ref":600094,"name":"Rothwells Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"237 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Rothwells building is a five storeyed masonry building with a basement. The street facade contains individual classical variants common in late Victorian buildings.
The lower floors have wide arched openings with flanking columns topped by decorative capitals, while the windows have arched architraves with keystones. At the parapet level there is a cornice supported by bracketing, and above this is an ornate triangular pediment spanning the width of the building bearing the words 'ROTHWELL'S - ESTABLISHED 1897'.
Internally the building is connected with its neighbour Rowes and contains the servicing for both buildings. Suspended ceilings and modern office partitioning predominate.
The building is similar in design to the adjacent Rowes Building.
","history":"Rothwells Building was erected in 1885 along with the adjacent Rowes Building (QHR 600095). These buildings were erected together for their respective owners, John Forsyth and Thomas MacDonald-Paterson. Forsyth was a local merchant while MacDonald-Paterson was a solicitor and who also served as a Member of Parliament. The buildings cost £13,000 to erect and the contractor for the project was W Macfarlane. The ground floor was designed to be used as offices while the other floors were intended for either offices or warehousing.
Forsyth leased his half of the building to Carew, Gardner and Billington Limited in January 1887. This family drapery and importing company later purchased the building in 1896, and in turn leased the building to Rothwells Ltd from December
1904. This firm of drapers and tailors was established in 1897 and in 1909 purchased the building for £9,000. In January 1909 a fire burned out four floors of Rothwells Chambers, as it was then known, and the damaged portions of the building were rebuilt.
During 1957 and 1958 interior renovations were undertaken. Considerable alterations occurred in the early 1980s as part of the redevelopment of this site and the adjacent Rowes Building. The building currently contains a tavern, an arcade of shops and office accommodation.
The current owners purchased the building in 1980.
","criteria":"The Rothwells Building is significant as it demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s commercial building with an elaborate facade.
The Rothwells Building is significant as it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its fine, classically detailed facade, and its form, materials and scale, which make a strong contribution to the Edward Street streetscape.
|The Rothwells Building is significant as it demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s commercial building with an elaborate facade.
|The Rothwells Building is significant as it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its fine, classically detailed facade, and its form, materials and scale, which make a strong contribution to the Edward Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14870,"place_ref":600095,"name":"Rowes Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"221 Adelaide Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Rowes Building is a five storeyed masonry building with a basement. The classical detailing of the front facade contains individual classical variants common in late Victorian commercial buildings. Most of this ornamentation is executed in plaster.
The lower floors have wide arched openings with wide flanking columns topped by decorative capitals. The windows on the upper floors have arched architraves with keystones and are separated by engaged columns with elaborate capitals. At the parapet level there is a cornice supported by bracketing, and centrally above this is a narrow pediment bearing the name 'ROWES'. The lower level shopfront has also been refitted and a first floor balcony removed. The laneway elevation is a simplified version of the street facade, with round-headed windows in an articulated brick wall.
Internally the timber trusses have been left exposed on the upper level and the french doors with lead lights which opened onto the first floor balcony remain.
The building is similar in design to the adjacent Rothwells Building.
","history":"Rowes Building was erected in 1885 along with the adjacent Rothwells Building (QHR 600094). These buildings were erected together for their respective owners, Thomas MacDonald-Paterson and John Forsyth. MacDonald-Paterson was a solicitor and also served as Member of the Parliament. The buildings cost £13,000 to erect and the contractor for the project was W Macfarlane. The ground floor was designed to be used as offices while the other floors were intended for either offices or warehousing.
Macdonald-Paterson took an office in his half of the premises and leased the remaining floorspace.
In 1903 William Effy signed a ten year lease which covered the basement, ground floor and first floor balcony of the site. Effy, whose mother Minna Rowe had established the highly successful Rowes Cafe in Queen Street, continued the catering establishment at the new address and by 1909 the site contained a ground floor dining room with seating for 380 guests.
Effy purchased the building in 1914, and in 1925 he engaged architects Hall and Prentice to design major alterations and additions. The scheme, which cost £162,000, included the purchase of what was known as the City Garage, over which Rowes ballroom was built, and additional Adelaide Street frontage. The Adelaide Street building was demolished and a six storeyed building erected, the ground floor containing a shopping arcade with access to Rowes Cafe. The upper floors were divided into office accommodation. The T-shaped complex had its original frontage to Edward Street, but an increased depth to an approximate distance of 300 feet (91.5 m). Further alterations to the Edward Street facade were undertaken in late 1926.
In 1958 part of the original cafe was converted to an arcade of shops with extensions in 1961. Rowes passed into the ownership of National Mutual Life Association and a major redevelopment of the combined Rowes/Rothwells buildings took place in 1984.
","criteria":"The Rowes Building is significant as it demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s commercial building with an elaborate facade.
The Rowes Building is significant as it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, it has a fine, classically detailed facade. Its form, materials and scale make a strong contribution to the Edward Street streetscape.
|The Rowes Building is significant as it demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s commercial building with an elaborate facade.
|The Rowes Building is significant as it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, it has a fine, classically detailed facade. Its form, materials and scale make a strong contribution to the Edward Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14871,"place_ref":600096,"name":"People's Palace","alternate_name":"Salvation Army Hostel | Peoples Palace","street_address":"308 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This large Federation era building is a predominantly red brick structure with painted cement rendered trimmings, decorative cast iron work, and a corner tower.
The plan form is that of a hollow rectangle, with the central opening providing light and air to the rooms. It comprises five storeys plus a basement, and additions above the roof line, it has continuous verandahs on three levels, while the fourth has a steeply pitched roof with red tiles in a diamond pattern punctuated by dormer windows.
The corner octagonal tower, marking the main entrance, has a bell shaped roof with small dormers in each roof segment. Adjacent to the tower is a polygonal brick lift tower.
The verandah's feature decorative cast iron balustrades and friezes with timber posts and handrails. The semi-circular arched and circular windows to the tower have cream painted cement render dressings to contrast with the red brick.
Internally the rectangular courtyard has been divided into two by the insertion of a modern brick fire stair. The hipped roof with clerestory remains above the basement dining saloon in the northern courtyard. This is now used as office space but its original entry doors remain. Pressed metal ceilings remain in many sections of the building. The upper levels have not been refurbished, but the partitioning of the lower levels is not original. The original lift with its sliding doors, timber panelling and surrounding stairwell remains beside the entry foyer.
","history":"The People's Palace was built in 1910-11 for the Salvation Army as a temperance hotel. Designed by Colonel Saunders, the Salvation Army's architect, it comprised three floors of accommodation, a service basement and a rooftop garden. Built near Central Railway Station, the hotel contained 130 rooms and provided inexpensive 'working class' accommodation for travellers.
The concept of temperance hotels grew out of the temperance movement and the Peoples Palace was the first of its type in Queensland. No alcohol, gambling or 'other evils' were permitted on the premises.
In 1913 extensions were undertaken which involved adding an extra two storeys. Renovations and internal re-arrangements continued over the decades as uses and priorities changed. In 1979 the building was leased out as budget accommodation. Recently, the Salvation Army has established its headquarters on the site and the building is now primarily used as offices.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|The Peoples Palace is significant as a rare example of a purpose built temperance hotel, it demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a Federation building.
The Peoples Palace is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community in particular, it is a fine example of a Federation brick and render building with the corner entry tower and decorative cast iron work on the verandahs.
|The Peoples Palace is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community in particular, it is a fine example of a Federation brick and render building with the corner entry tower and decorative cast iron work on the verandahs.
The Peoples Palace is significant as a prominent landmark on the corner of Ann and Edward Street with its corner tower being one of a series along Ann Street.
|The building is important for as it has special association with the work of the Salvation Army since 1911, an organisation of importance in Queensland's history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14872,"place_ref":600097,"name":"Smellie's Building","alternate_name":"Smellies Building","street_address":"32 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This brick warehouse, located at the river end of Edward Street, internally has a large timber structure incorporating a mezzanine level with a central opening.
The main facade, of tuck-pointed red brick, reflects the structural bays of the building with a large central arched opening, and slightly smaller flanking arches. The three bays are defined by brick pilasters which extend through to the parapet. The windows in the upper portions of each bay have narrow timber glazing bars. The central bay contains a roller shutter door while the bay on the eastern end contains a timber door with a carved timber baroque pediment.
The base of the building creates a podium consisting of darker coloured brick on a porphyry plinth stone with an upper section having a Greek key pattern in render.
The parapet is divided by raised elements which continue the line of the pilasters. Each of these is topped by a small classical pediment. The central portion of the parapet is raised and comes to a shallow peak with a flag pole behind. The name 'SMELLIE & CO' appears prominently in render above the central bay. The date '1895' and the words 'HARDWARE AND MACHINERY' also appear on the main facade.
The clerestory, on each side of the central king post trussed roof, provides natural light to both levels through the central mezzanine opening. Large timber beams and columns support both the mezzanine level and the roof. The mezzanine flooring is supported on closely spaced timber joists separated by herring-bone strutting.
","history":"This warehouse was constructed in 1895-96 for the importing firm Smellie & Co.
RR Smellie & Co was established in the 1860s as a foundry and engineering works in Alice Street. Like others in the area, the firm produced cast iron products for the building industry, and equipment for steamships and locomotives. In the 1880s, RR Smellie & Co altered the orientation of its business, concentrating on importing machinery, implements, and general hardware supplies. In 1882, the company became known as Smellie & Co.
Smellie's premises in Alice Street proved to be too small as the business prospered in the 1880s. An additional warehouse was constructed further along Alice Street circa 1884. A three storeyed warehouse (QHR 600092) designed by Richard Gailey was constructed in 1888 on the corner of Edward and Alice Streets. This expansion of warehouse space was not sufficient to accommodate the ever-increasing trade of Smellie & Co, and a new bulk warehouse was constructed nearby in Edward Street in 1895-96. The architect for the building was Claude William Chambers.
From this warehouse Smellie & Co stocked a diverse range of hardware, engineering requisites, and farming equipment.
The company remained a prominent merchandising firm in Queensland until the 1930s when the economic depression adversely affected its business. During this period it began leasing its various properties in this area to the Department of Public Works. The Queensland government acquired this property in 1945, along with a number of buildings owned by Smellie & Co. In 1946 Smellie & Co went into voluntary liquidation.
The Department of Public Works has used this building as storage, and as a car park, among other uses.
","criteria":"Smellie's Building is part of a surviving group of industrial buildings and warehouses in lower Edward Street and Alice Street, demonstrating the evolution of Frog's Hollow as the principal warehousing and light-industrial sector of Brisbane's central business district, which was sustained from the second half of the 19th century through to the early decades of the 20th century.
|Smellie's Building is significant as an accomplished and intact example of an 1890s warehouse with a finely detailed polychrome brick facade. The building is a good example of the industrial work of well-respected Brisbane architect, CW Chambers.
|Smellie's Building is significant for its contribution to the Edward Street streetscape in association with the Port Office [600088], Old Mineral House [600092], the Port Office Hotel [600098] and the Naval Offices [600101].
|Smellie's Building is significant for its association with the firm of Smellie & Co, a prominent Queensland importing, engineering and iron founding firm.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14873,"place_ref":600098,"name":"Port Office Hotel","alternate_name":"Shamrock Hotel","street_address":"40 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Port Office Hotel, located on the corner of Edward and Margaret Streets, is a two storeyed rendered brick building with a corrugated iron roof. The rendered brickwork is scribed to imitate stonework and has bays separated by rendered quoins while a number of the window openings have stone sills. A cantilevered awning dominates the street facades.
A separate store with a hipped roof, filling in the 'L' shape plan to create a rectangle, has been incorporated into the structure. A verandah has been added to the eastern back wall. Leadlight windows remain in some of the ground floor openings.
Internally some of the early timber doors, architraves, and skirtings survive but otherwise the majority including the stair has been altered in various refurbishments since the 1950s.
","history":"The first hotel on this site was opened in May 1864 and was known as the Shamrock Hotel.
In late 1876 the Shamrock Hotel was reconstructed as a two storey masonry building with verandahs. It was designed by James Cowlishaw with Charles Midson the contractor.
In 1888 the remodelled hotel was described as being 'extremely commodious, containing (besides public and private bars and an attractive clubroom) fifteen bedrooms, a drawing room, two bath rooms and four public rooms on the ground floor'. The hotel was patronised by workers from nearby shipping and industrial and riverside businesses. With the change of licensee c. 1909, J C Cutbush renamed the hotel the Port Office Hotel.
In 1955 the hotel was refurbished under the direction of architect F L Cullen. This work included the removal of all the verandahs, lacework, canopies and chimneystacks and renovation of the interior fittings.
During the 1980's further internal renovations have been undertaken.
","criteria":"The Port Office Hotel is significant for its contribution to the lower Edward Street streetscape in association with the Port Office, Naval Offices, Old Mineral House and Smellie's Building.
|The Port Office Hotel is significant for its contribution to the lower Edward Street streetscape in association with the Port Office, Naval Offices, Old Mineral House and Smellie's Building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14874,"place_ref":600099,"name":"South East Queensland Water Board Building","alternate_name":"Geedeejay House | Brisbane & Area Water Board Building","street_address":"41 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a brick building of three storeys on a base of porphyry (Brisbane tuff) stonework that also has a basement level. The exterior brickwork has been rendered, with the side scored to imitate ashlar work. The Edward Street elevation is symmetrical and divided into three bays, equally spaced. Each floor is defined by a string course, those higher up the facade more ornate than those below. Single windows are centred in a bay on each level and are separated by pairs of pilasters. These are plain at the second level but have been given emphasis at the upper level by the use of recessed panels. The upper level windows consist of a tall central opening flanked by two shorter ones. Above this taller window is a small triangular pediment with scroll like brackets to each side which helps emphasise the vertical nature of this building on its narrow site. The windows at each level are timber frame double hung sashes.
The Edward Street facade is intact to the upper levels, but the interior has apparently been extensively refurbished. The building does not respond its corner site but has an austere side elevation with some plain openings facing Margaret Street. Plain string courses continue on the Margaret Street facade in line with those on the front of the building. The later full-height extension to the rear of the building has recently been rebuilt.
","history":"This warehouse was built between 1885 and 1886, during the 1880s building boom. The site was purchased by Alexander Brand Webster and William Webster, importers of general merchandise, commission, insurance and shipping agents and wholesale stationers in 1885. The warehouse was designed by Alex B Wilson and constructed by Thomas Rees, builder for £3021.11.0.
Largely as a result of its proximity to the river, the building was occupied by merchants and indent agents for 77 years. The first occupant, from 1887-1906, was Robert Martin, a prominent, well respected businessman in the ship chandlery trade. His business, R Martin & Co, ironmongers, sail makers and riggers was one of the largest in Queensland. From 1909-12 the building was occupied by Sturmfels Stores and in 1913-14 was listed as a Workman's Home run by the Salvation Army. In 1914, EF Broad (Qld Ltd) general merchant, indent agent and supplier to various food manufacturers moved to this building. The company remained there until 1963, having purchased the property in 1956. In 1982 the Brisbane and Area Water Board acquired this site and converted the upper levels into office accommodation. The authority became the South East Queensland Water Board in 1991.
","criteria":"The South East Queensland Water Board Building is a product of the 1880s building boom, the building reflects the development of lower Edward Street as a warehouse precinct.
|The elaborate facade is typical as a slightly restrained variant of late Victorian ornamentation and detail, which differs from the austerity of later warehouse design.
|The warehouses, including the adjoining Spencers building, provide visual cohesion to the streetscape as they were built to the Edward Street frontage and are similar in scale, height, materials and design features.
This narrow warehouse is a particularly fine example because of its ornate Victorian detailing - especially on the upper levels - which emphasises the building's height.
|This building is significant for its association with architect, AB Wilson, who also designed Webster and Co's warehouse at 146-160 Mary Street, and for the long term occupancy of R Martin & Co, prominent ship chandler and EF Broad Pty Ltd, successful general merchants.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14875,"place_ref":600100,"name":"Spencers Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"47-51 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-08-27","description":"This Victorian warehouse has austere classical detailing in both rendered and unrendered brickwork. The building consists of four storeys and a basement level and is divided into two identical portions. The upper three floors of each portion are separated by a string course. The ground floor has tall arched openings surrounded by render that imitates rusticated stonework. Above each centre bay at the street level is a simple triangular classical pediment. The three upper levels are unrendered brick. Windows on these levels are separated by projecting brick pilasters. The windows on the two middle levels have arched heads and those on the upper level have curved pediments. Paired moulded brackets support the cornice line at the upper level. Above this the parapet has plain triangular pediments located over each central bay. The engaged brick piers at the sides and in the centre of the building continue the rusticated theme of the rendered base by having seven fielded plaster panels regularly distributed along the height of the pier on each level.
Both rendered and unrendered portions of the building have been altered with the use of aluminium shopfronting at street level, moving the entry into a side bay, and a cantilevered awning. Some of the other windows have also been modified with the use of aluminium framed glazing. The face brickwork has been painted, eliminating the original distinction between the upper three levels and the rendered street level facade. At the rear the face brick remains unpainted, and the two portions are distinguished by separate gable ends with central loading gantries. A modern steel fire stair serves both sections of the building.
","history":"The land at the site occupies part of allotments 4 and 5 of section 35 which were acquired respectively by James Donald in 1852 and the well-known Benjamin Cribb in 1854. Cribb and Donald co-operated in subdivision and resubdivision of the allotments with the land under study passing to William Hood in 1876. Hood was a principal of the firm Hood & Binnie whose iron foundry works were located at the site until 1888. In that year title to the land passed to Frances Sophia Jones wife of the Anglican clergyman Rev Thomas Jones who had accompanied Brisbane's first Anglican Bishop, EW Tufnell on his arrival in 1860. It was unusual in those times for a married woman to have sole title to this kind of property, but Frances Jones probably did not have ultimate control over it. Until the Married Womens Property Act was introduced in Queensland in 1890, a husband was entitled to the income from such a property and could mortgage it without his wife's consent - unless her family had secured it to her through a trust. By May 1889 Frances Jones had mortgaged the property to a total of £5000, presumably to finance the erection of the building which Thomas Rees undertook during the year; FDG Stanley, former Colonial Architect, was the designer. Rees had also built the adjacent warehouse (now Water Board Building) several years earlier.
The building was complete by early 1890 and in February Benjamin Brothers Ltd occupied the western section (Nos 49-51) - using it as a bulk store. The building was flooded in the March 1890 floods and a photo taken at the time shows a 'To Let' sign advertising the eastern section. Leasing agent was the Queensland Trustees Executors Agency Co (QTEA), presumably acting for Frances Sophia Jones. Two floods (1890 and 1893), low occupancy rates and a severely depressed economy no doubt contributed to the repossession of the building in 1894. In the same year QTEA was struck off the companies register. The vacancy rates of the 1890s were relieved somewhat around the turn of the century with the first of a series of long-term tenancies. Leonard Spencer, coach builder and ironmonger began a twenty-odd year occupancy of Nos 45-47 in 1903. Another enduring tenancy, that of Roche & Dahl leather merchants (Nos 49-51), began in 1911.
In 1913 ownership of the property was transferred to James Milne and James Raff of the machinery firm Smellie & Co whose business premises were nearby and can still be seen today. In the late 1920s or early 1930s Leonard Spencer built his own building, Spencer Chambers, at 53 Edward Street and moved out of Nos 45-47. His place was taken by John Mitchell Hamilton, tent manufacturer who eventually bought the entire building, with his son, in 1941. In the mid 1940s Jolly & Batchelor carried on the leather tradition at the building, buying out Roche & Dahl and moving into their premises. For many years, Jolly & Batchelor operated their business there; in 1964 they left the central city area for South Brisbane where they continue to provide materials and equipment to the leather trade and to the public. Another Spencer, a typewriter dealer, bought Nos 45-47 in 1978, but sold it to the present owners in 1987. The present owners of Nos 47-51 acquired the property in 1965.
","criteria":"Spencers Buildng is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the pattern of warehouse development in this area of Brisbane during the late nineteenth century.
|With its classical styling, Spencers Building demonstrates some of the principal characteristics of a Victorian warehouse.
|Spencers Building is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community including the unusual decorative treatment of the facade which differentiates this building from other late nineteenth century warehouses and the visual cohesion of the warehouses, including the adjoining South East Queensland Water Board Building, in height, scale and materials.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14876,"place_ref":600101,"name":"Naval Offices (former), Brisbane","alternate_name":"Naval Offices (former)","street_address":"3 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-03-21","description":"The former Naval Offices is a two-storey brick building on the corner of Edward and Alice streets, Brisbane, adjacent to and overlooking the Brisbane River. The building occupies the majority of the allotment with a small yard behind. Primary entrance is from Edward Street with a secondary entrance from the Alice Street road reserve.
\nThe building is of load-bearing brick construction with timber floor and roof structure. A two-storey timber verandah at the rear overlooks the yard to the river and is not of cultural heritage significance. The building elevations are face brick in English bond, with the upper level finished in stucco with face brick quoining to the corners and around windows. The bricks are deep red with contrasting pale grey tuck pointing. Windows are large and rectangular with brick lintels and timber-framed, double-hung sashes with slender, moulded-timber glazing bars. There is one circular window on the upper level of the Alice Street side closest to the river. The hipped roof overhangs the upper floor, has bracketed timber eaves and is clad with roll and pan metal sheet. There is a central metal octagonal ventilation fleche on the ridge and two tall chimneys flank the sides of the building.
\nThe building is two-storey with an asymmetrical, single-storey projection to Edward Street accommodating the entry portico and former public reception area. The building is notable for its Arts and Crafts decorative treatments including: extensive use of high-quality, tuck pointed face brickwork and stucco; rendered dressings; tall decorative brickwork chimneys with chimney pots; decorative eaves brackets; a prominent semi-circular window flanked by horizontal bands of render; and rusticated Tuscan order columns and a curved pediment with a sculpted naval coat of arms to the portico.
\nA decorative wrought iron gate opens to the entry portico where the floor is finished with tessellated encaustic tiles with slate thresholds and the ceiling is v-jointed timber boards. There are two adjacent entry doors from the porch; both are timber double doors with leaded fanlights. The larger door opens into the hall via a small foyer and the smaller door into the front room which is divided into two parts by a large arched opening.
\nThe ground floor plan is organised around a central stair hall running front to back with two main rooms on either side. The ground floor has vinyl-covered, timber floors; plaster walls; moulded timber skirtings, architraves and cornices; and v-jointed timber board ceilings with decorative timber fretwork vents. Floor-to-ceiling height on the ground floor is 3.6m. The main rooms have a fireplace each with a simple moulded plaster surround and mantle, and a decorative cast-iron firebox. The rear northern room has a strong room with a heavy iron door. The doors into the four rooms are varnished timber with moulded panels and rectangular glazed fanlights. The ground floor offices are numbered 1 to 4, and the interior double doors to the foyer carry the words ‘Commonwealth of Australia Naval Office' on the glass.
\nA large plaster royal coat of arms is positioned above the doors of the small entry foyer. The timber half-turn stair has a decorative timber balustrade and a small cleaner's cupboard with sink is underneath.
\nThe rear verandah of the ground floor leads to male and female toilets (1991) that are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. A rear yard has an enclosure for mechanical equipment and a garden with trees and shrubs - the vegetation is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Four flagpoles are located at the northern rear corner of the building and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nOn the Alice Street side concrete stairs lead into a narrow side yard enclosed by a short, brick and timber fence. This yard wraps around the building along this side to meet the front porch on Edward Street. The Alice Street entrance door is timber v-jointed boards, ledged and braced, with a rectangular fanlight. The threshold is a single, large slate. This door opens to a small hall and stair up to the landing of the main stair which rises to the first floor. French doors open into the stair landing from the first floor rear verandah at a height above floor level, indicating a previous floor and stair configuration.
\nThe first floor has carpet covered timber floors, plaster walls, simple timber skirtings and cornices, moulded timber architraves, and a ripple iron ceiling with metal ventilation panels. The floor is divided by timber partitions that are not full height. A layout of previous partitions is visible on the ceiling. There are four non-functional fireplaces without mantle or firebox. A rear room contains a kitchen. Timber-framed, glazed French doors and a clear-finished panelled timber door open onto the rear verandah from the rear rooms of the first floor.
\nThe former Naval Offices is a small building within a streetscape of larger structures featuring other late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century masonry buildings including the former Port Office [QHR 600088], Smellie & Co. warehouse [QHR 600092], Smellie's Building [QHR 600097], and the Port Office Hotel [QHR 600098] and is adjacent to the entrance gates of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067]. The building is visible from the Brisbane River and there is a sight line from the former Naval Offices to the former Naval Stores at Kangaroo Point [QHR 600239] across the river.
","history":"The brick former Naval Offices at 3 Edward Street in Brisbane was constructed in 1900-01 by the Queensland Department of Public Works as the first purpose-built headquarters for naval forces in Queensland. Built for the Queensland Marine Defence Force (QMDF), it was soon used by the Australian Commonwealth Navy (ACN). It was transferred to Commonwealth ownership in 1911 and was used by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
The former Naval Offices is located midway along the Town Reach (Petrie's Bight to Garden Point) of the Brisbane River, within a block bounded by Margaret, Edward and Alice streets and the river. Over time this area was utilised by a number of Queensland Government entities dedicated to commercial shipping, including: the Government Shipping Office, Port Office, Marine Board Office, Harbours and Rivers Department, Hydraulic Engineers and Shipping Master's departments, Marine Department and the Government Seamen's Saving Bank.[1] A Reserve for the Harbour Master's Department of 1 rood and 30 perches (1771sqm) was surveyed in 1862 between the corner of Alice and Edward streets and the river, and a stone and brick building was erected that year.[2] Later known as the (first) Port Office, it included offices on the ground floor and store rooms and a boatshed underneath. Prior to this date the Harbour Master was based in George Street.[3]
Military use of the immediate area started c.1886, when the QMDF occupied the 1862 Port Office.[4] The QMDF was created in 1885 in response to fears that Queensland's coastal settlements were vulnerable to Russian warships. In the late 1870s tensions between Britain and Russia had raised concerns regarding the defence of Britain's overseas colonies. Colonel Sir William Jervois of the Royal Engineers, assisted by Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Scratchley, toured the Australian colonies to make recommendations for defence arrangements and the pair visited Queensland in August 1877. In order to deal with the perceived Russian naval threat to Brisbane they recommended utilising small naval vessels to disrupt enemy landings, a coastal fort with submarine mines across the river at Lytton, and a mobile field force of infantry and engineers with artillery. A Naval Brigade and a Torpedo Corps was also required.[5] When the Defence Act 1884 was gazetted on 25 February 1885, the existing Queensland Volunteer Force (land forces) became the Queensland Defence Force (QDF). The Queensland Defence (Marine) Force was gazetted on 3 March 1885.
Lieutenant Walton Drake had taken command of the Naval Brigade from 1 January 1885, tasked with training volunteers. Two 50-strong companies of Brisbane naval volunteers were announced that month and additional naval brigades were later formed at other Queensland ports, including Townsville, Rockhampton, Maryborough, Cairns, Cooktown, Bundaberg, Thursday Island and Mackay.[6]
Naval vessels were also ordered as part of the proposed plan to defend Queensland. The first vessel of Queensland's new navy to be delivered was the steel, second-class spar torpedo boat ‘Mosquito', which arrived as deck cargo in Brisbane in October 1884.[7] Prior to this the closest thing that Queensland had to a naval vessel was the Queensland Government schooner ‘Pearl', which conducted survey work and guarded the pearling fisheries in northern Queensland waters.[8]
The main strength of the QMDF, the sister Alpha class gunboats ‘Gayundah' (meaning Thunder) and ‘Paluma' (Lightning), ordered from Britain in 1883[9] and launched in 1884, arrived in March 1885 and May 1885 respectively.[10]
The ‘Gayundah' sailed to Queensland under Commander (later Captain) Henry Townley Wright, a retired Royal Navy officer.[11] Wright was appointed as Senior Naval Officer (SNO) and Superintendent of the QMDF on 30 March 1885, as well as remaining in command of the ‘Gayundah'.[12] Those of the crew who elected to remain in Queensland's service became the first permanent members of the QMDF. The ‘Gayundah' was used to train QMDF seamen, while the ‘Paluma' was used on survey work by the British Admiralty until being handed back to Queensland in 1895.[13] The last regular vessel of the QMDF was the ‘Midge', a mahogany timber picquet boat/spar torpedo boat, which arrived in 1888.[14]
Auxiliary vessels in the QMDF included a locally-built steamer ‘Miner', and the government steamer ‘Otter'. Five steam hopper barges of the Harbours and Rivers Department, the ‘Bonito', ‘Stingaree', ‘Dolphin', ‘Bream' and 'Pumba', could also be armed if required for port defence.
A Permanent Force, HMQS Gayundah, QDF (Marine), was established in February 1892, but most of its full-time crew were paid off in 1893 as part of cutbacks during the 1890s depression, as was the ‘Paluma's' crew after the ship had completed its survey work.[15] For most of the 1890s the gunboats were used by naval brigade crews solely for training.
In and near Brisbane, a number of buildings were erected for the QMDF. The Naval Stores [QHR 600239] and a wharf were built at the base of the Kangaroo Point cliffs in 1886-87, across the river from the QMDF headquarters on Edward Street. A sub-marine mining (naval mine) store was erected c.1886 at Fort Lytton [QHR 600248], and a sub-marine mining drill hall was later built at the west end of Alice Street in 1900.
By 1896, the old Port Office used by the QMDF was in a poor state and the foundations, inundated during the 1893 floods, were settling and causing wall cracks. On 1 August 1899 the QMDF's Staff Paymaster, Edward Vincent Pollock, also complained that the roof was leaking water onto his paperwork.[16] Later that month £1500 was allocated by the Department of Public Works for the construction of new offices.[17]
In May 1900 it was decided by Queensland's new Naval Commandant, Captain William Rooke Creswell, that the new offices would replace the cottage of the Marine Department's messenger/caretaker at the corner of Edward and Alice Streets. Tenders were invited in late August and the cottage was demolished.
Plans for the new Naval Offices were approved by AB Brady, the Government Architect within the Department of Public Works (DPW), on 14 September 1900,[18] but since he was trained as an engineer it is unlikely to be his design. The DPW employed a number of accomplished architects at this time and the work could be attributed to Thomas Pye (First Assistant Architect from July 1899),[19] John Smith Murdoch (Second Assistant Architect from 1 July 1899), [20] or George David Payne (Temporary Draughtsman 1898-1901). Pye supervised larger works, while Murdoch took charge of the designing and drafting staff.
DPW was involved in the design and construction of Queensland's most important buildings and capital works following its formation in 1866. Employing a succession of highly-talented architects, DPW produced many fine buildings of high architectural merit. Prior to World War II these buildings were characterised by: highly-functional, rational plan arrangements that were commodious and accommodating; use of high-quality, durable materials, preferably sourced from Queensland; and a quality of civic dignity brought about through style, scaling, and form.
The tender of James Mason of Brisbane of £1845/17/6 for the Brisbane Naval Offices was accepted in October 1900, and the building was completed by late June 1901.[21] ‘The Queenslander' reported on 16 November 1901 that the building's facing bricks were dark-brown, relieved with cement dressings and rough-cast work. The roof was covered with rolled galvanised iron. The Annual Report for DPW to 30 June 1901 (where the Naval Offices was listed under principal works completed during the year) mentioned internal fittings of pine and cedar. No other Australian colony built naval offices in this period, just prior to Federation and the transfer of defence assets. Queensland may have done so to ensure the continued use of Brisbane by the Commonwealth Navy.[22]
As a naval headquarters, the building was designed with spaces for the senior naval officers and their administrative staff, along with a strong room for the Staff Paymaster. The original ground floor plan included an entry porch off Edward Street, with double doors leading north-west into a public space which was separated by a counter from the Clerk's office. There was also a set of double doors leading north-east into a vestibule between the front offices, and onwards into a central hall. To the rear of the Clerk's Office was the Paymaster's Office, which included a projecting strong room at the rear of the building. The right front (southern) office was for the Commandant, while the right rear (eastern) office was for the Officer of the Naval Corps. Each had a fireplace.
Behind the Naval Corp's office was the separate Brigade Entrance. From this entrance the ground floor rear verandah could be accessed, as well as a stairway up to a landing from which people could either descend to the ground floor offices, or continue up to the first floor. The latter was a large open space used as an Orderly (Administrative) Room, with four fireplaces and a small lavatory and store at the right rear (eastern) corner. This space may have been later partitioned for sleeping quarters and offices.[23] The 1900 plans do not show the ventilation fleche which was present on the roof when the building was finished.[24] This fleche was removed by the mid 1980s, and was replicated in the 1990s.
Although the QMDF existed when the building was started, the first occupants were technically the Queensland components of a Commonwealth Navy. After the Australian Commonwealth was formed on 1 January 1901 the defence forces of the separate colonies were transferred to the new Federal Government in March. However, procedural delays meant arrangements were not completed until 1902.[25]
At the time of Federation, Queensland's naval forces numbered 750 men of all ranks, and it was one of four states (including Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia) to contribute ships to the Australian Commonwealth Naval Force (ACNF), formed on 1 March 1901 - handing over the ‘Gayundah', ‘Paluma', ‘Mosquito' and ‘Midge'. Captain Creswell remained the Commandant of the Queensland-based flotilla of the ACN. In late 1904 Captain Creswell was appointed Director of Commonwealth Naval Forces,[26] and his place as Queensland Naval Commandant was taken by Captain Frederick Tickell (to 1907). By 1904, 49% of Australia's serving naval officers had served in the QMDF.[27]
Captain Creswell was a major advocate for an independent Australian navy. Australia had been a separate British Naval Station since 1859 and a squadron of the Royal Navy was maintained in Australian waters until 1913. After March 1901 the Royal Navy was still paid to provide blue water defence (a force projection capability beyond coastal defence), but Captain Creswell lobbied for an autonomous Australian blue water navy. The 1909 Imperial Conference agreed to form an Australian fleet, and the first ships of this fleet, the destroyers ‘Yarra' and ‘Parramatta', reached Australia in 1910. On 10 July 1911 King George V granted the title ‘Royal Australian Navy' to the ACN and in October 1913 formal control of these units was transferred to the Commonwealth Naval Board.[28] Meanwhile, in 1911 district naval officers were appointed around Australia to replace the naval commandants. [29]
Although the Commonwealth took control of Queensland's naval forces in 1901, the Naval Offices was not transferred to Commonwealth ownership until 1911. DPW was still maintaining the building in 1910 and it was still in Queensland ownership in June 1911.[30]
A number of alterations were made to the Naval Offices during Commonwealth ownership. February 1933 plans included the addition of a first floor rear verandah with an enclosed laundry and new stairs from the side yard. At the same time the first floor was converted into a residence for the Senior Naval Officer, and the large space was partitioned into domestic rooms. The internal stairway from the main ground floor hall was removed, so the upstairs residence could only be accessed from the old Brigade Entrance or the new rear verandah. Two sets of French doors plus a single door were installed between the verandah and the residence. A ‘typiste' (typists) room was added to the north-west end of the original ground floor rear verandah, and a new lavatory was added behind the strong room.[31] Further additions in late 1939 resulted in a new office, lavatory and water closet (WC) being built behind the strong room, replacing the 1933 lavatory.[32] Two other WCs were also built sometime between 1933 and 1939 on and adjacent to the rear verandah.[33]
After Japan entered World War II in December 1941, Brisbane became an important supply and command centre and the resulting expansion of the Allied naval presence in the city meant larger Naval Staff Offices were urgently required. During 1942-43 commercial buildings in Queen Street were requisitioned and occupied by the Australian and United States navies.[34] Although the Operational Staff of the RAN's Naval Officer in Charge (NOIC), Queensland, was based in Queen Street, the District Naval Officer, Queensland, remained at the Edward Street Naval Offices with the Civil Secretariat and Accounts staffs.[35] Other wartime RAN facilities in Brisbane were located at Colmslie and New Farm. The Smellie and Co. warehouse [QHR 600092] opposite the Naval Offices was used by the US Red Cross before becoming an Australian Comforts Fund hostel for the Royal Navy in 1945.[36]
Further alterations were made to accommodate the extra staff at the Naval Offices. In 1944 a two-storey timber office extension was added behind the existing verandahs, the verandahs were enclosed as offices, and toilet arrangements were reconfigured. The stairway to the first floor 1933 verandah was removed, as was the first floor verandah laundry. The original steps up to the rear yard from Alice Street were removed and replaced with steps that climbed south-west to the side yard.[37]
By 1977 the former Naval Offices was vacant, its functions having been transferred to HMAS Moreton at New Farm (naval base, closed 1994). The Edward Street site was surplus to Commonwealth requirements but, as it was included on the Register of the National Estate by this time, a decision was made to lease the property for 99 years rather than sell it. This enabled conditions protecting the heritage values of the original section of the former Naval Offices to be written into the lease. The building was leased to Jakuma Limited in November 1981. The lease was transferred to Historic Holdings Pty Ltd in 1987, and to HSH Hotels (Australia) Limited in 2000.
From 1982 the former Naval Offices was used as Muddies Seafood Restaurant, and alterations were made including removing walls between the ground floor offices, constructing a new stair in the ground floor hall, removing internal partitions in the rear timber extensions on both levels, a new kitchen fit-out on the first floor, and adding a fire escape stair to the rear.
After the restaurant closed in 1989, the building was vacant for a period before being refurbished in the early 1990s.[38] This refurbishment was designed by Bruce Buchanan Architects and saw the restoration of lost or obscured significant fabric. The 1944 office extensions to the rear of the building were demolished and the rear verandah was reconstructed. The ground floor toilets were upgraded, partitions were reinstated between the offices on the ground floor, and the first floor partitions were removed to make one large space. At some time after this work the first floor was again partitioned into rooms although these walls do not reach the ceiling. A new kitchenette was built at the rear eastern corner of the first floor.
Behind the former Naval Offices, the Stamford Hotel, a large multi-storey building, was constructed in 1990 and a boardwalk was built behind the former Naval Offices along the river edge. However, a visual connection between the former Naval Offices and the river was maintained. The flagpole at the front of the building is not an original feature, but was there by World War II; while the four flagpoles located near the rear northern corner of the building date from between 1974 and 1991. The building was returned to Queensland State Government ownership in 2011, and in 2012 the ground floor was occupied by a florist, while an architectural firm and a property developer sub-leased the first floor.
","criteria":"The 1901 former Naval Offices, Brisbane, is important surviving evidence of the existence of the Queensland Marine Defence Force (QMDF, established 1885) and the later policy of basing Australian naval vessels in Queensland. Although the QMDF ceased to exist soon after the building was finished, it was used by the Australian Commonwealth Navy (ACN) and then the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) until the 1970s.
Constructed by the Queensland Government as the first purpose-built headquarters for naval forces in Queensland, the former Naval Offices illustrates the importance placed on the naval defence of Queensland at the time of Federation.
|The former Naval Offices has a long-standing and important historical association with the naval forces of Queensland and Australia, being built for the QMDF before being used by the Queensland flotilla of the ACN, and later the RAN, between 1901 and the mid 1970s.
|The intact and distinctive former Naval Offices is unique as the only naval headquarters building constructed by the Queensland government.
|The former Naval Offices is important for its aesthetic significance through an accomplished use of Arts and Crafts decorative treatments. These include: an asymmetrical composition; extensive use of high-quality, tuck-pointed face brickwork and stucco; rendered dressings; tall chimneys with decorative chimney pots; decorative eaves with brackets; circular accents; contrasting earthy colours and textures; a conspicuous use of hand-crafted ornamentation; ornate decorative features of the portico including rusticated Tuscan order columns and a curved pediment with a sculpted naval coat of arms.
As a finely crafted, small-scale building, the former Naval Offices makes an important contribution to the streetscape of the Lower Edward Street precinct of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings including the Port Office [QHR 600088], Smellie & Co. warehouse [QHR 600092], Smellie's Building [QHR 600097] and the Port Office Hotel [QHR 600098]; as well as the Brisbane Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067].
|The former Naval Offices is a fine example of the well-designed buildings constructed by the Queensland Department of Public Works. The building has a highly-functional, rational plan; is well constructed using high-quality, durable materials sourced from Queensland; and has a quality of civic dignity achieved through style, scaling, and form.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a naval office. In particular its internal layout illustrates its former naval administrative use, with a separate front entrance for the public and a side entrance for the Naval Brigade leading to the first floor, separate offices on the ground floor, and a strong room.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14877,"place_ref":600102,"name":"93-103 Edward Street","alternate_name":"Youngs Building | Optical Products","street_address":"93-103 Edward Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-02-22","description":"This Federation era warehouse shows many characteristics of the type with its fine detailing and unrendered brickwork. From Edward Street the building can be divided visually into four bays of equal width. The two central ones being identical to each other and the two outer bays while different to these are essentially the same as each other. Each of the four bays is symmetrical, with two narrow raised sections to either side with a slightly higher parapet, and a broader recessed central section between them. A continuous line of string coursing runs around the building across the face of the bays at the ground floor ceiling level, the first floor sill level and the second floor head level. This upper coursing is broken in two places at the recessed portions of the two central bays where there is a broad arch with voussoirs expressed alternately in render. The recessed portions of the outer bays have three tall rectangular windows on both the upper levels. Located above the string course over each top level window is a small brick arched opening. The outer bays also have raised semicircular sections of parapet centred at the top of each raised narrow section. Many of the openings on all levels have also had their glazing replaced with modern windows using aluminium window frames. One of the central openings at the first floor level features leadlight window panes.
The corner of the building has a section of brick wall that curves onto the Mary Street facade. This facade has a raised portion near the corner with a single opening on each level. The building then continues back in the manner of one of the recessed portions on the front of the building with broad arches at the upper level but with paired windows below rather than a group of three. As the ground drops away at this corner, openings to the basement appear at footpath level.
The facade retains its original face brickwork and rendered decoration, although considerable changes have occurred to the window openings and types. Internally, some evidence of the original structure and finishes remains, particularly the pressed metal ceilings to the first floor of the left hand bay. A brick water tank support tower exists at roof level at the rear of the building.
","history":"Located at the corner of Edward and Mary Street, 93-103 Edward Street was constructed as a warehouse in 1910. The three-storey masonry building in the former commercial and warehousing precinct of the Brisbane central business district demonstrates the development of lower Edward Street in the early 20th century.
\nRecognising the investment potential of this warehouse precinct, Horace Edwin Broughton Young and Charles Ernest Young purchased the site of the Commercial Hotel for redevelopment in July 1909. The Young family had founded the Fairymead Sugar Company Limited in 1879, which by 1912 was one of the largest mills in the Southern Hemisphere. The timber framed brick warehouse constructed on this site in 1910, at a cost of £16,000, was three storeys high, with a basement, and a fourth storey on the corner section. The building was leased the same year to Queensland Agency Company (merchants), Kronheimer Ltd (tobacco and cigar merchants) and Gregory and Davidson (merchants and arrowroot manufacturers). On 30 April 1912 fire broke out in the corner section of Youngs Building, occupied by the Queensland Agency and caused considerable damage to parts of the building and much of the stock kept on the premises. The fourth floor collapsed and was never rebuilt, leaving the repaired building three storeys throughout. Since then, various interior refurbishments have occurred for office and commercial uses.
\nIn 1923 the property was subdivided. Subdivision 1 was acquired by WD Wills and HO Wills (Australia) Ltd (tobacco merchants) and John Simon Goldman and Ernest Victor Goldman, warehousemen, purchased subdivision 3. After Horace Young's death in December 1925, the remaining subdivisions were sold to Taubmans (Qld) Ltd and Arthur Cocks and Co, merchants. Change of ownership occurred in 1968 and subsequently the building has provided office space for numerous commercial tenants. In 2023, the building remains an important element in the streetscape and continues to be used for office and retail purposes.
","criteria":"93-103 Edward Streets is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the evolution of lower Edward Street as a commercial/warehousing precinct and of the upsurge in the building industry in the early twentieth century.
|93-103 Edward Street demonstrates the principal characteristics of a federation era warehouse with its broad arches and finely detailed face brick facade.
|93-103 Edward Street exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including the length of its facade which contributes to the streetscape of Edward Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14878,"place_ref":600103,"name":"Perry House","alternate_name":"Royal Albert Apartments","street_address":"167 Albert Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-27","description":"Originally an eight storeyed, timber frame brickwork construction in the Federation warehouse tradition, this building is set on a two storey podium of cement render. Plain brick piers, linked at each floor level by recessed horizontal bands of cement render, rise from above the podium. The corner piers are extended to block-like turrets above the roof line. The original plain brick parapet bore the name 'Perry Bros. Ltd.'. This was removed in 1923 to make way for the addition of another storey between the turrets. The present parapet above the additional storey bears the name 'Perry House'. The strong straight lines of the piers are relieved at both podium and turret levels by the use of arch and keystone elements. Bands of cement render on the turrets and upper storey provide an intensified echo of the banded effect on the main body of the building.
The building presents an integrated exterior, with little alteration except for the addition of the upper storey, minor modifications to the ground floor facade and the addition of a street awning with pressed metal ceilings. Major internal work on each floor has concealed the timber frame, with beams above lowered ceilings and columns encased.
","history":"Perry House was designed in 1910 by Claude William Chambers to house the business of Perry Brothers, whose hardware firm had been in operation in Brisbane since 1860. William Perry, father of the Perry brothers - Herbert and George - was a prominent Brisbane businessman. Before the construction of the building, the Perry brothers had operated a wholesale outlet in Queen Street. They were to expand their operation at Perry House, as every floor of the building was occupied with their business activities and storage of their goods.
CW Chambers was a prominent Brisbane architect of the time. He trained in Melbourne and worked in Sydney, before joining FDG Stanley in Brisbane and establishing his own firm in 1889. His several partnerships between 1889 and 1935 produced designs for both Brisbane and Sydney including commercial buildings, warehouses and wharf buildings. Lange L Powell, another notable Brisbane architect, joined Chambers in a partnership in 1911 and managed the construction of Perry House. Thomas Keenan, the builder, had a long career in Brisbane from 1886 to 1923.
The construction of Perry House occupied a considerable period of time, beginning in 1911 and not reaching completion until early 1913. Frequent strikes appear to have slowed progress. Perry House was the highest building in Brisbane on its completion and its construction was followed with great interest by the Brisbane community. An extra storey, designed by Powell, was added in 1923.
","criteria":"It demonstrates the evolution of a method of merchandising where retailing firms grew into large wholesaling enterprises.
|The robust qualities of the lower floors, the simplicity of the materials, verticality of design and accentuation of the corners combine to give a landmark quality to the building which exhibits particular aesthetic qualities valued by the community.
|It demonstrates a high degree of technical achievement for the period 1910/13 as an example of a very tall building in a timber framed construction method which was obsolescent by this period.
|It has strong association with:
(i) the prominent hardware merchandising firm Perry Brothers who commenced business in Brisbane in 1860, and;
(ii) the commercial work of architects CW Chambers and Lange Powell whose contributions to the commercial buildings of Brisbane are significant.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14879,"place_ref":600104,"name":"Heckelmanns Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"171 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Only the lower portion of the building's three level rendered brick facade can be attributed to the architect Andrea Stombuco. The upper two levels, which replaced Stombuco's single upper level, abandoned the arched openings of the original for a plainer trabeated construction. This has provided the building with a certain visual strength as the arched portion provides an apparent base for the upper levels of the building.
The facade is treated as two identical sections corresponding to the building's original subdivisions. Each of these sections comprises three bays with the central one being narrower than the other two. Originally, on the lower level, the central bays had the broad arched doorway to each tenancy which were flanked by a pair of arched windows to each side, but the windows on the southern section of the facade have since been opened up to ground level. This early portion of the facade is ordered by unfluted Corinthian pilasters rising from a plinth at sill level to a plain string course.
The upper two floors are linked by fluted giant order composite pilasters. The bay system is maintained with large rectangular windows in the flanking bays. As with the arched openings below, each window has its own framing pilasters.
The parapet is a heavily decorated cornice which supports, over the central bay of each section, a highly ornate pediment, the northern one bearing the initials JWH, and the southern one carrying the date of the buildings reconstruction, 1891. Three square ornate urns mark the centre and ends of the building at parapet level. Decoration is rich but used in a discreet way and consists mainly of panels of foliage at points of emphasis.
The facade is intact with the exception of window openings to the southern half which have been extended below the plinth at ground level, and re-glazed as large fixed panels to the upper levels. Internally, exposed trusses appear at the top level of the left hand bay. This side of the building also retains its timber post structure. The interior of the right hand bay has been covered by modern office partitioning and ceilings.
","history":"In July 1873, Joseph Wendelin Heckelmann purchased 36 perches in Elizabeth Street from which he subdivided 2.4 perches in 1878. In 1884 he erected a two storeyed business premises with cellars which Arthur S and Leopold S Benjamin, merchants, occupied and opened on 22 October, 1884. A seven year lease between the Benjamin Brothers and Heckelmann was formalised from September of that year at an annual rate of £500. The premises, which cost £6,000 were designed by architect Andrea Stombuco and erected by W Watson. Built of stone and brick with a stuccoed facade, the building had a frontage of 66 feet to Elizabeth Street and a depth of 80 feet. A mechanical lift was incorporated in the building.
Alterations occurred circa 1888, but the majority of the building was destroyed by fire in December 1890. Using the original foundations and the ground floor facade, the building was re-erected in 1891 to a height of three storeys excluding basement. It is thought that architect John Cohen may have been responsible for the design of the renovations. Joseph Heckelmann caused his initials and the date of reconstruction to be noted in the frieze below each pediment. Heckelmann, a tinsmith by trade, was an alderman of the Hamilton Town Council at the time, having been elected in 1890. Benjamin Brothers did not re-establish in the building but long term tenants such as soft goods manufacturer J Leutenegger occupied the site from 1895 to 1934. Leutenegger was also Swiss Consul for a time and the consulate office was in this building.
Joseph Heckelmann died in 1925 and the ownership passed to his family. In 1951 the building was purchased by the Commercial Bank of Australia Limited and continued to be leased. It was subdivided in 1963 and two years later one half of the building was bought by Kenneth Rosewall and Rodney G Laver, noted Australian sportsmen. The other portion remained in the hands of the Commercial Bank and its successor Westpac Banking Corporation. Kern Corporation subsequently became the owner of the entire building.
","criteria":"Heckelmanns Building is significant as a surviving element of the economic boom of the 1880s and the development of an Elizabeth Street commercial precinct. It is significant as part of an important streetscape including nearby Tara House.
|Heckelmanns Building is characteristic of a Victorian era retail warehouse with its elaborate and ornate facade treatment.
Heckelmanns Building is significant for the sympathetic rebuilding of the upper levels in relation to the original ground floor.
|This building is important for its association with owner Joseph Wendelin Heckelmann, successful businessman and local councillor; with notable Brisbane merchandising firm Benjamin Bros; and with long-term tenant J Leutenegger.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14880,"place_ref":600105,"name":"Tara House (Irish Club)","alternate_name":"Irish Club","street_address":"179 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Tara House is situated in a section of Elizabeth Street previously used as a warehousing precinct. It is located close to other remnants of the warehouse era, notably the adjacent Heckelmann Building (600104) and the present Kings Car Park. Current use of the area is for shops and offices.
Tara House is a two-storey, cement-rendered brick building with basement of the late 1870s, with simple classical detailing, including an arcaded upper level crowned by an entablature and balustraded parapet. The arcade is composed of two symmetrical sections on either side of a central pilaster. Each section contains five semi-circular arched openings, the central one of which is flanked by pilasters and topped, above the parapet, by a triangular pediment. The central pilaster and the pilasters at either end of the facade are each crowned by an urn above the parapet.
Extensive alterations to the building in 1927-28 saw the demolition of the original back wall and the addition of a reinforced concrete and steel extension. At the same time the interior of the first floor was remodelled. A panelled, arched ceiling to the rear half of this floor is decorated in modelled fibrous plaster with angels, harps and Australian floral motifs in gold relief. The walls are panelled in silky oak; the floor is hardwood. Lead light panels in the ceiling and one end wall depict the four counties of Ireland and the Queensland coat of arms, while other leadlight windows are located in the north-east side wall.
The original ground floor facade and interior finishes have been removed. The upper floor interior finishes of the 1927-28 alterations are intact despite the intrusion of a bar and kitchen and some suspended ceilings. The basement has been extensively refurbished.
","history":"The land at the site was bought by James Hunter, a boot manufacturer, in 1877 for £2250. Soon afterwards, Richard Gailey, architect, called for tenders for the construction of two Elizabeth Street stores for James Hunter. By 1879 Hunter was advertising his warehouses to let at £200 per annum. Hunter's investment in this property was part of a more general, growing interest in this warehousing quarter. Messrs Unmack & Heussler, produce merchants, politicians and prominent citizens, conducted their business at the building from 1879 to 1884. From 1884 to 1899, the building was owned by the wealthy London merchant Alexander McArthur and used as the Brisbane branch of his extensive warehousing firm. The new owner in 1899 was James Cowlishaw, architect, newspaper proprietor, company director and politician. During Cowlishaw's time various importers, warehousing firms and manufacturers agents were tenants. Cowlishaw financed the Queensland Irish Association's (QIA) purchase of the building in 1919 by a mortgage of £8000 (purchase price was £11 000). The building has been in the hands of the QIA continuously since that time. The success of the QIA reflects the significance of Queensland's Irish population from the start of free settlement. In the 1860s, 18% of the Queensland population was Irish-born.
Tara House has undergone regular alterations and maintenance to the interior - mostly provision of services and fittings but major structural and interior work was carried out on the building in 1927-28 - a joint project of the well-known architectural firms Cavanagh & Cavanagh and R Coutts & Son. The internal alterations were designed to highlight the Irish association with the building, an association which has extended over more than seventy years. The building was named Tara House in an official ceremony on 28 June 1948.
","criteria":"Tara House is significant for its architectural quality, in particular the fine design, detailing, materials and workmanship of the interior, which were part of the 1927-28 renovations. Tara House is an example of a facade by Richard Gailey, who designed many city buildings in Brisbane in the 1880s, and is significant for its association with the Irish community in Brisbane and the Queensland Irish Association. It is also significant for its contribution to the streetscape in association with the adjoining Heckelmann's Building.
|Tara House is significant for its architectural quality, in particular the fine design, detailing, materials and workmanship of the interior, which were part of the 1927-28 renovations.
Tara House is significant for its contribution to the streetscape in association with the adjoining Heckelmann's Building.
|Tara House is significant for its association with the Irish community in Brisbane and the Queensland Irish Association.
|Tara House is an example of a facade by Richard Gailey, who designed many city buildings in Brisbane in the 1880s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14881,"place_ref":600106,"name":"St Stephens School","alternate_name":"St Stephen's Catholic School | Mercy House","street_address":"172 Charlotte Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This three-storeyed school building is built in the Gothic Revival style. It is T-shaped in plan form with the top of the T being the street elevation and the leg of the T extending back into the site. The building is symmetrical from the front elevation. Most window openings have Gothic pointed arches. There are three large openings across the lower level with six smaller windows on the first level, and another six on the upper level. The middle portion of the building has pointed openings whilst those on the wings are rectangular. The central section rises above the wings to a gable containing a small rose window. The building is constructed of brick and has plaster used decoratively around window openings and as horizontal mouldings. The entry is located centrally within a elaborately rendered porch. Verandahs run along either side of the central brick core. Another verandah has been recently added across the rear of the building replacing an unsympathetic brick extension. The masonry and cast iron front fence uses similar detailing to the body of the building and was probably constructed at the same time.
Internally the building has undergone a variety of alterations. The original stair remains to the right of the entry but its timber structure and railing have been painted. On the top level large brackets which support the trusses are exposed, but the ceiling line is not original. A suspended ceiling comes down below the window heads on the ground floor.
","history":"The school stands on land which was designated for church use in 1847 and officially granted to the Catholic Church in 1849. The very first denominational school in Brisbane had been established in 1845 by the Catholic Church - an indication of early Catholic commitment to education. The aspirations of the Catholic Church and the nature of the 1875 education legislation in Queensland ensured that the early commitment became an enduring feature of Catholic activity, for the church deplored the secular nature of instruction offered in 'state' schools and determined to establish its own schools wherever possible. It was within this context that the erection of St Stephens School occurred.
Classes had been conducted in various 'second-hand' buildings since 1845, but on 20 March 1892 Archbishop Dunne, a trained teacher, laid the foundation stone for this purpose-built school. A tin capsule containing copies of the three Brisbane daily newspapers and the Australasian was lodged under the stone. Mr John Ibler of Simkin & Ibler, the designers of the building, was present at the ceremony and the contractor, Thomas Rees, made a donation towards the cost of erection. Rees was a prolific building contractor of the period - he built the present Water Board Building (QHR 600099) and Spencers Building (QHR 600100).
Construction time was quite brief - on 25 September 1892 the school was blessed by Cardinal Moran in the presence of a large public gathering. By contemporary standards this was a most impressive school and Cardinal Moran was moved to remark that he hoped '...the people of New South Wales would not allow themselves to be surpassed by those of Queensland in the erection of such schools.' The cardinal and several visiting church officials were in Brisbane to open two new churches, lay the foundation stone of another, bless the new school and unveil a statue of the late Bishop O'Quinn.
The school was run by the Sisters of Mercy as a primary school for girls until its closure in 1965. Subsequently the building was extended and later reopened in 1967 as church administration offices. The 1960s extension was subsequently removed as part of the large St Stephens Cathedral project of the late 1980s.
","criteria":"St Stephen's School is significant as evidence of the determination of the Catholic Church to develop its own system of education rather than accept the state's secular education policies.
|(Criterion under review)
|St Stephen's School is representative of the imposing architectural style employed in late nineteenth century church schools.
St Stephen's School is an example of an inner city Gothic Revival school that is one of a group of ecclesiastical buildings prominent in this part of the city.
St Stephen's School is significant for its contribution, together with other buildings in this ecclesiastical group, to the Charlotte Street streetscape.
|St Stephen's School is significant for its association with the significant contribution of the Sisters of Mercy to Catholic education in Queensland and as a building held in high esteem by the Catholic community and the wider Brisbane public.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14882,"place_ref":600107,"name":"St Stephens Cathedral","alternate_name":"St Stephen's Catholic Cathedral","street_address":"259-269 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Gothic Revival church is of a standard English type with its cruciform plan shape and in the manner it derives its articulation from the hierarchy of aisles, nave and steep roof. It is spare in some of its features possibly as a result of limited finances, and design changes during construction brought about for the same reason. The lightweight plaster ceilings do not need the support of buttresses at the clerestory level, leaving the sides of the nave relatively blank. The building's major feature is the pair of octagonal stair towers topped by spires to either side of the western facade. This facade has a diminutive entry doorway above which is a large perpendicular Gothic stained glass window depicting Christ's Ascension, St Stephen and other saints. The relatively severe ends of each transept only have three tall lancet window openings. The clerestory has tripartite pointed windows one in each bay, while the bays below these at aisle level have single Gothic arched openings flanked by small buttresses.
The building is built of porphyry (Brisbane Tuff) and freestone. The relative absence of mouldings and extensive use of corbelling can be attributed to changing design intentions. The recent work on the building has replaced the original spires (that had already been removed) with GRC replicas. On the Charlotte Street side the most notable addition was the semi-circular Blessed Sacrament Chapel, in modular concrete and glass flanked on one side by the Reconciliation Chapel and on the other the baptismal area. This addition is clad in stone veneer in a modern manner with only a vestigial references to the original Gothic revival style. The additions have resulted in a considerable increase in lighting levels in the sanctuary end of the Cathedral. Art work including sculpture and stained glass in these spaces is by contemporary artists including Warren Langley and Peter Schipperheyn. The differences between old and new are also highlighted by the change in floor surfaces. Below the extensions is a two level reinforced concrete carpark.
Internally the nave elevation is two-storeyed with squat unadorned columns supporting heavily moulded pointed arches. Pilasters rise from corbels above the columns to support transverse ribs under the pointed plaster barrel vault. The aisles have plaster vaults supported on longitudinal, transverse and diagonal ribs which spring from corbels similar to those in the nave.
At the time of the 1989 alterations much of the external stone retaining wall and cast iron fencing that once ran along the Elizabeth Street footpath was removed and replaced by the present stair spanning the width of the front of the building. A similar tinted concrete wall was built on the Charlotte Street frontage, but some original and cast iron walling adjoins on the St Stephens School frontage. The grounds surrounding the Cathedral are predominantly an open grassy area to the south crossed by concrete paths and planted with palm trees.
","history":"This cathedral was built in various stages between 1864 and 1922 with additions at the sanctuary end in 1989.
The land at the site was originally designated for church purposes in 1847. Six allotments of section 33 were set aside for the use of the Roman Catholic Church in September 1848 with the original deeds of grant being signed by Governor Charles Fitzroy in November 1849. Father Hanly, one of the first parish priests, purchased allotment 13 in 1851 and allotment 6 in 1854 and a further 18 perches of land was bought by Bishop Quinn in 1877 to extend the school playgrounds.
From the early days of free settlement, Brisbane's Catholic population was significant as they comprised 30% of residents in 1846. By 1861 Catholics constituted about 25% of the total Queensland population. St Stephens Cathedral was the third site for Catholic worship in Brisbane. Services were originally conducted in a rented brick building near the corner of Elizabeth and Albert Streets until 1850 when Old St Stephens Church (QHR 600108) was completed. In 1859 with the separation of Queensland, the Archdiocese of Brisbane was created with James Quinn as the first bishop. Quinn, who did not arrive from Ireland until 1861, planned a large cathedral to accommodate a growing congregation and on the Feast of St Stephen (26 December) in 1863 he laid the foundation stone for a grand cathedral designed by Benjamin Backhouse. The project was to be completed in stages and about one-third of the total area of the foundations was laid in 1864, after which work ceased for several years during the economic crisis of the later 1860s. In the late 1860s R George Suter was commissioned to design a smaller, simpler building than the one originally planned and in 1870 work recommenced on the existing foundations. By early 1874 the nave of the cathedral was sufficiently completed for the opening service to be held on 17 May, but work continued for several months after this date.
In 1884 the top of the west gable was completed and the two sandstone spires were added. In October 1887, the cathedral was furnished with four benefactors' gifts: a large French-made Carrara marble altar with a relief panel of the Last Supper, and three stained glass windows made in Munich. One window depicted the Sacred Heart, the second showed the resurrection of Lazarus and the third was a group of three medallions showing the Lamb with the Cross, St John and the Virgin and Child. The medallions were installed over the northern door.
The depression of the 1890s discouraged further additions but with the post-Federation recovery, plans to add the transepts were revived. A 1911 Hall & Dods design shows an ambitious proposal for completion works which included a large tower at the intersection of the nave and transepts. However, the death of Archbishop Robert Dunne in 1917 made way for a successor, James Duhig, whose long-range plans for a cathedral did not include St Stephens. James Duhig decided to work towards the construction on another site of a new cathedral, to be known as the Holy Name Cathedral. The grand plans for completion of St Stephens were abandoned and instead a simple Hennessy, Hennessy & Hall design was adopted for the addition of transepts and a sanctuary to St Stephens. Duhig laid the foundation stone for these additions in October 1920 and the work was completed in 1922.
Meanwhile the plans for the Holy Name Cathedral proceeded and in an impressive ceremony on 16 September 1928 two massive foundation stones were laid by visiting church dignitaries. Legal and financial difficulties postponed work on the Holy Name Cathedral which was never built - St Stephens was to remain the site for the bishop's seat.
Serious erosion of the two sandstone spires prompted their removal in 1977 and in the 1980s Archbishop Rush initiated plans for the restoration and extension of the cathedral. Architect Robin Gibson designed modifications to the building. Internal modifications respond to changing liturgical practices.The sandstone spires were replaced with ones of glass-reinforced concrete and three new chapels were added to the eastern frontage. During this development, the foundation stones from the Holy Name Cathedral site were relocated to the grounds of St Stephens and the Last Supper relief panel from the 1887 altar was set into a wall. The modified cathedral was dedicated on 3 December 1989.
","criteria":"St Stephens Cathedral is significant as evidence of the prominence of the Catholic community in pre-Separation Queensland.
|St Stephens Cathedral is significant as a typical but plain example of a Gothic Revival Cathedral, with a cruciform plan shape and a hierarchy of aisles to either side of the nave.
|As the centrepiece of an important group of ecclesiastical buildings that are visually a prominent part of this section of the city.
|It is the symbolic focus of Catholicism in Brisbane and as the site of the Bishop's seat since 1864.
|St Stephens Cathedral is significant for its association with Bishop Quinn.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14883,"place_ref":600108,"name":"Old St Stephens Church","alternate_name":"Pugin Chapel | Old St Stephen's Catholic Church","street_address":"249 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The chapel is made of locally quarried sandstone and originally had a shingled roof, now slate. It conforms to a standard English type of small church with a simple rectangular nave with a square chancel attached via an arch. A little square sacristy is attached to the north side of the chancel and a square porch gives onto the south-west end of the nave.
Externally the elevations are extremely simple with an unadorned ashlar lower section with small lancets let into the wall above a roll moulding to form a clerestory. The chancel has a small rose in the gable with three lancets below.
The west end of the chapel has a simple but attractive perpendicular window in the upper section with a door in the lower section. The original stone tracery of the window has been replaced with wood. Externally the sandstone has weathered badly. A small stone bell tower was once mounted above the western gable but was taken down before 1875.
Internally the chapel has fine Gothic proportions. It has finely crafted timber trusses with collar ties and a timber ceiling above. The stonework has been painted and the ecclesiastical accoutrements removed.
Old St Stephens Church is located towards the front of the site facing Elizabeth Street and south of the Cathedral. The open space surrounding the church is enclosed to each side by the southern elevation of the Cathedral, the rear of the buildings facing Edward Street and the back of St Stephens Girls School. This is an open grassy area that is now planted with rows of palm trees and crossed by concrete paths as part of the 1989 project involving the renovation of the Cathedral.
","history":"The land at the site was originally planned for church purposes in 1847. Six allotments of section 33 were set aside for the use of the Roman Catholic Church in September 1848 with the original deeds of grant being signed by Governor Charles Fitzroy in November 1849.
From the early days of free settlement, Brisbane's Catholic population was significant with Catholics comprising 30% of residents in 1846. In 1849 and 1850 the New South Wales Government, under provisions of Governor Richard Bourke's 1836 Church Act, subsidised the building of Old St Stephens Church which was opened on 12 May 1850. It was built by Alexander Goold, to a design attributed to the internationally renowned Gothic Revival architect Augustus Welby Pugin, a personal friend of Sydney-based Archbishop Polding.
With the growth of Brisbane's Catholic community and with Separation approaching, the Archdiocese of Brisbane was created in 1859. Old St Stephens became a cathedral but its capacity became increasingly inadequate and on 26 December 1863, Archbishop Quinn laid the foundation stone for a new cathedral. In the eleven years it took to finish the new St Stephens Cathedral (QHR 600107), provision was made for extra space in the old church. A wooden annexe was built onto the northern frontage and extra doorways were cut in the stone wall on this side. Inadequate accommodation was not the only problem, for the soft sandstone was crumbling, particularly that of the little belfry which had to be dismantled at some time before 1875. A temporary wooden belfry was erected to a design by architect AB Wilson in 1888.
After the consecration of the new cathedral in 1874, the old church was used as a school by the Christian Brothers until they moved to their new site at Gregory Terrace in 1880. The Sisters of Mercy then conducted a school in the old church building until the permanent St Stephens School (QHR 600106) was opened in 1892. Since that time the building has been variously used as a storeroom, offices, display space, meeting area and choir practice room.
Bibliography
Andrews, Brian. 'St Stephen's Church, Brisbane, Queensland', essay for the Pugin Foundation viewed at http://www.puginfoundation.org/buildings/ on 21 August 2013.
","criteria":"Old St Stephens Church is significant as the oldest surviving church building in Brisbane and provides evidence of construction techniques used in Brisbane in the 1840s.
|(Criterion under review)
|Old St Stephens Church is significant as the oldest surviving church building in Brisbane and provides evidence of construction techniques used in Brisbane in the 1840s.
Old St Stephens Church is an excellent example of a small stone English Gothic Revival church and is significant as an example of the first churches erected in Brisbane with permanence in mind.
|Old St Stephen's Church is significant as part of a group of prominent ecclesiastical buildings of which this is the earliest component.
|Old St Stephens Church is important for its association with a religious group of significance in the early settlement of Brisbane. The Church is continues to be a building held in high esteem by both the Catholic community and the general public.
|Old St Stephens Church is significant as an example of the work of a prominent early builder, Andrew Petrie and as the product of a design attributed to renowned British architect, AWN Pugin.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14886,"place_ref":600111,"name":"Family Services Building","alternate_name":"Queensland Government Savings Bank | Queensland Government Insurance Building | Former Administration Building","street_address":"171 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building situated at the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets consists of eight storeys, a basement and rooms on the roof level. The structure, a concrete encased steel frame with brick infill and reinforced concrete floors, is faced on the two street facades with Helidon sandstone sitting on a granite base. The northeast and southeast elevations are constructed of brick with reinforced concrete heads and sills.
The building which overlooks Queens Gardens (600112) to the southwest forms part of the group of important government buildings, including the Lands Administration Building (600123), the Treasury Building (600143) and the former State Library (600177), which surround the park.
The Elizabeth and George Street facades are divided vertically, by projecting stone cornices, into three parts. These are a podium level consisting of the double height ground floor and the first level of offices, a five storeyed middle section and the top floor of the building surmounted by a parapet wall. At the corners of the street elevations pavilions, distinguished by banded rustication, extend from the ground floor to the parapet. The podium level is also marked by banded rustication. In the centre of the George Street elevation on the podium level is an arched open-bed semicircular pediment supporting a sculpture group that consists of two figures on either side of a shield. The division between the middle and top section of the George Street elevation is embellished by an open-topped semicircular pediment. Steel windows frames and sashes are used throughout the building. Pavement lights are located adjacent to the arched basement windows of the Elizabeth Street elevation.
Public entrances are located on the ground floor of the three corner pavilions. The entrance on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets leads into the former banking chamber. The George Street entrance and the Elizabeth Street entrance give access to the office levels.
The Elizabeth street entry opens onto a vestibule which has walls and columns finished in pink, grey and black marble arranged in rectilinear patterns, marble steps, a terrazzo floor and an enriched plaster ceiling, cornice and frieze. The lift enclosure has been paint finished to match the marble walls. The doors leading to the banking chamber have been replaced by a fire door. A fire door at the rear of the vestibule leads to a large square planned reinforced concrete staircase with an ornamental wrought iron balustrade and cedar handrail. The walls above the staircase are lined to dado height with large glazed green tiles. The stairwell, illuminated by a large roof lantern and arched windows, has been converted to a fire isolated exit separated from the office space. A smaller staircase, with similar but less ornate details, is located in the eastern corner of the building and opens onto the banking chamber.
The George Street entry vestibule, once identical to the Elizabeth Street vestibule, is fitted with varnished maple panelling, a suspended vermiculite ceiling and two lifts. Original glass and timber doors between the vestibule and the banking chamber are all that remain of the original fittings.
Two arched stone doorways on the George and Elizabeth Streets corner lead to a mosaic tiled vestibule with a domed plaster ceiling and a timber panelled screen wall enriched with carving and pilasters. Built into the screen are two sets of timber and glass double doors that open onto the former banking chamber. This grand double height room is now obscured by two levels of offices that have been built into the space. The lower section of the walls is lined with carved timber panelling while the rendered upper section is embellished with delicate plaster detailing. Ionic columns and pilasters support a richly ornamented plaster ceiling.
All the office floors, from the first floor to the top floor, are similar. An open plan with large columns is divided by modern office partitioning and suspended ceilings conceal the original ceilings. Heavily reinforced concrete strong rooms and safes are located in the basement with smaller strong rooms on each floor. The lightwell, on the southeast side of the building, contains steel fire escape stairs and steel and concrete walkways. A brick and concrete extension accessed from the walkway has been built into the lightwell and the large windows to the banking chamber and offices have been bricked in. Former photographic rooms, the staircase lantern, toilets, stores, elevator and plant enclosures, are located on the flat roof of the building.
The exterior of the building is intact. The interior while apparently much altered retains many original features, both visible and obscured.
","history":"Brisbane's first high-rise government office building was constructed between 1914 and 1922. It was intended partly as general public offices, but more importantly as state headquarters for the enormously successful Queensland Government Savings Bank, established in 1864.
Bank headquarters had occupied a purpose-designed banking chamber and offices in the second wing of the Treasury Building from early 1893. By 1912 these premises were no longer adequate. In consequence, the state government decided to construct a separate and substantial building on the opposite corner of George and Elizabeth Streets, as new bank headquarters.
George Gerald Hutton, assistant architect in the government architect's office from 1913-22, is credited with the design.
It is likely Hutton also designed the sculpture, representing commerce and industry, on the George Street elevation. This and the royal coat of arms on the George-Elizabeth Street corner were carved in 1920 by Sydney sculptor WP MacIntosh, who had carved an allegorical sculpture for the Executive Building (QHR 600123) in 1903-04. The shields of the parapet were carved by local masons under MacIntosh's supervision.
Site excavation and the concrete foundations were completed in 1913-14, at a cost of £6,149. In 1914 the contract for the superstructure was let for £113,567, and construction commenced that year. A shortage of structural steel prolonged the work, and completion took close to eight years.
Before the building was finished, the Queensland Labor Government transferred the business and assets of the state bank to the Commonwealth Bank, on 8 December 1920. The nearly completed, purpose-designed Queensland state bank headquarters building was then fitted out for the Queensland Government Insurance Office.
By 1921 the offices had been renamed the Queensland Government Insurance Building. It was completed and fully occupied by mid-1922, with the SGIO occupying the basement, ground, and first to third floors. Other first occupants included the State Land Tax Office, the State Industrial Arbitration Court, the Public Service Commissioner, the Public Curator and the Main Roads Board. Most of these had removed from cramped quarters in the Treasury Building opposite. Accommodated on the roof was the State Time Station's observing room.
From 1925-26 Queensland's first official radio broadcaster, the Queensland Radio Service and station 4QG (Queensland Government), which had been established in July 1925, were located in rooms on the roof of the State Government Insurance Building. This necessitated the installation of large aerials on the roof, which were not removed until after 1945. Both 4QG and the Postmaster General's radio station broadcast from the building during the 1930s. From 1930 to 1932, 4QG was part of Australia's first national radio network, the privately owned Australian Broadcasting Company Ltd. In mid-1932 the licence was transferred to the federal government's newly created Australian Broadcasting Commission.
In 1931 the SGIO removed to other premises and the building was occupied principally by the Land and Income Tax Department. Despite income tax being transferred to federal control c.1943, the office block was known as the Taxation Building until 1962.
In 1947 the original lift and concrete staircase in the George Street vestibule were removed, and replaced with a pair of lifts.
In 1962 the building was occupied by the Co-ordinator-General's Department and renamed the Administration Building. With the new tenancy, the George Street vestibule was refitted and the original lift in the Elizabeth Street vestibule was replaced.
From 1963 to 1984 the Health Department was a principal occupant of the Administration Building. Since 1988 the building has been occupied by Family Services, and takes its name from this department.
In 1990 the Elizabeth Street vestibule was partly refurbished.
","criteria":"The Family Services Building is significant as Queensland's first government high-rise office block, and the most important building constructed by the Queensland government in the second decade of the twentieth century.
|The Family Services Building is significant as an integral member of the most prominent, important and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland. Further, the Family Services Building is significant for its townscape contribution, particularly in relation to the adjacent historic buildings and sites.
Significant as an early use of steel-framed high-rise construction in Queensland, the Family Services Building is also an accomplished building in design, materials and workmanship, which exhibits particularly fine and inventive detailing, and is important for the aesthetic quality of the sculptural work.
|Significant as an early use of steel-framed high-rise construction in Queensland, the Family Services Building is also an accomplished building in design, materials and workmanship, which exhibits particularly fine and inventive detailing, and is important for the aesthetic quality of the sculptural work.
|The Family Services Building is significant as the major work of later Queensland government architect GG Hutton and for its association with government administration for over seven decades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14887,"place_ref":600112,"name":"Queens Gardens","alternate_name":"St Johns Church Reserve | St John's Church Reserve | Executive Gardens","street_address":"144 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Queens Gardens is a public park, square in plan, that is bounded by William, Elizabeth and George Streets on the southwestern, northwestern and northeastern sides and by the Lands Administration Building (600123) on the southeastern edge. Located around the perimeter of the Gardens are a number of important government buildings including the Lands Administration Building, the Treasury Building (600143), the former State Library (600177) and the Family Services Building (600111).
\nThe main elements of the design are: an asphalt area in front of the Lands Administration Building which connects George and William Streets; a diagonal path leading from the northern corner to the centre of the asphalt area; and a large lawn bounded by Elizabeth Street, the diagonal path, the asphalt area and garden beds along William Street. A lily pond, recently rebuilt, is located adjacent to the intersection of the diagonal path and the asphalt area. On the southwestern side of the pond is a converted fountain, now a sandstone and concrete planter box. The diagonal path is emphasised by a row of colvillea trees [colvillea racemosa]. A coral tree [Erythrina spp.] marks the entrance to the park from George Street.
\nWith the exception of specimen trees most of the planting in the park is kept at a low level so as not to divide the space visually. Barriers to movement, if not vision, are created along George Street by a zig-zag hedge [Acalypha] and along William Street by a chain wire fence, hedge and garden bed.
\nAlthough the design of the park is relatively recent, earlier monuments have been incorporated which provide links to the previous form of the site. Two bronze statues on stone pedestals remain in their original locations. A marble slab in the paved area indicates the position of the altar of the former St John's Pro-Cathedral.
\nA statue of Queen Victoria, is centrally positioned on the asphalt area in front of the symmetrical facade of the Lands Administration Building. The diagonal path is terminated by the monument which looks towards the Treasury Building and is framed by two leopard trees [ceasalpinia ferrea]. The bronze statue stands on a pedestal, the upper portion of which is made of brown Helidon sandstone and the lower portion of Enoggera granite. The pedestal is square in form, with chamfered corners and is set on a flight of three granite steps. Directly behind the Queen is a 1915 Krupp gun.
\nThe TJ Ryan statue also stands on a pedestal of Helidon sandstone and Enoggera granite. Separated from the main area of the park by a fence and garden, it is positioned diagonally facing the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets. An ornamental bronze plaque is attached to the pedestal.
\nA recent addition to the park's memorials is a rough hewn block of bluestone with a bronze plaque bolted to it that commemorates the service of Australian women in war. It is located on the southwestern side of the asphalt area between rose beds.
\nTimber and concrete benches are placed along the paths and around the lily pond. The original cast-iron lamp posts on cast-iron pedestals have been relocated along the paths. The planting is dominated by exotic plants with coloured foliage and decorative leaf shape. Many garden beds have plants clipped into geometric patterns.
\nThe Gardens provide a foreground for viewing the principal facades of the Lands Administration Building, the former Library and the Family Services Building, and forms a pleasant aspect for the buildings which overlook it.
","history":"Queens Gardens was established in several stages between 1905 and 1962, on a site which has been associated both with the earliest phase of the penal settlement at Moreton Bay, and with the establishment of the Church of England in Queensland.
During the convict era the engineer's weatherboard cottage stood on part of the site, at the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets. It appears to have been both the first house and the first sawn timber building to be erected in Brisbane Town.
Occupying most of the remainder of the site was a lumber yard, erected c.1825, which contained the engineer's stores and workshops. By 1838 the lumber yard had been moved, and the cottage had been converted into offices. The section of the present park along George Street was part of the chaplain's garden from 1840 at least.
In 1848 the site was acquired by the Church of England. A parsonage was constructed at the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets in 1850-51, and St John's Church was erected on the site, further along William Street, in 1850-54. In 1868 it was extended. A detached bell tower was erected in 1877, and in 1879-80 a building which served as church school, synod hall, library and committee rooms was built in the eastern corner of the site.
In the 1880s the Church proclaimed the square a future cathedral site, and a new Church Institute and Synod Hall was erected in the northern corner of the square in 1897.
Following church protests at the 1899 announcement of plans to erect a new lands and survey building adjacent to the pro-cathedral, the government offered to purchase the church square, and acquired it the same year.
In 1901 the Church Institute building was occupied by the Police Department and later served as offices for the Criminal Investigation Branch.
In 1904 the pro-cathedral, belltower, church school and parsonage were demolished and a 0.25 hectare, 30 metre wide strip between William and George Streets, adjacent to the new Executive Building, was proclaimed as the Executive Gardens.
A bronze statue of Queen Victoria, a replica by English sculptor Thomas Brock of the original in Portsmouth, was erected in mid-1906. The purchase was arranged by local artist Godfrey Rivers, and was funded by public subscription and subsidies from state and local government. The pedestal was designed by the Public Works Department and crafted by local stonemason William Kitchen, at a cost of £567.
The statue was an expression of Queensland's loyalty to the British Empire. On Empire Day veterans from the Crimean, Sudan and South African wars gathered in what became known as the Queens Gardens, which became also an assembly point for state occasions such as funeral or celebratory processions. The monument remains the only statue of Queen Victoria in Brisbane.
In late 1906 the reserve was extended to an area of 0.37 hectares, with the inclusion of the site of the former parsonage.
In 1917 a Krupp 77mm field gun, captured from the German army in France in 1915, was placed in the gardens. It was a gift from King George V, at the request of Thomas Joseph Ryan, lawyer, anti-conscriptionist and Queensland Labor Premier 1915-1919.
A bronze statue of TJ Ryan, designed by Australian sculptor Bertram MacKennal and erected by public subscription, was unveiled in the gardens in 1925. The sandstone base was provided by the Brisbane City Council.
In 1962 the CIB building at the northern corner of the site was demolished and the park was extended to occupy the entire square, with a total area of 0.48 hectares. A new layout for the gardens was prepared as a joint state and local government scheme in preparation for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Brisbane in March 1963. Brisbane City Council landscape architect, horticulturalist and author, Harry Oakman, was responsible for the design and landscaping, and architectural detailing was undertaken by Department of Works architect Graham De Gruchy.
In 1990 the Queensland Service Women's Association erected a Monument of Memories in the park, honouring the 70,000 service women.
","criteria":"Queens Gardens are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, particularly in the evolution of the site from convict administration use to the centre of Anglicanism in Queensland to public park and focus for Queensland's most important government precinct. Queens Gardens also demonstrate the historic and governmental associations of the Queen Victoria and TJ Ryan statues.
|The site is significant for its potential to reveal substrata evidence of building materials and artefacts from the 1820s, which could contribute to an understanding of the early European settlement of Queensland.
|The present garden layout is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the work of influential landscape architect Harry Oakman, and is one of the most intact of his works surviving in Brisbane.
|The gardens, together with the Queen Victoria and TJ Ryan statues, exhibit landscape and aesthetic qualities, and a townscape contribution as the integrating core of a remarkably fine group of public buildings, which are valued by the community.
|The site has a special association with the Anglican Church and its early history in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14888,"place_ref":600113,"name":"Queensland Club","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"19 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Queensland Club, located on the corner of Alice and George Streets diagonally opposite Parliament House, is a three storey rendered brick building incorporating Italianate elements.
The building is a broad 'H'-shape in plan form, with its long elevation to Alice Street and one side to George Street. The main entry is in the central part of the building beneath a deep porch. There are verandahs on two levels across the front and down the side of each wing. These are supported by Tuscan columns on the ground floor and slender Corinthian cast iron columns on the first floor. The balustrades on both levels are of decorative cast ironwork.
At the end of each wing is a projecting bay window on the ground and first floor level with open balustrade above. Quoins punctuate the corners of the building and there are banded piers on either side of the entry. Above the third level the building has an open parapet and large ornate urns at the corner of each wing. A classical pediment topped by a finial is located above the entry.
The main entry has a large semi-circular fan-light. On the ground floor the windows are double hung sashes and on the first floor french-lights. The grounds contain mature trees and tennis court.
The spacious entrance hall has a staircase with cast iron balustrading. The ground floor contains large and lofty reception rooms and a dining room in the northern wing. The joinery is of cedar with restrained plasterwork mostly original. The upper floors contain guest rooms.
Both street frontages are fenced with a low rendered masonry retaining wall with square piers and cast iron balustrade infill. The Alice Street main entrance features an ogee shaped cast iron arch with a central light fitting and swing gates. A section of the George Street carpark is bounded by a wire fence and a large fig tree is located in the Alice and George Street corner garden.
","history":"The Queensland Club building was constructed between 1882-84. The club was established in December 1859 following the apparent success of the North Australian Club in Ipswich, and coinciding with the establishment of Queensland as a separate colony. Adopting the British tradition of private clubs for influential members of the community, it provided a recreational venue and accommodation for men of common interests and socio-economic backgrounds. Membership was largely comprised of pastoralists, politicians, business and professional men.
The club met initially in small premises in Mary Street. As membership increased, a larger venue was required and in 1881 the club purchased three allotments on the corner of George and Alice Streets, which was known as Hodgsons Corner. FDG Stanley, a member of the club, was appointed architect.
The proximity to the seat of government made it an appropriate locale for the new club premises. Stanley's plans were modified by the members and finally approved in March 1882. The contractor was J Smith and Sons and the contract sum was £14,150.
The building was opened in June 1884 and contained 41 members' bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a clubroom, dining room, billiard room, smoking room, visitors room, offices and the necessary kitchens, servants rooms and toilets, providing a 'home away from home' for society's male elite.
In September 1888 the club purchased the adjoining site in Alice Street for £4,000, and stables, laundry and a bottle house were erected. Three years later these buildings were demolished and a bowling green established. The green remained mostly unused and in 1900, it was converted to a tennis court.
In 1985 a fire caused damage to the club premises and changes to the room layout of the upper floor bedrooms were carried out in conjunction with the repair work. Minor renovations were undertaken during 1990-91.
","criteria":"The Queensland Club is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as an example of the transposition of a British, class oriented gentlemen's club, to Brisbane Society.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a nineteenth century purpose built, exclusive mens' club based on British tradition.
|The Queensland Club exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community through its contribution to the streetscape at Alice and George Streets, and to Parliament House and the Botanic Gardens.
|The Queensland Club is significant for its special association with the work of architect FDG Stanley, a member of the Queensland Club.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14889,"place_ref":600114,"name":"Government Printing Office (former)","alternate_name":"Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (110 George Street) | Public Services Club (84 William Street) | Sciencentre (110 George Street) | The Printing Building | Former Government Printing Office","street_address":"110 George Street and 84 William Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Government Printing Office is sited within an important precinct of substantial masonry buildings built for other government uses. It comprises two separate buildings: one facing William Street, the other facing George Street, with a paved courtyard between. The buildings have noticeably robust structural systems and open floor plans lit by many large windows. Stephens Lane (easement not road reserve) runs along the north-western side and, together with a cart lane (access route not road reserve) adjacent to the south-eastern elevation of the William Street building, provides access to the courtyard. The fronts of the buildings are more decorative than the rear and side elevations.
The William Street building, located on the corner of William Street and Stephens Lane, is a three-storeyed building with a steeply-pitched mansard roof clad with slate on the steep portion and rib and pan galvanised steel sheets on the shallow remainder. It is L-shaped, comprising a William Street wing and a rear wing around a fenced, paved rear courtyard accessible from the courtyard. The roof has a clerestory of narrow, amber-coloured, fixed glazing at the change in pitch and lengths of cast iron ridge cresting. The building has a rusticated sandstone plinth and brick walls. The front and side walls are face brick while the rear walls are painted with areas of render where extensions have been demolished. Two brick chimneys with distinctive shaped cappings are located at the Stephens Lane end of the building.
The William Street facade is primarily symmetrical with a ground floor colonnade of five pointed arches between two slightly projecting bays. Blind circular openings are located in the infills between each arch. The colonnade is reached via central stone stairs. Five sets of horizontal-pivot timber sash windows align with the five arches of the colonnade. The entry is asymmetrical and located at the Stephens Lane end of the colonnade. The two end bays have stop-chamfered corners to the ground and first floors which are rendered and painted. Engaged columns capped with foliated convex elements are located within the stop chamfers. Each end bay has a centrally located segmental arch which surrounds a rendered section containing two lancet-type windows with semi-circular heads. The first floor levels have three similarly styled windows, symmetrically placed, and the second floor levels have larger scale windows which project above the eaves line and have curved pediments. A variety of bonds make up the brickwork, including English, Flemish, and English Garden Wall. The bricks of the William Street wing are discernibly better quality than those of the rear wing and have struck or ruled pointing. Carved sandstone brackets line the eaves.
The Stephens Lane elevation is similar in detail to the front elevation, with rendered arches containing multiple lancet-type windows at ground floor level and a concave corrugated iron awning over the first floor windows. The string courses of the front elevation continue around this elevation.
The south-eastern cart lane is paved and the bricks on this face of the building are heavily scored and scratched from the passing of vehicles.
The rear elevations are less decorative. A combination of arched and rectangular windows is used on all levels and a number of windows and doors at the rear of the building have been bricked in. A partially enclosed timber verandah is located on the north-west elevation of the rear wing. The courtyard garden is formed by modern steel partitions to enclose an outdoor seating area.
The building is structurally composite. The entire ground floor is concrete slab with a crawl space underneath the William Street wing and a small basement under the rear wing that connects to the underground car park behind the building. The remaining floors of the William Street are timber and those of the rear wing are concrete. The services including lifts, stairs, kitchens, cold rooms and toilets are located in the rear wing and are not of cultural heritage significance. The William Street wing comprises predominantly open spaces.
The building has a rear entry into the rear wing that has become the main entrance. The ground and first floor levels of the William Street wing are similar in design, with original joinery, iron columns, and exposed rafters and beams. Walls are rendered and painted. The William Street wing is partitioned on ground level into three rooms, each with a fireplace. The rooms retain finely detailed joinery and ceilings are beaded tong and groove timber board ceilings with timber mouldings. Generally, the building retains early and original door and window hardware.
The second floor of the William Street wing is notable for its exposed roof structure comprising multiple sets of Queens post trusses with unusual tusk tenon detailing and rafters. Members are stop-chamfered. The ceiling comprises beaded boarding laid diagonally and is raked to follow the mansard roof. The roof members and ceiling are stained dark brown. The amber-coloured glass in the clerestory is also used in the top of windows to William Street and Stephens Lane. The walls are bagged and painted brick. Elements not of cultural heritage significance in the building include: post-1983 elements such as the basement, the escape stair at the junction of the two wings, the partitions and suspended ceilings in the rear wing, any replica cast iron columns not in their original positions, steel strengthening of the roof framing, the rear verandahs, reconstructed chimney sections, air conditioning ducts, and the modern fit-out and joinery.
The George Street building is a substantial brick building of three storeys and a partial basement forming an L-shape around a rear courtyard. One wing of the building fronts George Street and the other fronts Stephens Lane and both have slightly different structural systems. The George Street wing has timber floor and roof framing supported by large timber columns with timber bolsters. The Stephens Lane wing has a concrete floor to the ground floor and timber floor and roof framing supported by cast iron columns.
The George Street facade is symmetrically composed around a central, slightly projecting entrance bay with wings both side terminating in a pavilion. It is in a Classical Revival style. The facade is primarily smooth rendered above a rusticated porphyry base and the entrance bay and two subsidiary entrances are sandstone. The facade comprises many square headed windows with square-formed string courses. Decorative features are primarily restricted to the ground floor and include rendered details and carved stonework.
The entrance bay has a rusticated base of granite and an arch leads to an inset porch with stairs up to the entrance doors. These doors are timber with stained glass panels and side lights depicting various printing techniques. Above the arch is a relief carved devil's face and banners with the words PRINTING OFFICE and the date 1910. A large entablature separates the ground level from the upper two levels which have double pilasters rising through both levels on either side of windows. The pilasters have Ionic order capitals with the faces of devils between the volutes and the two sets of windows are double hung and have balustrades in front of them. The pilasters support a broken-bed pediment with relief carving to the tympanum featuring the Queensland Coat of Arms. Above the pediment is a parapet with pedestals at either end supporting sculpted stone devils holding shields bearing the printer's emblem.
The Stephens Lane and rear elevations reflect the subsidiary and functional nature of the lane frontage and ‘back of house' conditions. A lightly rusticated porphyry base supports painted brick walls with many square headed windows. The rear elevations of the two wings are face brick but of discernibly different bricks on either wing. The Stephens Lane wing has dark brown face brick laid in English bond with segmental arches of red brick over the windows. The windows are two paned casement windows and the sills are either painted stone or rendered. The ground level is an arcade of arched openings forming a covered walkway with a glazed wall forming the enclosure to the interior offices.
The rear elevation of the George Street wing is in red face brick in an English bond with lighter red brick headers. The windows are two paned double hung timber sashes with stone sills. The first and second floors have a balcony that extends the length of the building and curves to provide access into the Stephens Lane wing. It has a cast iron handrail and is supported by cast iron brackets. The same brackets support the extended eaves to the second level.
Access to the George Street wing is from the rear courtyard. The original entrance from George Street is sealed and a new glass partition and door of recent construction are located directly in front of these internally. The interior spaces are large with high ceilings. The Stephens Lane wing has timber tongue and groove ceilings and the George Street wing has ripple iron ceilings on the ground and first floors and timber boards on the second floor. Walls are either plastered and painted, or sandblasted brick. The building has four ventilated and glazed roof lanterns; three in the Stephens Lane wing and one large one in the George Street wing.
To either side of the now-disused George Street entrance are offices with partitions of French polished silky oak and maple and clear glazing above. The main doors into these areas also have stained glass panels and the remainder have etched glass panels with lettering designating the office use. Ceilings and cornices in these areas are pressed metal. Post-1983 elements not of cultural heritage significance include: reconstructed walls at the south end of the Stephens Lane wing and the east end of the George Street wing, the link to the Executive Annex, modern partitions and fit-out, and new work in the basement.
The courtyard between the two buildings is planted with jacarandas and forms the roof of a four storey underground concrete car park which is not of cultural heritage significance. Other elements within the cultural heritage boundary which have no cultural heritage significance include the stone capping to the wall along Stephens Lane; the modern fabric of the courtyard garden of the Public Services Club, on the site of the 1865 building; the light well to the basement of the George Street wing; and vents to the underground car park. Adjacent to the William Street building and also fronting William Street is the Executive Annexe, a four-storey concrete building that is not of cultural heritage significance.
For further information regarding the fabric of the former Government Printing Office refer to:
Miles, J and McCulloch, T, Project Services. November 2006. Conservation Plan for the Public Services Club, William Street Brisbane. For the Accommodation Office, Queensland Department of Public Works.
Project Services, June 2010. Former Government Printing Office: a conservation plan for 110 George Street and the Public Services Club, Brisbane. For the Accommodation Office, Queensland Department of Public Works.
","history":"The Queensland Government Printing Office (former) was located between George Street and William Street, south-east of Stephens Lane, between 1862 and 1983, and consisted of a number of buildings. As the first purpose-built government printing office in Queensland, the Government Printing Office played an important role in administration of the colony and then the state of Queensland. The former Government Printing Office complex, which demonstrates the quality and evolving styles of the work of the Colonial/Government Architect's Office between the 1870s and the 1910s, currently consists of two buildings, built over three different periods: a three storey brick building facing William Street constructed 1872-74; a three storey brick building erected along Stephens Lane between 1884-87; and a three storey brick extension to the Stephens Lane building, constructed along George Street between 1910-12.
\nA government printing office was required in Queensland after separation in 1859 when the establishment of the new Colonial Government generated a need for the printing of Hansard, the official report of the proceedings of the Houses of Parliament. Many other items were also printed on the premises, including postage stamps, Government Gazettes, Acts of Parliament, annual reports of departments, survey maps, text books, electoral rolls, school readers, and banknotes.
\nThe dissemination of Hansard and other government information to the public is vital to the healthy operation of a democracy, ensuring that the business of parliament is accessible to all, and facilitating transparency regarding government decisions. The printing office was therefore integral to the operation of the Queensland Government - and its importance was reflected by its proximity to Parliament, the quality and scale of the printing office buildings, and the quality of the documents produced.
\nThe Queensland Government Gazette was first printed by Theophilus Pugh, publisher of the Moreton Bay Courier. Pugh was replaced by William C Belbridge of the Queensland Guardian, who became the first official Government Printer by March 1862.[1] That year the first purpose-designed government printing office in Queensland, a two storey timber building (not extant) designed by Queensland's first Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin, was built facing William Street on a ridge running parallel to both William Street and George Street.
\nSince the 1820s the north bank of the Brisbane River and the adjacent ridgeline has featured a concentration of government and associated activities and uses. This ridge was the site of administration buildings for the Moreton Bay penal settlement, which relocated from Redcliffe to Brisbane, occupying this site from 1825-1839. When the penal settlement closed, the remnant infrastructure was used by surveyors as a basis for the layout for the new town of Brisbane. Set at right angles to the river, the prisoner's barracks determined Queen Street, while the line of buildings along the ridge determined William Street. Streets surveyed parallel to these streets, including George Street, formed Brisbane's rectangular grid.[2] The house and kitchen of the Commandant of the penal settlement stood on land just south-east of the Government Printing Office, until the Commandant's buildings were demolished c.1861.[3]
\nWhile a range of buildings and activities occurred along George and William Streets after Free Settlement began in 1842, the government maintained its dominant presence in the area. At some sites, such as the Commissariat Stores [QHR 600176] and Botanical Gardens [QHR 600067], earlier uses were continued. The establishment phase following the creation of Queensland in 1859 saw the new colonial government reserve land parcels and construct a range of buildings to facilitate its functions. The building of Government House [QHR 600118] and Parliament House [QHR 600069] along the eastern end of the George Street alignment in the 1860s firmly entrenched the physical reality of a government precinct in the area.[4]
\nDue to this government precinct, the Government Printing Office's immediate neighbour to the north-west, the 1851 United Evangelical Church, became a government telegraph office in 1861; hence the naming of ‘Telegraph Lane' between the telegraph office and the printing office. This laneway from William Street to George Street was later renamed Stephens Lane.
\nAs Queensland grew, so did demands on the Government Printing Office. The 1862 timber building was altered in 1863 and 1864, and in 1865 an ‘L' shaped three storey brick and stone building (not extant), also designed by Tiffin, was constructed to the rear (north-east), using day labour.[5] It included an underground cistern with a domed top (location unknown) and was connected to the 1862 building. By 1872 the complex included a small engine room, workshop and stables (none of which are extant) behind the 1865 building. That year James Beal (Government Printer 1867 to 1893) requested a new building to cope with the increased work of the Government Printing Office,[6] and in August 1872 the Secretary for Public Works recommended that Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley prepare a plan.
\nFDG Stanley immigrated to Queensland in 1861 and became one of the most prolific and well known Queensland architects of the late nineteenth century. In 1863 he became a clerk of works in the Office of the Colonial Architect. Upon Tiffin's retirement in 1872, Stanley became Colonial Architect, holding the position until 1881 when he entered private practice.
\nStanley wanted the new building at the Government Printing Office to be constructed with machine-pressed bricks, which were not yet produced in Brisbane. At the time it was reported that he wanted ‘to provide as much accommodation as possible in a plain substantial building, without striving after architectural display. The structure, however...will have really a handsome and imposing appearance'.[7] Tenders were called in October 1872,[8] and the tender of John Petrie, for £4,751 plus £170 for machine pressed bricks and £50 for internal dressing, was accepted. The building included stone footings, brick walls, cast iron airbricks to the understorey and at the ceilings, cast iron columns (ground and first floors, front wing only), and water closets (WCs) and a lift at the end of the rear wing on each floor. The roof was steeply pitched to assist ventilation. Construction was estimated to take six months, but the new office was not completed until 1874, with delays being blamed on a shortage of bricklayers. The machinery was installed and gas lights were fitted by April 1874, and the finished cost was £5331/3/6.[9]
\nThe front (William Street) wing of the new building stood on the site of the 1862 building, which had been demolished in late 1872.[10] The new William Street building had an ‘L' shape and extended onto the (recently repurchased) land previously occupied by the Commandant's residence, wrapping around the south-east side of the 1865 building. It had an arcade to the street frontage of the ground floor, and the roof was covered in Welsh slate to reduce the risk of fire. Narrow rear verandahs were located on the north-west side of the first and second floors of the rear wing. The ground floor included a public counter, offices, newspaper room, and a large publishing room in the front wing, with a store in the rear wing. The first floor consisted of a composing room in the front wing, with a drying room in the rear wing; while the second floor contained a binding room in the front wing and a ruling room in the rear wing. It was connected to the 1865 building, which included a machine printing room on the ground floor, the engraving and lithographic work on the first floor, and machine ruling and book binding on the second floor.[11]
\nIn 1879 the neighbouring telegraph office (former church) was converted into the residence of the Government Printer, and in 1880 the engine room at the rear of the 1865 building was enlarged and the stables were demolished. More land was purchased in 1883, prior to further expansion of the Government Printing Office complex onto land to the south-east. A master plan for the Government Printing Office, drawn in 1884, planned a ‘U' shaped building along Telegraph Lane, George Street, and returning along the south-east side of the complex, wrapping around a new engine room.[12] It also planned a replication of the William Street building on the other side of a ‘cart entrance' from William Street to the engine room, but this never occurred.
\nInstead, between 1884 and 1887 three new buildings were constructed, all by John Petrie: a three storey brick building along Telegraph Lane, with a short elevation to George Street; a two storey brick engine room (not extant) to the south-east; and a two storey brick Lithographic Office (not extant) south-east of the engine room. The 1880 engine room extension to the rear of the 1865 building was demolished around this time.
\nJohn Petrie's tender of £13,043 (initially for a two storey building on Telegraph Lane and the engine room) was accepted in July 1884, plus an extra £8000 in 1885 for the addition of a third storey to the Telegraph Lane building, plus the Lithographic Office.[13] The Telegraph Lane building, which was separated from the 1865 building by a yard, included a basement; a machine room on the ground floor; reading rooms, fount, paper, material and store rooms on first floor; and a composing room on the second floor. The design has been attributed to John James Clark, Colonial Architect from 1883-85.[14] The engine room was completed in late 1885, and housed steam engines and generators which supplied electricity for Queensland's Parliament House from 1886,[15] plus smaller steam engines for powering the Government Printing Office's machinery. The other two new buildings were finished in early 1887.[16]
\nChanges were later also made to the older buildings within the complex, including the addition of four cast iron columns on the first floor of the front wing of the William Street building in 1890; increasing the height of the 1865 building in 1891 to improve ventilation; and lowering the level of William Street in 1892, requiring construction of a concrete plinth to protect the foundations of the William Street building. In 1897 the brick wall between the public office and accountant's office in the William Street building was removed, with the addition of an extra iron column in its place.[17] In 1900 zinc roof sheets on the flatter section of the roof of William Street building were replaced with galvanised rib and pans steel. In 1903 the level of Telegraph Lane, which by now had been renamed Stephens Lane, was lowered. Nearby, in 1901 the neighbouring former church was demolished to allow construction of an Executive Building which later became the Land Administration Building [QHR 600123].
\nThe ongoing development of the city and its wharves downstream from the original convict site meant that George Street had become more important than William Street by this time. A three storey brick extension of the Stephens Lane building along George Street, which became the new ‘front' for the Government Printing Office, was commenced in 1910, while an additional three storey brick extension (not extant) between the Stephens Lane building and the William Street building required the demolition of (with possible incorporation of parts of) the 1865 brick building. The George Street wing was built by Thomas Hiron, who tendered £21,450, while the Stephens Lane infill building was constructed by J Maskrey, who tendered £2896.[18] The George Street wing was finished around mid 1912.
\nThe 1910 plans for the George Street wing were signed by AB Brady, Government Architect, and by Andrew Irving, acting deputy Government Architect, while 1911 plans are signed by Thomas Pye, Deputy Government Architect. However, the design of the George Street wing has been attributed to Edwin Evan Smith, a draughtsman who had assisted Thomas Pye with the design of the Executive Building, and who later became the State Government Architect for Victoria.[19] Smith, also a painter, potter and sculptor, and an examiner in modelling for the Brisbane Technical College, designed the sculptures on the building. These include two freestanding devils on the parapet above the main entrance and a relief carved devil's head, directly above the entrance. Traditionally, devils are a symbol of the printing trade, generally accepted as representing printer's apprentices.[20]
\nThese details were sculpted by well known Sydney sculptor, William P Macintosh who arrived in Sydney from Edinburgh in 1880 and from 1890 was Sydney's leading architectural sculptor. He received many commissions in New South Wales; his major work being the Queen Victoria Markets. Macintosh arrived in Brisbane in 1903 to complete his major Queensland work, the Executive Building, and was also responsible for the sculptural details on the former Government Savings Bank.[21]
\nThe George Street wing connected with both the 1887 Stephens Lane building and the 1887 Lithographic Office, forming a ‘U' around the engine room. It was symmetrical, with the main entrance in the centre and secondary entrances and stair halls either side of the central section. There was an electric lift adjacent to each stair hall, and a basement. Whereas the roof of the Stephens Lane wing was supported on timber queen bolt trusses, the George Street wing used timber queen post trusses; and while cast iron columns had been used to support the main floor beams in the Stephens Lane wing, hardwood columns were used in the George Street wing.[22] It appears that the new building was considered a model for Government Printing Offices, as the South Australian Government Printer requested copies of the plan to assist in the design and extension of the Adelaide Printery building.[23]
\nTwo storeys were also added to the engine room c.1910, and its use appears to have changed at this time to include a Sterro Room and workshop on the ground floor; men's and women's clubs, dining rooms and lavatories on the first floor; reading rooms on the second floor; and lavatories and toilets on the third floor.[24]
\nIn 1910 plans the George Street wing's basement included stock rooms and a strong room; the ground floor (from the south-east to the north-west) contained an extension to the lithographic room (from the adjacent Lithographic Office), dispatch room, offices and a public counter; while the first floor contained another extension to the lithographic room plus bookbinding (an extension to the Stephens Lane wing's bookbinding floor). The second floor was used by compositors, in an extension of the function of the second floor of the Stephens Lane wing.
\nBy this time the William Street building had been reduced to secondary or service functions, including printing of railway tickets. The ground floor was a store, the first floor was used as a machine ruling room, and the second floor was the artists and process workroom. Around this time new windows were inserted to the top floor and new dormers were added to the roof (all since removed), and the toilets and lift at the end of the rear wing were demolished. From the end of the first floor rear verandah, a gallery ran to the former engine room and the Lithographic Office.[25]
\nIn 1912 electricity was connected to all buildings on the site by the Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company Ltd. Various other improvements were made to the building over the years, including strengthening of the floors and installation of fire sprinklers.[26] By 1916 there were three small, one-storey buildings (stores and a workshop, not extant) in the corner of the complex, located between the William Street building and the Lithographic Office. Soon afterwards, the importance of the Government Printing Office in disseminating information to the public was demonstrated. In November 1917 the Australian military conducted a night raid on the Government Printing Office to seize copies of Hansard which the Federal Government did not wish circulated, as they covered debates in the Queensland Parliament on military censorship and the conscription issue. The military also temporarily took possession of the Government Printing Office in August 1918, this time to prevent coverage of statements made in the Queensland Parliament about the treatment of Irish and German internees.[27]
\nChanges to the site continued before and after World War II. In 1924 some of the roof slates of the William Street building were replaced with iron sheets, and more were replaced in 1933.[28] In 1952 toilets were built at the rear of William Street building, and in 1959 the Lithographic Office was extended towards the engine room and a concrete floor was laid to most of the ground floor of the Stephens Lane wing. In 1970 a new metal-clad building (not extant) was constructed south-west of the Lithographic Office, demolishing the c.1916 workshop.[29]
\nMeanwhile, the immediate post-war years of the late 1940s saw the Queensland Government begin to expand their activities considerably in Brisbane city. Most public servants were then located in the Treasury and Executive Buildings in George Street and in offices in Anzac Square. The shortage of office accommodation in the centre of Brisbane, and the need to address future requirements, led to a phase of governmental property acquisition in the city. The purchase of properties on George and William Streets between the Government Printing Office and Parliament House was a key focus, in addition to other acquisitions on Charlotte, Mary and Margaret Streets.
\nThe consolidation of government ownership and usage along George and William streets led to a number of schemes being investigated by the state to further the development of a ‘government precinct'. By 1965, a masterplan had been developed that involved the demolition of all buildings between the old Executive Building and Parliament House, to enable the construction of three high-rise office buildings in a ‘plaza setting'. However, only one of these was built - between 1968 and 1971 a new Executive Building was constructed south-east of the Government Printing Office.[30] By the early 1970s the 1960s plan for the precinct was considered no longer suitable and a number of other proposals for the area were explored.[31]
\nA 1974 ‘George Street Masterplan' involved lower-rise buildings spread out over greater areas and the demolition of the Belle Vue Hotel and the Mansions [QHR 600119]. A major influence in ultimately shaping the layout of the area during the 1970s was the growing community support for the retention of older buildings within the government precinct, especially the Belle Vue Hotel and the Mansions. Spearheaded by the National Trust, the government-related associations and links between buildings, their architectural qualities, and aesthetic contributions to the area were highlighted in submissions to the government and in the public sphere. The unannounced June 1974 removal of the balconies of the Belle Vue Hotel was a deliberate action by the State government to degrade the visual appearance of the area, and drew further attention to the conservation cause.[32]
\nIn April 1979 Cabinet adopted a recommendation for a schedule of demolition work to further the development of the government precinct. The Belle Vue Hotel was to be demolished, but the Mansions and the original section of Harris Terrace [QHR 600121] were to be retained, renovated and adapted. On 21 April, three days after this decision, the Belle Vue Hotel was demolished in the early hours of the morning, a notorious event in the history of heritage conservation in Queensland.[33]
\nThe Government Printing Office moved to new premises in Woolloongabba in October 1983, and a number of former Government Printing Office buildings were demolished in 1986-87 to make way for a four storey Executive Annex, connected to the 1971 Executive Building, and a four-level underground car park. The Lithographic Office, former engine room, the two remaining c.1916 buildings, the 1970s building, the toilets at the rear of the William Street building and the Stephens Lane infill building were demolished. The construction of the car park under the site of the engine room and up to the south-east side and rear of the rear wing of the William Street building removed the remaining archaeological traces of the Commandant's cottage and kitchen with cellar, although the material was recorded by staff from the Queensland Museum.[34] The Commandant's cottage and kitchen wing are defined in outline by contrasting coloured bricks and sandstone in the new paving laid in 1987. The remaining section of the Commandant's cottage would have been under the footprint of the rear wing of the William Street building, but construction of a small basement (c.1987) of reinforced concrete beneath the rear wing would have destroyed any surviving material.
\nIn 1989 the Queensland Museum Sciencentre moved into the William Street building, and prior restoration and renovation work undertaken in 1986-88 included: the demolition of non-original dormer windows and restoration of the clerestory, reconstruction of the roof framing and replacement of the corrugated iron roofing with slate and galvanised steel sheeting, and reconstruction of the rear verandah. Removal, reconstruction or restoration of doors and windows took place, and some external openings were sealed, while some new windows and doors were inserted. The existing ground floor slab and flooring was replaced, along with sections of the front wing's timber flooring on the first and second floors. The rear wing's floors were replaced with reinforced concrete suspended slabs. Other strengthening of floors utilised steel beams and trusses, and all casements were replaced as pivot windows.[35]
\nThe George Street/Stephens Lane building was renovated between 1987 and 1991 with work including: replacement roof sheeting, the formation of new walls where the Stephens Lane infill building and Lithographic Office had been demolished, construction of a glass-walled arcade on the south-east wall of the Stephens Lane wing, a tiered theatre at the south-east end of the second floor of the George Street wing, removal of the original lifts in the George Street wing and installation of two new lifts and toilets at the George Street end of the Stephens Lane wing, a new stairwell at the south-west end of the Stephens Lane wing, plus a light court extension from the basement to the courtyard and a link from the basement to the underground car park.[36]
\nThe Sciencentre moved from the William Street building into the George Street/ Stephens Lane building in 1992, from where it operated until 2002. In 1993 the William Street building's interior was remodelled for commercial use as the Public Services Club, and in 2005-6 the George Street wing was refurbished for use by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, with a complete new fit-out and closure of the main entrance. [37]
","criteria":"The Queensland Government Printing Office (former) was the first purpose-built government printery in Queensland and operated on the site from 1862 to 1983, playing an essential part in the administration of Queensland for 121 years. The dissemination of Hansard and other government information is an important part of democracy, promoting public access to parliamentary debate and facilitating transparency regarding government decisions. The expansion of the site and addition of new buildings over time was a result of the growth of the Queensland Government and its functions.
As part of a government precinct that has existed since 1825, the place helps to demonstrate the early importance of this part of Brisbane to the administration of the Moreton Bay penal settlement and later the colony and state of Queensland. The proximity of the printing office to Parliament is also a reflection of its important role in government.
The former Government Printing Office buildings fit within a pattern of substantial, well designed masonry buildings constructed to the designs of colonial and government architects. The structures show an adaption to Queensland's climate and the increased availability of materials and skills over time, including improvements in brick manufacturing processes. The designs of the constituent buildings also demonstrate the increased ambitiousness of the projects of the Colonial/Government Architect's Office between the 1870s and the 1910s.
The survival of the main Government Printing Office buildings, despite 1960s plans for the demolition of the complex, demonstrates how increased public concern about the preservation of heritage buildings influenced government redevelopment plans during the 1970s and 1980s.
|The Queensland Government Printing Office (former) was the only government printing office in Queensland from 1862 to 1983.
|Located within a government precinct, the buildings of the Government Printing Office (former) continue to demonstrate the principal characteristics of a nineteenth/early twentieth century printing office. The interiors have good natural lighting and ventilation and are plain and robust compared to the more elaborate street appearance. The buildings feature smaller, more finely detailed administration areas supporting large production areas and substantial structural framing provides unobstructed floor areas and allows for heavy floor loadings. Access to the rear of the buildings was provided, at different times, via Stephens Lane and the cart lane south-east of the Williams Street building.
The use of brick walls, as well as the use of slate on the William Street building's roof, demonstrates the precautions taken against the threat of fire, while the skylights on the top floor of the Stephens Lane/George Street building demonstrates the compositors' need for good natural light.
The carved Queensland crest, printers' devils, and leaded stained glass with images of the printing process on the George Street wing are also indications of the place's former status and use. At the time of construction, the design of the 1910-12 George Street wing was considered to be a model for other state printing offices.
The William Street building is a good example of the work of the Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, while the George Street wing of the Government Printing Office is an excellent example of the work of Edwin Evan Smith, a draughtsman in the Government Architect's Office, and the Sydney sculptor William P Macintosh.
|The Government Printing Office (former) is an integral part of the most prominent and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland. A major landmark in the city of Brisbane, together with the former Treasury Building [QHR 600143], former Land Administration Building [QHR 600123], and Queens Gardens [QHR 600112] situated between William and George Streets, the Government Printing Office (former) contributes to both streetscapes. Other buildings in the group include the State Library (former) [QHR 600177], Commissariat Stores (former) [QHR 600176] and the Department of Primary Industries Building (former) [QHR 601093] on William Street; and the former Family Services Building [QHR 600111] on George Street. Unified by quality design, materials, form, finish and workmanship, this group of visually cohesive buildings dominate the southern edge of the central business district, adjacent to the north bank of the Brisbane River. The view down, and access along, Stephens Lane enhances the visual appreciation of the former Government Printing Office and former Land Administration Building.
The buildings within the complex display a high degree of design and workmanship internally and externally. The 1872-74 William Street building is differentiated within the precinct by its distinctively steeply pitched roof form, awnings, arcade and dark face-brickwork skilfully relieved with stone detailing. The 1887 Stephens Lane building and its 1910-12 George Street wing share a uniformity and convention in scale symmetry and classical detailing with the other George Street government buildings. The detailing of the George Street entrance with sculpted stone printers' devils over the entry is of particular aesthetic value.
|The site has a long and close association with the Government Printing Office, a department which played an important role in the administration of Queensland through its dissemination of government information to the public.
|The place has the potential to reveal information that will contribute to our understanding of Queensland's history. There is the potential for sub-surface material to survive relating to the first printing office (1862), particularly the foundations, as well as material relating to the 1865 building, including an underground cistern and associated stables.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14890,"place_ref":600115,"name":"Treasury Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"175 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-11-04","description":"The Treasury Hotel, located on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets, is a three storey building with basement. It contains classical detailing, as do other nearby prominent buildings including the Treasury Building [600143] and Treasury Chambers [600116].
Typical of many hotels, it is located on a corner site and has a truncated corner that originally contained the entry. The hotel was originally L-shaped and an arched carriageway in George Street gave access to the rear of the building. This rear courtyard has been built in and is now part of the hotel.
On the main facades, there is a decorative string course above the first floor verandah roof. The windows on the second floor have moulded bracketed sills and decorative pediments. Above this are regularly spaced paired brackets supporting a cornice, surmounted by a parapet. Pedestals carrying urns divide the parapet into sections, some of which contain balustrading, while others are solid with the title 'TREASURY HOTEL' in raised lettering. On the centre of the parapet of the Elizabeth Street facade is a pediment. A similar pediment crowns the corner and has a flagpole located behind it.
The ground floor below a street awning has been modified and covered in modern brickwork. The upper two storeys retain much of the original detail but some of this is obscured by modern sun hoods and a altered first floor verandah which has raked posts. Some herring-bone strutting is situated between the joists of the structure spanning the laneway off George Street beside the building. Internally, none of the original detailing remains as a result of the building being thoroughly renovated in the late 1970s.
","history":"The Treasury Hotel was built in 1887-88, replacing an earlier hotel, the Dunmore Arms (1865).
In 1885 James Hunter took a 25 year lease from William Cribb on several adjoining allotments on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets from William Cribb.
Hunter planned a major commercial development on the site, and in 1886 erected office buildings with Treasury Chambers (QHR 600116) fronting George St and Francis House (QHR 601121) on Elizabeth Street. The choice of location was astute, for the new Treasury Building (QHR 600143) opposite was being erected and enhanced the prestige of the area. Financial problems prevented Hunter from completing the project and in 1887 he sub-let the Dunmore Arms site to well-known Brisbane publican, Denis O'Connor.
O'Connor engaged architects John Hall & Son to design a new hotel for the site. The contractor was Abraham James and the contract sum £3,999. Borrowing its name from the partially-finished new government offices opposite, the hotel offered 'tastefully furnished and decorated' accommodation to 'Families and Commercial Gentlemen'. In May 1889 O'Connor transferred his sub-lease to George Back Cutbush who remained the lessee until 1910. In 1906 William Cribb donated both allotments 18 & 19 to the YMCA in return for an annuity of £400. Over the next few years the YMCA sold most of this property and the new owner of the Treasury Hotel in 1908 was William Denis O'Connor. The hotel remained linked with the O'Connor family till the late 1950s.
During the late 1880's the Treasury Hotel was one of a large number of hotels in the city. In 1889 there were 9 hotels in George Street. The Treasury Hotel (QHR 600115) and the Transcontinental Hotel (QHR 600122) are the only George Street buildings from this period that remain in use as hotels.
","criteria":"The Treasury Hotel is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the evolution of hotels in Brisbane.
|The Treasury Hotel demonstrates the principal characteristics of a nineteenth century inner city hotel.
|The Treasury Hotel exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including its prominence on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets and its position as part of a group of buildings of complementary scale and fine detail that address Queens Park.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14891,"place_ref":600116,"name":"Treasury Chambers & St Francis House & Symons Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"179 - 191 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Treasury Chambers, located in George Street opposite the Treasury Building, is a three storeyed rendered brick office building. Like the Treasury Building and the adjacent Treasury Hotel, the facade features classical detailing.
The facade contains a narrow entry bay with a raised pediment and an oriel window and eight three-storeyed bays. Individual bays are marked by pilasters which rise through both upper levels and culminate in moulded capitals. The line of each pilaster is carried through to roof level by a projected section of cornice topped by a block in the parapet and a pedestal and ball above the parapet line. Each bay contains three window openings flanked by small pilasters with acanthus leaf capitals. A broad string course decorated with a row of rosettes separates the square-headed windows of the first floor from those on the upper level. These are arched and their keystones extend to a cornice embellished with brackets and a row of dentils. The balustraded parapet is pierced by arcaded openings.
Pediments mark the end bay and the proposed central entry. The entry bay is further differentiated from the other bays by an oriel window which extends from the first floor and culminates in a balcony at the second floor.
The ground floor facades have been altered to provide aluminium framed shop fronts. The suspended awning replaced a curved awning which had a barrel vault emphasising the entry.
Internally, the ground floors to all the tenancies and most upper floors, have been altered. Some upper levels contain original fabric, including pressed metal ceilings.
St Francis House and Symons Building, with frontages to Elizabeth Street, were a continuation of Treasury Chambers.
The facade of the northern end of the Elizabeth Street section, the Symons Building, has been rebuilt with unadorned reinforced concrete facade with metal windows. The facade of the southern section, St Francis House, consists of two bays which have been altered at the ground floor. Above this the two bays are differentiated by double height pilasters. Each bay contains three window openings on each level, those on the first floor level are square headed and those on the upper level arched. The facade is decorated with moulded plaster details including small pilasters with acanthus leaf capitals, rosettes, keystones, brackets, cornice and balustraded parapet.
","history":"Treasury Chambers & St Francis House & Symons Building was built in 1886 as prestige office accommodation and shops. Its construction reflected the atmosphere of prosperity and optimism generated in Queensland with the 1880s growth in real estate, construction and mining sectors.
In 1885 James Hunter, boot manufacturer and property developer, took a 25 year lease from William Cribb on several adjoining allotments on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets. Hunter anticipated the need for fashionable office accommodation close to the new government offices (Treasury Building (QHR 600143)) then under construction. He planned to erect, in two stages, a large L-shaped complex fronting George and Elizabeth Streets with accommodation for shops and offices.
The building was designed by Richard Gailey and the contractor was George Gazzard. The first stage of the 'Hunters Building' project, with frontages to George and Elizabeth Streets, was completed in 1886 for an estimated cost of £10 000. Financial problems prevented Hunter proceeding with the second stage - a corner section linking the George and Elizabeth Street buildings. In 1887 Hunter sub-let part of his lease to Denis O'Connor who built the Treasury Hotel (QHR 600115) on the corner site. In 1900 Hunter was declared bankrupt.
Despite the 'gap' between the Elizabeth Street section (St Francis House and Symons Building) and the George Street section (Treasury Chambers), the Hunter's Building complex was regarded as a unit. Newspaper reports indicate that a balcony connected all upper floor offices and this is consistent with the official address given for the upper floor tenants of the Elizabeth Street buildings as 183 George Street - this practice continued until 1923. The location and architectural distinction of the building attracted notable tenants. For the first two years various government departments were housed there until the William Street section of the Treasury Buildings was completed in 1889.
In 1906, William Cribb donated the property to the YMCA which subsequently subdivided and sold most of the land by 1910.
In the early 1920s, the George Street land was subdivided again and by the end of the decade various parts of the site were held on separate titles. Prominent long-term tenants were A P Greenfield & Co and Whitehouse Pianos. Their fellow-occupants included societies, workers in the professions and the skilled clothing trades and teachers of the arts.
The Elizabeth Street buildings remained under one title (owned by the Caledonian Society) until 1949 when the present St Francis House was bought by the Order of Capuchin Franciscan Fathers. The fathers conducted masses and social events in their building until about 1970. A fire at the Caledonian Society rooms in 1948 destroyed the society's records and may have prompted the major changes to the facade of the present Symons Building. In 1960 the Caledonian Society moved to Kangaroo Point selling their Elizabeth Street building to the Symons family who renamed the building and used it as a suit factory for almost thirty years.
In 1960 the back extension (c1910) of the Symons Building became the home of Charles Lisner's Academy Theatre, and later the first home of the Queensland Ballet Company. This artistic focus was accompanied by commercial and light industrial use of the Elizabeth Street buildings, during which period the interiors were altered substantially.
In 1993 most of St Francis House & Symons Building were demolished, but the Elizabeth Street facades remain.
","criteria":"Treasury Chambers & St Francis House & Symons Building, erected in the mid-1880s as a commercial investment, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being material evidence of the optimism generated by the economic prosperity of the era.
|Importantly, the place demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s prestige office building in Queensland, and the commercial work of acclaimed Brisbane architect Richard Gailey.
|Treasury Chambers & St Francis House & Symons Building also exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its contribution to the George Street streetscape as part of a group of buildings of complementary scale and fine detail in this section of George Street between Queen and Elizabeth Streets, and its contribution to the Elizabeth Street streetscape through its scale and detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14892,"place_ref":600117,"name":"First World War Honour Board","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"142 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The honour board is affixed to the wall of the main corridor on the first floor of the Lands Administration Building in Brisbane, immediately opposite the George Street elevator.
It is a large honour board, 2 metres high by 2.5 metres wide, constructed of Queensland silky oak. A central panel of red bean bears the Queensland coat of arms and the gold-painted names of 94 departmental staff and authorised surveyors who served in the First World War. The surrounds are carved in a stippled pattern with lotus plants (an ancient symbol of sleep) in relief in the lower section. The latter rarely appear on Queensland war memorials.
Within a rich moulding of laurel leaves in the upper left hand corner is an oval shaped metal plaque depicting in bas relief a cavalry charge and infantry soldiers advancing in battle, intended to illustrate the different fighting units in action. A carved scroll unfolds from the plaque and bears the relief lettering Roll of Honour.
The whole board is set into a simple frame.
","history":"The First World War Honour Board was erected by employees of the Queensland Lands Department in 1917, as a tribute to fellow staff on active service.
The overall design was created by AR McKellar, a draftsman in the lithographic branch of the survey section. The affixed metal plaque was designed by AV Thomas, the officer in charge of the lithographic branch. Manufacture was carried out at the Queensland Government railway workshops at Ipswich, and the wood carving was crafted by noted local wood carver George Varley Boyce, who taught carving at Brisbane technical schools from c.1902 to 1916.
The honour board was unveiled by the then governor of Queensland, Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, on 2 May 1917.
It remains a focus for Anzac commemoration, with wreaths being laid before the honour board each April 25.
The board was restored by the Lands Department in 1981.
","criteria":"As a unique record in Queensland of participation and sacrifice in the First World War.
For its material richness, fine craftsmanship and unique design amongst Queensland war memorials.
As the only identified public work of local Brisbane wood carver GV Boyce.
|As a unique record in Queensland of participation and sacrifice in the First World War.
|For its material richness, fine craftsmanship and unique design amongst Queensland war memorials.
|For its material richness, fine craftsmanship and unique design amongst Queensland war memorials.
|As the only identified public work of local Brisbane wood carver GV Boyce.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14893,"place_ref":600118,"name":"Old Government House","alternate_name":"University of Queensland | Government House","street_address":"2 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Old Government House is a substantial sandstone building of two stories, situated adjacent to the Botanic Gardens, amidst the buildings of the Queensland University of Technology. Surrounding the building are several important gardens featuring large established trees.
A driveway which, in earlier times, provided access between Old Government House and Parliament House is apparent along George Street into the QUT grounds on the road adjacent to the Botanic Gardens. Along this route are early sandstone fence pillars, plantings and road forms.
Old Government House is symmetrically planned with the principal entrance from the south east, facing away from the Brisbane CBD toward the river. The two storeyed section of the house has a square plan, with two bays projecting from the sides of the house, emphasised by the addition of two storeyed semi-circular colonnaded spaces.
The galvanised iron, rib and pan roof is gabled over the principal entrance but hipped elsewhere, including the projecting bays. A one storeyed extension at the rear of the building, houses the former servants' quarters and men's billiard room. Generally openings throughout the building are protected by timber shutters.
The south eastern elevation, housing the principal entrance, features a central projecting bay, with a pedimented gabled roof. The principal doorway is through a sandstone porte cochere bounded by four large square sandstone columns, with a cornice above and hipped roof featuring iron cresting. The round headed arched entrance door opening is flanked by two round headed arched window openings on the ground floor and above these on the first floor are three square headed arched windows separated by pilasters. To either side of the entrance bay are two storeyed verandahs; arcaded on the lower floor on paired cast iron ionic columns. The upper floor verandah has simple cast iron columns with a cross braced iron balustrade.
The verandahs continue around the sides of the building and abut the projecting bays on the east and west facades of the building. The projecting bays feature semi-circular porches with verandahs above. The porch is defined by a number of large ionic columns, made of cast iron on the western side and sandstone on the eastern. The verandahs above the porches, carry the detail of the general house verandah.
The billiard room is attached to the southern end of the western facade. The entrance bay to this section projects from the face of the building slightly and features a central doorway, protected by a hipped iron awning supported by large carved corbels. Flanking the opening are two small elongated windows openings. Centrally located above the doorway is a decorative parapet detail, featuring a rectangular stone section with a carved cartouche with date '1899', which is flanked by scroll and leaf mouldings in the corners between the stone section and the parapet. Surmounting the rectangular section is a shallow arched entablature.
The rear, southern elevation, has a one-storeyed rendered parapeted facade, with regularly spaced pilasters, a wide cornice and a solid parapet with balustrade featuring a chain motif, surmounted by spherical finials at the corners. A courtyard is accessed via an arched opening in this wall, which features a double arched timber door. Past the opening is a wide covered walkway from which the former kitchen and servants' quarters are accessed. The walkway leads to an internal courtyard, providing natural lighting to several of the interior spaces, including the stairwell.
Through the principal entrance of the house is an entrance hall on either side of which are french doors leading to the adjacent verandahs. This room provides entrance to the central hall through three double half glazed timber doors with transom windows; both the doors and the above lights feature etched glass panels. The central hall is the principal room of the house from which the other major rooms are accessed. The central space of this room is demarcated by four wide archways, two plaster arches within the space and two large timber arched doorways leading to the drawing and dining rooms flanking the hall. The doorways have large timber sliding doors, housed within the walls. The former dining and drawing rooms, flanking the hall, have a number of french doors opening onto the verandahs.
The half turn open well stair with landing is at the northern end of the hall and has fine cast iron balusters and timber handrail which forms a wreath at the base of the stairs. A round headed arched stair window is flanked by round headed arched mirrors of similar size. On the first floor a mezzanine gallery, forming a void above the central section of the hall below, features a large skylight, comprising a number of etched glass panels and ventilation panels within elaborate timber framing. On the first floor in the gallery, is another plaster archway demarcating the stair area. From the gallery are accessed the principal first floor rooms.
Generally, the interior of Old Government House has timber floors, protectively covered in some places with masonite boarding. The walls and ceilings are plastered, and many rooms feature reconstructed colour schemes. Large cornices are features in the principal rooms, whilst less extravagant ones are found in the rooms with formerly, more private uses. The internal joinery is of the highest quality cedar, with six panelled moulded doors and fine architraves and skirting boards. The french doors leading onto the verandahs are glazed with two panels of glass, and have operable transom windows above. Introduced lighting within the space is generally surface mounted in central areas of the walls. Throughout the building are original uncovered patches of an early decorative painting scheme.
The gardens and grounds around the building, provide a picturesque setting for the house, and include features such as the kidney lawn, the rear garden and a number of beds adjacent to the rear garden and the current QUT library. The open lawns allow the house to be appreciated in its villa form. The kidney lawn, between the house and the Botanic Gardens, features several established trees, including a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), a bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) and palm trees. These sparsely placed trees ensure that the house maintains a visual relationship with the Botanic Gardens and beyond. A pony tail tree (Beaucarnea recurvata), adjacent to the Botanic Gardens, is a particularly significant remainder of an earlier scheme. A fence and gateway to the east of the kidney lawn is also an element of the early garden, and the bougainvillea growing over it is particularly significant.
On the opposite side of the house is the rear garden which is a lawn with border planting. To the south are several garden beds, now separated by paved areas, which feature many original elements of the Government House garden, including a clam-shell fountain and associated planting and several large figs, a kauri pine (Agathis microstachya) and an ivory curl flower tree (Buckinghamia celsissima).
","history":"Old Government House was constructed from 1860 to 1862 to the design of Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin at a cost of £17,000. It served as the home of the various Governors of Queensland from its completion in 1862 until 1910 when it became the inaugural of the University of Queensland.
Queensland became a separate colony in 1859, when Governor Bowen was appointed to govern until electoral roles were established. Robert Herbert was then elected as the first Colonial Secretary, a position akin to the present day Premier. In 1860 funding was allocated by the newly formed Parliament of Queensland for the construction of Government House. This was to be the first major public building which the Parliament planned.
A site was chosen for the house adjacent to the Botanic Gardens which had been established on the site of a government garden in 1855, when the curator, Walter Hill, was employed. Originally, the intention of the government was to construct a larger Government House in the country and therefore Government House was smaller than other Government Houses of Australia. It was described by the architect, Charles Tiffin, as the most economical vice regal residence in the Australian Colonies. £17,000 was allocated for the construction of the building, which was a major undertaking for a small colony of only 30, 000 settlers, facing an uncertain economical future.
Charles Tiffin was born in Newcastle, England and emigrated to the colonies in the mid 1850s, when he arrived in Victoria. He was appointed to the position of Clerk of Works for Moreton Bay in May 1857. Tiffin was responsible for the designs of a range of public buildings, the first of his major projects being the Ipswich Court House, extant in 1995. After separation, Tiffin became Queensland's first Colonial Architect.
Government House provided family accommodation, public reception areas and government offices. The house was carefully designed to take advantage of its siting on a promontory. The formal entrance and function rooms faced the river, away from the growing township; the offices were located to the north-east of the building; family quarters were on the south west and the rear north west of the building, housed servant's quarters and kitchen areas. By June 18, 1862, the Queensland Daily Guardian, reported that Governor and Lady Bowen had been in residence at Government House for one month, and that the building appears to be well adapted in point of coolness and ventilation to the climate of this colony; the rooms being large, lofty and airy, and furnished in a plain but exceedingly tasteful manner.
The house demonstrates an early understanding of ventilation principles in sub-tropical climates, in which Tiffin was known to be interested. Features of the house like the ventilated lantern, the large number of french doors, and the sliding doors on the ground floor, suggest a concern for air movement in the building.
The grounds surrounding the building were laid out by the director of the botanical Gardens, Mr Walter Hill, and it is understood that Lady Bowen also took a great interest in the gardens The grounds were thought to reflect the highest credit on Mr Walter Hill. A detailed description of the areas on each side of the house (comprised) a raised terrace, half moon and crescent shaped, neatly covered with sods of grass, and traced out in various designs for the cultivation of flowers and plants.
Governor Bowen remained at Government House until 1868, when he was recalled to England and Colonel Samuel Blackall became the new Governor of Queensland. Many alterations were made during the 1870s which saw the house adopt a more tropical form, most obviously with the addition of first floor verandahs, thereby distinguishing it from Government Houses in other states. Functions organised by the various Governors became larger to accommodate the larger population, and a prefabricated supper room/ballroom was erected on the lawn to the south west adjacent to the drawing room. In 1895, the house was completely redecorated. Old Government House was extended with a Billiard Room on the northern corner of the building in 1899.
The Federation of Australia, meant a reduction in the role of the Governor, but the real diminishing of their powers came about in around 1910 with the abolishment of the Upper House.
A committee was formed by the Premier, Mr Kidston, to select a site for a University in Queensland, and their recommendation was the Domain which was the grounds of the, then, Government House. In 1909 the House was dedicated to the new university, with five acres around it set aside for both a university and a technical college, with the remaining area given over to the Botanic Gardens. The Governor, who was then MacGregor, moved out of the house in 1910, to what were thought to be temporary arrangements at Fernberg, Paddington. By 1914, the new grounds of the University and Technical College were deemed unsuitable, and bids were made for the return of the Governor to the house, but these were unsuccessful.
Though the University transferred to St Lucia in 1945 it still retained many rooms in the former Government House. As the State Government retained the ownership of the former Government House, it was put to use by various official departments, and suffered from deterioration. In 1973 the National Trust moved into the building on the basis that they would gradually become the custodians of the entire building. Extensive alterations were carried out by the State Works Department, which again caused damage to the original fabric of the building. By 1982 the National Trust had assumed control over most of the building. The Technical College became the Queensland Institute of Technology, which in turn became the Queensland University of Technology and remains on the site surrounding Old Government House.
","criteria":"Old Government House demonstrates the evolution of the government in Queensland, and particularly the changing role of the Governor in Queensland from 1860 until 1910. The house was the first major project completed by the newly formed colony of Queensland. The former Government House is an important element in the government precinct of George and William Streets.
|Old Government House is unique, as the only purpose built Government House in Queensland and as a rare surviving example of the domestic work of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin. The house contains many rare finishes and fittings, particularly the internal joinery.
|The house has the potential to yield further information, by archaeological investigation, of aspects of domestic life in Queensland from the 1860s. The kidney lawn, though changed in shape, may have evidence of early planting schemes and may provide evidence of the early work of prominent botanist and Botanic Gardens curator, Walter Hill.
|Old Government House displays the characteristics of a well appointed nineteenth century house, particularly in its demarcation of zoning for public and private use, and the evidence it provides of many early domestic facilities.
The building is a fine example of nineteenth century domestic architecture influenced by classical revival styles modified for a tropical environment. The design of the house is a creative accomplishment, in that the private and public aspects are well integrated to form a cohesive building.
|The building is of considerable aesthetic quality, employing well proportioned, classical design features, with exceptional fittings and finishes. The immediate environment including the Kidney Lawn, rear garden and several remnants of gardens in the vicinity promote the picturesque qualities of the villa form of the house. Several large established trees add to its aesthetic qualities and are visual links to the nearby Botanic Gardens. The house retains an important link with Parliament House, along the former carriageway where early planting and gate pillars.
|The building is a fine example of nineteenth century domestic architecture influenced by classical revival styles modified for a tropical environment. The design of the house is a creative accomplishment, in that the private and public aspects are well integrated to form a cohesive building.
|The house has strong associations with the Queensland for its role in the evolution of the Queensland Government. It retains strong associations with many groups, including the National Trust of Queensland, the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland.
|The house has special association with a number of prominent Queenslanders, including all the Governors who lived at the house, the architect, Charles Tiffin, Walter Hill, as well as with the University of Queensland which used the house as their first site, and with the National Trust who have been associated with the building for over twenty years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14894,"place_ref":600119,"name":"The Mansions","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"40 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The Mansions is a three-storeyed brick and stone terrace on the corner of Margaret and George Street, Brisbane. The building stands in an urban context, on a high ridge of land, with open landscaped space behind and beside it. The precinct is dominated by mid-to-late nineteenth and early twentieth century state government-related buildings including the nearby Parliament House [QHR 600069], Queensland Club [QHR 600113], Harris Terrace [QHR 600121], the former Government Printing Office [QHR 600114], former Land Administration Building [QHR 600123], and the former Treasury [QHR 600143]. It makes a strong contribution to the George and Margaret Streets streetscapes as a prominent, decorative and striking form.
The Mansions is a face brick structure with limestone dressings and a painted, corrugated steel roof. It sits back slightly from the George Street alignment behind a brick pier fence with wrought iron panels. However, it is built to the Margaret Street alignment. The building is visibly separated into six houses unified by the façade - a deep arcade of arches on the ground and first floors along both street fronts. The second floor is partially incorporated within the roof space behind a decorative parapet. Each house has an octagonal bay projecting onto the arcade on both levels that is carried through onto the roof as a multi-faced hip perpendicular to the main roof. Although fully cohesive, the design is perceptibly five houses facing George Street that are mirrors of each other in plan with a sixth house, on the corner, primarily facing Margaret Street that is of an individual layout and superior scale. The sixth house has two octagonal bays and they are larger and project fully to the street alignment. The entrance to the sixth house is from Margaret Street.
The building is designed in a Victorian style with Italianate influences. The arcade is decoratively treated. Short cast iron colonettes have Ionic order capitals incorporating garland swags, carved limestone panels, and entrances accentuated by triangular pediments. Two sculpted limestone cats sit atop the parapet of the George Street facade.
Wings with timber verandahs on their ground and first floors extend off the rear and are separated by courtyards. Rear walls feature cement render indicating the profile of demolished service wings.
The interior of the building is considerably altered. Room layouts indicate original separate tenancies but openings in the party walls now connect them. Fittings, though ornate, are reproductions and lower ceilings conceal air-conditioning ducts. A lift and other modern facilities are also installed.
Please refer to the 2009 Conservation Management Plan prepared by Jinx Miles of the Department of Public Works, Queensland, for further detail about the fabric.
","history":"The Mansions, built in 1889 and located near Parliament House [QHR 600069] on the George Street ridge at the corner of Margaret Street, was designed by architect George Henry Male Addison as six attached elite masonry houses. Constructed by RE Burton for £11,700, it was an investment for three Queensland politicians - Boyd Dunlop Morehead, then Premier; William Pattison, Treasurer; and John Stevenson, member for Clermont - during a decade of enormous population growth and land development in Brisbane.
\nSince the 1820s, the north bank and adjacent ridgeline of the Brisbane River, now containing William and George Streets, has always featured a concentration of government and associated activities and uses. Over the period of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, buildings constructed along this ridgeline, were utilised by government officials for ‘accommodation, administration and control'.[1] When the settlement was closed in 1842, the remnant penal infrastructure was used by surveyors as a basis for the layout for the new town of Brisbane. Set at right angles to the river, the prisoner's barracks determined Queen Street, while the line of buildings along the ridge determined William Street. Streets surveyed parallel to these streets including George Street, formed Brisbane's rectangular grid.[2]
\nWhile a range of buildings and activities occurred along George and William Streets from the 1840s, the government maintained its dominant presence in the area. At some sites (such as the Commissariat Store (former) [QHR 600176] and Brisbane Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067]) earlier uses were continued. The establishment phase following the creation of Queensland in 1859 saw the new colonial government reserve land parcels and construct a range of buildings to facilitate its functions. The building of Government House [QHR 600118] and Parliament House [QHR 600069] along the eastern end of the George Street alignment in the 1860s firmly entrenched the physical reality of a government precinct in the area.[3]
\nThe siting of Parliament House had a pronounced effect on the built environment around lower George Street. Many of Queensland's early politicians were pastoralists, a reflection of their economic dominance in the colony. Together with a growing workforce of public servants, these politicians required accommodation when in Brisbane. From the 1860s to the 1880s, a range of buildings, many built by, or for politicians, were built to address these needs.[4]
\nThroughout the 1880s Brisbane was transforming into a colonial city. Many of Queensland's immigrants remained in the capital, swelling the population from almost 40,000 in 1881 to well over 90,000 in 1891. This growth stimulated building, municipal organisation, amenities and services, and cultural and leisure outlets. The flourishing building activity caused Brisbane's practising architects to treble in number, and builders and contractors to rise from 16 in 1882 to 87 in 1887. Brisbane's centre sprouted a host of impressive new stone buildings including the Customs House [QHR 600156], additions to the Government Printing Office [QHR 600114], the first wing of the Treasury Building [QHR 600143] and the Alice Street facade of Parliament House. The number of inhabited dwellings in the capital almost doubled between 1881 and 1891 from 5,814 to 10,321, causing the town to overshoot its old boundaries. Consequently, land speculation was extensive and the capital value of metropolitan land rose towards its peak in 1890, a level not approximated again until 1925.[5]
\nThe land on which The Mansions was later erected, lots 1 and 2 of Portion 38, was originally purchased as Town Lot 56 in 1852 by land speculator James Gibbon.[6] By 1863 he had subdivided the land into three lots, but lots 1 and 2 remained vacant. The land was transferred in 1882 to William Williams, a successful Brisbane businessman associated with the Australian Steam Navigation Shipping Company. He in turn sold the vacant land in August 1888 to Pattison, Morehead and Stevenson who were members of parliament, business associates and friends.[7]
\nBD Morehead (1843-1905) was a pastoralist, businessman and politician who served in both the Queensland Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. With AB Buchanan he established BD Morehead and Co. in 1873 which comprised a mercantile and trading business and a stock and station agency. He experienced financial disaster in the 1893 economic crisis.[8] William Pattison (1830-96), a businessman, mine director and politician, served in the Queensland Legislative Assembly between 1886 and 1893. He was one of the original shareholders and later chairman of directors of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co but was damaged politically and economically by the 50 per cent collapse of this company's share price from mid-1888.[9] John Stevenson was a pastoralist who bought into the firm of BD Morehead and Co., managing the stock and station business until 1896 when he formed the business J Stevenson and Co. He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1875 to 1893.[10]
\nThese three men engaged architect George Henry Male Addison to design a row of houses for the George Street site. Addison had moved from Melbourne to Brisbane and established a branch of Oakden, Addison and Kemp, which in 1888 won the competition to build a new exhibition hall for the National Agricultural and Industrial Association on Gregory Terrace [QHR 600209, Old Museum Building, Brisbane]. Addison was an accomplished designer, his buildings stylistically eclectic and more ornately and highly finished than any previously seen in the city. The distinctive use of face brickwork relieved with stone or rendered detailing and steep, dominant roof forms are characteristics of his work.[11] Other Addison-designed buildings include the Albert Street Uniting Church, Brisbane [QHR 600066] and The Strand Theatre, Toowoomba [QHR 600849]. Addison's skills and distinctive style of domestic architecture were recognised and attracted business from Queensland's leading professionals.[12] Noteworthy houses designed by him are Cliveden Mansions, Brisbane [QHR 602186], Kirkston, Brisbane [QHR 600351], Oonooraba, Maryborough [QHR 600707], Ralahyne, Brisbane [QHR 600182] and Cumbooquepa [Somerville House QHR 600305]. Addison called tenders for the construction of The Mansions viz ‘city residences in George street' in the Brisbane Courier on 29 September 1888, closing on 15 October.[13] RE Burton's tender of £11,600 was accepted.[14]
\nThe Mansions was designed to be impressive and aesthetically pleasing, utilising high quality materials, generous use of ornamentation and careful composition of building forms, the six individual houses being unified by the overriding use of arcades and the arrangement, in alternating pairs, of entries and roof dormers. The design was well suited to the climate, the arcades providing shade without impeding ventilation. Soon after the residences were completed in late 1889 The Boomerang described them as ‘unique in their way, being built after the Queen Anne style of red brick with stone facing. They have been constructed to suit the climate. The mantelpieces are very rich and were specially imported. In fact, its as fine a terrace as any in Australia'.[15] Addison published a drawing of The Mansions in 1890 in the Building and Engineering Journal of Australia, describing them as ‘convenient and roomy having three reception rooms and ten bedrooms, exclusive of servants' quarters. The front is of brick, relieved with Oomaroo [sic] stone, the total cost £11,700...'.[16]
\nThe Mansions as terraced houses were a type of land use that was uncommon in colonial Queensland due to the enactment of the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885. This legislation enforced a minimum lot size of 16 perches (404 m2) and a minimum frontage of 30 feet (10 metres) effectively stopping the building of terraced housing in Queensland except as a rental investment.[17] Early, pre-legislation versions of terraced housing in Brisbane included Harris Terrace [QHR 600121] and Hodgson's Terrace (demolished) in George Street; Athol Place, Spring Hill (1860s) [QHR 600167]; Princess Row, Petrie Terrace (1863) and a group of four houses (c1884-85) in Wellington Road, Petrie Terrace. Terraces built around 1885 or afterwards included Byrne Terrace on Wickham Terrace (1885-86, architects John Hall and Son, demolished), O'Keefe Terrace on Petrie Terrace (1886-87, architect Andrew Stombucco and Son), Cook Terrace (1889, possibly Taylor and Richer) [QHR 600250] on Coronation Drive, Cross Terrace, Red Hill (1886) [QHR 600285] and Petrie Mansions on Petrie Terrace (1887-8); Brighton Terrace, West End (1890 John B Nicholson) [QHR 600343]; and two terrace houses on Wellington Street, Petrie Terrace (1894/95). Of these, The Mansions were the grandest and most ambitious architecturally.[18]
\nElite tenants began to occupy the well-located residences from 1889 but the economic downturn which culminated in the 1893 depression denied full occupancy. Although the Queensland economy experienced problems from the mid-1880s, the downturn only became apparent from 1889 after local confidence waned and British investment funds dried up. The building industry was affected first and most severely, then depression spread to other sectors of the economy. The severest years of the depression in Queensland were from 1891 to 1893.[19] Brisbane's economic experiences followed those of the Queensland economy overall but with different emphases. The phenomenal growth of the 1880s had culminated in widespread speculation in land and buildings, which created an excess capacity of offices and dwellings. Brisbane's descent into depression began with a crash in the construction and building materials industries and the collapse of building societies towards the end of 1891 after the climax of its land and building boom. Land and rent values began dropping in 1890, reaching their lowest level in 1893-4. Empty dwellings became a common sight in the city and suburbs - some deserted while other recently built ones had never been occupied.[20] All three investors in The Mansions suffered severe financial losses during this depression.
\nBy 30 November 1889 two of the villas were occupied by members of parliament, William Pattison and the Hon. Hume Black.[21] Advertisements in the Brisbane Courier for tenants to let both the ‘George Street Mansions and Harris Terrace' on the opposite corner of Margaret Street appeared in the Brisbane Courier during December 1889. Other early residents were doctors - in 1890 Dr Fourness Simmons and a Dr Bennett.[22] The 1891 Post Office Directory listed four houses as unoccupied and two occupied by doctors, EM Owens and A Bennett.[23] In December 1891, Dr Lilian Cooper, Queensland's first woman doctor, established her consulting rooms in The Mansions and resided there for several years after the 1893 floods.[24] Pattison moved from The Mansions in July 1891 and a Mrs Prince, previously of Glencairn, Wickham Terrace advertised that she had leased ‘the Hon. W Pattison's late residence, The Mansion, George Street' and would be ‘pleased to receive applications for Accommodation. The buildings are situated close to Parliament House and are therefore highly suited to members'.[25] In 1892 The Mansion's housed a Mrs Probyn who resided in ‘The Grange' (possibly a boarding house) and which was replaced the following year by Elizabeth Bird's boarding house.[26]
\nBetween 1896 and 1954 The Mansions were used primarily as boarding houses, which operated under various names. Guests included professional families such as barrister and later University of Queensland Registrar FWS Cumbrae Stewart and family from 1906, the Commissioner of Public Health Elkington and wife in 1912, District Court Judge McNaughton and Electrical Engineer Nelson.[27] Some doctors such as AB Carvosso continued to practice from The Mansions.[28]
\nDespite ownership of The Mansions changing a number of times, this did not result in changes of use. The property was transferred to the Queensland National Bank in August 1898 and was sold in 1912 to Gerard Ralph Gore and Christiana Gore, pastoralists on the Darling Downs, in order to recoup the loan for its construction.[29] In 1925 the property was sold again but due to the owner's death quickly transferred to the Queensland Trustees. In 1947 the property was sold to three new owners, two of whom ran three boarding houses using the property's six villas. The boarding houses (from the Alice Street end) were named Lonsdale (24-26 George), Glenmore (28-30) and Binna Burra (32-44).[30] In 1954 The Mansions were offered at public auction, but passed in when the reserve was not reached.[31]
\nSubsequently, the Queensland Government purchased the property for use as government offices as part of its acquisition of buildings in George Street under what was then officially known as the ‘George Street Plan'.[32] A shortage of accommodation for administrative offices in State-owned buildings had been identified immediately post-war when the Queensland government began to expand their activities considerably in Brisbane city. Most public servants were then located in the Treasury and Executive Buildings in George Street and in offices in Anzac Square. The shortage of office accommodation in the centre of Brisbane, and the need to address future requirements, led to a phase of governmental property acquisition in the city. The purchase of properties on George and William Streets between the Government Printing Office and Parliament House was a key focus, in addition to other acquisitions on Charlotte, Mary and Margaret Streets. Properties in William Street were purchased in 1946-47 and the expenditure in 1954 on properties for this purpose in George, William and Margaret Streets, including The Mansions, was £60,500.[33] Despite their varying condition and former uses, many of these newly acquired buildings were quickly adapted for government use.[34]
\nAt this time the Department of Public Works prepared measured drawings of The Mansions.[35] ‘Lonsdale' and ‘Glenmore' were described as ‘a three storey double brick building...conducted as a residential and compris[ing] 32 rooms, 16 of which are let as flatettes and 16 as serviced rooms'.[36] Linings and ceilings were plaster except at the top floor where ceilings were beaded pine. Floors were mainly pine. There were 10 fireplaces of which two were marble and the remainder ‘ornamental timber'. There was one ‘set of 4' [1.2m] wide twin cedar staircases in excellent condition'. Four bathrooms, two shower rooms, two laundries and six sewerage units served the property. The condition of the properties was considered to be fair. At the rear of the land, there were two double storey brick dormitories and a garage, which were of much inferior construction and finish to the main building.[37]
\nConversion of The Mansions into government offices cost £45,054. Drawings prepared for the conversion show that the general configuration of the houses was changed. Walls were removed, new doorways made, fireplaces blocked, internal partitions installed, concrete floors for toilets added and all stairs except one at the rear of no. 28-30 were removed or altered. Original details including dado panelling in the halls and dining rooms, and leadlight sidelights on the front doors were removed. Evidence of the original asymmetrical arrangement of bay windows at ground floor level was lost except in no. 24-26 and new load-bearing partitions were installed on the first and second floor levels above the dining rooms.[38]
\nA range of government departments occupied The Mansions until the 1970s. The Government Statistician's Office was located on the ground floor from c1956 and by 1961 the Medical boards, Licensing Commission, Prices Branch, Department of Public Works and Probation Office occupied the first floor. Replanning of the Medical boards' offices took place in 1967 and remodelling of the ground floor for the Comptroller-General of Prisons occurred in 1972.[39]
\nThe consolidation of government ownership and usage along George and William streets led to a number of schemes in being investigated by the state to further the development of a ‘government precinct'. By 1965, a masterplan had been developed involving the demolition of all buildings between the Executive Building (later Land Administration Building) [QHR 600123] and Parliament House, to enable the construction of three high-rise office buildings in a ‘plaza setting'. In November 1965 the government announced the proposed demolition of its George Street office buildings. The present day Executive Building was completed in 1971 as part of this plan. However, by the early 1970s this plan for the precinct was considered no longer suitable and a number of other proposals for the area were explored.[40]
\nA 1974 ‘George Street Masterplan' involved lower rise buildings spread out over greater areas and the demolition of the Belle Vue Hotel and The Mansions. A major influence in ultimately shaping the layout of the area during the 1970s was the growing community support for the retention of older buildings within the government precinct. In 1973 the National Trust began a public campaign to save both The Mansions and its next-door neighbour in George Street, the Belle Vue Hotel, from demolition under the Queensland Government's ‘George Street Masterplan'.[41] The campaign highlighted the government-related associations and links between buildings, their architectural qualities, and aesthetic contributions to the area in submissions to the government and in the public sphere. The unannounced June 1974 removal of the balconies of the Bellevue Hotel was a deliberate action by the State government to degrade the visual appearance of the area, and drew further attention to the conservation cause.[42]
\nUltimately the Belle Vue Hotel was demolished in April 1979 after Cabinet adopted a recommended schedule of demolition work to further the development of the government precinct. The Belle Vue Hotel was to be demolished, but The Mansions and the original section of Harris Terrace were to be retained, renovated and adapted. On 21 April, three days after this decision, the Belle Vue Hotel was demolished in the early hours of the morning, a notorious event in the history of heritage conservation in Queensland causing a furore of public complaint. [43]
\nThe Mansions servants' wings and stables were demolished later in 1979 in accordance with the Cabinet decision.[44] However, this did not cause a complete loss of the area to the rear of The Mansions, which may still reveal archaeological information about foundations and material culture related to servants' occupation of this area of the site.
\nSubsequently, several schemes were prepared for the reconstruction and conservation of The Mansions. Measured drawings of the remaining sections of the building were prepared and exteriors photographed. Plans for the renovations and alterations were prepared by Lund Hutton Ryan Architects in 1980 and in 1982 further plans for the restoration were prepared by Conrad and Gargett in association with the Department of Public Works. At this time it was reported that there were problems with rising damp; the existing roof framing was generally sound; none of the original staircases survived; all internal walls were plastered brick or plaster and lathe on timber framing; the few original ceilings on the ground and first floors were plaster and lathe while on the second floor they were tongue and groove pine; some original skirtings, architraves, cornices and ceiling roses remained; some original fire surrounds and grates survived; many original doors and windows survived but were in disrepair; and hardware had been changed.[45]
\nA final renovation scheme was prepared then carried out in 1983-4. This development removed most of the 1950s fit-out as well as removing original material, reconstructing features and adding new features such as a lift and air conditioning plant. A transverse corridor was created by enclosing parts of the rear courtyards in glass requiring reconfiguration of the rear verandahs. Stairs and toilets were installed in the second reception room at the ground floor level. Walls which formed the small front room at the first floor level were removed. All the ceilings and the remaining evidence of the original off centre bay layout of no. 24-26 at ground floor level and the surviving dining room fireplace in no. 40 were removed. Castings of ceiling roses were installed throughout the rooms. Most of the wall plaster was removed. Most door and window joinery was reconstructed. New stairs were constructed using detail and parts from the original but in a new configuration. The roof sheeting was replaced, new finials constructed and the rear verandahs rebuilt. New dormer windows at roof level were constructed facing south-west over the new rear verandahs. Most of the ground floor and second floor ceiling framing and some of the roof framing was replaced. All floors were re-laid with plywood and hearths removed, concrete slabs were laid in wet areas, tie downs were installed and new ceramic tile paving was laid on verandah floors.[46]
\nOn 28 April 1986 Premier Bjelke Petersen officially opened the Government Precinct Development incorporating the State Works Centre, the renovated Harris Terrace and The Mansions. After the redevelopment, The Mansions housed a variety of professional offices and exclusive specialist retail stores. A restaurant also operated in the building.[47]
\nSince this refurbishment only minor alterations have occurred to the buildings, apart from updating of services and the provision of equitable access. A freestanding roof was constructed next to the south-east rear verandah of the house at the Alice Street end for the restaurant tenant in 1988.[48] In 2005 timber decking and ramps were added in Queen's Place for access at the Alice Street end.[49]
\nIn 1990 there was a proposal to sell The Mansions with the Port Office and Smellies building but this did not proceed.[50]
\nThe Mansions continues to be used as professional offices and a restaurant in 2012.
","criteria":"The Mansions (1889) is important in demonstrating the evolution of urban development in colonial Queensland as a result of the 1880s land boom, especially in the capital city Brisbane.
It demonstrates the pattern of development of the Brisbane CBD with lower George Street as a prestigious residential area associated with parliament and the site of professional offices from the 1860s. The Mansions is a distinctive example of this residential development of lower George Street.
It also demonstrates, through its purchase and refit for government offices, the development of lower George Street as a government office precinct post World War II.
The survival of The Mansions, despite 1960s plans for its demolition, demonstrates how increased public concern about the preservation of heritage buildings influenced government redevelopment plans during the 1970s and 1980s.
|The Mansions demonstrates nineteenth century terraced housing - a form of housing, which was uncommon and is now rare in Queensland. The building is a distinctive and exceptional example of prestigious, late nineteenth century terraced housing.
|The Mansions is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of late nineteenth century, terraced housing. Defining elements of this style of housing include its shared dividing walls, repetition of form and linear house plan. Comprising six residences, the building is a fine and rare Queensland example of prestigious, late nineteenth century terrace housing and exemplifies the urban lifestyle experienced by affluent Queenslanders of this period.
The Mansions are also an excellent example of the work of George Henry Male Addison, a designer who made an important contribution to Queensland's built environment. Stylistically these highly finished and ornate terrace houses are unlike any others in Queensland but are characteristic of Addison's work as an accomplished designer achieving maximum effect with roof form and face brickwork relieved with stone detailing.
|The Mansions is important for its architectural attributes. The skilful and complex composition of face brickwork, stone detailing, shady arcaded verandahs, integrated gardens and fencing, and complex roof form are of aesthetic beauty and make a strong contribution to the George and Margaret Streets streetscape and to the government precinct in George and William Streets.
|The Mansions has a strong association for its cultural heritage significance with Queenslanders concerned about heritage issues. It was the focus of the National Trust of Queensland's campaign to save the Belle Vue Hotel and The Mansions during the 1970s, which had wide public support and resulted in The Mansions not being demolished. Newspaper, film, magazine and journal articles from the period demonstrate this association.
|The Mansions has potential to contribute to a greater understanding of Queensland's history. Potential exists at the rear of The Mansions for archaeological materials including footings and foundations associated with the former servants' and kitchen wings, and objects and refuse commonly found within domestic contexts, particularly ceramic, glass and personal items.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14895,"place_ref":600120,"name":"McDonnell & East Ltd Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"414 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-12-10","description":"The building is three storeys high with a basement. It combines characteristics of many of the styles from the first quarter of the century. It has a Federation red brick and stucco facade and Art Nouveau lettering. The detailing reflects both the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles.
The building is of red brick with stucco render originally painted cream. The George Street facade has since been painted beige and its details picked out in a deep green. The George Street facade has six window bays and is divided into two equal sections of three. The central bay of each section has a pediment above its upper level window. All the windows on the George Street frontage have had the glazing painted over in the same colour as the walls with frames painted green.
The Tank Street frontage retains its alternating red brick and white rendered bays. There are four brick sections, which contain individual window bays. The first two rendered sections have two window bays while the end section has four. The upper level windows in the rendered bays have semi-circular arched openings, with three courses of unrendered brick above them for emphasis. All the windows in the rendered sections are grouped in pairs that are separated by unrendered bands of brick that have their bonding pattern picked out. White painted downpipes run down the wall in these locations.
Raised lettering with the name of the store and the goods it provided are a feature of both facades. There are raised sections of parapet centred over each pediment on the George Street facade and above each unrendered brick bay on the Tank Street facade. Flagpoles are located behind each raised section of parapet. A small curved portion flanks the sides of each raised parapet. The facade has protruding sills supported on decorative stucco brackets and similar hood moulds over the upper level windows.
Internally the original pressed metal remains above the modular suspended ceilings. This is completely exposed in the basement level and in some store rooms.
The building has suffered from the addition of modern shopfronts, the removal of the original awning and the painting of the George Street facade, but still contributes greatly to the streetscapes of both George and Tank Streets.
","history":"This three-storeyed brick department store building was erected in several stages between 1912 and 1963, for the Brisbane firm of McDonnell & East Ltd.
In 1886, Irishmen Frank McDonnell and Hubert East emigrated to Brisbane, where they were employed in the drapery trade. From 1889, McDonnell was closely connected with the movement for the early closing of shops. He entered Parliament in 1896 as the Labor member for Fortitude Valley, and largely due to his efforts, early closing was introduced in 1900.
In October 1901, the firm of McDonnell & East Ltd was established and, with the financial backing of businessman and publican Peter Murphy, owner of the Transcontinental Hotel (QHR 6000122), the firm purchased John Reid's drapery business, and the lease of the premises, at 402-408 George Street.
Within six years McDonnell & East Ltd was well established as a firm of importers, cash drapers, tailors, outfitters, dressmakers and milliners. About 1908, Jack McDonnell and Fraser and Harry East, sons of the founders, entered the firm.
In 1911, McDonnell & East Ltd acquired the adjoining George Street allotments to the corner of Tank Street, and in October 1911 Brisbane architect Thomas Ramsay Hall called tenders for a new brick building. The contract was let to A Gillespie with a price of £10,734, which included electrical fittings, counter, fixtures and passenger lift. Construction began in January 1912, and the new building, advertised as the White Store, was occupied in April 1913. The company continued to lease the original building.
Following the success of the White Store, which doubled profits within a year, the company purchased a contiguous block in Tank Street, behind the new showrooms, in 1913. In mid-1914 TR Hall again called tenders for a store for McDonnell & East Ltd, and the contract was let to New Farm builder Mark Doggett, with a price of £1,310. This building was completed late in 1914, but it is not clear whether it remains as part of the present complex.
The business flourished, assisted by the re-location of the Brisbane Markets to Roma Street in 1915, and the proximity of the tram stops in George Street and the Roma Street railway station, which brought custom. McDonnell & East Ltd became a public company in 1920.
Between c.1917 and 1921, McDonnell & East Ltd acquired another three adjacent sites: a property in Turbot Street; the allotment occupied by the original George Street store; and a laneway running in from Tank Street, which was closed in exchange for the company's creating a laneway in from Turbot Street.
In the mid-1920s, architects TR Hall and GG Prentice designed substantial three-storeyed extensions for these sites. The work was carried out by contractor FJ Corbett, who started in late 1925 and finished in March 1928. The original leased premises, fronting George Street, were demolished and replaced with a three-storeyed extension of the 1912 building. A separate but adjoining three-storeyed building was erected on the Tank Street sites. The extensions conformed with the 1912 street elevations, and featured the latest fittings, elevators and modern conveniences. At the same time, new shop fronts were installed in the corner building by contractors Robertson & Corbett. The founders of the firm just lived to see the extensions completed: Hubert East died in May 1928, and Frank McDonnell followed him six months later. Fraser East and Jack McDonnell took over as joint managing directors.
The renovations and extensions, which cost approximately £35,000, immediately boosted the status of McDonnell & East Ltd and George Street as a trading centre. The design allowed for further additions in Tank Street, but the subsequent depression and war thwarted this proposal.
The George Street Post Office was located in the McDonnell & East Ltd building from 27 July 1931 until 28 September 1990. The area was let to the Postmaster General's Department free of charge for the first ten years, with the fittings supplied by the store. The office was manned by PMG staff.
After the Second World War business flourished once again, and by 1967 McDonnell & East Ltd had purchased all the property fronting Tank Street to North Quay; all the allotments facing North Quay up to, but excluding, the church at the corner of Turbot Street; and another allotment fronting Turbot Street. The site in Tank Street adjoining the 1928 building was acquired in 1950. It contained a two-storeyed building, into which McDonnell & East Ltd expanded. In 1960 this building was reconstructed as a three-storeyed extension of the McDonnell & East Ltd store. No attempt was made to design a street facade to conform with the 1912-1928 building.
A large, free customer car park, occupying most of the remainder of McDonnell & East Ltd's property at the rear of the store, was constructed in stages between about 1956 and 1969. This no longer survives.
Substantial renovations were carried out in the 1960s: the street level windows were remodelled in 1960; a number of small buildings at the rear of the store were demolished and replaced with a three-storeyed extension, creating an L-shape, in 1963; and in 1964 all remaining dividing walls on the three levels were removed. The Queensland Room Coffee Lounge and Gallery was opened in 1965, and won an international award for a community service project in a retail store.
In 1984, McDonnell & East Ltd was taken over by an investment group, but the family name was retained. It remains the only department store firm, of the several founded in Brisbane in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to have survived.
","criteria":"The McDonnell & East Ltd Building is important in contributing to the evolution of upper George Street as a commercial precinct, aided by the establishment of the markets and transportation and the financial investments of businessman and publican Peter Murphy.
|The McDonnell & East Ltd Building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century department store, including the incorporation of advertising into the facade to illustrate the building's function.
|The McDonnell & East Ltd Building is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the quality of the street elevations, with the stepped parapet, ornamental detail and lettering, and paired window openings which give the facades a rhythmic quality.
|The building has a special association with the Brisbane firm of McDonnell & East Ltd and their contribution to the development of a department store culture in Brisbane in the early 20th century. The McDonnell & East Ltd Building also has special association with influential Brisbane architects TR Hall and GG Prentice, as an example of their commercial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14896,"place_ref":600121,"name":"Harris Terrace","alternate_name":"Harris Court","street_address":"68 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Harris Terrace (1866) is a terrace of six former houses standing on the corner of George and Margaret streets in Brisbane’s CBD. In its prominent corner location, the building contributes to a precinct of other stately 19th to early-20th century buildings and there are attractive views encompassing its front elevation and built form available from Margaret and George streets.
\nThe building is long and narrow, stretching along George Street which it faces, and each house comprises two storeys plus an attic level. It stands near the front of its allotment behind narrow garden beds. It has brick walls: front and side walls are rendered and scored with ashlar coursing while the rear brick walls are not rendered. It has a timber-framed gable roof clad with slate shingles. The building is divided by brick party walls into three mirror-reversed pairs of houses. The party walls incorporate back-to-back rendered brick chimney stacks which extend above the roof line. Each house has two central barrel-vaulted dormer windows into the attic level (one front-facing and one rear-facing).
\nThe front elevation features a convex-roofed, two-storeyed verandah with a masonry ground floor slab and a timber-framed first floor. It features filigree cast metal posts and balustrades, and a masonry transom at first floor level with moulded render cornice. The party walls of the six houses extend forward to divide the front verandah into six, featuring arched niches or openings on both levels. The front of each house has an arch-headed door to one side and two double-hung windows on the ground floor and three French doors on the first floor.
\nThe side elevations of the building are mostly blank: two original narrow windows on the Margaret Street one (south-eastern) have been supplemented at an early stage by an arch-headed ground floor window. The building’s other (north-western) side elevation has a pair of small, attic-level windows with a shared timber-framed, bull-nose hood with timber board cheeks.
\nThe rear elevation has windows on both levels and projecting from the rear wall are two-storey sections, which accommodate part of each house’s stair hall. This formed the connection between the main house and the now-demolished service wings. Each stair hall features tall, arch-headed windows above a ground floor door (some of these tall windows have been altered to be shorter and some of the doors have been converted to windows c1960-1 but retain their brick flat arch heads).
\nThe interior layout of each former house, likely originally identical, has been altered to convert them into interconnected open plan offices. Openings have been made in the original brick partitions; some are large or have removed entire partitions.
\nComprising front hall and rear stair hall beside a front drawing room connected to a rear dining room, the ground floor’s original layout is substantially legible. As is the first floor’s layout, comprising two bedrooms. On both levels, openings have been made in a line through the centre of the building to form a transverse corridor. Modern suspended ceilings concealing services have been run through these corridors. The attic level retains some elements of the original partitioning, with one large space created across the entire six houses: non-original partitions have been inserted in the centre of the attic to form a mechanical plant room.
\nThree of the stair halls have decorative timber stairs (which are likely to incorporate original fabric in their c1985 reconstruction): the other stairs have been removed to convert these stair halls to toilets/kitchenettes with concrete slab floors. The openings from the stair hall into the now-demolished rear service wing, which was likely a few steps lower than the main house floor level, have been in-filled. The drawing room, dining room, and first floor bedrooms retain chimney breasts; however, the arched fireplaces have been closed over with masonry and smooth plastered.
\nConsiderable conservation work (c1985) has occurred throughout the building. This includes the verandah filigree work, interior plasterwork (walls, ceilings, and cornices) and timber joinery (skirtings, stairs, windows, doors, and fanlights). The rear-facing dormer windows (originally small and simple) have been removed and rebuilt to match the large decorative dormers of the front. The reconstruction work has not replicated the hierarchy of decorative details in joinery or plaster work. It has replicated the decorative detail of the ground floor (the most decorative) and applied it to all floors and areas (so that the attic has the same decorative detail as the ground floor).
\nFeatures of Harris Terrace of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Harris Terrace not of state-level cultural heritage significance:
\nAreas of archaeological potential of state-level significance:
\nHarris Terrace is a two-storey plus attic masonry building on George Street, Brisbane City.[1] Initially a residential terrace of six houses, it was constructed in 1866 for Brisbane businessman and politician George Harris and was designed by noted architect James Cowlishaw.
\nTraditionally part of the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera Peoples,[2] since the 1820s, the north bank and adjacent ridgeline of the Brisbane River, now containing William and George streets, has featured a concentration of government and associated activities and uses. Over the period of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, buildings were constructed along this ridgeline and utilised by government officials for ‘accommodation, administration and control'.[3] When the area was opened for free settlement in 1842, the remnant penal infrastructure was used by surveyors as a basis for the layout of the new town of Brisbane. Set at right angles to the river, the prisoner's barracks determined Queen Street, while the line of buildings along the ridge determined William Street. Streets surveyed parallel to these streets, including George Street, formed Brisbane's rectangular grid.[4]
\nWhile a range of buildings and activities occurred along George and William streets and the north bank from the 1840s, the government maintained a dominant presence in the area. At some sites, such as the Commissariat Store (former) [QHR 600176] and Brisbane Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067], earlier uses were continued. The establishment phase following the creation of Queensland in 1859 saw the new colonial government reserve land parcels and construct a range of buildings to facilitate its functions. The building of Government House [QHR 600118] and Parliament House [QHR 600069] at the eastern end of George Street in the 1860s consolidated the area as a government precinct.[5]
\nThe location of Parliament House had a pronounced effect on the built environment around lower George Street. Many of Queensland's early politicians were pastoralists, a reflection of their economic dominance in the colony. Together with a growing workforce of public servants, these politicians required accommodation when in Brisbane. From the 1860s to the 1880s, a range of buildings, many built by, or for politicians, was constructed to address these needs.[6]
\nHarris Terrace was erected as a speculative investment for George Harris. Harris (1831-1891) was born in London, migrated with his family to Sydney in 1833 and came to Brisbane in 1848 to work with his elder brother John. The partnership of John and George Harris, general merchants and shipping agents, was established in 1853, with the firm involved in importing goods and exporting wool and tallow. George Harris became a well-known business and society figure in Brisbane. Following Queensland's separation from New South Wales in 1859 he was appointed a member of the first Legislative Council, serving until August 1878.[7]
\nThe first half of the 1860s was a period of strong growth for Brisbane. Immigration boosted the population dramatically (more than doubling between 1861 and 1864 to over 12,000) and many substantial public and private buildings were constructed during this time. The permanent nature of the buildings was also partly influenced by provisions in the Municipalities Act 1864, which required brick or stone construction and non-flammable roofing material in designated first class building areas.[8]
\nIn 1865 Harris commissioned architect James Cowlishaw to design a terrace building of six self-contained residences on the western corner of George and Margaret streets. The property, originally surveyed as allotment 1 of section 9, had been previously owned by John Betts, a property speculator who bought the land at one of Brisbane's earliest land sales in Sydney in 1842. It is unclear if any improvements were made to the land prior to Harris purchasing the property in 1856. Cowlishaw, considered Brisbane's ‘first successful private architect'[9] arrived in 1860 from Sydney and soon became highly regarded and in demand. Prior to designing the terrace, Cowlishaw undertook other design work for Harris and his firm, including improvements to J&G Harris' wharf and stores at nearby Short Street , a new Ipswich warehouse, and repairs and additions to his then residence, Newstead House [QHR 600265]. In 1861 Cowlishaw also designed a terrace building on the eastern corner of George and Margaret streets for another politician, Arthur Hodgson.[10]
\nTerrace houses were an urban residential building type that came to Australia from England in the early 19th century. Essentially narrow-fronted adjoining houses, terraces were built as dwellings for people across the classes, as was reflected in their respective forms, scales, materials and settings. While fairly common in mid-to-late 19th century suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, terraces were fewer in Brisbane. Those constructed were largely in the centre of Brisbane, or in nearby residential areas like Spring Hill and Petrie Terrace.[11] In 2020, there are 13 known rows of 19th century terrace houses remaining in Queensland.[12]
\nThe Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885, introduced to avoid ‘slum' conditions in areas of medium density dwellings, effectively limited the construction of terraces in Queensland. The minimum size of 16 perches (405 m2) for allotment subdivisions established the detached house as the standard dwelling type. While some terrace houses were built by property speculators as rentals in Brisbane after 1885 (most notably The Mansions [QHR 600119]) dwellings could not be sold individually. Other than Harris Terrace, only three other terrace houses constructed in the 1860s, Athol Place, Spring Hill [QHR 600167]; Princess Row, Petrie Terrace; and 558-62 Boundary Street, Spring Hill [Brisbane City Council heritage register] survive in Brisbane.[13]
\nCowlishaw first advertised for whole or separate tenders for the construction of Harris Terrace, described as ‘six first class houses', in July 1865. He readvertised in February 1866, again requesting the erection of the six houses ‘at the risk of the former contractor'. When the building was completed, a Mr Clarke[14] was identified as the contractor, with the cost of construction £8000. The building was advertised in December 1866 as ready for occupation from 1 January 1867.[15] Shortly after, the building was described as, '...substantially built, possessing an imposing exterior presence, and the interior arrangements contain all the requisites of a well-finished dwelling house of the mother-country, combined with the protection required by a warm climate...'.[16]
\nWhen completed, Harris Terrace was a two-storey rendered brick building with an attic level in the roof space. Based on early descriptions, in each of the six houses, which were arranged in mirror-reverse pairs, the ground floor contained a drawing and dining rooms connected by folding doors, with two bedrooms on the first floor and two more in the attic. Extending from the rear of each house was a two-storey service wing, connected to the house via a stair hall. It housed a kitchen and bathroom. Behind this was a single-storey section, conjecturally accommodating a servant's bedroom or laundry. The building had a gable slate roof with barrel-vaulted dormer attic windows partly concealed by a balustraded parapet, bearing ‘HARRIS TERRACE 1866' at its centre. A two-storey verandah with a concave roof ran along the front and featured filigree cast iron posts and balustrade (first floor only). The ground floor front windows had timber louvre shutters and, possibly an early addition, the first floor was sheltered on the balustrade line by full length venetian blinds on four of the six houses.[17] The verandahs were divided by the party walls, featuring arched niches, and the front yard was divided into individual, narrow gardens behind a decorative picket fence. Immediately adjacent to the building on George Street (on its northwest side) stood a single-storey building, and Harris Terrace was prominent within the 1860s George Street streetscape into the early-20th century.[18] Views to Harris Terrace were obtained from George and Margaret streets from the northwest to the north and around to the east, and southeast.[19]
\nEarly tenants of Harris Terrace who were members of Parliament included Joshua Bell, William Yaldwyn and Kevin O'Doherty. Other early tenants, Mrs Unsworth (no. 5) and Mrs and Miss de Villers (no. 3) ran girls schools in 1867, with the latter offering rooms for boarders.[20] By mid-1868 Harris Terrace was promoted as having ‘already acquired the reputation of being the best private residences in the city'.[21] Along with politicians, medical professionals and senior public servants also numbered among early residents. The houses were individually numbered and some were given their own name.
\nFollowing insolvency in 1876, George Harris surrendered Harris Terrace to mortgagee James Taylor, a Darling Downs landholder and politician. In 1887 the property was acquired by two other members of Parliament, Boyd Morehead and William Pattison, who both lived at Harris Terrace at this time. The following year Morehead and Pattison, with another politician John Stevenson, commissioned the building of ‘The Mansions' – Brisbane's most elaborate terrace house, adjacent to Harris Terrace on the southern corner of George and Margaret streets.[22]
\nThe use of the houses in Harris Terrace for accommodation continued into the first decades of the 20th century. From the mid-1880s some of the individual houses became boarding houses. By the 1920s all of the houses contained in Harris Terrace were being utilised for boarding, often called ‘residential chambers'. In 1922 Frank, Jessie and Ethel Lingley bought the building and changed the name to ‘Harris Court'. The Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act was repealed in 1923 and from this time individual titles were created for the Harris Terrace houses. The Lingleys retained the house on the Margaret Street corner adapting it into a café and building a front extension to the George Street alignment, with an awning over the footpath.[23] The Royal Queensland Art Society acquired one of the houses in 1924. House no. 5 (fifth from the Margaret Street corner) had by the 1940s been altered with a two-storey front extension to the George Street alignment, also with an awning over the footpath.[24]
\nIn the immediate post-war years of the late 1940s the Queensland Government expanded its activities considerably in Brisbane City. Most public servants were then located in the Treasury Building [QHR 600143] and Executive Building (later the Land Administration Building [QHR 600123] in George Street and in offices in the Anzac Square Building [QHR 600059]. The shortage of office accommodation in the centre of Brisbane, and the need to address future requirements, led to a phase of governmental property acquisition in the city. The purchase of properties on George and William streets between the Government Printing Office [QHR 600114] and Parliament House was a key focus, in addition to other acquisitions on Charlotte, Mary, and Margaret streets. Harris Terrace was purchased around this time. Despite their varying condition and former uses, these newly acquired buildings were quickly adapted for government use.[25]
\nHowever, because Harris Terrace was bought with existing leases, it was not until the mid-1950s that the last tenants left the building. In 1958, architect John Hitch, in association with architects from the Department of Public Works, prepared plans to adapt the building for government use. The original service wings and outbuildings to the rear were demolished and replaced by a new steel-framed, sawtooth-roofed annexe, connected to the earlier structure, and containing open-plan office spaces.[26]
\nAlterations occurred to the original building in 1960-61, including the removal of the verandahs and later extensions from the front of the building, and the replacement of the front doors with windows to the middle four houses, leaving entrances only at either end of the building. Original windows were removed or replaced, the barrel-vaulted dormers were replaced with gabled dormers, and chimney and fireplace openings were bricked in. The interiors of Harris Terrace were also altered. Three of the original six staircases were removed, replaced with toilets on ground and first floors, and partitions were demolished and openings made in party walls to link the rooms into a series of open offices. A range of government offices were accommodated in the old building and annexe following the completion of works.[27]
\nThe consolidation of government ownership and usage along George and William streets led to the state investigating a number of schemes to further the development of a ‘government precinct'. By 1965, a masterplan had been developed involving the demolition of all buildings between the old Executive Building and Parliament House (which would have included Harris Terrace), to enable the construction of three 15-storey office buildings in a ‘plaza setting'. Only one of these, a high-rise called the Executive Building, was completed in 1971 (demolished 2017) as part of this plan. By the early 1970s this plan for the precinct was considered unsuitable and a number of other proposals for the area were explored.[28]
\nA 1974 ‘George Street Masterplan' was developed, envisioning lower rise buildings spread out over greater areas, some retention of existing buildings, and the demolition of the Belle Vue Hotel (opposite Parliament House) and The Mansions (adjacent). Ultimately, a major influence in shaping the layout of the area during the 1970s was the growing community support for the retention of older buildings within the government precinct, especially the Belle Vue Hotel and The Mansions. Spearheaded by the National Trust, the government-related associations and links between buildings, their architectural qualities, and aesthetic contributions to the area were highlighted in submissions to the government and in the public sphere. The unannounced June 1974 removal of the balconies of the Belle Vue Hotel was a deliberate action by the State government to degrade the visual appearance of the area, and drew further attention to the conservation cause.[29]
\nIn April 1979 Cabinet adopted a recommendation for a schedule of demolition work to progress the development of the government precinct. The Belle Vue Hotel was to be demolished, but The Mansions and the original section of Harris Court were to be retained, renovated, and adapted. On 21 April, three days after this decision, the Belle Vue Hotel was demolished in the early hours of the morning, a notorious event in the history of heritage conservation in Queensland.[30]
\nHarris Terrace and The Mansions were retained, while large areas were cleared around it to build the State Works Centre (80 George Street), a sprawling seven-storey building on two George Street blocks (bridged across Margaret Street), completed in 1985. Harris Terrace and The Mansions stood in the new building’s landscaped forecourts. As part of this project, renovations and major conservation works were undertaken at Harris Terrace involving architects from the Department of Public Works in association with Conrad and Gargett Architects. Work included the reconstruction of the verandahs, with new posts and balustrades similar to the originals; a new slate roof; reinstatement of front entrance doors (not all operable) and barrel-vaulted dormers (those of the rear were made larger than the originals); installation of new doors, windows, architraves, and skirtings of earlier forms and profiles; and new moulded ceilings on the ground and first floors. At this time the building reverted to its original name of ‘Harris Terrace'.[31] Thereafter, it was used as office accommodation.
\nThe State Works Centre was demolished in 2017 (as were other large government buildings in the precinct) to make way for an extensive integrated resort development called ‘Queen’s Wharf Brisbane’. Harris Terrace was retained and vacated, planned for redevelopment and integration into the precinct. Beside and behind the building, deep excavations were made to build a multi-storey underground car park. Archaeological investigations prior to the deep excavations revealed footings from the adjacent former United Services Club (built c1913, demolished c1980s) to the northwest, and disturbance associated with construction of the State Works Centre development to the southwest.[32]
\nA strip of land along the back of Harris Terrace, approximately 1.3m from the rear walls of the stair halls that connected with the former service wings, was not excavated. Limited archaeological investigations undertaken in this area in 2017 revealed substantial Brisbane tuff footings beneath the main terrace house, and shallow brick footings beneath one of the stair halls, as well as 19th century glass, ceramic, and metal artefactual material and faunal remains (bone).[33]
\nIn 2020, Harris Terrace is one of 11 known 1860s buildings remaining in Brisbane City; one of only 13 known rows of terrace houses in Queensland; and one of only four known 1860s rows of terrace houses in Queensland (all in Brisbane).[34]
","criteria":"Harris Terrace, constructed as a terrace of six houses in 1866, is important in demonstrating the evolution of housing in Queensland. A rare example of 1860s terrace housing, it illustrates the early use of this housing type in Queensland.
\nHarris Terrace is important in demonstrating the early residential nature of lower George Street, a pattern that occurred largely in response to the concentration of government and associated activities in this area of inner Brisbane.
|As one of only 13 known 19th century terraces remaining in Queensland, of which only four are known to remain from the 1860s, Harris Terrace is important as a rare example of this type. It is also rare as a surviving 1860s building in Brisbane City.
|Harris Terrace has potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of early urban residential construction and living in Queensland. The area immediately behind the building may contain archaeological evidence including the foundations of the demolished service wings. Artefacts within this and subfloor areas may include those commonly associated with domestic habitation such as glass, ceramics, and bone. Archaeological investigations have the potential to yield information about mid-19th century urban residential building techniques and materials, and the activities, lifestyles and material culture of the former occupants of Harris Terrace.
|Harris Terrace is important for its aesthetic significance with its dignified, well-composed front elevation and filigree open verandahs. Standing on its prominent corner site, with views of its front elevation and built form from George and Margaret streets, Harris Terrace makes an important contribution to the lower George Street streetscape of stately 19th century buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14897,"place_ref":600122,"name":"Transcontinental Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"468 & 482 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This Victorian era hotel located near the intersection of George and Roma Street features filigree cast iron lacework that has recently been reinstated onto the original cast iron verandah posts. It is of rendered brick construction with three storeys on the George Street facade and a fourth level basement. The basement walls are Brisbane Tuff stonework. The George Street facade has a post supported curved corrugated iron awning over the footpath, and balconies on the upper two levels. Eight pairs of French-lights open onto the balconies on each level. The first floor is emphasised by having a greater balcony height than the top floor. The topmost balcony has a curved corrugated iron roof hipped at the ends.
The building is crowned with a decorative parapet which includes the name 'TRANSCONTINENTAL HOTEL' in raised lettering and a curved central parapet section bearing the date 1884 in a circular recess.
Although the building has been restored externally, its internal refurbishment, involving the removal of fittings and the creation of a large internal space, does not convey the impression of a Victorian Hotel. Its prominent location and the intact nature of its external Victorian detailing make this building a notable landmark in this area of Brisbane.
","history":"The Transcontinental Hotel was constructed in 1883-4. In 1879 Peter Murphy, wine and spirit merchant, leased premises in George Street from Francois Boudin. In 1881 he acquired the adjoining vacant land. On 28 August 1883 Peter Murphy, then publican and lessee of the Burgundy Hotel, businessman, financier of MacDonnell & East (1901) and Member of the Legislative Council (MLC, 1904-1922), announced by public notice in The Telegraph his intention to apply for a new publican's license and to build a new hotel on this site. Intended to accommodate passengers from the nearby railway, the Transcontinental Hotel was to comprise "16 bedrooms, 1 dining room, 1 luncheon room, 1 billiard room, 4 sitting rooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, store, pantry, cellar and outhouses".
On 22 September 1883 renowned architect Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley called tenders for the erection of a first class hotel for Peter Murphy. The new hotel, with a frontage of 74 feet and a depth of 40 feet, was four storeys high, one of which was below street level. The Brisbane Courier reported that the Transcontinental Hotel contained 27 bedrooms, seven public rooms, billiard room and a private bar". A sunshade of "ornamental design" was attached to the front and the two upper storeys had balconies four feet, six inches wide, with "ornamental iron columns, brackets, frieze and railings". The hotel offered comfortable accommodation, a first class table, with "all the delicacies of the season being provided". The bar trade was one of the largest in Brisbane, with only the best liquor carried.
In the 1880s, George Street contained most of Brisbane's inner city first-class hotels, including the Bell Vue (1886), Cosmopolitan (1887), Shakespeare (1887-88), Treasury (1887-88), Criterion (c1883), Imperial (1885-6), Lennon's (1883-4), Grosvenor (c1882), New Crown (188?) and the Transcontinental (1883-4). Of these, the Treasury, Grosvenor and Transcontinental are the only three to have survived.
In 1906 new lessee Denis O'Connor commissioned architect, GHM Addison to design extensive alterations to the interior. At the opening ceremony of the new bar on 30 October 1906 the Transcontinental was declared to be "the most ornate and best equipped" hotel in Australia. In 1925 the hotel was further remodelled as part of Peter Murphy's redevelopment plans for upper George Street as a commercial precinct. Murphy's business acumen was realised by 1926 when upper George Street was declared to be "one of the most flourishing business" sectors outside of Queen Street and Fortitude Valley.
The Murphy family owned the Transcontinental Hotel until 1935 when it was sold to Castlemaine Perkins. The McCoy family were licensees from the 1930s until the 1980s. In 1988 the hotel owners, Austotel, commissioned Hampton Interiors to restore the Transcontinental. The ornate cast iron balustrading which was removed in 1965, was reinstated and the original exterior colours were repainted.
","criteria":"Built near Roma Street Railway Station, the Transcontinental Hotel is important in illustrating the important role of hotels in providing accommodation for Queensland travellers in the late 19th century. It also provides rare surviving evidence of the former importance of George Street as a late 19th century accommodation precinct.
|The Transcontinental is a typical example of an 1880s era boom era hotel in Brisbane's central business district, displaying filigree cast iron lacework and a post supported street awning.
|It has aesthetic significance as a prominent part of the streetscape at the intersection of George and Roma Streets.
|The Transcontinental Hotel is significant for its strong association with Peter Murphy, Member of the Legislative Council, publican and George Street property speculator, from 1881 until 1925.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14898,"place_ref":600123,"name":"Land Administration Building","alternate_name":"Former Executive Building","street_address":"142 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lands Administration Building is a four-storeyed government office building occupying a site bounded by George Street, Stephens Lane, William Street and Queens Gardens (600112). The form and scale of the building complement the Treasury Building (600143) and the former State Library (600177) located nearby. It forms the southeastern edge of the important group of government buildings surrounding Queens Gardens, which also includes the Family Services Building (600111) and the William Street retaining wall (600135).
The building is constructed of masonry, steel and concrete and faced with sandstone from Helidon and Warwick. It sits on a plinth faced with alternate courses of Enoggera and Mt Crosby granite. The principal elevation to Queens Gardens and the elevations to George and William Streets have banded rustication on the lower two storeys. This two-storeyed base supports a colonnade of giant order ionic columns.
The design of the facades is in the style of the Edwardian Baroque. At each corner and in the centre of the principal elevation, pavilions jut out terminating the colonnade. The pavilions are enriched with rusticated columns and pilasters. The central pavilion addressing Queens Park is surmounted by an open segmental pediment. This pediment supports an allegorical sculpture depicting agriculture and mining.
The building has an entrance in the centre of both the George Street and William Street elevations. Each entrance is marked with a broken segmental pediment. Behind the upper colonnades there is a long recessed balcony. The use of fine wrought iron detail to balustrades, railings and gates compliments the masonry detail.
The stained glass in the entrance vestibules and elsewhere in the interior complements the use of sculpture externally. Depicted in stained glass in the William Street vestibule is a sower, a reaper, a pioneer and squatter. The glass in the George Street vestibule depicts a tiller and a herdsman. A marble tablet set into the wall of this entrance is inscribed with the message sent by King George V to the people of Australia on 25 April 1916, establishing the Anzac day tradition. An honour board commemorating Lands Department staff who served in the First World War is located in the corridor on the first floor [see appendix].
The basic form of the building echoes the layout of the Treasury building. It is a perimeter block building around a central courtyard. A wide hallway runs around most of the building with doorways on either side opening onto rooms that are lit via windows to the courtyard or to the street or garden. The hallway does not continue through the centre of that part of the building located on Stephens Lane. Rooms in this wing are accessed from an arcade on the northeastern edge of the courtyard. Cast-iron balconies also provide circulation around the courtyard. Vertical circulation is provided by fine staircases and lifts associated with the two street entrances. The design also echoes the Treasury building by providing colonnades on the three main elevations.
The construction demonstrates an early use of reinforced concrete floors in a large scale building. Steel framing was employed in the roofs over the photographic rooms on the top floor and over the fireproofed sections. Metal roller shutters were installed in the fireproof sections.
The principal architectural spaces include rooms formerly used for the Executive Council Chamber, the Land Court, and offices of the Premier and the Minister of Lands, which have a private stairway to George Street. These rooms have ornamental coffered plaster ceilings and timber panelling to dado height. The former Executive Council Chamber has three stained glass windows positioned above the dado which can also be seen from the hallway.
The building is very intact, internally and externally.
","history":"This four-storeyed masonry government office building was erected between 1901 and 1905. Initially intended as offices for the Lands and Survey Departments, it was finished and occupied in 1905 as the Executive Building, accommodating both the Lands and Survey Departments and offices of the Premier and Executive Council. It is the most prominent Brisbane example of state building activity associated with the economic recovery of the late 1890s, and with the colony's newly federated status.
In 1898-99 plans were prepared under the supervision of chief architect Thomas Pye of the government architect's office. Special provisions for the Lands Department included Minister's offices, drafting rooms, photographic and heliographic rooms, and a Land Court. With the inclusion of offices for the Executive Council and Cabinet, a separate entrance in George Street was designed for ministerial access.
A £2,900 contract for site preparation and foundations was commenced in 1899, and in 1901 the principal construction contract for £141,000 was let to Brisbane builder Arthur Midson.
The use of expanded metal lathing as a re-enforcement to the concrete floors and ceilings was amongst the earliest application of such technology in Australia, and was a first in Queensland.
The building was symbolic of state pride and achievement, and was seen as a showcase for Queensland materials. Granite used as the base course and plinth was obtained from Enoggera and Mount Crosby. Brown freestone from Helidon was used to face the outer walls, and freestone from Yangan near Warwick was used on the colonnade walls. The decorative carving to the facades, completed during 1903-04, included in the northwestern elevation an allegorical group representing Queensland mining and agriculture, carved by New South Wales sculptor WP MacIntosh to a design by Thomas Pye. The mantelpieces were constructed of a variety of Queensland timbers (maple, cedar, black bean and silky oak) representing the state's timber resources. Allegorical stained glass highlighted the rural nature of the Queensland economy.
The Queensland National Art Gallery occupied a purpose-designed room the length of the third floor above George Street from 1905 until 1930.
Both Executive Council and Cabinet met in the building from 1905 until 1971, when new offices were constructed at 100 George Street. Since then the former Executive Building has been known as the Land Administration Building.
The gas lamps on the pavements at the William and George Street entrances were erected by about 1911. Those delineating the George Street entrance appear to have been moved further apart. They still function, lit by natural gas.
","criteria":"As the most important building constructed by the Queensland government during the economic recovery of the early 1900s, the Lands Administration Building is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history.
|The highly intact Lands Administration Building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Edwardian Baroque public architecture, and is the finest example of its type constructed in Queensland.
|The building is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, and by architectural historians in particular, the accomplished design, detailing, materials and workmanship, its townscape contribution, particularly in relation to the adjacent buildings and sites and the aesthetic quality and connotations of the associated artworks and furnishings, including the stained glass and sculptural work.
|The Lands Administration Building has a strong and special association with the role and prestige of government, being an integral member of the most prominent, important and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland.
|The Lands Administration Building has a strong and special association with the role and prestige of government, being an integral member of the most prominent, important and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland.
The building has a special association with Queensland Executive government for nearly seven decade and with important Queensland architect Thomas Pye, being one of his major works.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14899,"place_ref":600124,"name":"Brisbane Grammar School","alternate_name":"Brisbane Grammar","street_address":"24 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Brisbane Grammar School
The Brisbane Grammar School is sited on the crest of a ridge that overlooks Albert Park and Roma St Railway yards to the south, and Victoria Park and Kelvin Grove to the north; the site is bounded by College Road, Gregory Terrace, and the Railway Line, and has its main entrance from Gregory Terrace.
The siting and architectural character of buildings at Boys Grammar School reinforce a hierarchy of buildings of primary and secondary importance. The 'primary' buildings include the Main Building (1879), the Administration Building (1912) and War Memorial Library (1923), which form a collection of brick Collegiate Gothic buildings with pale masonry dressings and pitched rooves at the centre of the school. They are sited on highest point of the school grounds, a finger-shaped plateau which runs westwards from Gregory Terrace. The central buildings are encircled by 'secondary' buildings comprised of classrooms and boarders accommodation to the north and the east, sited on the sides of slopes which fall way from the central plateau. These include brick, pitched roof buildings which are complementary in character to the central buildings: the School House (1887), the New Building (1916) and the more recently acquired Correspondence School (1899). The Sports Grounds extend towards the north west at a lower terraced level which has been cut out of the side of the hill. The south of the school is screened from the road with a vegetated embankment. The recent entrance driveway from Gregory Terrace and the symmetrical grouping of new buildings around the axis of the War Memorial Library contrasts with the picturesque grouping of the buildings as seen from the earlier entrance driveway.
The grounds contain a number of memorial objects; the "German" field gun to the south of the Main Building, an octagonal sandstone memorial drinking fountain to the east of the Administration Building, and several plaques to the buildings' exteriors. The grounds also contain a double-storeyed brick and corrugated iron roofed toilet block, sited on an escarpment to the northwest of the Main Building. It has rendered concrete lintels, unglazed high-set openings and a rendered masonry portico.
Vegetation features within the grounds include: remains of an avenue of Moreton Bay figs which once led from the school gates to the main buildings (planted 1879); a row of palms which supplanted some of the figs (planted 1918); three "royal trees" (two planted in 1881 and one in 1968); four pines, seeds of which came from the Lone Pine at Gallipoli on the bank near the "German" field gun (planted in 1978), several figs to the south west entrance to the oval (1941), and a number of trees planted or donated by eminent people associated with the school.
A pair of steel gates hinged from brick posts are located on the south eastern boundary of the school; these gates mark an entry that is no longer in use. A porphyry square-necked rubble wall runs along part of the southern boundary.
The Brisbane Grammar School forms an unusually intact collection of buildings, notable for the coherent architectural character and siting logic that has been developed and largely maintained over the years.
Brisbane Grammar School - Main Building
Sited centrally on the schools highest plateau, with its principal frontage to College Road, the Main Building is a double-storeyed brick Gothic building with rendered masonry and cement dressings and a slate tiled pitched roof. It is a symmetrical building comprised of central Great Hall rising above and flanked by two classroom wings. The wings have a crucifix plan, and their long axes run east-west; the Great Hall runs north-south and has an Oamaru stone porch to its south. The building has been extended to the north with a Science Wing (1912) to the eastern end and new classrooms (1963) to the western end.
The roof is comprised of a series of intersecting pitches which run concurrent with the long axes of the rooms below, and is decorated with a band of fish-tailed slates.
The Southern frontage to College Rd has three double-storeyed projecting bays with parapeted gables and corner buttresses to the Great Hall and end classrooms. The eastern and western frontages have single, central double-storeyed projecting bays, also with corner buttresses and parapeted gables.
To the north, only the projecting bay of the Great Hall remains visible.
To the south, the projecting bays are spaced with an arcaded awning to the ground floor with a sheet metal roof, rendered masonry spandrels and paired cast iron columns with Collegiate Gothic capitals. The Oamaru stone porch, a single-storeyed aedicule, has arched entry ways to the east and west, surmounted by pediments and flanked by paired half columns, and two arched openings to the south. The columns capitals are richly carved with oak, holly and shamrock leaf motifs. The cornice, pediment and balustrade feature quatrefoil motifs.
The northern frontage has timber verandahs giving access to first level classrooms, with squared sheeted spandrel panels, and supported on paired columns with foliate capitals. The verandahs have battened balustrades, raked timber ceilings to the upper level and ripple iron ceilings to ground level. Part of the verandah to the east has been closed in with fibre cement sheeting.
The projecting bays to the south, east and west have pairs of pointed arch tracery windows with single rosettes above, with a single larger tracery window to the northern and southern end of the Great Hall. Rectangular windows with pointed arch motifs run between the projecting bays, and the rooms are accessed via timber double doors. Rendered masonry dressings include toothed window surrounds, hood mouldings, cornices with dentils, and copings.
The upper level classrooms at the ends of the east and west wings feature timber arched braced trusses springing from semi-circular impost blocks, diagonally boarded timber ceilings with exposed rafters, and timber cornices with quatrefoil motifs. The four classrooms either side of the Great hall on the upper floor and several on the ground floor have sheeted ceilings with dark timber coverstrips.
The Great Hall is spanned by similar but more elaborately decorated arched timber trusses to those found in the classrooms, also landing on semi-circular impost blocks. It has a diagonally boarded timber ceiling with exposed rafters and purlins, finished with a timber cornice with pierced motifs. The interior features two large stained glass windows, one at each end of the hall, and one to each side amongst a run of lancet windows. The entrances to the south, east and west have pointed arch cedar double doors. The doors and windows have mouldings, and a stepped dado moulding decorates the north and south walls. The Great Hall contains a number of memorial plaques, and WWI and WWII honour rolls.
This impressive primary building of the Grammar School group remains substantially intact in form and detail, retaining its well-crafted features, in particular the upper level classroom and Great Hall interiors, and the Oamaru stone porch.
Brisbane Grammar School - School House
The School House is a three-storeyed, Gothic-influenced painted brick building, sited on a slope to the west of the Main Building. It has a red terracotta tiled roof, comprised of a central, low pitched hipped portion and more steeply pitched edges intersected by gables. A 1972 boarding house directly adjoins the School House to the north.
The building has a rectangular plan, and is entered from the west on the ground floor, and the north, south and east on the first floor. A small loggia connects to the eastern entrance. To the ground and first floors, rooms are accessed from cruciform corridors with stairs to the west and the south. The intersection of the corridors are decorated with rendered masonry arches, and many of the ceilings are timber-boarded. The first floor bay windows are framed internally by a flat arch.
The upper floor is an impressive space with exposed timber trusses which span the width of the building. The gable ends of the exterior are expressed internally in the timber-lined ceiling.
The exterior has two differing expressions, the eastern and western elevations having an 'institutional' appearance in comparison to the more domestically-scaled southern facade designed as the entrance (previously the headmaster's residence). The eastern and western elevations are symmetrical compositions of gabled bays and paired windows, while the southern elevation features a one and a half storey entry portico with a gable end on the wall above, flanked by bay windows with small tiled roofs.
The building has triangular head windows to the upper storey, arched windows to the first floor, and windows with slightly flatter arches to the ground floor. Each gable end has a rounded triangular vent at its peak. The elevations are linked horizontally with projecting brick courses running at floor and sill level. These brick courses are comprised of diagonally-placed brick ends under a projecting course, framing rectangular motifs.
The School House is an integral part of the Grammar School group, exhibiting fine architectural qualities in the composition and brickwork detailing of its exterior, and its impressive interior space to the upper level.
Brisbane Grammar School Administration Building
The Science Wing is a two-storeyed Collegiate Gothic building adjoining the eastern wing of the Main Building to the north. Complementing the Main Building in form, the Science Wing is made of brick with light masonry dressings, and employs a similar formal language of parapeted gabled bays with corners buttresses to the north, east and west. It has a pitched tiled roof, with a pyramidal fleche rising above the roof line.
The western and eastern elevations are comprised of single gable ends, with two large pointed arch windows surmounted by three small lancets. The western elevation has a memorial bell-cote, set in a rendered masonry surround with bell suspended above a more recent clock. The northern elevation has a projecting gabled bay with two large pointed arched windows with a rosette above. It is flanked by two single-storeyed gabled bays with rectangular windows.
The refurbishment of the building included most of the windows. Leaded glass windows were replaced with steel mullioned windows with concrete spandrel panels and new rendered masonry surrounds, while pointed arched windows to the side walls were replaced with triangular head windows.
Originally comprised of three double-storeyed height rooms extending in turn to the west, north, and further out to the east, the building has been divided into two storeys. The ground floor has been partitioned for administrative offices, and the first floor now serves as a meeting area.
The fine and impressive timber roof structures of the three major rooms remain visible on the upper floor, being comprised of exposed timber blade trusses on quarter-round impost blocks. The ceilings have exposed rafter and purlins over timber boarding. A corner is formed by the continuation of the ceiling along the top of the wall.
Despite substantial internal alterations and the replacement of windows, the building remains a fine addition to the Main Building, retaining major elements of its skilfully-designed interior and exterior.
Brisbane Grammar School - New Building
The New Building is a two-storeyed brick building with timber verandahs, rendered concrete lintels and a fibro-cement tiled gambrel roof. It has a rectangular plan, with its long axis running east-west, and is sited immediately to the north of the main building. It has been cut into an escarpment, the result being a reduction of the bulk of the building in relation to the Main Building. It has one storey above ground level to the south, and two storeys above ground level to the north, with unobstructed views over the sports field, Victoria Park and Kelvin Grove. The escarpment has been retained with a brick batter wall.
The building is entered from the south via a timber bridge which runs across the batter wall at first floor level. This entrance is marked with a gable end with vertical timber battens, centred tulip motif, and curved valances. The same gable end is featured to the north.
The four classrooms to each level are accessed via north and south verandahs, and vertically linked with internal terrazzo stairs. To the south, the verandahs have vertically battened timber balustrades, and timber lattice panels to the lower level. To the north, the timber balustrades have been replaced with chainwire and steel pipe, and the lattice replaced with sheeted timber panels. The timber posts to the gabled ends, and to the east and western ends of the verandahs are paired, and decorated with timber panels with tulip motifs.
The verandah ceilings to the upper level are raked, with timber boarding with exposed eaves rafters; the western and eastern ends of the ceilings are finished with triangular panels with vertical battens. The verandahs have ripple iron ceilings to the ground floor.
The classrooms are lined and rendered internally, and have sheeted ceilings. All the classrooms are accessed from both sides via timber double doors. The rooms have two types of grided timber windows; paired sliding sash windows, and high-set grided timber windows with an inward tilting panel.
Despite alterations to the northern elevation, the building remains an intact example of skilful design with modest decoration achieved within the budgetary constraints of the classroom block type.
Brisbane Grammar School - War Memorial Library
The War Memorial Library is located immediately to the east of the Main Building, and terminates a vista to the west from Gregory Terrace which is framed by two 1960s buildings. It is a free-standing octagonal Gothic building with stained glass windows, and is made of red brick in English bond with sandstone dressings. It has a steeply pitched slate-tiled octagonal roof covering a single-storeyed space of tall proportions.
The building has stepped buttresses at the corners of the octagon, while the faces of the octagon have paired lancet windows alternating with single lancets which have dormers above. The entrances to the building are on the north and south faces through pointed arch timber double doors with carved inscriptions on either side. The sandstone door surrounds feature a gable carved with trefoil motifs above a hood mould. The sandstone battlement also features trefoil motifs, and is punctuated with curved gables surmounting the buttresses. Other sandstone dressings include hood
mouldings and toothed surrounds to windows, thin pilasters crowned with small spires which link the dormers to the windows below, and two courses of rough hewn stone at the base.
The interior has an elaborate exposed roof structure consisting of small arched trusses springing from sandstone impost blocks, which are centred on brick piers at the corners of the octagons. The trusses meet at a mid-point below the roof pinnacle; the remainder of the roof is supported with struts springing from a central half-post. It has a timber boarded ceiling with exposed rafters, and the dormers are expressed in the ceiling.
The room has twelve high-set stained glass windows with sandstone voussoirs encircling the room, as well as four stained glass windows to the dormers. Of the twelve windows, ten feature figures personifying chivalrous virtues; the window over the north door features the figure of peace, while south windows features that of victory. The building contains a number of commemorative plaques, and dark timber furniture with Gothic detailing. The latter comprises the "Crystal Cabinet", the "Octagonal Cabinet", a tall glass-fronted cabinet, a smaller glass-fronted cabinet, and a bench.
The Memorial Library is a very fine building in concept, composition and detailing. Its substantial and rich symbolic content makes it an unusual feature of a school building group.
Brisbane Grammar School - Old Correspondence School
The Old Correspondence School is located to the west of the School House [600124b], on a lower terraced level which falls gently to the west. It is a double-storeyed banded red-brick building with a red corrugated iron hipped roof, fronting onto and rising above College Road. The building is comprised of two wings; an 1899 wing which runs north-south, with its address to College Road, and an adjoining 1923 wing running east-west, which has a semi-basement to the west.
The southern elevation has a fine brick and sandstone entrance portico. The northern elevation has a projecting bay with its own pyramid roof, containing toilets, which is linked to the building with an enclosed timber verandah clad in weatherboard. The western elevation has a single-storeyed weatherboard-clad enclosed verandah, while the eastern elevation has a double-storeyed enclosed verandah. The eastern elevation has been extended with a single storeyed weatherboard annex.
The brickwork is banded with sandstone courses to the 1899 section, and beige brick courses to the later addition. These courses run above and below the windows, and a deep band of blue-grey brick runs around the base of the entire building. The windows to the upper level have flat arches with splayed brick voussoirs (excepting to the toilet bay). The ground floor windows have square heads with sandstone lintels and keystones to the 1899 section, and splayed brick lintels to the newer section. All openings to the west are protected with corrugated iron sunshades on timber brackets.
The entry portico to the south has rusticated brick pilasters flanking a sandstone arch with toothed voussoirs, set in a brick gable end surmounted by a sandstone cornice with dentils. The timber double entrance doors are surmounted by a similar sandstone arch around a glazed fanlight.
The interior features two timber staircases, which have timber balustrades with turned newels with rounded terminals. The windows are sliding sash with grided panes to the upper leaves, excluding those to the verandahs and toilet bay. The verandahs are accessed with timber double doors with fanlights.
The 1899 section has ripple iron ceilings, while the 1925 section has sheeted ceilings with coverstrips. The southern rooms have views to the city, Petrie Terrace and Paddington.
The 1898 building exhibits some fine detailing, and the later addition is successfully complementary in form, character and materials.
","history":"Brisbane Grammar School
The Brisbane Grammar School, constituted under the Grammar School Act 1860-1864, was officially opened on 1 February 1869 under the Headmastership of Thomas Harlin. It was the second Grammar School established in Queensland. The first buildings designed by architect Benjamin Backhouse with later additions by RG Suter were erected on a site along Roma Street and were demolished in 1911.
Following the expansion of the railway network, the school moved to the present site on Gregory Terrace. The foundation stone was laid by the Chairman of Trustees, Hon Charles Lilley on 28 November 1879. The site granted by the government in 1878 was bounded on three sides by Gregory Terrace, College Road (then known as New Road), and the railway line. In addition the School was granted by the government a piece of land across the railway line for a sporting ground and a corresponding area was excised from the south west corner of the Gregory Terrace site.
Arranging of the drive and tree planting including the planting of an avenue of Moreton Bay Figs along the main drive was carried out at the new site by School Trustee and founding member of the Acclimatisation Society LA Bernays. In 1918 the figs on the northern side of the drive were replaced by cocos palms. In 1881, students moved to the new school. The Main Building (QHR 600124a), comprising the Great Hall with single storeyed wings of classrooms on either side, was designed by architect James Cowlishaw. It was built to face College Road, overlooking the city and the old school. In the same year two Moreton Bay figs were planted by Princes Edward and George in the drive.
Not until the opening in 1887 of the School House (QHR 600124b), designed by architect Richard Gailey, was accommodation provided for boarders within the school grounds. The three storeyed School House also provided accommodation for Headmaster Roe and his family. In 1909 Roe resigned to become the Inspector General and Chief Educational Advisor in the Department of Public Instruction and former deputy FSN
Bousfield became Headmaster. In the same year, additions and alterations by architect GD Payne were carried out to the School House. Payne, who was the father of two boys at the school, was also responsible for the 1912 additions to the Main Building comprising a chemistry laboratory and physics laboratory (QHR 600124c) which were erected at a cost of less than £6,000 and for the New Building (QHR 600123d) erected in 1916 by the Works Department at a cost of £4,983. At this time levelling of the hill wicket was carried out. Later, in 1925 the Works Department carried out further work at the school with the addition of a second floor to the classroom wings of the Main Building.
On 11 August 1921, a World War I trophy, a "German" field gun donated to the school by old boy, Brigadier General LC Wilson, was unveiled.
The War Memorial Library (QHR 600124e) was opened on Armistice Day 1924 by Governor Nathan. Built as a memorial to some 1020 members of the School who served during World War I, it was erected to the design of architect John Barr, who had succeeded in a competition held amongst old boys of the school and subscribers to the War Memorial fund.
In 1928, former deputy Stuart Stephenson was appointed Headmaster and an appeal was launched to transform the Hill Wicket into a new turf cricket ground. The new turf which was levelled under the unemployment scheme was opened in 1932. In 1931 part of the oval was excised for the making of Gilcrest Avenue and in return the school was granted a portion of Victoria Park. With the depression, direct government funding and indirect funding via state scholarships was reduced. In the mid 1930's various improvements financed by government grant were undertaken and Brisbane City Council workmen beautified the approach and entrance to the school grounds with gardens, lawns, and rockeries.
Old boy George Carson-Cooling was appointed Headmaster in 1940 and was followed by HR Pigott in 1948. The oval across Gilcrest Avenue was leased from 1948-1966 to Ballymore. In the early 1950s beautification of the grounds was undertaken including planting shrubs on the frontage facing Brisbane; levelling part of the entrance road; making gardens at the gate and around the School House; a low stone wall and garden beds were made by fathers in 1955 to the College Road entrance; a start was made on filling up part of "no man's land" between boys and girls school to make a new playing field; and the main football ground was extended to full size with space for a running track and miniature rifle range.
In 1953, AE McLucas was appointed Headmaster. In that year the Frank Walker Gymnasium was opened and in the following year, the Old Boys Second World War Memorial Swimming Pool was opened.
HF Newell was appointed Head in 1956. New entrance gates were erected in 1959 and a new science block opened in 1960. In 1961 a players pavilion was erected on the oval and in the following year the Headmaster moved from the School House to a brick residence erected in the grounds. In 1963, a wing of four classrooms was added to the Main Building and the Newell Quadrangle was completed by the following year.
The Centenary Building Project was announced in 1964. It included the building of the Centennial Hall and the Library. Other work included the construction of Advanced Science Laboratories (1965); the conversion of the Science Wing into administration offices and masters common room (1966), the Manual Training Building (1967); additions to the School House (1972); the Humanities Building (1975); the addition of two floors to the Manual Training Building to become the Language Laboratory (1981); and the Music Auditorium (1982).
In 1982 the permanent closure of Kalinga Avenue between the Brisbane Grammar School and Brisbane Girls Grammar School was granted. In 1992, the Old Correspondence School (QHR 600124e), located on what was intended as part of the original endowment land, was purchased from the State Government.
Brisbane Grammar School - Main Building
The Main Building, comprising the Great Hall and classroom wings, was designed by architect James Cowlishaw and erected in 1880 with a second floor added to the classroom wings by the Public Works Department in 1925. It was the first building to be erected at the Brisbane Grammar School's new Gregory Terrace site.
With the expansion of the Roma Street railway yards, the school was forced to move to a new location selected on Gregory Terrace. On 28 November 1879 the foundation stone was laid by Chairman of Trustees and school benefactor, the Hon Charles Lilley.
By 1881, the new building costing some £12,000, had been completed by contractor, W MacFarlane. A detached wooden cottage was also erected for the caretaker and included a dining room for the pupils. Like the Main Building, this featured the use of the quatrefoil motif. The new school overlooked both the old school site and the city. Its hill top location was considered salubrious and picturesque. Cowlishaw's Collegiate Gothic design provided for a large central Hall, with single storeyed classroom wings on either side. It was brick and roofed with banded Bangor slates with cast iron cresting on the ridges.
The main entry, facing the city, was by a covered carriage porch of Oamaru stone bearing a number of carvings, and which led to the Great Hall. Inside, the ceiling was coloured sky blue and decorated with hundreds of gold stars. Soon after the opening the large stained glass windows, funded by subscriptions, were installed. Made by Ferguson and Urie of Melbourne, they are thought to be the earliest Australian produced windows in Queensland. Both windows are used to portray the ideals of the school. The northern window shows a young Queen Victoria flanked by men famous in British history, including maritime and military leaders, statesmen, poets, playwrights, and men of science, who look down on the boys inviting them to "emulate their noble deeds". The theme of the southern grisaille window speaks of the rewards bestowed by the Crown for loyalty and service. On either side of the Great Hall were the class room wings including Headmaster's office and science laboratory. As in the Great Hall, the ceilings and rafters of these rooms were coloured.
In 1912, the Science Wing (QHR 600124c) comprising chemistry and physics laboratories was added to the eastern wing by architect GD Payne. Major additions were undertaken in 1925, when a second floor containing ten new classrooms was added to what had previously been the single storeyed class room wings. In 1924, in response to rising enrolments, the Trustees of the school wrote to the Government Architect requesting that plans be prepared for eight additional classrooms. A proposal to extend the New Building was considered by the Public Works Department where the Chief Architect at the time was WJ Ewart, an old boy. In the following year the plan was rejected in favour of a proposal by old boy architect AE Brooks, to add the second floor. The proposal was considered by the Trustees to further dignify the architectural beauty of the building. It was also considered cheaper than the erection of a separate building. Leonard Kempster of the Public Works Department modified that proposal to enable the existing ground floor to be altered as little as possible thereby retaining the ground floor. The work, which cost £11,290 involved the raising of the existing roof to form the roof of the second storey and included the removal of fireplaces and chimneys and the replacement of the slate tiled roof.
In 1935, under architect TR Hall, an old boy, the slate roof of the Great Hall was renewed and the outside walls repaired. The stained glass window designed by William Bustard and executed by RS Exton was unveiled in 1951. It was donated by the Old Boys in memory of Maud Carson-Cooling, the wife of Headmaster George Carson-Cooling. Various works were undertaken during the mid 1950's, under the supervision of Professor RP Cummings including the repair of the roof of the main building, the renovation of the cloisters, the releading of the stained glass windows of the Great Hall; and the repainting of the interior of the Hall in an array of colours including the 500 gold stars on the ceiling.
In response to changes in education policy, in 1963, a two storeyed addition was made to the western wing consisting of 4 classrooms to accommodate what amounted to a double intake for the following year.
Lining the walls of the Great Hall are a number of honour boards and memorials. These include a bronze memorial plate designed by old boy architect RS Dods in 1897 in memory of school benefactor Sir Charles Lilley. In 1902 Dods also designed the cedar TJ Byrnes Honour Board, erected in memory of an old boy and former Premier of Queensland. In 1938, the Honour Board was extended with two lateral wings to Dods' original design. In 1916, an Honour Board, designed by TR Hall containing the names of 640 old boys who joined the Imperial forces during the Great War was unveiled together with tablets to Lt Colonel Hubert Harris and Captain TJ Bundrit. In 1949, the World War II honour board, designed by old boy architect DS Prangley, was unveiled. In the 1950's reorganisation of the interior of the Hall to accommodate the various memorials was carried out including the moving of the TJ Byrnes Honour Board.
Although now too small for entire gatherings of the school, the Great Hall remains a central symbol of it. The original classrooms are predominantly used as staff rooms.
Brisbane Grammar School - School House
The School House is a three storeyed brick building designed by architect Richard Gailey, and erected in 1887 to provide on site accommodation for boarders as well as a Headmaster's residence.
Prior to the erection of the School House, boarders at the School were housed off the school grounds, in the residences of masters and later nearby the residence of Headmaster Roe. In about 1883 plans for a boarding house were prepared by the architect of the Main Building (QHR 600124a), James Cowlishaw. Cowlishaw's proposal was not proceeded with, however, as the estimated cost of £8,500 exceeded the budget by some £2,500. Cowlishaw did however recommend to the Trustees that his former Clerk of Works, Richard Gailey be approached.
Gailey's plans forwarded to the School in September 1885 provided for a three storeyed red and white brick building. The Headmaster's residence occupied the main floor; with service and dining areas in the lower floor and the boys housed on the top floor which was divided into numerous cubicles. Gailey's planning of the entries to the School House was strategic. Access by the boys to the building was via a bridge to the Headmasters residence on the main floor from where the staircase lead to the floors above and below, giving the Headmaster complete control over the movement of his charges. Separate entry to the Headmaster's residence was provided from the southern side of the building. A Treasury loan of some £8,000 was made for the erection of the School House which was opened in January 1887, the contractor being H Holmes (£6,950).
In 1909, architect and father of two Brisbane Grammar School boys, GD Payne was commissioned to design alterations and additions to the School House. This was to be the first of Payne's works for the School. Later he was to design the Science Wing (QHR 600124c) added to the Main Building and the New Building (600124d). His work to the School House included a single storeyed timber framed building for servants' accommodation and ancillary facilities; on the lower story a larger dining room where the matron, laundry and common room were previously located; conversion of the former dining room to boys' prep room and former servants' quarters into additional study area, and the addition of single storeyed timber framed verandah to the northern end of the building housing a store, larder, and dairy. Alterations to the main and top floor, consisting of conversion of part of Headmaster's residence into boys' dormitory accommodation, and on the upper floor rearrangement of partitions and upgrading of showers and lavatories, may also have been carried out at this time, but were certainly completed by 1925.
During the 1930s the School House was repainted and improvements carried out. In the 1950s the slate roof was replaced by tiles. In 1962, a separate house was erected for the Headmaster and the Headmaster moved from the School House. In 1972, the three storeyed reinforced concrete dormitory wing, erected on the northern end of the School House by architect Colin Trapp, was opened.
Brisbane Grammar School Administration Building
The Administration Building is a two storeyed brick building adjoining the eastern classroom wing of the Main Building, which was erected as a science block in 1912 the design of architect GD Payne.
The Main Building erected in 1880 contained a science laboratory however the Science Wing was intended for the "more thorough experimental teaching of science". The Science Wing was the first classroom addition carried out at the School since its opening at the Gregory Terrace site. George Payne was also to be responsible for the design of further school buildings with the erection of the New Building in 1916. In 1909 Payne, who had two boys at the school, had also designed additions and alterations to the School House.
Payne's Science Wing was a contemporary and complementary interpretation of Cowlishaw's Collegiate Gothic building, in brick with light-coloured dressings, and high pointed arch coloured and leaded pane windows. It contained a large chemistry laboratory and smaller physics laboratory with timber galleries. These classrooms were impressive double-storey height spaces with exposed roof structures, and clerestory lighting and ventilation.
The cost of £6,000 was funded by the selling of endowment lands and a grant from Treasury for equipment. The Science Wing was opened on 26 July 1912 by the Governor Sir William MacGregor, a strong supporter of education and the advancement of science, and the school's Visitor.
In 1928 a bellcote designed by architect AE Brooks, an old boy, was erected by the Old Boys of the school in memory of school janitor and ringer of bells, George Rylatt.
A water fountain designed by architect TR Hall, an old boy, was erected to the south of the building in memory of Graham M Lumsden, who was killed during World War II. This was moved to the eastern side in 1964.
As part of the school's centenary building program, Payne's Science Wing was converted into an Administration Building by school architect Colin Trapp. The new work was opened in 1966.
Brisbane Grammar School - New Building
The New Building, a two storeyed brick building designed for the Trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School by Architect GD Payne, was erected by the Public Works Department in 1916 at a cost of some £5000 on the northern side of the Main Building overlooking the oval.
The New Building (as it is still known) was erected in response to the increasing numbers of enrolments at the School. Like other Grammar Schools, the Brisbane Grammar School was largely dependent for its enrolments on boys who were in receipt of State Scholarships. In 1914, a change in the policy of the awarding of those Scholarships occurred resulting in an increasing number of recipients and hence an increasing number of enrolments at the school. In response to this increase, the Trustees requested the Government to erect extra class room accommodation and forwarded a proposal by school architect GD Payne.
Payne, who had two boys at the School, had already designed additions to the School House (QHR 600124b) as well as the Science Wing (QHR 600124c) added to the Main Building in 1912. His sketch plans show a two-storeyed building containing eight classrooms (including a chemistry and physics laboratory) connected by a covered way to a block of toilets. He proposed a timber building with fibro cement linings and a roof of red fibro cement slates with the cost including retaining wall to be £3480. Payne's siting of the proposed new building took advantage of the aspect offered to the north as well as visually linking the Main Building and the later Science Wing, whilst maintaining the primacy of the Main Building.
Funding for the new building was to be provided by the government and responsibility for its erection passed to the State Works Department. Some modifications were made to Payne's plans in 1914 by the Public Works Department however Payne's scheme was substantially retained including his selected site. Works Department drawings by HJ Parr included a central corridor and stair and some changes to the size of rooms. Costings were prepared by the Department for both a brick (£5,500) and a timber (£4,000) building however in September 1914 tenders were called for the erection of the brick building. The contractor for the works carried out during 1915 was J MacArthur of Toowong with joinery by Pattersons of Toowong and tiles and cement ceilings by Ladgrove.
In 1954, the repainting of the New Building was supervised by Professor Cumming, who was also responsible for the colour scheme at the Great Hall. Cumming's colour scheme was described by the school magazine as being something out of the ordinary and of an almost bewildering diversity.
With the extensions of the oval during the 1950's, the verandahs of the New Building became and remain a grandstand for spectators of school sporting events about this time. The classrooms, particularly those on the ends of the upper floor are regarded as the best in the School.
Brisbane Grammar School - War Memorial Library
The Memorial Library, erected to the design of architect John Barr, an old boy, as a memorial to old boys who served in World War I, was opened on Armistice Day 1924.
On 14 August 1916, an Honour Board, which at that time recorded the names of 640 old boys who joined the Imperial Forces during the Great War, was unveiled in the Great Hall. On that day a meeting was held at which it was resolved to erect a more substantial memorial and subscriptions were opened. The War Memorial Building Committee, chaired by the Chairman of Trustees, JL Woolcock was formed, and the canvassing for funds was commenced but soon deferred due to the Federal War Precautions Act which required the conservation of resources for the war effort.
Various forms of memorial were considered by the Committee. Unable to erect a chapel, due to the constraints of the Grammar School Act, the subscribers chose a useful monument, a library. In 1919, on the recommendation of a subcommittee consisting of ER Crouch, TR Hall, and HW Atkinson, it was decided that a building of "approved Gothic design" be erected in the school grounds to be used as a war record room and library. The site chosen by the subcommittee was on the south side of the drive facing College Road however this was changed in October 1920 to the existing site so as to save costs on the foundations. At this time a number of architects, who were either old boys of the school or subscribers to the fund were approached for designs. Their brief required a building of Gothic 13th/14th century design with two lancet windows in each face with medallion or three lancet windows in each face with the windows to start from 7 to 8 feet above floor level. Architect GHM Addison was enlisted to consider five of the eight schemes submitted. Addison recommended the scheme submitted by John Barr be awarded first prize, with an entry by R Martin Wilson awarded second prize.
Barr was in practice in New South Wales. He designed the old Fisher Library (now the Nicholson Museum) and later was to win another memorial competition, this time at the Melbourne Grammar School (check this). As Barr was resident in Sydney, he arranged for another old boy and former pupil of Addison, architect AE Brooks, to supervise the construction of the building.
Tenders for the erection of the building were first called in February 1923, however no tender was accepted and tenders were recalled with some modifications of the original plan in April. The tender of Peter Frew of £4385 was accepted which provided for the substitution of concrete for freestone in parapets, iron for copper dormers, and solid walls in place of hollow.
On Anzac Day 1923, the foundation stone was laid by the School Visitor and State Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan. Beneath the stone was buried the same bottle as was placed under the foundation stone of the original school in Roma Street in 1868.
In December 1923 the committee resolved that a uniform design for the stained glass windows be adopted with the window over the doorway to be representative of Victory (St George) and over the opposite door to be representative of Peace. Those windows were subscribed to by the Trustees and the Old Boys Association respectively. The other chivalric virtues chosen by the Committee to be represented in the windows were justice, magnanimity, courtesy, honour, service, fortitude, reverence, loyalty, duty, and truth. These were subscribed to by families and others in memory of sons, brothers, and friends and were designed and executed by Charles Tute.
Tute is also believed to have executed the library furniture which was probably designed by Barr. It included four bookcases to stand at right angles to piers, six benches and tables, six chairs, and the Crystal Cabinet, which housed the Golden Book, comprising four volumes bound in brown moroccan leather by the Government Printer. The Book records, on pages framed with red Flanders poppies drawn by one of the daughters of Headmaster Roe, Madge Roe, the names of 1020 Brisbane Grammar School volunteers as written by the President of the Old Boys Association, CB Fox. An octagonal display case was also made by long-time master, AJ Mason.
The memorial was intended to house a great reference library and books were donated in memory of the fallen. Other books donated included signed volumes written by old boys. Signed photographs of wartime political and military leaders from various parts of the Empire were also sought and placed around the walls.
Many of the original contents of the Library are still in the possession of the school or have been reacquired. The War Memorial Library is now maintained by the school as a memorial and museum.
Brisbane Grammar School - Old Correspondence School
The Old Correspondence School is a two storeyed red brick building erected in 1899 by the Works Department for the Department of Agriculture for use as a Stock Institute, and was acquired by the Brisbane Grammar School from the State Government in 1992.
The Stock Institute was established as part of the Stock Branch of the Colonial Secretary's Department in 1893 to research the nature and origin of stock diseases and to develop preventative measures against these. It was the first Stock Institute in Australia. The first premises of the Institute were in Turbot Street Brisbane. The first Director, microbiologist, CJ Pound was known for his work on various animal and human diseases, most particularly for his work on tick fever. In 1897 the Stock Branch was transferred to the Department of Agriculture where Pound renewed his complaints regarding the unsuitability of the Turbot Street building.
By the following year, plans for new premises had been completed by the Public Works Department. The new building erected on College Road by contractor William Herd for £1,800, contained on the ground floor, laboratories and a photographic room and on the second floor, a museum, and a lecture and specimen room. An animal yard containing sheds and stalls was erected at the rear. To the front, timber steps were constructed leading down to College Road.
The new site provided the Stock Institute with a prominent position overlooking the city with ready access to transport, both rail and road. The site adjoined the Brisbane Grammar School and had been intended to form part of the 1878 grant to the Trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School. In 1877, it was excised from the proposed grant and exchanged for land more suitable for use as a sports ground.
In 1901 the Stock Institute was transferred to the Home Secretary's Department. In that year a timber post mortem room and more stables and sheds were built in the grounds. Now known as the Bacteriological Institute, with Charles Pound as the Government Bacteriologist, its work included research into human diseases, the examination of water samples, and the preparation of pathological samples. During the plague epidemics of the first decade of the century plague work was undertaken, and complaints were received from the adjoining Grammar School regarding the hazards of keeping rats on premises so close to the school's boarding house.
In 1907, the Bacteriological Institute was returned to the newly renamed Department of Agriculture and Stock although work was still done for the Health Department. Sydney Dodd was appointed Principal Veterinary Surgeon and Bacteriologist. Under pressure from the Queensland branch of the British Medical Association the Institute was again transferred to the Health Department in 1909 where it became the Laboratory of Pathology and Microbiology under the directorship of Dr JJD Harris. Work continued on research into human diseases, including during World War I, work on the epidemics of meningitis in army camps. All stock related work was undertaken at the newly established Stock Experiment Station at Yeerongpilly. In 1918 the Laboratory relocated to the Old Police Court at South Brisbane. In that year the Queensland Hookworm Campaign was established and soon after the Normanby building became the central office of the campaign under director Dr WA Sawyer.
In 1925 the building was converted for use by the Irrigation and Water Supply Commission. A three storeyed wing designed by the Public Works Department was added at the rear of the building by day labour at a cost of £4,500. The addition included in the basement, a printing room and strong rooms.
During World War II, when wartime conditions made it impossible for many children to attend school, enrolments rose to a peak of 11,000 with a staff of 150. After the war, the PCS assisted in establishing rehabilitation schemes for returned service people. With closer settlement, improved transport and provision of more schools, enrolments of the school once known as the biggest in the southern hemisphere, began to decline.
The Primary Correspondence School vacated the building in 1979 but remained in use by the Education Department until 1992.
","criteria":"The Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the history of education and the development of the Grammar Schools evidence of the development of a self-conscious pedagogical culture within the Brisbane Grammar School.
The Main Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's development, in particular, the development of the grammar schools and provides evidence of the development of a self-conscious pedagogical culture within the Brisbane Grammar School.
The School House of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular, the building registers the changing attitudes in boarding practices.
The Brisbane Grammar School Administration Building is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the evolution of the study of science in the school curriculum.
The New Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular changes in educational policy in the state and the role of Grammar Schools in the secondary school system.
The War Memorial Library is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the participation by former students and staff, in World War I, and in common with many other communities, the need to memorialise that participation and loss.
The Old Correspondence School is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history in particular the importance of primary industries and the role played by government via the Stock Institute in its development, the development of the role of the Health Department in public health with the establishment of the Bacteriological Institute and the Laboratory of Pathology and Microbiology and the development of distance education.
|The Main Building [600124a], School House [600124b], Administration Building [600124c], New Building [600124d], and War Memorial Library [600124e] comprise a rare example of a group of buildings where a clear aesthetic coherence has been sustained.
The Main Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, containing early examples of Australian designed stained glass.
The War Memorial Library demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular its substantial and rich symbolic content make it an unusual and distinctive part of a school building group.
|The Main Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Collegiate Gothic educational building.
The School House of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a school boarding house.
The Old Correspondence School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a building of the Public Works Department, who at this time set high standards for public architecture.
|The Brisbane Grammar School is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its quality as a group of buildings, comprising the Main Building [600124a], School House [600124b], Administration Building [600124c], New Building [600124d], and War Memorial Library [600124e], which complement each other in character, materials, and siting. The Brisbane Grammar School is significant for the fineness and symbolic content of some of its crafted elements and its contribution to the townscape as a landmark.
The Main Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the impressive exterior which reinforces the buildings as the focus of the Grammar School Group, the exceptional quality of the upper-level classroom interiors, the Great Hall and the Oamaru Stone porch and the well crafted quality and symbolic content of the memorials and stained glass windows in the Great Hall.
The School House of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the accomplished design of the exterior in its delineation of the building's domestic and institutional roles, in its brickwork detailing, and the impressive quality of the interior of the upper level.
The Brisbane Grammar School Administration Building is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, its contribution to the Grammar School group in its skilful reworking by GD Payne of the architectural vocabulary of the Main Building. The Brisbane Grammar School Administration Building is significant as it contains the remnants of fine interiors, particularly the timber roof structures.
The New Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community in particular, its accomplished design within the constraints of the classroom block type, its complementary siting in relation to the Main Building and its modest decorative detailing.
The War Memorial Library is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular its architectural distinction in concept, composition and detailing, the high quality and symbolic content of the stained-glass windows, the high quality of the purpose-built furniture and its contribution to the school's distinctive skyline.
The Old Correspondence School is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular, the fine detailing of the 1899 building, the entrance portico, the skilful design of the extension to the 1899 building in terms of its complementary form, character, materials and detailing and its landmark qualities.
|The Brisbane Grammar School is significant for its special association with the Brisbane community and the community of the Brisbane Grammar School for social and cultural reasons.
The Main Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is significant for its special association with the Brisbane Grammar School community, in particular the Great Hall is both a symbol of and memorial to the school and its members.
The School House of the Brisbane Grammar School has a strong and special association with Brisbane Grammar School community, particularly the boarders since 1887.
The War Memorial Library has a strong and special association with the Brisbane Grammar School, in particular as a memorial to the old boys who served in the Great War and also to the many subscribers and others who contributed to its erection as a symbol forming part of the nomenclature of school.
|The buildings and grounds of the Brisbane Grammar School have a special association with the life and work of the Trustees, Headmasters, teachers, students, Official Visitors and many others associated with the school, many of whom have been prominent in Queensland's history. The Brisbane Grammar School also has a special association with the work of a number of architects in particular, James Cowlishaw, Richard Gailey, GD Payne, Public Works Department, John Barr, RS Dods, and TR Hall, a number of whom were old boys of the school.
The Main Building of the Brisbane Grammar School is significant for its special association with the work of architect James Cowlishaw and with the Public Works Department.
The School House of the Brisbane Grammar School has a special association with the work of architect Richard Gailey.
The Brisbane Grammar School Administration Building has a special association with the work of architect GD Payne, who was also the architect for the New Building (600124d) and with School Janitor George Rylatt, whose association with the school is memorialised in the building.
The New Building of the Brisbane Grammar School has a special association with the work of GD Payne, who was also the architect for the Administration Building (600124c) and with the work of the Works Department, which at this time enjoyed eminence under Government Architect AB Brady, and which was responsible for numerous school buildings.
The War Memorial Library has a special association with the work of an old boy, architect John Barr and with the work of artist, Charles Tute.
The Old Correspondence School has a special association with the work of a number of government departments including the Department of Primary Industries in particular the Stock Institute, which was the first established in Australia, with the Department of Health, in particular as the Bacteriological Institute and the Laboratory of Pathology and Microbiology, with the Department of Education and the work of the Primary Correspondence School for over 40 years and with the Works Department.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14900,"place_ref":600125,"name":"HB Sales Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"125 Margaret Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"Adjoining Watson Brothers' Building [600126] in Margaret Street, the HB Sales Building is a single-storeyed brick workshop with an early galvanised iron extension at the rear. The front freestyle facade is symmetrical around a wide central opening with flanking arched double-hung sash windows. All three openings in the front facade currently have individual canvas awnings. At each edge of the facade a pilaster extends up to the parapet. Situated on each pilaster is a downpipe whose rainwater head has the date 1912 cast onto it. Between the pilasters above the central opening is a plain rendered portion and above this the name HB SALES in raised lettering. The parapet has a raised centrepiece separated from the side pilasters by inverted semi-circular cut-outs. The centrepiece consists of a dentilled cornice supporting an unusual triangular pediment with a curved top, behind which a gable roof extends the length of the building. A water closet projects to one side at the rear of the brick building, behind which is the galvanised iron extension, extant by 1913.
Internally there is an early mezzanine level which has been extended toward the front of the building, with a new stair. The building is currently occupied by The Hub Café, a specialist internet café.
","history":"This single-storeyed brick building was erected in the second half of 1912 for Smith and Balls' Acme Engineering Works, on land acquired by Sarah Balls, widow, in the same year.
It was built during the period of expansion, rather than diversification, which characterised the rapidly growing Queensland economy from 1903 to 1914, and illustrates the continued early 20th century development of Frog's Hollow - the ground between George and Edward Streets, bounded on the west by Elizabeth Street and on the east by Alice Street - as a commercial and light-industrial precinct.
Low-lying and swampy, Frog's Hollow had been farmed by convict labour during the penal settlement of the 1820s and 1830s, and in the 1840s and 1850s was sparsely settled with cottages erected on the higher ground. In the busy post-Separation decades of the 1860s and 1870s, an ad hoc process of land filling was undertaken as Frog's Hollow became more densely populated by the working classes, and shophouses, house-workshops, small factories or workshops, boarding houses and hotels were erected. During the boom years of the 1880s, these residences and small workshops were replaced gradually with large and imposing commercial and industrial premises, as Frog's Hollow, conveniently located near the wharves along Eagle Street and Petrie's Bight, emerged as Brisbane's principal light-industrial and warehousing precinct. Factories and workshops specialising in clothing, footware, saddlery, furniture, building, printing, brewing, milling, confectionary or biscuit manufacture, coachmaking, ship-fitting and metal-working, as well as substantial importer and manufacturer warehousing, either were established or expanded. By the late 1880s, engineering and ironfounding firms were particularly prominent in the Edward-Alice-Margaret Street precinct, and included Smellie & Co.; Smith, Forrester & Co.; Harvey Sargeant & Co.; and Overend & Co. Development of Frog's Hollow slowed during the Depression years of the 1890s, but resumed in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Smith and Balls' 1912 engineering works contributed to this early 20th century consolidation of Frog's Hollow as a light-industrial precinct. Built next to Watson Brothers' Building (1887) (QHR 600126), a Margaret Street plumbers, gasfitters and galvanised iron and lead works, the Acme Engineering Works was appropriately and conveniently located in the metal-working precinct concentrated around Alice, Margaret and lower Edward Streets.
Brisbane architect Frank Longland called tenders in June 1912 for the erection of brick premises in Margaret Street for the Acme Engineering Works. The successful tenderer was GE Day of New Farm. Longland, formerly an articled pupil of former colonial architect FDG Stanley, built up a small but successful architectural practice in Brisbane spanning the years 1893 to 1924. He was a Councillor of the Queensland Institute of Architects 1894-95, and was made a Fellow by 1913. Some of Longland's 1890s works have been identified - principally small commissions - and the Acme Engineering Works building in Margaret Street is one of his few known 20th century works to survive. He appears to have been a progressive architect who followed the latest in contemporary European architectural trends, his work ranging from the freestyle facade of the Acme Engineering Works (1912) to the restrained functionality of the 1918 Howes Brothers produce store at the corner of Petrie Terrace and Sexton Street. Of functionalist appearance in contrast to similar buildings of the period, the latter seems remarkably modern in outlook.
By 1913, Smith and Balls' Acme Engineering Works, consulting and marine engineers, coppersmiths, brass and iron moulders, blacksmiths and general engineers, had occupied their Margaret Street building. Acme Engineering Works, managed by Alex J Smith, had operated previously from 37 Charlotte Street, and specialised in milk condenser work. Smith appears to have gone into partnership with Mrs Sarah Balls, of the Stock Exchange Hotel in Queen Street, to facilitate the move to Margaret Street. The firm ceased business c1928, and in October that year title to the property was transferred to Charles Joshua Jeays, Arthur Vivian Jeays and Albert Frederick Jeays. Charles J Jeays, builders' and plumbers' supplies, had occupied the site by 1930, and remained there until c1943. After the Second World War, the building is understood to have been occupied by Gardiner Batteries, whose principal business was located in O'Reilly's Buildings, Margaret Street, just south of the former Acme Engineering Works. In 1958 HB Sales, a chemical wholesale company, occupied the building. The property passed out of the Jeays family in 1963, and Orb Holdings Pty Ltd acquired title in 1978.
","criteria":"The HB Sales Building, erected for the Acme Engineering Works in 1912 during Queensland's first 20th century boom, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Frog's Hollow as the principal warehousing and light-industrial sector of Brisbane's central business district, which was sustained from the second half of the 19th century through to the early decades of the 20th century.
|The HB Sales Building demonstrates several rare aspects of Brisbane's cultural heritage, being a rare extant example of a light-industrial workshop surviving in the Brisbane central business district and one of the few identified 20th century works by Brisbane architect Frank Longland. The freestyle facade was, and remains, a rare design for an industrial building in Brisbane.
|The building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small-scale brick Federation-era workshop, designed to impress, but with economy.
|The HB Sales Building is significant for its streetscape contribution to Margaret Street. The decorative freestyle facade remains intact, and although the face-brickwork has been painted, retains its aesthetic appeal.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14901,"place_ref":600126,"name":"Watson Brothers Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"129 Margaret Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"Watson Brothers Building is a three-storeyed brick warehouse with a rendered facade. It consists of three equal portions across. The ground floor section of the two northern portions have been removed for vehicular access, but dividing walls remain extending to the rear of the building. The surviving southern portion has three segmental arched openings. The left two openings are now recessed doorways and the other a window. Originally the most northern portion had a similar arrangement of openings while the central portion had a window to one side and large opening for carriage access to the rear. The pilasters to each side of the surviving southern ground floor portion are rendered to imitate stone coursework capped with mouldings and rosettes. Above this is a cornice with small dentils separating the upper two floors from the ground floor.
The three portions are divided on the two upper levels by fluted giant order pilasters with ornate Corinthian capitals that include grotesque masks. The first floor windows have segmental arches and the ones on the top floor are semi-circular. The arches are embellished with hood and label mouldings and decorated key stones. These openings have balustrading in their lower portion. A line of rosettes between pilasters separates the two upper floors. The words WATSON BROS. LIMITED appear painted on the frieze below the parapet. Centred on the parapet of each portion is a closed-off arch below a small triangular pediment and flanked by florid scrolls. An open balustrade links these and other solid sections of parapet which support urns, visually separating the three distinct parts of the building at parapet level. The central archway contains the words WATSONS 1887 BUILDINGS. The side and back walls are unpainted brickwork. No trace remains of an earlier post-supported street awning [extant by c1902, but not part of the original design] with its curved corrugated iron roof and central archway.
On the side wall facing the laneway it is still possible to distinguish signwriting describing Watson's goods - hardware and plumbing supplies. The laneway provides a link across the city block and has a visual quality contributed to by the unrendered expanse of the side of the building. The rear elevation of the building is visually divided into three distinct portions relating to those of the front, each with a gable end. These have large central openings running through all levels and loading gantries located centrally above, although the central gantry has been removed. Smaller individual windows are situated to either side of each large opening on the upper two levels.
To the rear of the warehouse, and separated from it by an open courtyard, is a two storeyed building open to the north west. This timber framed structure is supported on all sides but the north west, on stone walls bounding the property line and in sections acting as retaining walls. These stone walls, of squared porphyry rubble laid in courses, are extended in height by two generations of brickwork additions which support the triangular timber trusses of the corrugated iron skillion roof.
The walls and concrete floor of the courtyard bear evidence of earlier buildings on this site through a series of recesses left by the removal of earlier timber framing members, likely to be from early stables on the site.
Internally, large open areas of timber flooring still exist, but some internal partitioning has been added. From the new vehicular access ways the timber joists and herring-bone strutting of the floor above can be clearly seen. Some evidence of closed-off arched openings exist in the dividing walls at ground floor level.
","history":"This three-storeyed brick warehouse was constructed in 1887 for the successful Brisbane plumbing firm of Watson Brothers. It was designed by prominent Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, who in the 1880s and 1890s made a substantial contribution to Brisbane's central business district with his designs for commercial and industrial buildings such as shops, offices, hotels, warehouses and factories.
Watson Brothers Plumbing and Gasfitting Company was established by George Watson, a Glasgow plumber who migrated to Brisbane in 1862, and by the mid-1860s had established a small plumbing business in Albert Street. In 1880 George retired leaving his four sons - George Jnr, Thomas, James and John Douglas - to continue the business. By the mid-1880s the firm, now known as Watson Brothers, was well established as plumbers, gasfitters and galvanised iron and lead works, with workshops in Edward Street and stores and an office in Eagle Street. George Watson Jnr was soon to take a prominent role in Brisbane's civic affairs: he was an alderman on the Brisbane Municipal Council from 1891 to 1896, and Mayor of Brisbane 1892-93.
Queensland's economic 'high' of the 1880s produced an unprecedented building boom, especially in Brisbane. Watson Brothers plumbing and sanitary supplies business flourished, and in late 1885 the brothers purchased land in Margaret Street to accommodate a larger warehouse and workshop. Importantly, the site remained central and was close to the wharves along Eagle Street and Petrie's Bight.
Watson Brothers' 1887 building was erected during a period of great change in the low-lying, swampy district of inner Brisbane known as Frog's Hollow - the ground between George and Edward Streets, bounded on the west by Elizabeth Street and on the east by Alice Street. The area was farmed by convict labour during the penal settlement of the 1820s and 1830s, and in the 1840s and 1850s was sparsely settled with cottages erected on the higher land. In the busy post-Separation decades of the 1860s and 1870s, an ad hoc process of land filling was undertaken as Frog's Hollow became more densely populated by the working classes, and shophouses, house-workshops, small factories or workshops, boarding houses and hotels were erected. During the boom years of the 1880s, these residences and small workshops were replaced gradually with large and imposing commercial and industrial premises, as Frog's Hollow, conveniently located near the wharves, emerged as Brisbane's principal light-industrial and warehousing precinct. Factories and workshops specialising in clothing, footware, saddlery, furniture, building, printing, brewing, milling, confectionary or biscuit manufacture, coachmaking, ship-fitting and metal-working, as well as substantial importer and manufacturer warehousing, either were established or expanded. By the late 1880s, engineering and ironfounding firms were particularly prominent in the lower Edward, Alice and Margaret Streets precinct, and included Smellie & Co., Smith, Forrester & Co., Harvey Sargeant & Co., and Overend & Co. Watson Brothers incorporated a small workshop at the rear of their 1887 warehouse, which was appropriately located in the metal-working precinct of Frog's Hollow.
The Watson Brothers Building (1887), with its three storeys and ornate facade, was one of the more imposing of the Frog's Hollow warehouses. Similar warehouses/factories erected at this period included the 1887 speculative warehouse at the corner of Edward and Mary Streets (later the Coal Board Building) (QHR 600132); Smellie & Co.'s 1888-89 warehouse at the corner of Edward and Alice Streets (QHR 600092); and George Myers & Co.'s warehouse (1889-90) in Edward Street (now the Metro Arts Building) (QHR 600090). Interestingly, all four were designed by architect Richard Gailey.
Gailey conducted a highly successful and prolific architectural practice in Brisbane for nearly 60 years, from 1865 until his death in 1924. While hotels were his speciality - he designed or modified over 30 in Brisbane alone in the period 1869-95 - he also designed a large number of substantial, often highly decorative, warehouses and office buildings, and contributed significantly to the re-building of Brisbane in the 1880s as a prosperous, late Victorian city.
Some of Gailey's other boom-era central city work survives, including the Irish Club (1877-1879) in Elizabeth Street (QHR 600105); Colonial Mutual Life Building (1882-83) in Queen Street (QHR 600160); Treasury Chambers (1885-86) in George and Elizabeth Streets (Elizabeth Street now a facade) (QHR 600116); and Finney Isles & Co.'s (1887) store at the corner of Edward and Adelaide Streets. Some of his CBD buildings have survived as facades only: Telegraph Newspaper Company offices (1878) in Queen Street (now part of the Myer Centre facade); former Allan and Stark Building (1881-82 & 1885) on the opposite side of Queen Street (QHR 600162); and Hill's Buildings (1888-89) in Queen Street, Petrie's Bight (later the Queensland Country Life Building) (QHR 600158).
Gailey was architect to the Bank of New South Wales, the Brisbane Grammar Schools (from 1882) [600124] and the Children's Hospital (from 1883). A staunch Baptist, he designed the Baptist City Tabernacle (1889-90) at the corner of Wickham Terrace and Upper Edward Street (QHR 600175) and numerous suburban (mostly non-conformist Protestant) churches. Some of his better-known Brisbane residential work includes the alterations and additions to Fernberg (1888-90) at Paddington (now Government House) [600275]; and Moorlands (1892) at Toowong (QHR 600052).
Gailey's work was not confined to Brisbane, and examples of his work survive throughout Queensland. He was a prolific designer, whose decorative detailing retains its popular appeal. He was also a successful busninessman and property developer, took a keen interest in civic, church and benevolent affairs, served on numerous committees and boards, was a prominent freemason, and was a foundation vice-president of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1889-90. Gailey was at the forefront of the re-development of Brisbane in the 1880s, and his significance cannot be underestimated.
Watson Brothers' 1887 building was erected by contractors Smith and Balls [Henry Smith and John Irwin Balls], who had tendered with a price of £4500. When the provision and execution of the metal work by Watson Brothers was included, however, the actual cost of construction was over £6,000. When completed in October 1887, the building was described as a handsome three-storied pile, of brick with ornamental façade. [Queensland Figaro 22 October 1887:647] It had a frontage of 66 feet to Margaret Street and a depth of 80 feet. The ground floor was divided into 3 sections: a central carriage way which permitted wagons and carts to access the rear yard; offices, with a storeroom behind, on the south side; and warehousing space on the north side. The second floor was partitioned by three masonry walls with archway access between, and served as showrooms. The third storey contained a single, undivided space utilised as the packing and unpacking department. There were three rear doors on the second and third levels, and American lifts were installed to permit goods to be hoisted to or from the back yard. A shed and workshop, fitted with machinery and racks, was located at the rear of the yard - [this structure was two-storeyed by 1918, and probably by 1913] - and along the northern wall of the yard were out-offices and a three-stalled stables. In October 1887, a month before they opened, Watson Brothers advertised half to two-thirds of the building for lease. In subsequent years the firm occupied the entire warehouse.
Despite serious flooding in 1893 and an economic depression in the 1890s, by the turn of the century Watson Brothers had emerged as Queensland's largest plumbing and sanitary engineering business. In 1907 a retail plumbing supply and general hardware branch store was opened in Queen Street, and in 1918 a new plumbing workshop was erected on land adjoining the rear of the Margaret Street property, facing Alice Street. During the First World War, Watson Brothers carried out plumbing alterations to 90% of all vessels converted to troopships in Queensland and sent tradesmen to Sydney for the same task; during the Second World War the firm provided equipment for Australian and American forces in Brisbane. The business remained a family enterprise until 1961 when it was forced into liquidation. The Margaret Street property was sold in 1963 to Margaret Street Holdings and transferred to Orb Holdings in 1978. During the early 1980s the building was occupied by the Queensland Ballet Company.
","criteria":"Watson Brothers Building is important in illustrating the rise to prominence of local Queensland manufacturing and enterprise during the 1880s boom period, and demonstrates the evolution of Frog's Hollow as the principal warehousing and light-industrial sector of Brisbane's central business district during the second half of the 19th century.
|The site includes a late 19th century yard and remnant evidence of the original stables and out-offices, and a workshop extant by c1918, the survival of which in Brisbane's central business district is a now rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Watson Brothers Building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an 1880s boom era warehouse with ornate detailing. It is one of a group of warehouses of similar scale and materials erected in Frog's Hollow during the late 1880s-early 1890s, which contribute to our understanding of late 19th century concerns with promoting commerce and industry through substantial and imposing building design.
|Watson Brothers Building is significant for its streetscape contribution to Margaret Street in terms of the scale and rhythm of its facade, and the presence of a laneway exposing much of the northern side of the building. The highly decorative facade, intact above the ground floor, retains its aesthetic appeal.
|The building is significant for its special association with local Brisbane plumbing firm Watson Brothers [earlier George Watson] and its contribution to Queensland's building industry for nearly a century. The building is also a fine example of the commercial work of influential Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, whose Brisbane [Queensland] practice spanned nearly 6 decades and who made a particularly significant contribution to the Brisbane townscape in the 1880s and 1890s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14902,"place_ref":600127,"name":"The Brisbane Synagogue","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"98 Margaret Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building is constructed of stuccoed brickwork on a concrete foundation. The principal feature of the Margaret Street frontage is a doorway surmounted by a massive arch above which is a large circular tracery window of Oamaru stone. The window carries the circular motif through to the geometry of the tracery, and features leadlight panels. The front is flanked on either side by a minaret turret that becomes octagonal in its upper portion with narrow slit openings, and is topped by an octagonal cupola. The end gable above the entry has a central circular ventilator below which is a frieze also including a circular motif. The portions of the building recessed to either side of the entry also have circular tracery windows in recessed arched openings at the upper level. Below these openings on each side are a pair of Romanesque arched windows.
The main stepped broad arch of the entry is supported on small Corinthian columns with the front section at the top of the arch inscribed with the words "THE BRISBANE SYNAGOGUE". Above this is an ornamental row of dentils, and to either side geometrical rosettes. The back wall of the building also has a large circular tracery window of Oamaru stone. The side walls have large swinging windows to provide cross ventilation.
The building was designed to accommodate 400 people, 260 of them on the ground floor and the remainder on the upper level women's gallery which extends over the entry and down both sides. The interior is divided into a nave and side aisles by large octagonal columns with moulded caps and cement bases. Broad semi-circular arches span between the capitals. The ceiling consists of timber boarding with circular fretwork ventilators evenly spaced down the centre. The gallery is supported on small trusses and is approached by two flights of stairs, one at the front and the other at the rear. The seating on both levels is stepped and faces the centre where there is a carved timber platform. An arched recess approached by stone steps is located in the end wall. This has a circular tracery window above it, and is flanked on either side by marble plaques. Brightly coloured stained glass is situated in the circular windows on the gallery level and also the arched lower openings.
","history":"The Jewish families who settled in Queensland from the time of Separation formed the nucleus of the Brisbane Hebrew Congregation founded in Brisbane in 1865. The congregation used a number of venues as temporary places of worship, while raising money through various land speculations to purchase a site and build a Synagogue. The present site was purchased by R B Lewin and sold to the congregation for £200. In 1885 designs for a Synagogue were sought from architects and plans submitted by Arthur Morry, who worked in the Government Architect's office, were chosen. The foundation stone was laid on 7 July 1885 and a bottle containing artefacts and documents was embedded beneath it. The foundation stone is no longer visible following the raising of the level of Margaret Street, and it is believed that the courtyard of the Synagogue was raised at the same time. This is supported by the fact that ventilated arches for the basement are now located well below ground level.
Arthur Midson, a prominent building contractor, built the Synagogue for the sum of £6450. It was finally consecrated on 18 July 1886. The building features a large circular geometric tracery window of Oamaru stone above the Margaret Street arched doorway. The stained glass lead lighting was obtained from Messrs Lyon, Cottier & Co of Sydney. The window is flanked on either side by a minaret turret which rose to a height of 90 feet (27 metres) from the original ground level. The rendered brick structure, constructed on concrete foundations, contains a basement, a nave and side aisles on the ground floor with a minister's retiring or robe room at the rear. In accordance with traditional Jewish religious practices the sexes are seperated during worship, and a gallery level for females only is incorporated constructed. It contains 140 seats and two women's retiring rooms.
The Synagogue remained largely unaltered over the years. Prior to the centenary celebrations of the Brisbane Jewish community in 1965, considerable renovations were carried out, including the installation of additional stained glass windows. Many of these were donated by congregation members whose families died in the Holocaust (World War II). The words 'The Brisbane Synagogue' and the congregation's spiritual name 'Kehilla Kedosha Sha'ari Emuna', (The Holy Congregation of the Gates of Faith) were added over the arched entry during 1967/68.
","criteria":"The Brisbane Synagogue is Brisbane's first purpose built Synagogue, and is significant as an important development in nineteenth century Jewish worship in the city. The building reflects the development of Jewish settlement in the city during the 1880s.
|The addition of windows are a rare Brisbane memorial to Jewish people who died in the Second World War.
|Located within the foundation stone cavity are artefacts and memorabilia which have the potential for yielding information about the Jewish community in the 1880s.
|The Brisbane Synagogue is significant as an example of the design work of Arthur Morry, prominent Brisbane architect, and of Arthur Midson, local building contractor.
\nAs an example of Australian-Jewish places of worship, the Brisbane Synagogue typifies the customs and liturgical practices of the Hebrew community.
|As a free-standing element with an entry porch, the building contributes to the streetscape of Margaret Street.
|The adaption in its design of both circular and octagonal elements to a traditional plan form to create a style suitable for an inner-city Synagogue.
|The building also has special significance to Brisbane's Hebrew community.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14903,"place_ref":600128,"name":"Wenley House","alternate_name":"Jewell's Building","street_address":"20-30 Market Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This 1864 commercial building in the Georgian manner, has a strong visual impact among highrise commercial developments. It is a two storeyed rendered brick building with basement and consists of six separate tenancies. It is symmetrically planned with each tenancy having its own entry with flanking windows, giving the facade a certain repetitive nature. The windows on the upper level are aligned with those below. A curved pediment is located over the two central tenancies at parapet level with the words 'WENLEY HOUSE' following the curve of the parapet and the date 1865 centred below. The entry doorways have keyed surrounds with grotesque faces located on the keystones. There is a continuous pronounced cornice below parapet level, and a continuous band as a sill to the upper level windows. The lower level windows have individual sills supported on moulded brackets.
The rear of the building is divided into symmetrical gable ended sections that have central openings originally intended for goods delivery and serviced by small overhead gantries. These openings are flanked by double-hung windows on both levels. The end bay at the rear has been extended across the laneway. The laneway and rear of the building are also visually important.
Internally, in the tenancies at each end, roof trusses are still visible. From the basement of some of the tenancies herring-bone strutting can be seen between the joists of the floors above. Some of the floor levels have been modified to suit the different tenancies.
","history":"This warehouse was erected in 1864 by M M Jewell, who came to Queensland in the early 1860s, after working as a builder in Sydney. In September 1863 he purchased this site at the corner of Charlotte and Market Streets, which was close to the wharves along the Town Reach.
\nWork began in January 1864 on the construction of what became known as Jewell's Building. Architect for the project was Thomas Taylor, a partner of local firm Furnival and Taylor. Taylor's design of six individual tenancies maximised potential return for Jewell. By July 1864 advertisements in the Queensland Daily Guardian advised space to let in the building, and various merchants and shipping agents took up leases.
\nJewell and his wife died in 1869, leaving the property to their daughter Rachel. In 1874 Emanuel Barnett and Co, importers and warehousemen, obtained title which they held until 1919.
\nSubsequent to the decline of the shipping and warehousing activity in the area, the building has been used for a variety of purposes.
","criteria":"It is evidence of the former shipping and warehousing activity in the part of the city close to the Town Reach.
|Wenley House is a rare example of an extant 1860s warehouse in the Brisbane central business district.
|Wenley House is a fine, intact example of a commercial building designed to accommodate separate tenancies, with individual entries, roofs and loading gantries.
|The building contributes to the streetscape of Market Street by virtue of its form, scale and detail.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14905,"place_ref":600130,"name":"Mooneys Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"130-132 Mary Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-22","description":"This is a two-storeyed stone building with a basement. It adjoins Perkins Stables (600129), and a laneway between 138 Mary Street (600131), and has Charlotte House (600082) and Harrolds Marine (600081) located behind addressing Charlotte Street.
The building is divided into two symmetrical portions that reflect the original subdivision of land. The rendered facade is designed with restrained moulded Italianate detailing of predominantly horizontal banding. The facade is divided horizontally by a string course and vertically by pilasters. There are three arched openings on both levels of each section. Decorative elements include architraves, pilasters, keystones, horizontal mouldings, rosettes ornamental urns and triangular pediments centrally placed in the parapet.
The side and rear walls of the building are unrendered porphyry (Brisbane Tuff) with some sandstone. Openings appear to have been made to the laneway on both levels. At the rear, the gable roof forms of both portions of the building are clearly expressed. All but one of the upper level openings have been changed, however the original brick archways for the openings remain.
Internally the building retains much of its post and beam timber structure, with floors supported by timber joists separated by herring-bone strutting. The roof structure is exposed timber trusses. The interior of the building otherwise incorporates modern office partitioning.
","history":"This warehouse was erected in 1883 for William Mooney, a Brisbane wholesale and retail tobacconist. Designed by former Queensland colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, it was constructed by J S Martin for approximately £3,000.
In 1891 the building was transferred to William Perry (of Perry Bros, ironmongers), who died soon after the change of ownership, and for more than twenty years the property remained in Perry's trust estate. In 1901, manufacturing chemists Taylor & Colledge occupied the building. From 1908 to 1919 the building was tenanted by John M Mooney a crockery, cutlery, glassware and general merchant. In August 1919 the Commonwealth of Australia purchased the building from the Perry estate trustees for £6500. At the time the building was described as an old but substantial building in good condition. . . There is no ceiling or lining and the walls of stone and heavy beams and posts of ironbark are exposed.
Since mid-1915 the Australian Government had been planning a repatriation scheme for the hundreds of thousands of soldiers expected to return from the war. Newly-formed state war councils were charged with various responsibilities aimed at settling returned soldiers into peace time occupations. The permanent body responsible for soldier resettlement, the Repatriation Department, was formed in April 1918, and the Queensland Branch moved into Mooneys Building in the following year. The branch administered soldier employment, training for trades, medical and general assistance to soldiers as well as provision of welfare to soldiers and/or families of soldiers killed or incapacitated.
The Repatriation Department remained in the building until the 1950s. The building was subsequently occupied by another defence authority, the Recruiting Directorate. In 1980, the property was bought by the current owners.
","criteria":"Mooneys Building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an 1880s stone warehouse with its facade designed in Italianate style.
In its style, scale and materials, Mooneys Building exhibits a contribution to the immediate streetscape, which includes Perkins Stables [600129] and 138 Mary Street [600131], which is valued by the community.
The building has a special association with former Queensland colonial architect FDG Stanley, as an example of his commercial work.
|Mooneys Building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an 1880s stone warehouse with its facade designed in Italianate style.
|In its style, scale and materials, Mooneys Building exhibits a contribution to the immediate streetscape, which includes Perkins Stables [600129] and 138 Mary Street [600131], which is valued by the community.
|The building has a special association with former Queensland colonial architect FDG Stanley, as an example of his commercial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14906,"place_ref":600131,"name":"138 Mary Street","alternate_name":"Perkins Wine & Spirit Store | Buzzards","street_address":"138 Mary Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A small commercial building and store located at 138 Mary Street nearby to Perkins Stables (600129) and Mooneys Building (600130) with Harolds Marine (600081) and Charlotte House (600082) behind.
A single level brick building on a stone basement half exposed at footpath level. Its facade has been rendered and painted a cream colour. The facade is divided into two nearly identical symmetrical portions each with three major arched openings. The middle opening of each portion is slightly wider than the other openings and above them are triangular pediments at parapet level supported on moulded brackets. The facade treatment to the plinth is rendered and coursed to resemble ashlar. A string course runs across between the openings at the springing level of the arches. The semi-circular arches have moulded surrounds and keystones. A dentilled cornice line runs below the parapet in line with the base of the triangular pediments. The original entry is in the centre of the eastern bay and two new entries have been placed in the facade to match the original opening. Laneways run down both sides of the building and there are a series of square headed openings down each side to take advantage of natural light. At the rear a plain brick L-shape building forms a courtyard with the back of the front building. This would seem to be a later addition (before 1913) having shallow broad arched brick openings. The connecting narrow part of the building has a loading bay at first floor level.
Internally, the front building has some stonework visible in the basement but upstairs has been refurbished. Much of the original floor structure of the rear building is visible from the basement level.
","history":"This building was erected c1901 for Perkins Brewery. Brisbane's first brewery, the City Brewery was established in Mary Street in the 1860s. In 1972, the City Brewery was bought by Toowoomba brewers Patrick and Thomas Perkins. The business expanded rapidly under their control, and by the 1880s occupied a large portion of land between Mary and Margaret Streets. The Perkins complex, particularly the six storeyed brewing tower, dominated this part of the of the city.
The need for increased space prompted the purchase of 138 Mary Street in 1899. By 1902 Perkins & Co had erected a building on the site which they used as a Wine & Spirit store. This building was probably to a design of Richard Gailey as he had worked on other buildings for the Perkins company.
In 1928 Perkins merged with another prominent Brisbane brewing firm to form Castlemaine Perkins Ltd and from that time the Perkins operations were gradually moved from the city to the Castlemaine site at Milton. In 1937 fire severely damaged the main Perkins complex opposite. Only this building, and the former stables at 124 Mary Street(QHR 600129), survive from what was once a large inner city industrial complex.
In 1943 the building was sold to Alfred Lawrence & Co Ltd, manufacturing chemists. Alfred Lawrence & Co Ltd retained ownership of the building until 1977.
","criteria":"An important remnant of a major industrial brewing complex significant in the industrial and commercial history of the State.
|As a fine example of a small, commercial building of the early 1900s.
|For the contribution of its style, scale and form to the immediate streetscape which includes Mooney's Building (600130) and Perkins Stables (600129).
|For its association with Perkins breweries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14907,"place_ref":600132,"name":"169 Mary Street","alternate_name":"Coal Board Building","street_address":"169 Mary Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Coal Board building, located on the eastern corner of Edward and Mary Streets opposite Young's Building, Optical Products [600102], is a three-storeyed rendered masonry structure, with basement, and a corrugated iron twin gable roof concealed behind a parapet wall.
The building is divided into two equal portions, with a central masonry wall with two arched openings per floor, which are expressed on the Mary Street facade. Each portion consists of three bays, separated by pilasters with cornices between each floor, and surmounted by a solid parapet with a central triangular pediment flanked by spherical finials. The building has one street entrance, located in the central bay of the corner portion.
The ground floor has a single large sash window to each bay, with basement windows covered by cast iron screens below. The central bay has a curved pediment and the pilasters are scribed to imitate stonework. The first floor has twin sashes, with shallow arched window heads and rendered mouldings, and a concrete balustrade below to each bay. The second floor is similar, but with rounded window heads.
The Edward Street facade, divided into four bays, is treated similarly but the ground floor sashes have been altered. The rear wall, which is not rendered, is of English bond brickwork.
The main entry has twin panelled timber doors, with fanlight, opening into a vestibule with glazed timber doors and a lower hardboard ceiling with timber cover strips. The ground floor has sections of pressed metal ceilings near the entrance, with hardboard ceilings throughout the rest of the space. A staircase, with turned timber balustrade, is located at the south corner of the building. An early goods lift, located at the southeast, has a folding metal door and is surmounted by the lift motor room on the roof.
The first floor has panelled ceilings with timber coverstrips, and the second floor has hardboard ceilings. The basement has a concrete floor, and steel columns and beams have been inserted to support the floor above.
A three-storeyed masonry toilet block and steel fire stair are built at the rear and are connected by concrete walkways. Carparking space is also located at the rear fronting Edward Street.
","history":"This three-storeyed masonry warehouse was erected in 1887-88 for Queensland pastoralists and politicians William Allan, MLA and William Graham, MLC.
The land was granted first to John Balfour in 1852. In 1885 the property was transferred to William Allan, then in 1887 he was joined by William Graham as tenants in common. Both Allan and Graham came from Edinburgh originally, and had a number of business interests in common, including sitting on the first board of the Royal Bank of Queensland, established in 1885, and were closely associated with BD Morehead & Co.
An expansion of commercial and building activity in Brisbane in the 1880s transformed the streets around lower Edward Street, which were close to the wharves along the town reach of the Brisbane River, into a warehouse precinct. Built as an investment, Allan's and Graham's warehouse reflects this development phase, and remains one of a small group of late Victorian warehouses surviving in Brisbane. Other comparable buildings include the Metro Arts Building (1890) (QHR 600090), Spencer's Building (1890) (QHR 600100) and the Brisbane and Area Water Board Building (1886) (QHR 600099) in Edward Street, Charlotte House (1888) (QHR 600082) in Charlotte Street, Watson Brothers Building (1887) (QHR 600126) in Margaret Street, and Tara House (1878) (QHR 600105) and Heckelmann's Building (1891) (QHR 600104) in Elizabeth Street.
In January 1887, architect Richard Gailey called tenders for the erection of a warehouse at the corner of Edward and Mary Streets. Constructed by Brisbane contractor T Game at a cost of £4,295, the building was completed in 1888. First leased by J & B Sniders, importers of china and glass, the warehouse was subsequently used by McMurtie & Co. (boot manufacturers), and a variety of produce and leather merchants, engineers, hardware suppliers and saddlers' ironmongers.
From 1900 to 1914 the property was owned by the Gibson family of Bingera Plantation, near Bundaberg, and between 1928 and 1960 was owned and occupied by Mauri Brothers and Thomson Ltd. The property was purchased by the Commissioner of Main Roads in 1960 and transferred to the Crown in 1968. Since then the building has been used as offices for the Queensland government and community groups.
","criteria":"169 Mary Street is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, providing evidence of the former important warehousing function of the lower Edward Street area.
|169 Mary Street is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an ornate late Victorian warehouse, whose style, scale and detail self-consciously express 1880s optimism.
|169 Mary Street is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the important contribution which the rhythm and scale of its facade make to both Edward and Mary Streets.
|169 Mary Street has a special association with the work of architect Richard Gailey, whose firm made a significant contribution to the townscape of Brisbane in the 1880s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14908,"place_ref":600133,"name":"Naldham House","alternate_name":"AUSN House","street_address":"193 Mary Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Naldham House, located on the corner of Mary and Felix Street, is a three storeyed rendered brick building with basement. The building forms a thin rectangle in plan form with the tower being located at the river end. Redevelopment of the adjacent site has now removed the visual link with the river.
The principal facade is to Mary Street and contains a colonnade on the ground and first floors. The detailing on the facade is a free adaptation of classical detailing, with ascending orders on succeeding levels.
On the first floor there are paired fluted pilasters without capitals. The colonnade at this level has paired columns with stylised ionic capitals. The window openings on the second floor are large and have semi-circular arched heads. Between these openings are paired pilasters with one large Corinthian capital that extends across the top of both. Above the capitals is a plain frieze, a cornice and a parapet composed of Italianate balusters. The narrow northern facade has the date "1888" on the upper frieze.
The most distinctive feature of the building is the octagonal tower with cupola at the river end. The cupola, tower end and street facades of the building are intact.
The eastern facade, which now contains the main entrance, incorporates classical detail. The date "1988" appears below the cornice. The building has been refurbished internally. The interior including a new staircase was constructed in the manner of a late nineteenth century colonial club.
","history":"Naldham House was built in the late 1870s with major extensions in 1889 and served for almost a century as a shipping office. In 1988 major external and internal alternations were carried out in converting the building into premises for a club.
The site, adjacent to the Brisbane River, was acquired by the Australasian Steam Navigation Company (ASN) in March 1852 although the company did not construct wharves until 1859 the company's first wharf had been erected on the new site followed by a second wharf near Eagle Street in 1861.
In 1864 a two storeyed office was erected and occupied by Henry O'Reilly the ASN's Brisbane agent. This building was situated on the northern (tower) end of the present Naldham House. In 1877 the ASN's Brisbane office was elevated from agency to branch status, and at some time between 1875 and 1878 the office building was extended to the Felix Street corner.
In the mid 1880s the ASN was taken over and amalgamated with several other shipping companies to form the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company (AUSN) which became a dominant force in Queensland and Australian shipping.
In August 1888 architects McCredie Bros & Chambers called tenders for the extension of the Felix Street offices of the AUSN. The successful tenderer was J R Locke of Redfern, Sydney. At a cost of £11,000 the upper storey was demolished and two new floors were added, a tower and cupola built into the northern end, a balcony included in the Mary Street side and new entrances formed.
In 1914, MacDonald Hamilton & Co became agents for AUSN and instigated internal renovations (c. 1915-20), including silky oak panelling on the first floor. They were also responsible for the change of the name to Naldham House which was derived from the firm's telex address.
MacDonald Hamilton & Co managed AUSN activities until the winding up of the AUSN in 1960. They carried out further internal renovations and a new entrance to Mary Street was constructed. The firm remained in the building until 1986.
In 1988-89 major alterations and additions were undertaken as part of the incorporation of the building in the new riverside development, Waterfront Place. This work included the demolition of the adjacent bond store and the replicates details of the Mary Street facade on the previously blank eastern wall, which has now become the main entrance facade. Naldham House is presently used as a private club and conference centre.
","criteria":"Naldham House provides evidence of major shipping activity along the town reach and of the former prominence of the Australian United Steam Navigation Company in Queensland's maritime industry
|(Criterion under review)
|The building is a fine example of a late nineteenth century maritime building with an imposing architectural presence.
|The building is a fine example of a late nineteenth century maritime building with an imposing architectural presence.
Naldham House is significant as a remnant of a former streetscape of opulent mercantile buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14909,"place_ref":600134,"name":"Coronation Drive (North Quay) Retaining Wall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Coronation Drive","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A mass concrete wall topped by a brick parapet wall and wrought iron railing which extends for a length of about 200 metres along the northern river bank between Boomerang Street and Eagle Terrace. It is built into bedrock at depths varying from 3 to 8 metres. The wall, which is almost 1 metre thick at ground level extends by a series of gradations to thicknesses between 1.2 and 2.4 metres at the base. The view of the wall from the road reveals only the brick piers and decorative wrought iron railings of the parapet wall. At either end of the wall are marble plaques inscribed with the words 'James Hipwood Mayor 1887'. Beneath the parapet wall the concrete retaining wall is visible from the bike path and from the river.
","history":"In late January 1887 Brisbane experienced severe storms which resulted in flash flooding and damage throughout the city. A couple of weeks after the floods, sections of the river bank and road along North Quay fell into the river. An existing embankment and 'dry stone wall' had been undercut and collapsed. The Municipal Council of Brisbane was advised by their Chief Engineer, Thomas Kirk, of several options for dealing with the problem. The council decided on the most permanent solution - to construct a mass concrete retaining wall at an approximate cost of £13,000.
Kirk's choice of concrete rather than masonry work was quite adventurous, as mass concrete technology was new to Australia. Kirk prepared the designs and the contract was awarded to George E Willcocks. Work began in May and the actual construction time was shorter than even Willcocks' optimistic estimate - the road was opened four months later. One of the most challenging tasks in the construction involved massive excavations, the deepest being for a huge coffer dam which kept the river waters out of the site. The men preparing the foundations many feet below the low tide mark worked behind this dam with the full force of the water bearing on the other side.
G E Willcocks had been involved in railway construction in South Africa in the early 1880s. After hearing of the Queensland government's plan to borrow £10 000 000 for an expanded railway construction programme, he migrated to Australia in 1885. In 1886 he began a long career in municipal and government works by winning a contract for building a storm water drainage system in South Brisbane and Kangaroo Point. Other public works followed - Stratton Drain, the Ann Street wall, the North Quay (now Coronation Drive) wall, extensive railway works in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales and the wood blocking of Queen and George Streets.
The stone cappings which were on the piers have been replaced with bricks. A section of the western end of the wall was moved in 1983.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1887, the Coronation Drive [North Quay] retaining wall is as an early example in Queensland of mass concrete technology and is a major engineering achievement of the period.
|Constructed in 1887, the Coronation Drive [North Quay] retaining wall is as an early example in Queensland of mass concrete technology and is a major engineering achievement of the period.
|Constructed in 1887, the Coronation Drive [North Quay] retaining wall is as an early example in Queensland of mass concrete technology and is a major engineering achievement of the period.
|The retaining wall is as an example of the work of George E Willcocks, a contractor who was responsible for a number of large public projects.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14910,"place_ref":600135,"name":"William Street and Queens Wharf Road retaining walls","alternate_name":"North Quay porphyry wall","street_address":"William Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Aligned approximately northwest to southeast, the walls are located on the southern sides of William Street and adjacent Queens Wharf Road; between Queen Street and the former Victoria Bridge abutment to the northwest, and the Elizabeth Street exit-ramp of the Riverside Expressway to the southeast. The walls are set high on the north bank of the Brisbane River, and visually form a plinth to the Treasury Building when viewed from the south.
\nWilliam Street retaining wall (1888-89)
\nThe William Street retaining wall is constructed of rough-coursed Brisbane Tuff, with a parapet, sandstone coping and decorative cast iron railing. It extends approximately 70 metres along William Street and reaches a maximum height of approximately 7 metres to the Queens Wharf Road frontage. A marble pedestal terminating the wall at the Victoria Bridge end is inscribed WM Galloway Mayor 1889, and supports an elaborate gas lamp stand base bearing the words Smith, Faulkner & Co. 1889.
\nVarious structures are incorporated into the wall, including (from northwest to southeast): a concrete WWII air raid shelter; an interwar stairwell and men’s toilet block; a modern driveway entrance accessing an underground service area for the nearby Treasury Casino; and a modern entrance to the early closet recess.
\nThe WWII concrete air-raid shelter is contiguous to the wall on the Queens Wharf Road level. Constructed of reinforced concrete, it has a flat slab roof and off-form walls. Boarded timber doors are located at either end, with the western doorway truncated by a modern concrete footpath (infilled former entrance stair). Four window openings, with metal mesh screens, have been formed on the southwestern wall and the slab roof is framed by a modern metal fence.
\nOriginal stonework and perhaps additional stones face both sides of the interwar stairwell, which has a decorative metal railing. This leads to the men's toilet block that has been built into the wall, with render-framed window and door openings facing Queens Wharf Road that have been filled with modern metal louvres. The letters BCC are emblazoned in raised cement render in the arch above the central window, and there are rendered panels (signage painted over) above the doorway and on the southwest facing wall. A concrete ventilation shaft, octagonal in plan and approximately 3 metres high, is centred on the toilet block parapet. Decorative metal lamp brackets are fixed atop the vent and on the western corner of the toilet block.
\nA plinth of exposed rock at the base of the wall extends between the toilet block and the expressway exit-ramp abutments, punctuated by the modern Treasury Casino driveway entrance driveway and former closet recess. The parapet, coping and metal fence above the rendered driveway entrance has been reconstructed. The entrance to the original closet recess has a modern concrete render surround and louvred metal vent.
\nQueens Wharf Road wall (1936)
\nOn the other side of Queens Wharf Road is a wall that extends approximately 40 metres and consists of a decorative wrought iron railing sitting on top of a Brisbane Tuff dwarf wall between stone pillars. A concrete base wall with a rough-laid pebble finish is visible in some sections. Ornamental sandstone capping stones on the pillars are cut at the corners so that they form gables in elevation. Two gateways in the wall are marked by taller pillars with flat capping stones. The western gateway leads to concrete steps that have a base of stone walls and are closed-off by a modern fence. The western end of the Queens Wharf Road wall has been reconstructed (incorporating original stone), and adjoins the northern abutment of the 1897 Victoria Bridge.
\nThe embankment below is retained by Brisbane Tuff walls, pebble and concrete walls and battered earth banks. Modern steps, ramps and a public lift have been incorporated into recent landscaping works.
\nArchaeological Potential
\nThere is the potential to encounter previously undisturbed archaeological deposits below the modern road surface along Queens Wharf Road, to the west of the men’s toilet block; disturbance to the east associated with the Riverside Expressway and Treasury Casino development has reduced archaeological potential in that area. Potential finds may include historical artefacts or features relating to the early establishment and/or subsequent periods of development of the area.
","history":"The William Street and Queens Wharf Road retaining walls were built in 1889 (southern side of William Street) and 1936 (southern side of Queens Wharf Road). Constructed of Brisbane Tuff (commonly referred to as porphyry), with sandstone coping and decorative metal railings, the walls extend approximately 70 metres, between Queen and Elizabeth Streets. The William Street wall retains original features including a decorative cast iron lamp base on a marble plinth, at the western end, and a former closet recess, at the eastern end. Subsequent additions include: an interwar stairwell and men’s toilets with concrete ventilation shaft; and a World War Two (WWII) air raid shelter. Positioned above the north bank of the Brisbane River, the walls form a visual plinth at the base of the Treasury Building [QHR 600143] when viewed from the south.
\nThe William Street retaining wall was planned in 1888 to endow William Street with some aesthetic distinction to compliment the new Treasury Building being erected opposite the site. Drawings from 1883 by architect John James Clark show the wall with a lamp stand at the western end, forming a visual plinth in the foreground of the William Street frontage of the Treasury Building.[1] The Victoria Bridge end of an old rubble wall along William Street was to be replaced by a Brisbane Tuff and sandstone wall with an elaborate cast iron railing and a small closet recess or pissoir built into the wall at the Elizabeth Street end.[2]
\nIn November 1888 the contract was awarded by the Brisbane Municipal Council to EJ O'Connor, who in the previous year had stabilised the large Brisbane Tuff retaining wall at Queen Street, Petrie's Bight [QHR 600159]. Within five months O'Connor was contracted to excavate and reform William Street and build the retaining wall for £1431.[3] By the time Cabinet first met in the new Treasury Building in 1889, the wall, railing and gas lamp in William Street were completed.
\nThe South Australian marble end post, set on a base of Enoggera granite, was a gift to Mayor Galloway from the mayor of Adelaide, who had visited Brisbane while the wall was being completed.[4] The railing and the elaborate gas lantern were made by local firm Smith Faulkner & Co (formerly Smith Forrester & Co), who also had provided the cast iron railing for the large retaining wall at Petrie's Bight.
\nBy 1890 a cab stand had been established at the Victoria Bridge end of the William Street wall. By the turn of the century the cabs had been supplanted by horse-drawn buses, and a small timber and iron shelter for the convenience of waiting passengers had been erected on the William Street pavement abutting the end railing.[5] This was removed by about 1910.
\nAdditional public toilet facilities were provided with the construction of a urinal on the southern side of Queens Wharf Road by the late 1890s, to the east of the northern abutment of the 1897 Victoria Bridge [QHR 600303].[6] In 1914 the early closet recess off Queens Wharf Road was closed for repairs and a new public toilet block for women and children was opened on the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets in 1915.[7] Built of brick, with a tiled roof, the women’s toilet block remained in use until the early 1970s.
\nUntil 1928 when the Queen Street frontage of the Treasury Building was completed, the William Street frontage was an important focus for official occasions. In January 1901 large crowds congregated in front of the wall to hear Lord Lamington proclaim the Commonwealth of Australia from a balcony of the Treasury Building opposite.
\nIn the decades that followed, the wall served more practical purposes. In the twentieth century motorbuses replaced the horse-drawn vehicles lined along William Street, and by the early 1930s a large timber bus timetable sign had been erected against the railing of the retaining wall.
\nAttention shifted to the improvement of North Quay in the late 1920s, with the Works Committee of the Brisbane City Council recommending a beautification scheme be prepared for the William Street side of the Victoria Bridge in July 1928. The development of a new dumping ground at Milton Road meant that the Sanitary Wharf, accessed via Queens Wharf Road, would no longer be used for the removal of night soil, presenting an opportunity for an area with unpleasant associations to be transformed.[8]
\nBy May 1929 a full scheme for the William Street frontage of the Brisbane River had been prepared by the City Architect, with an estimated overall cost of £11,000.[9] While the cost for the entire scheme was seen as prohibitive, the inclusion of a lavatory block responded to public concerns about the small number of public conveniences available in the city at the time (eleven in the central area of the city and on the south side).[10] By June 1930 the Health Committee had approved plans for the 20ft 6in x 11ft (6.25m x 3.35m) structure to be built into the wall and accessed from William Street and Queens Wharf Road, at an estimated cost of £1,000.[11]
\nConstruction commenced in the early 1930s, with fill under the William Street footpath excavated and a three metre section of the wall and railing was apparently realigned to accommodate a stairway leading from William Street to the new public conveniences. The entrance to the original closet recess was likely bricked over at this period also. By 1932 the William Street men’s lavatories, along with those at Customs House, were being leased for £26 per annum.[12]
\nThe new toilet block had a concrete ventilation shaft with a decorative metal lamp bracket, positioned along the parapet on William Street. It was similar in design (but of a smaller scale) to the Monier ventilator shafts [QHR 601995, 602067, 602068] that were erected in city streets in the early 20th century, to remove foul and unhealthy smells from the drainage systems.
\nThe decorative masonry and iron wall on the other side of Queens Wharf Road was erected in the 1930s, replacing a dilapidated timber fence.[13] Plans were prepared in 1934, but the wall was not erected until 1936. It appears to have been intended to, demark the entrance to a ramp that led to Hayles Wharf below, which was leased from the council. Sections of the retaining wall here were extant before this period and stairs built to the west of the ramp possibly incorporated part of the former urinal structure.[14]
\nAs a wartime precaution, the Brisbane City Council erected an air-raid shelter on the Queens Wharf Road frontage of the William Street retaining wall, abutting the Victoria Bridge end, circa early 1940s. Plans show the 58ft x 11ft 6inch (17.7m x 3.5m) shelter was constructed of reinforced concrete, including its slab roof and internal blast walls, and had a doorway at the eastern end and steps down to an entrance at the northwest end.[15] Above this a bus shelter, equipped with public telephones and a drinking fountain was erected on the William Street footpath in 1944, resulting in the removal of a section of the wall parapet and railing. This remained a principal stop for buses servicing Brisbane's southern suburbs until a major underground bus station was constructed in the 1980s that had a tunnel entrance at the southern end of Queen Street. The William Street bus shelter was demolished c2008 and a new metal fence was built around the top of the air raid shelter at that time.
\nWith the completion of the new Victoria Bridge in 1969, the 1897 bridge was demolished, with the exception of the northern abutment adjacent to the Queens Wharf Road wall. In the early 1970s, female toilet accommodation was provided abutting the wall on Queens Wharf Road, with a section of the William Street wall parapet and railing removed to extend the footpath over the flat roof, and 20 metres of the wall and the 1915 women’s toilet block was demolished to make way for the Elizabeth Street off-ramp for the Riverside Expressway.
\nIn the mid 1990s the Treasury Building was redeveloped as the Treasury Casino, which involved the excavation of a large services basement under William Street. Part of Queens Wharf Road was lowered, as evidenced by exposed rock at the base of the wall to the east of the men’s toilet block, and the 1970s female toilets were demolished, to allow the formation of an underground driveway entrance through the William Street wall. A section of the stone parapet, coping and balustrade above were reconstructed, and the driveway entrance framed with a rendered finish. The interwar men’s toilets were closed and metal louvres were installed in the window and door openings, along with the (previously bricked-in) opening to the former closet recess.
\nMore recent works associated with the upgrade of the North Quay Ferry Terminal included landscaping of the embankment and the construction of a viewing platform, public lift, stairs and ramps to provide access from Queens Wharf Road. The ramp that led to Hayles Wharf was demolished and the western end of the Queens Wharf Road wall was reconstructed using original stone.
\nIn 2016 the foundations of the 1915 women’s toilet block were encountered during traffic signal works on the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets. The archaeological potential of Queens Wharf Road, once the main thoroughfare up the steep river bank to the early penal settlement, has been identified as ‘exceptional’ in the Brisbane City Central Business District Archaeological Plan (EHP, 2013).
","criteria":"The William Street and Queens Wharf Road retaining walls are important in demonstrating the historical development of Queensland’s civic infrastructure and urban facilities from the late 19th to the mid 20th century.
\nConstruction of the William Street wall (1889) was closely associated with the Treasury Building [QHR 600143], making a functional and aesthetic contribution to a site that was an expression of Queensland’s economic aspirations and a focus for official occasions.
\nThe various sanitation elements incorporated into the William Street wall, from a simple closet recess to an interwar toilet block with ventilation shaft, illustrate the development of urban public health facilities.
\nDesigned to afford protection in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter is important in demonstrating the impact of WWII on the civilian population of Brisbane and as part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane.
\nThe Queens Wharf Road wall (1936) is important in demonstrating interwar beautification initiatives undertaken along the north bank of the Brisbane River.
|The place has the potential to contain archaeological artefacts that are an important source of information about Queensland's history. Despite disturbance in some areas, there is the potential for subsurface material to survive relating to the establishment, evolution and pattern of settlement of early Brisbane as a penal colony, as well as accumulated material from subsequent periods of development of Queensland's capital city.
\nArchaeological investigation has the potential to answer important research questions critical to Queensland's history. Such questions could focus on but are not limited to the identification of the locations and purposes of previously undocumented buildings, evolution of road and other civic infrastructure, and individual and collective living conditions.
|The William Street wall is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century stone retaining wall, and is a good example of its type. It retains its rough-course Brisbane Tuff construction, with sandstone coping and metal railings, which along with a lamp stand base at the western end are good examples of the decorative work of important 19th century Brisbane founders Smith Forrester & Co.
\nThe shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a WWII public air raid shelter.
|The William Street and Queens Wharf Road retaining walls are of aesthetic significance for their contribution to the definition of an important ceremonial and civic space associated with the river front and the Treasury Building. The textured surface of the stone, its varied colouration and the light and open effect of the railings endow both walls with an attractive streetscape presence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14912,"place_ref":600137,"name":"Gardams","alternate_name":"Rutter and Sons","street_address":"114 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gardam's building is a small scale Victorian era commercial building that features some elaborate Italianate detailing. It has two storeys of stuccoed brick on a stone basement.
At street level the facade has been modernised with large plate glass shop windows and a recessed central entrance. However, the upper facade remains as it was when the building was constructed. Three window openings with round arched heads fill the upper facade. The elaborate hood moulds of the arches are carried by fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals. This arrangement gives the impression of arcading on the upper facade. Within the openings are timber sash windows. Large stylised vermiculated keystones rise from the arches to support the cornice. At either end of the upper facade large fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals also support the cornice.
The cornice is an elaborate element of the facade considering the size of the building. It has large brackets and ornamented dentils. Above the cornice is a parapet with a central triangular pediment. At the ends of the parapet are pedestals and an open Italianate balustrade runs between these and the pediment. Three large cast cement urns crown the pedestals and the pediment.
The building at the rear of the site fronting Burnett Lane was originally separate, but has been amalgamated with the front building during the present ownership. Evidence of this connection can be clearly seen from the upper level of the rear building. A connection has also been made at the first floor level in the front section of the building to allow access to the same level of the neighbouring Hardy Brothers building.
This example of a small scale Victorian commercial building is part of a surviving group of buildings of similar scale and detail from this era fronting Queen Street and as such contributes greatly to the streetscape.
","history":"This building was constructed in late 1881 and occupied by January 1882.
The deed of grant for allotment 11A was made to Auguste Deleuse in September 1881, following the 1880 demolition of the convict barracks which had occupied the site since 1827. A government decision to dispose of this Crown land prompted the redevelopment of that portion of the northern side of Queen street bounded by Albert Street and the first Town Hall (now Lennons Hotel site). Deleuse erected a two storeyed building with basement, and negotiated a five year lease with jeweller Thomas Gerrard.
Ownership of the property transferred to John Ferguson in April 1888. Ferguson, MLA for Rockhampton at the time, was also a building contractor and mining investor. His purchase of this site appears to have been speculative. After Fergusons death in 1906 title passed to various trustees who retained the site until its purchase by Gardams Silk Store Pty Ltd at auction in August 1950. Tenants at the time of sale were Rutter and Son, chemists, who had been there since the latter years of World War I.
In addition to the original building, another brick building with ground, mezzanine and two upper floors fronting Burnett Lane was included in the sale. Sewerage maps indicate a structure in that position from at least 1913. This building has been incorporated within the present Gardams premises. Gardams continue to occupy the site as a retail business.
","criteria":"Gardams Building is significant as evidence of the secondary phase of development in Queen Street during the early 1880s, initiated by the disposal of the convict barracks.
|Gardams remains a good example of a small two-storeyed commercial building of the Victorian era with ornate detailing.
|Aesthetically, it is significant as a part of a group of surviving 1880s commercial buildings which contribute to the streetscape of Queen Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14913,"place_ref":600138,"name":"Hardy Brothers","alternate_name":"Love's Auction Mart","street_address":"116 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hardy Brothers is a Victorian era Italianate building located at 116 Queen Street. It consists of two storeys and a basement and is built predominantly of stuccoed brick on a stone foundation.
The lower level Queen Street facade has undergone numerous changes while the upper level is mostly intact. This consists of three semicircular arched window openings, the central arch being larger than the ones to either side. This central arch originally had two smaller archways supported on a slender central Corinthian column above which was a small circular window. The original sash windows of these openings have been replaced by large casements. The three openings are separated by pilasters with Corinthian capitals. Below each window is a balustrade of roundels, with a rosette in each circle. Above the arches is a continuous decorative label mould of floral motifs, with floral label stops. The cornice is made prominent by a row of dentils, and four sets of elaborate paired brackets. Above the cornice is an ornate parapet with a central triangular pediment containing three arched recesses echoing the window openings below. The rest of the parapet has a balustrade of small arched balusters, and at each end of the parapet is a pedestal supporting a vase. A vase also stands at the peak of the central pediment.
The lower facade originally had three arched openings, but by the 1890s a steel and glass shopfront had been installed. The shopfront has been considerably altered over time to suit different tenants. One such shopfront was designed by Lange Powell in 1914. The street level facade now has a recessed doorway, plate glass window and a modern cantilevered awning.
Internally the building is connected at the first floor level to its neighbour Gardams. At the basement level there is visible evidence of the original stone construction, brick partitioning walls and timber structure to the floor above.
The building is part of a group of intact Victorian era buildings in this part of Queen Street and thus has a significant influence on the streetscape.
","history":"This building was constructed in 1881 principally for Love's Auction Mart, on land owned by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey.
A government decision to demolish the convict barracks which covered this site since 1827 and to dispose of the Crown land, gave impetus to the redevelopment of that portion of the northern side of Queen street bounded by the old Town Hall (now Lennons Hotel site) and Albert Street. A deed of grant for allotment 12 of section 12 was issued to Richard Gailey, architect, in April 1881. By June work had commenced on the erection of a two-storeyed brick building with stone foundations. With a 24 foot frontage to Queen Street and a depth of 138 feet, the lower floor of the building was to serve as an auction mart for David Love, auctioneer and valuator. Richard Gailey occupied some office space on the upper floor. Given his ownership of the land and occupancy of the office, it is most probable that Gailey was responsible for the design of the building.
In 1888 importing ironmongers Wilson and Southerden moved to this site. Before moving in they made improvements to the premises, rebuilding part of the facade by erecting an archway on the ground level, described as the finest in the city. Gailey transferred title to his mortgagor Australian Mutual Provident Society in July 1894. AMP issued a 3 year lease to John, Samuel and Arthur Morley Hardy. The Hardy brothers initially leased only the ground and basement floors, and purchased the site in October 1895. Photographic suppliers Baker and Rouse shared the ground floor during the late 1890s, and WT Atthow solicitor occupied rooms on the first floor.
Various tenants occupied the upper floor in the intervening years until 1963 when Gardams Trading Pty Ltd took over the lease. An opening from the adjacent Gardams building was made in the wall, allowing movement between premises.
In 1979 title for this property passed from Hardy Brothers, though the company occupying it continues to trade under that name.
","criteria":"Hardy Brothers building survives as an important example of the secondary phase of development in Queen Street during the early 1880s, initiated by the disposal of the convict barracks.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century commercial building with ornate Italianate detailing, and aesthetically makes a strong contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as part of a group of surviving 1880s commercial buildings.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century commercial building with ornate Italianate detailing, and aesthetically makes a strong contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as part of a group of surviving 1880s commercial buildings.
|The place has a strong and special long term association with the firm of Hardy Brothers, and a special association with owner and occupier Brisbane architect Richard Gailey.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14914,"place_ref":600139,"name":"Sportsgirl","alternate_name":"Edwards and Chapman","street_address":"120 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Sportsgirl building located at 120 Queen Street dates from the Victorian era and was designed by FDG Stanley with ornate Italianate detailing.
It consists of three storeys with a basement and an attic level. It has a simple rectangular plan with brick back and side walls and a richly ornamented front. The rear of the building is polychrome brickwork while the front also uses lightly coloured Oamaru limestone although it is now not obvious as the facade has been painted white. At street level facing Queen Street there is presently a modern shop front with a central doorway flanked by shop windows, and a suspended awning above.
The first floor level has a projecting bay or oriel window with flanking arcades. The original detail of the bay window has been replaced with a modern glazed structure. The arcading is composed of round headed arches supported on partially fluted pilasters, with Corinthian capitals. Recessed behind the arches are plate glass windows which have been entirely blanked out with its current usage.
The second floor level has round headed window openings in line with the arches on the level below. These openings have decorative hood mouldings, and prominent keystones of acanthus leaves. The facade is finished with a dentilled string course which is the base of a Corinthian entablature with Italianate balustrading. A vase is located above a pedestal at each end and centred above the parapet is a triangular pediment. This has the words 'ERECTED 1882' engraved on the surface.
Internally the building has suffered with its changing ownership, but although the original internal columns have been encased some traces of their original decoration remain.
The rear polychrome brick facade of the building has a carefully composed elevation of arched openings with the stone base partially exposed. Little has changed to this facade since it was first constructed apart from the bricking up of some of the openings and the installation of modern entry doors for access from Burnett Lane.
The building is part of a group of surviving Victorian commercial buildings that are prominent in this portion of Queen Street.
","history":"This building was erected as a retail warehouse during 1881-82 and occupied by Edwards and Chapman in December of 1882.
Welsh businessman Richard Edwards joined Scotsman James Chapman in the establishment of a drapery store in Brisbane in 1877. Successful in their venture, the two required larger premises and in September 1881 acquired deeds of grant to Allotments 13, 13A and 14 of Section 12. The convict barracks, later first parliamentary buildings and supreme court had stood on this site from 1827 until its demolition in early 1881. A government decision to dispose of this Crown land prompted the redevelopment of the northern side of Queen street bounded by the old Town Hall (now Lennons Hotel site) and Albert Street.
Ex-Colonial Architect Francis DG Stanley supervised the construction of the building by contractor H Holmes. With a frontage of 48 feet to Queen Street and a depth of 138 feet, this substantial warehouse incorporated features designed to 'meet the requirements of a tropical climate'. The three storey building with basement was notable for it 18 foot ceilings, and had an oval opening 50 feet by 15 feet in each floor. This device was intended to allow ventilation and better light dispersion. A hydraulic powered Otis lift was also incorporated in the building.
The company was dissolved when Richard Edwards retired in 1891 and James Chapman obtained title to the site in May of that year. As Chapman and Company the business diversified into soft furnishings and furniture. In 1923 extensive alterations were carried out to the shopfronts by SS Carrick under the guidance of architectural firm Hall and Prentice. The work necessitated the insertion of steel columns and girders into the existing stonework.
Chapmans sold the building in 1938 ending the a 56 year association with the site. Subsequent owners have continued the retail use of the premises, the current occupants being involved in the merchandising of female apparel.
","criteria":"Sportsgirl is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the secondary phase of development in Queen Street during the early 1880s, initiated by the disposal of the convict barracks.
|Sportsgirl demonstrates the principal characteristics of the commercial work of Brisbane architect, FDG Stanley and of a Victorian era commercial building with ornate Italianate detailing.
|Sportsgirl is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, its contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as part of a group of surviving 1880s commercial buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14915,"place_ref":600140,"name":"Regent Building","alternate_name":"Regent Theatre","street_address":"167 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Regent Building is located at 167 Queen Street, with public access off the Queen Street Mall between Edward and Albert Streets. Within the vicinity of the Regent are the 1924 Brisbane Arcade (QHR 600058), the 1930 National Australia Bank (QHR 600141), the 1981 Wintergarden Shopping Centre and the 1986 Hilton Hotel. Occupying approximately half of lot 2 on RP49018 on its Queen Street side, this five-storey building is what remains intact of the original theatre complex. It contains the decorated entrance hall, an adjacent small retail tenancy and a coffee shop (spaces originally part of single tenancy) at ground level. On levels one to four above ground there are tenantable offices, while below ground there is a basement. Behind this part of the building, connected to the hall by a wide set of stairs and three double doors, is the grand foyer with its marble staircase. The heritage boundary takes in the wall, its openings and the joinery that forms the south-eastern end of this foyer.
\nFaçades
\nThe Queen Street façade of the Regent Building (completed late 1928) was designed using classically-inspired detailing and proportions, and was described in A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture (1994) as 'a Palazzo façade, imbued with an Art Deco flavour.' It is symmetrical, with three window bays across and four storeys above ground level, although the fourth floor is stepped back and has no windows on this building face. The first floor features rustication in the form of scored render imitating stonework, and similarly-made arched windows topped with moulded keystones and sitting on decorated panels. The second and third floors have plain, giant-order pilasters, with stylised 'Composite' capitals. All windows retain their original metal frames, featuring a combination of fixed and casement windows with multiple lights. The second floor windows sit on a sill of Italianate balusters, running between the pilasters. Below the third floor windows are moulded tripartite panels featuring centred oval medallions. Inside the medallions are the entwined letters CB (standing for Capitol Building). Panels between the pilaster capitals are decorated with festoons. The frieze features paired rosettes at each end framing the name 'REGENT BVILDING' lettered across its centre. An exaggerated cornice supported on closely-spaced brackets projects over the frieze and is roofed with terracotta-style tiles presenting small, semi-circular profiles to the street. Topping the building is a parapet, which combines solid sections corresponding to the pilasters below and intervening open sections of Italianate balusters.
\nPart of the south-western (side) façade of the Regent Building is visible from the Queen Street Mall, revealing a general scheme of orange brickwork infill walls and concrete framing. The central section has a large, concrete-framed bay window, which supports a small corrugated fibro-sheeted awning with gutter. The metal windows on levels two, three and four are original, either large sets including four awning leafs each divided into four lights, or a narrow set including two pivoting leafs, one above the other, each divided into four lights. While the sills on the first two levels are concrete, those on the top are brick. The two windows at the southern end of this wall to level three are sheltered by an early hood made with light timber framing, fibro roof sheeting, guttering and flat metal sheet braces. All glass appears to be frosted with a fine wire mesh embedded in it. The opposite, north-eastern facade is not visible from the street as the Wintergarden Building has been built to that boundary.
\nRoofs
\nA combination of gable, saw-toothed and flat roof sections cover the top level of the Regent Building facing Queen Street. A large gable and skillion clad in ribbed metal roof sheeting sits over the grand foyer. (Aerial information suggests the roofing cladding of the front section of the building is also ribbed metal.)
\nAt street level, the Regent Building frontage is divided in two, with access to the entrance hall on the right hand side and a small retail tenancy on the left. The façade under the awning is largely clad in marble with a strip of modern signage running as a frieze above the doorways. The awning cantilevers over the Queen Street Mall by approximately three metres with metal tie rods providing support from above. Otherwise clad in metal roof sheeting, the underside to the awning features contoured metal-sheet housing for numerous rows of light bulbs. Several recent illuminated signs hang from here. An ornamental leadlight fringe runs along the south-west and north-west edges of the awning. Dating from the heyday of the theatre, this decoration, aside from other features of the awning, is considered to be of heritage significance.
\nGround floor interiors
\nEntering from the Queen Street Mall, the components of the building that served the Regent Theatre are: the single-height threshold space off the street; the large, double-height entrance hall; and beyond this the elaborate grand foyer, which retains the marble staircase that once led to the 1929 theatre's mezzanine promenade. The interiors of all these spaces are extravagantly ornamented in a confection of styles, which include Art Deco, Spanish Gothic, Baroque and Neo-classical or Empire. A key strategy employed in the design of picture palaces of this era, these styles are freely used to create eclectic visual effects without concern for historical or stylistic accuracy. These spaces form an impressive sequence, retaining coherence despite the mixture of decorative styles.
\nThe threshold space between the Queen Street Mall and the entrance hall is single-height, approximately six metres wide and four-and-a-half metres deep. It has a patterned terrazzo floor, marble skirting, a large, classically-styled cornice and a central ceiling rose with round light fitting. An alcove on one side features decorative plasterwork in a classical style around its border, as does the lintel forming the opening between it and the entrance hall. Recent features such as signage and television screens are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe entrance hall is a long, high-ceilinged space that acts as a thoroughfare between the Queen Street Mall, the coffee shop, the upper-level tenancies and the grand foyer. After passing through the threshold space, there is a ticket booth immediately on the right hand side (possibly containing elements from the original ticket booth in the grand foyer beyond). It is approximately eight metres long and has a waist-height marble counter with an attached metal screen that extends to above head height on two sides.
\nThe coffee shop has recent fittings and furnishings, although sections of the Art Deco-style cornice here appear to be original fabric. Closest to the street are two simple rectangular openings, while the opening closest to the grand foyer has a timber frame and semi-circular fanlight with frosted glass lights. Two openings nearest the Mall have been in-filled during the 1979-1980 renovation.
\nThe lift and main staircase to the upper floors of the Regent Building are accessed through the rear of the coffee shop and sit in the eastern corner of this part of the building. At the far end of the entrance hall, a set of marble steps spanning its full width lead up to a landing enclosed by three sets of original double doors opening into the grand foyer. Two handrails made of copper with brass divide the stair into three. The double doors are made from timber and have full-height glass lights and chrome fittings. The threshold is polished granite.
\nEntrance hall
\nThe dominant feature of the entrance hall is its high, barrel-vaulted ceiling decorated with Neo-classical Empire-style plasterwork and murals. The decorative pattern consists of raised, geometric shapes and festoons painted bronze, set on a pale background and divided by strips of fretwork. The end vaults are painted with colourful medieval scenes. Two elaborate original chandeliers, with red glass panels and faux candle lights are suspended from the centre of two ceiling medallions. There is an elaborate cornice and the walls resemble courses of travertine block work. Shallow pilasters divide the long walls, with a decorative frieze of small pointed arches running between them. Another frieze line sits further down the wall sections at door head height. Brass candelabras are attached to each pilaster in line with these lower friezes. Above the door openings at either end of the hall are fixed large billboards with ornamental plaster frames surmounted by crowns. The floor is carpeted and has a marble skirting, but the original patterned terrazzo floor, similar to that in the threshold space, is believed to survive beneath the carpet.
\nGrand foyer
\nThe grand foyer is an impressive single volume with richly ornamented walls and ceiling; predominantly Spanish Gothic with Baroque effects, such as the use of Rococo plasterwork and large mirrored surfaces. It is approximately 22 metres long, 12 metres wide and three-and-a-half storeys high. The doors leading from the entrance hall open into the western corner of the space. To the left stands a recent ticket and snacks counter which, along with various signage, is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Centrally placed along the south-eastern wall, and leading up to a mezzanine level, is the grand marble staircase. On either side of it, at ground level, are double doors that lead into spaces outside of the heritage boundary.
\nThe ceiling in the grand foyer is vaulted with deep groins that continue down the walls to form alcoves for a series of blind balconies. The entire surface area is painted with medieval-themed figures and patterns. The colour scheme relies on warm colours (predominantly reds, browns, greens and cream) given a yellow cast by the muted lighting. The groined sections of the ceiling are painted in a pattern of twisted vines with a small shield in the centre. The edge between the groined and arched surfaces is defined by a narrow red strip patterned with yellow quatrefoils. On the lowest part of the arched panels various figures in medieval costume are depicted; each standing under the archway of a colonnade, some with shields between them. Moving up towards the centre of the ceiling, another shield, flanked by lions, hovers above the colonnade arches. Spanning the ceiling centre line are three large patterned circles featuring central sunbursts. Hanging from the centre of these are two large lanterns, similar to those featured in the entrance hall.
\nAll four walls of the grand foyer are heavily ornamented, most of which follows a dense pattern of thick, vine-like swirls and leaves that are painted mottled cream, beige and pale grey. The pale colour of this encrusted plasterwork and the extensiveness of its use within the foyer (in combination with other elements such as mirrors), are the key reasons for the design style being described as Rococo.
\nThe long side walls are each punctuated by four blind balconies, set into the alcoves formed by the elongated ceiling groins. These balcony alcoves have low plasterwork balustrades at their base, tall mirrored panels on the flat wall behind and are capped by elaborate plasterwork canopies, from which red velvet curtains with a gold tasselled fringe are suspended. Below each blind balcony are mirrored panels with a darkly painted plaster border. Between them, from floor level to just below the ceiling, are paired, rounded pilasters encrusted with tracery. Single columns sit between the end balconies and the wall corners. Brass candelabra are fixed between each balcony at balustrade height and concealed lights at the top of the pilasters shine up onto the arched, painted ceiling.
\nDominating the north-western end wall of the foyer is a large false Gothic window, made from plaster with panels of reflective bronze paint imitating glass. This feature is repeated on the opposite wall, with the lower portion serving as the doorway at the top of the grand marble staircase. Decorative friezes run across the north-western end wall at above door height, and two small lanterns are attached on either side of its Gothic window. All other wall surfaces throughout the grand foyer are scored and painted to resemble travertine block work.
\nA key element in the grand foyer is its staircase, which at approximately five metres wide and nine metres long was built on a scale to suit that of the large space it occupies, as well as to accommodate the numbers of patrons of the former 1929 theatre. It is clad in white marble with grey veins, and its bottom few steps swell out in a shallow curve, flanked on either side by ornate, plaster balustrade end posts that are topped with vessels for displaying flowers. The remainder of the balustrade on either side is made from plaster employing the same style of ornamentation as the walls, with the top surface of the upper rail covered in maroon and white marble and the bottom skirting made of grey-blue and white marble. A copper and brass handrail, similar to the one in the entrance hall, runs up the centre of the staircase. A landing divides the stairs in two, in line with the height of the balconies along the side walls. Both this landing and the one at the top of the stairs are finished with square marble tiles. The end posts at the top of the stairs are simple, square plinths with a marble top and additional plaster flower bowls. The upper landing extends the width of the hall to form a narrow balcony, around which the balustrade of the staircase continues. Square plasterwork panels set into the end wall at this level conceal air-conditioning ducts.
\nThe doors leading out of the grand foyer into adjoining spaces on the ground floor match those connecting the foyer and entrance hall. In front of these doors, the wide soffit to the balcony above is decorated with a distinctive pattern of swirls interlocking to form a series of circles and has a circular light fitting in its centre. Beneath the grand marble staircase, accessed through openings on either side, there is a storeroom which retains an original timber door featuring a simple geometric pattern of ribs. Next to this storeroom are stairs that lead down to the basement (currently not in use), which retain original handrails and brackets.
\nMarble skirtings feature throughout the grand foyer, including around the base of the staircase. The floor at ground level is covered in recent carpet, as is the upper landing area on either side of the grand staircase.
\nBasement
\nThe basement comprises a number of bare rooms stripped of wall, ceiling and floor linings and services after c2000 when the last tenants quit the space. The basement section of the stairwell closest to Queen Street has been sealed off, while access is still open from the stairs under the marble staircase in the grand foyer.
\nLevels one to four tenancies
\nOf the four levels of tenancies located above the ground floor of the Regent Building, the first three share an original general floor plan, consisting of a central, straight hallway linking various rooms to the lift and stairwell at its southern end. Rooms line this corridor along its length to the south-west and at the Queen Street end of the building, while staircases, toilets and other service spaces occupy the north-eastern side. The 1928 stair winds around a generously-scaled void and has a wrought iron balustrade with a timber handrail moulded in a single length. While remaining in its original location next to the 1928 stair, the lift itself is not original. Further along the north-eastern side of the building there is a narrow light well, with toilets between it and the central hallway, and a fire escape staircase at its Queen Street end, which was installed during the building's 1978-80 redevelopment. The toilets occupy their original positions in the building but have been renovated since being first installed there. The windows looking into the light well, apart from those to the main stairwell (metal-framed), have been removed and the openings filled in. Kitchenettes and services cupboards sit between the 1979 fire escape and the central hallway.
\nA number of features found on level one are of note. The first is a theatrette overlooking Queen Street. It has a small section of tiered seating and a bio box, and is decorated with curtains covering most walls and a number of brass candelabra similar to those found elsewhere in the building and likely to be from the original 1929 fit-out of the Regent Building. There are also sections of cornice matching those present in the café downstairs. The second feature is two interwar timber doors with frosted glass upper lights along the south-western side of the corridor on this floor. These open to reveal the ceiling framing above the entrance hall. Further to these are pieces of original architrave, skirting boards and several plaster corbels.
\nOn all four of these floors, original parquetry remains under the carpet. It is exposed in the central corridor of level three and its reception area. Suspended ceilings have been installed on these levels, as well as some recent studwork and plasterboard partitioning.
\nThe top level (four) sits under a sawtooth roof at the front and two concealed gables at the rear. It is more open plan than the tenantable levels below, however its service spaces around the light well correspond to those below and a central hallway is delineated by columns. Aside from its windows on the south-eastern and south-western walls, there are clerestory windows oriented to Queen Street. A bulkhead disguising ducted air-conditioning has been installed over the central corridor space and in the toilets. Most wall and ceiling linings appear to be recent.
","history":"The Regent Building comprises part of the original Regent Theatre complex constructed on land between Queen Street and Elizabeth Streets, between 1928 and 1929. It includes a basement, four levels of tenancies at 167 Queen Street, two street-level shops, and the ornately decorated entrance hall and grand foyer, which led into the original 2500-seat Regent Theatre. The Regent Building was designed by Melbourne architect Charles N Hollinshed, in association with Richard Gailey Junior in Brisbane.
\nWhile the office building was completed late in 1928, and tenanted from April 1929, the theatre opened to the public in November 1929. The building was redeveloped in the late 1970s, with four cinemas installed in the space originally occupied by the 2500-seat theatre and opened in 1980 as the Hoyts Entertainment Centre. This development retained the four levels of tenancies, the basement, two street level shops, the entrance hall and grand foyer. One of the four cinemas, known as the Showcase Theatre and located on the lower level of the complex, was constructed to recall the design of the original Regent Theatre. Its vestibule was also a re-construction recalling the vestibule which had been on a mezzanine level of the original theatre. The entertainment centre was closed for further redevelopment in June 2010.
\nSituated in Brisbane's main thoroughfare, Queen Street, between Albert and Edward Streets, the Regent Building was located within the city's central shopping, business and entertainment precinct. It was constructed on a number of contiguous land parcels with one long, narrow lot (2/RP49279) having frontage to both Queen and Elizabeth Streets, and a number of contiguous lots facing Elizabeth Street. The shape of the allotments, determined the theatre's plan. The narrow Queen Street lot comprised the entrance hall and grand foyer, giving the theatre a prestigious address, while the auditorium was constructed on the broad part of the site in Elizabeth Street. The Queen Street lot had been acquired in the 1850s by Patrick Mayne. Its ownership later passed into the possession of two of his children; Dr James O'Neil Mayne and Mary Emelia Mayne. The Elizabeth Street lots, where the original theatre was constructed, comprised three additional lots; one of which had also been acquired by Patrick Mayne in the 1850s (L217/B11826) and passed to his children after his death. The remaining two lots (L1/RP574 & L1/RP575) that comprised the theatre site were purchased by film director and entrepreneur JC Williamson in 1928 and transferred to Hoyts Theatres Ltd in June 1929. Dr James Mayne leased the Elizabeth Street allotment and part of 2/RP49279 to Capitol Theatres Ltd for 50 years from 1 December 1927, which transferred both leases to Hoyts in September 1932. After James and Mary Mayne died in 1939 and 1940 respectively, their estate was left to the University of Queensland as the sole beneficiary.
\nApproval to build a lavish Regent Theatre in Brisbane, which would accommodate all classes of theatrical entertainment from opera to vaudeville and films, was granted by the City Council in 1926, at a time when 'picture palaces' were gaining popularity worldwide. In central Brisbane, the Regent was to join a substantial cohort of theatres and theatre-cinemas which formed the basis of a vibrant cultural and social hub. By 1930, apart from the new Regent, Queen Street between Albert and Edward Streets housed His Majesty's (opened 1888), the Wintergarden (opened in 1924), and the Majestic (opened 1915, rebuilt as Odeon 1957). Three other venues had operated in Queen Street but were closed by 1923: the Pavilion and Strand De Luxe Theatres between the site of the Regent and Albert Street, and West's Olympia at the corner of Queen and North Quay. Nearby in Albert Street were The Tivoli (built as a theatre in 1915 and converted to a cinema in 1927), the Empire (opened 1911, renamed St James in 1933, and the Paris in 1965), and the Lyceum (1909, remodelled as the Elite in the 1920s and substantially rebuilt in 1965 as the George Twin Cinema) in George Street. Elsewhere were the Theatre Royal in Elizabeth Street (opened 1881, demolished) and Centennial Hall in Adelaide Street (opened 1888, later Coconut Grove dance hall and Guild Café Theatre, which closed 1949). One of the last to be constructed within the same street block as the Regent was the 1937 Metro Theatre in Albert Street. Some of these were demolished in the 1960s and by 1986 only the George Cinema and the Metro, remodelled as the Albert Cinemas, remained.
\nThe architects responsible for the design of the 1929 Regent Theatre Building worked in association. They were Charles Neville Hollinshed, a Melbourne-based architect, and Richard Gailey Junior, a prominent Brisbane practitioner who, among other commissions, had designed the nearby Brisbane Arcade (QHR 600058) for Dr James Mayne in 1924. Hollinshed was involved with other large theatre projects, including a number in Melbourne such as the Fitzroy Regent, the Comedy Theatre and the refurbishment of Her Majesty's. Aaron Bolot, then an employee of Gailey, also worked on the project. Their designs were featured in the Architecture and Building Journal of Queensland; first in June and July 1927, later through 1928, and into 1929, where the scale and splendour of the building were amply described. The Queen Street section - occupied by April 1929 - comprised a basement, a street-facing shop, four levels of commercial tenancies, the entrance hall, and the grand foyer. It was originally to be the Capitol Building, which is why there are intertwined CBs on the front façade. The theatre was constructed on the larger Elizabeth Street site and included six shops at street level and a 200-space basement car-park, accessible from Elizabeth Street.
\nThe brick shell of the theatre building on Elizabeth Street enclosed a composite steel and concrete frame with ancillary timber framing used to support the floors and ceilings and their decorative features. The Regent in Brisbane reflected the evolution of the picture palace concept devised by Samuel Lionel 'Roxy' Rothapfel's 1913 Regent Theatre in New York which created a fantasy interior where audiences could lose themselves within an evocatively-decorated atmospheric picture palace. This style was perpetuated by Hoyts in a chain of Regent theatres built across Australia in the 1920s, in Melbourne (Victorian Heritage Register [VHR]), South Yarra, Ballarat (VHR), Perth, Sydney and Adelaide (facade on South Australian Heritage Register). Two more were built in New Zealand in Auckland and Palmerston North. The Brisbane Regent's interiors were a blend of Gothic, Baroque and Classical themes. Two building contractors were employed on the Brisbane Regent: AJ Dickenson for the theatre component and J & EL Rees for the Queen Street section. Construction and fit-out costs, including furnishings (some of which reputedly were antiques collected from overseas), paintings, the main chandelier, Belgian carpets, a Wurlitzer organ, and a state-of-the-art air conditioning system, amounted to around £400,000.
\nAlmost a year after the tenancies on Queen Street were completed, the Regent Theatre opened on 8 November 1929 being described as 'palatial', 'rich in detail' and 'strikingly beautiful'. Seating more than 2500 patrons it was one of the largest theatres in the Commonwealth and comprised an extensive stage with fly tower and a large movie screen and stage, modern lighting facilities, three talking machines, and a £25,000 Wurlitzer organ from New York. A large dome stretching above the stalls featured a one ton bronze chandelier in the centre of an oval ceiling medallion set within a 'sunburst' surround. The elaborate decorative plaster work was prepared by Picton Hopkins and Son Pty Ltd in Melbourne with some involvement by the local Decorative Tile Company in its installation, which also completed the marble tiling. The ornament moulds were designed and cast in Melbourne. The final plaster pieces were cast in situ in Brisbane and then fixed into place and painted. A new proprietary board product known as 'Craftex' was used to replicate stone and marble on the walls. The Mollocco Brothers of Sydney created the marble work on the staircase. The furniture and artworks used throughout the building had been selected by the Managing Director of Hoyts, Frank Thring Senior, during his travels in Europe. He had been a Managing Director with JC Williamson Films Ltd before it merged in 1926 with Hoyts Pty Ltd to form Hoyts Theatres Ltd. Thring went on to make the first Australian 'talkies' with his company Efftee Film Productions in 1930-31.
\nThe Regent tenanted office building operated successfully from April 1929, when its first tenant, a dressmaking academy was soon joined by hairdressers, estate agents, accountants, a costume designer and the Western Electric Company which provided sound reproduction equipment. A café was located on the ground floor facing Queen Street and in 1949 tea rooms operated on the second floor. Hoyts had offices in the basement level, which ran the entire length of the building.
\nThe Regent, like other theatres of the time, offered a temporary escape from the harsh reality of life during the Depression. The theatre also showed newsreels, keeping audiences informed of current events, which was particularly important during WWII. The introduction of drive-in theatres from the mid 1950s and television from 1959 in Queensland were largely responsible for the decline in attendances at these large picture theatres. From the 1970s, cinema companies began constructing multiplexes to cater for smaller audience numbers watching a wider range of films.
\nFrom late 1969 Hoyts and the trustees of the Mayne Estate began devising proposals to redevelop the Regent Theatre. The manager of Hoyts Queensland revealed these plans in a Courier Mail article in January 1973 which prompted the National Trust of Queensland to investigate the historic value of the theatre and include it on the organisation's heritage list from July 1974. In view of the looming date of 1977, when the lease granted to Hoyts over the Mayne estate land would expire, it was decided that the best option for the continued generation of income was to replace the existing theatre with a number of smaller cinemas. The local architectural firm commissioned by the trustees to complete the design for this proposal was Lange L Powell, Dods and Thorpe. The National Trust made an objection to a preliminary application lodged with the Brisbane City Council and succeeded in postponing the project. In the meantime the organisation presented alternative plans, which were eventually deemed economically unviable. A final application was approved by the BCC in June 1978 for a scheme that retained the entrance hall and grand foyer, café and offices but replaced the auditorium with four cinemas and a shopping arcade. An active local 'Save the Regent' campaign began the following month, just after the National Heritage Commission announced that the theatre would be included on its National Register.
\nThe final film screening in the original Regent Theatre was on 27 August 1978, demolition being planned for a few weeks later. The University of Queensland Senate tried to postpone the redevelopment while options to convert the Regent to a live theatre venue were further explored, and the Building Workers Industrial Union imposed a Green Ban on the site from 12 September to facilitate these discussions. This was lifted on 8 December, when again no commercially viable option for retaining the theatre had been found.
\nWorkers began demolition on Saturday 9 December 1979. Newspaper reports indicate that seven or eight young men demolished the interior with sledge hammers, axes and chain saws. Plaster on the walls was broken up, the royal boxes destroyed, and seats either kicked in or thrown from the upper windows to the ground. The plaster decoration around the screen was destroyed although the ceiling remained intact on Monday 11 December. The University Senate stated that the trustees' architects had been on site to ensure that any items required for the redevelopment were retained. Some of the interior fittings were salvaged for local cinemas such as the Majestic at Pomona. The 'Save the Regent' organisation complained to the Labour Relations Minister over the demolition and for breaches of the Construction Safety Act 1971, for which a prosecution was initiated in December 1979.
\nAfter some delays during construction, the $5 million redevelopment opened on 2 August 1980, being known as the Hoyts Entertainment Centre. Apart from the new, much smaller cinemas, one of which was decorated with plaster ornament either salvaged or recast from the 1929 originals, the building contained a ground level vestibule and bar adjacent to this embellished cinema that were fitted out in a similar manner. Two cinemas with their own 'modern' foyer were installed on an upper level accessed via the grand staircase, and a food outlet (MacDonalds) was set up in the basement. The Regent Building facing Queen Street remained intact with minor alterations and served as an entrance to the new cinema complex.
\nIn 1992, under the Queensland Heritage Act 1992 (the Act), the Hoyts Entertainment Centre was provisionally entered in the newly created Queensland Heritage Register (QHR). The heritage boundary attached to this listing encompassed all that remained of the original Regent Theatre Building, including the new cinemas within the remnant theatre shell. An objection to the inclusion of these parts was lodged the following year. As required by the Act an independent assessor was appointed to investigate the objection and concluded that the building component on Elizabeth Street, where the four cinemas had been inserted, was not of significance and that this area should not be permanently entered in the heritage register. In 1994, after considering the independent assessor's report, the Heritage Council reduced the boundary to its current extent.
\nThe Regent Theatre complex continued operation in various guises until June 2010, hosting among other gala events the annual Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) since about 1995 and housing BIFF administration. In 2010 a development was planned that encompasses the Regent, Wintergarden Shopping Centre and Hilton Hotel sites, contiguous along Queen and Elizabeth Streets. The project involved the demolition of the Regent cinema box and the four cinemas within it and construction of a commercial office tower on the site. It also involved conservation works to the heritage-listed Regent Building, including the tenanted building on Queen Street, the entrance hall and grand foyer and the integration of the latter into the new mixed-used complex.
","criteria":"Opened in 1929, the location of the Regent Building in Queen Street demonstrates the development of this street as a cultural centre from the 1920s.
|The Regent Building is characteristic of a 1920s picture palace, and is one of only four Hoyts/Regent picture palaces constructed in Australia at this time.
|The Regent Building is characteristic of a 1920s picture palace, and is one of only four Hoyts/Regent picture palaces constructed in Australia at this time.
|The Regent Building is valued by the community, and the ornate interior of the entry foyer has aesthetic quality.
|The Regent Building is valued by the community, and the ornate interior of the entry foyer has aesthetic quality.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14916,"place_ref":600141,"name":"National Australia Bank","alternate_name":"National Bank of Australasia","street_address":"180 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The National Australia Bank Central Branch, located at 180 Queen Street, is a seven storey structure with a steel frame and reinforced concrete floors and roof. The external walls are brick with sandstone facing and a granite plinth on the front facade. The sandstone is from Yangan, Queensland and the granite from Uralla, New South Wales.
The main facade, in the Classical Revival style, is divided into five vertical bays. The three central bays are distinguished by flanking giant order pilasters which extend from above the ground floor level to the cornice line below the parapet.
The openings on the upper level have semicircular arches. The three central openings have individual balconies with balustrading and a projecting cornice/balustrade that returns to the flanking side bays. These are plainer with narrower openings. The original glazing on the building has been replaced by aluminium framed glazing to a similar pattern.
At the ground floor level the building has four engaged Doric columns above the granite plinth and flanking the three entrance doorways. Over these is an entablature that has balustraded balconies to the first floor level.
The ground floor contains the main banking chamber with a mezzanine level, partly renovated. Much of the plaster detailing in the chamber remains. The vestibule and adjoining lift lobby have finely figured marble linings. The second and third floors retain the original office layout and finishes, but other levels have been modified to accommodate larger tenancies. The relatively austere basement contains carefully detailed security grilles and a strong room.
","history":"This building, constructed in 1929-30, replaced an earlier bank which had erected in 1891 for the Royal Bank of Queensland. In 1917 the Royal Bank of Queensland merged with another Queensland bank, the Bank of North Queensland to form the Bank of Queensland. In 1922, the Bank of Queensland was absorbed by the National Bank of Australasia and several years later decided to build a new bank on the site.
Designed by Melbourne architects A & K Henderson with assistance from local firm of Atkinson, Powell & Conrad, the contractor was G A Stronach, with the technical advice of Thomas Walker Pearce. It was an example of the pervasive fashion for the neo-classical style in commercial and civic buildings, of similar scale and materials during the period. The building was opened on 6 May 1930 and its lavish fittings and imposing style attracted favourable comment. Prominent features of the building included the large bronze doors in the Queen Street entrance, separate lifts for tenants, and a special women's banking section fitted with lounge, retiring room, writing facilities and telephone. Over the years various professional tenants have occupied the upper floors - solicitors, doctors, accountants, architects, and optometrists.
The new building, like its predecessor, served as the head office of the National Bank of Australasia in Queensland until 1948 when it absorbed the last of the distinctively Queensland banks of the nineteenth century, the Queensland National Bank. The new head office was set up in the former QN Bank building on the corner of Queen and Creek Streets. In 1983 the NBA merged with the Commercial Banking Corporation to form the National Australia Bank.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|The National Australia Bank is a fine example of a 1920s bank with Classical elements reflecting the solidity of a financial institution.
|The building is significant for its contribution to the streetscape in terms of style, scale, and texture, in conjunction with the adjoining Finney Isles building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14917,"place_ref":600142,"name":"David Jones","alternate_name":"Finney Isles & Co.","street_address":"196 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The David Jones store, with frontages to Queen and Adelaide Streets, comprises sections of varying levels and differing facade treatment. The place is interlinked with the Queens Plaza shopping complex.
\nThe southern Queen Street section (1909) has six storeys with a basement. The facade contains five vertical bays of windows, now painted, above the ground floor level. The bays are divided by a cluster of slender columns and mouldings extending into delicate floral decoration at their top. The cornice is elaborately decorated with egg and dart moulding, and rows of rosettes on the soffit and face. The words, 'THE BIG BLOCK' and 'FINNEY ISLES & CO. LIMITED' are contained on the parapet in raised lettering. Above the parapet is a central raised classical pediment containing the date 'A1909D'.
\nThe northern Adelaide Street section (1909) comprises three storeys. The facade is more austere than that of Queen Street, reflecting the lesser importance of this street address. Originally having five distinct bays, half of the far right bay has been removed in the construction of the neighbouring section. The upper level windows have broad arched openings that are visually connected to the square headed windows below by plain flanking pilasters. Above these at parapet level is a central triangular pediment incorporating the date 'A 1909 D'.
\nThe southern Adelaide Street section (1936) comprises six storeys. The facade, in the Art Deco style, consists of three bays of four windows separated by pilasters. The art deco treatment returns for some distance along the southern wall. The windows are all small, slender rectangular openings. Decorative friezes occur between the pilasters at each change in level, and again on the parapet.
\nThe shopfronts at both Adelaide Street and Queen Streets contain modern glazing, finishes and fittings.
\nInternally the store has been substantially changed. Part of the original ceiling is visible at the front of the 1909 Queen Street section on the upper level. On the first floor of the Adelaide Street section the ceiling is also substantially intact. The 1930s Adelaide Street section retains much of its Art Deco detailing, particularly evident is the black and white Rockhampton marble around the lift wells.
","history":"This department store complex was built in stages between 1909 and 1936 for the firm of Finney Isles & Co. The firm was established by Thomas Finney and James Isles in 1864 with a draper's store in Fortitude Valley. The business quickly expanded, occupying Queen Street premises in the 1870s, then the City Exchange building in Edward & Adelaide Streets from the mid 1880s in which it sold a wide range of clothing, furniture and household items. Finney Isles, like many retailing firms, had a manufacturing section making both clothing and furniture.
\nNew premises, which were called the 'Big Block', were erected for the company in 1909-10. Designed by C W Chambers with J Mason the contractor, the building comprised five floors on Queen Street and three floors on Adelaide Street. The use of reinforced concrete for structural purposes was one of the first occasions in Queensland. The Adelaide Street site was previously occupied by the Gaiety Theatre and part of its southern wall was incorporated in the new structure. The building featured innovative display windows on Queen Street, silky oak staircases, lifts decorated in latticed ironwork and silky oak, pneumatic tubes for exchanging cash, a roof-top water tower and a large generator providing electricity to the lights, lifts, pneumatic system and the 400 sewing machines in the workrooms.
\nIn 1921 the company acquired a two storeyed building adjoining the northern side of the Queen Street store and it was converted for use as the men's department. In 1929 this building was extended to four storeys and the facade remodelled to a similar style of the 1909 store.
\nThe complex was further extended in 1936 when a three storeyed building was erected on the southern side of the Adelaide Street store. Designed by the firm of Atkinson and Conrad, the work was undertaken by Stuart Bros Ltd.
\nAdditional floors and a screen were added to the 1929 Queen Street building after 1949 and the 1936 Adelaide Street building was extended to five storeys prior to 1962. Finney Isles & Co was taken over by David Jones in the 1960s.
\nIn 2017 the place is interlinked with the Queens Plaza shopping complex.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|David Jones demonstrates the principal characteristics of a larger scale and early 20th century department store and forms part of streetscape comprised of a group of complementary buildings including the nearby National Australia Bank [600141].
|The building exhibits important aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the finely articulated 1909 Queen Street façade, the disciplined 1936 art deco façade and the building's contribution to the Queen and Adelaide streetscapes.
|David Jones has a special association with the life and work of Thomas Finney and James Isles, and with their firm, Finney Isles & Co, a major Queensland department store.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14918,"place_ref":600143,"name":"Treasury Building","alternate_name":"Treasury Casino | New Public Offices","street_address":"21 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Treasury Building, a four-storeyed masonry perimeter block, occupies an entire city block bounded by Queen, George, Elizabeth and William Streets. It forms the northern edge of the group of important public buildings surrounding Queens Gardens (600112). These include the Lands Administration Building to the southeast of the park, the Family Services Building (600111) to the northeast, and on the southwestern edge, between the gardens and the Brisbane River, the former State Library (600177) and the William Street retaining wall (600135).
The view of the building from the river, interrupted only by the freeway, is enhanced by the elevated position of the site. The building consists of a partly sunken basement and an elevated ground floor or piano nobile above which are two additional floors. It is built to the property alignment around a large central courtyard.
The design is consistent with English practice of the late nineteenth century in employing a classical style drawn from sixteenth century Italian architecture. Arcades protect the northeast, northwest and southwest elevations. The arcaded facades are symmetrical with central towers of one additional storey surmounted by a pediment. The corners are emphasised with pavilions which step forward terminating the arcades. The basement walls are distinguished by smooth banded rustication. The southeast facade has no arcade and no central tower.
The building is faced with sandstone ashlar except for the inner walls of the arcade. These brick walls are finished with lined and unpainted render imitating ashlar. Each phase of construction has used a different type of sandstone. A colour difference is discernible between the Highfields stone used for the first phase of construction, and the Helidon sandstones used for the later stages. The external walls sit on a porphyry plinth. A matching porphyry dwarf wall adjoins the building on some elevations surmounted by a wrought iron fence.
The first and second phases of construction employ a fire protection system in parts of the building. Vaulted coke concrete floors are supported on concrete encased wrought iron joists and bearers. Beams are supported at walls by engaged piers or on freestanding concrete encased cast iron columns. Steel roller shutters slide down to protect openings. The structure of the third phase of the building consists of reinforced concrete slabs supported on loadbearing masonry columns and steel girders. The roofs of the earlier sections are hipped corrugated iron, easily distinguished from the roof of the third stage which is a flat reinforced concrete slab protected by a bituminous membrane.
The building has several entrances. The main entry is located centrally on the Queen Street facade where a wide flight of stairs leading to three sets of timber framed glass double doors in arched doorways gives access to a foyer on the ground floor level. The foyer has a coffered plaster ceiling and strongly patterned floor. A pair of ionic columns opposite the entrance frame the central flight of the symmetrically designed grand staircase. This staircase, part of the third phase of construction, is made of reinforced concrete rather than the cast iron stringers with slate treads that were used on the earlier staircases. The staircase is lit with Palladian motif windows opening onto the courtyard.
Wide continuous hallways connect all rooms on each level while vertical circulation is via generous staircases located along the hallway. With the exception of the grand staircase, stairwells are top lit by delicate timber framed glass lanterns. All staircases feature timber handrails, ornamental cast iron balustrades and stair landings that are contrasted with the treads by the use of bold geometric patterning. Some of the original staircases have been removed. Rooms open off the hallways on both sides and are lit either from the street or via the courtyard. Cast-iron balconies run around the courtyard on every level. Rooms facing the courtyard have french doors opening onto these balconies. Two wings containing toilets and washrooms project into the courtyard space.
The building has restrained rendered and painted interiors that feature cedar joinery and ornamental plasterwork. The level of ornateness varies according to the importance of the room. Rooms in the William Street wing have decorative cast-iron wall ventilators, marble fireplaces and plaster ceiling roses. The Cabinet room, positioned in the centre of this wing on the piano nobile, is distinguished by a more embellished plaster ceiling and elaborate carved cedar panels over the doorways. Ministers suites, located in the corner pavilions, and rooms associated with the Cabinet overlook the street. These rooms have french doors opening onto arcades and connecting doors and private corridors so that circulation between ministerial spaces is possible without encountering the public.
A contemporary 1920s interior was achieved in the third phase of the building by infilling between loadbearing columns with semi-demountable partitions. These partitions consist of a timber stud frame with asbestos cement panelling below head height and patterned glass above.
The exterior of the building is highly intact while the interior has had only minor modifications.
","history":"The Treasury Building was erected in three stages between 1886 and 1928.
The site at the junction of the George and Queen Street axes had been reserved for government purposes from 1825, and was associated with the Treasury from the 1860s. It was occupied initially by convict-built officers' quarters and military barracks. In 1864 the military moved from the site and the existing buildings were occupied by the Registrar-General, Treasury and Engineer of Harbours. In 1874 a single-storeyed building for the Registrar-General was erected on the corner of George and Queen Streets, anticipating a government re-development of what had become known as Treasury Square.
In 1883 the colonial government decided to construct new public offices on Treasury Square. A design competition, for a two-storeyed perimeter block to occupy the entire square, was won by Melbourne architects Grainger and D'Ebro, but their design was never used. The newly appointed Queensland colonial architect, John James Clark, argued that the site warranted a four-storeyed complex, to be erected in stages as government accommodation was required. Clark's own design, entered in the competition prior to his appointment as Queensland colonial architect in September 1883, was used.
Clark is significant in Australian architectural history. He received his training and experience in the architectural office of the Victorian Department of Public Works, and designed major public buildings in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
Documentation for the first stage of the Treasury Building, which fronted William Street and the Brisbane River and returned a short distance down Elizabeth and Queen Streets, was completed by mid-1885, and site preparation followed immediately. Tenders for the main contract were called in April 1886, and Sydney builders Phippard Bros & Co. were successful with a contract price of £94,697/10/-. The principal architect on site was Thomas Pye, who resigned from the colonial architect's office in February 1887 to supervise the construction as a Phippard Bros employee.
When completed in September 1889, the new centre of government administration in Queensland was occupied by the Premier, Colonial Secretary, Registrar-General (in a purpose-built fire-proof section at the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets), Treasury, Mines, Works, Police and Auditor-General. It was home to the Cabinet and frequently to the Executive Council from late 1889 to 1905.
Stage two, which completed the Elizabeth Street section and continued two-thirds of the way along the George Street frontage, was commenced almost immediately. The documentation and working drawings were prepared by Thomas Pye, re-employed by the colonial architect's office to supervise the project. Tenders were called in April 1890, and the principal contract was let to builder John Jude of Adelaide, with a contract price of £67,000.
The contract was completed by February 1893 and the new wing was occupied in the middle of that year by the Registrar of Titles, Justice, Works, Public Instruction and the State Savings Bank, for whom a purpose-built banking chamber was included in the design which in all other details replicated stage one. Later in 1893 the courtyard was landscaped with a grass oval surrounded by a gravel carriageway, border planting, and trees.
The site then consisted of stages one and two of the Treasury Building, and the 1874 office of the Registrar-General.
In the 1890s and early 1900s the imposing Treasury Building served as a symbol of self-government and as a focus for celebratory and patriotic displays. In 1901 the proclamation of the Australian Commonwealth was read from a balcony on the William Street elevation.
Owing to the construction around the turn of the century of new offices for the Department of Agriculture and the Executive Building (QHR 600123), which provided additional government accommodation, work on the third stage of the Treasury Building was not started until 1922. The Registrar-General's building was demolished late 1922/early 1923, and construction commenced in mid-1923, using day labour. This was deliberate government encouragement of state enterprise, as was the government acquisition of Millers Quarries at Helidon to provide the stone.
The front elevation of the third section differed only slightly from Clark's original concept, although structurally and in internal materials and fittings it was a 1920s building. It was completed, occupied and opened officially in 1928 at a final cost of £137,817, providing expanded accommodation for existing Treasury Building tenants.
In the 1950s, demand for further accommodation led to the construction in 1961 of a five-storeyed annex in the courtyard. In 1971 the Treasury and Works Departments moved to the new Executive Building at 100 George Street, thus severing the Treasury Building's connection with these principal government departments. The annex was demolished in 1987, in anticipation of a major government refurbishment of the site.
Since 1989 the Registrar-General has remained the sole occupant of the Treasury Building, but it continues to be the best known and identifiable government office building in Queensland.
","criteria":"The Treasury Building is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history being a visual expression of Queensland aspiration and pride in the rapid progress of the colony since 1859. The building is prominent physical evidence of Queensland's rapid economic growth and associated government confidence and enterprise in the 1880s. The physical intactness of the building, particularly in the interior spaces, demonstrates the working of Queensland executive and administration government in the late nineteenth century.
|As an intact late nineteenth century building, whose continuity of design has been preserved over three stages, the Treasury Building demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The Treasury Building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Italian Renaissance style in late nineteenth century Australian public buildings, and is an outstanding example of its type.
|The building is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, and by architectural historians in particular, namely the accomplished design, detailing, materials and workmanship and its landmark quality and townscape contribution, particularly in relation to the adjacent buildings and sites and to the river.
|The Treasury Building is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative achievement, being a major work by foremost Australian architect JJ Clark.
|The Treasury Building has a strong and special association with the role and prestige of government, being a popular symbol of accountable self-government in Queensland for over a century, and an integral member of the most prominent, important and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland.
|Both site and building have had a special association with authority, government and administration in Queensland since 1825.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14922,"place_ref":600147,"name":"MacArthur Chambers","alternate_name":"AMP Building","street_address":"229 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"MacArthur Chambers, an interwar commercial building, is located on the corner of Queen and Edward Streets. Comprising nine storeys with an attic and basement, the building has a concrete encased steel frame with an external shell consisting of a granite base and Helidon freestone facing.
The street facades are arranged symmetrically. The openings on the ground level are all arched. The stone facing of the ground and first floor levels is separated into horizontal bands which radiate from around the arches imitating voussoirs. These continue up the side bays of the building to the top level. The central bays, between the second and seventh floors have flush stonework. The three central bays above the seventh floor have a Corinthian colonnade that corresponds to that on the ground level. A dentilled cornice line occurs above ground level above which is a plinth with balusters in front of the window openings. Another horizontal cornice line runs at the seventh floor level which has a plinth above it. The entablature has a large dentilled cornice supporting a parapet with a raised section corresponding to the three central bays.
The Edward Street facade is longer but also symmetrical. The central window bays are flanked by rusticated bands of stonework in the central portion of the building. On each side are two other bays and a banded rusticated corner bay. At the ground floor level the entry is emphasised only by a portico of pilasters over these three bays. At the first floor level on both facades the windows in the flush bays are surmounted by pediments supported on brackets. The middle opening on this level of the Edward Street facade has a curved pediment, while the middle opening on the Queen Street facade has an archway with the emblematic statuary situated in front of it. The whole building is set on a polished grey granite plinth which incorporates stairs leading up to each entry.
Internally the main banking chamber retains much of its plaster detailing but it has all been painted a cream colour. The entry vestibule to this space has a vaulted coffered ceiling. The Edward Street entry retains its original doors and apart from the lifts much of the original lobby with its marble staircase extending to the top level of the building remains. The window suites in the building are mostly original. On the eighth floor a section of the building has been set aside to commemorate MacArthur's occupancy.
","history":"This building was constructed between 1931 and 1934 as the Queensland headquarters of the Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP), replacing two earlier AMP buildings on the site (1877-79 and 1885).
The AMP Society was formed in Sydney in 1848/49 under the NSW Friendly Society's Act of 1843, and was one of a number of benefit and friendly societies established in the Australian colonies from the mid to late 19th century. Founded by a group of prominent Sydney philanthropists, the AMP Society initially offered life assurance policies, endowments and annuities aimed principally at ensuring that women and children were not left destitute on the death of the principal income earner. Growth in the early 1850s was slow, but in 1857 the Society was incorporated by act of parliament, and by the 1890s it was the most prominent of the Australian benefit and insurance societies, with a world-wide reputation.
The first Queensland office (an agency) was opened in Brisbane in 1875. Purpose-designed offices were erected for the AMP in Brisbane in 1877-79 and 1885 at the corner of Queen and Edward Streets, but these were replaced by the 1931-34 building. It was a measure of the success of the society that its new Queensland headquarters were erected during the worst years of the 1930s depression.
Designed by established Brisbane architects Francis R Hall and Harold M Cook, the offices were constructed by local master builder George A Stronach (overseer Thomas Percy) with technical supervision by consulting Brisbane structural engineer RJ McWilliam, for approximately £255,000. Contemporary reports described the quality Australian materials, the high standard of craftsmanship, and the modern engineering techniques employed. Marble throughout came from New South Wales and the building was faced with Helidon freestone. The granite used for the base was tested by the University of Queensland before construction, and was declared to be the finest granite in existence, with a crushing strength of 1365 tons per square inch. Queensland company Evans Deakin & Co. Ltd manufactured the 1150 tons of steelwork used in the building. The five girders spanning the ground floor banking chamber have a span of 43 feet and each weighs 24 tons. Construction of the steel framework using bolts rather than rivets was considered particularly innovative in Brisbane in 1932.
The emblematic statuary above the main entrance in Queen Street was carved by Fred Gowan of Sydney from Sicilian marble. The tableau illustrates the Society's motto Amicus certus in re incerta [a certain friend in an uncertain event] and depicts an erect female figure, with a cornucopia by her right side, holding the palm of victory in her left hand. To her left is a seated woman and child; to her right a seated male. Until c1980 when the logo was changed an Amicus tableau was erected on almost every AMP building, and usually was removed when the Society no longer occupied the premises. When the Society moved to new Creek Street premises in 1978, however, the Amicus tableau remained on the Queen Street building.
The ground floor contained the vestibule, the manager's office and a spacious banking chamber, 136ft x 87ft (41.4 x 26.5 m). The board room with adjoining luncheon room was on the eighth floor and featured a parquetry floor of Queensland timbers. Staff offices and facilities were provided on the seventh, eighth and ninth floors. The remainder of the building was tenanted.
MacArthur Chambers was one of several high-rise buildings erected in Queen Street in the 1920s and early 1930s. These included Ascot Chambers (1925), National Mutual Life Building (1926) (QHR 600151) and Colonial Mutual Life Building (1931) (QHR 600150).
Because of its central location and reinforced concrete roof, the building was used as the headquarters of the Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific during the Second World War. Tenants were compulsorily evacuated under military orders from 21 July 1942 until 14 June 1945. The AMP Society reserved the basement and part of the ground floor, while the Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in South West Pacific Area, General Douglas MacArthur occupied the Board Room and his staff occupied the remainder of the building.
After the Second World War the building reverted to its former use as the AMP's Queensland headquarters until February 1978 when the Society moved to Eagle Street. In 1979 the ground and mezzanine floors were refurbished and leased as retail premises and offices. The building was re-opened and named MacArthur Chambers in honour of General MacArthur. In November 1990 the Brisbane City Council acquired MacArthur Chambers.
","criteria":"MacArthur Chambers has a significant role in Australian and Queensland history as the Headquarters of the Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific during the Second World War.
|MacArthur Chambers is a distinguished interwar commercial building with a fine traditional classical façade considered appropriate for a conservative financial institution, whilst employing an advanced structural system internally, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type.
|The building is significant aesthetically for its prominent corner location and contribution to the distinctive streetscape of both Queen and Edward Streets, and for the quality of the detailing, materials and craftsmanship.
|MacArthur Chambers is a distinguished interwar commercial building with a fine traditional classical façade considered appropriate for a conservative financial institution, whilst employing an advanced structural system internally, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type.
|It is also significant for its strong association with the important AMP Society, their outstanding success in Queensland during the interwar period, and their contribution to working class welfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14925,"place_ref":600150,"name":"Newspaper House","alternate_name":"The Manor Apartments | Colonial Mutual Life Building","street_address":"289 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This inter-war commercial building is ten storeys high with a narrow frontage to Queen Street and a long side elevation. It has been designed in sympathy with adjoining buildings, matching the arcade of the GPO at its base and responding to the parapet line of Custom Credit House in its upper levels. The building has a concrete encased steel frame with concrete floors and is faced in Benedict Stone the colours of Queensland which range from green to pink. The style of the sculptured ornament on the building facades is influenced by American Art Deco buildings of this period, as well as containing some Norman influence. It is similar in style to interstate Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Ltd buildings.
The building has three paired window bays across the Queen Street facade. Three double height arched openings occur at the ground floor level. On the level above are paired window openings with arched heads and a central ornamented column. The two levels below the top floor have paired window bays which are similar but double the height. At the base of these is an imitation balcony with balusters supported on brackets. In this way the building has both a distinctive top and base. A similar projecting balcony occurs in front of the central window bay on the level below. Above the double height bays at the base of the top level sculptured lions stand on projecting brackets. The one facing the corner is winged. The parapet has raised portions each with a projecting stylised eagle 'gargoyle'. Similar gargoyles appear in the same location a level below and also below each projecting flag post above the third floor.
The entire Queen Street facade is repeated at each end of the side elevation, the central bays of which are plainer. Behind the parapet the building has an interesting roofscape of steeply pitched terracotta tiled roofs, one above the caretakers quarters and another over the lift room on the eleventh floor. At street level individual awnings have been located between the archways. From the rear laneway the building duplicates much of the front facade but is painted.
Internally the original detailing remains in the fire stairs, including the handrail and tiled landings. All the levels have been refurbished with suspended ceilings that sit below the window heads. The caretaker's quarters has been refurbished.
","history":"The building was constructed between 1930 and 1931 for Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society (CML). The Queensland branch of CML was formed in June 1874 and the society built offices at 62 Queen Street in 1883. CML purchased this site in August 1906 and constructed a new premises. These offices were demolished in 1930 to enable the construction of a new commodious building on the site for the expanding society. Between 1925 and 1934 much of the south side of Queen Street was redeveloped, including National Mutual Life Association Building (1926) (QHR 600151), the Commonwealth Bank (1929) and the AMP building (1931-4) (QHR 600147).
To compensate for the site's narrow frontage of 33 feet (9.9 metres), an agreement was made between the Commonwealth authorities, who administer the adjoining GPO, and CML to allow a "right-of-way to extend the full depth of the building". The Benedict stone used for the facing, a mixture of cement and crushed porphyry (Brisbane tuff), was manufactured by Benedict Stone (Qld) Pty Ltd which was established by Archbishop Duhig to manufacture the stone required for the Holy Name Cathedral, Fortitude Valley. The product was developed at the turn of the twentieth century by American manufacturer, Benedict. Duhig obtained a licence from America and opened the Benedict Stone works at Bowen Hills on 9 August 1929. In February 1930 CML advanced Duhig a £70,000 mortgage on his properties which included the stone works. A mutually dependent relationship developed between CML, Duhig and Jack Hennessey, architect. CML used Benedict stone to build a number of their Australian offices, ensuring some of their mortgage was repaid and employed Hennessey and Concrete Construction (Qld) Ltd - Duhig's architect and contractor for the Holy Name Cathedral. As Hennessey, Hennessey & Co., was based in Sydney, construction was supervised by Leo Drinan, the firm's Brisbane Manager. Concrete Construction (Qld) Ltd also built the CML offices in Sydney and Melbourne. George Harvey was responsible for the masonry work on the building and may have cast the gargoyles on the facade. The stone was delivered and positioned within seven months, setting an Australian record for stonework. Built during an economic depression, its construction provided employment for many Queensland workers.
On 12 November 1931 the CML building was officially opened by the Governor, Lieutenant-General Sir John Goodwin. The ground floor provided offices for Colonial Mutual and the arcade leading to Queen Street contained retail premises. The offices and professional suites on the upper floors were available for lease.
Queensland Newspapers purchased the site in September 1983, cleaned and repaired the exterior and re-opened the building as Newspaper House on 11 September 1985.
","criteria":"Newspaper House is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the commercial redevelopment of this portion of Queen Street during the period 1925-34.
|Newspaper House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an inter-war commercial building.
|Newspaper House exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community including its rich decoration including gargoyles, shields, lions, friezes and relief blocks and its two finely detailed facades which complement important elements of the adjoining buildings and contribute to the visual cohesiveness of this portion of Queen Street.
|Newspaper House is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement through the use of locally produced Benedict stone which was an innovative building material in Brisbane in the early 1930s.
|Newspaper House has a special association with the relationship between the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Archbishop Duhig and architects Hennessey, Hennessey and Co.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14926,"place_ref":600151,"name":"Custom Credit House","alternate_name":"National Mutual Life Building | Metway Chambers","street_address":"293 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This inter-war commercial building is seven storeys in height with a basement and a caretakers office as an attic level. It is a stone faced building on a reinforced concrete structure. The scale and form of the building and the colour of its stonework complements nearby buildings on this side of Queen Street.
It has a bronze faced suspended awning and bronze panels separating the windows of the end bays, from the second floor upwards. These end window bays project slightly from the rest of the building and have plain, flanking giant order pilasters. The three central bays of windows are more closely spaced. At their second floor level they extend to the floor and have a projecting balcony that is supported on brackets. This has a wrought iron railing of a diamond shape pattern between balusters of the same material.
The stone facing of the first floor level has banded rustication and visually forms a plinth to the upper levels. The windows of the three central bays are separated by decorative stone panels in the same pattern as the bronze panels of the outer bays. An elaborate cornice appears at the top of the facade. The raised sections of parapet above the end bays each have three small bronze acroteria.
Two flag poles are situated between these raised sections. The caretakers quarters are set back behind this at roof level. The visible portion of the north-eastern elevation has some window openings, but its surface has been rendered and painted. The windows of the front facade are still the original pattern with crossed diagonal glazing bars in their upper portion with four vertical panes below. The shopfronts below the street awning are not original.
Internally the ground floor lobby and lifts have been refurbished. The original main stair remains but has been enclosed as a fire stair and now exits to the footpath. All floors now have suspended ceilings and partitioning. The original caretaker's quarters is now used as office space and opens to a small roof terrace behind the parapet.
","history":"Custom Credit House was constructed in 1926 for the National Mutual Life Association. Part of this site was purchased by the National Mutual Life Association of Australasia in January 1883 for the association's headquarters. Title to the adjoining allotment was acquired by the association in July 1920. National Mutual Life proposed the reconstruction of its central offices on the site in 1925. Other contemporaneous redevelopments near the site included the Commonwealth Bank (1929), Colonial Mutual Life (1930-31) and the AMP building (1930-34).
\nDesigned by Melbourne architects Gibbs, Finlay and Morsby, in conjunction with Thomas B M Wightman, Brisbane, the new seven storey building provided 114 offices, a basement and caretaker's quarters on the roof. The tender of JL Green and Sons, contractors, was accepted in January 1926, the former offices were demolished in February and construction began.
\nNational Mutual Life occupied the building until 1981 when the property was sold to Havelah Investments. In 1982 Comord Pty Ltd purchased the building and the following year $4 million was spent on refurbishment. Since In 1987 the building was leased by Custom Credit and in 1988 Suncorp Insurance bought the property. The property was transferred to Bloomberg Incorporation Limited in 1993. The ground floor was subsequently leased for banking purposes by Metway and later Suncorp, following their merger. Commercial office space within the building has been leased by a number of tenants since the 1990s. In 2017 the University of Queensland established new city premises at the building, leasing the ground floor and parts of levels six and seven for postgraduate study and executive education.[1]
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the 1925/35 redevelopment of this financial sector of Queen Street.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an inter-war commercial building.
|It is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular:
(i) as a fine example of an interwar commercial building reflecting the dignity and solidity of a financial institution;
(ii) the building's contribution to the visual cohesiveness of this portion of Queen Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14927,"place_ref":600152,"name":"First World War Honour Board","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"308 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The honour board is a large bronze panel framed by mouldings and relief ornamentation, with lettering covering the pediment and frieze. In the upper corners of the panel are brass and enamelled representations of the Australian Commonwealth flag and of the Union Jack. In the lower corners are the brass bas relief figures of an Australian Infantryman and a Light Horseman.
","history":"Of the 331,946 Australians who embarked for overseas service, nearly 60,000 did not survive the First World War. Memorials were commissioned by service organisations, shire or city councils and by business groups. Some commemorated those who had died, while others recorded all who had served in the armed forces during the war. This honour board was erected by the Queensland National Bank in commemoration of those employees who served during this War.
The Sydney firm of Wunderlich Ltd, suppliers of architectural metalwork, manufactured the board. Listed in an oval centrepiece are the names of 115 employees of the Queensland National Bank who saw service during the war and returned. Around this are the photographs and names of 22 employees who died while on active service. The memorial was unveiled by George E Bunning, Chairman of the Queensland National Bank Board on 19 August, 1920. It is located to one side of the main entrance of the banking chamber, matched by a less elaborate Wunderlich honour board commemorating service of QNB employees during the Second World War.
","criteria":"The Honour Board is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being a reflection of a sentiment that saw its expression in the public chronicling of the names of all servicemen.
The Honour Board is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a commemorative memorial erected by an employer in honour of employees who saw active service during the First World War and of the elaborate memorial metalwork carried out by Sydney firm Wunderlich Ltd.
The Honour Board exhibits in the elaborate art metalwork an aesthetic quality valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14928,"place_ref":600153,"name":"National Australia Bank","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank; NAB building","street_address":"308 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Queensland National Bank building is a three-storeyed brick structure with sandstone facings, built in the Classical Revival style which was common in bank architecture of the period. The building has a distinct Palladian influence with careful classical detailing and giant order columns. It is built on a corner, and the two facades are dominated by bays of Corinthian columns which rise through the upper two storeys. This portion of the Queen Street facade protrudes in the form of a porch while the similar colonnade on Creek Street is recessed. The ground floor level has a plinth with arched openings set between groups of pilasters. Recessed behind the balconies of the upper-level central bays are more openings. Local sandstone was mainly used as the wall facing material and the pilasters, and locally grown cedar for the main entry doors, while the giant order Corinthian columns are imported Oamaru limestone. These columns rise from the first floor balcony. The pediment which originally surmounted the Queen Street facade was replaced by a brick and concrete oblong in 1915.
The building has a high degree of integrity externally and internally including original furnishings. It has many grand spaces including the Banking Chamber with its glazed roof and supporting columns, the Formal Dining Room, and the Board Room. The lift with its surrounding stair is a major feature of the building. First and Second World War Honour Boards are located to either side of the entry and face into the main banking chamber. [See appendix 600152]
","history":"This large masonry building was constructed 1881-1885 as the new Head Office for the successful and influential Queensland National Bank.
The burgeoning gold mining industry of the early 1870s created a mood of optimism and a desire for increased development capital, free from inter-colonial and overseas control. Seizing on this mood, eight prominent local businessmen and politicians formed the Queensland National Bank (QN Bank) in March 1872. Immediate widespread support of the bank exceeded expectations and the continuing patronage of powerful political figures ensured its prominence. When Thomas McIlwraith, a Queensland National Bank director, became Premier in 1879, he swiftly transferred the Queensland Government accounts to the Bank.
In December 1872, the Queensland National Bank, which was leasing Warry's Store in Queen Street, purchased the North Brisbane School of Arts land and building at the corner of Queen and Creek Streets for the sum of £8000, as the site for the bank's new Head Office. The bank's lease on Warry's building was not to run out until June 1879 and in the meantime, the School of Arts Committee leased back its original building from the bank.
Choosing an appropriate design for the new building proved to be a long and complicated process. Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, the Colonial Architect, informed the QN Bank in 1877 that he intended to go into private practice, and the Bank's Board of Directors asked him to design the new head office. However, Stanley did not resign at that time, and the Bank engaged Reed and Barnes of Melbourne to design the building. In August 1878 a plan was adopted with some alterations. More than eight months later, however, Reed and Barnes were requested to sell the plans so Stanley could carry out the design on a reduced scale. With a cheque for 100 guineas for their services, Reed and Barnes reluctantly took their plans back rather than sell them. In the same month, Stanley presented his plans to the bank with a cost estimate of £26 000. Tenders were called for the erection of the building in February of 1881 and Messrs Southall and Tracey were successful with a cost of £33 997.
Clerk of Works for the project was John Daniel Heal, publican, building contractor, stonemason and ex-Mayor of Brisbane (1879). Foreman of works for Southall and Tracey was longtime employee William Relf. The foundation stone was laid in July 1881 but delays for want of building materials, particularly the New Zealand stone, extended the construction period by almost 18 months. It was completed by August 1885.
Queensland sandstone, mainly from the Murphy Creek quarries, (specifically selected by Alexander Innes, stonemason and late foreman of the quarries) was used in the construction of the building. New Zealand Oamaru limestone was imported for the Corinthian columns of the Queen and Creek Streets frontages. The mantle pieces and the marble for the entrance hall were purchased by Lt-Colonel ER Drury, the Bank's General Manager, while he was in the United Kingdom during 1883-84. The upper floors provided a lavish suite for the Manager, while the lower floors accommodated banking chambers and offices. Drury also selected much of the furniture still extant on the bank's upper floors. A passenger lift was installed in the 1890s and electricity replaced gas for the building lighting around the same time.
Manuel Hornibrook, Master Builder, was contracted for the carrying out of extensive additions and the remodelling of the banking chamber during the early months of 1924. Honour boards were installed in the bank after World War I and World War II, to commemorate employees who served in the wars.
Despite the 1890s economic depression and a major political scandal late in the same decade, the QN Bank prospered, retaining the State Government accounts until 1920. Competition with nationally based banks saw a profit decline during the next two decades. The QN Bank merged with The National Bank of Australasia Limited in 1947 and its successor, the National Australia Bank, now owns the premises. In recognition of the Bank's decision not to redevelop the site during the 1970s, the National Trust of Queensland presented it with the John Herbert Award 1975-76. In 1981 considerable refurbishment and restoration of the building took place. Subsequently, only minor works have been carried out.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank head office is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being a major symbol of the economic growth in Queensland of the 1880s and a reflection of the close relationship between the Queensland National Bank and the Queensland Government at that time.
The Honour Board is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being a reflection of a sentiment that saw its expression in the public chronicling of the names of all servicemen.
|The former Queensland National Bank head office demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's history, being a substantial and important 1880s commercial building in the Brisbane central business district which has retained a high degree of external and internal intactness, including much of the original furniture and fixture.
|The former Queensland National Bank head office is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial commercial building in the Classical Revival style, distinguished by the quality of its detailing and materials.
The Honour Board is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a commemorative memorial erected by an employer in honour of employees who saw active service during the First World War and of the elaborate memorial metalwork carried out by Sydney firm Wunderlich Ltd.
|The former Queensland National Bank head office is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its streetscape value on a prominent corner in Brisbane's central business district and its expression of the elan and the solidity which the Queensland National Bank attempted to project in the early 1880s and its high degree of external and internal intactness.
The Honour Board exhibits in the elaborate art metalwork an aesthetic quality valued by the community.
|The former Queensland National Bank head office has a special association with the life and work of prominent Queensland architect, FDG Stanley, being one of the finest works attributed to him and with the Queensland National Bank's first General Manager, Lt-Colonel ER Drury, being evidence of his power and influence both in the bank and in Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14929,"place_ref":600154,"name":"Westpac Bank Building","alternate_name":"Bank of New South Wales Building","street_address":"33 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Westpac Bank building is a six storeyed masonry building located on the corner of Queen and George Streets. The structure is steel framed with reinforced concrete floors. It contains Neo-classical elements that were common in Bank architecture of this period.
The main facades comprise Helidon freestone as a stone facing on a base of Uralla polished granite, that on Queen Street incorporating a "piano nobile" of giant order Ionic columns. This facade projects forward in the immediate area of the columns bringing them to greater prominence. The entablature above the columns incorporates the name 'BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES' into the frieze. A decorative dentil cornice line runs around the perimeter of the building above this. The parapet is relatively austere, and the portion above the columns rises to a low apex.
The George Street facade also contains five window bays. The three central ones are recessed rather than projecting.
The larger openings below the "piano nobile" are arched, with small square openings above them except the main entrance. The stone facing on this section resembles ashlar.
Internally the main banking chamber and its entry are predominantly intact. Both the foyer to George Street and that at the corner of Queen and George Streets have been refurbished. Giant order square columns rise from the ground floor through the mezzanine level with gilded corinthian capitals. The building has a rooftop atrium courtyard with cast iron Ionic columns, but this is now roofed over. These columns were verandah posts from the 1866 bank building and were incorporated in the design of the new building.
","history":"This bank was constructed between 1928-30, replacing an earlier building. The Bank of New South Wales began operating on the site in rented premises in 1851. In 1853, the bank purchased the property and in 1866 erected a purpose built bank with residence.
This building was demolished in 1928 and replaced with a new building which was completed in 1930. Designed by the firm of Hall and Devereux, it was erected by FJ Corbett & Sons for approximately £124,000. It was an example of the pervasive fashion for the neo-classical style in commercial and civic buildings of similar scale and materials during this period. 33 Queen Street remained the headquarters of the Bank of New South Wales until a new chief office was built in 1970. It is now a branch of the Westpac Banking Corporation, a successor of the Bank of New South Wales.
","criteria":"The Westpac Bank building and site are significant in illustrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history. The site has been associated with the Bank of New South Wales/Westpac since 1851.
|The Westpac Bank building is significant as the predominantly intact 1920s interior of the ground floor banking chamber represents a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The Westpac Bank building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an interwar neo-classical bank building.
|The building is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the use of the neo-classical design for a 20th century financial institution reflecting the dignity and solidity of such institutions and the quality and craftsmanship of the building's main interior spaces.
The building makes a significant contribution to the streetscape of Queen and George Streets.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14931,"place_ref":600156,"name":"Brisbane Customs House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"427 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The Brisbane Customs House, located at the northern end of Queen Street and beside the Brisbane River at the northern end of the Town Reach, is an imposing two-storeyed rendered brick building in the classical style. The site is prominent due to the proximity to the river, the bend in Queen Street and the general topography which opens up many views to and from the building. A prominent feature is the large copper dome at the semi-circular northern end which is a focal point viewed from both directions along Queen Street and from the river for ships arriving from Moreton Bay. The architectural form of the building announces the northern edge of the city centre and is sympathetic to the landscape features of cliffs and river bends.
The architectural form clearly demonstrates the intended purpose of the building with the double entrance from both the city and the river, which is a response to the siting of the building between the river and the town. The riverside setting allows long views across and along the river to the building.
Other features of the Brisbane Customs House which demonstrate its former use are more characteristic of late 19th century customs houses in Australia, especially the general design and planning arrangement of the building to include an imposing masonry façade, an impressive public space (the former Long Room now used for functions), a secure bonded warehouse (the former Queens Warehouse, now converted to an art gallery), offices and a secure boundary fence.
The Brisbane Customs House is a well proportioned and skilfully designed example of a Victorian building in the Renaissance mode executed to take best advantage of its dominant site and solve the practical problems of dual access from the town and from the river. It has considerable unity in its scale, form and use of materials.
The main structure of the building is of brick on a stone foundation. The columns, pilasters, balusters to the colonnade, the parapet and side entrances are of Murphy's Creek sandstone. There are cast iron balustrades on the recessed verandahs and external stairs. The main roof is clad with corrugated iron. Timber window and door joinery survives reasonably intact on the exterior walls.
The exterior of the building is very intact except for the loss of the original roof, which was replaced by the present steel trussed roof in the 1940s, the removal of chimneys and the widening of the northwestern end of the balconies in the 1940s.
The interior fabric is less intact due to the alterations and additions carried out during its use as a customs house and to the most recent refurbishment, which removed much of the 1940s fabric but recovered aspects of the 19th century form, including reconstruction of the original timber staircase.
Inside the building the most imposing space is that of the Long Room beneath the dome. Fluted Corinthian pilasters of painted plaster are below the coffered ceiling of the dome, which has a central glazed section. In the basement some of the original walls with arched openings remain.
The 1890-91 Moggill sandstone retaining wall carries around the perimeter of the site reasonably intact and incorporates a wrought iron balustrade, masonry piers, stairs and rooms for the former underground privies at the river's edge. There is a small ground with a mature fig tree and sunken garden, which contribute to the building's riverside setting.
","history":"The Brisbane Customs House at the northern end of the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, near Petrie's Bight, was erected between 1886 and 1889 to a design prepared by Charles McLay of the Queensland Colonial Architect's Office.
The 1880s building replaced an earlier and much smaller customs house on the site. The location had been chosen in 1849 following the declaration of Moreton Bay as a port of entry in 1846 and after considerable discussion as to the most suitable location for a customs house. At the time shipping activity was centred on the South Brisbane Reach and the decision to locate a customs house at the northern end of the Town Reach acted as an impetus for the development of wharves along this part of the river. A small building was erected for customs purposes in 1850 and in the following decades became increasingly inadequate as Brisbane emerged as the principal commercial centre and port of Queensland.
In 1884 the Queensland Government decided to construct a new customs house. In March 1886 a design by Charles McLay was selected from many proposals in the Colonial Architect's Office for a new Brisbane Customs House. McLay completed the specification in May 1886 and construction commenced in September that year.
Charles McLay was the major designer under the colonial architect George Connolly and was appointed Chief Draftsman in 1889. His works include the Bundaberg Post Office, probably the Fortitude Post Office and the Lady Norman Wing Brisbane Children's Hospital (with JJ Clark), of which the Brisbane Customs House is by far the most ambitious and prominent design.
The contract was let to one of Brisbane's oldest and most respected contractors, John Petrie & Son, who tendered with a price of £37,342. The contract time was 30 months but because of difficulties with the supply of some materials, especially stone for the foundations, and alterations to the original plans, the building took longer than anticipated to complete and it was opened on 2 September 1889. Retaining walls, fencing, a double staircase down to the river and nearby earth closets were also constructed.
The completed building incorporated pedimented gables and a massive colonnade. Heraldic scenes in the pediments were precursors to the official Queensland coat of arms, which was not granted until 1893. A curved iron balustrade to the balconies included the initials of the reigning sovereign, Victoria Regina, in the cast. Red cedar was used extensively for desks, counters, cabinets and tables as well as for a massive and elegant staircase.
The Brisbane Customs House was built during a period of economic prosperity and a construction 'boom' in Queensland and was amongst the more impressive of a number of notable public and commercial buildings erected in Brisbane during the 1880s, which included the first stage of the Treasury Building (1886-1889). Public pride in the new customs house was considerable. On 7 September 1889, a few days after the building was opened for business, the local Brisbane Courier newspaper drew attention to "the handsome and imposing appearance, especially as seen from the river or from Petrie's Bight" and predicted that the Brisbane Customs House with its tall columns, pilasters and large copper-sheathed dome would "become one of the features of the city".
In 1891 stables, additional retaining walls and fencing, and more earth closets were erected at a cost of £446. By the mid-1890s gardens and a driveway had been developed. The mature fig tree now at the site was possibly planted about this time. Minor repairs were carried out throughout the 1890s, including some work in 1895 after seven feet (2.1 m) of water inundated the basement during the Brisbane River floods early in 1893.
By December 1908 the Brisbane Customs House, valued at £80,804 (£40,804 for the structure and £40,000 for the site), had been transferred to the Commonwealth.
In 1906 the inadequacies of the original flat roof were overcome by the installation of a new hipped roof. Rearrangement of counters and partitions in the Long Room was carried out in 1911 and again in 1919. Frequently minor repairs, cleaning and maintenance work was carried out to the interior of the building in succeeding decades. In 1947 major internal alterations were undertaken: all but two of the internal masonry walls were demolished; the timber floors were replaced by concrete slabs; the cedar staircase was removed and a new terrazzo one was installed at another location; mezzanine floors were erected in the Long Room; and the roof was replaced - without the original chimneys. In 1978 part of the exterior was cleaned, repaired and sealed and painted.
In the mid-1980s the Australian Customs Department moved out of the building to Australia House. The building remained vacant from 1988 until leased by the University of Queensland and restored as a convention centre and art gallery in the mid-1990s. At this period some of the interior masonry walls that had been removed in 1947 were replaced and the original timber stair was reconstructed. Non-significant partitions added after 1948 and parts of the 1940s fit out were removed except for some good quality intact 1940s office cabinetry which survived and part of the 1940s main stair which provided access to the basement. Two of the 1940s galleries added to the Long Room were removed and one, at the southwest end, retained and adapted. Timber window and door joinery was conserved and plaster mouldings reconstructed where they were missing.
In 2015, Customs House continues to be used by the University of Queensland as a function centre, art gallery and restaurant.
","criteria":"The former Brisbane Customs House, constructed between 1886 and 1889 to a design prepared by Charles McLay of the Queensland Colonial Architect's Office, was in use by the customs service for nearly a century. It is important historically as an expression of the importance of the customs service to Queensland and to Australia and for its site, which relates to the establishment of Brisbane as a port of entry and the development of major wharfage along the Town Reach of the Brisbane River and Petrie's Bight. The Brisbane Customs House was built during a period of economic prosperity and a construction 'boom' in Queensland and was amongst the more impressive of a number of notable public and commercial buildings erected in Brisbane during the 1880s. It is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history.
|The former Brisbane Customs House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places: late 19th century masonry customs houses. These characteristics include: the imposing form; general arrangement of spaces to include Long Room, Bond Store and offices; and secure fencing. It is a fine example of the work of architect Charles McLay and a good example of one of a series of customs houses designed in the Queensland Colonial Architect's office and of the work of contractor John Petrie.
|The Brisbane Customs House has aesthetic value as a well proportioned and skillfully designed Victorian building in the Renaissance mode, executed to take best advantage of its dominant site and solve the practical problems of dual access from the town and from the river. It has considerable unity in its scale, form and use of materials. With its copper dome and two storey colonnade, it makes an imposing and important contribution the streetscape and to the townscape. Its location on the riverbank adds to its aesthetic values, allowing distant views from along and across the river.
|The place has strong associations for the Brisbane community as a landmark and as a rare surviving marker of the Port of Brisbane before it moved to the mouth of the river.
|It has a special association with the Australian Customs Service, which occupied the building for nearly 100 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14932,"place_ref":600157,"name":"ANZ Bank","alternate_name":"Trustees Chambers","street_address":"43 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The ANZ bank is a two-storeyed brick building, with rendered decoration, located beside the Westpac Building at the southern end of the Myer Centre in Queen Street.
The classical main facade, has an arcaded verandah at the first floor level. The verandah has three arched openings and at each end are square headed window openings. Square pilasters with florid capitals are situated to each side of these windows and at each end of the arcade which has matching engaged columns to each side of every arch. The originally unrendered brickwork on the first floor has been painted.
The shopfronts at street level are modern in materials and design.
At the rear the building takes on a domestic scale with separate hipped roofs, a chimney, and a timber verandah at first floor level which extends around to the original toilets, which are located in a narrow wing are the rear of the building.
Internally the building has some intact portions. In a front section of the basement the vaulted underside of the slab above supported on cast iron columns is clearly visible. This has three vaults supported on two rows of columns extending five bays back from the front of the building. A pair of double-hung sash windows exist at the side to the rear of the building behind the neighbouring Westpac Building.
","history":"This building was constructed c. 1900. The site was purchased by the Bank of New South Wales in 1853. In 1866 the Bank erected premises on the corner of Queen and George Streets across part of both allotments, and the remainder of the site became a garden associated with the bank residence.
In February 1899 the Bank decided to construct a building on the vacant land and engaged architects Addison and Corrie to design a two storeyed commercial building. Walter Taylor was the contractor, and the building containing offices and shops was completed in late 1900 at a cost of £6,737.
The basement and ground floor were leased to Queensland Trustees Limited, while the upper floors was leased to several legal firms. Queensland Trustees moved to other premises in 1913, but the building remained known as Trustee Chambers.
Alterations to Trustees Chambers were made in late 1933. In November 1935 Trustees Chambers was sold to HA Manahan & Sons Proprietary Limited, chain store grocers. In 1957 the Prudential Assurance Company Limited purchased the building and leased it to the Australia and New Zealand Bank Ltd. In 1985 ANZ Properties (Australia) Limited became the registered proprietors.
","criteria":"The ANZ Bank demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late Victorian commercial building and is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the arcaded first floor and the buildings' contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as one of a group of surviving 19th and 20th century buildings and facades.
|The ANZ Bank demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late Victorian commercial building and is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the arcaded first floor and the buildings' contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as one of a group of surviving 19th and 20th century buildings and facades.
|The ANZ Bank demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late Victorian commercial building and is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular, the arcaded first floor and the buildings' contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as one of a group of surviving 19th and 20th century buildings and facades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14933,"place_ref":600158,"name":"Former Queensland Country Life Building façade","alternate_name":"Hill's Buildings","street_address":"424-426 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The existing main facade comprises three identical bays. The northern matching bay and the remainder of the building have been demolished. The facade is lavishly decorated with Victorian Italianate detail executed in rendered brickwork, on the upper three of its four storeys.
The three remaining bays are identical in elevation. At street level all the original detailing has been removed, except for the large curved pediments above each entry. The first and second floors are linked by giant order Corinthian pilasters which support a highly moulded frieze and cornice. The central pilasters of each bay have a pediment, which rises above the cornice. On the top floor the line of the large lower pilasters is continued by smaller paired pilasters. The bays of the building at parapet level are divided by pedestals supporting urns. Each bay has a central semi-circular pediment containing the date A.D. 1888 in raised lettering, and is topped by a small finial which completes a striking silhouette.
","history":"The former Queensland Country Life Building was constructed in 1888-89 as a speculative venture for influential Queensland pastoralists, politicians, company directors and businessmen, Charles Lumley Hill and John Stevenson. Known originally as Hill's Buildings, this group of four warehouses was sited opposite the Customs House (QHR 600156) and close to the municipal wharves at Petrie's Bight, and was designed to attract shipping companies, merchants, warehousemen, bond storekeepers, insurance companies and others as tenants. Together with the Customs House, the building was constructed during a building boom which saw a number of notable public and commercial buildings erected in Brisbane during the 1880s.
The present Customs House was constructed between 1886 and 1889, replacing a smaller building erected in 1850. The site for the Customs House was chosen in 1849 after considerable discussion as to the most suitable location. At the time, shipping activity was centred on the South Brisbane Reach, and the decision to locate the Customs House at the northern end of the Town Reach acted as an impetus for the development of wharves on this part of the river, and warehouses in the immediate vicinity. The earlier building became increasingly inadequate as Brisbane developed as the major port in the colony, and in 1884 the Queensland Government decided to construct a new Customs House.
The growing importance of this part of the city is further reflected in the construction of the Eagle Street Fountain (QHR 600087) between 1878 and 1880 as part of measures to enhance the visual character of the area.
The warehouses were constructed as a four-storeyed masonry building divided into four bays, with individual entrances, and were erected in two consecutive stages. Part of the site was transferred to Hill in August 1881, part also to Hill in January 1888, and the remainder to Stevenson in October 1888. In January 1888, established Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, acting for Charles Lumley Hill, invited expressions of interest from prospective tenants in new business premises to be erected opposite the Customs House, with a frontage of 51 feet to Queen Street. He indicated that no expense was to be spared in either design or utility. In March 1888, Gailey called tenders, again on Lumley Hill's behalf, for the construction of two warehouses at Petrie's Bight. A contract for the two warehouses was let in April to George Gazzard, who tendered with a price of £8,900. Gailey and Gazzard had collaborated on a number of major Brisbane projects in the 1880s, including the Regatta Hotel (1886) (QHR 600331), Treasury Chambers (1886-87) (QHR 600116), and Brisbane Girls Grammar School. In July 1888, Gailey called tenders for the construction of another two warehouses at Petrie's Bight, and the successful tenderer was again George Gazzard, with a price of £8,444.
The warehouses were completed toward the end of the boom decade, and proved slow to let. One of the first tenants was Taylor, Enoch & Co., wholesale boot importers, who occupied the northern warehouse c1890. The other three warehouses were listed as vacant in the 1891 Brisbane Post Office Directory, but RL Armour, warehousemen and importers of general drapery and fancy goods, had moved to the building by 1892. WJ Weatherill, consular agent for the United States of America, importer, and manager of the Queensland Post Office Directory, occupied offices in Hill's Buildings during the second half of the 1890s. The shipping line William Howard Smith and Sons later occupied offices in the building. Edward Butler and Sons [initially Edward Butler & Frederick Rathbone], importers of wholesale saddlery, leased part of the building from January 1899 until 1948, when Edward Butler & Co purchased the warehouse they were leasing.
In 1905, Stevenson's part of the property passed to the Australian Mutual Provident Society, as mortgagee. Lumley Hill died in 1909, and his widow sold her interest in this property in 1911. There followed a variety of owners and lessees of the four warehouses, but the two most closely associated with the building in the second half of the 19th century were the United Graziers' Association and the Queensland Country Life newspaper. In late 1955, Queensland Country Life announced that it was moving to ground floor premises in the United Graziers' Association building at 432 Queen Street. In 1964 the trustees of the United Graziers' Association of Queensland, Union of Employers, purchased part of the site, and in 1977 this was transferred to Queensland Country Life Newspaper Pty Ltd. In 1973 the northern warehouse was sold and subsequently demolished for the construction of an adjoining highrise. The existing facade was retained when the remainder of the building was demolished in 1991.
","criteria":"The facade of the former Queensland Country Life Building dates from 1888-89, and together with the Customs House [600156] opposite, is one of the few structures which provide evidence of the official entrance to the former Port of Brisbane.
As a remnant of a commercial warehouse, the facade provides important evidence of the development of the Town Reach area as an important commercial warehousing district.
|It survives as an example of the work of architect Richard Gailey, whose firm was responsible for many of the ornamental boom-era commercial buildings of the 1880s, which defined Brisbane's image as a late-Victorian city until well into the middle of the 20th century.
|The facade makes a strong contribution to the streetscape as an important element near the intersection of Queen and Wharf Street, and as a complement in scale and style to the Customs House opposite.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14934,"place_ref":600159,"name":"Petrie Bight Retaining Wall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"443-501 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This 150 metre long, parapeted retaining wall, ranging in height from 5 to 9 metres is built of porphyry (Brisbane tuff). The blocks are laid in courses and surmounted by a detailed cast-iron railing which incorporates one of the two original lamp standards and terminates in a sandstone endpost at the Customs House end of the wall. At the northern end of the wall, eight engaged buttresses, added only a few years after construction of the wall, afford further support.
The arches provide rhythm to the mass of the wall while the finely detailed balustrade adds an effect of light and space. The distinctive pinks, greens and browns of the porphyry contribute to the aesthetic appeal of the wall.
As the wall was backfilled with rock to the present level of Queen Street, only the parapet and railing are visible from the street. From the river side, however, the wall with its varying depths and distinctive arches and supporting pilasters is clearly visible.
The wall is largely intact despite several modifications.
","history":"This retaining wall was built in 1881-82 for the Brisbane Municipal Council. The contractor for the project was Henry Patten and the cast iron balustrading was manufactured locally by Smith Forrester & Co.
In 1880, after the Council purchased Kennedy Wharf [just downstream from the present Customs House], they obtained a loan of £7000 to build the retaining wall and extend Kennedy Wharf to Macrossan Street. Besides providing more working space behind the wharves, the wall marked the recently widened alignment of Queen Street.
In 1887 the City Engineer reported that the wall was out of plumb by 9 inches (23 cm) in 100 yards (91.4 metres). In consequence, the wall was stabilised by the addition of eight engaged buttresses.
Use of the Petrie Bight area changed after the 1940s when downstream shipping facilities were established, and the area below the retaining wall became available for development. One such development saw the establishment of a landscaped recreation area beside a car park.
Recent alterations since 1988 have seen about 20 metres of the wall dismantled and reconstructed on a new alignment. The parapet has been breached in three places with openings ranging from 5 to 8 metres wide. One of the openings now houses a reinforced concrete stairway which leads to a five storey building erected on the river side of the wall.
","criteria":"The Petrie Bight Retaining Wall is important in illustrating the development of Brisbane's road and wharf facilities by the Brisbane Municipal Council in the late 19th century. Construction of the wall was associated closely with municipal acquisition of Kennedy Wharf, and reflects the Council's developing role in providing improved transportation facilities in Brisbane. It survives as an example of a major engineering project undertaken by the Brisbane Municipal Council in the 1880s.
|The Petrie Bight Retaining Wall is also a fine example of a late 19th century stone retaining wall, and is important in illustrating its type. It has aesthetic significance in the contribution of its scale and texture to the Brisbane riverscape, and the cast-iron work remains an example of the decorative work of important Brisbane ironfounders Smith Forrester & Co.
|It has aesthetic significance in the contribution of its scale and texture to the Brisbane riverscape, and the cast-iron work remains an example of the decorative work of important Brisbane ironfounders Smith Forrester & Co.
|The Petrie Bight Retaining Wall is important in illustrating the development of Brisbane's road and wharf facilities by the Brisbane Municipal Council in the late 19th century. Construction of the wall was associated closely with municipal acquisition of Kennedy Wharf, and reflects the Council's developing role in providing improved transportation facilities in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14935,"place_ref":600160,"name":"62 Queen Street","alternate_name":"Sussans Building | Colonial Mutual Chambers","street_address":"62 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"62 Queen Street is a three storeyed rendered brick building with basement.
\nThe facade is dominated by an oriel window supported by corbelling enriched with floral decoration. In the centre of the window running horizontally at second floor level is a band decorated with six different badges. Above this, mullions bisected by transoms divide the window into twenty-four lights. The head of each light is embellished with Gothic style tracery, composed of ogee curves. On both upper levels the windows extend from the floor to the ceiling. Decorated turrets flank the oriel window. The parapet is castellated and in the centre is a badge bearing the crest of the Society.
\nOn each side of the oriel window are niches with ogee curved heads similar to the tracery. At both ends, the facade culminates in a turret. The turrets are decorated with tracery, bands of floral ornamentation and are surmounted with a finial. The turrets originally extended from the street level, but the lower sections have been removed. The parapet is castellated and in the centre is a badge bearing the crest of the Society.
\nThe rear facade facing Burnett Lane is rendered brickwork lined to suggest stonework. There are four window openings, with sandstone sills, on each level. The window openings have tudor arched heads which are emphasised by a continuous hood mould. On the rear facade one rectangular cast iron pipe and two nineteenth century rainwater heads survive.
\nInternally the building has had a mezzanine inserted above the ground floor level. An ornate pressed metal ceiling survives on the level above.
","history":"This building was erected in 1883 for the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society who had acquired the site two years previously for £3,140.
The allotment was part of a larger site that previously contained buildings which were erected during the period Moreton Bay was a penal settlement. A government decision to demolish several convict era buildings, and to dispose of the crown land, gave impetus to the commercial redevelopment of the western side of Queen Street.
The building was designed by Richard Gailey and the contractor was W McPark. Gailey was responsible for the design of many of the commercial buildings in Brisbane during the 1880s that were characterised by Classical idioms and details, however in this building, he employed Gothic motifs. Sir Thomas McIlwraith, an early director of the company, laid the foundation stone in September 1883.
The Society occupied most of the building, which became known as the Colonial Mutual Chambers, and leased out the remaining floorspace. In 1906 Colonial Mutual moved its headquarters, but retained ownership of the building and continued to lease the premises. It was purchased in 1936 by the Carnegie family, dealers in quality musical instruments, and remained in the family until 1972. Since the 1960s the building has been used for offices on the upper levels and retail outlets on the ground floor.
A spire with flag pole and the lower sections of the flanking turrets have been removed. The skyline has been further altered by the removal of the attic rooms and the line of chimneys that rose above the wall adjoining the old Town Hall.
","criteria":"62 Queen Street is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland history, in particularly as evidence of the commercial redevelopment of Queen Street in the 1880s which took place as a result of the disposal of buildings erected during the penal era.
|62 Queen Street is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an 1880s commercial building and the eclectic stylistic range of the work of architect Richard Gailey.
|62 Queen Street is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community in particular as an 1880s commercial building incorporating a gothic facade, and the building's contribution to the Queen Street streetscape, which comprises a group of 19th and early 20th century buildings and facades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14936,"place_ref":600161,"name":"City International Duty Free","alternate_name":"Palings Building","street_address":"86 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Palings building located in central Queen Street is one of four original adjoining bays, only two of which remain. The other adjacent bay is the old Manwaring building which was incorporated as part of the original Myers complex in 1965.
The majority of both bays date from the Victorian period and are decorated in an Italianate style. The Palings bay consists of four storeys and a basement, the fourth storey being an addition dating from before 1918. This differs from the upper level in the neighbouring bay whereas the original building below is identical in form across both bays.
The bays of the original building are separated by keyed rusticated pilasters and individually are quite narrow in proportion. Both remaining bays extend through to Burnett Lane at the rear. Each bay is symmetrical with the first floor level having rectangular openings and the level above, the top level of the original building, having arched openings with ornamental keystones. The additional full level of Palings has a large archway broken into narrow vertical openings. To each side of this in the corner are ornamental panels with floral mouldings. The upper parapet has the name 'PALINGS' in raised lettering. Another partial level is situated above this at the rear of the building and contained toilet facilities. This level is not evident from the Queen Street facade. The rear of the building has plain square openings and is finished in rendered concrete.
Internally the building is very intact, and the shopfittings of the ground floor level would seem easily reversible. Notably the finely detailed plaster ceilings, and the timber passenger lift have survived.
This building along with the adjacent surviving bay make a major contribution to the streetscape in this portion of Queen Street both in their scale and the vertical rhythm of their facades.
","history":"Palings Building was one of a set of four office buildings erected in 1885, adjacent to the old Brisbane Town Hall in Queen Street. They were constructed for Dr Power, WH Paling and Co. of Sydney, and JS Manwaring, at a cost of £13,000.
Building contractors Patten and Son had commenced construction by July 1885. Of brick with stone foundations, each building comprised three floors and a basement. Established Brisbane architect Richard Gailey designed the four identical premises with a common Queen Street frontage.
William Henry Paling gained title to the site in 1886, but Paling & Co. did not occupy the building until 1888. Dutch born Paling had emigrated to Australia in 1853, and had established himself in Sydney in the 1850s as a tutor of piano and violin, composer, concert performer, the inaugurator of several music societies, and a music warehouseman, retailing musical instruments and sheet music. In the 1870s and 1880s, Paling was active in local government and philanthropic work, and died at his Sydney home in 1895.
In 1884, Paling had opened a branch of his business in Toowoomba before establishing the Queen Street store a few years later. Although there were a number of other music and musical instrument sellers in Brisbane in 1888, Paling & Co.'s store flourished, and for nearly a century they were the leaders in the sales of records, sheet music and pianos in Queensland. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Paling's piano tuners travelled throughout Brisbane and the Darling Downs, and recitals (until 1930) and tutoring (until the early 1940s) were offered at the Queen Street store. A third Queensland store was opened in Townsville in 1923. In the 1920s, the firm 'diversified', with the sale of radios and phonographs. From c1914 to 1974, Paling's Queen Street store also offered Brisbane's leading theatre booking service.
An additional storey with an elaborate facade surmounted by an equally ornate pediment was erected on the Paling's Queen Street building prior to 1911. The upper pediment has since been removed. Further unspecified additions were carried out during 1918-19 by builder Blair Cunningham under the guidance of architects Chambers and Powell. The site was occupied by Palings until 1986.
","criteria":"The City International Duty Free Building demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of a surviving pair of Richard Gailey designed retail buildings in Queen Street, which originally were part of a group of four.
The City International Duty Free Building is important in demonstrating a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the intactness of the interior, including the detailed plaster ceilings and the timber-panelled lift and its contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as part of a group of intact 1880s commercial buildings.
The City International Duty Free Building has a special association with the firm of WH Paling & Co. Ltd, music and musical instrument retailers, and their contribution to Queensland musical and other cultural pursuits for nearly a century.
|The City International Duty Free Building demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of a surviving pair of Richard Gailey designed retail buildings in Queen Street, which originally were part of a group of four.
|The City International Duty Free Building is important in demonstrating a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the intactness of the interior, including the detailed plaster ceilings and the timber-panelled lift and its contribution to the streetscape of Queen Street as part of a group of intact 1880s commercial buildings.
|The City International Duty Free Building has a special association with the firm of WH Paling & Co. Ltd, music and musical instrument retailers, and their contribution to Queensland musical and other cultural pursuits for nearly a century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14937,"place_ref":600162,"name":"Myer Store (former) [incorporating Miss Brisbane 600136]","alternate_name":"Allan and Stark","street_address":"110 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Myer Store, located in central Queen Street, comprises a series of contiguous three and four storeyed brick buildings. Despite being originally separate buildings, the rendered facade is given unity and coherence by the repetition of Classical details.
The main section of the facade features, on the upper levels, bays of arched openings separated by simple pilasters. On the second level the arches are supported by columns with rosette capitals, and on the third level the arches are supported by pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The string course and the cornice form unifying lines across the facade, although the number of arches for each bay and the spacing between them varies. Two bays of the building rise to a fourth storey with plain rectangular openings. The parapet, formerly with a balustrade and pedestals supporting vases, is now solid. A cantilevered street awning runs the length of the complex.
The southern bay differs from the rest of the facade with its finer and more decorative treatment. The openings on the second level are rectangular and separated by fluted pilasters, while on the third level the openings are arched and separated by Corinthian pilasters. There are ornamental keystones above the arches and the central keystones bear the initials 'M' and 'P' respectively for Manwaring and Paling, the original building owners. A prominent cornice with a course of large dentils runs across this section.
Internally, the building has been substantially altered. The original fabric is visible in some areas, including roof trusses and timber joists separated by herring-bone strutting. Ceilings of a variety of types of pressed metal and plaster remain visible in parts of the building.
","history":"The former Myer Store consists of a series of buildings which were erected between 1881 and the early 1920s. A government decision to demolish the convict barracks which covered a large portion of this site, and to dispose of the Crown land, prompted the commercial redevelopment of the northern side of Queen Street bounded by Albert Street and the Town Hall.
James Allan and Robert Stark began their drapery business in South Brisbane in 1882. Following severe flooding in 1893, Allan and Stark decided to move to the north side of the river. Leasing part of these Queen Street sites from 1899, the company gradually acquired the individual properties over a period of 65 years.
The building on allotment 8, designed by Andrea Stombuco, was erected in 1881 for solicitors Browne and Ruthning, and acquired by Allan and Stark in 1914. In 1918 two additional floors were built, corresponding to the adjacent property on allotment 8A.
The building on allotment 8A was erected in 1881 for A R Jones and occupied by a millinery and dressmaking firm and a photographic studio. It was purchased by Allan and Stark in April 1911 and two more floors were added in the same year.
Allotment 7 was developed in 1918 as part of the redevelopment of allotment 8.
Allotment 9 was purchased by Thomas Illidge in 1881 on which was built a two storey building. Allan and Stark began leasing this property in 1899, and in the late 1900s a third storey was added. Allan and Stark finally purchased the building in 1925.
In 1881-82 a three storeyed brick building, designed by Richard Gailey was erected on allotments 9,10,10A and 11 for Charles Lumley Hill and William Young. The building was initially leased to John and James Hislop, cabinet makers and upholsterers, and Watson, Ferguson and Co, stationers and lithographers. The floors of these buildings were supported by wrought iron girders allowing wider, open spaces for the tenancies. Allan and Stark acquired allotments 9A and 10 in August 1901. Allan and Stark leased the section of the building on allotments 10A and 1 from 1932 until 1952 when they purchased the property.
The southern end of the complex was acquired by Allan and Stark in 1965. This property was built in 1885 and designed by Richard Gailey. A three storeyed brick building, it comprised four common bays across the main facade, each representing individual tenancies for the building. An additional storey with pediment was erected between 1918 and 1923. Allan and Stark acquired the northern half of the building, and of the other two bays, one has been demolished and the other is Paling's Building (QHR 600161).
In 1970 Myer Queensland Stores Ltd purchased the Allan and Stark properties, and continued to use the complex as a department store. In 1988 the complex was vacated when the store moved to new premises directly opposite in the Queen Street Mall.
","criteria":"The former Myer Store provides evidence of the 1880s development of Queen Street initiated by the disposal of the former convict barracks.
|The building is significant for its contribution, in scale, form, and style, to the Queen Street streetscape which comprises a group of nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings and facades.
|The former Myer Store is significant for its association with the firm Allan and Stark.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14939,"place_ref":600164,"name":"Ballow Chambers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"121 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ballow Chambers, a three storeyed brick building, is located towards the eastern end of Wickham Terrace, overlooking the city centre, within a precinct associated since the 1880s with Brisbane's medical profession. The street facade, with five bays has restrained Georgian details: a central, rendered, triple-arched entry with balcony above; stucco quoins and strings; and a cornice and parapet with balustrading. Rectangular multi-paned casement windows with fanlights and metal glazing bars define each storey. Windows along the northern wall are shaded by awnings supported on large brackets.
Internally the building is divided into suites of medical offices, accessed via a hallway on each level. The ground floor corridor is particularly intact, and displays a sequence of arches, plastered walls, and timber skirting boards and dado rail (now painted). A central staircase of dark-stained, silky oak treads and handrail, with wrought iron balustrading and dado tiles, services all floors, as does the adjacent elevator. A casement window and arched fanlight with multi-paned leadlights is a prominent feature of the ground floor stairwell.
The original configuration of suites has been retained, despite some remodelling of individual offices. The interior public spaces sustain the 1920s ambience. Ballow Chambers continues as a specialist medical office building.
","history":"This three-storeyed masonry office building was constructed in two stages, in 1924 and in 1926, for Ballow Chambers Ltd, a group of medical practitioners headed by Charles Thelander. The company acquired most of the site in 1924. Bunya Bunya Cottage, erected on the site c. 1870s, had accommodated a medical practice in the late 1880s, and from about 1900.
Brisbane architect Lange Powell was commissioned to design the new building. Powell was an established Brisbane architect, whose work includes St Martins Hospital (1922) (QHR 600075) and the Masonic Temple (1930) (QHR 600074), both in Ann Street, Brisbane.
Ballow Chambers was one of the earliest of the purpose-built specialist medical buildings in Brisbane. These interwar medical office redevelopments along Wickham Terrace included Wickham House (1923-24), Craigston (1927) (QHR 600165), Inchcolm (1930) (QHR 600170) and Brisbane Clinic (1930) (QHR 600171). Their construction constituted the second phase (the first being in the 1880s) of the Terrace's growth as a medical precinct, and was indicative of new directions toward specialist medicine in Queensland in the interwar years.
The ground floor and sub-floor of Ballow Chambers were constructed in 1924, with a further two storeys added in 1926. John Hutchinson was the builder for both stages. The building was named after a colonial surgeon and the first doctor to establish a private practice in Brisbane, David Ballow, who died of typhus fever while treating emigrants quarantined at Dunwich in 1850.
","criteria":"Ballow Chambers is important in demonstrating the interwar evolution of Wickham Terrace as an important medical specialist precinct in Brisbane, and is associated with the development of specialist medicine in Queensland.
|Ballow Chambers is an accomplished building which is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built interwar medical office building, including in the restrained design the assertion of medical specialist prestige.
|As one of a related group of classical facades, Ballow Chambers exhibits a strong aesthetic contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape, which is valued by the community.
|The building has a special association with Brisbane architect Lange L Powell, as an example of his interwar work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14940,"place_ref":600165,"name":"Craigston","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"217 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Craigston is located on Wickham Terrace, overlooking the city centre, within a precinct associated since the 1880s with Brisbane's medical profession.
It is an eight-storeyed building with a sub-floor, rooftop garden, and viewing tower, and is constructed of rendered brick with a steel-reinforced concrete frame.
The design is Spanish Mission style, with an arched entry, arched windows and a decorative parapet at penthouse level, and a corner tower with a terracotta tiled roof.
Apart from a sympathetic enclosing of the balconies, the exterior of the building is intact.
Professional suites occupy the ground and sub-floors, with the remaining levels providing residential accommodation. Apart from the sixth level, which has always accommodated two apartments, each of the residential levels originally contained one spacious flat with central arrival hall, servants' rooms in the back western corner and family living in the L-shape. Most of the flats have been subdivided since, with apartments currently numbering twelve.
The block is serviced by a central elevator, dumb waiter and common L-shaped hallways, which are lined with dark-stained silky oak dado panelling.
Access to the professional suites is via the front entrance, with a separate side entry (at the southwest end of the hallway) reserved for the use of residents.
Several small garden beds with edgings of Brisbane tuff have been established at the front and along the south-western side of the building.
","history":"This eight-storeyed building was constructed in 1927 for a group of Brisbane medical practitioners.
In the mid-1920s Dr Sydney Fancourt McDonald introduced to Brisbane the concept of a multi-function office/residential block, comprising professional suites on the ground floor and residential apartments on the levels above. Craigston Ltd was formed with McDonald as chairman, and Brisbane architects Atkinson & Conrad (1918-1927) were commissioned to design the structure.
Arnold Conrad and David Wales (draftsman) worked on the design in 1926, incorporating possibly the first reinforced concrete frame in a multi-storeyed building in Brisbane. The design also demonstrated Atkinson & Conrad's interest in the Spanish Mission style, which they used in a variety of local buildings, including the Tristram Factory at West End.
The building was erected in 1927 by builder and engineer Walter Taylor, under the supervision of architect T.B.F. Gargett. Taylor's later work included the Indooroopilly Bridge (1932-36) (QHR 600181).
Craigston was built during the interwar redevelopment of the medical precinct along Wickham Terrace, which included Ballow Chambers (QHR 600165), Inchcolm (QHR 600170), Brisbane Clinic (QHR 600171) and Wickham House. Their construction constituted the second phase (the first being in the 1880s) of the Terrace's growth as a medical precinct.
","criteria":"As Brisbane's first multi-storeyed apartment block, Craigston is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular of multi-storeyed developments in Brisbane.
As Brisbane's first purpose built medical office block to provide residential accommodation for its professional tenants, Craigston is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Wickham Terrace as a medical precinct.
|As a prominent Brisbane example, Craigston is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the application of the Spanish Mission style to a multi-storeyed building.
|Craigston is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community, in particular its contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape and the Brisbane townscape.
|Craigston is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement as possibly the first use of a reinforced concrete frame in a multi-storeyed building in Queensland.
|Craigston has a special association with Brisbane builder and engineer Walter Taylor as a major example of his work and with Brisbane architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad as a prominent example of the firm's work, in particular their application ofthe Spanish Mission style.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14941,"place_ref":600166,"name":"Bryntirion","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"287 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-12-17","description":"Bryntirion is a chamferboard house on a stone foundation with a corrugated iron roof, built in 1861 with subsequent additions to the rear, front and western elevations. The house sits on its eastern alignment and is surrounded by lush subtropical gardens on the north, south and west. Glimpses of the house from the street are through formally arranged exotic and native trees.
The stone base probably indicates the extent of the original house. Above the stone base are four rooms; two bedrooms, two reception rooms and a central hallway. The ground falls away at the rear of the building forming a room in the stone base, now disused but once the original kitchen. The original cast-iron range remains in the fireplace.
A wing projects from the rear of the house along the eastern boundary. It also has a stone base which contains the original laundry with zinc tubs. This wing is further
extended by a single storey gable roofed timber structure originally built as a stables and servants accommodation. A narrow gable roofed timber addition, built in the 1930s, extends along the western side of the stone based rear wing.
The front facade has been significantly altered, mainly around 1900. It now features a projecting gable roofed room on the eastern side, a classically detailed entry porch in the centre and an attached rotunda with an ogee profiled cupola on the south west corner. These picturesquely arranged elements are connected by an open verandah. Verandahs on the west and north are enclosed. The interior of the house is intact with the exception of the reception rooms and hall which have been remodelled.
The complex of corrugated iron roofs articulates separately the mass of buildings constructed over time. The original house has the largest roof, made up of hips and valleys, the rear wings are hipped and gabled and the verandahs are flat or curved skillions. Five brick chimneys stacks of varying sizes and the pointed cupola complete the roofscape.
Bryntirion is an intact building that retains its 1860s core and garden setting.
","history":"The house was built in 1861 for Edward Southerden, a successful Queen Street draper, to a design by James Furnival who had recently established his practice in Brisbane. Extensions have included an 1876 design by Richard Gailey.
In 1882 it was sold to Richard Edwards who gave the house its Welsh name. Edwards was a partner in the drapery firm Edwards & Chapman, and a director of Telegraph newspapers for thirty years. He became the first member for Oxley in the federal parliament in 1901 and retired in 1913. In 1896 Edwards bought and demolished the neighbouring Athol Cottage and established Bryntirion's large garden in its place. Richard Edwards died in 1915 and the house remained in the family, occupied by his grandchildren and used as a doctor's surgery.
","criteria":"As a large villa residence embodying structural and stylistic changes from the 1860s, Bryntirion is important in demonstrating the pattern of changing affluent lifestyle and tastes in Brisbane.
|As one of the few remaining 1860s buildings in Brisbane, and the only example of a house on Wickham Terrace to be in continuous use as a family residence and doctor's surgery, Bryntirion demonstrates aspects of Brisbane's cultural heritage which are now rare.
|Bryntirion is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the layout and planting of a large private garden dating from the late nineteenth century; and of a residence built in the 1860s and extended over time.
|Bryntirion is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by Brisbane's community, in particular the picturesque composition of the building's architectural elements and the contribution of the established garden to the Wickham Terrace and Burley Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14942,"place_ref":600167,"name":"Athol Place","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"307 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Athol Place is a row of three Colonial Georgian style terrace houses. Two storey in height, it is built in Brisbane tuff with a corrugated iron roof replacing the original shingles. A timber verandah with cast-iron balustrading extends across the front of the building of the upper level. As with many of its contemporaries, the row appears as a unified building with a single hipped roof. The interior is lined with plaster except for the rear sections which are in tongue and groove timber.
The ground floor consists of a central waiting room with doors leading off on either side to doctors' consulting rooms. At the rear of each of these is an examination room which is entered through an archway. French doors open out from the reception and consulting rooms onto a hallway which runs across the width of the building. On the other side of the hall are a kitchen and offices and three stairwells leading to the flats on the first floor. These flats consist of an open kitchen and bathroom area at the top of the stairs, a wide hallway with living room on one side and two bedrooms which open out through french doors onto the front verandah.
A sub-floor is created by the fall of the land at the rear of the building forming three rooms and three cellars. Until renovation, the original layout of each terrace house consisted of two ground floor reception rooms, each with a fireplace, and a wing comprising kitchen and service-rooms at the back. A staircase on one side of the front room leads to the upstairs bedrooms.
","history":"Athol Place was built in the early 1860s soon after Wickham Terrace was opened up for development. The block of three stone terrace houses was built by Alexander McNab, a building contractor, who retained them as rental properties. McNab lived next door in Athol Cottage which has since been demolished. Both properties were named after McNab's home town of Blair Athol in Scotland. An early tenant was the noted physician Dr Joseph Bankcroft who opened consulting rooms there in 1866, shortly after starting his Brisbane practice. Later tenants included McNab's son Alexander, who established the legal firm of Chambers McNab and Brisbane Girls High School which used one residence as a boarding house. In 1916 the property was sold to Patrick Ryan whose family moved into one of the residences. In 1929 the Ryans moved out and converted the property into six flats. They sold Athol Place in 1972 to a firm of engineers who in turn sold it to Drs Herron and Cohen in 1979. They reinstated the exterior and refurbished the interior of the property, creating the two consulting rooms and a reception area on the ground floor and three flats upstairs.
","criteria":"Built soon after the opening up of Wickham Terrace, Athol Place is significant as one of the earliest stone terrace houses with Georgian elements built in Brisbane.
|It is one of the few surviving original residential buildings left along this street, and is indicative of the type of house once common when this was a residential area. Terrace houses, though numerous, were not as common in Brisbane as they were in southern capitals. The demolition of many of their number has increased the rarity of early examples still extant. As most two storey terrace houses in Brisbane were built in brick or timber, the stone construction of Athol Place increases its significance.
|The building is a fine example of its type and contributes to the streetscape of Wickham Terrace including Bryntirion on the adjacent corner of Birley Street.
|The building is a fine example of its type and contributes to the streetscape of Wickham Terrace including Bryntirion on the adjacent corner of Birley Street.
|Athol Place's significance is enhanced by its association with Alexander McNab, the successful early Brisbane developer who built and owned it for many years. This was the residence of his son Alexander, the prominent solicitor, and was at one time the surgery of Dr Joseph Bancroft, the pioneer physician.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14943,"place_ref":600168,"name":"All Saints Anglican Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"32 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed porphyry stone church sits on a raised triangular site at the junction of Ann Street and Wickham Terrace, Brisbane.
The rectangular plan has a raised pulpit, projecting chancel and vestry. A transept is suggested by gables on the north and south elevations, and the building shows gothic influences in its design. The gabled roof is clad with ribbed metal sheeting and features double-ridge ventilation. The chancel has a similar roof, but at a lower height, with a small section of clerestory. The vestry has a skillion roof.
The western elevation has twin stone entrance porches, three lancet windows and a stone cross at the top of the gable. Dressed stone work is used around windows and to the top of the gable, and an inscription reads DOMUS MEA DOMUS ORATIONIS (my house shall be called a house of prayer). The chancel gable has three lancets, two quatrefoils and a rose window surmounted by a vesica. The eastern nave gable is surmounted by a carved stone bellcote from which a bell is hung.
A timber entrance porch with a stone base and gabled roof is located on the northern elevation. There is also a plaque commemorating the dedication of the church. The southern elevation has brick banding to the corners of the stone plinth. The transept gables have two quatrefoils and a rose window with dressed stone surrounds.
Internally, walls are rendered and all windows feature stained glass. The nave has hammer-beam trusses with a boarded ceiling. The chancel has scissor braces with a boarded ceiling. An organ gallery has been installed at the western end of the nave. This is supported by metal posts and is accessed via a spiral cast-iron stair.
Fluorescent lights are fixed to the underside of the hammerbeams. A carved and painted timber screen surrounds the side chapel, and plaster mouldings feature around windows and above the arch to the chancel.
The floors are of timber, with the sanctuary and chancel raised above the nave. Two stone arches, which have been infilled with stone blocks, appear on the western elevation and to the south side of the chancel.
The grounds include remnants of a row of palm trees, and stone fencing, masonary gate posts with a gothic-style gas lantern (electrified) along the Wickham Street boundary, and a large jacaranda to the southwest of the nave.
","history":"This single-storeyed porphyry stone church, the oldest Anglican Church in Brisbane, was erected in 1861, and rebuilt in 1869, for the Wickham Terrace District Anglican congregation. It is one of the few remaining parish churches in Queensland owned under the colonial provision of private trustees of church property.
The Church of England was the first church to be established in Queensland. In 1849 the site for St Johns church was granted, with the church being consecrated in 1854. The Wickham Terrace land was granted to the Anglican Church in 1856, although the first deed of grant was dated september 1865, and was intended initially as the Episcopalian Cathedral site. The Diocese of Brisbane was formed in 1859, with Bishop Tufnell, the first Bishop of Brisbane, taking office in 1860, and designating St Johns as the pro-Cathedral.
The early 1860s growth of Windmill Hill and Spring Hill as residential areas, prompted Bishop Tufnell in 1861 to promote the establishment of an Anglican church on the former Cathedral site on Wickham Terrace. The original church, a rubble structure, was designed by noted architect Benjamin Backhouse in 1861, and opened on 23 February 1862 by Bishop Tufnell. It was known officially as the Wickham Terrace Episcopalian Church, or the Wickham Terrace District Church, and unofficially as the Tabernacle, with a parish carved out of St Johns parish, and extending as far as the present parish of Milton.
As the small Anglican community grew, the decision was taken to enlarge the church. Architect Richard George Suter, church warden, Cambridge graduate and proponent of the Gothic style which dominated Anglican church architecture in Australia, designed the alterations which were carried out in 1869.
The dedication took place on 5 April 1869, with Governor Samuel W Blackall laying the foundation stone, a time capsule being deposited and Bishop Tufnell naming the church All Saints. Soon after the western extension was begun, structural problems were found with the first church were realised, resulting in the demolition of the rubble walls. Only the original floor plan, flooring and roof were retained. The church was increased in length by 20 feet, wall height was increased by 6 feet and the roof by 8 feet. A chancel and vestry were added, and Brisbane tuff (porphyry) was used for the walls. Provision was made for a baptistery or large western porch to be added, but this was not carried out. The church was constructed by Mr George Ely, stonemason of Spring Hill, and was completed at a cost of £1,864, excluding architect's fees. It was opened on 8 September 1869 by Bishop Tufnell, who designated it as All Saints Church.
In 1873, the parish was divided, with the parish of Milton being established. An adjacent rectory was built in 1880, and a hall/school building in 1884.
By the early 1900s, the services at All Saints were considered the most Anglo-Catholic in the diocese. In 1923 the use of incense in public worship was introduced, and three years later the pulpit crucifix was installed. In Brisbane, All Saints developed as the high Church of England while St Johns Anglican Cathedral (QHR 600076) remained the low church.
The east end of the church contains the oldest stained glass windows in Brisbane, installed in 1870. The altar lights, presented in 1884, were the first in Brisbane. Artwork includes plaster Stations of the Cross sculpted by Brisbane artist Daphne Mayo in 1935, and a bronze and wood sculpture entitled Christ Accepting The Cross, by Andre Meszaros, erected in the forecourt to celebrate the centenary of All Saints in 1962.
The organ, made in London by TC Lewis and originally installed in St Johns Pro-Cathedral in Queen's Park in 1873, was transferred to St Lukes Church (QHR 600083), Charlotte Street, and later refurbished and moved to All Saints in 1957. The organ loft with circular cast iron stair, are later additions and are located at the western end of the church. The original shingle roof has been replaced a number of times, currently with ribbed metal sheeting.
The church floor was replaced and walls repointed in 1933, and in 1934 the stone fence facing Wickham Tce replaced a timber fence constructed in 1871. In 1988, both hall and rectory were sold and demolished for the construction of an adjacent highrise tower. A new church hall and office complex fronting Ann Street was constructed in 1993.
A substantial section of the stone wall along Wickham Terrace was demolished in 1993.
","criteria":"All Saints Anglican Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the Anglican Church in Brisbane.
|The Church demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular, as one of the oldest surviving Anglican churches in Brisbane containing the oldest stained glass and containing the organ from St John's Pro-Cathedral.
|The building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Gothic influenced, 1860s stone church in Brisbane.
|All Saints Anglican Church is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community, in particular, the siting of the church and surviving early grounds, and their contribution through scale, form, materials and planting to the Wickham Terrace and Ann Street streetscapes and Brisbane townscape. Also highly valued is the quality of the stonework and interior, including stained glass, timber joinery, early furnishings, sculptures and artwork.
|All Saints Anglican Church has a strong and special association with the Brisbane Anglican community as one of the oldest surviving Anglican churches in Brisbane, and with the Anglo-Catholic movement in Queensland.
|The building has a special association with the work of noted architect RG Suter and noted Brisbane artist/sculptor Daphne Mayo.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14944,"place_ref":600169,"name":"Theosophical Society Building","alternate_name":"Callender House","street_address":"355 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building comprises a pair of 1860s two-storeyed semi-detached brick houses with a 1912 timber extension to the side and rear.
\nThe original houses are small in scale without halls or corridors, and include attic and basement. Construction is of brick, with brick on edge construction on walls protected by verandahs. The main roof is gabled and clad in corrugated galvanised iron, concealing earlier shingles. The main facade has a two-storeyed timber verandah, reconstructed in 1986-87 to a 1910 photograph.
\nThe timber extension designed by Dods added new large rooms on two levels at the rear, and a single-storeyed kitchen wing. A new porch and hall gave entrance to both consulting rooms and house. The extension is clad with weatherboards, lined with timber and roofed with corrugated galvanised iron. There is no visible evidence of earlier kitchen wings. The fence in front of the extension is by Dods. Dods' enclosure of the front verandahs does not survive.
\nIn its present form the building clearly reveals the two major stages in its development.
","history":"This pair of semi-detached houses was built in late 1863 to early 1864. The building was probably erected by the first landowner Patrick Mayne (1856), or possibly for the second owner John McNab. The houses were advertised for rent on 30 January 1864, two days after registration in McNab's name, when they were described as 'newly erected ... containing five rooms and kitchen'.
Subsequent owners included Joseph Buckle (1885-1910), a Primitive Methodist minister, who resided there for a period. From at least 1883 the building was known as Callender House.
The property was purchased in 1910 by Dr Espie Dods, who moved there from 97 Wickham Terrace. His architect brother Robin renovated and extended the property for its use as a private house and consulting rooms. This reflected the medico-residential character of the Terrace at the time.
In 1925 the property, which included adjacent land now occupied by the Liberal Catholic Church, was purchased by the Brisbane Theosophical Society. Minor alterations were carried out in 1925 by architects Hall & Prentice. Major conservation work was undertaken in 1986-87.
","criteria":"The building is evidence of the former residential and medico-residential character of Wickham Terrace
|The former Callender House is one of the few remaining 1860s buildings in Brisbane and is a rare example of semi-detached housing which was relatively common in the 1860s.
|As an important example of the work of the architect RS Dods, which demonstrates his skill in adapting an older building, the former Callender House is significant.
|(Criterion under review)
|As an important example of the work of the architect RS Dods, which demonstrates his skill in adapting an older building, the former Callender House is significant.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14945,"place_ref":600170,"name":"Inchcolm","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"73 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-03-23","description":"Inchcolm is located at the eastern end of Wickham Terrace, overlooking the city centre, within an area dominated by buildings accommodating the medical and allied professions.
The building comprises four storeys to parapet level, with a basement and another floor above and behind the parapet.
The Georgian-style facade is of English bond face red brickwork, contrasted with rendered detailing. The ground floor level is rendered and scored to resemble ashlar, and the small projecting arched entrance is crowned by a cornice and parapet.
Internally the building is divided into suites of medical offices, accessed via a narrow central corridor on each level.
The ground floor lobby features entrance doors with cut bevelled glazing, dark-stained silky oak panelling to picture-rail height, plaster ceiling panels with moulded cornices, and terrazzo borders in the passageway in front of the elevator, which is located in the middle of the eastern side of the building. This panelled and metal-meshed lift installation, which was designed to accommodate stretcher patients, is circled by a staircase which services all levels. The stairwell walls are rendered and pointed to resemble stone work.
Although some remodelling of individual offices has occurred, the interior public spaces remain substantially intact and sustain the ambience of a 1930s building.
","history":"This five-storeyed masonry office building was constructed in 1930, on a site which has been associated with the medical profession since the 1880s, when the first Inchcolm was established by Dr John Thomson. This building contained both his private residence and consulting rooms, and during the 1910s and 1920s it operated as a private hospital.
The property was transferred to the Wharf Street Congregational Church in 1925, and subsequently sold in 1929 to Inchcolm Ltd, a group of medical practitioners initiated by George Douglas. The company commissioned Brisbane architect Eric Percival Trewern, who was influential in popularising Georgian revival style in Brisbane domestic building during the interwar years, to design a new medical office building for the site.
Constructed by builders J I Green & Son in 1930, Inchcolm was part of the interwar redevelopment of the medical precinct along Wickham Terrace, which included Brisbane Clinic (QHR 600171), Ballow Chambers (QHR 600164), Wickham House, and Craigston (QHR 600165). Their construction constituted the second phase (the first being in the 1880s) of the Terrace's growth as a medical precinct, and was indicative of new directions toward specialist medicine in Queensland in the interwar years.
Inchcolm continues to be used by the medical profession.
","criteria":"Inchcolm is important in demonstrating the interwar evolution of Wickham Terrace as an important medical specialist precinct in Brisbane, and is associated with the development of specialist medicine in Queensland
|Inchcolm is an accomplished and intact building which is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built interwar medical office building, including in the restrained design the assertion of medical specialist prestige
|As one of a related group of classical facades, and in particular in association with adjacent Lister House, Inchcolm with its neo-Georgian facade exhibits a strong contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape, which is valued by the community
|The building has a special association with Brisbane architect EP Trewern, as an example of his work
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14946,"place_ref":600171,"name":"Lister House","alternate_name":"Brisbane Clinic","street_address":"79 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Lister House is located towards the eastern end of Wickham Terrace, overlooking the city centre, within an area dominated by buildings accommodating medical and allied professions. It is a two-storeyed, brick building with basement.
The main arched entrance is surrounded by rendered mouldings which match the heavy render quoining to the angles of the building. Above the doorway is displayed a crest which incorporates a lighted torch, the date (1930) and the motto Lux sanant (light heals). On each side of the entrance are ornate bronze lamps of florentine design and arched windows with exaggerated keystones. Three rectangular windows with prominent mouldings distinguish the upper level. A heavy rendered cornice with a tiled roof behind completes the building.
Although built in two stages, the internal finish to the newer section mirrors that of the first. The interior features silky oak joinery, parquetry floors, rough plaster finish on the walls to picture-rail height, plaster ceilings and cornices employing a variety of decorative mouldings, and leadlighted fanlights above doorways and in the arches of the central corridor.
There are two reception and stairwell areas in the building, with the front staircase featuring silky oak treads and wrought iron balustrading.
The basement was designed specifically to accommodate an x-ray unit, and continues to be used for this purpose.
Lister House continues as a specialist medical office building.
","history":"This two-storeyed masonry building was constructed in 1930 as purpose-designed medical suites for Lister House Ltd, a group of medical practitioners.
Lister House Ltd acquired the site from the Congregational Church in 1929, and commissioned Brisbane architect Raymond Clare Nowland to design a building which could function along the lines of the Mayo Clinic in the United States. The contractor for the project was J I Green & Co.
Drs LJ Jarvis Nye, John Bostock and John Power used the American model to institute the first specialist group practice in Queensland, the Brisbane Clinic, characterised by new standards of investigation and treatment, group consultation, shared facilities, and a reading circle (until the 1950s).
Lister House was one of a number of interwar medical office redevelopments along Wickham Terrace. These included Inchcolm (QHR 600170), Ballow Chambers (QHR 600164), Wickham House and Craigston (QHR 600165). Their construction constituted the second phase (the first being in the 1880s) of the Terrace's growth as a medical precinct, and was indicative of new directions toward specialist medicine in Queensland in the interwar years.
In 1948 the building was extended to the rear with the addition of a second reception and stairwell area and six offices on each storey.
Some renovation of the building was undertaken in the 1980s.
","criteria":"Lister House is important in demonstrating the interwar evolution of Wickham Terrace as an important medical specialist precinct in Brisbane, and is associated with the development of specialist medicine in Queensland
|Lister House is an accomplished and intact building which is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small-scale, purpose-built interwar medical office building, including in the restrained design the assertion of medical specialist prestige.
|As one of a related group of classical facades, and in particular in association with adjacent Inchcolm [600170], Lister House with its mannered facade exhibits a strong contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape, which is valued by the community.
|The building has a special association with Brisbane architect RC Nowland, as an example of his private sector work and the innovative Brisbane Clinic concept, which was modelled on the Mayo Clinic in the United States of America.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14947,"place_ref":600172,"name":"Ritas at Dods House Restaurant","alternate_name":"Dods House","street_address":"97 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The house is solid brick with roughcast render, the Federation era design influenced by the 'Arts and Crafts' movement. It is built on two levels, the ground floor facing Wickham Terrace, and a full subfloor which was formerly exposed as the land fell away toward the rear of the house. The front elevation is dominated by a gabled projection with a window bay. A small porch with an oval window nestles in the angle. The masonry fence with turned timber balusters complements the house. The roof is tiled in terracotta shingle tiles and features a blind dormer which is louvered and glazed.
The house had a long wing extending back from the square core. A verandah, and a double width verandah room or a piazza, extended into the yard between the wing and the core on both levels. Internally, the entry features a black and white marble floor and timber wall panelling. Elsewhere, the walls are lined in plaster with substantial joinery in silky oak. Some ceilings are lath and plaster while others, in particular the dining room are timber.
Four fireplaces are located at the front and rear of the building. Originally, the ground floor housed a doctor's consulting room, drawing room and bedrooms, while the dining room, kitchen and servants' rooms were located on the subfloor.
The layout has been retained in the restaurant, with eating areas on the ground level and the dining room used for large functions. The kitchen has been enlarged, extending back in place of the verandah and piazza, and the ground level verandah now opens out onto the cocktail bar.
","history":"The house was commissioned for Dr Espie Dods by his mother and built next to the family home owned by his stepfather, Dr Charles F Marks. It was designed by Dods's brother Robin S Dods, the well known architect, as a townhouse and surgery. Although Dods lived in the house for only a few years before moving up the hill to Callender House, the property remained in the Marks family's possession and was let as a residence and surgery to a series of doctors until it was sold as part of the Marks' property for redevelopment.
The Marks' home and huge weeping fig tree were demolished in 1982 and replaced with the Silverton office tower, and Dods House was converted into a restaurant as part of the forecourt development.
","criteria":"The significance of the house lies in its use, building style and family associations. It is a rare surviving example of a combined doctor's residence and surgery which was once commonplace on Wickham Terrace. The only other extant examples are Bryntirion, which is still a residence, and Callender House which was also occupied by Dr Espie Dods and renovated by his architect brother Robin Dods.
The house reflects Robin Dods' Scottish training and contemporary 'Arts and Crafts' design trends which he fused with vernacular elements to create an unusual and innovative design. This was unlike any of his other domestic work and used materials and features uncommon in Queensland houses of the Federation period.
That the place is still known as Dods House testifies to the strong public association which exists between the building and its designer and first owner. Robin Dods was a prolific and respected architect in Brisbane and then Sydney.
|The significance of the house lies in its use, building style and family associations.
It is a rare surviving example of a combined doctor's residence and surgery which was once commonplace on Wickham Terrace. The only other extant examples are Bryntirion, which is still a residence, and Callender House which was also occupied by Dr Espie Dods and renovated by his architect brother Robin Dods.
|(Criterion under review)
|The significance of the house lies in its use, building style and family associations.
The house reflects Robin Dods' Scottish training and contemporary 'Arts and Crafts' design trends which he fused with vernacular elements to create an unusual and innovative design. This was unlike any of his other domestic work and used materials and features uncommon in Queensland houses of the Federation period.
|The significance of the house lies in its use, building style and family associations.
That the place is still known as Dods House testifies to the strong public association which exists between the building and its designer and first owner. Robin Dods was a prolific and respected architect in Brisbane and then Sydney.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14948,"place_ref":600173,"name":"Windmill Tower","alternate_name":"Old Windmill | Brisbane Observatory","street_address":"226 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Circular in plan, the windmill tower is largely made of rendered stone and brick. It tapers towards the top where it is surmounted by an observation platform with an iron railing, hexagonal timber cabin or observation house, and time ball and timber mast. At its base the tower is approximately 8.4 metres in diameter, reducing to about 4.5m at the top. Excluding the time ball and its mast, it stands at about 16m in height on Wickham Terrace in Spring Hill, overlooking the modern office towers of Brisbane's central business district. The tower occupies the western end of the reserve, with the reconstructed flagstaff in its eastern half. Surrounding these is lawn. The boundary on Wickham Terrace is formed by a low stone wall with regular stone piers, between which are strung single chain guards, and a garden bed behind. About half way along its length is a decorative iron archway and stone stairs leading up to a concrete path to the entrance door of the tower. The rear reserve boundary marked by a hedge adjoins that of the Water Reservoirs (QHR 600174), the three gable roofs of which nestle below the park lawn. These are places flanked by parks, Wickham Park to the west and King Edward to the east. Opposite the windmill tower is the cylindrical Mill Hotel, opened in circa 1968 deliberately referencing its form.
\nThe tower sits on a circular sub-wall of Brisbane Tuff about 1400mm thick, which is founded on bedrock. Standing on a plinth, the walls at the base are about 1000mm thick, reducing at the top to about 650mm. To the ground and first floors the walls are stone (ashlar with lime mortar) with 200mm deep outer stone lintels above the door and window.[39] Behind these were middle and inner hardwood lintels, the former having been replaced with steel hollow sections in 1996.[40]
\nFrom the second floor to the underside of the cantilevered balcony the walls are English bond clay brick except for a segment on part of the third floor (at about 10,500mm to 13,000mm above ground) where the outer half of the wall is stone with brick inside. Some random stones run the full width of the wall here. Six narrow, regularly spaced windows open out of this wall segment. There are low rise brick arches above them and timber middle and inner lintels. In the brick above this segment, on the inside, there are curved hardwood plates (these appear to be the remains of the windmill's curb support, curb and cap frame cut down by Andrew Petrie in 1861 to provide clearance for the stairway). These timbers appear to have been locally sourced and comprise grey ironbark and spotted gum and yellow wood (Eucalyptus siderophloia, Eucalyptus maculata and Flindersia xanthoxya).[41]
\nThe entire exterior surface is rendered in a mock ashlar finish (substantially renewed in 1988).[42] A lip is created in the render surface at the first floor or reefing stage level. Above, below and around the upper ring of windows the render finish follows the simple stone frame. A single-level observation house and platform surmount the tower with a riveted copper time ball and painted hardwood mast projecting above it.
\nOn the windmill tower's interior the single volume spaces of each floor are punctuated by the hexagonal stair which connects the ground with the observatory house. The ground floor is a concrete slab while the upper floors are timber-framed with timber floor boards of hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii). The stair winds around a central newel and is lined with tongue-and-groove vertical boards. The treads were strengthened and protected from further wear during the 1988 conservation work.[43] The bottom of the stair posts are founded in the ground floor concrete slab. The stair timbers are largely red cedar (Toona australis), expect for the boarding, which is hoop pine.[44]
\nThe observation house is offset south of the tower's centreline and hexagonal in plan (the stairs are similarly offset). Its walls and five-faceted roof are timber-framed. Externally it is clad with chamferboards on the walls and metal sheeting on the roof. Internally it is lined with tongue-and-groove vertical boards. A door leads out to the circular balcony that surrounds it. The balustrade is wrought iron while the balcony floor is lined with flat copper sheets with timber duckboarding over. It is supported on the outside by closely-spaced carved timber brackets. A round hardwood mast projects out of the roof of the cabin. It has a 160 square base, is lap spliced inside the cabin to a 160 square post that carries down to the third floor. A riveted copper time-ball with central hole sits atop the cabin, with its hoisting rope running through top of the mast.[45]
\nThe tower has five casement windows: two opposite the door, one above the other, another above the door and two more higher up facing north and south. The tiny windows that currently provide illumination for the top floor under the observation cabin are a unique aspect. The sliding windows in the lookout or observation house were installed in 1988 to resemble the originals. The timber double entrance door at the base of the tower has a stone drip mould over it, as do the casements.
\nThere is no clear sign of where the drive shaft from the external treadmill entered the tower[46], although the 1861 renovations may have disguised the entry point. The internal wall of the tower shows many signs of repair, any of which may be related to the treadmill operation.
\nThe grounds surrounding the tower are grassed and sparsely landscaped and although there are no visible surface remnants, are likely to contain subsurface archaeological evidence of the use of the site over its entire history.
\nThe sections of Wickham Terrace and Bartley Street included within the heritage boundary have exceptional potential to contain remains of the convict-era treadmill. The road infrastructure, including the road surface, lighting and signage, is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The oldest convict-built structure surviving in Queensland, the windmill tower has accommodated a range of uses. Constructed in 1828 to process the wheat and corn crops of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, it had a treadmill attached for times when there was no wind but also as a tool for punishing convicts. The mill ceased grinding grain in 1845 and the treadmill was removed sometime before 1849. From 1855 the tower was reused as a signal station to communicate shipping news between the entrance of the Brisbane River and the town. Substantial renovations were made to it in 1861 including the installation of a time ball to assist in regulating clocks and watches. Twenty years later a cottage for the signalman was constructed to the immediate west of the tower, with a detached kitchen erected to the south two years after that. Both were later demolished. The windmill tower was used as a facility for early radio, telephony and television communications research from the 1920s and underwent substantial conservation work in the 1980s and 2009.
In May 1825, after eight months of occupation at Redcliffe, the contingent of convicts, soldiers, administrators and their families comprising the Moreton Bay penal settlement relocated to the site of present-day Brisbane's central business district. The growing settlement was to be self-sufficient in feeding its residents by cultivating corn (also known as maize) and wheat crops at the government farm, which were then processed into meal and flour by hand mills.[1] By 1827, with a substantial crop to process, the settlement storekeeper recommended a treadmill be erected to grind the crop into flour. Commandant Logan indicated at this time that such a devise at Brisbane town would be of service and also provide an avenue for the punishment of convicts.[2]
There is little evidence confirming details of the windmill tower's planning and construction. In July 1828, Peter Beauclerk Spicer, the Superintendent of Convicts at the time, recorded in his diary that convicts were 'clearing ground for foundations for the Mill' and proceeded to dig a circular trench that reached bedrock and had a circumference of approximately 9 metres.[3] Allan Cunningham noted soon after that construction was in progress. The mill was constructed on the highest point overlooking the settlement on what is now Wickham Terrace. By 31 October 1828 the first grain was being ground at the site by a mill gang; however it is supposed that this was done by a treadmill as the rotating cap and sails associated with the wind-powered operation of the mill were not brought to the site until November.[4] Circumstantial evidence suggests that the wind-powered grinding of grain did not begin until December.
There were two pairs of millstones inside the tower, each driven independently by the treadmill and sail mechanisms. The former was located outside the tower, a shaft connecting the treadwheel and the mill cogwheels inside. Two sketches from the early 1830s show the windmill tower and its sail stocks in place,[5] while an 1839 description depicts a tower built from stone and brick, comprising four floors, a treadmill and windmill. From 1829 the windmill tower was said to be continually requiring repair, possibly because its equipment was all made from locally-available timber rather than iron[6].
The treadmill was an important component of the mill, for use as punishment without trial, and for times when there was no wind but the amounts of grain sufficient to sustain the settlement still required processing. No plans exist of the Brisbane treadmill, however, the Office of the Colonial Architect produced a standard Design for Tread Mill Adapted for Country Districts Average Estimate £120.[7] Between 25 and 30 men worked at the mill at any one time. Sixteen operated the treadmill, although as there are no plans, it is uncertain whether it comprised a standard 16-place treadmill, or two 8-place sections connected to a common shaft. Each man would climb five steps to get onto the wheel, standing on the 9 inch wide treads and holding on to the rail. The men would then work as though ascending steps to operate the treadmill. Some undertook this task while in leg irons, while the more able used one hand to hold on and the other to draw sketches of people, animals and scenes on the boards of the mill. The men would work from sunrise to sunset with three hours rest in the middle of the day in summer, and two hours in winter.[8] [9] The first casualty of the treadmill, which produced the first official record of its existence, occurred in September 1829 when prisoner Michael Collins lost his life after being entangled in the operating mechanism. Maps of 1840s Brisbane feature a rectangular structure attached to the outside of the tower, Robert Dixon's in particular showing a 6 x 5 metre structure, probably the treadmill, located on ground that was to become Wickham Terrace.
In July 1841 the Brisbane tower was reputedly the site of a public execution of two Aboriginal men who had been convicted in Sydney of the murder of Assistant Surveyor Stapylton and one of his party near Mount Lindsay. They were returned to Moreton Bay and hanged with about 100 Aboriginal people present, however it may be that the execution took place elsewhere on what was known as Windmill Hill.[10]
Indicative of the prominence of its physical position, the tower served as one of the stations for the trigonometrical survey of the Moreton Bay district conducted by Robert Dixon, Granville Stapylton and James Warner from May 1839 in preparation for the area being opened to free settlement.[11]
In February 1836 the windmill tower was struck by lightning, causing severe damage throughout, including to the treadmill. A convict millwright was brought from Sydney in June for the repairs, which amounted to a major rebuild of the structure that was not completed until May 1837.[12] In April 1839, with the closure of the Moreton Bay penal settlement being planned, the windmill tower was one of the buildings recommended for transfer to the colony. This was approved in 1840-41 but it continued to sporadically process grain until 1845, when due to crop failure, a stagnant population and the availability of imported flour, it finally ceased being used. The penal settlement had officially closed in February 1842. The treadmill operated until 1845 and had been removed by October 1849[13].
The windmill tower in Brisbane is the oldest of its type left standing in Australia and further distinguished by having been built by convict labour. The earliest standing stone windmill towers extant around the country date from the 1830s and include: one built in 1837 in South Perth, Western Australia[14]; another built in the same year at Oatlands in Tasmania which operated until 1890[15]; and another built at Mount Gilead near Campbelltown in New South Wales in 1836[16]. Most were built to process grains into flour. Other surviving mill towers are the one built in 1842 by FR Nixon at Mount Barker in South Australia; Chapman's mill built around 1850 at Wonnerup in Western Australia[17], and another built at a similar time on an island in the Murray River near Yunderup in Western Australia[18]. None of the nineteen windmill towers that characterised the early settlement at Sydney have survived.[19] Technological developments, most particularly steam power which was more dependable than wind power or that generated by convict labour at a treadmill, rendered wind-driven mills largely redundant.
After the cessation of milling operations there were discussions about possible future use of Brisbane's windmill tower. In December 1849 the tower was put up for auction and bought by a government official who promptly sought tenders for removal of it and its machinery (the auction terms required it to be cleared away by three months after the sale).[20] Ownership of the place quickly reverted to the Crown because of a legal problem with the sale, but not before some dismantling had occurred.[21] In a January 1850 article the Moreton Bay Courier continued its appeal for the windmill not to be pulled down and secured by the town, arguing that aside from its landmark and picturesque qualities it was the ‘best fixed point for land measurement in the district'. In this vein the site was the most accessible viewing point for the picturesque landscape of Brisbane and its environs. Despite earlier calls to erase evidence of Brisbane's convict past, 'sentiment and pragmatism combined to override the detrimental taint of convictism' saving the tower from destruction. The sails were still in place in 1854 and appear in a painting of the windmill completed in 1855.[22]
By 1855 Brisbane was the leading Queensland port and it became important to establish signal stations to communicate shipping news between the entrance of the Brisbane River and the town, one of which was set up on Windmill Hill. This required modifications to the tower to include a semaphore station connected to the electric telegraph. Information on ships entering the river was converted to semaphore signals using flags hoisted on a mast erected on top of the tower. The renovations were undertaken by John Petrie in October 1861 to plans by colonial architect Charles Tiffin and included the removal of the windmill stocks or arms and wheels; the laying of floors on each storey; new doors and windows; a weatherproof floor on the top of the tower with an iron railing; a new winding staircase from bottom to top; repair of stone, brickwork and plastering; and the installation of a high flagstaff to fly signals.[23] The tower's renovation at this time also fitted it out as a public observatory and it became known by that term.[24] The following year it became the first home of the newly founded Queensland Museum; serving this purpose until 1868 when other accommodation was provided in the old convict barracks or parliamentary building on Queen Street.[25]
Petrie also installed a time ball on the tower to provide a reliable authority for regulating clocks and watches. It was dropped at one o'clock each day based on observations relayed by telegraph from Sydney. The time ball was replaced by a time gun in 1866, with an embankment and shed constructed to hold the gun in 1874. After 1882 the gun and shed were moved to the eastern section of the current reserve before the shed was demolished in 1908. The time gun proved useful to people as far away as Logan, Caboolture and Ipswich. The old gun was replaced in 1888 with another before a new electrically-controlled time ball was installed in 1894. This was associated with the legislated implementation of a single time throughout the colony, being designated as ten hours earlier than the mean time at Greenwich. Adjustments were made to the tower at this time to accommodate the new time ball. The roof was lowered and the flagstaff pared down.[26]
A cottage for the signalman was constructed in 1883 to the immediate west of the tower to plans prepared by Government Architect FDG Stanley and on part of the Waterworks reserve. Two years later a detached kitchen was also constructed behind it to the south of the tower. Use of the signal station was discontinued in 1921 by the state government, which then sought a new use for the structure and land. [27] Despite this the flagstaff remained in place until 1949. From January 1893 the Fire Brigade implemented a nightly observation post from a specially-constructed platform on top of the tower. This was used until around 1922.
The Commonwealth government assumed responsibility for the site in 1901 but control reverted to the state in 1908 when it was designated as an Observatory Reserve. In 1902 it had been connected to the Railway Telegraph Office at Roma Street so that the railways had the correct time for their operations. The evidence of historical photographs suggests that sometime between 1902 and 1912 the cabin at the top was increased in size.[28] The time ball remained in operation until 1930.
The site was placed under the trusteeship of the Brisbane City Council in 1922. The site of the cottage remained in the hands of the Waterworks Board and a boundary re-arrangement had to occur to allow its continued use in relation to the observatory. At this time the Queensland Institute of Radio Engineers began wireless radio and telephony research at the tower, and used the signalman's cottage to meet two nights a month. Apparatus to operate a wireless radio station was installed in 1926. The cottage was occupied on a more regular basis in order to reduce the risk of vandalism to the tower, but fell vacant. In 1926 the City Architect, AH Foster, proposed a plan for beautifying the observatory, which included removal of the cottage and adjacent sheds. The tender of Messrs Guyomar and Wright to remove the cottage, shed and outhouse for £60 was accepted.[29] At this time the stone and wrought iron wall along Wickham Terrace was erected. It was intended to add 'dignity to the historical reserve, and harmonise with the massive character of the Tower'.[30]
From 1924 Thomas Elliott installed equipment in the tower to undertake cutting-edge television research; he and Allen Campbell giving a demonstration from the site in 1934 which constituted Queensland's first television broadcast. It was considered by many at the time as the most outstanding achievement thus far in the history of television in Australia. They gained a license from the government and continued experimental broadcasting from the tower until about 1944.[31]
From 1945 the Brisbane City Council was considering suitable action to preserve the tower, which had become a popular visitor attraction. Some restoration work was carried out in 1950 on the advice of Frank Costello (then Officer in Charge of Planning and Building with the City Council), which included removal of old render and re-rendering the entire structure. It was at this time that the flagstaff was removed in preparation for making the open ground of the reserve 'a real park'. Certainly these conservation efforts considered the heritage value of the place as well as the public's use of it.
However by 1962 the windmill tower was again in poor condition. Floodlighting to enhance its appearance for tourists was undertaken for the first time during the Warana Festival five years later. In the early 1970s the Council and the National Trust of Queensland undertook detailed investigations regarding restoration and transfer of trusteeship from the council to the trust (the latter were abandoned in 1976). None of the original plans or any of the original windmill machinery parts could be located at that time. Based on these findings the National Trust formed the opinion that the building should be preserved in its present form and not reconstructed to its windmill form.
In 1982 City Council undertook some external maintenance work on the observation house or cabin, including replacement of deteriorated timber to the balcony and sills, and corrugated iron on the roof, and repair of the time ball and its mast (which was shortened by about 300 mm to remove some part affected by dry rot).[32]
In 1987 a consortium of companies involved in the construction of the Central Plaza office building offered to assist the Brisbane City Council with the conservation of the Windmill Tower. To inform this work a conservation study was undertaken by Allom Lovell Marquis-Kyle Architects, which also oversaw conservation work[33]. Preliminary archaeological investigations undertaken at this time identified the remains of the original flagstaff base which was reinstated.[34] The conserved Windmill Tower was opened by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane on 3 November 1988. A further archaeological investigation was carried out at the site in 1989-90 by a University of Queensland team, revealing clear stratigraphic layers datable to each of the key phases of use of the site.[35] In August 1993 further investigations of the fabric of the tower were undertaken to explore the extent of the footings and the nature of construction of the curb and cap frame. More conservation work was carried out in May 1996. [36]
In 2009 the Brisbane City Council received considerable funding to carry out restoration work of the windmill tower through the State Government's Q150 Connecting Brisbane project. It was intended that the structure be publically accessible to allow visitors to experience the view from its observation platform, a practice that has been commented on since the 1860s.[37] In 2008-2009 the Brisbane CBD Archaeological Plan assessed the area of the observatory reserve and a length of Wickham Terrace associated with it as having exceptional archaeological research potential because of the combination of its association with the penal settlement and the low level of ground disturbance that has occurred there since.[38]
","criteria":"The Windmill Tower in Spring Hill is tangible evidence of the initial European occupation of the Moreton Bay area and important physical evidence of the development of it as a penal settlement, free settlement and separate colony. It is the oldest convict-built structure surviving in Queensland and the oldest extant windmill tower in Australia.
The Windmill Tower is important in illustrating various key phases of the history of Brisbane. It has been used for a variety of purposes, including the grinding of grain and as a form of punishment for convicts, as a trigonometrical survey station, as a signal station for shipping, the Queensland Museum's first home, the official timekeeping device for the settlement, an observation tower, and as a site for wireless radio and telephony research and for early television research and broadcasting.
|The Windmill Tower is one of only two buildings to survive from the Moreton Bay penal settlement. It is distinctive amongst other early windmill towers around Australia in being the only surviving one built by convict labour. Other surviving towers, including the mill at South Perth in Western Australia (1837), the Callington Mill at Oatlands in Tasmania (1837), and the Mount Barker mill in South Australia (1842), were constructed by non-convict labour for free enterprise concerns.
|The Windmill Tower has potential to contribute new knowledge and a greater understanding of Queensland's early settlement and development. Potential exists for archaeological evidence relating to all phases of occupation and use, particularly the convict period and evidence of the external treadmill layout and design, and the later signalman's cottage.
Archaeological investigations at the Windmill Tower have the potential to contribute important new information about actual treadmill design and construction techniques, early punishment practices employed in Moreton Bay, the domestic conditions of mid to late nineteenth century Brisbane through artefact analysis, as well other previously unknown or undocumented uses of the windmill tower site.
Archaeological evidence of the treadmill would illustrate nineteenth century punishment practices and the necessity of technological solutions for the grinding of enough grain to feed the fledgling settlement.
|Being the oldest extant windmill tower in Australia, and Queensland's oldest stone building, the Windmill Tower in Brisbane is an exemplar of this class of cultural place. Its height and location on a central Brisbane hilltop are also important in demonstrating the characteristics of an early signal station, lookout and site for wireless radio, telephony and early television research.
|The Windmill Tower has great aesthetic significance for its landmark quality, being situated on a prominent hilltop overlooking central Brisbane; a quality widely acknowledged from the beginnings of free settlement until the present day. The unusual and characteristic shape of the structure is distinctive even in the earliest pictorial representations of the Brisbane landscape. Despite subsequent city development obscuring or entirely obliterating the views to it from other parts of the area, the windmill tower is still strongly evocative and symbolic of Queensland's convict past, one of its key periods of significance.
|The use of the Windmill Tower as a signal station from 1855 demonstrates an aspect of innovative technology to develop a system of communication linking semaphore and electric telegraph to relay shipping news to the settlement. The tower is also an important reflection of the management of timekeeping in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the use of time balls and a time gun at the site from 1861 until 1930. The earliest research in Queensland into wireless radio and telephony was undertaken at the tower from 1922. Cutting edge television technology was also researched and demonstrated at the tower from 1924 until at least 1949.
|The Windmill Tower has a special association with the Brisbane and Queensland communities, serving as an important landmark and being a tangible and symbolic representation of European settlement of the state. The tower was recognised as early as 1850 for its landmark and picturesque qualities in a swell of public support against its proposed demolition. This public interest has been ongoing, demonstrated in concerns voiced to the present day over renovation and restoration.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14949,"place_ref":600174,"name":"Service Reservoirs","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"230 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Service Reservoirs stand on an elevated, irregular-shaped, 3799m2, landscaped site, downhill from Windmill Tower (QHR 600173) on the outskirts of the Brisbane CBD and adjacent to Wickham Terrace in Spring Hill. The site comprises two, partially subterranean, gable roofed structures that align with Wickham Terrace at the northern edge of the site.
\nStanding separately and perpendicular to each other, the two rectangular Service Reservoirs are constructed of thick brick walls that are protected by later additions of timber-framed, corrugated metal roofs. The earlier, smaller structure has a single gable roof, while the larger, later one is double-gabled. Both reservoirs have subsidiary gabled ridge-vents to allow for ventilation and a box gutter runs along the valley between the double gables of the larger reservoir to ensure adequate drainage. Along the longitudinal sides of each reservoir, the roofs meet exterior white-washed and painted brick walls. The brick walls continue around to the gable-ends on which banks of timber louvers which provide ventilation to the interiors. The two reservoirs feature timber doors on each gable end which are elevated above the brick wall height and allow entry to the interiors. A set of timber stairs on the western gable-end of the small reservoir provides access to this reservoir. Ladders descend into the two reservoirs from all timber doors.
\nInternally, the Service Reservoirs are empty of water and are divided into compartments (eight in the smaller and fifteen in the larger) by brick, high arched baffle walls, which step down in height towards the centre of the spaces and are designed to withstand external pressure. In the small reservoir, a small portion of the interior walls are cement rendered, while the remainder are facebrick. All interior walls in the large reservoir have a cement wash coating. Both reservoirs have a concrete floor slab and hardwood timber roof framing is exposed within each space. Within the two reservoirs, 30mm metal tie rods span between external walls. The terminations of each tie rod are visible on the exterior of the reservoirs where vertical timber packers stand. A cast-iron inlet and outlet, valve chambers and pits, and main outlet and scour pipes remain within the reservoirs.
","history":"The Service Reservoirs (1871 and 1882) are located adjacent to the Windmill Tower (QHR 600173) on Wickham Terrace in Spring Hill, Brisbane. Constructed as purpose-designed water storage and distribution facilities to service Brisbane's rapidly growing population in the late 19th century, the Service Reservoirs represent both a creative and technical achievement of the Colonial era. The reservoirs constitute two mostly subterranean tanks, constructed of brick arched walls, roofed in the early 1900s and once connected by a series of pipes to Enoggera Dam. They were the first of their kind in the state.
Aboriginal occupation of what is now the Brisbane City area was located within a close distance of freshwater streams, at the main camps at "Barrambin" (York's Hollow, now Victoria Park) and "Me-An-Jin" (Gardens Point). When European settlement was established in the area, the proximity of a sufficient water supply had a significant impact on where it was to be situated. The Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was established at Redcliffe in 1824, under the instructions of John Oxley that a suitable location would be "easy of access, difficult to escape from, and hard to attack; furthermore, it should be near fresh water and contain three hundred acres for cultivation".[1] Only one year after settlement, the inadequacy of Redcliffe's water supply became apparent and the settlement relocated to the current Brisbane City site.[2] Adjacent to the river, the new site allowed the collection of water from the first substantial water supply within 15miles (24.14km) of the mouth of the Brisbane River, a freshwater creek and a chain of water holes near the present Roma Street Station.[3]
In 1826, Captain Logan arrived as Commandant and established a works program; key buildings were replaced with substantial structures made of stone and brick. Further development was encouraged by the construction of King's Wharf (1827) which allowed goods to be transferred from incoming ships.[4] Due to this expansion of the penal settlement, by 1829 the quantity and quality of the water supply had dramatically decreased.[5] In response, Captain Logan under the guidance of engineer and Clerk of Works, Andrew Petrie, ordered the excavation of an earthen dam across a creek near present-day Tank Street that was intended to hold up to a year's supply of water. From this dam, water was reticulated through a series of hollow ironbark logs with convict-powered pumps to a small number of buildings within Brisbane, including the prisoners' and military barracks, and the Commandant's quarters.[6]
Brisbane experienced rapid growth after its opening for free settlement in 1842 and the population quickly rose to 812 by 1845. Water carriers charged exorbitant prices for their services and water was frequently required to be transported from Breakfast Creek at times of drought when the earthen reservoir dried up.[7] By the 1850s the supply of fresh water became polluted from bathing, washing and watering animals. The walls of the dam deteriorated and leaked, and in 1858 it collapsed.[8]
The Municipalities Act 1858 tasked local councils with the obligation to control their town's water supply.[9] Brisbane's Municipal Council (formed in 1859, the same year as Queensland's separation from New South Wales) only made short-term repairs to the dam due to other priorities such as constructing roads, Municipal Headquarters, and improving drainage and sanitary conditions.[10] The Council constructed a temporary tank on the edge of the reservoir in Tank Street and licensed water carriers to serve the people Brisbane, whose population had increased by 54 percent between 1856 and 1861 to 5900 people.[11] It soon became clear that Brisbane required a much larger water supply. Tensions emerged between the Municipal Council and the Queensland Government over who was accountable for funding future systems.[12]
Despite the strenuous debate amongst alderman regarding the best solution, and continual conflict between the Council and Queensland Government over control, the Brisbane Municipal Council made the decision in 1863 to adopt a long term solution from a report by Civil Hydraulic Engineer, Thomas Oldham.[13] This proposal involved a gravity reticulation system to the city fed from a dam constructed at a higher elevation on Enoggera Creek. A service reservoir would be constructed near the top of Windmill Hill on Wickham Terrace, the highest suitable site near town, to store water before distribution. Oldham's scheme was designed to provide a 12month water supply to 200,000 people; five times Brisbane's population at the time.[14] The Brisbane Waterworks Act 1863 enabled the Municipal Council to construct reservoirs, supply water to the town and to charge for services, but allowed the Queensland Government to influence decisions with the establishment of a Board of Waterworks.[15]
Joseph Brady was appointed as Engineer to the Board of Waterworks and oversaw the construction of Enoggera Dam which began on 18 August 1864. The dam was completed by March 1866, with alterations made to reduce expenditure; pipework sizes were minimised and plans for the Wickham Terrace Service Reservoir were scrapped.[16] By legislation, responsibility transferred to the Brisbane Board of Waterworks in August 1866, and later that month 94 chains (1.89km) of water mains reticulating to Queen, George and Edward Streets were turned on.[17] By 1869 reticulation to the southern side of the river was achieved.[18] The system was the first reticulated gravity supply and the first municipal engineering undertaking in Queensland.[19] Being the first of their kind in the colony, the Service Reservoirs at Spring Hill set a precedent for subsequent water supply schemes throughout Queensland, including places such as Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maryborough and Rockhampton.[20]
After complaints from Brisbane residents about mains not servicing higher areas of town and of a poor supply during peak hours, the Board of Waterworks decided to proceed with the construction of a Service Reservoir near the observatory on Wickham Terrace.[21] Tenders were called in 1870 for the construction of a reservoir in either concrete or brick. Henry Holmes' tender was accepted specifying the use of concrete, but after preliminary excavations and the identification of cracks in concrete samples, Holmes requested to change the walls to brick and subsequently offered to withdraw his contract.[22] The Board of Waterworks made the decision to complete the contract under its own Clerk of Works; immediately letting a contract for bricklaying and purchasing 69,000 locally produced bricks.[23]
The first Reservoir at Wickham Terrace was completed in 1871 and was filled for the first time on 24 February 1871. The Reservoir was a 60ft x 30ft (18m x 9m) open-air structure, with 480mm (3 bricks) thick outer walls and arched brick internal cross-walls that divided the reservoirs into 15ft (4.5m) squares. It held 126,000 gallons (570,000 L) of water which came to a depth of 13ft 6in (4.15m). For 10hours every night, the mains were turned off and the reservoir was filled to keep up with demand for the following day.[24] The Service Reservoir had a major effect on both the cost and the standard of living in Brisbane with the average cost of delivered water dropping from the 1866 price of 20shillings/1000gallons to just 1shilling/1000 gallons.[25] In 1872 a tender for £36 from H Wakefield to raise the walls by 2ft (60.96cm) and increase the Reservoir's capacity was accepted and in 1876 an additional main from Enoggera Dam was laid to allow water to be reticulated to higher parts of town.[26] Further complaints, together with a surge in Brisbane's population in the late 1870s, due to immigration, port activities and the construction of the railway, prompted suggestions that the Reservoir had become inadequate and that a second, much larger reservoir was required to support increasing demand.[27]
In 1882, plans were drawn for a second reservoir to be completed by the end of the year by W Innes and Son for £2797-10-0. An additional main was laid across Victoria Bridge to service the higher parts of Kangaroo Point and South Brisbane.[28] The second Reservoir was constructed with 510mm (4 bricks) thick brick walls. The interior was divided into 15 spaces by arched brick walls; the spaces being a square shape in the central section and rectangular on the eastern and western sides.[29] In 1889, the Board of Waterworks considered roofing both reservoirs; these additions did not take place at this time due to the leaking condition of the reservoirs, the declining reliance on them and the introduction of other water supply systems.[30]
Only a few years after the second reservoir was constructed, other improvements were made in Brisbane's water supply system to cope with the population boom of the 1880s. This included the building of the Gold Creek dam in 1885-86, and the Highgate Hill service reservoir, which was of mass concrete rather than arched brick walls, in 1889. The commissioning of Mt Crosby pumping station in 1893 marked the decline of gravity water supply. The service reservoirs continued to only supply water to the lower parts of the city. Although the larger reservoir retained water in case of emergency, both reservoirs were removed from use between 1898 and 1906.[31]
In 1904-05 the reservoirs were recommended for reconditioning to bring them back to a usable standard. These works comprised: the reconnection with the original Enoggera main; the provision of roofs to prevent the growth of algae and to stop animals falling or being thrown in; and the installation of a spray inlet, a floating outlet and a relief valve for the Mt Crosby supply.[32] In July 1905 tenders were called for further works on the small reservoir, including the cement rendering of internal walls. Contractors, Maskrey and Kitchen, were approved to re-roof the reservoir for £226-6-8 including extras.[33] After 1906, little work was completed on the Service Reservoirs apart from routine maintenance.[34]
Along with the reservoirs, several other structures were constructed; over time these were demolished or removed. A cottage was constructed by JP Hardy in 1871 for £125 and was built to house the Inspector who was responsible for overseeing the reservoirs running day and night.[35] The Inspector's cottage was removed from site before 1959. A second cottage was constructed in 1894 as a caretakers' house. This became the turncock's residence between 1958 and 1959, was occupied until 1976 and was vacant until destroyed by fire in 1977.[36] A third residence was erected for the Senior Inspector in 1909 for £315-12-0. At different periods until 1958, the third residence also housed the Superintendent of Mains and Services, and the turncock. The residence was considered uneconomical to repair in 1958 and was moved off the site by early 1959.[37]
The Wickham Terrace service reservoirs remained an integral part of the Brisbane water supply system until 3 September 1962 when the water main from Enoggera Dam collapsed and was shut down, unable to serve an increasingly high-rise inner city due to their comparatively small capacity and low elevation. Redevelopment proposals for the reservoirs during the 1980s included converting the area into an art gallery, bus exchange, restaurant and theatre in the round.
In 2014, after two years of negotiations with the Brisbane City Council, the Brisbane based Underground Opera Company completed a $150,000 temporary fit-out to allow the staging of a series of opera performances within the space.[38] The service reservoirs continue to serve as a visual reminder of the vital importance of a reliable, accessible and clean water supply, as well as the technical advancements in the early development of Brisbane and Queensland.[39]
","criteria":"The Wickham Terrace service reservoirs are an historic expression of demographic growth, improvement in living standards and local politics in Brisbane during the years of early self-government.
|In Queensland they are the first of a series of inground reservoirs, but quite unusual in being the only ones known to have been built of brick with arched baffle walls rather than concrete.
|The sub-surface pits, chambers and pipes, and the sites of the two former houses have the potential to reveal technical and archaeological evidence.
|In Australian context there are important differences in form, material and dating between each of the above reservoirs; but their similarities, particularly between Wickham Terrace and Adelaide, are such that the former may be treated as a significant example of its type.
|In addition the reservoirs have long formed a pleasing part of the 'Windmill Hill' reserves, which also include the old convict tower mill [600173], a reconstructed signal flagstaff and surrounding parkland. Their dimly lit, resonant and monumental interior spaces are also atmospheric in character.
|As an important part of the Enoggera waterworks system, and a simple but handsome solution to the problem of an adequate water supply, the reservoirs represent both a technical and a creative achievement of the Colonial era.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14950,"place_ref":600175,"name":"Baptist City Tabernacle","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"163 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This centrally planned church is a cement rendered brick building with parapet walls that conceal a galvanised corrugated iron roof. It is situated on a sloping site on the corner of Upper Edward Street and Wickham Terrace, overlooking the central business district, with the main entrance on the higher Wickham Terrace side.
The front facade is distinguished by centrally positioned entry stairs and an attached tower, surmounted by a cupola, that is prominently located on the southwest corner, the highest part of the site. With the exception of the four-storeyed tower, the building is two-storeys tall and sits on a base that forms a third storey, visible at the rear and sides.
All four facades are composed of variations of the same classically derived elements and motifs and are symmetrical except for the location of the tower. Each facade is divided into three bays, the central bay being larger than the two peripheral bays.
The central bay sits proud on the front and rear elevations and recedes slightly on the east and west elevations. Each central bay is further divided into three parts and has a rose window in the centre of the upper level. All other openings are arched. On the south, east and west facades the central bay is surmounted by a triangular pediment. Corners and compositional divisions in the facade are marked by banded rustication and rusticated pilasters.
The longer east and west elevations have two additional bays recessed between the two main bays. In these recesses are arched entry doors that open onto the lower-ground floor. On this level are the sunday school rooms, lecture hall, kitchen and meeting rooms.
On the ground level above, the entry vestibule opens onto the double height space of the church; a 70ft wide space which is spanned by timber trusses that are concealed by a flat plaster ceiling. In the corners of the building are two-storeyed rooms that look into this space, as does the gallery located over the vestibule. Internal walls are plastered and contain built-in circular cast iron ventilation grates. Decoration is restrained with the windows containing geometric patterned leadlight.
Cedar pews are arranged in a semicircular pattern facing the pulpit, baptistery, organ and choir gallery that are located at the northern end of the space and feature timber panelling. A screen has been built behind the choir. This screen blocks the original view from the auditorium of the north wall with its rose and arched windows and the spiralling timber stairs.
","history":"The Baptist City Tabernacle is a large cement rendered church on a corner site overlooking the central business district.
Baptists first arrived in Brisbane about 1851, with the first Baptist church being built in 1859 on the corner of Wharf and Adelaide Street. By 1887, with a congregation of over 400, a new church was needed. Prominent Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, a member of the congregation, designed both the Tabernacle and the former manse which still survives on an adjacent site. The dedication took place on 9 October 1890 and the total cost was over £18,000. It was described at the time as being a Classic Venetian style building.
The first pastor was Rev. William Whale, a notable Brisbane churchman, leader and preacher of the time. In the early 1900s, Miss Fewing's Private School for Girls, which later became Somerville House, occupied the basement. The Baptist Theological College was formed in the tower and occupied it for many years, along with the minister's fraternal for use as a meeting place. The basement rooms provided space for the Sunday School, and related church activities.
The Tabernacle is the major centre for the Baptist Church in Queensland and site for the annual Assembly and other Union functions. Until recently it was the administrative headquarters for the Baptist Union.
","criteria":"The Baptist City Tabernacle, as the home of Brisbane's oldest Baptist congregation, is important in demonstrating the evolution of the Baptist Church in Queensland.
|The Baptist City Tabernacle is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular:
The Baptist City Tabernacle is significant for its contribution to the Brisbane townscape, Wickham Terrace and Upper Edward Street Streetscapes and as a city landmark.
The composition of the building's architectural elements and the quality and craftsmanship of the timber joinery and leadlight contribute the Baptist City Tabernacle's aesthetic significance.
|The Baptist City Tabernacle has a strong association with the Baptist Church, in Queensland, and has a special association with notable Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, as a major example of his ecclesiastical work.
|The Baptist City Tabernacle has a strong association with the Baptist Church, in Queensland, and has a special association with notable Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, as a major example of his ecclesiastical work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14951,"place_ref":600176,"name":"Commissariat Store (former)","alternate_name":"Colonial Store (1860-1898) | Commissariat Stores (former) | State Stores Building (1923-1960) | Government Stores (1898-1923)","street_address":"115-127 William Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Commissariat Store is a three-storey building set within an excavation in the ridge topped by William Street and facing the northern bank of the Brisbane River; the chief point of access to it being from William Street via a walkway connecting the top storey and footpath. The original path of entry from the river (and now demolished wharf) is from Queens Wharf Road through a paved yard, enclosed by a stone wall set with a central pair of iron gates (c1982).
The building is framed on the north-west and south-east by original retaining walls of roughly dressed and squared blocks of Brisbane Tuff brought to courses, and on the north-east by a combination of retaining wall types. The early arrangement featured lower and upper walls separated by a slim triangle of land opening to the south. The upper wall was concrete while the lower was stone and largely convict-built. The northern end of the upper concrete wall collapsed and destroyed half of the lower wall in 2011. The damaged part of lower wall has been rebuilt using salvaged stone (some Brisbane tuff dating from the original construction and some sandstone installed in the 1970s). The undamaged section of the lower wall features original Tuff blocks and upper sections of 1970s sandstone.[43]
The two lower levels of the building are built of stone - both sandstone and iron-stained Brisbane Tuff - and the upper storey is of rendered brick. The hipped roof is clad in corrugated galvanised steel sheeting and features a central fleche and gable centred on the Queens Wharf elevation, and two dormer windows facing William Street.
The south-western, river-facing elevation is divided into three bays by engaged piers at each building corner and the projection of the central section of wall; the widest bay being the central one under the gable. It features an arrangement of three openings (windows and doors) on each level, while the side bays feature two windows each level. The windows on the lower two storeys are casements, while those on the top storey are double-hung. An oeil-de-boeuf is centred under the gable in the same position as a small window in the 1829 structure. Below this on the upper storey is also the royal cypher of King George IV and the date 1829 in a recessed panel. A large double door with fanlight opens into the yard from the centre of the ground level elevation, and above it is another door.
The arrangement of windows on the William Street elevation is similar to that on Queens Wharf Road, however there are no bays. An arched hood supported on twin corbels shelters the double entrance doors. Inside the curve of the hood are the words Government Stores. As the upper level corresponds to the footpath level of William Street , these entry doors are accessed via a concrete walkway with iron balustrades. A modern ramp has been installed to the south of the walkway. The side elevations feature three windows each level.
Windows on the lower two storeys have arched heads, while those on the top level to the north-west and south-west have hoods. Many of the former windows have bars, some of which are original. There is also a door to the first floor from Miller Park on the north-west side of the building.
Many changes have occurred on the interior, which comprises a series of temporary partitions to create office, exhibition and storage space for the RHSQ.
Miller Park (excluding easement K/CP892185 in the north-west corner) contains no buildings, stepping down from William Street to Queens Wharf Road by means of a large terrace and a series of ramps and stairs. The c1982 landscaping consists of open areas of grass and plantings of various trees and shrubs. Park infrastructure includes concrete pathways and ramps with galvanised metal railings, brick garden edging and steps, lighting, seating and rubbish bins. The ramps, pathways and steps enable public access between William Street and Queens Wharf Road.
A path and gateway with glass security gate lead from Miller Park to the north-west entrance of the Commissariat Store. A stone retaining wall runs along the Queens Wharf boundary of Miller Park. The north-western half of the wall is the original convict-built construction predating 1838. The remainder is a c1982 replacement. None of the c1982 landscaping or infrastructure is considered of cultural heritage significance.
Although there is no physical surface evidence of potential archaeological remains, the documented history and usage of the site, and previous archaeological investigations including those undertaken following the January 2011 flood, indicates the potential for artefacts to remain subsurface in some areas of Miller Park.
","history":"The Commissariat Store was constructed of local stone in 1828-9 by Moreton Bay penal settlement convicts as a two-storey provisions store near the Brisbane River and what was to become Queen's Wharf. A third storey of rendered brick was added in 1913 to accommodate its continuing use as a government store and providing an address to William Street.
\nIn 1823 Moreton Bay was chosen as a penal settlement for secondary offenders or those who had re-offended while serving their sentence of transportation in Australia. It was intended to better control these convicts and affect a reform in them through isolation, hard labour, strict discipline and harsh living conditions. In 1824 Lieutenant Miller arrived at Redcliffe with 30 convicts. As this location proved unsuitable, the settlement was moved in 1825 inland to a ridge overlooking and bounded on three sides by the Brisbane River, and simple buildings were constructed to serve it.[1]
\nPenal colonies were run on a military system and so a commissariat directed the procurement, supply and distribution of essential goods, as well as serving as a custom house and bank. The first building used for this purpose in what would become Brisbane Town at Moreton Bay was a slab structure in the vicinity of the current intersection of Albert and Elizabeth streets. There were two other store structures at Amity Point and Dunwich on Stradbroke Island. In 1826 Captain Logan arrived as Commandant and began a works program that replaced key buildings with more substantial structures made of stone and brick. One of these was the Commissariat Store.[2] Along with houses for the Commandant, Commissariat officer and chaplain, it was erected on the ridge running parallel to William and George Street that remains the focus of government to the present day.[3]
\nA position near the river bank was selected for the new store, following recommended procedure, to allow goods to be conveniently loaded and unloaded from a wharf. This also provided a single point for the entry and distribution of tools, weapons, clothing and food rations to permit secure control of such vital supplies. The design was by William John Dumaresq (1793-1868) whose plans arrived from Sydney in April 1828; work on the foundations commencing some months later.[4] Dumaresq was also responsible for the design of the store at Dunwich completed in 1828.[5]
\nThe original river bank in this area was quite steep and the underlying rock was quarried to create a relatively level building platform.[6] The excavation work was heavy and carried out by the Gaol Gang of convicts as a specific punishment, but the masonry and other construction work required skilled labour and was most likely supervised by Lieutenant Thomas Bainbrigge, sent especially from Sydney with suitable workmen in 1827 and made Superintendent of Works for the colony the following year.[7] Some time after retaining walls were constructed around three sides of the store building; the one to William Street appearing in an 1838 cross-section and the two at each side in Petrie's front elevation of the building also dated to that year.[8]
\nIn common with the settlement's other new buildings, the Commissariat Store followed a simple design suitable for everyday use in a penal colony and was well constructed from local materials.
\nThe first outpost of the convict colony in Australia had been established in New South Wales in 1788, the settlement being almost immediately extended to Norfolk Island (abandoned in 1814 and re-established 1825), and then to Tasmania, to Newcastle (later to Port Macquarie), Moreton Bay and then to Western Australia (WA).[9] The only convict-built Commissariat Stores that survive today, aside from that in Brisbane, number seven. Two remain in WA in Fremantle (1852) and Guildford (1853-4) [both entered in the WA state Heritage Register]. Four remain in Tasmania and are listed in its state register: on Maria Island (1825, part of the Darlington Probation Station also nominated to the World Heritage List in 2008), in Hobart (1808-10), Launceston (1828, Commonwealth Heritage List as Paterson Barracks Commissariat Store) and Oatlands (1827). And one remains as part of the Kingston and Arthur's Vale Historic Area on Norfolk Island [1835, also nominated to the World Heritage List in 2008].
\nTwo of the earliest store buildings in New South Wales, both at Sydney Cove (1812) and Parramatta, have been demolished. Only three of the surviving buildings, all of which have been quite changed over time, are older than the store in Brisbane.[10] All built during a similar period and for the same purpose, the surviving store buildings exhibit a number of similar characteristics, which include: proximity to both a point of entry for goods and the settlement served, robust and utilitarian form communicating authority, and incorporating aspects of Georgian and Regency architectural styles such as symmetrical elevations with windows decreasing in size from lower to upper levels, and restrained, classically inspired decoration.
\nThe importance of the Brisbane store and its river frontage as a portal to the colony was emphasised by the addition of the royal cypher of King George IV and the date to the front, river-facing gable; features retained when the third storey was added later. The clear orientation towards the river (and what is now Queens Wharf Road) is also reflected in the stonework itself, which is evenly coursed at the front, but more random at the rear (William Street) and sides (Miller Park to the north-west). The Commissariat Store was built of Brisbane Tuff from the quarry at Kangaroo Point with sandstone from Oxley Creek used for footings, the base course, quoins, sills and lintels.[11] The windows were small, unglazed and barred for security and the roof was clad with ironbark shingles. It was completed in 1829.
\nThe only entry point into the penal settlement was via the adjacent wharf on the Brisbane River. Initially known as the King's Wharf or Jetty, it was constructed by 1827 when the boat crew's hut and boat builder's shed were first occupied. A crane was constructed on the end of the wharf in order to transfer goods from the arriving ships to the shore.[12] The main roadway into the settlement was up along the steep river bank following the present day alignment of Queens Wharf Road.[13] A pedestrian path developed along the slope from the wharf to the ridge of present-day William Street passing to the north-west of the Commissariat Store, through what is now Miller Park.[14] A retaining wall along the Queens Wharf Road frontage of Miller Park had been constructed by convicts before 1831. A wall, with an opening leading to stairs in a position corresponding to this path, appears in an 1838 plan.[15] A pencil sketch by Henry Boucher Bowerman dated c1835 shows a wall here with an arched opening a few metres up the hill from the store yard wall.[16]
\nThe penal colony closed in 1839 and Moreton Bay was declared open for free settlement in 1842. Other government buildings were soon sold or demolished but the Commissariat Store was retained for continued government use as a store. This did not require all the space available and allowed the upper floor to serve the government in a number of other capacities, being used for land sales in 1848 and intermittently to house immigrants during the 1850s.[17] During this time a door was cut through to the first floor on the north-western side of the building.[18] This enabled immigrants to enter the building through what is now Miller Park without the need to access the ground floor store. Proximity to the immigration barracks of the time (on the site of the Treasury Building [QHR 600143]), the former military barracks and guard house fitted out to receive immigrants in 1848, made the store a convenient place to accommodate overflow numbers. This use continued even after a purpose-built immigration barracks was constructed on land immediately to the south-east of the store in 1865-66 (95 William Street) and is likely to have only stopped when the new depot opened at Kangaroo Point in 1887.[19]
\nIn 1860, following the creation of the colony of Queensland, the store was renamed the Colonial Store. It was repaired and the upper floor was converted for use as police barracks. Eighteen new hardwood sash windows were added. Internally, six pine batten doors and a partition were constructed to provide married men's quarters and single men's barracks on the first floor. At this time a fireplace, new ironbark shingle roof, wall, window and door were added to the kitchen building in the yard (constructed there c1857). On the ground floor of the store, a raised timber floor was installed and the windows enlarged and glazed. [20]
\nThe storekeeper and a staff of twelve handled everything from oil for lighthouses to blankets for distribution to the Aborigines. A cottage for the storekeeper was constructed in the southern corner of the yard between 1861 and 1872, with a gabled extension to it completed in 1873.[21] During the ‘Bread and Blood' riots of 1866 an attempt was made to force entry to the store, possibly because it was seen as a symbol of government and its control of essentials.[22]
\nFurther north-west along William Street, the first purpose-built home of the Queensland Museum was constructed between 1876 and 1879 to a design by Francis Drummond Grenville Stanley [State Library (former) QHR 600177]. Over three storeys, it was intended this building comprise later stages. It created an area of open ground between its south-eastern side and the store that continued to be used as a pathway from the wharf area on the river and centre of town, and to provide access to the store's side door.
\nThe Colonial Store was repaired and added to as the colony grew. In 1886 a single-storey brick wing was added at right angles to the original building on its southern corner running out to the boundary of the yard to the Queens Wharf Road. The wing was used as a stationery annexe, and received an extra storey in 1900. It is unclear what changes to other structures in the yard were occasioned by the erection of this annexe. It is possible the c1857 kitchen building was moved to the adjacent land (now Miller Park) at this time and the storekeepers cottage moved or demolished.[23]
\nThe yard also contained a number of ancillary buildings for storage and other purposes. The stables (and shed) which were said to have stood in the western corner of the yard were destroyed by fire in 1888 and then rebuilt.[24] The old saddlery were destroyed in 1895 and replaced with a new building constructed between the store and the William Street retaining wall.[25]
\nIn October 1886, the Colonial Storekeeper had written to the Under Secretary of Works drawing his attention to the bad state of the wooden fence erected in William Street to back up the footpath in front of the store.[26] A timber embankment was erected in 1887-89 (above and about 1.5 metres away from the earlier retaining wall) and fill was used to even out the land surface.[27] In 1890 the timber embankment was replaced by a concrete retaining wall that cut through the existing land fill.[28]
\nA strong room was built in the Commissariat Store for record books in 1888 and in 1889 William Street was lowered necessitating some underpinning of the existing retaining wall.[29] The roof shingles were replaced with corrugated iron about this time. In 1898, as Federation approached, the store building was renamed the Government Stores.[30]
\nIn time, and as the city developed, the river location became less convenient. By 1907 it was deemed by the storekeeper to be too far from the steamer wharf and railway station. In 1911 he suggested that if relocation was not possible, the addition of a lightweight upper storey with access to William Street would be helpful, providing increased floor space and improving lighting and summer cooling conditions. This suggestion was adopted and the work was commenced by contractor William Kitchen at a cost of £2194 pounds in late 1912.
\nThe new storey was constructed of rendered brick in a Georgian Revival style sympathetic to the existing building. To keep costs down, as many as possible of the old roof timbers were reused and clad with new corrugated iron. A ventilation fleche and dormer windows were inserted to allow the attic space to be used and timber columns were added to the lower floors to help support the extra weight. A gantry and new main entrance to William Street with a semicircular hood effectively changed the orientation of the building towards the city. A new concrete retaining wall was constructed along part of the Miller Park frontage on William Street. The timber paling fence extended the full width of both lots was refurbished. Work was completed in 1913 and an electric goods lift added the following year.[31]
\nIn 1923, the State Stores Board was created as an initiative of the Labor government to facilitate efficient and economical purchase and distribution of goods used by government departments. This system ran with little change until the 1980s and it was administered from the former Commissariat Store, now renamed the States Stores Building. As storage needs increased, some sections moved to other buildings and in 1960 Stores vacated the building. Queensland State Archives then occupied the ground floor until 1968 and various government departments used the upper floors. Some alterations were made to accommodate their use, including installation of a new lift, which necessitated the removal of the penthouse of the 1914 lift, and probable removal of the fleche.[32]
\nA plan from 1944 indicates that a number of ancillary buildings stood in the yard surrounding the Commissariat Store at that time, including: the two-story brick annexe in the southern corner (1886 and 1900); a packing case shed in the western corner; storage sheds along the northern part of the eastern elevation and the north and south-eastern walls of the building; a saddlery store along the entire north-eastern wall of the building (almost filling the gap between the building and the retaining wall to William Street); and a toilet block in the northern corner of the site.[33]
\nDuring World War II (WWII), occupants of the store utilised a stair and walkway constructed at the top of the William Street retaining wall to access an air raid shelter associated with the adjacent Agriculture and Stock Building (95 William Street).[34] It has been suggested that in 1945 an air raid trench constructed in the open land adjacent to the Commissariat Store (now Miller Park) was filled in.
\nOne of the sheds in the yard was demolished and rebuilt in 1952-53. A few years later the timber fence running along the store and park lots on William Street was replaced in chain wire. In the 1960s the saddlery store and another timber shed were demolished. The pedestrian bridges leading into the store from William Street and the open ground to the north-east (now Miller Park) were rebuilt in concrete, with the original iron balustrades and gate being reused.[35]
\nThe 1870s museum building on William Street had become the free Public Library of Queensland by 1902. Having housed the John Oxley Library from 1931, the building's name was changed to the State Library of Queensland in 1971. In 1958 major extensions were designed to commemorate the centenary of Queensland's creation as a separate colony from New South Wales. This work was complete by 1959 and involved the construction of a large loading dock in the north-western corner of the adjacent block (where Miller Park would be established in 1980). This dock stands within easement K/CP892185 (outside the heritage boundary) and destroyed part of the convict-built retaining wall along Queens Wharf Road and extinguished the archaeological potential of that area of land.
\nThe heritage value of the Commissariat Store has long been recognised and in 1959 it was included on the first shortlist of places recommended for preservation by the Queensland government. Extensive repairs were carried out to the stonework over a number of years and in 1970 a mason's workshop was set up in the yard to facilitate this work. In 1976 the building was vacated and the Royal Historical Society of Queensland (RHSQ) was granted occupation. The two-storey brick annexe was demolished at this time. Extensive renovations were completed to the Commissariat Store building between 1978 and 1979 including removal of the staircase, lift and strongroom and replacement of the 1861 flooring on the ground floor with masonry. The roof was tiled over new steel framework.
\nAn archaeological investigation of the ground floor and ceiling spaces of the Commissariat Store was also undertaken in 1978 as part of the restoration works.[36] An underfloor U-shaped brick drain was revealed during excavations (running under the centre of the building and appearing to drain from William Street toward the river).[37] A wide range of artefacts were recovered in deposits below the floorboards, in the drain and in the ceiling spaces dating from the entire period of occupation and use of the building.[38] The level of disturbance in the yard areas around the store – occasioned by the demolition of a range of yard buildings founded on concrete slabs - suggests it is unlikely that further archaeological evidence will be found under these areas.[39] There is some potential to find artefacts in the land now occupied by Miller Park.
\nThe land adjacent to the north-west of the Commissariat Store was officially gazetted as a park reserve in 1980 and named Miller Park after Captain Henry Miller, the first Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal settlement.[40] The Store was officially opened as the headquarters of the RHSQ at this time. In 1982 in the Store's yard a paved driveway, grassed area and work shed for the stonemasons (later demolished in 1997) were installed. At this time a new stone wall and metal gates were also constructed to the Queens Wharf Road boundary of Miller Park, leaving a short section of convict-built stone wall. The park was also landscaped including construction of new ramps, staircases, retaining walls, rails and brick paths, the installation of lighting, seats, rubbish bins and new turf and plantings. None of these features are considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nA conservation plan was prepared for the Department of Public Works in 1998 and work began to reverse or modify inappropriate changes made during the renovations of the 1970s. The store's roof was re-sheeted in wide pan galvanised steel and the fleche reconstructed to recall its appearance in 1913. New pointing was completed both inside and out. The stair to the walkway on Miller Park was rebuilt. A new plywood floor was installed on the ground level, as were new steel tension members to the adzed beams there. A new lift, toilets and services, glass partitions and balustrades, and suspended ceiling on the top level were also installed at this time. This work was completed in late 2000, after which the building also housed the collection and library of the RHSQ, which continues to occupy the building in 2012.
\nThe store was damaged by a burst water main during the flood of January 2011. Half of the William Street retaining wall between Miller Park and the walkway into the Store collapsed, sending over 75 cubic metres of sediment and debris into the yard and ground floor areas.[41] A large concrete slab pierced the ground floor wall on the northern corner of the building. Emergency works were undertaken to stabilise the damaged section. The store's wall was repaired by Queensland Government stonemasons using original pieces of building stone salvaged from the debris.
\nAn archaeological salvage project recovered 8579 artefacts from the debris. Artefacts included ceramic, glass and faunal materials dating from the 1850s through to the 1880s. The artefacts derive from a single depositional unit of land fill within the stratigraphy of the site that dates to the construction of the timber retaining wall in 1887.[42]
","criteria":"Completed in 1829, the former Commissariat Store demonstrates the evolution of European settlement in Queensland, being one of only two buildings surviving from the Moreton Bay penal colony, having become a government store when free settlement was established until the 1960s and accommodating a range of other government uses, including serving as an overflow point for immigrants from the 1850s until 1887 when the Yungaba depot opened [QHR 600245]. Changes to the fabric and orientation of the building over that time reflect the development of Brisbane. The adjacent area of land, now known as Miller Park, has been an open space since the earliest European settlement, and continues to provide a pedestrian thoroughfare linking the river and city.
|As a key penal colony structure the former Commissariat Store is a very rare survivor in Queensland and, being one of only eight convict-built commissariat buildings remaining in Australia, at a national level. The stone retaining walls that remain around the store and that fronting Queens Wharf Road along part of Miller Park are the only examples remaining in Queensland that were built by convicts. All these structures provide rare evidence of the building methods, skills and materials available at that time.
|Archaeological investigation of the Commissariat Store building and Miller Park, has the potential to reveal important information about the penal colony and the subsequent use of the site. This investigation may provide insight into official and unofficial uses of the space, the lifeways of convicts, arriving immigrants and other early residents, as well as the material culture of nineteenth century Brisbane.
|This place is important in retaining the principal characteristics of a penal-era Commissariat Store that adapted to free settlement and transformation into a Government Store, through its simple form, robust construction, Georgian and Regency architectural influences - all of which help impart to the building a sense of the authority it represented - and its location between the river (from where goods and immigrants arrived) and the centre of the penal and later free settlement.
|The Commissariat Store, the three retaining walls that carve its site out of the William Street ridge and the remaining section of wall on Queens Wharf Road are of great aesthetic value as landmarks, seen from William Street and from the Brisbane River. The place is an integral part of the most prominent and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland, which includes the: former Treasury Building [QHR 600143], former State Library [QHR 600177], former Land Administration Building [QHR 600123], Queens Gardens [QHR 600112], and the former Government Printing Office [QHR 600114].
|The Commissariat Store has a special association with Commandant Patrick Logan, as one of the few remaining components of his penal-era building program, which made a major contribution to the development of the colony and state of Queensland.
The building also has an enduring association with the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, its occupant since 1976 which has adopted the building's riverside elevation as the dominant feature of its logo.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14952,"place_ref":600177,"name":"State Library (former)","alternate_name":"Museum","street_address":"159 William Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former State Library is situated between William Street and the river, overlooking Queens Park (600112). It was the first of a major series of government buildings,the Treasury Building (600143), the Lands Administration Building (600123), and the Family Services Building (600111), which surround Queens Gardens (600112). It is adjacent to the William street retaining wall (600135).
The earliest part of the building was a three storeyed masonry structure with a sandstone facade. The facade is designed using classical elements, with a rusticated base and double-height columns rising from the piano nobile to support an entablature. The centre of the facade is marked by an aedicule containing an arched doorway, at ground level (the original entrance, now blocked in) and a small pediment above in the entablature. The large unfluted columns with lotus leaf capitals form a colonnade in front of the second and third storeys. Consoles rise through the entablature above each column. The top pediment is marked by stretches of balustrade. All the windows in this front facade are arched.
The interior of the first section was substantially remodelled in 1964-65, with the addition of a concrete frame structure, new floors, a mezzanine and air-conditioning.
The 1958-59 extension, to the west and south, is of four storeys, only one of which appears above William Street. The William Street frontage features a random pattered wall at the main entrance under a low-pitched copper-sheathed roof. The western wall is decorated with a large glass mosaic mural, 20.7 metres by 4.4 metres, the design suggesting primitive organic forms indicative of growth and development. On the river side is an aluminium sculpture approximately 6 metres high. Entitled Enlightenment, it depicts three figures reaching towards the sun, symbolising the dissemination of enlightenment to mankind. To the south the extension was designed as a series of concrete fin walls providing views of the river, private work areas and shade from the sun.
","history":"This building was constructed in two stages. The three-storeyed William Street section was erected by the colonial Queensland Government between 1876 and 1879, as the first purpose-built home for the Queensland Museum, which had been established in 1855. The four-storeyed extension was erected in 1958-59 as the Queensland Government's major centennial project.
In 1876 the design for the first section was completed under the supervision of colonial architect FDG Stanley, and a construction contract for £10,701 was let to W Macfarlane. The building was erected as stage one of a complex which was to incorporate two flanking wings housing the main staircases, and an arcade and colonnade fronting the river.
The choice of a classical style of architecture, modelled on 16th century Italian buildings and its central location close to the city's southern entrance, reflected the museum's importance in the scientific and cultural life of Brisbane.
The building was completed and occupied early in 1879, but proved inadequate for museum purposes. In 1881 the area below was levelled and the basement was extended. By 1884 the government was setting aside funds for a new museum building, but economic depression necessitated the museum remaining in the cramped William Street premises until removed to the former Exhibition Building at Gregory Terrace in 1899.
A £1,900 contract was let in September 1900 for conversion of the former museum building into premises for the free Public Library of Queensland, established in 1896. The library opened in the refurbished building in April 1902. The name was changed to the State Library of Queensland in 1971.
The John Oxley Library, established in 1926 as the principal centre for research material on Queensland history, was housed in the State Library building from 1931.
As a major centennial project, the library building was extended in 1958-59, at a cost of over £265,000. The additions, designed by government architects WG Thain, P Prystupa, U Stukoff, AJ Wheeler, D Davies and H de Jong, included an exhibition hall on the western side and reading rooms on the river elevation.
In 1958 national competitions were held for designs for a wall mural and sculpture to embellish the exterior of the new Centennial Hall. These were won by Victorian artist Lindsay Edward and Brisbane sculptor Leonard G Shillam. Shillam's aluminium sculpture was cast by the Non-Ferrous Foundry of Brisbane.
The extensions were opened officially in August 1959 by Princess Alexandra.
In 1964-65 the first section was gutted and renovated, including removal of the skylight, at a cost of over £227,000. The exterior brickwork may have been rendered at this time also. The William Street frontage remained largely intact, as one of the city's few surviving 1870s facades.
The State and John Oxley libraries removed to new premises in the Southbank Cultural Centre in 1988, since which time the William Street building has been utilised as a library store.
","criteria":"The former State Library provides evidence of the importance of the Queensland Museum as an institution in late nineteenth century Brisbane scientific and cultural life.
The former State Library is significant for its historical association with the 1958-59 extension, the major centennial project by the Queensland Government and for its association with the State Library of Queensland since 1902.
|The building is significant as an example of an 1870s public building in central Brisbane.
|The building is an integral member of the most prominent, important and cohesive group of government buildings in Queensland. As a fine classical facade by FDG Stanley, the building is significant for its architectural quality.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14954,"place_ref":600179,"name":"Bulimba House","alternate_name":"Toogoolawah","street_address":"34 Kenbury Street","suburb":"BULIMBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bulimba House is a fine two-storeyed sandstone and brick residence which sits on the rise of gently sloping hill, and is set in a garden containing mature trees. The house in its setting makes a picturesque contribution to the Bulimba townscape.
Bulimba House has a steeply pitched terracotta tiled gabled roof, with substantial chimneys rising above the roof line. The external form expresses a simple L-shaped plan; the front (north) elevation has two projecting gables to the western end, and a deep ground floor verandah with a terracotta tiled skillion roof to the eastern end. The back of the house (to the south) also has a deep ground floor verandah with a (now enclosed) verandah above.
The exterior is modestly detailed, comprising tooled square-coursed sandstone to the north, west and eastern facades, and English bond brickwork south. The roof tiles (c1919) have small turtle emblems. The front elevation has single central casement windows to the gable ends, with a projecting bay window to the ground floor. The windows have curved pressed metal hoods with heart-shaped motifs (a later addition), and the bay window has smooth grey sandstone dressings. The gable ends have deep timber boarded eaves with terracotta finials. The verandah is supported on chamfered octagonal timber posts with rounded capitals, and has timber boarded spandrel panels with internally exposed bracing. The verandah ceiling is timber boarded.
The south verandah also has chamfered octagonal timber posts and timber spandrels (now partly obscured by later alterations). The end elevations are more utilitarian, with only three openings to the west and a small room under the skillion roof surmounted by a gable end to the east. The brickwork to the back (south) elevation has up-struck mortar.
The interior contains some fine detailing. It has cedar and hoop pine joinery throughout. The centrally located entrance hall has cedar stairs with a finely turned and carved balustrade. An ogee-shaped archway decorates the foot of the stairs. The Dining Room has a deep plaster cornice, and a fireplace with a finely carved mantelpiece, and tiled and cast iron surrounds. It also contains a bay window which sits in an arched recess. The bay window has sliding internal timber shutters which are encased in timber panels under the window sill. The Drawing Room has a cornice with a deep shadow line, a deep three-piece pine and cedar skirting, and a cast iron and tiled fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. It has timber louvred shutters and timber double doors set in deep timber reveals opening onto the verandahs.
The upstairs rooms have raked ceilings, and contain fireplaces with timber and marble mantelpieces.
The gardens contain a circular drive, a timber flagpole and several of the mature trees on the property, which include mangoes, camphor laurels and jacarandas.
","history":"Bulimba House was erected in 1849-50 for early Queensland pastoralist David McConnel, who in 1841 had established Cressbrook in the Brisbane Valley, the second run in the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales.
\nIn mid-1849 he purchased 173 acres (69 hectares) of land on the angle of the Brisbane River approximately five miles downstream from Brisbane Town. The subtropical rainforest area was known to the local Aborigines as Tugulawa or Toogoolawah, meaning 'shape of heart'.
\nHere McConnel established an experimental farm, attempting to prove that cash-crop agriculture was a viable activity in Moreton Bay. Early crops included cotton, wheat, barley, maize, oats, lucerne, rye grass and yams.
\nWhilst residing at Kangaroo Point in the second half of 1849, McConnel employed builder Andrew Petrie to construct the house at Toogoolawah, the first masonry Tudor style homestead in the Brisbane region. The stone, as sandstone without directional grain, was quarried from the nearby Quarries Reach of the Brisbane River, and Moreton Bay cedar was employed in both the structure and the finishes.
\nCabinetmaker Robert Towell was engaged to craft most of the furniture on the spot, using local cedar and stained pine.
\nMcConnel and his wife Mary moved to Toogoolawah in December 1849, living in the detached service wing until the main house was completed. By 1852 they were using the Aboriginal name from the Whites Hill area which was already the official name for the whole parish - Bulimba, meaning place of the magpie lark or peewee.
\nSituated on a rise in the centre of the property, Bulimba House overlooked the entire estate and boasted sweeping panoramic views from every window. It functioned as the centrepiece of a model manorial farm which, besides the cash cropping, operated self-sufficiently with a dairy herd, numerous livestock and poultry, kitchen garden and extensive orchard.
\nBy 1853 the farm comprised 220 acres and included a variety of outbuildings: kitchen, laundry, store, stable, coachhouse, workrooms, dairies, barns and workers' cottages. In the early years eighty to one hundred men were employed on the estate, although some of these were probably seasonal, and various wives and daughters served in the house, kitchen, laundry and dairy.
\nIn manorial tradition, McConnel encouraged his workers to establish their own farms, selling them small portions of the Bulimba property for which they made regular repayments from their wages, and were given time off to clear and cultivate.
\nDue to Mary McConnel's ill health the property was sold in February 1853 to pastoralist Donald Coutts for £5,000, and the McConnels returned temporarily to Britain. Most of the household furniture also was sold at this time.
\nCoutts later subdivided the estate but remained in the house until his death in 1869. Thorpe Riding, who purchased Bulimba House in September 1871, sub-divided the property to smaller land parcels, which were sold following his death in 1877.[1] Since then the house has been owned or rented by a number of prominent Brisbanites including Arthur Edward Moore, premier of Queensland from 1929 to 1932, who purchased Bulimba House in 1935. The property remains a family home on a much reduced site of 0.65 hectares. Substantial additions to the rear of the house and some internal alterations were made during the 1970s by the owners at the time. The timber kitchen and service wing was demolished at this time. The current owners have undertaken extensive conservation work throughout the house and have refurbished the kitchen.
","criteria":"Bulimba House is significant historically as the focus of one of Brisbane's earliest experimental riverine farms, and has an important association with the growth of Bulimba as a farming community in the 1850s.
|It is rare as an early surviving sandstone homestead in Brisbane, and evidences the skills of Brisbane's early Scottish carpenters and stonemasons.
|The house is a fine, modestly-detailed building, containing some finely-detailed internal elements, and in its setting makes a picturesque contribution to the Bulimba townscape.
|The house is a fine, modestly-detailed building, containing some finely-detailed internal elements, and in its setting makes a picturesque contribution to the Bulimba townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14955,"place_ref":600180,"name":"Bulimba Memorial Park","alternate_name":"Jamieson Park | Bulimba Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Park","street_address":"129 Oxford Street","suburb":"BULIMBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bulimba Memorial Park comprises approximately 4.6 hectares of land in the heart of the suburb of Bulimba, bounded by Godwin Street to the west, Oxford Street on the north, Stuart Street to the east, and housing and sections of Barramul Street to the south. The extensive perimeter is delineated by regularly spaced timber posts, and the roadway boundaries ensure free access and visibility and plenty of street parking for park users. The ground is flat, and apart from some perimeter plantings, mostly comprises open playing fields.
The park contains a number of elements intended as memorials to local persons who served in the First World War. These include a gateway, memorial pillar, grandstand and perimeter trees.
1. memorial gateway [c1919], a wrought iron arch bearing the words Memorial Park, supported by a pair of solid timber posts, is located along the Oxford Street boundary.
2. memorial pillar [c1919], adjacent to the Oxford Street gateway, resembles a small solid lectern constructed of concrete. It has a square base and a short pedestal with cornice. A brass memorial plaque is set on the face of the lectern.
3. memorial trees [c1919-23], principally figs with alternating palms. The mature trees, mostly along Oxford Street, provide shade for spectators and locals enjoying the park's open space.
4. memorial grandstand [c1923], a two-storeyed timber structure with a gable roof of corrugated iron, located midway along the Godwin Street side of the park. The symmetrical front facade is dominated by a wide gabled bay which is flanked by access stairs that lead to the raked-back seating in the upper level. The sloped seating is balanced by the angle of the skillion roof of the rear changing rooms at ground level. The grandstand is open-sided, the roof being supported by slender timber columns with winged brackets. Decorative elements include dowel balustrades and lattice valance panels.
Other structures within the park include a shelter shed [c1920s] near the corner of Oxford and Stuart Streets, Girl Guides' Hall [1950s], former Scout Hut [1950s - now a soccer club], senior citizens' club [c1983], public toilets [1980s] and canteen [1980s].
The c1920s shelter shed is an open-sided structure, with timber posts with winged brackets supporting a short-ridged roof of corrugated iron.
The soccer club is a two-storeyed, L-shaped building with a corrugated iron gable roof. The ground floor is constructed of concrete bricks while the first floor is weatherboard, and there is an extensive timber deck at first floor level. The Girl Guides' Hall is a two-storeyed weatherboard structure with a gable roof of corrugated iron. The senior citizens' club, at the corner of Stuart and Barramul Streets, is a brick and glass, L-shaped structure. Near the 1923 grandstand are brick public toilets and a concrete block canteen, both with flat roofs.
","history":"Part of Bulimba Memorial Park may have been established by the Balmoral Shire Council as early as c1904, as Jamieson Park. Following the First World War [1914-18] it was opened officially on 1 November 1919 by WH Barnes MLA as the Bulimba Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Park, dedicated to Bulimba servicemen and women who had served in the Great War.
Robert Jamieson was an early Bulimba farmer and the park is part of his c1888 subdivision of portion 7. Bulimba ratepayers had discussed the acquisition of part of Jamieson's land for a recreation ground as early as January 1888, when it was offered to them at a reduced price. Nearly 4 acres [1.6 hectares] of this land eventually was acquired by the Balmoral Shire Council in 1904, and in subsequent years a number of adjacent subdivisions were incorporated within the park.
The first memorials erected in the park were the Oxford Road formal entrance gateway and an adjacent pillar. A plaque on the memorial pillar records that the park is dedicated to the soldiers, sailors and nurses who enlisted from Bulimba for service in the Great War 1914-1919.
Between 1919 and 1923 trees were planted along the Stuart, Godwin and Oxford Street frontages. Each tree bore a commemorative plaque honouring a serviceman killed in action. These plaques have since disappeared, and only six names are recorded. Most of the surviving memorial trees are located along Oxford Street.
The grandstand on the Godwin Street side was built about 1923 through local fund raising efforts. It has been suggested that the architect was GMH Addison, who designed the nearby Bulimba Ferry terminal building.
In 1925, the park became the property of the Brisbane City Council, following the creation of Greater Brisbane.
A shelter shed near the corner of Oxford and Stuart Streets appears to date from the 1920s. Other structures on the site include playground equipment adjacent to the shelter shed and 1950s Girl Guides and Boy Scouts buildings. The former Boy Scout Hut is leased by the Southside Eagles Soccer Club and has been extended. The Babs Shield Senior Citizens Club was built c1983. Other buildings include 1980s toilet facilities and a canteen.
During the 1980s the Brisbane City Council found that not all the subdivisions which comprised the park were Council owned. These were officially acquired, including the unformed James Street, and by 1990 the park contained over 4.6 hectares.
The park has been a venue for local cricket, rugby, soccer and other recreational uses since early this century. It is adjacent to the local shopping centre and it is the only remaining open park land with sporting facilities in the district.
","criteria":"Bulimba Memorial Park is significant as a First World War memorial park with extensive and varied components. The trees are significant for their commemorative function, aesthetic value and practical usage.
|The place is important as a Brisbane open space which, unusually, is available for both organised and informal recreational use.
|The grandstand is a fine example of interwar vernacular domestic architecture adapted to non-domestic use. The trees are significant for their commemorative function, aesthetic value and practical usage. The park is a community landmark which has been used for a variety of social and recreational functions for over eight decades, and its aesthetic value contributes significantly to the Bulimba townscape.
|The place is important as a Brisbane open space which, unusually, is available for both organised and informal recreational use. The park is a community landmark which has been used for a variety of social and recreational functions for over eight decades, and its aesthetic value contributes significantly to the Bulimba townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14956,"place_ref":600181,"name":"Walter Taylor Bridge","alternate_name":"Indooroopilly Toll Bridge","street_address":"Coonan Street","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Walter Taylor Bridge spans the Brisbane River from Indooroopilly to Chelmer, at the junction of the Chelmer and Indooroopilly reaches.
The deck is suspended from two sets of steel cables, each comprising twelve wire ropes, saddled on concrete towers at either end, and anchored in rock and concrete. Each of the mild steel saddles is positioned 35.6 m above high water mark, and the span between the towers is 183 m. The total weight of cable suspended across the river is 145.5 tonnes.
The design is of a rare type developed by American engineer D B Steinman and used first at Florianópolis, Brazil in 1926. The upper chords of the steel stiffening trusses slope upwards to join the cables at the quarter points, where they are clamped to the cables. In the centre half of the span the cables act as the upper chords, forming part of the stiffening trusses. There are no hangers in the side spans, the structure having straight back-stays.
A dual carriage road is carried on transverse timber decking supported by steel stringers and cross girders. Originally the bridge carried a 6.1 m roadway and a 1.7 m footpath, but this has been modified.
The pylons are constructed of steel-reinforced concrete. On the Indooroopilly side, the pylon rises 26.5 m above the foundations, which are formed on solid ground. The Chelmer pylon rises 38.4 m above pileheads at the water edge, which were driven at an average depth of 14.6 m into rock, and reinforced with concrete slabs and ties.
Both towers contain residential accommodation, with walls up to 1.7 m thick.
The northern approach is at ground level, but the southern approach is elevated, with three deck-type steel plate girder spans. The anchorages form part of the road approaches.
","history":"This steel and concrete suspension bridge was constructed by Indooroopilly Toll Bridge Ltd in 1932-36, as a private enterprise. It remains the longest span suspension bridge in Australia.
It was erected at a cost of approximately £85,000 by Brisbane contractor Walter Taylor. Taylor was the inspiration behind the project, the originator of the design concept, a director and secretary of Indooroopilly Toll Bridge Ltd, and the principal fund raiser.
Taylor had produced plans for a river bridge at Indooroopilly as early as 1924, but had failed to gain government support. In 1929 he presented a new proposal to the Brisbane City Council for a privately funded bridge, utilising the steel tie-back cables which had been employed in the cantilever erection of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
State Government approval was sought in July 1931. Under the subsequent Tolls on Privately Constructed Road Traffic Facilities Act of 1931, Taylor obtained a franchise in November 1931. This permitted collection of tolls for 35 years from the opening date or until paid for, plus retention of ten percent interest per year and working costs.
Design details for the steel superstructure were prepared by Queensland railway engineer Walter J Doak, and those for the reinforced concrete pylons and anchorages by Brisbane engineer Russell John McWilliam. In the 1920s McWilliam had been involved in the preparation of working drawings for Brisbane's new City Hall.
The bridge was erected in stages over four years as the finance became available, with work commencing on the Indooroopilly pylon in 1932 when the first £10,000 had been raised. Each stage was checked by the Main Roads Commission.
The residential accommodation provided in each of the towers remains unique in Australia. The apartments in the northern tower were occupied by the tollkeeper and those in the southern tower were occupied by the bridge supervisor. The southern pylon also housed a kiosk and boathouse beneath road level, catering for summer visitors to the then popular Chelmer sands.
The construction provided much needed employment for Brisbane workers at a time of economic depression. Most of the steelwork was completed in workshops erected on site, and with the exception of the ropes and cables, all the materials were procured or manufactured in Australia.
On 4 January 1936, Walter Taylor drove the first vehicle across the bridge, which was opened officially on 14 February 1936. It remained a toll bridge until handed over to the Brisbane City Council in 1965.
The bridge stimulated suburban development from Chelmer to Oxley and facilitated communication between Ipswich and Brisbane. It remains the only river traffic bridge between Chelmer and Indooroopilly.
Taylor died in 1955, and on 5 April 1956 the bridge was renamed officially as the Walter Taylor Bridge.
","criteria":"The Walter Taylor Bridge at Indooroopilly is significant for its integral role in Brisbane suburban development from Chelmer to Oxley, and as an historically important link between Ipswich and Brisbane.
|It is a rare Florianópolis-type bridge, and the only one of its kind in Australia. It also has rarity value as Australia's longest span suspension bridge, and is significant for its unusual incorporation of residential accommodation into the bridge structure.
|It is a rare Florianópolis-type bridge, and the only one of its kind in Australia.
|The Walter Taylor Bridge has landmark quality and makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the riverscape along the Indooroopilly and Chelmer reaches of the Brisbane River.
|It is significant for its innovations in design and implementation, as a major example of the design skills of engineers WJ Doak and RJ McWilliam, and as a tribute to the vision and energy of contractor Walter Taylor.
|It is significant for its innovations in design and implementation, as a major example of the design skills of engineers WJ Doak and RJ McWilliam, and as a tribute to the vision and energy of contractor Walter Taylor.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14957,"place_ref":600182,"name":"Ralahyne","alternate_name":"Koojarewon | Huntington | East View","street_address":"40 Enderley Road","suburb":"CLAYFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ralahyne is a single-storey timber building with a hipped roof of corrugated iron. The house is built side onto the street, with the front facade facing eastward across the grounds.
The southern elevation, which faces the street, consists of a long servants' wing which joins the dining room at the eastern end. The dining room is marked by a faceted projected bay. The eastern, or front elevation, is dominated by a wide verandah which features cast-iron balustrading and frieze panels. Twin bays, discernible only by their faceted hips in the roofline, project onto the verandah.
The northern elevation has two faceted projecting bays, one on either end, joined by a verandah similar to that along the front. At the western, or rear elevation, the ends of the northern and service wings are linked by a verandah enclosed with shutters to form a large ballroom which has a domed ceiling and skylights. This forms a shallow courtyard, the remnant of a much deeper one which once existed.
Timber ceilings are found in most rooms, the dining room featuring a coffered example with moulded beams. The drawing room has a carrara marble fireplace and two fluted columns which mark the beginning of the projecting bay. Substantial cedar joinery, including mantelpieces, is found throughout.
","history":"This single storeyed timber residence was built in 1888 for Robert Gray, the then under colonial secretary. It was designed by prominent architect George HM Addison and replaced a small four-roomed house on the site.
The 8 acre (3.2 hectare) property was called 'East View' until 1892 then Koojarewon until 1900 and then Huntington. Gray became Commissioner of Railways in 1889 and died in 1902.
The property was bought by Ada Laird who lived there with her husband until 1907. In 1904 the Lairds engaged the firm of Hall & Dods to undertake alterations and additions to the house valued at over £1000. Huntington was sold to Annie Millar in 1907 and renamed Nowranie. The Millars lived there until 1918 when it was sold to Ruby Winten. In 1920 the property was bought by Henrietta Watson who renamed it Ralahyne. It remained in the Watson family until 1985 when it was sold to the present owners. The property has been subdivided several times.
","criteria":"As an expression of the confidence in the 1880s boom and the future of its owner in the public service.
|As an example of the large houses built on the hills to the northeast of the city and of the increasing use of timber and iron for these houses.
|As a showcase for the design possibilities of timber, both in external features and interior decoration.
|As a showcase for the design possibilities of timber, both in external features and interior decoration.
|For its association with architects GHM Addison and RS Dods.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14958,"place_ref":600183,"name":"Stanley Hall","alternate_name":"St Rita's Convent School","street_address":"25 Enderley Road","suburb":"CLAYFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Stanley Hall is a substantial two-storeyed rendered masonry former residence located on the rise of Clayfield Heights. The building is located at the core of St Rita's College, overlooking a tree-lined entrance drive and front gardens to the north-east, and capturing expansive views to the north and the east.
Stanley Hall's complex form reflects its different stages of construction. The ground floor (1885-86) is oriented north-east, whilst the upper floor (1890) is orientated east west, creating another primary frontage for the building. The eastern elevation is asymmetrical and steps back to a single-storeyed bay to the south, with a two-storeyed bay at the northern end adjacent to an off-centre tower which rises to three storeys. The northern elevation is a more formal arrangement of two-storeyed bays flanking a now enclosed verandah. A ground floor timber verandah encircles the building. The corrugated iron roof comprises hipped roofs over bays projecting from central hipped roofs to the ground and first floors, and skillions to the verandahs. The tower has a crested mansard roof.
The building retains some of its rich ornamentation. The first floor bays on the northern frontage have single windows framed by pilasters, and are encircled with cornices, with a parapet with pediments above the windows. The two-storeyed parapeted bay to the eastern frontage has a (now enclosed) belvedere, with arched openings with imposts, extrados, keystones, small balustrades, and parapet with stepped cornice. The tower has rectangular windows to first floor level, surmounted by arched windows encircled in elaborately detailed Dutch gables. The Dutch gables have festooning and are interspersed with acroteria on pedestals. The tower makes a large footprint on the ground floor which frames the main entrance, and has arched openings with keystones.
The verandah which surrounds the building to north, east and partially to the west has timber boarded ceilings, fine lattice spandrels, and cast iron balustrades. It is supported on paired, chamfered posts with small curvilinear valances. On the northern frontage, substantial timber posts and bases with arched cast iron valances which are probably part of the 1885-86 building are located within the verandah.
Internally, Stanley Hall comprises grander rooms relating to the projecting bays at the ends of the building, interlinked by more modest and service rooms, accessed by central corridors on each level. The building contains finely crafted elements throughout. The centrally located main entrance has fine stained glass surrounds with a hibiscus motif. The entrance hall opens onto an impressive cedar staircase with richly turned and carved balusters and newels, and fine timber panels. The corridors to the ground floor have fluted cedar panels to dado level, and panelled cedar doors. The former dining room to the south has a fireplace with a richly carved timber mantelpiece, and fine hand-painted tiled hearth. The Drawing Room to the north has an arcade which separates a central rectangular space from peripheral pocket spaces formed by the projecting bays. The arcades have cast iron column on cedar-encased bases with floriated capitals, and extrados and keystones to the arches. The drawing room fireplace has richly carved surrounds. The "Prince of Wales" room immediately behind the Drawing Room has a marble mantelpiece, and tall timber doors opening onto the verandah. Amongst the ground floor service rooms is a former strong room which contains a substantial cast iron safe. The first floor contains bedrooms, and a former bathroom with an access hatch to the tower; these rooms command an excellent view of Eagle Farm.
Stanley Hall retains much of its earlier ironmongery, including push plates and locks which are more richly ornamented in living areas of the building and more plain in service areas.
The grounds of Stanley Hall to the north-east contain mature trees including camphor laurels, jacarandas, figs, palms, and several species of pines, which mark the boundaries, line the driveway and intersperse the grounds.
","history":"This large masonry residence was erected c1885-86 as a single-storeyed building for successful Brisbane produce dealer John William Forth. The house was remodelled and two-storeyed additions were constructed for the subsequent owner, Western Queensland pastoralist Herbert Hunter, in 1890.
The site was part of a larger parcel of land, comprising portions 86-90, parish of Toombul, first alienated by Brisbane businessman James Sutherland in 1858. Sutherland's interest in this property was purely speculative. He later subdivided portions 86 & 87 into four allotments, but in 1879 transferred the bulk of these subdivisions (approximately 23 acres) to Queensland pastoralist and politician, William Alcock Tully. Tully also acquired the property as an investment, and in 1881 sold subdivisions 3 & 4 of portions 86 & 87, comprising over 12.5 acres, to another Queensland pastoralist, politician and businessman, Charles Lumley Hill. This property was transferred in January 1885 to John William Forth, who subsequently erected Stanley Hall on the site.
John Forth and his wife Selina had arrived in Brisbane in May 1857, when in their early twenties, and had been associated with the development of Brisbane for close to thirty years before acquiring the Albion (now Clayfield) property. Forth built up a successful wholesale and retail produce business in Brisbane, and was alderman for the East Ward in 1882 and 1883. In the early 1880s, the family - which included 10 children by August 1880 - was resident on Wickham Terrace. Stanley Hall appears to have been erected for the Forth family in 1885-86.
The Forths resided only a short time at Stanley Hall. Clara Forth, their 20 year old daughter, died there in 1886, and shortly after the family returned from a visit to Europe toward the end of the year, John Forth was killed while helping transplant trees in a paddock near his home, on 28 December 1886.
The property had been transferred to Selina Forth in April 1886, but after John's death the family moved back to Wickham Terrace in 1887, and let Stanley Hall to Brisbane sharebroker and commission agent John Wilson. In August 1888 the property was transferred to Herbert Hunter, who at the same time borrowed £6,000 from Selina Forth.
Hunter had emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1863, when aged 27. He tried a variety of jobs, eventually gaining employment as a clerk on William Miles' Dulacca sheep station, on the Condamine near Roma. In 1866, Hunter married Miles' daughter, Jessie, and ran Dulacca for his father-in-law for some years. Miles transferred to Hunter the lease of Redford station in the Maranoa district in the early 1870s, and Victoria Downs in the Warrego district by the mid-1870s. Hunter had disposed of Redford by the mid-1880s, but retained the vast consolidated run of Victoria Downs. Stanley Hall was purchased in 1888 as his town house.
A successful grazier and horse racing enthusiast, Hunter appears to have acquired Stanley Hall more for its proximity to the racecourse at Eagle Farm than for the house itself, which he subsequently re-developed into the present grand residence. In 1889, he commissioned Brisbane architect GHM Addison to remodel the existing house and design extensive additions, at a cost of £3,550. The house was virtually re-built 1889-90, and an upper storey and tower were added, permitting views of the nearby racecourse, and across the Brisbane River to Moreton Bay. A gabled timber coachhouse and stables were erected near the house, and an extensive orchard was established, occupying the block now bounded by Enderley and Alexandra Roads and Florence and Craven Streets.
Hunter eventually sold Stanley Hall in 1910 to wealthy pastoralist Edward Goddard Blume, who owned a string of stations (principally sheep) throughout Queensland and New South Wales. Like Hunter, he owned several racehorses, and won a number of Melbourne and Caulfield cups. Blume was well known in Queensland social circles, and during the visit of the Prince of Wales to Brisbane in July 1920, entertained the Prince at Stanley Hall.
In the early 1920s, Blume subdivided and sold off the bulk of the property, and in 1926 the house, on 4.5 acres of land, was sold to the Order of the Sisters of the Presentation in Queensland for £22,000. At Stanley Hall, the sisters established the present St Rita's Convent School in September 1926. In subsequent years the school expanded, with the first new building erected in 1939. The attached, single-storeyed kitchen and service wing was demolished in 1968 to make way for a new classroom block, and the coachhouse and stables no longer survive. None of the post-1926 structures is included in the Entry in the Heritage Register.
","criteria":"Stanley Hall survives as a substantially intact grand residence of the late 1880s and early 1890s in Brisbane. It was associated with two prominent Queensland pastoralists for over 35 years, and as their lavish town residence, well illustrates Queensland's former economic dependence on the pastoral industry.
|Stanley Hall survives as a substantially intact grand residence of the late 1880s and early 1890s in Brisbane. It was associated with two prominent Queensland pastoralists for over 35 years, and as their lavish town residence, well illustrates Queensland's former economic dependence on the pastoral industry.
|Stanley Hall has a picturesque external form which reflects the stages of its construction and particular interests of its former owners, and contains some finely crafted internal elements. It is a fine example of the work of Brisbane architect GHM Addison.
|Since 1926, the place has been associated with the work of the Catholic Church in female secondary education in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14959,"place_ref":600184,"name":"Tarranalma","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"18 Tarranalma Avenue","suburb":"CLAYFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Tarranalma is a large two-storeyed house built in rendered brick with a corrugated iron roof. The house is surrounded by 8 feet (2.4 metres) wide verandahs on both floors, which are interrupted by four double-storey projecting bays featuring bow windows.
On the ground floor the square core contains the drawing, breakfast, dining and billiard rooms around a central hallway. The hallway leads to the substantial service wing which includes the kitchen, two large pantries, two bedrooms and a bathroom. A large staircase between the dining and billiard rooms leads to four large bedrooms which repeat the layout of the main rooms below. Above the service wing are five smaller bedrooms linked to the service rooms by a staircase at the far end of the wing.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick house was built in 1890 for James Milne of the firm Smellie & Co. Although no architect is known, the house has many similarities to Verney by Richard Gailey.
In 1910 Milne offered Tarranalma as a possible government house, but his price was too high. In 1919 he sold the property to George Logan who was a prominent pastoralist. Originally it stood in some 12 acres (4.8 hectares) of grounds but from 1926 to 1929 Logan subdivided and sold off most of the property.
After the death of his widow Susan in 1963, the house was converted into seven flats. In 1984 Tarranalma was sold to its present owners who have restored it as a family home.
","criteria":"As evidence of the confidence of the 1880s boom.
|As characteristic of the large houses built on the hills to the northeast of the city and stylistically similar to contemporary houses such as Monte Video and Verney.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14960,"place_ref":600185,"name":"Queen Alexandra Home","alternate_name":"Hatherton/ Queen Alexandra Home for Children | Alexandra House - College of Tourism and Hospitality | Alexandra House - College of Catering and Hospitality Services","street_address":"347 Old Cleveland Road","suburb":"COORPAROO","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Queen Alexandra Home, located on the crest of a rise fronting Old Cleveland Road to the northwest, is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building consisting of an 1886 section named Hatherton with a 1919 wing to the southwest called Kingsbury.
The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof to Hatherton and a gambrel roof to Kingsbury. It has verandahs to three sides and service buildings attached to the rear. The verandahs have cast iron balustrade, valance, brackets and paired columns. The northeast and southwest verandahs have been enclosed with multi-paned windows and hardboard panelling.
Hatherton is frontally symmetrical, with a slightly projecting gabled porch accessed by a short flight of steps with an arched valance above. The gable has a fretwork panel, decorative bargeboard and finial, and the main entry consists of an arched fanlight and sidelight assembly of etched glass with carved timber mouldings and panelled timber door. Step out sashes, with incised architraves, open to the verandahs on both levels. The rear of the building has a two-storeyed kitchen wing with a sub-floor room and covered walkways accessing adjacent structures.
Internally, Hatherton has a central corridor with a tiled foyer leading through an archway with plaster mouldings to a timber staircase. This has a cast iron balustrade, carved timber newel post, timber panelling and an arched leadlight sash window at the landing level. This space is decorated with a stencil dado, and has timber architraves, skirtings and panelled doors with glass fanlights. The ground floor has two rooms to the northeast, with the northern room having a white marble fireplace surround with painted tile inserts and the other having a darker marble surround with black stone in relief and painted tiles. The southwest side consists of one large room with a red and green marble fireplace surround, with painted tile inserts, at the southern end. The first floor consists of four rooms, with only the northern room containing a marble fireplace surround, but this has been damaged with the mantle piece missing. A bar has been inserted on the southwest side and a dumb waiter at the rear connecting the kitchen below. Apart from the foyer, kitchen and bar, Hatherton is carpeted throughout.
Kingsbury, containing a large function room with two central timber columns to both floors, has french doors and step out sash windows, with incised architraves, opening to verandahs. Casement windows open to the rear, the ground floor is timber and the first floor is carpeted.
Attached to the southern corner is a single-storeyed weatherboard building with a corrugated iron gable roof and concrete stumps. This has been fitted out as toilet facilities.
To the south of the kitchen wing is a two-storeyed classroom structure with a corrugated fibrous cement gable roof. The ground floor is brick and the first floor is weatherboard, and it is linked to the rear of Hatherton by a covered timber walkway.
Queen Alexandra Home has a concrete driveway to the northwest with memorial metal gates fronting Old Cleveland Road. A masonry retaining wall fence encloses an area of lawn with rose beds and a central flag pole. The L-shaped College of Tourism and Hospitality surrounds the building from the northeast to the south, with small areas of garden on the northeast and carparking to the south. A driveway is located on the southwest boundary.
","history":"Hatherton, a two-storeyed brick residence was erected in 1886 near the intersection of Old Cleveland and Cavendish Roads in Coorparoo. A wing, named Kingsbury, was added in 1919.
The design of Hatherton is attributed to the firm of John Hall and Son, and the contractor was Abraham James. Hatherton was built for Brisbane businessman Reuben Nicklin, manager of the Brisbane Office of Butler Brothers, Saddlers and Ironmongers. Prior to moving to Hatherton, Nicklin and his family lived at Langlands, also at Coorparoo, which had been built for Nicklin in the early 1880s.
By the late 1880s, Coorparoo was still principally a rural area, despite several estates having been subdivided and the suburb being connected to South Brisbane by rail. The population of Coorparoo was small, and dispersed around the Old Cleveland and Cavendish Roads intersection.
Nicklin and his wife Jane Lahey drowned in February 1890, when the RMS Quetta sank in Torres Strait, en route to England. Their daughter Alice, was one of only two European women to survive the shipwreck.
Hatherton was occupied by various people including members of the Nicklin and Lahey families as well as the Hon AJ Carter MLC, until 1911 when the building was acquired by the Methodist Church. The church had established its first children's home, named the Queen Alexandra Home for Children, the previous year at Robgill, in Indooroopilly. The home was managed and controlled by the Queen Alexandra Ladies' Committee. By 1911 the Home required additional room, and in December that year the staff and children were transferred from Indooroopilly to Hatherton. Hatherton was officially opened as the Queen Alexandra Home for Children in March 1912. The Nicklin family maintained their involvement with the place, as WL Nicklin (son of Reuben Nicklin) was one of the trustees of the property for the Methodist Church.
By 1918 the Home was filled to capacity, and in 1919 tenders were called by architect HGO Thomas for brick additions to Queen Alexandra Home. The foundation stone of the additions was laid in October that year, and the contractor was Mr Hobbs. The new wing was named Kingsbury in memory of Mrs JJ Kingsbury, first president of the Home. Subsequent additions during the 1920s increased the capacity of the Home from fifty to 100 children. During the mid-1940s, day pupils from Somerville House were taught at the Home.
In 1958 the Methodist Church changed its policy on child care from institutional homes to group family homes, and the last children were transferred from the Home in 1960. The building was purchased by the Queensland Government and used by the Education Department for domestic science education. During this period, the building was known as Alexandra House.
In 1963 an annexe was constructed at the rear of the House, and from 1967 further facilities were added to the site. In 1977 the building became the College of Catering and Hospitality Services, Coorparoo, being renamed the College of Tourism and Hospitality (COTAH), in 1984.
Queen Alexandra Home was extensively refurbished for use as a community centre in 1986-87, and most of the additions and partitions in the Kingsbury wing were removed at this time.
","criteria":"The location of Queen Alexandra Home on Old Cleveland Road demonstrates the development of Coorparoo as a residential area from the 1880s.
|Queen Alexandra Home, comprising a substantial 1880s masonry residence, has strong aesthetic qualities including the use of highly decorative cast iron.
|The building maintains a special association with the community and with the work of the Methodist Church, through its use as a children's home, college of further education and community centre.
|The building maintains a special association with the community and with the work of the Methodist Church, through its use as a children's home, college of further education and community centre. The building is also associated with the Nicklin family, being erected for Reuben Nicklin.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14961,"place_ref":600186,"name":"Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site","alternate_name":"Eagle Farm Womens Prison | Eagle Farm Agricultural Establishment","street_address":"116 Lamington Avenue","suburb":"EAGLE FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The old Eagle Farm airport, of which the site of the former Eagle Farm convict settlement form part, is bounded on the south by Lamington Avenue and the Pinkenba Railway, to the east by Viola Place, to the west by the Gateway Arterial Road, to the north-west by a drainage channel and to the north-east by Lomandra Drive and Cassia Place. The land in the centre of the area is now flat and featureless, apart from remnant structures from WWII and the remains of runways from the post-war development of the airport.
Virtually none of the old airport area exists as it did prior to European settlement. Only the foundations of the Eagle Farm Settlement survive. During the construction of the Brisbane Airport in WWII, the site was covered with a variable depth of fill.
","history":"In September 1829 Commandant Patrick Logan of the Moreton Bay penal settlement founded a secondary agricultural establishment approximately eight miles from the town, at Eagle Farm. One hundred and fifty men were deployed to clear the site, and by January 1832 about 680 acres (272.5 hectares) were under cultivation with mostly maize and some potatoes, some cattle and pigs were also being raised.
Working so near the Eagle Farm swamp caused a noticeable increase in malaria amongst the convicts, but despite calls for its abandonment, the farm was maintained. By 1836, 768 acres (307.2 hectares) had been cleared, but no more than 46 acres (16.4 hectares) were under cultivation.
Female convicts are recorded at Eagle Farm from 1830, and by 1836 there were forty. Stationing female felons at Eagle Farm was an attempt to reduce fraternisation between the women and male convicts and the military, the latter being forbidden to cross the bridge at Breakfast Creek. Despite these precautions, assignations were frequent. By the end of June 1836 the construction of strong slab cells at Eagle Farm was considered necessary. In 1837 all female prisoners in Brisbane Town were removed to Eagle Farm. By November 1838 the decision had been taken to abandon the Moreton Bay penal settlement.
By March 1839 the Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory consisted of a Supervisor's cottage with walls plastered internally and externally, with detached slab kitchen at rear. A two-roomed hut occupied by male convicts and two-roomed hut serving as matron's quarters, with another room under construction and a slab kitchen at rear. All were slab buildings including the Female Factory which comprised a number of four-roomed accommodation buildings; a store, a school, a hospital (plastered) and workhouse, each of one room; a two-roomed building housing the cook house and needle room; and a block of six cells. The area was surrounded by a double fence, the outer being a stockade of strut poles with sharp tops, 17 feet (5.2 metres) high, 320 feet (97 metres) long and 311 feet (94 metres) deep.
By July 1839, however, all the female convicts had been removed and Eagle Farm was virtually abandoned, although it was still functioning as a government cattle station in 1841.
In 1842 the land was surveyed, put up for public auction and subsequently farmed. The buildings were demolished at an unknown date.
The area was associated with civil aviation from 1922, and was covered with a fill of variable depth during construction of a major air base at Eagle Farm in 1942. Brisbane Airport operated here from 1948 until 1988.
The site remains one of only six surviving in Brisbane from the convict period, with the former Moreton Bay penal settlement being one of only seven sites in Australia associated with secondary punishment.
","criteria":"The Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site is significant as one of few sites surviving in Brisbane from the convict period and a remnant of only seven sites associated with secondary punishment in Australia. Further, the Women's Prison and Factory Site is one of even fewer sites, both in Brisbane and in the national context, associated specifically with female felons.
|The Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site is significant as one of the earliest sites of building activity in Queensland, initial construction having occurred within 5 years of the establishment of the settlement of Brisbane Town.
|The Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site has potential to reveal substrata evidence of a number of factors including the administration of the convict system in the final years of transportation, the confinement and punishment of female convicts, building materials and construction technology and artefacts associated with the activities, occupations and social status of groups and individuals.
|The establishment of the Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory Site is associated with early historical figures such as New South Wales Governor, Darling and Commandant Logan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14962,"place_ref":600187,"name":"Eskgrove","alternate_name":"Grey Eagles | Eskgrove Cottage","street_address":"56 Laidlaw Parade","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is an 1850s low-set, single-storeyed sandstone house which originally consisted of a square stone core with a projecting front room and a rear service wing.
The house has a steep sloping broken-back corrugated iron roof topped by a pyramidal chimney ventilator. External walls are painted pebble dash render over the original sandstone, with plain margins along the base line, wall edges and around the doors.
There is a verandah on three sides of the core and a pavilion on the rear eastern side. The front and western verandahs are supported by precast aluminium doric columns. Pairs of french doors on either side of the projecting vestibule have wooden shutters.
Brick walls divide the interior into four rooms. The two front rooms share a back-to-back fireplace. French doors provide assess between rooms and onto the verandah.
The rear wing also has a broken-back roof and is built of stone with a timber pediment back and front. In 1985 this wing comprised three bedrooms.
Various rear extensions in asbestos sheeting and weatherboards include bathrooms, extended verandah and laundry.
Many mature trees provide ample shade for this pre-separation colonial dwelling which remains substantially intact in form.
","history":"This single-storeyed stone residence was erected in 1853 for former Sydney bank manager Archibald Hepburn Hutchinson, on land he had acquired from surveyor James Charles Burnett earlier the same year.
Burnett had alienated Eastern Suburban Allotments 51-53, a property of just over 12.5 acres [about 5 hectares] fronting the Brisbane River near Norman Creek, between November 1851 and December 1852. Whether Burnett resided on this land is not clear.
Hutchinson acquired title to all three allotments in February 1853, for the sum of £88/10/1. It is likely that a report in The Moreton Bay Courier of 18 June 1853, mentioning the construction for Mr Hutchinson of a stone building for a dwelling house, on the bank of the river below Kangaroo Point, refers to the construction of Eskgrove.
By the mid-1850s there were only three river estates along the south bank of the Brisbane River from Shafston Reach to Norman Creek: Shafston House [commenced in 1851 as Ravenscott for Rev. Robert Creyke and completed in 1852 as Shafston House for Henry Stuart Russell - (QHR 600241)]; the Rev. Thomas Mowbray's Riversdale [probably constructed c1851 - now the site of Mowbray Park - (QHR 600189)] and Eskgrove (QHR 600187). All three houses were of stone construction.
Hutchinson died at Eskgrove in 1854, following which his wife and children appear to have returned to Sydney. Their Brisbane house was retained as a rental property. Eskgrove was a middle-class residence with fine river views, and was occupied by a number of persons prominent in the development of early Queensland, including squatters William Kent Jr [1857-58] and Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior [1858-59], Governor Bowen's private secretary Abram Moriarty [1859-60], Lieutenant George Poynter Heath, RN, Portmaster of Queensland [c1861-c1865] and Robert Kerr Acheson by 1868.
The Brisbane Courier of 26 September 1868 described the property as pleasantly situated on the bank of the river, containing six rooms, with kitchen and two servants' rooms, stables and outhouses attached, standing in a well grassed thirteen acre paddock and has a kitchen garden.
By 1876 William David Nisbet, Chief Engineer Harbours and Rivers, had taken up residence. However, it appears that the place still retained a close association with the Hutchinson family, for when Catherine Isabella Hutchinson [Archibald's daughter] married squatter Andrew Bowman in March 1877, her normal place of residence was given as Eskgrove, Brisbane.
In 1880 Nisbet purchased the house and the whole of the Eskgrove estate from the Hutchinson family for £2,000. Title was transferred to Brisbane businessmen NJ Howes and AS Leslie in 1885, at which time the estate was subdivided and Thomas Scanlan, a Woolloongabba publican and later Mayor of South Brisbane, purchased the house and about 4 acres [1.2 hectares] of land. An 1885 plan of the Eskgrove Estate, shows that the house comprised a square core with one large rear wing, with a shed and stables located between the house and Lytton Road.
Following Scanlan's death in December 1892, Eskgrove again became a rental property. As part of the realisation of Scanlan's estate, Eskgrove was offered for sale early in 1895, at which time the property comprised a stone house with a timber wing and timber outbuildings on 2 roods 33.3 perches [this included a river frontage, as Laidlaw Parade did not yet extend between Scanlan and Eskgrove streets], plus another 3 acres 1 rood 7.1 perches with a long frontage to the Brisbane River and to Lytton Road. By 1902 Laidlaw Parade had been extended between Scanlan and Eskgrove streets, and Eskgrove house and land [still the 1885 subdivisions] was offered at auction as the Scanlan Estate. At this time the earlier rear timber wing appears to have been replaced and the shed and stables had been removed, but a cottage, not shown on the 1885 estate map and associated with the house, was located on the river side of Laidlaw Parade, to the west of the main residence.
Eskgrove remained a rental property, despite transfers of title in 1905 and 1910, until the Joseph Walter Tritton family, who owned the property from 1910 to 1966, made it their family home about 1920. In later years the house apparently was used as flats and then a nursing home called Grey Eagles. During these years the building was variously extended and modified. Since 1975 the house has been occupied as a private residence, and renamed Eskgrove.
","criteria":"Eskgrove, constructed in 1853, is significant historically as a rare surviving Brisbane pre-separation residence, closely associated with the earliest riverine development of the eastern suburbs. Associated with a number of persons significant in the early development of Queensland, the place contributes to our understanding of residential and social hierarchies in early Brisbane, and of the role of the Brisbane River within this structure.
|Eskgrove, constructed in 1853, is significant historically as a rare surviving Brisbane pre-separation residence, closely associated with the earliest riverine development of the eastern suburbs.
|Eskgrove is significant as important evidence of 1850s stone construction techniques in Queensland, and of the early adaptation of Georgian design to Brisbane lifestyle and climate.
|The place is valued by the community for its early association with the development of East Brisbane, and as one of the earliest surviving residences in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14963,"place_ref":600188,"name":"La Trobe","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"58 LaTrobe Street","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The main facade of this two-storeyed brick dwelling has a timber verandah with cast-iron balustrading, timber valance on the lower level and cast-iron fringe to the upper level. The brickwork has rendered quoins, jambs and lintels. Five pairs of french doors and the front door all have fanlights.
The internal walls are lined with tongue and groove boards. Both floors have a central passageway with one long room on the left, which includes a fireplace with cast-iron grate and timber surround. On the right are two rooms and the staircase.
The ground floor rear verandah has a convex iron roof and is enclosed. On the left hand side it provides access to the modern replacement kitchen, family room, laundry and storeroom.
Mature street trees complement this refurbished dwelling.
","history":"This two-storeyed house was built c1886 for William Henry Genn, a plumber, iron worker and wood carver.
Latrobe Street was created along with the mid-1880s subdivision of the Mowbraytown Estate, from which East Brisbane derives much of its historical identity. The Estate was part of a substantial parcel of East Brisbane land, including what is now Mowbray Park, alienated in the 1850s by the 'father' of Presbyterianism in Queensland, Rev. Thomas Mowbray. Mowbray died in 1867, and in 1884 his widow sold part of the estate to Josiah Young of Brisbane. Young immediately subdivided this land as the Mowbraytown Estate, prior to the introduction of the Undue Subdivision of Land Act 1885, which limited residential blocks to no less than 16 perches. The Mowbraytown blocks were long, narrow allotments of between 13 and 14 perches, and attracted mostly working class and lower middle class purchasers. By 1887 there were 13 houses in Latrobe Street, including Genn's house, most of which were occupied by artisans.
Unusually for Brisbane, where milled timber was the cheapest available building product, Genn's house was constructed of bricks from William Williams' brickyard at Lutwyche. Williams' bricks are identified from the frog, or imprint, of an open hand with a heart.
La Trobe most likely derived its name from its location in Latrobe Street, and was known as such by 1922. It appears to have been used mostly as a rental property, and has changed ownership many times. In the late 1940s it was converted into three flats. Subsequent alterations and conversions included the enclosing of verandahs.
New owners began refurbishment in the early 1980s. This included the opening of the verandahs with cast-iron balustrading, and a new kitchen on the site of the original.
","criteria":"It illustrates the rapid development of East Brisbane during the boom of the 1880s, especially following the subdivision of the Mowbraytown Estate c1884, and makes an important contribution to the historical character of East Brisbane and to the Latrobe Street streetscape.
|La Trobe, erected c1886, is a fine example of a small, two-storeyed, 1880s brick dwelling, which is uncommon in Brisbane.
|La Trobe, erected c1886, is a fine example of a small, two-storeyed, 1880s brick dwelling, which is uncommon in Brisbane.
|It illustrates the rapid development of East Brisbane during the boom of the 1880s, especially following the subdivision of the Mowbraytown Estate c1884, and makes an important contribution to the historical character of East Brisbane and to the Latrobe Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14964,"place_ref":600189,"name":"Mowbray Park and East Brisbane War Memorial","alternate_name":"Riversdale","street_address":"38, 60 and 78 Lytton Road","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Mowbray Park comprises 3.2 hectares of treed paths and lawns on a site which slopes gently down to the edge of the Brisbane River from Lytton Road. Remains of former swimming baths are situated in the north-western corner of the park. A boat house (not of heritage significance) is located in the north-eastern corner. The park also contains a finely crafted First World War Memorial. The park accommodates a bowls and a croquet club to the southwest; these structures are not of heritage significance.
The site contains a range of mature plantings and is traversed by a number of paths which meet in the centre of the park. These include: a central Palm-lined path which leads from Lytton Rd to the river; another Palm-lined path which crosses the south-eastern sector of the park; a diagonal path across the north-west sector which passes a remnant stand of eucalypts including Moreton Bay Ash, Grey Iron Bark and Forest Red Gum; a riverside path lined with a range of ornamental trees including Bauhinias and Jacarandas and a row of Palms; and a higher, parallel path which is lined with Fig trees. In addition, the park contains other clusters of mature trees, some of which appear to have lined paths which no longer exist. These include: clusters of large Figs in the south-east and south western corners of the park; a grove of Eucalypts and Pines in the south-eastern sector, and a grove of large Fig trees in the north-eastern sector.
The former swimming baths comprise two porphyry retaining walls which are cut into the river's edge and form a shallow C shape. The lower retaining wall along the water's edge is approximately 100m long, and has two sets of porphyry steps which lead directly into the water. The upper wall retains the escarpment, and is approximately 70m long. Timber pylons where boats are now moored define the boundary of the baths.
The War Memorial is located to the east on the central path at the Lytton Rd end of the park. It comprises a statue on a tall pedestal flanked by 2 cannons. The statue is a life-size Helidon sandstone rendition of an Australian Light Horseman, with a rifle pointing upwards. The pedestal is painted sandstone, and has 4 large marble plaques attached with 520 names inscribed in lead. The Melbourne granite base has 4 steps, and has 4 scroll-shaped marble plaques inscribed with an additional 196 names, and 3 smaller plaques which commemorate the laying of the foundation stone and the unveiling. The pedestal is set centrally in a concrete base and kerbing. The cannons are also set into the base; they comprise 9 lb (4.08 kg) rifled muzzle loader steel cannons, which bear the Royal monogram of Queen Victoria. Both cannons have inscribed marble plaques. A tall flagpole is located immediately to the south-east of the memorial.
","history":"In 1903-04, the South Brisbane City Council acquired the riverfront property known as Mowbray's Paddock, alienated by Rev. Thomas Mowbray in the 1850s, for public park purposes. The new reserve was named officially as Mowbray Park in September 1904.
Rev. Thomas Mowbray had arrived in Moreton Bay in 1847, and although he was never inducted into a charge during his twenty years at Moreton Bay, he was instrumental in establishing the Presbyterian Church in Brisbane in the 1850s. In December 1850, he purchased approximately 12 acres of land along the southern bank of the Brisbane River at what was then referred to as Kangaroo Point, downstream from Rev. Robert Creyke's purchase, Ravenscott (later Shafston House), overlooking New Farm. Title was transferred to him in November 1851. In the 1850s, Mowbray built his family home, Riversdale, on this site. Thomas Mowbray died in 1867, but the family retained the property until its sale to the South Brisbane City Council in 1904.
In a report presented to the full Council on 14 December 1903, the advantages of the site for a public park were enumerated:
Mowbray's property is in every way suitable for a public Park or garden having suitable soil, and undulating land reaching to the water's edge, and in addition it will also provide the necessary accommodation for bowling greens, Tennis Courts, and Croquet lawns. The property has a North Easterly aspect, and has an extended view of two reaches of the river, is above flood level, and is situated on the East Brisbane Tramway route. There is no public park or reserve in this locality, and no other piece of land in the neighbourhood so suitable for this purpose.
Lengthy negotiations between the Council and James Anderson Mowbray, Thomas's son, were undertaken in 1903, with the result that Mowbray offered portions 48-50, parish of South Brisbane, to the Council for £6,000, and assisted in its purchase with a mortgage. The property, which consisted of the present park as well as the adjacent lands between the park and what is now Park Avenue [this included the present bowling club, croquet club, former scout lease and former tennis courts site], was transferred to the South Brisbane City Council in January 1905.
The land was acquired by the City Council at the same time as a site at Highgate Hill, and the initiative for these purchases has been attributed to the Mayor of South Brisbane in 1903, Alderman GH Blocksidge, who promoted the expansion of public gardens and parks in the rapidly developing municipality.
In 1904, entrance gates to Mowbray's Paddock were erected, and the old house on the site (Riversdale) was sold for removal for £9. In the same year, the East Brisbane Bowling Club was formed, and the South Brisbane City Council agreed to lease to the club the southwest corner of the reserve, fronting Lytton Road. In 1906, the Council agreed to lease parts of the western end of Mowbray Park to the East Brisbane Croquet Club and to the East Brisbane Tennis Club.
Constant erosion along the riverbank at Mowbray Park prompted the Council to consider construction of a stone retaining wall. At the Council's request, the Engineer for Harbours and Rivers prepared a plan for a random stone wall early in 1904, but this was not implemented immediately. In 1906, the Council proposed that a swimming bath should be included in the construction, and in 1907 a landing stage as well. The State Government agreed to assist in the financing, but construction was delayed while the Council enquired as to the most favourable terms under which this work could be carried out. Finally in August 1907, the Council instructed the State Government to proceed with the retaining wall (not including baths or jetty), and construction had commenced by mid-February 1908.
Late in 1909, the South Brisbane City Council called tenders for the construction of a kiosk and attached cottage in Mowbray Park. On 31 January 1910, the Council accepted the tender of contractor J Finn, with a price of £300, and the kiosk was ready for occupation by 10 May 1910.
In August 1910, a public meeting was held at Woolloongabba to urge the construction of a bandstand in Mowbray Park, and a guarantee of £100 toward cost of construction was promised by those who attended. The South Brisbane City Council agreed to subsidise a bandstand to cost approximately £150, provided the Citizens Committee prepared plans and estimates. These were submitted in September 1910, and the Council called tenders in October. The contract was let to W Reed, with a price of £165, and the new bandstand was opened officially on 8 February 1911.
The need for a landing stage or jetty at Mowbray park was reconsidered in late 1910, and expressions of interest were called from ferry/tug boat companies. The jetty appears to have been constructed by the Council early in 1911.
In the second half of 1914, the South Brisbane City Council set aside part of Mowbray Park as a children's playground, but whether this facility was ever developed is not clear from Council records. The playground is not indicated on the 1922 South Brisbane City Council Sewerage Detail Plan of the area, nor on a 1949 contour survey of the park.
In 1916-17, the earliest First World War Memorial in Brisbane, an honour roll and statue honouring all soldiers, sailors and nurses who had enlisted for active service from the 8C [East Brisbane and Kangaroo Point] Training Area, was erected at Mowbray Park by local residents. A public subscription was raised by the East Brisbane Cadet Committee, and the tender of £187/10/- from W Batstone & Sons, monumental masons of Annerley Road, was accepted in March 1916. The 'digger' statue, a rare Queensland representation of an Australian Light Horseman, was carved by Alfred Batstone. The foundation stone was laid in November 1916, on the brow of the hill near Lytton Road, with views of both the Shafston and Humbug reaches of the Brisbane River, and the memorial was unveiled by Lady Goold-Adams on 11 August 1917. It was flanked by two cannon, reputedly part of Thursday Island's 19th century defences, and was surrounded by a garden in the shape of a cross. Additional honour rolls were added during and after the war. A metal railing fence around the memorial had been constructed by 1925, but this was replaced with stone kerbing in 1929, with stone recycled from the old Normal School in Adelaide Street, which was being demolished to make way for Brisbane's Anzac Square.
The question of providing swimming baths at Mowbray Park was raised with the South Brisbane City Council several times during the 1910s, both by public committees and individual aldermen, but little was achieved until the end of the decade. Throughout 1918, Alderman RE Burton agitated for the establishment of a bathing enclosure at Mowbray Park; the matter was referred to the Council's finance committee, and the motion to erect a swimming enclosure on the Brisbane River at Mowbray Park was finally adopted on 20 January 1919. Plans were prepared by the City Engineer by March, and the enclosure was completed in late 1919 and was officially opened on 24 January 1920. A Mowbray Park Swimming Club was established even before the baths were opened, and the baths proved popular for summer carnivals and general recreation.
When the kiosk lease came up for renewal in 1920, the Council decided to seek a married couple as lessees, with the wife to take the lease of the refreshment kiosk and residence, and the husband to be appointed as caretaker to the swimming baths and park. The first lease under this arrangement was taken up in October 1920. Once the caretaker was appointed, the Council arranged for the proper management of the baths: separate bathing hours for males and females were prescribed, the land side of the baths was enclosed with wire fencing, and admission prices were established. Changing rooms had been constructed by mid-1922.
With the establishment of Greater Brisbane in August 1925, control and ownership of Mowbray Park was transferred to the new Greater Brisbane City Council.
The park was a popular venue for sailing regattas in the 1920s and 1930s. In April 1936 the Church of England Grammar School applied to the Brisbane City Council for permission to erect a boat house on the river bank at Mowbray Park, near Laidlaw Parade, for use by the school's rowing club. With the application was submitted a plan for a hardwood structure with tiled roof, in dimension 70 feet long by 28 feet wide and 12 feet high. The application was approved, and the school was granted a lease over the boat house site. The building, which was owned by the school, was extended at a later date, and was known as the Elder Hunter Boat House. In 2005 the building was replaced by the Graham Fowles Boat House.
Mowbray Park is understood to have been the site of a 'tent city' for homeless families in the early 1930s, during the Depression.
In mid-1945, the Brisbane City Council was preparing a final design and layout for Mowbray Park. A 1949 contour plan of the park indicates that much of its mid-20th century layout has been retained.
In 1974 the First World War Memorial was moved to its present position to allow for extensions to the East Brisbane Bowling Club. About 1976, the 1910 kiosk/caretaker's cottage was demolished. The bandstand may have been demolished at this time also. The tennis courts and scouts' dens have been removed. The swimming enclosure was removed at an earlier period but the stone retaining walls and steps associated with the baths remain. The whole of the park reserve is significant but the bowls and croquet club buildings are not considered to be of heritage significance.
","criteria":"Mowbray Park is significant for its close association with the development of East Brisbane, both in its early connection with the Mowbray family and their substantial land holdings in the suburb, and as an initiative of the former South Brisbane City Council in preserving urban public open space during a population and housing boom.
In a broader context, the stone retaining wall and steps are an important illustration of the evolution of recreational activity along the Brisbane River.
Mowbray Park, like Newstead Park, survives as important evidence of the riverine estates which lined much of the Brisbane River in the mid-19th century.
The memorial has cultural heritage significance as evidence of a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism of the period, and belongs to a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure.
|Mowbray Park, like Newstead Park, survives as important evidence of the riverine estates which lined much of the Brisbane River in the mid-19th century. Adjacent properties such as Shafston and Eskgrove, and Bulimba further downstream, did not survive the 19th century. Mowbray Park is one of comparatively few inner Brisbane parks which provides substantial open space with river views.
The East Brisbane War Memorial in Mowbray Park is significant for its aesthetic quality and craftsmanship, the rarity of the Australian Light Horseman statue in a Queensland war memorial, and as evidence of the work of established monumental masons W Batstone & Sons.
The East Brisbane War Memorial is important also as a unique source of historical information.
|Mowbray Park, like Newstead Park, survives as important evidence of the riverine estates which lined much of the Brisbane River in the mid-19th century. Adjacent properties such as Shafston and Eskgrove, and Bulimba further downstream, did not survive the 19th century. Mowbray Park is one of comparatively few inner Brisbane parks which provides substantial open space with river views.
|Mowbray Park is one of comparatively few inner Brisbane parks which provides substantial open space with river views.
Mowbray Park is a richly planted picturesque enclave which contributes to the local townscape, and contains a finely crafted War Memorial. The park contains early plantings and remnant structures which evidence its evolution and earlier use patterns.
The East Brisbane War Memorial in Mowbray Park is significant for its aesthetic quality and craftsmanship, the rarity of the Australian Light Horseman statue in a Queensland war memorial, and as evidence of the work of established monumental masons W Batstone & Sons.
|It has been the focus of local community recreational and memorial activity for over 90 years.
The boat house, and the retaining wall and steps associated with the former baths, are evidence of the park's riverside community recreation role.
|Mowbray Park is significant for its close association with the development of East Brisbane, both in its early connection with the Mowbray family and their substantial land holdings in the suburb, and as an initiative of the former South Brisbane City Council in preserving urban public open space during a population and housing boom.
The East Brisbane War Memorial in Mowbray Park is significant for its aesthetic quality and craftsmanship, the rarity of the Australian Light Horseman statue in a Queensland war memorial, and as evidence of the work of established monumental masons W Batstone & Sons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14965,"place_ref":600190,"name":"Hester Villa","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"58 Stafford Street","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hester Villa is a timber and corrugated iron dwelling built about 1901. It occupies three blocks in an area of medium density housing.
The dwelling is supported by timber stumps but the sub-floor is enclosed at the back. It has a stepped verandah on three sides, a short ridge tin roof supported by twin eaves brackets and a ventilator gablet. The front facade features one bay window, ornate cast-iron balustrading, timber columns with capitals and brackets, and twin posts which support a fretwork pediment.
The four panel front door is enhanced by ruby flashed glass sidelights and provides ingress to the central corridor. Walls are lined with tongue and groove boards while step-out sash windows allow access to the verandah.
The house and garden have been sensitively rehabilitated.
","history":"Hester Villa is a single-storey dwelling that was built about 1901 for Captain Robert Pearn. A penny nailed above the front doorway records the date. The house replaced the original family home which had burnt down.
Pearn was a master mariner who at one stage was involved with the recruiting of Pacific Islanders. After his death in 1910, his wife Louisa inherited the house. It remained the Pearn family home until 1968.
In the late 1970s the house was in a very dilapidated condition. It was acquired by conservation architect Ray Oliver and his wife, and has been sympathetically refurbished.
","criteria":"Hester Villa is a valuable reflection of middling status family housing in suburban Brisbane.
|Hester Villa is a fine example of a timber and iron house of the Federation period.
|Hester Villa is a fine example of a timber and iron house of the Federation period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14966,"place_ref":600191,"name":"Hughesville","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2497 Logan Road","suburb":"EIGHT MILE PLAINS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hughesville stands on a grassy slope at the intersection of Logan and Padstow Roads, both of which are major arterial roads.
\nIt is a substantial timber-framed house, clad with broad chamferboards and lined with double beaded tongue and groove boards. It sits on short wooden stumps.
\nThe core is encircled by wide beech verandahs, with step-out sash windows opening from every room, and roofs of corrugated iron. The front and side verandahs have slender cast-iron corinthian columns, tripled at the corners, and delicate cast iron balustrading. This decoration contrasts with the square timber posts and timber balustrading (now removed) of the rear verandah.
\nThe pyramid-shaped corrugated iron roof of the core is separated from the verandah roofs by a small cornice with paired console brackets. At the apex is a widow's walk, with cast iron cresting and corner finials.
\nIn comparison with the exterior, the interior is functionally austere. The core comprises a wide central hallway, with front parlour and dining room to the right and three bedrooms to the left. From the parlour a faceted bay window projects onto the front verandah. At either end of the hallway are mirror-imaged front and back doorways, each with a cedar fanlight and sidelights.
\nJoinery throughout is of red cedar, as are the interior floorboards, with japanned edges in the main rooms. There is a cedar mantelpiece in the dining room and a grey marble mantelpiece with gilt mirror in the parlour, surrounding back-to-back fireplaces. The internal walls bear early paintwork, including a plain dado strip along the hallway.
\nA servant's entrance leads from the dining room to a gable-roofed timber kitchen house, with servant's room, attached to the rear verandah. It is unlined, and retains the original brick fireplace.
\nAll that remains visible of an early garden layout are two camphor laurel trees, one on either side of the front path, and a large mango tree. Several outbuildings, including two stables, a buggy shed and harness room, are no longer extant, and less than one hectare of the original property remains.
","history":"Hughesville, a substantial, single-storeyed timber residence, was erected in 1892-93 for Richard Alfred Hughes, a local horse-dealer, to a design by architect George Thornhill Campbell-Wilson. Reputedly, the house was a wedding gift from Alfred (Fred) Hughes to his son Richard, who married Elizabeth Magee in 1891.
Fred Hughes was a horse-dealer and livery stables keeper, resident in Brisbane from at least 1871, when he purchased land in Charlotte Street. He had established a livery stables on this site by 1874. In the mid-1880s, Hughes and his family moved to Upper Mt Gravatt, where they owned a property at the corner of Kessels and Logan Roads. He sold the Charlotte Street property in 1889, but maintained a livery stables in Adelaide Street during the first half of the 1890s. At his Upper Mt Gravatt stables, Fred Hughes bred blood stock, including arabs.
In January 1892, his son Richard, aged 19 years, acquired title to over 8 hectares of land at Eight Mile Plains, just south of Upper Mt Gravatt along the Logan Road. On this property Hughesville was erected, at the junction of Logan and Padstow Roads. The architect was George Thornhill Campbell-Wilson, who practised in Brisbane from 1889 to c1934.
George Campbell-Wilson was born in Brisbane, the eldest son of architect George William Campbell Wilson and Ada Weedon. He trained under his father and practised as an architect in Queen Street, Brisbane, from 1889 until his retirement in c1934.
Hughesville was arguably the finest house in the district, a farming community approximately eight miles south of the One-mile [Woolloongabba]. The Eight Mile Plains had been combed by timbergetters prior to its opening as an agricultural reserve in the early 1860s. Over 7,800 acres in the nearby Coopers Plains area had been proclaimed the Brisbane Agricultural Reserve in June 1861. In October 1864, this was extended by a further 5,500 acres, and the whole - encompassing what are now the suburbs of Sunnybank, Sunnybank Hills, Runcorn, Kuraby, Eight Mile Plains, and parts of Coopers Plains, Algester and Stretton - were proclaimed the Eight Mile Plains Agricultural Reserve. Fruit and some vegetable growing were the principal activities. By 1869, the area was sufficiently populated to necessitate the opening of a school at Eight Mile Plains, but the real impetus for the expansion of small farming in the district came with the opening of the extension railway from Yeerongpilly to Loganlea, in April 1885. By the time Hughesville was erected in the 1890s, Eight Mile Plains had emerged as a solid farming community.
Richard Hughes followed his father's occupation, and ran horses on the Logan Road property until 1912-13. The house remained in the Hughes family until 1994.
","criteria":"Hughesville is a substantial 1890s residence which survives as illustration of a past way of life, and of a particular residential type - the quintessential Queensland house of the late colonial period.
|Hughesville is a substantial 1890s residence which survives as illustration of a past way of life, and of a particular residential type - the quintessential Queensland house of the late colonial period. It is significant for its intactness, cohesive character, aesthetic appeal and landmark position.
|It is significant for its intactness, cohesive character, aesthetic appeal and landmark position.
|The house has a strong community association, being for many years a principal landmark along the old Pacific Highway [Logan Road] to the Gold Coast, demarking the outskirts of Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14969,"place_ref":600194,"name":"Killarney","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Laurel Street","suburb":"ENOGGERA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Killarney was originally a four-roomed single-storeyed house surrounded by a verandah, with a detached kitchen at the rear. It was built of hand-made bricks, with a short ridge roof of corrugated iron. The front windows are six-paned double-hung sashes. French doors open to the side verandahs which have broad timber posts. The internal brick walls are lined with lime plaster, while the ceilings are cedar boards.
The interior has been modified by the sheeting of the walls and ceilings. A modern kitchen has been incorporated in the house and a bathroom added on the back verandah. The original kitchen was demolished in 1975 and replaced with a four-roomed wing joined to the house by an enclosed verandah. The bricks from the kitchen were reused in the new structure.
An early underground water tank is located in the back yard.
","history":"Killarney is thought to have been erected in the 1860s for Timothy Corbett - a Brisbane property owner and Kedron Brook farmer. It is one of the earliest surviving residences in the Kedron Brook district and, for Queensland, of rare early brick construction.
Timothy Corbett was an Irish Catholic immigrant and patriot, and a very early Moreton Bay settler, having arrived here in the early 1840s, possibly even before the penal settlement was declared open to free settlement in February 1842. He was involved in various Brisbane business enterprises, and from 1850 was included on the Brisbane jury lists.
In October 1851 Corbett purchased approximately 30 acres [12 hectares - portion 4, parish of Enoggera] of Crown land along Kedron Brook for the sum of £30, and in March 1852 purchased the adjoining 35 acres [14 hectares - portion 5, parish of Enoggera] for £35. The land had been surveyed in June 1849 and offered at public auction in November 1849, but did not sell at the time. These blocks were covered with Oak Brush and Tea Tree flat, and passing through them was a Proven road from Brisbane - the original line of the South Pine Road [Survey Plan M.1118.20].
From the 1860s, the Kedron Brook district was well-known for its mixed farming, vineyards and orchards, and as the gateway to the farming and timber centres of Samford and South Pine. Reputedly, the first Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, and Lady Bowen were frequent visitors to the Surrenden vineyard on Kedron Brook in the early 1860s.
It is not clear when Corbett started to farm his Kedron Brook land, nor when he moved there. In government land sales registers he is recorded in August 1853 and again in December 1857 [when he bought a farm block on the river at St Lucia] as being resident in Brisbane. He married Alice Finn in Brisbane in 1856 and their first three children were all Brisbane births. In 1864-65, Corbett was in partnership with George Edmonstone in the construction of Queen Street buildings designed by architect WH Ellerker. Whether Ellerker, who left Queensland in late 1866, was associated also with the design of Killarney, has yet to be established.
It is likely that the Corbetts moved to Kedron Brook in the 1860s, and probably were resident there by mid-1871, when T Corbett, Church of Rome, was elected by the local community as a school patron. Corbett and his neighbour James Mooney each gave part of their land fronting South Pine Road, [on portions 5 and 6 respectively], for the establishment of the Enoggera Primary School, which opened in September 1871. The Corbetts were among the earliest settlers along Kedron Brook and were well-known in the district, their property being the venue for many community gatherings. Other early settlers included the Lade, Mott, Robinson, Dunlop, and McDowall families.
The district remained an isolated farming community until the extension of the railway from the Newmarket saleyards to Enoggera, which opened for traffic on 4 February 1889. After this the Kedron Brook district slowly acquired a suburban character, and by the 1920s was divided into a number of smaller, closely settled suburbs: Alderley, Enoggera, Gaythorne, and Groveley. By the 1930s, the district also had an industrial focus, with saw mills, potteries, and brick-making works.
Following Timothy Corbett's death at his Enoggera residence in 1887, Killarney passed to his eldest son Edward Joseph Corbett, a solicitor who had developed a successful law practice in Brisbane. Timothy's widow, Alice, was bequeathed the use of the house for as long as she wished to continue residence there. In 1889 EJ Corbett married Cecelia Mary Beirne, and the couple continued to reside at Killarney, with Alice Corbett, until Edward's death following a tragic accident in 1893, at the early age of 32. Killarney then passed to his widow Cecelia and to his brother William Francis Corbett, of Hamilton, as administrators. Although the Corbett family retained the property until the 1910s, Killarney appears to have become a rental property by 1895.
In 1912, title to the Corbett farm, including the residence, was transferred to David Rhoades, who subdivided the land into residential allotments as the Derby Estate. By 1931, the estate was thickly settled. In 1925 title to Killarney and its remaining 62 perches [1578m²] passed to the Tate family, then in 1934 to Emily Firrell. Killarney passed to Mrs Firrell's daughter, Beryl Agnes Farry, in 1948, and it remains her property.
","criteria":"Killarney, erected c1860s, is important for its association with the early settlement of Kedron Brook/Enoggera as a farming district.
|The house is one of comparatively few surviving, mid-19th century Brisbane residences, and is one of the oldest remaining houses in the Kedron Brook district. It is a rare surviving example of a mid-19th century brick house in Queensland, and has potential to reveal more about Brisbane's early brickmaking history and technology.
|It is a rare surviving example of a mid-19th century brick house in Queensland, and has potential to reveal more about Brisbane's early brickmaking history and technology.
|It is a rare surviving example of a mid-19th century brick house in Queensland, and has potential to reveal more about Brisbane's early brickmaking history and technology.
|It has aesthetic value, particularly in the rustic materials and simple design.
|The place has a strong association with the life and work of Timothy Corbett and his family, Corbett being amongst the earliest free settlers following the closure of the Moreton Bay penal colony in 1842.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14973,"place_ref":600198,"name":"Fortitude Valley Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"Fortitude Valley Post and Telegraph Office","street_address":"740 Ann Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"The Fortitude Valley Post Office occupies an almost level south-east corner site at Ann and Ballow Streets, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. The original building occupies approximately 40 per cent of the existing site allotment No. 21.
The Post Office is a two storey brickwork, steel and timber construction, with porphyry footings. The brickwork is cement rendered externally and incised with a ruled ashlar finish. The building's southern and eastern corners are elaborately decorated with rendered mouldings that include ornate window hood-mouldings, sculptural friezes, partly balustraded parapets and unusual shaped pediments. Sandstone steps lead up to the ground floor level arcades on both street frontages. The arcades are formed by a set of segmental arches carried by rendered piers supported by pedestals. Above the arcades are open verandahs that have intricately designed cast iron balcony columns and railings.
The original 1887 section of the building is roughly square in plan, with walls that are mainly of plaster-rendered brickwork. Some remnants of the original lath-and-plaster timber framed interior partition walls survive on the upper floor level. Ceilings and soffits throughout the building are lined with 125 mm beaded tongue & groove boarding, however a timber framed dropped ceiling, sheeted in plasterboard has been introduced at ground level in some areas. Floors throughout the building are 100mm hardwood tongue and grooved boards that have been overlaid with carpet at the ground level and vinyl tiles at the upper level. Some original cedar doors and architraves have survived. Two fireplaces, formerly located on the building northern wall, have both been bricked up and their surrounds removed.
At ground level the original building currently consists mainly of a corner vestibule and one large space, partly partitioned to create three small offices along the northern wall. Several openings in the original rear wall of the building provide access to the substantially altered former rear verandah area. As part of the alterations in this verandah area a strong room has been constructed with plaster-rendered brickwork, a reinforced concrete floor and ceiling, and a metal safe door. At the northern end of this area is the original cedar staircase, now painted, which leads to the upper floor. At the upper level there are several large rooms formed by the removal of most original partition walls. Male and female toilets have been introduced along the northern wall. All of the original ceder French doors at the upper level still survive, although they have been over painted.
Adjacent to the 1887 section of the building is a two storeyed brick extension constructed in 1970. The structure, which faces Ballow Street, contains an extensive mail room, private mail box area and garage at ground level, and postman's setting up area and staff lunch area at the upper level. Large openings between the two parts of the building exist at both floor levels.
The roof on the 1887 section of the post office is currently a single low gradient steel deck skillion that slopes from Ann Street down towards the rear of the section. The original chimney stacks have been removed. A second steel deck skillion of similar gradient exists over the later two storeyed section at the rear.
","history":"The Fortitude Valley Post Office and Telegraph Office as it was first called, was constructed in 1887 by William Ferguson for the Queensland Post and Telegraph Department to a design prepared by the Colonial Architect's Office of the Department of Public Works. The original working drawings are unsigned however it is believed that the design was carried out by either JJ Clarke, who was the Colonial Architect from 1883 to 1886 or George Connolly, who held the position from 1887 to 1891. The building, composed in the Victorian Italianate architectural style, is one of only ten substantial Queensland post offices designed in this style that were all built between 1879 and 1898. Comparatively, the Fortitude Valley Post Office has the most ornately detailed cement rendered facade and is the only post office designed and constructed with mansard roofs. The building was also one of only two masonry post offices that were built in 1887 - all others were constructed of timber.
Government policies in 1887 required that post and telegraph services were combined, and that accommodation for Postmasters and their families be provided. Accordingly the Fortitude Valley Post Office was designed to have post and telegraph services at ground level with living quarters above. A single storey service wing originally extended northwards to the rear of the building and opened onto a fenced courtyard abutting Ballow Street. Internally the ground floor consisted of a spacious office area for the combined services of post and telegraph. Access to the postal services was via the vestibule located at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets that led to a small public area with a diagonal counter. Telegraph or parcel services were accessed via the smaller vestibule located at the far end of the arcade facing Ann Street. The first floor was occupied entirely by the Postmaster's living quarters and consisted of two living rooms, four bedrooms and an internal bathroom. The single storeyed service wing at the rear contained of the Postmaster's dining room, kitchen and servant's room. Earth closets were located adjacent to the kitchen, in northern corner of the site.
At the time of the Fortitude Valley Post Office's construction, the suburb was experiencing a period of great business and residential expansion. Nearby areas such as New Farm and Teneriffe to the east and Breakfast Creek and Bulimba Reach to the north were similarly experiencing expansion. The opening of the Teneriffe wharves to international shipping accelerated the growth of the area and this, together with a large increase in the volume of business, placed severe strain on the original postal and telegraph facilities in Fortitude Valley that had been set up in 1877. The government's purchase of the site at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets in 1884 caused a controversy amongst the local residents and businesses in Fortitude Valley who desirous of a centrally located post office closer to the centre of business, at the corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets. The matter caused some debate within the Post and Telegraph Department in 1885, however plans for the Ann Street site proceeded irrespectively. Aversion to the post office's location persisted among the local community for many years until eventually the matter was settled in 1936 by the Director-General of the Postmaster-General's Department in Melbourne who declared that funds for the construction of a new post office would not be available.
Following the formation of the Postmaster General's Department in 1901, the responsibility for the Fortitude Valley Post Office was transferred to the Commonwealth. Minor alterations were made to the ground floor interior in 1909 and again in 1925. It was around this time that the post office took on the ancillary responsibility of social security payments. A report prepared by the Acting District Inspector in November 1929 stated that 1 205 pensions were being paid weekly from the Fortitude Valley Post Office and it was understood that this was, with one exception, the heaviest pensions paying centre in the Commonwealth at the time.
Documentation of the removal of the mansard roofs and cast concrete capitals from the Fortitude Valley Post Office have not be found however it is believed to have occurred prior to 1949. Pressure from the Commonwealth to expand facilities eventually led to the vacation of the Postmaster from the first floor c.1950. It was proposed that the rooms be used for a Telegraph and Despatch room and staff facilities, however the area was used minimally thereafter. In 1958 major alterations were carried out on the entire building. Amongst these changes was the introduction of a stairwell in the main entrance vestibule, private letter boxes in the smaller vestibule off Ann Street, removal of all interior walls on the first floor and the partial rebuilding of the service wing at the rear. Further alterations, carried in 1970, caused the rear wing to be completely demolished and replaced with a larger two storey wing that abuts Ballow Street. Substantial reorganisation of the original post office's interior was also carried out at this time. Suspended ceilings were introduced in some areas of the ground floor at this time.
The Postmaster General's Department remained responsible for the Fortitude Valley Post Office until 1975 when Australia Post and Telecom Australia were created, thus dividing the postal and telecommunication services into two semi-government departments. Australia Post carried out alterations to the building in 1987, which effectively stripped the ground floor interior of all previous accretions. Externally, some restoration of the original fabric was carried out and a historic colour scheme was reinstated.
","criteria":"The Fortitude Valley Post Office, built in 1887, is important for its ability to demonstrate the evolution of post and telegraph services in Queensland and the development of Fortitude Valley, at a time of rapid trade, commerce, industry and residential expansion in the area. The grand style and scale of the building demonstrate the prosperity of Fortitude Valley at that time.
The siting of the building at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets is of interest for the controversy it caused between the government and the local residents and businesses who were preferable of the building being located closer to the business centre of Fortitude Valley. The post office is also of interest for the ancillary role it played in the distribution of social security payments of various kinds during the early 1900's, at which time it was claimed to be among the heaviest pensions paying centre in the Commonwealth.
|The building is a rare example of a post office composed in the Victorian Italianate style, being one of only ten such buildings designed by the Colonial Architect's Office of the Department of Public Works in that architectural form. The Fortitude Valley Post Office is particularly unusual as the only post office in Queensland to be designed and constructed with mansard style roofs.
|The building's ornately detailed facade, regarded amongst the most elaborate of all post offices in Queensland, is of considerable aesthetic significance. The variety of mouldings, motifs and cast masonry decorations demonstrate a fine quality of workmanship.
It is of interest as an example of a post office with a combined postmaster's residence.
|The building's ornately detailed facade, regarded amongst the most elaborate of all post offices in Queensland, is of considerable aesthetic significance. The variety of mouldings, motifs and cast masonry decorations demonstrate a fine quality of workmanship. The building remains as one of only a few substantial late nineteenth century buildings in Fortitude Valley, and its contribution to its surroundings is highly significant for demonstrating the character of the area at the turn of the century.
|The Fortitude Valley Post Office has a strong association with the general community of Fortitude Valley for the essential role it has played in the provision of essential postal and telecommunication services. The siting of the building at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets is of interest for the controversy it caused between the government and the local residents and businesses who were preferable of the building being located closer to the business centre of Fortitude Valley. The post office is also of interest for the ancillary role it played in the distribution of social security payments of various kinds during the early 1900's, at which time it was claimed to be among the heaviest pensions paying centre in the Commonwealth.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14974,"place_ref":600199,"name":"Empire Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"339 Brunswick Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A rendered building constructed of brick and stone, the Empire Hotel is located at a prominent intersection in Fortitude Valley. It consists of a main three storeyed L-shaped structure with basement, a two storeyed section on the south-western end facing Brunswick Street, a one storeyed skillion roofed section adjoining the rear of the main building, and a detached one-storeyed rendered masonry toilet block, also at the rear.
The Brunswick Street elevation comprises six bays and the Ann Street elevation contains three bays. A cantilevered awning extends along the two street frontages which are tiled at ground level.
Above the awning are two levels of projecting verandahs. These highly ornate verandahs are supported by twin cast-iron columns and feature timber handrails, cast-iron balustrades and brackets and a timber and cast-iron frieze at the junction between the first and second levels. French doors open onto the verandah which is roofed with rolled corrugated iron.
Painted corrugated iron hip roofs are concealed on the street elevations by an ornate masonry parapet wall. Supported on shallow twin brackets, the parapet consists of masonry balusters and pillars at the junction of each bay topped by urns. A projecting pediment in the Brunswick Street facade which breaks the line of the parapet is flanked by interlocking circles, instead of balusters.
The ground floor contains a bottle shop entered from the street corner, a public bar with entry from Brunswick Street, an entry foyer also opening off Brunswick Street, a lounge bar and bistro and a loading bay. There are remnants of art deco plaster work throughout. The entry foyer, now in the art deco manner, features decorative plaster ceilings, patterned floors, tiled walls, timber doors with etched glass panels, and a 1930s lift. The original 1889 staircase has been refurbished with metal balustrade and tiled walls to the first floor level but retains its original timber joinery and balustrade between the first and second floor. Two arched windows, the lower one being leadlight, illuminate the stairwell.
A lounge, dining room, kitchen, private bar and staff rooms are located on the first floor. These rooms have ornate plaster cornices and ceilings. The lounge and dining rooms have timber parquetry floors and coloured leadlight windows in distinctive art deco patterns.
On the second floor bedrooms and bathrooms are linked by a central corridor. Much of the fabric dates from 1889 including doors, architraves and skirtings, plasters arches over the hallway and main stairwell. A second staircase, with original timber panelling and balustrades, links the first and second floors at the south-western end of the Anne Street elevation.
Despite the demolition of part of the Ann street wing, the Empire Hotel is a large and impressive building. The street facades are intact above awning level and internally much of the original fabric remains along with evidence of major refurbishments.
","history":"This three-storeyed, rendered brick hotel was erected in 1888 for Nathaniel Corrigan. It replaced an earlier Empire (Family) Hotel (1865) which had been owned by Corrigan since 1873.
\nThe new hotel was designed by prominent architect Richard Gailey who also designed the nearby Prince Consort (QHR 600212), Wickham (QHR 600213) and Jubilee (QHR 600211) hotels. The construction of these hotels in the late 1880s reflected the confidence of the period and development that occurred in Fortitude Valley.
\nThe Empire was constructed by Smith and Ball Contractors and the first publican was Walter McFarlane. The hotel extended 130ft (39m) along Ann Street and 120ft (36m) along Brunswick Street, and contained over sixty rooms.
\nThe hotel was renovated in 1925 to plans by Richard Gailey Jnr and again in 1937 to plans by architects Hall and Phillips. This latter work involved converting part of the Ann Street section to the 'Empire Apartments'. These apartments were later demolished in the 1960s, reducing the Ann Street frontage from seven bays to three. The original convex iron and post awning has been replaced by one with a cantilevered design.
","criteria":"The Empire Hotel is significant for its association with a major phase in the development of Fortitude Valley.
|The Empire Hotel is significant as an excellent example of a large ornate 1880s hotel which was partly refurbished in the 1930s and makes a dominant contribution to the streetscape at the intersection of Ann and Brunswick Streets.
|The Empire Hotel is significant as an excellent example of a large ornate 1880s hotel which was partly refurbished in the 1930s and makes a dominant contribution to the streetscape at the intersection of Ann and Brunswick Streets.
|The Empire Hotel is significant as one of a group of hotels designed by architect Richard Gailey which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane through their imposing presence, and extensive use of ornamental cast-iron and classical detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14975,"place_ref":600200,"name":"All Hallows' Convent and School","alternate_name":"Adderton (Convent)","street_address":"547 Ann Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"All Hallows' Convent and School is prominently situated in Fortitude Valley on a site bounded by Ann Street, Kemp Place, Ivory Street, Antrim Street and Boundary Street. A masonry retaining wall surrounds the school on the Ann Street and Kemp Place boundaries. The site commands views over Spring Hill, the Brisbane River and the Brisbane CBD.
\nGenerally the buildings on the site are introspectively arranged, focussed on a central terraced area which, in turn, overlooks the of the Brisbane River, over Petrie Bight. The principal entrance to the school grounds is through the gateway off Ann Street, where access is provided to a driveway which passes through the school and convent grounds before leaving at the only other access point, off Kemp Place.
\nThe buildings which comprise the site include the convent complex; St Ann's, the former Industrial School; the Main Building; McCauley Hall, a former teachers' college, Aquinas Hall and the library; Loreto, the gymnasium and auditorium complex; and several smaller structures including the former art studio, St Brigid's classrooms, a chaplain's residence, a gatekeeper's lodge and gateway. Along with these, are several landscaped areas which contribute to the setting of the buildings including the central terraced area, the flagpole lawn, playing fields to the north of the site and extensive gardens.
\nThe Convent
\nThe convent complex consists of the principal convent building which comprises Adderton, the chapel and various additions; a House of Mercy and a timber laundry.
\nThe convent is a substantial four storeyed masonry building, consisting of a central section in which the early building, Adderton, is contained, and flanking this transverse wings semi- enclosing a rear courtyard on three sides. Within this courtyard is a U-planned building-the former House of Mercy. To the north-west of the convent, between this building and the Ann Street boundary is a lawn and early timber laundry building.
\nThe central section of the convent runs south west-north east, parallel to the Ann Street boundary wall, the south western wing houses the chapel and is symmetrical with the three storeyed north eastern wing used for bedrooms and community. The convent, as it now appears, was completed in three major stages, manifest in design and construction; the 1850s house, Adderton, the 1891-2 extension and the chapel extension of 1921.
\nThe south eastern facade, where the principal entrance is located, is terminated at both ends by the projecting elevations of the transverse wings. These bays have hipped roofs partially concealed by a decorative parapeted gable, surmounted at the apex by a pedimented feature, supported on reeded pilasters and flanked by pilasters surmounted by finials. Various round and square-headed arched openings, with both recessed and projecting surrounds are found symmetrically arranged on the elevation of the end bays. The south western wing has a more recent one storeyed entrance porch providing access to the chapel. The rendered masonry porch of rectangular plan has two round headed arched openings within a round headed arched recess, and moulded string courses and is surmounted by an entablature above which is an Italianate balustrade. Recent access lifts and ramps are not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building, over the central section and north eastern wing, has a hipped slate roof, and spaced regularly along the roof line of the north-east and south-east facades are decorative Anglo-Dutch gables. Roof vents line the ridge. The central section and north-eastern wing are surrounded by two storeys of verandahs, on the lower and first floors of the building. Supporting the corrugated iron verandah awning are cast iron columns, occasionally paired. The verandah features cast iron balustrading with the intertwined letters AHC within the pattern, cast iron frieze panels and column brackets. The window openings which line the principal facade have fixed louvre timber shutters.
\nMany features of the original home, Adderton, remain extant including its facade to the south east, with early window openings and doorway over which is an elliptical fanlight fitted with a stained glass panel.
\nThe half-glazed entrance door opens onto an entrance vestibule, flanked to the north and south by parlours, and screened from a central hallway running parallel to the facade, by an elliptical arced opening fitted with a four panel glazed timber screen. Each parlour is fitted with a marble fireplace and two finely mullioned 12 paned vertical sash windows, one panel of which is stained. Beyond the screen and within the central hallway is a geometric timber stair, winding to the first floor with square sectioned balusters from each tread and a timber handrail following the complex curvature of the stair.
\nThe central hallway, which is repeated on each floor provides access to the many small rooms and is broken by a series of plaster archways. Internally the convent has rendered masonry walls, plaster ceilings and covered timber floors. Early fireplaces, ovens and other fittings remain extant in the unrendered basement level of the convent.
\nThe chapel wing comprises two sections: the earlier 1890 chapel toward the front elevation of the building and extending from the rear of this the 1921 extension. Externally, the extension employs stripped classical detailing with rusticated pilasters dividing the external walls and separating the round headed arched openings. Other detailing includes a projecting base, moulded string courses, enlarged keystone detailing above the arched openings and moulded entablature forming a parapet some of which is surmounted by an Italianate baluster detail above. The chapel has a traditional plan, with central nave, side aisles, polygonal sanctuary and a shallow transept extending from the south-western end of the building.
\nInternally the variations of material, construction and detailing clearly indicates the two phases of the construction of the chapel. The rear, earlier section, which extends approximately one-third of the length of the nave features coffered ceilings of stained timber and timber panelled walls. An arcade supported on marbelised columns separates this section from the 1921 extension. On the floor above the rear section of the chapel is a pipe organ which opens onto the nave extension through a large archway.
\nThe interior of the chapel extension, like the exterior, has a classical design influence with round headed archways and openings, neo-classical painted decoration and classical mouldings. The nave has shallow side aisles divided from the body by a nave arcade of round headed arched openings with moulded architraves and large plaster keystones, all supported on marbelised columns with decorative plaster capitals. The barrel vaulted ceiling of the nave, is punctuated with operable clerestory windows and these are separated by moulded ribs. The sanctuary, which is divided from the nave by a round headed archway supported on substantial red marble columns, is semi-circular in plan and covered by a half domed ceiling. Within this space is a large painting of Jesus flanked by arched stained glass windows from FX Zettler in Munich, and higher on the rear wall is a small rose window. Painted decoration cover most of the surfaces in the sanctuary area.
\nThe former House of Mercy, located within the rear courtyard of the convent is a two-storeyed U-planned rendered masonry building. External walkways line elevations closest to the convent and these provided access to the interior. The northeast wing of the central floor (level with the ground floor of Adderton) is divided into small rooms, and wall nibs and heads indicate the former interior layout of the northwest and southwest wings (its recent café fit-out (2020) is not of State-significance). The ground floor of this houses larger rooms.
\nTo the rear of the convent is a simple timber building, with gabled roof and large roof ventilators used as a laundry.
\nThe Main Building
\nThe Main Building, the principal school building of All Hallows' is situated in the eastern corner of the block overlooking the Brisbane River and with extensive views of the Brisbane CBD and Kangaroo Point. The design of the three storeyed stone building is strongly inspired by classical architecture, particularly that of Renaissance Italy. This influence informs the composition and detailing of the arcaded facades and general planning of the building.
\nThe 1882 section of the building extends along the north eastern boundary of the All Hallows' block, the 1901 extension is situated abutting the north east end of the original building and later extensions are perpendicular to these, extending north west from the original wing and incorporating the early music rooms. The building, although the result of five phases of construction completed over about 60 years, is reasonably cohesive, particularly on those elevations facing inward toward the central open spaces of the school. These facades are all lined with arcaded loggias similar to those found encircling the original 1882 section of the building.
\nThe building is essentially rectangular in plan, with a long rectangular wing extending north west from the eastern corner of the building. The shallow pitched hipped roof of wide gauge corrugated iron is partially concealed by an Italianate parapet. Projecting through the roof at regular intervals are squat pyramidal roofed towers. These are vertical extensions of projecting bays on the facade of the building. The projecting entrance bay of the original 1882 building is emphasised by pediments at the roof line and a larger tower with a very steeply pitched roof ornamented with cast iron cresting.
\nArcaded loggias, sections of which have been infilled with glazing, are found on the ground and first floors with round headed arched window openings on the second floor. The openings of the arcades and the windows are divided by pilastered wall sections.
\nThe principal entrance of the earliest section of the south eastern, emphasised by the projecting bay is through a recent double timber door surmounted by semi-circular fanlight fitted within an early arched opening. Beyond this door is an entrance vestibule and through another panelled and moulded double timber door with semi circular fanlight and sidelights, access is given to the stair hall. The entrance vestibule has tessellated ceramic tiles on the floor and a moulded plaster ceiling. The dark stained timber stair, beyond this entrance, is dog legged with half-landings at each turn. On the first floor, this stair arrives in a room between a concert hall and a music library. The concert hall has a coffered plaster ceiling with recent mouldings and round headed arched windows with vertical sash fittings, opening onto the loggia spaces. At the north eastern end of the hall is a timber stage accessed via wide shallow stairs from the main body of the room. Beneath the stage are music practice rooms. The music library features a white marble fireplace, dark stained timber joinery, and round headed arched openings fitted with french doors opening onto the loggia. Small stairways on the second floor give access to the tower rooms above.
\nThe plan of the building has large rooms connected to stairhalls and other rooms by loggias and walkways on the two external faces of the building. This plan continues in the abutting wing, but with walkways located only along the arcaded, south western elevation, giving access to the rooms. Stairhalls are located near the principal entrance of the Main Building (1882), in the eastern corner of the building (1901) and centrally in the extension (1919). Two sets of concrete fire escape stairs and a lift are also found within the building.
\nThe north western wing of the Main Building continues the external detailing of the earlier sections on its south western, inward facing, facade only. The south eastern facade of the wing, viewed from the Kemp Place boundary of the site provides evidence of the growth of the building, with four phases of development readily apparent in the roof lines, levels and detailing.
\nIncorporated in the later wing, and disguised on the south western face with subsequent arcading, is an early two storeyed building housing music practice rooms. These are located centrally, and are apparent on the north eastern facade. The building is of rendered brick and has an ornamental roof ventilator centrally located on the steeply pitched hipped roof. Small rectangular window openings line the north eastern face. The floor levels of this building are not aligned with the floor levels of the surrounding buildings, therefore small internal staircases provide access to the rooms. The music practice rooms, themselves, are evident on the ground floor of this building.
\nAbutting the north east face of the Main Building is a tuckshop wing, which is an amalgamation of a 1933 concrete building with a corrugated iron gambrel roof and a later c1960s brick addition. The 1933 section retains its roof form and external detailing which consists of recessed bays housing large rectangular window openings separated by shallow pilasters.
\nSt Ann's
\nSt Ann's is a substantial three storeyed rendered masonry building with partial basement. Facing north west and situated on the Ann Street boundary of the school St Ann's is the only building on the site which addresses the street. The design of the building shows an influence of Gothic revival architecture particularly in the detailing of the Ann Street facade where pointed arched openings and mouldings, grouped lancet windows, steeply pitched parapeted gables and repeated use of the quatrefoil motif are found.
\nThe building is symmetrically composed about a recessed central bay lined with three storeys of balconies on the front and rear elevations, flanked by transverse wings. These side wings have steeply pitched parapeted gables and at the level of the ground floor projecting bays whose gabled awnings reflect the gabled roof form. Grouped lancet windows under pointed and flat headed arched hood moulds on the second floor, small rose windows, statue niches and Latin Cross finials at the apex of the gables contribute to the ornamentation of the wings. The render on the Ann Street facade is scribed with ashlar coursing.
\nA central bi-furcating stairway, with substantial masonry balustrade featuring cut-out quatrefoils accesses the ground floor verandah of the building on the Ann Street facade. The verandah awning on the ground floor has a thin gauge corrugated iron soffit and is supported on reeded cast iron columns and has a cast iron balustrade and pointed arched friezes which also feature a quatrefoil motif. The verandah on the floor above has square timber columns, cast iron balustrading and a timber boarded soffit.
\nCentrally located on the ground floor verandah is a six panelled entrance door which is surrounded by rectangular transom window and sidelights of very fine stained glass panels from Munich. The entrance door opens onto a vestibule where access is provided to parlours on either side. A moulded round headed archway separates the vestibule from the central hallway, which runs parallel to the entrance facade of the building terminating at the chapel entrance to the north-east and in the stairhall to the south-west. Internally the building has rendered masonry walls throughout, timber boarded ceilings, timber floors, high quality timber architraves, skirting boards and stairways.
\nThe principal internal stair is housed in the stairhall which is expressed externally on the south-west facade with a projecting bay which features four pairs of rectangular stained glass window openings, signifying the level of each floor and the basement. The open well timber stair has turned timber balusters and carved newels and drops. Another, more simple, stair is housed in the southern corner of the building.
\nThe chapel, located in north eastern wing of the ground floor of the building is a long room only the north western end of which was originally intended for this use. This end has a coffered timber ceiling with plaster mouldings, grisaille (or non-figured) stained glass panels in tre-foiled lancets and fine timber joinery. A sanctuary, at the north western end of the chapel, is separated by an elliptical headed archway, and houses a small marble altar flanked by single tre-foiled lancets fitted with figured stained glass panels. Access is provided from the central hallway to the chapel via a dark stained timber doorway with a pointed arch transom light above. Classrooms fill the remainder of the ground and first floors. The second floor houses several early bedroom cells lining the north west side of the building, with access to an enclosed verandah facing Ann Street. The basement of the building has remnants of early brick fireplaces.
\nAbutting the southern corner of St Ann's and extending to the south east is a one storeyed brick extension with hipped corrugated iron roof and verandah awning on the north eastern side supported on chamfered timber posts.
\nOther
\nAs well as the larger buildings on the All Hallows' Convent and School site many smaller buildings are of cultural heritage significance. These include the Ann Street and Kemp Place retaining wall and incorporated gateway and lodge; a chaplain's residence, St Brigid's classroom block, the art studio and several areas of open space including the Terrace, gardens around the convent, playing fields and other open areas.
\nThe porphyry retaining wall extends from the gateway, adjacent to St Ann's, on Ann Street, north east and is curved around the corner and finishes in Kemp Place. The wall, made from randomly coursed rock faced porphyry rubble, varies in height from 4m on the Kemp Place elevation to 14m on Ann Street. A course of stonework projects from the wall near the top of the structure.
\nIncorporated in the Ann Street face of the wall, adjacent to St Ann's is a gatekeeper's lodge and gateway. The gateway which is constructed from rock faced porphyry and smooth faced sandstone is the principal entrance to the school and provides access to the driveway. The symmetrically composed structure employs classical details. The opening is through a round headed archway, the arched section of which is filled with a cast iron plate bearing the letters AMDG. The surrounds of the archway including the voussoirs and keystone are of rough cut porphyry. Rounded and tapering pilasters with Ionic capitals, of smooth faced sandstone, flank the opening. A sandstone entablature surmounting the pilasters features a moulded cornice supported on corbels with a smaller sandstone architrave above. Sitting on the top of each end of the gateway are stone carvings of urns with flames rising from them. Centrally located on the architrave on four steps is a carved globe with a copper Latin cross surmounting it. Shorter porphyry walls flank the gateway.
\nAdjacent to the north of the gateway, is a gatekeepers' lodge whose Ann Street facade is a continuation of the school's retaining wall, the lodge being slightly taller than the adjacent wall. The building is two storeyed, and with the cutting down of Ann Street after the lodge's construction a retaining wall has been added as a base to the Ann Street facade of the building. This facade projects slightly from the face of the retaining wall and is detailed with smooth faced sandstone string coursing in line with the sill of the two storeys of windows. The steeply pitched hipped slate roof is concealed on the Ann Street facade by a parapet, being an entablature, consisting of a cornice with dentils surmounted by an architrave. Two storeys of round headed arched windows are featured on this facade, reflecting the early levels of the building. These windows differ in detail on each storey, the lower having sandstone tracery dividing the opening into two lancet windows with round arched heads and a circular opening between. The upper storey openings are simply round headed arched openings. Window and door openings on the south western wall indicate the previous entrance level of the building. Internally the building has timber floors throughout, plaster and lath walls, timber boarded ceilings, an early quarter-turn timber stair with turned balusters and simple timber architraves and skirting boards.
\nAdjoining the gatehouse is a small rendered masonry building used for a chaplain's residence. This is a one storeyed rendered brick building with stripped classical facades and detailing similar to that of the nearby chapel extension. The external walls which consist of recessed bays separated by rusticated pilasters, are parapeted with a simple entablature concealing the shallow hipped roof. Access is provided to the front door of the building down broad concrete steps with rendered masonry balustrading. The front door opens onto an semi-internal entrance hall with timber lattice screens. Internally the residence has two principal rooms, a living room beyond the entrance hall and from this a bedroom with ensuite bathroom. Internal finishes include pressed metal ceilings and cornices, rendered walls and chamfered timber skirting boards. The adjacent building, St Brigid's, is of similar detail and houses two classrooms with access provided to the interior via broad concrete steps. Between St Brigid's and the chaplain's residence is a hexagonally planned building with hexagonal pyramidal corrugated iron roof, originally in use as an aviary, but now a classroom.
\nThe former art studio, located between the Main Building extension and the convent, is a single storeyed concrete building of simple rectangular plan with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The building was designed an art studio and therefore planned to provide abundant natural lighting and ventilation. The facade of the building is symmetrically composed around a central doorway flanking which are large window openings separated by pilasters with simple moulded capitals and bases and supporting a cornice, on which the overhanging corrugated iron roof sits.
\nMcCauley Hall, situated on the northern corner of the site, is a four storeyed brick building with reinforced concrete framing elements and a skillion roof. The building displays qualities of many post-war buildings of Australia showing a strong International style influence, whose physical attributes on this building include large planes of brickwork juxtaposed with textured panels and large areas of horizontally grouped window openings. Aquinas Hall has similar construction and detailing, and is a four storeyed brick building with reinforced concrete framing externally expressed.
\nIn the gardens adjacent to the chapel is a small polychrome brick building which houses life-size statues commemorating Jesus' death on Calvary. This structure has a gabled roof flanked by brick pinnacles, all surrounding the round headed arched opening through which the statues are seen.
\nMuch of the open space, garden areas and established trees are of importance to the setting and understanding of the school. In particular the split-level Terrace, an open lawned area forming a central court which retains a vista toward the river via a small lawn to the south-west of the Main Building. St Gertrude's playing grounds in the northern corner of the school is an established area with important planting including a bougainvillea hedge and a large weeping fig. The gardens surrounding the convent provide a buffer zone between this and the other, more public, buildings on the site. These areas are the chapel garden, the driveway, the former kitchen garden to the north-east and the lawn between the convent and Ann Street which houses many rotary washing lines. There are many large established trees on the site.
\nNon-significant buildings/structures
\nFeatures not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAll Hallows' Convent and School was established in 1863 on Petrie Bight, as the first permanent site of the convent and school of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland. The site comprises many important buildings reflecting the growth of the school. The arrangement of the site and the buildings thereon reflect the acquisition of land and the introspective nature of the planning of the school.
\nFollowing the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859, a new Roman Catholic diocese which separated the newly formed Diocese of Queensland from the Diocese of Newcastle. On 14 April 1859 James Quinn, who was residing in Ireland at the time, was appointed the first Bishop of Queensland and arrived in Brisbane on 12 March 1861. Between his appointment and his arrival, Quinn recruited desperately needed clergy and religious Sisters. He arrived in Brisbane with several priests and five Sisters of Mercy, under the guidance of the Mother Superior, Mother Mary Vincent Whitty.
\nThe Sisters of Mercy were principally a teaching order, founded in Ireland by Catherine McAuley in 1831. The establishment of religious schools in the new colony was seen as a crucial need to instil and strengthen faith in the struggling community. The day after Mother Vincent's arrival a deputation from Ipswich requested that the Sisters settle in their town, but accommodation was soon found for the sisters in Brisbane, where the need for them must have been greater felt.
\nAdderton and the Convent
\nIn December 1863 Bishop Quinn purchased on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy the former home of Dr George Fullerton who had been appointed to the first Legislative Council of Queensland but soon after left for Maranoa. The house, presumably built for Fullerton was known as Adderton and was sold to Quinn for £6000. The house was located on Petrie Bight, across Ann Street from the Bishop's own rented residence, Dara, and these two properties were considered two of the largest and best appointed homes in Brisbane at the time. On their arrival the Sisters had been provided with only temporary accommodation near St Stephen's church Adderton was to be used as a convent for the Sisters of Mercy, and as accommodation for a boarding school. Among the chief concerns of the Bishop was the establishment of a Catholic education system, and this was his primary motivation for introducing to Queensland the order of sisters renowned for their teaching.
\nIt is thought that the newly formed school was named All Hallows' by Mother Vincent after All Hallows' College, Dublin which was in turn named to recall the seventh century parish church, All Hallows'-by-the-Tower in London. All Hallows', Brisbane was to operate in conjunction with the school at St Stephen's which had been established and operated by lay members of the community since 1845, but for which the Sisters assumed the management of upon their arrival in 1861. All Hallows' was established as a 'select' school, where money raised from fees could be used to finance the parish or 'poor' schools, of which the school at St Stephen's was an early example.
\nThe construction of Adderton for Dr Fullerton was reported as nearly completed May 1858.[1] Fullerton had purchased the property above Petrie Bight, which had far reaching views of Brisbane, from Thomas Adams in 1857.[2] Adams, with Henry Watson, acquired the original Deeds of Grant of the land in two separate deeds in July 1844 and May 1852. After its construction Adderton was located on 2 acres on what was known as Duncan's Hill but the site is now perceived, after the cutting down of Ann Street, as a cliff face to Ann Street sloping south eastward to the river.
\nAdderton forms the central section of the present day convent, and was originally a two storeyed house with basement which was designed and constructed by early Brisbane builder, Andrew Petrie. Petrie was principally a building contractor, but was able to provide designs for local buildings until the influx of architects to Brisbane in the 1860s. Petrie was also responsible for the design and construction of the 1853 Adelaide House, later known as the Deanery, for Dr William Hobbs.
\nAn early photograph of Adderton reveals it as a simple stone building of Georgian proportion and detail; a centrally located doorway with an elliptical fanlight above, flanked by timber shuttered windows and with chimney stacks protruding from each end of a simple gabled roof. Many of the features of the early house including a geometric stair, entrance door and light, windows and shutters, fireplaces along with the general planning of the interior are extant within what has become a much larger convent.
\nAn article published before the completion of Adderton described the building as a brick stuccoed, ‘exceedingly plain but strong building in the London street style’. The article noted its interior as including ‘large, well lighted and lofty’ rooms, with polished cedar timber fittings and marble mantle-pieces to principal rooms. The drawing and dining rooms were divided into two parts by folding doors, and the kitchens and dairy were located below the ground level (at level with the coach-houses, stable, cow and fowl-houses, and out-offices).[3]
\nOn 1 November 1863 the Sisters and some boarders from St Stephen's school transferred to Adderton. Classrooms were established in the reception and dining rooms on the ground floor, the study to the rear of these was used as a chapel and the floor above became sleeping quarters. Thus began the school and convent of All Hallows' which continues today as the head convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland and from where the Sisters rapidly expanded their network of educational and social welfare institutions.
\nThe education offered by the Sisters for the young women of Queensland was of a high standard, and sought after by members of all religious denominations from regional centres all over Queensland and northern New South Wales. Indeed the number of non-Catholic enrolments exceeded that of the Catholic enrolments for many years until the 1880s, and remained equal to them until the turn of the century. This ecumenical spirit persisted despite the establishment of the Girls Grammar School in 1875. 1879 saw All Hallows' produce its first candidate for the Sydney University Junior Public Examinations, being the first female candidate from a convent school in Australia. The Sisters were able to provide a comprehensive education including music, domestic science as well as more academic pursuits where specialist teachers of this sort were not introduced into State Schools until the 1940s.
\nAdderton remained unaltered as the head convent for the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland until 1890, when major alterations were planned which saw the former two storeyed house engulfed in a much larger complex involving another storey, an extension of fifty feet in the length of the house and the addition of transverse wings. These alterations were planned by local architects Hunter and Corrie and executed in 1892, by contractors Messrs Woollam and Norman for upwards of £13,000. A descriptive report of the nearly completed building was carried in the national architectural periodical, the Building and Engineering Journal of February 27, 1892.
\nThe basement of the new convent contained accommodation for 'House of Refuge' girls, work rooms, bathrooms and storage areas. The ground floor housed various reception room and offices, a nuns' sacristy and halls for the building's three main staircases, along with the sisters' dining room and a chapel in the south-western wing. The chapel featured an apsidal chancel, floored with encaustic tiles and accessed via wide marble stairs; fine pine joinery and panelling stained to a light cedar colour; and a memorial stained glass window from Munich. Seating accommodation in the chapel was divided such that the Sisters sat on the ground floor and the boarders at the convent were seated in a gallery above the entrance of the chapel. Verandahs were added to the front and rear of the ground and first floors of the central section of the building at this time. The cement rendered brick extensions were erected on concrete foundations, and with a slate roof.
\nWith this 1892 extension a walkway was constructed which connected the convent to the school building erected in 1884. Incorporated as part of the walkway was a bell tower in which was placed an Angelus bell brought with the Sisters from Ireland in 1861 and dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, which to this day chimes daily at noon.
\nAlong with education the Sisters of Mercy at All Hallows' provided many other social programmes, including the care and concern for the welfare of those considered less fortunate. Bishop Quinn approved the establishment of a House of Mercy (occasionally also referred to as the previously mentioned House of Refuge) at All Hallows' on February 11, 1875 with the aim of the protection of poor women of good character, and in fact, providing accommodation for women including unwed mothers, inebriates and former prisoners in return for domestic work of various types. Later, parents or the police were able to send young girls to the House as a preventative measure against further trouble. A separate building was constructed as the House of Mercy at All Hallows' in 1878 between the rear of the convent and the Ann Street boundary. This building had a U-shaped plan, forming an enclosed courtyard with the convent. A large laundry was built in the vicinity in 1897, and this was one of the principal workshops of the inhabitants of the House of Mercy.
\nThe north-eastern wing of the convent was extended toward Ann Street in 1913 to house further dining, library and bedroom facilities. In 1921 the chapel, in the other wing, was almost tripled in size, removing the apsidal chancel and extending the whole wing toward the Ann Street perimeter of the school, and adding a transept toward the south-west. This extension, designed by local architects, Hall and Prentice was not designed to emulate the earlier Victorian building, rather a stripped classical architectural language was employed. The chapel was re-furbished in 1968 in line with the recently produced guidelines for changes of Roman Catholic services determined by Vatican II Council. The centrally facing dark stained timber pews were replaced with light pine seating facing the new, more centrally located altar.
\nWithin the garden to the south of the chapel a small brick building was constructed in 1915 to designs of prominent local architect George Henry Male Addison, to house a life size sculpture of Jesus' crucifixion. This was erected by builder, J. Bowen whose tender price was £130. A grotto, located on the northern side of the convent, and a statue of Our Lady on the circular driveway, in the front of the convent were on the grounds by the early 1930s.
\nThe Wall, Lodge and Gate
\nThe environment on Duncan's Hill gradually changed as what was formerly named High Road was renamed Ann Street, and this was cut down by 15 feet in 1865. From that time the convent at All Hallows' began to be perceived as situated at the top of a cliff-face rather than, as previously, at the apex of a gentle hill. Ann Street was subject to three more cuts, in 1876, 1886 and finally in 1927, when it took its present form.
\nThe cutting down of Ann Street in 1876 necessitated the rebuilding of the original 1865 wall, which saw it extended along Ann Street. In 1879, three years after the reconstruction of the wall a stone gatekeepers lodge and entrance gateway were constructed to designs of Rev. Joseph Augustine Canali, an architect and engineer who arrived from Italy at the behest of Quinn in 1872 with the intention of joining the priesthood in Queensland which he did in 1879. The builders for the project were O'Keeffe, Masterson and Martin who constructed the lodge and gateway for a cost of £3473/8/1. The gatehouse, which seems to have replaced an earlier structure built with Adderton, served as the convent almonry for many years after its construction.
\nAnother cutting of Ann Street took place in 1886 and the final cutting in 1927 saw the wall increased in length, extending around into Kemp Place. At this time a base was added to the gatehouse making it level with the new road and the gate was lowered.
\nThe Main Building
\nAs the school and convent increased in size and the Sisters of Mercy became wealthier, incentive arose to acquire the entire block on which the convent stood, bordered by Ann Street, Kemp Place, Ivory Street and Boundary Street. In December 1879 land on the Ivory Street side of the site was purchased from James Ivory for £2173, for the construction of a separate school building, overlooking the Brisbane River.
\nBishop Quinn laid the foundation stone of the building on January 2, 1881. The architect for the project was Andrea Giovanni Stombuco, a Florentine who moved Australia in 1851 and to Brisbane in 1875. Upon his arrival in the country Stombuco worked variously as a monumental mason, sculptor and builder, before becoming an architect, a profession for which he claims he was self-taught. As an artisan, Stombuco undertook much work for the Catholic Church and the church was to become his primary patron when he began practice as an architect. On advice from the church Stombuco moved to Brisbane and may have taken up a position offered by Quinn as Diocesan architect. Among the buildings he designed for the Catholic Church were St Joseph's Christian Brothers Schools at both Gregory Terrace (1875-6) and Nudgee (1889-90); Rathbawn (1875-8) a home for Quinn at Nudgee; several churches including Laidley (1878), Pine Mountain (1878), Sacred Heart at Sandgate (1880-1), Church of the Holy Cross, Wooloowin (1886) and St Joseph's at Kangaroo Point (1887-8).
\nThe All Hallows' school building, which has become known as the Main Building, was constructed by Edward Vallely and completed in late 1882 at a cost of £8899/2/-. The original building was a substantial three storeyed structure, with a central tower dividing two symmetrically arranged wings featuring open arcaded loggias to the lower two storeys. The central tower which appeared on the south eastern side of the building was planned by Bishop Quinn as his own office, where he could oversee the development and management of the school curriculum. However, before the building was completed Quinn died and Robert Dunne was appointed his successor .
\nThe Main Building housed class rooms, boarders' accommodation and a concert hall. A separate two storeyed building to the north-east of the Main Building was constructed at this time to house music practice rooms.
\nBy 1901 space in the Main Building was insufficient and a further wing was planned for the Main Building to designs of local architects, Hall and Dods, a partnership of Francis Richard Hall and Robert Smith Dods and the extension was constructed by John Watson. This wing which extended toward the north-west was very similar in detail to the original building, continuing the arcading, roof line and detailing. The extension included a boarders' dining room, an extension of the concert hall, another stairhall fitted with a fine timber stair and additional boarding accommodation.
\nThomas Ramsay Hall, a local architect and half-brother of Francis Hall, designed a further extension wing to the Main Building in 1919, perpendicular to the existing building and incorporating the building housing the early music practice rooms. Two further additions were made to this wing of the Main Building, extending it north west, to designs of architects Prentice and Atkinson in 1934 and in 1940. These later additions continued the arcading on the south-western facade and extended it along to disguise the early music practice rooms. Prentice and Atkinson were also responsible for the addition of a lavatory and bathroom block on the north east of the building in 1933. With the phasing out of the boarders from All Hallows' from 1969 changes were made to the Main Building, turning former accommodation quarters into classrooms.
\nSt Ann's Industrial School
\nThe gold rush period of the 1850s and 1860s in Australia saw more concern and governmental involvement with the care of homeless children. Officials were given powers to place neglected and delinquent children in institutions often offering religious as well as technical training, modelled on the English district union schools.
\nFollowing the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act of 1865, which regulated the detention of neglected and criminal children, the Sisters established an industrial school in 1868 in rented cottages adjacent to All Hallows'. St Ann's Industrial School, as it became known, was concerned with the full-time education of young girls in domestic arts and sciences, including cooking, dressmaking and needlework. The Sisters established the Industrial School to continue the training of young girls leaving St Vincent's orphanage at Nudgee, in an attempt to prolong their entry in the workforce, where the state age for discharge could be as low as ten years. However St Ann's was soon accepting full fee paying students. Work produced at the school was exhibited nationally and the institute became a highly regarded training centre.
\nIn 1876 the school's Liquidation Committee approved the construction of a new building to house the Industrial School and land previously rented by the Sisters was purchased from the estate of George Poole for £3000. This land faced Ann Street to the south west of the main entrance.
\nAndrea Stombuco, the designer of the Main Building at All Hallows', called tenders for the construction of an Industrial School in the early 1880s, but financial constraints delayed the construction of the building. Tenders were again called in 1893, to revised designs of FDG Stanley and Son, and the contractors Woollam and Norman who had only recently finished the construction of the extensions to the All Hallows' Convent, were commissioned as builders for the project. Messrs Leach and Son were the decorators employed. St Ann's was completed for a cost of about £7000 and officially opened by the Governor, Sir Henry Wylie Norman on July 15, 1894. A newspaper report of the opening in The Age gave the following account of the nature of the school
\nAs it is well-known the institution is largely self-supporting, being the abode of dress-makers, lace and fancy needle workers. St Ann's has gradually grown until now it assumes the position of an important destroyer of the nonsensical fallacies of free-trade which have blighted colonial youth in the past. We hope the children will grow in goodness and usefulness, and that a kindred institution will, in the early future, be established for boys where they may acquire useful trades.
\nAn Industrial School for boys was, indeed, established by Archbishop Dunne in the printing offices of the Catholic newspaper, The Australian.
\nChanges in the education system saw the partial closure of St Ann's in the 1940s, when the building became used as a boarding house for young women studying at university or working in the city. In 1964 an extensive refurbishment of the building was undertaken which converted the lower floors of the building into classrooms, anticipating the future growth of the school.
\nOther Buildings
\nAll Hallows' School and Convent have seen many periods of concentrated growth; the 1880s and early 1890s saw the construction of the Main Building, and the first major extension of the convent. During the 1920s and 30s the convent was again extended, the Main Building was extended twice and several small buildings were constructed including the chaplains residency, St Brigids and an art studio.
\nThe art studio was constructed between the north eastern wing of the Main Building and the Convent in 1922 to designs of local architects, Hall and Prentice at a cost of £1437. This small one storeyed masonry structure was designed to maximise natural lighting, with large windows and skylighting and an open plan. A similar art studio was constructed at Lourdes Hill School in 1923.
\nHall and Prentice, or the later firm of Hall and Phillips which formed with the dissolution of the previous partnership in 1929, are thought to have designed two other buildings on the campus, as well as the before mentioned extension of the chapel in 1921. These are a chaplain's residence constructed in 1936, abutting the gatekeeper's lodge above the Ann Street wall and St Brigids, a classroom block, built in 1924. These two buildings have similar classical detailing to that found on Hall and Phillips' extension of the nearby chapel.
\nAdjacent to St Brigids is a small octagonal building of one storey, with a high pitched pyramidal roof which was apparently constructed as an aviary, but is now used for classroom and meeting space.
\nLater buildings extant on the site include McCauley Hall which was constructed as the first Catholic teachers' college in Queensland in 1958; Aquinas Hall a four storeyed building containing language, history and science laboratories, designed by Frank Cullen and Partners and opened in 1964 to which a science and library wing were added in 1972 and extended in 1978; and, most recently, Loreto Hall, a gymnasium complex, incorporating a large auditorium and art rooms designed by Graeme Thiedeke and opened in 1985. Loreto Hall replaced one of the very few buildings on the site known to have been demolished, a small one storeyed building known as Nazereth. This was constructed in 1952 for use by the lower primary school, and with the closing of the primary school in 1981, Nazereth was used for art rooms until its demolition.
\nIn 1913 All Hallows' became the home of one of the first school swimming pools in Queensland, which was replaced in 1960 by the extant pool and associated buildings.
\nEarly 21st Century Alterations
\nIn 2009, the former caretaker’s workshop to the southwest of McCauley Hall, its adjoining toilets and link-bridge, and the toilet block to the rear of the Convent’s former laundry building were demolished to make way for a play area.
\nBetween 2009 and 2011, the multi-purpose playing courts in the courtyard bounded by the western side of the Main Building, walkway and former art studio were removed and converted into a landscaped courtyard.
\nThe pool at the north end of the site was removed in 2013 and replaced by a netball/tennis court and adjoining courtyard in 2014, coinciding with the construction of a new building (intended for use by year 7 students) over the previous tennis court to the north of the Main Building.
\nBetween 2018 and 2019, Adderton’s southwest end was converted for use as a museum (Mercy Heritage Centre). Works to facilitate this conversion broadly included a new circular stair to the courtyard between the House of Mercy and Adderton’s northern wing, replacement of an accessibility ramp to the front (southeast) verandah, addition of a removeable ramp for access to the southern rooms, removal of some sections of interior partitions and doors to the upper level of Adderton, and replacement of toilet facilities to the upper level of the House of Mercy. Within the courtyard formed by the House of Mercy, the lift’s motor room was demolished, new theatre stairs/seating was added at the ground (courtyard) level and a new freestanding shade structure added over.
\nIn 2020, alterations were made to the interior of the House of Mercy, within its central floor’s northwest and southwest wings, to accommodate a café fit-out. Wall nibs and heads were retained to retain an understanding of the early interior layout.
","criteria":"All Hallows' Convent was the first permanent home of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland and has remained a focal point for their activities until the present day. From All Hallows', the Sisters of Mercy have established convents over the State from where their educational and social programmes are implemented. All Hallows' provides evidence of the development of the order in Queensland.
\nAll Hallows' School is the oldest surviving secondary school in Brisbane and is able to demonstrate the pattern of development of education particularly in privately managed schools in Queensland.
\nThe school and convent have remained an important feature of the Catholic Church in Queensland throughout the site's 130 year history reflected in the active interest of Archbishops Quinn, Dunne and Duhig in the planning and development of the institution.
|Several of the buildings on the site provide evidence of early social and cultural customs which are no longer practiced. St Ann's is one of the few Industrial Schools in Brisbane and thus provides rare evidence of earlier forms of technical education. The gatehouse acted as an almonry for many years and this was always an important element of the Sisters' social programmes. The convent, incorporating the former House of Mercy demonstrates the manner in which the Sisters of Mercy extended charity to whom they considered unfortunate women.
The core of the convent at All Hallow's is one of the earliest surviving houses in Brisbane, Adderton built for Dr George Fullerton in the 1850s. Features which remain extant from this building include a rare Queensland example of a geometric spiral stair, early glazing and timber joinery.
|Archaeological investigations of Adderton would, potentially, reveal early building construction techniques, materials and early land use of the site.
|There has been considerable change on the site, though very little demolition of buildings, and therefore the site retains an intact record of the growth of the school, and is a very good example of a nineteenth century convent and school site. The introspective nature of the site planning and the relationship among the various provide an intact physical manifestation of the Catholic ethos of female education during the nineteenth and twentieth century.
|The All Hallows' site is a prominent element of inner Brisbane, and in particular the Fortitude Valley area. The school and convent is a major landmark in Brisbane, given prominence by the dramatic skyline of the major buildings. The site is planned with cohesion, consciously introspective around central courts, manifesting traditional collegiate planning.
Several individual buildings have architectural merit, and together, form an important compendium of the works of many of Brisbane's premier architectural practitioners and firms. The site contains both large scale buildings which are prominently sited and well-designed, as well as more humble structures which contribute to the contextual environment of the larger buildings.
Individually the buildings are of aesthetic and architectural value. The Georgian proportion and restraint of Adderton influenced the additions of the Convent which is a well-sited and composed building suited to Brisbane's sub-tropical climate. Several of the 1920s and 1930s buildings on the site including the chapel extension, St Brigid's, the chaplain's residence and the art studio, are well composed buildings manifesting an influence of inter-war classicism. The former St Ann's Industrial School of 1894 is a well composed building with Gothic revival detailing and is an important element of Ann Street. The 1882 Main Building is, again, a well-composed building with sensitive additions and a good example of educational building design of the Victorian period. Aquinas Hall is a well-articulated building of the post-war period. Many of the garden areas and established trees contribute to the picturesque qualities of the place. The open areas of the school allow these buildings to maintain a close relationship with the river and surrounding areas whilst also providing appropriate settings.
Many individual features of the building are of very high quality and have significance for their craftsmanship. Such features include the timber joinery and stained glass panels in the Main Building, Convent and St Ann's.
|The school and convent has associations with many people of importance to Queensland history including Archbishops Quinn, Dunne and Duhig; Mother Mary Vincent Whitty who established the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland; and Mother Mary Potter who was a long time superior of the order. Many prominent Queensland architects and builders are associated with the site including Andrew Petrie, Andrea Stombuco, FDG Stanley, Hunter and Corrie, Hall and Dods, Hall and Prentice, GHM Addison and Frank Cullen.
|All Hallows' has special associations with various groups in Queensland; the Catholic Church as their major secondary school for females; the Sisters of Mercy as their head convent and principal school and the school community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14976,"place_ref":600201,"name":"Holy Trinity Rectory","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"141 Brookes Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Holy Trinity Rectory (1889) is situated adjacent to Holy Trinity Church (1876-77 with additions 1920-21 and 1929) and Holy Trinity Parish Hall (1891) in Fortitude Valley. All three buildings are located on a site bounded by Brookes, Church and Wickham streets at the northern end of Fortitude Valley. They complement each other in terms of scale, materials (each is of brick construction), use of Gothic stylistic elements and garden settings. The rectory is positioned to the south east of the church, fronting Brookes Street and to the north east of the parish hall, which faces Church Street.
The rectory is a two-storeyed brick building with verandahs to both floors. It has a core hipped roof and projecting gables to three elevations. At the rear is an attached, two-storeyed timber service wing with a hipped roof. All the roofs are clad with galvanized iron and the core roof has a ridge vent. Three single brick chimneys with vaulted tops rise above this roof and there is an external brick chimney at the end of the timber service wing.
The main gabled elevation to Brookes Street has a rendered plinth and is decorated with a rendered band at the upper floor level, rendered window sills, label moulds and panels below the windows. The projecting roof gable is supported on fretwork timber brackets and there is a circular vent to the gable peak. Windows in the projecting gable are in sets of three to each floor, with narrow brick mullions. The ground floor window in this gabled projection has a corrugated iron hood supported on decorative timber brackets.
The ground floor verandahs are supported on squat brick piers, with square timber verandah posts with cap moulds and brackets but no balustrade. A deep frieze below the upper floor has exposed timber cross-bracing with vertically jointed boards behind. The upper floor verandahs have the same square timber verandah posts as the ground floor, supporting skillion verandah roofs of galvanized iron separate to the main roof. The upper verandahs have a cast iron balustrade. The rear verandah has been enclosed with timber boards.
Most of the interior walls are of brick with a smooth plaster finish and most rooms have simple cornices and a high, narrow picture rail. Some rooms have decorative moulded plaster ceiling roses, but overall the decoration is very restrained. French doors open to the verandahs.
The building is set back from the street in a simple garden setting. There is a low retaining wall of rusticated, coursed stonework along the Brookes Street road alignment in front of the rectory. A timber picket fence separates the rectory yard from the church grounds.
","history":"The Holy Trinity Rectory at 141 Brookes Street, Fortitude Valley is a two-storeyed brick building constructed in 1889 to a design prepared by former Queensland Colonial Architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.
The Church of England was the first institutional religion established in Queensland, with the parish of St John's in Brisbane created in 1849 as part of the Diocese of Newcastle. Land bounded by George, William and Elizabeth streets was granted to the church and St John's Church was consecrated on this site in 1854. This parish encompassed a wide district which extended well beyond the Brisbane town boundary and included Milton, Enoggera and Sandgate.
By the mid-1850s a village of 100 to 150 houses had been established at Fortitude Valley just north of the Brisbane town boundary and there were more homes scattered through the semi-bush to the north and east. For Valley residents, access to St John's Church at the southern end of North Brisbane was difficult. Principal access was via the steep, unformed track of Ann Street over Duncan's Hill, which was not cut down until the 1860s and 1870s. Wickham Street did not exist at this period; in its place was a series of ponds and brickyards.
In recognition of the increasing settlement of the district north of Brisbane, part of St John's parish separated in 1856 to form Holy Trinity parish. The new parish encompassed the areas of Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills and New Farm and extended west to Enoggera and north to Sandgate. At first a cottage was rented at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets for use as a Church of England school on weekdays and as a place of worship on Sundays. In 1857 the New South Wales government granted to the parish two acres of land bounded by Ann, Brookes, Church and Wickham streets for church purposes (the present site of the Holy Trinity Church, Rectory and Parish Hall). In the same year a long, stone building was erected on this site for use as a school room and temporary church.
The Diocese of Brisbane was formed in 1859, with Bishop Tufnell taking office as the first Bishop of Brisbane in 1860. At this time St John's Church was designated as the pro-Cathedral, and Holy Trinity parish was incorporated into the Diocese of Brisbane.
The first Holy Trinity rectory was built for Rev. John Mosely who was appointed in 1861. It was a stone building situated in Leichhardt Street between Quarry and Love streets, on a crown land grant to the Church which extended through to Water Street.
During the 1860s and 1870s Fortitude Valley developed as a commercial and residential centre and population density in the Valley and surrounding areas increased substantially. The 1857 stone building was enlarged in 1862 to accommodate an expanding congregation and by the mid-1870s Holy Trinity parish was committed to the construction of a new, larger church on the Brookes Street site. Designed in 1875 by the then Queensland Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, the second Holy Trinity church was erected in 1876-77 by contractor James Robinson. The 1857 stone church/school building remained in use as a schoolroom.
As the parish grew, the disadvantages of having the rectory separated from the church eventually led to the construction in 1889 of a new rectory in Brookes Street, adjacent to Holy Trinity Church, at a cost of £1,935. Like the 1876-77 church, the second rectory was designed by FDG Stanley and constructed by builder James Robinson.
Stanley was born in Edinburgh in 1839 and trained in Scotland as an architect. He emigrated to Brisbane in 1862 and practised privately before gaining employment with the Queensland government in the office of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin, in 1863. Following Tiffin's retirement Stanley was appointed Colonial Architect from 1 January 1872, a position he held until 1881. Throughout this period of government employment he accepted a number of private commissions and continued in private practice in Brisbane, Maryborough and Toowoomba after he left the public service. Stanley was a prolific architect and his work is found throughout Queensland.
Stanley's design for Holy Trinity Rectory was for a substantial brick house of two storeys with broad verandahs on both levels, projecting gables and a corrugated iron roof. Some of the stone from the former rectory in Leichhardt Street was recycled in a retaining wall along the Brookes Street boundary.
The 1889 residence continues to function as Holy Trinity Rectory.
","criteria":"Holy Trinity Rectory, Fortitude Valley is part of an ecclesiastical group comprising Holy Trinity Church (1876-77, 1920-21, 1929), Holy Trinity Rectory (1889) and Holy Trinity Hall (1891-92). The site has historical significance for its association with the establishment of the Anglican Church in Queensland and the surviving buildings are important evidence of the late 19th century consolidation of the Church of England in Queensland, which is an important theme in the state's history. The place also illustrates the expansion of suburban Brisbane in the late 19th century.
|Holy Trinity Rectory is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class: a substantial late 19th century rectory. In its scale (two-storeyed), use of materials (especially the brick construction and decorative cast iron work) and Gothic stylistic elements, the building is reflective of themes predominant in late 1880s boom-era residences in Brisbane. Holy Trinity parish was at its peak at this period and the building reflects the comparative wealth of the parishioners. However, restraint in the simple interior finishes and modest decorative detailing reflects the building's ecclesiastical function. The building is a good example of the ecclesiastical residential work of prolific Queensland architect FDG Stanley and has aesthetic significance generated by its design, materials and garden setting, which includes a stone and cast-iron retaining wall along the Brookes Street frontage.
|The building is a good example of the ecclesiastical residential work of prolific Queensland architect FDG Stanley and has aesthetic significance generated by its design, materials and garden setting, which includes a stone and cast-iron retaining wall along the Brookes Street frontage.
Holy Trinity Rectory makes a significant contribution to the Holy Trinity Precinct in Fortitude Valley. This group is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class: a substantially intact, cohesive, late 19th century Queensland ecclesiastical precinct. The cohesion is due to the consistency in scale, forms, materials, use of Gothic design elements, quality of architectural design and location within a garden setting (including mature trees and retaining walls). The arrangement and inter-relationship of the buildings on the site is important in illustrating how the precinct functions. Since the late 19th century Holy Trinity Precinct has made a significant aesthetic contribution to the Brisbane townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14977,"place_ref":600202,"name":"Holy Trinity Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"141 Brookes Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Holy Trinity Church is a substantial brick and stone building located on a site bound by Church, Wickham and Brookes Streets, Fortitude Valley. The church precinct includes the Holy Trinity Parish Hall (600203), and the Holy Trinity Rectory (600201).
The church has a central clerestoried nave which is flanked by aisles and intercepted by transepts midway. It sits on a stone base and is mainly constructed of dark brick laid in the English bond method, with the window surrounds, string courses and copings finished in cement render. The roof is of rolled metal which replaced the original Welsh slate roof of Duchess size tiles, and has cast iron cresting running along the ridge of the body and transepts of the church. A stone cross sits on the point of each gable end.
A pair of Gothic arched doors are centrally located in the symmetrically arranged south face of the building. They are set into a portal entrance of cement render and brick which features a hood moulding. An early pointed arched stained glass and tracery window is centred above the portal entrance, above which is a small rectangular window. The remainder of the south face consists of two smaller lancet windows on either side of the doors, and a gable end which is flanked by towers topped with pinnacles on either side. All of the brickwork to this face, apart from the portal entrance is bagged and painted.
The east and west faces of the church are similar, both having centrally located transepts flanked by four equal bays of windows, two on either side of the transept gables. These bays of windows are made up of three lancet windows of stained glass and surrounded by lighter brickwork and cement render. The bays are divided by buttresses of dark brick which have cement rendered copings. The transept gables have double doors located centrally between two small windows and have been bagged and painted to match the front face of the church. Above the doorway is a circular window with stone tracery and stained glass panels. This is also surrounded by lighter brickwork. The colours of the stained glass in these windows differs on each side of the building. There are eight clerestory windows on either side of the transept gables. These are replacements of the originals and are round arched with each window divided into three smaller arches. Centrally located in the roof line above these windows are two ventilation gablets, one on either side of the transept gables.
The north face or rear of the building is an addition to the original building, and was built in 1921. This addition had been included in the original design for the church and it was always intended that it be built as the parish grew. It is constructed in the same style and of the same materials as the remainder of the building and houses the chancel and vestry. The rear face is dominated by a large grouped lancet stained glass window which sits above the reredos internally. On the eastern side of the chancel is a small rectangular room which houses the vestry, and on the western side is a small polygonal room. The walls to these rooms are lower than the rest of the building and are capped with a concrete parapet punctuated with a quatrefoil design. These rooms are accessed externally by timber double doors which have a leadlight window above them. Both the doors and the window are set into a Gothic arch similar in style to those in the original part of the building.
Internally the walls are rendered masonry and scored to represent stone in places. The floor is concrete with two bands of encaustic tiles running the length of the nave and a feature pattern of encaustic and tessellated tiles at the entry. To the right of the entry doors is a semi circular staircase leading to the gallery which houses seating and an early organ. The seats to the gallery are of cedar and pine and appear to have a ventilation system located in the floor underneath them.
The nave arcade is made up of six cast iron pillars on either side. These are of complex section cast to resemble clustered pillars used in Early English churches and sit on octagonal rendered masonry bases. They are linked by a cast iron framework decorated with a punched quatrefoil motif, forming pointed arched openings. The spandrels are fitted with timber panels featuring alternating cutout patterns.
The roof construction of the body of the church has hammer beam roof trusses and is lined with timber boards which are laid diagonally. All timber work, including the pews is either natural teak or timber stained to a teak colour. Many pieces of liturgical furniture are retained in the church.
A high, pointed arch divides the nave from the chancel. This is dominated by the altar and the reredos which is carved of Yangan freestone. The sanctuary is defined by the altar rails which are timber carved and stained to match the rest of the timber work.
Situated in front of the chancel are the lectern and pulpit. The pulpit is also of carved freestone with detailing in pink marble. The lectern is brass and is in the shape of an eagle with outstretched wings.
","history":"Construction on The Holy Trinity Church in Fortitude Valley began in 1876 and was completed in 1877 by the Anglican Church. It was the second Anglican church on this site and the third in Fortitude Valley.
Fortitude Valley was established in 1849 and the first rector, The Rev. E.K. Yeatman, of 'our mother church in this portion of Australia' was appointed in 1856. The Holy Trinity Parish included Sandgate, New Farm, Enoggera and Bowen Hills, and as St Johns was situated on the site of what is now Queens Park, parishioners had difficulty attending services. 'The Ann Street cutting had not been started. There was no Wickham Street, only a row of ponds and brickyards on the site'. By 1856, it was apparent that St Johns was not large enough for the growing parish, and a new church was established in a rented cottage at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets, across from what is now the Fortitude Valley Post Office. Divine services were held on Sunday, and a day school was conducted during the week.
In 1857 the parish was granted two acres of land for church purposes by the New South Wales government. This is the same site that the current church is now located on. The first building was constructed as a temporary church at a cost of £495, and was described as 'a long, plain building of rough stone and cut facings'. It was later enlarged at a further cost of £300.
The first rectory was built for The Reverend John Mosely who was appointed in 1861. It cost £650 and was situated in Leichhardt Street on land which extended to Water Street. This land was a Crown grant to the Church of England.
When the Rev. James Love was appointed in 1875, it was decided that a new church was required. 'From the acorn - as represented by the first cottage room - the oak of the present Trinity Church was bursting'. Church wardens John Bramston, Henry Whyborn and the Attorney General of Queensland began a fund raising appeal. The architect for the church was F.D.G. Stanley. Although he was employed as Colonial Architect at the time, the Holy Trinity church was one of his many private projects.
His initial drawings were for a stone building, but the tenders must have been too high as new plans were produced for a stone or brick building of smaller scale with options for the building to be built with or without a chancel and for the copings, window dressings and string courses to be of stone or cement.
He also designed a number of other churches of both brick and stone that were of a similar style and scale to the Holy Trinity. These included St Pauls at Maryborough, and the Holy Trinity at Mackay.
The corner stone of the Holy Trinity, Fortitude Valley was laid on Saturday April 29th, 1876 and the building was formally opened by Bishop Hale on Saturday July 21st, 1877. It was constructed without a chancel and with cement dressings by James Robinson, bricklayer and builder, at a cost of approximately £3000.
It was now apparent that the old rectory was too far away from the church and in 1891 it was sold. A new rectory, also designed by F.D.G. Stanley and constructed by James Robinson, was erected next to the church. In January 1892, the old church which was being used as a school was demolished and replaced with a new building to be used as a hall. This building was designed by diocesan architect J.H. Buckeridge.
In 1919 the Rev. Samuel Watkin went to Maryborough to inspect the chancel of St Pauls Church of England which had also been designed by F.D.G. Stanley. Upon his return he was instructed to begin interviewing architects to ascertain the cost of a new chancel.
Church records mention Mr Addison, architect in connection with the chancel. This could be G.H.M. Addison or his son G.F. Addison. Tenders were received by the church in April 1920 and ranged from £1775 to £2268. The new chancel and sanctuary were dedicated on Sunday, September 4th 1921 by Archbishop Donaldson.
Mr Addison was once again consulted when the rector received a cheque from a donor for the remodelling of the clerestory windows in 1925. He presented several designs, one of which was selected. It was estimated that it would cost between £500 and £600, and the donor instructed that specifications should proceed, saying 'it was possible that the design might be carried out. If so it would remove an ugly blot and substitute a thing of beauty'. The new clerestory windows were dedicated on June 14th 1925 by Archbishop Sharp.
On Sunday, November 10th 1929 the last major addition to the church, the new reredos was dedicated. It was designed by Lange L. Powell of Atkinson, Powell and Conrad, and was carved by A.L. Petrie.
Apart from a brick retaining wall that was erected in 1956 as a memorial to those who died in World War Two, the grounds and buildings have remained relatively intact from this date.
","criteria":"The Holy Trinity Church demonstrates the rapid growth of the Anglican community not only in Fortitude Valley but also in communities further to the North and East of Fortitude Valley.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a mid - Victorian interpretation of Early English Gothic architecture, and also an example of the ecclesiastical work of prominent Brisbane architect F.D.G. Stanley. It has a number of intact elements typical to this style, including the plan form and detailing which includes the gallery and organ, joinery and stained glass windows.
|As a substantial church in a prominent location, Holy Trinity Church is of considerable aesthetic value.
|The design uses particularly innovative building techniques for the period in which it was built. These include the cement flooring and the use of cast iron columns in the nave arcade.
|It was only seven years after the first settlers arrived in The Valley that the need arose for a new church. From that time, the church has had a strong association with the Anglican community.
The church contains many items of furniture of special value to the parish community.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14978,"place_ref":600203,"name":"Holy Trinity Parish Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"141 Brookes Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Holy Trinity Parish Hall (1891-92) is situated adjacent to Holy Trinity Church (1876-77, 1920-21, 1929) and Holy Trinity Rectory (1889) in Fortitude Valley. All three buildings are located on a site bounded by Brookes, Church and Wickham streets at the northern end of Fortitude Valley. They complement each other in terms of scale, materials (each is of brick construction), use of Gothic stylistic elements and garden setting. The parish hall, fronting Church Street, is positioned to the south east of the church and to the south west of the rectory, which faces Brookes Street.
Holy Trinity Parish Hall is a substantial, single-storeyed brick building with a multi-gabled roof. It is a plain but well resolved design, incorporating motifs common to Gothic-styled ecclesiastical building in the cruciform plan, spire (roof ventilator), lancet windows and joinery detailing.
The building rests on a base of pale cream bricks and the red brick exterior walls are decorated with bands of the same cream brick, which accent the wall face and the window sills and heads. Windows are simple lancets and door openings have flat stone lintels with corbelled shoulders or pointed arches of cream brick. The roof is of corrugated iron over exposed timber framing, with a timber-boarded ceiling. There is a timber-framed spire with louvred ventilator openings at the crossing of the transepts with the main roof.
At the western corner of the building is a marble foundation stone or plaque with the inscription: This foundation stone was laid by the Bishop of Brisbane October 17th 1891. JH Buckeridge, architect. John Quinn, contractor.
Above the main entrance door is another plaque with the inscription: Trinity Sunday School opened by His Excellency Sir Henry Wylie Norman KGB, GCMG January 23rd 1892. J Spooner, rector. A Trimble, superintendent.
The interior comprises one large, high, open central space (the main hall) divided from four small former class rooms along each long side by lancet-arched openings with folding timber doors. The interior walls are plastered and the floor is of narrow timber boards.
A small front grassed yard to Church Street has some plantings and a low brick retaining wall along the road alignment.
","history":"Holy Trinity Parish Hall at Church Street, Fortitude Valley is a substantial brick building constructed in 1891-92 to the design of Brisbane architect JH Buckeridge. It replaced an earlier stone school room on the site.
The Church of England was the first institutional religion established in Queensland, with the parish of St John's in Brisbane created in 1849 as part of the Diocese of Newcastle. Land bounded by George, William and Elizabeth streets was granted to the church and St John's Church was consecrated on this site in 1854. This parish encompassed a wide district which extended well beyond the Brisbane town boundary and included Milton, Enoggera and Sandgate.
By the mid-1850s a village of 100 to 150 houses had been established at Fortitude Valley just north of the Brisbane town boundary and there were more homes scattered through the semi-bush to the north and east. For Valley residents, access to St John's Church at the southern end of North Brisbane was difficult. Principal access was via the steep, unformed track of Ann Street over Duncan's Hill, which was not cut down until the 1860s and 1870s. Wickham Street did not exist at this period; in its place was a series of ponds and brickyards.
In recognition of the increasing settlement of the district north of Brisbane, part of St John's parish separated in 1856 to form Holy Trinity parish. The new parish encompassed the areas of Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills and New Farm and extended west to Enoggera and north to Sandgate. At first a cottage was rented at the corner of Ann and Ballow Streets for use as a Church of England school on weekdays and as a place of worship on Sundays. In 1857 the New South Wales government granted to the parish two acres of land bounded by Ann, Brookes, Church and Wickham streets for church purposes (the present site of the Holy Trinity Church, Rectory and Parish Hall). In the same year a long, stone building was erected on this site for use as a school room and temporary church.
The Diocese of Brisbane was formed in 1859, with Bishop Tufnell taking office as the first Bishop of Brisbane in 1860. At this time St John's Church was designated as the pro-Cathedral, and Holy Trinity parish was incorporated into the Diocese of Brisbane.
During the 1860s and 1870s Fortitude Valley developed as a commercial and residential centre and population density in the Valley and surrounding areas increased substantially. The 1857 stone building was enlarged in 1862 to accommodate an expanding congregation and by the mid-1870s Holy Trinity parish was committed to the construction of a new, larger church on the Brookes Street site. Designed in 1875 by the then Queensland Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, the second Holy Trinity church was erected in 1876-77 by contractor James Robinson. The 1857 stone church/school building remained in use as a schoolroom. In 1889 a new rectory was constructed fronting Brookes Street, replacing an earlier rectory in Leichhardt Street.
In 1891 the parish's Leichhardt Street property was sold for £3,500 and the stone schoolroom was demolished to make way for the present brick parish hall in Church Street. The sale of the Leichhardt Street land likely financed construction of the new hall.
Holy Trinity Parish Hall was designed as a Sunday school-cum-hall by architect John Hingeston Buckeridge. As Brisbane Diocesan architect from 1887 to 1902, Buckeridge was responsible for many Church of England ecclesiastical buildings in southeast Queensland, including: the Church of St John the Baptist, Bulimba (1888); St Matthew's Church, Kilkivan (1888); St Mary's Church, Mount Morgan (1888-89); St Andrew's Rectory, South Brisbane (1889); St Mary's Rectory and additions to the church hall, Kangaroo Point (1889); St Agnes' Church, Esk (1889); St George's Church, Redland Bay (1889-90); the church-school of St Michaels and All Angels at New Farm (1890-91); Holy Trinity Rectory, Woolloongabba (1890-91); Anglican churches at Killarney, St George, Woodford and Yuleba in 1891; Christ Church, Milton (1891); Christ Church, Bundaberg (1892-99); St Luke's, Toowoomba (1894); St Augustine's, Hamilton (1895-96); the Anglican Church Institute and Synod Hall in Brisbane (1895-97); St Colomb's at Sandgate (1899); St John the Evangelist Church at Mundoolun (1899); St Paul's, Roma; and the Childers Church of England Church (1899). Buckeridge also designed the All Souls' Quetta Memorial Church (later Cathedral) on Thursday Island (1892-93).
The foundation stone of the new parish school was laid by the Bishop of Brisbane, Dr Webber, on 17 October 1891. The building was completed in approximated 3 months by contractor John Quinn at a cost of £1,775, which included stabling at the rear of the building. It was opened formally as the Holy Trinity Sunday School by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Henry Wylie Norman, on 23 January 1892.
At completion the building was described in the local press as 'a very creditable addition to the architecture of the Valley.' It contained a main hall measuring 92ft by 24ft, two transepts each 24ft by 14ft and four classrooms, each 17ft by 12ft. The classrooms were separated from the main hall and transepts by arches and folding timber doors, which could be opened to allow the whole to be used as one hall. At one end of the main hall was a platform or stage, with a library at one side and a retiring room on the other, each 12ft by 8ft; at the other end of the main hall was a raised infants' gallery, which could accommodate 100 children. In total, the building could accommodate over 500 children or 400 adults comfortably. The interior was finished originally in face brick.
The majority of Brisbane Diocesan buildings of this period were constructed of timber, which was less expensive than stone or brick. Construction of a parish hall-cum-school room in brick was uncommon and the substantial nature of the Holy Trinity Parish Hall reflects the strength of Holy Trinity parish in the late 19th century.
","criteria":"Holy Trinity Parish Hall, Fortitude Valley is part of an ecclesiastical group comprising Holy Trinity Church (1876-77, 1920-21 & 1929), Holy Trinity Rectory (1889) and Holy Trinity Parish Hall (1891-92). The site has historical significance for its association with the establishment of the Anglican Church in Queensland and the surviving buildings are important evidence of the late 19th century consolidation of the Church of England in Queensland, which is an important theme in the state's history. The place also illustrates the expansion of suburban Brisbane in the late 19th century.
|Holy Trinity Parish Hall demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of comparatively few 19th century Church of England parish halls of brick construction in Queensland.
|Holy Trinity Parish Hall is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class. It is a substantial school room-cum-hall utilising Gothic stylistic elements popular in ecclesiastical buildings of the period, including the cruciform plan, ridge ventilator in the form of a small spire, lancet windows and joinery detailing. Holy Trinity parish was at its peak in the late 19th century and the parish hall, in its substantial scale and brick construction, reflects the comparative wealth of the parishioners, while restraint in the interior finishes and modest decorative detailing reflects the building's ecclesiastical function.
The building is a good example of the ecclesiastical work of Brisbane Diocesan architect JH Buckeridge and has aesthetic significance generated by its design, materials and garden setting.
Holy Trinity Parish Hall makes a significant contribution to the Holy Trinity Precinct in Fortitude Valley. This group is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class: a substantially intact, cohesive, late 19th century Queensland ecclesiastical precinct. The cohesion is due to the consistency in scale, forms, materials, use of Gothic design elements, quality of architectural design and location within a garden setting (including mature trees and retaining walls). The arrangement and inter-relationship of the buildings on the site is important in illustrating how the precinct functions.
|The building is a good example of the ecclesiastical work of Brisbane Diocesan architect JH Buckeridge and has aesthetic significance generated by its design, materials and garden setting.
Since the late 19th century Holy Trinity Precinct has made a significant aesthetic contribution to the Brisbane townscape.
|Holy Trinity Parish Hall is of social significance, being associated with the work of the Holy Trinity parish since 1892.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14979,"place_ref":600204,"name":"Gregory Place & Gregory Hall","alternate_name":"Fortitude Valley Wesleyan Church and Church Hall | Fortitude Valley Methodist Church and Church Hall | Epworth Centre","street_address":"116-120 Brookes Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gregory Place (1888) and Gregory Hall (1871) are two Gothic influenced red brick and cement render former churches. The buildings sit at right angles to each other; Gregory Place fronts Brookes Street, while Gregory Hall runs parallel to the street. The buildings are complementary in form, detail and materials, although Gregory Place is more elaborately ornamented. The buildings sit within and contribute to both a late nineteenth century streetscape and a precinct of Gothic influenced church buildings.
The modest 1871 building is a simple hall with buttressed brick walls and a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof. It has single triangular head lancet windows between buttresses to the side walls. The south-eastern elevation, formerly the 'front' elevation, has a central pointed arch entrance, flanked by paired lancets, with a group of three lancets to the pinnacle of the gable. The north-western elevation has two pointed arched entrances and a group of three lancets.
The ornamentation of openings and wall surfaces is also modest but fine: the windows have slightly projecting corbelled triangular heads; the end gables have brick pointed arch courses above the grouped windows; the windows sills, buttress copings and plinth are picked out in cement render, and diagonal brick end courses decorate the sills, cornice and plinth.
The interior of the 1871 building is painted brick, spanned by timber hammerbeam trusses landing on impost blocks. The ceiling is timber-lined with exposed rafters, and is finished with a band of diagonally laid brick ends. The windows are diamond-glazed. The refurbishment of the interior has included an extensive timber mezzanine, with beams which abut existing walls, exposed air conditioning ducts, new toilets and a kitchen.
The 1888 building is also essentially a simple hall, embellished with parapeted gables with turrets at the ends, and rich decoration of openings and wall surfaces. It has a steeply pitched concrete tiled roof, with an octagonal spire springing from the ridge. A gabled annex is attached to the rear.
The building has buttressed walls, pointed arched tracery windows, and rosette windows to the gable ends. The street elevation has a recessed entry with floriated colonnettes surmounted by a large tracery window and small lancet windows. The building is decorated with white cement render to copings, cornices and window surrounds; it also has stone hood mouldings, beige brick voussoirs, a dado with quatrefoil motifs and a rendered plinth. The gables and turrets to the Brookes Street end are topped with small finials.
The 1888 building has a rendered masonry interior, with an organ recess and vestry to the north-eastern end, and a timber panelled entry vestibule at the south-western end. The latter contains a timber WWI Honour Roll, and is flanked by timber stairs leading to a timber choir loft supported by two floriated colonnettes. The roof is supported by timber hammerbeam trusses with a king post landing on floriated imposts, and has a diagonally-timbered ceiling with exposed purlins and triangular vents, which is finished with a deep plaster cornice. The two gables to the side elevations are expressed in the ceiling over the choir loft, and a horizontal timber panel with a carved rose covers the base of the spire. The organ recess has a stencilled, half-domed ceiling with a rich moulding to its reveal, and is framed with floriated colonettes.
The windows are mostly richly patterned stained glass, including two-light tracery windows lining the east and west walls, a larger four-light window over the choir loft, and rosettes to the side gables and above the organ recess. The internal refurbishment is similar to that of the 1870 building, and has included an extensive timber mezzanine with beams which abut existing walls, exposed air conditioning ducts, new toilets and a kitchen in the vestry area, and additional partitioning for offices.
Externally, the two buildings are unusually complementary in form, materials and details, the later building being a richer elaboration of the modest but fine earlier building. The 1871 building contains some fine, simple timber and brick detailing, while the 1888 interior comprises more lavish plaster and carved timber decoration. Much of the buildings remain intact in form and detail. The spatial quality of the interiors, however, has been substantially altered by the installation of the mezzanine, air conditioning ducts and new partitioning.
","history":"The former Fortitude Valley Wesleyan Church and Church Hall were erected in 1887-88 and 1870-71 respectively, on a site in Ann Street granted to the Wesleyan Church by the Crown in 1861. The site fronted what was then known as the Eagle Farm Road (later Ann Street), and included allotments for a church, school and parsonage.
The first Fortitude Valley Wesleyan Church had been erected on another site in Ann Street in 1856. At that time, the Valley was part of the Brisbane Circuit.
In 1867, the Brisbane Circuit was divided into two: the Valley and Albert Street. The new Valley Circuit was a large one, embracing Eagle Farm, Nundah and Sandgate, and was centred on the small Ann Street church.
In 1870-71, a larger church, which could seat 400 persons, was built on the 1861 land grant, fronting Ann Street. It was the first church to be erected in the new Valley Circuit. The foundation stone was laid on 31 October 1870, and the opening service was held on 26 March 1871. It was designed by Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw and erected by contractor Thomas Reading at a cost of approximately £1,050. At the time, the brick building with its slate roof was one of the most substantial churches in Brisbane.
Also in 1871, a small timber parsonage was constructed at the rear of the church. This building was replaced in 1885 by a larger parsonage, Epworth, at 53 Brookes Street. The original parsonage is no longer extant.
In the 1880s, the Valley developed as a major retail and residential centre, and Brisbane's northern suburbs expanded as the large estates of the 1860s and 1870s were subdivided. The Valley Wesleyan congregation expanded also, and the decision was taken in 1886 to erect a larger church adjacent to the 1870-71 building, but facing Brookes Street, on the same land grant. The new church was designed by Brisbane architect George Simkin in 1887 and constructed by contractor Blair Cunningham in 1887-88. The final cost of the building, including furniture and fittings, was £4,941. The foundation stone was laid on 20 August 1887, and the opening service was held on 13 January 1889.
The stained glass windows were imported from Munich. The organ, now removed, was commenced in Brisbane by Edward Wauldron in 1887 and completed by Thomas Christmas in 1889. Christmas, who arrived in Brisbane from Melbourne in 1877, was a musical instrument dealer and piano and organ builder, and is credited with having constructed most of the locally-made organs in Queensland by 1888.
The vestries were part of in the initial design, but appear to have been added at a later date. The glass windows in these rooms were supplied by Exton & Gough of Brisbane.
After the new church was built, the old church was used as the church hall.
The new Valley Wesleyan Church enhanced the status of Methodism in Brisbane. For a short time prior to the new Albert Street Wesleyan Church (QHR 600066), erected in 1888-89, gaining prominence, the new Valley church was the leading Wesleyan church in the city.
The Valley Wesleyan Church has been described as a "Mother of Churches". From here, many Northern Brisbane suburban churches were opened, from Windsor to North Pine and Sandgate, which ultimately became centres of new circuits.
Following the 1898 unification of Queensland's various Methodist groups - Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, and United Free Methodists - the Brookes Street church became known as the Fortitude Valley Methodist Church.
Following the establishment of the Uniting Church in 1977, the Fortitude Valley Methodist Church and Church Hall were closed, with the final service, revoking their status as sacred buildings, conducted on 27 February 1977. The secular buildings were renamed the Epworth Centre; the former church was let to the TN! Theatre Company, and the Valley Child Care Centre operated in the hall. In 1985 the buildings were sold to the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia Queensland Incorporated, and renamed Gregory Place and Gregory Hall, in honour of former Queensland explorer and surveyor-general, Sir Augustus Charles Gregory. Both buildings have been refurbished as offices, with the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society located in the 1871 building (Gregory Hall).
","criteria":"Gregory Place and Gregory Hall are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, providing evidence of the development and growth of the Wesleyan Church in Brisbane and as one of a group of substantial churches built in Fortitude Valley in the 1870s and 1880s, reflecting the residential growth of the Valley and adjacent suburbs in the last quarter of the 19th century.
|The 1888 building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial, ornate, brick church of the late 1880s, in Brisbane.
|The buildings exhibit aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community, in particular; their aesthetic cohesion due to their complementary scale, form, detail and materials, their contribution to both the Brookes Street townscape and the precinct of Gothic-influenced church buildings which includes the Holy Trinity Church and Rectory, the modest but fine quality of the detailing of the 1871 building and the fine and elaborate quality of the crafted elements of the 1888 building, in particular the stained glass windows and ornaments to the buildings fabric in timber, stone and plaster.
|Gregory Place and Gregory Hall have a special association as the "Mother Church" from which most of the North Brisbane Methodist churches, from Windsor to Sandgate and North Pine, devolved.
|Gregory Place and Gregory Hall have a special association with the work of the Methodist Church, in particular that of the Wesleyan Church, in Brisbane from 1870 to 1977 and with Brisbane architects James Cowlishaw and George Simkin, being examples of their ecclesiastical work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14981,"place_ref":600206,"name":"Potters Gallery","alternate_name":"Fortitude Valley Primitive Methodist Church | Brunswick Street Uniting Church | Brunswick Street Methodist Church","street_address":"483 Brunswick Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Potters Gallery, a single-storeyed rendered masonry building with a stone plinth, is located on a raised corner site overlooking Brunswick Street and is accessed via twin stairs built into a carefully articulated and unpainted brick retaining wall.
The steep pitch gabled roof is clad with corrugated iron, and the building shows a strong Gothic influence in its design.
The rectangular plan consists of five bays with buttressed walls, and a rear storeroom with a corrugated iron skillion roof. Each bay houses a single lancet window, each of which is glazed with a sandblasted glass panel.
The symmetrical, highly decorative northern elevation has twin pointed arch doorways with entrance porches, a single lancet window and a rose window above. Access is via a twin set of stone stairs, and the elevation is framed by twin spires. The building has decorative timber work to eaves and bargeboards, with decorative mouldings around windows.
The southern elevation has a rose window above the original pulpit with the storeroom attached below. The rose windows are glazed in red, blue and yellow glass panels.
Internally, open timber trusses are positioned in line with the buttresses and the ceiling is boarded. Interior walls are rendered and a steel mezzanine has been inserted, supported by twelve columns and attached to the side walls in four places. Access is via a stair from the original raised pulpit platform which has the original pulpit and rail.
The storeroom has fanlights above windows and doors, and has been partially partitioned. A recent administration building is located to the rear of the building.
","history":"This brick building was erected in 1876 for the Primitive Methodist congregation of Brisbane, on a site in Brunswick Street acquired by The Corporation of the Primitive Methodist Connexion in 1875.
It was the third Primitive Methodist Church erected in Brisbane. Primitive Methodist Services conducted by lay preachers commenced in Brisbane in 1859, and the first minister arrived the following year. A small church was built in Windmell (now McLachlan) Street, Fortitude Valley, in 1861, and shortly afterwards, a second church was erected in Adelaide Street. By the mid-1870s, a new church was necessary to serve the expanding Fortitude Valley population.
Plans for the new church were drawn by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, who designed a substantial number of Protestant churches in Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the Wickham Terrace Baptist Tabernacle (QHR 600175), opened in 1890. Tenders for the Brunswick Street church were called in February 1876, and the contract was let to John Smith & Sons of Adelaide Street. Several foundation stones were laid on 1 March 1876, and the building was completed in about five and a half months at a cost of approximately £1,100, including fittings. The opening service was conducted on 24 September 1876. The Brunswick Street church became the centre of Primitive Methodism in Brisbane.
One of the most successful of the church's activities was the establishment of the Fortitude Valley Penny Savings Bank, which operated from the church premises from 1886 until 1982, and then from a private residence until wound up in 1993. Penny Savings Banks had operated in Brisbane from at least the 1870s, and generally were run by churches, working men's associations or lodges. They were neither registered banking institutions nor building or friendly societies; the aim of these banks appears to have been more to encourage people who could not afford the minimum deposit required by regular savings banks, to save. The Fortitude Valley Penny Savings Bank was established by Mr H Bennett, and maintained primarily by the Bennett family for over a century. Associated initially with the Primitive Methodist Sunday School, the bank later offered first mortgage housing loans. It was autonomous from the working of the church, but profits were donated to church maintenance and special projects.
Following the 1898 unification of Queensland's various Methodist groups - Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, and United Free Methodists - the Fortitude Valley Primitive Methodist Church became known as the Brunswick Street Methodist Church.
The building was extended in 1900, when a vestry and classroom were added at the rear of the building. These extensions were planned to commemorate the advent of the 20th century.
In 1935-36, a timber hall was constructed at the rear of the property. Plans were drawn by Rev FA Malcolm, and the building was erected by voluntary labour, at a cost of £375. A stump-capping ceremony was held on 17 August 1935, and the hall was opened on
5 April 1936. This building has been altered substantially, and does not form part of the present entry in the Heritage Register.
In 1977 the congregation joined the Uniting Church and combined with the Fortitude Valley Presbyterian Church. The Brunswick Street church was required no longer, and was sold to the Queensland Potters Association in 1982. The Association refurbished the building and added a steel-framed mezzanine floor. In 1983 it opened the Potters Gallery on the premises to display and sell members' work.
","criteria":"The Potters Gallery is important in demonstrating the establishment and evolution of Primitive Methodism in Queensland in the second half of the 19th century.
|The Potters Gallery is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its contribution, through scale, form and materials, to the Brunswick Street streetscape and Fortitude Valley townscape and its highly decorative northern street elevation.
|The Potters Gallery has a special association with Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, as an example of his ecclesiastical work and with the Fortitude Valley Penny Savings Bank for nearly a century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14982,"place_ref":600207,"name":"La Scala","alternate_name":"Craig Athol","street_address":"517 Brunswick Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"La Scala is a three-storeyed timber building which sits on a narrow corner site overlooking Brunswick Street and has a hipped terracotta tiled roof with decorative finials.
The three levels are dissimilar in plan, and consist of offices on the ground floor and a single residence on each of the floors above linked via a stairwell bay. The building shows influences of a mixture of stylistic trends in the treatment of materials and the spatial organisation.
A roofdeck above the ground floor overlooks Brunswick Street and is surfaced with fibro tiles. The rear of the building sits on tall timber stumps and the perimeter has batten screens. The building is clad in weatherboard and features a bay window stairwell to the north.
There is a rough cast concrete and brick pier retaining wall to both street frontages. Entry to the ground floor is via a set of stairs built into the retaining wall on the northern side. Levels two and three are accessed via a timber stair and porch on the eastern side.
Verandahs on levels two and three have been enclosed with timber screens and an assortment of louvred, casement, sliding and hopper windows. Verandahs have solid weatherboard balustrading with inverted semicircular openings with batten infill.
Levels one and two have terracotta tile awnings with timber brackets. Two offices have been added to the rear of the ground level, and a rear bedroom and side bathroom, both with corrugated iron skillion roofs, have been added to level two.
The office foyer has an external timber door with glass sidelights and fanlight, and an internal timber door with decorative leadlight in the door, sidelights and fanlight.
The foyer to level two features decorative leadlight in the sidelights, fanlight and oval window. The internal timber stair balustrade consists of wide battens with a stylised tulip fretwork motif, and the bay has casement windows.
All public rooms on levels one and two feature decorative plaster ceilings, which vary in design from room to room. The lounge and dining rooms on level two, seperated by a timber screen, have the most ornate ceilings consisting of borders of fruit.
Internal walls are single skin vertically jointed boards. Windows are mainly casement with fanlights above and french doors open onto verandahs and the front deck.
","history":"The three-storeyed timber house was built in 1914 for Dr THR Mathewson to a design by architect TR Hall. Mathewson named the house Craig Athol. He operated his practice from the ground floor and lived in the house above.
In 1923 he moved his practice to Wickham Terrace but continued to live in the house, renting out the ground floor to another doctor. The house and surgery were owned and occupied by a number of doctors over the years before being turned into flats in the 1970s. The original stables were demolished and a small addition was built on the rear of the house.
In 1980 the property was bought by its current owner who is restoring it. The ground floor, which was enlarged in the 1980s, housed an architectural practice for some years until 1992 and is now divided into three separate tenancies.
","criteria":"La Scala is significant as it demonstrates innovative architectural ideas including the large roofdeck for outdoor living, the free planforms linked via the stairwell bay, and the stylistic innovation in the use of decorative elements and materials.
La Scala is significant for the unusual scale and form of the building and retaining walls and the contribution these elements make to the Brunswick Street streetscape. Also significant is the aesthetic quality of decorative elements including plaster ceilings, timber batten detailing, leadlight panels and timber work.
La Scala is significant as an example of the domestic work of architect TR Hall.
|La Scala is significant for the unusual scale and form of the building and retaining walls and the contribution these elements make to the Brunswick Street streetscape. Also significant is the aesthetic quality of decorative elements including plaster ceilings, timber batten detailing, leadlight panels and timber work.
|La Scala is significant as it demonstrates innovative architectural ideas including the large roofdeck for outdoor living, the free planforms linked via the stairwell bay, and the stylistic innovation in the use of decorative elements and materials.
|La Scala is significant as an example of the domestic work of architect TR Hall.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14983,"place_ref":600208,"name":"Holy Name Cathedral Site","alternate_name":"Holy Name Crypt and built sections of the Holy Name Cathedral","street_address":"Gipps Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Holy Name Cathedral site is located between Gotha, Ann and Gipps Streets in Fortitude Valley. South-west of the site is an open space known as Centenary Place, which provides vista from the site to the City beyond. All Hallows School [600200] is located south-east of the site. The majority of the site is generally level, but elevated above street level.
Remnants of the Holy Name Cathedral site perimeter walls face Ann Street and Gotha Street. The walls are detailed in the Revival Classic architectural style and constructed of reinforced concrete with a coursed ashlar porphry stone facing. The wasll steps out at the rear and is separated from the solid rock face behind it. The gap between the wall and the rock face is rubble filled.
The base of the wall is constructed of porphry blocks with punched faces and tooled margins. The wall is capped with a freestone balustrade however the balusters have been removed and only the solid panels remain.
There are niches in the Gotha Street perimeter wall that are constructed of freestone and granite, and there is evidence that they once contains water features.
","history":"During the years 1912 to 1927, the Catholic Church undertook a building program in the Brisbane Archdiocese of enormous proportions. The quantity and quality of the buildings erected by the Catholic Church at that time represent a significant proportion of the best twentieth century architecture of Brisbane. Most were designed by eminent architects of the day and were located on hill tops to create landmarks that dominate Brisbane's skyline.
The site chosen for the proposed Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Name had strong and long standing associations with the Roman Catholic Church in Fortitude Valley. In 1862 Bishop Quinn took residence in a house named 'Dara' that had been built on the site in 1850. The building was replaced in 1890-91 by a much grander house of the same name, however in 1928 it too, was demolished to make way for the proposed Holy Name Cathedral. The site, near the intersection of Ann and Boundary Streets, was also an area of immense town planning interest.
The concept of a Holy Name Cathedral was the dream of Archbishop James Duhig (1871-1965). Duhig was a towering figure in the Catholic Church in Australia who played a significant role in the community not only as a churchman, but also as a politician, fundraiser and diplomat. Although Brisbane already had a Roman Catholic Cathedral, St Stephens (QHR 600107), completed in 1874 in Elizabeth Street, Duhig felt that this building and site were not a sufficiently glorious manifestation of Christendom as he perceived it. He maintained that in modern times the art of cathedral building had deteriorated and he saw himself as the patron to revise that art. An essential element of Duhig's dream was to have the foundation stone of the new cathedral laid by one of the Cardinals of the Vatican.
From the beginning it was proposed that the Holy Name Cathedral would become amongst the largest in the southern hemisphere. Particular emphasis was put on 'high class' architecture together with the use of Australian materials and workmanship. In 1927 the initial cost of the cathedral was estimated at £750 000. Fund-raising for a project of this size would have needed to have been on a scale unprecedented for a church in Australia. Duhig devised several strategies for raising the required funds, amongst them several unsuccessful investments in prospecting for oil at Roma. Another speculative venture was the formation of the Queensland firm of Benedict Stone Queensland Pty. Ltd. in 1928. The company produced a reconstructed stone based on an American process that intended for use on the new cathedral. Foundations for the proposed building use some Benedict stonework.
The design of the Holy Name Cathedral is attributed to the Sydney architectural firm of Hennessy, Hennessy & Co. During the 1920's, Duhig had worked with Jack Hennessy, son of the founder of the firm, on several ecclesiastical projects such as Stuartholme Convent at Bardon and the first stage of Villa Maria Convent in St Pauls Terrace, Brisbane. The plan of the Renaissance style cathedral was a Latin Cross formation, consisting of a 27.5 metre (90 feet) wide nave divided into a main central aisle and two processional aisles each 36.5 metres (120 feet) long. Across the transept it was to measure 66 metres (216 feet). The full length of the cathedral was 104 metres (340 feet). The proposed height of the main wall was 25.5 metres (83 feet) and flanking towers 39 metres (128 feet). The dome was to be covered with copper and surmounted by an enormous bronze cross. The exterior walls were to be built of polychromatic brickwork and terra cotta, although later the decision was made to face the building with Benedict Stone.
The first work to be completed on the site was the Ann Street perimeter wall. The wall, which was designed by Hennessy Hennessy and Co as part of the overall cathedral scheme, was paid for and built by the Brisbane City Council in return for the resumption of about 10 metres of church
Turning of the first sods on the Holy Name Cathedral site occurred in the presence of church and city leaders on 9 June 1927. Preliminary excavation and the setting of the concrete foundations for the towers and a larger portion of the perimeter walls took place in early 1928. Sunday, 16 September 1928, was the date for the consecration of the foundation stone by Papal Legate, Cardinal Cerretti, who had come to Australia for the Eucharistic Congress in Sydney. The occasion attracted 35 000 people and was highlighted by the placement of earth and stone from Rome under a foundation stone that had the Papal Arms emblazoned with the Cardinal's on the side. A matching block displaying the Duhig coat of arms was also laid over a foundation containing soil from the four provinces of Ireland.
Financial difficulties continued to plague to Holy Name Cathedral project and were exacerbated by the deep economic Depression affecting the entire nation. Between 1930 and 1935 Duhig managed to scrape together enough money to complete the crypt but no further constructional work on the Holy Name Cathedral site was ever made. A legal battle with the architects over payment of fees in 1950 and a formal church protest against Duhig, claiming imprudence, irresponsibility, malevolence and subservience to the wealthy, put an end to the dream of a new cathedral. Following the it is believed that Duhig never mentioned the cathedral in public again and took his dream with him when he died in 1965.
Removal of the two foundation stones and return of holy earth to Rome
In February 1985 the Roman Catholic Church sold the Holy Name Cathedral site to FA Pidgeon & Son Pty. Ltd. An application to demolish the built sections of the cathedral was submitted to the Heritage Committee in September 1991. In 1992 approval was given to demolish the crypt, the church foundations, the steps and part of the wall along Gotha Street. The perimeter walls along Ann Street and part of Gotha Street were retained.
","criteria":"The remaining elements of the site are the only physical relics of Duhig's dream to build the largest cathedral in Australia, and of the design as documented by Hennessy Hennessy & Co., architects. The proposed development of the site was also the impetus for Duhig's speculative venture in the formation of the Queensland firm of Benedict Stone, a reconstructed stone used on several significant buildings in Brisbane.
The boundary walls are of significance by their association with the 1928 visit of Papal Legate, Cardinal Cerretti, a direct link with the Vatican and one of the most spectacular ceremonies that Brisbane has witnessed.
|The perimeter walls of the site provide a visual link between the church's other religious establishments in the area, and have a significant influence on the surrounding streetscape, particularly Centenary Park, the form and axial layout of which are a direct response to the design of the proposed cathedral. The site's pivotal location between the Brisbane city centre and Fortitude Valley has played an important role in the development of town planning schemes that attempted to unite the two areas.
|The Holy Name site has long standing associations with the Roman Catholic Church in Fortitude Valley.
|The Holy Name Cathedral site contains evidence that demonstrates its association with Archbishop Duhig, an important leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland, who had a pervasive influence on both church and national life and was renowned for his involvement in the establishment of a number of church buildings in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14984,"place_ref":600209,"name":"Old Museum Building","alternate_name":"Exhibition Building | Concert Hall","street_address":"480 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"BOWEN HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Old Museum Building is prominently located near the corner of a 1.5 hectare site at the intersection of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace. The freestanding building is orientated roughly north-south and is surrounded by well laid out gardens and numerous outbuildings.
The building is basically a single storied structure containing both a mezzanine and basement level. Externally the building exhibits many characteristics of the Romanesque architectural style such as boldly articulated walls constructed in contrasting bands of red and cream brickwork, strongly modelled semicircular openings and numerous polygonal turrets. The principal facade of the building is symmetrical and its three dimensional form creates a striking profile by the use of parapeted gables and a pair of cupola roofed towers. Stucco string courses, copings and finials decorate the polychromatic brick walls. Terracotta relieves the walls in a few places such as the central arch of the Concert Hall porch and the spandrel above it. The terracotta openwork parapets that originally topped the walls, have mostly been removed. The base course of each wall is constructed of dark glazed brickwork.
The building is mostly lit by arch headed windows with timber multi-pane sashes in both the arched and Diocletian type form. The large window at the western end of the Exhibition Hall has fixed coloured leadlight glazing in timber frames, reinforced with iron bars in traditional fashion.
The building's two main wings were originally roofed with corrugated galvanised iron, of which none has survived. The domed tops of the towers at the front of the Concert Hall are roofed with sheet metal, which may be the original.
The building's interior has been more radically altered than the exterior, although it generally retains the form it acquired during the museum conversion. The Concert Hall's interior retains its original volume and general form, although much of the fabric of the galleries has been removed, along with the organ, stage and raking auditorium floor.
The Exhibition Hall interior retains the form it attained during the 1890s' conversion into a museum space including the gallery floor level, clerestory windows, ceiling lining and roof ventilation system. Public toilets have been constructed at the eastern end of the hall. The original port cochere has been enclosed to form a lobby. Roller doors and partitions have been introduced at the north-east and south-east corners of the ground floor level.
The basement level, located directly beneath the Exhibition Hall, displays the form it had after the museum conversion. The space is divided into various rooms with half-glazed timber partitions. Glazed floor lights with cast iron frames are set into the floor of the hall above. A trolley track and trapdoor have been installed to allow specimens to be moved up into the Exhibition Hall.
The grounds surrounding the Old Museum Building essentially retain the same character and layout they had when they were first developed. Additional outbuildings, introduced as a result of accommodation pressures, have partially intruded on the gardens and their condition has declined generally due to limitations on resources.
","history":"Among the first Europeans to use the site now bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, O'Connell Terrace, Brookes Street and Gregory Terrace, was by the Acclimatisation Society of Queensland in 1863. The Society used the site to grow and propagate the plants and seeds sent from other parts of the colony and around the world. They built an office and boardroom, bush-house and glasshouse, and had an orchard and gardens for decorative plants. Various introduced animals were kept and grazed on the site. It seems the plantings were extensive and quickly developed - by 1871 the Society's garden was seen as a place of public institution and recreation. In 1887 the creek in the lower area, where the railway now runs, was damned to form a series of decorative ponds. The Society played an important role in the beginnings of commercial agriculture in Queensland, and introduced or trialed many crops including mango trees, ginger plants, sugar cane, olive trees and choco vines.
\nAs Brisbane developed, the Society's grounds came under some pressure from other prospective users. In 1875, 23 acres of land was leased as an exhibition ground to the Queensland National Agricultural and Industrial Association. Brisbane's first Exhibition Building was opened at the junction of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road on 22 August 1876. When the timber building was destroyed by fire in June 1888, a competition was immediately organised to design a more permanent Exhibition Building on the same site. The competition was held and prizes were awarded, however a new building did not immediately proceed. Financial difficulties and the possibility of importing a prefabricated building from England delayed the project until 1890. The passing of the National Association and Acclimatisation Society Act in 1890 legally allowed the National Association to become owners of the land they occupied and also empowered them to borrow money from the Government to erect its new building.
\nThe original design competition had been won by the architect GHM Addison, who proposed a building estimated to cost around £20 000. Amendments to the original brief meant that in 1890 the new Exhibition Building was redesigned by Addison and a T-shaped building, accommodating an exhibition hall, concert hall and basement dining room was built.
\nThe foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1891 and the entire building was expeditiously completed by August of the same year. The building was built of brick with a corrugated iron roof. The glazed bricks were locally manufactured by James Campbell, who also produced the terracotta elements. The roof framing and iron were imported from England. The Concert Hall occupied the shaft section of the T shaped building with the Exhibition Hall located at the top. On the northern side of the Exhibition Hall was a colonnaded verandah, with access to the hall through french doors. Half the area beneath the Exhibition Hall was a large open dining room with an adjacent kitchen. The basement was built of dark glazed bricks with the upper walls being red and cream bricks. Both the Exhibition Hall and the Concert Hall had projecting porte cocheres - the Concert Hall one decorated with terracotta tiles. An openwork terracotta parapet ran along the tops of the brick walls, punctuated by the caps of abutments that ran up the walls. The principal facades of the Exhibition and Concert Halls were each marked by a pair of towers.
\nAddison's original drawings show a brick boundary wall topped by metal railing, with densely planted shrubberies behind the wall. However this treatment of the grounds did not immediately proceed and the surroundings remained in a fairly undeveloped state until plans for the grounds were prepared in 1897 by Leslie G. Corrie, architect for the Queensland International Exhibition. These plans showed a formal layout of carriage drive, pathways, shrubbery, flower beds and a fountain. Bush houses abutting and extending from the northern side of the Exhibition Building framed and terminated the avenue approach from the exhibition grounds. The main entrance remained from Bowen Bridge Road with the carriage drive running in front of the Concert Hall porte cochere, around into the porte cochere of the Exhibition Hall then curving out to the gate on Gregory Terrace. Shrubberies existed along Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace between the fence and drives. A formal arrangement of grass-edged flower beds, with a fountain as the centrepiece of one, were laid out within the curve of the carriage drive.
\nRecords indicate that the National Association continued to experience financial problems following the erection of the new building. In 1897 the responsibility of repaying the government loan, combined with the depressed economic conditions of the 1890s, caused the Association to go into liquidation and the government to take over ownership of the building.
\nIn 1900 the Brisbane City Council, following the purchase of the Concert Hall's purpose built organ, leased the hall from the Government and organised a program of regular concerts and civic functions. At the same time, the Queensland Museum decided to move to and adapt the Exhibition Hall for a museum, after twenty years in a comparatively smaller purpose built building in William Street. Tenders for altering the Exhibition Hall into a museum were called in March 1899 and involved the construction of a gallery within the main hall, addition of a line of windows in the main northern wall to light the new gallery and modifications to the basement dining room to provide offices, preparation and storage spaces. The boundary wall and fence along Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace were completed soon after and the grounds around the building were developed as an ornamental strolling garden. From 1897 to 1929 John Jordan, Curator of the Museum Gardens, is thought to have played an important role in the design and development of the grounds. Photographs from the period show the gardens as well established, with a layout and planting character recognisable as very similar to that existing today.
\nIn 1930, following the opening of its City Hall auditorium, the Brisbane City Council vacated the Concert Hall and the space was converted to an art gallery. Further alterations involving the enclosure of the Museum's porte cochere were also carried at this time. The space was occupied until 1974 when the collection was moved to a temporary location in the city while a purpose built gallery was completed on the South Bank precinct. The Queensland Museum then expanded into the space and remained in the building until 1987 when they also moved to the South Bank precinct.
\nSeveral outbuildings have been constructed in the Old Museum grounds, particularly during the 1960's. The main ones are:
\n- A bomb shelter, built of brick during World War 2
\n- A large steel shed, built 1968
\n- The conservation buildings, built of stud construction in the 1960s and 70s
\n- The spirit store, built of brick in the 1970s
\n- The education building, built of brick in the 1970s
\n- The demountable building, put up in the 1970s
\nSince the Queensland Museum moved out of the building, it has been the temporary home of the Queensland Youth Orchestra, the Restaurant and Caterers Association and various other short term activities. Only minor changes have been made to the building to accommodate these uses.
","criteria":"Designed and built as an exhibition hall in 1891 and then converted to a museum, the Old Museum is significant as a symbol of nineteenth century scientific, industrial and agricultural innovation. The size and the style of the building epitomise the enthusiasm and celebration of exhibitions during the Victorian period and the peak of Brisbane's 1880s building boom.
The building is important as a symbol of the Queensland Museum for 86 years and for demonstrating the evolution and development of the public museum.
The Concert Hall has played an important role in the artistic life of Queensland and is significant for its constant use for cultural purposes. The venue is an important surviving civic auditorium, that demonstrates the development of choral and orchestral music performance in Brisbane from the 1890's to the 1930's.
The building represents the confidence of the 1880s economic boom and is among the most substantial public works built during that period.
|The building is important as one of only two exhibition buildings built during the nineteenth century still standing in Australia.
|The building's fabric records the typical form of the nineteenth century museum.
|The use of polychrome brick, with maximum effect, its form, scale and detail contribute to the considerable aesthetic significance of the building which in turn reflect significantly on the visual character and quality of its surroundings.
|The building and its grounds are important for the role they have played in the community as a place of recreational activities firstly with the Acclimatisation Society gardens in 1863, more firmly with the Exhibition Building, and then the Museum at which time the gardens were considered an integral part of the whole complex.
|The hall also has an association with the development of the Queensland Art Gallery.
The Old Museum is an important example of work by the well-known architect GHM Addison, that demonstrates his skill in design and adaptation to the circumstances of the building's brief and its time.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14985,"place_ref":600210,"name":"St Patricks Church","alternate_name":"St Patrick's Church | St Patrick's Catholic Church","street_address":"58 Morgan Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Patricks Church is a substantial Gothic-influenced stone building centrally sited on an interior block accessed via Berwick and Morgan Streets. Only the north-eastern facade of the church is visible from the end of Morgan Street.
The church has a monumental presence, with a simple rectangular form constructed in rough-axed porphyry. Its broad nave and aisles are expressed as three parapeted gables to the north-eastern principal elevation, following the line of three steeply pitched corrugated iron roofs. To the south-west, the nave extends past the aisles, forming a projecting chancel with a vestry attached in the south-western corner. The building has buttressed walls, and generous pointed arched windows and doors.
The coursed rubble stonework is dressed with sandstone to the hood mouldings, cornice, crosses and window tracery. The window reveals are in rendered brickwork and are surmounted with alternating green and pink stone voussoirs.
The church interior is impressive; the nave is separated from the aisles by octagonal columns supporting pointed arches. The nave is spanned by timber braced trusses with a king post and quatrefoil motifs to the haunches; an ornamental timber fretwork truss/arch is centred over the chancel. Simpler scissor trusses run the length of the aisles. The diagonally boarded timber ceiling with exposed rafters is finished with a timber frieze with quatrefoil motifs. The side walls have diamond-glazed coloured-glass edged tracery windows, with smaller half-lights over the doors. Above the altar is a large stained glass window depicting the resurrection. The pointed arched doors are timber framed and boarded.
The chancel contains a richly carved Gothic-inspired Oamaru stone altar which sits on a stepped marble base bounded by a marble balustrade with brass gates. Less elaborate marble altars are located at the ends of the aisles. A stepped timber choir and organ loft is located at the other end of the church; it is supported by two colonnettes, and is accessed by stone spiral stairs enclosed by a rendered brick wall. The loft balustrade is carved with quatrefoils, and has a continuous fretwork music stand at handrail level. The organ has richly carved timber surrounds. A timber-panelled reconciliation room is located to the north-eastern corner. The church also contains some fine furnishings including cedar pews decorated with gothic motifs and fretwork, a marble baptismal font, and an ornamental holy water stand.
The grounds include a steel bell suspended from an approximately four metre high steel frame in the southern corner, a stone memorial in the centre of a circular drive to the north east, and several mature fig trees. The site also contains newer school buildings which link to the church via a walkway abutting the western vestry entrance.
St Patricks is a fine intact stone church, containing well-crafted stained glass windows and carved elements in timber, Oamaru stone and marble.
","history":"This stone, Gothic-styled church was erected in 1880-82, to accommodate the growing Catholic population in Fortitude Valley. It replaced an earlier St Patrick's, erected in Wickham Street, opposite Duncan Street, in 1861, one block from the residence of the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, James O'Quinn.
\nIn the 1860s, Irish Catholics, brought to Queensland through the efforts of O'Quinn's Queensland Immigration Society, congregated in Fortitude Valley and adjacent suburbs. St Patrick's parish extended from Spring Hill, through the Valley to Newstead, Teneriffe and New Farm. By the late 1870s, the parish had outgrown the Wickham Street church.
\nThe new St Patrick's Church was one of the last of the substantial masonry ecclesiastical structures erected under Bishop O'Quinn's patronage, and was the largest church built during his occupancy of the Queensland Bishopric, 1861 to 1881, being at the time of greater seating capacity than St Stephen's Cathedral. O'Quinn transposed to Queensland, Ireland's Bishop Cullen's philosophy that new churches and ecclesiastical institutions should be expensive and Gothic, symbolising the new age of Irish Roman Catholicism. His successor, Robert Dunne (Bishop and later Archbishop of Brisbane 1882-1917), opposed such ostentatious displays, which had nearly bankrupted the Brisbane diocese.
\nThe Morgan Street site, occupied by Magill's Paragon Nursery in the 1870s, was acquired by church trustees, including Bishop O'Quinn, c1880. In September that year, between 4,000 and 5,000 people gathered to watch the Bishop lay the foundation stone for the new church. Designed by architect and sculptor Andrea Giovanni Stombuco, the former Goulburn Diocesan Architect who reputedly was invited to Brisbane by Bishop O'Quinn, the church was to accommodate 1500 people. Tenders were called in October 1880, and the contract was let to Brisbane builder John Arthur Manis O'Keeffe. Constructed of local porphyry and dressed with Murphy's Creek sandstone, St Patrick's was completed in 1882 at an estimated cost of £6,000. The tower, which was part of the original design, was not built. The church was consecrated on 3 December 1882, by Archbishop Dunne.
\nFittings included an organ constructed by local Brisbane musical instrument dealer and piano and organ builder, Thomas Christmas, at a cost of £360. Christmas, who had arrived in Brisbane from Melbourne in 1877, was credited with having constructed most of the locally-made organs in Queensland by 1888.
\nIn 1886 a belfry and bell were erected in the grounds, on the highest point on the site. The bell of patent cast steel, manufactured by Vicker, Son & Co. Ltd of Sheffield, England, was a gift from Fortitude Valley parishioner Thomas Reedy. In 1886-7 ornamental additions were made to the church. The high altar of New Zealand Oamaru stone, designed and reputedly sculpted by Stombuco, was completed. Also installed were a timber pulpit; side altars of Oamaru stone, sculpted by John Petrie & Son of Brisbane; and, in the eastern wall, a large stained glass window imported from Lyons in France.
\nSt Patrick's remained a large and important Irish Catholic parish until after the Second World War, despite the establishment of a separate New Farm parish c1928. From the 1950s, however, the Valley declined as a residential area, and from this is dated the gradual withering away of a local congregation.
\nAt some period after the Second World War, possibly in the 1950s, the side altars and altar rails were replaced in marble, and marble flooring was laid in the chancel. By this time, the demographic composition of Fortitude Valley was changing, with substantial numbers of European migrants (principally Italian) congregating in Fortitude Valley/New Farm. Following the Vatican II resolutions of 1962, a new altar and sanctuary dais were installed in the middle of the church. A timber screen and doors just inside the main entrance have been removed. The 1886 belfry is no longer extant, but the original bell survives, housed in a steel structure.
\nIn 1955, buildings formerly associated with St Patrick's School (located previously in Wickham Street and then in Ivory Street), were erected in the church grounds, and in 1969, a Presbytery. These buildings do not form part of the present entry in the Heritage Register.
\nThe parish of St Patrick's was dissolved c1990, and the church is administered from St Stephen's Cathedral. It attracts a large Sunday Mass congregation from the wider Brisbane Catholic community, and is popular for weddings and baptisms.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being evidence of the consolidation of the Catholic church in Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century. It is one of a group of substantial churches built in Fortitude Valley in the 1870s and 1880s, reflecting the residential growth of the Valley and adjacent suburbs in the last quarter of the 19th century.
|St Patrick's Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century, Gothic-style stone church in Brisbane.
|The building is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community, namely the monumental and finely detailed quality of the exterior, the impressive spatial quality of its generous and finely detailed interior. Also of significance is the rich aesthetic quality of its crafted elements, in particular, the stained glass windows, the timber carvings to the organ loft balustrade, music stand, and to the pipe organ, the Oamaru stone altar, the marble altars and altar enclosure, and church furniture including the cedar pews, baptismal font and holy water stand.
|St Patrick's Church is significant as the focus of Catholic worship in Fortitude Valley for over a century, the building has a strong association with the local Catholic community, and in particular with the Irish Catholic community.
|The building has a special association with the work of the Catholic Church in Brisbane and the ecclesiastical work of architect and sculptor Andrea Stombuco.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14986,"place_ref":600211,"name":"Jubilee Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"464-468 St Pauls Terrace","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Jubilee Hotel, located on the corner of Constance Street and St Pauls Terrace, is a two-storeyed rendered brick building with a basement. L-shaped in plan the building has ornate street facades featuring arched window and door openings and an ornamented parapet. Small arched openings at the base of the street elevations ventilate the basement.
\nWindows and doors in the ground floor street elevations have been replaced with fixed glass with the exception of double timber doors opening off Constance Street and three double hung timber windows in the public bar.
\nThe St Pauls Terrace elevation, articulated with classical detailing, is divided into three bays. The central bay is recessed to form loggias on the ground and first floors. The main entrance is framed by an arched open top pediment. This entrance, a timber door with fanlight and sidelights, opens onto a central hallway. Much of the ground floor interior has been altered. Plaster ceilings with ornate ceiling roses and cornices remain in the hallway and lounge bar. The hallway retains its rear doors and a richly detailed set of double doors leading to the public bar. Timber stairs at the back of the hallway lead to the first floor.
\nThe doors at the rear of the hallway open onto an L-shaped, skillion roofed, rear verandah. It has been enclosed on the ground floor by subsequent extensions and on the first floor by glass louvres. A second timber stair runs in a single flight between the two levels of verandah.
\nThe first floor (formerly used for accommodation purposes) has undergone some alterations. The hallway has been blocked by a partition wall and bathrooms have been built at both ends of the rear verandah. A section of masonry wall has been removed to create a large room on the southern corner of the first floor.
\nA beer garden consisting of timber decks and skillion roofs has been added to the rear of the hotel amalgamating a previously freestanding masonry structure with a corrugated iron hip roof. Sections of the beer garden, and other modern function/dining/bar spaces, extend outside the heritage boundary into adjacent lots.
\nThe north east elevation has a lowset modern verandah with a battened undercroft. The verandah runs along the façade, stopping just before the window located closest to St Paul’s Terrace. A timber framed skillion roof extends out to the edge of the car park and over the verandah. The roof is steel framed and clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Horizontal timber slats wrap around the enclosure. This verandah is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Jubilee Hotel, a two-storeyed rendered brick building with basement was constructed for brewer William Gooley in 1887-88.
\nThe widespread economic, population and building boom that characterised Queensland during the 1880s saw the Fortitude Valley (the Valley) grow in population and develop as a major urban centre of Brisbane, with an intensification of development of commercial and industrial premises, and stores. Many earlier timber structures were replaced by more permanent masonry buildings.
\nHotels have played an important role in the historical development of Queensland. Often the first places to appear along transport routes and at fledgling settlements, hotels have catered to travellers, provided spaces for communities to drink, socialize and conduct business and meetings, and have strongly contributed to local economies. Architecturally, hotels have ranged from ephemeral makeshift shanties to more permanent and imposing buildings that have competed with civic and commercial buildings to dominate their surrounds. In urban areas, street corners have been particularly favoured sites for hotels to emphasize their presence. Over time, legislative provisions for licensed premises influenced the architecture and layout of hotels, by requiring a range of minimal standards including those related to the number of rooms, height limits of rooms, and separate entries for guests. Coupled with the domestic nature of the services provided, the requirement for licensees to reside on the premises shaped hotels' characteristic internal mix of private and public spaces.[1]
\nThe Jubilee Hotel was designed by architect Richard Gailey who called for tenders for the erection of the building in September 1887.[2] Richard Gailey (1834-1924) was a Londonderry (Ireland) architect who settled in Brisbane in 1864. He established his own practice in 1865, and over the next 60 years built up a thriving business, working until his death in 1924. He designed Baptist churches including the Baptist Tabernacle, Brisbane [QHR 600175], former Ipswich Baptist Church, Ipswich [QHR 602573]; commercial buildings such as banks including the Westpac Bank, Normanton (former bank of NSW) [QHR 600394]; and many other Brisbane hotels including the Orient Hotel [QHR 602122], Regatta Hotel [QHR 600331] and Wickham Hotel [QHR 600213]. Many commercial buildings in Brisbane designed by Gailey during the 1880s were characterised by classical idioms and details.[3]
\nThis was a boom time for hotel construction in the Valley, with the Gailey designed Empire (QHR 600199) and Prince Consort (QHR 600212) hotels also opening in 1888. The Jubilee differed from these other hotels in size and location. It was built to a smaller scale yet remained an imposing building because of its location in what was then a residential area.
\nA description of the hotel appeared in the 1888 publication Aldine's History of Queensland:
\nThis is a new hotel, opened about the middle of 1888, and the proprietress, Mrs. Abella Atwell, has a lease of it for ten years. It is two stories high, and in appearance is equal to any hotel in the city. It is well provided with sitting rooms, a very large dining room, and also a large bar furnished with all the latest fittings. There is also a large yard and stabling, so that those with horses will find every convenience. The bed-rooms are large and airy, and upon the whole the hotel will be found very comfortable, especially to those who want to live in a healthy locality away from the noise and dust of the principal streets, yet sufficiently close to the city.[4]
\nThe first licensee was Isabella Atwell who ran the hotel, until 1902. Atwell leased the hotel from Gooley until it was transferred to her husband William Woods for ten years following their marriage in 1892. Other proprietors throughout the early 1900's included Angus and Mary McKinnon, and Denis McNamara. McNamara's lease was transferred to Timothy James McKinnon who in turn transferred it to James Cavill in 1923. It was then transferred back to McNamara in 1924. When William Gooley (who was chief brewer for Perkins and Co) died in 1916, ownership was transmitted to his wife Margaret Gooley who owned the property until 1926 when it was transferred to Castlemaine Perkins. In 1925 alterations to the hotel were carried out by A Low &Co. to the design of Richard Gailey (Jnr), son of the original architect. The purchase by Castlemaine Perkins at this time aligned with their practice of acquiring hotel freeholds and leases throughout Queensland. The hotel's ownership remained unchanged until 1986.[5] The ground floor was subsequently refurbished and a beer garden added at the rear.
\nA number of owners and lessees have been associated with the Jubilee since 1986, which continues to operate as a hotel in 2017.
","criteria":"Its association with a major phase in the development of Fortitude Valley.
|A fine example of an 1880s hotel of simple massing, and with classical embellishments internally and externally.
|Its contribution to the St Pauls Terrace Streetscape.
|One of a group of hotels designed by architect Richard Gailey which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14987,"place_ref":600212,"name":"Prince Consort Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"230 Wickham Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The hotel consists of two, three storey, masonry buildings connected by timber verandahs.
The principal range along Wickham Street is rendered to resemble ashlar. It has balconies to the two upper floors with cast iron twin posts, and balustrades and friezes of differing designs to each floor. The upper balcony has a curved galvanised iron roof below a corbelled and bracketed string course, a rendered parapet with two triangular pediments, and concrete balusters and urns. French doors with fanlights, between pilasters, open onto the balconies. Changes to the street elevation have been confined to the ground floor shopfronts and the replacement of the original curved, post-supported awning with a flat cantilevered awning.
The second building at the rear, is at right angles to the main building. The two buildings are connected by verandahs, which although partially enclosed contain much of the original fabric including timber railings and valances.
A number of small accretions have been built at the rear of the building. In the yard behind the building is a large air raid shelter now used as a store room.
Internally the hotel retains its original layout and much of its 1880s detailing and finishes. The basement under the main building has openings knocked through the walls. The bars on the ground floor have been renovated a number of times. The main staircase is intact, as are plasterwork and joinery.
","history":"The present Prince Consort Hotel, a three-storeyed masonry building, was erected in 1887-88 for Brisbane publican John Daniel Heal.
It was the second Prince Consort Hotel to occupy the site. The first was built c.1863 and leased by Heal. In 1879 Heal purchased the hotel and by 1887 he had acquired several adjoining subdivisions as well. The old building was demolished and its larger replacement took twelve months to build.
The new Prince Consort Hotel was designed by architect Richard Gailey, who called tenders in mid-1887.
It was erected by contractor William Ferguson at a cost of £9,400, and was completed in August 1888. Ferguson died before the hotel was finished, but the contract was completed by his executors.
Its construction in the 1880s reflected the general building boom in Queensland which accompanied a period of unprecedented economic growth. During the second half of the 1880s, Valley residents witnessed the construction of four large hotels all designed by architect Richard Gailey. The Wickham (1885) (QHR 600213), the Empire (1887) (QHR 600199), the Jubilee (1887) (QHR 600211) and the Prince Consort contained extensive accommodation and were located on prominent sites. Gailey also designed the Regatta Hotel (QHR 600331) at Toowong in 1886.
When completed, the new Prince Consort boasted one of the largest bars in Brisbane, three parlours, a large dining room, billiard room, kitchen, cellar, six bathrooms and twenty-eight bedrooms. Four large shops were also built on the ground floor.
Running the whole length of the first floor facade was a reception area, known as the Club Room, divided by a folding partition into two rooms. It was a regular meeting venue for local Valley groups such as lodges.
In 1935 the hotel underwent alterations and additions, the architect was J P Donoghue and the contractor J Corbett. The hotel's curved, post-supported awning was probably replaced with the flat cantilevered awning at this time.
","criteria":"Erected during a period of rapid growth in the development of Fortitude Valley, the Prince Consort Hotel is significant as an excellent and intact example of a large, ornate hotel constructed in the late 1880s.
|Erected during a period of rapid growth in the development of Fortitude Valley, the Prince Consort Hotel is significant as an excellent and intact example of a large, ornate hotel constructed in the late 1880s.
|The Prince Consort Hotel contributes to the Wickham Street streetscape, and is significant as one of a group of hotels designed by architect Richard Gailey which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane through their imposing presence, extensive use of ornamental cast-iron and classical detailing.
|The Prince Consort Hotel contributes to the Wickham Street streetscape, and is significant as one of a group of hotels designed by architect Richard Gailey which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane through their imposing presence, extensive use of ornamental cast-iron and classical detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14988,"place_ref":600213,"name":"Wickham Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"308 Wickham Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Wickham Hotel, a three-storeyed rendered brick building with basement, is located on the corner of Wickham, Ballow and Alden Streets.
An awning with pressed metal ceilings cantilevers over the footpath on the main facades facing Wickham and Ballow Streets. Below the awning the external wall of the ground floor is finished with mosaic tiles, now painted. The walls above the awning are rendered and lined to suggest stonework and are embellished by horizontal bands at the sill and impost levels of the windows.
The ground floor has rectangular timber sash windows. Windows on the first and second floors are arranged in an alternating pattern of paired narrow arched windows and wider single arched windows. A timber framed verandah projects from the first floor. It has a rolled corrugated iron roof and ornamental cast-iron balustrade, posts, post brackets and frieze. The building has painted corrugated iron hip roofs with narrow overhangs supported on paired modillions. Three rendered chimney stacks are located along the ridges of the roof.
An L-shaped verandah is located on the northern corner of the first and second floors at the rear of the building. This verandah is enclosed on the north-western side by a three-storeyed painted brick extension housing bathrooms. Timber posts, balustrade, brackets and boarded frieze remain on the north east.
Five sets of timber double doors provide entry from the street. The main entry, located on the Wickham Street facade, opens to a foyer which has a richly embellished plaster ceiling and cornice and contains a generously proportioned timber stair leading to the first floor. The remainder of the ground floor has been refurbished and is occupied by bars, service areas and a bottle shop.
Except for a bar located in the southern corner of the first floor, the first and second floors are used for accommodation. The main stair leads only to the first floor. It is connected by an L-shaped corridor to a narrow timber stair that runs between first and second floors. Internally the first and second floor retain much of the original fabric including rendered masonry walls, plaster cornices and skirtings. Timber doors with transom lights open off the central hallway while doors leading to the verandah are half glazed with fanlights above.
The finishes and detail of the facade and much of the interior of the ground floor have been altered. The rest of the building remains largely unchanged.
","history":"The Wickham Hotel is a three-storeyed masonry hotel, constructed by the firm Cussack and O'Keefe in 1885 for Timothy O'Shea who had amalgamated a number of blocks in 1881.
The design was by architect Richard Gailey who was also responsible for the design of several other hotels in Brisbane during the 1880s. These included the Regatta at Toowong, and the Prince Consort, Empire and Jubilee in Fortitude Valley.
It was bought in 1895 by Denis O'Connor who owned it until his death in 1937. In 1972 it was sold to Carlton & United Brewing. For most of its existence, the Wickham Hotel has been leased to licensees. The hotel has undergone a number of modifications primarily on the ground floor. Single storeyed extensions have been built on the north-east and north-west sides, and a new drive-in bottle shop abutting the hotel was built recently.
","criteria":"The Wickham Hotel is associated with a major phase in the development of Fortitude Valley.
|The Wickham Hotel is an example of a large 1880s three-storeyed hotel with intact, cantilevered single storey verandah and contributes to the Wickham Street streetscape.
|The Wickham Hotel is an example of a large 1880s three-storeyed hotel with intact, cantilevered single storey verandah and contributes to the Wickham Street streetscape.
|The building is one of a group of hotels designed by architect Richard Gailey which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane through their imposing presence, extensive use of ornamental cast-iron and classical detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14989,"place_ref":600214,"name":"McWhirters Marketplace","alternate_name":"Myer | McWhirters & Son Ltd | McWhirters | McWhirter's","street_address":"Wickham Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"McWhirters is centrally located in Fortitude Valley on a site bound by Wickham, Warner and Brunswick Streets. It comprises four adjoining buildings which form a large brick three, four and five-storeyed complex.
The building fronting Warner Street [c1902-05], is a three-storeyed pale brick building with a parapeted facade, with two gabled ends facing the street. The facade has arched windows with beige brick voussoirs, keystones, and trim to round windows in the centre of the gables. Internally, the building has an unusual exposed timber roof structure comprised of trusses spanning double beams on timber columns with triangular brackets. The timber boarded ceiling is partially raked, and has pressed metal rosettes.
The five-storeyed 1912 brick building occupies the corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets. Its facade has continuous piers and arched openings to the first and fourth floors, and is trimmed with rendered concrete sills, lintels and insets. The parapet has a substantial cornice with dentils, and raised portions bearing the name "McWhirters". The Wickham and Warner Streets corner is rounded, and has a castellated parapet and a round window at first floor level. Internally, this 1912 section retains some of its pressed metal ceilings with floral motifs and some column capitals with plaster scrolls, and has an encased steel structure.
The four-storeyed 1923 brick building faces Brunswick Street. The facade is similar to the 1912 building facades in materials, with some variation in detailing. The facade has a continuous arched brick spandrel above the third level windows, and a substantial parapet which also bears the McWhirters name. It has a concrete internal structure.
The 1930-31 building facing Brunswick and Wickham Streets is four and five storeys, and matches, with identical detailing, the facades of the 1912 and 1923 sections. The facades are linked with a richly detailed truncated corner with polychrome glazed terracotta tiles integrated with the brickwork. This corner has two continuous brick piers crowned with an arched tiled panel rising above the parapet line, which bears the McWhirter's monogram in a Lily of the Valley motif. The windows are spaced with tiled panels in diamond patterns. The corner contains the principal entrance to the building, which is covered by a curved awning with decorative glass insets.
The corner entrance doors are set in arched polished black stone surrounds. The entrance foyer is a double-storeyed height space which is finely decorated with white marble panels set in black marble grids, and decorative plasterwork based on diamond and star patterns. Internally, this 1930-31 section has a concrete-encased steel structure.
The entire building is encircled with a stepped metal awning, which has a sheeted soffit on Brunswick Street and a pressed metal soffit with floral motifs on Wickham and Warner Streets. Two sets of timber and etched glass entrance doors have been incorporated into the refurbishment in the 1912 section.
The exterior form and detailing of McWhirters remains largely intact, although the ground floor brickwork and openings are mostly new. The building retains its prominence, contributing to the early 20th century commercial character and streetscape of centre Fortitude Valley. Its distinctive corner assumes landmark status. Some fine remnants of the early 20th century department store interiors are visible, including the roof structure of the c1902-05 building, remains of pressed metal ceilings and column decorations in the 1912 building, and decoration to the entrance hall of the 1930-31 building.
","history":"McWhirters Marketplace, comprising 4 adjoining brick buildings of from three to five storeys in height, was erected in four stages on land acquired between 1899 and 1929, by Brisbane draper James McWhirter and the firm of McWhirter & Son Ltd [later McWhirters Ltd].
On arrival in Australia in 1878 from Ayrshire, Scotland, James McWhirter worked for merchants DL Brown & Co. before entering into partnership with Mr Duncan Sinclair in a South Brisbane drapery business, c1883. After a few years the partnership was dissolved, and McWhirter returned to Brown & Co. before joining TC Beirne in his Fortitude Valley drapery business c1894, firstly as manager, then in partnership for about 3 years. McWhirter sold out to Beirne in 1898, and in the same year purchased MD Piggott's drapery business, located in leased premises across the road at 292 Brunswick Street. Piggott had been TC Beirne's employer in Ireland, and his former partner in South Brisbane, but moved from Fortitude Valley in 1898 to concentrate on his Toowoomba store, established in 1896. When McWhirter took over Piggott's Brunswick Street business, the new firm of McWhirter and Son, drapers, was established, opening in September 1898 with a staff of 30.
James McWhirter was an experienced manager and astute businessman who established his drapery business just as the Queensland economy was recovering from the severe economic depression of the 1890s. Despite the slowing of the economy engendered by the widespread drought of 1900-02, McWhirter was in a position to capitalise on Queensland's economic boom of the early 20th century, and within three decades the firm he established in 1898 had expanded from a small drapery business to one of Brisbane's largest and most sophisticated departmental retailers, with a principal store occupying over an acre of land bounded by Brunswick, Wickham and Warner Streets, Fortitude Valley, at the well known Valley Corner.
In the early years of the 20th century, Fortitude Valley, centred around the intersection of Wickham and Brunswick Streets [the Valley Corner], became one of the most important shopping centres in Brisbane. This is explained partly by the ready availability of efficient public transport - train from the late 1880s and electric tram from the late 1890s; partly by a rising population in the surrounding suburbs of New Farm, Bowen Hills and Newstead; but most importantly by the healthy spirit of competition between the Valley's principal retail stores - TC Beirne, McWhirter, Overells and later the ACB Company and Waltons as well - which attracted customers from all over Brisbane.
From its establishment in 1898, McWhirter & Son expanded rapidly. In 1899 McWhirter purchased the allotments at the northeast corner of the busy intersection of Wickham and Brunswick Streets, although these were not occupied by McWhirters for another three decades. In 1902 the firm also acquired land at 48 Warner Street, at the rear of their Brunswick Street shop, and extended the Brunswick Street building the depth of the block between Brunswick and Warner Streets. In 1905 they secured an adjoining allotment in Warner Street, on which they erected another warehouse, which appears to be an extension of the c1902 building.
In 1905 the firm was registered as a private company, McWhirter & Son Ltd, and by 1907 was listed at 292-298 Brunswick Street, having expanded into several adjacent shops east of the original building. By 1909 the firm employed 270 staff, had established a London office, directly imported many lines, and had developed an extensive mail-order department servicing all parts of rural Queensland, as well as clients in New South Wales, South Australia and British New Guinea. The firm pioneered the free carriage of mail-orders, and attracted a wide custom. The majority of their clientele were women, so besides drapery and a particularly fine millinery department, the firm stocked medicines, perfumes, silks, and home furnishings. The facade of the Brunswick Street building had been remodelled by 1909 with the first arcade front in Brisbane, and the firm's colourful window displays were a great attraction.
In 1910 McWhirter acquired title to four more allotments in Warner Street, and between 1910 and 1914 to the two allotments in Brunswick Street occupied by his first store and adjacent premises to the west. The Warner Street land was situated between McWhirter's existing 48 Warner Street warehouse and Wickham Street, with long frontages to both streets. Reportedly purchased for £8,000, McWhirter intended to erect on this site, thoroughly modern and well-equipped buildings, such as will meet the requirements of the ever-increasing trade.
McWhirter commissioned Brisbane architects Atkinson and McLay to design a substantial, five-storeyed building for this corner, and when completed in 1912, the new building became an immediate Valley landmark, seen for miles around, and dominated the Valley Corner area. Described as a vast emporium on its opening in October 1912 - and subsequently marketed as such by McWhirter - the store was well-appointed in fine materials. Every effort had been made to design the most modern and progressive of department stores, with new devices for the comfort, convenience and prompt attention to customers. On the ground level the extensive street frontages had the latest in island windows with narrow copper mouldings. There were five street entrances, and mosaic tiling and leadlights in the main vestibule. The interior was well-ventilated and well-lighted; fittings were of silky oak throughout; and the ceilings were lined with Wunderlich pressed metal. A sprinkler system was installed for fire prevention, there were three electric elevators for the convenience of customers, and the pneumatic cash tube system was the largest in the state. In an innovative move, hundreds of silky oak display tables permitted customers to browse and inspect goods without being dependent on sales assistants. Other goods were displayed in glass cabinets under glass counters, and there were sliding glass doors to the shelves behind the counters.
The grand new store housed over 50 departments. Manchester, materials, haberdashery, jewellery, travel goods, etc were located on the ground floor. The first floor, which housed the millinery and women's clothing departments [including a corset boudoir], was particularly well-appointed. It contained a large circular display room with carpet on the floor, mirrors everywhere, and showcases so arranged as to form little retreats or parlours. On the second floor were furniture, carpets, linoleum, and on the third were crockery, glassware, kitchenware, toys, and for the convenience of customers, a tearoom overlooking the river and suburbs. On the top floor were the dressmaking and tailoring workrooms, equipped with revolving pedestals for fittings.
Clearly, McWhirters had identified their principal clientele as female, and dedicated the new building to this market. The men's clothing department had been relegated to the Brunswick Street store, although it did take up most of this building. A new boot department was opened, serving both male and female customers, but this was not located in the 1912 building.
McWhirter's 1912 store was the one of the first of the big Brisbane department stores - rivals included TC Beirne and Overells in Fortitude Valley, McDonnell & East near Roma Street Station, and Finneys and Allan & Stark in Queen Street - to reflect international trends in modern department store retailing. Between 1860 and 1920, the industrialised world's level of affluence and leisure time increased significantly, and the 'art of shopping', once the prerogative of the wives of the wealthy, was adopted eagerly by the wives of the emerging middle classes. By the mid-19th century department stores were evolving world-wide to accommodate the rising numbers of middle class shoppers. The earliest of the grand department stores was Aristide Boucicault's Bon Marché, which opened in Paris in 1852, followed by Macy's in New York in 1860. These provided important models, but in Australia the department store was also the logical extension of the general store or drapery.
To complement the refined department store environment, customers [predominantly female] experienced a superior quality of service, the object of which was to make them feel special and confident. Often this entailed an attitude of deference, but more commonly in Australia this developed into cheerful, polite efficiency and promises of honesty and fair dealing. Whichever method was employed, the aim was the same - to encourage spending.
McWhirter and Son Ltd were at the cutting edge of department store culture in Brisbane, prospering through the 1910s despite the slowing of the Queensland economy during the First World War. About 1918 a substantial, 4-storeyed brick bulk store was erected in Warner Street opposite McWhirters' c1902-05 warehouse. One floor of this contained a staff dining hall/meeting room. By 1921 McWhirter's Motor Garage was operating on the north side of Ballow Street in Fortitude Valley, to house and service the firm's fleet of delivery vehicles.
James McWhirter junior died suddenly in 1919, and in 1920 the firm was floated as a public company, McWhirters Ltd, with James McWhirter senior as managing director.
Further expansion took place with the acquisition in 1921 of the Brunswick Street allotments between McWhirter's existing store and the allotments he had purchased in 1899 at the corner of Wickham and Brunswick Streets. With the exception of a lane off Wickham Street, McWhirter now owned all the allotments between Brunswick and Warner Streets, from Wickham Street east to, and including, his first Brunswick Street store - an area of nearly an acre in the centre of the most popular shopping district in Brisbane. Building commenced in 1922-23 with the construction of a new four-storeyed store replacing McWhirter's original store in Brunswick Street. The building impressed with the wide span between columns, excellent lighting and ventilation, and fast elevators.
James McWhirter died in England in 1925, but the firm of McWhirters Ltd continued to grow, paralleling the development of Fortitude Valley as a thriving commercial centre, with its three competing anchor stores of TC Beirne, Overells and McWhirters. By the 1930s, McWhirters had also branched into shirt manufacture, with their own clothing factory in the Valley. The mail order department had remained an important and lucrative aspect of the business, and McWhirters also offered credit and lay-by systems. Part of the success of McWhirters, like other early 20th century department stores in Brisbane, lay also in the value placed by management on employees. By 1931, some of the nearly 800 McWhirter employees had been with the firm over 3 decades, and staff had their own benefit society.
In 1929 the company secured title to the lane off Wickham Street beside their 1912 store, and in 1930-31, just as Australia was being caught up in a severe, world-wide economic depression, McWhirters Ltd constructed a four and five-storeyed brick building on the corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets, linking the facades of their 1912 and 1923 buildings. The steel framed building with reinforced concrete walls and facework in brick and terracotta, was designed by the Brisbane architectural firm of TR Hall and LB Phillips [designers of Brisbane City Hall and Ascot Chambers]. It featured a principal truncated corner, richly decorated in the Art Deco style, which became a landmark advertisement for the store on the busy Valley Corner. The builder was GA Stronach of Brisbane, who tendered with a price of £112,000; the 800 tons of structural steel was manufactured and erected by local firm Evans, Deakin, & Co. Ltd; and Wunderlich supplied the terracotta tiles used on the truncated corner as well as pressed metal and fibrous cement ceilings. McWhirters department store now had a floor space of 6.5 acres.
The exterior facades of the 1930-31 building were designed to replicate those of the 1912 and 1923 buildings, but internally the building reflected new trends in department store presentation. There were no partitions, each floor measuring about 300ft by 200ft, with supporting concrete pillars masked by stained wood cabinets. Large twin-elevators were installed and the pneumatic tube system was extended. On the ground level three separate 'lock-up' shops fronted Brunswick Street, for businesses which traded after normal [5.30pm] store hours.
In 1955 McWhirters was purchased by Myer, a Melbourne-based department store chain, which continued to operate the former McWhirters complex as a department store until 1988, when the Myer consortium closed its Valley store. The closure reflected the decline of retailing in Fortitude Valley from at least the 1970s, principally due to changing demographics, an increasing dependency on the motor car, and strong competition from suburban shopping centres. In 1989 the property was redeveloped as McWhirters Marketplace, entailing extensive internal refurbishment.
","criteria":"The growth of the McWhirters complex is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, reflecting the late 19th/early 20th century development of Fortitude Valley as a major commercial and shopping centre, which was sustained well into the post-Second World War period. Historically, McWhirters is also significant in providing evidence of the development and nature of early 20th century department stores in Queensland, and of the shopping culture engendered by them.
|The 1930-31 building has a finely detailed landmark Art Deco corner demonstrating a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|McWhirters is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial early 20th century department store built in stages, and which employs elements of the facade as advertising and contains remnants of earlier department store decorative detailing in the c1902-05, 1912 and 1930-31 sections.
|McWhirters is of aesthetic value: it is a prominent building which makes a strong contribution to the commercial character and streetscape of centre Fortitude Valley; the fine interwar Art Deco corner is a Brisbane landmark; and the corner entrance foyer contains fine decorative detailing.
|McWhirters at the Valley Corner has a special association for Queenslanders, having symbolised 'The Valley' to several generations of local residents and visitors alike.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of James McWhirter and the firm of McWhirter & Son Ltd [later McWhirters Ltd], and with the work of architects Atkinson & McLay and Hall & Phillips. McWhirters also has a special association with the Wunderlich company, the 1930-31 corner facade being a major example of their work in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14990,"place_ref":600215,"name":"Beth-Eden","alternate_name":"Verney | Rakeevan","street_address":"85 Bank Road","suburb":"GRACEVILLE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Beth-Eden is a two-storeyed rendered brick house with a weatherboard stables/coach-house overlooking the Chelmer Reach of the Brisbane River. It is surrounded by single-storeyed brick buildings associated with the nursing home.
The corrugated iron hipped roof has projecting gables, two of which surmount bay windows on the northern and western elevations. The bays intercept the double height verandahs which feature on all four elevations. The roof has decorative render to the chimney stacks, eaves and gables.
The verandahs have decorative cast iron balustrading and columns, with brackets and valance on the lower verandah. The northern and eastern verandahs are roofed by a corrugated iron skillion awning, and sections of western and southern verandahs have been enclosed. The eastern verandah has been partially glazed, and a service building connects to the main building via a walkway.
The building has classical mouldings and a pedimented arched portico over the main entrance. The entrance contains black and white marble tiles and decorative sandblasted glass door surrounds and fanlight, on which is written 'VERNEY'.
The entrance hall contains a carved timber staircase with a large sandblasted glass window at the landing level. Decorative plaster mouldings feature around archways and light fittings. Ground floor public rooms, originally drawing and dining rooms, have marble fireplaces and timber panelling with folding timber doors between. Both floors have been altered with the first floor being used for accommodation and the ground floor for servicing. The building has double hung sash windows, fanlights above internal doors and an elevator has been installed in the entrance hall.
The original stables/coach-house is located to the southwest of the main building and now serves as a garage. This weatherboard building has a corrugated iron gabled roof with decorative timber bargeboards and a central hay loft. The building has single skin vertically jointed internal walls and large openings have been cut into the northern facade.
","history":"Beth-Eden is a two-storeyed rendered brick house with a weatherboard stables/coach-house, overlooking the Brisbane River. Originally called Verney, Beth-Eden was erected in 1888 for newspaper proprietor Charles Hardie Buzacott. The architect was Richard Gailey, who in 1884 had designed the Courier Building for Buzacott.
In 1895, John Ferguson MLA, a Rockhampton parliamentarian and a major shareholder in the Mt Morgan Mine company, purchased the property, which became the home of his daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs A H Chambers. Mr Chambers was the manager of the Union Bank and changed the name of the house to Rakeevan, after his family home in Ireland.
In 1903 Ferguson's other daughter and her husband, Joshua Thomas Bell MLA, took up residence. Bell, from Jimbour Station, held various portfolios and also served as speaker of the Legislative Assembly. The Ferguson daughters established extensive tropical gardens in the grounds and in 1921 Rakeevan hosted the inaugural Sherwood Shire Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society Show. Most of the gardens have been destroyed by subsequent development.
Rakeevan was lent by Mrs Bell as a military convalescent home during and after the First World War, following which it stood empty until purchased in the late 1920s by Gulf pastoralist James Stanislaus Kirby. Politician Dr Felix Dittmer was the next owner, and in 1957 he sold the property to the Glad Tidings Tabernacle.
The property was renamed Beth-Eden and officially opened as a retirement home in 1958. The house was modified and associated accommodation and service buildings were constructed.
The only remaining original outbuilding is the stables/coach-house to the southwest of the house.
","criteria":"Beth-Eden demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, containing a now rare late 19th century timber stables/coach-house.
Beth-Eden is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, ornate, two-storeyed, 1880s masonry house, overlooking the Brisbane River.
Beth-Eden is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the quality of the interior design, materials and craftsmanship.
Beth-Eden has a special association with prominent 19th century newspaper proprietor C H Buzacott and with important Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, being an example of his domestic work.
|Beth-Eden demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, containing a now rare late 19th century timber stables/coach-house.
|Beth-Eden is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, ornate, two-storeyed, 1880s masonry house, overlooking the Brisbane River.
|Beth-Eden is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the quality of the interior design, materials and craftsmanship.
|Beth-Eden has a special association with prominent 19th century newspaper proprietor C H Buzacott and with important Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, being an example of his domestic work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14991,"place_ref":600216,"name":"Toorak House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28 Annie Street","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-03-02","description":"Toorak House is a substantial, Gothic-influenced, two storeyed sandstone residence with richly decorated interiors. It has steeply pitched shingle roofs and a single storeyed brick and corrugated iron wing attached to the rear. The house is impressively set within gardens containing mature trees and manicured garden beds, and sits on the crest of Hamilton Hill, commanding extensive views.
The south, principal elevation has a strong formal presence, with a castellated square tower rising above the roofline flanked by two tall bay windows and steeply pitched dormer windows. The ground floor has a U-shaped timber verandah with a corrugated iron roof which has been enclosed with flyscreen to the west and glazing to the east. The main entrance comprises a flight of stone stairs guarded by a pair of lifesize marble lions, leading to an arched opening at the foot of the tower. The marble landing is inset with the word TOORAK.
The east and west elevations of the sandstone house comprise two gables with tall bay windows; the southern gabled bays step out to align with the external face of the verandah. The first floor has small balconies with timber balustrades braced in diagonal patterns. The house has timber sash windows and french doors.
The sandstone house has decorative external detailing in stone and timber trim. The square-snecked rubble stonework is dressed with projecting quoins, keystones, toothed windows surrounds and string courses and the tower has an arched cornice. The roofs are decorated with scalloped barge boards, finials, and carved eaves brackets. The verandah has chamfered timber posts and ornamental timber valances.
The internal layout comprises four substantial and two smaller rooms either side of a central corridor on the ground floor, and four large and two small bedrooms on the upper floor. The entrance hall has frescos on the walls and ceilings, and is divided with a decorative arch. The rooms throughout the ground floor contain marble chimney breasts and rich plaster work and cornices. The joinery appears to be primarily cedar.
Timber stairs with carved newels located at the end of the corridor give access both to upstairs rooms and a sheeted storage area at half-landing level via coloured glass doors. The ceilings throughout the upper level are half-raked and follow the lines of the roofs. The floor level steps up toward the south, accommodating higher ceilings below. The principal rooms have dormer windows expressed in the ceilings, french doors glazed in geometric patterns opening onto small balconies, and circular timber ceiling roses. A small room at the end of the corridor contains narrow timber stairs leading to a platform at the top of the tower. This vantage point offers 360? views of Brisbane and surrounds.
The rear wing is a modest structure in Flemish bond brickwork, with timber windows and louvred french doors opening onto a verandah to the east. The building has been extended and modified to the north east, north west and west. It consists of a kitchen, several bedrooms and an office, also accessed from a central corridor. The corridor and the rooms to the west have flagstone floors, while the rooms to the east have timber floors. The western rooms have been extensively refurbished, while the eastern rooms retain their timber boarded and pressed metal ceilings.
The gardens provide a picturesque setting for the house. To the south, an oval rose garden encircled by an oval drive reinforces the formality of the front facade. The eastern garden is terraced, and the northern garden has lawn, a mature hedge and a brick outhouse with a convex corrugated iron roof. The grounds contain many substantial and mature trees, including mature palms, camphor laurels, jacarandas, liquidambars, and Moreton Bay chestnuts.
","history":"This two storeyed stone residence was erected c1865 at Breakfast Creek for Brisbane businessman James Robert Dickson. Dickson appeared to be living at Breakfast Creek by March 1865, and references to the Dicksons at Toorak appear later that year.
Dickson arrived in Brisbane in 1862, and was in business with Arthur Martin as an auctioneer and land agent until August 1864 when the partnership was dissolved. Martin continued business under his own name, and Dickson formed a new partnership with James Duncan, as general auctioneers and land and commission agents. The firms of A Martin and Dickson and Duncan appear to have been responsible for much of the land subdivision and sales in Brisbane during the mid-late 1860s. Dickson entered Parliament in 1873 as the Member for Enoggera, and held various offices until he resigned in 1887. After failing to regain a seat in the 1888 general election, Dickson did not re-enter politics until 1892 when he won the seat of Bulimba. Dickson became Premier in October 1898, holding this position until December 1899. A strong advocate of Federation, Dickson was a member of the Australian delegation to England for the passage of the Commonwealth bill through the Imperial parliament. Dickson was a member of the first Federal Parliament and appointed the first Commonwealth Minister of Defence. Dickson was involved also in various companies including the Royal Bank of Queensland, the Brisbane Permanent Building and Banking Society, Queensland Trustees and the Queensland Insurance and Land Mortgage Company. Knighted on the day of Federation, he died 10 days later.
William Robert Howe Weekes of Brisbane was granted almost 32 acres of land in 1864. This land included four (4) allotments in the Parish of Toombul, fronting the Brisbane River. Subdivision of this land appeared to commence the following year when Dickson acquired part of the land. By 1873, an area of just under ten (10) acres of land, which included Toorak and grounds, had been transferred into Annie Dickson's name (Dickson's wife). Following Annie's death in 1880, the land was held by Dickson, as trustee.
Toorak was built of stone reputedly from the nearby Petrie quarries at Albion. The design and name of Toorak are believed to have been derived from a house at Toorak in Melbourne designed by a cousin of Dickson. The design of Toorak reflects the influence of the English Picturesque movement on Australian domestic architecture of the late nineteenth century.
A photograph of Toorak taken c1885 shows that the house was originally single storeyed with a two level entry hall protruding through the verandah roof. The second storey appears to have been added by the 1890s. An upper section was added to the tower by the 1890s.
Dickson, accompanied by four of his daughters, travelled to Europe in early 1890, returning to Brisbane in late 1891. It is believed that while Dickson was overseas, he acquired the two marble lions which stand at the entrance of Toorak, and that he hired Italian artists to undertake decorative work inside Toorak.
Following Dickson's death in 1901, the land was transferred to Power and Agnes Dickson (two of his children) as trustees. By this time, Toorak stood on an area of just over four (4) acres. Toorak was leased by Eton High School (later St Margaret's School) run by the Sisters of Sacred Advent in 1907. Although Toorak was regarded as an ideal healthy environment for boarders, it was considered to be "too great a climb for day pupils", and the Sisters moved the school to Donatello c1910.
Additions to Toorak were undertaken by Richard Gailey in 1915.
Toorak was acquired by grazier George Moffatt in 1916, and then in 1929 by John Gibson of the pioneer sugar family. Subsequent owners were Brisbane businessman Patrick Woulfe, prominent grazier, philanthropist and art collector Harold de Vahl Rubin, and pastoralist Sir William Allen in 1963. Since Allen's death in 1977 Toorak has remained in the Allen family, and stands on an area of 7535m2 (just under two acres).
","criteria":"As a substantial stone residence established in the Breakfast Creek area, it demonstrates the pattern of settlement and growth in Brisbane from the 1860s.
|The house and its garden demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial villa residence influenced by the English Picturesque movement.
|It is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including:(i)its fine interiors; (ii)the impressive external form and its fine detail; and (iii)the picturesque quality of the mature gardens surrounding the house.
|It has a special association with important political and social figures in 19th and 20th century Queensland (Dicksons, Moffatts, Gibsons, Woulfes, de Vahl Rubins, Allens).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14992,"place_ref":600217,"name":"Woolahra","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Lexington Terrace","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Woolahra is a two-storey brick house which blends Georgian and Renaissance elements in its design. The house is T shaped, with a one room wide wing across the front forming the crossbar, and a wider wing extending off the rear, forming the stem.
Its walls are rendered on the front and southern side, and painted on the northern side and the rear. The hipped corrugated iron roof has a decorative cast-iron comb along the ridges. A double storey verandah featuring decorative cast-iron posts, brackets, balusters and frieze, runs across the front of the house.
On the upper floor there are five french doors with leadlight fanlights and on the ground floor the front door has leadlight fan and sidelights with the name Woolahra incorporated. There are bay windows on either side. On the ends of the front wing there are heavily moulded Renaissance style windows which contrast with the simpler Georgian sash windows along the sides and rear of the back wing.
The theme of Georgian simplicity is continued inside the house where the lath and plaster walls and ceilings appear undecorated except for substantial joinery.
","history":"Woolahra, a two-storeyed brick house, was probably built in 1888 on land owned by Ellen Elizabeth Wheeler. A widow, she had bought the property in 1887.
Its first occupant appears to have been Charles Pritchard who married Mrs Wheeler. In 1896 the land was transferred to Ellen Elizabeth Pritchard. She died in 1932 and the house passed through a number of absentee owners who subdivided the property. The present owners bought the house and its remaining grounds in 1946.
","criteria":"As a reflection of the confidence of the 1880s boom.
As an early example of the type of large houses built on the hills to the northeast of the city.
|As a late illustration of the Georgian style with the addition of renaissance details and ornate verandahs.
|As a late illustration of the Georgian style with the addition of renaissance details and ornate verandahs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14993,"place_ref":600218,"name":"Cremorne","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"34 Mullens Street","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cremorne is a large, imposing, single-storeyed timber residence, situated halfway up the steep slope of Eldernell/Hamilton Hill in Brisbane. It has expansive views of the Brisbane River and the city's south-eastern suburbs. and is a prominent landmark when viewed from the southern suburbs. It has a terraced front lawn, with a long, central flight of concrete steps leading to the lower terrace. A sealed driveway, accessed from Mullens Street through brick entrance pillars and a timber trellis, sweeps in front of the house and up around the eastern side of the property to a carport at the rear. This driveway is lined by an avenue of distinctive, mature Queen Palms [Arecastrum romanzoffianum].
\nThe house is rectangular in plan, and has a corrugated iron-clad roof comprising a complex of hips, gables, ridges and pavilions, with decorative gablets and finials, and three brick chimney stacks. There are verandahs, with separate roofs, on all four sides. Several of these have been enclosed. The open verandahs all have simple timber balustrading and timber frieze, and ceilings of narrow tongue and groove boarding. Most of the walls are single-skin tongue and groove boarding, but where exposed to the weather, are clad externally with chamferboards.
\nDue to the natural slope of the ground toward the south, the house is high-set at the front facing south toward the river, but low-set at the rear, where there is a small, level backyard excavated from the hillside. The house mostly sits on timber stumps with concrete footings, but the perimeter stumps have been replaced by brick piers with arched timber battening between. A centrally positioned, divided brick stair, with a gabled portico above, gives access to the front verandah and front door.
\nThe front elevation is dominated by a deep, open verandah with large rotundas or pavilions on the south-west and south-east corners, which take advantage of the views and river breezes. This verandah has simple timber valances, posts and balusters, and the rotundas have ogee-shaped cupolas above a frieze of pink and green glass panels. On the south-west corner of the house a large, faceted bay window projects onto the verandah from the main bedroom; this is mirrored on the south-east corner by another faceted bay projecting from the drawing room. Both bays are embellished with very fine Art Nouveau leadlights.There are similar leadlights around the front door. The front exterior wall has been lined with fibrous cement sheeting and timber battening at some time after construction.
\nOn the western side of the house, the verandah outside the main and second bedrooms has been enclosed with casement windows and fibrous cement sheeting installed behind the timber balustrade. This area is separated from the south-west rotunda by large folding timber doors. The narrow, western verandah passageway outside the rear bedrooms and bathroom is only partly enclosed, with a timber frieze and timber lattice infill above the timber balustrade. Part of the eastern verandah, adjacent to the drawing room, is enclosed as a sunroom, with a single door opening onto the south-east corner rotunda. The rear verandah still functions as a passage, but is enclosed with chamferboards and sliding aluminium-framed windows.
\nInternally, the house retains the original configuration of rooms, with the private rooms on the western side separated by an entrance vestibule and north-south central hallway from the public rooms on the eastern side, and a service wing at the rear.
\nThe private rooms comprise a master bedroom and second bedroom opening off the central hall, and a side passage leading west from the central hallway to the dressing room, bathroom, and another bedroom. A small bedroom at the north-west corner of the house is accessed from the now enclosed rear verandah. There is another room, possibly a former bedroom, which also opens off the back verandah, but it has been modified substantially.
\nOpening off the front vestibule to the east is the drawing room, which has a south-east bay with leadlight windows and french doors opening onto the front verandah. The dining room opens off the central hallway and has an eastern bay with leadlights and a large, step-out window opening onto the eastern verandah. The drawing and dining rooms are separated by a side passage which leads east off the central hallway to what is now the sunroom [formerly part of the eastern verandah]. The door opening from this hallway to the sunroom is an external door, with leadlight surrounds.
\nThe service wing behind the dining room comprises servery, crockery room, kitchen [with a c1960 fit-out] and two servant's bedrooms, one of which has early linoleum flooring. A later bathroom and laundry are located on the enclosed verandah of the service wing.
\nThe interior has early joinery throughout - including a decorative, arched timber divider between the entrance vestibule and central hallway, and timber arches to the side passageways - all of which has been painted. The drawing and dining rooms have fireplaces with early marbled timber fireplace surrounds, fireplace and hearth tiles, and metal grates and fenders. Most of the timber partition walls are clad with later fibrous cement sheeting with wallpaper and a later timber dado strip. Most of the rooms have later plaster ceilings, but the entrance vestibule and drawing room have early, decorative pressed metal ceilings. Floors throughout are of narrow hardwood.
\nThe 2008 pavilion sited at the rear of the house in the north-western corner has a steeply pitched hipped roof and is clad in ribbed metal sheeting and weatherboards. A swimming pool and heavily landscaped gardens are located along the rear boundary.
\n","history":"
Cremorne is a substantial, single-storeyed, high-set timber residence erected c1905-06 for Brisbane publican James Denis O'Connor. It was designed by the firm of Eaton & Bates, Sydney-trained architects who built up a substantial Queensland practice from c1894-c1908.
\nJD O'Connor, born in Ireland c1860, had immigrated to South Australia in 1878, and was in business in Adelaide before moving north to Queensland, reputedly for health reasons, in 1889. His brother, Denis O'Connor, was already a well-known Brisbane publican, connected from at least 1884 with a number of Brisbane hotels, including the Globe, Dunmore Arms, O'Connor's Family Hotel [at Stones Corner], Oriental [later the Wickham] (QHR600213) from 1890, and later with the Prince Consort (QHR600212) in Fortitude Valley. JD O'Connor held the licence to the Stanley Hotel at the corner of Stanley Street and Boggo Road, Woolloongabba, 1890-96.
\nIn Brisbane in 1895, JD O'Connor married Catherine Julia Graham, whose father, John Graham, was one of the earliest land holders at Moreton Bay, having purchased land at South Brisbane in 1842. Johnny Graham was a well-known Brisbane identity and property owner, and a keen sportsman. For 30 years, from 1866 to 1896, he held the licences to several South Brisbane hotels. He established Graham's Family Hotel in Stanley Street, South Brisbane in 1888, and held the licence until 1896, when it was transferred to his son-in-law, who changed the name to O'Connor's Hotel. JD O'Connor is understood to have sold O'Connor's Hotel c1909, and retired from the hotel business altogether c1913.
\nIn 1904, JD O'Connor obtained title to nearly 1.5 acres of hillside land at Hamilton, formerly part of the Eldernell Estate and first subdivided in 1890. Here he erected a very fine timber residence which he named Cremorne. Although the JD O'Connor's had only one child, a daughter born in 1896, they erected a large house designed for entertaining, with generously proportioned rooms, and wide verandahs and verandah pavilions which took advantage of the magnificent views of the Brisbane river, southern suburbs and city. It was designed by one of the most fashionable architectural firms of the day, Messrs Eaton & Bates of Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville.
\nSydney-trained architects George T Eaton and Albert E Bates had formed a partnership in Rockhampton c1894 and developed a successful Central Queensland practice in the late 19th century, with branch offices established at Mount Morgan and Longreach by 1898, Clermont in 1900, Gladstone in 1901, Maryborough in 1902, and Townsville by 1902. Arthur B Polin from Sydney joined the partnership in Townsville c1901; it becoming Eaton, Bates & Polin. After 1902 their head office was moved to Brisbane, with branches retained at Rockhampton and Townsville. A branch operated briefly at Toowoomba in the early 1900s. The practice undertook a wide variety of architectural work, from hotels and commercial buildings to residences, hospitals and masonic halls, and received a number of commissions from the Catholic Church, including churches, schools, convents and presbyteries. One of the practice’s most glamorous commissions was for the new Queen's Hotel [1901-04] (QHR 600936) at Townsville. Cremorne [1905-06] is one of their larger residential designs. Its style was eclectic, drawing upon both eastern and western classical traditions, with a particular emphasis on verandahs and pavilions - both as a decorative device and as appropriate to the Queensland climate.
\nEaton & Bates called tenders for a large villa residence on the Eldernell Estate, Hamilton, in June 1905, and this is thought to refer to Cremorne. The O'Connor family was resident at Mullens Street, Hamilton, by 1907.
\nThree generations of the O'Connor family resided at the property for nearly 90 years, and retained ownership until the late 1990s. JD O'Connor had transferred title to his wife in 1916, prior to his death [at Cremorne] in 1919. Following Mrs O'Connor's death in 1952, Cremorne passed to their daughter, Lynette Mulcahy, who had married Thomas Edward Mulcahy in 1921. The Mulcahys had two children, a son and daughter, and Cremorne subsequently passed to their daughter, who subdivided the land, selling the house on a reduced site comprising two lots in 1998 and an access easement from Quarry Street to the east. Alterations and additions including an attached pavilion to the north-eastern corner of the house and a pool along the rear boundary were completed in 2008. In 2014, the southern allotment on Kingsford Smith Drive was subdivided into three. In 2015, roadwork has been undertaken to seal the easement and residences are being constructed on two of the three allotments.
\n","criteria":"
Cremorne, a large, substantially intact timber residence constructed in 1905-06, is important in illustrating the continued development of Hamilton in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, as one of Brisbane's most prestigious suburbs.
|The house is an outstanding example of Queensland federation-period domestic architecture, which, with its generous verandahs, distinctive rotundas, and attention to ventilation in the design, materials and details, addresses both aspect and climate in a creative and aesthetic manner.
|Situated on a prominent riverside site, Cremorne and its grounds are significant for their landmark and aesthetic qualities.
|The house is important as the only identified Brisbane example of the domestic work of architects Eaton & Bates, who made a significant contribution to Queensland architecture in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14994,"place_ref":600219,"name":"Palma Rosa","alternate_name":"Sans Souci | Palmerosa/Palmarosa","street_address":"9 Queens Road","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Palma Rosa is located on a hillside block at Hamilton overlooking the Albion Park Racecourse and Breakfast Creek. From the racecourse, the house is the most prominent building in the landscape, and possesses considerable landmark value.
Palma Rosa is a large sandstone residence arranged on three levels [two storeys and a full sub-floor] and has an attached 5 level tower, from the upper level of which there are fine vistas of the Bulimba and Hamilton Reaches of the Brisbane River. The windows on the fourth level of the tower have been filled in.
The building has a hipped roof, the outer faces of which are clad with slate tiles and the inner with 'panel deck'. There are double-storeyed, early 1980s, reconstructed verandahs across the northern [front] and eastern elevations, returning around the southern [rear] elevation to end at a tower. On the western elevation the original verandahs have been enclosed to provide toilets/bathrooms. There is a 3-level, projecting faceted bay, on both the southern and western sides of the building. These take advantage of the vistas over the racecourse to Breakfast Creek and the Brisbane River beyond. The front of the building addresses Queens Road to the north. The principal entrance is via a flight of centrally-positioned front steps leading to the piano nobile.
Internally the house comprises 15 main rooms on 3 levels, with a wide vestibule/hallway running centrally north-south through the house on each level. The floor plans of all 3 levels are almost identical. The principal rooms on the ground and first floor are over 4 metres in height and have decorative plaster cornices which are perforated or undercut, and perforated ceiling roses [these appear to have been designed to ventilate to the roof or floor cavity above]. There is extensive use of cedar joinery throughout, including panelled reveals and carved transoms to the doorways. The hallway on the principal level has tessellated tiles on the floor and corinthian pilasters to the archway separating hall from vestibule. There are 8 fireplaces with marble surrounds and tiles to the hearths, as well as the kitchen flue.
The house occupies most of the 1181m² block, with a few trees and shrubs along the side boundaries and a small lawn at the rear. There is little original planting. Across the front of the property is a masonry and cast-iron fence.
","history":"Palma Rosa is a three-level sandstone house built in 1886-87, possibly as a speculative venture for, and to the design of, prominent Brisbane architect Andrea Stombuco. It is one of Stombuco's most flamboyant residential designs, erected at the pinnacle of his success in Queensland. Ironically, construction of the building may also have been a strong contributory cause to his near insolvency in the late 1880s/early 1890s.
Andrea Stombuco was an Italian sculptor and builder who had travelled widely and was involved in various business enterprises, including stone quarrying at Capetown in South Africa, before emigrating to Victoria in 1851. After trying his luck on the goldfields, he established himself in Victoria as a sculptor, monumental mason, builder and architect, and found a patron in the Roman Catholic Church. He was the contractor for a number of Catholic churches in Victoria and for most of the stonework of Ballarat Cathedral, and in 1869 was appointed Catholic Diocesan Architect for Goulburn in New South Wales.
Stombuco moved to Queensland in 1875 on the advice of Rev. Patrick Dunne of Goulburn, and may have been appointed Catholic Diocesan Architect, receiving a number of important architectural commissions from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, James O'Quinn. These included St Joseph's Christian Brothers' College on Gregory Terrace [1875-76], St Mary's Presbytery at Ipswich [1876], St Francis Xavier Church at Goodna [1880-81], part of All Hallows at Petrie Bight [1880-82] and St Patrick's Church at Fortitude Valley [1880-82]. With his eldest son, Giovanni Stombuco, whom he took into partnership in 1886, he also designed St Joseph's Christian Brother's College at Nudgee, erected 1889-90. Among his more prominent non-Catholic works were St Andrew's Anglican Church at South Brisbane [1878-83] and Her Majesty's Opera House in Queen Street [1885-88].
Stombuco designed a number of large houses in Brisbane, including Friedenthal [1886-87] at Eagle Farm for WH Heckelman; and Rhyndarra [1889] at Yeronga for W Williams. He also designed several speculative ventures for himself, including Bertholme at New Farm [now the Moreton Club]. When Queensland's boom economy crashed in 1890, Stombuco was forced to auction his then residence, Briar House - a more modest residence in Lechmere Street, New Farm, which he had erected in 1888 - and left Queensland for Perth, Western Australia in 1891. His wife and son remained in Queensland, but Stombuco never returned, and died in Perth in 1907. Giovanni Stombuco retired from architecture when his father left Queensland in 1891, moving with his mother to Spring Vale Farm at Kuraby.
Whether Palma Rosa [originally named Sans Souci -'without care'] was built as a speculative venture, or whether it was intended as the Stombuco family home, is not clear. If the Stombucos occupied the house, it was very briefly. The house was completed by mid-December 1887, when Stombuco hosted an entertainment at Sans Souci to mark the completion of the building, but from 1888 to 1891, when he left the colony, the Queensland Post Office Directories list Stombuco's private residence as Lechmere Street, New Farm.
Stombuco had obtained title to the Sans Souci site in 1886. At that time it comprised 3 roods 19.2 perches, and was part of the Toorak Estate subdivision. The house was designed in 1886, the year Giovanni Stombuco entered into partnership with his father, but it is not known to what extent he contributed to the design. The house was constructed in 1886-87 by Brisbane contractors JAM O'Keeffe [who possibly had the overall supervision], A Petrie [who supplied the stone] and J Watson [presumably of the plumbing firm Watson Brothers], and builders Bell & McLaughlan.
On completion in late 1887, Sans Souci was described in the local press as undoubtedly one of the finest residences in or about Brisbane. The building was of three storeys, and constructed of stone from Petrie's Quarry [probably the nearby Petrie's Quarry, on the northern side of Crosby Road]. The rooms were all generously proportioned, with elaborate french-polished joinery and highly decorative cornices and ceiling roses in the principal rooms. The main hallway was decorated with an arch supported by fluted columns with corinthian capitals, and had tessellated Minton tiles on the floor. Sicilian marble was used for the steps at the front door and at the porch entrance, and for most of the mantelpieces, which also had Minton tiles in the hearths.
Original plans indicate that the sub-floor contained a generous L-shaped dining room, kitchen, scullery, pantry and servant's room; the piano nobile contained a drawing room and library [connected by folding doors] over the dining room, a boudoir and two bedrooms on the east side of the hall, and a main staircase off the vestibule to the west; and the upper floor accommodated 5 bedrooms and a bathroom. The three floor plans virtually replicated each other, and included a generous hall, 10 feet wide, running centrally north-south on each level. Initially, verandahs across the whole of the southern and western elevations were intended, but only sections of these appear to have been built.
In September 1888, Stombuco took out a mortgage of £4,500 on Sans Souci from the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Company Ltd, of which Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, premier of Queensland from May 1870 to January 1874, was a director and principal shareholder. Even before Stombuco left Queensland in 1891, it appears that the mortgage company controlled the property, although Stombuco technically retained title until 1913. The house was clearly a rental property by 1890, at which time it was known as Palmerosa, and was occupied briefly [c1889-90] by prominent Brisbane jeweller Lewis Flegeltaub, who had moved to Newstead House by 1891. Through the 1890s and early 1900s, Palmarosa was home to a number of socially prominent people and their families, including Joseph Bennett [possibly a Fassifern grazier] 1892-93; Reginald E Finlay [manager of the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Company Ltd] c1894-97; Captain TM Almond [Queensland portmaster 1890-1902] in the late 1890s; and William Hood, MLA, in the early 1900s.
From c1904 to c1934, the principal occupant was Arthur Cecil Hunter Palmer, a civil engineer and second son of Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer. ACH [Cecil] Palmer and his wife, Lorna Barron, appear to have settled at Palmarosa within a year or so of their marriage in August 1902, and in 1913 title to the property was transferred to Mr Palmer. The Palmers were well known in Brisbane society for their race-day verandah parties at Palmarosa, overlooking the Albion Park Racecourse, with 'bookies' said to have visited the house to take bets. By 1932 the house had been divided into three flats, with the Palmers occupying the top floor. During the Second World War, Palmarosa was occupied by United States military personnel from 1942 to c1945.
The house remained in the Palmer family until title passed in 1945 to Charles Robinson, then to Charles Lawrence Hayles in 1946. In 1951 the residence was converted to a boarding house - several of its residents later became prominent, including Sir William Knox and several judges - and Hayles subdivided the property in 1954. Title to the house block was transferred a number of times in the 1950s, and in the late 1950s or early 1960s the place was converted to a private convalescence hospital. By September 1963 the verandahs had been removed and additional toilets installed for hospital use. Also by this date, the name Palma Rosa was being spelt as two words.
In 1972 the property, on a reduced site of just over 1 rood [1181m²], was bought at auction by Ralph Holden on behalf of the English Speaking Union [ESU], a Queensland branch of which he had established in Brisbane in 1968. The ESU, based in London, is an educational, cultural and social society advocating English as an international means of communication. There are a number of branches of the ESU in Australia and in many other nations, but few own property.
Since 1972 Palma Rosa has functioned as club rooms and art gallery for the ESU's Queensland branch. In 1975 a new deed of grant was issued to The English Speaking Union [Queensland Branch], in which the Hamilton land was granted to the Union and its successors Upon Trust for Buildings (Preservation of Historic Heritage) purposes. In the early 1980s the Union installed a resident caretaker at Palma Rosa, a role which later was taken by the president of the English Speaking Union in Queensland, Patricia Johnson, and her family.
Repair works for the ESU were undertaken at Palma Rosa between 1972 and the mid-1980s, including reconstruction of the verandahs, and in 1996-97 the Union commissioned a substantial conservation report on the building.
","criteria":"Palma Rosa, erected in 1887 on a scale and finish unusual even in Brisbane's more substantial 19th century homes, is important in illustrating the confidence in the 1880s boom which re-shaped Queensland's economic environment, and created a building boom in Brisbane.
|Palma Rosa, erected in 1887 on a scale and finish unusual even in Brisbane's more substantial 19th century homes, is important in illustrating the confidence in the 1880s boom which re-shaped Queensland's economic environment, and created a building boom in Brisbane.
|It is an excellent example of the domestic work of prominent Brisbane architect Andrea Giovanni Stombuco and is a splendid example of an 1880s elite residence in Queensland.
|The ornately decorated interior, reflective of the architect's flamboyant taste, is of strong aesthetic value.
|The place has landmark value, and has had a special association for the English Speaking Union as their Brisbane club rooms since 1972.
|The place has landmark value, and has had a special association for the English Speaking Union as their Brisbane club rooms since 1972.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14995,"place_ref":600220,"name":"Anning Monument (Boer War Memorial)","alternate_name":"Hemmant Boer War Memorial","street_address":"cnr Boonoo Street","suburb":"HEMMANT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Boer War Memorial is situated in a large park in Hemmant. It sits beside a grassed playing area in front of a group of children's swings.
The sandstone memorial comprises a base and pedestal surmounted by a obelisk. It sits on a concrete pad and is surrounded by evenly spaced metal posts linked by a metal chain.
The base is a smooth faced step with a chamfered top edge. Surmounting this is the pedestal plinth which is smooth faced and capped with large cyma recta mouldings. The front face displays a high relief carving of a trooper's hat and bandolier. Rising from the plinth is the pedestal dado. It is a square pillar with recessed panels on each side. The front face has a leaded marble plaque set into the recess bearing an inscription to Lance Corporal John Harry Anning. The dado is capped by a large cornice made up of a number of cyma recta and torus mouldings.
Projecting from the pedestal is the obelisk. It sits on a plinth capped with cyma recta and torus mouldings and also has a leaded marble plaque on the front face. It bears another inscription to Lance Corporal Anning.
The obelisk has a relief carved tasselled shroud draped over the top. Below the shroud are relief carved crossed rifles, bound with cord and resting on a banner. The banner hangs from a staff with a small crown at the top.
","history":"The Anning Monument was unveiled in March 1903. It was designed and executed by monumental mason William Busby of Toowong, Brisbane.
The stone memorial honours local man, Lance Corporal John Harry Anning of the 5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen. The memorial was erected by his friends and comrades after he was killed in action at Koppiesfontein, South Africa on 6 August 1901 at the age of eighteen.
It was originally sited at the junction of Lytton and Hemmant Roads, but was re-sited in 1968 after it was hit by a car.
The Anning memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state. After the First World War, the construction of war memorials was prolific. In 1903, when this memorial was unveiled, they were still quite rare.
Australian war memorials are valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.
Although there are now many different types of memorials throughout Queensland there are few Boer War Memorials.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period. The memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
It is an uncommon example of a memorial erected in memory of a single soldier.
|The Boer War Memorial is an important Queensland monument. It is one of the few memorials in Queensland to commemorate the involvement and death of Queensland soldiers in the Boer War of 1899-1902. After the First World War, memorials were erected in most Queensland towns, however in 1903, when this memorial was unveiled, they were still quite rare. It is an uncommon example of a memorial erected in memory of a single soldier.
The memorial at Hemmant demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the appropriate use of various symbolic elements including a shroud, crossed rifles, and obelisk
|The Boer War Memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with Brisbane monumental mason, William Busby as an example of his work
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14996,"place_ref":600221,"name":"Hemmant Christian Community Church","alternate_name":"Tingalpa Wesleyan Methodist Church | Hemmant Uniting Church | Hemmant Methodist Church","street_address":"69 Hemmant Road","suburb":"HEMMANT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This weatherboard church is rectangular in shape with a small gabled front porch. A bellcote surmounts the front of the gable roof which is in corrugated iron. The front gable is decorated with scalloped timber barge boards. There are 6 gothic-style leadlight windows along each side of the building and two at the front. They are all memorials to the church's pioneer families.
The interior walls and ceiling are lined with horizontal double-headed tongue and groove boards. A folding timber screen divides the building in two, separating the church from a meeting room.
","history":"This building was opened in November 1866 as the Tingalpa Wesleyan Methodist Church, within the East Brisbane Circuit - later incorporated into the Wynnum Circuit as the Hemmant Methodist Church.
The Tingalpa district, which included Hemmant, had been opened up to farming in 1859. Settlement expanded following the introduction of the 1864 Coffee and Sugar Regulations, when most of the land in the district along Doughboy [Bulimba] Creek and the Brisbane River was taken up for sugar growing.
Tenders for the construction of a Wesleyan Church at Church Hill, Tingalpa were called in August-September 1865, and the building was officially opened in November 1866. Local involvement included that of the Hon. Angus Gibson MLC, who served as a church trustee for 50 years. Together with the school, built in 1864, the church contributed to the nucleus of the village of Hemmant.
The building was extended by 5 metres at an unknown date, and in 1947 the windows and most of the interior fittings and furniture were replaced.
Hemmant Methodist Church functioned as the Hemmant Uniting Church following the amalgamation of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches as the Uniting Church of Australia in the mid-1970s. In 1988 it was closed due to a declining congregation. Saved from demolition by a local community group, the building was re-opened as the non-denominational Hemmant Christian Community Church.
","criteria":"Hemmant Christian Community Church , erected in 1865-66, is significant historically as one of the oldest churches in Brisbane, associated with the early establishment of Methodism in Queensland and with the development of Tingalpa/Hemmant as a farming district in the second half of the 19th century.
|The building illustrates the principal characteristics of a modest, 19th century timber gothic-style church in Queensland, and has functioned as a community focus and landmark for over 130 years.
|The building illustrates the principal characteristics of a modest, 19th century timber gothic-style church in Queensland, and has functioned as a community focus and landmark for over 130 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14997,"place_ref":600222,"name":"Glengariff","alternate_name":"Glenaplin | Dura","street_address":"5 Derby Street","suburb":"HENDRA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Glengariff is a two storey brick residence located on the corner of Derby and Burilda Streets Hendra, the heart of Brisbane's racing industry. It is set in generous grounds which have been reduced in size by the formation of TC Beirne Park to the north (c1949) and to the east the subdivision for residential purposes of land (1993) that was originally occupied by a tennis court and croquet green.
The property is accessed from Derby Street through a recent gate and via a semi-circular driveway. A double garage is located in Burilda Street which has a line of mature Bunya Pines running along its boundary. On the northern side of the house are two large camphor laurel trees. Other plantings appear to be of recent origin. A tennis court (1985) exists to the north of the house.
The house has a corrugated iron gabled roof with prominent chimneys, one four flue and two three flue, two positioned at the ridge line and one on the north end gable. The principle elevation facing Derby Street is asymmetric and has a rendered brick entry portico with a three storey tower that rises through the first floor and above the gutter line and is finished with a low hipped roof. To the left of this is a rendered brick gabled wing with two storey bay window with central and top cornices. To the right a late Victorian two storey cast iron verandah runs around the eastern gabled wing. The verandah is supported on paired cast iron posts with a deep semicircular cast iron valance between, in a floral design, at ground floor and shallow valance above at first floor. The balustrade on the first floor is cast iron with a timber handrail. To the west is a wide Edwardian timber verandah extension which has detailing that is an interpretation of the late Victorian verandah with paired square timber posts, timber semicircular valance with slatted detail, slatted timber balustrade with central diamond pattern section at ground and first floors and shaped bracket posts at first floor. The walls beneath the verandahs are painted and unpainted brick with rendered quoins on the corners and surrounding doors, windows.
A lift has been installed on the northern verandah that rises through the first floor and is finished in a weatherboard clad dormer.
A narrow two storey brick wing extends off the north side with a narrow two storey cast iron verandah on the east side with the same cast iron detail as the rest of the verandah but with a lancet shaped valance. On the west of this wing the verandah has been enclosed with weatherboard.
Basement carparking has been created recently by excavation and the formation of a terrace to the north of the house. An original brick water tank which has a dome shaped top exists in this basement.
Glengariff which now has plan form that is roughly T shaped is entered via the entrance portico through heavy timber double doors which have lead light glass head and side windows. Above the door is located Bishop O'Donnell's Coat of Arms. The entrance hall is divided by a colonnade which leads to a single width return timber stair upto the first floor. The flight of the stair, which has carved timber newels and turned balusters, appears to have been altered.
To the left of the entrance stair is the dining room which has a bay window at its southern end which has four high double hung windows with leadlight hopper windows with a central roundel with painted birds (a detail repeated in other rooms) over. At the north end is a central black marble fireplace with surrounding high timber mantle with central mirror and flanking book cases. Early wall paper is in evidence in the cupboards behind this fitting. This room opens out to the wide timber verandah to the west. To the north, behind the dining room, is another smaller room, physical evidence suggests that this may have originally accommodated the stair.
To the right of the entrance hall is a lounge room with white marble fireplace, surround and mantle. On the left side of this is a semicircular arched opening and on the right side a blind opening in the same detail. This room opens onto the verandah via French doors in the south and east elevations, and connects to the kitchen (inserted 1985) which has been fitted out in contemporary fashion. The north wall has been extended under the verandah with a timber and glass screen. There is a French door to the verandah in the east wall.
Access to the former kitchen wing is through single half glass door with lead light over onto the northern verandah. This verandah leads to the former kitchen and a secondary stair to the first floor.
The main stair with a lead light window at the half landing rises to the first floor landing which has been altered towards the south to form bathroom facilities. To the left of the landing are two bedrooms that open out on to the verandah via French doors. To the south off the landing is a large bedroom with a bay window and openings onto the western verandah. To the north of this are a further two bedrooms and behind this the secondary stair and a bedroom in the former kitchen wing. The enclosed verandah on the western side contains a bedroom and bathroom.
Access to the tower is from the first floor verandah via a decorative cast iron spiral stair.
","history":"Glengariff (then called Dura) was erected in 1888-89 for bank manager Edward Jones by architect HGO Thomas. The site consisting of some 19 blocks (described as sections 87-105 of allotment 16 portion 2) totally nearly 5 acres was acquired by Jones in 1886 from the Queensland Turf Club. Located a short distance to the north of the Eagle Farm Racecourse, it had formed part of the original grant made in 1863 of over 300 acres to the QTC to enable the club to re-establish its racecourse, then at New Farm, at Eagle Farm. To overcome financial difficulties, parts of the original grant were sold off by the Club; the first subdivisions (of a number of 4-5 acre blocks) occurred in 1878. The Glengariff holding formed part of a second subdivision of some 180 blocks in the area roughly bound by Manson, Zillman, Gerler, and Nudgee Roads; street names such as Derby Street (after races, racecourses, and QTC trustees) alluding to the area's turf origins.
\nThe 1880s was a period of great economic prosperity in Queensland - no better evidenced than the resulting building boom which transformed the central business districts of many of the state's towns. In the suburbs of Brisbane, that prosperity was also evidenced in the substantial villa residences erected by the princes of the commercial world. In the midst of the boom, the Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd (established in Melbourne in 1866) opened its Brisbane branch in 1886 with Edward Jones as its manager. The Hendra site selected by Jones for his own suburban villa was somewhat unlikely: possessing neither elevation nor proximity to the river. It did however have proximity to the state's premier racecourse and to the recently opened Sandgate / City Railway line (via Hendra Railway Station). A number of other substantial houses had also been erected in the vicinity including Stanley Hall (QHR 600183) and Ralahyne (QHR 600182) (1888) in Enderley Road; WH Heckelman's two story residence Friendenthal erected 1886-67 on Nudgee Road (architect Andrea Stombuco); in 1892 James Clark's substantial timber residence Dunsinane was erected on Manson Rd (architect GHM Addison).
\nThe two storey masonry Dura was located to the southern (most elevated) part of the site with views from the upper floor of the surrounding district; the tower with its view to the south presumably providing a lookout to the Racecourse - a feature known to have been included for this purpose in additions to the nearby Stanley Hall undertaken in 1888-89 by architect GHM Addison for racing aficionado Hubert Hunter. A contemporary lithograph (which shows Dura prior to the 1907 Dods additions) shows a two story bay to the western elevation (matching the two story bay to the southern elevation) with a hipped roof running back to the main roof. It is not known whether this was actually built or if it was removed to accommodate the later addition of the Dods verandahs. To the north of this bay, the lithograph also shows windows at both levels with continuous hoods in place of the enclosed verandahs which now exist.
\nDescribed in 1888 by the Aldine History of Queensland as one of the rising young architects of the city, Welsh architect Hubert George Octavius Thomas (1857-1922) arrived in Brisbane in 1883 practising in his own right from c1885. After his marriage in 1898, Thomas lived and practised at Sandgate; his work there including a band stand at Moore Park (demolished), extensive alterations and additions to Howrah (later Blue Waters) as well as the removal and rebuilding of the Wesleyan Church (which Thomas attended) and the building of the parsonage. In 1903 Thomas moved his office back to the city. Other works include his own house Rheidol a single story stylistic relative to Dura erected c1889 at Montague Rd Sth Brisbane (demolished); a house for his father-in-law William Lee (1896-7) at Wooloongabba; and possibly his later house at Wooloowin, Nanteos. Thomas may also have been responsible for additions to Cintra (QHR 600054) in 1888. A founder and President of the St David's Society in Brisbane, Thomas died in 1922. Thomas is said to have specialised in suburban villas of which Dura/Glengariff would appear to be his most substantial.
\nEdward Jones did not however reside at Dura for long; by 1892 he is no longer listed in the Post Office Directories. It appears however that the house (recorded by the 1895 McKellar's Map as Glen Aplin) was rented to the manager of the Queensland National Bank (DG Stuart) until about the time when acquired by TC Beirne and his family in 1898.
\nThomas Charles Beirne (1860-1949) arrived in Australia from Ireland in 1884. Together with Irish contemporaries MD Piggott (with whom Beirne established his first store at South Brisbane in 1886) and FJ McDonnell, TC Beirne was to found a fortune based on the burgeoning retail trade which saw the transformation of small nineteenth century draper's stores into the large department stores of the twentieth century. Beirne's own fortunes became closely aligned with that of Fortitude Valley where (after the dissolution of his partnership in 1891 with MD Piggott who in turn established what became Piggott's Department Store in Toowoomba (QHR 600861)) Beirne established his store. The store grew over the succeeding decades to become Queensland's leading departmental Store; correspondingly the once unfashionable Fortitude Valley became Brisbane's principal shopping area. Other stores were also to be established at Ipswich (1892) and Mackay (1902). A successful businessman (with extensive interests in the Brisbane Tramway Company, the Australian Mutual Provident Society, Queensland Trustees, Atlas Assurance Company, and the British Australian Cotton Association), Beirne was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1905, and elected to the Council of the University of Queensland in 1927 becoming warden from 1928-1941. In 1935 he donated £20,000 to establish the TC Beirne School of Law. A devout Roman Catholic and close friend and confidant of Archbishop James Duhig (1871-1965), Beirne was also a prominent benefactor of the church including Duhig's grandiose scheme for the building of the Holy Name Cathedral (QHR 600208); the architect for which and many other Duhig projects, Jack Hennessy jnr, was to marry one of the Beirne daughters. In 1929 he was awarded a papal knighthood of the Order of St Gregory. At his death in 1949 the Courier-Mail commented that Brisbane has lost a personality whose life has been woven strongly into its own progress and development for half a century.
\nAs TC Beirne's Fortitude Valley store was to be central to the public expression of the man so Glengariff (as the Beirnes renamed Dura) was to his private life: the Australian Dictionary of Biography describing his pastimes as mainly connected with his family life [he and his wife Ann Kavanagh had ten children, five daughters surviving infancy] and his home, Glengariff, at Hendra, with its beautiful grounds, tennis and croquet courts. What prompted the move to Glengariff is not known: prior to the purchase of Glengariff the family are not believed to have owned their own home: leasing a property at Moray Street, New Farm and earlier living above the Brunswick Street store. By this time, however, Beirne was established as a successful businessman; moreover just prior to purchasing Glengariff there was much illness in the family with a baby boy dying from pneumonia and TC Beirne himself suffering from typhoid fever. The semi-rural Glengariff may have appeared the answer.
\nIn his memoirs, TC (as he was known) recalled inspecting the property with his wife in whose name the property was acquired:
\nThe house was a large two-storied building standing in five acres of land, the lower portion of which was under water. It was the home of water birds, such as the ibis, and the call of the curlew and the croaking of the frogs made it a very eerie place. The house itself had a look of utter neglect about it, and the garden was completely overgrown with giant bamboos, making it almost impossible to see the house from the road ... Mother, having viewed the house from every angle, turned to me and said, \"What a beautiful home it will make!\"
\nOn moving in, the bamboos were cleared away from the house but a lovely line of bunya pines along the west side (which remain today) was left; a large portion of the land was ploughed and crops of pineapples and rosellas, and lucerne for the cows were grown. To the east of the house was a tennis court and after becoming a fan of croquet TC had a croquet lawn constructed adjoining Goodwood Street.
\nIn 1923 the Queensland Society Magazine (November 1923 p23) published photographs showing sweeping gravel paths including a circular drive to the front of the house, the entrance hall (by which time the stair which physical evidence suggests may have been moved is in its existing position), the double archwayed drawing room containing many art treasures, and dining room. On the upper level were some five bedrooms and separate quarters for the staff. A timber garage was erected sometime after 1908 on Ascot Street (now Burilda Street) after fire destroyed the stables (located to the north of the house). An undated sewerage detail plan also shows the circular brick underground water tank located to the north of the house (which remains in existence).
\nIn 1907 architect RS (Robin) Dods (1868-1920) of the firm Hall & Dods undertook additions to Glengariff costing £496. Dods had previously undertaken work for TC Beirne and their relationship was to be longstanding: Hall & Dods undertook several stages of building to the Fortitude Valley store and warehousing (1902 - 1913) and the building of new stores at Ipswich (1902; additions 1909) and Mackay (1907). Dods also designed a house at Albion (c1912) for the eldest Beirne daughter.
\nDods' work at Glengariff included the addition of double storeyed verandah rooms to the western side of the house and the building in of cupboards in the dining room. The use of weatherboard and the detailing employed would also suggest that Dods was responsible for alterations and / or additions to the rear service part of the house (including enclosing of the existing verandah to the rear of the western side on two levels with weatherboard). The articulation of the main stair may have been altered at this time. Dods had a highly developed architectural imagination: his introduction of the formal and philosophical ideas of both the British Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian classicism and his significant functional solutions to the problems of living and building in Queensland combined to achieve an architectural revolution in Brisbane. In his domestic work, Dods reassessed local timber construction refining familiar elements including the planning and detailing of verandahs . Dods work at Glengariff is typical: the addition of timber verandahs (expanded in size to become outdoor rooms) on the western side offered protection from the western sun as well as permitting a flexibility of use including as a ball-room (on the ground level) and outside sleeping quarters (on the upper level). The Edwardian concerns for light and ventilation (which were central to Dods own work) linked to the health of the mind and body, which found their high point in the open air wards for treatment of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (several being designed by Dods for the Brisbane Hospital) and Queensland's open air schools are clearly in evidence in Dods' work at Glengariff.
\nAfter the death of their mother (in 1940) and father (in 1949) the five Beirne daughters gifted Glengariff to the church as an episcopal residence. TC Beirne's longstanding friend Archbishop James Duhig offered it to his newly appointed Coadjutor Archbishop, Patrick O'Donnell. Contemporaneously more than half of the original Glengariff holding (lots 91-101) fronting Gerler Road became a municipal park, TC Beirne Park. Changes undertaken by the Church include the removal of a lift (installed by TC Beirne for use by his wife); the installation of Archbishop O'Donnell's coat of arms above the front door and fire place in the drawing room (which remain) and the replacing of the timber entrance gates (located near the corner of Burilda and Derby Streets) and paling fence with chain wire. Glengariff was to remain Archbishop O'Donnell's home even after the death of James Duhig in 1965 when he became Archbishop; he chose not to move to Wynberg, the residence purchased by Duhig in 1925 as the Archbishop's residence after the demolition of Dara to make way for the building of Duhig's most ambitious building project the ill fated Holy Name Cathedral (QHR 600208). After the death of Archbishop O'Donnell, his secretary (and previously secretary to Archbishop Duhig) Rev Father Francis Douglas remained in residence until his death after which it was sold by the church in 1985 to its present owners.
\nMore recently a number of changes have been made to the house and grounds including the repositioning of the kitchen from the rear service wing to one room of the drawing room, the formation of a terrace to the rear of the new kitchen, with garage below, and the building of a new tennis court to the north of the house. Some changes have also apparently been made to the upstairs bedrooms and rear service wing including refitting of bathrooms. In 1993 roughly half of the remaining holding (lots 102-105) which previously contained the croquet and tennis courts to the east of the house were sold and a number of new houses erected. That land no longer forms part of the Entry in the Heritage Register.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1888-89, Glengariff (or Dura as it was then known) is one of a number of large villa residences erected throughout Brisbane during the late nineteenth century. The semi-rural villas, of which Glengariff (with its remaining grounds) is typical, sought to combine the amenities of both the city and country and provide evidence of the marriage of buoyant economic times with the aspirations of those who benefited from them.
Glengariff is closely associated with the development of Hendra as the racing heart of Brisbane which followed on the establishment of Eagle Farm Racecourse (and subsequent subdivision of the original Deed of Grant by the Queensland Turf Club, of which Glengariff is part) and the opening of the Hendra Railway Station in 1882.
|The two storied brick Glengariff is a fine example of the work of architects HGO Thomas and RS (Robin) Dods whose 1907 additions included the two story verandah rooms to the western side.
The layout of the front drive and the line of Bunya Pines survive as evidence of early garden plans; the brick water tank is believed to be rare.
|The house and grounds are of considerable aesthetic significance in particular the qualities of the cast iron work, joinery, glasswork, and the Dods additions.
|For half a century Glengariff was the home of prominent Brisbane Catholic retailer, businessman, and benefactor TC Beirne and his family. Its gift to the Brisbane Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church after TC Beirne's death in 1949, and its subsequent use as the home of the Archbishop James Duhig's Coadjutor Archbishop O'Donnell (after the death of Duhig in 1965 Archbishop) for a further three decades, was a continuation of a long line of interwoven histories of TC Beirne, the church, and the city of Brisbane. Thus Glengariff was not only the home of one of the city's most influential citizens but also became a symbol of his collaboration with another, Archbishop James Duhig who both individually and together did so much to shape the history (including the social and built fabric) of Brisbane in the first half of the century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":14999,"place_ref":600224,"name":"Coorooman","alternate_name":"The Grange","street_address":"38 Dorchester Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Coorooman is a substantial timber residence situated on a ridge at South Brisbane overlooking the Brisbane River. The house is oriented to the north and Vulture Street, but from at least 1865, the site has been accessed from Dorchester Street to the south.
The core is rectangular in form, with an encircling verandah, a highly pitched gabled-roof [originally shingled but now clad with corrugated iron], attic rooms and a brick basement. Parts of the verandah have been enclosed. Decorative elements include scalloped barge boards, turned finials with twisted lightning conductors, distinctive arched dormer windows, turned cedar verandah balusters and two classically-moulded chimney heads. Internally, much of the original cedar joinery survives.
There are four rooms on the main floor and another four rooms in the attic. These are lit by windows in the dormers and in the gable ends. The brick foundations contain two large basement rooms, one of which was used as LC Ball's photographic darkroom.
To the southeast of the main building is a formerly detached timber wing containing kitchen and staff quarters.
The grounds contain part of an early slab fence, and plantings include a Norfolk Island pine thought to date to c1930.
","history":"Coorooman, a single-storeyed timber residence with attic and basement, was constructed by c1882, when it was known as Grange House. Materials and stylistic details suggest it was erected much earlier, probably in the 1860s.
Portion 147, a 9 acre parcel which included the Grange House site, was alienated in 1856 by Thomas Blacket Stephens. Portion 147 was part of approximately 125 acres - most of the land between what is now Stephen's Road and Gladstone Road, and from Vulture Street to Gloucester Street - alienated by TB Stephens at this period. Stephens erected the first Cumbooquepa (QHR 600305) on this land, and may have erected Grange House as well, which would account for its northern orientation to Vulture Street.
Stephens subdivided portion 147 about 1863, and title to the Grange House site of 24.8 perches [subdivisions 16 and 17], fronting the newly created Water Street West to the south and overlooking the Brisbane River to the north, was transferred to Helen Bell and her sister Ann Paton Love, in April 1863. The Love family retained title to this property until the late 1870s, but do not appear to have lived there.
In 1882 title passed to Janet Burns, and she and her husband John were resident at Grange House by the following year. He was a merchant in business with his brother, James, who established the trading and mercantile firm of Burns, Philp & Co. Ltd in 1883. John Burns died in 1884, but Grange House remained the property of the Burns family until 1912, during which time it was mostly rented to middle class tenants.
Lionel Clive Ball acquired the property in 1912, and renamed the house Coorooman. Ball became chief government geologist in 1931 and pioneered the geological mapping of Queensland based on aerial photography. The Ball family held the property until 1956.
Coorooman remains a substantially intact, mid-19th century residence.
","criteria":"Coorooman, erected by c1882, is significant historically for its association with the mid-19th century expansion of middle-class residential settlement on the ridges of South Brisbane, overlooking the Brisbane River.
|It remains substantially intact, and is an important example of an early gothic-style house in Brisbane.
|Coorooman occupies a prominent position, and is important as one of Brisbane's commanding hilltop houses which contributes significantly to the townscape of South Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15000,"place_ref":600225,"name":"Kinauld","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"116 Dornoch Terrace","suburb":"HIGHGATE HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kinauld is a large timber house built on a steeply sloping site. It is square in plan with a single-storey at street level and two-storeys at the rear. The twin hipped roof with valley is clad in corrugated iron.
The front verandah has a hipped roof, cast-iron balustrades and timber venetians. The central frontispiece has a gabled pediment. The chamfered board walls are broken by pairs of step-out windows either side of the central front door.
The plan of the main floor is most innovative, with all rooms except the drawing room opening off a central room or circulation space that has no windows. The front door opens onto a short hall with two doors, one of which leads to the central room. The right hand door opens on to the large front drawing room which has pairs of step-out windows that provide egress to the front and eastern verandahs and a bay window.
Walls and ceilings were lath and plaster, while skirting boards, doors and architraves were cedar.
The sub-floor was composed of a kitchen, dining room, laundry and store room.
Externally Kinauld presents a substantially intact colonial facade.
","history":"This timber and corrugated iron hill-top house was erected in 1888 for the widow of Alexander Macintosh.
Alexander Macintosh came to Brisbane from Scotland in 1865 with his wife and family of nine children. In 1866 he purchased the site and built a simple timber dwelling, which he called Kinauld. Mackintosh died in 1877, but in 1888 his wife commissioned Brisbane architect Alexander B Wilson to design the present Kinauld, immediately behind the first.
Macintosh descendants owned the dwelling until 1953, occupying the house until the late 1930s. During the Second World War it was rented by HW Herbert, manager of Queensland Trustees.
Subsequent owners made many internal alterations: marble fireplaces, cedar fittings and stained glass were removed, ceilings were sheeted with asbestos, verandahs enclosed, rooms modified and the rear verandah's cast-iron balustrading sold off.
Restoration by current owners includes reconstructing the front facade, front door and ceilings, and replacing fittings.
","criteria":"Kinauld, constructed in 1888, survives as one of Brisbane's commanding hilltop houses and is important for its association with the early settlement of Highgate Hill.
|As an accomplished building of innovative form and unusual style, it is a fine example of the early domestic work of Brisbane architect Alexander B Wilson.
|Kinauld, as one of the Brisbane's commanding hilltop houses, contributes significantly to the South Brisbane/Highgate Hill townscape and to the historic streetscape of Dornoch Terrace.
|Kinauld is also important for its association with the Macintosh family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15001,"place_ref":600226,"name":"Wairuna","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"27 Hampstead Road","suburb":"HIGHGATE HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wairuna is a substantial mostly one storeyed elevated timber building on a prominent site in Hampstead Road, Highgate Hill. The building has a complex steeply pitched hipped and gabled roof clad with red Marseilles patterned terracotta roof tiles. Gabled projections on the roof give external expression to bay windows and other projections which would otherwise be concealed by verandahs. The gabled projections on the roof are clad with a variety of small terracotta tiles or horizontal timber boarding. The projections have decorative bargeboards partially infilled with either vertical timber battening or cross braced timber members.
The building is timber framed and clad with horizontal beaded boarding. Tall rectangular stuccoed chimney stacks with simple cut out decorative motif below the cap. The building is lined on the northern façade, facing toward the central business district, with a wide timber framed verandah. The verandah has rectangular timber posts, a simple vertical battened balustrade. The verandahs are lined with timber louvred screen and latticing. The pitch of the roof becomes more shallow over the verandahs.
Pedestrian entrance to the house is via a set of secured concrete stairs from Hampstead Road which curve up to a lawned terrace in front of the northern façade of the house. From this timber steps lead to a double timber latticed door in a small diagonally placed porch projecting from the verandah. This north eastern end of the verandah expands to form a large open piazza area. From the piazza access is provided to an double timber entrance door, flanked by leadlight sidelights and surmounted by a rectangular transom, also glazed with leadlight. From here, a small entrance vestibule is separated from the entrance hall by a colonnade.
Internally the building has timber boarded floors, vertical timber boarded walls and ceilings clad with decorative pressed metal sheeting. The interior is arranged around a large central space comprising the entrance hall and a large conservatory hall to the west of the hall and linked by a short hallway. Both of these central rooms have large clerestory windows, providing natural light to what would otherwise be quite dark central rooms. Surrounding these rooms and accessed from them are a number of rooms including a drawing room, dining room, study, three bedrooms along with a number of smaller ancillary rooms including a servant's bedroom, bathroom and toilet, kitchen, serving pantry and scullery. Access is provided to two stairs from the conservatory, one internal timber stair and, quite near this , at the western end of the house, an external stair, leading to a rear terrace. Most internal timber doors, which are generally four panelled, are surmounted by operable transom lights. The internal rooms are generally generously sized spaces and the interior is a substantially intact late nineteenth century residence, although many of the service areas have been refitted with modern facilities.
","history":"Wairuna was constructed as the residence of James Allan between 1896 and 1900, to the design of fine Brisbane architect Robin Dods.
James Allan was the co-founder of the drapery and outfitting firm, Allan and Stark who had outlets in South Brisbane and Queen Street. Allan and Stark were operating from the mid 1880s and remained in business as a major Queensland department store until they were taken over by Myer in the later half of the twentieth century.
James Allan and his new wife, Elizabeth Stark, moved into a house in Hampstead Road on the site of Wairuna which Allan bought on 4 February 1885. Wairuna was constructed in several stages from 1896 until 1900 and there is suggestion that the original house in which the couple were living was somehow incorporated in the new Dods' designed residence. However there is very little evidence of this at the house, although material including timber and doors may well have been recycled within the Allan's new house. When constructed Wairuna included a tennis court and tennis pavilion, a fence and surrounding gardens.
Robert Smith (Robin) Dods was a prolific, innovative and highly skilled Brisbane architect. Dods was articled in Edinburgh to Hay and Henderson and also attended classes of the local Architectural Association, before moving to London and joining the office of prominent nineteenth century architect, Sir Aston Webb in 1890. He returned to Brisbane after winning a competition for the Brisbane Hospital and began a partnership with local architect, FR Hall. Dods was a sophisticated architect, able to well integrate the contemporary innovative design of the Arts and Crafts movement with the climactic features of a sub tropical climate. Wairuna is certainly an example of this integration of ideas, a finely designed building following the Arts and Crafts tradition with a high pitched complex roof, multi gabled and bayed projections and an overall picturesque quality, achieved whilst obtaining a comfortable and livable Queensland house.
James Allan died on 27 January 1938 and Wairuna was acquired by the Presbyterian Church on 16 March 1943. The building was used as a hostel from 1939 until 1972, then as a Home Mission Training Institute and in 1977 was used as a Uniting Church manse. During the period of church ownership many internal partitions were added and the bathroom facilities were extended. A church hall was constructed on the site of the former tennis court. Subdivision followed and the church was sold into private ownership in about 1984.
","criteria":"Wairuna is a substantial timber residence, constructed between 1896 and 1900, and demonstrates the growth of South Brisbane during this period when many large residences were erected.
|The building is a good example of the work of Robin Dods, adapting Arts and Crafts design philosophy with the climactic constraints posed by sub tropical dwelling.
|(Criterion under review)
|The building has special associations with Robin Dods, the architect and with James Allan for whom it was constructed.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15002,"place_ref":600227,"name":"Nassagaweya","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"37 Gray Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Nassagaweya is a two-storeyed timber house (c.1885) with a pyramid roof in corrugated iron, which was previously slate. Built on a corner block, the square-shaped core has a number of gabled projections on the street frontages.
The front elevation is dominated by a double-storeyed gabled verandah on the left which has cast-iron balusters and frieze and a pierced timber valance. On the right is a gabled portico. This leads onto a small verandah, enclosed by timber louvres, which projects to the side.
The side elevation is a complex arrangement of gabled insert verandahs, the louvred verandah and a projecting kitchen entry.
Internally, the room spaces and joinery reflect the innovative spirit of the exterior. The house remains unaltered except for a room apparently added at the rear. The overall effect is an unusual and whimsical composition.
Outbuildings, including stables, burnt down some time ago.
","history":"Nassagaweya was built in c.1885 by architect Arthur Morry as his own residence. He was later to become mayor of South Brisbane and the local member of parliament.
After Morry left the house in 1895 the property was probably rented until 1915 when it was purchased by a Scottish-Canadian, John Gillies. He named the house Nassagaweya after his birth place in Ontario, a Delaware Indian word meaning 'home by the maple forests'. Gillies died in 1946 and the house remains in the family. Today it occupies a corner site, the adjoining streets of which are named after two previous owners of the property, Gray and Morry.
","criteria":"One of several, sizeable timber houses built at Hill End during the 1880s boom.
|Nassagaweya is significant as an individualistic and intact 1880s residence.
|Nassagaweya is significant for its close association with architect and politician Arthur Morry, built as his own residence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15003,"place_ref":600228,"name":"Wanda Walha","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"15 Gray Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wanda Walha is a large two-storeyed timber residence with a double-storeyed front verandah.
\nThe hipped corrugated iron roof features a projecting gable on the left side at the front. The verandah has cast iron posts and balusters. The wide decoratively notched valance on the lower level is in timber. A gabled frontispiece projects from the verandah at the centre.
\nSash windows with timber hoods feature along the side elevations and there is an upstairs verandah at the rear.
\nA central hallway runs the length of the house with drawing and dining rooms, separated by cedar folding doors, on the right. A sitting room, study and a bedroom are on the left. The kitchen wing at the rear has been relocated at right angles to its original position. Upstairs are a further six bedrooms. The interior is austerely finished.
\nAlthough most of the house is original, much of the verandah decoration and the central staircase were removed in the conversion to flats. These have been replaced with copies of the originals.
","history":"Wanda Walha was built in 1886 for successful merchant William Alexander Wilson. It was probably designed by his neighbour, the architect Arthur Morry.
Originally a grocer, Wilson was also a partner in the neighbouring West End Sawmill & Steam Joinery Co Ltd. This may explain the choice of timber as the material for Wanda Walha. He also built a number of other timber houses on his five acre (2 hectare) property, for rental. From the early 1890s he also rented Wanda Walha.
In 1906 Wanda Walha became the home of Robert Scott, an accountant, who bought the house form Wilson in 1914. It remained in the Scott family until 1978 during which time it was converted into flats. During the early 1980s the house was refurbished and returned to its use as a family home.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|Wanda Walha is significant as an example of an imposing timber house built on the southside for a successful businessman.
Wanda Walha is significant as a timber variation of a style usually associated with brick residences built during the 1880s boom.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15004,"place_ref":600229,"name":"Tighnabruaich","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"203 Clarence Road","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"Tighnabruaich occupies a block of 1.19 hectares in central Indooroopilly, with frontages to the Brisbane River and to Clarence Road. The house is positioned overlooking the river to the south. Access to the house is via a circular driveway off Clarence Road.
Tighnabruaich is a timber framed house on brick piers. The main part of the residence is two-storeyed, with a single-storeyed, 'L'-shaped wing on the western side. The fall of the land towards the river provides space for a brick basement under the single-storeyed section. The whole has a corrugated iron clad roof comprising a series of gables and dormer windows. Single-storeyed verandahs are found on the northern and southern elevations of the building and along the length of the eastern elevation.
The house is asymmetrically arranged in both plan and elevation. The stud walls are clad with chamferboard externally and lath and plaster internally.
The principal entrance to the building is in the north elevation, where an elaborate covered porch provides shelter for the main entrance, which has a six-panelled cedar door with semi-circular fanlight and sidelights.
The ground floor contains a number of large public rooms with bay windows and french doors, arranged around a central stair hall. An entrance vestibule with a tessellated tiled floor leads to the stair hall through an arched opening filled with a carved timber screen. The central stair is an open well with half-turn timber stair with landings and has very fine cedar joinery including turned balusters, prominent newel posts and spandrel panelling.
Generally the interior of the house has plaster ceilings, timber boarded floors and very fine stained cedar joinery. Most doorways have operable fanlights above. Plaster archways provide access to the major rooms on the ground floor and these rooms have plaster ceiling roses and deep plaster cornices.
The upper floor of Tighnabruaich has a number of smaller rooms, again opening off the cental stair hall and off halls radiating from this. Some of the upper floor rooms have partially raked ceilings of plasterboard, following the line of the roof trusses.
The grounds include an early carriageway lined with mature trees; large areas of lawn to the north of the house; and a tennis court to the east of the drive. At the southern end of the site the ground slopes steeply to the river, the bank being heavily vegetated.
","history":"Tighnabruaich, overlooking the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly, was constructed c1889 as the home of Henry Charles Stanley, Chief Engineer for Railways in Queensland. It was designed by his brother, the former Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.
Tighnabruaich is situated in central Indooroopilly. Despite having been surveyed into farm allotments in 1858, this area did not attract agricultural settlement to the same extent as the surrounding areas of Fig Tree Pocket, Long Pocket and St Lucia (originally known as Indooroopilly Pocket). Central Indooroopilly was steeply ridged and covered in dense scrub and the steep river banks did not provide ready access to river transport, the principal means of communication and trade with Brisbane and Ipswich in the mid-19th century.
Sections of central Indooroopilly remained undeveloped and isolated until construction of the Brisbane to Ipswich Railway through the district in the mid-1870s. Indooroopilly Railway Station was opened and named in 1875 and the first railway bridge across the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly was built in 1876, providing the impetus for closer suburban residential settlement in the district. A small township developed near the railway station, which by the late 1880s included a hotel, shops and a carpenter. In the last quarter of the 19th century a number of fine villas were erected on the banks of the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly, within reasonable proximity of the railway station.
The land on which Tighnabruaich is situated was part of a 42 acre block (portion 46, parish of Indooroopilly) with frontage to the Brisbane River, first sold at government auction on 27 September 1859 to James Henderson. There is little evidence to suggest that Henderson farmed or otherwise developed this land. In April 1873 the portion was transferred to Louis Stamm, a German-born Brisbane businessman who had had a varied career in Queensland since 1855 as a merchant, newspaper proprietor and brewery owner.
By October 1873 the Queensland government had determined that the Brisbane to Ipswich railway would cross the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly, that the rail corridor would pass through portion 46 and that a railway station would be established on part of this portion. In that month a road (Station Road/Indooroopilly Station Road) was surveyed from Moggill Road to the site of the proposed Indooroopilly Railway Station. The segmentation of portion 46 was formalized on a survey plan dated March 1875. The railway corridor and new road were transferred to the Queensland government the same year and Louis Stamm retained the remainder of portion 46 on 3 subdivisions. In April 1875 an extension of Indooroopilly Station Road (later known as Indooroopilly Road, then Lambert Road) was surveyed from the road to Long Pocket (Indooroopilly Road) to the government road along the eastern boundary of portion 46 (Musgrave Road - later Clarence Road). In June 1877 an extension of this new road was surveyed through portion 46 to the Indooroopilly Railway Station.
At some period prior to June 1891, Louis Stamm sold re-subdivision 3 of subdivision 1, a block of nearly 9½ acres bounded by the railway line on the west, the Brisbane River on the south, Musgrave Road on the east and Indooroopilly Station Road (Lambert Road) to the north, to Henry Charles Stanley. This was the future site of Tighnabruaich.
HC Stanley was born in Edinburgh in 1840. He studied engineering at Edinburgh University and subsequently worked as an engineer in Scotland before emigrating in the early 1860s to Queensland where he was employed as an assistant engineer on the construction of the colony's first railway (between Ipswich and Toowoomba). He was employed as a railway engineer by the Queensland government from 1 January 1866 and was appointed Chief Engineer for Railways in 1872, a position he held until 1901.
Tighnabruaich was designed by HC Stanley's elder brother, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley. Francis was born in Edinburgh in 1839 and trained in Scotland as an architect. He emigrated to Brisbane in 1862 and practised privately before gaining employment with the Queensland government in the office of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin, in 1863. Following Tiffin's retirement FDG Stanley was appointed Colonial Architect from 1 January 1872, a position he held until 1881. Throughout this period of government employment he accepted a number of private commissions and continued in private practice in Brisbane, Maryborough and Toowoomba after he left the public service. Stanley was a prolific architect and his work is found throughout Queensland.
His design for Tighnabruaich was for a decorative, two-storeyed timber residence with a single-storeyed timber wing with basement. The roof comprised a number of steeply pitched gables and dormer windows (after domestic-scaled Gothic revival buildings) and was clad originally with timber shingles. It is thought that the house was erected c1889, as postal directories first record HC Stanley as resident at Indooroopilly in 1890. Prior to this he resided at Ascog in Church Street, Toowong.
The house was conceived as a villa in a park setting and about the time Tighnabruaich was constructed the property was cleared of vegetation, with the exception of a few specimen Eucalypt spp. A typical late 19th century garden was established in the immediate vicinity of the house, including the planting of an avenue of trees along a circular carriageway off Musgrave Road (later Clarence Road) and some Ficus spp.
In 1891 HC Stanley entered into a complicated financial arrangement with New South Wales grazier Solomon Wiseman, who held title to Tighnabruaich from June that year and who took out a substantial mortgage on the property from the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Company. The memorandum of transfer associated with this transaction also records that Stanley had purchased the land from Stamm for £3,100. Wiseman later subdivided the property and four subdivisions fronting Clarence Road were sold c1900. A Lambert Road subdivision was sold c1904. Following Wiseman's death in late 1901 the property became the responsibility of trustees. At this time HC Stanley and his family moved to Hamilton and Tighnabruaich was used briefly as a boarding house for the Bowen House boys' school in Ann Street, prior to the sale of the house on 8 acres 1 rood 7.2 perches (the total of subdivisions 1-2 and 8-14) to Herbert Brealey Hemming on 6 February 1904, for £2200.
Hemming was a solicitor with the distinguished Brisbane legal practice of Wilson, Newman Wilson and Hemming. He and his family resided at Tighnabruaich until c1915/16. During their occupancy tennis parties were regular events at Tighnabruaich. Dairy cattle were grazed on part of the land and part of the basement of the house was used as a dairy. From c1915/16 Hemming leased the house to Mrs Emma McGill, who operated it as a boarding house until the mid-1920s. The house appears to have remained vacant from the mid-1920s until requisitioned for use by the military during the World War II. One source suggests that a Dr Underwood occupied Tighnabruaich as a private hospital in the late 1930s, but this has yet to be confirmed.
An article written for the Queenslander in 1932 described various elements of the grounds of Tighnabruaich, including some 'fine old gum trees' in the cow paddock adjacent to the railway line; entrance gates to Clarence Street giving access to a drive lined by Camphor Laurels; a tennis court to the south east of the drive; hedging, steps to the lower grounds, accessed through a creeper-clad archway; and some 'fine Jacarandas and other flowering trees'.
Between 1916 and 1919 another house owned by Hemming, Witton Manor, was moved to the Tighnabruaich grounds from its original site further upstream at Indooroopilly (now occupied by the junior school of St Joseph's College Nudgee) and renamed Witton House. This was positioned in the south west corner of the grounds, facing the river, where it remained until its demolition in 1967. Hemming resided at Witton House from at least 1919 until c1938. Following Hemming's death on 8 March 1942 Tighnabruaich was administered by Queensland Trustees Limited on behalf of the Hemming estate.
The property was requisitioned from about October 1942 for use by a joint United States-Australian Intelligence Unit, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) associated with the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre. These units directed the handling of captured Japanese prisoners and documents. During the war many huts and tents were assembled on the grounds for use by American soldiers; brick cell blocks were constructed in the center of the property, north west of the main house, to accommodate Japanese prisoners of war being held for interrogation; two interrogation rooms were erected to the immediate east of the main house; an Orderly's Office was established on the north west side of the main driveway off Clarence Road; a translation room was erected on the tennis court; Witton House functioned as the Sergeants' Mess; and Tighnabruaich was partitioned for office accommodation. The roof of the eastern verandah of Tighnabruaich was removed during this period.
Toward the end of the war the Australian Army decided to retain Tighnabruaich and the property was transferred to the Commonwealth on 13 June 1945. ATIS vacated Tighnabruaich about July 1945 and until July 1946 it functioned as a 7th Australian Women's Army Service barracks. During this period the main house was used as an officers' mess and Witton House accommodated non-commissioned officers. Other ranks occupied the huts and tents in the grounds. The property was then used solely for Army administrative purposes until 1949, when the main house was converted into two flats to accommodate senior Army officers. At this time the original eastern verandah was removed and a staircase to the upstairs flat was installed. By July 1951 the translators' room had been removed from the tennis court and in 1955 a small timber tennis shed or storeroom was erected adjacent to the court.
From January 1951 until mid-1998 Tighnabruaich functioned as the residence of the General of Command, Northern Command, Australian Army (later Commander 1st Division). The remainder of the site continued to be used for army purposes (Indooroopilly Barracks and Witton Barracks). After 1957 work to Tighnabruaich was carried out to restore it as a showplace and entertainment facility for the senior army officers who occupied the house as a family home. From this period many of the alterations made between 1942 and the 1950s were replaced with original or reconstructed fabric. A carport was added to the house in 1958 and a lavatory was installed on the ground floor under the main staircase in 1962. The staircase to the former upstairs flat was removed in 1966 and the eastern verandah was reconstructed.
Between January 1951 and March 1998, 20 senior army officers occupied Tighnabruaich as a family home. During this period a tradition was established whereby each resident general planted a tree on the property.
In 1998 the site was subdivided by the Commonwealth and Tighnabruaich house, on a reduced 1.19 hectares, was sold as freehold to private owners. The remainder of the property was retained by the Commonwealth. The grounds associated with Tighnabruiach house retained a river frontage, the early circular carriageway and the mature trees lining this drive, the tennis court and trees planted by resident army generals since 1951. Any other evidence of the military presence on the site has been removed. Tighnabruaich is occupied currently as a residence.
","criteria":"Tighnabruaich is a large, two-storeyed timber residence constructed c1889 for HC Stanley, Chief Engineer for Railways in Queensland, to a design by his brother, former Colonial Architect FDG Stanley. The place is important in demonstrating the pattern of growth of Brisbane, specifically at Indooroopilly, where middle-class suburban residential development was attracted to the district after the opening of the Indooroopilly Railway Station in 1875. As one of a group of substantial, late 1880s residences constructed in Brisbane, Tighnabruaich also contributes to our understanding of the nature of the Queensland economic 'boom' of this period. The property is significant for its association with allied interrogation of prisoners of war during World War II and, during the second half of the 20th century, as the showcase residence of officers commanding the Australian Army in Queensland.
|The house in its garden setting remains comparatively intact and a good example of a well-designed 19th century middle-class villa. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class, including planning, use of materials, decorative detailing, riverside location and the retention and layout of the grounds (including early carriageway, tennis court and plantings). The building is a fine example of the mature domestic work of FDG Stanley and contributes to the body of knowledge about the work of this prolific and influential Queensland architect.
|The building has aesthetic value as a well-composed, picturesque residence influenced by Gothic revival architecture popular during the second half of the 19th century. It contributes to the townscape of Indooroopilly and is a landmark along the Brisbane-Ipswich railway.
|Tighnabruaich has a special association with the Australian Army as the residence of the generals commanding the Army in Queensland for close to half a century. Trees planted by resident generals remain as evidence of that association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15005,"place_ref":600230,"name":"Greylands","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"47 Dennis Street","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The original portion of Greylands is a brick building, single-storeyed at the front and double at the rear. The plan is symmetrical about a wide hallway which features a central screen with double doors. Two rooms on the right are divided by a set of folding doors. On the other side of the hallway are two bedrooms. Joinery throughout is of cedar, and all fireplaces retain their mantelpieces of marble, grates and hearths. Floors in each room are edged in cedar.
Original lath and plaster ceilings have been replaced, though plaster cornices remain in all rooms. In the sub-floor at the rear are five small rooms which were used as servants' quarters and a laundry. Externally the house features a fretwork pediment over the front steps.
Wide verandahs with cast-iron balustrading extend across the front and along two sides. The verandah roof is supported by paired verandah posts on brick piers, and separated from the main hipped roof of corrugated iron by a cornice with paired console brackets.
","history":"The site was part of a parcel of land purchased by Thomas Lodge Murray Prior in 1859. In 1876 his friend Graham Lloyd Hart, a city lawyer, purchased a subdivided portion of 43 acres and in the following year built Greylands. It is likely that Brisbane architect John Hall designed the house. The family resided at Greylands until Hart's death in 1897 except for a period in the 1880s when they lived on Wickham Terrace.
While it is unclear who owned the property next, it is likely that Queensland National Bank, which had been mortgagee for the Harts, took over the property. John Piper McKenzie, manager of the Bank's Brisbane Office lived there from 1900-1908. The next tenant was David Lahey, timber merchant, who leased the house from 1910-12. His daughter Vida painted the Monday Morning laundry scene at Greylands which hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery.
The residence was bought by Bank employee Alfred Dennis in 1912 and the estate was gradually subdivided. Dennis is credited with demolishing the old wooden wings and stables at the back, with building a new extension of five rooms and providing the tennis court. On his death in 1944 the property was sold to Norman Pixley and ultimately to the Power family in 1984, who refurbished the property.
","criteria":"One of the earliest villa residences in the Indooroopilly area, and a dignified example of 1870s design, the house and its setting provide a glimpse into the way of life of Brisbane's professional and business families.
In addition to its elegant exterior form, the house displays craftsmanship and detailing of a high standard including its cedar joinery and other interior decoration. Its appeal is enhanced by the retention of almost 5000 square metres of landscaped grounds which are free from urban intrusion.
Greylands was the home of Graham Lloyd Hart, founder of law firm Flower & Hart which has been prominent in Brisbane legal circles since the 1870s. That this was the location of Vida Lahey's much admired painting of women working in the laundry, Monday Morning, adds social import to the house
|One of the earliest villa residences in the Indooroopilly area, and a dignified example of 1870s design, the house and its setting provide a glimpse into the way of life of Brisbane's professional and business families.
|In addition to its elegant exterior form, the house displays craftsmanship and detailing of a high standard including its cedar joinery and other interior decoration. Its appeal is enhanced by the retention of almost 5000 square metres of landscaped grounds which are free from urban intrusion.
|Greylands was the home of Graham Lloyd Hart, founder of law firm Flower & Hart which has been prominent in Brisbane legal circles since the 1870s. That this was the location of Vida Lahey's much admired painting of women working in the laundry, Monday Morning, adds social import to the house
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15006,"place_ref":600231,"name":"St Andrews Church Hall","alternate_name":"St Andrews Church (temporary) | Indooroopilly Church of England Sunday School | St Andrew's Church Hall","street_address":"72 Lambert Road","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"St Andrews Hall is a single-storeyed Gothic influenced timber hall sited to the rear of a battle-axe block, diagonally opposite St Andrews Church (1965). The hall has a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof, and exposed stud framing and cross-bracing over chamferboards. The southern end of the hall has a small decorative entrance portico with a pitched roof, while the extensions to the north (sanctuary c1902 and choir vestry c1930) have a lower roofline and project out to the east and the west. These extensions match the rest of the building in external detail.
Internal alterations (c1965) have included the removal of decorative detailing associated with the sacristy, sanctuary and vestry for refurbishment as a kitchen, servery and store area. The chancel arch appears to have been cut out and sheeted over. The floor has been lowered to the level of the former nave, stained glass windows replaced with louvred windows, and a timber ramp adjoining the entrance portico has been installed. External views of the building are partially obscured by a toilet block abutting the church to the south and a new brick rectory at right angles to the church to the north.
The hall is lit with tall rectangular windows which retain their stained glass toplights. Both the doors and windows have pointed arch timber-framed heads inside rectangular frames. The building is protected from water penetration by substantial roof overhangs with shaped eaves brackets, and broad timber weathercapping sloped at 45 degrees over a deep fascia around the base. The corners are protected and articulated with quarter-rounds between studs at right angles, and the gable ends are weatherboarded, the northern end having a leaf-shaped vent. The northern elevation bears the most noticeable marks of change, with the surrounds of now removed stained glass windows, a boarded-in pointed arch window frame, and a now disused door.
The entrance portico is finely detailed with carved round columns, a barge-board with a cinq-foil motif, and an exposed roof structure over a timber boarded ceiling.
Internally, the church retains its timber boarded floor and ceiling. The ceiling is raked, flattening out halfway, and has round carved timber ventilation panels. The scissor tie-rods to the roof structure are exposed.
The building is an externally intact example of exposed frame construction which has particularly well-considered weatherproofing detailing. It also retains with some fine external decorative elements, in particular the entrance portico, and the window and door framings.
","history":"St Andrew's church hall was built in 1889 on half an acre of land, as the Indooroopilly Church of England Sunday School. Indooroopilly was originally included in the Parish of Toowong when it was formed in 1870. With the advent of the railway during the 1870s, an increasing number of people settled in Indooroopilly. Regular Church of England services were not held in the district until the 1880s. In 1888 the first meeting of those interested in the erection of an Anglican church in Indooroopilly was held and a committee formed to pursue this intention. The Parish of Indooroopilly separated from the Parish of Toowong in 1890.
Diocesan Architect, JH Buckeridge, was instructed to prepare a plan for a brick church to accommodate 500 people, and to give an estimate for a portion to seat 250 people. Buckeridge's plan was considered too large, and possibly too expensive, for the district, and he was asked to prepare another plan for a church to seat 250 people. The construction of the brick church was deferred, and it was decided that a sunday school hall would be erected on the land, at a cost not to exceed £300. The sunday school hall would be temporarily used as a church, then as a sunday school when the permanent brick structure was erected.
The building was built by P Christensen, and cost £320. It was one of approximately ninety Anglican buildings erected during the episcopate of Bishop Webber, from 1885-1903. Webber had an understanding of ecclesiastical design and architecture generally and was responsible for bringing Buckeridge to Brisbane from London, as diocesan architect. Buckeridge was responsible for the design of over twenty timber churches in the Diocese of Brisbane.
The land for the church was donated by Graham Lloyd Hart, a prominent Brisbane solicitor and active member of the Church of England. It would appear that Hart's offer of the land was conditional upon a brick church being ultimately erected on the land.
A number of memorials to former parishioners were added to the timber building which mainly included furnishings and ceremonial items. A set of three stained glass windows to the memory of Hart who died in 1897, were incorporated in the building in 1900. A new chancel was added in 1902. The sanctuary was built by JL Pratt with the design assistance of WH Mobsby of the Parochial Council. A choir vestry was added to the sanctuary c1930, designed by SC Rookwood.
In 1963 the timber building was moved about 150 metres to the north-west and re-oriented 90°, prior to the construction of the new brick church. Internal alterations were undertaken c1965, to convert the timber building into the parish hall. These included the removal of decorative elements particularly around the sanctuary and altar. The stained glass windows and other memorials were removed, and the majority placed in the brick church in 1965.
A timber toilet block has been constructed immediately adjacent to the entry porch of the hall. A new rectory was built at the rear of the hall in 1985.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Church Hall is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history in particular the expansion of the Anglican Church in Brisbane in the late nineteenth century and the development of the Indooroopilly parish and the practice of erecting timber buildings as temporary structures until a masonry church could be erected as a permanent structure.
|St Andrew's Church Hall is significant as a rare example of a late 19th century exposed frame church and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late nineteenth-century timber church by JH Buckeridge; and an exposed frame timber hall.
|St Andrew's Church Hall is significant as a rare example of a late 19th century exposed frame church and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late nineteenth-century timber church by JH Buckeridge; and an exposed frame timber hall.
|The building's fine external decorative elements, in particular the entrance portico and windows and door framing exhibit aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|The use of timber technology is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement.
|As the temporary parish church then church hall for St Andrew's parish, it has special association with the Anglican community in Indooroopilly.
|St Andrew's Church Hall has special association with the life of GL Hart and the work of JH Buckeridge, both of whom were associated with the Anglican Church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15007,"place_ref":600232,"name":"Albert Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Brisbane River between Indooroopilly and Chelmer","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Albert Bridge spans the Brisbane River from Indooroopilly to Chelmer, at the junction of the Chelmer and Indooroopilly reaches.
It is a fully riveted structure consisting of two arched 'hogsback' mild steel trusses supported on stone abutments either side, and on a central concrete pier. This pier is encased in an elliptical wrought-iron caisson to low water level, then built up with masonry to the truss bearings.
Each truss is 103.7 metres long, 12.6 metres high in the middle, 8.2 metres wide, and weighs approximately 606 tonnes. Their design employs a double-intersection web system of diagonal members, based on the Linville system developed in the United States in the 1860s. They are strengthened by horizontal wind bracing at roadway level, and by elaborate overhead cross bracing.
The double railroad is carried by four longitudinal steel trough girders, with the sides of the troughs acting as guards against derailment. These are supported by massive cross-girders riveted to the underneath of the vertical struts and lower booms of the main trusses, at 5.2 metre intervals. The decking consists of ironbark longitudinals bedded on bitumen and sand, and bolted to steel tee bars which connect the trough girders transversely.
A cantilevered wrought iron footway is carried on the upstream side of the bridge.
","history":"Albert Bridge, which is a 'hogsback' steel truss bridge on masonry piers, was constructed in 1894-95. It is the second Albert Bridge on the site, replacing an earlier 1876 structure which was washed away in the floods of 1893. Both bridges were named in honour of the Prince of Wales, Prince Albert.
The second bridge was designed by Henry Charles Stanley, Queensland's Chief Engineer of Railways from 1892 to 1901, and is considered his major work. In designing the bridge as two long spans with one central pier, Stanley sought to avoid the obstruction to flood waters posed by multiple piers, which had been the downfall of the previous Albert Bridge.
Innovations in the design included the attachment of cross girders, protection against derailment, provision against strong wind gusts, and provision for free expansion under varying temperatures. The working drawings and specification were prepared by FL Keir of the Chief Engineer's office, and were completed by mid-1893. Keir was also the resident engineer on the site.
In August 1893 the contract was let to Brisbane contractors John McCormick & Son, with a price of £66,061. McCormick & Son also later won the contract for the ironwork on the second permanent Victoria Bridge, 1896-97. Expiry date for the Albert Bridge contract was set at 14 December 1894, but it was not opened to traffic until August 1895. A Scottish coal strike held up delivery of the rolled steel for eight months, and removal of the river bedrock for the central pier alone took four months.
A condition of the construction contract was that as much of the work as possible be done in Queensland. Messrs McCormick erected a workshop adjacent to the site at Indooroopilly, and imported machinery necessary for constructing the superstructure and the caisson for the central pier. Up to 240 persons were employed on site at any one time, and quarry workers provided freestone from Pearson's quarries at Helidon, the bluestone in the concrete from Jenkin's Bundamba quarry, and the granite for the bedstones and cutwater quoins from Mount Crosby. In 1895 the bridge was the largest in Australia of local manufacture.
The most difficult aspect of the work was the construction of the central pier and its foundation caisson. The latter weighed about 230 tons [232.3 tonnes], rested 81 feet [24.6 metres] below high water mark, and was sunk 2 feet [0.6 metre] into the rock. The riverbed sand and gravel could be dredged, but divers extracted the rock manually.
The southern span was erected above what remained of the former bridge, and was extended to the centre pier. The old pylons were then removed.
The northern truss was floated into position. The shore end rested on two trolleys, and when the tide was at its highest, specially constructed staging on an old barque took the weight of the other end of the truss from temporary piles. Winches were then used to pull the hulk across the river toward the centre pier, to which the truss was attached.
The cores of the earlier bridge abutments were widened and heightened to take the new superstructure. Parapets were constructed after the trusses had been fixed in place, and were completed in November 1895.
The Albert Bridge remains one of Australia's largest truss bridges. At the time of its completion, as a metal truss bridge it was second only to the first Hawkesbury rail bridge [1889] in span length. The Albert Bridge is still Australia's third longest span metal truss bridge, after Brisbane's Story Bridge [1940] (QHR 600240) and the second Hawkesbury rail bridge [1945].
The bridge was integral to the southwest railway system linking Brisbane with Ipswich, the Darling Downs, and southeast Queensland. With increased traffic it was supplemented with an adjacent upstream rail bridge in 1957, which together remained the only Brisbane River rail crossing prior to construction of the Merivale Bridge in 1978.
The Albert Bridge currently handles only passenger traffic.
","criteria":"Albert Bridge at Indooroopilly is significant as an early, large span metal truss bridge in Australia, and remains the country's third longest span metal truss bridge. At the time of construction, Albert Bridge was the largest bridge in Australia to be manufactured locally.
Albert Bridge is significant for its contribution to the railway system linking the capital with southern and western Queensland, remaining for over six decades part of the only railway link across the Brisbane River.
|The bridge is highly intact, and provides important physical evidence of late 19th century railway bridge design and construction in Australia.
|The bridge is important also for its landmark quality and aesthetic contribution to the riverscape along the Indooroopilly reach of the Brisbane River.
|It is important for its innovations in design and implementation, and remains a major example of the design skills of engineer HC Stanley, and of the work of Brisbane contractors John McCormick & Son.
|It is important for its innovations in design and implementation, and remains a major example of the design skills of engineer HC Stanley, and of the work of Brisbane contractors John McCormick & Son.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15008,"place_ref":600233,"name":"Sinnamon Farm","alternate_name":"600236 | 600234 | 600237 | Glen Ross and Seventeen Mile Rocks School | Beechwood | Avondale and Macleod aviation site","street_address":"645 & 693 Seventeen Mile Rocks Road","suburb":"SINNAMON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Sinnamon Farm comprises two separate areas of land on Seventeen Mile Rocks Road, Sinnamon Park. The two areas are approximately 250 metres apart; the western area is approximately 1.95ha and the eastern area is approximately 0.47ha, totalling approximately 2.42ha.
The place comprises all of the buildings, structures, sites, objects, planting and land associated with the Sinnamon family within the heritage register boundary. This includes the following:
Beechwood (1869), a gable-roofed, verandahed house and planting.
This farm house comprises four bedrooms and a parlour, and is a typical timber dwelling of the Separation period, although the detached kitchen and stables no longer exist. The front and back verandah roofs are joined continuously to the main gable roof, its split hardwood shingles now covered by corrugated galvanised iron. The front verandah is plainly furnished with square stick balustrading. Four pairs of french doors open onto this verandah. The house is constructed of pitsawn timber, adzed and otherwise shaped on the property. This includes internal cedar joinery, and hardwood log bearers which run the width of the house on stumps, their ends protruding beyond the walls. The rear verandah or skillion has been modified. The early formal garden has long gone, but several old Bunya Pines line the river front.
Glen Ross (1887) is the burnt out remains of a homestead at the westernmost part of the western site. The yard comprises a formal front garden, rear vegetable beds, an orchard to the east including persimmon and a large Moreton Bay fig tree near the front gate. To the west a group of outbuildings provides shelter for various vehicles and implements, including the early Sinnamon family plough of bush timber and iron share. An adjacent shed of vertical slabs survives, as well as more recent structures.
Avondale (c1890s), a short ridge-roofed, verandahed house, with outbuildings.
To the east of Beechwood is Avondale, another late 19th century Queensland farmhouse which is similar in form to Glen Ross. Built of timber and corrugated iron, Avondale has wide verandahs on all sides and is ornamented with cast iron balustrading, brackets, and a small cast-iron valance between the timber posts. The rear and parts of the side verandahs have been enclosed. Its exposed stud frame, which is lined on the inside with vertical tongue and groove boards, is accentuated by a large cross brace on either side of each four-paned sash window. Avondale has fewer main rooms than Glen Ross, and the walls of four inch vertically jointed boards and the rear projection indicate a later construction period. Outbuildings to the west include an old slab and corrugated iron barn with a recent extension. There are the stone remnants of a circular horse-powered mill race to the west of the house.
Former Seventeen Mile Rocks School (1877), a relocated gable-roofed, verandahed building, with shelter shed. The one roomed (28 feet x 16 feet) school building now set on a concrete block base was typical for a rural locality. It is an unadorned, front and back verandahed, gable roofed structure with weatherboard cladding and a corrugated galvanised iron roof. The ceiling is lined with diagonal tongue and groove sheeting and the interior walls are lined with narrow vertically jointed tongue and groove boards. The original front window sashes have been replaced with casements. Early furnishings include student desks and benches. The schoolhouse is complemented by a detached hip-roofed, corrugated iron-covered shelter shed.
","history":"Sinnamon Farm comprises two separate areas of land on Seventeen Mile Rocks Road, Sinnamon Park. The place features buildings, structures, sites, objects, planting and land associated with the Sinnamon family. The main buildings are Beechwood (1869), a gable-roofed, verandahed house with plantings; Avondale (c1890s), a short ridge-roofed, verandahed house, with outbuildings, and the Former Seventeen Mile Rocks School (1877), a relocated gable-roofed, verandahed building, with shelter shed.
\nThe Sinnamon family arrived at Brisbane in 1863. James (born 1813) was a farmer from County Armagh, in what is now Northern Ireland. With his wife Margaret (born 1821), and 11 children (including daughter Margaret who was born enroute), the family emigrated for economic betterment and to escape sectarian conflict in Ireland.
\nIn 1865 the family first purchased land at Seventeen Mile Rocks, on the Mermaid Reach of the Brisbane River. This area, which had been surveyed into small farms between 1863 and 1864, sold rapidly due to economic buoyancy and increased immigration during the early 1860s. To the initial parcel of 20 acres (8.1 ha) (portion 302) purchased from William Lovell in 1865, James added adjacent allotments from other vendors. Since land along much of the river was dense sub-tropical rainforest or vine scrub, the family had to clear sufficient farm land by felling and firing.
\nOn portion 299 (acquired by James Sinnamon in 1866), a large split slab hut with earthen floor was constructed. In addition to using their government land orders totalling £216, the Sinnamons borrowed money for capital improvements, which was repaid within several years. By 1869 they were able to build the more commodious, handsawn timber house further up the hill, known as Beechwood (portion 302).To construct Beechwood, the family cut and hauled timber from the property to their nearby sawpit. While hauling, James was kicked by a horse and injured; he later deteriorated and died 4 November 1869. His widow Margaret and family completed the building and carried on farming, later erecting other buildings for farming and family purposes. John, the eldest and unmarried son, resided at Beechwood with his mother until her death in 1904 aged 83 and his own demise ten years later. Beechwood was occupied continuously from 1869 until at least the early 1990s. Together with Wolston House (1863) [QHR600339] at Wacol, it is one of the oldest residences in the district.
\nIn 1887 a third and more substantial residence, Glen Ross, was constructed to the west of Beechwood (on portion 301) for James Jr, the sixth child of James and Margaret Sinnamon, who had acquired title to the land in 1880. James Jr married in December 1887, and the new house, named Glen Ross in reference to the family home in Ireland, was extended over time to accommodate six sons and three daughters. A substantial hay shed was erected on the Glen Ross farm c1890, but was burnt down in 1978. After James Jr died in 1942 aged 91, the farming property was purchased, occupied and augmented by their fourth child, Hercules V (HV) Sinnamon (later Sir Hercules), a businessman and farmer. HV Sinnamon placed sharefarmers on the land and continued to maintain the Sinnamon farms. Glen Ross was destroyed by fire 15 July 2007, after a long period of being unoccupied.
\nA fourth residence, Avondale, (on portion 304) to the east of Beechwood, was erected in the 1890s for Benjamin Sinnamon, the ninth child, who purchased the property in 1886 from other family members. He married Elizabeth Annie Primrose in 1889, and they and their six children resided at Avondale. Following Benjamin's death in 1941, the property was sold out of the Sinnamon family before it was purchased by HV Sinnamon in 1949.
\nIn December 1872 George, the third of James and Margaret Sinnamon's children, purchased a 40 acre (16ha) property (comprising portion 313 and 312) on the opposite side of Seventeen Mile Rocks Road. It is not known if the property included the homestead Rosemount at the time of sale or if George had it erected soon after purchase. Rosemount burnt down about 1970, after which the property was presented to the Methodist Church, which erected the Sinnamon (Retirement Village) on the site. An avenue of mango trees remains from the Rosemount homestead.
\nOver time, the Sinnamon farms produced a wide range of primary produce, commencing with sugarcane and cotton, then maize, potatoes, pineapples and dairy produce, and also bred horses. In later years the major activity was dairy farming, complemented by the breeding of Jersey stock.
\nThe Sinnamon family also took a leading part in local affairs, in particular with the establishment of the Seventeen Mile Rocks School and the local church (Sinnamon Uniting Memorial Church; QHR 600235), and Benjamin Sinnamon served on the Sherwood Shire Council.
\nChildren in the Seventeen Mile Rocks area had to journey to Corinda to school until April 1870 when a provisional school began operating from the Bible Christian Church building in Goggs Road. It was established on the initiative of the Rev. William Woolcock and the local farmers on the Bible Christian Church committee. By 1876 local residents had collected sufficient funds towards erecting a new school facing Goggs Road (on the southeast corner of portion 316), about 100 metres north of the Bible Christian Church building. The new building was completed in 1877 and opened at the beginning of the 1878 school year with 32 pupils. The schoolhouse was complemented by a detached shelter shed and a teacher's residence.
\nIn the early 1900s the interior of the schoolhouse was lined with narrow tongue and groove boards and its shingled roof was replaced with corrugated galvanised iron. Generations of the Sinnamon family had attended the school and been involved in its development, particularly HV Sinnamon's father, James Jr, who was the school committee's first treasurer, and his uncle Benjamin, who was chairman of the school committee for forty years. The school closed in 1966, when Jindalee State School opened. The schoolhouse and shelter shed (but not the teacher's residence) were sold to HV Sinnamon and moved to his property (portion 304) in the late 1980s. It was then used by school groups as an interactive museum.
\nIn 1988 a brass plaque was installed at the front of the school to commemorate aviator Thomas Macleod’s launching of a biplane glider on 22 December 1910. This has been hailed as the first successful attempt in Queensland to raise a biplane glider from the ground. This flight occurred from a slope on land that was formerly portion 303 (land adjacent to, but not included in the heritage register boundary for Sinnamon Farm).
\nThe family property between Seventeen Mile Rocks Road and the Brisbane River was retained in family ownership, principally through the efforts of HV Sinnamon. In order to preserve his family's history and heritage in the Seventeen Mile Rocks area, HV Sinnamon opposed the proposal for a cross-river bridge through the remaining farmland, shifted the threatened former state school onto his property, and published a history of the Sinnamon family. In the mid-1960s he also donated land for the relocation of the threatened Seventeen Mile Rocks Church. After campaigning to have the Sinnamon farm area conserved as a heritage precinct, HV Sinnamon died in 1994, at the age of 94 years.
\nSubsequently, much of the Sinnamon property was sold and subdivided, primarily for residential development.
\n","criteria":"
Sinnamon Farm is significant historically because it illustrates the early phase of rural settlement and land use which took place along reaches of the Brisbane River and other Queensland waterways from the 1860s to the 1890s, especially the clearing of rainforest for 'scrub farms', the ensuing pattern of farming, and the growth of community life centred on the family, school and church. In particular, the farm survives as illustration of the evolution, association and location within a single family of a small grouping of farm dwellings, outbuildings and associated community buildings.
|The buildings, structures, sites, objects, and plantings of Sinnamon Farm form a rare rural grouping within a late 20th century suburban district in Brisbane, and are important in illustrating a past way of life. As a farming landscape, with a developmental sequence of 19th century buildings and structures, Sinnamon Farm forms a rare and distinctive grouping in Brisbane.
|The principal buildings and structures of Sinnamon Farm include a gable-roofed house of the late 1860s, two 1880s-90s residences, slab outbuildings and an 1870s gable-roofed schoolhouse. These are typical timber buildings of what was once rural Queensland, and in their intactness are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of their type.
|Sinnamon Farm is important for its strong association with the Sinnamon family, which has been prominent in local affairs, the development of the district and many other fields of public endeavour since the 1860s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15010,"place_ref":600235,"name":"Sinnamon Memorial Uniting Church","alternate_name":"Seventeen Mile Rocks Church","street_address":"675 Seventeen Mile Rocks Road","suburb":"SINNAMON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This small chamferboard building sits on concrete stumps well back from Seventeen Mile Rocks Road, on a grassed site with recent perimeter pine plantings. It has a simple rectangular plan, with a small front porch. The high-pitched gabled main roof and front porch roof were shingled originally, but these have been replaced with corrugated iron. The ceiling is lined with six inch tongue and groove boards and the walls are strengthened by two iron tie-bars. The frame, which was exposed on the inside, is now boarded and sheeted internally. Early furnishings include four silver-plated kerosene lamps with tin shades, a medium-sized harmonium and a simple pulpit of vertically jointed cedar raised on a dais with two steps on either side. Seating only sixty persons on twelve pine pews (now painted), this was a typical small rural chapel.
","history":"In 1888 this building replaced a small bark and shingle chapel erected in 1880 at the corner of Goggs and Seventeen Mile Rocks Road, adjacent to the former Seventeen Mile Rocks School. The builder was Wilson Henry, a local resident and a cousin to the Sinnamon family, pioneers of the Seventeen Mile Rocks area since the mid-1860s. The new building was intended for use by the Church of England, but as the church was unable to supply a clergyman, the congregation was served by the Primitive Methodist Church of Ipswich, whose minister arrived by rowboat. By the 1950s the congregation had dwindled to sisters Edith and Isobel Sinnamon. In 1966 the western extension of Seventeen Mile Rocks Road to the new suburb of Jindalee necessitated relocation of the building, which was moved onto land donated by Hercules V Sinnamon from the Sinnamon family's original 1865 holding. Two years later the chapel re-opened as the Rocks Road Sinnamon Memorial Methodist Church and though lacking a regular congregation, it served for occasional functions. In 1980 the church centenary was commemorated by the planting of pine trees around the perimeter. Since the Sinnamon family and their relatives had filled most church positions over the years, the building was aptly re-sited and re-named.
","criteria":"Rocks Road Sinnamon Memorial Uniting Church is significant for its social and spiritual role in the evolution of the Seventeen Mile Rocks area as a close-knit farming community in the second half of the 19th century.
|The building is important for its contribution to a rare surviving rural landscape in Brisbane, created by a group of late 19th century farm houses, church, school and school house, other farm structures and farm land along Seventeen Mile Rocks Road and Goggs Road, within a highly planned late 20th century suburban district.
|The building survives as a good example of a small, late 19th century rural chapel and retains a strong connection with the Seventeen Mile Rocks locality.
|In particular, the church has a close association with the Sinnamon family, who were amongst the earliest settlers in the district and have retained a strong presence in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15013,"place_ref":600238,"name":"Kedron Lodge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"123 Nelson Street","suburb":"WOOLOOWIN","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kedron Lodge is a large two-storeyed dwelling of twenty rooms beside Kedron Brook. Built of sandstone from John Petrie's Albion Quarry, its irregular silhouette is created by several steeply pitched gable roofs and five brick chimneys. Decoration includes traceried bargeboards, window mouldings and the castellated parapet and mouldings on the ground floor faceted bay. The unshaded windows are multi-paned sash. A string course delineates the two floors. The entrance porch leads to a large square-shaped front hall which gives access to the cedar staircase and the cellar. The hall terminates at a longitudal gallery or hallway that connects the rear wings. Like Toorak House (600216), Kedron Lodge is an excellent example of the two-storeyed Gothic style residence.
The house occupies a corner position. On its left is a Catholic church and behind Kedron Lodge is the church hall. The grounds include a swimming pool but little planting.
","history":"Kedron Lodge was one of the first Brisbane dwellings designed by architect Christopher Potter. It was built by John Petrie, for the first judge of the Queensland Supreme Court, Alfred James Lutwyche (1810-80). The judge had purchased portion 18 of 35 acres (14 hectares) for £35 in January 1860. He established a very viable farm and orchard, and built stables to satisfy his horse-racing interests. He was an acknowledged gourmet and bon-vivant, as well as a leading Anglican and controversial judge.
William H Kent, a race-horse owner and grazier, was the next inhabitant from about 1890 to 1905. He added a ballroom to the house, established a noteworthy garden and utilised the stables. In subsequent years Kedron Lodge was rented till purchased by a Mr Walton, who was responsible for the subdivision of the estate.
From 1930-89 the Lodge was owned by the Catholic Church. During this era it was a home for priests, a convent and finally a youth refuge. The subsequent owners have stinted little in returning the home to its former status.
","criteria":"Kedron Lodge is one of the original villa estates which was typical of many which were built on the fringe of Brisbane in the 1860s, but which have suffered since from suburban subdivision.
|The building is a rare example of a substantial Colonial Gothic house built in stone in the early 1880s by Christopher Potter and John Petrie for Judge Lutwyche.
|The building is a rare example of a substantial Colonial Gothic house built in stone in the early 1880s by Christopher Potter and John Petrie for Judge Lutwyche.
|Designed by less well known architect Christopher Potter and built by premier builder John Petrie, Kedron Lodge has harmonious form, style and fabric.
|Kedron Lodge is also significant as the home of Queensland's first Supreme Court judge after whom the suburb has been named.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15014,"place_ref":600239,"name":"Naval Stores (former)","alternate_name":"Naval Depot | Naval Brigade Stores","street_address":"34 Amesbury Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The complex stands on a narrow strip of river flat with steep cliffs and includes the following items:
1 Store No 1 (1886-88), the ground floor and charred remnants of the first floor are all that remain as a result of the 1987 fire. Prior to the fire, style and construction were similar to that of Store No 2.
2 Store No 2 (1886-88) is smaller in floor size. It has two gablets with hoists and two pairs of ventilators. There are pairs of board doors and a set of wooden stairs inside and outside provides access to the first floor. It has a hardwood frame clad with corrugated iron. The ground floor is concrete with concrete footings and stone plinths and the roof has twin gables. Sash windows are multi-paned and protected by sunhoods. Walls and ceilings are lined with tongue and groove boards. At the northern end is a skillion roofed smithy and forge.
3 Wharf (1887-88) is an integral part of the stores. Wooden piles support the wooden decking and stanchions. The wharf has been resheeted with diagonal boarding over the original.
4 Wooden stairs (c.1890) connect various parts of the complex and are currently in a very dilapidated state and unsafe for public use.
5 Turntable (c.1900), for manoeuvring guns to and from ships. Only the outline remains.
6 Paint store (c.1900), a one room timber structure on stumps with a corrugated iron hip roof.
7 Magazine (c.1900), a single room weatherboard structure with corrugated iron gable roof and brick stumps.
8 Slip (c.1900) is concrete and has been extended over the years.
9 Duty hut, a one room weatherboard structure with corrugated iron pyramid roof that is lined internally.
10 Changing rooms, timber with sloping corrugated iron roof; built on the foundations of the 1890s boat shed.
11 Toilet facilities, a timber and corrugated iron structure.
The site remains a strong visual element of the riverscape.
","history":"The original Naval Stores comprised a pair of two-storeyed iron-clad stud-framed buildings and a wharf, which were constructed between 1886 and 1888. The complex has been used throughout its naval and army history for two main purposes, as a storage depot and for training.
In 1884, at the height of the Russian war scare, the Queensland colonial government commissioned two gunboats, the Gayundah and Paluma. In 1885 the gunboats arrived and with the government's acquisition of other vessels the development of a naval depot for storage, repairs and training became necessary. The Naval Stores were built on the site of a former Kangaroo Point quarry.
The ground floor of Store No 1 contained the battery and lecture rooms used for training. The four rooms upstairs were used for stores and carpenters' shops. By 1913 upstairs was partitioned to provide for an orderly room, instructors' mess room and several small storerooms.
Store No 2 originally consisted of two large rooms on either floor, with workshops on the ground floor. The first floor storerooms included the torpedo store room.
After the 1893 floods, Store No 1 boat shed was replaced with a detached shed, a bridge linking the two stores was built, and an extension to the cliff stairs was added. About 1900 several additions to the site included the paint store, magazine, turntable between the stores and some first floor ceilings were lined.
The wooden stairs provide access up the cliff to Amesbury Street and St Marys Church which has been the Naval Chapel for many years. The stairs have been extended over the years.
As the Queensland Naval Brigade developed, further depots were located at Maryborough, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Cooktown. Other colonies also developed their naval and military forces. The depot was the base of the Queensland Navy until the formation of the Royal Australian Navy after Federation.
Radio communication history was made in 1903 when the first Australian ship to use wireless telegraphy, the Gayundah, sent signals from Moreton Bay to the Stores. Alterations to the stores and additional structures were built during the occupation of the site by the Royal Australian Navy. The RAN Reserve vacated the site in 1959 and it was occupied by the Army till 1984.
In 1984, two 8 inch (20.3 cm) breech-loading Armstrong forward guns from the Gayundah and Paluma were recovered. One gun and its mount have been lent to the Queensland Maritime Museum Association.
The flagpoles, semaphore and several other structures have disappeared since 1984.
In 1987 the property was purchased by the Brisbane City Council, tenders were called for its development and a fire partially destroyed Store No 1. The unoccupied Store No 2 has suffered degradation from vandals and white ant infestation.
","criteria":"The former Naval Stores provide evidence of the Queensland Marine Defence Force which was an integral part of the Queensland colonial defences.
|The former Naval Stores are significant as part of the historic cityscape at Kangaroo Point which includes the former Kangaroo Point quarry, St Mary's Church group and the linking cliff face stairs.
|The Stores are significant for their continuous association with both colonial and Commonwealth defence forces.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15015,"place_ref":600240,"name":"Story Bridge","alternate_name":"Kangaroo Point Bridge | Jubilee Bridge","street_address":"Bradfield Highway","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Story Bridge spans Petrie Bight from Kangaroo Point to Fortitude Valley.
It totals 1,072 metres in length, measured from the commencement of the retaining walls at the beginning of the southern approach, to the northern pier. It remains the largest span metal truss bridge in Australia, with a main span of 281.7 metres.
The elevated sections comprise six variations in structure:
* 111 metres of side retaining walls with a reinforced concrete roadway slab resting on fill;
* 72 metres of side curtain walls carrying an overhead suspended slab, assisted by concrete columns at 6.1 metre intervals beneath the slab;
* 118 metres of reinforced concrete beam and slab construction comprising nine spans arranged into three sets of three continuous spans;
* 93 metres of shallow steel Warren trusses supporting an overhead reinforced concrete deck;
* 228 metres of steel Pratt trusses supporting an overhead reinforced concrete deck;
* 446 metres of main bridge consisting of two 82.1 metre anchor spans and a main span of two cantilevers each 93.9 metres long supporting a suspended span 93.9 metres in length. An 18.3 metre reinforced concrete deck is carried between the steel trusses, and 3 metre concrete footways are carried on steel cantilevers outside the trusses on both sides.
The superstructure is supported by concrete piers. Above ground, the two principal piers consist of two tapered rectangular shafts, hollow to 7 metres below cap level, and tied together below cap level by a deep arched brace. The main southern pier is founded on two caissons driven to 40 metres below ground level and connected by a massive below-ground T-beam.
The height of the trusses over the main piers is 47.34 metres. The K type web member has been employed, and most of the joints are rigid. A lateral bracing system is fitted in the plane of the lower chords, and sway frames between the trusses stabilise the upper chords. The top chord panel members above the two end panels of the suspended span have not carried any load since construction, but have been retained to provide visual continuity along the upper chord.
The reinforced concrete deck is carried on transverse cross girders pinned to the trusses at panel points. These support longitudinal stringers at 3.35 metre centres, which in turn support transverse joists at 1.67 metre intervals, these being made composite with the deck. Expansion joints in the concrete deck occur at approximately every second panel point.
The bridge retains its original form, and currently carries a large volume of inner-city traffic in six lanes.
","history":"This steel and concrete cantilevered bridge was constructed between 1935 and 1940 by contractors Evans Deakin-Hornibrook for the Queensland Government.
As early as January 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council's Cross River Commission had recommended the construction of a bridge at Kangaroo Point. Due to sectarian interests and prohibitive costs, however, the council chose instead to erect the Grey Street Bridge in 1929-32.
In 1933 the new Queensland Labor Government amended the Bureau of Industry Act, permitting the establishment of a Bridge Board chaired by JR Kemp, Commissioner for Main Roads, to plan a government-constructed toll bridge at Kangaroo Point.
Premature in terms of traffic requirements, the bridge was promoted as an employment-generating scheme. It was one of three such projects undertaken by the Queensland Government in the mid-1930s, the others being the Stanley River Dam and the University of Queensland campus at St Lucia.
Dr JCC Bradfield, designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, was appointed consulting engineer on 1 January 1934. He chose JA Holt as supervising engineer for the design of the bridge and supervision of the contract. Design and site surveys were undertaken in 1934.
Although modelled on the Montreal Harbour Bridge, completed in 1930, Bradfield emphasised that the grey steel elevation of the bridge was designed to harmonise with Brisbane's natural skyline.
Tenders for the Kangaroo Point Bridge were called in January 1935. The contract was let to Evans Deakin-Hornibrook Constructions Pty Ltd, with a price of £1,154,000, and construction commenced in May.
The Story Bridge remains the largest steel bridge designed and built mostly by Australians from Australian materials. Approximately 95 per cent of the materials used were of Australian manufacture, and 89 per cent of the cost of works was expended in Queensland.
All the steelwork, approximately 12,000 tonnes, was fabricated at the Rocklea workshop of Evans, Deakin & Co. Ltd. One truss of each type of approach span, and all joints of the main bridge, were assembled at the workshop then dismantled before removal, ensuring there were no difficulties in erecting the steelwork on site.
The concrete work and erection of the superstructure was carried out on site by the MR Hornibrook organisation.
The bridge was constructed simultaneously from both ends, with the main piers erected first. Excavations for the southern pier necessitated men working in watertight airlock chambers within steel caissons up to 40 metres below ground level. This was the deepest airlock work done in Australia at the time.
The approach spans were erected by a hammer-head crane operating along a runway. Then the anchor-cantilever trusses were erected in five stages using a 40 tonne derrick crane running on a temporary track on the bridge deck. Finally the bridge was closed using a system of wedge devices inserted in the top and bottom chords of each truss at the ends of the suspended span.
During 1938, which was the busiest period of construction, close to 400 persons were employed in the workshops, offices and on site.
From mid-1935 to 1940 the bridge was known as the Jubilee Bridge, honouring George V, but when opened on 6 July 1940 it was named after JD Story, the Public Service Commissioner and a member of the Bridge Board. The designer and the chairman of the Bridge Board were honoured in the naming of the southern approach viaduct as the Bradfield Highway and the northern approach as Kemp Place.
Although an engineering success, the bridge was regarded initially as a white elephant, the toll being unpopular and the traffic demand negligible. Not until the arrival of American troops in 1942 was the Story Bridge fully utilised. Nevertheless, the final cost of £1.6 million was recuperated within seven years, and in 1947 the bridge was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and the toll was removed.
The Story Bridge has become one of Brisbane's most widely recognised landmarks. Its illumination, carried out by SEQEB in time for the 1986 Warana festival, reflects its unique status as a symbol of the city.
","criteria":"The Story Bridge, erected 1935-40, is significant as a major example of Queensland Labor Government involvement in employment-generating schemes during the 1930s depression.
|It is rare as the largest steel bridge designed, fabricated and constructed in Australia by Australians.
|The structure is important for its landmark quality and aesthetic contribution to the Brisbane townscape, and is significant to the Queensland community as a symbol of Brisbane.
|The Story Bridge is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical accomplishment as the largest span metal truss bridge in Australia, as a major engineering and construction feat, and as evidence of the design skills and vision of Dr JCC Bradfield.
|The Story Bridge is signifcant also as a major work by Queensland contractors Evans, Deakin & Co. Ltd and Hornibrook Constructions Pty Ltd.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15016,"place_ref":600241,"name":"Shafston House","alternate_name":"Shafston International College | Ravenscott | Anzac Hostel","street_address":"23 Castlebar Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"Shafston house stands on a large site which slopes down to the Brisbane river at Kangaroo Point. Buildings include the original house and its kitchen (1851), the former ward block (1919), the former orderlies' accommodation (1928), the former postal depot (1936), a recent garage and a very recent two-storeyed adjacent to the kitchen.
The one-storey brick and stone residence features a highly pitched gabled roof, attic rooms and cellars. The walls rest on foundations of Brisbane tuff and the roof, once shingled and then slated, is clad with terracotta tiles. To the rear is the original detached brick service wing, also on a Brisbane tuff stone foundation.
The style is Gothic-revival, with exterior decoration including: elaborate plaster mouldings to bargeboards; timber pendants in the gables; dormers; and quoining to the projecting front gables.
The southern front projection features a bay window with corrugated iron roof and awning. At the northern end, french doors open onto a faceted balcony with a steeply-pitched iron roof and cast-iron balustrading of a circle and cross-brace pattern. The main entrance is defined by a rendered masonry portico off-set to the south of the small front verandah.
Internal walls are mostly rendered brick and the floorboards are of pine. The main reception rooms feature coffered ceilings. The ornate friezes, cornices and dados in the principal rooms, which were restored in the early 1980s, are thought to date from the 1880s.
Joinery throughout is of cedar, with the early twentieth century renovations reflecting the influence of the Art Nouveau movement. The extent of RS Dods changes are not known but the fireplaces and much of the internal joinery and panelling, especially in the stairwell and doorways, are attributed to him. Dods probably added the diagonally glazed window panes in the upper windows.
A number of other structures have been erected in the grounds, the most significant of which is the large ward block constructed in 1919. This is a single-storey low-set timber building on stumps. The ward was designed as open-sided, but has since been excavated under to allow for the construction of new accommodation, enclosed and extended and substantial changes made to the immediate setting.
The fine entrance gateway from Castlebar Street with cast iron gates and posts and adjoining cast iron fence set on sandstone plinths and pillars survive as some of the early fencing. The form of the driveway sweeping around the front of the house from Castlebar to Thorn Street can be distinguished, but these have been paved and parking bays added. Some stone paving from the kerb to the property boundary at Castlebar Street remains.
The terraced lawn between the house and the river remains reasonably intact, but remaining areas have been much altered to provide paving and parking. Some large and mature trees on the northwest boundary survive including a fig tree near the former orderlies cottage.
Close to the river some brick and stone retaining walls of an apparently early date survive.
","history":"Shafston House comprises a group of buildings constructed between 1851 and the 1930s, set in substantial grounds with frontage to the Brisbane River. The main house was constructed in several stages between 1851 and 1904.
The southern part of Kangaroo Point along the riverfront as far as Norman Creek was surveyed into acreage allotments by James Warner in mid-1850. The Rev. Robert Creyke (Church of England) purchased from the Crown two of these allotments (eastern suburban allotments 44 and 45) containing just over 10¾ acres with frontage to the Brisbane River, just within the Brisbane town boundary. A deed of grant was issued to him in November 1851. On portion 44 he constructed a single-storeyed house that he called Ravenscott. Creyke joined a number of Brisbane's early gentry and pastoralists from the hinterland who, in the 1840s and 1850s, established town estates along the Brisbane River, most of them just outside the official town boundaries. These included Newstead (1846) near Breakfast Creek, Toogoolawah (later Bulimba, 1849-50) across the river from Newstead, Riversdale (now Mowbray Park, early 1850s), Milton (c1852 or 1853) just beyond the western town boundary and Eskgrove (1853) downstream from Shafston and Riversdale.
An 1851 sketch of Ravenscott attributed to visiting artist Conrad Martins shows a long, single-storeyed, low-set residence with verandahs and hipped roof, overlooking the Brisbane River. The grounds were mostly cleared and included outbuildings, the whole enclosed by a post and rail fence.
In December 1852 Creyke's Kangaroo Point property was transferred to Darling Downs pastoralist and politician Henry Stuart Russell, who in his memoires states that he 'completed' the house and re-named it Shafston, likely after his wife's birthplace in Jamaica. This implies that the core of Shafston House incorporates the earlier Ravenscott. Russell also purchased a number of neighbouring blocks to create a town riverine estate of over 44 acres (17.6 hectares).
In April 1854 Russell advertised Shafston for letting or sale. At this time the house, constructed of brick and stone, contained a drawing room and dining room separated by folding doors, five large bedrooms, closets and a roomy pantry. A passage 67 feet long ran nearly the length of the house. Beneath the drawing room was a stone dairy, larder and wine-cellar 8 feet high. There was a verandah 160 feet in length. At the rear, attached via a covered way, was a brick service block, which included a large kitchen (stone flagged), two servants' bedrooms, large laundry, store rooms and offices. Off the laundry was a drying yard enclosed by a paling fence. A large brick outbuilding contained a two-stall stables, coach-house, harness room and 2 grooms' rooms, with a loft over all. Other improvements included a fowl-house, well and a garden of about 3 acres enclosed by a paling fence. The whole property, which comprised approximately 44 acres, was enclosed with a four-rail hardwood fence. Most of the improvements had been made within the previous 18 months (that is, since late 1852 when Russell had acquired the property).
Shafston did not sell in 1854 and was offered for sale again in October 1855. By this time Russell had vacated the premises and it was operating as a boarding house. The ground floor comprised 8 rooms, staircase and china closet and had hardwood joists and flooring. There was a verandah front and back, the front verandah being 56 feet long and 10 feet wide, under which there were three spacious cellars. French doors opened onto the front verandah. The dining and drawing rooms were separated by folding doors. The attic contained three rooms, two of which were large enough to make suitable bedrooms 'if required'. This suggests that the 5 bedrooms mentioned in the 1854 advertisement were all located on the ground floor. Attached was a kitchen, servants' rooms and pantry, with a verandah at the front. There was a substantial stable 25 feet by 15 feet.
Again the property did not sell. Tenants in the 1850s included Nehemiah Bartley and Brisbane solicitor Daniel Foley Roberts and his family.
A sketch of Shafston dated c1858 shows a substantial, single-storeyed house with a front verandah, a high-pitched roof, attic rooms and three dormer windows overlooking the Brisbane River.
Title to the estate was transferred to grazier and sugar-grower Louis Hope in October 1859. It appears that Hope did not reside at Shafston. Gilbert Eliot, Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, tenanted Shafston House from 1860 to 1871 and tenants in the 1870s included William Barker of Telemon Station and Dr and Mrs Henry Challinor.
In 1875 Hope subdivided the property and in late 1876, during William Barker's tenancy, Shafston House on just over 4 acres (1.6 hectares) of riverfront land was advertised for sale. The house contained 9 rooms on the ground floor and had changed little since 1854: a brick and stone house with a roof of hardwood shingles and iron, drawing room ("the largest and coolest to be found in any private family in this colony"), dining room, five bedrooms, closets, dressing and bath rooms, kitchen and about six servants' apartments, a large brick stable with two stalls, coach-house, man's room and hay-house and galvanised iron and underground water storage tanks. No sale was transacted at this time and in August 1881 the same advertisement was run in the Brisbane Courier.
In mid-1883 Shafston House was transferred to Mary Jane Foster, wife of Charles Milne Foster of Brisbane ironmongers Foster and Kelk. Foster had learnt the family ironmongery business in Lincoln, Yorkshire and after emigrating to Queensland he established in Brisbane with his brother-in-law the successful ironmongery firm of Foster and Kelk. The Fosters, who resided at Shafston House until 1896, reputedly remodelled the house in the early 1880s, the architect for this work thought to be former Queensland Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley. The remodelling at this period appears to have included replacing the verandahs in their present form, adding the entry portico and more elaborate and picturesque Gothic detailing. The bay windows also were probably added at this time.
In the late 1890s and early 1900s the house was occupied sequentially by tenants EB Bland, manager of the BISN Company; John F McMullen; and William Gray of Webster & Co.
By 1903 pastoralist James Henry McConnel of Cressbrook in the Brisbane River Valley, had occupied Shafston House as his family's town house. Title to the property was transferred to him in 1904 and in that year he commissioned noted Brisbane architect Robin Smith Dods to undertake a third renovation of the house. Dods' contribution appears to have been the elaborate timber work in the front hall and the two main public rooms (drawing and dining rooms) and likely the windows in the dormers. His work includes decorative elements like the fireplaces, timber fretwork to the entrance and the cupboard below the stair.
Shafston House remained the McConnel home until c1913 and in 1915 it was leased to the Creche and Kindergarten Association as a teacher training centre.
In 1919, in the aftermath of the Great War of 1914-1918, the property was acquired by the Commonwealth government and converted into an Anzac Hostel for the care and treatment of totally and permanently incapacitated ex-servicemen. Anzac Hostels were established in most Australian states at this period.
At this time the property consisted of the main house, kitchen block, stables and a bush house. The 1919 alterations were extensive. The main house initially served both hostel and administrative functions, with the former drawing room being converted into a ward, the dining room retaining its original function and the bedrooms occupied as nurses room, matron's room, etc. A study and a bedroom at the western end of the house were combined by the removal of a wall to create a recreation room. The attic level, which in 1919 was a single open space, was partitioned into bedrooms for nurses and a box room, with the landing retained as a common room. The kitchen courtyard was roofed and two new rooms were constructed in that space. A timber laundry block was constructed to the south of the kitchen and the stables were converted into orderlies' quarters.
To accommodate the returned servicemen a large open-sided ward block was erected in the terraced front grounds to the northeast of the house in 1919, connected to the house via a covered way. This single-storeyed building was high-set on stumps with an attached ablutions block on the eastern side. It demonstrated aspects of public health theory, especially the benefits of fresh air in the recuperative process and in maintaining good health, popular at the time. Theory was translated into practice in a number of government designs for public buildings such as open-sided school blocks and hospital wards in the 1910s and early 1920s.
Anzac Hostel received its first patients on 19 July 1920 and functioned as a repatriation hospital until c1969.
In the late 1920s and 1930s the Commonwealth subdivided and sold the southern part of the property, reducing the house grounds to just over 2 acres (0.8 hectare). At this time the early brick stables building, which was located on the subdivided land, was demolished and replaced in 1928 by a small timber building constructed to the northwest of the house as quarters for orderlies working at the hostel. This building comprised three rooms and a verandah and toilets at the rear. The 1919 laundry block was moved to a position just east of the kitchen block and a new garage was constructed in the southwest corner of the remaining grounds, near Thorn Street.
In 1937 the East Brisbane Postal Depot was constructed for the Postmaster General's Department in the southwest corner of the property, between Thorn Street and the hostel garage. It comprised a single room, 14 feet by 12½ feet. A large 'L'-shaped extension was erected in 1951, for use as a mail sorting room.
From 1969 to 1987 the place was occupied by the Royal Australian Air Force. The change in use necessitated a number of alterations to the fabric of the place, including rearrangements of offices, installation of a bar and fire-escapes, upgrading of bathroom facilities, new floor finishes, enclosure of verandahs and the enclosing of the previously open sub-floor in the main house. A garage and store were erected between the ward block and the river. Work to the grounds included new paving, new fences along the street frontages, new street entrances, new driveways, parking areas and tree planting along the Castlebar Street and southern boundaries. By 1981 the main house was used as an administrative headquarters and mess and as offices for the RAAF police; a Movement Control Centre had been established in the ward block; the headquarters of the Queensland Air Training Corps was located in the former kitchen block; the RAAF Public Relations and Photographic Section was accommodated in the garage/former postal depot; and the former orderlies building had been converted into a tavern.
In 1978 the cultural heritage significance of Shafston House was recognised by its inclusion in the Commonwealth Register of the National Estate and in the 1980s conservation work carried out on the main house.
In 1988 Shafston House was leased to a Brisbane entrepreneur under two consecutive ninety-nine year leases. After failing to gain local government approval for use of the property as a restaurant and function venue, the house was refurbished as a residence. The 1919 laundry was demolished and a new garage constructed adjacent to the early kitchen building. The ward block was refurbished, additional bathrooms installed in the house and changes were made to landscaping.
In 1994 the lease was transferred to another entrepreneur and in 1995/96 the property was redeveloped as part of the Shafston International College. The main house was refurbished, with some loss of reconstructed colour schemes, and the link to the kitchen wing enclosed with a new sitting room. Further substantial works were carried out to the grounds and other buildings in the grounds, including enclosure of the open-air ward. A concrete board walk and new retaining walls were installed on the river frontage to Brisbane City Council requirements.
The property was converted to freehold title between 1998 and 2002.
","criteria":"Constructed as a single-storeyed house in 1851 with significant modifications c1852-53, early 1880s and 1904, Shafston House is one of a small group of riverine estate residences surviving in Brisbane from the pre-separation period and is important in demonstrating the early pattern of Queensland's history. The house is situated in an elevated position and maintains strong visual links with the river looking over a large terraced lawn, the general form of which remains intact. Of the surviving 1840s and 1850s riverine houses in Brisbane, only Newstead House (1846) and Shafston House (1851) retain this relationship with the river.
\nThe house retained its status as a gentleman's residence for over 60 years during which time it was associated with a number of prominent persons who helped shape the pattern of development of Queensland, including Rev. Robert Creyke who began construction of the house in 1851, Darling Downs pastoralist and politician Henry Stuart Russell who completed the house in 1852 in its Gothic form and named the property 'Shafston', the Hon. Louis Hope who owned the property from 1859 to the early 1880s, the Foster family (of ironmongers Foster & Kelk) who reputedly remodelling the house in the early 1880s and pastoralist James Henry McConnel of Cressbrook whose family commissioned the architect RS Dods to further modify the house.
\nThe property is significant also for its later development and function as an Anzac Hostel (1919-c1969) for the care and treatment of totally and permanently incapacitated ex-servicemen, illustrating the impact of the first and second world wars on Australia and how this nation dealt with that impact. It was the only Anzac Hostel in Queensland developed as a long term hostel for totally and permanently incapacitated servicemen returning from the Great War and is one of only two remaining former first world war repatriation hospitals in Queensland, the other being Rosemount at Windsor.
|Shafston House has rarity value as one of the earliest houses surviving in Brisbane. It is probably the third oldest house in the metropolitan area, after Newstead House (1846) and Bulimba House (1849-50) and a rare surviving remnant of a riverine estate of a type typical in the early development of Brisbane.
|Evidence of the 1850s house lies within the existing structure and has potential to reveal evidence of 1850s construction methods in Queensland, which is uncommon.
|With its stone cellars, attic rooms, detached brick service block, terraced grounds and river frontage, its decorative detailing and demarcation between public and private spaces and between 'family' and 'servant' areas, Shafston House is important in demonstrating in its form, materials, design, layout, size and detailing the principal characteristics of its class: an evolving, substantial, mid-19th century middle-class riverine house. Since 1851 the house has retained its original siting in an estate overlooking the river, a river frontage and the visual link between the house and the river.
The main rooms, in particular the drawing room and dining room contain rare evidence of elaborate high Victorian taste with painted dados and friezes and elaborate joinery and mantlepieces. The character of the internal refurbishment by Dods also survives. The drawing room and dining room contain the best evidence of Dods internal refurbishment but also contain bay windows attributed to Stanley. Decorative elements like the fireplaces, timber fretwork to the entrance and the cupboard below the stair and upstairs details, including the dormers, have been attributed to Dods.
Several outbuildings associated with the repatriation hospital were constructed during this period, including an open-air ward (1919), garage (c1919) and orderlies' quarters (1928). These are important to our understanding of how the place functioned as a hospital.
The former Ward Block built in 1919 in a pavilion form demonstrates the plan typical of smaller hospitals of the time providing two wards separated by smaller rooms and is typical in its lightweight timber construction. The siting to catch breezes and enhance airflow characterises health practices that were considered important at the time.
|Shafston House is an evolving house with major renovations in the 1850s, 1880s and 1900s, that has maintained a cohesive aesthetic appeal. The aesthetic significance is engendered principally by the picturesque values of the Victorian Gothic style of architecture (including the decorative detailing) and the garden layout and riverside setting. Although overlaid by the later work of the architects Stanley and Dods, the characteristics of the style remain. The verandahs and entrance porch introduced in the 1880s and the interior joinery introduced in the early 1900s make further aesthetic contributions. The place is a landmark along the Brisbane River and in views from New Farm across the river and makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the Brisbane riverscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15017,"place_ref":600242,"name":"Home","alternate_name":"Lamb House","street_address":"9 Leopard Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Home is conspicuously situated at the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, overlooking the South Brisbane and Town reaches of the Brisbane River, at the south end of the Brisbane suburb of Kangaroo Point. The 0.36ha, irregular shaped site hugs the adjacent corner block at the southwest, with the primary street frontage to Leopard Street at the east, and a service frontage to Wild Street at the south. All other sides are bounded by residential properties. The place comprises a masonry residence, approached by a curved entrance drive leading from Leopard Street, and is set within developed grounds with outbuildings, a tennis court, built landscape features and mature vegetation.
\nThe grand two-storey residence is an inner-city landmark due to its form, scale, orientation and elevated site. The place has extensive views of Brisbane central business district (CBD), Kangaroo Point and the Brisbane River; and is highly visible from many parts of the Brisbane CBD, the Brisbane River and its various bridges, Kangaroo Point, and the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance are:
\n‘Home’ - Residence (1902-03)
\nThe two-storey residence is of brick construction with a tiled roof, a southeast observatory tower, and ground and first floor verandahs to its north, east and west sides. The residence addresses its surroundings, with prominent gable-ends facing southeast toward the entrance driveway, and northeast toward the Town Reach of the Brisbane River. A first floor verandah on the northwest elevation provides views up the South Brisbane Reach of the river.
\nThe main entrance to the residence is through a portico centred on the southeast elevation. Vertically aligned with the observatory tower, the portico features a moulded concrete segmental (curved) pediment to the ground floor and a closed swan-neck pediment to the first floor.
\nThe place has features typical of the Federation-era Queen Anne style, including its: asymmetrical form; dominant roof-form with gables and an observation tower; terracotta-tiled roof; terracotta chimney pots; half-timbered detailing to gable ends; and ornamental timber posts, brackets and valances. Its red and red-brown face brick exterior walls contrast with extensive concrete mouldings, timberwork and ornamentation.
\nThe internal arrangement of rooms is hierarchical, with public and service rooms to the ground floor, and private rooms to the first floor. The rooms on both floors radiate around a central staircase and hall. Entered via a vestibule which leads to a central staircase and features a lavatory to one side, the ground floor comprises a northeastern drawing room connected to a northwestern dining room; a southeastern morning room; and a southwestern kitchen, scullery and link to the service wing. The first floor contains six bedrooms with an eastern bathroom. The larger first floor rooms are the principal bedrooms. The secondary bedrooms are of a smaller size at the west side of the house and adjacent to a housemaid’s and press store.
\nFurther delineation of the hierarchy between principal rooms (dining room, drawing room, morning room, four larger bedrooms, and staircase / vestibule) and service rooms is revealed in the fabric finishes and room sizes; with the comparative dimensions and relationships between rooms reflecting designated functions of early 20th century living. The principal rooms are generally larger and feature elaborate finishes, such as pressed metal ceilings and ceiling roses, and wide hardwood timber skirting boards and architraves. Fireplaces are located in the dining room, drawing room, morning room, and the two largest bedrooms. The service rooms are smaller and have simpler finishes, such as narrower skirting boards and architraves, and softwood timbers. Service fireplaces are located in the kitchen and scullery; and a service stair is separated from the main stairwell.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nform: double-ridged roof, hipped and Dutch-gabled to the southwest end, and hipped and gabled to the northeast end; with a transverse hip which aligns with the observatory tower; a transverse gable to the southeast; and separate verandah roofs
\nterracotta tile roof cladding; timber roof framing; and lead flashing
\nprominent gable-ends to the northeast and southeast elevations of rough-cast render, with half-timbered detailing, timber bargeboards, and timber brackets
\nrainwater goods: ogee-profile galvanised iron gutters (24 gauge) with galvanised iron brackets, and galvanised iron downpipes (some have octagonal rain-heads)
\nlight-well to southeast ridge (now boarded over)
\nprotruding chimneys: face brick flues with moulded terracotta chimney pots
\nopen eaves, with exposed timber framing over timber board linings
\npyramid, terracotta-tiled roof, with timber roof framing, and finial
\nopen eaves, with exposed timber framing over timber board linings
\nred-brown face brick walls, open to the upper section for views
\nmoulded concrete balustrade
\nconcrete floor
\naccess passageway with corrugated iron (small profile) wall cladding and hardwood timber stair
\nCement render finish to front portico columns, arches, cornices and pediments; chimney caps; and the front stair side walls
\nMoulded concrete ornamental details, including the word ‘HOME’ surrounded by a moulded leaf detail to the front portico; a circular motif over the first floor portico pediment; dentil detail to ground floor portico pediment; scroll motifs to gable-ends; detailed balustrades to portico and observatory tower
\nshot-edged timber floorboards to ground floor; and tongue-and groove (T&G) timber floorboards to first floor
\ncorrugated galvanised iron (small profile) sheet-cladding to ground floor ceiling; and T&G V-jointed (VJ) timber boards to first floor ceiling
\nchamfered top plates
\nturned and detailed verandah posts with collars
\nvalance, including: arched hardwood brackets between posts (solid timber to the ground floor, and VJ timber boards to the first floor); timber spindles; and hardwood fascia boards
\ntimber weatherboard cladding to frieze between ground and first floor verandahs, lined internally with VJ timber boards
\ncast iron panelled balusters of a decorative design
\nchamfered timber handrail
\ntessellated tiles to front porch (stair to porch specified as having slate treads)
\nbay windows to dining room and main bedroom on northeast elevation
\nother original windows, most with double-hung sashes
\nleadlight glazing to skylight, front door, vestibule door, cloak room (potentially the lavatory) window, small windows to dining room fireplace; bathroom windows; some verandah doors, and fanlights over dining room and drawing room windows
\npanelled cedar front entrance door with barrel bolts
\npanelled cedar, half-glazed door to rear walkway and to first floor verandah
\ncedar door to scullery
\npanelled cedar doors with finger plates to drawing room, dining room, hall and breakfast room
\ncedar, half-glazed vestibule door with lead lights, centre-pivoting fanlights and brass bolts
\npanelled cedar doors to bathroom and wash-house
\ncedar doors with finger plates between first floor hall and bedrooms
\npanelled timber sliding door between dining room and drawing room, with metal runners
\npanelled pine doors to kitchen, scullery and pantry doors
\npine doors to two smaller bedrooms and to cupboards
\ntimber ledged door adjacent stair to observatory tower from first floor verandah
\ntimber shutters to most windows and verandah-facing exterior doors
\nskirtings: 12in (305mm) cedar to dining room, drawing room and staircase; 10 inch (254mm) to morning room, cloak room, staircase and the four principal bedrooms; 10 inch (254mm) pine to kitchen and back room passage; and 8 inch (203mm) pine to all other rooms
\narchitraves: 7 inch (178mm) cedar to staircase, drawing room and dining room; 6 inch (152mm) cedar to breakfast room and four principal bedrooms; and 5 inch (127mm) to all other openings
\ncedar central staircase with handrail, turned newels, turned balusters, stringers, carved details, and panelled cedar to underside (stair soffit)
\nseparate timber staircase leading to observatory tower
\nbuilt-in cedar seats with leather upholstery (location is unconfirmed)
\nhardwood mantle-pieces (specified as cedar, bean tree or ‘other fancy woods’)
\npine shelves over kitchen and scullery fireplaces
\nceiling roses to dining room, drawing room, and the four principal bedrooms
\ntimber dado panelling (specified as ‘cedar or other fancy woods such as bean tree’) to main hall and dining room
\nterracotta tile skillion roof
\ntimber square posts, bargeboards, stair and end-cheeks
\ntimber lattice screen enclosure
\nService Wing
\nThe service wing is located west of the residence, and is linked by a covered walkway and small stair. It is a single-storey masonry building with a gable roof, and comprises three rooms: a wash-house at the south, a central fuel store and earth closets (toilets) to the north.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGarage
\nLocated at the south end of the site, immediately adjacent Wild Street, the garage is a single-storey masonry building. Car access is via the driveway to the northeast, with an additional door to the northwest.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFront boundary fence and entrance gates
\nThe front boundary fence and entrance gates are located along the Leopard Street boundary.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nEntrance driveway
\nThe entrance driveway leads from the front entrance gates, past the front entrance to the residence, and terminates at the garage. It has a sealed surface and edging.
\nTennis Court and Pavilion, including Northwest Fence
\nThe tennis court is located adjacent to Leopard Street, in an open area southeast of the entrance driveway. On its southwest side is a timber-framed pavilion with a terracotta tiled gable roof; and along its northwest side is a face brick fence, which is detailed to match the front boundary fence.
\nThe recent chain-wire fence surrounding the court is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nBoundary fence and service driveway to Wild Street
\nAlong the Wild Street boundary is a timber-framed fence and gate. The gate opens onto a service driveway that leads from the street, curves around a tree and terminates at the southwest side of the residence (the driveway’s surface is unconfirmed).
\nLandscape Features
\nThe house is set within substantial established grounds, with mature landscaping, trees and gardens.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nViews and setting
\nStanding at the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, the residence is a highly visible in its riverside and garden setting. Its distinctive form, scale, siting and elevation enhance its landmark status as a part of inner-city Brisbane and its prominence from various viewing points.
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance include to, from and between the residence and the following locations:
\nNote: This description is based on an inspection of the exterior features of the place from publicly accessible locations, a desktop survey of the site [31] and historical sources such as information provided in the original specification by AB Wilson. [32] While further detailed inspection, analysis and research may be required to confirm the below information, there appears to be no evidence of major extensions or alterations to the place.
","history":"This substantial, two-storeyed brick residence was erected in 1902-03 for John Lamb, co-proprietor of the successful Queen Street drapery establishment of Edwards & Lamb, and a businessman with enlightened attitudes toward his employees. Named ‘Home’, (also known as Lamb House) the house has remained in the sole ownership of the Lamb family since its construction. Designed by eminent architect Alexander B Wilson, the residence embraced the Federation Queen Anne style and is recognised as one of Wilson’s greatest domestic works.
\nKangaroo Point, located within the traditional lands of the Jagera and Turrbul people, was one of the earliest localities used for colonial purposes following the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. The Kangaroo Point Cliffs were quarried for their Brisbane tuff, used in building works for the colony, and the area was farmed from 1837. Following the opening of the colony for free settlement in the 1840s, land along the peninsula was offered for sale.[1] Industry and shipping was established along the river front, with modest working-class dwellings dotting the lower-lying areas. By the 1850s, the higher land at Kangaroo Point was attracting wealthy residents who erected substantial homes overlooking the Brisbane River.[2]
\nThe highest part of Kangaroo Point was River Terrace, running atop the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. By 1875 the terrace was recognised as ‘beauteous… with its unrivalled coup d’oeil of the great city’, and recommended to visitors for sightseeing.[3] Subdivisions along the east side of the terrace were offered for sale from the 1850s, but the western side was reserved for public purposes, providing a dramatic clifftop promenade between the Kangaroo Point State School and St Mary’s church, at the Main Street intersection, and Leopard Street, a continuation of River Terrace.[4]
\nBy the turn of the 20th century Kangaroo Point was a highly appealing residential area, both for its quiet, leafy nature and for its proximity to the city, with ferry and bus services linking the area to the central business district. In 1901, a parcel of eight undeveloped subdivisions on Leopard and Wild streets, at the highest elevation overlooking the Gardens Point, were sold by the mortgagee. The subdivisions surrounded an older residence, ‘Rockfield’, built on the corner of Leopard and Wild streets, circa 1890, for Captain Daniel McGregor. The undeveloped sites had first been offered for sale in October 1852 and granted to John McCabe in 1855. They were transferred to land agent GT Lang in 1882, before they were purchased in August 1901 by John Lamb.[5]
\nEnglish-born John Lamb and his business partner to-be Thomas Edwards arrived in Australia on the ship Cuzco in 1881. After settling briefly in New South Wales, they established a drapery and clothier business in Brisbane’s premier shopping district, Queen Street, in 1884. Edwards and Lamb was one of a number of locally-established drapery firms opened between the 1860s and 1890s, which were the forerunners of Brisbane’s major department stores.[6] By 1888, Edwards and Lamb had made ‘such rapid strides that… it is one of the representative mercantile house of the kind in the colony.’[7] The firm openly supported workers’ rights, and was actively engaged in the Early Closing Association movement, which campaigned for shorter working hours for retail workers. The movement’s first chair and secretary were both recruited from Edwards and Lamb, and in the 1890s the firm employed Frank McDonnell as a manager-cum-union organiser until McDonnell’s elevation to Queensland Parliament in 1896. This was quickly followed by the passage of the Factories and Shops Act 1896, and the introduction of early closing in its 1900 replacement. McDonnell credited Edwards and Lamb for his success.[8]
\nFollowing the death of Thomas Edwards in 1897, John Lamb purchased Edwards’ share in the business, and continued it on his own. In 1899, Lamb married Sarah Jeane Stephens in Maryborough, and by 1901 the couple had two children, with a third due in 1902. With his family growing, and his business on firm footing, Lamb purchased the Kangaroo Point sites and moved into temporary accommodation in Leopard Street, pending the construction of a new family residence.[9]
\nLamb’s timing coincided with a period of steady residential growth in Brisbane. The city had suffered in the 1890s from the combined effects of an economic depression and extensive flooding, and commissions for substantial houses had fallen off. By 1900, the economy was recovering, and businessmen and retailers engaged Brisbane’s prominent architects to design a number of large residences in the inner-city and suburban areas, from Waterton, at Chelmer, circa 1900, for insurance agent Thomas Beevor Steele (architect unknown) (QHR 602340); Drysllwyn, in Auchenflower, c1905, by architect Claude William Chambers, for mining entrepreneur William Davies (QHR 600051); Endrim, at Toowong, 1906, by unknown architect, for tram company director JS Badger (QHR 650071); Turrawan, at Clayfield, 1906, by Hall and Dods, for doctor Arthur Halford (combined surgery/house)(QHR 602452); Cremorne, at Hamilton, circa 1906, by Eaton and Bates, for publican James O'Connor (QHR 600218); Feniton, at New Farm, 1906, by RS Dods, for the Trude family (QHR 650078); to Weemalla, at Corinda, 1909, by RS Dods, for insurance company manager RM Steele (QHR 602820).[10]
\nLamb engaged architect Alexander Brown Wilson to design his new Kangaroo Point house. Wilson was by then a well-established Brisbane architect, having commenced work with the Queensland Public Works Department in 1875 at the age of 16. From 1882 he was employed as architect FDG Stanley’s principal draftsman, before beginning his architectural training in Brisbane and Europe. He became the first Queensland-trained associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, returning to Brisbane to open his own architectural practice in 1884. He also helped found the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1888, and served four terms as its president. Wilson’s practice quickly developed into a substantial firm, particularly renowned for its church and domestic designs. Prominent examples of Wilson’s domestic work survive in Brisbane, including Leckhampton (1890, QHR 600246), Kinauld (1888, QHR 600225) and Como (1890, QHR 601474), but his most recognised domestic work was his design for John Lamb.[11]
\nIn designing Lamb’s house, Wilson put his personal interpretation on the Queen Anne style. Imported from Britain and the United States, Federation ‘Queen Anne’ was the dominant style in Australian domestic architecture for substantial houses at the turn of the 20th century. Popularised by the influential British architect Richard Norman Shaw, who in the 1870s began designing country houses in an eclectic style combining elements from many periods of traditional English rural building, the style was labelled ‘Queen Anne’ after it became popular in America. In Australia, the style was characterised by: red facebrick walls, often with contrasting white painted ornamentation or timber joinery; complex roof forms with towers and multiple gables; Tudor-style half-timber panelling in gable ends; tall brick chimneys; terracotta detailing; and picturesque asymmetry. Roofs were often French Marseilles tile with a detailed ridge or apex. Verandahs featured ornamental posts, brackets, balustrades and valances. Patterns in leadlight windows, doors and fanlights tended to echo the free curves found in nature as the influence of Art Nouveau on the Queen Anne design became increasingly apparent after the 1900s. Although not as popular or extensively used as in Victoria and New South Wales, the Federation Queen Anne style spread to Queensland and was incorporated into designs from the 1890s until the 1940s. In Queensland the style was often applied to traditional timber houses, influencing their roof forms, timber verandah detailing and other ornamentation.[12]
\nNotable Queen Anne features of the Lamb residence include its red brick composition, terracotta shingle tiles, chimney post, turned timber posts, gables of suggested half-timbering and Classical motifs on the three-storey tower.[13]
\nWilson drew plans for Lamb’s house, and a specification was detailed in September 1901. Wilson’s design for the residence set out a ground and first floor, with a protruding observation tower. It was of brick construction, with a tiled roof featuring half-timbered detailing to gable-ends; and a concrete-finished entrance porch aligned vertically with the observation tower. The front door, accessed by the porch, led to the central staircase via a vestibule, which had a lavatory to one side. On the river (northern) side of the residence was an eastern drawing room and connected western dining room that both featured fireplaces, architraves, large windows, skirting boards and ‘wainscoting’ (dado panelling). On the southern side of the residence was a morning (breakfast) room to the east, which opened onto the front verandah; with the kitchen, scullery and connected service wing to the west. Upstairs, there were six bedrooms, each of a different size; a small housemaid’s store and press; and a bathroom behind the central staircase. An additional stair climbed the observation tower, which had a viewing platform in response to the house’s prominent position atop the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. Externally, there were two water tanks, a service wing, including a washhouse with fuel store and earth closet, and a full-sized tennis court (56 x 17m).[14] Early photographs from the Leopard Street entrance driveway show various concrete render mouldings, including the residence’s name, Home, above the pediment to the entrance porch; and iron entrance gates set within a front fence with polychromatic brickwork and concrete capping.[15]
\nThe specifications also clearly distinguished between the primary and other rooms, requiring cedar and ‘fancy wood’ of a wider profile for timber joinery in the public rooms (including drawing, dining and morning rooms, staircase, vestibule and lavatory) and four principal bedrooms; with pine in the two back bedrooms and kitchen. Pressed metal ceilings and / or ceiling roses were to be located in public rooms and principal bedrooms, with leadlight glazing specified for use in a skylight, the front door, vestibule door, cloak-room (potentially describing the lavatory) window, small windows to dining room fireplace, bathroom windows, some verandah doors, and fanlights over dining room and drawing room windows. The drawing room and main bedroom featured bay windows. [16]
\nWilson called for tenders for the brick villa in March 1902. The house was constructed over a twelve month period by builder William Anthony at a contract price of £3,250. Work was underway by June 1902, when the ‘fine two-storied residence… commanding a beautiful prospect’ was described in the Brisbane Courier as the main work occupying Wilson’s ‘architectural skill’.[17][18]
\nThe eight subdivisions provided a generous 3133m2 site for the house and its features. The house was positioned near the back of the site, taking advantage of the extensive views, with a driveway from Leopard Street curving around the tennis court. The Leopard Street frontage was lined by a polychromatic brick wall and ornate driveway gates, also designed by Wilson. Fig trees were planted along the Leopard Street frontage to the property, with additional trees and gardens along the northern boundary, the tennis court fence and the circular driveway, which terminated in front of the house. A service entrance ran from Wild Street to the kitchen and service wing.[19]
\nThe Lamb family house was completed by April 1903, when Mrs Lamb advertised for a general servant from ‘Home, River terrace’.[20] The youngest of the Lambs’ four children was born in 1905; by 1910, Mrs Lamb, with two servants and a children’s nursemaid, advertised for additional help.[21]
\nThe attraction of Kangaroo Point as a quiet but centrally located suburb for the well-to-do continued well into the 1920s. Its reputation as a leafy garden suburb was enhanced in the 1910s when River Terrace was planted with a line of fig trees and garden beds, improving the clifftop promenade. A photograph taken of the River Terrace promenade in 1919 displayed both the vegetation improvements and the view, which terminated in Home and its neighbouring house, Edgecliffe. In 1928 the suburb was recognised as one of the ‘garden suburbs of Brisbane’, with ‘handsome residences, well-kept gardens, wide-streets, and tree-lined avenues.’[22] From the 1930s, however, houses along the peninsula (including a number of historic homes) were removed for the construction of the Story Bridge (1940) [QHR 600240], and the suburb became increasingly busy. [23]
\nFew changes appear to have been made to Home after its construction. Architect Wilson undertook minor repairs to the property in 1911, and a brick garage was added at the Wild Street boundary by 1925, with the circular driveway removed and extended to the garage. A pavilion was later added to the tennis court (extant by 1942).[24] The trees, which had become substantial by the 1940s, were cut back in the late 1950s or early 1960s.[25]
\nJohn Lamb senior died in 1920, passing the Edwards and Lamb business to his two sons, John and Frank, and the house to his widow, Sarah. Home was mortgaged in 1922 for the sum of £8,000. Three of the Lamb children did not marry, and continued to reside in the large family residence. Both sons worked for the retail firm, while Sarah and her daughters hosted a number of social and fundraising events at the house in the 1920s and 30s, particularly in aid of the nearby St Mary’s Anglican Church. The three unmarried children also purchased the neighbouring Rockfield in 1941. Following Sarah’s death in 1956, ownership of Home passed to her daughters, who remained resident at the house. [26]
\nThe Lamb family business – known both as Edwards and Lambs and simply Lamb’s – operated successfully into the mid-20th century, as one of the renowned Queensland draperies which dominated the state’s retailing market until the 1950s. From the small Queen Street store, it expanded to a large commercial operation with a mail order business for country customers, and was ‘always assured of patronage, especially from country people, who know they are dealing with a reputable establishment’.[27] Until 1921 it relied on word-of-mouth, rather than advertising, for its business. Edwards and Lambs’ premises were extended in 1932 and 1938, doubling the floor size and improving the layout, until it developed a ‘world-wide reputation’ by 1949. A Victory Farm was established at Holland Park during WWII, changing to flowers after the war to decorate the business premises. The Lamb brothers also continued to operate Edwards and Lamb with attention to the welfare of its employees, providing a superannuation scheme and mutual benefits society; additional Christmas holidays; and an extra week’s pay on the firm’s 60th anniversary. As neither a private nor public company, the business was the responsibility of the Lamb brothers, and after both passed away, the firm was sold to Factors Ltd. The sale coincided with the demise of the Queensland-based retailers in the 1960s, when they were superseded by drive-in suburban shopping centres, and sold to large southern retailers.[28]
\nHome’s prominent position and striking style have made it a Brisbane landmark. As early as 1906 the ‘fine residence’ was considered worthy of note amongst the ‘suburban beauties’ of Kangaroo Point, and the ‘stately home’ featured as one of Brisbane’s newer homes photographed for the Queenslander in 1927.[29] Home has featured in numerous publications, including Salon, the Architectural Journal of New South Wales; Towards the Dawn; 150 years of Brisbane River Housing; architectural sketches; blog posts and tourism websites; and picture postcards of the city. Visible along two stretches of the Brisbane River, as well as from the Botanic Gardens, Kangaroo Point Cliffs and South Bank, it has attracted the attention of tourists, and the house was dramatically floodlit for the Royal Visit in 1954. In 2010, Home was recognised by the Australian Institute of Architects as a nationally significant work, as an important landmark, the best known residential work of Wilson, and arguably Brisbane’s most distinguished Queen Anne styled mansion.[30]
\nHome remained the property of the Lamb family until 2021, when it was sold and transferred to new owners.
","criteria":"Its construction illustrates the sustained development of Kangaroo Point as a residential suburb from the 1840s, and in particular the continued appeal to middle class residents of the high land overlooking the Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point, contributing to our understanding of residential and social hierarchies in Brisbane, and of the role of the Brisbane River within this structure.
|Home, erected c1902, is a rare surviving example of a grand, intact Federation period residence in the Brisbane district.
|Home is a most accomplished building in its architectural design, materials, workmanship and setting, and is significant as a major example of the domestic work of notable Brisbane architect Alexander B Wilson.
|The prominently situated residence has landmark quality and makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the townscape along the Kangaroo Point cliffs. Significant also are the views from Home of the Brisbane River and central business district, which appear to have influenced the siting and design of the house.
|Home is a most accomplished building in its architectural design, materials, workmanship and setting, and is significant as a major example of the domestic work of notable Brisbane architect Alexander B Wilson.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15018,"place_ref":600243,"name":"Silverwells","alternate_name":"Morningside (261) | Blairgowie (267) | Bishopcroft (267)","street_address":"261 - 267 Main Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This pair of two-storeyed semi-detached brick houses stands in a garden setting between the Story Bridge and the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, with city views from the rear of the property.
They rest on a foundation of Brisbane tuff and share a common hipped roof and a central double chimney which rises above the party wall. The roof is clad with corrugated galvanised iron, but is likely to have been shingled or slated originally. Console brackets beneath narrow eaves define the lower roofline.
The Georgian-styled rendered exterior is scored to resemble ashlar, and presents a symmetrical front facade to Main Street. Entrances are set back at either end under small pedimented porticos, and the upper storey of each house features narrow, round-headed windows either side of large french doors. These open onto a small balcony above a projecting ground floor bay. All the second level windows and doors are protected by curved drip moulding and full-length shutters.
Detailing is unusual in the use of round or diamond-shaped holes 'punched' through the pediments, window heads and balconies.
Front verandahs at ground floor level are separated by a masonry wall and feature discrete concave, corrugated iron awnings supported by broad timber posts. A set of french doors opens onto each verandah from the drawing rooms.
Internally each house is a mirror image of the other, with ground floor hall, drawing room and dining room, a bathroom at the first landing, and bedrooms on the top floor. Ceilings at the lower level are 13'6" (4m) high and an archway with folding cedar doors separates the drawing and dining rooms. Cellars lie beneath the ground floors.
At the rear remain the detached single-storey service wings, each formerly containing kitchen and maid's room. The northern kitchen has been modernised internally, and the southern one has been refitted as a guest suite. The rear verandah of the southern house has been remodelled as the kitchen.
1970s renovation of the northern house also resulted in the installation of an attic bedroom with a small balcony at the rear, enclosure and extension of the back verandah to create a living space, and the addition of a terrace and pool to the back yard.
Despite the alterations, the pair presents a highly intact and cohesive exterior, with the semi-detached relationship not immediately apparent.
","history":"The land on which these semi-detached houses stand was acquired in 1861 by Sydney merchant Joseph Thompson. It is believed he purchased a number of Kangaroo Point properties on which he erected various dwellings in the 1860s, and that the semi-detached houses were amongst these rental investments.
No precise date of construction has been identified, but the houses are prominent in a photograph of Kangaroo Point taken between 1867 and the mid 1870s. As Edward Lamb, an occupant in the 1870s, was resident in Main Street in 1867-8, it is possible that the pair was constructed by then.
Thompson retained the property until his death in 1902, when it passed to William Mann Thompson, who subsequently subdivided the land. Since 1924 the houses have been held under separate title, with the northern house generally owner-occupied, but the southern one being a rental property from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Over more than one hundred and twenty years the houses have maintained their status as genteel accommodation, whose tenants have numbered amongst Brisbane's more successful business, legal and political figures.
","criteria":"Silverwells is associated with the 1860s development of the higher ground at Kangaroo Point as a genteel address.
Silverwells is possibly the oldest residential building remaining at Kangaroo Point.
|Silverwells is a rare Brisbane semi-detached brick housing, more common in Sydney in the 1860s.
|The residence contributes aesthetically to the highly intact, stylish and cohesive facade of the Kangaroo Point townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15019,"place_ref":600244,"name":"St Marys Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Mary's Anglican Church; St Marys Kangaroo Point;","street_address":"433, 447, 449 Main Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Marys is a Gothic style church built on a prominent riverside site above the Kangaroo Point quarries. Constructed of Brisbane tuff, it is cruciform in shape, but with shallow transepts and a faceted sanctuary bay. The gable roof, originally timber shingled, is now in ribbed galvanized iron. It is surmounted by a small stone bellcote at the front gable.
In the interior, the nave is unlined, and timber trusses, resting on small masonry pillars, support the roof. The sanctuary is lined with plaster and its ceiling features three paintings by the noted artist Godfrey Rivers.
The hall is a timber structure on concrete stumps. Cruciform in shape, it has a gabled corrugated iron roof surmounted by a central ventilation lantern.
The rectory is a large single-storeyed brick residence with verandahs on three sides. It stands on brick piers with honeycomb infill. Entry is through a gabled frontispiece. The verandah has timber posts and balusters. A number of bays on the rear verandah add to the complexity of the corrugated roof which is a series of hips and gables.
","history":"The Church of St Marys Kangaroo Point was built in 1873 by Alfred Grant to a design by diocesan architect Richard G Suter. It replaced a timber structure built in 1849 on land closer to the river. In 1892 a cyclone caused considerable damage to the church's roof and bellcote.
The pipe organ is the oldest in Queensland, dating from the early nineteenth century. It was imported from a London church in 1876.
The church hall was built in 1879. The rectory, designed by diocesan architect John H Buckeridge, was completed in 1889.
St Marys was patronized by the governors when they resided at Old Government House. It has always been the naval chapel in Queensland and was once connected by stairs with the Naval Stores below the quarry face. The Warriors' Chapel, dedicated in 1950, contains a memorial to those who died on HMAS Voyager in 1964.
","criteria":"St Marys Anglican Church is significant as having always been the naval chapel in Queensland.
St Marys Anglican Church contains the oldest pipe organ in Queensland and the religious art of Godfrey Rivers.
|St Marys Anglican Church is an early and intact religious precinct of church, hall and rectory and is one of the only two surviving stone churches designed by RG Suter.
|St Marys Anglican Church is an early and intact religious precinct of church, hall and rectory and is one of the only two surviving stone churches designed by RG Suter.
|The building remains as an historical and visual landmark in Kangaroo Point.
|St Marys Anglican Church is significant as having always been the naval chapel in Queensland.
|St Marys Anglican Church is an early and intact religious precinct of church, hall and rectory and is one of the only two surviving stone churches designed by RG Suter.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15020,"place_ref":600245,"name":"Yungaba Immigration Depot","alternate_name":"No.6 Australian General Hospital | Immigration Barracks","street_address":"102 Main Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Yungaba is located at Main Street, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane. Sited on the banks of the Brisbane River, adjacent to the Storey Bridge the property holds a prominent position on Petrie Bight. The principal approach to the site is directed towards the river frontage however the common access to the site is from Main Street. This point of landward entry passes through the rear of the site and reveals a collection of ancillary buildings associated with different uses the site has had through its history.
\nYungaba is constructed as a symmetrical cruciform plan dominated by a substantial central entrance loggia which is flanked by two three-storey towers. These elements define the entry core of the building and the commencement of the two wings which extend to the north and south of the core. The building is a two-storey load-bearing brick structure with timber framed floors and roof. The roof form is comprised of intersecting gable roof forms punctuated by the pyramidal roofs of the two three storey towers. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and includes a series of ornate metal ridge ventilators.
\nVerandahs extend along the eastern and western elevations of the wings of the building. The verandahs have timber posts and handrails with decorative cast iron balustrade infill panels. The end sections of the verandahs are also enclosed with lattice screening. Beyond the line of the verandah, windows are sheltered under sunhoods constructed from cast iron wall brackets and timber hood framing, clad with metal sheeting.
\nThe adaptive reuse of the building into ten apartments over the two main levels has left the overall form, central entrance and court intact. Apartment complexes have been constructed as part of the site's redevelopment to the north of the depot building. A Multicultural Centre, opened in 2016, is located to the northwest of the depot building facing Main Street.
\nOn the riverside of Yungaba a ring road sweeps past the entry to the building and out toward the river edge returning to the point of entry at the northern end of the building. A collection of mature and more recent plantings line the ring road with the central area being predominately grass. A swimming pool and associated facilities are located in the southeast corner of the site.
\nThe western grounds contain ancillary facilities associated with the residential development comprising an early brick earth closet adapted as a pavilion building; open and covered carparks; and, covered walkways.
","history":"\"Yungaba\" is a two-storey brick institutional building designed as an immigrant depot in 1885 by John James (JJ) Clark, colonial architect for Queensland. Following his dismissal shortly after, the building plan was developed by Edward Henry Alder and Robert Henry Mills. Constructed by William Peter Clark, the building is described as being of Italianate/Queensland/ Institutional style.[1]
\nFollowing the subdivision of Kangaroo Point in 1843-44, lots 21 and 22 were purchased by Judah and Isaac Solomon and Thomas Adams. Some time later John \"Tinker\" Campbell, a neighbouring land-owner, purchased a share in both lots and transferred his boiling-down works to that location to gain the benefit of the small stream which crossed the properties. Following a series of financial transactions, the land was purchased by Robert Douglas in 1853 for £400. Douglas constructed a house on lot 21 which he named \"The Willows\". Douglas was a prominent and popular person in Brisbane society at that time although some scandal arose when it was revealed that he had sold his Kangaroo Point property to the government for £14,000 in 1884.
\nThe government had been aware for some time that the immigration facilities at William Street were inadequate for their needs. The decision to acquire the land at Kangaroo Point was justified by the need to provide 'pleasant surroundings' for those who recently arrived in the colony. The pattern of immigration fluctuated wildly over the years. In the period immediately preceding the construction of the Kangaroo Point depot, immigration had been at an all time high.
\nWilliam Peter Clark, the successful tenderer for the work, ran into a series of difficulties with the construction which resulted in almost a year's delay in the completion. The interior layout was designed by William Hodgen and arranged in a manner typical of institutional buildings of the time. Married quarters were in the form of separate cubicles on the ground level, and single quarters (segregated by gender, and in dormitory form) on the upper level. Symmetrical pairs of laundry and privy facilities were arranged to the rear of the building.
\nThe first administrator was William Edward Parry-Okeden. Parry-Okeden was already a highly competent and practical man with a reputation for fair-dealing and vigorous commitment to his occupation. Parry-Okeden and his family moved to Brisbane from Blackall to take up his appointment at the Immigration Depot. Later he was appointed Under Colonial Secretary and played an active role in both the management of Aborigines, the organisation of the Native Police and the resolution of the shearers' strikes. Following the floods of 1887, Parry-Okeden and his wife refurbished \"The Willows\" which continued as their residence during his four years as immigration agent.
\nFrom the outset Parry Okeden saw that a number of critical issues needed to be addressed before the depot could operate efficiently. Problems dogged the project throughout its early years. Difficulties were experienced due to poor drainage resulting from the re-direction of the natural drainage into a stormwater drain. Subsequent drainage works had varying degrees of success but the building soon showed signs of rising damp exacerbated by the poor quality bricks used during construction. Gas and water connections were either very basic or completely absent from vital parts of the building, there was no wharf facility at which to disembark the immigrants and, once landed, there was no facility for isolating those suspected of suffering contagious disease.
\nFor a long time it was argued the damp problem was a result of rain beating on the sides of the building, rather than due to poor site drainage. In 1891 the verandahs on the eastern end of the northern side of the building were extended to shelter the walls from the rain. A matching verandah extension at the western end was not constructed until 1899 as the expense was considered too great when the source of the damp had not been proven. The later extension was made to regain the symmetry of the facade, rather than as a means of protecting the walls from the rain.
\nWharf facilities were provided at the river bank in 1887 with a large luggage shed on the river bank. Parry-Okeden pointed out that the design was less than practical since a wide gap had been left between the two structures. At high tide the wharf was cut off from land by a twelve foot expanse of water. At low water the wharf was inaccessible from the river due to the shallow water at this point. Repeated requests were necessary before the problems were rectified.
\nAn outbreak of scarlet fever in 1889 lent urgency to the already noted need for isolation wards in which to treat sick immigrants. The same year a facility was constructed, but, due to an oversight in the plans, it had no facilities for the provision of gas or water or for the disposal of waste and storm water. Similar problems dogged the long awaited 'disinfecting plant' which was first vandalised and later inundated due to faulty drainage.
\nWhen immigration levels were low, the building was used for a variety of purposes. In 1900 it served as temporary accommodation for the inmates of the Dunwich Asylum which had been appropriated as an isolation ward for plague victims. In 1904-06 it was again appropriated as accommodation for South Sea Islanders being repatriated under new Commonwealth laws. The arrival of an immigrant ship led to the re-location of the Islanders to rented accommodation nearby as it was considered inappropriate to expect the \"two races\" to co-habit.
\nThe outbreak of World War I led to another change in use, the building being requisitioned for use as a military hospital. Few alterations to the fabric occurred although two single-storey wards were constructed to the southeast of the building. At the end of the war, the building provided an ideal reception area for returning servicemen who, with their wives, were feted at public receptions. Most of the building activity associated with this phase was removed at the end of the war.
\nFrom the end of WWI and throughout the 1920s, immigration swelled. The Great Depression of the 1930s led to a rapid fall in numbers, exacerbated by the cancellation of the assisted passage schemes. In 1938 the assistance scheme was reinstated and numbers rapidly climbed, only to fall again with the commencement of WWII.
\nDuring the period of inactivity in the 1930s, the building was used to house the team working on the construction of the Story Bridge. Accommodation for the superintendent of works, Jon Job Crew (JJC) Bradfield, was provided in the eastern room on the ground floor of the north wing. The entire upper floor of the north wing was devoted to offices and drafting rooms for the works in progress. Four dormer windows were inserted into the roof of the North wing dormitory to provide additional light for the draftsmen. The team for the concurrent Stanley River Dam project were relegated to a large room on the lower floor
\nThe bridge construction was undertaken by Evans Deakin, who converted the depot grounds into an industrial site with workshops and storehouses. A row of three open sheds cut off the connection between the hostel and the river, remaining in place until some time after the works were completed. The bridge is carried on tall pylons across the site to the rear of the principal building. The danger from falling debris and intentionally thrown objects has resulted in the need to identify an easement across the property on which no buildings can be constructed.
\nWith the commencement of WWII the hostel was used to accommodate a hundred women and children evacuated from Hong Kong in 1940. In 1941 the depot was once again converted into a hospital, treating general patients. In 1942 it was devoted to 'special' cases - those soldiers suffering the effects of venereal diseases. The buildings along the river frontage continued to be occupied by Evans Deakin, however most of the other structures on the site were used for the treatment of patients. Most of these buildings are now demolished.
\nThe post-war immigration boom led to a renewed life for the building which was renamed Yungaba State Immigration Office and Reception Centre. The name \"Yungaba\" derives from the Gubbi Gubbi Aboriginal language from the Maroochy area and means \"place of sunshine\". The volume of post-war immigration was such that the hostel was unable to cope with more than a small proportion of new arrivals, and the bulk were re-directed to the many empty military camps around the city. Of these, Camp Columbia at Wacol was perhaps the best known.
\nThe post-war period saw extensive alterations made to the building. Cubicles were provided in the downstairs dormitories, toilet facilities were re-modelled or re-built, the kitchen was enlarged and refurbished and the exterior brickwork was limewashed. Minor alterations occurred until 1990 when the verandahs were removed and reconstructed. In 1993 the building was refitted to provide office accommodation for the Department of Family Services. This refit involved the demolition of the partitions in the North wing. The access to the river was regained following the demolition of the sheds occupied by Evans Deakin and new accommodation facilities erected in the 1970s respected this important axis.
\nIn 1988 Yungaba became the first building entered on the Queensland Estate Register maintained under the Cultural Record (Landscapes Queensland and Queensland Estate) Act 1987. The entry was a result of community concern over the impact of the re-development of Kangaroo Point and the need to conserve significant elements of the community's heritage. In 1992 Yungaba was entered in to the Queensland Heritage Register following the introduction of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
\nIn 2019, the depot building has been adaptively reused as apartments and houses ten apartments over two main levels.
","criteria":"Yungaba is symbolic of the high priority that was placed on immigration during the late nineteenth century and the manner in which the colonial, and then State governments provided for those needs. The government's ambitious and extensive immigration programs established Queensland as the 'immigration colony' of Australia with immigration levels higher than any other colony or state in the country.
|Yungaba is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place in that it clearly demonstrates the characteristics of institutional buildings of the late nineteenth century in its symmetrical layout and the hierarchy of decoration used to define the various functions of the place. The relatively unchanged quality of the original fabric provides information regarding the status and priority given to immigration during the period in which it was built.
Yungaba provides an example of the form of accommodation provided for newly arrived immigrants to Australia in the late nineteenth century. Its original layout, with gender- separated dormitory accommodation for singles, single-room accommodations for families and shared toilet facilities provides comment on the understanding of privacy, morality and human behaviour current at the time.
|Yungaba is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community or a particular group as it is a distinguished building located on the banks of the Brisbane River with clear views between the site and the river. Its elegant, yet restrained ornamentation softens the potential austerity of its symmetrical plan.
|Yungaba has a special association with a wide variety of communities and cultural groups for social and cultural reasons. It has been used to accommodate generations of immigrants, to welcome soldiers and their dependents on their return from three major conflicts, it has housed South Sea Islanders awaiting repatriation to their home islands under Commonwealth legislation, and it is closely associated with the construction of the Story Bridge, one of Brisbane's landmarks. Its listing as the first building to be protected under the Cultural Record (Landscapes Queensland and Queensland Estate) Act 1987 demonstrates is strong community value within the city of Brisbane.
|Yungaba has a particular association with the works of J J Clark, Colonial Architect and William Parry Okeden, later Under Colonial Secretary, who was instrumental in the settlement of both the shearers' strikes and the problems with the Native Police. Parry-Okeden also had a significant role in the relationship between the colonial government and Aborigines due to his extensive knowledge of Aboriginal languages and dialects.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15021,"place_ref":600246,"name":"Leckhampton","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"69 Shafston Avenue","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Leckhampton is a two-storeyed brick house with a ribbed iron hipped roof. The front and south-east side of the house are sheltered on both levels by deep verandahs which feature decorative cast-iron balusters, columns and friezes. A square, double-storeyed bay, surmounted by a parapet, projects from the northern corner of the main facade. Entry is through a pedimented doorway which leads to a vestibule hall and stairway lit by an impressive stained glass window. Two single-storeyed enclosed verandahs have been added to the rear. A new paved entertainment and pool area behind the house link Leckhampton with the new building.
","history":"Considered to be the work of noted architect Alexander B Wilson, Leckhampton was built for Charles Snow shortly after he purchased the land in 1889. Snow, a prominent city jeweller, was also the founder of the Boy Scouts in Queensland. He died in 1913 and the house remained in the Snow family until 1924.
Leckhampton was converted into flats by the 1960s. In 1984 the building was refurbished as office accommodation. As part of the redevelopment a similarly styled building was constructed next door.
","criteria":"Leckhampton provides evidence of an expression of confidence during the 1880s by a prominent businessman and of the earlier affluent residential character of parts of Kangaroo Point.
|Leckhampton is significant as an externally intact and aesthetically pleasing example of a large, late nineteenth century, city residence on the southside.
|Leckhampton is significant as an externally intact and aesthetically pleasing example of a large, late nineteenth century, city residence on the southside.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15022,"place_ref":600247,"name":"Lota House - Edwin Marsden Tooth Memorial Home","alternate_name":"Lota House; Edwin Marsden Tooth Memorial Home","street_address":"162 Oceana Terrace","suburb":"LOTA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Lota House is a two-storeyed rendered brick building with timber extensions, which stands on the crest of a hill rising up from The Esplanade at Lota, on the shores of Moreton Bay. The house overlooks the bay to the northeast. Between the house and the bay is a strip of eucalypt woodland which runs along the cliff to The Esplanade, and then returns along a gully by the southeast boundary.
The site is grassed with a scattering of eucalypts, particularly in the southeastern corner which is the subject of a Brisbane City Council Vegetation Protection Order. There is a variety of large planted trees including a fig, camphor laurels, and particularly a bunya pine, on the northwestern side of the house. The present access to the site is by a curving bitumen driveway lined with pine trees from Oceana Terrace to the southwest, which terminates at the entry to the house. To the south side of the drive is a timber garage with a gabled corrugated iron roof.
Through the site is a series of single-storeyed accommodation buildings for the aged which have been constructed since the acquisition of the property by the Anglican Church. These buildings are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Linking these buildings are covered ways which run across the northeastern and northwestern elevations of the house.
At present, the lower level of the original part of Lota House is used for activities for the residents, hairdressing, and a small office space under the stair. The upper level is the residence of the Superintendent and her family which extends into the southwest extension. The rear section of this level is for overnight staff accommodation. The lower level of this wing houses the kitchen and some store areas. The northwest wing is the new Dining Room and the Chapel.
The original section of Lota House is a two-storeyed rendered brick building with characteristics demonstrating Georgian influence. The entry to the house is from the circular driveway to the southeast, but the principal facade is the symmetrical northeastern face addressing the bay. The hipped roof of the house and the verandah roof are both of slate. At each end of the roof is a moulded brick chimney. The upper level single-pane sashed windows and ground level French doors have louvred cedar shutters on unusual iron rails and recessed tracks which slide to close. It has a wide concrete verandah to three sides, with a colonnade of turned timber posts of Tuscan order, paired either side of the entry, and as a triplet to one corner. The verandah also retains much of its sandstone nosing.
Running southwest from the original house is a two-storeyed weatherboard addition with a hipped corrugated iron roof and a pair of brick chimneys which join into one. The windows are small-paned timber sashed and casements, with those to the southeast facade having hoods of ripple iron and timber. Running northwest from the original house is a single-storeyed addition. It contains the Chapel, formerly the Billiard Room which is clad also in weatherboards, with a corrugated steel half-hipped roof and gablets of louvred timber vents. It also contains the new main Dining Room, added as part of the conversion to a retirement home, which is a steel framed structure with a metal deck roof.
From the verandah, the large four-panelled entry door leads to the Entry Hall, which then opens into the Drawing Room, the Dining Room, a room now used for hairdressing, and the former Office which is now the passage to the kitchen. At the end of the hall is a plaster archway leading to the main timber stair to the upper level. The doors are tall, four-panelled polished cedar doors with unusual hinged ventilation panels in the timber fanlights. The ceiling exhibits the undulations of probable lathe and plaster construction, and has a circular plaster moulding in its centre where a ceiling rose may once have been. The Dining and Drawing Rooms are separated by a dividing wall of tall polished cedar hinged doors, panelled similarly to the other interior doors. Glazed French doors lead from these rooms onto the verandah. Both rooms have timber chimney-pieces dating from early this century. The taller of these, to the Drawing Room, features turned posts, a mirror and tiled surround. Much of the original polished cedar joinery is still intact, including doors, skirtings, and architraves to doorways and the dividing wall opening.
The main stair, also of cedar, has turned timber balusters and newels. Up two steps at the landing is a linen store with a ripple iron ceiling. From the upper landing is a plaster archway similar to that of the lower level, leading to a hall from which open four rooms, formerly Bedrooms and a Dressing Room. The larger two of these, now the Living Room and Kitchen, have simple cedar chimneypieces decorated with pilasters and scrolled consoles. Also from the upper landing is an archway filled with a polished timber door and glazed screen leading to the former schoolroom and the remainder of the timber extension. Above the stair is some further steps to a landing leading to small attic-type room formerly called the "Little Room" which is over the Linen Room. The doorways to this level are similar to those below, but the ventilation panels in the fanlights are of more squat proportions.
The lower level of the southwest addition contains the main kitchen including cold room, pantry and servery; staff dining room; laundry and the secondary timber stair to the upper level. This level was largely altered as part of the conversion to a retirement home. The stair has squared newels with tapered caps, and a slatted balustrade. The rooms have tongue and groove boarded walls and ceilings, with fretted ceiling roses. The doors here are also low-waisted and four-panelled, but are painted and have tilting glazed fanlights above.
At the end of the northwest addition is the Chapel. It also has walls and ceilings lined with tongue and groove boards. The ceiling is raked to the line of the collar tie, and has a pressed metal ceiling rose at its centre. The floor is of narrow polished timber boards. To the southwestern end, a raised timber platform forming a sanctuary has been added.
","history":"The earliest section of Lota House, a substantial two-storeyed rendered brick residence, was constructed in 1865-66 for Irish born Queensland squatter and politician William Duckett White, MLC. The name commemorates the family home of his wife, Jane Simpson, in County Cork, Ireland.
William and Jane White and their two children emigrated from Ireland to Sydney as assisted immigrants in 1840, and bought farm land on the Richmond River. Flood losses forced the family out of the Richmond and through 1842-43 White taught school in the Mangrove area north of Sydney until accepting an offer in 1844 to manage Beau Desert run in the Moreton Bay District for his cousin Joseph Phelps Robinson. Robinson died in 1848, following which his brother George and WD White raised the capital to purchase Beau Desert, one of the largest runs on the Logan. About 1857, WD White left Beau Desert under the management of his son, Albert William Duckett White, and William, Jane and their daughter Helena moved to Eagle Farm near Brisbane. On 26 April 1861 White was appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council, a position he held for over 19 years until 5 August 1880.
WD White (later WD White & Son, then WD White & Sons) acquired considerable Queensland property. In addition to the Beau Desert holding, White took up three runs in the Gold Coast hinterland in the early 1850s: Tubber in 1852 and Murry Jerry and Dungogie runs acquired from AW Compigne in 1853. In 1867 he took up the lease of Pimpama and Cumboomba (or Coombabah) runs in the Beenleigh area but these were thrown open for selection in 1869, the lease lapsed, and in 1871 White acquired from Robert Towns the consolidated runs of Kerry, Sarabah, and Nindooinbah adjacent to Beau Desert. Much of Beau Desert was cut up for closer settlement in the 1860s and early 1870s, following which WD White & Son acquired the Bluff Downs holdings in the Kennedy District 1872-76. From 1882 the Whites were in partnership with the Collins family of Mundoolun on the Logan as White Collins & Co., and in the 1880s and 1890s this partnership, which survived for about a century, acquired several stations in northwest Queensland. Besides this pastoral empire, the Whites also held Beenleigh and Southport town properties and the Lota estate near Brisbane.
Between 1860 and 1863 WD White acquired adjoining lands overlooking Waterloo Bay near Brisbane, to create a bayside property of about 350 acres. Approximately 200 acres (portions 79, 79A and 145, parish of Tingalpa) bounded by what is now Gannon Avenue to the north, Whites Road to the west, Hides and Orallo Streets to the south, and Waterloo Bay to the east, were acquired in WD White's name. Portion 90, the land lying to the south between Hides and Orallo Streets and Lota Creek, was acquired in the names of WD White, RGW Herbert (first Premier of Queensland) and J Bramston, but appears to have been worked as part of White's Lota estate from an early period.
Lota House was erected on portion 79, comprising 153 acres purchased by White in November 1860 and transferred to him in January 1861. Brisbane architect Thomas Taylor called tenders for a villa residence at Lota in November 1865, the proprietor to provide the stone, brick, lime and timber. By June 1866 Taylor, architect to the Hon. William Duckett White [Brisbane Courier 16 June 1866 p1 c3] was in debt and White called the tenders for the plumbing and plastering work. The Whites are believed to have resided at Wyvernleigh [erected early 1860s, now demolished] on the adjacent Manly estate while Lota House was built, enabling WD White's close supervision of the construction. Lota House was completed by January 1867, when it was described by the White's son-in-law, Graham Mylne, as a grand, comfortable new house with large rooms, fresh breezes, and views over Moreton Bay.
The entrance to Lota House faced south, but the principal rooms overlooked the bay to the east. A dairy was located on the southwest corner of the house, truncating the surrounding ground floor verandahs. The ground floor comprised a large entrance vestibule with drawing and dining rooms to the right, an office and staircase leading to the upper level on the right, a small sitting room at the end of the hall, next to which was a bootroom, and a pantry beneath the staircase, from which access to a cellar was gained. Upstairs comprised bedrooms and a dressing room. Servants' quarters and kitchen were located in a detached wing.
The Whites developed their property as a country estate in the tradition of British landed gentry, and by the 1880s it was well established. A pair of big white gates flanked by Moreton Bay figs (located on what is now White's Road with a gatekeeper's lodge nearby) gave access to a curved drive leading through open grass paddocks to the house, which was surrounded by extensive gardens designed by Jane White. At the rear of the house a grassed courtyard separated it from stables, coachhouses, and haylofts opposite, and a detached kitchen wing and servants' quarters at right angles to the main building was connected to the house by a covered walkway. In the courtyard were two deep underground tanks, each covered with a large, circular cut stone, and from these rain water was pumped to the house, kitchen, stables and garden. Further to the west, on the slope behind the stables, were yards, cow bales, fowl houses and pig styes, as well as a hut accommodating South Sea Islanders working on the property. Cows and horses grazed in the paddocks surrounding the house, and maize, sorghum and hay were grown on the flats of Lota Creek as supplementary fodder. Like most of the farmers in the district, White probably grew sugar cane on the property. The estate ran down to the bay, where by the 1910s there was a boat-shed and jetty.
The Whites often entertained at Lota House, and Governor Bowen and RGW Herbert were frequent visitors. Herbert not only was in partnership with White in some of the Lota land, but had acquired in his own name portions 88, 89 and 91, comprising at least 250 acres, to the west of White's Road.
WD White was active in the local community, being one of the first members of the Bulimba Divisional Board established in 1879-80, a warden of the Tingalpa Anglican Church (now Christ Church, Tingalpa), and a Justice of the Peace.
In 1867 he transferred the Lota estate (portions 79, 79A and 90) to his wife. When Jane White died in 1887 the estate passed to her son Albert William Duckett White of Bluff Downs, with life tenancy for her husband WD White. In 1890 the railways resumed some Lota land for the Brisbane-Cleveland line.
Following William Duckett White's death in 1893 the house was rented to various tenants, during which time it fell into disrepair and the garden deteriorated. In 1908, WD White's grandson, William Duckett White (Duckett) acquired the property. Duckett had married in 1906 and on return from a world tour in 1908, he and his wife took up residence at Lota House, which they renovated and extended. The extensions were of timber and comprised a substantial two-storeyed wing at the rear incorporating kitchen and laundry on the ground floor and service stairs leading to a school room, spare bedroom, two bathrooms and servants' quarters on the upper floor; a single-storeyed day nursery on the west corner of the downstairs verandah; a separate billiard room to the northwest of the house; and a covered way and bush house roofed with wooden slats between the billiard room and the main house. Brisbane architect Claude W Chambers called tenders for the work in September 1908. At this time, the 1865-66 dining and drawing rooms were redecorated by the Sydney firm Beard Watsons with ornate timber mantelpieces (replacing earlier white marble) and new wallpapers and carpets. Duckett White also subdivided the estate, with land sales starting from 1911, and the grounds surrounding Lota House were reduced to just under 10 acres. The pine trees lining the driveway from Oceana Terrace to the front of the house most likely were planted at this period.
WD White's daughter Helena had married a Capt Graham Mylne and their son Graham Ernest Mylne purchased Lota House from his cousin Duckett White in 1913. The Mylnes took up residence in October 1913, but title to the property was not transferred until April 1914. Graham was general manager of White Collins & Co. from 1913 to 1942, and his wife Kathleen was prominently involved with the Queensland Country Women's Association. The Mylnes resided at Lota House until Graham's death in 1958, following which the family sold the property to the Anglican Church in late 1960.
To fund the purchase the Church utilised a legacy from Sir Edwin Tooth combined with a government subsidy, and on 27 July 1963 Lady Tooth opened Lota House - Edwin Marsden Tooth Memorial Home as accommodation for the aged. Three accommodation blocks were erected on the property at that time, and several new facilities were opened in 1991. At this time, the covered way, bushhouse and part of the former billiard room (now a chapel) were removed to accommodate a large dining room. In the early 1990s the main building was refurbished. Lota House remains the property of the Anglican Church and still functions as aged accommodation.
In the mid-1980s the Friends of EM Tooth Memorial Home were founded. Although this voluntary group is largely concerned with the welfare of the home's residents, the Friends are also keenly interested in the history and heritage of the place and were involved with its recent refurbishment.
The remnant eucalypt woodland on the southeast and southwest perimeters of the property has been associated with Lota House from the earliest establishment of the estate. The woodland, which extends over the cliff along The Esplanade, forms a landmark in the Lota area and has been entered in the Brisbane City Council's Brisbane Conservation Atlas (prepared in the 1980s and 1990s) for its high biological and scenic values. In 1992 this woodland was subject to a BCC Vegetation Protection Order for its high scenic and landscape value.
","criteria":"Lota House illustrates part of the pattern of Queensland history: the 1860s establishment of gentry estates in Brisbane's eastern bayside suburbs. In particular, the formation and later subdivision of the Lota Estate determined the manner in which the Lota area developed from the 1860s to the early years of the 20th century.
|The house is rare as the oldest surviving residence in the Manly-Lota area, remains one of few 1860s residences of its type to survive in Queensland, and offers an illustration of a past way of life which is no longer common. It is also a rare example of 1860s Georgian-influenced domestic architecture surviving in Queensland. The surviving eucalypt woodland, the Bunya pine and other early trees provide rare evidence of the nature of the early Lota estate garden and grounds.
|The earliest section of Lota House illustrates the principal characteristics of a substantial, two-storeyed, Georgian-influenced 1860s brick residence, in particular the external and internal symmetry and proportions, delicate detailing, and choice of materials: brick, render, slate and cedar. Its siting on a prominent location with panoramic views and extensive grounds exemplifies its class and era. The 1908 extensions and renovations illustrate the evolving nature of a large, bayside family home.
|The earliest section of Lota House is important in exhibiting a number of aesthetic features: the simple rectilinear form punctuated by the colonnaded verandah retains the elegant symmetry and proportion of the Georgian influence; the retention of the internal proportions and planning; the substantial amount of original fabric remaining intact, particularly the cedar joinery which includes doors, skirtings, architraves and staircases; and the sliding louvred shutters to the upper windows and French doors which are also rare and innovative.
The woodland is a landmark in the Lota area.
|Lota House has an important association for the local community with the establishment and development of European settlement in the Manly-Lota district: the name of the suburb is derived from Lota House, a number of the nearby streets have been named after Lota House occupants, and the place features prominently in the published history of the area.
|Lota House is significant also for its association with prominent Queensland pastoralist and politician William Duckett White and his family, the property remaining with the White-Mylne families for over a century. It has had a strong association with the work of the Anglican Church in aged care since the early 1960s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15023,"place_ref":600248,"name":"Fort Lytton","alternate_name":"Fort Lytton National Park","street_address":"160 South Street","suburb":"LYTTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Fort Lytton (established 1880-82) is situated on low-lying ground at the south head of the original entrance to the Brisbane River. It is approached by land from the south, through the former Lytton Quarantine Station (established 1913-14), with entry via South Street at Lytton. Downstream from the fort is the Port of Brisbane, established in the last quarter of the 20th century on mostly reclaimed land; to the east, the land between the fort and Lytton Hill is occupied by the Lytton Oil Refinery.
\nThe fort area is defined by a wire perimeter fence and can be divided into two sections – the eastern area and the western area (separated by a moat that primarily wraps around the perimeter of the eastern area’s north end).
\nFeatures of Fort Lytton of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEastern area
\nThe eastern area of the fort comprises the fortifications-proper (Earthwork Fort) at the north end of the site, and an open drill area to the south. On the eastern side of the drill area are two substantial, c1880s brick stores. These are both rectangular in form, with corrugated-iron gabled roofs, and set on concrete slabs. They have six-pane double-hung sash windows and large timber doors at the eastern ends. The buildings have been restored and house an interpretative display and military museum. Four concrete slabs to the west of these buildings mark the position of other structures since removed.
\nBeyond these buildings the fortifications are entered across a causeway over the moat and an open passage through the earthen embankment. The passage is lined with whitewashed concrete walls. The embankment is a high, steeply sloping, turfed glacis in the form of a pentangle which completely encloses the fort structures. The moat extends along four sides of the pentangle, but has been filled-in along the seaward wall of the fort. An arm of water extends towards the west in the direction of the old docking facilities.
\nThe interior of the fort is an open level grassy area. Several cement slabs and foundations are located on the level ground at the base of the southern embankment. The armaments are concentrated along the northern and north western walls of the enclosure. These consist of a series of concrete casemates and seven gun emplacements together with ammunition storage and handling facilities. Gun pits 1 and 2 are arranged symmetrically either side of a recessed area with separate entry. Entry to the gun pits is through a central arched opening. Between these lies a recessed area roofed with an iron awning. The awning shelters two rectangular entrances into the loading gallery. The gun pits are accessed through the arched entrances and consist of a semicircular pit enclosed with concrete walls. In gun pit 1 a restored hydro-pneumatic gun mounting has been installed on which is mounted a restored 6-inch Armstrong breech-loading gun. The pit is covered by a sheet of metal on which is painted a blue area indicating what was once an opening through which the disappearing gun was raised for firing. Gun pit 2 contains evidence of the location of the gun fitting. From gun pit 2 a concrete-lined passage leads to the outer gun pit 7 (which housed a twin 6-pounder gun during WWII. At the base of this, lying askew against the side of the moat, lies the concrete command post (which served during WWII to direct fire from the twin 6-pounder gun). To the south of this area a T-shaped depression in the ground marks the location of the Nordenfelt machine gun position. This lies between gun pits 1 and 2 and gun pits 3 and 4. Gun pit 3 is open to the sky, with steep steps leading from ground level to the top of the embankment. Rectangular in form, it contrasts strongly with the highly modified gun pit 4 (which was altered during WWII). Gun pit 4 has a semicircular front to its overhead protection, allowing a 170° view of the river approaches. At the rear of this structure steps lead down to the interior of the fort.
\nAt the south western corner of the fort a rectangular building faces the moat at ground level. This housed the engine room and coal store.
\nWestern area
\nDirectly across from the engine room and coal store, on the western side of the moat lies a gun cotton store, and on the southern side of the moat is a priming pit for the submarine mines. To the west of the gun cotton store, a low concrete wall is pierced by two semicircular enclosures (gun pits 5 and 6) which house the two original 64-pounder muzzle-loading guns. Northwest of these is a concrete two storey tower which housed the searchlight operated during WWII. Some distance to the southwest of these structures a concrete building accommodated the searchlight facilities installed in 1903 to light the minefield. Jetty facilities lie on the banks of the river beside a man-made inlet. To the northeast of the WWII Searchlight Tower are the concrete foundations of the WWII winch blocks which operated the boom gate across the river.
\nGuns, artillery pieces and artefacts related to the use and history of the place
\nThe fort includes original guns and artillery pieces that were part of the fort’s defences, or were used for training on the site, from the colonial era through to the end of WWII. These pieces include:
\nFeatures not of State-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of Fort Lytton not of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFort Lytton, a pentagonal earthwork fortification located at the mouth of the Brisbane River, part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, was constructed in 1880-82 by the Queensland Government on advice from British military engineers Col. Sir WFD Jervois and Lt. Col. PH Scratchley. The fort contributed to the coastal defence of Queensland until the end of the Second World War (WWII). In 1990 the site was gazetted as an Historic National Park.
\nPrior to the 1860s, defence of the Australian colonies had been solely the responsibility of the Imperial government. Britain considered that the Imperial Navy would always provide the first line of defence in any threat to her colonial empire, but from 1863 required the Australian colonies, by then self-governing, to contribute toward the costs of maintaining Imperial garrisons on colonial soil, and encouraged the colonies to provide for their own military infrastructure such as fortifications and barracks. Queensland, which had separated from New South Wales in December 1859, could not afford to contribute to Imperial defence, and so Imperial troops were gradually withdrawn from the colony - the last had left by 1870. In the 1860s Queensland established a number of volunteer defence units, based on the British model, but their effectiveness was severely impaired by a lack of armaments and ammunition.
\nBy the 1870s the Australian colonies were developing rapidly and were concerned with potential threats from colonial powers such as Russia and France (the latter had annexed New Caledonia in 1873). In 1877 the colonial governments of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, anxious to secure the land defence of their coastlines, jointly invited British Royal Engineers Colonel Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois and Lieutenant-Colonel Peter H Scratchley, to inspect existing defence installations and make recommendations as to how these might be improved. Scratchley's particular expertise was in the design and construction of deterrent coastal fortresses.
\nJervois and Scratchley identified maritime attacks as the greatest threat to Australia, and recommended that coastal defences be developed for all the mainland colonies. Despite being physically closer to the source of most threats, Queensland, with its sparse population and limited resources, was not considered to be greatly at risk. In his August 1877 preliminary report on Queensland coastal defences, Jervois identified the principal threat to Queensland security as an attack from the sea on the major ports (Brisbane, Rockhampton and Maryborough), in the form of city bombardment to secure supplies and coal, rather than for permanent occupation. Sea-power would prove the first line of defence, but recommended that Brisbane, as the capital and principal port of Queensland, be defended with the construction of a fort at Lytton, at the mouth of the Brisbane River. Moreton Bay, with its myriad of islands on which enemy forces might establish bases from which to raid the mainland, could not possibly be defended. However, sandbars at the mouth of the Brisbane River, which restricted the size of up-river vessels to a 4.8 metre draught (unarmoured gun boats), provided a natural defence which could be enhanced with the construction of a fort at the river mouth, supplemented by sub-marine mines located so as to force shipping within range of the guns located at the fort.
\nIn late 1878, despite initial opposition to the cost of Jervois' scheme, the Queensland Parliament sanctioned the construction of Fort Lytton. Early in 1879 Scratchley fixed the position of the battery, and Colonial Architect FDG Stanley, in consultation with Scratchley, commenced work on plans for the barracks, magazines and gun emplacements, which were to be constructed in brick and concrete. Excavation and earthworks for the Lytton battery commenced in August 1880, tenders for construction of barracks, magazine, etc were called in September 1880, and the main battery was completed by mid-1882. The contractor for the whole was John Watson of Bulimba.
\nThe fort was constructed at an initial cost of £10,000 and comprised four gun emplacements protected by a closed earthwork parapet, surrounded by a water-filled moat, which extended a quarter of a mile around the perimeter, enclosing some 900 square yards of ground. Within the moat was a narrow berm, beyond which was an earthen mound or parapet, turfed to reduce the risk of erosion and to improve the camouflage of the site – the object being to conceal the fort from ships entering the river. The mound formed an irregular pentagon, and within the parapet were set four gun-bays to house the guns. Gun pits 1 and 2 on the fort’s right (north) face, with 6-inch rifled, muzzle-loading (RML) guns, protected the seaward approach to the fort, and pits 3 and 4 on the left (northwest) face, with 64-pounder RMLs, covered the mined area within the river mouth. In 1893 the 64-pounders in gun pits 3 and 4 were replaced with 6-pounder quick firing (QF) guns, and gun pits 5 and 6, outside and on the left flank of the main fort, were constructed to house the 64-pounder RML guns. The landward side was to be defended by field guns.
\nInside the fort were barracks and magazines, including a powder room and a shell room, with brick-lined passages connecting the magazines to the gun emplacements. Lifting tackle was installed on rails to facilitate the handling of ammunition. Special accommodation was provided for the electrical connections associated with the submarine explosive devices which were strung across the river. The rear parapet sheltered timber buildings to house the officers, guards, cook-house and ablutions areas. The entry was provided with a timber bridge and the entry passage was reinforced with timber blocks bolted together. A wooden gate reinforced with iron sheeting protected the entry. Scratchley also arranged for prickly plants, trees and buffalo grass to be planted over the battery, to supplement the defences. In addition, a boys' reformatory was established on nearby Lytton Hill [QHR 601366] in 1880-81, the buildings to serve a dual function as part of a Redoubt commanding Fort Lytton. The Redoubt was not completed until 1885.
\nEven as Fort Lytton was under construction, attitudes towards colonial defence were changing. Military experts were supporting the implementation of more mobile defence forces, as opposed to fixed facilities such as the Lytton battery. Technology was changing rapidly, both for weaponry and shipping, such that techniques for defence against maritime attack were under constant review. Despite this, Fort Lytton was maintained and contributed to Queensland's defences until the mid-20th century. It also served as a semi-permanent military camp from 1881 until the early 1930s, principally during the annual Easter Encampments at which militia from all over Queensland gathered at Lytton for manoeuvres.
\nFollowing the passage of Queensland's Defence Act 1884 under which a core defence force of 150 men was established, supplemented by militia groups, \"A\" Battery Queensland Artillery was garrisoned at Fort Lytton. During the 'Russian scare' of March 1885 (generated by British-Russian mobilisation along the Afghanistan border), 20 men from \"A\" Battery, and 200 troops raised from militia units, were mobilised at Fort Lytton to defend Brisbane; the force was stood down in May when the border dispute was submitted to arbitration.
\nFollowing the 'Russian scare' a series of improvements to the Lytton battery were approved in 1887. These included the provision of casemates immediately behind the two 6-inch gun pits, and an engine shed at the southwest corner of the fort to accommodate dynamo, two boilers, and duplicate engines. An underground tank to hold 10,000 gallons of water was also constructed. The fort’s 6-inch muzzle-loading guns were replaced by 6-inch breech-loading guns on hydro-pneumatic carriages. These new guns, both emplaced c1888-89, could ‘disappear’ down into their gun pits for reloading, and their emplacements were modified accordingly. The slope of the embankments at Fort Lytton was eased to provide a deflection surface or glacis for enemy shells. Further improvements occurred as funds became available.
\nWhen the Lytton Defence Reserve of 120 acres (48 hectares) was finally gazetted late in 1887, it included Reformatory Hill, Fort Lytton, and possibly part of the Customs Reserve. By 1901 the Defence Reserve had been extended to 640 acres (259 hectares) following the resumption (in two stages: 1891 and 1900) of Lytton township for defence purposes.
\nThe severe economic depression of the early 1890s restricted expenditure on Fort Lytton, but by 1897 money was once again being spent on the facility. A shed was provided for artillery stores and a new smithy, fitters' and carpenters' workshops and a large new store were constructed. Additional storage was provided in 1900.
\nIn 1901 the Queensland Defence Force was amalgamated into the new Commonwealth defence force, and Fort Lytton was transferred to Commonwealth ownership. By this time, the fort’s armament included three Nordenfelt volley guns: a 4-barrel Nordenfelt of 1 inch calibre; and two 10-barrel Nordenfelt guns of 0.45 inch calibre. Various small improvements were made to the fort during the early 1900s. In 1903 a new concrete base was provided for the search light which had been installed in 1892. Culverts, roads and wharf structures were repaired and improved. A new bridge was provided over the moat in 1907 as well as new ablutions areas, gates and kitchen facilities. In the years immediately prior to the First World War (WWI, 1914-18) yards for horses were provided and major repairs were made to the wharf servicing the fort. With the outbreak of war, new barracks and cook-houses were erected (1914-15) and water supplies and drainage were improved. A new forage barn was built in 1916 and a dermatological hospital was constructed on Lytton Hill in 1917. The fort fired in anger only twice during WWI – on both occasions a round was fired across the bows of civilian craft which ignored procedures for approaching the river mouth during war time.
\nIn 1913-14 a quarantine station was established on land adjacent to the fort. This accommodated newly arrived immigrants and persons considered to be at risk of causing infection to the general population. The quarantine station buildings at various times also provided accommodation for persons stationed at the fort. Fort Lytton also played a role in the function of the quarantine station, controlling ships attempting to enter the Brisbane River without appropriate health clearances.
\nBy the end of WWI the inadequacies of Fort Lytton as a defensive base were clearly apparent. Expenditure was kept to a minimum during the interwar period and in 1932 the wharf at Fort Lytton was closed, with the battery relying on the berthing facilities at the quarantine station. In 1938 training walls and revetments were installed along the river banks to improve navigation and flood control.
\nWWII (1939-45) brought a major change in the role which Fort Lytton served in the defence of Australia. The longer-ranging capabilities of modern armaments made real the threat of shipping and aircraft strikes. In response, outer coastal battery and controlled mining defences were established on Moreton and Bribie Islands, and heavy anti-aircraft installations were provided at Lytton, Colmslie, Hemmant, Balmoral, Heath Park, Victoria Park, Bannister Park in Hendra, Pinkenba, Archerfield, and Amberley. Fort Lytton provided an important coastal communication link and was pivotal to the coastal defence of the Brisbane River. Boom defences against submarine invasion were placed in the river at Lytton, and the fort was adapted to defend these: gun pit 4 was altered, with concrete overhead protection, to accommodate a modern 4.7 inch QF gun; gun pit 7 was installed to house a twin-barrelled 6-pounder QF gun; and a concrete forward command post on timber legs was constructed to provide a better viewing position than was available previously. A signal station was established on Lytton Hill early in the war and replaced with an RAAF radar station. A heavy anti-aircraft battery [QHR 650230] was established on land between the fort and the hill. Coastal artillery units also trained on their guns at Lytton during the war, before being deployed elsewhere.
\nFort Lytton's role as a defensive facility ceased in 1946 when all fixed coastal defensive positions in Australia were decommissioned, but military authorities reinstated Fort Lytton as a signals and communications base through the 1950s. In the early 1960s the land was acquired by Ampol for the establishment of an oil refinery. During the construction of the refinery fill was deposited in the moat. The timber bridge across the moat, which the military had damaged by fire in the 1950s, was later replaced by a permanent causeway.
\nBesides its defence and communications functions, the Lytton battery also acquired a ceremonial role. In May 1901 it was the venue for His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, to present medals to Lytton-trained troops who had served in the South African War (1899-1902). In 1963 a 21 gun salute at Lytton welcomed Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II in the Britannia as she sailed up the Brisbane River. In April 1991 the muzzle-loading cannon at the fort were fired to greet Royal Australian Navy vessels returning from the Gulf War.
\nBy the 1970s various community-based historical groups were lobbying for the protection and restoration of the area and in 1988 the Department of Environment, Conservation and Tourism, through the National Parks and Wildlife Service, took over the management of the former fort. In 1990 Fort Lytton was declared an Historic National Park, and during the last decade of the 20th century the site was recorded, and the framework of the fort restored. Two original 64-pounder muzzle-loading guns were returned to their emplacements in gun pits 5 and 6. Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service established the Lytton Museum in the former artillery store in 1991. Preliminary works in anticipation of the stabilisation of some concrete roofs and retaining walls, and the restoration of existing drainage pipes, was undertaken in 1994. Stabilisation and restoration work has subsequently continued on-site.
\nFrom 1992 the Fort Lytton Historical Association worked with Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to enhance the Fort’s interpretation through the installation of replica artillery pieces in their original positions. This included in 1996 the breech-loading hydro-pneumatic 6-inch gun in pit No. 1. Fort Lytton Historical Association has also conducted guided tours of the Fort and has further assisted interpretation through the development of an on-site historical artillery collection. This includes a number of artillery and other historic items relevant to the history of the site (such as the Air Defence Predictor and Sperry Searchlight). Collectively these form a permanent display of artefacts which assist in the interpretation of the site. From 1990 regular firing of the muzzle-loading cannons commenced, and annual re-enactment pageants at the fort continued until 2019.
\nIn 1999, Fort Lytton National Park was extended with the incorporation of part of the adjacent former Lytton Quarantine Station. The buildings on this site have been occupied and managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service since 1988, and serve as the administration centre for Fort Lytton National Park. In 2018 the Queensland Military Historical Society established a new museum in the former Quarantine Station Dining hall. In 2024, Lytton Hill and the WWII heavy anti-aircraft battery remain outside the National Park, on land occupied by the Lytton Oil Refinery.
","criteria":"Fort Lytton, constructed 1880-82, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being important evidence of the colony's response to providing for its own coastal defence needs following the withdrawal of Imperial garrisons in the 1860s. It is important for the intactness of the physical evidence of the 1870s defence scheme, and retains additions and alterations which illustrate the evolution of Queensland's defence planning and of military process and technology from the 1880s to the 1940s. The place is significant nationally as part of the first co-ordinated system of coastal defence in Australia.
|Fort Lytton provides rare surviving evidence of a late 19th century coastal fortification in Queensland, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with moat, glacis and gun emplacements in situ.
|Fort Lytton provides rare surviving evidence of a late 19th century coastal fortification in Queensland, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with moat, glacis and gun emplacements in situ. It is important also in illustrating the principal characteristics of 20th century military activity, including Second World War adaptations to accommodate new facilities.
|The place evokes an aesthetic response, engendered by the desolate, denuded, artificial landscape of undulating earthworks and planted grasses, combined with the sense of ruin and remote setting at the mouth of the Brisbane River.
|The fort has a strong association for Queenslanders as a symbol of defence and military activity in Brisbane and in Queensland. The former strong association with annual Easter encampments is now commemorated in the annual Easter displays at the fort.
|The place has a strong association with military activity in Queensland, as a site for defence, training and military support. In addition the place has a special association with the work of Col. Sir WFD Jervois, whose 1877 scheme for the defence of Queensland included recommendation that a fort be established at Lytton, and with the work of Lt-Col. PH Scratchley and Colonial Architect FDG Stanley, who, in the design and construction of Fort Lytton, implemented Jervois' ideas.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15024,"place_ref":600249,"name":"Manly War Memorial","alternate_name":"Soldiers Memorial Park | Manly Dam | Ferguson Street Reserve","street_address":"184 Carlton Terrace","suburb":"MANLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a small park at the end of the main shopping street of Manly. It sits in a constructed oval shaped amphitheatre within the park which comprises a formal arrangement of paths, garden seats, hedges and mature trees.
The memorial is surrounded by kerbing with bollards at each corner which are square in plan with pyramidal apexes. It sits on a circular concrete pad with kerbing to the outside edge.
The digger statue is missing, however the pedestal remains. It sits on a rock faced granite base with a chamfered top. It is of simple design and constructed of sandstone which has been painted.
The plinth has a smooth faced step surmounted by a simple moulding and another smooth faced step. This is capped by a small cornice. The dado has a small base step and the shaft has slightly tapering sides. The front face displays a marble plaque with the leaded names of the local men who fell in the First World War and the word MANLY is incised on the lower step. The western face also displays a marble plaque with the leaded names of the local men who fell in the Second World War.
The pedestal dado is capped by a simple concave cornice.
","history":"The Manly War Memorial was unveiled by WH Barnes, MLA on 5 March 1921. It is not known who designed the memorial, or who the mason was. The memorial, originally of Helidon brown freestone on a base of Enoggera granite, with a statue of Carrara marble, honours the 16 local men who fell during the First World War.
The land on which the park is located was originally part of a 150 acres (61 hectares) lot bought by Thomas Jones in 1860. In 1882 the land was sold to the Arnold brothers who sub divided the land for auction. From the late 1890s the area was designated as a water reserve and eventually formed part of the Manly Dam, filled in some time after 1908. The land was never developed and was subsequently divided by a road. The memorial was erected around 1920, however the land, which had always been considered a park, was not officially resumed until 1937.
Previously known as Manly Memorial Park, it was re-named in 1990 after Richard Russell, pioneer Manly citizen and businessman who was elected Mayor in 1919.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported. They varied slightly in design, presumably to suit the needs of the communities who commissioned them.
The Manly digger statue was plagued by acts of vandalism over the years, which culminated in 1992 in the statue being pulled from the pedestal and the head broken off. The statue was replaced with a concrete replica in 2007, but the original Italian marble statue, thought lost, was rediscovered in a Brisbane City Council depot in Lota in 2013.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1921, the memorial at Manly demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial and its intact setting are a landmark within Manly and contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15025,"place_ref":600250,"name":"Cook Terrace","alternate_name":"Milton Terrace | Gloralgar Flats","street_address":"249 Coronation Drive","suburb":"MILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cook Terrace consists of six two-storeyed rendered brick houses, each with an attic and sub-floor.
The attics are contained within a corrugated iron mansard roof, which is divided by continuations of the party walls, which also separate the front and back verandahs.
Each attic is lit by a single dormer at the rear and a pair at the front. The latter appear to have been added at a later date, and a high front parapet of repeating circles, which partly obscured the roof, probably was removed at the same time.
Each house also has two double chimneys rising above the western dividing walls.
The front elevation is unified by supporting timber posts and capitals with cast-iron valances, brackets and balustrading, much of which has been replaced but not to the original pattern, along ground and first floors. The first floor verandahs are roofed with convex iron and overhang slightly those of the ground floor, and were glazed in 1984. A rendered front wall and stepped approaches separate the terrace from the street pavement.
Each house is constructed to an identical floor plan. On the ground floor an entrance to the side leads to the hallway from which two rooms open - originally drawing and dining rooms. These are divided by folding cedar doors, with a bay window which overlooks the river from the front room. At the far end of the hallway a cedar staircase leads to the first floor and attic.
On the first floor a broad arch separates the two main rooms, which were intended probably as bedroom and sitting room. Two sets of french doors open onto the front verandah from the main room and a smaller adjacent room, which likely was the dressing room, to its right. The rear room is lit by a triple window.
The attic also is divided into a front and back room, but the partitioning is plasterboard and no evidence of any original division is visible.
Interior finishes to each house include cedar joinery, plastered walls, marble fireplace surrounds in the ground floor rooms and tessellated entrance tiles.
Air-conditioning, sound-proofing, electronic security systems and signage, were introduced during the 1980s renovation.
Each house has a detached timber two-storeyed service wing, accessed from the rear verandah. Externally they remain substantially intact, but have been gutted. Glazed terracotta paving tiles, bearing the name J Petrie on the reverse, line the courtyards between the kitchen houses.
Around the turn of the century the western house was remodelled to include: a verandah extension with decorative timber elements of the Federation period along the side wall; a 'dome room' rear addition which features a high coffered ceiling with arched timber ribs, four inch
(10 cm) tongue and groove lining boards, chair rail, and fireplace with its original picture tiles; and pressed metal ceilings and ornamental pillars with capitals in the archway of the two ground floor rooms.
Cook Terrace is situated on one of the busiest arterial roads linking the western suburbs with the centre of the city. However, the river view remains undisturbed, and the mature fig tree in the grounds at the corner of Park Road and Coronation Drive contributes to the nineteenth century ambience.
","history":"This building was constructed as a two-storeyed brick row of six houses in 1888-9 by Brisbane builder Joseph Blain Cook.
In September of 1888 Cook had acquired from squatter John Frederick McDougall the title to subdivisions 1 to 6 of the Milton House estate, a section of prime real estate along the Milton reach of the Brisbane River.
He raised a mortgage of £6000 on the property to finance construction of the terrace. The first house was erected in late 1888, and the remainder of the row was completed in 1889. The architect is unknown.
The terrace was built as a rental property, the Queensland Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act of 1885 prohibiting the granting of titles to individual terrace houses. The enterprise reflected the economic optimism of the late 1880s, but within two years of construction Cook was declared insolvent and the terrace passed to his mortgagees.
By 1895 the row was known as Milton Terrace, and with its river views and breezes and proximity to the centre of town, it remained one of Brisbane's more prestigious rental addresses until well into the twentieth century, attracting mainly professional and white-collar tenants.
The house adjacent to Park Road was occupied by the Rourke family from about 1895 to 1905. They owned the terrace at that period and it is likely they were responsible for adding a southwestern verandah and dome room.
By 1920 each house had been subdivided into at least two flats, and builder Simon Smith, who acquired the property in 1923, may have been responsible for removing the front parapet and installing dormer windows.
By 1928 a tennis court had been established in the southwestern yard. This is no longer extant.
In the thirties the name Milton Terrace was lost, and by the end of the decade the houses were known collectively as Gloralgar Flats.
During the second world war the flats are believed to have been rented by army authorities for officer accommodation.
In the postwar period the verandahs were enclosed and the six houses were converted into twenty-seven flats, which were considered something of a bohemian retreat. Despite its decline, the building remained a visual landmark along Coronation Drive, and in 1984 it was refurbished and recycled as offices and a restaurant.
","criteria":"Completed in 1889, Cook Terrace provides evidence of the 1880s boom era confidence in Brisbane.
|Cook Terrace is substantially intact, including attached timber service wings which are rare, and survives as one of few nineteenth century terraces in Brisbane.
The continuation of the masonry party walls above the roof line, is an uncommon type of construction in attached row housing in Brisbane.
|Cook Terrace is substantially intact, including attached timber service wings which are rare, and survives as one of few nineteenth century terraces in Brisbane.
|Cook Terrace is prominently located fronting Coronation Drive, and contributes to the Coronation Drive riverscape and streetscape.
|Cook Terrace is a local landmark and has a strong association for the people of Brisbane with Milton history, both 19th century and more recent 20th century, particularly when Cook Terrace was converted to flats and attracted a student clientele in the 1960s and 1970s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15026,"place_ref":600251,"name":"Lucerne","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"23 Fernberg Road","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Modest in concept, Lucerne is a single-storey, rectangular brick house with attic rooms. The dwelling consists of a central hallway with study and dining room to the right; a long sitting room to the left; modern kitchen and bathroom facilities at the rear; and an internal cedar staircase leading from a large room, projecting at the rear centre, to attic bedrooms and bathroom. A former detached kitchen house with fireplace is located at the rear to the east. French doors, with casement fanlights above, lead from the two front rooms onto the verandahs. Internal joinery is of cedar, which has been painted, and the walls are plastered. The whole is surmounted by a gabled roof with a ridge running transverse to the axis of the house. Roof shingling has been replaced with galvanised iron. An attic dormer window overlooks a simple timber posted front verandah, from which the original cross-braced balustrading has been removed. Casement windows with bull-nosed hoods have been added to each gable, which retain their scalloped bargeboards. Sympathetic detached additions have been made to the rear of the cottage since 1969.
","history":"James Young, a bricklayer by trade who reputedly worked as a foreman for John Petrie, acquired 6 acres 2 roods of land at Milton, adjoining what later became Bishopsbourne, by deed of grant dated 22 August 1859. The house is believed to have been built by 1862, the first of three homes which Young constructed on the property, to accommodate a family of sixteen children. By the early 1870s Young was renting the house to John Guthrie, listed in the 1874 directories as a squatter, but by the late 1870s as a solicitor. Guthrie is credited with naming the cottage Lucerne. In the late 1870s the Misses Davis possibly ran a school from the premises. By 1877 the house comprised drawing, dining and sitting rooms on the ground floor, an attic space divided into four bedrooms, a bathroom and detached kitchen-house with servant's quarters, along with various outbuildings. Alexander Duncan Campbell purchased the residence on 2 acres 3 roods 33.8 perches early in 1879, and by mid-1883 Lucerne was in the possession of Agnes wife of John Scott MLA (1883-98). Scott, a pastoralist and parliamentarian, resided there until his death in 1898. The property remained in the hands of his heirs until purchased by Miss Annie Hirst in 1905. Members of the Hirst family lived at Lucerne for many years, until the former's death in 1940. Since 1947 the property has had three owners, the Wards, the Morrows and the O'Sullivans, the latter having resided at Lucerne since 1969. In that year a new kitchen and eating area were created along the enclosed rear verandah, and the old detached kitchen converted to a bedroom. A series of detached additions at the rear of the house have been erected since.
","criteria":"Lucerne was built early in the Separation era, when Queenslanders were conscious of the need to substantiate their existence in the local environment. Brick cottages, often the homes of the lower middle-class, were relatively common at this time.
|The gabled brick building with its high-pitched roof and dormer window is a rare survivor in contemporary Brisbane.
Lucerne remains as a fine example of 1860s brick house construction, especially since it was erected by the artisan-owner as a family residence.
|Lucerne is an attractive house of unpretentious yet balanced proportions. The simplicity of form reflects both its function as a first home and the skill of its builder. Details such as the scalloped bargeboards, interior cedar staircase and joinery, and casement fanlights, are obvious aesthetic features.
|In a history spanning approximately one hundred and thirty years, Lucerne, which began as a craftsman's dwelling, became home to a number of notable Queensland families. As early as 1877, the house was advertised as a 'gentleman's residence', and such it has remained.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15027,"place_ref":600252,"name":"Christ Church","alternate_name":"Memorial Church (former) | Christ Church (Anglican)","street_address":"9 Chippendall Street","suburb":"MILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Situated at the corner of Hale and Chippendall Streets, Christ Church and its spire are still a visible and distinctive presence in the surrounding area, which is now occupied by light industry rather than residential buildings. The neighbouring Lang Park Stadium dominates the built environment. The church precinct is separated from the Hale Street diversion by a high retaining wall. An open garden area lies between the church and rectory and the memorial reserve is accessed from there by a gate set in a wall. The church grounds retain some mature trees.
The church is a timber building, set on a low base of concrete blocks. It is cruciform in plan with a slender spire over the crossing. The roof is clad with diamond shaped asbestos cement tiles and the pitch breaks to cover the verandahs on either side. There is a polygonal timber baptistery. The building displays to great advantage the beauty and utility of Queensland timber. The exterior is clad with painted weatherboard except for the outside walls to the verandahs which have exposed studs. Inside, the church is lined with unpainted vee-jointed pine boards which have deepened in colour with age. It has a crown post roof with scissor braces. The transepts contain a Lady Chapel and Warrior's Chapel and are separated from the nave by pointed arches.
The windows in the body of the church are casements with trefoil heads in moulded frames and are set with clear glass, but a group of seven above the altar are set with stained glass depicting Christ and the saints Paul, Mary, John, and Barnabus. The baptistery beyond an arch at the southern end of the building is lit by modern stained glass windows.
A number of fittings reused from the earlier church include a stone font given by Andrew Petrie in 1874 to the first chapel. There is a brass lectern donated as a memorial in 1892 and the pulpit dates from 1914. Pews in the choir and nave are carved and add to the rich timber colours of the interior. There is a timber Honour Board from World War I.
The small pipe organ by Whitehouse to the right of the chancel was extensively rebuilt and electrified in 1984.
The rectory is no longer used for this purpose, although the church uses several rooms on the enclosed verandah facing the street as offices. The body of the house is let as a residence. It is a single-storey timber house with a steeply pitched roof, clad in corrugated iron and decorated with fretted barge boards. It is on low stumps and has brick chimneys. A central hall opens into a dining and living rooms on the left and two bedrooms on the right. At the rear there is a kitchen wing containing scullery, maid's room and kitchen. The house has lath and plaster walls in the main internal rooms, an unusual feature in a comparatively modest home. The verandah has been enclosed and extended over time, however, the house is generally very intact and has well detailed joinery. Details such as the arched timber front demonstrate the influence of the Gothic style.
The Memorial Reserve contains 21 memorials from the former Anglican burial reserve, a number of which commemorate members of well know pioneer families.
","history":"The ecclesiastical precinct at Christ Church Milton contains a timber church and rectory and a memorial reserve. The church was designed in 1891 by J H Buckeridge for use as both a Sunday school and a temporary church. The rectory was built in 1883 to a design of F.D.G. Stanley.
The parish has a close association with the first major burial ground in Brisbane. Established in the early 1840s bordering on Boundary Street, now called Hale Street, the cemetery was divided into sections serving six Christian denominations and the Jewish community. During the 1860s and early 1870s, the Anglican community in Milton held services in the mortuary chapel which served their portion of the cemetery. In 1873 the Parish of Milton was formed and served a larger area than is presently the case, extending to Paddington, Enoggera, Red Hill, Milton, Rosalie, Torwood and Auchenflower. From 1875 burials at the cemetery ceased.
By 1874, the congregation had grown to the point where it needed a larger, more permanent church building. A parcel of land adjacent to the Anglican section of the cemetery was purchased and a stone church constructed to the design of Richard Suter, lay preacher to the congregation and diocesan architect. It was dedicated on 16 January 1876 to the memory of these buried in the adjacent cemetery. Even though funds had been supplemented by borrowing, it was not possible to complete the church as designed and the western end was finished in brick and timber. A rectory was also provided for the parish priest. Additional land was purchased close to the church in 1882 and a timber dwelling in 'Gothic' style was built to the design of F.D.G. Stanley in early 1883. In 1888 the church and rectory allotments were amalgamated into a whole by the purchase of two adjoining blocks.
The foundations to the new church proved to be faulty, necessitating costly repairs. Extensive damage was also sustained during a severe storm in 1890, after which it was decided to sell the church for demolition. A large Sunday School hall was also needed as the population of the area grew. In 1890 there were 250 pupils and 600 in 1900 as the suburbs developed. In the nineteenth century, Sunday schools were thought to be very important, not only to teach religion, where government education was secular, but to mould character and encourage a high standard of ethics in adult life. The congregation could not afford two buildings and so a practical compromise was made in which the new hall was designed to also serve as an interim church.
The new church/school was designed by J.H. Buckeridge. He had been engaged in 1886 as Diocesan Architect by Bishop William Webber, whose vision for the Church in Queensland included the erection of substantial new buildings to serve an expanding population. Although many could not be expensive, they were lifted above the ordinary by Buckeridge through quality of design and materials. Christ Church is possibly his most innovative design and was built for £920 by Lars Anderson, a Danish sawmiller and builder based at Esk. Anderson and his two brothers were very successful in this industry, partly because he had been instrumental in developing a system of light rail to extract timber from areas which were previously inaccessible due to difficult terrain. It is probable that Andersen was chosen rather than a local builder because he had constructed the Anglican Church at Esk. This was also designed by Buckeridge and the Milton parish incumbent, Rev. J.E. Leighton, had previously been Rector there. The choice is justified in the quality of Andersen's work evident in Christ Church. The timber used was shipped down from the Esk valley and the design made full use of the attributes of the various species.
The stump capping took place on 4 June 1891 and the building was opened and dedicated by Bishop Webber on 18 September 1891. The new church/hall building was placed on a different location within the allotment to the existing church as this continued in use while the hall was built. Some furnishings were transferred, including a stone font donated to the first chapel by Andrew Petrie. Due to the financial constraints under which the church was operating, and the original perception of the place as principally serving as a Sunday School, many of the furnishings of the church were added later. The roof was originally clad in timber shingles.
From the beginning the church served not only the residents of the surrounding area, but also the staff and inmates of the nearby gaol. It ministered to the needs of the neighbouring garrison at Victoria Barracks and provided spiritual support to outlying communities. The parish established a number of social activities including a men's society, ladies' guild and girl's friendly society, but it also made an important contribution to the wider community by the foundation by the Mother's Union of a home nursing service that was to evolve into St Luke's Nursing Service.
The old cemetery grounds fell into disrepair and in 1911 the land was resumed for public purposes. Although some burials were re-interred in other cemeteries, in many cases only the headstones were relocated. In 1912-14 over 500 headstones were removed to a memorial reserve set aside within the boundary of the old Anglican cemetery section, which contained some twenty four burials. During the Depression most of these stones were removed and destroyed.
Between 1905 and 1908, a timber hall was built to the east of the church and in 1918 additions and alterations were made including the replacement of the roof shingles with asbestos cement tiles and the acquisition of a larger organ which necessitated alterations to the floor and ceiling. Changes to the fabric of the church have otherwise been minor.
In 1987 a ring road was proposed which meant resumption of a substantial section of the church grounds including part of the Memorial Reserve. In spite of strong objections by the congregation and community, road construction went ahead in 1989/90. The hall was demolished and the headstones were relocated within the remaining memorial reserve, which contains some early burials and provides evidence for use of this area as Brisbane's first public cemetery.
Despite the original intention of the hall serving only as an intermediate church, the building continues in use as a church to this day. The timber stumps have been replaced by low wall of concrete blocks and there are modern toilets built underneath. The spire was damaged by a storm in 1985 and was rebuilt without the ventilation louvres.
","criteria":"Christ Church Milton is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, containing within its grounds a section of Brisbane's first public cemetery. Christ Church is closely associated with the development of Milton and Petrie Terrace as suburbs of Brisbane and as a 'mother church' nurtured the development of several later parishes. The size and quality of the church building, intended originally as a Sunday School, demonstrates the importance given to religious education in nineteenth century Queensland.
|The timbers from the Esk Valley used in the construction of the church are of a size and quality that have become rare today. The positioning of the church, rectory and hall in close proximity to the graveyard is an uncommon characteristic in Queensland churches. The reserve and the graves and memorials it contains are the only visible evidence of Queensland's first major public cemetery.
|Christ Church Milton is important as a good example of a Sunday School hall and church combined; an option that a number of early parishes chose as an interim measure where financial resources were limited. The wide verandahs and open floor space are characteristic of a hall, yet the building also has ecclesiastical features such as a cruciform floor plan, a steeple/ventilator and a baptistery. The rectory is a good, intact example of a cottage ornée of its era, having a quality of design and finish unusual in a house of its modest scale. The memorials contained in the reserve demonstrate 19th century customs connected with burial and mourning.
|Christ Church Milton has aesthetic significance for the quality of its design, exhibiting such features relating to the Arts and Crafts movement as a highly competent use of timber materials throughout, the broken pitch of the principal roof and the introduction of an elaborate roof form. The rectory has aesthetic significance as a well executed Gothic cottage ornée, a style perhaps thought particularly suitable for church house.
|Christ Church Milton is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative and technical achievement at a particular period. The use of a variety of timbers and the treatment of the ceiling show a high degree of technical competence. The design is an imaginative solution to the problem of containing diverse uses in a single building and shows a considered response to climate through its use of wide verandahs and a ventilator incorporated into the steeple.
|It has social and spiritual associations with the congregation of the parish, some of whom made notable contributions to the wider community.
|Christ Church has a special association with the life and work of the Diocesan Architect, J H Buckeridge, and Bishop William Webber, whose vision for the developing church in Queensland encompassed new buildings of substance and quality. It is associated with the work of Lars Anderson whose innovative methods contributed to the development of the Queensland timber industry particularly in the Brisbane Valley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15028,"place_ref":600253,"name":"Milton House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50 McDougall Street","suburb":"MILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The hip-roofed house is Colonial Georgian in style and plan, having a typical front doorway with segmented sidelights and an arched fanlight, and a symmetrical arrangement of rooms about a central hallway on each floor. The ground floor has wide, open verandahs on three sides. Two service rooms run across the rear of the core, incorporating pavilion wings of the side verandahs.
The walls are of brick, which is lime rendered and jointed to give the impression of stone. A three-roomed cellar is constructed of rough rubble walling, and entered by steps on the south side of the verandah. The roof shingles have been replaced with corrugated iron.
Internally, the narrow cedar staircase has shaped handrails and stick balusters (replacements), the vestibule features an ornate plaster ceiling, and the dining room has an early 20th century pressed metal ceiling. The first floor, with narrow stick-balustraded verandahs on three sides, originally accommodated bedrooms. These verandahs are accessed by french doors, though the louvred shutters have not been reinstated. Fireplaces remain in the ground floor rooms but have been enclosed upstairs. They lead to dominant chimney-stacks which are set diagonally to the ridge of the wide hipped roof.
Milton House was originally built as a homestead, high on the riverbank overlooking the surrounding property. Photographs taken in the 1860s show a line of palms between two Norfolk Island pines and a pathway edged with shrubbery leading down towards the river. All of these plantings seem to have disappeared by the 1950s. The present garden and lawns to the front and sides of the house were planted at the time of the building's refurbishment but include mature poinciana and jacaranda trees. The rear of the house opens onto a newly built tennis court, swimming pool and outdoor entertaining area. The river facade can be glimpsed from Coronation Drive, framed by modern office blocks.
","history":"Milton House was erected in 1852 or 1853 for retired Queen Street chemist Ambrose Eldridge. It was the first substantial house in the area and soon a local landmark, being prominent in early views of Brisbane. It was the base for Eldridge's experimental farming when the Moreton Bay region was struggling to establish itself, and later for JF McDougall's considerable pastoral holdings in the area.
Ambrose Eldridge was a Sydney chemist who arrived in Moreton Bay in late July 1847 to work in John Taggart's Medical Hall, a chemist shop in Queen Street. Taggart eventually sold out to Eldridge, who took over from 1 October 1849, and developed the business as a chemist, druggist, oilman, and grocer.
In the late 1840s and 1850s, Eldridge adopted an active and enthusiastic role in the development of Brisbane and Queensland. He was prominent in the Separation movement and served on a wide variety of local committees (for most of which he was a founding member), including those of the Hospital, the proposed Brisbane Market (1851), the Moreton Bay Steam Navigation Company, the Moreton Bay Horticultural Society, the Brisbane Exchange, the Northern Districts Agricultural and Pastoral Association, the Moreton Bay Immigration and Land Company (first chairman of directors in 1855-56), and the Moreton Bay Building Society, which was dissolved in 1854 to re-emerge as the Moreton Bay Permanent Investment and Building Society in 1855. He was active in promoting local issues such as a bridge over Breakfast Creek, a committee to communicate between the electors of Moreton Bay and their representative in the Legislative Council in Sydney, a survey of the Brisbane River entrance and bar, direct emigration to Moreton Bay, government funding to churches, and regularly subscribed to rewards for the discovery of gold in the Moreton and Darling Downs districts. He was a prominent member of St John's Anglican Church, and an active participant in the Brisbane School of Arts and Sciences and the Moreton Bay Musical Society. During the early 1850s his business flourished and he acquired a number of Brisbane town and suburban allotments.
Eldridge was a well-respected townsman with a clear commitment to the development of Brisbane at political, civic, economic and social levels, but he was also something of a visionary. Like the indomitable Dr JD Lang, who envisioned a Moreton Bay populated by yeomen farmers, Eldridge was determined to prove that agriculture in the Northern Districts of New South Wales was economically viable.
In the second half of 1851, Eldridge, who had little knowledge of farming, purchased Western Suburban Allotments 4 to 11, totalling over 30 acres, along the northern bank of the Brisbane River, just beyond the town boundary. Here, at what he named Milton Farm, Eldridge experimented with cotton growing, hoping to prove that agriculture at Moreton Bay could be sustained and profitable. Whilst not the only Moreton Bay resident to experiment with cotton-growing at the time, he was initially one of the most successful.
Cotton was a logical crop with which to experiment - it was one of the principal import of Great Britain, and an important basis of her manufacturing industry, and if grown successfully at Moreton Bay, would ensure the prosperity of the Northern Districts of New South Wales, and enhance local aspirations for Separation.
By September 1852, five acres of the Milton land had been cleared, and were planted the following month with seeds of the finest Sea Island Cotton. At the close of 1852, Eldridge retired from business, selling the Medical Hall and devoting his time to the Milton experiment. It is likely that Milton House was erected about this time. By June 1853 the first crop of Milton cotton was being picked, yielding at least 20 bales. Eldridge reported in the local press that, not including the cost of land and land clearing, he had expended £38 in the experiment, and had made a profit of £14. That December he was awarded first prize of £30 by the NSW Government, for samples of the cotton sent to Sydney in a government-sponsored competition. Two years later he sent samples of the Milton cotton to the Paris Exhibition of 1855, where it was highly acclaimed.
In 1853, Eldridge expanded his efforts to promote profitable local farming, taking up on long lease approximately 400 acres at Eagle Farm. By late 1854 this land had been cleared, and in March 1855, Eldridge announced his intention of removing to Eagle Farm, and selling the Milton Estate. The Eldridges resided at Milton through the remainder of 1855, but the property, including a mansion house was sold and transferred to pastoralist John Frederick McDougall in January 1856, for £2,300.
For Eldridge, the move spelt disaster. The experiments at Eagle Farm appear to have failed, and by 1859 he had returned to the chemist business, opening a shop at Ipswich. He died in 1860, leaving his family penniless.
JF McDougall, a member of the first Queensland Legislative Council, farmed the Milton Estate, adding large western suburbs leaseholds to his holding, and enlarging the house considerably. From 1864 the McDougalls resided at Rosalie Station and let Milton. Tenants included Arthur Manning, the Colonial Under-Secretary, Henry Walsh, MLC and speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and James Crombie. The house gave its name to the local suburb, while neighbouring Rosalie took its name from McDougall's Darling Downs property, bearing testament to the one time extent of his holdings in the western suburbs.
Milton Farm was sold to the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Co. Ltd in 1885 and subdivided for residential development, at which time the newly created streets of McDougall, Manning, Walsh and Crombie were named after previous owners or occupiers of Milton House. The Commissioner of Police, David Thompson Seymour, bought an area of nearly two acres, including the house, in 1887, but sold it the next year to Dr Hugh Bell, a noted physician and consultant at the Brisbane General Hospital for forty years. In 1904 the property was purchased by grain merchant William Siemon and his family, who renovated the premises in 1922. In 1955 the Siemon family gave the property to the Presbyterian Church, which used Milton House as a hostel for women college students until 1983. The building subsequently became part of the Kings Row Corporate Park development, at which time it was refurbished to resemble its outward appearance of the 1860s.
","criteria":"Milton House is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with important early agricultural experimentation in pre-separation Queensland, associated with the pastoral development of the western suburbs prior to closer settlement in the 1860s and as one of the oldest surviving houses in Brisbane and the first substantial house in the western suburbs.
|Milton House demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of the few surviving pre-Separation houses in Brisbane, numbered with Newstead [600265], Bulimba [600179] and Shafston Houses [600241] and as a rare example of 1850s Colonial Georgian architecture in Brisbane.
|Milton House survives sufficiently in form, feature and material, to be important in demonstrating the principal features of Colonial Georgian architecture adapted to local climatic conditions, notably through the inclusion of verandahs and french doors on three sides.
|Milton House has a special association with the local community with the house giving its name to the local suburb, with the neighbouring suburb of Rosalie perpetuating the association with the second owner of Milton House, JF McDougall and as an early local landmark, still visible from the arterial river road to the western suburbs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15029,"place_ref":600254,"name":"Old Bishopsbourne","alternate_name":"St Francis Theological College | Bishopsbourne","street_address":"233 Milton Road","suburb":"MILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Old Bishopsbourne is a large, two-storeyed residence constructed of local porphyry and sandstone. The style is a blend of derived and vernacular elements.
On both floors, french casements with fanlights open from the main rooms onto wide verandahs, which are enclosed externally by Gothic stone arches, creating a cloistered atmosphere. The second storey verandah balustrade is constructed of cast iron fashioned in an inverted arch pattern.
The hipped roof is slated with four tall chimney-stacks. Small louvred gablets ventilate the roof.
Internally the sandstock brickwork is cement rendered and lime plastered, with little ornamentation. All the internal joinery, including 10 feet [3 metres] high folding doors which retract into the walls, is of Queensland red cedar.
The ground floor comprises a small vestibule separated by a cedar and etched glass screen from a broad hallway running the length of the house; three rooms to the right used for drawing room and study functions; three rooms to the left which open to one large dining area; an enclosed section of the front verandah which now contains a bathroom; and a modern kitchen at the rear.
The upstairs has been converted into the principal's quarters, containing six bedrooms, two bathrooms, a lounge and a kitchen.
A two-storeyed brick and stone annexe with a corrugated iron roof, formerly the service wing, is attached at the rear. The iron balustrade pattern of the main building is repeated around the annexe verandahs, the lower level of which incorporates a deep timber valance.
Underneath both the main building and the annexe are large cellars, intended originally as larders and storage space.
While an on-going building programme has resulted in substantial changes to the site, sufficient grounds and mature trees remain to sustain the garden setting ambience, and the residence itself remains largely intact. The 1870s gateposts survive, but only fragments of the early garden beds. The 1930s stone terracing survives.
Other significant buildings within the grounds include:
- Old Bishopsbourne Chapel [1912], a Gothic style, gable-roofed stone building (QHR 600255);
- the 1936 St Francis' Theological College Building, a gable-roofed and verandahed, interwar hostel-type timber building;
- St Francis' Theological College Library Building [1959], a postwar International style brick, concrete and glass structure with ecclesiastical undertones.
Endeavour by successive architects to incorporate gable and arch motifs within their contemporary designs, creates a sense of harmony within the grounds.
","history":"This two-storeyed stone residence was constructed in 1865-68 for Edward Tufnell, the first Anglican Bishop of Brisbane [1860-74], as his See house. It remained the home of the Anglican primates of Brisbane until 1964.
In 1862 Tufnell, on behalf of the Anglican Church, received from Emmeline Leslie a gift of 16 acres [6.5 hectares] of eucalypt woodland along the Milton Road. The site was earmarked for a See house.
During a short sojourn in England, Tufnell raised £4,400 for the Brisbane Diocese. Despite popular opposition to the expense, £3,000 of this was spent constructing Bishopsbourne.
The architect was Benjamin Backhouse, who had practised in Geelong, Ballarat and London, before arriving in Brisbane in 1861. Backhouse left Brisbane for Sydney in 1868, but in the short time he was resident in Queensland, his work was prolific, ranging from houses to churches to school to hotels to commercial and warehouse premises. Among these works were a number of substantial Brisbane residences - such as Cintra at Bowen Hills in 1863-64 (QHR 600054), Fernberg at Bardon c1865 (QHR 600275), and Baroona at Rosalie in 1866 (QHR 600289) - and several ecclesiastic buildings, including the first All Saints Church on Wickham Terrace, erected in 1861-62 (QHR 600168); St Stephen's School and convent in 1862; St Mary's Convent at Ipswich in 1863-63; the second St Stephen's Cathedral, commenced in 1863-64 (QHR 600107), and St Mary's Catholic Church at Warwick, erected 1863-65. In the mid-1860s he designed National Schools at Toowoomba, Warwick, Condamine, Laidley, Goondiwindi, Nanango, Bald Hills, Bowen, Maryborough and Fortitude Valley for the Queensland Board of Education. He also designed the first Brisbane Grammar School in Roma Street, constructed 1868-69.
During construction of the residence, much of the indigenous woodland was cleared. Remnants of survive, but most of the eucalypts are secondary growth. Garden beds for flowers, vegetables and fruit were established in the 1870s. Hoop and Bunya pines, staghorns and elkhorns were introduced at this period as well. Pencil pines were planted after 1912.
In the 1870s, porphyry and sandstone gateposts were erected on Milton Road, defining the entrance to the carriage approach to the See house. A timber chapel designed by diocesan architect Richard George Suter was constructed in the grounds c1870, but was replaced in 1912 by the current stone building. [See (QHR 600255)]
In 1886 Brisbane architects Banks and Carandini designed a two-storeyed brick and stone kitchen/service wing to replace an earlier wooden structure.
During the 1930s a number of significant changes were made to the grounds of Bishopsbourne. Land fronting Milton and Baroona Roads and Heussler Terrace was subdivided and sold, reducing the area to 12 acres. Stone terraces along the eastern and western slopes were constructed, using relief labour. These were planted with shrubs, annuals and a bougainvillea hedge, but have been largely grassed over since.
In 1936 St Francis' Theological College was transferred from Nundah to the grounds of Bishopsbourne, where a wooden dormitory and classroom building was constructed. Two brick and concrete structures were erected for the College in 1959, one being the vice-principal's residence and the other an award-winning library.
Some restoration work at Bishopsbourne was undertaken in 1962, particularly of the cedar joinery. However, in 1964 Archbishop Strong moved to Eldernell at Hamilton, which became the new Bishopsbourne, and the former See house at Milton became part of St Francis' Theological College. The 1860s core was refurbished as the principal's residence, and the 1880s service wing was converted into quarters for the vice-principal.
During the 1980s, pressure for increased student accommodation resulted in the construction of a number of two-storeyed, brick, semi-detached townhouses in the grounds of St Francis' Theological College. A new timber administration building and a set of timber townhouses were constructed in the early 1990s.
","criteria":"Old Bishopsbourne [St Francis Theological College] and its substantial grounds, which include early garden fragments, early gateposts, a 1912 Robin Dods designed stone chapel, 1930s terracing and a number of buildings associated with St Francis Theological College [from 1936], is significant historically as one of the oldest ecclesiastical precincts in Queensland.
Old Bishopsbourne, a purpose-designed See house constructed 1865-68, is significant historically for its strong association with the mid-19th century consolidation of the Anglican Church in Queensland, and with the Anglican Bishops and Archbishops of Brisbane for nearly a century.
|It [Old Bishopsbourne] is an accomplished and aesthetically appealing building with a simplicity of design and austerity of decoration which reflect its function and purpose as an ecclesiastical residence. It is important as a major work by prominent architect Benjamin Backhouse, and one of the more intact of his surviving Brisbane works.
The 1936 theological college accommodation and lecture room building is a good example of interwar hostel-type accommodation, and the award-winning 1959 college library building is a fine example of International style in Brisbane.
|Old Bishopsbourne is a Milton landmark, still visible in the western vista from Petrie Terrace.
|The 1936 theological college accommodation and lecture room building is a good example of interwar hostel-type accommodation, and the award-winning 1959 college library building is a fine example of International style in Brisbane.
|The place has had a strong association with the work of the Anglican Church in Queensland for over 130 years, and each of the buildings in the grounds illustrates further consolidation of the Anglican church in this state.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15030,"place_ref":600255,"name":"Old Bishopsbourne Chapel","alternate_name":"St Francis' Theological College","street_address":"233 Milton Road","suburb":"MILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The chapel is constructed of Brisbane tuff, to a simple rectangular plan 70 feet [21 metres] by 20 feet [6 metres]. The ambience created is that of a medieval shrine blending with Queensland vernacular and derived stylistic elements of the early 20th century.
Eighteen inch [45 centimetre] thick walls with buttresses support a steeply pitched, slate-clad roof. The roof structure of six timber trusses is exposed.
The chapel is lit by long, narrow, Gothic windows in the bays between the buttresses. These windows are unusual in that the lower sections of the openings are unglazed, and are fitted with tongue and groove timber shutters to assist with ventilation and light.
A side porch projects over the entrance, which leads to a small vestry. This is divided from the entrance and interior generally by a timber screen.
The floor is 6 inches above ground level and is covered with red concrete. At the east end the floor originally rose to the sanctuary in the traditional five steps, but the top step has been removed to allow the altar to be detached from the rear wall and to stand free.
The chapel is simply furnished and displays a minimum of adornment. The sanctuary is panelled in silky oak, and decoration of the timber altar is limited to gilded motifs of Australian flora.
The loft at the western end has been installed sympathetically.
","history":"The stone chapel at Old Bishopsbourne [St Francis' Theological College] was erected in 1912, replacing an earlier timber building of exposed studs designed by diocesan architect Richard George Suter and constructed about 1870.
Archbishop Donaldson, arriving at Bishopsbourne in December 1904, recognised the need to replace the original chapel, which had fallen into disrepair.
In 1912 Donaldson commissioned diocesan architects Hall and Dods to design a chapel which would harmonise with the house and grounds. Robin Smith Dods produced the design, and the chapel was constructed under his supervision by builders Hall and Meyers. It was dedicated in 1912.
Dods practised in Brisbane from 1896 to 1916. With this chapel he displayed a mastery of materials and form, proving that simplicity of construction and design can be as powerful as more elaborate structures.
Since 1936 the chapel has been carefully maintained by generations of St Francis' Theological College students. A loft and restored pipe organ, which were donated from a neighbouring church, were installed at the western end of the chapel in 1971.
While Anglican schools in Queensland generally have a chapel, few would be as old as St Francis', and even less would be of local stone.
","criteria":"Historically it is significant for its close association with the Anglican Archbishops of Brisbane for over 50 years, and with the theological college since 1936.
|It is important for its rarity of function, fabric and setting in Brisbane, and remains an integral element in the historic Old Bishopsbourne [St Francis Theological College] ecclesiastical grouping.
|Old Bishopsbourne Chapel, erected in 1912, is significant as a building of outstanding architectural quality, and as a fine example of the ecclesiastical work of Robin S Dods.
|Old Bishopsbourne Chapel, erected in 1912, is significant as a building of outstanding architectural quality, and as a fine example of the ecclesiastical work of Robin S Dods.
|Old Bishopsbourne Chapel, erected in 1912, is significant as a building of outstanding architectural quality, and as a fine example of the ecclesiastical work of Robin S Dods.
|Old Bishopsbourne Chapel, erected in 1912, is significant as a building of outstanding architectural quality, and as a fine example of the ecclesiastical work of Robin S Dods.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15031,"place_ref":600256,"name":"St Matthews Anglican Church","alternate_name":"Grovely Church | St Matthew's Anglican Church","street_address":"35 Church Road","suburb":"MITCHELTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The entry in the Queensland Heritage Register for St Matthew's Anglican Church comprises all of the buildings, structures, sites, objects, planting and land within the Listing Boundary, with the exception of the rectory, which has been altered substantially. The buildings are all painted the same colour and are in good condition. The graveyard is well tendered. Altogether the group inlcudes the following items:
1\tThe church (1867-69), a simple Gothic-styled brick building located high on a hill. It is rectangular in shape, as are the skillion vestry and gabled porch. Rendered walls of hand-made bricks are supported by buttresses and rest on stone foundations. The steeply pitched gabled roof has corrugated iron laid over the original shingles. A bellcote surmounts the front gable. The porch and vestry doorways and windows are lancet shaped.
Internal walls are painted and the lined roof is supported by exposed beams and trusses. The red cedar pews are original. Over the years memorials have been added, including a commemorative plaque presented in 1917 in memory of the Nicholson's son drowned in Mackay in 1882.
Alterations include external render and boarding over of the trefoil window above the porch. Additions include stained glass memorial windows, an altar and other ecclesiastical furniture, raised sanctuary and chancel steps, nave carpet, lighting and other modern facilities.
2 The cemetery (1869 onwards) holds the graves of many of the early settlers of the Grovely/Upper Kedron district including members of the Nicholson family. Monument styles vary, illustrating changing public tastes since 1869.
3 Bell post (1914), comprising a bell which hangs in a cast-iron frame on a timber post. It has rusted and is no longer used.
4 The hall (1917), a simple timber and corrugated iron building with skillion. It is built on stumps and is highset at the back. The steeply pitched roof is hipped at the back and gabled at the front. The entrance porch has a parapet.
5 Rectory (1926), a timber dwelling on stumps. It has a short-ridge corrugated iron roof and is verandah on two sides. The dwelling has been refurbished by various occupants to suit their needs, and is not included in the Heritage listing.
6 Lichgate (1980s), a memorial to Richard Henry Pickering who died in 1976. The gable roof has fibrous cement shingles, while the sides are half stuccoed brick and half carved timber. The open sides repeat the Gothic lancet arch.
","history":"The foundation stone for St Matthew's Anglican Church was laid on 23 September 1867 by Governor George Bowen and the first service was held on 7 February 1869. The church is understood to have been designed by Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin.
The land was owned by John and Mary Nicholson, landed gentry from Wiltshire, England who emigrated to Queensland in 1864 and established themselves at Grovely Farm (later Grovely Lodge), Upper Kedron. Being dedicated Anglicans they soon established church services and a Sunday school in their home. Early in 1867 they approached Bishop Tufnell for permission to build a local church. The Nicholsons provided the hill-top land and much of the capital while other settlers provided their time and materials. Public subscription was raised also.
The Nicholsons had approached Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin to design a simple timber church to accommodate approximately 130 persons. This design was approved at a meeting of interested Upper Kedron residents held in March 1866, but it was proposed also that local brickmakers - a number of whom had moved to the district in the mid-1860s - be approached to donate bricks for the construction. Tenders were called in April 1867 through the office of the Church of England Diocesan Architect, Richard George Suter, for a church of brick and stone. Mr Mahoney was appointed the contractor.
Although the church has never been blessed or consecrated it has been used for baptisms, burials and marriages since 1869. In 1885 John's brother, William Castlemaine Nicholson, converted ownership of the land and church buildings to trustees and they are still privately owned.
The church was known as Grovely Church until 1909 when it was given the name of St Matthew's. In 1914 the bell presented by Howard S Bliss was erected on the bell-post. The church hall was built in 1917, fifty years after the laying of the foundation stone.
St Matthew's became a parochial district in 1920 and the vicarage was built in 1926. The Rev ED Eglinton raised the status of the district to a parish and in December 1947 he was inducted as the first rector of the parish of Grovely. Recently a lichgate was erected to honour a descendant of one of the pioneering families.
","criteria":"St Matthew's Anglican Church, completed in 1869, is significant historically as one of the oldest parish churches in the Brisbane region, and the church and cemetery in particular are a significant creation of, and memorial to, the pioneer families of Grovely/Upper Kedron/Mitchelton. The 1917 hall is illustrative of the development of the area in the first two decades of the 20th century, culminating in St Matthew's becoming a parochial district in 1920.
|St Matthew's Anglican Church is significant also as a rare Queensland example of an Anglican church group, comprising church, cemetery and hall, which is still privately owned and unconsecrated.
|The church remains substantially intact, with the original red cedar pews retained, and is significant in illustrating the principal characteristics of a small brick church of the late 1860s, comparatively few of which were constructed in Queensland.
|The church is significant aesthetically for its picturesque quality and setting, simplicity of design and materials, and craftsmanship, and both church and cemetery command a significant townscape presence in the Mitchelton/Grovely area.
|St Matthew's Anglican Church has a special association for the Anglican congregation of the Grovely/Mitchelton area, which has worshipped at that church since 1869.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15032,"place_ref":600257,"name":"Cape Moreton Lightstation","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cape Moreton","suburb":"MORETON ISLAND","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-12-03","description":"The Cape Moreton light station is located at the northern end of Moreton Island, a large sand island in Moreton Bay. A complex of detached buildings, it occupies an elevated position on a grassy headland above the rocky cape. The stone lighthouse, the focus of the light station precinct, is positioned at the highest point amongst a cluster of timber framed fibrous cement buildings, newer brick buildings and ancillary structures.
Around the base of the lighthouse are three small sheds; the workshop, former powerhouse and fuel store. On the same level but further to the north are the headkeeper's residence and, north of the residence, a small office. A second residence and two brick sheds are located on a lower level to the west of this group. Some distance from this main grouping is the third residence, to the south west, and a small brick fuel store to the north.
The lighthouse is a cylindrical tower of rockfaced sandstone laid in regular courses which tapers inwards slightly towards the top. The stone tower which comprises a ground level and a main shaft supports a cast iron lantern. Two red bands are painted on the upper part of the tower. An external stone stair which wraps around the shaft leads to the first floor level. External access to the first floor and ground floor levels is via timber doors located at the top and bottom of the stone staircase.
The ground level has a concrete floor and thicker stone walls than the rest of the shaft. Internal access to the first floor level is via a steep ladder stair leading to a trapdoor in the timber floor above. An internal cast iron spiral stair with simple wrought iron handrail supported by a square section iron post at every third step leads from the first floor level to a landing just below the lantern. The final part of the climb to a trap door in the concrete floor of the lantern is via a short ladder. The shaft has painted internal walls. The interior of the tower is lit by small square glass panels in timber frames with splayed reveals.
The lantern which houses the light consists of a conical roof of sheet copper on metal straps surmounted by a ball type vent and wind vane supported by cast iron and glass walls. The lower part of the lantern wall is made up of six cast iron panels bolted together to form a cylinder. This cast iron wall supports a continuous band of curved fixed glass with diagonal cast iron glazing bars. In the centre of the space a new solar powered light, which recently replaced the four panel catadioptric optic, is mounted on a steel box. Encircling the lantern and accessible via a cast iron door in the lantern wall is a concrete gallery with a painted pipe balustrade. The new light is powered by solar panels mounted on the gallery. A small steel or cast iron catwalk runs around the lantern at the junction between the lower wall and the glazing.
From the lantern there are extensive views in all directions, out to sea in the northerly and easterly directions, along the ocean beach to the south and across the island to the south west. The smaller lighthouse at North Point is visible to the north west of the Cape Moreton Lighthouse.
The three residences, built to a standard square plan with a hip roof, have central rooms with no corridors and enclosed verandahs. They are timber framed single storeyed structures clad in fibrous cement sheeting set on splayed concrete stumps. The headkeeper's quarters is closest to the lighthouse with the first assistant's quarters nearby but lower and the second assistant's quarters, an isolated structure, set further down the slope some distance to the south. Although similar in layout a variety of modifications have been made to these dwellings. The headkeeper's quarters and the second assistant's quarters retain corrugated fibrous cement roof sheeting while the first assistant's quarters is roofed in corrugated zincalume. A part of the second assistant's quarters has been fitted out as a small museum. Each house is serviced by two large spherical steel rainwater tanks. The headkeeper's house still maintains a small fenced garden. Remnant planting survives around the other residences.
The three sheds which surround the lighthouse are all rectangular gable roofed timber framed structures with fibrous cement walls and corrugated fibrous cement roofs. On the southern side of the lighthouse is the workshop. Consisting of two rooms, it is fitted with timber framed doors and pivoting sash windows and has no internal lining. This building is built on a raised plinth with two short flights of steps in the northern side which appear to be of sandstone construction. This is probably the remains of an earlier stone building built on the site. The former powerhouse, west of the lighthouse has a reinforced concrete floor, timber double hung sash windows, double timber framed doors and internal fibrous cement wall sheeting. The fuel store, a similar structure to the powerhouse, is located just north of the lighthouse.
The office, a timber framed structure with walls sheeted in fibrous cement and a corrugated fibrous cement roof, is a small square planned room raised on short concrete stumps. The single room overlooks the sea through a continuous band of windows interrupted only by the entry door on the western side.
The garage, powerhouse and P.O.L. store are all small brick buildings with metal deck roofs and reinforced concrete floors.
","history":"The stone lighthouse, which commenced operation in 1857, was the only lighthouse along the Queensland coastline at the time of separation in 1859. It was the only lighthouse in Queensland to be built of stone, and survives as one of five extant lighthouses erected by the New South Wales Government prior to 1862, when the Queensland Department of Ports and Harbours was established.
\nDuring the early period of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, vessels entered Moreton Bay primarily through the South Entrance, which was the passage between Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands. At this time, the south entrance was considered superior to the Northern Entrance around Cape Moreton, as it was much shorter for vessels coming from Sydney; it provided a better anchorage; and vessels were able to head to sea in a northerly wind, which was difficult to do around Cape Moreton. The first navigation aids were placed in Moreton Bay in 1825, and marked the south entrance. A Pilot Station was established at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island by 1827.
\nThe south entrance proved to be difficult and hazardous for vessels, and during the 1830s, consideration was given to the advantages of using the northern entrance into Moreton Bay. Despite the hazards however, the southern entrance remained the main entrance to the Moreton Bay settlement as it better suited the colony, the entrances were already marked, and the pilot station was already established at Amity Point.
\nDuring the penal settlement period of the 1820s and 1830s, the Regulations for Penal Settlements provided, amongst other matters, that \"No unauthorised or strange vessel shall be allowed to come to an anchorage at a penal settlement except in cases of distress or necessity, in which case they shall receive a military guard on board during their stay...\". Following proclamation of Moreton Bay as a free settlement in 1842, the Regulations were revoked, and shipping activity in Moreton Bay increased. Brisbane was declared a Port of Entry in 1846, and a Warehousing Port in 1849.
\nBy the mid 1840s both the north and south entrances were used by vessels entering Moreton Bay. Captain Wickham and Lieutenant Yule carried out extensive surveys in Moreton Bay in 1846, and buoys marking the northern entrance were laid soon after. Sailing directions for the northern entrance were published in the Moreton Bay Courier in April 1847, in preparation for the closure of the southern passage as the main entrance to the Bay. Following the sinking of the Sovereign in 1847, a harbour master was appointed for Brisbane. Additional buoys were laid to better indicate the northern entrance, and in 1848 the pilot station was moved from Amity Point, firstly to Cowan Cowan then to Bulwer, on Moreton Island. The pilot station marked the first official European settlement of Moreton Island.
\nLighthouse
\nWith the northern entrance now regarded as the main entry point for Moreton Bay, additional navigation aids were required to guide vessels. Brisbane residents petitioned the Government in 1850, seeking the erection of a lighthouse at Cape Moreton. Planning for the structure commenced in 1852 and a site was selected in 1853. The lighthouse was designed in the NSW Colonial Architect's Office, and the drawings dated September 1854, shortly before the resignation of Edmund Blacket as Colonial Architect. Blackett was succeeded by Alexander Dawson, NSW Colonial Architect from 1856-1862. Further drawings for the lighthouse are dated April 1856. The contractor for the lighthouse was Mark Farrell, and the erection of the lighthouse was supervised by Alexander Beazeley, Foreman of Works in the NSW Colonial Architect's office.
\nThe lighthouse and lightkeeper's quarters were mostly completed in stone, quarried from an area on the Island near the lighthouse site. Labour for the construction of the lighthouse and quarters was reputedly provided by prisoners. Tenders for painting the lighthouse tower were called in December 1858. The external masonry and internal cast iron staircases which were part of the 1857 lighthouse are still extant, and are now considered to be rare.
\nThe light consisted of 21 Catoptric lamps, in a sixteen sided iron lantern. The manufacturers of this first light are not known for certain, and although the English firm of Wilkins and Sons is considered to have been the preferred manufacturer of such lights by Colonial Authorities during the mid-nineteenth century, a 1916 report on the lighthouse described the light as being of French origin. The lighthouse was 67 feet (just over 20 metres) high, and the light is recorded as being visible for a distance of 26½ nautical miles in clear weather.
\nThe light was exhibited for the first time in February 1857, and updated sailing directions for the north entrance into Moreton Bay were published at this time. The beginning of operations of the light is also recorded as generating much public interest, with the commencement of pleasure cruises/day trips from Ipswich and Brisbane into the Bay.
\nAdditional navigation aids were erected on Moreton Island from the 1860s, and included lights at Comboyuro Point, North Point, Cowan Cowan Point and Yellow Patch.
\nThe original oil wick lamps at the Cape Moreton lighthouse were replaced with kerosene burning lamps in 1873.
\nIn October 1913 the control and supervision of coastal lights, including Cape Moreton, passed to the Commonwealth Government, although the actual change-over did not occur until July 1915. A survey of light stations along the Australian coast was carried out from 1911-1913 by Commander Brewis, who found that although the tower was in good condition, the catoptric apparatus was out of date, and he proposed that the present light be replaced by a modern quick-flashing apparatus.
\nThe lighthouse tower was extended in 1928, to its present height of 23 metres, presumably to increase the range of the light. The original lantern was dismantled in 1930 and replaced with a Chance Brothers lantern, housing an AGA four panel catadioptric lens, on an AGA pedestal fitted with an AGA acetylene lamp. The lamp incorporated a sun valve which automatically activated the light at sunset. Chance Brothers and Co became the main British manufacturers of lighthouse equipment in the late 1900s, and were subsequently favoured by lighthouse authorities for the supply of the dioptric and catadioptic systems which had been perfected by the firm. In 1937 the light was converted to electric 110V DC operation; a new 240V AC power supply was installed in 1967. It has been suggested that a new lens was installed at this time; probably the pedestal, bearing and optic drive were also replaced. The range of the light is recorded as 27 nautical miles.
\nThe two red bands were painted on the tower in 1942.
\nThe present tungsten lamp was installed in 1988. The lighthouse was converted to solar power and fully automated in 1993.
\nLightstation
\nStone quarters for the head lightkeeper were completed in 1857 as part of the lighthouse construction. Quarters for assistant lightkeepers appear to have also been built at this time. Other buildings erected during the 1860s and 1870s included store rooms, cart shed, feed shed, timber schoolhouse, watch house and stable.
\nSupplies for the lighthouse and lightkeepers were landed at Bulwer Pilot station, then taken by sled to the light station.
\nDuring the period in which oil provided the source of illumination for the light, the main duty of the lightkeeper was to maintain the integrity of the light. Light stations were therefore generally attended by a head lightkeeper and one or more assistant lightkeepers who worked in shifts. The subsequent use of kerosene as the illuminant was similarly labour intensive, as the lamps were required to be watched throughout the night in case the mantle broke. The introduction of electric illumination during the 1930s gradually enabled the number of shifts and, depending upon the other duties and the remoteness of the light station, the number of lightkeepers to be reduced.
\nA telegraph office opened at Cape Moreton in August 1864, followed by a schoolroom in 1879. A telegraph line was constructed during the 1890s, to service the lighthouse. A Morse Lamp for signalling was installed at Cape Moreton c1910. The lamp is recorded as having a range of 20 miles and as being in constant use for signalling purposes. Signal flags were used for daytime communication. A post office opened at Cape Moreton in 1915, and closed in the early 1920s. The Lightkeepers also served as the Post Masters during this period.
\nAn inspection of the residences in 1913 reported that the timber floors and partitions in the buildings had been damaged by ants, and the timber was replaced in the same year.
\nThe stone quarters and associated buildings were demolished, and three new residences erected in 1930. The siting of each residence provided an interesting reflection of the hierarchy of lightkeepers at the station; the Head Lightkeeper's residence was closest to the lighthouse and topographically, the highest of the three. A similar pattern of proximity to the lighthouse and relative position on the side of the hill was followed with the first and second assistant lightkeepers' residences. Alterations were undertaken to the residences during the 1960s and the 1980s, and included the enclosing of verandahs and the replacement of kitchen fittings.
\nAdditional structures including a workshop, powerhouses, fuel store, office, garage, and POL store were added to the light station from the 1930s, and reflect the changes in technology and function of lightstations from this time, including conversion to electric light, and taking weather recordings.
\nA number of graves are reputedly located in the area surrounding the light station complex but there is no evidence available to confirm their existence.
\nIn 1988 a display of lighthouse and sea navigation equipment and memorabilia was established in the second assistant lightkeeper's quarters.
","criteria":"The Cape Moreton Light Station survives as an important demonstration of the evolution of a lighthouse complex from the mid-19th century. Evidence of this evolution includes the alterations to the lighthouse to incorporate changing technology; the three residences which are associated with a period of labour intensive lighthouse operation; and various outbuildings such as the fuel store and powerhouses which have been added to the complex to support the operation of the lighthouse.
Erected by the Government of New South Wales and still in use as part of the coastal navigation system, the lighthouse maintains its association with the establishment of a navigation system for the east coast of Australia from the early 19th century. As the first lighthouse to be erected at Moreton Bay following the closure of the penal settlement, the lighthouse also demonstrates the early development of Brisbane as a shipping port for northern Australia.
|The lighthouse contains rare surviving elements including the external masonry and internal cast iron staircases.
|The light station site has the potential to provide archaeological evidence of building construction techniques from the mid-19th century, and also of lighthouse operations, and the lifestyles of the lightkeepers, until the early-mid 20th century, when the majority of structures were demolished and replaced.
|The structure is the only example of a stone lighthouse in Queensland, the stone being quarried locally.
|Located on a prominent and dramatic headland, the lighthouse is an imposing building, and is a recognised landmark.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15033,"place_ref":600258,"name":"Doggetts Cottage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"33 Arthur Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Built on tuff foundations, Doggetts Cottage is a four roomed single-storeyed brick house with a detached kitchen wing at the rear. It has a steeply pitched gable roof of corrugated iron.
The convex roofed verandahs across the front and back have square timber posts and stick balusters. The exterior walls exhibit fine brickwork and decorative features such as a string course below the eaves in diagonally laid bricks.
The interior consists of four main rooms and a new kitchen and bathroom on what was the rear verandah leading to the kitchen wing, which is now used for other purposes. Internal walls and ceilings are plastered and the original cedar joinery includes a mantelpiece. A modern staircase leads to the attic in the roof space.
The original timber stables are located along the rear fence line and two wells can be found in the back yard.
","history":"This single-storeyed brick house was built about 1880 by Henry ('Harry') Doggett, bricklayer and builder, as his family home. Doggett was active in civic affairs and was elected mayor of Brisbane in 1913.
Although he died in 1927, the house remained in the family until the 1970s. From 1983 to 1988 it was used as offices for the Martin Agency who carried out alterations. The roofspace was opened up and a new kitchen and bathroom were installed on the verandah. The stables were also enlarged. The property has now returned to its original use as a family home.
","criteria":"As being typical of houses built by artisans as their own home, demonstrating both the skill of the master builder and pride in his craft.
For the high quality materials, workmanship and decorative detailing evident throughout, enhancing its cottage character.
For the surviving stables, wells and kitchen wing which combine to provide a rare glimpse of a tradesman's domestic environment in the late nineteenth century.
As the family home Mayor Doggett after whom the neighbouring street was named.
|For the surviving stables, wells and kitchen wing which combine to provide a rare glimpse of a tradesman's domestic environment in the late nineteenth century.
|As being typical of houses built by artisans as their own home, demonstrating both the skill of the master builder and pride in his craft.
For the high quality materials, workmanship and decorative detailing evident throughout, enhancing its cottage character.
|For the high quality materials, workmanship and decorative detailing evident throughout, enhancing its cottage character.
|As the family home Mayor Doggett after whom the neighbouring street was named.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15034,"place_ref":600259,"name":"Cairnsville","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"41 Balfour Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cairnsville is a gable roofed, single-storeyed timber house of the colonial era, with a kitchen wing extending off the rear. It sits on timber stumps which are lowset at the front, but highset at the rear.
The corrugated iron roof features two dormer windows with semi-circular tank roofs, as well as a window in each gable. The verandah across the front and down the right side of the house has timber posts with cast-iron balusters, brackets and valances. The entrance is marked by a fretwork pediment, beyond which is the panelled front door with leadlight fan and sidelights.
French doors with shutters open out from the rooms onto the verandahs. A large drawing room and dining room, linked by folding doors, are located on the right side of the central hallway, and three bedrooms are on the left. A substantial staircase leads to two attic bedrooms. The kitchen and other service rooms are located in the highset wing at the rear. The subfloor of this wing has been enclosed in brick to create a poolside entertainment area.
","history":"Cairnsville is a single-storeyed timber house built in 1889. It was designed by Richard Gailey, the notable architect, for Charles le Brocq, a prominent builder, local landowner and floating baths proprietor who retained the house as a rental property for professional tenants.
Its first occupant was Albert Victor Drury, a brother of Edward Drury, the general manager of the National Bank of Queensland. He was the clerk of the executive council from 1867 to 1904, and private secretary to Governor William Cairns from 1875 to 1877. Drury named the house in memory of this recently deceased governor.
In 1897 Drury left Cairnsville, which has had a number of owners and tenants in succeeding years, including a period as a boarding house.
","criteria":"A late example of the Colonial Gable style and includes unusual features such as a substantial staircase and the rounded roofs of the dormers.
One of a number of moderate sized timber houses built in New Farm in the late nineteenth century as rental accommodation for the professional classes.
Associated with Richard Gailey, Albert Victor Drury and Governor William Cairns.
|One of a number of moderate sized timber houses built in New Farm in the late nineteenth century as rental accommodation for the professional classes.
|A late example of the Colonial Gable style and includes unusual features such as a substantial staircase and the rounded roofs of the dormers.
|Associated with Richard Gailey, Albert Victor Drury and Governor William Cairns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15036,"place_ref":600261,"name":"CSR Refinery (former)","alternate_name":"Colonial Sugar Refining Company Refinery, New Farm","street_address":"Lamington Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The CSR site is bounded by the Brisbane river on the eastern side, Power Station Park on the southern side, Lamington Street on the western side and the site of the private residence, Amity [600264] on the northern side. The site forms an integral part of the riverfront landscape of industrial elements and is flanked by the New Farm Power Station to the south and extant wharves and woolstores group (a number of which are entered in the Heritage Register) to the north at Teneriffe.
Although the main entrance is now from Lamington Street, the earlier parts of the site address the river. The original core of buildings are centrally located on the site, with a wharf in front of them. A quadrangle is formed in front of the main building by the arrangement of adjacent structures including the brown room, the laboratory and the wharf. Directly behind the central core is the raw sugar store, flanked by warehouses on the southern side and ancillary buildings and the former site of the residence, the Hollins on the northern side. Most structures have been modified in some manner and additional buildings have been constructed at various periods.
There are a number of mature and semi-mature trees, including Moreton Bay figs, poincianas, frangipanis, mango and palm trees. These are dispersed throughout the site, between buildings, along the river's edge and on the former site of the residence, the Hollins.
Due to the large number of structures on the site, it is necessary to describe them individually. Following is a description of each, in chronological order.
1. Main Building (1893)
The main building is a long narrow structure centrally located on the eastern side of the site, addressing the river. It is constructed of load bearing masonry walls composed of face bricks laid in English bond, around a combination of timber and cast iron framework. It is four storeys high at the southern end and five storeys at the northern end with an additional level extending above the southern roof line which is sheeted in corrugated iron.
The brick section comprises a repetitive arrangement of bays divided by engaged pilasters and is divided into the refined sugar store and pan house at the southern end, and the cistern and char house at the northern end. An externally visible brick fire wall divides the building into five and eight bays, between the refined sugar store and the pan house. Twelve-paned arched windows with metal frames are located in each bay on each floor, apart from where modifications have been made.
The repetitive quality of the front elevation, which addresses the river to the east, is interrupted by a series of green tinted pivoting windows which are located on the third and fourth levels, immediately north of the fire wall. Below these windows, and at the southern end of the building are large arched openings, the latter of which aligns with a similar opening at the rear. A corrugated iron awning is suspended above the entrance and extends from the second to the sixth bay, where it steps to above the first floor level. It is tied back to the building and has a valance of timber vertical boards with a scalloped edge.
The southern end facade is void of fenestration, with four engaged pilasters dividing the space vertically. The central section comprises a gable end which has been extended to accommodate the extension at roof level.
The additional level is set back from the roof line and is single storeyed with a two storeyed section in the centre. It has a corrugated iron gable roof with a ventilated ridge. Windows are similar to those in the brick section, except with flat headers rather than arched. The remainder of the original roof is clad in corrugated iron, with eaves supported by decorative brackets.
The northern end of the building is five storeys high. Rising above the roof level is a hexagonal shaped tower, originally used for the storage of char, with single storey gable roofed structures on either side, clad in corrugated iron. The tower roof has coved eaves and decorative brackets, and has a decorative finial at its peak.
The rear of the building has been substantially modified to accommodate new equipment. This includes additions on various levels, the removal of windows in some areas and new openings in others. A number of pieces of equipment are located in this area and some of the extensions connect the main building to the raw sugar store.
Internally many modifications have been made resulting in alterations to the floor levels in some areas, most notably in the char house at the northern end where all floors have been removed, creating a five storey vertical void with a diagonal walkway at the uppermost level. The framing in the southern end (refined sugar store and pan house) is timber, whilst that in the northern end (cistern and char house) is of cast iron.
The roof space in the cistern house incorporates a funnel-like structure which is constructed of substantial timber elements. The ceilings in most other areas are clad with ripple iron, some of which is concealed by suspended ceiling tiles.
Machinery associated with the sugar refining process is located in all areas, however most has been updated since the establishment of the refinery, with few of the earliest items surviving.
2. The Office (1893)
Constructed at the same time as the main building, and located on the south side also addressing the river, the office is a two storeyed structure of face brick laid in English bond. It has a double gabled roof of corrugated iron, with decorative barge boards and a chimney at each end of the front gable. The eaves are supported by a series of decorative brackets.
The front facade is symmetrically composed with three windows with metal sunshades on the first floor and three windows on the ground floor. All windows have new aluminium frames and the central window at ground level was formerly a door. An awning is suspended above the ground level which extends across the eastern facade and wraps half way around the southern end.
A later constructed brick stairwell is located at the southern end of the building. It is stepped back from the front facade and only intrudes into the original building fabric where entrances connect the two structures on both floors.
Internally, the building has been substantially altered to accommodate administration services for the site. It comprises a number of offices divided by plasterboard and glass partitions.
3. Raw Sugar Store (1893, late 1890s, 1924, 1950s/60s & 1970s/80s)
The raw sugar store is the largest structure on the site. The original section was constructed in 1893 and has been extended considerably in a number of stages. This building consists internally of one immense open space, and is used to store raw sugar which is pumped into the northern end of the building.
It is an irregular shaped structure and additions are discernible in variations in the construction and fabric. The original section comprises corrugated iron walls and roof on a concrete base and is located directly to the west of the main building and parallel to it. The next stage was constructed at the southern end of this section. Later additions were erected on the north western side, causing the site to be extended. The largest addition faces Lamington Street and comprises concrete walls with a sloping corrugated iron roof. This abuts a taller gable roofed section in the centre, clad in corrugated iron. Large openings at the southern and northern ends of the building allow for machinery access.
4. Workshops (1893 & 1920)
The workshops are sited behind the amenities/canteen block, to the north of the main building. The first section of this building was constructed in 1893 and now makes up the southern portion of the workshop building. It is a corrugated iron clad structure of which the rear section is approximately half a storey higher than the front section. A ventilated ridge runs the length of both sections of the gabled roof and various types of window and door openings are located on the southern side. A single storey structure with a skillion roof is located at the rear of the building.
The northern side of the workshop building was constructed at a later date and is noticeably different in that it has a sawtooth roof. This building and the front of both buildings are surrounded by a brick envelope with a flat topped parapet, of which the uppermost section is rendered. Horizontal louvre windows are located in the central section of the southern and eastern elevations. They are defined as a group by a continuous rendered hood which projects over the windows, rendered sills and by the brickwork in which they are contained, which projects slightly from the main plane of the building.
Internally the area is a large open space, with smaller spaces partitioned off to provide offices. However it is discernibly two different buildings, evident by the differences in roof structure.
5. Boiler House (1893, 1950s/60s & 1970s/80s)
Originally constructed in 1893, the boiler house has been extended a number of times. It is located on the eastern side of the main building and now comprises four sections which vary in height, all of which are clad in colorbond trimdeck. The earliest sections are those on the southern side which have gabled corrugated iron roofs with ventilated ridges.
A circular tapered metal chimney projects above the site at the rear of this building.
6. The Wharf (1893& c1976)
Located over the river in the front of the main building, this structure has been renewed a number of times, although its configuration has remained the same. Located in front of the main building, it comprises a U-shaped concrete pad with access ramps at either end, supported by a series of piles encased in concrete. A low white painted timber rail is located at the perimeter of the structure.
7 Laboratory (late 1890s & early 1920s)
Abutting the front of the main building and extending to the east is a two storeyed building of brick construction with an awning to the southern elevation. Together with other structures it encloses a quadrangle in front of the main building. The laboratory building has been constructed in two phases, evident in differences in the brickwork and window forms. Entrance to the upper floor is via a later constructed external brick stair at the eastern end of the southern side of the building. The awning is supported by circular steel posts and has a small valance similar to that on the awning on the main building. A valance of the same design decorates the awning over the entrance stairs.
Internally, this building has been substantially modified and comprises a series of rooms divided by plasterboard and glass partitions.
8. Syrup Store (late 1890s & 1920s)
Located on the southern side of the office, this building was constructed in two stages and comprises a double gabled structure supported on brick piers. The southern and eastern facades are of metal cladding, whilst the northern and western facades are of brick construction. The building is divided into two separate rooms by a central wall running east-west and has a corrugated iron roof. The room on the southern side has a concrete floor and is entered at ground level, whilst the room on the northern side has a timber floor and is entered via a small flight of stairs on the north-eastern corner.
9. Boilermaker's Shop (c1900)
Located at the rear of the workshops and to the north of the main building, this building is a single storeyed gable roofed structure clad in corrugated iron. The internal space is open with exposed beams and trusses.
10. Lime House (c1900 & 1920s)
Constructed after the initial establishment of the refinery, the lime house is a small structure at the northern end of the site. It is two storeyed at the western end and single storeyed at the eastern end. Both sections are clad in colorbond trimdeck and have corrugated iron gabled roofs.
11. The Brown Room (1901)
The Brown Room is located at the south-eastern point of the quadrangle space, on an embankment fronting the river. It is a single storeyed brown painted timber structure, surrounded by verandahs on three sides. It has a hipped terracotta tiled roof, is of single skin construction and elevated on low stumps. The verandah has posts with moulded collars and a handrail, but no balustrading. All external bracing and verandah posts are detailed with stop chamfers which are picked out in a lighter shade of brown. French doors open on to the verandah from each room.
Internally, the building comprises a large room with two smaller rooms at the southern end. The ceiling is horizontal in the centre and follows the slope of the roof line at the sides. It is supported by a series of timber trusses from which contemporary light fittings and fans are suspended, and is lined with ripple iron. The walls are of vertical tongue and groove boards.
12. Amenities/Canteen Block (1952)
With a similar intended function as the Brown Room, this building is also located on the river's edge, but to the north of the main building. It is a simple two storeyed rectangular structure, constructed of brick with a hipped terracotta tile roof. Verandahs are located on the first floor on the western and eastern sides, overhanging the ground level. The roof line extends over the verandahs and has ventilated eaves. Both verandahs are enclosed with a solid brick base and horizontal glass louvres on the southern end, and open with a simple balustrade of circular metal posts and rails on the northern end. The building is divided horizontally by a rendered section which runs at the level of the first floor.
The ground floor has a series of small windows which are located directly below the rendered section, whilst the first floor elevations incorporate large glazed sections. These take the form of louvres, double hung windows, and french doors, the latter two of which are divided into a series of uniform horizontal panes. All sets of french doors are flanked by fixed side panels, also with horizontal mullions and panes.
The ground floor is divided into a number of sections to accommodate the first aid room, change rooms and toilets. Access to the first floor is via an internal stair on the western side which opens into a large open space.
A canteen is located at the northern end of the first floor and comprises a service counter, behind which is an open kitchen.
The flooring on the upper level is of narrow hardwood floorboards which are highly polished, and the ceiling is of sheet lining with pressed metal ventilators running the length of the space on either side.
13. Recent Buildings (1950s/60s & 1970s/80s)
Two large warehouses are located on the southern end of the site. They are constructed of brick with corrugated iron cladding to the upper walls, awnings and roofs, supported by metal framework. Other recent buildings on the site include smaller ancillary structures at the northern end, and a guard house at the entrance, all of which are primarily constructed of brick and corrugated iron.
14. The Fence (early 1920s - late 1950s)
A white-painted picket fence is located along the river side of the property. It sits above a concrete and stone retaining wall and runs the entire length of the property apart from a small section between the canteen building and the Hollins site. It adjoins a similar fence which is located in front of the private residence, Amity [600264].
15. Landscape Elements
Many mature and semi-mature trees are located throughout the site, softening the effect of the industrial site. The vegetation is particularly noticeable from the eastern side of the river, from where it obscures the buildings on each end of the site.
Other landscape elements on the site include various stone retaining walls and open drains constructed of brick. Also evident are segments of railway tracks including those laid after the 1924 extension on the western side of the site, as well as segments of the original track within the former Wharf Street area adjacent to Amity.
Mature plantings are also located on the former site of the house known as the Hollins. Although the house has been removed from the site, the grassed platform remains, as well as trees which identify the previous alignment of the house. A tennis court also remains at the rear of the site.
","history":"The CSR Refinery at New Farm was erected by the Colonial Sugar Refinery Company in 1892-3. Founded in Sydney in 1855, the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (now CSR) has come to dominate the Australian sugar industry, its very name synonymous with sugar.
The 19th century was a time of enormous change in the history of sugar which was to fuel the growth of companies such as CSR and the development of sugar as a new industry in places with suitable growing conditions such as Queensland. The technological advances in the refining process at this time transformed sugar from a luxury item to a staple food and saw a corresponding dramatic increase in the consumption of sugar in western countries.
Attempts at growing sugar cane had been made in Queensland prior to separation, however it was Captain Louis Hope's success in the 1860s which saw government encouragement of the growing of sugar cane in the colony. Plantations developed in the Cleveland, Beenleigh, and Caboolture districts and new areas along the coast quickly opened up including by the 1870s in the Maryborough, Bundaberg, and Mackay districts with sugar refining beginning on a small scale with the opening of the Yengarie sugar mill near Maryborough in 1873 and later the Millaquin refinery at Bundaberg in 1882. By 1874, Queensland was exporting sugar to other Australian colonies. By the 1880s sugar was being grown further north in the Burdekin, Herbert River, and Cairns districts. Moreover, encouraged by Premier Thomas McIlwraith, southern capital and advanced technology was beginning to reach northern plantations. The most important of these southern companies was the Colonial Sugar Refining Company who acquired large tracts of land for the cultivation of sugar in the Mackay district and established 3 large mills in North Queensland.
From the 1860s-1880s, Queensland's sugar industry was dominated by plantations owned by companies or wealthy individuals who usually cultivated large areas of cane and operated their own mills; Pacific Islanders comprised the majority of the workforce. By the 1890s, encouraged by government policy (including the promotion of small land holdings, the encouragement of the establishment of central mills owned by small producers, and moves to exclude the use of Pacific Islander labour) the plantation system was no longer dominant; the industry was increasingly characterised by a division between the growing of the cane by small land owners and the milling and refining by large planters or companies. This change was typified by CSR who reorganised their interests to concentrate more on the value adding end of the market ie milling and refining.
CSR's Brisbane refinery was the fourth in a chain of refineries established by the company in Australia's capital cities in the late 19th century; refineries were opened in Sydney (Pyrmont 1878 which became the largest in Australia), Melbourne (Yarraville; purchased c1875), and Adelaide (Glanville 1891). A refinery in Perth was added in 1930 to complete the chain. According to company records the establishment of the Brisbane refinery was closely linked to the imposition of prohibitive duties on sugar products (in particular recent increases in taxes on syrup and molasses) which would have substantially compromised CSR's share in the (Golden) syrup market in Queensland. The establishment of a local refinery had the added benefit of enabling the company to compete in the refined sugar markets (which were also protected by colonial taxes) in Australia's fourth most populous city.
In 1892 CSR acquired a riverside site of nearly 3 acres (1.2 hectares) on the New Farm peninsular by buying up allotments on the recently subdivided Kingsholme estate. The location had two major advantages: it enabled access for large ships and was also close to the city (and it markets). Construction was supervised by local architects John Hall & Sons and interrupted by the 1893 flood but was completed later that year. The new complex consisted of the refinery building comprising char house, cistern house, pan house and refined sugar store; raw sugar store; melt house; boiler house; workshop; a two storied building containing offices, laboratory, and hessian rooms; and the wharf. The original machinery was made in Scotland or came from the other refineries. The complex was designed by James Muir, the manager of the Pyrmont refinery, who had designed all of the other refineries in Australia. He reputedly modelled New Farm on the Glanville plant (demolished c1991).
Built during a time of economic depression, this development was seen as a sign of optimism and an impetus for economic growth in Queensland, and in particular as an impetus for sugar growing in the colony. In New Farm, although some industry was already clustered around the river, it was the CSR refinery which provided the catalyst for the development of the Bulimba reach of the river as a major industrial and warehousing district: the construction of the Bulimba branch of the city railway (completed in 1897) being undertaken at the request of CSR who immediately extended the branch line as a siding to the refinery. Later development of the area to benefit from the availability of both wharfage and rail facilities included the woolstores (the first being erected in 1909) and the New Farm Power House (1928).
The site has grown in several stages over the past century, adapting to new technology and increasing the refinery's capacity. The first major stage of development from 1893-1910 saw production increased by more than double. Changes to the site included the building of the railway siding as an extension of the Bulimba branch railway and the purchase of additional lands in the late 1890s (including the site of the residence The Hollins which became the manager's residence). To consolidate the land, the company applied for closure of a section of Sydney Street which was then purchased. Additions were made to the raw sugar store; syrup producing facilities were installed, and the hessian store, jelly house, and tea room for senior staff (known as the Brown Room 1901) were erected.
In the thirty years until 1940, the refinery experienced modest growth. The most significant changes were associated with the extension of the raw sugar store involving extending the store beyond the boundaries of the existing site and a realignment of the railway line and Lamington Street. The third stage of the development of the refinery was directly related to World War II which saw output almost doubled in response to a combination of government policies for reserving essential commodities such as sugar and the upgrading of equipment including the introduction of carbonation. The fourth period from 1945-70 was characterised by steady growth. Bulk handling was introduced during this time; other changes included the building of the canteen (1952), extension to the raw sugar store (1960) and a new refined sugar warehouse (1961). From the 1960s sugar arrived by rail or road (rather than by ship). From 1970-1990 works included extensions to the raw sugar store (1973), extensions to the refined sugar store (late 1970s); in 1988, the residence The Hollins was removed from the site; in 1989 the rail link to the refinery was closed. In 1993, the refinery celebrated its centenary: the marking of that event included an open day for the local New Farm community and the publication of a booklet which (importantly) documents some of the social history of the refinery including stories of workers, for whom it was not uncommon to have links with the refinery spanning several generations.
The twentieth century saw sugar develop as one of Queensland's major industries and one of its largest rural commodities. Its growth during this time has been promoted by government policy (both state and federal): the industry being heavily protected and regulated. More recently however tariff levels have been reduced and a number of other structural changes have occurred in the government regulation of the industry. Of the CSR capital city refineries, Pyrmont (substantially demolished 1997/8), Glanville (demolished 1991), and Perth are no longer in use with CSR operating a new super refinery at Mackay. Locally, under the auspices of the Brisbane City Council's Urban Renewal Taskforce, industry is increasingly being encouraged to relocate from innercity New Farm. Against this background, CSR have scheduled the New Farm refinery to cease operations from 1998 after which at least in the short term it is intended for use as a storage facility. The CSR Refinery at New Farm remains as one of the last surviving of Australia's 19th century sugar refineries.
","criteria":"The CSR Refinery at New Farm is important in demonstrating the development of one of Queensland's major industries (and one of its largest rural commodities) - sugar. Erected 1892-3, the refinery is illustrative of the (government promoted) re-orientation of the sugar industry by the 1890s, the effects of which included the establishment of a system of centralised refineries. CSR's Brisbane refinery was built as a direct response to, and is an important illustration of, the effects of the Queensland Government's protectionist trade policies in the decade prior to Federation.
The CSR Refinery at New Farm is important in demonstrating the development from the 1890s of the Bulimba reach of the Brisbane River and adjacent New Farm / Teneriffe area as an industrial and warehousing district of Brisbane for which CSR with its successful lobbying for the building of the Bulimba branch railway provided the catalyst.
|The New Farm refinery is now one of the last surviving 19th century CSR sites in Australia, and is a rare example of an intact late 19th century established sugar refinery with evidence of over 100 years of evolution in the fabric and site layout.
The refinery is now however one of the last surviving industrial sites on the inner city reaches of the Brisbane river and one of the last to retain its wharf.
|The refinery has the potential to yield information that will contribute to a greater understanding of the role of the sugar industry in the history of Queensland and the nature of late 19th century industrial complexes. There is also the potential to reveal further information regarding the evolution of the site and its surroundings which may contribute to an understanding of the cultural environment of an industrial site.
|The site demonstrates the principal characteristics of a large, operational sugar refinery which has evolved over more than a century. These characteristics comprise the composite of buildings, structures and grounds, including the early core of the main refining building, office, laboratory, workshops, raw sugar store and syrup store, ancillary buildings, the transport infrastructure of the wharf and remnant railway alignments, staff amenities including the Brown Room and the Amenities/Canteen Block, and the landscape elements including mature trees, vegetation, open spaces within the grounds, and the spatial relationship of the buildings, structures, grounds, river, wharf, railway alignments and roads. In particular, the main 1893 refining building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century industrial building, including use of face bricks, restrained embellishment and a narrow, vertical form and is a rare surviving example of its type in Queensland.
|The place has aesthetic significance and is a dominant landmark both from New Farm, and from the river and the eastern suburbs. Its landmark qualities are a result of a number of contributing factors, including the massing of the buildings and their relationship and orientation to the river and each other, individual sections of buildings such as the highly visible char tower with its decorative brackets and finial, the substantial amount of vegetation on the site and the lineal qualities from the east, as defined by the buildings, grassed banks, fence, wharf and river.
The buildings and the spaces between them contribute to the industrial aesthetic of the place. The main building, the laboratory, the brown room, the wharf, the Amenities/Canteen Block, and the open space bounded by these structures and the river, provides an aesthetic focus. A number of buildings demonstrate a high degree of design and workmanship, including the main building, the office, the Brown Room and the Amenities/Canteen Block.
The considerable amount of vegetation which includes trees at various stages of maturity and the many landscape elements such as stone retaining walls, open brick-lined drains, grassed banks and the picket fence along the river front contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the place. The fence in particular is a dominant feature and gives the site a somewhat residential or parklike appearance. It is of particular significance in that it continues along the frontage to Amity [600264], an adjacent residence which was used by CSR as a manager's residence from 1950 to 1980.
Similarly the remnant landscaping from the former site of the Hollins, at the northern end is significant both for its contribution to the aesthetic qualities of the place and for its contribution to interpreting the former use of the site.
|Established over a century ago, the CSR site has strong associations for past and present CSR workers, some of whom have generational links with the place.
|The fourth in a chain of refineries established by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company in Australia's capital cities in the late 19th century, the refinery is also important in demonstrating the company's dominance of both the Queensland and Australian sugar industry for over a century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15037,"place_ref":600262,"name":"Glenugie","alternate_name":"Archibald House","street_address":"186 Moray Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Glenugie is a large two-storeyed timber house with a substantial double storey kitchen wing at the rear, attached by a verandah. The house sits on low brick piers linked by honeycomb infill brick screens.
There are double verandahs on all four sides and along the eastern side of the kitchen wing. While the front and side verandahs have cast-iron posts, balusters and valances, the back and kitchen wing verandahs have been enclosed with hopper windows.
There are two double storey gabled projections which interrupt the verandahs on the front and western elevations, and a single one on the upper floor at the rear. These have bay windows with elaborate awnings and timber valances, and pierced barge boards on the gables. The hipped roof of corrugated iron incorporates the three gables, two chimneys and numerous ventilators.
The external walls of the house are chamferboard while internal walls and ceilings are lined with beaded pine boards and feature cedar joinery.
","history":"This two storey, timber house at 186 Moray Street, New Farm, dating from 1884-5, was designed by Brisbane architect Alexander Brown Wilson for Joseph (also known as James) M Davis. It later became the home of businessman and politician John Archibald MLC. From 1930 until 1980 it was used by the Presbyterian and Methodist churches as hostel accommodation for girls.
\nThe New Farm area was traditionally the land of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples. After the Moreton Bay penal settlement was established on the Brisbane River in 1825, in the late 1820s food was grown on the river flats between today’s Merthyr Road and the southeast end of the New Farm peninsula. Following free settlement of Brisbane in 1842, the New Farm peninsula was surveyed and sold in the 1840s for cultivation and livestock, as well as residences for Queensland’s pastoralists, merchants and politicians. In the late 1850s, subdivision of allotments overlooking the Shafston Reach of the Brisbane River, at the northwest end of Bowen Terrace, resulted in the construction of villas for Brisbane’s business leaders during the 1860s, and more of Brisbane’s wealthy inhabitants moved to New Farm, in the 1870s. The subdivision of New Farm intensified in the 1880s, and transport improvements also encourages closer settlement. Horse-drawn trams ran along Brunswick Street to just past Langshaw Street by 1895, and the electrification of this line occurred in 1897.[1]
\nAfter several subdivisions of the larger Eastern Suburban Allotment (ESA) 19, Joseph Mandelson Davis bought re-subdivisions 139 and 140 of subdivision 4 of section 11 in April 1885. On this land, totalling 29½ perches and fronting Moray Street, Glenugie was built. Davis appears to be resident at Glenugie by December 1885 when windows were broken by a vandal and the birth of his son at Glenugie was reported in the Brisbane Courier in August 1886.[2]
\nGlenugie was one of the boom-era homes of the affluent middle classes – well-appointed and comfortable with generously-sized rooms. It was two-storeyed but built of timber rather than masonry, with drawing room, dining room, three large bedrooms, pantry, laundry, kitchen and servant’s room. Joseph M Davis lived at Glenugie until circa 1888 when the property was purchased by Brisbane butcher, Thomas Joseph Mooney who, in the years that followed, accumulated adjacent land (to the west and the rear) creating a more spacious setting for the house.[3]
\nGlenugie’s architect, AB Wilson (1856-1938), worked in the private practice of Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, and studied in England, before beginning his own architectural practice in Brisbane in 1884. He maintained a long and distinguished career until his retirement in 1928. He was responsible for buildings such as Kinauld on Dornoch Terrace [QHR 600225], Leckhampton at Kangaroo Point [QHR600246], the Plough Inn at Southbank [QHR600294] and the Railway Hotel, Gympie [QHR602540].
\nAfter several owners, Glenugie became the home of John Archibald and his family in 1901 when Archibald purchased the property. After a varied career as teacher, retail manager, clerk of petty sessions, police magistrate and gold warden, Archibald became a partner in Barnes, Archibald & Co, which operated flour-mills on the Darling Downs. After selling his interest in the partnership he formed a partnership with Samuel Crowther in December 1895 and floated the Dominion Milling Co Ltd. He joined the boards of Carricks Ltd, Queensland Trustees Ltd and the Daily Mail Newspaper Co. In 1896 Archibald stood for Warwick in the Legislative Assembly but withdrew in favour of T J Byrnes. He was called to the Legislative Council in the following year by the Premier Sir Hugh Nelson. Archibald was a lay member of the Methodist Church and a Freemason. He was also interested in local government, serving as mayor of Warwick in 1890 and 1897 and alderman 1890-7. Archibald died at Glenugie on 20 May 1907.[4]
\nAfter Archibald’s death his estate was valued for probate at £34,642, most of which was left to his widow Frances Amelia, nee Herbert whom he had married at Harrisville on 19 January 1872. He was survived by three sons and four daughters.[5] In 1907 Glenugie was transferred to Queensland Trustees Ltd and Archibald’s eldest son Robert John Archibald. Mrs Archibald and her unmarried children remained resident at the property. Twice during the 1920s – in 1920 and 1926 – Glenugie was offered for sale.[6]
\nThe property was not sold at this time. Mrs Archibald was resident at Glendower, Teneriffe in January 1929. In 1929, she proposed the family donate the residence to the Presbyterian and Methodist churches to be run as a hostel for girls.[7] She continued to attend Brisbane social events into the 1930s and eventually passed away in 1944.[8]
\nA period of severe housing shortage in Brisbane occurred during the 1920s and 1930s, due mainly to an increasingly buoyant Queensland economy and substantial population growth, as a result of both natural increase and immigration. Demand for new housing to reach unprecedented levels. The rising Brisbane population combined with a substantial fall in the numbers of workers cottages being constructed, created a severe housing shortage. Also, rising rates, maintenance and related costs forced many owners to convert larger houses into flats and to subdivide large parcels of land. Purpose-designed apartment buildings emerged as a new form of residential accommodation in Brisbane during the 1920s. The large suburban estates of New Farm, like Glenugie, attracted developers and residents alike, drawn by the proximity of the suburb to Brisbane’s CBD, its retail facilities and public transport. Consequently, New Farm became a densely-populated inner-city suburb with many apartment blocks such as the Julius Street Flats being erected during the interwar period.[9]
\nGlenugie followed this trend of high density usage when it became a hostel for girls run by the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, renamed Archibald House, in August 1930. The Archibald’s had originally suggested the house be converted into a hospital, but regulations prohibited the use of the two-storey timber dwelling as hospital. The churches contributed £1,000 each towards renovations. The new hostel could accommodate between 30 and 36 girls, and was intended as accommodation for country girls who had come to Brisbane to work or study. Single, double rooms or dormitories were available at ‘low charges’ and in ‘congenial surroundings’.[10] Two of the Archibald daughters served on the hostel committee, hosting musical fundraisers for improvements including a piano and tennis court, the latter added to the Herbert Street frontage in 1938.
\nBy 1940 the hostel was deemed a financial and ecumenical success, as well as meeting a community need.[11] In June 1942 the property, which had been held by the Archibald family trust, was transferred to trustees under the Methodist Model Deed of Queensland and the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.[12]
\nWhen the W. R. Black home was evacuated during World War II, the older girls were sent to Archibald House. If there were no family members to take them in when they reached working age, they remained under the care of the Home Committee until they turned 21. Presbyterian Church records indicate that older girls from the Church-run 'out-of-care' institutions were sent to Archibald House to board in the 1940s. It became a permanent home for those girls working in Brisbane.[13]
\nThe hostel remained busy in the post-war period. Glenugie continued to operate as a hostel for girls until 1980 after which it was sold and returned to use as a private residence. A photograph taken at the time of its sale shows it with enclosed verandahs.[14]
\nIn 1988 Glenugie was advertised for sale after being renovated and the accompanying photograph showed the house with its verandahs re-opened. It was advertised for sale again in 1991, and reverted to use as a private residence. [15] In 2020 Glenugie continues to be used as a private residence.
","criteria":"As an unusual timber version of the large two-storey verandahed houses fashionable in the 1880s.
For its projecting gables, ornate verandah treatment and the exclusive use of timber for both interior and exterior walls which contribute to a composition pleasing in design, scale and detail.
As a rare surviving example of the large houses built in New Farm in the late nineteenth century.
|As an unusual timber version of the large two-storey verandahed houses fashionable in the 1880s.
As a rare surviving example of the large houses built in New Farm in the late nineteenth century.
|For its projecting gables, ornate verandah treatment and the exclusive use of timber for both interior and exterior walls which contribute to a composition pleasing in design, scale and detail.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15038,"place_ref":600263,"name":"Bertholme","alternate_name":"Moreton Club","street_address":"71-73 Moray Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bertholme is a substantial single-storey residence built of sandstone. Its hipped roof, originally slate, is now of corrugated iron. Square in shape, but with a bay projecting slightly at the front, the house is surrounded by a convex roofed verandah.
Built on the sloping riverbank, the house is lowset at the front and highset at the rear, creating a subfloor underneath. The back and side verandahs have been enclosed with weatherboards and only the front verandah retains its original decorative cast-iron balusters, posts and valance. The subfloor has been similarly enclosed, and a highset kitchen house projecting over the driveway at the rear is walled in the same material. A long modern double storey wing at the rear is joined to the house by a shorter wing at the northern end, creating a paved courtyard.
","history":"The land on which Bertholme stands was acquired in 1882 by Andrea Stombuco, the noted architect in Brisbane from 1875 to 1890-90, who also built Palma Rosa and designed Her Majestys Opera House (1888). The house appears to have been erected sometime in the following three years, for it was standing when Stombuco sold the property in 1885 to Giovanni Pulle, an Italian merchant.
Five months later, the property was bought by BD Cohen. He sold it in the 1890s to his brother Henry Cohen, manager of the pharmecutical firm of Elliot Brothers, who named it Bertholme in honour of his wife, Bertha. After the Cohens left Bertholme at the turn of the century, the land was subdivided, while the house became the residence of a succession of professional men.
Miss Jane Ingram bought the property in 1939, and converted it into a nursing home. In 1958, the Moreton Club acquired Bertholme and much of the subdivided land from the original estate. They have built extensive additions on the rear of the house and refurbished it to suit their requirements.
","criteria":"As a rare surviving example of the type of riverside residences built in New Farm in the late nineteenth century.
\nFor its unpainted stone walls and decorative front fence which give the house a distinctive texture and an impression of strength.
\nAs the home of the Moreton Club, Brisbane's premier private club for women.
\nFor its association with Andrea Stombuco, the first owner and one of Brisbane's most flamboyant architects of the 1880s boom period.
|As a rare surviving example of the type of riverside residences built in New Farm in the late nineteenth century.
|For its unpainted stone walls and decorative front fence which give the house a distinctive texture and an impression of strength.
|As the home of the Moreton Club, Brisbane's premier private club for women.
|As the home of the Moreton Club, Brisbane's premier private club for women.
\nFor its association with Andrea Stombuco, the first owner and one of Brisbane's most flamboyant architects of the 1880s boom period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15039,"place_ref":600264,"name":"Amity","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"101 Welsby Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Amity is built fronting the Bulimba Reach of the Brisbane River to the northeast, with access from Welsby Street to the northwest. It is a single-storeyed chamferboard residence with timber stumps and a hipped corrugated iron roof with cast iron ridge cresting. The building has verandahs to three sides fronting the river, and a later addition at the rear which has sub-floor laundry and car accommodation.
\nThe building is symmetrical to the river frontage, with a central entry which has a slightly projecting gable with a decorative timber fretwork panel, timber finial and paired timber posts. Entrance steps have a marker indicating the level of the 1893 flood. Verandahs have cast iron railings and valance, raked boarded ceilings, chamfered timber posts, and adjustable timber louvred panels fixed above railings at verandah corners and along the Welsby Street frontage. Wide step-out sash windows, flanked by narrow sashes, open onto the verandahs from principal rooms, and a lattice screen panel, with door, divides the northwest verandah.
\nThe rear of the building, consisting of a later addition which incorporates the original kitchen wing, has a corrugated iron half-gabled roof, timber batten skirt between stumps, sash windows with hoods, and a large panel of hopper windows with leadlight panels above to the southwest wall.
\nInternally, the front section of the house has a central hall with the northeast main entry consisting of a panelled timber door with leadlight sidelights and fanlight. The sidelights feature Thomas Welsby's initials TW entwined, with the fanlight featuring the name AMITY. Similar door, sidelights and fanlight are located at the rear of the hall, originally opening to the rear verandah, but now opening to the rear section of the house. The hall is bisected by a timber arch with moulded pilasters, imposts, extrados and keystone. On the southeast is a large living room, divided by a large opening which originally housed folding cedar doors which have since been removed, with a fireplace at the southern end with marble surround and tiled inserts. Two bedrooms and a dressing room (originally Welsby's library) are located on the northwest. The building has vertically boarded walls, boarded ceilings with ceiling roses, panelled timber doors with fanlights, and timber skirtings, architraves and cornices.
\nInternally, the rear section of the building has similar finishes, with a large central room with an internal stair to the laundry and garage below, a panel of hopper windows to the southwest with leadlight panels above, and a large ceiling rose. Two bedrooms are located to the southeast, and a bathroom links into the original verandah which is expressed in the ceiling line. A study and a kitchen with a brick fireplace, consisting of the original kitchen wing, are located on the northwest.
\nThe grounds are terraced to the northeast leading to the river, with a central path and stair leading from the main entry to the early timber picket fence and gate at the river's edge. A wrought iron arch with a pendant lamp and timber posts forms the entry from Welsby Street, and a path leads to the main entry. Compass points are set into the path at the main entry, and coral is used for some garden bed edgings. Two large palms are located in the northeast grounds, one at either side of the property, with the northern palm surrounded by a large strangler fig. Large palms and timber steps are located to the east of the building, and camphor laurel trees border the rear yard. A small corrugated iron garage with a skillion roof is located to the south of the building, and a flagpole is located near the picket fence at the river's edge. Parts of the river walkway included in the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Amity is a single-storeyed timber residence fronting the Bulimba Reach of the Brisbane River at New Farm. The house was built in 1892 for Thomas Welsby (1858-1941), a prominent Brisbane businessman, politician, historian and sportsman.
\nThomas Welsby was born at Ipswich in November 1858 and educated at John Scott's and Ipswich Boys Grammar schools. He worked for the Bank of New South Wales and Australian Joint Stock Bank in Brisbane before leaving to practise as a public accountant, trustee and auditor in 1884. He became a member of the Brisbane Stock Exchange, operated a shipping partnership and audited the Brisbane Municipal Council accounts in 1893.
\nHe was a member of the Booroodabin Divisional Board in 1893-1902 (chairman 1897-1900), and chairman of the New Farm State School committee in 1899-1908. He was instrumental in the formation of the Engineering Supply Company of Australia in 1903, was a director of the Royal Bank of Queensland, and had interests with Sir Robert Philp (Premier of Queensland 1899-1903 and 1907-08) in mining and with GC Willocks, a railway contractor. Welsby was also a trustee for the Mount Garnet railway debentureholders (1901-15), and chairman of Queensland Brewery Ltd (1907-19).
\nHe stood unsuccessfully for the Legislative Assembly as a candidate for Fortitude Valley in 1899, 1902 and 1909. As a Ministerialist he won North Brisbane in 1911 and held Merthyr from 1912-15. Nicknamed 'Bung Bung', he generally disliked parliamentary life.
\nWelsby loved history and sport. He was foundation honorary treasurer (1913), president (1936-37) and vice-president (1917-36, 1937-41) of the Historical Society of Queensland. He advocated that government subsidise the society to collect Queensland's early records, and he bequeathed his large library to the society and his portrait hangs over the entrance. Welsby also wrote seven books about the history of the Moreton Bay region.
\nIn 1882 Welsby had been manager and half-back for Queensland's first intercolonial Rugby Union team which played in Sydney. He helped to revive the code in 1928, was a life member of the Queensland Rugby Union (president 1929-39) and donated the Welsby Cup. He was foundation secretary of the Brisbane Gymnasium in 1882, sponsored boxing matches and formed the Queensland Amateur Boxing and Wrestling Union in 1909. Welsby had a house at Amity on Stradbroke Island and was patron of the Amateur Fishing Society from 1916. He was also a founding member of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club in 1885, later being commodore in 1903-19.
\nWelsby also collected flora and fauna, historical letters and manuscripts, rare editions of early colonial authors and charts prepared by early explorers. The figurehead and smoking chair from the government steam yacht, the Lucinda, were also among his prized possessions. The Lucinda was the vessel on which the Draft Constitution of Australia was signed.
\nWelsby married Margaret Gilchrist Kingston in February 1893. They had two daughters, a son, and a young Torres Strait Islands girl named Jane whom they had fostered. Their son died in 1902 aged two months, and Margaret died the following year from tuberculosis. Jane later became Welsby's housekeeper and remained with him until his death in February 1941 at Amity.
\nThe land on which Amity stands had been alienated from the crown by Thomas Adams on 10 January 1845. Of this land, section 9 of Subdivision A of eastern suburban allotment 22 was acquired by eight Brisbane men on 17 January 1887 and mortgaged to Peter Nicol Russel. This land was sold to the Federal Building Land and Investment Society Ltd on 28 January 1889, and then subdivided. On 15 March 1889 Welsby purchased sub 130 from the Society to whom he then mortgaged the property. Thomas Augustine Ryan purchased subs 131 and 132 on 13 March 1889, and sold sub 131 to Welsby on 22 December 1891. Welsby then mortgaged subs 130 and 131 to the London Chartered Bank of Australia and built Amity. Both allotments were transferred to Margaret Gilchrist Welsby on 2 May 1895. Sub 132 was purchased by Margaret Gilchrist Welsby from Ryan on 12 February 1897. On Margaret's death, the whole property was transmitted to Thomas Welsby as trustee on 28 May 1903.
\nAmity was constructed by Welsby just prior to his marriage, and for the rest of his life was his only Brisbane residence. Prior to the construction of Amity, Welsby had been living with his mother at Clairvue in Bowen Terrace, New Farm. In his memoirs, architects and builders, including the Stanleys and Petries, show up among Welsby's close circle of friends. No tender notice for the construction of the house is to be found in Brisbane newspapers of the time, and it may well have been built by someone he knew. Welsby moved into the house in December 1892, and in February 1893 endured the disastrous flood which came within 8 inches of the verandah flooring. Welsby marked the height of the flood on the entrance stairs, and the marker still survives.
\nAmity was built with its entrance to Roberts Street, but by 1907 this was named Welsby Street. By this time the railway line to the nearby sugar refinery was in place to the south of Forrest Street on Amity's southern boundary. On 14 February 1910 a Deed of Grant was issued to Welsby in trust for allotment 1 of section 65, which adjoined the southern boundary of the property, in place of Forrest Street. A new Certificate of Title was issued for the whole of the land to Welsby as Trustee under Margaret's will.
\nBy the early 1900s, Amity's original design, consisting of a variation of a four room house with encircling verandahs and a kitchen wing at the rear, had become too small for the family. An extension was built at the rear, replacing the rear verandah with bedrooms, a bathroom, a large central room and incorporating the original kitchen wing. The date of this extension is unknown, but it had been completed by 1925 when a drainage survey plan was drawn. This plan also shows a fern house against the eastern verandah and a jetty in the river.
\nIn 1919 Welsby was approached by his neighbour William Ruddle senior to enter into a deal with an English company wanting to purchase both residential properties and the street between them as the site for a wharf. The total offer for both properties was £35,000 of which £15,000 was for Amity. This was an enormous offer as Amity was valued at £3,000; 22 years later, however no sale eventuated.
\nThe whole of land was transferred to Welsby's daughters Marion Clark and Hannah Welsby in equal shares on 18 November 1932, and Marion became sole owner on 5 October 1948.
\nWelsby left his mark on the house in a number of ways, including the orientation of the house to the river, the terraced gardens to the river's edge, his initials in the leadlight sidelights of the entrance, and the name Amity in the leadlight fanlight. Other elements include the coral garden bed edging, compass points marked in the front concrete path, and the 1893 flood marker on the entrance stairs. A river front rotunda and baths had been constructed prior to 1925, and were destroyed during the 1974 floods.
\nAfter Welsby's death in 1941, Jane continued to live at Amity for another 14 months before she moved to Windsor. The property was let for several years until Marion bought Hannah's half share and with her husband James C Clark returned to Amity. Their son James W Clark also lived at Amity for a few years after his return from the Second World War, and built the corrugated iron garage that still stands in the rear garden.
\nJames C Clark died in 1948, and his son moved out when he married in 1950. By this time Amity, with the exception of The Hollins next door which was part of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Ltd refinery, had been separated from the residential part of New Farm by increasing industry. This included the introduction of the railway line through to the refinery, and the erection of the naval base just downstream by the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War.
\nOn 30 June 1952, Amity was purchased by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Ltd and Marion Clark built a house at Hamilton. The company let the house to several tenants and it was used for some years as the refinery manager's residence. The removal of folding doors between the living and dining areas probably occurred during this period.
\nAmity was let as a naval residence for the adjoining HMAS Moreton. On 7 July 1980 the refinery, now CSR Ltd, transferred subs 130-132 which were purchased by the Commonwealth of Australia on 31 July 1980 for use as the residence of the Officer Commanding, Queensland Region, Royal Australian Navy. The river end of Welsby Street was closed and incorporated into HMAS Moreton. When HMAS Moreton closed in 1994 Amity was being used as the residence of the Officer in Charge of the Naval Support Office, South Queensland. The Commonwealth sold the property in 1997, and Amity has been a private residence since that date.
\nThe Hollins, to the southeast of Amity, was removed from its site and relocated in 1988. Amity is now the last surviving nineteenth century timber riverfront residence at New Farm.
","criteria":"Amity is the last surviving timber riverfront residence at New Farm, and provides evidence that the building's immediate vicinity, now principally industrial in nature, was once a fashionable residential area.
|Amity is the last surviving timber riverfront residence at New Farm, and provides evidence that the building's immediate vicinity, now principally industrial in nature, was once a fashionable residential area.
|The building, though not opulent in finishes and detailing, displays a high quality of design and is very intact.
|The building, though not opulent in finishes and detailing, displays a high quality of design and is very intact. The substantial plantings, including palms, figs and camphor laurels, ensure the property contributes strongly to the area's riverscape quality.
|Constructed by Thomas Welsby, prominent Brisbane businessman, politician, historian and sportsman, in 1892, Amity was his principal residence until his death in 1941. The property retains substantial evidence of Welsby's occupation, interests and love of Moreton Bay, including the building's general intactness, design and orientation to the river, artefacts and leadlight panels. The extent of the grounds (dating from 1897), and the gardens including plantings, terracing, borders, artefacts and fencing, are important evidence of Welsby's interests and his long association with Amity. The building remained in the family's possession until 1952, since which time it has had a long association with the nearby CSR Ltd refinery as a manager's residence. Purchased by the Commonwealth in 1980, it has been the principal naval residence in Queensland, associated with HMAS Moreton until its closure in 1994.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15040,"place_ref":600265,"name":"Newstead House and Park","alternate_name":"Newstead House; Newstead Park; Newstead Substation","street_address":"199 Breakfast Creek Road","suburb":"NEWSTEAD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Newstead House stands prominently on a rise overlooking the confluence of Breakfast Creek and the Brisbane River in the Brisbane suburb of Newstead. Surrounded by the grounds of Newstead Park, the house is orientated with its long axis north-north-west and is situated approximately in the centre of the park. Sloping away from all sides of the house, the park comprises grassed lawns, pathways, garden beds and a variety of trees, some very mature. Breakfast Creek Road forms the western boundary of the park, while to the south is Newstead Avenue and private riverfront properties. The curving waterside edges of the park form a rounded promontory at the intersection of the creek and river. An entrance driveway ascends from the south-west corner of the park towards the house, culminating in a circular garden roundabout containing a giant fig tree. A secondary roadway continues past and around the house, exiting back on to Newstead Avenue. In addition to Newstead House and its adjacent Annex, the only other substantial building on the site is a former Brisbane Tramways electricity substation.
Newstead House
Newstead House is a long rectangular building with two levels. It comprises an upper level containing the principal rooms, and a lower level which is largely below ground. Constructed in stages, the walls and foundations of the house are a combination of stone and red-brown brick. The original 1846 central core has thicker walls than the rest of the house, with deep window and door reveals. External walls on the upper level are rendered and scribed to imitate stone blocks, while on the lower level the wall structure is largely exposed, revealing the different phases and methods of construction. The hipped roof is timber framed and clad in grey concrete tiles, with four brick chimneys protruding along the ridgeline.
The house has wide timber verandahs on all four sides. These have a corrugated metal sheeting roof, raked ceilings lined with timber v-jointed tongue and groove boards, timber posts with simple moulded capitals, and wide timber floorboards. The cross braced timber verandah balustrades with a central circle design are an iconic feature of the house. All timberwork is painted. The north and south verandahs are supported on brick piers with vertical timber batten screens between, and three bays of the southern verandah are in-filled with recent louvred panels.
Alteration to ground levels around Newstead House has resulted in the house appearing single storeyed from the east and west and double storeyed from the north and south. The ground level on the eastern side of the house is a few steps below verandah level, sloping steeply down towards the river, while on the western side a relatively flat formal landscaped courtyard area is seven steps below verandah level.
The western verandah entrance features a two-leaf louvred door with decorative louvred fanlight at the top of the sandstone entry steps, while entry to the eastern verandah is through two timber gates in the balustrade. A former trapdoor is still evident in the floorboards of the western verandah.
The main entrance in the centre of the western wall has a timber two-leaf door with decorative painted glass sidelights and transom. Windows along this side of the house are timber double-hung sashes, while the remaining three sides have glazed, low-waisted timber French doors with rectangular fanlights. Apart from the main entrance, all external openings are protected by louvred timber shutters.
The symmetrical plan of Newstead House is two rooms deep. On the upper floor, the larger public rooms and main bedroom are arranged along the eastern side overlooking the river, and smaller bedrooms and service rooms line the western side. There are no hallways, and rooms are accessed from the verandah or through adjoining rooms. Listed from north to south, room names[99] along the eastern side are the Library, Drawing Room, Dining Room and Master Bedroom. Those along the western side are the Breakfast Room, Girl's Bedroom, Sewing Room, Vestibule, Morning Room, Gentleman's Dressing Room and Bathroom. On the lower level, only the original core contains former rooms, the rest of the area remaining uninhabitable subfloor space. These rooms are named (clockwise from the northern corner) the North Cellar, South Cellar, Kitchen, Laundry and Servant's Quarters.
Floors on the upper level have wide polished timber floorboards, with a black and white marble tiled floor in the Vestibule. Walls are plastered, except the Bathroom which is lined with vertical beaded timber boards. All plaster walls are wallpapered up to picture rail height and painted above. Most ceilings throughout the house are replacement fibrous plaster sheeting, apart from four rooms on the western side which retain plaster ceilings. The only remaining early plaster ceiling rose is in the Master Bedroom.
Interior doors on the upper floor are four-panel cedar doors on brass hinges set within moulded cedar frames, most with glazed transom lights. The large rectangular opening between the Dining and Drawing rooms has folding timber doors, and pocket sliding doors occur between the Drawing Room and Library, and the Dining Room and Master Bedroom. A door at the southern end of the west wall of the Master Bedroom is inoperable, with no door opening behind it. Other joinery throughout the house is cedar, including deep skirtings and architraves.
There are three fireplace openings on the upper level, in the Drawing Room, Dining Room and Breakfast Room, all with marble mantelpieces, iron firebacks and decorative tile outer hearths. A timber mantelpiece with a concrete hearth in the Bathroom is located over a sealed fireplace opening.
On the lower level, the Kitchen, Laundry, Servant's Quarters and part of the passage under the western verandah have a brick paved floor, with possibly original stone flagging in the Laundry at the location of the original entry passage. The North and South cellars and the remainder of the western passage have a 1960s concrete floor. No doors remain in the three western rooms, however door openings have timber frames. Doorways through the central north-south wall to the Cellars have timber ledged and braced doors. This wall also has two small original openings with vertical iron bars which serve as gratings for ventilation purposes between the Kitchen and Servant's Quarters and the Cellars. Original ventilation openings also remain in the eastern wall of the Cellars. Two original brick fireplace openings, with arched openings and raised hearths, are in the Servants Quarters and Kitchen. A stone retaining wall runs along the outer edge of the western passage, supporting the verandah, with a fire escape doorway at the southern end.
The house contains a large collection of antique furniture, objects and paintings, displayed to recreate a house from the late 19th century. These are complimented by modern furnishings and fittings.
The Annex
Adjoining the north-west corner of the house is the Annex, a rectangular, freestanding, two-storeyed, rendered masonry building with a gabled hip roof, connected to the main house by a verandah along its southern wall.
The timber framed roof is clad in the same grey concrete tiles as the main house, and features timber louvres in the gables and the only surviving remnants of an early guttering system, in particular a decorative rainwater head at the south-west corner. The eaves have timber battening to the soffit to allow ventilation, and metal ventilation grilles are set into the masonry walls at various locations. Close inspection of variations in the wall render reveal the location of former openings. Original openings include two windows in the east wall, a doorway and one window in the north wall, and three windows in the western wall. Windows in the eastern and northern walls are timber double hung sashes, while those in the western wall are six-light timber casements. Windows on these three sides have timber louvred shutters matching those of the main house.
The verandah along the southern wall, a modern addition designed to match the main house, is supported by an original masonry wall and piers. A timber weatherboard enclosure at the western end of the verandah houses a lift. No original openings remain in the southern wall.
Apart from a central rendered masonry dividing wall running north-south through the Annex, all internal walls are later additions. The eastern end accommodates a stairwell with a 1960s timber and steel staircase. The first floor contains a modern kitchen, storage, and male and female toilets. The ground floor contains a shop and two bathrooms, one of them accessible. The floor levels of the ground floor concrete slab have been altered to allow for wheelchair access.
On the northern side of the Annex are a driveway and accessible car park, and a paved ramp leading to the entrance of the shop. Garden beds and low shrubs occupy the area between the Annex, the northern verandah of the main house, and a stone retaining wall supports the raised eastern lawn area.
The formal courtyard on the western side of Newstead House features a central circular fountain surrounded by a wide paved pathway that connects the house to the entrance drive, with formal garden beds and shrubs lining the edges of the area.
Former Tramways Substation
To the west of Newstead House is the former Brisbane City Council Tramways Substation No. 5. This masonry building faces west towards Breakfast Creek Road, standing among mature trees and garden beds. A pathway from the roundabout at the top of the Newstead Park entrance drive leads to the main entrance on the right-hand side of the north elevation. A tall, square, symmetrical building, the functional austerity of the substation's exterior is relieved by restrained classical detailing, and distinguished by elegant proportions and fine brickwork.
The pyramid roof is clad in metal roof sheeting with a ventilator at the apex. The undersides of the raked eaves are lined with timber boards and the roof has no guttering or downpipes. The walls are constructed from dark brown glazed bricks laid in an English bond pattern with four evenly spaced pilasters with moulded render capitals and cornice to each elevation. The base of the walls is a rendered concrete plinth, and all concrete surfaces are painted. Rectangular windows with multi-pane fixed lights, flush concrete lintels and brick sills are positioned between each pilaster. One window opening in the western wall has been filled with concrete. The main elevation features a central concrete panel with a logo of the letters B and T intertwined and the title ‘SUBSTATION No. 5' in raised lettering. Regularly spaced rectangular ventilation grilles pierce the base and top of all walls. High in the right hand corner of the southern wall eight circular ceramic insulators are set into the brickwork, formerly the outlets for the cables carrying power to the tram lines.
The main entrance is a single leaf door set within a timber and glass screen that encloses a tall opening once occupied by a roller door. A single door in the southern wall is a later addition, cut into the wall below an existing window.
Inside, the substation is a single large volume with a carpeted floor and painted brick walls. The ceiling is lined with flat plasterboard sheeting with cover strips and has a square ventilating panel in the centre. One vertical and several horizontal steel I-beams remain, with the horizontal beams supported on engaged brick piers or projecting brick corbels. A corbel in the eastern wall supports the cut-off end of a steel beam. An overhead gantry hoist remains attached to a beam running north-south.
A sunken area is located adjacent to the centre of the western wall, surrounded by a timber balustrade and accessed by a set of concrete steps. From this level a set of steep timber steps leads through an opening cut into the upper level slab to a compartment of the underfloor area. This small space has a very low ceiling height and is used for storage in 2013.
A timber staircase in the north-east corner leads to an enclosed mezzanine office, which has modern linings, a carpeted floor and painted brick walls. Three ventilation grilles have been converted into windows and two have been modified to house air-conditioning units.
A brick shed (1939) and other storage structures are located close to the substation on its eastern and northern sides, concealed from view from Newstead House by a timber lattice fence. The pissoir, a former public urinal composed of a curving metal screen, is located south-east of the substation.
Newstead Park
The high ridge of ground running south-west to north-east, with Newstead House at its peak, results in great variation of character and outlook for different sections of Newstead Park. South of the entrance drive is largely grassed lawns with views to the south-west towards Bowen Hills and Herston. The western side, along Breakfast Creek road, is gently sloping, with mature trees, grass lawns, pathways and formal garden beds, many the remnants of early park layouts and planting schemes. The northern park area, along Breakfast Creek, is predominantly open grassed lawns, sloping steeply near the house and becoming shallower closer to the water's edge. This part of the park is intersected by pathways lined with tall palms and a scattering of mature trees, and has sweeping views of the river and of Newstead House. Along the eastern park area, a steeply sloping garden bed separates the riverside pathway from the top of the ridge, curving around to the south of the substation. Land at the bottom of the steep slope is relatively flat and open, while the area adjacent to Newstead Avenue is sloping and heavily shaded by large trees.
The entrance drive is marked by two rough-faced sandstone lamp pillars at the corner of Newstead Avenue and Breakfast Creek Road, each topped with a decorative metal lantern stand and with metal lettering forming the words NEWSTEAD and PARK attached. The asphalt drive, lined with shrubs and palms, ascends in a north-easterly direction towards the house, terminating at the fig tree roundabout, which is edged by vertically placed tuff. The garden bed is equipped with a movement activated speaker which delivers a brief history of the tree and the property to passers-by, encouraging them to enter the house. To the south of the giant fig, near the former substation, is a flat-roofed, brick public toilet block.
Other large mature trees (including figs) are near the substation building, along Newstead Avenue, in the western park area, and in the north-east corner of the park. Avenues of palm trees along pedestrian paths throughout the park are remnant evidence of Harry Moore's original park design, as are many of the path locations. A walking path around the edge of the river and Breakfast Creek links to the New Farm-Newstead bikeway.
The north-west corner of the park, truncated by Breakfast Creek Road and Bridge (re-aligned 1959), contains early curving pathways lined with palm trees, which converge upon a pedestrian access point at the start of the bridge abutment. The southernmost pathway, heading in a south-east direction, is of a later date than the two other pathways. Concrete block walls defining the edge of the paths and garden beds in this area date from the 1959 realignment of Breakfast Creek Road, and a small area of remnant vegetation from the original park[100] remains on the other side of the road near the Breakfast Creek Wharf complex, which can be accessed via a pedestrian underpass.[101]
The majority of memorials and monuments, including the American memorial, Lyndon B Johnson Place, Oxley memorial and tide gauge, are located in the north-east area of the park. Other notable features include a gazebo (1984) and recent pontoon at the north-eastern promontory, and concrete draughts board (1929) and old drinking fountain, both located in the centre of the northern park area. Recent benches, picnic tables and light posts are distributed throughout the park.
Positioned on a high ridge surrounded by open parkland, Newstead House is a prominent and iconic landmark, highly visible from the Brisbane River, Breakfast Creek, and major roads Breakfast Creek Road, the Inner City Bypass and Kingsford Smith Drive. Distant views of the house and park are also had from the riverfront at Bulimba and the heights of Hamilton.
","history":"Newstead House is a large mid-nineteenth century house located on a ridge of parkland overlooking the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River at its confluence with Breakfast Creek, and is four kilometres north-east of the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD). The core of the house is the oldest known surviving residence in Brisbane, established by Patrick Leslie in 1846. The house has undergone numerous structural changes, particularly between 1846 and 1867. It was the first heritage property in Queensland to be protected by an Act of Parliament. Newstead Park was acquired by Brisbane City Council and formally opened in 1921. It was designed according to landscaping principles of the early 20th century and has retained the layout and plantings initiated by the Superintendent of Parks Harry Moore from 1915.
John Oxley explored the Brisbane River in 1823 and 1824 and recommended the area around the confluence with Breakfast Creek would be an ideal place to establish a settlement.[1] The local indigenous people had been given the name of the ‘Duke of York's Clan' by European residents and the area was known as ‘Booroodabin', meaning place of oaks.
Following the 1839 closure of the penal settlement, Brisbane town was surveyed and offered for sale from 1842. Land on the banks of the Brisbane River near Breakfast Creek was purchased by brothers-in-law Patrick Leslie and John Clements Wickham in April 1845. Leslie purchased Eastern Suburban Allotments (ESA) 63 and 64 (sold as ESA 13 at the time), while Wickham purchased ESA 62.[2]
Captain John Clements Wickham served in the Royal Navy under Philip Parker King (son of NSW Governor Philip Gidley King). He settled in New South Wales in 1841 where he married Anna, the daughter of Hannibal Macarthur, nephew of John Macarthur who had established a merino flock at Camden Park. Patrick Leslie had married another daughter of Hannibal's, Catherine (Kate) in 1840. Philip Gidley King (son of Philip Parker King) married another sister, Elizabeth Macarthur (his cousin) in 1843,[3] while George Leslie married a fourth sister, Emmeline Macarthur in 1848.[4] Wickham was appointed Police Magistrate for Moreton Bay in January 1843, living in the Commandant's Cottage in George Street.[5]
Patrick Leslie, the second son of William Leslie, ninth laird of Warthill and eighth of Folla in Scotland, came to Australia in 1834 to work on his uncle Walter Davidson's property Collaroi in the Upper Hunter.[6] To gain experience he went to work on John Macarthur's property at Camden,[7] and by 1839 moved to Philip Parker Kings' property Dunheved near Penrith.[8]
Explorer Allan Cunningham told him of the Darling Downs to the north that he had discovered in 1827. Patrick, his younger brothers George and Walter and their sheep, headed north in 1840 selecting runs which became Toolburra and Canning Downs Stations. Still financially indebted to his uncle, Leslie was eventually assisted by his father to clear some debts and purchased two parcels of Brisbane riverfront land in 1845 in his father's name.
By the end of 1845, Patrick Leslie was sourcing building materials for a house he was planning for himself and his wife Kate and son Willy. He named it ‘Newstead', and the family moved in between April and July 1846. Patrick Leslie wrote to his father providing a detailed description of the house, as well as floor plans and a site plan. Constructed from brick, stone and timber, the original house was two storeyed, with living rooms and bedrooms on the upper floor and servants' rooms, cellars and kitchen on the lower floor. A steep staircase in what is now the entry vestibule connected the two floors, and other utilitarian structures were located to the rear (western side) of the house. An 8ft (2.4m) wide verandah on the first floor eastern side, adjoining the sitting room and main bedroom, faced the best views of the river.
He wrote a lengthy description of the setting of the house and the plants grown in the garden, including Kate's garden on the southern side of the house. There was a well, milking yard and cow pen, and a road following a gully to the west. In the same letter, he told his father that he had purchased a run adjacent to Canning Downs in his son's name, and kept his stock on his brother's property. The family had barely settled into the house at Newstead when he decided to return to the Downs. The Leslies departed Newstead on 10 October 1846, leaving it under the management of two employees.[9]
In June 1847 Newstead House was sold to Captain John Clements Wickham for £1000, although not formally transferred by deed until 1 February 1854.[10] The sale was a mutually beneficial arrangement as John and Anna Wickham were about to build on their adjoining lot at Newstead.[11]
Wickham undertook extensions in late 1847 when they moved in. A sketch dated 1848 by Owen Stanley, shows the building was light in colour, (indicating it had been rendered) with verandahs extended to the north and south with the bedrooms extended onto the verandahs. [12]
In April 1853, Captain Wickham was appointed Government Resident for Moreton Bay, having served in the role since January that year. The house then became the unofficial government house. A servants' wing adjacent to the house is evident in a painting produced in July 1853.[13]
In April 1854 the Governor General, Sir Charles Fitz Roy, came to Moreton Bay on an official visit, staying at Newstead. Following a public dinner,[14] Wickham arranged for a meeting on the subject of separation from New South Wales, between the Governor General and key citizens.[15] While Wickham supported separation meetings, the actual event led to the abolition of his position. The new Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, arrived in Brisbane on 10 December 1859. Wickham left the new colony of Queensland in January 1860 and returned to England.[16]
Newstead House was offered for sale from September 1862,[17] having been occupied by the Attorney General, Ratcliffe Pring, from February 1860. By December 1862 George and Jane Harris advertised for servants for Newstead, presumably indicating their occupation of the house.[18] George Harris, a member of the Legislative Council of Queensland, had married Jane Thorn, daughter of Member of the Legislative Assembly and businessman George Thorn, in Ipswich in 1860. George Harris' brother John had initiated a mercantile and shipping business in Brisbane in the 1840s. George joined the business in 1848 and the firm J & G Harris was formed in April 1853, with John as an agent in London. The Harris brothers established a store in Short Street at North Quay and operated a fleet of ships, a fellmongery, tannery, and a boot and harness factory.[19] The town of Harrisville, south of Ipswich, evolved from J & G Harris's cotton plantation and gin.[20] George Harris commissioned architect James Cowlishaw to design Harris Terrace in George Street in 1865-67 (QHR 600121). He also called for tenders for repairs and additions to Newstead House in 1865 and 1867.[21]
George Harris had acquired the Newstead property (Lots 62, 63, and 65) in 1867, mortgaged for the sum of £4000 to the trustees of the estate of JC Wickham, having previously leased the property.[22] The repairs and additions undertaken by Cowlishaw in 1865 and 1867 led to a major re-design of the house, building four new rooms on both the northern and southern sides. Each of these extensions included new double fireplaces and chimneys. The staircase to the lower floor was removed and replaced by a trapdoor in the verandah floor. A new entrance was created by building a retaining wall which supported the extended front verandah. Fill was deposited to create a gently sloping lawn on the western side, taking water away from the basement structure. Sandstone steps were built, providing a new western entrance to the house. This made a basement of the ground floor of the Leslie structure. The verandahs were extended to 10 feet (3m) in width, provided with railings, new posts, gutters and rainwater heads. The roof shingles were replaced with slate, although sheet metal was used on the verandahs. A marble floor was installed in the entry foyer and marble mantelpieces built into the formal rooms. A substantial new kitchen and servants' quarters were also built during the Harris era.[23]
George Harris arranged for a new certificate of title under the Real Property Act in May 1874.[24] The property was then mortgaged for 10 years to James Taylor of Toowoomba for £10,000.[25] Further building work was required when the stables burnt down in November 1873.[26] Harris declared his business to be insolvent in August 1876 and both Newstead and Harris Terrace were transferred to James Taylor by December 1876.[27]
The Harris's continued to lease the property for many years. Their financial position may have been buoyed by the distribution of the estate of Jane's father, George Thorn, who died in April 1876, with extensive property interests including Claremont homestead (QHR 600589), land in Ipswich and Cleveland (Thornlands),[28] and Normanby Station (QHR 600737) which were offered for sale in 1878-9.[29] James Taylor subdivided much of the estate into housing lots, retaining 11 acres (4.5ha) on which Newstead House was located. The estate was advertised for sale in July 1878.[30]
A further lease for Newstead House was drawn up to George Harris in March 1887, which was surrendered in November the following year.[31] Liquidators were called in to wind-up the affairs of J and G Harris.[32] An attempt was made to sell the property, now reduced to 4.5 acres (8200m2) in December 1888. The newspaper advertisement referred to the main house as being built of stone and brick with a slate roof, comprising an extra large drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, principal bedroom, library, three bedrooms and bathroom with 10ft (3m) verandahs all round; a wooden wing with a slate roof comprising four large bedrooms, a workroom, two storerooms and bathroom; a kitchen wing built of brick with a slate roof incorporating a kitchen, pantry, large storeroom, two servants' rooms, scullery and man's room; and an outhouse consisting of a four stall stable, man's room, harness room, large coach house and laundry. Also on the property was another four stall stable, fowl house, landing jetty, boathouse, bathing house, two 20,000 gallon (90,000 litre) underground tanks and various other tanks; and a magnificent flower, fruit and vegetable garden.[33]
Further subdivision of the surrounding land into suburban lots occurred in 1888 and in 1890,[34] after it was transferred to the Federal Building Land and Investment Society Ltd.[35] An auction sale of all of the Harris's furnishings and belongings was held on 22 April 1890, and George and Jane departed the following day.[36]
Newstead House played host to numerous important visitors over the years, including high ranking members of the clergy,[37] [38] the Governor General, and royalty,[39] as well as hosting large events such as weddings, dinners, balls and boating events on the river, particularly during the occupation of the Harris's.[40] Daughter Evelyn Harris married RG Casey, manager of her grandfather George Thorn's former property, Normanby Station. The 1888 wedding was followed by a lavish reception at Newstead House.[41] Her son Richard, born in 1890, was Governor of Bengal from 1944-46 and in 1960 was appointed life peer to the House of Lords, the Upper House of the United Kingdom. Lord Casey became Governor General of Australia in 1965 to 1969.[42]
The departure of the Harris family was the end of an era for the house, in that no subsequent owners or tenants occupied the dwelling for any substantial length of time. The sale of furnishings of a tenant in March 1896 indicated that the substantial servants' quarters and kitchen of the Harris era had been replaced with the building now referred to as the Annex. It included a kitchen, pantry laundry and possibly one other servants' room.[43] The property was owned by Lysaght Brothers and Company for several years from August 1896. Lysaghts had plans for a wire netting and galvanised iron factory on the site that were never realised.[44] Newstead was briefly run as a boarding house in 1906.[45]
Newstead House was sold in October 1908 to Caroline Amelia Heaslop, wife of Thomas Heaslop, a wholesale grocery merchant, and by November 1909 a major refurbishment had been undertaken. The house continued to be leased to tenants. The Council of the City of Brisbane began negotiations with Mrs Heaslop to purchase the property in 1915[46] and it was formally acquired by the Council of the City of Brisbane in 1918.
The Council had been keen to acquire this prime riverfront site for parkland, and were influenced by the international town planning movement of the time. The Queensland Town Planning Association had formed in March 1915, advocating the need for more metropolitan parks, particularly along the river.[47] In 1918, the property that comprised most of the original ESA 63 including Newstead House was transferred to the Council. This was later devested to the Brisbane City Council (BCC) in 1933 under section 30 of The City of Brisbane Act 1924. A number of options for the use of the house were proposed, including availing the property to returned soldiers as a hostel.[48] Parks Superintendent Henry (Harry) Moore moved into Newstead House in late 1917 or early 1918.[49] The slate roof was replaced at this time, with red painted concrete tiles.[50]
Harry Moore was appointed as Superintendent of Parks in September 1912, initially based at Bowen Park which had recently been vacated by the Acclimatisation Society. From 1909 Moore had been curator of Canterbury Park in Eaglehawk, near Bendigo in Victoria.[51] He had a distinctive style of park layout with a preference for circular garden beds. He preferred the fluidity of gently curving walkways radiating from a few entrance points. His influence can be seen in one remnant section of Canterbury Park, as well as in his other works in Queensland including New Farm Park (QHR 602402), Bowen Park (QHR 601523) and Gympie Memorial Park (QHR 602729). He is also well known for using dry stone walls to create raised garden beds, examples of which can be found in Centenary Place (QHR 602442), Yeronga Memorial Park (QHR 602462), and in the streets of Kangaroo Point and Spring Hill. For shade trees, he favoured a bold mix of palms, pines and dramatic flowering species such as poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) and jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia). [52]
Moore's appointment occurred during the time of the nascent town planning movement which, among other things, promoted the building of roads in relation to the contours of the land. This is evident in Moore's path layout in Newstead Park. His design included the removal of all riverbank vegetation and the creation of stone revetment walls, removal of old fences, construction of paths, path lighting, and planting additional trees in front of the house.[53] He planted about 150 trees, palms and shrubs initially and then prepared trenching and beds for 700 roses.[54] Newstead Park was officially opened in January 1921.[55]
In 1923, the centenary of the arrival of John Oxley was celebrated in Newstead Park with a band for entertainment.[56] The band rotunda appears to have evolved from a temporary platform provided in 1921, becoming a bandstand by 1925.[57] A World War I trophy cannon was unveiled in the park, near the rotunda, in November 1922.[58] In 1924 the Council announced further resumptions of contiguous land.[59] Twelve buildings were auctioned for removal, from Newstead Avenue, Breakfast Creek Road and Newstead Drive, in March 1926.[60] Stone entrance pillars with lamps mounted on top were built in November 1927.[61] The park also features a large draughts board installed in 1929.[62] A newspaper report in 1929 discussed Harry Moore's ten years of work in the park. Mature trees he retained included bunya pines, Moreton Bay ash, silky oaks, white Cyprus and the Flacourtia ramoutchi of East India. He also planted avenues of Queen Palms, here and in other parks and streets of Brisbane, and was responsible for introducing the distinctive tropical character to Brisbane's open spaces.[63] The large fig tree (Ficus infectoria) within the circular drive dates to the occupation by the Wickhams,[64] and appears to be the oldest tree remaining on the property. Moore and his family continued to live in Newstead House until late 1938.[65]
In 1927 the BCC Tramways Department announced plans to build a substation at Newstead Park.[66] Brisbane Tramways had evolved from a private company which established horse drawn trams in 1885 and a subsequent company delivering electric trams from 1895. The first power station for trams was built in Countess Street in 1897. Various arrangements with the City Electric Light Company continued to supply power until the Brisbane Tramways Trust was initiated by an Act of Parliament in 1922. After the establishment of Greater Brisbane City Council in 1925, which included the acquisition of the Brisbane Tramways Trust, there was an expansion of electricity supply and public transport.
Substation No. 5 in Newstead Park was designed by BCC architect and construction engineer Roy Rusden Ogg, and opened in June 1928. [67] Ogg designed at least 10 of the city's substations up until 1936, as well as the first two stages of the New Farm Powerhouse, which provided electricity to the city's tram network. A total of 10 tramways substations: Russell Street South Brisbane (1927); Ballow Street, Fortitude Valley (1928); Logan Road, Woolloongabba (1928); Petrie Terrace (1928); Windsor (1927, QHR 602492); Paddington (1930, QHR 601198); Norman Park (1935, QHR 602410); Kedron Park Road, Kedron (1935); and Ipswich Road, Annerley (1936), were built through to the mid-1930s, seven of which survive. Many had additions enabling equipment upgrades and a further 5 were built after World War II.[68] Only Newstead and Petrie Terrace substations retain the BT (Brisbane Tramways) logo.[69] To help integrate the industrial substation buildings into their often residential settings, Ogg used neo-classical detailing to ornament the facades.
By the late 1920s Brisbane City Council could not foresee a potential use for Newstead House except as a museum.[70] In September 1931 the Queensland Historical Society (founded 1913) approached the Lord Mayor, Alderman Greene, proposing that Newstead House be made available as an historical library and technological museum.[71] In May 1932, the Society was given use of 3 rooms,[72] although Harry Moore still occupied the house until late 1938. Between 1934 and 1938 a number of proposals were made in relation to the use of the house as a museum.[73] In March 1938 the Queensland Historical Society appointed a special committee to prepare a draft scheme for the creation of a Trust to control the proposed museum.[74]
In February 1939, the Finance Committee of BCC recommended that Newstead House be placed under trust for the use of the Historical Society of Queensland.[75] The Trust would administer the Newstead House Trust Fund and receive donations, bequests, legacies and grants.[76] The Newstead House Trust Act came into force on 1 March 1940, with the State Treasurer, Mr Cooper as chairman, and the Lord Mayor, Alderman Jones, and the President of the Historical Society, Mr Fergus McMaster, as trustees.[77] In preparation for its role as a museum, fire proofing of two rooms and repairs to the house were undertaken to the specification of architects R Coutts and Sons.[78]
From late 1942 through to the end of World War II, Newstead House was occupied by the Photographic Detachment of the 832nd Signal Service Company, Signal Section of the Unites States Army Services of Supply. The house was used as a barracks for the men, while nearby Cintra House housed the photographic laboratory. A gun emplacement was located on the riverfront beyond the bandstand.[79]
In 1950, the Annex was transferred to the Trust and a new certificate of title issued. These are now lots 1 & 2 on RP58673 (house and annex footprints).[80]
The Queensland Women's Historical Association, formed in April 1950, held its inaugural meeting at Newstead House. In late 1951 the Association was given use of the old Breakfast Room for housing records and equipment. It also involved itself with renovation of the house. The Association acquired its own quarters in 1966, purchasing a house known as ‘Beverly Wood' (later reverting to its original name ‘Miegunyah' (QHR 600055)) in 1967.[81]
From 1968 through to the early 1970s, a major renovation of Newstead House was managed by the State Works Department, facilitating its transformation into a house museum. The verandah timbers were taken up allowing the replacement of defective joists. Major earthworks were undertaken around the house at this time and the timber bathroom to the annex and the annex chimney were removed. Works on the basement included removal of plaster from brickwork, some re-pointing of brick walls, damp proofing and paving the floor. The house was opened to the public in February 1971. The works have been ongoing, including re-roofing with concrete tiles in 1977. [82]
David Gibson was appointed as curator in August 1974, a position he retained until 2011. He initiated the ‘Friends of Newstead' committee to assist in fundraising for the development and interpretation of the house.[83] The committee utilised the celebration of the house's 130th anniversary in 1976 to embark on a fundraising campaign to begin renovation and interpretation of the dining room and gentleman's library. Volunteers each devoted one Sunday a month, serving refreshments to visitors, and had raised $6500 by mid 1977.[84] The Royal Historical Society relocated to the former Commissariat Store (QHR 600176) in William Street in October 1981.
After the discontinuation of the Brisbane tramway system in 1969 the substation at Newstead Park, along with Brisbane's other tramway substations, became redundant to Council's needs. The substation was transferred to the Newstead House Board of Trustees in June 1977[85] and work commenced on its conversion into a resource centre. The first phase of the project included the removal of the electrical machinery, rewiring, re-design of the entry door, laying of new carpet and the repainting of the interior. Later a mezzanine level was installed to provide an office area.[86] The Newstead House Resource Centre officially opened in the former tramways substation on 29 September 1978.[87]
In August 1987 the Queensland Government proposed that Newstead House and Park be absorbed by the Queensland Museum[88] citing the advantages of placing the house and surrounding land under common control.[89] This proved to be a controversial proposal which never eventuated, although its administration was ultimately transferred from the Arts portfolio to that of the Department of Environment and Heritage in 1990. [90]
Newstead Park was managed by Harry Oakman, the new BCC Superintendent of Parks, from 1945. One of his first tasks was rejuvenating the many parks occupied by the military during the war years. He re-designed Newstead Park along Breakfast Creek following the realignment of the road for the 1959 construction of a new bridge. He designed and planted shrubberies on either side of the main drive, and filled in gaps in the line of palms with new palms of the same species as those flanking the Moore pathways.[91]
A number of structures and features have been added to the park over the years. A brick tool shed was built behind the substation in 1939. The American Memorial, a Helidon sandstone pillar (10.6m high) with an American eagle on top, was carved by sculptor Tom Farrell, of PJ Lowther and Sons. It was unveiled on 3 May 1952 by Governor Sir John Lavarack, marking the 10th anniversary of the American-Australian naval and air victory in the Coral Sea Battle.[92] The early band rotunda and World War I cannon were removed to allow for the new memorial. This was the first American war memorial in Australia. The second, similar in design, was opened in February 1954 by the Queen, in Kings Avenue Canberra.[93]
Another significant inclusion is the sandstone mounted tide gauge donated by the British India Steam Navigation Company to celebrate Queensland's Centenary in 1959. The stone housing was built by PJ Lowther and Son and the project unveiled in August 1961.[94]
A flagpole was donated to the Historical Society in August 1956 and it was erected near to the house in September, although taken down and reinstated during the renovations of the late 1960s.[95] It flies a replica of the Queensland Ensign which was first unfurled to honour the arrival of Governor Bowen in 1859. On the house wall outside the main bedroom is a plaque honouring Captain John Clements Wickham, donated by his grandson in 1933.
Near the American Memorial, is Lyndon B Johnson Place, unveiled during the American President's visit in 1966. A sundial was installed to the west of the front entry to the house, commemorating the generosity of the Rotary Club of Newstead in providing floodlighting to the river side of the house. It was relocated from a park in Holland Park to Newstead in 1977.[96] A memorial to the Australian Navy Corvettes was established in 1988, near Lyndon B Johnson Place. On the eastern side of the property, near to the site of the former Newstead Wharves, is the Oxley Memorial, constructed in 1983. There is a Service to Vietnam memorial, a Submariner's memorial, the Prisoners from Rakuyo Memorial and a memorial to Charles Willers, the founder of the first Rostrum Club. The park also contains a number of mature trees planted in honour of various people with links to the historical societies.[97]
Newstead Park and its facilities continue to be managed by Brisbane City Council. The lawn and carriageway providing access to the house was re-designed in 1987, initially paved in decomposed granite. The Friends funded paving to this area in 1987, due to damage to the floors from granite stones caught in visitor's shoes. A gazebo was built in 1984 near the site of the original band rotunda. A drinking fountain was donated in 1985 by the Brisbane Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson, who also organised for the relocation of a pissoir from Merthyr Road, New Farm, to a site between the house and the substation in 1987.
In 2006, the Friends of Newstead employed a conservation architect to refurbish the main bedroom of Newstead House. During the site works, the removal of non-significant elements such as the 1970s wallpaper and picture rail revealed: the outline of the 1865 wall that once divided the space into two rooms; fragments of early wallpaper; and the early ceiling which was sheeted over c.1940. The evidence gathered as part of the investigation informed the re-decoration of the room. The ceiling and rose were painted to approximate early colours found and the walls were papered from skirting to cornice with commercially available wallpaper similar to the original.[98]
Equitable access to the house was provided in 2013 with the installation of a disabled parking bay, and a lift and accessible toilets within the Annex, thereby ensuring the continued enjoyment of Newstead House by all Queenslanders. The property is valued for its historic significance as well as being a site for ritual events and celebrations, such as weddings. The house has appeared in numerous tourism promotions, travel guides and television programs over the decades, indicating its landmark status in Brisbane.
References
[1] Johnston, W Ross, Brisbane, the first 30 Years, Brisbane: Boolarong, 1988, pp. 12-16.
[2] Sydney Morning Herald, 16 April 1845, p.3; Survey Plan B12345; Application Package 3608, EHP.
[3] Shaw, AGL; King, Gidley (1758-1808); (no identified author) King, Philip Parker (1791-1856); O'Grady, Frank, King, Philip Gidley (1817-1904); Australian Dictionary of Biography, online, accessed 28 February 2013.
[4] Moreton Bay Courier, 8 January 1848, p.3.
[5] Fisher, Rod, The Best of Colonial Brisbane, Brisbane: Boolarong Press, 2012, p. 8.
[6] Diamond, Marion, ‘The Myth of Patrick Leslie' Queensland History Journal, vol 20 no 11 August 2009, p. 612.
[7] Onlsow, Sibella Macaruthur, Some Early Records of the Macarthurs of Camden, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1914, p.
[8] Diamond, Marion, ‘The Myth of Patrick Leslie' Queensland History Journal, vol 20 no 11 August 2009, p. 613.
[9] Ballard and Roessler, ‘Conservation Study 1993, Newstead House 1846 and later', prepared for the Board of Trustees of Newstead House, submitted 11 March 1994, p. 23.
[10] Ballard and Roessler, p. 302 - referencing Package 3608 in old Titles System.
[11] Ballard and Roessler, p. 26-27.
[12] Ballard and Roessler, p.35-37 - referencing 1848 watercolour by Owen Stanley, State Library of New South Wales ZPXC281.
[13] Painting by Henry John Douglas Scott, held in the State Library of New South Wales DG SSv4/1 - Captain Wickham's Newstead Cottage Brisbane, July 1853.
[14] Illustrated Sydney News, 1 April 1854, p.5.
[15] Moreton Bay Courier, 15 April 1854, p.2-3.
[16] Moreton Bay Courier, 21 February 1860, p.2.
[17] The Courier, 23 September 1862, p.3.
[18] Courier Mail, 31 December 1862, p.3.
[19] Lack, Clem, ‘George Harris, 1831 - 1891) Australian Dictionary of Biography online accessed April 2013.
[20] Brisbane Courier, 6 December 1907, p. 10.
[21] Watson, Don and Judith Mackay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century, Queensland Museum, 1994, p.p. 46-47.
[22] Titles Application Package 3608 - pre-Torrens system for Newstead House.
[23] Ballard and Roessler, p.132-133.
[24] Certificate of Title 10221052, EHP.
[25] Brisbane Courier, 28 October 1876, p. 6.
[26] Watson, Don and Judith Mackay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century, Queensland Museum, 1994, p. 47; Brisbane Courier, 25 November 1873, p. 2.
[27] Certificate of Title 10221052, EHP; Ballard and Roessler, p. 67, refer to the transfer of Harris Terrace at the same time.
[28] Brisbane Courier, 23 October 1877, p.3.
[29] Brisbane Courier, 5 February 1878, p. 4; Brisbane Courier, 11 January 1879, p. 7.
[30] Brisbane Courier, 23 July 1878, p.4.
[31] Certificate of Title 10561170, EHP.
[32] Ballard and Roessler, p. 361; Certificate of Title 10561170.
[33] Brisbane Courier, 13 December 1888, p. 8.
[34] Survey Plans RP 9355, 9360, EHP.
[35] Certificate of Title, 10768037, EHP.
[36] Warwick Examiner and Times, 23 April 1890, p.2.
[37] Ballard and Roessler, p. 39-40, p. 307.
[38] Moreton Bay Courier, 8 July 1850, p.1.
[39] Queenslander, 29 February 1868, p.7.
[40] Ballard and Roessler, p. 59.
[41] Brisbane Courier, 24 May 1888, p.5.
[42] Casey, Richard, Gavin Gardiner (1890 - 1976), Australian Dictionary of Biography, online.
[43] Brisbane Courier, 25 March 1896, p. 8.
[44] Brisbane Courier, 20 October 1896, p.2;
[45] Brisbane Courier, 16 December 1905, p.2; Brisbane Courier 6 March 1906, p.8
[46] Brisbane City Council Minutes, 1916, 1917, 1918.
[47] McConville, Chris ‘Queensland's popular movement in planning 1914-1930: socialism, regularity and profit', p. 66, in Robert Freestone (ed), Cities, Citizens and Environmental Reform, histories of Australian Town Planning Associations Sydney University Press, 2009.
[48] Brisbane Courier, 1 March 1918, p. 6.
[49] Queensland Post Office Directory 1918; Wilson, Beth, Kay Cohen and Peter Marquis Kyle - Wilson Landscape Architects; ‘Conservation Study, 1996, Newstead Park, Breakfast Creek Road, Newstead', report prepared for Brisbane City Council Department of Recreation and Health, p.13.
[50] Ballard and Roessler, p. 135.
[51] Bendigo Advertiser 26 October 1909, p.4; Bendigonian, 13 January 1914, p.14.
[52] Sim, Jeannie, ‘Harry Moore, The First Superintendent in Brisbane paper produced from presentations to Brisbane History Group and Friends of Newstead House, 2000; Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, South Melbourne, Australian Garden History Society, 2002, p, 416.
[53] Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, South Melbourne, Australian Garden History Society, 2002, p, 440.
[54] Wilson, Beth, Kay Cohen and Peter Marquis Kyle - Wilson Landscape Architects; ‘Conservation Study, 1996, Newstead Park, Breakfast Creek Road, Newstead', report prepared for Brisbane City Council Department of Recreation and Health. p. 57.
[55] Brisbane Courier, 28 January 1921, p.6.
[56] Brisbane Courier, 30 November 1923, p.12.
[57] Ballard and Roessler, p.p.387 - 389.
[58] Brisbane Courier, 14 November 1922, p.4.
[59] Brisbane Courier, 30 April 1924, p.7.
[60] Brisbane Courier, 20 February 1926, p.13.
[61] Brisbane Courier, 12 November 1927, p. 7.
[62] Board of Trustees of Newstead House, Newstead House, self published, 1986 edition, p. 24; Brisbane Courier, 11 March 1933, p. 17.
[63] Sim, Jeannie, ‘Harry Moore, The First Parks Superintendent in Brisbane', paper produced from presentations to Brisbane History Group and Friends of Newstead House, 2000.
[64] Queenslander, 16 January 1930, p.50
[65] Courier Mail, 31 July 1934 P.11; Courier Mail, 9 November 1935, p. 22; Courier Mail, 17 December 1938, p.1.
[66] Brisbane Courier, 12 July 1927, p. 8.
[67] for a full description of the structure, see Brisbane Courier, 1 June 1928, p. 25.
[68] Brisbane Courier 1 June 1928, p. 25
[69] Substation information supplied by BCC archives in collaboration with Brisbane Tramway Museum.
[70] Brisbane Courier, 28 September 1927, p.14.
[71] Brisbane Courier, 17 September 1931, p. 10.
[72] Brisbane Courier, 21 May 1932, p .12.
[73] Newstead House Guide Book, n.d.; ‘Worth Preservation', newspaper clipping, 18 February 1938. Newstead House files, RHSQ.
[74] Newstead House Guide Book, n.d.
[75] Courier Mail, 25 February 1939, p. 7.
[76] Courier Mail, 23 November 1939, p. 7; Newstead House Trust Act 1939 Sections 7 & 10.
[77] Courier Mail, 23 February 1940, p. 14.
[78] Royal Historical Society of Queensland File 8634 - Newstead House repairs: Ballard and Roessler p.p. 396-400.
[79] Marks, Roger, and Peter, Dunn - Brisbane WW2 v Now, Book 1, Newstead House, self published July 2005.
[80] Certificate of Title No 192373 Volume 2577 Folio 5, EHP.
[81] Ballard and Roessler, Newstead House Conservation Study, pp. 404, 413, 420, 421
[82] Ballard and Roessler, p. 423-458; RHSQ File 8636.
[83] Ballard and Roessler, Newstead House Conservation Study, pp. 453-4.
[84] Australian Women's Weekly, 27 July 1977, p. 112.
[85] Certificate of title 15660142, EHP.
[86] Brisbane City Council Heritage Unit - Newstead House and Park file.
[87] Ballard and Roessler, Newstead House Conservation Study, p. 461.
[88] Board of Trustees minutes 27 August 1987, Board of Trustees Minute Book 13 July 1983-11 February 1993, NHA cited by Ballard and Roessler, Newstead House Conservation Study, p. 473.
[89] ‘State gets house: city keeps land', Courier Mail, 8 October 1987, Queensland Newspaper Library cited by Ballard and Roessler, Newstead House Conservation Study, p. 473.
[90] Courier Mail, 18 December 1990, Queensland Newspaper Library cited by Ballard and Roessler, Newstead House Conservation Study, p. 475.
[91] Council of the Heads of Australasian Herbaria, Australian National Herbarium _ Harry Oakman http://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/oakman-harry.html accessed 8 April 2013.
[92] Sunday Mail, 4 May 1952,p.3; Courier Mail 7 March 1952, p.3; see also oral history interview by Robyn Buchanan with Tom Farrell, Ipswich City Council library, online http://www.ipswich.qld.gov.au/documents/heritage/11_tom_farrell_oral_history.pdf
[93] Canberra Times, 16 February 1954, p.6.
[94] Brisbane City Council, Heritage Unit file - Newstead House and Park.
[95] Ballard and Roessler p.p.410, 413, 429.
[96] Board of Trustees of Newstead House, Newstead House, self published, 1986 edition, p.26.
[97] Wilson, Beth, Kay Cohen and Peter Marquis Kyle - Wilson Landscape Architects; ‘Conservation Study, 1996, Newstead Park, Breakfast Creek Road, Newstead', report prepared for Brisbane City Council Department of Recreation and Health.
[98] Report of Margaret Lawrence-Drew, Master Bedroom Refurbishment report 2006.
[99] Room name allocations are consistent with those used in the Newstead House Conservation Study (1994, Ballard & Roessler)
[100] Not included within the heritage boundary
[101] Wilson, Beth, Kay Cohen and Peter Marquis Kyle - Wilson Landscape Architects; ‘Conservation Study, 1996, Newstead Park, Breakfast Creek Road, Newstead', report prepared for Brisbane City Council Department of Recreation and Health.
","criteria":"Newstead House (1846), as the oldest surviving residence in Brisbane, is important in demonstrating the pattern of the early period of free settlement in Queensland. It served as the unofficial government house during Wickham's appointment as Government Resident between 1853 and 1859. The expansion of the house, financed through the business activities of George Harris, is evidence of the early growth of commerce in Queensland.
Newstead Park is important as the original garden setting for Newstead House. As an early public park from 1915, Newstead Park is important in demonstrating the world-wide influence of the town planning movement in encouraging town and city beautification schemes with the establishment of public parks. The Australian American Memorial located within the park, is the only American war memorial of its type in Queensland and the first of two such memorials in Australia. It is important as evidence of the Australian-USA alliance that was so vital in securing Allied victory in the South-West Pacific area during World War II.
Within an integrated suburban network of substations, the former Brisbane Tramways Substation No. 5 is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's industrial development. In particular, the development of electricity generation and supply, the development of a public transport system and the subsequent suburban expansion of Brisbane in the 1920s and 1930s.
|The core of Newstead House is rare surviving evidence of an 1840s Queensland colonial residence.
|Newstead House and Park have aesthetic qualities that have been admired and valued since the site of the original 1840s cottage was chosen to take advantage of stunning views of the Brisbane River. Positioned on a high ridge surrounded by open parkland, the house is a prominent and iconic landmark, highly visible from nearby suburbs, major roads and the river. The design of the house, with its wide verandahs and long, low form, directs attention towards the views, evoking a sense of tranquillity.
The park, laid out over a steeply undulating site with mature trees, open lawns, curving pathways and formal garden beds, provides an attractive and picturesque setting for the house, allowing it to be viewed from a variety of positions. The strong visual appeal of Newstead House and Park is evidenced by the extensive use of images of the place in publications and travel guides to promote Brisbane and Queensland over the decades.
|Newstead House has a special association with its founder Patrick Leslie, a pioneer of the Darling Downs and the Queensland wool industry; with Captain John Clements Wickham, Government Resident of the Moreton Bay settlement; and with the family of entrepreneur and Member of the Legislative Council, George Harris.
Newstead House has had a special association with the Royal Historical Society of Queensland and the Queensland Women's Historical Society which based their activities in the house for 49 and 17 years respectively. Both organisations were advocates for the ongoing conservation of the property, and both have made substantial contributions to the study of history and heritage in Queensland.
Newstead Park is significant for its association with horticulturalists, landscape designers and Brisbane City Council Superintendents of Parks, Harry Moore and Harry Oakman, both of whom have made significant contributions to the development and design of parks in Brisbane and elsewhere in Australia.
The Australian American Memorial has special significance for veterans of the World War II South-West Pacific campaign and their descendants.
|Newstead House has the potential to yield information that will contribute to our understanding of Queensland's history. As the oldest surviving residence in Brisbane, it has the potential to provide information on the domestic lives of Queenslanders during the nineteenth century.
Newstead Park has the potential to reveal information on the development and design of the gardens of early residents of Newstead House, the early garden layouts of the public park, as well as the leisure activities of generations of Queenslanders. The park may also provide information on the residences which were removed in the 1920s.
Previous archaeological investigations at Newstead House have already demonstrated the potential of the site. Further investigation may reveal the foundations of the earlier servants' quarters (replaced by the current Annex between 1888 and 1896); ancillary buildings, underground services and domestic artefacts.
|Newstead House demonstrates the principal characteristics of a large colonial residence of the mid-late 19th century in Queensland, with a formal entry vestibule, multiple living rooms and bedrooms, separate servants' quarters, and high quality joinery and fittings, including three marble mantelpieces. Generously-sized formal rooms, separated by folding and sliding doors, were designed to accommodate large social functions, and the encircling verandahs, which are an adaptation to the Queensland climate, are accessible from all rooms of the house.
The design and layout of Newstead Park demonstrates the evolution of landscape design from the early 20th century in Queensland. Designed by Harry Moore, the park includes his signature curved pathways radiating from access points, enhanced by avenues of palms, and designed to complement the sublimity of Newstead House and contribute to the distinctive tropical nature of Brisbane's open spaces.
The design of the Australian American Memorial, comprising a classical column surmounted by an eagle, is typical of such memorials throughout the world.
A carefully composed, small-scale, utilitarian building with a temple-like form, the former Tramways Substation is important as a fine example of the work of architect Roy Rusden Ogg, who employed neo-classical detailing to integrate these industrial buildings into their often residential settings. In its design, scale and materials the building displays the principal characteristics of a Brisbane tramways substation, including dark brickwork, classical design, large windows, high ceiling, ventilation panels, large entry doorway and gantry system.
|Newstead House and Park have had a special association with generations of Queenslanders as a place of historic importance and a place for family events, celebrations and rites of passage including weddings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15041,"place_ref":600266,"name":"Roseville","alternate_name":"Uradah","street_address":"56 Chester Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-25","description":"Roseville is a one-storeyed rendered brick building surrounded by timber and iron lacework verandahs. It has a corrugated iron roof, the principal roof being a U-shaped hip trimmed with paired console brackets, which sits above a convex verandah roof. Two substantial decorated chimneys rise above the roof line. A detached rendered brick service building on a stone base at the rear of the house has now been incorporated into the more recent additions.
The southern frontage presents a symmetrical face to the street with a pair of bay windows which are expressed in the roof, and a central entrance. The entrance is articulated with a fretwork pediment on paired columns which sits slightly in relief to the rest of the verandah, and wide rendered masonry stairs with scrolled strings.
The verandah has chamfered twin posts with valances; the eastern portion of the verandah has been glazed. The outer edge of the verandah sits on a perforated brickwork screen with brick stumps, while the perimeter wall of the house itself rests on a stone base.
The rooms of the house run either side of a central hallway; two grander rooms are located towards the front. The entry section of the hallway has a mosaic tile floor. The interior includes four marble fireplaces, a variety of ceiling rosettes, dados and decorative cornices and mouldings. French doors and large sash windows open to the verandah.
Refurbishment included landscaping, and the garden now contains ornamental pools, waterways, flowerbeds and rich vegetation.
The main building remains essentially intact in form and structure.
","history":"This large single-storeyed residence is on the slopes of Teneriffe Hill. It was constructed about 1886 for George Myers, a successful Brisbane china and glassware merchant whose principal store was located in Queen Street. In 1889 he also erected a warehouse in Edward Street. (QHR 600090)
The site originally was part of James Gibbon's Teneriffe estate. Myers had purchased it in 1885 from architect and newspaper proprietor James Cowlishaw, and it is possible Cowlishaw produced the design.
The residence was called Roseville, reputedly because of the large rose garden Myers established in the grounds.
He sold the property in 1887, and in 1891 the house passed to Mrs Ann Cowell, who renamed it Uradah after a family property at Longreach.
It has operated as a hostel run by the Society of the Divine Word, and subsequently became Roseville Restaurant.
In the early 1980s alterations and additions associated with its conversion to the restaurant included redecorated interiors, new stained glass work and renovated verandahs. A new double-storeyed service building was added at the rear, and the original kitchen wing was modernised. A timber stable building at the rear was demolished.
","criteria":"Roseville is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as evidence of the development of the Teneriffe area.
|Roseville demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s Brisbane residence.
|Roseville is significant for its contribution to the townscape character of Teneriffe Hill and exhibits aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15043,"place_ref":600268,"name":"Teneriffe House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"37 Teneriffe Drive","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-05-14","description":"Teneriffe House is a large, single-storeyed brick and timber residence located on a hill overlooking the Bulimba reach of the Brisbane River. The principal entrance is at the rear facing Teneriffe Drive, as the front of the house takes advantage of the river views.
The house comprises four sections:
The core (1865 & 1880s) is a well-proportioned, rendered brick building with a hipped roof of corrugated iron and stone foundations. It is encircled by wide verandahs with slender cast-iron columns. The front verandah is 6 metres deep and has cedar fretwork trusses and a sprung floor. The western, or rear, verandah has been enclosed. Dominating the western facade is a rendered portico with entablature, shaped pediment and decorative urns. Beyond the portico a formal entrance leads to a central vestibule, from which radiate four large rooms with cedar joinery and marble mantelpieces. Wide french doors with tall arched panels of glass open onto the verandahs from the two rear rooms. The large front room is divided by an ornamented archway and folding cedar doors. It has large step out windows which telescope into decorative timber panels. The main building now contains two flats.
Attached to the southern end of the rear verandah is a small masonry strong room, with a built-in safe. Adjacent to the strongroom, a timber wing runs east to west. This may be the original 1865 service wing. The verandah along its southern side has been enclosed, but that on the northern side survives. This wing has been converted into two flats, but some of the rooms retain c1920s timber panelling and plasterwork.
To the south a timber wing (c1880s) is connected to the core via the verandahs. Although more modest in scale and materials, it has the same french doors as the core, a double fireplace with marble surrounds, and a small oriel window and folding dividing doors in the long southern room. It has been divided into two flats.
To the southeast is a rendered brick building (c1880s) which once contained a skylit billiard room. Built into the side of the hill at a lower level than the other buildings, it has a walk-on flat roof with a concrete parapet or balustrade. Part of the roof structure has collapsed.
Despite the conversion to flats, Teneriffe House remains substantially intact in form, fabric and detail.
","history":"This large hilltop residence was built in 1865 for Hon. James Gibbon, MLC and property speculator. The house was designed by Melbourne architect William Henry Ellerker, who had won the Queensland Parliament House competition in 1864, and who practised briefly in Brisbane from 1864 to 1866.
In 1854 Gibbon had purchased about 48 hectares of land along the ridge dividing New Farm from Newstead, and named the property Teneriffe. He resided at a number of addresses, including Eskgrove (QHR 600187) at Kangaroo Point and Kingsholme in nearby New Farm, until commissioning the construction of Teneriffe House in 1865.
When completed at a cost of £1,715, Teneriffe House was described as a residence of very superior character, occupying a prominent hilltop position from which it could be seen for many miles. It was constructed of rendered brick on a stone foundation, with ten feet wide verandahs on all sides, and a slate roof. Folding doors separated the large drawing and dining rooms, which each measured 18 feet by 16 feet. The kitchen, pantries and servants' quarters were detached.
In 1882 the property was subdivided, and the house on 2.6 hectares was acquired by Brisbane importer Robert W Wilson, who carried out extensive renovations. It is likely the southern wing and the billiards wing were added at this time. By mid-1886 the main house contained a large drawing room 40 feet by 21 feet, a dining room 26 x 18 feet, a butler's pantry in the recess leading to the kitchen, four bedrooms, two dressing rooms, three bathrooms with plunge and shower baths, and nursery. The front verandah had been extended to 20 feet in depth, and all the verandah posts had been replaced with decorative iron columns. A detached rendered brick building with a flat parapet roof, had been erected, and this contained a billiard room, three bedrooms, and a lavatory. The service wing contained a kitchen, servant's hall, three servant's bedrooms, pantry with fireproof strongroom, storeroom and double cellar. The house was fitted with electric bells, and gas was laid on throughout both house and outbuildings. These included laundry, stables, coachhouse, men's rooms, harness and feed rooms, groom's cottage and a four-roomed gate lodge. The grounds were extensively landscaped, and included a fernery and tennis lawn.
Wilson sold the contents of his home in December 1885, and he and his family returned to England. During the second half of the 1880s, Teneriffe House was occupied by GH Green, manager of the Brisbane branch of the Commercial Bank of Sydney. He was succeeded as bank manager c1891 by David J Abercrombie, who also succeeded to the occupancy of Teneriffe House. The Abercrombies lived at Teneriffe House for nearly 30 years.
In 1905 Reginald Edward Rowe Hillcoat, a North Queensland grazier, acquired Teneriffe House, and the Hillcoat family resided there from 1919. The interior of the western wing, which may have been the first kitchen wing, appears to have been remodelled about this time. Following Hillcoat's death in 1925, the property was subdivided. At this time the Brisbane City Council resumed just over 3.5 acres, which included the original orchard, for park purposes, with compensation of £1,750 to the Hillcoat estate. This resumption survives as Teneriffe Park.
Teneriffe House remains the property of Reginald Hillcoat's descendants. His wife and one of his two daughters lived in the house until their deaths in 1938 and 1983 respectively, but in the late 1960s, the residence was converted into flats.
","criteria":"Teneriffe House is significant for its strong association with, and as the focal point of, the early development of Teneriffe. This large residence embodies structural and stylistic changes dating from the 1860s to the 1920s, in which are reflected changing affluent lifestyles and tastes in Brisbane.
|The wide front verandah and the detached billiard room with its trafficable roof are rare in 19th century Brisbane domestic building. The core of Teneriffe House remains one of Brisbane's few surviving 1860s houses, and one of the few known Brisbane works by Melbourne architect W H Ellerker.
|(Criterion under review)
|The core of Teneriffe House remains one of Brisbane's few surviving 1860s houses, and one of the few known Brisbane works by Melbourne architect W H Ellerker.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15044,"place_ref":600269,"name":"Eulalia","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"75 McIlwraith Avenue","suburb":"NORMAN PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Built on a prominent hill with expansive views, Eulalia is a single-storeyed house with two rear wings, rendered brick walls and a hipped slate roof.
The entire block on which Eulalia and the adjacent Early Street Historical Village are located is planted with mature gums, palm trees, bunya pines, jacarandas and bougainvillea and many other species, making it a dominant landmark in an otherwise typical suburban setting and one of the few surviving examples of mature planting in the area. These plantings are also instrumental in conveying an impression of the original semi-rural setting of Eulalia.
Associated structures on the site include a tank stand and a substantially modified coach house.
The house faces north and comprises a pedimented entrance porch leading onto a wide verandah, flanked by two projecting bays. The verandah continues around three sides of the house, featuring a cast iron balustrade separated by tapered octagonal timber posts with decorative capitals and fretwork brackets. The principal timber is beech.
Tessellated floor tiles continue from the slate steps at the porch through the entry and into the wide hallway. The main door is panelled, with leaded glass sidelights and an etched fanlight featuring gum leaves, a swallow and a dragonfly. A similarly lit doorway is located at the opposite end of the hall. On the right of the hallway are separate drawing and dining rooms, the former incorporating a window bay with Doric fluted columns and pilasters on either side, and the latter a set of cedar folding doors which can be folded back to create one large area incorporating the hallway. On the left of the hall are the master bed, dressing and sitting rooms.
Joinery throughout the house is of cedar, including architraves and pedimented overdoors which reach almost to the plaster cornice of sixteen feet high ceilings. The ornate drawing room mantelpiece is of a mahogany, whilst others are of oak. The long sash windows which open from the main rooms onto the verandah feature hinged dog-doors at floor level.
At the end of the hall, the house divides into two wings, one dowel-balustraded verandah on the left leading to the bathroom and two bedrooms, and the other on the right to the former study and service rooms including a kitchen, pantry, maid's room and laundry. A large cellar is located beneath this wing.
","history":"Eulalia is a single-storeyed brick house which was constructed in 1889. The land on which the house stands was first bought by August Dimper who purchased 88 acres in 1860. In 1888, the land was further subdivided and 22 acres was purchased by Patrick Real.
In the following year Real employed Brisbane architects, John Hall & Sons to design a house for the site and Morley Whitehead of Ipswich were subsequently contracted to build Eulalia, a Greek word meaning speaking well of everybody. At this period, John Smith Murdoch was employed in the office of John Hall and Sons and it is possible that he may have been the designer for Eulalia.
Patrick Real was the son of impoverished Irish emigrants and left school at twelve to become an apprentice carpenter and later to work at the Ipswich Railways Workshops (QHR 601526). After deciding on a legal career, he studied law and was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-seven. By the time he built Eulalia in 1889, his practice was one of the largest in Queensland. Real was appointed to the bench in 1890 and in 1903 he became Senior Puisne Judge. He retired in 1922 and died in 1928.
After Real's death, the house was closed and left vacant for a decade during which time it fell victim to vandals and the weather, becoming known locally as the haunted house. Most of the land had been subdivided and sold by 1925 leaving a property of about 2.2 hectares surrounding the house.
In 1938 Eulalia was bought by Stanley and Sheilah Hancock who restored the property, discovering many items in the gardens where they had been discarded by vandals, and re-instating them in the house.
The Hancock family first arrived in Queensland when they moved from Sydney to Ipswich in the late 1850s. The family established a successful timber milling business which involved five generations of the Hancock family and continued until the late 1970s.
Stanley Hancock was president of the National Trust of Queensland from 1974 to 1978. This was a period when a number of National Trust of Queensland properties were established including Bellevue Homestead (QHR 600492), Claremont (QHR 600589) and Brennan and Geraghty's (QHR 600704).
Whilst Eulalia was a family home for the Hancocks, they also used it as a venue for fundraising functions for a number of Brisbane charities.
This 'public' use of Eulalia was further expanded in 1965, when the Hancocks established Earlystreet Historical Village in the grounds of Eulalia. The establishment of the Village is the earliest known example of the Queensland practice of creating 'historical villages' by moving various buildings to one central site. It is therefore demonstrative of the development of conservation practice and theory in Queensland.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1889, Eulalia and its grounds are important for the evidence they provide of the way of life of prosperous citizens in the outer reaches of Brisbane in the late nineteenth century.
|The house is important as an example of a fine quality 1880s Queensland residence of masonry construction that is substantially intact, both externally and internally. It is also an uncommon example of a 19th century residence still located in substantial grounds which separate it from the surrounding suburban development. The grounds and gardens, which contain mature plantings including gums, palm trees, bunya pines, jacarandas and bougainvillea contribute to the overall integrity of the place.
|It has several rare and highly decorative architectural features, including the verandahs surrounding the bay windows and their finely detailed verandah posts and brackets. These features, combined with the fine quality of interior finishes and fittings, including cedar joinery, internal pilasters and columns, and flooring of tessellated tiles give Eulalia considerable aesthetic significance.
|Its prominent location and mature plantings ensure that the entire site is a significant landmark in the area.
|Eulalia is significant for its association with its first owner, the Hon. Patrick Real Senior who was a prominent Brisbane lawyer and Puisne Judge in the early 1890s and is perpetuated in the surrounding streets, including Judge, Patrick and Real Streets. Katherine Street is named after a family member.
It is also significant for its association with its second owner, Stanley Hancock who was President of the National Trust of Queensland from 1974 to 1978, and was influential in the early conservation of Queensland's heritage.
Eulalia also has strong association with the adjacent Early Street Historical Village, established in 1965 in conjunction with the house by the Hancocks as the first known heritage property in Queensland to be promoted as a tourist and educational attraction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15046,"place_ref":600271,"name":"Nundah Cemetery","alternate_name":"German Station Cemetery","street_address":"88 Hedley Avenue","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The cemetery reserve is located on a small, elliptical ridge above Kedron Brook at Nundah, adjacent to Albert Bishop Park. The entrance has a westerly aspect to Hedley Avenue.
Native trees have been planted recently around the perimeter, but the cemetery itself is exposed and the land subject to erosion. Many of the pathways have been concreted to prevent further deterioration.
The cemetery is crowded, with little order to the layout of graves, and no denominational segregation.
It contains a variety of headstone and decorative memorial monument types, from high Victorian to modern stella. An on-going restoration programme has resulted in many of these being refurbished or replaced, and a number of plaques have been erected on graves of particular historical note.
Toward the front of the reserve, and amidst the gravesites, is an hexagonal rotunda. Constructed of timber posts with arched batten infilling to each facet, the structure is capped by a steeply pitched asbestos tile roof, with terracotta ridging and centre finial. The rotunda was renovated in the 1980s.
The cemetery furnishes a unique record of the families who developed Nundah and surrounding districts from 1838. Included amongst the graves are those of many of the early German missionaries and their families, and that of former Queensland Premier Sir James Dickson (1898-9).
","history":"The cemetery was established in the 1840s by a small group of German Lutheran missionaries who, in 1838, had founded Queensland's first free settlement, at Zion's Hill above Kedron Brook.
Only one death had been recorded at the German Station by 1845, but several children died the following year, and the cemetery is indicated on an 1846 sketch by missionary Carl Gerler.
Certainly the site had been established as a graveyard before James Warner first surveyed it as a cemetery reserve in 1862. None of the wooden crosses marking the earliest graves has survived, but the oldest headstone dates to March 1855.
Although the German Station mission was wound down between 1844 and 1850, several of the missionary families remained in the area. From amongst these settlers the first trustees of the German Station Cemetery were appointed in 1866. Various trustees administered the cemetery until 1930, when the Brisbane City Council took control.
In 1914 a small shelter pavilion was erected at the cemetery. It was designed by architect John Henry Burley, who practised in Brisbane from 1886 until 1936. The builder was J MacDonald, and the structure cost £175.
In 1963 the cemetery was closed.
A sexton resided in the cemetery grounds from at least the 1890s, but since 1975 one sexton based at Lutwyche has cared for the Bald Hills, Lutwyche and Nundah cemeteries. The Nundah sexton's house has been demolished.
In 1982 the Nundah Historic Cemetery Preservation Association was formed to help tend and restore the site.
","criteria":"Queensland's oldest surviving cemetery and the first to be associated with free settlement in the colony.
|A unique source of historical information.
|Its aesthetic quality and contribution to the Nundah townscape
|An expression of aspects of the social, religious, economic and artistic life of the local community, and of its attitudes, values and tastes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15047,"place_ref":600272,"name":"Toombul Shire Hall (former)","alternate_name":"Toombul Divisional Board Offices","street_address":"1141 Sandgate Road","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Toombul Shire Hall is located flush to the pavement on Sandgate Road, a major arterial road to the northern suburbs and Bruce Highway.
It is a long, narrow building designed to combine the functions of municipal offices and public hall, with the offices at the front of the building sharing a central entrance and vestibule with the public hall behind. Verandahs run either side down the length of the hall, with brick-based and asbestos-clad toilet blocks attached to the southern verandah.
The building is timber-framed and incorporates a gradation in cladding fabric: a brick facade to Sandgate Road; chamferboard walls to the offices; and corrugated iron sheeting to the hall behind.
The classically styled facade of red brickwork with white strings and arches features a central round-arched portico with low-arched openings on either side, forming a brick balustraded verandah to the left, and an office to the right. A front ramp for wheelchair access is a recent addition.
At the front the building rests on shallow brick foundations, but as the land slopes away towards the rear these are replaced by timber stumps.
Above the public hall is a long gabled roof of corrugated iron with tall galvanised ventilators along the crown.
The office section has a hipped roof, also iron covered, with a steeply pitched pediment over the entrance portico. The pediment is infilled with imitation half-timbering.
The site includes a sizeable area of land to the rear which has been utilised as a works depot housing a number of sheds and equipment. The ground facing Sandgate Road to the south of the hall has been asphalted and fenced with wire mesh. There are no visible remains of any landscaping.
","history":"The former Toombul Shire Hall at Nundah was constructed in 1891 as a combination of municipal offices and public hall for the Toombul Divisional Board.
Construction of the 1891 building was made necessary following the 1890 separation of the Town of Hamilton from the Division of Toombul, which had been created under the Divisional Boards Act of 1879. Following this split the Hamilton Town Council met at the Toombul Divisional Board's old offices at Breakfast Creek, and the Toombul Divisional Board rented premises at Nundah until they could afford the construction of new offices.
In mid-1891 Toombul Divisional Board approached architects John Hall and Son to design sketch plans for new divisional board offices. This architectural firm had designed the South Brisbane Town Hall, which was under construction. The Board agreed on 1 August 1891 that the architects be instructed to prepare plans for board offices, a hall and a clerk's residence, from amended sketch plans. It appears that the clerk's residence was located to the south of the offices and hall, on the Board's property, fronting Sandgate Road.
An application to the colonial treasury for a loan of £1400 was refused, but the Council went ahead with construction in late 1891, probably using day labour. By 2 January 1892 the Toombul Divisional Board was meeting in its new boardroom. Construction had strained the Board's budget, and by early 1892 the Board's bank account was overdrawn by £1460.
Rentals for use of the hall were set at 10 shillings per evening for religious services and 30 shillings per night for balls and functions.
Toombul Divisional Board became Toombul Shire Council in 1903, following the introduction of the Local Government Act of 1902. Toombul Shire Hall remained the property of Toombul Shire Council, continuing to serve the local community as shire offices and public hall, until taken over by the Brisbane City Council following the creation of Greater Brisbane in 1925. Subsequently the site was used as a works depot and the building as the regional health inspector's office and public hall.
In 1928 a skillion-roofed meeting room was added at the rear, side verandahs were attached to the hall and wing spaces were created on the stage.
In 1987-88 the Brisbane City Council undertook restorative and renovation work which included interior and exterior painting in heritage colours, repair and repointing of the exterior brickwork, re-roofing and recladding of the hall walls with galvanised corrugated iron, replacement of timbers in the pediment, and opening up of the northern verandah, which had been enclosed by this date.
The building continues to serve the local community as a popular function and meeting venue.
","criteria":"The former Toombul Shire Hall, erected in 1891, is significant historically for its association with the work of the Toombul Divisional Board and Toombul Shire Council for over 3 decades, and is significant as a late 19th century expression of local authority status within a Queensland community.
|It is the only surviving, non-masonry shire hall retained by the Brisbane City Council.
|The building remains substantially intact, and is an excellent example of 19th century, timber-framed, municipal hall construction in Queensland. The gradation in materials from brick facade to timber-clad front offices to galvanised iron hall, remains an evocative illustration of the tight financial budgets under which most Queensland divisional boards operated.
|The place is important for its landmark quality and aesthetic and historic contribution to the Nundah townscape.
|The former Toombul Shire Hall, erected in 1891, is significant historically for its association with the work of the Toombul Divisional Board and Toombul Shire Council for over 3 decades, and is significant as a late 19th century expression of local authority status within a Queensland community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15048,"place_ref":600273,"name":"Workers' Dwelling No.1","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"35 Surrey Street","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a small, high-set weatherboard house with a short ridge corrugated iron roof, a full width front verandah with a convex iron roof which is now enclosed, and a half width rear verandah, also enclosed.
Scalloped galvanised iron window shades enhance the side windows, which are sash type.
The interior of the core consists of a central hallway and four rooms, with a hipped-roof kitchen projecting at the rear.
Exterior modifications have detracted from the building's decorative appeal. In the process of enclosing the front verandah with timber cladding and aluminium windows, a dowelled balustrade, verandah gate and decorative timber posts with capitals and fretwork brackets have been lost. Modern quad guttering has replaced the original ogee profile and acroteria. Timber stumps have been supplanted by concrete and the front fence has been replaced.
","history":"This house was constructed in 1910 for Caroline and Otto Gustav Weissner, and was the first home constructed under the provisions of the Queensland Workers' Dwelling Act of 1909.
\nThe Weissners acquired the Nundah site in June 1909, and on 14 March 1910 they made the first application for housing assistance under the new Act.
\nThe result was a mortgage of £190 to the Workers' Dwelling Board, and construction of the house at a total cost of £220. The mortgage was released in August 1925, when the property changed ownership.
\nThe design - which probably emanated from the architectural office of the Worker's Dwelling Scheme - was conservative, economical, and typical of Queensland vernacular working class housing of the period.
\nThe Workers' Dwelling Act, administered as the Workers' Dwelling Scheme, provided for persons whose income was less than £400 per annum, and who owned a suitable site but no house, to be advanced up to two-thirds of the total value of the site plus the proposed dwelling, to the maximum of three hundred pounds. Loans were to be repaid over twenty years at 5% interest.
\nThe scheme was an early Queensland government initiative to assist working class families to build and purchase their own homes, and was the precursor to the Queensland Housing Commission.
\nDuring the three decades in which the Workers' Dwelling Scheme was in operation, government assistance provided for the construction of 23,515 houses throughout Queensland, and largely created Brisbane's suburban sprawl of the 1920s and 1930s.
\nThe popularity of the 'workers dwelling' and later the 'Queenslander' is directly attributable to the success of the Workers' Dwelling Scheme.
","criteria":"Workers' Dwelling No 1, erected in 1910, is significant as the first house to be constructed under the provisions of the influential Workers' Dwelling Act of 1909.
|It is representative of the 'timber and tin' housing which predominated in Queensland prior to the Second World War, as a direct result of the Workers' Dwelling Scheme.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15049,"place_ref":600274,"name":"Ithaca War Memorial and Park","alternate_name":"Alexander Jolly Park","street_address":"Enoggera Terrace","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ithaca Memorial Park is located on a south sloping site on the side of a ridge, fronting Enoggera Terrace to the north and with a steep embankment to Latrobe Terrace below to the south. A bitumen path leads down at the eastern side boundary to Latrobe Terrace below. Another asphalt path, at a lesser gradient, sweeps up around the southwestern side of the memorial to Enoggera Terrace. The site includes two mature ficus trees on the western side and a planted embankment down to Latrobe Terrace.
The First World War Memorial comprises a pedestal and column surmounted by a clock with a face on all four sides. It sits on a square concrete platform and is surrounded by dry stone retaining walls and a concrete path. Steps lead to the memorial from each of the four sides forming a cross in plan, with the overall geometry softened by planting, retaining walls and the steep slope of the site.
The sandstone memorial sits on a smooth faced base step which is surmounted by a larger step of sandstone blocks with tapered sides. On the front face of this is a marble plaque. The pedestal comprises a recessed square pillar with engaged columns at each corner. Each face bears a recessed marble plate with the leaded names of the 130 men who died. The columns have Composite order capitals and bases and support a large entablature. The frieze has relief carved festoons on each face and has a small dentil course under the cornice which is composed of cyma recta and cyma reversa mouldings.
The entablature is surmounted by a square pillar on a slightly larger square base. Each face bears a semi circular recess with the word Ithaca carved in relief and pateras on each side. Above this is the pillar itself. Each face has a recessed panel with moulding and on the side facing Enoggera Terrace are two relief carved flags with the inscription Honour the Brave below. The pillar is surmounted by the clock which comprises a clock face on each side with hood moulds over each face. The top of the memorial is rounded and crowned by a sandstone sphere.
","history":"The Ithaca War Memorial and Park was created c.1922 by a committee on behalf of Ithaca citizens. The monument was designed and executed by Brisbane monumental masonry firm A H Thurlow, under the supervision of R Black, the Ithaca town engineer. The stone memorial honours the 130 local men who died on active service during the First World War. The park was laid out by Ithaca Town Council landscape gardener, Alexander Jolly.
The park is situated on a parcel of land sandwiched between Enoggera and Latrobe Terraces on Cooks Hill. It was, and remains crown land designated for road purposes, but by 1922 the cutting along Latrobe Terrace negated future road use. The road survives only in the asphalted walkway beside the park, linking Enoggera and Latrobe Terraces.
In the first decade of the 20th century, Ithaca experienced a housing and population boom largely attributable to the expansion of the tramways through the area. Subsequently, in the 1910s the Ithaca Town Council embarked on a programme of civic improvements which included the formation and metalling of roads; tree planting; and the establishment of numerous embankment gardens, small reserves and street gardens.
Because of the hilly terrain, many of the new streets were divided, leaving embankments which the Ithaca Town Council considered were cheaper to plant and beautify than to cut down. This innovation in Brisbane civic landscaping led to the Council receiving numerous requests from other councils, interstate as well as Queensland, for photographs and plans of Ithaca street improvements. The War Memorial Park is one of the few areas from this period to have survived. Only small sections of the Waterworks Road rockeries remain, and most of the Cook's Hill garden was destroyed when the Paddington Tramways Substation was erected in 1929-30.
The Ithaca War Memorial was unveiled on 25 February 1922 by Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland. The final cost totaling 650 was raised by the local community with fund raising beginning by September 1920.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
There were many different types of war memorials erected in Queensland, however, clock towers were comparatively rare. The memorial at Ithaca is the earliest of this type of memorial, and is the only one of its type in Brisbane. The clock was manufactured by the well-known Synchronome Electric Company of Brisbane, initially driven by a master clock in the adjacent fire station.
At the time of unveiling the hill top on which the memorial is located was bare, permitting the memorial to be a dominant landmark. Now that trees have become established, the landmark qualities of the memorial itself have diminished somewhat. However, the setting and location still forms a landmark within the streetscape.
The landscaping of the park was carried out by Alexander Jolly, Ithaca Town Council landscape gardener (and father of the first Mayor of Greater Brisbane, William Jolly). Son of a Scottish farmer, and a horticultural enthusiast, Jolly had arrived in Brisbane in 1879, aged 22 years. He was head gardener on Alexander Stewart's Glen Lyon estate at Ashgrove for at least seven years before he went to work for the Ithaca Town Council.
Jolly was a self-educated man, whose lifetime of gardening experience transformed the Ithaca townscape in the period c.1915-25. Other landscaping works by Jolly included the rockeries along Musgrave and Waterworks Roads and the landscaping of Cook's Hill. After his death in c1925, the memorial park was renamed the Alexander Jolly Park, "in memory of one of the most esteemed men in the district", and as a "unique tribute . . . to the pick and shovel".
The Alexander Jolly Park, now known as Ithaca Memorial Park, has been maintained by the Brisbane City Council since 1925.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|It is rare as the earliest example of the clock tower type of memorial.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected c1922, the memorial at Ithaca demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The aesthetic qualities and landmark value of the memorial in its purpose-designed setting contributes to the Paddington townscape.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as a focal point for remembrance of that event. The park also has special associations with landscape gardener Alexander Jolly as one of the few remaining examples of his work, and with monumental masonry firm A H Thurlow.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15050,"place_ref":600275,"name":"Government House","alternate_name":"Fernberg","street_address":"170 Fernberg Road","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Fernberg is situated on a rise that is approximately 100 metres above sea level overlooking the city in the south-east and Mt Coot-tha to the west. The 15 hectares of grounds comprise formal, ornamental gardens around the main house, ancillary administration, staff and maintenance buildings, the whole of which is surrounded by native bushland. The site is bounded by Fernberg Road, Kaye Street, Baroona Road and Murruba Street.
The Main House
Government House is basically a two storied building with a basement level. Stylistically the building demonstrates Victorian Italianate characteristics such as asymmetrical massing, a prominent tower employing classical motifs, a balustraded roof parapet, bracketed eaves, segmental arch openings and a stucco wall finish.
The earliest section of the house is the 1860s wing which is located at the southern most part of the house. The formal entry to the house is via the 1880's section of the house and the 1937 addition form the eastern wing of the house.
Internally the main focus of the building is its large central foyer that has a large fireplace, timber panelled dados and an intricately carved timber staircase, over shadowed by a large stained glass window depicting a life size Robert the Bruce. The principal rooms located at ground level are the formal reception and dining rooms, and the Governor's study. Each of the rooms is substantially intact however their decorative schemes have been subject to several refurbishments. Original furniture from the Old Government House still remains in these rooms.
At the upper level are the private bedrooms of the Governor and several guest bedrooms that are located in the southern (earliest) wing of the house. These guest rooms were subject to major renovations in 1981-82 and currently are furnished to reflect Australian interiors prior to 1900.
The principal rooms in the basement level of the house are the investiture room, billiard room, private dining room and the kitchen. The interiors of these areas have been greatly altered and some alterations to the original layout have occurred.
Original joinery, partitions, openings and fittings remain extensively through the entire house.
The Grounds
The Government House grounds consist mainly of two different types of gardens; formal and natural bushland. The formal gardens comprise about 25% of the property with the rest being bushland.
The formal gardens include the developed garden areas as well as the drives, paths, retaining walls and steps. Generally, the selection of plant material in this section is exotic and decorative, with some old remnant native trees. There is extensive use of mown grass surfacing in these areas.
The bushland areas are characterised by the presence of remnant Eucalypt forest and the lack of extensive built development. Several paths meander through the area. Several gullies feed into a slightly larger stream in the bottom south eastern corner.
The Ancillary Buildings
The Lodge (built <1910, relocated to site from Old Government House) is a timber building located next to the vice-regal entrance gates. The building, which has two projecting gables, has been extensively altered over a long period of time.
The Chauffer's Residence (built 1923) is a spacious timber house with a gabled roof. The building has a verandah attached to two sides and has a faceted bay at the front.
The Garages (built 1935) are a timber structure with a galvanised iron roof crown with a fleche and weathervane. The garage contains space for seven cars in three separate rooms, and several other small rooms.
The Staff Accommodation (built 1937) is a two storied brick and concrete building located south-west of the main house. The building is substantially intact despite several refurbishments.
The Administration Cottage (built 1948) is a single storied brick building containing several offices, bedrooms and sitting room for the Aide-de-Camp, the Personal Assistant to the Governor and some guest accommodation.
The Gardener's Residence (built 1959) is a standard public service D Type residence.
The Butler's and the Chef's Residences (built 1984 and 1986) are recent constructions as are the two staff garages located nearby.
","history":"The land on which the Government House stands was originally granted as two separate portions. Portion 223 was bought in May 1860 by John Christian Heussler, who also purchased the adjoining portion 291 two years later in partnership with George Reinhard Francksen. In 1864 Francksen died and the land passed to Heussler. At that time the landscape in this outlying suburb of Brisbane may have been close to undeveloped natural bushland.
Hon Johann (John) Christian Heussler M.L.C., 1820-1907, was a native of Germany who emigrated to Victoria, Australia in 1852. Due to poor health he moved to Brisbane 1854 and established the mercantile firm Heussler and Co. Over two decades Heussler became a highly respected business man and citizen of Queensland. He was recognised as a founding member of the Queensland Club, Consul for the Netherlands, German Consul, and Emigration Agent for German shipping companies. In 1866 he was appointed to the Legislative Council.
Heussler is believed to have built his home Fernberg in 1865, giving it a name of German origin that meant "distant mountain". The design of the house is attributed to Benjamin Backhouse, an architect responsible for several substantial commissions in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Local examples of his work include other villa residences such as Baroona (QHR 600289), Cinta (QHR 600054), Riversleigh and Bishopsbourne (QHR 600254). Due to financial difficulties, Heussler was forced to leave the property in 1872 and for the next five years Fernberg was leased. In November 1877 the estate was advertised for sale. The house and grounds were described as being:
Built of brick and stone, being four stories high, having below kitchen and servants' room; on the ground floor spacious drawing, dining, and breakfast rooms; on the first floor three large bedrooms, and one large room on the second floor. The roof is covered with slates, the verandahs and balconies being spacious, and presenting a delightful retreat for the enjoyment of pure air, shade and widespread and charming view.
The grounds are all enclosed, the timber having been thinned so to give the place a park-like appearance, and there is a shrubbery and garden around the house.
The property was transferred to George and Nathan Cohen in 1878, neither of who resided in the house. John Stevenson, a successful pastoralist, stock and station agent and member of the Legislative Assembly, bought Fernberg in the mid 1880's and commissioned architect, Richard Gailey in 1888 to design extensive additions and alterations to the house. The scheme was a major undertaking which more than doubled the size of the original house, and altered the building from an 1860's villa to an Italianate Mansion. The new section had stuccoed detailing, faceted bays and the main entrance was orientated northwards and marked by a tower. These additions made the residence very close to the road, however following the "straightening" of Fernberg Road, the original road became the driveway. The road was transformed into a winding avenue that led to both the front and side entrances. In 1890 a fountain, gates and gate pillars were erected in the grounds that were well established with trees and shrubs. Various other outbuildings and structures were also developed on the property and included: a coach house, five stall stable, harness room, tool room, man's room, laundry, gymnasium, aviary, fowl house, closets, bush house, glass house and asphalt tennis court. The 1890's economic depression brought an end to Stevenson's fortune and by 1895 the property was mortgaged to William Pattison and Walter Russell Hall. Two years later Hall, a well-known philanthropist who had made his fortune from gold at Mount Morgan, took possession of the residence however he chose never to live at the property.
The decision to lease Fernberg as a temporary Vice-regal residence was made in February 1910 following the formal dedication of the original Government House (QHR 600118) as a University on 10 December 1909. At the same time, plans for a new Government House to be erected at Victoria Park were being prepared, however work on the new House never progressed beyond the construction of footings. In June 1911, despite reports that the residence was too small, the government purchased Fernberg. Alterations and renovations carried out immediately included painting, new floor coverings, the installation of electric light, metalling, gravelling, and rolling of roadways and fencing. Several buildings from the former Government House site were moved to Fernberg in 1910-11 to provide accommodation for offices, a billiard room and apartments for the Private Secretary and ADC. A lodge and servants' quarters were also relocated to the site. A chauffeur's cottage was built in 1923, and a commodious timber garage erected in 1935.
Formal gardens were initially developed in 1910, primarily for the purpose of providing functional spaces for Vice-Regal garden parties and fund-raising events. Generally the selection of plant material in these garden areas was exotic, mostly ornamental and some native trees. Surrounding the gardens was the original bushland that covered about 70% of the entire grounds. In comparison to the formal gardens, the bushland received very little attention except for the successive clearing of the understorey plants and later of sapling and shrub regrowth. In 1928 "woodland walks" were created by Governor Sir John and Lady Goodwin through the bushland behind Government House. Paths were created, foot bridges constructed and various native plants introduced, such as jacarandas, wattles and poinsettias.
In September 1936, suggestions to relocate the Governor back to the original residence were raised by the then Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson. Despite serious consideration, the Premier and Cabinet rejected the idea and instead proposed substantial additions to Fernberg thus settling the issue of a permanent Government House. Governor and Lady Wilson were both intimately involved in the plans for additions that were designed by the Department of Public Works. The extent of the 1937 additions included construction of a new eastern wing that contained a large reception room, billiards and supper room and a new bedroom with ensuite. To give coherency to the entire building, the entire exterior of Fernberg was painted cream. New maids' quarters and a laundry were built separate to the main house.
Minor internal alterations were carried out on Fernberg in the mid 1940's after a change of Governor and in anticipation of visits by various members of the Royal Family. Pressure for additional accommodation for the Governor's private staff in the late 1940's resulted in the construction of a single storied brick Auxiliary Building. This building replaced the earlier timber building that had been relocated onto the site in 1910 and was subsequently moved to another site in Bardon. In 1950 a brick Administration building and a new coverway with port cochère were erected. The entire complex was painted white at this time.
In 1953 a balcony with a concrete staircase leading to the ground level, was constructed, opening off the Reception Room. Doors and windows in the Billiards Rooms were altered so that they opened out onto a terrace beneath the balcony.
Additional residences for staff accommodation were introduced in 1959, 1984 and 1986. A tennis court and swimming pool were built in 1959-60. Air conditioning services were first introduced in 1957 and were extended in 1978. Refurbishment of the original section of Fernberg, referred to as the Guest Wing, was carried out in 1981-82. A new Guard House was constructed in 1987 and substantial internal works involving the refurbishment of the reception areas were also carried out in the same year. The main house underwent major external refurbishment and painting again in 1992.
Late in 1992 one hectare of Government House grounds was taken over by the Department of Transport as part of the widening of Kaye Street. The result of these works is the construction of substantial retaining walls along the western perimeter of the property.
The Governors
In the period 1910-37, when Fernberg was considered a temporary Government House, it served as the home for five Governors.
1909-14\tSIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR, Scottish born governor who signed \tthe University Act providing the newly inaugurated University of \tQueensland with a home. He reputedly chose Fernberg because of the \tgrounds in which it stood.
1915-20\tSIR HAMILTON JOHN GOOLD-ADAMS, Irish born governor who \tplayed a prominent role in Queensland's politics during his \tappointment.
1920-25\tSIR MATTHEW NATHAN
1927-32\tSIR THOMAS HERBERT JOHN CHAPMAN GOODWIN
1932-46\tSIR LESLIE ORME WILSON, Queensland's longest serving governor \twho prompted major additions to Fernberg.
Following the declaration of Fernberg as the permanent Government House, the following Governors have resided at the property:
1946-57\tSIR JOHN LAVARACK, first Australian born governor
1958-66\tSIR HENRY ABEL SMITH, Queensland's last English born governor
1966-72\tSIR ALAN MANSFIELD
1972-77\tSIR COLIN HANNAH
1977-85\tSIR JAMES RAMSAY
1985-92\tSIR WALTER CAMBELL
1992-97\tHER EXCELLENCY MRS LENEEN FORDE, first female governor
","criteria":"Government House, Bardon, demonstrates the evolution of the government in Queensland, and is particularly important as the official residence of the State Governor since 1911, and the place for many vice regal functions including Royal visits. It is the Queensland's symbol of British colonisation of Australia.
The creation of an animal 'Sanctuary' and the 'Woodland Walks' by Sir John and Lady Goodwin contribute to the early appreciation of native flora and fauna in Queensland.
|The main house, built in 1865 and originally known as Fernberg, is the only remaining substantial residence and villa estate, of almost original proportions, in Brisbane from the 1860's.
|The residence, as a result of extensive additions in the 1880's, is regarded among the finest examples of a Victorian Italianate villa in Brisbane. Other buildings built in the grounds following the conversion of the house into a vice regal residence contribute to the understanding of the Governor's role and the complex of necessary auxiliary services.
|Government House is important for its strong aesthetic qualities that symbolise the wealth and influence of its residents. The residence's setting, situated on a wooded hilltop position with a tower, has been a significant landmark since its construction. The layout of the grounds, particularly the formal gardens and the surrounding bushland contribute significantly to the intrinsic character of the property.
|Government House, Bardon has had important associations with the governors of Queensland since 1911. The house and grounds contain evidence of the contribution of each of the vice regal couples and also records the changes that were made for Royal Tours.
The residence is important for its association with several prominent architects who have contributed to the evolution of Government House; Benjamin Backhouse (1865), Richard Gailey (1880s) and the Department of Public Works (1937). The house also has important associations with several early successful settlers in Brisbane. Among these were John Heussler, who built the house in 1865 and was prominent both in business and public life in Queensland and John Stevenson, a pastoralist, stock and station agent and member of the Legislative Assembly, who epitomised the success of the 1880s boom time by changing an 1860s villa to an Italianate Mansion.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15051,"place_ref":600276,"name":"Warriston","alternate_name":"Berley Flats","street_address":"6-8 Musgrave Road","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Warriston stands on the crest above the Normanby Fiveways, on the edge of the suburb of Petrie-Terrace. The building is associated visually with the Normanby Hotel, and together these buildings frame the view of the city from Musgrave Road.
Warriston comprises a pair of two-storeyed, semi-detached timber residences with verandahs on both levels, front and back. They are surmounted by a corrugated iron roof with a single hip to the front, but with a divided roof to the rear. Separated by a brick party wall which does not rise above the roofline, from the street, the two houses appear as a single entity.
A double staircase with a cross-braced timber balustrade leads to the first level, which is high set at the front. Decorative timber detailing to the front verandahs includes cross-braced balustrades with central rosettes, deep valances on the first level, and double posts with capitals and brackets. The rear verandahs have been enclosed.
The side windows, which are sashed, are shaded by galvanised iron hoods with timber fretwork infill and curved timber brackets.
Each house is a mirror reflection of the other, with the front door opening into a long hall along the brick party wall. This hall is broken into two sections by an arched screen, with the stairway rising from the rear.
The core of each house consists of a pair of reception rooms separated by folding doors on the ground floor, and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, both levels opening onto the verandahs front and back.
The kitchens are located in a single-storeyed, low-set, timber building attached at the rear. It is square in shape with a short-ridged roof of corrugated iron and verandahs to either end.
Although the former houses now function as offices, the fabric and structure are largely intact. Paint analysis has permitted repainting to the original colours.
The building is one of few 19th century semi-detached houses surviving in Brisbane, and is even rarer for its timber construction.
","history":"Warriston was built c1886 for David Pringle Milne, a Brisbane west ward alderman from 1870-76, retired boot and shoe importer/manufacturer, and proprietor of the Glasgow Boot and Shoe Mart in Queen Street. The semi-detached houses may have been named after Warriston, a northern district of Glasgow.
In 1866 and 1874 Milne had acquired two blocks of land fronting Petrie Terrace [renamed Musgrave Road in 1888], and was recorded as resident on the site from the late 1860s. The kitchen houses attached to the present Warriston may be the original Milne residence.
The Milnes occupied No.2 Warriston [the northern house and closest to the corner of Earle Street and Musgrave Road] until David Milne's death in 1897, while the other side was let to a succession of middle-class occupants. These included surveyors WM Davidson and CT Bedford, Albert E Harte [a prominent Queen-street stock and share broker], and Captain James C O'Brien of the Queensland Defence Force. During the 1890s a private school operated in Warriston No.1.
From the 1910s Warriston served as a boarding house, and in the second half of the 20th century was converted into twelve flats [Berley Flats], the verandahs being enclosed and the exterior sheeted with asbestos-cement and stucco.
In 1986-88 new owners undertook a careful restoration and recycling project to convert the semi-detached houses [at that time still flats] into offices.
","criteria":"Historically it is significant in illustrating the pattern of development of Petrie Terrace, one of the earliest suburbs of Brisbane.
|Warriston, erected c1886, is significant as a rare, intact timber example of the 19th century semi-detached house form in Brisbane, and in particular of the common-roof type.
|It is important for its aesthetic contribution to the Petrie Terrace/Red Hill townscape, and for the quality of its restoration and recycling, demonstrating that 19th century form and 20th century function can be compatible.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15052,"place_ref":600277,"name":"Baroona Labor Hall","alternate_name":"United Brothers Lodge | Josephsons Clothing Factory | Caxton Street Hall","street_address":"15-17 Caxton Street","suburb":"PETRIE TERRACE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Baroona Hall is located at the corner of Caxton and Cathie Streets. Constructed of face brick, with a cement rendered front facade and neo classical detailing, it is located on a sloping site, resulting in it being two storeys at the front and one storey at the rear.
Located within a row of 19th century buildings, it has a dominant streetscape presence.
The two-storey building has a rendered facade with remnants of paint in some areas and a shop and entrance to the hall at street level. The building is divided by central and end pillars, two of which have had the tiles and render removed to expose badly damaged bricks.
The shop, of which the tenant is a tailor, is located on the side nearest Cathie Street. It has a central recessed entrance, with steel framed display windows on either side. There appears to have been few alterations internally. Signage for the store follows the tradition of hand painted signage on the front and end elevations of the awning.
The other side of the front elevation incorporates the entrance to the hall, which is located to one side of the central pillar. The remaining space has been boarded up.
A curved corrugated iron awning is located over the footpath, supported by three timber posts. Above the awning, the facade is symmetrically arranged, with central and end pilasters. Within the bays on either side of the central pilaster are pairs of semi circular arched windows. Above this section is a panel running the width of the building with the words UNITED BROTHERS LODGE in relief. This is capped with a stone entablature below a parapet featuring an open circular pattern. The parapet is divided by short pedestals surmounted by substantial finials. Between these are two pediments with decorative scrollwork and the badly weathered letters MUI on one and OOF on the other. The uppermost part of the pediments have circular elements featuring symbolic elements of the Oddfellows, including a dove and hands shaking.
The elevation to Cathie Street is exposed face brick, with a series of circular and semi circular arched windows. The first three (a small semi circular arched window and two circular windows) are located above three doors with semi circular arched brick headers, of which the central one has been bricked in. Four elongated semi circular arched windows are evenly spaced along the remainder of the elevation. These align with identical windows on the opposite elevation, which are currently boarded up.
The rear of the building is one storey high. It comprises a gable end with a central door flanked by two semi-circular arched windows. The windows are boarded up and obscured by a new brick toilet block. The roof is newly sheeted in galvanised iron, with two decorative ventilators located along the ridge. A chimney is evident towards the front of the building.
Internally, the new entrance leads to a set of stairs which access the main hall. The walls are plastered and painted, with a shadow line at dado height, which steps up around the location of the original stage. New timber floor boards have been laid over the original boards. The ceiling is of tongue and groove boarding with iron tie rods and is horizontal in the centre and follows the slope of the roof line at the sides. The boarding has been covered with sound proofing materials and is obscured by air conditioning ducts and light and sound apparatus. A new stage on a number of levels is constructed over new toilets at the rear of the hall, and a bar with a mezzanine level above is located along the Cathie Street side.
Stairs, possibly with the original timber balustrading lead to the former lodge room from the entrance area. Original doors are located at each end of the wall facing the mezzanine level, with a chimney breast centrally positioned in the same wall. The room has plastered walls and a new tongue and groove boarded ceiling. A bar is located on either side of the wall at the Cathie Street end.
Original joinery details survive in most parts of the hall.
","history":"Baroona Hall is a two storey brick hall constructed in 1884 to a design by Richard Gailey for the United Brothers Lodge of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. The building reflects the need for larger premises as membership increases and the desire of the organisation to convey a sense of permanence and stability to its members.
Oddfellows societies were established in 17th century England after the demise of the medieval guilds left the working classes completely unprotected in the advent of illness or injury. This led to the formation of friendly societies who banded together to provide, by their own exertions and from their own slender resources, some of the medical and other essential services they lacked. Halls were often constructed by the societies, both as a venue for society meetings, and for use by the community for entertainments, lectures and public and political meetings.
There are three orders of Oddfellows, the largest of which is the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows (MUIOOF). This Order was first established in 1813 in Manchester, spreading rapidly through the industrial north of England and then throughout the whole country.
The first Oddfellows lodge in Australia was formed in 1840 in Sydney by C M Crighton who was previously a brother of a lodge in Manchester. On 21 August 1847, an advertisement was placed in the Brisbane Courier to those residents who may be desirous of becoming members of the Society of Oddfellows proposed to be established in Brisbane.
A lodge was subsequently formed and by 1874, there were twenty two lodges throughout Queensland. Prior to this date, Queensland lodges had been managed as branches of New South Wales lodges, however in 1874, they were granted separation.
The Loyal United Brothers Lodge, Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows was established by eleven Brisbane men in 1873. The inaugural meeting was held in the Lennenberg Hotel in Queen Street, and subsequent meetings were held at the Baptist Hall. Many of the foundation members were employed at Smellies Foundry, and others included draymen, wood carvers, and coachmen.
In 1878, the lodge purchased land in Caxton Street for £257 and due to increases in membership, decided to erect a hall.
The sum of £1800 was borrowed towards the cost of construction which amounted to £1850. Together with furniture and regalia, the total cost was approximately £2400. The building was designed by Richard Gailey and constructed by James Stuart Martin, a leading member of the lodge. Construction began in 1883, and the opening was celebrated in February 1884.
The design incorporated two shops in the front of the building with a hall at the rear, which was entered from the lane at the side of the building. The hall featured a stage and a gallery, with a lodge room and ante room above the shops.
Richard Gailey, the architect, was one of Queensland's most prolific architects. Born in Ireland in 1834, he emigrated to Australia in 1864. Referred to as the doyen of Brisbane's architects, he is responsible for the design of many substantial buildings, both commercial and residential, as well as other society halls including an Oddfellows Hall at Fortitude Valley and a Masonic Hall at Toowong.
The hall was utilised by the lodge and the community for a numbers of years and the shops were continually occupied by a number of small businesses including bakers, stationers, hairdressers, bootmakers and drapers.
However, the economic downturn of the 1890s severely overstretched the resources of the lodge, forcing the society to lease the premises to a commercial tenant.
In 1918, the hall was leased to Isidor Josephson, a clothing manufacturer. Josephson entered the clothing business in Brisbane at the age of 21, and built a substantial business which eventually extended to most other states. His factory premises at Caxton Street were used as an example of bright, airy factories, fitted with machinery which enlightens the labour... in Barton's Jubilee History of Queensland (1909),
The lodge continued to meet upstairs until 1916 when they moved to the BAFS Dispensary in George Street.
The society sold the Caxton Street hall in 1928, however Josephson remained as tenant until 1936 when he moved to new premises in Roma Street. The building remained vacant until the Second World War when it was occupied by the Defence Department Stationer and a hairdresser. It was then vacant again until 1949, when one shop was let by a tailor and the remainder of the building was occupied as the Baroona Labour Hall. The building has also been utilised as a Sunday Market, and the lodge room was used by the Caxton Street Legal Services from 1976. At some stage prior to 1983, one of the shops was converted into the entrance to the hall.
In the late 1980s, the hall was converted for use as a nightclub, and although it has changed hands and images a number of times, it remains in this use.
","criteria":"Baroona Hall was constructed between 1883 and 1884 by the United Brothers Lodge, Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. The lodge was established in 1873, to meet the needs of a large working class population without protection against injury, illness or other hardships.
The construction of the hall demonstrates the pattern of Queensland's history by being representative of the considerable and necessary service supplied by Friendly Societies in the 19th and early 20th century community.
|The building is also an uncommon example of a cement rendered building which is unpainted, and also of surviving 1950s style signage to the awning.
|The hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of an Oddfellows Hall, including symbols of the society and the division of space into hall, gallery, stage and lodge room. The inclusion of retail premises in front of the hall was also a relatively common feature of community halls.
|Baroona Hall has substantial aesthetic significance, both individually, and as part of the streetscape. This is contributed to by the high degree of design, workmanship and materials.
|The hall has special association with many members of the community, including past and present members of the United Brothers Lodge, and with community groups who used the hall such as the Caxton Street Legal Service. It also has special association with the Australian Labor Party, who used the hall as their branch headquarters from the mid 1940s and are still the owners.
|Baroona Hall is also associated with Brisbane architect, Richard Gailey as an example of his work. Gailey was a prolific architect who designed many notable commercial and residential buildings. He also designed other society halls, including an Oddfellows Hall in Fortitude Valley and a Masonic Hall at Toowong.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15053,"place_ref":600278,"name":"Baroona Special School","alternate_name":"Petrie Terrace School | Petrie Terrace Opportunity School | Baroona Opportunity School","street_address":"1 Hale Street","suburb":"PETRIE TERRACE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located at the corner of Hale Street and Milton Road, the Baroona Special School comprises a complex of buildings. The earliest buildings on the site were erected in 1867 and 1874, and these buildings retain a prominent position in the south west corner of the site.
1867 Building:
This single-storeyed brick building is T-shaped in plan, with steep gable roofs designed for shingles, and dormer windows either side of the main roof ridge. The walls are of English bond, and the largely unaltered southwest elevation has corbels and eaves brackets to support the dormer windows, and lancet windows with straight pointed heads set between the corbels.
The building is set on Brisbane tuff foundations, with brick buttresses to the corners of the minor gable, the weathering stones of which have rubbed depressions from sharpening slate pencils.
The main gable end walls assumed their present form in 1914, when the timber porch at each end was replaced by a large composite 24-sash window, and the lancet window to each side of the new central window and the double rectangular windows above were bricked up; the brick lozenge-shaped ventilation opening in the gable peak remaining unaltered.
The timber verandah on the east side of the building was also built in 1914, and is contemporary with the two eastern doorways into the classrooms, and the removal of the original galleries from the building interior. There is a later glazed verandah infill on the northwest.
Within the 1867 building, the space is divided into two classrooms by a concertina room divider, and has a raked plaster ceiling.
1874 Building:
Constructed to the north of the 1867 classroom, this building comprised an L-shaped, single-storeyed structure with basement on tuff foundations with a steep pitched roof and dormer windows in the hips.
This building is also in English bond, with lozenge vents in the gable peaks, but unlike the earlier building, has a running frieze of brick corbels below the eaves, raked brick window sills and square headed window openings.
Brick buttresses are provided to the north and east gable corners where the ground falls away.
Although the 1874 south and west timber verandahs and brick porch remain, the north verandah was added in 1914 at the same time as 24 pane composite windows were inserted into each of the three brick gables. Within the building, brick panels were removed and RSJ beams inserted to allow construction of the large glazed door partition to the northern verandah, and the opening into the southern porch area. The existing glazed partitions between classrooms were also constructed in 1914, contemporary with removal of the galleries and bricking-up of selected doors and windows.
The roof truss is lined with timber boards above the rafters, and comprises a mid tie and a tie at the wall plate, with vertical steel connecting rods.
The 1874 building has been extended to the north with a brick store building (before 1929), a timber infants' room built over a basement room (before 1959) and a new passage and classroom built in 1959 with a newly fitted out manual training room and laundry underneath. The 1959 extension has face brickwork foundations, and is sheeted in weatherboards with hopper windows replacing the earlier sliding sashes, and has a corrugated GI roof.
French doors provide access to the early verandahs, which are of timber with hardwood floorboards, square section posts and no balustrading, and which are open except for ventilated storage space on the western edge.
Grounds:
The 1914 drill ground remains as a grassed area to the east of the 1867 building. The reinforced concrete retaining wall along the northern site boundary dates from 1929, the same year that sewage was laid on and a new toilet block constructed beside the 1874 building. The 1929 toilet block was demolished in 1975, to make way for the existing covered play area and administration area. Toilet amenities and a tuckshop now occupy a 1975 steel framed building in the northeast corner of the site, next to the c.1950s fibro hall.
The school grounds and the perimeter have several large mature trees that are likely to have been planted before 1929, and which provide a framework for the attractive carefully tended garden and building surrounds at the school.
","history":"The Baroona Special School comprises a number of buildings, including two brick buildings, one of which was opened in March 1868 as the Petrie Terrace School, whilst the second building was erected in 1874 as the new Petrie Terrace Girls and Infants School.
Petrie Terrace Developed as a working class suburb of Brisbane during the 1860s. A gaol was built on the main road into town in 1860, and military barracks erected in 1864. This site on which the school is located was reserved for educational purposes in the early 1860s.
The Education Act of 1860 established a Board of General Education and provided for a system of government subsidised primary school, similar to the system then operating in New South Wales. Under the Queensland Act, communities were required to contribute one-third of the cost of construction of new school buildings. Pupils at schools were also subject to payment of fees. At its commencement in 1860, the Board acquired four schools; 73 schools had been opened by 1868, and by 1874, 203 schools were open.
By the mid 1860s a school was needed in the rapidly growing Petrie Terrace area, and efforts commenced to raise the necessary funds. The long rectangular classroom with end porches and teachers room was erected in 1867 at a cost of around £400. The classroom was designed to accommodate 150 pupils, with separate "departments" for male and female students. Just over 300 students were enrolled at Petrie Terrace School by the end of 1868, although the average Attendance for that year was 157 pupils.
The building was designed by architect Richard George Suter, who was working in Brisbane by 1865 when he was employed by Benjamin Backhouse. In 1864 Backhouse had prepared a model plan for the Queensland Board of Education, to be used for country schools. Whilst employed in Backhouse's office Suter prepared designs for school buildings, which later lead to the Board commissioning Suter for the design of timber schools and teacher's residences. From the end of 1868 until 1875, Suter undertook almost all of the Board's work which involved approximately 30 National Schools including schools in centres such as Toowoomba, Warwick, Gympie, Rockhampton, Townsville, Roma and Bundaberg as well as the Brisbane area.
An inspection of the school in November 1873 reported that the school was crowded, and that as the district continued to increase in population at least double the classroom accommodation would be required. It is also likely that the introduction in 1870 of free education in Queensland stimulated the growth of the school. The report further noted that it was really a very fine school.
Drawings for a new building were prepared by Suter by January 1874. The tender price for the new building was £1022, and included separate rooms for the female students and the "infants". Although officially opened in January 1875, the new building was occupied from late 1874, and known as the Petrie Terrace Girls and Infants School.
Suter designed the new building to be somewhat in character with the present school. A feature of Suter's work was his utilisation of the materials as used in construction, to provide ornamentation of the building, whilst working within the strict budget set by the Board. The 1867 and 1875 buildings which demonstrated Suter's characteristic use of the Gothic Revival Style, and showed a progression in the design of window openings, and the use of corbel ornamentation of the walls and gables in an attempt to surmount the innate vulgarity of bricks and hardwood.
The headmaster of the Petrie Terrace School (Boys and Girls/Infants) from 1868 to 1898 was John Bowden Fewings, a gentleman and scholar. In 1892 Fewings wrote a collection of letters, (published in 1990 as JB Fewings Memoirs of Toowong) which provide a useful source of information on the development of Toowong and its inhabitants. Petrie Terrace School became well known for its many scholarship successes with many students becoming prominent Brisbane identities.
By 1884 it was recommended that a new school be erected for the boys, who still occupied the 1867 school building. Various sites were considered, and land was reserved in Moreton Street, some streets to the north of the then Petrie Terrace School. Tenders for a new State School for Boys at Petrie Terrace were called in July 1888, and the Boys' School had relocated to the new site by May 1889. The Petrie Terrace Girls and Infants School remained on the original site; the 1867 building used as the Infants' Department.
Improvements to the school grounds were carried out from the early 1880s, and included tree planting in the playground, and the erection of play sheds [no longer extant]. Records indicate that the shade trees planted included bamboos, Moreton Bay figs, silky oaks, camphor laurels, small leafed figs and a jacaranda.
The buildings were altered in 1914, at which time verandahs were added to the eastern side of the 1867 building and the northern side of the 1874 building, and new gable windows and sunshades were added to the exterior of both buildings greatly improving the ventilation and lighting of the classrooms. Both buildings were remodelled, including the removal of interior galleries, and the entry porch from the northern side of the 1867 building, and the reorganisation of the teaching areas in the 1874 building with glass partitions. A new room for teachers was also added to the 1874 building. Also at this time a retaining wall was constructed east of the 1874 building, and a Drill Ground formed. The 1914 plans also indicate two play sheds west of the 1867 building.
In 1921 a classroom was added to the north west of the 1867 building; a new classroom was also added to the north side of the 1874 building at this time.
The site was sewered in 1929, at which time the existing earth closets were removed and a new lavatory block erected.
In July 1953 the Petrie Terrace Boys and Girls Schools were amalgamated. The Girls School relocated to the Moreton Street buildings, and a separate Infants School was formed at the Hale Street school. The Infants School was amalgamated with the Petrie Terrace School in Moreton Street from July 1960, at which time the Hale Street school became the Petrie Terrace Opportunity School. The conversion of the Infants School to the Opportunity School included the addition of a new classroom to the 1874 building, and a further remodelling of classrooms in both buildings. A Manual Training room was built into the basement level of the 1874 building, whilst a former classroom in the same building was converted into a Home Science Room.
Special training for handicapped pupils had commenced in Queensland in the late 1880s, with centres for blind and deaf children. In 1923 WF Bevington, a District Inspector Schools, prepared a plan for the provision of special classes for children with intellectual and emotional problems, who were not making "normal" progress at school. The first "backward" classes as they were initially described, commenced at the South Brisbane Boys' School. The classes proved successful and during 1923 similar classes were formed at the Fortitude Valley (Boys), New Farm (Mixed), Petrie Terrace (Girls), Ipswich Central (Boys), Townsville Central (Boys), Rockhampton and Toowoomba South (Girls) Schools. By the end of 1923, just over 330 pupils were in attendance at these classes, supervised by 15 teachers. From the middle of 1926 the name "Opportunity Schools", rather than Backward Schools, was adopted for these centres.
Additions and remodelling were carried out to the school in 1961, and in 1962 the school was renamed the Baroona Opportunity School. A new toilet block was erected in 1964. Further remodelling of the school commenced in the early 1970s, and in 1975 a new amenities block was erected in place of the 1964 block, and a covered play area and new administration block were constructed. A hall had also been constructed on the site by 1975.
The school was renamed the Baroona Special School in 1974, and has continued to provide special education to the present (June 1995).
","criteria":"As the site of a primary school from the late 1860s, the Baroona Special School is associated with the development of education in Queensland from this time. The School has an important association with the development of Special Education in Queensland, as one of eight schools in which special education classes were held in the early-mid 1920's, and the subsequent conversion of the school to an Opportunity School during the 1960s. The erection of the first building in 1867 and a second building in 1874 also illustrate the development of Petrie Terrace as a residential area during this time.
|The buildings erected in 1867 and in 1874 survive as early examples of brick school buildings designed by prominent architect RG Suter, who was responsible for the design of school buildings in Queensland during the late 1860s and early-mid 1870s, a period of expansion of school facilities in Queensland. Subsequent additions and alterations to the 1867 and 1874 buildings provide evidence of changing attitudes towards primary and special education.
|The grounds of the school contain several mature trees and evidence of earlier use of the grounds, for example as a Drill area. The prominent location of the 1867 and 1874 buildings on the corner of Hale Street and Milton Road, and the mature trees located around the perimeter of the grounds, contribute to the Petrie Terrace townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15055,"place_ref":600280,"name":"Hellesvere","alternate_name":"Eton","street_address":"436 Upper Roma Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hellesvere is a single storeyed timber residence with attic and partial basement situated on Upper Roma Street, overlooking, to the north, a railway cutting and beyond this Red Hill. The house now subsumes most of the block with a narrow driveway on the eastern side and a small parking lot to the south. Many early plants and trees survive around the building.
The building is generally a timber framed cottage clad with chamfer boards which sits on a brick foundation and basement. Verandahs runs along the southern and northern elevations of the building. The pyramidal corrugated iron roof of Hellesvere is penetrated on the north and south elevations with dormer windows. A brick chimney stack with three flues also projects toward the western edge of the roof.
The principal entrance facade, facing Roma Street to the south, is symmetrically arranged with a central doorway flanked by vertical sash windows. The verandah awning which is supported on pairs of stop-chamfered timber columns with decorative fretwork brackets, features a projecting triangular pediment infilled with fretwork emphasising the entrance.
The windows on the east and west sides of the building are shaded with corrugated iron clad timber framed hoods with vertical battened returns. The lower level of the western face of the building has two entrances' a pair of french doors and a more recent single door.
Internally the building is arranged with rooms off a central hall, towards the rear of which is a timber boarded door leading to a timber stair with cantilevered treads providing access to the attic. The attic which comprises two rooms, separated by a half glazed door, has a raked ceiling following the roof line, projecting through which are the dormer windows.
Generally the interior has beaded timber boards for internal partitions, the external walls and attic ceiling are clad internally with beaded boards with an additional central bead. Toward the south of the house V-J timber boards are used for internal partitions. A door at the end of the hallway provides access to the rear, southern verandah.
The lower floor is accessed via a timber stair with cantilevered treads similar to the internal stair, and this stair is on the rear verandah. At the base of the stairs and running along the line of the first floor verandah is timber decking from which two doors are accessed to the lower floor. Though much internal re-arrangement is obvious on the lower floor an early brick oven recess is evident in what is now the boardroom.
Process: Pursuant to the transitional provisions of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992, all buildings listed in the Schedule to the Heritage Buildings Protection Act 1990 were taken to be places entered provisionally in the Heritage Register. This place was transferred as a provisional entry to the Heritage Register on the basis that is was listed in the schedule to the Heritage Buildings Protection Act 1990. This decision was effective as from 21 August 1992, the date of proclamation of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
Further to the transitional provisions of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992, this place is entered permanently in the Heritage Register as of 21 October 1992.
","history":"Hellesvere, a timber cottage on Upper Roma Street, was constructed in about 1877 for Francis Curnow who became Queensland's third Railway Commissioner.
The site of Hellesvere was part of a larger block acquired by land speculator, James Gibbon, in 1852. In 1875 when some of Gibbon's block was resumed for the construction of the Brisbane Terminal Railway Station (now Roma Street Station) the remaining land was subdivided for sale.
By 25 August 1877 Francis Curnow who was an employee of the railway bought one of the allotments and it was on this land that Hellesvere was soon after built. Curnow arrived in Queensland in March 1860 from Cornwall in Britain and by 1866 settled in Ipswich as a railway storekeeper, a position made necessary by the opening of the Ipswich-Grandchester line. He was promoted in January 1877 to the position of Chief Clerk in the Railway Commissioner's Office, a position second only to that of the Commissioner. The offices for the staff of the Secretary for Railways in Queensland were established on the grounds of the original Brisbane Terminal Station at Roma Street, possibly in the early Brisbane Grammar School, resumed for railway purposes.
In 1877 Curnow built Hellesvere, close to his place of work, on the block of land he bought from Gibbons. Hellesvere was a timber cottage with a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof containing an attic with dormer windows on the northern and southern sides.
In January 1884 Curnow was promoted to be the position of Acting Commissioner for Railways and in 1885 was again promoted to the position of Commissioner for Railways. Curnow was the third person to hold this position, superseding Arthur Orpen Herbert who became the Under-Secretary of Railways in 1885.
During the time of Curnow's employment as Commissioner of Railways, the Railways Act (1888) was introduced to create a Board of Commissioners to oversee decision making in the railways, particularly in the employment of staff. The appointment of the Board of Commissioners in 1889 prompted Francis Curnow to retire from the railways with a pension of £500.
Early photographs of Hellesvere show that the house has been changed very little externally, simple timber balustrades have been removed from the sides of the northern (front) verandah and a similar balustrade has been removed from the rear. A room enclosed on the western end of the southern (rear) verandah. An early photograph shows a tree in the front yard similar to that extant now in the same place.
Hellesvere appears as the name of Curnow's house from the 1885-6 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories. Hellesvere remained in the Curnow family until 1909 after Francis' death in 1901. It was then sold to George Keal and then changed hands many until it became the property of the present owners, John Dimitriou Architects. During its history Hellesvere has been used as a boarding house and as flats. John Dimitriou Architects have been responsible for the removal of more recent accretions and the reconstruction of some early details.
When describing the house in the 1982 publication, More Historic Homes of Brisbane, Ray Sumner states that the building "stands in a street of intact but mutilated old houses." Now, however, Upper Roma Street retains almost no small residences like Hellesvere, these houses have been replaced with large office and temporary accommodation boarding facilities. Hellesvere is therefore an important and rare remnant of what was an early residential street in inner-city Brisbane, containing such homes as Roma Villa and Highmead, the house of early pioneer Simeon Lord.
","criteria":"Francis Curnow, a distinguished employee of the Railway, built Hellesvere near his workplace at the first Brisbane terminal railway station which had been recently completed. Hellesvere is one of the very few extant nineteenth century buildings on or near Roma Street and provides evidence of the early residential nature of this area.
|Hellesvere is one of the very few extant nineteenth century buildings on or near Roma Street and provides evidence of the early residential nature of this area.
The building is a good intact example of an 1870s Queensland house in the inner city, with a rare extant basement kitchen. Such houses were once commonly found in the city but are now rare.
|The building is a good intact example of an 1870s Queensland house in the inner city, with a rare extant basement kitchen. Such houses were once commonly found in the city but are now rare.
|The building has aesthetic value as a well composed timber dwelling which is a landmark on Upper Roma Street as an early building with distinctive steeply pitched pyramidal roof.
|Hellesvere is important as the house of Francis Curnow, the third Railway Commissioner of Queensland, employed in the late nineteenth century when the expansion of the railway was the major force behind the development of the infant colony of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15057,"place_ref":600282,"name":"Rainworth","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Barton Street","suburb":"BARDON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Rainworth is a vernacular, short-ridge roofed house with stepped but straight-roofed verandahs on three sides. The front elevation shows three pairs of french doors, and one on the lefthand side. Early photographs indicate that the rear of each side verandah had been built to form an enclosed pavilion.
Most exterior walls are of twelve inch chamfer-boards, while interior walls are lined horizontally with beaded tongue and groove boards, as are the high ceilings. For ventilation purposes, casement windows with small wooden knobs may be opened above the french doors.
","history":"Sir Augustus Charles Gregory KCMG CMG FRGS MLC, famed explorer, and surveyor-general of Queensland from 1859 to 1879, built and lived in Rainworth from 1862 until his death in 1905. He reputedly constructed the dwelling himself. Gregory was a dominant, conservative member of the Legislative Council.
He was also an vital personality in Toowong's local government, a leading Queensland freemason and an influential amateur scientist. Rainworth was his rural retreat, his homestead, the place where he could think, invent, create and write.
Unlike Gregory, the subsequent owner, Robert Philp, merchant and politician, rented the property, as did ensuing owners. Subdivision of Gregory's country estate necessitated shifting the house to a more accommodating position. In 1949 it was rented and later purchased by Frederick and Mildred Howell, whose descendants occupy the premises.
","criteria":"Rainworth is a scarce example of a vernacular 1860s dwelling of the steeply pitched short-ridge roof variety. In this case it was built as a farmhouse but is now part of suburban Brisbane.
Rainworth is most important because of its long and personal connection with Sir A.C. Gregory. It still bears the stamp of Gregory the practical bushman rather than the prominent public figure. His standing is recognised in such placenames as Gregory Street, Toowong and Gregory Park, Milton, not to mention the locality of Rainworth itself.
|Rainworth is a scarce example of a vernacular 1860s dwelling of the steeply pitched short-ridge roof variety. In this case it was built as a farmhouse but is now part of suburban Brisbane.
|Rainworth is most important because of its long and personal connection with Sir A.C. Gregory. It still bears the stamp of Gregory the practical bushman rather than the prominent public figure. His standing is recognised in such placenames as Gregory Street, Toowong and Gregory Park, Milton, not to mention the locality of Rainworth itself.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15058,"place_ref":600283,"name":"Normanby Hotel","alternate_name":"The Normanby","street_address":"1 Musgrave Road","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Normanby Hotel is a two storey brick building with a lower level, on a prominent, sloping, triangular corner site in Red Hill, Brisbane. Overlooking a major five-ways intersection, the hotel is orientated with its main elevations addressing Musgrave Road to the south-west and Kelvin Grove Road to the south-east, with modern extensions to the rear north-west and north-east sides. A beer garden with a large fig tree occupies the south-east corner of the site.
The hotel is constructed from solid brick walls, timber floors and a timber-framed roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The building consists of two three-storey wings at right angles and a narrower, two-storey service wing at the western end, resulting in a U-shaped plan.
The elaborate and eclectic ornamentation of the Normanby Hotel exterior, particularly the south-west and south-east facades, is characteristic of late 19th century ‘Queen Anne' style. Distinctive features include: red face-brick walls laid in English bond, contrasting with light-coloured stone trimmings; a steeply-pitched roof; prominent gables ornamented with a half-timbered effect and metal finials; tall brick chimneys; terracotta decorative details; leadlight windows; and timber balconies and verandahs.
The building is cut into the sloping site so as to appear to be two storeys from Musgrave Road. This elevation is approximately symmetrical, with a recessed central section. The central main entrance and a secondary entrance at the southern end of the facade have marble thresholds, with the word NORMANBY inlaid in lead in the southern threshold. A ‘loggia' of three gothic arches at the northern end is enclosed. The entire lower level of the elevation is clad in 1930s red and grey glazed ceramic tiles, with individual tiles bearing the lettering "Normanby Hotel" located next to the main entrance. The upper floor of the central section has an inset arcaded verandah with painted terracotta baluster columns and a tessellated encaustic tile floor. Openings in the brickwork balustrade form a decorative pattern, while below is a strip of detailed masonry fretwork. Cantilevered timber balconies with highly-detailed timber posts, balustrades, brackets and valances project from each end of the upper floor. The balcony roofs feature their own smaller gable ends with timber panelling and decorative bargeboards.
The three-level south-east elevation has a variety of window configurations and decorative elements. The centrally located ground floor entrance is set back within an arcade supported by two terracotta baluster columns on brick plinths. Above this, an oriel window projects from the first floor. On the second floor there are two carved masonry blocks set into the centre of the wall displaying ‘1890' and ‘The Normanby' in relief. Also on the second floor are two cantilevered timber balconies, similar to those on the Musgrave Road elevation; however, these have been widened, with the original width is indicated by the timber corbels supporting the balcony floor.
The ground floor of the north-east elevation has been opened up for use as a bar space at the eastern corner, with modern brickwork forming new openings. Long timber verandas cantilever from the first and second floors, areas of which have been widened.
The north-west side of the hotel has minimal openings and is largely concealed from view by a modern extension. First floor doors between the brick hotel and the extension were originally windows, evident in the treatment of adjacent brickwork.
The edges of most external openings are emphasised by rounded corner details of shaped bricks. Doors and windows are timber-framed and most windows have thick stone trimmings for heads, sills, transoms and centre mullions. Doors to the verandahs and balconies are low-waisted, timber French doors with leadlight panes and fanlights. Other leadlight windows are located in the entrance hall and on the landing of the main staircase. The building has a variety of leadlight designs in locations suggesting that some doors and fanlights have been relocated from their original positions.
The internal layout of the hotel has been altered in places by new openings, however the second floor remains largely intact. The ground floor comprises a bar, gaming lounge and service spaces; the first floor comprises a bar and function rooms; and the second floor comprises offices and storage space housed in the former bedrooms.
The ground floor bar in the eastern corner addresses Kelvin Grove Road and the adjacent beer garden, with a modern extension projecting from the south-east side. Toilets, a gaming lounge and two small storage rooms are located in the partially-underground former cellars along the southern side of the building, and a kitchen is housed in the north-western wing. Significant features on the ground floor include a gothic archway located opposite the south-eastern entrance and original round-arched openings in the gaming lounge. Walls throughout this level are generally exposed brickwork.
Addressing Musgrave Road on the first floor is the central entrance hall with a main bar area and a billiard room located on either side. The entrance hall features c.1930s glazed ceramic tiles to the lower portion of the plaster-lined walls, a timber balustrade with carved newel posts to the main staircase, and a gothic arched opening leading to the main bar area.
The main bar area on the eastern side of the entrance hall is configured to be one large space through the opening up of interior partitions, indicated by lintels supported by columns. The southern end of the room features glazed ceramic wall tiles (similar to those in the entrance hall) and a decorative pressed metal ceiling and cornices. The northern end of the room has a timber floor, exposed brick walls, a fireplace in the western wall and doorways opening onto the rear verandah.
The billiard room on the western side of the entrance hall has exposed brick walls and modern floor and ceiling linings. At the southern end, the enclosed ‘loggia' bears the traces of many alterations, including a steel beam spanning a wide opening cut into the former front wall. One of the columns has had a portion of encasing concrete removed to reveal the original terracotta column beneath. The side walls of the loggia retain traces of original coloured mortar and tuck pointing, and an arched opening to the entrance hall has shaped-brick edges.
At the rear of the first floor, the verandah area between the north-west wing and the main bar is a modern addition and not of cultural heritage significance. Original first floor partitions are generally exposed brickwork or plastered. Floors are timber boards with some carpeted areas, while skirtings and door and window architraves are generally painted timber.
At the top of the timber staircase on the second floor is a long rectangular room with hallways leading off it to the former bedrooms. This space features a large leadlight window in the northern wall, while French doors at the southern end open onto the front verandah. The former bedrooms have ornamental plaster or pressed metal ceilings. Hallway doors are four-panel, low-waisted timber doors with rectangular, centre-pivoting fanlights above. A variety of early door hardware survives, including round metal knobs and interwar-style lever handles. A small bathroom at the end of one hallway has black and white glazed ceramic wall tiles. A large room in the south-east corner is more elaborately ornamented than the former bedrooms, featuring a fireplace with marble mantelpiece and a cast iron register grate with floral-patterned ceramic tiles. On the walls, a panelling effect is formed by textured plaster and rectangles of narrow timber mouldings. The ceiling is flat plaster with wide cornices. A fireplace in the adjacent room has had the mantelpiece and grate removed. Floors throughout this floor are timber boards and all skirtings and architraves are painted timber.
In the beer garden, a large, well-established fig tree stands in the centre of the garden and a stone retaining wall lines the south-western boundary. All other structures in this area are non-significant additions.
The extensions to the north-west, north-east and south-east sides of the hotel are not of cultural heritage significance. Non-significant elements of the hotel building include: modern windows and doors; bar, kitchen and toilet fit-outs and finishes; modern floor, wall and ceiling linings; recent openings and sections of modern brickwork; and retrofitted services such as air-conditioning ducts.
The Normanby Hotel is an eye-catching and picturesque landmark in the area. Significant views of the south-west and south-east elevations and the fig tree are obtained from surrounding roads.
","history":"The Normanby Hotel, located prominently on the Normanby Fiveways intersection at Red Hill, Brisbane, is a two storey brick building with a lower level, built in 1890 on a site used for hotel purposes since 1872.
\nHotels have played an important role in the historical development of Queensland. Often the first places to appear along transport routes and at fledgling settlements, hotels have catered to travellers, provided spaces for communities to drink, socialize and conduct business and meetings, and have strongly contributed to local economies. Architecturally, hotels have ranged from ephemeral makeshift shanties to more permanent and imposing buildings that have competed with civic and commercial buildings to dominate their surrounds. In urban areas, street corners have been particularly favoured sites for hotels to emphasize their commercial presence.
\nOver time, legislative provisions for licensed premises influenced the architecture and layout of hotels, by requiring a range of minimal standards, including those related to the number of rooms, height limits of rooms, and separate entries for guests. Coupled with the domestic nature of the services provided, the requirement for licensees to reside on the premises shaped hotels' characteristic internal mix of private and public spaces.
\nThe area around the intersection of Petrie Terrace and Kelvin Grove Road, on the fringe of Brisbane's town centre, began to develop from the 1860s. While land was initially surveyed for small residential allotments, the siting at a road junction and increases in traffic led to shops and other services gradually appearing along the road. The growth in the area saw the naming of the small suburb Normanby, after Queensland's third governor (1871-1875) George Augustus Constantine Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby. The route of Brisbane's first suburban railway to Sandgate (1882) went close to this junction, with a Normanby station for passengers operating until the early 1890s.
\nMusgrave Road, originally a continuation of Petrie Terrace toward Red Hill, had developed into a small business area by the 1880s. The forming of College Rd across the rail line (connected to Gregory Terrace) and Countess Street created the Normanby ‘Fiveways', which became one of Brisbane's major traffic intersections, especially following the introduction of horse-drawn bus services and trams (later electric-powered).
\nThe original Normanby Hotel opened in 1872. The first owner and publican, Matthew Burton, purchased land on the corner of Musgrave and Kelvin Grove Roads in 1865. In December 1871 Burton (originally a carpenter) gave notice of his intention to apply for a publican's licence for the Normanby Hotel, which was granted in January 1872. The original hotel, a two storey timber building was oriented towards Kelvin Grove Rd.
\nFollowing the death of Matthew Burton in 1873, the property and lease of the hotel was transferred to his wife Elizabeth Sophia Burton, who continued to operate the hotel. The lease was transferred a number of times from the mid-1880s until William Valentine signed a lease in 1888 for 14 years.
\nThe 1880s was a boom period for Queensland, characterised by strong economic growth and a rapid expansion in population. In Brisbane, this growth was particularly pronounced, with the population more than tripling during the decade. Aided by public transport, suburban areas continued to expand. Many new substantial public and private buildings transformed the built environment, reflecting the confidence and prosperity of the era.
\nIn late 1889, architect John Beauchamp Nicholson, engaged by leaseholder William Valentine, called for tenders for pulling down and rebuilding the Normanby Hotel. Arriving in Brisbane from England in 1876, Nicholson prospered as an architect and property speculator in Brisbane during the 1880s.The Norman Hotel and the Princess Theatre in Woolloongabba and the Alliance Hotel in Spring Hill were among the designs produced by his architectural practice. Nicholson formally went into partnership with Dutch-trained English-born architect Alfred Wright in early 1890, who had previously worked for Nicholson. Wright is considered to be responsible for the design of the Normanby Hotel and other similar styled buildings designed by the firm such as Chardon's Corner Hotel in Annerley and Lady Musgrave Lodge in Spring Hill (both demolished).
\nThe new Normanby Hotel was formally opened in December 1890, a large, ornate two storey brick building with a lower level to the rear. The hotel was built to face Musgrave Rd and its principal elevations were Musgrave Rd and its eastern side, facing a small reserve at the corner of Musgrave and Kelvin Grove Roads. Internally the hotel contained bars and parlours, drawing and billiard rooms, and accommodation for both guests and lessees/employees. The building was described in great detail in a Brisbane Courier article at the time of opening, while a sketch of the building appeared in the Building and engineering journal of Australia and New Zealand in 1891.The hotel was built at a cost of £4000, with Thomas Game the contractor.
\nLike many hotels of its era, the Normanby Hotel was designed to impress, with its ornate stylistic treatment employing elements of the ‘Queen Anne' architectural idiom. The Queen Anne style was generally designed at a domestic scale with complex design details, such as an intricate roof structure, charming towers with conical or pyramidal roofs, and ornate tall chimneys. The style revived aspects of English architecture from the time of Queen Anne's reign (1702-14) and was reminiscent of Tudor or Old- English rural designs. A picturesque, classical style free from the classical rules of proportion, it transformed traditional formal plans and symmetry into an intertwined assortment of detailed bays, dormers, porches and spires. Originating in Britain, the Queen Anne architectural style became particularly popular in the United States of America and Australia. Distinctive design features evident in the design of the Normanby Hotel include the red facebrick walls, a dominant steeply-pitched roof with subsidiary Tudor-style gables, tall chimneys, terracotta decorative details, fine finials, leadlight windows, and verandas with fretted ornamental woodwork.
\nIn the decades after its construction, a number of lessees, including William Valentine, Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan Gray and Company Limited and members of the Burton family operated the hotel. Sophia Burton died in 1901, with the property passing to her sons John, Francis and William Burton. Francis Burton became the sole owner in 1909. Castlemaine-Perkins Limited purchased the property in 1936 at a reported cost of ‘about £52000', although the ownership was not formally transferred until 1944. This purchase by Castlemaine Perkins was part of a wider practice of acquiring hotel freeholds and leases throughout Queensland. This process of vertical integration continued through 1930s, ensuring the companies domination of the Queensland market. Castlemaine-Perkins sold the Normanby Hotel in 1986 and the ownership has since changed a number of times. The present owners (in 2014) acquired the site in 1999 and have since extended the hotel's operations into adjacent property to the west (not included in the heritage register boundary).
\nOver time, extensions and alterations occurred at the hotel in response to the changing demands of its customers. Alterations designed by architect GHM Addison are recorded to have taken place in 1917, while other alterations occurred in 1933. The extent of these alterations is unclear. In 1937 the Licensing Commission approved alterations to the hotel and the addition of a bar, thought to be an extension at the rear of the building towards Kelvin Grove Road. The existing tiling in the entrance hall and on the façade on Musgrave Road date from this time. Two brick garages were also constructed in the 1930s. Both the bar and garages have since been demolished. Between 1958 and 1962 an earlier ‘bottle department' was replaced with a drive-in bottleshop, which has also since been demolished.
\nOn the reserve at the corner of Musgrave and Kelvin Grove Roads, a beer garden connected to the hotel was developed (date unknown). A number of fig trees and a jacaranda were planted in the reserve, of which only one large fig tree survives.
\nWhile the basic form of the 1890 hotel building remains unchanged, the internal layout of the hotel has been altered in places by new openings. In 2014, the ground floor comprises a bar, gaming lounge and service spaces, while the first floor comprises the public bar, configured into one large open space, and function rooms. The second floor, which formerly housed bedrooms and associated spaces, remains largely intact and is used as office and storage space.
\nSources
\nAllom-Lovell Architects, Normanby Hotel: An assessment of significance and impact for the Brisbane City Council, 1999.
\nApperly, Richard, Robert Irving, and Peter Reynolds, A Pictorical Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present, HarperCollins Publishers, Sydney, 1994.
\nDepartment of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM), Queensland Government, Certificates of Title: 10080237; 11115167; 16963243.
\nRoger Dixon and Stefan Muthesius, Victorian Architecture, Thames and Hudson, London, 1978.
\nBrisbane Courier, 26 December 1871, p.1; 11 January 1872, p.2; 26 October 1889, p.3; 2 December 1890, p.6.
\nDonald Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A Biographical Dictionary, Queensland Museum, Brisbane, 1994, pp.131-132, p.215.
\n","criteria":"
The Normanby Hotel is important in demonstrating the evolution of hotels and the associated evolution of hotel architecture in Queensland. Built in 1890 on a site used as a hotel since 1872, the Normanby Hotel is evidence of a major period of prosperity and growth in Queensland, which was reflected in increasingly elaborate and substantial hotel designs, especially in Brisbane.
|The Normanby Hotel is a fine example of a late 19th century hotel and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type through its prominent location on the corner of a major intersection; its form, scale, and use of detailed exterior ornamentation to attract attention; and its interior layout, which includes bar and service areas on the ground and first floor levels, and former bedroom spaces above.
|The Normanby Hotel has aesthetic significance as a landmark building at the fringe of the Brisbane CBD, standing prominently on the corner of a major five-way intersection. Displaying a rich variety of materials and ornamental details, the hotel is important for the picturesque qualities of its external composition. The south-eastern beer garden features a mature fig tree which provides an attractive setting for the building. The sloping topography and the projecting, triangular-shaped site enhance the visual prominence of main south-west and south-east elevations of the hotel along surrounding roads.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15059,"place_ref":600284,"name":"St Brigids Church","alternate_name":"St Brigid's Catholic Church","street_address":"78 Musgrave Road","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The church is prominently situated high on Red Hill, unconventionally oriented north-south, to terminate the vista along George Street (now lost since the construction of the Brisbane Transit Centre).
It is a brick fortress-like building, rectangular, with the chancel, entrance porch and its flanking buttresses semi-octagonal in shape. A single-storeyed vestry protrudes off the west side of the chancel.
Though derived from Albi Cathedral's idiosyncratic style, combining elements of both Romanesque and Gothic traditions, Dods's design owes much to his British Arts and Crafts background and the local climate. Many features of the building, including the high proportions, opening windows with balconies, arches, french doors, and the open chancel area, contribute to a cool environment.
The interior of St Brigids is austere and simple in decoration yet grand in dimensions. The detailing and workmanship in brick, stone, wood, glass and metal are austere but refined. Notable features include the timber ceiling, light fittings, gallery, organ, altars and stained glass. However, the original silky oak and leadlight doors running the length of the nave on the east and west walls, and some other fixed glazing, have been replaced with fully glazed areas which allow excessive light into the interior at floor level.
The original plan included a tower above the chancel but this was not built for lack of funds. LJ Harvey's life size statue of St Brigid above the entrance porch, holds a model of the completed church.
Its hilltop position, close to the city centre, makes it a Brisbane landmark.
","history":"St Brigids Church was built between 1912 and 1914 by prominent builder Thomas Keenan.
It replaced an earlier stone structure built in 1877. As the parish had grown to be one of the largest in Brisbane, the church was built to accommodate 1000 people.
Its design by Robin S. Dods was inspired by St Ceciles Cathedral at Albi, France, which the parish building committee had chosen as the model for St Brigids. It also reflects the influence of some of the design theories current in Europe during Dods's early career in Edinburgh, in particular the Arts and Crafts use of materials and the picturesque approach to landscape and siting.
The opening ceremony in 1915 was a significant occasion in the life of the Catholic community in Brisbane, attended by Archbishop Mannix of Melbourne and presided over by Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane. The construction of St Brigids was regarded as the coming of age of Catholicism in Brisbane. For Duhig, who was to become renowned as a prolific builder of churches and schools, St Brigids was an auspicious beginning.
The parish was largely composed of poor Irish immigrants so that the church became a focal point of the Irish Catholic cause in Queensland.
","criteria":"St Brigids Church is significant as an example of Duhig's efforts to place churches in prominent positions throughout Brisbane and as a symbol of the emerging confidence of Catholicism in Queensland which was dominated by Irish immigrants at the time.
|St Brigids Church is significant as a characteristic part of the inner Brisbane skyline, visible from all directions. Is is an outstanding example, both internally and externally, of the architecture of Robin Dods, a recognised member of the contemporary Arts and Crafts movement in Europe and the United States of America.
|St Brigids Church is significant as a self-conscious townscape composition designed to place an acropolis-like skyline on the axis of George Street and for the impressive quality of the interior which is derived from the carefully considered combination of materials, light and scale.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15060,"place_ref":600285,"name":"Cross Terrace","alternate_name":"Cairns Terrace","street_address":"44-50 Cairns Terrace","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cross Terrace is located on a ridge road in central Red Hill, and is visible from many Paddington vantage points to the south. It is set close to the street alignment at the front and is the most prominent dwelling in a street lined with traditional housing.
It is a two-storeyed, timber framed and clad building with a gabled roof and double verandahs to front and back.
Little remains of the original interior except the fireplaces. The ground floor has been converted into kitchen, dining, sitting, music and bathrooms and the first floor into bedrooms, around a wide open two-level gallery connected by a new central staircase.
French doors opening to the front verandahs have been retained, but the plain stick balusters and frieze on the verandahs are recent, and the dormers have been removed. A double carport with twin gables is located in the centre front.
Despite these changes the gabled, four level form remains intact, as well as the main openings and chimneystacks.
","history":"This former row of four, two-storeyed timber houses was erected in 1887-88 on newly subdivided land purchased by Joseph Cross, a printer or machinist in the Government Printing Office, in late 1886. He was resident at the terrace by 1888.
The buildings were erected at the height of the 1880s economic boom. Possibly because of the Undue Subdivision of Land Act 1885, which prevented individual row houses from being sold on separate titles, the Cross family occupied at least two of the houses originally, and what might otherwise have been built as cheap rental accommodation was larger in scale and more decorative in appearance than usual. Many other inner suburban multiple dwellings were built in timber during the 1880s, but most either were single-storeyed or semi-detached. Its construction reflected also the growing acceptance of timber and corrugated iron in more prestigious dwellings.
Each house comprised six main rooms on four levels: front room and parlour at street level; two bedrooms on the first floor; an attic room; and a kitchen beneath the rear half of each house. The exterior walls were clad with chamferboards and the single gabled roof with corrugated iron, while the interior was lined with lath and plaster. The double verandahs with curved iron roofs to front and back were decorated with cast-iron fringes and balustrades and a decorative timber frieze to the front. Four semi-circular dormer windows with scalloped bargeboards faced the street.
In the 1890s three of the four houses were known as Keira, Mascotte and Kiama.
Cross retained possession of the houses until 1910, during which time white collar, craft and business persons were predominant occupants. After 1945 the building was converted into flats, with the verandahs boarded and louvered to provide modern kitchens and bathrooms. In the 1980s the buildings were renovated and converted into a single house.
","criteria":"Cross Terrace is significant for its association with the closer settlement of the Red Hill area in the 1880s.
|Cross Terrace is significant as the only known evidence of the late 19th century two-storeyed timber terrace house type to survive in Brisbane.
|Cross Terrace is significant as a local landmark and for its contribution to the streetscape along Cairns Terrace.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15061,"place_ref":600286,"name":"Craigerne","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"101 Windsor Road","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The rectangular two-storeyed stone house may be described as Colonial Georgian in style, being symmetrical and simple in plan, appearance and detail, with the exception of cast-iron balustrading of front and back verandahs. The external walls are of random ashlar in front, but rubble stone elsewhere, and the hipped roof is of corrugated iron. The long sash windows are louver-shuttered and the verandah roof is concave in form.
Though appearing to be single-storeyed from the street, the sloping land allows for a second floor underneath, each consisting of two rooms on either side of a central hall. The upper rooms on the northern side are connected by folding doors, while the original kitchen is located downstairs. Four chimneys serve fireplaces in each of the eight rooms. Internal walls are brick with plaster rendering. All ceilings are lath and plaster and the substantial joinery is cedar. By and large the house lacks elaboration inside or out.
It was exceptionally well built with first-rate materials throughout, and was restored in the 1980s with the assistance of conservation architects, including the original colour scheme and replicated balustrading.
A two-storey annexe has been built to the right and connected on the upper level by a covered walkway. The new building, while intended to be sympathetic in scale and texture to the original house, has necessitated a wall-opening to accommodate the walkway.
The Windsor Road frontage has a substantial wrought-iron fence with brick piers which seems to be contemporary with the house.
","history":"Craigerne is part of a deed of grant taken up by William McFarlane in 1864. In 1866 McFarlane sold the whole of portion 512 to William McCallum Park, a stonemason and building contractor who subdivided the property into 20 allotments and created Park Street. He kept sudivisions 1,2 & 3 for himself.
Though it is possible that the house was built before the 1880s, the first occupant listed in street directories was Major Walter Snelling who lived there from 1885 until 1887 when Park's father, Andrew, moved in. The Parks' affairs were in the hands of liquidators in 1892-3 when the property passed to the mortgagee, the National Bank of Queensland.
In 1915 it was bought by solicitor Herbert Hemmings. After his death in 1940 it passed into other hands, to be turned into flats in 1950. In 1979 the purchasers were C.A. and Z.W. Wilczynski, who carried out the restoration. The premises were sold to the present owners in 1985, who made the recent alterations.
","criteria":"Craigerne is significant as an unusually late example of the Colonial Georgian architectural style and stone construction.
Craigerne is significant for its pleasing symmetrical appearance and quality materials and craftsmanship.
|Craigerne is significant as an unusually late example of the Colonial Georgian architectural style and stone construction.
|Craigerne is significant for its pleasing symmetrical appearance and quality materials and craftsmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15062,"place_ref":600287,"name":"Glentworth","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"34 Howard Street","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Glentworth is a single-storeyed timber house on stumps, with a central axial corridor and wide verandahs to three sides.
It has a pyramid-shaped, corrugated iron roof crowned by a large timber finial. Convex iron-sheeted verandah roofs are separated from the main roof by a small cornice and paired timber console brackets.
Verandah decoration is restrained: slender timber posts with capitals and brackets; cross-braced timber balustrading; and a timber fretwork pediment of intricate design crowned by another tall timber finial, above the entrance.
The cladding is of 12 inch [30 centimetres] wide chamferboards, and linings and partitions are of vertically jointed tongue and groove.
Externally the house retains its original character, although little remains of the 19th century garden layout.
Glentworth is situated above a gently rising lawn bordered by tall palms and trees, and is visible for a considerable distance from the north. It dominates the vista at the top of Agars Street, and is associated visually with Boondah [600288], Baroona [600289] and other early timber residences in Howard Street, Rosalie.
","history":"Glentworth, a single-storeyed, high-set timber residence, stands on the original subdivisions purchased by Katherine Mary Pery in 1879. The precise date of construction is not known, though the Pery family was resident at Glentworth by 1885. The Hon. Cecil SS Pery was a clerk in the titles office.
In 1888 the Chalk family bought the property, which remained their home until the mid-1960s. Michael Chalk was a highly successful bus proprietor, whose business provided vital communication links between the western suburbs and the city.
In 1967 the property passed to the Salvation Army, which resold it in 1975. The residence remains a family home.
","criteria":"Glentworth, constructed possibly c1880, is significant historically for its association with the early development of Rosalie as a middle-class garden suburb.
|It has representational value as a substantially intact, classic Queensland timber colonial residence of the early 1880s, and makes an aesthetic contribution to the historic Rosalie townscape.
|It has representational value as a substantially intact, classic Queensland timber colonial residence of the early 1880s, and makes an aesthetic contribution to the historic Rosalie townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15063,"place_ref":600288,"name":"Boondah","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50 Howard Street","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-11","description":"Boondah is a single-storeyed weatherboard house with a corrugated iron gabled roof. The building sits on concrete stumps with timber batten infill and is sited on a ridge with the ground sloping to the northeast.
The symmetrical north elevation has two corner octagonal ogee shaped cupola's with tall timber finials and a central front entrance porch with a projecting gable roof. The building has verandahs with corrugated iron skillion roofs to the north, east and west which encircle the octagonal shaped corner bays.
The verandahs have cast iron balustrades with a timber valance and brackets. The verandah walls have single skin vertically jointed boards with french doors and sash windows. The front entrance has leadlight fanlight and sidelights, and opens to a central corridor leading to the rear of the building.
A rear verandah has been enclosed and the rear subfloor space has been bricked in. The grounds include an inground concrete swimming pool in the southeast and a large camphor laurel tree to the southwest. Entry to the site is from the north via a driveway cut into a steep earth embankment.
","history":"This single-storeyed weatherboard house stands on land which was alienated in 1879 by George Blaxland Mott and subdivided after his death in 1882.
Ellen Wickham, widow of Captain John Clements Wickham, the governing official of Moreton Bay settlement until 1859, bought the site and lived there in a house called Manchonlas until her death in 1896. This dwelling was razed about 1906 and was replaced by Boondah c.1907, apparently to a design by notable architect Richard Gailey.
By 1907 Fenton Robinson was living at this address and the property remained with the Robinson family until 1967 and was acquired by the present owners in 1972.
","criteria":"Boondah is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a federation period timber house.
Boondah, both the house and grounds, is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community, in particular as a striking timber house composed with elaborate verandahs and roofline and for the streetscape contribution of the building and grounds.
|Boondah is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a federation period timber house.
|Boondah, both the house and grounds, is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community, in particular as a striking timber house composed with elaborate verandahs and roofline and for the streetscape contribution of the building and grounds.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15064,"place_ref":600289,"name":"Baroona","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"90 Howard Street","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Baroona is a single-storeyed rendered masonry building with a corrugated iron gabled roof. The building sits on a level hilltop site and has verandahs to the east and southeast, and to portions of the north and south elevations.
The gables have timber finials and decorative bargeboards with the eastern bay gable featuring timber fretwork. Verandahs have corrugated iron skillion roofs and the north verandah has an entrance porch with projecting gable.
The east and southeast verandahs sit on timber stumps and have latticed valance and cast iron balustrades. The south verandah has timber arches with lattice infill and opens off a hall with a corrugated iron barrel vault roof which is lined with tongue and groove boards. This vault has glazing to the western end and a central square raised skylight.
The building has sash windows and french doors open onto the verandahs with exposed windows having timber shutters. A brick cellar is located on the southern side, a carport is attached to the southwest and a separate rendered masonry garage with a corrugated iron gabled roof and decorative timber finials and bargeboards is located to the west.
The grounds include a lawn tennis court to the north, mature trees to the west and south and a stone embankment to the northeast.
","history":"The original residence, called Baroona, was designed by Benjamin Backhouse and built in 1866 for William Draper Box on land which the architect had alienated in 1861 and Box acquired in 1865. The property extended from Baroona Road on one side to the outskirts of Torwood on the other.
Box had arrived in Brisbane in 1862 to establish a Queensland branch of his father's mercantile firm, and lived at Baroona until 1885. He was a member of the Queensland Club and of the Legislative Council from 1874 until his death in 1904.
During subsequent years the house was rented by two prominent politicians. Hon. John Donaldson MLA was in residence from about 1886 to 1889, followed by Sir Robert Philp of Burns Philp and Co, the Queensland Premier from 1899 to 1901. William Melbourne Watts, Land Commissioner, purchased the house in 1899 and sold it to Emily and Cornelius Geaney in 1919. Geaney was the City Mutual Life Insurance Company manager and his family retained the property until 1951 when Dr and Mrs Hill became the owners. The present owners purchased it in 1984.
The building was extensively modified by successive owners including the addition of rooms, brick render, eastern verandahs, fretwork gable, northern porch and a modern kitchen.
The name Baroona is also used for the main road, the locality and the municipal ward.
","criteria":"The association with Sir Robert Philp, Hon. John Donaldson and William Draper Box.
Community association with the name Baroona being used for the main road, the locality and the municipal ward.
Landmark value as the areas original house and its siting on the crest of the hill.
Evidence of the domestic work of B Backhouse.
|Landmark value as the areas original house and its siting on the crest of the hill.
|Community association with the name Baroona being used for the main road, the locality and the municipal ward.
|The association with Sir Robert Philp, Hon. John Donaldson and William Draper Box.
Evidence of the domestic work of B Backhouse.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15065,"place_ref":600290,"name":"Sandgate Post Office","alternate_name":"Telegraph Office; Sandgate Post; Post Office Sandgate","street_address":"1 Bowser Parade","suburb":"SANDGATE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The former Sandgate Post and Telegraph Office is a rectangular, two-storeyed painted brick building with Italian Renaissance stylistic elements. It rests on concrete foundations and has a hipped roof of corrugated iron with acroteria and gablets at either end.
Dominating the front elevation is a projecting gabled portico, with the words Sandgate Post Office in low-relief beneath the first floor windows. Originally this read VR 1887.
Front verandahs to either side of the portico are ornamented with chamfered timber posts, a timber frieze on the lower level and fretwork brackets and cast-iron balustrading on the upper floor. These details were recreated in the 1983-4 restoration to as close to the original as possible. A double rear verandah with formerly the same detailing, remains enclosed.
The interior has been modified and refurbished.
The detached timber service wing to the rear remains, but has been altered substantially.
Also at the rear are two later, single-storeyed brick additions. One is an attached extension constructed c1907 to house the telephone exchange. The other is a more recent, detached, rectangular building which served as a postal depot. It appears to have been erected in the 1980s following re-subdivision of the site in 1978 and replaces a longer timber building extant by 1953.
Both additions employ rooflines and exterior finishes similar to those of the 1886-87 building.
The former Sandgate Post and Telegraph Office stands isolated on the corner of Bowser Parade and Rainbow Street and dominates the vista west along Eagle Terrace and Seymour Street. It forms part of an historical grouping that includes the adjacent war memorial and the nearby former Sandgate Town Hall (601566).
","history":"The two-storeyed Sandgate Post and Telegraph Office was erected in 1886-7 to a design prepared in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect.
A post office had operated at Sandgate since 1864, on Eagle Terrace near Palm Avenue. In the early 1880s a new site in Bowser Parade, closer to the railway line that had reached Sandgate in 1882, was purchased for £800.
In June 1885 the Post and Telegraph Department requested that the Department of Public Works prepare plans for a new post and telegraph office building for Sandgate, to cost no more than £2,000. It is likely that the design was produced under the supervision of John James Clark, Colonial Architect from 1883 to 1885. Tenders were called in March and April 1886, but the design proved too expensive.
Fresh plans were prepared under the supervision of Clark's successor, George St Paul Connolly, Queensland's first locally born and trained Colonial Architect (1886-91). These plans were further amended to reduce costs and tenders were called in June-July 1886. A contract was let to local Sandgate builder William Street, with a price of £2,025. It is thought that the bricks for the construction were supplied from Leopold Fiedler's brickworks in Roghan Road, Zillmere, beside Cabbage Tree Creek.
The new post and telegraph building, uncommonly substantial for what later became a suburban office, reflected government confidence in the booming economy and the importance of Sandgate both as a popular seaside resort and, increasingly, as a residential commuter district. Sandgate had its own local government at that period and was not officially a 'suburb' of Brisbane until the establishment of Greater Brisbane on 1 October 1925, but the railway enabled residents of Sandgate to commute daily to work in Brisbane.
The building opened as a post and telegraph office on 7 May 1887, with residential accommodation for the postmaster on the first floor, a dining room, post and telegrpah offices and public area on the ground floor and a detached service wing housing kitchen, servant's quarters and wash house. The exterior brickwork was colour-washed originally, but has been painted since 1894.
The layout was innovative, the central public area with an entrance porch either side becoming a principal feature of late 19th and early 20th century Queensland post offices. Along with post and telegraph offices constructed at the important commercial centres of Fortitude Valley (1887) and South Brisbane (1889-90) it was one of only three substantial, two-storeyed brick post offices constructed in metropolitan Brisbane in the late 19th century. The Woolloongabba Post and Telegraph Office, also a substantial two-storeyed brick building, was erected in 1905. It was designed by the Queensland Government Architect's office for the Commonwealth government, which had assumed responsibility for post and telegraph communication following the federation of the Australian colonies on 1 January 1901.
A telephone service was established in the Sandgate Post and Telegraph Office in 1898 and a telephone exchange was installed in 1907. The exchange was removed to a new building c1959.
After the second world war the first floor verandahs were enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and casement windows and from 1981 the upper floor was used for office purposes.
The exterior was restored in 1983-4 and the interior was refurbished in time for centenary celebrations of the 1887 opening.
The building continued to function as a post office until c2004, when it was sold to private enterprise. Its renovated exterior continues to make a substantial contribution to the townscape of central Sandgate.
","criteria":"The former Sandgate Post Office, erected in 1886-87 as a post and telegraph office, is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history. The building survives as an expression of government 'boom' era confidence; of the popularity of Sandgate as both a seaside resort and as a commuter residential district from the 1880s; and of the important role of the post and telegraph services in the Queensland community and economy at this period.
|The building is a substantial former post and telegraph office of a type more usually found in regional centres. It remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places: two-storeyed late 19th century brick post and telegraph offices. These characteristics include: the form (two-storeyed), materials (brick), planning (upstairs residence for the postmaster and downstairs offices including a large central public space with two entrances) and design (classical motifs and detailing).
|The place is significant for its landmark quality, intactness and contribution to the Sandgate townscape. Located in the centre of the Sandgate commercial precinct, the place contributes to an historical grouping that includes the adjacent war memorial and the nearby former Sandgate Town Hall (601566).
|The place is important for having established a precedent for subsequent late 19th century and early 20th century Queensland post and telegraph office layouts, demonstrating creative achievement.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15066,"place_ref":600291,"name":"Saltwood","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"154 Shorncliffe Parade","suburb":"SHORNCLIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"Saltwood is a single-storeyed chamferboard residence, with a hipped corrugated iron roof, located on the southern corner of Swan Street and Shorncliffe Parade. The building is sited on the crest of a rise opposite Moora park, with views over Moreton Bay and to the islands beyond. The building has concrete stumps and is built close to the corner boundary, with a large lawn to the east.
The earliest northern section of the building has verandahs to three sides, with shaped timber brackets, chamfered posts with capitals, cross-braced balustrade and boarded ceilings. The main entry is from the northwest via a gabled entry with fretwork panel, paired posts and timber louvred doors, and a panelled timber entry door with original hardware. French doors with fanlights and timber shutters open from each room.
The central transverse section consists of two large projecting bays, to the northwest and southeast, surmounted by a timber finial with bracketed eaves, sash windows and shutters.
The southern section has two parallel hipped sections, with a flat roofed section between, surrounded by a recent verandah with a curved corrugated iron awning and timber details to match the earlier section.
Internally, there is a central L-shaped hall, with bedrooms in the northern section and living and dining rooms in the central section. The southern section has been altered and refitted, with a recent kitchen and family room, with two skylight shafts inserted in the hall area. The building has cedar joinery; including a fireplace surround, fretwork ceiling roses and internal doors with fanlights, original door hardware, tongue and groove walls and boarded ceilings. The northern bedroom has a fibrous cement ceiling and a large opening which originally housed four-fold cedar doors, which are currently in storage. The former kitchen has a large fireplace, plaster ceiling, built-in cupboards and sash windows with diamond pattern, lead framed glazing.
The street frontage has a substantial brick pier and timber batten fence, with a gateway on the northwest supporting an overhead beam with the name SALTWOOD.
","history":"This sprawling, single-storeyed timber residence was constructed apparently in several stages during the 1870s and 1880s, as a holiday residence for the Hart and Drury families.
Sandgate/Shorncliffe began development in the 1860s, particularly for those who could afford private transport and holiday residences. With the extension of the railway from Brisbane to Sandgate in 1882, the permanent population grew, and weekend holiday-makers turned the township into a bustling seaside resort.
The Saltwood site was first alienated from the crown in 1854 by William Sheehan of Brisbane, as a 2 rood allotment. In 1867 it was subdivided into five blocks, and in January 1874 the four which fronted Shorncliffe [Parade] were acquired by Graham Lloyd Hart of Greylands (QHR 600230), a prominent Brisbane solicitor. The first section of the building was erected probably for Hart in the mid to late 1870s, as a seaside holiday residence. A transverse section along the western side, and two rear wings, was constructed probably at a later date, possibly in the 1880s, although the southern wing may have been the original detached service wing.
Although Edward Robert Drury, general manager of the Queensland National Bank, did not acquire Saltwood until 1895, he and his family appear to have shared the house with the Hart family, as a holiday home. As early as 1882, Drury had acquired the fifth subdivision of the original site, fronting Swan Street, and this became part of the Saltwood grounds. A photograph dated c1901, shows a separate timber building on the fifth subdivision, which may have been erected soon after Drury's purchase of the site. This building is no longer extant.
Drury died at Saltwood early in 1896, but the residence remained in the Drury family until 1919. It may have functioned as a boarding house or guest house from about 1900.
From 1920 to 1979 the property was owned by the McMenamin family, who used two rooms as a doctor's surgery and locum's room in the late 1960s. During their occupancy, the original picket fence was replaced with the present masonry and timber structure, and by the early 1950s, a tennis court had been created on the lawn to the south of the residence, and the open space between the two rear wings had been covered.
The residence was renovated in the 1980s, and verandahs added to the rear extension after 1986. Most of the present planting dates to the early 1980s.
","criteria":"Saltwood is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of development of Sandgate as a holiday resort.
|Saltwood demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of the more intact of the large seaside holiday homes erected in Sandgate in the last half of the 19th century.
|Saltwood is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, evolving timber holiday home of the 1870s and 1880s, in Brisbane.
|Saltwood is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community, in particular, the building's siting, scale, form and materials, and its contribution to the Shorncliffe Parade and Swan Street streetscapes and Shorncliffe townscape and for the quality of the building's interior, including cedar joinery.
|Saltwood has a special association with the Hart and Drury families, who were prominent in Queensland social, legal, business and government circles in the last quarter of the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15067,"place_ref":600292,"name":"Berry & MacFarlane Monument","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Sherwood Road","suburb":"SHERWOOD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The sandstone monument is located near the front entrance gate of the Sherwood Anglican Cemetery, facing east.
It stands 15 feet 3 inches [4.6 metres] high, and consists of a pedestal on a stepped sandstone base, rising to an obelisk draped by a tasselled shroud. Crossed rifles are carved in relief on the front face of the obelisk, which features a small cornice midway. The pedestal has two inscribed, leaded marble plates, and is ornamented with a trooper's hat and crossed swords in high relief at the base, and a rose and leaf design around the top.
The pedestal shows signs of spalling at the base, partly caused by the monument having been painted, and the relief detail is weathered. Originally the monument was surrounded by a stone kerbing and six posts linked by rails, with marble chips inside the border. The memorial now stands borderless and within 2 metres of the more recently erected columbarium.
","history":"This monument was erected in July 1902 by friends of two young soldiers, Sergeant Robert Edwin Berry [aged 23 years] and Acting Corporal John MacFarlane [aged 21 years], who were killed in action in the Transvaal on 4 January 1902. The Berry family had long been resident in the Sherwood district, and were closely associated with St Matthew's Anglican Church in Sherwood Road [destroyed by fire in 1921].
Both young men were members of the 5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen and, like all Australian troops participating in the South African [Boer] War of 1899-1902, were volunteers. As members of the QIB, however, they were under British command, and their pay was issued by the colonial government at English cavalrymen's rates.
The monument was carved by the masonry firm of W Batstone & Sons of South Brisbane, and was erected in the grounds of St Matthew's Anglican Church and Cemetery at Sherwood.
It is one of few South African War monuments erected in Queensland. Amongst these, other Brisbane memorials include the Caskey Monument [1902] in Toowong Cemetery (QHR 600335), the Anning Monument [1903] at Hemmant (QHR 600220) and the South African War Memorial [1919] in Anzac Square (QHR 600060).
","criteria":"The Berry & MacFarlane Monument at Sherwood, erected in 1902, is significant historically as an expression of emergent Australian nationalism in the earliest years of federation.
|It is a rare Queensland South African War monument, and a unique source of historical information.
|It is a skilfully executed example of its type, and a good example of the work of prominent Brisbane monumental masons W Batstone & Sons.
|It is a skilfully executed example of its type, and a good example of the work of prominent Brisbane monumental masons W Batstone & Sons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15068,"place_ref":600293,"name":"South Brisbane Railway Easement","alternate_name":"Stanley Street Terminus | South Brisbane Wharves Extension | Dry Dock Siding","street_address":"412 Stanley Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former South Brisbane Railway Easement runs along the southern edges of the Queensland Maritime Museum site, bounded by Little Dock Street and Dock Street to the southeast and by Stanley Street to the southwest. The location of former railway lines and associated earthworks is indicated by a series of retaining walls, ground level changes and bitumen pathways. The easement is collocated with the South Brisbane Dry Dock [QHR 600301].
\nSoutheast retaining wall and railway corridor (c1884)
\nAlong the southeast boundary, a long, straight retaining wall, provides grade separation between the former South Brisbane railway station lines (1883-84) on the upper level; and the Dry Dock siding (c1884) and South Brisbane Wharf Railway extension (1896-97) on the lower level. A concrete spoon drain runs along the base of the wall. The wall is divided into two sections: of stone (eastern end) and concrete (western end); with both sections being of the same height with a slight batter:
\nThe eastern end of the wall has been enclosed by later blockwork walls and the western end is partially concealed by earth fill. The roadway between the wall and the Dry Dock buildings, where the siding railway line used to run, is covered with modern bitumen.
\nA second, short remnant of stone wall survives along the edge of the Dock Street pathway, approximately in line with the stone section of the lower-level retaining wall.
\nThe site of the former railway station and lines is buried in fill and a concrete pedestrian walkway along Little Dock Street has been constructed over the top. Gardens (planted with trees and shrubs in 2016) occupy the steep slopes between the Little Dock Street footpath and the Maritime Museum fence line.
\nStanley Street retaining wall (c1884)
\nRunning along the Stanley Street boundary is a high stone retaining wall topped by an iron palisade fence that once formed the western end of the 1880s railway reserve. It is of the same material (Brisbane Tuff) and construction method as the stone section of the southeast retaining wall. The iron fence is strengthened by bracing members to each post, which curve around the wall capping and are fixed into the stonework below. Incomplete stonework and cuts to the iron fence reveal that the wall has been shortened at the southern end. In 2016, a large fig tree is growing out of the eastern side of the wall, causing distortion to the stonework and iron fence, which has had a segment removed.
\nAccess driveway (1880s)
\nAn access driveway to the Dry Dock from a former entrance on Sidon Street, near the corner of Stanley Street, slopes down in a south-easterly direction towards the southern corner of the Maritime Museum grounds. The roadway is lined with bitumen in 2016 and has gardens along the steep embankments on either side. Modern fencing encloses the driveway along the southwest side, and a gate near the top is set back from the former Sidon Street alignment.
\nRailway extension corridor and underpass (1896)
\nThe former rail corridor of the South Brisbane Wharf Railway extension is indicated by a flat bitumen pathway that curves towards the northwest from a point near the southeast retaining wall (the site of a car port in 2016) and passes close to the western end of the Dry Dock. While the bitumen pathway keeps curving around the dock, the railway corridor continues heading northwest, terminating at an underpass through the Sidon Street retaining wall. It is not known if remnants of the railway tracks or sleepers survive underground. Rendered concrete abutments line the sides of the underpass, fronted by square concrete corner pillars. The rest of the underpass has been infilled and sealed off by concrete and blockwork walls. A historical recreation of a short section of track, buffer stop and an early coal cart, which occupies this location in 2016, is not of heritage significance.
\nGoodwill Bridge (2001)
\nThe Goodwill Bridge, which spans the Brisbane River, passes over the site, crossing the northern corner and curving around to run parallel with the southeast side of the Maritime
\nMuseum building. The bridge is supported by a number of steel posts and concrete anchor footings located within the museum grounds. The bridge deck at the Stanley Street entrance sits above the former Sidon Street railway underpass cutting.
\nFeatures not of State-level Heritage Significance:
\nOther elements and structures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nThe South Brisbane Railway Easement was initially part of the Stanley Street railway station which opened 1884, providing the first railway passenger service to South Brisbane, and a direct connection from the West Moreton coal mines to a deep water port. The line ran from Woolloongabba to a station adjacent to the South Brisbane Dry Dock. It closed in 1891 but reopened in 1897 as a goods extension, serving the wharves and businesses along Stanley Street. The goods railway facilitated the trade and commerce conducted in the South Brisbane wharves until its closure in the 1960s.
\nShipping played a significant role in 19th century Queensland as its primary – and sometimes only – means of trade and communication. The development of railway lines were closely associated with the development of ports, with railway lines connecting the hinterland, agricultural and mining districts with the adjacent port.[1] In 1875 a Select Committee emphasised the importance of rail-port connections, in order to export the wool, cattle, agricultural products and minerals which dominated Queensland’s economy. Until the mid-1880s, however, the export of coal from the West Moreton district was frustrated by a lack of direct access to deep water wharves for bunkering coal onto ships for export from Brisbane. Coal was carried to Brisbane by the main line from Ipswich (opened 1875), and was loaded onto drays for transport to the wharves. To facilitate the more efficient handling of coal for export, and as well as other commercial interests, various extensions to the railway system were proposed. In 1880, an extension to the Ipswich-Brisbane line, branching off at South Brisbane Junction [Corinda] between Sherwood and Oxley, and coming around to Woolloongabba and South Brisbane via Yeerongpilly, was tabled in Parliament, and approved in 1881.[2] The project included the establishment of railyards at the water reserve at Woolloongabba, with an extension running through a single-bore, 7-chain (140m) tunnel under Vulture Street to the riverbank.[3] A passenger line would continue west to terminate at a station at the South Brisbane Dry Dock [QHR 600301], just below Stanley Street.[4]
\nContractors Gilliver and Wockner tendered nearly £2,000 beneath the estimated cost and were awarded the contract, beginning work in 1882.[5] The extension was to be augmented by a large coal wharf with railway sidings, constructed along the riverbank adjacent to the Dry Dock.[6] Acheson Overend & Co, responsible for the construction of the Bundaberg-Mount Perry railway, the Warwick-Stanthorpe railway, and South Brisbane Dry Dock, was engaged to construct the coal wharf and sidings in December 1882, at a cost of £11,830.[7]
\nCutting work in the Dry Dock reserve began in May 1882. The earth and stone removed were purchased by the sawmill on the opposite side of the dock and laid on the site near Sidon Street.[8] The contractors for the main line, Gilliver and Wockner, became insolvent in 1883, and construction was completed by the Railways Department.[9] The department finished excavations in October 1883, and constructed a ‘strong stone retaining wall’ up to the level of Stanley Street, just below the post office on Stanley Street (later South Brisbane Library [QHR 600302]).[10]
\nThe South Brisbane extension, coal wharf and sidings were completed in May 1884 and opened without ceremony on 2 June 1884.[11] Passenger trains departed from the Stanley Street terminus three times daily except Sundays. This number doubled within the year. However, the terminus was quickly considered vastly inadequate for both passengers and goods. Complaints about its inability to accommodate more than a single train, its inconvenient location and lack of connection with North Brisbane and the rest of South Brisbane, gave rise to demands for an extension of the line.[12] A plan to connect the station to the wharves which stretched to Victoria Bridge was proposed in 1890,[13] but was thwarted by the construction of a new line that bypassed the Woolloongabba railyards and Stanley Street station entirely. When the new line, Boggo Junction (Dutton Park) to Melbourne Street, was opened on 21 December 1891, the Stanley Street station was closed.[14]
\nIn 1894, after pressure from local business owners, Parliament authorised a goods extension of the South Brisbane railway, commencing at the old Stanley Street station, diverting around the head of the Dry Dock and extending to the Victoria Bridge.[15] Numerous wharves and commercial enterprises along the riverbank at South Brisbane would be served by the extension, which provided a connection to the Woolloongabba railyards, and to the Southern and Western line at Dutton Park. The contract for construction was let in May 1896 to Kirk Brothers and Frew (who had just finished duplicating the line to Yeerongpilly, and who simultaneously were constructing the Mulgrave line).[16] Extensive works, including an overbridge at Sidon Street, were undertaken, and the first goods were carried on the line on 12 April 1897.[17] The passenger station at Stanley Street did not reopen.
\nThe South Brisbane wharves dominated Queensland’s shipping industry in the late 19th and early 20th century, functioning in large part as Brisbane’s port. Large businesses, including shipping company the Adelaide Steamship Navigation Co, meat freezers and exporters Birt and Co, and flour millers the Dominion and Brisbane Milling Companies, operated wharves along the Stanley Street riverfront.[18] Coal traffic boomed, shipping 200,000 tons per annum by 1905.[19] The railway extension played a vital role in maintaining its dominance: primary produce and coal from southern and western Queensland was brought directly to the wharves for export by the railway line, and imported goods carried back along the line, making it a central focus for trade.
\nThe prominence of the South Brisbane wharves declined in the mid-20th century as wharves with up-to-date facilities opened further downstream, and as oil fuel replaced coal, reducing the need for coal bunkering.[20] With diminished requirement for goods carriage, the South Brisbane railway extension closed beyond Glenelg Street in 1961, and the rails were taken up in 1969.[21] The extension, along with the Woolloongabba goods yard, was officially closed in December 1969, and the coal wharf was demolished in 1974.[22]
\nOwnership of the South Brisbane Dry Dock, including the former railway line and easement, was transferred to the Land Administration Commission in 1973. The Queensland Maritime Museum Association opened their base on the site in April 1973, opening to the public in 1979.[23] The site was gazetted as a recreation park and museum in 1976, held in trust by the Brisbane City Council.[24]
\nChanges to Stanley Street and the creation of Little Stanley Street for Expo88 meant that most of the railway easement was in-filled to create firstly a parking area and later, the roadway with the embankment burying the remains of the railway platform. The railway easement retaining wall remained intact.[25]
\nIn 2018 the railway easement is collocated with the South Brisbane Dry Dock, and is part of the Queensland Maritime Museum.[26]
","criteria":"The South Brisbane Railway Easement, constructed in 1882-84, is significant historically as a collection of remnant structures and sites associated with South Brisbane's earliest rail network, constructed in the early 1880s. The place is important for its strong association with the commercial development of South Brisbane in the 1880s and 1890s.
The South Brisbane Railway Easement is an integral element in the historic precinct centred around the South Brisbane Memorial Park, which includes the dry dock (QHR 600301), the former South Brisbane Library (QHR 600302), Cumbooquepa (Somerville House) (QHR 600305), the former South Brisbane Municipal Chambers (QHR 600306) and Ship Inn.
|The South Brisbane Railway Easement has potential to reveal sub-surface archaeological evidence, contributing to a greater understanding of the early workings of Queensland’s railways, in particular their servicing of the Brisbane River wharves.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15069,"place_ref":600294,"name":"Plough Inn","alternate_name":"Plough Inn Hotel","street_address":"South Bank Parklands","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Plough Inn is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with front and rear verandahs, and a single-storeyed service building to the rear. It has a picturesque front facade which is a remnant of a former streetscape.
The hotel has an L-shaped plan; the rectangular service building is attached via the rear verandah.
The front facade is richly detailed, while other elevations are more perfunctory. The front facade has three bays, expressed with rusticated pilasters and parapet decoration comprising pediments either end and a central name plaque. The pediments are flanked by acroteria, and the plaque is inscribed with the words PLOUGH INN. The pediments and plaques are connected by a miniature balustrade, and rest on a deep cornice with dentils, separated by another band of decoration from a second cornice.
Whilst little remains of the original hotel internally, the Plough Inn retains its external envelope and overall form.
","history":"This two-storeyed former hotel was constructed in 1885 for Brisbane publican Daniel Costigan. It replaced a previous, less substantial structure on the site, which had functioned as the Plough Inn since 1864. The new building was erected during South Brisbane's heyday and was part of the 1880s boom-time reconstruction of Stanley Street premises.
The building was designed by architect Alexander B. Wilson, who is more known for his domestic work. It was built by contractor Abraham James, whose tender of £3,300 was accepted in March 1885.
The hotel, prominently located in central Stanley Street, serviced the commercial heart of South Brisbane. Its proximity to the South Brisbane wharves ensured its popularity amongst those engaged in shipping interests.
Initially the L-shaped interior comprised on the ground floor: a central hall, staircase, dining room, two private rooms [probably for dining also], bar, parlour, storage spaces, billiard room and lavatories; the first floor contained fourteen guest rooms and a bathroom. A verandah along the back of the building connected it to a detached single-storey kitchen. A cellar completed the facilities.
The building has been altered a number of times since its initial construction. In 1922, additions were made by contractors Robertson and Corbette, following the designs of GHM Addison and Son. It is thought that the street awning was added at this time.
In 1987 the building was modified to function as a tavern during Expo '88. Most of the internal walls were removed, the central fire place and chimney were taken out, and the interior was re-fitted. Also the front verandah was widened, the rear verandah extended, and windows and doors replaced at this time.
In 1991-92 a conservation plan for the Plough Inn was prepared by Bruce Buchanan architects, and the interior was fully refurbished. The front verandah was also reconstructed.
The Plough Inn now operates as a Southbank hotel.
","criteria":"The picturesque front facade in particular, along with the nearby Allgas Building facade, survives as a fragment of the former streetscape of Stanley Street, South Brisbane's principal commercial thoroughfare in the late 19th century.
|Plough Inn is significant historically as a rare surviving remnant of the commercial and shipping heart of South Brisbane in the late 19th century.
|The picturesque front facade in particular, along with the nearby Allgas Building facade, survives as a fragment of the former streetscape of Stanley Street, South Brisbane's principal commercial thoroughfare in the late 19th century.
|The place has a strong association with the work of prominent Brisbane architect Alexander B Wilson.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15070,"place_ref":600295,"name":"Allgas Building","alternate_name":"South Brisbane Gas & Light Co. Building | Queensland National Bank | Caledonian House","street_address":"South Bank Parklands","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Allgas building is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with a parapeted facade and a simple rectangular plan. It has a picturesque front facade which is a remnant of a former streetscape.
The northern facade above the ground floor and its western corner is richly decorated. It has a deep string course separating ground and first floors, and a deep cornice topped by pediments and a miniature balustrade. The elevation has bays of three windows with rusticated surrounds, which align with the pediments and console brackets under the cornice. Paired windows are flanked with fluted pilasters with floriated capitals. At what was once the western street corner, the facade is truncated above ground floor level, and is topped with an arched pediment inscribed with the date 1885.
Whilst little remains of the original building internally, the Allgas retains its overall external form and the rich decorative detailing of the northern facade.
","history":"The Allgas Building, a two-storeyed building in what was formerly central Stanley Street, was erected in 1885 for the drapery and outfitting firm of Allan & Stark. It was built during the peak of South Brisbane commercial development and the reconstruction of Stanley Street premises, and was a reflection of boom era confidence.
Along with a number of prominent South Brisbane firms, Allan & Stark moved across the river to higher ground after the disastrous floods of 1893. Caledonian House was leased to the Queensland National Bank as a branch office [301 Stanley Street] in August 1897, and the South Brisbane Gas & Light Co. Ltd sub-leased a section [305 Stanley Street] from October 1897.
In 1909 the QNB purchased the building for £2,500, with the South Brisbane Gas & Light Co. maintaining its office and showroom there.
Alterations, including changes to the street frontage, were carried out in 1931 under architects Hall and Phillips, and included the erection of an awning and alterations to the shop front. The building was again extended in 1942.
In 1943 the branch was closed as a war time economy, and 301 Stanley Street was leased to shirt and pyjama manufacturer Alfred Portrate until 1949.
The corner premises were reoccupied by maintenance staff of the National Bank of Australasia [formerly the QNB] in 1949. In 1965 it was purchased by the South Brisbane Gas & Light Co. Ltd [Allgas Energy Ltd from 1971].
In 1984 the building was resumed by the Expo Authority, renamed Central House, and functioned once again as a bank during World Expo '88. It also housed the Picasso Restaurant.
The building was again refurbished in 1991 as part of the Southbank redevelopment, and now operates as an administration centre.
Little remains of the original interior of the building. Externally, the northern facade remains intact above ground floor; the ground floor facade has been modified a number of times throughout the life of the building. New openings have been made to other facades.
","criteria":"The picturesque front facade in particular, along with the nearby Plough Inn facade, survives as a fragment of the former streetscape of Stanley Street, South Brisbane's principal commercial thoroughfare in the late 19th century.
It is also significant historically as a rare surviving remnant of the commercial and shipping heart of South Brisbane in the late 19th century.
|It is also significant historically as a rare surviving remnant of the commercial and shipping heart of South Brisbane in the late 19th century.
|The picturesque front facade in particular, along with the nearby Plough Inn facade, survives as a fragment of the former streetscape of Stanley Street, South Brisbane's principal commercial thoroughfare in the late 19th century.
|The Allgas Building at South Brisbane has a strong association with the early years of Allan & Stark, formerly one of Brisbane's most prominent retailing firms.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15071,"place_ref":600296,"name":"Collins Place","alternate_name":"Greyscourt | Byanda","street_address":"271 Grey Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Collins Place is a two-and-a-half storeyed rendered brick building with pitched corrugated iron roofs situated on a slope which falls away from the adjacent Vulture St station. Fronting Grey Street at its south-eastern end, Collins Place currently stands without immediate neighbours on either side.
The building is L-shaped, with a service wing to the rear, and has verandahs on three sides to two levels. It has a hipped roof linking to a gabled roof running over the service wing. The street-facing gable projects and is decorated with a finial and cross pieces. Chimneys with double clay pots rise above the roof line. The verandah has a skillion roof.
Externally-exposed walls have been painted, while those sheltered by the verandah are unpainted, and show light-coloured splayed brick lintels, stone sills, and darker face brickwork. The building has timber sash windows, French doors opening onto the second level verandahs, tripartite windows facing the street to the first floor level, and flat arches to window heads on second floor level. It sits on a rendered masonry base which has intricate brick and iron ventilators.
The verandahs are supported on timber columns with bevelled corners and square capitals, and have cast-iron valances and balustrading. Louvred timber spandrels run beneath the first floor verandah.
Internally, the building comprises rooms either side of a central corridor and stairs, with the two-storeyed service wing being accessed from the rear. It is entered from street level via timber stairs which arrive at the first floor verandah; there are also timber service stairs to the rear. The house retains some earlier detailing, including pressed metal ceilings on the first floor, timber stairs with a richly detailed balustrade and timber panelling, and deep cedar skirtings and reveals.
Collins Place retains the form, some of the internal and much of the external picturesque detailing of a turn of the century townhouse. In its new context it is a fragment of a former streetscape.
","history":"Collins Place was constructed in 1889 or 1890 for Ship Inn proprietor Michael Foley, on land he acquired in 1887. Around the same time Foley also built the neighbouring semi-detached houses of Greyscourt and Beth Eden, which later became known conjointly as Grays Court. Foley's houses were erected during the boom which transformed Grey Street, South Brisbane's principal residential street since the mid 1840s, into a fashionable address.
From 1890 until the early 1910s it was occupied by respected Brisbane surgeon Francis Glynn Connolly, who called the house Byanda.
It passed from the Foley family in 1928, but remained a rental property through subsequent ownerships.
Lynette Bloss, who purchased the property in 1983 and renovated the building, unsuccessfully appealed against its resumption by the Expo Authority in 1984. Ms Bloss bestowed the name Collins Place to commemorate 1857 deed of grant holder, squatter John Collins.
During Expo '88 the building functioned as Collins Place Spaghetti House. The building is currently used as a police station.
","criteria":"It is the only surviving house in what was formerly one of South Brisbane's earliest residential streets, and is remnant evidence of the 1880s transformation of Grey Street into a fashionable address.
|An example of a late 19th century brick townhouse in Brisbane, it also retains its picturesque detailing.
|An example of a late 19th century brick townhouse in Brisbane, it also retains its picturesque detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15073,"place_ref":600298,"name":"Coronation Hotel","alternate_name":"Montague Hotel","street_address":"46 Montague Road","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-04-30","description":"The hotel occupies a corner site on Montague Road. It is a two-storeyed rendered and painted brickwork building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The street facades are surrounded by a cantilevered iron-lace verandah and an awning over the street, with an entrance at the truncated corner.
The ground floor street facades have paired half-fluted pilasters with square motifs above the capitals, and relief moulds which express a base to the building. Timber french doors alternate with timber sash windows which have narrow side lights. The corrugated iron awning extends beyond the edge of the cantilevered balcony above, and is supported by timber posts; two of the original cast iron corinthian columns remain on the Montague Road frontage.
The first floor has timber french doors and sash windows. The balcony has a cast-iron balustrade, and galvanised sheet iron columns with cast zinc bases and capitals, and a convex corrugated iron awning. The parapet above the awning has a cornice with dentil blocks, a pediment over the corner, and three shaped gables embellished with spheres.
A substantial two-storeyed brick service wing with an intact timber verandah extends off the rear. A gable-roofed laundry stands in the back yard. Next to the service wing is a more recent two-storeyed brick toilet block.
The ground floor interior includes two renovated bars, a dining room which is now partitioned, the kitchen, the store and bathrooms. On the first floor, accessed by a fine timber staircase, are a number of bedrooms and bathrooms. With the exception of the bars and bathrooms, the interior is largely intact. The walls are lined with plaster, and fretwork fanlights remain above the doors. In the bedrooms, the tongue and groove timber ceilings have metal rose vents.
Although the building requires repairs, it is substantially intact, in particularly the exterior, which is a fine example of the architect's skill.
","history":"The Coronation Hotel was built in 1891 to a design by prominent Brisbane architect FDG Stanley. It was originally called the Montague Hotel.
At the time of its construction the hotel stood near the heart of the prospering South Brisbane commercial and residential areas. Its first proprietor was George Lotz. In 1953 it was renamed the Coronation Hotel after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. From the early 1970s the last licensee was rugby league personality Ripper Doyle.
In 1987 the hotel was acquired for redevelopment by neighbouring QUF Industries. The redevelopment did not eventuate and it operated as a backpackers hostel during Expo 88 and for some time afterwards. It is presently unoccupied.
","criteria":"The Coronation Hotel is significant as it has a special association with architect FDG Stanley as an example of his work.
|The Coronation Hotel is significant as an intact remnant of an early streetscape of a residential scale which is now rare and endangered.
|The hotel demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1890s hotel.
|The Coronation Hotel is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community in its fine design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15074,"place_ref":600299,"name":"Richard Randall Art Studio","alternate_name":"Richard Randall's Studio","street_address":"Mt Coot-tha Road","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Richard Randall Art Studio is a small, single-storey, timber-framed building located within the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Cooth-tha in Toowong. Set against a backdrop of mature trees and bamboo, the building is adjacent to and clearly visible from the car park in the northern area of the Gardens.
High-set on timber and steel stumps over sloping ground, the building is orientated to face south-west and sited to accommodate a level timber and steel walkway from the car park to the front door on the left-hand side of the main elevation. A timber picket fence and gate, constructed in the style of the fence at the studio's original location, stands at the edge of the footpath, with a garden bed behind. Trees and grassed lawns surround the remainder of the building.
Measuring approximately 6m by 14m, the studio building is rectangular in plan with a narrow frontage and a small verandah at the rear. The steeply-pitched roof is clad in red Marseilles tiles with terracotta finials and metal acroteria, and has timber lined eaves, 0.5m wide. The front section of the roof has a half gable, while the rear is hipped, extending over the rear verandah.
Centrally located immediately below the front half gable is a large rectangular inclined skylight supported by timber mullions, the bottom of which meets the top of a projecting bay window. This tripartite window consists of a central sash window with casements on either side. The upper portion of all 3 windows is multi-paned, while the lower portions have a single pane. Both the skylight and the bay window have modern roller blind systems attached to the outside.
The studio has only two other small windows, one on each side elevation. These are timber, double-hung sashes with multi-pane upper lights and a single pane lower light, one on the north-west wall next to the main entry and one on the south-east wall near the rear corner.
The front elevation is clad in timber chamferboards, and the sides with weatherboards. The rear verandah wall retains exposed timber studs, however the southern end has had a modern accessible bathroom inserted within the verandah space. This bathroom is clad with flat sheeting and the verandah’s two-rail dowel balustrade and stop-chamfered posts are retained.
A small sunhood over the entrance is supported by curved timber brackets and clad in mini-orb sheeting, positioned higher than its original location. The low-waisted, 4-panel timber door features some early door hardware, including a central door knob and a door knocker, and has glazed upper panels. Two short posts with ornamental tops incorporated into the door's architrave are the remnants of the original front stair balustrade.
The interior of the studio is a single large room, well-lit by the large bay window and inclined skylight. An entrance hall area is formed by a timber partition wall that extends 2.6m into the room, topped by wide timber boards that act as shelves, partly supported by a small turned timber column.
The high ceiling is coved, with the tie beams of the roof framing exposed through the space. These beams are stop-chamfered and the end beams braced in each corner. The ceiling and walls are lined with timber, v-jointed tongue and groove boards, and the floor with polished timber boards.
Fittings and fixtures within the space include a contemporary aluminium rail for picture hanging, reproduction suspended and wall light fittings, switches and power outlets, and strip lighting fitted discretely to the upper side of the tie beams. A small kitchenette and fridge are located in the south-eastern corner.
The door to the rear verandah is a contemporary 4 panel timber door, located at the northern end of the north-east wall. The verandah floor is lined with linoleum and the raked ceiling is clad in timber v-jointed boards.
The underfloor area of the studio is used as storage space and is enclosed with vertical timber battens.
","history":"The Richard Randall Art Studio was purpose-built in 1900 as a two-storey timber studio and residence for Queensland artist Richard John Randall. While located at its original address at 72 Cordelia Street, South Brisbane, it served as the artist's residence, art studio, classroom and gallery for the last 6 years of his life, before his untimely death in 1906 at the age of 37. Subsequently used as a residence, the upper floor of the studio was saved from demolition in 1988 when it was purchased by the Brisbane City Council and moved to a site in Musgrave Park. In 2007 the studio was relocated for a second time to its current location within the grounds of Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha, Toowong.
Richard John Randall was born in Brisbane in 1869, the first son of George and Naomi Randall, former domestic servants who had recently emigrated from England to Brisbane.[1] Growing up in South Brisbane, where his parents owned an increasingly successful retail business, Richard and his younger brother George (born in 1871) were both educated at the Brisbane Normal School.[2] Richard went on to attend art classes at the Brisbane Technical College, which had been formed in 1882, operating under the control of the Brisbane School of Arts. While studying there he won awards for drawing and modelling.[3] Watercolours and drawings by Richard were also included in the fine arts section of Queensland National Association exhibitions in the late 1880s.[4]
Queensland's art scene was still in its infancy in the late 19th century. The first art society was formed in 1887, the primary aims of which were to promote the fine arts and to establish annual exhibitions in Brisbane at a time when artists had almost no venues for exhibiting and selling their works. The Society was also seen as an important step towards forming a gallery for Queensland, such as had already been established in Sydney and Melbourne. The first exhibition held by the Society took place in the Masonic Hall in Alice Street, Brisbane, on 14 August 1888.[5]
In 1881 Richard's father George Randall was appointed Queensland Emigration Agent to Britain, a position that required him to take extended tours to England. There, he would travel around the various counties encouraging emigration to Queensland, engaging particularly with agricultural labourers. Between 1881 and 1902, George Randall travelled to England 4 times in the position of Emigration Agent, his longest trip lasting 5 years. In the meantime, the profits from the Randall family's South Brisbane business allowed the family to invest extensively in real estate and establish a large farming property at Birkdale, known as Somersby Grange.[6]
In April 1891, at the age of 22, Richard departed Brisbane with his mother and brother to accompany George Randall on his third tour to England.[7] While there, Richard furthered his art studies and applied to enter a well known art school run by Professor Hubert von Herkomer at Bushey, Hertfordshire. In December 1892 he was accepted into the Herkomer School and spent the next few years there, eventually earning a free scholarship and life membership. In 1895 Richard Randall attained his highest commendation, when one of his watercolour paintings, entitled 'The Old Mill', was accepted and exhibited by the Royal Academy of Arts.[8]
After leaving the Herkomer School, Richard Randall spent 18 months working in London, occupying a studio in Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater. During his time there he painted portraits of many eminent gentlemen[9], as well as making excursions to picturesque spots around England and to Paris.[10]
In 1899 Richard Randall returned to Queensland, the purpose of which (according to some sources) was 'to carry out his father's patriotic wish, that now he had received some training and experience he should go back and use this and his talent to help lift art matters in his native city and country.'[11] Richard continued to pursue his career as an artist in Brisbane, becoming involved in exhibitions and competitions. In November 1899 he exhibited 50 of his water-colours for sale in Messrs Isles, Love and Co.'s auction mart, in relation to which he was described as a 'daring colourist'.[12] The influence of Randall's style upon other artists was soon observed in local exhibitions.[13]
Richard Randall set about establishing his own residence and studio in Brisbane soon after his return. The site chosen was a block of land owned by his father at 72 Cordelia Street in South Brisbane, opposite St Andrew's Church of England. Purchased in May 1884,[14] a residence (known as 'Hatfield') was built on the site c1896[15] and early photographs show this residence and the later studio standing close together on the site.[16] Some sources state that the studio was built for Richard Randall by his father, however as George Randall was in England at the time of its construction in 1900, the level of his involvement in the project (beyond providing the land) is unclear. A 1914 account of Richard Randall's life states that Richard personally superintended the erection of the studio.[17]
As a purpose-built studio, rather than an adaptation of an existing building, it is likely that the building's design was based upon the type of artists' studios constructed in parts of London in the late 19th and early 20th century. Favouring the Queen Anne Revival style, these artists' studios were either part of or attached to a single house, or constructed as groups of units. In studio houses, the domestic function of the house was separate from and secondary to its studio use, with the studio itself usually located on the upper floor. Common features of artists' studios included a substantially sized painting room (that served as both a working and entertaining space), and large windows and skylights for adequate natural light, controlled by blinds. In particular, a window joined to an inclined skylight was very popular as it provided both top and side light. Careful consideration was also given to circulation, with an entrance located close to the painting room so that models and visitors would not have to pass through other areas of the house. Purpose-built artists' studios, whether grand or modest, were a reflection of the improved social and professional status of artists working in London in the late Victorian period.[18]
While modest in size and incorporating local materials and construction techniques, the Randall studio's design reflects many of the aspects of a typical London artist's studio, which Richard Randall would have been familiar with, having lived and worked there for some time. Its style, described in a Brisbane newspaper article as resembling a 'Swiss chalet'[19], incorporates characteristics of Australian 'Queen Anne' style, such as an asymmetrical façade, steeply pitched Marseilles tile-clad roof, terracotta roof apex ornaments, a street-facing gable, and projecting bay window with multi-paned top lights.[20] Built on steeply sloping ground, the studio occupied the upper floor at street level and the residence below was accessed by an external staircase at the rear. The residential level consisted of at least four rooms connected by a side verandah,[21] however its exact layout is unknown. The studio itself was a single volume lit by a large bay window and skylight in the centre of the main elevation, with blinds to control light levels. A part-height timber partition wall created an entrance passageway, with a curtain hung across it to shield views into the studio from the front door. The high walls (painted a 'cool green') had few windows, providing ample hanging space for pictures, and the room contained a 'model’s throne.'[22] A contemporary description called it 'a fine commodious studio (said to be one of the best-equipped private studios in Australia).'[23]
Richard Randall's studio was not the first artist's studio to be constructed in Queensland, however free-standing, purpose-built studio buildings remained rare, constructed only by those able to afford it. Of the many practicing artists and photographers working in Brisbane at the time, most operated from existing commercial premises.[24] One known exception was the English-born artist Godfrey Rivers, appointed second art master at the Brisbane Technical College in 1890,[25] who built a wooden studio building in the grounds of the Brisbane School of Arts in 1891 to a design by George Henry Male (GHM) Addison[26]. His studio was described as 'a wooden building of one room, lofty, sufficiently spacious, and admirably lighted by a single fine south window'[27] (building no longer extant).
Once settled into his new studio residence, Richard Randall began advertising for pupils in 'The Brisbane Courier', offering drawing and painting lessons in a variety of mediums, including oils, water-colours and pastels.[28] On Wednesday afternoons he was 'at home' to visitors,[29] providing an opportunity for socialising and displaying his latest works. Richard worked, exhibited and taught at the studio, establishing a reputation as a popular and successful Brisbane artist and teacher, and providing a focus for a coterie of local artists influenced by the Randall style.
When he was not teaching, Richard travelled around south-east Queensland in search of new subjects and scenes to paint. He also took an active role in many artistic clubs and societies, including the Brisbane Sketching Club and the Queensland Art Society, of which he was vice-president from December 1903.[30] A breakaway art society, calling itself the New Society of Artists, formed in 1904, as a result of dissatisfaction with some policies of the more elite Queensland Art Society.[31] In August 1906, the engagement of Richard Randall to Miss Minna Wirth, daughter of one of the founders of the Queensland Art Society, artist Lewis Wirth, was announced in a local paper.[32]
Some time after his return to Australia, Richard received overtures from various London art galleries, and subsequently collections of his works were sent back to England and displayed for purchase. His watercolours and paintings of Australian landscapes and scenery were particularly admired, as they conveyed 'a more pleasing and favourable impression of the Australian bush and scenery than had hitherto been entertained.' [33]
Tragedy struck in October 1906 when Richard Randall died unexpectedly, of what is believed to have been a brain tumour, at Somersby Grange, aged 37. The funeral held on 16 October[34] was well attended by members of Brisbane's artistic circles, including representatives of the Queensland Art Society and the New Society of Artists, who, in a rare moment of unity between the two groups, acted as pall bearers.[35]
Richard's death came as a great shock to his father, who spent much of his time after 1906 promoting the life and works of his son. In 1907 he compiled and published an elaborate memorial brochure, featuring photographs of Richard, his studio and some of his paintings.[36] The studio and its contents were kept intact until c1913, and opened for viewing by the public and eminent guests, such as Governor and Lady Chelmsford, who visited in December 1906 and purchased several watercolour sketches.[37]
In 1909 the South Brisbane Council was persuaded to accept 600 of Richard's works in perpetual trust.[38] A quarter-acre of vacant land adjoining the studio was offered by George Randall as a location for a gallery to house the collection[39], however it was eventually housed on the upper floor of the South Brisbane Technical College [QHR 600302 South Brisbane Library (former)], which had been converted from a library space into the Randall Art Gallery. The Randall Collection contained everything from early and incomplete works and sketches to his most prized paintings. After 1922 the collection was added to by George Randall upon his return from a visit to England, where he had purchased a number of his son's paintings from a London art gallery.[40]
When the City Council of Greater Brisbane was formed in 1925 it took over the assets of the South Brisbane Council, including the Randall Collection, which was moved to Brisbane City Hall [QHR 600065]. Some paintings were hung in reception rooms, while the majority were displayed in a large, well lit room on the fifth floor. The collection's continuous occupation of the foremost gallery space in Brisbane caused friction between the Council, representatives of the Randall family and the Royal Queensland Art Society, who requested to use the gallery for other purposes.[41] In 1943, after being closed for a year due to lack of staff, the collection was removed from the gallery and stored in the City Hall basement.[42] After the end of World War II, the collection was not reinstated to the gallery and the majority of works remained in poor storage conditions in the basement, or were loaned out or taken without any record being kept of where they went. A 1953 newspaper article claimed that the paintings were being eaten by rats and falling into disrepair, however it was not until the mid-1980s that a concerted effort was made to track down and restore the collection, which had dwindled to 154 pieces.[43] In 2013 the Richard Randall collection remains part of the Brisbane City Council owned Museum of Brisbane art collection.[44]
Members of the Randall family retained ownership of the Cordelia Street property until 1981. From late 1913[45] the studio was rented out as a residence, and at some point the upper floor was partitioned. In a 1926 sewerage plan the studio is named 'Brindisi' and is fenced off from two other residences on the property.
In 1987, Richard Randall's Studio was listed by the National Trust of Queensland, who described it as 'a unique example of a purpose-built artist's studio and reception rooms.'[46]
In 1988 the building was threatened with demolition due to redevelopment of the site; however it was purchased in time by Brisbane City Council in recognition of its historical significance.[47] Only the upper floor (the former studio) was saved and relocated approximately 300 metres along Cordelia Street to Musgrave Park, while the remainder of the building was demolished. In 1989 the studio was stumped and re-orientated to a north-west aspect to face an avenue through the park. Internal partitions and a lowered ceiling were removed and the building was repaired and renovated, with facilities such as a small kitchenette installed in a rear corner. In front of the studio a timber picket fence, similar to one which had existed at the original location, was constructed.
The studio was officially opened by the Lord Mayor, Ald. Sallyanne Atkinson, in December 1990 as the Richard Randall Studio, part of the Jagera Arts Centre in Musgrave Park. The Richard Randall Artist's Studio Award, established by the Council the same year, provided rent-free use of the building to selected local artists for set periods as a studio and gallery. Artists were chosen by a panel of professional arts community representatives, and were required to produce a quota of artwork for public use during their residency.[48]
By the mid-2000s the studio was in need of repairs and had become vulnerable to damage by vandals. In 2007 it was relocated for the second time by Brisbane City Council to its present site in the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens, adjacent to the main visitor's car park. Officially opened on 6 October 2008[49] by the Lady Mayoress Mrs Lisa Newman, in the presence of descendants of the Randall family, the renovated studio is used as a function and exhibition venue available to the public and community groups for hire.
References
[1] Walton, Jack, 2007, George Randall: Emigration Officer Extraordinaire, a biography, Brisbane: CopyRight Publishing Company Pty Ltd, p.50.
[2] Walton, George Randall: Emigration Officer Extraordinaire, p.89-90.
[3] The Queenslander, Saturday 13 February 1886, p.259; The Queenslander, Saturday 12 March 1887, p.428.
[4] Brown, Julie K. and Margaret Maynard, 1980, Fine Art Exhibitions in Brisbane 1884-1916, Fryer Library, University of Queensland: St Lucia.
[5] Brown, Fine Art Exhibitions in Brisbane 1884-1916, p.184-185.
[6] Walton, George Randall: Emigration Officer Extraordinaire, p.xi-xii, 131-133.
[7] Walton, George Randall: Emigration Officer Extraordinaire, p.95.
[8] CMJ.,'R. J. Randall, the Australian Painter-Poet, An Appreciation,' essay featured in The Randall Art Gallery and School of Painting, South Brisbane, Catalogue of Works, South Brisbane City Council, c.1914, p.8-10.
[9] The Queenslander, Saturday 21 January 1899, p.140.
[10] CMJ., 'R. J. Randall, the Australian Painter-Poet, An Appreciation,' p.7-12.
[11] The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 20th October 1906.
[12] The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 4 November 1899, p.6.
[13] The Brisbane Courier, Thursday 12 September 1901, p.5.
[14] Deed of Grant 10547250 EHP.
[15] The Brisbane Courier, Tuesday 14 July 1896, p.8.
[16] The Randall Art Gallery and School of Painting, South Brisbane, Catalogue of Works. South Brisbane City Council, c.1914, p.27.
[17] CMJ., 'R. J. Randall, the Australian Painter-Poet, An Appreciation,' p.12.
[18] Orme, Kate, Artists' Studios: Supplementary Planning Guidance, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, accessed March 2013: http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/planningandconservation/planningpolicy/supplementaryplanning.aspx
[19] The Brisbane Courier, Tuesday 22 May 1900, p.4.
[20] Apperley, Richard, Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds, 1994, A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture. Australia: Angus and Robertson Publishers, p.132-135.
[21] National Trust of Queensland Citation BNE 1/750 'Richard Randall's Studio'.
[22] Newspaper article 'Mr R. J. Randall Interviewed,' 1903, contained in In Memoriam: R. J. R., 1907, Brisbane: Simpson, Halligan and Co.
[23] The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 20 October 1906.
[24] For example, artist LWK Wirth had a studio in Darragh's Buildings, Queen Street (Queensland Figaro, Thursday 8 August 1907, p.5), Oscar Fristrom had a studio in Oakden Chambers, Queen Street (The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 3 July 1909, p.6), JS Wiley, a portrait artist, had a studio opposite the Queensland National Bank in Queen Street, and photographer's studios located in Queen Street buildings included the Poulsen studios and the Royal Studios (The Brisbane Courier, Tues 31 August 1909, p.4).
[25] Hogan, Janet. 'Rivers, Richard Godfrey (1859-1925)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rivers-richard-godfrey-8217/text14379, accessed 15 April 2013.
[26] Tender notice, The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 4 April 1891, p.5. Watson & McKay 1994, p.136.
[27] The Brisbane Courier, Wednesday 17 June 1891, p.6.
[28] The Brisbane Courier, Friday 11 May 1900, p.2.
[29] The Brisbane Courier, Friday 6 February 1903, p.7.
[30] The Brisbane Courier, Thursday 10 December 1903, p.4.
[31] Brown, Fine Art Exhibitions in Brisbane 1884-1916, p.188.
[32] Queensland Figaro, Thursday 2 August 1906, p.17.
[33] C. M. J., 'R. J. Randall, the Australian Painter-Poet, An Appreciation,' p.15.
[34] The Brisbane Courier, Wednesday 17 October 1906, p.7.
[35] Brown, Fine Art Exhibitions in Brisbane 1884-1916, p.191.
[36] Queensland Figaro, Thursday 28 March 1907, p.16.
[37] The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 17 November 1906, p.5.
[38] Walton, George Randall: Emigration Officer Extraordinaire, p.141.
[39] C. M. J., 'R. J. Randall, the Australian Painter-Poet, An Appreciation,' p.17.
[40] Walton, George Randall: Emigration Officer Extraordinaire, p.141; QHR entry 600302 South Brisbane Library (former); Queensland Figaro, Thursday 28 March 1907, p.16.
[41] The Courier Mail, Thursday 3 October 1940, p.4.
[42] The Courier Mail, Saturday 10 July 1943, p.3; The Courier Mail, Friday 11 April 1947, p.5.
[43] The Courier Mail, Tuesday 6 October 1953, p.3; Article (newspaper unknown) in 600299 research file, Saturday 24 May 1986, by City Hall reporter Tess Livingstone.
[44] Museum of Brisbane website, accessed 10 April 2013: http://www.museumofbrisbane.com.au/about/collection-2/
[45] The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 1 November 1913, p.6.
[46] National Trust of Queensland Citation BNE 1/750 'Richard Randall's Studio.'
[47] Newspaper article in 600299 research file, dated 17/05/88 (source unknown).
[48] Randall a House of Creation, The Courier Mail, Monday 17 December 1990.
[49] According to plaque attached to the Richard Randall Art Studio.
","criteria":"The Richard Randall Art Studio (1900) is important in demonstrating the evolution and growth of artistic culture in Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th century. Constructed for an aspiring young Queensland artist who had studied and worked in England, the studio is representative of the confidence felt by members of Brisbane's artistic elite in the future of Queensland as a place of culture and artistic inspiration.
The studio building has served as an important venue for the education and professional development of both artists and art students in Queensland, initially under the tutelage of the studio's first owner, Richard Randall, and since the late 1980s as a workshop and exhibition space available to the public.
|As the surviving portion of Richard Randall's purpose-built studio and residence, the Richard Randall Art Studio is an example of a building type that is and always has been rare in Queensland. The building is the only known artist's studio of its type from the early 20th century remaining in Queensland, built in a period when most professional artists worked from existing commercial premises.
|The Richard Randall Art Studio demonstrates the principal characteristics of a purpose-built artist's studio, with a single large internal volume able to accommodate a variety of functions and arrangements of furniture and objects; large plain wall surfaces for displaying artworks; and strategically placed windows and skylight to provide southern light, controlled by blinds. Based upon the type of artist's studio that was common in London in the late 19th century, the studio's design is illustrative of the ideal working environment preferred by professional artists of the period.
|The Richard Randall Art Studio has a special association with the Queensland artist Richard John Randall. A popular and influential artist in his day, Richard Randall made an important contribution to the advancement of art and culture in Queensland through his artworks, teaching and his involvement with leading art societies and clubs. Designed especially for him, the studio was where he lived, worked, taught and exhibited his works for the last 6 years of his life, and where his works were displayed for a further 7 years after his death. The collection of his works, donated by the Randall family to the local authorities in perpetual trust, formed the foundation of the Brisbane City Council's art collection.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15075,"place_ref":600300,"name":"Phoenix Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"647 Stanley Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-05-24","description":"Phoenix Buildings, comprising six two-storeyed, rendered masonry, attached shops, are located on the corner of Merton Street facing Stanley Street, a major arterial road through Woolloongabba. They form the end of a group of commercial buildings, ranging from the mid 19th century through to the early 20th century, with street awnings and decorative rendered facades.
The Stanley Street elevation is unified by a curved corrugated iron street awning, which continues in front of neighbouring shops returning slightly into Merton Street, and a narrow first floor verandah. The lined street awning has cast iron paired columns, brackets and valance, with shopfronts of aluminium framed glazing. The verandah has cast iron single columns, brackets, valance and balustrade, curved corrugated iron roof, timber partitions and floor with french doors and fanlights. A rendered parapet balustrade with circular openings above a deep cornice has the inscription PHOENIX BUILDINGS over the two centre panels.
Each shop has a hipped corrugated iron roof with, except for the corner shop, a central clerestory skylight behind a perimeter parapet. The two end shops nearest Merton Street are deeper, giving the building an L-shaped plan, the other four shops have a basement. The Merton Street elevation has pilasters, with cornice and parapet above, and sash windows with moulded surrounds. At the rear of the building the first floor verandahs are enclosed.
A caretakers flat on the first floor at the Merton Street end could indicate the original layout. The building is currently divided into two tenancies.
The ground floor of the Merton Street end tenancy has had party walls removed and has a suspended ceiling. The first floor has single skin tongue and groove partitions, boarded ceilings and clerestory skylights.
The second tenancy has been fitted out for offices with arched openings in party walls and suspended ceilings on both levels.
Turned timber staircases are intact in both tenancies, and basements have back to back fireplaces with shared chimneys which no longer operate.
A concrete block toilet addition with a lean-to corrugated iron roof is attached to the rear.
","history":"Phoenix Buildings were erected in 1889-90 for William Davies, mining entrepreneur, who purchased subdivisions 1-5 of suburban allotment 135, parish of South Brisbane, in late 1888.
The Buildings were designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, who called tenders in April 1889. The contractor was Woolloongabba builder James Rix. Gailey designed a row of ten two-storeyed shops, six of which comprised the initial contract. Shops in the buildings were advertised for rent in the Brisbane Courier of July 1890. The ground floors of the other four shops appear to have been erected about the same time, but the upper floors were never completed.
In 1919, ownership of Phoenix Buildings passed to Davies' son, Maldwyn, who sold the property in mid-1920. The six two-storeyed shops were purchased by George Calile Malouf, who established a drapery business in the two end shops, and rented out the remainder. Malouf's became a familiar Woolloongabba landmark, expanding to include most of the premises. These buildings remain in the Malouf family, but the drapery business ceased operation in 1986.
The four single-storeyed shops were purchased by grocers Barry and Roberts. Although the decorative street awning survives, the buildings themselves have been substantially altered, and do not form part of the listing.
","criteria":"Phoenix Buildings are an integral part of a group of commercial buildings which are important in demonstrating the evolution of Clarence Corner as a business and retail centre from the mid-19th century through to the early 20th century, and in particular, illustrate Woolloongabba's commercial development in the 1880s.
|The place is evidence of 1880s brick attached shops in Brisbane, a now rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|As one of the few known examples of attached shops designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, Phoenix Buildings are important in demonstrating some of the principal characteristics of Gailey's commercial work.
|In scale and form, Phoenix Buildings exhibit an aesthetic contribution to the Stanley Street streetscape and to the Woolloongabba townscape which is valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15076,"place_ref":600301,"name":"South Brisbane Dry Dock","alternate_name":"Queensland Maritime Museum | Government Graving Dock","street_address":"412 Stanley Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The South Brisbane Dry Dock is incorporated within the grounds of the Queensland Maritime Museum, which occupies a 1.77ha site on a bend in the bank of the Brisbane River in South Brisbane. In addition to the Dry Dock (1876-1881, extended 1887) is a complex of associated buildings, structures and equipment, dating from the 1870s to World War II. The site is bounded by the Southbank Parklands to the northwest, Stanley Street to the southwest, Little Dock Street and Dock Street to the southeast, and adjoins Lower River Terrace at the far eastern end. While relatively flat, the majority of the site sits several metres below street level. The dry dock is collocated with the former South Brisbane Railway Easement [QHR 600293], which runs along the southeast and southwest sides of the site, and comprises a series of retaining walls, ground level changes, sloping gardens and bitumen pathways. The main entrance is located in the centre of the northwest boundary, and a secondary entrance at the eastern end of the site. The main entrance is located in the centre of the northwest boundary, and a secondary entrance at the eastern end of the site. The Dry Dock divides the site into northern and southern areas.
\nSignificant features and buildings in the northern area include:
\no Casual Men’s Change Room (1945).
\no Second Office (1942).
\no Mess Room and Permanent Men’s Change Room (1945).
\nThe southern area of the site contains four buildings closely grouped together near the eastern end of the dry dock. From west to east, the significant buildings are:
\nDry Dock (1876-81, extended 1887)
\nThe Dry Dock is a long, stone-lined basin excavated from solid rock. Orientated in a northeast-southwest direction, it measures approximately 131m long and 22.8m wide at the top (coping) level and is 9.7m deep. The two phases of the dock’s construction are clearly indicated by their different construction methods and materials. The 1881 section (northeast) has parallel sides lined by stone altars (steps) which give it a parabolic section. The 1887 section (southwest) has bare rock walls and tapers to a rounded point. The dock is kept dry and is sealed off from the river by a concrete wall at the northeast end (which replaced the original iron caisson after its removal in 2006).
\nThe floor of the 1881 section is constructed from layers of concrete with an inverted arch of brickwork in between. The floor is lined with porphyry blocks inset with regularly-spaced timber beams (running widthways). Channels for draining the dock run around the edges of the floor. The concrete-backed side walls are lined with stone, comprising a Helidon sandstone cap on porphyry blocks. Each wall has two symmetrically-placed stone stairways and two curved slides, also constructed from stone.
\nThe sloping sides of the 1887 section have rough porphyry blockwork filling in gaps and hollows in the excavated rock walls. The floor is lined with concrete and has long timber beams inset, running lengthways.
\nA walkway crosses the thick concrete wall sealing the river end of the dock, with the iron balustrade from the original caisson attached along the edges. At each end of the walkway a large block of granite forms the inner corners of the dock entrance. On the river side of the entrance, the northeast corner is a masonry feature known as a roundhead, which projects into the river. Semi-circular at its northeast end, it is constructed from large, rough-dressed porphyry blocks capped with Helidon sandstone. On the south side of the entrance is a straight, stone retaining wall of similar construction, which runs parallel to the southern dock wall with a return at the eastern end. Beyond this wall, the sloping river bank is lined with rough porphyry blockwork.
\nWhile the dock is now sealed from the river to prevent water ingress, some fixed features associated with the dock’s operation are retained, including:
\nSidon Street retaining wall (c1879)
\nRunning along the southern edge of the former Sidon Street road reserve is a stone retaining wall, which slopes down from several metres high at the Stanley Street end to ground level behind the Mess and Change Room building. It is constructed from Brisbane Tuff (porphyry) and has a capping with chamfered edges. The blocks vary in size – larger at the base of the wall and smaller near the top.
\nCasual Men’s Change Room (1945)
\nThe Change Room is a small, lowset timber building on concrete stumps, clad in timber chamferboards, with a hipped roof clad with modern corrugated metal sheeting. A single entrance is located in the centre of the southeast wall, accessed by timber steps. Internally, walls are unlined with studs and cross bracing exposed, and there is no ceiling. Non-original timber partitions divide the interior into two rooms (used as locker and shower rooms in 2016) and a small entry area.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nOffice (1942)
\nThe Office is a rectangular timber building, highset on concrete stumps with a hipped roof clad in modern corrugated metal sheeting. The roof extends over a verandah along the southeast side, which is accessed by a projecting timber staircase. Access is via two doors to the verandah and one door to the pathway along the rear (northwest) side. The understorey (used as storage space in 2016) is enclosed by modern timber batten screens on three sides. The northwest side abuts the stone retaining wall along the former Sidon Street. The southwest end of the verandah has been enclosed (used as a toilet in 2016). The interior of the building is divided into three rooms and the location of former partitions is evident on the ceiling. In c2001 the office was lowered to facilitate the construction of the Goodwill Bridge above.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nMess Room and Permanent Men’s Change Room (former, 1945)
\nThe Mess Room and Permanent Men’s Change Room (former) is a long, lowset rectangular building, with a Dutch gable roof clad in modern corrugated metal sheeting. Walls are clad in timber weatherboards, and the understorey enclosed with concrete footings. The main entrance is via a door in the centre of the southeast wall, and secondary entrances are located in the northeast wall and at the northern end of the northwest wall. A former recessed porch in the location of the main entrance door had been enclosed with weatherboards, however the concrete steps and floor slab of the porch remain.
\nInternally, original partitions have been removed and later partitions divide the space into a large room at the northeast end and a bar, kitchen and store room at the southwest end. Part of the northern wall of the porch survives next to the main entrance, and another small section of original partition wall is located along the northwest wall. The walls are unlined, with studwork exposed.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nWorkshop (former, c1943; converted to display hall 1979)
\nThe Workshop (former) building is a long, rectangular, timber-framed, gable-roofed shed with concrete slab floor. The walls are clad in timber weatherboards around the base and vertical timber boards above, and the roof is clad in modern corrugated metal sheeting. Two entrance doors are located in the northwest wall - a large timber, braced and ledged sliding door at the western end, and a set of timber, braced and ledged double doors at the eastern end, accessed by a shallow concrete ramp.
\nInternally, walls are unlined with framework and cross bracing exposed. Square timber posts run along the central axis of the building, supporting steel beams which in turn support a modern suspended ceiling. A secondary structure of thick timber posts and beams sits inside the walls for part of the building’s length, used for stacking and suspending various boats and artefacts in 2016.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nA ventilation opening in the southwest end wall has had the original timber louvre panels (visible in a 1991 photograph) replaced.
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nOffice (former, 1895; altered c1943)
\nThe Office (former) is a rectangular, timber-framed building with a hipped roof clad in modern corrugated metal sheeting. Three of the exterior walls, which were previously surrounded by a verandah, remain single skin with exposed studs and cross bracing, while the fourth wall (southern) is enclosed with weatherboard cladding. Sections of chamfer board cladding at the top of the single skin walls indicate the point at which they met the former verandah roof. The bottom plates of the walls stand on a concrete slab floor.
\nInternally, the building comprises a single, high-ceilinged room. The southern wall is unlined, with the location of a former window evident in the exposed framing at the eastern end, and a small window located at the western end. A top plate running across the ceiling indicates the location of a former partition.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nPump House, Boiler House, Chimney Stack (1879-81), Motor Room (1925) and concrete Bomb Shelter (1943)
\nEncased within a thick, flat-roofed, off-form concrete Bomb Shelter is a series of rooms and the base of a brick chimney. In the northeast corner, under a lower section of roof, is the square Pump House; in the southeast corner is the rectangular Boiler House; and running along the western side is the Motor Room in the northwest corner and a storage room surrounding the base of the Chimney Stack in the southwest corner. Access to the pump and boiler houses is through doorways in the northeast walls. Access to the Motor Room and storage room is through a door in the southwest wall. The two sides of the building are not connected, other than visually through openings in the walls. The floors are concrete and the roof is supported by timber and steel beams with timber board formwork remaining in place.
\nPump House
\nThe Pump House comprises a large, deep pit with battered walls lined with rough-dressed porphyry blocks. The floor level is 1.5m deeper than the bottom of the Dry Dock, and retains original equipment including pipes and two centrifugal pumps, now painted bright colours. Various pipes and chambers (now sealed off) pass underground to connect the Pump House with the Dry Dock, suction well, sluice chamber and the Brisbane River. Ropes connecting the pumps with engines in the adjacent Motor Room pass through openings at the top of the southwest wall. Access down to floor level is via a set of timber stairs which lead to a raised timber platform along the northeast wall. From this platform, an opening in the southeast corner leads, via concrete steps, to the adjoining Boiler House; and an opening in the centre of the northeast wall leads to the bottom landing of two concrete staircases. The staircase heading northwest leads to the exterior and is enclosed by a metal gate; while the one heading southeast is sealed with a timber board door.
\nBoiler House
\nThe Boiler House has a passageway along the northeast wall, leading to a doorway at the southeast end. The enclosing walls are solid concrete, with former coal chutes and various holes in the northeast wall. The concrete floor is approximately 1m below ground level, and the base of the Chimney Stack is visible in the far southwest corner. The southwestern side of the room is taken up by three large boilers, manufactured by Evans, Anderson and Phelan of Brisbane in 1906. Cylindrical in form and laid parallel, the boilers retain their original hatches, valves, dials and other equipment, and are linked by pipes running across the top. Roughly-laid brick walls fill the gaps between the front faces of the boilers and the outer walls, pierced by small, arched openings with metal covers at floor level.
\nGrooves in the outer (northeast) face of the northeast wall indicate the location of a former curved roof that adjoined the Boiler House prior to it being encased in concrete.
\nMotor Room
\nThe Motor Room is at ground level and has a chamfered northwest corner. The southwest wall retains a chamferboard-clad timber wall of the original timber building, which was left in place as formwork. Two large electric motors stand in the centre of the room, and two switchboards stand against the southwest wall. Holes in the concrete floor allow the ropes from the adjacent Pump Room to connect with the motor wheels. A doorway in the southeast wall leads to a rectangular storage space with the base of the Chimney Stack at the southern end. Some concrete walls have circular or square penetrations. The entrance and interconnecting doors are early timber board doors.
\nChimney Stack
\nThe Chimney Stack is approximately 12m high and the base sits 1.5m below ground level. Square in plan, it is constructed from red-brown brick and has slightly tapered sides. Additional strengthening is provided by vertical iron bars at the corner of each face, held in place by nine equally-spaced iron bands clamped together by threaded rod.
\nMachine Shop (former, 1886; extended by 1942, partly demolished c1974, extended and partly rebuilt 1986)
\nThe Machine Shop (former) is a large, enclosed shed of timber pole construction with an arched roof supported by metal bow-chord trusses. Skillion-roofed attachments containing a number of rooms and storage spaces run along both sides, and it adjoins the Boiler House and Pump House at its southwest end. Interiors are unlined. While the iron trusses and parts of the framework at the southwest end of the building are significant elements of the original fabric, the majority of the building has been reconstructed and modified over time.
\nAlong the southeast side of the Machine Shop is a timber-framed, skillion roof structure (c1902) clad in chamferboards and accessed by a door in the northeast wall. Containing three rooms, this structure is used for storage in 2016.
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nGrounds
\nThe grounds surrounding the Dry Dock are predominantly grassed lawns with modern bitumen, concrete, paved or gravel pathways linking the various buildings and forming a circuit around the site. A narrow segment of the site extends beyond the Museum fence line at the eastern end and is used as public space, ornamented by three large metal sculptures incorporating items from the Museum’s collection.
\nOther collection items displayed within the grounds include:
\nGoodwill Bridge (2001)
\nThe Goodwill Bridge, which spans the Brisbane River, passes over the site, crossing the northern corner and curving around to run parallel with the southeast side of the Maritime Museum building. The bridge is supported by a number of steel posts and concrete anchor footings located within the museum grounds. The bridge deck at the Stanley Street entrance sits above the former Sidon Street railway underpass cutting.
\nViews
\nExtensive, unobstructed views of the Brisbane River are obtained from the Dry Dock and its surrounds, reinforcing the site’s long and close connection with the River.
\nFeatures not of State-level Heritage Significance
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nThe South Brisbane Dry Dock was designed in 1875 by William Nisbet, chief engineer for the Department of Harbours & Rivers. Construction was undertaken by J & A Overend between 1876 and 1881. It served a major role in Queensland’s shipping industry until its closure in 1972, and is one of the oldest surviving, substantially intact dry docks in Australia. It has operated as part of the Queensland Maritime Museum since 1979.
\nShipping played a significant role in 19th century Queensland as its primary – and sometimes only – means of trade and communication. Brisbane was declared a port of entry in 1846, a warehousing port in 1849, and in 1850 a Customs House was erected.[1] With the rapid growth of Queensland’s economy in the 30 years following separation, ports were opened in 14 centres along the Queensland coast to service the adjacent hinterland regions. Queensland’s share of the total Australian shipping tonnage climbed from 3% in 1871 to 11% in 1881, in addition to its intercolonial direct trade.[2] Much of this trade came to Brisbane, which had become a much more accessible port after the Upper Flats near the mouth of the river were cleared in 1871, enabling large vessels to access the Town Reach.[3]
\nThe busy Brisbane port required a substantial facility for the maintenance, repair and refitting of commercial ships and the Department of Harbours and Rivers’ dredges, barges and other vessels. Minor repairs could be undertaken at the small patent slip at Kangaroo Point,[4] or by upending vessels on the mud flats, but most commercial vessels used the facilities at Sydney, while the Queensland government lacked any maintenance facilities.[5]
\nA site for a graving[6], or dry dock, was chosen on government-owned land between Stanley Street and the river at South Brisbane. Soundings were taken in the Brisbane River in September 1873, and the site was found to have deep water and solid foundations, suitable for a dock capable of accommodating vessels up to 3000 tons.[7] Civil engineer William D Nisbet, who had been engaged in dock work in England, Scotland and Malta, was appointed Engineer-in-Chief for Harbours and Rivers in 1875. Newly arrived from England, he drafted plans for a graving dock.[8]
\nNisbet’s design comprised a 32ft (9.75m) high, 313ft (95m) long dock, with a possible extension to 450ft (137m). It varied from 40-49.5ft (12-15m) wide at the bottom to 60-74ft (18-23m) at the top. A 3ft (1m) thick brick and cement arch formed the base of the dock, inverted in shape to reduce water pressure. The floor, atop this, was lined in stone and timbers to hold keel blocks along the centreline, which would ships in place during repairs. A series of stone altars (steps) lined both sides of the dock, providing support for timber shores to keep ships upright, and bollards on the ground on either side of the dock to help warp ships in and out. Two culvert drains on either side filled the dock, and a suction-well in a 5ft (1.5m) pit adjoining the dock allowed the water to be emptied. A ship would be floated into the dock, a caisson (dock gate) closed across the sill (or cill) at the entrance, and the dock pumped dry.[9] Workers accessed the dock floor via two sets of stairs. Once the vessel was repaired, sluice gates in the dock were opened to allow river water in, the caisson opened and the ship was floated out.
\nThe design included allowances for local conditions, with the dock set at an angle to the river, optimising ingress and egress, and the sill set at a height over spring tides, giving the dock protection during floods.[10]
\nTenders for excavation and masonry work for the dock were called in September 1875. Melbourne contractors Messrs J and A Overend were awarded the contract in January 1876, with work to take place over the following three years.[11] James and Acheson Overend had established their construction business in 1872, and came highly recommended by the Victorian Railways Engineer-in-Chief for their work on the Oven’s River and Beechworth Railways. They moved their plant to Queensland after winning the Dry Dock contract, and successfully tendered for sections of the Southern and Western Railway (Dalby to Chinchilla). The firm went on to construct sections of the Bundaberg to Mount Perry Railway (including the Splitters Creek Railway Bridge in 1878 [QHR 600529]), Southern Railway (Warwick to Stanthorpe, including Cherry Gully Tunnel, also 1878 [QHR 601517]), Bundaberg (Saltwater Creek Railway Bridge, 1894 [QHR 600370]) and Mackay (Mirani Railway Bridge, Pioneer River).[12]
\nThe Dry Dock site was excavated in the first eighteen months, with excess material laid on South Brisbane streets. Construction followed. Bricks were made on site or sourced locally.[13] Portland cement, granite and porphyry stone (sourced from Queensland and the southern colonies) were employed on the floor, walls and pit, with sandstone (or freestone) on the altars.[14] Brisbane ironfounders Smellie and Co constructed the iron caisson in 1880-1.[15] Machinery to work the caisson and drain the dock, including centrifugal pumps[16] and boilers,[17] were installed next to the dock in a pump- and boiler-house, with steam escaping through a 46ft (14m) brick chimney.[18] The total cost of the work was £83,849 8s 9d.[19]
\nThe barque Doon, which had been damaged in a storm, was the first to utilise the dock on 10 September 1881.[20] Premier Thomas McIlwraith attended the launch of the Doon twelve days later, opening the dock without an official ceremony. The Premier declared that, with £4,000 already spent on repairs to the Doon, ‘the dock would answer the purpose for which it was intended, and… a substantial benefit accrued to the city from having a dock in which repairs to ships could be effected.’[21] Contemporary newspaper reports described the dock as ‘one of the most important of the public works of the colony’.[22]
\nRather than a public facility with employed staff, the dock was available for use by private contractors. A sliding scale of charges was set for use of the dock, and punching, drilling and shearing machinery was installed for hire by contractors undertaking repairs at the dock. In 1886 a workshop or machinery shop (partly extant) was built to house the equipment, adjoining the boiler-house.[23] A crane (no longer extant) was also installed. These improvements to the facilities, plus the promise of a 117ft (35.6m) extension, encouraged shipowners to bring their vessels to Brisbane, instead of Sydney, for overhaul work.[24]
\nFurther improvements followed. The impending extension was interrupted by the construction of the railway extension. Site works around the Dry Dock, including the creation of an embankment and stone retaining walls, were undertaken in 1884-5.[25] The dry dock was lengthened to 420 feet (121m) in 1886-7,[26] by which time 240 vessels had used the facilities. An office (partly extant) was built for £66 in 1895, replacing one destroyed in floods.[27] Additional cranes were installed, including the only extant crane, a 15 ton hand powered crane supplied by Ransome and Rapier of Ipswich in 1906, and put into use in 1907.[28] The three Cornish boilers powering the dock were replaced by Brisbane firm Evans, Anderson and Phelan in 1906, to plans prepared by chief engineer Alexander Cullen; these boilers remain in situ.[29] Electric motors replaced the pumping engines in 1924.[30]
\nThe dock served an essential function as Queensland’s only graving dock until the mid-20th century. It also served an interesting social function after 1902, with swimming carnivals held in the dry dock when not in use by ships.[31] In its first twenty years of operation, an average of 60 vessels a year utilised the dry dock, with a peak of 90 vessels in 1909.[32] Its size and shape limited the vessels it could dock,[33] but it remained a profitable venture for the government until 1925, when patronage declined due to increasing vessel size.
\nBrisbane’s prominence in the South Pacific Campaign during World War II brought a renewed role for the South Brisbane Dry Dock. The HMAS Swan and Katoomba, damaged in the bombing of Darwin, were taken to the South Brisbane Dry Dock for repair in March 1942, inaugurating the dry dock as the Ship Repair Base. Additional facilities were built on the adjacent site (formerly a timberyard). A US Navy submarine base was also established at the dock in April 1942, necessitating additional wharfage and facilities. A new office building (1942), workshop (c1943), and mess and changing facilities (1945) were built on the Sidon Street side of the dry dock to accommodate over 100 arrivals per month.[34] A concrete bomb-proof shelter was constructed over the pump- and boiler-house, engulfing part of the brick chimney.[35] The dock was a vital piece of infrastructure during the war, docking and repairing 298 American, Australian, British and French vessels, before it was returned to the Department of Harbours and Marine in September 1946.[36]
\nIn 1944, the substantial Cairncross Dock was opened downstream on the Brisbane River.[37] Capable of repairing larger ships, the Cairncross Dock catered for vessels that South Brisbane had previously been unable to dock. The South Brisbane Dry Dock became primarily a repair shop for Queensland government vessels, but remained viable for small government and commercial vessels for the next three decades.[38]
\nChanges in shipyard practices, the dominance of large bulk carriers, construction of the Captain Cook Bridge and the need for a major rehabilitation of the dock compelled the government to close the South Brisbane Dry Dock in September 1972.[39] Activities, personnel, plant and equipment were moved to an expanded Cairncross Dock, and the machine shop was partly dismantled.[40]
\nIn 1971, anticipating the closure of the dry dock, members of Queensland’s World Ship Society formed the Queensland Maritime Museum Association (QMMA), and approached the Queensland Government to suggest the establishment of a museum at the dry dock.[41] QMMA members were concerned that the closure of the dock would result in its demolition, and viewed the dock as an ideal location to house its growing maritime artefact and vessel collection.[42] Ownership of the South Brisbane Dry Dock site and buildings was transferred to the Land Administration Commission in 1973. QMMA established its base on the site in April 1973, and opened the museum to the public in 1979.[43] The site was gazetted as a recreation park and museum in 1976, held in trust by the Brisbane City Council, and leased to QMMA.[44] In 1981, the retired naval frigate HMAS Diamantina was docked in the dry dock, and was joined by the lightship Carpentaria in 1985.[45] The machine shop was rebuilt in 1986, using bow trusses possibly from the original machine shop.[46]
\nIn the mid-1980s, sites between Stanley Street and the river were cleared in preparation for Expo 88, removing the last traces of the once-dominant shipping industry in the area. Buildings on the former Ship Repair Base were removed, but after some negotiation the Dry Dock was left intact and became a feature exhibitor, attracting over one million visitors during Expo.[47] Additional buildings and displays were moved onto the site after 1988 as part of the museum. The caisson, which had breached in 1998, was demolished and replaced with a concrete riverwall in 2006.[48] In 2001, the 1945 office was lowered for the construction of the Goodwill pedestrian bridge, which was built over the top of the Sidon Street retaining wall and WWII Dry Dock buildings.[49]
\nIn 2018 the dry dock site continues as the Queensland Maritime Museum.[50]
","criteria":"The South Brisbane Dry Dock (built 1876-81) is important as an infrastructure facility associated with the shipping industry which contributed significantly to the commercial and economic development of Queensland. It is important as rare surviving evidence of 19th century shipping activity along the South Brisbane Reach, and indicative of the massive scale of former riverside industry and port-related activity in Brisbane. It is also important for its role as the Ship Repair Base and US Navy submarine base during World War II, docking and repairing nearly 300 vessels.
\nThe South Brisbane Dry Dock is an integral element in the historic precinct centred around the South Brisbane Memorial Park, which also includes the former South Brisbane Library (QHR 600302), Cumbooquepa (Somerville House) (QHR 600305), the former South Brisbane Municipal Chambers (QHR 600306) and the Ship Inn Hotel.
|The South Brisbane Dry Dock is the only surviving feature of the shipping and manufacturing activity along the South Brisbane Reach. It is a rare surviving Australian example of a dry dock dating from the 19th century, illustrating contemporary engineering and technology. The altars on both sides of the dock for supporting the breasting shores are considered to be a rare surviving feature worldwide of 19th century graving docks. The concrete bombproof shelter is a rare surviving shelter built by the Department of Public Works in 1942 and reflecting the perceived threat of bombing during WWII.
|The South Brisbane Dry Dock is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a dry dock facility. Located immediately adjacent to deep water, in alignment to the Brisbane River, the Dry Dock comprises a long, wide and deep excavated basin. The 1881 section (on the northeast) has parallel sides lined by stone altars (steps) which give it a parabolic section. The 1887 extension (on the southwest), has bare rock and brick walls and tapers to a rounded point. Fixed features associated with the dock’s operation, including iron and concrete bollards, iron rings fixed into the stonework, and a 1906 Ransome and Rapier hand-powered crane, are installed alongside the dock. While the dock is now sealed from the river to prevent water ingress, the pipes, sluice gates and tunnels for the filling and emptying process remain in situ.
\nThe layout of the Dry Dock and its related ancillary structures – including Casual Men’s Change Room (1945), Office (1942), Mess Room and Permanent Men’s Change Room (1945), Workshop (c1943), Office (1895), Pump House, Boiler House, Chimney Stack (1879-81), Motor Room (1925) and concrete Bomb Shelter (1943), Machine Shop (1886) – demonstrate how the facility operated and evolved over time in response to changing needs and technology.
|The South Brisbane Dry Dock makes a strong landmark and aesthetic contribution to the South Brisbane townscape, and is an integral element in the South Brisbane historic precinct. The use of freestone and sandstone on the dock altars provides a striking contrast to its surrounding green landscape and river. Views of the dock are afforded from the surrounding bridge and pathways, and views from the dock are provided along and across the river to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, Brisbane Botanic Gardens and CBD. The dock also possesses evocative qualities, its location and size reflecting the scale and importance of the shipping industry that once dominated South Brisbane’s riverbanks.
|The South Brisbane Dry Dock is an important example of the work of engineer William D Nisbet in Queensland, and an important monument to 19th century engineering practice. Features such as the choice of location, the alignment to the river, response to geotechnical issues, the early use of cement, the use of porphyry rock and Melbourne granite, the shape of the dock in cross-section to withstand ground-water pressure, its precision design, the design of the sluice valve and the choice of machinery are strong evidence of Nisbet’s superior engineering skills, and demonstrates a high degree of technical achievement.
|The South Brisbane Dry Dock has a strong association with generations of dock workers who were employed at the dry dock during its ninety years of operation. It also has a strong association with the Queensland Maritime Museum Association, which was established in 1971 with the intention of opening a museum at the dry dock. The dry dock has served as the association’s base since 1973, and as its museum since 1979.
|The South Brisbane Dry Dock is significant for its association with the work of contractors, flour-millers and machinery merchants James and Acheson Overend, who made significant contributions to the development of Queensland in the 19th century, particularly in the construction of railway and industrial facilities. The Dry Dock was the firm’s first Queensland construction project.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15077,"place_ref":600302,"name":"South Brisbane Library (former)","alternate_name":"South Brisbane Post and Telegraph / Office South Brisbane | Mechanics Institute and Library / South Brisbane Technical | College / South Brisbane Municipal Library and School of Arts","street_address":"472 Stanley Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former South Brisbane Library stands on the corner of Stanley and Dock Streets in South Brisbane, in a precinct of historic buildings centred around South Brisbane Memorial Park. It is opposite the former South Brisbane Municipal Chambers [600306] and adjacent to the former South Brisbane Railway Easement [600293] and South Brisbane Dry Dock [600301]. Other historically significant places in the immediate vicinity include Cumbooquepa (Somerville House) [600305] and Ship Inn.
\nIt comprises three abutting, interlinked sections forming a single, L-shaped building: the former South Brisbane Post and Telegraph Office (1882) fronting south to Stanley Street; the former South Brisbane Library and Technical College (1898), attached to its eastern side at the intersection of Stanley and Dock streets; and the former City Concert Hall (1902), attached to the library’s northern side, fronting Dock Street. The building has brick walls with rendered dressings, timber-framed floors and intersecting gable and hip roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. The sections share similar or matching architectural features. A modern, concrete, steel and glass, three-storey structure (2006) has been constructed in the crook of the building’s L-shape and is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe former Post and Telegraph Office section is a square, two-storey, brick building with basement, and a hip roof. Its Stanley Street (front) elevation has large, multi-paned windows, (including a pair of faceted bay windows), a wide awning roof supported by large timber brackets, and a central, pediment-like gablet. Its western elevation is simpler, with few windows, and its northern (rear) elevation, abutted by the modern structure, has a two-storey verandah that has been enclosed.
\nThe former South Brisbane Library and Technical College section is a long and narrow, two-storey, brick building. It has a long gable roof, with a gablet facing Stanley Street, and a square-based, three-storey tower above its main entrance at the street corner. The Dock Street elevation is simpler, with windows at regular intervals separated by pilasters and a secondary entrance at the northern end. Its western elevation has an open, two-level verandah.
\nThe former concert hall section is a long, rectangular, one-storey building with a hip roof with a continuous raised ridge ventilator. It accommodates a large auditorium with timber panelled dados, plaster raked ceilings and an unadorned proscenium stage. French doors open onto a verandah on its western side.
","history":"This complex is composed of three structures built at different times in response to different needs: the South Brisbane Post Office [1881]; the South Brisbane Municipal Library [1897]; and the City Concert Hall [1902].
\nThe South Brisbane Post Office located on the traditional land of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, was designed by FDG Stanley and W Macfarlane was the contractor. The one-room post office occupied the ground floor. The postmaster's accommodation included three bedrooms and verandah upstairs and basement diningroom, kitchen and bedroom. The original symmetrical front facade included a ground floor arcade with an open verandah above. The central focus was the arched masonry frontispiece.
\nThe Post and Telegraph Office was closed in late 1889 to become the South Brisbane Mechanics Institute and Library. In 1893 the South Brisbane Municipal Council took over the site.
\nAbout 1897, the council with the help of a government subsidy built the corner structure and the complex became known as the South Brisbane Municipal Library and Technical College. John Henry Burley is said to be the architect.
\nThe third stage is the concert hall designed by Alexander B Wilson in 1902. This building included Technical College classrooms in the basement.
\nIn 1909 the council was offered the Richard J Randall collection of artwork. About the same time, with the government take-over of the Technical College, many classrooms became vacant. The council decided to convert the library on the first floor into an art gallery.
\nArchitect George David Payne was employed to convert the former library to the Randall Art Gallery and extend the concert hall and supper room. About 1911 the hall was enlarged at the river end and the supper room extended so that they were capable of seating 600 and 400 persons respectively. The Gallery was officially opened in July 1914.
\nBetween 1910 and 1920 the post office section was rendered and the front enclosed.
\nThe Greater Brisbane City Council took over the structure in 1925 and the library continued to function until 1973. However, the Randall collection was transferred to the Brisbane City Hall. For many years the concert hall continued to be well patronised particularly during the Second World War [1939-45].
\nBetween 1973 and about 1987 the building was neglected and vandalised. The derelict library was refurbished for World Expo '88 as a convention centre and exclusive club. The exterior was painted and the interior was substantially altered to provide two large conference rooms and club rooms. The former Post Office section was converted to modern offices and concrete stairs installed.
\nAfter Expo '88 the building was not utilised until the Queensland Academy of Sport occupied it in 1995 and used the concert hall as a running track. In 2005 the building was purchased by Griffith University for use as a film school, and a new section, designed by architect Hamilton Wilson and containing a verandah, stairs and workrooms, was added to the northwest side. In 2007 the Griffith Film School was officially opened. It continues to operate in the building in 2024.
","criteria":"The former South Brisbane Library is significant historically for its importance as the former Post and Telegraph Office, mechanic's institute, technical college, library, art gallery, and concert hall of South Brisbane, and remains a tangible reminder of civic identity. It is also significant as a marker of the former alignment of Stanley Street, the main commercial thoroughfare of South Brisbane in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|Despite internal refurbishment, the former concert hall remains important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century auditorium designed to address the warm Queensland climate.
|The building demonstrates a visual cohesiveness, despite having been constructed in several stages to the designs of at least three architects, and makes a significant landmark and aesthetic contribution to the historic precinct centred around South Brisbane Memorial Park. It is a significant component of the riverside townscape as seen from the city.
|is an important example of the public work of Brisbane architect AB Wilson.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15078,"place_ref":600303,"name":"Former Victoria Bridge Abutments","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"74 Stanley Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The Victoria Bridge Abutments stand on both sides of the Brisbane River, downstream of the existing Victoria Bridge, and are aligned approximately southwest to northeast. The abutments are approximately mirror in plan, parallel to the river with a large curved recess in the downstream corner. However, the southern abutment comprises a free-standing podium, while the slightly elevated northern abutment is embedded in the river bank.
\nSouthern Abutment
\nThe walls of the large southern abutment are faced with rock-faced ashlar Brisbane Tuff (commonly referred to as porphyry). The southwest side is faced with polygonal masonry, indicating that it is newer stonework. The podium is capped with the downstream pedestrian footway arch, together with a section of roadway which retains the tracks of the tramway.
\nThe rusticated, sawn stone arch employs Classical stylistic references.The pylons supporting the arch are tapered towards the base of the arch from which they continue as attached pilasters with parallel sides. The arch springs from a cornice at the top of the tapered portion of the supporting pylons. Above the arch a cornice defines the base of a Doric frieze which continues around the tops of the attached pilasters. The entablature is topped with another cornice. Either side of the arch a granite tablet is applied which supports ornate metal brackets which held gas lamps to illuminate the entry to the bridge. A similar tablet is located on the sides of the structure at the same level. The three lowest courses have been treated with a rock-faced surface. The outer pylon of the arch is continued to the base of the abutment as a low profile pilaster with a rock-faced surface. At the centre of the arch, galvanised piping projects and a section hangs parallel with the face of the structure.
\nUpriver (northwest) from the arch a section of roadway remains, bearing sections of tramline. Between the two sets of tracks the remains of a low concrete platform with a rounded end has been left in situ. The surface to the landward side of this platform retains painted chevron markings. On the downriver side (southeast) a low stone wall curves out, terminating in a low pilaster which defines the former entry point for the bridge. The area is paved in concrete. Metal brackets are attached to the stonework of the pylons, the centre of the arch and on the top of the outer pilaster; fittings for a gas illumination. Curved stone kerbing defines the footpath from the road way.
\nA marble tablet is applied to the landward side of the up-river pylon below the lowest cornice, commemorating Hector Vasyli. The tablet is in the form of an aedicule in the Corinthian style. The inscription on the entablature reads:
\nΑΠΑΣΑ ΔΕ ΧΘΩΝ ΑΝΔΡΙ ΓΕΝΝΑΙΩ ΠΑΤΡΙΣ
\nTRANSLATION
\nEVERY LAND IS HIS NATIVE LAND TO A BRAVE MAN
\nThe Corinthian columns frame a tondo beneath which the inscription continues. The tondo contains a bronze relief portrait of the boy facing outward. Below this lies the body of the inscription. The inscription reads:
\nNEAR THIS SPOT AS THE RESULT OF A LAMENTABLE ACCIDENT, WHILST WELCOMING RETURNED SOLDIERS, HECTOR VASYLI WAS KILLED 9TH JUNE 1918 AGED 11 YEARS.
\nDURING HIS BRIEF SOJOURN ON EARTH, HE DEVOTED MUCH OF HIS TIME TO PATRIOTIC WORK FOR AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS DURING THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR. IN HIS VEINS RAN THE HEROIC BLOOD OF GREECE, AND IN THE BREAST OF A CHILD HE CARRIED THE HEART OF A MAN.
\nTHIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE RETURNED SAILORS, AND SOLDIERS IMPERIAL LEAGUE, HELLENIC (GREEK) ASSOCIATION AND CITIZENS OF BRISBANE.
\nThe stylobate is supported on two brackets of marble.
\nBelow the tablet two rows of metal hooks are attached to the stonework. These may be intended for the support of commemorative wreaths relating to the Anzac Day memorial services. Off centre from the entrance to the arch, a metal bollard remains in situ.
\nAdditional stabilising footings and retaining works have been constructed to maintain the abutment in its present location. All the stonework below the road level is done in rock-cut masonry. Other additions include a metal safety railing around the perimeter which matches the railing of the neighbouring bridge, and a modern walkway with interpretive signage panels linking the podium with the current Victoria Bridge. Two bronze plaques have been applied to the stonework on the north-western side of the podium. The inscriptions show a number of inaccuracies, however are transcribed below:
\nPlaque one - ground level
\n\"This plaque marks the site of the southern approach to the second Victoria Bridge, completed in 1897 at a cost of £125,000 to replace the bridge destroyed by floods in 1896. When the bridge was demolished in 1969, following the completion of the present bridge, this section was retained as a memorial to the endeavour of successive generations of Brisbane's citizens to provide swift means of cross-river transport.\"
\nPlaque two - first landing
\n\"This stonework is all that remains of the first permanent bridge to span the Brisbane River. A temporary wooden structure was erected in 1865 as staging for the permanent bridge, but was closed to traffic from Nov 1897 as a result of flood damage. On the 15th June 1874 the new bridge was opened and named Victoria Bridge. The northern section of the Victoria Bridge collapsed on 6 February 1893 under pressure from debris during the disastrous flood of that year.\"
\nNorthern Abutment
\nThe northern abutment is situated immediately adjacent to the current bridge, with the southwest and southeast sides of the ashlar rock-faced Brisbane Tuff structure visible. There is a smooth sloped sill at the junction between the base and the wall above. The arch and upper courses have been removed, and the fill on top is landscaped and features two (post-1970s) hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii).
\nA modern viewing platform is cantilevered over the abutment, and an adjacent public lift, stairs and ramps provide access from Queens Wharf Road to a walkway and ferry terminal below.
","history":"The Victoria Bridge Abutments are remnants of the fourth bridge to cross the Brisbane River at this point. Constructed in 1896 to a design by A B Brady, Government Architect, the bridge was constructed of iron, with stone abutments at each end. The stonework was undertaken by Arthur Midson and the ironwork by Messrs Cormick. The abutments each comprises a large masonry podium, with the southern of the two supporting a section of road and a sawn stone rusticated arch with composite neoclassical ornament. A marble memorial tablet is fixed to the southern side of the arch to commemorate an eleven year old Greek Australian child, Hector Vasyli, who was accidentally killed on the site in 1918 while welcoming returning soldiers, and is of significance for the Greek community.
\nThe 1896 bridge was the fourth structure to cross the Brisbane River at this point. The first, built from timber in 1865, was closed only two years later due to excessive damage caused by marine borers. A permanent structure was commenced in 1864, but was not completed until 1874 when it was opened by the Governor who named it for the ruling British sovereign. Operating as a toll bridge until 1877 it was destroyed in the February 1893 floods. A further temporary bridge was erected by September 1893 but was again destroyed by flooding in 1896. By this time, however the second permanent bridge was nearing completion.
\nThe opening of the Victoria Bridge in 1874 provided an important transport and communications link between the north and south banks of the river and provided further impetus to the development of the south bank. In the 1880s the south bank experienced a development boom. A dry dock was opened in 1881, coal wharves at Woolloongabba and associated rail links were established in c1885, and South Brisbane was established as the passenger terminus for suburban and country train lines built during the 1880s. Industry and commerce was attracted to the area, and Stanley Street developed into a major retail centre and thoroughfare. The spread of housing included the development of large residences located along the ridges with views of the river and industry developed along the southern bank of Milton Reach.
\nSouth Brisbane Municipality was established in 1888. The development of the civic centre focussed on the Stanley and Vulture Street intersection and included the Town Hall, Post Office Fire Station and Railway Station. The boom of the 1880s collapsed, following maritime and pastoral strikes and the early 1890s and the collapse of banks in 1893. A series of floods in 1893 resulted in the collapse of the Victoria Bridge which cut vital transport and communications links with the central city. Urban expansion continued following the opening of the new Victoria Bridge in 1897 and was further supported by the introduction of electric trams.
\nThe significance of the Victoria Bridge to the commercial development of the south side of the river is best demonstrated in two anecdotes relating to human nature. At the opening of the bridge in 1897 both North and South Brisbane demanded that they have a ceremony to celebrate this significant event. The ceremony therefore required a formal opening on the north side, following which the party of dignitaries proceeded to cross the bridge to the southern bank. Here another ceremony was held and the procession then crossed the river once more to be met with refreshments on the north bank. The second story relates to a Commemoration Day prank perpetrated by students in the early 1930s. Early one morning they installed a sign at each end of the bridge indicating that the bridge was closed to traffic. Police arriving on the scene took the signs at face value and proceeded to prevent vehicular traffic from using the bridge for most of the day. It was not until someone thought to check with the appropriate authorities that it was discovered that the signs were placed in position as a joke. As a consequence of this prank commerce on either side of the river as considerably disrupted and the university students were severely reprimanded for their actions.
\nThe design of the bridge caused much comment, due to the impressive stone arches flanking the approaches and the manner in which the engineers had addressed the various problems presented by the site. The river banks were at two different levels, presenting a design challenge which was competently met by Brady. The gentle slope of the decking from the higher north bank down to the southern abutment was imperceptible to the eye. The cylindrical iron pillars which supported the span across the river were slightly tapered above normal water level.
\nThe bridge provided a divided carriageway for traffic, with two lanes operating in each direction. The central dividing structure echoed the form of the sides of the bridge, consisting of a series of metal lattice framed hog-backs. Each end of the central divider was marked with a rusticated stone pilaster topped with an ornate gas light. The sides of the bridge were also enclosed in lattice trussing. A swinging span was designed to permit the passage of tallmasted ships, however even at that stage such vessels were becoming increasingly scarce and much of the up-river traffic was the lower motorised vessels. Following the introduction of tram services to South Brisbane, this 'swinging girder' was closed permanently to permit the laying of tracks. Each end of the bridge was provided with stone pillars at the river bank and, at the point of entry, rusticated stone arches spanned the pedestrian walkways. Pedestrian footways were provided either side of the main decking. Until the 1930s the Victoria Bridge remained the only permanent crossing point between the north and south banks of the River within Brisbane. By 1926 the bottleneck caused by the increased volume of traffic attempting to use the only river crossing in the city led to the establishment of a commission to explore alternative sites for bridges. After consideration of a number of factors such as flooding, navigation and level of demand, the Grey Street (William Jolley) Bridge (No. 601694) was constructed, followed by the Walter Taylor Bridge which functioned as a toll bridge from its opening in 1936. The Storey Bridge was not opened until 1940 due to pressures against the construction of a down-river bridge which had the potential to limit shipping to the city wharves.
\nIn 1918, during the celebrations marking the end of the Great War and the return of the soldiers from the front, an incident occurred that touched the heart of the public and led to the provision of a memorial tablet on the southern end of the bridge. An 11 year old child, Hector Vasyli, of Greek ancestry, was struck by one of the vehicles in the parade and killed. A marble tablet was erected to his memory and a memorial service has been held at the site on Anzac Day ever since.
\nIn 1969 when the bridge was being demolished, to be replaced by the present structure, the memorial tablet was removed for safekeeping until a suitable location was found for it. Discussion with the Greek Community and Brisbane City Council led to the decision to retain that portion of the southern abutment which had originally held the memorial tablet and so it was returned to its original location on April 24, 1970. During storage the bronze relief head of the boy which decorated the tablet was lost. The Greek Consul, Mr Alex Freeleagus located the boys' sister in Sydney and she provided a photograph of the boy from which a replacement likeness was cast.
\nConstruction of the new bridge resulted in the part demolition of the northern abutment, with the arch and upper courses of the Brisbane Tuff stonework removed. More recent works associated with the upgrade of the North Quay Ferry Terminal included the removal of a curved stone retaining wall (c1920s) that formed a large planter box adjacent to the abutment, and cleaning of the newly exposed stonework. A cantilevered viewing platform was constructed above the abutment, along with an adjacent public lift, stairs and ramps to provide access from Queens Wharf Road to the walkway and ferry terminal below.
\nThe more intact southern bridge abutment retained its arch but was left as a ruin for some time following the demolition of the bridge, photographs taken in 1971 show that it was still in a ruined state at that time. Restoration work is reported as having been undertaken as a part of the revivification of the south bank area in preparation for the 1988 Exposition which was held at South Bank Park. At that time two bronze plaques were attached to the side of the abutment recording the history of the bridge. Conservation works were undertaken in 2003-4, including cleaning, patching and repointing of the stonework. In 2015 a new walkway, featuring interpretive signage panels, was built between the abutment and the modern bridge.
","criteria":"The Victoria Bridge Abutments stand as a memorial of the first permanent bridge to be constructed across the Brisbane River which did not succumb to the forces of nature.
\nThe opening of the bridge in 1897 provided a major boost to the continued development of the City of South Brisbane which had first received its development impetus from the introduction of cross-river transport provided by the previous bridges at this location.
|The abutments have the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of late 19th century bridge design and construction, including the role they played in addressing the engineering challenges presented by the site.
|Designed by Government Architect AB Brady, the abutment’s 19th century design characteristics, which include classical stylistic references, monumental form and rusticated stonework, combined with their siting on either side of the river, form an evocative reminder of previous efforts to span the Brisbane River and make an important contribution the urban riverscape of Queensland’s capital city. Visible from a range of vantage points, and contrasting with surrounding modern built forms, the prominent southern abutment is a popular landmark destination for tourists and photographers.
|The Victoria Bridge Abutment at South Brisbane has a high social value for the Greek community of Brisbane, containing as it does, the memorial to Hector Vasyli, a young Greek Australian boy who died while demonstrating his loyalty to his adopted homeland. This association is further demonstrated by the role of the Greek community in ensuring that this portion of the bridge was retained to provide a fitting location for the memorial plaque erected in the memory of the Vasyli boy and the continued practice of conducting a memorial service for the boy each Anzac Day.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15079,"place_ref":600304,"name":"St Andrews Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Anglican Church; St Andrews Church South Brisbane; South Brisbane St Andrews","street_address":"160 Vulture Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Andrews is a large, gothic-style limestone church, cruciform in shape.
In addition to the nave and transepts there is a portico at the front and a chancel at the western end. Both of these wings have a lower roof line than the nave. A small vestry is located to the north of the chancel and the half built tower is to the south. There is a substantial subfloor beneath the church. The steeply pitched gable roof is of slate.
A notable feature of the building is the large stained glass windows, especially those located at the end of the chancel, portico and transepts.
The timber hall consists of a core surrounded by enclosed verandah wings. The core has a steeply pitched gable roof in corrugated iron and fine timber ceiling supported by timber trusses.
","history":"St Andrew's Anglican Church at South Brisbane was constructed in several stages: 1878-83, 1887, and 1931-32.
The first Anglican church in South Brisbane had been built c1855 on the corner of Grey and Melbourne Streets. The construction of St Andrews reflected the growing population of the area and the general move of residential and public buildings up the hill away from the flood-prone area of first settlement.
Flamboyant Italian architect Andrea Stombuco was commissioned to design St Andrew's, which was to be a substantial structure in stone. Stombuco, who had designed a number of ecclesiastical buildings for the Catholic Church, including St Joseph's Christian Brothers' College on Gregory Terrace [1875-76], Rathbawn at Nudgee [1875-78] and St Mary's Roman Catholic Presbytery in Ipswich [1875], envisaged a grand structure for St Andrew's, with a prominent tower and spire.
Work commenced in 1878, but was abandoned when the walls had reached a height of only 6 feet [1.8 metres]. Stombuco's design had proved beyond the financial means of the parish, and work did not resume until 1882. The chancel, transepts and first bay of the nave were completed in the following year by the builder James O'Keeffe. An 1887 extension was designed by architect HWK Martin, who had recently arrived in Brisbane from London, and was an active member of the St Andrew's congregation.
The rectory and parish hall were built later, the hall in 1909 to a design by architect William A Caldwell. The rectory was demolished in 1988.
The continued growth in the congregation led to the completion of the nave in 1931-32, under the supervision of architect Lange L Powell. The tower and spire of Stombuco's design were never completed.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Anglican Church is significant historically in demonstrating the expansion of the Anglican Church in Queensland, and the evolution of South Brisbane as a rival to North Brisbane in terms of commerce, municipal development and population increase, in the second half of the 19th century. The construction of St Andrew's illustrates the move away from the river flats after the 1860s flood, and the growing popularity among the middle-class of the higher ridges in South Brisbane and Highgate Hill.
|The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
|The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
|The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
|The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
|Despite having been constructed in a number of stages between 1878 and 1932, the building reflects much of architect Andrea Stombuco's original vision, and is important in contributing to our understanding of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15080,"place_ref":600305,"name":"Somerville House","alternate_name":"Cumbooquepa | Brisbane High School for Girls","street_address":"253 Vulture Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Somerville House comprises structures and landscaping elements, including paths, walls and cuttings on the large triangular block bounded on the north side by Vulture Street and on the west by the railway line. The buildings situated on the main Vulture Street frontage are Cumbooquepa in the north eastern part of the site and, in the northwest corner, the former library/studio building.
Cumbooquepa, a single-storeyed masonry and timber house with terracotta tiled and corrugated iron hip roofs, is located on the highest part of the site overlooking the Brisbane River to the north. It is deliberately sited to present a grand hilltop facade addressing the city. Much of the ornament is lavished on this northern facade, the other sides of the building being relatively modest in materials and detail. The house is constructed of red brick on a patterned brick and stone base with timber verandahs to the side and rear elevations. Originally E-shaped in plan, the long northern facade connects central, eastern and western wings arranged around two verandahed courtyards. The central wing contains the entrance hall, reception rooms, dining room and kitchen while the eastern and western wings are used to provide accommodation for boarders and staff.
The north elevation is a symmetrical composition consisting of bow-fronted pavilions on the eastern and western corners connected by colonnades to a central entry pavilion surmounted by a tower. This front facade is embellished with arches, pediments, quoins, cornices, parapets, balustrades and pilasters with Ionic capitals that are rendered to contrast with the brickwork.
The central entrance pavilion includes two bow-fronted rooms, - a meeting room to the east and study to the west - and a central entrance hall and porch. These rooms have rendered masonry walls, plaster ceilings and feature high quality timber joinery. The entrance hall, has a marbled tiled floor and is timber panelled to dado height. Stained glass in two fanlights and tall arched niches in its four corners depict Shakespearian characters - Touchstone, Jacques, Portia, Beatrice, Viola and Rosalind. The niche in the southwest corner of the hall opens onto a timber staircase which leads to the tower room. In the study are elaborate built-in timber bookshelves and cabinets and a fireplace with an ornate timber surround.
The dining room, accessed from a breezeway at the rear of the entrance hall, has rendered walls with timber wainscoting and an ornate coved and panelled ceiling that is lined with diagonal tongue and groove boards. The room, which overlooks both courtyards, is embellished with stained glass windows in arched openings, elaborate timber lintels over the entry doors, built-in timber furniture, two fireplaces and bay windows in arched recesses.
Circulation throughout the building is via the extensive verandahs and colonnades, all of which are now enclosed. The southern ends of the courtyards, once open, are now blocked off by two brick bathroom wings with storage areas underneath. The house has six brick chimney stacks, some of which are highly ornate.
While the former house is elevated high above the street the former library/studio building, now the chapel, steps down the site. Built on a finger of land between the entry driveway, Vulture Street and the railway line, the building which is integrated with the adjacent pathway, steps and walls, forms an entry onto the site. The former library is a one-storeyed buttressed brick structure with contrasting rendered details including castellated parapets, window frames, arches and base and has steeply pitched terracotta tiled roofs. It was designed in the English Perpendicular "gothic revival" style.
The octagonal north end has four stained glass memorial windows which are the work of Brisbane artist William Bustard. The interiors have been altered and a new entry constructed at the southern end.
These buildings of Somerville House are all red brick with cement render details and form a cohesive and intact group prominently located above the historic precinct surrounding South Brisbane Memorial Park and adjoining the former South Brisbane Town Hall.
","history":"Cumbooquepa is a large single-storeyed house built in 1890 on a ridge overlooking the South Brisbane reach of the river.
The land was acquired in 1856 by Thomas Blackett Stephens, a politician, newspaper proprietor and businessman, who became Brisbane's second mayor. Stevens built a timber dwelling called Cumbooquepa on the property. He died in 1877 and management of his estate passed to his eldest son, William, a politician, businessman and first mayor of South Brisbane.
In 1890 the Stephens family moved into a new house designed by GHM Addison where they lived until the early 1900s. This second Cumbooquepa was built on a higher part of the site, a short distance from the original which was demolished in 1890 to make way for the south coast and southern suburbs railway line.
The house remained in the family until 1919 when the property was acquired by the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association as the new premises for the Brisbane High School for Girls. In 1920 Somerville House was added to the title of the school honouring Mary Somerville, an English scientist whose name was also associated with Somerville College in Oxford. Constance Elizabeth Harker and Majorie Kate Jarrett, important for their contributions to female education in Queensland, were the co-principals of the school from 1909 until the retirement of Miss Harker in 1931.
An L-shaped two-storeyed educational block was built in 1920 to a design by architects Chambers and Powell with an extension containing a gymnasium and chemistry and biology laboratories completed in 1926.
A two-roomed library building designed by TBF Gargett as a memorial to CE Harker was opened in 1935 and extended to include an art studio in 1939-40. The former library includes memorial stained glass windows by William Bustard. It was probably the first purpose designed library building at a girl's school in Queensland. Recently altered, the building is now used as a chapel.
Early in 1942 Somerville House became General Headquarters, United Army Forces Far East, United States Army Services of Supply and Base Section 3. TBF Gargett, architect to the US Army, was responsible for adapting the school buildings for the army. During this period the school relocated, reopening at South Brisbane in January 1945.
Since the Second World War various classrooms, a five-storeyed science wing and sporting facilities have been erected. The Constance Harker Hall was built during the 1970s. It houses an 1888 pipe organ by Alfred Hunter & Sons of London.
","criteria":"Somerville House is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as evidence of education for girls in Queensland.
|Somerville House is an uncommon example of a large late 19th century residence, which is exceptional for its architectural quality, lavish interiors, and prominence as a landmark.
|Is significant in relation to criterion D.
|Somerville House is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular the architectural distinction of the former library/studio building, the high quality of the stained glass and timber joinery in Cumbooquepa and the former library/studio building, the cohesive and picturesque grouping of landscape elements and buildings, the contribution of the wall and garden to the streetscape and the contribution to the townscape as a landmark.
|Somerville House has a special association with the Brisbane High School for Girls.
|Somerville House has a special association with the Stephens Family, CE Harker, MK Jarrett and the US Army and Brisbane architects, GHM Addison, and TBF Gargett and artisan William Bustard, and are important examples of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15081,"place_ref":600306,"name":"South Brisbane Municipal Chambers (former)","alternate_name":"South Brisbane Town Hall","street_address":"263 Vulture Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former South Brisbane Municipal Chambers stands on a prominent rise at the corner of Vulture and Graham Streets, and is visible from the city side of the river. Despite having sustained several refurbishments, the building remains substantially intact, and retains a dominant presence in the historic precinct centred around South Brisbane Memorial Park.
The building comprises two storeys, a basement, attic and a conspicuous clock tower, and is designed in the free classical style.
It is constructed of red Coorparoo and Waterstown bricks left their natural colour. Bluish-grey Helidon sandstone and terracotta panelling from the Albion works of James Campbell & Sons are used for the exterior decorative detailing. The roof is clad in rolled edge flat iron.
The Vulture Street facade has a loggia on the first floor and a pediment with stylised floral motifs. The simpler Graham Street facade has large sashed triplet windows and sandstone pilasters, with the words Municipal Chambers in low relief beneath a small pediment.
The 70 feet (21 metres) high tower is elaborately decorated with classical motifs above a restrained brick shaft with a four-dial clock. Each clock face is 6 feet (1.8 metres) in diameter.
Internally the building retains its original layout and much of the decorative finishing. On the ground floor are offices and on the first floor are the large council chamber and ancillary rooms. A small room at the rear of the council chamber is an addition, bricked in prior to 1923.
A principal internal feature is the main staircase, with its white marble handrail and steps [whole marble slabs], and strings, newels and balusters of cedar. Above the stairwell is a replica of the original stained glass window with the seal of the Corporation of South Brisbane in the design.
The boundary fence along Vulture and Graham Streets is of brick and stone with a cast-iron railing. At the corner an arched entrance with iron gates and broad stairs leads from the street level to the tiled vestibule.
Several mature palm trees remain in the grounds.
","history":"Constructed in 1891-2 for the South Brisbane Municipal Council, this two-storeyed former municipal chambers provided a focus for the new Borough of South Brisbane [created in 1888], which sought to rival in development and prestige the Municipality of Brisbane.
The site, located centrally between South Brisbane and Woolloongabba, was purchased in 1889 by the South Brisbane Municipal Council for £2600, and was intended for a town hall. Financial restrictions forced a compromise and municipal chambers only were commissioned.
Following a competition in late 1889, the innovative design submitted by John Hall & Son was accepted. It is attributed to John Smith Murdock, who later became Commonwealth Deputy-General of Works and Chief Architect of the Commonwealth, 1926-30.
The contract was let in December 1890 to Brisbane builder and brickmaker Abraham James, with a price of £6,999. Work commenced in January 1891, but was halted temporarily when the contractor was bankrupted. The Council called tenders for separate trades to complete the building, and contracts for the stone, brick, carpentry and joinery work and the boundary fences and entrance gates were let to established Brisbane builders John Stewart & Co. The building was completed in mid-1892 at a total cost of £11,000, and served the South Brisbane Municipal Council until 1925.
The tower clock, installed in 1904 by the Synchronome Electrical Co. of Australasia Ltd, was the first electrically-driven clock system in Australia.
In 1925 the building became the property of the Brisbane City Council and served as offices for the Council's district engineer from 1926 to 1940.
In March 1941 the building was rented by the Australian Army, and in March 1942 it was occupied by the American Military Police as their Base Section Three Headquarters. The Americans removed a large stained glass window above the stairwell to allow construction of a walkway across to the grounds of Somerville House, which served as Base Section Three Army Headquarters. This window was never recovered. In 1943 the Americans erected the two-storeyed brick and fibrous-cement building at the rear.
Following the American withdrawal the building remained vacant for some years, but in 1948 was converted into seven flats for Council employees. In 1955 the State Government purchased the building and converted it into accommodation for the newly established Queensland Conservatorium of Music, who remained there until 1975. Since 1976 the building has been occupied by branches of the Education Department and TAFE, and is currently an Adult Education centre. In 1977 and 1983 restoration work was undertaken, and in 1986 the missing stained glass window was reproduced to the original design.
","criteria":"The former South Brisbane Municipal Chambers are important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being landmark physical evidence of the consolidation of the Borough of South Brisbane as a political, social and economic rival to the Municipality of Brisbane.
It is a rare masonry municipal chambers in Brisbane, and the most substantial and ornate prior to construction of the new Brisbane City Hall in the 1920s.
|It is a rare masonry municipal chambers in Brisbane, and the most substantial and ornate prior to construction of the new Brisbane City Hall in the 1920s.
|The former South Brisbane Municipal Chambers is a most accomplished and intact building in form, fabric and feature, the first in Brisbane to be designed in free classical style, the first in Australia to incorporate an electrically-driven clock system, and is an excellent example of its type.
|It possesses strong landmark and aesthetic qualities and makes an important contribution to the historic precinct centred around South Brisbane Memorial Park.
|It possesses strong landmark and aesthetic qualities and makes an important contribution to the historic precinct centred around South Brisbane Memorial Park.
|The place is significant as a major and early Brisbane work by important architect John S Murdoch, and for its close association with the work of the South Brisbane Municipal Council and with the presence of United States military personnel in Brisbane during the Second World War.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15082,"place_ref":600307,"name":"South Brisbane Railway Station","alternate_name":"Cultural Centre Station | South Brisbane (Interstate) Station | Melbourne Street Station","street_address":"133 Grey Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The station is a long, two-storeyed brick building with a hipped, corrugated-iron roof. The Grey Street frontage is dominated by a central projecting pedimented entrance. Either side of the entrance are sloping corrugated-iron street awnings, which are supported by cast-iron columns with corinthian capitals and large brackets.
Other Renaissance stylistic elements to the street facade include: romanesque windows on the upper floor, rendered string courses and window mouldings, pilasters with corinthian capitals, and a solid rendered parapet.
A former garden park in front of the Grey Street entrance is now a car park/loading bay.
At the rear of the station building are the platforms, which were constructed level with the upper floor of the main building, in anticipation of the river extension. The awning to No 1 platform retains a tank roof on a steel frame, with cast-iron columns and brackets and a decorative timber frieze [1891]. No 2 platform has a cantilevered butterfly roof [bullnosed until recent re-roofing], which is supported by lattice iron girders [c1918].
On both platforms the furniture consists of a considerable number of early cast-iron framed seats which incorporate the QR logo. Many of these were collected from other Brisbane metropolitan stations for the Expo '88 refurbishment, and have remained.
As preparation for Expo '88 the external brickwork and cast iron was restored, the roof was replaced, and all the exterior brickwork except for the upper level front facade was painted an uncharacteristic pink or peach. Interior renovations included false ceilings, a new staircase for office staff, and repainting.
The main building at the South Brisbane Railway Station remains substantially intact, despite interior alteration, but the turntable, two island platforms, and the front park and garden have been removed.
","history":"The South Brisbane Railway Station on the corner of Melbourne and Grey Streets was constructed in 1891 as the terminus for the new rail extension from Boggo Junction [now Dutton Park]. This line bypassed the Woolloongabba railyards and made redundant the Stanley Street station of 1882-4. The £77,585 contract was let to Murphy & Company on 2 April 1890, and the line was completed by them on 7 December 1891.
A £5,658 contract for erecting the new passenger station was let to Henry Pears on 22 June 1891. It was the second masonry station to be erected in Brisbane after Roma Street [1875], pre-dating Central [1901] by a decade.
Passenger services commenced on 21 December 1891, although the station building had not been completed. For this reason there was no accompanying opening ceremony. When the building opened shortly afterwards it included a temperance refreshment room, and served commuters on the South Coast, Cleveland and Beaudesert lines.
South Brisbane Station was intended as a temporary terminus, pending an extension of the line across the river, so only two platforms were constructed. However, after the 1893 flood washed away the Albert Bridge at Indooroopilly, the station served as the principal terminus for all southern and western rail services for the next two and a half years.
A 1912-13 proposal to expand South Brisbane to a six platform station reflected the increasing importance of the southern rail network, both as a passenger service and as a goods line. This work was undertaken between 1914 and 1918. To handle the increased traffic a 40 feet [12 metres] turntable was constructed in 1916, which was expanded to 60 feet [18 metres] in 1925. This was removed with the change-over to diesel engines in 1968.
In 1930 the standard gauge rail to Sydney was completed and in 1931 the station was renamed South Brisbane (Interstate). A separate interstate platform, station, goods shed and shunting yards were constructed, all of which were demolished in 1986 for Expo '88 redevelopment.
Since 1986 interstate services have terminated at the Brisbane Transit Centre in Roma Street. Two of the c1918 island platforms at South Brisbane were removed to accommodate the cross-river line, and the station has reverted to its original two platforms.
","criteria":"The South Brisbane Railway Station, erected in 1891, is significant historically as a reflection of the importance of South Brisbane as a commercial centre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and as a major terminal in the southeast Queensland regional rail network until 1986.
|It is a substantially intact masonry railway station complete with early platform furniture, one of only three erected in Brisbane by 1901, and a good example of its type.
|It is a substantially intact masonry railway station complete with early platform furniture, one of only three erected in Brisbane by 1901, and a good example of its type.
|The place is significant also for its aesthetic contribution to the South Brisbane townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15083,"place_ref":600308,"name":"19 Gloucester Street","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"19 Gloucester Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-30","description":"19 Gloucester St is a cottage made of Brisbane tuff with sandstone dressings, with a two-storeyed brick and stone wing to the rear. Its steeply pitched corrugated iron roof contains an attic storey with a single dormer window, and it has a timber verandah with a corrugated iron skillion roof overlooking Gloucester St. It is one of a pair of cottages which are semi-detached, and sits on an eastward falling slope. The cottage has a simple rectangular plan with four rooms to the ground floor which run off a central corridor, and two rooms above. A timber and corrugated iron room links the cottage to the rear wing, which contains a former kitchen with a single room above.
The verandah sits at half level above Gloucester St, and is accessed via stone stairs. It has timber rectangular columns with timber capitals, and an unpainted timber boarded ceiling. The dormer above has a hipped roof, and the half-round guttering is decorated with cresting at the corners. A sandstone and brick chimney rises above the roofline. The windows are multi-paned timber sliding sash windows, and have textured sandstone lintels, quoins and sills; the doors also have textured sandstone surrounds. The eastern attic window is flanked by two timber rails which may have been a lifting device. The rear wing has a hipped corrugated iron roof which adjoins that of its neighbour. A small brick and corrugated iron outhouse sits to the west of the kitchen.
The walls and ceilings in the cottage are plaster and lath, with modestly detailed timber trim throughout (much of it cedar). The timber work includes deep window reveals, mantelpieces to the two northern ground floor rooms, a louvred timber door to the north-west room, steep stairs to the attic rooms and cupboards in the eastern attic room. The rear wing contains an early stove, and steep stairs with a shutter door above.
19 Gloucester St is a rare example of an 1860s inner city residence. The interior is highly intact. The modestly detailed exterior is also intact and contributes to the surrounding turn-of-the-century residential streetscape.
","history":"19 Gloucester Street is a semi-detached stone house, constructed in the late 1860's during the early growth of Spring Hill as a suburb of Brisbane. The house was built for William Grigor, a Scottish immigrant who had arrived in Moreton Bay in 1855.
Grigor and his friend and business partner, James Low, acquired the adjoining properties in Gloucester Street in 1867 and proceeded to construct the pair of semi-detached stone houses on the two sites.
In 1862 Grigor, Low and William Pettigrew had formed a partnership, and Grigor and Low moved to Mooloolah where they hauled timber and rafted it to Brisbane. In 1863 Grigor married Mary Fenwick and together with the Lows, continued working in the timber industry.
By 1868 it would appear that the partnership was experiencing financial difficulties and was possibly dissolved. Low and his family moved to his selection on the banks of the South Maroochy River (later called Yandina). In October 1868 Grigor selected land in the parish of Beerwah, where he commenced construction of Bankfoot House in anticipation of the forthcoming Cobb and Co coach route between Brisbane and Gympie. When Bankfoot House was completed, Grigor was rejoined by his wife, and they established an accommodation house, which was also a post-office, dinner stage and change of horses for Cobb and Co coaches. It is possible that Mary had stayed at the Spring Hill house while Bankfoot House was being built.
For over one hundred and twenty years the property in Gloucester Street has remained with the Grigors and their descendants, and has been rented during most of that period.
In the 1980s the house was returned to as close to original condition as possible. This included replacement of the verandah fabric and guttering to match existing materials.
","criteria":"The residence is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the settlement of Spring Hill as a suburb of Brisbane.
|The residence remains as a rare intact example of an 1860s semi-detached stone house in Brisbane.
|The residence exhibits the principal characteristics of an 1860s stone house in Brisbane and its contribution to the Gloucester St streetscape exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|The residence exhibits the principal characteristics of an 1860s stone house in Brisbane and its contribution to the Gloucester St streetscape exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15084,"place_ref":600309,"name":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church","alternate_name":"St Pauls Presbyterian Church; St Pauls Spring Hill; St Paul's Spring Hill","street_address":"43 St Pauls Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church is a stone, gothic-styled building complete with buttresses, belltower and a spire rising 150 feet (45.7m) above the ground.
\nCruciform in shape, the design incorporates a nave, aisles, and well defined transepts. The chancel is truncated. Essentially the plan is symmetrical, with the addition of a small southwestern entry porch for the spiral staircase to the belltower.
\nThe steeply pitched gabled roof with ventilation gablets is clad in broad profile galvanised iron.
\nThree distinct types of stone have been employed in the construction: rough dressed Brisbane tuff, probably from the Spring Hill and Windsor quarries, for the walls and buttresses; durable Helidon sandstone for the window facings; and a softer and less robust sandstone, possibly from Breakfast Creek or Goodna, for other facings and decorative work.
\nAt the front of the church, a pair of large cedar doors open to a main entry porch, paved with tessellated black and white marble. One of the stained glass windows in the entrance, designed by Brisbane artist William Bustard and unveiled in 1923, depicts the apostle Nathaniel. This was donated by the Philp family, following the death in 1922 of former businessman and Queensland Premier, Sir Robert Philp.
\nThe interior is simple yet impressive: the nave, with its stone pillars and gothic arches, is spacious; exposed wooden arches support a roof lining of diagonal tongue and groove, v-jointed red cedar; and the walls are rendered. Each aisle has its own roof, above which a sequence of cusped windows in the clerestory permits natural lighting of the nave.
\nIn the wall above the chancel are a rose window and four large stained glass windows of European manufacture, which depict Old Testament prophets. Double arched windows along the aisles illustrate ten events in the life of St Paul.
\nRed cedar has been employed for internal joinery and furniture, and the sloping floor is of pine.
\nSt Paul's houses the only swung bell in Brisbane, which was cast in 1888 by John Warner & Sons, London. The bell chamber is noted for its perfect acoustic properties in transmitting sound to the nave.
\nAfter more than a century of use, St Paul's remains intact in form, structure, fabric and function.
\nColumbarium and Memorial Garden
\nA columbarium and memorial garden are located to the south of the church, between the church and hall. The columbarium stands about a metre out from the church, south west from the front entrance. It is a sandstone structure approximately 180cm high, containing niches. The enclosed niches have either a plaque with an inscription on them or a temporary cover with an ‘R’ on it that indicates ‘Reserved’.
\nA small sandstone wall stands adjacent to the columbarium and runs around the perimeter of the outer church wall, before extending out on the corner to form the memorial garden bed. After forming the garden boundary, the wall continues to follow the church perimeter before ending in line with a buttress. The wall has small rectangular cappings that cover cavities. Cavities containing ashes have small memorial plaques fixed to the stone capping.
","history":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church, a Gothic-style stone building which dominates the skyline at Spring Hill, was constructed between 1887 and 1889.
The congregation of St Paul's, which at the time was a member of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, founded their first Brisbane church on the corner of Creek and Adelaide Streets in 1863. This early timber structure was replaced in 1876 by a stone building of substantial proportions, which in turn was sold to the Queensland National Bank in 1886 and subsequently demolished. The sale enabled the purchase of a site in Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill for the construction of a new place of worship.
Former colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley was commissioned to design a building well beyond immediate requirements, in anticipation of the church playing a more prominent role in the development of Queensland Presbyterianism.
Stanley had designed a number of masonry churches, including Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Fortitude Valley [1877], St Thomas' Anglican Church in Toowong [1877], and St Paul's Anglican Church in Maryborough [1879].
In 1886 a brick and stone Sabbath School Hall was erected on a corner of the site, and this building served as a temporary church for three years while the larger building was designed and constructed.
Contractor for the £11,000 project was builder and alderman Thomas Rees [later mayor of Brisbane], who completed construction of the church in a little over 18 months. The foundation stone was laid on 8 October 1887 and the church was officially dedicated on 5 May 1889.
Much of the stone from the demolished Creek Street church was re-used in the Leichhardt Street church. Also a stone wall with Glasgow-founded iron railings and entrance gates, a pipe organ manufactured by William Hill & Sons, London c1874, and prophet lights donated in 1878 by former Queensland premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith, were removed to the new site.
Despite grand visions of St Pauls as the state centre of Presbyterian worship, the congregation was small and localised until the early 20th century, when a change of ministry encouraged a more active following.
The interior of the church was redesigned in 1901. The organ and choir stalls were moved from a prominent position beneath the central arch to the southwest transept, and the pulpit was centrally elevated.
St Paul's became a community landmark in Spring Hill, recognised officially with the mid-1930s renaming of a section of Leichhardt Street from Boundary Road to Brookes Street as St Pauls Terrace.
A number of church facilities were extended in the post-war period. This involved installation of an electronic carillon ['the chimes'] in 1950; commissioning of stained glass lights - designed by William Bustard in 1957 and executed by Oliver Cowley between 1958 and 1972 - for the aisle windows; the addition of an electro-pneumatic action to the organ in 1963; and the inclusion of a columbarium in 1967. Renovation of the cedar pulpit, rostrum and communion table was undertaken in 1976.
In the early 1980s the Friends of St Paul's was established, which conducted an appeal to raise funds for restoration work. Funds from the appeal and various grants permitted repairs to some of the ornamental stonework.
To help finance a complete restoration, the rights were sold to develop an office tower and townhouse complex on the site of the former manse, which was demolished. Eventually the land itself was sold.
","criteria":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church, constructed 1887-89, is significant historically for its association with the work of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland, and in particular, as evidence of the Creek Street congregation's anticipation of playing a prominent role in Queensland Presbyterianism.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of 19th century Gothic church design in Queensland: it remains substantially intact, and is one of few churches in Queensland to fully realise the 'gothic' style in stone. In addition, St Paul's is significant for its early pipe organ, stained glass and swung bell.
|The place has considerable landmark quality and aesthetic appeal, and makes a strong aesthetic contribution to both the Spring Hill townscape and the skyline along St Paul's Terrace. It remains an integral element in a cohesive ecclesiastical precinct formed with the adjoining church hall and boundary fence.
|It also has historical significance as the origin of the name of a principal Brisbane street, St Paul's Terrace - indicative of a wider community association with the church as a Brisbane landmark.
|St Paul's is important as a major example of the ecclesiastical work of former colonial architect FDG Stanley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15085,"place_ref":600310,"name":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church Hall","alternate_name":"Sabbath School Hall; St Pauls Presbyterian Church Hall; St Paul's Spring Hill","street_address":"43 St Pauls Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church Hall, designed in the gothic style with classical nuances, is a low, wide brick building with buttresses and stone facings, built to a T-shape plan with the leg abutting the street.
It is capped with a gabled roof clad in broad profile galvanised iron, above which square brick and stone pinnacles rise from the buttresses at the ends of each of the four gables.
The front facade, which has a northwest aspect, features a central, pointed-arch window with drip moulding, three green glass lights, tracery, and mullions; and gothic arched doorways with stone pediments above, on either side of the window. Above this is a broad pediment decorated with abbreviated blind panel tracery.
The interior, with its rendered walls, timber dado panelling and raised dais at the eastern end, is lit by rectangular multi-paned windows located in the bays along the sides.
The hall remains largely intact in form, fabric and function.
","history":"The Sabbath School Hall, designed by former colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, was the first building to be erected on the Creek Street Presbyterian Church's newly acquired property in Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, in 1886.
It was built on the site of Brisbane's first children's hospital, a wooden building which was demolished to make room for the hall.
In form and fabric, the hall was designed well beyond immediate requirements, in anticipation of the Creek Street congregation playing a more prominent role in the development of Queensland Presbyterianism.
From May 1886 to May 1889 the Sabbath School Hall functioned as a temporary church while St Paul's was under construction, establishing a precinct which later included church, hall and manse. The manse was demolished in the 1980s.
Over the subsequent century the hall became the focus for the church's social activities, and was home to an active Sunday School in the period prior to the First World War. An extensive library was established in the hall in connection with the Sunday School.
The building served more than the immediate congregation, and in the late 1920s was the venue for local gymnastic competitions.
Falling attendances at evening church services during the 1930s depression resulted in their being conducted in the hall, often in a less formal manner than the regular service.
In February 1942 the Australian defence authorities requisitioned the hall for possible use as an emergency centre during air raids, and from these premises the Hon. RG Menzies conducted his final campaign meeting for the 1949 election.
In 1982 sections of the exterior brickwork were renovated, and early in 1984 a new floor was laid, wiring and power points were renewed, plumbing was repaired and the interior was painted.
","criteria":"St Paul's Presbyterian Church Hall, constructed in 1886, is significant historically as evidence of the Creek Street congregation's anticipation of playing a prominent role in Queensland Presbyterianism, and as an integral part of a cohesive ecclesiastical precinct formed with the adjoining St Paul's Presbyterian Church and boundary fence.
|It is a rare 1880s gothic-styled brick hall in Brisbane, and is an example of the ecclesiastical work of former colonial architect FDG Stanley.
|It is a rare 1880s gothic-styled brick hall in Brisbane, and is an example of the ecclesiastical work of former colonial architect FDG Stanley.
|The place is important for its aesthetic contribution to the Spring Hill townscape.
|It is significant also for its community association as the first of the St Paul's precinct buildings on Spring Hill, and as a venue for local entertainments for over a century.
|It is a rare 1880s gothic-styled brick hall in Brisbane, and is an example of the ecclesiastical work of former colonial architect FDG Stanley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15086,"place_ref":600311,"name":"Bellmount","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"71 St Pauls Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bellmount is located on the southern side of St Pauls Terrace, opposite Brisbane Central School, [600312], and amongst a small group of timber houses. The dwelling is essentially a typical four-roomed pyramid roofed cottage that has been extended at the rear. The building occupies almost the full width of the property and is set close to the street boundary. Due to the slope of the site, the house is elevated on timber stumps at the front but set close to the ground at the rear. The apex of the steeply pitched corrugated iron roof is decorated with a timber finial and a single dormer style window projects from the roof towards the street. A skylight has been fitted to the rear slope of the main roof. Half-round guttering, fixed by metal brackets, has been used for the main roof. The external walls of the original house are sheathed in twelve inch chamferboards and most of the original four-paned sash windows remain substantially intact. Th extension at the rear of the building is clad in weather boards and has multi-paned sash windows, which match the dormer window. The front verandah of the house also has a hipped roof that has a convex profile. The verandah has timber posts, brackets and top rails and cast iron balustrading. A pair of latticed screen doors provides access to the verandah and an early louvred infill panel exists at the verandah's southern end. In comparison to the front, the rear verandah is crudely constructed and has been infilled with a variety of claddings such as corrugated iron, lattice and fibreglass sheeting. The floor of the back verandah is brick paved.
The building's original core is square and comprises two bedrooms on the north side, with a combined former parlour and drawing room on the other side. Two later built rooms at the rear provide accommodation for a kitchen and an extra bedroom. The attic bedroom, which is located in the main roof space, is accessed via a narrow set of timber stairs located in the former drawing room. A bathroom has been created by the partial enclosure of the back verandah. The internal walls of the house are single skinned and lined with vertical timber boards which are 8
inches wide in the original section but narrower in the rear extension.
","history":"Bellmount is a small timber cottage constructed in 1880 for Martin McLeod, a bank messenger for the Union Bank of Australia.
Spring Hill first developed in the 1850's and 1860's following the subdivision of crown land north of the town centre. Unlike other suburbs, Spring Hill evolved almost entirely into a residential suburb that had very little commercial or industrial base. Social segregation between the rich and the poor arose immediately in the area due to the undulating topography of the land. The elite built superior residences along the ridges of Wickham and Gregory Terraces, taking advantage of the views, breezes and good natural drainage. In comparison the poor built simple timber houses on small blocks of land in the hollows adjacent to the ridges.
St Pauls Terrace, formerly known as Leichhardt Street, was a lesser ridge road that was taken up by various institutions such as churches and schools. The 1880's boom period saw the development of more elite residences and boarding houses in the Spring Hill area. Amongst the working class people, pyramid-roofed type dwellings such as Bellmount became particularly popular and continued to dominate less prestigious domestic building until the 1890's.
Deed of Grant for a 2 acre allotment along Leichhardt Street was granted to David McConnell as early as 1853. The land was subdivided into several allotments in 1872 of which a 30 perch allotment was purchased by William Cookslerf. Further subdivision of that allotment resulted in three similar parcels of land, one of which was bought by Martin McLeod in 1880. On the site, now known as 71 St Pauls Terrace, McLeod erected a typical four roomed timber worker's cottage with a pyramid type roof. The cottage was later extended by the addition of two more rooms at the rear. Physical detailing of the attic within the main pyramid roof structure suggests that it may also have been added later.
The property remained with the McLeod family for three generations until 1976. The building is currently used as offices.
","criteria":"Bellmount, built in 1880, is important for demonstrating the early inner suburban development of Brisbane, particularly Spring Hill.
|The attic is an unusual example of space utilisation rarely adopted in Queensland due to high internal temperatures.
|The house is a substantially intact example of the typical four-roomed pyramid roofed worker's cottage that dominated domestic building during the 1880's to 1890's.
|The house plays a significant role in the nineteenth century street scape of St Pauls Terrace, contributing aesthetically with its scale, form and use of materials.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15087,"place_ref":600312,"name":"Brisbane Central State School","alternate_name":"Leichhardt Street State School for Boys, Girls, Infants | Leichhardt Street (practising) School | Brisbane Central State School","street_address":"134 Rogers Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Brisbane Central State School, built on terraced terrain, comprises a number of elements, including: the Suter building (1874); a play shed (1887); the former boys' school high-set, timber classroom building (1909); the former practising school building (c1929); the former infants' school building (completed by June 1952); playgrounds; and extensive cuttings, retaining walls, landscaping and plantings.
The Suter building is a one-storey, low-set brick structure with a gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It faces south-west to the main entrance into the grounds on Victoria Street, and the vista of the building from the entrance is framed by trees. It is a long and narrow building aligned south-west and north-east with a timber-framed verandah along the front. The verandah is interrupted by a central, projecting gabled classroom and either side of this is an attached pair of timber-framed and -clad teaching rooms. Surmounting the centre of the roof is a square-based spire and along the ridge are timber-framed, ventilated dormer windows. The brick walls of the building stand on Brisbane tuff footings and the timber-framed portions stand on concrete posts or brick piers. The building features highly-crafted, decorative brickwork including: running corbel friezes under the eaves and gable barge boards; a variety of corbelled decorations; and lancet niches. The rear (north-eastern) wall is cement rendered, scored to mimic coursed stone and has a series of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights, sheltered by timber-framed hoods. The south-eastern gable end wall has a large bricked-in arch. The layout comprises five classrooms facing north-east and one central classroom facing south-west, all accessed from the verandah. The three southern classrooms have timber-lined walls and ceiling with timber roof framing exposed within the space. The other two rooms have suspended ceilings and a masonite sheeting partition.
The playshed is a timber-framed, open-sided shelter with a gable roof supported by timber posts with brackets. The gable ends are clad with timber weatherboards. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets and the ceiling is lined with timber, v-jointed boards with a ventilation gap between cladding and ceiling. It has a concrete floor and perimeter seating.
The former boys' school high-set building is very intact and stands adjacent to a tall, brick-faced retaining wall on its north-eastern side. It is a timber-framed building clad with timber weatherboards and has a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It is high-set on tall brick piers and the understorey is enclosed with timber weatherboards. A timber stair on the north-western side provides access to the upper level. The upper level has a verandah on the north-eastern and south-western sides, partially enclosed on the latter by more recent sheet material and on both sides by modern steel screens. The verandah walls are single-skin with externally-exposed stud framing. Between the studs are timber-framed, horizontal-pivot windows with high sills. The gable end windows are later, steel-framed louvres with original, timber-framed hoods. The upper level comprises one large classroom, accessed from both verandahs via timber, double-leaf doors with horizontal-pivot fanlights. The well-proportioned interior has a high, coved ceiling and is lined with timber, v-jointed boards. A metal tie rod between the verandah walls at cornice height is exposed within the space.
The former practising school building stands on the eastern-most corner of the site and faces St Paul's Terrace to the south-east. This is a large, timber-framed building clad with timber weatherboards and has a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It is a high-set building and its understorey is enclosed. The interior layout on both levels is not original; all partitions of the upper floor are demolished to form one large space.
The former infants' school stands on the lowest part of the site near the corner of Rogers and Water Streets, separated from the main part of the school by a tall stone-faced retaining wall. Accessed from a curving driveway from Rogers Street, the long, narrow building is a two-storey, facebrick structure with a hipped, tiled roof. The area for the former infants' school is divided into two level areas by a large concrete retaining wall and the school building sits against the wall on the lower level, accessible at grade from both sides. The principal entry is from the driveway into the upper (formerly classroom) level. This entrance is emphasised by large porthole windows, a sweeping, cantilevered concrete awning and curved steps, and a set of large, bifolding, glazed, timber-framed entrance doors. A verandah, enclosed with more-recent glazing, runs along the length of the northern side and a stair at the entry and at the western end leads down to the lower level (formerly open play space). The classrooms and the understorey are subdivided by later, lightweight partitions to form offices; although the original layout is discernible. The walls between former classrooms and the verandah have been demolished. The upper level retains south-facing, timber-framed casement windows and fanlights and sheet-and-batten ceilings.
The school grounds are terraced to form levelled playing areas and feature mature ornamental trees including: camphor laurels (Cinamomum camphora), figs, hoop pines, (Araucaria cunninghamii), palms, jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), poincianas (Poinciana regia), and eucalypts, as well as gardens and other plantings.
","history":"Agitation for a primary school in the Spring Hill area commenced in 1873, culminating in the establishment of three separate schools - Leichhardt Street Boys' School, Leichhardt Street Girls' School, and Leichhardt Street Infants' School (later renamed Brisbane Central State School). Opening 25 January 1875 on a large site, the schools were initially accommodated in one building built in 1874. As attendance grew, other buildings were constructed, including; a playshed (1887); a high-set, timber classroom building for the boys' school (1909); a timber classroom building for the practising school (c1929); a brick building for the infants' school (c1952); as well as playgrounds, extensive cuttings, retaining walls, landscaping and plantings.
The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[1]
The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early Queensland communities. The formal education of Queensland children was seen as integral to the success of a town, the colony, and the nation. Land and construction labour was often donated by the local people and schools frequently became a major focus within the community as a place symbolising progress, for social interaction, and as a source of pride. Also, the development and maintenance of schools frequently involved donations and work by teachers, parents, and pupils. Because of their significant connections with the local community, schools have occasionally incorporated other socially important elements such as war memorials and halls used for community purposes. They also typically retain a significant enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers. Social events involving a wide portion of the local community have often been held at schools, utilising the buildings and grounds - such as fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, sporting events, reunions, and dances.
As in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. This helped to ensure consistency and economy. The standard designs were continually refined by government architects in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in their approach to climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: the teaching buildings, the school yard, the horse paddock that was often later configured into a sports oval, and a variety of features such as sporting facilities or play equipment, shade structures, gardens and trees.
The initial school building for the Leichhardt Street schools was a low-set, one-storey, brick structure designed by established Brisbane architect Richard George Suter. Suter was a private architect commissioned from 1865 by the Board of General Education to design school buildings. After 1868, Suter was responsible for most of the Board's buildings until 1875. As an architect in the early years of the colony, Suter was prolific despite only practicing for approximately 10 years in Queensland and had a strong influence on the establishment of Queensland architecture, being credited with introducing 'outside studding' construction technique to the state.[2]
Suter's Brisbane school buildings were of brick construction. His initial designs were simple, low-set, structures with gable roofs, and rectangular in plan. In 1873 he introduced an ‘improved plan' adding front and rear verandahs to provide hat rooms and additional play and classroom space beginning a distinctive design solution of 'classroom and verandah' that continued through evolution until at least the 1960s.
The contract to construct the Suter building for the Leichhardt Street schools was let on 5 February 1874 to builders Dennis & Sons, with a price of £1970. The T-shaped building had three large classrooms - the long front wing held two 80 by 25 feet (24.9 by 7.6 metres) classrooms, one each for the boys' and girls' schools, and projecting to the rear was one 25 by 24 feet (7.6 by 7.3 metres) classroom for the infants' school. The building had a symmetrical front elevation with a projecting central room 20 by 25 feet (6.1 by 7.6 metres) flanked by a small teachers' room either side and a verandah along the front and rear.
Enrolments by October 1875 totalled 241 boys, 176 girls, and 250 infants.
In 1887 a playshed was built at the school. This was a timber-framed, open-sided shelter with a gable roof measuring 25 by 45 feet (7.62 by 13.7 metres). The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as well as classrooms, they provided plans for playsheds, free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and were often used for unofficial teaching space when needed. They were timber-framed structures, generally open on all sides although were sometimes partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets. The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron and they had an earth or decomposed granite floor. Fixed timber seating ran between the perimeter posts. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s. They were mostly built to standard designs that ranged in size relative to student numbers. School sites were typically cleared of all vegetation and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. After c1909 school buildings were high-set, allowing students to play in the understorey and playsheds were not frequently constructed.
In 1889 a Grand Gala Tree-planting Day was held at the Leichhardt Street schools site. Prior to this, the grounds were described as barren.[3] The provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of the addition of shade trees in the playground. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educationalists believed gardening and tree planting instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors. More than 50 shade and ornamental trees supplied by the Department of Agriculture were planted in the Leichhardt Street school grounds by its scholars.[4] It was seen as a great success and sparked the introduction of Queensland-wide Arbor Day celebrations the following year.[5] Between 1889 and 1892 about 150 trees were planted in the school grounds.[6]
From the school's opening, the Suter building was overcrowded and had other problems, including poor lighting and ventilation. From 1893 the Department of Public Works became responsible for school design and worked to greatly improve its standard designs to address the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors. The department's architects experimented with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Roof ventilators became fleches which grew larger as the experimentation continued. Prior to the widespread adoption of electricity and artificial lighting, achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became a primary determinant of the design concept and layout of all school buildings. From around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged to have the light falling onto the students' left hand side. This reduced glare, and, since students were forcibly right-handed, did not throw a shadow onto the page. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[7]
Over time, the Leichhardt Street schools' Suter building was altered to improve lighting and ventilation of the interior to standard designs by the department. In c1897 skylights were added to the roof either side of the spire to aid internal lighting of the classrooms. In c1911 these were replaced with dormer windows, and a large arched window was added to the end (south-eastern) wall. To further improve the internal light conditions the rear verandah was removed between 1918 and 1933. The projecting infants' wing was demolished in 1933, replaced by an asphalted assembly area. Banks of casement windows were added to the rear wall to greatly increase the natural lighting and ventilation of the classrooms. This work is typical of the standard 'improvements' designed by the Department of Public Works that were made to older education buildings to meet evolving education philosophies espoused by the Department of Education of over time.[8]
Overcrowding continued at the Leichhardt Street schools and in 1909 a new high-set, timber classroom building was built to the south of the Suter building for the boys' school. This was built to a new standard design introduced in c1909. This high-set, timber design provided better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play space underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and the high-set form became a characteristic of Queensland schools.[9] The understorey of this new building at Leichhardt Street was enclosed between June 1922 and June 1923.[10]
By 1914 a separate building for the Infants' School had been constructed to the northeast of the Suter building.
In 1927 the Brisbane Normal School (Adelaide Street) was closed for demolition and its teachers and students were transferred to Leichhardt Street State School. The Leichhardt Street school also took over the Normal School's role of training teachers.[11] On 4 September 1927, the three Leichhardt Street schools operating from the site (boys', girls', and infants' schools) closed and re-opened the next day under one head teacher as the Leichhardt Street State and Practising School (unofficially known as the Central Practising School).
To accommodate the large increase in pupils, teachers and trainee teachers, additional buildings and toilets were constructed at the school.[12] One of these was a classroom building for the practising school built c1929 facing St Pauls Terrace. It stood on the highest part of the site, separated from the rest of the school by a tall, concrete retaining wall.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the school was known as the 'Scholarship Factory' due to the high success rate of its pupils in the high school scholarship examinations. Many of its teachers and pupils became prominent identities, including Jack Pizzey and Sir Douglas Tooth.
The school was officially renamed the Brisbane Central State School in 1954. A fire damaged the north-western end of the Suter building in 1973.
A large, new brick infants building was constructed at the Water Street end of the site, replacing the earlier infants building. Beginning in the 1950s, school designs were altered with a goal of modernisation. Classrooms had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation.[13] The proliferation of stumps in the understorey was replaced with steel, timber and sometimes concrete trusses that spanned the width of the classroom and provided an unimpeded play space while minimising costs.[14] While the majority of school buildings were built to standard plans, as in other periods, some buildings were also constructed that were individually designed. These were typically constructed in areas of stable, suburban and urban populations and were an evolution of the urban brick school buildings of the early 1900s and depression-era brick school buildings. They were generally substantial structures of brick and concrete that introduced many innovative ideas that found their way into standard plans. For example, brick was progressively used more frequently in high schools as standard.[15] The new infants' building at Brisbane central State School was one of these non-standard designs. Designed in 1949 by the Department of Public Works, construction was completed in the financial year ending June 1952[16]. The building included five classrooms, one kindergarten room, and an open understorey play area. It was occupied by the school until c1966 when use of the building was given to the Department of Health. The building was then used as the Brisbane Institute of Child Guidance, which operated as a separate entity to the school. This new use was officially opened 6 April 1966.[17] The land around the former infants' building was subdivided off and formally transferred to the Department of Health in 1991. Remedial structural work was performed on the building at this time.
The Practising School left Brisbane Central State School c1959. Its building facing St Paul's Terrace was transferred to the Department of Health and used as the Children's Dental Hospital, operating separating from the school. Later, the dental hospital moved out and in c2008 the building was transferred back to school use. The interior was extensively refurbished in 2010 to create a single large space for assembly.
Over time, buildings and structures were added to and removed from the school grounds to accommodate different education programs or to provide new facilities. New toilets were constructed in 2004 and the c1929 toilets were demolished in 2012. A low-set classroom building was constructed adjacent to the rear of the Suter building in c2008.
Enrolments at Brisbane Central State School fluctuated from over 1000 students during the 1930s to fewer than 100 during the 1980s to 220 in 2013. In 2014, the school retains the 1874 Suter building, the 1887 playshed, the 1909 former boys' school building, the c1929 former practising school building, the c1952 former infants' school building, playgrounds, extensive cuttings, retaining walls, landscaping and mature tree plantings.
In 2014, the school is the only remaining inner-city state school and is surrounded by a mix of early Spring Hill housing and modern structures.
References
[1] Logan, Greg and Eddie Clarke, State Education in Queensland: a brief history, a report for the Department of Education, Queensland, 1984, p 2.
[2] Watson, Donald, "Outside Studding ‘Some claims to architectural taste.'" in Historic Environment 1:2:3, 1988, pp. 22-31 and Watson, Donald and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th century, 1994, p. 185.
[3] The Brisbane Courier, 2 May 1891, p. 6.
[4] The article states that the following were planted: Jacaranda, Ficus macrophylla, bunya bunya, balsam of Peru, and Poinciana regia.
[5] The Queenslander, 7 May 1892, p. 897-898.
[6] The Queenslander, 7 May 1892, p. 897-898.
[7] Burmester, Paul et al, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, 1996, pp. 19-20.
[8] Alterations information taken from Department of Public Works architectural drawings Queensland State Archives.
[9] Burmester, Paul et al, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, 1996, pp. 19-20.
[10] Report for the Department of Public Works, June 1923, p. 13.
[11] The foundation stone of the Brisbane Normal School, originally the Brisbane National School was moved to Brisbane Central State School.
[12] Report for the Department of Public Works, June 1927, p. 8.
[13] Burmester, Paul et al, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, 1996, p. 116.
[14] Burmester, Paul et al, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, 1996, p. 117.
[15] Burmester, Paul et al, Queensland Schools A Heritage Conservation Study, 1996, p. 72.
[16] Report of the Department of Public Works for the Year Ended 30th June, 1952, p. 5.
[17] Plaque mounted on building at Rogers Street.
","criteria":"Brisbane Central School, established in 1875, is significant historically for its close association with the development of Spring Hill as an early dormitory suburb of Brisbane, and as one of the oldest extant brick schools in Queensland. It is the last remaining inner-city state school in Brisbane and is important for its historical role in Queensland teacher education.
|It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of 1870s state school design in Queensland.
|The place has an aesthetic appeal engendered principally by the early form, materials and siting of the 1870s building within grounds with mature trees and landscaping, and makes an aesthetic contribution to the historic Spring Hill townscape.
|It has a strong association for the Brisbane community with the evolution of Spring Hill as one of the city's most historic districts.
|The 1874 building is an excellent example of an institutional building by Brisbane architect RG Suter, and displays a high quality of design and craftsmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15088,"place_ref":600313,"name":"Spring Hill Baths","alternate_name":"Municipal Baths, Spring Hill | City Baths, Arthur Street","street_address":"14 Torrington Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Spring Hill Baths is a two-storeyed rendered brick building with a pitched corrugated galvanised iron roof on steel trusses. It has a rendered brick parapet facade which abuts the street alignment, and a double height swimming hall containing a 23.5 metres long by 9.1 metres wide concrete pool, encircled by a timber gallery and 57 dressing boxes. A two-storeyed caretaker's residence occupies the eastern end of the building facing Torrington Street. A single-storeyed weatherboard clubroom and concrete block toilets are located along the northern edge.
Lightweight steel trusses span the full width of the swimming hall, resting on engaged brick piers. The roof has been reclad, and while the original roof fully covered the swimming hall, a large central portion of the roof is now open to the sky. The steel trusses appear to be original.
Square timber columns support the timber balustrade and gallery of tiered timber seating, creating a loggia around the perimeter of the pool. Various signs are incorporated into the timber work, such as Ladies Only This Side and Gents Only This Side. A foundation stone is included in the concrete siding at the north-eastern corner of the pool.
The street facade gives the building substantial presence within the domestic streetscape. It presents a balanced arrangement of arched sash windows and doorways, with a simple parapet and pediment. On the latter is displayed the date 1886 and the inscription Municipal Public Baths James Hipwood Mayor. The facade is crowned with masonry urns and plaster floral motifs. The street entrance is covered by a corrugated iron awning on timber frame and brackets.
Apart from the addition of a filtration system and toilets, the baths remain intact in form, structure and interior detail.
","history":"Constructed for the Corporation of Brisbane in 1886 at a cost of £2,526, the Spring Hill Municipal Baths provided the city with its first inground public baths. They replaced in popularity the older floating baths in the Brisbane River, and provided an important hygiene/sanitation facility in Spring Hill.
They were erected during the 1880s expansion of Brisbane municipal works, which included construction of the second reservoir on Spring Hill and an extensive drainage system in Spring Hollow.
Enoggera contractor William McCallum Park built the structure to a design by city engineer Thomas Kirk, completing the work in August 1886. On the evening of 9 December 1886 and amid great ceremony, the baths were opened by the Mayor of Brisbane, James Hipwood, who took the first plunge.
One of the principal reasons for establishing the Torrington (Arthur) Street bath was its location above the Spring Hollow (Water Street) drain, installed in 1884, the waste water from the baths providing a daily cleanse. River water from Petrie's Bight was pumped to a small reservoir at the top end of Albert Street, then gravity fed down Spring Hill to the Hollow, where it was stored in holding tanks (now boarded over) at the far end of the baths. Each evening the pool was drained and every morning the water was replenished in a process lasting several hours. This system of flushing the Spring Hill drain was employed for three-quarters of a century.
Not until 1914 did the city council install a salt water supply scheme to which the baths were linked. As the Brisbane River grew more polluted, chemicals were added to the pool water, and finally a filtration system was installed in 1961.
In 1902 a gallery and diving platform were erected at the western end of the baths, necessitating the removal of several of the dressing sheds. These were re-instated in 1913 when the gallery was extended around three sides. Also in 1913 an awning was erected over the front entrance. The present club room extension appears to have been added at a later date.
In 1962 a male toilet block was added along the northern elevation, and the caretaker's accommodation was extended.
Until construction of the Wickham Street Municipal Swimming Baths in 1926, the baths at Spring Hill remained the venue for most of Queensland's competitive swimming, both school and amateur. In 1927 it was one of the first pools in Australia to allow mixed bathing, and it remains one of the oldest still in use. In recent years the club room has accommodated an art gallery, and the pool has been used for a variety of purposes, including community theatre.
","criteria":"Spring Hill Baths is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in its innovative role in promoting public health in Brisbane, including providing a means of the daily flushing of the Spring Hollow drainage scheme.
|Spring Hill Baths demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being Brisbane's first inground public baths and being a substantially intact example of late 19th century public swimming baths, complete with early changing cubicles.
|Spring Hill Baths is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of late nineteenth century public baths.
|Spring Hill Baths is important in exhibiting an aesthetic contribution to the Torrington Street streetscape and Spring Hill townscape, which is valued by the community.
|Spring Hill Baths has had a strong community association with Brisbane competitive swimming, swimming instruction, and local recreation since the 1880s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15089,"place_ref":600314,"name":"Moody's Cottages","alternate_name":"Cooee | Allandoon | Moodys Cottages","street_address":"8-12 and 16 Victoria Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cooee
Cooee and its neighbour originally formed a pair of semi-detached, single-storeyed brick cottages with separate, steeply pitched gabled roofs containing attic spaces lit by dormer windows. The galvanised iron roofs are likely to have been shingled originally.
The foundations are of Brisbane tuff and the exterior and party walls are brick on edge ['rats nest' bond], a cheaper form of construction seen occasionally in surviving Brisbane buildings of the 1860s and 1870s, such as the 1863 Callender House [600169] on Wickham Terrace.
The buildings follow the slope down Victoria Street, with the southeastern house higher than its attached neighbour.
Both houses have narrow front verandahs adjacent to the street pavement. These have separate convex galvanised iron roofs, timber posts with replaced fretwork brackets, cast-aluminium balustrading and brick end walls of english bond construction. Timber lattice has been added to the verandah of the higher house.
No.8, the top house and the larger of the two, is comprised of a central brick core with four rooms, an end hallway which leads through the house to an attached kitchen/dining room and bathroom (twentieth century additions), and two attic bedrooms. French doors open from the two front rooms onto the verandah. Internal walls are of brick or vertically jointed pine boards, and cedar doors with fanlights are a feature.
No.12 is a smaller building consisting of two main rooms, attic bedroom, and hallway with a pressed metal ceiling which leads to the rear of the house, where twentieth century kitchen, dining room and bathroom facilities have been added. In 1988 false ceilings were installed in the main rooms to accommodate track lighting, and the house was converted into a gallery, the attic room becoming an artist's studio.
By early 1989 the pair had become a house and gallery/studio with the removal of a section of the brick party wall.
Despite some alteration to both structure and fabric, the former semi-detached houses retain their basic form and materials, present a reasonably intact exterior to the street, and are of a housing type rare in Brisbane.
Allandoon
Allandoon is a small, single-storeyed brick house, rectangular in shape, with a gabled roof of corrugated iron which probably was shingled originally.
The foundations are of Brisbane tuff and the earliest section of the building is constructed of brick on edge ('rats nest' bond), the same technique used in the adjacent semi-detached cottages.
A narrow front verandah, which has a convex corrugated iron roof, timber posts, fretwork brackets, cast-aluminium balustrading and brick end walls of english bond construction, abuts the street pavement.
Internally the house consists of four main rooms opening off a central hallway, with later kitchen, dining and bathroom facilities added at the rear.
The house presents a reasonably intact exterior to the street, and is painted in heritage shades.
","history":"Moody's Cottages were constructed probably in the mid-1870s. They comprise a pair of semi-detached brick houses [Cooee and an unnamed neighbour] and an adjacent, detached brick house [Allandoon].
William Moody, a letter carrier employed by the Brisbane Post Office, acquired subdivisions 23 and 24 of portion 236, parish of North Brisbane, in early 1870. Whether any buildings existed on the site, which Moody had purchased from William John Farmer Cooksley, a Brisbane builder, is not known. Although directories reveal Moody was resident in Brisbane by 1874, he is not listed specifically as living in Victoria Street until 1876.
In September 1874 the property was re-surveyed into three equal resubdivisions by Richard Gailey, licensed surveyor and a leading Brisbane architect, and it is likely that he was the designer of the cottages.
The survey plan was signed by both William Moody and Thomas Spilsbury, a compositor and later Queen Street confectioner, whose purchase of resubdivision 3 from Moody was registered immediately the survey was completed. On this property Spilsbury raised a mortgage of £280, which may have financed the construction of the three houses, in partnership with Moody. The mortgage was released in April 1876, and the resubdivision was resold to Moody in May of the same year.
Little is known of Moody's background which might account for how a postman, promoted to mail sorter in the 1880s, was able to become the owner of three brick houses.
Moody's houses remained the property of his daughters Susannah, Hannah and Margaret Jane until 1949.
Allandoon was renovated in the 1980s, and remains a private residence. In 1988 the semi-detached houses were converted into a house and gallery/studio by well known Brisbane artist Rick Everingham, and the name Cooee is generally applied to the pair.
","criteria":"Moody's Cottages are significant historically as important surviving evidence of the growth of Spring Hill as a dormitory suburb in the 1860s and 1870s, and in particular of the area between Leichhardt Street and Gregory Terrace.
|They are rare Brisbane examples of masonry working class homes of the 1870s, rarer still for their brick and stone construction, brick on edge work, and gable style. They include a rare example of 1870s masonry, semi-detached working class housing in Brisbane.
|They include a rare example of 1870s masonry, semi-detached working class housing in Brisbane.
|The cottages have aesthetic value and are important for their streetscape contribution. They are an integral part of the Victoria and Rogers Streets historical precinct, as identified under the Spring Hill development control plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15090,"place_ref":600315,"name":"Saint Helena Island","alternate_name":"St Helena Island | Nungoon","street_address":"St Helena Island","suburb":"ST HELENA ISLAND","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Helena Island is an island of approximately 182 ha in area, located in Moreton Bay to the east of the Brisbane River mouth. The island is low lying with an elevated portion at the northern end. 'Beach rock', or 'cay sandstone', a coarse conglomerate of quartz and other grains bonded mainly with calcite spar, forms the basis of the island which is ringed by mangroves. A large midden extending across the southern portion of the island is evidence of the island's early use by Aborigines. There are numerous ruins relating to the former quarantine station and prison. Later additions include trees at the landward end of the jetty and a modern tram track.
Although physical evidence for the existence of the gaol and of previous Aboriginal use is scattered across the island, buildings and substantial remains visible above ground are grouped in several areas. These are shown on the accompanying map and are:
A causeway of stepped stone blocks with a rubble core which extends approximately 360 metres into the Bay from the south west corner of the island. A timber jetty extends for some distance beyond the causeway and carries the tram lines. The remains of a bathing enclosure of vertical train lines is near the seaward end of the jetty. Near the landward end of the causeway is wall and rubble from the stone boathouse.
On the western side of the island is the prison compound site with the remains of late nineteenth century gaol buildings. This area also includes underground tanks, sections of stone wall and traces of the tramway route. Substantial remains include those of the stores, a long, single storey gabled structure built of rendered local stone with brick quoins and door and window reveals. A platform of rendered stone used for loading runs along the north western wall of this building, which has four rooms, the largest containing a loading bay. The barred grilles to the windows survive and conservation work has recently been carried out to the stone and brickwork of the walls. It has no roof.
Near the stores is the former blacksmith shop. It is a simple rectangular building of large stone blocks and has gabled ends. Stone walls remain from a small office building, a ward building, a bakehouse, gas house lime house and lumber shed. There as small unidentified structures in the site of C yard and near the bakehouse.
Further towards the shore there is a low flat area that was used for prison animals. The only substantial remains of the complex of yards and buildings is the former fodder shed. It is a rectangular stone building with gabled ends and an iron roof. Concrete floors from the piggeries and several wells can be seen.
To the north of the prison buildings is the Chief Warder's house and its detached kitchen. The house is a weatherboard building and has been fully repaired and reconstructed. The detached timber kitchen has recently been conserved. Both are roofed with corrugated iron sheeting. There is a timber laundry building near the house. The site of warders' cottages, the school and church is on the eastern side of the island.
To the south of the prison compound are the remains of the sugar mill and silos and the remains of tramway earthworks linking them to the main complex and jetty. Further south, near the shore line, is the graveyard. It has been fenced with modern plain timber pickets and has over fifty precast concrete crosses with numbers, rather than names, in four rows. These mark the burials of prisoners. Nearby, in a separate section, are civilian burials of which five headstones stand. Some of the inscriptions are no longer readable. Further west along the shore line is the lime kiln constructed of bricks and large blocks of cay sandstone. Between the kiln and causeway and a little further inland is the quarry used to obtain building stone and the midden is close to this.
","history":"St Helena Island in Moreton Bay contains evidence of both Aboriginal use and a number of structures of stone, brick and timber associated with the operation of a quarantine station and a prison during the period 1865 to 1933.
The name of the island recalls an incident in 1828 regarding an Aborigine nick-named Napoleon for his resemblance to the French general who was exiled on the island of St Helena. 'Napoleon', whose real name was Nugoon, stole an axe from the government stores at Dunwich and was 'exiled' by the authorities on one of the Green Islands, however, he constructed a canoe from materials on the island and returned to Dunwich within days. For many years the name of the island alternated between St Helena and Nugoon, however it was the former which gained official recognition.
During the 1840s and '50s the island was a base for the hunting and processing of dugong for meat and oil, which was valued for medicinal purposes. For some time this business was highly profitable, however due to mismanagement and diminishing supplies of dugong it eventually failed.
In 1865 when a quarantine station was planned, the vegetation of the island was divided between mangrove swamp, scrub land and grass flats. Its isolation made it ideal as a location for a quarantine station. Buildings were designed by Charles Tiffin, Colonial Architect, and construction work commenced in 1865 using labour from the prison hulk 'Proserpine', moored at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The first structure completed was a lock-up for the prisoners working on the island. Work proceeded slowly and by 1867 overcrowding in Brisbane prisons had increased to such an extent that it was decided to convert the proposed quarantine station into a prison and to retain the existing quarantine facilities at Dunwich. Despite this, the island was apparently used for quarantine purposes during this period and at least two graves for unidentified immigrants are within the vicinity of prison burials on the eastern shore of the island. The official prison cemetery is on the southern end of the island.
The first superintendent of the gaol was John McDonald, who served in this post for fifteen years, during which time he did much to establish the prison and its associated activities. The philosophy of prisoner rehabilitation was changing from the earlier ethos of punishment and isolation. The aim was to provide prisoners with a full day of constructive activity and instruction which would equip them with life skills. In addition, the financial strictures of the colony made it desirable for the prison to be as self-sufficient as possible. McDonald showed considerable initiative and perseverance in meeting these demands.
Punishment for defaulting prisoners, though considered less brutal than in many prisons, was still strict and included gagging and shot drill. Flogging was reserved for extreme offences and was eventually replaced by incarceration in underground isolation cells. Under McDonald's care the prison was described by newspaper journalists as being of the highest standard with clean, healthy prisoners engaged in constructive enterprises that provided them with excellent opportunities for self improvement. The aim of self-sufficiency was reflected in the process by which new prison buildings were constructed when they were needed. Plans were prepared by several long-serving prisoners to the requirements of the Superintendent, the government architect not being employed. The materials were obtained on the island when possible. The scrub was not sufficient to meet the demand for building timber, but the island stone and the lime extracted from neighbouring coral reefs provided raw materials for many of the structures. The lime was burned in a kiln constructed on the island by 1869 using bricks and the local stone. Later, when the sugar mill was operational, the lime produced was used for settling the vegetable matter suspended in the sugar syrup.
In 1868 a substantial timber barracks to house approximately 130 prisoners was completed, in addition to the buildings and jetty previously constructed for the quarantine station. A bakehouse, wash house, kitchen, punishment cells and a convalescent ward for sick prisoners were also built. On the rising ground behind these buildings, a large timber structure housed store rooms, doctors rooms, clerks rooms, quarters for twelve military personnel and one officer, and accommodation for ten warders. Also on rising ground, though separate, was a five room cottage for the superintendent in an acre of fenced land. A further area was devoted to growing maize, sugar cane and vegetables for the prison. Fifty acres were cleared with the intention of planting sugar cane. This was to be processed in a sugar refinery on site. A boat house of local stone, a coarse conglomerate, was being constructed near the landing area. It was also planned to construct a church and schoolhouse within the stockade.
One of the most successful early enterprises undertaken on the island was the growing and processing of sugar. McDonald trained himself in the processes involved and the mill was considered something of a wonder in its own right. The crushing rollers were horse-driven and hand fed by the prisoners. The syrup was gravity fed into vats for boiling down and crystallisation. The final product was a fine golden coloured sugar of table quality which was used, not only by other government institutions, but was sold commercially. Both cane and sugar won many awards at the annual International Exhibition. The cane served other useful functions on the island, the trash providing fuel for the warders' fires. The chief disadvantage of the cane crop was the cover it provided for malingerers or absconding prisoners. Following Macdonald's departure in 1882, his successor, Capt. Townley, reduced the acreage on the island to provide only for the prison's needs. This crop was subsequently reduced even further, until in 1890 the prison commenced purchasing sugar from external sources. The sugar mill was converted into a laundry and a herd of dairy cattle was introduced to provide milk, butter and cheese for the prison. A low flat area on the western side of the island was used for pasturing prison animals. It had stables, cowsheds, piggeries, sheep yards and a slaughter house.
The prison continued to expand until, at its peak, it could accommodate approximately 300 prisoners. Townley enforced a more rigid discipline than McDonald and the harsh conditions on the island soon earned St Helena the nicknames of the 'hell-hole of the Pacific' and 'Queensland's Inferno', although the press described it as a model prison. The shark-infested waters of Moreton Bay were a barrier to escape, although this was achieved on a few occasions.
A tramline had been constructed between the prison compound and the jetty in the late 1870s to move goods and raw materials. A series of temporary lines were also laid down and relocated as required to transport everything from laundry to the nightsoil brought from the mainland and buried in trenches on the island in the 1880s. A variety of rolling stock was used over the years including a two-handed pumper vehicle similar to that used on railways. This was eventually superseded by a horse drawn tram car which operated for some thirty years. In the 1930s the tramway fell into disrepair and the rails were removed, although much of the associated earthworks remain.
In 1891 five political prisoners were imprisoned on the island for their role in the Shearers' Strikes of that year. One of these, William Hamilton, was later to become Member of the Legislative Assembly for Gregory, Minister for Mines and President of the Legislative Council of Queensland. He later enjoyed reminding others that he had been incarcerated on St Helena for three years.
By the early twentieth century conditions had changed once more under the superintendence of James Ryan and visitors to the island extolled its virtues at length. It was described as the 'pearl of Moreton Bay' and 'the garden of beauty'. Such descriptions aroused public interest and in 1912 a campaign was mounted by the Moreton Bay League for the closure of the prison and the conversion of the island into a place of public recreation. The Government quashed this movement by announcing plans for a new, more substantial prison on St Helena, but this did not proceed and in 1921 it was decided to close the prison and make the island a prison farm. Most of the inmates were removed to Boggo Road Gaol and those who remained were occupied with the demolition of most of the gaol's infrastructure, including fences, stockade walls, workshops and other buildings. A few buildings were retained, possibly because they continued to be of use to the farm. Much of the material removed was later re-used in other government projects. In 1933 the farm was closed down and the remaining prisoners were transferred to Boggo Road Gaol.
In 1933 the island became the responsibility of Brisbane City Council whose plans for the island included golf courses, landing strips, holiday cabins and tennis courts. Of these, only a dance hall and kiosk were erected and a few trees planted to provide shelter at the picnic area near the wharf. A regular ferry service was supplied to carry people to the island, but the scheme proved uneconomic. In 1939 the Council surrendered its control of the island and a dairy farm was established once more.
In 1979 the island became the first 'historic' National Park in Queensland in recognition of the significance of the island's past and those buildings which remained. The island is now an open air museum and studies have been made of the island's history and of the ruins of the prison. Conservation and reconstruction work has been carried out on the surviving buildings and interpretive signage has been installed. In 1997 the Rotary Club of Wynnum/Manly constructed a tram track between the jetty and the principal group of buildings partially following the route of the old tramline.
","criteria":"St Helena Island is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. It is the earliest attempt in Queensland at providing prison facilities which were essentially self-sufficient and aimed at providing inmates with the opportunity for self-improvement and rehabilitation.
|The remains of the settlement on St Helena Island are rare evidence for the operation of a colonial era prison.
|They have the potential to provide information for the manner in which the island was utilised, the range and diversity of uses during this period being well represented by the remains of structures existing there today.
|St Helena Island is important in demonstrating the characteristics of a penal settlement as, despite the partial demolition of the island's buildings, much remains which demonstrates this function.
|St Helena Island is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. The group of ruined buildings standing against the backdrop of pasture land and interspersed with remnants of the formal gardens once present provides a strong aesthetic statement within the waters of Moreton Bay.
|St Helena Island has a special association with the life of John McDonald, the first Superintendent of the prison and with the works of Charles Tiffin, government architect who designed the first buildings to be constructed on the island. The island is also associated with William Hamilton, MLA and other strike leaders who were imprisoned here as a consequence of their roles in the Shearers' Strike of 1891.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15091,"place_ref":600316,"name":"Vida and Jayne Lahey's House","alternate_name":"Wonga Wallen | Laheys House","street_address":"99 Sir Fred Schonnel Drive","suburb":"ST LUCIA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Vida Lahey's house is a two-storeyed timber building with a shallow gable roof of corrugated iron. The gable ends are clad with shingles and the external walls are clad with weatherboard. The building has a rectangular plan, with the short northern elevation forming the dominant facade, on which the centrally located entrance is defined by a small portico supported by curved side brackets and adorned with simple classical details.
The outstanding quality of the clear finished timber joinery and fittings on the interior of Vida Lahey's house is particularly noteworthy. The internal walls are lined with vertically-jointed boards of first grade timber. Timber boards lining the ceiling are raked to meet the underside of the ceiling joists on the east and west walls of the house. An outstanding feature of the interior is the joists of hoop pine running the full width of the house. Each joist was made from one piece of timber completely free from knots over its long expanse, a rarity today.
Joinery, including a dado rail, architraves, windows and doors, is clear finished timber darker than the lining timber. The bedrooms and bathroom are accessed from a central entrance hall and living room. The kitchen is within the living room, divided by fitted cupboards and shelving of the same high quality timber joinery combining pine and cedar. Other timber fittings designed for the interior include several concealed storage cupboards, a wardrobe and other smaller cupboards. The floor is white beech and the walls hoop pine.
","history":"Vida Lahey's house was originally built for Romeo Lahey above Canungra, on a spur of the Darlington Range and was completed in 1920. Later the house was moved from the outskirts to the Canungra township on the hill above the present Catholic Church and occupied by David and his wife, Jane Jemima Lahey nee Walmsley, and then moved again by Vida and Jayne Lahey in 1946 to its present block in Sir Fred Schonell Drive, St Lucia.
Francis and Alicia Lahey, Vida and Romeo's grandparents, arrived in Australia with eleven children in 1862 from Ireland. They settled on land by Rocky Waterholes Creek, Salisbury, where they commenced farming but found the land unsuitable. In 1870 Francis, with his older sons and some employees, moved to Pimpama, where the rest of the family moved in 1872 after the sale of the first property. In the early 1880s, the sons of Francis Lahey began investigating the establishment of a timber mill on the Canungra Creek. In 1884, David, the youngest son of Francis and Alicia, father of Vida born in 1882 and later Romeo born in 1887, established a saw and planing mill in the sparsely populated Canungra area. The mill flourished for many years and provided employment for the local area which grew rapidly as a result. The Lahey family were responsible for the construction of many significant roads and railways in the Canungra area, sometimes contributing substantial proportions of the construction cost.
Following the extension of the railway from Logan Village to Canungra in 1914, the Laheys' mill at Canungra grew into what was thought to be the largest and best-equipped softwood mill in the southern hemisphere. The Lahey family business continued until 1920 when the mill was bought by the War Service Home Commission who acquired timber mills all over the country to meet the vast housing needs of returned soldiers. The mill was operated only for a few years by the WSHC after which time another firm purchased it. David Lahey remained the manager for many years after the mill was sold.
David Lahey and his wife, Jane, had twelve children, Vida being the first born and Romeo the fourth child. Jane and her children moved to Yeronga, Brisbane in 1899 when David sold the Pimpama property. This move allowed opportunities for further education for both the sons and daughters of the family, whilst David remained in Canungra travelling to Brisbane each weekend. The family is listed at addresses including Yeronglea, between Yeronga and Feez Streets and the Brisbane River at Yeronga, Sidney House, in River Road, Toowong and Greylands, Harts Road at Indooroopilly and then the house David Lahey built alongside Laheys' mill at Corinda, also called Wonga Wallen.
Vida Lahey's house was constructed during a period when the Laheys' owned the mill and frequently built houses for employees in Canungra. The house which was originally positioned on the Darlington Spur was designed by Romeo Lahey, who had completed a town planning course at the University of London in 1919, following his service in the Great War. The house, which was to be known as the Wonga Wallen, was constructed using the family timber in 1920.
His extensive experience with timber milling and natural resources interested Romeo Lahey in the conservation of forests and the need for national; following his father's example he initiated reafforestation in the Canungra district and successfully lobbied for suitable areas to be declared national parks. In 1930 Romeo became the founding president of the National Parks Association of Queensland and was instrumental in the declaration of the Lamington National Park. He bought and named Lone Pine on the Brisbane River, planning to live there after returning from the First World War. Subsequently, the property was sold to Mr C.A.M. Reid who developed it as a nature reserve. In 1946 Romeo was one of the founders for the Save the Tree campaign.
Romeo and his wife Alice Sybil Lahey, nee Delpratt remained living at Wonga Wallen for a short time after their marriage in 1920, after which David and Jemima Lahey moved the house into Canungra near the catholic church for their own use. When David Lahey died in 1942, two years after the death of his wife, he left the house to his two unmarried daughters, Vida and Jayne. The sisters having bought a block of land in what is now Sir Fred Schonell Drive moved the house from Canungra to this site in 1946. Prior to its removal, another sister, Gladys, lived at the house after having nursed her father.
The house was built in the Canungra township with a paved loggia extending along the front of the house, and a separate wing containing the laundry and bathroom facilities which extended along the rear of the house. On its removal to Brisbane, these two elements remained in Canungra and were standing in February 1995, on either side of a more recent house. When moved Wonga Wallen was turned on its side, making the original double front door a side entrance off a new balcony.
Vida Lahey, born in 1882, was a prominent Queensland artist who exhibited widely from 1902 until 1965, three years before her death. She was one of the first female artists in Queensland, and indeed, Australia, who regarded themselves as professionals and who sought to earn a living from practising their art. Vida pioneered art classes for both children and adults in Queensland; and she and Daphne Mayo were responsible for the foundation of the Queensland Art Fund in 1929, which helped to establish an art library and acquire works of art for the state. Vida was awarded the Society of Artists (NSW) Medal in 1945, in appreciation of good services for the advancement of Australian art, the Coronation Medal in 1953 and in 1958 honoured with an MBE for services to art. Vida is known to have painted at least two paintings of the house, Wonga Wallen, Canungra in the late 1930s and Wonga Wallen Loggia at Canungra in the 1940s both in the collection of Ms Shirley Lahey. Another painting, Bedroom at St Lucia with Dobell portrait, c.1961, was painted by Vida in her St Lucia bedroom.
Vida remained at the house until her death in 1968 when the property was transferred to the sole ownership of her sister Jayne who remained there until a few years before her death in 1982 during which time another sister, Mavis Denholm nee Lahey lived in the house. The house was bought from the estate by Ms Iris Conroy in 1984 who subdivided the block and moved the house to one side causing it to be renumbered from 97 to 99 Sir Fred Schonell Drive. This most recent relocation saw the removal of a porch on the eastern side of the building and the house being raised. The ground floor has been filled in to form a garage.
","criteria":"The house is significant for its internal timber work, reflecting the involvement of the Lahey family in the timber industry in south east Queensland.
|Both in workmanship and material, the clear finished timber is outstanding in its quality. It is significant that this timberwork has remained unpainted and in good repair since construction in 1920.
|Vida Lahey's house is significant for its associations with members of the Lahey family who, for varied reasons were important in the history of Queensland. Romeo W. Lahey MBE, who designed the house and originally lived in it, was an early advocate of the Queensland National Parks movement. Romeo's sister Vida, who lived in the house for over twenty years, was an early female artist in Queensland and a key figure in the development of the Queensland Art Gallery and is considered to be one of the most interesting and influential figures in Queensland artistic development. Romeo and Vida's father, David Lahey, together with his brothers, pioneered the timber industry in Canungra encouraging unprecedented growth in the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15092,"place_ref":600317,"name":"Langer House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"396 Swann Road","suburb":"ST LUCIA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The house, a three storeyed masonry and timber structure, is located in a well known suburban street on a small rectangular block with a narrow frontage. The site is a south facing slope that falls steeply away from the street. In the space between the house and the footpath is a single storeyed garage, a covered access to the house and a small walled garden containing a fish pond. On the footpath in front of the house stand a very tall River Gum. Concealed from the street behind the house is a mature rainforest garden.
Rectangular in plan the house spans across the block with minimal setbacks from side boundaries. The walls are constructed of brickwork which has been rendered and painted, floors are built of timber and skillion roofs are sheeted in corrugated asbestos cement. Openings, primarily timber casement windows, are concentrated in the longer northern and southern elevations facilitating illumination and ventilation of the interior while maintaining privacy. The compact plan of the house ensures the maximum amount of garden space on the small site.
The northern facade rises two storeys above the street. Windows on this elevation are protected by protruding window surrounds on the upper level and a masonry projection that forms an awning over ground level openings. A row of ventilator slots is located above the upper level windows. The main roof of the house, concealed behind the parapet wall on the northern elevation, has an overhang onto the roof terrace.
Originally built on two levels, the house now has a third level which has been built into the former undercroft space. The front door of the house opens into an entrance hall containing a timber stair which now extends down to the added lower level. This middle level consists of open planned living spaces. Adjacent to the hall is the kitchen which opens onto a former dining area. A long room, originally divided by a timber screen into living area and study, extends across the back of the house with a fireplace on the eastern end. Timber framed double doors open from the hallway into the long room. The internal timber panelling has been removed and the fireplace, originally exposed brickwork, has been bagged and painted.
The upper level consists of two small bedrooms, a bathroom and a large roof terrace which overlooks the densely planted rear garden. The roof terrace is accessed from the landing at the top of the stairs through double timber doors. Built-in cupboards in the principal bedroom have been painted. A wardrobe designed by Karl Langer remains in the smaller bedroom. Doors which opened from the principal bedroom directly onto the terrace have been replaced with windows.
The former Japanese garden has been altered by the increase to the height of the brick garden wall and the removal of the original planting.
","history":"A vacant block of land on a southern slope in St Lucia was acquired by Karl and Gertrude Langer in 1950 as the site for their new home. The house, a two storeyed brick structure with flat roof designed by Dr Karl Langer was completed in the same year. It remained the home of Karl and Gertrude Langer till their deaths in 1969 and 1984 respectively. Constructed under post war building restrictions, including a floor area limit of 12.5 squares or 13.5 squares if a staircase was incorporated, the design was the product of Karl Langer's research into local climatic issues and his European architectural training.
At the rear of the house a rainforest garden was established, a unique undertaking at that time, using indigenous plants such as ferns, native violets and verbenas, cunjevois, walking stick palms, myrtle bushes, ground orchids and rainforest trees. The front garden, a more formal arrangement with a hedge and fish pond was designed in the Japanese style. Timber furniture designed by Karl Langer in the 1930s was used to furnish the house.
Karl Langer was born in Vienna in 1903 where he lived until emigrating to Australia in 1939 with his wife Gertrude. Karl studied architecture in Vienna most notably in the Master Class run by Peter Behrens at the Viennese Academy graduating in 1926. During this time Karl had worked in the office of Josef Frank, who was to be come well known in Swedish modernism, and later in the office of Schmidt and Aichinger. In 1928 he was appointed the architect in charge of Behrens Vienna office where he designed and supervised important works such as the tobacco factory in Linz, Austria. At this time he also commenced studies in Art History at the Vienna University graduating as a Doctor of Philosophy in 1933 with a thesis entitled "Origins and Development of Concrete Construction". In 1935 Karl established his own practice in Vienna.
Gertrude Froeschel was born in Vienna in 1908. She commenced study in the History of Art at Vienna University in 1926 being taught by Professor Josef Strzygowski and later attended lectures by Henri Focillon at the Sorbonne. In 1932 she married a fellow student Karl Langer graduating the following year on the same night as he with a Doctorate of Philosophy in Art History. In 1938 with the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich, Gertrude who was Jewish, and Karl left Vienna and travelled via Athens to Australia.
Karl and Gertrude arrived in Sydney in May of 1939 proceeding to Brisbane in July so that Karl could commence work for architects Cook and Kerrison. From the time of their arrival until their deaths the Langers dedicated themselves to a great variety of civic and professional activities. Their combined efforts greatly influenced the development of the arts and design in Queensland especially through such organisations as the Queensland Art Gallery Society, the Australian Council for the Arts and the Vacation Schools of Creative Art in which they fulfilled key roles over many years.
Karl became well known throughout Australia shortly after his arrival when his appointment to the position of Assistant Town Planner with the Brisbane City Council in 1944 resulted in a Parliamentary Enquiry. The primary cause for complaint was the appointment of an 'enemy alien' over a returned soldier. The outcome of this enquiry found that Karl Langer was an individual whose talent and experience clearly distinguished him as the most suitable applicant. He was still prevented from taking up the position, as Queensland Railways, his employer, refused to release him invoking wartime manpower regulations. He remained in the service of the Queensland Railways until 1946 when he left to establish his architectural and planning practice in Brisbane. He worked throughout Australia and was the initiator of many influential urban design ideas such as the site for the Sydney Opera House and the pedestrianisation of Queen Street. He was the designer of buildings such as Main Roads Building, Spring Hill; St Peters Chapel, Indooroopilly; Lennons Broadbeach Hotel on the Gold Coast, and worked in the regional centres of Queensland as an architect, town planner and landscape architect.
Karl lectured at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Institute of Technology in design, town planning and landscape architecture. Research carried out when he first arrived in Brisbane pioneered the field of climatic design and resulted in 1944 in the publication of an influential booklet called 'Subtropical Housing'. He was instrumental in establishing, and was the first president of the Brisbane division of the Australian Planning Institute and the Queensland Branch of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.
Gertrude was the art critic for The Courier Mail from 1953 until her death, her last review being published on the day she died, 19 September 1984. She was a foundation member of the International Association of Art Critics and was president of the Association's Australian Division from 1975 to 1978. Through her work with the Gallery Society and her personal donations of art works including drawings by Karl she exerted her influence on the collection of the Queensland Art Gallery.
The house was sold to the present owner after the death of Gertrude Langer. Alterations were subsequently made to the interior and a third level was added.
","criteria":"It is an excellent example of the invigorating contribution to Australian culture made by 20th century migrants.
|The Langer House at St Lucia survives as a fine example of the work of the important and influential architect Karl Langer.
|Through the decorative restraint evident in the facade detailing and composition, and the efficient but spacious planning of the house, Langer introduced to Brisbane aesthetic ideals and social concerns drawn from his experience of European modernism.
|It is an inventive and pioneering solution to the problem of domestic design in Brisbane under post-Second World War building restrictions.
Karl Langer's original observations of local climate and landscape led to the incorporation of climatic design principles and an innovative approach to garden design including experimental gardening in the Japanese style and the suburban rainforest garden.
|The home of Gertrude and Karl Langer from 1950 until their deaths, the house and garden are the creation and embodiment of a partnership which had a significant impact on cultural life in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15094,"place_ref":600319,"name":"Mactaggarts Woolstore (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"53 Vernon Terrace","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Sited along the river's edge, on the corner of Vernon Terrace and Commercial Rd, Mactaggarts is a prominent building within the Woolstores group. The building is a substantial, rectangular three-storeyed parapeted brick building with uniform fenestration. Externally Mactaggarts contributes to the Woolstores townscape. Internally, it is the most intact building in the woolstores group, retaining expansive areas of unpartitioned space, and intact fittings. The upper floor has impressive spatial qualities.
","history":"The former Mactaggart's Woolstore was erected in 1926 for the New Zealand Loan & Mercantile Agencies Company. Mactaggarts was one of some sixteen woolstores erected in the first half of this century along the river at Teneriffe. From the mid 1960s the woolstores and their associated wharves were in decline, with many of the woolstores being sold as development sites. Finally in 1990, in recognition of the downscaling of industry in the area, the Bulimba branch of the railway was closed.
","criteria":"Mactaggarts Woolstore forms part of the Teneriffe Woolstore group, one of the most cohesive groupings of mercantile buildings in Queensland. The woolstores are powerful evidence of both the importance of the wool industry to the state and the development of its marketing from the turn of the century. The supporting transport infrastructure played an important role in the development of Teneriffe as the woolstore centre; the rail and river links providing evidence of the role of Brisbane as a port for the state's industries.
|Mactaggarts is one of several woolstores built during the 1920s, the second phase of woolstore building in the area, and is typical of the type.
|It contains an impressive skylit upper floor and its interior is the most intact of the woolstores group. It is the last remaining woolstore situated directly on the riverbank.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15095,"place_ref":600320,"name":"Australian Estates No.2 Store","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24 Macquarie Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Australian Estates Co. Ltd No 2 Woolstore, which is built into the side of Teneriffe Hill, comprises four floors, in two sections with expansion joins to allow for climatic changes. It was erected during the Postwar era and is International in architectural style. Several features suggest significant deviations in woolstore design and construction during this last phase of development at Teneriffe.
","history":"Australian Estates purchased most of the homes on the site between 1955 and 1959. With the advent of their modern woolstore, the company utilised the top floor as their main showroom rather than their adjacent 1920s building (QHR 600321). In 1978 the property was sold to Service Nominees, one of the Mayfairs group of companies. All floors of the building are currently leased. The property is zoned by the Brisbane City Council's Development Plan (1986) for residential use.
","criteria":"Australian Estates No 2 woolstore is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects important developments, technological features and marketing procedures in Queensland's wool industry, as well as the history of commerce along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral company concerned. Built at the end of the affluent fifties when wool prices were high and 'Australia rode on the sheep's back', the company showed confidence in the economic future.
|In form and fabric, this structure is a rare example of the broad class of brick, concrete and steel woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool industry after the war; it was also the last of the labour-intensive, multi-storeyed woolstores in Australia.
|In keeping with one other woolstore of similar vintage (600324), this illustrates particularly well the final postwar stage of development in an industrial process and associated building form which are now superseded; though more so since this was the only Queensland store to employ large wool bale modules and fully utilise 1950s technology, and as the only woolstore to rely exclusively on road transport.
|This structure also has considerable visual impact due to its substantial form and International style, including the recessed corner entrance and expressed concrete frame.
Though similar in function to earlier woolstores, this one is significantly different in style and detail.
|In keeping with one other woolstore of similar vintage (600324), this illustrates particularly well the final postwar stage of development in an industrial process and associated building form which are now superseded; though more so since this was the only Queensland store to employ large wool bale modules and fully utilise 1950s technology, and as the only woolstore to rely exclusively on road transport.
|That this woolstore, with its significant pastoral and business connections, is a valued asset and a local landmark along the riverside has been recognised by its inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15096,"place_ref":600321,"name":"Australian Estates No.1 Store","alternate_name":"Australian Estates No.1 Wool Store | Australian Estates No.1 Wool Store | Saratoga","street_address":"50 Macquarie Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Australian Estates Co. Ltd No 1 Woolstore with 4.5 acres (1.98 hectares) of floor space is the largest single store in the Teneriffe precinct. It is a three-storey brick and timber structure of the Interwar era with restrained Renaissance detail. In keeping with other woolstores and commercial buildings of this period, a tripartite division of base, shaft and entablature is apparent in its functional form.
Its red brick piers and triple window openings separated by downpipes provide a strong degree of verticality. Nevertheless the dominant emphasis above and below the upper floors is horizontal. This is achieved by means of a cornice line surmounted by a rendered frieze displaying the company name and 'erected 1926', and a parapet of decorative brickwork. A prominent string course separates upper levels from the ground floor. However, the base of this building is distinguished more by its piers and openings which provide a covered way for the railway line and loading bays beneath a wide frontal projection. Its angular appearance is ameliorated by a curved and columned entrance porch and balcony which protrude from the southern corner.
As usual for woolstores in Teneriffe, the ground floor is concreted, while the upper floors employ timber posts, beams and flooring and the roof of this building is of corrugated asbestos and reinforced glass. To ensure sufficient level ground for the construction of this store, extensive excavations were carried out and a 64 feet (19.5 metres) high retaining wall of reinforced concrete constructed. Rather than a rear awning for road transport, there is a tunnel running under through the width of the building reducing the ground floor area by 20,000 square feet (1,800 square metres). Inside the front entrance are a passenger elevator and timber stairs providing access to other floors. The second floor includes the usual woolstore offices and client facilities constructed of tongue and groove timber surmounted by opaque glass panels. The showroom on the top floor has square vents with timber louvers beneath the windows, and the customary sawtooth roof which is supported by three rows of tubular metal columns and is aligned from east to west for optimum lighting. Fire protection was provided from the beginning by a complete system of fire alarms. Overhead walkways from Level 2 form a link to the Australian Estates No 2 woolstore on the south (600320) and Elder Smith on the north (600322).
","history":"Part of the site (lot 3) of the Australian Estates No 1 woolstore was purchased originally in 1847 by the Government Resident, Captain John Clements Wickham. The property passed through the hands of several important companies, namely the Brisbane Stevedoring & Wool Dumping Co. Ltd by 1907, Moreheads Ltd in 1914 and the Union Trustee Co. of Australia until 1961, when it was acquired by Australian Estates.
The other part (lot 4) was purchased by the Financial Guarantee & Agency Co. of Queensland in 1888, and acquired by the Australian Estate & Mortgage Co. by 1926. The design was by Montague Talbot Stanley, a Queensland architect and structural engineer, with the construction by the Stuart Bros of Sydney.
When officially opened in 1927 by the Duke and Duchess of York, this woolstore had the largest showroom in Australia, being capable of displaying 24,000 bales. For this reason it was the venue for the vice-regal Ball in honour of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in 1934. In 1978 the property was acquired by Service Nominees (Qld) Pty Ltd, which belongs to the Mayfairs group of companies, and leased in 1980 to Chevron Discount Furnishers for bulk storage and furniture display.
It is now part of the Wool Store furniture complex in conjunction with the adjacent Elder Smith building (QHR 600322) and Australian Estates No 2 (QHR 600320). This property is zoned in the Brisbane City Council's Teneriffe Development Plan (1986) for residential or continuation of current usage.
","criteria":"The Australian Estates No 1 woolstore is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects important developments, technological features and marketing procedures in Queensland's wool industry since the 1920s as well as the history of quayage along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral companies concerned.
|(Criterion under review)
|In form and fabric, this structure is an excellent example of the broad class of brick and timber woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool industry.
In company with two other woolstores of similar vintage (600319, 600322), it illustrates particularly well the 1920s stage of development in an industrial process which is now redundant.
|This Interwar structure also has considerable visual impact due to its substantial form, cohesive design and Renaissance detail, particularly the decorative parapet, frontal colonnade and covered railway siding.
|Its special combination of function and style was achieved by MT Stanley, who was a fellow of the Queensland Institute of Architects by 1900 and the son of FDG Stanley. He was also architect for the adjacent Elder Smith Woolstore (600322).
|That this woolstore, with its links to important pastoral companies and royal occasions, is a valued asset and a riverside landmark, has been recognised by its inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15097,"place_ref":600322,"name":"Elder Smith Woolstore","alternate_name":"Elder Smith Wool Store | Ansonia","street_address":"64 Macquarie Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Elder Smith & Co. Woolstore is a stylish three-storey brick and timber structure of the Interwar era with restrained Renaissance detail. In keeping with other woolstores and commercial buildings of this period, a tripartite division of base, shaft and entablature is apparent in its functional form.
Constructed in red brick, its arched piers and triple window openings separated by downpipes provide a strong degree of verticality. Nevertheless the dominant emphasis above and below the upper floors is horizontal. This is achieved by means of a string course surmounted by a rendered frieze displaying the company name and obtrusive post and balustrade parapeting with recessed arched pediments. Another string course separates the upper levels from the ground floor. However, the base of this building is distinguished more by the open arches of its colonnade which provides a covered way for the railway line and loading bays beneath a wide frontal projection. Striking parapet features are the corbelled machicolations and mock turrets.
As usual for woolstores in Teneriffe, the ground floor is concreted and the upper flooring is heavily timbered with posts, beams and joists, the latter being cross-braced by herringbone struts. Internal timber staircases at the front corners and the original Johns and Waygood passenger lift near the entrance lead to the upper floors. Level 2 walkways connected Australian Estates No 1 and Goldsbrough Mort to this structure, but the latter walkway has been removed. The showroom on the top floor has square ventilators with wooden louvers beneath the windows, and the customary sawtooth roof, which is supported by tubular metal columns and aligned from east to west for optimum lighting. The roof is constructed of corrugated asbestos and reinforced glass.
","history":"The site of the Elders Smith woolstore has had several important owners, including the Government Resident, Captain John Clements Wickham, in 1847 and James Gibbon of Teneriffe House. The first building constructed on the site in 1926 was the Moreheads woolstore, the design being by Montague Talbot Stanley, a Queensland architect and structural engineer, with the construction by the Stuart Bros of Sydney.
Queensland pastoralist, businessman and politician, Boyd Dunlop Morehead (1843-1905) founded BD Morehead & Co. in association with AB Buchanan in 1873. This was a prominent mercantile business and stock and station agency, of which Morehead was the chairman of directors. Moreheads was largely responsible for the inaugurating of the Brisbane wool auctions in 1898. Moreheads Ltd continued operating until 1961 when taken over by Elders, one of the three remaining pastoral houses in Australia.
Oxlade Investments, which belongs to the Mayfairs group of companies, purchased the property in 1983 and all three floors have subsequently been utilised by the Wool Store furniture centre in conjunction with the Australian Estates No 1 building next door (QHR 600321) and Australian Estates No 2 (QHR 600320).
","criteria":"The Elder Smith woolstore is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects important developments, technological features and marketing procedures in Queensland's wool industry since the 1920s as well as the history of quayage along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral companies concerned.
|(Criterion under review)
|In form and fabric, this structure is an excellent example of the broad class of brick and timber woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool industry.
In keeping with two other woolstores of similar vintage (600319, 600321), it illustrates particularly well the 1920s stage of development in an industrial process which is now redundant.
|This structure also has considerable visual impact due to its substantial form and unusual design, particularly the internal railway siding, repeated arches and pedimented parapet.
|Its special combination of function and style, particularly the railway siding colonnade, was achieved by MT Stanley, who was a fellow of the Queensland Institute of Architects by 1900 and the son of FDG Stanley. He was also the architect responsible for the adjacent Australian Estates No 1 Woolstore (600321).
|That this woolstore, with its significant pastoral and business connections, is a valued asset and a riverside landmark, has been recognised by its inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15098,"place_ref":600323,"name":"Goldsbrough Mort Woolstore","alternate_name":"Goldsbrough Mort Wool Store | Dakota","street_address":"88 Macquarie Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Goldsbrough Mort & Co. Ltd No 2 woolstore is a four-storey brick and timber structure with a symmetrical facade and restrained decoration. The northern end is built into the steep Teneriffe hillside. Constructed during the Interwar era, its recessed central section is separated by slightly projecting bays on either side. In keeping with other woolstores and commercial buildings of this period, a tripartite division of base, shaft and entablature is apparent in its functional form.
The store's projecting frontal bays, red brick piers and triple window openings separated by downpipes provide a degree of verticality. Nevertheless the dominant emphasis above and below the upper floors is horizontal. This is achieved by means of a strong cornice line, which is surmounted by brick bands and a rendered frieze displaying the company name and construction date between moulded merino sheep heads. This is topped by an emphatic parapet with notched and curved gable pediments as well as flagpoles above the projecting bays. The upper levels are distinguished from the ground floor base line by a straight corrugated iron awning supported by iron rods which shelters the railway siding and loading bays.
Though the main entrance is at the southern end near Beeston Street, a second ornate entrance in the righthand front bay has greek columns and steps that lead through multi-panelled central-opening doors to office accommodation. Since the load born by each ascending floor lessens, so do the supporting walls, piers and corbels. As usual the ground floor is concreted and wool bale storage modules on the first two levels are defined by solid timber posts and beams.
Tubular steel posts are employed on the third level, while the top floor utilised steel ties to truss the vertical section of the sawtooth roof, thereby achieving a span of 30 metres which required only a central row of steel columns. The showroom also has square vents with timber louvers beneath the windows, and the customary sawtooth roof aligned from east to west for optimum lighting.
","history":"The site was part of the Teneriffe hillside alienated in 1854 by James Gibbon, a prominent local resident, land investor and later member of the legislative council. Subsequent landowners include the Financial Guarantee & Agency Co. of Queensland Ltd and the Brisbane Stevedoring & Wool Dumping Co. Ltd. Goldsbrough Mort, a prosperous southern-based pastoral house (est. 1888), opened its first Queensland office in Rockhampton, followed by Brisbane in the early 1910s.
The Teneriffe property of 1 acre 3 roods (7,000 square metres) was purchased in 1922. For about £17,000 the Stuart Brothers built this small woolstore, the first known structure on this site, thereby taking advantage of the 1933 buoyant wool prices and labour market following the depths of the great depression. Beeston Street, which separates the Goldsbrough Mort and Elder Smith stores, had been put through in 1927 and named after Joseph Beeston, the longstanding company secretary of Dath Henderson & Co. Ltd earlier in the century.
The property was acquired by Elders in 1963 and by Oxlade Investments, of the Mayfairs group of companies, in 1984. Elders leased the whole of the building in 1985 and used the ground floor for offices and their rural merchandise store. The third level was used for wool sorting by Brisbane Classing Facilities. The ground floor office is currently occupied by Chevron Discount Furnishers and part of the first floor is rented for the storage of office records. The property is zoned in the Brisbane City Council's Teneriffe Development Plan (1986) for residential or market retail purposes.
","criteria":"The Goldsbrough Mort woolstore is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects important developments, technological features and marketing procedures in Queensland's wool industry since the 1930s as well as the history of commerce along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral companies concerned.
|In keeping with two other woolstores of similar vintage (600325, 601072), this illustrates particularly well the 1930s stage of development in an industrial process which is now redundant; it is also the only remaining Goldsbrough Mort woolstore in Queensland.
|In form and fabric, this structure is an excellent example of the broad class of brick and timber woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool industry.
In keeping with two other woolstores of similar vintage (600325, 601072), this illustrates particularly well the 1930s stage of development in an industrial process which is now redundant; it is also the only remaining Goldsbrough Mort woolstore in Queensland.
|This structure also has considerable visual impact due to its substantial form and attractive Interwar design, especially its balanced pedimented bays.
|That this woolstore, with its significant pastoral and business connections, is a valued asset and a local landmark, has been recognised by its inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15099,"place_ref":600324,"name":"Teneriffe Village (former Paddys Market)","alternate_name":"No 8 Woolstore | Dalgety & Co. Ltd No 3 Woolstore, Queensland Primary Producers | Wool Store No 8","street_address":"110 Macquarie Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Paddy's Market is a five-storeyed, brick-clad, steel-framed building which has an irregular shape to suit the site.
A strong horizontal emphasis is achieved by means of rows of windows with concrete sunshades. The building has exposed concrete at the head of the windows with most projecting. Timber framed hopper windows are arranged in two and three panels wide. Some sections have two windows with a louvre section below. Sections of the top floor are four panes high. The ground floor is a mixture of windows and openings, many of which were loading bays originally, in a less regular pattern than the upper floors.
An exhaust duct of galvanised steel extends along the Macquarie Street facade up the length of the building and exhausts above the parapet. A similar duct is on the north side of the building. Also along part of the Macquarie Street facade, terracotta tiles extend from ground level up to the projecting concrete above the head.
The top of the large parapet is a rendered capping. On the west side parapet is the lettering Queensland Primary Producers Woolstores No.8.
The roof of the building has a sawtooth structure with south lights which are not at right angles to the facade of the building. This sawtooth roof, from which the top floor showroom is suffused with light, is usual in woolstore construction.
The internal structure is reinforced concrete floors and steel columns, with a series of trusses supporting the sawtooth roof. It is understood that the river frontage necessitated piers to 28 metres below ground level. Each floor is over 4000 square metres in area.
The ceiling is lined with hardboard and internal brickwork is painted. One lift is located on the south side and a goods lift on the north side. A series of fire escape stairs are throughout the building with one constructed on the footpath on the east side.
Like some Interwar woolstores, a rail siding was accommodated internally on the ground floor. Office accommodation was provided on the ground, first and third floors, access being gained by means of an elevator and concrete stairs.
As Paddy's Market, the ground floor and sections of the first to third floors of the building have been partitioned for a variety of stalls. The showroom floor is occupied by a large fabric cash and carry enterprise.
Of the original equipment, three wool elevators, three wool drops and five wool chutes have been removed, but the original passenger lift survives. Also removed were the internal rail lines, office accommodation and other items associated with the woolstore. A connecting walkway to the former Dalgety Wool Dumping & Grain Store is no longer extant.
","history":"Paddy's Market was erected in 1955-57 as the new No 3 woolstore for the well-known pastoral firm of Dalgety & Co. Ltd. It was the second last store to be erected in the Teneriffe woolstore precinct, and the last in Dalgety's complex, which included a wharf and a wool dumping and grain store. As with earlier woolstores in the Teneriffe area, the building's function was to store and show Queensland wool, sales being conducted at the Wool Exchange in the Brisbane central business district. Like earlier woolstores, the top floor was occupied by a single large showroom, where buyers could examine the wool at leisure under suffusive natural lighting.
The site was owned from 1883 to 1906 by Queensland Brewery Ltd (later Carlton United), manufacturers of Brisbane's popular Bulimba Beer. By 1890 the company had established a brewery at the end of Florence Street, which at the time did not extend to Macquarie Street. In 1906 the woolstore site was sold to Dalgety & Co. Ltd, which built on this and adjacent land from 1906-07 onwards. Dalgetys were the first pastoral company to move into Teneriffe, which in the 1910s and 1920s developed as Brisbane's principal woolstore precinct, to which wool was railed and shipped from all over Queensland, awaiting auction by the large pastoral companies like Dalgety's which dominated the wool industry.
Three major factors shaped this development: the presence of a railway, the availability of deep river wharfage, and the expansion of primary industry in Queensland.
In 1897 the Colonial Sugar Refinery and its wharf were constructed south of Merthyr Road, along with the Bulimba branch railway line connecting the refinery to the main network. Convenient bulk transport was crucial for the movement of wool from distant properties to the woolstores, rail being the cheapest means of bringing the product in for storage until it was shipped out some time after sale. Until the construction of Dalgety's large wharf and first woolstore (1906-07) at Teneriffe, bales were stored in bondstores scattered around Brisbane. Following Dalgety's move into the area, five more stores were erected in Teneriffe during the wool boom between 1909 and 1915, and the excellent wool years and building boom between 1924 and 1925 were responsible for another five, at an outlay of some £3,000,000. During the early 1930s, when wool contributed 50 percent of Queensland's total exports, Brisbane averaged ten wool sales a year, and two more stores were built. Four were added during the 1940s, but these were not as substantial, and only one had a showroom. The wool boom of the 1950s occasioned the construction of the final two woolstores in Teneriffe: Dalgety's new No 3 Store, and Australian Estates Co. Ltd No 2 Store (1957) in Macquarie Street (QHR 600320).
When Florence Street was extended through to Macquarie Street early in 1955, Dalgetys demolished their No 3 single-storey corrugated iron store and No 4 two-storey single brick woolstore. These were replaced in 1955-57 by the present brick building. Jack Michod, Dalgety's Queensland Wool manager, was very involved in the design, in particular regarding natural lighting, floor room spacing and an innovative chute control system. These technological and operational features reflected new marketing procedures in Queensland's wool industry during the boom of the 1950s.
From the mid-1960s, changing economic pressures, the advent of containerism, technological advances in core sampling of wool, and improved breeding standards, caused the wool industry to change to single-level storage, labour-saving methods and computer trading, few of which were feasible at Teneriffe. The pastoral company which was the first to move into the Teneriffe area was also the first to move out. In 1961 Dalgety & Co. Ltd merged with New Zealand Loan & Mercantile Agency Co. Ltd, and as Dalgety & New Zealand Loan Ltd, in 1964 built a new wool centre at Rocklea, selling the redundant Teneriffe No 3 woolstore to Queensland Primary Producers.
From the mid-1960s, the importance of the Teneriffe facilities to the Queensland wool industry slowly declined, and the Teneriffe wharves, having failed to keep pace with technological changes, and lacking sufficient depth for container vessels, were supplanted in 1977-78 by the Port of Brisbane Authority's new river-mouth facilities at Fisherman's Island.
Since the mid-1970s, many of the former woolstores at Teneriffe have been recycled for office, storage and retail purposes. In 1984 Primaries transferred their No 8 Woolstore to 'Paddy' John Stephens, who established a market trading centre in the building. As Paddy's Market, the place has become a popular Brisbane shopping and tourist venue.
","criteria":"Paddy's Market is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, illustrating that the importance of the Teneriffe wool handling facilities to the Queensland wool industry was sustained well into the mid-20th century, as well as highlighting operational and marketing procedures employed in Queensland's wool industry during the boom of the 1950s. Paddy's Market remains an integral element of the most cohesive group of woolstores in Australia, illustrating the development of the Queensland wool industry from the early 1900s to the 1950s.
|This group remains as rare surviving evidence of an industry upon which much of the wealth of Queensland (and of Australia) was built. Paddy's Market also has rarity value as one of only two Teneriffe woolstores illustrating the final postwar stage of development in an industrial process and associated building form which are now superseded, including the orientation of the south-facing roof trusses in relation to the building.
|Paddy's market is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the broad class of brick, concrete and steel woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool industry after the Second World War, but which illustrates a continuity of traditional elements and form in the materials and style of the 1950s.
|The building is part of a group of woolstores which have formed a landmark along the Brisbane River for many years, and for over a decade has had a special social association for the Queensland community as Paddy's Market.
|(Criterion under review)
|The building is part of a group of woolstores which have formed a landmark along the Brisbane River for many years, and for over a decade has had a special social association for the Queensland community as Paddy's Market.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15100,"place_ref":600325,"name":"Queensland Primary Producers No 4 Woolstore (Commercial House)","alternate_name":"Commercial House","street_address":"16 Skyring Terrace","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Queensland Primary Producers Cooperative Association No 4 Woolstore, formerly Sturmfels Primary Co-operative Association Ltd, is a three-storey brick and timber warehouse which was mostly built during the 1930s. Though developed in three stages, the first and last stage being along the curved frontage, the design is quite cohesive. This was achieved by working around the initial structure which was then pulled down and the interior rebuilt. Constructed largely of variegated reddish toned bricks in a restrained Art Deco style, it implements the common tripartite division of base, shaft and entablature in its functional form.
One third of the way along from Commercial Road is a slightly projecting mock tower with a small stepped pediment, which in addition to the long window openings and box downpipes, provides a degree of verticality. Nevertheless the overwhelming emphasis is horizontal, mainly due to a series of strikingly rendered bands - wide ones delineating each floor above a row of windows, narrow ones beneath each row, and three narrow bands separating the inscribed company name across the broad stepped parapet. The upper levels are distinguished from the ground floor base line by darker bricks, but more so by the straight awning which shelters the railway siding and loading bays with their steel protective plates and inground tracks.
Whereas stages 1 and 2 use Queensland hardwood for joists and beams, stage 3 employs oregon. The former external double-brick wall delimits stages 1 and 3 on the ground and first floors, while the top showroom floor is one vast expanse with a forest of tubular metal poles. The showroom also has square vents with timber louvers beneath the windows, and the customary sawtooth roof aligned from east to west for optimum lighting. This floor never contained a diningroom, as the Primaries No 1 store provided this facility for clients next door. Nevertheless it was equipped with the usual array of bale elevators and wool chutes.
The original office area was on the second floor of stage 1. Today much of the ground and first floors have been converted into modern offices by Mayfairs. They use the main entrance near the Commercial Road end. However, a grand foyer, exposing the oregon posts of stage 3, with a modern timber staircase and commissioned paintings of pastoral scenes, has been created in the centre of the building.
","history":"The site was alienated by settler Daniel Skyring in 1845 and subdivided amongst his sons in 1882; hence the name when the Skyring Road Act resumed some of the land in 1884. In about 1907 Frederic E Sturmfels started his own woolbroking and stock and station agency at Oxley and Sturmfels Ltd began acquiring land at Teneriffe. By 1910 the company had erected a woolstore on the corner of Skyring Terrace and Helen Street.
More land was acquired in 1927 and the firm changed its name in 1932 to Sturmfels Primary Producers Co-operative Association Ltd. Stage 1 of the existing woolstore was built on the corner of Skyring Terrace and Commercial Road by 1937. Stage 3 replaced the original Sturmfels woolstore and was built after Sturmfels Primary Producers Co-operative Agency Ltd amalgamated with Queensland Primary Producers Co-operative Association Ltd in 1941.
On the opposite side of Helen Street was one of the most distinctive of the associated woolstores, Primary Producers No 1. Primaries No 2, 5, 6 and 7 were in Commercial Road and Helen Street. In 1976 the No 4 woolstore was transferred to Oxlade Investments. Renamed Commercial House, it was acquired to store cars 'at grass' and became the head office for the Mayfairs group of companies which owns five other woolstores (QHR 600320, 600321, 600322, 600323, 600326). All of these properties are zoned in the Brisbane City Council's Teneriffe Development Plan (1986) for a mixture of residential, commercial, light industrial, service and tourist recreation purposes.
","criteria":"The Queensland Primary Producers No 4 woolstore is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects important developments, technological features and marketing procedures in Queensland's wool industry since the late 1930s as well as the history of commerce along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral companies concerned.
|(Criterion under review)
|In form and fabric, this structure is an excellent example of the broad class of brick and timber woolstores which were built in Australian ports, to serve the wool industry.
In keeping with two other woolstores of similar vintage (600323, 601072), this illustrates particularly well the 1930s stage of development in an industrial process and associated building form which is now redundant; it is also the site of one of the earliest Teneriffe woolstores, and one of two stores formerly owned by the only remaining Queensland pastoral house.
|This structure also has considerable visual impact due to its substantial form and Interwar Art Deco style, which is unique amongst Teneriffe woolstores.
|That this store, with its significant pastoral and business connections, is a valued asset and a local landmark, has been recognised by its inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15101,"place_ref":600326,"name":"Winchcombe Carson Woolstores","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"54 Vernon Terrace","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The three Winchcombe Carson Ltd Woolstores are sited on a block bounded by Vernon Terrace and Ethel, Florence and Dath Streets within the Teneriffe woolstore precinct (601030).
No 1 facing Vernon Terrace is an imposing four-storey building with shallow arched sash windows and a substantial parapet. Constructed during the Federation era, its recessed red brick sections are separated by slightly projecting bays at the centre and sides. These are finished in contrasting white render, quoined at the corners and topped by a form of dutch gable pediment. The date '1911' and 'Wool Store' are inscribed on the central pediment and the name of the company spans the parapet. Each column of windows per rendered bay is surmounted by a modelled voussoir and keystone arch, while those in the red brick sections are linked to the heavily moulded cornice by means of a stucco keystone. While implementing the common tripartite division of base, shaft and entablature, this decorative treatment of the facade is more evocative of English country houses in the Queen Anne period than a waterfront warehouse with a floor area of nearly 3.5 acres (1.5 hectares) and capacity for 20,000 bales of wool.
A base of dark glazed bricks runs the length of the structure, its horizontal line enhanced by a corrugated iron awning with wooden supports and diagonal metal bracing which shelters the railway siding and loading bays, some of which are arched. An unusual feature of this store are double doors which slide into the brick walls, their width determined by the size of a wool bale. A decoratively moulded central doorway leads into the main entrance foyer and offices which are timber panelled. A large passenger lift complemented by a modern timber staircase provides access to the next level. As usual for woolstores built before the First World War, the hardwood upper floors are supported by massive timber posts and braced by herring-boned struts, while the ground floor is concrete.
The showroom on the top floor has the customary sawtooth roof aligned from east to west for optimum lighting. However, this expanse is distinguished by a forest of slender octagonal columns with fretwork brackets, capitals and strings which support the roof of vertical glass and oblique tongue and groove lining. This floor also retains its panelled diningroom, changingroom, telephone booths and other client facilities, as well as lifts and chutes. The rear window openings have been enlarged to connect this top floor with others in the adjacent buildings.
The two subsequent Winchcombe Carson woolstores have their own entrances and are brick built, but are three-storey and less decorative. No 2 has tubular steel columns on the top floor, arched windows and louvred ventilator openings. Though connected to the rear of the Vernon Street store, it has an internal loading bay running between Ethel and Dath Streets for road transport. The third woolstore, which was completed in the 1950s, faces Ethel Street.
","history":"The first Winchcombe Carson building is the oldest extant woolstore in the Teneriffe precinct. Frederick Earle Winchcombe purchased some of the land himself in February 1910, while the remaining homes along the Vernon Terrace frontage were obtained by the company. The building was designed by noted Brisbane architect Claude Chambers.
The Stuart Bros of Sydney built No 1 during 1910-11 and in 1934 were responsible for the rear addition. As the company continued to expand with the wool industry, the adjacent land was acquired by 1955, so that a third store was built and allowance made for yet another. In 1979 Winchcombe Carson merged with Dalgety Australia in Queensland and NSW to form Dalgety Winchcombe. As Dalgetys had moved into a single-floor less labour-intensive complex at Rocklea, the Winchcombe Carson stores were no longer required.
Keita Pty Ltd which belongs to the Mayfairs group of companies, acquired the entire property in 1981. The ground floor is used for commercial and storage purposes, the second and third floors are the RACQ storage depot and the top floors are vacant. Under the Brisbane City Council's Teneriffe Development Plan (1986) the woolstores are designated for a mix of residential and low-intensity non-residential uses, including tourist facilities.
","criteria":"This complex of three Winchcombe Carson woolstores is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects several developmental stages in the economic history of the wool industry, modifications in technology and changes in marketing as well as the history of quayage along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral companies concerned.
|(Criterion under review)
|In form and fabric, these structures are excellent examples of the broad class of woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool industry. In particular there is a significant parallel in appearance between the showroom of the first Teneriffe store (1911) and the Winchcombe Carsons Woolstore No 2 at Ultimo in NSW (1880s, demolished 1974).
In addition the building facing Vernon Terrace is the oldest and a most intact woolstore remaining in the Teneriffe precinct, and well illustrates the earliest stage of development in an industrial process which is now redundant.
|This woolstore [No. 1] also has considerable visual impact due to its particularly attractive Federation era design.
|Its [No. 1 woolstore] special combination of function and style was achieved by Claude Chambers, a founding member and subsequent president of the Queensland Institute of Architects who also designed warehouse/ commercial buildings for RS Exton & Co., Henry Berry & Co and Finney Isles & Co..
|That the Winchcombe Carson woolstores, with all their pastoral connotations, are a valued asset and riverside landmark, has been recognised by their inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15102,"place_ref":600327,"name":"Australian Mercantile Land & Finance Woolstores","alternate_name":"London Woolstore","street_address":"34 Vernon Terrace","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The original Australian Mercantile Land & Finance Co. Ltd Woolstore (AML&F) is a Federation era, four storey, brick and timber warehouse capable of storing 14,000 wool bales. The common architectural division of base, shaft and entablature is evident in its design and function.
Horizontal rows of multipaned windows are subsidiary in overall effect to the vertical lines of quoined piers which separate the window columns. These piers are decoratively composed of cream coloured bricks alternating at every fourth row with a band of darker hue. Contrasting bricks are also patterned throughout the window columns. The twelve-paned sash windows have shallow arched heads, the top row featuring a brick keystone. They are unusual in being designed to pivot for maximum light and ventilation. An elaborate moulded cornice is surmounted by a simple but dominant rendered-brick parapet displaying the company name in bold lettering and hiding the sawtooth roof behind. A straight corrugated iron awning suspended by iron rods over the railway siding and loading bays emphasises the base of the Vernon Terrace facade.
Around the truncated corner in Ethel Street, the main pedestrian entrance of the original building is highlighted by means of a semi-circular porch with a rendered arch. Further along Ethel Street a set of ornate brick gateposts provide road access to awninged loading bays and a two storey woolstore at the rear, with a similar facade to the original building. An overhead walkway connects the two stores.
The showroom on the top floor has the customary sawtooth roof aligned from east to west for optimum lighting. This expanse is distinguished by the roof ventilators and tongue and groove lining and is supported by steel posts which had 1 metre timber cowls around their base. The top floor also retains its panelled refreshment and dressing rooms. Other unusual features of this wool store are the use of twin bearers to which the posts were bolted, rather than the usual capitals, and the several sets of stairs that include turned newel posts.
","history":"AML&F, an English-Australian company incorporated in 1863, had offices in London, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane by 1910 when its Vernon Terrace land was purchased. The company employed leading architect Robin S. Dods and builders Walls & Juster to create an elegant but functional woolstore during 1912, thereby taking advantage of the 1910s boom in wool. The original Hall & Dods architectural plans included a second store, which was built in about 1922 to cope with the subsequent boom of the 1920s.
The property was sold in 1980 to Pacific Fire Protection Pty Ltd, which used level 3 for customer storage, while leasing level 4 to TL Tourrier & Co. Pty Ltd Woolstore. All space is currently leased. The Brisbane City Council's Teneriffe Development Plan (1986) suggests recycling the buildings as a wool exhibition and tourist centre.
","criteria":"This complex of two Australian Mercantile Land & Finance woolstores is most significant in its own right and for its heritage contribution to the Teneriffe precinct. It reflects two developmental stages in the economic history of the wool industry, modifications in technology and changes in marketing as well as the history of quayage along the Brisbane River and of the pastoral company concerned.
|In form and fabric, these structures are excellent examples of the broad class of brick and timber woolstores which were built in Australian ports, including Teneriffe, to serve the wool trade.
In addition the building facing Vernon Terrace is the second oldest intact woolstore remaining in the Teneriffe precinct, and well illustrates the earliest stage of development in an industrial process which is now redundant.
|This woolstore also has considerable visual impact due to its particularly attractive Federation era design and riverside position.
|Though not as innovatory structurally as the bowstring Dennys Lascelles Austin Woolstore built at Geelong in the same year (now demolished), the sophisticated young architect Robin S. Dods achieved a special combination of function and style in the AML&F building. This is also important because of the dwindling corpus of his commercial work which includes the Wallace Bishop Building, Brisbane.
|That the AML&F woolstores, with all their pastoral connotations, are a valued asset and striking riverside landmark, has been recognised by their inclusion in the Teneriffe Development Plan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15104,"place_ref":600329,"name":"Slab Hut Farm","alternate_name":"Slab Hut Farm Ennoggera Reservoir","street_address":"847 Mt Nebo Road","suburb":"ENOGGERA RESERVOIR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Slab Hut Farm occupies a 5 acre [2 hectare] site at Peewee Bend on Mt Nebo Road. The non-urban zoned property is adjacent to the State Forest near the boundary of Brisbane City and Pine Rivers Shire, in what has become a rural commuter suburb. Although the land has been cleared, several mature fig trees remain.
The various buildings and structures associated with the early development of the property as a dairy farm are grouped in close proximity, clustered along a ridge to take advantage of the natural drainage. These comprise:
1 Slab House\tThis is a low-set, single-storeyed, timber-framed structure with hardwood slab walls and floors and a hipped roof of unlined corrugated iron. Adzed timber rafters and tie beams with few battens support this roof, and the galvanised iron guttering is of early half-round profile. The principal uprights are morticed and tenoned to a bottom plate and carry a top plate, and the whole rests on timber stumps. Split hardwood slabs, both vertical and horizontal, provide the infill between the frames. There are no internal doorways. Slab partitions to ceiling height divide the structure into three rooms, each of which opens onto a verandah which runs the length of the building on the southwest side. The outer edge of the verandah floor is carried by a ground log. The former kitchen features a cooking alcove and chimney of corrugated iron attached to the end wall. This alcove is clad externally with vertical slabs and has a stone floor. Beyond the kitchen a small iron-roofed lean-to supported by timber posts is attached to the rear of the fireplace. The building remains substantially intact and has been furnished as a private museum, illustrating a typical bedroom and kitchen of the pioneer era.
2 Creamery\t\tAlthough similar in structure to the early dwelling, the slab walls of the creamery are horizontal and the light-framed, steeply pitched gabled roof is continued as a shallower pitched hipped roof on all sides to form verandahs. This roof was shingled originally, but is clad now with unlined corrugated iron. The outer edges are supported by timber posts and one of the gabled ends retains its original slab infill. The creamery has been modified sympathetically to provide residential accommodation. This has involved enclosing sections of the verandahs with vertical slabs, glazing of the eastern gable end, some brick walling, and setting in of windows. Concrete covers the original earth floor.
3 Dairy\t\tAdjoining the creamery is the dairy, a simple rectangular building of slab construction which is open on one side. The frame consists of large timber posts set into the ground with a top plate to support the roof, which was shingled originally. The current roof has a frame of milled timber, with corrugated iron cladding and modern guttering. Vertical slabs attached to top and bottom plates provide the infill along three sides. Internally the dairy retains the posts and rails which form the milking stalls, and at the eastern end there is a sapling storage shelf at ceiling level.
4 Calf Shed\t\tBeyond the dairy stands the calf shed, a small structure of four posts with slab walls on three sides and open along one length. It has a corrugated iron gabled roof and slab gable infill. The long side enclosing wall has been shifted from the north to the south of the structure using the old nails.
5 Farmhouse\t\tThe dwelling house is a one-storeyed prefabricated structure of milled timber with a gabled corrugated iron roof. The front is single-skin chamferboard with exposed cross-bracing; the remaining sides are clad in weatherboards and lined with tongue and groove v-joints. Although the farmhouse has been altered with extensions to each end, picture-windows in the rear wall and an additional verandah beyond this, the cottage atmosphere has been retained.
","history":"The present slab structures mostly date from the 1890s, but the site was occupied from the 1870s.
In 1873 English immigrant George Powers Remfry selected 80 acres [32 hectares] of farmland at Mt Nebo [portion 844, parish of Enoggera]. An 1873 survey plan shows a two-roomed store already on the site, erected close to the main road. This store probably serviced timbergetters and goldminers who were working the Enoggera area in the 1860s and 1870s.
By January 1877 Remfry had erected a four-roomed house and outbuildings and had 8 acres [3.2 hectares] cleared and cultivated. Shortly after he was granted a deed to portion 844.
In 1875 Remfry also selected neighbouring portion 863, which comprised 61.5 acres [24.6 hectares]. Together with portion 844, he owned over 140 acres [52 hectares] of mostly uncleared land. In 1879 he raised a mortgage of £100 on the property, but was declared insolvent in 1880 and portion 844 was forfeited. He retained portion 863 until 1890.
Thomas McAfee of Samford appears to have leased portion 844 from the mid-1890s at least, and purchased portion 863 in 1897, although he may have been renting the site previously.
The McAfees developed both portions as a dairy farm, and it was during their occupancy that the present buildings were constructed, erected by owner labour and making use of local hardwood and stone.
Reputedly, McAfee built the three-roomed slab house as the family's first dwelling. Whether there is any connection between the early store of the survey plan [by 1873], Remfry's four-roomed house [by early 1877] and the extant three-roomed slab house [mid-1890s] is not clear. There appears to be no trace of the remains of Remfry's house and outbuildings, unless the McAfees recycled the materials in their buildings.
Around 1910 a second dwelling house was erected, the prefabricated timber building which still functions as the main residence.
In 1931 McAfee's widow purchased portion 844, and the property was maintained as a dairy farm until sold in 1959. The site was subdivided in the 1960s into 5 acre [2 hectare] lots.
For nearly six decades the McAfees were well known in the Mt Nebo community, and their name has been perpetuated in the lookout opposite the present entrance to Slab Hut Farm.
There are few comparable slab structures remaining in the Brisbane area. The only other known, extant slab house remaining on its original site was at Magnolia Farm [1890s] at Sunnybank, which was destroyed by fire early in 1999.
","criteria":"Slab Hut Farm at Mt Nebo, established in the 1890s, is significant historically for its association with the early opening of Mt Nebo to timbergetters and goldminers, and with the development of the area as a farming district in the late 19th century.
|It is a rare Brisbane survivor of the pioneer era, rarer still for the site integrity and intactness of the buildings and structures, which provide unique evidence of the working of a late 19th century Queensland dairy farm.
|They also provide rare surviving evidence of pioneer house construction techniques and materials, and of bush lifestyle.
|Slab Hut Farm has a strong aesthetic appeal, engendered by the rustic setting and materials.
|The place is significant for its local association with the McAfee family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15105,"place_ref":600330,"name":"Middenbury","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"600 Coronation Drive","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-07-18","description":"Middenbury is a low-set, single-storey, brick former residence with rear timber wings and additions, located on a sloping riverfront property in the Brisbane suburb of Toowong. It stands on the highest point of land in the western corner of an approximately 1.5ha site bounded by Coronation Drive to the north-west, Archer Street and a residential property to the south-west, the Brisbane River to the south-east, and residential properties to the north-east. Despite the construction of a number of later buildings on the site and extensive alterations to the surrounding terrain, views from Middenbury to the Brisbane River and the CBD have been maintained, while two large fig trees along the Coronation Drive boundary mark of the location of the original entrance drive.
In 2014, access to Middenbury and other buildings on site is via modern driveways cut into the original slope of the property, one each from Archer Street and Coronation Drive, which meet in the centre of the site. High, sloping concrete retaining walls line the edge of these driveways, effectively cutting off the platform of land on which Middenbury stands from the rest of the site. To the west of these driveways is a car park and loading area. The north-eastern portion of the site is largely covered by buildings. Built in close proximity to Middenbury on the north, east and southern sides are two double-storey buildings, which are connected to Middenbury's verandahs by paths and covered walkways.
Middenbury consists of a rectangular brick core with verandahs to three sides and a hipped roof. It is oriented with its long axis running north-west to south-east, with the south-east elevation facing the Brisbane River. The main entrance is located on the north-east side and a timber wing and other timber additions are attached to the rear (north-west) side.
The roof of the core is clad in slate with lead ridge capping and has boxed eaves ornamented with paired and tripled timber console brackets. Two rendered brick chimney stacks, one double and one single, capped by chimney pots, are symmetrically arranged on either side of the central ridgeline.
The concave, timber-framed verandah roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Verandah beams have stop-chamfered edges in places. The slender, cylindrical timber verandah posts with square base and top are modern replicas of the original posts, which were more finely detailed. Paired columns are located at the main entrance. The timber verandah decking is supported on rendered brick piers with metal ant caps.
The walls of the core are load-bearing red-brown brick laid in English bond. Above verandah roof height, the external walls are rendered, ornamented with a narrow ovolo moulding supporting the timber eaves brackets to the main roof.
The main entrance has a low-waisted, four panel cedar door with fanlight and half-glazed side panels. Timber-framed French doors with arched lights and rectangular fanlights open on to the three verandahs. One French door on the south-west side has rectangular glazed panels instead of arched. Fanlights are centre-pivoting and French doors are mounted on steel parliament hinges. Two former doorways in the south-west corner of the house have been filled with orange bricks.
Non-significant external features include modern guttering and downpipes, a roof mounted exhaust fan, light fittings, air-conditioning systems, and surrounding garden beds, pathways and covered walkways linked to the verandahs. Concrete stairs to the north-east and south-east verandahs are modern replacements of earlier stairs in these locations.
The core contains seven rooms laid out on either side of an L-shaped corridor, which runs from a vestibule at the main entrance to a central hall before turning north-west to the rear of the house. The principal reception rooms overlook the river on the south-east side of the building, divided by a modern partition wall. Other rooms, including former bedrooms and a small room off the central hall, are different sizes and have had some walls relocated. One large room on the southern side of the corridor has different finishes to the rest of the house, being c1930s in style. A small bathroom and store room are located in the south-west corner of the core.
Early finishes and features include plaster ceilings and cornices, wide cedar skirtings (stained dark brown) and timber picture rails. In 2014, most internal walls are covered by at least one layer of wallpaper which has subsequently been painted over, and the timber floors are covered in carpet. Three former fireplaces have been enclosed.
Typical doors are low-waisted, cedar, four panel leaves set in moulded cedar frames with rectangular, centre-pivoting fanlights with a central vertical glazing bar. Surviving early door hardware includes brass, ceramic and timber knobs and keyhole covers. Some doors may have been relocated from their original positions.
In the entrance vestibule, a moulded plaster archway, with capitals and keystone, ornaments the opening to the central hall. The main reception room has a large rectangular doorway opening with holes in the timber lintel surviving as evidence of previous folding timber doors. This room also has a partially glazed six-panel timber door. The central hall has a curved corner at the intersection with the rear hallway. The small room off the central hall has built-in timber bookcases on either side of the former fireplace.
The c1930s room features a decorative plaster ceiling and cornices, a different profile of timber skirting, and different door architraves. The door to the hallway has a single-light fanlight with dimpled glass. In the western corner of the room is a small built-in cupboard with a linoleum clad floor.
The bathroom next to the c.1930s room has a recent fit-out which is not of cultural heritage significance. Other non-significant fittings and features in the core include ceiling vents for ducted air-conditioning, light fittings and powerpoints, exit signs, modern door and window hardware, replica pine skirtings and timber louvred shutters to the French doors.
The timber structures at the rear of the core consist of an L-shaped wing, remnants of rear verandahs (now enclosed) and 1960s additions.
The L-shaped wing has round timber stumps, external walls clad in timber chamferboards and a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Beneath the building, vertical timber batten screens run between the perimeter stumps, and a timber door on the north-west side provides access to the underfloor area. Windows on the north-east and north-west walls are timber, double-hung sashes. Entrance to this wing is via a half-glazed, four-panel timber door opening onto the north-east verandah, and through internal doors linking it to the other rear extensions. The interior is divided into a large room at the eastern end and a smaller room at the western end. In 2014 the walls and ceilings are lined with painted hardboard or plasterboard, stained timber skirtings and architraves, and the timber floor is lined with modern carpet.
A long rectangular room located along the rear of the core, fitted out as a kitchen in 2014, is in the location of an earlier room or verandah space and may contain early structural fabric. This room has a raked ceiling with a boxed-in beam spanning its length, painted hardboard wall and ceiling linings, and modern carpet over a timber floor. Some early fabric from a previous verandah may also survive in a small hallway area along the southern edge of the L-shaped wing. The remaining rooms are 1960s additions and/or modifications and are not of cultural heritage significance.
Middenbury stands upon a remnant platform of land at original ground height, with lawns and recent garden beds to the north and east sides of the house. In this elevated location, Middenbury retains views to the Brisbane River and the CBD, as well as being visible from the river and from the opposite bank at West End. Two significant, mature fig trees (possibly ficus benjamina) are located north-west of Middenbury along the Coronation Drive boundary. These large trees, overhanging the road, are a landmark feature along Coronation Drive.
","history":"Middenbury, a single-storeyed brick building, rectangular in plan and surrounded by verandahs on three sides, is located in Toowong on an elevated position on the Brisbane River. It was constructed in 1865 as a villa residence on land owned by Mrs Eliza Mary Rogers, who purchased the site of just over 6 acres (2.4 hectares) in that year. Until 1956, the place was used a residence, with large grounds surrounding the house. Following acquisition of the property in 1957 by the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) the site was used for radio and television broadcasting, with Middenbury used primarily for office space.
\nFree settlement occurred in Brisbane, traditional country of the Yuggera and Turrbal people, from 1842. Land available for private ownership was progressively surveyed and offered for sale by the New South Wales government. Land was categorized as either ‘town', within gazetted towns and villages, ‘suburban', within 5 miles of town boundaries or ‘country', beyond this radius. Early settlement was largely focussed on town land on opposite sides of the river at North Brisbane and South Brisbane, while suburban areas, such as Toowong (then referred to as Milton or West Milton) developed more slowly.[1]
\nMoggill Road was surveyed and named in 1849 (later known as River Road, then partly Coronation Drive). It was the first route to Ipswich constructed on the north side of the Brisbane River and was shorter than the Ipswich Road on the other side of the river. The land on which Middenbury was constructed was located along this road. From the early 1850s, land speculators increasingly acquired property in the Milton and Toowong area, much of it initially for agricultural purposes.[2]
\nIn July 1853 James Henderson, a manager of the Bank of Australasia in Sydney, purchased Portion 25, Parish of Enoggera, a parcel of over 16 acres, (6.47 ha) dissected by the Moggill Road and fronting the Brisbane River. Henderson also purchased the adjacent Portion 26 and by 1860 had acquired around 400 acres between what is now Toowong and Indooroopilly. In 1865 surveyor and land agent James Warner (on behalf of Henderson) began advertising land parcels for sale in the ‘Village of Nona', a subdivision plan of most of Portions 25 and 26. The remainder of Portion 25, a parcel of just over 6 acres between Moggill Road and the river, was sold to Eliza Mary Rogers for £100 an acre, with the Certificate of Title registered in April 1865.[3]
\nBorn in 1797 at Rogate, in West Sussex, England, Eliza Mary Rogers (nee Gardner) arrived in Australia in 1835 with her husband Richard Rogers, their three children Eliza Mary, Louisa Emily, Lewis Gardner and three children from Richard's first marriage, Edward, Richard and Anna Susan. Another child Frank was born in 1837. Richard Rogers was employed as Ordnance Storekeeper in Sydney and for a time was also Colonial Storekeeper. In 1850 he was transferred to Hobart and performed similar duties until his retirement in 1855. The Rogers' returned to Sydney and in 1863, Richard accidentally drowned in a shallow creek in their garden at their Darling Point residence ‘Springfield'.[4] Eliza Rogers' move from Sydney may have been influenced by her son Lewis Gardner (LG) living and working in Brisbane at this time. LG Rogers (b.1835) was appointed as a first class revenue clerk for the Queensland Treasury in 1862, a relatively high ranking and well paid position.[5] It is uncertain when Eliza Rogers first came to Brisbane, but by February 1864 she was advertising for domestic servants in Milton.[6]
\nThe first half of the 1860s was a period of strong growth for Brisbane in the newly established colony of Queensland. Immigration boosted the population dramatically (more than doubling between 1861 and 1864 to over 12,000) and many substantial public and private buildings were constructed during this time. The urban environment of Brisbane's fledgling town centre, where residential dwellings co-existed in close proximity with commercial and industrial activity, was characterised by congestion, noise, and poor sanitation, common among other developing towns and cities in mid-19th century Australia.[7] During this period ‘villa estates', located in the suburban periphery in then semi-rural settings - on elevated locations such as along ridgelines, and in some instances with river frontage - became an increasingly popular type of dwelling for Brisbane's more affluent residents. This demographic included higher-ranking public servants, professionals and successful business people. The flight to residential villa estates by the well-to-do was a development pattern that occurred internationally during the Victorian era. Key elements of villa estates included large and comfortable houses, associated outbuildings such as servant's' quarters and stabling, expansive garden settings, and a good road to town.[8]
\nWhile some early Brisbane suburban villa residences were located in relative isolation (such as St Johns Wood, in present day Ashgrove [QHR601506]), in other instances they were established in closer proximity, as occurred along the ridges and on the Brisbane River between Milton and Toowong. At the time of Eliza's Rogers' land purchase there were only a small number of residences in the area. Early substantial residences in the area included: Milton House c1853, built for retired chemist Ambrose Eldridge [QHR600253]; ‘Minto', built for WLG Drew, Queensland's Auditor-General (1877-1889); ‘Dovercourt' (1864), the residence of architect William Ellerker; Moorland Villa (by 1862) for John Markwell, and Richard Langler Drew's ‘Karslake', later residence of early Toowong memoir writer JB Fewings.[9] This early pattern of suburban settlement can be seen as both a geographic and built expression of the emerging socio-economic structure in Brisbane. While Richard Langler Drew (whose early residence had proclaimed his residential subdivision ‘Toowong Village'[10] in 1862, closer suburban settlement did not occur until the 1870s, spurred on by the arrival of the railway to Brisbane from Ipswich. By 1881 there 1275 people living in Toowong in 300 dwellings.[11]
\nIn March 1865, the Brisbane Courier noted, ‘substantial brick villas, instead of wooden houses are on the increase'.[12] A later article in September stated, ‘numerous villa residences have been erected during the past 12 months in the suburbs of the town...No greater proof of the prosperity of a city as a whole can be afforded than that derived from the disposition of its citizens to plant and build on its environs, and to make it their home socially as well as professionally...Scarcely a day passes but our advertising columns invite tenders for the erection of villa residences...'[13]. It was in this year that Middenbury was constructed. The design of Middenbury has been attributed to architect James Cowlishaw although there is no firm evidence of this.[14] An October newspaper advertisement for villa sites on the Nona Estate noted their location next to the residence ‘recently erected for L.G. Rogers, Esq.,'[15] indicating Middenbury was constructed at this time.
\nA 1984 conservation management plan describes Middenbury when it was completed:
\n‘Middenbury...followed the detached villa pattern. The main part of the house was built in brick with a slate roof and was surrounded by verandahs on three sides. A large room, able to be divided by cedar folding doors, occupied the front of the house. Each end of this room was fitted with a cedar mantlepiece. The interior joinery was of cedar. The main door opened into a short hall which led from the verandah on the northern side into a long hall which extended through the centre of the house to a back verandah. It is believed that during the Rogers' occupancy of the house, one half of the large divided room at the east of the house was used as a dining room. The original breakfast room was situated behind the main entrance hall'.[16] Middenbury took advantage of its elevated waterfront location, oriented to face a broad reach of the Brisbane River.
\nBy June 1866, the house was known as ‘Middenbury'.[17] The source of the name has not been verified; one suggested link is the suburb of Midanbury, in Southampton, England, which took its name from a large house Middenbury, built in the 1700s.[18] Both Lewis and Eliza Rogers' name appear in notices related to Middenbury from the time of its completion, and the house appears to have been used as residence by both members of the family. Middenbury was let out for a few months in both 1868 and 1869; at this time it was identified as the house of Eliza Rogers.[19] In 1874, 1 rood and 37 ¼ perches (nearly half an acre or 0.2 ha) of the Middenbury property was acquired by the Commissioner of Railways for the railway extension to Brisbane from Ipswich.[20] An 1875 survey map conducted as part of this process shows Middenbury with verandahs on its northeast and southeast elevations, with the rear of the house flanked by service wings, and a building on the site of the stables.[21]
\nAfter the death of Eliza Rogers at Middenbury in October 1875, the property passed to four of the Rogers siblings - Eliza (Jr), Louisa (Minnie), Lewis and Frank. Lewis Rogers died at Middenbury in December 1876, with his share in the property passing to his wife Frances Wyndowe Rogers (nee Miles) whom he had married in 1867.[22] In March 1877, Frank Rogers was advertising Middenbury for rental, ‘containing drawing, dining, 7 bedrooms, besides kitchen, laundry...coachhouse, stables, garden, and paddock, and every requisite for a gentleman's family'.[23] In the same month, much of the contents of Middenbury were put up for auction. The exhaustive list compiled for the auction reveals the affluent lifestyle of the Rogers' during their residency. In addition to the ‘superior household furniture', ‘culinary requisites' and items used by domestic staff, the family horse and carriage, milch cows, pigs and poultry were also offered for purchase.[24]
\nA number of tenants are known to have occupied Middenbury from 1877 until its purchase by Timothy O'Shea in 1891. Thomas Finney, co-founder of the large Queensland retail firm of Finney, Isles and Co., lived with his family at Middenbury until mid-1883, while his family's new residence, Sidney House (designed by Francis [FDG] Stanley) was erected on the adjacent property.[25] According to Florence Lord, in her 1930s series on Brisbane's Historic Homes, ‘Mr Jackson' brother-in-law of Thomas Finney, resided in Middenbury prior to the Finney's.[26] Hervey Murray-Prior, a barrister and Master of Titles (and son of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, Queensland's first postmaster-general), was living at Middenbury with his family in 1885. However by September of that year, the contents of the house were advertised for auction, suggesting an end to their tenancy around this time.[27] Henry Bolton, a former Member of the Legislative Assembly in Victoria who became managing director of the Queensland Brewing Company in 1883, was living at Middenbury in mid-1889 when it was offered to let.[28]
\nIn April 1885 Middenbury, described as ‘a commodious country residence...command[ing] views of reaches both up and down the stream, and overlooking the whole of Brisbane, north and south'[29] was put up for auction, but was not sold. By July of that year Frank Rogers had bought out the three other shares held by his two sisters and Francis Rogers, and is believed to have occupied the house periodically in the late 1880s.[30] Frank Rogers subdivided the 5 acre, 2 roods, and 24¾ perch property and sold off parcels to the south of the house, ultimately retaining the residence on just over 2 acres 2 roods and 35 4/10 perches (approx.1.1ha).[31] Present day Archer Street was formed from this subdivision (officially named in 1887) and an entrance to Middenbury was made off this street.[32]
\nIn August 1890 Timothy O'Shea, a retired successful Brisbane produce merchant, signed a one year lease over Middenbury for £17 a month, before buying the property in August 1891.[33] Middenbury remained the family residence of the O'Shea's until 1949. Timothy and Ellen O'Shea emigrated from Killarney, Ireland to Queensland in 1863.[34] Of their five children who were raised in Brisbane, Timothy (Ted), Patrick (Pat or PJ) and only daughter Ella are known to have resided at Middenbury. After her mother's death in 1873, Ella assisted her father in raising the family and running the household, continuing this role after her father died. Patrick, Ted and other brother John, (Jack or JJ) were all solicitors, while another brother Michael James was a doctor. Patrick and Ted established the firm O'Shea and O'Shea (later O'Shea, Corser and Wadley) solicitors in 1891. Apart from his legal practice, Pat was involved in a range of business activities. Along with his brother Ted, he was part of the original syndicate which became the City Electric Light Company, and also maintained interests in the Queensland Brewery, Moreton Sugar Mill, furniture company John Hicks, and suburban property subdivision. An owner and breeder of horses, he was closely involved in the racing industry, a one-time president (for 22 years) and life member of the Queensland Turf Club. The ‘PJ O'Shea Stakes', Queensland's major weight for age staying race, is named in his honour.[35]
\nDuring the O'Shea's time at Middenbury, the longest period of continuous occupancy of the building as a residence, considerable alterations and additions occurred at the property. The largest change to the house was the addition of a brick building containing a study/bedroom and bathroom, connected to the house verandah by an open sided ‘piazza' which featured built-in wall beds. A garage and chauffeur's room were added along Archer Street, near the earlier brick stables which also housed a room for guests. While the extent of alterations to the grounds during the O'Shea period is unclear, it is known a lawn tennis court was established on a terraced area between the river and the house, while other landscape features included a large circular driveway, mature trees and a series of garden beds.[36]
\nTimothy O'Shea died age 91 at Middenbury in 1922. Ella, Pat and Ted (d.1930) never married and lived out their days at Middenbury in comfortable circumstances. Prior to World War II, Middenbury became a well-known social venue for the elite in Brisbane, with the house and the grounds hosting numerous events and guests. The social pages of Brisbane's newspapers regularly reported on occasions held at the residence including events connected to racing and regatta parties. In 1936 Ella was featured as part of the Courier-Mail's ‘Brisbane Hostesses in the Home' series. Pictured in the drawing room of Middenbury, the article claimed, ‘Musicians, actors, travellers...who have been guests...have spread the fame of Miss Ella O'Shea as a hostess in all the English speaking countries'.[37] Ella O'Shea died in 2 February 1949, age 92. Three days later, on 5 February, Pat, who was reported as saying to his ‘intimates', 'If I live only five minutes after my sister, I shall die happy'[38] also died, both leaving substantial estates. Pat's obituary in the Sunday Mail noted the end of an era at the now empty Middenbury, where, ‘Titled people, actors, artists, world celebrities were invited...They found its halls a home and its gardens a soft sanctuary'.[39]
\nMiddenbury was put up for by auction on 6th July 1949. William Ramsay Webster and Amy Louisa Webster, of Webster's Cake and Biscuit Company, and the original Shingle Inn, purchased the property for just over £11,000.[40] Prior to the sale, an auction notice described Middenbury at this time:
\n‘Middenbury is substantially built of brick and wood, with slate and galvanised iron roofs, and comprises spacious verandahs, vestibule, halls, card room, lounge, music room, three bedrooms, two well appointed bathrooms with marble surrounds and shower room, with tiled floors, lounge verandah with set-in folding American beds, study, dining room with wine cellar, scullery, kitchen, with tiled fireplace...Maid's Rooms, brick chimneys with marble mantelpieces... built-in cupboards throughout, polished floors and sewered; Boiler room...laundry equipped with bricked-in copper and porcelain wash tubs, wood rooms, double garage with concreted wash yard, man's room and storerooms; Stable Building, with attic and comfortable bedroom; and 2 sets of brick lavatories'.[41]
\nThe Webster family continued the O'Shea tradition of hosting large social gatherings at Middenbury, and lived there until 1955, when it was sold to Accommodation Australia Ltd.[42] Middenbury and the adjacent property containing Sidney House were purchased and combined (identified in 2014 as Lot 13, RP104400) by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, (ABC, now known as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in 1957 to establish new adjoining Queensland facilities for radio and television production and broadcasting. Operated by the Australian Government, ABC television commenced radio broadcasting in Australia on 1 July 1932. The Queensland government-owned radio station 4QG was taken over by the ABC and broadcast in the mornings and evenings, before a second station 4QR was opened in 1938 to broadcast the full national program. The ABC was given responsibility to provide national television programs in 1954, commencing in November 1956, in time for the Olympic Games in Melbourne. The focus of ABC's television operations was initially in Melbourne and Sydney until the late 1950s, when services were established in Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart.[43]
\nSidney House was demolished to make way for the first major building on the site, the television studios. Constructed in brick, it was a three storey building mounted by a 130ft steel framed tower for beaming programmes to the main transmitting tower at nearby Mt Cootha. The building included an isolated studio, plus projection, sound, viewing control, and news section rooms. In 1968 the television studio building was extended towards the river. The other major building constructed on the site was the 1964 brick radio studio, located between Archer Street and Middenbury, which included special acoustic studios.[44]
\nThe ABC's first television broadcast in Queensland occurred on 2 November 1959 at 7PM. In a nod to its past, Middenbury hosted some 300 invited guests at the official function to mark the occasion, with 10 televisions set up within the building for viewing of the live broadcast of the ABC's ‘Queensland Television Service'. ‘Channel 2' was Brisbane's third television station and Australia's twelfth.[45]
\nAs with Sidney House, it was never the original intention to retain Middenbury, with its location designated for radio broadcasting facilities. By the early 1960s, earlier outbuildings, including the stables, garage and most of the garden features had been removed. On Coronation Drive, two large weeping figs near the former entrance were retained. As part of the major landscaping of the site, much of Middenbury became surrounded by a steep concrete retaining wall. At the house, the ‘piazza' and bedroom extension and the rear timber wing on the southwest were demolished.[46]
\nIn 1969, a report prepared by the Federal Department of Works on Middenbury identified the historical significance of the building and recommended preserving the house ‘if at all possible'. The report noted part of the building was used for canteen facilities, 'which could be extended to become a most attractive staff amenity' or alternatively ‘an excellent executive office suite'.[47] Repairs had also been undertaken and the interior ‘extensively decorated'.[48] Over time, Middenbury was used mainly as office space while part of the ABC's operations. The building underwent additions and alterations internally, including partitioning in some spaces to create new rooms.[49] While elements disappeared, Middenbury retained its essential 1865 building form, some early internal spaces and cedar joinery, while maintaining its orientation and relationship to the river. In its last few years of occupancy by the ABC, Middenbury housed the Chief Executive, Finance and Human Resources operations.[50]
\nThe ABC vacated its site at Toowong in 2007, following concerns about high incidences of cancer among staff members at the site. As the ABC's key site for broadcasting and production in Queensland for nearly half a century, the Toowong facilities were highly important, broadcasting news, current affairs and numerous other television and radio programs throughout Queensland and other parts of Australia. Between 1957 and 2007, the ABC's facilities were frequently altered, with the addition of other buildings on the site, and internal changes to earlier buildings. With the vacating of the site, much of the broadcasting equipment and associated fittings and fixtures were dismantled or removed, effectively inhibiting the site's ability to demonstrate its former function.[51]
\nIn 1968, Middenbury was one of the earliest listings on the Register of the National Trust of Queensland and was later included in the Register of the National Estate in 1978. When the Queensland Heritage Act 1992 commenced, Middenbury had been included in the newly established Heritage Register. However, in 2004 reference to it having been entered in the state register was removed by a decision of the Queensland Heritage Council, in acceptance of legal advice regarding properties owned by the Australian Government for public purposes. In 2013 the property was transferred from Australian Government to private ownership.
","criteria":"Middenbury, erected in 1865, is important in demonstrating the evolution of residential housing and pattern of settlement in Queensland, in particular the early establishment of villa residences on the suburban periphery of Brisbane in the 1860s. Through its form, materials, location and setting on the Brisbane River, Middenbury makes an important contribution to our understanding of residential and social hierarchies in early Brisbane.
Middenbury is also important for its association with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as a component of its Queensland television and radio production facilities from 1957-2007.
|Middenbury is important for its aesthetic value as an elegant and well-composed villa residence designed to take advantage of its elevated position on the bank of the Brisbane River. Encircled by verandahs on three sides and orientated to capture surrounding views, the house demonstrates picturesque qualities, standing out from its surroundings when viewed from the river and the opposite bank at West End.
Two large fig trees, the only surviving elements of Middenbury's former gardens, are a landmark feature along Coronation Drive and make a significant contribution to the streetscape.
|Middenbury is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an 1860s villa residence in Queensland, through its surviving formal plan, consisting of an entrance vestibule, large reception rooms, generously sized bedrooms, rear timber service wing; and the high quality workmanship and materials used in its construction, including fine cedar joinery. Consciously sited in an elevated location, the brick core with slate roof is surrounded on three sides by timber verandahs accessed by French doors, providing a generous space for entertaining and enjoying the views to the Brisbane River and CBD.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15106,"place_ref":600331,"name":"Regatta Hotel","alternate_name":"The Regatta, The Regatta Hotel","street_address":"543 Coronation Drive","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Regatta Hotel, located on a prominent site adjacent to the Toowong Reach of the Brisbane River, is a brick building with hipped corrugated-iron roofs. Comprised of three storeys and a basement, it is encircled by wide verandahs, except for a section on the southern side.
\nThe verandahs to the rendered street facades display a lavish use of cast-iron balustrading, paired cast-iron Corinthian columns and cast-iron and timber friezes. These facades, which curve around the street corner, are surmounted by a solid masonry parapet ornamented by masonry finials.
\nThe more modest verandahs on the southern and western sides, now somewhat altered, have paired chamfered posts and brackets, and a continuation of the patterned timber frieze. A painted brick elevator shaft has been added to the southern elevation and a fire escape stair to the western elevation.
\nThe ground floor, consisting of three bars, service areas and an entry foyer, has been refurbished. Original openings to the verandah have been replaced by sliding glass windows and doors. Sections of the verandah have been enclosed in brick to house toilet facilities. The entry foyer retains the original entry doors and arched openings. The unusual timber staircase located at the rear of the entry foyer runs in a single flight between floors, curving at the lower end of the flight.
\nRooms on the first floor include a bar, a guest dining room, offices, kitchen, toilets and a guest suite. The bar, formerly a dining room, features a marble fireplace and a pair of curved french doors opening onto the northeast corner of the verandah. The manager's residence and guest accommodation occupy the second floor.
\nThe interiors of the first and second floors retain original finishes including pressed metal ceilings and plastered masonry walls ornamented by arches and mouldings. Panelled timber doors with fanlights open off the central hallway. French doors with fanlights lead from the bedrooms and principal public areas to the verandahs.
\nParts of the first floor northern and western verandahs have been enclosed with glass walls. The Regatta Hotel retains a substantially intact exterior and a visual prominence along the Toowong Reach of the Brisbane River.
\nThe modern building constructed as a 'Liquor Barn' (c2006), that is partly located within the heritage boundary is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"This three-storeyed brick hotel was erected in 1886 for Brisbane publican William Winterford. It was the second Regatta Hotel on the site; a single-storeyed timber building, dating from at least 1876, was removed to make way for the new premises.
The new Regatta was designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, who called tenders in February 1886. It was constructed by contractor George Gazzard, at a cost of £4,800.
The Regatta was one of a number of large, masonry, first-class hotels designed by Gailey in the 1880s. Amongst these were the Wickham (QHR 600213) (1885), Prince Consort (QHR 600212) (1887), Jubilee (QHR 600211) (1888) and Empire (QHR 600199) (1889). They were designed not just for local patronage, but to attract travellers and visitors. Each replaced an earlier and much humbler hotel on the site, and in their ornate exteriors, they reflected the optimism and bravado of the booming Queensland economy of the 1880s.
Winterford opened his new hotel in 1887, anticipating a clientele who would be enticed by the river views, the proximity to town and to the Toowong railway station, the weekend regattas on the doorstep, entertainments such as billiards and boating, a well-stocked wine cellar, large well-ventilated bedrooms, family suites, the luxury of hot and cold baths, and good stabling accommodation. However, neither the hotel's comforts nor the Toowong scenery succeeded in attracting the desired patronage. Lack of wider custom, the financial depression of the early 1890s, and the floods of 1893, nearly ruined Winterford. In 1897, he forfeited the Regatta to his mortgagees.
Ulitmately, the Regatta survived and flourished through a number of owners and lessees, and has found a late 20th century clientele amongst Queensland University students. In 1965 it focussed attention on the women's liberation movement in Brisbane, when two women chained themselves to the public bar footrail, demanding the right to drink alongside men.
","criteria":"The Regatta Hotel is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the optimism and exhuberance of the 1880s economic boom and evidence of the former use of this part of the Brisbane River for sporting and recreational activitie
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large, ornate 1880s hotel which remains substantially intact.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, being a prominent landmark contributing to the riverscape along the Toowong Reach of the Brisbane River.
|The Regatta Hotel has a special association with the work of architect Richard Gailey, being one of a group of large 1880s hotels designed by him, which contribute to the architectural character of Brisbane through their imposing presence, extensive use of cast-iron and classical detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15107,"place_ref":600332,"name":"Warrawee","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"10 Dean Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Warrawee is a vernacular style residence, with a most impressive facade and a full sub-floor. The twelve foot wide verandahs have elegant cast-iron balustrading, and brackets and are lined underneath with ripple iron. The verandah portico with its intricate fretwork pediment, groups of columns, landing, gates and iron lace is quite spectacular, complemented by the twin curved stairs with their scottish thistles in cast-iron panels.
The front verandah is supported by emphatic brick piers with elaborate capitals. Upstairs originally comprised a central hallway with two rooms on the left and three on the right, and a kitchen incorporated at the rear. The upstairs windows are all of the step-out sash type, and doors are of panelled cedar. The fanlights are casements with opaque, diamond pattern glass, though grooves suggest the former presence of fretwork panels.
The inside walls are lined internally with vertical joint boards and externally with chamferboards which are believed to have been milled locally at Pattersons, Toowong. Downstairs the unlined room on the left of the central corridor, which ran the length of the house, was reputedly the 'ballroom'. The righthand side originally comprised three rooms. Downstairs windows are all sashes, some being multi-paned.
","history":"Warrawee is believed to have been built in the mid 1880s, for Albert Henry White, owner of the three acre site. E. John White, manager of the New Zealand Accident Insurance Company, was then in residence. In late 1886 the property was purchased by Alexander John Hunter, who does not appear as a resident until the 1892-93 directory, though a James Hunter is listed for 1891 and 1892. Apparently the property was rented during much of its lifetime. In 1924 John Mullan, a union organiser and politician, purchased the house on 2 roods 34.3 perches. The present owners purchased the property in 1986.
","criteria":"During the boom of the 1880s, displays of wealth were common especially in the ornamental facades of public and commercial buildings. Warrawee is a more unusual domestic example of this phenomenon, particularly of the aspiring bourgeoisie.
Warrawee's grand display of columns, steps and cast-iron has long been admired by the local community.
This cakework facade has had an exceptional impact on the public mind, having been portrayed in various publication, prints, tours and media presentations.
|During the boom of the 1880s, displays of wealth were common especially in the ornamental facades of public and commercial buildings. Warrawee is a more unusual domestic example of this phenomenon, particularly of the aspiring bourgeoisie.
|Warrawee's grand display of columns, steps and cast-iron has long been admired by the local community.
|This cakework facade has had an exceptional impact on the public mind, having been portrayed in various publication, prints, tours and media presentations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15108,"place_ref":600333,"name":"Trooper Cobb's Grave","alternate_name":"Trooper Cobbs Grave","street_address":"cnr Mount Coot-tha Road and Frederick Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The gravestone is a sarcophagus of Helidon sandstone, 1.9 metres long and a metre wide.
On the top, carved in sandstone, are a rifle, hat with emu plume and badge, and a bandolier, the equipment of soldiers in the South African War. A marble plate also rests on the top, bearing an inscription in leaded letters.
The sarcophagus is enclosed by a substantial concrete wall with sandstone coping, pallstones and low iron railings. The grave had suffered from neglect but has been tidied recently. However, little of the inscription lettering survives.
","history":"This memorial was erected in 1901 in Toowong Cemetery, over the grave of Trooper John Cobb of the 3rd Queensland Mounted Infantry, who died in July 1901 a few days after returning to Australia from active service in South Africa. He was 44 years old.
Cobb had seen action at Elands River and Rhenoster Kop in South Africa. Like all Australian troops participating in the South African [Boer] War of 1899-1902, Cobb was a volunteer.
His grave is the only known South African War soldier's grave in Queensland. The memorial was constructed by the prominent monumental mason Andrew Petrie and erected by Cobb's relatives.
","criteria":"Trooper Cobb's Grave, Toowong is significant historically as the only known grave in Queensland of a mortally wounded South African War soldier. It is a rare Queensland South African War memorial, and a unique source of historical information.
|Trooper Cobb's Grave, Toowong is significant historically as the only known grave in Queensland of a mortally wounded South African War soldier. It is a rare Queensland South African War memorial, and a unique source of historical information.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15109,"place_ref":600334,"name":"Temple of Peace","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Mount Coot-tha Road and Frederick Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Temple of Peace mausoleum stands on flat ground shaded by mature trees within the 43-hectare Toowong Cemetery (QHR 601773), in Toowong, a suburb of Brisbane. The monument is prominent, standing near the main entrance, surrounded by smaller burials and memorials.
\nA rectangular stone structure, 2.7m long, 1.7m wide and 3m high, the monument stands on a low, rusticated stone base. Tapered, corner pillars support a stepped roof over the burial chamber. Embellishing the exterior are moulded swags, bosses, and egg and dart ornament; features harking back to classical antiquity and to be found on many war memorials. Other features seem to mock such tradition. The canopy has corner finials shaped like urns - from which sprout stylised, metal plants. Surmounting the canopy is a miniature mausoleum: a dome supported on columns housing a lamp of remembrance (an urn with wreath and flame). Perched above the entrance is a metal dove bearing an olive branch in its beak, presumably a dove of peace though it is black and menacing. The mausoleum's elevations and plan are symmetrical.
\nThe front of the mausoleum faces south, as do the other burials in this portion of the cemetery. A narrow stair leads to a decorative, metal gate, providing access into the mausoleum. Marble plaques with leaded inscriptions are mounted on the pillars beside the entrance and ask for peace, or declare 'THERE IS NO HEAVEN!'. On the entablature above the entrance is a leaded marble plaque inscribed 'THE TEMPLE OF PEACE'.
\nOriginally the mausoleum's sides were open, but now they are enclosed by leadlight windows of Gothic trefoil shape with coloured leadlight above an original painted, stone balustrade. The rear wall is solid.
\nThe mausoleum has a richly-coloured leadlight frieze on all elevations, as well as moulded, render embellishments fixed by nails. The pillars and back wall are rendered and painted. Transparent glass panels cover leadlight and the front, fixed to the mausoleum with stainless steel anchors. The front glass panel has a hinged door to maintain access to the interior.
\nThe interior of the mausoleum is painted and also bears moulded, render embellishments including ceiling rosettes with metal hooks for hanging potted plants. It contains a low marble slab 'sarcophagus' inscribed with 'ALL MY HOPE LIES BURIED HERE'. Standing on the head of the sarcophagus is a stepped, marble cairn inscribed with 'PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TO MEN.', and at the foot is a plaster casket inscribed with 'PUP A FAITHFUL CANINE FRIEND MALICIOUSLY POISONED' with an effigy of a recumbent dog on top. On the rear wall of the interior are marble slabs with many leaded inscriptions, including 'WHEN THE RED FLAG OF HUMANITY FLIES OVER THE WORLD, I SHALL NOT HAVE LIVED IN VAIN. R.R.', 'IN MEMORIAM FRED, GORDON, VICTOR, HENRY, AND I.' and a poem that asks nations to cease 'YOUR WHIRLING DANCE OF DEATH' and for the 'WORKERS OF THE WORLD BE BROTHERS'.
","history":"The Temple of Peace, located near the main entrance of Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane, was erected in 1924 by local dissident Richard Ramo. Its dedication took the form of a pacifist rally.
Like all Australian communities, Brisbane was profoundly affected by the impact of WWI. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. This meant that around 69% of embarked personnel became casualties - or 21% of eligible Australian males.[1] To date, no previous or subsequent war has had such an impact on Australia in terms of loss of life; almost every community in every Australian state lost young people. Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.
WWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards (from 1915), stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns or urns), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland the soldier statue was the most popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states.[2] Australia's first permanent WWI memorial to honour the men from a particular community was unveiled at Balmain, NSW, 23 April 1916.[3]
The Temple of Peace, a unique and highly unusual monument, appears to commemorate the deaths of Ramo's three natural sons on active service in World War I, along with the more recent suicide of his adopted son and poisoning of his dog. Since its dedication in 1924, the monument has become widely known and its claims have been accepted at face value. Extensive research since 2001 has revealed significant inconsistencies between the monument's claims and genealogical and military service records related to Ramo and his family. Dr. Judith McKay's 'Brisbane's Temple of Peace: war and myth-making'[4], (which forms the basis of this entry), further explores and discusses the Temple of Peace, Ramo's family background and possible motivations behind its construction.
The monument bears inscriptions recording the deaths of Ramo's three soldier sons: Victor, killed at Messines at the age of 33; Henry, died of wounds in Belgium at the age of 29; and Gordon, killed at Gallipoli at 18. According to contemporary accounts of the dedication, the ashes of two of the sons had been recovered and re-interred here.[5] The monument also has the sarcophagus of Fred Borell, Ramo's adopted son, who committed suicide at the age of 27; the inscription reads, ‘A misguided love brought me to an early grave'. The monument also commemorates Pup, Ramo's faithful dog, which had been ‘maliciously poisoned'. A statue of Pup sits atop Fred's sarcophagus. At its base Ramo added the words, ‘All my hope lies buried here'.
Significantly, the Temple of Peace bears none of solemn inscriptions normally associated with war memorials. As Ken Inglis observes in his definitive study of Australian war memorials, these were often of ancient origin, including Biblical or apocryphal, or incorporated patriotic verse.[6] In place of these, Ramo added words expressing his own anguish and generally denouncing war, calling on the world's workers to unite in brotherhood.
Ramo is said to have designed the monument himself and undertaken most of its construction, labouring nine months on the project. This was apart from the help of Brisbane monumental mason WE Parsons with the marble and stone work. Parsons was responsible for another rather irreverent war monument: an extraordinarily relaxed soldier statue, standing pipe in hand and rifle slung from one shoulder, on the Beaudesert War Memorial, which had been unveiled a few years earlier, in 1921.[7]
The monument is essentially a mausoleum, defined in the Macquarie Dictionary as ‘a stately and magnificent tomb'[8]; at the time of its dedication it was likened to an Indian temple,[9] reflecting its curious mix of architectural styles.
The Temple of Peace was described in a newspaper at the time as:
... an elaborately conceived and executed rectangular structure of stone, plaster, and marble, standing about 12ft [3.6m] high. Four corner columns support a canopy, and surmounting this there is an urn. ... A low, pillared marble balustrade is erected on two sides, and the end opposite the entrance steps is entirely enclosed. At the sides of the canopy wooden slabs are inscribed with the names of the three soldier sons of the builder, and with that of his adopted son. At the enclosed end ... is a poem exhorting the nations of the earth to cease from warfare. ... The mausoleum is adorned with ferns hanging from the canopy, and with ornaments in plaster and gilding. Over the steps is a little metal dove.[10]
Ramo's edifice was dedicated on 6 December 1924 in the presence of a large pacifist gathering. The dedication was organised by the Australian Rationalist Association and addressed by its national President, Harry Scott Bennett, who urged those present to not only honour the dead but also promote international fraternity and reject war as an evil of modern capitalism. A trembling Ramo responded by paying tribute to his departed sons and calling for an end to the ‘cursed slaughter of war'.[11]
The coffin bearing the Borell's remains was borne in procession from the Anglican section of the cemetery, where it had been interred a year earlier. The coffin was draped in a red flag and, as it was placed in the monument, the Labor Band played the socialist anthem the ‘Red Flag'.
Absent from the proceedings were any of the religious or military rituals often to be seen at the unveiling of war memorials. The monument's radical and highly orchestrated dedication, together with its subversive features and inscriptions, make it unique among Australian war memorials. As Ken Inglis writes, ‘The count of anti-war memorials is small' and this is ‘a monument like no other anywhere'. Its nearest equivalent, he states, is a pair of plaques erected in Melbourne's Trades Hall in 1918 to commemorate opponents of conscription.[12]
As well as being a strong anti-war expression, the monument appears to be the work of a devoted father mourning the loss of his sons. In this regard, the documentary evidence indicates otherwise. Richard Ramo was born Karl Paul Richard Retzlaff in Prussia in 1863. Migrating to Australia in 1887, he worked as a cabinetmaker and gilder and in 1890 in Sydney married a fellow Prussian, Auguste Elise Seidel, a servant. Between 1891 and 1896 the couple had three sons, all born in New South Wales: Percy, Cecil and Gordon; there was no Victor or Henry, as claimed on the memorial, Gordon is the only son verified. Ramo was naturalised in 1905, at which time he changed his surname from Retzlaff,[13] but his sons adopted different variations of both names.
Two of Richard Ramo's sons did serve in World War I. Gordon, who used the name Redcliff, was a Private in the 19th Battalion and was killed at Gallipoli on 1 November 1915.[14] Cecil, who used the name Raymo, was a Sapper in the 5th Divisional Signal Company and, though wounded, managed to survive the war and went on to serve in the next war.[15] The third son Percy, who used the name Redcliffe, did not serve and spent the war years in Sydney.
Ramo's claim that his son's ashes were recovered and re-interred in the Temple of Peace is inconsistent with Australian and British military practice at the time. Other fallen Australians, like their comrades from other parts of the British Empire, were buried (not cremated) beside the battlefields in which they fell and eventually in the cemeteries of the Imperial War Graves Commission.[16]
The service record of Gordon, the son who died at Gallipoli, provides evidence of Richard Ramo's fractured relationship with his family. A statutory declaration by Percy Ramo stated that Ramo had deserted his sons at an early age and that Gordon, the youngest, had become a ward of the state. It is also known Ramo's wife Elise spent time in a Newcastle mental asylum, losing contact with her surviving sons; according to Ramo's great-granddaughter, he had his wife ‘put away' after years of cruelty and abuse.[17] Other evidence indicates Ramo also is also likely to have suffered from mental health issues.[18] By 1918, Ramo, estranged from his family, had moved to Brisbane where he bought a hairdressing salon at 180 Roma Street. In July 1923 he sold this for a second-hand shop two doors away, where he also lived.
Richard Ramo's adopted son, Ferdinand (Fred) Christian Borell was born in Queensland in 1896. The son of German immigrants Carl Heinrich Borell and his wife Auguste Anna, née Mutzelburg, he grew up on a farm near Laidley. Fred Borrell was a blacksmith by trade and first met Ramo as a hairdressing client. In 1922, when Ramo was ill and needed assistance, Borell began working and residing with Ramo, and was ‘adopted'. Their relationship deteriorated after Borell had an affair with a neighbouring married woman. This led to a showdown, after which Borrell seized a revolver and shot himself. He died on 28 November 1923 and was buried at Toowong Cemetery two days later.[19] A six day inquest followed, attracting much press attention.[20]
The final victim commemorated in Ramo's monument, Pup, his poisoned dog, is not mentioned in accounts of the dedication, so is possibly a later addition. According to Ramo's former neighbour in Petrie Terrace, where he lived at the end of his life, he kept a pack of dogs.[21]
The motivations behind Richard Ramo's decision to to erect the Temple of Peace remain unclear; Ramo, scarcely literate, left no papers. Queensland, along with the rest of Australia, experienced significant volatility and instability in the years following World War I, marked by industrial strife and social, political and ideological conflict. The sanctification of war, expressed most visibly through the erection of war memorials, was not supported by all members of the community. Ramo was certainly a pacifist and socialist, though the precise nature of his beliefs remains unknown.
The monument's inscriptions suggest that he was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World [IWW], or Wobblies; or at least familiar with its propaganda. This was a revolutionary movement that began in the United States in 1905 and soon spread elsewhere. Committed to overthrowing capitalism through industrial action, the IWW sought to unite the world's workers and was implacably opposed to World War I, which it saw as pitting workers against one another in the cause of imperialism and profit. Though the IWW was never as strong in Queensland as in the south, it had a sizeable following in the north among meat and sugar workers and miners, and was involved in the 1916 Shearers' Strike and the 1919 Red Flag Riots. Ramo came to Queensland just as the IWW was at its strongest; its numbers swelled by exiles from the south, where federal legislation banning dissident groups was enforced.[22] Such groups were subject to persecution, so their members and activities were rarely recorded, hence it is impossible to prove Ramo's involvement.
Though the Australian Rationalist Association played a major role in the dedication of Ramo's monument, it is unlikely that he was a Rationalist. The association, a group of freethinkers and socialists, was established in London in 1899. Formed in Queensland a decade later, its members tended to be middle-class intellectuals who held discussions but did not engage in militant propaganda.[23] Though sympathetic for a dissident like Ramo, they would have had little in common with him.
The Temple of Peace is located close to two other major war memorials at Toowong Cemetery: the Cross of Sacrifice and Stone of Remembrance. Replicas of structures found in British battlefield cemeteries across the world, they were the first such memorials to be erected in Australia, to honour the many soldier burials within the cemetery-men who had died upon return from service. The memorials, affirmations of imperial loyalty, were erected by the instigators of Anzac observance, the Queensland Anzac Commemoration Committee, with the assistance of the State Government, and were to become a focus of future observance. They were unveiled on Anzac Day 1924 by Governor-General Lord Forster, with Christian rites and official pageantry, before a crowd of 3000. These memorials would have been under construction just as Ramo was planning his monument.[24]
Whether the siting and form of Ramo's monument was a deliberate pacifist response to the official structures nearby is uncertain; it remains as an impassioned anti-war landmark in its context.
How Ramo, a hairdresser turned second-hand dealer, had the means to erect such a monument which, in its day, would have cost almost as much as an ordinary worker's dwelling, is unknown. He funded another monument in Toowong Cemetery: that of his former hairdressing assistant Albert Willcock (in portion 4, near the Temple of Peace). More curiously, Ramo's name appears on this and other monuments as monumental mason (the Innes and Herd monuments in portion 8) and these share similarities with the Temple of Peace, namely the eccentric ornament.
Richard Ramo remained in Brisbane until his death in 1951 at age of 87. He was cremated and his ashes were added to the Temple of Peace.
Alterations have been made to the mausoleum over time. The enclosing of the sides above the balustrade with leadlight panels, is likely to have been undertaken before Ramo's death in 1951. After falling into disrepair and damage from vandals, the mausoleum was restored in 2009 through funds partially donated by the Queensland Government, the Brisbane City Council, the Friends of Toowong Cemetery and raised from the community.[25] Transparent protective panels were added to all elevations at this time.
","criteria":"The self-styled Temple of Peace was erected in 1924 by Brisbane dissident Richard Ramo and its dedication took the form of a pacifist rally. The monument purports to mourn the deaths of Ramo's three natural sons on active service in World War I along with the more recent suicide of his adopted son and poisoning of his dog, however these claims are spurious. The monument is, rather, an impassioned anti-war statement and has outstanding historical significance in reflecting the volatility and instability of post-war Australian society. Designed and largely built by Ramo himself, its inscriptions reveal his links to the dissident organisation, the Industrial Workers of the World, which sought to unite workers to overthrow capitalism and resist war.
|As an anti-war monument, its form an amalgam of mausoleum and Indian temple, combining stock war memorial imagery with subversive features and inscriptions, it is unique among Australian war memorials.
|The Temple of Peace has aesthetic significance for its extravagant and eccentric design and embellishments and its emotive inscriptions, evoking a sense of loss, instability, despair and hopelessness.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15110,"place_ref":600335,"name":"Caskey Monument","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Mount Coot-tha Road and Frederick Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The monument, which consists of an obelisk on a pedestal, is executed in Helidon sandstone and stands 5 metres high.
The white sandstone obelisk is draped in a shroud. A sword is carved in relief on the front face. Below it is a quill, a tribute to Caskey's academic achievements. On the west face are crossed tennis racquets and on the east, crossed cricket bats, acknowledging his sporting interests. This theme is continued with a football on the front of the pedestal.
The pedestal also features recessed slabs of Italian marble on all sides, flanked by columns of brown sandstone. The front slab bears a leaded inscription. The monument is surrounded by a sandstone retaining wall.
","history":"This monument was erected at Toowong Cemetery in May 1902 in memory of Lieutenant Lachlan John Caskey, who was killed in action at Makari Drift, Caledon River, South Africa on 27 September 1901. He was 31 years old.
Caskey was a member of the 5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen and, like all Australian troops participating in the South African [Boer] War of 1899-1902, was a volunteer. As a member of the QIB he was under British command, and his pay was issued by the colonial government at an English cavalryman's rate.
The Caskey Monument is the first known South African War monument to be erected in Queensland. A design competition was won by prominent monumental mason William Busby, a public committee was established to raise the £70 construction cost, and the project was sponsored by the State Government. Caskey was a sportsman and school teacher, and his monument was unveiled by the Minister of Public Instruction.
The Caskey Monument is one of only four known South African War monuments in Brisbane, the others being the Berry and MacFarlane Monument [1902] at Sherwood (QHR 600292), the Anning Monument [1903] at Hemmant (QHR 600220) and the South African War Memorial [1919] in Anzac Square (QHR 600060). The design of the Caskey Monument, particularly the obelisk and draped shroud, appears to have been the model for the others. Another monument to Caskey, erected near Allora where he had taught, has been lost.
","criteria":"The Caskey Monument at Toowong, [unusually, a Government sponsored memorial to an individual], is important as the first known South African War memorial in Queensland and a model for later monuments in this state.
|The Caskey Monument at Toowong, [unusually, a Government sponsored memorial to an individual], is important as the first known South African War memorial in Queensland and a model for later monuments in this state.The monument provides a unique source of historical information, and the design is important in illustrating the social fashion and attitudes of its era.
|The monument provides a unique source of historical information, and the design is important in illustrating the social fashion and attitudes of its era.
The Caskey Monument at Toowong, [unusually, a Government sponsored memorial to an individual], is important as the first known South African War memorial in Queensland and a model for later monuments in this state.
|The monument provides a unique source of historical information, and the design is important in illustrating the social fashion and attitudes of its era.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15111,"place_ref":600336,"name":"St Thomas Church of England","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"69 High Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Thomas Church of England, Toowong is situated on a prominent triangular site at the corner of High and Jephson Streets, Toowong. The site comprises a brick church surrounded by established plantings and trees and containing early retaining walls, fences, gates and stairs.
The southern, entrance end of the church addresses the corner of the two streets, where three substantial gate pillars with an iron palisade gate provide a principal entrance to the grounds of the church. Two sets of concrete stairs containing memorial gate posts and memorial plaques give access from the church grounds to the streets flanking the site.
The church is a bi-chrome brick building with a seven bay nave, chancel and a very steeply pitched gabled roof clad with diamond patterned fibrous cement shingles and terracotta ridge capping. A small decorative timber framed fleche at the southern, entrance, end of the church surmounts the apex of the gabled roof, and has a steeply pitched pyramidal roof with an iron cruciform finial. Generally the church is constructed from a dark brown brick and has cream brick detailing, in the form of window surrounds, arched window heads, quoining and string coursing. The church sits on a two course sandstone plinth, the lower course comprises rockfaced blocks and the blocks in the upper course are sparrow picked and margined. The plinth at the northern, most recently constructed, end of the church is constructed from smooth rendered concrete.
The southern, entrance façade has an almost triangular façade due to the overhanging eaves of the steeply pitched roof and squat side walls. This elevation is dominated by a centrally located tripartite window comprising three lancets filled with stained glass and with stuccoed sills and heads and all embraced by a cream brick pointed arch. Flanking the principal window are smaller lancets, with similarly detailed heads and sills.
The bays of the nave are defined on the eastern and western external façades with angle buttressing, which also lines the southern façade. The buttressing features a tapered head of rendered concrete, from which the timber eaves brackets spring. Diagonal buttressing braces the chancel of the church. Centrally located within each bay is an operable lancet window, filled alternately with figured and grisaille stained and coloured glass panels. At the southern end of both side elevations are steeply gabled porches, which are the principal entrances. These are flanked by buttressing which support the timber framing of the roof structure. The gabled ends are open, with a small triangular timber panel near the apex. The porches provide access to double pointed arched timber doors featuring ornate and overscaled iron strapwork hinges.
The northern end of the church comprises a chancel and two transepts. The chancel is a square planned, gable roofed structure abutting the body of the church to which it is similarly detailed although subordinate in height to the principal building. Flanking the chancel are smaller, square planned abutments with hipped roofs, which are in the form of transepts but are, in fact, small rooms, a vestry and a store.
Internally the church is arranged around a central rectangular nave dominated by dark stained timber boarded ceiling, on the underside of a steeply pitched roof. Supporting the roof and defining the nave bays internally are a number of dark stained timber, king post roof trusses. At the northern end of the nave is a chancel, separated from the body of the church by a pointed chancel arch. Internally the walls of the body of the church are rendered and scoured to resemble ashlar stone work. Though externally the church seems to have transepts, these projections, in fact, house a vestry to the west and a store room to the east with entrance to the rooms through timber doors flanking the chancel arch.
The chancel is boarded to about 2100mm with timber panelling, featuring carvings of pointed arches with foiled heads. This panelling steps higher on the rear, northern, wall. On this wall and above the stepped panelling is a tripartite group of stained and coloured glass featuring images from the Adoration of the Magi and housed in a pointed arched recess.
A number of stone, marble or brass plaque memorials line the internal walls of the church and commemorate various figures in the history of the parish of St Thomas, including RL and A Drew and Sarah Frances Zitella Clark. Many of these memorials were carved by Toowong stonemason, L Busby and bear his signature. As well most of the stained and coloured glass, windows thought to be executed by William Bustard are memorials to parishioners. The tripartite stained glass window in the sanctuary depicts a scene of the Adoration of the Magi.
","history":"St Thomas' Church of England, Toowong was constructed in 1877 as the second purpose built Anglican church in Toowong, replacing a 1865 timber building on another site. The church, which was designed by parishioner and prominent Brisbane architect, FDG Stanley, has had two major additions, the first in 1886 when the nave was extended and the second in 1947 when transepts and a chancel were added.
Toowong was described in 1862 by a local resident, Richard Langler Drew, when he nailed a sign to a tree in the district proclaiming the village of Toowong, although the name of the district had been decided much earlier after the call of local birdlife. Soon after Drew's proclamation many large houses were erected in the area and Toowong prospered as a small elite settlement removed from the noise and dust associated with the town centre. It was not long before discussions were held about the establishment of a Church of England congregation which was to be an extension of the All Saints' Parish on Wickham Terrace.
When Queensland became a separate state in 1859, Brisbane became the seat of an Anglican Diocese and the first Bishop, Edward Wyndham Tufnell was appointed. One year later, state aid to the Church of England officially ceased. Unlike Britain, where the Church of England was the established church which received state aid, the Church of England in Australia was to survive in the same manner as the other churches then operating in the country. This decision caused much uneasiness during the early history of the church as the hierarchy was unaccustomed to the processes involved with self funding, most significantly the fundraising aspect. Therefore it is significant that following a meeting on 6 May 1865, Church of England residents of Toowong pledged to assist in the raising of about £150, necessary to construct a building for use as a Church of England. Among those at this first meeting was architect, William Henry Ellerker who was to design the first St Thomas' Church. Also at the meeting was Richard Drew who donated Allotment 13 where the church was to be built in Curlew street overlooking a cutting on Burns Road.
On June 1865 another meeting was held and this time it was chaired by Reverend Thomas Jones of All Saints' Church in Wickham Terrace; a manifestation of the diocese's support of the Toowong residents' scheme. The congregation at Toowong was to be part of the All Saints' Parish, and at this meeting details for the construction of the church were finalised and it was decided that the church could also be used as a temporary school as there was yet to be a state school established in the area. By 1866 the first St Thomas' was complete; a small timber framed and clad building with a gabled shingled roof featuring tripartite lancet window groups. The building cost £185.12.6 and was designed by Ellerker, the parishioner and architect, formerly of Melbourne who practised in Brisbane from 1860 until 1866. To defray the cost of the church a system of letting pews was instigated, securing a regular income but exposing the church to allegations of elitism. By 1867 a newspaper reported that the church, with a capacity of fifty people, was inadequate for the growing congregation. It was clear that steps toward procuring enlargements or the construction of a new church were necessary.
In 1870 St Thomas' became a parish, independent of All Saints'. The congregation then decided that both enlargements to the building and procuring the services of a minister were necessary. To fulfil the latter requirement Robert Creyke was appointed, but it would take some years before steps toward a larger building were taken. During the early 1870s many memorial items were donated to the church including a stone font commemorating Miss Georgina Hely, still in use today in the parish; an altar, an organ and a sedilia (or altar seat). When Robert Creyke resigned his post in 1875, Benjamin Glennie, a prominent and prolific Queensland Church of England minister was appointed.
In the mid 1870s, Toowong was rapidly growing particularly after the rail line was introduced in 1875. While large houses were still constructed in the area, many newly planned streets started to fill with smaller family houses on tighter allotments. By 1878 a State School was opened in Aston Street. In November 1875, at a meeting of the St Thomas' Parish a decision was made to enlist the help of Church of England residents in the area for fundraising and donations toward acquiring a central site for a new permanent masonry church.
The construction of a bi-chrome brick church followed the laying of a foundation stone on 17 February 1877. The land on which the church was built, part of Allotment 27, was initially bought by Henry Buckley in December 1853 and then acquired in July 1865 by Robert Cribb, a successful Brisbane merchant. A Certificate of Title was granted to Benjamin Cribb for Allotment 27 in March 1872 and, after changing hands within the Cribb family once more, was acquired by trustees for the Church of England on 15 December 1876. The trustees nominated were William Leworthy Good Drew, Walter Horatio Wilson and William Henry Miskin. The land remained vested in trustees for the parish until acquired by the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane in 1968.
Again, the new church was designed by an active parishioner, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley who was the Colonial Architect at the time. Stanley was responsible for the design of many large churches throughout Queensland including large Anglican churches in Fortitude Valley and Maryborough; St Patrick's Church on Calton Hill, Gympie; St Paul's Presbyterian Church, Spring Hill; as well as smaller examples like St David's Church of England in Allora. The church Stanley designed for the St Thomas' parish, of which he was a longstanding and involved parishioner, followed many of the traditions of Early English Gothic parish churches, most significantly in its picturesque setting. The site was chosen for its centrality and prominence and the church was designed as a landmark on this prominent site. Many of the other features of the building contribute to its strong Gothic aesthetic including its dominant steeply pitched gabled roof, gabled porches, bi-chrome brickwork and lancet window openings, many of which were filled with stained and coloured glass in the twentieth century.
The foundation stone of St Thomas' Church was laid by Bishop Hale on 17 February 1877. The contractor for the project was Henry Pears and the building was constructed for about £850. An official opening ceremony in the form of a service was held on 13 October 1877.
The first extensions to the church was executed in 1886 when the original six bay nave was extended by one bay to form a seven bay nave. This work was designed by the original architect of the building, FDG Stanley and is apparent in the slight variation in colour of the brickwork of the seventh bay, at the northern, chancel end of the church. At this time the chancel was a temporary timber framed structure, to be replaced in masonry when funding was available. In 1887 FDG Stanley designed a Sunday School for the Parish which is thought to have been constructed to the north of the building on land adjacent to the church. Later a rectory was constructed between the church and the Sunday School. A second storey was added to the rectory in about 1900.
The celebration of the 75th anniversary of St Thomas' Parish was to incorporate an extension to the church building, incorporating a tower and a permanent masonry chancel at the northern end. Prominent Melbourne ecclesiastical architect, Louis Williams was commissioned to prepare a design for the building. It is not known whether he visited the site, but the perspective sketch he prepared for St Thomas' is a radical departure from the design of the original building. The additions proposed by Williams displayed a more Romanesque than Gothic influence, with a large parapeted tower partially concealing a pyramidal roof, and a chancel with parapeted stepped facades and grouped openings with, what seems to be , round arched heads. This construction of these additions was to cost £3400 and was to coincide with the construction of a large Roman Catholic church nearby. However, although many memorial gates, plaques and stained glass windows were added at this time, the proposed additions did not proceed.
By 1947 another scheme was commissioned, this time by Brisbane architect, AH Conrad, from the partnership of Conrad and Gargett. His design was more in keeping with the original design of the church and, like the Williams' scheme, incorporated a tower and chancel at the northern end. Although the tower did not proceed, the new chancel was constructed at a cost of £3365 by Ashlar constructions. Like the original building this addition was constructed from brick, but on concrete foundations and with a concrete plinth.
In the early 1960s a new low set brick rectory was constructed adjacent to the church, and this and the nineteenth century Sunday School and Parish Hall survive to the north of the church, although a fire in May 1970 gutted the School.
","criteria":"St Thomas' Church is important in demonstrating both the pattern of growth of Toowong from an elite residential settlement in the 1860s to closer settlement following the introduction of the railway in the mid 1870s. As home to one of the earliest established Church of England parishes in Queensland, St Thomas' Church illustrates the development of the Church in the state.
|The building is a fine example of nineteenth century church architecture, showing a strong influence of an Early English Gothic style, which informed most ecclesiastical buildings of the second half of the nineteenth century. Elements of St Thomas' which show this Gothic influence include the steeply pitched and dominant roofscape; the picturesque setting of the building; bi-chrome brickwork; lancet and pointed arched openings; gabled porches; cruciform plan; heavy internal roof trusses and stained and coloured glass.
|St Thomas' Church has remarkable aesthetic value with strong landmark qualities; it is a well composed building picturesquely situated on a prominent site.
The building has many well crafted items of considerable aesthetic value including internal joinery, particularly the altar, pulpit, lectern and internal panelling; stained and coloured glass windows of William Bustard; font; various internal and external memorials and landscaping. The established plantings surrounding the church contribute to its picturesqueness and contain remnants of nineteenth and twentieth century garden design.
|The church has a special association with the St Thomas' parish as their principal place of worship for about 120 years.
|The building has associations with prominent Brisbane architect, FDG Stanley and with other early parishioners, many of whom were important in the early hsitory of the Church of England in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15112,"place_ref":600337,"name":"Brisbane Boys College","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"55 Moggill Road","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Sited slightly below the ridge of Kensington Terrace, the main building is a three-storeyed rendered masonry Spanish Mission style building. Classroom wings with terracotta tiled hipped roofs flank a central entrance, tower, and campanile. It has
concrete floors, timber doors, steel hopper windows to the upper storeys, red brick sills, and rich decorative features to the facades and interior.
Seen from Moggill Rd, the building rises above surrounding vegetation and roofs, being the most prominent building on the hillside. From within the school grounds, it dominates views up the hill from the north to the east, the campanile in particular being consistently visible. The neighbouring school buildings have been limited in height, preserving the vistas to and from the building.
The main entrance to the school is located on the northern frontage, which is two storeyed and divided into five bays. The central bay is gabled and features the main entrance doorway; the doorway is arched and set in a decorated rectangular frame. The two bays which flank the central entrance bays are arcaded with verandahs above, while the two outer bays have paired arched windows and tiled awnings.
The southern frontage, which overlooks the hillside, is three-storeyed, and also has five bays. The central bay, containing the chapel, extends out from the building, and has a hipped roof, with a small gable to the south. The tower behind rises another two storeys above the chapel, and has a pyramid roof. The flat-roofed campanile rises above the tower, and has an entrance at its base with a small round balconette above. The chapel has large arched windows with smaller arched windows above. The bays flanking the chapel and campanile are arcaded up to the second storey.
Decorative features to both frontages include gargoyles, twisted columns between arched windows and to principal doorways, and arched cornices to gables, the tower and the
campanile. A three-storeyed annex extends to the north-east, sitting a half a storey below the rest of the building; it has a hipped roof, rectangular windows, tiled awnings to the south and a timber porch to the north.
Notable features of the interior include timber panelling and two stained glass windows, one depicting the arts, the other, the sciences, in the main entrance foyer. The chapel has a stained glass window to the south.
The headmaster's residence is an asymmetrical gabled composition in matching materials to the main building. It has three gables to the north, two timber-lined, with a smaller gable over the entrance, and is situated above an escarpment to the north of the main building.
","history":"The school was founded as Rudd's College in 1902 at Clayfield by A.W. Rudd. In 1918 it was taken over by the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association and renamed Brisbane Boys' College.
The main three-storeyed masonry school building, was built in 1930 at Toowong, on land donated by the daughters of Sir Robert Philp. Opened in 1931, the school with its boarding facilities was contained in one building. The building was designed by architects Atkinson and Conrad, who were also responsible for the design of The Southport School c1924-28, and the Church of England Grammar School at East Brisbane 1917-30.
Another storey was added to the main tower by 1950. The verandahs of the main building were enclosed to provide further accommodation but were opened again in 1989.
The headmaster's residence was built in 1936. It also was designed by Atkinson & Conrad. The school has continued to grow and now consists of numerous other buildings with an enrolment of over 1000 students.
","criteria":"Brisbane Boys' College, Toowong, is significant historically for its association with the work of the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches in the provision of education for boys in Queensland since 1918.
|The main building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial school building in the interwar Spanish Mission style, and the Headmaster's Residence is a good example of an interwar rendered masonry house.
|The place is important for its aesthetic values, in particular the accomplished design in the composition of forms and detailing of the main building, which is also a prominent local landmark.
|The place has social significance as the alma mater of the sons of thousands of protestant families in Queensland.
|The main building and headmaster's residence are significant examples of the work of Brisbane architects Atkinson and Conrad, who designed a number of substantial private school buildings in Queensland during the interwar period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15113,"place_ref":600338,"name":"Pilot Officer Geoffrey Lloyd Wells Memorial Seat","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"103 Stanley Terrace","suburb":"TARINGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The seat is of rustic design, constructed of slabs of Brisbane tuff. It is set into the front garden wall, also of tuff, fronting Stanley Terrace.
\nThe back of the seat is butterfly-shaped and has a centrally placed metal plaque. In addition to the details of Wells' death, the plaque bears the quote from Winston Churchill 'never has so much been owed by so many to so few'.
\nTimber slats forming the seat have been reconstructed. The style of the fence above the surrounding wall has changed since the seat's construction. However, together with the adjacent shady jacaranda tree, the fence and seat combine to create a picturesque resting spot for passing pedestrians.
","history":"The Pilot Officer Geoffrey Lloyd Wells Memorial Seat is a stone bench with a timber seat, set into a stone wall at 103 Stanley Terrace, Taringa. Constructed c.1941, it is dedicated to Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Pilot Officer Geoffrey Lloyd Wells, who was shot down over The Netherlands on 17 August 1941, age 26, during active service with the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) Bomber Command. The seat was erected by his family in the corner of their property, near Mossman Street, as a memorial and for public use. It is a rare form of private memorial, and makes an original and attractive contribution to the streetscape.
\nGeoffrey Lloyd Wells was born 26 June 1915, at a house called ‘Wallingford’, Taringa, Brisbane, the son of Henry Leslie Wells and Elise Irene Wells, nee Lloyd (married 1913).[1] The Wells family was living at ‘Wallingford’, Stanley Terrace, Taringa, by 1914,[2] although when Geoffrey was born, the land on which the memorial seat is located was owned by Frederick Robert Lloyd. It was purchased by Henry Wells in 1918.[3]
\nAt the time of his enlistment in early 1940 Geoffrey Wells was a clerk, and his usual place of residence was Auchenflower, Queensland.[4] He trained at Archerfield (No.2 Elementary Flying Training School) from May 1940, followed by Wagga, NSW (No.2 Service Flying Training School), and Evans Head, NSW (No.1 Bombing and Gunnery School).[5]
\nAlthough Wells was a member of the RAAF, he served in Britain’s RAF. During World War II Britain was short of aircrew so reached an agreement, called the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), with Australia, New Zealand and Canada. These countries would train aircrew who would then serve in the RAF, or in their own national squadrons (400 series) under RAF control, with many flying with Bomber Command. Almost 40,000 Australians were trained under the EATS scheme during the war, and about 5000 died serving in the RAF.[6] The first Australian contingent of EATS graduates, including Geoffrey, left for Canada in November 1940.[7]
\nAt the time of his death the following year, Geoffrey was the pilot of a Vickers Wellington (Wimpy) Mk1C twin-engine medium bomber (serial number X9700, call sign LN-B, nick-named ‘Celon’[8]) in 99 Squadron, RAF.[9] On a night mission to bomb Duisburg (a river port and industrial city in the Ruhr area of Germany) from RAF Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, his aircraft was caught in searchlights before being shot down by a German night fighter early on 17 August 1941. The latter aircraft was piloted by Leutnant Hans-Dieter Frank of Stab 1, Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 (NJG1), flying from Venlo airbase (Limberg province, The Netherlands).[10] Frank, piloting a twin engine Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter, claimed two British bombers that night.[11]
\nAfter jettisoning its bomb load, Well’s aircraft hit the ground near Roggel in the province of Limberg, the Netherlands, about 2.15am, and five of the six man crew were killed. Part of one wing destroyed the roof of the Pijls family’s farmhouse. One of the gunners, Sergeant Robert Williams, managed to bail out and he landed on the roof of another family’s farm building, breaking two ribs and his sternum. He was given first aid by the locals in a bar before being captured by the Germans. Williams recalled later in his life that ‘our pilot [Wells] was pretty seriously ill. He had the flu. The crew had problems with that but Flight Command told us to go anyway. When we had left the Belgian Coastline behind us, we noticed searchlights all over the place. There was no flak to be seen, so there had to be night fighters around. Suddenly we ended up in the middle of the searchlights. Under normal conditions the pilot would most probably have been able to shake them off, but as I mentioned before, he wasn’t top fit that night. We were then attacked by a night fighter and that became the beginning of the end…I saw the navigator standing up from his chair and the next moment I noticed that the plane was spinning over on its wing and that we were on fire.’[12]
\nWells and four other crew members were buried at Venlo,[13] and after the war they were reburied in Jonkerbos war cemetery in Nijmegen, (Gelderland province, The Netherlands).[14] Geoffrey Wells is listed as a Flying Officer on his headstone, and on some official records.[15] This is one rank above that of Pilot Officer. Several days after the crash, Pilot Officer GL Wells was listed as ‘missing’ in The Courier Mail. At the time his mother Elsie lived in Milton Road, Auchenflower.[16]
\nWithin a month, Geoffrey’s status was changed from missing to ‘believed killed’. In September 1941, Geoffrey’s father Henry, reported as a manufacturer’s agent, of ‘Wallingford’, Stanley Terrace, Taringa, won the Lord Mayor’s (then John B Chandler) Cup for the ‘most creditable work’ in the Courier Mail footpath garden competition.[17] He also won the section for allotments with more than 100 feet frontage (worked without the assistance of outside labour). The Courier Mail stated that Henry’s son, Pilot Officer GL Wells, had been reported ‘believed killed’ just the previous week. Henry said that his gardening, as well as being a hobby, was a source of consolation to him. The winning garden, along two street frontages, included plantings of 80 trees and shrubs, numerous flower plots, and a ‘rustic seat’, installed for the use of people waiting for buses. Henry Wells gave half of his £5 prize money to the Red Cross, and the other half to his returned soldier gardener.[18]
The current memorial seat post-dates the September 1941 article. A photograph accompanying the article shows a planed timber log, located in front of the first bay of the stone wall, to the east of the current memorial seat. Henry Wells owned the land at 103 Stanley Street until 1951, and he probably built the stone memorial seat between 1941 and 1951 to replace the timber seat with a permanent memorial to his son. The stone pillars of the wall, which once had round bars running through their centres, have been increased in height since 1941. However, the residence ‘Wallingford’ still exists to the northeast of the seat in 2014.
References
[1] Queensland Birth Register Index; ‘Births’, The Queenslander, 17 July 1915, p.9; Queensland Marriages Register Index, 1913 C3295.
[2] ‘Social’, The Brisbane Courier, 24 October 1914, p.15.
[3] Certificate of Title, 10749102, Department of Natural Resources and Mines. The house was probably named after the market town of Wallingford, Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire) in the United Kingdom. The existing ‘Wallingford’ residence may not be the ‘Wallingford’ mentioned in 1914-15, as Henry Wells took out a mortgage in 1931.
[4] Roll of Honour Circular, Geoffrey Lloyd Wells. (Service Number 404077) http://static.awm.gov.au/images/collection/items/ACCNUM_LARGE/RCDIG1069318%5CRCDIG1069318--682-.JPG (accessed 13 May 2014)
[5] ‘State fast bowler now war pilot’, The Courier Mail, 19 November 1940, p.5.
[6] Storr, Alan, 2006. ‘Second World War overview: Royal Australian Air Force’, http://www.awm.gov.au/catalogue/research_centre/pdf/rc09125z004_1.pdf, (accessed 13 May 2014)
[7] ‘Empire Air Training Scheme’, http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/raaf/eats/?query=Empire+Air+training+scheme (accessed 13.5.2014)
[8] ‘99 Squadron Wellington IC X9700 LN-B F/O. Wells’, http://aircrewremembered.com/wells-geoffrey.html, (Accessed 9.5.2014). Celon may refer to Celon, Indre, a commune of the Indre departement in France; or a parish in Allande, a municipality within the province of Asturias, in northern Spain; or Celon (Middle-earth), a river in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celon (accessed 9.05.2014). Celon is Sindarin (Elvish) for ‘stream flowing down the heights’ http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Celon (accessed 9.05.2014).
[9] Storr, Alan, 2006. ‘RAAF fatalities in Second World War among RAAF personnel serving on attachment in Royal Air Force Squadrons and support units’, http://www.awm.gov.au/catalogue/research_centre/pdf/rc09125z004_1.pdf, p.477 (accessed 13 May 2014)
[10] ‘99 Squadron Wellington IC X9700 LN-B F/O. Wells’. No. 99 Squadron was based at RAF Waterbeach from March 1941 to March 1942. http://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/unit-info/770/ (Accessed 13 May 2014).
[11] ‘Known victory Claims – Hans-Dieter Frank’, http://www.worldnavalships.com/aces.php?PilotID=383 (Accessed 13 May 2015). Frank was killed in a mid-air collision with another night fighter in September 1943, after 55 claimed aerial victories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Dieter_Frank (accessed 13 May 2014).
[12] ‘99 Squadron Wellington IC X9700 LN-B F/O. Wells’.
[13] Roll of Honour Circular, Geoffrey Lloyd Wells; ‘99 Squadron Wellington IC X9700 LN-B F/O. Wells’.
[14] Storr, Alan, 2006. ‘RAAF fatalities in Second World War among RAAF personnel serving on attachment in Royal Air Force Squadrons and support units’.
[15] Storr, Alan, 2006. ‘RAAF fatalities in Second World War among RAAF personnel serving on attachment in Royal Air Force Squadrons and support units’; ‘Roll of Honour – Geoffrey Lloyd Wells’, http://www.awm.gov.au/people/rolls/R1714903/ (Accessed 13 May 2014).
[16] ‘Brisbane pilot missing’, The Courier Mail, 20 August 1941, p.3.
[17] ‘Footpaths contest awards…cup winner to give prize money to Red Cross & gardener’, The Courier Mail, 15 September 1941, p.4.
[18] ‘Footpaths contest awards’, The Courier Mail, 15 September 1941, p.4.
Information note
\nOn 17 April 2015 revisions to the history and description contained in the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register for Pilot Officer Geoffrey Lloyd Wells Memorial Seat, were made by the Department to update information in accordance with the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
","criteria":"It is illustrative of the sustained tradition of memorialising the war dead, which had been established in Queensland at the turn of the 20th century with the South African War of 1899-1902, and popularised during and immediately following the First World War [1914-18].
|The Pilot Officer Geoffrey Lloyd Wells Memorial Seat at Toowong is a rare private memorial erected for public benefit.
|It is illustrative of the sustained tradition of memorialising the war dead, which had been established in Queensland at the turn of the 20th century with the South African War of 1899-1902, and popularised during and immediately following the First World War [1914-18].
|It makes an original and attractive contribution to the streetscape, and is significant as an unusual form of war memorial.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15114,"place_ref":600339,"name":"Wolston House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"223 Grindle Road","suburb":"WACOL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wolston House is on a rural site between Brisbane and Ipswich overlooking the Brisbane River. The surrounding land is now occupied by Wacol Correctional Centre and the Department of Primary Industries and retains its pastoral aspect. The house is surrounded by a mature garden containing large trees, a well and a pump.
The house is constructed of sandstone and brick with a galvanised iron roof and has six rooms. Two cellars with attached lean-tos form a half basement accessed from the rear. The house is one room deep with the rooms disposed along a verandah supported by timber posts. The rooms are accessed by french windows without a formal entrance. These consist of a large double room divided by folding cedar doors, a bedroom, dining room and a kitchen which is set at a slightly lower level. Much of the joinery is original, however, much of the plaster wall finishes have been reconstructed and the ceilings, which were thought to have been pressed metal and plaster, have been rebuilt in second hand timber.
To the rear of the house, brick basement walls remain from the 1860s children's wing which was demolished in the 1970s. Wolston functions as a house museum and a modern caretaker's residence is situated to one side of the house. There is a modern toilet block behind the house and a timber railway building has been moved to the rear of the site as a store.
The gate posts and part of the wall shown in 1930s photographs survives as do elements of original paving.
The collection, which has been developed to furnish the house, does not relate to it but contains some items associated with people who lived or worked on the property. It contains some significant early furniture and objects.
","history":"Wolston House comprises the homestead and garden from the Wolston Estate, a large pastoral property originally established by Dr Stephen Simpson in 1852 and extended during the 1860s by Matthew Goggs.
Dr Stephen Simpson was appointed Commissioner for Crown Lands for the Moreton Bay District in 1842 when the area was first opened up for free settlement following the closure of the penal colony. He was a cultured man, a doctor of medicine, a Justice of the Peace, a Police Magistrate and a member of the first Legislative Council of Queensland following Separation from New South Wales. His first home in the colony was at Woogaroo, situated between Brisbane and Ipswich on what was to become the site of the Wolston Park Hospital. In 1851, when the opportunity to buy land in the area arose, he purchased 640 acres to the east of his first house on land overlooking the Brisbane River.
The new property, which included stockyard, stables, outbuildings and a house and garden, was laid out by surveyor William Pettigrew in 1852. The garden was planned with care. Pettigrew recorded planting fruit trees there in his diary and Simpson was known for his interest in plants and gardening. It is possible that the fig trees at Wolston were planted by Simpson.
The house that Simpson lived in was much smaller than the homestead that now exists. He had arrived in Brisbane as a recent widower and lived simply, so that a large or formal dwelling would have been unnecessary to him. He constructed a two room brick cottage over a sandstone basement. The house was shingled and had a detached kitchen. This cottage now forms the core of the house. The existing sandstone kitchen which adjoins this section may have been added by Simpson before he sold the house in 1860 or it may have been added by Goggs.
When his wife and child died, Simpson had designated his nephew, John Ommaney, for whom Mount Ommaney is named, as his heir. In 1856 the young man was killed in a riding accident. This may have affected Simpson's commitment to remaining in the colony and a few years later, he put the Wolston estate up for sale and returned to England. According to the auction notice which appeared in the Moreton Bay Courier of 3 January 1860 the estate was by then well established with 2,000 acres of fenced land, an extensive garden and orchards and 250 head of horses and 400 of cattle.
Wolston was purchased by Matthew Buscall Goggs in October 1860. He continued to operate the estate as a cattle and horse breeding station and extended the holding to 100,000 acres. Goggs, who was a farmer's son, had emigrated to Australia in 1841 and took up land at Chinchilla with his first wife. He purchased Wolston following his second marriage to Anne Gedge and they had a family of ten children. Goggs built a sandstone extension to the house in the 1860s to accommodate the needs of his family and in the 1870s a cedar annexe was added containing children's bedrooms. Goggs died in 1882 and was buried in a mausoleum which he had had built in the grounds of the estate. This was damaged in the 1893 floods and the bodies of Goggs and two infants were reburied at Toowong cemetery.
Following Gogg's death, his eldest son, also named Matthew Buscall, ran the estate until around 1890 when he moved to Brisbane. A Mr Thomas Matthews is recorded in Post Office Directories as having lived at Wolston between 1890 to 1893 and may have leased the property from the Goggs family. Over the years the family had bought and sold land and by 1907 the Wolston property had been reduced to 650 acres of land around Wolston House.
In 1907 the Grindle family purchased the property. They built it up and operated a successful dairy, milking 120 cows a day and selling the milk to Brisbane. They covered the shingle roof with corrugated iron and rationalised the spacing of the verandah posts which had previously been irregularly spaced, reflecting the stages in which the house was extended.
In 1956 the estate was purchased by Robert Hurley. By this time the property had become run down and the house was inhabited by three elderly Grindle brothers who were no longer able to run the property. At the time this consisted of 117 acres of freehold land in poor condition. The Hurleys built up the property again establishing an intensive dairying business.
In 1960 the Department of Agriculture and Stock resumed the property to establish a tick research centre. They demolished the farm outbuildings and intended to demolish the homestead also, however this was saved following an intensive campaign by the Women's Historical Society, the Historical Society and the newly formed National Trust of Queensland. In 1965, the house was transferred to the National Trust and became their first property. Sir Raphael Cilento, who was to become the second president of the Trust between 1966 and 1971, and the architect Karl Langer, were prominent in the acquisition of the homestead and in its interpretation.
This interpretation rested on the occupation of the property by Dr Stephen Simpson and so it was decided to demolish the timber section at the rear, which was clearly of a later period. When acquired by the Trust, the house was in poor condition. Along with urgent repairs, extensive reconstruction was also carried out. While reflecting the philosophies of the early 1960s, this approach is not acceptable today. Current conservation philosophy, in line with the recommendations of the Burra Charter, favours minimal intervention and interpretation embraces the whole life of the house and its setting. Wolston House has now been owned by the Trust for over thirty years, and is still open to the public as a museum, so that the effects of changes in conservation philosophies and methods over this period can be studied.
","criteria":"It is also associated with the formation of the National Trust of Queensland and with Sir Raphael Cilento and Karl Langer, who played major roles in the acquisition of Wolston House as the Trust's foundation property.
|Wolston House is a rare surviving early homestead, mainly constructed in the 1860s but incorporating an 1852 cottage. The materials and workmanship which survive from these stages of building illustrate techniques not commonly found in small rural buildings of this period.
|By its form and the lack of a formal entry, the building demonstrates something of the way of life of the first European settlers of the district.
|The nature of the building and its relationship with the landscape has considerable aesthetic appeal which is well liked by the community.
|This place is significant in relation to Criterion G
|The earliest part of the house is associated with Dr Stephen Simpson (1792-1869), a man prominent in public life during the first years of Brisbane. It is also associated with the formation of the National Trust of Queensland and with Sir Raphael Cilento and Karl Langer, who played major roles in the acquisition of Wolston House as the Trust's foundation property.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15115,"place_ref":600340,"name":"Wolston Park Hospital Complex","alternate_name":"Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum | Goodna Mental Hospital | Goodna Hospital for the Insane","street_address":"60 Grindle Road","suburb":"WACOL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wolston Park Hospital Complex is a complex of public health institutions, some decommissioned, spread across a 311.05ha site in Wacol, approximately 19km southwest of the Brisbane CBD. The site is bounded on its west by the Brisbane River, on its north and northeast by residential and institutional development, and on its east and south by the Ipswich Motorway and Woogaroo Creek.
\nThe complex comprises an extensive collection of purpose-designed buildings, natural and made landscapes, and areas of archaeological potential, spanning the 1860s to 1970s. It is organised into a series of areas that reflect its varied topography, historical functions, and key phases of development related to the evolution of mental health treatment.
\nAt the core of the site is the Central Administration, Services, and Residences Area. To its west is the Female Patients Area, and south of this is the Female Patients Recreation Area and Early Asylum Site. Northeast of the core is the Male Patients Area, and north of this is the Wacol Repatriation Complex. On the east side of this is the Gailes Golf Club course, stretching south along the site boundary. To the northwest of the core is the Riverbank and Nyunda Park Area, stretching north along the river. East and north of this area is the Farm Complex, and east of this is the Basil Stafford Centre.
\nFeatures of Wolston Park Hospital Complex of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEarly Road Network
\nA network of early roads connects the various core and decentralised zones of the complex.
\nBoyce Road (by 1896) is the main southern entrance to the site, running roughly east to west from near the Ipswich Motorway and connecting to Ellerton Drive.
\nEllerton Drive (c1870s, partly realigned 1913-6) is the connecting road running roughly south to north from the Female Patients Recreation Area to the Central Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area. It has been partially removed at its southern extent where it historically crossed Woogaroo Creek on a sequence of bridges (footbridge 1870s, road bridge by 1896) to provide the main entrance to the site, however, this route remains open space.
\nHogg Lane (by 1896) and Barrett Drive (by 1896, and its extensions by 1932 and 1948)[1] are secondary roads separating the Central Administration and Services Area from the Male Patients Area and servicing the rear of the male patient wards.
\nWolston Park Road runs roughly south to north, connecting the Central Administration Area to the northern parts of the site and was historically another main entrance to the site from the north. Only the southern section (by 1896) of this road is of state-level cultural heritage significance, comprising only the portion of road running from Ellerton Drive to its intersection with Explorers Walk.
\nTwo long farm roads, Explorers Walk (south to north) and Aveyron Road (east to west), run from patient wards to the northern farm area. Only the routes of these roads are of state-level cultural heritage significance, not any of their infrastructure or materials
\nFeatures of the Early Road Network of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nCentral Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area
\nThe Central Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area comprises buildings and associated landscape features relating to the core support and logistical functions of the complex, grouped around the northern end of Ellerton Drive and the southern end of Wolston Park Road, and bounded by Hogg Lane to the north.
\nThe features of the Central Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLayout of Buildings and Landscapes
\nThe buildings and landscapes of the Central Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area are generally laid out in groups according to function, with reception buildings and landscapes (Visitors’ Garden, Administration, Hospital) at the centre, private functions (Chapel, staff residences) to the east, and key services buildings (Laundry, Powerhouse) to the west. The Recreation Hall (originally a sewing room for female patients during the day) stands to the far west of the area, close to the Female Patients Area. The Morgue stands at a distance from other buildings to the northwest, near the bushland fringe of the area. The Pump Houses and Reservoir stand to the southwest of the area, downhill toward the dams of the Female Patients Recreation Area.
\nA large section of the central area (between the administration and staff residences) has been redeveloped over time with many new buildings added, which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance. Some of these are within early gardens (Visitors’ Garden, staff residences gardens), which has obscured the garden extent but some early trees and landscape structures (paths, underground well, stairs) are retained amidst the new buildings.
\nVisitors’ Garden (c1912) and Visitor’s Pavilion (1920)
\nThe Visitors’ Garden (c1912) is at the front (south end) of the Central Administration Area, highly visible from the Ellerton Drive approach. Originally operating as a fenced but attractive meeting space between patients and visitors, it acts as the foreground setting for the main buildings of the area. The Visitors’ Pavilion (1920) is highly intact and stands centrally in the garden at the end of Wolston Park Road. The garden terrain gently slopes to the south and its original extent (a semicircle shape defined by curving Ellerton Drive/Cricket Lane on its northern side) has been obscured by its eastern half being progressively built over since c1955, however, some mature trees and open spaces are retained amongst the buildings.
\nFeatures of the Visitors’ Garden and Visitor’s Pavilion of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nAdministration Building (1917)
\nThe Administration Building (1917) stands at the centre of the Central Administration Area. Purpose-built as the medical offices building of the hospital with a small residence on the first floor, in 2020 it is used as administration offices and is highly intact. It faces east onto the turnaround driveway off Ellerton Drive. A considerable collection of hospital complex-related paraphernalia is housed in cabinets in the medical superintendent’s office of the ground floor.
\nFeatures of the Administration Building of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nHospital (1917)
\nThe Hospital (1917) stands to the north of the Administration Building and faces south the vehicle driveway. Purpose-built as a hospital ward for males and females, in 2020 it is used as administration offices and is highly intact.
\nFeatures of the Hospital of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nChapel of Hope (1961)
\nThe eastern end of Cricket Drive is the Chapel of Hope (1961). Built as a christian chapel for patients, it is the sole survivor of three similar chapels of different christian faiths erected side by side (Chapel of Hope was the westernmost chapel). In 2020 it is used as for offices and it has had its exterior cladding replaced. The building has been semi-integrated with a new building built on its western side.
\nThe interior was not inspected.
\nA statue of Saint Dymphna (catholic patron saint of people with mental illness) stands approximately 35 metres to the east of the chapel, its corresponding chapel having been demolished.
\nFeatures of the Chapel of Hope of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nMedical Superintendent’s Residence and Garden (1898)
\nThe Medical Superintendent’s Residence (1898) stands near the eastern edge of the Central Administration and Services Area. Built as the substantial residence for the medical superintendent and his family, it is highly intact and in 2020 the rooms accommodate offices with little alteration to the original fabric. It has been incorporated into a fenced high-security area and its open garden setting is retained. The house faces southeastwards down the sloping terrain across Gailes Golf Course out to the surrounding landscape and distant mountains. The northern verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards and timber casement windows, an early alteration in c1912. The original terracotta roof cladding has been replaced with corrugated metal sheets which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nTwo small freestanding brick outbuildings are retained to the house’s rear (north) – a former garage (coach house) and a smaller, square building (smokehouse).
\nFeatures of the Medical Superintendent’s Residence and Garden of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nAssistant Medical Superintendent’s Residence and Garden (1912)
\nThe Assistant Medical Superintendent Residence (1912) stands west of the Medical Superintendent's Residence. This former family house built for the assistant medical superintendent is highly intact and in 2020 the rooms accommodate offices with little alteration to the original fabric. It retains its original open garden setting with former tennis court terrace. The house faces south down the sloping terrain across Gailes Golf Course out to the surrounding landscape and distant mountains.
\nFeatures of the Assistant Medical Superintendent’s Residence and Garden of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nWell
\nThe Well is located approximately 140m east of the Administration Building and is highly intact. Constructed of brick and sandstone, the underground dome well has a narrow circular opening at ground level and is approximately 6m in diameter at depth. The well is concealed by a concrete slab and metal access panel, which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Well of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nReservoir and Pump Houses (1914)
\nThe Reservoir and Pump Houses (1914) are highly intact and stand on sloping ground to the east of Ellerton Drive. There are two timber pump houses, a water reservoir to their immediate southwest, and associated remnant pipe and pump infrastructure. Built to facilitate the distribution of mains water throughout the site, they pumped water to the elevated water tower (demolished c2000) that stood in the grounds of the former residences to the east.
\nFeatures of the Reservoir of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Pump Houses of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nRecreation Hall (1890, extended c1914, remodelled c1972)
\nThe Recreation Hall stands on the western side of the Central Administration and Services Area and was built as a patients ‘workroom’ with dining room. It retains an 1890 brick core (hall), south extension (c1914, stage), and north extension (c1914, toilets). Its side verandahs have been replaced with enclosed function rooms and entrances (c1972). An acoustic ceiling has been installed in the hall, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance. In 2020 it is used as a hall and is highly intact.
\nFeatures of the Recreation Hall of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nLaundry (1918)
\nThe Laundry (1918) stands to the east of the Recreation Hall. It was built as a communal laundry for the hospital and is highly intact. The building’s original layout was highly-functional, with a loading dock on its western side with double doors into the laundry interior. The large open volume of the interior was originally divided by part-height partitions into large sections, with dirty laundry entering the building from the north end of the loading dock, progressively moving south though the building during the laundering process, and finishing at the southern end of the loading dock for redistribution. A lean-to awning has been added over the loading dock and the large internal volume has had new part-height partitions installed, changes that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance. In 2020 it is used as offices and a canteen. Some hospital complex-related paraphernalia is stored in one office in the building.
\nFeatures of the Laundry of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nPowerhouse (1917)
\nThe Powerhouse (1917) stands to the north of the Laundry. It was built as a coal-fired powerhouse for the hospital complex and is highly intact. The building is in two parts – a large double-height boiler room, and an adjacent single-storey engine room, the floor of which is at the level of an upper gallery of the boiler room. The building includes an open ‘coal bunker’ on the southern side of the boiler room, a later lean-to coal bunker on the western side, and a tall freestanding brick chimney to the north. In 2020 the boiler room is vacant, retains its boilers, and is used as a store for a considerable amount of hospital paraphernalia. The engine room has had partitions installed and is used as offices and contains a small hospital museum.
\nFeatures of the Powerhouse of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nMorgue (1902, extended 1949)
\nThe Morgue (1902, extended 1949) stands to the northwest of the Powerhouse. Purpose-built as a morgue (1902) for the hospital, and extended and remodelled (1949) to increase capacity and incorporate refrigeration, it retains its functional mortuary layout and fixtures. In 2020 the building is vacant and is highly intact.
\nFeatures of the Morgue of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFemale Patients Area
\nThe Female Patients Area comprises a collection of highly-intact 19th and early 20th century patient buildings, located to the west of the Central Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area, on high ground overlooking the Brisbane River.
\nThe features of the Female Patients Area of state-level significance include:
\nLayout of Buildings and Landscapes, Views
\nThe buildings are set amongst open lawn areas and semi-formal gardens, and informally arranged in a U-shape around an open rise that was the site of other former ward buildings (former layout evidenced by remnant concrete paths and platforms). They are approached from the south via tree-lined Ellerton Drive, from which the substantial Female Wards 1 & 2 is visually prominent across an area of open terraces that mark the sites of the former night nurses quarters and early doctors residences. Other surviving early ward buildings fronting Ellerton Drive are relatively domestic in scale and have front gardens with open lawns and mature trees. The area is uninterrupted by later development or infill.
\nThe views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFemale Wards 1 & 2 (1866 and additions and modifications in c1868, 1870, 1875, 1905, 1906, 1923, 1937, and 1951)
\nFemale Wards 1 & 2 is a highly-intact large building of different construction phases standing on a slope near the top of a ridge toward the southern end of the Female Patients Area. Its surrounding land falls steeply away to the west down to the Brisbane River and gently down to the south, which was its former fenced yard. This affords the building visual prominence from Ellerton Drive and extensive panoramic views out to the Brisbane River and surrounds from the southwest to north. Originally built (but never used) as a ward for fee-paying patients, the building has been extended and adapted for use as a general ward for female patients. In 2020 it is vacant and its interior has been stripped of floor boards, some floor structure, fixtures, ceilings, and fittings. The building has a complex layering of significant fabric from different periods of construction, and significant alterations of earlier fabric.
\nFeatures of the Female Wards 1 & 2 of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nShelter Shed for Female Patients (by 1944)
\nThe Shelter Shed for Female Patients (by 1944) stands to the rear (southwest) of Female Wards 1 & 2 with an open space between the two buildings. The shed formed part of the perimeter fence of the ward building’s rear yard and although the fence has been demolished the shed retains one attached fence post and bears marks of the fence. Highly intact, the shed is open on one side facing the Female Wards 1 & 2 and has a fireplace.
\nFeatures of the Shelter Shed of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGarage (by 1944)
\nThe Garage (by 1944) is a highly-intact, small, freestanding single-car garage building located east of, and facing toward, the Shelter Shed for Female Patients.
\nFeatures of the Garage of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nAnderson House and Garden (1917)
\nAnderson House (1917, former Female Patient Admission Ward) is highly intact and stands northeast of Female Wards 1 & 2, facing Ellerton Drive. Purpose-built as an admissions ward for female patients, the building is domestic in scale and set amongst semi-formal gardens, reflecting its original purpose and the principles of moral treatment. Positioned on a rise, the building is accessed from the south via stairs. In 2020 the building accommodates offices with minimal alterations to the original fabric.
\nFeatures of Anderson House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nResidence (1890s-1910s, relocated c1958, c2000)
\nThe Residence (1890s-1910s) is a small timber-framed and -clad house standing south of Anderson House. Originally built as a residence, it has been relocated twice within the complex (in c1958 it was removed from west of McDonnell House to north of the Medical Superintendent’s Residence, and from there in c2000 to its current location). Fabric relating to and after its c1958 move, including its location and setting, fence and yard, verandah enclosures above handrail height and front balustrade, kitchen and bathroom fitouts, and stumps, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance. In 2020 it is vacant and highly intact.
\nFeatures of the Residence of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nBostock House and Garden (1885, extended 1901, c1924)
\nBostock House (1885, former Female Ward 6) stands to the north of Anderson House, set back from and facing Ellerton Drive. Purpose-built as a female ward building, it comprises its original symmetrical core, northeast extension (1901), southwest extension (1901, 1924, lavatory), and northwest verandah extension (c1924, later enclosed). The building retains its open, semi-formal garden setting. In 2020 the building accommodates offices and is highly intact. Fire stair added (c1969) to the rear verandah and over the front verandah (since removed) are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Bostock House also of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nDawson House (1944)
\nDawson House (1944, former Female Patient Acute Ward) is a substantial two-storey building with basement, built into the steep slope at the northern end of the Female Patients Area. Purpose-built as an acute ward for female patients, the building in its design and layout reflects the principles of Mental Hygiene. In 2020 it is used as a mental health training and research centre and is highly intact. The building has its main front (south) entrance at ground floor and rear (north) entrance at basement level, and retains its open semi-formal garden setting. Later additions and alterations including stair wells (1965) at the northern ends of the wings, air-conditioning plant and ducting, non-original interior partitions enclosing and dividing former open spaces, and fire doors, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Dawson House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFemale Bathroom Block (1902)
\nThe Female Bathroom Block (1902, also known as Dawson Annexe) stands to the east of Dawson House. Built as a communal women’s bathroom, it was converted for use as a workroom / sewing room for female patients (1935) then as a ward (1955), and in 2020 is used for archive storage.
\nFeatures of the Female Bathroom Block also of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFemale Patients Recreation Area and Early Asylum Site
\nThe Female Patients Recreation Area and Early Asylum Site is the area of open ground to the southwest of the Female Patient Area, stretching along the Brisbane River and bounded by Woogaroo Creek to the south.
\nThe features of the Female Patients Recreation Area and Early Asylum Site of state-level significance include:
\nLayout of Buildings and Landscapes, Views
\nThe Female Patients Recreation Area comprises buildings (a Cafeteria, Bowling Green, and Change Room and Stores Shed) laid out along a curved ridge that forms a natural amphitheatre around former playing fields on the lower terrace at the edge of the Brisbane River. A further building (Packing Shed and Patients Shelter) stands southwest of the others and overlooks the sloping ground to the south that was historically an area for the cultivation of vegetables.
\nDeveloped on the site of the former Simpson Residence (1843-44) and the subsequent Early Asylum Site (former Woogaroo Insane Asylum, established 1865, demolished 1890-93 floods) the area now forms part of the Wolston Park Golf Club course (1970s), which contributes to the spacious open grounds and landscape setting of the hospital complex.
\nThe views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRecreation Grounds (1951-5)
\nDeveloped as a therapeutic environment for female patients in the 1950s, the park-like character, layout, and spatial setting of the Recreation Grounds is intact and uninterrupted by later development. Mature trees (some possibly dating to the Early Asylum era) are dotted throughout the area and clustered in the vicinity of the Cafeteria and Ellerton Drive. The former tennis court on the ridge, and shelter sheds that stood in an arc around the level former playing fields are no longer extant.
\nFeatures of the Recreation Grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nCafeteria (c1951)
\nThe Cafeteria (c1951) is a one-storey slab-on-ground brick building with a hipped roof standing in the centre of the area. It is long and narrow, stretching along the east/west ridgeline and has many windows on its northern side with impressive views across the recreation area’s amphitheatre to the Brisbane River and landscape beyond. Originally built as the communal dining room and kitchen for the patients of the Female Recreation Area, it is highly intact and in 2020 is used as the clubhouse for the Wolston Park Golf Club. Minimal alterations include a freestanding open-sided shelter on the northern side, replacement of its roof cladding from corrugated asbestos sheets to corrugated metal sheets, rearrangement of the ablutions, insertion of folding partitions into the long dining room, and replacement of the folding doors on the northern side of the dining room.
\nFeatures of the Cafeteria of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nChange Room and Stores Shed (c1951)
\nThe Change Room and Stores Shed (c1951) is a small, timber-framed and -clad rectangular freestanding one-storey building to the west of the Cafeteria. Built to accommodate a change room for patients and two store rooms to service the surrounding vegetable fields, it is highly intact and in 2020 is used as a storeroom. Its original boarded doors have been removed/replaced and its original roof cladding has been changed from corrugated asbestos sheets to corrugated metal sheets.
\nOnly the former soil store room interior was inspected.
\nFeatures of the Change Room and Stores Shed of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nPacking Shed and Patients Shelter (c1951)
\nThe Packing Shed and Patients Shelter (c1951) stands to the southwest of the Cafeteria. It is a freestanding, brick, slab-on-ground building with a cross-shaped floor plan. Originally built to service the surrounding vegetable fields, it is highly intact and in 2020 is used as a store for golf course maintenance. Minimal changes include: removal of two walls from the vegetable storeroom, replacement of its roof cladding from corrugated asbestos sheets to corrugated metal sheets, and addition of a freestanding metal-framed shelter on the southern side.
\nOnly the vegetable store room and packing area interiors were inspected.
\nFeatures of the Packing Shed and Patients Shelter of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nEarly Asylum Site (1865), including former Simpson Residence Site (1843-44)
\nPrior to the establishment of the Early Asylum Site (former Woogaroo Insane Asylum, established 1865, demolished following the 1890-93 floods), the area was the site of the former Simpson Residence (1843-44), which comprised a house located on the ridge, with stables to its southwest, and a series of dams along a north-south watercourse to its east.
\nHistorical documents indicate the Early Asylum Site was arranged with a cemetery near the confluence of the Brisbane River and Woogaroo Creek; a hospital to its northwest; and a men’s ward and various service buildings, along the central curved ridge where the Cafeteria currently stands and to its south. Initial access was via a wharf on the river to the north, and later a series of bridges (footbridge 1870s, timber road bridge by 1896, stone and timber road bridge 1916) crossed the creek southeast of the men’s ward. A steam saw and nearby cottage were located northeast of the footbridge. The female ward stood on higher ground to the north, with a doctors residence to its immediate south. By 1896, water management and farming infrastructure included a dam along what is now Boyce Road, and a nearby sawmill, stables, and piggery.
\nFeatures of the Early Asylum Site and former Simpson Residence Site of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nAreas where potential archaeological evidence could contribute to a greater understanding of the early layout and operation of the complex, the activities and living conditions of occupants, and associated transport infrastructure include the:
\nMale Patients Area
\nThe Male Patients Area is highly intact and comprises patient buildings arranged in an L-shape along the inside of two intersecting straight roads (Hogg Lane and Barrett Road) around two sides of a large Recreation Grounds.
\nThe features of the Male Patients Area of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLayout of Buildings and Landscapes, Views
\nThe buildings are laid out in an evenly-spaced, ordered manner along a high curving ridge with clear open spaces around and between them. They have a service access road (Hogg Lane and Barrett Road, formerly highly-secured by fences) on one side. On the other side is the Recreation Grounds, which the buildings look out over and patients were allowed controlled access. The grounds have been contrived to provide a calm outlook from the buildings and achieve security and supervision of patients.
\nThe buildings are visually striking individually and as a group of similarly-scale structures in a formal, consistent arrangement standing in a planned landscape, which heightens their strong institutional character. The area is uninterrupted by later development or infill and is especially evocative when viewed from the Recreation Grounds.
\nThe views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRecreation Grounds (by 1895)
\nThe Recreation Grounds of the Male Patients Area is the open area of ground historically accessible to patients and used for therapeutic recreation and an area for agriculture tended by patients. It comprises a large cricket oval at the southern end, an open grassed space at the northern end (former small agriculture area), ringed by a wide open lawn dotted with mature ornamental trees. The grounds are highly intact and not compromised by later development. The extensive and elaborate security fences between the patients wards and the Recreation Grounds have been demolished and a bitumen road has been added between the buildings and the cricket oval, connecting to Barrett Road.
\nFeatures of the Recreation Grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFleming House (by 1896, extended c1917)
\nFleming House (by 1896, extended c1917) is a two-storey brick building standing at the southeast corner of the Male Patient Area, and is the oldest extant building of the area. Purpose-built as a male ward building, it is surrounded by lawn and mature trees and faces north toward the Recreation Grounds. It has wide L-shaped verandahs at each front corner of its ground floor and retains c1917 extensions (rear ablutions block; northeast pantry). In 2020 the building is vacant and highly intact.
\nFeatures of Fleming House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGladstone House, Jenner House, and Kelsey House (all 1936)
\nGladstone House, Jenner House, and Kelsey House (all 1936) are three highly-intact, almost identical buildings standing in a curving line west of Fleming House. Purpose-built as male ward buildings, they express their original use through architectural details and features designed for patient care and reflect the principles of moral treatment. Surrounded by lawns, they face northeast toward the Recreation Grounds and their primary access is on this side of the buildings. In 2020 they are vacant and have had most later fabric removed.
\nFeatures of Gladstone House, Jenner House, and Kelsey House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nMale Bathroom Block (1902)
\nThe Male Bathroom Block (1902) is a small rectangular building standing west of Jenner House, beside Hogg Lane. Built as a communal men’s bathroom, the building was converted to a pathology lab in 1927 and is now vacant. A later extension has been made to its eastern side, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Male Bathroom Block of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nLewis House, McDonnell House, and Noble House (all 1915)
\nLewis House, McDonnell House, and Noble House (all 1915) are three similar buildings standing in a line northeast of Kelsey House. Purpose-built as male ward buildings, they express their original use through architectural details and features designed for incarcerated patient management and reflect the principles of moral treatment. Surrounded by open lawns, they face southeast toward the Recreation Grounds and their primary access is on this side of the buildings. In 2020 they are vacant and have had most later fabric removed as well as most internal fittings and finishes. The timber ground floor structure has been replaced by a concrete slab, and the original rear bathrooms wings have been demolished. Chimneys have been demolished down to roof level and verandahs and bay windows on Lewis House and Noble House have been demolished. McDonnell House has had its projecting rear stairwells demolished.
\nFeatures of Lewis House, McDonnell House, and Noble House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nOsler House (1928) and Pearce House (1934)
\nOsler House (1928) and Pearce House (1934) are two almost identical, highly-intact buildings standing in a line northeast of Noble House at the northern end of the Male Patients Area. Purpose-built as ward buildings for 'violent' or 'difficult' incarcerated male patients, they express their original use through architectural details and features designed for incarcerated patient management and reflect the principles of moral treatment. Surrounded by open lawns, they face southeast toward the Recreation Grounds and their primary access is on this side of the buildings. In 2020they are vacant and have had their bathrooms stripped out and original timber floors replaced by concrete.
\nFeatures of Osler House and Pearce House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nCemetery Site (1895-1912)
\nThe site of the second cemetery associated with the hospital is located on the western side of the Male Patients Area and is an area of archaeological potential. Historically located north of the main hospital buildings and west of the cricket ground, the cemetery was operational between 1895 and 1912, when it was closed to allow construction of the two-storey male wards and burials were reportedly reinterred to the third cemetery to the north by 1913. The area was subsequently developed for residences (1910s-c1958), and kitchens and workshops (1970s), which were later relocated or demolished.
\nPotential archaeological evidence within and around this area includes burials and reinterments, stone and metal grave markers, and other artefacts and features associated with burial practices.
\nWacol Repatriation Complex
\nThe Wacol Repatriation Complex, purpose-designed for the health treatment of returned members of the Australian armed forces, is north east of the Male Patients Area, separated from it by more than 250m. It has been redeveloped (c2012) for office use.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLayout of Buildings and Landscapes, Views
\nThe terrain of this area slopes gently down to the southeast from a ridge, along the crest of which runs Wolston Park Road, the primary road access. The buildings are arranged to direct their patients’ primary views and allow controlled access in the other direction, to the southeast towards the lower Recreation Grounds. The area is laid out symmetrically with buildings spaced well apart by open lawns with mature ornamental trees, which are generally remnants of grander formal planting schemes.
\nFeatures of the layout and views also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nRecreation Grounds (c1954-5)
\nThe Recreation Grounds (c1954-5) comprises a mix of evenly-sloped open lawn areas with mature trees around and between the buildings, and extending down to a cricket oval (1954-5) located at the southeast end of the complex. The generous open grounds provide a spacious landscape setting for the buildings, and were historically accessible to the patients for therapeutic recreation. Formed and used by the patients, the level cricket oval has a timber fence and mature trees to its perimeter, with stone retaining walls forming terraces around its northwest side.
\nFeatures of the Recreation Grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nKitchen Block (1948)
\nThe Kitchen Block, purpose-built as a central kitchen, dining room, and canteen for patients, stands near Wacol Park Road, between Ward A and Ward B. It is the most prominent building of the Repatriation complex and the centre of the area’s symmetrical layout. Its original corrugated asbestos roof sheets, steel-framed windows, and most timber doors have been replaced and it has been converted for use as offices.
\nFeatures of the Kitchen Block of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nWard A (Jacaranda), Ward B (Silky Oak), and Ward C (Lilly Pilly) (all 1948)
\nWards A, B, and C (all 1948) are three similar buildings arranged symmetrically around the Kitchen Block. Purpose-built as repatriation wards for male patients, they express their original use through architectural details and features designed for patient care, and reflect some principles of moral treatment. Surrounded by open lawns, they are accessed from all sides and face southeast across a broad grassed courtyard down toward the Recreation Grounds. They have been converted for use as offices, removing the original internal fixtures and approximately half their original partitions. The buildings have had their original corrugated asbestos roof sheets, steel-framed windows, and most timber doors replaced, and plaster cornices and suspended ceilings have been installed: these are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Wards A, B, and C of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nOccupational Therapy and Recreation Hall (c1961)
\nThe Occupational Therapy and Recreation Hall (c1961) stands adjacent to Ward C on its northeast side. Purpose-built for accommodating groups of Repatriation Centre (male) patients for occupational therapy ‘shop’ work and general recreation (including film screenings), it is a small brick building with a verandah on its southeastern side and a gable roof. It has been converted for use as offices and storerooms by inserting new partitions. Some windows have been replaced but the building retains most of its original doors and windows. The original corrugated asbestos roof sheets have been replaced with metal sheets of the same corrugation dimension.
\nFeatures of the Occupational Therapy and Recreation Hall of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nCemetery Site (c1913-1945)
\nThe site of the third cemetery associated with the hospital is located immediately northeast of the Wacol Repatriation Pavilion Complex and is an area of archaeological potential. The area operated as a cemetery for the hospital from c1913 to 1945, when burials were reinterred to the Goonda Cemetery. Historically cleared of vegetation, the site comprises regrowth bushland bounded to the northwest by Wolston Park Road and a carpark and southeast by Orford Drive. The surfaces of both roads are built up above the ground level of the cemetery site.
\nPotential archaeological evidence within and around this area includes burials and reinterments, stone and metal grave markers, and other artefacts and features associated with burial practices.
\nGailes Golf Club Course
\nGailes Golf Club Course (1925) is an 18-hole course stretching along the eastern side of the Wacol Repatriation Complex, Male Patients Area, and Staff Residences Area, forming a landscaped perimeter and contributing to their expansive outlooks.
\nAccessed from and bounded by Wilruna Street to its east, the course is an extensive area of contoured and landscaped ground comprising long open fairways and sculpted open greens and sand traps, surrounded by mature trees of various species (remnant eucalypts and introduced plantings).
\nLaid out in the 1920s, and built and maintained by patients, the course reflects the principles of moral treatment. It is highly intact and uncompromised by later development.
\nFeatures of the Gailes Golf Club Course of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nRiverbank and Nyunda Park Area
\nThe Riverbank and Nyunda Park Area comprises an area of bushland located between the core hospital complex and the former Farm Complex, and stretching northeast around the reservoir and uphill towards the Basil Stafford Centre. Former sandstone quarry workings and associated transport infrastructure are evident amongst the riverbank bushland to the west of Explorer’s Walk, which winds north-south through the area. The modern warehouse to the west and the youth detention centre to the east are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Riverbank and Nyunda Park Area of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape and Views
\nThe landscape comprises a mix of remnant and regrowth bushland across an area of varied topography. A sandstone ridge runs along the steep-sided riverbank and the undulating inland terrain comprises a series of contoured ridges, slopes and gullies that form a catchment area around the dam reservoir to the north. The area has remained substantially undeveloped throughout its history. It forms part of the natural landscape setting for the hospital complex and contrasts with the relatively open, designed landscapes surrounding the hospital buildings and across the golf course areas to the east and south.
\nFeatures of the Landscape and Views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Sandstone Quarry and Track (1860s)
\nThe area west of Explorer’s Walk contains a series of quarry workings where stone was extracted from outcrops along the sandstone ridge. There are two main workings (north and south) and other smaller workings scattered around the centre of this area. The workings are evidenced worked faces (vertical) and benched areas (horizontal), and are accessed by a track along which stone was transported to a jetty on the river, approximately 600m to the north. A second track diverts southeast to access the main hospital complex.
\nFeatures of the Quarry Workings and Track of state-level significance also include:
\nHospital Dump Sites
\nThe Hospital Dump Sites comprise a series of medium to high-density artefact scatters located adjacent to a modern powerline easement to the north of the former Quarry Workings. The scatters contain discarded material associated with the hospital and farm complex, with some evidence it has been deposited in a systematic manner – grouped by type.
\nThe largest scatter contains a concentration of glass, ceramic and metal kitchenware and tableware, including large and small fragments of white-glazed earthenware and stoneware jugs, cups and other vessels, white-enamelled metal jugs and pans, and assorted metal containers and utensils. Other scatters contain collections of metal milk cans, water tanks, bed frames, wire fencing and electrical equipment.
\nFarm Complex
\nThe Farm Complex is located toward the northwest portion of the site near the river and stretches south along a winding vehicle road that connects the main patient ward areas north to the farm areas. A second road, Aveyron Road, carries on from the end of Explorers Walk and leads east up to the Basil Stafford Centre. A large dam is at the centre of the area and there are former farm buildings/remnants to its north and south.
\nThe Farm Ward Complex comprises (generally from south to north):
\nPiggery Remnants (1916-19)
\nRemnants of the former piggery (1916-19) are located on the eastern side of Explorer’s Walk. All structures have been removed, however, the large terraced area of land where the piggery stood retains concrete slabs and paths. Running along the downhill edge of the area is an off-form reinforced concreted wall with a cast iron pipe outlet and low walls forming a square concrete feature on its eastern side.
\nFeatures of the Piggery Remnants of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nDam (1950) and Pump House (by 1956)
\nNorth of the Piggery Remnants within bushland is a large dam reservoir (1950) formed in a valley over a natural creek. Its dam wall is a tall earth embankment with Explorer’s Walk running across its top and on its western side is a concrete outlet partially lined with stone emptying toward the river.
\nA Pump House (by 1956) stands near the dam wall on the north side of the reservoir. Built to feed the nearby farm areas and the distant vegetable gardens north of the Male Patients Area, it is a small rectangular building with a gable roof.
\nFeatures of the Dam and Pump House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nLater Farm Ward for Male Patients (c1964, Weeroona)
\nNorth of the Dam, standing on the western side of the intersection of Explorers Walk and Aveyron Road is the Later Farm Ward for Male Patients. It is a large face brick building, primarily one-storey but with a partial lower ground floor level under its southern section. It has a shallow-pitched gable roof with skylights. It has been stripped of most internal linings but retains most of its original floor plan layout. Most original windows and skylights have been removed and it is used as a training centre for police.
\nFeatures of the Later Farm Ward for Male Patients of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\n\n
Farm Overseer’s House (1918, relocated within complex area c2009-13)
\nThe Farm Overseer’s House (1918), relocated from its original position nearby to the east to stand north of the Later Farm Ward for Male Patients, is a one-storey timber-framed and -clad residence with a hip roof. In its new location it has been rotated to face northeast and has been raised high on steel and timber stumps. In 2020 it is vacant and used as a training centre for police.
\nFeatures of the Farm Overseer’s House of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nEarly Farm Ward Kitchen and Dairy (1916)
\nStanding east of the Farm Overseer’s House is the Early Farm Ward Kitchen and Dairy (1916). These two small masonry buildings stand on a raised island of land surrounded by a large lower area that has been flattened to form a driver training track for police. These buildings are the rear outbuildings for a large early farm ward that stood in front of them but has been demolished. The kitchen fireplace has been demolished.
\nChanges which have been made that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: adding a verandah awning to the south side of the kitchen building and an awning between buildings, cutting a door into the north wall of the scullery to connect it to the heating room, and enclosing the verandah on the south end of the Dairy building and adding a small extension to its north end. The buildings have been converted for use as a staff kitchenette, toilets, and for storage for the track.
\nFeatures of the Early Farm Ward Kitchen and Dairy buildings of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nBasil Stafford Centre
\nThe Basil Stafford Centre is highly intact and comprises a complex of lowset buildings and landscaped grounds, set amongst bushland and located along an elevated ridgeline in the northern portion of the hospital site. Established as a farm ward for adults, the complex also illustrates its subsequent use and evolution as a centre for the treatment of intellectually disabled children and adolescents – spanning broad-based institutionalisation through to individual care in domestic-scaled villas.
\nThe features of the Basil Stafford Centre of state-level significance include:
\nLayout of Buildings and Landscapes, Views
\nHistorically set apart from the main hospital and surrounded by bushland, the Basil Stafford Centre is accessed via Aveyron Road that approaches from the southeast and connects with the former Farm Complex to the southwest. Expansive views of the surrounding landscape are offered from the road along the ridge and from the hilltop position of the main complex.
\nThe main complex is laid out with the elongated three-block Farm Ward Building fronting Aveyron Road, with open terraces between it and the School Building and Swimming Pool to the rear (north). The generous grounds comprise a mix of landscaped open terraces (former exercise yards with perimeter fence) dotted with mature trees that gently slope down to the north, and bushland. The Villas are located downhill to the east and set amongst light bushland.
\nThe views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFarm Ward Building and Grounds (1954-6)
\nThe Farm Ward Building (1954-6) is a highly-intact sprawling face brick building positioned on the crown of a hill, which is the highest part of the hospital complex site and from all sides of the building are extensive views out to the surrounding landscape. Purpose-built in three successive stages as male wards for incarcerated patients, it expresses its original use through architectural details and features designed for incarcerated patient management, including efficient and logical room layouts, high levels of natural light and ventilation to the interior, provision of communal ablutions, patient wards of dormitories and single rooms, and security and observation of occupants. In 2020 the building is vacant and most later fabric has been removed. The original corrugated asbestos roof sheets have been replaced with metal sheets of the same corrugation dimension. The original ceilings and eaves (sheets-and-battens or fibrous plaster) have been replaced with flat plasterboard throughout.
\nFeatures of the Farm Ward Building and Grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nSchool Building for Child Patients with Intellectual Disabilities (1967) and Swimming Pool (c1973)
\nThe School Building for Child Patients with Intellectual Disabilities (1967) is a highly intact face brick building comprising four connected wings surrounding a grassed courtyard. Purpose built as a school and training centre for children of the adjacent hospital ward building, the school building expresses its original use through architectural details and features designed for child patients with intellectual disabilities, including efficient and logical room layouts, high levels of natural light and ventilation to the interior, increased provision of toilets, and high levels of security and safety of occupants. In 2020 it is used as an office building.
\nFeatures of the school of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nThe Swimming Pool (c1973) is located adjacent to the school building on its west side. It is a concrete in-ground shell with a rectangular pool of lap lanes connected by a narrow swimming channel to a smaller rectangular wading pool. It is surrounded by a wide concrete apron and a small face brick kiosk with flat roof stands at the north corner of the apron. Later pool sheds, stands, shade structures, and a tall brick fence have been added to the pool, which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Swimming Pool of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nVillas (c1978)
\nThe Villas (c1978) comprise two adjacent groups of buildings in bushland at the eastern part of the Basil Stafford Centre area, along Aveyron Road. Built as patient accommodation of a more suburban domestic nature, in 2020 the small buildings continue in this use but have had their interiors replaced for modern patient care standards. The building’s interiors are not of state-level cultural heritage significance, as are non-original external alterations and additions such as tall fences and courtyards.
\nFeatures of the Villas of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nThe Wolston Park Hospital Complex, opened in 1865 as Woogaroo Asylum, occupies a 311.05 hectare site on the banks of the Brisbane River at Wacol, approximately 19km southwest of the Brisbane CBD. One of only three institutions for people with mental illness established by the Queensland Government during the 19th century, it later incorporated a number of mental health facilities and ancillary services. Since the late 20th century, new uses for some areas of the site have evolved, with repurposing of buildings.
\nPrior to 1859, people within the later colony of Queensland, who were certified as insane, were sent to Sydney. Immediately following Separation, they were lodged at the Brisbane Gaol. In 1861 the government instructed Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin to report on a suitable site and draw up plans for a 400-bed asylum. Tiffin recommended an area of land on the banks of the Brisbane River halfway between Brisbane and Ipswich. This was rejected by the Government in favour of a nearby site, upstream at the junction of the Brisbane River and Woogaroo Creek at Woogaroo.
\nThe site of the new asylum was originally part of the lands of the Yuggera Ugarapul People,[1] and had been occupied by the residence of Dr Stephen Simpson, the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Moreton Bay District. Simpson was appointed in 1842 when the area first opened for free settlement following the closure of the penal colony.[2] An 1861 survey plan indicates the presence of a dwelling between the mouth of Woogaroo Creek and a small dam that still exists east of the current Wolston Park Golf Club clubhouse.[3] The dwelling, most likely Simpson's cottage, was sited just southwest of the clubhouse, with a wharf on the river to the north.[4] Late 1860s plans of the asylum's original buildings indicate that they were located at the east end of the current clubhouse.[5]
\nAsylum Era (1865-1908)
\nTenders for the first stage of construction of the asylum were let in January 1863 and by the end of 1864 sufficient buildings were completed for the asylum to begin operation. Woogaroo Asylum opened on 10 January 1865. On 12 January, seven prison warders (two of them women) and ten police constables escorted 57 male and 12 female inmates from Brisbane Gaol to Woogaroo, travelling by river. The 69 patients were accommodated in a two-storeyed brick building initially intended to be the administration block [not extant]. Male inmates were accommodated on the first floor and part of the ground floor. Females occupied a section of the ground floor. A tall timber fence surrounded the building and timber outbuildings accommodated a kitchen, bathroom and staff areas. Dr Kersey Cannan was appointed as Superintendent and a residence was constructed for him on site, northeast of the main asylum buildings [not extant].
\nThis first stage of the asylum was located at the southern end of the site between the Brisbane River and Woogaroo Creek, with the river providing access. Plans of the site made c1869 and in 1878 indicate that a cemetery was established at its far western end, near the confluence of Woogaroo Creek and the Brisbane River. A 1878 survey plan shows the developments on the asylum site: men’s ward, hospital, cottage, a steam saw beside Woogaroo Creek, land under cultivation, a footbridge over Woogaroo Creek, wharf into the Brisbane River, and on the ridge to the north of the main buildings, the female ward and a doctor’s house to its south.[6]
\nIn 1866, a ward for fee-paying patients was erected on an adjacent ridge about 400 metres to the northeast of the main buildings. The building (later Female Wards 1 and 2) was constructed from local sandstone extracted from a nearby quarry owned by Joshua Jeays, which also supplied stone for the construction of Old Government House (1862, QHR600118) and Parliament House (1865; QHR600069).[7] The superintendent, Dr Cannan, claimed responsibility for the building's design, based on principles recommended in the standard treatise on asylum construction at this time.[8] However, the Woogaroo Asylum was not in a position to receive fee-paying patients and the building remained unoccupied for two years until alterations were made so female inmates could be transferred to this block. A partial second storey was added, constructed to the design of Charles Tiffin in 1875, and other substantial alterations and additions were made to the building in 1905-6, 1923, 1937 and 1951. This building accommodated female inmates for over 100 years, and was the first of several in the separate ‘female area’.
\nIn 1867 the first of many Government inquiries into the operations of the asylum took place, with the Queensland Government appointing Dr Henry Challinor to investigate conditions there. Two further inquiries occurred in 1869. Dr Cannan was dismissed from his post as a result of the first inquiry. The second revealed a multitude of mistakes and incompetency and a number of its conclusions related to the inappropriate and insufficient accommodation on site, and the need for improved cooking facilities and provision of a decent water supply. On the recommendation of the select committee, the Queensland Government introduced the Lunacy Act 1869, based on legislation in other Australian colonies and Britain.
\nIt was not until a royal commission was established in 1877 to investigate Woogaroo Asylum and other reception houses in the colony, that the government was forced to take the continuing problems at the asylum more seriously. Despite the construction of two cottage wards in the early 1870s [not extant], overcrowding remained a chronic problem and the commission urged the construction of additional wards, improvements to existing cells, upgrading of services, the planting of shade trees, the establishment of recreation facilities and the provision of employment for patients. A modest building program began in 1878, with the construction of a cottage ward for 60 female patients, and continued with a block of cells for troublesome female patients in 1879; two wards, each for 35 patients, in the male and female areas in 1880, as well as the construction of a kitchen and laundry building to service 500 inmates [these buildings are not extant].[9]
\nA boom in the Queensland economy and a major increase in expenditure on public works was the impetus for a more substantial building program at the asylum during the 1880s. At the same time, the population of the state was increasing rapidly and accompanying social changes brought more admissions. The hospital population doubled in the two decades from 1880. Two new cottage wards (Female no 6 ward, 1885, later known as Bostock House; and a refractory ward) were erected in the female area, while in the male area, a new refractory ward was constructed [not extant] and major additions to the existing Male no 1 ward were undertaken. Despite this new work, conditions for patients scarcely improved as the additional accommodation barely matched the growth in patient numbers.
\nNew legislation was introduced with the Insanity Act 1884 replacing the Lunacy Act 1869. Modelled on New South Wales legislation, it reflected the growing medicalisation of the treatment of madness. The term lunacy was replaced by insanity and the institution where such persons were treated became known as a hospital for the insane rather than an asylum. This Act consolidated the state's role in the treatment and regulation of ‘insane’ people and remained in force for more than 50 years. The institution was renamed Goodna Hospital for the Insane in the same year.[10]
\nIn 1890 the asylum experienced severe flooding when the Brisbane River rose to a height of 40 feet (12.19m), the highest level ever recorded. The entire male area was inundated; buildings, fences, and other structures were seriously damaged and patients had to be re-located. Consequently, the low-lying area near the river was abandoned, with the main male area moved to higher ground to the northeast, where two male wards had already been erected [not extant]. The relocation brought the complex closer to the railway line (opened in 1875), which replaced the river as the primary means of access to the hospital. A Recreation Hall was erected in 1890, which served as a sewing room for female patients during the day and was also used for dances, concerts and church services, as well as a temporary timber building to alleviate overcrowding [not extant]; while in 1892 a substantial two-story brick building for male patients was opened [not extant].[11]
\nSerious flooding in February 1893 further damaged the male area and inundated the main staff residences and the original cemetery. In accordance with the decision to relocate to higher ground, work began on an outdoor recreation area and two similar single storey wards to accommodate 75 patients each (by 1896) [not extant]; male no 5 ward (later Fleming House), a two-storey brick building (c1896); and a second two-storey block (male no 10 ward)[not extant] opened c1900. These buildings overlooked the cricket oval that had been laid out by patient labour. In 1898-9, a substantial brick Medical Superintendent’s Residence, plus outbuildings [later Manor House, Offices], replacing a timber house badly damaged by the 1893 flood, were erected for the new medical superintendent, James Hogg, appointed in 1898. The residence was located on high ground with its main elevation facing south-east, away from the asylum complex.[12] Ellerton Drive, Hogg Lane, and the western half of Boyce Road had been formed to link buildings and areas on the site by 1896. The southernmost part of Barrett Drive led to a new cemetery (cemetery no 2) established north of the asylum buildings and adjacent to the cricket ground, which was used until the early 1910s. From 1898, the complex was known as the Goodna Hospital for the Insane for the next 42 years.
\nThe most significant building project of the early 1900s involved extensive alterations and additions to the original female ward. The first floor was extended across the entire building, which considerably increased accommodation. A large two-storeyed block, the Male no 4 ward [not extant] was also completed, bringing the male area to a well-defined group of eight buildings. A new morgue and two brick bathroom blocks were constructed in 1902 (the Female Bathroom Block was later known as Dawson Annexe and the Male Bathroom Block was later converted into a pathology laboratory).[13]
\nMoral Treatment or Therapy Era (1909-1937)
\nFollowing the death of James Hogg in 1908, Henry Byam Ellerton (c1871-1951) was appointed as Medical Superintendent of Goodna and Chief Inspector of Hospitals for the Insane. Conscious of the need to find the very best possible candidate, the Queensland Government had advertised widely for the position, including in Britain. Ellerton was chosen from a list of 26 applicants and had 14 years’ experience in English asylums. He was an ardent advocate of 'moral treatment' or ‘moral therapy’. Moral treatment marked a major turning point in an understanding of madness and insanity. Formerly regarded as the total absence or distortion of reason and incapable of cure, insanity came to be seen as a product of an immoral or defective social environment, thus people with mental illnesses could be improved in an appropriate and elevating environment. A critical aspect of moral treatment was the provision of a pleasant environment, with an emphasis on well-lit and ventilated buildings with adequate bathing facilities, reasonably sized rooms with sufficient openings and views to the landscape. Recreation and employment were also considered a vital part of the therapeutic process.
\nEllerton was Superintendent of the hospital for 27 years, retiring in 1936. In this period, Wolston Park acquired its modern form with the construction of the core of its buildings and the consolidation of the institutional environment. As Ellerton's vision was to create an integrated and self-sufficient community, the grounds became gardens and wooden fences were replaced with less claustrophobic wire ones.[14] A large bush house, 100 yards long and 20 yards wide (91.44m x 18.29m) [not extant], was established in 1911 to maintain a steady supply of pot plants for the wards and the Recreation Hall and to provide seedlings and young plants for the gardens throughout the hospital. The institution was opened to visits from relatives and friends and recreational activities became integral to the institution's operations. While aesthetically pleasing gardens and views were considered parts of the therapeutic process, the grounds were also important to the public image of the institution. A pleasant landscaped environment with gardens, bushland and open space suggested the hospital was a benign institution and belied its true character as a place where overcrowding was chronic and inmates were strictly controlled and managed.
\nDuring Ellerton's administration, an extensive building programme was undertaken, with Ellerton providing specialist input at the design stage for medical buildings. An Assistant Medical Superintendent’s Residence (later Offices) was added east of the male area, and the Recreation Hall extended to its front (south) in 1912. Existing male wards were demolished and Male no 9 and 10 wards (later Lewis House), Male no 11 ward (later McDonnell House) and Male no 12 and 13 wards (later Noble House) were completed in 1915.[15] The Hospital Ward Block (later Hospital) was completed and a cedar, three-panel, World War I (WWI) Honour Board unveiled in 1916.[16] A new main entrance bridge over Woogaroo Creek,[17] a female admission ward, Female no 7 ward (later Anderson House), the Administration Block (staff offices in 2020), the Powerhouse (offices, stores and small hospital museum in 2020), water reservoirs, and pumping stations were completed in 1914. The Laundry was completed in 1918. Male no 14 ward (later a ward for difficult female patients; afterwards Osler House) was completed in 1929; and Male no 15 ward for difficult male patients (later Pearce House) was completed in 1934; while the Male no 6, 7 and 8 wards (later Gladstone House, Jenner House, and Kelsey House respectively) were completed in 1936. Upon Ellerton's retirement, the male area comprised a total of 13 blocks, all constructed of brick and designed to accommodate between 20 and 120 inmates. However, the upgrading of facilities and increase in beds from 1910 to 1936 failed to negate the increase in patients, and overcrowding remained a chronic problem.[18]
\nCompared with the extensive building program in the male area between 1910 and 1936, improvements in the female area were extremely modest. Ellerton felt that the expansion of the female area was limited due to the topography of the site and advocated additional female wards at other institutions such as Ipswich Mental Hospital (established 1878) and Toowoomba Mental Hospital (established 1890).[19] However, a brick and concrete shelter shed with fireplace was added near Female no 1 and 2 wards in 1929 for ‘difficult patients’.[20] In the period 1910-20, the number of female inmates decreased by 20%, falling from 491 to 389 patients and the 1910 female population level was not regained until 1929. Male patients, including war veterans, increased by 30% during this period, rising from 779 to 1010.[21]
\nThe second cemetery (cemetery no 2), located north of the main buildings and adjacent to the cricket ground, closed in the early 1910s to allow construction of the two-storey male wards, which opened in 1915. A third cemetery (cemetery no 3), located in the northeast sector of the hospital site, appeared on survey plans prepared in the 19th century, but it is unclear whether it also operated from the late 19th century in conjunction with cemetery no 2.[22] Nevertheless, cemetery no 3 became the sole cemetery for the hospital from 1913 until 1945,[23] as Ellerton reported in 1913 that the ‘disinterment of remains from [the] old cemetery and re-internment in[to the] new cemetery – to make room for new wards’ had been completed.[24]
\nDuring Ellerton's period in charge, the institution underwent considerable material improvement and a number of essential services such as a hospital, electricity, and water had been established. For example, Pump houses, a watertower (demolished) and a rendered brick Reservoir, located adjacent to the main drive (later called Ellerton Drive) and connected to the Brisbane pipeline from Mount Crosby, were completed in 1914.[25]
\nAlso formed was the backbone of the road network and upgraded paths that became the basis of the current layout. The main drive from Goodna (Ellerton Drive, 1870s) was realigned opposite the female wards for their extension c1913 and its level altered. Foundation stones, and kerbing and guttering stones for the drive were quarried from the sandstone ridge beside the river, while the surface gravel came from gravel pits in the institution’s grounds. After a new bridge was erected over Woogaroo Creek in 1916, a new road connecting with Ellerton Drive was formed in 1917 and planted with bunya pines and fig species.[26] Hogg Lane, accessing Male no 5-8 wards had been formed by 1896.[27] Barrett Drive, which led to cemetery no 3 (truncated 1946), was established by 1932,[28] but conceivably dates from the commencement of the cemetery by 1913. The track to the new Farm Ward (1916, realigned and upgraded into a road in 1950; later called Explorers Walk) was also formed in this era.[29]
\nMany of the new buildings were well designed and excellent examples of the output of the Queensland Department of Works during this time. Some of the buildings demonstrated a refinement in approaches to patient care, such as the small and domestic scale Female no 7 ward (later Anderson House), which was designed to accommodate female patients when they were first admitted for observation and to receive more individual treatment than was possible in a large ward.
\nRecreational facilities had vastly improved and the complex now had three tennis courts, a Cricket Pavilion and terraces and a Cricket Oval (later Recreation Ground, now known as the Eddie Gilbert Memorial Field) considered one of the best cricket grounds in the state.[30] A golf course had been constructed by patient labour in the 1920s, becoming the well-regarded Gailes Golf Course (1925), which continued to be a source of employment for patients in the upkeep and maintenance of the greens.[31] A small hexagonal, timber Visitors Pavilion was erected near the main drive within the landscaped Visitors Garden (1912) below the Administration Block in c1920.[32]
\nPatients were also employed in farming activities that aided the hospital's self-sufficiency and conformed with the moral therapy model of treatment. Farm activities included a piggery; a dairy; a small cattle herd; and vegetable and crop growing–including oats, maize and lucerne. These activities were extended with the addition of a Farm Ward (1916; later Community Hall, Pappora) [not extant], attached masonry Kitchen with scullery (c1916), masonry Dairy (1916), Sheds (1916) [not extant], and an Overseers Cottage (1918; later Quarter Way House, Residence) [relocated onsite], all about two kilometres northwest of the main hospital complex, set in a rural landscape with mature plantings, built landscape works, and views.[33]
\nHowever, no new techniques or methods of treatment had been introduced. Even the later Male Wards nos 6, 7 and 8 (Gladstone, Jenner and Kelsey), were still firmly based on the moral therapy model, despite their new designs with unusual plan forms. The institutionalisation of people with mental illness in Queensland had become an efficient system of control and regulation, with an emphasis on confinement rather than treatment or care. More patients than ever were admitted to Goodna and no other solution to the treatment of mental illness was even considered possible.
\nMental Hygiene Era (1938-1962)
\nEllerton was succeeded as Medical Superintendent by Dr Basil Stafford, the former Superintendent of Ipswich Mental Hospital in 1938.[34] Ellerton's retirement provided the opportunity to review the entire mental health system in Queensland and in particular, Ellerton's total commitment to moral therapy. By the late 1930s psychiatry was a well-established specialty internationally, though still in its infancy in Australia, and Stafford was alert to the changes psychiatry was bringing to the treatment of mental illness. In 1937 he was sent by the Queensland Government to attend the 2nd International Congress on Mental Hygiene in Paris and on a study tour of hospitals, psychiatric clinics and universities in the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom.
\nOn his return, Stafford recommended various changes to the mental health system, including the implementation of new legislation. These recommendations led to the Mental Hygiene Act 1938, which closely resembled the British Mental Treatment Act 1930. It required active treatment for the mentally ill, attempted to reduce the stigma attached to mental illness, and allowed for voluntary admission to mental hospitals.[35]. Until this time hospitals such as Goodna received only certified patients, most of whom were sent there under a magistrate's order. However, the transition to a less coercive approach to treatment occurred slowly and in 1947 Stafford reported that only 34 of the total 570 patients had been admitted under the voluntary provisions of the Act. The changes were mirrored by the institution’s change of name to Brisbane Mental Hospital c1940.[36]
\nThe ideas of modern treatment introduced by Stafford emphasised the development of a comprehensive psychiatric approach, with adequate numbers of qualified medical staff. Insanity was seen as a disease of the brain and like any other disease required hospitalisation of patients and treatment with drugs. 'Modern treatment' he noted 'demands exhaustive mental and clinical case histories, as well as completely thorough physical examination. This cannot be done by a skeleton staff, however willing'.[37] This approach also brought degrees of specialisation among the staff and hospital procedures. Stafford advocated the separation of chronic wards from those dealing with admission, convalescence, and hospital cases. He believed that mental illness 'demands active therapy, and treatment must not become merely custodial' and urged the use of new types of treatment such as insulin, cardiazol, and electrotherapy.[38]
\nThe first building at Wolston Park to reflect Stafford's modern ideas was Female ward no 4 (later Dawson House), completed in 1944. It provided accommodation for 60 patients and was located on a sloping site close to the existing female wards. It was recognised that a building with a basement could be built on such topography, with the basement accommodating treatment rooms for cardiazol therapy, insulin therapy, malaria therapy, somnifaine or continuous narcosis therapy, and other medical treatments. The most striking difference was that minimal attention was given to the outside environment – this building was inward-looking, signalling the demise of the importance placed on the environment in 'moral treatment' and the increasing medicalisation of the treatment of mental health.[39]
\nAnother important building project for female patients at this time was the construction, between 1951 and 1955, of a special female recreation facility of approximately 2.5 hectares on the western edge of the reserve, adjacent to the Brisbane River. The principal building within the area was a brick Cafeteria with facilities to serve 500 patients (later Ballroom, Wolston Park Golf Clubhouse). Patients could spend the whole day in the recreation area without needing to return to the wards for midday meals. Other facilities in the area included a packing shed, sewing room [not extant], tennis court [not extant], bowling green [later putting green], a large playing field, nine viewing shelters [not extant] and storage sheds [one extant]. The grounds were landscaped by staff and inmate labour. By 1957 more than 200 patients were regularly using the facilities, highlighting the rigorous separation of patients according to gender that operated in all facets of the institution.[40] In 1956, a small brick and timber Visitors Shelter [not extant] was erected west of Ellerton House on Ellerton Drive.
\nBy January 1942, 110 returned soldiers were inmates of Goodna Mental Hospital and the Commonwealth Government expressed concern about the growing numbers being admitted. War veterans had become a significant minority of the hospital population since the final years of WWI and Ellerton had decided that using existing institutions was preferable to building new facilities. During World War II (WWII), however, the Commonwealth agreed to fund the construction of three special wards, with the Queensland Government agreeing to responsibility for the maintenance of the buildings and for staffing. Plans for a complete repatriation unit were prepared by the Department of Public Works in consultation with Basil Stafford. Their design essentially resurrected the principles of 'moral treatment' – the buildings were designed to minimise the sense of confinement associated with mental hospitals, and freedom was emphasised by wide verandahs and dining areas opening onto grassed courtyards and lawns. Construction of the wards began in 1946, and the Wacol Repatriation Pavilion was opened by Governor John Lavarack on 26 January 1948. It comprised three wards: Wards A, B and C; (later called Jacaranda, Silky Oak and Lilly Pilly respectively) each with accommodation for 88 patients and a Kitchen/canteen block. An Occupational Therapy and Recreation Hall was erected c1961 and a cricket oval (later called Sports Oval) in 1954-55.[41]
\nIn 1943, the Superintendent of the Goodna Hospital had advised the Director General of Health and Medical Services that the existing burial ground (cemetery no 3) was ‘almost completely occupied’ and a new one was needed.[42] Instead, the Department of Health and Home Affairs decided to use the local Goodna cemetery and ‘provide a motor hearse for funerals’.[43] Another possible reason for closing the cemetery was the proposed location of the new repatriation buildings between the male area and the cemetery.[44] After the cemetery closed, headstones and grave-markers were relocated to the Goodna cemetery. Bodies were re-interred, but the number is uncertain. In June 1947 the Courier Mail reported in a critical article on the hospital that the patients were ‘to disinter 4000 bodies from the hospital cemetery and re-bury then in Goodna town cemetery’.[45] However, a heritage plaque at Goodna cemetery notes that 192 bodies of the former Woogaroo Asylum were exhumed and relocated to two areas of the Goodna general cemetery, as well as about 2,300 grave markers.[46]
\nBetween 1946 and 1951, as part of the expansion of farming on site, a large dam was constructed south of the farm and irrigation plants installed. A pumping station on the northern side of the lake supplied water from the dam to both the farm and vegetable gardens near the male wards.[47] The pre-existing track (later Explorers Walk) between the main hospital site and the farm was re-aligned around the dam.[48]
\nIn the late 1940s, planning began for a new farm ward complex. Farm wards at the hospital had traditionally operated as semi-independent units where patients enjoyed greater levels of freedom and autonomy, unlike the main wards where people were locked in their cells or wards. A new site on the summit of a hill east of the existing farm wards was chosen and a building comprising two large wards, Farm Ward Block A (east) and B (west), with accommodation for 175 patients and a central dining/recreation block, was erected in stages between 1953 and 1957. Access was via a road completed in 1952, which partly follows a small area of a track evident by 1946 (now called Aveyron Road). Patients included both people with intellectual disabilities and people who had responded well to treatment and had the potential for recovery and discharge. In 1958, part of the farm ward complex was set aside for patients regarded as having intellectually disabilities and in 1964 a five teacher school was established to teach the 160 children who lived there. In 1967, a new school building providing educational and therapeutic facilities comprising classrooms, manual training, domestic science, and special purpose rooms grouped around a central courtyard, was completed. Gradually, all this complex became occupied by children with intellectual disabilities and was renamed the Basil Stafford Centre. Villa style patient accommodation was constructed nearby by 1978.[49]
\nFrom an early period, visiting clergy conducted religious services, but no specific facilities were provided by the government until after the appointment of three fulltime chaplains to the Brisbane Mental Hospital in 1959.[50] To assist them in the conduct of services and in the counselling of patients, three chapels, of similar design, were erected in a semi-circular pattern at the eastern end of Ellerton Drive in 1961. These were the Anglican Chapel of Christ the King [not extant], the Roman Catholic St Dymphna Chapel, in honour of the Catholic Patron Saint of people with mental illnesses [not extant], and the Council of Churches’ Chapel of Hope (later renamed the Chapel of Resurrection, adapted for use as the Forensic Administration after 1996).[51] In 1963, Brisbane Mental Hospital was renamed Brisbane Special Hospital.[52]
\nPsychiatric and Expanded Services (1962-late 1970s)
\nThe hospital population peaked in the mid-1950s, with an average of approximately 2500 residents daily (not including Wacol Repatriation Pavilion patients) and 700 staff. However, by the late 1950s, the efficacy of large-scale, all-purpose institutions for the treatment of mental illness began to be questioned. It was recognised that patients became institutionalised to the extent that living in large institutions perpetuated their mental disorders and did not assist them to recover. The Division of Mental Hygiene within the Health Department embarked on a program of expanding acute psychiatric beds in general hospitals and transferring elderly senile patients from mental hospitals to nursing homes. This resulted in a decline in the number of patients at Goodna, and in 1960 Director Basil Stafford was able to report that, for the first time, the hospital had an excess of beds. The complex began to develop a different role. No longer did it cater for every type of patient from every part of the state; instead the majority of inmates were long-term chronic patients. The new Mental Health Act 1962 emphasised the integration of psychiatric with other services[53] and placed a greater emphasis on voluntary admission. The complex became known as Brisbane Special Hospital at this time, but in 1969 it was re-named Wolston Park Hospital.
\nWith the reduction in long-term patients at the hospital, the old farm ward buildings at the northern end of the site were repurposed in 1965 as a new alcohol rehabilitation centre, known as the Wacol Rehabilitation Centre. Alcoholics had been patients at Wolston Park since the Inebriates Act 1892 allowed for their admission to designated institutions; however, there had been no specific facilities for them. New buildings were erected adjacent to the former farm ward including four wards, offices, and an occupational therapy area. These were a 1960s brick building [not extant]; a new Farm Ward (later called Weeroona), a two-storey brick building designed by Bligh, Jessop, Brentall and Partners, and completed in 1965, which initially served both male and female patients; and a separate complex for female patients (Melaleuca House and Poinciana House) [not extant], designed by Des Hanman & Associates and established in 1974.[54]
\nDe-institutionalisation Era (late 1970s-)
\nIn 1976 the Minister for Health released a paper on the Care of the Intellectually Handicapped, which proved to be the catalyst for major changes in the delivery of mental health services. The Intellectually Handicapped Services branch within the Health Department was established in 1977 and took responsibility for the Basil Stafford Centre. Research into the long-term effects of institutionalisation and the lack of success in the treatment and care provided in institutional settings led to critical questioning of the institutional model for people with mental illnesses, and people with intellectual or physical disabilities. In addition, the increasing criticism of conditions within mental hospitals and the abuse of patients' rights gave impetus to the development of alternative models; in particular, community-based mental health services. The community care model was adopted slowly in Queensland. Institutions were reformed; however, an emphasis on institutional care remained.
\nShort-term care with intensive treatment was the preferred model. Several major building projects, which reflected these changing ideas, were undertaken at Wolston Park during the 1970s, as well as extensive re-modelling of existing structures. In 1978, the Barrett Psychiatry Unit was established to provide acute care. It comprised eight separate buildings, a reception and admission block, three wards with 32 beds, two wards with 16 beds, cafeteria and medical officer's flat. In 1984 it expanded to include inpatients and specialised services for young people. A new medical centre opened in 1979 and in 1980 Nyunda Park, which included an extensive area of bushland and Joshua Jeays’ former sandstone quarry, a dam, and tracks,[55] was set up as an outdoor recreation area. The John Oxley Centre, a forensic psychiatric unit, was built at the western side of the site next to the Brisbane River in 1990 [not extant]. A number of the 19th century buildings were demolished in the 1970s and 1980s, with renovation and rehabilitation of other remaining 19th century buildings occurring in the late 1990s.
\nAt the time the Wolston Park Hospital Complex was entered in the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992, Queensland Health owned the whole site, along with Gailes Golf Course and Wolston Park Golf Course (established c1975), both leased.[56] Afterward, the Basil Stafford Training Centre was transferred to the Department of Community Services, while the northern sector of the site was transferred to the Department of Corrective Services, with maximum-security facilities, the Wolston Correctional Centre and Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre opening on this land in 1999.[57] The Brisbane Youth Detention Centre, opened to the south of the Basil Stafford Training Centre in 2001.[58] In 2020, a new youth detention centre (West Moreton Youth Detention Centre) is under construction beside (northeast of) the existing youth detention centre.[59]
\nAs part of the 1996 Ten Year Mental Health Plan for Queensland, Wolston Park Hospital was formally closed in 2001. The main hospital became known as The Park - Centre for Mental Health and decentralised its extended care services with a greater emphasis on rehabilitation and recovery. The Park provided clinical treatment and rehabilitation programs to patients from central and southern Queensland, including care for people with a chronic mental disorder and for people with a mental disorder who also had an intellectual disability; forensic care services;[60] and an extended treatment service for adolescents. New buildings were added and some of its historical buildings were renovated.[61] Most of the new buildings were domestic in scale and character and included accommodation for patients and medical and administrative facilities. Some replaced buildings erected during the 1970s, such as parts of the Barrett Psychiatric Centre.
\nIn December 2007, the Queensland Police Service (QPS) acquired a large portion of the former Wolston Park Hospital site, which included more than 30 buildings and other infrastructure, for the site of a new Police Academy and other police functions including a Centre for Forensic Investigation, specialist operational facilities, and a warehousing and archiving facility. A master plan of proposed development of the site was created by 2008. In 2009, an additional 41ha, including the early farm site, was acquired by QPS for use as the driver training facility under a memorandum of cooperation with the Department of Corrective Services. Since 2011, QPS has made site infrastructure and landscaping changes to roads and paths, services, open space, landscaping, and carparks; conserved and adapted six existing buildings for new uses; and added new buildings to the site.[62]
\nIn 2020, a 37.75ha parcel of land on the eastern edge of the site remains undeveloped.[63] This was part of a 591-acre (239ha) Reserve for a Cemetery at Woogaroo (R591) gazetted in 1878, but never used for that purpose. The cemetery reserve was altered in 1889, cancelled in 1946,[64] and its land (483 acres/195ha) added to the then Brisbane Special Hospital Reserve (R593).[65] From c1960 until the late 1970s, there was quarrying on the site, northeast of the Basil Stafford Training Centre, accessed primarily from Grindle Road. Gravel extraction from pits on the site, for use in landscaping at the Wolston Park Hospital Complex, also occurred.[66]
\nA strong association between the Queensland community and Wolston Park Hospital Complex has existed for a long time. Throughout much of the institution’s history, it served as a place that provided the community, and families and friends of patients, with hope for the care and treatment of people with mental illnesses.[67] Individuals, Brisbane and Ipswich businesses, and community groups, such as the Country Women’s Association, Returned Sailors’ Soldiers’ & Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia, Red Cross, Women’s Auxiliary of the Queensland Ex-Prisoners of War Association, and the United Protestant Association provided support to patients through entertainments, gifts, donations, outings, and assistance with sports events.[68]
\nBy the mid-1950s, Wolston Park Hospital Complex had become the largest mental hospital in Australia with about 2,500 daily average residents and a staff of almost 800.[69] One history of the institution stated it: ‘was a self-contained community with a close symbiotic relationship to the adjoining township (later, suburb) of Goodna where most of the staff lived. For many locals, the hospital was the place of employment for generations of the same family.’[70] Its workforce included health-care workers and ‘a large team of carpenters, plumbers, blacksmiths, engineers and other tradesmen [who] kept the place running, including the generation of electricity from a…powerhouse.’[71]
\nDuring its long history, more than 50,000 people from throughout Queensland were admitted to the Wolston Park Hospital Complex.[72] This led to strong associations with the place, not necessarily positive. Being sent there had lasting impacts on many patients. For those admitted between 1865 and the 1950s, their experience while incarcerated was often of overcrowding, insufficient staffing, and unpaid work. Later, when the institution’s efforts turned to pro-actively treating mental illness and returning patients to the community, patients underwent experimental drug- or electroconvulsive-therapies. Physical and mental abuse of patients by some staff members was always a possibility, as was sexual abuse.[73] With the transition to primarily community-based services, and the establishment of a patients’ advocate (Patients’ Friend from 1977, changing to Health Ombudsman from 2013) and the Association of Relatives and Friends of the Mentally Ill (ARAFMI Queensland branch formed in 1977), the experiences of patients with mental illness or intellectual disabilities changed.[74]
\nIn 2020, mental health and disability support functions remain on the site, serving patients from the Queensland-wide community (The Park-Mental Health Centre, Basil Stafford Disability Services). Other community links to the site continue, through participation in sporting clubs such as Gailes Golf Club, Wolston Park Golf Club, and the Wolston Park Centenary Cricket Club, which utilise former hospital recreation facilities.
","criteria":"Wolston Park Hospital Complex (established in 1865 as Woogaroo Asylum) is important in demonstrating the evolution of mental health care and welfare in Queensland, and is an early and distinctive example of a substantial public mental health institution.
\nWolston Park Hospital Complex demonstrates the primary role of the state in the care of people with mental illness since the 1860s. Founded by the Queensland government as the first publicly funded mental health institution in the colony, by the 1950s it had become the largest institution providing care and treatment for people with mental illness in Queensland. The site is also important in demonstrating the development of specialist mental health services for returned service personnel and people with intellectual disabilities, including children.
\nWolston Park Hospital Complex retains: a range of buildings dating from the 1860s, which through their design, relationships with each other and their setting, including designed landscapes, gardens and bushland, demonstrate the changing practices in the treatment of mental illness: from confinement and separation in the 19th century (Asylum); to activities and an environment conducive to mental health/recovery from 1909 to the 1930s (Moral Treatment or Therapy); to active treatment and cure through drug and medical therapies from the 1940s (Mental Hygiene 1940s-50s and Psychiatric Services 1960s-70s); to deinstitutionalization and community-based services by the 1980s.
\nThe physical evolution of the site also demonstrates these changes in practices as the complex developed incrementally across its large reserve. Landscaping of the grounds and gardening by patients during the moral treatment era served as a form of therapy, through meaningful work to create a pleasant environment and recreation facilities. Farming was also used as a therapy during the moral treatment era and from the 1950s for those with intellectual disabilities.
\nThe institution’s philosophy of self-sufficiency is illustrated by the riverside quarry (1860s) and associated buildings, structures and landscaping featuring its sandstone; the Farm Wards which provided food supplies; and the Female Wards 1 and 2 constructed using bricks made onsite and timber felled nearby.
|As one of only three mental health institutions established in Queensland in the 19th century, and the only one that illustrates through its fabric and layout the evolution of mental health services from the 1860s onwards, Wolston Park Hospital Complex is rare and distinctive.
|The Wolston Park Hospital Complex has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of early and evolved mental health treatment practices and conditions, the associated activities and infrastructure, the people who lived and worked there, and broader 19th and early-20th century social attitudes towards mental health patients in Queensland.
\nDetailed analysis of the hospital buildings – their planning, design and fabric, along with associated objects and documentary evidence – has the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the historical functions, operational activities, and conditions experienced by patients subject to a controlled environment.
\nArchaeological investigations at and around the three former cemetery sites may clarify the presence, nature and extent of burials, which along with the identification and analysis of associated artefacts and features has the potential to yield information about the treatment of deceased patients and burial practices at the hospital; spatial distribution and arrangement of graves; and the extent and methods of reinterments.
\nArchaeological investigations of the early asylum area – its wards, hospital, doctors residence and cottage sites, and associated jetty and bridge sites – has the potential to reveal sub-surface artefacts and features that might inform on the layout and operational activities, the living conditions of occupants, and transportation infrastructure associated with the complex. Previously the location of the 1840s Simpson residence, this area also has the potential to yield information about the mid-19th century occupation of the site.
\nThe medium and high-density artefact scatters in the riverbank bushland area, including glass, ceramic and metal kitchenware and tableware, have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the occupants and their material culture, and the day-to-day activities of hospital life.
|Highly-intact, Wolston Park Hospital Complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial public mental health institution in Queensland developed from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Principal characteristics include its: expansive, isolated, and highly-secured site; groups of hospital buildings laid out in areas according to function, with segregation of male and female patients; on-site services and infrastructure to allow self-contained operation; patient cemeteries; and landscape features and functions designed for patient therapy. Wolston Park Hospital Complex is the earliest and most extensive example of its type in Queensland.
\nThe complex’s buildings, structures, and landscapes important in demonstrating this type of place include:
\nEarly road network:
\nCentral Administration, Services, and Staff Residences Area:
\nFemale Patients Area:
\nFemale Patients Recreation Area and Early Asylum Site:
\nMale Patients Area:
\nWacol Repatriation Complex:
\nGailes Golf Club Course (1925)
\nFarm Complex:
\nBasil Stafford Centre:
\nand, Hospital Dump Sites.
\nWolston Park Hospital Complex is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the architectural work of the Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW), retaining an extensive range of excellent, highly-intact examples of DPW-designed buildings constructed across more than 100 years (1875 to c1978). The principal characteristics of the DPW’s architectural work demonstrated at the hospital complex include: well-designed, fit-for-purpose buildings with a dignified civic character; use of high-quality materials; and abundant natural light and ventilation of interiors.
|Wolston Park Hospital Complex is important for its aesthetic significance due to the expressive and evocative qualities of its highly intact buildings and landscapes.
\nThe place expresses the Queensland Government’s regulation and treatment of people with mental illnesses from the 1860s to the 1970s, particularly its use of moral treatment. Through its elevated location and ordered buildings in formal landscapes surrounded by bushland, with controlled views to and from its features, the government sought to convey the perceptions of order, control, and calm to patients and visitors.
\nThe place is also evocative of institutional life and associated experiences of isolation, dependence, confinement, and treatment. These evocative qualities are layered across a variety of aspects including: substantial ward buildings designed for patient observation, control and management; communal patient dormitories, ablutions, dining, and recreation rooms, and individual patient cells; patient work and recreation landscapes; patient morgue and cemeteries; hospital paraphernalia and dump artefacts; and the patina of use on the fabric of the buildings. Important views unfold across the place, as exemplified by the imposing early female and male ward buildings juxtaposed with their open landscaped surrounds.
|Operating for more than 155 years, Wolston Park Hospital Complex, the oldest and for many years, the largest mental health facility in Queensland, has a strong and special association with the Queensland mental health community, including past and present patients, their family members, friends, and advocates, medical and non-medical staff, social workers, clergy, and volunteers.
|Wolston Park Hospital Complex has a special association with Henry Byam Ellerton (c1871-1951), its Medical Superintendent and the Inspector of the Insane of Queensland between 1909 and 1936, who made a notable contribution to the development of mental health services in the state. Ellerton improved patient care through staff training, occupational therapy, and improved facilities. In accordance with the moral treatment method of patient therapy, Ellerton transformed Wolston Park Hospital Complex, through major building, farming, recreation, and landscaping programmes, laying out the complex in the form it still retains.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15116,"place_ref":600341,"name":"Astrea","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"19 Bank Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Astrea is a pair of two-storeyed semi-detached timber houses.
A double-storeyed verandah runs across the front of the building. This is ornately decorated with cast-iron valances, posts, frieze and balusters. The building has a single hipped roof in corrugated iron.
The separate identity of each house is highlighted by a small gable at either end of the top verandah, each with an intricate fretwork pediment. These are supported by double columns which continue down to the lower level and flank the entry on the ground floor.
Leadlight fan and sidelights surround the cedar panelled front doors. The internal joinery is also cedar.
During the conversion to a house, the brick party wall was opened and one staircase was removed. Recent refurbishment has included the replacement of these features as well as double-storeyed additions at the rear.
","history":"Astrea, a two-storeyed timber building, was constructed c1888 as a pair of semi-detached houses. The architect may have been John Ibler, who in February 1888 called tenders for a pair of semi-detached brick and wood residences in Bank Street.
They were erected for Fedder Jensen as an investment, and rented to white collar tenants. These included his son Magnus, a solicitor and Queensland MLC 1904-15, who is first listed in the post office directories as resident on the east side of Bank Street in 1888. In 1909 the building was sold to Thomas and Harriet Walters, who converted it into a single residence, and possibly gave it the name Astrea.
After falling into a state of disrepair Astrea was sold in 1981 and refurbished as a pair of semi-detached houses.
","criteria":"Astrea at West End, erected c1888, is significant as a rare Brisbane example of a pair of semi-detached timber houses built in the late 19th century, and as an example of a speculative multiple housing venture of the 1880s boom period. They are important also in illustrating the development of West End in the years prior to the floods of 1890 and 1893.
|Astrea at West End, erected c1888, is significant as a rare Brisbane example of a pair of semi-detached timber houses built in the late 19th century, and as an example of a speculative multiple housing venture of the 1880s boom period.
|Astrea at West End, erected c1888, is significant as a rare Brisbane example of a pair of semi-detached timber houses built in the late 19th century, and as an example of a speculative multiple housing venture of the 1880s boom period.
|Astrea has considerable aesthetic appeal, and contributes significantly to the historic West End townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15117,"place_ref":600342,"name":"Gas Stripping Tower","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"277 Montague Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The gas stripping tower is constructed of curved cast components, which fit together to form a slender tower surmounted by a work platform, a water tank disguised as a lantern drum, a cupola and a superimposed weathervane. It stands approximately 21 m high with a diameter of about 3.5 m. Spare relief work decorates the panels, and an access stair and handrail, braced by decorative cast brackets, accentuates the profile.
The 1988 renovation work involved sand blasting the exterior, repainting it in the original reddish brown colour with an epoxy finish, and highlighting the relief work in silver. Also the cupola was removed, repaired and painted silver before being replaced on the tower.
The tower is adjacent to Riverside Drive, and is visible from both river banks. Decorative paving and a commemorative plaque, which were 1988 improvements, define the immediate area.
","history":"This demountable cast iron tower was manufactured in 1912 by Robert Hempster & Sons Ltd, Yorkshire, and transported in segments to Brisbane, where it was erected at the South Brisbane Gas & Light Company's works in Montague Road, West End.
The South Brisbane Gas & Light Company was established in 1885, in direct competition to the Brisbane Gas Corporation. Initially the companies supplied gas to both sides of the river, but in 1889 agreement was reached whereby the BGC supplied the northside, and the SBGLC to the south of the river.
As a result of growing demand for gas and the need to upgrade their facilities, in 1911 the company sent their principal engineer to Britain to assess the latest in gas production technology. The decision to erect a stripping tower was a result of this visit.
The tower was used in the removal of tar and ammonia from raw coal gas. Gas was piped into the base of the tower, from where it rose to the top via a series of internal baffles over which water was sprayed from a header tank at the top of the tower, stripping the gas of coal tar and ammonia in the process. The liquid was drained via a water seal at the bottom, and sold as ammonia liquor.
By 1949 more sophisticated techniques were being employed to remove impurities from gas, and the tower was no longer used. With the availability of natural gas to Brisbane in the 1970s, the company's Montague Road works were made redundant and in 1975 most of the structures on the site were demolished.
In the same year the stripping tower was acquired by the National Trust of Queensland, who dismantled the structure and stored it pending availability of a suitable relocation site. In 1979 it was reassembled in Davies Park, approximately 150 m from its original position. In 1988 Allgas Energy Ltd (formerly the South Brisbane Gas & Light Company) refurbished the tower and landscaped the surrounding area, as a bicentennial gift to Brisbane.
Although relocated, the tower survives as the only one of its type in Australia.
","criteria":"Through its association with the South Brisbane Gas and Light Company, the place demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the evolution of the former West End river bank industrial area
|The place demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being the only surviving gas stripping tower in Australia.
|The place exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its contribution to the riverscape along the Milton-Toowong Reach of the Brisbane River
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15118,"place_ref":600343,"name":"Brighton Terrace","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"30 Sussex Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Brighton Terrace is built on steeply sloped land that drops down from the street frontage and overlooks Brisbane city. The timber picket fence that extends across the entire street length of the terrace was constructed in 1990. Wooden decking provides access to the houses that are set back from the street boundary. Gardens exist only at the rear of the properties where the land evens out. No original vegetation survives as the grounds were extensively re-landscaped with palm trees, low shrubbery and brick paving in 1990.
The four residences which collectively form Brighton Terrace are basically identical. The timber houses are each single storied at street level, with a subfloor level at the rear where the land falls away. Each pair of residences is housed under a single gabled hip roof that is clad in corrugated iron. Projecting gables at the front of each house are decorated with timber sunburst designs and finials while the eaves have pairs of brackets. The exterior walls are clad with narrow chamferboards. Windows at the front of each house are timber framed double hung sashes that have been grouped in threes.
Each house consists of six main rooms and three bathrooms, the plan of which is roughly rectangular. The facades are asymmetrically arranged so that the front bedroom of each house projects forward and a small verandah is created. Original cast iron lacework and posts decorate the front verandahs and the window hood brackets. At the rear of each house are verandahs at two levels that are decorated with introduced timber balustrading and decorative timber brackets. The verandahs are separated by a deep timber valance and the soffits are fitted with introduced ripple iron that has been painted. The brick firewalls which separate the pairs of residences, are cement rendered at the front of the properties only and plastered internally. The internal partition walls at street level are single skinned with vertical beaded tongue and groove boards on a timber frame. The ceilings are also tongue and grooved boards except in the living and dining rooms where plasterboard with plaster ceiling roses has been introduced. At the lower level the walls and ceilings are all plasterboard on timber frames. Floors throughout the house are timber boards overlaid with carpet in the main rooms and vinyl or ceramic tiles in the kitchen and bathrooms. Some original cedar joinery such as architraves and four panelled doors survive at the street level, however most, including the timber fireplace surrounds and the timber consoles in the entry hall, have been introduced during the 1990 renovations. Obscure patterned glass has been fitted into the fanlights above each door at street level and coloured glass into the sidelights of the front door. Each house has two sets of staircases connecting the two floor levels; one internal and the other external. The internal staircase has been entirely reconstructed however the external staircase at the rear contains some original fabric at its upper reaches. The existing kitchen and bathroom fittings and fixtures were all introduced at the time of renovation.
At the rear of each property is a large gabled timber garage with loft above. The structures were constructed in 1990. Access to the garages is via a common driveway located between the two pairs of residences.
","history":"Brighton Terrace, which consists of two sets of identical pairs of semi-detached houses, was apparently built for investment purposes for Emile Adrian Gaujard in 1889-90. Tenders for the construction of the four houses were called on 6 August 1887 by John B. Nicholson, a successful Brisbane architect who prospered in the boom conditions of the late 1880's. Gaujard was a wholesale and retail tobacconist and importer of Gaujard and Elson, which was located in Queen Street, Brisbane. The first two houses were completed in 1889 and were immediately let to A. Mirls, a commercial traveller and WH Robertson, a bank manager. Despite completion in 1890, the second pair of houses were not occupied until 1894. Each of the four houses was individually identified with its own name.
At the time of Brighton Terrace's construction, South Brisbane as in other parts of city, was experiencing a boom period. Residential expansion for respectable middle-class families proliferated in South Brisbane, with the predominant housing type being the four roomed timber cottage with a corrugated iron roof. Terrace housing was not particularly popular as a housing style in early Brisbane, especially amongst the land authorities who were unhappy with the small allotments that resulted after subdivision of the multi-dwelling properties. The passing of the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act in 1885 abruptly brought an end to the early style of terrace housing in Brisbane. In response, developments, such as Brighton Terrace, were introduced as an alternative to terrace housing that retained some cost benefits in construction. The advantage of building Brighton Terrace as a pair of residences on two allotments was that each pair could be legally sold separately. Most houses in the vicinity of Brighton Terrace were privately owned residences owned by clerks, salesmen and accountants.
Upon the death of Gaujard, ownership of the four houses passed to his daughter Helene Therese Nicol, who was spouse of George Nicol, co-founder of the West End Brewery. The property was sold in 1923 and later, with the addition of fibrous cement sheeting and internal subdivision, converted into twelve flats. In 1990 the buildings were substantially renovated back into four residences and individually sold.
","criteria":"Brighton Terrace, completed in 1890, is important for its ability to visually demonstrate an unusual response to the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act of 1885 had on the built environment of Brisbane during the boom of the late 1880's.
|This particular response, which involved the speculative construction of an identical pair of semi-detached houses built in timber on two separate allotments, was comparatively rare in Brisbane.
|The terrace is important as an example of multi dwelling construction that was uncommon in Brisbane in the late nineteenth century.
|The residences are of considerable aesthetic significance for their strong contribution to the streetscape, currently enhanced by their coordinated colour scheme and detailing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15119,"place_ref":600344,"name":"Wilston House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"47 Watson Street","suburb":"NEWMARKET","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wilston House occupies a dominant hilltop position above Wilston and Newmarket. It is a substantial, single-storeyed, low-set brick residence, principally Georgian in style with vernacular influences in the wide verandahs to all sides.
The core, which consists of a central hallway and six rooms, is roofed with Welsh slate. Initially the hipped roof had a central well over the hallway, but this was covered with a low gabled iron roof by 1925.
A rendered masonry portico with pediment distinguishes the arched front entrance, and from each room french doors with arched lights, fanlights and shutters open onto the verandahs.
Convex iron verandah roofs are separated from the main roof by a small cornice and timber console brackets, and are supported by paired wooden posts with cross-braced capitals and timber brackets.
The 1880s brick renovations are rendered to resemble ashlar, and it is likely the face brickwork was first painted at this time.
Wilston House presents a highly intact facade, with a recent kalsomine coating to the exterior brickwork and render and a Welsh slate roof.
Internally the house is substantially intact, although friezes and a dado decoration in the hallway have been painted over. Cedar has been used for the hallway flooring, and much of the joinery, including the fixed seating in the bay windows and some of the mantelpieces. The remainder of the internal flooring is of pine.
There are pressed metal ceilings and some cast iron mantelpieces - part of the 1880s renovations. Plaster columns in the drawing room, also part of the 1880s redecoration, have been removed. A bathroom occupies what was previously the linen room, and the kitchen is located in a former bedroom.
The site has been reduced to a suburban allotment. A sympathetically designed detached brick studio has been erected in the north west corner of the property. The grounds are bordered to north and west by large trees, including a large, mature Moreton Bay Fig [Ficus macrophylla] in the northwest corner of the block, which dates possibly to the 1870s. On the eastern side of Watson Street, opposite the back gate to Wilston House, is a large, mature Weeping Fig [Ficus benjamina] and two other mature trees: a Jacaranda and a Tupelo hybrid [Nyssa spp], which once formed part of the grounds of Wilston House and are understood to be remnants of late 19th or early 20th century planting. These have been included within the heritage listing boundary.
","history":"This substantial, single-storeyed brick residence, designed by Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw, was constructed c1876 for William Wilson, a mercantile and insurance broker and later Brisbane representative for the Adelaide Milling Company, and a member of the Queensland Legislative Council from 1874 to 1878. The suburb of Wilston derives its name from this residence, which for many years was a prominent landmark in the Newmarket-Wilston district.
William Wilson, the son of Irish farmers James Wilson and Mary Richey, was born in Ireland c1832 and had emigrated to Queensland by August 1858, when he married widow Mary Coutts [née Mackay] in Brisbane. He was engaged in mercantile pursuits and from the early 1860s at least, the family resided in Mary Street, near his business. He was a protestant and a freemason, and became well known in public life.
James Cowlishaw, a Sydney-trained architect and businessman who established his Brisbane architectural practiced in the second half of 1860, appears to have had a long association with William Wilson - one of his earliest Brisbane commissions, in 1861, was for an elegant brick cottage in Mary-street, for Mr Wilson . . . cost £800 - possibly Frogmore Cottage, where the William Wilsons resided prior to the construction of Wilston House.
Wilston House is situated on part of what was originally portion 269, 46 acres [18.6 hectares] alienated by farmer William Lovell in 1859, with title transferred to William Wilson in July 1868. Wilson amalgamated the land with his own neighbouring portion 265 [which he had acquired in 1859] to create a property of 87.5 acres [35.5 hectares]. In May 1875, when both portions were surveyed as part of an application to bring them under the Real Property Act, the land was unoccupied, suggesting that Wilson was not farming here at this period.
In the 1860s and 1870s the district between Enoggera Creek and Kedron Brook was occupied principally by farmers, tanneries along Kedron Brook, and middle class commuter families residing in semi-rural hilltop retreats - such as Daniel Rowntree Somerset's Rosemount [established in the late 1850s], and Justice Cockle's Oakwal [erected 1864-65]. These estates were virtually self-supporting, with vegetable gardens, orchards, domestic livestock and dairies. On some properties, crops were cultivated also. Wilston, established in the mid-1870s at the pinnacle of William Wilson's career [during his period as a member of the Queensland Legislative Council], belonged to this tradition.
In July 1876, James Cowlishaw called tenders for a villa residence at Enoggera for William Wilson, which is understood to refer to Wilston House. Early photographs [circa late 1870s] show a core in face brickwork, with verandahs on three sides [to the west, south and east], a rendered masonry portico to the southern front entrance, a timber section along the north [rear] side of the house with a bay window at the eastern end, and an attached timber kitchen wing at the rear of the main building. The timber section of the house is understood to have contained one large room at the eastern end, divided by two sets of cedar doors from two smaller rooms, possibly guest bedrooms, at the western end. The cedar doors could be opened out to create a ballroom. Whether this wing was part of the original design, or a slightly later addition, is not clear. The portico to the front entrance may be a later addition, as the roof slates continue behind the portico roof structure.
Slightly later photographs, thought to have been taken during the Wilsons' residence and therefore prior to 1885, reveal that the core had been rendered and bay windows to the two front rooms [at the southeast and southwest corners of the house] had been added. These matched in design the bay window of the earlier timber section on the north side of the house. By this period, three terraces on the southern [front] side of the house had been established, with concreted steps leading to each. It is understood that the lower terrace contained a croquet or tennis lawn, on which a portable dance floor and marquee could be erected when the Wilsons entertained.
By May 1884, Wilson had raised a £5,000 mortgage on portions 265 and 269 from Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, KCMG, premier of Queensland May 1870 to January 1874, acting governor 1883 and 1888-89, a director of the Queensland National Bank in the 1880s and early 1890s, and resident at nearby Oakwal through the 1880s. Whether the mortgage was used to finance the additions to Wilston House, or for some other purpose, is not known. Wilson may have been experiencing financial difficulties at this period, because in October 1884, title to Wilston House was transferred to Brisbane businessman and politician John Stevenson, MLA. One source suggests that Stevenson was part of a syndicate comprising himself, Maurice Hume Black [MLA for Mackay and Minister for Lands], and William Graham [MLC and a director of BD Morehead & Co.]. At the same time as Stevenson acquired title to Wilston House, he [or the syndicate] used the property to help raise a mortgage of £22,500 from the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Co. Ltd - of which Sir AH Palmer was a director and principal shareholder.
The Wilsons left Wilston House and Stevenson subdivided the estate c1884-85. In May 1885 Brisbane auctioneer John Cameron [later a director of the Queensland National Bank] auctioned the first section of the Wilston Estate, comprising over 300 residential allotments and Wilston House on about 8 acres of land. The residence was described at this time as comprising drawing and dining rooms elegantly finished, entrance hall, library, breakfast room, five bedrooms [all lofty, spacious, and well ventilated] - verandahs, kitchen, servants' quarters, scullery and storeroom. The grounds contained stables, carriage-house, buggy-shed, harness-room, man's room and hay-house - [possibly housed in one or two structures] - underground tanks holding a domestic water supply, and a flower garden.
Wilston House did not sell at this time, and was advertised for rent in December 1885. Squatter James Tolson [of the pastoral firm of Tolson and Cameron] occupied the house for a few years, and on the Wilston Estate reputedly conducted experiments in freezing mutton for export to Britain. [His landlord, John Stevenson, was a director of the Queensland Meat Export and Agricultural Co.]
Wilston House remained a rental property in Stevenson's name until 1898, when title to the house on about 27.2 acres [11 hectares] passed to his former business associate Boyd Dunlop Morehead, MLA and premier from 1888 to 1890, founder of BD Morehead and Co, and a former director of the Queensland National Bank. Morehead installed the Ladner family as caretakers but they left in 1899, the same year in which title passed to Morehead's mortgagor on the property, the Queensland National Bank.
In 1900, the Queensland National Bank sold Wilston House on 8 acres 3 roods to Major WG Cahill, for £1230. Cahill paid off the house in monthly instalments, which may account for why title was not transferred to him until 1915.
Major William Geoffrey Cahill was under secretary of the Queensland Justice Department 1890-1905, Queensland Commissioner of Police 1905-1917, and honorary aide-de-camp to two Queensland governors in the period 1912-16. He was resident at Wilston House by 1906, and possibly earlier, but this is not clear from the Queensland Post Office Directories.
Local knowledge suggests that the Duke of Cornwall and York [later King George V] visited Wilston House with the Governor of Queensland, Lord Lamington, during the May 1901 Royal Tour to celebrate Federation.
In December 1925, by which time an extension of Watson Street had been surveyed close to Wilston House, the Wilston Hill Estate was again offered at public auction. The house on a little over one acre [.4 hectare], and several surrounding allotments, were purchased by Major Alex Wynyard-Joss, with title transferred in June 1927. Cahill remained resident at Wilston House as Wynyard-Joss' tenant until c1928. In the late 1920s the timber extension and service wing were demolished, and in its place a verandah was constructed along the northern side of the house. Major Wynyard-Joss also renovated the interior, installing electricity and a new bathroom and kitchen, and in 1930 took up residence at Wilston House with his bride. In the 1940s the house block was subdivided yet again, with the two lower southern terraces, and part of the grounds to the north and west of the house, were sold for residential purposes.
Major Wynyard-Joss died in 1954, and the property ultimately passed to his daughter. In 1982-83, a cottage studio was erected in the grounds, to the northwest of the main house.
","criteria":"Wilston House and its grounds (comprising the current grounds associated with 47 Watson Street and remnants of the grounds now located on the Watson Street road reserve) are significant historically as evidence of the early middle-class occupation of the hilltops between Enoggera Creek and Kedron Brook, to the immediate north of Brisbane, and remain important in illustrating 1870s middle-class lifestyle in Brisbane.
|Erected c1876, Wilston House is a highly intact, substantial residence, particularly significant for its brick, cedar and slate construction and its Georgian stylistic elements, and important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type.
The present grounds, and part of what is now Watson Street road reserve, contain many early plantings associated with Wilston House in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including a large Moreton Bay Fig [Ficus macrophylla], a Weeping Fig [Ficus benjamina], a Jacaranda and a Tupelo hybrid [Nyssa spp]. These plantings are significant for what they reveal about species choice and garden design associated with houses of this era and are of aesthetic significance for their contribution to the grounds of Wilston House and also as part of the landmark qualities of Wilston Hill.
|Wilston House is significant also for its landmark quality and aesthetic and historic contribution to the Wilston/Newmarket townscape.
The present grounds, and part of what is now Watson Street road reserve, contain many early plantings associated with Wilston House in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including a large Moreton Bay Fig [Ficus macrophylla], a Weeping Fig [Ficus benjamina], a Jacaranda and a Tupelo hybrid [Nyssa spp]. These plantings are significant for what they reveal about species choice and garden design associated with houses of this era and are of aesthetic significance for their contribution to the grounds of Wilston House and also as part of the landmark qualities of Wilston Hill.
|It is significant as a good example of the domestic work of prolific Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15120,"place_ref":600345,"name":"Oakwal","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50 Bush Street","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-05-14","description":"Oakwal, a single-storeyed sandstone residence on the crest of a hill just north of Breakfast Creek at Windsor, is encircled by Bush Street. The building exhibits a Georgian influence in its design, such as the symmetrical east elevation with portico, hammered stone walls, paired square timber verandah posts and louvred shutters to french doors.
The building has a slate U-shaped gabled roof with four sandstone chimneys, western gabled parapets, a central box gutter and lower skillion roof verandahs to the south, east and north with paired timber eave brackets. The entrance portico has a timber pediment with sandstone steps and base. Most of the south verandah has been enclosed for bathrooms and studies, and has a weatherboard base, shuttered casement windows and panel infill. The main entrance has double timber doors with fanlight and sidelights, and shuttered arched french doors with fanlights open onto the verandahs.
A gabled wing with a corrugated iron roof has been added to the west. This timber addition has casement windows, a stone base and contains bathrooms, laundry and an office. A stone and weatherboard garage with a gabled roof of corrugated iron has been added to the northwest, sitting lower than the house and almost to the site boundary.
The floorplan consists of rooms opening off a central hallway with archways and a central domed skylight with a light shaft above. Internally, the building has cedar panelled doors with fanlights, architraves and skirtings, rendered masonry walls, plaster ceilings with decorative roses and timber floors with floor coverings. All principal rooms have fireplaces, of which only the front two rooms operate and have marble surrounds. The northwest room has been refitted as the kitchen. The west addition has single-skin tongue and groove walls.
","history":"This substantial, single-storeyed stone residence, designed by Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw, was constructed in 1864 by contractor John Petrie for Justice James Cockle, at a cost of approximately £4,000.
Oakwal is thought to be the second residence on the site. An earlier house may have been erected c1858-59 for Brisbane businessman Daniel Rountree Somerset, who in May 1858 purchased over 20 hectares of land north of Breakfast Creek, which included the Oakwal site, for a little over £120. Somerset had arrived in Brisbane with his family in 1850/51 and during the 1850s was in partnership with John Richardson in a Brisbane warehousing, shipping agency and customs agency business. He was active in the separation movement, and in 1860 was appointed Chief Clerk of the Queensland Customs Department and Shipping Master for the Port of Brisbane.
By 1858 the Somersets were resident at Rosemount, on Breakfast Creek. In December 1858 they advertised Rosemount and several other Brisbane allotments for sale. Descendants believe that the Somersets left Rosemount in April 1859, and that they lived at a residence on the later Oakwal site before selling it on nearly 16.2 hectares to James Cockle in 1863, for £1,000.
Cockle was Chief Justice of Queensland from 1863 to 1879, and as senior commissioner in 1866-67 he consolidated many of Queensland's earliest statutes. He was knighted in 1869. The Cockles commissioned prominent Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw to design their new residence, which they named Oakwal. It is believed they derived the name from Cockle's birthplace at Great Oakley in Essex and his wife's birthplace of Walton in Suffolk.
The Cockles resided at Oakwal for 15 years, during which time Lady Cockle held an annual picnic for local school children in the substantial grounds. When Cockle left the colony in mid-1878 he rented out the house at £250 per annum. The most distinguished of his lessees was Sir Arthur Palmer, former Queensland premier [1870-74] and later acting governor [1883 and 1888-89], who resided at Oakwal in the 1880s. Palmer remained in residence until 1890, despite the property having been sold to the original designer - architect, politician and newspaper proprietor James Cowlishaw - in 1888. A July 1888 newspaper report suggested that the house and lands exchanged hands for around £10,000.
Cowlishaw subdivided and sold off much of the Oakwal estate, but his relatives and their descendants have occupied the house since 1890. In the late 1940s a two-storeyed sandstone kitchen wing was demolished to enable the present land subdivision and the creation of Bush Street. The timber extension was added at this time. Sandstone blocks from the demolished service wing were utilised in the landscaping of the remaining grounds.
","criteria":"Oakwal, erected in 1864, is one of the earliest villa residences established on the hills between Breakfast Creek and Kedron Brook in the mid-19th century, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement and growth of Brisbane's northern suburbs.
|The 1860s sandstone and slate residence is significant for its aesthetic quality, craftsmanship and intactness, including the internal cedar joinery, skylight, plaster ceiling roses, stonework and original beech floors, and remains a rare example of its type in Brisbane.
|The 1860s sandstone and slate residence is significant for its aesthetic quality, craftsmanship and intactness, including the internal cedar joinery, skylight, plaster ceiling roses, stonework and original beech floors, and remains a rare example of its type in Brisbane.
Oakwal is a fine example of the domestic work of prominent Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw, and has a special association with the Cockle, Palmer and Cowlishaw families - important judicial, political and social figures in 19th century Queensland.
|. The 1860s sandstone and slate residence is significant for its aesthetic quality, craftsmanship and intactness, including the internal cedar joinery, skylight, plaster ceiling roses, stonework and original beech floors, and remains a rare example of its type in Brisbane. The house and grounds are significant also for their landmark quality and townscape contribution.
|Oakwal is a fine example of the domestic work of prominent Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw, and has a special association with the Cockle, Palmer and Cowlishaw families - important judicial, political and social figures in 19th century Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15121,"place_ref":600346,"name":"Conon","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"29 Conon Street","suburb":"LUTWYCHE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Conon occupies a hilltop position in Lutwyche overlooking Breakfast Creek. It is a low-set masonry and timber residence which, because of its evolutionary nature, employs a variety of materials and styles.
The earliest section of the house comprises a three-roomed [formerly four] brick core with a timber verandah which formerly encircled the whole. It rests on a rubble foundation of Brisbane tuff which was collected from the property, and is capped by a galvanised iron roof which was shingled originally.
Portions of the verandah survive at the front, southern side and at the rear, and were either conserved or reconstructed in 1987. Dowel balustrading, square timber posts and fretwork brackets of an unusual thistle pattern supply the exterior decoration to this section.
A small cellar is located under the side verandah and a separate basement cellar lies beneath the two early bedrooms.
No visible evidence remains of any early kitchen house, probably timber, associated with the 1863 building.
The rendered brick northern wing with coursed stone foundations and a corrugated iron roof was added in the late 1870s. It comprises an entrance hall, two large sitting rooms [probably formerly drawing and dining rooms] which are divided by an unadorned archway, and a large former kitchen, maid's room and pantry at the rear. Each sitting room has a bay window which also is separated from the body of the room by an arch.
The grounds have been reduced following subdivisions however sufficient has been retained to preserve its garden and sense of space reflecting a 19th century ambience. Despite the subdivision of the original holding the garden setting of the house is important in the understanding and appreciation of the significance of the place and its long history.
Within the grounds there is a sense of isolation from more recent development. Some early plantings and garden features from the mid 19th century remain and indeed the general arrangement of the early garden is reflected in more recent plantings of the 1970s and 1980s.
The association with the McLennan family for almost seventy years is perpetuated in the names of the neighbouring streets: McLennan, Kenneth and Conon.
","history":"This low-set masonry and timber residence was constructed in a number of stages, with the brick and stone core dating to 1863.
Originally the site was part of a ten acre [4 hectare] subdivision acquired by Robert Cribb, Brisbane politician and property dealer, in 1861. In 1863 Cribb sold this to fellow Scottish immigrant Kenneth McLennan, a stonemason from the town of Conon in Scotland, who had arrived in Brisbane in 1855. On the transfer document McLennan listed his occupation as builder, and his descendants believe that McLennan built the house himself in 1863.
In 1878 McLennan raised a £300 mortgage on the property from Brisbane land speculator James Gibbon, which may have financed the addition of a northern brick and stone wing to the house about this time.
By the early 1890s the property included an orchard and vineyard, bowling green, tennis court, stables and various outbuildings. Bunya pines lined the front drive, which is now Conon Street, down to McLennan Street.
Around 1900 a timber extension was added to the southern side of the kitchen, and two internal walls were removed in 1917 to create a larger bedroom.
At Conon, McLennan and his wife Ann Grant, whom he had married at Ipswich in 1855, raised a family of ten children. McLennan appears to have derived his Queensland income from property dealing rather than building. He took a keen interest in church and community affairs, and served as a Windsor Shire councillor and as the first mayor of the Town of Windsor in 1904.
Following the death of his wife in 1912, McLennan moved from Conon and died at New Farm, aged eighty-seven years, on 1 November 1916.
While a small allotment was excised from the original allotment in 1895 it was only after McLennan¿s death that his sons subdivided the original estate retaining for the family two allotments totaling 2 acres 3 rood and 14 perches containing the house and its garden, the tennis court and bowling green.
The house block remained in the McLennan family until 1934, when it was sold to Sir Neil O'Sullivan, a Brisbane solicitor and federal cabinet minister. The northern allotment remained in the family until 1947. The O'Sullivans added a brick bedroom off the southern verandah in 1935.
Lady O'Sullivan sold the property in 1972, but it remains a family residence. In 1980 a larger brick bedroom wing was added at the rear.
","criteria":"Conon is significant historically as one of the earliest houses in the Lutwyche area demonstrating the housing type of that time and of first wave of residential construction in the area. Evidence of later changes and additions to the house are clearly apparent in the surviving fabric.
|Conon has significance as a rare survivor of an 1860s house with an early garden in Brisbane. The scale of the garden and the setting of the house within the more recent suburban fabric of Lutwyche adds to that significance.
|The early core provides important evidence of mid-19th century masonry construction. In its present form it exemplifies the evolving house, extending from a modest mid-19th century core into a substantial late-19th century residence, with a cohesive and intact front façade. The changes reflect the changing fortunes and expectations of its original and later owners.
|Conon sits within a substantial garden which makes a major contribution to the aesthetic significance of the place. The site is surrounded by later suburban houses but the house and its garden retain a nineteenth century ambiance. More recent development is not apparent from within the site and outward views are protected.
|Conon is significant for its association for almost 70 years with the McLennan family, who played an important role in the development of Brisbane in the second half of the 19th century and for its later association with Neil O'Sullivan, at one time Federal Attorney General.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15122,"place_ref":600347,"name":"The Grange","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"38 Crowther Street","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Grange, located on the crest of a rise at the southwest corner of Crowther and Fuller streets, consists of a residence fronting Crowther Street to the east with a detached kitchen house to the west.
The residence is a single-storeyed rendered masonry structure with an attic and corrugated iron gable roof. The building has verandahs to four sides with curved corrugated iron awnings, timber posts with shaped brackets and brick paving. Timber sash windows have been built to match early windows in the kitchen house, and timber front and rear doors are later additions.
Internally, the building has four rooms with fireplaces to both north rooms and a central entry to the east and west. The northeast room has cedar cupboards either side of the fireplace and the northwest room has an early timber staircase to the attic. The floor consists of a recent 20mm concrete slab laid over sand on a bed of original brick bats. Walls are lime plastered with horse hair, and have original concrete skirting. Internal timber doors are not original. The attic has a recent ensuite at the north end, and a single Velux roof window has been inserted on the southwestern side.
The kitchen house is a single-storeyed masonry structure, partly rendered, with a corrugated iron gable roof. The building has a verandah to the west with a corrugated iron awning, timber posts and brick paving, and early timber doors and sash windows.
Internally, the building is a single room with a fireplace at the north end, a recent timber floor and limewash finish to the walls. A single Velux roof window has been inserted on the eastern side.
A weatherboard boathouse/living area with a corrugated iron gable roof has been added to the northwest of the kitchen house, and a later weatherboard bunkhouse with a hipped corrugated iron roof has been added to the southwest.
A timber pigeon coop is located in the northwest corner of the site, and a timber picket fence surrounds the eastern side of the residence.
","history":"This small brick house appears to have been constructed c1874 as a family home for Lutwyche brickmaker William Williams, who in that year acquired 9 hectares of land at Lutwyche, including the house site, from Brisbane businessman Nehemiah Bartley. The kitchen was erected in 1877 by contractor John William Young for £69/10/-, being labour only.
Williams was associated with the development of Lutwyche as Brisbane's principal brickmaking district in the 1870s and 1880s, and it is likely that the bricks for his own house and kitchen were supplied from the brickworks on his Lutwyche property. Although Williams had arrived in Queensland from England by early 1864 and was at Lutwyche in 1865, he does not appear to have commenced brickmaking until the 1870s. Some of the first bricks produced by him were used in construction of the Old Government Printery (QHR 600114), erected in 1874.
By 1888 Williams owned four brickyards, including the Milton Brickworks on River Road at Toowong, and was producing the highest per annum output of bricks in the Lutwyche area. Mrs Williams managed the business from c1882, and Williams and his son William, worked two of the brickyards themselves.
Following Williams' death in the early 1890s, the freehold passed to his widow, who sold the house in 1904. The land has been subdivided since, but the house remains a family home.
Fullers Street at Lutwyche was originally named Williams Street, after the early brickmaker and his family, and nearby Brickfield Street recalls the brickmaking enterprise which Williams established at Lutwyche in the 1870s.
","criteria":"The Grange is important in demonstrating the 19th century development of Windsor-Lutwyche as a brick-making district, and is significant as a rare surviving brick, gable-style artisan's home of the 1870s, which offers rare surviving evidence of 1870s brick construction in Brisbane.
|The Grange is important in demonstrating the 19th century development of Windsor-Lutwyche as a brick-making district, and is significant as a rare surviving brick, gable-style artisan's home of the 1870s, which offers rare surviving evidence of 1870s brick construction in Brisbane.
|The Grange is important in demonstrating the 19th century development of Windsor-Lutwyche as a brick-making district, and is significant as a rare surviving brick, gable-style artisan's home of the 1870s, which offers rare surviving evidence of 1870s brick construction in Brisbane.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics, including the contribution through scale, form and materials to the local streetscape and Windsor townscape; the quality of the interiors, including early fittings and finishes; and the spatial relationship of the building group and grounds, including later additions.
|The place has a special association with the Williams family and their contribution to the development of the brick-making industry in the Windsor-Lutwyche area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15123,"place_ref":600348,"name":"Craigellachie","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"10 Fosbery Street","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Craigellachie is a modestly proportioned, single-storeyed house with fine stone detailing and Georgian features unusual in a house of this size. It retains its original attached brick service wing and two cellars beneath the core.
The main building is constructed of Brisbane tuff, sandstone and brick, with timber floors and an iron roof. Most likely the adjacent quarry across Lutwyche Road supplied the stone for the foundations and walls, and it is believed the dressed sandstone employed on quoining and facings originated from the Albion Quarry behind Bartley's Hill. Bricks used in the kitchen house and internal walls were probably manufactured locally, Lutwyche-Windsor being an early brickmaking centre.
The front features twin projecting gables, each with a circular louvred vent in the gable end, plain bargeboards, timber console brackets, fretwork infill, finial and pendant.
It is unified by a full-length verandah resting on brick piers. This is shaded by a convex corrugated iron roof supported by timber posts with capitals and fretwork brackets. The balustrade is of cast aluminium.
Internally the house consists of a wide, central arched hallway with to the right a living and dining room, each with a cedar fireplace, and to the left three bedrooms.
All the windows are sashed, and joinery and doors (with fanlights) throughout are of cedar. A doorway into the front living room has been widened at some stage.
There is an attached brick kitchen wing at the western rear of the building and an L-shaped back verandah. This is unadorned. Recent owners have installed new bathrooms in the core and have renovated the kitchen wing to include a modern kitchen, breakfast room, laundry and shower room.
Externally the house remains substantially intact.
","history":"Craigellachie, a single-storeyed masonry residence, was constructed during the late 1880s boom, and the resubdivision of Windsor-Lutwyche for closer settlement. It was erected by master stonemason John Grant as his family home.
In 1887 Grant purchased just over an acre of land in what was then known as Alice Street. Two years later he raised a mortgage of £450 on the property, which most likely financed the construction of the house in late 1889 or early 1890.
Whether the house was always known as Craigellachie is unclear, as the name does not appear in post office directories until 1904.
Grant and his wife Jane raised eight children at Craigellachie. He died aged forty-five in December 1899, but the house remained the property of the Grant family until 1974.
The residence was converted into three flats probably in the late 1940s or 1950s, but was refurbished in the mid-1970s. The interior was returned to its original layout, paint to joinery and doors was removed, and the exterior was renovated.
Craigellachie remains a family home.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|Craigellachie is significant as a rare Brisbane example of stone and brick employed in a non-elite home of the 1880s.
|Craigellachie is significant as a surviving Brisbane example of a late nineteenth century artisan's home and for its contribution to the Lutwyche-Windsor townscape, which retains a number of nineteenth century masonry buildings.
|Craigellachie is an accomplished building in design, detail and material, which contributes aesthetically to the streetscape.
Craigellachie is significant as a surviving Brisbane example of a late nineteenth century artisan's home and for its contribution to the Lutwyche-Windsor townscape, which retains a number of nineteenth century masonry buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15124,"place_ref":600349,"name":"Windsor Shire Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":"Windsor Town Council Chambers","street_address":"356 Lutwyche Road","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Windsor Shire Council Chambers is a small masonry building constructed of locally quarried porphyry (Brisbane tuff), with dressed sandstone facings and trimmings. It is capped with a corrugated iron gabled roof.
The building is domestic in scale and concept, yet its original civic function is expressed in decorative elements such as an arched entrance with drip moulding, quoining to the rectangular windows, and stepped sandstone courses at the gables. A sandstone slab on the front gable bears the inscription Windsor Shire Council Chambers, with the word 'Shire' overwritten by 'Town'.
The entrance verandah, which has been enclosed with glazing, leads a to central corridor, with two offices to the left and a front office and council meeting room to the right. These are connected by a small attached porch on the eastern side of the building. At the rear an attached stone wing houses a strong room and toilets. Flooring was timber originally, but some floors are now concreted. The interior walls and partitions are plastered and painted.
Located on an island of land, bounded by Lutwyche Road, Hawkins and Palmer Streets, the Windsor Shire Council Chambers occupies a highly visible position, and together with the Memorial Park opposite is particularly prominent from the southern approach along Lutwyche Road.
The site is fenced on three sides with a stone wall and iron pickets, the entrance defined by substantial stone gateposts, cast-iron gates, and a thin metal arch from which an ornate gas lantern once hung. A number of mature fig trees and palms enhance the building's setting.
","history":"The former Windsor Shire Council Chambers was erected in 1896-97 for a cost of £736.
The Windsor Shire Council was formed in 1886 and initially rented space for chambers and offices. In July 1895 the Council decided to erect permanent chambers and engaged Thomas Coutts, a Brisbane-born architect who also worked in Sydney, Melbourne and Newcastle during the 1890s, to design a modest building. In October 1896 a contract for £584 was signed with builder William Parsons. A separate contract for £80 was let for the boundary wall, which was completed in December 1897.
The first meeting of the Windsor Council in the new premises was conducted on 9 March 1897. The building housed the offices and chambers of the Windsor Shire Council (Windsor Town Council from 1904) until the amalgamation of Greater Brisbane in 1925, when it became the property of the Brisbane City Council.
The Brisbane City Council used the building for regional office space and storage. Alterations undertaken by the Council included: widening of the southern window in the office adjoining the front porch to create a doorway; concreting of strong room and toilet floors; relining of ceilings; sealing of fireplaces; and cutting a new door in the corridor.
In 1987 the exterior stonework was redressed as part of a restoration project by the Brisbane City Council. Also the original interior colour scheme was identified, and the grounds were returfed and paved to resemble a typical Brisbane turn of the century garden design.
The premises were vacated by the Council in late 1990, and are now used by the Brisbane Branch of National Trust of Queensland and the Windsor and District Historical Society for offices and meeting rooms.
","criteria":"Windsor Shire Council Chambers is important for its association with the Windsor Shire and the development of the Windsor district.
|Windsor Shire Council Chambers is significant as a fine and unusual example of a small scale masonry civic building.
Windsor Shire Council Chambers is significant as an example of the work of architect Thomas Coutts.
|Windsor Shire Council Chambers is significant for its landmark quality, townscape contribution of both building and site to the Windsor area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15125,"place_ref":600350,"name":"Windsor War Memorial Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"311 Lutwyche Road","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Windsor War Memorial stands on the highest point of a park situated between Lutwyche Road and Roblane Street, Windsor.
The memorial is an octagonal, pavilion-type structure and is constructed of brown Helidon sandstone. It rests on a wide podium of locally quarried porphyry (Brisbane tuff), with steps at each face.
The memorial has arches on four sides, and on the external corner panels are inscribed the names, originally gilt, of those who died in the war. Inscribed lettering forms a frieze around the entablature, and the whole is surmounted by a cupola and a bronze lantern with a red electric light.
Inside, the concrete floor is painted red and blue, and features a leaded marble commemorative plaque in the centre. The circular ceiling is ornamented with a moulded laurel wreath.
The area immediately surrounding the memorial has been asphalted, but the remainder of the park is grassed and planted with large, mature trees and shrubs. Pink oleanders form a hedge along Lutwyche Road, above stone retaining walls.
Apart from the removal of an inter-war timber bandstand, both park and memorial remain substantially intact. They retain a prominent position in the Windsor townscape, standing on a principal arterial entry to the city and adjacent to the former Windsor Town Council Chambers (1896-97).
","history":"The Windsor War Memorial was unveiled on Anzac Day, 25 April 1925. It was erected on behalf of the citizens of Windsor to commemorate local residents who had served in the First World War.
Costing around £1,300, the memorial was based on an initial concept by ex-alderman McDonald. It was constructed by contractor Peter Frew to a design prepared by honorary architects FR Hall and WA Devereux.
The octagonal pavilion is rare among Queensland's First World War memorials. Yeronga War Memorial (1921) is its closest Brisbane equivalent.
The surrounding park existed prior to the construction of the memorial. It was the site of the former Bowen Bridge State School from 1865 until the latter burnt down about 1914, after which the school reserve was ceded unofficially to the Windsor Town Council for park use. Despite landscaping, erection of the memorial, and public recognition of the Windsor Memorial Park, it was not declared a park reserve until 1930.
","criteria":"Windsor War Memorial Park is significant as a member of a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure.
Windsor War Memorial Park is significant as a rare and intact example of pavilion-type war memorial.
Windsor War Memorial Park is significant for its landmark quality and contribution to the Windsor townscape.
|Windsor War Memorial Park is significant as a rare and intact example of pavilion-type war memorial.
|Windsor War Memorial Park is significant as a member of a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure.
|Windsor War Memorial Park is significant for its landmark quality and contribution to the Windsor townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15126,"place_ref":600351,"name":"Kirkston","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"23 Rupert Street","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kirkston is a large two-storeyed brick residence with an attached single-storeyed service wing. It occupies a prominent hilltop position, with the roof line visible from many parts of suburban Lutwyche-Windsor.
The core, which is capped by a complex slate-clad roof of steeply pitched hips and gables, accommodates a number of truncated wings in the design.
Foundations are of cement and the face work of Hendra brick is protected by a damp course.
Wide verandahs to three sides are supported by chamfered timber posts with capitals and brackets, and feature fine cast-iron balustrading and a deep lattice frieze.
Fire escapes have been added, and an early garage of lesser quality has been attached to the northeast wall.
The main house comprises entrance vestibule, stair hall, living and dining rooms, study, library, breakfast room (with cellar below), and strongroom on the ground floor, and six bedrooms and two bathrooms on the first floor. Extra kitchens and bathrooms have been added throughout the house since the original construction.
Distinguishing the interior is a lavish use of stained glass and timber, including English oak and walnut, Tasmanian blackwood and Queensland greasenut. Leadlighting in the ceiling above the stair hall and around the front door is of particular note, as are the timber dado panelling, fireplace surrounds and overmantels in the principal rooms, particularly those in the dining room. A skylight has been installed in the roof over the stair hall to illuminate the glass ceiling.
A half-screen in timber and glass divides the dining and living rooms, and the bay window opening to the southern verandah is separated from the main part of the living room by double arches supported by a slender central timber column. Several of the rooms retain the original wallpaper and friezes, those of the drawing room being especially ornate and intact.
The service extension also is of brick, but the design is Gothic with attic rooms. Two rooms were added to this wing early in the twentieth century.
Two huge weeping figs and the original gateposts remain at the corner of Flower and Palmer Streets. These are included within the citation, although alienated from the house by later subdivisions.
","history":"This substantial, two-storeyed brick residence was constructed in 1888-9 for John Henry Flower, a Brisbane solicitor and co-founder of the still prominent legal firm of Flower & Hart.
Flower acquired the hilltop site of just over 7 acres [2.8 hectares] in 1885. He commissioned respected Brisbane architect George Henry Male Addison [formerly of Melbourne] to design the hilltop home, and in 1888 raised a mortgage of £4,000 on the property.
Addison advertised for tenders in mid-1888, and a contract for £3,459 was let to Brisbane builder John William Young on 17 July.
Young worked rapidly, employing an average of 50 to 70 men throughout the construction period. Foundations and cellar were commenced in early September and within four months the roof was being slated. By late April 1889 the elaborately decorated interior was sufficiently ready for furniture to be moved in [some had been specially built to complement interior finishes], and in June the Flower family took up residence.
The name of the house was derived from that of Flower's wife, Dora Kirk.
Although John Flower died c1918, the family remained at Kirkston for over 50 years. In the early 1930s the site was subdivided amongst Flower's heirs and the house was bequeathed to Rupert Wickham Flower.
Richard Henry Trotter purchased the house on just over half an acre [.2 hectare] in 1941, and apart from three years during the early 1940s when it housed an American military intelligence unit, Kirkston has remained a family residence. One of the more flamboyant of recent owners was Paddy John Stephens of Paddys Markets fame at Teneriffe [1982-7].
Kirkston remains a local landmark, with the early occupants commemorated by the local street names of Flower and Rupert.
","criteria":"Kirkston, erected in 1888-89, is significant as an ornate and substantially intact example of domestic architecture on the grand scale in Brisbane during the 1880s, with the opulence in form and finish reflecting the boom era mentality.
|It is a most accomplished building in design, features, finishes, materials, construction and setting, illustrating the principal characteristics of its type. Kirkston is important as a major early example of the domestic work of architect GHM Addison in Brisbane, the innovative design heralding subsequent Federation period building styles, and as evidence of the skill of builder John William Young.
|The place is significant for its landmark quality and aesthetic contribution to the Windsor-Lutwyche townscape, and for its association with several of Brisbane's more prominent families and entrepreneurs.
|The place is significant for its landmark quality and aesthetic contribution to the Windsor-Lutwyche townscape, and for its association with several of Brisbane's more prominent families and entrepreneurs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15127,"place_ref":600352,"name":"Boothville","alternate_name":"Monte Video","street_address":"43 Seventh Avenue","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located on over 0.8 hectares of hilltop land, Boothville is a complex of double and single-storeyed timber and masonry buildings. The original rendered masonry and timber house remains as the main focal building, sited in a commanding position at the crest of the hill.
The main building has a long thin U-shaped plan comprised of, to the south, the original double-storeyed masonry house with now enclosed timber verandahs, its single storeyed rendered masonry service wing to the north-west, and the circa 1900 single-storeyed L-shaped timber addition to the north east. The roof is a series of intersecting pitches dominated by the main roof, which features a flattened central portion bound by a cast iron decorative balustrade with finials.
The front (south) elevation of the original house features a double-storeyed bay window under a gable end with carved eaves brackets, and a projecting timber entrance portico with three-post columns, shaped rafter ends and stained glass panels. Verandahs to the south and east have been enclosed with weatherboard, and sheeted in to the west. On both the west and eastern elevations, remains of decorative timber detailing to the verandahs can be seen, with arched battening, a herring bone frieze, and timber columns with capitals. The covered walkway to the service wing to the north features cast iron columns with corinthian capitals.
The entrance door which connected the southern portico to the entry vestibule has been replaced, but its cedar surrounds with stained glass remain. The entry vestibule features a rendered masonry archway at the foot of finely carved timber stairs. To the east is a grand reception room, with an ornate plaster cornice and richly detailed timber and tiled fireplace. The room has folding cedar doors which once linked it to a parlour which is now a ward. The office to the west has elaborate and finely carved timber cupboards, side board, mirrors and overmantel framing a mosaic tiled fireplace built in to the northern wall. The 'service wing' to the rear consists of a large former dining room, a smaller room with a corner fireplace which is now enclosed and which probably functioned as the servants' hall, a large kitchen, and a pantry and scullery, which are now storerooms.
At half-landing level, the stairs lead to a small timber-lined room and another narrower staircase, which leads to what was probably the servants' bedroom above the dining room. Narrow back stairs also lead from the service wing to this bedroom and from the half-landing level to an upper floor room, which was probably the nursery. The top floor housed four bedrooms and a dressing room, which now serve as wards and a kitchen. The principal rooms feature carved timber mantelpieces, and the southern rooms have excellent views of the inner north-western suburbs and city centre.
The grounds retain remnants of the former garden, terracing and fernery and established trees are located around the boundary. Low masonry fences with cast-iron balustrading define the front terraces. The western side of the house has an old well (which had been sealed over c1924 but was re-opened in 1986), and a Garden Chapel. A bitumen driveway follows the original curve around the front lawn to a semi-circular parking area, formerly the carriage reception area, and continues in the direction of the now demolished coach house at the rear. Much of the brick guttering to the early driveway survives.
Despite modification for its function as a maternity hospital, the essential form of the main building remains intact, as do major internal decorative features. The modifications have not substantially diminished the picturesque quality of the siting of the building, its grounds, and some of its external features.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick residence, formerly known as Monte Video, was erected in 1887 for Henry Wallis Glenny, head office manager of the Queensland National Bank from 1884 to 1892.
Between 1885 and 1887 Glenny acquired several Eildon Hill subdivisions, including the Boothville site. Usually the QNB provided residential accommodation for their managers, but in Glenny's case the directors granted him a loan of £6,500 on 23 March 1887, to build his own residence. The house may have been designed by former colonial architect FDG Stanley, who designed a large number of bank offices and residences for the QNB, including the head office in Brisbane, erected 1881-85.
In 1892 Glenny retired from the QNB, which purchased the house from him. It was rented briefly but mostly remained unoccupied until Walter Vardon Ralston, the new general manager of the QNB, and his family occupied the residence in 1896. Initially Ralston rented the house for £150 per annum, but later this was waived, and in 1918 he purchased Monte Video from the QNB. During the Ralstons' occupancy a single-storeyed timber extension, which housed a large billiard room and beyond that an L-shaped sunroom opening to an eastern porch, aviary and fernery, was added at the rear c1900.
Walter Ralston died in 1920 but his widow remained in the house until 1922. In 1923 Monte Video was acquired by William Bramwell Booth, son of the English founder of the Salvation Army. He purchased the property on behalf of the organisation, and in May 1924 the Salvation Army Mothers Hospital moved from Breakfast Creek to Monte Video, which was renamed Boothville.
Apart from a small portion of land which was sold in 1925 to P & AE Nelson, and which was bequeathed back to the Salvation Army in 1956, the hospital and grounds have remained part of the Salvation Army Queensland Property Trust since 1933.
A number of buildings associated with the hospital have been erected on the site since 1924. These include a single-storeyed building which was transported from the hospital's previous site at Breakfast Creek, raised to two-storey height and built in underneath, and a cottage which was relocated from a site in Jephson Street in Toowong in 1962.
A brick labour ward was added in the 1970s, and more recently the courtyard between the two rear wings has been covered and concreted. Recently a brick theatre wing has been added off the eastern side of the timber wing.
","criteria":"Boothville is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of Brisbane's northern suburbs in the late 19th century. It is a large, fundamentally intact masonry residence of the late 1880s which, together with the surviving grounds, is representative of more affluent late 19th century domestic architecture and landscaping in Brisbane.
|It is a large, fundamentally intact masonry residence of the late 1880s which, together with the surviving grounds, is representative of more affluent late 19th century domestic architecture and landscaping in Brisbane.
|The picturesque quality of the siting and remaining external features of the main building at Boothville, and its grounds, make an important contribution to the Windsor townscape. The core building contains finely crafted timber joinery, plaster cornices and leadlights.
|Boothville is significant for its special association with the work of the Salvation Army in Queensland, and has social significance as a maternity hospital for nearly 7 decades.
|Boothville is significant for its special association with the work of the Salvation Army in Queensland, and has social significance as a maternity hospital for nearly 7 decades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15128,"place_ref":600353,"name":"Princess Theatre","alternate_name":"South Brisbane Public Hall/Boggo Road Theatre","street_address":"8 Annerley Road","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Princess Theatre is a two-storeyed rectangular brick building fronting Annerley Road to the west, with a narrow laneway to either side and rear. The building has three roof sections, the front having a mansard roof and the auditorium and backstage having hipped corrugated iron roofs with central raised sections for ventilation.
The symmetrical, rendered west elevation displays a highly decorative classical influence in its design. The central entrance portico has two corner columns, on square bases, with an entablature with a laurel frieze in relief. The entrance has double timber doors and arched fanlight with coloured glass panels.
The ground floor has a shopfront to either side of the entrance, with a glazed wide arched opening framed by pilasters and entablature. The first floor has a verandah with rendered balustrade, columns, entablature and arched spandrel panels with decorative keystones. This elevation has a rooftop balustrade, between column tops surmounted by spheres, with a central curved pediment with laurels in relief. The mansard roof rises behind.
The other three elevations are of face brick, having darker brick to the ground floor, with a parapet wall. The building has timber walkways along the north and south elevations with double timber doors and casement windows with fanlights opening from the auditorium.
The foyer has a sloping floor to the auditorium entrance, and a central timber stair to the gallery level and first floor offices. The wall surfaces have been rendered and scribed to imitate stone blocks and a new ceiling with downlights has been installed. A door opens to the shops on either side. The landing level has carved timber balusters which pre-date the existing stair and balustrade.
The auditorium is entered under the gallery, or dress circle. The landing above is supported by two cast iron columns and the sloping gallery by four timber posts. The underside of the gallery has pressed metal sheeting. A kitchen/bar has been installed in this area which is separated from the auditorium by an open stud wall.
The auditorium has face brick walls with rendered pilasters and cornice, and timber architraves, dado and panelling below. The ceiling is curved at the corners with boarded panels running lengthwise, widthwise and diagonally. The central area has two roses on cast iron grating for ventilation. The proscenium arch has rendered pilasters and entablature with a laurel frieze.
The backstage area is painted out black. A high level walkway runs around the perimeter and a stair in the southeast corner leads to the basement. The basement has a concrete floor and contains a central storage/ performance space with dressing rooms to the north and an office area to the south, all with external access.
The first floor contains offices open onto the west verandah. Toilets behind open off the top of the stair. The gallery is accessed from the landing and contains six rows of tiered seating.
","history":"This large brick building was constructed in 1888 for prominent Brisbane solicitor Phillip Hardgrave and the South Brisbane Public Hall Company.
Its construction was an entrepreneurial venture responding to the needs of a rapidly expanding South Brisbane, East Brisbane, Woolloongabba, and Thompson Estate population. It provided the newly created Borough of South Brisbane with a central public hall which could be hired for public meetings, lectures, balls, theatrical and musical performances and other public functions.
In 1887 Hardgrave acquired the Boggo Road (later Annerley Road) site, set up the subscription company, and commissioned Brisbane architect John B Nicholson to design the hall. It was erected the following year by builder Blair Cunningham, for a contract price of £5,220.
In the early years, the privately funded hall was known variously as the South Brisbane Public Hall (1888-91) and the Boggo Road Theatre (1892-3).
In 1893 Hardgrave sold the property to his father, John Hardgrave, a former mayor of Brisbane. Renamed the Princess Theatre, the building was used during the 1890s for sporadic productions of live performances and vaudeville, but did not emerge as a major theatrical venue in Brisbane.
Brisbane draper Thomas Finney acquired the property in 1899 and used the theatre as a clothing factory, although the stage was still hired for occasional performances.
With a change of ownership in 1912 the building was rented to clothing manufacturers and Wests Olympia, and from 1914 to 1942 it was leased mainly as a movie-house and performance space for amateur theatre. In the 1930s Brisbane's fledgling amateur theatre companies - Brisbane Repertory Theatre (now La Boite), Brisbane Arts Theatre and the Twelfth Night Theatre Company (later TN! Theatre Co.) - all performed at the Princess.
From 1942 to 1945 the theatre served as the administrative and rehearsal centre for the United States Entertainment Unit. In the years immediately following the war, it was hired to a variety of community groups such as ballet schools, college revues, and scout troops.
From 1949 to 1985 the building lost all association with the performing arts, and was rented to various small businesses, including a paper wholesaler, an engineering firm, a rag merchant, a secondhand dealer and a used appliance retailer. The stage area was leased separately to a printing firm for over thirty years from 1948 to 1979.
In 1985 the property was acquired by REMM Group Ltd, who carried out external restoration, and offered TN! Theatre Company a ten year lease from 1986. Internal restoration and refitting was carried out by TN!.
","criteria":"The Princess Theatre is important in demonstrating the evolution of Woolloongabba/South Brisbane as a major urban centre in Brisbane in the 1880s.
|It is particularly significant as the only intact surviving 19th century theatre in Brisbane, demonstrating an aspect of Brisbane's cultural heritage which is now rare, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial 19th century masonry theatre.
|It is particularly significant as the only intact surviving 19th century theatre in Brisbane, demonstrating an aspect of Brisbane's cultural heritage which is now rare, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial 19th century masonry theatre.
|The Princess Theatre is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community, local residents and those interested in theatre design, in particular: the ornately decorated street facade and more restrained interior; and the building's contribution to the Clarence Corner streetscape and Woolloongabba townscape.
|The Princess Theatre has a strong and extensive association with Brisbane theatre, both amateur and professional and has a special association with Brisbane architect John B Nicholson as an example of his commercial work.
|The Princess Theatre has a strong and extensive association with Brisbane theatre, both amateur and professional and has a special association with Brisbane architect John B Nicholson as an example of his commercial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15129,"place_ref":600354,"name":"Broadway Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"93 Logan Road","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Broadway Hotel is a substantial brick building occupying a prominent corner site in Woolloongabba bounded by the main thoroughfare Logan Road to its northeast, a closed section of road reserve (originally Short Street) to its southeast, Balaclava Street to its southwest (rear), and commercial properties to its northwest side. The building is vacant and bears major fire damage.
\nThe building comprises three parts. A three-storey main block (1890) with part basement stands at the corner of the site with elaborate facades fronting Logan Road and the former Short Street. Extending off its rear are two rectangular wings: a single-storey service wing with basement (1890); and a two-storey wing (by 1915, possibly original or incorporating original fabric).
\nMain Block (1890)
\nThe main block has loadbearing brick walls and interior partitions, timber-framed floors for its rooms, and suspended concrete floors for balconies. The block is roofless, its timber-framed mansard roof and the tower’s spire roof, both clad with metal sheets, have been destroyed in the fires.
\nThe street-facing facades of the hotel’s main block are in an elaborate Late Victorian era style (Queen Anne Revival), featuring multiple pedimented bays, balconies, and an octagonal corner tower over the main entrance. The original polychrome face brick with tuck pointing has been rendered over and painted, and moulded terracotta dressings (string courses, cornices, cappings, balcony balusters, and finials) have been painted over, or demolished (likely 1958). A large, original glass lantern is mounted to the corner tower of the building. The main block’s rear and side facades, originally plain, lime-pencilled face brick, have been rendered and painted. Most external timber joinery has been lost to the fires, including its doors and windows; however, some remnants survive. A modern timber ground floor deck and lightweight roof structure have been attached to the Logan Road facade.
\nThe interior on all floor levels is fire damaged, and has lost original fabric, including lime plaster wall finishes and cornices, lath-and-plaster ceilings, fireplace surrounds, and moulded timber joinery, such as skirtings, architraves, doors, and the main stair, except for a fragment of stair landing at the second floor level.
\nThe ground floor layout, which is not intact, comprises a large public bar room on the principal corner of the building, smaller surrounding rooms, and a rear stair hall. The ground floor balcony fronting Logan Road has had its wall demolished to extend the interior. The ground floor’s original, timber-framed floors have been altered in many areas by the addition of later surfaces including concrete topping slabs.
\nThe first floor layout is considerably intact, comprising a central, L-shaped corridor with rooms opening on either side; however, the walls of the balconies have been demolished to extend the interior. The original floor structure of the first floor generally survives throughout, comprising steel beams on sandstone blocks within the brick walls supporting herringbone strutted timber joists; and areas of original floor boards survive. Some remnants of original moulded skirting, and a double-hung window also survive.
\nThe second floor, originally largely identical to the first floor, is not intact due to the complete loss of its floor and roof; however, most of its masonry partitions survive. Its original Logan Road-facing balcony survives relatively intact. As post-fire stabilising measures, a suspended concrete slab and steel struts have been added to the interior.
\nThe basement, reached via timber stairs through an access hatch in the floor of the public bar, is one room with cast iron posts supporting the steel beam and timber joists floor framing of the ground floor. Two grated lightwells in the former Short Street footpath open into the basement.
\nSingle-Storey Service Wing (1890)
\nThe single-storey service wing is not intact. At its core is the original small, rectangular, wing, with brick walls and timber-framed floors and hip roof. However, its original open eastern verandah has been demolished and replaced by a masonry, flat-roofed extension accommodating toilets, which also wraps around the wing’s southern side. One original timber-framed window survives, and the surviving original brick walls have been rendered and painted. The wing’s hip roof has been extended, but sections of early ogee profile gutters, beaded timber fascias, and timber boarded eaves survive. The original corrugated metal roof sheets have been replaced with modern ribbed metal sheets.
\nThe interior comprises a large room, with non-original partitions forming a toilet in one corner. The original southern wall and most of the original eastern wall have been demolished to form openings into the extension on these sides. New windows and a modern partition with fireplace have been added.
\nThe wing’s basement connects through to that of the main block but is at a higher level. It comprises one room with brick walls, and brick piers support the ground floor.
\nTwo-Storey Wing (by 1915)
\nAlthough its construction date is not known, the two-storey wing may be largely 1890, incorporate 1890 fabric, or a later extension. It is not intact. At least part of its brick wall bonding is built up to the main block rather than keyed into the main block, as the single-storey service wing is. It has a rectangular footprint, concrete slab ground floor, and timber-framed first-floor floor structure. Its earlier, possibly original timber-framed hip roof has been demolished and replaced with a timber-framed skillion roof. It has been extended on its southern end with a skillion-roofed, two-storey, masonry and concrete ablutions block, replacing an early, single-storey, open-sided lean-to shelter (likely laundry) here. The exterior walls, originally face brick, have been largely rendered and painted, and no early doors or windows survive. Many non-original window penetrations and large openings have been made to the exterior.
\nThe ground floor interior layout is not intact. It retains some early masonry partitions, however, modern partitions have been added and doorways closed over and repositioned. It comprises a large room, possibly originally a kitchen or laundry, two smaller adjacent rooms, one a modern cold room, and an L-shaped room, part of which was originally an open-sided verandah-like space that has been enclosed, and the other part an early stair hall to the first floor that has had its stair demolished and converted to a wide corridor to the now-demolished drive-thru. The floor, wall, and ceiling finishes are not early, and the original large fireplace has been demolished.
\nThe first floor is not accessible, as its former access via non-original rear decks has been destroyed. Its interior is not intact, comprising a single, large room and all original partitions demolished. It retains sections of its original timber framed floor structure, floor boards, and early plaster wall finish, however, the floor, wall, and ceiling surfaces are predominantly not early.
\nThe rear yard contains no features or structures of state-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Broadway Hotel, Woolloongabba was built in 1890 during a period of major growth in Queensland’s economy, population, and construction. It operated as a privately-owned commercial hotel until its closure due to a fire in 2010. In 2018, it was heavily damaged in a second fire and remains closed.
\nThe area now known as Woolloongabba is part of the traditional country of the Jagera and Turrbal People.[1] Following European occupation, it was called One Mile Swamp due to a series of large waterholes stretching for a mile between what is now Stanley and Vulture streets. The roads from the Logan and Darling Downs districts converged there and in the 1850s bullock drays and livestock were rested at the waterholes. By the 1860s some of the waterholes had been drained and a fledgling commercial precinct emerged. The name, Woolloongabba, replaced One Mile Swamp in the 1870s.[2]
\nQueensland experienced an economic boom beginning in the 1870s and peaking in the late 1880s before growth slowed dramatically in the early 1890s due to a series of economic setbacks. During the boom, Queensland travel routes and services, particularly railways, were expanded, stimulating growth in industries, increasing the availability of consumer goods and construction materials, and spurring closer settlement, particularly in Brisbane.[3] Trams were introduced as a form of public transport in Brisbane in the mid-1880s and expanded rapidly, shaping the development of the city’s suburbs.[4]
\nMany new hotels were built in the 1880s to service the increased size and mobility of the Queensland population. In the late 19th century, hotels (licensed drinking establishments that also provided lodging) were key venues for social interaction. They provided a vital service for travellers, pastoralists, workers, and others moving around the colony, and were typically located on or near major travel routes or services.[5] Queensland’s many late 19th to early 20th century hotels shared characteristics, including being located prominently in growing urban or suburban areas, serviced by transport routes and amenities. They were typically two- or three-storey, loadbearing brick and timber-framed structures with a grand form, architectural style, and elaborate detailing, designed to attract public attention. The interior functions included public hospitality amenities, such as public bars, lounges, dining rooms, bedrooms, and ablutions, serviced by back of house rooms, such as cellars, store rooms, kitchens, and laundries.[6]
\nIn the 1880s, Woolloongabba developed quickly, together with the adjoining suburbs of East Brisbane, Buranda, and Stones Corner, following the expansion of the railway and tramway systems and the growth of associated commerce and light industry. In 1881 a dry dock was established at South Brisbane and the nearby coal wharves were linked to a railway goods yard at Woolloongabba in 1884. The first (horse drawn) trams in Brisbane ran between Woolloongabba and Newstead in 1885 and had reached Buranda by 1887. South Brisbane and Woolloongabba were amalgamated to form the City of South Brisbane in 1888 and in the following year the first Post Office opened in Woolloongabba and was serviced by tram. The area was booming, as was the Queensland economy generally.[7] It was within this buoyant context that Brisbane publican Michael McKenna bought land in Woolloongabba and built his substantial Broadway Hotel to a design by John Hall & Son.
\nJohn Hall & Son was a successful, Brisbane-based architecture firm, operating from 1883 until 1896. The firm was extremely busy during the 1880s, designing more than 100 buildings in the late 1880s alone, but work lessened after the economic downturn of the early 1890s. Led by principal Francis Richard Hall, the firm employed a number of talented architects, including John Smith Murdoch from the late 1880s to 1893. The firm’s designs were primarily for Brisbane buildings, mostly residences and villas; likely the firm’s most prominent and notable design was the South Brisbane Municipal Council Chambers (QHR 600306), designed in c1890, and its construction completed in 1892 to considerable fanfare.[8] During the same period, the firm completed designs for at least nine Brisbane hotels, one of which was the Broadway Hotel, possibly by Murdoch.[9]
\nThe Broadway Hotel was constructed by local contractors Wooley and White, with their £4820 tender accepted in September 1889.[10] The hotel’s Woolloongabba site, bounded by Logan Road, Short Street, and Balaclava Street, had been transferred to McKenna in January that year. Its location at the intersection of major arterial roads was prominent, and well serviced by the tram line which ran along Logan Road. John Hall & Son’s design was an imposing structure to attract attention, and when completed and opened in 1890 it rapidly became a well-known local landmark.[11]
\nThe Broadway Hotel was a substantial, three-storey, brick hotel in an elaborate Late-Victorian style, described as Queen Anne Revival. Its two street facades were highly decorative, featuring polychrome face brick walls with elaborately moulded terracotta dressings, balconies, parapets, a mansard roof, and an octagonal corner tower with tall, peaked roof. It included a single-storey, rear service wing extending along Short Street with a cast-iron post and lace balustrade verandah facing the street. The wing’s original interior layout and function are not known, but was likely one or two small rooms (kitchen and scullery). It is possible the building included a second rear wing, although its size and functions are not known, and is only confirmed to be here by 1915.[12]
\nMcKenna operated the hotel until the end of 1899, when he leased the hotel to a succession of licensees, and he sold it in 1917.[13]
\nAn air-raid shelter was constructed in the rear yard in 1943.[14] The hotel was refurbished in the late-1950s, including altering room layouts, enclosing balconies, cutting new openings in walls, and closing others, building toilets and a cold room, and adding new finishes. Plans of this work show the second rear wing at this time to be a two-storey, brick wing with hip roof. Its ground floor layout and large fireplace indicate it was possibly an early kitchen and/or laundry and two adjacent, smaller rooms, possibly scullery and storeroom. The first floor, which was at a different level to that of the main block, had a layout and room sizes which were domestic, possibly servants’ or manager’s living rooms. Connecting this wing and the hotel’s main block was a semi-enclosed stair down to the rear yard. The plans also show a two-storey, rear verandah (with cast iron posts at ground level), which ran along the rear of the main block, likely built in 1890. It was demolished as part of the late 1950s work.[15] Further refurbishment work was completed in 1960 and 1962. Also at this time, the hotel’s stables in the rear yard were demolished.[16] In the mid-1980s the hotel underwent a program of refurbishment, alterations, and additions. By this time, the external face brick walls had been painted.[17]
\nIn 1997, the hotel passed into new ownership. In July 2010, while renovations were underway, a fire occurred at the hotel causing extensive damage, and the hotel ceased operation.[18] Still closed, a second major fire occurred in the hotel in September 2018, causing greater damage. The 2018 fire attracted considerable public, political and media interest about the building’s future, following a long period of being unoccupied and subject to vandalism. This included community meetings and petitions to both State and local government to protect the building.[19] After the fire, the hotel’s structure was stabilised, and debris cleanup occurred. The air-raid shelter, found to be structurally unsound, and other, more-recent structures were demolished by 2020. In 2022 a further change in ownership occurred.
\nIn 2024, the hotel remains vacant and fire damaged.
\n","criteria":"
The Broadway Hotel (1890) is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, providing evidence of: the pattern of 1880s boom-era economic confidence, which led to a large increase in building throughout Queensland, most notably in Brisbane; and the evolution of the Woolloongabba-East Brisbane area in response to the growth of the railway and tramway systems.
|Standing prominently on its corner site on Logan Road, Brisbane, the Broadway Hotel is important for its aesthetic significance as a three-storey hotel in an elaborate, boom-era style. It is a landmark within the Woolloongabba townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15130,"place_ref":600355,"name":"Shop Row","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"609 & 613 Stanley Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This two-storeyed brick row comprises five shops, with a single skillion roof of corrugated iron sloping down from the front to the back.
A parapet of exposed face brickwork with applied decoration in cement render dominates the Stanley Street facade. The central design element on this parapet is a pediment scroll with plant motifs; in the bays on either side of the scroll, arch forms in cement render are set in relief.
A first floor cantilevered verandah across the front elevation is ornamented with double timber posts, bracket sweeps to three sides of each post, and batten balustrade and frieze. A set of french doors with fanlight opens centrally from each shop onto the verandah.
At the lower level a corrugated iron street awning is supported by double timber posts.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick shop row was built c1903, probably for John Brett and Winifred Mary Charlton, owners of the adjoining Clarence Hotel.
Although the site on which the shop row is situated housed a number of small businesses from the 1870s onwards, the land subdivision which permitted construction of the brick shop row did not take place until 1903, following purchase of the Clarence Hotel and the adjoining Stanley Street property by the Charltons in 1902-03.
Its occupants have included fruiterers, hairdressers, tobacconists, drapers, and the Australian Bank of Commerce.
","criteria":"Shop Row at Woolloongabba, erected c1903, is important typologically as surviving evidence of Federation-era shop row type in Brisbane, and historically as one of the few surviving commercial buildings of Woolloongabba's early 20th century post-depression recovery.
The place is important for its streetscape contribution, and as an integral part of the Clarence Corner precinct, which encapsulates the principal phases of commercial development in Woolloongabba from the 1860s to the 1930s.
|Shop Row at Woolloongabba, erected c1903, is important typologically as surviving evidence of Federation-era shop row type in Brisbane, and historically as one of the few surviving commercial buildings of Woolloongabba's early 20th century post-depression recovery.
|The place is important for its streetscape contribution, and as an integral part of the Clarence Corner precinct, which encapsulates the principal phases of commercial development in Woolloongabba from the 1860s to the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15131,"place_ref":600356,"name":"Pollock's Shop House","alternate_name":"Pollocks Shop House","street_address":"617-619 Stanley Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Pollock's Shop House is situated in Stanley Street between Clarence Corner and Merton Road, adjacent to Hillyard's Shop House, another c1865 two-storeyed brick building (601059). A narrow laneway runs along the east face of the building, which has a sealed bitumen carpark at the rear.
The building consists of a two storeyed brick core, square in plan, with early double storeyed timber additions to either side, and a single storeyed extension to the rear.
There is a hipped roof on the central brick core, with inward sloping skillion roofs on each side wing that drain to box gutters fixed to the brick walls, and a skillion roof to the rear extension.
The building has a pleasing balance in its design, with two symmetrically placed window openings in the upper level of the plain brick rear facade, and three door openings to the Stanley Street verandah.
Despite the unequal sizes of the side additions, the building's appearance is unified by a street awning and verandah that run the full width of the Stanley Street elevation, with a chamferboard parapet each side of the central roof; and by the rear extension which also spans the full width of the facade.
The eastern facade and the verandah are oversheeted with fibro, as is the soffit of the street awning.
Facebrick coursing of the central core is English Bond brickwork, with corner quoins to the Stanley Street elevation, and round headed openings with sandstone sills at first floor level in the southern face, one of which has been extended to form a doorway.
Internally the central core has set plasterwork to walls, lathe and plaster ceilings, pine floors, and a timber framed roof of corrugated GI sheeting over timber shingles.
The wings are of timber, lined externally with horizontal chamferboards and internally with vertical VJ boards to walls and ceilings, and are roofed in corrugated GI sheeting.
A central chimney services both floors and joinery throughout is of cedar, including the turned staircase.
The interior of the core comprises a front shop, two back rooms in what was possibly the former kitchen, and a side stairwell on the ground floor with a side passage that is now a toilet. At the first floor level, the stairwell opens into a large parlour with french doors to the Stanley Street verandah and doorways either side of the central fireplace to two bedrooms at the rear.
In the eastern wing is a ground floor shop with two small rooms at the rear, giving access to a stair that leads to four upstairs rooms, which are symmetrically placed around a central hallway. Each upstairs room on the eastern and southern elevations has a single double hung sash window, protected by an external hood.
A ground floor shop occupies the western wing, with a room at the rear. Access to the two rooms and small bathroom upstairs is gained through a doorway to the front verandah.
Except for the westernmost shop which has a metal roller shutter, the shopfronts have glazed showcases either side of splayed and glazed reveals and central doorways, and date from early this century.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick building was constructed in the mid-1860s, either for Brisbane businessman and contractor William Pettigrew, who acquired the site in December 1864, or for Brisbane contractor and butcher Alexander Pollock, who acquired title to the site, (then part of the Clarence Estate), in April 1865.
It was one of the earliest masonry buildings at One-mile Swamp (Woolloongabba), erected during the 1860s development of that part of Stanley Street as an early commercial centre.
One-mile Swamp received an investment boost in the early and mid-1860s, following diversion of the Toowoomba mail from South Brisbane to Kangaroo Point, the formation of the New Ipswich Road, (avoiding the Old Ipswich or Boggo [Boghole] Road - later Annerley Road), and the opening of Brisbane's first cross river bridge at South Brisbane in June 1865.
These developments stimulated land investment at One-mile Swamp, and in 1864 the Clarence Town Estate was offered for sale. This parcel of land, which comprised 7 acres with frontages to Stanley Street and Boggo and Merton Roads, had been alienated in 1856 by Thomas Grenier of Brisbane. It was sold to publican Thomas Hayselden in 1863, and the first Clarence Hotel, at the corner of Stanley Street (by then the main Ipswich Road) and Boggo Road, was opened by Hayselden in January 1864.
When Hayselden's Clarence Estate and neighbouring One-mile Swamp or Woolloongabba allotments were being advertised for auction or sale in 1864-65, the potential of the area for both small business and residential purposes was emphasised. Suddenly, in the mid-1860s, an area which previously had been defined by little other than three Hotels - the Clarence at the intersection of the old and new Ipswich Roads, Scanlan's hotel at the Woolloongabba fiveways, and the Buffalo at the corner of Hawthorne Road and New Ipswich Road - acquired a string of small businesses fronting the new Ipswich Road beyond Boggo Road. Amongst these was Pollock's shop house.
Until well into the 1870s, One-mile Swamp was a separate settlement from South Brisbane and Kangaroo Point, and early progress was associated with the traffic from the interior - bullock teams converging on One-mile Swamp from the old and new Ipswich Roads, and the Logan and Cleveland Roads. A further stimulus to development of the area came with the discovery of beds of clay amongst the string of waterholes and marshes which comprised the One-mile Swamp. It is understood that a brickworks was established near the site of the Woolloongabba cricket ground c1856, and that several other such establishments followed in the One-mile Swamp/Kangaroo Point area, flourishing in the 1860s and 1870s.
It is likely that the bricks used in the construction of Pollock's shop-house came from the One-mile Swamp brickworks, and survive to illustrate one of the earliest industries of Woolloongabba.
Alexander Pollock was bankrupted in the crash of 1866/67, and although reputedly he later retrieved his fortune in the Gympie goldrush, was forced to forfeit the Stanley Street property to a mortgagee in 1868.
Since that time a variety of small businesses have operated from the ground floor premises, which totalled four shops by the twentieth century. One of the more enduring businesses established in the building was the oyster saloon run by Luigi Cervetto, fish merchant, who acquired the property in 1912, and neighbouring subdivision 10 in 1920. The Cervetto family retained both sites until 1956. The first floor has been rented as boarding rooms, and more recently occupied by squatters.
","criteria":"It provides rare evidence of the early commercial development of One-Mile Swamp/ Woolloongabba in the mid-1860s; of the early brickmaking industry associated with the area at this time, of which little record, either physical or written, survives; and of 1860s brick construction technique and stylistic and aesthetic choices.
|Pollock's Shop House is one of few two-storeyed, brick, 1860s shop houses to survive in Brisbane.
It provides rare evidence of the early commercial development of One-Mile Swamp/ Woolloongabba in the mid-1860s; of the early brickmaking industry associated with the area at this time, of which little record, either physical or written, survives; and of 1860s brick construction technique and stylistic and aesthetic choices.
|As a substantially intact, detached, two-storeyed brick shop house, this building is particularly important in illustrating a past way of life.
|As an integral part of the Clarence Corner streetscape, and one of a pair of c1865 two-storeyed brick shop houses on adjacent properties fronting Stanley Street, this building contributes strongly to the Woolloongabba townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15132,"place_ref":600357,"name":"Woolloongabba Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"Woolloongabba Post and Telegraph Office | Woolloongabba Post Office","street_address":"765 Stanley Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"The former Woolloongabba Post Office is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with cement dressings and hipped corrugated iron roofs, located on the corner of Stanley and Hubert Streets. It is richly decorated, and makes a prominent contribution through form, scale and detail to the predominantly parapeted commercial streetscape of Stanley St.
Originally constructed to accommodate a post and telegraph office on the ground floor, and a residence on the first floor, the form and detail of the exterior of the building is skilfully designed to articulate the domestic and public roles of the building. The post office is composed as a single major volume under a hipped roof with ventilated gables, with an attached tower over the entrance vestibule at the corner of Hubert and Stanley Sts. On the north elevation, facing Stanley St, the residence sits behind a 'piazza' or loggia. Towards the rear facing Hubert St, the building, assumes a more domestic character, with a prominent and richly detailed awning, a separate, smaller hipped roof, and a chimney which rises above the roof line. The southern (rear) frontage has a deep timber verandah, and the western frontage overlooking the service lane is unrendered and undecorated. The building has deep eaves with shaped rafter ends.
The two street-facing elevations have horizontal tripartite ornamentation, comprising: a square-snecked rubble stone plinth; cement string course to ground floor sill level; course aggregate rendered walls to the piano nobile; and unrendered brickwork expressed as pilasters above a first floor string course. These elevations are linked with cement banding. The corner tower has large openings at the base with deep lintels with dentils and scrolls. The single windows above have pilasters and single scrolled brackets under the sill, and are surmounted by deep arched hood mouldings with cartouches. The tower roof is topped with an idiosyncratic concave peak and finial. The Stanley St frontage has paired windows to the ground floor either side of a set of three windows surmounted by the central feature of the elevation; an arch with dentils over small cartouches around a large, elaborate cartouche bearing the words POST & TELEGRAPH OFFICE. The more recently added metal WOOLLOONGABBA POST OFFICE, also appears on the Stanley St elevation. The loggia above has brick spandrels and columns with rounded cement capitals.
The openings to the Hubert St elevations have dentils to the ground floor, and single scrolled brackets and sills to the first floor. The main entrance to the former residence on Hubert St comprises a timber lined barrel vault supported on delicate metal brackets, over a central door with a coloured glass arched fanlight flanked by single windows. A second entrance is provided around the corner on the south elevation, which also has an arched coloured glass fanlight and an arched brick lintel.
The verandah to the south, now partially enclosed, has a timber balustrade with timber posts, and timber battens to the verandah soffit. The brickwork to the south is unrendered, revealing splayed brick lintels.
Internally, the former residence is accessed via a set of timber stairs in the south eastern corner of the building. The stairs have turned balusters and substantial newel posts with chamfered rectangular tops. On the first floor, the former residence partition walls have been removed, however the remaining large space retains its timber lined ceilings, a single fretwork ceiling ventilator panel, a former kitchen fireplace, and a fireplace in the south eastern corner with fine timber panelling and ceramic tiled surrounds. Some of the decorative ironmongery remains, including wall ventilator panels, escutcheon plates, and a teardrop-shaped door handle at the ground floor entrance.
The ground floor has also undergone substantial alterations with the installation of new partitions for offices and new ceilings, but retains a central cast iron column and panelled beams traversing the former large mail room. The column has an identification plate at its base which reads HARVEY Margaret St Brisbane.
","history":"The Woolloongabba Post & Telegraph Office was constructed in 1905 for the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs, to a plan designed and supervised by the Queensland Department of Public Works, government architect's office.
It replaced an earlier Woolloongabba Post & Telegraph Office, opened in rented premises in Logan Road, in 1887. The population of Woolloongabba, which had grown steadily between the 1860s and 1880s, increased rapidly following the expansion of the railway line to Woolloongabba in 1884, and the extension of the electric tramway to Woolloongabba/East Brisbane in 1897. During the 1880s and 1890s the 'Gabba developed as Brisbane's fourth major shopping centre, the others being central Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and Stanley Street at South Brisbane. By the turn of the century, most of the allotments facing Stanley Street, Logan Road and Ipswich Road at the Fiveways were fully developed commercial sites.
Following Separation in 1859 and prior to Federation in 1901, the Queensland Government organised the postal service for the state. In 1901 the newly established Commonwealth Government became responsible for communications, and the Commonwealth Postmaster General's Department was created. The transfer of responsibilities from the States to the Commonwealth was gradual, and the Queensland Department of Works continued to carry out design and documentation of post offices on behalf of the Commonwealth Government until c1920.
Alfred Barton Brady was employed with the Queensland Government as Government Architect from 1892-1922. Brady claimed that he always advised on arrangement, style and materials, but it appears that his Senior Assistant, Thomas Pye supervised much of the detailed design. During the 30 years they worked together in the Department, Brady and Pye assembled a talented group of architects and draftsmen who were considered the equal of any in Australia, including from 1893 to 1903 John Smith Murdoch, who was to become Commonwealth Director-General of Works in 1927. Pye later served as deputy government architect from 1906 to 1921, and a major example of his work is the former Executive Building (QHR 600123) in William Street. From the office of the Government Architect there developed a tradition of fine government buildings, including many post offices, customs houses and court houses throughout the State.
A new post office building was proposed as early as 1901, and approval was given in August 1902 to purchase the present site for £1,250. The site was previously owned by the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and provided the Commonwealth with the opportunity to acquire a site for the post office that was on one of the three major streets which formed the Fiveways and was within close proximity of the centre of local activity, the Woolloongabba railway and the tramway.
In October 1903 the Commonwealth requested the Queensland Department of Public Works to prepare sketch plans for the building and to survey the site.
Working plans for the building were completed in 1904, under Pye's supervision.
The design accommodated a large mail room on the ground floor and residential accommodation for the postmaster on the first. This comprised dining and sitting rooms, four bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, scullery, store, rear verandah and front piazza. The latter was a concession to the climate which was unusual in commercial buildings of the time. Provision was made for a ground floor extension along the northwestern side.
Tenders were called in February-March 1905, and the contract was let to builder Thomas Rees with a price of £2,174.
Completed in November 1905, the Woolloongabba Post & Telegraph Office was one of only five masonry post offices constructed in Queensland between 1900 and 1910. In addition to Woolloongabba, these included post offices at Ipswich (1900) (QHR 600555), Stanthorpe (1901) (QHR 600831), Cairns (1906, no longer extant) and Mount Morgan (1910).
The ground floor of the building has undergone several alterations, as the spaces were re-organised to suit the changing functions of the post office. The first floor ceased to function as a residence during the 1950s, and was converted for use by the staff and the district inspector. During the 1960s the first floor was further altered to include a mail room, and most of the remaining partitions were removed. The building was refurbished in 1988, and from 1989 the first floor was leased to the Genealogical Society of Queensland.
The building closed as a post office in 1994, although some offices remain in use by Australia Post.
","criteria":"The former Woolloongabba Post Office survives as evidence of the rapid growth of Woolloongabba which accompanied the expansion of public transport in Brisbane around the turn of the century. Both the population boom and the substantial masonry post office building at Woolloongabba are illustrative of the late 1890s/early 1900s economic high on which Queensland entered the 20th century.
|The former Woolloongabba Post Office is one of few extant substantial masonry post office buildings erected in Queensland during the early 20th century.
|The form and detail of the exterior of the building is skilfully designed to articulate the domestic and public roles of the building. The former post office illustrates competency in design and workmanship, and reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland, designed by the Department of Public Works during the early 20th century. When erected, the building was unusual for its incorporation of a piazza in a commercial building.
|The former post office, located within the predominantly commercial Stanley Street streetscape, displays fine quality public architecture with a strong civic presence.
|The former post office illustrates competency in design and workmanship, and reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland, designed by the Department of Public Works during the early 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15133,"place_ref":600358,"name":"St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"330-334B Vulture Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral is situated with its main face to Vulture Street, in a setting of tall mature trees.
On the site which rises gently from Vulture Street, and flanked to each side and to the rear by high-set single storey timber buildings of domestic scale, the church building is the central, commanding building in the group. With its white finished walls resembling masonry, symmetrical facade and distinctive towers, the church stands quite tall and contributes significantly to the streetscape in this part of Vulture Street.
In plan, the church is a simple rectangle, with a square attached tower over the front entry and an attached rectangular aisle at each long side.
There are three symmetrically placed entry porches at the front Vulture Street facade, with roof forms and bargeboards shaped to the profile of a cupola and surmounted by ball and cross finials. A three-sided apse is centrally located at the rear.
The square tower houses a choir space directly above the main entry, and a belfry above that, accessed by a series of simple timber ladders.
Above the altar and centrally placed in the main roof is a smaller six-sided tower and cupola.
Constructed on a rendered masonry base, the building is timber framed with a roughcast rendered fibro exterior, save for the western aisle which has been built in rendered masonry subsequent to 1950. The main roof is sheeted in corrugated galvanised iron, and the cupolas and tapering roof to the square tower are made up of flat and curved pieces of galvanised sheeting.
Rendered masonry steps provide access to each of the three front entry doors, which have two leaves in a round-headed opening.
A path runs from the central entry to a metal gate, centrally placed in a rendered masonry fence along the street frontage. This fence comprises pillars with incised crosses and ball finials, between which are masonry panels and steel tube and wire infill panels.
The interior has a wooden floor and a ceiling which follows the line of the rafters, lined with fibro and VJ boards.
In this building the simple geometric forms, crowned with cupolas and punctuated with tall round-headed windows, are an expression of the canon of Russian religious architecture that dates from Byzantium and that has been constructed here in response to local materials, time and place.
","history":"The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St Nicholas was erected in 1935-36. It was the first purpose-built Russian Orthodox church in Australia, and one of the earlier parishes established in the post-1917 Russian Diaspora, yet its construction came comparatively late in the history of Russian emigration to Queensland.
A trickle of Russian emigration to Queensland had been sustained through the 19th century, with numbers increasing substantially from the 1880s. These immigrants were popular with the Queensland government, assimilating rapidly. Most moved into rural occupations, and those who remained in Brisbane gained employment principally in the railways, meatworks and factories. By 1911, Russians comprised the fourth largest ethnic group in Brisbane, congregating in South Brisbane-Woolloongabba.
Queensland's largest intake of Russian immigrants took place in the years 1911-1914. Many were radicals and revolutionaries seeking asylum from tsarist political repression in the final chaotic years of the Russian Empire; considerable numbers were Jews escaping state-inspired pogroms. They had fled Russia via Siberia and Northern China, most making their way to Harbin, in Manchuria, then taking passage from the port of Darien to Townsville or Brisbane, the first Australian ports of call.
Partly because they were scattered throughout the state, and partly because many pre-1920s immigrants associated Russian Orthodoxy with the tsarist system they were fleeing, no formal Russian Orthodox parish was established in Queensland during this period.
Queensland's encouragement of Russian immigration ceased in 1918. During the First World War (1914-18) Australia was allied with Imperial Russia, and although the Russian Empire collapsed in March 1917, Australia, like most Western nations, supported the provisional government, in an attempt to keep Russia engaged in the war. Following the Bolshevik coup of October 1917 and Russia's withdrawal from the war, however, capitalist nations reversed their Russian policies, regarding the new Soviet regime with hostility. From mid-1918 to 1922, a period of violent civil war in Russia, almost all Russian immigration to Queensland was prohibited.
With large numbers of White Russians (monarchists and anti-communists) fleeing the Soviet Union during this period and applying to emigrate to Australia, the Queensland government was forced to relax its immigration restrictions. Along with this influx of White Russian emigrés to Brisbane in the early 1920s, the city's first Russian Orthodox parish was established. Father Alexander Shabasheff, who had fled Russia via China, arrived in Brisbane in 1923, and through the assistance of Canon David Garland of the Church of England, obtained the use of St Thomas' Church of England, at the corner of Grey Street and Fish Lane, South Brisbane, where Russian Orthodox immigrants could worship. From this beginning in 1923 a Russian Orthodox parish was created at South Brisbane in 1925, and in 1925-26 a cottage at 330 Vulture Street, Woolloongabba (site of the present cathedral) was purchased by the parish and converted into a church. In 1926, Father Shabasheff was appointed officially to the parish, by the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. In 1930, the parish was registered as St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church.
Most of the White Russian emigrés who arrived in Brisbane in the 1920s had moved immediately to rural areas in search of work. By the mid-1930s, despite the depression, many had made sufficient money to enable them to return to Brisbane, where they were less isolated, and where Russian culture was sustained by the local emigré community. The construction of a purpose-designed Russian Orthodox church became a priority for Brisbane's Russian community. With the appointment in 1933 of Father Valentine Antonieff to the parish of St Nicholas, fund raising for a new church commenced. It was to be erected on the site of the existing church, and would be a memorial to the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II.
Engineer and local parishioner Gregory Mechonoshin drew up a basic plan for the new church. This was approved by the parish council, who then commissioned architects Cavanagh & Cavanagh, of Brisbane and Perth, to prepare formal plans. Tenders were called in mid-1935, and the contract was let to builder B Robinson. Assistance in the technical construction of the cupola was given by another parishioner and engineer, Mr Golovznin. Construction commenced in 1935, and when finished (probably early in 1936), the building was consecrated with lesser rites by the local priest. On 4 October 1936, the church was consecrated with full rites by Greek Orthodox Archbishop Timothy of Brisbane, there being no Russian Orthodox bishop yet appointed in Australia.
The iconostasis (timber screen separating the sanctuary from the nave) and royal gates were constructed and decorated by local Russian immigrants. The movable icons and chandelier are of Russian or Chinese origin, and were donated by the widow of Father Tourchinsky. Interior fittings included a shrine to Tsar Nicholas II. The Maltese Cross on the front tower of the building was incorporated not for liturgical reasons, but because it formed part of the Queensland state emblem.
The front fence, extant by May 1939, was constructed a few years after the new church was erected, replacing an earlier picket fence. The work was financed by Alexander Bardin, who had a cattle property near Roma, as a memorial to his wife and parents. It was constructed by local parishioner Michael Zakrjevsky.
The Diocese of Australia was established in December 1946, with Bishop Theodore (Rafalsky) appointed as its head. At the time there were only two Russian Orthodox parishes in Australia, St Nicholas in Brisbane, established in 1925, and St Vladimir's in Sydney, established in 1938. As St Vladimir's Church was only a converted house, and St Nicholas Church had been purpose-built, Bishop Theodore was to be located in Brisbane. After immigration delays, the bishop finally arrived in Brisbane in late 1948, and consecrated St Nicholas Church at Woolloongabba as Australia's first Russian Orthodox Cathedral, on 5 November 1948. The seat of Russian Orthodoxy in Australia remained in Brisbane only a short time. In 1950, Bishop Theodore was appointed Archbishop of Australia and New Zealand, and relocated to Sydney, which was geographically more central to the diocese, and contained a larger post-Second World War Russian immigrant population than Brisbane. Several vicar bishops occupied the Brisbane bishopric between 1950 and 1976, but the position has remained vacant since.
At some time after 1950, the building was extended at each side.
The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St Nicholas remains integral to the survival of Russian culture and religion in Brisbane, despite the more recent establishment of two other Russian Orthodox parishes: St Seraphim's at Woolloongabba (1950s) and a church at Rocklea (1960s). Services are conducted in the liturgical language, Church Slavonic, although every two months an English-language service is held as well, and for many years the church has maintained an important library of Russian works. A large part of Russian cultural identity in Brisbane remains bound with the traditions of Russian Orthodoxy and St Nicholas Cathedral.
","criteria":"The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St Nicholas at Woolloongabba, erected 1935-36, was the first purpose-built Russian Orthodox church in Australia, and was consecrated in 1948 as the first Russian Orthodox cathedral in Australia. From St Nicholas Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Australia and New Zealand was administered from late 1948 to early 1950.
The establishment of St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Brisbane can be contextualised within the wider pattern of Russian emigration following the Bolshevik coup of 1917, and the establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and remains an important link between Queensland and the most significant political upheaval of the 20th century
|(Criterion under review)
|Its simple geometric forms, crowned with cupolas and punctuated with tall round-headed windows, and the interior arrangement of liturgical elements, including the iconostasis and royal gates, are an expression of the canon of Russian religious architecture that dates from Byzantium and that has been constructed here in response to local materials, time and place.
|With its distinctive towers, the church contributes significantly to the streetscape in this part of Vulture Street.
|St Nicholas Cathedral has had a close association with the maintenance of Russian cultural identity and tradition in both Brisbane and Queensland, and is important in illustrating the pluralism of 20th century Queensland/Brisbane society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15134,"place_ref":600359,"name":"Holy Cross Laundry","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"60 Bridge Street","suburb":"WOOLOOWIN","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The laundry is a single-storeyed brick and timber structure with a corrugated iron roof. The older sections rest on brick piers and probably originally were unpainted externally.
The 1889 brick wing retains its basic form, although sections of walls have been removed, the ceiling is lined, the exterior has been plastered and painted, and the whole has been re-roofed. It still houses the washing room, part of the ironing room and the boiler-room. A recent brick wing has been added to the east of this section to serve as the sorting room.
The wall separating the old wing from the 1899 brick addition has been removed to create one large ironing room. The extension was designed for maximum ventilation, and has a high ceiling lined with tongue and groove boards, tall sash windows and verandahs the length of each side, and large ventilators in the roof. The verandah detailing originally echoed that of the dormitory building, but the existing posts, arches and diagonal battening of the western verandah are mostly replacements suggestive of the original. The eastern verandah has been enclosed and remodelled.
In 1905 a section of the eastern wall of this second wing was removed and a timber extension was constructed to house the packing room; this has been extended since to include office facilities. The loading dock between this timber wing and the boiler room has been enclosed recently.
None of the original equipment remains, although two large steam rollers, one manufactured by Mackenzie Bros Ltd of Sydney and dated 22 April 1936, and another (1940s), are still in operation.
","history":"The Holy Cross Laundry was constructed as an auxiliary wing to the Holy Cross Retreat at Wooloowin in 1888-89.
The retreat was built for the Sisters of Mercy as a tribute to the work of James Quinn, Bishop of Queensland from 1859 until his death in 1881. It was erected adjacent to the Church of the Holy Cross (1886) in Chalk Street, to a design prepared by former colonial architect FDG Stanley.
The institution, known more familiarly as the Magdalen Asylum, provided protection for unmarried mothers and women who were either destitute or deemed to be in need of institutional restraint, and for intellectually handicapped persons, regardless of creed. The adjacent laundry functioned as both a source of revenue to support the home and as a means of teaching skills and discipline.
The original laundry consisted of a single-storeyed section at the eastern end of the dormitory building containing ironing and mangling rooms, and a southern wing which housed the sorting room and washhouse. In 1899 a northern wing in brick with a timber verandah was added. It was designed as a model ironing room equipped with a purpose-built recess which housed tiered stoves capable of heating sixty-eight irons. Large roller presses were in use by 1902 and electric irons were installed in 1917. From the outset the laundry employed steam-driven facilities, initially powered by a gas-operated boiler. An oil burner was installed in the 1980s, and the old boiler-room chimney was demolished.
In the 1890s the laundry secured a number of shipping contracts and by the 1920s had grown to become one of the largest commercial laundries in Brisbane.
In 1977 the dormitory building and kitchen wing were demolished, but the steam laundry has been maintained as a sheltered workshop for intellectually handicapped women and men.
","criteria":"The Holy Cross Laundry, Wooloowin is significant historically because it is the oldest charitable institutional laundry continuing in operation in Brisbane, and provides rare surviving evidence of the workhouse tradition, associated with a refuge for destitute women in the 19th century.
|The Holy Cross Laundry, Wooloowin is significant historically because it is the oldest charitable institutional laundry continuing in operation in Brisbane, and provides rare surviving evidence of the workhouse tradition, associated with a refuge for destitute women in the 19th century.
|The Holy Cross Laundry also survives as an example of late 19th century institutional building style, demonstrating adjustments to regional climatic conditions in an industrial context.
|The place has an important association with the Sisters of Mercy and their involvement in pioneering and maintaining charitable institutions in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15135,"place_ref":600360,"name":"Rhyndarra","alternate_name":"Yeronga Girls' Industrial School; 1 Camp Hospital | Australian Military Forces 1st Military Hospital; National Service Training Hospital | 2 Women's Hospital","street_address":"23 Riverview Place","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"Rhyndarra comprises a two-storeyed rendered brick residence overlooking the Brisbane River towards Long Pocket to the south, a stables to the northwest of the house, and part of the park reserve to the south and southwest of the house, which was formerly part of the grounds. The house and stables are visible from the approach along Riverview Place.
The house rests on a raised square-snecked stone base. It has a hipped corrugated iron roof with projecting gable above a hipped bay to the southeast.
Double height verandahs almost encircle the building, being broken by a projecting two-storeyed bay on the southern corner. The verandahs have cast iron columns and balustrade, with cast iron brackets and valance to the first floor and a timber lattice valance to the ground floor. The rear first floor verandah has been partially enclosed with fibrous cement and glass louvre panels. Walls are scribed to represent ashlar, the projecting bay has sash windows framed by rendered pilasters supporting a deep cornice and the gable above has a scalloped barge board.
The building is entered via a flight of steps adjacent to the projecting bay with rendered balustrades supporting large urns. The main entry has paired, panelled cedar doors with sidelights and fanlight, with a bay window to the verandah adjacent. French doors with fanlights and tall sash windows open onto the verandahs.
The building has a two-storeyed masonry service wing to the northwest, with a lower two-storeyed addition (1938). This addition has a masonry ground floor, chamferboard first floor and gable roof. A narrow timber stair accesses the first floor verandah from the rear re-entrant corner.
Internally, the ground floor contains a wide entrance hall, with a cedar staircase with turned balustrade and a tall arched sash window. The building has plastered walls, ornate plaster ceilings and cornices, cedar panelled doors, architraves and skirtings and a variety of marble fireplace surrounds. The northeast rooms on the ground floor are connected by a wide opening that originally housed folding cedar doors. The rear wing accommodates a kitchen, bathrooms and service rooms.
The grounds immediately surrounding the house contain remnant plantings from the various gardens that have existed. These include a large Jacaranda to the southeast, Lilly Pilly to the west and a small garden to the north which contains a Crows Ash, Frangipani and Silky Oak. The area of the property fronting the Brisbane River contains a number of large Eucalyptus spp.
The original Rhyndarra stable is located to the northwest of the house, separated from it by Heritage Close. This brick structure has a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof with a lean-to addition at the northeast end. The building has been adaptively reused as a private residence, with sleeping areas to the loft level and living and bedroom areas to the ground level. Roof-lights have been added, and an internal staircase constructed. A single-storeyed addition has been constructed to the south comprising living, kitchen and bathroom areas. The adaptive reuse has retained a strong visual connection between the stable and the villa.
","history":"This substantial, two-storeyed brick residence and stable was erected in 1888-89 for Brisbane businessman William Williams, as his semi-rural suburban residence. Between 1897 and 1942 it functioned as a Salvation Army Girls' Industrial, and from 1942 until the late 1990s as a military hospital.
Establishment of Rhyndarra
In the late 1880s Williams acquired approximately 140 acres of land along the riverfront at Yeronga. The area at this time comprised a mixture of large farming estates and smaller residential subdivisions and was developing as a middle-class suburb following the opening of the Yeronga Railway Station in 1885.
In 1888 Williams commissioned Brisbane architects Andrea Stombuco & Son to design the Yeronga residence. Andrea Stombuco, in practice with his son Giovanni, was an Italian who had arrived in Brisbane in the 1870s after working for a period in the southern colonies. He designed many churches and ecclesiastical buildings for the Catholic Church in Queensland and was completing the opulent Her Majesty's Theatre in Queen Street when Rhyndarra was commissioned. He was noted for his residential work, which included Palma Rosa (QHR 600219) at Hamilton, an elaborate three-storeyed sandstone residence erected in 1886-87. Rhyndarra was amongst Stombuco's last Brisbane works before moving to Western Australia in 1891.
Rhyndarra was constructed in 1888-89 at a cost of £3,200. Detached from the main house were kitchen, servants' quarters, dairy, storeroom, various sheds and a substantial stables. The buildings were erected by contractor R Smith and the lavish interior decoration to the main house was carried out by Lang & Co. The decorative finishes included cedar joinery, marble fireplace surrounds and ornate plaster ceilings and cornices.
Rhyndarra was typical of the large houses built by Brisbane's more prosperous citizens in the late 19th century. The house was raised off the ground on a stone base forming cellars and storerooms, with the ground floor containing dining and drawing rooms with bedrooms on the first floor. A pantry, kitchen and scullery were located at the rear of the house at ground level, with maids' rooms and a bathroom above.
Williams appears to have over extended financially in his 1880s land dealings and with the economic downturn of the 1890s was forced to relinquish the property, which by then was heavily mortgaged. He moved to Western Australia where he lived with a married daughter until his death in the early 20th century.
Salvation Army
The house and land were unoccupied for a period after Williams' departure until leased by the Salvation Army and opened as a home for orphaned and endangered girls (the Yeronga Girls' Industrial School) in 1897. In 1905 Williams was declared insolvent and the Rhyndarra estate passed to the Australian Mutual Provident Society, which was the principal mortgagor. The AMP Society organised the sale of the Rhyndarra estate at which time the property was subdivided into 13 allotments, each having a street and river frontage. Rhyndarra, on a reduced site of approximately 12 acres, was transferred to William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, in 1907.
Booth had established the Salvation Army in England in the mid 1860s as a church with a strong social conscience, campaigning against poverty and the sins of alcoholism and other moral failings. A large part of the work of the church was in establishing homes for people who were destitute, aged, unmarried mothers, orphans and others in need or in peril.
The Girls' Industrial School at Yeronga was one of a number of similar institutions conducted by the Salvation Army in Queensland at this time, including maternity hospitals, receiving some financial assistance from the government for the orphanages. These institutions were periodically visited by public servants who monitored the welfare of the children.
The girls who lived at Rhyndarra were trained for domestic service and situations were found for them when they were old enough to leave the orphanage. In 1910 the matron noted that "each girl is taught housework in all its branches, gradually passing through the different stages from dormitories to dining room, laundry to kitchen and pantry." The house was adapted to accommodate the number of girls resident in the institution. The folding doors dividing the drawing and dining rooms were removed to form the main dormitory and the sitting room was used as a dining room. Upstairs rooms were used to accommodate the girls and the staff, including a matron, cooks and a teacher. The stable was converted for use a schoolroom, where the younger girls were taught basic lessons. The older girls helped look after the younger girls and could attend state schools in surrounding suburbs or were employed in the workroom where they learnt needlework and other tasks, or helped milk the cows. The home aimed at self-sufficiency, with a kitchen garden and flower garden, pigs, chickens, cows and horses.
Numbers at the orphanage fluctuated with changing circumstances and the institution accommodated girls who were orphaned, whose parents were destitute and could not care for them, who had run away or were difficult. In 1899 there were about 30 girls at the home, ranging from 6 to 16 years of age. In the early 1900s there were only 18 girls resident, but by the 1930s and the economic depression of that period the population increased to between 60 to 70 girls, ranging from babies to teenagers.
The greatest change to the physical fabric of Rhyndarra during the Salvation Army's occupation was the construction of a two-storeyed timber and masonry extension at the rear of the house. This extension housed a recreation hall on the first floor, with bathrooms and toilets at ground level. It was constructed by the Salvation Army in 1938 with government funding.
The Salvation Army operated the Girls' Industrial School at Rhyndarra until the Australian Army requisitioned the property in 1942 and the girls were transferred to other institutions outside Brisbane.
World War II
Australia had joined Britain in a declaration of war after Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. In 1942 Rhyndarra was occupied by the Austrlian Army for training purposes for the Australian Women's Army Service (AWAS) and as a staging area for members en route to places further north and west. Soon after a hospital was constructed in the grounds surrounding the house, for Australian servicewomen and for the Australian Army Medical Women's Service (AAMWS) training.
When war was declared in 1939, there were no Army hospitals in Australia. In the next few years a range of hospitals was built in Australia and overseas, with a total of more than 100 wartime military hospitals operating in Australia. Casualty Clearing Stations (CCS) were located close to the action, both overseas and in Australia, and were little more than tent hospitals set up in the field where casualties were treated and sent onwards for further care. General hospitals were similar to these, although larger and slightly more advanced. Some general hospitals were established overseas in the field. These hospitals returned to Australia (as discreet medical units) with their divisions and were re-established mostly away from the major population centres. Women's hospitals were of a similar type to general hospitals and of this type 26 were built. Of these, it is thought that part of the hospital at Bonegilla in Victoria, is the only one to survive. Other hospitals included camp hospitals and base hospitals. Like women's hospitals, these were constructed in the capital cities and in areas of great troop concentrations, and were more likely permanent structures of timber, fibrous cement sheet and/or corrugated iron, or were established in existing buildings such as houses, which the Army took over as a matter of national importance.
In 1943/44 the Commonwealth Department of Public Works, at the request of the Allied Works Council (AWC), constructed the Australian Women's Hospital at Yeronga. The construction period for the hospital was estimated at four months and it had been completed by June 1944. The new facility provided accommodation for 160 female patients. It comprised fibrous cement and weatherboard wards with kitchens, operating theatre and admission building, all linked by covered ways. Ancillary buildings included pathological, laboratories, canteen and administration units.
The hospital was erected to the northeast of Rhyndarra house and a group of small huts were erected along the northeastern boundary of the site as sleeping quarters for the AAMWS. The nurses had their own sleeping quarters to the southwest of Rhyndarra, with the house used for administration offices, officer's mess, and for recreation. Some minor alterations were made to the house, including removing some of the alterations made by the Salvation Army. The stable was used as the quartermaster's store.
This establishment at Yeronga was known as 2 Women's Hospital (2WH). As a distinct medical unit 2WH had been situated at Redbank, in association with the 2/4 Australian General Hospital (AGH), but it moved completely to the purpose built complex at Yeronga by 1943. Only three specialist women's hospitals were established in Australia during the Second World War, the others being 1 Women's Hospital at Claremont in Western Australia and 3 Women's Hospital located in the grounds of the base hospital at Concord 113 General Hospital, Sydney.
Many women were required to assist the war effort, particularly during 1942 and 1943 when all able-bodied men were required to work in more forward areas. Special services were created to facilitate this, the largest of these being the AWAS (Australian Women's Army Service), formed in mid-1941 in order to release men from some military duties so that they could be employed with fighting units. Recruiting began in early 1942 and by 1944 there were more than 20,000 AWAS members.
The Australian Army Medical Women's Service (AAMWS) had grown out of the VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachments), volunteer women who assisted full-time nurses. With the declaration of war in 1939, approval was given for VADs to work in camp hospitals in Australia. As volunteers, these women worked without pay, but they performed essential work for the war effort. VADs were enrolled full time and in 1941 were brought under the jurisdiction of the Army with the rank of private. Later in 1941 VADs were posted to military hospitals overseas, in groups of about 200. Recruitment was not a problem, but the large numbers of volunteers coming forward placed strains on those in charge. VADs were still under the administration of civilians and to distinguish between those working in civilian operations and those under the Army's jurisdiction were reclassified as the AAMWS.
The AAMWS performed basic medical procedures and provided a back up facility to the trained nurses of the Australian Army's Nursing Service (AANS) in military hospitals. In total there were more than 8,500 members of the AAMWS.
Some members of the AAMWS who trained and worked at the Yeronga hospital were then sent overseas to the various medical units which served in New Guinea, Rabaul and other places in the front line serving at general hospitals. Others filled roles in army base hospitals in Australia such as Concord Hospital in Sydney and Heidelberg in Melbourne.
The 2 Women's Hospital at Yeronga was one of many similar establishments constructed around Brisbane during World War II for service personnel. Apart from the base hospital at Greenslopes (112 AGH), numerous camp hospitals were established, as well as army camps, barracks and bases. Many of the camps and hospitals established in Brisbane were abandoned and disposed of by the Army after the war. The 2 Women's Hospital was retained and the Commonwealth purchased the property in 1946.
After the war, those women who had participated in the services and in paid employment were asked to resume their pre-war lives. The AAMWS and other women's service organisations were demobilised, a process which took many months. It appears that 2 Women's Hospital at Yeronga was used immediately after the war for recuperating servicewomen and for medical check-ups before the women were demobbed.
Post World War II
In the administrative carving up of Commonwealth wartime property after 1945, the site was allocated to the Department of Social Services. The DSS wanted to establish a centre for civilian rehabilitation on the site, however due to the acute housing shortage after the war, the site was briefly allocated to the Queensland Housing Commission from the late 1940s to early 1950s as temporary accommodation for homeless people. Some alterations were made to the wards and other buildings, including Rhyndarra, for this purpose.
During the Cold War of the early 1950s, the Commonwealth government introduced national service. After the 1951 federal elections young men over the age of 18 had to register and serve in the Army, Navy or Air Force for a period of 5-6 months. In light of this recruiting activity, the Army was concerned about its facilities. The accommodation of recruits was provided at personnel depots in capital cities. The existing personnel depot at Indooroopilly was inadequate and Army officials believed that the former women's hospital at Yeronga would satisfactorily handle the recruits. The DSS agreed to the Army's reoccupation of the site and by the early 1950s the northern section of the former women's hospital became known as Northern Command Personnel Depot (NCPD). The southern part became a hospital for national service recruits and trainees. Known as the National Service Training Hospital in 1951, it was referred to as 1 Camp Hospital by the 1960s, after the NCPD has moved elsewhere in the late 1950s.
More recently the hospital expanded as 1 Military Hospital Yeronga, providing minor medical facilities for injured soldiers or those who had become sick during training. This necessitated the construction of a number of additional buildings, mostly accommodation and storage, and a pool and tennis court. Some of the buildings constructed during the Second World War had been demolished due to later construction works.
By the mid 1990s, the main hospital buildings such as the wards and the operating theatres were extant, but had been adapted and altered several times. The admissions building and covered walkways remained, along with various other structures around the site. The AAMWS huts had been replaced by married quarters, the messes were demolished and replaced with new facilities, and the isolation and VD wards had been removed. Rhyndarra and the stables had been used continuously, with officers being accommodated in the main house since the early 1950s.
The 1 Military Hospital functioned together with the repatriation hospital at Greenslopes and facilities at Enoggera and treated its last patients mid-1996. A new hospital, constructed at Gallipoli Army Barracks Enoggera, was commissioned in September 1996 and the former 1 Military Hospital was vacated.
Subsequently the hospital buildings were demolished, leaving only the house, stable and significant trees, prior to the property being subdivided into residential allotments. Rhyndarra survives on a greatly reduced block and the former stables is located on a separate allotment. Part of the riverfront of the original property is now a reserve for park purposes, under the trusteeship of the Brisbane City Council.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1888-89 Rhyndarra, comprising house, stables and surviving grounds, is important for the evidence it provides of the way of life of Brisbane's more prosperous citizens in the late 19th century. As a large semi-rural estate, it was closely associated with the development of Yeronga as a middle-class suburb following the opening of the Yeronga Railway Station in 1885, yet occupied a middle ground between farm and suburban residence.
|Rhyndarra is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places: large, late 19th century villa residences set in substantial grounds. These characteristics include: the form (two-storeyed); materials (brick on stone foundations); planning of both the main residence (public rooms downstairs, bedrooms on the upper floor, attached service wing) and the grounds (siting of the house overlooking the river, relationship of the house to auxiliary buildings such as the stables, and garden plantings) and decorative detailing and finishes (including ornate plaster ceilings and cornices, cedar panelled doors, architraves and skirtings and a variety of marble fireplace surrounds). It is a fine example of the work of Brisbane architect Andrea Stombuco.
|Through its form, scale and siting as a riverside residence and together with its remnant plantings, Rhyndarra is of considerable aesthetic significance and the detailing of its materials and finishes reflects a fine quality of workmanship.
|Rhyndarra has a special association with the work of the Salvation Army in housing and protecting orphans and other disadvantaged people in the early 20th century, particularly its concern for orphaned or homeless girls. The rear wing, added by the Salvation Army, has special value as it illustrates the adaptation of the building for use as a girls' home. Rhyndarra is also important for its strong association with the Australian Army as part of the military hospital established in the grounds of Rhyndarra in 1943/44.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15136,"place_ref":600361,"name":"Noccundra Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6 Wilson Street","suburb":"NOCCUNDRA","lga":"BULLOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Noccundra is roughly equidistant from the borders of South Australia and New South Wales and is on the road from Thargomindah to the east. The hotel consists of a group of stone and corrugated iron buildings that stand out in their isolation against the flat gibber plain and are seen for a considerable distance when approaching by car.
\nThe main part of the hotel comprises two parallel and linked single storey structures built of coursed sandstone blocks. A smaller stone structure containing a bathroom and laundry is linked at right angles to the northwest corner. All have separate hipped roofs clad in corrugated iron. A corrugated iron verandah supported on a timber frame and posts runs along the south and west elevations of the hotel and shades a concrete pathway. At the rear a similar verandah runs from the laundry across the width of the building.
\nThe interior of the hotel has ripple iron ceilings. It has a stone double fireplace set between two of the rooms. Internal walls are rendered and painted. There are sash windows in timber frames and some doors now have metal frames.
\nTo the rear of the hotel is a detached kitchen and dining room. This is a gable-roofed building constructed of corrugated iron sheeting over a timber frame with an extension of the same materials to the north. Other more recent storage sheds and structures are in the rear of the grounds and are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Noccundra Hotel lies approximately 140 kilometres west of Thargomindah on the eastern edge of the Sturt Desert. A hotel was established on this site in the nineteenth century, adjacent to Noccundra Waterhole, on the Wilson River and on the stock and trading routes from South Australia and New South Wales.
\nThe expedition of Burke and Wills through far southwest Queensland in 1860 paved the way for pastoral settlement of the area, with Bulloo Downs being the first run to be taken up in 1864. A small township was established on the Bulloo River to service the pastoral properties in the district, and on 31 December 1874 the Thargomindah Town Reserve was proclaimed and soon other small settlements in the area were trading through it. In 1880 Bulloo Division was gazetted, with headquarters at Thargomindah. Bulloo Division had an area of 45,000 square miles (116549 sq km), extending north to Windorah and east to Adavale and Toompine.
\nJohn Dynan took up Nockatunga Station in the late 1860s and Herbert Bristow (HB) Hughes acquired it in 1872. The Noccundra Hotel may have been set up in order to serve this run and the earliest records for the station show amounts paid to the Noccundra hotel. The current building is said locally to have replaced an earlier one, which may have dated from the establishment of Nockatunga, although the first license was granted to James Gardiner (or Gardner) in 1886 and this may have related to a new building. A town reserve was created in 1885 and the future township site of Noccundra was surveyed by James Hood in mid-1889, at which time the only structures there were a hotel with an associated bathhouse, stable and yards on allotments 2 and 3 of section 1 and a store to the west of the hotel owned by James McColl. The two men concerned purchased the blocks from which their businesses were operating at the first land sales in January 1890. These two establishments were well placed, being near a waterhole at the intersection of the stock and trading routes to Innamincka in South Australia and Tibooburra in New South Wales. Trade would have come from teamsters, travellers and staff at Nockatunga at a time when stations had a large workforce and transport to distant towns was impracticable.
\nThe hotel is said to have been constructed of stone from Mt Poole quarry about 200 kilometres away in New South Wales. It is in a style similar to surviving buildings in Birdsville and Boulia which relates more to South Australia than Queensland, a reminder that south west Queensland in this era had better access to, and more trade with, these colonies than it had with Brisbane far to the east. McColl's store was also of stone and was a rectangular structure with several rooms. Photographs from the 1970s when substantial sections of it remained, show that it had coursed stonework and well-detailed windows with stone sills.
\nThe township of Noccundra was first listed in the Queensland Post Office Directory in 1892, at which time William Hogan was the publican of the Noccundra Hotel, having taken over from Gardiner in 1890. In 1894, the license reverted briefly to Gardiner before it passed to Martha Hogan, who was probably William's widow. By this time the town had a constable, though the names in the Post Office Directory suggest that the township was mainly a supply depot and receiving office for several pastoral stations in the vicinity. The publican in 1899 was H L Barber who was soon succeeded as licensee by Catherine Costello who ran the hotel until 1913. McColl continued to operate the store until he died in 1902, after which T.J. Costello became store manager and postmaster. The store was sold to P.J. Leahy & Co Ltd in 1904.
\nWilliam Richards was the next licensee but in 1916 Henry Hughes purchased both the store and hotel, hiring Samuel Milne to run the store. In the 1920s the tiny township gained a saddler and the hotel Noccundra was extended by the addition of a kitchen/dining room of corrugated iron sheeting on a timber frame, possibly in the 1930s. However, by 1933 the store had closed and Noccundra was no longer listed in the post office directories. It may be that increased access to motor transport and the growth of Thargomindah as a local centre contributed to the failure of Noccundra to develop as a township. The police station closed in 1959.
\nAlthough the township failed, the hotel continued to be important in the area. Situated in a remote area between supply centres the hotel remained a link in outback communications, a service point for travellers and as a focus for community events. It has served as a venue for monthly medical and dental clinics by the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) and for meetings of a social and racing club that raised funds for the RFDS. It is also a landmark place for tourists. In 1977 the National Trust listed the hotel in its heritage register and photographs taken at that time show the store building to the west of the hotel still had large sections of three walls standing with a lean to addition of corrugated iron on the eastern side. This building was used at one time as a bar for the hotel, allowing the hotel proper to be used for meals and accommodation.
\nThe front and side verandahs of the hotel were almost completely replaced in 1985 and it was sold in 1990 as part of Nockatunga Station. Some refurbishment was carried out in 1991 and again in the late 1990s.
\nThe visible remains of the store have now dwindled to a part of the eastern wall and some footings that have been preserved as part of a garden feature. This area is now lawn and dilutes to some extent the visual starkness of the building in the landscape.
","criteria":"The Noccundra Hotel in far southwest Queensland survives as an important link with the establishment of pastoral settlement in this area. As an inn operating in conjunction with a store to serve travellers and surrounding pastoral stations, it illustrates the way in which remote areas were serviced and how many service towns began. While some went on to become important regional centres others, such as Noccundra, failed to develop due to a variety of causes as circumstances changed. The hotel now remains as an indicator of this failed township but retains its role as a way station for travellers.
|The Noccundra Hotel is a rare surviving late 19th century outback hotel, and has the potential, through physical investigation and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings.
|The Noccundra Hotel is a rare surviving late 19th century outback hotel, and has the potential, through physical investigation and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings.
|Although some changes have taken place, the Noccundra Hotel is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century, efficiently controlling the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent, and compensating for the lack of locally-available timber.
|The Noccundra Hotel has aesthetic appeal, derived partly from its form and materials and partly from its setting as an isolated vernacular structure in a broad, open plain.
|The Noccundra Hotel is important for its long connection with the community of the surrounding area as a venue for many social events.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15137,"place_ref":600362,"name":"Bundaberg School of Arts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"184 Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former School of Arts is a substantial 2 storey rendered brick building in classical revival style and is located close the major intersection of the Bundaberg central business district. It is now bracketed by more modern buildings.
The School of Arts is rectangular in plan and has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron with cast iron cresting. It is concealed from the street by a parapet with Italianate balusters topped by cement urns. The most striking feature of the building is a 2 storey arcaded verandah along the street elevation which returns for 3 bays on each side. The arcades are constructed of rendered brick and consist on both levels of a central arch topped by a small triangular pediment and flanked by large arches. These are formed of pilasters with Corinthian capitals on masonry plinths supporting a semicircular arch with a cental key and edge mould. Cast iron balustrading links the plinths. The panels between arch, cornice and pilaster are decorated with a wreath and ribbon design in render.
Timber verandahs at each side of the building have recently been reconstructed according to their original form and the walls behind them are of exposed brick. The brick at the rear of the building has been rendered. Double hung sash windows with round headed fanlights echo the arcade at the front of the building, as do arches across the interior hallways.
The interior of the building is intact and well detailed. The ground floor walls are plastered brick and there is a central hall from which the former library and offices are reached. The main staircase at the rear of the hall is semicircular in plan and has two niches and a window in the stairwell and a turned timber balustrade leading to a first floor landing. This is joined to the former reading room by a short hall which has smaller rooms to the left and right. The partition walls are of narrow tongue and groove vertical boarding and there are timber ceilings and cornices.
The doors have fretted transoms with a lyre and acanthus design, a classical reference appropriate to centre dedicated to education and the arts.
","history":"The former School of Arts is a substantial masonry building in classical revival style and was constructed in 1888-9 as the third school of arts building on this site.
The Burnett area, in which Bundaberg lies, was first settled by Europeans in the 1840s and 50s as a series of pastoral runs. In the late 1860s, as good agricultural land around Maryborough began to be scarce, agriculturalists and timbergetters became interested in land on the navigable Burnett River to the north. The foundation settlers of Bundaberg selected land in 1867-68 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' stemming from the Crown Lands Alienation Act of the 1860s which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement. The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed in 1869. Coastal traffic grew, and copper was first mined at Mt Perry in 1871, which enabled Bundaberg to develop as a port and supply centre, in spite of competition from Maryborough for this trade. Although the higher southern bank of the river was officially surveyed as the town site, both sides soon developed wharves and buildings and were initially linked by ferry, then by bridges in the 1870s. Sugar plantations were established in the surrounding area and were to become the basis for the city's wealth as the industry boomed from the 1880s to the 1920s.
In 1871, 3 allotments in Section 20 at the corner of Bourbong and Barolin Streets were reserved for a School of Arts. At this time the population of Bundaberg was about 100. Shortly afterwards, the institution opened in a simple weatherboard structure with little pretension to style, but which had a reading room and a library composed largely of fiction books. It was also used as a venue for meetings and for church services.
The first Mechanic's Institutes or Schools of Arts were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self improvement and to promote moral, social and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no free public libraries and books were expensive, so that access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important service. The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 with the aim of 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to set up schools of arts, which became one of the principal sources of adult education. The government recognised this by making land available, subsidising books and assisting with building costs.
A new timber School of Arts building in Bundaberg was constructed on the same site in 1880. The library received a considerable boost from the donation of 3 cases of English classics, ordered from London at a cost of £100, by a Mr McIlwraith, later to become Premier of Queensland and a life member of the School of Arts. The Book Committee also purchased a further 1400 volumes for the new building, the foundation of a library of notable quality.
Although the building was larger than the first, this was a decade when the modest timber buildings of the early settlement were being replaced with handsome masonry structures reflecting Bundaberg's prosperity. A larger and more prestigious building was needed for the School of Arts. Fortunately, the reserve had by now become very valuable real estate, being located at the corner of the intersection which held reserves for the post office, municipal chambers and bank. It was also much larger than required and in 1887 the Committee petitioned the Legislative Assembly to permit them to divide the land and sell part of it to finance a building in keeping with the town's current position and future needs. An Enabling Act was passed to allow this and the surplus land was sold for £3400.
The new building was designed by Anton Hettrich, a local architect who was born and trained in Germany. In 1884 he commenced practice in Bundaberg and immediately won a competition for the design of the Town Hall. After winning the competition for the design of the School of Arts in 1888 he went briefly into partnership with William Champ, a builder, in order to carry out this and several other large commissions. Hettrich became a long standing member of the School of Arts Committee and taught drawing and German there. His practice was very successful and only his pupil, Frederick Faircloth, gained a similar dominance in local architectural work. By 1897 Hettrich had designed more than 300 buildings in the area. He moved away from Bundaberg in1900 to supervise work on the Gympie Court House for the Department of works and later moved to Brisbane.
The successful tenderer for the work was a Mr Calvert and work commenced on 2 June 1888 with the old building being moved to the rear of the site to allow continuation of services. The Trustees took possession of the completed building on 16 April 1889 for a cost of £3300. It had a library and rooms available for rental on the ground floor, with a committee room to the rear. On the upper level was a large reading room opening out on to the verandah, a natural history museum and chess rooms. G.H. Bennett, President of the School of Arts Committee, expressed their satisfaction in the 'elegant and substantial edifice, so suitable in every way for the purpose for which it was designed.'
From 1889 the School of Arts offered technical classes in a variety of practical subjects including drawing, shorthand, bookkeeping, typing, dressmaking, millinery, chemistry, dairy work, manual training and carpentry. These were so successful that in 1898 a timber hall designed by Frederick Faircloth was built behind the School of Arts to accommodate them. This had a stage and piano and was hired out when not in use, thus expanding the activities of the institution, and was enlarged soon after it was built. However, in 1908 the Technical Education Act shifted responsibility for provision of such classes to the government, a factor in the demise of Schools of Arts generally.
Membership of the School of Arts was by subscription and membership numbers were never large. Running the institute was largely a voluntary affair and those involved in the work included many prominent local people, a number of whom were mayors. A gallery was added to the library in the early 1900s, although membership dropped with competition from other activities. However, membership rose again in the 1920s necessitating an extension of the library and this may have been why the western verandah was enclosed at this time. Even during the Depression when the cessation of government subsidies to Schools of Arts spelt the end for many, the Bundaberg institution continued to do well.
In 1928 the construction of the AMP building next door blocked light into the rooms on that side and the eastern verandah was removed, that on the west being removed a few years later. Alternatives for education and leisure activities and the Libraries Act of 1943, which provided for free lending libraries, all contributed to the gradual closure of Schools of Arts around the state. Bundaberg's museum collection was broken up after World War II, but the earnings from rentals and the excellent library helped the School of Arts to survive. In 1969, the Bundaberg and District Museum was formed and moved into the hall the following year.
The School of Arts library remained the only lending library in Bundaberg until the 1970s, when the city council conducted a feasibility study with a view to establishing a free public library. The future of the building was uncertain at this time and members of the Bundaberg Historical Society led public support for retention of the building. In 1976 repair work was carried out by the Bundaberg City Council with the aid of a National Estate grant. The hall was demolished and the museum moved into the School of Arts building. The land, building and assets were transferred by the Trustees of the School of Arts to the Bundaberg City Council on 1 January 1979. The library was transferred to the former Customs House and Commonwealth Bank in Quay Street in 1981. The Bundaberg Art Society then used the library room and other rooms in the School of Arts as an art gallery and offices. In 1988 the museum moved into a new building and in the late 1990s the art gallery also moved out. The building continues to serve the people of Bundaberg by being available for hire for cultural and community purposes.
","criteria":"The Bundaberg School of Arts is important as part of the network of Schools of Arts which sprang up in any town of consequence in Queensland during the 19th and early 20th centuries and were a measure of prosperity and progress. The scale and style of the building amply demonstrate the wealth and importance of Bundaberg as a sugar city at this period. Schools of Arts were community based and played a valuable role in the dissemination of information and the provision of facilities for lectures, meetings, games of skill and community events. They were an important stage in the development of adult education in Queensland.
|The building is a good example of a major regional School of Arts which provided a library, reading room, committee room and museum.
|It is a well designed and imposing building, which by its form, scale and location near a major intersection, makes a major contribution to the townscape of Bundaberg.
|The building has strong associations with the community of Bundaberg, as an educational and cultural facility and as a source of civic pride for well over a century.
|The building is one of the most important works of prolific local architect Anton Hettrich and also has associations with him as a long standing member of the School of Arts committee and as a teacher of drawing and German at this institution.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15138,"place_ref":600363,"name":"Commercial Bank of Sydney (former)","alternate_name":"National Australia Bank","street_address":"191-193 Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Commercial Bank of Sydney is situated on the corner of Bourbong and Maryborough Streets, Bundaberg. It is a substantial, two-storeyed, rendered brick building in boom-era 'Italianate' style, built to the street alignments of the block, and has a square plan form and wide surrounding verandahs to both levels. The verandahs on the rear [north] side have been enclosed.
The building has a hipped slate roof with a centre well. Chimneys extend from the roof on the south and north west sides. Dominant cylindrical metal vents project from the roof with two on the front [south] elevation and one on each of the other elevations. Four shaped turrets with cast iron lace rails have been removed from the intersections of the ridges. Cast iron lace ridge capping has also been removed.
The first floor verandahs are supported by paired cast iron columns with corinthian capitals; these are in turn supported by masonry plinths. Between these are cast iron balustrades with timber hand rails. These columns support a dentiled soffit. Similarly paired cast iron columns support the first floor balcony and the ground level balustrade has moulded concrete balustrading with hourglass-shaped balusters. The corners of the ground floor verandah are visually strengthened by construction in masonry with recessed arcading. The ground floor verandah is paved in polychromatic geometric tiles.
A double-storeyed wing with an attached single-storeyed section with hipped slate roofs extends from the rear of the building. Attached to this is a single-storeyed lean-to.
The main entrance off Bourbong Street is accentuated by a masonry pediment sitting on plastered brick piers that rise above the gutter line of the roof. At ground level the entrance is in the form of a portico beneath the verandah which has recessed semi-circular openings and a wrought iron entrance gate.
Paired double-hung sashes with semi-circular heads and hood moulds with supporting decorated stops are located each side of the main entrance door. A secondary entrance is located on the east side with single double hung windows and French doors. There are single double hung windows on the west side. At first floor level shuttered french doors open onto the verandahs from each room.
Entry into the banking chamber is via a set of heavy timber doors with semi-circular hopper window that features a pair of peacocks in etched glass. To the left of the entry is the banking chamber and to the right two offices and the east side entrance hallway. Three rooms extend north from the north west corner behind these offices. A secondary stair rises to the first floor in this area. None of the original banking chamber fittings exist although the space has remained intact and the original coffered lath and plaster ceilings exist although they are damaged. Cast iron columns at the rear of the banking chamber support an upper storey wall, and beyond this is a room running off the banking chamber to the north. Original timber architraves and skirting survive in the principal offices.
Access to the first floor is via a timber return stair with turned balusters. The stairwell windows and entry door have leadlight glazing with a central diamond pattern with bird designs. A green marble fireplace with cast iron grate and ceramic tiled reveal is in the office adjacent to the side hallway and main stair.
The upper floor, which was formally the manager's residence, retains its original configuration of six rooms surrounding a central hall running off the main stair landing. Each room opens out onto the surrounding verandahs via french doors with timber shutters on the outside. Three original marble fire places exist at the first floor level.
The northern verandah, which has been enclosed, is supported on cast iron columns and connects to toilets and a secondary stair.
To the north of the main building is a detached, single-storeyed, gabled roof brick stables building. Its Maryborough Street elevation retains an early hoist and doors to the hayloft in the roof space, and the whole appears to be substantially intact.
The bitumenised courtyard between the main building and the stables building is enclosed along Maryborough Street by a timber paling fence with capping rail. There are double gates in this fence which allow vehicle access to the site. To the east of the main building, fronting Bourbong Street, there is a low masonry fence with a small pedestrian gateway enclosing parking space accessed from the side street. The rear of the site, fronting Post Office Lane, is enclosed with a modern wire fence.
","history":"This large, two-storeyed brick premises and detached stables building, designed by Sydney architect George Allen Mansfield, were purpose-built for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd in 1891 as their Bundaberg branch office and manager's residence. They were constructed at the tail end of a period of strong economic prosperity throughout regional Queensland, and at a period when Bundaberg in particular was booming as a sugar town.
Although pastoralists had occupied the Bundaberg district from the early 1840s, the town of Bundaberg was not established until the late 1860s. Early forays by Darling Downs squatter Henry Stuart Russell [1842], and by government surveyor James Charles Burnett, who in 1847 surveyed the river later named after him, initiated the first wave of non-indigenous settlement in the lower Burnett. Sustained frontier conflict characterised the period from the 1840s to the 1860s, as pastoralists establishing sheep runs [and cattle from the 1860s] clashed with indigenous people intent on resisting the white invasion.
In 1847 Burnett reported unfavourably on the navigability of the Burnett River, and during the early pastoral period Maryborough functioned as the principal port for the Burnett district. However, with timber getters moving into the Burnett from 1866, coastal shipping was soon attracted to the Burnett River. In addition, 1860s government encouragement to closer settlement, through new land and immigration acts and the Sugar and Coffee Regulations of 1864, enticed selectors to take up agricultural land along the Burnett River flats, which were found suitable for the cultivation of sugarcane, maize and coffee, in the second half of the 1860s. In 1869, the town of Bundaberg on the Burnett River was surveyed, to serve the newly emerging agricultural district dependent on the coastal shipping trade.
Prior to 1872 there were no banking facilities in Bundaberg. A Customs House was established on the Burnett River but duties had to be paid in Maryborough. In April 1872 a representative from the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd [the CBC] arrived in Bundaberg to assess whether the town could support a bank, and left town promising that a branch would be established within the next few months. However, the day after his departure, a representative of the Bank of New South Wales rode into Bundaberg from Maryborough with the news that a branch of the BNSW was to open for the transaction of business. The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney opened as promised in June 1872, but the BNSW had already secured most of the banking business in the town, and the CBC was forced to close its Bundaberg branch in October 1873.
In the boom years of the 1880s Bundaberg developed as an important sugar town, with growth sustained into the 1920s following the establishment of private sugar mills and a refinery. By 1883 a branch of the CBC had been re-established in Bundaberg, possibly in rented premises in Barolin Street. Although the CBC had purchased from the Crown two 32 perch allotments at the corner of Bourbong and Maryborough Streets in June 1882 [the land was only proclaimed as available for purchase on 21 April 1882], the Bank did not build on this site until the end of the decade.
By the 1880s, Bourbong Street had been consolidated as the principal commercial street in Bundaberg, and a number of bank buildings were erected here during the sugar boom. These included fine new premises for the Queensland National Bank, completed in 1887.
The CBC commissioned Sydney architect George Allen Mansfield to design their Bundaberg premises. Mansfield designed at least five bank buildings for Queensland - premises for the Bank of New South Wales at Ipswich (1861-62), Brisbane (1864-65), and Bowen (1865-66), and premises for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney at Rockhampton (1885-86) and Bundaberg (1891).
The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd's building at the corner of Bourbong and Maryborough Streets, Bundaberg, functioned as banking premises for over a century. In 1973, the CBC sold part of the block to the west, fronting Bourbong Street, but retained the remainder of the site. In 1981-83 the CBC merged with the National Bank of Australasia to form the National Australia Bank Ltd. The former CBC bank at Bundaberg remained a branch of the NAB until closed in 1996 and sold to private interests later that year.
","criteria":"The former Commercial Bank of Sydney at Bundaberg, completed in 1891, is important in demonstrating the development of early competitive banking facilities in rural Queensland; in illustrating an economic boom period in Queensland's history; and in illustrating the evolution of Bundaberg as a regional centre.
|The main building, together with an early and rare surviving detached brick stables building, is important in illustrating a way of life no longer practiced.
|It is architecturally significant as a surviving, substantially intact example of 1880s boom-era architecture. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type: a substantial two-storeyed brick building which combined banking chamber and offices and bank manager's residence; which is designed to accommodate the warm Queensland climate, as illustrated by the wide surrounding verandahs to both levels and numerous windows and french doors; and which is designed to impress.
|The place has aesthetic value, derived from its strong streetscape presence, form, materials, and the craftsmanship of the joinery, stained glass and overall construction.
|It is important for its association with the expansion of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd in the late 19th century and the role the Bank played in the development of regional Queensland at this period. It is also illustrative of the Queensland commercial work of Sydney architect George Allen Mansfield, who designed at least five bank buildings erected in Queensland in the period 1861-1891.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15139,"place_ref":600364,"name":"Bundaberg War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated at the main intersection of Bundaberg on a traffic island consisting of alternating bands of grass and concrete running parallel to Bourbong Street. The height of the memorial complements the adjacent Post Office tower.
At 38 feet high, the memorial is of a massive scale and comprises a pedestal surmounted by a column and a digger statue.
The monument sits on a large trachyte and granite pedestal comprising a central recessed square pillar with engaged square pillars at each corner. The central pillar sits on a simply detailed trachyte base and is flanked by sections of banded stone. The central section of each face bears the cut and gilded names of one local soldier who served in the Boer War and the 277 who served in the First World Wars. Commemorative plates to later conflicts have been added to the pedestal.
The corner pillars sit on trachyte bases and have small cornices surmounted by rusticated stone blocks from which red granite pillars rise. The whole of the pedestal is surmounted by a large frieze and cornice.
Above the cornice sits an octagonal two stepped base of trachyte surmounted by a circular step. This forms a base for a red granite column with a marble Ionic order capital.
Surmounting the column is a marble digger statue, which is life-sized. The soldier stands with his head bowed and his hands are resting on a rifle which is reversed. He carries a backpack and his right leg is bent to create a relaxed stance.
","history":"The Bundaberg War Memorial was incomplete when it was first unveiled on Anzac Day 1921, as the statue had not arrived from Italy. Later in the year, it was unveiled in its complete form. It was designed by Bundaberg architect, F H Faircloth and the masonry contractors were Anselm and Odling of Sydney. The granite, trachyte and marble memorial honours one local man who served in the Boer War and the 227 local men who served in the First World War.
Bundaberg owes its survival to the growth of the sugar industry in the 1880s. The Millaquin refinery and private milling companies invested in the area and by 1920 the city had become directly and indirectly dependant on the sugar industry.
The impetus for a memorial in Bundaberg originated with the local Soldiers' Reception Committee. On 15 May 1920, the foundation stone was laid by General Sir William Birdwood.
The base and column were created in Sydney, which may explain the use of trachyte, a material more commonly used for memorials in New South Wales than in Queensland.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The Bundaberg digger was imported from Italy and is constructed of Italian marble. The completed memorial, at a cost of £1,650 was the third most costly to be erected in Queensland. It is a major regional memorial and one of the two most intact digger memorials that remain in their original settings of intersections.(The other is located in Aramac). It is an unusual example of the work of F H Faircloth.
F H Faircloth was born in Maryborough in c1870. He was articled to Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich before establishing his own practice in 1893. In 1894 he became an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architecture, becoming a Fellow in 1899. Although he lived in Bundaberg the whole of his professional life he did not involve himself with the community, preferring to dedicate his life to his architecture. He was responsible for rebuilding much of the Childers Central Business District after the fire of 1902 and also for many substantial buildings in Bundaberg.
The masons, Anselm and Odling were a large firm that had agencies throughout Australia and in London and Italy. It is through these contacts that they were able to import Italian marble digger statues into Australia. They were extensive suppliers of masonry materials and were constantly in pursuit of memorial work.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|The major regional memorial is an uncommon example of one that is still situated in an original and intact setting and records local participation in the South African Boer War as well as the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1921, the memorial at Bundaberg demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland
|This particular statue shows uncommon detailing such as the inclusion of a backpack and an unusual choice of materials. It is of aesthetic significance for its high degree of workmanship, materials and design, creating a dominant landmark within the streetscape.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Bundaberg architect, F H Faircloth.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Bundaberg architect, F H Faircloth.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15140,"place_ref":600365,"name":"Bundaberg War Nurses Memorial and Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Memorial Pavilion is situated in a triangular shaped park planted with palm trees opposite the Bundaberg Base Hospital. The park is at the junction of two main streets in Bundaberg with the pavilion facing the corner.
The pavilion itself is approximately 7 metres long and 4 metres wide and has white painted stucco walls and a terracotta tiled roof. All fours sides have arched openings with piers between. There are three openings on the long sides and two on the short sides. High on the exterior wall of the southern face is bronze lettering explaining the purpose of the pavilion.
Internally, the pavilion has a concrete floor with two timber and iron park benches in the centre. Leaded marble plaques are located at the top of the interior walls. The first is an honour roll which lists the names of the local nursing sisters who served the First and Second World Wars. The names of the two who died on service are identified with a leaded cross. The second marble plaque records the details of the commissioning and unveiling of the pavilion.
","history":"The Bundaberg War Nurses Memorial was officially opened on 15 October 1949 by the Mayor of Bundaberg, Alderman F H Buss. It is thought to have been designed by Bundaberg architect E H Boden. The memorial honours the 12 local women who served as nursing sisters in the First World War and the 4 who served in the Second World War, two of whom died, one (Sister Pearl Mittelheuser) in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and the other (Sister Joyce Whyllie) in the sinking of the Centaur.
The town of Bundaberg profited from the growth of the sugar industry in the 1880s. The Millaquin refinery and private milling companies invested in the area and by 1920 the city had become directly and indirectly dependant on the sugar industry.
The impetus for a war nurses memorial was initiated by the West Bundaberg Progress Association who approached the City Council and requested that the parcel of land be made available to them for beautification purposes. At the time of unveiling, it was the only tribute to war nurses in Australia. The unveiling ceremony was attended by a large crowd of civilians and fifty nurses in white uniforms formed a guard of honour. Many people were thanked at the unveiling, including architect E H Boden who also formally opened the steel entrance gate to the park.
Many local companies and individuals contributed to the construction of the memorial. These included architect E H Boden, local monumental mason Zero Ziegler, who donated the marble honour roll and Mr Cunnington, the Bundaberg City Gardens Curator, who supervised the layout and planting of the park.
Eric Hawksley Boden was born in Brisbane. He became an architectural cadet with the Queensland Government in 1909 before working for architects in private practice in Brisbane. In 1922 he travelled throughout Europe and Africa. He was registered as an architect in Queensland in 1929 and opened his own practice in Maryborough in 1938. Boden also served in the Second World War as the architect for USA forces in Townsville.
The firm of Zero Ziegler was founded in Bundaberg in 1902 as Ziegler and Sons. They provided many memorials throughout South East Queensland and are still operating as monumental masons.
The pavilion was constructed at a cost of over £1000 which was raised in seven weeks by public subscription and fund raising by the Bundaberg General Hospital and the women of the Red Cross.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of war memorials throughout Queensland, apart from honour boards, this is the only known one that honours the role of women in the First World War.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|This particular memorial is rare as the only war nurses memorial, other than honour boards, in Queensland and the only known one in Australia. It is also an uncommon example of a memorial still situated in its intact setting.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1949, the memorial at Bundaberg demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial and its setting are significant for their contribution to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape and creates a conspicuous landmark at the junction of tow major streets.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with the local firms and individuals involved in its erection including architect E H Boden, monumental masonry firm Zero Ziegler and Gardens Curator Mr Cunnington.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15142,"place_ref":600367,"name":"Kennedy Bridge","alternate_name":"Saltwater Creek Road Bridge","street_address":"Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kennedy Bridge joins Bourbong Street and Bourbong Street East over Saltwater Creek. It has a single metal truss span of 48.8 metres and metal lattice trusses with a curved upper chord. It carries a 7.3 metre roadway and a footpath. The metal deck spans between the lower chords of the trusses.
Flanking the entrances to the bridge and rising above the trusses are 'L' shaped concrete pylons, square in appearance from the roadway. They are neo-classical in influence and have a Doric style entablature on a rusticated base. There are lights on decorative metal brackets facing the approaches.
Repair work to the bridge was carried out in 1991 and it has since been repainted. It remains in very much its original form.
","history":"The Kennedy Bridge is a single span metal truss bridge crossing Saltwater Creek, an arm of the Burnett Rive, at Bundaberg. It was constructed in 1899 and was the smaller of two technically and visually related bridges designed by A.B. Brady for Bundaberg.
The Burnett area was first settled by Europeans in the 1840s and 50s as a series of pastoral runs. In the late 1860s, as good agricultural land around Maryborough began to be scarce, agriculturalists and timbergetters became interested in land on the navigable Burnett River to the north. The foundation settlers of Bundaberg selected land in 1867-68 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' stemming from the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1860s which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement. The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed in 1869. Coastal traffic grew, and copper was first mined at Mt Perry in 1871, which enabled Bundaberg to develop as a port and supply centre, in spite of competition from Maryborough for this trade. The provision of amenities was therefore of importance to the development of Bundaberg and this included bridges.
Although the higher southern bank of the Burnett River was officially surveyed as the town site, both sides developed and were initially linked only by ferry. Prior to 1872, Saltwater Creek, an arm of the River, prevented the movement of vehicular traffic between the town and most of the Woongarra. Government action was urged in 1872 and money voted for the construction of a bridge. However, every tender exceeded the government estimate. The difficulty was solved when local property owner, Walter Adams, assisted the project by deliberately underbidding. A timber bridge, known as Adam's Bridge, was built and was the first in the district. It was replaced by another timber bridge in 1878.
In the 1880s, Bundaberg boomed with the growth of the sugar industry in the region. Handsome and substantial masonry buildings began to rise in the city as evidence of its growing importance and prosperity. It was planned to replace the timber bridges, weakened by heavy traffic, by bridges not only stronger, but more in keeping the general upgrading of civic buildings.
As a parallel project, two bridges of related design by A.B. Brady were constructed; the Burnett River Bridge from Quay Street and the much smaller Kennedy Bridge across Saltwater Creek which opened in December 1899. It was funded under the Local Works Loan Act of 1880 and the Bundaberg Council and Woongarra Divisional Board bore two-thirds of its cost. It provides an example of co-operation between urban and rural local authorities for the advancement of the district in general.
The Kennedy Bridge is a reduced version of the Burnett River bridge which was opened on 24 August 1900. Both have similarities in structural design and appearance to the 1897 Victoria Bridge in Brisbane, which was demolished in the 1960s. All were designed by engineer and Government Architect, Alfred Barton Brady.
A.B. Brady was born in 1856 and received his training in England. He became one of Queensland's most important early engineers and served the state in various departments for 37 years. He worked initially with the railways from 1885, then from 1889 with the Public Works Department, and then as Government Architect and engineer for bridges from 1892. Although Brady designed many important and handsome public buildings, his forte was bridge design and he designed a number of notable bridges. The Kennedy Bridge is interesting as an example of his work which is still in use and little altered.
","criteria":"Kennedy Bridge, opened in 1899, is important in illustrating the development and importance of Bundaberg in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the centre of one of Queensland's most significant sugar-growing regions.
|It is an important example of its type and is similar to, and closely associated with, the Burnett River Bridge, which was opened in 1900.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
|It is important as a design of Alfred Barton Brady who, during 37 years of work for several departments of the Queensland government, made a major contribution to the development of the state in both architectural and engineering design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15143,"place_ref":600368,"name":"Burnett Bridge","alternate_name":"Burnett River Traffic Bridge","street_address":"Quay Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Burnett Bridge connecting Quay Street, Bundaberg with Perry Street, North Bundaberg, runs roughly south-southeast – north-northwest across the Burnett River, which is approximately 200m wide at this location. The bridge is 412m in length, spanning between concrete abutments at either end. It consists of eight spans of riveted steel trusses, supported by metal and concrete piers. Four of the spans bridge the river and the other four span across the flood plain located on the northern bank of the river. The bridge carries a single lane of traffic in each direction and a footpath on the eastern side of the bridge.
\nEach span consists of hogback through trusses[23] featuring curved top chords and horizontal bottom chords, of rivetted steel plates, with diagonal lattice members between. The trusses are paired along the lengths of the roadway, their top chords connected by metal braces and lattice struts. The bridge carries a 2-lane roadway supported on metal troughs, filled with concrete and located between the lower chords of the trusses. The footpath has a riveted iron lattice balustrade and is cantilevered along the downstream (east) side of the bridge.
\nThe spans are supported on seven piers. Each pier consists of twin cast-iron columns filled with concrete, featuring a stamped arch detail to their collars. Between the columns is metal bracing forming a circular pattern. There are metal rocker and roller bearings between the piers and the bottoms of the trusses.
\nThe concrete abutments at each end of the bridge have four square columns, a shorter pair at the road ends and a taller pair at the bridge ends; sweeping walls, and classical style decorations in cement render. The shorter columns carry metal gas lamp posts (electric lights have replaced the original gas lamps). There are also two stone plaques on the east side of the southern abutment.
\nFeatures of Burnett Bridge also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Burnett Bridge not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Burnett Bridge, opened in 1900, is a road bridge over the Burnett River at Bundaberg. It consists of eight 51.82m spans of hogback lattice girder steel trusses (totalling 414.6m) supported on seven piers, each formed by two cast-iron cylinders filled with concrete; plus two concrete abutments.[1] Constructed by John McCormick & Son, to a design by the Queensland Government’s then Architect and Engineer for Bridges, Alfred Barton Brady, it was a result of the growth and prosperity of Bundaberg due to the local sugar industry; is an important example of a hogback lattice girder steel truss bridge; has landmark aesthetic qualities; and is the longest 19th century metal truss bridge still in use in Australia.
\nBundaberg is part of the traditional land of the Bailai, Gurang, Gooreng Gooreng, Taribelang Bunda People.[2] The Burnett River area’s first non-indigenous settlement occurred in the 1840s, and by the 1860s there were five pastoral stations on the lower Burnett River: Tantitha, Kolan, Barolin, Bingera, and Branyan. In the late 1860s, agriculturalists and timber-getters arrived and the first land selections at Bundaberg were made on the north bank of the Burnett River, under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' stemming from the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860.[3] This Act also allowed for European settlers to legally dispossess Traditional Owner groups from their ancestral land.[4]
\nLocal farmers initially grew maize and had also commenced growing sugar cane by early 1869, when a sawmill was completed on the north bank of the river. The township of Bundaberg, on the higher south bank of the Burnett River, was surveyed in 1869. Bundaberg also developed as the port for the copper from mines at Mount Perry from 1871.[5]
\nThe local sugar industry boomed during the 1880s, with sugar plantations crushing cane at their own sugar mills, and farmers sending cane juice to refineries. The first South Sea Islander indentured labour had arrived in Bundaberg in 1879. The sugar plantation system, which relied heavily on South Sea Islander labour, reached its peak in Queensland in the early 1880s – but the Queensland Government, seeking to promote European closer settlement, passed legislation in 1885 to end recruitment of South Sea Islander workers from 1893. Although this time frame was later extended, the system of large sugar plantations, with their own sugar mills and a South Sea Islander workforce, was replaced by the 1910s by small farmers supplying co-operative central sugar mills. [6]
\nAs Bundaberg thrived during the 1880s, the need for road and railway bridges over the Burnett River, linking the two sides of the town, became more acute. These would replace the hand-operated punt then in use (later the steam ferry punt ‘Transit’, which arrived c1889).[7] A railway, constructed from the north side of the Burnett River at Bundaberg, reached Mount Perry in 1884, and the railway from Maryborough to Bundaberg was opened in 1888. Until a railway bridge was completed over the Burnett River, passengers travelling between Maryborough and Mount Perry had to transfer between railway lines using the punt. By the mid-1880s, local authorities were lobbying the Queensland Government for a separate traffic (road) bridge, as well as a railway bridge, over the Burnett River, or a combined railway/road bridge.[8] A railway bridge was constructed first, the tender for construction being accepted in 1889. Utilising a mix of steel lattice girder spans and timber spans (all spans since replaced), this bridge opened in mid-1891.[9]
\nA separate road bridge, viewed as also important for the continuing progress of Bundaberg, took longer to realise. This was funded under The Granville and Burnett Bridges Act, passed in late 1889 to finance road bridges at Maryborough and Bundaberg. Under this Act, the Queensland Government would fund up to half of the bridges’ cost (to a maximum of £22,500 for the Burnett Bridge). The Council of the Municipality of Bundaberg and the Board of the Division of Gooburrum split the remaining cost of the bridge between them, borrowing the funds from the government and repaying the loans and interest within 40 years, under the terms of The Local Works Loans Act 1880. The local authorities were allowed to form a joint local authority to manage the bridge and collect tolls to maintain the bridge and repay the loan (a Burnett Bridge Board was established in May 1900). After the loan was repaid, the tolls could be abolished.[10]
\nPlans for the Burnett Bridge were prepared by November 1890, by Alfred Barton Brady, then Engineer for Bridges at the Public Works Department, but the 1890s economic depression delayed work for eight years. Brady’s 1890 plans envisaged eight 170ft (51.8m) spans of ‘steel lattice hogback girders’ (414.6m in total), supported over the river by four piers, each consisting of braced pairs of cast iron cylinders; and over the land (floodplain) on the north bank by three concrete piers. The abutments and their wing walls would also be concrete. There would be a 24ft (7.3m) wide carriageway, supported by steel trough plates between the girders, and a 6ft (1.8m) footway, of corrugated steel plates on steel cantilevers, on the downstream side. Although fresh plans were prepared in 1897, the only major change was the replacement of the three concrete piers with cast iron cylinders.[11]
\nAlfred Barton Brady (1856-1932) was a civil engineer and architect. Born in Manchester, England, and trained as an architect from 1872, he worked on railway, gasworks, waterworks and drainage projects before he and his wife Lucy, nee Bywater, emigrated to Queensland in 1884. He served Queensland for 37 years from 1885 – initially working in the Railway Department as supernumerary Assistant Engineer, Southern Division, and later as Assistant Engineer of Bridges, Southern and Central Division from 1887. He then worked for the Public Works Department from 1889 as Engineer for Bridges; was appointed Government Architect and Engineer for Bridges in 1892 and was also Under Secretary of the department from 1901.[12]
\nAlthough Brady designed many important and handsome public buildings, including customs houses at Rockhampton, Townsville, Maryborough and Mackay c1900-02, his speciality was bridge design. Some of his notable works, other than the Burnett Bridge, include the Victoria Bridge in Brisbane (1897, six 51.8m spans of hogback lattice girder trusses) [QHR 600303, abutments only are extant]; the Kennedy Bridge over Saltwater Creek in Bundaberg (1899, single 51.8m span hogback lattice girder truss) [QHR 600367]; and the Macintyre River Bridge, at Goondiwindi (two 36.6m spans of hogback lattice girder trusses, 1914-5). His other important bridges included the Herbert River Bridge at Gairloch, near Ingham (1891, concrete) [QHR 602591], and the Lamington Bridge, Maryborough (1896, concrete) [QHR 600721]. Retiring in 1922 and dying in Sydney in 1932, Brady had proven to be one of Queensland's most important early engineers.[13]
\nTenders for the Burnett Bridge were called in late 1897, and again in early 1898. The contract of John McCormick and Son (also spelled ‘McCormack’ in some sources) was signed on 24 March 1898, with work to be completed by 23 September 1900. The firm had also worked on the Albert Bridge at Indooroopilly (1895, two spans of 103.7m hogback girder trusses) [QHR 600232], as well as the 1897 Victoria Bridge, and the 1899 Kennedy Bridge. Its work on the Burnett Bridge began on 14 June 1898.[14] The two cylinders forming each pier were sunk by dredging with a single chain ‘grab’, until the riverbed became too hard and compact for this method; then excavation was completed by divers, supplied with air under pressure by a steam compressor delivering into a receiver on the river bank.[15]
\nThe Burnett Bridge, located about 230m downstream from the railway bridge, was officially opened on 24 August 1900 by Queensland’s Governor, the Rt Hon Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington.[16] With a contract cost of £59,070/16s, it had a total length over the abutments and wing walls of 1430ft 4in (436m), and a clear length between the concrete abutments of 1352ft 4in (412.2m). The roadway was 33ft (10m) above the high-water mark, ordinary spring tides, and 5ft 9in (1.8m) above the height of the 1890 flood level. The ‘hog-backed lattice type’ girder trusses were 22ft (6.7m) deep in the middle, and 10ft (3m) deep at their ends, and were braced overhead with light transverse lattice girders and diagonal bars. The twin cast-iron cylinders of the seven sets of piers were filled with Portland cement concrete and connected by wrought-iron riveted ‘diaphragm’ bracing plus heavy cast-iron spandrels below high-water level. Sunk to rock 59-71ft (18-21.6m) below high-water, the cylinders were 7ft (2.1m) in diameter below high-water level, and 5ft (1.5) diameter above. The steel troughs of the bridge’s decking were filled with concrete, with ‘tarred metal’ laid above to form the road; while the cantilevered footway consisted of corrugated steel plates, covered in cement and coke concrete, finished with asphalt, and had a parapet of wrought-iron latticework with a hardwood handrail. Each span of the bridge was lit by two overhead gas lamps, with Welsbach patent incandescent gas burners, and there were four large lamps on concrete columns at the abutments.[17]
\nWhen opened, the Burnett Bridge was the fourth longest metal truss bridge (in total length of metal truss spans) in Australia, after the first Hawkesbury River rail bridge in New South Wales (1889, 7 x 126.5m Baltimore truss spans, replaced 1946); the Algebuckina railway bridge in South Australia (1892, 19 x 30.5m lattice truss spans, decommissioned); and the Burdekin River railway bridge in Queensland (1899, 6 x 76.2m Pratt trusses, decommissioned) [QHR 600442]. In 2022, the Burnett Bridge is the longest 19th century steel truss bridge still in use in Australia.[18]
\nThe toll for the Burnett Bridge was officially abolished on 1 January 1913; and the toll collectors’ cottages, built west of the southern approach to the bridge, adjacent to the old punt ferry cutting (still extant in 2022, within Maryborough Street road reserve), were demolished in the 1950s.[19] Control of the bridge was handed from the Burnett Bridge Board to the Department of Main Roads in the early 1960s.[20]
\nMinor changes to the bridge over time have included the replacement of the gas lamps on the abutments and overhead lattice girders with electric lighting; and alterations to the footway, (narrowed to 1.1m, and cantilevers strengthened, in the 1950s – later widened to 1.8m, with new handrails, in 1989, and resurfaced in the 2000s). During the 1950s, brick walls were added at the abutments, to support the edges of the end troughs and the end cross girders, and inspection tunnels were cut into the side walls of the abutments. To strengthen the bridge, Macalloy tension rods were added to each lower chord, and six longitudinal beams were bolted to the troughs within the roadway. In the 1970s, drainage holes were cut into the bottom of the deck troughs to reduce corrosion; the cross girders were replaced at the piers; and a new support system for carrying cables was devised, to avoid drilling into the truss members. A vehicle guardrail was installed in 1982; the road surface was upgraded and thickened, and a pathway was formed below the southern abutment, in the 1990s. In 2002, the bridge load limit was set at 42.5 tonnes.[21]
\nAlthough the Tallon Bridge (road) was built 800m upstream in the 1990s, the Burnett Bridge remains an iconic part of the city's transport system, linking the two sides of Bundaberg across the Burnett River.[22] It is an intact and visually impressive legacy of the engineering design skill of A B Brady
The Burnett Bridge (1900), an intact example of a hogback lattice girder steel truss bridge, was funded under the Granville and Burnett Bridges Act 1889 and is important in illustrating the growth and prosperity of Bundaberg due to the sugar boom in the district in the 1880s. Government expenditure on the bridge reflected its location in one of Queensland’s most prosperous sugar-growing regions.
|The Burnett Bridge is an important example of a 19th century metal truss bridge in Queensland. Highly intact and the longest of its type in Queensland, the bridge displays the principal characteristics of its type, including its: hogback through trusses; cast metal column piers with circle bracing; concrete abutments; classical style ornamentation; cantilevered footway with metal lattice balustrade; and metal lamp posts.
|The Burnett Bridge has aesthetic importance for its beautiful attributes. Through its well composed design of repeated elements arranged symmetrically, restrained classical ornamentation, the piers and their circle bracing, and the lattice balustrade with curved brackets to the footway, the bridge is an attractive and well-designed example of a metal truss bridge.
\nThe Burnett Bridge is also important as a landmark in Bundaberg and has been a popular subject of photography over time. Its scale and length spanning over the Burnett River and its flood plain make the bridge an impressive feature of the Bundaberg city centre, visible from a multitude of vantage points along both riverbanks.
|As his longest metal truss bridge design and an excellent example of his work, the Burnett Bridge has a special association with its designer, Alfred Barton Brady (Engineer for Bridges at the Public Works Department), an important engineer who made a significant contribution to the built heritage of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15144,"place_ref":600369,"name":"East Water Tower","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"17 Sussex Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The East Water tower is a cylindrical brick tower topped by a steel tank and is situated on an open grassed area at the corner of Sussex and Princes Streets.
It is constructed of red-brown glazed bricks which are tuck pointed and set on concrete footings with an in situ concrete slab. The tower supports a circular steel water tank and is 35 metres high with a diameter of 9.5 metres at the base. The walls of the tower taper from a thickness of 91.5 cm at the base, to 35.5 cm at the top of the structure. There is a ground level entrance on the north/south axis.
The tower has 8 stories each being indicated by a band of projecting bricks and has four windows with round-headed arches interspersed with four blind windows of the same form at each level.
The steel tank on the top of the tower is circular with a dished base and is approximately 3 metres deep. It rests on a sandstone plinth. There is a timber framed access walkway with a handrail around the base of the tank.
The interior has timber floors supported by timber framing and linked by a timber staircase, which runs around the exterior walls of the tower. The interior is plastered and has timber framed doors and windows with sandstone sills.
The tower is surrounded by lawn. There are perimeter plantings to adjacent blocks but no fence.
","history":"The East Water Tower was erected for the Bundaberg Municipal Council in 1901-1902 to provide suitable water pressure as part of Bundaberg's new reticulated water system.
The Burnett area was first settled by Europeans as a series of pastoral runs in the 1840s and 50s. In the late 1860s, as good agricultural land around Maryborough began to be scarce, agriculturalists and timbergetters became interested in land on the navigable Burnett River to the north. The foundation settlers of Bundaberg selected land in 1867-68 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' stemming from the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1860s which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement. The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed in 1869. Coastal traffic grew, and copper was first mined at Mt Perry in 1871, which enabled Bundaberg to develop as a port and supply centre, in spite of competition from Maryborough for this trade. Although the higher southern bank of the river was officially surveyed as the town site, both sides soon developed wharves and buildings and were initially linked by ferry. In the 1870s the first bridges were built, as ferries could no longer cope with increasing traffic across the river. It was in the 1880s, however, with the successful establishment of the sugar industry in the region, that Bundaberg boomed. Handsome and substantial masonry buildings began to rise in the town as evidence of its growing importance and prosperity. Important civic works were also carried out such as the installation of gas street lighting and the sealing of major roads with asphalt. It was in this period of civic development that the Bundaberg Municipal Council considered the provision of a reticulated water supply.
Bundaberg's water supply was initially derived from a series of water holes and lagoons around the settlement. By the 1880s, as the town developed, the provision of a reticulated water supply became important, not only for domestic use, but to allow road sprinkling to keep down dust and to make it possible to fight fires, a major cause of destruction where timber buildings crowded commercial areas. The colonial government in September 1887 gazetted loan conditions for a reticulated town water system for Bundaberg. A scheme to bring water from the dam on the permanent lagoon at Baldwin Swamp in East Bundaberg to a storage reservoir at Tantitha Park, utilizing an elevated tank to improve water pressure, was presented to the council by Councillor W H McCann. His scheme formed the basis of plans prepared in 1889 by W C Clements, a hydraulic engineer based in Rockhampton.
The plans were submitted to Brisbane for government appraisal. The government engineer, J B Henderson, thought them unsuitable. Amongst other suggestions for improvement he recommended a brick water tower rather than the simple elevated tank proposed. An amended proposal was drawn up which followed this suggestion but did not go ahead. In April 1896, Henderson travelled to Bundaberg and met the Mayor and Councillors to discuss the water supply and appears to have been asked by them to take on the work.
James Baillie Henderson was born in London in 1836 and trained as an engineer in Scotland. He arrived in Victoria in 1861 and worked on the Coliban water scheme and the water supply system for Bendigo. Moving to Queensland in 1878, he became resident engineer of northern waterworks and in 1883 took up the new position of government hydraulic engineer. He travelled widely in Queensland and was instrumental in the discovery and exploitation of artesian water. He instituted Queensland's first flood warning system and retired in Brisbane in 1916.
In October 1898 a detailed proposal was supplied to the Council costed at £18,804 plus working expenses. The Council then applied for a loan of £20,000 which was secured in the Parliamentary estimates for 1899-1900. Tenders were called for the pipes in September 1899 and for the tower in December of that year, but were not accepted for either job because the costs of labour and materials had risen. The Council consequently obtained a further loan and accepted a tender from local contractor N C Steffensen at a cost of £3859.
Steffensen began work on the tower in April 1900 although his work was delayed by difficulties in sourcing suitable bricks. In order to obtain the quality and uniformity necessary for this project, bricks were obtained from Virginia brickworks in Brisbane. The tower was completed in 1902 and was considered a masterpiece of brickwork. The Bundaberg Foundry made the tank, pipes and fittings. The system brought water from the Baldwin Swamp utilizing a steam pump located in a pump house near the edge of the swamp. It was pumped up the tower to the holding tank, the height of which provided pressure by gravity. Water was supplied to the major sections of the town by pipes and hydrants were constructed in the main street in 1902.
Locating an underground water source solved problems with the quality of the water initially obtained from an open waterhole at the swamp. A large well supplied by 4 bores was constructed and by 1907, 16,000 gallons daily were being supplied. Subsequently other water towers were built around Bundaberg, although the east tower remains the most striking in appearance.
Because of the flat nature of the terrain, the tower is a landmark and in its early years, people climbed the tower to obtain views of the area. There are also local stories of children playing racing games up and down its staircase. Proof of this unofficial public use remains in the form of graffiti scratched on the interior walls of the tower. These date from the early 1920s until the latter half of the 20th century.
The tank remains a water storage facility, but has been roofed and was recently lined with concrete.
","criteria":"The East Water Tower was a key element in Bundaberg's first reticulated water system, constructed in the early 1900s. It marks an important stage in the development of the city's infrastructure and helps to illustrate the development of Bundaberg as a major regional city serving one of Queensland's most significant sugar-growing regions.
|It is the only circular brick water tower known in Queensland and is a good and intact example of a late 19th century technology, being designed to increase water pressure to allow a reticulated water supply system to operate effectively in a very flat terrain.
|It is the only circular brick water tower known in Queensland and is a good and intact example of a late 19th century technology, being designed to increase water pressure to allow a reticulated water supply system to operate effectively in a very flat terrain.
|The East Water Tower is a well-executed and distinctive structure that has a strong visual presence in a flat and open townscape. Its design transcends the purely functional and the tower appears to have been intended as a pleasing element in the landscape. The exterior suggests a Renaissance influence in its use of arched actual and blind windows encircling each floor level.
|The water tower has a strong connection with the life and work of James Baillie Henderson, the first government hydraulic engineer in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15145,"place_ref":600370,"name":"Saltwater Creek Railway Bridge","alternate_name":"Millaquin Bridge","street_address":"Quay Street Woongarra Line","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Saltwater Creek bridge includes one 50 foot plate girder span with steel cross girders and longitudinals, seven 20 and two 26 foot timber spans, supported on seven timber piers, two concrete cylinder piers, and two timber abutments.
Bundaberg embankment.
4x1x2x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, concrete abutment, common braced timber trestles, (two on timber foundations) or a common concrete pier (piers 1 to 5).
1x2x2x26 foot (7.9m) timber longitudinals, common braced timber trestle on a concrete foundation (pier 5), common cast iron cylinders with screw piles (pier 6).
1x2x50 foot (15.2m) half-through plate girders with steel cross girders, steel longitudinals, common cast iron cylinder piers with screw piles (piers 6 and 7).
1x2x2x26 foot (7.9m) timber longitudinals, common cast iron cylinders with screw piles (pier 7), common braced timber trestle (pier 8).
3x1x2x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common braced timber trestles (piers 8 to 11).
","history":"Agitation for a railway from Bundaberg to the Woongarra district began in the 1880s and a line was surveyed during 1889-91. In the absence of funds for government construction and with the support of the railway commissioners, Robert Cran of the Millaquin sugar refinery near Bundaberg, was authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1892, to construct a private railway from Bundaberg to the sugar refinery. Plans were prepared for the bridge in 1893. Tenders were called by the government and a contract for construction was awarded to James Overend in January 1894. The railway was opened for traffic on 9 July 1894.
The railway was acquired by the State Government on 3 December 1912. In 1917 an Act of Parliament approved the acquisition of the railway to Woongarra. In 1918 the State Government acquired the extension of the railway which had been constructed by the Shire Council.
In 1965 plans were prepared for strengthening the bridge with steel girders suitable for a 12 ton axle loading. This was subsequently undertaken with re-used girders from the Gold Coast.
","criteria":"A late 19th century bridge which is the second oldest extant with screw piles in Queensland, on what was constructed as a private railway to government standards.
|(Criterion under review)
|A late 19th century bridge which is the second oldest extant with screw piles in Queensland, on what was constructed as a private railway to government standards.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15146,"place_ref":600371,"name":"Mount Abundance Homestead","alternate_name":"Mt Abundance Homestead","street_address":"Warrego Highway","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Mount Abundance Homestead, consisting of house and attached quarters, is located approximately 5km west of Roma and 1km south of the main road to Charleville. It is sited on high ground on the southern bank of Bungeworgorai Creek. The approach is via a stone causeway which crosses the creek.
The main house is a single storey structure of three main rooms facing north with a wide verandah on three sides and services rooms on the south side. Part of the verandah has been closed in creating additional rooms. The north side and the portion of the west side which remain open feature a decorative timber valance. The main roof is a moderately pitched hip which reduces in pitch at the verandah line.
The foundations are a system of load bearing bed logs that support floor joists and tongue and groove timber floors. Damage to the foundations has caused the western end of the house to subside. The wall construction is a timber frame with chamferboards to the external walls. The interior walls and ceilings are constructed from tongue and grooved boards which are finished in a dark stained varnish. Two of the main rooms have masonry fireplaces with brick and stone chimneys. Six sets of french doors open out from the main rooms onto the north side verandah. One of these has been altered to create a window.
The roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron laid over the original timber shingle roof and cantilevered beyond the earlier roof line. The cantilever section is supported by decorative brackets off the timber verandah posts.
The main house connects via a covered way to a single storeyed structure set on low timber stumps which housed quarters and a kitchen. Located to the south of the house, this building has exposed timber frame construction, timber cladding and a steep corrugated galvanised iron gabled roof with skillion additions.
Little remains of the original fencing but original steps and mounting stones can be seen. Forming the front entrance to the homestead are the original stone gate posts and iron gates. This entrance, which has been relocated, is flanked by large bottle trees.
","history":"This single storeyed timber homestead was built c1860 for Stephen Spencer, a squatter from New South Wales who arrived in Queensland in 1857.
The Mt Abundance run was taken up in 1847 by Allan MacPherson, a young squatter from New South Wales. MacPherson had come to Queensland seeking new pastures, and had followed the route of Sir Thomas Mitchell into the Mt Abundance area. Mitchell had named Mt Abundance in 1846 during his expedition to find a route from New South Wales to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Following constant conflicts with local Aboriginies, MacPherson decided Mt Abundance was a dangerous place and in late 1849, MacPherson withdrew his sheep from Mt Abundance, leaving it as a cattle station, and returned to England. In 1856 MacPherson briefly visited Australia at which time he disposed of his pastoral interests, including the sale of Mt Abundance to Stephen Spencer.
Spencer and his family are considered to have been the first European family to settle in the area. It is recorded that when they arrived at the station, it was found to be run down, and the buildings damaged by fire. Rough huts provided temporary quarters until Spencer built a new homestead, and Mt Abundance station is described as the focal point for the district during this period. Spencer ran a supply store, and the station formed a depot for European explorers heading into the western districts. A post office was opened at the homestead in September 1861. AC Gregory arrived at Mt Abundance in 1862, and selected a locality for the township which become known as Roma, proclaimed in September that year. The post office at Mt Abundance homestead closed at the end of 1863 when the Roma post office opened.
A stone causeway over Bungeworgorai Creek is believed to be contemporary with the development of Mt Abundance, however little is known about the stonework.
The Spencers are recorded as being interested in agriculture and horticulture, growing the first wheat in the district, and experimenting with grape vines, fig, peach and apricot trees.
By late 1868, Spencer was heavily in debt and in 1869 the Government auctioned the freehold of 175 acres of land on which the Homestead and other associated buildings of Mt Abundance Station were erected. The land was purchased by Robert Morehead and Matthew Young of Sydney, who represented the Scottish Australian Investment Company. The stock was auctioned early in 1870, and was also bought by Morehead and Young.
The Scottish Australian Investment Company was active in investing in pastoral property in Queensland between 1860-1890. The Company had been founded in Scotland, encouraged by reports from Scottish settlers in Australia, and was established with two main purposes: acquisition of land largely for grazing and agricultural pursuits; and granting loans or advances on property mortgages. Despite this two-fold purpose, in its first twenty years in Australia it was primarily a loan and mortgage company. During the early 1860s through the persistence of Robert Morehead as its Australian manager, the Company entered into pastoral activity and acquired property in Central/Western Queensland (Bowen Downs) and in the Gulf Country. During the 1860s, the Company made a number of loans to Queensland graziers, including Mt Abundance.
An article in 1875 recounted that when the Company took possession of Mt Abundance, The "improvements" consisted of only a wretched homestead, and suggested that He [Spencer] was contented to live in his bark-covered buildings till they were old, and dilapidated. It is possible therefore, although not actually stated in the same article, that the Company may have erected a new homestead on the property in the late 1860s. Documentary evidence to confirm this has not been available.
By the mid 1870s, Mt Abundance station was described as one of the largest establishments in the Maranoa and considered to be one of the best grazing properties in Western Queensland. The Head Station comprised a Homestead (occupied by the Manager), sub-Manager's residence, office, store, residences for the storekeeper and bookkeeper, mens' quarters, workshops, two large receiving stores and 7 acres of garden. Stock returns for 1875 indicate that Mt Abundance was run in conjunction with Nive Downs, a property north of Charleville which had also been acquired by the Company. The woolshed to the southwest of the homestead was reputed to be one of the largest in Queensland in the early 1880s. Photographic evidence indicates that the shingle roof of the homestead was clad with iron between 1890 and 1895.
Mt Abundance station was resumed by the government in 1923, being regarded as offering the best prospect for successful closer settlement. The main purpose of the resumption was the subdivision of land for the combined raising of wheat and sheep, and to extend agricultural settlement into the western districts. The land was made available for selection in 1927, and the Mt Abundance Homestead block comprising 2018 acres was selected by Ernest Martyn. Following the death of E Martyn, the property passed to his son PJ Martyn, who died in 1993. The property was further subdivided in the late 1970s, and presently comprises an area of just under 500 hectares. Of the former complex of buildings, only the homestead and quarters to the rear of the building are extant.
","criteria":"Mt Abundance Homestead provides rare surviving evidence of the pastoral development of western Queensland from the 1850s.
The resumption of Mt Abundance during the 1920s, and the subsequent division into smaller farming properties and re-settlement during the 1930s, is important in demonstrating the pattern of land use and occupancy in rural Queensland during the early 20th century.
|Mt Abundance Homestead provides rare surviving evidence of the pastoral development of western Queensland from the 1850s.
|The place has the potential to provide archaeological evidence of building construction techniques from the mid-19th century and of the formerly extensive pastoral station complex, of which only the homestead and attached quarters are known to be extant.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Scottish Australian Investment Company, which played an important role in the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland during the latter part of the 19th century, established the reputation of Mt Abundance as a fine grazing property and the association of this company with the property is of importance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15147,"place_ref":600372,"name":"St Patrick's Catholic Church (former)","alternate_name":"Burdekin Academy of Dance | St Patricks Catholic Church (former)","street_address":"27 Spiller Street","suburb":"BRANDON","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former St Patrick's Church, Brandon is a single-storey timber building located on the outskirts of the town of Brandon. It addresses Spillar Street to the east, and sits on a triangular block formed by the railway line and the Bruce Highway. Adjacent is the former Renown Theatre and opposite a small park which includes the war memorial.
The former church is set on low stumps and is rectangular in form with a steeply pitched gable roof clad in corrugated iron. The front of the church is symmetrical with a central entry porch flanked by single lancet windows. The projecting gables have fretted brackets to the eaves.
The external walls have exposed stud framing lined with chamferboards, with external sheeting flashing over the windows. The side walls of the former nave are supported by timber buttresses. The tall casement windows, doors and archways have pointed arched heads. Other Gothic elements include ornament over the gable ties and infill to the wall buttresses
Entry is through the porch at the eastern end. The body of the building is an open hall with a polished timber floor. Above the entrance door is a loft reached by a narrow timber stair. The roof framing is supported on hammerbeam brackets with tie rods. The raked ceiling is lined with diagonal boarding. At the western end is a small room leading to the rear doors. No internal fittings survive.
","history":"The former St Patrick's Catholic Church, Brandon is a timber church originally constructed in 1910 when Brandon was part of the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton. It ceased to be used by the Church in 1974 and following severe cyclone damage in 1989 was moved to its present site by the Shire Council.
Despite the domination of plantation style sugar production, small selectors were also cultivating small plantings of cane throughout Queensland by the late 1860s. The advent of selectors seeking agricultural land was encouraged by the government with the introduction of the Alienation of Crown Lands Act of 1868. This act allowed people of limited means to acquire land for agricultural purposes.
While land north of the Burdekin River was opened for closer settlement by 1868, the first land sales in the district did not take place until late 1878. William Bannister, who selected 632 acres on the east side of Station Creek on 1 November 1878, subdivided part of his land soon after selection to form a township which he named Brandon. This township was a private town located close to the Pioneer Plantation.
The population of the district grew rapidly after the land was opened for closer selection as did the demand for community services, social activity and spiritual support. The needs of Catholics in the district were met by visiting priests from Townsville who held services at Lewis Hoey's Pioneer Mill, Lynche's Hotel in Ayr, Sergt. McBride's police residence in Ayr, in the state school at Brandon and at Burkes Hotel, Brandon.
In 1893 the Burdekin District was attached to the Diocese of Rockhampton and in 1896 a meeting was held to decide where the first catholic church would be built in the Burdekin District. The decision was made to locate the church in Brandon and the building was opened in 1897 on a site close to where the first state school was constructed. This church was damaged in Cyclone Leonta in 1903 and was rebuilt from the damaged material.
Around 1907 Ingham parish priests were given responsibility for the Burdekin district and in 1908 it passed to the care of Townsville Parish. Plans were made in 1910 for the establishment of a parish encompassing both Brandon and Ayr. This parish was established on St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1912 with Fr Jules Bucas, as the first parish priest. Fr Bucas first resided in the sacristy of the new Brandon church. The old church was modified and moved to the convent site for use as a school. It was again moved in 1936 to become St Francis Catholic Church, Jarvisfield. The new parish remained part of the Diocese of Rockhampton until 1930 when the Diocese of Townsville was established. On 23 July 1944, a fire damaged a portion of St Patrick's sacristy which was repaired..
The church continued in use by the Roman Catholic community until 1974 when a new church was opened on an adjoining site on 21 April by Bishop Faulkner, Bishop of the Diocese of Townsville. The old church was listed by the National Trust of Queensland and by the Australian Heritage Commission in 1975. It was sold by the Diocese in 1979 to Filippo Patane who leased it to the Burdekin Academy of Dance.
In 1989 the building lost much of its roof cladding and was moved from its foundations during Cyclone Aivu. Fearing its collapse, the owner sold it for removal. The Burdekin Shire Council objected to the removal of the heritage listed building and prevented its loss from the town by purchasing it in late April 1989. In January 1991 the building was relocated to a site beside the Renown Theatre in Spillar St, Brandon as the nucleus of a 'Heritage Estate' for the district. The Shire Council repaired the building and it is now in use as a community meeting place and is available for weddings.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Church demonstrates the early development of the Burdekin District and the growth of the Catholic Church in North Queensland.
|It is considered an excellent example of a 'carpenter Gothic' church and was used as an exemplar of this style in the reference work Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms for 1788 to the Present by Apperley, Irving & Reynolds (1989).
|It is a well composed design and has considerable visual appeal, being listed on the Registers of both the National Estate and the National Trust of Queensland for its architectural merit.
|It has strong associations with the Catholic community of the area and of the shire of Burdekin in which it is thought to be the oldest building extant and whose Council purchased it to preserve it for this community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15148,"place_ref":600373,"name":"Burketown Tourist Information Centre","alternate_name":"Burketown Post Office","street_address":"Musgrave Street","suburb":"BURKETOWN","lga":"BURKE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-01-01","description":"The Burketown Tourist Information Centre is a single-storey timber building, located on the south-eastern corner of the intersection of Musgrave and Burke Streets, Burketown. Situated in the North-west of Queensland, Burketown lies on the northern fringe of the Gulf Savanna, about 30km. from the shores of the Gulf of Carpenteria.
The site is on the rim of the town's small commercial area, with the present Shire Offices adjacent, and further to the east the hotel and shops.
The building is positioned diagonally across the site, facing north-west towards the intersection of two of the town's typically wide streets. In front of the building, at this north-western corner of the site, is the concrete war memorial backed by three flagpoles. Plaques on this memorial commemorate those who served and died in the Boer War, World Wars I and II, Malaya, Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia.
The building has an 'L'-shaped plan form, with the former Post Office at the western end, and the remainder formerly the residence. The gabled roof, clad in corrugated iron, follows the form of the building and accentuates the projecting bay of the office. The building features three open verandahs, to the front and rear of the residence, and the side of the office. The external walls are clad in weatherboards, punctuated by vertical sliding sash windows, with timber-framed window hoods to those of the north-eastern elevation. The building is low set, now supported on steel posts, with timber steps to each verandah and the entry porch.
The principal entry is a slightly assymetrical gabled porch attached to the front of the projecting bay of the former office. Unlined internally, the porch retains the letter slot to the side of the panelled French entry doors.
The office is a rectangular room with a high boarded ceiling, horizontal beaded boards lining the walls and a boarded floor. To the public area at the front of the room is the timber counter and small timber side benches, constructed of similar beaded boards. On the rear wall is mounted several external signs from the former Post Office. Through a pair of glazed French doors is the south-western verandah, partly enclosed at the rear, and featuring arched valance boards between the posts. Behind the office is a small service room currently being fitted as a kitchen.
The north-western verandah provides entry to the former residence. Opening onto this verandah are the central four-panelled entry door, a pair of glazed French doors to one side and the same missing from the other.
The residence consists of four major rooms in an 'L'-shaped configuration, around the rear verandah. The largest of these, the former sitting room is entered through the central door, with two former bedrooms and the kitchen along the eastern wing. Generally these rooms have internal linings similar to that of the office, apart from the kitchen which has no lining boards to the walls. Doors are generally low-waisted four-panelled doors, apart from a boarded door now to the recently constructed ensuite in the second bedroom, which was apparently relocated from the kitchen. On the rear verandah is a small utility room, now a public toilet. Apart from the signs in the office, the building also retains a telephone exchange, now located in the former bedroom.
The site is level, well grassed and scattered with a few small trees. To the rear of the site are some machinery relics.
","history":"The Burketown Post Office, constructed in 1887 after a cyclone devastated the town on March 5, was built to a design prepared by the Queensland Government Architects office.
Pastoral settlement began in the Burke District in the 1860s after explorers such as Burke and Wills and William Landsborough reported on the good grazing land available in the region. To support the settlers in the remote district the Queensland Government established a supply depot on William Landsborough's 1862 camp site on the banks of the Albert River. This first settlement was abandoned in 1865 after Robert Towns established a store further downstream and closer to deep water anchorage.
The new site was surveyed soon after and the prosperity of the town seemed assured when a meatworks and boiling down works (QHR 600375) were built and a government judicial and administrative centre was located there. Unfortunately, a mystery disease caused great loss of life in February, 1866 and again in 1867 and 1868, forcing the population to virtually abandon the town.
After the threat of disease had passed Burketown re-established itself as a supply depot for the pastoral industry. However, the town did not come to prominence again until the early 1880s. when government services were re- established. The Post Office, closed in June 1871, was reopened on 1 January, 1883 with the post master also filling the role of police magistrate, customs officer and weather forecaster.
The district was further opened up when the domestic telegraph line reached Burketown in October, 1886. The Queensland Government had originally hoped that Burketown would be the terminus for an international telegraph line from Java to Australia. Inter colonial rivalry saw the contract for the overseas line go to South Australia in November, 1872. Although the Queensland Government was disappointed, the line was completed to Normanton. However, the link to Burketown was not completed until 1886 after the re establishment of government services to the district.
The present building, constructed as a post office, was built after the 5 March 1887 cyclone which destroyed most of Burketown. The building was designed in the office of the Colonial Architect, G Connolly. During this period, an expansion in the Post and Telegraph translated into Queensland Post Offices being designed with more of a public facade than its adjoining residence, and showed a development of climatic responses such as verandahs and wide eaves. The Burketown Post Office was an example of a post office style, popular from 1886 to 1896, featuring a triple-frontage with projecting office bay.
The new office was a combined Post and Telegraph Office with responsibility for the issuing of mail orders and the management of land based mail contractors plying between Burketown and Normanton, south to Hughenden and Townsville and west via Gregory Downs to Camooweal. This network was a vital link for people located on stations across the northern part of Queensland.
The stability of the Gulf region was also enhanced by the growth in mercantile trade as shipping companies, such as Australian Steam Navigation Company, were awarded government subsidised mail contracts. As a result there was a monthly shipping service into and out of the region which was made more economically viable by the introduction of Parcel Post in 1892. The post office was proclaimed an official Post Office in 1893 with the post master assuming the role of land commissioner and land agent for the Department of Public Lands in 1897.
In March 1901, control of the postal system was transferred to the Commonwealth, with the post office continuing to operate until 1921 when it was reclassified. The Post Office was downgraded again in 1949 and in November, 1964 it was reclassified as a non-official post office. In 1985 Burketown Post Office became a Post Office Agency and ceased functioning altogether in 1988.
In 1988, as part of a Bi centennial project, the building was moved from its original site in Gregory Street to its present location. After the move it was used to house the office of the Gulf Air Company.
There has been an increase in interest in tourism since the Riversleigh Fossil Site was declared a world heritage area and since the Gulf region has become more accessible with improvement to roads and transport. Burketown is becoming a favourite destination particularly for people interested in fishing in Gulf waters and coastal rivers. A tourist information centre has been established in the former Post Office to assist visitors and tourists and to promote interest in the history and culture of the area.
","criteria":"The former Burketown Post Office is significant for its association with early government functions in the remote Gulf and North West regions of Queensland and as a base for the delivery of a range of government services to the people of the area for over a century. It represents the importance of community services such as postal services, telegraph and telephone communications and weather forecasting to a remote community.
|Built in 1887, the former Post Office is one of few early structures surviving in the town.
|The building demonstrates the quality of government buildings erected in remote locations, with design responses to the climate such as high ceilings, window hoods and three substantial verandahs. Representative of a Post Office building type, it features a triple-frontage with a projecting bay accentuating the office, yet retains its domestic form and scale. The majority of the layout remains intact.
It still contains some fittings from its Post Office function, such as timber counters and benches, signs and the telephone exchange.
|While the former Burketown Post Office has contributed to the townscape since its construction, relocation to a larger corner site, facing the war memorial, has given the building a new prominence in the townscape.
|The establishment of the Tourist Information Centre is allowing the building to continue providing an important community function through its contribution to the burgeoning tourist industry of the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15149,"place_ref":600374,"name":"Landsborough Tree (site of)","alternate_name":"Landsborough Tree / Site of Landsborough’s Blazed Tree, Albert River Depot","street_address":"Burketown","suburb":"BURKETOWN","lga":"BURKE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The tree remnant is located near a silted cut-off meander of the Albert River on black clay soil floodplains approximately 1.5km east of Burketown, accessed from Truganini Road. Grass grows sparsely in the vicinity. Low bushes and trees are lightly scattered across the site.
\nOnly a few pieces of the tree remained in situ in 2005. The largest was about one metre long. A welded mesh fence 1.2m high and approximately 2.5m square surrounded the remnants. The fence was supported by metal pipe posts at each corner. The fencing, which existed at the time of the destruction of the tree, was removed.
\nA timber post in the north-west corner of this enclosure may have been evidence of an earlier post-and-rail timber fence around the tree. What appeared to be the remains of a second post was visible in the north-east corner of the enclosure.
\nA new tree was planted on the site of the old tree, c.2009.
","history":"The site of the former tree stump which marked the Albert River Depot of the expedition of William Landsborough is located approximately two kilometres east of Burketown, near a silted cut-off meander of the Albert River. The original tree, thought to have been a Coolabah (Eucalyptus Microtheca), was blazed on 8 February 1862 by Lieutenant Charles Cecil Gascoyne, Second Lieutenant of HMCS Victoria, the support vessel for Landsborough’s expedition. The site was used as a base camp for Landsborough’s initial expedition towards Central Mount Stuart and his subsequent crossing of Australia from north to south in 1862, in an attempt to find cross-continent explorers Robert O’Hara Burke and William Wills.
\nPrior to the arrival of Europeans, the gulf country of northwest Queensland was occupied by the Garawa, Gangalidda and Mingginda Peoples. The area around Burketown was occupied by the Minggindda people.[1]
\nBurke and Wills, who had set out from Melbourne on 20 August 1860 to cross the continent from south to north, were reported missing in June 1861. Four official relief expeditions were organised to search for them: Alfred William Howitt’s party formed in Melbourne; John McKinlay’s party formed in Adelaide; Frederick Walker’s party formed in Rockhampton; and William Landsborough’s party formed in Brisbane (appointed by the Victorian and Queensland governments). The Victorian government appointed Captain Norman of HMCS Victoria as Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Expedition Parties (the Walker and Landsborough expeditions). Howitt received information on the fate of Burke and Wills in September 1861, but the other expeditions had left before news could reach them.[2]
\nWilliam Landsborough, the son of a Scottish clergyman, was an experienced bushman, explorer and pastoralist. He arrived in Queensland in the mid-1850 and entered into partnership in a station on the Kolan River in the Burnett district. From 1856 he undertook private exploration in search of new pastoral land, exploring and naming Mount Nebo in 1856, the Broadsound district in 1857, the Comet and Nogoa Rivers in 1858, and the Bonar (Bowen) River in 1859. From Rockhampton he and Nat Buchanan traced Aramac Creek and the Thomson River to the Plains of Promise. In 1861 he applied for 15 runs of 100 square miles (259 km²) each on the Plains of Promise. He, Buchanan, and Edward Cornish formed the Landsborough River Company to stock these runs, which Landsborough named ‘Bowen Downs’.[3]
\nIn 1861, Queensland Surveyor-General Augustus Charles Gregory recommended that Landsborough lead the Brisbane expedition in search of Burke and Wills. Landsborough’s party left Brisbane in the brig Firefly on 26 August 1861. The party made for the Albert River, where it was set to rendezvous with Walker’s party, who had proceeded overland from Rockhampton, and Lieutenant Norman, who was provisioning the exploration parties. The Firefly reached the east coast of Cape York, but was wrecked off Sir Charles Hardy Islands (east of Cape Grenville) on 4 September 1861. The expedition was rescued by Norman three days later.[4] The Firefly was refloated and taken under tow by the Victoria to Sweers Island, in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
\nLandsborough explored the Albert River during the first week of October 1861 and recommended that a depot be established at the confluence of the Albert and Barkly Rivers, about 26 miles (42km) in a straight line from the mouth of the Albert. Above this junction the Albert River was not navigable, even for small boats.[5] The Firefly was towed by the Victoria to the mouth of the Albert River and commenced a slow journey upstream on 14 October 1861. Twelve days later the Firefly had reached about 15 miles (24km) in a straight line from the mouth of the river, but had difficulty proceeding further. On 8 November the decision was taken to establish the depot where the Firefly was anchored, midway between the mouth of the Albert and the juncture with the Barkly, on the west bank of the river.[6]
\nFrom 16 November 1861 to mid-February 1862 Landsborough explored southwest towards Central Mount Stuart. During his travels he marked numerous trees with a distinctive broad arrow before an L. His second in command, George Bourne, stayed at the Albert River depot. Captain Norman of the Victoria also camped at the Albert River depot for much of this period, waiting for Walker’s party which was yet to reach the rendezvous point.[7] During this time Norman had one of the iron ship’s water tanks sunk into the ground at the depot and filled with provisions. If the exploratory parties were delayed and he had to leave the Albert River before either returned, the supplies would be protected from Aboriginal raiding parties. One large tree near the sunken tank and other nearby trees were marked to identify the buried provisions.[8]
\nOn 19 January 1862 Landsborough and his party returned from the expedition to the southwest. He had followed the Gregory River and named the Barkly Tableland but near the site of Camooweal found desert with a network of dry channels. Realising that rain could flood the country and isolate his starving party, Landsborough struggled back to the Albert River depot, having found no trace of Burke and Wills. In the meantime Walker’s party had reached the Albert and reported finding tracks on the Flinders River. Replenishing supplies from the Victoria, Walker resumed his search. On hearing this news Landsborough was eager to search to the southeast. Despite insufficient supplies and against Commander Norman’s advice, he made preparations to leave.
\nOn 7 February 1862 Norman sent 2nd Lieutenant CC Gascoyne of the Victoria to disband the Albert River depot and assist Landsborough’s preparations. In the eventuality that Landsborough was forced to return to the depot after the Victoria had left, Gascoyne placed a small quantity of provisions and ammunition (20 pounds of biscuits, 250 pounds of flour, nine half pound canisters FG powder, and two boxes percussion caps) in another ship’s tank. The tank was then sealed, pitched and covered over with earth. Gascoyne placed details of their location in a bottle marked ‘DIG 2 FT N’. The bottle was buried near a tree close to a waterhole and to the camp. In the evening, Gascoyne and his men returned to the Victoria.
\nAt 4pm on 10 February 1862 Landsborough’s party commenced their overland journey south.[9] They did not return to the Albert River depot. They reached an occupied station on 21 May and learned that Burke and Wills had perished. Continuing south, they arrived in Melbourne in August 1862. The journey made Landsborough the first European explorer to cross the Australian continent north to south, and his reports on the valuable pastoral land he had encountered sparked a rush for land in the Gulf country.
\nThe success of Landsborough’s 1862 expedition was due largely to his reliance on indigenous knowledge of the terrain he traversed. His journal reveals that he rarely travelled without Aboriginal guides. On this trip, his guides included Jemmy, Jacky and Fisherman, and local Aboriginal people were reported leading Landsborough’s party to water or to showing them the best route. When he lost access to this local knowledge, in his attempt to head south-south-east from the Warrego in May 1862 (Camp 67 – QHR 602716 and Camp 69 – QHR 602715), his party came close to perishing.
\nLandsborough’s explorations also contributed to the extension of Queensland’s western boundary. At the time of separation from New South Wales in 1859, this had been set at longitude 141Ëš east (just west of Normanton). In September 1860 AC Gregory had recommended to the Queensland Government that the border, which passed through the Plains of Promise, be moved to 138Ëš east, to provide the district with access to a port in the Gulf. A year later, realising that the northern relief expeditions in search of Burke and Wills would increase knowledge of the area, Governor Bowen wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies advising that Queensland legislature would protect any settlers who moved into the area, provided the western boundary of Queensland was extended to 138Ëš east to include access to the Gulf.[10] This was agreed to, and the boundary was altered on 12 April 1862, placing the Albert, Gregory and Herbert (Georgina) rivers and much of the Barkly Tableland within Queensland.
\nOn 1 January 1864 the new pastoral district of Burke was opened for settlement. A syndicate took up 1,000,000 acres (404,685.64ha) in August, which later became the stations of Floraville, Beames Brook and Gregory Downs. In 1864 a township was established on the Albert River to service the newly established Gulf runs. With pastoral occupation underway, the schooner Jacmel Packet set out in May 1865 for the Albert River, with cargo to provision the new settlement. The square mile town reserve was surveyed as Burketown in 1866-7 and formally gazetted in August 1868. The town site was not far from the wreck of the Firefly, and glimpses of the ship’s remains in the Albert River were mentioned into the early 20th century.[11]
\nIn September 1865, William Landsborough returned to the Albert River as Police Magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands in Carpentaria, based at the town of Burke. He appointed controversial sub-inspector Wentworth Uhr to lead a local band of Native Police. Relations between the European settlers and Aboriginal people were fraught, with conflicts and deaths reported throughout the 1860s. Disease also impacted on the isolated township. Europeans deserted Burketown for some years after a mystery illness swept the fledgling township in the mid-1860s, returning in the mid-1870s. It is believed that this disease, as well as conflict, contributed to the demise of the Mingginda people. They were succeeded by the Ganggalida people.[12]
\nIn 1892, a 22 acre site which included the former Albert River depot site and Landsborough tree was leased to the Carpentaria Meat Works Company. The company set up a Boiling Down Works near the wharf on the southern part of the site, within eyesight of the blazed tree. The former Boiling Down Works (QHR 600375) was designed by Messrs Burns and Twigg of Rockhampton and the first mobs of cattle were processed in Burketown in May 1892. The tree was noted as ‘Landsborough’s Tree’ on the plan of the leased site.[13]
\nBy the late 19th century the blazed tree near Burketown had become a tourist attraction. Around 1900 the tree was photographed by Alphonse Chargois, a photographer based at Croydon. At this time the inscription was still visible on the trunk of the tree and tallied with Lieutenant Gascoyne’s description of the markings made on 8 February 1862.
\nIn 1917 the tree featured in the Queenslander’s pictorial section, and by 1926 visitors regularly picnicked near the tree, according to the Townsville Daily Bulletin:
\nA Landsborough tree advises people to ‘dig 2ft’., but visitors, judging by the number of bottles surrounding the tree, appear to have been satisfied to drink each other’s health, taking it for granted that the vicinity had been well prospected years ago. The old “coolibah” [sic] has a wealth of mistletoe, and is flourishing, notwithstanding its great age. [14]
\nIn May 1926, the site was gazetted as a pound for the Burke Shire Council.
\nIn August 1984 the blazed tree, or dig tree, at Burketown was placed on the National Trust of Queensland’s Register of Significant Trees.
\nThe blazed tree was vandalised in December 2002. The tree was chopped down and the remaining trunk set on fire. The interpretation sign and its concrete foundations were pulled from the ground. The tree did not recover, and no charges were laid in relation to its destruction. In November 2003, a local wood turner used remnants of the tree to create two new gavels for the Burke Shire Council; one to be used at its meetings and the other to be displayed with an interpretive sign, indicating the significance site of the tree. A new tree was planted on the site of the old tree, c.2009.
\nIn 2015 the Federal Court recognised non-exclusive native title of the Gangalidda people on the site, successors to the Mingginda people. The site remains in the trusteeship of the Burke Shire Council.
\n
The site of Landsborough or Albert River Depot Blazed Tree is an important location in the history of non-indigenous exploration and occupation of the Gulf country and western Queensland. The tree, marking the site of the northernmost depot established by the Landsborough expedition in its search of missing cross-continental explorers Burke and Wills in 1862, is important in demonstrating the difficulties encountered in the early exploration of Queensland and the contingencies adopted to ensure survival. Despite the destruction of the tree, the site retains its symbolic significance as the location of Landsborough’s base camp.
|The site of Landsborough’s Blazed Tree has a special association with the exploration work of William Landsborough, the first European to make a successful north to south crossing of the Australian continent in 1862. Although a number of blazed trees were marked for or by Landsborough on his expeditions, this was one of the few ‘DIG’ trees, which provided direction to instructions for retrieving a small buried cache of food and ammunition.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15150,"place_ref":600375,"name":"Burketown Boiling Down Works (former)","alternate_name":"Boiling Down Works","street_address":"Truganinni Road","suburb":"BURKETOWN","lga":"BURKE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The Boiling Down Works (former) is situated near a silted, cut-off meander of the Albert River on black clay soil floodplains, approximately two kilometres to the east of Burketown, accessed from Truganini Road via a loop access road. Grass grows sparsely in the vicinity interspersed with low bushes and trees.
\nThe site contains a range of steam equipment, some boiling down machinery and substantial footings, foundations and floors. There is at least one depression within the overall core site, which may have been a water storage area, but is now heavily silted.
\nThe larger machinery – boilers, tanks and engines appear to be largely in situ, although the colonial boiler is on its side. One of the larger engines has a large tubular flywheel. There are some items clearly associated with the actual processing of the animals for tallow, blood and bone and hides. These include several tanks and a small roller crusher. Items include:
\n· Engine 1: Flywheel 2.03m diameter; belt drive wheel 0.91m diameter; concrete mount 0.6m x 2.64m;
\n· Engine 2: Top valve manufactured by Jo Evans and Sons, Wolverhampton (UK);
\n· Flywheel 1.52 diameter; concrete mount 0.68m x 2.13m; concrete aggregate is a dense mix of small river pebbles; one piece has broken clay brick aggregate;
\n· Two Lancashire Boilers: under-fired boilers, with two quarter doors to firebox in each boiler, manufactured by Burns and Twigg, Rockhampton; 7.31m long x 1.75 diameters;
\n· Colonial Boiler: manufacturer unknown, 3.65 m long x 1.37m diameter;
\n· Tubular flywheel engine: manufacturer unknown, 2.58 diameter wheel; tube is 0.017 outside diameter; adjacent drive belt is 1.21 diameter; single cylinder engine;
\n· Ship’s tank: remains, 1.21m x 1.21m x 1.21m;
\n· Vertical boiler and tank: Vertical boiler (lying on side) 2.58m long x 1.21m diameter, 2.29m long x 1.52m diameter;
\n· Roller/crusher: Manufactured Savage; rollers are 0.020m x 0.45m long; and
\n· Other machinery and deposits: various pieces of equipment are scattered around the site which includes a domestic artefact deposit near the north-west corner of the site with a range of 19th century glass ware and ceramics.
","history":"The site of the former boiling down works, about 1.5 km to the east of Burketown, comprises the remnant machinery of the works and a ship’s tank, scattered across a site on a silted-up meander of the Albert River. The ship’s tank may be a remnant of William Landsborough’s exploration of the region in search of Burke and Wills in 1861. An earlier boiling down works had stood operated just south of Burketown from 1866 to the early 1870s, producing cured beef and tallow. A new operation was established on this site, east of Burketown, by the Carpentaria Meat Export Company in 1892 and extended in 1893. The works was abandoned around 1904.
\nThe grazing potential of the Gulf of Carpentaria region was identified by John Lort Stokes during his 1841 exploration in the Beagle.[1] At the time, the area was occupied by the Mingginda People. Stokes referred to the country between the Albert and Flinders Rivers as the ‘Plains of Promise’. William Landsborough, leader of an expedition to find lost explorers Robert Burke and William Wills, also found the area promising for pastoralism. On his arrival at the ‘Plains of Promise’ in August 1861 in the brig-turned-hulk Firefly, Landsborough noted sufficient saline herbage he considered suitable for sheep. Landsborough’s party established a depot on the banks of the Albert River, where surplus provisions were buried in a ship’s tank near a marked tree (Site of Landsborough’s Blazed Tree, Albert River Depot, QHR 600374) in case the party needed to return to the depot. Returning to Melbourne in 1862, Landsborough promoted the region through the publication of his journals and a series of lectures.[2]
\nThe new pastoral district of Burke was opened for settlement on 1 January 1864. The fledgling town of Burke (later Burketown) was established beside a port on the Albert River as squatters, wool agents and storekeepers made for the Gulf.[3] Pastoralists took up substantial landholdings and stocked their runs with sheep, converting to cattle when sheep proved susceptible to disease. However, the isolation of the ‘Plains of Promise’ restricted graziers’ opportunities to market their cattle. Without refrigerated transport, cattle could only be sold to other graziers or driven to southern markets. Failing these options, cattle could be boiled down for tallow.[4]
\nIn the 19th century tallow was a product with a wide range of applications, including use in cooking, soap and candle making, and machinery lubrication. Queensland’s boiling down industry began in 1843 when Mackenzie and Co’s works opened in Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.[5] Similar establishments were opened at Ipswich (c.1848), Maryborough (c.1850), Townsville and Toowoomba (both c.1866). As cattle holdings spread into the Kennedy and Gulf districts in the 1860s, a number of small-scale boiling down works were established on pastoral properties in the region. Many of these works were private operations which provided remote landholders with access to otherwise unattainable cattle disposal facilities.
\nGraziers did not favour boiling down their stock, as the process wasted valuable meat and reduced profits, but the process was necessary in times of economic hardship, when graziers struggled to maintain their land and livestock. In 1866, with the colony in the midst of a depression, partners Morehead & Young established a public boiling down operation on the Albert River near the Burketown settlement. Boilers, vats and other equipment were shipped from Sydney to a site south of Burketown. The works, managed by the Edkins brothers, produced tallow, beef and sheep products between 1867 and the early 1870s. Flood, disease and a lack of demand appear to have contributed to its closure around 1872. Disease in particular had a dramatic impact: Europeans deserted Burketown after a mystery illness swept the fledgling township in the mid-1860s, and it is believed that this disease contributed to the demise of the Mingginda people. They were succeeded by the Ganggalida people.[6]
\nCattle numbers rose in Queensland during the 1870s and 1880s. By 1885 Queensland was the principal cattle producing colony in Australia, but export opportunities remained limited. Experimentation with freezing meat for export occurred over the next decade, but the first freezing works in Queensland, the Ross River Meatworks in Townsville (QHR 602719), did not open until 1892. In the interim, a glut of stock, a drought in 1884-6 and another economic depression in the 1890s left graziers with an oversupply of cattle and few outlets for their disposal. The final straw came in 1892 and 1893 when New South Wales introduced, and Victoria increased, taxes on stock crossing the border.[7]
\nAs a result, the early 1890s saw a number of enterprises formed to establish boiling down operations near grazing country in northwest Queensland. One such company was the Carpentaria Meat Export Company (CMEC), registered in June 1891 with the intention of setting up a new meatworks facility at Burketown. The town had begun to repopulate in the 1880s. As a location for a cattle processing plant Burketown had a number of advantages, including its proximity to both the ‘Plains of Promise’ grazing country and coastal shipping via the Albert River. Rather than taking up the site of Burketown’s first boiling down works, the CMEC leased 22 acres (8.9ha) near the former Albert River Depot, approximately two kilometres downstream of the town.[8]
\nThe CMEC engaged ironmongers Burns and Twigg to design and supply equipment for their new Burketown boiling down works. Twigg & Co, later Burns and Twigg, had operated a foundry in Rockhampton from around 1877, and supplied machinery to Lakes Creek, Alligator Creek in Townsville, and the Barcaldine boiling down works. In February 1892 Burns and Twigg shipped 25 tons of machinery to Burketown, comprising ‘a pair of thirty-horse power Cornish boilers’. While installation work was undertaken, Queensland Governor Sir Henry Wylie Norman was shown over the site in April 1892, a highlight of his northern Queensland tour. [9]
\nWith the boilers in place by May 1892, the Burketown boiling down works received 40 bullocks for its inaugural process. The stock reportedly came from Lawn Hill, a station run by former Burketown boiling down works manager ER Edkins. Burketown’s first process coincided with the opening of two other Gulf boiling down works, ‘Dalgonally’ in Normanton and the Torrens Creek works. Despite this competition, Burketown’s works had a successful first season. Cattle numbers were still rising in North Queensland, peaking at 1.3 million in 1894 but with cattle prices still low there was a market for numerous boiling works.[10]
\nMachinery upgrades were installed at Burketown before the processing season began afresh in March 1893. By April 1893 the works had its own train and wharf facilities. Though the works were closed briefly following an outbreak of tick fever, the works was processing over 100 bullocks per day by 1895, including stock from New South Wales, the Northern Territory and South Australia. In June 1894 Burketown was the third largest producer of both tallow and hides and skins in Queensland, out-produced only by Townsville and Rockhampton.[11]
\nIn 1898, the CMEC was replaced by the Burketown Meat Export Company. The works was leased to the Endeavour Meat Export and Agency Company, which commenced operations on 7 June 1898. Three days later, a steaming vat of tallow sparked a fire, and the boiling down works burnt down. Within a day, Burketown residents had raised £400 for rebuilding, and meatworks employees offered a month’s labour for rations only. The company also sought assistance from the Queensland Government under the Meat and Dairy Produce Encouragement Act (1893) to rebuild. Engineer WH Swales, a partner in the Burketown Meat Export Company, was engaged to install new machinery, while the construction work was contracted to William Brown of Townsville.[12]
\nRebuilding was completed for the 1899 meatworking season, and the North Queensland Register described the redesigned Burketown boiling down works in detail in February 1899. A new ‘imposing, substantial building’ housed the works. Equipment which had survived the fire, including the boilers, digesters and refiners, had been repaired and refitted, while new machines including an extract plant, mincing or shredding machine and a filter press and pump were added to the works. A 12 horsepower horizontal engine made by British company Tangye powered the mincing machine, dynamo and bone lift. The works also featured slaughtering pens and drying space for the hides, an engine and repair room next to the boilers, electric plant (powered by a small one horsepower engine), a manure grinding mill and a coopers’ shed where tallow barrels could be made.[13]
\nBy the turn of the 20th century, the boiling down works was Burketown’s major employer. The town’s population boomed from 164 to 300 during the six month meatworking season, with meatworkers, firewood getters and drovers flocking to the works. The works also provided a market for a local salt industry, as salt was used to tan hides and preserve meat. However, the Endeavour Meat Export and Agency Company succumbed to financial difficulties and was wound up in March 1901.[14]
\nThe Burketown works was taken over by the Queensland Meat Export and Agency Company (QMEA), which was expanding its operations into the Gulf. Considerable improvements, including canning and preserving facilities, allowed for the treatment of 10,000 cattle in 1901 and 1902. QMEA’s November 1901 export report indicated that Burketown was the second largest supplier to the London market, exporting 1,588 cases of canned meat and 212 casks of tallow compared to Townsville’s 7,275 cases of canned meat and 707 casks of tallow. Dalgonally, also operated by QMEA and formerly the larger of the Gulf meatworks, exported 801 cases of canned meat and 82 casks of tallow.[15]
\nDespite this apparent success, there were hints of the Burketown works’ uncertain future. Cattle numbers in North Queensland dropped to a record low in the wake of a significant drought, and large numbers of graziers walked off their runs rather than restocking. In November 1903, a QMEA director suggested that the meatworks would only operate in 1904 ‘if cattle became plentiful’, and noted that unlike freezing works, Burketown’s limited operations did not use every part of the processed animals. Operations at Burketown were discontinued around 1904. A 1912 enquiry into the meat industry blamed transport difficulties, high wages and lack of stock for the closure. Despite its eight year hiatus, the inquiry confirmed that the Burketown machinery was still in ‘good order’, though the meatworks buildings were reportedly being ‘eaten away by termites’.[16]
\nQMEA retained the Burketown property until 1914. Rumours circulated that the buildings would be restored or removed, but the new proprietors appear to have had little interaction with the site. The buildings were removed in the late 1910s or early 1920s, possibly for reuse at another meatworks. A range of machinery was left on site, including the Burns and Twigg Cornish boilers, a Colonial Boiler and a set of vertical boilers, three engines and other miscellany. No reference was made to the ship’s tank, though it was likely on the site at the time. Ships’ tanks were used all over Australia to store food and water. They were particularly useful in remote areas which lacked a guaranteed water supply. The tank on the site may have been left from Landsborough’s expedition: the Firefly sank in the river near the meatworks site, and an attempt to salvage two of her tanks was made some time in the 19th century. The tank has no other identification, such as a maker’s mark; these marks were usually on the tank lid, which has not survived.[17]
\nFrom June 1917 the Burketown lease (Special Lease 472) was divided in two and leased to local residents, although they seem to have undertaken little activity on the site. Both tenants forfeited their leases and left Burketown by the early 1920s. The land was resurveyed as Portion 78 and gazetted as a Pound Reserve in July 1926. The old meatworks equipment, machinery, bricks and other remnants remained on site, attracting sightseers who came to visit the nearby Landsborough tree.[18]
\nIn 2015 the Federal Court recognised the non-exclusive native title of the Gangalidda people over the site. The site remains in the trusteeship of the Burke Shire Council.[19]
","criteria":"The Burketown Boiling Down Works site is important in demonstrating the economic development of the Gulf of Carpentaria region and the development of the beef industry in Queensland. Built between 1892 and 1901 to process beef produced in the Gulf region for export, the site contains industrial remnants of a process that was once common but is now obsolete. Burketown was the third largest producer of tallow and hides in Queensland in 1894. Few other sites in Queensland are known to retain the range of remnant boiling down machinery found at this location.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15151,"place_ref":600376,"name":"Cairns Court House Complex","alternate_name":"Cairns Court House and Art Gallery (former Public Offices); Cairns Courthouse; Former Public Curator's Office","street_address":"38 - 40 Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This complex, consisting of the Court House, Art Gallery and Abbott Street gardens, is located on the eastern corner of Abbott and Shields Streets within the Cairns central business district.
Court House
The Court House is a single-storeyed rendered masonry building, with a hipped corrugated iron roof, fronting the Abbott Street gardens to the southwest. The building is T-shaped in plan, with offices and subsidiary court rooms forming the western wing and the main court room forming the eastern wing.
The central entrance of the western wing has a recessed porch with a slightly projecting facade surmounted by a stepped parapet with a curved pediment, cornice and a lion and unicorn crest. This is supported by two columns flanked by pilasters and a section of concrete balustrade to either side. The southwest facade comprises a series of triple window units separated by pilasters with an expressed base, jettied eaves and deep sills. Each window unit has a double casement with a single casement either side and panelled hoppers above. An extra bay has been added to the north and south ends providing chambers and toilet facilities.
This wing contains a central entry corridor flanked by offices with a court room to either side and chambers beyond these. Throughout this wing walls are rendered, suspended ceilings have been inserted and the original layout of spaces has been altered.
The central entrance of the eastern wing has a recessed porch with twin paired columns flanked by a single column to either side. The northwest facade has a double casement, with a panelled hopper above, to either side of the central porch and stepped parapets are located midway in the hipped roof revealing the corners of the main court room.
Verandahs are located on the southeast, northwest and between the eastern and western wings. These have timber posts on masonry upstands with timber batten balustrade between, arched timber valance, raked boarded ceilings and timber floors. Arched panelled windows with central hopper sections, lighting the main court room, are located above the verandah line with deep curved timber eave brackets. Below these are french doors, with panelled glass upper portions and hopper fanlights, and casement windows opening onto the verandah.
Internally, the main court room contains silky oak fittings including the Judge's bench, which sits on a raised platform with a lion and unicorn crest on the wall behind, the prisoner's dock, jury and press seating and gallery rail. French doors and casement windows are separated by plaster pilasters with cornices above. At the eastern end, former witness rooms are located on either side of main court room. The northern room contains a hardboard ceiling with timber cover strips and the southern room has had an extension to the south to provide toilet facilities.
A row of palm trees is located to the northeast of the building lining the driveway from The Esplanade. To the west of this building is the Art Gallery.
Art Gallery
The Art Gallery, a two-storeyed masonry structure with a corrugated iron gable roof, is located on the eastern corner of the site fronting Abbott and Shields Streets.
This Georgian Revival building was designed to be extended to the northeast along the Shields Street frontage, with a repeat of the portico on the western end of that facade, but this extension has never occurred. The building has glazed bricks with rendered quoining and opening surrounds.
The symmetrical Abbott Street elevation, forming the main entry, consists of an Ionic central distyle in antis portico (receding into the building with two columns flanked by pilasters) on a rendered base with a circular window in the pediment. The recessed portico has a first floor balcony, with metal balustrade, off which open arched doorways and sash windows. The ground floor has a terrazzo portico floor and a central entry with rendered voussoir, with an arched window to either side which contain more recent aluminium framed glazing. The first floor has a casement window to either side of the portico.
The Shields Street elevation has a corner section similar to the Abbott Street elevation, but with a narrower portico forming a secondary entry and smaller arched windows to either side. The southern elevation, fronting the park, is similar again, but the ground floor portico is enclosed with an arched window, and the first floor has a recessed balcony.
The eastern wing is narrower than the corner section, with a columned two-storeyed verandah to both the northern and southern sides. French doors open off the first floor verandahs, and the ground floor has patterned terrazzo floors and a central entry with rendered voussoir on the northern side. The eastern elevation is rendered, with arched casement windows to the ground floor.
Internally, the ground floor corner section of the building contains a central open space with a room to each corner which frame the porticos between. The western corner room contains an enclosed staircase which has a terrazzo floor and stair, an iron balustrade, timber panelled walls and a window display cabinet to Abbott Street. The remaining corner rooms are used as display spaces, of which the eastern and southern rooms have timber panelled walls and the northern room has a barred window from its use as a strong room. The central space has four large columns, a plastered coffered ceiling, sections of timber and glass partitioning, some timber panelling, a timber counter, sections of terrazzo flooring and arched leaded fanlights. The first floor corner section is similar in plan and finishes, but has toilets located in the eastern corner room and none of its timber and glass partitions survive.
The eastern wing contains a central entry with vestibule and staircase, with offices to either side and a corridor leading to the corner section of the building. The entry has double timber doors with an arched leaded fanlight, timber panelling, timber reception with pilasters and entablature, moulded plaster ceilings and a patterned terrazzo floor leading to the staircase. The staircase has a terrazzo stair, iron balustrading and timber panelling. Timber doors with leaded glass panels and arched fanlights lead into the administration offices at the eastern end, which have suspended ceilings and air conditioning, and to the corridor leading to the corner gallery at the western end. Offices opening off this corridor, now used as storerooms, contain timber shelving and suspended ceilings. The first floor contains service rooms at the eastern end, with display spaces towards the western corner section. An arch which originally accessed a passage at the top of the stair leading to the northwest verandah has been closed in.
To the east of this building is the Court House, with the Abbott Street gardens to the southeast.
Abbott Street Gardens
The Abbott Street gardens form the southwest entry to the court house. These consist of a series of sinuous concrete paths and concrete edgings enclosing areas of lawn with clusters of plants. Palm trees are strategically located within the lawn areas, with a row forming a border to Abbott Street.
","history":"The former Cairns Court House [erected 1919-21] and the Art Gallery former Public Offices [erected 1934-36] are located on a 2 acre site reserved since 1876 for police purposes. Both buildings were erected during the years between the First and Second World Wars, the third major phase of Cairns' development, at which time the city's status as the principal port of Far North Queensland was consolidated, and the city centre virtually re-built. Both are substantial masonry buildings, whose construction reflected State Government confidence in the growth of Cairns as an important regional centre during the interwar period.
Cairns was established officially in October 1876, as a port to service the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields. In this first phase of Cairns' development there was a small flurry of building activity [mostly shanties and tent houses], but the town competed with both Cooktown and Port Douglas for the Hodgkinson trade, and made little progress until the establishment of a local sugar industry and the opening up of the Atherton Tablelands' mineral fields, in the early 1880s. The 1885 announcement that Cairns was to be the terminus for the Herberton railway established the town as the principal port in the region. These boosts to the local economy in the 1880s generated a second building and development phase, during which the early temporary structures were replaced by more substantial timber buildings.
Whilst a number of masonry commercial buildings were erected in Cairns in the years immediately preceding the First World War, the third major phase of Cairns' development was during the 1920s and 1930s. The Cairns hinterland Soldier Settlement Schemes of the 1920s, the completion of the rail link to Brisbane in 1924, the extensive re-building necessitated by a spate of cyclones in the 1920s, and the poor condition of earlier timber structures, combined to produce unprecedented building activity in Cairns. The city centre in particular is dominated by masonry structures of the 1920s and 1930s, and in this respect is markedly different from other Queensland towns and cites. Reinforced concrete was the preferred building material, but the State Government chose to erect the important Public Offices in brick.
Court House
The 1919-21 building was the third court house erected in Cairns. An 1878 marine survey of Cairns harbour indicates that the first court house was located on the customs reserve, and may have shared the same premises as the first customs house. This probably was the temporary court house erected by the Works Department in Cairns in December 1877.
The 'temporary' courthouse remained in use for several years, but was replaced during the second phase of Cairns' development. In 1883 the Works Department prepared plans for a more substantial timber court house, which was erected in 1884 on the Esplanade, but facing Abbott Street, on the police reserve. At the time, it was considered to be very fine, the best erected building in Cairns, both in so far as appearance and design as well as in construction [Cairns Post 3 July1884:2:4]. By 1890, however, the local court had outgrown its court house, and the building was in a state of disrepair. Despite repeated comment from public and judicial circles alike that the court house at Cairns was the worst on the circuit, it was not replaced until the present building was completed late in 1921.
In 1917, AB Brady, Government Architect and Under Secretary for Public Works, finally acknowledged that the Cairns Court House was beyond renovation and that a new building was necessary. Plans were prepared in the government architect's office in 1918, working drawings were completed by January 1919, tenders for the supply of materials were called early in 1919, and construction was commenced in May that year. As a post-First World War initiative by the state government to create employment for returned servicemen, the new court house at Cairns was constructed using day labour, under the supervision of the District Foreman of Works, EJ Oakley. The construction period stretched over two and a half years, with the Cairns community attributing the slow progress of the building to the use of day labour.
Some of the joinery was made in government workshops in Brisbane and shipped to Cairns, but the remainder of the timber used in the construction was secured from the Cairns hinterland. Particularly impressive were the silky oak fittings in the court room. The roof was of fibrous-cement tiles with terracotta ridge capping. This roof was replaced with corrugated fibrous-cement roof sheeting in 1953, at which time the roof ventilators were removed.
By November 1921 the new court house, which had cost over £13,500, was completed, and the court room was used for the first time on 17 January 1922. From this first sitting, it was evident that although the room was well ventilated, the acoustics were poor due to the height of the ceiling. Not until 1959 was the problem rectified, with a false acoustic ceiling fixed to the existing beams.
In 1926, the city's sesqui-centenary year, the Cairns Chamber of Commerce requested that the State Government improve the Court House grounds. In January 1927, the Cairns City Council agreed that their gardener at Edge Hill would lay out the grounds, to include concrete kerbing around the oval in the centre, and garden tile edging. Government approval for funding the project was granted in January 1928, and the gardens were completed by early 1929. Concrete paths were laid in the grounds in 1946, and in 1949/50 the grounds were replanted.
In 1968, the building was extended at a cost of approximately $53,000, with the extentions rendered to match the existing facades, and the roof re-clad with corrugated iron sheeting. The remodelling created a second court room and a magistrate's court.
Former Public Offices [Art Gallery]
In 1929, the State Government Insurance Office [SGIO] requested that part of the Police Reserve at the corner of Shields and Abbott Streets, Cairns, be made available for the erection of a new SGIO office. In 1930, the Government Tourist Bureau submitted an identical request. In February 1933, the Public Service Commissioner reported on the requirements for an office building on the site, which would necessitate the re-location of the Senior Sergeant's Residence and the Tracker's Hut. In the same month, Cabinet approved that the Works Department erect an office building for and at the expense of the SGIO, and sketch plans were completed in April that year. By September 1933, however, the Public Service Commissioner had decided that the government would erected the building with general funding, and rent offices to various government departments.
Construction commenced in 1934, with the plans attributed to architect RC Nowland of the government architect's office. The new building was constructed mainly of hinterland materials, with bricks from Mareeba and joinery from Johnston's Stratford Sawmill. The principal offices and public spaces were wall-panelled and floored with local figured timbers as a promotion for North Queensland timber products. However, the leadlights were supplied by a Brisbane company, and the roof was clad originally with fibrous cement tiles supplied by Hardie & Co.
The new Public Offices occupied a prominent position at the intersection of Abbott and Shields Streets, which contained Cairns' conspicuous First World War memorial (QHR 600378). The building was designed to address both the adjacent court house and the newly established formal court house gardens, and the classical detailing of the facades re-affirmed the power and presence of government in the community. The building also was designed to be extended along Shields Street, with a repeat of the portico on the western end, but this planned extension was never undertaken.
The new Public Offices were completed by late March, 1936, and were opened officially in July that year. They had cost nearly £31,000. The principal ground floor tenant was the SGIO, with the Government Tourist Bureau occupying an office with display windows at the front. Other ground floor tenants included the Land Commission, Agricultural Bank, and Forestry officers. The principal occupant of the first floor was the Public Curator, along with the District Foreman of Works, Inspectors of Weights and Measures, Health, Slaughter Houses, Fruits and Diseases in Plants, and visiting Tax Inspectors and parliamentarians.
Late in 1936, the grounds around the new Public Offices were laid out, with concrete kerbing to match that in the court house gardens, and the lawn extended to the new building.
In the mid-1950s the Government Tourist Bureau and the Department of Agriculture and Stock vacated the building, and the Works Department re-located some offices there in 1957. The SGIO vacated the building in 1969, following which the Public Curator's Office moved to the ground floor, and the Valuer General's Office occupied the whole of the first floor. In mid-1980, the Public Curator's Office vacated the building, following which the interior was remodelled, and the ground floor occupied principally by offices of the Magistrate's Courts. In 1992/93 the building was converted for use as the Cairns City Council's Fine Arts Gallery.
","criteria":"The Cairns Court House Complex survives as an important illustration of the growth and rebuilding of Cairns in the interwar years, when Cairns was transformed from a late 19th century town to a progressive, post-war city. In particular, the place illustrates State Government confidence in Cairns as an important regional centre after the First World War, without which confidence little of the city's spectacular growth at this time would have been possible. The complex has sustained a continued government presence in Cairns since the establishment of the town in 1876, in particular as the site of the Cairns Court House from 1884 to 1992.
|In particular, the place illustrates State Government confidence in Cairns as an important regional centre after the First World War, without which confidence little of the city's spectacular growth at this time would have been possible.
|The Cairns Court House Complex, comprising a single-storeyed masonry Court House and two-storeyed masonry former Public Offices together with established gardens, imbue a formal expression of fine quality interwar public architecture adapted to suit a tropical climate. The classical detailing and interior finishes of the former Public Offices express a high quality of design and workmanship.
|The Cairns Court House Complex survives as an important illustration of the growth and rebuilding of Cairns in the interwar years, when Cairns was transformed from a late 19th century town to a progressive, post-war city.
|The complex has sustained a continued government presence in Cairns since the establishment of the town in 1876, in particular as the site of the Cairns Court House from 1884 to 1992.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15152,"place_ref":600377,"name":"Cairns Customs House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6A-8A Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former customs reserve occupies a 2,656 square metre site at the southern end of the city centre, with frontages to Abbott Street (the principal commercial axis) and the Esplanade.
The buildings on the site include:
1 Former Customs House [1936-37] An inter-war two-storeyed rendered cavity brick building, with hipped terracotta tiled roof. The building is square in plan with a projecting entrance portico and balcony. The entrance facade to Abbott Street is decorated with moulded details that are classically derived including double height pilasters, which rise to a stepped parapet. On the upper level of the Abbott Street elevation all the openings have timber shutters. All the windows and french doors in the building are multi-paned.
Internally the ground floor contains the Long Room and four offices, with the upper floor being residential accommodation of seven principal rooms. All the rooms on both levels open out onto verandahs and balconies. The building contains most of its original finishes and fittings. The Long Room has a decorative moulded plaster cornice and pilasters. All the joinery throughout the building is silky oak.
2 Former Bond Store [c1940] Designed to complement the former Customs House, the former Bond Store is a single-storeyed rendered cavity brick building, with a suspended concrete slab floor and a terracotta tiled roof. The interior has been renovated.
The grounds contain a number of mature shade trees and the site also includes garages and sheds.
","history":"The former Cairns Customs House was erected in 1936-37 by the Commonwealth Department of the Interior, Public Works branch, largely as an employment-generating initiative. It was the third customs house on the site.
The customs reserve at Cairns was the first land surveyed after proclamation of the port of Cairns on 1 November 1876. The reserve of just over 1.2 hectares included the whole of the land bounded by Abbott, Spence and Wharf Streets and the Esplanade.
By July 1877 the first customs buildings were completed at what was then known as Trinity Bay, but the site was not proclaimed a customs reserve [temporary] until 1886. The buildings faced the Esplanade, and included a customs house, bond store and the sub-collector of customs' residence.
In 1889 a new, single-storeyed timber building with a frontage to Abbott Street replaced the first customs house, which was converted to a bond store. In the same year the site was proclaimed a permanent reserve for customs purposes.
At federation, the customs reserve became the property of the Commonwealth, and was occupied by the Department of Trade & Customs. In 1905 it was subdivided into three allotments, two being revested with the state government. Allotment 2, with frontages to the Esplanade and Abbott Street, became customs reserve R.293. This site contained the 1889 customs house and a bond store [1876 customs house]. The latter was extended in the early part of the twentieth century.
The present Customs House was constructed on the site during the large-scale interwar redevelopment of Cairns, in which the city centre was virtually rebuilt. This
building boom was in part a consequence of severe cyclone damage suffered by the city in 1920 and 1927. Also it was a reflection of a developing economy sustained by the introduction of a post-1918 Soldier Settlement Scheme to the Atherton Tableland, and the opening of the rail link between Cairns and Brisbane in 1924. Cairns became the northern terminus of the coastal railway, and functioned as a service town for sugar, mining, maize, dairying, timber and fruit growing.
By the late 1930s, Cairns had become the third largest port in Queensland.
Plans for a two-storeyed masonry customs building were prepared by architect Robert Henry Bowen of Commonwealth Public Works, Queensland, in 1936. The ground floor contained offices, and the upper floor provided residential accommodation for the sub-collector of customs. It was constructed in 1936-37 by local building contractors Watkins & Deal, at a cost of £8,500.
The building was erected on the same Abbott Street site as the preceding customs house, which was relocated to the backyard to provide temporary office accommodation while the new building was being constructed. The 1889 building was removed/demolished at a later date.
Plans for a new bond store on the site were prepared in mid-1939. The first customs house/bond store appears to have been removed to accommodate the new building, which was erected by 1941.
In 1970 the first floor residence in the customs house was vacated to accommodate increased office staff, and in 1989 the customs department removed to a new building in Aplin Street.
Between 1986 and 1991 the bond store was occupied by the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service. The site was purchased by Suncorp in 1987.
","criteria":"The former Cairns Customs House is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Cairns' history, the site being associated with the earliest European settlement of the Trinity Bay area and with the development of Cairns as the principal port in far northern Queensland. The present buildings were associated with the administration of customs operations at Cairns for over 50 years.
|The former Cairns Customs House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an interwar custom house employing classical motifs.
|The site and buildings are valued for social and historic reasons by the Cairns community, as part of an historic government precinct which includes the adjacent Anzac Memorial Park and reserve R.886.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15153,"place_ref":600378,"name":"Cairns War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"The Esplanade","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Cairns War Memorial, facing Trinity Bay to the north-east, is located in a park reserve on the Esplanade near the junction with Florence Street. The WWI monument is located opposite the Cairns RSL at the corner of Florence Street, and is clearly visible from both the road and a walkway along the foreshore. The view from the road, with the WWI monument, a symbol of great sacrifice, juxtaposed against a tranquil, palm-lined setting overlooking the ocean, is particularly evocative. A memorial garden walkway, surrounded by trees and shrubs, is located north-west of the WWI monument.
The WWI monument is square in plan and sits on a stepped concrete platform surrounded by eight concrete bollards and a tapered unpolished granite base. The sandstone pedestal has a recessed block, with leaded marble plates mounted on each face, flanked by red polished granite corner columns. One marble plate contains dedicatory inscriptions only, while the other three include inscriptions and an honour roll of 140 alphabetically arranged men's names, followed by two female nurses' names. Above this is a tapering painted sandstone obelisk with four clock faces, set at 4.28, each side of the rounded apex. The obelisk rests on a deep cornice, above which is the AIF symbol. Surmounting the apex is a sandstone statue of a soldier facing out to sea with head erect, rifle ‘at ease' and a tree stump support; the statue is now painted.
The monument is flanked by a 1940 field gun set on a raised concrete slab to the north and an 1887 naval gun with gun shield, also on a raised concrete slab, to the south-east. The area between the monument and the guns is paved, with lines of bollards, flags and foxtail palms within the paved area. Additional palms, plus lighting, are located outside the paved area.
To the north-west of the 1940 field gun is a small concrete cairn with metal plaques honouring M and Z Special Units of WWII. There is also a metal plaque, set onto a concrete block, dedicated to the 31/51 Australian Infantry battalion (2 AIF), between the WWI monument and the ocean.
North-west of the monument is a memorial garden walkway, aligned south-east to north-west. It includes ten recessed curved bays of rendered concrete blockwork with sandstone capping, each bay including a bronze memorial plaque mounted on a sandstone plinth. The plaques are dedicated to WWII (1939-1945); the Korean War (1950-1953); Malaya and Borneo (1948-1960, 1965-1966); South Vietnam (1962-1973); each of the three armed services; and the Queensland Police, Ambulance, and Fire and Rescue services.
North-west of the memorial garden walkway is a memorial flame artwork, consisting of a stylised metal flame on a circular painted concrete base.
","history":"The Cairns War Memorial is located between the Esplanade and Trinity Bay near Florence Street. It includes a granite, sandstone and marble World War I (WWI) monument with a soldier (or ‘digger') statue; an 1887 naval gun and a 1940 field gun; and a memorial garden walkway with plaques commemorating four post-WWI conflicts, the military services, and emergency service organisations. Initially unveiled in 1926 at the intersection of Abbott Street and Shields Street, the WWI monument was relocated to its current site in 1972. The monument has strong aesthetic and social significance and is part of a pattern of commemoration prevalent across Queensland and Australia after WWI. The later memorials added near the monument represent the common Australian practice of adding post-WWI conflict memorials and plaques to WWI memorial sites, and are also of social significance.
Trinity Bay was chosen as the port for the Hodgkinson goldfield in 1876. The first settlers arrived in October that year and Cairns became a port of entry on 1 November 1876. The founding of Port Douglas in 1877 almost stifled Cairns, as it provided an easier access route to the Hodgkinson. When tin was discovered on the Wild River in 1880, the road from Port Douglas to Herberton was also preferred to the pack tracks from Cairns. However, in September 1884 the government announced Cairns as the preferred terminus for a railway from Herberton to the coast and Cairns' future as the main settlement and port for Far North Queensland was assured. It was declared a municipality in 1885, and the municipal council became a town council in 1903. Cairns was declared a city in 1923 and the following year the coastal rail link from Brisbane to Cairns was completed. During the interwar period the economy of Far North Queensland boomed - thanks to an expanding and subsidised sugar industry, improved transport, and increased tourism. This prosperity was reflected in the city's built environment.
Like all Australian towns and cities, Cairns was affected by the impact of WWI. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. This meant that around 69% of embarked personnel became casualties - or 21% of eligible Australian males.[1] To 2013, no previous or subsequent war has had such an impact on Australia in terms of loss of life; almost every community in every Australian state lost young people.[2] Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. The word 'cenotaph' literally means 'empty tomb' and was commonly applied to war memorials following its use for the famous Cenotaph at Whitehall, London. Cenotaphs were tapering structures like the London precedent but the term applied generally to war monuments.
WWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards, stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns or urns), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland the soldier statue was the most popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states.[3] The first permanent WWI memorial was unveiled at Balmain, NSW, 23 April 1916, while the first soldier statue's foundation stone was laid at Newcastle, NSW, three weeks before ANZAC Day 1916.[4]
In Queensland, 61 ‘digger' statutes were erected to commemorate WWI, and 59 survive today.[5] The majority of these were carved from sandstone; with other materials being marble or bronze.[6] Monumental masons Andrew L Petrie & Son, of Toowong, supplied more Queensland ‘digger' statues than any other firm, while Melrose & Fenwick, of Townsville, with branches in Charters Towers, Mackay and Cairns, held a virtual monopoly over the north. The firm supplied the diggers at Cairns (1926), Finch Hatton (1921), Gordonvale (1926), Mareeba (1923), Port Douglas (1923) and Sarina (1919). Other monuments by Melrose & Fenwick include an arch and obelisk at Ayr (1925), an obelisk at Babinda, a column and an honour board at Cardwell (separate locations, both in 1922), a cross at Eton, a column at Mackay (1929), and a clock tower at Townsville (1924). [7]
The Cairns soldier statue stands ‘at ease', as do about half of Queensland's statues. The remainder stand in an attitude of mourning - ‘Rest on arms reverse' - while only one, the statue at Atherton, adopts an aggressive stance.[8] [9] All the statues supplied by Melrose & Fenwick stand ‘reverse arms' except for the Cairns statue.
The movement to build a war memorial in Cairns started as early as October 1916, when a collection was taken to form a fund for a permanent memorial, but no further action took place for some years.[10] In early 1919 fundraising began for rest homes for returned men across Queensland, with the proceeds to be divided amongst eight districts, including Cairns.[11] Later that year the Mayor of Cairns, RCF Gelling, discussed possible memorial forms (soldier statue, trees, pavilion or kiosk, honour boards, or a hospital ward) and locations (an intersection, Norman Park, the Esplanade, or ANZAC Park) with the Cairns sub-branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA).[12] ANZAC Park, at the corner of Abbott Street and Spence Street, was gazetted in December 1920, but it wasn't until May 1922 a Cairns Soldiers' War Memorial Committee was formed to raise funds for a memorial to those soldiers of the district who had died.[13] Subscription lists were issued and collectors were appointed for different areas of Cairns.
The Cairns Post regularly publicised a running total of donations from June 1922, but progress was slow. Only £165/5/9 was raised by 7 August 1922, and in September of that year a citizen complained in the Cairns Post that members of the Memorial Committee were ‘waiting for another war, so that the one memorial will do for the fallen in both wars'.[14] On ANZAC Day 1923 a procession took place from the military drill hall on Lake Street to ANZAC Park, where wreaths were laid on a temporary platform, and Digger Brown, the veteran presiding at the platform, stated it was a disgrace that a town of 8000 people could not raise money for a memorial.[15]
Part of the reason for a delay in erecting a Cairns war memorial was disagreement over its form. A marble arch and a wrought iron gate in front of the courthouse were suggested in August 1922,[16] while a kiosk in ANZAC Park was suggested in November 1923. The option of a tea room kiosk, including stone panels with names of the dead and a ‘digger' statue on the roof, was suggested by the Cairns Fathers' Association with the approval of the RSL. The cost was estimated to be £3000-£4000, and the kiosk was the favoured option from December 1923 until mid-1924. However, the scheme was opposed by some, and the Mayor, JG Hoare, had concerns about the cost of a kiosk even though he supported a useful memorial.[17] Only £497 had been raised by 29 November 1923.
The argument over whether a war memorial should simply be a monument, or have a utilitarian function (the sacred versus the useful), was repeated all over Australia. The utilitarians believed that their approach was more enlightened and humane, and utility also appealed to local governments, as donations could offset the cost of needed infrastructure. However, monumentalists argued that utilitarian solutions were at the mercy of progress and would become outmoded over time. Monumentalists also believed that it was not really ‘commemoration', if a public resource that should have been built anyway was named a memorial. Post-WWI, most Australian localities decided on a monumental approach (60%), with only 22% choosing utilitarian buildings (mostly halls) and 18% choosing the compromise position of utilitarian monuments.[18]
In November 1923 the Cairns Post reported ‘certain sections have advocated something of a purely monumental nature, others have been equally keen in urging the erection of something which will be of public service, such as a hall or similar building, suitably ornamented with the names of the fallen'.[19] The newspaper pointed out if the aim was to build something of benefit to a larger, future Cairns, then it had to be kept in mind later generations might add new memorials; and the city could only erect a memorial which it could afford. The money available would help determine the form of the memorial. The Cairns Post article added the project was more likely to get local government subsidies, and public support, if the memorial had public utility- such as a city clock.
However, the opinion of monumentalists was expressed by WM Carleton Brush, who stated that ‘to collect money for a memorial for our fallen, and spend it for the benefit of the living, is shameful'. Instead of a kiosk, there should be a cenotaph on the Esplanade. ‘An ice cream shop or a dancing hall are not monuments to those who are buried elsewhere, but are monuments to the selfishness of the living'.[20]
After wrangling within the War Memorial Committee in early 1924, when Mayor Hoare and the women subscribers squared off against those men in favour of the kiosk,[21] a more modest form of utilitarian monument was decided on at a public meeting of subscribers in July 1924 - a public clock, with striker, on a column (the final form was an obelisk rather than a column). Cairns did not have a town clock, and it was recognised that the city could not afford a kiosk; opinion now favoured ‘some object combining beauty and utility with convenient and suitable form'.[22] It was stated that ‘every hour that it strikes the people will then realise that the clock is in memory of the men who left the district.'[23] The idea of a clock may have been given a boost by the unveiling of a granite memorial column with four clock faces (built by Melrose & Fenwick) in Townsville in April 1924.[24]
At this stage the plan was for three marble plates to list those who had enlisted, with a fourth plate for those who had failed to return, but the memorial eventually only included those who died, arranged alphabetically (apart from two nurses) over three slabs. Many other Australian war memorials also listed those who served and survived. This was either by deliberate choice, or because smaller localities had the room on the memorial to list everyone. How to list the names - alphabetically or chronologically - was also a local decision. Just over half of Australia's WWI memorials list survivors (the majority on separate panels). This was far more common in Australia than in the other Allied countries, because Australia was the only combatant country without conscription, and people felt it was appropriate to acknowledge the volunteers. Some communities went so far as to list those who had volunteered but had been rejected as medically unfit - such as at Montville in Queensland. About one in 10 local memorials record nurses' names. [25]
In October 1924 a design competition for the memorial was won by Melrose & Fenwick, although the height of their design was later increased. By this time £936/8/6 had been raised. A prominent position on the corner of Abbott and Shields Streets was selected as the site for the memorial in December 1924.
The foundation stone was laid by Mayor AJ Draper on 4 January 1925, and sales of cards to be placed in a time capsule in the stone, with the names of citizens who had purchased them, raised £6/4/-, boosting funds to £1113. Two local newspapers and an official message were also put into the capsule.[26] It was anticipated that the memorial, of blue granite and freestone, would be unveiled on ANZAC Day 1925, but delays occurred over the design of the clock to surmount the obelisk, and no tenders were received until mid-1925.[27] Eventually it was realised that a striking clock would be too heavy for the memorial, and when the memorial was finally unveiled on ANZAC Day 1926, it included a non-striking clock (actually four impulse, or ‘slave' clocks, operated by a master clock). The concrete foundation stone was prepared by TB O'Meara & Sons of Cairns; the base was constructed by contractor M Garvey of Cairns; and Harry Orton of Melrose & Fenwick carried out the work on the memorial itself.[28]
Unveiled by Mayor Draper (who preferred a clock to a non-practical memorial) in front of a crowd of 3000 citizens, the monument was reported as being 41' (12.5m) high and composed of granite, freestone and marble. The final cost of the monument and clock, £2074, was met by last minute fundraising by Scouts and Girl Guides, plus an anonymous donation of £66, allowing it to be unveiled debt-free. The Reverend CW Morsley spoke at the ceremony, claiming that the clock would remind people of the time of day, but it would also remind them that this was the time when they commemorated the courage of the men who helped Australia step into its nationhood; a time when they condemned war; and a time to work for peace.[29]
The Cairns monument is the most expensive soldier statue memorial in Queensland, probably due to the extra cost of the clock function; the next most expensive is Goondiwindi's at £1800.[30] The only other memorial to combine clocks and a statue in Queensland is at Bowen (unveiled 1926), built by Andrew L Petrie & Son. Other forms of Queensland WWI memorial that incorporate, or once incorporated, clocks are located in Barcaldine (1924, QHR 600018), Goomeri (1940, QHR 600642), Ithaca (1922, QHR 600274), and Townsville (1924, QHR 600934).[31]
WWI monument sites were usually chosen to be prominent and accessible, such as parks or major intersections, or were outside schools, town halls, and post offices. However, as towns grew and motor traffic volumes increased over time, monuments at intersections could become traffic hazards and a number were relocated - as was the case in Cairns. The Cairns monument stood at the intersection of Shields and Abbott Street until it was moved in 1972 to its current location between the Esplanade and the ocean, opposite the RSL, which has occupied its site (initially as a rest home) since c.1919.[32]
By 1972 the clocks had been removed. The four impulse clocks, advanced every 30 seconds by a battery powered master clock (initially sited at Mackay's jewellers on Shields Street, and later the Council Chambers on Abbott Street) had not worked accurately since mains power was installed. They have now been replaced with painted replicas, set to the time of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli - 4.28am on the morning of 25 April 1915. [33]
During the move the soldier statue was dropped. Both arms broke off, the head fell off, and the rifle broke into three pieces, requiring repairs to be made. The name cards and newspapers inserted in the foundation time capsule in 1925 were retrieved at the time of the move (their current location is unknown) and a new capsule containing Cairns City Council and RSL records was placed beneath the paving in front of the memorial's new location.
At the new site a 1940 field gun (Quick Firing 25 pounder, MKII, Vickers Armstrong), and an 1887 naval gun (Vavasseur 5 inch breech-loading gun, Royal Carriage Department, Woolwich) were placed on either side of the WWI monument. The naval gun was sent to Cairns in 1889 for use by the Cairns Naval Brigade, formed in 1888, and it was initially positioned at the Cairns Courthouse.[34] Guns of the same make and manufacture date are currently located at Maryborough and Townsville.
The Cairns War Memorial's statue had been painted by 1985.[35] The WWI monument and the two guns underwent repair work in 2001. Landscaping work around the monument c.2003 included new concrete platforms for the guns, paving, extra concrete bollards, flagstaffs, palm trees, and lighting. A memorial garden walkway and a memorial flame sculpture were added north-west of the monument during the Esplanade's redevelopment in 2003. The walkway includes memorial plaques dedicated to post-WWI conflicts, in accordance with the RSL's desire to have a more inclusive war memorial.[36] The addition of memorials to later conflicts on or near WWI memorials is a common practice in Queensland and Australia,[37] and creates a chronological record of the military service and sacrifice of a particular town or region over time. A World War II (WWII) monument to M and Z Special Units, which was previously located at the site of the Z Experimental Station ‘House on the Hill' at Earlville, and then at the HMAS Cairns naval base from 1994, was moved to near the WWI monument in 2006; and a memorial to 31/51 Australian Infantry Battalion (2 AIF) has also been erected.
References
[1] Casualties include those who died, were wounded, went missing or were captured. Casualty figures vary somewhat, depending on the source. If the numbers of those who suffered from sickness are included in casualty figures, the casualty rate rises to 96% of embarkations. Embarkation figure is from: Inglis, KS., Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape. Miegunyah Press, Victoria, 1998, p.92. Figures for total eligible males, and died, wounded, missing, POW or sick are from http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/enlistment/ww1/ (accessed 5/08/2013).
[2] Twenty-one female nurses died of sickness during war service, according to Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, p.185; or 29 according to McIvor, S and McIvor, T. Salute the brave: A pictorial record of Queensland war memorials, UQ Press, 1994, p.186.
[3] Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, p.161.
[4] Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, pp. 109-110.
[5] There were only 55 WWI soldier statues in place in 1994. See McIvor and McIvor, Salute the brave: A pictorial record of Queensland war memorials, p.163; but the Manly [QHR 600249], Apple Tree Creek [QHR 600607], Cordalba, and Ipswich Western Suburbs diggers have since been restored or replicated.
[6] Sandstone is a form of freestone (a soft, fine-grained stone which can be worked in any direction without shattering), but not all freestones are sandstone. The soldiers at the Ipswich Railway Workshops and Dalby (by John Whitehead and Sons, Westminster, London) are bronze.
[7] Information found in Judith McKay, Lest We Forget: Reports to the Returned Services League, Queensland Branch on a study of war memorials in Queensland (Study funded by the National Estate Program jointly administered by the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments), Second report, 1985, pp. 57-63.
[8] Judith McKay, `Putting the digger on a pedestal', Historic Environment, vol.5, no.3, 1986, pp.11-13.
[9] Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, p.169.
[10] Permanent Memorial', Cairns Post, 2 October 1916, p.4.
[11] ‘ANZAC Day, suggested celebrations', Cairns Post, 22 February 1919, p.8.
[12] ‘Cairns Soldiers. Suggestions for civic monuments', Cairns Post, 4 September 1919, p.8. A memorial avenue of trees was eventually planted along Sheridan Street from Aplin Street to Edge Hill in early 1931: ‘Cairns Memorial Avenue', Cairns Post, 12 March 1931, p.4.
[13] ‘Memorial for Cairns District Soldiers', Cairns Post 10 May 1922, p.5; ‘Soldier's War Memorial Committee', Cairns Post, 16 May 1922, p.4.
[14] ‘Cairns Memorial', Cairns Post, 20 September 1922, p.4.
[15] ‘ANZAC Day Services', Cairns Post, 26 April 1923, p.5.
[16] ‘Cairns and District War Memorial', Cairns Post, 15 August 1922, p.4.
[17] ‘War memorial. Cairns Subscriber's meeting.' Cairns Post, 6 December 1923, p.4.
[18] Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, p. 144.
[19] ‘The Cairns War Memorial', Cairns Post, 19 November 1923, p.4.
[20] ‘Cairns Memorial', Cairns Post, 21 December 1923, p.9.
[21] ‘Cairns and District Soldier's Memorial Committee', Cairns Post, 21 March 1924, p.4; ‘Cairns War Memorial. Subscribers Meeting.' Cairns Post, 3 April 1924, p.4.
[22] ‘Cairns war memorial', Cairns Post, 17 July 1924, p.4.
[23] ‘Marble column and town clock. War memorial for Cairns. Unanimous decision of meeting of subscribers'. Cairns Post, 17 July 1924, p.5.
[24] ‘The soldiers' memorial. The unveiling ceremony', Townsville Daily Bulletin, 26 April 1924, pp.4-5.
[25] Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, pp. 179-185.
[26] ‘Cairns District Soldier's Memorial', Cairns Post, 2 January 1925, p.4; ‘Soldier's memorial. Foundation stone at Cairns', The Brisbane Courier, 5 January 1925, p.8.
[27] ‘Cairns Memorial Clock. Consideration of tenders. Further particulars sought from favoured tender'. Cairns Post, 29 July 1925, p.5.
[28] National Survey of War Memorials, survey form for Cairns War Memorial, 16.5.1985. In National Trust of Queensland file, CNS 1/28.
[29] ‘Unveiling of the War Memorial Clock. Inspiring ANZAC Day ceremony in Cairns', Cairns Post, 26 April 1926, p.5. The Cairns Post claimed 146 names, including two women, were listed, but only 142 names are present today. The concrete bollards around the memorial were not present in the earliest photos of the memorial, but they existed by the 1930s.
[30] Judith McKay, Lest We Forget: Reports to the Returned Services League, Queensland Branch on a study of war memorials in Queensland, Second report, 1985, p.45.
[31] Information from Judith McKay, Lest We Forget, Second report, 1985, pp.57-63.
[32] ‘Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Rest Home', Cairns Post, 15 October 1918, p.7
[33] ‘The Cairns War Memorial Conservation Management Plan, Report to Cairns Regional Council, August 2012', Susan McIntyre-Tamwoy Heritage Consultants, pp.13-14. The four clock faces plus the master clock are now held at the Cairns Museum.
[34] ‘Cairns Naval Brigade', Cairns Post, 29 May 1889, p.2
[35] Information from Judith McKay, Lest We Forget, Second report, 1985.
[36] ‘The Cairns War Memorial Conservation Management Plan', p. 15.
[37] Inglis, Sacred Places: War memorials in the Australian landscape, pp. 361-362, 377-392.
","criteria":"The Cairns War Memorial is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in major world events.
The World War I (WWI) monument, first unveiled at a different site in 1926, is a tribute to those from the district who died during WWI (1914-1918). WWI memorials, as the focus of ANZAC Day ceremonies, are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
The later memorials added near the WWI monument represent the common Australian practice of adding post-WWI conflict memorials and plaques to WWI memorial sites. This facilitates remembrance of all those who have died in Australia's overseas conflicts.
|The WWI monument is an excellent example of its type. It is located in a prominent position and includes a list of those from the local community who died in the war. It uses high quality materials and design in a formal composition with strong symbolic meaning, and has had memorials to later conflicts added nearby.
|The Cairns War Memorial, a place of strong symbolic meaning to the community of Cairns and its region, is important for its aesthetic significance. It is a place of sombre ceremonial purpose and reflection, heightened by its siting on the Esplanade overlooking the Coral Sea. The strong axiality of its paths and formal placement of memorials, plantings and flagpoles add to this aesthetic landscape.
|As a focal point for remembrance ceremonies, the Cairns War Memorial is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations. The WWI monument has a long, special and enduring connection with the people of Cairns and surrounding district, while more recently placed memorials have added new layers of meaning.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15154,"place_ref":600379,"name":"Central Court","alternate_name":"Central Hotel | Central Building","street_address":"39 - 49 Lake Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Central Court, located on the northwestern corner of Lake and Spence Streets, is a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure with verandahs to both street frontages.
The building exhibits Art Nouveau and Federation influences in its design. Decorative parapets provide a prominent skyline feature, with an asymmetrical combination of piers surmounted by cupolas projecting above, with curved gables and a cylindrical corner tower with cupola. Both street frontages have the words THE CENTRAL HOTEL placed centrally in relief.
Verandahs have timber posts, with the first floor having curved timber brackets and valance, a corrugated iron skillion awning and wrought iron balustrade. The ground floor has lattice spandrel panels, some of which are arched, and partially turned timber posts. Both verandahs have a centrally positioned void space with timber balustrade.
Internally, the building has been extensively altered and rebuilt. The ground floor has an L-shaped arcade, with entrances positioned centrally on both street frontages, with a large central eating area and central stair under a clerestory skylight.
The first floor contains a nightclub at the southern end with a restaurant to the north. Both have access to the verandah via french doors, with the southern corner having been enclosed to form office space.
","history":"This two-storeyed masonry building was erected in 1908-09 for Cairns businessman William John Munro, who acquired the land in 1900. This site previously housed a small branch of the Bank of North Queensland and various other small shops fronting Lake Street.
WJ Munro was born c1864 in New Zealand, to Scottish parents. As a youth he spent some time in Victoria before travelling north to Herberton, and then Cairns, in the early 1880s. A self-made man, Munro acquired, along with partners R & J Gordon, large pastoral holdings in North Queensland, and established Munro & Gordon and WJ Munro & Co., wholesale and retail butchers of Cairns, with large meatworks and meat exporting operations. His other North Queensland business interests included sugar, mining, dairying and real estate. He was a prominent and well-liked citizen, and chairman of the Cairns Shire Council from 1898 until his early death in Sydney in March 1912, at the age of 48. When news was received in Cairns of his death, flags on the public buildings and shipping were flown at half mast.
Munro commissioned the North Queensland and Melbourne architectural firm of Tunbridge, Tunbridge & Lynch to design the Central building, which was to contain a hotel and a number of shops and offices. Charles Dalton Lynch, based in Townsville, was the North Queensland partner, and the firm had a branch office in Cairns. Their work in Cairns at this time included the Harbour Board Offices and School of Arts (QHR 600380), both erected in 1907, and the rebuilding of the Court House Hotel, erected in 1908 a little ahead of the Central.
At the time of construction, the Central building was considered palatial and one of the most imposing buildings in Cairns. It had fine views of Trinity Inlet and the surrounding hills, and itself was prominently visible to passengers alighting from the coastal steamers. Located in the new heart of the Cairns commercial district, (the name Central was considered particularly apt), the hotel was erected during the redevelopment of the Lake-Spence Street area which redefined the commercial centre of Cairns. Adjacent buildings erected at this period include the former Adelaide Steamship Co. Ltd Building (1910) (QHR 600381) and Boland's Building (1913-14).
Erected by Cairns builder W Phillips, the hotel comprised bar and parlours on the ground floor, with expansive verandah, dining room, kitchen & serving rooms, sitting room, 27 guest bedrooms, bathrooms, and accommodation for the lessee and staff, on the first floor. The dining room, which featured a domed roof and glass front to the verandah, could accommodate 100 diners.
The first lessee of the Central Hotel was James Watters, former licensee of the Federal Hotel in Cairns, who obtained the licence in February 1909 and commenced trade about April that year. At the Central, Watters and his wife created one of the best appointed hotels in Far North Queensland, catering in particular to travellers and visitors.
The property remained in the Munro-Martin-Mowder family until 1959, and publican James Kipps held the lease from 1924 until 1945. In 1924 he commissioned Cairns architects HR Lawrence & TMW Lordan to design alterations to the main bar.
The Central building remained substantially intact until 1975, when the ground floor interior was remodelled and some alterations were made to the first floor interior. In 1988, Fricker Developments (Qld) Pty Ltd undertook a major redevelopment of the building, converting it into a shopping court with 17 ground floor shops, and a first floor entertainment facility which included lounges, bars and a restaurant. Despite this re-working of the interior spaces, the decorative exterior was retained as a popular Cairns landmark.
","criteria":"Central Court is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the early 20th century re-development of the area around the intersection of Lake and Spence Streets in Cairns, including construction of the Adelaide Steamship Co. Ltd Building (1910) [600381] and Boland's Building (1913-14), which re-defined the commercial centre of Cairns.
|The place exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Cairns community, in particular: the contribution of the building, through scale, form and materials, to the Lake and Spence Streets streetscapes and Cairns townscape; the highly decorative and intact parapets and verandahs; and its landmark quality.
|It has a special association with important Cairns businessman and local politician WJ Munro, and as evidence of the commercial work of the architectural firm Tunbridge, Tunbridge & Lynch, which executed a significant body of work in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15155,"place_ref":600380,"name":"School of Arts, Cairns (former)","alternate_name":"Former School of Arts Building; Cairns School of Arts (former); Cairns Museum; Cairns School of Arts","street_address":"93-105 Lake Street","suburb":"CAIRNS CITY","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The School of Arts, Cairns (former) located on the south-western corner of Lake and Shields streets, is a two-storeyed building with verandahs to both street frontages and a corrugated iron roof concealed behind a parapet wall. The building is of concrete, with only the ground floor being reinforced.
The building was built in 3 stages, with the first being the corner section. The third stage of construction, the northern end on Lake Street, was designed as a separate unit. This is still evident in the treatment of the parapet, although the verandah was extended along this elevation in the 1983 renovation works replacing a cantilevered awning.
The verandahs have corrugated iron skillion awnings and timber posts and brackets, with a timber valance to the ground floor and cast metal balustrade to the first floor. The northern and western sections of the first floor verandah have been glazed.
The first stage has the words SCHOOL OF ARTS to both street frontages, with the date 1907 at the corner. The second stage has a raised gabled parapet which also has the building's name, but in different lettering. The third stage's original facade and lettering has been altered. A terrazzo slab with the words SCHOOL OF ARTS is laid in the footpath at the corner of the building.
Internally, the ground floor contains retail outlets and has been extensively altered with an arcade from the Lake Street frontage through to the rear of the building. The street facade has ceramic tiling, and some early shopfront elements including timber framing and leadlight panels. The first floor contains museum and display space, with suspended ceilings and air conditioning throughout, and french doors with fanlights opening onto the verandah. It is entered from Shields Street via a stair with a turned timber balustrade, and most internal walls have been removed.
The 1983 renovation works include a concrete verandah, with steel posts and balustrade, constructed at the rear linking a 2-storeyed toilet and storage building. The rear of the site contains carparking and service areas.
","history":"This two-storeyed concrete building was erected in 1907 as new premises for the Cairns School of Arts, replacing an earlier adjacent building in Shields Street.
\nSchools of Arts were synonymous with Mechanics' Institutes, established in Britain early in the 19th century, and transplanted throughout the British Empire during the colonial era. The movement was instituted by George Birkbeck, who in 1800 established a class for journeymen mechanics in Glasgow, and later formed the first Mechanics' Institute in London in 1824. The purpose of forming such an institute was to improve the education of working men, and to instruct them in various trades. By the late 19th century, Mechanics' Institutes had become popular agencies of adult education in general.
\nMechanics' Institutes were part of a wider 19th century movement promoting popular education in Britain, at which time co-operative societies, working men's colleges and the university extension movement were established. The call for popular education in turn can be contextualised within the broader liberal, laissez-faire, non-interventionist philosophy which dominated British social, economic and political ideologies in the 19th century. In this environment, Mechanics' Institutes flourished as a means by which working men might improve their lot, either through self-education (the provision of reading rooms was an important facility provided by the Institutes), or by participating in instructional classes organised and funded by Institute members.
\nIn the Australian colonies, Mechanics' Institutes were more likely to be called Schools of Arts, and they were more likely to be run by the middle-classes. The provision of reading rooms, museums, lectures and classes were still important, but the Australian schools were also more likely to include a social programme in their calendar of events.
\nA School of Arts was established in Cairns in October 1885, by which time funds already were being raised for the erection of suitable meeting premises. The School's first building, a single-storeyed timber structure, was erected in 1886 in Shields Street to the west of the present building. Prior to its opening in May that year, the School of Arts Committee had established a reading room in rented premises.
\nDuring the second half of the 1880s the Cairns School of Arts flourished and a museum was established. The economic depression of the early 1890s, however, forced the School to close temporarily at the end of 1895, re-opening in 1897. In the early 1900s, Technical College classes were commenced at the School of Arts; these were taken over by the Department of Public Instruction in 1911.
\nBy the early 1900s the School was in need of larger premises. On 8 December 1906, the Cairns School of Arts Bill was passed through the Queensland Parliament, empowering the Trustees to mortgage the School of Arts Reserve at Cairns to the value of £2500, for the purpose of erecting a new building. A design competition was conducted for a new building, two-storeyed with upstairs accommodation for the School of Arts and the ground floor to be revenue-producing, the cost of which was not to exceed £2000. A design submitted by AB Polin was accepted, but rejected when tenders far exceeded the amount specified. The School of Arts Committee then commissioned Melbourne and North Queensland architects Tunbridge, Tunbridge and Lynch, who were Townsville-based but had a branch office in Cairns by 1907, to design a building to cost no more than the approved figure. Their work in Cairns around this time included the Harbour Board Offices (1907), the Central Hotel buildings (1908) (QHR 600379), and the rebuilding of the Court House Hotel (1908). Hanson & Sons won the subsequent School of Arts contract with a price of £2170, and the new building was opened officially on 5 December 1907.
\nThe building incorporated an early use of reinforced concrete in Queensland, although not employed through the whole of the structure. The concrete walls of the ground floor were reinforced with 1/2 inch round steel rods, fused where they intersected at 12 inch intervals. The floors at ground level were poured without reinforcement, and for the upper level walls, concrete was poured between timber formwork, without reinforcement.
\nThe building has been subject to a number of alterations and extensions since 1907. A verandah and bathroom had been constructed upstairs at the rear by 1925, and in 1929 the Shields Street verandah was enclosed with windows. The enclosing of part of the Lake Street verandah probably dates to this period as well.
\nThe first major extension was carried out in 1932. As early as 1925, the Committee was considering an extension of the building to accommodate more revenue-producing shops and offices. Plans were drawn by Committee member and architect SS Oxenham, but Cairns already had a glut of vacant shops for rent, and the concept was postponed until 1932, when the Committee commissioned Cairns architects R Hill & AJH Taylor to prepare fresh plans, and the verandahed facade was extended along Lake Street at a cost of £2500. The extension provided more shop space at ground level and increased library accommodation upstairs. At this time, a decorative parapet was superimposed on the 1907 building to match that of the 1932 building.
\nThe ground floor shop fronts were modernised in 1934-35, R Hill preparing the plans.
\nA second major extension to the building was carried out in 1939-40. Architects Hill & Taylor were again commissioned to extend the building along Lake Street to the boundary of the property. This time, the architects felt that an extension of the verandah was unnecessary and suggested that a cantilever awning would be suitable and that the elevation be treated as a separate unit. Cairns builder A Ferrari constructed the art deco styled extensions at a cost of approximately £4,000. At the same time a terrazzo slab bearing the name School of Arts was placed in the concrete of the footpath at the corner of Lake and Shields Streets.
\nHill & Taylor designed new male and female bathrooms in 1941 in what is believed to have been an enclosed first floor verandah. The original bathroom, beside the meeting room, was probably converted to a kitchen at that time.
\nThe ground floor of the Shields Street facade was extended c1956, to connect the School of Arts to the Penny Savings Bank. Both the bank and the 1950s extensions have been demolished.
\nFor seventy years, the first floor of the School of Arts building housed the only public library in Cairns, a subscription library with up to 1,000 members. It was run by the School of Arts Committee, and financed from the rents obtained from the shops and offices on the ground floor. By the mid-1970s, the library was the sole function of the School of Arts, which was struggling to provide an appropriate library service to a city the size of Cairns. On 30 June 1977 the School of Arts building and its library was transferred to the Cairns City Council, which moved the library into a new structure in Lake Street in 1979.
\nIn 1980 the Cairns Historical Society opened a museum in the vacated first floor premises, and c1983 the whole building was renovated. At this time the cast-iron balustrade was removed and replaced with cast aluminium, and the earlier bathrooms were removed. The museum still functions, and the ground floor retains shops and offices.
","criteria":"The School of Arts, Cairns (former) is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, being an important component of the cultural life of the Cairns community from the beginning of the 19th century, as a school of arts, public library, and museum. It is important also as an early use of reinforced concrete in Queensland.
|The place is important in demonstrating a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Cairns community, in particular the contribution of the building through scale, form and material, to the streetscapes of Lake and Shields streets and to the Cairns townscape.
|The place has a special association with the Cairns School of Arts and its contribution to adult education in Cairns for nearly 70 years, and with influential Melbourne and North Queensland architectural firm Tunbridge, Tunbridge & Lynch, as evidence of their commercial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15156,"place_ref":600381,"name":"Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd (former)","alternate_name":"Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd Building","street_address":"37 Lake Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"The former Adelaide Steam Ship building is a single-storeyed rough-rendered masonry structure, located on the corner of Lake and Spence Street at the southwestern edge of the Cairns Central business district. It reflects a strong Arts and Crafts influence in its design and detailing.
The building has a corrugated iron roof with shaped end gables and sprocketted eaves, which are supported by curved metal brackets and pierced by tapering piers with shallow ogee shaped gablets above. The corner and end piers are surmounted by spheres.
The building has arcaded verandahs to both street frontages, consisting of five bays to Lake Street and three to Spence Street, with large rounded fabric awnings attached. There is a shallow ogee shaped central gable to Lake Street, which originally surmounted the entry but now houses a recessed window, with the words THE ADELAIDE STEAMSHIP CO LTD in relief and a sculpture of one of their vessels above. Sections of concave solid balustrade have been removed to provide access to a relocated corner entry, and end bays have timber framed casement windows.
The Spence Street facade culminates with a wall return housing a keyhole shape gateway with scroll detail above, and a service drive with gates beside. A toilet block and carport are located at the rear.
Internally, the building has been refurbished.
","history":"This single-storeyed masonry building was erected in 1910 for the Adelaide Steamship Company Limited, as their new Cairns offices.
The Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd, established in Adelaide in 1875, entered the Queensland coastal trade in 1893 with a weekly service to Brisbane. By 1895 it had established an agency in Cairns, which was emerging as a major port servicing Far North Queensland's developing mineral, pastoral and sugar industries.
About 1905, the company established a branch in Cairns, possibly in rented premises. The present site was acquired in 1907 by James Harvey, chairman of the Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd from 1888 to 1915. In 1909, Cairns architect Harvey G Draper handled the tendering process for the company's new offices in Cairns, but it is not clear whether he carried out the design. The building was designed in the newly developed Arts and Crafts manner, established in Europe and adapted to the Cairns tropical climate. The building was erected during 1910 by Cairns contractors Wilson & Baillie, at a cost of £2,970, and was opened on 12 December 1910. Its location, at the corner of Lake and Spence Streets, boosted commercial development along Spence Street.
The new offices were constructed towards the end of a buoyant economic period when the principal Australian shipping companies - the Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd, the Australian United Steam Navigation Co. Ltd [Burns, Philp & Company Ltd] and the Howard Smith Company Ltd - vied for the lucrative Queensland coastal trade in passengers and cargo. Their construction reflected the Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd's growing importance to the economic prosperity of North Queensland, in particular the Cairns region, through its involvement in the sugar, coal and passenger trade.
The Adelaide Steamship Co. Ltd sold the building in 1964. In 1976 it was purchased by the present owners. Some of the concrete balustrading on the verandahs, and an office on the street corner of the building have been removed, and some timber windows have been removed or relocated.
","criteria":"The former Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd Building is important in contributing to our understanding of the evolution of Cairns as the major port of Far North Queensland in the early 20th century.
|It is significant as a rare example of an Arts and Crafts building in Cairns, which has been particularly designed to accommodate the tropical climate.
|It is significant as a rare example of an Arts and Crafts building in Cairns, which has been particularly designed to accommodate the tropical climate.
|The place exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Cairns community, in particular: the scale, form, materials and composition of architectural elements, designed in the newly developed Arts and Craft manner established in Europe and appropriately adapted to the Cairns tropical climate; and the contribution to the streetscapes of Lake and Spence streets and to the Cairns townscape.
|The place has a special association with the Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd, which made a major contribution to the economic development of Far North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15157,"place_ref":600382,"name":"Hides Hotel","alternate_name":"Hides Cairns Hotel","street_address":"87 Lake Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hides Hotel, located on the southern corner of Lake and Shields Streets, is a three-storeyed, rendered reinforced concrete structure with a U-shaped hipped corrugated iron roof concealed behind a parapet wall. The roof surrounds a central lightshaft to the two upper floors, which does not extend to the ground floor, and has a raised lift motor room at the eastern end. A single-storeyed kitchen is attached at the rear.
The building has a wide first floor timber verandah to both street frontages, with wide batten balustrade, hardboard panelled ceiling and a corrugated iron skillion awning.
The ground floor facade has been altered, with a pebble render finish to the walls and non-original window and door units, some of which are in the original openings. The first floor has timber framed, multi-paned doors with fanlights, most of which have air conditioning units inserted, opening onto the verandah.
The second floor has aluminium framed hopper windows in original arched openings which are framed by rendered mouldings and pilasters. The Lake Street elevation has the words HIDES CAIRNS HOTEL along the parapet, and a slightly recessed central bay with a balcony, rendered balustrade and a central flagpole on a rendered scrolled base at the parapet. The Shields Street elevation is less symmetrical, with two slightly recessed bays, the eastern one having a balcony with a rendered balustrade and a flagpole on a rendered scrolled base at the parapet. All windows have rounded pressed metal hoods with square bases.
Internally, the building retains the original lift and a timber staircase with cross-braced balustrade. The original office and reception area, Public Bar and toilets on the ground floor have been altered, and the Shields Street shops have been converted into a bar area, but many of the original plastered ceilings and a section of herringbone parquet flooring in the dining room remain intact. Air conditioning ducting has been inserted throughout. The first floor lounge has plastered columns with a coffered plastered ceiling, but the timber skirtings have been removed. Some bedrooms have been converted into ensuite bathrooms.
","history":"This three-storeyed, reinforced concrete hotel was constructed in two stages, 1928 and by c1936, for the O'Hara family, well known Cairns publicans. It was erected adjacent to an earlier Hides' Cairns Hotel, and for nearly four decades the two buildings functioned together as Hides' Hotel.
The earlier hotel, a substantial, 20 bedroom, two-storeyed timber building with double front verandahs and an observation tower, was erected in 1885 by Townsville contractors Hinton & Co., for publicans George Parker Hides and Duncan McColl, who also were in partnership in the Royal Hotel at Herberton. Their Cairns Hotel was located in Lake Street, adjacent to the site of the present Hides' Hotel, on land owned by Dr AE Koch, and let to Hides and McColl on a building lease. It was erected during the second wave of building activity in Cairns (the first being the 1876-77 establishment of the settlement), following Cairns's designation in 1885 as the destination of the rail link to the interior goldfields, and its proclamation as a municipality in the same year. The hotel was renovated c1891, and by 1899 a substantial, two-storeyed timber wing had been constructed at the rear, and the accommodation had been extended to 32 bedrooms.
With the construction of the Cairns Hotel, Hides and McColl pioneered Lake Street as a commercial address. The hotel also played a significant role in the early commercial and social life of Cairns, catering for commercial travellers as well as local trade. Meetings to establish a Cairns School of Arts and a Masonic Lodge were held at the hotel in November 1885, and the Cairns Chamber of Commerce held its inaugural meeting there on 13 May 1886.
McColl held the first license for the Cairns Hotel, but this was transferred in mid-1888 to Hides. Following Hides' death in 1895, his widow, Elizabeth Moir Hides, retained the Cairns Hotel license for many years, and purchased the hotel site from Dr Koch in 1899. In 1900-01 she also acquired the adjoining allotment on the corner of Lake and Shields Streets, on which the present Hides' Hotel stands. A single-storeyed timber shop on this site was demolished and replaced by the hotel garden. In 1925, both sites were transferred to O'Hara Limited.
A third period of intensive building activity in Cairns took place in the 1920s, associated with the expansion of the town as the port servicing the new soldier settlements inland; the upgrading to City status in 1923; the establishment of Cairns in 1924 as the terminus of the coastal railway from Brisbane; and the reconstruction following extensive cyclone damage to the central business district in the early and mid-1920s.
The foundation stone of the new Hides' Cairns Hotel was laid by Denis O'Hara Jnr on 16 May 1928. The building, estimated to cost approximately £30,000, was designed by Cairns architect Sydenham Stanley Oxenham, and was erected by Toowoomba and Cairns contractor MT Garvey. Local North Queensland timbers were used throughout. At the time of construction, it was one of the largest buildings in Cairns, and was one of only two three-storeyed structures in the city, the other being Boland's store at the corner of Lake and Spence Streets. The original scheme was for a frontage of 120 feet to Shields Street, but the 1928 building extended only 87 feet along Shields Street. By c1936, the original concept was completed, with the addition of two shops at ground level and two levels of bedrooms above, along Shields Street. In the 1930s, the new Hides' Cairns Hotel was pre-eminent amongst Cairns hotels, catering largely to visitors and Cairns 'society'.
The O'Hara family retained the property until 1946, when it was transferred to Burns Philp & Company Ltd, who held the title until 1976. Alterations to the ground floor of the hotel were made in 1967, (at which time also the first Cairns Hotel was demolished and replaced with a motel wing), and again in 1976, when the two shops facing Shields Street were converted to a bar. The motel does not form part of the Entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.
","criteria":"Hides Hotel, Cairns, constructed 1928-c1936, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the third phase of Cairns' development: its growth as the principal city of far North Queensland in the interwar years.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, first-class, three-storeyed, inter-war masonry hotel in Cairns, which retains a high degree of intactness and has functioned as a hotel for over 7 decades.
|The place exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Cairns community, in particular: the contribution of the building, through its siting, scale, form and material, to the streetscapes of Lake and Shields streets and to the Cairns townscape; the quality of surviving original interior finishes, including plaster work; and the wide timber verandahs.
|It has a special association for the Cairns community, with a Hides' Hotel being part of the social fabric of Cairns since 1885.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15158,"place_ref":600383,"name":"McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery","alternate_name":"Cairns General Cemetery","street_address":"127-145 McLeod Street","suburb":"CAIRNS NORTH","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Pioneer Cemetery, located on a level site on the southern corner of McLeod and Grove Streets, is bounded by the Cairns railway to the southwest and industrial buildings to the southeast.
The cemetery is well maintained, with many of the trees which had caused structural damage to graves having been removed, and an extensive landscape program undertaken. A rotunda has been recently constructed in the centre of the cemetery to display interpretive material. Paths bounded by colourful native plants, leading northeast to McLeod Street and west to Grove Street, have been laid to replicate those existing in 1901. There is a large group of pine trees to the northwest, which will eventually be removed as the acid from the pine needles damages marble.
The cemetery contains denominational divisions, the boundaries of which are not clear, including Protestant, Roman Catholic, mixed denominations and non-Christian.
Although the cemetery contains over 2500 graves, many of these are yet to be located. Sub-surface graves, identified with the use of a metal detector locating grave number markers, have each been marked with a small concrete plinth. The plinths incorporate brass plaques inscribed with the name of the deceased, year and place of birth, year of death, last place of residence and occupation, if known. Of these, approximately 200 have been positively identified and a further 100 have been located but lack enough information for positive identification. As possibly only 600-700 graves can be accurately located, the names of all those interred are intended to be placed in the recent rotunda structure.
Many of the graves have concrete surrounds with marble headstones. Some graves retain iron railing surrounds, some of which have collapsed or are partially missing. There are a few large monumental graves, featuring carved granite and marble head-pieces.
A timber paling fence has been constructed along the southwest boundary, with pine log barriers along both street frontages.
","history":"Cairns was established officially in October 1876, as a port for the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields. When the town was surveyed in late 1876, no provision was made for a public cemetery. Earliest burials took place along the Esplanade to the north of the town centre, near the hospital reserve.
On 15 September 1877, almost a year after the establishment of Cairns, a 5 acre site bounded on three sides by McLeod, Gatton and Grove Streets [Section 36, County of Cook, Town of Cairns], was gazetted as a permanent cemetery reserve. The following month, an adjacent five acres [Section 35, bounded on three sides by McLeod, Gatton and Upward Streets] also were gazetted as permanent cemetery reserve.
The 10 acre site was chosen because it was thought to be on dry ground, was sufficiently far from the inhabited section of the town, and was accessible from the hospital reserve. Only subsequently was it discovered that the site was poorly drained and subject to seasonal flooding, with graves unable to be dug to a greater depth than 3 feet.
Trustees were appointed in December 1877, but the cemetery reserves in McLeod Street appear to have been unregulated and little used until the mid-1880s. New trustees had been appointed in 1879, but by mid-1883 the cemetery was without supervision or management and no register of burials was being kept. There was no road to the site [McLeod Street was unmade beyond Spence Street in 1884], and the land was not cleared.
New trustees were appointed in September 1883, and in mid-1884 they applied to the colonial government for financial assistance to establish the Cairns General Cemetery, and to have regulations for the administration of the cemetery approved. A loan of £200 was granted, and regulations for the administration of the cemetery were gazetted on 5 July 1884. In August 1884, the trustees called tenders for fencing the Cairns General Cemetery, and in February 1885, tenders for clearing the site and also fencing the burial ground on the Esplanade. A sexton had been appointed by February 1885, and in the same month the trustees submitted to the colonial secretary their first return of receipts and expenses, year ending 31 December 1884.
Initially, only half of Section 36 and none of Section 35 was fenced as a burial ground. The cemetery appears to have been divided into sections for the use of various Christian denominations, and an area for non-Christians, in which were buried Chinese, Malays, Javanese, and Aborigines. Hebrews may have had a separate section. The Chinese in particular had contributed significantly to the economic and cultural development of Cairns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and are believed to have celebrated the feast of the dead three times each year at the cemetery.
By the end of the 19th century the cemetery had become unkempt, and was cause for local comment. Consequently, in 1900 the trustees sought permission to increase the burial fees to defray the expense of ground improvements. A new sexton, William Parsons, was appointed, and by his efforts the principal pathway was metalled and bordered with variegated hedging plants and crotons, flowering shrubs and trees were planted along the fence fronting McLeod Street, the graves were cleared of weed and spear grass, and couch grass imported from the south was laid.
In 1914 a new fence and two gates were erected, but these are no longer extant. Whether this fence enclosed the whole of Section 36 is not clear.
On 22 December 1916 a new cemetery in Martyn Street was opened, following which, burials in the McLeod Street cemetery were restricted to those in family plots. The last burial took place in 1949, and the cemetery was closed officially on 11 May 1954. Registers of burials in the cemetery exist only for the period 1887-1919, and a Register of Deaths for the period 1887-1949, but these indicate that between 1887 and 1949 there were approximately 2500 burials in the McLeod Street cemetery.
The main reason why the unsuitable site remained in use as Cairns' principal cemetery for at least 30 years, was the difficulty experienced in selecting a new location. As early as 1885, the trustees began to investigate alternative sites for a cemetery, and in May 1886, the colonial government, acting on the trustees' application, reserved for cemetery purposes a 40 acre site nearly four miles from town. In the process the McLeod Street cemetery reserves created in September and October 1877 were cancelled. The trustees immediately pointed out that half of Section 36, (allotments 1-5 and 16-20), was fenced and in use as a cemetery, and should be re-gazetted. Due to some confusion by the Lands Department, Section 36 was not re-proclaimed a cemetery reserve [R274] until June 1923. No burials had taken place in Section 35, and in 1908/09 it was divided into reserves for a morgue, endemic diseases hospital, and municipal purposes. It is now a reserve for electricity purposes.
The 1886 cemetery reserve proved too difficult to access, and was cancelled in 1890 when a new cemetery of 40 acres was reserved from the former police paddock near Stratford. Although increased to over 45 acres in 1891, and located adjacent to the Cairns-Herberton railway, it was never used as a cemetery. In 1928 part of the reserve was resumed and subdivided into residential allotments for workers' housing, and the remaining reserve was cancelled in 1940. In the meantime, the cemetery reserve in Martyn Street had been proclaimed and opened for use in late 1916.
The number of burials at the McLeod Street cemetery increased substantially after the turn of the century, and in August 1905 the Cairns Town Council, under the provisions of the Local Government Act of 1902, assumed trusteeship of the Cairns General Cemetery. Technically, this trusteeship referred to the 1890 cemetery reserve near Stratford, but the Cairns Town Council interpreted it as giving them control of the McLeod Street cemetery. This control was not made official until 1923.
The Cairns City Council failed in 1965, 1968/69, 1973/74 and 1986, to gain permission from the Lands Department to convert the McLeod Street cemetery into a park. Finally, in 1988, the Council commissioned a conservation plan for the old cemetery. This was adopted and the Council, together with local organisations and volunteers, restored the remaining graves (approximately 290), identified over 200 previously 'lost' grave sites, removed self-sown mature trees which were causing damage to graves, rebuilt the fence facing the railway line, lit the principal pathway, and built a small information centre within the grounds. The site was renamed the McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery, and is promoted in Cairns as a tourist attraction.
Burials at the McLeod Street cemetery included the first mayor of Cairns, Richard Ash Kingsford; Cairns' much admired medical pioneer, Dr Edward Koch; men who died during construction of the Cairns to Herberton Railway; and a beche-de-mere fisherman who had been associated with Trinity Bay prior to the establishment of Cairns. The surviving headstones record people from all levels of early Cairns society - professional, business, clerical, political, mercantile - and the cosmopolitan nature of early Cairns is reflected in the range of nationalities, including English, Irish, Scottish, Japanese, Javanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Bulgarian and Swedish, buried in the McLeod Street cemetery.
","criteria":"The McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery survives as a unique historical record of the multi-cultural social, economic and political life of early Cairns, and is an unusual illustration of the major events which shaped the development of Cairns and Far North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|(Criterion under review)
|In the formal arrangement of grave sites, denominational divisions and types of memorials, the cemetery reflects late 19th and early 20th century public taste and social perceptions about burial and memorial.
|The place has aesthetic value, which contributes to the Cairns townscape.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15160,"place_ref":600385,"name":"St Luke's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Lukes Anglican Church","street_address":"Sayre Crescent","suburb":"BOYNE ISLAND","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Luke's is a small church constructed in a simple, rustic style. It is timber-framed and clad with flat galvanised iron fixed with timber battens. The roof is gabled and clad with corrugated iron. The western entrance is sheltered by a small porch and there is a vestry with a separate gabled roof at the northeast end. The church has a seating capacity for 50 people.
The frame of the building consists of exposed hardwood bush posts sunk into the ground and other hardwood framing. The exterior is painted a light colour with dark stained timber battens to provide a decorative effect suggestive of half-timbering. It has a cement floor, galvanised iron roof, timber doors and window frames. Louvred panels on the side walls of the nave do not appear to be original and all other windows are casements.
The interior is plain and comprises a nave, chancel and attached vestry. The walls appear to be lined with fibrous cement, but the ceiling is unlined.
","history":"St Luke's Anglican Church on Boyne Island was erected in the early 1920s by the small farming community on the island.
Boyne Island, on the Gladstone coastline, was taken up illegally for pastoral purposes in the mid-1850s, the first official lease being granted in 1863. In 1870 much of Boyne Island was resumed by the colonial government and opened to selection, and from the late 1870s agriculturalists cultivated fruit and small crops on the island. In 1884, half the remaining pastoral lease was resumed, and several farms were established on this land in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In the 1880s, a timber mill was erected on the southwest part of the island, and a wharf reserve was proclaimed near the mouth of the Boyne River.
In the early 1900s, several more farms were taken up on Boyne Island or in its vicinity. At the time, Boyne Island was also a popular picnic destination for Gladstone residents and was used as a weekend retreat by townspeople. Around 1920, a small Saturday school was established on the island for the children of the farming community in a small shelter shed. Teachers came from Toolooa School or from Gladstone and church services are also said to have also been held regularly in a shelter across the road from the current church, which may well have been the same structure as that used for the school. The local families involved decided to build themselves a church.
The land on which the church is situated was part of an agricultural selection granted in 1908 to Henry Richard Thompson. It changed hands several times before being purchased by Harry Handley in 1922. The Handley family were farmers and donated about an acre for the church, officially subdividing and transferring ownership of the land to the Diocese of Rockhampton in 1925. Funds for the construction were raised both locally and in England, and materials, labour and furnishings were supplied mostly by local residents. The building was designed by Boyne Island resident Arthur Malpas, who also helped in the construction. Reputedly, Mr Malpas drew inspiration from photo-album pictures of half-timbered cottages at Worcester, England. The construction method and materials used to produce the effect however, were not traditional but those available locally.
St Luke's was dedicated on 12 October 1924 by Dr Crick, the Bishop of Rockhampton. At the time coins and a newspaper were placed under the foundation stone. A large sea shell was utilised as a font. In the Interwar period, as cars became more common and with the construction of a traffic bridge over the Boyne River, Wild Cattle Beach [later Tannum Sands] became a popular holiday resort. The island's permanent population appears to have risen after the Second World War, and St Luke's Church served as Boyne Island's only school building from 27 January 1953 until the school was established in another building on 14 May 1956.
In 1961 the church was rehallowed by Canon Donald Kinglake Dunn, coins and a newspaper of that year being added to the time capsule under the foundation stone. Items such as prayer books, vases, a wooden cross, communion cup and paten, pews, candle sticks and christening font were given in memory of the early residents of Boyne Island who established the church.
Boyne Island has become urbanised following the establishment of the Boyne alumina smelter in 1982. During the construction period alone, the population increased from 1,400 to 6000. Housing and public facilities have enormously increased on the island which is now effectively an industrial area.
In the late 20th century, St Mark's Ministry Centre was erected adjacent to St Luke's, which now has the role of a church hall rather than a church and is used for church group meetings, Sunday School and worship on special occasions.
","criteria":"St Luke's church is a simple chapel constructed in an idiosyncratic style using volunteer labour and locally obtained materials by the farming community on Boyne Island. It illustrates the resourcefulness of pioneer communities in providing for their needs with limited resources. The main economic activity on Boyne Island is now industrial following the establishment of alumina smelters in 1982, and so the church illustrates a way of life on the island which has passed.
|The church in its setting has a picturesque appeal effected by an imaginative use of available materials to create the impression of a rustic chapel and makes an attractive visual contribution to the character of the area.
|The church has a strong connection with the Boyne Island community having been designed and built by pioneer families and has served the community as a church, school and meeting place since 1924.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15161,"place_ref":600386,"name":"Glengarry Homestead","alternate_name":"Glengarry","street_address":"Gladstone-Monto Road","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Glengarry homestead complex consists of a brick dwelling with a modern annexe, a detached kitchen and a number of farm outbuildings. They are situated on a hill with extensive views of the surrounding countryside.
The main residence is a single storey brick building, rectangular in plan, with a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. It has verandahs to all four sides supported by timber posts. A section of the verandah on the northern side has been built in to provide modern bathroom and laundry facilities. The walls are painted except for the narrow band between verandah and main roofs and this reveals rose red bricks pointed in white cement. The bricks are laid on a course of local sandstone in a modified garden bond pattern, though this varies between walls. There is a camber arch fan over each external door. The interior has 3 rooms leading into each other. Cedar french doors open onto the verandah and the internal doors are constructed from vertical boards. The rooms are ceiled with beaded boards and have small pierced timber ceiling roses. The floorboards, believed to be local white cedar, are covered with lino imitating carpet.
There is a modern annexe at the eastern end of the building. This is constructed of fibrous cement sheeting and glass on a timber frame and is set on low concrete stumps. It is separated from the older section by a breezeway, its flat metal deck roof abutting that of the verandah facing it. A small section of the edge of the verandah roof has been removed where it touches the roof of the annexe.
Behind the brick building is a detached kitchen connected to it by a covered way. This has a frame of hardwood poles and a pyramid roof with a decorative metal ventilator and brick chimney. The roof and walls are clad with corrugated iron. The floor is of rammed earth topped with a layer of bricks and concrete. It has a main room with an open brick fireplace and chimney and two further rooms to the north. There are sash windows to the west and south walls, those on the west shaded by metal sunhoods with a pierced thistle motif. The north and east walls have modern hopper windows in the original openings.
To the north east of this building is the butcher's shop, constructed of timber and sheet iron. The central section has an arched roof of corrugated iron supported by a pole frame and is flanked by two skillion roofed sections. That to the south has corrugated iron sheeting to the walls, that to the north is now open but has the remains of timber slabs.
About 5 metres further north is a single storey timber building set on low stumps. It has a hipped roof with a skillion extension clad in corrugated iron. The walls are clad with sawn weatherboards and it has a timber floor. Adjoining this are the remains of the buggy shed and blacksmith's shop, which have completely collapsed.
Approximately 50 metres to the north west is the dairy which has collapsed completely. It can be seen to have had a corrugated iron roof, flagged floor, hardwood pole frame and slab walls. To the south west, under a fig tree, are the remains of the stables, which appear to have a similar construction. There is a highset fibrous cement clad cottage, possibly interwar, about 100 metres north west of the homestead complex.
A tennis court in front of the main residence is visible only as a section of level ground edged with fragments of nailed-down white plastic tape which once outlined the court. Plantings such as two mango trees outside the kitchen, mulberry, citrus, lagaeostromia, hibiscus and Burdekin plums survive. There is a rockery feature to the south west of the homestead.
","history":"The Glengarry homestead complex is situated on a hill overlooking the Boyne River Valley and the Gladstone-Monto road and comprises a brick residence and timber outbuildings constructed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
\nThe Port Curtis Pastoral District was developed in the early 1850s when the area was still part of New South Wales. In 1853 a government survey of 7000 square kilometres was carried out. The leading pioneer pastoralist in the Boyne Valley was William Henry Walsh who arrived in 1853 and held several huge runs which comprised most of the Valley. The head station was Milton, applied for in 1856. In 1868 the boundaries of this run were surveyed and included the area which later became Glengarry station. Following the Crown Lands Alienation Act in 1868, large runs were broken up and resumed for selection as grazing properties. Because of the relative isolation of the valley, Milton remained intact longer than most properties in the area, but was divided for resumption in 1883 into comparatively large grazing blocks. John Dickinson applied for a portion at this time, but the application did not succeed, although in 1885 his wife, Isabella, was granted a lease of 628 acres. Dickinson already held Portion 9V, Grazing Farm 52 of 801 acres, on the opposite bank of the river when he selected Portion 26V, Agricultural Farm 79 of 160 acres, on which the homestead is located. This portion was gazetted on 15 July 1892 and was at the time recorded as having no improvements on it. The adjoining Portion 504 was also obtained by Dickinson in 1897.
\nIn 1898, a report was made on the selection by the Bailiff of Crown Lands as part of the conditions of sale. Dickinson is stated to have resided there since 20 March 1894 and improvements to the land were reported to be a brick house, valued at £350, a detached kitchen clad in weatherboards, yards and a large hardwood shed in the approximate position of the stables, all roofed in galvanised iron. There were also a small pig sty and fowl house. The detached kitchen was presumably reclad in corrugated iron at a later date. It appears to be an earlier building than the house and was probably the original homestead, which was relegated to kitchen use and perhaps servant accomodation when the new homestead was built. This manner of replacement and reuse of buildings as the property developed was a practice so common as to have become traditional. The other outbuildings on the property were presumably constructed soon after the 1898 survey, and may even contain recycled material.
\nJohn Dickinson died in 1920, but the property passed to other members of the family and was held by them until 1946 when it was purchased by William Bryce. In the early 1960s, Glengarry was purchased by I O F McDonald who had a large modern annexe constructed at the eastern end of the residence. He also had a section of the verandah built in to provide bathroom and laundry facilities. Because of concerns about the viability of Glengarry as a working property following the construction of Awoonga Dam, it was purchased by the Gladstone Area Water Board on 1 August 1979.
\nThe property has been leased for grazing purposes since 1983. The buildings are not inhabited although they have been used as temporary shelter from time to time by contract workers and have water and power connected. Although the dairy, stables, blacksmith's shop and buggy shed were still standing when recorded by the National Trust in 1979, they have since collapsed.
\nThe Awoonga Dam project at its highest projected levels will make an island of the site from time to time. This level of inundation is not planned for about 50 years.
","criteria":"Glengarry homestead, as a complex of residential and working buildings constructed in traditional forms and materials and associated with the operation of a pastoral property, is important in illustrating the early pastoral settlement of the Boyne Valley in the Port Curtis region.
|Glengarry is the earliest homestead on its original site in the area as several earlier homesteads have been destroyed or removed. The main residence is thought to be the only brick homestead of its era in Central Queensland, the more readily available timber or local stone being generally preferred for construction.
|The homestead in its setting, together with its outbuildings, has the potential to yield information about the life and work of pastoralists in the Boyne Valley.
|The formal main house with an earlier residence used as a detached kitchen, quarters, butcher's shop, blacksmith, dairy, stables and other sheds are good examples of their type.
|The main residence is pleasing in form, scale and materials and is set on a hilltop with extensive views to the mountains over a broad sweep of countryside. It is a local landmark due to this high position.
|The homestead is important for its association with the life and work of the Dickinson family, early settlers in this area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15162,"place_ref":600387,"name":"Langmorn Homestead","alternate_name":"Langmorn","street_address":"Langmorn Road","suburb":"RAGLAN","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Langmorn homestead complex is sited on a hill and can be seen from a distance because the specimen trees around the homestead and along the drive serve as visual markers. The complex comprises the main house, cottage, a number of outbuildings, a family graveyard and mature plantings.
The residence consists of a rectangular 1870s building looking north east with an 1900s extension adjoining it on the north west. This later structure provides a formal front entrance to the house and is approached by a circular drive around a lawn with trees and a rockery fountain. It is constructed of timber with exposed studs. The gambrel roof is clad with corrugated iron. The verandah to the front and north eastern side has balustrading formed of cast iron panels, that on the south west has been built in to create a bedroom, bathroom and toilet. The central entrance opens on to a hall from which bedrooms open out on either side. To the rear there is a third bedroom and a library.
A large open area is formed between the two buildings which comprise the residence where their roofs touch. This building has a hipped roof clad originally with shingles which can still be seen under the roofing iron. The core structure of the earlier building is timber with exposed studs. It comprises three main rooms and has french lights opening onto a verandah which surrounds it. This is now enclosed and has small rooms to what was formerly the rear. The section along the former is built in with fibrous cement panels in the lower section with windows in metal frames above. Kitchen cabinets have been built into the south east corner of the verandah. The post at the this corner is carved with the inscription 'TC GC 1873'. That on the northern corner is similarly carved with 'T Creed 1877'.
Behind the main building is a courtyard area which has a small slab building, formerly a staff bathroom, now used as a toilet for visitors. There is a weatherboard clad cottage to the south of the main building. It is set on low stumps, has a gabled roof with new metal cladding and has verandahs all round, sections at the front having been built in. It has 12 pane windows and the interior walls are to partition height only. It is currently used as a souvenir shop.
There is an L shaped concrete stable building behind the house which is marked with the date '1926.' It has a hipped, metal clad roof and large timber doors. The walls are rough cast and have metal framed multiple-panel windows set within moulded concrete surrounds. Situated to the west of the stables is a small building constructed of timber slabs on a pole frame with a gabled roof. This is believed to be the oldest building on the site.
To the south east of the stables and behind a large modern vehicle shed is a small timber building which the family believe to have been the original homestead. This has a frame clad with weatherboards and a gabled roof extended out to form a verandah supported on timber posts. The interior is divided into two by a partition extending only to wall height.
Situated on a rise to the south of the homestead is the family graveyard. It the highest point in the complex and commands a fine view across the valley. The earliest burial is that of Edith Augusta Creed who died on 21 May 1873 aged 1 year and 8 months. It also contains the burials of several generations of the Creed family including those of Thomas (1826-1911) and Edith Creed (1838-1881) Creed. The memorials are inscribed slabs and the area is encircled by a timber fence with a pair of metal gates.
","history":"Langmorn Homestead is the residence and associated outbuildings of a pastoral property located in the Port Curtis Hinterland and was established in 1869 by Thomas Creed and his family.
The region in which Langmorn is located was first explored by Charles and William Archer in 1853. Two years later, William Landsborough also explored the region, taking up the run of Raglan in the same year. It was managed by Landsborough's sons, James and John, with James occupying the property with his family. By 1862, he had acquired sole ownership of Raglan which then comprised 200 square miles on which sheep were run. By 1865, Raglan had been sold and passed wholly into the ownership of the Bank of New South Wales by 1868. In this year the Crown Land Alienation Act was passed which enabled the Government to resume half the area of large runs to permit closer settlement. The Bank consolidated the property in 1869, selling the south western portion to brothers Thomas and George Creed. They named the new property Langmorn and operated it as a cattle run. From accounts in Thomas Creed's diaries, there appears to have been a continuing relationship between the two properties, with landmarks on Raglan also being used by Langmorn as meeting and resting points.
Thomas Creed first arrived in Australia from England in 1853. He unsuccessfully prospected for gold at Ballarat, later entering a partnership in the farming industry. In 1857 he returned to England where he married Edith Allen. The new Mrs Creed's parents had left her a property in Jamaica which the Creeds took over in 1859. However, in 1868 they returned to England and then sailed for Brisbane with their two small sons, arriving in Moreton Bay on 23 January 1869. When George Creed arrived by a later boat, the brothers travelled north in October to inspect Langmorn Station before purchase. On 14 December 1869, the family moved to Langmorn.
At first the Creeds lived in an existing house, presumably built for Raglan, but in May 1873 a homestead was constructed for them by a Mr Pershouse. In 1877 this was substantially enlarged by William Semfel with assistance from station workers. Timber for the construction and additions to the homestead was cut on the property, although pine planks were ordered for the later work from the Calliope Sawmill.
The area of Langmorn's land was substantially reduced during the late 19th century due to resumptions in relation to the various Land Acts of the period. In 1905 the residence was enlarged by building a new timber structure adjacent to the old; the space where the verandahs of the two abutted becoming an open living area. The addition had four rooms and provided a new formal entrance for the house. This effectively reorientated the residence because the new entrance faced north, while the front of the first house looked east. In 1910 Thomas and George Creed secured ownership of the homestead block at auction. Thomas Creed died at Langmorn in 1911, at the age of 85. Four of his five sons remained on the property, dividing it into four parts, each with its own homestead. The additional three homesteads being named Prior Park, Cecilwood and Cleveden.
Further work continued on the Langmorn homestead building until 1917, when the verandahs were partially enclosed. A large concrete stable building was constructed in 1926.
The current owners, members of the Creed family, have owned the property since 1998. The buildings are very intact and new sheds on the site have been constructed using bush pole frames and corrugated iron roofs in a similar manner to the original buildings. New work has been dated, continuing a family tradition begun in 1873.
","criteria":"Langmorn homestead illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early homestead in central Queensland which has remained in continuous use, it has important associations with the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Because Langmorn has continued in the ownership of one family and is well documented, the homestead complex provides an uncommonly good and intact record of an evolving pastoral property established in the mid 19th century.
|Due to its age and intact nature, Langmorn has the potential to yield information on the way in which such properties were run and evidence for the building techniques used over several generations, thus contributing to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|It is a demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century homestead well, including the residential buildings, associated outbuildings, graves, fences and mature trees.
|The homestead complex contains structures which are well designed and made examples of traditional buildings which are pleasing in form, materials and detail and mature trees which contribute visually to the setting and provide a landmark in the area.
|Langmorn homestead has a special association with the life and work of the Creed family, who, as early pastoralists contributed to the development of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15164,"place_ref":600389,"name":"Raglan Homestead","alternate_name":"Raglan Station Road","street_address":"Raglan Station Road","suburb":"RAGLAN","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Raglan Homestead is located to the north-east of Raglan Creek and just north of Larcom Vale Creek, approximately halfway between Rockhampton and Gladstone on the old coach road, which is now by-passed by the Bruce Highway. The complex is located six kilometres from the highway in an easterly direction. Early structures within the complex include a slab hut (possibly dating to 1857), a c1886 timber cottage, a 1913 residence, sheds and stables.
The main residence (1913) is a high set, timber-framed house (exposed stud) lined with vertically-jointed tongue-in-groove timber boards. French doors with breezeways and timber-framed sash windows are located along each elevation and open to the verandah which surrounds the building on all sides and offers sweeping views of the surrounding country. Internally, the homestead retains much of its original vertically-jointed timber partition walls and timber ceilings.
A low-set, timber-framed cottage (c1886) clad with weatherboards, with a stepped verandah and a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron, is located just north of the main house. There are back-to-back fireplaces with timber surrounds in the wall between the two rooms, but the chimney is no longer extant.
The slab hut (possibly dating to 1857) is a single-storeyed, timber-framed structure with a gable roof clad with corrugated iron, set on the ground a short distance from the main house. The building has a timber floor and walls constructed of vertical slabs, the tops of which are set in morticed top bearers. The upper sections of the side elevations are clad with corrugated iron. A stepped verandah with a skillion roof is located to one side of the hut. Two nine-pane windows are located in the front elevation. The entrance to the hut, a panelled timber door, is located in this elevation.
A large, two-storey volume shed constructed with bush timbers and clad with corrugated iron is located near the slab hut.
Also located near the slab hut is a stables, which is timber-framed and clad with corrugated iron, with large double timber doors located along one elevation. Attached to the stables is a timber-framed shed and set of timber yards.
Other later sheds and holding yards have been constructed on the homestead site. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
A large tamarind tree remains, originally central to the front garden of the c1860 house.
","history":"Raglan Station, located just north of Larcom (earlier Larcombe) Vale Creek in the Port Curtis hinterland, was established in 1857 by James Landsborough. The present main residence at Raglan Homestead was erected in 1913, but there are other earlier structures within the complex, including a slab hut that may date to the establishment of the station, and a c1886 timber cottage.
The area was explored by Charles and William Archer in 1853 and in 1856 by William Landsborough (who in 1861-1862 was to lead one of the official relief expeditions in search of the missing explorers Burke and Wills). It was incorporated within the Port Curtis Pastoral District, proclaimed in January 1854, which included the County of Raglan, named in honour of Lord Raglan, a British hero of the Crimean War (1853-1856). Frontier violence ensued as squatters moved into the district and in 1855 five persons on Mount Larcom Station were killed by Aborigines.
The brothers James and John Landsborough, originally from Stevenston in Scotland, had taken up sheep-raising in the New England district of New South Wales in the 1840s, but in the 1850s decided to search for better pastures to the north. Between 1854 and 1858 James and John in partnership, and their younger brother William in partnership with others, took up a number of Wide Bay-Burnett pastoral leases. From the late 1850s they began transferring their interests to the Port Curtis district, commencing with James Landsborough overlanding sheep onto Raglan run in 1857. The run was situated on Raglan Creek midway between Gladstone and Rockhampton, in the county of Deas Thompson. James had just reached the station and was constructing the first slab hut on the Raglan Homestead site, above the Larcom Vale Creek crossing, when John Macartney visited him on 30 December 1857. The first Raglan wool clip was ready by February 1859, when the Archer's boat the Jenny Lind sailed up Raglan Creek to move the cargo to Gladstone.
A mail service between Port Curtis (Gladstone) and Rockhampton via Raglan Station commenced in 1859. Coaches subsequently used this route, and a change station operated at Raglan Head Station until Parson's Inn [QHR 600388] was opened near Black's Crossing on Raglan Creek c1885.
John and James Landsborough gained the official lease of the 30 square mile (7 770ha) Raglan run in January 1860. About this time James, who had married Georgiana Sothers in Maitland in 1849 and had a young family, erected a new dwelling on Raglan: an exposed-stud timber building of two rooms with a wide surrounding verandah and a detached kitchen at the south-west corner.
In 1862 James acquired sole interest in Raglan and Larcom Vale runs and by 1863 the Raglan Station he had developed comprised at least seven runs - Raglan, Larcom Vale, San Jose, Stevenston, Trafalgar, Meringo and Lodi - approximately 200 square miles (51 800ha) in total, bounded to the north by the Bajool Scrub and Gracemere station, to the south by the Bracewell Scrub and Mount Larcom station, to the west by the Dee Range, and to the east by coastal mudflats. He continued to run sheep at Raglan, cared for mainly by recent Chinese immigrants.
However, in 1865 he relinquished his interest in Raglan to take up Sonoma station near Bowen Downs (held by William Landsborough and others) in the Kennedy pastoral district. The leases to Larcom Vale, San Jose, No.2 Stevenston, and Trafalgar were transferred in mid-1865 to AH Richardson, General Manager of the Australian Joint Stock Bank. By February 1867 John Ward was occupying Raglan station, raising cattle. By March 1868, White and Ronald held the leases to Raglan (30 square miles) and Marengo (25 square miles) in the Port Curtis Pastoral District, and AH Richardson still held Larcom Vale, Trafalgar, and San Jose.
The telegraph line between Rockhampton and Port Curtis Island in Keppel Bay was constructed via Raglan Station in 1867 and in the same year the Raglan and Langmorn goldfields were proclaimed, resulting in a small, brief 'rush' on the station. A few shops and hotels were constructed to service these goldfields, but little evidence of these survives.
In 1868 the Raglan leases passed to the Bank of New South Wales, which in 1869 consolidated the property under the provisions of the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868 and sold the south-western portion to brothers Thomas and George Creed, who named their property Langmorn [QHR 600387], which they operated as a cattle station. From accounts in Thomas Creed's diaries, there appears to have been a continuing relationship between the two properties, with landmarks on Raglan also being used by Langmorn occupants as meeting and resting points. At the time of the 1 September 1871 Queensland census, there were four houses on Raglan Station accommodating 20 persons (16 males and 4 females), and at Langmorn there were 2 houses sheltering 10 persons (7 males and 3 females). Part of the resumed portion of Raglan was thrown open to selection as homestead areas in 1876.
Between c1869 and c1874 Raglan was occupied as a cattle run by David Wilson, initially in partnership with Richard Elliot Palmer, but obtaining sole interest early in 1873. His DW2 remains a station brand. He applied for the Raglan Head Station block, located on the north side of Larcom Vale Creek, as a pre-emptive selection of 836 acres (338ha), but did not obtain title and in June 1874 the freehold was purchased by Archibald Menzies of Melbourne, who also acquired the Raglan leasehold of about 80 square miles (about 20 720ha). At this time improvements at Raglan Homestead were valued at over £1,000 and comprised: a dwelling house (c1860) and garden, store, kitchen, bachelors' quarters, men's hut (possibly the original 1857 hut), fowl house, sheep classing yard, wool shed, other stockyards and extensive fencing. Between late 1878 and mid-1885 Raglan Station was managed by John A Menzies, who erected a small weatherboard school at Raglan Homestead, where his children were tutored.
In mid-1885 the Raglan lease and the head station freehold were transferred to Thomas McKellar of Melbourne whose agent, JA McKellar, managed the property and applied in September 1885 to bring Raglan under the provisions of the Crown Lands Act 1884. For this purpose the consolidated Raglan Station was assessed as comprising 71 square miles (18 389ha) available for subdivision, with the land capable of running 37 head of cattle to the square mile. In June 1887, 45 square miles (11 655ha) of the run (much of this marine plains and scrub lands) was resumed for closer settlement, although this was not opened for selection until 1899. The remainder was leased to Thomas McKellar. About 1886 McKellar added a two-roomed cottage wing to the c1860 house.
By December 1892 Thomas McKellar had returned permanently to Scotland and in March 1893 transferred his interest in Raglan, including the head station freehold, to his brother Ernest Edward McKellar, who initially resided on the property. By April 1898 John N Menzies, whose father had managed Raglan station from 1878 to 1885, had returned to Raglan as manager, a position he held for eleven years.
Following the devastating drought of 1902, EE McKellar was left with a run reduced to five-sixths of its original area and in 1909 made the decision to dispose of Raglan Station, selling to John Murray Macdonald on 18 February 1910
JM Macdonald (only he chose this spelling of the family name McDonald) had sold his Ben Ean vineyard, cellar and distillery in New South Wales to Lindeman's Wines Ltd with a four-year management contract to early 1912, allowing him 'cash in hand' to travel north in search of a cattle property. On purchase of Raglan he still had two years of his contract to fulfil with Lindemans, so an agreement was made with Frederick William Tyrrell, who acted as managing partner until John and his wife Harriet (Hettie), arrived at Raglan in May 1912. Title to the Raglan Homestead block was transferred to JM Macdonald in June 1912.
In 1913 a new residence was constructed at Raglan Homestead for the Macdonalds, just south of the c1886 cottage wing and c1860 house, overlooking Larcom Vale Creek. The substantial timber residence was designed by Fredrick Eckersley Boddington, an architect based in Rockhampton from 1911 to 1915, and was constructed by contractors Taylor and McKenzie. A sawmill was set up on the creek below the house where all the hardwood timber was milled. The house was built on high timber stumps and comprised 42 squares, over half of which were taken up by a 10 foot (3m) deep encircling verandah. The front (southern) elevation had a centrally-positioned divided stair leading to the verandah. Both the verandah and the stair had a simple slatted timber balustrade with some cross-braced timber panels for a decorative effect. The hipped roof, which extended in bungalow fashion over the verandahs, had gablets to the eastern and western ends and was clad with corrugated galvanised iron.
The internal layout of the 1913 house incorporated two large living spaces in the centre: a front (southern-facing) dining room 24' x 16' (7.3m x 4.87m) and the only room in the house to contain a fireplace; and behind this, on the northern side of the building, a tropical lounge 24' x 24' (7.3m x 7.3m), separated from the rear verandah by lattice timber panels and walk-through openings. On the western side of this room, steps led to the sub-floor. The eastern side of the building contained a main bedroom at the front, small office, and another bedroom at the rear; the western side was the service wing, with maid's bedroom at the front (separated from the dining room by a hall leading to the front verandah), pantry and kitchen. Ceilings throughout were 12' (3.65m) in height, to encourage air circulation. With the exception of the office and the pantry, all the other rooms opened via French doors to the verandahs. Interior partitions were of vertically-jointed tongue-in-groove timber boards.
During John and Harriet Macdonald's ownership of Raglan, John's nephew Hector McDonald worked on Raglan between 1920 and 1924. Three other overseers were employed: Eric White, who came from Ben Ean in New South Wales; Charlie Mayne who was at Raglan from the 1920s to 1931; and Archie Stewart who stayed for over 32 years from October 1931. The c1860 house was demolished about 1930.
After Hettie's death in 1938 John Macdonald, who had no children, relied increasingly on Archie Stewart and his wife Jane. On his death on 26 December 1957 at the age of 94, John Macdonald left a portion of Raglan Station to the Stewarts but the bulk of his estate, including Raglan Homestead, passed as the John and Hettie Macdonald Trust to the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, to be used to build homes for the aged. The trust was divided when the Uniting Church was formed in Australia in the 1970s, and is now known as the Macdonald Homes for the Presbyterian Church and McDonald Homes for the Uniting Church, with over 70 houses built in Sydney.
In February 1961 the Presbyterian Church sold Raglan Station to John's nephew and executor, Hector McDonald and his wife Betty and eldest son Ian, who had completed a degree at the Gatton Agricultural College in 1958. The family took up residence there in April 1962. In 1969 Hector and Betty retired to a property near Warwick, leaving Ian and his family on Raglan. In the 1970s Ian McDonald made a number of changes at the homestead, including demolition of the c1878 school house and relocation of part of the old kitchen to the north-east corner of the cattle yards in 1970, and relocation of the slab hut (possibly dating to 1857) from in front of the 1913 house to beside the horse yard, to function as a saddle shed.
In 1983 Raglan Station passed out of the McDonald family and was acquired by the Olive family in 1986. The roof and verandah of the main residence were reconstructed following a severe storm on 7 November 2000.
","criteria":"Raglan Homestead and Slab Hut illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early homestead in central Queensland which has remained in continuous use, it has important associations with the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Due to its age and intact nature, Raglan Homestead and Slab Hut has the potential to yield information on the way in which such properties were run and evidence for the building techniques used over several generations, thus contributing to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|Raglan Homestead and Slab Hut is significant in that it demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century homestead well, including the residential buildings, associated outbuildings, fences and mature trees.
|The homestead complex contains structures which are well designed and made examples of traditional buildings which are pleasing in form, materials and detail and mature trees which contribute visually to the setting and provide a landmark in the area.
|Raglan Homestead and Slab Hut has a special association with the life and work of the MacDonald family, who, as early pastoralists contributed to the development of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15165,"place_ref":600390,"name":"Greenmount War Memorial","alternate_name":"War Memorial Greenmount","street_address":"Ramsay Street","suburb":"GREENMOUNT","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Greenmount War Memorial (c1921) consists of a 'Digger' monument centrally located in a memorial park (c1985) which slopes gently to the west. The monument comprises a lifesize grey sandstone Digger statue surmounting a tall, finely carved sandstone blocked pedestal which is about twice the height of the statue. It is encircled with garden beds, shrubs and small palms, and is impressively set against the backdrop of the adjacent valley and hills. A tall steel flagstaff is located to the west of the monument.
The monument rests on a concrete platform encircled with small sandstone newels and a steel rail. The stepped sandstone base has a sloping face to the north which bears a leaded marble plaque, and is inscribed with the mason's name. The lower portion of the pedestal has leaded marble honour rolls on each face, and a floriated cornice. The upper portion has curved panels in relief bearing small marble "in memoriam" plaques, surmounted by a white sandstone tapering block with wreaths and crossed guns in relief. This section is topped with a small pediment and steps, upon which the statue is mounted. The grey sandstone Digger statue faces the road, standing with his right foot forward, holding the top of the rifle barrel in his right hand.
The monument in its park setting with a backdrop of hills and valley makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the Greenmount townscape, and is in very good condition.
","history":"The Greenmount War Memorial was erected c1921, originally located near the railway station in Pilton Street, the main road between Toowoomba and Warwick. The mason for the monument was WP Prout of Warwick, who was also responsible for monuments in Allora and Killarney.
Greenmount was one of a number of small localities which developed as farming areas when portions of the Eton Vale, Felton and Pilton pastoral estates were resumed by the Government for closer settlement from the late 1860s to the 1880s. Greenmount developed as a township centred on the Greenmount railway station and local store, and grew during the early 1900s.
Although the newly-formed Cambooya Shire Council decided to erect an Honour Roll for the soldiers of the area in 1915, it was not until January 1921 that the Council decided the money raised should go towards the erection of the Shire memorial at Greenmount. No completion date for the memorial was recorded, however in 1922 the Council expressed its gratitude to the ladies of Greenmount and district for the supervision and care of the memorial. Records show that a memorial in the form of an obelisk was also constructed in Cambooya c1921.
In August 1952 the Council took over the trusteeship of the monument from the
Greenmount Progress Association. It was also around this time that the Council donated money towards having the names of Second World War servicemen included on the monument.
In 1985 the Greenmount Bicentennial Memorial Park was established in Ramsay Street adjoining the Returned Soldiers Hall. The monument, which is believed to be the only intact Digger monument by Prout in Queensland, was re-sited in the park which was officially opened in February 1986.
","criteria":"The Greenmount War Memorial is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, as evidence of an era of widespread expression of Australian patriotism and nationalism, during and following the First World War.
|As a 'digger' statue, it demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community, in particular the fine craft work of the sandstone carving, and its park setting with a backdrop of hills and valley, which makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the Greenmount townscape.
|The place has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15166,"place_ref":600391,"name":"Eton Vale Homestead Ruins","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"New England Highway","suburb":"CAMBOOYA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Sited on a slope that falls gently towards Hodgson Creek, the Eton Vale homestead would have once overlooked the fields to its west, assuming prominence when viewed from this aspect. A single brick chimney now dominates the ruins, which also include two sets of stairs made of cement-rendered brick on stone and mortar foundations, several hearth beds consisting of stone and mortar foundations, timber stump remains, and scattered fragments of building materials. A well is located to the north-west of the house site.
The location of the ruins' elements indicate the orientation of the house, with the principal entry stairs and a retaining wall located to the west, secondary stairs to the north, and a large chimney stack (probably associated with the kitchen) at the rear of the site to the east. Five timber stump remnants mark the northern edge of the house. The hearth beds are located between the stairs, stumps and chimney.
The site is littered with bricks, stamped Toowoomba, as well as steel fixings and fragments of glass and terracotta. Two bunya pines, one each immediately to the north and the south of the house site may have been part of the homestead garden. The well is marked with remnants of a steel pulley on a timber frame.
","history":"The ruins are of Eton Vale homestead, parts of which dated from the 1840s and which was destroyed by fire in 1912.
Eton Vale Station was selected in 1840 by Arthur Hodgson who had followed the Leslie Brothers onto the Darling Downs. It was the second run selected in Queensland. At the time it covered an area of 268 sq km. Originally a grazing property, wheat was grown from 1846 and it became a sheep stud in 1850. The slab house, erected soon after 1840 formed the core of a larger brick residence which continued to be added to up to as late as 1880.
At its peak the station complex was a village complete with workers' cottages and a school in addition to a number of outbuildings. Hodgson modelled Eton Vale on the English village style, taking a paternalistic interest in the affairs of the estate workers.
Hodgson's manager and eventual partner was John Watts. Watts' share was later bought by Robert Ramsay. All three men were prominent in local affairs as well as being members of parliament and cabinet ministers. They all retired to estates in England, Watts in 1867, Hodgson in 1870 and Ramsay in 1883.
The various land acts from 1863 onward slowly reduced the size of the property, although Hodgson still held 130 square kilometres under numerous tenures and titles in 1897. In that year Eton Vale was partitioned between Ramsay and Hodgson, Ramsay's half was renamed Harrow.
Following the death of Hodgson in 1902, the estate was broken up. In 1906 the homestead and surrounding freehold property were sold to Christian Barth, a German saddler. The homestead was destroyed by fire in 1912. In 1932 Eton Vale was sold to Frederick Robotham whose family still own the property. Robotham built the present farmhouse nearby. The ruins of the earlier homestead have deteriorated over the years.
","criteria":"Eton Vale Homestead Ruins on the eastern Darling Downs is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being the surviving remnants of a number of station buildings which were once located on the second oldest and leading property in the area.
|The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history, as the ruins give a clear indication where the house was sited and where key elements of the house were located.
|The landscape and garden remnants exhibit aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|The ruins have a special association with prominent parliamentarian and early settler, Arthur Hodgson.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15167,"place_ref":600392,"name":"Cardwell Post Office - Residence (former)","alternate_name":"Telegraph Office; Post and Telegraph Office; Post Office; Cardwell Post Office Residence","street_address":"53 Victoria Street","suburb":"CARDWELL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Cardwell Post Office is located on the southern corner of Victoria Street, the main street of Cardwell, and Balliol Street opposite the foreshore fronting the entrance to Hinchinbrook Channel. It is part of a precinct of government buildings, including the former Shire Hall, Police Station and residence, former Court House, CWA building and Cardwell State School.
The building is a single-storeyed timber structure, consisting of four rooms with a central corridor, surrounded by verandahs to all four sides with a kitchen house at the rear connected by an enclosed walkway. The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof, with a break in pitch to the verandahs. There are some concrete stumps, but most are of timber.
The northeast verandah, and much of the northwest, has been enclosed with corrugated fibrous cement sheeting and has both timber sash and aluminium sliding windows. The western verandah corner is enclosed with chamferboard, part of the southeast has also been enclosed with chamferboard to form a bathroom, and the other verandahs have been enclosed with glass louvres and fibrous cement sheeting. The kitchen house is of single-skin chamferboard with sash windows and a hipped corrugated iron roof.
The single-skin building has weatherboard to the verandah walls with beaded horizontal boarding to the inside face of the two northeast rooms. Internal walls have vertical boarding and tie rods have been inserted connecting the top plates of opposite walls. Ceilings are boarded, with the outer edge being raked to the walls. Doors are timber panelled, with the front and back doors having glass fanlights.
The northern room was used as the post office and retains some early timber fixtures including shelving and drawers. This room has a counter, with a timber battened panel above, opening to the enclosed northern corner verandah. The eastern room has a large louvred window in the northeast wall, and a timber fireplace surround attached to the southeast wall over an enclosed doorway. Both rear rooms have tall casement windows, and verandahs have unlined ceilings.
A Coconut Palm is located at the northern corner of the site, another Palm is to the west of the building, and a Mango tree is at the south of the site. The property has a timber post and rail fence with wire infill to both street frontages. A weatherboard toilet is located to the south, and a timber tankstand with concrete stumps is located to the northwest, of the kitchen house. A Telecom Substation adjoins the southwest boundary.
","history":"This single storeyed timber building was erected in 1870 as the Telegraph Office in Cardwell. Designed by the Colonial Works office, the Superintendent of Roads and Buildings at the time was Charles Tiffin. The contract for the building was let to George McCallum of Brisbane. Records indicate that the building was prefabricated in Brisbane and shipped to Cardwell where it was erected on the present site. It is considered to be one of the earliest examples of prefabricated post office buildings, reflecting the need to erect substantial Government buildings in remote settlements where structures were otherwise relatively unsophisticated.
The Cardwell town reserve was proclaimed in July 1864, and Cardwell was settled with a great deal of confidence and Government support for its future role in the development of North Queensland, as it had a deep, sheltered harbour. A substantial government infrastructure was established in Cardwell, including a pilot's quarters, police barracks and lockup, customs house and sub-collector's residence, lands office, and telegraph station, which reflected this enthusiasm. A Post Office was opened in Cardwell in 1864, the first Post Master also officiating as the District Registrar, Sub Collector of Customs, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Harbour Master.
The telegraph office and the police station were among a group of government buildings erected on Section 42 of the town reserve, also referred to as the Government reserve. Tenders were called for the erection of a telegraph office in Cardwell in October 1869, and the office opened in 1870. A combined post and telegraph office was established soon after, and the majority of Post Masters from 1870-1893 were employees of the Electric Telegraph Department. It was made an official post office in 1893, as part of a state-wide move to make official all post offices at telegraph offices.
The erection of a telegraph office in Cardwell coincided with the expansion of the telegraph service in Queensland. The establishment of a telegraph line from Bowen to the Gulf of Carpentaria was considered desirable for two main reasons; to serve the settlers in the area, and there was the possibility of joining the proposed overseas cable from Java. The telegraph line reached Cardwell in December 1869. Tenders had been called in September 1869 for the erection of telegraph lines from Cardwell to Gilberton and then to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the two sections were completed in 1871 and 1872 respectively. Although the overseas cable joined the South Australia Overland Telegraph line at Darwin in 1872, the line from Cardwell successfully served the settlers in the Gulf region.
The port of Cardwell never developed into an important port for North Queensland, as access between the harbour and the hinterland was obstructed by the mountain range to the west of the town. Townsville became the principal access point for inland travel, and rapidly bypassed Cardwell in growth and development.
The configuration of the building with four core rooms and detached kitchen was the most common form of timber telegraph/post office buildings in the nineteenth century. The Cardwell office appears to have been the first of approximately thirty buildings erected in this form during the period 1869-1885.
The design of the building required adaptation to suit the tropical climatic conditions. The timber shingles on the roof rotted, and by 1890 had been covered with iron. In 1904 the shingles were removed and iron roof replaced. The building had been constructed on low stumps without ant caps, and had been infested with termites by the 1890s. Renovation of the building in 1897 included the replacement of some floorboards and restumping the building on higher stumps with ant caps. A chimney and fireplace erected as part of the original building were removed.
The verandahs were progressively enclosed to include a bedroom, bathroom, and extension of the office. The original detached kitchen appears to have been demolished and replaced by a larger kitchen by 1896. The kitchen was linked via a covered walkway to the main building by 1904.
The post office was made an unofficial post office in 1966, and sold by the Commonwealth Government in 1967. It was acquired by Mr Bill Wilson, a former Cardwell Post Master, and it continued to serve as an unofficial post office until c1983 when a new post office was opened in Cardwell. The building has been used as residence in recent years and was acquired by the present owners in 1988.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history in particular the establishment of Cardwell, initially as the port for North Queensland, and the expansion of telegraphic communication in Queensland.
|It demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular, it is one of the oldest and one of the few extant telegraph/post office buildings erected c1869 - c1885
The Former Post Office, Cardwell is one of few remaining prefabricated telegraph/post office buildings, and is one of the oldest timber buildings, in North Queensland
|The configuration of the building with its four room core and detached kitchen block and roof form demonstrates the principal characteristics of a common telegraph/post office building design type, used from c1869 - c1885 and of an 1860s-1870s government building.
|The place is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution of the buildings and grounds, through siting, scale, form and planting, to the Victoria Street streetscape and Cardwell townscape and the intactness, in particular the plan, form and interiors of this timber and iron building.
|As a premises which operated as a Post Office from 1870 until 1983, it has a strong association with the Cardwell community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15168,"place_ref":600393,"name":"Stone Bridge, Dalrymple Gap Track","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Dalrymple Gap Road","suburb":"CARDWELL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The stone bridge on the Dalrymple Gap Track is situated on the eastern side of Cardwell Range approximately 200 metres from Dalrymple's Gap, on the old road between Cardwell and the Valley of Lagoons. It traverses the deep, narrow valley of Damper Creek, at about the 300 metres contour, and in form is a brick-lined culvert set in a stonework embankment.
The embankment measures approximately 6 metres wide at the top [the road surface] by 20 metres long, and is 5.5 metres high on the upstream side and 7 metres high on the downstream side. It is constructed of stone rubble and soft mortar, and has a single circular conduit of approximately 1.5 metres in diameter to carry water under the roadway during the wet season. This conduit is lined with a double layer of bricks.
","history":"The stone and brick culvert near Dalrymple Gap, south of Cardwell, was constructed in late 1864/early 1865, and is understood to have been part of the first major civil engineering work undertaken in North Queensland: the construction of the Dalrymple Gap Track linking Cardwell to its hinterland and the Valley of Lagoons on the upper Burdekin River.
In 1863, explorer George Elphinstone Dalrymple, in partnership with Arthur and Walter Scott, had taken up the Valley of Lagoons run, which was separated from the coast by two densely forested mountain ranges - the eastern range know known as Cardwell Range, and the inner Seaview Range. Early in 1864 Dalrymple, with Queensland government sanction though not funding, sailed from Port Denison [Bowen] to Rockingham Bay/Port Hinchinbrook, where he established a settlement to be named Cardwell, then turned his attention to finding a dray route west to the interior and the Valley of Lagoons.
After an initial unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the Cardwell Range near Meunga Creek, Dalrymple discovered an Aboriginal path leading directly to what became known as Dalrymple Gap, between Mount Leach and Mount Arthur Scott, about 10 miles south of the settlement at Port Hinchinbrook. Beyond lay the Herbert River valley, and beyond this the Seaview Range, which was crossed with considerable difficulty to reach the Valley of Lagoons on the Burdekin. On their return journey, Dalrymple's party cleared, and in parts formed, a rough dray track to the coast.
In the second half of 1864, the Queensland government allocated £2,000 to fund further work on the road. In late 1864, a government road party was dispatched to Cardwell. On arrival, Dalrymple proceeded with Mr Conlan, the road party overseer, to mark out the route to be formed through Dalrymple's Gap to the Vale of Herbert station, reducing the length of road from 36 miles to 28 miles. Mr Conlan and party then worked on the ascent of Dalrymple Gap on the coast side. The western side of the route was let out in three sections, each of 1½ miles, to hasten completion of the project.
By 20 January 1865, the government road party had completed a road of easy gradient from the bottom to the top of the pass on the coast side. It is probable that the bridge was constructed during this period, because Dalrymple reported in a letter of 22 February 1865 that work on the road would be completed by the end of March, including the felling of timber, removal of obstructions, and crossings of creeks made, including the construction of ' substantial culverts' where necessary.
The Dalrymple Gap Track had its heaviest use in the period 1864-1872. In the late 1860s and early 1870s pastoralists and sugar-growers took up the Herbert River valley, and by early 1871 nearly 100 people were resident on the Herbert. A bridle track was found from the Herbert to Cardwell via Cardwell Gap (then Victoria Pass), which subsequently was formed into a dray road. After this opened in October 1872 there was little need for the much steeper route over Dalrymple Gap, although Cardwell Divisional Board funded occasional maintenance work until the early 1890s.
The Queensland Forest Service has managed the Dalrymple Gap Track since 1987. Most of the track, including the stone bridge/culvert, was included within the Lumholtz National Park gazetted in 1992. It remains a popular bushwalking track. The bridge underwent conservation work in 2001.
","criteria":"The Stone Bridge, a culvert on the early dray road over Dalrymple's Gap, is important in illustrating the early development of this area in the mid-1860s when the connection of pastoral properties on the Tableland with the coast and the establishment of a port were vital to permit development.
The bridge has an association with the life and work of George Dalrymple an early explorer in North Queensland.
|It is rare as the oldest remaining stone bridge/culvert in Queensland and the earliest surviving civil engineering work in mainland North Queensland.
|The bridge remains substantially intact, and is an excellent example of mid-19th century culvert construction in difficult terrain.
|The place has aesthetic value, and the picturesque scenery made accessible to the visitor by the establishment of the road in 1864-65, has been admired since the earliest days of European settlement, being a popular site for picnics in the 1870s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15169,"place_ref":600394,"name":"Westpac Bank, Normanton","alternate_name":"Bank of New South Wales","street_address":"Landsborough Street","suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located on the corner of Landsborough and Little Brown Streets, the Normanton Westpac Bank is a single-storeyed exposed frame timber building on timber stumps, with a corrugated iron pyramid roof. It has wide timber verandahs on three sides which have corrugated iron skillion roofs. The bank has a simple rectangular plan, with a "book room" in the eastern corner. There is a weatherboard annex and c1970s staff quarters to the rear of the bank.
The exterior is modestly detailed, with bracing, studding and nogging over T&G boarding, paired shaped eaves brackets under the main roof, and timber doors and double hung sash windows. The verandah has square timber posts with a braced balustrade. The Landsborough Street elevation has central timber stairs with a timber pediment above the landing. The Little Brown Street elevation has timber stairs, new doors, and a partially enclosed verandah.
Internally, surviving evidence of earlier operations of the bank include gold scales and the manager's safes.
The Landsborough and Little Brown Street elevations are intact, and the building contributes to the townscape of Normanton.
","history":"This single storey timber building was constructed in 1886 as the permanent premises for the Normanton branch of the Bank of New South Wales.
By the mid 1880s Normanton, on the Norman River, had developed as the port for a large extent of pastoral and mining country, including the Cloncurry gold and copper fields, and the Etheridge and Croydon goldfields. The development of banking facilities was important to the commercial role of Normanton as a supply centre for the Gulf region. Normanton was constituted a municipality in 1886.
The Bank of New South Wales commenced trading in Normanton in 1884 in rented premises, acquiring the present site in 1885. The building was designed by Richard Gailey, who was responsible for the design of bank buildings elsewhere in Queensland during the late 1880s.
The building was used as both the bank premises and manager's residence until the late 1960s when the manager moved to a new residence. The residential component of the building was kept as staff quarters until 1971 when it was replaced by new staff quarters at the rear of the bank building.
In 1978 substantial internal alterations were undertaken to the premises to update the banking facilities. The verandahs which had been enclosed by the mid 1960s were reopened.
A storage shed was erected on the site in 1991.
The Westpac Bank is the only remaining banking facility in Normanton.
","criteria":"The Normanton Westpac Bank, erected in 1886, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the pattern of development of the Gulf region of north-west Queensland, and the development of Normanton as a commercial centre for the Gulf region.
|It is significant as a rare example of a large timber bank building, with early scales and safes, surviving in Queensland.
|It is significant as a rare example of a large timber bank building, with early scales and safes, surviving in Queensland.
|The building exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its contribution to the townscape of Normanton.
|As a banking premises in continuous use in Normanton since 1886, it has a strong association with the community.
|It has a special association with the work of Richard Gailey, as one of a number of rural bank buildings designed by Gailey during the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15170,"place_ref":600395,"name":"Normanton Railway Terminus","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Matilda Street","suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The buildings at Normanton Railway Terminus are located at the edge of the town on a very level site which makes the buildings stand out sharply against the skyline. The surviving buildings comprise the station building with its attached carriage shade, the goods shed, water tank, vertical boiler and some relatively modern buildings such as the Officer in Charge's house at the Landsborough Street crossing.
The station building is rectangular in plan with offices on either side of a cental arched passage and is constructed of corrugated iron and timber on a slab laid on the ground. The timber wall frame is exposed and has cross braced studs which have been used to decorative effect. It has timber framed sash windows and is lined on the inside with vertical corrugated iron sheeting. The hipped roof is also clad with this material. A verandah with a curved corrugated iron roof stretches along the sides and street elevation where a small gable in the verandah roof marks the entrance. The rooms are now used as museum, store, shop, tea room and an room for the officer in charge. The ceilings are timber lined and retain early colour schemes. Some original furniture remains.
From the platform side of the building arches a huge steel framed carriage shade supported with decorated cast iron columns made by the Toowoomba foundry that supplied some of the steel sleepers. It extends over three tracks and has a continuous ridge vent. The bow string trusses are exposed at each end of the arcade and a scalloped sheet metal fringe edges the curved roof at each end of the structure.
The Goods Shed faces the station across further lines and is also of corrugated iron, although far more utilitarian in design. Even so, its simple lines and arched entrances complement the more ornate nature of that building. It has an internal loading platform. The outside loading platform has a 5 ton Ransomes and Rapier of London crane dating from about 1902.
The water tank is located near the site of the engine shed and is a single tier tank on a cast iron stand manufactured by Haslam and Co Ltd, of Derby. The site of the workshops consist of the footings, base walls, slabs and inspection pits. A vertical boiler by A. Overend & Co survives at the southern end of the fitting shop area. Also scattered through the yards are the remains of several locomotives, tenders and section of line and sleepers.
","history":"The railway complex at Normanton consists of the major buildings of an important inland railway terminus connecting this port with the goldfield at Croydon.
A railway line between Normanton and Cloncurry had been discussed as early as 1883 and was approved by Parliament in 1886. This was a difficult stretch for carriers and a rail link would have been valuable to pastoral stations in the area and would also have served the Cloncurry Copper Mine. It was at the time intended to eventually link the new line with the Great Northern Railway connecting Charters Towers and the important port of Townsville. However, in November 1885 a major gold strike was reported at Belmore Station, 145 km east of Normanton and by the end of 1886 the population of the Croydon field was 2000 and 6000 in the following year. Transportation was a major problem and access to this field became more important than the link to Cloncurry. It was decided to divert the line to Croydon. Tenders were called in July 1887 and the first section to Haydon began in May 1888. The work was designed and supervised by George Phillips and this section opened on 7 May 1889. The current route of the line was finalised in 1889 and reached Croydon on 7 July 1891, opening on the 20 July.
In 1867 Phillips had taken part in the exploration of the country around Normanton with William Landsborough, working for him a surveyor. Soon afterwards, he surveyed the area chosen as a port to become the town of Normanton. The country was difficult for conventional railway tracks due to flooding, lack of suitable timber and voracious termites. In 1884 Phillips patented a system for taking railways across such country which utilised special U section steel sleepers laid directly on the ground. During floods the line could be submerged without washing out the ballast and embankments normally used, so that it could quickly be put back into service when the waters subsided. The steel sleepers were also impervious to termite attack, and although initially more expensive than timber sleepers, were cheaper to lay and maintain. It was this system that was specified for the Normanton to Croydon line and Phillips was engaged to supervise the construction. After the railway was completed he maintained an interest in the area, serving as MLA for Carpentaria, inspecting artesian bores and writing a report on ports and railways in 1909.
The station building and carriage shade were designed under Phillips direction by James Gartside, a draftsman for the department. and were built about 1889. The line was opened in 1891. At its peak, the complex at Normanton consisted of a station building containing a telegraph office, station master's and traffic manager's offices, clerks' room, waiting room, parcels and cloak room, booking office, and a ladies' room with a ramp to ladies-only earth closets. Attached to the station building, and sheltering the platform and three tracks, was an arcaded carriage shade with a curved roof .
The terminus also had a large goods shed with a crane and because the line was isolated, a workshop area comprising a maintenance store, suspense stores, a timber shed, tanks, locomotive store, fitting shop, carpenter's and blacksmith's shops, timber shed, gantry and engine shed.. There was also a horse and carriage dock, porters' and lamp rooms, closets, and a tool house nearby. Residences for the station master, enginemen and guard were located south-east of Landsborough St. The traffic manager's house and stables adjoined where the wharf line departed for the Margaret and Jane landing on the Norman River.
The goldfield at Croydon did not sustain its initial success. By the early 1900s its output had dropped considerably and after WWI when widespread mining diminished, it was obvious that the field would not recover. Traffic on the line was never high and steadily declined, although its value as a community service and a vital link during the wet season kept the line open. This was because the Phillips system worked well and the track could be put back into use almost immediately after flooding, whereas roads stayed impassable for much longer. Fortunately, the track took less maintenance than standard track because in the early 1920s the number of services and staff were considerably reduced. In the 1930s, all weather roads made the railway less important, but until the late 1960s the rail remained a vital transport link in the area. The terminus now functions largely as a tourist attraction. One railmotor was restored and named the 'Gulflander' in 1978.
Although the line initially used steam locomotives, supplying enough suitable water for them locomotives was a problem from the beginning on this line and trains eventually carried water trucks. Railmotors were also more economical to run, so in 1922 the first railmotor, a Panhard, was tried on this route. In 1929 steam locomotives were discontinued and railmotors only were used. Diesel locomotives supplemented these in the 1980s.
Some of the working buildings at the terminus deteriorated and were removed including the workshops, carpenters and blacksmiths, though the sites can be still plainly seen.
","criteria":"The Railway Terminus at Normanton, as an important part of the Normanton to Croydon railway line, demonstrates the pattern of development in Queensland in which the railways linked ports with inland resources, particularly mineral fields. The terminus was intended eventually to serve lines to Cloncurry and other centres, so that its scale reflects the prosperity of the area at the time and its prospective importance.
|It is a substantially intact and distinctive terminal station for an isolated inland railway system, retaining a carriage shade attached to the station building which shields the platform and tracks, plus a goods shed with its original crane.
|The Normanton terminus is a well executed and interesting example of late nineteenth century railway architecture in Queensland. In a flat and open landscape, the scale, form and skilful use of vernacular materials make the terminus a striking and important component of the townscape of Normanton.
|The Normanton terminus is a well executed and interesting example of late nineteenth century railway architecture in Queensland. In a flat and open landscape, the scale, form and skilful use of vernacular materials make the terminus a striking and important component of the townscape of Normanton.
|The railway itself, with its use of low level submersible track and Phillips patented steel sleepers, was an important technical innovation which has proved remarkably durable. The terminus buildings designed by Phillips also show an imaginative and practical use of materials in this difficult location.
|The terminus has strong associations with the life and work of George Phillips, who helped to explore and survey the area, served for several years as its Parliamentary representative and designed and supervised the building of the railway. It is also associated with James Gartside who prepared the designs for the terminus buildings under Phillips' direction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15171,"place_ref":600396,"name":"Normanton to Croydon Railway Line","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Normanton to Croydon Railway runs 94 miles in a roughly south-east direction from Normanton to Croydon, in the Gulf country of North-west Queensland. The line, carried for most of its length on Phillips patent steel sleepers, runs over level country and crosses a number of streams by low level bridges. It has stations at each end of the line with several stopping places in between.
The buildings at Normanton Railway Terminus are located at the edge of the town on a very level site which makes the buildings stand out sharply against the skyline. The surviving buildings comprise the station building with its attached carriage shade, the goods shed, water tank, vertical boiler and some relatively modern buildings such as the Officer in Charge's house at the Landsborough Street crossing.
The station building is rectangular in plan with offices on either side of a cental passage and is constructed of corrugated iron lining a timber frame set on a slab. The pattern formed by the frame and cross braced studs has been used to create a decorative effect. The hipped roof is clad in corrugated iron, as is the roof of the verandah which stretches along the sides and front of the station, where a small gable in the verandah roof marks the entrance. From the platform side of the building arches a huge steel framed carriage shade supported with decorated cast iron columns made by the Toowoomba foundry that supplied some of the steel sleepers. It extends over three tracks and has a continuous ridge vent. The bow string trusses are exposed at each end of the arcade and a scalloped sheet metal fringe edges the curved roof at each end of the structure.
The goods shed faces the station across further lines and is a large building, clad and roofed with corrugated iron. The roof extends to provide awnings to the sides, one of which has been built in. It has an internal loading platform and the outside loading platform carries a 5 ton Ransomes and Rapier of London crane dating from about 1902.
The water tank is located near the site of the engine shed and is a single tier tank on a cast iron stand manufactured by Haslam and Co Ltd, of Derby. The site of the workshops consist of the footings, base walls, slabs and inspection pits. A vertical boiler by A. Overend & Co survives at the southern end of the fitting shop area. There is a modern engine shed which houses the rail motor. Also scattered through the yards are the remains of several locomotives, tenders and section of line and sleepers.
The station complex at Blackbull comprises a skillion roofed 1966 shelter shed which, although relatively modern, utilises the timber frame and corrugated iron cladding typical of buildings on this line. An interpretive centre has been established in the early 20th century railway workers' quarters. These are also skillion roofed and are corrugated iron clad with top hinged, steel clad shutters. There is an 1890 McKenzie and Holland elevated standard single tier cast iron water tank on a cast iron stand adjacent to a bore at the trackside. A mid twentieth century house recently moved to the site, modern shade structure and toilet block make up the facilities.
Croydon station is now a simple building clad in corrugated iron with a low pitched roof which does not resemble the station destroyed in 1969, but appears to have reused some of the materials. A set of Avery scales are against the outside wall at the end of the building and a cylindrical water tank is adjacent. Beyond the tank is an 1887 Saxby and Farmer lever, believed to be rare.
The complex also contains also a set of quarters similar in appearance to those at Blackbull with detached kitchen and shower annexes to the rear. Croydon station also retains some original equipment such as a Ransomes and Rapier crane, as at Normanton. This is located beside the line at a short distance from the station building and near the former goods shed, the concrete slab of which survives. A loading ramp constructed of metal sleepers and rails and filled with earth also remains, though in a ruinous condition. The tower section of a windmill made from rails is also in the yards and locomotive parts are scattered about.
","history":"The railway line linking Normanton to Croydon was built between 1888 and 1891 and is the last isolated line of Queensland Rail still in use. It utilised an innovative system of submersible track with patented steel sleepers and retains buildings of considerable architectural and technical interest at its terminus in Normanton.
In 1867 William Landsborough investigated the Norman River area to select a port site to serve the pastoral stations south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. With him was George Phillips who shortly thereafter surveyed the chosen site of Normanton. Phillips later supervised the construction of the Normanton to Croydon Railway, and retained an interest in the area, serving as MLA for Carpentaria in the 1890s.
A railway line between Normanton and Cloncurry had been discussed as early as 1883 and was approved by Parliament in 1886. This was a difficult stretch for carriers and a rail link would have been valuable to pastoral stations in the area and was planned to serve the Cloncurry Copper Mine. It was at the time intended to eventually link the new line with the Great Northern Railway connecting Charters Towers and the important port of Townsville. However, in November 1885 a major gold strike was reported at Belmore Station, 145 km east of Normanton and by the end of 1886 the population of the Croydon field was 2000, rising to 6000 in the following year. Transportation was a major problem and access to this field became more important than the link to Cloncurry. It was decided to divert the line to Croydon.
The line was technically innovative, in response to the terrain and conditions. The country was flat but difficult for conventional railway tracks due to flooding, lack of suitable timber for sleepers and termite attack. In 1884 Phillips patented a system for taking railways across such country which utilised special U section steel sleepers laid directly on the ground. During floods the line could be submerged without washing out the ballast and embankments normally used, so that it could quickly be put back into service when the waters subsided. The steel sleepers were also impervious to termite attack, and although initially more expensive than timber sleepers, were cheaper to lay and maintain. The bridges along the line were also designed to be submersible. This system was particularly suited to the Gulf country and was specified for the Normanton to Croydon line with Phillips engaged to supervise the construction. Tenders were called in July 1887 and the first section to Haydon began in May 1888. The first line laid was between the Normanton station site and the Margaret and Jane landing at Normanton wharf in order to bring materials from ships to the terminal site. This line has not survived.
Some problems were encountered with constructing the line because of the difficulty of maintaining a constant and adequate supply of Phillips sleepers. They were cast at the Toowoomba Foundry at Woolloongabba in Brisbane and also in Glasgow, but in order to keep construction going, timber sleepers were used on some sections and timber was also used for some bridges, originally designed to be made of steel.
The construction method involved clearing a three metre wide band ahead of the rail which was stumped, ploughed, harrowed, rolled and lightly ballasted. The U shaped sleepers were then laid on this prepared surface and the rail attached to them by special clips. The construction train then passed over them forcing the U shape down into the ground and depressing the sleepers for above half their depth. Soft spots were then packed. The finished rails were intended to be 25 to 50 mm above the surface. However, in practice the sleepers became more deeply embedded with time. The first section of 61km to Haydon was opened in May 1889, then to Patterson's (Blackbull) in December 1890, and to Croydon in July 1891.
The buildings for the terminus at Normanton consisted of a station with a large arched carriage shade and a goods shed, all constructed of corrugated iron on timber frames, although the framework for the station building was used to considerable decorative effect. Because the line was isolated, a range of maintenance buildings and facilities such as machine shops, blacksmith and carpenters shops were added over the next few years. At the other end of the line, Croydon had more modest goods and locomotive sheds and a station with a roofed section over 2 tracks. In 1895, a railway water reserve was proclaimed on the flooded Bird-in-the-Bush shaft on True Blue Hill at Croydon.
Most of the timber sleepers on the line were soon replaced because of termite damage, although one section over salt pan used timber rather than metal to prevent corrosion. A number of low level bridges form an important part of this line and were also intended to be metal. In 1900 two bridges at Glenore Crossing which had been built in timber in 1890 were replaced by low level concrete and steel bridges. That at Glenore Crossing number 3 reused fishbelly plate girders from the original 1876 Albert Bridge in Brisbane as main spans. Original metal and concrete bridges survive and those at 80 Mile Creek and Belmore Creek at Croydon are good examples of their type.
Initially the line carried perishables, mail and passengers, and goods like building materials and merchandise. It also ferried firewood for mine boilers and batteries as the land was progressively cleared. During the late 1890s special trains were run for picnics at most of the water holes along the line, particularly the Blackbull lagoon and weekend excursions from Normanton to Croydon or Golden Gate. The Golden Gate mine, some 4 miles west of Croydon and on the railway line, was first mined in 1887. It enjoyed prosperity from about 1895 to 1901, and the Golden Gate township itself had 1500 inhabitants. A service between Croydon and Golden Gate on the weekends was introduced in 1902.
However, the goldfield at Croydon did not sustain its initial success. By the early 1900s its output had dropped considerably and after WWI when widespread mining diminished, it was obvious that the field would not recover. The railway had only run at a profit between 1898 and 1902 and traffic, never high, steadily declined. The line stayed open as a community service and as a vital link during the wet season. This was largely because the Phillips system worked well and the track could be put back into use almost immediately after flooding, whereas roads stayed impassable for much longer. Fortunately, the track took less maintenance than standard track because in the early 1920s the number of staff was considerably reduced. To cut costs, and because the supply of suitable water had always been a problem, the first railmotor, a Panhard, was introduced in 1922. By 1929 steam trains had been completely phased out. In the 1930s, all-weather roads made the railway less important, but until the late 1960s the rail remained a vital transport link in the area. The terminus now functions largely as a tourist attraction. One railmotor was restored and named the 'Gulflander' in 1978 and a railmotor now makes a weekly trip hauling carriages and a flat top wagon for passengers' cars. In the wet season it also carries freight when the roads are cut. Stops are at Clarina (11 miles), Glenore (14m), Haydon (40m), RM Stop No1 (49m), Blackbull (56m), and on to Croydon (94m). There is often also a photo stop at the remains of the Golden Gate mine (92m).
Not all of the buildings have survived; the station at Croydon being destroyed by a storm in 1969. The tank there was demolished in 1972, that at Haydon in 1980, and the blacksmiths shop and workshops in Normanton were sold and demolished in 1980.
","criteria":"The Normanton to Croydon railway illustrates the way in which the rail system in Queensland developed as a series of isolated lines which connected ports to inland resources. It also demonstrates the short lived importance that goldfields, such as that at Croydon, might have.
|The Brisbane to Cairns railway connected all independent railways running from ports inland apart from Normanton and Cooktown, which closed in 1962. The Normanton to Croydon line is therefore the last isolated section of the Queensland Railways to remain in use. It is also the only complete line to have been constructed using the Phillips patented sleeper system, which is still in working order.
|Because of its isolation, extensive workshop facilities were provided and locomotives and rolling stock were retained when obsolete. Although some have now been removed, the line retained much of its individuality and can provide information on the way in which such an isolated line was maintained and the technology used.
|The buildings connected with the railway make skilful use of vernacular materials in a harsh environment The Normanton station in particular is a well executed and interesting example of late nineteenth century railway architecture in Queensland. In a flat and open landscape, its scale, form and materials make the terminus a striking and important component of the townscape of Normanton.
|The railway line itself, with its use of low level submersible track and bridges and Phillips patented steel sleepers, was an important technical innovation designed for Queensland conditions which has lasted in use with a low level of maintenance for over a hundred years, proving its viability in these conditions.
|The railway has strong associations with the life and work of George Phillips, who helped to explore and survey the area, served for several years as its Parliamentary representative and designed and supervised the building of the railway. It is also associated with James Gartside who prepared the designs for the Normanton terminus buildings under Phillips' direction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15172,"place_ref":600397,"name":"Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk and Lissner Park","alternate_name":"Boer War Veteran's Memorial Kiosk","street_address":"Bridge Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Lissner Park
Lissner Park is a recreational reserve of some 7 hectares. It is bounded by Anne, Church, Plummer, Deane and Bridge Streets, and is located three blocks to the north of Gill Street, the main street of Charters Towers. It is well grassed with a scattering of perimeter trees and remnant avenues, and a collection of structures and enclosures. The structures include the Band Rotunda and the Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk. The park is relatively flat, rising gently towards Anne Street to the south.
Mosman Creek separates the northern end of the park from the remainder. The central part of the park includes many of the park's structures and several mature trees including large figs. The southern end of the park is grassed, gently sloping and bound by perimeter trees. There is some remnants of a central axis formed by structures and planting. The trees within the park include figs, jacarandas, eucalypts, tamarinds, palms and silky oaks.
The Band Rotunda is located on the central axis of the park towards Mosman Creek. It is octagonal in plan with a corrugated iron pyramid roof and cast iron finial. Constructed in timber, it has posts paired at each corner and a cast iron fringe between. The chamferboard base is largely hidden by a small hedge. The structure is encircled by palm trees, and nearby are several large fig trees.
At the boundary to the west of the bandstand, are wrought iron gates with gate posts and some cast iron fence posts.
Further to the south of the bandstand, and also on the central axis is the remnant of the fountain. It is encircled by a ring of trees and a small bougainvillea hedge. The fountain is raised on a small platform, bound by a low concrete retaining wall with a moulded top. The fountain has a crucifix form in plan, is constructed from folded 'tin' sheets, and exhibits evidence of removed decorative elements.
Other elements of the park include a playground, the 1959 memorial to William Hann, the 1988 fernery, the 1988 animal enclosure and the 1972 Rotary centenary pond.
Traversing the park, Mosman Creek is now lined with stone and concrete, and is crossed by two timber and steel footbridges. Across the creek two animal enclosures with some emus and a kangaroo. In the north-eastern corner is the Kennedy Regiment Memorial Swimming Pool which is not part of the park.
Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk
Standing to the west of the fountain is the Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk. It lies on an east-west axis, with both ends semicircular in plan, and is constructed in cast iron and steel.
The kiosk is an open structure, with an inner and outer ring of cast iron columns with Corinthian capitals. These support the red bellcast corrugated iron roof and encircling concave verandah. The roof is punctuated with three small louvred dormers to each side, and has ridge ventilators, cast iron cresting and flagstaffs at each end..
The outer ring of columns have cast iron brackets. To the south-western corner are panels of timber louvres between the columns.
Raised one step on a concrete plinth is the inner ring of columns. Running between these is a cast iron balustrade. Above is a series of steel struts providing the bracing.
At the western end of the kiosk, behind the louvres is a servery with marble benches. Above the benches are three marble plaques facing east, with gilded lettering naming some eighty local soldiers who served in the Boer War. Facing the kiosk at the eastern end are two canon.
","history":"A Temporary Reserve for Public Recreation of 18 acres 3 roods 34 perches, bounded by Anne, Deane, Bridge and Church Streets, Charters Towers, was proclaimed on 15 May, 1883. In 1888 the reserve was named Lissner Park after Isidor Lissner, a Charters Towers businessman and politician and later a minister in the 1893 Griffith Ministry.
Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. The field was proclaimed a town in 1877, and by the early 1880s was a prosperous settlement which made a major contribution to the social, political and economic development of North Queensland.
The predominant vegetation of the Charters Towers district was Eucalyptus woodland and open Eucalyptus woodland, which was quickly destroyed as timber was felled and used as shoring for the mines, for building purposes, and as fuel for the Cornish boilers. Concern that the environment was being destroyed led to protests about the loss of vegetation from leading citizens, including Anglican Bishop Gilbert White and Isidore Lissner MLA. As a result of the devastation and in keeping with the prevailing belief that the development of gardens improved the moral character and social well being of the community, Lissner encouraged the Charters Towers Municipal Council to request that a reserve be set aside for recreation and botanical purposes.
A Temporary Reserve for Public Recreation, proclaimed on 15 May, 1885, was placed under "the control of the Municipal Council" and on 17 August, 1891 the park became a permeant reserve with the Municipal Council appointed as trustees.
The park was named after Isidor Siegfried Lissner who arrived in Charters Towers in 1873 after living for some time on mining fields in southern Australia. During his time in Charters Towers Lissner developed a financial empire based on mining and commercial interests. He took a keen interest in community affairs and pushed for the establishment of sporting facilities and public amenities such as Lissner Park. At the urging of his friend Robert Philp he stood for the seat of Charters Towers in 1883. After his election he became a strong advocate for better community services for the municipality and he won the approval of the community when he opposed the introduction of cheap Asian, Kanaka and German labour into the mining and sugar industries. Lissner was also a supporter of the North Queensland Separation Movement and he became Minister for Mines and Public Works in 1893.
Development of the park was funded by government grants of £350 in 1885 and £175 in 1889. Early work included clearing stumps and rubbish, leveling the ground and tree planting. Tenders were called for a gardener in June 1889 after the first plantings died. The new gardener replanted the park with trees supplied by Ben Gulliver of Acacia Vale Nursery in Townsville. While Ben Gulliver was actively involved in supplying plants to several botanical gardens in North Queensland there is no evidence that Lissner Park was developed as a botanical gardens. Some of the Gulliver trees which still survive include tamarinds, figs, various palms and pine trees.
The public quickly saw the value of an area reserved for recreation and took advantage of the cleared ground to build a cricket pitch. Attending concerts in the park became a favourite evening pastime as well. As the popularity of attending social and musical events in the park grew, the Lissner Park Committee, set up to raise funds to oversee the development of the reserve, suggested that a Band Pavilion Fund be established to pay for the construction of a pavilion. In 1889, Charters Towers architect WG Smith jnr, designed a structure which cost £250 to build. The design was octagonal with a 48ft diameter platform in the centre for the band. Around this stage there was space for dancing or for seating. The corrugated iron roof was supported by ornamental iron pillars and provision was made in the design for curtains to be let down to protect the band if rain fell.
Other celebrations held in the park included Queen Victoria's Jubilee, the birth of Federation, memorial events at the death of Queen Victoria and events to honour people who went to the Boer War and World War 1.
During the Boer War a South African Patriotic Fund was established in Charters Towers to assist families and soldiers affected by the war in Africa. £1200 was left in the fund after the war and the Municipal Council suggested that a kiosk be built in Lissner Park as a memorial to Charters Towers people who served in the war. In 1909 the Council offered a prize for the best design for a Memorial Kiosk. Mr F Jorgensen, Director of the Technical College, won the competition, however, during construction his design was slightly altered when the floor design of the Australian Flag and the Union Jack, to be created in tiles, was removed because it was seen as inappropriate that people would walk on the flags. It is not know who built the kiosk but the iron work was supplied by local foundry Walton & Millgate. A honour board, erected at the western end of the kiosk, contains the names of those soldiers from the district who lost their lives during the Boer War. Over 7000 people attended the opening ceremony and enjoyed the promenade concert after the opening by Mayor SH Thorp. The celebrations lasted all day and during the evening the band rotunda, fountain and kiosk were brightly lit for the concert.
Because the park had become a recognised central gathering place it became the obvious location for protest meetings in the late 1880s and early 1890s. On 24 March 1889 a vocal group from the Charters Towers Mining Union met in the park to pass a resolution asking the government to amend the 1884 Land Act to give miners the right to mine lease hold land. In another meeting in the park in July 1889 2500 miners and local people assembled to discuss and give support to the strikers at the Day Dawn PC Mine who were out on strike over measures taken by the owners to prevent gold being stolen. A gathering in August 1889 gave support to the government's proposal to introduce an eight hour day and a meeting, called by the Charters Towers Branch of the Australian Labor Federation, met in the park on 1 March 1891. The issue under discussion was the need for a resolution of the dispute between shearers and pastoralists over working conditions and wages. The Lissner Park meeting requested that the government bring both parties together to resolve the issue and that conciliation boards be established by the government to settle such disputes in future.
Photographic evidence indicates that a bush house, which no longer exists, was constructed in April, 1891. A 'tin' fountain , installed prior to 1910, was removed from the park in 1964 or 65 when the Lions Club built a ceramic tiled fountain. The original tin fountain, which no longer works, has recently been returned to the park. A small lake was constructed in 1911 and the toilets and lighting were extended in 1912.
A small zoo, which was constructed at the northern end of the park along Plummer St, is now being slowly removed because the care of animals is costly and time consuming. A new, smaller, animal enclosure was developed in 1988 on the site of the 1911 lake.
A memorial to Joseph and William Hann, early explores and pastoralists in the Kennedy District, was erected in 1959 to celebrate the centenary of pastoral settlement. Extensive concrete paths were constructed under the Red Scheme in the 1970s. These walkways follow the line of some earlier 'cinder' paths which cris crossed the park.
The recreation reserve was reduced in size in 1971 when a swimming pool was constructed at the northern end of the park on land bounded by Plummer and Church Streets. It was probably at this time that Mosman Creek, which now forms the boundary between the park and the pool, was lined with concrete and stone along the section bordering the park.
Some renovations to the kiosk were carried out in mid 1970. The Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk was entered on the Register of the National Estate in 1978 and in 1989 a National Estate Grant of $31,300 was awarded for conservation work on the kiosk.
The bandstand has recently been repaired and painted and the installation of an irrigation system to water the whole park has created a pleasant, cool environment which is being utilised by the local community and travellers.
","criteria":"The Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk, constructed in 1909, is significant because it exemplifies a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism during the early twentieth century and belongs to a class of commemorative memorials which record local community response to events such as war.
|The Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk, constructed in 1909, is significant because it exemplifies a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism during the early twentieth century and belongs to a class of commemorative memorials which record local community response to events such as war.
|Lissner Park has retained it's fine Victorian character as a result of the survival of many of the trees supplied by Ben Gulliver, Townsville nurseryman and botanist.
|The park has been a focus for community cultural and social activities since its inception and was the venue for commemorative events and for political gatherings during the turbulent years of the rise of the Labor Party during the last decade of the nineteenth century.
|Lissner Park , named after Queensland MLA and local businessman Isidor Lissner, is important as the earliest recreation venue in Charters Towers. The park, developed as a response to the prevailing belief that gardens improved the moral character and enhanced the social well being of the community, was established with the support of Lissner.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15173,"place_ref":600398,"name":"Civic Club","alternate_name":"Londoners' Club","street_address":"36 Ryan Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Civic Club is located in Ryan Street, Charters Towers in what is essentially a residential streetscape.
The clubhouse is a single storey building, largely of timber, with a rendered brick wall on the eastern side and fibrous cement cladding on the front. It is set on low stumps and is L shaped in form with a projecting gable to the front. There is a verandah extending across the front from the gabled section and along the side, which has a cast iron balustrade and valance linked by panels of timber latticework. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and has 3 prominent clerestories that light and ventilate each of the main rooms.
Inside, the somewhat residential appearance of the exterior is contradicted by a layout specially designed for club use and consists of 3 major rooms with a skillion roofed kitchen extension to the rear. The main rooms are timber lined with pressed metal ceilings and cornices and have pressed metal lining to the clerestories. The largest room holds billiard tables and the former card room is subdivided by decorative timber partitions. Arches link the rooms and at the rear of the card room is the bar. Toilets have been constructed on a section of the verandah adjoining it.
Most of the interior structural features are intact although the bar is not in its original form. Many of the original furnishings remain and these form an important part of the fabric of the building along with photographs, trophies, light fittings, shelving, cue racks and floor coverings.
The building is located on a reduced block of land and is now hemmed in on two sides by buildings. A high, galvanised pipe and wire fence encloses the area at the front. Some evidence of early pathways and garden edging and the front entrance remain. To the rear, in the angle of the L formed by the building, are a pergola and barbecue area and a concrete air raid shelter.
","history":"The Civic Club was constructed in 1900 as clubrooms providing recreational facilities for members of the Londoners' Club, which had its origins in informal meetings at the North Australian Hotel, Charters Towers, in 1877.
Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. It developed rapidly and was proclaimed a municipality in 1877. The construction of the railway in 1882 created easy access to the port at Townsville, solving the problem of high freight costs experienced by many other mining fields. The gold at Charters Towers was in deep reefs and the equipment needed to extract and process it was financed by substantial southern and overseas investment in mining companies. The town became a prosperous centre providing employment for a considerable number of people.
In the year when the mushrooming goldfield became officially a town, a group of mining men began meeting informally at the North Australian Hotel. Later, they were to call themselves the Londoners' Association. Hotels have always been meeting places and it was common at the time for larger hotels to provide rooms for hire to clubs and associations, usually on an upper storey. However, the convenience of meeting in a place which could readily provide food and drink was somewhat offset by noise from other patrons, the limitations placed on club members activities and a general lack of privacy. Typically, clubs that held regular meetings eventually acquired their own premises.
In 1885, Thomas Craven, a Trustee for the association purchased the land on which the Londoners' Association built their clubhouse. In the late 1880s and 90s, Charters Towers boomed and handsome public buildings replaced the modest structures of the early township. In 1900 the association applied for a club liquor licence for their new clubhouse and were registered as the Londoners' Club. The premises were opened in May 1900 and provided a bar plus comfortable and well-lit rooms for billiards and card playing. Card games were subject to severe restrictions in hotels and the club is said to have offered all night gaming facilities. Card tables were installed with drawers to hold money, chips and, it was rumoured, gold dust and even pistols. Monthly smoke concerts were held, informal affairs where the members themselves provided the entertainment.
The membership of the club was exclusively male and comprised many of the city's most influential men. Belonging to a club, particularly one that had socially and professionally prominent members, was an important aspect of business as well as social life for many men in this era. Membership was sought after and the club visitor's book shows that overseas investors were often entertained at the club by local businessmen during the boom years. Visitors included mining men from London, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, America and New Guinea. The convivial setting provided by the club was no doubt conducive to promoting professional as well as personal contacts amongst members generally. From 1907, it was renamed the Civic Club.
The clubhouse was built in the year that the population of the city reached its peak of 27,000. Although gold production on the field had peaked in 1899 at an impressive 337,000 ounces, it soon became clear that these grades did not continue at depth. Gold prices also fell and by 1920 only one mine in Charters Towers was still operational. People, businesses and even the more portable buildings moved away from the town and by the end of the First World War the population had more than halved. This in turn led to a decline in membership of the Civic Club.
The availability of large redundant buildings in a town with a well-developed infrastructure and a rail connection suggested the possibility of establishing boarding schools to several Churches. Charters Towers soon found a new role as an educational centre and is still a major regional centre in the north. The Civic Club continued to operate and, maintaining its original billiard tables set on concrete blocks, has often organised snooker tournaments.
The Civic Club was established as a men's club and remained a male preserve until 1980, when women were admitted during a period of rejuvenation when its membership base was broadened. The Club is now one of the few surviving examples of its type in a country town.
","criteria":"Charters Towers, as an extraordinarily rich goldfield, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North in the late 19th century. The Civic Club, built in 1900 as premises for an elite men's club established in 1877, reflects the interests and leisure activities of the many influential men involved in mining, commerce and the professions who were its members and patrons. The establishment of such a club in Charters Towers demonstrates the importance of this city at the turn of the century.
|The Civic Club is rare as a gentlemen's club, few of which were built outside the capital cities in Australia, and which is still owned and operated by this club.
|It is very intact in form and detail and is an excellent example of a recreational club with rooms specially designed to provide good conditions for playing cards and billiards.
|As a prominent and well-designed building from Charter's Towers most prosperous period, the Civic Club makes an important contribution to the built character of the town in form, scale, and material.
|As a purpose designed clubhouse, the building has over a century's continuous association with members of the Londoners' Club/Civic Club, which continues to operate.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15174,"place_ref":600399,"name":"Bell Tower, St Columba's Church","alternate_name":"Bell Tower, St Columbas Catholic Church; St Columbas Bell Tower","street_address":"134 Gill Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Bell Tower is constructed of heavy dressed and painted timbers and consists of four structural members forming legs which are strengthened by cross-bracing. It has a steeply pitched pagoda roof topped by a cross. Small acroteria decorate the corners of the roof, which is clad with corrugated iron. The tower is hung with a Burns & Oats bell. There is a bellringer's platform finished with cross braced balustrading, however, there is no stair to permit access and the legs of the tower are now exposed. The tower is visible from some streets away and is a local landmark
","history":"The bell tower at St Columba's Church is a timber framework set on a concrete base and supports a Burns & Oats bell. It was constructed in 1897 and was probably designed by Charles William Smith, architect for the now demolished church.
Soon after the establishment of the gold field in early 1872 and a visit to the field by Bishop Quinn, the Catholic Church erected temporary church buildings at Charters Towers, Queenton and Millchester. A Father Dunham was initially appointed to serve these churches but left within a year. St Columbakill's church was erected on the Just in Time mining lease at Queenton, but for some years it was served only intermittently by visiting priests. The first incumbent was Father Denis Houhy who arrived on 6 January 1876. Mining activity on the Just in Time lease increased and in November 1878 several blocks of land were purchased for the church on the corner of Gill Street and what was to be Church Street. The church from the Just In Time lease was moved to the Gill Street site but was destroyed in a storm in September 1879. A new church was built in 1880 and the remains of the old one recycled to provide a school building.
In November, 1890 a new and most energetic Irish pastor arrived, Reverend Father Comerford. Finding the church buildings inadequate and decaying, he set a major building program in motion. The school and church were enlarged and a fine new convent built for the Sisters of Mercy, who had been enduring primitive accommodation. In 1893, he began collecting for a new bell tower and bell, which was ordered from the London foundry of Burns and Oats at a cost of £210/-/-.
A tower to house the bell was constructed in 1897-8 at a cost of £325/17/3. At this time major extensions and alterations were being carried out to the church to the design of Charles William Smith, Charters Towers partner of the firm of W.G. Smith & Sons. The account for the belltower includes architect's fees and it is probable that the tower was also designed by C.W. Smith. Both were completed in 1898, the new church being capable of seating 1000.
The work carried out on site in the 1890s, including minor items like offices and stabling, amounted to £9,900 worth of work. and provided facilities at the time 'far surpassing anything in North Queensland'. The majority of the cost and an outstanding parish debt was paid by the end of the decade, a remarkable feat in an era marked generally by financial depression, and is a testament to the support of the congregation and the prosperity of Charters Towers. In 1902 bracing was carried out to the frame work of the belltower and the concrete foundations were reinforced in 1923.
St Columba's church was listed by the National Trust of Queensland in 1973 along with the presbytery and bell tower. The tower is now the only building left from the nineteenth century complex of buildings on site. It was repaired and painted when the new church was built in 1974 and this may have been when the weatherboards that originally enclosed the base of the tower as a small shed were removed. The stair that allowed access to the bellringer's platform has also been removed and the platform now has cross braced balustrading instead of the original dowels.
","criteria":"The bell tower is the last surviving structure from a major church precinct in Charters Towers and is evidence for the development of the Catholic Church in North Queensland and the prosperity and importance of the Charters Towers goldfield in the nineteenth century.
|The belltower has been a landmark in the city since 1897, its massive timber frame suggesting an era when the Charters Towers landscape was dotted with other timber towers which supported the winding machinery for mines.
|St Columba's belltower is important for its association with the history of the Parish as the only nineteenth century structure remaining on a site occupied by Roman Catholic Church buildings since the 1870s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15176,"place_ref":600401,"name":"Charters Towers Police Station","alternate_name":"Police Barracks","street_address":"49 Gill Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Charters Towers Police Station is a two-storeyed brick building fronted with a timber verandah. The building's principal facade faces south addressing Gill Street, the main street of Charters Towers. Charters Towers, and Gill Street in particular retains many of its early commercial and public buildings, and the Police Station is located near the centre of this historical business district. Extending from the rear of the main building is the single-storey wing of the watch-house.
Sitting between single-storey shops built to the street alignment, the Police Station punctuates the streetscape with a two-storey facade and a small garden filling the setback from the alignment. The front of the site is marked by a white timber picket fence. This fence has openings at both entrances to the verandah, and an earlier gate at the western end.
Rectangular in plan, the main block is built of brick with a corrugated steel hipped roof. The roof has a timber fleche centred on its ridge, and extends to cover the front verandah. The symmetrical composition of the Gill Street facade features the two-storeyed timber verandah.
The external walls of the front and side elevations are mostly face brickwork, which is now painted. Outside the verandah, the walls above the upper sill are rendered in roughcast. The front verandah finishes short of each end, leaving a small bay for a double-hung window on each level.
The verandah has projecting bays at each end over the entries, with double posts at the corners. There is a slatted balustrade to both levels with fretted feature panels. The lower level has an arched timber valance. Several steps lead up to lower timber verandah, and a timber disabled ramp provides access at the western end.
French doors with fan-lights provide access to the front verandah at both levels. The end elevations feature double-hung windows with slatted window hoods. The rear verandah area has been enclosed in timber framing, and clad in weatherboards, then connected to the concrete block watch-house wing.
The interior of the front block has been fitted out as offices and work areas. It is lined with plasterboard ceilings and partition walls.
The property extends through to Ryan Street at the rear. Behind the watch-house are driveways and parking areas.
","history":"Charters Towers Police Station was the product of the Queensland Government Architects Office of AB Brady. The drawings are signed by the Deputy Government Architect Thomas Pye, and the design is possibly his work. The building was constructed in 1910 by builder T Johnson.
The discovery of gold at Charters Towers in December 1871 and the expansion of the pastoral industry in the region created a need for a resident police force. By 1872 Charters Towers had become the second most important police station in Queensland, after Brisbane, with a staff of 24 police. In 1878, there was a population of 3,760 people on the Charters Towers gold field and there were 256 issues dealt with by staff. These figures are more meaningful when contrasted with the Gympie gold field which had a population of 4,760 but only 79 cases were dealt with.
Nothing is known about the early accommodation for police staff on the gold field however, a wooden police barracks appears to have been built on the Gill Street site prior to 1891. This barracks was extended in 1891 and again in 1894. By 1907 plans were being drawn up to replace the timber building with new brick premises at an estimated cost of £3000. The existing wooden structure was to be moved to the rear of the block and would be sold for removal after the new building was opened.
£3500 was set aside in the 1908 State Government budget towards the cost of the new barracks and in February, 1909 sketch plans were drawn up. Tenders were called twice, once on 15 April, 1909 and again on 3 June, 1909. A memo from the Secretary of Public Works, which the Government Architect AP Brady signed on 7 February, 1910, recommended that the tender for £3335, from Charters Towers contractor T Johnson, be accepted. The work was to take eight months and included the construction of fences and gates.
In June 1910 the bricks being used in the construction of the building were found to be faulty, and the contractor was told to use them only in interior walls and to supply better quality bricks for the exterior of the building.
The building, when completed, was a two storey structure of red bricks relieved with rough cast. On the ground floor there was provision for an inspector's, sergeant's and clerk's offices. There was a large day room for constables, a kitchen and a semi detached verandah dining area and on the first floor there were large dormitories and three bathrooms.
There is little evidence of alterations to the building for some time, other than the installation of the septic in 1960 at a cost of £3088, and the conversion in 1975 of the station to a district headquarters which involved some internal modifications.
On 'Black Friday' 13 May 1988 the Police Station was substantially damaged by fire. The roof collapsed, and the interiors were largely gutted. The external brick shell and the internal brick dividing wall survived, along with the timber front verandah, parts of the rear verandah and most of the timber floor. The roof of the brick Kitchen Block to the rear also collapsed, and its brick shell survived, but this building was subsequently demolished.
Initially it appeared that the building would be demolished and the site sold for development. However, strong community feeling favoured rebuilding. Letters to the editor pointed out the streetscape significance of the former building, the importance of retaining all the remaining buildings in Gill Street, and the important role of the police, working from this site since the late 1880s, in the economic and social development of the city. After strong lobbying from the Queensland National Trust and the signing of a petition by 2000 of the town's 8000 residents the State Government provided funds for the repair of the building.
The interior of the building was consequently rebuilt, having only some reflection of its former layout. An additional wing including the new watch-house was also added to the rear. On completion of this work, the building was again in use as the police station by late 1990, and was officially reopened on 19 March 1991.
","criteria":"The Charters Towers Police Station is important in demonstrating the role of the police force in the development of Queensland regional towns, particularly gold mining towns such as Charters Towers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Their use of this central city site for over a century has established a prominent role for the police service in the city's business district.
|The Charters Towers Police Station is an example of quality public building work of the Government Architect's Office. It is a surviving example of a type of early 20th century police barracks, which once included several examples in North Queensland such as Townsville and Cairns, now both demolished.
|Located in Gill Street, the main street of Charters Towers, the Police Station makes a substantial contribution to the historical commercial streetscape of the city. Its two-storey height and setback make it a feature amongst its surroundings. Apart from Fossey's Store (601259), it is one of the few unrendered masonry historical buildings of this central commercial district.
|Following substantial damage to the building by fire in 1988, the importance of the building to the city was demonstrated by the strong community response through petitions and letters, arguing against the demolition of the building, and supporting the retention of what had survived and the rebuilding of what had been lost.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15177,"place_ref":600402,"name":"School of Mines, Charters Towers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24 - 26 Hodgkinson Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The School of Mines stands next to the Court House on a government reserve. It is a single story building, timber framed and clad on concrete stumps with a corrugated iron roof. One of the stumps at the front of the building is the memorial stone laid by E.D. Miles. Its current position helps to demonstrate that the building has been considerably extended during its life. Much of the School of Mines is of single skin construction. The front portion is approximately 30 x 20 metres with two small projections remaining from the wings, one of which contains toilets and a tea room.
The rear block is 30 x 10 metres with part of one wing still attached. Most rooms in both blocks have high ceilings and good natural light from windows and roof lights. They are plainly but robustly detailed.
Although many of the partitions have been moved around during the life of the building, it is fairly intact and incorporates much of the original linings and joinery. The floors are timber except for the concrete floor in the former furnace room. The former school is used as offices and training rooms. Unsympathetic metal security grilles and an obtrusive air-conditioning system have been added but are reversible.
","history":"The School of Mines was established in 1899 by the local Mining Institute, through public subscription, on one of the most important mineral fields in Australia. A timber structure on a government reserve, it was taken over and expanded by the Queensland Government in 1900 into a highly regarded technical institution.
Charters Towers was established as a gold field in 1872. The gold was not alluvial, but in the form of downward sloping reefs of gold bearing ore. As time went on it became necessary to dig deeper and deeper shafts to extract the gold which required the formation of companies to provide sufficient capital. The mid 1880s saw a major boom in speculation on mining shares following the display of Charters Towers gold at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London and the finding of the Brilliant Reef in 1889. By drawing people and capital into north Queensland and by developing into an important centre, Charters Towers was to play an important role in the opening up of north Queensland as a whole. It was, at its peak, the second town in Queensland.
Possibly because of the richness of the ore at Charters Towers, some of the mines were run without much regard for the most efficient and modern methods. As geologist J.M. McLaren noted in his Queensland Mining and Milling Practice in 1901, many had been established before metallurgy became an exact science. Towards the end of the century, there was considerable interest in improving methods in what had become a very important industry in Queensland.
Agitation for technical education in mining methods in Charters Towers began in the 1880s. A Government Mineralogical Officer, Mr A.W. Clarke, was appointed in 1887, and in the following year a School of Mines Committee was set up to meet the government's offer of a pound for pound subsidy to establish a school. They were unable to collect sufficient funds and the scheme was temporarily abandoned with Clarke being recalled in 1892.
In 1896 a Mine and Mill Manager's Association was formed. Meetings were held monthly at the old Town Hall where papers on subjects connected with mining were presented and discussed. It soon became apparent that few members of the association, most of whom had practical rather than theoretical knowledge, could understand the more technical papers. This gave impetus to a renewed interest in establishing a technical school to teach subjects related to mining along the lines of the noted School of Mines in Ballarat and Otago.
It was decided to erect a building to be used as a Mining Institute, and a public subscription was taken up to finance the project, raising 1,500 pounds for the building and equipment. A memorial stone was laid E.D. Miles in March 1899 and was used as one of the stumps supporting the timber building. The school opened in the same year, teaching mathematics, surveying, assaying, chemistry and mineralogy and was governed by the Council of the Institute. Although there was an enrolment of between sixty and seventy students, attendance fell away as the year progressed and by the end of the year only two students remained. Although the experiment had failed, the need for technical instruction remained and the Institute approached the government who agreed to take over the school. The 1,500 pounds expended was refunded and used to refurbish the Institute's headquarters in Bow Street.
A director for the School of Mines was appointed in October 1900 and immediately travelled to Charters Towers to inspect the Mining Institute buildings and to assess what alterations were needed. He made sketch plans used by the Government Architect to design additions and alterations which cost 700 pounds and were carried out by local builder, B.Toll. The Director also appointed staff and purchased the necessary equipment to create an up to date technical school.
Classes began in 1901, although work on the building was not quite complete. The school had lecture rooms for geology and chemistry, assaying and chemistry laboratories, a balance room, mechanical drawing and survey department, an office, two private rooms for lecturers, a storeroom and outbuildings. The first director was W.A. McLeod, a graduate of the New Zealand University and the Otago School of Mines. He was responsible only to the Minister and was given considerable freedom to formulate policy. A firm believer in giving working men an opportunity to advance in their industry, he had lectures repeated in the evening which allowed working miners to attend the School. At the time, this was considered a 'novel' scheme and is believed to have been unique in Australia.
Response to the new school was good and in 1903 the building was extended eastwards to include a reading room and office. The new section incorporated rectilinear sash windows instead of the round-headed sash windows of the original building and a new hip roof form.
In 1904, McLeod, having set the curriculum, left to become manager of the Brilliant Extended Mine. W.Poole was the second director and made the school into a highly regarded educational institution. His success is demonstrated in the substantial new additions made to the western section of the school in January 1907. These included a drawing office, lecture preparation room and new laboratory. The existing assay laboratory was also extended with balance rooms.
Although the School of Mines was flourishing, the Charters Towers field was in decline, having reached its peak in 1899. By 1912 many people were leaving the town and in 1916 the field closed. The school continued to produce a small, but highly regarded, stream of graduates who were to distinguish themselves in many branches of the mining industry, both in Queensland and further afield.
The School of Mines eventually closed in 1925 after it was taken over by the Department of Education. By this time the building had more than doubled its original size and formed a complex around a courtyard. In 1964, the connection between the front half of the building and the rear were severed.
In 1977 the State Works Department planned to remove the main portion of the building retaining only the rear portion as a manual training section for the High School. After strong reaction by the residents of Charters Towers, the department leased the building to the National Trust of Queensland which undertook works to permit occupancy. It is currently sub-leased to the Department of Environment and Skillshare.
","criteria":"The School of Mines is located on what was one of Australia's most productive gold fields and reflects the importance of the mining industry to the development of north Queensland.
It demonstrates the role of the Government in mining education at the turn of the century by its location on a government reserve and its adaptation by the Department of Works. Its success in the early years of the twentieth century is shown by the series of extensions to the building and its facilities.
|(Criterion under review)
|It has aesthetic qualities which are well regarded by the community and which make a contribution to the streetscape.
|It has special association with the ideas of W.A. McLeod, the first Director and with the many important figures in mining who were graduates of this school.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15178,"place_ref":600403,"name":"Charters Towers Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28 Hodgkinson Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The court House consists of 2 brick buildings parallel to each other and connected at the rear. They are situated on a large government reserve at the corner of Hodgkinson and Church Streets, Charters Towers, along with the former School of Mines.
The original court house is a classical revival building of rendered brick with a corrugated iron roof and is set well back facing Hodgkinson Street. The core of the building is the court room which rises to 2 storeys and is approached through a slightly lower portico with a Tuscan order arcade of 3 bays separated by square pilasters rising through 2 stories to the triangular pediment, which has a circular louvred vent in its centre. This entrance is flanked by single storey attached pavilions with pyramid roofs. These have pairs of sash windows shaded by a sun hood on brackets cast iron. The rear of the building has similar pavilion style wings linked by a verandah, and a verandah links the front and rear pavilions on the western side. The eastern verandah area is now used for disabled parking. The rear pavilion on the eastern side is linked to the newer building and now houses a tea room. It retains a chimney and corner fireplace. Other rooms to the rear include offices and a strong room. The court room is still in use for this purpose and has plastered walls and a rather austere coffered ceiling. There is a public gallery at the northern end. It retains cedar furniture and fittings.
The 1890s extension building is set back from the older building and only joins it towards the rear. It is constructed of brick with a gambrel roof clad in corrugated iron and is basically rectangular in form. For much of its length it is free standing, having a ground floor verandah and awning which encircles the front and sides. This is supported on posts with decorative brackets. The building is symmetrical and has its own central entrance consisting of double doors flanked by windows and approached from across the verandah by low steps.
It houses the offices of the Department of Justice and Attorney General and other government department tenancies.
","history":"The Charters Towers Court House was designed in 1885 by the Colonial Architect, John James Clark, as one of a series of substantial court houses in major regional centres. It was completed in 1887 and extended by the addition of a wing in 1890.
Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. The field was proclaimed a municipality in 1877 and had become a prosperous settlement by the time a rail link to the coast opened in 1882. Charters Towers gold was in deep reefs and the equipment needed to extract and process it was financed by substantial southern and overseas investment. The town became a major regional centre providing employment for a considerable number of people.
The 1880s was a period of expansion in Queensland generally as the economy enjoyed a boom and people poured into the colony. This necessitated an increase in police numbers and court facilities. In fact, police and judiciary facilities were constructed at such a pace in this period that it became difficult to obtain suitably qualified contractors. Charters Towers was amongst a number of regional centres where substantial new court houses were erected, probably in response to the increase in its importance and population and in keeping with the handsome new buildings then rapidly replacing the modest structures of the early township.
The new court house was designed by noted architect J.J. Clark, who was at the time Colonial Architect. John James Clark was born and trained in Liverpool, England. He arrived in Melbourne in 1853 and won a number of architectural competitions; his success in such competitions being a feature of his career. Clark designed some major public buildings in Melbourne, including the Treasury, then moved to Sydney in 1881 and in 1883 became Queensland Colonial Architect. Although he left the position in 1885, he was responsible for some important public buildings during this time, including courthouses at Mackay, Rockhampton and Warwick. They and the Charters Towers court house were designed in the classical revival style thought appropriate for public buildings intended to convey a sense of stability and dignity, particularly a court house which represented the power of the law.
The Charters Towers court house was constructed by contractor Charles Miller at a cost of £4650 and opened on 9 February 1887. The local newspaper, the Northern Miner, indulged in some critical remarks about the appearance of the building, describing it as 'unpretentious', but admitted that it was commodious and well ventilated. In general style and layout it resembled that of the court house at Mackay, built about the same time. Apart from the court, rooms were provided for the judge, police magistrate, Clerk of Petty Sessions, jury, witnesses and gold warden, plus a number of other offices. Even so, by 1890 the building had become inadequate, reflecting the rapid growth of the city. Local building contractor, Benjamin Toll, was employed to construct a large brick extension with verandahs on three sides alongside the court and connected to it.
The court house has changed little since and has served the Charters Towers and district community in this capacity for over a hundred years, with the 1890s wing now providing office space for the Department of Mines and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources.
","criteria":"Charters Towers, as an extraordinarily rich goldfield, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North. The Charters Towers Court House, constructed in 1886 and extended in the 1890s, demonstrates the growth of Charters Towers as a major goldfield and reflects its importance as a regional centre in the late 19th century.
|The court room remains substantially unchanged since completion and retains the major components of its original furniture, which is now rare.
|The court house is characteristic of major regional court houses, influenced by classical revival styles imbuing tradition and authority and providing a lofty courtroom with attendant offices. It is a fine example of a public building of its era and demonstrates the high quality work produced by the Colonial Architect's office in the late nineteenth century.
|As a substantial and prominently sited public building, of architectural merit, it makes an important visual contribution to the character of Charters Towers.
|The court house has had a long connection with the people of Charters Towers and the surrounding district as the focus for the administration of justice in the area.
|As a major public building designed during his tenure as Colonial architect, the court house has important associations with the life and work of JJ Clark who made an important contribution to the development of architecture in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15179,"place_ref":600404,"name":"Ay Ot Lookout","alternate_name":"Ayot Lookout; Ay Ot; Ayot","street_address":"63 Hodgkinson Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ay Ot Lookout is located on the corner of Hodgkinson and High Streets, one block away from the business centre along Gill Street.
\nThe two storey house is constructed of timber with an exposed stud frame which has been used to decorative effect and has a complex gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The wide verandahs on both levels have ornate cast iron balustrading and timber handrails. The supporting posts are timber with timber capitals and brackets. There is a deep valancing between the floors. The front of the house has a bay in the verandah at both levels next to the main entrance. This is marked by a square porch which extends beyond the verandah and rises through the upper storey, so that it resembles a tower. The front door, surmounted by a large semicircular fanlight, opens into an entrance foyer; a large area with a chequerboard black and white Italian marble floor, a turned timber staircase and panelled ceiling.
\nThe workmanship in the house is of high quality and the internal joinery is cedar. The ground floor rooms have high ceilings and there are fireplaces to the drawing and dining rooms. The kitchens have been remodelled and modernised. The house has a small cellar. To the rear of the house there is an attached single storey structure with a chimney which was probably a kitchen annexe.
","history":"Ay Ot Lookout (originally spelt Ayot), was erected in the 1890s, when Charters Towers was experiencing an economic boom, and is one of a number of substantial residences constructed during that period, including Thornburgh House [QHR600405] and the former Pfeiffer House [QHR600410].
\nDiscovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. The field was proclaimed a municipality in 1877. The construction of the railway created easy access to the port at Townsville, solving the problem of high freight costs experienced by many other mining fields. Charters Towers' gold was in deep reefs and the equipment needed to extract and process it was financed by substantial southern and overseas investment. The town became a prosperous centre providing employment for a considerable number of people. About 2,500 children were being educated in several schools, there were eight churches, three newspapers, two iron foundries, a hospital, fire brigade, jockey club and gasworks. In the late 1880s and 90s, handsome public buildings rose to replace the modest structures of the early township. Gold output peaked in 1899, as did a population of 26,500.
\nSeveral wealthy citizens built substantial homes in the town. Frederick Pfeiffer, owner of the Day Dawn mine, erected his house some time after 1882 and mining magnate E. H. T. Plant had built the opulent villa, Thornburgh, by 1890.
\nThe Deed of Grant for the land on which Ay Ot Lookout stands was issued to John Brown in 1880, but he sold it soon afterwards to Felix McElroy, who in turn sold to Henry Collins in 1885. The date of construction of Ay Ot Lookout is uncertain, but it is believed to have been built for Thomas Smith who purchased the property in September 1895. Smith, a mill manager, took out a mortgage of £2000 in August 1897 which may have been connected with the construction of the house.
\nIn April 1896, local architect, Henry Hubbard, invited Tenders for the ‘erection of Two-Storey Villa Residence in Hodginson Street, for Thos. Smith, Esq’. Hubbard established himself as an architect and builder in Charters Towers in 1896 and is attributed to designing many buildings in the Charters Towers district in the late nineteenth century. The house has previously been attributed to William White, who practised as an architect and land surveyor in Charters Towers in the 1890s.
\nAy Ot Lookout was sold in February 1904 to Herbert Foxlee, a prosperous merchant who owned shops conveniently close to the house. Foxlee is thought to have named his new home after his childhood home Manor Farm, Ayot Little Green, in Hertfordshire, England. The Foxlee family referred to the property as ‘Ayot Lookout’. The Foxlee family were the longest occupants of the house, owning it until it was sold to Charles Brownson in 1952.
\nBy the time the property was purchased by John and Dorothy Scott in May 1968 the house had become run down. The Scott’s put the house into good repair during the nine years that they owned the property and also amassed a large collection of antique furniture from the Charters Towers district. This was auctioned off before the house was sold in 1977, in spite of community appeals to all levels of government to purchase the house and the collection. By the 1970s, the house was referred to locally as ‘Ay Ot’ or ‘Ay-ot Lookout’.
\nAy Ot Lookout was sold to Mount Leyshon Gold Mines Limited in the 1980s and was used for a period as a club for their employees and as a museum. In 2020 the property is privately owned.
","criteria":"Charters Towers, as an extraordinarily rich goldfield, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North in the late 19th century. Ay Ot lookout, as a large and elegant villa, demonstrates the wealth and confidence of Charters Towers at the height of its prosperity, when many high quality buildings were constructed in the town.
|Ay Ot Lookout is important as a good example of a fashionable villa of its era.
|It has aesthetic value as a competent architectural design in a late Victorian style which is generally well liked by the community. That this is so is evidenced by the public concern for its preservation voiced in the Charters Towers media in the 1970s and beyond.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15180,"place_ref":600405,"name":"Thornburgh House","alternate_name":"Thornburgh College | Thornburgh","street_address":"57 - 59 King Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Thornburgh House faces east and is located within the grounds of Blackheath and Thornburgh College close to the main entrance gates on King Street. The house stands on a rise overlooking the school ovals and across the city to the central business district of Charters Towers.
It is a two storey building of rendered masonry with a roof clad in corrugated iron and deep verandahs to three sides. The verandahs are supported by timber posts, linked by cast iron friezes and cast iron panels in a simple geometric design topped by timber handrails. Between the two storeys are valances of timber lattice within broad timber frames. The ground floor is reached by two sets of concrete steps, that to the main entrance leading into the hall. On the ground floor there are two large rooms with deep bay windows accessed from this hallway and from the verandahs. These were the former dining and drawing rooms and have high plaster ceilings, ornate cornices and imported carved mantelpieces. The main staircase leading from the entrance hall is graceful in form with cast metal balustrades supporting a sinuously curved timber handrail which is constructed of cedar, as is the majority of joinery in the house. French doors lead from almost all rooms onto the wide verandahs and most rooms have fireplaces. There is a second, simple staircase towards the rear of the house which originally linked the former children's school room to bedrooms at the rear of the upper floor.
The house also has a basement, which originally housed a children's play room, skating rink and store room.
Former Servants Quarters:
This is a single storey brick building located on slightly more elevated land to the rear of the house. It is divided into six rooms with an awning along the front elevation, creating a shaded verandah.
","history":"Thornburgh House is a two storey brick villa constructed in 1890 for Charters Towers mining magnate E.H.T. Plant. It became a boarding school in 1919, a function which continues to the present day.
Edmund Harris Thornburgh Plant arrived in Australia, aged 17, in 1862 after living briefly in America. He initially worked on a rural property before turning to prospecting in the southern and central mining fields then moving to the newly discovered Ravenswood field in 1869. He took out a mining lease on the productive Black Jack Reef and erected the first ore-crushing battery, the Vulcan Mill, in 1870. Soon after, Plant was amongst the first on the newly discovered Charters Towers field and erected the Venus Mill in 1873. In addition to his successes in Charters Towers and Ravenswood, he also had interests in the Hodgkinson and Palmer fields and in copper, tin and wolfram production in other northern mining areas.
Plant made a major contribution to the development of mining in north Queensland. Charters Towers was a field of astonishing richness and at its peak accounted for more than a third of Queensland's entire gold production as new technologies requiring corporate capital took over from the hand methods of individual miners and small syndicates. Plant not only owned crushing mills, but entered into public affairs in a wide range of areas; as a Member of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, as Chairman of the Dalrymple Shire Divisional Board for nine consecutive years, and on a variety of boards ranging from the Townsville Harbour Board to those responsible for the local water supply and hospital.
In the year before construction on Thornburgh began, Plant and his family spent 12 months visiting England; a practice not uncommon for wealthy Australians who wished to collect ideas and furnishings for a projected residence. It is not surprising that when it was finished, Thornburgh was described by the Northern Miner as the "the handsomest and most convenient dwelling house in the North". The paper also noted with approval that apart from two mantelpieces brought from England, most of the materials used in the building itself were made in north Queensland. The two storeyed home, located on Plant's Ridge, was not only large, handsome and tastefully decorated, but incorporated some innovative ideas. These included an inner roof of Willesden paper intended to allow air drawn through mesh under the roof to circulate between it and the roof proper thus cooling the building. An unlimited supply of water piped through the house was provided by means of an elevated tank supplied by steam pump from the dam of the Bonnie Dundee Mine which Plant owned and which the house overlooked. Electricity was also supplied.
The basement to the house contained, besides storage space, wine cellar and larder, a children's playroom with a concreted area for them to use as a skating rink.
To the rear was a separate servants' section which contained a kitchen, servant's hall, three bedrooms and a bathroom. Plant also employed a large grounds staff and by 1919 when the house was sold, the extensive gardens and mature trees formed an oasis of greenery in the parched environment of Charters Towers and were an important part of the town landscape.
Although gold production on the field peaked in 1899 at an impressive 337,000 ounces, it soon became clear that these grades did not continue at depth and by 1920 only one mine was still operational. People, businesses and even the more portable buildings, moved away from the town. Property prices fell and the availability of large redundant buildings in a town servicing a wide area and connected to major centres by rail suggested the possibility of schools to several Churches. In 1918, as Plant approached retirement and was increasingly involved in his pastoral property near Ingham, he put Thornburgh up for sale.
Representatives of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches had already met to consider establishing a college for North Queensland students under the auspices of the two churches. They approached Plant about the purchase of Thornburgh, but the Anglican Sisters in Townsville were also interested in the property and so an option was quickly secured by the Reverend Robert Bacon to purchase the house for three thousand pounds in November 1918. The newly-formed school committee placed £50 as a holding deposit.
Thornburgh College, a school for boys, began classes on 16 June 1919 with J F Ward, MA, of Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, as Principal. The school was officially opened by Rev Dr H Youngman, President General of the Methodist Church of Australia, on 23 April 1920. By the Golden Jubilee Year in 1969, more than 2,500 boys had been educated at the college.
A gift of £1000 from a Mr W.R. Black and generous contributions from the public made it possible for Rev. Bacon to establish a girls' school in 'Yelvertoft', the former home of Mr J Mitchell. The college was opened in 1920 and given the name of 'Blackheath' as a tribute to Mr Black. Senior girls attended Thornburgh College until January 1921 when Blackheath Principal, Miss J. E. Bullow, began her illustrious eighteen year career with the College. Blackheath was officially opened on 16 June 1921 by Rev J Cosh, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland. The two schools were run by a single College Council although they appear to have had separate administration and financial structures.
Because Thornburgh was locally run, all funds had to be raised through the school and the community. A fundraising campaign was begun on 2 December 1918 by the College Council and secured £50,000 over the next twelve years. In 1919 the College Council was able to purchase the abandoned dam and tailings area below the house, which had been part of Plant's Bonnie Dundee Mill, and by 1922 had developed it into a sports field. In 1920, in order to provide additional dormitories and a new bathroom upstairs and a larger dining room downstairs, some modifications were made. These included extending the verandahs and enclosing the western verandah. In 1923 a new building containing a dining room and dormitory was constructed and the former Thornburgh dining room was converted to classrooms.
Ownership of the School passed to the Presbyterian Assembly and Methodist Conference in 1932 during the Depression when the local College Council found it difficult to keep the school running as student numbers fell. Matters began to improve with the appointment in 1939 of a new Principal, T.R. McKenzie. To boost morale and raise the profile of the school in the community, he, his wife and the school staff carried out cleaning, repainting and minor improvements to the college during the 1939/40 Christmas break. The school building itself was not requisitioned during the War for military use, though an American anti-aircraft battery, machine gun emplacements and communications systems were installed around the margins of the school ovals.
The College experienced another slump during the 1960s and 70s. and the PSMA relinquished financial management of Thornburgh College to a Provisional Board of Governors. On the 5 September 1978 the Board of Governors of Blackheath and Thornburgh College was elected and final control of the College was passed to them on 31 December 1978. The school had become run down and a group of parents and friends undertook to repaint the house in this year. The grounds established by Plant continued to be cared for and enhanced by the College and during the 1940s emphasis was placed on developing the garden. Unfortunately, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the College expanded and new buildings were constructed, much of the original gardens were lost.
As part of a rationalisation process, the campuses of Blackheath and Thornburgh were combined on the Thornburgh site between 1979 and 1982. A decision was made to demolish Thornburgh House, but was not implemented as it was found that the cost of new buildings would be greater than that of restoring the old. In 1985-87 classrooms in Thornburgh House were repaired and by 1987 plans were in place to restore the house. During restoration, rooms were provided for past students, for archives and for the school governors. Areas were also set aside for teaching, displays and for the presentation of the performing arts. Work on the building was completed in 1995.
","criteria":"Thornburgh, constructed in 1890 as a home for mining magnate E.H.T. Plant, demonstrates the fluctuations in fortune attendant upon goldfields and the ways in which some depleted fields were able to create new economic lives through different ventures. Charters Towers was an extraordinarily rich goldfield and Thornburgh, as a large and opulent villa, was a product of the towns richest era when many high quality buildings were constructed. As an important boarding school in the north it demonstrates the way in which redundant buildings and the well developed infrastructure of Charters Towers allowed the town to find a new role as an educational centre.
|Although Thornburgh has undergone some modifications for use as a school, it is still a good example of a high quality, well detailed and fashionable villa of its era and was designed by one of North Queensland 's leading architectural firms.
|It's aesthetic qualities were much admired when it was new and it is still well liked in both form and detail by the community.
|Since its inception the College has set high standards and has become one of the leading boarding schools in North Queensland. It has strong connections with the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, the community of Charters Towers and the very many people who taught or who were educated there.
|Thornburgh House as a home is associated with the life and work of Edmund Plant, an important figure in mining in Charters Towers. As an educational institution, it is particularly associated with the life and works of the Reverend Robert Bacon, who established the school, and the first two principals, Mr J.F. Ward and Miss J.E. Bullow, both endowed with the rare combination of scholastic gifts and organisational ability and to whom the subsequent high reputation of the school owed much.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15181,"place_ref":600406,"name":"Stock Exchange Arcade","alternate_name":"Royal Arcade; Stock Exchange Charters Towers","street_address":"76 Mosman Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Stock Exchange Arcade is a masonry arcade of small offices on both sides of a central court covered with a glazed vault which is supported by steel trusses with decorative inset webs. It is now glazed with modern wired glass. The arcade floor is tessellated tiles. It is entered through a two storey structure which has offices on the upper floor and shops at street level. The central entrance is protected by a barrel-vaulted portico which projects out from the second storey over the pavement and is supported on timber posts.
The vault is clad with galvanised iron and glazed in at the front with a variety of coloured glass incorporating cast iron panels. It is flanked on the upper storey by pairs of windows and by a metal awning supported by posts to the street on the lower floor. The facade is topped by a stepped, balustraded parapet.
The shop fronts facing the street and within the arcade incorporate large timber framed windows with coloured glass above and cast iron vents above and below. Most of the joinery to the shop fronts is reconstructed. The original timber stairs lead up to the rooms at first floor level which are linked by a bridge with a cast iron balustrade. The wrought iron fence thought to have originally been at the rear of the arcade is now located at the front.
A large, single storey brick assay house with a galvanised iron roof which contains a small collection of mining artefacts is attached to the rear on one side and a modern toilet block to the other.
The back of the property is grassed with a chain wire fence to the land behind. The lamp standard is not original.
","history":"The Stock Exchange Arcade was built in 1888 to the design of Sydney architect, Mark Cooper Day for Alexander Malcolm as a shop and office arcade and named the Royal Arcade. In 1890 the Stock Exchange took up its offices in the arcade which became the focus of gold-mining investment during the peak period of Queensland's most important goldfield.
Gold was discovered at the site of Charters Towers in late 1871 by a prospecting party composed of Hugh Mosman, George Clark, James Fraser and an Aboriginal boy called Jupiter who worked for Mosman. By early 1872 a rush was in progress with an estimated 4,500 on the field by the end of the year.
In 1874, following goldfield regulations, a business area was marked out in an area believed to be non-auriferous. In 1877 when Charters Towers petitioned for incorporation as a municipality, this business area was defined as covering one square mile, measured as a half mile in each compass direction from the intersection of Gill and Mosman Streets. This area was the key business and social centre of the town.
The economics of Charters Towers were closely bound up with the geology of the field. The gold was not alluvial, but in the form of reefs of gold-bearing ore. This meant that equipment to extract it and to dig shafts was needed from the start. There were several major reefs and they sloped downwards with loops and branches. The ore near the surface was extracted first. Later, deeper and deeper shafts were necessary to find and extract the gold. At first, small syndicates of miners, crushing mills and local business men financed the mines. As the lodes ran deeper, more capital was needed to exploit them than was available locally.
In 1885 several Mining Agents formed themselves into a Mining Exchange. This made speculation through the buying and selling of mine shares possible. In 1886, a display featuring ore samples from the Charters Towers mines was set up at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. At the time, some mines were producing extraordinary quantities of gold. The response from British investors resulted in a speculation boom. This did not hold, collapsing in 1888, but as the fabled Brilliant Reef was discovered in the following year, the fortunes of the field were not depressed for long.
The boom had encouraged a number of local businessmen to replace their timber buildings with more substantial brick structures. Alexander Malcolm, who had been on the field since the early 1870s was one of these, replacing his 'Malcolm's Buildings' in Mosman Streets with an elegant arcade of shops and offices. The arcade was designed for him by Sydney architect Mark Cooper Day and was named the Royal Arcade.
In 1890 the Stock Exchange reformed along better organised lines and looked for new premises. The Royal Arcade was a wise choice, being centrally placed in the main business area and close to agents and banks. The Exchange signed an initial three year lease for the use of an office and the courtyard for their evening call at a rent of ten pounds a month. To begin with, two calls a day were made, one at noon and another, open to the public, in the evening. Public interest was such that this evening call was attended by crowds.
In 1892 the introduction of the McArthur-Forrest cyanide process boosted gold production for the field which peaked in 1899 at 319,572 ounces. The population also peaked in this year at around 26,500. Charters Towers was now the second most important city in Queensland and an internationally noted goldfield.
After 1899, the yield of Charters Towers mines gradually diminished and increasing costs, due to the great depths at which gold was being mined, saw the return to investors falling. In 1912 the Warden reported that the extreme depth for profitable mining had been reached. The population fell sharply, as many people moved to coastal towns. In 1916, with little interest in new ventures from investors, the stock exchange closed.
Falling real estates values and vacant buildings allowed a number of private schools to establish themselves, providing a new economic life for Charters Towers as an educational centre. Lack of pressure for expansion and development in Charters Towers meant that many of the buildings dating from the period when it was a world famous goldfield survived remarkably intact. However, the arcade was too large and grand for the reduced population and the type of business that they supported. The cost of maintenance eventually exceeded income from the building and it fell into disrepair.
In 1971 it was acquired by the Charters Towers City Council as trustee for the Charters Towers and Dalrymple Historical Society. It was restored in conjunction with the National Trust of Queensland and when a National Trust Branch was formed in Charters Towers, ownership of the arcade was transferred to the National Trust. Stage One of the conservation which repaired the section facing the street was completed in 1972 and Stage Two which conserved the rest of the building in 1975.
The building is now used for offices and shops. The art gallery which occupies the upper floor is named for Don Roderick. This architect, who has strong associations with Charters Towers, worked on a voluntary basis with the builder, Bob Aitken, to carry out the urgent work which saved the building and made it usable again.
","criteria":"The Stock Exchange Arcade is emblematic of the importance of the discovery of gold to the development of north Queensland. It was one of only two stock exchanges outside the capital, both of which were on goldfields.
Its grand architecture illustrates the wealth and confidence of Charters Towers in the nineteenth century. The abrupt finish to the arcade, which appears to be uncompleted, evokes the rise and fall of fortunes typically connected with goldfield towns.
|It is a rare, early example of an arcade in Queensland and has aesthetic value as a work of architecture that is well liked by the community for its scale, landmark barrel vault entrance, traditional shop fronts, material and detail.
|(Criterion under review)
|Its construction demonstrates the adaptation of the architectural forms of its period to the north Queensland climate by improved ventilation.
|It is a rare, early example of an arcade in Queensland and has aesthetic value as a work of architecture that is well liked by the community for its scale, landmark barrel vault entrance, traditional shop fronts, material and detail.
|It is a rare, early example of an arcade in Queensland and has aesthetic value as a work of architecture that is well liked by the community for its scale, landmark barrel vault entrance, traditional shop fronts, material and detail.
It is associated with the establishment of the Charter's Tower's branch of the National Trust of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15182,"place_ref":600407,"name":"Australian Bank of Commerce (former)","alternate_name":"The World Theatre | The Australian Joint Stock Bank","street_address":"86 Mosman Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former bank building now forms an entry foyer, gallery and offices for 'The World' Theatre complex. This is a large, modern theatre and cinema complex which has been built to the rear of the building and is linked to it by a roof and courtyard area, though remaining essentially separate from it. From Mosman Street, the bank has maintained its appearance as a freestanding building, separated by narrow alleyways from the buildings on either side, which are the National Trust owned Lyall's jewellery shop and former Bright's mining exchange, both from the same era as the bank.
The former Australian Bank of Commerce is a two storey classical revival building constructed of rendered brick with a corrugated iron roof concealed by a balustraded parapet. The street elevation is symmetrical and has a colonnade of banded Doric columns at ground level and one of Corinthian order above, surmounted by a triangular pediment with an ornate tympanum. The central entrance has a small pediment and is approached by low steps. Directly across the colonnade from the entrance are double doors to a draft lobby which takes the form of a timber aedicule leading into the large banking chamber, which is now an entrance foyer. The form of the building is essentially unchanged and the flanking offices are still used as such. The main room is lit by lantern and ventilator towards the rear. This is set with panels of etched and coloured glass in red, blue and green. Beyond this, there are doors leading into the courtyard of the new complex. The upper floor is accessed by a large cedar staircase with carved and turned balusters. It is U shaped in form around the lantern and is now a gallery. A high quality of detail is evident in the building in such features as plaster mouldings, cedar joinery and encaustic tiles to the banking chamber, stair lobby and entrance.
","history":"The former Australian Bank of Commerce is a substantial masonry building in classical revival style located in the business centre of Charters Towers. It was built in 1891 as the premises of the Australian Joint Stock Bank to the design of Queensland architect FDG Stanley during the boom years of the gold field.
The Charters Towers field was discovered in late 1871 by a prospecting party composed of Hugh Mosman, George Clark, James Fraser and an Aboriginal boy called Jupiter who worked for Mosman. By early 1872 a rush was in progress with an estimated 4,500 people on the field by the end of the year. During this time Charters Towers yielded 91,265 ounces of gold; more than half the total Queensland production.
The Australian Joint Stock Bank was established with the discovery of gold in southern states and opened branches on Queensland goldfields as they were discovered. It opened a branch on the Broughton goldfield on 23 April 1872, but soon moved to Charters Towers and then to nearby Millchester, where crushing plants, banks and businesses had begun to cluster. In 1874, following goldfield regulations, a business area was marked out in Charters Towers over an area believed to be non-auriferous. A sub branch of the bank was opened there on 12 October 1874 and became a full branch in 1876. In 1877, when Charters Towers petitioned for incorporation as a municipality, the business area was defined as covering half a mile in each compass direction from the intersection of Gill and Mosman Streets. This area became the key business and social centre of the town.
The economics of Charters Towers were closely bound up with the geology of the field. The gold was in the form of reefs of gold-bearing ore which sloped downwards with loops and branches. This meant that equipment to sink shafts and extract and crush ore was needed. At first, small syndicates of miners, crushing mills and local business men financed the mines. As the lodes ran deeper, more capital was needed to exploit them than was available locally. In 1886, a display featuring ore samples from the Charters Towers mines was set up at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. At the time, some mines were producing extraordinary quantities of gold. The response from British investors resulted in a speculation boom. This did not hold, collapsing in 1888, but as the famous Brilliant Reef was discovered in the following year, the fortunes of the field were not depressed for long. The excellent long-term prospects of the field and the input of capital made the community affluent and encouraged local businesses to replace their timber buildings with more substantial brick structures in the 1880s and 90s.
The Australian Joint Stock Bank purchased land for a new building in 1884 and in 1889 approved the plans for a handsome new bank, but decided that their allotment was inadequate for the structure. They purchased another block from Burns, Philp & Co. in May 1890 for £3610. Tenders were called for the new building and that of J James for £4693 was accepted, though he defaulted and the building was completed by Messrs Wyatt & Gates.
The new bank building was designed by architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley. He was a gifted and prolific Scotsman who had been the Queensland Colonial Architect between 1873 and 1881, and in 1888 became the inaugural president of the Queensland Institute of Architects. He had designed many large and prestigious public and commercial buildings, including a number of banks. The new premises opened in early 1892 with banking facilities including a gold room on the lower floor and accommodation for the manager above, a standard arrangement in regional banks
By the end of 1892, the Australian Joint Stock Bank had become the largest bank in Queensland having 19 branches. It was the biggest gold buyer on the Charters Towers field and carried many accounts, but it began overcapitalising. In April 1893, the AJS Bank closed during the national banking crisis which saw 8 banks shut their doors. After restructuring, the bank opened for business again on 16 June 1893 as the Australian Joint Stock Bank Limited.
Charters Towers continued to prosper with gold production on the field peaking in 1899 at 319,572 ounces. The population also peaked in this year at around 26,500. Charters Towers was then the second most important city in Queensland and an internationally noted goldfield.
In 1909 a new banking company, the Australian Bank of Commerce, was formed incorporating the Australian Joint Stock Bank Limited and commenced business in this building on 1 January 1910. By this time, the gold yield in Charters Towers had fallen while costs had increased due to the great depths at which gold was being mined. In 1912 the Warden reported that the extreme depth for profitable mining had been reached. The population quickly fell as many people moved to coastal towns. Falling real estate values and large vacant buildings provided an opportunity for a number of private schools to establish themselves, which eventually gave new economic life to Charters Towers as an educational centre.
Following the merger of the Australian Bank of Commerce and the Bank of New South Wales in 1931, the amalgamated business was carried on in the Bank of New South Wales premises in Gill Street. The former Bank of Commerce building ceased to be a bank and was used as accommodation for bank officers. It was sold to Dr W Stevens for £450 on 9 March 1937, the low price in comparison to the original cost being a reflection of the times. Dr Stevens initially lived on the upper floor and used the ground floor for his medical practice. Later he moved downstairs and rented the upper level to Mr and Mrs Walker who lived there until 1958. Dr Stevens moved out in 1947 and Norman Dungavell rented the ground floor as an office and family home, purchasing the property in July 1957 and continuing to rent out the upper floor flat. Norman Dungavell died in 1989 and his wife in 1991. In 1992 the building was purchased by the Shire of Dalrymple with a view to developing the site as a cultural centre. The new theatre complex was designed by Theatre Technics and GTG Partnership. The World Theatre complex was opened in September 1996.
","criteria":"Charters Towers, as an extraordinarily rich goldfield, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North in the late 19th century. The former Bank of Commerce, built as the Australian Joint Stock Bank, demonstrates the wealth and confidence of Charters Towers at the height of its prosperity, when many high quality buildings were constructed in the town.
|Although the building has undergone some modifications, it is still a good example of a high quality bank building of its era and was designed by one of Queensland 's most influential architects.
|It has aesthetic value as a well designed and finely detailed building which forms an important part of a group of substantial 19th century commercial buildings in Mosman Street. These include the Royal Hotel, the Stock Exchange Arcade and the former Queensland National Bank, also designed by Stanley, and are key components of the character of the city centre.
|The former Australian Bank of Commerce is important as a major commercial building by F.D.G. Stanley, who made a significant contribution to the development of the built environment in Queensland, both as the Colonial Architect and in private practice. It is also associated with the Australian Joint Stock Bank, at one time the largest bank in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15183,"place_ref":600408,"name":"Lyall's Jewellery Shop","alternate_name":"Charters Towers and Dalrymple Historical Society Folk Museum | Lyalls Jewellery Shop","street_address":"90 Mosman Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Lyall's is a small, single story shop constructed of rendered brick. It has an unusually fine shop front with a recessed entrance between two large display windows of curved plate glass, above ornate timber ventilation grilles. Panels of small, coloured glass panes are above the windows. Another large display window glazed with flat glass is to the side of the shop. There is a gas light over the doorway. The original cedar panelled doors survive, as do sash windows in the side and rear walls.
The hipped roof is not visible from the street and is now clad in zincalume. The convex awning to the street is clad with corrugated iron and supported by slender cast iron posts. The cast iron lace valance between the posts does not survive. The balustraded parapet is flanked with pedestals topped with moulded anthemions.
At the rear of the store, which has a central door between two large plain windows, there is a new toilet block erected by the neighbouring theatre development which has replaced the original back verandah.
The interior is intact and is divided into three parts; the largest section towards the street being retail space, a section to the rear which was probably used as workshop or office space and a strong room for precious metals, gems and stock. The strongroom has a brick floor, instead of the timber floors used elsewhere in the store. Its door, which was possibly metal, is now missing. No display counters remain, but the cedar framed display cases, made to fit the windows, do survive.
","history":"Lyall's is a small masonry shop built in 1897 for David Lyall to replace his previous jewellery shop on the same site. Constructed at the height of Charters Towers' prosperity, it is notable for its elaborate frontage featuring large display windows of curved plate glass.
The Charters Towers gold field was discovered in late 1871 and by 1872 there was a major rush on the field. In 1874, according to goldfield regulations, the business area of the town was set out on an area thought to be non-auriferous. This area occupied one square mile centred on the intersection of Gill and Mosman Streets and became the commercial and social heart of the city.
When it became clear that the Towers was more than a transient gold field, permanent buildings began to be erected and the area was surveyed. As was common with gold fields, the survey clarified and confirmed what already existed with regard to property and this can be seen in the variety of lot sizes within the grid superimposed on the settlement. It is well demonstrated by the block on which Lyall's is built which has a frontage of only 4.22 metres and was purchased freehold by Richard Binder in 1876. Binder was an assayer and jeweller and probably already had an office on the site as the fee paid was nominal and probably simply covered the survey costs.
In July 1889, Binder sold the property to David Lyall, who had been working in Charters Towers as a jeweller and watchmaker since at least 1886. His advertisements in the Northern Miner from the Mosman Street address stated that any article of jewellery could be made on the premises to a standard of workmanship equal to be best in London or Edinburgh.
Lyall was developing his business at the height of Charters Towers importance as a gold field. In the 1880s mining shares in the field were subject to a major boom in speculation as foreign capital was poured into mining the deep reefs that characterised the field. For a time, Charters Towers was the second town in Queensland, known to its inhabitants as 'The World' and was internationally famous. Its peak production was reached in 1899 followed by a decline. By 1912 many people were leaving the town and in 1916, production officially ceased.
In 1897, however, this peak had not yet been reached and Mosman Street was now lined with substantial buildings. On December 4, Lyall opened a new shop on his small site which was intended to completely eclipse his competitors. It was brilliantly lit with electric light, had expensive and fashionable fittings and two striking semicircular display windows made of curved plate glass. Extravagant claims for the new shop as a 'palace of wonders', made by Lyall in his opening day advertisement in the Northern Miner, are supported by photographs of the exterior and interior of the shop featured in the 1897 Christmas Edition of the North Queensland Register. A few days after the opening, when the magazine of the Mills United mine blew up, Lyall's was one of the very few buildings in town whose windows were not blown out. This was noted locally and was possibly due to the curved glass.
Lyall's was a well-known and prestigious shop where one purchased special gifts. Lyall was financially successful and eventually owned a second premises in Gill Street in 1903 and a house called 'Towervilla' on Richmond Hill. He died in 1910 and the shop passed to Rebecca Lyall. It was then run by a succession of managers and was advertised as Lyall's until 1915. Under the management of first Wilson, then Boner and then Miller the shop functioned as both an optometrists and a jewellery shop. In 1939 the shop was sold to Michael Hegarty and passed to Mary Hegarty in 1954. It changed hands only once more, in 1957, when it was sold to Stanley Shong, before being purchased by the Charters Towers and Dalrymple Historical Society in 1970.
The Historical Society was formed in 1968 in response to strong public interest in the history of the city. Between 1968 and 1970 the society held several public exhibitions of items donated to its collection in order to gain funds to purchase a building that could be used as a community museum. Much of the work needed to repair Lyall's was carried out by local volunteers and the materials donated, so that the museum was able to open in the building on 1 November 1970.
In 1975, Lyall's was gifted to the National Trust of Queensland. The collection had grown too large to be displayed at Lyall's and was removed to the Zara Clark Museum in the former Bartlam's Store.
","criteria":"The store is situated on an extremely narrow block which demonstrates the manner in which many goldfield towns were surveyed.
Lyall's Jewellery Store contributes to an understanding of the development of north Queensland because its demonstrates, as a fashionable jeweller's shop of high quality, the wealth and importance of Charters Towers in the late nineteenth century.
|The curved plate glass display windows which are the most distinctive feature of the Lyall's shop front are the only known example in Queensland.
|The shop is intact and by its display space, working area and strongroom has the potential to demonstrate the way in which the business of a small manufacturing jeweller of the period was run.
|The shop is intact and by its display space, working area and strongroom has the potential to demonstrate the way in which the business of a small manufacturing jeweller of the period was run.
The large timber ventilation grilles beneath the windows also show adaptation to the needs of a tropical climate.
|It has aesthetic value as a competent architectural design in a late Victorian style which is generally well liked by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15184,"place_ref":600409,"name":"Bartlam's Store (former)","alternate_name":"Zara Clark Museum | Wright Heaton & Company | Burns Philp & Company Limited | Bartlams Store","street_address":"Mosman Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Bartlams store in Charters Towers comprises two single-storeyed brick and stucco buildings of similar scale and design at the corner of Mosman and Mary Streets.
The buildings are similar in size, shape and design. Each has a decorative parapet concealing a gable roof clad with corrugated iron. A street awning supported by cast iron posts extends along the Mosman Street facade and around the corner of Mary Street, although part of the Mary Street elevation is plain and has no awning. Both buildings have a high level storage area inside with delivery doors to the rear which opens into a yard with a loading platform.
The former Wright Heaton office on the corner of Mosman and Mary Streets has a corner entrance and sash windows along both streets, suggesting that it was originally designed as offices rather than a store. The former Burns Philp building facing Mosman Street comprises two sections: a shop adjoining the corner building, and an adjacent office - each with its own entrance. The portion of the second building that appears to have been offices contains partitions and doors which are of the same period as the building and are probably original.
The exterior is largely intact, although the frame and glass of the shop front window has been replaced and the entrance to the 'shop' is now through a glass door. The parapet above the shop front is supported by free-standing columns with the shop window set in behind. The base of the shop front below the window is in cast iron in an unusual fretwork pattern.
","history":"The former Bartlams store consists of 2 single storey brick buildings which have been converted for a single occupancy. They formed part of an important commercial and retail area in Charters Towers in the late 19th century
Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. It was proclaimed a municipality in 1877 and the construction of the railway created easy access to the port at Townsville, solving the problem of high freight costs experienced by many other mining fields. Charters Towers gold was in deep reefs and the equipment needed to extract and process it was financed by substantial southern and overseas investment. The town became a prosperous centre providing employment for a considerable number of people. It had several schools, 8 churches, 3 newspapers, 2 iron foundries, a hospital, fire brigade, jockey club and gasworks. In the late 1880s and 90s, handsome public buildings rose to replace the modest structures of the early township. Gold output peaked in 1899, as did a population of 26,500.
The land on which both buildings stand was sold at auction in 1882 as 3 allotments. The corner block, allotment 1, was purchased by William Jackson, who died in 1886 and left the property to be administered by Trustees. In 1898 it was sold to Wright Heaton and Company Limited. They were a large firm of carriers, forwarding agents and produce merchants, formed in NSW, who had arrived in Charters Towers in 1882 following the opening of the rail link with Townsville. They initially had premises at the railway station and in 1884 opened a forage store on the corner of Gill and Deane Streets. They are believed to have operated from this site for some years before actually purchasing the property. This building was constructed for them in 1901. In 1907 they leased it to Cummins and Campbell, who initially conducted a similar business, but branched out and by 1916 were describing themselves as wine, spirit and general merchants. After being sold in 1912 to Horace Brown it was purchased in 1916 by William White who opened there the following year as William White & Co. Ltd., also a merchant. In 1925 it was purchased by Bartlam's Limited, general merchants, who supplied stations in Western Queensland.
The adjoining building was built as a branch of the important trading company of Burns, Philp and Company Limited. James Burns had arrived in Brisbane in 1862 with his brother John, who set up a store there, while James worked on a pastoral run. In 1867, James set up a store in Gympie, beginning a long association with mining fields. In 1872 he moved to Townsville and set up his own business there. He was joined in 1874 by Robert Philp who had previously worked for shipping agents in Brisbane. Burns moved to Sydney in 1877 and established himself as an importer and shipping agent, while Philp continued business in the north. In 1883 they formed a company, Burns Philp and Company Limited, registered in Sydney. Within a decade of Burns arrival in Townsville, the company dominated trade in North Queensland, supplying a huge range of goods. They also became a major player in Pacific and New Guinea trading.
In Charters Towers, Philp entered into a business arrangement with Isidor Lissner, who was elected to the Queensland Parliament in 1883. Lissner was not considered a good business man by Burns and the Charters Towers branch actually made a substantial loss in the years 1883-6, apparently due to previous injudicious purchasing. Philp continued to represented the northern interests of the company even after he himself was elected to Parliament in 1886. Lissner owned Allotment 3 of section 27 in Mosman Street and subdivided it in 1887. Philp acquired subdivision B and purchased Allotment 2 from Martin Thomsen, the original grantee. At the time, the premises of Burns Philp & Co were further along Mosman Street. The company developed rapidly during the boom of the 1880s, although 1888-89 was a difficult time for Charters Towers as drought affected the running of crushing mills which used considerable quantities of water.
In 1891 the property was transferred into the name of Burns Philp and Company Limited and a new building, designed by architects Eyre and Munro, was constructed for the company at a cost of £3500. Part of the building was offices and part a store. It was a substantial building with an elaborate facade in keeping with other commercial buildings being erected in Charters Towers and with its neighbour, Wright Heaton and Company.
Although gold production on the field peaked in 1899 at an impressive 337,000 ounces, it soon became clear that these grades did not continue at depth and by 1920 only one mine was still operational. People, businesses and even the more portable buildings, moved away from the town. The store was sold to Selina Vicks in 1921. Her husband, Thomas Vicks, conducted a grocery store from the premises. From 1926 Burns Philp also had an agency there, eventually moving from the site around 1940 when they obtained premises in Stubley Street. Vicks grocery store closed about the same time and the property was sold in 1944 to Bartlams, who may have been occupying the building before this, thought there is no formal lease.
Bartlams modified the buildings into a single occupancy. They went into liquidation in 1976 and in 1978 the building was offered for sale. There was concern about the possibility of demolition and in order to prevent this, the building was purchased by the National Trust of Queensland with a bequest from Miss Zara Clark of 'Mirtna' Station. The 'Zara Clark Museum' began as a transport museum and houses a large local history collection which includes horse-drawn vehicles, agricultural machinery, domestic, mining, and medical artefacts, records and photographs.
When the Bartlams store buildings were erected, Mosman Street was dominated by commercial and retail buildings extending from Mary Street at the north to Towers Street at the south. Many of these buildings have since been demolished, and houses now occupy some of the sites on which larger buildings once stood. Bartlam's store forms the edge of this once continuous row of buildings, and is now important in maintaining some sense of the scale of Mosman Street as a former commercial district.
","criteria":"Charters Towers, as an extraordinarily rich goldfield, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North. The former Bartlams store has housed several companies supplying essential goods and services to the pastoral and mining industries and who therefore contributed to this development. The elaborate facades reflect the importance of their Charters Towers branch to such companies and the affluence and confidence of the goldfield in the late 19th century.
|The former Bartlams store is a good example of late Victorian commercial buildings which combine office and retail functions with practical loading facilities, thereby demonstrating the way in which their business was carried out.
|The building makes an important visual contribution to Mosman Street and indicates the extent and significance of this business area when Charters Towers was at its most prosperous.
|The building is associated with the important mercantile entity of Burns Philp and Company Limited as a purpose built branch in an important regional centre, and with the firms of Wright Heaton, Bartlams and others who were an essential component in the development of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15185,"place_ref":600410,"name":"Pfeiffer House (former)","alternate_name":"Day Dawn House | Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints","street_address":"2-6 Paull Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Pfeiffer house stands on Day Dawn Ridge on gently sloping land and is a single storey timber building, L shaped in plan, with an exposed stud frame. It is encircled by verandahs and is on low stumps, being raised slightly on the northern side. The roof is of an unusual form, having 3 parallel gables with a barrel vaulted hall placed between them, all roofed in corrugated iron. The verandahs have a convex corrugated iron awning supported by timber posts with fretwork brackets and square section timber balustrades. The south west verandah has been built in and has a brick chimney.
The entrance is reached by concrete steps and a cedar door with sidelights gives on to a hallway with a barrel vaulted ceiling with end panels of coloured glass. The re-use of the building for church purposes has caused very little change to the layout of the rooms. The former dining room to the right of the hall is a classroom area and a kitchen with a chimney. To the left of the entrance hall are two large linked rooms, formerly a drawing room and now used as a chapel. Towards the rear is a meeting room. At the rear, the verandah and a toilet block frame a courtyard area which contains a baptismal font.
","history":"The building currently the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was constructed as a private residence by Charters Towers mining magnate Frederick Pfeiffer in c1881 close to his gold mine.
Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. It was proclaimed a municipality in 1877 and the construction of the railway created easy access to the port at Townsville, solving the problem of high freight costs experienced by many other mining fields. Charters Towers gold was in deep reefs and the equipment needed to extract and process it was financed by substantial southern and overseas investment. The town became a prosperous centre providing employment for a considerable number of people. In the late 1880s and 90s, handsome public buildings rose to replace the modest structures of the early township.
Friedrich (Frederick) Pfeiffer, a German immigrant, first visited Australian in 1851 as an apprentice on a cargo ship. In 1856 he abandoned seafaring at Melbourne and set out for the Victorian gold fields. After eighteen years of mining in Victoria, New South Wales and New Zealand, Pfeiffer moved to Charters Towers in 1874. In 1878, Pfeiffer and other members of the Day Dawn mining syndicate struck a reef of high grade ore. It was the first consistently large gold producer on the Charters Towers field. By 1903, when Pfeiffer died, the Day Dawn had produced £1,200,000 worth of gold. Becoming a limited company in 1887, it was sold to English interests, making Pfeiffer a very rich man who was to continue major interests in other mines.
When Pfeiffer first arrived in Charters Towers he set up a tent on what was to become known as the Day Dawn Ridge, close to the entrance to his mine. He built his house on the same site and it was probably completed in time for this marriage to Mary Donovan on 1 February 1882. This possibility is supported by the fact that a manager's house was built for his company to a design by J Longden in October 1881 and Pfeiffer's house appears on a survey plan of 12 December 1882. Longden worked as a mining engineer and architect in Charters Towers between and 1879 and 1882 and designed the first St Columba's Church. It is possible that he also designed Pfeiffer's house.
The house, built using an exposed frame timber construction technique, is thought to be the oldest house of this type in Charters Towers and one of the oldest in North Queensland. The house has been both reduced and added to during its life, although it may have been built a single row of rooms surrounded by verandahs. Despite the simplicity of it's early design, the house was the grandest private residence in Charters Towers when built, something easily forgotten when far more ostentatious houses were built during the boom years of the 1890s and which, at the time of Pfeiffer's death was considered 'unpretending' for a man of his position. It's placement near the mine suggests that ready access to it was considered more important than any inconvenience caused by noise or dust.
Pfeiffer, as was the case with other major mine owners or investors, became a prominent figure in Charters Towers Society. He served as chairman of the hospital board for fifteen years, was a founder and benefactor of the Lutheran church, honorary Major of the Kennedy Regiment and was well known for his generosity towards community organisations and those in need. When he died in 1903 flags flew at half mast in the town. The Stock Exchange suspended it's mid day call as a mark of respect on the day of the funeral, which many of the leading mining and business figures in Charters Towers attended.
In order for his executors to wind up his affairs, a miner's homestead lease covering the site of the house was applied for and granted in 1915 as MHL 8206. At the time improvements to this site consisted of a 'large house, store room, stables, coach house, mens' quarters, office etc.' valued at £8000.
The gold output of the field peaked in 1899, however, it soon became clear that these grades did not continue at depth and by 1920 only one mine was still operational. People, businesses and even the more portable buildings, moved away from the town. In 1923 the house was sold at auction for only £950, a reflection of sharply reduced property values following the decline of the field. Over the years it changed hands a number of times and was also leased. The lease granted to John Ratten in 1937 details the extent of the house which had 4 bedrooms, sitting, dining and breakfast rooms, a kitchen, back and front verandahs and a wash house.
The house was purchased by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1981. By this time it was in poor condition and demolition was proposed to make way for a new church building. However considerable community support for the retention of the house was raised by newspaper articles on its history and the Church decided to retain and repair the building, adapting it for church use. There was considerable local input during this project which won a National Trust award. The building was dedicated as a church on 24 April 1983. In 1994 the Church received a Deed of Grant which replaced the Miner's Homestead Lease for the property.
","criteria":"Charters Towers, as an extraordinarily rich goldfield, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North in the late 19th century. The former Pfeiffer house, a substantial residence built for a wealthy mine owner within a decade of the proclamation of the field, demonstrates this success. It is also an illustration of the wealth of Charters Towers that this house was thought of as comparatively modest by the time of Pfeiffer's death in 1903. It marks the site of the Day Dawn mine, a very important one in the city's history.
|The former Pfeiffer house is unusual in form and is a rare early example of exposed stud construction in North Queensland.
|It has aesthetic value as a residence of competent design and detail which is generally well liked by the community. That this is so is evidenced by the public concern for its preservation voiced when it demolition was proposed in the 1980s.
|It has a close association with the life and work of Frederick Pfeiffer, not only a major figure in the mining industry in Charters Towers, but a public spirited man who was highly regarded in the community. The house was near the entrance to his mine, an illustration of Pfeiffer's practical attitude to his life as a working miner, as well as mine owner.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15186,"place_ref":600411,"name":"Charters Towers Masonic Lodge","alternate_name":"Masonic Lodge Charters Towers","street_address":"20 Ryan Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Masonic Temple, Charters Towers is a two-storeyed masonry and timber building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. Facing north, it addresses Ryan Street which runs parallel to, and one block from Gill Street, the main commercial street of Charters Towers.
The building is located centrally within the flat, grassed property of two allotments. Fronting the building is a garden of shrubs and hedges.
With the height, and long side facing the street, the building is prominent amongst its mainly single-storey residential neighbours. From the upper level, the commanding view extends over the nearby houses.
The building is rectangular in plan, on an east-west axis, with a rendered brick core and timber verandahs on three sides. The two end verandahs are enclosed. The open front verandah has timber posts, boarded valance and cast iron balustrade, frieze and brackets. Centred is a two-storeyed rendered masonry entry portico, with archways pediment and balustrade.
The exterior of the core is render scored as ashlar coursing. The end verandahs are timber framed, externally clad in chamferboard, which have been further clad in fibro sheet and metal siding. The gutters have acroteria, decorative rainwater heads and moulded soffit brackets.
The core of the ground floor is a single room meeting hall. It has a high (about 4.5m) boarded ceiling, and awning windows with sills at eye height. The pair of entry doors are six-panelled with an arched fanlight. The eastern end is enclosed as a kitchen. The western end has the timber stair. It features turned balusters and newels and moulded string. Added to the rear is a small single-storey toilet block clad in fibro sheet.
The upper level has a similar layout to the ground floor, and a similar high boarded ceiling with three fretted roses, panelled doors and double hung windows. At the western end, the panelled entry doors have a ceremonial knocker and peep-hole. The hall contains furniture specific to its use as a Masonic lodge, including black and white lino centrepiece, floor, pews, thrones, podium, certificates and decrees. The layout is in accordance with Masonic practice with the Grand Master to the east.
Between the western end of the temple and the boundary is a small single-storey caretaker's cottage clad in fibro sheet.
","history":"The Charters Towers Masonic Lodge was constructed in two stages in 1887 and 1896-97. The building is a prominent structure within the city, and is illustrative of the prosperity of Charters Towers in the late nineteenth century, and the importance of the Masons within the local community.
Queensland was the last Australian state to have a Freemason's Grand Lodge. The first lodges were established in Brisbane by 1859 and the first lodge in Charters Towers was established on 23 March 1875. Fourteen people were present at the first meeting held at Hishon's Hotel. Installing Master, Mr Brodziack of Townsville, installed Gold Warden, WSEM Charters, as the first Worshipful Master. Charters served two terms as Worshipful Master of this first lodge which was known as the Charters Towers Lodge No.1546EC.
The first Masonic hall, a small wooden building, was constructed on land in Gill Street which was donated by Mr Brodziack of Townsville. The building soon became too small as more lodges were formed. The St John's Davenport Lodge No.655SC approached the Charters Towers Lodge to discuss the erection of a new hall. Both lodges pooled resources, formed a company, sold shares to members and purchased the Ryan Street property on 18 September 1876.
In 1887 a new single storey hall was constructed on Ryan Street directly behind the Gill Street building. The foundation stone was laid on 30 April 1887 and the new building was dedicated on 16 September 1887 by Worshipful Master Maurice Bennett WM.
Two "commodious" shops were constructed on the former lodge site in Gill Street in 1889. Rent from these shops was used to support the work of the Masons in the town, including a yearly bursary of £25 for the education of a child of a member. Funds were also directed to the further development of the Lodge in Ryan Street.
In April, 1896 the Northern Miner stated that work had begun on the construction of a second floor to the Masonic Lodge. An article in the North Queensland Register on 18 June, 1897 reported that construction of the second storey was completed.
Several grand lodges were established in Charters Towers during the early days of settlement. These lodges, reflecting the code of Freemasonry to promote the brotherhood of man, render practical aid to the less fortunate in your community, to encourage the practice of every moral and social virtue and to develop behaviour in everyday life which would reflect the teachings of the Freemasons organisation, were established by various national groups. Scottish, Irish and English Freemasons had all established lodges by 1896. These lodges, which were established mainly to offer support to miners and towns people during times of crises, also became centres of social activity.
The tradition of Freemasonry, begun in 1872, continues in the city today with five lodges operating from the Ryan Street building.
","criteria":"The Charters Towers Masonic Lodge demonstrates the spread of Freemasonry in regional Queensland.
|The two-storeyed building, comprising a large meeting hall on each level, is typical of the planform chosen for Masonic Lodges.
|The Masonic Lodge exhibits aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular, it contributes to the streetscape as a prominent monumental building and is a symbol of the prosperity and importance of Charters Towers in the late nineteenth century.
|It has a long association with the Charters Towers community and reflects the important civic role of Masonic Lodges in the city.
|It is significant as a place which has been in continuous use as a Masonic Centre since 1887 and the configuration of furniture and fittings has a strong association with Masonic ceremonies and the Masonic Lodge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15188,"place_ref":600413,"name":"Venus State Battery","alternate_name":"Venus Mill | Venus Gold Battery","street_address":"MacDonald Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A group of timber frame, corrugated iron clad buildings comprising an almost intact crushing and treatment plant. The battery shed contains four ore bins, a rockbreaker, four 5 head stamp batteries including three with timber blankets draining to three wilfley tables, and six berdan pans. The battery shed also houses a forge, workshop and office. Brick flues connect with the base of a square brick chimney, the boiler having been removed in favour of electric mains power in 1946.
Cyanide plant sheds immediately north of the battery shed house seven agitator vats, clarifier vats, solution tanks a Forward Down grinding pan, two motor sheds and a gold room. The place also contains three groups of concrete and brick rendered
tailings tanks, a fibro clad assay office, corrugated iron toilet, and a weighbridge and corrugated iron office. A Cornish boiler has been adapted upside down as an elevated water tank. A concrete weir is located on Gladstone Creek. An abandoned house on Lot 1\\MPH1536 New Street is adjacent to and associated with the battery.
Plant:
Forward Down grinding pan.
Five-head battery & frame, mortar box - Walkers Limited No 156.
Five-head battery & frame, mortar box - Walkers Limited No 168.
2 Five-head batteries and frames - no brands.
6 Berdan pans.
7 Cyanide vats.
Rock breaker.
3 Wilfley tables.
Weighbridge.
Cornish boiler (converted to an elevated water tank).
","history":"The Venus was one of the earliest stamp batteries to be erected on the Charters Towers gold field as it was operating by July 1872. The first owners were Mr E.H.T. Plant and Mr G. Jackson. Bricks were made on site for its construction. Initially the mill processed ore from a deep lead to the south-east of Millchester. When first erected the battery had only five head of stamps, but a second five was quickly added, then a third five in August 1872 and a fourth five in September 1873 making 20 head of stamps.
By 1897 the battery was described in the North Queensland Register as having 20 head of stamps, 80 berdans, one wheeler, four settlers, three buddles, all driven by a 30h.p. engine. By this period the mill was owned by Messrs Whitehead, D. Rolleston and J. Tilley and managed by Mr J. Barrett. It was one of seventeen then operating on the Charters Towers gold field. (The term "mill" was commonly used on the Charters Towers gold field in the nineteenth century to refer to a stamper or crushing battery, and later the term included all the concentrating and processing works at the place.)
Although the Charters Towers reefs were exhausted by 1917, the town remained the centre for small mining operations which were serviced by the Venus Battery, which became a State owned battery from 1919. Ore came from as far away as Chillagoe, Woolgar River and Iron Range on Cape York.
There is reasonable evidence to indicate that the Venus battery changed quite dramatically some time before the State Government assumed ownership in November 1919; local residents date this at 1907. The number of stamps increased from 20 to 35 and the building was altered to accommodate the increase. The Inspector of Mines on 10 July 1919 stated that: "...the mill is very well laid out for public crushing, each of the seven batteries being a complete unit in themselves from the feed hoppers to the sand pits." (By 1982, this could be said of only two batteries of five head of stamps).
In 1935 only three batteries of stamps were working and No.2 boilers' brick foundation was crumbling. The Inspector of Mines stated that "a State Mill must be kept here even if it only averages 100 tons per month...the Venus has never yielded the Department any profit, in fact a steady loss on working expenses and no return on capital account". He proposed relocating the plant to the old Brilliant Extended Mill site alongside the railway station, which had advantages of a railway connection and cheaper power. However this did not happen.
In January 1941 a major flood damaged the weir and the Venus State Battery was to receive large scale repairs when crushing operations were suspended in 1942, presumably because of World War 2 disruptions. Electricity was installed in 1946 and the battery was updated and kept under repair. In May 1951 the cyanide plant was increased in size to its current configuration, although a new agitator was added in April 1954 to enable treatment of different quality ores from the Carrington mines at Liontown.
In December 1952 the roof above the old crusher had to be replaced because of white ant damage. In late 1958, five new stamps were ordered from the original suppliers, Walkers Brothers of Maryborough.
In 1971 the battery operated for only thirteen weeks. The Mines Department was concerned to preserve the historic value of the site and offered it to the Charters Towers City Council, who refused it. The National Trust of Queensland took over responsibility for the battery on 5 April 1975.
","criteria":"The Venus State Battery is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's mining history.
It is the earliest surviving battery in Queensland having been first constructed in 1872 although the machinery and power plant has been reconstructed at least four times.
|The Venus State Battery is unique as the only intact battery and cyanide plant in the Charters Towers Mining District. The grouping of battery, cyanide plant, assay office, weighbridge, weir and cottage is a unique grouping in Queensland. The place contains rare brick chimneys and the largest number of stamps (20) of all surviving batteries in Queensland.
Its intactness of machinery and plant layout is rare in Queensland and Australian mining heritage and its history of continuing use, as an example of State Enterprise in the 1920s maintained for the benefit of small miners in North Queensland, has potential to yield information that will further contribute to an understanding of the Queenslands's social and economic history.
|Its intactness of machinery and plant layout is rare in Queensland and Australian mining heritage and its history of continuing use, as an example of State Enterprise in the 1920s maintained for the benefit of small miners in North Queensland, has potential to yield information that will further contribute to an understanding of the Queenslands's social and economic history.
|The Venus State Battery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a crushing, concentrating and cyaniding mill and its setting on the banks of Gladstone Creek in the once flourishing suburb of Millchester exhibits aesthetic characteristics that are valued by sections of the community.
|The Venus State Battery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a crushing, concentrating and cyaniding mill and its setting on the banks of Gladstone Creek in the once flourishing suburb of Millchester exhibits aesthetic characteristics that are valued by sections of the community.
|The survival and conservation of the Venus State Battery is due to its social and economic value for and strong association with the local mining community and the National Trust of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15189,"place_ref":600414,"name":"Victor Denton War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Nobby Cemetery","suburb":"NOBBY","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a cemetery located away from the town centre. The cemetery is on a sloping site in a sparsely treed landscape, making it a dominant local landmark.
The concrete and stone memorial is located within the Denton family plot alongside the grave of Victor Denton's parents. The plot is surrounded by a low fence comprising concrete tapered plinths which are joined by a steel rod. The elevated surface is laid with octagonal pavers.
The memorial itself sits on a base which is square in plan with a chamfered top edge. From this projects a short pedestal, also with a chamfered top edge. The front face has a marble plaque with an inscription in memory of Victor Denton in cut and blackened lettering.
The pedestal is surmounted by a broken column with a simply moulded base.
","history":"The Victor Denton War Memorial at Nobby was erected in 1915 and was made by Bruce Brothers, monumental masons of Toowoomba. Funds for the memorial were raised by local residents of the district, making it an uncommon example of a public memorial erected in a cemetery. The memorial honours Private Victor Denton who was killed at the Dardenelles on 16 June 1915 and is the first known memorial of the First World War erected in Queensland.
The town of Nobby is located on the Darling Downs. The first white settlers arrived on the Downs in search of rich grazing land and by the 1840s, led by the Leslie brothers and John Campbell had established over twenty stations. These stations prospered until their expansion was curbed due to the pressures of selection legislation and land was resumed for agricultural use. The area, which had previously been a primary producer of wool, diversified into wheat and dairy farming. By the 1920s, wheat had become the primary crop with State experimental farms providing the area with superior varieties of wheat.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
There were many different types of memorials in Queensland, however the broken column was more commonly used as a funereal monument, symbolic of life cut short. When the erection of memorials became prolific in Queensland, it was unusual for them to be located in graveyards, as this one is. They were more likely to be erected in more publicly accessible places such as gardens or intersections.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|It is of particular significance as the first known memorial to the First World War, as well as being one of the few memorials dedicated to a single person and erected in a cemetery.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1915, the war memorial at Nobby demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial in its cemetery setting is of aesthetic significance for its landmark qualities.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with the masonry firm of Bruce Brothers as an example of their workmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15190,"place_ref":600415,"name":"Cloncurry Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"42-48 Daintree Street","suburb":"CLONCURRY","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The 1897 section is a rectangular, two-roomed, timber-framed structure with exposed studwork, a hipped corrugated iron roof, and a 2.13 metre wide verandah to four sides, sections of which have been enclosed. Off the rear [eastern] verandah of the 1898 section is a hip-roofed 1953 block containing toilets and a strong room. The walls, ceiling and floor of the strongroom are constructed of reinforced concrete; the remainder of the building is constructed of timber.
Attached to the southwest corner of the 1898 section is the 1907 addition. This comprises a T-shaped timber-framed building clad with weatherboard, with a 2.43 metre verandah around 3 sides of the stem of the T [which contains the courtroom], and around the rear offices, permitting the verandah of the new building to link with that of the 1897 building. The entrance addresses Sheaffe Street, and is articulated by a gable roof to the verandah at this point. The roof of this section is also of galvanised corrugated iron. The 1907 courtroom has a coved ceiling of tongue-and-groove pine, and walls of vertical boarding.
Off the southeast corner of the 1907 section, at the rear, is a long hip-roofed wing constructed in two stages: 2 rooms in 1914 and 4 in 1961. Both sections are timber-framed with weatherboard cladding and have the same window hood detail over exposed windows and doors. Both open onto a north-facing verandah, joined to the 1907 section.
There is a two-roomed timber pavilion linked to the rear [eastern] verandah of the 1907 section by what was originally an 5.50 metre long covered way, which is now completely joined to the eastern verandah. This section is timber-framed with horizontal weatherboard cladding and sunshades over exposed windows and doors. There are 4 toilets, added in later stages, to the south of the covered way.
Apart from the strongroom, all sections of this building are raised on low concrete stumps.
","history":"The present Cloncurry Court House is the second on site and was erected in stages between 1897 and 1961.
The Cloncurry district was subject to pastoral settlement from the mid-1860s. Access to artesian water from the 1890s enabled the grazing of sheep and cattle to succeed despite severe drought and in what is essentially a semi-arid environment.
Mining also proved a significant activity in the district, although a less stable one than pastoralism. Gold was first discovered in the area in 1867, and from the late 1860s through the last three decades of the 19th century, gold was found and mined throughout the district, although as a series of short lived fields. In 1867 Ernest Henry, often referred to as 'the father of Cloncurry', discovered copper in the area, not far from the present town of Cloncurry, although the boom era for copper mining was not reached until the early twentieth century.
The township of Cloncurry was established in the early 1870s to serve a remote and isolated area in the far north west of Queensland. It was officially declared a Country Post Office in 1871, and in 1872 a general store and a hotel were opened. Early transportation was by horse, bullock and camel teams, and later by Cobb & Co coaches. A rail link to the east coast was not opened until December 1908. Cloncurry prospered in the 1880s, when prices for pastoral produce remained buoyant and mining activity increased.
A police contingent of 4 men and an Inspector had been stationed in tents at Cloncurry from 1870, but it was not until 1880 that a permanent Clerk of Petty Sessions was appointed, and Cloncurry's first Police Magistrate was appointed in 1882. At that time there were still no permanent police quarters, and the lock-up was a slab hut with a bark roof. In 1883 the Department of Public Works called tenders for a timber building to serve as a Court house, police quarters and lockup. This was completed in 1885, and the first Court sat in March 1900. From 1907 this building was used for police purposes only and was demolished in 1965.
The administration of justice was brought to sparsely settled and isolated areas by means of small court houses combined with, or attached to, police stations and served by visiting magistrates. Cloncurry was designated a District Court Area in 1889, but almost a decade passed before a new court house was completed in July 1898 by Murray and Litster at a cost of £728. This court house was a rectangular, two-roomed, timber-framed structure with exposed studwork and a wide verandah to all four sides.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, Cloncurry prospered with the boom in copper prices and the corresponding increase in copper mining activity in the district. In 1906 Cloncurry became a Circuit Court centre. In 1907 the size of the court complex was more than doubled with the addition of a new court room and offices for the judge, barristers, court warden and jurors. The existing court was shifted slightly to adjoin the new section and became offices for the Clerk of Petty Sessions and for the government surveyor. This addition gave the building a new elevation to Sheaffe Street.
In 1914 further alterations were made to provide for officers from other government departments, including the land commissioner, mining registrar and inspector of machinery. A new hip-roofed wing was constructed at the southern end of the building which contained two rooms and extended the western verandah. A separate, 2 roomed structure was linked to the rear verandah by a covered way and accommodated drafting and records.
In 1953 a toilet block and strong room was added and in 1961 the last major addition occurred when a four roomed wing was added to the 1914 section. This was built under the same roofline and continued the weatherboard cladding and existing window hood detail. The inspectorship of the police district was transferred from Cloncurry in 1963 as Mt Isa had developed to become the more important regional centre, however the court continues in use. In 1966 a new station, cells and quarters were constructed. Conservation work on the courthouse was undertaken in 1977 with state government funding. It continues to operate for its original purpose.
","criteria":"Cloncurry Court House is important in illustrating the development of Cloncurry and district, reflecting the importance of Cloncurry as a regional and administrative centre in the late 19th and early 20th century. This court house and the site on which it is located have been associated with the administration of justice in the region since the mid-1880s. The additions and adaptations also reflect the way in which provision has been made for increasing services to match the needs of the area with regard to mining and pastoralism.
|The Cloncurry Court house is a good example of a building serving a number of important governmental functions and extended over time while adhering to the original design principles. It provides a demonstration of building techniques within the traditional style between 1897 and 1961.
|The Cloncurry Court House has had a long connection with the people of Cloncurry and the surrounding district as the focus for a range of important government services.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15191,"place_ref":600416,"name":"Cloncurry Post Office","alternate_name":"Post Office Cloncurry","street_address":"47 Scarr Street","suburb":"CLONCURRY","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-27","description":"The post office is a single storey timber building set on low stumps and located prominently on the corner of Scarr and Sheaffe Streets. The original section is symmetrical in form with a projecting gable over the main public area between twin porches, the roof for which was an extension of the main roof. The porches are reached by low sets of timber steps and have timber balustrading. The roof is hipped and clad in clad in corrugated iron. A later extension with a gable roof is connected to this building and continues the materials and detail of the original.
","history":"The Cloncurry Post Office is a single storey timber building, which was built in 1906 and superseded an 1883 post office on site.
Land in the Cloncurry district was taken up by pastoralists from the mid-1860s. Access to artesian water from the 1890s enabled the grazing of sheep and cattle to flourish in what is essentially a semi-arid environment and pastoralism has been the major industry in this area.
Mining also proved a significant activity in the district, although a less stable one than pastoralism. Gold was first discovered in the area in 1867, and from the late 1860s through the last three decades of the 19th century, gold was found and mined throughout the district, although as a series of short lived fields. In 1867 Ernest Henry, often referred to as 'the father of Cloncurry', discovered copper in the area, not far from the present town of Cloncurry, although the boom era for copper mining was not reached until the early twentieth century.
The township of Cloncurry was established in the early 1870s to serve a remote and isolated area in the far north west of Queensland. It was officially designated a Country Post Office in 1871 and in June that year the first postmaster was appointed, operating from temporary accommodation. In 1872 a general store and a hotel were opened, forming the nucleus for a service township. Early transportation was by horse, bullock and camel teams. Mail contractors using pack horses operated mail runs along routes radiating from Cloncurry as the demand for postal services increased in subsequent years. Cloncurry prospered in the 1880s, when prices for pastoral produce remained buoyant and mining activity increased. The first Cobb & Co coach arrived in Cloncurry in 1884, and for almost a quarter of a century provided the district with both a passenger and a mail service in the absence of a railway. The railway reached Cloncurry in 1908.
The first purpose-designed Cloncurry Post Office was a small timber building comprising an office and post master's quarters, erected in 1883. In that year Cloncurry Post Office was made a Money Order Office and an official electric telegraph station. The first telegraph lines connected Cloncurry with Aramac and Boulia. In 1888 a line was established between Cloncurry and Normanton, and in 1890 Cloncurry was linked to Camooweal and Urandangie. Cloncurry had police stationed in the town from 1870 and was designated a District Court Area in 1889. The first Court sat in 1900 and in 1906 became a designated District Court. This important function could not have been carried out without the means of rapid communication provided by the post and telegraph service.
In the first two decades of the 20th century, Cloncurry prospered with the boom in copper prices and the corresponding surge in copper mining activity in the district. In 1906 a new post office was designed for Cloncurry and erected at a cost of £1375/15/-. It was a large office building for post and telegraph functions, connected by a covered way to a separate postmaster's quarters. These were in the old post office, which was turned to face Scarr Street and moved behind the new building.
The new post office was a standard T17 type of timber post office, with a twin porch and gable, designed by the Queensland Works Department. These were erected throughout Queensland in the period 1906-1921, although post and telegraph services became a Commonwealth responsibility after Federation. These buildings achieved a high standard of design and construction and architecturally, the T17 is the most significant of 20th century timber post office types for the quality of construction and detail, for the its resolution of climatic considerations, and for the visual appeal of its form. Many of the type have, however, been demolished or are no longer functional post offices. This post office has been extended at the side, the extension covering the area previously occupied by the old post office.
A new telephone exchange was opened at Cloncurry in 1912 and in the 1920s the establishment of QANTAS in 1922 and the Flying Doctor Service in 1929 at Cloncurry made the town an epicentre of the north west. By the 1950s Cloncurry was a centre for mail, telephone and telegraph services for huge area from Normanton to Boulia and west to Camooweal. A brick extension to the post office was constructed in 1954 to house these services as well as a the control station for north west Queensland's Auxiliary Radio network. This base was moved to Mt Isa in 1964 as that centre grew in importance.
The Cloncurry Post Office continues to operate as such.
","criteria":"Cloncurry Post Office illustrates the development of Cloncurry and district in the early 20th century and has been the focus of services which played an important part in allowing this geographically isolated town to become a major regional centre.
|It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a timber twin porch and gable post office building of the period 1906-1921, designed by the Queensland Works Department, and has aesthetic value which contributes significantly to the Cloncurry townscape.
|It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a timber twin porch and gable post office building of the period 1906-1921, designed by the Queensland Works Department, and has aesthetic value which contributes significantly to the Cloncurry townscape.
|The Cloncurry Post Office has had a long connection with the people of Cloncurry and the surrounding district as a provider of vital communication services which have been conducted from this site since 1883.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15192,"place_ref":600417,"name":"Annan River Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Development Road","suburb":"ANNAN RIVER","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Superstructure:
The Annan River Bridge is 275m long with 18 metal box girder spans each 15.3m long. The two end spans are 12.4m long, having been reduced in the 1970s. Each span incorporates five wrought iron plate girders, 0.76m deep, spaced at 1.52m intervals. Originally 5.6m wide, the bridge is now 6.1m wide and in recent years was fitted with timber kerbs 3.7 metres apart and vehicle running strips each 940mm wide and 610 mm apart to accommodate single lane traffic.
The three inner girders are conventional being 0.76m deep and built up of a web plate, four angles and top and bottom cover plates. The outer girders are less conventional, with the angles n one side of the web left off to provide a flush face. The 5/16 inch (a standard recommendation in the early twentieth century) web plates are fastened with 8 rivets to the 100 x 75 x 9.5 mm vertical angles. The horizontal angles are 100 x 75 x 16 mm and secured with an additional 13 or 14 rivets per web plate. Corners are bolted through with 28 mm bolts.
Substructure:
The original headstocks, now encased in concrete, are 610mm deep wrought iron girders of similar construction to the deck girders. Cast iron piles 2.4m and 1.2m sections and bolted through either internal or external flanges are used to support the headstocks. The piles are 610mm in diameter with 25mm thick wall. Attempts have been made, unsuccessfully, to fill the piles with concrete.
Originally Wales (horizontal braces) and diagonal braces were installed on the piers. These braces have been replaced by a pair of 150 x 75 mm rolled steel channels acting as the wale brace and a single diagonal consisting of a pair of 100 x 12 mm plates.
Rakers were installed on the outer face of each pile. Manufactured from 125mm wrought iron, they are secured to the wrought iron 'helmet' at the end of the headstocks. Several are detached due to corrosion while others show extensive loss of material at the inter-tidal zone.
","history":"The Annan River Bridge was designed by John Henry Daniells, Engineer for Bridges (1884-1889), and constructed between 1886-89, and was important in servicing the developing industry in the Rossville and Bloomfield areas. Following the establishment of the overland route to Cairns, the importance of the Annan River Bridge decreased. Construction of the Annan River Bridge was a controversial and prolonged project mainly due to misinformation, remoteness and challenging conditions. It became necessary to modify the bridge when it was discovered that the site proved unsuitable for a screw piling technique.
Cooktown was founded in October 1873 as the Endeavour River port for the Palmer River goldfields, and within six months had 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, 6 butchers, 5 bakers, 3 tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers; 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874, and the town was declared a municipality on 5 April 1876. The 1880s saw a number of infrastructure developments in the district such as the Cooktown to Laura railway built in 1884-88. Road developments were also required to upgrade the local roads between the Palmer River goldfields, the Annan River tin mines and the wharves at Cooktown.
Construction of the bridge appears to have been first discussed in 1883. In December 1883 the Daintree Divisional Board requested that the new Griffith ministry comply with the decision of the previous McIlwraith government to fund the construction of a bridge over the Annan River south of Cooktown. While urgently required, the project was beyond the resources of the local authority:
"As for the necessity of this Bridge, little need be said, it would afford a safe crossing at all times over a tidal River which at present is only fordable at dead low water once or twice a day according to the tides, and then it is both difficult and dangerous..."
In April 1884, the Daintree Divisional Board upgraded their initial estimate of £4000 to £5000 after flooding had made it evident that many additional piles and supports must be used to render the structure permanent. A telegram from Public Works on 16 April 1884 informed the Daintree Divisional Board that a departmental officer would be sent to take levels and prepare designs prior to any tenders being called.
By early January 1885, Daniells had inspected potential bridge sites on the Annan River. Daniells recommended the site known as the 'Old Crossing', saying it offered good holding for piers, being affordable at low water. Engineering drawings were drafted and on 30 May through to June 1885, the Government Gazette and local newspapers advertised the tender notice for the supply and erection of an iron bridge over the Annan River near Cooktown.
GH Royce and Co, Sydney and London, were contracted to build the bridge which was officially opened on 13 February 1889. GH Royce and Co were awarded two separate contracts. The first contract, for which Royce tendered £8201 was to provide all wrought and cast iron, steel and gunmetal for the piers and superstructure of an iron bridge over the Annan River...and to deliver the whole, complete, free on the Wharf at Cooktown...The second contract for which Royce tendered £10213 was for the construction of the bridge which was to be completed within three months of the receipt of the ironwork.. Daniells stated that construction would commence after the wet season and the bridge was expected to be open for traffic on 12 November 1886. The bridgework for the Annan River Bridge was ordered from manufacturers in England. Other ironwork for the project was ordered from W Robertson's Victoria Foundry in Mackay. All the ironwork was unloaded at Cooktown by 29 July 1886.
The project was subject to a variety of delays both prior to and during the construction of the bridge. The most serious delays occurred after the commencement of construction and were mostly due to misinformation received by Daniells regarding the suitability of the site as a location for a bridge of screw-pile construction. After receiving a sample of the strata in September 1886, Daniells responded to site superintendent Mansfield that such strata is evidently not fit to screw into, other means must be adopted and I sent him instructions to have the screw blades cut off some of the cylinders, the bottoms serrated.... Daniells' alternative method involved sinking sleeve cylinders and excavating the disturbed material by hand. Most of the excavation was undertaken by divers in extremely arduous conditions, including the presence of crocodiles. Daniells stated that it is very difficult to induce men to undertake work at all. Difficulties were also encountered during the North Queensland wet season. Added to this was flood damage to the construction site in early 1888.
The completed bridge was finally opened on 13 February 1889. The Cooktown Independent wrote that about 150 Cooktownites joined another hundred people at Mr Ross's hotel or at the new bridge nearby decorated with a profuse display of British and colonial bunting. An unusual collapsible handrail which could be laid flush with the deck during floods, was originally installed. It appears to have been removed sometime before 1905. The single-wire cable handrail was threaded through swivelling uprights and connected to a windlass.
In 1947 the Annan River Bridge was integrated into a proposed road link between Cooktown and Cairns. The first exploratory trip by District Engineer RD Gallop took about four days. Development of the road followed relatively quickly. By 1950 the Mulligan Highway had been gazetted and progressive upgrading has continued. Bridges were required at several major rivers including the East Normanby (1951), McLeod River (1952), the 'Little Annan' (1956) and the Palmer River (1970). The 'Big Annan' crossing utilised the original plate and girder-bridge completed in 1889.
Maintenance work to the bridge has been carried out on numerous occasions. In 1962 an investigation of the bridge was undertaken and a specification for major repairs was produced. Work included removal of concrete headstock encasement where necessary, replacement of bolts joining headstocks to piles, replacement of corroded bolts and nuts to pile sections above low water mark and the installation of new wales, braces and bolts.
In 1969 further assessment of the Annan River Bridge was undertaken. A report was produced the following year which recommended 'extensive treatment' being carried out. The piles were also considered to be a major concern. The bridge was thought to be in good condition above water line, however, below water line was not so good. It was noted in the report that existing girders required immediate cleaning and painting. The need for a new bridge 'adjacent to the existing structure' was also recognised.
Following an inspection in 1992, it was reported that significant areas braces and girders were subject to erosion. It was noted that the re-encasement of headstocks was deteriorating and the concrete had been poorly compacted. In late 1998 engineering staff from the Main Roads Department noted that the bridge was in need of priority attention. There was also a concern that major flooding could severely damage the bridge. It was not considered economically desirable to repair the existing bridge and preliminary designs of a replacement bridge were initiated. Attention also turned to determining an appropriate management approach for the old bridge.
","criteria":"Construction of the Annan River Bridge in 1886-89 was a major element in the development of the Cooktown hinterland. Prior to the construction of the bridge major difficulties occurred in accessing the tin fields around Rossville and agricultural developments around Bloomfield district, key areas in the development of northern Queensland.
|The Annan River Bridge is a rare example of a plate girder and screw pile bridge. It is also an uncommon example of a low-level bridge. Low-level bridges are being progressively replaced with those at much higher levels in order to avoid road closures during floods. The Annan River Bridge is one of the last remaining bridges of its type in Australia. At 275 metres in length, it is also one of the longest structures of its type.
|The Annan River Bridge is significant for its potential to yield further information about modifications to screw piles to allow for sleeve-sinking construction. The structure, particularly that part of the bridge which is underwater, may contribute to increasing knowledge of a major, controversial engineering project of the late nineteenth century.
|The Annan River Bridge is characteristic of other plate girder bridges consisting of a vertical web plate. Riveted horizontal pairs of angles form flanges to which are attached vertical angles which transmit the load to supports.
|With its flat deck, sheer length and low profile the Annan River Bridge exhibits distinctive aesthetic qualities.
|Innovative redesign was found to be necessary when it was discovered that the site was unsuitable for a bridge of screw-pile construction. Adaptations over an extended period of construction had to be made to allow for sleeve sinking facilities.
|The Annan River Bridge continues to be a popular recreational fishing spot for both locals and tourists in the area.
|The Annan River Bridge is significant for its association with JH Daniells, Queensland Engineer for Bridges, 1884-1889.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15194,"place_ref":600419,"name":"Westpac Bank, Cooktown","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank | Bank of New South Wales","street_address":"Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-03-11","description":"Located in the main street of Cooktown, the Cooktown Westpac Bank is a two-storeyed brick building with a corrugated iron roof and timber verandahs to three sides. It has a rendered street facade, with a substantial colonnade to the ground floor, a more delicately detailed upper storey, and a central entrance portico. The building has an L-shaped plan. The street-facing wing has the bank on the ground floor, with a public banking area to the north-west, and the managers residence above, with bedrooms and lounge overlooking the street. An adjoining wing extending to the rear contains staff quarters and a single storeyed kitchen.
The ground floor colonnade comprises round rendered concrete columns with an entablature with rectangular motifs, and a rendered concrete balustrade with shaped balusters. The first floor has cast iron columns with floriated capitals, a wrought iron balustrade, and a timber frieze. The entrance portico has paired columns to the ground floor flanking an arch with a keystone. An arched pediment spans the width of the entry, and is surmounted by a projecting bay with arched timber work and a triangular timber pediment. The eaves have shaped timber brackets, and a rendered masonry chimney rises above the roofline. Windows and doors to the ground floor street facade are arched, linked with string courses, and decorated with keystones. The upper level openings are rectangular.
The treatment of side and rear elevations is more modest, but with fine detailing. The walls are unrendered brickwork with rectangular openings to ground and first floors, and the verandahs have paired timber posts with timber valances and capitals, boarded timber sunscreens, and cast iron balustrades. The side verandahs are partially enclosed.
The building has timber double hung sash windows, and timber french doors opening onto the verandah.
Internally, the bank contains fine decorative elements. It has plaster ceilings with elaborately decorated plaster cornices, ceiling roses and beam encasings. Timber work includes finely carved and turned stairs, and panelled cedar doors with ventilated fanlights. The public banking area contains a particularly impressive richly carved counter inset with ventilation grilles.
The Cooktown Westpac Bank has a fine and intact facade which contributes to the streetscape of Charlotte St, and contains fine interior decorative elements.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick building was completed in 1891, as the premises for the Queensland National Bank. The building was designed by FDG Stanley, who was responsible for the design of a number of bank buildings in Queensland during the 1880s and 1890s.
The gold rush of the early 1870s which attracted miners and speculators to the Palmer River goldfield provided the impetus for the permanent settlement of Cooktown, becoming a municipality in 1876. Cooktown developed rapidly in the mid 1880s and the substantial nature of the buildings in Charlotte Street indicated the town's importance as a port and business centre. The growth of Cooktown and success of the Palmer River goldfields stimulated the growth of the surrounding district and settlement of the Peninsula.
The Queensland National Bank commenced business in Cooktown in 1874 and built a small timber premises adjacent to the current site. These premises were demolished when the new building was completed. The other portion of the current site was occupied by John Walsh, a Cooktown storekeeper, Mayor of Cooktown in 1876 and the first Member of Parliament for Cook in 1878.
The premises were purchased by the Bank of New South Wales in 1934.
Restoration work was undertaken on the premises in 1941, and dry rot and white ant activity required further maintenance work during the 1950s. The residential areas of the premises were altered during the 1960s, and maintenance has been ongoing since the 1970s. A garage was erected during the 1960s which is now used as a storage shed.
","criteria":"The Westpac Bank at Cooktown, completed in 1891, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of North Queensland, and the development of Cooktown as a port and business centre to service the important Palmer River goldfields.
|The place also demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial 1890s masonry bank building.
|The building exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular: its fine exterior detailing; its fine interior decorative elements; and its contribution to the streetscape of Charlotte Street.
|As a banking premises in Cooktown since 1891, it has a strong association with the community.
|It has special association with the work of architect FDG Stanley, as one of a number of premises designed by Stanley for the Queensland National Bank during the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15195,"place_ref":600420,"name":"Motor Inn Motel","alternate_name":"Seagren's Building; Cooktown Motor Inn Motel","street_address":"Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The site rises from Charlotte Street to the east and the building responds to this. The two-storeyed front section is at street level and the adjoining rear single-storeyed section is at a half level above this.
The front section has a steep hipped roof which runs back to a gable end and drops down to a lower gable roof. Attached to this is a single storey lean-to.
The building is constructed in timber and has an exposed frame at first floor level. The remainder of the building is clad in fibrous cement sheeting either replacing or covering original corrugated iron.
A two-storeyed verandah with cast iron balustrade at first floor level runs along Charlotte Street and returns along the northside. The balustrade panels appear to have been re-positioned. There are two varieties of verandah bracket some of which are later. A deep valance exists below the verandah level which traditionally has been used for signage. The verandah is supported on timber posts that divide the original section of the verandah into four equal bays with a fifth wider bay, that was added, on the northern end. A divider is situated on the verandah at first floor level to the north of the central hall.
A shop is situated on the ground floor that runs the depth of the two storey section and has a set of French doors at the entrance with large timber-framed windows each side. The original wide horizontal timber panelling is in evidence on the walls.
An entrance to the stair from the street is situated on the south side that leads up to the verandah along Charlotte Street. Early 20th century extensions enclose the north side. The first floor is divided into guest rooms running off a central hall. The interior of the rear section of the building appears to have been altered.
","history":"This two-storeyed timber and galvanised iron building was constructed in the 1880s for Cooktown cabinet maker and furniture dealer, Phers Erick Seagren [Sjorgren], who acquired the site [allotment 11 of section 3, parish of Cook] in 1880. Photographic evidence reveals that the building was extant by the late 1880s at least, although the northern side verandah was not added until around the turn of the century. The upper level of the building was the Seagren family residence, with the lower level a furniture display room/shop. A c1888 photograph also indicates a large workshop attached to the rear of the building. Whether part of this survives in the present rear extension has yet to be determined.
PE Seagren was born in Sweden in 1845. Following an apprenticeship in cabinetmaking, he worked in his trade in Copenhagen before emigrating to the Queensland in his mid-twenties, arriving at Rockhampton in 1871. In 1873 he married, at Rockhampton, Rosetta Bradish, a London emigrant who also had arrived in Rockhampton in 1871. Intending to join in the Palmer River goldrush, Seagren travelled to Cooktown in February 1874, but chose instead to establish himself in his trade at the burgeoning port. He was one of the town's earliest citizens, and according to local tradition his son, William Erick Endeavour, was the first white male born at Cooktown, on 26 August 1874.
Cooktown was founded in October 1873 as the Endeavour River port for the Palmer River goldfields, and within six months had 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, 6 butchers, 5 bakers, 3 tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers; 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874, and the town was declared a municipality on 5 April 1876. A railway was constructed from Cooktown to Laura between 1884 and 1888, further opening the port to development. By the turn of the century the Cooktown-Palmer River district had a population of 35,000 [15,000 Europeans and 20,000 Chinese] and Cooktown had become the important centre not only of a thriving mining district, but also of pearling, bêche-de-mer, and pastoral activity.
In the 1880s Queensland Post Office Directories Seagren was listed as a cabinetmaker and furniture dealer and upholsterer; general importer, and a furniture, glass and china dealer. In August 1889, Seagren advertised as a cabinetmaker and upholsterer, whose furniture warehouse and china and glass bazaar was located near the Queensland National Bank in Charlotte Street, the principal thoroughfare of Cooktown. This equates with the position of the present building.
By 1898 PE Seagren had acquired the adjoining northern allotment, containing two shops, and c1900 an upper level verandah was added to the northern side of his shop-house. This was enclosed below as shop space. Seagren acquired the adjoining southern allotment, which contained a small shop, in 1915.
By the early 1900s output from the Palmer goldfield was declining, and Cooktown's significance as a regional port correspondingly decreased. The Charlotte Street building survived the cyclone of 1907 and the 1918 fire which destroyed the buildings on the opposite side of the street, but following PE Seagren's death at Cooktown in 1934, aged 88, the furniture warehouse was closed. Seagren-manufactured furniture reputedly became collectors' items.
PE Seagren was one of the earliest settlers of Cooktown, a substantial landholder in the district, a resident of Cooktown for 60 years, and a prominent and highly respected member of his community. He was keen to encourage Cooktown's progress, and was actively involved in municipal work for many years, beginning with three years on the Daintree Divisional Board [1892-95] prior to being elected to the Cooktown Municipal Council in 1895. He served as mayor of Cooktown for two terms: 1898-1901 and 1905-08. MJ Fox in his History of Queensland Vol.3 [1923] wrote of Seagren's contribution to his community: He has laboured for the improvement of the town with unsparing energy, and the excellent condition of the streets, footpaths, and other public works is due to his progressive methods when mayor.[p672] Seagren was a Justice of the Peace, and held positions on the Hospital Board and School Advisory Board.
In 1924 title to the Charlotte Street property was transferred to Seagren's only surviving child, Mrs Gertrude Blanche Muller, and following her death in 1949, to her children Mrs Malvine Rosetta Blanche Johnson and Erick Seagren Muller, who sold the building in 1952. Little has been recorded of the use of the building between the mid-1930s and the late 1960s, when Margaret Edmonds and Adrienne [Bobby] Gravenor established a newsagency, boutique and tourist information centre in the downstairs shop. They acquired title to the property in 1973, and by 1975 had converted the building into the Motor Inn Motel.
","criteria":"The former Seagren's Building, erected in the 1880s, illustrates the pattern of Queensland's history. It is important surviving evidence of the establishment of Cooktown as an important regional centre and port in far north Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century. The place is illustrative of the boom years of the mid-to-late 1880s when Cooktown appeared to have an unlimited future. It is important also in illustrating the contribution of non-English-speaking immigration to the development of Queensland.
|The building illustrates some rare aspects of Queensland's heritage: it is one of a small group of surviving Charlotte Street buildings which illustrate the hub of activity that was Cooktown in the 1870s, 1880s and early 1890s; it is one of Cooktown's oldest buildings and the last remaining structure of its type along Charlotte Street; and, despite the conversion to a motel, also provides rare surviving evidence of a far north Queensland shop-house of this period.
|The place has the potential to contribute to our understanding of Queensland's cultural heritage. Little is known to date of the influence of Scandinavian building techniques and/or design on 19th century Queensland construction, and the former Seagren's Building may prove important in future studies.
|Despite adaptation to a motel, the core and fabric survive substantially intact. The building remains a rare example of its type: a two-storeyed late 19th century North Queensland shop-house constructed of timber framing and galvanised iron cladding, with front and side verandahs to the upper level, illustrating the adaptive use of portable building materials and of design in a remote tropical locale.
|The building, located in the main commercial street in Cooktown, contributes aesthetically to an historical streetscape which includes the adjacent Westpac Bank [600419] and former Bank of North Queensland [600422]; the Cook Shire Council Chambers [601535], Mary Watson's Monument [600421] and the former Cooktown Post Office on the opposite side of the street; and the early stone kerbing and channelling in Charlotte Street [601731].
|The place is significant for its long association with the life and work of Cooktown cabinet maker, furniture dealer and civic leader, Phers Erick Seagren, a Swedish immigrant who was instrumental in shaping the development of Cooktown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15196,"place_ref":600421,"name":"Mary Watson's Monument","alternate_name":"Mary Watsons Monument","street_address":"Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Mary Watson's monument is situated at the corner of Adelaide and Charlotte Streets, Cooktown, on the edge of the Charlotte Street footpath abutting the road, a little south of, and on the same side of the street as, the Cook Shire Council Chambers. It straddles the stone kerbing and guttering of Charlotte Street, and lacks a formal setting.
The structure is of painted concrete, and comprises plinth, square base and octagonal tapering spire. On the plinth the names S Greenway and Ipswich are inscribed. The four faces of the base have insets with two centred and shouldered arches. Floral carved relief are located in the cusp of the shouldered arches and above the two centred arches. The base is surmounted by ogee hood moulds which have a cyma recta profile and tracery below. Working-order water fountains with semi-circular bowls finished in a leaf pattern are located on the north and south faces, and there is an inscribed marble panel on each of the east and west faces. The inscription on the western panel reads:
Five fearful days beneath
the scorching glare
Her babe she nursed.
God knows the pangs that
woman had to bear,
Whose last sad entry showed
a mother's care'
Then - "Near dead with thirst".
John Davis\t\tMayor 1886
The inscription on the eastern panel is:
IN
MEMORIAM
MRS WATSON,
The Heroine of Lizard Island
Cooktown
North Queensland
AD 1881
Erected 1886.\t\tEdward D'Arcy
\t\t\tMayor.
\t\t\t\t1885
A tapering octagonal spire sits above the base and is finished with an acanthus leaf finial.
In recent years work to repair the water pipes to the fountains has necessitated the concrete being cut into, the pipes exposed, and then the concrete repaired. This appears as a narrow vertical incision down the northern face of the monument, from the fountain to the ground.
","history":"This monument was erected in 1886 by the citizens of Cooktown to honour Mrs Mary Watson, who perished, along with her infant son and her Chinese employee Ah Sam, from thirst and exposure on one of the islands of the Howick group, northeast of Cooktown, in October 1881.
Mary Watson's tragic death reverberated through far North Queensland. To her contemporaries, she epitomised the self-sacrifice of countless women who were helping to 'civilise' the bush, and her youth, her brave struggle to save her infant, and the sad little journal she kept until the end, created an additional pathos and sense of the heroic to her story which captured the public imagination.
Mary Watson [neé Oxnam] emigrated from England to Maryborough with her parents in 1877, when she was aged 17. Her father took up farm work near Maryborough and Mary established a small private school in town. She closed this in 1879 and took up a position as a governess in Cooktown, but soon opened her own school there. In May 1880, at Christ Church Cooktown, Mary [aged 20] married Captain Robert Watson, who was in partnership with PC Fuller in a bêche-de-mer station on Lizard Island, approximately 50 miles northeast of Cooktown. Following the marriage the Watsons moved to Lizard Island, where in 1879 Watson had erected a dwelling and smoke and store-house, and established a small fruit and vegetable garden. Two Chinese men, Ah Sam and Ah Leong, were employed to assist in the house and garden respectively. Mary returned to Cooktown in March 1881 to await the birth of her first child early in June, and was back on Lizard Island with her baby by July.
On 1 September 1881 Watson and Fuller took their bêche-de-mer boats 200 miles north to Night Island, where they set up an out-station and smoke house, anticipating an absence from Lizard Island of about 6 weeks. Mary was left on the island with her infant son and the two Chinese employees. On 27 September a group of mainland Aborigines arrived at Lizard Island, which, according to oral tradition, contained a sacred site in the approximate vicinity of the bêche-de-mer station. Mary Watson's journal reveals that these Aborigines clearly wanted the foreigners to leave the place. It is thought that on 29 September they speared and killed Ah Leong, who was working in the garden approximately quarter of a mile from Mrs Watson's dwelling, although his body was never found. On 30 September they gathered on the beach below the dwelling, dispersed when Mary fired a rifle and revolver, but returned on 1 October and severely wounded Ah Sam.
Fearing a further attack and lacking any other means of escape, Mary packed a few belongings, food, water and two paddles into a cut-down iron ship's tank used for boiling the bêche-de-mer, and set off with Ah Sam and the baby on 2 October. By 4 October they had reached a reef, where they remained another day, hoping to sight a passing ship. On 6 October they pulled onto No.1 Howick Island to replenish their fresh water. As Aborigines were camped there, the refugees moved to a reef as soon as the tide was in and on 7 October pulled to No.5 Howick Island which, although it lay along the steamer route, unfortunately lacked fresh water. Too weak to continue, they hoped to attract the attention of a passing ship, but were unsuccessful. Mary kept a brief diary throughout the ordeal. The last entry is dated 11 October:
Still all alive. Ferrier [her child] very much better this morning. Self feeling very weak. I think it will rain to-day; clouds very heavy; winds not quite so hard.
No rain. Morning weather fine. Ah Sam preparing to die. Have not seen him since 9. Ferrier more cheerful. Self not feeling at all well. Have not seen any boat of any description.
No water. (Nearly dead with thirst.)
Their remains were found by crew from a passing fishing vessel on 19 January 1882 and later were identified by Captain Watson. Watson was still fishing [at Restoration Island] in late October when informed by a passing vessel that Aborigines had sacked the Lizard Island buildings and that his wife, child and the two Chinese employees were missing. He had returned immediately to Lizard Island, and had been searching for his family since 7 November 1881.
Mary Watson's ordeal and heroism captured the hearts and minds of her contemporaries. On 29 January 1882 a public funeral attended by approximately 650 persons was accorded Mrs Watson, her child and Ah Sam by the citizens of Cooktown, and their remains were buried in the Cooktown Cemetery.
The tragedy exacerbated European antagonism toward Aborigines in the Cooktown area. A punitive raid was carried out, but historian Geoffrey Bolton suggests the wrong group of Aborigines were dealt with.
In 1885 public subscription was called for a drinking-fountain memorial to Mary Watson, and this was erected with the co-operation of the Cooktown Municipal Council in 1886 at a cost of £165. The memorial was unveiled in February 1886 by Mayor John Davis. It was erected just outside the grounds of the town hall, straddling the stone kerbing and guttering in Charlotte Street, and is the work of monumental mason S Greenway of Ipswich.
","criteria":"Mary Watson's Monument is significant as an important reminder of the tragedies which accompanied early European settlement in Queensland, and of the lack of communication and understanding between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples during this 'frontier' phase of our history.
That the memorial does not commemorate Ah Sam, the young Chinese man who perished with Mrs Watson, is evidence of the disjunctive nature of Queensland's early colonial society, and in the omission, remains a clear illustration of the racist attitudes of the time.
|It is also the only known public monument to an individual woman [other than a head of state] in Queensland.
|It has heritage value as a good example of its type: a decorative, late 19th century public memorial drinking fountain which encompasses both utilitarian and commemorative functions.
|It has aesthetic value, and makes a pleasing contribution to the historic streetscape of Charlotte Street, Cooktown's principal thoroughfare.
|The place is valued by the Cooktown community for its historical significance, and it is a tourist attraction in the town.
|It has a strong association with Mary Watson, and serves to perpetuate the legend [and mythology] of her death.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15197,"place_ref":600422,"name":"Ferrari Estates Building","alternate_name":"Bank of North Queensland","street_address":"126 Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The site faces due west to Charlotte Street and runs to the east rising to a large granite outcrop. The building which is two-storeyed and of rendered brick, has a rectangular plan form which runs to the street alignment. A single-storeyed wing runs off the north east corner at the rear of the building. The existing roof over the two-storeyed section is asymmetrically hipped.
At ground level the facade has a symmetrical three bay colonnade that has semi-circular headed openings with hood moulds and a keystone. The openings are supported on bracketed piers which are recessed between squared piers. At the carriage opening the semi-circular opening sits on brackets. A cornice divides the facade between ground and first floor levels.
The upper level is also divided into three bays with semi -circular headed openings similar to ground level but of lower in height, they are divided by pilasters and have been infilled with glazing. Above these windows is a further cornice with central triangular pediment. A balustrade rises above this. The southern openings provides access to what was the coach entry. The original wrought iron gates remain.
Internally a large proportion of the evidence of the original use of the building has been lost due to refurbishment, but evidence of the strongroom and position of the manager's office survives on the ground floor, and the original timber stair between floors remains against the east wall. The timber verandah along the south wall has been infilled with fibrous cement cladding.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick building was erected in 1890-91 as the banking premises and manager's residence for the Cooktown branch of the Bank of North Queensland.
Established in Townsville in July 1888, the Bank of North Queensland, was one of only three 19th century indigenous Queensland banks, the other two being the Queensland National Bank, established 1872, and the Royal Bank of Queensland, established 1885. Actively supported by Robert Philp, politician, businessman and separationist, formation of the Bank of North Queensland was allied closely to the separation movement, and promoted as a source of North Queensland development capital free from southern [QNB] influences. Within 6 months, the new bank had established 7 branches, including Cooktown, which opened on 1 September 1888. The Brisbane branch was opened in November 1888, and the bank's headquarters transferred there from Townsville in 1894. Several of the smaller North Queensland branches closed during the 1890s, but by 1900 additional branches had been established at Childers, Mareeba, Mount Morgan, Thornborough and Thursday Island, reflecting the shifting fortunes of North Queensland industries [mining, pastoralism, and the bêche-de-mer trade].
When the Cooktown branch was established in 1888, alluvial goldmining on the Palmer River gold fields was still paying high dividends, the Annam tinfields had just been opened, and the local bêche-de-mer industry was booming. Cooktown, which serviced a district population of approximately 30,000, was thriving, and both the Bank of New South Wales and the Queensland National Bank had opened branches there already. Such was local business confidence in the future of far North Queensland, that within two years the Bank of North Queensland had commissioned Townsville architects Eyre & Munro to design substantial new premises for the Cooktown branch. Title to the Charlotte Street site was acquired by the bank in June 1890, tenders were called in August-September, and the contract was let to John Armstrong of Cooktown, with a price of £2,188. Work on the site excavation had begun by mid-September, and the foundation was laid on 13 October 1890 by Mr AJ Charker, manager of the bank's Cooktown branch.
The two-storeyed brick building was one of Cooktown's more substantial buildings. The ground floor contained the banking chamber, manager's room and strong room. A private entrance at the side of the building led to the manager's residence, which comprised entrance hall and dining room on the ground floor, and drawing room, 3 bedrooms, bathroom and linen press on the upper level. The bedrooms opened onto the side balcony. The single-storeyed kitchen wing beyond the dining room contained kitchen, servant's room and store., with high ceilings and plenty of windows to ensure adequate ventilation in a tropical climate. The whole was constructed of brick, initially supplied from Mrs Savage's brickyard at the 'Two-mile' just outside Cooktown. Difficulties in their manufacture and heavy rain during February delayed work on the bank building, and it was finally completed in mid-1891.
Even as the new building was opened, Cooktown's fortunes were waning. Output from the Palmer River gold fields declined as the alluvial gold was worked out, and Cooktown's importance as the principal supply port to the interior diminished accordingly. Just after the turn of the century, there was some renewed activity on the Palmer, but this was not sustained at the volume anticipated. Cyclone damage in 1907 destroyed large numbers of Cooktown buildings which were never re-built, and the Cooktown branch of the Bank of North Queensland finally closed in January 1908. For some years it remained bank property, but was rented out as a residence - the Police Magistrate occupied the building in 1917.
In 1917 the Bank of North Queensland merged with the Royal Bank of Queensland to form the Bank of Queensland, and this in turn was taken over in 1922 by the National Bank of Australasia Ltd, which disposed of the Cooktown property in 1924. Title to the building was held by Walter Colley, and later his widow, from 1926 until 1948, when it passed to Cairns auctioneer and insurance agent Cornelius O'Leary. It has been held by the Ferrari family since 1963. The building is understood to have been used mostly as a residence until the 1970s. It was occupied for some years as a grocery store until closed in December 1992.
","criteria":"The former Bank of North Queensland at Cooktown, erected 1890-91, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history. It is surviving evidence of the establishment of Cooktown as an important regional centre and port in far north Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century, and a symbol of both local and Queensland-wide business confidence in the future of Cooktown at this period.
|The building illustrates some rare aspects of Queensland's heritage: it is one of a small group of surviving Charlotte Street buildings which illustrate the hub of activity that was Cooktown from the 1870s to the 1890s; it is one of Cooktown's oldest buildings; it is of brick construction, which is rare in Cooktown; and, despite the refurbishments, still provides strong evidence of the adaptation of traditional European design to a tropical climate.
|Despite the removal of a number of interior walls, the form and street presence survive. The building remains a rare example of its type: a substantial, two-storeyed late 19th century North Queensland bank building containing banking chamber and manager's residence, constructed of rendered brick, with front and side verandahs to the upper level, illustrating the adaptive use of design in a remote tropical locale.
|The building, located in the main commercial street in Cooktown, contributes aesthetically to an historical streetscape which includes the adjacent Motor Inn Motel [600420] and nearby Westpac Bank [600419]; the Cook Shire Council Chambers [601535], Mary Watson's Monument [600421] and the former Cooktown Post Office on the opposite side of the street; and the early stone kerbing and channelling in Charlotte Street [601731].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15198,"place_ref":600423,"name":"James Cook Historical Museum","alternate_name":"St Mary's Convent and School; Cooktown Museum; James Cook Museum","street_address":"50 Helen Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former St Mary's Convent is sited on a hill overlooking the Endeavour River. It is constructed in red brick in a Victorian Gothic style. It has an "L" shaped floor plan with a bay projecting to the west on its northern end. Brick cornices surround the building below the ground and first floor window levels and at first floor level.
The roof has a steep pitch and is now clad in corrugated iron replacing the original ribbed pan. The roof finishes as a gable over the western bay and as a truncated hipped form at the southern end. The original decorative ridge cast iron work and roof vents have been removed from the truncated section of roof. Later dormer windows have been installed with four along the east elevation, one on north side and two on the west elevation.
There are verandahs on the east and west elevation. The west or front verandah is supported on paired cast iron corinthian columns which divide it into five bays. Each bay is finished with arching decorative cast iron brackets. The paired columns at first floor level rise in doric detailing to support the verandah roof. The rear or eastern verandah is infilled but retains its original detailing of single columns cast iron first floor balustrade and deep vertical timbered valance at ground floor level.
The former single-storeyed hipped roof brick kitchen building remains to the rear on the north side; additions have been made adjacent to this to service the museum.
On the western bay there are three centrally positioned long narrow windows at ground and first floor levels, and above these a round vent with hood mould. On the north elevation there are sets of four double hung timber windows symmetrically positioned at the ground and first floor levels, these have window hoods with scalloped fascias.
The central timber doorway with side lights is accessed via a set of stone stairs from the western verandah. This doorway is flanked on each side by double hung windows with shallow arched heads and hood moulds over.
The apex of the western gable roof has cast iron panels fixed between a collar tie supported by decorative timber brackets and a king post running up to the roof and supporting a cross.
The central hall contains a fine timber staircase. Rooms of various dimension run off central corridors at ground and first floor levels. The rooms in the northern end of the building provide large museum display space. Walls are plaster over brick and ceilings lath and plaster with moulded decorative cornices.
","history":"This substantial, two-storeyed brick building was erected in 1888-89 as St Mary's Convent and School. It was the inspiration of the first Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown, Bishop John Hutchinson; designed by former colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, of Brisbane; and staffed initially by Sisters of Mercy from Dunvargan in Ireland.
Bishop Hutchinson was one of three Irish Augustinian Fathers who arrived in Cooktown in 1884 to take charge of the Pro-Vicariate of North Queensland, established in 1876 and extending from Cardwell to Cape York. In the mid-1880s it was appropriate that the Augustinians were based at Cooktown, rather than Cairns, as the former was emerging as the principal town and port of far North Queensland. Such was the rapid progress of Cooktown during the second half of the 1880s that the Pro-Vicariate of North Queensland was constituted the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown in 1887. Father Hutchinson was appointed the first Vicar Apostolic and was consecrated a Bishop in August the same year. In late 1887 Bishop Hutchinson returned to Ireland to recruit more priests and to encourage an order of sisters to establish a convent school at Cooktown. There was an existing primary school, staffed by lay teachers, attached to St Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Cooktown, but Bishop Hutchinson envisaged a grander establishment which could offer a superior education, both religious and academic, to the girls [future wives and mothers] of far North Queensland. It was to operate as both a day school and a boarding school for girls.
St Mary's Convent and School was designed by former colonial architect FDG Stanley, one of Queensland's most prolific late 19th century architects. In the 1880s he designed a number of other Catholic churches and institutional buildings, including St Patrick's Church at Gympie (1883-88), additions to St Mary's Church at Maryborough (1884-85), dormitories at St Vincent's Orphanage, Nudgee (1886-87), Holy Cross Church at Bundaberg (1886-88), the Magdalene Asylum at Wooloowin, Brisbane (1888-89), and the Sisters of Mercy Convent at South Brisbane (1889).
The tender for St Mary's Convent and School at Cooktown was let about May 1888 to Brisbane contractors Hobbs & Carter, who had erected the much admired Cook Monument at Cooktown in 1887. When Bishop Hutchinson returned from Ireland in June 1888 with five Sisters of Mercy to staff the school, the convent building was far from complete, but work continued rapidly and the building was occupied by May 1889.
Stanley's original design was for a two-storeyed brick core with two transverse wings, but when officially opened by Bishop Hutchinson on 12 May 1889, only the core and north wing had been completed, at a cost of nearly £5,000. The intention was to complete the second wing as funds permitted, but this did not eventuate. The substantial brick building was the most imposing structure in Cooktown, pre-dating the Queensland National Bank building (QHR 600419) in Charlotte Street by about two years. The footings were of concrete and the plinth was constructed of Cooktown granite. Most of the bricks were obtained from Campbell & Sons' brickworks in Brisbane, and shipped to Cooktown. Much of the skilled labour required for the construction also came from Brisbane.
Internally, the ground floor comprised a central entrance hall, off which opened a large dining room [also used as the school chapel] to the right and a large reception room for visitors to the left. Behind these rooms were two classrooms, each divided by folding doors. Beyond the reception room was the school hall, a large room 44ft by 18ft, which occupied most of the ground floor of the north wing. Beyond the eastern end of the hall were the lavatories. A central staircase led from the entrance hall to the upper floor, which contained boarders' dormitories at the north end and dormitories for the sisters at the south end. Upper floor lavatories and bathrooms were located above the ground floor lavatories at the east end of the north wing. Boarders used a second staircase on the rear verandah, rather than the grand central stair. At the rear, the kitchen, scullery and servant's room formed a detached wing, connected to the main building via a covered way. Stanley had taken account of the Cooktown climate: the rooms were large, light and airy, and there were deep verandahs front and back. The rear verandahs were enclosed with 'curtain boards', and the front verandahs were decorated with cast iron.
The site selected was on the crest of the ridge running south from Grassy Hill, above the main street of Cooktown, with a spectacular view over the Endeavour River estuary. By the 1890s the imposing building had become a Cooktown landmark, regularly featured in visiting journalists' descriptions of the town.
Bishop Hutchinson had made the establishment of the convent school at Cooktown a personal project, donating much of his own money and borrowing from his relatives in Ireland, but substantial funds were raised locally as well. The community clearly recognised the need for an educational institution for girls in far North Queensland which offered a superior education to that available in small local state schools, and St Mary's was patronised by families of all denominations. It was the first girls' high school in the area and gained a strong reputation for the quality of its music curriculum. World-acclaimed Queensland singer Gladys Moncrieff was educated there.
The significance of Cooktown as a port deteriorated in the 1890s, as production from the alluvial diggings on the Palmer Goldfields declined. Bishop Hutchinson died in 1897, and his successor, Bishop Murray, is understood to have paid off the debt on the convent building by conducting a lecture tour in the United States. In 1906 Bishop Murray moved his residence to Cairns, which had eclipsed Cooktown as the principal port of far North Queensland.
Despite the decline of Cooktown - both in population and significance - St Mary's Convent and School remained an important educational facility for girls in far North Queensland until the 1930s. The building suffered substantial damage during the cyclone of January 1907, which demolished the Catholic Church behind the convent and removed part of the convent roof, but was repaired immediately. However, many of the businesses destroyed in the 1907 cyclone were not re-established, and an entire block of shops and offices in the main street of Cooktown, destroyed by fire in 1919, were never re-built. St Mary's boarding school closed in the 1930s but co-educational day classes were continued until 1941, when the building is understood to have been commandeered by United States military authorities.
Although the building was returned to the Church in 1945, the school was not re-opened and the Sisters never returned. Another cyclone damaged the building in 1949 and by 1969 it was considered to be in such a ruinous state that tenders for its demolition were called. Following public protest the building was donated to the National Trust of Queensland on condition that it be restored to house the collection of the James Cook Historical Museum at Cooktown. The new Museum was opened on 22 April 1970 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, during her visit to Australia to celebrate the bi-centenary of Cook's charting of the east coast. The former St Mary's Convent and School continues to be maintained by the National Trust, and is one of the principal tourist attractions in Cooktown. In the early 1970s, extensions were made to the rear of the building to house the museum collection. The grounds have been landscaped as the Joseph Banks Memorial Garden, planted with about 40 of the 186 plants catalogued by Banks and Dr Solander during their 7 week stay at the Endeavour River in 1770. Each of these 40 plants is peculiar to the Cooktown area.
","criteria":"The former St Mary's Convent and School, erected 1888-89, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the dramatic rise and fall of Cooktown as a port, supply and administrative centre to the Palmer River goldfields in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Its construction evidences the buoyant Cooktown economy of the late 1880s and survives as a highly evocative illustration of late 19th century confidence in the future of Cooktown as the principal port and town of far North Queensland. Construction of the convent and school also demonstrates the importance attached by the colonising culture to establishing [religious] education, considered a 'civilising' influence in remote districts of Queensland during the frontier phase of our history.
|It is significant for its rarity value: few late 19th century buildings of this substance and decorative detail were erected in centres as remote as Cooktown, accessible only by sea in the 1880s.
|The former convent and school is an excellent, highly intact example of a substantial, 1880s boom era brick institutional building with decorative detailing, designed to accommodate the tropical Cooktown climate and to cater for both convent and school purposes.
|The building is well maintained, retains its aesthetic appeal, and makes a significant contribution to the Cooktown townscape. Situated prominently on the ridge running south from Grassy Hill, the place is visible from the sea approach to the town, and has been considered a Cooktown landmark since its construction in the late 1880s.
|The place has a strong association for the people of Cooktown and district with the town's earlier prominence in Queensland's history. This was evidenced by the public outcry in the late 1960s when the Catholic Church called for the place to be demolished. As the James Cook Historical Museum, the place has become a major Cooktown tourist attraction.
|The place has significant associations with the work of the Augustinian fathers, in particular Bishops Hutchinson and Murray, and the Sisters of Mercy, in the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and with the American military during the Second World War. Since 1970, it has had an important and close connection with the James Cook Historical Museum collection. The Joseph Banks Memorial Garden was established in the grounds of the former convent as a memorial to the work of botanist Joseph Banks and Dr Solander during their 7 week encampment at the Endeavour River in 1770.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15199,"place_ref":600424,"name":"Cooktown Hospital (former)","alternate_name":"Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall | Cooktown Hospital","street_address":"May Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Cooktown Hospital is constructed in timber. It has a two-storeyed front section facing west to May Street and a long single-storeyed wing attached at the rear and supported on steel stumps. The relationships of the front and rear sections are not original.
The ground floor level is surrounded by a wide verandah retaining parts of the original structure. It is supported on evenly spaced timber posts which have timber brackets and a simple later battened balustrade. The ground floor has an exposed timber frame with single double hung windows and French doors in regular positions along each elevation.
The upper storey is clad in rusticated weatherboard [chamferboards]. The western elevation has a triple set of double hung windows with pairs of double hung windows each side. This bank of windows has a continuous hood which has a decorated fascia and is supported on timber brackets. There are single hooded double hung windows on the northern and southern sides. The roof, which is clad in corrugated iron, is a pyramid form with a glazed lantern at the top with the soffits supported on paired timber brackets. Small gabled roofs are positioned centrally at the verandah and the second storey roof, accentuating the entrance to the building.
Internally at ground floor level the original tongue and groove wall boarding has been covered with plasterboard. Ceilings at this level have been clad in plaster board in the front section and the original exposed timber truss and tongue and groove boarded ceilings remain in the rear section. The original staircase to the first floor has been retained and the ceiling at this level is an exposed truss system with timber tongue and groove boarding.
","history":"The former Cooktown Hospital was erected in 1879-81 to the design of Queensland colonial architect FDG Stanley, replacing an earlier temporary hospital building erected in 1874.
Cooktown was established in October 1873 as the Endeavour River port, supply and administrative centre for the Palmer River goldfields. In the earliest days of Cooktown settlement [the summer of 1873-74], new arrivals to the Endeavour River district faced food shortages, floods and fever, and the establishment of a hospital at Cooktown became urgent. In March 1874 a committee was formed to raise local subscriptions for a temporary hospital building, and the first Cook District Hospital, a small timber structure situated on the ridge above Charlotte Street [between Banks and Green Streets], was erected in April 1874. In the same month a Government Medical Officer was appointed, and the colonial government promised £300 for a permanent hospital, if public subscription of an equal amount was raised.
Cook District Hospital serviced the whole of the Endeavour, Palmer, Daintree and Mossman rivers districts, and the small building soon proved inadequate. In 1878 the colonial government acceded to local pressure and voted £2,000 for the construction of a permanent hospital at Cooktown. In April 1879 colonial architect Stanley was instructed to prepare plans.
Stanley's original plan was for a hardwood building comprising on the ground floor: 3 large wards [central, accident and female], a day room, dispensary and ophthalmic [operating?] room. Bathrooms were located at each end of the rear verandah, and earth closets in the backyard were connected by walkways to this rear verandah. The middle section of this long, hipped-roofed building had an upper floor, which comprised one large, light, airy ward. While the original plan does not show any proposed extensions, the fact that 'central' ward was located at the eastern end of the main building may suggest that Stanley intended an eastern extension. On the original plan there is a rear service wing, at right angles to the main building, comprising warders' quarters, store, laundry, kitchen and wash house. This appears to have been built as intended, but at a later period, was re-positioned parallel to the rear of the main building.
Stanley's design for the Cooktown Hospital, like almost all hospitals erected in Queensland from the 1860s to the 1930s, was based on the principles of the pavilion plan, which emphasised the importance of good ventilation and sanitation. This reflected current 'miasmatic theory' accepted by the medical profession: that disease was transmitted by breathing air contaminated with noxious vapours from decomposing organic matter. The Cooktown Hospital was sited on the crest of the ridge above the main street of Cooktown, contained large, airy wards with access to wide surrounding verandahs on the lower level, and the lighting and ventilation of the upper level ward was augmented by a clerestory.
Tenders were called in June 1879 and that of South Brisbane builders Alfred Doorey & Son, with a price of £1945, was accepted in August. In September Stanley travelled to Cooktown and fixed the site for the hospital on the 11.5 acres Hospital Reserve [R.91] surveyed in July 1879 by CA Starcke and gazetted in 1880. The site occupied an entire town block - bounded by Hope, Boundary, May and Ida Streets - it's size illustrative of the colonial government's commitment to Cooktown's development at this period. Stanley placed the hospital mid-way along Hope St on the western side of the reserve, but orientated the building to face north.
The hospital appears to have been erected under 2 contracts, one let to Doorey & Son in 1879, and a second contract, to erect kitchen and outbuildings, advertised in September 1880 and let to Cooktown builders Gordon and Menzies in November. It has not been determined in which year the additional ward at the eastern end of the building was erected. Oral history records that at some later date, additional accommodation was provided for 'aliens' and Aborigines in blocks to the south of the services wing, and connected to this by covered walkways. At some period in the 20th century, the area between the re-positioned kitchen wing and the main building was enclosed as a staff dining room. Over the c105 years that this building functioned as a hospital, a number of internal alterations were made to accommodate changes in medical, surgical and nursing practice.
The Cooktown Hospital survived the cyclones of 1907 and 1949, and during the Second World War functioned as an Air Force hospital. In the mid-1980s a new hospital was erected in the grounds, and in 1986 the original building was acquired by the local congregation of the Jehovah's Witness, and moved to its present location in May Street, where it now faces west. The building was re-configured when removed to the second site, and the service wing does not appear to have survived. However, the place is still considered symbolic of Cooktown's goldrush days, and is a tourist attraction.
","criteria":"The former Cooktown Hospital, erected 1879-81, is important to Queensland history, being illustrative of the 1870s establishment of Cooktown as the principal port, supply and administrative centre to the important Palmer River goldfields.
|It is rare as one of Queensland's few surviving 19th century hospital buildings, and even rarer as an 1870s hospital building, based on pavilion plan design, addressing a tropical climate.
|Although re-located within Cooktown and re-configured, the building retains much early fabric and in the two-storeyed section, illustrates late 19th century concerns with adequate ventilation and light in hospital design for a tropical climate.
|The building, re-sited with Mt Cook as a backdrop, retains its late 19th century aesthetic appeal.
|The place has an important association for the local community, which regards the building as still strongly associated with Cooktown's late 19th century boom, and which promotes the building as a tourist attraction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15200,"place_ref":600425,"name":"Cooktown Powder Magazine","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Webber Esplanade","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The magazine is situated above high water mark, away from the centre of Cooktown, at the northern edge of Grassy Hill at the mouth of the Endeavour River. Its isolated location by the water's edge makes it a landmark, particularly when viewed from the estuary.
The building is single-storeyed and rectangular and contains one room with a door facing west. There are slit windows on the southern, eastern and western elevations. Wide openings have been roughly made in the north and south walls but signs of the earlier narrow openings remain. There is a new roof - timber framed with corrugated iron cladding - constructed in 1996, in the form of the original.
The Magazine is built of brick on a stone plinth with a dilapidated timber floor pegged into joists. The walls have in the past been white washed inside and out. Timber joinery is missing. There is no visible evidence above ground of the early fence, paths or landing.
","history":"The Cooktown Powder Magazine was constructed in 1875-76 for the Department of Ports & Harbours, Queensland, by Cooktown contractor Henry J Meldrum, working to designs prepared in the office of the Queensland colonial architect, FDG Stanley. It remains one of the earliest known surviving powder magazines in Queensland.
For over a century, from 1860 to 1963, control of all explosives and gunpowder imported into Queensland was the province of the Harbour Master's Department (1860-62), the Department of Ports & Harbours (1862-93), the Marine Department (1894-1928), and the Department of Harbours and Marine (1929-63). In 1964, responsibility was shifted to the Queensland Department of Health. Under The Navigation Act of 1876, the master of any ship entering a Queensland port with gunpowder to be unloaded, had to ensure that it was placed in a government magazine. The Ports & Harbours Department therefore was responsible for the provision of magazines and for the safe storage of explosives at Queensland ports of entry. The Act further regulated the conveyance and storage of gunpowder in any place in Queensland, not just in the ports.
From the late 1860s, government magazines were being erected at the principal ports and goldfields of Queensland. On the goldfields, magazines were administered by the Mines Department; control of magazines other than in ports was not vested in the Marine Department until 1907, under the provisions of the Explosives Act of 1906. Magazines were constructed of stone, brick, timber, iron or concrete, often dependent on the local availability of materials. At some ports, floating magazines were utilised. By 1900, magazines under the control of the Marine Department were situated at Brisbane, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Bowen, Townsville, Cairns, Cooktown and Normanton.
Construction of the Cooktown Powder Magazine in the mid-1870s was closely associated with the anticipated exploitation of the gold-bearing reefs of the Palmer River district, following the initial rush to the Palmer in 1873-74. Cooktown had been established in October 1873 as the Endeavour River port for the Palmer, and developed almost overnight as a supply and administrative centre. Within six months of its establishment, the town had 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, 6 butchers, 5 bakers, 3 tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers; 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. There was an estimated 3,000 floating population in the town itself, and thousands of men en route to the goldfields. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874, a state school, customs house, court house, and several churches were erected by 1875, and the town was declared a municipality on 5 April 1876. The 1876 census revealed a population of over 9,200 persons on the Palmer River goldfields, and the town of Cooktown had a population of just under 2,200.
Considering the increasing use of explosives on the Palmer by 1875, and the inherent threat to public safety generated by the storage of explosives in local Cooktown warehouses, the Department of Public Works called tenders for a powder magazine at Cooktown in July 1875. The contract, which was for a brick store 26 feet by 15 feet, roofed with galvanised iron and surrounded at a distance of 25ft by a 7ft high timber fence, was won in September 1875 by HJ Meldrum, with a price of £590. For safety reasons, the structure was to be located at the rocks by the sea at the northern edge of Grassy Hill, a considerable distance from the pilot station. [Operation of the magazine was the responsibility of the local Harbour Master.]
The building was completed by late January 1876. It was constructed of imported bricks, with windows stone faced and fitted with copper-faced shutters. The large hardwood door into the building was also coppered from the outside, and there appears to have been a sloping platform leading up to this door. The roof overhung the structure 4ft all around and had earthed lightning conductors. The interior had a hardwood floor with trestles on which the powder was stored about a foot above the flooring. No nails were used in the construction - all the timber work was pegged with wooden pegs - and any necessary metal fastenings were of copper. There was an 8ft high paling fence surrounding the building - this sustained severe white ant damage within a few years, and was replaced in 1883 with a galvanised iron fence.
When completed in January 1876, the Cooktown magazine was accessible only by boat. Local agitation led to a road being made along the seafront to the magazine, and Webber Esplanade was extended around the northern edge of Grassy Hill in the mid-1880s. By the late 1880s a number of dwellings had been erected at the base of Grassy Hill in the vicinity of the magazine, and the local volunteer defence force had installed a gun nearby. Despite an 1889 recommendation by Foreman McMillan of the Works Department that the magazine be removed two or three miles up the railway line from the port, this did not eventuate. Treasury funds for the removal were allocated in 1890, but by mid-1891 Queensland had entered a severe economic depression, and the funding was curtailed.
From the mid-1880s alluvial output from the Palmer River goldfields declined, and money to develop the extensive reefs in the district was not forthcoming. By 1894 the amount of explosives stored in the Cooktown Powder Magazine was very small, and little was being expended on maintaining the building. In 1907 repairs to the roof sheeting, roof framing, batteries and fence were carried out.
By May 1941 most of the iron fence had collapsed. Much of the sheeting had already been removed, and the Harbour Master was making arrangements to offer the remaining sheets for sale.
The building and site [218m²] were transferred to the National Trust of Queensland by Deed of Grant dated 25 March 1976, upon trust for Museum (Historic Relic) Purposes. In 1992 the National Trust, with local council and community support, removed the old roof, which was unsafe. This was replaced in 1996, and a programme of conservation and restoration of the brickwork commenced.
","criteria":"The Cooktown Powder Magazine is significant for its historical association with the development of the rich Palmer River goldfields in the mid-1870s, and survives as poignant evidence of the establishment of Cooktown as the principal administrative centre and supply port for the Palmer at this period.
|It is rare as one of the few government buildings surviving from Cooktown's establishment phase, and as one of the earliest known surviving Government powder magazines in Queensland.
|As an 1870s brick powder magazine of standard proportions it remains a good example of its type and has the potential to contribute significantly to any future study of Queensland powder magazines.
|The place contains good evidence of 1870s construction techniques for this special type of building use - especially the pegged timber floors, heavy hardwood framing, and small windows.
As an 1870s brick powder magazine of standard proportions it remains a good example of its type and has the potential to contribute significantly to any future study of Queensland powder magazines.
|The building, isolated by the water's edge at the northern edge of Grassy Hill, is a Cooktown landmark, particularly when viewed from the estuary approach to the town.
|The place is valued by the local community for its historical association with Cooktown's past and as a tourist attraction, and by the present owners, the National Trust of Queensland, for its rarity and historical, typological, technological and landmark values.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15201,"place_ref":600426,"name":"Nuggety Gully Water Race and Chinese Camp","alternate_name":"Star of Normanby Mine | Prospect Creek Stone Walls | Greasy Bill Creek water race","street_address":"Mareeba Mining District","suburb":"LAKELAND","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Nuggety Gully is a deep ravine with a dry rocky watercourse which drains into Prospect (originally Prospector's) Creek The place includes a series of stone-pitched retaining walls that extend intermittently along Nuggety Gully for a distance of 600 m north of the Prospect Creek junction from co-ordinates 15.58.53 S - 144.55.54 E to 15.58.37 S - 144.55.56 E. The retaining walls are constructed predominantly on the western side of the Gully. On some bends they are constructed on both sides of the creek, and in two or more tiers. The narrowest sections of the creek between retaining walls are about 2 m in width. The walls vary from 1 m to 2 m in height.
The Star of Normanby gold mine workings, comprising a small open cut and a caved shaft, extend across Nuggety Gully about 300 m north of Prospect Creek and are in direct association with the retaining walls.
A Chinese settlement site is located on Prospect Creek at its junction with Nuggety Gully. The site comprises nine small earth terraces, several containing stone edging and two containing fireplaces. The larger stone fireplace or oven has recently been partially reconstructed and sticks have been placed across the top. This structure has been wrongly described in a nomination to the Australian Heritage Commission for entry on the Register of the National Estate as "a fort in which Chinese miners hid from attacking Aborigines and fired on them".
","history":"Gold was first discovered "officially" in the West Normanby River area, southwest of Cooktown, in November 1874. The first official figures estimate that by the end of January 1875, over 600 men were on the field, many from Maytown. At this point no Chinese appear to have been allowed (by Mining Warden Phillip Sellheim) to enter the diggings. However, by February 1878, at least 200 Chinese were reported to be working the alluvials.
In May 1886 Mining Warden Howard Saint George visited the diggings and reported 34 Europeans working the reefs and thirty to forty Chinese employed exclusively in alluvial workings and in gardening. There were three gardens principally devoted to maize, for which there was a ready sale at the reefs.
In 1898 R. L. Jack, the Government Geologist, took a hurried look at the reefs long after most of the diggings had been abandoned. His map shows Chinese camps in the district but not at Nuggety Gully, between "Prospector's Gully" and the Star of Normanby reef. Therefore it is likely that the retaining walls and terraced camp site were constructed between 1878 (the heyday of early mining) and 1886.
","criteria":"The Nuggety Gully stone-pitched retaining walls and Chinese camp are significant in Queensland's history as the finest and most extensive surviving example of Chinese stonework.
|The direct associations of stone retaining walls, Chinese camp sites and conventional mine workings is exceptional.
|Further archaeological and archival investigation could yield information on the extent of Chinese activities and involvement in the Star of Normanby mine area.
|The quality of the stonework is significant and it has remained intact due to the broken nature of the country and the difficulties in achieving vehicle access, discouraging subsequent attempts at remining.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15202,"place_ref":600427,"name":"Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape","alternate_name":"Laura to Maytown Coach Road","street_address":"Palmer Goldfield Resources Reserve","suburb":"PALMER","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape comprises a 13km stretch of road and the ruins of eight isolated mining settlements, dispersed across a 16,200ha resources reserve. The reserve is located approximately 120km southwest of Cooktown, in a rugged, isolated area of innumerable ridges and incised, seasonal creeks; it extends from the Conglomerate Range[1] (north) to the Palmer River (south), and is dissected from northeast to southwest by the winding North Palmer River.
\nFrom north to south the Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape comprises the ruins of the:
\nThe historic goldfield retains important physical evidence of late-19th and early-20th century mining and associated domestic and commercial activities in the area including: transport infrastructure; remnant reef mining works, batteries and equipment; alluvial mining works including sluice gullies, stone pitched water races and dams; remnant forges and ovens; former townships, hotels, camps and other occupation sites; cemeteries and isolated graves; and various other associated features and artefacts.
\nLaura to Maytown Coach Road
\nThe place includes an approximately 13km long portion of the former Laura to Maytown Coach Road, from the northwest corner of the Reserve to where the road reaches the northern extremities of former town camp at German Bar (south). This portion of the route represents much of the last leg of the journey from Laura.
\nSeparate alignments for the western route (1876) and eastern route (deviations) descending the Conglomerate Range commence at the northern boundary of the Reserve and intersect approximately 3.5km to the south, from where the formation resumes the 1876 route south via Cradle Creek, Jessop’s Creek and Jessop’s Hill.
\nAssociated occupation sites include (from north to south): Folders Hotel and yards, and a Chinese camp and grave sites, along the western route; house sites, near the intersection of the western and eastern routes; a forge, near the Cradle Creek crossing; and campsites, graves, workings and dams, near the Jessop’s Creek crossing.
\nWinding through the rugged terrain, the original road formation is characterised by hand-cut road surfaces and drains, cuttings, retaining walls of varying sizes and quality, and quarrying undertaken to clear the road and reduce the slope. The route has been partly re-formed as a graded road but retains sections of original construction and early modifications.
\nEastern route formation
\nCommencing approximately 1.5km east of the western route, on the northern boundary, the eastern route descends east then south around the eastern side of the range, before aligning southwest towards the intersection with the western road.
\nA retaining wall of unsorted and uncut stone with clay mortar is found either side of a ramp that commences approximately 600m from the start of the descent. On the western side of the road at this point are two side drains that have been hand chiselled and cut through bedrock. The retaining wall extends southwest along the ramp for 100m and has an uneven batter of approximately 45-55 degrees. The stone used has been quarried from a cutting located to the north. The retaining wall reaches a maximum height of 10m in one section.
\nThe section south of the intersection with the track to Cradle Creek is particularly well represented by elements of original construction including steep pinches, cuttings and stone drains. At the junction with Cradle Creek, the western side of the road features a stone retaining wall of medium sized unsorted stone with a smaller coping course. The wall is 35m in length and up to 1m high.
\nContinuing south, the winding route crosses Jessop’s Creek, where numerous occupation sites are located near the road, before reaching the northern extents of the former German Bar town camp.
\nWestern route formation
\nFrom the northern boundary the western route continues in a southerly direction through the Reserve and takes a detour (c1895) to Ripple Creek via a track to the west of the original road alignment. The track then heads to the memorial to Robert Logan Jack and his trigonometric station (memorial not of State-level heritage significance).
\nSituated about 200m east of the memorial is the beginning of the ‘Western’ route down the escarpment of the Conglomerate Range. This descent is characterised by an extensive cutting into the native sandstone to produce a smooth road surface, the western side of which has been cut out a further 200m for the entire length of the road at this point. The western side also contains additional check-outs for squared timbers (0.25x0.25m) that may have been used to hold a corduroy road to assist coaches and drays to climb to the top of the conglomerates. These check-outs are between 4m and 5.5m apart down this western side of the road at this point.
\nThe route continues in a general southeast direction for a further 1km until it reaches the remains of Folder’s Hotel and yards. From Folder’s Hotel, the road heads south. Approximately 300m along the road and to the west are the remains of a Chinese camp and graves. The road then continues towards the intersection with the original 1876 alignment.
\nOccupation sites
\nFolders Hotel and yards (western route)
\nThe remains of former Folders Hotel are located east of the western road and comprise:
\nHorse yard posts associated with former Folder’s Hotel are located approximately 70m southeast of the hotel remains. They include:
\nChinese camp and graves (western route)
\nA Chinese camp, located west of the western road, is situated on a flat on a bend in a creek and may have had as many as 20 huts. Occupation evidence includes:
\nHouse sites (eastern and western route intersection)
\nAt least two house sites are located adjacent to the intersection of the eastern and western route alignments. They include:
\nForge (Cradle Creek crossing, eastern route)
\nThe remains of a square stone structure, probably a forge, measuring 1.4x1.1x0.7m high, is located adjacent to the road, immediately north of the Cradle Creek crossing.
\nCampsites, graves, workings and dams (Jessop’s Creek crossing)
\nNumerous Chinese and European campsites, graves, alluvial workings and small dams are located immediately adjacent to the road at the Jessop’s Creek crossing. The campsites are located east and west of the road and include:
\nTwo Chinese burial grounds are located approximately 400m north of the Jessop’s Creek campsite. They comprise:
\nGerman Bar to Thompson’s Loop
\nThe German Bar Complex is a large area (approximately 142.8ha) that comprises the remains of the former German Bar Township, a Chinese cemetery, numerous isolated graves, Binnie’s Gang Forward Battery, and a collection of Chinese alluvial mining remnants, graves and an occupation site. The complex is spread out along a section of the North Palmer River approximately 4km north of Maytown.
\nThe northern section of the complex includes the German Bar Township area, with evidence of occupation along both banks of the river and a small section of the Laura to Maytown Coach Road (north to south). The wide variety of archaeological evidence in this section primarily relates to domestic and commercial practices on the Palmer Goldfield, rather than mining activities, and is predominantly located on high river terraces situated immediately above the river.
\nThe southern section of the complex is limited to the southern bank of the river at a bend known locally as Thompson’s Loop and is close to a major junction of roads/tracks and includes a popular contemporary camp site. It includes archaeological evidence of domestic occupation as well as alluvial workings.
\nNorthern Section
\nGerman Bar Township
\nA large occupation site is located on the northern bank of the North Palmer River. It includes an earthen oven, dug into the top of a sloping bank near the junction of two drainage creeks, and low density camp sites, the heaviest concentration of which are located along a ridge immediately to the northwest of and parallel to the North Palmer River. Along the top of this ridge runs the Laura to Maytown Coach Road.
\nThe ruins of a comparatively large structure (possible store or hotel) are located immediately west of the coach road, just as it enters the German Bar Township. It comprises:
\nAn exhumed Chinese grave is located near the northwest edge of the township. Largely overgrown with grass, the grave is marked by a linear hole orientated northeast-southwest, with the lowest section down slope towards a drainage creek.
\nThe German Bar Township also extends over the southern bank of the North Palmer River. Camp sites and isolated graves are scattered over the southern bank and extend down to the first river terrace, and a large terraced structure overlooks the river.
\nChinese Cemetery
\nA concentrated area of graves that has become known as ‘the cemetery’, is located on the southern bank of the river near the top of a large ridge. A modern three-string barbed wire fence surrounds the cemetery, with a gate in the northeast corner; however, graves are not confined to the fenced area.
\nSite of Binnie’s Gang Forward Battery
\nThe site of Binnie’s Gang Forward Battery is located southwest of the German Bar Township, on the first river terrace on the northern bank of the North Palmer River. The battery platform and rear retaining wall have been destroyed; however, it retains: an artefact scatter on the steep slope immediately behind the former battery location; a large occupation site (the Binnies’ house), situated up the slope to the north; and nearby stock yard remnants, located immediately adjacent to the Laura to Maytown Coach Road.
\nSouthern Section (Thompson’s Loop Area)
\nChinese Graves
\nAlthough Chinese graves are spread throughout the Palmer, two sets of graves located near Thompson’s Loop are unique and potentially very significant. The first set comprises two interments located beside an active road and marked by modern wooden posts with faded white paint. A historical pack track running east-west is located 10m to the south of the two graves. A further set of three graves is located nearby to the southwest.
\nAdditional isolated graves are located nearby and further to the southwest, although they do not exhibit the ornate cairns.
\nOccupation Sites
\nA former occupation site that includes remnants of a former Chinese market garden and an intact in-ground oven, is located on a ridge immediately above a small drainage creek that sweeps around the southwest toward Thompson’s Gully, which contains considerable evidence of historical alluvial workings. The site has been substantially affected by environmental and human impacts and a current road bisects the high river terrace/ridge.
\nThe slopes above the alluvial works are littered with remnants of camps and occupation sites.
\nAlluvial Workings
\nThe former alluvial workings follow the creek line toward the southwest and include a wide variety of features, such as stone pitching within the creek bed, mullock heaps and water diversions.
\nRevolver Point Township
\nThe Revolver Point Township site is located 7km northeast of Maytown, on a promontory of land formed by one of the many sweeping bends in the North Palmer River. The 20ha township area is vegetated with native woodland and grassy understorey, and includes:
\nOn the western side of the area and close to the river, rocks have been stacked into lines to create terracing either for house sites or to define streets. There are drains associated with the terracing and several collapsed stone fireplaces on levelled terraced sites overlooking the river.
\nThree cemeteries and several isolated graves are sited overlooking the river.
\nMt Atlas and Echotown Complex
\nMt Atlas dominates and sits at the north end of the west side of the roughly triangular shaped Echotown Complex, which is bounded on the east, south and west by the North Palmer River. Pack tracks from Revolver Point to the west and from the Emily Battery and Wild Irish Girl Mine (QHR 600428) to the north skirt around the northeast side of Mt Atlas.
\nThe area is predominantly native woodland with grassy understorey. It slopes east and south down from Mt Atlas to the North Palmer River. In several places the river is contained within near vertical cliffs over 10m high. The river contains one 50m by up to 15m wide semi-permanent water hole at the southeast corner of the area, known as Binnie’s Pool.
\nThe area contains undisturbed examples of stone pitched alluvial gullies and minor quartz reef workings, as well as the site of the Gang Forward or Binnie's Battery and Echotown.
\nGang Forward or Binnie's Battery
\nThe Gang Forward or Binnie's Battery Site is on the east bank of the North Palmer River adjoining Binnie's Pool. The western bank of the river at this point is a near vertical cliff, which forms a natural boundary of the area being recommended for protection. The battery site consists of levelled benches cut into the natural land surface, some collapsed stone work, the remains of a boiler setting and a section of flagstone wall. There is no sign of any machinery present and it is not readily apparent how the battery operated.
\nEchotown
\nEchotown is located a short distance northeast of the battery site. From the battery site, the land rises gently from the river with levelled sites where buildings once stood within an area up to 100m from the river. Most of the township area is covered with grass. The township contains three substantial levelled building sites and two graves are located east of and overlooking Echotown.
\nQuartz reef workings
\nThere are two sets of small scale quartz reef workings located 700m northeast of Binnie’s Battery site.
\nMinor, or eastern gully, stone pitching
\nA gully, 20m southwest of the quartz reefing workings and running roughly north to south, has been mined for alluvial gold. It has coarse stone pitching up to 2m high for a distance of 50m along the gully.
\nMt Atlas stone pitching
\nThe Mt Atlas stone pitching commences approximately 350m north of Binnie’s Pool, in a gully that heads east from the North Palmer River before turning north and heading upstream toward Mt Atlas.
\nLouisa Mines and Enterprise Battery Complex
\nLocated approximately 2km northeast of Maytown, there are three key components to this complex: the remains of the Louisa No.1 West and Louisa PC Mine, situated in Thompson’s Gully; the Enterprise Battery, located 150m south of the main mine shaft; and the Louisa Mine manager’s house, located 120m northeast of the Enterprise Battery and 100m southeast of the remains of the Louisa Mines.
\nLouisa No.1 West and Louisa PC Mine
\nExtant mine remains comprise two collapsed mine shafts, and associated concrete foundations and metal machinery from varying phases of mining operations.
\nEnterprise Battery
\nThe Enterprise Battery is an almost complete battery, with most of its machinery still in-situ. It includes:
\nLouisa Mine manager’s house site
\nThe site of the former mine manager’s residence is located on a small rise adjacent to the road. It comprises:
\nParson’s house site
\nAlso within the boundary are the stone foundations of former Parson’s house site, associated with mining operations at the nearby Comet mine in the 1890s. The site contains remains of corrugated iron sheeting, glass shards, pieces of iron and metal, brick fragments, bottles, and a stamp shoe with the shank broken off. The area outside the house is littered with glass fragments.
\nButcher’s Creek Complex
\nLocated approximately 2.3km northeast of Maytown, the Butcher’s Creek Complex comprises: the Comet Mine and Mill, situated beside the road from Laura to Maytown, on a sloping site west of and above Butcher’s Creek; the King of the Ranges Mine, situated on the eastern bank of Butcher’s Creek and 150m northeast of the Comet mine; and various alluvial workings immediately adjacent to or within Butcher’s Creek.
\nComet Mine and Mill
\nThe Comet mine site consists of a collapsing shaft and associated partially removed mullock heap between the shaft and Butcher’s Creek. Pieces of mining plant scattered around the shaft include a sheave wheel and several lengths of pipe from a pumping column.
\nThe Comet mill or battery site is 30m west of the shaft. While the battery has been removed, the Cornish boiler, steam engine and Berdan pans remain.
\nKing of the Ranges Mine
\nThe King of the Ranges is a small quartz reef mine with surface features covering a 20x30m area between the creek and a ridge. It comprises:
\nRecent reconstructions include shelters, an ore truck and tramlines that extend west from the shaft along the top of the mullock heap.
\nOther elements along Butcher’s Creek
\nButcher’s Creek No 1 Dam and associated alluvial workings are located 120m northwest of the King of the Ranges mine along the eastern side of the creek.
\nA second stone dam, Butcher’s Creek No. 2 Dam, is 280m southeast of the King of the Ranges Mine, and has an associated area of alluvial workings located east of the Comet Mine on the north side of Butcher’s Creek. The dam collects water from a gully running into the creek from the north side and diverts it into a race taking water to the alluvial workings northwest of the dam.
\nOther artefact scatters are found on the west side of the Laura to Maytown Road. One site contains a safe; another a collapsed stone fireplace; another four galvanised iron wash basins, parts of a stove, battery screens segments and a scatter of small artefacts. At another site, sheets of corrugated iron, segments of cast iron plus other artefacts are found. There is a water race located west of the road. A house site, vacated in the 1920s, is situated near the water race.
\nIda Complex
\nThe Ida Complex is located approximately 1.5km northeast of Maytown. Within the 35ha area adjacent to the Butcher’s, Caledonian and Ida Creeks are the remnants of (from northwest to southeast): a Chinese market garden; the Perseverance and Mabel Louise battery sites; houses and other buildings from Ida Township; and the Ida PC Mine. The former Laura to Maytown Road alignment passes through the town site and the area is traversed by modern tracks.
\nButcher’s Creek market garden
\nThe main feature of the Chinese garden site is a grove of six mature mango trees in two rows. The trees are growing on a flat area surrounded on three sides by Butcher’s Creek. There are two stone fireplaces on the northern side of the trees and an open drain west of the trees and what may have been a well.
\nPerseverance Battery
\nThe Perseverance Battery is located approximately 100m south of the garden site. It consists of a cast iron battery frame set on a concrete foundation, a single battery box and five stamp rods within the box, a scatter of metal artefacts and a sand dump which extends 40m west of the battery. A brick and stone fireplace or possible furnace is located on the west side of the sand dump.
\nMabel Louise Battery
\nThe Mabel Louise Battery is located 20m east of the Perseverance Battery frame, and although quite disturbed still contains several of the original 1877 components of the battery. Features at the site include a ship’s water tank, sections of the pump arm and piping, an incomplete Robey twin cylinder portable engine, two battery cam shafts marked ‘Langlands FC’ one with ring gear attached, one mortar box lying on the ground with stamp rods inside, plus a scatter of stamp rods and numerous other metal artefacts. The battery was prefabricated with some care; individually hand-forged bolts and bolt-holes on the stamp guides have been marked with Roman numerals for accurate reassembly, and the tappets are also numbered.
\nIda Town
\nThe remains of Ida Town are mostly located midway between the Mabel Louise Battery and the Ida Mine. Visible remains include the site of the former Mechanics’ Institute building, multiple house and dump sites, the remnants of two footbridges, a well, collapsed stone chimneys and associated artefacts.
\nThe remains of the former Mechanics’ Institute building are located in the centre of the town and include:
\nOne well-defined house site comprises:
\nThe remains of two former footbridges that crossed Caledonian Creek are located approximately 50m southeast of the town site.
\nThe main well which serviced Ida Town is located 50m northeast of the township in Caledonia Creek. The well is filled in with sand and is now also covered with sand and gravel. The location of the well is marked by a pole with a painted white tip situated on the creek bank immediately above the site. The well has a rusting metal hinged and rotting wooden door measuring 0.57m across.
\nA large rubbish dump containing bottles, pottery and ceramic sherds, glass stoppers and bone, is located south of Caledonian Creek and close to the main track through the township site. It extends over 20m down a slope toward the track and has evidence of disturbance from bottle-collecting activities. Above the dump is the site of a building which comprises a flagstone floor, a scatter of broken bricks, and a camp oven.
\nIda PC Mine
\nLocated southeast of the township, the former Ida Mine site is dissected by a modern vehicle track; it includes both the mine site and a well-defined house site, located 50m to the north.
\nThe former mine comprises:
\nThe house site comprises:
\nPioneer Complex
\nLocated approximately 1.5km southeast of Maytown, the Pioneer Complex is a large sprawling site that incorporates a wide variety of site types, including stone ruins, a large open camp, a cemetery and the foundations of the Pioneer Mill.
\nPioneer Mill (Battery Site)
\nThe site of the Pioneer Mill is located on the north bank of the Palmer River. No machinery remains but the footprint of the battery, engine and boiler area is clearly visible and readable as a large recess cut into the bank of the river terrace – likely to be site of the mortar box. The remains of a possible forge are also located at this site. Immediately to the east are two uneven platforms that include stone retaining walls and drainage channels which were probably the foundations for the boiler and engine. Immediately below the foundations is a flattened terrace formed from tailings which has been partly eroded by seasonal flooding.
\nPioneer Settlement
\nTo the north of the Pioneer Mill foundations are ruins of the Pioneer Settlement, which consists of a number of small camp sites, terraced platforms, and a square stone structure of unknown purpose.
\nSlightly to the south of the camps is a steep gully that contains a small square shaped stone ruin. The isolation of this structure away from campsites, its design and size suggest that it may have been a former explosives store or safe.
\nCampsite
\nTo the southeast of the stone ruin is a large campsite comprising a dense scatter of building materials and associated domestic artefacts.
\nCemetery
\nTo the northwest of the campsite is a small cemetery. Located on a small spur immediately above the Palmer River, it contains at least five identifiable graves, three orientated perpendicular to the river and have a clear mound; one is also marked with small stone cairns similar to Chinese graves found elsewhere on the Palmer. Two others are orientated parallel to the river, one with a corrugated iron cover. A small upright stone marker is also visible which may indicate the location of another grave, although there is no visible associated mound.
\nGregory Gully
\nLocated approximately 3km southeast of Maytown, Gregory Gully comprises an approximately 420.3ha area containing: a series of gullies with alluvial workings and associated occupation sites to the north; a concentration of campsites in the central area; the remains of the Gregory Township and the former Queen of the North PC Mine, to the west; and a complex of alluvial workings, and associated domestic occupation sites and graves, to the southeast.
\nGregory Gully – Northern Area
\nThe northern section of Gregory Gully is an open forest environment with grassy understorey, dissected by three gullies roughly running from northwest to southeast. The 420.3ha area contains a large number of largely undisturbed alluvial workings. At the head of the two main gullies on the west of the area are the quartz reefs – probably the original source of the gold that was mined from alluvial gravels in the gullies below. Domestic artefacts are found scattered throughout the area, with concentrations at small domestic and industrial occupation sites.
\nThe northern gully is the widest and most open gully of the three and contains less dramatic evidence of the alluvial mining activity. Archaeological features include:
\nThe central gully is 470m long, narrow and steep-sided and comprises stone pitching and terracing for much of its length, a horizontal shaft (adit), pack track and dray road to the east (adit and tracks post-date the alluvial workings), and associated occupation and quartz reef mining sites.
\nThe southern gully is a mostly broad gully that winds in a roughly east-west direction. It contains extensive low stone pitching and some associated domestic and/or industrial occupation sites.
\nGregory Gully – Central Area
\nAn extensive campsite is situated approximately 800m east-north-east of the Queen of the North PC ruins and adjacent the eastern boundary of the Gregory Gully area. The campsite extends approximately 100m north-south and 300m east-west and includes:
\nThe remains of a domestic site and the Live and Let Live Battery are located approximately 300m south of the extensive campsite.
\nAdditional campsites and Chinese graves are located north of the extensive campsite. Two cairns, one intact the other highly disturbed, mark the site of severely eroded grave mounds approximately 200m north-east of the large campsite. Modern mining activity has occurred immediately to the north of these graves.
\nA second large campsite, located immediately east of these graves, is evidenced by numerous occupation sites and associated artefact scatters including:
\nModern mining has impacted on the areas immediately east and north of the second large campsite.
\nGregory Township
\nThe remains of the Gregory Township follow the road behind and west of the remains of the Queen of the North PC, commencing about 100m west and continuing for approximately 1km. The main features in this former township include numerous benched hut and house sites, building foundations, flagstones, fireplaces, and scatters of artefacts including corrugated iron, ore buckets, tin and other metal artefacts and glass sherds. Notable features include:
\nQueen of the North PC Mine
\nThe remains of the Queen of the North PC are on the brow of a ridge overlooking Gregory Gully and the clearing which was the township of Gregory, located approximately 100m west of the mine. The focal point is the relatively intact set of Cornish boilers and horizontal steam engine sitting in situ next to the collapsed main shaft. The plant and equipment are located east of the shaft and a large mullock heap extends south and west from the shaft toward Gregory Gully.
\nOther shafts and mullock heaps are located both southeast and northwest of the main shaft.
\nGregory Gully – Southern Area
\nThese Chinese alluvial workings consist of a large complex including stone pitched gullies and small dams, alluvial mining workings, and small campsites and settlements, all located in the southeast corner of the Palmer Goldfield Resources Reserve. Most of the physical evidence is concentrated along three roughly parallel gullies that contain creek beds that have been extensively pitched with stone. The stone pitching varies in quality, size and extent; in some areas it is restricted to one side, while in others it is on both sides of the gully.
\nIn numerous locations along the creeks are the remnants of other mining processes such as dams, diversions, water races and ‘cradle sumps’. Dispersed along the banks above the creeks are numerous discrete campsites, consisting mainly of small hearths and low density and fragmentary artefact scatters.
\nA long gully runs in a northwest to southeast direction through the centre of the site. This gully has been extensively worked for alluvial gold, is extensively pitched with stone, and features a number of small dams along its length.
\nA second stone pitched gully is located in the northeast portion of this site and contains intermittent stone pitching up to 1.5m in height extending 200-300m in length. A number of small dams are also located along its length (one to three stone courses in height).
\nThe Palmer River Chinese Campsite is located along the terraced slopes of the Palmer River, approximately 300m east of the Gregory Beach Dam. The site includes the remains of a settlement extending approximately 50x50m above the Palmer River. Numerous house sites are identifiable and located close together along the terraces, including flagstones and stone building foundations.
\nA group of six graves, all orientated east-west are located approximately 200m west of Gregory Beach Dam and north of the Palmer River. Three of the graves are complete with cairns and mounds while the other graves have been exhumed. Remnants of a campsite are located along the ridge adjacent the graves. Artefacts include tin debris, square bottle bases and other glass fragments, iron pipe fragments, stone building foundations and a raised square stone structure, probably a fireplace. A nearby gully immediately to the west of the graves contains stone pitching, which is in poor condition.
\nFeatures not of State-level heritage significance
\nModern mining features, concrete slabs, fencing, interpretation signage and reconstructed elements are not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Laura to Maytown Coach Road was surveyed in 1876 to provide an access route to the isolated Palmer Goldfield, proclaimed in 1873. The Revolver Point Township, Mount Atlas and Echotown Complex, German Bar Complex, Louisa Mines and Enterprise Battery Complex, Butcher’s Creek Complex, Ida Complex, Pioneer Mill Complex and Gregory Gully were established in the 1870s and 1880s during the height of the Palmer gold rush. These self-sufficient settlements sprang up on the isolated goldfield to serve alluvial and reef miners, and contain remnants of their mining activities. Most were abandoned by 1900, though sporadic mining activity continued on the Palmer until World War II.
\nGold mining played a major role in Queensland’s economic and geographic development in the late 19th century. Between 1873 and 1906, Queensland's gold and other metal exports regularly exceeded that of wool. Before 1865, little thought was given to the prospect of gold in North Queensland, but as settlement spread north to Townsville, alluvial gold was discovered on Star River Station (1865), in the Cape River area (1867), on the Gilbert River (1869) and at Etheridge (1870). The country north of these finds was explored for pastoral potential and mineral deposits from the early 1870s. In 1872, William Hann led a Queensland Government-sponsored expedition into Cape York, the territory of the Western Yalanji people.[1] Expedition surveyor Frederick Warner located gold on a tributary of the Mitchell River, about 450km from Townsville, in August 1872. The tributary was named the Palmer River after the then Premier of Queensland, Arthur Hunter Palmer.[2]
\nEncouraged by the report of gold, James Venture Mulligan led a prospecting party to investigate the Palmer River in June 1873. Mulligan’s party located some of the richest alluvial deposits in North Queensland, triggering a rush to the area. The 2,000 square mile (5,180km2) goldfield was proclaimed in December 1873.[3] Initially, miners and carriers approached the goldfield from Georgetown, a 380km walk north via Mount Surprise Station, with a major river crossing at the Mitchell River.[4] Unprepared miners died en route from lack of supplies, drowning, or confrontation with the Kuku-Yalanji and Kuku-Mini people.[5] In 1874 a coastal port for the goldfield was established at Endeavour Inlet, later renamed Cooktown.[6]
\nDespite warnings about the difficult conditions, an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people proceeded to the goldfield, establishing camps on or near their claims. Over a million ounces of highly pure gold were exported from the goldfield between 1873 and 1879, with returns over the first decade valued at nearly £5,000,000.[7] Most of the Palmer’s gold came from alluvial deposits, and it became Queensland’s premier alluvial goldfield in the 1870s. An administrative centre, including the mining warden’s camp, was established at Palmerville, near the centre of the goldfield, but in 1875 shifted east to Maytown (QHR 602255), where mining activity was concentrated.[8]
\nUnusually, the majority of the Palmer goldfield’s population in the 1870s consisted of Chinese miners. Arriving overland from goldfields in the southern colonies, they totalled around 40% of the Palmer’s population at the end of 1874. From 1875 a steamship service ran between Hong Kong and Cooktown, bringing around 1,000 Chinese miners per month directly to the goldfield. By 1877, an estimated 18,000 Chinese miners comprised 90% of the Palmer population, the largest Chinese community in Australia.[9] The miners were mostly young single men who intended to return to China once their goldmining activities yielded profit. They engaged almost exclusively in alluvial mining, replacing European miners who found the Palmer less profitable than expected and moved to other goldfields. Living and working cooperatively, the Chinese were better provisioned and obtained more consistent gold returns than Europeans.[10] Over 500,000 ounces of gold valued at £200,000 were officially exported to China in both 1876 and 1877.[11]
\nNew settlements developed around the goldfield as discoveries were made some distance from Maytown. The demographics of the settlements were determined by the gold mining activity taking place nearby: reef mining settlements were dominated by Europeans; alluvial settlements, mostly along the Left Hand Bank (North Palmer River), were inhabited by Chinese miners.[12] The speed of the gold rush and high cost of importing building materials discouraged permanent buildings, so the settlements comprised small canvas townships with dwellings, cemeteries, businesses including butchers’ shops and general stores, Chinese ovens for cooking meat and bread, and market gardens. Cattle were driven overland to the goldfield to supply the settlements’ butchers’ stores, while Chinese merchants arranged to import goods. The remoteness of the Palmer and challenges of transporting goods there pushed the price of goods so high that the rich gold returns were neutralised by the cost of living.[13]
\nThe death rate on the Palmer, particularly in the early years of the rush, was high. Europeans were buried in cemeteries on the goldfield or in unmarked graves where they died.[14] Chinese miners who died on the goldfield were buried in makeshift graves or cemeteries with little ceremony by kin, neighbours, friends or European authorities. 148 Chinese burials were recorded between 1873 and 1883, observing feng shui traditions where possible. The Palmer graves were viewed as temporary resting places, while families or local associations raised money to return bodies home for burial. Some were exhumed and returned to China in the late 19th and early 20th century.[15]
\nDespite relatively peaceful interactions between Chinese and European miners,[16] the large influx of single Chinese men onto the goldfield caused concern in other parts of the colony. In 1877 the Goldfields Act Amendment Act and Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act were passed, restricting immigrant numbers and activities, and imposing high tariffs and mining licence fees.[17] Diminishing alluvial returns, the high cost and poor standard of living, and the discovery of new alluvial goldfields exacerbated the impact of the legislation. Chinese miners departed the Palmer, with the total population plummeting from 18,000 in 1877 to just 2,000 in 1882.[18] Most returned to China; some sought other goldfields; and some settled in Cooktown. Alluvial mining ceased on the Palmer almost entirely, and in 1883 the mining warden reported that the alluvial material had been exhausted. The population of Chinese miners dropped to 450 in 1886, and 282 in 1897.[19]
\nGiven the high quantity and quality alluvial returns, a fortune was anticipated to be waiting in the Palmer’s underground quartz reefs. European miners began small-scale reef mining in 1874. Three principal reefs were located, with reef mining concentrated on five districts: Butcher’s Creek, Gregory Gully, German Bar, Revolver Point, and Cradle Creek.[20] Expensive sinking equipment was required to dig shafts and dewater flood-prone mines in the wet season, but high carriage costs limited what could be brought in. The first ore processing battery, the Pioneer, was installed on the goldfield in 1876, and was joined by another four machines in 1877.[21] New settlements developed near major reef mines, including Ida, Gregory and Echotown, while small camps grew around the Pioneer and Louisa machines. Permanent building materials were introduced to the reef mining settlements, which were less ephemeral than alluvial ones, allowing miners’ families to settle on the goldfield. 100-200 women and children reported living on the Palmer in the late 19th century.[22]
\nBy the 1880s, reef mining activity had surpassed alluvial works on the goldfield, though this was due more to the falling off of alluvial activity than the proliferation of reef works. Most mines were operated by companies, which could raise capital to fund operations. Boilers, pumps, winding machines and batteries were installed at the company mines in the 1880s as the reefs continued to produce sparse but tantalisingly rewarding returns. However, companies underinvested on equipment or installed machines which were inappropriate for the local conditions. To make matters worse, most of the 145 auriferous reefs found on the Palmer were small and of average value. In 1884, the limited profitability of the Palmer’s reef mines became public, and investment wound down, ceasing almost entirely when a financial depression struck in the early 1890s. The reef mines were amongst the most expensive to run in Australia, and the Palmer’s reef mining legacy was as ‘a model of the ways in which a goldfield could be plundered and mismanaged into virtual extinction.’[23] Despite this, the Palmer remained the fourth highest producing Queensland goldfield of the 19th and 20th centuries.[24]
\nIn 1893 the Palmer’s total population was 386.[25] The mining warden was withdrawn in 1893, though intermittent reef mining activity continued. In 1897, Government Geologist Robert Logan Jack reported that the Palmer reefs had ‘never had a fair trial, although many of them more than deserve it’,[26] sparking reef mining revivals over the first half of the 20th century. Government funding was provided to aid revivals in the 1920s and 1930s, though like their predecessors, few reported profit.[27] The material of permanent buildings was too valuable to waste in the remote area, and much was removed and repurposed in the 1940s. The goldfield was gazetted as the Palmer Goldfields Resources Reserve in 1986.
\nCoach Road
\nThe Palmer’s remoteness and the absence of pre-existing European settlement created particular problems for transport. New roads were established to replace the route via Georgetown, including Macmillan’s, which ran along the Conglomerate Range to Palmerville (1874); the ‘Douglas Track or ‘Hell’s Gate’ track through the ranges to Maytown (1875); and ‘Coward’s Track’ or ‘Byerstown Road’ to Byerstown (1875).[28] The roads travelled significant distances from the goldfield, crossing difficult terrain, were inaccessible to wheeled traffic, and obtained carriage costs of up to £120 per ton, hampering the goldfield’s development.[29]
\nReef mining activity, requiring heavy mining machinery, stimulated the search for a trafficable route to the goldfield. In August 1876 ‘Robinson’s Track’ was established to Maytown. The 54 mile (87km) track ran south from Macmillan’s track at Laura, along the Little Laura River, crossed the Conglomerate Range and into Maytown via Cradle Creek, Jessop’s Hill, Jessop’s Gully, German Bar and Thompson’s Gully.[30] It shortened the distance from Maytown to Cooktown to 160km, and allowed heavy machinery to be carried to the goldfield for the first time.[31]
\nFunds were raised locally and £1,500 was diverted from the Byerstown Road project to develop the track.[32] Road parties were sent from Maytown in September 1876 to clear trees and blast sections of rock. The track was in use by October,[33] but had a number of drawbacks, including several hazardous sections ‘in places like a series of ladders at an angle as nearly to the perpendicular as is possible’.[34] Creek and river crossings were difficult or impassable during the wet season, and the Conglomerate Range crossing ran along a ridge ‘on the brink of a gorge’.[35] Heavy wheeled traffic cut through the soft sandstone descent of the range, eroding the road and making it particularly dangerous after rain. Local European and Chinese labourers were engaged to improve the road, blasting or excavating cuttings by hand, constructing retaining walls and strengthening the sections near the range. Cuttings were made in the rock for squared timbers, possibly for a corduroy road[36] to help coaches and drays over the hill.[37] With improvements made, a regular Cobb and Company coach service to the goldfield was introduced in 1880, and Robinson’s Track became known as the Laura to Maytown Coach Track or Road.[38] A railway line to Maytown was surveyed in the late 1880s but did not eventuate, leaving the coach road and auxiliary tracks as the only transport routes to the goldfield.[39]
\nThe coach journey from Cooktown to Maytown took about 30 hours in good weather conditions; in the wet season, the trip could take up to three months. Rest stops, hotels and guest houses were established along the track to accommodate delayed passengers.[40] Conditions were basic and prices high.[41] Folder’s Hotel was established at the base of the Conglomerate Range, on the banks of a tributary of Catalpa Creek. The hotel, run by Alfred Folder, was operational by 1887 and included a handful of structures, yards, sawpit, and gardens.[42] Chinese campsites were also dotted along the Laura to Maytown road, as prospectors slowly progressed towards the field or sought gold along the track.[43] Some Chinese graves are still visible, including at Folder’s Hotel and Jessop’s Hill crossings.
\nCoaching services dwindled with the Palmer goldfield’s decline in the 1890s, though the track remained in use when new gold discoveries were made south of Maytown at Groganville (QHR 600982).[44] Deviations were made across difficult or flooded sections of the coach road, including sections in the north east of the original coach road.[45]
\nIn 1910 the Public Estate Improvements branch improved the Laura-Maytown road for a brief mining revival. ‘Checkouts’, visible along part of this track after the Conglomerate Ranges, may have been added at this time. Two deviations were made near the steepest parts of the road at Folder’s Hill (1910) and Jessop’s Hill (1912).[46] The track served as the main access route into the goldfields into the 20th century. A mail route operated along the road until the 1930s, and prospectors used the road during later mining revivals. A portion of the Laura-Maytown Coach Road was included in the Palmer Goldfields Resources Reserve gazettal in 1986.[47] The unmaintained road continues to provide access to the goldfield from Laura and is a popular recreational vehicle track.
\nGerman Bar
\nLocated on the North Palmer River and Thompson’s Gully about 4km north-northeast of Maytown, German Bar was one of the earliest towns on the goldfield. It originated from a claim made in 1873 by three German miners, who reportedly extracted 125oz (3.54kg) of gold from a bar within the river.[48] European miners hastily staked claims in the area, establishing a settlement of canvas tents, which journalist Spencer Brown used as the setting for his tale of ‘How the Hatter Died’.[49] German Bar’s easiest finds were exhausted by mid-1874, and European miners departed.[50] Chinese miners took up the deserted claims, and by late 1874 German Bar was the goldfield’s main Chinese camp. ‘The German Bar is alive with Chinamen’, wrote one correspondent in December 1874, with ‘butcher’s stalls with quarters of good beef hanging on to the hooks, restaurants, and doctors.’[51]
\nThe town was ‘a small village on the river’, encircled by a series of ridgelines. A number of small camps dotted the ridgelines, where alluvial deposits were rich.[52] Chinese New Year festivities were held on the town’s sportsground, celebrated by approximately 5,000 Chinese miners from the surrounding districts.[53] Three hotels – the Shanghai, Sin King Nury and the Canton – were operating by 1876.[54] Food for the settlement was provided by Chinese settlers: the local butcher slaughtered cattle in the town’s stockyard weekly;[55] and Ah Gun (or Gum)’s market garden provided fresh produce, including mangoes.[56] Stone and earthen ovens were built in the town and at surrounding camps, likely for cooking meat. Near the edge of the town was German Bar’s cemetery, one of the largest on the goldfield.[57]
\nIn 1876 Robinson’s Track was laid directly past German Bar, bringing foot traffic, dray traffic and coaches into the town. European prospectors returned, discovering reefs nearby and commencing mining operations.[58] In 1880 Scottish engineer Andrew Binnie installed the ‘Gang Forward’ machine in the district, southwest of the town, and took up residence nearby.[59] German Bar briefly became a social and supply centre for nearby reef mines,[60] but by 1883, Europeans had largely abandoned the district.[61] A lack of capital was blamed for the decline of reef mining.[62] The local authority cut a new path to the Gang Forward battery to improve access from other mining districts, but the battery sat idle and ‘rusting for want of stone to operate upon’.[63] The battery site was destroyed during the construction of a haul road in the 1980s.
\nMost of German Bar’s Chinese residents had left after the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act 1877. A small number stayed, operating a store, hotel and butchering business for the remaining miners.[64] Alluvial mining activity continued in the southwestern section of the district at Thompson’s Loop, where substantial gold discoveries were made in the early 1890s.[65] References to German Bar ceased in 1893.
\nRevolver Point
\nRevolver Point, about 7km northeast of Maytown and 4km upstream of German Bar, grew out of a European prospector’s claim laid out in 1873.[66] As at other alluvial settlements, European miners panned for gold at the ‘Point’, but soon declared it a ‘duffer’ and were replaced by Chinese miners. A small settlement of about 20ha developed on the riverbank near the claims, containing dwellings, butchers’ stalls and restaurants. Visitors crossing the river were afforded a view ‘through the timber of the white tents at Revolver Point’.[67]
\nBy December 1874 Revolver Point, like German Bar, was renowned as a Chinese settlement. Its reported population in 1876 was 500 Chinese and 40 European miners, with estimates of up to 2,000 additional unreported occupants. Five public houses, including the Hongkong and the Lenn Tenn, provided alcohol and accommodation. The handful of Europeans settlers in Revolver Point operated three stores, a butcher’s shop, and one of the public houses. Three cemeteries were located in the town and surrounds.[68]
\nRevolver Point, which was difficult to reach, developed a reputation as a ‘frontier’ town. Away from the police presence in Maytown, miners turned to crime when their provisions were in short supply. The European-owned butchery was robbed five times in 1875, losing £20 of silver and gold specimens, nuggets, chains, and papers valued at £100.[69] The settlement also experienced deviations from accepted social norms, including a reported family group of a European woman, Kate Knowles Ennis, Chinese storekeeper Ah Bin, and their three children.[70]
\nA new wave of European miners arrived after Revolver Point’s deep lead was discovered in November 1875, and an ore-processing battery was installed about two miles away. In December 1878 returns from the Revolver Point district’s Independent, Walhalla, Home Rule and Lord Nelson reef mines reached 1,131 tons of ore, yielding 1,204 ounces (34kg) of gold.[71] The reefs quickly proved unprofitable, however, and disappointed miners moved on, returning Revolver Point to the Chinese alluvial miners.[72]
\nDespite the passage of the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act 1877, Revolver Point was still a ‘thriving (Chinese) mining centre’ in 1879. Further alluvial discoveries were reported at Revolver Point in the late 1880s and early 1890s, and stores, a blacksmith, garden and piggery operated from the town through the 1880s. Apart from rumours of fossicking activity in 1904, references to Revolver Point stopped after 1900.[73] It appears to have been abandoned with the decline of the field in the early 20th century.
\nMount Atlas and Echotown
\nThe Mount Atlas and Echotown Complex was occupied by Chinese and European mining communities after a prospecting claim was made in mid-1876. The town was laid out and named by Gold Warden Sellheim later that year. It sat at the base of Mount Atlas, 11km northeast of Maytown, and formed part of the Revolver Point mining district. The town was connected via pack tracks to Maytown and Revolver Point, 3km west. By 1877 buildings were ‘going up on every available spot’, though carters to carry essential supplies were scarce. Market gardens and businesses in the town were run by Chinese settlers, providing essential supplies for the miners. The deceased were buried in the town or at the nearby reef workings.[74]
\nChinese alluvial miners created extensive stone pitching in the Mount Atlas gullies, while sluicing the gullies of their gold-bearing gravels. The neat formations were part of a mining technique not practised by Europeans, which ensured that all material was checked and maximum profits extracted from the alluvial deposits. The Mount Atlas stone pitching, 200m long and several metres high, may have been partially restored by a local historical society in the 1980s.[75]
\nThe heyday of the complex was brief. A battery was opened in 1876, crushing stone from surrounding mines, but was idle within a year, as new gold discoveries drew miners away from Echotown. A second battery (the ‘Gang Forward’), was installed in 1877 next to a water source known as ‘Binnie’s Pool’ after the battery’s proprietor. Binnie had anticipated further reef mining, but within a year the battery was proposed for removal to German Bar.[76] It was dismantled and taken there in 1880, reportedly rafted down the North Palmer River. By 1882 Echotown, ‘at one time the centre of quartz mining’ was ‘quite deserted’.[77] Mount Atlas was targeted in the revivals of the 1920s and 1930s,[78] but with no reported success.
\nLouisa Mines and Enterprise Battery
\nThe Louisa Complex, north of Maytown, includes two mines (the Louisa and Louisa No 1 West, laid off in 1874 and 1875), the Enterprise Battery (installed in 1937), and the site of the Louisa Mine Manager’s House (likely built in the 1910s). A house site, the residence of a Comet miner, also sits within the complex.
\nThe gold-bearing Louisa reef system, striking west-northwest crossing Thompson’s Gully and Thompson’s Creek, was discovered during the early stages of the rush. The reef’s most prominent mines, the Louisa and Louisa No.1 West, were laid off in 1874 and 1875. Prospectors sunk 15 shafts onto the reef, but the mines were overwhelmed by flooding, despite the installation of a horse whim. In 1878, the manager of the Louisa No 1 West added a steam action pump, one of the first steam-powered machines on the goldfield, and purchased the Pioneer battery, which he reconstructed and renamed the ‘Duo Juncta’. In January 1879 a ‘perfect jeweller’s shop’ of gold was found on the reef at 82 foot (25m), with crushings at the Duo Juncta in March 1879.[79]
\nAfter further flooding, the No 1 West was closed and sold to a syndicate (the Louisa Company) in 1881.[80] The company installed an English-made Tangye pump in January 1882, and the Louisa Company reported payable stone in March 1882. As the reef was ‘known to be a rich one’, the company ordered new machinery, including two seven-ton 25hp Cornish tubular boilers, both on specially cast iron beds; a winding engine; an air compressor made by Brisbane company Smith, Forrester and Co; and two more Tangye pumps. The air compressor was the ‘first of the kind manufactured in Brisbane’, and the first installed on the Palmer.[81] A poppet head was also erected. The new machinery was installed in April 1883 and pumped the mine almost dry in September.
\nThanks to an unusually dry summer, the crushing machine remained in constant employment for several months, and 52.3kg of gold was raised from the Louisa mines. In May 1884, however, costs overwhelmed profit. The company was unable to pay the 35 men employed at the Louisa, who were discharged. The mine was declared unviable and the Queensland National Bank foreclosed. A number of revivals were attempted in the 1890s but only one further crushing was reported before most of the machinery was removed to the Ida Mine in 1894.[82]
\nIn 1897 Robert Logan Jack reported that the Louisa’s reputation for ‘heavy water’ had been overstated,[83] sparking renewed interest in the reef. Multiple enterprises were subsequently launched to restart mining operations, though few proceeded beyond initial investigations. In 1915 a Cooktown company installed electrical machinery powered by a diesel engine, the first on the goldfield. A mining manager was appointed, and was likely provided with an on-site residence. The diesel engine struggled and was replaced by a 96hp oil engine and centrifugal pump in 1917. After further technical, financial and staffing problems, the undertaking was abandoned.[84]
\nIn 1920, under an attempt to revive the mining industry, the Queensland Government reopened the Louisa, pumping it dry with new machinery. Government Geologist EC Saint-Smith inspected the mine, finding water pouring out of the walls, a patchy reef averaging only half an ounce per ton, and machinery requiring three tons of fuel per week from Laura. This was considered unpayable, and the mine closed. A group of Cairns businessmen reopened the Louisa, powering it with machinery from the Ida Mine, but abandoned the attempt in 1924. The same group attempted another unsuccessful revival in 1930. The mine was pumped dry over the course of the 1930s by a succession of syndicates, but no ore was mined.[85]
\nThe Louisa was revived again in 1939 by Charles E Barnes, horse breeder of Canning Downs Homestead (QHR 600525) and later a Commonwealth Government minister. After extensive earthworks and the installation of new machinery, Barnes mined 23 tons of ore and processed it at Cyril Denman’s ‘Perseverance’ battery. Encouraged by the Louisa’s potential, Denman leased a one acre machinery area adjoining the mine and erected a steam-powered ten-head battery called the Enterprise. The Enterprise, composed of machinery parts already on the goldfield, undertook crushings across the field for the next three years. With wartime shortages and a low gold yield, the Louisa closed in May 1941, followed by the Enterprise in 1942.[86] In 1947 the Louisa’s diesel engine, generator, pump and steel-head frame were purchased and removed to Totley. Winding gear was left on the coach road near Maytown.[87] The Louisa site has been abandoned and unused since.
\nNot far from the Louisa mine, a house was built in the early 1880s for William Parsons, a former carrier who had invested in the nearby Comet mine. Parsons resided in the house until his death in 1895. His son Percy and Percy’s family were among the last permanent residents of Maytown.[88]
\nButcher’s Creek Complex
\nThe Butcher’s Creek Complex, approximately 2.5km northeast of Maytown, comprises remnant alluvial and reef mining sites, including two prominent reef mines, the King of the Ranges and the Comet.
\nGold mining commenced in Butcher’s Creek in 1874, with both alluvial mining activity, and reef mining at the King of the Ranges. Unlike most of the Palmer’s reef mines, King of the Ranges was a non-company mine; its individual claimants worked it intermittently for small but steady returns from 1874 until 1903, and again briefly between 1939 and 1942. Two shafts and a large tunnel were dug on the reef between 1874 and 1881, the latter considered ‘one of the greatest mining undertakings ever attempted on the Palmer’.[89] Initial returns of over 3oz of gold per ton were promising, and the mine made moderate returns to the end of the 1870s. The lack of company capital limited the equipment used at the mine to a single pump, installed in 1882 to dewater the flood-prone shaft. Work fell away in the 1890s, but recommenced in 1901 after a new discovery was made. With the main shaft under ‘heavy water’ in 1902, miners installed a 6inch draw lift pump and 16hp winding engine.[90] By December 1902 the King of the Ranges was the focus of a Palmer revival, and a company was floated in Brisbane to fund mining efforts, but unfavourable reports on the mine shut down work by 1904.[91]
\nThe dewatering of the Louisa mine in 1939 lowered the water level in surrounding mines, including the long abandoned King of the Ranges mine. Herbert Silk took out a lease over the King of the Ranges, reopened old shafts and established new workings, but the small scale operation was abandoned in 1942 when Silk departed for war service.[92]
\nThe Comet mine was taken up in 1880 and became one of the largest and most prolific of the Palmer reef mines, despite being regularly affected by water problems. It was discovered by Chinese alluvial miners working on Butcher’s Creek, and initially named the ‘Canton’. Prospecting claims were laid off for European miners DM Jones (the ‘Canton’ prospecting claim), Howell (No 1 north-west Canton) and Thompson (No 2 north-west Canton) in 1880.[93] Over 400 tons of ore was sent for crushing from the mines in 1880.[94] In July 1881, the No 1 Canton and neighbouring Canton leases were amalgamated, becoming the six acre ‘Comet’ lease.[95] By the end of 1882 the Comet had yielded 64.72kg of gold.[96]
\nThe Comet reef ran through Butcher’s Creek, making the shafts prone to annual flooding. Despite pumping equipment installed to control the inflow, the mine was overwhelmed by water in mid-1883 and the managers closed the debt-riddled mine. Tributors were engaged in June 1884, sinking the mine a further 15m and making a 12m cross-cutting, before the Comet was transferred to a company. A battery, engine and Cornish boiler were installed in 1886. The 9 ton boiler was 27ft 6in (8.4m) long and 6ft 6in (2m) high, requiring a custom-made carriage to bring it over the difficult terrain, and a team of 68 bullocks to carry it. Its arrival caused great excitement on the field.[97]
\nA company office was on the mine site by 1888.[98]
\nThe Comet experienced its best returns in 1887 and 1888, yielding 55.28kg of gold. Berdan pans were added for fine grinding, improving returns; reef shafts were sunk to 257ft (78m), 380ft (116m); and crosscuts were driven at two levels. In 1889, however, the mine flooded in a heavy wet season and was abandoned.[99] The mine was leased to syndicates, and figured in several schemes to revive the Maytown mines, but apart from a state drilling test in 1922, was not reopened.[100]
\nThe Comet battery continued to crush stone for nearby mines between 1892 and 1915. In 1937 some of the milling machinery was removed to the Independent mine, in the north of the goldfield. The boiler and engine installed in 1886 appear to be extant.[101]
\nAlluvial deposits at Bucher’s Creek were ‘exceptionally good’,[102] with significant alluvial finds reported in 1878 and 1880, the former during an unusually dry season which uncovered new ground[103]. The work was mostly undertaken by Chinese miners, leaving physical evidence including two dam walls, a water race and sluice gully, and a forge, likely used by miners to maintain their tools. Stone pitching was likely created from alluvial sluicing activities in 1893.[104]
\nIda Complex
\nThe Ida Complex, comprising remnants of a settlement (Ida Town), reef mines and machinery, is located approximately 2km north of Maytown. Primarily a reefing area, its mining activity centred on two mines, the Ida Prospecting Claim (PC) and Ida No 1 west.
\nThe Ida PC was registered in June 1874, striking west-northwest along a ridge between Caledonian and Ida Creeks, both tributaries of Butcher’s Creek.[105] Multiple shafts were sunk onto the reef and provided good returns. In 1877 a private company installed the fifteen-head Mabel Louise Battery 500m northwest of the mine. As the largest and most centrally located battery on the goldfield, it was in great demand from surrounding reef mines.[106] A hotel was built to accommodate the Mabel Louise battery workers, which quickly developed into the community of ‘Ida Town’.[107] Ida Town’s population was predominantly European, but a Chinese butcher and market gardener supplied fresh produce for the town. Six of the market garden’s mango trees survive on the banks of Butcher’s Creek.
\nThe low-lying Ida PC Mine claim was flood-prone and had to be dewatered after significant rainfall. Steam pumps and winding gear were installed to sink the shaft 100 feet (30.5m) deeper. With improvements made, the Ida PC Mine became the best performing reef claim on the Palmer, playing a major role in convincing the mining community of the goldfield’s reefing prospects. The mine employed 21 men on three shifts who lived on the claim, with structures including a forge, two huts, a kitchen, fowl house, pig sty and public house in place by 1878.[108] In 1880, £3,900 worth of machinery was installed at the mine to improve its returns, including two horizontal engines, three boilers, and pumping, winding and crushing gear.[109]
\nIda Town, the principal centre for five large reefs and three crushing machines,[110] grew with mining success. In 1882, Ida Town residents raised £100 toward establishing a Mechanics’ Institute, which was doubled by visiting Premier Thomas McIlwraith.[111] The ‘extremely picturesque’ town was predicted to be ‘a place of great importance ere long.’[112] There were 26 rateable properties in the town by 1883, including miners’ cottages, market garden, two butchers (Alfred Dimes and Ah Ping), a brickmaker, store, and three hotels.
\nThe Ida PC Mine’s good returns continued until 1883, when an intrusion of barren stone was struck at 250 feet (76.2m). The suspension of work at the Ida ‘had the effect of almost stopping business at the township.’[113] The mine was taken over by the Queensland National Bank, which owned several reef mines on the Palmer. Unbeknownst to the public, the Ida was also part-owned by the Premier, Thomas McIlwraith, who accumulated debts of over £32,500 investing in the Ida PC Mine and the Palmer River Gold Mining Company.[114] In 1883, as Acting Mines Minister, McIlwraith asked the Palmer’s mining warden WO Hodgkinson to prepare a report on the Palmer Goldfield. Hodgkinson reported favourably on the Ida Mine, encouraging investment. He was accused of attempting to defraud the public, and ‘the Ida Affair’ became the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry. The inquiry exonerated Hodgkinson but gave a less positive assessment of the mine, which promptly closed.[115]
\nIda Town declined with the fall in fortunes from the reef mines. The Mechanics’ Institute was built by 1886, but by February 1887 the town’s batteries were out of operation. In 1890 Ida Town’s population dropped to 150, including the president of the Mechanics’ Institute, a mining agent, builder, butcher, postmaster and storekeeper, and two hoteliers. The town was removed from Pugh’s Almanac in 1895.[116]
\nRevivals of the Ida mines were attempted in the 1890s, and were promoted in Sydney and London, but ceased after unfavourable financial reports. The Mabel Louise battery was sold in the 1890s[117] and last referenced in 1900.[118] Machinery from nearby abandoned mines was shifted to the Ida in 1894, and the battery at the Ida undertook custom crushes until early 1896. The Ida was held under lease well into the 20th century, but not mined.[119]
\nIn 1938 Cyril Denman constructed a small battery from the field’s abandoned machinery, including material from the Mabel Louise Battery, and named it ‘Perseverance’. In the early 1940s the nearby Louisa Mine was reopened on a large scale, and a trial of ore was crushed at the Perseverance, but both were abandoned by the mid-1940s. The Perseverance’s portable engine, drive and camshaft were removed. Ida Town’s last recorded resident left in 1966.[120]
\nPioneer Mill
\nThe Pioneer Mill complex, situated approximately 1km southeast of Maytown, is the site of the Palmer’s first crushing battery, brought to the field in 1875. The Pioneer was vital in establishing the viability of the reef mines. When reef mining began in 1874, ore could only be processed by hand or transported off the field at high cost, both of which drastically reduced profits. In July 1875, a syndicate of Palmer businessmen purchased a 10-stamp battery with blanket tables and engine for £5,000, and shipped it from Sydney to Maytown. It was installed on a site near the Warden’s camp on the north bank of the Palmer River. Construction took nearly six months due to the lack of available timber and grass for workhorses.[121] The first crushing in January 1876 was attended by over 200 miners. The battery was christened the ‘Pioneer’ mill by Maytown’s first female resident, and toasted by the miners at day-long celebrations.
\nThough relatively simple in design, the Pioneer Mill was capable of processing an average 90 tons of ore per week, yielding 4,401oz (124.77kg) of gold in three months.[122] A settlement sprang up near the Pioneer machine, likely containing the residences of the engineer and seven machine operators. A hotel or boarding house may also have been built.[123]
\nBy the end of 1876, the Pioneer had processed 4,500 tons of ore, but was facing unsurmountable problems. The machine was too simple to process fine gold and yielded low returns. As reefing activity shifted north, cartage costs to the Pioneer increased, and reef miners elected to await the arrival of new batteries. Seasonal unavailability of water near the Pioneer also caused problems for the horse teams carrying ore to the mill. Improvements were made and the crushing fee halved, but the Pioneer was unable to compete against the six other mills operating on the field by 1878. The Pioneer’s machinery was sold and re-erected at the Louisa mine in 1878.[124]
\nThe Pioneer settlement buildings were likely removed with the mill. An extant stone structure may have been an explosives store; the deserted area was ideal for this purpose, and a Powder Magazine Keeper, Jacob Smith, was appointed to the Palmer in 1878.[125] The settlement was deserted by 1885.[126] A campsite and small cemetery were reportedly occupied during the mining revivals of the 1920s and 1930s.[127]
\nGregory Gully
\nAlluvial and reef mining began at Gregory Gully, in the goldfield’s southeast, in 1874.[128] The gully was declared a ‘place of importance’ in April 1874 when about 150 men were reported working there, but within a few months, ‘there [was] nothing being got to warrant any one rushing’.[129] European miners turned to reefing after a promising specimen was found at the gully’s Queen of the North reef in March 1874,[130] while Chinese miners took up alluvial activities at Gregory Beach, stacking unwanted stone and other materials to form stone pitching, a water race and a dam. These structures were highly useful in alluvial mining, impounding and redirecting water to break up the wash-dirt and reveal any gold.[131]
\nBy mid-1874, 12 prospecting claims along the reef were ‘in full work and raising rich stone, with very good prospects of making a fortune’.[132] The reef was so rich that even by hand crushing the Queen of the North yielded 50oz (1.4kg) of gold, enough to cover expenses.[133] Multiple shafts were dug along the reef, and tents, huts, forges, blacksmith, butcher’s shop, boarding house and public house were dotted around the claims by 1880.[134]
\nA smattering of camps, concentrated around the alluvial deposits and quartz reef, coalesced into a township known as Gregory (sometimes Queen). Unlike many other towns on the Palmer, Gregory’s population was largely European reef miners. In the late 1870s the town threatened to overtake Maytown as the premier settlement on the goldfield. By 1885 it featured 26 rateable properties, including a Miners’ Institute and a significant library; ‘Cosmopolitan’ boarding house; Miners Arms Hotel; stores; rifle range and Chinese market garden. Most were constructed of permanent materials like wood and iron, with some wood and bark miners’ cottages.[135]
\nGregory Gully’s extensive reef mining activity encouraged a private company to import a five-head public battery (the ‘Live and Let Live’) for the district. After ‘numerous and most unaccountable delays’ the machine was erected in April 1877, increasing production at the Queen of the North mine. [136] In 1878 it was sunk to 270 feet (90m), and 100oz (2.83kg) of gold was produced in 1879.[137] However, operational costs were high and the mine was overcapitalised. The mine’s creditor, the Queensland National Bank, foreclosed in 1879 and leased the mine on tribute. It produced only ‘desultory’ returns in the 1880s, and was flooded by 1887.[138] Gregory township was heavily influenced by the fluctuations in reef mining, and businesses merged or closed as the Queen of the North declined. The number of rateable properties in town halved by 1891.[139] The boarding house closed in 1890; the post office followed in 1894. In 1900, Gregory’s reported population was 34.[140]
\nIn 1897, Robert Logan Jack calculated that the Queen of the North had produced 7,916 tons of ore for 16,516oz (468.22kg) of gold, the best returns of the Maytown reefs.[141] The report solidified Gregory’s reputation as the Palmer’s chief reefing district[142] and encouraged syndicates, who dewatered and inspected the shafts in the early 1900s, but found them unviable.[143] Proposed investment in the 1910s did not eventuate.[144]
\nThe Queen of the North’s crushing mill was removed for use at Cooktown in 1939, and Gregory town was deserted by the 1940s.[145]
","criteria":"The Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape is important in demonstrating the 19th century gold rushes which exploited the mineral wealth of Queensland, contributing greatly to its economy. The Palmer Goldfield (discovered in 1872) was the largest alluvial mining field of its time, Queensland’s fourth largest producing goldfield of the 19th and 20th centuries, and influenced the pattern of settlement in north Queensland.
\nThe mining landscape, including the Laura to Maytown Coach Road and the ruins of eight alluvial and reef mining settlements (the Butcher’s Creek complex, Gregory Gully, German Bar complex, Ida complex, Louisa Mines and Enterprise Battery complex, Mount Atlas and Echotown complex, Pioneer Mill complex and the Revolver Point Township), is a physical legacy of the challenges of mining in a remote 19th century goldfield. Modifications to the landscape, including stone pitching, sluice gullies, dams, water races and diversions, demonstrate the mining operations to exploit the Palmer’s extensive, rich and highly pure alluvial gold deposits, and provide important evidence of Chinese mining methods. The reef mining batteries, mine shafts and associated equipment also provide important surviving evidence of the attempts at reef mining on the goldfield, when it was predicted to hold significant gold deposits in underground quartz veins.
\nThe Coach Road largely hand-cut with retaining walls, cuttings, drains, checkouts, steep pinches and associated works; and hotel and staging post sites, and mine workings, is significant as the major arterial route to the Palmer Goldfield. It allowed large reef mining equipment to be brought to the goldfield, and provided a path for wheeled traffic, including Cobb and Co coach services from the 1880s.
\nAs the site of the largest Chinese settlement in Australia from 1873-1877, the Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape is also important in demonstrating Chinese involvement in the exploitation of natural resources and the evolution of mining settlements in Queensland, and provides important surviving evidence of the domestic and social conditions of 19th century Chinese goldminers.
|The Laura to Maytown Coach Road, as one of the few remaining historic access routes on the Palmer which has not been subject to extensive upgrading, is a rare surviving example of a substantial 19th century road system providing access to a remote goldfield. It also provides rare surviving evidence of 19th century road construction techniques and materials employed in Queensland.
|The Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape has the potential to reveal important information about 19th century mining operations and transport infrastructure, and the people who lived and worked on this early and important goldfield, through historical and archaeological investigations.
\nThe extensive mining landscape – its remnant alluvial and reef mine workings, infrastructure and equipment, and associated artefact scatters – has the potential to yield information about 19th century mining technology and practices.
\nThe former townships, camps and other domestic and commercial occupation sites – evidenced by surface ruins, building footings and platforms, cemeteries and isolated burials, and associated artefact scatters – have the potential to contribute to our understanding of domestic and social conditions on a remote 19th century goldfield. As the former largest settlement of Chinese people in Australia, it has the particular potential to yield knowledge about 19th century diasporic Chinese customs and living and working conditions.
\nGiven the high degree of intactness of certain sections of the Laura to Maytown Coach Road, investigation of its construction and design would be likely to produce valuable information on the technological and physical challenges that had to be faced and overcome to provide a reliable transportation route to the Palmer Goldfield.
|Characterised by areas of modified ground and a collection of ruins and other features from alluvial and reef mining practices, and from domestic, commercial, social and industrial occupation, the Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a historic goldfield. It retains the ruins of eight alluvial and reef mining complexes and transport infrastructure that are collectively important in illustrating the principal characteristics of goldmining operations on a remote goldfield in the 19th and 20th centuries.
\nThe reef mining and battery sites retain evidence of caved shafts and adits, open cuts and stopes, mullock heaps, winding plant and engine mounts, steam engines and boilers, tanks, mortar boxes and stamps, forges, and associated equipment and other artefacts - key features that demonstrate the ore extraction and crushing process.
\nThe alluvial mining sites retain evidence of stone pitching, mullock heaps, water diversions, races and dams, sluice gullies, shallow sinkings, and associated artefacts - complex assemblages that demonstrate the infrastructure and processes required to extract the alluvial deposits for which the Palmer goldfield was renowned.
\nDistributed across the rugged mining landscape, and ranging from townships and camps concentrated around mining operations and transport infrastructure to more isolated sites, evidence of domestic and commercial occupation includes hotels, yards, house and building sites; cemeteries and graves; forges, ovens and market gardens; infrastructure including footbridge remains and wells; and artefact scatters and deposits, including rubbish dumps – physical evidence in spatial arrangements that demonstrate the proximity of industrial and domestic life on the goldfield.
\nThe Laura to Maytown Coach Road, featuring hand-cut surfaces, retaining walls, cuttings, draining works, checkouts, steep pinches and associated works, is a rare surviving example of a substantial 19th century road system providing access to a remote goldfield.
|As a remote, isolated and largely deserted 19th and 20th century goldfield, the Palmer Goldfield Mining Landscape is important for its evocative qualities, particularly the contrast of remnant mining machinery and settlements against the rugged natural environment. The mining complexes, dispersed across the goldfield, are an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of Queensland’s mining booms. The coach road, which continues to provide access to the goldfield, is recognised as a landmark feature by local residents and visitors.
|The Laura to Maytown Coach Road features large stretches of intact road surfaces, retaining walls, hand cuttings and associated features, and in areas traverses steep and rocky terrain in an isolated part of north Queensland. The place is important as a demonstration of the high degree of technical achievement required to employ 19th century road making techniques to provide reliable access to remote parts of north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15203,"place_ref":600428,"name":"Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery","alternate_name":"Wild Irish Girl Mine and Battery, Emily Battery; Wild Irish Girl Mine;","street_address":"Palmer Goldfield Resources Reserve","suburb":"PALMER","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery site is situated on the edge of the Conglomerate Range[1] escarpment approximately 13km north-northeast of Maytown. The place comprises:
\nThe Emily Battery
\nThe highly intact battery is located in a shed positioned at the bottom of a spur in a steep sided gully at the base of the Conglomerate Range, where a number of creeks converge. The intact 7x10m shed comprises four connected sections: the main gable-roofed structure, which is aligned northwest-southeast and contains the stamp battery; a high skillion attached to the northwest (rear), which contains the boiler and engine; a low enclosed skillion to the northeast, which contains the former workshop; and a low open-sided flat-roofed verandah (partly collapsed) to the southwest, which contains the former living quarters. A caved well and water tank are located alongside the shed. The remnants of a stone forge are located to the east and a small watercourse which runs past the battery contains three stone overshot weirs.
\nReef Mine Workings
\nThe remains of the reef mines that provided most of the stone to the Emily Battery are located to the north-northwest and connected to the battery shed by a skid path. There are three groups of mine workings, of which the Wild Irish Girls was historically the main source:
\nWonnacott’s House Site
\nThe remains of a house site are located 85m south-southeast of the shed structure. The remains have been previously identified as Wonnacott's residence and comprise flagstone and earth surfaces, timber uprights and a scatter of domestic items including two iron beds with bedsteads. Although sometimes referred to as a camp, it appears to have been a substantial residence surrounded by large terraces. Bush fires, white ants and recycling of materials have effectively destroyed the fabric of the structure, but substantial archaeological evidence remains.
\nAlluvial Workings
\nImmediately south of the former Wonnacott’s House site, and extending towards Cradle Creek, is evidence of alluvial workings including a water race, stone pitching and stone forge.
\nChinese graves
\nNumerous grave sites, probably of Chinese origin, are also located throughout this area and extending west along Cradle Creek.
","history":"The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery is a small mining complex located on the edge of the Conglomerate Range escarpment approximately 13km north-northeast of Maytown [QHR 602255] on the Palmer Goldfields Resources Reserve. Part of the Cradle Creek mining subdivision, it was initially exploited by Chinese and European alluvial miners, and European reef miners, in the 1870s before being abandoned. Mining was revived in 1893, and the Emily battery was erected in 1894 to process ore recovered from nearby reef mines, though it crushed ore transported from other parts of the Palmer Goldfield and mines beyond. It operated on an intermittent basis over an 82 year period before crushing ceased in 1976.
\nGold mining played a major role in the economic and geographic development of Queensland in the late 19th century. Between 1873 and 1906, Queensland's exports of gold and metals regularly exceeded that of wool. The total value of gold produced in Queensland to 1898 was £44,499,955, six times as much as tin, copper and silver combined.[1] The lure of gold also brought more people to Queensland and had a greater influence on white settlement patterns in Queensland's tropics than contemporaneous pastoral or agricultural pursuits.[2] The northern ports of Cairns and Cooktown were created to serve gold mines, while the importance of Townsville was magnified by the establishment of mining fields.[3]
\nPrior to 1865, little thought was given to the prospect of gold in North Queensland. George Dalrymple’s 1859-1860 expedition of the region for pastoral and agricultural lands noted strong indications of gold, but his discovery met with little interest; North Queensland was considered too far from the established goldfields to attract prospectors. [4] In 1865, a small, short-lived rush followed the discovery of alluvial gold on Star River Station, about 50km inland from Townsville. Payable gold was also located in the Cape River area in mid-1867, the Gilbert River in 1869 and Etheridge in 1870.
\nThe country to the north of these finds and into Cape York was little known to Europeans in the 1870s. In 1872, William Hann led a Queensland Government-sponsored expedition into Cape York, the territory of the Western Yalanji people.[5] Expedition surveyor Frederick Warner located gold on a tributary of the Mitchell River in August 1872. The tributary was named the Palmer River after then Premier of Queensland Arthur Hunter Palmer.[6] Encouraged by the report of gold, James Venture Mulligan led a prospecting party to investigate the Palmer River deposits in June 1873.[7] Mulligan’s party located some of the richest alluvial deposits in North Queensland, returning to Georgetown with 102 ounces (2.89kg) of gold. News of the find quickly spread and triggered a rush to the area.[8] The 2,000 square mile (5,180km2) field was officially proclaimed a goldfield in December 1873, and surveyor AC Macmillan quickly blazed a track to the field.[9] Unprepared miners died en route from lack of supplies, drowning, or confrontation with the original inhabitants,[10] but an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people made their way north to the field’s coastal port of Cooktown.[11]
\nThe Palmer held extensive shallow deposits of gold, and it quickly became the main and most prolific alluvial gold-producing field in Queensland.[12] Between 1873 and 1879, the Palmer Goldfield produced over one million ounces (28 tons) of gold.[13] Combined returns from the Palmer over the first decade reached nearly £5,000,000, more than the combined gold production of the rest of North Queensland over the same period.[14]
\nChinese alluvial workings and graves
\nMuch of the Palmer’s mining activity centred on settlements near Maytown, in the southwest of the goldfield. However, in early 1874 there was a rush to Cradle Creek, twelve miles (20km) north of Maytown. James Mulligan reported favourably on the area in February 1874, though noting that work had to stop when the rain began and flooded the area.[15] Alluvial miners were soon discouraged, and abandoned the claims for more promising gold rushes at Sandy Creek (1874) and the Hodgkinson (1876). Chinese miners worked the abandoned alluvial claims, with an estimated 1,000 Chinese miners at Cradle Creek ‘doing well in alluvial’ in March 1876.[16]
\nThe Palmer had an unusually high population of Chinese miners in the 1870s. Arriving overland from the southern colonies, they totalled around 40% of the Palmer’s population at the end of 1874. From 1875 a steamship service ran between Hong Kong and Cooktown, bringing an average of 1,000 Chinese miners per month directly to the goldfield. By 1877, an estimated 18,000 Chinese miners comprised 90% of the Palmer population, forming the largest Chinese community in Australia.[17] The Palmer’s Chinese miners were mostly young single men who intended to return to China once their goldmining activities yielded profit. Living and working cooperatively, they were better provisioned and obtained more consistent gold returns than Europeans. They scoured and reworked their claims multiple times, and used an efficient cooperative cradling system, with two miners digging up the gold bearing wash-dirt, two carting the wash-dirt, two operating the cradle and one bagging gold.[18] Unwanted stones from the creek were stacked systematically to form water races and dams, vital to the water-based alluvial mining methods. Chinese miners also erected forges for fixing mining tools and ovens for communal cooking, affording them self-sufficiency in remote mining settlements.[19]
\nChinese miners who died on the field were buried in makeshift graves or cemeteries with little ceremony by kin, neighbours, friends or European authorities. 148 Chinese burials were recorded between 1873 and 1883. The Palmer burials were viewed as temporary resting places, while families or local associations raised money to return bodies home for burial. Where possible, burials observed feng shui traditions and some were exhumed and returned to China in the late 19th and early 20th century.[20]
\nDespite relatively peaceful interactions between Chinese and European miners[21]the large influx of single Chinese men onto the goldfield caused concern in parts of the colony.[22] In 1877 the Goldfields Act Amendment Act and the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act (Qld) were passed to restrict immigrant numbers and activities, and impose high tariffs and mining licence fees. Diminishing alluvial returns, the high cost of living, poor living conditions and the discovery of new alluvial goldfields exacerbated the impact of the legislation. Chinese miners departed Cradle Creek and the Palmer, with the total population plummeting from 18,000 in 1877 to just 2,000 in 1882.[23] Most returned to China, but some sought other goldfields; and some settled in Cooktown, which became home to a diverse population. Alluvial mining ceased almost entirely, and in 1883 the Palmer’s mining warden reported that the alluvial material had been exhausted. The population of alluvial miners dropped to 450 in 1886 and remained around this level until 1900.
\nWild Irish Girl Mine
\nAs miners attempted to extract maximum yields from the goldfield, reef mining processes were introduced to the Palmer.[24] Reef mining involved the location of veins of ore in situ, rather than in the Palmer’s rich and shallow alluvial deposits. Surface deposits of gold were worked and, if the results warranted it, deep shafts sunk to mine the reef. Reef mining required additional equipment, including boilers, pumps and winding equipment, and crushing batteries to process the ore on site. Three principal quartz reefs were located, and reef mining concentrated on five reef subdivisions north and east of Maytown: Butcher’s Creek, Gregory Gully, German Bar, Revolver Point, and Cradle Creek.[25]
\nEuropean prospectors began searching for Cradle Creek’s reefs in 1874, finding promising leads, but the lack of ore processing machinery, and high cost of transporting ore, discouraged activity. In 1876, a machine was despatched to the area and erected at Lone Star, northwest of Cradle Creek.[26] A small reef was located under the escarpment of the Conglomerate Range, northeast of Cradle Creek, and was named the ‘Wild Irish Girl’. Good stone was obtained from the claim in 1879 and carted to the Lone Star battery. However, the mine was abandoned and reportedly dynamited closed shortly afterwards.[27]
\nA total of 145 reefs were discovered on the Palmer by 1883, but the majority of the reefs were small and of average value.[28] The cost of mining, processing and transporting gold was so high that the reef mines of the Palmer were among the most expensive to operate in Australia. Almost all of the reef mining operations on the Palmer, funded with insufficient capital and backed by companies with limited mining experience, were short-lived and unprofitable. Attempts at extensive and expensive reef mining operations at the Palmer’s most prominent reefs – the Ida, Louisa and Queen of the North – had appeared promising until 1883, when an investigation revealed the limited potential of the reefs. Investment stopped, and reef mining activity trickled away until the Palmer gold warden was removed in 1893.[29]
\nTowards the end of 1893, however, Gold Warden orderly Sam Wonnacott and miners John Trainor and James Burchell began exploring the abandoned Wild Irish Girl reef. The party took over the Wild Irish Girl prospecting claim (PC) in 1894, employing six men to excavate a shaft and drive a 190ft tunnel into the side of the escarpment. They struck new formations which they named the Native Girl Reef, and began mining ore.[30] Trainor and Burchell also worked the nearby Baal Gammon reef, about 1km south of the Wild Irish Girl, while another miner began working the Best Friend reef, about 200m from the Wild Irish Girl mine, in 1895.[31]
\nTrainor and Burchell left the Palmer goldfield around the turn of the century. Wonnacott remained at the Wild Irish Girl mine until circa 1925, working the reef occasionally. A residence for the Wonnacott family (including Sam, wife Emily and three daughters) stood on the mine site south of the main shaft; it was removed by 1946.[32]
\nEmily Battery
\nAs the reef was several kilometres from the nearest crushing plant, the Wild Irish Girl proprietors invested in a small ore processing machine to save on cartage costs. The crushing plant or battery, originally named the ‘Emily’, began operating in October 1894.[33]
\nThe Emily – possibly named for Wonnacott’s wife – was a compact crushing plant comprising three head of gravity stamps powered by a small vertical Tangye engine and boiler.[34] The three-head battery was a fifth of the size of the Palmer’s largest battery, and its value (£300) about a sixteenth of the most expensive Maytown machines.[35] The battery was a Marcolino quartz crusher, a small portable machine invented in 1885 by New South Wales gold miner Paolo Marcolino. The Marcolino was purpose designed for single operators in rugged country, being inexpensive, light and transportable in pieces. In 1889 a Marcolino machine had been installed at the ‘Star of the East’ claim, about 4km north of the Wild Irish Girl, but after being reported to ‘do its work well’,[36] no crushing results were recorded, and the battery was apparently abandoned. The Wild Irish Girl proprietors purchased the machine in late 1893, relocating it to the Wild Irish Girl reef in 1894. Water for the operation came from a small well near the battery.[37]
\nBy January 1895, the Wild Irish Girl mine had not met ‘the sanguine expectations of Sam and party’, but as the Emily battery did ‘good work,’ the North Queensland Register reported that ‘our Sam is confident of making good wages, enjoying the freedom of being his own master, and finally have sufficient to live comfortably.’[38] For a fee, Wonnacott processed ore from nearby mines, greatly improving their profitability by reducing transport costs.[39] This, as well as Government Geologist RL Jack’s declaration that the Palmer reefs ‘have never had a fair trial’,[40] helped to spark a revival in the Cradle Creek region. Between 1894 and 1897 the Emily crushed 342 tons which yielded 427oz (12.11kg), returning five times the cost of the battery.[41]
\nInterest in the area slowly declined, but in the early years of the 20th century the battery periodically crushed material from local reefs.[42] A Mining Inspector visited the Emily in 1903, noting the machine’s Tangye engine and vertical boiler.[43] The Emily continued to process stones for the few remaining reef miners, and by 1909 was the only functioning battery on the Palmer.[44] Its boiler was replaced in 1913.[45]
\nProspectors continued small-scale reefing operations on the Palmer through World War I and the 1920s. Reefs were discovered and worked near Kipling's Crossing, not far from the Wild Irish Girl reef, and claims were reopened at the Star of the East and Mount Atlas. Ore was again sent to the Emily for crushing, though the costs of transporting stone to the battery were high.[46]
\nNo operations were reported from 1925 until 1932, when the battery, by now renamed the ‘Wild Irish Girl’, was transferred to a new operator, William (Bill) Lane.[47] Lane appears to have undertaken substantial repairs with the assistance of William Condron, constructing engineer for the Palmer River Gold Company dredge.[48] The fireplace is believed to have been added to the battery complex at this time.[49] After the alterations were made, Lane went into partnership with Percy Parsons, a Maytown ore packer and postmaster, but the partnership folded.[50] By 1939 Lane reportedly sold the battery to Sam Elliott, but with the outbreak of World War II, Elliott enlisted and did not commence operations until 1945.[51]
\nElliott continued to occasionally operate the Wild Irish Girl for the small population remaining on the Palmer until circa 1976, when crushing finally stopped.[52] In conjunction with a local preservation society, Elliott restored the mill between 1982 and 1986, with tool and boiler sheds rebuilt. Elliott died at the battery site in January 1986 and was buried in the Maytown Cemetery.[53] Some elements on the site deteriorated following Elliott’s death: a well on the site which supplied water to the operation collapsed and was repaired with sandbags in the 1990s; and the shed was damaged in a wildfire in 2016.
\nThe Palmer Goldfield was declared a resources reserve in 1986, and some mining activity continues on the reserve in 2018.
The Wild Irish Girl Mine (1879) and Emily Battery (1894) is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland’s history, particularly the development of gold mining. The Palmer Goldfield was one of Queensland’s most important goldfields during the 19th century and made a significant contribution to the economic and cultural development of north Queensland. The gold rush to the Palmer River region heavily influenced settlement patterns in north Queensland, attracting a large and diverse population into a region previously unsettled by Europeans. The Emily Battery is important surviving evidence of reef mining and associated ore processing operations on the Palmer Goldfield and is representative of the significant capital investment made by small-scale reef mining operators.
\nThe Chinese alluvial workings and graves, located within the place, are important in demonstrating the presence of Chinese miners on the Palmer goldfield, where they comprised the largest Chinese settlement in Australia in the 1870s.
|The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery provides rare surviving evidence of ore processing operations on the Palmer Goldfield. The battery has an exceptional degree of intactness, which is rare in Queensland’s historic mining places and includes a steam-powered three-head battery and associated plant, intact Tangye Archer vertical engine, boiler and battery shed.
\nThe Emily Battery is the only surviving and highly intact stamp mill on the Palmer Goldfield, and the shed enclosing the Emily Battery is the only known example in north Queensland that includes living quarters. The integrity of these features is rare for a historic mining site in Queensland.
|The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery has potential to contribute new knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of important aspects about Queensland’s mining history through historical and archaeological investigations. Investigations may increase our understanding of a 19th century-era ore processing operation as well as living conditions on a remote and challenging mining operation. The results of such investigations may assist in comparative analysis and our understanding of the remains of other processing facilities on the Palmer and other historic goldfields in Queensland.
\nThe Chinese alluvial workings and graves within the site have the particular potential to yield information about domestic and social conditions, and mining technology and methods of Chinese miners on a remote 19th century goldfield.
|The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of late 19th and early 20th century ore processing complex on a north Queensland goldfield. The place comprises a steam-powered three-head crushing battery, battery shed, associated plant and equipment such as an intact vertical engine, and separate manager’s residence. Together these demonstrate the main elements of small-scale ore processing on remote north Queensland’s goldfields.
|The Wild Irish Girl Mine and Emily Battery has strong evocative qualities. The setting of the battery at the base of a spur of the Conglomerate Range evokes a strong sense of isolation, is illustrative of a way of life that no longer exists and provides consideration of the many challenges associated with mining in remote areas of Queensland. These qualities are enhanced by the intactness and integrity of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15204,"place_ref":600429,"name":"Alexandra Mine and Battery","alternate_name":"Alexandra PC","street_address":"Palmerville Station","suburb":"MAYTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place is situated on a ridge at the head of a gully, about 500 m south of the Palmer River, at co-ordinates 16.06.01S - 144.19.00E. The mine workings and battery are closely confined on a terraced bench. The site of the managers house is evident alongside the road on top of the ridge and comprises a broken cement surface. A grinding pan has been removed to the house site.
The mine workings are aligned along the strike of the reef and include, on the terrace level, a caved main shaft and an earlier shaft. An adit has been driven in from the gully to meet the main shaft. A single cylinder portable steam engine is located alongside the main shaft. (Since a survey of the site in 1982 a pump arm has been placed alongside the main shaft). Mullock has been dumped into the gully to form a dam. The watercourse now bypasses the dump. Another group of workings comprising a shaft and mullock dumps is located about 100 m south-east on a spur of the ridge.
The battery plant includes a Cornish boiler in a brick mount with a flue leading to an intact nine metre high metal chimney. Immediately alongside the boiler is the body of a single cylinder horizontal engine. Alongside the engine are two mortar boxes which appear to have remained insitu although the stamper frame has been removed. Seven of the ten stamper rods are still standing in the mortar boxes. The camshaft is nearby.
Plant:
Cornish boiler - J.W.Sutton & Co Brisbane.
One-cylinder portable steam engine - no brand (Clayton & Shuttleworth ?).
One-cylinder horizontal steam engine - no brand.
Boiler casing (converted to a water tank) - no brand.
Pump arm (not insitu).
2 Five-stamp mortar boxes - no brands.
Grinding pan (at manager's house site, not part of battery) - Langlands Foundry.
","history":"Mining began in the Palmer River area in 1876 and production commenced from the "Alexander PC" (one of the earliest prospecting claims) in 1878. Crushings of selected ore enabled the mine to average a spectacular eight ounces of gold per ton during the 1870s. By 1880, the Alexandra had crushed a mere 183 tons of stone for a yield of 1,262 ounces of gold, grossing well over £5,000. However cartage and crushing costs were high as the ore had to be packed 16 km to the battery. Therefore a gold yield of two-three ounces per ton was required before a profit could be considered.
Small scale production went on intermittently until 1895 when Edwin Field installed a steam pump and winding gear, taken from the Louisa and Queen mines in 1895 and erected a battery at the Alexandra. He undertook development work, pumping out the mine and retimbering and began crushing in 1897. But, although operations continued on a small scale for nearly two years, the reef yielded just over one ounce to the ton.
At the end of 1898 the mine closed. In twenty years 499 tons of ore had been raised for a total of 1,810 ounces of gold, an average of 3.6 ounces to the ton. The mine was never worked again and the battery frame was removed in 1940.
","criteria":"The Alexandra mine and battery are significant in the evolution and pattern of reef mining in North Queensland from 1876 to 1898.
The existence of a tin battery on a gold mining site illustrates the ad hoc and practical development of mining on the Palmer goldfield.
|The survival of the mine and battery site, complete with a Cornish boiler still in its brick bed and with an intact steel chimney, is rare, both in Queensland and in Australia. The single cylinder horizontal steam engine is also very early and rare.
|The place demonstrates unusual technology in the use of a three outlet mortar box, usually associated with tin mining, and the site has the potential to yield more information about nineteenth century milling techniques.
|The Alexandra battery is situated on a narrow hillside terrace directly adjacent to the mine workings. The tightly grouped plant and machinery and nine metre high chimney form a compact and easily interpreted site. The place is one of the best preserved and most intact mining sites on the Palmer goldfield.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15205,"place_ref":600430,"name":"Stone ruin at Lizard Island","alternate_name":"'Mrs Watson's Cottage'","street_address":"Lizard Island","suburb":"LIZARD ISLAND","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The stone ruins are located approximately 60 metres from Watson's Beach and 35 metres north west of Ferrier's Creek at Watson's Bay on the north side of Lizard Island. This is a high rocky island 90 km NNE of Cooktown and 31 km from the coast NE of Cape Flattery.
The ruins consist of footings and sections of wall of what was a five-roomed building measuring approximately 14 metres by 10 metres and which appears to have been built in several stages. It is aligned parallel with the beach and has substantially collapsed with only the northwestern corner surviving to its full height, which is approximately two metres above the existing ground level. A portion of a collapsed interior wall and scattered stones also remain. The walls are constructed of local Finlayson granite, using a coursed rubble technique with the stones laid in rough courses with banding at quarter, half and three quarter heights. The stones are cemented with a mortar made of burnt coral and beach sand.
","history":"The stone ruins overlooking Watson's Bay on the north side of Lizard Island may be linked to the use of the island for bêche-de-mer fishing by Europeans in the 19th century. They are popularly associated with the incidents surrounding the deaths of Mary Watson, her baby son and two Chinese employees in 1881, following a confrontation with mainland Aborigines.
Aboriginal people used Lizard Island for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in north Queensland. The island is thought to have been used for ceremonial purposes and Captain Cook recorded observing several frames of huts and large middens during his voyage along the coast in 1770.
The harvesting of bêche-de-mer, prized by Chinese as a culinary delicacy, was carried out along the north Australian coast from about 1700 by fishermen from the south of Sulawesi, who made regular trips to catch and process the creatures. They require preservation by boiling and smoking before transportation and this meant that camps for the purpose were set up on shore until preservation began to be carried out on board ship in the 1890s. Europeans took up this trade in the early 19th century, following a suggestion of Matthew Flinders. In 1827, 10 tons of bêche-de-mer was exported from the Cooktown area to Timor. In 1860 a group of Europeans, Chinese and South Sea Islanders arrived on Lizard Island to establish a processing base there and appear to have settled on Watson's Bay. Although the venture was not successful and was abandoned in October 1861 after a number of them died, they constructed a stone building during their occupancy. Other groups subsequently worked there including more than 40 South Sea Islanders employed by Captain Delargy in the late 1860s.
In 1879 Captain Robert Watson and P C Fuller established a station to carry out bêche-de-mer processing on Watson's Bay. It is possible that they used or adapted this building, however, this is not known and they did construct buildings themselves. In May 1880, Robert Watson married the 20-year-old Mary Oxnam, who emigrated from England with her parents in 1877 and had worked briefly as a teacher before her marriage. The Watsons moved to Lizard Island, where Watson had erected a dwelling, smokehouse and store, and established a small fruit and vegetable garden. Two Chinese men, Ah Sam and Ah Leong, were employed to assist in the house and garden respectively. Mary returned to Cooktown in March 1881 to await the birth of her first child early in June, and was back on Lizard Island by July.
On 1 September 1881 Watson and Fuller took their boats 200 miles north to Night Island, intending to be away for about 6 weeks. Mary was left on the island with her infant son and the two Chinese employees. On 27 September a group of Aborigines from Starke and Point Lookout arrived at Lizard Island, which, according to oral tradition, contained a sacred site in the approximate vicinity of the bêche-de-mer station. It is thought that on 29 September they speared and killed Ah Leong, who was working in the garden approximately quarter of a mile from Mrs Watson's dwelling. The next day they gathered on the beach below the house, dispersed when Mary fired a rifle and revolver, but returned on 1 October and speared Ah Sam, severely wounding him.
Fearing a further attack and lacking other means of escape, Mary packed a few belongings, food, water and two paddles into a cut-down iron ship's tank used for boiling the bêche-de-mer, and set off with Ah Sam and the baby on 2 October. They eventually reached No.5 Howick Island, which, although it lay along the steamer route, unfortunately lacked fresh water. Too weak to continue, they hoped to attract the attention of a passing ship, but were unsuccessful and died from thirst. Mary kept a brief diary throughout the ordeal. The contents were later made public and her uncomplaining courage, composure and efforts to protect her child evoked widespread pity and admiration. The last entry is dated 11 October 1881.
In the meantime, Robert Watson had returned to find signs of an Aboriginal attack having taken place and his wife and child missing. He began to search for them and the incident exacerbated European antagonism toward Aborigines in the Cooktown area. A punitive raid was carried out, during which many people were killed, though people at Cape Flattery rather than those actually responsible were targeted.
The crew of a passing fishing vessel found the remains of Mrs. Watson, Ah Sam and baby Ferrier on 19 January 1882 and they were accorded a huge public funeral in Cooktown. In 1885 public subscriptions were called for a drinking-fountain memorial to Mary Watson, and this was erected with the co-operation of the Cooktown Municipal Council in 1886. The tank in which she escaped was on display at the Queensland Museum for many years.
Lizard Island was gazetted as a National Park in 1939 and now contains a resort to the west of the ruins. The story has continued to stir the public imagination and the site of the ruins generally believed to be Watson's cottage remains a focus for the memory this tragic incident in the European settlement of the North.
","criteria":"Whether or not Mrs Watson inhabited the ruins, which is in some doubt, they symbolize the intrusion of Europeans into areas long used by Aboriginal people and the often tragic confrontations that took place in the subsequent competition for land and resources. Mrs. Watson's sad and courageous death evoked widespread public admiration and respect and affected public attitudes towards Aborigines in the area. The building may well be associated with bêche-de-mer fishing, an important industry in the Cooktown area in the 19th century.
|The age, origin and use of the building is unproven and the ruins and surrounding area have the potential to provide information about this and possibly about the late 19th bêche-de-mer industry in north Queensland.
|The Lizard Island ruins have visual appeal as a picturesque standing ruin in a isolated setting overlooking the sea and evoke the empathy of visitors towards Mrs. Watson's tragic story.
|The Dingaal traditional owners consider the site significant as a symbol of the end of traditional ways, their displacement from traditional lands, the violation of sacred sites and completion with Europeans for resources.
|The ruins are widely believed to be associated with Mrs. Watson and act as evocative memorial of her ordeal and death.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15206,"place_ref":600431,"name":"Musgrave Telegraph Station (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Peninsula Development Road","suburb":"MUSGRAVE","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The former Musgrave Telegraph Station (now known as the Musgrave Roadhouse) is located along the Peninsula Developmental Road at the intersection with Lilyvale Road in the Cape York Peninsula, approximately half way between Cairns and Weipa and 136 kilometres north of Laura. The former station complex consists of a number of buildings and structures dating from a range of periods, the most significant of which are the original Telegraph Office building (1886, with later alterations), an original butchers shop (date unknown) and a remaining telegraph pole. The former Office building faces east and is located near the centre of the eastern boundary of the complex. A wide strip of cleared land, used as car parking space and forming the southern end of an airstrip, lies between the complex and the Peninsula Developmental Road. Adjacent to the south-east corner of this area is a mature Mango tree (possibly of early date) near which two early graves are located. This tree and the graves are also considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The former Musgrave Telegraph Office is a high-set, timber-framed building with a corrugated metal-clad hipped roof over a U-shaped plan, and supported on substantial timber stumps. The undercroft has been partially enclosed and the central courtyard roofed. Access to the raised floor level is via a staircase located at the rear of the building. This floor features an enclosed verandah on its eastern side that wraps around the north-east and south-east corners.
The main elevation is unenclosed at ground level with a garden laid out in front of the line of timber stumps. The enclosed first floor verandah is clad in flat sheeting to sill height with a continuous bank of glass-louvered windows above. The north-east corner of the verandah is chamfered, marking the position of the original gun-post enclosure. The name 'MUSGRAVE' is discernable on the roof, painted in large green lettering. Three windows with individual hoods open out of the western facade of the upper floor, which appears to be clad in corrugated iron sheeting.
A metal pole and cyclone wire fence bounds the front of the property in approximately the same location as earlier fences (according to early photographs). A remaining telegraph pole stands just behind this fence, roughly centered on the eastern façade of the former Office building.
The butcher shop appears to be located to the west of the former Telegraph Office. It is a single-storey, square, timber structure consisting of a corrugated iron-clad hipped roof supported on thick timber posts. It features an enclosed room in the centre and a concrete slab floor.
Several mature trees remain over the end of the allotment addressing the road. The very large Mango tree at the south-east corner of the parking area acts as an entrance marker for the Station.
Two early graves are in the vicinity of the Mango tree: a marked one beneath the canopy belonging to Sam Thompson, a linesman who died in 1919; and approximately 25 metres north of this spot, within the cleared parking area, is a slightly raised gravel patch measuring about 3 x 2 metres in plan that is believed to be the otherwise unmarked grave of Billy Beirne(s), an early pioneer stockman and pack-horseman of the area.
The extremely remote location of the station means that the property is surrounded by natural vegetation and no other residences or buildings. The Peninsula Developmental Road remained unsealed in the late 2000s.
","history":"The Musgrave Telegraph Office, named in honour of the then Governor of Queensland, Sir Anthony Musgrave, was erected in 1886 and commenced operation on 23 December that year. It was constructed in association with the important overland Cape York Telegraph Line from Laura, at the southern end of Cape York Peninsula, to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. This is considered one of the outstanding achievements in the development of Queensland's colonial telegraph network.
The line was explored and surveyed in 1883 by JR Bradford, Inspector of Lines and Mail Route Services from 1882 to 1895, later appointed Electrical Engineer for Queensland. The first section of the line, 200 miles from Laura to Mein, was completed on 13 October 1886, and the second section from Mein to Paterson (192½ miles) was completed on 18 August 1887. The line consisted of one 400 pound to the mile galvanised iron wire mounted on the apex of a steel Oppenheimer pole imported from England. The cable from Paterson to Thursday Island was completed in November 1886, but the Thursday Island Telegraph Office did not open until 25 August 1887.
The overland telegraph provided important contact between the isolated communities of the peninsula, as well as a link to southern capitals via Cooktown, and played a significant role in the development of the region. The expansion of telegraphic communication on the peninsula was also an integral element of Brisbane's administrative control of far north Queensland and of communication with British-annexed southern New Guinea [Queensland had annexed southern New Guinea in 1883, but this was revoked by Britain, which annexed the territory itself in 1885] and the Torres Straits [included as Queensland territory from 1879], and in the late 19th century was considered important for the defence of Queensland. It also delineated the major overland axis north through Cape York, and today the Peninsula Development Road and Bamaga Road follow much of the route of the 1880s telegraph line. During the Second World War the overland telegraph line was upgraded and provided the principal communications link for the Allied offensive in New Guinea. Although a dedicated defence facility, the wartime upgrade was linked directly to the 1880s overland telegraph.
In the period 1884-1887, the Queensland Department of Posts and Telegraph erected seven timber-framed, corrugated-iron clad telegraph offices associated with the construction of the Cape York Telegraph Line. These were designed in the office of the Colonial Architect, pre-cut in Brisbane for assembly on site, and erected at Fairview, Musgrave, Coen, Mein, Moreton, McDonnell, and Paterson. It is likely the Thursday Island Telegraph Office opened in an existing post office. Unlike other telegraph offices, those on the Cape York line were designed to provide protection from attack by Aborigines, and included sliding shutters on the front verandah windows, an internal verandah for the quarters, gun posts at diagonally opposite corners of the verandahs, an enclosure for water tanks under the building (which was elevated on high stumps), and a corrugated iron fence surrounding the yard. Later, once the perceived threat from Aborigines had passed, the gun posts were used as bathrooms, or removed. With the exception of the Musgrave Telegraph Office, which is now part of a roadhouse complex, all the other Cape York Telegraph Line offices have been demolished.
There are two graves at the Musgrave Telegraph Station associated with post and telegraph workers. Lineman-in-charge at Musgrave, Sam Thompson, was killed in a fall from a horse in late December 1918 or early January 1919, and was buried beneath a mango tree near the station. Billie Biernes, a mail contractor who died at Musgrave after he retired there, was buried nearby. Both these men were local identities.
On 22 June 1929, telegraph facilities at Musgrave, Mein and McDonnell were closed. Telegraph officers and linemen were withdrawn and the buildings were sold by the Commonwealth Government, which had taken over post and telegraph responsibilities after Federation. The former Musgrave Telegraph Office remained in situ and was used as a station homestead.
","criteria":"Completed in 1886, the former Musgrave Telegraph Station is an important remnant of the infrastructure that supported the overland Cape York Telegraph Line connecting Brisbane with the northern extremities of the colony of Queensland during the mid to late1880s. The line contributed significantly to the expanding economy of northern Queensland; while no longer in use its course has been impressed upon the landscape via the length of much of the Peninsula Development Road as well as the location of the former Musgrave Telegraph Station.
|Of the seven purpose-built telegraph offices constructed by the Queensland Department of Posts and Telegraph between 1884 and 1887 to service the overland Cape York Telegraph Line, which stretched from Laura at the southern end of the Cape York Peninsula to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, that built at Musgrave in 1886 is the only one extant; making it rare evidence of what was once a vital communication link.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15207,"place_ref":600432,"name":"Raine Island Beacon","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Eastern end of Raine Island","suburb":"RAINE ISLAND","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Raine Island Beacon is a substantial structure about 12 metres high with a base diameter of 9 metres, and is visible for 13 nautical miles. Constructed of good quality coral limestone trimmed to produce a continuous curve inside and out, its cylindrical form decreases in diameter in four steps upwards and is topped by a crenellated parapet. A lightning conductor of wrought copper is fitted from top to bottom of the east face. The only opening in the walls is a semi-circular arched doorway surmounted by the standard inscription VR and date: 1844. Two inscribed stone plaques inserted into the wall above the keystone are illegible due to erosion. The interior originally comprised three levels of wooden floors which were reached by ladders and topped by a dome of timber ribs covered with canvas.
","history":"Ships bound north from Australia to Asia generally took the Outer Passage before turning west through the Great Barrier Reef to Torres Strait. As the area was notorious for shipwrecks, the beacon was built in 1844 to assist navigation. The beacon was built mostly of local materials: coral limestone quarried on site; shells burned to make lime for mortar; and timber from the Martha Ridgway which was wrecked nearby in 1842. Though serving as a landmark for shipping and used by crews, the beacon soon became obsolete after the northern passage was discovered. In 1890 the JT Arundel Company began mining guano on Raine Island, with a workforce of 100 Chinese. Their extensive quarries are evident over much of the island, though there is little sign of the former jetty, buildings, tramway and locomotive. The most obvious gravesite, which is marked by a tombstone, is that of Annie Eliza Ellis who died in 1891. No commercial activity is known to have occurred since 1892, though the beacon tower has been used unofficially for conveying messages, as seen in hundreds of inscriptions on the inner walls. Raine Island, with its beacon, quarries and tombstone, remains a principal wildlife habitat, while dominated by the convict-built beacon.
","criteria":"Constructed as early as 1844, the Raine Island Beacon served briefly as an aid to navigation and a shelter for shipwrecked sailors, and is one of the oldest and most significant structures remaining in Queensland. Its associations with northern navigation and maritime transport, as well as the penal system and island industry are reflected in the fabric of the structure and site.
|As an early navigation aid built of masonry on an isolated coral cay, the beacon is unique in form and context.
|As an early navigation aid built of masonry on an isolated coral cay, the beacon is unique in form and context.
|It remains a landmark structure, and has an aesthetic appeal generated by its rustic materials, early workmanship, derelict nature, and dramatic, isolated ocean setting.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15208,"place_ref":600433,"name":"Stonyville Township, Water Race and Cemetery","alternate_name":"Stony Creek Township","street_address":"Mareeba Mining District","suburb":"STONY CREEK","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The township and cemetery occupy a cleared flat on a horseshoe bend of Stony Creek. A haulage road has recently been driven through the centre of the township to a large area of surface workings that scour the hillside to the north-west of the creek. Evidence of structures in Stony Creek township is now largely archaeological and includes stone surfaces, rock-lined borders and stone cooking places in scattered and disturbed condition. There are two small groups of mango trees.
The cemetery is situated immediately adjacent to the township on the north-west. Cemetery boundaries have recently been assumed with the erection of four corner posts. The area was covered with long grass at the time of survey and only two disturbed arrangements of stones, which may form the perimeter of the cemetery, were evident. The cemetery is reported to contain the foot stones of 15 graves. Two grave markers are reported to have been removed for "safe-keeping" by the Palmer River Historic Preservation Society.
The water race extends for about 1000 m along the northern and eastern banks of Stony Creek. For most of its length the race consists of a 1 m to 2 m wide channel partially cut into bed-rock and raised on a rubble and earth aquaduct up to 6 m above the creekbed. Several short sections contain packed stone retaining walls 1 m to 2.4 m in height. The race is cut through bed rock for about 20 m through a gorge. The race terminates at an area of past alluvial workings adjacent to Stonyville township.
","history":"Stony Creek is one of a number of tributaries of Sandy Creek, in the Limestone district south of the Palmer River, that were subjected to a major rush and intensive alluvial mining by Chinese prospectors following J. V. Mulligan's discovery of gold in Sandy Creek in 1874. The alluvial gravels yielded fine gold for several years.
It is not recorded when prospecting first commenced in Stony Creek but presumably in the gold rush of 1874. A township developed on the southern side of a wide bend in the creek and in 1882 Len Yue had the hotel, John McLean and Sam Marris had butcher shops, and there were several Chinese stores. By September 1896 when the Government Geologist, Robert Logan Jack, passed through "Stony Creek Township" on his way from Groganville to the Palmer, he noted:
"... there are now only four inhabited houses in the street, and a few huts around, all occupied by Chinese.
The chief feature of Stony Creek is a huge outcrop of micaceous quartzite-schist....There is a remarkable water-race on the right bank of the creek, which must have cost, inparts at least £500 per mile. The quartzite-schist crosses the creek again and again".
The water race is evidence of Chinese alluvial mining in the area and of the construction skills that had been developed. Prior to the arrival of the Chinese on Stony Creek in large numbers, the European prospectors are reported to have obtained "fantastic amounts" of alluvial gold. Later, the Chinese were reported to be "particularly strong" on Stony Creek. Hence their continuing presence at the time of R. L. Jack's visit in 1896 and their cemetery. It is presumed the area was abandoned in the first decade of this century.
","criteria":"The place is significant in Queensland's history for illustrating the pattern of Chinese settlement and alluvial mining operations in a rugged and remote area of North Queensland.
|The archaeologically intact combination of water race, stone dams, creek alluvial workings, township site and cemetery is unique and the best surviving example of this type of place in Queensland.
|The archaeologically intact combination of water race, stone dams, creek alluvial workings, township site and cemetery is unique and the best surviving example of this type of place in Queensland.
|The archaeologically intact combination of water race, stone dams, creek alluvial workings, township site and cemetery is unique and the best surviving example of this type of place in Queensland.
|The place exhibits strong visual qualities.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15211,"place_ref":600436,"name":"Argyle Homestead","alternate_name":"SEQ-8F 10; Argyle","street_address":"New England Highway","suburb":"GEHAM","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located at Geham on the New England Highway, Argyle Homestead is a picturesque chamferboard residence with corrugated iron roofs set amongst a variety of mature trees and timber and corrugated iron outbuildings.
The residence is a simple rectangular building with a steeply pitched gabled roof containing attic rooms, and a covered verandah on three sides. It rests on timber stumps, and has an annex to the rear with hipped and skillion roofs.
The residence has a symmetrically composed front elevation to the east, with a central steeply pitched dormer window with an arched opening, over a barrel-vaulted central entrance portico with timber stairs. Tall chimneys rise either side from the ridge of the roof. The gable ends to the east and west have paired timber windows with shutters.
The verandah, which is partially enclosed to the rear, has square timber posts with decorative capitals and valances, and double posts at the corners, supporting a convex corrugated iron awning. The timber verandah balustrade is cross-braced.
The exterior has fine decorative timberwork, including curvilinear fretwork fascias to the dormers, gables and principal roof. The barrel vault has shaped battens with decorative holes. The dormers, barrel vaults and gable ends also have timber finials.
Internally the house has four intact rooms opening from a central entry corridor, with variously renovated rooms forming an L-shape to the rear, including the stairs and window of the former Geham Post Office. The front entrance to the house has a substantial timber door framed by sidelights. The four rooms at the front of the house are fully-lined with horizontal timber boards, and each has a fireplace with timber mantelpiece, and glazed double doors opening onto the side verandahs. Steep narrow timber stairs lead to upper level rooms. The plaster and lath render around the chimneys bear the signatures of former occupants of the house, including members of the Munro and Kahler families.
The grounds contain various surviving mature trees, which include local and exotic species: cedars and pines marking the boundary, cypresses framing the front entrance, and holly bushes to the north encircled by a driveway, interspersed with large shade-providing pines and cedars.
The farm structures on the property include a timber slab and corrugated iron shed with pitched and skillion roofs on hand sawn timber pole framing, and a set of timber carcass gallows, both located to the north-west of the residence.
Argyle Homestead has aesthetic quality as an intact picturesque residence set in a complementary landscape of a variety of mature trees and modest outbuildings. It also retains clear evidence of its development as a homestead and farm.
","history":"Argyle Homestead was erected probably in the 1870s for Duncan Munro, a timber merchant and prominent Toowoomba businessman who established the Argyle Saw Mills at Geham in the Highfields area north of Toowoomba. Munro was granted several parcels of land around Geham Creek; in 1868 he acquired the land on which Argyle stands. He is first recorded as living at Argyle Farm, Highfields, in 1874. It is likely that Argyle was named after Munro's birthplace, Argylshire in Scotland.
Extensive stands of timber in the Highfields area stimulated the timber industry and provided the impetus for the establishment of saw mills from the late 1850s. The population of the area grew rapidly as a result of settlement during the late 1860s/early 1870s. As land was cleared of timber, a thriving dairy industry developed, which was assisted by the opening of the former Highfields (later Spring Bluff) Railway Station.
Munro and his brother Archibald established the Argyle Saw Mills near Geham Creek and opened a timber yard in Toowoomba during the 1870s. Munro was also responsible for the expansion of the timber industry in the Perseverance, Ravensbourne and Cooyar areas. Although Munro's partnership with his brother was dissolved in 1887, he carried on the business under the name of A&D Munro. Munro was chairman of the Highfields Divisional Board from 1888-1913, and of the Highfields Shire Council from 1915-1917.
In 1897 the Governor visited Munro's new saw mills at Ravensbourne and Perseverance Creek, staying at Argyle Homestead. At this time, Munro was also constructing a tramway which would connect the timber country with the Crows Nest branch line at Hampton and enable the area to be further opened up for timber milling. Munro travelled to the United States c1904, where he acquired a locomotive for use on his tramway. It is possible because of his interest in the timber industry, that he acquired some of the exotic tree species planted around the homestead while in the United States.
Munro moved to Toowoomba early in the 1900s, and remained there until his death in 1926. From 1903, Argyle was leased to a number of people until Munro sold the property to Johann J Kahler in 1920. The Kahler family had been among the early European settlers in the Geham district, and members of the Kahler family worked at Munro's mill on Geham Creek.
During the late 1930s, Argyle Homestead also served as the Geham Post Office. Kahler died in 1942, and the property was transferred to David John Kahler.
David Kahler died in 1983, bequeathing an area of 4 acres, including Argyle Homestead, to the National Trust of Queensland, which subsequently sold the property at public auction. Argyle Homestead was renovated in the late 1980s to provide guesthouse accommodation, and was acquired by the present owners in 1993.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|The picturesque homestead and grounds, which include a variety of mature trees, have aesthetic quality.
|Argyle Homestead is associated with prominent Toowoomba businessman Duncan Munro, who was active in the development of the timber industry in the Highfields area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15212,"place_ref":600437,"name":"Court House (former)","alternate_name":"Croydon Court House (former)","street_address":"Samwell Street","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Croydon Courthouse is a single storey building on low stumps and faces Samwell Street, the main street of Croydon. To one side of it are the former police buildings and on the other, former town hall.
The court house has a timber frame and is clad with vertical corrugated iron. The gabled roof is also clad with corrugated iron. A verandah with a separate awning supported on posts runs around three sides of the court room. The main entrance is central and approached by low steps. Behind the court room and set at right angles to it are a series of 3 gabled sections containing offices. They are similar in form and set parallel to each other. The first two sections are separated from each other by a corridor roofed in curved corrugated iron and have a verandah to the rear. Behind this are a pair of offices with a space between them which allows entry to the rear verandah. Windows in the end walls have sun hoods and ventilation has been addressed by providing louvred panels in the upper section of end walls and ventilators on the roof
The courtroom has a coved roof and is well illuminated by windows at the front and sides. It is unlined, revealing the corrugated iron cladding except for the partition wall behind the bench, which is of horizontal timber boards. The court room retains its furniture, including the judge's bench, defendant's box, witness stand and jury bench.
","history":"The former Court House was erected in 1887 as part of a complex of government buildings on the main street of Croydon, at the time a busy goldfield.
In the early 1880s Croydon Downs Station was established on Belmore Creek and evidence of gold was discovered on the property soon after it was established. In October 1885 a major find was reported about 145 km east of Normanton and a rush to the area began. On 18 January, 1886 Croydon was proclaimed a goldfield under the administration of the Queensland Mines Department. The town site was then surveyed, and by the end of the year the population of the Croydon field was 2000 and rapidly increasing. A police reserve was declared to service the new field and a modest police station was begun immediately and completed in the same year.
A Court House reserve had been set aside next to the large reserve for police use as part of the administrative infrastructure of the goldfield. The Colonial government of the time faced the problem of policing a huge area with a scattered population on a limited budget. Transport also posed problems, especially before the development of reliable roads and a railway network. The situation was addressed by instituting a system of regional courts served by visiting magistrates or judges and which had police offices, accomodation and lockup facilities on the same site. Plans for a suitable court house with facilities for visiting magistrates and a Clerk of Petty Sessions were drawn up and the successful tender was that of contractors Edward and James Headland at £1875.
The courthouse was completed in May 1887, although the first court was held there on 24 January 1887 reflecting the urgency of the need. The use of corrugated iron as wall cladding reflects local conditions where suitable timber was scarce and voracious termites made keeping buildings in good repair a constant problem. Croydon had the services of a visiting mining warden from Georgetown from 1886 and it was clear that provision would need to be made for an office in the town. It was common for wardens to have offices in the court building and soon after completion, the court was extended by adding offices for the Mining Warden and Registrar. This raised the final cost of the work to £2075. Additional cells and stables for police horses were added to the police reserve about the same time as the demand for police services grew. The district was first proclaimed a divisional board in 1887/88 and declared a municipality in 1892. A new police barracks were built in 1896 and further cells in the following year. In the first ten years of its existence the population of the town had mushroomed and by 1897 Croydon had the third highest population in North Queensland after that of Townsville and Charters Towers. The police and court buildings and the town hall along the main street illustrate the way in which administrative services were provided for towns in such rapid growth areas.
1897 was also the year in which a disastrous fire that destroyed much of the town's centre possibly marked the beginning of a decline in its fortunes. Unlike Charters Towers, the Croydon field did not prove to have the deep reefs that would have provided work for large numbers and the population consequently fell. The district was redesignated as a shire in 1903/4 and by 1907 the field was considered to be effectively exhausted. The town became the centre of a pastoral district rather than a goldfield and by 1912 the gold warden's offices were being used by a surveyor and his assistant. Following World War I, when mining generally diminished and the price of gold dropped, it was obvious that the field would not recover. Mining came to a virtual stop by 1925. The last court was held in 1926 and rooms at the rear of the building were used for storage, though the Clerk of Petty Sessions maintained an office into the 1940s.
By 1961 the building was abandoned and had deteriorated. It was purchased on 13 June 1961 by the Croydon Shire Council. National Estate funding was obtained to preserve the building and major repair work was carried out in 1980. Since then the building has been a tourist attraction in the town as have the other buildings from Croydon's heyday. Stage one of a project to interpret the building as a courthouse museum was implemented in 1999.
","criteria":"Croydon Court House is important in illustrating the development of Croydon and district, reflecting the importance of the town following the discovery of gold and way in which justice was administered in such remote areas. It also demonstrates the short lived importance that goldfields, such as that at Croydon, might have.
|The Court house is a good example of a small regional courthouse of its era, having a large court room with offices for magistrates and court officials to the rear. The addition of offices for mining officials is typical of court houses in mining areas.
|It is one of a series of public buildings along the main street of Croydon, including the police station and residence and the shire hall, which define the visual character of the township.
|The Croydon Court House has had a long connection with the people of Croydon and the surrounding district as the focus for the administration of justice.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15213,"place_ref":600438,"name":"Croydon State Emergency Services Building","alternate_name":"Croydon Hospital Ward","street_address":"Sircom Street","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Croydon Hospital ward building is a single storey timber building on the western corner of Sircom and Brown Streets, Croydon. There is a timber picket fence around the property.
The building is rectangular in plan with an encircling verandah, built in on the north-western side. It is raised on low stumps, those at the perimeter being timber and the remainder, steel. The hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron and has two roof ventilators on the ridge and new ogee gutters and acroteria.
The main entry is a through a porch with a curved corrugated iron roof on the verandah facing Brown Street. There are also stairs at the centre of the rear verandah, and at the southern corner. At the centre of each end is a pair of French doors into the hall.
The verandahs are about 3.7m wide, with stop-chamfered posts, arched boarded valance, a handrail but no balustrade between the posts, and are unlined. The external walls have exposed timber framing, lined with 185 chamferboards. The Brown Street side wall has five casement windows, with 3-panes per sash and 2-pane toplights. The height of the sill of these windows alternates from floor level to sill level. Inside the hall, the walls and ceiling are lined with fibro sheet. The ceiling is raked up to the line of the collar tie.
The south-west verandah has been infilled with rooms, clad with external boarding and smaller casements, and internal v-jointed boards.
At the rear are two sheds. The closest is a corrugated iron garage with two rooms. It has a gabled roof over two rooms with a lean-to roof over the garage. The rooms are clad in corrugated iron, with shutters opening to the outside and the inside. The doors to the rooms are boarded. There is also a recent metal-clad structure behind.
","history":"Croydon State Emergency Services Building was constructed in 1894, as a ward of the Croydon Hospital.
In the early 1880s Croydon Downs Station was established on Belmore Creek and evidence of gold was discovered on the property soon after it was established. In October 1885 a major find was reported about 145 km east of Normanton and a rush to the area began. On 18 January, 1886 Croydon was proclaimed a goldfield under the administration of the Queensland Mines Department. The town site was then surveyed, and by the end of the year the population of the Croydon field was 2000 and rapidly increasing. The first hospital was constructed in 1886, on the present hospital reserve. This was a primitive structure, of bush timber framing with hessian walls a timber floor and galvanised iron roof. Soon after, a surgery/domestic block and a large ward were erected at a cost of £1886.
The district was proclaimed a divisional board in 1887/88 and declared a municipality in 1892. By 1897 Croydon had the third highest population in North Queensland after that of Townsville and Charters Towers. The establishment of shipping companies trading from southern Queensland to Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria and the opening of the railway from Normanton to Croydon assured the development of the gold fields. A peak population of 25,000 demanded a larger hospital facility and in 1894, a second ward building was erected. funded by a major bequest.
The goldfield at Croydon did not sustain its initial success. By the early 1900s its output had fallen considerably and after WWI when widespread mining diminished and the price of gold dropped, it was obvious that the field would not recover. It came to a virtual stop by 1925. The resultant loss in population saw the district redesignated as a shire in 1903/4 with the town becoming the centre of a pastoral district rather than a goldfield. The hospital did not always succeed in staying open and at times the matron had to deputise for a doctor. The last resident doctor was at the hospital in 1934. The Flying Doctor Service visited Croydon from Cloncurry holding a regular monthly clinic from 1953. Emergency dental services were also offered by them.
During the early 1980s, the hospital buildings were considered inadequate for modern hospital use and were threatened with demolition. At that time, the hospital reserve contained two large timber buildings, this ward building and the surgery/residence, and also a small corrugated iron morgue at the rear of the site. This building was then moved from the Hospital Reserve, at the south-western end of Sircom Street on the outskirts of the town, to the corner of Sircom and Brown Streets opposite the Club Hotel.
It is now the responsibility of the local government authority.
","criteria":"The Croydon State Emergency Services building, as a former hospital ward building, is important in illustrating the development of Croydon and district, reflecting the importance of the town and the size of the population when the gold field was at its peak.
|Although relocated, the former hospital building, in its form, scale and materials, relates to the other surviving public buildings of Croydon, including the former town hall, the police station and residence and the Club Hotel, which define the visual character of the township.
|The former hospital ward building has had a long connection with the people of Croydon and the surrounding district as a focus for the provision of hospital services.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15214,"place_ref":600439,"name":"Homeward Bound Battery and Dam","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place contains two component groups - the dam and dam wall (or overshot weir) and the battery foundations. The dam wall is expertly constructed of large blocks of rough-shaped stone. The stonework reaches a maximum height of 5 m above the downstream creek bed surface (the foundations could be buried a further 4 m) and extends across the creek for about 40 m from where an earth wall continues for a further 55 m. The wall contains a lower spillway section. The top of the wall is concrete rendered for the length of its stone construction. A vertical boiler on a base of stamper dyes is located at the northern end of the wall at a former cyanide plant site. The dam is heavily silted and lined with acacia on the upstream edge of the wall. The clay bed of the dam extends north-east for about 250 m.
The battery site, situated on the northern bank of the dam, has been stripped of all buildings and plant. Remaining, are a broken concrete engine mount, concrete and aggregate foundations for twenty head of stamps, a twenty head camshaft with ten cams, and a beam pump arm.
The Homeward Bound settlement site on Waterfall Creek about 300 m - 400 m east of the battery contains several intact stone fireplaces and numerous stone surfaces. The extent of the settlement was not surveyed.
","history":"The Homeward Bound reef north of Croydon officially produced 22,280 tons of ore, for a yield of 25,335 ozs of gold, between 1886-1911. Work resumed between 1912-16 for a yield of 882 ozs of gold from 268 tons of ore and again between 1935-40, when 11.2 tons of ore returned 4.2 ozs of gold.
The Homeward Bound battery commenced crushing on 28 February 1888 with 20 head of stamps. The main mines serving the battery were all situated along the Homeward Bound reef on or near the summit of the ridge above Waterfall Creek. Homeward Bound Extended Block No.1 North Company (with a nominal capital of £12,000 in 20,000 shares) owned several of the mines and Croydon Homeward Bound Gold Mining Company owned the battery. The 20 head of stamps and eight berdan pans were driven by a 20hp portable steam engine. The plant was valued at £5,500.
Water was a problem throughout the Croydon Goldfield and a large dam with a stone pitched wall was constructed in 1888, by a Mr. Shoemaker (or Schumacher). (National Trust of Queensland file CRN2/8). Even so the Homeward Bound battery could not crush that year.
The Mountain Maid United Gold Mining Company (with a nominal capital of 56,000 ten shilling shares) took over the Homeward Bound battery in 1890 but relinquished it to the original company again in 1891. By then the Homeward Bound claim was almost abandoned. Although the major companies had failed, the battery was revitalized in 1893 by co-operative parties who were getting good results. One old miner said in 1896 that the Homeward Bound "has had less public attention paid to it than any other line on this extensive goldfield but left to the stragglers like myself to scratch away". When other Croydon mines were considering closing down, in 1898 the Homeward Bound was producing almost two ozs of gold per ton of stone. In 1899 Homeward Bound No. 4 South had a spectacular crushing of 232 ozs from 68 tons. Lane and Pate took over the battery in 1901 and cyaniding was commenced in 1902 using some of the equipment from the Pioneer cyanide works at Gorge Creek. In 1903, 144 ozs of gold were obtained from 156 tons of quartz. However by 1904 the Homeward Bound Company had lost the reef and others were only putting small crushings through and mining gradually petered out.
In the first year of cyaniding, 510 tons of tailings were treated for a yield of 668 ozs of gold bullion, but production increased thirteenfold in 1903 so that it was the second largest cyaniding treatment plant on the field - 6,565 tons of tailings were treated for 5,059 ozs of gold bullion. They continued with 2,650 tons of tailings yielding 239 ozs of gold bullion in 1904; 3,120 tons of old tailings for 1,728 ozs of gold bullion in 1905; and 480 tons of old tailings for 223 ozs and 940 tons of new tailings for 637 ozs in 1906. The average bullion values were amongst the highest on the Croydon Goldfield.
The settlement was never more than a camp with only a store, boarding house and postal receiving office from 1888 to 1893. An open cut mine and carbon-in-pulp treatment plant operated from 1988 to 1990 near the Homeward Bound mining area and surface evidence from earlier workings was lost in the more recent operations.
","criteria":"The Homeward Bound Battery and Dam is significant in Queensland's history as one of the mining settlements, or suburbs of Croydon, on the former Croydon Goldfield. The place demonstrates a number of stages in the development of Croydon Goldfield - British investment in ore crushing, then cyaniding to fully extract any remaining gold once a permanent water supply had been secured.
|The dam wall is the most substantial structure surviving at Homeward Bound and is the largest and earliest (1888) associated with mining, recorded in North Queensland. The size and quality of the stonework is noteworthy in a regional context. There were few dams constructed on the Croydon Goldfield even though lack of water was a perennial problem.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15215,"place_ref":600440,"name":"Croydon Station, Normanton to Croydon Railway","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Helen Street","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Normanton to Croydon Railway runs 94 miles in a roughly south-east direction from Normanton to Croydon, in the Gulf country of North-west Queensland. The line, carried for most of its length on Phillips patent steel sleepers, runs over level country and crosses a number of streams by low-level bridges. It has stations at each end of the line with several stopping places in between.
Croydon station complex is located on the outskirts of town and consists of both original and modern buildings. Croydon station is now a simple building clad in corrugated iron with a low pitched roof which does not resemble the station destroyed in 1969, but appears to have reused some of the materials. A set of Avery scales are against the outside wall at the end of the building and a cylindrical water tank is adjacent. Beyond the tank is an 1887 Saxby and Farmer lever, believed to be rare.
The complex also contains also a set of quarters similar in appearance to those at Blackbull with detached kitchen and shower annexes to the rear. Croydon station also retains some original equipment such as a Ransomes and Rapier crane, as at Normanton. This is located beside the line at a short distance from the station building and near the former goods shed, the concrete slab of which survives nearby. A loading ramp constructed of metal sleepers and rail and filled with earth also remains, though in a ruinous condition. The tower section of a windmill made from rails is also in the yards and locomotive parts are scattered about.
","history":"Croydon is the eastern terminus of a railway line linking it with the port of Normanton. The line was built between 1888 and 1891 when Croydon was an important goldfield and is the last isolated line of Queensland Rail still in use. It utilised an innovative system of submersible track with patent steel sleepers and retains buildings and equipment of considerable interest, both in their own right and as part of this system.
In 1867 William Landsborough investigated the Norman River area to select a port site to serve the pastoral stations south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. With him was George Phillips who shortly thereafter surveyed the chosen site of Normanton. Phillips later supervised the construction of the Normanton to Croydon Railway, and retained an interest in the area, serving as MLA for Carpentaria in the 1890s.
A railway line between Normanton and Cloncurry had been discussed as early as 1883 and was approved by Parliament in 1886. This was a difficult stretch for carriers and a rail link would have been valuable to pastoral stations in the area and was planned to serve the Cloncurry Copper Mine. It was at the time intended to eventually link the new line with the Great Northern Railway connecting Charters Towers and the important port of Townsville. However, in November 1885 a major gold strike was reported at Belmore Station, 145 km east of Normanton and by the end of 1886 the population of the Croydon field was 2000 and rising rapidly in a booming town. Transportation was a major problem and access to this field became more important than the link to Cloncurry. It was decided to divert the line to Croydon.
The line was technically innovative, in response to the terrain and conditions. The country was flat but difficult for conventional railway tracks due to flooding, lack of suitable timber for sleepers and termite attack. In 1884 Phillips patented a system for taking railways across such country which utilised special U section steel sleepers laid directly on the ground. During floods the line could be submerged without washing out the ballast and embankments normally used, so that it could quickly be put back into service when the waters subsided. The steel sleepers were also impervious to termite attack, and although initially more expensive than timber sleepers, were cheaper to lay and maintain. The bridges along the line were also designed to be submersible. This system was particularly suited to the Gulf country and was specified for the Normanton to Croydon line with Phillips engaged to supervise the construction. Tenders were called in July 1887 and the first section to Haydon began in May 1888 and opened in May 1889, then to Patterson's (Blackbull) in December 1890, and finally to Croydon in July 1891.
Some problems were encountered with constructing the line because of the difficulty of maintaining a constant and adequate supply of Phillips sleepers. They were cast at the Toowoomba Foundry at Woolloongabba in Brisbane and also in Glasgow, but in order to keep construction going, timber sleepers were used on some sections and timber was also used for some bridges, originally designed to be made of steel. Much of the timber was replaced with steel at a later date.
The grandest buildings were erected at the Normanton terminus, and because the line was isolated, a range of maintenance buildings and facilities such as machine shops, blacksmith and carpenters shops were also constructed there. At the railhead, Croydon had more modest goods and locomotive sheds and a station with a roofed section over 2 tracks. In 1895, a railway water reserve was proclaimed on the flooded Bird-in-the-Bush shaft on True Blue Hill at Croydon.
Initially the line carried perishables, mail and passengers, and goods like building materials and merchandise. It also ferried firewood for mine boilers and batteries as the land was progressively cleared. During the late 1890s special trains were run for picnics at most of the water holes along the line, particularly the Blackbull lagoon and weekend excursions from Normanton to Croydon or Golden Gate. The Golden Gate mine, some 4 miles west of Croydon and on the railway line, was first mined in 1887. It enjoyed prosperity from about 1895 to 1901, and the Golden Gate township itself had 1500 inhabitants. Special trains were regularly put on to serve picnic outings along the line and sports events like race days. A 'suburban' service between Croydon and Golden Gate on the weekends was introduced in 1902.
However, the goldfield at Croydon did not sustain its initial success. By the early 1900s its output had dropped considerably and after WWI when widespread mining diminished, it was obvious that the field would not recover. The railway had only run at a profit between 1898 and 1902 and traffic, never high, steadily declined. The line stayed open as a community service and as a vital link during the wet season. This was largely because the Phillips system worked well and the track could be put back into use almost immediately after flooding, whereas roads stayed impassable for much longer. Fortunately, the track took less maintenance than standard track because in the early 1920s the number of staff was considerably reduced. To cut costs, and because the supply of suitable water had always been a problem, the first railmotor, a Panhard, was introduced in 1922. By 1929 steam trains had been completely phased out. In the 1930s, all weather roads made the railway less important, but until the late 1960s the rail remained a vital transport link in the area. The line now functions largely as a tourist attraction. One railmotor was restored and named the 'Gulflander' in 1978 and a railmotor now makes a weekly trip hauling carriages and a flat top wagon for passengers' cars. In the wet season it also carries freight when the roads are cut
Not all of the buildings have survived, the station at Croydon being destroyed by a storm in 1969 and rebuilt in a more modern form. The tank there was demolished in 1972.
","criteria":"The Normanton to Croydon railway illustrates the way in which the rail system in Queensland developed as a series of isolated lines which connected ports to inland resources. It also demonstrates the short lived importance that goldfields, such as that at Croydon, might have.
|The Brisbane to Cairns railway connected all independent railways running from ports inland apart from Normanton and Cooktown, which closed in 1962. The Normanton to Croydon line is therefore the last isolated section of the Queensland Railways to remain in use and retains some rare items of equipment It is also the only full length line to have been constructed using the Phillips patented sleeper system, which is still in working order.
|Because of its isolation, extensive workshop facilities were provided and locomotives and rolling stock were retained when obsolete. Although some have now been removed, the line retained much of its individuality and can provide information on the way in which such an isolated line was maintained and the technology used.
|The railway line itself, with its use of low level submersible track and bridges and Phillips patented steel sleepers, was an important technical innovation designed for Queensland conditions which has lasted in use with a low level of maintenance for over a hundred years, proving its viability in these conditions.
|The railway has strong associations with the life and work of George Phillips, who helped to explore and survey the area, served for several years as its Parliamentary representative and designed and supervised the building of the railway.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15216,"place_ref":600441,"name":"Dalby War Memorial and Gates","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Patrick Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a park in Dalby facing Patrick Street. The park is entered from Patrick Street through a set of memorial gates flanked by sandstone pillars surmounted by torch shaped lights. The pillars sit on slightly larger base steps with picked stone faces and smooth-faced margins to the sides and top. They are of similar design to the pedestal of the memorial and capped by the same wide cornice. At the top of the front face of each pillar is a relief carved AIF badge with the date 1914 carved below the emblem on the right, and 1919 on the left.The swing gates are of wrought iron.
The memorial is centred within a wide path which leads from the gates and divides at the rear of the monument.
The sandstone memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on a smooth faced step capped by two cyma recta mouldings of decreasing scale. Rising from this is the pedestal dado which has bronze plaques with brass lettering on each of the four faces. Bronze wreaths are located above each plaque which bear the names of the 360 local men who took part in the First World War including the names of the 64 fallen. The dado is crowned by a large cornice comprising a number of cyma recta mouldings and steps.
Surmounting the pedestal is a larger than life-sized bronze digger statue. The statue portrays an Australian Infantry soldier standing with head bowed and arms reversed.
","history":"The Dalby War Memorial was unveiled on 26 July 1922 by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan. The memorial and gates were designed by local monumental mason, J. Shill and British firms contributed to the design and construction of the digger statue. The stone and bronze memorial honours the 360 local men who served in the First World War, including the 64 fallen.
Funds for the erection of the memorial were raised by public subscriptions and functions arranged by a public committee.
Dalby is a small town west of Toowoomba. It was surveyed as a township in 1854, and began to prosper with the arrival of the railway in 1868. However, this was shortlived as the railway eventually moved further west and the township of Dalby came to depend on its dairy industry and agricultural produce.
In 1919, Dalby requested advice from the Queensland Institute of Architects on the design of its war memorial. The Institute suggested that the town hold a design competition, which it would supervise. It is unclear what occurred next, however there is no evidence to suggest that a competition was held.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The Dalby digger is based on a Sergeant-Major of the Grenadier Guards and was modelled by British sculptors, John Whitehead and Sons of London. It is one of only two known examples of their work in Queensland, as well as being one of only two bronze diggers in the state. To ensure accuracy of dress, the modelling was supervised by an officer from Australian Headquarters and Australia House lent certain accoutrements for copying.
The statue was cast at the foundry of A B Burton in London, whilst the stonework, including the pedestal and gate pillars, was produced by J. Shill of Dalby.
The bronze plates bearing the names of the soldiers were created by Ernest Gunderson who established his company in Brisbane after migrating from Norway. The company operated until the mid 1930s and supplied honour boards statewide. His work was distinctly original, often incorporating both Australian and British motifs.
Memorials were often enclosed by a fence, indicating a special commemorative area. Occasionally this was further surrounded by a park or other space for the gathering of people on ANZAC Day. In places, such as the, the The Dalby War Memorial and gates, are located in Anzac Park which was gazetted in 1906. The memorial, gates and the setting are considered as a complete entity in which each elements complemented the other.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|This particular digger statue is rare as one of only two in Queensland which are cast in bronze and one of only two known works by London sculptors John Whitehead and Sons in Queensland. It is also an uncommon example of a memorial still situated in its intact setting.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Dalby demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The memorial and its setting are a landmark within Dalby and contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape. The memorial and gates are of aesthetic significance for their high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with the firms involved in its erection including sculptors John Whitehead and Sons (London), masons J Shill (Dalby) and metalworker Ernest Gunderson (Brisbane) as examples of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15217,"place_ref":600442,"name":"Burdekin River Rail Bridge (former)","alternate_name":"Macrossan Bridge","street_address":"Stuart - Hughenden Line","suburb":"MACROSSAN","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This bridge spans the Burdekin River at Macrossan and is no longer in use. It consists of six 250 foot (76.2) riveted through Pratt truss spans flanked on either side by four 50 foot plate girder spans supported on cast iron piers, concrete piers and one abutment.
It consists of the following components:
7 x 1 x 2 x 20 (6.1 metre) timber longitudinals, decking, concrete abutments, common braced timber trestles
3 x 2 x 2 x 26 foot (7.9 metre) timber longitudinals, decking, common braced timber trestles
6 x 2 x 2 x 36 foot (11.0 metre) timber longitudinals with understrutting, decking, common braced timber trestles, common concrete pier
4 x 2 x 50 foot (15.2 metre) rivetted half-through plate girders, decking, common concrete pier, common cast iron cylinder piers, common concrete arch
1 x 40 foot (12.2 metre) concrete arch, decking
6 x 250 foot (76.2 metre) riveted 14-panel double intersection through Pratt trusses, decking, common concrete arch, common concrete piers, common concrete arch
1 x 40 foot (12.2 metre) arch span, decking
4 x 2 x 50 foot (15.2 metre) rivetted half through plate girders, decking, common concrete arch, common cast iron cylinder piers, concrete abutment and embankment
","history":"The former Burdekin River Bridge is a metal truss bridge running parallel to the current bridge and was designed to carry the Great Northern Railway over the Burdekin River at Macrossan in 1899.
The Northern or Townsville Railway was intended principally to connect the important goldfield at Charters Towers to the port of Townsville, although it was also of great value to the pastoral industry and the general development of the north. In August 1877 the Queensland Government approved the first stretch of line to the top of the Haughton Range. The line to Mingela (formerly Ravenswood Junction) was opened on 9 November 1881, to Macrossan on 24 July 1882 and to Charters Towers on 14 December 1882.
In order to cross the Burdekin River, the line was carried over a road bridge at Macrossan which had been opened for traffic in mid 1879 and was converted for railway use in 1881. A temporary line was laid on the upstream side to enable the passage of freight from November 1882 even before work was completed. However, this bridge was low level and was frequently under water during the wet season, disrupting traffic. On 22 March 1890 a major flood covered the bridge to a depth of 55 feet. It was clearly necessary to construct a higher bridge and a decision was made to do so, though not implemented for some years after this.
The new bridge was designed while H.C. Stanley was Chief Engineer for Railways. Henry Charles Stanley was an important early engineer in Queensland. He was born and trained in Scotland and was appointed to Queensland Railways in 1863. After working as chief engineer on several lines, he became responsible for the whole colony in 1892. During the 1890s a number of large metal truss rail bridges were constructed and crossed major streams making the connection of important towns and resources possible. In this way they were vital to the operation of the transport system and the development of the state as a whole. Many of these early bridges have since been replaced.
A contract for the Macrossan bridge (at a projected cost of £52,143) and a three mile deviation was let to Swanson Brothers on 26 May 1896. Although completion was planned for 1897, the bridge was not finished until 17 January 1899 and, after tests, it was passed for use by the Government Inspector for Bridges in March 1899. At the time of its construction, it was one of the largest bridges in Queensland and was the last of the series of its type built.
The completed bridge was 3 metres above the highest known flood level. Its six 250 foot steel spans were supported on piers and basalt cutwater quoins based on rock . There were four 50 foot continuous plate girders on each side and 434 feet of timber trestle. The track was supported on the lower chord, the floor completely decked and a substantial handrail provided. However, despite its size, the bridge was limited to carrying an 8 ton axle load. It was thought that the problem lay not with the bridge itself but rather with the timber approaches. These were strengthened by 1937 and the bridge was then used by all classes of steam locomotives.
Although diesel locomotives used the bridge from 1953, the bridge could not be economically strengthened to take two coupled diesel locomotives. In 1961 work began on a new bridge upstream. This new bridge was opened on 16 May 1964. It was similar in construction to the old bridge and because it is located close to the alignment of the old bridge it was not economically feasible to remove the old bridge without risk of damage to the new. The old bridge was decommissioned and the timber approach spans totalling 434 feet on the eastern side have been removed.
","criteria":"This bridge, which allowed the railway to cross a major river, demonstrates the way in which Queensland was developed by linking important inland resources with ports.
|It is a good example of a metal truss bridge of its era and was the first of a number of this type built during this period, many of which have since been replaced.
|It was one of the largest bridges in Queensland at the time of its construction and it demonstrates the skill with which the technology of the era was used to solve the problems of severe climatic conditions and terrain encountered by railway engineers.
|It is an important example of the work of Henry Stanley, Chief Engineer for Railways and a major figure in the early history of engineering in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15218,"place_ref":600443,"name":"Railway Hotel, Ravenswood","alternate_name":"Ravenswood Railway Hotel","street_address":"Barton Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Railway Hotel, on Barton Street opposite the Court House and the site of the railway station, is one of a handful of buildings left from the town of Ravenswood and is set in a mining landscape which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinkee apples and rubber vines.
The Railway Hotel is set on a sloping site which falls away towards Elphinstone Creek at the rear. It has three storeys, only two of which can be seen from street level. The 'basement' storey, visible from the side and rear, is set on brick piers. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and is concealed by a rendered brick parapet. The building is constructed of exposed red bricks laid in English bond and is U-shaped in plan with accommodation on the top floor and the bar, kitchens and dining room at street level. On the 'basement' level are large rooms used for storage and accommodation for the manager's family.
The street elevation has a two storey verandah which continues around the right side of the building. It is supported by paired posts with fretted timber brackets and dowel balustrades on the first floor and wrought iron valances with arched openings at street level. At the side the verandah has dowel balustrading to both levels. French doors open from the rooms onto the verandahs at the side and there are sash windows at the front..
Internally, the building retains substantial amounts of original fabric including pressed metal ceilings, and some of the original furniture and fittings.
","history":"The Railway Hotel, a large brick hotel placed opposite the site of the railway station in Ravenswood, is one of a handful of buildings which survive from this once important mining town. It was built about 1901 for John Moran and is the second hotel of this name he operated on this site.
\nThe discovery of several important goldfields in Queensland in the nineteenth century formed a major component in the development of the North. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
\nThe area was first settled by Europeans following the establishment of Bowen in 1861. Pastoral runs were soon set up in the hinterland, including the area on which the Ravenswood field was to develop. The first gold in north Queensland had been found at Star River in 1865 and there were other brief rushes before a substantial find was made at the Cape Diggings in 1867. This triggered further exploration and gold was found at Merri Merriwa, the run on which the town of Ravenswood stands, in 1867, although it was reported as being on the adjoining property of Ravenswood, the name by which the field was always known.
\nMuch of the gold initially found was in a triangle in and around three dry creeks which soon formed the focus for a tent and shanty settlement. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871. At this time it had 30 hotels and a population of about 1000.
\nIt was also beginning to have problems as gold a deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This meant that greater capital was required to fund various technologies for extracting the gold. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town. Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, and a school. Shanties were replaced by sawn timber buildings and as single miners left, more families moved in. The stability of the town was assisted in the 1880s by the arrival of the railway which passed close to the town in 1881 on its way from Townsville to Charters Towers, thus reducing the cost of freight, and which was linked to Ravenswood by branch line in 1884. In this year Hugh Barton acquired several key mines as the Ravenswood Gold Company and experimented with better means to process Ravenswood ore. His modest success helped to provide employment and stability in the town. A new generation of public buildings replaced those of the early days of the field. It was during this period, in 1886, that the original Railway Hotel was built on this site for A.E. Hawkins, though the hotel was to have several publicans before the license was transferred to John Moran in 1893. Moran was a part owner in the London Mine across the street from the hotel and situated conveniently close to the railway.
\nIn 1899, a new era began for the field when the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital and took over the Barton mines. Old mines were opened and tailings reworked with more efficiency. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period. In early 1901, a lavish new hotel, the Imperial, was opened only to be burned down and replaced with one even more stylish. Moran may have built the Railway Hotel at about this time.
\nThe original timber hotel was moved to the opposite side of the road to make way for the construction of the new hotel and burned down shortly afterwards. 1901 was a year of fires and whole blocks on both sides of Macrossan Street were destroyed. A number of buildings, including the Imperial Hotel, were replaced in brick. Bricks had been made locally in Ravenswood since the early days and production capacity increased to meet the demand of the early 1900s. However, it is said that the bricks for the Railway Hotel were constructed at Moran's property at Connolly Creek by an Italian brickmaker. It is possible that this was the first major brick building in Ravenswood as his advertisements for the hotel stress the number of bricks used in the construction, which suggests a certain novelty value. The new hotel offered budget accommodation in a basement level and better quality rooms on the top floor. Moran is thought to have installed a water supply system from the London Mine, situated opposite the hotel, with the water being pumped by a hand pump on the balcony, for which the drain can still be seen. The Moran family ran the hotel until the 1950s, when it was taken over by the current family of publicans.
\nThe population of Ravenswood peaked in 1903 at 4700, but after 1908 the town began to decline. As time went by the cost of extraction grew as returns lessened and Wilson lost money searching for 'mother' lodes at deep levels and began to lay miners off. A strike in 1912 dragged out for eight months causing hardship and although judgement eventually favoured the miners, Wilson could no longer afford to employ many of them. The decline of the Ravenswood mines continued with the outbreak of war in 1914 increasing costs and disruptions to the labour supply. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
\nIn the 1920s most of the timber buildings in Ravenswood were moved away. The Railway Hotel, being a brick building, could not be moved and continued to trade. Ravenswood Shire ceased to exist in 1929 and was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire. In 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection. A small revival occurred during the 1930s by applying more modern extraction processes to known sites. This did not make much difference to the life of the town and by the 1960s it had reached its lowest ebb with a population of about 70. At this point, tourists began to take a growing interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes. The hotels have helped to maintain an economic life in the town and the Railway Hotel now offers accommodation and recreational facilities for the new miners.
\nThe Railway Hotel underwent extensive renovation in 1988. The verandahs were repaired, the building was painted, a hydraulic lift was installed to bring supplies from an old cellar below the footpath, the cold room was removed from a former saloon, the saloon was restored, the front of the old bar was incorporated into a new bar. Furniture throughout the building was restored and the bedrooms were furnished. Further work was done on the building when a grant was made by the Department of Environment in 1996 to allow brick piers to be repaired.
","criteria":"Gold mining has been important in the development of North Queensland and the Railway Hotel is one of the few buildings remaining from the once important goldfield town of Ravenswood. As an intact and good quality hotel named for and located near the former railway station, it provides evidence of both the prosperity of the field at the turn of the nineteenth century and of its subsequent decline, illustrating a pattern common on nineteenth century goldfields.
|The Railway Hotel is important as a good example of a quality hotel of its era in form, layout and interior decoration and has well preserved interior and exterior detail. It has had continuity of usage for almost a hundred years.
|The Railway Hotel is a fine example of Federation hotel architecture and as a substantial two storey building, one of only two remaining hotels, is a dominant feature in the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15220,"place_ref":600445,"name":"Ravenswood Ambulance Station","alternate_name":"Ambulance Building; Ambulance Station Ravenswood","street_address":"Deighton Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Ambulance Centre, Ravenswood is located in Deighton St close to the bank of Elphinstone Creek. It is a single storey building of rendered brick, rectangular in plan, with its long axis at right angles to the street. The roof is clad in corrugated iron and hipped at the rear. It has a decorative metal ventilator on the ridge. The façade has a gabled parapet and is asymmetrical, with the central doorway flanked by a large arched gateway for the ambulance vehicle to the left and a sash window on the right. It has rendered ornamentation including fluted pilasters, two Maltese crosses and the words 'Ambulance' and '1902' in raised letters. There is a lamp over the doorway.
Inside there is provision for the ambulance and a series of rooms on one side of the building with timber framed tongue and groove partitions, concrete and timber floors, and flat galvanised iron ceilings.
","history":"The Ravenswood Ambulance Building, constructed in 1904, has played an important role in the Ravenswood community providing assistance for the sick and injured. This role expanded when the hospital closed and it has continued its community service as a venue for regular clinics held by the Royal Flying Doctor Service for over thirty years.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields in which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
The area was first settled by Europeans following the establishment of Bowen in 1861. Pastoral runs were soon set up in the hinterland, including the area on which the Ravenswood field was to develop. The first gold in north Queensland had been found at Star River in 1865 and triggered further exploration. Gold was found at Merri Merriwa, the run on which the town of Ravenswood stands, in 1867, although it was reported as being on the adjoining property of Ravenswood, the name by which the field was always known.
Much of the gold initially found was in a triangle in and around three dry creeks which soon formed the focus for a tent and shanty settlement. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871, but problems were soon encountered as the gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, and a school. The first hospital was established by subscription in 1871. The stability of the town was also assisted by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field, including a new hospital built in 1887.
In 1899, the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period.
In the 1890s the perceived need to provide trained assistance and transport to hospital for the sick and injured resulted in the formation in Brisbane of the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade. Charters Towers set up the second branch of the QATB in 1900, needing it not only as a major city, but also as a mining town. Mining had always been a dangerous occupation and rapid growth tended to overtake the provision of safety measures, making serious accidents not uncommon. This was also the case in Ravenswood where between 1879 and 1917, 22 miners were killed and 116 injured in the course of their work. The water supply was also unsafe and there were periodic outbreaks of serious illnesses caused by this. The ambulance centre was established in Macrossan Street, a date commemorated on the parapet of the current ambulance building. Ambulances were equipped with harnesses which were used to pull up injured men from mine shafts. In 1904, the current building was constructed to serve 4700 people, the highest population level that Ravenswood would ever have.
After 1908 the town began to decline and the hospital closed. As time went by the cost of extraction grew as returns lessened and Wilson lost money searching for 'mother' lodes at deep levels and began to lay off miners. A strike in 1912 dragged out for eight months causing hardship and although judgement eventually favoured the miners, Wilson could no longer afford to employ many of them. The decline of the Ravenswood mines continued with the outbreak of war in 1914 increasing costs and disruptions to the labour supply. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s most of the timber buildings in Ravenswood were moved away, although brick buildings, such as the Ambulance station, could not be moved. Ravenswood Shire was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire in 1929 and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection and therefore the use of the railway ambulance which had served Ravenswood from Charters Towers since 1919. Mining had a modest revival in the 1930s, but this had little effect on the life of the town. By the 1960s Ravenswood had reached its lowest ebb with a population of about 70. At this point, tourists began to take a growing interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
Following the closure of the hospital, the ambulance service had often provided medical advice. The centre was staffed until the 1950s although the buildings was also used intermittently for storage. In the 1960s the Flying Doctor began to hold a monthly surgery in the building. Clinics held by the Royal Flying Doctor Service have continued to the present day.
The building underwent considerable repair and refurbishment in the 1990s and continues to provide medical services for the community through clinics. It also houses a part time children's play group and the State Emergency Service has storage facilities built in a shed to the rear in 1997.
","criteria":"Mining has been important in the development of North Queensland and the Ambulance Station is one of the few buildings remaining from the boom period of the once important goldfield town of Ravenswood. Many accidents occurred in early mines and the erratic water supply of many mining towns caused frequent outbreaks of serious illness. The Ambulance Station therefore provided an essential service. Its early establishment and subsequent expanded medical use when the population reduced and the hospital closed illustrates a pattern of expansion and decline common to many mining towns.
|It is important as an example of an early ambulance station providing accommodation for ambulance, staff and office in a small, centrally placed building.
|The Ambulance station is an attractive building and, as one of the few brick buildings from the boom years of Ravenswood, is an important feature of its townscape.
|The Ambulance station has a long association with the Ravenswood community and the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15221,"place_ref":600446,"name":"Imperial Hotel, Ravenswood","alternate_name":"Ravenswood Imperial Hotel","street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Imperial Hotel is located on Macrossan Street, in the town centre, one of just a few buildings in a landscape of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst chinee apple trees and rubber vines. To the rear is Buchanan's Creek, one of those which formed the centre of the field. Originally, there was a laneway to the south of the hotel and this side and the front have elaborate two storey verandahs. In contrast, the northern side is very plain, evidence that another building once adjoined it.
It is a symmetrical two storey building with a U shaped plan constructed of exposed red brick laid in English bond and decorated with horizontal bands of cream brick at the front. The corrugated iron roof is concealed by a high parapet with a central arched pediment and six flanking spires. The verandah to the street has a corrugated iron roof and is supported by paired posts with fretted timber brackets to the upper storey and a timber valance with arched openings on the ground floor. The upper verandah has panels of cast iron balustrading. The verandah on the side elevation is not connected to this and is to the upper floor only. It has dowel balustrading. There are two front entrances, one to the bar and one to the central hallway. On the upper floor French windows open out from bedrooms on to the verandahs.
The building retains almost all of it's original fabric and the interior layout is typical of nineteenth century hotels. It is exceptionally intact down to furniture, fittings and minor items of hotel equipment. The ground floor contains the bars, dining room and furniture and fittings, a billiard room and table, kitchen, store rooms and office. Features include an elaborately constructed and decorated bar with cedar and glass fittings, beer engines and ceramic taps.
A narrow, open court yard extends between the two wings of the building with ground floor toilets at the rear of the kitchen wing. Bedrooms are located on the first floor along with bathroom and toilet facilities. Upstairs the building contains much of its original furniture and fittings.
","history":"The Imperial Hotel, a striking two storey brick hotel in the main Street of Ravenswood, is one of a handful of buildings which survive from this once important mining town. Constructed in 1901 for James Delaney and run by members of this family for most of the twentieth century, it is evidence of Ravenswood's prosperity during its boom period.
The discovery of several important goldfields in Queensland in the nineteenth century formed a major component in the development of the North.. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
The area was first settled by Europeans following the establishment of Bowen in 1861. Pastoral runs were soon set up in the hinterland, including the area on which the Ravenswood field was to develop. Gold had been found in north Queensland at Star River in 1865 and this triggered further exploration. Gold was found at Merri Merriwa, the run on which the town of Ravenswood stands, in 1867, although it was reported as being on the adjoining property of Ravenswood, the name by which the field was always known. The first claim made was the 'Perseverance', later to be known as the 'Donnybrook' mine. This has a connection with the Imperial since the success of the mine is said to have provided James Delaney with the capital with which to build the hotel.
Much of the gold initially found was in a triangle in and around three dry creeks which soon formed the focus for a tent and shanty settlement. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871 and at this time it had 30 hotels and a population of about 1000.
It was also beginning to have problems as gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town. Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. Shanties were replaced by sawn timber buildings and as single miners left, more families moved in. The stability of the town was assisted by linking of Ravenswood to the Townsville/Charters Towers railway line in 1884. In this year the Ravenswood Gold Company was formed and experimented with better means to process local ore. In 1899 the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period.
In 1900 James Delaney applied for a licence for a new 18 bedroom hotel. He had been the licensee of the Commercial Hotel since 1896 when he married Anne Browne, possibly a connection of the owner of the town's most prominent hostelry, Browne's Ravenswood Hotel. The site purchased by Delaney was separated from Browne's by only 2 shops and he opened his splendid two storey Imperial Hotel in early 1901. On the night of the 18 April, 1901, the Imperial burned to the ground taking with it the whole block of buildings, with the exception of Browne's hotel, which had been protected by a brick wall. The damage was estimated at £20,000. The wall had possibly been erected as a firewall as both the Ravenswood Hotel and the shops Browne owned alongside it were timber, as were virtually all of the buildings in Ravenswood. Closely built timber structures and the lack of an adequate water supply for fire fighting made it possible for fires to race along a block until reaching a gap which acted as a fire break, a fact underlined by a similar fire on the opposite side of the street only three months later. The owners agreed to use the same architect, Eaton, Bates and Polin, to redesign the whole block and tenders were called in early May 1901. The shops between the Ravenswood and the Imperial were replaced by 'Browne's Buildings', Trehearn built a new shop for his former tenant, James Tait & Co. and the bakery and Commercial Hotel, both owned by the Estate of Michael Franzman, were replaced by 3 shops.
Ravenswood had produced bricks since its early years and a team of bricklayers is thought to have already been on the field, brought in by A.L. Wilson to rebuild mining structures such as chimneys. It is said that bricks were brought in from Townsville, but these may have been the cream face bricks applied in bands as a feature of the new buildings and seen to striking effect on the Imperial, which became the centrepiece of two rows of handsome shops.
Delaney died in July 1902 but had already made the hotel over the his wife in 1901. The Delaney's had four daughters, Mary Ellen (1896), Kathleen (1898), Teresa (1899) and Johanna (1901) who at the time of his death were aged between six years and eleven months. In the early years Mrs Delaney appears to have employed a manager, but in 1906 took over the management herself, pending a proposed transfer of the license. In the event, she continued to run the hotel, assisted by her daughters as they grew up.
The population of Ravenswood peaked in 1903 at 4700 but after 1908 the town began to decline. As time went by the cost of extraction grew as returns lessened and Wilson lost money searching for 'mother' lodes at deep levels and began to lay off miners. A strike in 1912 dragged out for eight months causing hardship and although judgement eventually favoured the miners, Wilson could no longer afford to employ many of them. The decline of the Ravenswood mines continued with the outbreak of war in 1914 increasing costs and disruptions to the labour supply. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s most of the buildings in Ravenswood were moved away, but the Imperial, being a brick building, could not be moved and continued to trade. Ravenswood Shire ceased to exist in 1929 and was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire. In 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection. A small revival occurred during the 1930s and a shaft was sunk next to the hotel, but most gold was gained by applying more modern extraction processes to known sites. This did not make much difference to the life of the town and by the 1960s it had reached its lowest ebb with a population of about 70. At this point, tourists began to take an interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
Throughout the difficult times in Ravenswood, the hotel continued to trade. Anne Delaney died in 1968 and the hotel was then run by Teresa (Tessa) who died in 1980 and Jo who died in 1989. The hotel then passed to Mary (Maisie), the only married daughter, and her three daughters, Kathleen having died early. In 1994 it was sold to local owners and still operates as a hotel. Ravenswood's two hotels have helped to maintain an economic life in the town and continue to offer accommodation and recreational facilities.
The buildings which flanked the hotel have been demolished, the last bay of Browne's Buildings within recent years, so the hotel now stands alone. The new owners have redecorated some of the bedrooms on the first floor and have removed some of the dining room furniture into storage to create a pool room at the front of the hotel.
","criteria":"Gold mining has been important in the development of North Queensland and the Imperial Hotel is one of the few buildings remaining from the once important goldfield town of Ravenswood. As an intact and good quality commercial building in what was once the heart of this town, it provides evidence of both the prosperity of the field at the turn of the nineteenth century and of its subsequent decline, illustrating a pattern common on nineteenth century goldfields.
The Imperial Hotel has a strong association with James Delaney and with female members of the Delaney family who conducted the hotel for over 90 years.
|The Imperial Hotel is rare because of the intactness of the building itself and of its interiors, particularly that of the bar, which is not only a fine example of its type, but remains virtually unchanged, highly unusual in a type of building in which constant change and refurbishment is common.
|Because of the preservation of room layout and usage, fittings and furniture, the Imperial Hotel has the potential to yield information that will contribute to our understanding of the operation of a hotel of the Federation era.
|The Imperial Hotel is important as a good representation of a quality hotel of its era in general form and layout; however, its style and decoration, both inside and out, transcend the typical.
|The Imperial is a fine and exuberant example of Federation hotel architecture and as a substantial two storey building, one of two remaining hotels, is a dominant feature in the town. It is generally the building most admired and photographed by visitors to Ravenswood.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15222,"place_ref":600447,"name":"Ravenswood Post Office and Residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Post Office and Residence are located at the corner of Raven and Macrossan Streets, close to the bridge over Elphinstone Creek. The town is located in a mining landscape which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive 'chinkee apple' trees and rubber vine.
The Post office is a single storey timber building with an exposed stud frame, set on low stumps. It has a hipped, corrugated iron roof and is surrounded on three sides with verandahs supported on paired timber posts. The verandahs have diagonal timber balustrading and a cast iron valance. That on the right hand side is partially enclosed .
The front verandah and entrance to the Post Office and store are reached by steps up to a classically inspired central entrance formed of a triangular timber pediment supported by square timber pillars. The imposing effect created by this entrance is somewhat diminished by the presence of three petrol bowser in front of the stairs.
The Residence at the rear of the Post Office is built of similar materials. It is surrounded by verandahs, has a pyramid roof of corrugated iron and is connected to the Post Office by a short walkway.
","history":"The Ravenswood Post Office was constructed in 1885 on the corner of Macrossan and Raven Streets, replacing an earlier Post and Telegraph Office which had been in use since 1873.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
Gold was discovered at Ravenswood in 1868 a few years after pastoral settlement of the area had begun. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871 and such public buildings as a courthouse, a school and a Post Office and Telegraph Station were constructed within the first few years. However, miners began to encounter problems as the gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town.
Even so, the town continued to prosper, supported by a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. As single miners left, more families moved in and sawn timber buildings replaced the tents and shanties of the early field. The economy of the town was also assisted by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from Ravenswood ore. Several key public buildings were replaced in the 1880s, possibly as a government initiative to encourage the development of the town. In 1882 a new Court House and Police Station were built and a new hospital in 1887. The 1873 Post Office was replaced by the current building in 1885.
In 1899, the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period, which lasted for several years. However, after 1908, the cost of extraction and continued exploration grew as returns lessened and after the end of World War I, it became apparent that it would not pick up again. In 1916 rail services were cut and in 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s, buildings as well as people left Ravenswood, as timber buildings were relocated in other towns. There was a small revival in the 1930s and early 1940s as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores. Ownership of the Post Office passed from the Commonwealth Government into private hands in 1951, when Frank and Dorothy Weinheimer purchased the building and continued to run it as a post office. However, by the 1960s, the population fell to 70. This was to be its lowest level, as tourists began to take an interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them The Post Office was purchased by Warren and Fay Crow in 1975 and to the present owners in 1985. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
Throughout Ravenswood's ups and downs, it has continued to provide some government and recreational services to the surrounding community. Postal services have been provided from this site since 1873, and from the current building since 1885. It now also run as a small mixed business selling groceries, fruit and vegetables and other small items is run from the building in conjunction with the postal services. The owners occupy the residence at the rear of the building.
","criteria":"Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland that gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region. The state's encouragement for such growth was demonstrated by the establishment of supporting public infrastructure such as Post and Telegraph Offices. The services so provided were vital in the establishment of isolated towns, particularly when they also had important resources, as Ravenswood did.
|The buildings are good examples of their type, being erected according to architectural types developed at this time by the Public Works Department, which was instrumental in improving the quality of building design and construction in Queensland.
|The Post Office is well designed and distinctive as an important public building in the town. Its position with a frontage to both Raven and Macrossan Streets makes it a significant feature in the townscape of Ravenswood.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15224,"place_ref":600449,"name":"Cake Shop, Ravenswood","alternate_name":"The Pie Shop | Jun Yeung Wong and Company; Ravenswood Cake Shop","street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Cake Shop is located on the western side of Macrossan Street near to the School of Arts and within the town centre of Ravenswood. The town is located in a mining landscape, which consists of disturbed ground scattered with ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinkee apples and rubber vines.
The shop is a modest single storey, timber framed building set on low stumps. It is rectangular in plan and with its long axis at right angles to the street. The gabled roof and outside walls are sheeted with corrugated, galvanised iron. The shopfront is clad with sawn boards and shaded by a corrugated iron skillion awning supported by plain timber posts over the footpath. Above the awning the gable is clad with sheet metal panels. The central front entrance is flanked by large shop windows with display alcoves behind. The interior has a timber floor and is largely unlined.
","history":"The Cake Shop is located on the western side of Macrossan Street near the School of Arts. It is thought to have been built in the 1880s and may have been first used by Jun Yeung Wong and Company as a store and an outlet for garden produce. It has had a variety of tenants over the years and is best remembered by people in the district as a cake or pie shop.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
Gold was discovered at Ravenswood in 1868, a few years after pastoral settlement of the area had begun. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871, but problems were soon encountered as the gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, and a school. The stability of the town was also assisted by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field.
In 1882 the land on which the shop stands was subdivided from the block granted to Ebenezer Roberts the previous year and was purchased by Frederick Wise. Wise kept a store and was Vice President of the School of Arts. An early resident of Ravenswood remembered the store as having being used by the Chinese as a general store, produce outlet and a gold exchange during the 'rush' years, although this may have simply taken the form of accepting payment for goods in gold. The name Jun Yeung Wong and Company was faintly visible on the front of the store until the 1960s, although it is not recorded in post office directories. Ravenswood had a significant minority of Chinese amongst its population in the nineteenth century, although, as with other goldfields, there is now little evidence of their presence .
In 1904 the property the property was acquired by Daniel Patience, apparently as an investment, but run by a Mrs Watson as a cordial shop and manufactory as an adjunct to James Watson's aerated waters factory until 1918. By this time Ravenswood was in serious decline, after having enjoyed a boom between 1900 and 1908 due to more modern techniques being applied to ore processing. However, the cost of extraction and continued exploration rose as returns fell and after the end of the war it became apparent that it would not pick up again. In 1918 the shop was sold to the Kluver family. Herbert Kluver was a carrier and his wife ran the shop as refreshment rooms. In the 1920s, buildings as well as people left Ravenswood, as timber buildings were relocated in other towns.
In 1924 the shop was bought by Ethel Wadsworth who ran refreshment rooms throughout the small revival of the 1930s and early 1940s as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores, but closed in 1947. It was grandly called a restaurant in its closing years but seems to have been actually a cake and pie shop that provided table service for customers. This is the use best remembered by local people. It may have been empty for a while before being sold to Gertrude Blackman in 1952. Its use during that time is not known but by then there were very few businesses in town and its use as a residence is remembered locally. It was purchased by the owners of Ravenswood station in 1966 and was used at one time to store fodder. During this period the population of Ravenswood fell to 70. This was to be its lowest level, because tourists began to take an interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland.. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
The present owner purchased the Cake shop in 1986, but in 1989 it was severely damaged by two cyclones. A grant from the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage in 1991, together with assistance from the Dalrymple Shire Council, allowed the store to be repaired and the store front to be reconstructed reusing original materials where possible. In 1993 the rear of the shop and an attached residence were demolished.
A gift, craft and cake shop was opened in the building after renovations.
","criteria":"Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region. The Cake Shop reflects this economic and social development through it's role as a commercial building in the centre of the Ravenswood business district.
|Although as a modest timber and iron commercial building it is now a rarity in Ravenswood, it is important as a representative example of a type of building once common in the town and as such provides some perspective for the other remaining buildings, such as the hotels, which are far more grand.
|As one of a handful of buildings remaining from the peak years of Ravenswood, set amongst a mining landscape of mullock heaps, abandoned mines and equipment, the shop makes an important visual contribution to the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15227,"place_ref":600452,"name":"Thorps Building","alternate_name":"Thorp's Goldfield Tearooms | Hollimans Limited | Burns & Fritz Hardware","street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Thorp's Building is located in the main street of Ravenswood opposite the Imperial Hotel and adjacent to a single storey shop of approximately the same age. Ravenswood is located in a mining landscape which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinkee apple trees and rubber vines.
The building is a two storey rendered brick building with a corrugated iron skillion roof falling to the rear which is concealed by a parapet bearing the name Thorp's Buildings in raised letters. It consists of two shops at ground level with professional offices above. The front of the building has verandahs to both floors, supported by paired timber posts with cast iron lace brackets and valance and cast iron panels on the upper floor. The upper floor has four sets of French doors opening on to the verandah.
A central entrance with iron gates leads to a passage and stairs to the first floor. There are shop entrances on either side of this entrance with recessed timber doors and timber framed plate glass display windows. The interior of the shops are relatively intact, including the pressed metal ceilings and wall cladding. The building has its own gas producer and still has gas piping and fittings.
","history":"Thorp's Buildings was constructed about 1903 for Sydney Hood Thorp, a mining agent and sharebroker who had a substantial business interest in both the Ravenswood and Charters Towers goldfields. It housed businesses which supplied miners with everything from household goods to mining machinery and is the only two storey shop still standing in Ravenswood.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
Gold was discovered at Ravenswood in 1868, a few years after pastoral settlement of the area had begun. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871, but problems were soon encountered as the gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, and a school. The stability of the town was also assisted by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field.
The land on which Thorp's Buildings stands was purchased in 1881 by Ah Pong, although the first person recorded as trading from the site was Martin Braby who acquired the property in 1885. Initially a draper, he went on to become a commission and insurance agent also. In 1894 the property was purchased by Robert Stewart and James Clark and was probably leased out by them as commercial premises.
In 1899, the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period, which lasted for several years.
Sydney Hood Thorpe was a sharebroker and mining agent based in Charters Towers, who had established a mining exchange there in 1887. In 1900 he set up a branch business in Ravenswood, trading as Thorp's Mining Exchange from a building in Barton Street which also housed a chemist and law library. This building was destroyed by fire in August 1901, a year of both destruction and construction in Ravenswood as the New Ravenswood Company rebuilt mining infrastructure, business improved and new commercial buildings went up following two large fires which destroyed whole blocks of the commercial area. Following the first of these in April, the Imperial Hotel and two adjoining rows of elegant shops were constructed in Macrossan Street, next to the Ravenswood Hotel. In 1902, Thorp purchased land opposite these new buildings. It is not known if Thorp ever conducted business from this address himself.
He was a shareholder in Hollimans Limited, a company that had been established in Charters Towers for some time, supplying the mining industry with household goods, guns and sporting equipment, as well as being agents for such mining essentials as steam engines, pumps, conveyors, compressors and parts for stamper batteries. They were also estate and commission agents. They opened a branch in Thorp's building in 1903 and it may have been constructed with this tenancy in mind, although they did not actually own the building until 1920. Hollimans at Ravenswood were 'machinery, hardware and timber merchants' who carried a large stock of new and second hand mining machinery and spares as well as furniture and ironmongery. Thorp's Buildings also had other tenants, including a dentist, and the upper floor may have been used as offices.
The mining boom at Ravenswood did not last and ironically, by the time Hollimans moved into the store, the population had peaked. After 1908 the cost of extraction and continued exploration rose as returns fell and by World War I it became apparent that returns would not pick up again. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed. In the 1920s most of the timber buildings in Ravenswood were moved away, although brick buildings, such Thorp's Buildings could not be moved.
Ravenswood Shire was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire in 1929 and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection. Mining had a modest revival in the 1930s and in 1932 Robert Burns, previously a manager of Hollimans, leased the building in conjunction with a partner, John Fritz. They operated as Burns & Fritz Hardware also selling groceries and eventually purchased the building from Hollimans in 1948. In 1957, following the death of Fritz, the building was sold to Frank and Blanche Weinheimer. By the 1960s Ravenswood had reached its lowest ebb with a population of about 70. At this point, tourists began to take a growing interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them.
In 1973 the building was acquired by Sidney and Isabel Kelly but had been vacant for some time before being purchased in 1987 and renovated as an arts centre by Trevor and Pamela Nance. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
In 1989 Thorp's Buildings was sold to the current owners who opened a tearoom in the building, using the adjoining shop to sell arts and crafts. The upper floor was used for residential purposes. Though the shop is currently vacant, the owner still lives on the premises.
","criteria":"Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region. Thorp's Buildings, as a substantial commercial building intended to stock essential supplies for miners and mining and to compete in quality with other commercial buildings being constructed in Ravenswood in the 1900s, demonstrates this development.
|(Criterion under review)
|Thorp's Buildings is the now the two storey store from a commercial centre which, in the early 1900s, featured a line of handsome and fashionable stores on either side of southern Macrossan street. In its form, layout and decoration it is a good example of a quality commercial building of the Federation era. It's original usage, as a provider of everything from household goods to mining machinery, accurately reflects the needs of a mining community at this time.
|Thorp's Buildings, forming a group with the adjacent single storey shop, is an attractive group which is an important and dominant feature of the Ravenswood townscape.
|Thorp's Buildings is important for its association with Sydney Hood Thorp, a sharebroker and mining agent who played an important role in the economy of the Ravenswood goldfield. It also had a long association with Robert Daniel Burns, first as manager of Hollimans and then as part owner of Burns & Fritz.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15228,"place_ref":600453,"name":"Ravenswood School of Arts","alternate_name":"School of Arts Ravenswood","street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The School of Arts is located on Macrossan Street, the main street of Ravenswood. It is on the edge of the town's commercial centre and close to the Imperial Hotel. Ravenswood is located in a mining landscape which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinkee apples and rubber vines.
The School of Arts is a single storey, rectangular timber building set on low concrete stumps. It is rectangular in plan with its long axis at right angles to the street and has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The sides and back have an exposed stud frame but the front is weatherboard clad. The facade is symmetrical and divided into bays by pilasters. The arched parapet is echoed by the arched heads of the central front door and the double hung windows which flank it.
The interior features a large open space and a stage. The stage curtain has been preserved and is decorated with painted advertisements for local businesses dating from around the turn of the century, reflecting its use as a community building.
","history":"The School of Arts building is a timber hall, built in 1884 beside a former School of Arts structure then used as a library. It became the principal theatre, cinema, and social venue of Ravenswood and continued a series of facilities provided to the community of Ravenswood since 1872.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields in which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
The area was first settled by Europeans following the establishment of Bowen in 1861. Pastoral runs were soon set up in the hinterland, including the area on which the Ravenswood field was to develop. The first gold in north Queensland had been found at Star River in 1865 and triggered further exploration. Gold was found at Merri Merriwa, the run on which the town of Ravenswood stands, in 1867, although it was reported as being on the adjoining property of Ravenswood, the name by which the field was always known.
Much of the gold initially found was in a triangle in and around three dry creeks which soon formed the focus for a tent and shanty settlement. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established, had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871.
It was soon found that the gold at deeper levels was finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town. Even so, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, a hospital and a school. In 1872, the first small School of Arts was formed, providing a lending library, newspapers and a meeting place for its members and in 1875 a separate library building was constructed beside it.
The first Mechanic's Institutes or Schools of Arts were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self improvement and to promote moral, social and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no public libraries and books were expensive, so that access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important educational and recreational service. The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 with the aim of 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to establish schools of arts and they became one of the principal sources of adult education.
Ravenswood's economy received a boost in the mid 1880s by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field, including a police station and courthouse, post office and hospital. In 1884, the current hall was built beside the library, presumably replacing the first small hall. In the late nineteenth century Schools of Arts expanded their aims to include the promotion of games of skill and intellectual amusements. The new hall provided the facilities for the staging of plays and concerts and became a focal point of entertainment for townspeople. It was used as a meeting hall, dance hall and a live theatre. An amateur dramatic society staged annual productions and a School concert and St Patrick's Day concert were annual events.
.
In 1899, the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period, which lasted for several years. However, after 1908, the cost of extraction and continued exploration grew as returns lessened and after the end of World War I, it became apparent that it would not pick up again. In 1916 rail services were cut and in 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s, buildings as well as people left Ravenswood, as timber buildings were relocated in other towns. There was a small revival in the 1930s and early 1940s as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores. However, by the 1960s, the population fell to 70. This was to be its lowest level, as tourists began to take an interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
In 1989 Cyclone Aivu damaged the facade of the hall and caused the complete collapse of the library. This building was propped by the community, but eventually demolished in 1992 as it was thought unsafe. The hall was repaired and the front reconstructed to resemble its original appearance In 1990 the Dalrymple Shire Council and Carpentaria Gold financed extensive renovations to the hall. Its official opening took place on Sunday, 29 September, 1991, since when it has again become a focus for community activities and celebrations including the "Back To Ravenswood Weekend" held each year.
","criteria":"The Ravenswood School of Arts is important as an element in the network of Schools of Arts which sprang up in any town of consequence in Queensland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were community based and played a valuable educational and social role in the dissemination of information and the provision of facilities for lectures, meetings, games of skill and the staging of community events such as plays and concerts.
|It is a good example of a School of Arts hall with a classically influenced facade and the provision of facilities for public events.
|The building is a significant as part of the townscape of Ravenswood because of its location within a group of other public and commercial buildings, close to the town centre.
|The painted stage curtain carrying advertisements for local firms around the turn of the century reflects its importance as a building used by the community.
The School of Arts is important for its connection with the community of Ravenswood as a an integral part of the social and community life of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15229,"place_ref":600454,"name":"Shop adjacent to Thorps Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The shop is located adjoining Thorp's Buildings in Macrossan Street close to what was the commercial centre of Ravenswood. This is located in a mining landscape which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinkee apple trees and rubber vines.
It is a single storey brick commercial building housing two stores with plate glass display windows and a central entrance with recessed timber doors. It has a pitched roof clad with corrugated iron and concealed by an ornate rendered parapet This has a raised section in the centre topped with a urn within a hollow arch, echoing the central arch motif on the Imperial Hotel and Browne's Buildings opposite. It is flanked by urns at each end of the parapet, although one of these has been lost. An awning supported by plain timber posts shades footpath at the front of the store and is decorated by a sawn timber valance. Most detail is intact.
","history":"The Macrossan Street store is located adjoining Thorp's Buildings and houses two shops in a single storey brick building. It was probably constructed during a building boom in Ravenswood in the early 1900s and has had a variety of commercial tenants including a long occupancy as a bookseller, newsagent and tobacconist.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
Gold was discovered at Ravenswood in 1868, a few years after pastoral settlement of the area had begun. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871, but problems were soon encountered as the gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, and a school. The stability of the town was also assisted by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field.
The Deed of Grant for the property was issued in 1881 to Phillip Benjamin, who quickly resold it to John Ellis, a bootmaker and saddler. As this was already a commercial area, there may have been an existing store on site or Ellis may have constructed one. In 1896 he became insolvent and the property was purchased by William J McChesney, a telephone line repairer.
In 1899, the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period, which lasted for several years.
The style and materials of the store suggest that it may have been built during the surge of building that occurred in Ravenswood about this time. Following a fire in 1901, the buildings on the opposite site of the street were rebuilt in brick in a flamboyant style reflecting the prosperity of the goldfield. Thorp's building adjoining the store was constructed soon afterwards. Unfortunately the boom did not last and after 1908 the town began to decline. In 1912 McChesney died and the property was purchased by Raymond W. Richards, a bookseller, newsagent and tobacconist in Ravenswood since 1902. By this time the field was in serious decline because the cost of extraction and continued exploration rose as returns fell and it became apparent that the field would not pick up again. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s most of the timber buildings in Ravenswood were moved away, although brick buildings, such Thorp's Buildings and the store, could not be moved. In 1925 the shop was sold to Phillip Dennis who opened a haberdashery, drapery, tobacconists and newsagency at the address, possibly in two shops.
Ravenswood Shire was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire in 1929 and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection. Mining had a modest revival in the 1930s, but this had little effect on the life of the town. By the 1960s Ravenswood had reached its lowest ebb with a population of about 70. At this point, tourists began to take a growing interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In 1978 both Phillip and Jessie Dennis died and the property passed to Gordon Dennis who owned it until 1984, when it was purchased by the current owners.
Although the shop has had a number of commercial tenants since it was built, for a significant part of the time it has served as a newsagent, tobacconist and haberdashery. It is currently vacant.
In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
","criteria":"Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region. The Macrossan Street shop, as a substantial commercial building serving the needs of a prosperous mining community, demonstrates this development.
|The shop is one of only two substantial retail stores from a commercial centre which, in the early 1900s, featured a line of handsome and fashionable buildings on both sides of southern Macrossan street. In its form, layout and decoration it is a good example of a quality commercial building of its era.
|With Thorp's building it forms an attractive group which is an important and dominant feature of the Ravenswood townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15230,"place_ref":600455,"name":"Ravenswood State School, Residence and Former Pool","alternate_name":"Ravenswood School and Residence I Ravenswood State School Swimming Pool (former)","street_address":"School Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ravenswood State School occupies an elevated and sloping site that includes allotments to either side of School Street in the north Queensland town of Ravenswood, approximately 100km south of Townsville. The school is in a prominent position overlooking the town and surrounding mining landscape (of scattered ruins, mullock heaps, distinctive chinkee apple trees and rubber vines).
\nThe main school reserve is located to the southeast of School Street, on a 13000m2 allotment bound to the east by Elcoate Street, to the north by John Street and to the south by a reserve. It comprises a Timber School Building and a Residence, standing at the northern end of the allotment. The Swimming Pool, located to the northwest and on the opposite side of School Street, occupies an 1860m2 site. It comprises an in-ground Swimming Pool (former, c1925) excavated into the sloping terrain. The Timber School Building, Residence and Swimming Pool retain an important visual connection with each other (although this is partly obscured by vegetation in 2017).
\nTimber School Building (1873, extended pre-1905)
\nThe Timber School Building is a single storey, rectangular building with its main axis to the street. It has a timber frame clad with weatherboards and is raised on high concrete stumps to create a shaded space underneath. The steeply pitched gabled roof is clad in corrugated iron extending to a skillion roofed verandah at the front and a rear enclosed verandah. The verandahs are supported on timber posts and have timber balustrading.
\nResidence (1873, extended 1897)
\nThe Residence is a single storey, rectangular house with its main axis to the street. It is timber framed, set on low stumps and clad in weatherboards. Its form is unusual as a result of repated extensions and it has open verandahs with horizontal balustrades on two sides. The roof is steeply pitched and is multi-gabled and clad with corrugated iron.
\nSwimming Pool (former, pre-1926)
\nThe Swimming Pool (former) is rectangular in form, with its long axis running approximately north-south. It measures 13.63 m x 4.95 m (45 ft x 16 ft), and stands empty. The pool walls and floor are of reused red bricks, sealed in a cement render (the render is worn down in some locations, exposing the brick). The width of the walls are approximately the size of a standard brick (230 mm), and are raised above the sloping ground at a height of 0.23 m on the western side and 0.45 m on the eastern side. The floor of the pool slopes down toward the south, with a depth ranging from 1.06 m at the northern end to 1.49 m at the southern end.
\nAccess is provided via three concrete steps in the northeastern corner of the pool. A rectangular concrete foot-wash basin is located adjacent the steps, on the northern side of the northern wall, and rows of brick pavers surround the pool on all sides.
\nNon-significant features
\nModern buildings and facilities on the school site are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nMetal and timber bracing elements supporting the eastern and western walls of the pool, and a metal sign post to the west of the pool are recent additions and are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"School and Residence
\nThe school and residence are components of an educational facility that has served Ravenswood since 1873. The existing early building at Ravenswood School is an 1880s extension of the original school built in 1873 and the residence dates from 1873, with extensions made over the years to accommodate changing needs.
\nGold was discovered at Ravenswood in 1868, a few years after pastoral settlement of the area had begun. A tent settlement quickly sprang up and was surveyed in 1870 and gazetted as a town in 1871. Although many miners left for other fields when it was found that the gold at deeper levels was difficult to separate from the ore body, Ravenswood continued to prosper and more families moved into the town as it developed. The need for a school was soon apparent.
\nAt Separation of Queensland from New South Wales at the end of 1859, two National (government) Schools existed in the new colony. In 1860, the Primary Education Act was passed, introducing a comprehensive system of State schools alongside a minimal provision for church schools. A Board of General Education was set up to administer annual grants, assist in building vested schools, and provide teachers. A few National Schools were built under this system, though the financial crisis in 1886 slowed up the project. However, Queensland was the first colony to provide free primary education from January 1870. A Royal Commission on Education in Queensland was set up in 1874 and resulted in a State Education Act which took effect from 1 January 1876 and provided for a Department of Public Instruction under a minister and a system of State primary schools.
\nIn 1872 a Ravenswood School Committee was formed and tenders were called for the construction of a school to meet the needs of the growing community. The government provided a teacher and books, but expected communities with more than 30 potential pupils to put up a third of the school costs. The Committee raised £306/18/- and covered the interim period by holding classes in the old 'Emerald Isle Hotel', purchased for the modest sum of £18.
\nAfter considerable disagreement between the committee and the Board of Education regarding the cost and suitability of plans provided by each, the school and residence were erected in 1873 and opened in January 1874 as a double classroom school with an enrolment of 70. As the school was constructed prior to the passage of the Queensland State Education Act it was known as the National School of Ravenswood.
\nThe school was initially within a school reserve of 2 acres and 22 perches of Crown Land, however, in 1875 the Ravenswood Divisional Board applied to the Minister for Works and Mines for a further grant of land in anticipation of continuing growth and the need to provide for a future girls' school. In 1887 the north corner of the school reserve was cut off by the Mines Department for street purposes and over the next forty years the boundaries fluctuated, echoing the booms and depression period experienced by Ravenswood.
\nRavenswood's economy received a boost in the mid 1880s by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field, including a police station and courthouse, post office and hospital. In 1889, the school reached its peak enrolment of almost 400 children. It was extended according to standard plans and by 1905 had 8 classrooms and a gymnasium. Ravenswood enjoyed a boom between 1900 and 1908 as more modern techniques were applied to ore processing. However, the cost of extraction and continued exploration rose as returns fell and after the end of the First World War it became apparent that the field would not pick up again. In the 1920s buildings as well as people moved away from Ravenswood and were relocated to other towns. In 1929 enrolment in the school fell to below 100 and in 1930, Ravenswood became the first town in Queensland to lose its rail connection.
\nAs the population declined, the extensions were progressively removed, although the foundations of extensions are still visible. A modern classroom block and other facilities have since been provided at the school.
\nThe school residence is the oldest building in Ravenswood and is thought to be the oldest surviving house in a North Queensland town. Because of its age, the residence predates the standardisation of design which strongly influenced domestic building throughout Queensland; the use of an exposed frame, for example, which was to become prevalent in North Queensland a decade later. The extensions to the residence and the reasons for each extension are fully documented. It remains today almost as it was on completion of the last extension in 1897 and is a catalogue of identifiable nineteenth century builders' techniques from 1873 to 1897.
\nIt was constructed originally as a lowset timber framed house of four rooms under a transverse gabled roof with an internal fireplace for cooking. The walls were clad externally with weatherboards but the interior was unlined. No separate kitchen was constructed and although it is believed that the first teacher appointed ate at a hotel, not an uncommon arrangement where a teacher was a single man, the design was more appropriate to a southern climate. The house was also constructed with only a front verandah, though after a complaint from the secretary of the local committee, a verandah was added to the rear later in 1874. On the appointment in 1877 of a teacher with a large family, a separate kitchen was requested on the grounds that \"...this climate does not admit of cooking being done in the midst of sleeping apartments\" A building from another site, described as \"an old weatherboarded house, shingle roofed\", was then attached to the house by a covered way. At some time a section of the rear verandah was enclosed to form a servant's room, possibly at the same time as the addition of the kitchen.
\nThe ceilings of the core section of the house were lined in 1883 and repairs made to storm damage in 1880 and 1884, the brick chimney being demolished following the severe storm of 1884 and not rebuilt, but no major changes were made until 1887 when the old kitchen was replaced by a new structure with a covered way and brick fireplace, the rear verandah room was moved to the other side of the building, a window was cut into the southeast bedroom wall and the core walls were lined internally with tongue-and-groove boards. Hans Thomsen and John Thomas, Ravenswood builders, carried out the alterations.
\nIn 1889 the then head teacher requested \"more suitable and worthy accommodation\", which reflects the general upgrading of public buildings in Ravenswood during the 1880s and the peak enrolment for that year of 390. The department responded by adding an asymmetrical extension to the front of the house, demolishing the front verandah and constructing an almost square living room with verandahs along the front and one side.
\nThe last extension was made in 1897, when a whole side of the residence was extended by eight feet to the north-east including a verandah on the third side of the living room. The verandahs were ceiled at that time. The house has since been altered only by the arrangement of some internal partitions and partial enclosure of the rear verandah.
\nExternally, the teacher’s residence remains the same as it was in 1897. It is no longer in use as a teacher’s residence.
\nSwimming Pool (former)
\nRavenswood State School swimming pool (former) is located at 36 School Street, Ravenswood on a local government swimming reserve to the northwest of the School and Residence. Located on the opposite side of the street to the school, the pool was built c1925 through the efforts of the head teacher and some of the boys at the school. The pool lay empty for many years before it was reconditioned as a water reservoir for mining operations in 1950. The land upon which it is situated was gazetted as a local government swimming reserve in 1979, although not used again for this purpose.
\nQueenslanders have a long tradition as a sports-loving people engaging in a wide variety of sports and quick to adopt new forms of activity. Queensland’s climate was conducive for swimming and could be undertaken with the minimum of amenities, although there were dangers associated with swimming in rivers, creeks and the sea. As a result, floating baths or enclosures were erected on river banks and at beaches to improve the safety of swimmers.
\nA new attitude towards swimming and more particularly bathing emerged during the 1880s. Amid a growing awareness of public health, in-ground swimming baths were promoted as a means of improving health and also a safer environment for swimming than in creeks and rivers. The first in-ground pool was erected in Rockhampton in 1883 and baths were subsequently erected around the State.
\nThe hot climate in north Queensland made swimming a particularly desirable activity. Early documented efforts at creating swimming facilities include a small swimming bath in a local Charters Towers creek as early as 1877 and by the 1880s the nearby Planter's Dam and the Burdekin River further afield were popular. In 1900 Charters Towers opened its first baths after many years of lobbying by locals.
\nSwimming became enormously popular in the early 20th century, following its inclusion in the modern Olympiad held in 1896. In Queensland, a modern progressive education included swimming which was taught in schools wherever access to a swimming pool (natural or artificial) was available. In 1908 the rules of swimming and other aquatic sports were standardised and in Queensland, metropolitan teachers who were keen to encourage swimming amongst school children formed the State Schools Amateur Swimming Association. By 1914, 34 clubs had been formed, catering for boys only. In 1911 a State Schools Girls’ Amateur Swimming Association was formed, with 28 schools affiliated by 1914. In 1915, the Hon HF Hardacre, Minister for Public Instruction, regarded swimming as ‘preferable to other physical drill during the hot summer months' and that he ‘would like to see a swimming pool in every school ground in Queensland.[1] From 1917, Voluntary Summer Schools of Instruction in Physical Training were offered to Teachers with swimming a compulsory subject.[2]
\nAlmost all of Queensland’s early state school pools were located in Brisbane. The first school to acquire a pool was Junction Park State School (QHR650023). The concrete pool, catering for 700 pupils was constructed by local builders and opened by the Minister for Public Instruction in February 1910. Wooloowin State School (QHR601565), keen to promote their school as one of the most modern in the state, completed its pool in 1916 with funds raised by the building committee. Ascot State School (QHR650044) completed their pool c1920, within 12 months of the school opening as part of a grand grounds improvement program. The fourth state school pool, at Cannon Hill State School (QHR602854), was completed in 1921 with the help of the school community, volunteers, parents, funding from the Department of Public Instruction and donations from the local brickworks, and the fifth was completed at Wilston State School (QHR602855) in 1923.
\nSwimming was given further impetus by the 1924 Olympic Games held in Paris where the standard was set for Olympic sized swimming pools. In 1925 Windsor State School (QHR600991) built a 30 metre concrete pool costing £2000 funded by the School Committee through a bank loan.
\nThere was no such support for the construction of a pool at Ravenswood State School in the 1920s when the mining town was in serious decline. In 1922 when the new head teacher James Charles Egan arrived, he was filled with despair at the fact that I had struck a town which the inhabitants were leaving as rats desert a sinking ship. Only those remained who could not possibly get away and to make matters worse the Department removed most of my school buildings creating the impression that they knew that the town was dying and that I had been sent to Siberia. In addition, the school committee had resigned in high anger at the removal of their best school building and Egan found himself alone in a strange place among strange people.[3]
\nDuring the mining boom at the turn of the century Ravenswood had numbered almost 5,000 and the School, established in 1872, reached its peak enrolment of 400 students in 1899. Ravenswood goldfield had been the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland but the boom did not last. Large scale mining ended in 1917, and the population and town shrank. Before the closure of Ravenswood’s railway branch line in 1930, hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away.[4] By 1924 the population had fallen to 609.[5]
\nEgan had been transferred from the Thornlands State School where he was also a swimming enthusiast and highly-regarded member of the Thornlands district swimming club. Upon his arrival in Ravenswood he initiated two unsuccessful attempts at establishing a pool in the local waterways. Undeterred, he subsequently secured a water supply for a pool in close proximity to the school through negotiations with the mine administrators to provide a junction in a water pipe being laid nearby to supply a tank on higher ground. All that remained was to find the means to construct the pool.
\nEgan’s plan to establish a local pool only found the support of the local boys. He tried on several occasions to engage the parents but to no avail. Scheduled meetings were not attended and Egan advised the boys that he would have to abandon the idea. He recalled in his article in the Townsville Bulletin…The following Saturday morning while sitting on the school verandah studying I was startled by the rattle of goat carts and the voices of boys shouting to their teams. In a few moments the boys had arrived in front of the school, their carts laden with bricks.[6]
\nThe boys would not be dissuaded and with Egan pegged out a pool and roughly excavated a 15 x 5 yard pool in their spare time. With a few of Egan’s personal friends and the local store manager the excavation was squared up, sand was carted up from the creek and finally with a subscription list, Egan was able to hire two men to build the brick walls and floor. The mine manager arranged for the filling of the pool a fortnight before Christmas 1925 and for the pool to be open a few hours every day while Egan was on holidays. A concert and subscription list cleared the debt and by the end of the season Egan had 80 swimmers.
\nMaintenance of the pool, which was surrounded by brick paving and enclosed with corrugated iron dressing sheds and fence[7] was carried out by Egan, with the help of a few boys. The pool was cleaned and refilled every Saturday. Egan described the pool as a lesson in self help to the children and a lesson to me that to be successful we must be so - not because of outside help but in spite of it.[8] Egan was transferred from Ravenswood to Oakey in mid 1926.[9]
\nHow long the pool operated after Egan’s departure is not known but it was recommissioned in 1942 and enjoyed by the pupils of St Anne’s School Townsville who were relocated to Ravenswood away from the coast line due to the threat of invasion of northern Australia during WWII.[10] In a 1950 report in the Northern Miner on a gold strike near Ravenswood and on the redevelopment of the Saratoga Mine by Messrs Cook, Eardman and Plaza, Mr Eardman recounted that the pool he had helped build as a school boy 25 years ago, and which had stood empty for many years, was to be patched and reused as a water reservoir for their battery operations.[11]
\nIn the 1960s and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population fell to its nadir of 68, but the locals were determined to preserve their authentic frontier town and provide new amenities and services. The Ravenswood Progress Association was formed in October 1975 and their first project was the construction of a new pool, intended for the State School but available to the general public. The School’s Parents and Citizens committee purchased land with its own water supply for this purpose off Deighton Street near the showgrounds where the current pool is located.[12]
\nIn 1979, a reserve of approximately 1860 square metres was set aside as a reserve for local government (swimming pool) purposes within the Ravenswood Mining Field.
","criteria":"The school complex is important as an example of an early school in a remote area, demonstrating the importance placed by government not only on education, but on the contribution made to the economy of the colony by such mining towns as Ravenswood. Its construction, extension and following reduction accurately reflect changes to the size and composition of the population and therefore the development and decline of Ravenswood as a goldfield and township.
\nThe Ravenswood State School Swimming Pool (former) (c1925) is important in demonstrating the widespread early 20th century movement to establish in-ground swimming pools for recreation and instruction and to improve health and safety in Queensland. Constructed largely by Ravenswood State School students and their teacher using discarded bricks from local mines, the pool, in its form and materials, is an early, rare and distinctive north Queensland example of its type.
|The Ravenswood School residence, constructed in 1873, is important as the oldest known residential building in a North Queensland town and its plan, roof form and construction details pre-date the standardised forms of later North Queensland houses. It is also the only one of the first government buildings erected on the field to survive.
|Because of their age and the fact that change has been well documented, the buildings, particularly the residence, have the potential to yield information regarding early building techniques and the way in which houses were extended to meet changing needs during the nineteenth and 20th centuries.
|The Ravenswood school is important as a good representative example of a school of its era and has had long continuity of use. The residence provides an excellent example of the way in which basic houses were enlarged in the Queensland tradition.
|The School is important for its connection with the community in and around Ravenswood as a provider of public education for several generations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15232,"place_ref":600457,"name":"Totley Township","alternate_name":"King's New Mill and Tramway | Great Extended Mine | Great Extended Mill","street_address":"Charters Towers Mining District","suburb":"TOTLEY","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Great Extended Mine
The site contains a steel headframe of asymmetrical design which is located over a timbered shaft. Erosion of the shaft collar has fully exposed one of the concrete footings of the headframe. A mullock dump is located immediately west of the headframe. East of the headframe is an open-sided engine shed of corrugated iron on a timber and steel frame, containing a winding engine on a brick mount and a large four-cylinder MAN diesel engine with a Vickers generator. The engine shed also contains a compressor and marble slab electrical switchboard. A security fence has recently been erected around the engine shed.
Plant:
Four-cylinder (marine type) diesel engine with flywheel - M.A.N.
DC generator (coupled to the M.A.N. diesel engine) - Vickers.
Small diesel engine - General Motors.
Electric winding engine - James Steel Engineers Marrickville Sydney.
Headframe steelwork - Dorman Long Middlesbrough.
King's New Mill and Tramway
The site contains brick milling and machinery foundations located within a 50m square area on the east bank of One Mile Creek. A dominant structure is a brick mount that was probably associated with the terminus of the endless chain tramway. A stone forge is located at the north of the place. Structural evidence of the mill is minimal and difficult to interpret. The formation of the tramway running east from the mill features a raised ramp with stone abutments to allow its passage under Birkby Street, Totley.
Great Extended Mill
Mill foundations are located on the bank of a creek and include a of rendered brick concentration tanks and two concrete buddle bases each 8m in diameter with four outer annular channels of concrete. Adjacent to and immediately south of the buddles is a large rendered brick settling pond. There is minimal evidence of the mill building/s or other plant. The site of a large tailings dump is still evident to the south and east of the mill.
","history":"Great Extended Mine
Ravenswood struggled to maintain its status as an important gold producer during the 1870s but in early 1880, a silver-lead discovery at Totley, about 2 km from Ravenswood led to renewed prosperity.
Richard King developed the first silver mine during 1881 and 1882, but realized he needed more capital to exploit the mine. Accordingly he launched the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Limited, with £60,000 in £1 shares, in Sydney in June 1882 and installed new plant and surface buildings. This activity sparked a small rush for silver properties and by the end of 1883 there were rival companies on adjacent leases trying to intersect the lode at deep levels.
The Great Extended Ravenswood Mining Company spent over £2,000 on surface plant (headframe, winding gear and two engines), and the shaft was sunk to 209m on the vertical and to a further 30.5m on the underlie once the lode was intersected. Although one assay was of 5,000 ozs of silver to the ton, results were disappointing compared with the adjacent King's mine.
There was a fatality (Alfred Cook) in the mine in 1886 and the mine manager (Frederick Wolff) was fined after admitting that the brace was faulty.
The Great Extended Company, with strong financial backing, was sustained more by hope than metal returns. Indeed the rich 1885 assay influenced wanton expenditure on an elaborate treatment plant costing £11,500, even though by 1888, when the mine's treatment works were completed, the amount of driving and stoping after the shaft had cut the lode, was minimal and only 2,000 tons had been stacked.
Operations at the mine ceased in 1890, probably due to speculative investment, which led to over-capitalisation, rather than because of falling silver prices, which had been sliding since 1886, or the loss of a silver consignment on the ill-fated S.S. Quetta.
In 1947 Percy Kean Jnr. commissioned a mining engineer, A.W. Wilson to report on the prospects for King's freehold and M.L. 363 which included the Great Extended shaft. Wilson reported that the Great Extended shaft had definitely proved a large lode formation with 180m to 206m vertical depth, from 1.5m to 3.6m in width with phenomenally high metal values at 198m depth. Kean decided to go ahead with development and purchased the mining plant at the Louisa mine, near Maytown, on the Palmer River goldfields. By 1949 he had erected the steel headframe, recollared the shaft and installed the Vickers generator and a 220 h.p. MAN diesel engine from the Louisa, and a new winding engine. However attempts to dewater the mine were unsuccessful so he pumped out the nearby King's mine.
In 1952, T.H. Connah, a government geologist, recommended further investigation of the front portion of the lode and Kean renewed equipment and continued mining. With the market depressed in 1953, Kean decided to abandon both mines. Kean's enterprise had produced 3,034 ozs of silver, 20 tons of lead and less than 100 tons of zinc concentrates.
Kean sublet the Great Extended lease to a Sydney company, Silver Horizons No Liability in 1964. They employed nine men to dewater the mine and clean out the stopes before mining but poor assay results discouraged further work and they withdrew. The mine has been abandoned since, although most of the machinery remains on site.
King's New Mill and Tramway
Richard King, realizing that he needed capital to further develop his mine, launched the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Limited with £60,000 capital in June 1882. The treatment works were erected by 1883 and consisted of a Hope's stone breaker, a set of 75cm rolls, a Hancock jig, 35cm raff wheel, pulleys and trommels; and the workforce doubled to 46 men. In 1883, 371 tons of high grade ore valued at £11,872 were exported. In 1884, the despatch by railway of 853 tons of concentrate valued at £19,566 reflected the increased productivity. In 1885, despite temporary suspension of operations due to drought, 866 tons of concentrate valued at £21,568 were dispatched. In 1886, 743 tons valued at £19,036 were exported and in 1887, the output was 899 tons valued at £20,632.
The township of Totley was surveyed in 1886 and the King family dominated the lives of the residents: Richard was the managing director of the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company; Edward was the mine manager; William owned the boarding house and store; and George ran the brickworks. Over half the streets of the township were named after King family members.
Following favourable official assessments of the ore potential in King's freehold, a Melbourne syndicate bought into the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company and refloated it, under the same name, on the English market. With over 30,000 tons of tailings in the dumps, the new company proposed an elaborate treatment plant to be housed in an all brick building on One Mile Creek, connected by an endless chain tramway to the mine, at a cost of £15,000.
The mill was completed in 1889 and equipped by Sandycroft and Company, of Chester U.K., with three engines aggregating 54 h.p., Cornish boilers, piston jiggers, stone breakers, two pairs of rollers, two raff wheels and elevators, classifier, three sluices, six 4.9m Borleas round buddles, picking tables, three Frue vanners and a separator. Richard King remained as director of the company and Edward King as mine manager. When operations resumed in 1890, the mill ran only briefly yielding 274 tons of concentrate valued at £6,411. Soon after it closed permanently and King's mine was let to tributors but it too closed at the end of 1891 when the company abandoned its leases.
In 1924 Percy Kean Snr. acquired King's freehold and commenced dewatering King's shaft but the task proved too much for their machinery and finances. After World War 2, King's freehold and M.L.363, which included the neighbouring Great Extended Shaft, were taken over by Percy Kean Jnr., who decided to recommence operations. However water inflow was again a problem and Kean decided to pump out King's shaft. In 1951 Kean raised 50 tons of galena from King's mine and rather than re-equip King's mill he had his ore processed at Partridge's mill on Elphinstone Creek. However, with falling prices, Kean decided in 1953 to abandon both mines.
Great Extended Mill
The Great Extended Mill was developed in conjunction with the Great Extended Mine. A rich assay in 1885 influenced £11,500 expenditure on an elaborate treatment plant which was completed in 1888. It consisted of three 54 h.p. steam engines, six Jordan and Cummins patent jiggers, a Black and Marsden stone breaker, winding and pumping gear, six revolving screens, two Linkenbach round buddles, classifier, elevators, picking tables, grizzly and spitzcasten.
The works were located on One Mile Creek, about 200m downstream from King's New Mill. Schemes were proposed for connecting the mill to the Great Extended Mine by a wire tramway and for constructing a pumping engine at Rocky Point on Elphinstone Creek with underground pipes to a reservoir to ensure sufficient water supply to the mill. However, apart from trial runs, the works never treated a single ton of ore for export and they were sold to the Mount Albion Silver Mining Company, operating at Montalbion near Irvinebank, and dismantled at the end of 1891.
","criteria":"The Great Extended Mine at Totley is significant as a silver mining operation which was sustained more by hope than metal returns during two separate phases: 1883-1890 and 1947-1964.
Despite minimal structural evidence of the mill, other than machinery foundations of brick covering a 50m square area, the tramway formation running east from the mill site is still visible with raised embankments with stone abutments to allow its passage under the streets of Totley township. This archaeological remnant is rare surviving evidence of the transport system from mine to mill and illustrates the speculative enterprise of the King family in their overcapitalized attempt to establish a viable silver mining industry in the Charters Towers district.
Its [the Great Extended Mill's] locational association with King's New Mill illustrates the competition of rival companies during a speculative boom period through the duplication of facilities.
|The steel headframe over the mine is the only assymmetrical steel headframe recorded in North Queensland and, together with the MAN diesel engine and Vickers generator, was associated with the Wolfram molybdenite field and the Palmer River goldfield.
Despite minimal structural evidence of the mill, other than machinery foundations of brick covering a 50m square area, the tramway formation running east from the mill site is still visible with raised embankments with stone abutments to allow its passage under the streets of Totley township. This archaeological remnant is rare surviving evidence of the transport system from mine to mill and illustrates the speculative enterprise of the King family in their overcapitalized attempt to establish a viable silver mining industry in the Charters Towers district.
The Great Extended Mill, Totley, is significant as a rare example of a silver processing mill in the Charters Towers district and one of only two sites recorded in North Queensland where Linkenbach buddles were installed.
|(Criterion under review)
|The mine in its early phase was associated with poor management, accidents and a fatality, and in its later phase with experimentation by Percy Kean. The Great Extended Mine at Totley is one of the few readily accessible sites with early haulage plant and machinery still in position and physical evidence of mining remaining.
|The plant was imported by the La Societè Francaise des Metaux Rares company in 1912 and re-located to the Louisa mine on the Palmer in 1915. The MAN diesel engine is also associated with the beginnings of the use diesel technology in Queensland mining, This demonstrates the reuse of equipment and technology from one field to another and its creative adaptation to suit different mining conditions forty years later.
|King's New Mill and Tramway is significant through its association with the enterprising King family, pioneers of Totley silver mining and milling.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15233,"place_ref":600458,"name":"Carcory Homestead Ruin","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Eyre Developmental Road","suburb":"BIRDSVILLE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Carcory Homestead comprises the shell of a cottage constructed of limestone, also evident in the surrounding landscape. It is located 100 metres to the east of the Birdsville-Bedourie Road 80 kilometres north of Birdsville.
The walls are constructed of squared rubble, approximately 45 cm thick, rendered and scribed externally to imitate ashlar. A stone chimney remains at the northern end. The front (eastern) wall is of unrendered stone with irregular pointing. The window, doors and corners of this wall are rendered to resemble stone quoins.
Internally, the walls are plastered and floors are of concrete. The remains of a fireplace, window frames and doorframe heads are evident.
Piles of stones on the western side of the homestead building may be the remains of outbuildings. Evidence also exists of cattle yards approximately seventy-five metres further west.
","history":"The Carcory Homestead Ruin (also spelt as Carcoory and Cacoory) is a roofless stone structure located on the northern end of Roseberth Station, eighty kilometres north of Birdsville.
Thomas Mitchell made the first exploration of the area in which Carcory Homestead is located in 1845. Explorers Burke and Wills made further investigations in 1861, and it was while searching for them that intensive exploration of the region was first undertaken. In the 1870s, this region comprised some of the last remaining unclaimed land in Queensland.
The land on which Carcory Homestead is located is believed to have been taken up about in the late 1870s as a pastoral run.
The date of construction of this homestead is unknown, although buildings of a similar construction are found in central Australia as far south as Robe in South Australia and as far north as Boulia in Queensland. They are of significance for their illustration of a vernacular style that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The origin of the style is unknown, but the architectural characteristics are immediately identifiable: built of stone with wide verandahs, they efficiently control the extremes of temperature in the hot arid interior of the continent. Where no local timber was available, and distance and the lack of good access roads or a railway created prohibitively high transportation costs.
The homestead was positioned near Carcory Waterhole and the major stock route through Birdsville. It consisted of two main rooms under a hipped roof, probably used as a bedroom and a living room with a chimney, and a skillion roofed second bedroom and store forming wings to the rear. It had an awning supported by posts at the front and was built of blocks of local limestone rendered inside and out. A stone store and kitchen were also built to the west of the house.
Around the turn of the century, Sidney Kidman, a pastoralist of humble beginnings who by 1890 owned stations stretching from the Gulf of Carpentaria almost to Adelaide, took up the Carcory Run, comprising one thousand square miles. Between 1900 and 1903, the region suffered severe drought conditions and the entire stock of 4000 bullocks perished. After visiting the station in 1902, Kidman decided to close it down, reputedly allowing the mailman to reside in the homestead for eighteen months. When Kidman returned, the place was abandoned and without a roof. The contents were then removed to Annandale Station.
In 1936 a Mr Morton, father of the current owner, took up Carcory. At this stage the building was in a ruinous condition and it is believed that most recoverable materials were removed from the site for use at Glengyle Station following the First World War.
The building suffered from the effects of the harsh climate and from damage by vandals. The chimney collapsed in about 1992. In 1994 a Queensland Heritage Grant was obtained to allow repair work to be carried out on the remains of the homestead building. The building has been stabilised as a ruin. The roof has not been replaced.
","criteria":"The Carcory Homestead Ruin in far southwest Queensland survives as an important link with early European settlement in this region and as an isolated ruin is demonstrative of the hardships experienced by early settlers. Carcory was established in 1877 as a pastoral run and the homestead ruin demonstrates the development of Queensland by pastoral settlement, later instrumental in the formation of towns.
|The Carcory ruin is a rare surviving example of an early homestead in this area.
|Due to the undeveloped nature of the place, Carcory Homestead Ruin has the potential to yield information through documentary and archaeological research that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|The Carcory ruin is a rare surviving example of an early homestead in this area and is valuable as an example of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century. It efficiently controlled the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent and compensated for the lack of locally available timber.
|Carcory Homestead Ruin has aesthetic appeal, derived partly from its form and materials and partly from its setting as an isolated structure in a broad, open landscape. The ruinous state of the homestead complements the desolation of the place.
|Carcory Homestead Ruin has a special association with the community as one of the earliest homesteads in the District.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15234,"place_ref":600459,"name":"Royal Hotel/Australian Inland Mission Hospital (former)","alternate_name":"Birdsville Nursing Home | AIM Hostel","street_address":"Adelaide Street","suburb":"BIRDSVILLE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The site occupies an area of approximately 0.2 hectares and is located on the southeast corner of Adelaide and Frew Streets in Birdsville. It faces Adelaide Street, the main street in town, along a 40 metre frontage.
The hotel complex was at some period substantially larger than is indicated by the remaining buildings on the site. Remnants of the footings of some earlier stone buildings are in evidence, as is an unusual paving of upturned stoneware bottles. There is also some evidence of footings of timber structures on the site.
The remaining building on the site is a single-storeyed, L-shaped stone structure roofed partially with corrugated iron. It has corrugated iron roofed verandahs supported on bush timber posts on the two street elevations. There is some evidence that an earlier verandah was attached to the building face by a timber plate fixed to the stone walling. A false fascia wired to the verandah bressumer shows evidence of original sign writing. On the north fascia this reads: Best Brands - ROYAL HOTEL- Ales, Wines, Spirits, etc. On the west fascia part of the word ROYAL can be deciphered. Despite the collapse of parts of this structure, the original planning and detail remains. It is possible to locate original door and window openings and to determine original finishes, fittings and detail and to deduce the stages in which the building may be been constructed. Walls are laid either as random rubble, or as squared rubble built to courses, both of which use an exceptionally soft mortar. The walls are rendered internally and may also have been rendered externally at some period.
To the south of the main building are the remains of footings of a stone building originally attached to the main structure by a covered way. To the east are remnants of a further extension of the large room to the southern wing. At the eastern side of the site are footings of a series of stone cellular structures which may have been an accommodation wing.
Closer to the main building is evidence of a more recent small timber and corrugated iron structure , which may have been a bathroom.
","history":"This singled-storeyed sandstone building is thought to have been erected c1883 as the Royal Hotel, Birdsville.
Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s when a number of runs were established. In the early 1880s the towns of Birdsville and Bedourie were established to service the newly taken up pastoral holdings of the Diamantina. Birdsville is reputed to have sprung up around a rough depot constructed by general merchant Matthew Flynn in the late 1870s at the site of the present town. It was then known as the Diamantina Crossing and was on the stock route from Boulia south to Adelaide. By mid-1885, when the township of Birdsville was officially surveyed, a number of buildings had already been erected including a police lock-up [1883], Groth's Royal Hotel [c1883], Blair's Birdsville Hotel [c1883], Curtain's Tattersalls Hotel, and at least 3 stores and a shop. Diamantina Shire was established in 1883, and its headquarters were at Birdsville until moved to Bedourie in 1953.
The name Birdsville was not adopted until the 1885 survey, and is thought to have been suggested by Robert Frew, owner of Pandie Pandie Station, who also had a store and shop at the Diamantina Crossing, in reference to the profuse bird life of the district. The township, over 1,000 miles west of Brisbane and 7 miles north of the Queensland-South Australian border, developed as an administrative centre for police and border customs. Nearly all the trade of the town was with Adelaide, and it became an important marshalling point for cattle being driven south to markets in South Australia. By 1889 the population of Birdsville was 110, and the town had 2 general stores, 3 hotels, a police station, school, 2 blacksmith shops, 2 bakers, a cordial manufacturer, bootmaker, saddler, auctioneer & commission agent, and a number of residences. The population peaked in 1895 at 220.
Almost all the buildings in the town were of local sandstone, there being no local timber available. Distance and the lack of good access roads or a railway created prohibitively high transportation costs, so imported building materials were kept to a minimum. Architecturally, the old stone buildings of Birdsville reflect the associations of the town with the entire central "strip" of the Australian continent. Similar buildings are found as far south as Robe in South Australia and as far north as Boulia in Queensland. They are of significance for their illustration of a vernacular style that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The origin of the style is unknown, but the architectural characteristics are immediately identifiable: built of locally quarried stone with wide verandahs, they efficiently control the extremes of temperature in the hot arid interior of the continent.
The earliest section of the Royal Hotel is likely to have been constructed in 1883, as the first license for this hotel was issued to Alfred William Tucker in that year. In 1885 Tucker transferred the license to Johann H Groth, and on the official survey plan of 1885, the building is marked as Groth's hotel. On 25 January 1886, Groth secured his holding by the purchase of the allotment on which the hotel was located, for £260, and the unimproved allotment adjoining this to the south, for £10. Each block comprised 2 roods. Title to both blocks passed from Groth in 1898, but the building continued to function as an hotel under several proprietors and licensees until the early 1920s. Mrs Alice Maude Scott was the licensee and later owner from c1908 until at least 1920, when title passed to Harry Afford, station manager of Birdsville.
From 1923 to 1937, the Royal Hotel buildings were leased by the Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission [AIM] as their first bush nursing home, or hostel. It was staffed by two nursing sisters, the first two arriving in September 1923. At that time the main building consisted of 6 rooms and was unfurnished. A 1926 photograph shows that parts of two walls of a stone shed at the rear of the hostel had collapsed by this date, and was nicknamed the 'Hole in the Wall Hospital Store'. A c1927 photograph shows an old shed of corrugated-iron also at the rear of the main hostel building.
At that period the AIM was headed by the Rev. Dr John Flynn, who was working toward establishing a flying doctor and air ambulance service for remote central Australia. Such a service could only operate efficiently if it could be contacted quickly, so Flynn experimented with radio as a means of communicating between isolated station properties, the Mission's string of bush hostels [ultimately 13], and the flying doctor/air ambulance. In 1925 he undertook various radio experiments throughout central Australia, including an early attempt at receiving/transmitting from the AIM Hostel in Birdsville. However, it was not until 1929, with Alfred Traeger's invention of the pedal radio, that reliable radio communications were possible for the bush. In September 1929, Traeger installed at the AIM's Birdsville Hostel one of 6 experimental 'transceivers' linked to pedal generators, the others being placed at 4 head stations in far western Queensland and at the Aboriginal Mission at Mornington Island, with base station VJI established at Cloncurry. For the first 18 months, communication was by Morse code, but the system proved enormously popular, and soon revolutionised outback communications. Importantly, Birdsville became reliably connected to the station properties in the Diamantina district, and with the new Aerial Medical Service, established by Flynn in 1928 under the auspices of the AIM, and based at Cloncurry.
In 1934, nursing sisters Edna McLean and Amy Bishop of the AIM's Birdsville Hostel introduced a system of early morning radio calls to the station women in the Diamantina district who had access to radio. It proved highly popular, and although indecorously dubbed the 'Galah Session', is credited with being Australia's first radio talk-back program. Birdsville VKK became the 'Voice of the Diamantina Country'. In 1937 the AIM relinquished the former Royal Hotel premises in Birdsville and moved to a new, purpose-designed hostel just down the road. The old sandstone building was subsequently used for residential purposes, then abandoned, and later partially collapsed. Some restoration work was carried out in 1984, when sections of the collapsed walls were partly reconstructed. Further substantial stabilisation and restoration work was undertaken in 1994.
","criteria":"The former Royal Hotel at Birdsville, erected c1883, survives as an important link with the earliest pastoral settlement in the Diamantina district of far western Queensland. As the Australian Inland Mission's Nursing Home from 1923 to 1937, it has national significance as the first in a string of such bush hospitals in central Australia and is associated with the earliest outback radio communication and the provision of the Flying Doctor Service. Such medical facilities revolutionised life in remote central Australia in the 1920s and 1930s.
|The former Royal Hotel/Australian Inland Mission Hospital is one of only three surviving masonry buildings in Birdsville, the others being the Birdsville Hotel and the police station and courthouse. These contribute significantly to the historic character of the town which, in the last quarter of the 20th century, became a major Queensland tourist attraction.
|It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century, efficiently controlling the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent, and compensating for the lack of locally-available timber.
As the former Royal Hotel, the place has the potential, through archaeological and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings.
|In form and detail it has aesthetic qualities valued by the community and is important in defining the Birdsville townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15235,"place_ref":600460,"name":"Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former)","alternate_name":"Birdsville Courthouse | Birdsville Courthouse Complex | Birdsville Courthouse, Police Station and Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut","street_address":"23 Macdonald Street","suburb":"BIRDSVILLE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former) comprises three modest buildings standing on a rectangular (3739m2) site near the centre of Birdsville, a small rural town in far western Queensland. The site is rectangular and flat, largely devoid of vegetation, and the complex is highly visible within the flat, semi-arid Birdsville terrain.
\nFeatures of Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former) of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSite Layout and Circulation, and Relationships Between Buildings
\nThe layout of the three buildings on the site and site circulation reflect late 19th to mid-20th century court and police operations and the status of these functions during the period. The Courthouse stands at the eastern end of the site, fronting east to Macdonald Street surrounded by a large, fenced, open yard. The Lock-up stands approximately 20m away from the rear (west) of the Courthouse at the western perimeter of the fenced yard, facing the Courthouse. The Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut stands west of the Lock-up, outside the fenced yard approximately 55m from the rear of the Courthouse and facing it.
\nThe Courthouse is built of stone and is the principal building on the site. It is the largest and most prominent from the street, with public access into the front of the building (courtroom) via a short front yard and wide front verandah for public waiting. The Lock-up is a simple, freestanding, brick building at the rear of the yard, visible and accessible from the rear rooms of the courthouse across an open yard without crossing into the public circulation. The Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut is a small, freestanding, timber-framed building, rudimentary, lowest in architectural hierarchy, and furthest away. It stands in an open, arid field, outside the fenced yard, and its circulation path to the complex is not defined.
\nCourthouse (1890, and Police Quarters extension 1896)
\nThe Courthouse is a highly-intact, one-storey, stone building with a timber-framed hip roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. T-shaped in plan, the building comprises a long rectangular courtroom wing at the eastern end with timber-framed verandah on three sides, and a perpendicular rear wing (west) comprising two offices and rear verandah. The roof has lost its ventilation fleche and the rear verandah has been enclosed.
\nExtending off the northern end of the rear wing is the Police Quarters extension (1896), a small gable-roofed stone block of two bedrooms with a northern, timber-framed verandah.
\nOn the western side of the Police Quarters extension is a timber-framed addition (by 1948), accommodating a laundry, bathroom, and toilet.
\nFeatures of the Courthouse of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Courthouse not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLock-up (1958)
\nThe Lock-up is a small, separate, one-storey brick building standing behind (west of) the Courthouse. It is a slab-on-ground structure that accommodates one cell, a store, and garage.
\nFeatures of the Lock-up of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1948)
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut is a small, low-set, one-storey timber-framed structure with a hipped roof standing at a distance to the west of the other buildings.
\nFeatures of the Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former), comprises a Courthouse (1890) with an extension for Police and Customs Quarters (1896), an Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1948) and a Lock-up (1958). Located within the small town of Birdsville, in far western Queensland, this judiciary complex was the administrative centre for police and border customs along a major stock route from 1890. The site remained in use until the 1980s, and in police ownership until 2021.
\nThe area encompassing Birdsville (Wirrarri) and extending into what is now South Australia is part of the traditional land of the Wangkangurru and Yarluyandi (or Jeljendi) people. Life in the country, subject to cycles of drought and flood, was based around mikiri (desert wells) in the dry times, with travel when water was plentiful. The Wangkangurru and Yarlunyandi people hold knowledge of the mikiri and the Dreaming tracks that cross the desert, and retain connections and duties to care for country.[1]
\nWirrarri was also a meeting place, exchange centre and distribution area for pituri, a hallucinogenic plant containing high levels of nicotine. The country between the Georgina and Mulligan rivers, just north of Wirrarri, was the primary source of pituri, which was used in hunting, ceremonies, and recreationally, and carried in traditional pituri bags.[2] This placed Wirrarri near the centre of an important trade route, with people travelling hundreds of kilometres to the area to exchange high quality stone axes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa, medicines, and seashells for pituri. The route was also important for social and ritual trade, where songs, ceremonies, and knowledge were exchanged.[3]
\nNon-Indigenous expeditions traversed the trade routes across the area that became the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s. European pastoralists took up large holdings in the semi-arid region from 1876, driving cattle along the traditional trade route. Roads were built on the trade routes, and homesteads and stockyards were often built on Aboriginal campsites.[4] By the late 1870s a store and hotel were reportedly erected at the site of the present town of Birdsville to serve passing travellers, teamsters and drovers, and the pastoral stations in the region. The site was located adjacent to a permanent waterhole on the Diamantina River.[5]
\nIn 1881 a four square mile (1036ha) township reserve was gazetted on the Boundary and Boundary East runs on the Diamantina River.[6] The township, which became known as Birdsville, was officially surveyed in 1885.[7] Land sales in Birdsville town were held in 1886,[8] and the Diamantina Divisional Board was established and based in Birdsville.[9] By 1889 Birdsville boasted a population of 110, with two general stores, three hotels, two blacksmith shops, two bakers, a cordial manufacturer, bootmaker, saddler, auctioneer and commission agent, and a number of residences.[10] The town also managed to raise nearly £200 prize money for its inaugural race day in 1882, reflecting the success of the surrounding pastoral areas.[11]
\nPositioned halfway along the stock route which served stations between the Gulf of Carpentaria and Adelaide, Birdsville became an important marshalling point.[12] Drovers paused for refreshments or waited out poor weather while moving cattle south to Adelaide markets, as Afghan cameleers carried goods north from the Marree railway station in central South Australia to Birdsville, along what quickly became known as the Birdsville Track.[13] In 1883 a customs post was opened at Birdsville, the westernmost of 14 border posts established in Queensland before Federation to maintain tariff walls between the colonies.[14] Located just 11 kilometres north of the border with South Australia, along the busy stock route, the Birdsville post was an important administrative centre for border customs. A customs officer was officially appointed in 1885.[15]
\nFollowing violent clashes between Indigenous people and pastoralists in the region in the 1870s, the Queensland Government prioritised the establishment of a police force at the remote Birdsville settlement.[16] The first purpose-built police station and gaol was built in 1884, and a sergeant, two constables, and an Aboriginal tracker were despatched to Birdsville in September 1884.[17] A five-acre (2.02ha) police reserve at the western boundary of the town, surrounded by Macdonald, Adelaide and Graham Streets, was gazetted in December 1885.[18]
\nWhile crime levels in Birdsville were generally low, serious offenders like horse thieves had to be transported for trial to Winton, more than 600km away.[19] Civil matters and misdemeanours required attention at the nearest court of petty sessions, located more than 300km north in Boulia.[20] After complaints from residents,[21] the situation was partially resolved in 1884, when Birdsville was gazetted as a place where courts of petty sessions could be held. Police Sergeant McDonald was appointed as the acting court clerk.[22] A police magistrate was appointed in January 1885, and in later years the role was coupled with clerk of petty sessions or customs officer.[23]
\nThe population of Birdsville peaked in 1895 at 220. Following Federation, the Birdsville customs depot was closed and the population slowly dwindled to approximately 50 throughout the 1950s. The livestock trade continued to be the primary industry of the town but in the last quarter of 20th century and with the growth in popularity of the Birdsville Races, tourism became the primary economic driver. In 2011 the population had risen to around 280, swelling to around 6000 for the 12 days of the racing carnival, but in 2016 the reported population had dropped to 140.[24]
\nCourthouse and Police Station (1890, 1896)
\nDespite the town’s small population and infrequent need for a court, the Queensland Government built a courthouse at Birdsville as a symbol of authority and to convey the sense that this small settlement on the edge of a vast inland desert was part of a civilised society.[25] When Queensland became a separate colony in 1859, it had only five courthouses: at Ipswich (QHR 600575), Gayndah, Dalby, Maryborough, and Rockhampton. The new Queensland Government prioritised construction of courthouses, erecting 145 across the colony over the following four decades. These buildings ranged from basic slab construction such as at Clermont (1861) to the substantial masonry Supreme Court in Brisbane (1877, not extant). In the late 1870s the Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley developed a standard plan for courthouses that could be easily adapted for local circumstances.[26]
\nThe period 1875-1890 was one of unparalleled activity in the construction of courthouses in Queensland. Eighty-five courthouses were erected, most of them timber buildings based on Stanley’s standard plan. Examples include courthouses at St Lawrence (1878, QHR 601152), Port Douglas (1879, QHR 600465), Nebo (1883), Croydon (1887, QHR 601153), Tambo (1888, QHR 600834), Cloncurry (1897, QHR 600415) and Childers (1897, QHR 600620). As Queensland experienced economic prosperity, specific designs were developed for new masonry court buildings in large centres, including Brisbane (1877), Toowoomba (1877, QHR 600848), Maryborough (1877, QHR 600714), Townsville (1876, QHR 600929), Bowen (1880, QHR 600044), Bundaberg (1882, QHR 601762), Charters Towers (1887, QHR 600403), Rockhampton (1887, QHR 600795) and Warwick (1887, QHR 600948).[27]
\nTenders for Birdsville’s courthouse were invited in April 1888.[28] Initially the contract was awarded to Henry Walton, for £840,[29] but by mid-1889 Walton was unable to continue,[30] and James Wookey completed construction.[31] The courthouse was completed in 1890 at a total cost of £933. It was positioned at the north-eastern corner of the police reserve, adjacent to the existing police barracks. It was constructed to the standard plan, which provided a courtroom of 30ft x 18ft (9.1m x 5.4m) surrounded by verandahs on three sides. Two offices were located at the rear and had a separate rear verandah.[32] £14 was expended on courthouse furniture, though it had not arrived in the town by 1891.[33]
\nUnlike most of the standard plan courthouses, Birdsville’s was built of locally-quarried stone rather than timber, which was unavailable in the region. Distance and the lack of reliable access roads or a railway created prohibitively high transportation costs, so imported building materials were kept to a minimum.[34] Most of Birdsville’s buildings were constructed of local sandstone, a quarry having opened near the town in 1886. [35] Stone construction was generally adopted in the 19th century throughout a large area of central Australia including the northern parts of South Australia and the southern parts of the Northern Territory.[36] Surviving (or semi-extant) Queensland examples include Birdsville’s Royal Hotel (QHR 600459) and Birdsville Hotel (QHR 600461), Boulia Stone House (QHR 600039), Noccundra Hotel in Thargomindah (QHR 600361), and the Carcory Homestead ruin (QHR 600458).
\nBy 1892, Birdsville’s ‘commodious courthouse’ was viewed by visitors as ‘the best building in town – stone walls, iron roof, and good floor of flooring boards.’[37] From the outset, the courthouse proved useful beyond its intended function: it was also used to conduct police business and to provide police accommodation, as the adjacent 1885 police barracks was in poor condition. In 1895 the Department of Public Works (DPW) prepared plans for the extension of the courthouse to provide living quarters for the police magistrate and sub-collector of customs, who were fulfilling dual roles as customs officer and clerk of petty sessions respectively. A stone extension was made off the northern side of the rear offices, accommodating two bedrooms and a timber-framed northern verandah. The existing rear offices were used as a dining room and sitting room, with minor reconfiguration of doors and windows. A timber-framed kitchen block was built in the rear yard nearby, connected to the rear verandah via a raised covered walkway.[38] Contractor Wookey was again engaged for the work, which cost £454 and was completed in 1896.[39] The site was later fenced in 1910-11.[40]
\nThe grouping of the courthouse and police facilities followed a common practice in Queensland. Similar complexes were built at towns including Toowoomba, Croydon, Bundaberg, Ravenswood, Mount Morgan, and Roma. The co-location of police and court buildings had numerous advantages. It allowed the entire justice process from arrest to trial to be provided expediently on a single site, facilitated prisoner management for police, and kept alleged criminals from the public. Onsite, buildings and fencing were carefully arranged to separate police officers’ families from the prisoners’ pathway from lock-up to court, though due to the low crime rate, this proved largely unnecessary in Birdsville.[41]
\nBirdsville’s buildings were subject to storms and other climatic extremes experienced around the Simpson Desert. In 1900, the courthouse additions were reportedly ‘blown away’ in a wind storm; they were replaced later that year, and the walls were strengthened in 1909-10.[42] In 1904 the police barracks building was completely wrecked in storm, leaving the courthouse to take over the police function entirely.[43] In 1938, an earth tremor briefly shook the stone building, causing no damage but leaving a horse bell on the verandah ringing.[44] General repairs were undertaken to the courthouse in the 1900s and 1940s, both by the DPW and the Birdsville police officers.[45] Improvements were made between 1946 and 1951, including enclosing the rear verandah with weatherboards and casement windows (1951), demolishing the kitchen block at the rear, and adding a kitchen fitout to one of the rooms of the Police Quarters extension.[46] By 1948 a small extension had been made to the western side of the Police Quarters extension, which continued the northern verandah roof around on this side and was semi-enclosed. It later accommodated a laundry, bathroom, and WC.[47]
\nThe courthouse continued in use through the 20th century as a combined police station, courthouse, and government office.[48] In the small remote town, with few other buildings and staff, the police undertook additional duties to provide a range of essential services, including agents for the Commonwealth and Clerk Savings banks, Irrigation Department, labour and social services, Stock Inspection, Aboriginal protection, and, following the opening of the Birdsville airstrip, Trans Australian Airlines.[49] The police also played a vital role for visitors. Travellers along the Birdsville Track were required to check in at the Birdsville police station, and the Birdsville police officer would travel into the desert to rescue those who did not turn up at the next checkpoint.[50] Additional police were also stationed at Birdsville during the annual races.
\nThe courthouse was vacated in the 1980s, when a new police residence (1981) and new police station (1988) were built on the southern end of the police reserve.[51] Sessions of the Birdsville Magistrates Court were transferred to the Birdsville State School,[52] and the courthouse provided overflow accommodation for police officers during the week of the annual Birdsville races.[53]
\nAboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1948)
\nIntroduced to Queensland police stations from 1874, Aboriginal trackers were employed to find missing persons, trace criminals, and search for lost or stolen stock. They could trace paths indistinguishable to Europeans, providing vital services in remote and rural areas. Trackers also carried out tasks around the police station, including caring for police animals; the wives of married trackers undertook domestic work at the station. Trackers had become part of the police forces across Australia after first working for Europeans in the 1820s, and the skills of Queensland trackers were particularly renowned. By 1896, 112 trackers were employed across the colony, though numbers varied from year to year. The number of trackers employed by the Queensland Police peaked at 127 in 1900, had fallen to 68 by 1925, and to only 26 by 1952. The last tracker employed by the Queensland Police retired in 2014, ending the 140-year operation.[54]
\nAn Aboriginal tracker was stationed at Birdsville with the initial contingent of police officers in 1884.[55] Over the following seven decades, between one and three trackers at a time were stationed at Birdsville. The Birdsville trackers undertook a range of tasks – one tracker was charged with the care of the station’s camels, which had arrived in 1886 – while their wives performed ‘domestic duties’ at the station.[56] The longest serving trackers, Tracker Billy (served 1885-1905) and Corporal Tommy (served 1905-1952), covered almost the duration of trackers stationed at Birdsville.[57]
\nAs part of their employment, trackers were to be provided with wages, food, and accommodation. Wages were well below the average rate (and later well below the minimum wage), and food was supplied by the officer in charge of the station. Trackers’ wives, though expected to work, were not paid. The standard of accommodation provided varied, from a large brick building at Townsville, to bark huts or storage rooms within the police building. Generally, tracker accommodation was rudimentary and located away from the other police station buildings, reflecting the treatment and status of Aboriginal trackers in the police force. The DPW provided plans for tracker accommodation (called ‘huts’) at Burketown (c1906), Gilbert River (1908), Emerald (1917), Ingham (1927), Thursday Island (1928 and 1954), Toowoomba (1929), Almaden (1934), Cooktown (1935), and Mount Molloy (1936). None of these buildings are known to survive in 2022.[58]
\nFrom 1898 to 1948, the Birdsville trackers were accommodated within a rudimentary hut with mud and stone walls and a galvanised iron roof, located at the rear of the site on the Adelaide Street boundary. In 1948 this was replaced by a simple, timber-framed building, clad on its walls and roof with corrugated metal sheets. The building had a single room 16ft x 11ft (4.8m x 3.3m) with a 2.4m wide awning on the eastern side.[59] It was positioned away from the courthouse and lock-up, outside the fence that enclosed the police site.[60]
\nCorporal Tommy occupied the new building until his retirement in 1952, 47 years after his engagement with the Birdsville police. In his final year of employment he appeared in the documentary Back of Beyond, filmed in 1952 and released in 1954. [61] He was the last Birdsville tracker.[62]
\nThe Birdsville tracker’s hut is a rare surviving example of accommodation provided for Aboriginal trackers employed by the Queensland Police. Other trackers’ huts extant in Queensland in 2022 include the tracker’s hut at Bedourie (QHR 650098), built in 1947 on the police reserve but later moved; and the Normanton trackers’ hut (unknown construction date), on the site of the Normanton Gaol (QHR 601501). The Bedourie hut, 200km north of Birdsville, is similar in form and materials to the Birdsville hut, while the Normanton hut is clad on its walls with timber.[63]
\nIn December 1985, a severe storm badly damaged the Birdsville Aboriginal tracker's hut which, at the time, was being used for storage. The small structure lost sections of the wall and roof but these were reinstated.[64]
\nLock-up (1958)
\nA lock-up had been provided at Birdsville from 1884, though was infrequently used due to the relatively low levels of crime in the area.[65] The original lock-up was replaced by a stone building in 1908.[66] By 1925 it was still standing, but was less than secure.[67] On 14 February 1954, the lock-up was demolished by a whirlwind. A replacement lock-up was ordered but not constructed until 1958. The new lock-up was a single-storey brick structure with a gable roof clad with corrugated iron. Similar to its predecessor, it accommodated a single cell with the addition of a storeroom sized to allow conversion to a second cell (which never eventuated), and garage, and a cell stockade under an awning along the eastern side. It was in use by 1959.[68]
\nIn 1972 the lock-up was reported to be in poor condition. Major repairs and repainting were carried out to the police station, residence, and lock-up in 1974. This included adding electric lighting and a shower to the cell stockade to extend its useful life.[69]
\nOther structures on site
\nIn 1959 an electricity generator and a septic system were installed. A small corrugated iron shed was built in the backyard to house the generator. These structures remain on site in 2022.[70]
\n21st century
\nThe site was transferred to the Diamantina Shire Council in 2021. The former courthouse building was refurbished and converted to an educational tourist attraction. In 2022, the complex retains its Courthouse, Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, and Lock-up.[71]
","criteria":"Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former), comprising the Courthouse (1890, with Police Quarters extension 1896), Lock-Up (1958), and Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1948), is important in demonstrating the establishment of pastoral occupation in the Diamantina district of far western Queensland in the late 19th century and Birdsville’s pre-Federation role as a border post. It is important in demonstrating the early establishment, evolution, and provision of a judicial system and police force within the region.
\nThe form, materials, and fabrication technique of the Courthouse are important in illustrating building construction in remote areas of Queensland. It is part of the late 19th century earth and stone building tradition of central Australia and western Queensland.
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1948) is a rare surviving representative example of the standard accommodation provided for Aboriginal trackers in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the crucial role Aboriginal trackers played in assisting in police work in Queensland, particularly remote areas of western and northern Queensland in the 19th and 20th centuries.
|The Courthouse is a rare surviving 19th century stone building, a building material generally adopted throughout a large area of central Australia and western Queensland in the 19th century, but now rare.
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut is exceptional as one of only three known surviving examples of this type of accommodation in Queensland provided for Aboriginal trackers by the Queensland Government between 1874 and the 1950s.
|Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a justice complex established in the late 19th century in remote Queensland with evolving provision of justice services. Principal characteristics of this class of cultural place retained at Birdsville include: the Courthouse; Police Quarters; Lock-up; Aboriginal Tracker's Hut; and a site layout reflecting the hierarchy of justice administration during its operation.
\nThe Courthouse is a highly intact example of a late 19th century courthouse in regional Queensland and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural place. This includes its: prominent central location in the town; design by the Department of Public Works (DPW); use of high quality materials and symmetry in plan and form; verandahs; and rooms laid out to closely reflect the court’s former functions.
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut is a rare surviving example of its class of cultural place, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the accommodation built for Aboriginal trackers in Queensland. This includes its: small size; lone room; low-set, gable-roofed form; timber-framed, single-skin construction clad externally; and bare interior amenity.
|The basic size, form, and materials of the Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, and its location isolated away from the other buildings evokes a strong response to the living and working conditions of Aboriginal trackers employed across Queensland in the mid-20th century.
|The Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex (former) has had a long association connection with the people of Birdsville and the surrounding Diamantina district, having served as the focus for the administration of justice and policing for almost 100 years (1890-1988).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15236,"place_ref":600461,"name":"Birdsville Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Burt Street","suburb":"BIRDSVILLE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Birdsville Hotel is a single-storeyed building constructed of local stone rendered and scribed. It has elevations to Burt and Adelaide Streets and the corner of the building at the street intersections has been truncated marking the original main entrance. The hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron and is concealed by a low masonry parapet raised at the corner to carry the words 'Birdsville Hotel' and 'Established 1884'. An awning of corrugated iron supported by timber posts runs and decorated by a scalloped timber valance runs along the street elevations and is also truncated at the corner. Quoining at the windows and doors is picked out in a dark colour, as it has been since at least the 1920s. There are extensive modern additions including a beer garden and extra bars.
","history":"This singled-storeyed sandstone building was erected c1884 as the Birdsville Hotel, Birdsville, for publican William Blair. Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s. Annandale, Pandie Pandie, Glengyle and Roseberth were taken up in 1876; Sandringham, Cacoory and Haddon Downs in 1877; and Dubbo Downs in 1878. Monkira, Mt Leonard, Cluny and Coorabulka were other early holdings.
In the early 1880s the towns of Birdsville and Bedourie were established to service the newly taken up pastoral holdings of the Diamantina. Reputedly, a merchant named Matthew Flynn, who carried stores for the stations, built a rough depot in the late 1870s at the site of the present town of Birdsville, then known as the Diamantina Crossing, on the stock route from Boulia south to Adelaide. By mid-1885, when the township of Birdsville was officially surveyed, a number of buildings had been erected at the Diamantina Crossing, including a police lock-up [1883], Groth's Royal Hotel [c1883], Blair's Birdsville Hotel [c1883], Curtain's Tattersalls Hotel, and at least 3 stores and 1 shop. Diamantina Shire was established in 1883, and its headquarters were at Birdsville until moved to Bedourie in 1953.
The name Birdsville was not adopted until the 1885 survey, and is thought to have been suggested by Robert Frew, owner of Pandie Pandie Station, who also had a store and shop at the Diamantina Crossing, in reference to the profuse bird life of the district.
Birdsville, over 1,000 miles west of Brisbane and 7 miles north of the Queensland-South Australian border, developed as an administrative centre for police and border customs. Nearly all the trade of the town was with Adelaide, and it became an important marshalling point for cattle being driven south to markets in South Australia. By 1889 the population of Birdsville was 110, and the town had 2 general stores, 3 hotels, a police station, school, 2 blacksmith shops, 2 bakers, a cordial manufacturer, bootmaker, saddler, auctioneer & commission agent, and a number of residences. The population peaked in 1895 at 220.
Almost all the buildings in the town were of local sandstone, there being no local timber available. Distance and the lack of good access roads or a railway created prohibitively high transportation costs, so imported building materials were kept to a minimum.
The earliest section of the Birdsville Hotel is likely to have been constructed in 1883 [possibly from stone quarried at a site about 16 kilometres from the town], as the first license for this hotel was issued to William Blair in that year. On the official Birdsville town survey plan of mid-1885, the building is marked as Wm Blair's hotel. On 24 February 1886, Blair purchased from the Crown, for £206, the allotment at the corner of Adelaide and Burt streets which contained the hotel. A month earlier he had bought for £12 the allotment at the rear, which contained a fenced yard and had frontages to Burt & Graham streets; also an unimproved allotment adjacent to this, fronting Graham Street, for £8. Each block comprised 2 roods.
Following Blair's death in 1898, title to all three blocks passed to Queensland Trustees [Charles H Morton was the licensee during this period], then to the Hayden family in 1912, the Gaffney family in 1918, and the Dixon family in 1947. The building continues to function as a hotel, and has become nationally famous. With it's longevity, romantic remoteness, and as a focus for festivities associated with the annual Birdsville Races, the Birdsville Hotel has become an outback icon.
It is understood that in 1905 a cyclone destroyed all of the structures on the site other than those constructed in stone. In 1964 the southeast corner of the building collapsed, also as a result of a cyclone. This section was reconstructed c1990-91, although not to original detail. A fire destroyed the front bar, also in 1964; this has been rebuilt. The major changes to the building have been the replacement of the front verandah, additions to the northern end, and reconstruction of the southeast section. Internally, no original finishes appear to exist as the floors have been laid in slate, walls plastered and painted, and ceilings altered. The building however retains its essential character.
","criteria":"The Birdsville Hotel, erected c1884, survives as an important link with the earliest establishment of pastoral settlement in the Diamantina district of far western Queensland.
|The place is rare as one of only three surviving masonry buildings in Birdsville, the others being the c1883 former Royal Hotel and the 1888-90 police station and courthouse. These contribute significantly to the historic character of the town which, in the last quarter of the 20th century, became a principal Queensland tourist attraction.
The Birdsville Hotel is also a rare surviving late 19th century outback hotel, and besides being important in illustrating its type, also has the potential, through physical investigation and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings.
|The Birdsville Hotel is also a rare surviving late 19th century outback hotel, and besides being important in illustrating its type, also has the potential, through physical investigation and documentary research, to reveal important information about the design, form and function of far western Queensland hotel complexes of this period, and about the people who erected such buildings.
|The Birdsville Hotel is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a vernacular style of masonry construction that spread throughout central Australia, across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in the late 19th century, efficiently controlling the extremes of temperature in the hot, arid interior of the continent, and compensating for the lack of locally-available timber.
|The place is rare as one of only three surviving masonry buildings in Birdsville, the others being the c1883 former Royal Hotel and the 1888-90 police station and courthouse. These contribute significantly to the historic character of the town which, in the last quarter of the 20th century, became a principal Queensland tourist attraction.
The place has aesthetic value, and is important in defining the Birdsville townscape.
|The Birdsville Hotel has social value as an outback cultural icon of national significance, a place that has become part of central Australian legend.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15237,"place_ref":600462,"name":"Kidman's Tree of Knowledge","alternate_name":"Tree of Knowledge | Kidmans Tree","street_address":"Glengyle Station","suburb":"BEDOURIE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kidman's Tree of Knowledge (Eucalyptus sp.) is situated on Glengyle Station on the western bank of Eyre Creek, about 60 km south of Bedourie.
It is located in the centre of a grassed square formed by Glengyle homestead and associated buildings and is healthy and mature.
","history":"Kidman's Tree of Knowledge is located on Glengyle Station in Queensland's Diamantina district and has become associated with Sir Sidney Kidman and the vast pastoral empire he established in the Australian interior in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The mature coolibah (Eucalyptus coolibah) is reputedly the tree under which Sidney Kidman camped when contemplating the development of his pastoral empire in western Queensland. Glengyle Station on which the tree is situated subsequently proved to be the most important in Kidman's chain of properties that eventually stretched from the Barkly Tableland through to the Barrier Range in South Australia. However, while Kidman visited and purchased stock from Glengyle he did not acquire the leasehold until 1913.
Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s. In 1876 Patrick Drinan took up Annandale Station and Duncan McGregor took up Glengyle. Also taken up at this period were Sandringham and Carcory in 1877 and Dubbo Downs in 1878. The towns of Birdsville and Bedourie developed in the late 1870s/early 1880s to service these newly established Channel Country runs.
The Diamantina and Georgina rivers, Cooper and Eyre creeks are part of a network of western Queensland waterways known as the Channel Country. They draw water from an area of 566,000 square kilometres. These systems contain innumerable waterholes of various depth and length that generally last throughout the dry season, however, after rain, the network of rivers, creeks and channels links together, stretching out over a vast floodplain like fingers, hence the name Channel Country. While some of the properties such as Glengyle border the Simpson Desert and have many square kilometres of sand dunes, the natural irrigation following the tropical north wet season means the land is ideal for grazing cattle.
Sidney Kidman was born on 9 May 1857 at Athelstone near Adelaide, the son of English immigrants. At about 13 years of age he left home and made his way north to Poolamacca Station in the Barrier Range where he met up with his brother, George. He acquired work with George Raines, a landless bushman who travelled the countryside taking advantage of unfenced lands where there was good feeding for his stock. It was at this time that Kidman learnt numerous bush survival skills and came to appreciate the knowledge and skills of the Aboriginal people.
In the early 1870s Kidman obtained work on various stations, drove cattle and bullocks, carted goods, opened a butcher's shop at Cobar shortly after the rush started and soon after went into business with his brother droving, buying stock and dealing. They took on mail contracts, ran a butchery in Broken Hill and in the 1890s started buying pastoral leaseholds as Kidman Brothers.
As a young man Sidney Kidman had talked widely with cattlemen about the Australian interior and in his travels buying and selling stock, realised the value of Channel Country land. His aim was to acquire a chain of properties so that in times of drought cattle could be moved from properties badly affected to areas with good grass. Eventually Kidman acquired two strings of properties. The first or 'main chain' stretched from the Barkly Tablelands near the Gulf of Carpentaria down through the Channel Country of western Queensland and along the Birdsville Track to the rail head at Maree in South Australia. The second chain of stations followed the Overland Telegraph line from the Fitzroy River and Victoria River Downs Station in the north to Wilpenia Station in the Flinders Ranges near Adelaide. The development of the Kidman empire in Queensland stems from Kidman Brothers' acquisition of Annandale in the Channel Country in 1896.
As result of his acquisitions, his knowledge of the bush and his business acumen Kidman's empire was able to survive the depression of the 1890s and the drought of 1899-1902.
The Pastoralists' Review of 16 September 1903 featured an interview with Sidney Kidman, the 'Cattle King'. It included biographical information about his life and detailed the properties he then owned:
In the Northern Territory: Victoria Downs, with its 45,000 head of cattle, Newcastle Waters, Austral Downs; South Australia: Lake Albert, Eringa, Peake, Macumba, Mount Nor'-West, Clayton, Coongy on the cooper, Pandy Pandy on the Diamantina, Alton Downs; and Queensland: Annandale, Collegwairi, Dubbo, Cartrey, Rocklands, Monkira, Bulla Downs; in New South Wales: Wompah and Tickelara.
Kidman continued to buy properties, buy and sell cattle and horses and manage his properties while almost continuously on the move. He kept abreast of market fluctuations, weather conditions and what was happening on his properties, via the telegraph.
While Kidman abhorred wastefulness and was known to sack employees who exhibited such traits he was also known to be generous to deserving causes. He gained a reputation for munificence to the war effort, his World War One donations including wool, meat, horses, ambulances and warplanes. In monetary terms this patriotic generosity amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds. In 1921 he was knighted for his contribution to the war effort.
The leasehold to Glengyle Station was transferred several times after Duncan McGregor took up the run in 1876. The London Bank of Australia Limited held the lease until William Frederick Buchanan had purchased the Glengyle Holding by October 1907. Following the death of this Narrabri grazier in 1911 the lease was transferred to William Buchanan and Charles Henry Buchanan.
The 1008½ square mile Glengyle leasehold became part of the Kidman empire in 1913 when he purchased the lease from the Buchanans for £1,575. Kidman had long wanted Glengyle Station for its size and its permanent deep waterholes on the Georgina River, its plains and flats of lignum and saltbush, and its strategic position adjoining his Queensland properties of Sandringham, Kaliduwarry, Dubbo Downs and Annandale. Moreover, Glengyle, between Eyre Creek and the sand hills of the Simpson Desert, did not always need to rely on local rainfall. In good seasons it is drained by channels fed by the northern monsoon. The property proved pivotal to the Kidman holdings in the Lake Eyre Basin and is still held by the family firm S Kidman and Company.
Kidman had married in 1885 and raised a family of 3 daughters and one son in Adelaide. Kidman retired in 1927 but his children continued to run the family business empire from Adelaide. On 2 September 1935, aged 78 years, Sir Sidney Kidman passed away in Adelaide and his only son, Walter Sidney Palethorpe (b.1900) took over as chairman of the Kidman empire.
The Kidman Tree of Knowledge has been described as 'one of the state's most famous living monuments to the king'. It is valued by both the local community and visitors as a tangible link with Sir Sidney Kidman, a pioneer who successfully created a pastoral empire in the vast remote interior of Australia, encompassing approximately 3.5% of the Australian continent.
","criteria":"For the many people who worked for Sir Sidney Kidman and for those who continue to be associated with Kidman Holdings, Kidman's Tree of Knowledge on Glengyle Station is significant for its association with Sir Sidney Kidman. For local people and visitors alike, Kidman's tree of Knowledge is a tangible link with Sir Sidney Kidman, a pioneer who is recognised as having created a successful pastoral empire in the vast remote interior of Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
\nThe Tree of Knowledge is significant for its association with prominent Australian pastoralist Sir Sidney Kidman, who through business acumen, knowledge of the land he traversed and hard work, acquired a string of pastoral runs in the Australian interior (in Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Western Australia), where his stock could be moved from property to property to withstand the impact of drought. Whether Sir Sidney Kidman sat under this Coolibah tree near the Glengyle homestead is not known. It is, however, the perception or mythology of Kidman's association with this tree that is significant.
|For the many people who worked for Sir Sidney Kidman and for those who continue to be associated with Kidman Holdings, Kidman's Tree of Knowledge on Glengyle Station is significant for its association with Sir Sidney Kidman. For local people and visitors alike, Kidman's tree of Knowledge is a tangible link with Sir Sidney Kidman, a pioneer who is recognised as having created a successful pastoral empire in the vast remote interior of Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|The Tree of Knowledge is significant for its association with prominent Australian pastoralist Sir Sidney Kidman, who through business acumen, knowledge of the land he traversed and hard work, acquired a string of pastoral runs in the Australian interior (in Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Western Australia), where his stock could be moved from property to property to withstand the impact of drought. Whether Sir Sidney Kidman sat under this Coolibah tree near the Glengyle homestead is not known. It is, however, the perception or mythology of Kidman's association with this tree that is significant.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15239,"place_ref":600464,"name":"St Mary's by the Sea","alternate_name":"St Mary's Roman Catholic Church (former) | St Marys by the Sea","street_address":"Wharf Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Mary's by the Sea is a small, Gothic-style timber church situated on the foreshore at Wharf Street near the road leading to Pier 319.
The church is a timber-framed structure with exposed exterior studwork set on low timber stumps. It has a steeply pitched gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building is rectangular in plan with a vestry off the rear corner and a small central porch at the front flanked by lancet windows. The porch has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and a side entrance and is lit by triple lancet windows. The side walls are braced by simple timber buttresses. The bearers and joists are of hickory ash and penda timbers and the framing is hickory ash. The wall cladding was of northern silky oak although much of this and the flooring has had to be replaced.
Internally, the ceiling is unlined and three lancet-shaped timber archways separate the sanctuary from the nave.
","history":"St Mary's by the Sea was constructed in 1914 replacing an earlier Catholic church at Port Douglas, which had been destroyed by the cyclone of March 1911.
Port Douglas was established in 1877 as a port to service the newly opened Hodgkinson goldfield, west of the Great Dividing Range. In the period 1877 to 1893 Port Douglas functioned primarily as a port for the mining hinterland and secondarily as an administrative and service centre for the surrounding developing agricultural districts.
The Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of North Queensland (renamed the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown in 1887) was established in 1877 and first staffed largely by Italians. The intention was to send missionaries among the Aborigines, however, when the first priests arrived they were required to serve the needs of new towns, the mining boom having brought into the area many Europeans, including large numbers of Irish Catholics. In 1884 the Irish Province of the Order of Saint Augustine agreed to take on the work of the Vicariate which was struggling to serve a scattered population of Catholics in a vast area with very few priests. The first chapel in Port Douglas was established in 1878 and by November 1881 a church had been erected under the direction of Father Peter Bucas, a Breton, on land on Port Hill. When Bishop Hutchinson arrived in 1884, an Italian priest, Father Guerrini, had been in Port Douglas for eight months and stayed on until an Augustinian arrived to replace him in May 1885.
The development of Port Douglas initially outpaced that of its nearby rival, Cairns, established in 1876. However, following the 1885 political decision to site the terminus for the Atherton Tableland railway at Cairns, it advanced rapidly at the expense of Port Douglas. After the opening of the Cairns-to-Mareeba railway in 1893, trade between Port Douglas and the mining hinterland declined markedly, and virtually ceased after the extension of the railway to Mount Molloy in 1908. Much of what remained of the town was destroyed when a severe cyclone levelled it on 16 March 1911. According to the local newspaper, itself put temporarily out of action, the church and presbytery were 'blown to bits'. The presbytery was rebuilt first and Mass was celebrated there until the church was complete in 1914. It is believed to have been constructed from the salvaged materials of the earlier church and to a similar form, though smaller in scale (NB the matter of the 1914 church comprising salvaged material is currently under review).
Port Douglas recovered from the cyclone and although it had lost the mining trade, it operated principally as a sugar port from the 1890s until 1958. The town was also the administrative centre of the Douglas Shire until the 1920s when its headquarters were shifted to Mossman in the heart of the expanding sugar lands. In 1917 the Parish Priest of Mareeba was also appointed as the Administrator of Port Douglas. The priest appointed next (in 1932) became the first to reside in Mossman. Two years later the name of the parish was changed to Mossman and Port Douglas.
During the 1960s and 1970s Port Douglas functioned mainly as a fishing and holiday town, retaining much of its historic character, but in the 1980s it emerged as a booming tourist resort, creating strong development pressures. St Mary's Church was by then in poor condition and could no longer meet the needs of the parish. In 1987 the Catholic Church gave the church building to the local community with the stipulation that it continue to be used for Christian purposes. As a Bicentennial Project, the church was relocated to parkland on the foreshore in November 1988. The Port Hill site was sold by the Church to finance construction of a new church on land elsewhere. Once relocated, the former St Mary's Church was restored and renamed St Mary's by the Sea. It is used as an non-denominational community church for religious and civil weddings, carol services and other special services and events.
","criteria":"The church of St Mary's by the Sea was built in 1914 and is associated with the early development of the Port Douglas district and the growth of the Catholic Church in North Queensland. It is one of the oldest buildings in Port Douglas and illustrates the built character of the town before modern redevelopment as a tourist resort.
|St Mary's is a good example of a modest church built to meet the needs of a small community in a remote area. Its simplicity, small scale and probable recycling of materials from its predecessor also illustrate the way in which many small communities of its era coped with the after effects of cyclones on towns with timber buildings.
|St Mary's has strong associations with the Catholic community of the area and has served Port Douglas for several generations. Community regard for the church was emphasised in 1988 when local people banded together to save and relocate the church as a community building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15240,"place_ref":600465,"name":"Port Douglas Court House Museum","alternate_name":"Port Douglas Court House","street_address":"25 Wharf Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Port Douglas Court House is a simple timber clad structure, rectangular in plan and surrounded by verandahs on all four sides. It is elevated on low timber stumps with a gabled corrugated iron roof.
It is now relocated in its original position fronting Wharf Street and sits in a park-like tropical setting adjacent to the water.
The verandah roof is separate from the main roof and is supported by regularly spaced posts with simple diagonal braces in place of brackets at the top. The entrance is via a centrally located set of stairs at the front of the building, leading to a pair of timber doors featuring panels of diagonally laid boards. These are flanked by double hung four paned windows on either side.
Two pairs of french doors with glass panels to the top sections are located in the rear elevation and two similarly detailed single doors are located at the rear of the southern elevation. Evenly spaced double hung windows are located along the remainder of this side and along the opposite side. Gable end vents are centrally located in each gable end, the front one comprising three louvred arched forms.
Internally the building is divided into three rooms; the court room at the front and a smaller room at the rear. The front room is further divided to form a small room in the corner, which is only accessible externally.
Much of the original fabric survives in the main core of the building, however, some sections of the building have been reconstructed.
","history":"The Port Douglas Court House was constructed in 1879 as the first court house in the town. It is a simple timber structure with verandahs to all four elevations.
The Port Douglas Court House is one of the earliest surviving timber constructed court houses in Queensland. When Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, there were only six court houses in the new colony. During the next forty years, over 145 court houses were erected in Queensland, ranging from slab structures to the substantial Supreme Court building in Brisbane.
Port Douglas was established shortly after the discovery of gold on the Hodgkinson River in 1876. At this time the nearest port was Cairns, which was only accessible over difficult and mountainous terrain. In 1877, well-known bushman Christy Palmerston discovered a new route which gave easier access from the goldfields to the coast. By the end of the year, the site had been surveyed, declared a port of entry and clearance and officially named Port Douglas.
Trade from the goldfields quickly transferred from Cairns to the new township, followed by businesses. The government expressed confidence in Port Douglas by allocating £2000 for a road to the Hodgkinson River and also by constructing many public buildings in the town in the early stages of its development.
The Court House was constructed in 1879. The first Police Magistrate arrived in 1878, and the only place to conduct court sessions was in one of the newly constructed police cells. This was considered unsuitable, and the new Police Magistrate requested that a tent be sent. Court sessions were conducted in the tent for most of 1878, until the court moved into the newly completed Customs House. As the population increased, it became obvious that a purpose built court house was necessary.
When Port Douglas was surveyed, land on the southern side of Wharf Street was reserved for Court House and Post Office purposes. However by the time the plan was released, a building was already constructed on this site. The owner of the building was offered the land and the Court House was subsequently constructed on the opposite side of Wharf Street.
The building was designed by the Colonial Architect's office to suit the climate and the functions of a court house. It comprised a rectangular core with the court room at the front and two offices at the rear with verandahs to all four elevations. Access to the verandah was via a centrally located stair at the front. Additional sets of stairs were located at the eastern end of each side elevation.
Tenders were called in May 1879 and although local builders were among the tenderers, the contract was won by Brisbane builder Thomas Watson, probably as he was experienced in building court houses, primarily that at St Lawrence the previous year, which was similar in design.
Watson began construction in September and the building was completed in November at a cost of £475. The completed building differed slightly from the original plan in that it did not have a dividing partition between the rear offices, resulting in one large office rather than two smaller ones.
In 1880, the rear corner of the verandah was enclosed to provide a jury room. Complaints had been made by Judge Hely in 1879 regarding the lack of a jury room and approval to incorporate one at a cost of £20 was given in September 1879. Thomas Watson, who had stayed in Port Douglas to construct a number of other government buildings, completed the addition in May 1880. Thomas was again employed when the new jury room was found to be too small and the central section of the verandah at the rear of the office was extended and enclosed to create a more suitable space.
In the following years, much of the verandah flooring and almost all of the stumps were replaced due to deterioration inflicted by the weather and white ants. No major alterations were made until a cyclone in 1911 almost destroyed the building.
The cyclone occurred in March 1911 and left the building partially unroofed and blown off its stumps, some of which pierced the floor. An Inspector of Works was sent to assess the building and recommended realigning the building to face Wharf Street to avoid the soft ground at the rear of the building. The opportunity was also taken to construct a detached room at the rear of the building for Police purposes. In fact, the alterations were so substantial that when tenders were called, they were titled New Court House, Port Douglas. The tender for the additions and alterations was won by local builder H A Nielson, at a cost of £334.
After these major alterations were completed, no further work apart from general maintenance was undertaken until 1958 when an inspection identified that the weatherboards had shrunk to such an extent that light shone through the gaps in the unlined walls. This resulted in the court and judge's rooms being fully lined with hardboard.
The continued use of this building is indicative of the success of its simple design, which was used for many Queensland court houses up until the 1930s.
Although the Port Douglas Court House was primarily used as a place to conduct court sessions, it was also used for other purposes including police offices and briefly, as a residence for the town's only police officer. It was also considered as a site for the local school. Most of the cases heard were of a modest nature, the exception being one of the most notable court cases in Queensland history when in 1886 Ellen Thompson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. In June 1887 she became the only woman to be hanged in Queensland.
The building was vacated in 1961 and after strong lobbying from the National Trust of Queensland and local groups to retain the building on its original site, was sold to B Whiting in 1968. The Court house and adjacent police cells were subsequently removed to the grounds of the Court House Hotel.
The cells were destroyed when a tree fell on them and a fire partially destroyed the detached former police offices. In 1993, the Court House was moved back to its original site, in the same position as when it was first constructed.
Since April 1997, the building has been used as a museum which was established by the Port Douglas Shire Historical Society. It incorporates displays pertaining to the history of the court house and also to local history.
","criteria":"The Port Douglas Court House was constructed in 1879. It was the first court house to be constructed in Port Douglas and demonstrates the rapid development of the town after the discovery of gold in 1876 at the nearby Hodgkinson River. As an early government building in far northern Queensland, it is demonstrative of the development of Queensland.
|It is rare as one the few surviving pre 1880s timber buildings in North Queensland, as the oldest building in Port Douglas and the second oldest timber court house in Queensland.
|The Port Douglas Court House demonstrates the principal characteristics of court houses constructed in regional towns during the early development of the state.
|The place has considerable aesthetic significance due to its setting in a park setting near the ocean and the simple symmetricality of the building.
|The place has strong associations with the local community who lobbied to retain the building on its original site and who were instrumental in having the building re-located back to its original position. The building is now presented as a museum which is maintained by a local community group.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15241,"place_ref":600466,"name":"Port Douglas Wharf and Storage Shed (former)","alternate_name":"Port Douglas Wharf and Shipwreck Museum","street_address":"6 Dixie Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This wharf is at the entrance to Dickson's Inlet approximately opposite the western end of Warner Street.
The wharf, which is constructed parallel to the channel, is of timber construction about 70m long [including the decked approach ramp] by 18m wide and supporting a wooden storage shed on the eastern side.
The storage shed roof trusses are constructed from 300x 150 mm [12" x 6"] and 200 x 150 mm [8" x 6"] sections, mainly Oregon, and the storage shed was planked internally to facilitate the stacking of bagged sugar.
A simple gable roofed form building, the former wharf storage building is built out over the water on timber piles braced by diagonal timbers.
The new corrugated steel roof is exposed internally and supported on burlings spanning between major trusses of mainly Oregon members. Timber planes fixed with dogspikes form the floor.
The building is an important element in the townscape of Port Douglas, being most visible from the sea and surrounding hills.
An earlier stone pitched ramp remains in evidence at the side of the later earth-filled access to the former storage shed and wharf.
","history":"Port Douglas Wharf and Storage Shed were erected in 1904 for the Douglas Shire Council, with extensions to the storage shed made in the 1920s.
Port Douglas was established in 1877 as a port to service the newly opened Hodgkinson Goldfield, west of the Great Dividing Range. In the period 1877 to 1893, Port Douglas functioned primarily as a port for the mining hinterland and secondarily as an administrative and service centre for the surrounding developing agricultural districts. The development of Port Douglas initially outpaced that of its nearby rival, Cairns, established in 1876. However, following the 1885 political decision to site the terminus for the Atherton Tableland Railway at Cairns, this town advanced rapidly at the expense of Port Douglas. After the opening of the Cairns to Mareeba Railway in 1893, trade between Port Douglas and the mining hinterland declined markedly, and virtually ceased after the extension of the railway to Mount Molloy in 1908. Much of what remained of the township was further decimated in a severe cyclone on 16 March 1911.
However, from the 1890s until 1958, Port Douglas survived principally as a sugar port. The town was also the administrative centre of Douglas Shire until the 1920s, when headquarters were shifted to Mossman in the heart of the expanding sugar lands. During the 1960s and 1970s, Port Douglas functioned mainly as a fishing and holiday town, retaining much of its historic character, but in the 1980s the town emerged as a booming tourist resort, with strong pressures for development.
It appears that the wharf was built to serve the handling of general cargo (as opposed to sugar) in preference to at least one other previous proposal for a jetty at Macrossan Street. Prior to this, it seems that all general cargo handling was carried out at the private wharfing facilities (variously Walsh & Co., Davidson's, Jack & Newell and possibly others), either by direct berthing for smaller vessels or for larger vessels by lightering from the general anchorage some 600 metres off the western end of Island Point. A stone-pitched jetty adjacent to the quarry site on the north-east corner of Island Point had been constructed earlier for passenger traffic, and was extended during 1888-1889 to a total length of 60 metres.
In 1904, Douglas shire Council obtained a loan from the Queensland Government to build a new wharf for the berthing of ships at a more convenient site in the harbour. This wharf was built with a decline from wharf to shore to ease the transfer of loaded rail trucks. A stone pitched ramp was built as part of the wharf construction. The 1904 wharf structure was about 15 metres wide, with a storage shed 30 metres long by 8 metres wide on the north-east corner of the decking. A jib crane was located on the northern end of the wharf and walkways were constructed alongside the storage shed.
During the early 1920s an additional row of piles was driven about 3 metres to the east along the length of the wharf. The 1904 storage shed was relocated over these by sliding the structure back from the wharf outer face. It appears that at this period the shed was extended on the southern end by about 12 metres. A lunch room building, also holding a fresh water tank, on the southern end of the storage shed was relocated to the same respective position when the shed was extended.
The wharf was last used for sugar shipment on 1 April 1958. Subsequently the wharf was leased for private enterprise from 1963 until January 1975. Well known Queensland diver Ben Cropp held a twenty year lease over the storage shed from October 1979. He operated a shipwreck museum in the shed which also included his living quarters. The lease was briefly extended into mid-2000. Cropp relocated the museum to Cairns later that year.
The foreshore near the Port Douglas Wharf was reclaimed in the late twentieth century, and the 1904 timber-piled and timber-framed jetty between the stone-pitched ramp and the storage shed was removed.
","criteria":"The building is significant for its historical association with the development of Port Douglas as a shipping terminal.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15242,"place_ref":600467,"name":"Eden House Restaurant","alternate_name":"Private residence | Nibbles Tea House/Restaurant","street_address":"20 Gillies Highway","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Eden House Restaurant is a single-storeyed timber structure with a corrugated metal hipped roof and bullnosed verandahs to three sides. The building fronts the Gillies Highway to the east, and is surrounded by landscaped grounds.
The building presents a symmetrical elevation to the street, with a central entrance flanked by french doors with fanlights opening to the verandahs to three sides. The verandahs have timber posts, dowel balustrades and curved brackets. The verandah walls are of single-skin horizontal boards with exposed framing, and the building has timber stumps.
Internally, the front section of the house is used for dining, and several internal walls have been removed, and decorative arched timber details inserted. A section of the central corridor survives, with decorative pressed metal ceiling and cornices, and rooms to either side have pressed metal or boarded ceilings.
A single-storeyed addition at the rear houses kitchen and toilet facilities, and a large timber dining deck with curved awning has been constructed on the northern side of the building.
The grounds have been landscaped, but contain a number of substantial mature trees, and the remains of an early well. The site has a driveway on the southern side accessing the rear of the property, and a timber picket fence to the street.
","history":"Eden House Restaurant was constructed reportedly c1914 originally as a private residence for Arthur (Archie) Herbert Belson, a Tableland timber merchant, and whose brother was the first Chairman of the Eacham Shire Council in 1911.
Yungaburra, previously known as Allumbah (meaning red cedar) Pocket, was surveyed in 1886 by Surveyor Rankin as part of a government village settlement scheme. In 1910, the Cairns to Millaa Millaa railway reached the town, which was renamed to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Cairns and Gordonvale was opened. Fuelled by the resulting tourist trade to the nearby lakes, the town experienced a second period of development.
The land on which Eden House is located was alienated from the Crown by George Henry O'Donnell in September 1899. Mr O'Donnell subdivided the property, and the land was transferred to Arthur Herbert Belson in April 1912.
The house was reportedly named Cedrella when constructed, and was later described as having wide verandahs, a tennis court and 'Old English' gardens. The house was very much a social centre of the district, and was transferred to Mr Belson's son-in-law George Alfred Duffy in July 1922, who later became the local State Member of Parliament.
The property was transferred to Martin Rudolf Lehfeldt in December 1929, and in June 1930 a Deed of Grant was issued. The property was then transferred to Albert Edwards in March 1948.
The property was later transferred to Alfred and Alice King in January 1958, who came to Yungaburra c1954 to run the Tivoli cinema, which is now the community centre (QHR 600479). Mr King died in 1964, and the house was occupied by Mrs King (who changed her name to Alice Baszel Jones - spinster - in June 1964) until her death, after which it was sold at auction. The property was transferred in October 1988 to Mitojo Pty Ltd and RM and AB Payne Pty Ltd (associated with a Cairns solicitor).
The house was substantially rebuilt over a two year period and redeveloped for use as a restaurant. Photographs taken during this work show the only surviving original material being the external walls (reportedly cedar) to the front of the building, some internal walls, some doors and windows, and the floor. However, the house was rebuilt to look substantially similar to the original structure. An addition was constructed at the rear, which houses toilets and kitchens.
The building was operated by lessees as 'Nibbles Tea House', until it was transferred to the current owners in August 1998. The current owners have undertaken some works, including a large dining deck one the northern side, have developed the gardens, and reopened the premises as 'Eden House' in October 1998.
","criteria":"Eden House Restaurant is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of Yungaburra and the Atherton Tablelands. The building was constructed as a substantial private residence reportedly c.1914 during the town's first phase of development following the arrival of the Cairns to Milla Milla railway in 1910.
|Eden House Restaurant contains the remains of the original house, and together with its substantial mature plantings, makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the Yungaburra townscape.
|The house was constructed for Mr Arthur (Archie) Herbert Belson, a Tableland timber merchant, whose brother was the first Chairman of the Eacham Shire Council. The house was later transferred to his son-in-law Mr George Alfred Duffy who became the local State Member of Parliament. The property was later transferred to the King family who were long-time operators of the local Tivoli cinema, now the community centre [600479]. During the early Twentieth century, the house was described as being 'very much a social centre of the district'.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15243,"place_ref":600468,"name":"27 Atherton Road, Yungaburra","alternate_name":"Bank of New South Wales | 2/34 and 3/34 Cedar Street, Yungaburra | 36 Cedar Street and 14 Kehoe Place, Yungaburra","street_address":"2/34 and 3/34 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed timber building with a corrugated iron gable roof is located on the corner of Atherton Road and Cedar Street in the centre of Yungaburra. Originally an exposed framed, single skin building, it has been clad in chamferboard.
The street frontage to Atherton Road to the east has a reconstructed curved corrugated iron awning with a shaped gable above. The building is divided into two tenancies, with the Atherton Road end having a central entry from the awning and the rear tenancy accessed via a timber deck off Cedar Street.
The building has principally sash windows, with some later casements. A lean-to bathroom has been added to the southwest. The building has been recently refurbished, with new timber floors and some new windows. The rear of the site is grassed.
","history":"27 Atherton Road, Yungaburra is a single storeyed timber building erected c1914 for local timber merchant Arthur Herbert Belson on the corner of Atherton Road and Cedar Street. For over fifty years, it housed the local branch of the Bank of New South Wales.
Yungaburra, previously known as Allumbah (meaning red cedar) Pocket, was surveyed in 1886 by Surveyor Rankin as part of a government village settlement scheme. In 1910, the Cairns to Millaa Millaa railway reached the town, which was renamed to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. In 1926, the Gilles Highway between Cairns and Gordonvale was opened. Fuelled by the resulting tourist trade to the nearby lakes, the town experienced a second period of development.
In 1914, the building which was sited opposite the new railway station, was leased to the Bank of New South Wales. Previously the Bank had occupied temporary premises in the town. In 1921, the property was purchased by the Bank. Photographs at this time show the building to be single skinned. According to local folklore, the bank was part of a New Years Eve prank, in which the railway gates were removed, taken across the road, and left on the awning of the bank. This was regarded as a feat of strength on the part of the young people of the town.
In 1965, the Yungaburra branch was converted to an agency attached to the Atherton branch of the Bank. In 1967, the agency was closed and the property sold by the Bank of New South Wales in the following year. It was acquired by the present owners in 1988.
","criteria":"27 Atherton Road, Yungaburra is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Yungaburra and the Atherton Tableland.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular its contribution, through scale, form and materials, to the Yungaburra townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15245,"place_ref":600470,"name":"Shop, 1/34 Cedar Street, Yungaburra","alternate_name":"Burra Inn Restaurant | The Workshop | Barber's Shop","street_address":"1/34 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The shop is a single storey timber building, rectangular in form, with its short axis towards the street. The building is level with the street at the front and is set on stumps of increasing height towards the back as the ground falls away to the rear of the block. The shop has a stepped parapet and a gable and hipped roof clad in corrugated metal. It has a timber-framed awning to the street, clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The shopfront has a central recessed entry flanked by display windows. The interior is simple with timber walls and floors and has been modified to suit its ongoing commercial use.
","history":"The shop at 1/34 Cedar Street, Yungaburra, is one of a pair of simple timber shops [600470 and 600478] constructed in the mid 1920s for the Williams family and was thought to have originally been a hairdresser's shop.
\nThe first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40-acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. At the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement, which had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah. The land on which the shop was later built, and which was to become the commercial heart of Yungaburra, was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899.
\nIn 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910. The Railway Commissioner acquired six acres and the position of the new railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement, which was located towards the north west of the new commercial centre. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway.
\nAlbert Soffe and Frederick Campbell Williams acquired Sub 16 in Cedar Street in 1913 as trustees of the estate of their father, Henry S. Williams. He had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington. He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the business was continued by his family under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams'. In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. In 1910, the railway line reached the settlement, which had been renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with Aloomba near Gordonvale. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a sawmill, a store and a large hotel for the Williams family opposite the railway station, and a number of shops and houses. In 1919, a new title to the land was issued in the name of Estate H.S. Williams Limited.
\nIn 1926, the Cairns Range Road between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. The range road was renamed the Gillies Highway in 1934, honouring the former premier and local member for Eacham, William Gillies.
\nIt is thought that the shop was constructed around the time range road opened and was probably a pair with the adjacent shop, also on lot 16. A barber or hairdresser are thought to have first occupied this shop, and a 1930 photo shows ‘hairdresser’ signage.
\nIn 1954, the land was subdivided into 2 blocks so that each shop was on a separate title. It passed out of Williams family hands in 1976 and has changed hands several times since. It functioned as a restaurant during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2017 it houses a pump and irrigation repair business.
","criteria":"As an early commercial building, the shop marks the emergence of Yungaburra's role as a gateway to the Tablelands following the arrival of the railway in 1910 and the commencement of a road link with the coast in 1920. This facilitated the growth of agriculture and dairying on the Tablelands and heralded the development of tourism in the area.
|The shop is an example of the type of simple timber commercial building that served many new settlements.
|In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|As a building constructed as part of the Williams Estate, the shop has an important association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra and the Atherton Tableland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15246,"place_ref":600471,"name":"Yungaburra Post Office and residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"15-17 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The post office and residence are timber buildings constructed on adjoining blocks. The front of the post office is aligned with Cedar Street and has a separate post box on the pavement. The residence is set well towards the rear of the next block. Both have an informal garden setting, which contributes to the aesthetic qualities of the street.
The post office is a single storeyed timber building set on concrete stumps. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron with a central projecting gable with the sign Yungaburra Post Office. The main roof extends on either side of the gable to cover twin porches that are accessed by stairs with timber handrails. That on the left contains the postal boxes and the main entrance. That on the right is currently sealed. There is a bank of triple sash windows in the central gable and a shingled hood shades these. Pairs of sash windows covered by hoods are on either side of the building. At the rear a modern awning shades the loading area.
Inside the building, the walls are lined with timber and the ceiling with fibrous cement panels. A timber counter separates the public area from the office and sorting area. The public area at the front of the building has a writing bench under the windows.
The residence is set well back on its block and is aligned towards the post office building, being linked to it at the rear of the post office by an area of lawn and garden beds. It is also a timber building set on stumps with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. There is a central projecting gable facing towards the post office. The building has sections of verandah at the front and side, much of which has been built in. It has a number of alterations and extensions to the exterior. The interior was not inspected.
","history":"The post office is a timber building constructed in 1926 to a standard design. The adjoining block has a timber postal residence set back from the road. The earliest post office service at Yungaburra had been from the railway station.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40-acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. Around this time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement that had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah.
The land on which the post office was later built was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899. In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910. Six acres were acquired by the Railway Commissioner and the position of the new railway station, which opened in 1910, caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement, which was located further north west. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway and Allumbah was renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. A period of rapid development began with the construction of a sawmill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the railway station. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed.
Robina Heale purchased lots 19 and 20 in 1912. She does not appear to have lived in Yungaburra and it is not known if she constructed any buildings on the land.
The first postal services were conducted from the railway station, a common arrangement where mail travelled by rail and there was no post office. From 1924, a postmaster, L. Craven, is listed in the Post Office Directory for Yungaburra and served in this capacity for several years. The Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened on 26 June 1926, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. The road link made Yungaburra a gateway to the natural attractions of the Tablelands and created a second period of development in the town due to the blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes. Probably in response to this increased demand, the Commonwealth of Australia purchased both blocks of land in August 1926 and constructed a post office building on lot 19. It is not known whether or not the building used as a post office residence was already there or was built concurrently.
The Interwar period was an active period for the construction of post offices, and 26 buildings of this standard porch and gable design were constructed in Queensland country towns between 1923 and 1939. This type of post office building contained no accommodation for postal officers, quarters being in a separate building, although a domestic scale was maintained. Materials introduced in this style included concrete stumps and shingles on sunhoods, both of which can be seen at Yungaburra. The post office had several staff members and a telephone exchange. Many tourists visiting Yungaburra and staying at the nearby hotel would have used the post office. During World War II many troops were stationed on the Tablelands and visited Yungaburra for recreational purposes. A Mr T L Bytie was postmaster throughout the war years.
In 1974, with changes in Post Office operations, the property passed into private hands, although it remains in use as a post office and has belonged to the current owner since 1979.
","criteria":"Yungaburra Post Office is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history, being a government facility erected at the time of the linking of this area to the coast by the Gillies Highway. It provided services that played an important part in assisting the town to develop, to operate as a gateway to the surrounding area and to facilitate the growth of the early tourist industry on the Atherton Tablelands.
|The Post Office is a good example of a timber twin porch and gable post office of the 1920s, a standard design developed by the Government Architect's Office during a period when a high quality of design and finish was achieved.
|It makes a substantial visual contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|The Post Office has had a long connection with the people of Yungaburra and the surrounding district as a provider of communication services that have been conducted from this building since 1926.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15247,"place_ref":600472,"name":"Residence 16-20 Cedar Street","alternate_name":"Williams' House","street_address":"16-20 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Williams house is a single storey timber building set on stumps and has a corrugated iron hip and gable roof. It is at street level at the front and is set on stumps that increase in height as the ground falls away to the rear.
At the front, a former central verandah has been built in with timber and casement windows. Sliding windows in timber frames having alternating square panes of pink and green obscure glass flank this section and extend down each side of the building.
At the rear, what may be an early detached kitchen now forms part of the house. On the western side of the building towards the rear a section of verandah has been removed, exposing a portion of wall with exterior studding. A verandah side awning cuts across a window at this point, evidence of the series of adjustments made to the house to accommodate changing use. On the eastern side there is a deck with an awning over.
The interior walls are vertical timber boards and there are timber floors and ceilings. Some sections of wall appear to have been added or removed and other alterations made to accommodate use as two flats. French doors open onto some areas.
There is a wall constructed of basalt boulders approximately 1 metre high running along the front of the property.
","history":"16-20 Cedar Street is a timber dwelling, the earliest section of which may have been constructed by James Dunstan between 1911 and 1914 or may have been built by the Williams family business, which acquired the property in 1915. It has been extended since in several stages and was divided into two flats.
Yungaburra was surveyed in 1888 as a Village Settlement called Allumbah. The Village Settlement scheme was introduced in 1885 and offered settlers farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. Around this time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s more people took up land around Allumbah and a small commercial area developed to serve them.
In 1910, the railway line linking Cairns with the Tablelands reached Allumbah, which was then renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another town. The Post Office Directory for this year lists almost all occupants of Yungaburra as 'selectors.' A period of rapid development then began with the construction of a sawmill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the railway station. The land on which the house is built was part of a 65-acre block comprising adjoining Agricultural Farms 163 and 164 selected by George O'Donnell in 1899. In 1900 the land was purchased by George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks following the opening of the railway. The Railway Commissioner acquired six acres and the position of the new railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement, which was located towards the north west of the new commercial centre. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway.
In 1911, James Dunstan, probably of the partnership of Dunstan and Pillinger, Commission Agents, purchased 3 of the new subdivisions from George Wedderburn. He had purchased another block from this subdivision the previous year and took out a mortgage for £150 on the newly acquired land, though not necessarily to build a residence.
In 1915 Albert and Frederick Williams purchased the property as Trustees for the estate of their father, Henry S. Williams. H.S. Williams had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before leasing land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and a hotel at Carrington. He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement area in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the business was continued by his family under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams'. In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. In 1910, they opened a hotel near the railway station. The Williams family's interest in this vicinity grew as they acquired further land over the next few years.
In the 1923 post office directory the Estate of H.S. Williams is first listed as operating a store, butchers and bakery in Yungaburra and they may have established these businesses in anticipation of the road link from Gordonvale, which had been under construction since 1920. Williams' Lake Eacham Hotel at the corner of Cedar Street was also extended and upgraded in the mid 1920s.
The house is believed to have been first occupied by Edward Stratten (Ned) Williams, who had four children who were born between 1916 and 1921. Rooms were added at the rear of the house as the family grew. E S Williams appears in the Yungaburra directory for the first time in 1924 and was a partner in 'Cairns and Tableland Motor Services Limited', a touring car company formed to bring tourists from Cairns to visit the Tablelands. It became a local institution known as the 'White Cars' and eventually had branch garages in several local towns. A garage was constructed in Yungaburra by Williams to maintain the cars and as a car dealership. This enterprise linked naturally with the family hotel, which became a well-known resort for tourists and for functions.
In 1926 the Gillies Highway was opened and the role of Yungaburra as a gateway to the natural attractions of the Tablelands created a second period of development in the town due to the blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes. E S Williams died in 1929 and his wife died the following year. His brother, Frederick, moved from Atherton and brought up his own 5 children and his 4 nephews and nieces in the house. Rooms were again added to the house to accommodate such a large family.
During the years of the Second World War, many troops moved into the Tablelands. The area was used for training and recuperation and from March 1942, there was a USAF base at Mareeba at which many Americans were stationed as ground and workshop crews. There were also military hospitals in the area and many military personnel visited the hotel for dances, dinner and musical entertainments held on Sunday evenings. Sydney and Clive Williams were officers and also held parties at their home. A deck was added to the eastern side of the house during this time to provide for dancing.
The extended Williams family worked together and had commercial interests in a number of interlinked fields. Because of the variety of enterprises owned by the family in Yungaburra and other local centres, they were major providers of employment in the area and made an important contribution to the development of Yungaburra.
The Williams family owned the house at 16-20 Cedar Street until 1976, when Earle and Helena Jones and Bruce and Patricia Jones purchased it. This may have been the period when the house was divided into 2 flats. The property changed hands several times in the 1980s and has recently passed into the hands of a member of the Williams family again.
The house has been extended in several stages and has had a number of alterations carried out to it over the years including the filling in of verandahs and removal of internal walls.
","criteria":"The former Williams house was built during an important period in the development of Yungaburra. As an early house built on one of the subdivisions made following the opening of the railway, it assists in understanding the way in which Yungaburra developed.
|As a timber residence built in a traditional style it contributes to the built character of Yungaburra.
|The house has had a long association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15248,"place_ref":600473,"name":"Lake Eacham Hotel","alternate_name":"Yungaburra Hotel","street_address":"6-8 Kehoe Place","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lake Eacham Hotel is a two storey timber building, L shaped in plan, and has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. The roof and building are truncated at the corner where the entrance to the hall and main bar are located. The guests' entrance is in the later wing of the building and fronts the main road. At the street corner of the hotel there is a lamppost.
The original entrance hall has the public bar and games area to the left and a large dining room to the right. This is separated from the lounge by sliding doors with lead light panels and can itself be divided into two. The main entrance to the lounge, which also serves as a reception area, is from the street through lobby doors with 'Williams' Lake Eacham Hotel' etched on the glass. The lounge is large and features extensive use of silky oak and other cabinet timbers in wainscotting, an elaborate staircase and joinery. The upper walls and ceiling are sheeted with fibrous cement and stained timber cover strips. Inside the door on the right hand side there is a freestanding timber and glass reception office and a guests' telephone booth. The room has a large fireplace at the rear end and retains most of its original furniture including marquetry tables and firescreen. At the rear is the lounge bar, which is also panelled and retains the original horseshoe bar with glass and timber glass cabinets above.
The kitchen contains a very large freestanding cast iron Metters range with ovens on all sides. This has been converted to burn oil but is not currently in use. The upper floor of the hotel contains bedrooms, manager's quarters and sitting areas for guests. The hotel currently has 38 bedrooms.
There is a barbecue area to the rear of the building, which leads onto a garden. A circular bush house, paths and walls of volcanic rock appear to be remnants of a formal garden. There is also a single storey timber building along Cedar Street thought to have been staff quarters.
","history":"Side Brothers constructed the Lake Eacham Hotel for the Williams family in 1910, when the railway reached Yungaburra. It was considerably extended and refurbished in 1926 in time for the opening of the first motor road between the coast and Yungaburra, assisting the town to develop as a tourist destination and a gateway to the Tablelands.
Yungaburra was surveyed in 1888 as a Village Settlement called Allumbah. The Village Settlement scheme was introduced in 1885 and offered settlers farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. Around this time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s more people took up land around Allumbah. The land on which the hotel was later built, and which was to become the commercial heart of Yungaburra, was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899. In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and was subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910.
The Railway Commissioner acquired six acres and the position of the new railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement, which was located towards the northwest. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway. Albert and Frederick Williams purchased two of the blocks positioned close to the station in 1911. The Williams family's interest in this area grew as they acquired adjoining land over the next few years.
Henry S. Williams had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington. He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the business was continued by his family under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams'. In 1907, the family set up a shanty, a simple inn offering bar service, food and accommodation, at Allumbah, which was run by 16-year-old Maud Williams. On 15 March 1910, the first train reached the settlement, which had been renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with a similarly named town. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a sawmill and a number of shops and houses. The Williams family built a two-storey timber hotel on the land near the railway and the shanty was used as a flourmill. The licence was issued to Frederick Williams, then from 1912 to Albert Williams, although the hotel is said to have been run by their sister Maud. The new hotel was named after Lake Eacham, although this popular picnic spot was 4 miles away, which suggests that it was intended to appeal to tourists who had come to visit the lake and other natural attractions in the area.
In 1914 Maud Williams married the stationmaster, Jack Kehoe, who worked at the hotel from 1916 and in 1922 was advertised as its proprietor. Maud herself was officially the publican only after her husband's death in 1933, although she is remembered in the district as the driving force behind the hotel's success.
On 26 June 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened. The 'Range Road' was originally a one-way road controlled by gates at the top and bottom and was the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. It allowed tourists easy access to the crater lakes and other beauty spots. In anticipation of this, the Lake Eacham Hotel was extended significantly along the main road and much of the wide verandah on the upper storey was built in. The new wing included a large lounge and reception area, a lounge bar and extra bedrooms. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a developing tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. E.S. (Ned) Williams was one of seven partners who started up the Cairns and Tableland Motor Services Limited, which became well known as the 'White Cars'. These collected tourists who arrived by rail and boat at Cairns and took them to the Tablelands where they visited Malanda and the Falls, the Curtain Fig, Mt Quincan and the lakes. Visitors could hire boats at Lake Eacham from 1920 and there was a kiosk there from 1930. Lake Barrine's teahouse was built in 1927. The White Cars had a refuelling depot at Yungaburra which maintained 2 mechanics and passengers stayed at the hotel. The service continued for many years with branches at other tableland towns and the company survives as Whitecar Coaches.
The Lake Eacham Hotel advertised in 1926 that it was close to golf links and public tennis courts and films were shown in the hall behind the hotel for many years. The hotel also staged dances and other social events and during World War II was host to military personnel who claimed the lounge bar for their own. In the 1960s rooms on the ground floor of the 1920s wing were converted into motel units. The railway branch line to Yungaburra, Malanda and Tarzali was closed in 1963 and the station and line have been removed, so that the hotel now overlooks a small park name for Maud Kehoe. In 1971 Mrs Kehoe died, after an association with the hotel that had lasted more than sixty years, although it was run with the assistance of managers in the last few years of her life. In 1974 the hotel was sold and changed hands several times before being purchased by the current publicans in 1982. The hotel still caters for tourists and is an attraction in its own right.
","criteria":"As the Lake Eacham Hotel was built in 1910 and extended in 1926 principally to cater for tourists, is important in demonstrating the development of Yungaburra and of the early tourist industry in the region.
|It is important as a good and intact example of an early resort hotel, with large and well-detailed public spaces.
The layout of the rooms and sequence of additions and facilities have the potential to provide information on the development of the hotel in response to changes in tourist requirements since 1910.
|The hotel is uncommon in the quality and intactness of its dining and reception areas and such details as the receptionist's office and guest telephone booth in the lounge, and the massive cast iron commercial range in the kitchen. It also retains much of its original furniture.
|The Lake Eacham Hotel, a large and prominently sited building, has been a landmark in Yungaburra since it was built, featuring in tourist postcards. In form, scale and detail it makes a major visual contribution to the Yungaburra townscape.
|The hotel has a strong association with the Williams family, who were important in the development of Yungaburra, and in particular with Maude Williams Kehoe, who ran the hotel for almost the whole period from its inception until her death.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15251,"place_ref":600476,"name":"Residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"12 (x25) Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","history":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","criteria":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15252,"place_ref":600477,"name":"Court House, Police Station and Residence","alternate_name":"Court of Petty Sessions","street_address":"6 - 10 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The police reserve at Yungaburra consists of 3 adjoining blocks of land on Cedar Street. These contain the court house/police station, a modern two bay garage and a police residence.
The courthouse/police station is a single storey timber building, rectangular in form, with its long axis towards the street. It is set on metal stumps that are low at the front and increase in height towards the back as the ground falls away to the rear of the block. It has verandahs running along both the back and front of the building. The gabled roof is clad with corrugated iron and extends over the verandahs where it is supported on timber posts. The verandahs have simple timber handrails. There are doors to the office and courtroom at the front flanked by casement windows in timber frames. There are casement windows to the rear verandah and at the ends of the building where they are shaded by sun hoods. All windows are fitted with modern steel security grilles.
The interior of the building is divided into two rooms by a wall of vertical tongue and groove boards and has coved timber ceilings. The larger room of the two is the courtroom and has a triple casement window over a timber magistrate's bench. The second room is used as a police office and has modern cupboards and a counter. There is a toilet on the rear verandah.
Between the courtroom/police station and the police residence is a modern timber double garage with metal roller doors.
The police residence is a timber dwelling set on cement stumps, which are low at the front and increase in height towards the back as the ground falls away to the rear of the block. The staircase at the rear of the building has been encased with weatherboards. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated fibrous cement sheeting. The residence appears to have had verandahs along the front and side built in. There are two access doors at the front. It has pressed metal sunhoods to some windows, which are generally casements in timber frames. The interior was not inspected.
A metal cyclone fence runs along the front of the whole police reserve.
","history":"The courthouse/police station was erected on this site in 1921 and was formerly a local school building. Formerly the site held a police lockup and stables which have now gone.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40-acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. At the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement that had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah.
The land on which the courthouse and police buildings were erected was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899. In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910, the year in which the railway line linking Cairns with the Tablelands reached Allumbah, which was then renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. A period of rapid development began with the construction of a sawmill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the railway station. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed.
In 1912, three blocks of land in Cedar Street were declared a police reserve and plans for police quarters and station, offices and cells were drawn up and estimated to cost £750. Although a police constable was appointed to serve Yungaburra in 1913, the building of a police station did not go ahead; instead a cottage was rented and a stable and feed room built for police use. On 29 January 1914, the Yungaburra District Progress Association wrote to the Home Secretary's Office asking that a Court of Petty Sessions be established in Yungaburra. At the time, the nearest court was in Atherton, which was inconvenient for settlers in and around Yungaburra. Both towns were within the Herberton Petty Sessions District. The request was denied on the grounds that few cases from the Yungaburra district were heard and all public offices were in Atherton, so that people from the surrounding area travelled there to conduct business in any case. A lockup was provided at Yungaburra in September 1914, however.
The Progress Association persisted, writing again on 2 September 1915 and received another rebuff. The reply pointed out that Yungaburra was only one of a number of settlements that had 'a degree of temporary importance' as the railway branch line had advanced and that the police constable visited it only once a week. Although the Magistrate at Herberton was in favour of setting up a courtroom and office in Yungaburra, the court in Atherton agreed with the Home Secretary's decision. Undaunted, the Progress Association continued its campaign, enlisting the help of MLA W.N. Gillies, who visited Yungaburra in 1918.
In 1919 the Eacham Shire Council wrote to the Department of Justice saying that although the police building was rented and too small to hold a court, the police reserve was large and that a building could be moved onto it. They suggested that the old Yungaburra school building, which had been unused for 3 years and was only a quarter or a mile away, might be suitable. This idea was initially rejected as it was planned to use the building as a teacher's residence. However, the determined Mr C.W. Roseblade, Secretary of the Progress Association, did not let the matter rest and in 1920 the Minister for Justice resolved to proclaim a Petty Sessions District of Atherton with court venues designated as the townships of Yungaburra, Peeramon and Malanda. They were to share an officer based on Atherton who would serve 2 days a week at each.
The cost of dismantling, moving and adapting the old school was estimated to be £185. This building was constructed around 1909 and in order to use it as a court it was enlarged and doors, windows and the steps to front and back were moved. The work was completed in May 1921 and a small office was constructed on the verandah as something of an afterthought in September. The completed cost was £264/10/5 and provided a court room, an office to be shared by the Clerk of Petty Sessions and the Dairy Inspector in the extension and the verandah office for the constable.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. The court building has changed little since, although there are modern fittings in the police office and the constable's office on the verandah no longer exists. A two-car garage has been constructed between the police station and residence. The 1914 lockup to the rear of the reserve was demolished recently.
","criteria":"The police station and former courthouse and the police residence illustrate the growth of Yungaburra and the surrounding district in the early 20th century. The original provision of office space in the courthouse for the Dairy Inspector in the 1920s indicates the importance of the dairy industry to the prosperity of this area.
|The court house/police station and residence are timber buildings constructed in traditional styles and make a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra, being part of a cohesive group of such buildings in Cedar Street.
|The former courthouse and police station has been connected with the people of Yungaburra and the surrounding area since the early 20th century as a focus for the provision of important government services. These range from the first use of the courthouse as a school, through use as a court of petty sessions and offices for the dairy inspector and police officer, to modern use as a police station.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15253,"place_ref":600478,"name":"Special Glass Co. Shop","alternate_name":"Tailor's shop | T.A.B. Agency | Billy Madrid's house | Yungaburra Pharmacy","street_address":"32 Cedar","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Special Glass Co. shop is a single storey timber building, rectangular in form, with its short axis towards the street. The building is level with the street at the front and has concrete and timber stumps of increasing height towards the back as the ground falls away to the rear of the block. The shop has a stepped parapet and a gable and hipped roof clad in corrugated metal. Timber posts support a metal awning to the street. The shopfront has a central recessed entry flanked by display windows. There are large timber framed shop windows with multiple panes facing the street. The shop interior is simple and has timber walls and floors.
There is a skillion-roofed extension along the western side. This is constructed of timber and has a row of timber framed casement windows running for most of its length. A door to the street beside the shop window provides access to it.
To the rear of the block is a large shed with a low-pitched gabled roof. It is clad in corrugated iron and set on a concrete slab. The concrete is marked 'Bill Lena 28.10.67'.
","history":"The Special Glass Co. shop is one of a two adjacent timber shops which are believed to have been built about 1925, probably in anticipation of the increase in trade experienced in Yungaburra following the connection of the town with Cairns by the Gillies Highway in 1926.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40-acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. At the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement, which had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah. The land on which the shop was later built, and which was to become the commercial heart of Yungaburra, was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899.
In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910, Ned Lisha, a storekeeper, purchasing Lot 16. The Railway Commissioner acquired six acres and the position of the new railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement, which was located towards the north west of the new commercial centre. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway. In 1912 Archibald Hendren bought lot 16 and took out a mortgage for £1750 on it, but then sold it to Albert Soffe Williams.
His father, Henry S. Williams, had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington. He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the family business was continued by his sons under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams'. In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. In 1910, the railway line reached the settlement, which had been renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a sawmill, a store and a large hotel for the Williams family opposite the railway station, and a number of shops and houses. In 1918,a new title to lot 16 was issued in the name of Estate H.S. Williams Limited.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. The shop is believed to have been constructed around 1925, probably in conjunction with the adjacent shop, also on lot 16 and was first occupied by a tailor.
In June 1954, the land was subdivided into 2 blocks so that each shop was on a separate title. In January 1955, William Madrid, a long-term employee of Williams' Lake Eacham Hotel, acquired lot 1 containing this building via a seller's mortgage to Maud Kehoe (born Williams) and her daughters in law, owners of the hotel. The Madrids occupied the shop as a residence with access through a door into an addition at the right hand side from which Mrs Madrid ran a hairdressing business. The shed at rear of the shop was constructed in 1967. Billy Madrid died in 1987 and in 1995 the shop was purchased by the current owners and underwent considerable repair including replacement of the roof. The current shopfront windows were installed to facilitate use as a shop. The Madrid family could not remember the building ever having had shopfront windows and as a tailor's premises, residence and later as a TAB agency, it may not have needed them.
","criteria":"As an early commercial building in Yungaburra, the shop marks the emergence of the town as a gateway to the Tablelands following the arrival of the railway in 1910 and the commencement of a road link with the coast in 1926. This facilitated the growth of agriculture and dairying on the Tablelands and heralded the development of tourism in the area.
|The shop is an example of the type of simple timber commercial building that served many new settlements in the early 20th century.
|In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|As a building constructed as part of the Williams Estate, the shop has an association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15254,"place_ref":600479,"name":"Community Centre","alternate_name":"Yungaburra Hall | Williams Estate Hall | Tivoli picture theatre","street_address":"19 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The community hall is a timber single-storey building set on stumps. It is rectangular in plan and its long axis is set at right angles to Cedar Street. The roof is gabled and clad with corrugated iron and has a raised section towards the rear over the stage. There is an awning to the street supported by timber posts. The entry is central and approached by concrete steps. There is a concrete block addition with a low-pitched skillion roof to the western side.
Inside, the building comprises a large rectangular space with side aisles. To the right of the entrance is a large modern bar and a kitchen is located to the left. There is a stage at the rear of the hall with small dressing rooms at each side. The wings and backdrop are decorated with modern paintings of trees and a view of Lake Barrine. The stage has storage lockers along the front.
A freestanding toilet block has been added on the western side.
A large freestanding wall constructed of volcanic rock is on the southeast boundary. It can be seen that it was once a wall of a building that has since been removed.
","history":"The earliest section of the building was constructed in 1910 as a hall for the Lake Eacham Hotel at Yungaburra and was originally situated beside the hotel. It was moved to its present site to the rear of the hotel when this was extended c1926 and has served as a venue for a variety of social events and as a cinema.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40-acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. At the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah and the first farms were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s more people took up land around Allumbah and a small commercial centre developed to serve them.
The land on which the hotel and hall were built, and which was to become the commercial heart of Yungaburra, was part of an Agricultural Farm selected by George O'Donnell in 1899. In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks from 1910 onwards. This was the year in which the railway reached the settlement, renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with a similarly named town. The Railway Commissioner had acquired six acres of Wedderburn's land and the position of the railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement that was located north west of the new commercial centre. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway and 2 blocks close to the station were purchased by AS and FC Williams for a new hotel.
Henry S. Williams had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington. He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the family business was continued by his sons under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams'. In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a sawmill, the hotel and a number of shops and houses. The hall was built as an adjunct to the hotel and was used for dances, although it also served for a variety of other uses including religious services and the first meeting of the Eacham Shire Council on 22 February 1911. It was then known as the Williams Estate Hall. The Williams family's interest in this area grew as they acquired further land over the next few years and built shops and a motor dealership and garage on it.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. It improved access to the area for tourists and in anticipation of this, the Lake Eacham Hotel was extended significantly along the main road and the hall was then moved to land at the rear of the hotel, purchased for the purpose. The developing tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development with many tourists staying at the Lake Eacham Hotel. In the 1920s Yungaburra was one of a number of small towns on the railway line serviced by travelling projectionists, or 'picture show men' who showed silent films in the hall. These included Ted Stoltz and the Gilders, father and son. Films were shown at the hall for many years and from 1928 it was the venue for the Tivoli picture theatre, although it was also used for other functions.
A wall built of local volcanic stone is located across a narrow laneway from the hall and is the only remaining wall of a building used to accommodate staff from the hotel. The insurance company is said to have objected to its closeness to the hall and the wall had to be constructed as a fire safety precaution.
The hall was considerably extended after it was moved and the join between the old and new sections can still be seen. Side aisles were added and the original side walls were removed. The ceiling and walls were lined internally in the 1950s. In 1957 Alfred King and Alice Jones (Mrs King) bought the hall. In 1964 Mr King died and Mrs King continued to run the hall as the Tivoli until 1969. By the time it was purchased in July 1971 by the Eacham Shire Council, it had fallen into disrepair. Renovation was undertaken by the Yungaburra and District Progress Association and continued over many years. Works undertaken included the replacement of the floorboards and the building of a concrete block extension at the side. In the 1980s a concrete toilet block was built beside it. The hall now has a new roof, which remains unlined over the stage area. The kitchen has been upgraded and a modern freestanding bar has been constructed in the corner to the right hand side of the entrance. In 1993 the title to the hall passed to the Yungaburra and District Progress Association. The hall is still used for such events as dances and weddings, largely by people from surrounding towns.
","criteria":"The Community Centre, as the venue for a wide variety of events from the first meeting of the Eacham Shire Council, to church services and public entertainments, is important in demonstrating the development of Yungaburra. As an entertainment facility linked to a hotel that catered largely for tourists, it is also important in illustrating the development of the early tourist industry in the region.
|As a public building within a group of structures of similar age, scale and materials, the hall makes an important contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|As the venue for a wide variety of social events, since the earliest years of the town's development, the hall has an important association with the community of Yungaburra and the surrounding area.
|As a building constructed as part of the Williams Estate, the hall has an important association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra. It also has associations with early projectionists in the area and with the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15255,"place_ref":600480,"name":"7-9 Cedar Street, Yungaburra","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7-9 Cedar Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-03-15","description":"The residence (No.7) and store (No.9) consist of two single-storeyed single skin timber buildings with exposed framing, corrugated iron gable roofs and some concrete stumps, which are built on a south sloping site, fronting Cedar Street to the north. The buildings are separated by an open space with a screen wall to the street.
Both buildings have similar square parapets with cantilevered timber and iron awnings supported by deep, curved timber brackets. These awnings are propped with round timber posts. Both buildings have display windows with recessed central entrances. The east and west elevations have window hoods with timber battens and corrugated iron, and the buildings contain both casement and sash windows.
The residence has two timber doors, either side of an internal dividing wall which has been partly removed. The store is longer than the residence, and has a rear timber lean-to and a later corrugated iron addition.
Internally, the residence has had a rearrangement of spaces, with walls removed and partitions added creating a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and living space. The store has also had a rearrangement of spaces, with a streetfront display area, a bedroom and a storage area behind.
","history":"These two single-storeyed, timber buildings were erected c1920s as an office and cafe.
Yungaburra, previously known as Allumbah (meaning red cedar) Pocket, was surveyed in 1886 by Surveyor Rankin as part of a government village settlement scheme. In 1910, the Cairns to Millaa Millaa railway reached the town, which was renamed to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. In 1926, the Gilles Highway between Cairns and Gordonvale was opened. Fuelled by the resulting tourist trade to the nearby lakes, the town experienced a second period of development.
The site on which the buildings are erected was first subdivided in 1911, when it was acquired by Kathleen Bullman. In 1923 the property was acquired by Patrick McChoy and in 1929, by local company, Estate HS Williams Ltd. Photographs show the buildings were erected by 1929. One shop was an auctioneer's office and the other operated as a cafe servicing the Tivoli Theatre, located on the other side of Cedar Street.
","criteria":"7-9 Cedar Street, Yungaburra, which comprises two c1920s timber buildings, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Yungaburra and the Atherton Tableland.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of small 1920s country town commercial buildings.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular the contribution of the buildings, in their scale, form and use of materials, to the streetscape of Cedar Street and to the Yungaburra townscape, and as part of a cohesive group of early 20th century timber buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15256,"place_ref":600481,"name":"Cairns Plywood Pty Ltd Sawmill Complex","alternate_name":"Williamson Brothers Sawmill | Eacham Sawmills | Cairns Plywood Limited","street_address":"25 - 33 Eacham Road","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Cairns Plywood Sawmill Pty Ltd occupies a large site on Eacham Road. Concrete footings, a steel chimney, two boilers, a steam generator and steam engine mark the original location of the sawmill. There are a number of corrugated iron gable roofed structures, sheds and various items of machinery scattered across a large site.
1. The Office is situated on the fence line fronting Eacham Road. It is a single-storeyed structure said to be made of silky oak timber, but has been painted inside and out. It has an exposed frame and is set on low steel posts. The building has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron that extends into an awning at the front, which is supported on plain timber posts. There is an extension to one side and the building has both casement and sash windows with battened window hoods. The interior has offices opening off a cental hall and has timber walls, ceiling and floor. A large sales counter sits in the front room, which has three quarter height partition walls clad in tongue and groove boards with some weatherboard cladding. Few interior fittings are present, these include two fixed safes and some shelves and drawers.
2. The Moulding Shed and Borax Plant extends well into the road reserve area beside the modern bitumen road at the front of the complex. The Moulding Shed has a frame of timber poles and has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. It includes storage and loading areas and has a tiny office in one corner. Two kilns with tongue and groove lining with steam pipes set into the ceiling and small covered chimneys are in the Moulding Shed. The Borax Plant is a large steel framed and steel sided box with vertical sliding doors at each end adjacent to the Moulding Shed. It has a series of large pipes at points around the structure and a large borax tank on the top. There are the remains of rails in the floor and narrow gauge rails which lead from this building once led through the gate and under the road to the railway station. The railway has gone but small sections of the line remain and a few timber sleepers can be seen in the tunnel.
3. The Switching Shed is beside the pathway leading to the sheds and veneer mill from the Office. It is a small square timber building set on a concrete slab and has a skillion roof.
4. The Mill Site is represented by the remains of boilers and other machinery, concrete mounting blocks, belt wheels and stacks of corrugated iron sheeting. There are traces of rail embedded in the grass. A feature of the sawmill site that can be seen for some distance away is a metal chimney belonging to the boiler and machinery that once ran the sawmill. For safety reasons, steel cables currently brace this chimney. Industrial equipment immediately adjacent to the chimney consists of the main boiler, secondary boiler, steam engine and a steam generator interconnected by a series of cast iron pipes. Concrete pads represent the previous location of other industrial equipment.
5. The Former Workshop is a rectangular timber and weatherboard building with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. It has a timber parapet an awning and a double door on the west side. There are open skillion verandahs on the west and north side of the building and a corrugated iron clad skillion section on the rear, or east side. The machinery housed in the workshop were operated by a set of interconnected flat belts running to a single electric engine and drive shaft which is still present. Machinery includes a drill press, mechanical hacksaw, set of grinding wheels, a hydraulic press, a large bandsaw, a large metal lathe, a small lathe and a fan set to the forge in the blacksmiths room at the rear of the building. A short chimney protrudes through the roof above the blacksmiths forge. Tools such as spanners, and equipment including scrap iron, an old welder and welding masks remain in situ on the workbench. Other industrial equipment includes cogs, bolts, scrap metal, tin, chains, belt repair hooks and belt pieces. A large jack supports the centre of the skillion roof on the north side.
6. The Former Plywood Mill is a large corrugated iron clad timber framed building with two parallel sections with gabled roofs. Essentially the building is an open plan shed with some internal subdivision including an internal mezzanine section with a large tub with two small plywood partitions, one forming an office area. Three sets of railway lines cross the shed floor and exit through large sliding doors on the west side of the building. A drying kiln, lined with tongue and groove boards is at the northern end of the shed. Various pieces of machinery including generator sets, rollers, presses, saw tables, saw blades and railcarts are stored here.
7. The Veneer Mill is a very large rectangular timber structure with a gabled, steel clad roof. It has a raised concrete floor. Some posts supporting the roof are very large timber logs. There are two steel gantries spanning the building. Some machinery is still in place.
8. The Butter Box Factory is a timber-framed building with a corrugated iron roof and corrugated iron and timber walls. There are two enclosures within the factory, one a tongue and groove partition with a bench and shelves at the north-east section of the building, the other a small plywood office in the south-east corner. Machinery used for box production is in situ including a series of four multiple saw tables, separate rip saw, brand stamping machine and guillotine. A winch and drive shaft is also present, but removed from its original location. Spare, excess and disused equipment is currently stored in this factory.
9. The Drying Kilns is a timber-framed building with a corrugated iron roof and timber block footings. The kilns are two tongue and groove timber lined rooms comprising the inside of the building while three open sided verandahs form the outside. Above the ceiling of each drying chamber is a lined enclosed space which contains a series of parallel steam/hot water pipes feeding into a main pipe that leads towards the main steam boiler. Sections of the internal railway and timber carts used on the internal railway are stored under one verandah of the Drying Kilns.
Remnants of the Internal Tramway are discernable across the site.
","history":"The Williamson Brothers constructed the sawmill in 1910 when the railway reached Yungaburra, providing ready transport to Cairns for local timber. It was operating as Eacham Sawmills in 1918 and is believed to have been owned by George Gummow, Jimmy Brett and Jules Moxham during the 1930's, who named the mill Cairns Plywood Pty. Ltd in 1940. The Rankines bought the mill in 1963. At the time of World Heritage listing in 1988 the Rankine family owned mills at Peeramon, Kairi, Stratford, Mareeba, Innisfail and Ingham. All of these operations closed as a result of World Heritage listing.
The Atherton Tablelands originally had extensive rainforest cover. Although this eventually proved to contain over a 100 species of tree useful to Europeans, including high quality furniture timbers, transporting timber over the range to the coast was difficult. In the early years cedar getters cut and sawed timber by hand and transported it by bullock or horse teams; attempts to float it down the Barron River having proved wasteful failures. Many of the trees felled to provide cleared land for closer settlement were burned as they lay.
Yungaburra was surveyed in 1888 under the Village Settlement scheme and was called Allumbah Pocket. This scheme was introduced in 1885 and offered settlers farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. Around this time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged, due largely to the difficult terrain. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the village scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and a sawmill was set up at Ravenshoe cutting cedar and pine in 1897. The arrival of the railway meant that large scale processing of timber at sawmills was practical and profitable. The line arrived at Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area, and another sawmill was set up there. It supplied timber for mines in the area and later for building to support farming expansion. Timber was also exported and fine furniture varieties supplied from the Tablelands included cedar, maple, pines, walnut, penda, bean, ash and oak. Sawmilling became a part of every town on the Tablelands.
Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s more people took up land around Allumbah and a small service town developed to serve them. In 1910, the railway line linking Cairns with the Tablelands reached Allumbah Pocket, which was then renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another town. The Post Office Directory for this year lists almost all occupants of Yungaburra as 'selectors.' A period of rapid development then began with the construction of a sawmill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the railway station. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed.
Albert and Frederick Williamson established the sawmill close to the new railway station in 1911. The sawmill not only used the railway line to transport timber, but also provided timber for further railway construction.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. Improved roads led to the last of the bullock and horse teams in the timber industry being replaced by trucks and machinery. In 1933 George Gummow, who owned the mill at the time, installed a large Capital Lathe from the USA for veneer peeling and the business became Cairns Plywood Limited in 1940, manufacturing veneers and plywood following the increase in interest in veneer in the 1930's.
Butter production was an important industry on the Atherton Tablelands from 1913 to 1951. The Butter Box Factory was used to produce timber boxes for the Malanda Butter Factory, which later became the Malanda Milk Company, attributed with 'the longest milk run in the world', from Malanda to Darwin, which eventually became part of Dairy Farmers Group. The butter box factory ceased producing butter boxes after the Rankine's, who purchased the mill in 1963, found the machinery was so out of alignment they could not make money on butter box production. The Rankine's also ceased operating the borax plant, which involved dipping timbers into borax as treatment against borers.
The railway branch line to Yungaburra, Malanda and Tarzali closed in 1963, ending the rail link between the sawmill and Cairns.
The main operation of the mill under ownership of the Rankine brothers was the peeling of veneers. The Rankine's transported the cut veneers to their drying sheds at Peeramon by truck. The mill continued to produce timber stock for sale. The Rankine brothers took over Foxwood Industries in 1986, acquiring mills at Ingham, Innisfail and Mareeba. In 1989, this company was said to be the largest timber business in Queensland. The mill closed when World Heritage listing of the Wet Tropics Rainforest of North Queensland in 1988 prevented further milling of rainforest timber. The sawmill burned down in the late 1980s.
","criteria":"The Cairns Plywood Timber Mill is important in demonstrating the development and decline of the timber industry in Far North Queensland. It functioned as a timber mill from the 1910's until World Heritage listing of the Wet Tropics rainforest in 1988 during which time it functioned as an economic drive for the town and immediate district. The timber industry is one of the major industrial themes in the development of Queensland.
|The Former Workshop, Drying Shed, Moulding Shed, Sawmill site, Office, Veneer Mill, Former Plywood Sheds, Switching Shed, Butter Box Factory and remnants of the internal tramway demonstrate a rare combination of all elements of a saw milling operation including the steam and electric saw mill equipment which formed at least two generations of milling. A rare set of butter box making machinery remains intact and demonstrates a dedicated technology which links the dairy and timber industries, two significant industries on the Atherton Tablelands.
|There is aesthetic value in the industrial nature of the chimney, industrial equipment and work sheds and their locations across the site. The Office displays attractive characteristics of early 1900's timber architecture including exposed framing and internal timber archways while the former Workshop contains architectural detailing such as a distinctive timber parapet on the façade.
|The place has a high level of social significance for Yungaburra residents, as the Cairns Plywood Timber Mill was the main employer in Yungaburra during its operation. The Cairns Plywood Timber Mill has a special association with timber cutters from 1910 to the 1980's.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15257,"place_ref":600482,"name":"Butchers Shop","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Kehoe Place","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The butcher's shop is a single storey timber building with a steeply pitched gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The long axis of the building is set at right angles to the street and the front has a square timber parapet. An awning with a corrugated iron roof, which is supported on timber posts with brackets, runs along the shop frontage. This awning roof has hips at each front corner and extends back along both sides of the building, though it has been enclosed at the sides to form extensions. That on the left hand side is built in with timber boards with louvres above and has a brick section at the rear left hand corner. That to the right hand side is enclosed with spaced palings at the front corner and fibrous cement sheeting and corrugated metal towards the rear.
The shop is entered by a central pair of doors flanked by windows. That to the right has been blocked. That to the left is filled with reinforced mesh, as is the transom above the door. Inside, there is a public area with a tiled floor and counter. There is a cold room to the right. To the rear of the building is a work area with a concrete floor. The built-in section on the left hand side of the butchery is used as office space and is linked to the shop area by a door. To the rear of the office is a small brick room, described as a former strong room, which is used for storage. The built in section on the right hand side is used for storage.
","history":"This shop has always been a butchery and is believed to have been built in 1922 for the Estate of HS Williams, which developed several businesses on land close to the railway station at Yungaburra in the 1920s.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40 acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. At the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement which had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah. The land on which the butcher shop was later built, and which was to become the commercial heart of Yungaburra, was part of an Agricultural Farms selected by George O'Donnell in 1899.
In 1900 the land was sold to George Wedderburn and subdivided into numerous small blocks in 1910. Six acres were acquired by the Railway Commissioner and the position of the new railway station caused a geographic shift in focus from the original settlement which was located towards the north west of the new commercial centre. Buildings were constructed or relocated near the railway. Two of the blocks positioned close to the station were purchased in 1911 by AS and FC Williams for a new hotel. The Williams family's interest in this area grew as they acquired land adjoining the hotel over the next few years.
H.S. Williams had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington, He then acquired land in the original Allumbah settlement in 1898 and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but the family business was continued by his sons under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams'. In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. In 1910, the railway line reached the settlement, which had been renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a saw mill, a store and a large hotel for the Williams family opposite the railway station and a number of shops and houses. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed.
In the 1923 post office directory the Estate of H.S. Williams is listed as operating a store, butchers and bakery and they presumably built these businesses about the same time in anticipation of the road link from Gordonvale, which had been under construction since 1920. The store was between the butchery and the hotel, but has since been demolished. In 1926 the Gillies Highway was opened and the role of Yungaburra as a gateway to the natural attractions of the Tablelands created a second period of development in the town due to the blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes.
In 1975 the butchery was sold and changed hands several times in the late 1970s and 80s before being purchased by the current butcher in 1992. The shop has modern equipment and interior finishes but its general appearance and functional layout appears to be substantially unchanged.
","criteria":"As an early commercial building providing an important service, the butcher's shop marks the emergence of Yungaburra's role as a gateway to the Tablelands following the arrival of the railway in 1910 and the commencement of a road link with the coast in 1920. This facilitated the growth of agriculture and dairying on the Tablelands and heralded the development of tourism in the area.
|The butcher's shop is a good and intact example of the type of simple timber commercial building which served many new settlements and has been continuously in use as a butchery.
|In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|As a building constructed as part of the Williams Estate, the butchery has in important association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15259,"place_ref":600484,"name":"St Marks Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Mark's Church of England; St Marks Church of England; St Mark's Anglican Church","street_address":"7 Eacham Road","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Mark's is a small single-storeyed timber building set on low, square section metal posts. It has a steeply pitched gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. To the rear of the church is a 3 sided apse and placed centrally at the front is a lower and narrower gabled roof covering a small vestry which is linked to the church by an entrance porch. This is entered by timber stairs on the left hand side. A probable matching entrance on the opposite side is now closed. Above this, under the eaves of the church, is a louvred belfry.
Timber double doors lead from the porch into the church, which is lit by plain lancet windows, as is the vestry. The interior is simple and austere and has a coved ceiling of stained timber boards which follow the shape of the apse. The walls are painted and there is a timber floor. The original pews with flame-shaped ends have been recently refinished.
","history":"St Mark's Church was built in 1912 to serve Anglicans in the newly developing township of Yungaburra and the surrounding district.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich volcanic soil and cool climate was thought particularly suitable for agriculture. In 1888 the government surveyor marked out a village settlement at Allumbah Pocket, later to be named Yungaburra. The Village Settlement scheme, introduced in 1885, offered 40 acre farm blocks plus home sites clustered as a village. Around the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891 and the settlers grew vegetables, maize and kept dairy cows. However, without proximity to markets and reliable transport, the scheme was not successful. The Closer Settlement Act of 1906 provided for groups of authorised people to take up land prior to it being thrown open for general settlement and many miners came from Charters Towers which was by then in decline. Some people settled as part of groups and some individually. A small town developed to service the area and in 1910, the railway line linking Cairns with the Tablelands reached Allumbah, which was then renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The Post Office Directory for this year lists almost all residents as 'selectors.' A period of rapid development began with the construction of a saw mill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the railway station. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed.
The first Anglican services in Yungaburra were held in William's hotel hall by members of the Brotherhood of St Barnabas (also known as the Bush Brothers). The Brotherhood was established in 1902 by the Reverend Aneurin Vaughan-Williams, Rector of Herberton. Originally consisting only of Vaughan-Williams and one other priest, it was modelled on the Brotherhood of St Andrew founded in central Queensland a few years earlier. It was intended to address the problem of providing pastoral care to a large and sparsely settled area and the Brotherhood initially visited mainly mining camps. The Brothers travelled where they were needed and remained unmarried during the two years of their term of service. They gained considerable respect for their work and in 1908, G.H. Frodsham, Bishop of North Queensland, gave the movement impetus by recruiting in England.
The first service at St Mark's church was conducted on 5 December 1912 and the first baptism on 16 March 1913, but the church was not dedicated until 7 November 1913. In 1918 a vestry was added at the front of the church.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road from the coast to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. Tourism has remained a major industry in the area.
St Mark's does not have a resident priest, but is served as part of a parish which is centred on Atherton, where a married Rector replaced the Brothers in 1951, and also covers Herberton and Malanda. A self-help program was commenced by the congregation in July 1998 that raised funds to replace the roof and carry out conservation work in 2000-2001.
","criteria":"St Mark's Church, as a modestly scaled and finished church built in a new farming settlement, illustrates the development of Yungaburra and of the Anglican Church in Queensland. Constructed by community endeavour and served by the Brotherhood of St Barnabas for some years, it illustrates the way in which the Church endeavoured to reach small and isolated communities which could not support an incumbent.
|St Mark's church is a good and intact example of the type of simple timber chapel which served many new settlements as their first church.
|In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|The church has a strong connection with the Anglican community in Yungaburra, having served the village and surrounding farms since the early years of the 20th century. It also provides a testimony to the work of the Brotherhood of St Barnabas in providing pastoral care to the developing Tablelands.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15261,"place_ref":600486,"name":"Allumbah","alternate_name":"Artist's Gallery","street_address":"7 Mulgrave Road","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"'Allumbah' is a timber building with a hipped and gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. It is set on stumps that are low at the front, but increase in height as the land falls away to the rear.
A low retaining wall constructed of volcanic rock runs along the front of the property, breaking for the driveway and then recommencing further north down Mulgrave Road for a distance of approximately 40 metres. The stonework is similar to that seen elsewhere in Yungaburra, such as that in the gardens of the Lake Eacham Hotel. The trees that marked the front fence line have been removed.
At the centre of the front elevation there is a projecting bay with a triple window and sunhood below a decorative timber gable infill. This is adjoined on the right hand side by a wide verandah that runs around the side of the house and has been built in at the rear. The verandah roof is ceiled with tongue and groove timber boards and is supported by timber posts with decorative timber brackets. It has a timber handrail and slat balustrading. Four sets of French windows open onto the verandah.
The opposite side of the house has rooms along what may have been a former verandah. A verandah at the rear has been extended into a timber deck. The interior of the building has walls of tongue and groove timber boards and timber floors. The core rooms have high ceilings and the doors that open from the main room into the bedrooms and study have decorative transoms. The ceilings of all rooms on the perimeter of the house have raked ceilings, which suggests that the house has evolved from a four-room core and verandahs. The kitchen and bathroom are modern.
","history":"'Allumbah' is a single storey timber dwelling thought to have been built in 1926 on land that formed part of the earliest settled area of Yungaburra.
Yungaburra was surveyed in 1888 as a Village Settlement called Allumbah. The Village Settlement scheme was introduced in 1885 and offered settlers farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. Around this time, a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891, though the scheme proved unsuccessful. The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s more people took up land around Allumbah and a small service town developed to serve them. The land on which the house is built was part of a 7-acre block granted in 1916 to Albert Soffe and Frederick Campbell Williams as trustees for the estate of their father, Henry Sydney Williams. This grant replaced the original selection of 6 acres made in 1902 by H S Williams in an area in which the earliest commercial buildings were constructed.
Henry Williams had arrived in Australia in the 1860s and worked in a number of occupations before taking up land at Scrubby Creek on the Tablelands. After losing his dairy cattle to tick in 1895, Williams turned to business and ran a store and butchery at Scrubby Creek and the Carriers Arms hotel at Carrington, He then acquired land at Allumbah and established a store. He was killed in an accident in 1905, but his sons, under the name of 'Estate H.S. Williams', continued the family business. In 1907 they established a shanty hotel in Allumbah to serve packers and the navvies constructing the railway inching its way towards the town. In 1910, the railway line reached the settlement, which had been renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The railway link triggered a period of rapid development with the construction of a sawmill, a store and a large hotel for the Williams family opposite the railway station and a number of shops and houses. In 1911, Eacham Shire was formed.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. The Williams hotel was enlarged and the estate developed other businesses in Yungaburra. In 1926, the land on which the house stands was excised from the larger holding and transferred from the Estate to Frances Amelia Wardle, a widowed daughter of H S Williams. The house is thought to have been built at this time. In 1947, Mrs Wardle died and the house was left to Marion Lehfeldt, her elder daughter, and then in 1954 was transferred to a group of Williams family members.
By 1967 the house had fallen into disrepair and was condemned. However, it has survived in use following repair and renovation by a series of owners during the late 20th century. In 1975 it was sold by the Williams family and changed hands twice before being purchased in 1981 by Christian and Jacqueline Souilijaert who ran it as an art gallery. The house is still known to many people locally as 'the art gallery' even though it has not been used for this purpose since 1988 and has reverted to residential use. The house has undergone a series of modifications over the years and was last renovated in 1998 at which the time the bathroom and kitchen were renewed and the verandah at the rear extended into a deck.
","criteria":"Allumbah was built during an important period in the development of Yungaburra and is located on part of the original Williams family land, indicating the position of the original settlement of Allumbah, which predated the current centre of the township.
|Allumbah is a timber residence built in a traditional style and contributes to the built character of Yungaburra.
|As a building constructed on part of the original Williams land and which remained in that family for many years, Allumbah has an association with the Williams family who made a major contribution to the commercial development of Yungaburra.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15262,"place_ref":600487,"name":"Residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"4 (x2) Oak Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","history":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","criteria":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15263,"place_ref":600488,"name":"St Patricks Catholic Church","alternate_name":"Our Lady of Ransom | St Patrick's Catholic Church","street_address":"1 Penda Street","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Patrick's is set on a grassed area on a ridge of high land overlooking the park-like plantings running down Eacham Road, originally a stock route. It is bounded to the east by Mulgrave Road and on the south east by Penda Street.
St Patrick's is a single-storeyed timber church with exposed framing set on concrete stumps. It has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron and is cruciform in plan. The church is entered through a gabled entry porch below a triple lancet window assembly. The front wall of the building has chamferboard cladding. The roof has decorative timber brackets at the eaves and fretwork panels to the gable ends.
Inside the roof is supported by timber trusses and is lined with diagonal boarding. The interior is simply finished and retains the original pews and much of the original furniture.
There is a freestanding steel-framed bell tower located at the eastern corner of the site. The memorial plaque at the base reads:
Erected to the memory of
Revd. P.B. Doyle, O.S.A.
Died 16 November 1924
A Sincere Friend
And a Faithful Priest
R.I.P.
The relocated presbytery is located at northern corner of the site fronting Mulgrave Road. It is a single-storeyed dwelling set on stumps with hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The walls are clad in corrugated iron and the verandah is partially enclosed by with timber louvres. The house contains 3 main rooms, with a bathroom and kitchen at either end of the enclosed verandah.
","history":"St Patrick's church is located on a ridge at the intersection of what were two major roads marking the original village settlement of Allumbah. It was built in 1914 and was the first Catholic church in the area, Mass previously having been said in William's hall.
The first Europeans on the Atherton Tablelands were engaged in timbergetting and mining, but the rich soil and cool climate were thought particularly suitable for the development of agriculture. In 1885 a Village Settlement scheme was introduced which offered settlers 40 acre farm blocks with home sites clustered as a village. In 1888 a village settlement was laid out at Allumbah Pocket, later to become Yungaburra. At the same time a railway from the port of Cairns to the Tableland was begun, although it took far longer to reach its objective than originally envisaged. The first farms at Allumbah were taken up in 1891 and a street developed along the ridge at Allumbah where the church is situated. However, without proximity to markets and reliable transport, the scheme was not successful.
The Roman Catholic Vicariate of Cooktown, serving North Queensland, was established in 1877 and was first staffed largely by Italians. At the time, most of the Roman Catholics in North Queensland were Irish miners and in 1884 the Irish Province of the Order of Saint Augustine agreed to take on the work of the Vicariate which was struggling to serve a scattered population of Catholics in a vast area with very few priests. Herberton was one of five centres in North Queensland at which priests were appointed. In the 1890s a slump in ore prices adversely affected the economy of mining towns and the population of the Tablelands began to drift toward new agricultural areas such as Yungaburra.
The railway reached Mareeba in 1895 and Atherton in 1903, greatly improving access to the area. Following new Land Acts in the early 1900s to encourage closer settlement which had more practical requirements, more people took up land around Allumbah. A small township developed to service the area and in 1910, the railway line linking Cairns with the Tablelands reached Allumbah, which was then renamed Yungaburra to avoid confusion with another similarly named town. The Post Office Directory for this year lists almost all residents as 'selectors.' A period of rapid development began with the construction of a sawmill, a hotel and a number of shops and houses near the railway station. In 1911 a tiny Anglican church was constructed, the first Methodist services were held in Yungaburra and the Eacham Shire was formed. The Catholics of Yungaburra were served by the priest from Herberton who visited on a monthly basis. Services were held in homes or in the hall attached to the Williams hotel.
The land on which the church was built was originally granted to George O'Donnell and was bought in 1900 by George Wedderburn. In 1914 work began on a new church on part of Wedderburn's land. It was well located at the juncture of the stock route, the main road to the coast and the road to Atherton. The church was officially opened on 26 April 1914 by Bishop James Murray as Our Lady of Ransom. The opening was a gala occasion and people travelled considerable distances to attend, many travelling on special excursion trains from Herberton and Mareeba. The resultant crowds filled the new church to capacity. The first wedding in the church was held only 3 days after the opening and was that of Maud Williams, who managed the new hotel, and Jack Kehoe, the local stationmaster. The first priest serving the church was Father Patrick Bernard Doyle and in 1915 title to the church land was placed in the names of Doyle and Bishop John Heavey.
Father Doyle was a deeply spiritual man who was held in great affection and respect by his parishioners. He was born in Ireland in 1874 and joined the order of Saint Augustine in 1893. In 1899 he came to serve in north Queensland as assistant priest, then parish priest, at Cairns. In 1906 he was appointed to Herberton where he stayed, with a return to Cairns for a year between 1908 and 1909, until his death in 1924. He served various churches in his parish, besides teaching and playing sport at the Sisters of Mercy school in Herberton. After his untimely death, the church was named St Patrick's in his memory and a plaque notes that the bell tower is dedicated to him.
In 1926, the Gillies Highway between Yungaburra and Gordonvale was opened, providing the first trafficable road to the Tablelands. Yungaburra became a gateway to the natural attractions of the area and a blossoming tourist trade to the nearby lakes created a second period of development. The road also made the church more accessible and Mass was celebrated twice a month. There were never enough Catholics in and around Yungaburra to support an incumbent priest.
Changes to the church over time have been minor and reflect the changes in liturgical practice following the Second Vatican Council called by Pope John XXIII in the 1960s. These include the removal of the confessional box, the relocation of the altar rails and the separation of the altar table from the back of the altar to allow the priest to face the congregation. The southern side of the entrance porch has been enclosed, presumably to shield it from the weather.
A house was moved onto the northern corner of the site fronting Mulgrave Road in 1996, for use as a presbytery and has toilets underneath. The house was originally located on the corner of Loeven and Severin Streets in Cairns and was then approximately 50-60 years old.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Church was built in 1914 and is associated with the early development of the Atherton Tablelands and the growth of the Catholic Church in North Queensland. The church marks the site of the original Allumbah Pocket settlement, the commercial focus of the township having moved towards the railway when it arrived in 1910.
|St Patrick's Church is a good and intact example of a rural timber church of it era.
|In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial visual contribution to the built character of Yungaburra.
|St Patrick's Church has a strong connection with the Catholic community of the Yungaburra area, having served the village and surrounding farms since the early years of the 20th century. It also has a strong association with the life and work of Father Patrick Doyle, OSA, and the work of the Augustinian order in the spread of Catholicism in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15264,"place_ref":600489,"name":"Eidsvold Homestead","alternate_name":"Homestead Eidsvold","street_address":"Eidsvold Road","suburb":"EIDSVOLD","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Eidsvold Homestead today is a complex of buildings set in established gardens. The 1848 slab house is located at the western end of the homestead yard; the complex of buildings which form the second house are situated in the centre; and the 1967 house is at the eastern end. The property is situated on the Burnett River and is approached from the town of Eidsvold via a bridge across this river. The entrance drive sweeps in from the southwest, veering east along the southern perimeter of the main homestead yard and north to the outbuildings.
Slab house
The 1850s slab house, probably built by the Archer brothers, is the earliest house within the homestead yard. It is located adjacent to the south-western end of an early tennis court, which is surfaced with ant bed and enclosed by a high chain-wire fence. The slab building is in an excellent state of repair. It is rectangular in plan with a central core of rooms enclosed by vertical timber slab walls and surrounded by a wide verandah, which is enclosed along all but the south-eastern corner. The central core has a steeply pitched gabled roof while the surrounding verandah has a shallower pitched skillion roof. The house has a corrugated galvanised iron roof but was previously clad with shingles. These are visible on the underside of the roof. At the western end of the house a tank and a small structure which could be a kitchen or wash-house are located outside the verandah edge. The house and verandah have a wooden floor. Internally the house is furnished in the manner of a residence in the latter half of the 19th century. It functions primarily as a house museum.
The second homestead
The second homestead comprises a complex of five buildings, which are located to the west/south-west of the 1967 dwelling. Three of these structures are connected with stairs or covered ways. The buildings exhibit a variety of size, scale and architectural styles, reflecting the development of the complex over a number of years.
The core of this complex is a c1880s/1890s house with a steeply pitched hipped roof and stepped surrounding verandahs. The building is rectangular in plan, with its long axis running north-east to south-west. A central core of rooms is roofed with galvanised corrugated iron. The wide verandahs surrounding this central core are separately roofed at a lower pitch. A number of french doors open onto these verandahs. The house is elevated on stumps approximately 1500mm to 1800mm above ground level. It is open underneath and access is provided via a staircase on the southern corner. Verandah railings are limited to a timber rail at around 900mm above the floor level with an infilling of mesh over which a creeper has grown. The house is extensively clothed in a range of creepers climbing over trellises from ground level, particularly on the south-western and north-eastern corners. Also on the south-western corner a vine covered trellis extends from the verandah head beam. This extension of the width of the verandah roof with vine covered trellises was typical of house construction in the latter years of the nineteenth century as residents strove to shade and cool their living areas.
Attached to this house along its eastern verandah is a substantial extension elevated a similar height above the ground which appears from its architectural detail to have been built between the first and second world wars. The conjoining of these structures of two distinctly different architectural styles typifies the continuing pragmatic realities of life in the relatively isolated communities of western Queensland's grazing lands
This addition is built in the interwar 'Queensland Bungalow' style. Rectangular in plan also, its ridge line runs at right angles to that of the late 19th century house. Again the roof shape is hipped but not at so steep a pitch. An open front verandah runs along the south-western elevation terminated by an enclosed room which runs the full width of the south-eastern elevation. A similar verandah runs along the north-western elevation but this verandah is enclosed with mesh fixed to a timber frame. Both verandahs have separate skillion roofs of galvanised corrugated iron along the full length of the long axis of this extension. A bay window extension fully fenestrated with casement windows is located centrally in the south-eastern elevation. Further sets of casement windows are set one on each side of this bay extension and are shaded by separate sunhoods. The external cladding to this house is chamfer boards. The stumps under are now concrete with decorative scalloped battened sections infilling between the perimeter stumps. Typical of this style of house, gardens are set around the perimeter of the house under the edge of the floor and are partially shaded from the worst of the heat of the sun by the decorative battening between the posts. The vines on the trellises of the colonial house merge with a dense cover of creeper along the north-eastern elevation of the extension. An elevated tank stand is positioned at the southern corner of this house, again with a garden underneath it.
The other buildings in this complex are low-set single gable buildings clad with weatherboard and roofed with corrugated galvanised iron sheeting. The larger of these buildings also have extended verandah skillions as part of their roof forms. The first of these buildings, now used as an office, sits to the front of the elevated complex and towards the western corner. It is rectangular in shape and has a moderately pitched open-ended gable roof with the ridge line along a south-east to north-west axis. A lower section of roof is located on the eastern end of the building. A veranda at ground level is located at the opposite corner. It has a substantial flagstone path leading from it. It is not physically connected to the rest of the building complex.
To the rear (north-west) of the 19th century house are a further two smaller structures, both aligned south-east to north-west. Both are clad in weatherboards and are gable roofed. A verandah at the southern corner of the larger structure is connected via a covered walkway and stair to the colonial house. There is another small verandah on the opposite (northern) corner of this building. A small simple building, now used as a laundry, is located close to this corner but is detached from the group.
The buildings are nestled within a canopy of mature shady trees with extensive shrub and ground cover under-planting. An old bottle tree, Brachychiton rupestre, grows among this vegetation.
The 1967 residence
The 1967 residence is the most easterly of the structures in the complex. It is set behind a semicircular pathway which defines the edge of its front garden. The house is a low set construction, rectangular in plan, raised three steps above ground level and clad with vertical timber planking with a natural finish. This is reminiscent in character of the first slab hut on the property. Ventilation is achieved using floor to ceiling door and window openings, some louvred. The roof is low pitched in a simple open gable form with the ridge running along the length of the rectangular plan. The semicircular pathway in front of the house edges a well maintained lawn area in which is located a raised concrete edged pond. The surface of the pond is covered with a variety of water plants and large ornamental rocks are arranged within the pond.
Ancillary structures
To the west of the main homestead complex there is a line of trees which screens the view to the working structures of the station property from the residential area. These working buildings include a number of older buildings such as stables and yards fenced with slip rail fencing. These are not included within the heritage register boundary. Behind this complex again a line of established shady trees encloses the western boundary of this space. Beyond this are a number of more modern structures, including men's quarters and sheds.
","history":"Eidsvold Homestead, established in 1850 by the Archer family, is significant in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. It is one of the earliest homesteads in Queensland and one of the first homesteads in the Burnett region. It is important in illustrating the pattern and nature of pastoral settlement in this district.
The homestead complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places: it contains examples of housing from three stages of station development. The agglomeration of many built structures of disparate architectural styles and from different eras is typical of the way in which homesteads evolved. The original slab hut which may date to 1850, is a particularly good example of the earliest type of station housing. A 'second' home, forming part of a complex of several buildings commenced in the late nineteenth century, is an example of the housing type that prevailed, at the time, on more established properties in Western Queensland. It has a central core of rooms that opens to wide verandas via French doors. Vine covered trellises extend the veranda roof to provide added shade and coolness. A detached building was erected along this building's eastern veranda between the first and second world wars. It is built in the popular Queensland Bungalow style of the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, the architect-designed 1967 homestead is a product of the more prosperous later years of the station. It is a good example of the work of prominent Queensland born architect, Guildford Bell.
The homestead complex has aesthetic importance as a picturesque and rustic place set in a rural environment.
The place has special association with the lives of influential and significant people from the history of Queensland. The slab hut is important as a homestead which may well have been built by the Archers, a well-known family of early Queensland pastoralist explorers. The later buildings have links with other significant figures. Francis Ivory, who resided on the property in the late 19th century home, was a member of the Queensland Legislative Council in the late nineteenth century. The property is also significant as the station on which the well-known and successful Santa-Gertrudis breed of cattle was first introduced to Australia in 1955.
","criteria":"Eidsvold Homestead, established in 1850 by the Archer family, is significant in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. It is one of the earliest homesteads in Queensland and one of the first homesteads in the Burnett region. It is important in illustrating the pattern and nature of pastoral settlement in this district.
|The homestead complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places: it contains examples of housing from three stages of station development. The agglomeration of many built structures of disparate architectural styles and from different eras is typical of the way in which homesteads evolved. The original slab hut which may date to 1850, is a particularly good example of the earliest type of station housing. A 'second' home, forming part of a complex of several buildings commenced in the late nineteenth century, is an example of the housing type that prevailed, at the time, on more established properties in Western Queensland. It has a central core of rooms that opens to wide verandas via French doors. Vine covered trellises extend the veranda roof to provide added shade and coolness. A detached building was erected along this building's eastern veranda between the first and second world wars. It is built in the popular Queensland Bungalow style of the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, the architect-designed 1967 homestead is a product of the more prosperous later years of the station. It is a good example of the work of prominent Queensland born architect, Guildford Bell.
|The homestead complex has aesthetic importance as a picturesque and rustic place set in a rural environment.
|(Criterion under review)
|The place has special association with the lives of influential and significant people from the history of Queensland. The slab hut is important as a homestead which may well have been built by the Archers, a well-known family of early Queensland pastoralist explorers. The later buildings have links with other significant figures. Francis Ivory, who resided on the property in the late 19th century home, was a member of the Queensland Legislative Council in the late nineteenth century. The property is also significant as the station on which the well-known and successful Santa-Gertrudis breed of cattle was first introduced to Australia in 1955.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15265,"place_ref":600490,"name":"Emerald Railway Station Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Clermont Street (Capricorn Highway)","suburb":"EMERALD","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Emerald Railway Station Complex occupies a large site, located on the southern side of Clermont Street (Capricorn Highway), at the south end of the commercial precinct in Emerald, a town in the Central Highlands Region. The elongated site aligns east-west along the Central Railway Line, which runs through the site and connects Rockhampton to Longreach. The site is bounded by Clermont Street (to the northeast), and residential, commercial and industrial properties (to the south, west and northwest).
\nA Passenger Station Building stands at the eastern end of the site, prominently fronting Clermont Street. A platform at its rear (southwest) allows for the boarding and disembarkation of rolling stock, and is separated by railway sidings from a weighbridge and cabin to the south. To the east of the Passenger Station Building is a Storage Area, former Guards’ Room and a Men’s Toilet Block. At the western end of the site, a Pedestrian Underpass runs under the railway line, connecting Clermont and Sullivan streets. Further to the west, a railway line branches north toward Clermont, and railway sidings branch south and form a triangle shape. Within the triangle are working sheds and areas, including an Inspection Pit and a Drop Pit Shed.
\nFeatures of Emerald Railway Station Complex of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPassenger Station Building (1901)
\nThe Passenger Station Building is a symmetrical, single-storey, timber-framed and -clad railway station building used to accommodate office administration and connect railway passengers to the platform on its southwest side. The building has a hip roof, and is rectangular in plan, with southeast and northwest end pavilions, and additional rooms attached to the northwest pavilion. The building is a prominent and attractive landmark of Emerald, and makes an important visual contribution to the townscape.
\nThe front (northeast) elevation is highly decorative. Its symmetrical composition comprises a central entrance, separated from projecting end pavilions by flanking open verandahs. The central entrance is defined by a projecting, arch roofed, arcaded portico, featuring a timber lunette gable-end and the date ‘1900’ in raised lettering. Accessed by a central stair, the portico has paired columns and a cast metal filigree valance that forms a wide central arch and narrower arches to either side. The projecting end pavilions have gabled dormers with timber louvre lunettes, and windows with pedimented window hoods.
\nThe interior layout of the building includes a central passenger vestibule (a thoroughfare from the entrance portico to the railway line), and adjacent offices and amenities to the southeast and northwest sides. With the exception of the vestibule, the fabric and configuration of most interior partitions are recent replacements (some early timber framing may survive behind recent fabric where partitions are in the early locations). These recent partitions and a southern storeroom addition to the western pavilion are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Passenger Station Building of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Passenger Station Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n\n
Platform and Platform Shade (1901)
\nThe Platform and Platform Shade run parallel to the south elevation of the Passenger Station Building, adjacent the north side of the railway tracks. The Platform Shade has an arched roof, which has later been truncated on its south side to provide clearance for rolling stock on the railway tracks. The platform extends to the northwest and southeast beyond the Platform Shade.
\nFeatures of the Platform and Platform Shade of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Platform and Platform Shade not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGuards’ Room (former, c1901)
\nThe Guards’ Room (former) is located east of the Passenger Station Building. It is a rectangular, lowset, timber-framed structure with a gable roof. It is entered via the western side, and has a window in its north elevation that has been enclosed.
\nFeatures of the Guards’ Room (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Guards’ Room (former) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStorage Area (c1931) including ‘Bullring’ and Storeroom
\nThe Storage Area is located between the Passenger Station Building and the Guards’ Room (former) and was originally used as an unloading area. The area is sheltered by a skillion roof and is divided into two sections: the ‘bullring’, and the storeroom. The bullring is a single-volume space, surrounded and defined by buildings, gates and walls. The storeroom is a rectangular, timber-framed structure attached to the eastern elevation of the Passenger Station Building.
\nFeatures of the Storage Area of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Storage Area not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMen’s Toilet Block (c1920-1966)
\nThe Men’s Toilet Block is located east of the Passenger Station Building and the Storage Area. It is a rectangular, timber-framed amenities building with a skillion roof. It is entered from the south and includes three cubicles, urinals and sinks. The building has been extended with a storeroom to the east (1979-85, not of state-level cultural heritage significance).
\nFeatures of the Men’s Toilet Block of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Men’s Toilet Block not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nWeighbridge and Cabin (1963)
\nThe Weighbridge and Cabin stand to the south of the Passenger Station Building. The Weighbridge is part of the railway sidings, and standing immediately south of it is the Cabin, a timber-framed, skillion-roofed structure, facing the Passenger Station Building. Rectangular in plan, its interior features a weighbridge mechanism (now partially dismantled). A large bank of windows on its north elevation provide views of the railway tracks and Platform.
\nFeatures of the Weighbridge and Cabin of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nPedestrian Underpass (early 1950s)
\nThe Pedestrian Underpass is a narrow, arched, concrete tunnel that provides pedestrian access between the Capricorn Highway (Clermont Street) and Sullivan Street, under the railway line.
\nFeatures of the Pedestrian Underpass of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nRailway Lines and Sidings
\nThe Central Railway Line bisects the site, and primarily runs east-west. At the western end of the site, branch lines (1884) run north toward Clermont, and a triangle of sidings (pre-1952) branch to the south.
\nFeatures of the Railway Lines and Sidings of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Railway Lines and Sidings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nInspection Pit (1882-83, extended 1900)
\nThe Inspection Pit is located within the triangle of southern sidings, at its northeast corner. It is a long, open pit that runs under a railway track and allows for the maintenance of railway stock. An adjacent, smaller pit is filled-in.
\nFeatures of the Inspection Pit of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Inspection Pit not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n\n
Drop Pit Shed (former, also known as Loco Repair Shed, and Wintergarden Shed, 1938)
\nThe Drop Pit Shed forms part of the rolling stock depot at the centre of the triangle of southern sidings. It is flanked on the north and south sides by recent buildings. The metal-framed building has an arched roof, is open-ended on the east and west sides, and is seven bays long. It is bisected internally by a railway siding.
\nFeatures of the Drop Pit Shed of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Drop Pit Shed not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures Not of State-Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Emerald Railway Station Complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEmerald Railway Station Complex (opened 1879) forms part of the Central Railway Line from Rockhampton and was the impetus for the establishment of Emerald, a town situated 242km west of Rockhampton in the Central Highlands region. The station complex was constructed over the few years following the establishment of the Central Railway Line, with lines extending to the rich pastoral lands to the west, north and south of Emerald. The station became the centre for the transit of goods and passengers to and from the port town of Rockhampton and played a role as an important regional railway repair depot. In 1901, an earlier timber station building was replaced by the decorative timber station designed by Queensland Railways architect, Henrik Hansen. Associated infrastructure, including platforms, a guards’ room, amenities, a weighbridge, storage areas, and sheds and inspection pits for maintenance and repair of rolling stock were gradually added to the site complex. As a central feature of Emerald’s main street, the station has played an important part in the town’s events. It continues to have a strong presence in the townscape.
\nEmerald forms part of the traditional land of the Kangoulu People.[1] It was first settled by Europeans in the 1860s as large pastoral runs were established in the Central Highlands, including Peter MacDonalds’ ‘Emerald Downs’, from which the town’s name is derived. Following a portion of these runs being opened for selection from 1879, a thriving wool industry was established in the Central West with some of the biggest sheep stations in Australia producing large amounts of wool. This lucrative industry provided employment for many in the shearing sheds and wool scours constructed on and near the stations. Small townships began to appear throughout the district.[2] The construction of the Central Railway from the port town of Rockhampton to the Central West proved a facilitator for this success. The district’s burgeoning agricultural industry also relied on the railway.[3]
\nOriginally known as the Northern Railway, the Central Railway from Rockhampton to the Central West was first approved by the Queensland Government in 1864. It was to be the second railway line constructed in Queensland.[4] This followed lobbying by Rockhampton residents for the construction of a railway line to their hinterland, where copper was being extracted in the Peak Downs area. It was believed that a railway was necessary to ensure the development of the interior. The first length of line was opened to Westwood, approximately 50km from Rockhampton, in 1867.[5]
\nThe founding of the town of Emerald differed from most other 19th-century towns in Queensland, in that settlement was preceded by the coming of the railway. In 1878, prior to the construction of the western extension of the Central Railway, the Railways Department’s surveyor, Willoughby Hannam, surveyed the future site of the township of Emerald and drew plans. It was to be located beside the Nogoa River, providing a reliable source of water for both the town and the railway. In these plans, the railway reserve was dominant on the southern side of the main road (Clermont Street (Capricorn Highway)), with the commercial and residential area located on the northern side.[6] The Central Railway extension from Comet to Emerald was completed in May 1879.[7]
\nEmerald was chosen as a point for branch lines to Clermont (1884) and Springsure (1887) to save building separate lines to each and to enable the main line to be extended due west. In 1877, the Rockhampton Bulletin reported that ‘branch railways are to be carried to Springsure on the south and Clermont on the north. Springsure … is about thirty-eight miles due south of the site chosen for Emerald Downs railway station, while Clermont is about sixty-five miles north westerly’.[8]
\nWith the completion of the line to Emerald, construction of buildings and structures within the railway complex was underway. A small passenger station building, a Railways Department standard design for a timber shelter shed, with frontage to Clermont Street, was completed by the early 1880s.[9] There were also various sheds, a water tank, pumping station, coal stage, sheep yards, rail tracks, sidings (including a turning triangle) and signals erected.[10] The Morning Bulletin reported on the progress being made in the fledgling town of Emerald with ‘the station buildings and offices for extension staff and other officers … in course of erection … The first store at the Emerald township was opened last week … a number of others are in more or less advanced stage of completion’.[11] By 1885, Emerald had become a bustling regional town with several butchers, bakers and stores, a chemist, milliner and five hotels. The railway complex had become the major railhead on the Central Railway at this time due to its confluence of three lines, as well as an important railway depot for the repair and maintenance of trains, their carriages and the line. [12]
\nWith the branch lines to Clermont and Springsure almost complete, and the western extension of the Central Railway progressing, further improvements were made to the railway complex in 1882-83, including the construction of a new engine shed, inspection pit and sidings, repair shop, blacksmiths and a new coal stage to replace the older one. There were also sheep yards.[13] Innovative gas lighting for the time was installed at the station in 1885, ‘besides the lights outside the premises there are three in the Station Masters office, three in the telegraph office, and one in the ladies’ waiting room, and when the whole station is illuminated the effect is brilliant and pleasing’.[14] Unfortunately, one night in March 1892, whilst two staff members were attempting to refill the light’s gasometer (whilst holding a lit kerosene lamp), a large fire broke out and the entire station building was destroyed. The two men and a child (the son of one of the men) were hurt quite badly but recovered.[15] In the same year, a new Fairbank weighbridge was constructed at the station, with tenders being called for the construction of the ‘concrete, brick and stone’ foundation in February.[16]
\nSoon after the fire, a replacement station building was moved to the Emerald Station from the recently closed Fernlees Station.[17] This was, however, an inadequate structure and was described as being ‘too small to swing a cat, being only 25 feet [7.62m] in length and twelve [3.66m] wide’.[18] Although Emerald residents lobbied the Railways Department for a new, commodious station building, this makeshift timber structure served as the station for the remaining part of the 1890s.[19] Further improvements to the complex were made with the construction of a large tank stand close to the engine shed to provide water for the engines in 1893, a carriage shed in 1897 situated east of the passenger station, parallel to Clermont Street, and refreshment rooms in 1896.[20]
\nFinally, in response to Emerald residents’ and the Rockhampton Chamber of Commerce’s appeals, the government approved the construction of a new railway station building in 1900, with an approximate expenditure of £3000.[21] The successful tender was awarded to Thomas Moir, who, at the time was also building several other buildings in Emerald. The new station was designed by Railways Department architect, Henrick Hansen, and was described at the time as ‘a handsome building, with all the up-to-date requirements’.[22] The station was to be ‘200ft. [60.96m] long and 40ft. [12.19m] wide and there will be a platform 500ft. [152.40m] long in front of it …The station will be on the same side of the railway as the building now in use. In the centre there will be a vestibule leading to the platform … on one side of this will be the ticket, telegraph, and parcels office … ladies room … mail room … station master’s office … on the other side of the vestibule will be a bar … dining room … serving room … kitchen’.[23] The new station building, designed in the Victorian Filigree style, with dominant frontage to Clermont Street, opposite the commercial side of the main street, became the focal point of the town.
\nThe architect responsible for the design, Henrick Hansen (1843-1931), was a Danish architect employed by the Queensland Railways Department from the late 1870s until 1904. He designed numerous utilitarian structures and railway stations, of which his five country stations were the most elaborate – each prominently sited pieces of public architecture that announced the railway’s presence in important towns. He was responsible for designing similar railway station buildings for Mount Morgan (1898) (QHR 600752), Archer Park in Rockhampton (1899) (QHR 600777), Cunnamulla (1898) and Winton (1898) and Longreach (1916/17) (QHR 601970).[24] Emerald Railway Station was the largest and most elaborate of these five stations.
\nHansen’s station designs typically included a long and narrow station building, which prominently fronted the street, and provided access via a central vestibule from the street to the railway line at the rear. The street-facing elevations were highly decorative, and featured central entrance porticos that were flanked by verandahs to each side. Ornamentation included the use of decorative cast iron columns, valances and brackets, and decorative friezes. Unlike Hansen’s other station designs that incorporated an imposing curved carriage shade over both the platform and the rails, the station designs at Longreach and Emerald only provided a shade over the platform.[25]
\nThe passenger station building at Emerald was completed by July 1901, with the furnishings for the station made by the Railways Department.[26] Initially, the older station building was temporarily moved to the east of the new 1901 building whilst the new building was constructed. This, however, was removed from the site in 1903.[27] The small timber guards’ room beside the passenger station is likely to be contemporaneous to the passenger station.[28]
\nThe prominent siting of the grand station in the town and the arrival point for visiting dignitaries ensured the station played a central role in Emerald’s civic life. Visiting dignitaries such as the Governor, Sir William MacGregor in 1911, and Catholic Archbishop, James Duhig, in 1931 were welcomed and farewelled at the station.[29] In August 1915, as World War One (WWI) raged, the Queensland Government, in conjunction with the Queensland Recruitment Committee, orchestrated a campaign involving a series of trains that would travel on the state’s major lines and stop at each station in an effort to encourage men to join.[30] The Central Railway’s recruitment train arrived at the Emerald Railway Station on the afternoon of August 17 where it was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd, ‘the train was brilliantly decorated, the engine bearing the royal arms, and posters calling for recruits … at Emerald, another characteristic western welcome was received … when some eight or 10 men volunteered’.[31]
\nIn December 1924, a war memorial was erected outside the front entrance of the station in Clermont Street. In early 1925, it was officially unveiled by Major General Sir Thomas William Glasgow and attended by a large number of Emerald residents. The memorial commemorated the 24 men from the town who were killed in the war.[32] Throughout the years, Anzac Day commemoration ceremonies have been held at the war memorial, all well attended by the town and district’s residents. The Emerald Railway Station played a consistent role as a stately backdrop at the ceremonies.[33] In recent years, the war memorial has been relocated to Anakie Street.[34]
\nIn 1926, the station complex was electrified and an electrical plant constructed.[35] During the Great Depression, the Emerald Railway Station became the centre of a shearers’ strike, when wages were reduced by 10% due to the economic downturn. Shearers employed on stations in the Central West walked off the job in protest in early 1931, and in-turn the government, mindful of the economic importance of the wool industry to the state, recruited several trainloads of shearers from New South Wales and Victoria and railed them up to the Central West shearing stations under heavy police guard in February.[36] On arrival at Emerald, angry strikers attempted to attack the incoming trains at the station, with the incident being reported at the time: ‘This morning at an early hour a big body of strikers at Emerald railway station, attacked the police guards in an attempt to get at a train carrying southern shearers … when it arrived at Emerald a crowd of more than over 400 … was lined up on the platform’.[37] As the threat to the interstate workers heightened, strikers hurled stones and smashed the carriage’s windows; police began firing above their heads. Fleeing the station, the incensed strikers then threw a barrage of stones and fired at the police from the opposite side of Clermont Street. Thankfully, no one was badly injured. Several arrests were made and eventually the train carrying the interstate shearers left the station.[38] The strike ended in April 1931 with the strikers capitulating.[39]
\nA roof was constructed over the ramp between the passenger station building and the guards’ room in 1931, creating an area subsequently used for unloading parcels (known in 2020 as the ‘bull ring’). Further improvements were made to the maintenance area in 1938 when a substantial locomotive repair shed was erected over the drop pit south of the 1880s engine shed. This structure was a bowstring truss shed consisting of material recycled from an earlier 1895 shed (known in 2020 as the Wintergarden shed).[40] The entrance to the passenger station was improved in 1939 with enclosed garden beds placed on both sides of the front steps.[41]
\nIn 1945, after requests were made to the Railways Department by the Emerald Shire Council, improvements to the passenger station building were undertaken to improve the comfort of waiting passengers. A heated general waiting room was introduced and the ladies’ waiting room was shifted to another part of the station building, enabling direct access from the platform. Improvements to the toilet facilities in both the passenger station and the workshops were also carried out at this time.[42] In the early 1950s, a concrete underpass was constructed from Clermont Street to the southern side of the railway tracks, thus enabling improved access to the main street for the railway workers.[43]
\nFurther improvements were made to the station complex in the 1960s, including the construction of a Hawke & Company Ltd. double weighbridge with timber cabin in 1963, to replace the earlier one, opposite the passenger station. Fire damaged the western section of the passenger station building in 1968 and subsequent repairs to the refreshment rooms modernised them. A new entrance to the bar from Clermont Street was also added.[44]
\nIn the 1980s, the refreshment rooms were closed, due to reduced passenger numbers at the station, and offices for the railway station staff were subsequently fitted into the spaces. The 1880s engine shed over the inspection pit was demolished in 1983 and replaced with the current structure. It was also at this time that the platform shade was reduced by one meter away from the railway track. In the 1990s, the 1897 carriage shed was removed.[45] In the 1990s, other structures have been erected in the depot area including an office adjacent to the ‘Wintergarden shed’ (c1991), a diesel servicing shed (1991) and a rolling stock depot store c2007.[46]
\nThe Emerald Railway Station Complex, established in 1876, has played a pivotal part in Emerald and district’s history and has provided employment for hundreds of people over the years.[47] With the expansion of coal-mining in the Bowen Basin from the 1970s, Emerald became the dormitory town for employees of the mines, and consequently has grown and prospered. The railway station remains one of the most prominent buildings in the town.
","criteria":"The Emerald Railway Station Complex, established in 1879, as a major railhead on the Central Railway line, is important in demonstrating the evolution of the railway network in Queensland. The station was vital to the movement of goods and passengers to and from the Central West to the port of Rockhampton, and facilitated the success of Queensland’s lucrative wool industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a railway repair and maintenance depot from the 1870s to the 1970s, it played an important role as a major employer in the Emerald district for a century.
|Emerald Railway Station Complex is an important and intact example of a regional railway complex from the turn of the 20th century in Queensland. The complex demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type including: a prominent passenger station building with adjacent platform and platform shade; guards’ room; weighbridge and associated cabin; toilet facilities; storage areas; sheds and inspection pits for maintenance and repair of rolling stock; railway lines and sidings; and the facilitation of safe pedestrian access across railway lines (in this case, an underpass).
\nThe Passenger Station Building (1901) is a fine and distinctive example of the work of architect Henrik Hansen (1843-1931), who made an important contribution to the design of Queensland railway buildings during his employment with the Queensland Railways Department from 1877 to 1904. Externally intact and retaining a high degree of integrity, the Passenger Station Building demonstrates the principal characteristics of Hansen’s railway station designs, which include: a long, narrow timber station building prominently fronting the street; a decorative street elevation incorporating a projecting central entrance portico with verandahs to either side; a central vestibule providing access from the street to the railway tracks at the rear; a curved platform shade; and the use of decorative cast metal columns, valances and brackets, and decorative friezes.
|The Passenger Station Building has aesthetic importance for its beautiful attributes and streetscape contribution. Featuring a well-proportioned and symmetrical form, enhanced by a projecting entrance portico and end pavilions, the building’s intact exterior demonstrates architectural design quality. The fine composition is enriched by a complementary material palate of timber and cast metal, and the use of ornamental filigree details.
\nVisually distinctive and prominently fronting Clermont Street (Capricorn Highway), the building makes an important contribution to the townscape of Emerald, and shares a similar scale to its setting of commercial buildings opposite. Through its form, scale and design, the place is a focal point in views from Clermont Street and is a landmark of Emerald.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15266,"place_ref":600491,"name":"Castleholme Homestead","alternate_name":"Conroy's Farm","street_address":"Bryden - Crossdale Road","suburb":"BRYDEN","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Castleholme consists of the remains of a homestead, slab barn, cottage, stables and associated farm buildings and stockyards with a number of mature trees. It is located in the Brisbane Valley on a northeastern slope, is visible from the Bryden-Crossdale Road and borders the Bryden Catholic Cemetery. The domestic structures are located in a group to the north with the outbuildings forming a southern boundary. Other structures include the remains of a timber laundry shed and a bakehouse, post and rail fencing, a calf pen and cow bails.
","history":"Castleholme was established in the 1870s, following Hugh Conroy's selection and purchase of the then 257 hectare property in 1875. By 1916 a small cedar dwelling at Castleholme had became a rambling, fourteen-roomed house with wide verandahs. By that time the grounds included flowerbeds, shrubs and shade trees, and substantial outbuildings, and the principal activity was dairying. Castleholme remained in the Conroy family until acquired in 1978 by the Co-ordinator General, as part of the Wivenhoe Dam reclamation area. That part of the property not inundated was leased by the Queensland Institute of Technology for use as an experimental building station. The Castleholme homestead complex was identified by the QIT as a conservation area and the interwar cottage was renovated as caretaker accommodation. The QIT (now Queensland University of Technology) maintains the grounds, but not the buildings.
","criteria":"Castleholme is important for its association with the closer settlement of the Bryden area, its development as a dairying district, and with the Conroy family in particular.
|The place also has potential to reveal substrata evidence of the arrangement of a late 19th century dairy farm.
|It survives as a good example of the arrangement of a working farm in southeast Queensland, demonstrating over a century an evolution in function, building type, technology and material.
|Castleholme is significant also for the aesthetic quality of the group of timber buildings and grounds, and for its spatial association with the adjacent St Anne's graveyard.
|Castleholme is significant for its historical association with the adjacent St Anne's graveyard.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15267,"place_ref":600492,"name":"Bellevue Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bellvue Homestead","suburb":"COOMINYA","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bellevue Homestead is located opposite the railway station in Coominya, close to the original entrance to the property. It consists of the main house, which faces northeast and is encircled by verandahs, with a spine of kitchen, stores and servants' hall attached at right angles, forming a T-shaped plan. A caretaker's cottage is attached to the south corner forming a southern courtyard, and a row of stables and barn are located further to the southwest. All buildings are single-storeyed and sit on timber stumps.
The main house comprises two chamferboard buildings which have corrugated iron hipped roofs and are joined by an enclosed verandah breezeway. The older building has a projecting gable porch to the southwest and northeast entrances with a decorative timber barge board, truss and finial, and timber shingles are visible under the corrugated iron sheeting. The plan consists of four rooms with a central hall. The end verandahs have been enclosed to expand the rooms through large archways, the northwest being enclosed with very wide chamferboards. Some rooms are in the process of restoration and show different layers of the building's fabric, including pit sawn framing with mortice and tenon joints and hand finished lining boards. Decorative features include painted woodgrain in the hall, hand painted wall paper, pressed metal ceilings in the drawing room, carved timber fireplace surrounds, casement windows, some of which have coloured glass inserts, step out bays and pressed metal window hoods.
The 1903-04 extension has a projecting gable porch to the northeast with decorative timber arch brackets, barge board, finial and diagonally boarded gable. The verandahs have dowel balustrade, lattice valance and timber arch brackets. The plan consists of a dining room, a smoking room and a two-roomed guest suite. These are accessed from an enclosed verandah entrance hall with entrance doors at both ends with sidelights and fanlight of etched coloured glass. The dining room has a metal lined wine store cupboard and fretwork ceiling rose. The
walls are panelled to a dado with vertically jointed boards above and the ceiling is boarded. The tiled fireplace has a carved timber surround, and all timber is oiled/stained. All rooms have step out bays with timber shutters and internal doors have fanlights.
The kitchen, store and servants' hall wing consists of a series of connected weatherboard buildings. The kitchen has a corrugated iron gable roof with a verandah to the courtyard and three pressed metal ridge ventilators. Timber shingles are visible under the corrugated iron sheeting and the interior has single skin cedar board walls and a large brick fireplace. A modern kitchen has been installed in one room.
The caretaker's cottage has an L-shaped plan and consists of a series of rooms added at different times. The weatherboard building has a corrugated iron gable roof with a bay to the northwest, surmounted by a gable, and verandahs northeast and northwest.
A row of weatherboard stables with corrugated iron gable roofs is located to the southwest. The stables have a sawn cross cut timber and earth floor. The grounds include a circular drive with gardens to the north, overlooking a private dam beyond.
","history":"The earliest sections of Bellevue homestead appear to date from the 1870s.
Initially Bellevue was part of the Wivenhoe run, taken up by Ferriter and Uhr in the early 1840s, then transferred to the Norths of Fairney Lawn in 1858. Soon after acquiring Wivenhoe, William North Snr established a 2,000 hectare section as Bellevue Station, on which he ran sheep. In 1869 the Wivenhoe run was resumed and thrown open to selection, and those portions containing the Bellevue lands and buildings were retained by the Norths under pre-emptive selection rights. None of the 1860s buildings has survived, with the older parts of the present homestead most likely constructed after the North family transferred the Bellevue leasehold to Campbell and Hay in 1872.
In the 1870s sheep gave way to cattle. The leasehold was converted to freehold in 1879, and in 1884 was acquired by James Taylor, MLC, whose son, George Condamine Taylor, and his family, occupied the homestead. During the Taylors' occupancy a flood in the Brisbane River in 1893 destroyed the adobe walls of the timber-framed house, which was re-clad with mill-sawn timber.
George Taylor died in 1899, but his widow remained at Bellevue and in 1901 married pastoralist Charles Lumley Hill, MLA. In 1903-04 the Lumley Hills extended the homestead, adding a new dining room, guest suite, and servants quarters. Earlier sections of the house were renovated also. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Bellevue was the social centre of the district. At its peak, c.1910, the station comprised over 5,600 hectares, with a Hereford stud of national renown. The property remained in the Taylor family until the early 1950s.
In 1975 Bellevue was resumed by the Co-Ordinator General, as part of the Wivenhoe Dam project. In the same year the homestead and associated buildings were acquired by the National Trust of Queensland, and between 1975 and 1980 were removed to nearby Coominya township, established in 1905 on part of the Bellevue selection. The Trust is restoring the complex to its 1904-1910 appearance.
","criteria":"An example of a large, evolving timber homestead complex, illustrating in form, fabric and decoration the lifestyle of the turn-of-the-century Queensland squattocracy.
Association with early European settlement of the Brisbane River Valley and the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Surviving evidence of timber building techniques from the 1870s.
|An example of a large, evolving timber homestead complex, illustrating in form, fabric and decoration the lifestyle of the turn-of-the-century Queensland squattocracy.
|Surviving evidence of timber building techniques from the 1870s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15268,"place_ref":600493,"name":"St Agnes Rectory and Church","alternate_name":"St Agnes' Rectory and Church","street_address":"Ipswich Street","suburb":"ESK","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Agnes rectory and church, located with a hall, belltower and grounds containing a number of mature trees, form an Anglican Church group which, along with the Presbyterian, Uniting and Catholic Church groups, is situated on Ipswich Street, the main road into Esk.
St Agnes rectory is a single-storeyed weatherboard building with a corrugated iron hipped gable roof. It has timber stumps, with verandahs on the north and east sides. The street entrance porch has a projecting gable to the verandah with decorative timber truss, finial and barge boards. The verandah roof is at a lesser pitch to the main roof and the hipped gables have curved timber bargeboards.
The verandah features decorative timber brackets and posts and the walls are single-skin with exposed timber framing. The front door has timber panelling with glass sidelights and fanlight. French doors with fanlights open onto the verandah.
The double hung sash windows have sunhoods with curved timber brackets and a carport has been added to the south, the roof of which cuts across a side window. The building has a brick chimney and a rear verandah has been enclosed with chamferboards and casement windows.
Internally, the joinery is intact and the building has boarded walls and ceiling. A detached laundry is located at the rear.
St Agnes church is a weatherboard building with a steeply pitched ribbed metal gable roof with deep timber brackets to the eaves. The building has a rectangular plan set on a later brick base, with a vestry added to the east and a porch to the north west.
The entry porch has a gable roof with weatherboard balustrade and gable. The entry and vestry doors have convex quarter circles at the top corners.
The building features lancet windows, most of which contain leadlight glazing except in the sanctuary which features stained glass. The building has a scissor trussed roof with boarded ceiling and vertical tongue and groove boards to the walls of the nave. The sanctuary has horizontal boards to the walls and the interior surfaces have been painted.
A timber screen separates the sanctuary from the nave. This screen has a tongue and groove balustrade and decorative timber brackets forming a pointed arch in the centre. A timber cross is supported above the centre and a pulpit is built into the western end of the nave.
The internal faces of the doors have decorative diagonal boarding at close centres. The floor of the sanctuary and altar are raised above the nave and vestry, and at cornice level there are spaced ventilation boards. The altar and altar rail are of stained carved timber and the building contains original pews, a stone baptismal font and memorial plaques.
A 1953 timber frame belltower with a corrugated iron pitched roof is located to the north east of the church. Entry to the site is via memorial gates which consist of three sandstone gateposts with decorative metal gates. The posts are square in plan with pyramid capitals, rock finish faces with dressed corners and base and a marble plaque and name badge on the two centre posts. The grounds include a number of notable mature trees.
","history":"The timber church, rectory and church hall which comprise the St Agnes group at Esk, were erected between 1889 and 1910.
The Anglican Parish of Esk had been created in 1886. For the first few years, services at Esk were conducted at the non-denominational Union Church. The present site, intended for a church, hall and rectory, was donated by Ellen Webb, and transferred to the Anglican church in 1889.
Plans for the church were prepared in late 1888 by Brisbane diocesan architect John Hingeston Buckeridge, with working drawings following in 1889. Limited funds produced some alteration to the design. The building was erected in mid-1889 by local Esk contractor, sawmill proprietor and Anglican parishioner, Lars Andersen, and was dedicated in October that year. In 1907 the western end of the building was lengthened by 3 metres, the communion rails were extended, and a vestry was added.
The rectory was constructed in 1901-02, and had been paid for by November 1902. It also was designed by Buckeridge, and included a parish, or meeting, room. Since 1928, when the Esk and Toogoolawah parishes re-combined to form the Brisbane Valley parish, the rector has resided at Toogoolawah, and St Agnes rectory has been rented. Currently it is leased to a local art and craft society.
The church and rectory were two of approximately ninety Anglican buildings erected during the episcopate of Bishop Webber, from 1885-1903. Webber had an understanding of ecclesiastical design and architecture generally and was responsible for bringing Buckeridge to Brisbane from London, appointing him as Diocesan Architect in 1887.
The church hall began as a smaller Sunday School building, constructed c1902. It was extended as a hall between 1908 and 1910, and has been modified since. This building does not form part of the present entry in the Heritage Register.
In 1903 shade trees were planted in the grounds, some of which remain.
The street entrance pillars were erected in honour of former parishioner and Brisbane Valley pioneer Francis Edward Bigge. They were designed and built by stonemason Andrew Petrie of Toowong in 1920.
The bell and belltower were erected in 1953.
","criteria":"St Agnes Rectory and Church are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the consolidation of the Anglican church in Esk.
|They demonstrate an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, comprising as they do the only known group of buildings in Queensland which contains both a church and rectory designed by diocesan architect JH Buckeridge, and are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of their type.
|They demonstrate an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, comprising as they do the only known group of buildings in Queensland which contains both a church and rectory designed by diocesan architect JH Buckeridge, and are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of their type.
|The place is important in exhibiting a number of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, including the intactness of the federation-era rectory, and the contribution, through scale, form and materials, of the buildings and grounds to the streetscape of Ipswich Street and to the Esk townscape.
|The place has had a special association with the Anglican community in Esk as a centre of local worship, for over a century.
|The church and rectory have a strong association with architect JH Buckeridge, being examples of his ecclesiastical work in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15269,"place_ref":600494,"name":"Esk War Memorial and Esk Memorial Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ipswich Street","suburb":"ESK","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Esk Memorial Park, which contains two stone monuments and landscaped paths and gardens, is located in the main street of Esk.
The First World War memorial consists of a sandstone plinth with four ionic corner pilasters and an entablature sheeted in bronze. Recessed into each of the four faces is a marble tiled panel with a bronze honour roll of 462 shire residents who enlisted together with the letters AIF and its emblem. The memorial sits on a stepped base of concrete aggregate.
Three bronze honour rolls bearing the names of 83 local men who fell during the First World War are fixed to the side and rear of the plinth. Four commemorative plaques bearing inscriptions 1939 - World War II 1945, 1914 - The Great War - In Honour Of Our Boys - 1919, Korea - Malaya, and Borneo - Vietnam are fixed to the front of the plinth.
Also located within the park is a memorial to Captain Logan. This consists of a single, upright sandstone block. Fixed to the northern face is a bronze plaque bearing an inscription in white lettering.
The park is landscaped with native trees and palms, and includes pathways, a barbecue area, seating and a children's playground.
","history":"Esk Memorial Park was proclaimed a reserve for memorial purposes in 1979, but a First World War memorial has stood on the site, at the intersection of Highland and Ipswich Streets, since 1921.
The memorial was commissioned by the Esk Patriotic Committee on behalf of the shire of Esk. Subscriptions commenced in 1916, and tenders were called in April 1919 by prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill. The foundation stone was laid on 30 November 1920, and the memorial was unveiled in 1921, probably in September. The masonry work was carried out by the Ipswich firm of Frank Williams & Co., and the art metalwork was supplied by Wunderlich Ltd of Sydney. It cost £885.
This was not the first war memorial in the shire. Colinton had erected an honour board at the local School of Arts building in 1916, and a stone memorial in 1917. The Toogoolawah War Memorial had been unveiled in March 1917.
In 1983 the memorial park was extended, and a stone memorial to Captain Patrick Logan, commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement who was murdered while exploring the Brisbane Valley in 1830, was erected in the park in 1984. The site was landscaped in 1985.
In 1988 some of the lettering on the First World War memorial was restored, and two plaques commemorating Australian sacrifice in post-1945 conflicts were affixed. In 1991 another plaque was attached, honouring those who fell in the Second World War.
","criteria":"Esk War Memorial, erected in 1921, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being evidence of a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism during and immediately following the First World war [1914-18].
|The First World War Memorial demonstrates the principal characteristics of a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure, and is a major regional example of its type.
|The place exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including the landmark quality and aesthetic value and craftsmanship of the First World War memorial, and the contribution of the park and memorial to the Esk townscape.
|The place has a special association for the Esk community as a form of public recognition of local participation in a major historical event.
|The memorial is significant as an unusual example of the work of Ipswich architect GB Gill.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15270,"place_ref":600495,"name":"Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Clarendon)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wulkuraka - Yarraman Line","suburb":"CLARENDON","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A half-through double x 2 lattice girder bridge on a straight alignment and carrying a single track. Its spans are:
2x2x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestles with 2 unbraced uprights (Pier 1), 3 single braced uprights (Pier 2) and 5 double braced uprights (Pier 3).
1x2x26 foot (7.9m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestles.
1x2x100 foot (30.5m) half-through double x2 lattice girders, channel strengthened timber longitudinals and transom top, timber piers at each end on concrete bases, strengthened with double timber pier at centre span.
3x2x26 foot (7.9m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestles with 5 double braced uprights (Piers 6 and 7) and 4 single braced uprights (Pier 8).
3x2x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestles with 4 single braced uprights (Pier 8), 3 single braced uprights (Piers 9 and 10) and 2 unbraced uprights (Pier 11).
The approaches are timber girders.
","history":"The second section of the Brisbane Valley Branch from Lowood to Esk was let on contract to H. A. Brigg on 2 December 1884 for #57,821. The line was opened for traffic between Lowood and Esk on 9 August 1886.
Operating the Brisbane Valley Branch was expensive because the light standard of the line limited engines to B15 standard. As there were many heavy grades on the line, more powerful locomotives could produce substantial savings in the number of trains needed. Using Depression relief labour to reduce the cost, strengthening the line to C16 and C17 standard was completed between 1931 and 1933. In 1932 a central timber pier was added to strengthen the 100 foot lattice girder span.
In 1968 in preparation for the operation of 60 ton diesel engine locomotives in both single and multiple operation, the longitudinal members were strengthened by the addition of 6x3 inch channels along each side and 9x5 inch transoms laid over the top. The timber piers supporting the 100 foot span were provided with concrete bases. The railway closed for traffic in March 1993.
","criteria":"The bridge with a half-through double x 2 lattice girder spans is one of the oldest existing metal truss bridges with Miva (1886) and Wide Bay Creek (1886), and the second extant of its type constructed in Queensland with the longest span of its type in Queensland between 1884 and 1932.
|This is one of the few major bridges on the Brisbane Valley Branch. Its design incorporating a 100 foot lattice girder span supported on timber piers is similar in concept to bridges on the original Ipswich to Toowoomba line, opened in 1867, but on which all such bridges have long been removed. Although a single timber pier has been provided to strengthen the span effectively making two spans to carry heavier loads, it still shows the original mode of construction clearly.
|The bridge with a half-through double x 2 lattice girder spans is one of the oldest existing metal truss bridges with Miva (1886) and Wide Bay Creek (1886), and the second extant of its type constructed in Queensland with the longest span of its type in Queensland between 1884 and 1932.
|The design was associated with the Chief Engineer, Henry C. Stanley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15271,"place_ref":600496,"name":"Dental Surgery","alternate_name":"Royal Bank of Queensland Ltd; National Bank of Australasia; Bank of Queensland Ltd","street_address":"12 Railway Street","suburb":"LOWOOD","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed weatherboard building fronts Railway Street in the centre of Lowood. Rectangular in plan, the building has a corrugated iron hipped roof with a shallow hip to the front verandah and a skillion to the rear office and workroom. The building sits on concrete stumps with the verandah at street level and the land sloping away to the rear.
The verandah has decorative carved timber arch brackets with corner quatrefoil design and cross braced balustrade with a circular pattern. The ceiling is lined and a projecting vestibule has twin timber doors with a fanlight above.
The interior has tongue and groove boards to the walls, a flat boarded ceiling and partitioning has been installed to separate the surgery, reception and a toilet. The building has double hung sash windows and a rendered masonry strongroom is built into the southeast elevation adjacent to the surgery and is used as a store.
A metal sheeted shed sitting on metal posts and a weatherboard and fibrous cement toilet block are located to the rear of the building. Metal sunshades are attached to the northwest and southeast elevations.
","history":"This small timber building was erected in Main Street, Lowood, between 1901 and 1917, as a branch of the Royal Bank of Queensland Ltd.
Lowood had emerged as the centre of a thriving farming district after the rail link to Ipswich was opened in mid-1884. In 1901 the Royal Bank, established in Brisbane in 1885 as a competitor to the Queensland National Bank, opened a branch at Lowood. For the first two decades of the 20th century it remained the only banking establishment in the town.
In January 1917 the Royal Bank and the Bank of North Queensland Ltd (established in Townsville in 1888) merged to form the Bank of Queensland Ltd, with the Lowood branch retained under the new name. In mid-1917 the Lowood bank building, complete with a brick and concrete strongroom which weighed close to 40 tonnes, was re-located to the present site in Railway Street.
In 1922 the Bank of Queensland in turn merged with the National Bank of Australasia Ltd, and the building remained a branch of the National Bank until 1986. At present it functions as a dental surgery.
","criteria":"The former Royal Bank of Queensland Ltd building at Lowood is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the rural expansion of the Royal Bank of Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|It is important in demonstrating some of the principal characteristics of a small, early 20th century, timber bank building in rural Queensland, retaining a substantially intact exterior and what appears to be the original masonry strongroom.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular the streetscape contribution of its decorative timber facade.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15273,"place_ref":600498,"name":"Inverness","alternate_name":"Bellambi | World Ramblings","street_address":"58 Fulham Street","suburb":"TOOGOOLAWAH","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Inverness is a detached residence that occupies a 1.745 ha hill-top site on the western edge of Toogoolawah, a town in the Brisbane Valley, approximately 75 km northwest of Brisbane. Set in spacious grounds and located approximately in the centre of the allotment, the residence is approached via an eastern circular drive from Gunyah Street (south) and Fulham Street (north). The site is bounded on the north, south and east sides by residential properties, and on the south side by Gunyah Street.
\nFeatures at Inverness of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nInverness (Residence, 1917)
\nInverness is a lowset, single-storey timber residence in a Federation-era style. It has a tiled hip roof with projecting timbered gables over the east, north and southeast sides; and its front elevation faces east toward a circular drive. The main entrance is accessed via an aligned gabled entrance porch, projecting from the front verandah and reached via lateral stairs on its north and south sides. The entrance porch and main entrance are offset toward the northern end of the elevation.
\nVerandahs wrap around the east, north and west sides of the residence and feature decorative timber brackets, valances and balustrades. The verandahs are accessed via the front entrance porch, smaller stairs on the north and west sides, and a secondary stair entrance at the south side of the building.
\nThe interior layout is asymmetrical and is divided by function into distinct zones: reception / living rooms, bedrooms, and service rooms; separated from each other by hallways. The layout is formal and hierarchical, with grand reception / living rooms at the front of the house; smaller, private bedrooms toward the rear with pleasant northern aspect, and commodious service rooms and servant’s bedroom in the southwest rear corner, functionally located near the other rooms and the service areas of the grounds.
\nThe wide formal entrance hall is flanked by a drawing room (north) and dining room (south). It accesses two narrower hallways – one leading south to a billiards room and the service rooms; and the other leading west to the four bedrooms and bathroom. The main bedroom includes an ensuite. The service zone comprises a kitchen, separate pantry, a broad enclosed verandah, a skillion-roofed lean-to laundry to the residence’s western side, and a brick cellar under the kitchen. The partition between the entrance hall and drawing room has been removed, as has a partition in the kitchen.
\nFeatures of Inverness (Residence) of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of Inverness (Residence) not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nEntry Gate Posts (c1917) and Circular Drive (1917)
\nTwo entry gate posts stand to either side of the main, eastern entrance to the residence grounds. The entrance leads west to a circular drive, which approaches the front entrance to Inverness (residence).
\nFeatures of the entry gate posts and circular drive of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the entry gate posts and circular drive not of state-level cultural heritage significance:
\nLandscape Features
\nInverness is set within spacious grounds and gardens. Its open setting is particularly apparent to the front (east) and north sides, which allows for unobscured views of these elevations of the Residence.
\nAn open grassed rectangular area to the west of the residence marks the location of a former tennis court.
\nThree mature trees stand to either side and to the south of the Entrance Drive, forming a boundary line to the residence garden.
\nLandscape Features of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nLandscape features not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nInverness, Toogoolawah, was erected in 1917 for the Nestlé & Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company Limited, as the residence for their condensed milk factory manager. It was designed by prolific Brisbane architect John Henry Burley, and was named by its first occupants, the Munro family. It served as the factory manager’s residence until the enterprise was closed in 1931, and a caretaker took up residence. It was sold into private ownership in 1948.
\nQueensland’s dairying industry emerged in the late 19th century from small-scale domestic production to become one of the state’s principal primary industries by the interwar period. Its growth was encouraged by closer settlement of Queensland’s squatting runs, improved milk testing and processing technology, financial incentives under the Meat and Dairy Board Act 1893, and education in the form of a government ‘travelling dairy’. Sown pastures such as paspalum and Rhodes grass and the cultivation of fodder, also improved milk yields and provided adequate feed during the less productive months of winter. The extension of Queensland's rural railway network – essential for dairy products to reach their desired markets – facilitated the establishment of local butter and cheese factories in close proximity to railway lines.[1]
\nDairying became prevalent in the Brisbane Valley, a region of fertile land located near the source of the Brisbane River system. Traditionally part of Yuggera and Ugarapul country, pastoral runs were established in the region from the early 1840s. The earliest of these was the McConnel family’s 240 square mile Cressbrook Run, selected in 1841. The McConnels built a homestead and established a successful cattle station before portions of the run were resumed for selection in the 1870s. Pastoral and timber industries developed, and improved transportation was provided for farmers in the region by the opening of the Brisbane Valley railway line to Lowood (1884) and Esk (1886).[2]
\nThe ‘well-watered flats and natural grasses’ of the Brisbane Valley made it ‘most suitable for dairying purposes’,[3] and the McConnel family encouraged the establishment of the dairying industry in the region. In 1889, James McConnel invited the government’s travelling dairy to Cressbrook to demonstrate the latest techniques and methods to local farmers. He began to sell small parcels of the Cressbrook property to his workers for dairying, and in later years, offered dairy cattle for purchase, and joined local deputations agitating for the extension of the railway line from Esk to Cressbrook. In 1897 he received a grant from the Meat and Dairy Board to erect a condensery on the Cressbrook property.[4]
\nMilk condensing – a method of preserving milk for an indefinite period by removing its water content and adding sugar – was a new process in the 19th century. It had been invented in the 1820s by Frenchman Nicholas Appert, but the process was not refined until the mid-19th century. Commercial production spread across the United States and Europe in the 1860s. Condensed milk proved popular in Australia, but had to be imported, as manufacturing experiments undertaken in the colonies had failed. In 1886, Queensland pastoralist Colin Munro announced that he had successfully condensed milk on his Lower Burdekin property near Townsville. He began a small production line, but this ceased in the early 1890s. By 1895, Queensland was importing 686,000 tins of condensed milk per annum, and Queensland newspapers urged the establishment of a local condensed milk production industry. The proposed Cressbrook condensery, owned and managed by McConnel and Colin Munro, was the first commercial attempt at condensed milk production in Queensland.[5]
\nThe enterprise was launched in 1898 as the Cressbrook Dairy Company's Condensed Milk Factory. The site selected was about 4.5km southwest of the Cressbrook Homestead, on the banks of Cressbrook Creek, a tributary of the Brisbane River. Funding for construction of the factory was provided by the Meat and Dairy Board, but production was initially unsuccessful. Munro’s son, William Albert Munro, was despatched to America to inspect its factories and methods. On his return, new vacuum pans were installed at the factory, and the Cressbrook Dairy Company's Condensed Milk Factory recommenced production. William Munro was appointed factory manager, and a timber and iron manager’s residence was erected next to the factory.[6]
\nProduction at the Cressbrook factory climbed from around 600 cases (28,800 tins) a month in 1902, to 3,500 in 1906 (168,000 tins). This expansion was spurred by the opening of the Brisbane Valley railway extension to the factory in 1904. The railway station, positioned opposite the factory, was named Toogoolawah. A village, also named Toogoolawah, grew around the factory and station, largely populated by factory employees or suppliers. Forty-six people were employed at the factory by 1906, and local dairy farms were guaranteed a market for their produce. The Cressbrook Dairy Company also purchased a small milk-condensing factory at Trelawney (Wilson’s Plains, Harrisville). William Munro’s brother Archibald Chisholm was engaged as its manager.[7]
\nIn 1906 the European-based Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company (Nestlé) began investigating the possibility of opening a factory in Australia, its second-biggest market. After inspecting sites in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, it bought out the Cressbrook Dairy Company, comprising the condensed milk factory and 3,000 acres (1214ha) of land. The company also purchased sites in Victoria and New South Wales where it planned to construct condenseries. Nestlé took delivery of the Toogoolawah factory on 20 December 1907, and began production the following morning.[8]
\nNestlé expanded the factory, doubled the number of employees, and rearranged the surrounding land into a small number of ‘model’ and experimental farms where dairy cattle were raised and grasses were grown. At the time, Queensland was the only place in the world in which Nestlé invested in company-owned farms. New farm managers were appointed, but the Munro family remained as factory managers: in 1909, Archibald Munro was transferred from Trelawney to manage the Toogoolawah factory. Nestlé again expanded the factory in 1913, and by 1915 had sixty suppliers in the surrounding dairy farms. It continued to market the condensed milk under the ‘Cressbrook’ brand, which was sold around Australia. Factory production rose during World War I, as European factories closed. Toogoolawah grew with the factory, its population more than doubling from 500 in 1911 to 1,100 in 1917.[9]
\nNestlé provided housing for some of its workers, and in 1917 the company replaced the tin and iron factory manager’s house with a more prestigious manager’s residence. The residence was to be erected on part of Nestlé’s ‘Bellambi Farm’, on a hilltop about one kilometre northwest of the factory, adjacent to the town. Nestlé proposed using a European design for the manager’s residence, but factory manager Archibald Munro ‘insisted on using an architect locally who was familiar with the climatic conditions and requirements’.[10] Brisbane architect John Henry Burley was engaged to design the new residence.[11]
\nEnglish-born John Henry Burley had arrived in Queensland in 1886. He established a sound architectural practice in Brisbane, designing buildings in southeast Queensland before his death in 1936. Burley’s work typically combined a variety of eclectic stylistic elements; and he was well-respected for his domestic designs and his knowledge and use of Queensland timbers. Notable non-extant examples of his work include the Sacred Heart Church, Rosalie (1907), Bellissima Guest House, Canungra, for the Lahey family (1916), and Pharmacy College (1921), while his surviving work includes the South Brisbane Library (1897, QHR 600302) and John Mills Himself building (1918, QHR 600084). Burley was a renowned and prolific residential designer, but only five of over 100 residences he designed throughout his 50 year career are identified to have survived, including John Mills’ Yeronga residence in 1914 (QHR 601472).[12]
\nThe Nestlé factory manager’s residence was designed in a style characteristic of the Federation era. This eclectic and highly decorative style dominated Australia’s domestic architecture during the late 19th and early 20th century. It was influenced by contemporary British and American examples, and drew inspiration from a variety of historical styles, particularly Tudor or ‘Old English’ rural architecture. The typical Federation villa residence was a free-standing, single-storeyed bungalow set within a generous garden. It had red face brick walls, with a complex roof form of hips and projecting gables, clad in terracotta Marseilles tiles, and often punctuated by picturesque chimneys. Floor plans were asymmetrical with protruding rooms, bays or towers, and the exteriors were enlivened by a wide variety of window types and shapes, and elaborate verandah detailing. Gable ends were decorated with timber and stucco ornament, and leadlight windows displayed coloured glass in flowing patterns, demonstrating the growing influence of Art Nouveau on decorative details. In Queensland, the style was often applied to traditional timber houses with corrugated iron roofs, influencing their roof forms, timber verandah detailing and other ornamentation. The Munro family later stated that Burley described his version as an ‘Indian Bungalow’.[13]
\nBurley called for tenders for construction in March 1917. Local builder DA Menzies, who erected most of Toogoolawah’s buildings until the mid-1920s, was awarded the contract and completed the building in 1917. The large residence reflected the manager's status in a prosperous factory town, as well as ‘the life style which the Co [Nestlé] expected’ the manager to maintain. Like the typical Federation villa residence, it was a free-standing, single-storeyed bungalow set within a generous garden. It was fronted by a circular driveway, accessed from Fulham Street and curving around to the eastern-facing front entrance. Gate posts, likely installed at this time, marked the formal entrance. The north and eastern sides of the residence featured the primary rooms, including an entrance hall, dining, drawing and billiards rooms, and four bedrooms, all flanked externally by the large verandah, and accessed internally via an L-shaped passageway. Notable features included fireplaces, timber joinery and 3.6m high ceilings. The southern and western sides included a servant’s bedroom and bathroom, kitchen, scullery and laundry, leading to the courtyard and pump house. A cellar was accessed through stairs in the kitchen. The layout reflected the hierarchy of space employed in early 20th century residences, after which the popularity of live-in staff declined. It was reportedly erected at a cost of £3000.[14]
\nThe residence also included some innovative features. Burley’s use of Australian-made asbestos cement roofing tiles and interior wall sheeting was amongst the earliest application of these products in Queensland. The asbestos cement product had been invented in Europe in the late 19th century, and was initially imported to Australia by James Hardie and Wunderlich Limited. In 1915, Wunderlich established a subsidiary company, Durabestos Limited, which began manufacturing the product in 1916 in a factory in Sydney. It used the logo ‘Durabestos the Durable’ with the image of a sphinx, which appeared on the diamond-patterned roof tiles at the Toogoolawah residence. Durabestos did not become widely available in Queensland until 1918, reflecting 59 year old Burley’s familiarity with material innovation.[15][16]
\nThe Munro family – including Archibald, wife Jessie, and three young children – took up occupation in December 1917. They named the residence ‘Inverness’, after the district in Scotland from which Colin Munro had emigrated. The youngest Munro child was born at the residence in 1920, and extended family holidayed at Inverness through the 1920s. Mrs Munro, a keen gardener, had a ‘bush house’ built south of the residence, to house her tropical and epiphyte collection. Vegetable and flower garden beds were also planted, and Mrs Munro won prizes for her gardenias, snapdragons and vegetables at Toogoolawah shows. A garden fete was held at Inverness in February 1926, and a tennis court was installed by November, when the Munros hosted a ‘Boston tennis tournament’ for the funds of the Toogoolawah Presbyterian church. To help run the house, the family employed a housemaid, nursemaid, cook, laundress, and a gardener until 1928, ‘when economies began to be necessary.’[17][18]
\nBy 1919 the Nestlé factory at Toogoolawah was ‘said to be the largest establishment of its kind in the Commonwealth.’[19] Condensed milk factories at Lowood and Colinton closed in the 1920s, giving Nestlé a monopoly in the Brisbane Valley. At the same time, as the Queenslander magazine reflected, Nestlé contributed to Queensland’s economy, spending over £4,500,000 on Queensland sugar, milk, timber and labour between 1919 and 1924. Toogoolawah continued to grow with the factory. Up to 140 people were employed at or in connection with the condensery, and Nestlé supplied the town with electricity in 1927. The town’s population peaked in 1929 with 1,500 people and 5,000 within three miles. However, in August 1929, Nestlé offered its Toogoolawah farms for sale. As the impact of the Great Depression hit, rumours began circulating of the factory’s closure. Nestlé initially reassured Toogoolawah residents that it intended to keep the condensery running, but closed the bulk of the factory in October 1930, ‘owing to the adverse trading conditions in Australia and the very high cost of production at Toogoolawah’.[20] Secondary production ceased in December 1930. Staff were transferred to Nestlé’s factory in Victoria or left in search other work, and the population of Toogoolawah halved. The Munros left Inverness in 1931. Nestlé gradually sold the Toogoolawah farms, but retained Inverness on twenty acres of land (8ha). Farm manager HW Searl remained as caretaker, hosting social events, including fundraising tennis matches for local social groups.[21]
\nThe Searls appear to have departed Toogoolawah in the late 1930s, shortly after the last of the factory machinery was sold and removed. During World War II, female staff from Nestlé’s Brisbane office were accommodated at Inverness, and records were stored in the old factory. After the war, the residence was proposed for use as a hospital, while the hill was viewed as an ideal site for a town reservoir. Instead, in 1948 Inverness was sold to a grazier, who renamed the property ‘World Ramblings’ and undertook alterations.[22]
\nThe unused factory was unsuccessfully offered for sale for removal in 1949. It was destroyed by fire in 1951, leaving only a packing shed intact, and the site was sold in 1956. In 2016 the packing shed was converted into the Somerset Regional Art Gallery.[23]
\n‘World Ramblings’ was sold again in 1951, and renamed ‘Bellambi’. Small parcels of land fronting Fulham Street were sold in the 1950s, reducing the residence site to just under 12 acres (4.8ha). Some changes were made to the residence as it was sold to new owners in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The name ‘Inverness’ was adopted again in the early 1990s. Bathrooms, the kitchen and lighting were refurbished, and a swimming pool was added to the grounds north of the residence. A pump house, erected in the rear courtyard, was removed. The site was subdivided in 2012, with Inverness on 1.74ha of land. In 2014 the original Durabestos roof tiles were replaced with like-for-like fibrous-cement roof tiles, matching the existing diamond-shape pattern and tile size. The original terracotta ridge capping and acroteria were retained. The residence was also leased for weddings from 2018.[24]
\nIn 2020, Inverness remains a private residence and retains its Federation-era detailing.
","criteria":"Inverness, built in Toogoolawah in 1917 by the Nestlé and Anglo Swiss Condensed Milk Company as a substantial architect-designed residence for its factory manager, is important in demonstrating the development of the dairy industry in the Brisbane Valley, one of Queensland’s earliest dairying regions. Toogoolawah played a key role in the evolution of Queensland’s dairy industry, as the home of Queensland’s first successful condensed milk factory (1898-1907) and the first international factory of the Nestlé and Anglo Swiss Condensed Milk Company (1907-1930). Inverness is important surviving evidence of the once-prominent industry.
|Inverness, a notable example of the domestic work of well-respected Queensland architect John Henry Burley, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, early-20th century villa residence. A single storey, timber house in a garden setting, Inverness is a fine and intact example of its type, displaying high quality workmanship and materials, and retaining its formal plan, with entrance portico, hierarchical arrangement of generously sized rooms, and surrounding verandah.
\nA late variation of Federation-era domestic architecture, the place is a good and intact example of a timber bungalow house in a Federation style in Queensland. Characteristics of this type include: its lowset form; timber construction; asymmetrical plan with protruding bays and rooms; Arts and Crafts influences, such as terracotta roof ridge caps and acroteria; complex roof form with pedimented gables; elaborate verandah details; leadlight glazing. Variations within the type include the use of contemporary fibrous-cement materials to the roof and to the walls and ceilings of primary rooms.
|Inverness is important for its Federation aesthetic, sited on a hill-top, well back from the road and with views to and from the place across a large and attractive garden setting and circular entry drive. The place fluently combines Arts and Crafts and Classical elements in a pleasingly proportioned asymmetrical form, featuring wide verandahs with elaborate timber details, a protruding entrance porch, and a dominant roof clad in diamond patterned fibre-cement tiles and ornamented with terracotta features and timber gables. Through its intactness externally and internally, the place demonstrates fine architectural quality and a skilful arrangement of generous and refined formal and informal spaces that evoke a sense of an earlier, gracious lifestyle.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15274,"place_ref":600499,"name":"McConnell Park & Toogoolawah War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cressbrook Street","suburb":"TOOGOOLAWAH","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"McConnell Park is a 2.7 hectare site fronting Cressbrook Street to the east and Gunyah Street to the north, St Andrews Anglican Church precinct to the west and residential to the south.
\nAccess is via a bitumen drive from the western end of Gunyah Street which encircles the sportsground around to the south west. A row of trees lines the drive to the east and the entrance is between square gateposts. Next to these is a single-storeyed weatherboard library with a corrugated iron skillion roof. Two park benches with cast iron supports which contain the letters McCP are located here.
\nThe south east corner contains a First World War memorial, bandstand, pioneer memorial, barbecue, tennis courts and children's play equipment.
\nThe First World War memorial stands in a fenced enclosure fronting Cressbrook Street. It consists of a sandstone pedestal and obelisk standing on a stepped base of concrete and rock faced sandstone. Recessed into each side of the pedestal are First World War marble honour rolls.
\nThe entablature has egg and dart carving and the gable above features leaf carving. The east side of the base to the obelisk has a wreath with the words OUR BOYS HONOUR. Metal plaques have been added in remembrance of those who served in Korea, Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam.
\nThe memorial is surrounded by concrete paths with garden borders which lead from the north and east entrances. Two mature pencil pines border the east entrance with one at the north. A metal flagpole and two small pencil pines are situated on the west side and the perimeter has a low metal framed wire mesh fence.
\nThe octagonal timber bandstand sits on timber stumps and has a corrugated iron pitched roof with a central metal finial. The building features decorative timber brackets and valance with a perimeter seat against the railing. Access is via timber stairs to the north and the ceiling has plywood sheeting with timber cover strips.
\nThe Pioneer Memorial is a low square structure with sloping sides which is clad with slate tiles. It sits on a square slate tiled base and also contains a time capsule.
\nTo the south of the sportsground there is a concrete block public toilet with a skillion roof and a single-storeyed weatherboard Guide hut with timber stumps and a gabled roof.
\nThe Scout hut is located in the south west and consists of a single-storeyed slab-on-ground building with fibrous cement sheeting and a corrugated iron gabled roof.
\nThe sportsground contains a cricket pitch and mature trees to the perimeter.
","history":"The site was established as a public park and recreational facility c.1906, on land donated by James Henry McConnel of Cressbrook.
\nJames' father, DC McConnel, was the first European to settle in the Brisbane Valley, taking up the Cressbrook run in 1841. In the late 1890s, JH McConnel established a condensed milk factory on Cressbrook Creek, and subdivided a large part of the run into dairy farms and the township of Cressbrook Creek (later Toogoolawah). Such private town subdivisions were not unusual in Queensland; other towns originating in this manner include Beaudesert, Nambour and Childers.
\nThe McConnel family was deeply involved in the economic and social development of Toogoolawah, encouraging cultural, religious, sporting recreational and economic activity. They employed a contractor to build homes for their farmers; donated land for church purposes; and promoted a variety of district clubs, organisations and societies. Their establishment of a recreational facility in the centre of town remains testimony to the family's genuine concern for community welfare.
\nIn 1919 a brass band was formed in Toogoolawah, and about this time a small bandstand, understood to have been provided by the McConnel family, was erected in the recreational ground. By 1924 the park also contained a tennis court and a public shower, water for which was supplied from a public well and windmill on the site. A cricket pitch was laid down c.1930, and a Guide hut and Scout den were erected in the 1970s.
\nThe property was placed under trusteeship in 1926, and the Council of the Shire of Esk have been the trustees since 1940.
\nThe First World War stone memorial was commissioned by the citizens of Toogoolawah in 1916. It was crafted by Ipswich monumental masons Frank Williams & Co., who later supplied most of the First World War memorials in the district. The memorial, which cost £300, was unveiled on 31 March 1917. It was the second such memorial erected in Queensland, and the first outside a cemetery.
\nOriginally the memorial enclosure was separated from the rest of the park by a picket fence. Gardens were laid out by 1921, and on Anzac Day that year a First World War gun was unveiled beside the memorial.
\nA metal plate, honouring 15 local citizens who gave their lives in the Second World War, was attached to the memorial in 1955. In 1988 two additional plaques were attached commemorating those who had served in post-1945 conflicts.
\nA cairn containing a time-capsule was placed in the park for the 1988 bi-centenary.
","criteria":"McConnell Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the evolution of the town of Toogoolawah.
\nThe Toogoolawah War Memorial is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as evidence of a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism of the First World War period
|The Toogoolawah War Memorial is important in demonstrating the principal\tcharacteristics of a class of commemorative structures erected as an enduring\trecord of a major historical event.
|McConnell Park and Toogoolawah War Memorial are important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community and those interested in commemorative structure design, in particular:
\n(i) the aesthetic quality and craftsmanship of the First World War memorial, bandstand and cast iron seating
\n(ii) the landmark quality of the memorial and the townscape contribution of the site
|The Toogoolawah War Memorial has a strong association with the local community \tas evidence of the local impact of a major historical event.
|McConnell Park has a strong association with the McConnel family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15275,"place_ref":600500,"name":"St Andrew's Church Hall","alternate_name":"St Andrews Church Hall","street_address":"Mangerton Street","suburb":"TOOGOOLAWAH","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed timber building is set amongst mature trees on a corner site forming the northwestern boundary to McConnel Park. St Andrew's Church is located on the northern side of the building and the rectory and its grounds are to the south.
The building has a corrugated iron gabled roof with a skillion roof to the rear kitchenette and a gabled roof to the front porch. The exterior is dark painted weatherboard, matching St Andrew's Church, and sits on timber stumps.
The front porch has a solid weatherboard balustrade and a decorative timber front gable with a metal finial. The windows now have glass louvres and the timber trim is painted white.
Internal walls and ceiling are lined with fibrous cement sheeting.
","history":"This small weatherboard hall was erected in 1906 for the Anglican congregation in Toogoolawah, on land in Mangerton Street owned by Mary Elizabeth McConnel of Cressbrook. This site is now the vacant block to the south of the rectory, the hall having been moved to its present location beside the church.
\n\n
The town of Cressbrook Creek (later Toogoolawah) was founded when Mary Elizabeth McConnel's husband, James Henry McConnel,(son of David Cannon and Mary McConnel) subdivided a large section of the Cressbrook estate in the late 1890s, and established a condensed milk factory on Cressbrook Creek in 1898. The town expanded when the rail connection to Ipswich was completed in 1904.
\nIt is believed Mary McConnel paid for the construction of the hall. Probably the builder was AD Menzies, who erected most of the buildings in Toogoolawah until the mid-1920s.
\nThe hall was opened by the Archbishop in September 1906, and Anglican services were held there until St Andrews Church was erected in 1911-12. Subsequently the building became the Sunday School hall, and in 1920 the church purchased from Mrs McConnel both the hall and the site, for the sum of £100.
\nThe building has been moved since to its present location beside the church, and has undergone a number of alterations.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Church Hall, erected in 1906, is significant historically in illustrating the establishment of the Anglican Church in Toogoolawah.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the aesthetic contribution of building and grounds to the Toogoolawah townscape.
|The place has a strong association with the Toogoolawah community, being an integral part of an historic, visually cohesive and picturesque precinct comprising St Andrew's church [600502], church hall [600500], and rectory [600501] and adjacent McConnel Park [600499].
|St Andrew's Church Hall has a special association with the McConnel family and their contribution to the development of social and religious life in Toogoolawah.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15276,"place_ref":600501,"name":"St Andrew's Rectory","alternate_name":"St Andrews Rectory; St Andrews Rectory Toogoolawah; St Andrew's Rectory Toogoolaway","street_address":"Mangerton Street","suburb":"TOOGOOLAWAH","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed timber building is set amongst mature trees, including some large palms, and the grounds form the southern part of the St Andrew's Church precinct and the northwestern boundary to McConnel Park.
The building has verandahs on the north and west elevations and sits on concrete stumps with a semi-enclosed space beneath. The exterior is clad in weatherboard with timber battens between the exterior stumps.
The wide verandahs have decorative timber valance and balustrades, with a deep and low railing which forms a seat. Entry is from the west via a quarter-turn stair with landing. The front door has decorative glass sidelights, fanlight and upper panel and opens into a foyer. A narrow study opens off the west verandah and has a gabled street elevation. This gable is repeated on the eastern elevation over the kitchen.
Internally, walls are single skin VJ boards, and french doors with fanlights open onto the verandahs. Ceilings are boarded and a decorative lancet shaped, timber arch valance is located between the foyer and lounge. Window hoods are corrugated iron with timber brackets.
A driveway from the north runs behind the church and church hall to the rectory.
","history":"This single-storeyed weatherboard house was constructed in 1925 as the Anglican rectory in Toogoolawah.
The Parish of Toogoolawah had been created in 1917, following division of the Esk parish into two, and reflected the population expansion which accompanied the success of Nestlé's Toogoolawah condensed milk factory during the First World War.
In 1920 Mary McConnel of Cressbrook Station, who in 1911 had donated the land on which St Andrews Church was subsequently erected, gave the parish a further two allotments in Mangerton Street, between the Church and the Sunday School hall, on which to build a rectory.
In 1924 the parish asked for plans and specifications for a rectory to be prepared by the local builders, probably contractor AD Menzies, who erected many of the buildings in Toogoolawah until the mid-1920s. Work began in January 1925, and the house was completed in late May that year, at a cost of £1,008.
The Anglican parishes of Esk and Toogoolawah were amalgamated as the Brisbane Valley parish in 1928, and the rector has resided since at Toogoolawah rather than at Esk.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Rectory, erected in 1925, is significant historically in illustrating the consolidation of the Anglican Church in Toogoolawah.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an intact 1920s weatherboard Queensland house, and is a good example of its type.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including the aesthetic contribution of building and grounds to the Toogoolawah townscape, and the aesthetic quality of the timber verandahs.
|St Andrew's Rectory has a strong association with the Toogoolawah community, being an integral part of an historic, visually cohesive and picturesque precinct comprising St Andrew's church [600502], church hall [600500], and rectory [600501] and adjacent McConnel Park [600499].
|St Andrew's Rectory has a special association with the McConnel family and their contribution to the development of social and community life in Toogoolawah.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15277,"place_ref":600502,"name":"St Andrew's Church","alternate_name":"St Andrews Church; St Andrews Church Toogoolawah; St Andrew's Church Toogoolawah","street_address":"Mangerton Street","suburb":"TOOGOOLAWAH","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This timber church is set amongst mature trees on a corner site forming the north western boundary to McConnel Park. The church hall is located on the southern side of the building with the rectory further to the south. The building shows influences of stylistic trends popular around federation.
The steep-pitch gable roof is clad with timber shingles and features projecting gables suggestive of a transept. The eaves slope at a lesser pitch to the main roof and carry across the gable fronts. The gables feature a dark timber grid pattern on a white background and have a cross above at the east and west end. The rear vestry has a hipped shingle roof.
The building is clad in dark painted weatherboards and sits on timber stumps. The building features timber buttresses which were added at a later date. Internally, the buttress members are bolted to the tie-beam and truss posts.
The rectangular plan has a projecting transept to the south. The floor is raised in the sanctuary, pulpit and altar with a post and beam timber screen which forms two side aisles leading to the vestry. Queen-post trusses form the roof with a horizontal boarded ceiling under the collar beam which rakes away to the cornice. The ceiling features square latticed vents, and the projecting transept houses the organ and has a flat ceiling with two curved timber brackets.
Internal timber is unpainted. A carved timber cross and the organ pipes are positioned above the tie-beam in front of the transept. Internal walls are of vertically jointed boards and window units consist of three timber framed lancets with pale green leadlight glazing, some of which have stained glass inserts.
Pointed arches form the western door and vestry doors, and the highly intact interior contains original pews, some altar furniture and storage cupboards.
A round stone baptismal font is positioned at the western end of the nave and fluorescent lighting has been attached to the underside of the tie-beams. The internal walls and ceiling of the vestry are lined with fibro panels with timber cover strips.
The grounds include a number of mature trees, mainly to the south and south east of the church, screening the view from McConnel Park.
","history":"St Andrew's Church was constructed in 1911-12 for the Anglican congregation in Toogoolawah, on land donated in 1911 by Mary Elizabeth McConnel of Cressbrook.
The town of Cressbrook Creek (later Toogoolawah) was founded when her husband, JH McConnel, subdivided a large section of the Cressbrook estate in the late 1890s, and established a condensed milk factory on Cressbrook Creek in 1898. The town expanded when the rail connection to Ipswich was completed in 1904, and again after purchase of the factory by the Nestlé & Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company Ltd in 1907.
Prior to construction of the church, services at Cressbrook Creek had been conducted at the Union Church, and then in the Anglican hall built by the McConnels in 1906.
Brisbane diocesan architect Robin Smith Dods prepared the designs for the church in 1908. He was well known to the McConnels, having designed in 1901 the Victoria Chapel at Cressbrook station.
St Andrews was erected in 1911-12 by local contractor AD Menzies, who constructed most of the buildings in Toogoolawah until the mid-1920s. The contract price was £839. It was completed in January 1912, and dedicated in the following May.
At some time after 1930 the walls were buttressed, following storm damage. The original split cedar shingles were replaced in 1966 with sawn shingles of local iron bark and crow's ash.
","criteria":"St Andrews' Church at Toogoolawah, erected in 1911-12, is significant historically in illustrating the establishment of the Anglican Church in Toogoolawah.
|It is a very fine example of a timber church distinguished by its scale, form and materials, and an excellent example of the ecclesiastical work of Brisbane architect Robin Smith Dods.
|St Andrew's Church has a strong association with the Toogoolawah community, being an integral part of an historic, visually cohesive and picturesque precinct comprising St Andrew's church [600502], church hall [600500], and rectory [600501] and adjacent McConnel Park [600499].
|St Andrew's Church has a strong association with the Toogoolawah community, being an integral part of an historic, visually cohesive and picturesque precinct comprising St Andrew's church [600502], church hall [600500], and rectory [600501] and adjacent McConnel Park [600499].
|The place has a special association with the McConnel family and their contribution to the establishment of the Anglican church in Toogoolawah.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15278,"place_ref":600503,"name":"Cressbrook Homestead","alternate_name":"Cressbrook","street_address":"Cressbrook Caboombah Road","suburb":"CRESSBROOK","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cressbrook Homestead comprises a number of buildings, structures and garden elements which are significant. The buildings include the principal house, known as the House with outbuildings, a secondary house, known as the Cottage, a timber chapel; an early stables; an explosives store; dairy complex, various animal shelters and two small residences.
The site is accessed along a gravel driveway which leads east into the complex over a small timber bridge. The House and Cottage are located to the north of the property overlooking the Brisbane River and adjacent river flats. The chapel, to the west of the Cottage, is one of the first buildings encountered on the approach to the complex. Various outbuildings extend to the east of the House, with the dairy complex at the extreme east of the listing boundary and other buildings on the south of the approach road.
The House
The House comprises some of the oldest buildings at Cressbrook, including an 1840s slab wing. The buildings forming the house are arranged such that the principal sections face northward and overlook the Brisbane River, with the kitchen wing and outbuildings forming a courtyard to the rear, southern side of the complex.
Specifically, the House comprises two vertical slab wings at right angles to one another and joined by a two storeyed corner section. To the rear of this large principal building are two smaller timber buildings, which complete a courtyard.
The corner section of the principal building, joining the two slab wings is a timber framed residence, clad with horizontal chamfered boards, single storeyed with a loft in the roof space. The building is clad with a corrugated iron gabled roof, the gabled ends on the northern and southern ends of the buildings. The pitch of the roof changes from being steep over the central core to a shallower pitch over the former verandah spaces. Two brick chimneys with corbelled tops project above the roof line.
The entrance elevation of this building faces west and has a centrally located recessed entrance to which access is provided through an adjacent arbor formed by vine on a timber and mesh trellis. Extending from the entrance door recess into the arbor is a timber boarded platform. The six panelled cedar entrance door is flanked by two long narrow rectangular window openings.
On the north elevation, overlooking the Brisbane River, this section of the house is lined with a verandah at the eastern end of which, the verandah expands to form an open pavilion space with hipped roof. This pavilion serves to connect the verandahs of this section and the two slab wings of the House. The verandah awning and pavilion roof are lined with fibrous cement ceilings braced with timber cover strips and the whole is supported on rectangular planned columns which taper towards the top. Simple timber dowel balustrading links the columns. Remnants of bamboo blinds painted cream and dark green in thin vertical strips, have been uncovered in recent maintenance work.
The interior of this section of the House is largely constructed from unpainted timber boarding, mostly red cedar though some of the ceilings in the internal rooms have been painted. Internally this section of the house is arranged around a central corridor running from the entrance on the east, parallel to the verandah on the north, to another door on the verandah on the east. The hall is divided to form an entrance vestibule on its western end by square planned timber columns, with mouldings articulating the base, body and capital of the columns.
The verandah along the western side of the building was infilled and rooms have been formed along this side, with access provided to them from the entrance vestibule. These rooms retain the sloping ceiling of the early verandah. The main hallway, from the entrance area, provides access to four rooms, which have a variety of internal timber cladding; wide vertical beaded boards and wide horizontal boards. Each of these four rooms have been fitted with a red cedar fireplace.
On the southern external wall of this section of the House is a straight timber stair leading to the loft area which runs centrally above the house, terminating in a small balcony on the northern elevation. The balcony is detailed with columns and balustrading similar to that of the ground floor verandah and pavilion.
The wing extending eastward, parallel to the Brisbane River, is a timber building constructed from vertical slabs with a hipped corrugated iron roof with shallower pitch over the verandahs which run along the north and south façades. The vertical timber slabs which make up the external walls are chamfered at the ends and fitted within beaded top and bottom plates and interspersed among the slabs are vertical uprights of sawn timber.
Internally this wing is divided into three main rooms, with smaller rooms created on the infilled verandah along the southern side. Openings from this wing include French doors and sliding six-pane windows.
The wing extending southward from the main house, the kitchen wing is constructed similarly to the eastward reaching wing, but with sawn vertical slabs. The steeply pitched corrugated iron roof of this wing changes pitch to form verandah awnings. A substantial brick chimney extends from the southern end of the wing.
There are five other timber buildings in the precinct of the House. A small asymmetrical cottage clad with horizontal boards and with a gable corrugated iron roof is situated forming the eastern boundary of the courtyard and has three rooms and a verandah facing the courtyard. To the east of this is a small but high one roomed single skinned and externally framed and braced building with a gabled corrugated iron roof and several unglazed window openings. Forming the southern boundary of the courtyard is another small two roomed building clad with vertical boards and with several sliding window openings. To the west of the southern wing of the House is another small timber cottage, clad with horizontal timber board.
One of the most prominent elements of the House precinct is a large Bunya Pine tree. This tree is located adjacent to the pavilion space on the verandah and is one of the oldest trees on the site.
The Cottage
The Cottage is located to the west of the House complex, overlooking the Brisbane River to the north. The Cottage is an amalgam of various stages of building work, a very early section to the east of the building to which an extra room was added to the west. Verandahs line all sides of this section of the cottage, though on the south side these have been infilled in several sections. Verandahs extend the house to the west and join to it two disparate structures. Also there is a recent gabled extension from the south elevation of the house.
The main section of the Cottage has a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof which becomes shallower at the line of the external walls, demarcating the verandah. To this roof a narrow corrugated iron awning is supported on slender timber brackets attached to the verandah posts on the northern elevation and on slender posts on the southern and eastern. Beneath the corrugated iron of the main roof an intact timber shingled roof survives.
The early part of the Cottage, at the eastern end of the present building, is constructed with a timber frame and brick nogging. This early structure has been lined with horizontal timber chamfered boarding, possibly when the western room was added which is timber framed and clad with similar chamfered boards. Sections of brick nogging have been left uncovered on the upper external walls.
Entrance to the cottage is through a small gabled awning on the south facing elevation which is supported on columns and identifies the place of entrance through the verandah. This small awning is emphasised by the placement of two substantial face brick chimney shafts projecting from the roof on this southern side symmetrically arranged on either side of the entrance, at the line on the roof where the pitch changes to accommodate the verandah.
The buildings at the western end of the Cottage are timber framed and clad with horizontal timber boards. Between these additions and the Cottage is an open concreted floor shelter space which is joined to the verandahs. An open extension used as a shelter for cars extends from the south of the Cottage, and consists of a corrugated iron gabled roof supported on timber posts.
As with the buildings forming the House precinct, the Cottage generally has sliding six paned window openings and french doors opening onto verandahs. From the entrance vestibule access is given to the infilled verandah flanking this area, and, to the north, access is provided to two of the principal three rooms of the house. One of these rooms, located centrally within the house has a large bay window opening onto the northern facing verandah. This extends with a rectangular plan into the verandah and houses four full length vertical sash windows which are framed in a timber structure of about 2500mm high and features shallow timber pilasters and the structure is surmounted by an entablature.
Internally the older sections of the Cottage have lath and plaster walls and ceilings, timber floors, and some original joinery. The upper parts of the walls taper in towards the room as they reach the ceiling. Chimney breasts are found in two of the early rooms, and towards the ceiling these taper outward. Remnants of early wall paper survive in several of the rooms, and efforts have been made by the present owners to repaper one of the rooms with a reconstructed paper.
Between the Cottage and the House is an early tennis court, which survives intact with boundary fencing, posts, surfacing and planting. Near the tennis court is a large and early set of two swings, supported on timber posts.
The Chapel
The timber chapel at Cressbrook is one of the first buildings seen as one enters the property, situated to the south of the Cottage. Surrounding the chapel and adjacent graveyard is a recent timber, post and rail fence.
The Chapel is a rectangular building, consisting of a nave and a small side porch on the eastern end of the south façade of the building. The building has a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof which is gabled at the eastern and western ends with overhanging eaves. The eave overhang continues to form a roof for the porch, giving the otherwise symmetrical building, an asymmetrical form as the roof overhangs much further on the southern edge than on the northern. A timber battened panel is attached to the upper section plain barge boards of the gables on the east and west façades of the building.
The timber framed church is clad with horizontal timber boards and is slightly elevated on round timber stumps, though these and the cavity beneath the building are concealed with a timber boarded 'skirt', which extends to the ground from the floor level allowing only the stump caps to be seen.
The eastern façade has two centrally located windows, of slender rectangular openings fitted with leadlight windows. Tracery divides the rectangular panels into three openings, a lancet-esque opening with tre-foiled arched head and, above this, two smaller tre-foiled shapes. The openings are glazed with diamond mullioned glass. A timber sill projects from the base of the windows.
Along both the northern and southern façades of the buildings are three similar window openings. The porch, which is reached on three open tread timber steps on the southern façade comprises a gabled awning projecting from the extended roof overhang. This is supported on timber columns with a timber lintel spanning the distance between the columns, carved with 'VICTORIA 1901 CHAPEL'. A bell hangs within the gable of the porch.
The porch provides access to the double timber boarded door which is braced with slender iron hinged brackets. The door opening is rectangular with a segmental arched head.
Internally, the chapel is a single space, divided into seven bays by the heavy hammer beam roof trusses. The cavities created between the hammerbeam and the roof lining is infilled with a carved timber detail. Likewise, the cavity between the collar beam and the roof is infilled with timber battening, similar to that of the battening in the gables of the exterior of the church. The line of the roof truss continues on the internal wall with slender timber pilasters. The walls of the church are lined with vertical timber boards and the ceiling is lined with similar boards running parallel to the nave of the church. At the western end of the chapel is a small platform extending on which sits three pieces of furniture; a lectern, altar table and chair, all designed in keeping with the building.
Outbuildings
Many early outbuildings and structures survive at Cressbrook including two tank stands, draft stables, an explosives store, dairy complex, cattle dip and early workers' residences.
Two tank stands survive, one round stand between the House and Cottage and another, square stand near the explosives store at the eastern end of the built up area at Cressbrook. The stands comprise a large number of timber posts extending many metres upwards, forming a dense 'forest' of columns. The iron tanks surmounting these structures survive, corrugated iron on the circular stand, and cast iron on the square stand.
A large open shed comprising an expansive hipped corrugated iron roof supported on timber posts forms part of the early draft stables. This building houses an early carriage, apparently acquired by the McConnels from the Queensland Government when a present was made to the Government of some red deer which were freed near Cressbrook. On the northern side of the stables is a large recess, where the roof is cut out.
A small explosives store is situated to the east of the stables and this is a small rectangular planned building constructed of prefabricated concrete blocks, and has a hipped roof. Several small residences survive on the southern side of the approach drive, this are mainly timber framed and clad buildings some with verandahs and garages.
A dairy complex survives at the eastern end of this built up area and this comprises a number of interconnected open shed with corrugated iron roofs supported on timber posts. Holding yards abutting the dairy also survive. Sections of the cattle dip and several other outbuildings along with extensive early fencing and shelters survive on this southern side of the approach road.
Significant early plantings and gardens survive at Cressbrook.
","history":"Cressbrook Homestead was constructed as the head station of the Cressbrook Run which was taken up by the McConnel family in 1841.
\nDavid Cannon McConnel arrived in Sydney from Britain in February 1840 where he purchased sheep and started searching for a suitable pastoral lease. His search took him northward to the Moreton Bay region recently opened for selection after the closure of the penal colony. After this event, many eager British immigrants, including the Leslie Brothers, Wickham, the Bigge Brothers and John Balfour were selecting land in the Moreton Bay area. McConnel pressed northward past the rich Darling Downs into the Brisbane River Valley which became the next centre of pastoral development after land on the Darling Downs was fully selected. The Brisbane River Valley was explored by both Cunningham and Logan in the late 1820s and many squatters took up land in the early 1840s.
\nOn 15 July 1841 David McConnel took up 240 square miles of land in the Valley, with the Brisbane River and a creek running through. David McConnel was the son of James McConnel who founded a machine making company in Manchester after which, in 1835, he became the owner of the long established and Cressbrook Mill in Derbyshire where lace thread was produced. It was here that the McConnels established their family home and it was to commemorate this place that David McConnel named his Australian property and the creek running through the property. Within one year, Francis and Frederic Bigge established the adjoining Mount Brisbane Station and six months after this John Balfour took up land on the other side of Cressbrook for his station, Colinton.
\nMcConnel established Cressbrook as a sheep farm but found the land more suitable for Shorthorn cattle which were introduced by 1845. He constructed a timber slab house in 1841 but because the location was deemed unsuitable another two-roomed slab house was constructed with verandah overlooking the Brisbane River to the north. Two Bunya pine trees were planted by McConnel at the west end of this verandah. The slab hut and one of the Bunya pines survives to this day; the hut now forming the eastern wing of the principal house.
\nDavid McConnel returned to Britain in 1847 where he married Mary McLeod of Edinburgh on 25 April, 1847. Mary's parents were against the pair returning to Australia and therefore the newly weds settled in Nottinghamshire, though financial difficulties at Cressbrook, which had been left in the hands of managers, necessitated their return in 1849. They returned aboard one of the three boats chartered by Doctor Lang for the transport of Presbyterians to the new colony. In Australia, David and Mary McConnel settled in Brisbane, establishing the house, Toogoolawah, now known as Bulimba House.
\nOn 1 January 1851 David McConnel's brother, John, joined in partnership with his brother and they purchased Durundur Station, previously belonging to the Archers, who moved to the Burnett region. In 1851 the McConnels owned 400 cattle and 10,000 sheep on both of the Brisbane River Valley properties.
\nDavid McConnel returned to England with his seriously ill wife in 1854 and they did not return to Cressbrook until 1862, when the partnership between David and John McConnel was dissolved with John McConnel taking exclusive rights at Durundur and David maintaining the ownership of Cressbrook. Upon David and Mary's return to Cressbrook extensive alterations were made to the slab hut, which was from an early date known as the House, to distinguish it from the Cottage which was built nearby. This addition to the House comprised the construction of a timber section, two storeyed in part and generally larger in scale than the wing to which it was abutted. A kitchen wing, another timber slab building, was added to the south of the House.
\nAs well another residence was constructed at Cressbrook, the previously mentioned Cottage which was built further west of the House and overlooking the Brisbane River and adjacent flood plain. The Cottage was unusual as it was a timber framed building with brick nogging. Although few records exist to suggest who built this or when, the peculiarly German method of construction suggests that there may have been a German influence, and it is known that David McConnel could speak German. The building was thought to have been constructed in the 1860s and was used as a residence for various farm managers and, later, the families of McConnel children.
\nThis construction work brought many people to the station, \"splitters, sawyers, carpenters, builders, bricklayers\". Along with the farmhands and managers, these additional people created a small township at Cressbrook and attempts were made by the McConnels to establish a school for the children, one of the first in the Brisbane River Valley, and a library for the men in one of the rooms of the Cottage. Weekly Presbyterian church services were held in the recently constructed addition to the House.
\nMary McConnel and her daughter, also Mary, wrote memoirs about Cressbrook, describing the buildings, gardens and generally the life on the station. Younger Mary's recollection of the Cottage includes, \"Through the hand-gate in front of the entrance porch (of the House) was a small paddock which divided the House from the Cottage; it had swings and a few silky oaks. The Cottage was of brick with a steep shingled roof; two or three gentlemen...were lodged under the efficient charge of a Scottish working-housekeeper\". She continues on to describe living on the verandah of the House,
\nIndoor occupation was varied and constant. One says indoor - yet it was carried out for the most part on the wide verandah, shaded from the sun by blinds. These came from Java or Japan; they were made of long strips of cane painted green and rolled up in the evening by cords on small pulleys. On the verandah peaches were stoned for jam, oranges peeled for marmalade and quinces carefully paired and cored for jelly. There was a wide table where the many kerosene lamps were washed and trimmed every morning and set ready to be carried to their respective rooms at night. There was the indispensable treadle sewing machine, and in a cool corner, in a draught, stood a filter with a tap and a tin pannikin, near it a large porous water-jar swathed in damp flannel for evaporation.
\nIn 1873 David Cannon McConnel retired from managing Cressbrook and one of his sons, James Henry (Henry) assumed responsibility. David and Mary moved to Witton Manor at Indooroopilly on the Brisbane River, which was later moved to the Tighnabruaich house site, and is now demolished. From her new situation in Brisbane, Mary McConnel was influential in establishing one of the first children's hospitals in Australia which was opened on 11 March 1878. Soon after this on 16 June 1885, David died in London where he had gone to have an operation.
\nA partnership had been formed previously which saw Cressbrook owned by a company formed by David and his four sons, Henry, David Rose, Eric Walter and Edward John and their sister Mary McLeod Banks (nee McConnel). This company, without David, continued to run Cressbrook for many years after his death. Through the 1880s Government resumptions of land for closer settlement reduced the Cressbrook holding until it was about 4 and 3/4 square miles.
\nIn 1899 a condensed milk factory was established on the Cressbrook run by James Henry McConnel and milk for this was supplied by a dairy at Cressbrook and many other surrounding farms, carved from the Cressbrook property, of which there were about thirty by 1910. The milk factory was sold, with 3000 acres, being about four farms, to the Nestles Anglo-Swiss Company in 1906, as finances continued in an unsettled way with the dissolution of the partnership and the purchase, by Henry McConnel of the Cressbrook Homestead and some 14 000 acres surrounding the residences and outbuildings by December 1907.
\nIn 1901 a timber chapel, designed by renowned architect Robin S. Dods was constructed, to the west of the principal residences and on a prominent position as one entered the property. The chapel was ecumenical, serving the religions of all creeds of the station workers and was built to commemorate the silver wedding anniversary of Henry and Madge McConnel. This was one of Dods' early ecclesiastical buildings, later he designed several other timber churches and chapels including Saint Andrews Anglican Church (1912) nearby at Toogoolawah, as well as many prominent masonry buildings as the Anglican Diocesan Architect. In about 1914, after the death of Henry, his wife organised for alterations to the House also designed by Dods, integrating the disparate verandahs lining the northern face of the building, with a large open pavilion, as well as some internal work.
\nA detailed plan of Cressbrook in 1910 was prepared by Kenneth McConnel for a publication by him, Planning the Australian Homestead (Ure Smith, Sydney, 1947). This details all of the buildings and structures within the vicinity of the principal residences and shows this area as a small township which included numerous outbuildings and homes for workers and their families. Provision was made for bachelors' quarters, married men's quarters, single men's quarters, a school house, chapel, various stores and shops along with stables, killing shed, milking baths, bull stables, hay shed, wagon shed and draft stables and cattle dip. Of these structures and buildings, many survive including two large tank stands, the draft stables, an explosives store, parts of the cattle dip, one of the bachelors' quarters and one of the married men's quarters.
\nCressbrook continues through the twentieth century as a working pastoral station in the hands of the McConnel family.
","criteria":"Cressbrook Homestead was established by David Cannon McConnel in 1841, the first run taken in the Brisbane Valley. The run demonstrates the development of Queensland, particularly the Brisbane River Valley area in the 1840s, after it was opened to settlement with the closure of the penal colony. The property illustrates the development of pastoral practices in Queensland, particularly the development of dairying in the Brisbane River Valley.
|Cressbrook has many rare built elements including an early 1840s slab hut; a timber chapel with fittings designed by Robin Dods; an 1860s timber framed and brick nogged house and various other 1860s buildings. The site remains remarkably intact, though continual additions have been made very few early structures have been removed from the site.
|The early date of Cressbrook with its many extant features suggest that a potential exists for further historical and archaeological research which may yield information which will contribute to an understanding of early Queensland station life.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland pastoral station. The arrangement of the early buildings and their relationship to the working farm and outbuildings provides important evidence of early station life. The chapel is an important and characteristic example of the work of renowned architect, Robin S. Dods. The early station buildings are good intact examples of slab huts constructed in the mid-nineteenth century.
|Cressbrook has enormous aesthetic significance; the entire site has a picturesque quality resulting from the layering of various periods of building construction over 150 years and the siting of these buildings overlooking the Brisbane River. The chapel has significant architectural merit as a well designed example of Australian Arts and Crafts ecclesiastical architecture adapted for Queensland conditions. The quality of this building including materials, detailing, siting, composition of the external facades, fittings and furniture, is exceptional.
The chapel, one of the first ecclesiastical buildings designed by Robin Dods in Queensland displays a high degree of creative achievement, in its employment of the Arts and Craft idiom of the turn of the century, in which Dods was well versed and innovative.
|Cressbrook has special associations with the Brisbane River Valley community as their first settled station and a place of employment for many hundreds of local residents and their families many of whom remain in the area.
|The place is associated with the prominent McConnel family who still own Cressbrook and were instrumental in the development of the Valley and the town of Esk; also with Robin Dods who designed the chapel and extensions to the House.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15280,"place_ref":600505,"name":"Station Master's Residence, Einasleigh (former)","alternate_name":"Station Masters Residence","street_address":"Railway Reserve","suburb":"EINASLEIGH","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Station Master's Residence is a single storey timber building set on concrete stumps. It has a roof comprising three parallel gables clad in corrugated iron. There are fixed louvred vents below each gable and the core section has a verandah to three sides. A separate roof supported on timber posts shades this. The house has sash windows and French doors opening onto the verandah, part of which has been built in. The interior is lined with horizontal beaded boards.
The detached kitchen shown on the original drawings is not present. A mature mango tree at the side of the house is an important visual feature of the site.
","history":"The Einasleigh Station Master's Residence was constructed around 1909 as part of a private railway linking the mines and smelters of the Chillagoe Company to the state railway network. The mining company's Engineer-in-Charge, A. S Frew, designed this and two other similar residences at Almaden and at Forsayth on the line.
The important mining entrepreneur, John Moffat, prospected for copper in the Chillagoe area from the late 1880s and in the 1890s formed a syndicate with Melbourne investors to build a private railway linking Chillagoe with the government railway network at Mareeba. The bill to approve this project was passed in Parliament in 1897 and A S Frew surveyed the line. Archibald Smith Frew was employed as an engineer by the Queensland Railways Department from 1879, was second in charge at the construction of the Croydon railway in 1890-91, and constructed much of the Cairns railway network in the early years of the 20th century. He also designed the structures needed to service the Chillagoe line. Many of the buildings, since vanished, displayed the distinctive multiple gabled roofs seen on this residence.
The Etheridge railway was built between 1906 and 1910 and the principal towns along the line were Almaden, Einasleigh and Forsayth, which was the terminus. A S Frew designed Station Master's residences at each of the service towns as part of the overall provision of facilities that included a station building, cattle yards, turning fork, loading bank and goods shed. The siding to the mine at Einasleigh was reported completed in March 1909 and trains of ore are likely to have commenced running shortly afterwards.
The Station Master's houses at each town are similar in plan and all feature a distinctive roof arranged in three parallel gables, which indicate the room arrangement. The central room was a dining room flanked by pairs of bedrooms. The Einasleigh and Forsayth houses were larger than that at Almaden and were originally designed with lattice at each end of the dining room, allowing this to operate as a central breezeway. However, they may not have actually been constructed in this way and are enclosed at each end. The house was designed with a detached building at the rear of the house incorporating a kitchen, store and servant's room with the roof extended at the back to cover a laundry.
The Chillagoe Company experienced considerable difficulties, undergoing several financial reconstructions. Although it was not profitable, it nevertheless survived until 1923, and had an important influence on the mining and railway industries of North Queensland. There is evidence of its operations in the ruined smelter at Chillagoe, and abandoned mine sites at Mungana, Einasleigh, Mt Mulligan and elsewhere. However, the railway lines built by the company from the government railhead at Mareeba to Mungana in 1901, and to Forsayth in 1910, have survived in use. When constructed, they were part of the longest privately owned railway network in Australia, but were incorporated into the Queensland Government rail system in June 1919 when most of the Chillagoe Company's assets were purchased by the State.
Einasleigh had a stationmaster until 1927 when the line was closed by flooding. After the line was reopened, a Gatekeeper - probably a station mistress as it was in later years - was appointed as from 1928. After a new house was built in the 1970s, maintenance fettlers occupied this house. The line is now chiefly a tourist attraction.
","criteria":"The former Station Master's Residence at Einasleigh is one of three such residences built as part of the infrastructure servicing the private railway of a major mining company. They express the dominance of the Chillagoe Company in the economy of North Queensland, 1898-1914. The line was a vital link in the Company's operations, bringing in fuel for the smelters and taking out minerals, but it also worked as a community railway servicing the needs of those living on the line and in the service towns.
The Etheridge line is rare as a private railway and the provision of Station Master's residences demonstrates the quality and importance of the facility to the Chillagoe Company.
|The Etheridge line is rare as a private railway and the provision of Station Master's residences demonstrates the quality and importance of the facility to the Chillagoe Company.
|The former Station Master's residence has aesthetic value as a well-executed variation of a traditional dwelling within the Queensland vernacular tradition and makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Einasleigh.
|It is important for its connection with the life and work of the prominent engineer, A S Frew, who designed both the line and the structures along it, endowing them with a personal interpretation of the established local tradition in domestic architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15281,"place_ref":600506,"name":"Kidston State Battery & Township","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Georgetown Mining District","suburb":"KIDSTON","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located on the west bank of the Copperfield River in North Queensland, Kidston State Battery and Township lies approximately 50 kms south of Einasleigh. It includes the remnants of the Kidston State Battery, including its plant, and the Kidston township.
\nKidston State Battery
\nThe battery contains three components, the battery shed, an associated battery manager’s house and a water pump. The battery shed is constructed on a bush timber frame with heavy bush timber uprights. The shed is clad in corrugated iron. Components of the crushing plant include timbered ore chutes to two primary crusher pits (one jaw crusher remains insitu), connected by two external ore bucket elevators to the ore bins, self-feeding 3 five-head stamp batteries The two bucket elevators have been removed however their vertical housings form a distinctive external feature. The battery launders are intact but there are no copper amalgam plates. Only one of three slimes tables remain. A gas engine which formed the main power plant has recently been removed. Two berdan pans and a grinding pan remain insitu. A lean-to section alongside the battery building contains a smithy and a small workshop.
\nTwo large elevated iron tanks (riveted fabrication) alongside the battery are fed by pipes connecting with a partly intact twin cylinder pump which is mounted beside the river. A corrugated iron clad cottage above the pump may have been the battery manager's house. The house is in fair condition and contains garden plots and buildings.
\nPlant
\nJaw crusher - no brand visible.
\nFive-head stamp battery - Maryborough Tooth & Co Vulcan Foundry Queensland (on mortar box), Tooth & Co (on iron standards).
\nFive-head stamp battery - Stuart & McKenzie Croydon Union Foundry (on mortar box), Tooth & Co (on iron standards).
\nFive-head stamp battery - (no brand on mortar box), Tooth & Co (on iron standards).
\nSlimes separation table.
\n2 Berdan pans.
\n2 Grinding pans (one insitu).
\nGas producer plant (not isitu).
\nTwo-cylinder ram pump - no brand (power unit removed).
\nKidston Township
\nThe surveyed portion of the town reserve that lies west of the old Gilberton road contains surface remains of former buildings including stone surfaces, timber stumps and garden areas. The grave (with headstone) of Edward Albert Martel who died in 1908, is also located in this area. The grave pre-dates the 1917 establishment of Kidston cemetery about 2 km north. In 2017, it is understood that Martel's grave has since been covered by waste dumps.
\nThe built portion of the town reserve occupies the eastern side of the old Gilberton road, north of the Kidston State Battery through to the western bank of the Copperfield River. This precinct contains six early buildings which remain roofed, but abandoned and derelict, and surface evidence of at least three other buildings. A recent demountable house was unoccupied at the time of survey. The largest structure in the town is the recent Kidston Gold Mines core store which is housed under an expansive steel skillion roof. The early police station group alongside the core store includes a derelict weatherboard courthouse and station office, an adjacent corrugated iron (c.g.i.) clad house (temporarily occupied), and a weatherboard lock-up and cottage at the rear. About 60 m south of the police station is a c.g.i. clad building with a detached outhouse that may have formerly been a hotel (possibly the Shamrock Hotel). The Battery Manager’s House is located on the bank of the Copperfield River, south of Poverty Gully.
\nAnother group of abandoned buildings, including three timber-frame houses, are located about 250 m south of the battery. This group has a cohesive layout, resembling a homestead. An airstrip, which is not of cultural heritage significance, has been graded over the northern section of the town site.
","history":"The Kidston State Battery and Township, located beside the Copperfield River in North Queensland, about 50 km south of Einasleigh and approximately 283 km eastnortheast of Townsville, comprises the Kidston township established in 1907 and the State Battery (stamper, manager’s house and pump), which commenced operations in 1922.
\nPayable gold was discovered on the Copperfield River in September 1907 leading to the Oaks Rush as the field was initially known. The Oaks Goldfield was declared in April 1908 and had a peak population of 1700 by June 1908.
\nThe township of Kidston developed on the west bank of the Copperfield River. The mining warden noted in August 1908 that tents were being replaced by wood and iron buildings. By the dry season of 1909 the population had fallen dramatically to about 100 alluvial miners using dry blowers, but reefers had started work on the quartz veins. W Brown's Pioneer mill with five heads was erected in May 1909 and W Suhle and Archbold's large Enterprise mill of five 1000 lb (453 kg) stamps was transferred from Georgetown and was operating by April 1910.
\nKidston was unusual for a North Queensland goldfield in that the citizens at first successfully excluded public houses and grog shops. However, despite the temperance movement there were two hotels by 1909 and Kidston developed the usual rowdiness of a bush mining town. There were two halls, a school and police station. A Kidston citizen's band was formed in 1912. Union activity was more evident and Kidston became more radical than other gold-mining towns in the Etheridge.
\nKidston settled into systematic mining and was not directly effected by World War I or the closure of the Chillagoe smelters from March 1914 until January 1920. Water supply problems were alleviated in 1915 when a government dam was built on Butchers Creek. A period of high gold prices (1920-24) may have influenced the decision to build the Kidston State Battery, but the gradual decline of the field and the inadequacy of existing crushing equipment also added pressure. In May 1920, the Government Geologist, Dr H I Jensen, recommended that a modern battery be constructed at Kidston. By September the Union Battery at Percyville was being dismantled and the machinery moved to Kidston, while other machinery was obtained from the Big Reef (Castleton). Between 11 and 18 men were employed establishing a sawmill, supplying the timber and constructing the battery, which commenced operations in May 1922.
\nIn 1915 TJ Ryan's Labor government had won office in wartime Queensland on the strength of promises to improve living standards – principally by addressing the problems of high commodity prices, price-fixing and the emergence of monopolies. The Labor party in general and Ryan and his Treasurer, EG Theodore, in particular, advocated public ownership of key economic activities, in competition with private enterprise, but at fair prices. They argued that by operating at a reduced profit margin the cost of goods and services provided by State-run enterprises would be reduced, and that the flow-on effect would be to reduce and stabilise prices for similar goods and services provided by the private sector. Labor politicians regarded State enterprise as 'State capitalism' rather than 'State socialism'.[1]
\nIn the period 1915-25 the Queensland Government, as part of this broad, pragmatic Labor platform that advocated State intervention in the private sector to protect individuals against capitalist exploitation, instituted or acquired a diversity of business enterprises. These included the Kidston State Battery, a State Insurance Office, a Public Curator's Office, the Golden Casket State Lottery, sawmills and joinery works, mining and fishing ventures, a hotel, a sugar mill, cold stores, plant nurseries, cattle stations and a network of butcher's shops, the process being formalised with the passing of the State Enterprises Act 1918. [2]
\nDuring the 1920s, the Oaks Goldfield reached a stage where the large, low grade deposits were becoming too poor to work in bulk. Consequently, most miners developed smaller, richer reefs that produced low tonnages of ore, but were insufficient to keep the battery fully engaged.
\nIn 1923 the battery treated 57 parcels of ore totalling 2611 tons yielding 880 oz of gold. In 1924 a number of improvements were made to the battery but owing to wet weather, which cut off the battery from the mines, 781 fewer tons of ore were treated but the output rose to 1391 oz of gold. The battery operated from January to November 1925 treating 27 parcels of lower grade ore totalling 1601 tons producing 760 oz of gold. Mining quartz in bulk was unprofitable so only small rich leaders could afford to be worked. In 1926 only nine parcels of ore were treated - 500 tons yielding 456oz of gold. The battery was only working intermittently during the year owing to the lack of supplies.
\nIn 1929 the battery operated efficiently for 78 days. It treated 14 parcels of ore totalling 428 tons in 1930 with a yield of 231.5 oz of gold. Crushing was only done intermittently. Two additional berdan pans were added in 1930. The introduction of motor transport to the field in 1931 enabled larger amounts of ore to be hauled in to the battery. Water for the battery had to be obtained by sinking in the riverbed. 350 tons of stone were crushed for a yield of 156 oz of gold. The school closed in 1930, but 15 buildings still remained in the township.
\nThe battery operated from January to June 1932, when it stopped for lack of water. 2310 tons of low grade (4.5 dwts per ton) stone were crushed for a yield of 491 oz of gold. The battery operated almost continuously in 1933. A box race brought water to the battery from the Copperfield River. Although 4,420 tons of ore were treated it was of a much lower quality (surface loam) than previously, being only of 3 dwt average per ton. There were many machinery breakdowns in the battery in 1934. Considerable repairs were necessary including replacement of the Ackroyd wood producer gas generator by a No.6 Hornsby producer gas generator to operate on either coke or charcoal. 5677 tons of stone (much of it surface loam) were crushed for a yield of 756 oz of gold (3 dwts per ton).
\nThe cam shaft of the battery broke and the box drain for water from the river was insufficient in 1935, closing it down for repairs. The Hornsby engine was installed in February. 4560 tons of stone were treated for a yield of 663 oz of gold. The battery operated 4,094 hours in 1936 producing 980 oz of gold from 6,951 tons of stone. G Price at the Town View open cut had 750 tons treated at the Kidston battery for a yield of 55.77 oz of gold. The box water race from Copperfield River worked well as did the new Hornsby gas producer. 57 parcels were dealt with during the year. 66 parcels of ore were treated in 1938. In 1940 8020 tons of ore from 22 mines were crushed in 3648 hours of running time for 1201 oz of gold.
\nThe Kidston Battery did not operate during 1942 as miners had left the district and there was no ore available. It was decided to close down the battery for the duration of the war and a caretaker was placed in charge of the battery. There was movement in 1946 to reopen the battery which attracted some prospectors back to the Oaks field. The battery was reopened in 1947 with Alf Hooley as manager and 1,238 tons of stone were treated for a yield of 94 oz of gold. Most of the stone treated was bulk samples obtained by H Dickinson from the surrounding hills. Crushing ceased early in 1949 and the battery did not operate after 1950.
\nThe late development of the Oaks Goldfield meant that Kidston did not experience the evolution of building styles shown at earlier mining towns, but was able to take advantage of the ready accessibility of corrugated iron, going straight from tent settlement to iron-clad buildings. Other ’imported‘ building materials were also well represented, there being five weatherboard clad buildings surviving compared to eight iron buildings. The presence of an operating sawmill during the construction of the State Battery in 1921-2 may also explain the reason for the unusual number of weatherboard buildings. While iron buildings are common in many inland towns of Australia, there are surprisingly few surviving in great numbers in mining towns of North Queensland. Thus the existence of the group of buildings still making up Kidston is more unusual than might appear at first.
\nKidston cemetery is located about 2 km north of the township and contains 25 identifiable graves, including 10 with headstones.[3] The earliest headstone marks the grave of John Joseph Hall, who died on 28 January 1917 at 4 years 3 months. The latest headstone marks the grave of Theodore Lindner, who died in 1939 aged 53 years.
","criteria":"The Kidston State Battery (including the manager's house and pump) is significant because of the role it played in supporting and extending the life of gold mining in North Queensland after what became the second last major alluvial gold rush in Queensland's history (the Oaks Rush of 1907). Its development and maintenance as a State battery from 1922 to 1950 is significant as demonstrated government support for regional employment and industrial development.
\nKidston Township is significant through its association with the Oaks gold rush of 1907, the second last major alluvial rush in Queensland's history. Kidston, through the operation of the State Battery, supported the continuation of gold mining on the Etheridge field until the mid-20th century.
|The survival of a 15-head battery is rare in North Queensland and only the Venus State Battery at Charters Towers has more stamps (20) surviving. The combination of the battery manager's house and pump in relation to the battery and the surviving buildings in the township contribute added significance to the complex and its rarity.
\nThe Stuart & McKenzie 5-head stamp battery manufactured by the Union Foundry, Croydon, is the only surviving stamp battery from this local company to be recorded in North Queensland.
\nThough now reduced in components and form, Kidston is a rare survivor of a once-common pattern of Queensland settlement.
|Because little subsequent development has disturbed early parts of the settlement, which once had houses and tent dwellings, the potential exists to conduct archaeological survey work to detail the history of the township's development.
|The Kidston State Battery demonstrates standard technology of the period and the high degree of self-sufficiency common to most isolated and remote mining operations in North Queensland.
\nKidston Township demonstrates the characteristics of a small but persistent goldfield town. Some of its built characteristics reflect its 20th century origins and distinguish it from earlier counterparts with evolved vernacular building forms. The earliest grave (1908) is in the township while later burials are in the cemetery north of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15282,"place_ref":600507,"name":"Station Master's Residence Forsayth (former)","alternate_name":"Station Masters Residence","street_address":"Fourth Street","suburb":"FORSAYTH","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Station Master's Residence is a single storey timber building set on concrete stumps and has a detached kitchen. The core of the building is clad in weatherboards and has a roof comprising three parallel gables clad in corrugated iron. It is encircled by a verandah with a separate roof supported by timber posts. It has sash windows and French doors opening onto the verandah at the front and rear.
At the rear of the house is a rectangular timber building linked to it by a walkway. This building has exposed studs and a single gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. The roof is extended at the rear and supported on timber posts. A small extension has been made at the side of the building to accommodate a bathroom.
The buildings are surrounded by timber post and chain wire fence.
","history":"The former Forsayth Station Master's Residence was constructed around 1910 as part of a private railway linking the mines and smelters of the Chillagoe Company to the state railway network. The mining company's Engineer-in-Charge, A. S Frew, designed this and two other similar residences at Almaden and at Einasleigh on the line.
The important mining entrepreneur, John Moffat, prospected for copper in the Chillagoe area from the late 1880s and in the 1890s formed a syndicate with Melbourne investors to build a private railway linking Chillagoe with the government railway network at Mareeba. The bill to approve this project was passed in Parliament in 1897 and A S Frew surveyed the line. Archibald Smith Frew was employed as an engineer by the Queensland Railways Department from 1879, was second in charge at the construction of the Croydon railway in 1890-91, and constructed much of the Cairns railway network in the early years of the 20th century. He also designed the structures needed to service the Chillagoe line. Many of the buildings, since vanished, displayed the distinctive multiple gabled roofs seen on this residence.
The Etheridge railway was built between 1906 and 1910 and the principal towns along the line were Almaden, Einasleigh and Forsayth, which was the terminus. Forsayth was originally called Charleston, but the name was changed on 15 December 1910 to honour the Commissioner for Railways, James Forsayth Thallon. A S Frew designed Station Master's residences at each of the service towns as part of the overall provision of facilities that included a station building, cattle yards, turning fork, loading bank and goods shed.
The Station Master's houses at each town are similar in plan and all feature a distinctive roof arranged in three parallel gables, which indicate the room arrangement. The central room was a dining room flanked by pairs of bedrooms. The Einasleigh and Forsayth houses were larger than that at Almaden and were originally designed with lattice at each end of the dining room, allowing this to operate as a central breezeway. However, they may not have actually been constructed in this way and are enclosed at each end. A detached building at the rear of the house incorporated a kitchen, store and servant's room with the roof extended to the back to cover a laundry.
The Chillagoe Company experienced considerable difficulties, undergoing several financial reconstructions. Although it was not profitable, it nevertheless survived until 1923, and had an important influence on the mining and railway industries of North Queensland. There is evidence of its operations in the ruined smelter at Chillagoe, and abandoned mine sites at Mungana, Einasleigh, Mt Mulligan and elsewhere. However the railway lines built by the company from the government railhead at Mareeba to Mungana in 1901, and to Forsayth in 1910, have survived in use. When constructed, they were part of the longest privately owned railway network in Australia, but were incorporated into the Queensland Government rail system in June 1919 when most of the Chillagoe Company's assets were purchased by the State. At this time Forsayth became a Queensland Railways station. The Station Master was withdrawn after floods closed the line in early 1927. When the line reopened for rail motor traffic (hauling one or two goods wagons for freight) a Porter in Charge was appointed. This remained the position until the 1990s when the Porter was withdrawn and a local agent appointed to handle the small remaining railway business for QR. The line is now chiefly a tourist attraction. Queensland Rail subdivided the land and sold the house as a private residence in 1991.
","criteria":"The former Station Master's Residence at Forsayth is one of three such residences built as part of the infrastructure servicing the private railway of a major mining company. They express the dominance of the Chillagoe Company in the economy of North Queensland, 1898-1914. The line was a vital link in the Company's operations, bringing in fuel for the smelters and taking out minerfals, but it also worked as a community railway servicing the needs of those living on the line and in the service towns.
The Etheridge line is rare as a private railway and the provision of Station Master's residences demonstrates the quality and importance of the facility to the Chillagoe Company.
|The Etheridge line is rare as a private railway and the provision of Station Master's residences demonstrates the quality and importance of the facility to the Chillagoe Company.
|The former Station Master's residence has aesthetic value as a well-executed variation of a traditional dwelling within the Queensland vernacular tradition and makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Forsayth.
|It is important for its connection with the life and work of the prominent engineer, A S Frew, who designed both the line and the structures along it, endowing them with a personal interpretation of the established local tradition in domestic architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15283,"place_ref":600508,"name":"Gracemere Homestead","alternate_name":"Gracemere","street_address":"234 Gracemere Road","suburb":"GRACEMERE","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gracemere Homestead is located approximately 11 kilometres south-west of the Rockhampton city centre along the Capricorn Highway. It is situated on a peninsula jutting into Gracemere Lagoon, which occupies old watercourse country that takes the overflow of nearby Scrubby Creek, and whose eastern bank forms the western boundary to the Gracemere allotment. Generally, the land slopes from the north to the south of the property and is overlooked to the east by the peaks of the Berserker Ranges and to the south-west by those of the Dee Range.
\nThe complex of buildings and landscape that comprise Gracemere Homestead includes: a house and extensive garden, a boat house and jetty, a guest cottage, a detached kitchen and store, an office and bookkeeper's quarters, a carpenter and blacksmith's shop, a vehicle/machinery shed, stables and attached cattle yards, and a one kilometre long avenue of Tamarind trees.
\nHouse
\nVisitors approach the homestead from the east, along the avenue of Tamarind trees (Tamarindus indica). They pass a number of other buildings to the immediate north before arriving at a grassed courtyard and the eastern facades of the single-storey house designed by Colin Archer in 1858 and extended before 1874. It is L-shaped in plan with a hipped corrugated iron roof that ends in a gable on the eastern facade. The main roof extends in a broken-backed manner over the verandahs. Timber shingles are visible beneath the iron cladding. An unrendered brick chimneystack pierces the main roof in its south-west corner and fills part of the southern verandah wall.
\nIn plan, a long sitting room extends from the south-western corner of the house toward the north. The main bedroom caps this wing. Both rooms open onto a long, deep verandah, which overlooks the lagoon to the west, and onto a smaller verandah on the eastern facade. The width of the bedroom has incorporated this smaller, east-facing verandah. On the northern end of this wing a comparatively narrow verandah separates the main bedroom from a screened room on the north-west corner and a further room between it and a corrugated iron water tank on the north-east corner. Both these rooms have individual gabled roofs of corrugated iron, the ridges of which run perpendicular to the length of this wing.
\nA narrow kitchen is adjacent to the sitting room in the south-facing wing. Beyond this are a dining room and a further bedroom. These rooms also open onto a long, deep verandah looking south, as well as onto a smaller verandah on the opposite facade. The verandah on the east face of this wing has been enclosed. A small room occupies the north-eastern corner of the north-facing verandah. A set of timber stairs and gate provides access to the south-facing verandah. There are corrugated iron water tanks positioned on each side of this wing.
\nTimber stumps support the floor framing above the ground sloping gently from the north-eastern courtyard to the south-west. The timber for the floors is imported New Zealand pine, which is known to be resistant to white ants. The main exterior walls of the house that adjoin the verandahs are four metres in height. On the west-facing wing they are made of vertical adzed ironbark slabs, while on the south-facing wing they are made of pit-sawn Burdekin Plum (Pleiogynium timorense). The framing for the walls of the west-facing wing is exposed on the exterior, with a long tie beam separating the upper and lower wall sections and creating a strong vertical datum. This plate acts as the head for all windows and doors opening onto the verandahs. A number of the upper ventilation openings remain and appear to be made of cross-braced timber boards. The wall framing on the south-facing wing is also exposed.
\nThe verandah roofs are supported on undecorated, stop-chamfered timber posts. The exterior wall and gable on the short eastern face of the house are clad in weatherboards. The walls of the screened enclosure and other semi-detached room on the north face of the building are similarly clad. The sill height for the timber-framed screens is low, set at approximately half a metre off the verandah floor.
\nThe windows on each elevation overlooking the lagoon are casements with three lights in each leaf. A number of the west-facing windows have timber louvered shutters. A number of the doors opening out of the later wing extending east are french, and have low-waists and three lights in each leaf. All those opening out of the original west-facing wing are single leaf doors with low waists and four panels. Skillion hoods clad in corrugated iron and supported on simply carved timber brackets shelter the window and door opening east out of the bedroom in this wing. The sole window that opens onto this east-facing courtyard consists of a single leaf with six lights.
\nThe walls and ceiling of the generously proportioned sitting room are lined with wide timber boards that have a dark appearance. The floorboards are not stained. A line of Archer family portraits remains along the long east-facing wall of the sitting room, resting above the picture rail. These have been a feature of the room since at least the 1930s and include a portrait of Julia Archer sent from Norway before the start of World War Two. The room features an open fireplace on its short, south facing wall. It is decorated with the carved timber surrounds, chimney piece and fire screen completed by Daisy and Joan Archer, and Henry James King-Church. The surrounds and chimneypiece consist of stylized columns on either side of the hearth supporting a simple, narrow mantelpiece. The edges of the chimneypiece form a triangle topped by a roundel of carving. Above the mantel is a wide strip of carving divided into two panels with a narrow shelf above.
\nOther examples of the woodcarving efforts of Daisy and Joan Archer remain in the sitting room. A bookcase with carved panels separating curtains drawn across two book alcoves is located in the centre of the west-facing wall. The panels have semicircular ends and are carved with stylized foliage. A number of pieces of freestanding furniture also remain. They include a spinning chair, which has four turned and splayed legs and a narrow backrest fitted into a simple seat. Joan Archer's single chair for her husband, Alister, also still exists. Its four faces are solid. The side panels curve up toward the backrest and are topped with carved nodes. The seat and backrest are padded with leather. There is also a three-seater, pew-like chair positioned under the window opening onto the east-facing courtyard. Its four faces are solid carved timber. The backrest, seat and front panel are divided into three segments. A crest appears to occupy the central panel on the backrest.
\nThe walls in the dining room are lined with wide vertical boards that are painted white. The ceiling joists are exposed and have a dark appearance that contrasts with the white boards behind. The internal walls of the two bedrooms are similarly framed and finished.
\nGarden
\nThe garden extends to the south and west of the house down to the edge of the lagoon, containing both formal and informal sections. The focal point is a raised circular lawn approximately five metres in diameter and adjacent to the western wing. On the three remaining sides, it is flanked by raised garden beds retained behind dry-stone granite walls. These beds continue in front of the southern wing. Gravelled pathways separate the raised beds and the central lawn. In its centre sits an upright length of petrified wood holding a sundial. Outside this area the planting scheme is more informal. On the west, beyond the relevant line of garden beds by approximately three metres, are located two bougainvillea covered arbours constructed from cut saplings and linking the formal area to the natural one by the water's edge. About three metres north of the north-western corner of the raised beds lies a slate grave marker inscribed with the name George Elliot and the date 1856. On the opposite corner of the garden bed arrangement, a stone-edged path leads to the boat shed and jetty.
\nBeyond the south-facing line of garden beds is a lawn area edged by azalea shrubbery. An overgrown metal windmill, about eight metres in height, stands approximately ten metres to the south of the south-west corner of verandah. At the eastern end of this line of beds is located a rough pergola also made from cut saplings over which bougainvillea has been trained. There is a similar structure adjacent to the south-east corner of the entry to the south-facing verandah. A timber pergola runs along the length of the west-facing verandah. It supports bougainvillea and sandpaper vine (Petrea volubis). The pergola's timber frame is founded on a raised rock garden planted with agapanthus. Timber stairs bring people down from the verandahs to the garden.
\nThe garden supports as many as sixteen different varieties of bougainvillea, including: Mrs Butt (scarlet), Alton Downs (pinkish red), Louise Waltham (apricot pink) and Thomasii (deep pink). Other dominant species include frangipani (Plumeria rubra), royal palms (Roystonea regia) and Leichhardt trees (Nauclea orientalis) native to the Fitzroy region. A large stand of bamboo occupies a spot approximately ten metres to the south-east of that corner of the house. Further east from this by about another ten metres is a stand of Tamarind trees.
\nGuest Cottage
\nThis simple cottage is located approximately twelve to fifteen metres from the northern end of the house. A narrow concrete path leads between it and the grassed courtyard of the house. The cottage is rectangular in plan and has a gable roof clad in corrugated iron. Timber stumps support the timber floor framing. A verandah approximately one and a half metres wide faces back toward the house and is accessed via a short flight of timber stairs. The cottage roof is supported at the outer verandah edge on simple timber posts. A timber top rail rests on a centred timber baluster. The verandah deck is clad in wide timber boards and the exterior walls are clad with weatherboards. A window on the short eastern facade is sheltered by a curved hood clad in corrugated iron and supported on a largely solid bracket. Two casement windows open onto the verandah and have two lights in each leaf. A single leaf door opens off this verandah. A fenceline composed of timber picket parts, the trunk of a mature tree and a section of posts and rails, runs between the north-east corner of the house and a point approximately two-thirds the way along the length of the cottage.
\nBoat House and Jetty
\n[Note: the Boat House and Jetty structure extend into the Gracemere Lagoon cadastral boundary]
\nThis small structure is located at the end of a pathway leading from the south-western corner of the raised garden bed enclosure to the edge of the lagoon. A rectangle approximately two by five metres in plan, the structure has a skillion roof clad in corrugated iron and supported on timber framing that is attached to large timber posts at the water's edge. The roof slopes away from the water. The wall facing back to the garden is clad in unpainted weatherboards, while the opposite one is open to the view. The short elevations facing west and east are made with cross-braced timber battens. The floor is lined with timber boards.
\nDetached Kitchen and Store
\nThe detached kitchen and store building is located approximately five metres from the north-east corner of the house. Its length runs parallel to the south-facing wing of the house. It is essentially rectangular in plan, founded on very short timber stumps and sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. Verandahs extend along the north and south facing elevations of the building, the roofs of which are broken-backed extensions of the main roof. These have floors lined with timber boards. The local ground slopes gently to the north-east. A timber and chainwire fence runs between the eastern end of the house and a point approximately halfway along this building's southern face.
\nThe remains of a brick fireplace and oven project out of the western facade and are separately sheltered under a skillion roof clad in corrugated iron. The store at the eastern end of the building forms a similar appendage. The exterior walls and gables, and parts of the fireplace extension are clad in painted weatherboards. The roofs at the verandah edges are supported on undecorated timber posts. Three board doors open onto the south-facing verandah of this building. A mature tree marks the entrance joined to the house by a concrete path. The store also has a door on this facade. Two six light fixed windows also feature on of this facade.
\nOn the interior, the hewn timber frame and the shingles that originally clad the roof are visible. The floors are lined with unfinished timber boards. The building is divided into a number of small rooms. A number of single skin interior walls appear to be clad in chamfer boards. There are also a number of board doors opening between rooms.
\nOffice and Bookkeeper's Quarters
\nThis building is sited approximately five metres directly east of the detached kitchen, along the entrance roadway. It is rectangular in plan, with its length running east to west. This structure is similar in form and materials to the main part of the kitchen, with verandahs facing south and north. Two short flights of timber stairs provide access to the south-facing verandah. The gable roof is supported at the verandah edge by undecorated timber posts. There are two corrugated iron water tanks adjacent to the western facade. At least two casement windows open onto the southern verandah. They have two lights in each leaf.
\nCarpenter and Blacksmith's Shop
\n[Note: In 2023 this structure is understood to have collapsed since this description was written in 2005]
\nThis structure is sited approximately seven to ten metres further east from the office and bookkeeper's quarters described above. Rectangular in plan, it has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron, the ridge of which runs from east to west. Its wall and roof framing members are made from rough hewn timber posts, in between which have been inserted some sections of vertical adzed timber slabs and some of corrugated iron. Its northern elevation is entirely open, with only the timber posts visible, while the short sides facing east and west are partly filled. The elevation facing south is entirely filled with timber slab and corrugated iron panels. The whole structure is leaning heavily. A Banyan Tree (Ficus bengalensis) stands adjacent to the south-eastern of this structure.
\nVehicle/Machinery Shed
\nThis structure is set between the office and the carpenter and blacksmith's shop described above, approximately five to seven metres back from the line they make on the roadway. It has a corrugated iron roof and its wall and roof framing are made of rough-hewn timber posts. Its south-facing elevation is largely open, with only the framing members visible. Its eastern face is clad, probably in weatherboards, and features a window.
\nStables and Attached Cattle Yards
\nThe stables and the cattle yards attached to them are located approximately thirty to fifty metres further east along the entrance roadway. The stable building is sited in the south-eastern corner of the square shaped yards. It is rectangular in plan, with the long sides running parallel to the roadway. The roof is clad in corrugated iron. The yards are approximately twenty-five metres square. A number of trees line the yard fences.
\nMiscellaneous Shed/Building
\nA further structure is located approximately ten metres to the north of the kitchen building described above. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. In terms of form and materials it appears to be very similar to the Office and Bookkeeper's Quarters.
\nTamarind Tree Avenue
\nThe roadway leading between the entrance to the allotment off the Capricorn Highway on the eastern side of the property and the homestead's buildings and garden on the western side is lined by a series of mature Tamarind Trees. They appear to be planted approximately seven metres apart for the entire one kilometre course of the roadway.
","history":"Gracemere Homestead comprises a number of single storey, timber and corrugated iron structures, including a large house, characteristic of a Central Queensland pastoral property established during the 1850s. These structures are complemented by an extensive sub-tropical garden and other significant landscape elements. The Archer family and their family company have owned Gracemere Homestead for almost 150 years. The first wing of the house was designed by Colin Archer and built in 1858. An additional wing was constructed sometime between 1862 and 1874. Charles and William Archer were the first Europeans to enter the area where the homestead and the city of Rockhampton now stand.
The Archers were of Scottish extraction but in 1825 the family moved to southern Norway. Each of the nine sons eventually came to Australia, remaining for varying periods of time before returning to Europe. The first son significant to the story of Gracemere Homestead was David Archer, who arrived in 1834 to work on an uncle's property in New South Wales. Two of his brothers, Thomas and William, followed in 1837. The young men formed a partnership to establish Durundur, a sheep station on the Stanley River north of Brisbane in 1840-41. They were amongst the earliest pastoralists in the Moreton Bay region. Seeking further pastoral land they explored north along the river systems, selecting Emu Creek, Cooyar, Coonambula and Eidsvold on the Upper Burnett in 1848. Sometime between 1843 and 1852 the eldest Archer son, Charles, arrived from Norway. In 1852 David returned to Norway and was replaced by Colin, the eighth brother.
Eager to find land more suited to sheep and wool production, as were many southern pastoralists, Charles and William explored the central coast hinterland in 1853 in the wake of Ludwig Leichhardt's exploration of the area between 1844-46.
On 4 May 1853 the Archer party reached the top of the northern escarpment of the Dee Range and observed the confluence of the Dawson and Mackenzie Rivers flowing into Keppel Bay. Three days later they descended into the valley and discovered what Charles described as a "magnificent sheet of water". It was named Farris [later to be renamed Gracemere] after a lake near their hometown of Larvik in Norway. Charles identified his ideal site for a house on a peninsula midway along its eastern shore. The brothers then explored further east along the Fitzroy River to Keppel Bay in July and August 1853.
While on these trips, Charles made semi-professional maps, which were used to construct the first official map ever published of the central coast hinterland in January 1854, when the New South Wales government proclaimed the Port Curtis and Leichhardt pastoral districts open for settlement. In 1854 the Archer brothers took up a total of twelve runs in the Port Curtis district, including Charles Archer's Farris run. Being in what was classified as a 'settled' district, Port Curtis runs were subject to possible resumption, which prompted the Archers to seek land further inland in the 'unsettled' districts. In 1854, they were the first Europeans to reach Peak Downs after Leichhardt's aborted effort in 1847.
In August 1855 Charles stocked Farris run with sheep, and set about establishing it as the Archers' head station in the Port Curtis district. Around this time the brothers decided that Farris lake and run would be renamed Gracemere after Thomas Archer's wife Grace. Thomas, another of the Archer brothers, had made his way to Australia in 1853 and he and his wife had resided at Eidsvold Station in the Burnett until returning to Europe in 1855.
Upon arrival at Gracemere, Charles Archer began the task of equipping the station with the necessary buildings and structures such as stockyards, a shearing shed and huts for the workers. In 1856 Colin moved from Coonambula to Gracemere, and the firms David Archer & Co and Charles and Thomas Archer were amalgamated, becoming Archer & Co. A shingle-roofed structure, known as Bachelor's Hall, was built to house the brothers. Also, a visitor to the station, George Elliot, died of natural causes and was buried in what was to become the garden. He and his brother, 'Hobby' Elliot, a notable pastoralist in the district, were friends of the Archers. Charles returned to Norway at the end of 1856.
In 1858 Colin Archer designed and constructed the surviving slab house at Gracemere homestead. All the timber for wall framing and roof cladding was felled on the property. According to Colin's journal the house took from May to July to complete. It was sited to the immediate east of Bachelor's Hall, on the sloping peninsula identified by Charles in 1853. In plan the house was a simple rectangle, the long sides of which faced east and west. It contained two large rooms, one designated as a sitting room with fireplace. The walls of this structure were clad in vertical ironbark slabs and the roof with timber shingles. Experienced with the regional sub-tropical climate, Colin ensured that the rooms of his house were shaded on two sides by verandahs. The west-facing verandah was shaded further by a timber pergola, which quickly became overgrown with bougainvillea.
The composition of the outer walls of the house reveals the degree to which the designer strived to incorporate passive cooling mechanisms and his ability to creatively utilise available materials. The walls were four metres in height. Colin employed a continuous wall plate or tie beam at the heads of all windows and doors to create top and bottom wall plates. In the upper section were placed a series of ventilation openings. The availability of lengths of trees suitable for splitting slabs influenced this decision. Sections of the outer iron bark slab walls were arranged to ensure that joining studs in the wall would meet tie beams in the ceiling. This junction is noticeable along the top plate. Also, the verandah windows featured shelf-like sills that positioned earthenware flasks of cool water "known as water monkeys" to catch the slightest breeze.
A further wing was added prior to the 1874 arrival of Thomas and Grace Archer and their large family, and after 1861 when Sandy (Alexander) Archer lived for a year at Gracemere and sketched the original house. The new wing created an L-shaped plan that extended toward the east. It contained two large rooms, for dining and sleeping, and one small room. The design of this addition harmonized with that of the existing wing: it was one room deep, had four-metre high outer walls, a matching roof pitch, and verandahs placed on all sides. The walls were clad in pit-sawn Burdekin Plum (Pleiogynium timorense). It is not clear whether Colin Archer was involved with the design of this extension, as he returned to Norway in 1861, but a number of his key design features were carried through.
Other buildings constructed around 1858 include: servant's quarters, office and bookkeeper's quarters, carpenter and blacksmith's shop, stables and cattle yards. Opposite these, on the southern side of the entrance roadway, were sited a number of worker's cottages and a woolshed. This collection of buildings supported a bustling community. A Banyan Tree (Ficus bengalensis) was planted to mark the entrance to the settlement.
It is unclear precisely when the Bachelor's Hall was removed and a screened room inserted on the north-western corner of the house. The Hall is visible in a 1908 photograph, but another taken in 1930 reveals that it had been removed by then. Also, the narrow verandah originally built onto the east-facing end of the later wing had been enclosed by 1907. A guest cottage built equidistant between the servants' quarters and kitchen must have been constructed at some time following the demolition of Bachelor's Hall in the early 20th century.
When first exploring the area it was Charles who imagined a house on the Gracemere peninsula and conceived of its general relationship to the lagoon being mediated by a garden, however, it was William Archer who laid out the homestead's extensive garden after 1858. Its design partially emulates that of the family home, Tolderodden, which was originally used as the Larvik Customs House. It was surrounded on three sides by the sea and the brothers' father landscaped its gardens down to the water's edge. Gracemere's garden design comprised two sections: formal surrounds to the house made of raised planting beds retained behind stone walls and containing small scale shrubbery; and beyond this, larger trees scattered informally down to the lagoon shore. A series of gravelled or stone-edged pathways led visitors to various destination points around the lagoon. The stone walls surrounding the front circular lawn and raised garden beds were constructed by miners made destitute by the failure of the 1858 Canoona Gold Rush. During the 1860s plant stock was brought from the Sydney Botanical Gardens to establish the Gracemere garden, to which many Central Queensland trees and shrubs can trace their origins.
The Norwegian naturalist and explorer Carl Lumholtz lived for almost a year at Gracemere homestead c1880 and described the garden twenty years after it was established. He catalogued the varieties of shrubs and trees growing there, including orange trees, pineapple and mango, the Madagascar Delonix (poinciana), the Brazilian Jacaranda, several sorts of Australian conifer, and a beautiful specimen of the bunya-bunya (Araucaria bidwillii). Lumholtz also took note of the large iron water tanks positioned at each corner of the house.
In October 1858 Rockhampton was proclaimed a town. Gracemere lost one square mile of riverside land to the new municipality and its town side boundary was relocated only a couple of kilometres from the homestead. In 1856 the Crown Lands Commissioner for Leichhardt had consulted Charles Archer regarding a suitable site for the township. The place on the Fitzroy River where vessels were unloading goods for Gracemere was selected, at a point where a sandy bay crossed the river. There was a suggestion that the new town be named Charleston in honour of its founder, but he modestly declined this honour and Rockhampton, meaning 'town near the rocks in the river' was chosen.
Colin Archer began his return journey to Norway in September 1861. Just before he arrived Charles died, requiring Colin to stay permanently in Norway to assist his mother. He eventually married a Norwegian woman and started his own business as a naval architect and boat builder, becoming famous for building many kinds of seaworthy vessels. Most renowned was the polar ship the Fram, which brought the Norwegian explorers Nansen and Amundsen on their voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic. A photograph of the Fram was hanging in Gracemere's dining room in 1913. Colin also achieved fame for his designs for pilot boats and rescue cutters or lifeboats, his work revolutionising boating safety.
During 1861 and 1862 the Archers were able to pre-emptively purchase the land on which the homestead was sited. Archer & Co. sought to have its twelve runs in the Port Curtis District, including what was still known officially as Farris, consolidated under the name Gracemere, which had been used by the family since 1855. They were initially successful. However, Crown Law Officers provided a late opinion that the consolidation was illegal and the Government proclamation advertising it was cancelled. The issue was not resolved until 1875 when William Archer petitioned the Queensland parliament to obtain pre-emptive rights over certain leased portions of Gracemere on which approximately £10,000 worth of improvements had been made, resulting in the 'Gracemere Pre-emptive Bill' being passed. Leases on the relevant runs were granted from 1862 and the company continued to pay rent until, after they voluntarily surrendered what remained of it, the leased portions of the run were resumed in 1876.
It was during this period that a further Archer son and brother made Queensland his home. Archibald Archer (Archie) settled at Gracemere in 1860 after trying various entrepreneurial activities in Polynesia. In 1865 he and William became committee members of the Queensland Land League. In June 1867 Archie was elected to the new seat of Rockhampton. In parliament he promoted land legislation reform and played a pivotal role in the drafting of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868. After returning from Europe in 1870, Archie was elected to the seat of Blackall adjoining Rockhampton, holding it until 1886. In 1888 he was elected again as Member for Rockhampton and retained this seat until 1896 when he resigned in order to return to the family home in Norway. He was also heavily involved in the separation movement, which sought to have northern and central Queensland made a separate colony. During all his years in the Queensland parliament he resided principally at Gracemere homestead.
In 1866 and 1867 Queensland experienced a severe economic recession. Gracemere's prospects as a pastoral station were never to match its earlier successes. At the end of this decade the Archers made a change from sheep to cattle on Gracemere. It was determined that sheep did not grow high-grade wool in coastal country, but more significantly local meat processing facilities had developed. The family company had established one of Queensland's first Hereford studs in 1862.
While members of the second generation of Archers had started to arrive in Australia and take jobs on the Archer company's properties as early as the mid-1850s, it was not until David Archer's son, Robert Stubbs Archer, commenced management of Gracemere that a real handover of control started. During the 1870s, James, the youngest of the original Archer brothers, had managed Gracemere before taking on the management of Minnie Downs in 1880. When he returned to Europe in 1883, Robert Stubbs Archer was considered competent to manage Gracemere alone. He married Alice Manon (Daisy) Marwedel in 1889 and they began a family at the homestead.
Daisy Archer, and later her daughter Joan born in 1890, were largely responsible for the woodcarvings that decorate the interior of the main house at Gracemere Homestead. Daisy's interest in woodcarving had been inspired chiefly by the station bookkeeper, Henry James King-Church. He also fostered Joan's initial interest in the craft. Unlike her mother, whose work was completed for private enjoyment, Joan exhibited her work and received prizes in Rockhampton and Toowoomba. The key pieces of carving in the house decorated the sitting room. Prior to the 1890s, Daisy was responsible for carving the fireplace surrounds, the fire screen, the carved panels of the bookshelves, a spinning chair and behind this, a carved pelmet. Her husband Robert suggested that the chimneypiece be panelled and embellished, and this work was probably carried out before 1905. King-Church was responsible for the roundel at the top of the chimney, which carried the date AD 1858 and was surrounded by the motto 'East West hame's best'. Underneath it he also completed an opposing pair of griffins. Below this was Joan's first carving, matched bird panels. Daisy's carving for the bookshelves shows the inspiration she drew from Nordic folk carvings. While her cousin and fiancé Alister Archer (James Archer's son) served overseas during the First World War, Joan completed a replica of a Norwegian chair from c1200 AD that was held in the Oslo Museum. She also completed a dining room dresser. Joan continued the Nordic associations but tackled illustrative themes from folk tales and legends and included figures rather than only flowers, scrolls and other Neo-Renaissance motifs.
Throughout the term of his station management, Robert Stubbs Archer maintained Gracemere as a viable business despite facing a severe drought in 1885, floods in 1890, the arrival of the cattle tick in Queensland in 1896, and the great drought of 1898-1903, during which the Archer cattle herd was reduced from 12,000 to 2,000. In 1899 the business partnership was rearranged, with David, William and Thomas carrying on the firm as Archer Brothers. In 1907 the firm became a limited liability company, with Robert as Chairman of Directors and having full power to carry on its business. Seven years later, in a scheme devised by Robert, the almost debt free leases to Torsdale, a property held in partnership between himself and his brother, were amalgamated with the holdings of Archer Brothers Ltd. This exercise involved much personal sacrifice by Robert and his brother, James, to save the family firm. Robert Stubbs Archer died in 1926. Apart from having managed Gracemere for over 40 years, he served as President of the Rockhampton Agricultural Society for thirty years, Chairman of the Rockhampton Harbour Board, and as the local Director of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company.
Robert's son-in-law and nephew, Alister Archer, took over management of Gracemere following Robert's death. In 1947, at a Board meeting of Archer Brothers Ltd, it was agreed that all properties would be sold. Originally Gracemere was to be sold with Torsdale, including the homestead lot, however when no offers were received the properties were offered separately. After Torsdale was finally sold in 1949, the directors agreed that the Gracemere head station block be sold to Joan and Alister Archer. Their son Cedric and his wife and child returned to assist the couple maintain the property. Daisy Archer also returned and worked on the garden.
The homestead block remains in the Archer family. On a nearby rise, accessed via a nearly one kilometre long entrance avenue, is the station cemetery. Once on the homestead allotment, the Crown resumed the land in 1965. The first Archer to be buried there was Robert Stubbs, all previous family members returning to Europe before their deaths. Daisy Archer was buried there in 1952 and Alister Archer in 1965. Other people involved with the station were also interred there, such as Henry King-Church and Edward Kelly, the station's overseer during the mid to late 19th century.
","criteria":"The founding (early 1850s) and evolution of Gracemere Homestead is important in demonstrating the economic, political and social development of Central Queensland. The pioneering efforts of its first owners, David, Charles and William Archer, illustrate the pattern of non-indigenous settlement in colonial Queensland. The change from sheep to cattle is reflected at Gracemere Homestead in adjustments to its layout , depicting the economic evolution of the region. Its Hereford stud, one of the first in Queensland, played an important role in promoting the breed in many parts of the state. Responses to drought, flood and pests, as well as to changes in relevant markets and industries, are also reflected in the fabric of the place.
|The original wing of Gracemere Homestead, occupied since its construction in 1858, remains highly intact, which is rare for a structure of timber slab construction of this era in Queensland.
|Due to the age and intactness of the place, in particular the house clad in iron bark slabs and pit-sawn timbers and the mature trees of the garden, Gracemere Homestead has the potential to yield information through historical and archaeological research that will contribute to an improved understanding of Queensland's history.
|The complex of buildings at Gracemere Homestead survives highly intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early pastoral homestead with its house and extensive sub-tropical garden, detached kitchen, offices and shops, and other sheds and yards. The variety of elements and the spatial relationship between them demonstrates the nature of early station life in Central Queensland. The materials of the house reflect the technology and skill involved in the various forms of construction used. Also the design, particularly of the slab-clad section, shows a consideration of passive cooling mechanisms or strategies in response to the sub-tropical climate, which continues to be practiced today.
|The station buildings, in particular the house and its garden, occupy a picturesque setting on a promontory on the eastern shore of a large perennial lagoon. The beauty and interest of the site has been enhanced over 150 years of working life and is of immense aesthetic significance. The house and garden display this quality in particular because of the high degree of design and workmanship with which they were conceived and constructed.
|Gracemere Homestead has a particular association with the Archer family, which played a key role in the development of the pastoral industry in Central Queensland. They were also keenly involved in public and community affairs. In addition to the design and construction of the original house being supervised by Colin Archer who went on to have an internationally renowned career as a naval architect, wood carved internal fittings and furnishings, which contribute significantly to the atmosphere and history of the house, were completed by Daisy and Joan Archer. The garden conceived of and executed by Charles and William respectively has been tended by successive Archer generations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15285,"place_ref":600510,"name":"Boer War Memorial","alternate_name":"South African War Memorial | Fallen Soldiers Memorial","street_address":"Crescent Street","suburb":"GATTON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Boer Memorial is situated in a small park in Gatton in front of the railway station. The monument is centrally located in a paved area in the centre of the park and is flanked by two large fig trees.
The paved area consists of a short path at the front which divides into curved paths around the memorial and rejoins at the rear to continue in a short, straight path. Comparatively new planting is contained in beds on either side of the paving.
The Helidon sandstone Boer Memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on a slightly concave base constructed of sandstone blocks. This is surmounted by a curved moulding and a smooth-faced step which is capped by a series of curved mouldings with shadow reveals between.
The pedestal comprises a recessed square section with freestanding columns at each corner. Leaded marble plaques are located on the front and rear faces stating the names and ranks of the four local men who died as a result of the Boer War. One of the men was a bugler, and the front face has a relief carved bugle above the plaque. The insignia of the Australian Light Horse is located above the plaque on the rear face.
The columns have Corinthian order capitals and bases and support a large frieze and cornice. The cornice has a large central convex surface on which is a simple, deeply carved curvilinear pattern.
Surmounting the pedestal is the digger statue which is life-sized. The soldier stands on a square plinth decorated on all faces with relief carved wreaths and festoons. His head is bowed and hands are resting on his reversed rifle. A supporting tree stump is located at the rear of the statue.
","history":"The Gatton Boer War Memorial was unveiled on 3 August 1908 by Governor of Queensland, Lord Chelmsford and was designed by architect, William Hodgen. The stone memorial honours four local men who lost their lives in, or as a result of the Boer War.
\nIn April 1907, a public meeting was held at which it was decided to erect a memorial. A design competition was announced and was won by Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen.
\nWilliam Hodgen was born in Toowoomba in 1866. He was employed by the Colonial Architects Office in Brisbane from 1886 to 1891 when he left for London. On his return to Queensland in 1896 he established a private practice in Toowoomba and designed buildings throughout Queensland. The Gatton Boer War Memorial is an unusual example of his work.
\nThe pedestal was produced by Toowoomba monumental mason, Walter Bruce and the statue was imported from Italy. The total cost of the monument was £200.
\nThe Gatton memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state. After the First World War, the construction of war memorials was prolific. In 1908, when this memorial was unveiled, they were still quite rare.
\nAustralian war memorials are valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue, which was first used to commemorate those who died in the Boer War, became the popular choice of memorial for the First World War. This was in contrast to the southern states where the obelisk predominated.
\nThe digger statue later embodied the ANZAC myth, representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
\nMost statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
\nThere are only three known Boer War memorials in Queensland in the form of the digger. Of these only two were erected shortly after the war. These are the Allora Memorial, erected in 1904 and the Gatton Memorial, erected in 1908. The third Boer memorial, in Brisbane, was not unveiled until 1919.
\nThis memorial was originally located in the intersection of Railway and Cresent Streets and was moved in the late 1970s. It originally stood on a stepped base, which was lost in the relocation. In 1984 the monument was sandblasted to remove layers of paint. The original Italian marble digger statue , which was said to be very realistic, was replaced by the current sandstone statue. When this occurred, or for what reason is unknown.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
It was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state, which became prolific after the First World War but in 1908 when this memorial was constructed were quite rare.
The Boer War Memorial at Gatton is an immensely important Queensland monument.
|It is one of only two known digger statues built to commemorate the involvement and death of Queensland soldiers in the Boer War of 1899-1902. A third Boer War Memorial was unveiled in Brisbane at a much later date.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste.
The Gatton Boer War Memorial demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|It is of aesthetic significance, both as a landmark within the streetscape and for its high level of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and with Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen as an unusual example of his work.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and with Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen as an unusual example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15286,"place_ref":600511,"name":"Weeping Mother Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Hickey Street","suburb":"GATTON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a park setting and is surrounded by mature trees.
The memorial is located in comparatively new landscaping comprising paved pathways and gardens beds with new planting. It is approached by a path from Hickey Street which passes a bottle tree. New sandstone slabs with bronze plates to the front faces are located on either side of the path leading to the monuments. These are memorials to soldiers in later conflicts.
The pathways form a cross with the monument located at the centre. A gun or 'war trophy' is located at the rear and each side of the monument. A flagpole is located to one side.
The monument itself stands on a concrete base step. Above this are two smooth-faced marble steps capped by a rounded moulding. The first step is square in plan, whilst the upper one steps in at the centre of each face.
Above this base is a mausoleum type structure comprising four columns and a roof. The floor, from which a central square pillar rises, is laid with black and white marble tiles in a chequerboard pattern. The pillar sits on a base of two steps and is partially covered with a tasselled shroud. It bears the leaded names of the 68 local men who fell in the First World War. The names of those who fell in later conflicts are recorded on the base of the pillar; 23 in the Second World War and 2 in Vietnam.
The pillar is flanked by columns at each corner. Each has simply moulded bases, and Greek egg and dart ornamentation at the top. The columns support a roof like structure which sits on square blocks at each corner. A curved fascia spans between each block and the roof structure has a pediment to each face. The dates 1939 - 1945 are leaded on the front face. At the centre of the roof is a square base with a mound of rocks above it. Sitting on this is a two thirds life size figure of a weeping mother. Her chin rests on her right hand and she holds a scroll which bears the leaded inscription Their names liveth forevermore.
The monument is made up of different types of marbles. The figure itself is of coarse Ulam Marble. Finer marble with a grey grain has been used in some areas such as the columns and base and black marble has been used on the floor.
","history":"The Gatton Weeping Mothers War Memorial was designed and produced by well known and highly regarded Ipswich mason Frank Williams. The marble memorial honours the 68 local men who fell during the First World War.
The memorial cost over £500 which was raised through public subscription. A memorial committee was formed and the Chairman, Richard James laid the foundation stone on 22 April 1922. The date of the official unveiling is unknown.
In 1933, a light to illuminate the statue at night was added by the Gatton RSL and Womens Auxiliary and was officially switched on by ex-First World War nurse, Nurse Pollock on Armistice Day.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Many different types of war memorials were erected throughout Queensland, however none are as emotive or as unique in design as the one at Gatton. At the laying of the foundation stone, the memorial was said to be an expression of sympathy with the mothers of fallen soldiers.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War
|Its design is unique in Queensland and possibly in Australia.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Gatton demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance as a landmark and also for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event It also has a special association as an exemplary example of mason / sculptor Frank Williams.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event It also has a special association as an exemplary example of mason / sculptor Frank Williams.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15287,"place_ref":600512,"name":"Bank of New South Wales premises and attached residence (former)","alternate_name":"The Royal Bank of Queensland Limited | Bank of Queensland Limited | Bank of Commerce","street_address":"7 Railway Street","suburb":"HELIDON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former bank building is located on the western side of Railway Street, Helidon approximately 50 metres from the street.
It is a timber structure on low stumps comprised of a banking chamber with manager's residence at the rear. The facade of the banking chamber features a central arch above the entry with the pediment above supported on double timber corbels and fluted timber pilasters. Above the pediment is a gable clad with pressed metal sheeting. The verandahs to the manager's residence have been built in. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and the intersection of the gabled roof of the former banking chamber and the pyramid-roofed residence is unusual in form, being a striking feature of the building.
There are other buildings on site including a house to the rear of the bank building. These are not included in this entry.
","history":"The former Bank of New South Wales building at Helidon was constructed for the Royal Bank of Queensland, probably in 1915-1916.
Queensland's first indigenous bank, the Queensland National Bank, was established in 1872, by a group of prominent Queenslanders who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or inter-colonial control. The Royal Bank of Queensland Limited was established in 1885 when local investors were finding it hard to obtain loans from sources outside Queensland. By 1889 it had 20 branches and agencies including branches at London and Edinburgh. It did not achieve the importance of the QN Bank, but was a competitor to it and, with the Bank of North Queensland, was one of the three 19th-century banks formed in the colony.
The Royal Bank of Queensland Limited established a Receiving Office, operated by its Gatton Branch, on this site in 1906. In May 1910, when it was realised that a rival bank, the Australian Joint Stock Bank, was about to open in premises directly across the street, this office was upgraded to a full branch in order to retain its sizeable business in the town. The Australian Bank of Commerce absorbed the Australian Joint Stock Bank in the same year.
In 1911, the Royal Bank held a mortgage on this land from the owner, Mary Ellen Barry, but did not acquire the land until 1915, when it is thought that the combined bank and residence was constructed. In 1917 the Royal Bank of Queensland merged with the Bank of North Queensland to the Bank of Queensland Limited. The National Bank of Australasia absorbed this bank in 1922. Possibly in anticipation of this merger the Helidon branch was sold in 1921. It was purchased by the Australian Bank of Commerce, and so passed into the hands of its original competitor.
The next change of name occurred in 1932 following the acquisition of the Australian Bank of Commerce by the Bank of New South Wales. It was as the Bank of New South Wales that this branch traded until 1970 when it was closed and the building passed into private ownership in 1971. It has since been used as a residence.
","criteria":"The former bank building was constructed for the Royal Bank of Queensland Limited and is important in illustrating the development of Queensland because it was purpose built as premises for a bank formed to serve Queensland interests and needs when the state was a self-governing colony. It also illustrates the development of Helidon, which was a refreshment stop on the main railway line between Brisbane and Wallangarra, the state border interchange.
The former bank is important for its association with the Royal Bank of Queensland, one of Queensland's three indigenous banks.
|The building is a good example, adapted for a small rural town, of a combined banking chamber and manager's residence. This residential arrangement was common in bank buildings from the nineteenth century until World War Two.
|The former Bank of New South Wales building is important for its architectural appeal, which makes a major contribution to the townscape of Helidon.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15288,"place_ref":600513,"name":"Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Lockyer)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Toowoomba - Helidon Line","suburb":"LOCKYER CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge spans a dry gully on the eastern bank of Lockyer Creek, 1 kilometre south south east of Lockyer. It is a concrete arch bridge aligned on a 12 chain curve and carrying a single track on a ballasted deck. Its spans are:
·\t2x14 foot (4.3m) reinforced concrete arches, concrete abutment, common concrete piers.
·\t1x90 foot (27.4m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 2x13 foot (4.0m) and 2x10 foot (3.0m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
·\t2x14 foot (4.3m) reinforced concrete arches, common concrete piers, concrete abutment.
The spandrel columns are arranged in pairs, one for each arch rib, with crossbracing in concrete. The arch ribs are parabolic of rectangular section. There is a concrete balustrade. The whole structure is in cast-in-situ concrete.
","history":"This bridge was built in 1910 as part of the Brisbane - Toowoomba Railway and was one of three railway bridges constructed over Lockyer Creek.
The railway opened for traffic between Helidon and Toowoomba on 1 May 1867. From the 1870s there has been a continuing process of improving the Main Line between Brisbane and Toowoomba because of its importance as a major arterial route. As part of that process, which required the replacement of original bridges to carry heavier loads, construction work began in 1908 on a new bridge and deviation over the Lockyer Creek tributary at 75m 48c. The design for the innovative reinforced concrete arch bridge was completed and signed by Chief Engineer, William Pagan on 2 February 1909. The bridge and deviation were completed and brought into use on 18 July 1910.
The use of concrete arches for railway bridges is a distinctive feature in Queensland and South Australia. The first concrete bridge in Queensland was constructed at Petrie Terrace in 1897. Between 1900 and 1913, six arch concrete railway bridges were constructed in Queensland approximating with the term in office of William Pagan as Chief Engineer of Railways and it is believed that he was responsible for their design. The first two, at Rangeview, near Toowoomba and at Deep Creek, Chowey, followed the form of a stone arch bridge. Later bridges were more innovative in design and this bridge was the second reinforced concrete arch rail bridge in Australia, following the 1906 bridge built at Steep Rocky Creek near Gayndah. The Lockyer bridge has a single main span of 27.4 metres, about the same as the maximum span of Lockyer Creek, which was the third largest span of Australian arch bridges built at the time of construction.
","criteria":"The Lockyer Creek railway bridge at Lockyer demonstrates the development of railways in Queensland, being an example of the way in which this important early railway line was upgraded to meet the requirements of the early 20th century. It illustrates the skill with which the technology of the era was used to solve the problems of climatic conditions and terrain encountered in this process.
|The design of the bridge is aesthetically pleasing as well as functional and its arches form an attractive contrast with the vegetation of its setting over a gully.
|This Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge at Lockyer was built to an innovative design, being only the second reinforced concrete arched bridge designed in Australia. It was one of a series of concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland railways between 1900 and 1913 and is unusual in construction for an Australian bridge, having separate twin parabolic arch ribs and braced concrete spandrel columns.
|The bridge is an important example of the work of William Pagan, Chief Engineer for Railways and a major figure in the early history of engineering in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15289,"place_ref":600514,"name":"Ma Ma Creek War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Gatton Clifton Road","suburb":"MA MA CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in St Stephens cemetery on the Gatton -Clifton Road next to the State School. It is a small country cemetery located on the northern side of a cement block church and enclosed by a wire mesh fence. The site is elevated and all headstones, and the memorial, face east.
The memorial is located in the Andrews family plot at the front of the cemetery and is a prominent element in the setting from the roadway. It comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
The sandstone memorial sits on a double stepped sandstone base with smooth faces. Surmounting this is a plinth with rough-cut faces, margined and chiselled around and a chamfered top. At the centre of each face is a smooth-faced sandstone plaque with a triangular top that projects into the chamfered surface. A L PETRIE is carved onto the front chamfered surface.
The pedestal comprises a smooth-faced square pillar with marble plaques on the front and side faces. The front plaque bears a leaded ivy leaf motif, inscriptions and the names and details of the three Andrews brothers killed in the First World war. At the top and bottom of the pier are rough-faced blocks, margined and chiselled around. The digger stands on a smooth-faced double step which surmounts a cornice with triangular pediments to each face. These are also rough-cut, margined and chiselled around.
The digger statue is depicted as life-sized with his head bowed and hands resting on a reversed rifle. Unusually for this type of the statue, the digger wears a cap instead on a slouch hat. He his supported by a tree stump at the rear.
","history":"The Ma Ma Creek War Memorial was erected in 1920 for Fleurine Elsie Andrews. It was designed and produced by A L Petrie and Son of Toowong, Brisbane.
After losing three sons in the First World War, Fleurine Elsie Andrews commissioned a memorial and donated an organ the church in memory of her sons The three sons were; Private James Martin (killed on 5 August 1916, aged 26 years), Private George Henry Andrews (killed on 9 June 1917, aged 28 years) and Private Bertie Reginald Andrews (killed on 10 June 1918, aged 20 years). All were killed in France.
The district of Ma Ma Creek probably takes its name from the aboriginal name for the creek which flows through the area, the Mia Mia. The area was one of the earliest settled parts of West Moreton, valued for its rich fertile lands and abundant water supply. The first settlers were mostly European and cleared both the ridges and the flats for grazing. Cotton growing was attempted in the 1870s, and again, more successfully, in the 1890s when Ipswich established a cotton mill. The area survives as a small township in the centre of a primarily agricultural area.
The cemetery at Ma Ma Creek was consecrated in April 1896 and small wooden church was erected to service to local Anglican community. In 1912, the existing church, designed by Brisbane architect, W C Voller, was erected.
The First World War Memorial is situated in the St Stephens cemetery, directly behind the Andrews family plot. Although privately owned, it became the focus of public Anzac Day memorial services.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
A L Petrie and Sons of Toowong were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland at this time and produced many war memorials throughout the state.
The memorial at Ma Ma Creek is a Petrie design on a standard base, also evident at Biggenden and Southport in Queensland and in New South Wales. This is the only remaining digger in Queensland to be depicted wearing a cap instead of a slouch hat. The only other known example was at Biggenden, which now has a replacement statue.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
The memorial is significant as evidence of the extent of personal impact experienced by families throughout Queensland after the First World War.
|This particular digger statue is uncommon in that it is portrayed wearing a cap rather than the usual slouch hat. It is also a rare example of a privately erected memorial situated in a graveyard.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1920 the memorial at Ma Ma Creek demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance as a distinctive landmark in an otherwise typical country churchyard and also for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has special association with the Andrews family, who erected the memorial after losing three members in the First World War and also with the local community, as the focal point for public remembrance services.
|It has special association with the Andrews family, who erected the memorial after losing three members in the First World War and also with the local community, as the focal point for public remembrance services.
The memorial also has special association with monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son as an intact example of their workmanship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15290,"place_ref":600515,"name":"Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Guinn Park)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Toowoomba - Helidon Line","suburb":"MURPHYS CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"A concrete arch bridge aligned on a straight alignment and carrying a single track on a ballasted deck. Its spans are:
2x15 foot (4.6m) reinforced concrete arches, concrete abutment, common concrete piers.
1x74 foot (22.6m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 2x12 foot (3.7m) and 1x13 foot (4.0m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
1x90 foot (27.4m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 2x13 foot (4.0m) and 2x12 foot (3.7m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
1x74 foot (22.6m) reinforced concrete arch supporting 1x13 foot (4.0m) and 2x12 foot (3.7m) reinforced concrete spandrel arches, common concrete piers.
3x15 foot (4.6m) reinforced concrete arches, common concrete piers, concrete abutment.
The spandrel columns are arranged in pairs, one for each arch rib, with crossbracing in concrete. The arch ribs are parabolic of rectangular section. There is a concrete balustrade. The whole structure is in cast-in-situ concrete.
","history":"The railway opened for traffic between Helidon and Toowoomba on 1 May 1867. From the 1870s there has been a continuing process of improving the Main Line between Brisbane and Toowoomba because of its importance as a major arterial route. As part of that process, which required the replacement of original bridges to carry heavier loads, construction work began in 1909 on a reinforced concrete arch bridge over Lockyer Creek at 77m 55c immediately following the construction of one at 75m 48c. Design of the innovative bridge was completed and signed by Chief Engineer, William Pagan on 31 March 1910. The bridge and deviation were completed and brought into use on 21 December 1911.
","criteria":"This reinforced concrete arched bridge on a straight alignment has one of the largest spans of its type in Australia. Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
|Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
|This reinforced concrete arched bridge on a straight alignment has one of the largest spans of its type in Australia. Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
|Its innovative and aesthetically pleasing design was associated with the Chief Engineer, William Pagan, and was the third (?) of its type designed in Australia (Morell Bridge 1899, Fyansford Bridge 1900). [(?)Chowey 1905, (?) Lockyer at Lockyer 1910]
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15291,"place_ref":600516,"name":"Gayndah State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"33 Meson Street","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Gayndah State School is situated on the southern side of Messon Street, the main street in Gayndah. The school is a complex of six buildings from varying periods and is characterised by its well established grounds with mature plantings. Entrance to the school is gained from Messon Street via a decorative wrought iron gate commemorating the centenary of the school reading 'Centenary: 1863 - 1963'.
The original masonry school building is located at the western end of the school site and forms only a small part of the total school complex. This building is superficially joined to an adjacent timber building its eastern side by a covered walkway. The building is single-storeyed and comprises a central-gabled core running north/south with three attached wings, one extending to the west from front (northern) elevation (the original teachers bedroom), one extending east from the front elevation (a later addition) and one extending east from the corner of the rear elevation (also a later addition). The eastern elevation of the building creates a U-shaped courtyard incorporating part of the original verandah. The building is constructed basically of brick with some weatherboard included on the eastern additions and has a corrugated iron roof.
The northern elevation is characterised by the façade of the gabled-core which displays a decorative scalloped valance along the facia board, an inscription in relief which reads 'Erected AD 1861' and a large multi-paned window with a corrugated iron hood. The same fenestration is repeated on the southern elevation of the central core.
The eastern elevation is characterised by the two original dormer windows in the roof which remain visible and the chamfered timber verandah posts which support the awning of the remaining portion of the original verandah. From the verandah two original double timber doors with glass panels gain entrance into the school room. Both are surmounted by two four-paned fan-lights.
The interior of the central core was the original school room and is an open-plan rectangular space with a high coved timber ceiling featuring large supporting timber cross-beams. There is evidence of an internal wall having been removed at some stage. Two large multi-paned windows feature at either end of the room and internally the third dormer window can be seen towards the northern end of the room, however it is built over externally. The floor is carpeted and the masonry wall are rendered and painted internally. There are two doors which open to the southern side of the building, one to the front porch on the northern side and one to the rear.
The rest of the school complex extends to the east of the original school building with the main part of the school being formed by two separate elongated timber structures running parallel creating a central recreational garden area. There is a tuck-shop building and a classroom wing to the rear of the original building and a library wing at the most easterly end of the site.
","history":"Construction of the National School at Gayndah was commenced in 1861 after members of the Gayndah community submitted designs for a primary school to the Board of General Education in 1860 which were approved and £700 was granted towards the cost of construction. The building was completed in 1862 and the first schoolmaster, Hercules Smith, took up duties in September 1863.
Gazetted in 1849, the town of Gayndah initially developed as the centre for a number of large sheep stations taken up in the Burnett region during the 1840s. Gayndah's early growth as a pastoral "capital" is largely attributed to the determination of the squatters and the town developed as the administrative centre for the area, as the school (QHR 600516) was established in 1861, and post office and court house were erected. A branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney was opened in 1864, and a local government authority was established in 1867. By the late nineteenth century, cattle had replaced sheep as the dominant pastoral activity. Citrus orchards also flourished, and together with cattle and dairy farming, provided the basis for the development of Gayndah from the turn of the century.
National Schools were established by Governor Fitzroy (NSW) in 1848 at which time he appointed a Board of National Education to undertake the task of creating a system of government schools similar to the National School system in Ireland. There were two National Schools in Queensland at the time of separation in 1859; Warwick (1850) and Drayton (1851). Following separation, The Education Act of 1860 created a Board of General Education to oversee the administration of National Schools throughout the new Colony of Queensland.
Two new National Schools were constructed in 1860 (Brisbane Boys and Brisbane Girls); seven new National Schools were opened in 1861, four more in 1862 and three in 1863. The regulations which required local communities to raise one-third of the costs were relaxed and fifteen new schools opened in 1864. However, the 1866 fiscal crisis temporarily retarded the construction of additional schools. The Gayndah National School was established at a time of heightened growth in the establishment of schools throughout the Colony. National Schools remained the dominant form of government primary schools until 1875 when major reforms in education were put in place throughout Queensland.
Construction of National Schools was regulated by government standard and local communities could apply to the Board of Education for an approved school plan or, as in the case of Gayndah, they could supply their own design for approval in accordance with the following recommendations. School rooms had to be at least 16 feet wide and where attendance would exceed 20 students, the width was to be 18 to 20 feet. The recommendations also provided for teachers residences which were to contain four rooms and a kitchen
The original school building at Gayndah consisted of a brick schoolroom, 40 feet by 20 feet, with an adjoining infants' classroom 12 feet by 20 feet, under the same roof with a dividing wall towards the southern end. A verandah extended along the eastern side of the building, and there were three dormer windows in the roof above the level of the verandah roof. On the north elevation underneath the gable (facing the street) the date 1861 was inscribed. Attached to the schoolroom on the western side was a residence for the teacher which included four rooms, (two bedrooms, a sitting room and dining room) and a kitchen, as prescribed by the regulations at the time.
The school building has been greatly modified, although it still displays significant aspects of its original design. The original school room is still in place with evidence of the removal of the dividing wall that sectioned off the infants' classroom. The decorative fascia boards on the northern elevation and two of the three original dormer windows on the eastern elevation are still intact. The dormer window towards the northern end has been enclosed to accommodate extensions on the eastern elevation, where the original verandah has also been altered. The teacher's residence has been demolished apart from a single room, originally a bedroom, which adjoins the school room at the northern end and is used as a store room. The building's external walls, originally face brickwork, have been painted white.
The original brick building was gradually developed around as the school grew over the ensuing century. The other buildings on site are mostly of timber construction, more typical of Queensland school development than the original brick construction which was always more unusual in Queensland. The original school building is still in use as a music room, resource centre and classroom and forms a working part of the Gayndah school complex.
","criteria":"The original masonry school building at the Gayndah State School is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as it was one of the earliest National Schools to be established in the new Colony of Queensland in 1861. The National Schools reflect the instigation and development of secular education throughout Queensland, a system which was adopted from Ireland by the New South Wales government in 1848 and carried over by the Queensland Government after separation in 1859. The implementation of secular education throughout Queensland was a significant advancement in social thinking at the time, rapidly progressing the facility for schooling in Queensland and laying the ground for the subsequent system of state education in place today.
Subsequent buildings in the school grounds are also historically significant as they illustrate the evolution of school design demonstrating architectural styles from the Federation, Post-war and late 20th - century periods. The continuation of development at Gayndah State School also reflects the continued viability of the school since 1861. The school also demonstrates the establishment of Gayndah as an administrative centre for the surrounding pastoral region during the 1860s.
|The Gayndah State School is significant as a rare example of one of the earliest government schools in Queensland. The 1861 building at Gayndah State School is one of only a few government school buildings surviving from the 1860s and is the oldest government school building still in continuous use in Queensland. It is also a rare example of a masonry school building from this period.
|The 1861 building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a National School from the 1860s as it reflects the recommendations for construction which the Board of General Education in Queensland had put in place in order to regulate the standard of school buildings being erected throughout the Colony. The school as a complex also demonstrates typical characteristics of a Queensland State School which has developed over a lengthy time period such as standard timber buildings and tree plantings.
|The Gayndah State School is aesthetically significant as a well established school site that contributes to the streetscape of Messon Street, the main street in Gayndah, with mature trees and plantings in substantial grounds, buildings of varying styles which complement eachother and a decorative commemorative entrance gate presenting a strong external visual presence. The original 1861 building is highly aesthetically significant as a picturesque masonry building displaying quality materials and workmanship in the Victorian Rustic Gothic style. In particular the scalloped valance on the front gable, the dormer windows, the steeply pitched roof and the compact nature of this building all contribute highly to its aesthetic significance.
|The Gayndah State School has a strong association with past, present and futures members of the school community and the local community of Gayndah as a place of education and as a community focal point since 1861.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15292,"place_ref":600517,"name":"Gayndah War Memorial","alternate_name":"Rawbelle Shire War Memorial","street_address":"32-34 Capper Street","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Gayndah War Memorial is situated between the post office and the library in Capper Street, directly addressing the street. The memorial makes an important civic contribution to the streetscape of Gayndah’s main thoroughfare, Capper Street, and is notable for its attractive garden features. Along with the Gayndah Shire Hall [QHR 602124] and Gayndah Court House [QHR 601294], the Gayndah War Memorial is part of a collection of important civic structures in the town centre.
\nThe WWI memorial comprises a bronze honour board mounted on a freestanding, decorative concrete frame.
\nThe concrete structure sits on a wide stepped base, also of concrete apart from the central portion of the upper step which is marble veneered. The structure itself comprises a flat central section (where the honour board is mounted) capped with a pediment and flanked by two pillars decorated with a simple repetitive motif on their front faces. The pillars are surmounted by artillery shells encircled with bronze wreaths. At the foot of each pillar are bronze plaques commemorating later conflicts.
\nThe bronze honour board displays the names of the 270 local men who served in WWI, with those who died identified by a small crown after their name. The five columns of names are centrally located on the board.
\nThe upper section of the board is capped with scrollwork flanking a female figure of Britannia holding a shield of 'Liberty'. The figure stands above a laurel wreath encircling crossed flags and the words FOR KING AND COUNTRY. An oval plaque explaining the origins of the memorial sits below the wreaths and is flanked by AIF badges. The words ROLL OF HONOUR follow the line of the scrollwork. On each side of this central section are pilasters capped by figures of mounted Light Horsemen above the dates 1914 - 1919. Infantry men in relief work are displayed at the bottom of each pilaster.
\nThe lower section of the board displays oval plaques in each corner with an emu and a kangaroo in relief work. Additional relief work depicts a lion and a kangaroo in the centre and cannons at each side.
\nBehind the memorial is a garden comprising a trophy gun, paving and garden beds, and surrounding concrete slabs that commemorate service personnel of World War II (WWII) and subsequent conflicts up to Afghanistan. The WWII names were originally incised in white granite, but have been replaced with bronze plaques. All other plaques are in bronze.
","history":"The Gayndah War Memorial, located between the Gayndah post office and library on Capper Street, comprises a large bronze metal honour board honouring the 270 local men who served during World War 1 (WWI), including those who died, on a decorative concrete mount. The memorial, designed and produced by leading Brisbane metal worker Ernest Gunderson, was privately commissioned by Mr Harold Wilson and donated to the Rawbelle Shire and Gayndah Town Councils in 1919. The memorial is important in demonstrating Queensland’s involvement in a major world event and has a special association with the Gayndah community as the principal site for commemoration.[1]
\nGazetted in 1849, the town of Gayndah initially developed as the centre for a number of large sheep stations taken up in the Burnett region during the 1840s. Gayndah's early growth as a pastoral \"capital\" is largely attributed to the determination of the squatters, and for a short time, the town reputedly rivalled Brisbane as the capital for Queensland. Gayndah also developed as the administrative centre for the area: a court house and post office were established in the 1850s and a school [QHR 600516] was erected in 1861. A branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney was opened in 1864, and a Town Council was established in 1867, comprising a mayor and three aldermen. In 1880 the Rawbelle Divisional Board was established and attended to all business outside the jurisdiction of the Town Council. In 1922, a new board known as the Rawbelle-Gayndah Joint Board was formed and comprised a delegation from Gayndah. By the late nineteenth century, cattle had replaced sheep as the dominant pastoral activity. Citrus orchards also flourished, and together with cattle and dairy farming, provided the basis for the development of Gayndah from the turn of the century.[2]
\nLike all Australian communities, Gayndah was affected by the impact of WWI. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. No previous or subsequent war has had a physical impact on the nation of that scale. Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.
\nAustralia's first permanent WWI memorial to honour the men from a particular community was unveiled at Balmain, New South Wales, on 23 April 1916.[3]
\nAustralian war memorials are distinctive in that they do not commemorate only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of a community’s involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
\nWWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards (from 1915), stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns, urns, or slabs), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland, honour boards were displayed in Schools of Arts, churches and public halls from 1915. The soldier statue became the most popular choice of monument in Queensland, while the obelisk predominated in southern states. Many WWI monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts.[4]
\nA scheme to erect a memorial for those from the Gayndah district who enlisted in WWI was put forward by the Gayndah Town and Rawbelle councils in 1918. This scheme was for a local memorial hall to be shared by both local authorities as a public hall. However, it was not until 1935 that this hall, known as the Gayndah and District Soldiers’ Memorial Hall [QHR 602124], was opened.[5]
\nThe Gayndah War Memorial, comprising a large WWI honour board, was originally erected on the median strip at the junction of Capper, Meson and Warton streets. It was unveiled on 9 September 1919 by Mr Bernard Corser, MLA, in the presence of around 2000 people, including around 100 returned soldiers. The memorial, which cost around £300, was privately commissioned by Mr Harold H Wilson of nearby Cooranga station, and then donated to the Rawbelle Shire and Gayndah Town Councils. Mr Wilson, who was a prominent member of the local community and known to be ‘the foremost in helping the “Diggers”’, provided the funds for the memorial in late 1918. He was strongly associated with local sporting bodies and was president of the Gayndah Show Society for a number of years. Following his death in 1925, Mr Wilson was remembered as the ‘Burnett Diggers Friend’, his generosity embodied in the Gayndah War Memorial.[6]
\nThe WWI honour board was designed and manufactured by leading Brisbane metalworker Ernest Gunderson, of Ernest Gunderson Engraving and Manufacturing Company. The board’s frame was erected by the Rawbelle Shire and Gayndah Town councils. [7]
\nAt the time of its unveiling, the “magnificent” memorial received much praise from the Mayor of Gayndah, the local community and the returned soldiers. The memorial was named “one of the finest in the State” following Anzac Day commemorations in 1921.[8]
\nErnest Gunderson had established his metalworking company in Brisbane by 1908. The company manufactured cast bronze honour boards and tablets, which had a distinctive dark bronze background contrasted with polished brass lettering and ornamentation. Gunderson also individually moulded decorations for his honour boards, making them quite distinctive as a Queensland type. The company operated until the mid-1930s and supplied honour boards state-wide. By 1917, the company had completed honour rolls for the Jimboomba, Esk, Logan and Strathpine districts, the Cloncurry Shire Council, Toowoomba Grammar School (QHR 600850) and many others. The Gayndah War Memorial is Gunderson’s best-known and largest memorial and is regarded as one of the company's finest pieces of work. Indeed, Gunderson himself considered it to be his finest work.[9]
\nGunderson's honour boards are unique to Queensland and few remain as intact as the one at Gayndah, including the Strathpine Honour Board (QHR 600766), Pinkenba War Memorial (QHR 602453) and Dalby War Memorial and Gates (QHR 600441). The memorial at Gayndah has a design that combines British and Australian emblems.
\nAlthough honour boards are a common type of war memorial, they are usually situated inside a publicly accessible place such as the local Shire Hall. The Gayndah War Memorial, located in a public square, is one of a small number of Queensland war memorials comprising outdoor honour boards. [10]
\nIn 1927, in an effort to maintain the memorial in the best condition, it was dismantled and moved to a local workshop where the lettering and ornaments were treated with gold leaf and the flags recoloured.[11]
\nIn 1935, strips of lawn were added to the front, back and sides of the memorial. During a visit in the same year, Queensland Governor, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, acknowledged the ‘splendid work’ which had been done to the memorial.[12]
\nIn the 1960s, some unsuccessful renovation work was undertaken, resulting in the original brass lettering and backing (which still exists in storage) being replaced with the present nameplates. Other minor alterations were also made at this time.
\nIn 1988, the memorial was moved to its current location on Capper Street due to a planned road upgrade.[13]
\nIn anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War (August 1945-1995), some of the damaged and lost items of the intervening wars were reinstated. The lost figure of Liberty was remodelled in bronze by Brisbane sculptor Fred Waitehouse from photographs of the original, and the rather two-dimensional bronze horsemen were cast (and made slightly more three-dimensional) from the identical figures on Gunderson's honour board at Strathpine [QHR 600766].
\nThe Gayndah War Memorial was expanded to include a surrounding series of concrete slabs and plaques – erected by the Gayndah RSL – holding recent memorials commemorating personnel from the locality who served in World War II (WWII), and later conflicts up to Somalia. A small commemorative garden was also constructed behind the memorial and a 1903 Krupps trophy gun was repaired and fitted with replicated wheels and armour and mounted to address the street. [14]
\nCompleted in 1995, the new work and repairs to the WWII items were researched and organised by local RSL identity 'Sam' Weller and the costs were donated by Frank Robinson on behalf of his family.
\nThe expanded memorial was dedicated on the 50th anniversary of V-J Day on 15 August 1995 by Major Gordon Petersen Chaplain (Div. 2) Coord Chaplain 6 Bde to honour those from Gayndah Shire who served in WWII and later campaigns.
\nPre-1988, the Gayndah War Memorial featured a fence and a light which were removed, possibly to make way for the 1995 additions. The original flagstaff has also been replaced. A memorial plaque in honour of a local soldier who lost his life in the Afghanistan conflict was added in 2010.[15]
\nIn 2017, the Gayndah War Memorial is still the town’s focal point for community commemoration events and plays a pivotal role in annual Anzac Day processions. The memorial, and the nearby Soldiers’ Memorial Hall, also on Capper Street, have an important relationship as the principal commemorative structures in Gayndah.
","criteria":"Unveiled in 1919, the Gayndah War Memorial is important in demonstrating Queensland’s involvement in a major world event. World War 1 (WWI) memorials are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state and are a tribute from a particular community to those who served and those who died. They are an important feature of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Gayndah War Memorial is a rare example of a war memorial that was privately commissioned, then donated as a public memorial, and later supplemented by another major private donation. The memorial is uncommon as a large WWI honour board as its centrepiece which is located outside.
|The Gayndah War Memorial is a good example of a well-designed and finely crafted WWI memorial. Designed and built by leading Brisbane metal manufacturers Gunderson & Co., the memorial at Gayndah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This involves the use of appropriate materials and displays the names of the enlisted and the dead.
|The Gayndah War Memorial and its setting are significant for their high degree of workmanship and design and contribution to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape.
|The Gayndah War Memorial has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|The Gayndah War Memorial has a special association with well-known Queensland manufacturer and supplier of honour boards and memorials Ernest Gunderson and is recognised as the finest example of his work in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15293,"place_ref":600518,"name":"Rail Bridge (Humphery)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mungar to Monto line","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The bridge is a concrete arch bridge carrying the Mungar to Monto railway over a dry gully some 2.8 km south west of Humphrey Station and 14 km west of Gayndah. It has five semicircular arch spans, with solid concrete spandrel walls. Although a simple bridge, it is well detailed with projecting cornices at the bases of the arches, attached pillars above the piers extending above the deck and recessed spandrel walls.
The bridge carries a single 1.07m gauge railway on a ballasted deck. Its spans are 7.9m, three at 10.7m and 7.9m totalling 42.9m. The solid arch ribs are semicircular, with projecting cornices separating them visually from the piers below. The smaller end spans spring from a higher level, again marked at the pier by a small cornice. The recessed spandrel walls are finished off with the form concrete slightly patterned to contrast with the smooth finish of the projecting faces of the arches. The railings are of tubular metal between concrete pillars at the piers.
","history":"The concrete arch bridge supporting the railway line 2.8 kilometres west of Humphery was constructed in 1913 as the last of several bridges on this line.
Maryborough requested a rail link to the long established town of Gayndah in the 1860s, although construction did not begin until the late 1880s. The line opened to Brooweena in July 1889, Boompa in March 1891 and Biggenden in April 1891. Although the rails ended at Degilbo, this section was not opened until 1893 when flood damage to the Mary River Bridge at Antigua cut off the lime supply for the sugar industry at Maryborough and Bundaberg and a new supply was opened up near Degilbo.
The line ended at Degilbo until the extension to Gayndah began with a 32 kilometre extension to Wetheron that opened in December 1905. Gayndah was finally reached in December 1907. In 1910 a further extension was proposed. Construction of the railway between Gayndah and Mundubbera began in April 1911, anticipating by a few months the officially turning of the first sod by Paget, Minister for Railways, on 7 July 1911. The line was opened for traffic between Gayndah and Boomerang in November 1913 and to Mundubbera in February 1914. The line was further extended in the 1920s and reached Monto in September 1928.
The use of concrete arches for railway bridges is a distinctive feature in Queensland and South Australia. The first concrete bridge in Queensland was constructed at Petrie Terrace in 1897. Between 1900 and 1913, six arch concrete railway bridges were constructed in Queensland approximating with the term in office of William Pagan as Chief Engineer of Railways and it is believed that he was responsible for their design. The first two, at Rangeview, near Toowoomba and at Deep Creek, Chowey, followed the form of a stone arch bridge. That constructed at Steep Rocky Creek, Gayndah in 1906 departs completely from stone forms and has wall type arches supporting vertical diaphragms with a deck slab carrying the track and ballast. This bridge was built to cross a ravine in rugged country and represents a similar design and technical developments to meet similar requirements to that at Humphery, which was completed a few years later.
","criteria":"This bridge, which allowed the railway to cross a deep gully, is on a branch line linking early inland towns with Maryborough and demonstrates the way in which Queensland was developed by linking important inland resources with ports. It demonstrates the skill with which the technology of the era was used to solve the problems of climatic conditions and terrain encountered by railway engineers in this process.
|This bridge was built to an innovative design with reinforced concrete discontinuous wall-type pinned arches, the second of its type in Australia and only the seventh concrete bridge in Queensland. It was the last of a series of concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland railways between 1900 and 1913 and the third on this line.
|The bridge is an important example of the work of William Pagan, Chief Engineer for Railways and an important figure in the early history of engineering in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15294,"place_ref":600519,"name":"Ideraway Creek Railway Bridge (Ideraway)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mungar - Monto Line","suburb":"IDERAWAY","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Ideraway Creek bridge is one of the most unusual bridges in Australia. It demonstrates the economic re-use of part of the erection truss used to build the Burdekin River bridge at Macrossan between Townsville and Charters Towers opened in 1899. The complete truss was 250 foot long whereas the Ideraway Creek bridge uses only 150 foot of the span. The pinned construction and multiple members of the truss were originally designed for rapid assembley and disassembley.
Wetheron embankment.
1x3x18 foot (5.5m) timber longitudinals, timber trestle, common timber trestle.
1x3x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestle, common concrete pier.
1x4x150 foot (45.4m) deck-type pin-jointed fishbelly truss (ex Burdekin River bridge, Macrossan) with transom tops, six sets of two steel longitudinals, common concrete piers.
1x3x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common concrete pier, common timber trestle.
1x3x18 foot (5.5m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestle, Timber trestle.
Gayndah embankment.
","history":"Construction of the section from Wetheron to Gayndah began in March 1906 using day labour. Completion of the line was delayed building two bridges of special designs over gorges between Ideraway and Gayndah. The Ideraway Creek bridge was designed and drawings signed by Chief Engineer, William Pagan, on 10 December 1906. The extension was opened for traffic on 16 December 1907.
","criteria":"The deck-type pin-jointed fishbelly truss main span is unique in Australia. It is the only bridge of its type in Queensland and therefore the longest span of its type in Queensland. It innovatively re-uses the falsework of the Burdekin River Bridge at Macrossan of 1899 (This falsework had been re-used on two separate bridges prior to this one).
The bridge demonstrates the economies employed in the construction of Queensland's railways.
|The deck-type pin-jointed fishbelly truss main span is unique in Australia. It is the only bridge of its type in Queensland and therefore the longest span of its type in Queensland.
|It innovatively re-uses the falsework of the Burdekin River Bridge at Macrossan of 1899 (This falsework had been re-used on two separate bridges prior to this one).
The bridge demonstrates the economies employed in the construction of Queensland's railways.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15295,"place_ref":600520,"name":"Steep Rocky Creek Railway Bridge (Ideraway)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mungar - Monto Line","suburb":"STEEP ROCKY CREEK","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Steep Rocky Creek bridge includes one 26 foot RSJ span of three joists, five 28 foot concrete arches and a final 26 foot RSJ span of three joists, supported on six concrete piers and two abutments.
","history":"Construction of the section from Wetheron to Gayndah began in March 1906 using day labour. Completion of the line was delayed building two bridges of special designs over gorges between Ideraway and Gayndah including Steep Rocky Creek. Drawings for the bridge were signed by Chief Engineer, William Pagan. Construction of the bridge was completed in 1907 and the extension was opened for traffic on 16 December 1907.
","criteria":"An innovative design with reinforced discontinuous wall-type arches, the first of its type in Australia and the fifth concrete arch rail bridge in Australia. The bridge is associated with Chief Engineer William Pagan.
|(Criterion under review)
|An innovative design with reinforced discontinuous wall-type arches, the first of its type in Australia and the fifth concrete arch rail bridge in Australia.
|The bridge is associated with Chief Engineer William Pagan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15296,"place_ref":600521,"name":"Our Lady Star of the Sea Church & School","alternate_name":"Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church & School","street_address":"Goondoon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Our Lady Star of the Sea church and school complex is situated in an elevated position overlooking the harbour at Gladstone. The ground falls away below the eastern side of the church and school and is supported by a stone retaining wall, which separates it from the large playground on the lower level and gives visual prominence to the eastern elevation of the church.
\nThe church is a Gothic influenced timber building, cruciform in plan, with gabled porches featuring decorative timber posts at the north, south and eastern arms. There is also an entry on the southern side. The foundations of the church are concrete and the gabled roof has a modern metal cladding with a louvred fleche at the crossing. The roof ends and porches are topped by timber Celtic crosses. The church has an octagonal sanctuary lit with two sets of triple lancet windows and two single lancet windows set with stained glass. There is a large sacristy to each side of the sanctuary. All windows are triple lancets in aluminium frames beneath arched drip moulds. A marble foundation stone is located at the base of the eastern elevation.
\nThe school is constructed of light red brick with a tiled roof. It has been constructed in three phases, the earliest of which is to the east and is three stories high. This first section is distinct from the additions and is the part of the school considered to have heritage significance. It has a hipped roof and features brick balconies and a tower containing the stair well, which s lit by glass panels. A pink granite foundation stone is also located in the stairwell tower on the eastern side.
\nThe extensions are sympathetic in form to the original school buildings and are two storeys high. They consist of a central section built in the 1970s and the section closest to the park was built in 1981.
","history":"Our Lady Star of the Sea church at Gladstone was erected in 1924. The adjacent school was built in 1950, replacing a 1902 building destroyed in the cyclone of 1949.
\nFollowing an abortive attempt to establish a settlement at Port Curtis in 1847, the township of Gladstone was surveyed in 1853 and by January 1854, Sir Maurice O'Connell was installed as the Government Resident, Police Magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands. Although there was pressure from pastoralists to open up the Port Curtis district, northern agitation for Separation from New South Wales was mounting and the government may have hoped to establish a more northerly potential capital than Brisbane for the new colony. In February 1854 the first land sales of Gladstone town and suburban land were held in Sydney. Although the Catholic presence in the Gladstone district was not large at the time, the Catholic Primate of Australia, Archbishop Polding of Sydney, bought a number of allotments on Auckland Hill in these sales.
\nBishop Quinn, Queensland's first Roman Catholic Bishop, visited Gladstone in 1868 and encouraged the formulation of plans for a church. The land purchased by Polding was very steep and in 1870 land was acquired between Auckland Streets and Oaka Lane for a church and in Rosebery Street for a convent/primary school. St Mary's School opened in 1871, staffed by Sisters of the Order of St Joseph, and served for some years as a church also. In 1879 the Sisters were withdrawn from Queensland and in the 1880s and 1890s Catholic pupils were educated at a school run by Mrs Annie Breslin at her residence in Goondoon Street.
\nSt Mary's Church was opened in January 1874 on the Auckland Street land acquired in 1870 but without a resident priest. For many years, its congregation was served by visiting priests, mainly from Rockhampton. In 1882 the Diocese of Rockhampton was established under the Right Reverend Dr Cani, the first Bishop, and the first resident priest was appointed to Gladstone in 1885.
\nBy the turn of the century, the coastal railway was being extended to Gladstone, bringing an increase in population to the town. In 1901, responsibility for the Catholic parish at Gladstone was transferred from the Diocese of Rockhampton to the Marist Fathers. In the same year, the church land at Auckland Street was resumed for railway purposes and a new site was purchased covering two acres bounded by Goondoon Street, Herbert Street and Glenlyon Road and overlooking the harbour. The new site was intended for the building of a church-school, convent and presbytery.
\nThe new church school, designed by Architects Eaton and Bates, opened in January 1902 staffed by three Sisters of Mercy from Rockhampton. They were housed temporarily in a cottage in Rosebery Street until the convent, a timber building, was completed in June 1902. In September the new presbytery was completed, a two-storey timber building erected at Dean Murlay's own expense and known as Villa Maria.
\nTo serve the projected needs of the parish more fully, the Right Reverend Dr Shiel, Bishop of Rockhampton, laid the foundation stone of a larger new church on 13 April 1924. This was erected adjacent to the 1902 church school and was officially opened on 16 November 1924 at a cost of £2700. The older building continued to function as a school.
\nIn the second half of the 1930s, Gladstone experienced renewed economic and population growth following the 1935 takeover of Gladstone Meatworks by the American company Swifts, which increased production. In 1936 fundraising to enlarge the church commenced and the extensions were opened in 1938. In the early 1940s, plans to raise the school and to construct brick classrooms underneath were formulated, but did not eventuate as a bequest of £4,000 enabled the parish to plan for a new school. About 1943, the Brisbane architect Frank Cullen was commissioned to prepare plans for a school to accommodate 300 pupils. Cullen was an articled pupil of Hennessy, Hennessy and Co in Brisbane and Sydney 1928-1933. He worked for some time for the Queensland Government and was registered as an architect in 1935.
\nWartime building restrictions prevented the implementation of plans and not until 1947 was a building permit granted. By this time the plan had been modified to accommodate a further 100 children, necessary because of the strong growth in the Gladstone Meatworks at this period. The contract was let to Young and Sons of Bundaberg for a price of £18,922. When work on the new school had only just begun, the 1902 school and convent buildings were destroyed in the cyclone that struck Gladstone on 2 March 1949. Throughout 1949-50 Our Lady Star of the Sea School was located temporarily at the Town Hall, Our Lady Star of the Sea Church and in two pavilions in the show grounds. Archbishop Duhig officially opened the new school on 30 April 1950. The three-storey brick building, which included a basement assembly hall, library, 16 mm projector for 'visual education' and a public address system on all three levels, was considered one of the most modern school buildings in Queensland. The new convent was completed in 1952.
\nGladstone experienced a boom in the second half of the 1960s with the opening of the Gladstone powerhouse, bauxite refinery and alumina smelter and rapid expansion of farming and grazing in the Dawson and Callide Valleys. Between 1965 and 1970 a number of changes were made to Our Lady Star of the Sea complex including the closing of Central Lane between the convent and presbytery on one side and the church and school on the other. Retaining walls were erected in front of the Convent and Presbytery, a parking area and basketball court bitumen coated and the sanctuary and church remodeled in line with the provisions laid down by the Second Vatican Council. These included cutting down the altar rails and the converting the altar into a table form.
\nIn 1966 the Gladstone Catholic High School began as a small class conducted underneath the presbytery and in 1967 the Stella Maris College for girls opened in West Gladstone staffed by the Sisters of Mercy. In the following year a boys' school, Chanel College, was established at the new location and staffed by the Marist Brothers. The two Colleges opened as Gladstone Catholic High School on 21 April 1968.
\nIn the late 1960s the Marist Sisters were invited to Gladstone to staff the convent school and in 1971, the first extension to the Star of the Sea Primary School was opened, the Marist Sisters taking over around 1972. Further extensions to the school were blessed in 1981.
\nIn July 1982, Villa Maria, the presbytery, was demolished and in 1983 the Sisters of Mercy moved into a new convent in Morley Street.
","criteria":"The church and school of Our Lady Star of the Sea illustrate the development of Gladstone and the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland. The church is the only one in Gladstone that survived the 1949 cyclone and is now the only early building on this site. When the earliest section of the school was completed in 1949 it was said to have been the most modern in Queensland. This reflects the development that was taking place in Gladstone at the time and the confidence of the church in the future of Catholic education in the area.
|Both buildings are prominently sited and in form, scale and materials make an important contribution to the built character of Gladstone.
|Both buildings have a strong connection with the Roman Catholic community of Gladstone and the surrounding area over several generations. The school is probably a major work of Frank Cullen, the architect. The architect of the church is unknown.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15298,"place_ref":600523,"name":"White Swan Inn (former)","alternate_name":"White Swan Inn","street_address":"Swan Creek","suburb":"SWAN CREEK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The White Swan Inn is a one storeyed building with a substantial attic above. It is constructed mainly of tooled sandstone laid in a coursed random pattern with has a hipped corrugated iron roof. The building is surrounded by a simply detailed verandah which sits on low stumps. The verandah roof is supported by timber posts and the soffit reveals battening for shingles though these have been replaced with corrugated iron sheeting.
The exterior of the building is symmetrical in appearance. Timber steps to the verandah are centrally located in front of the main entrance door which is flanked by french doors. These replace the original inward opening single doors which are currently stored in the garage. Dormer windows with weatherboard sidings are located within the hipped roof at both the front and rear of the building, and align with the french doors below. Stone chimney shafts with moulded corbelling are situated at either end of the building.
The symmetrically arranged interior is divided by a central hallway from the front door, and which incorporates a narrow stair leading to the attic at the rear. High quality timber doors of varying sizes open from the hallway into the three ground floor rooms. The two rooms on the northern side are of similar proportions and detailing with plaster walls and a ceiling of wide beaded boards. The room on the southern side of the building appears to have had a central dividing wall which has since been removed to create one large room. This room has plaster walls and ceilings. The rooms have chimneypieces with early over-mantles excepting the one in the room at the north-east corner. Both the large room and the smaller front room have french doors that open onto the verandah. All rooms have timber skirtings and simply moulded cornices.
The staircase is a reconstruction of the original and leads to an upstairs area which is divided into three rooms and a hallway. The hallway is lined with 300mm (approx) wide pine boards. The original shingle roof of the building survives under the corrugated iron. The external walls of the building project approximately one metre above the first floor level. Above these, plaster walls taper to meet a plaster ceiling both of which are divided by exposed timber rafters and collar ties.
A new addition of timber and brick has been built at the rear of the house and is joined to the original house at the end of the hallway. Near this new addition stands a brick fireplace, probably from the original kitchen building which no longer exists.
","history":"The former White Swan Inn was built at Swan Creek in about 1876 as the residence of local farmer Edward Malone. Shortly after its construction the residence became a hotel, known as the White Swan Inn though it remained in this use for only ten years before becoming a residence again.
The Swan Creek district, situated about 11 kilometres from Warwick, was known as the Agricultural Reserve and comprised a tract of fertile country wedged between extensive pastoral holdings. Early settlers arriving in Swan Creek during the 1860s were successful in having the district surveyed and offered for sale in agricultural farm areas. 18 acres of the Warwick Agricultural Reserve, being portion 284, was granted to Joseph Thomas Wilson in May 1868 and it is on this land that the White Swan Inn was later built.
According to the titles information on the property, subdivisions 1 and 3 were transferred to Edward Malone by January 1880. However, it seems that the land was in Malone's possession many years prior to this. A roving correspondent for The Queenslander visited Swan Creek in 1876 and published descriptions of the area in several editions of the newspaper during October of that year in a series titled, Farming on the Darling Downs. The series has a description of a farm owned by Mr Edward Malone, who, at the time of the article was having some difficulties with his neighbour, a Mr Hughes, over road reserves and access for cattle.
The property owned by Edward Malone is described as 75 acres, of which 32 acres were under wheat cultivation. The correspondent noted that Malone was in the process of constructing a stone house on his property near an adjoining Church of England property. This house would appear to be the building known as the White Swan Inn today, which is situated alongside a former Church of England. Another mention of the house appears in an historical survey of the Swan Creek area published in the Warwick Daily News of September 1945. This talks about the White Swan Inn which was built as the residence of Edward Malone in about 1880, but after its construction became used as an hotel, namely the White Swan Inn, when Malone transferred his business from farmer to that of publican. A license was issued by the Licensing Court for a hotel at the White Swan Inn in 1878 though the publican's name is not mentioned. Early photographs of the White Swan Inn show a building much as it appears today, a single storeyed sandstone residence with shingled roof pierced by dormer windows.
Subdivision 3, on which the White Swan Inn was erected, was transferred from Malone to Matthew O'Sullivan in July 1884 and it seems the White Swan Inn continued to operate. According to the Warwick Daily News' article of 1945 was managed by a Mr Ravenscroft. On Matthew O'Sullivan's death on 24 February 1885 the estate was transferred to his widow, Mary Francis. On December 1887 Subdivision 3 was transferred to Bernard Hughes who returned the building to the former use of private residence. The house remained in the Hughes family until May 1972 when it was transferred to Colin and Edna Tyson.
By 1978 the Tysons implemented a building programme at their new home, which included the addition of a kitchen and living area at the rear of the house. Internally much work was undertaken during the Tysons stay in the house, including the realignment of internal stairs and the internal re-arrangement of the attic. In January 1989 the property was transferred to Neil and Donna Lomas and in March 1992 was transferred to Donna Lomas solely who owns the house today.
","criteria":"The former White Swan Inn is important in demonstrating the development of Swan Creek which was in an area formerly set aside as an Agricultural Reserve.
The former White Swan Inn demonstrates the principal characteristics of a small sandstone house in Queensland, particularly of those constructed in the nineteenth century in and around Warwick.
|The building contributes to the Swan Creek area where it is a prominent feature of a flat and sparse landscape. The residence is picturesquely situated and of aesthetic value.
|The White Swan Inn has special associations with JT Wilson and Edward Malone, early European residents of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15299,"place_ref":600524,"name":"Burndale","alternate_name":"Warrenilla","street_address":"Cutmore's Road","suburb":"SWAN CREEK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Burndale is a two-storeyed sandstone house with timber verandahs and a corrugated iron roof. It dominates a gently undulating, sparsely treed landscape, rising above a cluster of immediately surrounding trees. It has a simple square-shaped plan, with verandahs on all sides, shaded by a curved corrugated iron awning. A pyramid roof rises above the awning, with substantial brick chimneys to the north and the south. The verandahs have been enclosed with weatherboard to part of the northern elevation, all of the western elevation, and most of the southern elevation.
The verandah is supported with chamfered square posts with shaped brackets and battened valances. The unenclosed sections of the verandah have cast iron balustrades and valances. Grape vines grow around the base of the house, on wires strung between the verandah posts.
The upper level has glazed timber french doors leading onto the verandah, the lower level has timber sliding sash windows and timber doors. The sandstone is square-
snecked coursed, and has been recently repointed. The north-west corner of the house has a corrugated iron wash house incorporated into the base of a water tank on tall timber stumps.
The garden contains many mature trees, including olive trees fruit trees, cypress pines and a she-oak.
The building is an unusual example of a two-storeyed sandstone house, and the exterior is intact and in good condition. An internal inspection was not undertaken.
","history":"Burndale was built at Swan Creek, near Warwick, c1865 for Timothy Murphy and Peter McGuckin, early European occupants of the Swan Creek district.
The Swan Creek district, situated about 11 klms from Warwick, was known as the Agricultural Reserve and comprised a tract of fertile country wedged in between extensive pastoral holdings. Early settlers arriving at Swan Creek during the 1860s were successful in having the district surveyed and offered for sale in agricultural farm areas. The land on which Burndale stands originally comprised 38 acres, and was selected under section 4 of the Agricultural Reserves Act 1863, the intent of which was to facilitate the acquisition of land for the purposes of agriculture.
Burndale was erected with the aim of obtaining a license and conducting the premises as a hotel. This intention never materialised, and Burndale has always been used as a private residence. Burndale was constructed of locally quarried sandstone, carted by John Deveney of Yangan.
McGuckin acquired the whole property and half the adjoining block in 1877. McGuckin was a keen horse racing enthusiast and established a racecourse on the property adjacent to his home. On race days the balcony of McGuckin's home which overlooked the racecourse, served as a grandstand for spectators to watch the racing events.
On McGuckin's death in 1883, the property was transferred to Samuel Cutmore, with whom McGuckin had taken out a mortgage on the property in 1878. The Cutmore family was another of the early European families in the area. Cutmore took out a number of subsequent mortgages on the property until his death in 1915, when the property passed to his children.
The property remained in the Cutmore family until 1974, when the property was acquired by Ian and Sarah McMaster, who changed the name of the property to Warrenilla. The present owners acquired the property in 1976, and it reverted to the former name of Burndale.
","criteria":"Burndale is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the settlement of agricultural reserves in the Darling Downs area.
|As an example of an 1860s two-storeyed rural sandstone residence, Burndale demonstrates uncommon aspects of Queensland's heritage.
|Further, Burndale demonstrates the principal characteristics of a sandstone house in the Warwick district.
|Burndale exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its contribution to the landscape of the Swan Creek district.
|Burndale has special association with the McGuckin and Cutmore families, both early European residents of the Swan Creek district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15300,"place_ref":600525,"name":"Canning Downs Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Canning Downs","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Canning Downs Homestead is a complex of buildings including a timber residence with kitchen wing, brick stables and outbuildings. The Homestead is picturesquely situated facing eastward, looking over wide plains to the Great Dividing Range.
The central core of the residence has a simple rectangular plan with steeply pitched corrugated iron hipped roof on the eastern side of which is a projecting hipped section. This section of the building is constructed from vertical timber slabs housed in rebated sections at the base and top of the walls. Within the principal entrance facade of the building, under the projecting hipped section of the roof, denoting the former porch are four aluminium framed glazed sliding doors slightly projecting from the face of the flanking external walls. Adjacent to these doors evidence is retained of the c1920 Bungalow additions to the house, with grouped chamfered columns on tapering stuccoed masonry bases.
The rear of the central core is lined with a verandah supported on timber posts and joined at roof level to the covered walkway linking this building with the kitchen wing. Internally the central core has been subject to many alterations recently, with only the now stripped stone fireplaces retaining evidence of the former house. From the eastern enclosed verandah a principal entrance door of timber opens onto an entrance area from which access is provided to the dining room to the south and another room to the west which runs the length of the house and from where access is provided to the side wings. Two full length vertical sash windows provide access from the enclosed verandah to the dining room.
This central core is abutted on the north and south ends by added wings also with hipped roofs and with overhanging verandah awnings all clad with slate grey decromastic tiles. The verandahs of the wings have been infilled; the base of the infilled wall being formed by squared rubble sandstone walls, the sandstone for which was got from a stone cottage on the site. Above these walls are aluminium framed glazing. The wings are constructed from horizontal chamfered timber boarding, and several full length vertical sash windows and French doors open onto the verandah from the various internal rooms.
The kitchen wing runs north-south parallel to the house and is joined to it by a walkway with a pitched decromastic tiled awning. A low verandah awning on the west elevation of the kitchen is supported on squared timber posts. The building is constructed from vertical timber slabs*. Under the verandah awning access is provided to the three major rooms which constitute the wing, through single doorways housing timber doors. A tapering brick chimney shaft abuts the eastern side of the wing, and this is flanked by a rendered masonry wall section.
To the south of the residence complex is a large fenced area containing established trees and planting and remnants of an early trellis and garden walkway. Adjacent to this are many buildings, most of which have been moved to this site from further lying reaches of the station. These buildings include a corrugated iron clad tank stand with storage sheds; a small corrugated iron clad building with a gabled corrugated iron roof; two timber boarded buildings and a concrete block enclosure.
Beyond these buildings, to the east of the residence is the brick stable block. This is a quadrangular building; four long wings joined to form a square surrounding an internal grassed courtyard. The building has an overhanging pitched corrugated iron roof which is hipped over the four corners and surmounting the peaks thus formed are iron ventilators. The corner blocks of the building project slightly from the face of adjacent walls.
The principal entrance to the stables is on the north side of the building, where a centrally located gateway emphasised on the roof line by projecting pyramidal roof feature. The external elevation of the building are quite simple with timber doorways and high level window openings. Those elevation facing inward toward the courtyard are more complex, with an assortment of timber paling and latticework gates and timber boarded doors. Internally the building houses a series of stables.
Extending from the south elevation is a low one storeyed timber wing, of vertical slab construction, providing further equine accommodation which is more exposed to the weather. There are various timber weatherboard additions to the western side of the building.
Adjacent to the stables are early outbuildings and grounds associated with the principal building. Many small fenced paddocks and pens survive, as does a large storage shed.
","history":"The Canning Downs Station on the Darling Downs was established by the Leslie brothers in 1840. The principal timber slab residence on the homestead is likely to date from 1847-8, and has experienced several major additions over 150 years. The stables appear to date from the late 1850s.
Patrick Leslie, the second son of William and Jane (nee Davidson) Leslie of Warthill, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, arrived in Australia in May 1835 with the intention of establishing a pastoral holding. Such was the intention of many young British men who saw opportunities for earning sufficient money and returning to their homeland financially secure with an assured income from the established property. It is thought that the haste with which Patrick Leslie proceeded in securing his fortune was the cause of the considerable financial troubles which beset him thereafter.
Upon his arrival in Australia, Patrick spent several years employed on stations first by the Macarthurs of Camden and then by his uncle WS Davidson at Collaroi. When Patrick's younger brothers, Walter and George, arrived in Australia in 1839, the three decided to explore the unsettled Darling Downs in search of land for a station of their own. Tales of the fertile Downs region had reached Patrick Leslie after Allan Cunningham's discovery of the area in 1827.
After reaching the Downs the Leslie Brothers quickly marked out land for their station which they named Canning Downs. Adjacent land was taken up by a friend, Ernest Dalrymple, for his station, Goomburra. It was soon clear to the Leslies that the run marked by them was too large and they moved their head station to what remained the Canning Downs portion of the run with the remainder becoming the Toolburra run.
Though all three brothers were in fact partners in the Canning Downs run, Patrick's name was omitted from all documentation regarding occupation of the place owing to his financial troubles. An arrangement formalising the ownership or lease of the Canning Downs run by the Leslies was slow in coming and their tenuous hold over the land was a source of constant worry as demonstrated in the letters written by the brothers to their family in Scotland. Patrick wrote in April 1841 that the Commissioner for Crown Lands had visited the station and given the brothers a letter of authorisation allowing them to retain the run. This letter also mentions that the headstation was originally located south of the 1841 buildings. New buildings were constructed in late 1841, when the brothers feared encroachment of their run by the new comers on the Downs who were causing considerable aggravation to the Leslie brothers.
By 1842 the Leslie brothers were in dire financial trouble, borrowing money from their father, and another brother living in China to simply maintain the station. All three brothers were forced to assume roles of active stockmen to reduce wage bills. Wool prices were low, labour was expensive and supplies were difficult to transport to the Downs. Patrick spent substantial amounts of time during the early 1840s in Dunheved, a farm leased by him near Penrith, Sydney. He married Katherine Macarthur, daughter of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur of The Vineyard, Parramatta in September 1840, and the two remained living on the Macarthurs' station, before returning to Canning Downs in 1842.
At Canning Downs a cottage costing £35 and of unspecified material was built for the return of Patrick and his bride. Upon their return it was arranged that Patrick would oversee the cultivation and horse stock, Walter would manage the sheep and George the cattle.
Further financial concerns saw Patrick withdraw from Canning Downs and purchase a block of land in Brisbane on which he built a cottage which was to become Newstead House. Meanwhile the Station was suffering from a prolonged absence of Walter Leslie. An interesting letter written by George to his parents in May 1845 details the plans for improvements to Canning Downs, including a new hut and stables, which he says will be constructed about 400 yards lower down the river.
Letters written by Walter and George during 1846 and 1847 indicate that improvements to the value of £1200-£1500 were planned and these were to include the construction of a "good house". In early December 1848, George married Emmeline Macarthur, who was another of the daughters of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur, father of Patrick's wife. From Emmeline's memoirs it seems that the house in which she lived at Canning Downs upon her arrival after the wedding was a "cottage ...built of wood, painted white and lined with canvas, and pretty room papers, thoroughly and prettily furnished and surrounded by a white verandah". She continues on to say that a church service was held in a small hall of the house every Sunday at 11.00am for "several of our neighbours...employees and friends which produced quite a congregation". Emmeline suggests that their accommodation at Canning Downs was unusual,
the cottage only afforded two spare rooms and with the chance of six friends suddenly appearing such accommodation was impossible. At the end of our cottage and parallel to our own, and divided by a covered way, the sides and verandah covered with vines, was a long building devoted to servants, storeroom and offices. We had one very large room and six folding beds made on (the) principal of a long camp stool, called a stretcher. They were seldom all unoccupied and not infrequently all were in request.
She also talks of French windows opening onto the verandah from both the hall and her bedroom. This description of the 1848 residence at Canning Downs suggests that the house into which Emmeline and George moved was, indeed, the timber slab house still today used as the residence. The long building referred to in the above description would then be the kitchen wing of the present structure.
A sketch by Conrad Martens done in March 1852 provides further evidence of this. This shows the residence as a house with hipped roof, verandahs and shuttered french windows with a kitchen wing at the rear. Notes at the top of the sketch suggest that the building was white with "green venetians", presumably a reference to the fixed louvre shutters.
Life on the Downs during the time of the Leslie occupation was quite difficult and financial problems burdened the squatters. The discovery of gold fields in Australia further increased the price and scarcity of labour on stations. Early searches for gold were carried out on the Darling Downs, not only with the intention of actually finding mineral rich fields, but also in a desperate attempt to lure workers and servants into the area. Searches for gold at Canning Downs resulted in the discovery of the Lucky Plains Goldfields which allowed George Leslie to realise his aspirations of wealth and make plans to return to his family in Scotland.. Emmeline and George did not remain at Canning Downs for very long, leaving for a year's rest in Scotland in the early 1850s and returning to Australia only to see the Station sold to George's cousin, Gilbert Davidson for £50,000 on January 7, 1854.
Davidson was the only son of Walter Stevenson Davidson, a close friend of John Macarthur of Camden. The Davidson managed and owned various pastoral stations in New South Wales, including Collaroi on which Patrick Leslie worked upon his arrival in Australia.
Though little documentary evidence has been located, it seems that the quadrangular stable block was built during Davidson's ownership of Canning Downs which lasted only until 1865. The Sydney Morning Herald of 26 November 1859 reports on an extensive fire at Canning Downs, which started in the stables. The report continues to say that "a large range of buildings, nearly forty yards long, and comprising hayloft and coach house, were entirely consumed...It was apparently owing to the direction of the wind that the dwelling-houses were not also destroyed". The extant stables are thought to have been constructed after this fire, from bricks hand made from Killarney clay at a cost of £3000.
The stable, when built and extant today, is a square planned building with an open central courtyard. The roofs of the four sides of the building are clad with corrugated iron, and this iron is believed to have been in one of the earliest shipments of corrugated iron to Queensland. All corrugated iron was imported to Australia until 1921 when Lysaghts began its manufacture. The material was used in Melbourne as early as 1852, but manufacturers were still experimenting with galvanising, a method of coating iron with zinc. Early galvanising techniques were primitive and involved dipping the sheets into molton zinc, resulting in large deposits of zinc on the iron which protected the material much better than the latter mechanised techniques. Thus many early corrugated iron roofs have remained remarkably intact.
This may be the case with the corrugated iron roof of the stable at Canning Downs, which, according to photographs and oral history has not been altered since construction in about 1859. The roof retains four iron ventilators on the pyramidal sections over the four corners of the building, which also appear in the earliest photographs of the structure. The roof framing is a series of closely spaced trusses with battens, further apart than is needed for shingles but much closer than standard corrugated iron roof framing. It is thought that because the technology of iron clad roofing was novel and little understood, the framing was cautiously planned and overcompensated for the actual weight of the iron.
Several early photographs of the residence and stables at Canning Downs survive from the time of Davidson's ownership. These show a substantial timber slab house with a steeply pitched hipped roof of shingles, and shingled verandah awnings surrounding the building. French doors open onto the verandahs. Davidson may have replace the shingled roof of the main residence with a corrugated iron roof as one of the photographs apparently dating from this time shows the replacement occurring.
Davidson owned Canning Downs until 1865, when on the 18th November he sold the entire station to Frederick John Cobb Wildash. The property comprising 3040 acres with 53,700 sheep, 5000 cattle, 70 horses and improvements was sold for £100,000. A default on repayments to Alexander McDonald and Charles Smith, merchants of Sydney, who loaned money to Wildash for the property, saw Canning Downs sold again on June 4, 1874 to John Donald Macansh.
Macansh, a Scot, emigrated to Australia after the death of his father, with his mother and siblings. After managing various stations in New South Wales, Macansh moved to Queensland and undertook the management of Canning Downs. In 1886 Macansh was appointed to the Legislative Assembly, and he was generally held in high esteem by the community in which he lived. After his death on 1 August 1896 Canning Downs was managed by a family trust comprising his eleven children.
During the time of their management extensive alterations were carried out on the residence. Local Warwick architects, Wallace and Gibson undertook extensions of the house in 1898-1899. The architects, a partnership of William Wallace and Richard Gibson, designed many buildings in and around Warwick including St George's Masonic Hall and the Barnes & Co department Store in Palmerin Street. The extensions at Canning Downs comprised the addition of timber wings abutting either side of the principal residence. Both of which were rectangular planned with hipped corrugated iron roofs and discrete verandah awnings on the front and side elevations. The wings were timber framed and clad with chamfered horizontal boarding, with decorative timber features including cross-braced balustrading and fretwork column brackets.
The Canning Downs estate was then subdivided, and that portions containing the residence and stables was sold to Henry Richard Needham on March 2, 1906 who owned it only until January 9, 1918 the ownership of the Canning Downs Homestead was transferred to John Hawkins Smith and Sara Barnes, parents of the present owner Charles Edward Barnes. The Barnes family were a prominent horse racing family who owned Lyndhurst a station in far north Queensland. Canning Downs became an important stud, with many successful racing horses reared there.
Soon after the Barnes family moved to Canning Downs in 1918 a large porch was added to the house, in the popular Californian Bungalow style. At this time other cosmetic alterations were undertaken.
During the 1970s the corrugated iron roof of the residence, including the kitchen wing was replaced with a decromastic tile roof. Recently (c1994) extensive work has been undertaken on the residence. The c1918 porch was removed, the verandahs enclosed with aluminium framed glazing, the interior has been entirely re-worked and the decromastic tile roof replaced on the central section of the residence with a new corrugated iron roof.
","criteria":"Canning Downs, one of the earliest homesteads established on the Darling Downs provides remarkable evidence of the pastoral and agricultural growth of South East Queensland.
|Although the age of the various buildings comprising the residence is unknown, it is likely that at least some of the structures date from the Leslie occupation of the run in the 1840s and early 1850s, making this a rare and early example of residential building in Queensland. The brick stables are rare in their form and age, and may have some of the earliest corrugated iron roofing used in Queensland, demonstrating the development of this technology.
|Great potential exists for further archaeological research on both the buildings and grounds at Canning Downs which are intact despite a long and varied history.
|The residence and the stables, with associated grounds including the gardens, paddocks and driveway, provide a good example of a mid-nineteenth century pastoral run. The stables are an excellent and intact example of a building of this type.
|The buildings and grounds have aesthetic value, increased by their situation and context. The stable is a well composed structure of great architectural merit. The gardens and grounds surrounding these buildings contribute to their setting. Many established trees and early garden areas are of importance.
|The brick stables are rare in their form and age, and may have some of the earliest corrugated iron roofing used in Queensland, demonstrating the development of this technology.
|The station is of cultural importance to Queenslanders as one of the earliest European homes surviving in the state.
|Canning Downs is associated with many people of importance to Queensland history including Patrick, George and Walter Leslie and their families who were instrumental in opening the Darling Downs for pastoral runs and settlement.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15301,"place_ref":600526,"name":"Yangan Masonic Hall","alternate_name":"Yangan School of Arts | Yangan Masonic Temple","street_address":"36 King Street","suburb":"YANGAN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The village of Yangan lies in the Swanfels Valley some 18kms to the east of Warwick, on the banks of Swan Creek. The Masonic Hall is a two-storeyed timber building on the northern side of King Street, the main street of Yangan. It sits on the high side of this street, on the south-western bank of Carey's Hill giving it commanding views over the valley. The site falls from the rear towards the street boundary where the entry to the site is formalised by a concrete retaining wall with concrete stairs, pillars with lights and fence posts with chain-wire panels between. Vehicular access to the site is from a secondary road running along the high side of King Street. To the rear of the site is a timber and corrugated iron outdoor toilet.
The building has two levels, including a long entry stair, on the low or south side of the site, with the ground then rising to just below the floor of the upper level at the rear. The southern or street elevation has a symmetrical verandah with a central gabled entry porch, and bull-nosed verandah roofs to either side. The name of the building is painted within the porch gable, and below is painted details of the foundation and consecration. Over the remainder of the building is a corrugated iron gable-ended roof with two roof vents. Above the entry is a cast iron lace archway, and to either side are lace spandrels between paired chamfered timber posts. To the corners are cast iron lace brackets, although some are missing and one has been replaced by a bracket from a window hood. Approach to the building is by the long timber stair. The verandah and stair have cast iron lace balustrade panels, with a timber handrail.
Externally, the building is clad in chamferboards. The windows are timber sash, or aluminium-framed glass louvres. All of the window hoods and the roof to the side entry are of metal deck. The entry doors are panelled French doors. There are two other external doors to the western side of the upper level, and one to the street elevation for the lower level.
Internally, the upper level is divided into the Lodge Room and the Ante-Room. The Ante-Room has a small storage area to one corner. Between the Ante-Room and the Lodge Room, the timber wall has been modified to include removable boarded panels which allows the seating to extend into the Ante-Room when required. The interior is painted light blue with brown trims, and to the Lodge Room a brown dado with stencilled frieze.
The interior walls are lined with wide beaded vertical boarding. The ceilings are of tongue and groove board, with a fretted ceiling rose to the Ante-Room. The ceiling to the Lodge Room is raked to the line of the collar-tie with moulded timber cornices at both junctions. The floor is also timber boards, with raised platforms to the perimeter for the seating. The furniture in the Lodge Room includes timber "thrones" denoting rank of office with desks, timber pews, lectern, bible pedestal, black and white linoleum floor centrepiece, triangular timber encased 'G' suspended from the ceiling, and wall mounted tracing boards. Also mounted on the walls are various ceremonial items including sword-bayonets and gavels. The panelled entry door to the Lodge Room has brass knockers to both sides and a sliding eye-hole.
On the lower level is a small kitchen and dining area known as the Festive Board Room. Its walls are lined with fibrous cement sheet. In its centre is a chamfered timber post.
","history":"The Yangan Masonic Hall was acquired by the Yangan Lodge as their meeting place in 1912. Erected c.1898 it was built as Yangan's first School of Arts when the town was developing as one of the Darling Down's small but prosperous towns.
The Yangan and Swanfels area (then named Loganvale) was explored by Allan Cunningham in 1827. In 1840 the Leslie brothers established Canning Downs, one of the station outposts being Heifer Creek whose first hut and stockyard were established at what became Yangan. The town developed to serve the industries of the Swanfels Valley: timber getting, sandstone quarrying, dairying, and mixed farming. Although a settlement (including a school, church, and police station) existed prior to 1884, it was the opening of the first stage of the Warwick to Killarney railway (including a station at Yangan) on 2 June of that year which provided the real impetus for further development. The Warwick to Killarney line was one of the earliest of the state's branch lines built to service short distance traffic generated by farmers rather than squatters.
By 1900 Yangan had become (according to an article in the Queenslander) one of the most thriving centres on the [Warwick to Killarney] line. Here there are two cheese factories which have done an inestimable amount of good for the whole district. The township which is growing larger every year, has several stores, a couple of black-smith shops, a hall, ... and two boarding-houses. There was also a very natty little School of Arts and reading room.
The Yangan School of Arts was formed in 1897. By the following year a single storeyed timber building had been erected according to plans and specifications prepared by MP Henricksen on a small 19 perch block owned by the Warwick Hospital Committee. As early as 1899, plans were afoot to enlarge the building to twice its existing size. In 1901 this work was undertaken by which time the institution included a library room and smoke room. The work costing £49.13.6 (including additions and the removal of the existing building further back on the site) was undertaken by contractor WP McDonald according to plans prepared by School of Arts caretaker C Berthelsen.
By 1909, further expansion including a billiard room was planned. The existing site was not apparently considered suitable for this and a new site was sought. For a time removal of the building to a new site was contemplated, however in June 1912 tenders were called for the erection of a new School of Arts building (without billiard room) on a site on the southern side of King Street purchased from the Railways Department. The new School of Arts building (QHR 600527) was opened on 19 October 1912.
In the same year the Yangan Masonic Lodge acquired the first School of Arts building for some £40 (from the School of Arts) and the site for some £25 (from the Warwick Hospital Committee). An overdraft of £130 was arranged to meet the cost of purchase and improvements undertaken immediately with several of the Brethren giving freely of their labour for some weeks. The temple which became known as the Temple with the Long Stairs was officially dedicated on 11 September 1912.
The Yangan Lodge was formed in 1903 as no. 3082 under the English Constitution. Prior to its formation locals were members of other lodges such as St George's, Cunningham, and Killarney; early meetings were held at the Yangan Oddfellows Hall (now the Yangan Hall).
The first Queensland Masonic Lodge, known as the North Australian Lodge was established in Brisbane in 1859. As lodges were established in other Queensland towns, the type of Masonic Temple erected varied considerably; however the plan of the Lodge Room remains constant reflecting the highly symbolic and ritualised practices of the Masons.
In 1920 the Yangan Lodge became no. 107 of the Queensland Grand Lodge which was temporarily formed to enable lodges like Yangan which had worked under the English, Scottish, and Irish Constitutions to unite with the Grand Lodge of Queensland to form the United Grand Lodge of Queensland. With the union of the two Grand Lodges on 29 April 1921 Yangan became no. 148 on the roll of the United Grand Lodge of Queensland.
After the first World War, the Lodge began to expand again; one of the events of the district was the annual Yangan Masonic Ball. A number of improvements were made to the Lodge Room at this time including the purchase of the altar, organ, tracing boards, and various other furnishings. Battery powered electric light was installed c.1930 to replace kerosene lanterns and candles.
During World War II the activities of the lodge were severely curtailed: blackout conditions were enforced, installation banquets and formal dress for meetings were abandoned, and nearly all Offices were held by Past Masters.
Post war alterations included modifications to enable the removal of part of the wall between the Lodge Room and ante-room (1950s); and during the 1970s work included the remodelling of the Festive Board Room, alterations to provide a second external stairway, and the addition of a door from the Lodge Room directly to the outside in the event of fire. In 1994 repairs (including the reconstruction of the front stair and repainting) were undertaken.
Perhaps the most significant change to the site involved the building in 1957 of a concrete retaining wall, stairs, and pillars with lights at the street entry adding even more weight to Yangan's unofficial title, the Temple with the Long Stairs. This effect was even further accentuated by council works undertaken about this time to King Street which saw the street become in effect split into three levels, with the Yangan Masonic Temple in a commanding position on the highest level of all.
The post World War II period saw a decline in Yangan's fortunes epitomised by the closure of the Warwick to Killarney railway on 1 May 1964. By the late 1970s the Yangan Masonic Lodge was struggling to exist with rising costs, few candidates, and low attendances. Within a decade however it had overcome many of those difficulties to become once again a thriving lodge.
","criteria":"Situated on the high northern side of Yangan's main street, the Yangan Masonic Hall with its long processional approach (giving rise to its title as the Temple with the Long Stairs) is a distinctive landmark and symbol of the former prosperity of the town in which only remnants of the main streetscape survive.
Erected as the first reading room and library of the Yangan School of Arts and later acquired and altered by the Yangan Masonic Lodge, the Hall has a commanding view of the district which it has served for nearly a century.
|The Masonic Hall is in essence a simple timber vernacular public building, but its decorative frontal emphasis of the gabled entry porch, verandah clad in filigree screen, long timber stair, and ceremonial approach is (in common with the present School of Arts building [600527]) a deliberate gesture to demonstrate the civic prominence of the building, and to formally address the town's main street.
|Situated on the high northern side of Yangan's main street, the Yangan Masonic Hall with its long processional approach (giving rise to its title as the Temple with the Long Stairs) is a distinctive landmark and symbol of the former prosperity of the town in which only remnants of the main streetscape survive.
|As the meeting place of the Yangan Masonic Lodge for over eighty years the Hall (and in particular the Lodge Room and its furnishings) is an integral part of the Masonic ceremonial tradition as practised by several generations of local Masons.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15302,"place_ref":600527,"name":"Yangan School of Arts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7-9 King Street","suburb":"YANGAN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The village of Yangan lies in the Swanfels Valley some 18kms to the east of Warwick, on the banks of Swan Creek. The School of Arts is a single-storeyed timber building situated on the southern side of King Street, the main street of Yangan. It sits on a flat, grassy site facing the few remaining shops on the northern side of the street. There is a gravel driveway leading from a secondary road which runs along the low side of King Street. Also on the site is a timber and corrugated iron toilet block to the east, and a tennis shed clad in fibrous cement to the south, neither of which are of cultural heritage significance. To the west and south of the site are clay tennis courts, and to the east is the Police Station and lock-up. Further to the south is the corrugated iron structure of the former Grain Shed, built about 1922.
The building is a simple, timber-framed structure on low timber stumps, with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The street or northern facade has a symmetrical verandah with a central gabled entry porch, and bull-nosed verandah roofs to either side. A timber parapet divides this from the roof over the main body of the building. There is a frieze of flat pressed metal panels to the entry porch, and to the ends of the bull nosed roofs. The porch ceiling is of tongue and groove boards, the remainder being unlined.
The verandah has a dowelled and cross-braced timber balustrade with diagonal lattice panels above. There is a pair of dowelled gates to the entry. The original gates were taller and remnants of these still exist stored under the building. The verandah also has chamfered timber posts with timber capitals, and a cast iron lace frieze with brackets. The lacework is continued as spandrels between the paired timber posts, and as an archway over the entry. Leading onto the verandah are three pairs of French doors with tilting fanlights. The central entry doors are panelled, whilst the doors to either side are glazed. The cladding to this northern facade is chamferboard, but on the other three faces and the parapet this has been replaced by fibrous cement planks.
The rectangular plan is divided into the Reading Room, the Library and the Kitchen (formerly the committee room). The Reading Room is accessed from the verandah by two of the French doors, the Library from the third, and the Kitchen from a later ledged and partly braced door on the eastern side. The three windows to the Reading Room are aluminium sliders, and the windows to the Library and Kitchen are timber sashes. All of the windows have ripple iron hoods with cast iron lace brackets. The two internal doors are panelled, also with tilting fanlights.
The internal wall lining to the Reading Room and Library is vertical tongue and groove boarding, apart from the eastern wall of the Library where it has been removed. The walls to the Reading Room have a timber picture rail. The Kitchen walls are lined with fibrous cement sheet. All of the ceilings are also tongue and groove boards, with two pressed zinc ceiling roses to the Reading Room, and one each to the Library and Kitchen.
Mounted on the walls of the Reading Room are two war memorial honour boards. A matching pair made from silky oak and marble, the one on the eastern wall being for World War I, and the one on the western wall being for World War II and Vietnam. Also in the Reading Room are two timber reading tables reputedly dating from the opening of the building. The Library still houses a substantial collection of books.
","history":"Formed in 1897, the Yangan School of Arts erected their second building in 1912 on land acquired from the Railways Department on the southern side of King Street, Yangan. At that time Yangan was one of a number of small but prosperous Darling Downs towns.
The Yangan and Swanfels area (then named Loganvale) was explored by Allan Cunningham in 1827. In 1840 the Leslie brothers established Canning Downs, one of the station outposts being Heifer Creek whose first hut and stockyard were established at what became Yangan. The town developed to serve the surrounding industries of the Swanfels Valley: timber getting, sandstone quarrying, dairying, and mixed farming. Although a settlement (including a school, church, and police station) existed prior to 1884, it was the opening of the first stage of the Warwick to Killarney railway (including a station at Yangan) on 2 June of that year which provided the real impetus for further development. The Warwick to Killarney line was one of the earliest of the state's branch lines built to service short distance traffic generated by farmers rather than squatters.
By 1900 Yangan had become (according to the Queenslander) one of the most thriving centres on the [Warwick to Killarney] line. Here there are two cheese factories which have done an inestimable amount of good for the whole district. The township which is growing larger every year, has several stores, a couple of black-smith shops, a hall, ... and two boarding-houses. There was also a very natty little School of Arts and reading room.
The first School of Arts in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849. The Schools of Arts grew out of the Mechanics Institutes first established in Great Britain in the early 19th century as part of the popular education movement to train working men for Britain's industrial expansion. In Australia, Schools of Arts were often the only cultural and educational facility in newly established towns providing meeting rooms, halls, libraries, and technical education. Later as government assumed some of these responsibilities, the focus of the Schools of Arts became more recreational.
In Yangan, the School of Arts provided to subscribers a lending library and reading room (stocked with current journals and newspapers); its rooms were regularly rented to other local organisations. The School also provided a social focus for the district with (fundraising) entertainments regularly organised by the committee.
The first Yangan School of Arts building (erected c1898) was located on the northern (high) side of King Street. In 1912 it was acquired by the local Masonic Lodge becoming the Yangan Masonic Temple (QHR 600526). As early as 1899, plans were afoot to enlarge the single storeyed building to twice its existing size. In 1901 this work was undertaken by which time the School of Arts included a library room and smoke room. Further expansion including a billiard room was soon planned. In 1909 the committee approached the Railway Department with regard to providing a new site for the School of Arts. At this time it was apparently envisaged that the existing building would be removed.
However, in June 1912, tenders were called for a new School of Arts building. The site chosen formed part of some 8 acres of Yangan land acquired by the Commissioner for Railways in 1884 to enable the building of the railway line from Warwick to Killarney. Resub 1 of sub 1 of portion 205 containing 18.5 perches (now lot 1) was acquired by Trustees, Redmond Brewer, Alexander Kemp jnr, and Thomas Kirkland on behalf of the School of Arts in September 1911. The adjoining resub 2 (now lot 2) was acquired by the School of Arts in December 1914.
The plans prepared for the new School of Arts by W Kemp to the specification of the School of Arts Committee provided for a three roomed (reading room, library, and committee room) single skinned timber building with latticed verandah set flush with the foot-path. The tender of Sam Fagg for the sum of £264 was accepted.
Hitching posts were erected outside the building and "SCHOOL OF ARTS" was painted on the front of the building which was opened on 19 October 1912 by the Minister for Railways on the occasion of a visit by a Parliamentary party to the district. A short article in the Warwick Argus described the School of Arts as a well-found little institution of high public utility ... on Saturday night 80 books issued from the library.
In April 1919, a World War I roll of honour was unveiled and a further roll of honour to World War II in 1949. During the post war period many such institutions were in decline. At the Annual General Meeting of the Yangan School of Arts in 1946 it was noted that support by the public was lacking but still, although the war had hampered the institution and owing to radio and pictures having their effect, [they were] still able to carry on. In 1947, a general meeting was held to consider the future of the institution.
Nearly fifty years later, despite the decline of the town's fortunes epitomised by the closure of the Warwick to Killarney railway on 1 May 1964, the Yangan School of Arts, unlike many of its sister institutions, lives on.. Although with the recent introduction of a council mobile library service, the future of the School of Arts library is uncertain, the Yangan School of Arts remains a valuable local institution overseen by its Secretary of 43 years, Mr Gus Mauch with its facilities used by more than a dozen local groups including the local play group, Ladies Guild, QCWA, Qld Dairymen's Organisation, National Party, RSL, Graingrowers, Bush Firebrigade, and Sports Association.
","criteria":"In Queensland the Schools of Arts were the forerunners of the government operated public libraries, technical colleges, and cultural centres.
Formed in the late nineteenth century when the town was developing the infrastructure to support a thriving district, the Yangan School of Arts and its (second) building erected in Yangan's main street in 1912 are important reminders of those more prosperous times; the change reflected in the much reduced streetscape of King Street of which the School of Arts building and the Masonic Hall [600526] are an important part.
|Unlike many of its sister institutions in the state, both the building (which houses the district's war memorials) and the institution survive.
|Somewhat atypical for an institution of this size, is the centrality of the Reading Room and Library (whose book collection survives) to the institution's functions.
|The School of Arts is in essence a simple timber vernacular public building, but its decorative frontal emphasis of the gabled entry porch and verandah clad in filigree screen is a deliberate gesture to demonstrate the civic prominence of the building, and to formally address the town's main street.
|The Yangan School of Arts has for nearly a century fulfilled an important cultural, educational, and social role for the town and its district.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15303,"place_ref":602611,"name":"Southport Cable Hut (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Main Beach Parade","suburb":"MAIN BEACH","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-05-03","description":"Cable Park is a small grassy reserve located on Main Beach Parade at Main Beach at the Gold Coast. The Cable Hut is a small brick structure set well back from Main Beach Parade in the park.
The hut is about 2.4m square in plan view and about 2.7m high. There no windows, airflow being provided by ventilator bricks. It has a flat concrete roof. A plain wooden door secured by a barrel bolt and padlock is located in the middle of the northern wall. A section of submarine cable is mounted on the eastern wall above a rectangular brass plaque.
The interior of the hut is unlined and has a wooden floor. The pine skirting boards are of recent construction. Fastened to the wall opposite the door are three groups of cables passing through the floor. These cables run vertically up the wall and are held in place by a long wooden beam extending the length of the wall. The beam is fastened to the brickwork by bolts.
The group at the eastern end of the wall comprises two thick black cables. The outer insulating material of each cable has been removed to a length of about one metre from the end. An inner armoured sheath has been folded back over the outer insulation to expose another layer of insulation. This has been removed to expose three insulated wires. The wires are fixed to the wall on a block of wood.
At the opposite end of the wall is a group of three cables. The insulation and sheathing on one of these cables has been removed in a similar way to the cables mentioned previously. However, only a short length of insulation has been removed from the other two cables.
The third group of cables comprises two grey cables, one considerably thinner than the other. These pass through the floor between the two outer groups about an equal distance from each. The larger of the two cables is fixed with a metal saddle to a rectangular piece of wood fastened to the wall. Just above this, the cable enters a red, rectangular metal box bolted to the wall.
About fourteen smaller grey cables emerge from the top of this box; they are fixed to the wall by a bracket. Above this, twelve of the cables turn and run horizontally to the east, over two rusted metal brackets. Six of the cables are draped over these brackets and hang towards the floor. The other six run further to the left to a point immediately above the two thick cables at the eastern end of the wall. At this point, they turn towards the floor meeting the two cables coming up from the floor. They are fastened to the wall on a block of wood.
Immediately to the west of the red metal box is a wooden panel fixed to the wall. Mounted on this is a large, brass pressure gauge. The thinner of the two grey cables which emerge from the floor is fitted into the bottom of this gauge. Two of the cables which come out of the top of the red metal box turn to the west and curve downwards around the bottom of the wooden panel to enter the gauge at approximately the 'two o'clock' position.
A paved path runs from the eastern side of the hut towards a large raised circular platform. This has an aggregate top and set into this is a round metal plaque. Depicted on the plaque is a map of the world showing the route of the Pacific Cable.
Shrubs and palm trees grow in a small garden bed around the hut. A garden bed of shrubbery runs along the southern and western border of the park.
","history":"
Cable Park is a small reserve located on the corner of Cable Street and Main Beach Parade at Main Beach on the Gold Coast. The reserve contains a small brick hut and a raised circular platform with a plaque. The brick hut is the Australian terminal of the Pacific Cable, completed in 1902. This telegraph cable linked Australia and Great Britain via Canada and British dependencies in the Pacific. It was an important communications link between the east coast of Australia and the rest of the world until its closure in 1962.
Telegraph communication developed in the mid-19th century as a result of many years of discovery and experimentation in electrical communication culminating in the work of Samuel Morse. The rapid long distance communication provided by telegraph systems had a major impact on society. The telegraph was quickly utilised by news services; Associated Press and Reuters press service were founded to take advantage of the technology. Telegraph companies soon offered financial services, providing the facility to send money orders via the telegraph.
In Australia the telegraph helped to alleviate the isolation of the colonies. New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia were connected by telegraph by 1860. Queensland's first telegraph connection was made in 1861 between Brisbane and Ipswich. Brisbane was linked to Sydney the same year.
The first telegraph link between Australia and Britain opened in 1872. The link was via the Eastern Cable Company's network. It was routed through Singapore, India, Suez and Gibraltar. It was initially proposed to make landfall in north Queensland. However, the South Australian government successfully negotiated for the link to connect with Adelaide via Port Darwin and an overland route through the centre of Australia.
Before the Pacific Cable was opened, the Eastern Cable Company and its associates maintained a monopoly over international telegraph traffic with Australia. As a result, the cost of communication between Britain and Australia remained very high and beyond the means of most people.
Sandford Fleming, Chief Engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was an early advocate of an alternative cable route between Australia and Great Britain via Canada and the Pacific Ocean. He expressed his views as early as the Colonial Conference of 1887. A major advantage put forward by Fleming and other proponents of the Pacific route was that it would be more secure in times of war. The existing link passed through countries that were not part of the British Empire. It was proposed that the Pacific Cable would pass only through British dependencies.
The high cost of telegrams through the Eastern Cable Company's system provided further motivation for a competing route. The proposed Pacific Cable would break the Eastern Cable Company's monopoly and lower the cost of communication between Britain and Australia. When the Pacific Cable opened, the cost of telegrams reduced to less than half the former rate. The ability to communicate directly with the United States and so access more trade opportunities was another argument in favour of the Pacific Cable.
By the mid-1890s, agreement was reached that the cable should be laid. However debate about management of the cable laying project and ownership of the completed cable continued for some years. Finally, it was agreed that funding should be shared between the governments of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. A committee named the Pacific Cable Board was formed made up of members from each of these countries. The Pacific Cable Act (1901) gave this board responsibility for managing the project and operating the completed cable.
The route selected for the cable linked Southport, Norfolk Island, Fiji, Fanning Island, and Vancouver. A branch connected to New Zealand. Since cartographers of the day traditionally coloured member countries of the British Empire in red, the route became known as the All Red Route.
Cable laying started in 1902 with two ships, Anglia and Colonia. Colonia, built specifically for the project, laid cable from Vancouver Island to Fanning Island in the mid-Pacific. Anglia laid cable from Southport to Norfolk Island, Fiji, New Zealand and Fanning Island.
The cable was landed at Southport in March 1902. It was laid into a trench through the dunes of Narrow Neck near Southport and terminated at a cable hut located close to the beach. From here, it connected to a cable which crossed under the Nerang River to the cable station at Bauer Street. The laying of the Pacific Cable was a major engineering feat for the time, costing about two million pounds.
The Pacific Cable was completed on 31 October 1902 and officially opened at Southport on 3 November 1902 by the Postmaster-General of the Commonwealth, the Honourable J.G. Drake. It was opened to public traffic on 8 December 1902.
Until 1912 Southport handled telegraph traffic for all over Australia. In 1912, a cable from Auckland was extended to Sydney and for a period after this, traffic for the southern States went directly to Sydney from Auckland. Technical changes to the system in 1923, including the installation of automatic repeaters, relegated Southport to a repeater station.
The Southport station continued to be operated by the Pacific Cable Board until 1932. Management was then taken over by Cable and Wireless Limited until 1946 when, after the Australian Government passed the Overseas Telecommunications Act, responsibility passed to the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC).
By January 1950, the original cable hut located close to the beach at Narrow Neck had gone, leaving only a cement slab and a flag pole partly surrounded by a barbed wire fence. It is believed that it was destroyed in a severe storm. Serious erosion of the cable reserve by February 1951 threatened these remains and the cable connections located there. The current brick hut located at Cable Park was built during the first half of 1951 to remedy this situation.
In October 1962, the Compac Cable between Sydney and Vancouver was completed. The original Pacific Cable was thus rendered redundant and the Southport to Norfolk Island cable was closed. The Cable Station at Bauer Street was sold to De La Salle Brothers who operated a community youth centre there. In the early 1980s, the Cable Station buildings were removed, two of them to the Southport School where they continue to function as music rooms. However, the brick cable hut remains in its original location at Cable Park, Southport.
","criteria":"The Southport Cable Hut (c1951) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history insofar that it marks the Australian terminal of the Pacific Cable, Australia's second telegraph link with Great Britain and the first to be government owned. Known as the All Red Route, the Pacific Cable was also the first link between Australia and Britain to pass only through countries of the British empire, by convention coloured red on world maps. The opening of the Pacific Cable in 1902 was an important step forward in international communications for Australia since it resulted in faster, more secure and much more affordable communications between Britain and Australia.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of cable huts; small buildings where submarine telegraph cables were linked to their terrestrial counterparts. The Southport cable hut is a small, functional structure of simple, robust design. Fastened to the rear wall inside the hut are the ends of the Pacific Cable, the cable link to Sydney and the link to the Cable Station formerly located at Bauer Street, Southport. A gauge and equipment for maintaining gas pressure in the cable to Bauer Street also remain extant in the hut.
|The Cable Hut is the only surviving structure associated with the Southport terminal of the Pacific Cable that remains in its original location. Buildings of the former, nearby Cable Station, where communications were received and sent through the Pacific Cable, are extant but have been moved from their original location to the Southport School.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15304,"place_ref":600529,"name":"Splitters Creek Railway Bridge","alternate_name":"Splitters Creek Railway Bridge (Sharon)","street_address":"Bundaberg - Mount Perry Line","suburb":"SPLITTERS CREEK","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The bridge comprises two 60 foot plate girder spans with timber longitudinals and timber approach spans including 36 foot spans strengthened with strut and crown, other spans by truss and tie rods. Metal girders are continuos over two spans and support cross-girders at lower flange level. These carry longitudinal timber stringers on which the rails rest.
Oakwood embankment.
2x1x2x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common timber trestles, (piers 1 to 3).
2x1x2x36 foot (11.0m) timber longitudinals with understrutting, common timber piers on concrete bases (piers 3 to 5).
3x1x2x36 foot (11.0m) timber longitudinals with undertrussing, common timber piers on concrete bases (piers 5 to 8).
2x2x60 foot (18.3m) riveted half-through continuous plate girders with steel cross girders, timber longitudinals, common timbers piers on concrete bases (piers 8 to 10).
3x1x2x36 foot (11.0m) timber longitudinals with undertrussing, common timber piers on concrete bases (piers 10 to 13).
12x1x2x36 foot (11.0m) timber longitudinals with undertrussing, common timber piers on concrete bases (piers 13 to 25).
3x1x2x20 foot (6.1m) timber longitudinals, common timber piers on concrete bases (piers 25 to 28).
Concrete abutment.
","history":"The contract for the first section of the Mount Perry railway was awarded to J. & A. Overend and Company in November 1878. Progress on the railway was delayed during 1879 by construction of the bridge over Splitters Creek. The original design required screw pile foundations, but a deep bed of boulders was encountered and cast iron caissons, later filled with concrete and brickwork, had to be sunk instead. Work was further delayed by an unsuccessful attempt by the contractors to use coffer dams to aid the sinking of the piers.
The bridge was completed in 1880 with the use of compressed air equipment obtained from the engineer for the Fitzroy River bridge. The contract was completed in February 1881 at an additional cost of #1,461 due to the difficulties experienced in building the bridge. The railway was opened for traffic between North Bundaberg and Moolboolaman on 19 July 1881.
The bridge's aging plate girders and long timber spans caused restrictions on the use of heavy engines on the line and as early as 1916, no two attached PB15 or B15 class locomotives were permitted n the bridge at the same time. By 1958 two attached locomotives were allowed on the bridge at the same time if sanctioned by the District Superintendent and only at a speed not exceeding 4 miles per hour. By 1971 two attached diesel-hydraulic locomotives were allowed on the bridge at the same time provided the train was stopped before crossing and the speed did not exceed 4 miles per hour.
The last operating section of the railway, from North Bundaberg to Gin Gin including the bridge, was closed to traffic on 25 January 1993.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|A late 19th century timber trestle bridge, representative of a type once more widespread in Queensland, with riveted half-through continuous plate girder main spans which are the oldest extant of their type in Queensland.
|A late 19th century timber trestle bridge, representative of a type once more widespread in Queensland, with riveted half-through continuous plate girder main spans which are the oldest extant of their type in Queensland.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15305,"place_ref":600530,"name":"Customs House Museum","alternate_name":"Customs House Museum Goondiwindi","street_address":"1 McLean Street","suburb":"GOONDIWINDI","lga":"GOONDIWINDI REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Customs House Museum site at Goondiwindi is bounded by Maclean Street to the east and MacIntyre Street to the south. It contains a single storeyed timber building, known as the Customs House, at the corner of Maclean Street and MacIntyre Streets; a single storeyed timber cottage facing Maclean Street, and several recently constructed sheds within the grounds. This complex of modest buildings with steeply pitched roofs contributes to the townscape of Maclean St.
The Customs House Museum is a simple rectangular building with verandahs to the north, west and east, and an annex attached to the west, linked by a covered verandah. The building appears to have been built in three stages, being progressively extended out to the north and northwest, with the annex included in the final stage. Both the main building and the annex have steeply pitched corrugated iron roofs; the main building has a substantial brick chimney rising above the ridgeline. The verandahs are covered with a gently curved corrugated iron awning, with a skillion linking the annex to the main building. Openings to the south are protected with modest corrugated iron awnings.
The external cladding reflects the different stages of construction: the southern end of the building is clad in single skin timber slab with cover strips, with the studs internally exposed; the north eastern corner is clad in chamferboard, with externally exposed stud and bracing, while the rest of the building, including the annex and gable ends is clad in weatherboard. The gable ends are decorated with scalloped bargeboards.
The verandahs have chamfered posts with simple rectangular capitals and carved scalloped bases. The balustrades are constructed of square section balusters and handrail. The building has timber sash windows, and French doors opening out to the east.
Internally, the building has a full-width room to the southern end and four rooms either side of a central corridor to the northern end. The annex adjoins to the south of the western verandah, and contains two rooms and a toilet. The internal walls vary, corresponding to the varieties of external cladding, with some exposed framework, some horizontal boarding and some vertical; all the ceilings are timber-boarded. The fireplace in the southern room has timber surrounds.
The Cottage is a modest timber building with a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof, a verandah to the front (east), an annex with a corrugated iron stove recess and timber porch to the rear (west). This building also appears to have been built in different stages, with the main part of the building being clad in weatherboard, while the annex is clad in chamferboard with externally exposed framing.
The complex also contains a range of more recently constructed sheds and display structures containing antique machinery.
","history":"The Goondiwindi Customs House Museum is located on the town side of the main bridge crossing the Macintyre River at Goondiwindi. The town developed on the site of a teamsters' camp established where the boundaries of 3 pastoral properties met.
Alan Cunningham explored the area around Goondiwindi in 1827. In the 1830s pastoral settlement in New South Wales pushed northwards as graziers looked for new land and in the early 1840s sheep runs were established on the Darling Downs. Early stations were supplied from the south, rather than from Brisbane. Teamsters bringing supplies to the Goondiwindi area came from Maitland and they camped on a rise where the boundaries of Umbercollie, Callandoon and Old Goondiwindi stations met. This hill became the basis for a small settlement, which gradually came to include some permanent residents.
The initial site for government services was at Callandoon where a Native Police camp was established in 1849 and from 1859 there was a police station and a post office in operation utilising station buildings.
In 1858 the government was petitioned to commission a township survey so that land for settlement could be purchased at the site of the teamsters camp. A survey of the area in 1859 shows no buildings on the town area at that time. The first sale of land at Goondiwindi was held in August 1860 at which 50 residential blocks were sold. By this time Queensland had become a separate colony to New South Wales and the Macintyre River formed part of the border. In 1861 the postal service shifted to Goondiwindi and a courthouse and police station were built. Matthew Maher, a mail contractor, who also purchased several other lots, first purchased the land on which the Customs House Museum stands, in 1863. By 1868, Samuel Droughton was also working as a mail contractor based on Goondiwindi. In March 1872 he purchased the property from Maher. It remained in the ownership of Droughton, who also acted as a dairyman, and then that of his widow, until 1901 when it was sold to the editor of the local newspaper, Edward Drake.
In December 1859, Queensland was formally proclaimed as a new colony. In 1862 the New South Wales Border Customs Act no 22 was introduced to allow arrangements to be made 'for establishing a mutual system of collecting and accounting for all Customs Duties payable upon goods crossing this boundary.' At first, the flow of goods into Queensland through the inland routes was not sufficient in either quantity or value to warrant the cost of collecting customs duty in remote areas. However, as settlement increased, the Queensland government began to feel concern at the amount of revenue that was being lost in this way. Not only did more goods travel north than went south into New South Wales, but duty on such everyday commodities as tea and tobacco was twice as high in Queensland and a considerable amount of smuggling across the border took place. Discussions between the colonies with a view to making adjustment payments were held but came to nothing.
In late 1870, the Queensland government decided to establish a means of control so that an estimated revenue loss of £15,000 per year could be prevented. In December 1870 A Bill to Provide for the Collection of Customs Duties on Goods Imported Overland was passed. As a first step to implementing this, a Border Patrol consisting of a Police Inspector, Sub Inspector and 4 constables was appointed with powers to collect duties from 1 January 1871. They were to move along the border between Queensland and New South Wales, collecting duties and keeping careful records regarding the type and value of goods and the amount of monies collected. They were also to note the places were crossings existed and recommend places where Customs offices could be most usefully established.
The Inspector, William Parry-Okeden, made a report on their findings in April 1871. 11 places were recommended for setting up customs offices, including Goondiwindi. On 12 April 1871, Richard Marshall, already Police Magistrate, Clerk of Petty Sessions, Land Agent and Land Commissioner at Goondiwindi, was appointed to also act as Customs Officer. He died the following year and was replaced by John Murphy, a sub-inspector of the Customs Border Patrol. It was soon reported that the effect of increased vigilance on the border was to deflect the importation of goods to Brisbane, reducing the amount of such trade through inland centres.
Goondiwindi continued to develop however, and in 1880 a bridge, a joint project of the New South Wales and Queensland governments, replaced the ferry service across the Macintyre River. The bridge made it possible to cross the river at this point in all weathers and increased the importance of the town as a border crossing. In 1880 Charles F Cumming was appointed as Customs Officer for Goondiwindi. Cumming was also the Police Magistrate and had held this job and that of Land Agent in Goondiwindi the previous year. In 1881 a second Customs Officer was appointed and there were two officers at Goondiwindi until one was sent to Swan Creek following a reorganisation of staff in 1885. In 1887, Goondiwindi was listed by the Customs department as one of 8 Customs Stations along the New South Wales border and was an important public crossing place.
The position of Customs Officer seems to have been an extension of police duties for some time and the books concerning Customs business were kept at the Court House even in 1898. There is no formal record of this building being a Customs House and it remained in private hands throughout the period when duties were collected. However, local tradition that it was connected with the Customs service is strong and Customs Officers may have unofficially used it.
Around 1900, the shingled roof was replaced by corrugated iron, possibly after it changed hands in 1901. The building has undergone some alterations and extensions over the years of its use as a residence and, in its later years, as an antique shop. The Goondiwindi Town Council acquired it in 1975 and it was renovated by the Goondiwindi Historical Society and opened as a museum in October 1975.
","criteria":"The Customs House Museum illustrates the role of Goondiwindi as one of 14 border posts established before Federation to maintain tariff walls between the colonies. Customs duty was an important source of revenue and the need to establish such posts reflects the increase in the movement of goods along inland routes as pastoral development occurred in the west of Queensland. Goondiwindi was a major border crossing and the establishment of a customs service in this town reflects the way in which Customs were collected and the requirements of Government were carried out in remote areas.
|The Customs House Museum is important as an early building in Goondiwindi whose form, scale and materials make a substantial contribution to the built character of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15306,"place_ref":600531,"name":"Goondiwindi Civic Centre","alternate_name":"Town Hall (Civic Theatre) and Shops | Council Chambers","street_address":"100 Marshall Street","suburb":"GOONDIWINDI","lga":"GOONDIWINDI REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"The Goondiwindi Civic Centre is a complex of single storeyed rendered masonry buildings with corrugated iron roofs linked by an Art Deco parapeted street facade. The complex consists of the Council Chambers at the eastern end (which incorporates a 1987 blockwork extension to the rear), a row of four shops extending to the west, and an auditorium which is located behind the shops and is separated from the adjacent council chambers by a service courtyard. A kitchen wing extends from the south-eastern corner of the auditorium.
The facade which links the buildings is rendered in a combination of cream coloured stucco and smooth cement, with vertical elements picked out in rose. It is designed to carefully articulate the hierarchy of and entrances to the three components of the civic centre. The Council Chambers is the primary feature of the facade, with a generous entrance recess with stepped surrounds surmounted by an elegantly proportioned clock tower which can be seen from most locations on Marshall Street. This links to the simple parapet of the adjacent shops, from which a metal awning is suspended. The shopfronts are decorated with mosaic tiles. The entrance to the auditorium is similar to but more modest than that of the Council chambers, and is located between the two eastern most shops.
The entrance to the Council Chambers is framed by a panel in relief with a stepped parapet, and flanked by single rectangular windows. The entrance is shaded by a horizontal semi-circular projecting concrete awning which has a geometrical Art Deco stained glass window inset above. Decorative vertical banding rises above the entrance, continuing past a stepped parapet to form the corners of the clocktower, which has a square clockface, shingle tiled roof and weathervane. The Council Chambers is entered via four etched glass timber doors. The 1987 refurbishment included restoration of much of the original silky oak and walnut joinery.
The shopfronts are decorated with banded ceramic tiling below the display windows, with a fine continuous band decorating the door and window heads. The eastern-most display window retains its original timber backing shutters. The awning has a pressed metal soffit with geometric motifs.
The auditorium is entered via a passage between two shops; the entrance is marked with stepped surrounds surmounted by vertical banding in relief, which bear the words "Town Hall". The auditorium has a simple rectangular plan running north-south, with the stage and proscenium at the southern end, and is richly decorated in a blue and rose Art Deco scheme. The walls are rendered masonry with plaster decoration, and the floor is hardwood. The structural bays of the walls are enriched with stepped pilasters and plaster relief panels with geometrical patterns incorporating the letter G. The bays alternately contain timber double doors with decorated steel grilles above, and windows with steel grilles decorated with fountain motifs; these grilles have been partially closed in with rollershutters and timber sheeting, but still provide cross ventilation. Large crystalline stained glass light fittings are located between the openings, and either side of the stage, and a single larger crystalline fitting is centrally placed on the ceiling. The ceiling is sheeted with a gridded pattern in relief and has arrow-head shaped vents. The sheeting at the edge slopes at forty-five degrees, and is finished with a cornice with diamond motifs. The proscenium frames the stage with a gently stepped recess decorated with plaster reliefs moulded into stripes and scrolls. The stage area is flanked by small storage and dressing areas, and the timber roof structure above is exposed. The Art Deco scheme of this interior is both impressive and intact.
The Goondiwindi Civic Centre is a mixed-use Art Deco public building. The intact Art Deco facade is an accomplished design in its skilful expression of the building's mix of uses, makes an important picturesque contribution to the streetscape, and has a landmark element.
","history":"The Goondiwindi Civic Centre comprises the Town Council Chambers, Town Hall and a set of shops linked by a common facade, in the main street of Goondiwindi. The Centre was designed by architects GF Addison and HS MacDonald and built by TC Clarke in 1937, and opened by the then Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Mr M E Hanlon, in 1938.
The Centre was built with the assistance of the Queensland Government, with a loan of £10 333 and a subsidy of £5 167. The rents received by the Council from the building covered the repayments due by the Council, and the loan was repaid by c1953.
The Centre replaced the existing Council buildings which were considered unsafe for public use and the School of Arts building which was also in a poor state of repair. The Centre was considered an outstanding structure in Goondiwindi, and demonstrated the interest in the steady improvement of the town displayed by previous Councils.
The Council Chambers were substantially altered internally and extended in 1987.
The Town Hall was used as a commercial cinema for a number of years from around 1950 until 1978 and has received intermittent use since then. A new community centre was constructed in Goondiwindi in 1990, which has substantially taken over the function of the Town Hall.
The facade linking the Council Chambers and Town Hall, including the shops, has not been substantially altered since its construction.
","criteria":"Goondiwindi Civic Centre is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the construction of civic buildings for local government purposes during the 1930s.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Art Deco style, and exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community: the Art Deco facade is an accomplished design in its skilful articulation of the different functions of and entrances to the building, and makes an important picturesque contribution to the streetscape; the clocktower is a local landmark; and the Art Deco auditorium interior is impressive, containing fine decorative detailing.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Art Deco style, and exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community: the Art Deco facade is an accomplished design in its skilful articulation of the different functions of and entrances to the building, and makes an important picturesque contribution to the streetscape; the clocktower is a local landmark; and the Art Deco auditorium interior is impressive, containing fine decorative detailing.
|The place has a strong association with the civic work of Brisbane architects GF Addison and HS MacDonald.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15307,"place_ref":600532,"name":"Goondiwindi War Memorial","alternate_name":"The Soldiers' Memorial (Digger Statue) | Memorial Gates","street_address":"Marshall Street","suburb":"GOONDIWINDI","lga":"GOONDIWINDI REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Goondiwindi War Memorial is located at the western end of Goondiwindi's main street, in the south-eastern corner of the Goondiwindi Memorial Park. The memorial consists of a Digger monument (WWI) and memorial gates (WWII). The monument rises to approximately six metres and is centrally placed within a generous square enclosure whose boundaries are defined by poplar trees, hedges, silky oaks and figs. The monument is axially aligned with the memorial gates, which truncate the street corner. The monument framed by the gates with a backdrop of poplar trees creates an impressive formal tableau.
The monument is comprised of a life-sized grey sandstone Digger on a red and grey polished granite column, which sits on a polished blocked trachyte pedestal and a stepped concrete base. The pedestal has gilt incriptions, and the column has a grey granite base and capital with a red granite shaft. The Digger stands with his left foot forward, holding the top of the rifle barrel in his right hand.
The memorial gates are formed with sandstone pillars and decorative steel gates, and comprise a central gateway flanked by two smaller gateways. The pillars have sandstone nibs, and are topped with rectilinear octagonal light fittings. The gates have circular motifs and crests.
The monument is well-crafted in fine materials, and the formal tableau of the monument and poplars framed by the gates makes a stong aesthetic contribution to the Goondiwindi townscape.
","history":"The Goondiwindi War Memorial includes a 'Digger' statue erected in 1922 and a set of gates erected in 1949, as memorials to the First and Second World Wars respectively.
The Soldiers' Monument was originally erected in Herbert Street, with an iron fence surrounding the monument. The monument cost £1 800 and was unveiled in September 1922, by Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland, who was in Goondiwindi to observe an eclipse of the sun. It is likely that the monument was erected by a public committee. Although the designer of the monument is unknown, it is possible that it was manufactured in New South Wales.
In 1949 the monument was re-sited, presumably at the time the World War 2 Memorial Gates were constructed. More than £2 844 was spent on transferring the monument to the park site and erecting the gates. The gates were erected by the Goondiwindi War Memorial Committee, and were unveiled in April 1949 by Sir Thomas William Glasgow. At the completion of the ceremony the keys of the gates were handed to Alderman F Vetter, symbolic of the town accepting responsibility and custody of the memorial. The designer of the gates is also unknown.
","criteria":"The Goondiwindi War Memorial is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, as evidence of an era of widespread expression of Australian patriotism and nationalism, during and following the First World War.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community: the monument is well-crafted in unusual and fine materials; and the formal tableau of the monument and poplars framed by the gates makes an aesthetic contribution to the Goondiwindi townscape.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15308,"place_ref":600533,"name":"Gympie Court House","alternate_name":"Court House Gympie","street_address":"Channon Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gympie Courthouse is located at the intersection of Channon and King Street, facing Channon Street, but not aligned to it. A face brick building, in the Federation Free Style, it comprises a single storey structure with a substantial clock tower, located on the southern side of the front entrance.
Located on one of the ridges in Gympie, it is a dominant landmark within the town, and together with the Post Office and the Land Office, forms a precinct of Government buildings.
On the Channon Street elevation a shallow set of stairs leads up to a centrally located portico comprising a substantial entablature supported by four columns and two square-planned piers, all with Doric order capitals and bases. A parapeted gable rises above the central section, which incorporates clerestory windows in each side elevation.
The clock tower is also located within the central section, positioned to the southern side of the central entrance. It is a substantial square-planned brick tower, and comprises the tower, which has a clock face in the upper section of each elevation, surmounted by a belvedere with a cupola above. Various mouldings in cement render are located above and below the clock faces and a Coat of Arms addresses the intersection of King and Channon Streets.
The side wings are single storeyed, and the entablature is continued around all four elevations. String courses are located below this at the height of the window heads, which run across a grouping of three double hung windows. The entablature, string courses, window heads and sills are cement rendered.
The side elevations are similar to the front elevations, with central entrances of columns and piers with Doric order capitals and bases. However, they sit flush with the line of the building and do not project forward as the main entrance portico does.
At the rear of the building, the ground slopes away to create two-storeys. The central bay projects forward and contains a two-storeyed arched opening, with steps leading to an entrance on the upper floor. The opening is flanked by doors at the lower level, with double hung windows above. Windows are also located on either side of the central bay.
The building is constructed of Campbell's double pressed Redbank face bricks, buff in colour and layed in Flemish bond. Tuck pointing survives in some areas, and all details are finished in cement render.
The central section of the building contains the court room. It is one and a half storeys high, whilst the two side wings are single storeyed.
Internally, the court room is centrally located, with rooms for support staff in the side wings. These include rooms for the judge, jury, clerks, registrars and, at the rear, toilets.
The court room is intact, apart from a new wall which creates a new entrance at the front of the building, and the addition of fluorescent lighting and new speakers. The walls are plastered with Keens marble cement to dado height, and capped with a plaster moulding, all now painted. Door and window architraves, a band mould under the sills and pilasters are of painted white plaster. The original furniture and cedar joinery remain intact. The ceiling comprises painted timber panels supported by decorative brackets with large Wunderlich ventilators in the central panels.
The secondary offices also have cedar joinery, including fireplaces. All timberwork remains unpainted, apart from the fireplace in the front room on the northern side of the entrance, which has been painted white. The fireplace in the clerk's office has been removed to make way for a new door opening. Various early objects remain in some rooms, including small shelves with mirrors above and large scale maps of the Gympie region.
","history":"The Gympie Court House is the third court house constructed in Gympie and is located in a prominent location on a ridge at the corner of Channon and King Streets. It was constructed between 1900 and 1902 and is a brick structure with a clock tower on the southern side of the front entrance.
The town of Gympie was established after the discovery of gold in the area by James Nash in 1867. At this stage, the new colony of Queensland was in dire financial trouble, and a reward was offered to anyone who discovered gold. Nash received the reward of £3 000, and the rush to the Gympie gold field began. By 1869, the town now known as Gympie had a population of many thousands. It was established so rapidly that by the time the official surveyors arrived in 1868, a substantial amount of the town had already been laid out. This resulted in the town being laid out in an irregular pattern, following the topography of the land and the mining sites, rather than the orthogonal grid pattern familiar to most Queensland towns. The 1868 survey of the town included reserves for public buildings, including the court house reserve.
The first court proceedings in Gympie were held by the Gold Commissioner in a series of temporary structures shortly after the influx of miners to the area. In the late 1860s, a more permanent structure, in the form of a timber slab building was erected on what was known as Commissioner's Hill.
In 1876 a substantial masonry court house building was erected in Channon Street on land reserved for police purposes. This building served the town until the mid 1890s when there was pressure for a new court house, primarily from local Labour politician Andrew Fisher, later the first Queenslander to become Prime Minister of Australia. The 1876 court house building still survives and is now used as the Lands Office.
Although the Colonial Architect was asked to prepare plans for a new court house in 1898, non were prepared until 1900. The delay may have been due to disputes over the site for the new court house, the site on the corner of King and Channon Street eventually being secured in preference to the original court house reserve on Duke Street. The site was selected by Colonial Architect, A B Brady, and the government purchased the land from the QN Bank and a private owner.
The new court house was designed by John S Murdoch who, at the time was an architect in the Department of Public Works. Murdoch had arrived in Australia from Scotland, originally working in Melbourne. He began working for the Queensland Public Works Department in the mid 1880s, leaving temporarily to practice privately before returning in the mid 1890s.
In 1901, he was appointed District Architect for the Central and Northern Division of Queensland, and in this capacity designed many government buildings north of Gympie.
Tenders were called for the building in 1900. The first tenders exceeded the £5000 allocated for its construction, requiring the design to be altered. Rendered cement replaced stonework detailing and fencing and landscaping were omitted altogether. Tenders were once again called and Bundaberg builder Edward Boyle won the contract. Boyle commenced work immediately, supervised by Bundaberg architect, Anton Hettrich, temporarily employed by the Works Department specifically for the purpose. The building was completed in March 1902.
The Gympie Court House was designed to suit the site and was intended to be viewed from all four elevations. The dominant clock tower became a landmark in the town. Murdoch designed the building in keeping with the new style of architecture, using a more refined style of embellishment. As it neared completion in 1901, it was described in the Gympie Times as ...not possess[ing] any architectural beauty....
The clock tower became a dominant landmark and a popular place from which to view and take photographs of the town.
Due to deductions which were made as a result of Boyle using inferior mortar, fencing was able to be erected. However this was not the originally designed brick and iron fence, but a simpler timber version with steps and a path leading from the corner of King and Channon Street.
In 1907 the roof was reconstructed to the designs of District Architect, Thomas Pye. This was due to the continual problem of a leaking roof, which was thought to be the result of the design.
However, this did not rectify the problem, which continued until the 1940s when the entire roof was replaced with a simple gabled structure.
Future alterations included the installation of a septic system, the addition of public toilets, minor room alterations, and the replacement of the original fence with a low height concrete one.
Work carried out in the 1960s and 70s included division of the court room space and the installation of air conditioning. Later work included an access ramp for the disabled and replacement of the original cedar doors at the front of the building.
","criteria":"The Gympie Court House was constructed between 1900 and 1902. It was the second substantial court house to be constructed in Gympie, and as such demonstrates the development of the town and consequently, the evolution of Queensland's history.
|The Gympie Court House demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type, and the design and plan illustrates the way in which an early twentieth century court house operated.
|The place is a significant landmark in the town of Gympie. Situated on one of the hills of Gympie, the clock tower in particular, forms a dominant and well-known landmark. A precinct of Government buildings is formed by the Court House and nearby Post Office and Lands Office.
The Gympie Court House is of considerable aesthetic significance due to its landmark qualities and for its high quality of design and workmanship. This includes the refined design of the exterior and the purpose built interior fittings and furnishings.
|The place has strong associations with the local community.
|The place has strong associations with architect J Murdoch as an example of the development of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15309,"place_ref":600534,"name":"Gympie Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"My Country; Old Post Office; Post Office Gympie","street_address":"Channon Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Gympie Post Office is located at the intersection of Channon and Duke Streets and is a substantial two-storeyed masonry building. It is a dominant landmark in the streetscape and together with the Lands Office, Police Station and Court House, forms a precinct of Government buildings.
The front elevation facing Duke Street is symmetrically composed and comprises a central section with arched colonnades on the ground and upper levels, flanked by infilled sections on either end. The central section comprises three openings which extend the two levels of the building. These are arched above the first floor and intersected at mid point by the first floor verandah. Between each arch are engaged pilasters with substantially moulded capitals. Other decorative features include keystones at the centre of each arch, small brackets below the first floor verandah and cast iron balustrading. The end sections are also symmetrical in design, with a single window at ground level and a group of three windows at first floor level. Each end section is capped with a triangular pediment and string courses run at floor level between the ground and first floors.
The elevation facing Duke Street is a continuation of the design of the end sections, with a slightly projecting central bay capped with a triangular pediment. A secondary entrance is located at the northern end of this elevation.
Internally, much of the partitioning from the building's use as a Post Office has been removed, resulting in an open space on the ground level. Three octagonal timber posts supporting the first floor divide the space, and staircases with decorative timber balustrades are located in each corner at the rear of the building. The stair at the eastern end of the building is a reproduction based on the existing stair at the opposite end. Most joinery remains intact, apart from the skirtings which have been replaced.
The first floor comprises a corridor which runs between the staircases at the rear of the building and offices divided by new partitioning at the front. All offices open onto the verandah and a new bathroom is located at the western end of the building.
","history":"The Gympie Post Office was erected between 1878 and 1880 and is a substantial two-storeyed masonry structure. It was the third Post Office built in Gympie and was designed by F D G Stanley in his capacity as Colonial Architect. It is one of eleven similarly designed Post Offices erected throughout Queensland during the period 1878 - 1898.
Francis Drummond Greville Stanley emigrated to Queensland in 1861 and worked as an architect for the Lands Department before entering private practice. In 1863, he became clerk of works in the Office of the Colonial Architect and was appointed as Superintendent of Roads and Buildings in 1871. When the Roads and Buildings branches divided in 1873, Stanley was appointed Colonial Architect, a position he held until 1881, making him Queensland's longest serving Colonial Architect. He was a prolific worker and designed many buildings throughout the state, including public buildings and those commissioned privately.
Queensland's first post master was appointed in 1842, and the first mail service was established in 1845. By 1859, there were fifteen post offices through Queensland, although some of these were in privately owned buildings. In the 1860s, telegraph stations were established linking most towns to Brisbane and this resulted in many more Telegraph Offices than Post Offices being established. The two bodies amalgamated in 1879 and continued to be operated by the Queensland Government until Federation in 1901 when they came under the control of the Federal Government.
The town of Gympie was established after the discovery of gold in the area by James Nash in 1867. At this stage, the new colony of Queensland was in dire financial trouble, and a reward was offered to anyone who discovered gold. Nash received the reward of £3 000, and the rush to the Gympie gold field began. By 1869, the town now known as Gympie had a population of many thousands. It was established so rapidly that by the time the official surveyors arrived in 1868, a substantial amount of the town had already been laid out. This resulted in the town being laid out in an irregular pattern, following the topography of the land and the mining sites, rather than the orthogonal grid pattern familiar to most Queensland towns.
In 1867, Post Master General, Thomas L Murray-Prior reported to Parliament that...........complaints were being received concerning the lack of [postal] facilities at Gympie. It was decided to establish a postal service and in 1867, E H Booth took up service as Gympie's first post master. An auctioneer and estate agent, Booth was not officially appointed, but was classed as an allowance officer, indicating that the demand was not great enough to necessitate the appointment of a full time post master. Booth ran the post office from a shop in Mary Street, and the service rapidly expanded in the first two years.
In 1868, an official postmaster was appointed, making the evolution of the postal service from part time to an official service the most rapid in the history of the colony. The new service opened in Gympie's second post office building. However the gold rush continued to bring an influx of people to Gympie and the postal service developed accordingly, rendering the second post office building inadequate in a very short time.
A portion of land was set aside for a new Post Office on the corner of Duke and Channon Streets on what was then known as Commissioner's Hill. Due to its remoteness from the centre of the town, this location received strong protest from the residents of Gympie and a petition of five hundred signatures was sent to the Minister of Works. However, this was ignored by the Government and the erection of the new Post Office proceeded on the reserved site. Tenders for the new building were called on May 9 1878 and two were received. Both were beyond the expected cost and negotiations were made with the lowest tenderer, Andrew Collins. This included the reduction of the length of the building from 96 feet to 76 feet. The contract was signed on August 23 1878, however, the building was not completed in the specified time due to bad weather and a lack of skilled labour.
The building was finally completed in 1880 and included space for the Post Office, the Land Commissioner, the Telegraph Office and accommodation for the Post Master and his family. The building was arranged with space downstairs for the Post and Telegraph Offices, each with separate entrances from the verandah. The Land Commissioner was located at the Channon Street end of the building on the ground and first floors, with access from Channon Street. The remaining space was used by the Post Master as his residence and included most of the first floor and a ground level sitting room at the rear of the main building. An additional kitchen and bedroom were located in a separate wing at the rear of the main building.
In 1898, after the Land Commissioner was relocated, tenders were called for alterations and additions to the Post Office. These included the removal of the stair at the Channon Street end of the building, an additional room at the rear of the building and the alteration of the first level Land Commissioner's office to an additional bedroom and sitting room. These alterations necessitated the re-arrangement of window and door openings. The building underwent further alterations, including those in 1901, when the telephone exchange opened, and those in 1954 when the Post Master's residence was transformed into a new telephone trunk exchange.
In 1964, the new Automatic Telephone Exchange building was opened, adjoining and linked to the original Post Office building. This ensured that Gympie was equipped with one of the most modern services in Australia.
Both the Post Office and Telephone exchange continued to expand, until the building was no longer considered adequate. On November 14 1975, the new Post Office in Mary Street was opened, and the old one closed and purchased by Telecom. The building was subsequently handed over to the Gympie City Council in 1994.
","criteria":"Completed in 1880, the Gympie Post Office is the third Post Office in Gympie, demonstrating the growth of the town, as well as the growth of Government infrastructure throughout Queensland. As such, the Gympie Post Office is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history.
|The Post Office demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type. It is a substantial two-storeyed masonry building with Classical detailing and is typical of Government designed buildings of the period.
|It is of aesthetic significance both for its landmark qualities and its contribution to the streetscape. Together with the Lands Office, the Police Station and the Court House, it forms a precinct of Government buildings. It is also of aesthetic significance for its design qualities and detailing including cast iron balustrading and internal joinery elements.
|The Gympie Post Office has association with Queensland architect, F D G Stanley, as one of the last examples of his work in the position of Colonial Architect.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15310,"place_ref":600535,"name":"Gympie and Widgee War Memorial Gates","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial Gates are situated in Mary Street, Gympie. They are located at the entrance to a block of land which stretches from Mary Street to Reef Street. The gates are flanked by a hotel on one side and a shop on the other, forming a walkway to the Memorial Park behind. The area between the two buildings is paved with planting down each side. Brick toilet blocks are located at the Reef Street end.
The Gates comprise two large and two small sandstone pillars with wrought iron swing gates and a wrought iron ornamental arch supporting a central lantern. An identical set of the smaller pillars are located in the walkway behind, also with an ornamental arch and lantern.
The inner pair of pillars on the main gate are larger than the outer pair, however all four pillars have the same basic structure with differences in detailing.
All pillars sit on a substantial plinth capped by a torus moulding. From this rises a shaft of banded sandstone which culminates in a stepped element. The entire front face of the pillar projects slightly forward.
The outer pillars are each surmounted by stylised eternal flame finials of sandstone. The front faces bear sandstone plaques with the words The Great War and appropriate dates on the western side and The Boer War and appropriate dates on the eastern side. The lower sides of each plaque is embellished with relief carved festoons of tropical fruit.
The inner pillars are the same standard design as the outer pillars, but at a larger scale. They are surmounted by large urns, draped with swags. The front faces display marble plaques with leaded names of the local Fallen Heroes from the Boer and First World Wars. Above each plate are relief carved laurel wreaths with drapery behind. At the foot of the western pillar is a marble plaque with an inscription to the memory of the fallen.
Green painted wrought iron swing gates allow vehicular traffic between the inner pillars and pedestrian traffic between these and the outer pillars. The gates have central arches at the top and simple decorative elements. Connecting the two inner pillars is an ornamental archway comprising scrollwork and scalloping and two flat plates. On one plate is the word Gympie, while on the other is the word Widgee. A decorative lantern is located at the centrepoint of the arch.
Located behind the main gates is a second set of pillars, similar in design to the main outer pillars. The front faces bear marble plaques with the leaded names of the locals men who served in the Vietnam and Second World Wars. They are joined by the same decorative arch as the front pillars and have the words Lest We Forget on the flat plates. A lantern also hangs from the centrepoint.
","history":"The Gympie War Memorial were unveiled in 1920 by the Prince of Wales. The gates were designed by George Rae, of Brisbane. Monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son of Toowong undertook the stonework whilst an unknown local blacksmith produced the ironwork. The memorial honours the 167 local men who fell in the First World War and the two who fell in the Boer War.
The township of Gympie was established after the discovery of gold by James Nash in 1867. This was the beginning of the first large goldrush in Queensland, and the town developed to support and supply the prospectors who came to the area.
In 1919 the Queensland Institute of Architects held a design competition for a memorial on behalf of the Gympie and Widgee District Soldiers' Memorial Fund. George Rae, then a young draftsman in the Brisbane office of Lange Powell won the competition. He also won the competition for the design of the memorial at Toowong, Brisbane.
George Rae was born in Glasgow, Scotland and arrived in Brisbane in 1914. Between 1919 and 1922, he was articled to architect L L Powell. He left to travel to Sydney and worked as a draftsman in various offices until 1924. Whilst in Sydney, he studied at Sydney Technical College and also with Professor Leslie Wilkinson. Returning to Brisbane in 1924, he again worked with L L Powell, firstly as chief draftsman and then as an associate. He became a registered architect in Queensland in 1929.
The masons, A L Petrie and Son were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland at this time and were responsible for many First World War memorials throughout the state.
The Henderson family donated their Union saw mill site for the Memorial Park and additional land was acquired at a later date.
The cost for the gates was £800 and although the memorial was for the whole of the Widgee Shire, the funds were raised primarily by public subscription and the Gympie City Council.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|This particular memorial is rare as it also commemorates those who fell in the Boer War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1920, the Memorial at Gympie demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|As part of the Memorial Park, the Memorial Gates contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape. They are also of aesthetic significance for their high degree of workmanship and design.
|The Memorial Gates have a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|They also have special association with Brisbane architect George Rae as an early example of his work, and with Brisbane masonry firm, A L Petrie and Son.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15311,"place_ref":600536,"name":"No. 1 Scottish Gympie Mine and Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Old Brisbane Road","suburb":"MONKLAND","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place consists of:
The standing assay office which has been conserved;
Concrete foundations of the compressor room, engine room and secondary crushing equipment;
A 4-head prospecting stamp battery;
Engine foundations;
Battery foundations;
Very large in-ground water tank;
Capped shaft, headframe foundations and foundations of the winding house.
","history":"The lease occupied by the site was taken up in 1889 as the "No.1 Eastern" mine, forfeited and taken up as the No.3 Great Eastern mine in 1891, but went into liquidation soon thereafter. Gympie Goldmines (Eastern Monkland) Company was formed, and was sold to Scottish investors in 1895, becoming the Scottish Gympie Gold Mines Limited with its head office in Glasgow.
By the following year the shaft was down 1,433ft, the deepest on the field. At this time companies started considering cyaniding their tailings dumps and the company increased the number of stampers in its battery by 50 in 1898. In 1904 the battery was reported to have 125 head of stamps and 394 men employed, and to be raising 7,000 tons of ore for crushing each year, with an estimated ore reserve for another ten years.
The company closed the mine in 1923 and in the following year a syndicate of 19 men was formed to purchase the lease over the shaft and winding gear, and mining recommenced intermittently. However the lease was relinquished in 1924 and an auction sale of machinery held. In 1927 W. Runge and O. Alexander took over the mine and battery site and established a cyaniding plant. The leases were held by the Runge family until taken over by the Gympie Council.
The mine was the most productive in the Gympie Goldfield producing 608,279 oz of gold from 1,589,162 tons of ore between 1867 and 1923.
","criteria":"The No.1 Scottish Gympie mine and battery is significant in the evolution and pattern of Queensland history because it was the most successful mine in the Gympie Goldfield, which had a major impact on Queensland's development and was a major example of the impact of overseas investment on the development of the State.
|The place is a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage and contains the only readable evidence of historical mining activity in Gympie.
|The place demonstrates, through surviving foundations and the intact assay office, the characteristics of a large-scale gold mining works and as such has the potential to provide information to increase our understanding of battery technology and management.
|Significant as the most intact surviving example of mining remains in the Gympie field and probably the largest gold battery remains in Southeast Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15312,"place_ref":600537,"name":"Andrew Fishers Cottage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"215 Brisbane Road","suburb":"MONKLAND","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Andrew Fisher's Cottage is located within the Gympie and District Historical Society Mining Museum. It sits adjacent to other buildings also relocated to the site, including school buildings and those associated with mining and farming.
The cottage is a typical four room single skin timber dwelling with exposed studs externally. It has a verandah with new balustrading to the south-west and south-east elevations and the roof has been re-clad with new corrugated iron. The cottage has been re-painted internally and externally, the internal finish appearing to imitate the wood grain.
Entrance to the cottage is from the rear, either into the house itself or via a ramp onto the verandah. Internally, all walls on either side of the central hallway have been replaced with aluminium framed glass sliding doors which allow observation of the four rooms. Each of these rooms contain large collections of early furnishings.
","history":"Andrew Fisher's Cottage was erected c1870 and is a simple timber structure, representative of many other miner's house in the district. Originally located in Maori Lane at Red Hill, Gympie, it was relocated to is current site in 1972.
The house was owned by the family of Andrew Fisher's wife, Margaret Irvine, and Andrew and Margaret Fisher are thought to have resided in the house for a short period after their marriage in 1901. Fisher met Margaret whilst residing at her family home in Crown Street, Gympie.
Andrew Fisher was the first Queenslander to become Prime Minister of Australia. Having worked in mines in his birthplace of Ayrshire, Scotland since the age of ten, he arrived in Queensland in 1885. He was previously involved in miner's unions in Scotland where he was blacklisted for his association with the 1881 miners strikes. He continued his association with unions and the Labour movement in Queensland, becoming secretary and then president of the Gympie Branch of the Amalgamated Miner's Association. His foray into politics on a federal level began with his election to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1893, followed by his appointment as Prime Minister after Deakin's resignation in 1908. He was re-elected in 1910 and it was during this term that he passed many influential bills and established the Commonwealth Bank.
By the time Fisher arrived in Gympie in the late 1880s, it was a well established town. Gold had been discovered in the area by James Nash in 1867, providing the impetus for a rush of prospectors to the area. By 1869, Gympie had a population of many thousands and had been established so rapidly that by the time the official surveyors arrived in 1868, a substantial amount of the town had already been laid out.
","criteria":"Andrew Fisher was a Gympie miner whose involvement in the mining unions led to a political career culminating in him becoming the first Queenslander to serve as Prime Minister of Australia. Andrew Fisher's Cottage was owned by Fisher's wife's family, the Irvines. The Fishers reputedly stayed in the house for a short period after their marriage.
The cottage was moved to the site of the Gympie and District Historical Society Mining Museum in 1972 and has special association with that group. The Historical Society have carried out extensive renovations on the cottage and value it as a significant part of their historical village.
|Andrew Fisher was a Gympie miner whose involvement in the mining unions led to a political career culminating in him becoming the first Queenslander to serve as Prime Minister of Australia. Andrew Fisher's Cottage was owned by Fisher's wife's family, the Irvines. The Fishers reputedly stayed in the house for a short period after their marriage.
The cottage was moved to the site of the Gympie and District Historical Society Mining Museum in 1972 and has special association with that group. The Historical Society have carried out extensive renovations on the cottage and value it as a significant part of their historical village.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15313,"place_ref":600538,"name":"Holy Trinity Anglican Church","alternate_name":"Holy Trinity Church of England","street_address":"38 Broadway Street","suburb":"HERBERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Holy Trinity Church is located next to Woodleigh Residential College, a Uniting Church complex, and diagonally across the road from the Roman Catholic church at Herberton.
The church is a single-storeyed timber building with exposed framing and is set on concrete stumps. The gabled roof is clad with corrugated iron and a small projection at the front shelters a bell hung below the eaves. The building has a large central hall/nave, with a lower T-shaped plan entry at the front, and the front gable walls have chamferboard cladding. A detached vestry, entered through an arched door, is located at the rear corner of the church. In recent years, a toilet has been inserted in the space between this and the sanctuary.
The church has lancet windows, with a triple lancet assembly in the front wall, ridge ventilators, and decorative timber work to the gable ends.
Internally, the church has king-post trusses with diagonal struts and the roof is lined with timber boarding on the rake. Walls are lined with horizontal boarding, and a shallow pointed arch frames and separates the raised sanctuary from the nave. The church retains its pews and the font, altar and a chair and table in the sanctuary feature richly carved panels.
","history":"Holy Trinity church was built in 1889 to serve the Anglican community in the rapidly developing mining town of Herberton and in the surrounding district.
Herberton developed following the 1880 discovery of a substantial tin reef in its vicinity. A rush followed almost immediately and by August 1880, when the town of Herberton (named because of its proximity to the Wild River, the head of the Herbert River) was laid out, it already had a hotel, a butcher's shop, and three stores. The tin fields around Herberton and the other towns which sprang up in the district in the early 1880s proved to be the richest discovered on the Australian mainland.
The first Church of England incumbent in Herberton was the Reverend G. White, who arrived in 1887. Services were held in the small towns of Herberton, Watsonville and Irvinebank and occasionally in other places in the district. A 'ruinous' iron building already on church land was repaired for use as a Sunday School and in 1888 plans for a church were drawn up by the Townsville architectural firm of Eyre and Munro.
Walter Eyre was an architect, engineer and surveyor. He trained in England and worked in the office of his cousin, FDG Stanley, from 1881 until he was appointed City Engineer of Townsville in 1885. In 1887 he left to set up in practice as an architect and soon gained enough work to take on WHA Munro as a junior partner. The firm supervised the work of southern architects as well as designing buildings and were responsible for a number of major works in north Queensland before the firm ceased operations in 1892. The contractor for the work was H Petersen and the completed church was dedicated on Trinity Sunday, 30 June 1889. It was a simple rectangular building with a small entry porch on the western end.
In 1898 the Herberton parish included the towns of Herberton, Atherton, Watsonville, Montalbion, Irvinebank and Thornborough. Coolgarra and Mt Garnet were added in 1900, although Holy Trinity remained the only church in the parish. The area was isolated, roads poor and transport was by horse. This placed a difficult burden on the rector and the church had many changes of incumbent in its first years. The problem of providing pastoral care to a large and sparsely settled area led to the foundation of the Brotherhood of St Barnabas (also known as the Bush Brothers). The Brotherhood was established on 11 June 1902 by Aneurin Vaughan Williams, Rector of Herberton. Originally consisting only of Vaughan Williams and one other priest, it was modelled on the Brotherhood of St Andrew founded in central Queensland a few years earlier. The Brothers travelled where they were needed and remained unmarried during the two years of their term of service. They gained considerable respect for their work and in 1908, G.H. Frodsham, Bishop of North Queensland, gave the movement impetus by recruiting in England with the appeal 'O for a band of men that will preach like apostles, ride like cowboys, and having food and raiment, will therewith be content', appealing to the sense of adventure in many who became Brothers. Herberton was the Brotherhoods's headquarters and they built a small community house there which has since been removed.
In 1907 a vestry was built and in 1919 a new porch was added to the church and electric light installed. In 1914 the work of the Brothers was extended by the establishment of a school for boys at the instigation of Bishop J.O. Feetham, himself once a Bush Brother and an immensely popular bishop who was locally canonised after his death. This school closed in 1916 and became a refectory for the now vanished St Mary's School, founded in 1918 by Miss AG Philpott. In the 1920s a number of improvements were made to the church and it gained several fine pieces with carving by Miss Philpott, including the font, altar and a sanctuary chair and table. Miss Philpott later professed as a Sister of the Sacred Advent and was known as Sister Rosa. She died in 1928 and a Children's Corner chapel was created in 1929, in a section of the porch opposite the main entrance of Holy Trinity, as a memorial to her.
The Brotherhood relinquished care of the Herberton church around 1935 and were replaced by a married rector. The parish is now centred on Atherton and the Rector lives there serving several small centres in the district, including Herberton. Renovations to Holy Trinity were carried out in 1989 to mark its centenary.
","criteria":"Holy Trinity church illustrates the development of Herberton and of the Anglican Church in Queensland. It was the foundation church for the Brotherhood of St Barnabas, which was formed to address the problem of reaching small and isolated communities which could not support a resident priest.
|Holy Trinity church is a good example of a rural timber church and in its form, scale and detail makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Herberton.
|Holy Trinity church is a good example of a rural timber church and in its form, scale and detail makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Herberton.
|Holy Trinity church has a strong connection with the Anglican community of Herberton and the surrounding area. It also has a special association with the work of the Brotherhood of St Barnabas in providing pastoral care to the developing Tablelands.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15314,"place_ref":600539,"name":"Jack & Newell General Store & Petrol Bowser (former)","alternate_name":"Jack and Newell General Store (former)","street_address":"Grace Street","suburb":"HERBERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-04-22","description":"This single-storeyed set of two shops is located on the corner of Grace and William Streets at the top of a rise on a northwesterly sloping site in Herberton. The building has corrugated iron, twin gable roofs with an awning to both street frontages supported by timber posts.
This single-skin timber building is clad in deep, pit-sawn chamferboard and features timber pilasters to the Grace Street shop fronts. Both shops have central entrances and a recent shop has been built on the lower side of the building to the northwest boundary. This shop has a timber gable parapet and a street awning to mimic the original shops.
An early petrol bowser is located on the William Street frontage. A single-storey fibrous cement shed is located to the rear of the building along with a grassed carparking area.
Internally, the corner shop has early shelving, exposed timber trusses and long timber counters with swivel stools fixed to the floor. The second shop is a bakery, and has been lined with hardboard. The building has been refurbished recently and original signage has been painted over.
","history":"The southeastern building of this pair of single-storeyed timber buildings was erected c1882 for William Jack, storekeeper, of Herberton. It was the first in a chain of general stores erected by William Jack and John Newell in North Queensland during the last two decades of the 19th century. The northwestern building was erected by 1895.
Herberton owes its existence to the April 1880 discovery of a substantial tin reef in the vicinity, by experienced miners and prospectors William Jack, John Newell, Thomas Brandon and John Brown. In partnership, Jack, Newell, Brandon and William Joss (who had bought out Brown) secured about 60 acres of freehold near the present town, and named their claim the Great Northern. A rush followed almost immediately, and by August 1880, when Warden Mowbray laid out the town of Herberton (so named by Jack and his partners because of its proximity to the Wild River, the head of the Herbert River), it already contained an hotel, a butcher's shop, and three stores, one of which was William Jack's. The tin fields around Herberton and the other towns which sprang up in the district in the early 1880s, proved to be the richest discovered on the Australian mainland.
At an early date, Jack sold his share in the Great Northern to merchant and mining entrepreneur John Moffatt, and set up Herberton's first store, in a small bark hut. Jack probably did not erect the more substantial premises of pit-sawn cedar chamfers until after he purchased the store site in October 1881.
John Newell joined William Jack as managing partner in Jack & Newell, General Merchants and Forwarding and Shipping Agents, in 1882, and in 1885 married Jack's daughter, Janet. As new mineral fields were discovered, Jack & Newell subsequently established a chain of 26 stores on the Atherton Tableland, and were frequently the financial mainstay of these early settlements. The company had its own form of paper currency, recognised by all banks and firms throughout North Queensland, and by the late 1890s was the largest merchant house north of Townsville. William Jack died in 1910, but the business name of Jack & Newell was retained.
John Newell maintained a life-long association with mining interests in North Queensland, and was an active participant in civic affairs. He became a justice of the peace in 1884, was a member of the Herberton and Tinaroo Shire Councils, and served as mayor of Herberton in 1888-89. From 1896 until 1902 he was the state MLA for Woothakata; from its inception in 1906 until 1921, he was a member of the Cairns Harbour Board; and was vice-president of the short-lived Cairns Stock Exchange of 1906-12. Newell died in 1932, but several stores in the Jack & Newell chain survived into the 1970s. The store at Herberton remained the firm's headquarters until about 1960, and finally closed in late 1977.
","criteria":"The former Jack & Newell General Store at Herberton is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of development of North Queensland history, being associated with the establishment and growth of Herberton and the surrounding tin fields in the late 19th century. It is significant historically also as the first store established in the chain of general stores founded by Jack & Newell throughout the Atherton Tableland and associated districts in the late 19th century.
|It is a rare, early 1880s rural general store in north Queensland retaining original pit-sawn cedar chamfers; and the interior offers rare illustration of a highly intact 19th century drapery store with early shelving, counter and seating.
|It is a rare, early 1880s rural general store in north Queensland retaining original pit-sawn cedar chamfers; and the interior offers rare illustration of a highly intact 19th century drapery store with early shelving, counter and seating.
|The place exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Herberton community, including the contribution of the building's scale, form and materials, together with the adjacent petrol bowser, to the streetscape of Grace Street and to the Herberton townscape; and the interior with exposed roof framing, timber joinery and shop fittings.
|It has a special association for the local community as one of the earliest buildings in Herberton.
|The place has a strong association with William Jack and John Newell and their substantial contribution to the foundation of Herberton and the Herberton tin mining industry, and to the development of commerce on the Atherton Tableland in the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15315,"place_ref":600540,"name":"Herberton School of Arts","alternate_name":"School of Arts Herberton","street_address":"61 Grace Street","suburb":"HERBERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The School of Arts is located in the central business area of Herberton on a site that falls away from the street towards the rear property boundary (101/SP124675). It comprises a reserve, 747 sqm in size and a small road leading off Grace Street, which is about 253 sqm. The building sits at the street end of the site, diagonally opposite the two-storey timber Royal Hotel. To the north, at the intersection with William Street stands the former Jack & Newell General Store & Petrol Bowser [QHR 600539].
The School of Arts is a single-storeyed timber-framed building with weatherboard cladding and set on timber and some steel posts. The under croft, which increases in height as the land falls away, is enclosed with timber battening. Two concrete block rooms (toilets) have been inserted under the building at its rear. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and comprises a main gable running perpendicular to the street, broken-backed skillions over two rooms on each of the rear gable ends and low-pitched, hipped additions facing the street on either side of a central gabled porch. This is filled with a triangular panel of painted timber fretwork and beyond which is the entry door to the library. On either side of the door are a number of windows. A modern timber pergola has been inserted in front of the northern section of this building face along with some paving and garden beds (all by 1995, pergola sheeted by 2001).
The interior comprises a large hall, now used as a library, with a stage area at the rear flanked by small dressing rooms, and two L-shaped rooms on either side of the street entrance. The hall has a suspended coved ceiling of acoustic board exposing the bottom chords of the timber trusses. The walls of the stage area are unlined, while those toward the street are lined with wide vertical boarding. The windows of the hall on both its side walls have timber board shutters hinged from the top. The small rooms on either side of the stage are entirely unlined and each has a small boarded-up window and ledged-and-braced door.
The rooms at the front of the building house an exhibition space and a small geological museum. The ceilings are lined with stained timber boarding, while some walls are single-skin with horizontal boarding and some are weatherboards.
","history":"The School of Arts at Herberton was constructed in 1881 as a community endeavour during the earliest European settlement of the district and is still a community resource.
Herberton was founded following the discovery, in 1880, of a substantial reef of tin in the vicinity. A rush followed almost immediately, and by August, when Warden Mowbray laid out the town of Herberton (so named because of its proximity to the Wild River, the head of the Herbert River), it already contained a hotel, a butcher's shop, and three stores. The tin fields around Herberton and the other towns which sprang up in the district in the early 1880s, proved to be the richest discovered on the Australian mainland.
On 31 December 1880 an open-air public meeting was held for the purpose of founding a School of Arts in Herberton. Strong public support was demonstrated by donations of £50 for the purpose. A site was purchased for £18 in early January the next year. By the end of the month a bark structure had been erected. It was the first community building in the district and the establishment of a School of Arts so early in the settlement of the area was unusual.
The first Mechanic's Institutes or Schools of Arts were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self-improvement and to promote moral, social and intellectual growth by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no public libraries and books were expensive, so access to them by borrowing as subscribers provided an important educational and recreational service. The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 aiming for 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to establish Schools of Arts and they became one of the principal means of adult education.
By 22 October 1881 The Queenslander reported that a public hall had been built in Herberton. It opened with a ball on the 9 November 1881. On 16 November that year it was the venue for the first local government meeting on the Tablelands and within a month was also in use as a school. Indeed, the demand for the venue for meetings, lectures and theatre was so high that by December, bookings for the first months of the new year had been made to the sum of £250.
By 1882 Herberton was connected to Port Douglas by a coach service. It boomed in the 1880s and 1890s, its population reaching its highest level of 1,500 in 1895 before it began to decline as the nearby town of Irvinebank developed in the late 1890s. In 1895 the rear of the School of Arts was extended to provide a stage and two small dressing rooms.
It was intended that the development of towns on the Tablelands should be encouraged by connecting them to the coast by rail, however, the terrain was difficult and the line came very slowly over the range from Cairns between 1886 and 1910. A photograph taken in this year, to celebrate the arrival of the railway, shows two small rooms at the front of the hall, possibly created by enclosing verandahs.
In 1934 one of these rooms was extended for use as offices for the Shire Council while its offices were constructed elsewhere. By the 1960s the building was in poor condition though still being used for meetings and social functions. A series of grants and community projects provided funds for renovation and repair until the Shire Council took over responsibility for the building in 1986. Since 1992 it has housed the Herberton Public Library in its core and there have been a geological collection and a photographic display in its front rooms, thus continuing the educational aspects of its service to the community. In 1992 a suspended coved ceiling was installed in the hall, under the main gable.
The building was enclosed underneath with timber battening in 1995. Alterations have been made to the front facade with the addition of various gardens, paving and the erection of a pergola on the northern side (both complete by 1995). The pergola had been sheeted with corrugated metal by 2001.
","criteria":"The School of Arts is important in illustrating the development of Herberton and as an element in the network of these institutions which sprang up in any town of consequence in Queensland during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were community based and played a valuable educational and social role in the dissemination of information and the provision of facilities for lectures, meetings, games of skill and the staging of community events such as plays and concerts.
|The School of Arts is on a site central to the business area and makes an important visual contribution to the built character of Herberton.
|The School of Arts is important for its connection with the community of Herberton as an integral part of the social and community life of the town since its inception.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15316,"place_ref":600541,"name":"Herberton War Memorial","alternate_name":"War Memorial Herberton","street_address":"Myers Street","suburb":"HERBERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a dominant position on a hill overlooking the town. The memorial is surrounded by kerbing and a wire mesh panel (once a fence) with flagstaffs at each end stands behind it. A path leads to the memorial and various gardens, plantings and steps contribute to the setting. A gun or 'war trophy' is located in front of the monument.
The painted sandstone memorial comprises a substantial pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
The monument itself sits on a stone base step above two white painted concrete steps. A square recessed marble pillar projects from the base and bears the leaded names of the 199 local men who served in the First World War, including the 21 fallen and the 7 who died on service. One of those who died on service, one is designated as aboriginal. At each corner are engaged square pillars with Corinthian capitals. These support a simple cornice surmounted by four urns.
The digger statue stands on a pedestal which has a relief carved, green painted laurel wreath on the front face and relief carved crossed flags at the rear. The soldier statue stands erect, with his rifle at his side. The left foot is placed slightly in front of the right. His uniform is painted khaki green, as is his hat.
The entire monument is heavily painted in various colours.
","history":"The Herberton War Memorial was unveiled in the early 1920s by the Shire Chairman. Funds were raised by local residents and the monument was commissioned from A L Petrie. The stone memorial honours the 199 local men who enlisted during the First World War, including the 21 who were killed and the 7 who died on service.
The town of Herberton was settled following the discovery of tin in 1880. It was surveyed in August of the same year and rapidly expanded during the following decade. In October 1910 the railway was extended to Herberton from Cairns, assisting in making the town a focal point for the surrounding district of mineral processing and pastoral industries.
The memorial forms a dominant landmark, situated on a hillside overlooking the town. A captured gun (war trophy) completes the setting.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
At this time, A L Petrie and Son of Toowong were the most prolific. They were the largest masonry firm in Queensland at this time and were responsible for many First World War memorials throughout the state. Some statues differed in detailing, although most were supplied on a range of standard pedestals.
This monument is an intact example of the workmanship of A L Petrie. It incorporates a standard type of pedestal first used in 1918 at Upper Coomera and subsequently in many other Queensland locations. The monument was painted in 1974.
Of particular interest is the inclusion of the name of an aboriginal (designated as such) listed among those who died in service.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
It is unique in that lists an aboriginal amongst those who died in service.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in the early 1920s, the memorial at Herberton demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland
|It is an uncommon example of a memorial still located in its original surrounds and has aesthetic value both as a dominant landmark and for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event.
|It also has a special association with Brisbane monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15317,"place_ref":600542,"name":"Great Northern Mine (Herberton)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Off Jacks Road","suburb":"HERBERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place contains a comprehensive range of functions that exemplify historical tin mining in the Herberton district including - alluvial workings, shaft sinking, winding and pumping, maintenance and accommodation. There are four main component areas - alluvial workings, Eastern Shaft, Gully Shaft and a house.
Alluvial workings extend for the length of a permanent watercourse which runs through on the boundary of the property. These workings include stone and concrete retaining walls and evidence of work areas and camp sites. This area is claimed to be "the gully in which alluvial tin was first discovered".
The property contains 16 mine shafts of varying depths, an adit and an open cut shaft. The most important of these workings are the Eastern Shaft and the Gully shaft with their associated surface structures and plant. The Eastern Shaft group is extremely intact and includes a timber collared shaft and timber headframe, with an intact round timber and weatherboard winding shed containing an air receiver, compressor, single cylinder and portable steam engines, winding engine, boiler and pump. An extensive mullock dump is associated with the shaft.
The Gully Shaft, which is centrally situated on the property, contains a main shaft with a caved collar and recently collapsed timber headframe. Associated buildings includes a workshop and smithy(now collapsed), a crib room, and a round timber and weatherboard winding shed containing two vertical boilers converted to air receivers, a compressor, a winding engine and two boilers. This machinery is claimed to be from the Durham mine on the Etheridge Goldfield.
The fourth component of the place is an early two room house of weatherboard timber and iron construction set on round timber stumps. Furnishings, furniture and bric-a-brac of the former owner, remain. The house is termite infested and in poor condition.
Plant:
Colonial boiler - Smith & Faulkner Brisbane.
Tandem air compressor - A.Harkness & Co. Victoria Foundry Bendigo 1891.
Tandem air compressor - J.Horwood & Sons Bendigo Ironworks Sandhurst Estab 1856.
Portable steam engine - Marshall & Sons & Co. No 4904 Gainsborough England. David Munro & Co.Melbourne Distributors.
Vertical Special steam pump - Tangye Makers Birmingham.
Colonial boiler in brick mount - Walkers Limited.
Colonial boiler - no brand.
Two-cylinder winding engine - Walkers Ltd Engineers Maryborough.
Two-cylinder winding engine - no brand. (Walkers Limited).
2 Vertical boilers (Air receivers).
Duplex steam pump (not insitu).
Tandem air compressor - Ingersoll Rand.
","history":"The Great Northern tin lode was discovered in 1879 and four prospectors, William Jack, William Ronald Joss, John Newell and Thomas Brandon, who had been working in the Tinaroo and Wild River area for some time applied on 12 April 1880 at Thornborough for a sixty acre Mineral Freehold.
The Great Northern lode was on the eastern side of the Wild River and they traced the three feet wide lode for two miles up the ridges. They located two to three hundred weights of rich tin and, local legend has it, they smelted it crudely on site in a tree stump using their felt hats as bellows. Jack and Newell communicated their find to John Moffat in Stanthorpe who agreed to invest in a battery and smelter in the newly named Herberton area. By August 1880 there were 70 miners at work at Herberton.
On 18 September 1880 the Great Northern mine was christened. John Moffat, Anthony Linedale and George Seaman from Stanthorpe and Tent Hill arrived in Herberton in mid October 1880. Moffat's milling experience enabled him to secure leases and determine the location of tin batteries. Local miners hailed his technical knowledge as necessary for the development of the field.
Moffat's men prepared foundations for their Great Northern battery in November 1880. After Samuel Denny's experiments at tin smelting on behalf of other miners failed, Moffat enlisted his support for the Great Northern venture. Moffat's machinery arrived in Herberton in February 1881. The Great Northern ten head stamp battery had a trial crushing in early May 1881. Moffat formed the Herberton Tin Company to manage the Great Northern battery and all his mining interests including the Great Northern mine, on behalf of his Glen Smelting Company in Tent Hill, New South Wales.
In the 1800's the Great Northern yielded a steady income for the Moffat's Glen Smelting Company. Up to 1885 the mine averaged a phenomenal 30%. Moffat's manager, William Bonar, who had previously worked on the Palmer Goldfield, was able to accurately assess the direction of the lode and patterns and distributions to determine where it might next appear as benches and steps in the shaft, a contrasting policy to the reckless devastation of many lodes on Herberton hill. Bonar worked on two lodes the Gully and the Eastern. The two shafts were timbered in 1885 and a "Eclipse" rock drilling plant was acquired in 1887. The assays dropped in 1885 but at 8.6% the Great Northern was still very profitable.
Moffat sought to sell the Great Northern mine and battery several times during the late 1880's and early 1890's. The manager, Bonar, and Herberton storekeeper and mining investor, John Newell, were opposed to southern management taking over. When the finances of the Glen Smelting Company were rationalised into the Irvinebank Mining Company (private) in 1889-90 the Herberton Tin Company was not sold into any public company. Moffat tried again in 1892 to sell the Great Northern mine and mill to Sydney interests but without success. The mine closed down in 1893, except for some work done by tributers.
Herberton and the Great Northern had suffered from three serious problems in its development: reckless opening of many lodes in the early years, the difficulty in gaining exemptions to install machinery, and the expectation that the Great Northern would continue to perform as a bonanza. There were also problems right up to World War 1 that there was theft of rich ore and tampering with assays.
The Great Northern contributed significantly to John Moffat's companies for decades. Over 30 years it produced 4,400 tons of tin valued at £220,000 at an average assay of 14%. The mill ceased for a time in 1895. Moffat succeeded in floating the Great Northern in 1901 but the mill and mine remained idle until 1902. The shaft was sunk to 213 m in the next four years. The following years of operation the assay was only 3.5% and the mill was spectacularly less successful than the first fifteen years. Controversy arose over management of the three shafts, Froghole, Gully and Great Northern. Heavy water also entered the Gully shaft. Further sinking was postponed pending the erection of a headframe in 1909. However the mill, technologically more modern than the Loudoun at Irvinebank and christened on 24 August 1904, was a boon for miners. Nevertheless the problem over assays and theft continued.
The brace was erected in 1909 on the New Gully shaft. The mine resumed in the middle of 1916 with dewatering to 91 m. The winding plant was reset on foundations and the machinery overhauled. Seventeen men were employed in 1917 mining in the No.2 and No.3 workings. 30.5 tons of tin ore were obtained for a return of five tons 13 cwt of tin valued at £1,016. The company's mill was expected to be commissioned in 1918. The Gully shaft was cleaned out in 1918 down to a rich body of ore at 12 m. The company was able to clear off its debt. The town battery started crushing in February 1918. That year it was the second highest producer on the field.
In 1928 encouraging results were obtained from the hitherto barren side of a porphry dyke at the 122 m level. In 1930 the company lost the services of S. Day its manager since its re-opening in 1917. £7,658 worth of tin averaging 11.1% was won from 767 tons of ore. Freehold title was regained over the mine. Because of the low price of tin operations were suspended at the end of the year.
In 1937 the north workings were prospected and broken stopes retimbered; 29 tons of wolfram and 81 tons of tin were obtained. In the spa lode behind the boiler shed a winze and shaft were sunk for 10 tons of good ore in 1938. A new shaft to 15 m on the eastern lode in 1940 and prospecting shafts were put in; 215 tons of old dumps were treated for 2.6 tons of concentrates. £961 tons of tin were obtained in 1942.
In 1945 several tons of dumps were treated averaging under 1% for metal but no underground mining was done. No underground work was done in 1947 but some surface prospecting was carried out. In 1940 J. Newell dewatered "A" shaft. The Great Northern Freehold Mine and the battery changed hands in 1953. The new owner, F. L. Stamp, commenced work on the mine in June and put down six prospecting holes to obtain new lodes. The mine rarely operated thereafter.
","criteria":"The Great Northern mine at Herberton is historically significant as the pioneer lode tin producer in Australia (compared with alluvial production). Discoveries of tin in 1879 led to the establishment of an active and thriving township to be named, Herberton. Within four years there were 160 other lode or reef tin mines being worked in the neighbourhood. Hence, the Great Northern had a key role in stimulating the development of the mining industry and the economy of the Atherton Tableland.
|The mine contains the only timber headframe with sheave wheels surviving in North Queensland. The rarity and intactness of the surviving plant surpasses any other mining place recorded in Queensland. The rare plant includes a Harkness compressor (possibly the only Harkness product surviving in Australia), a Horwood compressor (the only known intact item) and a very early and rare 1878 Marshall portable steam engine in good condition. It is rare that two tandem steam air compressors manufactured by two of Victoria's earliest engine builders (A. Harkness, Victoria Foundry, Bendigo and J. Horwood, Bendigo Ironworks) still reside together on an early North Queensland mine.
The combination of components - alluvial mining, hard rock mining and residence on a freehold property - is rare.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
|The mine is also associated with the mining entrepreneur, John Moffat, as his first venture in North Queensland in 1880.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15318,"place_ref":600543,"name":"Mt Garnet Mine Assay Office (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Zinc Road","suburb":"MOUNT GARNET","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Assay Office is located approximately 500m southwest of the outskirts of Mt Garnet and approximately 500 m south of the Kennedy Highway, to which it is linked by a track. Mt Garnet is located approximately 100 km by road west of Cairns.
The Assay Office is a single-storeyed brick and sheet iron clad building on brick foundations. It comprises two sections; that to the west is constructed of brick and contains a living area and bedrooms. Sash windows and doorways have curved heads featuring a double row of bricks. The building has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and a verandah extends along the northern wall shaded by a curved metal awning supported on timber posts. A deep awning shelters the windows to the western side.
This brick construction is joined on the eastern side by a section that has walls clad in sheet metal and a gabled roof set at right angles to that of the brick building. This area retains a timber floor and has a ventilated fume cabinet used in the testing of ore and metal samples. It now contains and bathroom and kitchen. The building is well lit with sash windows in both sections.
The area around the building has been cultivated as irrigated ornamental gardens. Some metal artefacts from the mine remain in the grounds.
The site may contain remains of slag heaps.
","history":"The former assay office was constructed in 1899 to process ore samples from the Mt Garnet Freehold Copper and Silver Mine.
The copper, silver and zinc lode at Mt Garnet was discovered in 1882 by Albert Vollenweider and Henry Faasch, who, with James McLeod, manager for John Moffat, applied for a selection of 60 acres in October 1882. Moffat bought his first shares from Vollenweider, Faasch and other partners in 1884 and through the 1880s acquired further shares until he had full control. He did not develop the site until the resurgence of copper prices in the 1890s when he opened up the Mt Garnet lodes in late 1896. In May 1898, crushing machinery was delivered to the site from Glen Linedale and Montalbion and a report was prepared to promote the mine to investors. By October 1898 mining leases and town lots at Mt Garnet were being purchased.
On 23 December 1898, the Mt Garnet Freehold Copper and Silver Mining Company was incorporated in Melbourne by Moffat and his associates in that city, though it was not floated until September 1899. A metallurgist and a construction engineer were appointed, assaying equipment was ordered and a brickworks and sawmill were set up in 1898 to supply building materials. The clay for the bricks was obtained from the banks of Return Creek nearby and the bricks made were used for a wide variety of constructions on site, commencing with the furnaces. Work began in 1899 on an assay office to service the mine and it was finished by 1900. Assaying on site was important in order to test ore quality and so provide a guide for the exploitation of the mine and the smelting operations. The assay building was used as a laboratory for determining the level of metal contained within the ore and the level of impurities contained within the metal after smelting. The building constructed for this purpose measured approximately 17. 5 metres by 11 metres and contained seven rooms, including a furnace room and offices, a room for chemical treatments and a room to house the scales.
Throughout 1899 the company employed about 150 men in sinking and driving shafts to test ore reserves. Six shafts aggregating 440 feet were sunk, and nearly 1200 feet of tunnels and drives were completed. By early 1900, an ore lode 96 feet wide but of uncertain depth had been found. Assays were encouraging and it was estimated that reserves totalled over 200,000 tons of ore averaging between three and twenty-five percent copper, with fifteen ounces of silver to the ton.
It was decided to install new large smelters, with 200 tons daily capacity and powerful mining machinery, and to dam Return Creek to provide adequate water for the treatment plant. Also, multi-tubular boilers, a powerful double cylinder hoisting engine, stone crushers, air compressors, a sawmill and water pumping station were established in association with the mining of the Mt Garnet lode. A railway to serve the mine was also planned.
On 15 January 1901, the first smelter became operational and in that year the smelters treated 35,616 tons of ore for copper and silver valued at £163,000. In the following year a total of 43,284 tons of ore were treated for 2,057 tons of copper and 486,651 ounces of silver valued at £164,267. The mine employed about 1800 men and Mt Garnet became the second largest inland town in Queensland.
However, the large sums committed to infrastructure, falling prices and problems with ore quality caused the mine to close as the company admitted it was unable to meet its interest and redemption commitments. The smelter opened again in June 1902, but Willcocks and Overend, the contractors for the railway which opened on 22 February 1902, foreclosed on 1 October 1902. A new company was floated but in 1903 it was found that the main shaft, down 181 feet, tapped a sizeable body, which proved to be refractory, having high zinc content and thus being uneconomic to treat by conventional means on site. Further, the open cut section of the mine collapsed. The smelter ceased operation in May 1903 and the smelters were dismantled and removed. Willcocks and Overend operated the railway privately to help recoup their costs and the New Chillagoe Railway and Mines Ltd worked the mine on tribute from the beginning of 1904, although much of the machinery was removed to the OK mine the same year. Attempts were made to reopen the mine in 1906 and again in 1915, when the mine remained open for a couple of years. In 1914 the Government purchased the railway.
The assay office was then used for many years to accommodate pastoral workers from Mt Lucey station, although it was unused when purchased in the late 1980s and renovated. It has been adapted as a residence and although the fume cupboard and sample table are still present, alterations include the replacement of the sample furnaces with a fireplace and conversion of the scale room to a bathroom and the chemical treatment room to a kitchen. The furnace area is now a living room and the offices in this section are bedrooms. It is the only building surviving from the Mt Garnet mine on site.
","criteria":"The former assay office is the only building surviving from the Mt Garnet copper and silver mine and smelter operation built on this site in the 1890s. It is important in demonstrating the development of the mining industry in North Queensland, and the establishment of the township of Mt Garnet. The mine, a development of John Moffat, who was an important figure in the mining industry in the north, was only briefly in production. Its demise due to overcapitalisation of an unproven ore body and falling ore prices illustrates the speculative nature of much mining activity in Queensland in this era.
|The former Mt Garnet Mine assay office is a rare surviving example of this type of facility situated close to the site of the mine and smelter. Although assay offices were a common and important feature of mining infrastructure, the majority in Queensland have not survived. The building is externally intact and has retained some features of its original use, although it has been adapted as a dwelling.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15319,"place_ref":600544,"name":"Gunnawarra Homestead","alternate_name":"Gunnawarra Mount Garnet","street_address":"Gunnawarra Road","suburb":"MOUNT GARNET","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The buildings on Gunnawarra form a complex of accomodation and support buildings around the 1878 homestead. There are also service buildings, sheds and yards. Approximately 3 kilometres north of the main complex is a lagoon and adjacent building known as the Lagoon House.
Entering the main homestead area, to the right there is a rectangular timber building set on stumps. It has a corrugated iron roof and a verandah runs along the front with doors leading onto it. Set at right angles to this building at the rear is a small building clad with corrugated iron. A large corrugated iron clad shed is beyond these buildings.
To the left of the entrance are a small corrugated iron shed and an accommodation block clad in fibrous cement sheeting. The homestead buildings are separated from the working buildings of the complex by a mesh fence enclosing a grassed area. A corrugated iron tank on stumps and some small sheds are between the working buildings and the main house gate.
The early homestead is constructed of horizontal split logs held between uprights by cover strips. Its gabled roof is clad in corrugated iron over shingles which can be seen under the awnings to the verandah which runs around three sides of the building and is supported on timber posts. Adjoining this building is the 1928 addition; a corrugated iron clad structure with a rectangular chimney clad in corrugated iron and sheet metal. The interior is a single room clad in fibrous cement and is currently formal dining room. Three timber trusses support the gabled roof and the floor is timber. The large fireplace is timber and is lined with bricks and concrete.
To the rear of these buildings is a wing containing a drawing room with a dining alcove and a modern kitchen. Sliding doors open from this onto an outdoor living area with is shaded by an extension of the roof. Across the open area from the living room wing is a mid 30th century ranch style house.
To the rear of the complex are two cottages, possibly staff accommodation, and wire enclosures for hand fed animals. There is also a tennis court and tiled swimming pool close to the ranch style building, currently the main dwelling.
There is a small cemetery about 500 metres from the house. It is encircled by a mesh fence and contains family graves, including that of Kate Atkinson who died in 1917 aged 93, and has continued in use to the present.
Approximately 3 kilometres north of the main homestead complex is the Lagoon House, named for its proximity to a long narrow lagoon running parallel to Rudd's Creek. It is a well-made building of local materials utilising traditional construction techniques. The house is L shaped in plan and has a pole frame and a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. An awning supported on timber posts runs around 3 sides of the main living area. The external walls are built of volcanic rocks to sill height, with bark sheeting above. Internal walls are of slab and corrugated iron. Shutters hinged from above close window openings. The floor appears to be ant bed that has been repaired with concrete. Inside, the structure has a living area in one arm of the L and a kitchen that contains a small cast iron range. The shorter arm of the L is divided into two rooms, presumably as bedrooms, and there is a laundry in an angle of the awning with a small adjacent bathroom and stumps that probably held a water tank.
To the south east of the house is a corrugated iron shed with a hipped roof. Domestic plantings nearby include 2 mature mango trees, citrus trees, custard apple, guava and cucumbers.
","history":"Gunnawarra is a pastoral property first occupied by Europeans in 1865 and was an outlying part of the Valley of Lagoons run on the Upper Burdekin River, established in 1863.
Ludwig Leichhardt discovered and named the Valley of Lagoons in 1845. George Dalrymple was appointed the first Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Kennedy district in 1861. He had arrived in Australia in the late 1850s, hoping to take up land on the Darling Downs. However this proved unsuccessful and he travelled north. He chose a well-watered block in the Valley of Lagoons and set up a partnership with brothers Arthur and Walter Scott and Robert Herbert in 1863. In 1864 Dalrymple and Arthur Scott travelled to the area and blazed a trail from what was to be the port of Cardwell to the Valley of Lagoons. The Scott brothers ran the property and soon afterwards Dalrymple relinquished his interest in the run to enter politics.
Gunnawarra was originally a run of 100 square miles and was occupied from 10 April 1865. Following the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, the run was consolidated and included the blocks of Gunnawarra, Barcoo 1, 2 and 3, Froyle, Tempe, Tempe North, Tempe West, Forrest and Borderland. It then covered an area of 555 square miles and was leased by the partnership of Dangar, Bell, Bell and Ewan. Other outlying blocks of the Valley of Lagoons were formed as the stations of Cashmere and Greenvale. In 1878 the station appeared in the Post Office Directory as 'Gunniawarra', said to mean 'little house'. Later the name was amended to Gunna-Warra and then Gunnawarra in 1890. The first buildings erected at Gunnawarra were of slab construction and included a saddle shed and adjoining quarters. The earliest section of the homestead building was constructed in 1878 and is located on Bell's Creek, a tributary of the Herbert River. Jack Broad, who also built Kirrama homestead, constructed it of slabs with locally cut cypress pine for the uprights and rafters; stringy bark was carted from over twenty miles away for the shingles and hand adzed slabs. The floor was of rammed antbed.
Gunnawarra was divided into two sections following the Crown Lands Act of 1884, becoming Gunnawarra and Forrest. James Ewan purchased Gunnawarra at auction in September 1887. He held it until his death over twenty years later, when it passed to his wife and trustees. On 9 March 1904 it was sold to a partnership of the three Atkinson brothers, Henry John Atkinson of Greenvale, Robert James Atkinson of Cashmere and Thomas Joseph Good Atkinson of Kangaroo Hills.
In 1862 their parents, James and Kate Atkinson, were part of a small group of prospective settlers who arrived in the area. They had previous pastoral experience in Victoria and took up land at Mount Surprise in partnership with Ezra Firth. After a few years, the partnership was dissolved and in 1870 Atkinson took up Farnham station at the site of Ingham. In 1880 he purchased Wairuna and about 5000 acres from the Valley of Lagoons as Abergowrie. Thomas Atkinson married in 1901 and in 1904 brought his wife, Jessie Glennie Godschall, known as Glen, and their baby daughter to live at Gunnawarra. In 1908 they added a bedroom wing of tongue and groove cedar to the house and clad the shingled roof with corrugated iron. In 1913, the buildings of the property were reported to be a house, kitchen, outbuildings, stockyard, horse and milking yards, assessed at £125 in value.
Parts of Gunnawarra were resumed for grazing selections in 1914. In 1922, the brothers' partnership was dissolved and in 1924 the lease for Gunnawarra was transferred into the name of Thomas Atkinson alone. In 1929, when the lease expired, various parties made enquiries to the Lands Department regarding further resumptions for selection. An inspection was made in 1930 and on the recommendation of the Beef Cattle Commission the lease was extended on the grounds that previous resumptions had failed and been sold back to the Atkinson family by the selectors. The area covered by the Gunnawarra lease was then 245 square miles. In 1930, the Gunnawarra Pastoral Company held numerous leases and was composed of Thomas Atkinson, his wife and other family members. After he died on 14 June of that year, Glen Atkinson ran Gunnawarra.
Picnic races had been held at Gunnawarra in Ewan's time, but were discontinued when he died. In 1918 R.L. Atkinson, a nephew, decided to form a race club using the old course, about 5 miles from the homestead. Several surrounding stations agreed to participate and a Gunnawarra Picnic Hack Race Meeting was registered for New Year's Day, 1919 followed by a ball at the homestead. After a few years of running this event annually, a concrete slab was laid down at the racetrack for the purpose of dancing as most participants camped at the course. The large room added to the homestead in 1928 is said to have also been used as a ballroom for these races. The races were discontinued after Tom Atkinson's death in June 1930.
In 1933 a small house was constructed close to the lagoon some 3 kilometres north of the homestead complex. It was built using traditional techniques and local materials by local aboriginal people and station hands. It was intended for use by senior station employees such as the head stockman and later the bookkeeper.
In 1938, 324 acres of Gunnawarra were resumed for the highway, leaving 224 square miles.
Various alterations to the homestead were undertaken in the 1950s and 60s, including the lining of the interior with masonite, the replacement of verandah boards, the addition of concrete floors and inserting a skylight in the roof. New structures have also been added and a new ranch style homestead, a swimming pool and tennis court were probably also constructed in this period.
The homestead took farm-stay guests in the 1980s, but has not been used for this purpose for some years. Gunnawarra continues as a working cattle property and is still owned by members of the Atkinson family.
","criteria":"Gunnawarra Homestead illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early homestead in north Queensland that has remained in continuous use, it has important associations with the development of the pastoral industry.
|Gunnawarra has the potential to yield information on the way in which such properties were run and evidence for the building techniques used over several generations, thus contributing to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|The homestead complex demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type well, including a sequence of residential buildings, associated outbuildings, graves, fences and mature trees.
|Gunnawarra homestead has a special association with the life and work of the Atkinson family, who, as pioneer pastoralists, have contributed to the development of the industry in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15320,"place_ref":600545,"name":"Howard War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"William Street","suburb":"HOWARD","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is located in a prominent location facing the intersection of William and Steley Streets. It is surrounded by a low green painted fence of cast iron posts with decorative finials joined by circular rails.
The sandstone and Italian marble memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on three steps of red painted concrete which are surmounted by a base step of smooth-faced sandstone with chamfered corners. Above this are two more steps, each capped with cyma recta moulding. On the front face of each step is a leaded marble plaque.
The pedestal itself comprises recessed square plates with leaded marble plaques on each face bearing the names of the 37 local soldiers who died in the First World War, including two who Died in Camp. There are also leaded plates listing those who fell in later wars; two in the Second World War, and one in the Korean War. At each corner is an engaged column with Doric order capitals and bases and fluting to the lower half. These support a small cornice, capped with a larger frieze and cornice.
The digger statue stands on a base above the cornice and stands erect with the right foot forward and a tree stump for support. The life-sized statue is of Italian marble. The dress is that of an Italian-Alpino soldier, and his features are also Italian in nature.
","history":"The Howard War Memorial was unveiled on the 18 December 1921 by local war hero and politician, Colonel C D W Rankin who was father of Queenslands first woman Senator, Dame Annabelle Rankin. The pedestal was produced by Maryborough monumental mason, John T Satchwill, and the statue was imported from Italy. The memorial honours the 37 local soldiers who died during the First World War. Later plates honour the two soldiers who fell during the Second World War and one who fell during the Korean War.
In 1918, a Howard and Burrum district memorial committee was established to raise funds for a war memorial. They were assisted by the ladies of the Red Cross in raising approximately £300.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The statue at Howard was imported from Italy and is unique in that no concessions have been made to the appearance of an Australian soldier. The statue is depicted in full Italian Alpino uniform and accoutrements, including badges. The demarcation of the rank of Sergeant is unique to this memorial. It is also one of only two in Queensland to include a back pack, the other being the Bundaberg memorial.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
It also has a special association with monumental mason, John T Satchwill as an example of his work.
|However, it is also highly significant as an example of an imported statue which was in no way modified for its Australian purchasers. Demarcation of rank is unique among soldier statues in Queensland and the inclusion of a backpack rare occurring elsewhere only on Bundaberg's war memorial. This statue is the most notably alien of all the imported statues on Queensland war memorials.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1921, the memorial at Howard demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The Howard memorial is of aesthetic significance both as a landmark and for its high degree of workmanship and design. It occupies a prominent corner, providing a focus for the entire town.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. It also has a special association with monumental mason, John T Satchwill as an example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15322,"place_ref":600547,"name":"Beaconsfield Station Sheep Wash (former)","alternate_name":"Beaconsfield Station Sheep Wash (Ruins)","street_address":"Beaconsfield Station","suburb":"ILFRACOMBE","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Beaconsfield is located approximately 19 kilometres north of Ilfracombe. The former sheep wash is located some 5km west of the homestead. The shearing shed, about 1km south-east of the sheep wash, has been replaced by a modern building.
The remains of the sheep wash are on the bank of an intermittently dry creek; the dam that retained the water there was washed away in a flood.
The visible remains of the sheep washing process comprise a circle of timber stumps, which supported the turning loop of the twin rails from the wash to the shearing shed and which encircled the draining yard. Miscellaneous machinery survives including a 61cm centrifugal pump made by Robinson Bros & Co. (patent 1882) of Melbourne, jets under which the sheep were washed, and the end of the pump with a column to a head of pressure.
","history":"The Beaconsfield Station Sheep Wash (former) comprises a dam, washing trough, machinery and tramlines situated on a creek bank near the site of the 19th century woolshed, north of Ilfracombe.
The runs that later comprised Beaconsfield Station were first taken up in 1872, although they were acquired by southern investors and little development seems to have taken place before the property was bought by George Fairbairn in 1882. Fairbairn built one of the greatest pastoral empires in Australia, his station holdings in Queensland including Landsdowne, Barcaldine Downs, Home Creek, Bimerah, Delta, Logan Downs, Wolfgang, and Beaconsfield, which became one of Australia's premier sheep stations. At their peak, the Fairbairn stations in Queensland carried over 800,000 sheep with Beaconsfield alone commonly running 100,000 head.
Beaconsfield's growth is largely attributed to its manager, Walter Anderson, who oversaw the station for Stephen Fairbairn, the youngest of George's several sons, and was resident at the station between the 1880s and early 1900s. A number of improvements were made during the stewardship of these two men; in 1893 an artesian bore was put down and 24 Wolseley shearing machines were installed at the shearing shed, which was also used by other property owners. The sheep wash is thought to have been built around this time.
Sheep accumulate dirt, grease and vegetable material such as burrs in their fleeces. Washing the sheep before shearing removes this matter, reducing the weight of the wool to be transported. The Beaconsfield wool wash was built near a former dam on Brutus Creek about 1000m from a shearing shed. The pumping machinery was installed in a timber-lined trough cut into the bank of the dam. Water was drawn out of the dam by a steam pump located in the trough near the creek. The sheep were washed in the trough by a combination of manual scrubbing and water jets located along the length of the trough. The washed sheep were then moved up a race on the western side of the trough to draining pens where they stood before being taken to the woolshed on trolleys that were winched along twin rail lines. The winch was possibly powered by the steam engine used to power the steam press in the shed.
The process was found unsatisfactory, perhaps because of difficulties in obtaining sufficient water supply, and was abandoned later in the 1890s. The wash may have been abandoned after an artesian bore was sunk at Ilfracombe in c.1897 and a wool scour established soon after (The Longreach Leader, 9 December 1927, p. 3, 4 & 5). Other steam-driven scouring works, popular in the early 1890s, had by the end of the decade been rendered obsolete by the establishment of a wide-ranging network of large, mechanised scours (refer to the entry for the Blackall Woolscour, QHR 600033). Over time the track and trolleys were removed to sugar mills and the wool scours at Cramsie and Ilfracombe.
The scheme is considered highly unusual in Queensland pastoral practice; the large scale of both the scheme and of the pump itself are testament to both the imagination and capital resources of the Fairbairns who may have had experience of comparable schemes in New South Wales and Victoria.
George Fairbairn died in 1895, after which the property passed to Stephen Fairbairn who moved to England in 1904 and remained there until his death in 1938. After his departure, the property reverted to the family company with Walter Anderson as manager until 1907, when Frederick Cobb took over from him. In 1911 the property was sold to John Murray. By this time Beaconsfield's area had been somewhat reduced by resumption.
John Murray was a Scot who had moved to Victoria with his family as a youth. In 1864 he moved to Rockhampton to join his oldest brother and took up a run in the area called Fitzroy Park. He was successfully involved in the sugar industry in the 1870s. Entering politics in 1888 as a member of the Legislative Assembly, he later became a member of the Legislative Council and Minister for Railways and Public Works. After his retirement in 1903 he expanded his pastoral holdings, including the acquisition of Beaconsfield.
Following his death in 1917 the property passed to his son Norman who had managed Beaconsfield since its purchase. It continued as one of the larger properties in Queensland's central west until further resumptions were effected in 1929. The property is still held by members of this family.
","criteria":"The former Beaconsfield Station Sheep Wash, thought to have been constructed in about 1893, is important in demonstrating the evolution of mass wool production techniques during the development of Queensland's pastoral industry. It is a good example of an attempt at mass, mechanised washing of sheep using available technology in a remote location.
|The former sheep wash is important as an uncommon example of a large-scale sheep washing system in outback Queensland.
|The former sheep wash at Beaconsfield has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an improved understanding of wool production techniques in outback Queensland during the 19th century. The place is sufficiently intact to permit further study of the washing technique used at that location and to contribute to a broader understanding of the development of Queensland's wool industry.
|The Beaconsfield Station Sheep Wash (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of such a facility, the following key features being extant: a dam, washing trough, pump, water jet, and tramline for transporting the washed sheep to the nearby woolshed.
|The Beaconsfield Station Sheep Wash (former) has a special association with the Fairbairn pastoral empire, one of the most extensive pastoral holdings in Australia at the time. It has a particular association with Stephen Fairbairn and Walter Anderson the owner and manager of Beaconsfield respectively, who were responsible for its development into one of Australia's foremost sheep stations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15323,"place_ref":600548,"name":"United Welsh Church, Blackstone","alternate_name":"Welsh Union Church | Welsh Chapel","street_address":"6 Thomas Street","suburb":"BLACKSTONE","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This modest timber church has a rectangular nave and sanctuary with rear vestry forming a simple 'T' plan form. A contemporary skillion-roofed toilet block is constructed on the northern side.
Walls are of timber stud frame, now clad in chamferboard; the timber floor is supported on concrete stumps and the comparatively low-pitched gable roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron. A front entrance porch with separate gable roof has a decorative fretwork pediment infill. Above the porch is a centrally-placed timber fixed ventilator window with a pointed head. The balustrading to the front steps is wrought iron.
The side windows of the church are pivoting timber casements. The front windows are framed externally in unusual projecting decorative timber hoods.
The interior feature some fine cedar joinery in the sanctuary area and liturgical fitments including a silky oak minister's chair. The timber pews have decorative ends bearing pew numbers. A pair of leadlight windows featuring the Welsh dragon are above the doors in the rear wall leading into the vestry/meeting room. The walls display several timber plaques and memorials.
A continuous open-fretwork ventilator runs the full length of the nave walls immediately below the roof springing point. The ceiling is boarded and has iron tie-rod roof trusses.
The rear vestry/meeting room is a large rectangular room with framed photographs and other memorabilia decorating the walls.
The grounds contain a very large camphor laurel tree on the northern side and two rock monuments, one bearing a centenary plaque and one a piece of rock from the site of the mansion "Brynhyfryd".
","history":"The United Welsh Church was built in 1886; it was designed by Ipswich builder/architect Samuel Shenton and constructed by Ipswich contractors Worley and Whitehead. The land was donated by coal-mine owner Lewis Thomas who also helped finance the church.
Lewis Thomas had begun to mine coal at Blackstone in the 1860s. In 1883, a group of Welsh people, formerly slate miners from Blaenau Ffestinog, arrived in Blackstone to work for Thomas. Shortly after their arrival, they held a Protestant church service under a mulberry tree on the banks of Bundamba Creek. They agreed that Welsh nationality took priority over minor sectarian differences and formed a Welsh Church. The first combined service was held in a church hall in the nearby suburb of Newtown on 19 July 1883. Lewis Thomas then allowed use of a cottage in Blackstone for services. As the number of Welsh immigrants grew, this became too small and Thomas donated land for a church. The church building opened officially on 1 October 1886.
Early undated photographs show the church with exposed stud frame external walls; the walls are now chamferboard. It is not known when this work was carried out but it was at least by the 1930s. The building was painted and new seats were made in 1892, the work supervised by architect George Brockwell Gill who had taken over Shenton's practice. The toilets on the northern side were built c1975. The front windows, originally louvred, have been replaced with glass. The church was inundated to the level of the top windows in the 1893 flood, destroying the organ and early church records, and to a few centimetres above floor level in the 1974 flood.
A number of historic photographs, memorials and memorabilia have been placed on display in the main body of the church and in the rear meeting room. A war memorial honour board was installed in 1917 and a plaque was installed in 1986 to honour the centenary of the Cambrian Choir. A pair of glass and cedar doors bearing the name "Brynhyfryd" etched in the glass were installed as a screen inside the entry following the demolition of Lewis Thomas' mansion Brynhyfryd in the 1930s. A cedar fireplace surround from the mansion has been converted into a combined Welsh pioneers/World War II memorial. Leadlight windows depicting Welsh dragons were presented by the St David Society c1985.
The church was known as the Welsh Union Church in the early years but was being called the United Welsh Church by the early 20th century. The church has been controlled by trustees but is currently (1997) in the process of becoming incorporated. In the early years, a full-time minister was appointed but a part-time minister now conducts a weekly service.
The church has been a centre for community social life with activities including church teas, clubs, eisteddfodau and hymn festivals. Early church services were held in Welsh, and in the present day, some hymns are still sung in a mixture of Welsh and English, while Sunday School children are taught a few words of Welsh. The first Gymanfa Ganu (hymn festival) was held in 1902 and is still a biennial event.
An eisteddfod (a traditional music, literary and speaking competition) was held in the church on New Year's Day, 1887, a few months after the church was opened. A local choir was formed to contest this eisteddfod and is still operating as the Blackstone-Ipswich Cambrian Choir. Subsequent eisteddfodau were held in the church or in the School of Arts in Ipswich as interest in the eisteddfod movement grew. In 1888, a Brisbane choir entered the competition and a Brisbane eisteddfod was then held in 1889. These inter-city competitions eventually grew to become the Queensland Eisteddfod, still contested every Easter. A junior eisteddfod and a Silkstone Eisteddfod are still held annually in Ipswich.
This is the only Welsh Church in Queensland and it is thought that there are only three others in Australia - in Sydney, Melbourne and Western Australia
","criteria":"Built in 1886, the United Welsh Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the pattern of immigration of Welsh families to coalmining areas in Queensland in the 1880s and the subsequent introduction of Welsh customs such as the Eisteddfod which remain part of Queensland cultural life.
|The church is the only Welsh Church in Queensland and appears to be one of only four in Australia.
|The interior contains historic photographs, memorials, plaques and memorabilia and yields information about Welsh customs and culture maintained in an Australian context.
|The simple traditional form of the exterior and its associated large camphor laurel tree have landmark qualities near Bundamba Creek at the approach to the suburb of Blackstone.
|The simple traditional form of the exterior and its associated large camphor laurel tree have landmark qualities near Bundamba Creek at the approach to the suburb of Blackstone.
|As a venue for church services, social events and eisteddfodau, the place has been closely associated with the social, cultural and spiritual life of Blackstone and of the wider Queensland community since 1886.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15324,"place_ref":600549,"name":"Booval House","alternate_name":"St Gabriel's Convent","street_address":"14 Cothill Road","suburb":"BOOVAL","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Booval House is a two-storey brick building with a steeply-pitched hipped roof clad in corrugated galvanised iron and with a separate skillion roof over the verandahs on three sides. All of the verandahs have been enclosed and except for some unusual tapered timber columns on the upper level, all of the original architectural detail has been removed.
\nAt ground floor level, the main core of the house is made up of four rooms, a central hallway and a staircase. Large double bi-parting doors separate two of the main rooms, one of which gives access to the rear kitchen wing and service entry. There are two fireplaces, one with marbled paintwork on timber. The chimney caps for these fireplaces have been closed up.
\nOriginal skirtings, architraves, french doors and some cornices have survived and are of painted timber in simple design. All of the original ceilings in the ground floor rooms appear to have been replaced, some with vee-jointed tongue and groove boards and some with fibrous plaster c1930. Where not covered by wall-to-wall vinyl and carpet, it is evident that some of the earlier floors have been replaced with narrow-width hardwood. A substantial amount of the early glass in the doors and windows has been replaced with figured obscure 'arctic' glass probably c1950.
\nThe internal staircase is of simple design with a low height cedar handrail supported on square painted timber balusters and a turned cedar newel post. The stair is narrow and steep and contains a half landing.
\nThere is a rear wing constructed of brickwork on the south-western corner and this contains an access manhole and a ladder leading down to an underground cellar approximately 5m by 5m in size. The cellar has wall niches for storage and two metal ventilating ducts leading to the outside air.
\nThe kitchen wing is a single storey hipped-roof timber-frame structure with a large brick fireplace/range at the southern end. No early fitout survives in the kitchen or the scullery/laundry immediately to the south.
\nThe upper level of the main house contains four main rooms generally consistent with the plan form beneath. There is also a room accessed directly from the half-landing of the stair.
\nThe upstairs rooms have tongue and groove vertical joist ceilings and the north west corner room contains a fireplace.
\nIn similar fashion to the ground floor, all rooms have French doors opening to enclosed verandahs.
\nThroughout the house, the joinery has been painted and the plastered walls are either papered or painted. No early decoration is visible. Most rooms have fluorescent lighting.
\nVerandahs at the lower level have been enclosed with facebrick walls and banks of louvre windows. At the upper level, the undersill has been clad with fibro and weatherboards and windows of obscure coloured glass extend full length above sill height. Some tapering timber posts remain visible from the inside and there is a triangular pediment placed centrally on the northern facade. The entrance at ground level is secured by means of a contemporary roller shutter door. Parts of the verandahs have been ceiled with ripple iron fixed to provide a fall to an outer gutter under the leading edge of the upper level verandah.
\nA substantial two-storey brick chapel has been constructed to the north-east of the main building and is linked to the north-east verandahs at both upper and lower levels. The chapel wing has four upper bedrooms, a chapel and sanctuary and internal staircase. All of the architectural features, form and materials are of 1960s origin.
\nOutbuildings include a rudimentary shed and fernery to the southeast of the grounds and a modern garage on the south-western corner.
\nThe garden contains some major trees, most notably a curving line of cocos palms to the northern garden, mango trees forming a dense screen to the northern adjoining properties and some poinciana and jacaranda trees along the Cothill Road frontage.
","history":"Booval House is a two-storey brick house built in the 1850s for George Faircloth, manager of the Bank of Australasia in Ipswich. The builder was William Hancock and the architect was possibly William Wakeling.
\nIn December 1859, Faircloth stated in a testimonial that architect William Wakeling had been engaged by him privately, as well as being engaged for supervision of St Paul's Church. This private commission was most probably Booval House.
\nThe house was completed by at least December 20 1859 when Governor Bowen stopped there for refreshments and a change of clothing at the start of his first visit to Ipswich. It was the first major house in the Booval area.
\nIn the 1850s, Faircloth had invested in Moggill Coal Mine, in collaboration with John Panton, Henry Buckley, Louis Hope and Frederick Bigge. In 1861, the company was wound up after Faircloth was discovered to have misdirected bank funds for the venture.
\nIn the early 1860s, many Ipswich people started cotton plantations to take advantage of a world-wide shortage caused by the American Civil War. Faircloth grew cotton on much of the 40 acres surrounding his house. Adjacent to his land was that of the Ipswich Cotton Company under its chairman John Panton; in 1861, Ipswich Cotton Co had 100 acres under cultivation and exported its first 30 bales in July 1862. However, cotton did not fulfil its early expectations and many companies and individual growers lost money .
\nBooval House was auctioned in August 1868 under instructions from the liquidators, the Bank of Australasia.
\nThe purchaser was John Ferrett, the former Trustee of Ipswich Cotton Co. Ferrett had opened a coalmine, the Radstock Pit at Woodend in the 1850s and later had an interest in the adjacent Woodend Mine. He also appears to have continued farming to some extent at Booval House.
\nBooval House was advertised for rent in 1884, the reason uncertain. After John Ferrett died in 1894, control of the property passed to his nephew Harry who was also involved in coal-mining in the Bundamba area, financing the Borehole Mine. In 1896, architect George Brockwell Gill called tenders for a timber extension to the rear of the house and a new iron roof.
\nBooval House remained in the Ferrett family until 1921 when it was sold to the Catholic Church. After standing empty for several years, it was renovated and reopened in 1930 as St Gabriel's Convent for the Sisters of Mercy. A convent school was built adjacent to the house.
\nFollowing white ant damage in 1946, the verandahs were altered and brick supporting columns were built. A brick extension containing a chapel and bedrooms was added in 1969. The number of sisters declined in the 1980s and the house was empty for some time, and the property has changed hands several times since September 1997.
","criteria":"It has a strong association with the early cotton-growing industry in Queensland in the 1860s; with two important early entrepreneurs George Faircloth and John Ferrett; and with the work of the Sisters of Mercy since 1930.
|Built between 1857 and 1859, Booval House is a rare surviving example of a substantial two-storeyed brick house of the 1850s.
|Built between 1857 and 1859, Booval House is a rare surviving example of a substantial two-storeyed brick house of the 1850s.
|Although the exterior has been altered, its general form and massing and its surrounding garden exhibit aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|(Criterion under review)
|It has a strong association with the early cotton-growing industry in Queensland in the 1860s; with two important early entrepreneurs George Faircloth and John Ferrett; and with the work of the Sisters of Mercy since 1930.
It is possibly associated with early architect William Wakeling.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15325,"place_ref":600550,"name":"Booval War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Green Street","suburb":"BOOVAL","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a park in Booval facing Green Street. The park is surrounded by a low fence consisting of white painted timber posts linked by a metal chain. Hill's Figs (Ficus microcarpa var. Hilli) line the boundary of the park. New landscaping is currently under construction and comprises a pathway and planting, symmetrically laid out with the memorial as the focal point. The original fence surrounding the memorial has been removed.
Access to the park is through a new timber pergola. This is flanked by two large fig trees which align with two more fig trees at the rear of the park. A new pathway leads from the centre of the pergola to the memorial with a gun or 'war trophy' centrally located between the two. The pathway forms a square around the memorial and rejoins at the rear to continue to a rockery and seating. At the rockery, the path branches out diagonally, leading to an exit in one direction and a children's play area in the other. Newly planted trees line the pathway and a flagpole is located on the north side of the memorial.
The memorial stands 22 feet from the ground and comprises a pedestal and column surmounted by a digger statue.
The granite and marble memorial sits on a stepped base of Melbourne bluestone which is painted. Surmounting the base is the pedestal, sitting on a marble plinth capped with torus and cyma recta moulding. The central portion of the pedestal is recessed on all faces and bears the leaded names of the 221 local citizens who served in the First World War and the 16 who died in the Second World War. Also projecting from the plinth at the four corners are free standing columns of red granite with Ionic order bases and capitals. These support a large cornice surmounted by marble urns at each corner with a simple curved pediment between.
Above the cornice is a column of red granite with an Ionic capital of marble. This is surmounted by a marble digger statue, smaller than life-sized standing at ease with arms reversed and supported by a tree stump. He stands with his feet slightly apart and the rifle rests beside one foot and is held across his body.
","history":"The Booval War Memorial was unveiled on the 15 February 1919 by Queensland Governor, Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams. The marble and granite memorial was produced by Ipswich monumental masonry firm, F Williams and Company and honours the 221 local men who served during the First World War. Later plaques honour the 16 who died in the Second World War Plaques commemorating later conflicts have also been added.
In 1918, a committee was established to represent the Ipswich suburbs of Booval, Silkstone, Newtown and Raceview. Funds were raised by entertainments and public subscription to erect a war memorial, of which the foundations were laid by a voluntary 'working bee'. On 27 July 1918, the foundation stone was laid by DA Gledson, MLA. The total cost was £499.
The land was originally in the private ownership of Harold Foote and later subdivided. In 1914 it was resumed by the Bundamba Council for the purpose of a park reserve and after the amalgamation of Councils it came under the jurisdiction of the Ipswich City Council.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The Booval memorial was designed and executed by the well known and highly regarded Ipswich monumental masonry firm F Williams and Company. Frank William's reputation prompted Daphne Mayo to work as an apprentice to him to learn the art of carving. She did this while waiting to begin a travelling scholarship which had been postponed due to the outbreak of the First World War.
Daphne Mayo is one of Australia's best known sculptors, responsible for many significant works such as the pedimental relief on Brisbane City Hall, the friezes and capitals on the Brisbane Tattersall's Club and the bronze doors for the Public Library of New South Wales. She was born in England in 1895 and came to Brisbane in her childhood.
The statue on the Booval War Memorial is attributed to Mayo as the memorial was constructed during this time and bears a strong resemblance to a model made by her. The statue is of a style repeatedly used by Williams.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1919, the memorial at Booval demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance both as a landmark and for its high level of workmanship, design and materials.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event.
|It also has special associations with monumental masonry firm F Williams and Company and Australia's best known female sculptor of the 1930s, Daphne Mayo.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15327,"place_ref":600552,"name":"Rockton","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Rockton Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Rockton is a large Victorian-era mansion which shows evidence of its staged construction and alterations over a long period of time.
The earliest wing is a simple lowset single-storey facebrick structure with a hipped roof and generally open verandahs on two sides. The structure is one room in width and has windows and doors opening directly to the open verandahs which provide the only access. The roof is clad with colorbond custom orb profile sheeting. This original wing has a timber floor. Parts of the verandah have been enclosed to provide a small bathroom and storeroom.
The original wing was extended with a more substantial single-storey structure distinguished by the break in the roof between the main hipped form and the separate skillion over the verandahs on two sides. The materials are loadbearing facebrick, timber floor and colorbond custom orb roof sheeting. Verandah posts on these first two wings consist of rectangular profile timber supports with simple column capitals.
The third wing or two-storeyed section is more elaborate both in scale and detail. It has open verandahs on the north-western side with lower verandahs now enclosed in casement windows and weatherboard cladding, The upper construction and detailing of this two-storey wing includes polychromatic brickwork, timber floors, shuttered windows and doors and a steeply-hipped roof surmounted by a widows' walk with cast iron lace balustrading.
The transition between the second wing and the two storey wing is defined on the northern side by an elaborately-detailed bay window which provides an outlook over the garden from the breezeway/ballroom - now the largest room in the house.
Internally, the house has a new kitchen, study and storage in the original wing. The main drawing room, dining and main entry are in the second wing. The two-storey wing contains bedrooms, bathrooms and a staircase. Alterations to the detailing of door and window joinery and plasterwork show the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Outbuildings include an early timber-framed and clad billiard room with a gable-ended roof; a contemporary steel portal-frame, brick-clad garage with gable roof and a brick-walled garden shed with a flat jettied rafter roof structure.
The extensive garden contains stands of massive hoop pines, figs, poincianas, jacarandas and palms set around a circular driveway, providing an impressive setting for the large house.
","history":"Rockton is a substantial brick house, the first section of which was built as a cottage for bank manager William Craies and his wife Sabina in 1855. The cottage was progressively extended and altered by successive owners over a long period, producing a complex but surprisingly harmonious house with great character.
In the 1850s, Craies was commuting between Ipswich and Brisbane as manager of the branches of the Bank of New South Wales in both towns. He then resigned and came to work full-time in Ipswich as a partner with the merchant Walter Gray and Co. To quickly provide accommodation for his family in Ipswich, he built a three room cottage in 1855 on 7ha of land he already owned on Limestone ridge overlooking the town. The cottage faced north, had two fireplaces, a boxroom at each end and a verandah back and front. Behind it to the south was a detached kitchen and bath house.
The cottage was extended within the year by builder William Hancock. Craies sold the house in 1862 because of financial difficulties associated with the collapse of Walter Gray and Co and it was then described as "a good substantial edifice built of bricks with shingled roof and containing front and side and back verandahs, entrance hall, dining room, drawing room, four bedrooms, nursery, pantry, store-room, kitchen, servants room and wash house." There were also several outbuildings, a lawn, garden and kitchen garden, a vineyard of 2000 vines and paddocks for horses and a cow. At this time, the house was considered to be a "country residence", although only 2km from the centre of Ipswich. The purchaser was Robert Towns who rented it. The next owner, in 1873, was Samuel Hodgson.
The house was occupied by the Bullmore family in 1877 and purchased by them in 1882, after which it was again extended. The Bullmores had several daughters who attended the nearby Ipswich Girls' Grammar School after it was established in 1892 and the house was extended for family accommodation and entertaining. A breezeway between two wings was enclosed to form a ballroom and an upper storey was added to the northern end with a "widows' walk" on top. About 1900, the roof was changed to corrugated galvanised iron, a verandah was built onto the upstairs section on the north side and a tower was built, possibly designed by George Brockwell Gill. Bullmore was notable for his establishment of Trelawney Dairy near Harrisville which had associated butter and cheese factories.
In 1918, Will and Laura Haenke bought the house which by then was in bad state of repair and some of the original land had been sold. Haenke was an architect and later became a coal-mine owner, associated with Rhondda Colliery. He relocated the kitchen which had been in the original cottage wing to a position in the "join" of the cottage and the main building, requiring changes to the adjacent verandahs. Haenke also imposed 1930s details such as doorways and a large bay window in the living area. A formal garden was continued during this time and major trees were retained. A swimming pool was built in 1953.
In 1945, a separate residential area was created on the northern side for Haenke's son Willis and his wife Helen who inherited the property when Will died in 1953. Willis continued the family interest in coalmining and Helen was a writer who published several books of poetry and wrote several plays which were performed in Brisbane and Ipswich. Today, Rockton is owned by their daughter Angela and her husband Wybe Geertsma.
Outbuildings remaining today consist of an early billiard room, a brick outbuilding which was converted into a fernery in the 1930s and new garages built to a design by Buchanan Architects c1980. The garden contains very large mature trees including Moreton Bay figs and several limestone walls, as well as formal garden beds.
","criteria":"Rockton is a rare example of a house whose construction commenced in the 1850s; the 1855 wing appears to be the oldest surviving building in Ipswich.
|Rockton is a rare example of a house whose construction commenced in the 1850s; the 1855 wing appears to be the oldest surviving building in Ipswich.
|Together with its outbuildings and garden, it demonstrates the characteristics of a large suburban mansion of the 19th century.
|The place is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. It is impressive in its size, its detailing and its cohesive fusion of elements built over a period of more than a century. It retains an impressive setting within a large garden containing mature trees which in themselves have landmark qualities.
|The place is associated with important families of early Queensland - the Craies, Towns, Hodgsons and Bullmores. It is closely associated with the Haenke family who made a significant contribution to Queensland through architecture, coalmining and literature.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15328,"place_ref":600553,"name":"St Francis Xavier Church","alternate_name":"St Patrick's Church | St Francis Xavier Catholic Church","street_address":"6 Church Street","suburb":"GOODNA","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Francis Xavier is a traditional cruciform-plan Revival Gothic church of sandstone with steep gabled roof forms clad in corrugated galvanised iron.
The western end has a small gabled entrance porch floored in black and white tiles, while the eastern end has an extended sanctuary and twin sacristies in brickwork. A contemporary timber-framed northern entry porch gives access from the carpark to the centre of the nave. Windows are of pointed arch design, some of which contain fine quality stained and coloured glass memorials.
The nave is dominated by the large archway leading to the extended sanctuary. The raised sanctuary floor has been extended westward into the nave. Niches each side of the archway contain religious statues. The painted boarded ceiling follows the collar-tie roof form and exhibits steel tie-rod and roof bracing.
The church pews are benches in light-coloured timber, low-backed and dating from possibly the 1970s. Other furniture includes a small timber altar of earlier date as well as new altar furniture in light-coloured silky oak (designed by architect Hubert van Hoof).
The walls of the nave display paintings showing the Stations of the Cross and a memorial tablet honouring the first Parish Priest Fr Hayes. On the exterior walls above window height along each side is a steel strap extending the length of the stone work.
The church is complemented by a parkland setting of mature trees, most notably tall hoop pines to the north, east and west. Early church entrance gates have survived at the Church Street boundary in front of the church.
New school buildings are situated close to the southern side of the church and a c1980 brick presbytery and church office are situated to the north-east.
These are not included within the heritage boundary.
","history":"St Francis Xavier Church was design by architect Andrea Stombuco and opened in May 1881, originally as St Patrick's Church. Two major series of extensions and renovations have been made, the first by architects R. Coutts and Sons in 1915 and the second by H. van Hoof in the 1980s.
Construction of the church is well-documented. Local stone came from a nearby quarry, believed to be in Stuart Street; parishioners carted the stone to the site as voluntary work. Most masonry work was carried out by William Hanley but was finished by day labour. Carpentry and painting were carried out by James Madden of Ipswich. The cedar was from Doorey's sawmill at Mt Mistake, and other timber from Reillys and Hancocks of Ipswich. The original front cedar door was painted red and the interior was entirely plastered, except for the ceiling which was lined with "Rosewood pine" painted dark blue. The original roof was Gospel Oak iron.
The church was a substantial one; apart from St Mary's in Ipswich, other Catholic churches built in the Ipswich region at that time were simpler buildings of timber.
The church was originally part of Ipswich parish but became a separate parish in 1892, the first priest being Fr Thomas Hayes. A school was started in 1910 and a convent was built in 1911 for Sisters of Mercy who taught at the school. The convent, a two-storey timber building, is still standing in Church Street opposite St Francis Xavier. A timber presbytery was built in the 1890s but demolished c1980; its position is marked by a flat area encircled by trees immediately to the west of the current brick presbytery.
The church was renovated and extended in 1915 by contractor J.C. Hobbs of Brisbane, to a design by R Coutts and Sons. The main change was construction of a new apse of brick and two side sacristies; to connect the apse, an arch was cut in the stonework of the rear wall. Two side windows of the church were converted into double doors and the remaining six pairs were altered to allow them to be openable. A new altar rail was installed and a new porch was added at the front, floored in black and white tile and containing a lead-light window by Extons. The foundations were strengthened and the walls were tied with iron plates running the length of the building on each side. At this time, two major stained glass windows were installed in the side walls, one in memory of local school teacher John Carroll and the other in memory of Denis Gorman.
The triple window on the western wall and other fittings, Stations of the Cross paintings and statues within the church are also memorials.
The name of the church was changed to St Francis Xavier in the 1920s, apparently to avoid confusion as so many churches were named St Patrick's.
Further changes occurred in the 1970s and 80s, prompted by changing liturgy and changing patterns of church-going. Externally, a light timber structure was built at the northern side entrance to provide a place where the congregation could gather after a service. This was designed by parishioner and local architect Hubert van Hoof. The building was also repaired at this time, including installation of a new floor.
Internally, there have been numerous changes to the sanctuary area following the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council; the altar was moved and later reduced in size, and the altar rail was removed. The gallery at the western end has been removed. The current pews are not original, but were recently acquired from another church. New silky oak altar furniture was designed by architect Hubert van Hoof.
","criteria":"The place demonstrates the pattern of development of the Goodna township and the desire of the Catholic community of the area in the 1880s to build a substantial local church
|It is a good example of a Revival Gothic stone church of simple traditional form.
|The church is prominently located near the major shopping area of Goodna and, with its setting of mature trees, has landmark qualities and contributes aesthetically to the streetscape.
|It has had a strong association with the spiritual, social and educational life of the Goodna community since its construction in 1881.
|It was built to the design of important architect Andrea Stombuco.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15331,"place_ref":600556,"name":"Flour Mill","alternate_name":"Old Flour Mill; F.W. Johnson and Sons Motor Showroom; Bridal Mill; Flour Mill Ipswich","street_address":"231 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Flour Mill is a complex of attached buildings. The main (former milling) section consist of three floors plus a basement; because of the steep slope, the basement is above ground level at the rear. The mill section is built of load-bearing polychrome brickwork, ornamented with pilasters, arches and string courses. There are pairs of windows on the upper two levels at the front and five windows on each level on the sides. The roof is corrugated galvanised iron with a raised louvred timber ventilator. The basement level extends at the rear and now has an outdoor eating area on top; the brickwork has been built up to form a flat floor for the eating area, but the line of the original skillion roof is still detectable.
The shopfront corresponding to the former mill contains a retail shop on the ground and first floor, with internal stairs connecting the two levels. The third floor of the mill is accessed by an external stair enclosed in corrugated galvanised iron.
At the rear of the original mill is a recently-constructed wing with a brick base and corrugated galvanised iron-clad upper level, now containing a function room.
Attached to the eastern side of the mill is a single storey section (the former flour store) with an ornamental parapet bearing the date 1901. Behind this is the former corrugated galvanised iron-clad grain store. The single storey section contains a sandwich shop on the left and a passageway on the right leading to stairs which give access to the former grain store; one set of stairs leads up to a restaurant while the other leads down to a shopping arcade.
A street awning runs across the front of the entire building. The ceiling of the right-hand section of awning is pressed metal; the ceiling of the left-hand section is ripple iron. Above both shop-fronts are coloured glass fanlights.
","history":"The Flour Mill was built in 1901-2 for the Ipswich Milling Company Ltd, one of a series of flour mills connected with parliamentarian Francis Kates. The architect was G.B. Gill and the contractors were Worley and Whitehead.
The son of a miller, Kates was born in Berlin and, after graduating from Berlin University, migrated to Queensland in 1858. He settled on the Darling Downs and gradually acquired properties and capital. He built the Allora Flour Mills in 1871. He was elected to Parliament in 1878 and showed interest in the development of the rural sector, presenting a bill in parliament in 1885 for the establishment of an agricultural college in Queensland. He was also aware of Queensland's lack of self-sufficiency in wheat production and was involved in building additional mills, the Ipswich mill said to have been his eighth. Ownership of the property was in the name of his son, Francis Henry Kates.
When first completed in 1902, the main mill building at Ipswich consisted of a basement and three milling floors. The steam engine for the mill was imported from America; the boiler was "colonial" and used North Ipswich coal. In a c1935 photo, the skillion-roofed brick extension at basement level at the rear can be seen with two flues projecting through the roof. This extension is not mentioned in early descriptions but was probably the boiler room.
Also at the rear was a large corrugated galvanised iron and timber shed for grain storage, connected to a railway siding; the grain arrived in bags, not as bulk grain. The mill was capable of producing 35-40 tons of flour each week, marketed under the brand name "Snowcloud". Attached to the eastern side of the main building was a single storey section, used as a flour store.
Although the main grain supply was from Allora and other places on the Darling Downs, the company urged local farmers to grow wheat and offered to supply seed at cost price, apparently hoping to save transport costs.
Kates died in 1903, but the Ipswich property continued in the ownership of his son. In 1905, a photograph of the mill appeared in an advertisement for "Wigfull and Bland, Ipswich Flour Mills" using a brand name "Heatherbell"; it is not known under what arrangement this change of brand occurred.
In May 1910, Cribb and Foote bought the property for less than the mill's construction cost, using it to accommodate several departments while their new building was being erected. It seems to have then continued in use as the firm's Stove Department. An awning with decorative timber brackets was erected over the footpath in front of the single storey section and a lift was built.
In 1926, the property was bought by the Johnson family and used as a car showroom. In September 1935, radio station 4IP was established in the top floor, entry being via an external staircase on the western side.
An awning was erected across the front of the building, incorporating the earlier Cribb and Foote section of awning; the date is not certain but was probably in the late 1920s as work appears to be in progress in a 1927 photograph.
Later uses of the mill included housing Paddy's Market and storing furniture. In the mid-1980s, the upper floor was used for a martial arts school and the lower floors became a bridal shop and fabric shop.
In 1985, the property was purchased by Beverley de Witt and it was converted into a restaurant, function room and shopping arcade in 1993. An additional two-storey wing was built at the rear of the mill section to house the function room.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|Completed in early 1902, the mill is an unusual example of an industrial building constructed in a city CBD.
|Although designed to carry out a basic industrial process, the flour mill is carefully detailed and ornamented and is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. It is part of the historic shopping precinct known as "Top of Town" and makes an important contribution to the streetscape.
|(Criterion under review)
|The flour mill is associated with politician Francis Kates and his son Francis Henry Kates, and with the development of the family's milling enterprises.
The mill is associated with the important early retailer Cribb and Foote as their stove department; and with the early radio station 4IP which opened in 1935.
The place has special association with architect George Brockwell Gill as an example of his well-detailed brick commercial buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15332,"place_ref":600557,"name":"City View Hotel","alternate_name":"City View Hotel Ipswich","street_address":"277 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The hotel is a two-storeyed brick building with a corrugated galvanised iron hipped roof. On the eastern end is an attached two-storey octagonal tower with ground-level porch. Extensive alterations have been made to the lounge bar to create a "cabaret-style" interior linked through the southern wall to a timber-framed single storey extension. A two-storeyed kitchen-domestics' wing extends at the rear completing the L-shape of the original building.
","history":"The City View Hotel is a two-storey brick buildings, believed to have been completed in 1908. The architect was George Brockwell Gill. The site was a difficult triangular one adjoining a deep railway cutting excavated in 1875. Gill produced a skilful solution to the problem, locating an octagonal two-storey "tower" or bay on the apex to disguise the sharp truncation of the building, while the front facade presents as a traditional two-storey verandahed hotel. The hotel was built for T. Humphreys and the first manager was H. Hutting. The name refers to the hotel's position on the edge of the Ipswich CBD. In the 1980s, some of the brickwork was painted and a beer garden structure was erected on the western end. A two-storeyed brick bathroom and toilet annexe was built in the rear courtyard sometime between 1960 and 1980.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a Federation-era provincial hotel.
|Built c1908, the City View Hotel is a well-detailed brick hotel which exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. It is prominently positioned at a major intersection and has landmark qualities.
|It is the design of an important architect George Brockwell Gill and is a skilful and typical example of his well-detailed work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15333,"place_ref":600558,"name":"Queensland Country Women's Association Girls' Hostel","alternate_name":"Queensland Country Womens Association Hostel; QCWA Hostel; CWA Hostel; CWS Hostel Ipswich","street_address":"5 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building is a large two-storeyed timber structure with chamferboard external walls surrounded at both levels by elaborately decorated verandahs. A single storey laundry wing extends at the rear and is connected to the central hallway by an enclosed rear verandah. A skillion-roofed cement clad ablutions block, probably of c1950 construction, is connected to the north-west corner of the ground floor verandah. The front has plantings of palms and hedges, particularly the distinctive double palms each side of the main entry.
","history":"The building was constructed about 1885 as a single-storey timber house for Thomas Towell and his second wife Sarah. When Towell died about 1904, the property passed to his widow Sarah. The next significant owner was Dr Edward Elmslie Brown who bought it in 1908. Within the next three years, Brown added a second storey. Brown used the enlarged building as a residence and consulting rooms and built a timber hospital "Oakdale" adjacent with its entry facing Milford Street. He later added a second hospital building and a matron's residence. Brown died in 1941 and the house was bought by the QCWA in 1949 for use as a hostel for students and young women. A single-storey brick building containing several residential units for elderly women was built c1960 adjacent to the house (on the corner of Brisbane and Milford Streets) and is known as Melody Lodge. One of Dr Brown's hospital buildings in Milford St is now a QCWA hostel for aged people. The matron's quarters in Milford St is now a residence. The second hospital building was destroyed by fire in the late 1980s at which time it was a boarding house.
","criteria":"The place is important in demonstrating the tendency of early Queensland residents to enlarge and adapt existing buildings, having been converted from a single-storey house built c1885 to a two-storey house c1908.
|The QCWA Girls' Hostel is a fine and rare example of a large two-storey timber residence.
|The QCWA Girls' Hostel is a fine and rare example of a large two-storey timber residence.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics in its fine Federation detailing including elaborate flower patterned lacework and attractive timber decoration. Its architectural form, scale, siting, detailing and front garden plantings make a significant contribution to the streetscape of Ipswich.
|It is closely associated with the work of the QCWA in providing supervised city accommodation for young country girls, particularly students.
|The place is associated with the life and work of an early telegraph operator Thomas Towell and a prominent early doctor and businessman Edward Elmslie Brown.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15334,"place_ref":600559,"name":"Queensland National Bank - Bank of Queensland","alternate_name":"National Bank of Australasia","street_address":"89 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Qld National Bank is a simple single-storey rendered brick building with a corrugated galvanised iron roof behind a raised parapet. The symmetrical main facade facing Brisbane St has a central doorway with a modern glass door, surmounted by a pediment and flanked by a pair of rectangular openings which still contain early double-hung timber windows.
The facade is decorated with simple pilasters and imitation block quoins. Beneath each window is a decorative motif consistent with the 1930s date of the building's remodelling. Modern steel frames attached to the exterior hold business signs.
Along the East Street frontage is a single-storey wing consisting of four individual tenancies. The northern end wall is brick and the tenancies have tinted glass shopfronts. The roof height is lower than the original bank building.
","history":"The Qld National Bank is a single storey rendered brick building originally constructed as an office in 1877. The original architect and builder are not known.
The first building on the site was George Thorn's Queen's Arms Hotel, built in 1843. This was demolished probably c1875 and the land sold as separate allotments. The corner site was bought by surveyor and real estate agent Enoch Bostock who constructed an office which opened for business on 1 January 1878. A three-stall stables was built behind the office and blacksmith William Hayne operated from there, using an entry in East Street.
In 1881, the building was bought by the Queensland National Bank which had opened its first Ipswich branch in 1873 in rented premises. After buying Bostock's building, the bank continued to operate from its old premises until the lease ran out. Builder Peter Brown was employed to renovate Bostock's former office in October 1882 and the bank moved there in 1883.
At this time, the bank was a simple rendered building with a central arched doorway and an arched window on either side, all with decorative pilasters and semi-circular heads with keystones. Bank records show that "general improvements" were made in 1935; this is believed to have been when the pediment was built above the entry and the windows and doors were changed.
In 1948, the Qld National Bank was absorbed by the National Bank of Australasia Ltd which also had an Ipswich branch nearby in Brisbane St. The two branches remained in operation until 1973 when the former Qld National Bank building was sold to solicitors Somers and Walker who used it as an office then leased it to the Bank of Queensland in 1981. A modern single storey extension was made along the East Street frontage in the late 1970s, consisting of four individual tenancies.
Until 1981, the interior of the main building had been timber panelled and included a solid timber counter while the main entrance was a panelled timber door. These were all removed by the Bank of Queensland who also added steel frames for signs to the exterior.
The bank was sold in 1987 and after again being leased as offices for Rose Jensen solicitors, became a stationery shop in 1997. It was placed for sale again the same year.
","criteria":"Built c1877, the former Queensland National Bank demonstrates externally the stylistic characteristics of a small provincial town bank.
The place, although altered, retains aesthetic characteristics valued by the community and is part of a row of historic buildings which contribute to the streetscape of the Ipswich CBD.
It is associated with the Queensland National Bank and later the National Bank of Australasia in the provision of financial services in provincial towns.
|Built c1877, the former Queensland National Bank demonstrates externally the stylistic characteristics of a small provincial town bank.
|The place, although altered, retains aesthetic characteristics valued by the community and is part of a row of historic buildings which contribute to the streetscape of the Ipswich CBD.
|It is associated with the Queensland National Bank and later the National Bank of Australasia in the provision of financial services in provincial towns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15335,"place_ref":600560,"name":"Action Realty","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"93 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The three adjacent two-storey brick shops fronting Brisbane present a cohesive group which contribute significantly to the nineteenth century streetscape of this part of Brisbane Street.
The two westerly shops are a matching pair of two-storey, gabled roofed brick shops, the details above the cantilevered awning being relatively intact, with cantilevered wooden balconies decorated with cast ion posts and balustrades and curved corrugated iron roofs. The walls are decorated with polychrome and projecting brickwork and classical mouldings in cement render and have small central triangular pediments. The shop front at ground level has been substantially altered with a large glass display window dominating the entrance at Action Realty and the printers shop next door.
The interior of the Action Realty offices is of modern open plan design with partitions providing individual work spaces and a reception counter at the front. The ceiling of the ground floor has been lowered from its original height. The upper floor has been opened to create a large space over the area of the two shops. It still contains an original staircase in the eastern end of the building. The ground floor ceiling of the printers' shop still displays original ceiling roses and cornices picked out in pink paint.
The earlier 1877 shop blends with the later gabled shops but is of simpler design. The upper balcony also displays cast iron balustrades with decorative iron posts and a convex corrugated iron awning, The upper rooms are accessed by French doors to the balcony. This building has a plain horizontal parapet. A difference in the colour and texture of brick is also visible between this building and the two adjacent gabled shops. The interior design of the upper level is intact in the front section leading on the the balcony. It consists of two rooms with doors to the balcony reminiscent of bedrooms or living rooms in what would have been a shop residence.
This shop also contains a brick-lined cellar accessed via steps at the rear of the building. The cellar runs the entire length of the shop to the Brisbane Street footpath but is not accessible via Brisbane Street. The cellar contains arched supports and the stone foundations are visible.
","history":"The two-storey brick shops which front Brisbane Street were constructed in stages between 1877 and 1893. William George Johnston had purchased two adjacent pieces of land on Brisbane Street in 1876 and 1877 (Sub A of Allotment 1 of Section 2 and Sub B of Allotment 2 of Section 2 respectively) after the Clarendon Hotel, which previously stood on the land, was destroyed by fire on 19 January 1875. He then took out a mortgage for £400 from the Ipswich and West Moreton Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society on 18 October, 1877 at which time he advertised a tender notice for the erection of a two-storey brick house in Brisbane Street.
The Clarendon Hotel, formerly the Queens Arms Hotel, was established by George Thorn around 1843/44. George Thorn arrived in Ipswich with his wife and son in 1835 as Superintendent of a 'cattle establishment' which was a branch convict settlement of Brisbane. At the first land sales for Ipswich by auction in Sydney on 11 October 1843, Thorn purchased Allotments 1 & 2, of Section 2 Par Ipswich and later Allotments 27 & 28 which covered the corner of the block fronting Brisbane and East Streets. He subsequently established the Palais Royal Hotel on this land soon changing the name to the Queens Arms Hotel.
The Queens Arms was described as a 'long one-storeyed brick building with the main frontage facing East Street'. Thorn was said to have provided the 'best accommodation, breakfasts, dinners, suppers and every other refreshment in five minutes, together with wines, spirits and stabling equal to any in the Colony'. Being one of the earliest public buildings in Ipswich, the Queens Arms was often used for public purposes such as auctions of land and was used as the premises for the Court until the Ipswich Court House was constructed in 1853.
By 1859/60 the name had changed again to the Clarendon Hotel and on 19 January 1875 the building was destroyed by a fire which apparently started in the hotel's kitchen in the early hours of the morning. The fire also destroyed the offices of the Observer and the offices of William Hendren both of which were adjacent to the Clarendon.
It is widely held that the brick cellar which is underneath the 1877 brick building is the remains of the original Queens Arms Hotel, although there is no proof of this claim. If, in fact, the cellar was part of the original Queens' Arms hotel, it would be the oldest surviving structure in Ipswich, linking the city with it's original settler, George Thorn who came to Ipswich in 1835.
After William Johnston had constructed the first of the brick shops in 1877 he leased it to Dan Kennedy who used the building as premises for the Victoria Hotel from 1883 to 1891. There is evidence that the cellar was used for storage purposes at this time, or perhaps earlier, from the grooves cut into the stairs accessing the cellar for wheeling barrels in and out .
The exact construction date of the two gabled brick shops adjacent to the 1877 building has not been ascertained but they did appear in a photograph of Brisbane Street during the 1893 flood. Businesses were registered as operating at the site of the buildings in the Queensland Post Office Directories from the 1880s, including a bakery in the shop closest to East St and a watchmakers in the middle shop. As the shop closest to East Street was used as a bakery and then a café for most of the 20th century it may be plausible to assume that the shop was built in the 1880s and originally used as a bakery. The construction of the shops reflect the establishment of Ipswich as a commercial centre in the booming late 1870s and 1880s.
The shops changed hands several times after William Johnston sold the property in 1917. The shops had been used mostly for hospitality businesses in the twentieth century including Bunces Cake Shop and the Dorothy Belle Café situated in the shop closest to East St and the Metro Café in the middle shop.
In 1970 the property was purchased by Garth Llewellyn and the ground floor of the middle shop and the top level of the two gabled shops were used as offices for Action Realty.
In the 1980s the original iron posts which supported a convex corrugated iron awning were knocked out by a bus and the awning and posts were replaced by the current modern awning across the three shops.
The 1877 building is occupied by a second hand clothing store, the middle shop by Action Realty and the end shop is a printery.
","criteria":"The three adjacent two-storey brick shops at 93 Brisbane Street are important in demonstrating the development of Ipswich as a commercial centre in the latter nineteenth century. In about 1877 the first of the brick shops replaced a previous one-storey brick hotel which had stood on the site from the 1840s. The other two shops were constructed before 1893 and the three buildings are of a substantial nature reflecting the growth and the success of the town centre around Brisbane and Limestone Streets since free settlement commenced in 1842.
|This building is also important because of its aesthetic significance as it contributes significantly to the historical and physical centre of Ipswich. It is an integral member of the central townscape made up of many substantial commercial, religious and civic buildings from the 1850s to the 1910s which presented Ipswich as a confident and affluent city and today create the character if the city centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15337,"place_ref":600562,"name":"Lime Kiln Remains","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"82 Chermside Road","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"There are signs of a stone kiln 6 feet by 5 feet into the steep bank below Brisbane Street. The kiln is in the form of an inverted cone with the lower part of the interior sloping inwards. The stone blocks are of silicified limestone of irregular size. Brickwork was mentioned in a newspaper report of the Scouts' excavation but is not exposed although brick fragments have been observed towards the outer side of the structure. A second kiln could exist alongside the excavated kiln as evidenced by the unusual depression into the bank roughly parallel to the excavated kiln.
The kiln lies at the base of the eastern of two north - northwest / south- southeast spine ridges of Tertiary silicified magnesian limestone. The hollow near the hummock believed to be the source of limestone quarrying in the 19th century.
","history":"The Lime Kiln Remains are thought to have been built by William Hancock (a local builder) in the 1860s. This lime kiln was not the first to be established in Ipswich, however the remains of this kiln are significant as a link to the original settlement of Ipswich, formerly known as 'Limestone'.
Prior to the settlement at Ipswich, lime for building purposes in Brisbane had been obtained by burning sea-shells. It was in 1827 that Captain Patrick Logan discovered limestone deposits on the banks of the Bremer River:
In the general course of last year Captain Logan, in tracing the Bremer (of the late Mr. Oxley, who merely passed its mouth in 1824) from its junction with the Brisbane, discovered at ten miles through its many windings from that point, the calcareous hummocks on its right bank, now named the 'Limestone Hills'.
...Some months after this discovery a kiln was built, and a party of convicts, consisting of an overseer (acquainted with the operations of sapping and mining), and five men (convicts) were stationed at these hills to commence lime-burning.
(extract form Cunningham's Report to Darling, 16 December 1828.)
The kiln operated on what was called Limestone Station until 1839 when the penal settlement was closed. It was reported to have produced 300 - 400 baskets of quick lime per week which were sent to Brisbane via the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers. The town of Limestone, now Ipswich, was established in 1842 on the site of Limestone Station.
Other kilns were constructed subsequent to the original convict construction, the remains of the existing kiln being one of them. Advertisements regarding the setting up of lime kilns at this location, and for the supply of lime by W Hancock, appeared in the Queensland Times from 1864. Hancock's Kiln was later reported as having been 'erected on the most approved English methods.' (Queensland Times, 25 August, 1892).
William Hancock migrated from England in 1856 and worked for a short time in Brisbane prior to moving to Ipswich where he lived until his death on 23 August 1892. Hancock was born at St Ives, Cornwall, went to live in Yorkshire, and was married at Leeds in 1844. Hancock was well known in Ipswich as a 'builder in brick' and building contractor and was involved in the construction of a number of buildings including, additions to Rockton Villa, Colinton Station, Booval House, the foundations of the first railway workshop, the Lands Office and the Wesleyan Parsonage as well as laying pipes for the waterworks in 1877. He also owned a soap and candle works at Churchill. It is quite likely that Hancock would have used lime from this kiln for his own building purposes as well as for sale.
The lime is believed to have come from the hummock of lime residue nearby as early photographs of the hummock show a much greater height than at present and also evidence of terracing such as would occur with mining.
The site was included in land granted to the Ipswich Girls' Grammar School in 1890.
The kiln remains were buried by road widening activities for Brisbane Street but were recovered in 1961 by excavations undertaken by the Limestone District Scout Group. The site has been subsequently infilled.
","criteria":"The Lime Kiln remains are a legacy of the early settlement of the Moreton Bay District. The lime-burning industry was the first established in the Ipswich area and the discovery of lime was the reason for the original settlement. The remains of the Lime Kiln are a link to the initial settlement of Ipswich.
|The Lime Kiln remains are a rare example of 19th century lime-burning technology. They are the only surviving example in the district.
|The Lime Kiln Remains have special association with prominent local builder William Hancock who was a well known building contractor and 'builder in brick' contributing significantly to the built environment of nineteenth century Ipswich.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15338,"place_ref":600563,"name":"Bostock Chambers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"169-175 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bostock Chambers is an intricately detailed, two storey commercial building on the intersection of Brisbane and Ellenborough streets. It is complemented by adjacent buildings which form a coherent streetscape to Brisbane street. The neighbouring building, Colthup Chambers, was constructed as a separate structure and has almost identical detailing.
Bostock Chambers contains shops on the ground floor with offices on the first floor that are accessed via a stair from Brisbane street. It is constructed of face brick with rendered mouldings to the upper facade and parapet. The hipped roofline is concealed behind the parapet which contains the words 'E. Bostock & Sons, estabd 1865' with the date of construction of the building, '1915', on the corner. The detailing to the upper floor windows is a distinctive feature of the building and includes elaborate rendered sills, and window hoods with timber brackets, fretwork and terracotta roof tiles. Each double-hung window has nine panes to the upper sash and a single pane to the lower sash.
The street awning to the lower floor is early, and has a pressed metal ceiling. Flat brick arches above fanlights and earlier openings are visible at the top of the awning. The ground floor shops open onto Brisbane street and are accessed from the rear through a courtyard containing a loading dock. A separate, single-storey building is set at an angle to the main two-storey building and houses a shop which addresses Ellenborough street. This shop contains a safe set low in one wall and a vault with a heavy metal door at the rear. The shops have been refurbished but some original fabric remains including fanlights to the shop doorways, marble thresholds and a pressed metal ceiling to the corner shop. The individual tenancies are separated by timber vj walls. The stair to the upper floor is intact with marble threshold, double timber doors and timber stair and handrail.
The upper floor is divided into separate rooms, formerly offices, which either face the street or the rear courtyard and are accessed from a central passageway. These rooms are now used for storage and an opportunity shop. The timber doors and windows are intact and the walls and ceilings are timber framed and lined with vj boarding. The central passageway opens to an elevated walkway, above the rear courtyard, leading to a toilet block set above the loading bay. These toilets are early but not original, and consist of two ladies' and one gents' divided by a corrugated iron screen. The only handbasin is external and located on the walkway.
","history":"The Bostock Chambers building on the corner of Brisbane and Ellenborough Streets was constructed in 1915 for the family business of E. Bostock & Sons, a prominent and well established surveyors and auctioneers in Ipswich. The building was erected at a time of renewed building activity in Ipswich at the beginning of the 20th century and is reflective of this boom.
Enoch Bostock had been a prominent member of the Ipswich community from the mid 19th century and created his own successful surveying, auctioneering and real estate business. Bostock established his first business premises in the former Queensland National Bank building (QHR 600559) on the corner of Brisbane & East Streets in 1878, later moving to prmises in Nicholas Street as E Bostock and Sons. Enoch Bostock died on 9 April 1905 after which his sons continued the family business in Ipswich.
In 1914 the land on the corner of Ellenborough and Brisbane Streets was transferred to Henry Alexander Bostock and Frederick Rowland Bostock, Surveyors, and a mortgage was taken out for £2,000. A tender notice was advertised in The Queensland Times by prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill (a former associate of Enoch Bostock) on 26 September 1914 and the tender was accepted on 13 October 1914. Bostock Chambers opened in July 1915 and was featured in The Queensland Times of 8 July 1915.
The architect, George Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomas (1889/90), Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (1890/91), St Paul's Rectory (1895), The Ipswich Club (1916), the Hotel Metropole (1906), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President from 1914-16 and President from 1918-19. George Brockwell Gill's work has made a significant impact on the physical environment of Ipswich, his buildings forming a substantial proportion of the building stock in the CBD and in the suburban streets.
Bostock Chambers has been used as offices and retail outlets from it beginnings and remains as one the most prominent commercial corner buildings in the Ipswich CBD.
","criteria":"The Bostock Chambers buildings is important in demonstrating the evolution of the CBD of Ipswich as a reflection of renewed commercial building activity following the turn of the 20th century.
|The building has high aesthetic value as a prominent corner building in the heart of Ipswich contributing significantly to the streetscape of Brisbane and Ellenborough Streets and to the townscape as a whole. The western end of Brisbane Street is an unusually intact example of an early 20th century shopping centre and commercial district focussed around the street, and the Bostock Chambers building contributes to this particular characteristic significantly.
|The building has special association with the Bostock family being the result of their successful business in Ipswich which commenced operation in the mid 19th century. The building still clearly bears their name.
Bostock Chambers also has special association with the work of George Brockwell Gill as a significant example his work which included many significant civic, commercial and domestic buildings in Ipswich.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15339,"place_ref":600564,"name":"Ulster Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"25 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Ulster Hotel is a loadbearing brick two storey building that stands on the corner of Brisbane and Mortimer streets. The building has a hipped roof with a half gable to the western end and decorative iron roof ventilators. The brickwork is rendered with ruled joints. The exterior wall of the public bar is brought forward to the footpath alignment and continues up past the roof of an upper level verandah to form a decorative parapet which addresses the corner. The arch on the parapet at the corner contains the words 'Ulster Hotel 1910'. The facade of the building then steps back along Brisbane street to form a wider verandah on the first level and ground floor, from which the central entry hall leads into the main part of the building.
The public bar occupies the eastern part of the ground floor of the building. The entrance to the bar on the corner contains early double timber doors with an arched fanlight. A series of double-hung windows with arched heads are situated on either side of the doorway. The door and window openings are emphasised with mouldings at the level of the sill and head with central keystones in each arch. The upper floor verandah is cantilevered out over the footpath with a cast iron balustrade and frieze and a convex roof. Where the building steps back, the parapet ends and the roofline changes to a skillion, separate to the main roof. The ground level verandah has cast iron balustrades with timber fretwork above.
A central hallway is entered from the ground floor verandah. The hall contains a timber staircase with turned timber balustrades, which leads to the upper level. The entrance to the hall features double timber doors with leadlight sidelights and a semi-circular leadlight fanlight. Leading from the hallway to the right is another smaller hall which leads to the public bar and two minor rooms. The interior walls are plastered with timber cornices and architraves and the ceilings are vj boards. The public bar has a pressed metal ceiling and retains the original timber panelled entry doors and timber double-hung windows. The bar fitout is not original and the walls have been lined with timber veneer panelling.
To the left of the main hallway is a space which was originally a large dining room with two small parlours opening onto the street through french doors. The dividing walls between these rooms have been removed but the original doors and windows are intact. A dividing wall has been inserted in the dining room space to form a storeroom. The remainder of the building was not inspected internally.
A single storey kitchen wing with a hipped roof is set at right angles to the building at the rear. A two storey amenities block has been added at the rear of the public bar to provide toilets to the first and second floors. There is a breezeway between this block and the original rear wall. A verandah with a convex roof and timber and iron balustrade detailing is on the first level at the rear of the building. A brick garage with a skillion roof is at the rear of the property accessed from Mortimer Street.
The hotel, situated on a corner site on the gentle slope of Brisbane Street, is a prominent landmark with the streetscape.
It is complemented by a series of three modest timber dwellings, with corrugated iron, pyramid roofing. The two houses closest to the hotel have quite steeply pitched roof slopes
","history":"The land on which the Ulster Hotel stands, allotment 10 of section 27, was originally purchased by Martin Byrne on 1 November 1851 for £12.
From 1872 the Horse and Jockey hotel was operating on the land in a low-set timber building with a shingle roof and attic windows. The first publican was William Thompson who ran the hotel from 1872 to 1880. Thomas Breen then took over the hotel and changed the name to the Ulster Hotel in 1881 and subsequently the hotel changed hands many times in the last years of the 19th century.
On 19 August 1892 the land was transferred to Patrick O'Sullivan and on 25 October 1892 O'Sullivan took out a bill of mortgage for £2,500. This could suggest that the construction of the present hotel began around this time, however the date on the parapet of the hotel reads 1910 suggesting that the hotel could have been constructed or perhaps rebuilt later. O'Sullivan was a local storekeeper and publican and was a member of Queensland's first Legislative Assembly in 1860, representing various Ipswich electorates until 1892. O'Sullivan came to Australia as a convict in 1848, being transported form County Kerry in Ireland and managed to amass significant property investments in Ipswich.
The construction of a new more substantial hotel on the site of a more modest former establishment during the Federation period was reflective of a widespread renewal of the built environment in Ipswich which reflected the established nature of the city as an important commercial and industrial centre.
The Ulster Hotel was taken over in 1934 over by a publican of special interest named Dan Dempsey. Dempsey was a member of the Kangaroo rugby team and was given the position of manager by the Bulimba Beer Company and the hotel became known locally as "the Dempsey". Dempsey appears to have been a colourful character who flaunted opening hours, using his own and neighbourhood children to keep an eye out for the police while supposedly playing in front of the hotel. During the beer rationing throughout World War II, Dempsey would put on kegs to suit the hours worked by the miners. It was not uncommon for an 18 gallon keg to disappear in 20 minutes when the miners arrived at the hotel at the end of a shift.
Dan Dempsey's daughter, Norma, and her husband Dennis Flannery took over the hotel in 1953 and they still operate and live in the Ulster Hotel at the present time.
","criteria":"Erected in 1910, the Ulster Hotel demonstrates a period of renewed building activity in Ipswich around the turn of the 20th century being built as a new hotel on the site of a previous hotel. It was one of many substantial public brick buildings constructed during this period and the striking nature of the building also reflects the importance of the local hotel in communities of the era.
|The Ulster Hotel is a good example of a Queensland Federation Hotel with its original design and detailing still either intact or evident.
|The Ulster Hotel has aesthetic significance for its contribution to the Brisbane Street streetscape because of its size, detailing and prominent corner position and for its architectural value which displays a skilled design approach and fine workmanship.
|It also has special association with the local community as a place of social activity since the construction of the present hotel in 1910 and the previous hotel on the site since the latter nineteenth century.
|It also has special association with Ipswich businessman Patrick O'Sullivan, a member of the first Queensland Legislative Assembly m1860 and has special association with Dan Dempsey the popular publican in the early 20th century who gave the pub the nickname the 'Dempsey' and his family who still run the pub today.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15340,"place_ref":600565,"name":"Ipswich Girls' Grammar School","alternate_name":"Girls Grammar School Ipswich","street_address":"82 Chermside Road","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School is located on the eastern edge of the Ipswich Central Business District surrounded by residential development on its east and west and Queen’s Park [QHR600 Number] to its South. The school is bounded by the railway to the north, and by roadway on its South, East and West Boundaries. Lime Kiln Remains [QHR600562] are also located at the southern boundary of the property.
\nThe school comprises school buildings and landscape features from as early as the 1890s.
\nFeatures of Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School considered to be of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAdministration Building (Buildings A, E & F)
\nThe Administration building was the first building constructed on the site. It is a classical two storey rendered brick building, designed by Brockwell Gill, that was constructed in stages from 1892. The first stage consisted of the central portion with a transverse gabled wing to the left hand end. Another transverse gabled wing was added at the right hand end in 1901, completing the symmetry of the building. The gabled ends have pilasters rising up through two storeys and terminating in three semi-circular arches above the upper storey windows. The date of construction of each wing is inscribed in raised lettering below each central upper window. The central portion of the facade consists of a ground floor arcaded verandah with a central semi-circular arch leading to the central entrance door. This semi-circular arch is repeated on the upper verandah and is surmounted by a central gabled roof. Timber finials and decorative timber fretwork are at the end of each gable.
\nThe internal walls of the Administration building consist mainly of a painted rendered finish up to the dado line with painted brick above. The majority of the interior timber joinery is intact. A decorative roof lantern lights the fine timber stairwell in the 1901 wing. The 1892 wing also contains a more simply detailed timber stair. The upper room in this wing features heavy timber roof trusses with a diagonally boarded ceiling lined on the rake and timber honour boards dating back to the formation of the school.
\nThe rear of the Administration building consists of several wings built around a central courtyard. The rear wings were constructed in stages, beginning with a single storey and resulting in two storey wings to three sides of the courtyard. These wings are of brick and timber construction, with narrow verandahs on both sides of a central room core. The verandahs are simply detailed with timber balustrades with a cross pattern and curved timber brackets.
\nAssembly Hall (Building H) (1968)
\nThe Assembly Hall was designed in 1964 by Dr. Karl Langer and terminates the tree lined entry avenue. The hall has a simple gabled portico to the front with a finely textured face-brick main wall behind. A Shillam sculpture of birds in flight is in the forecourt of the building. Double glazed timber doors lead into the foyer at the front of the building. The interior volume of the hall is punctuated by steel webbed truss portal frames which continue out to support the roof of a side aisle on the eastern side. Langer's concern with climatic design is shown in the design of the building. Indirect light is admitted to the hall through eastern clerestory glazing. A folded brick wall to the eastern aisle has glazing on the south walls to admit additional indirect light. High level louvres on the western wall allow the exit of warm air and aid cross-ventilation. Original metal and glass light fittings remain in the foyer and the dark-stained vertical boarded detailing to parts of the hall is intact. The hall has been extended since it was constructed.
\nGatekeeper’s Lodge (Building Y) (1892)
\nThe Gatekeeper’s Lodge is a small timber framed and clad building located to the west of the Memorial Gates. The building is a lowset timber framed house clad with chamferboards. The roofline is made up of three gables with separate skillion roofs to the verandahs. The verandahs are simply detailed with timber railings and brackets. This building has been extended and has had internal alterations. A replica cottage has been constructed next to it to house a theatre workshop.
\nMemorial Gates (1952)
\nThe main entrance to the school is near the intersection of Brisbane Road, Chermside Road, Glebe Road, & Queen Victoria Parade through Memorial Gates (1952) which open to the tree lined Main Drive.
\nMain Drive
\nThe Main Drive is a paved and tree lined driveway leading from the main entrance and Memorial Gates at Queen Victoria Parade to the Administration Building and Assembly Hall, past the Gatekeeper’s Lodge, School buildings and lawns.
\nMature trees line each side of the driveway and frame views to the end of driveway where the Assembly Hall can be seen. The trees screen buildings and views of the school and reveal views to the Administration building as the viewer moves along the driveway.
\nFeatures of Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School not considered to be of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (IGGS) was opened in 1892 and was the last of the non-denominational grammar schools to be established in Queensland. In 1863 the Ipswich Grammar School (IGS - for boys) was established being the first Grammar School to be established in Queensland following the Grammar Schools Act, 1860. The advent of the 1860 Act and the ensuing establishment of grammar schools throughout Queensland was seen as a major advancement for education in the new colony. It brought about the first attempts by government and local communities combined to establish institutionalised, academic, secondary education in Queensland, paving the way towards the establishment of tertiary education in the state.
\nThe Grammar Schools Act of 1860 stipulated that where £1000 could be raised by donation or subscription in any district for the establishment of a grammar school, then the Government would contribute £2000 towards the school. The race to establish the first grammar school in Queensland was racked by sectarian rivalry with the Roman Catholic Church being the first contender. However, the controversy concerning church versus state education led to the government refusal of Roman Catholic Bishop James Quinn's proposal to establish grammar schools at Brisbane and Ipswich on the principle that a grammar school education should be secular and free from denominational control. This was the basis on which the schools were eventually established.
\nThe Grammar Schools followed the traditional British format for providing an education based on languages, particularly the Classics, Latin and Greek, and usually English, Mathematics and other academic subjects.
\nThe concept of a formal academic education for women was just emerging in Australia in the latter nineteenth century. The first grammar schools in Queensland, Ipswich and Brisbane, were established exclusively for boys but by 1874 the Brisbane Grammar School had admitted girls into the school and appointed Mrs M. O'Connor as Headmistress. In 1883 two separate Brisbane Grammar Schools were established for girls and boys. In 1881 Rockhampton Grammar was established as a co-educational school and in 1892 a new Rockhampton Girls' Grammar had been established. Again in 1883 the Ladies' Committee in Maryborough had established the Maryborough Girls' Grammar and in 1893 the Townsville Grammar School became co-educational and has remained co-educational until the present.
\nBy the late 1870s there was mounting pressure in Ipswich to establish a girls grammar as expressed in an editorial to the Queensland Times, 21 December, 1876:
\nWe would urge upon our townspeople and particularly upon the trustees of our Grammar School the importance of at once taking steps for the establishment of a Girls Grammar School in Ipswich. Our boys have had the opportunity - of which many have availed themselves - of receiving a thorough English and Classical education. But what has been done in the way of providing higher education for our girls? Nothing!
\nIn 1887 a committee was formed to raise funds for the establishment of a Girls' Grammar School and in 1890 the land for the current site of the school was granted by the Trustees of Queens Park in Ipswich. In the same year, George Brockwell Gill had been appointed architect and was contracted to design a school building for a cost of £3500. Tenders for construction were called in The Queensland Times on 21 Jan 1891 and contractors Worley and Whitehead were accepted with a tender of £3893. The foundation stone of the school was laid on 10 March 1891 by Acting Governor, Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, K.C.M.G.
\nThe architect of the original building, George Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomas (1889/90), St Paul's Rectory (1895), The Ipswich Club (1916), The Technical College (1901), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914-16 and President in 1918-19. Gill was also a member of the Board of Trustees for IGGS and on his retirement in 1948 he was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
\nThe IGGS opened to students on 1 February 1892 with an enrolment of 31 girls under the charge of the first Headmistress, Miss Fanny E. Hunt, B.Sc., University of Sydney, appointed by the Board of Trustees in October 1891. The school also employed two assistant teachers and one junior teacher. The subjects offered included English, Latin, German, French, Political Science, Botany, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Domestic Economy, Drill and Gymnastics, Geography, Ancient and Modern History, Writing, Drawing and Book-keeping. The school had an immediate impact on the education young women; from the first group of 31 students came the first Queensland woman to take a degree in medicine (Eleanor Greenham), the first woman to take a degree of Master of Arts in Mathematics at Sydney University (Estelle Cribb), a distinguished artist (Violet Rudkin) and a Principal of Osborne College in the Blue Mountains (Violet Gibbons). Both the second and third women to be called to the Queensland Bar were educated at IGGS.
\nLater in 1892, a gymnasium, play shed, stables, fences, roads and trees were added to the school grounds. Amongst the trees planted at this time were those lining the main driveway, forming an avenue consisting of Weeping Figs, Moreton Bay Figs and Camphor Laurels. The gatekeeper's lodge was also built in 1892 by Worely and Whitehead for £153 to the design of George Brockwell Gill. The Trustees of the School demanded that the kitchen, as well as the living room, of the Lodge have a view of the school's gate with the idea that the caretaker's wife would attend the gate while in the kitchen.
\nIn 1901 the original school building was extended on its northern side to the design of George Brockwell Gill, giving the school a symmetrical frontage and adding a decorative lantern in the Northern wing. In 1952 the current gates to the school were opened as the Estelle Cribb Memorial Gates. Estelle Cribb was a former student of IGGS and later became a teacher there after completing her University studies in Sydney. The Cribb family has had a strong association with IGGS from its beginnings, Thomas Bridson Cribb M.L.A. being the first Chairman of the Board of Trustees of IGGS. The Cribbs have served as Trustees on the Board until the present day.
\nIn 1968 the assembly hall was opened which was designed by architect Karl Langer. Langer was a respected authority in house design for the sub-tropics. In 1944 Langer published a paper, 'Sub-tropical Housing' which was a forerunner to subsequent publications on climatic design. He was a lecturer at the University of Queensland for many years. The assembly hall at IGGS exemplifies some of his principles of climate control.
\nThe gatekeeper's lodge was converted into new accommodation for speech and drama subjects by removing some of the internal walls to make a small theatre and classroom and converting the kitchen into a workshop and the bathroom into a make-up room. This work was undertaken by Arthur Lumley in 1983. In 1991 the lodge was extended in period style by David Pagendam and Associates. A replica building has been constructed on the western side of the old lodge as a small theatre auditorium, designed. In 1977 the assembly hall was extended by Bruce Buchanan Architects Pty Ltd.
\nSince 1995 several new complexes have been added to the grounds included the gymnasium on the south-west portion of the school.
","criteria":"Established in 1891, Ipswich Girl's Grammar School is an important example of an early secondary girls' school in Queensland and reflects the development of education in Queensland. The youngest of the Grammar Schools in Queensland, it demonstrates the culmination of the Grammar School movement which saw Grammar Schools established throughout the state since the Grammar Schools Act of 1860.
|It has aesthetic significance as an important civic group with grounds occupying the dominating slope to the immediate north-east of the city centre with townscape importance to the immediate streets and the distant city views. The memorial entrance gates with the 1893 gate-house and the tree-lined driveway leading to the original school building designed by George Brockwell Gill and the 1960s assembly hall designed by Karl Langer are particularly important to the aesthetic value of the school.
|Ipswich Girls' Grammar School has strong association with the past, present and future generations of the school community. It also has strong association with the local community of Ipswich having been a landmark in the city since 1891.
|It possesses strong association with the work of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill who designed the original building in 1891 and additions to this building in 1901. It is a good example of one of his earlier works preceding his most notable work for the Ipswich Technical College (1901) and other buildings in Ipswich including the Ipswich Club (1916), Hotel Metropole (1906) and the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator (1936).
\nThe school also has special association with the work of architect Karl Langer who designed the assembly hall opened in 1968. It is a good example of his work exemplifying his principles of design for climate.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15341,"place_ref":600566,"name":"Old Town Hall","alternate_name":"School of Arts | Mechanics School of Arts","street_address":"116 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Old Town Hall, a two-storeyed painted rendered masonry building with a hipped corrugated iron roof to the rear, is located in the centre of Ipswich fronting Brisbane Street to the north. The building is situated within a precinct containing the adjoining Post Office [600555] to the east, with London's Pharmacy [600554] adjacent to the Post Office, the former Bank of Australasia [600568] adjacent to the west and the former St Pauls Young Men's Institute [600584] to the southwest.
The building consists of three stages, with the original 1861 hall at the rear, the 1864 section fronting Brisbane Street, and a clock tower added in 1879.
The Brisbane Street section has a symmetrical ornately decorated facade with classical detailing to the street, which consists of a wide central bay with a projecting narrower bay to either side. The ground floor has three arches to the central section, with one arch to either side, with coursed render expressing voussoirs and a vermiculated base. The central arches open to an entrance portico and are accessed via wide steps, with the side arches housing window displays. The first floor is composed similarly, with the three central arches originally to a loggia, but now glazed. These arches have expressed imposts, vermiculated keystones, and decorative mouldings to voussoir and abutments. The side arches house tall narrow sash windows which have similar imposts, voussoirs, keystones and abutment treatments, and which are flanked by circular Ionic pilasters with square Ionic pilasters at the corners of the projecting bay. The pilasters are supported by a deep base, either side of an enclosed balustrade panel of interlocking circles, and in turn support a heavy entablature with a parapet above which has open balustrade panels of interlocking circles.
The clock tower, square in plan, has paired square Corinthian pilasters at each corner supporting an entablature with pediment to each face. The clock faces have been removed, and are now blank. A cantilevered awning has been added to the central section above the ground level, and slightly projects from the building with an edging which mimics the base of the pilasters, but which obscures the former loggia's open balustrade details.
The rear hall was built as a single-storeyed high ceiling structure with a basement to the south. The structure is now two-storeyed with basement, due to the insertion of the mezzanine floor during the 1980s. The building has a corrugated iron hipped roof with ridge ventilators, expressed banding at ground floor and mezzanine level and tall arched windows along the east and west elevations. Door openings have been made in the west wall to allow access to an adjoining recently created public square, and evidence of earlier door and window openings which have been closed over can be seen in the north and south ends of the building. The south elevation, originally the rear of the stage area, has large arched header sash windows to the ground level and three closed over circular openings to the mezzanine level. The basement level has a door flanked by two arched header sash windows either side of a large central arched opening. The opening has been glazed and has a large tiled awning. A steel fire stair has been added to the east elevation.
Internally, the ground floor has a central foyer with paired panelled timber doors in an amber glass panel sidelights and fanlight assembly. Retail tenancies are located to either side, and have been remodelled several times. Toilets and store are located behind these, and a turned cedar staircase with square newel posts accesses the first floor. Walls are rendered, and an arched opening leads into the hall at the rear with a timber ramp accommodating a change in floor level. The hall space has ashlar scribed rendered walls, and has undergone several modifications, including a concrete mezzanine floor with central opening, twin staircases from the mezzanine level to the rear stage area, a central hydraulic lift shaft, and several openings in exterior walls. The rear stage area has a proscenium arch with classical details including side pilasters, entablature and keystone. The stage area is accessed via a central stair, and has a narrow stair in the southwest corner accessing the basement level.
The first floor of the Brisbane Street section has a central reception area with a skylight and offices to exterior walls. The mezzanine level has a hardboard panelled ceiling with cover strip mouldings and curved edges to side walls. The top of the tall sash windows project above the floor level and light the floor area, and arches either side of the proscenium arch access the top level of the stage area. This area has a hipped boarded timber ceiling. The basement level houses toilets and storeroom.
The rear of the site has a bitumen surfaced carpark.
","history":"The Old Town Hall, a two-storeyed painted rendered masonry building with a clock tower and a hipped corrugated iron roof at the rear, is located in the centre of Ipswich fronting Brisbane Street to the north.
\nA Deed of Grant for the original land content, allotments 10 and 23 of section 5, was issued on 7 September 1861 for School of Arts purposes to the trustees Benjamin Cribb, Charles Gray, Frederick Forbes, George Thorn and Henry Challinor. The building was constructed in three stages, with the rear section in 1861, the Brisbane Street section in 1864, and the clock tower in 1879.
\nSchools of Arts were synonymous with Mechanics' Institutes, established in Britain early in the 19th century, and transplanted throughout the British Empire during the colonial era. The movement was instituted by George Birkbeck, who in 1800 established a class for journeymen mechanics in Glasgow, and later formed the first Mechanics' Institute in London in 1824. The purpose of forming such an institute was to improve the education of working men, and to instruct them in various trades. By the late 19th century, Mechanics' Institutes had become popular agencies of adult education in general.
\nMechanics' Institutes were part of a wider 19th century movement promoting popular education in Britain, at which time co-operative societies, working men's colleges and the university extension movement were established. The call for popular education in turn can be contextualised within the broader liberal, laissez-faire, non-interventionist philosophy which dominated British social, economic and political ideologies in the 19th century. In this environment, Mechanics' Institutes flourished as a means by which working men might improve their lot, either through self-education (the provision of reading rooms was an important facility provided by the Institutes), or by participating in instructional classes organised and funded by Institute members.
\nIn the Australian colonies, Mechanics' Institutes were more likely to be called Schools of Arts, and they were more likely to be run by the middle-classes. The provision of reading rooms, museums, lectures and classes were still important, but the Australian schools were also more likely to include a social programme in their calendar of events.
\nThe Ipswich Literary Institution was formed at a public meeting held on 31 July 1850, with its aim being to provide a news room and library. Six days later another public meeting established a School of Arts merging with the Ipswich Literary Institution for the purpose of obtaining the Colonial Government subsidy which was being made available to Schools of Arts.
\nIn July 1854 the name of the literary institution of the School of Arts became the Ipswich Subscription Library and reading room. At a further public meeting on 11 August 1858 the School of Arts Society again changed its name to the Mechanics School of Arts and soon after made an application to the Colonial Government for a grant of land for the purpose of erecting a permanent School of Arts building. Records indicate that at the time a cottage formerly used as the Courthouse was being occupied.
\nThe Government selected the site of the old Courthouse and lock-up in Brisbane Street and the foundation stone was laid on 8 February 1861 by Governor Bowen. The Governor officially opened the Mechanics School of Arts on 24 October 1861, and in his speech Governor Bowen said, Let me observe that I give what has been called the 'glorious title of the working classes' not to those only who earn their living by the labour of the hand, but to those also who earn their living by the more anxious and weary labour of the brain. In one or other sense all men in Ipswich are working men.
\nThe first stage section, set back from the Brisbane Street frontage, housed a library and meeting rooms which were used for civic events, evening classes and for entertainment purposes. The hall originally had an exposed truss roof, but a plaster ceiling was installed in 1878 to improve the room's acoustics. The ceiling incorporated iron bolts with rings for the convenience of acrobats, trapeze artists and other aerial performers. Gas was officially turned on in Ipswich on 15 August 1878, and two large sunlights containing 16 burners each were installed in the building.
\nThe Ipswich Municipal Council had applied to the Government for a grant of land on the southeast corner of East and Roderick Streets for the purposes of building a town hall and a depot for tools and other equipment. This was granted early in 1861 but a further request for money to build the town hall was refused and the Council continued to use a small room in the old Courthouse on a temporary basis. The Council explored a number of options for more permanent premises against a background of opposition from ratepayers who at one time submitted a petition objecting to the erection of a town hall. For a period of seven years the Council occupied a brick building owned by George Thorn in East Street. In 1863 the council requested the School of Arts committee to erect an addition to their building for the purposes of town hall offices.
\nThe School of Arts committee had intended to extend their building towards Brisbane Street for their own use, and plans were made for an addition. The ground floor of the two-storeyed addition was to be let as offices for public institutions, and the first floor was to be a reading room, library, committee room and classrooms. Tenders were called in 1864, and by 18 June 1864 Mr James Cowlishaw had been appointed architect.
\nThe trustees had borrowed £2,000 in 1865, and when the date of release of the mortgage arrived, the trustees were unable to pay monies due. The School of Arts committee approached the Council in November 1868 with a proposal that the Ipswich Municipal Council undertake the management of the School of Arts, and in 1869 the mortgagor sold the land to the Ipswich Municipal Council for £2465. In August 1889 a residence (no longer extant) was built for the School of Arts librarian fronting Limestone Street at the rear of the hall.
\nFollowing the death of Governor Blackall (1809-71), a memorial committee was formed to present a turret clock to the town of Ipswich as a suitable memorial. The position favoured was the School of Arts building, and on 13 November 1879 it was reported that our town clock was illuminated for the first time last night. The clock was illuminated by gas flame, and the tower was designed by Colonial Architect Mr Francis Drummond Greville Stanley. The lighting of the clock was unsuccessful, and in 1896 it was reported that the town clock has loved darkness rather than light for a great many years, as the heat arising from the burners interfered with the workings of the machinery.
\nIn 1901 the new Post Office (QHR 600555) with a tall clock tower was built next door, at which time Ipswich had two clocks side by side, generally unsynchronised. This continued until 1912 when the Post Office clock was illuminated. Tenders were called in December 1912 for the sale of the Town Hall clock which was eventually sold to the Sandgate Town Council for their new council chambers, the Sandgate Town Hall (QHR 601566).
\nBy 1917 the Ipswich Council had outgrown its premises, and plans were drawn up by architect George Brockwell Gill for a second storey, but at £1200 the idea was abandoned. In 1937 the Council was renting additional accommodation in the Soldiers Memorial Hall (QHR 600592), and plans were prepared by architect Douglas Francis Woodcraft Roberts for a new town hall and auditorium to seat 1800 people. This was also abandoned, as 1,500 ratepayers petitioned against the building. A compromise solution involved the council purchasing the adjacent St Pauls Young Men's Institute(QHR 600584) in June 1938, and major renovation works to the town hall were completed by builders Harper and Vincent in 1941. These were the last works to be carried out on the building until the 1970s.
\nIn 1947 the adjacent Bank of Australasia building (QHR 600568) was renovated to house the School of Arts Library, and in 1948 the Ipswich Council formerly took over control of the library. A new Civic Centre was opened in July 1975 at the corner of Limestone and Nicholas Streets by the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. The council converted the old auditorium and stage area of the Old Town Hall to office space, and the Council Chambers remained in the front section of the Old Town Hall. The library was relocated from the former Bank of Australasia building to the former St Pauls Young Men's Institute , and the rates office was transferred from the Old Town Hall to the former Bank of Australasia building. The council finally moved out in 1985 when a new council administrative building was completed in South Street, and the library was moved to rented premises and a City Council Art Gallery was located in its place.
\nAfter the destruction by fire of Reids Department Store in August 1985, the Old Town Hall building was converted into retail space, including the installation of a concrete mezzanine floor in the hall. In 1995, an hydraulic lift was installed in the main hall space linking the mezzanine floor to the ground floor and a steel fire stair was constructed on the east side.
","criteria":"Although no longer a civic building, the Old Town Hall retains important associations with the cultural and municipal development of Ipswich, and the Ipswich community.
|The interiors include the original proscenium arch, central cedar staircase and some original joinery, and the rear section is one of the few surviving buildings in Ipswich dating from 1861.
|It demonstrates the architecture considered appropriate for a municipal building of the 1860s, and is associated with two important early Queensland architects; James Cowlishaw and Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.
The interiors include the original proscenium arch, central cedar staircase and some original joinery, and the rear section is one of the few surviving buildings in Ipswich dating from 1861.
|Located within the historic centre of Ipswich, the building is an important component of the central Ipswich streetscape of civic buildings, all of which were designed in variants of the classical style.
|Although no longer a civic building, the Old Town Hall retains important associations with the cultural and municipal development of Ipswich, and the Ipswich community.
|It demonstrates the architecture considered appropriate for a municipal building of the 1860s, and is associated with two important early Queensland architects; James Cowlishaw and Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15342,"place_ref":600567,"name":"Hotel Metropole","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"253 Brisbane Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Hotel Metropole is a substantial two storeyed hotel with basement located on the north-eastern corner of Brisbane and Waghorn Streets at Ipswich. Built in 1906, the Hotel is constructed of tuck pointed red brickwork of flemish bond heavily decorated with contrasting coloured brickwork and cement rendered dressings. The skyline is highlighted with decorative gables to the Brisbane Street parapet which conceals a hipped corrugated iron roof behind.
The principal façade to Brisbane Street is symmetrically composed around central loggia to ground and first floor. The main entrance to the building is via the ground floor loggia which is heavily decorated with painted cement rendered arches, columns and balusters and secured with cast iron grilles. Tessellated tiles line the floor. Additional arched entrances to bar areas are located either side of the loggia with a further entrance located off Waghorn street which currently opens into a more recently constructed beer garden that is fenced off from street access. The ground floor verandah to Brisbane and Waghorn Street elevations has timber posts, a cast iron valance and a recently replaced steel roof structure with curved colorbond roof sheeting and slotted ogee guttering.
The first floor loggia has stilted arches of contrasting brickwork with columns, pilasters, keystones and other cement rendered elements. The remainder of the façade is relieved with contrasting cement rendered dressings, sills, string courses, pilasters, entablature and pediment. The Waghorn Street façade includes a first floor verandah with a balustrade and valance in a sunflower pattern which was common in Victoria on boom era houses and hotels and was registered as pattern no:VIC 444 by J Cochrane & G Scott 17 November 1887. At the rear, the 'back of house' functions are expressed on the exterior of the building to Waghorn Street by a step in the parapet and the change in window treatment.
A timber framed cantilevered verandah with cast iron balustrade of a less elaborate detail is located on the rear elevation and overlooks the railway line.
The exterior joinery is generally intact and comprises double hung windows with four light upper sashes to segmental arched windows, multi-paned fanlights with circular lights to other arched openings and four panel doors.
The main entrance to the building opens off the loggia and provides access to bars either side and to the entrance to the stair hall leading to the accommodation on the first floor. The floor is lined with later parquetry with rendered walls and a pressed metal ceiling.
The entrance to the main stair hall has a fixed arched fanlight above the door with the words 'Hotel Metropole 1906' etched into it. The stair hall also has a pressed metal and contains a substantial and elaborately detailed cedar stair. An arched window with decorative leadlight.
The main bar area to the west of the hall has been substantially altered with the removal of several walls to form one main bar area on the principal corner of the building. Remnant walls have been retained as lintels to allow original plaster ceilings, cornices and ceiling roses to survive. A marble fireplace is located on the northern wall of the main bar and the floors are of timber covered with later linings. The bar area to the east of the hall has been heavily refurbished and little of its early interior is evident.
A kitchen, secondary stair and recently refurbished toilet facilities are housed at the rear of the building. The secondary stair provides access to the upper floor as well as to the basement and service entrance. The basement has a low floor to ceiling height and is used for storage.
The upper floor of the hotel generally retains its early layout and contains accommodation rooms and a common room on the western side of the stair hall. The eastern side has been altered and fitted out as a nightclub. The rear of the building houses single rooms and the bathrooms with internal timber partition walls lined with v jointed tongue and groove boards, timber floors and timber ceilings.
Much of the interior joinery on both levels is intact and generally appears to be cedar.
","history":"The two storey brick hotel was constructed in 1906 to the design of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill. In 1915 part of the surrounding property was resumed by the Queensland Railways Department. In 1925 the brewers Perkins and Co took over the lease until 1935 as part of a widespread accumulation of hotels by the company throughout Queensland. When Perkins & Co. merged with Castlemaine in 1928 to form Castlemaine Perkins the brewery held licenses for 19 freehold hotels and 50 leasehold hotels including the Hotel Metropole in Ipswich.
The architect, George Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomas (1889/90), Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (1890/91), St Paul's Rectory (1895), The Ipswich Club (1916), The Technical College (1901), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914-16 and President in 1918-19.
The building has been used as hotel since opening in 1906 and continues as a hotel and nightclub today trading under the name of The Harp of Erin.
","criteria":"Erected in 1906, the Hotel Metropole demonstrates a period of renewed building activity in Ipswich around the turn of the 20th century. It was one of many substantial public brick buildings constructed during this period and the striking nature of the building also reflects the importance of the local hotel in communities of the era.
|The Hotel Metropole is a good example of a reasonably intact Federation hotel displaying fine detailing evidence of its original design throughout the building.
|For its architectural and aesthetic value and as a landmark within the city which contributes to the Brisbane Street streetscape and to the townscape.
|The Hotel Metropole has special association with the local community of Ipswich as a place of social activity since its opening in 1906.
|It is also important as a prominent and characteristic example of the work of George Brockwell Gill, the Ipswich architect responsible for numerous significant domestic and civic buildings in the city.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15343,"place_ref":600568,"name":"Former Council Offices, Brisbane Street Ipswich","alternate_name":"Ipswich Visitors and Tourist Information Centre | Ipswich Library | Bank of Australasia","street_address":"Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Ipswich Visitors and Tourist Information Centre is single-storey load-bearing brick building. Internally, the remains of the strong room are identifiable and there are modern partitions. Some apparently original sections of cornice remain at the northern end.
","history":"The former Council Offices was constructed in 1878 as a Bank of Australasia with attached manager's residence. The architects were Reed and Barnes of Melbourne. The Bank acquired a lease on the corner of Brisbane and Nicholas Streets, occupied by the original St Paul's Church which was being used as a school. The old building was demolished and a bank was constructed. The bank bought the property in 1925. The bank closed in 1943, and it remained empty until the Council threatened to resume the property, eventually purchasing it. In 1985, the Rates Office moved to the new Council Administration Building in South Street and the former bank was used to accommodate shops after Reids department store burned down. In 1991, the building became the city's tourist information centre and the office of Ipswich Events Corporation.
","criteria":"Built in 1878, the place is important in demonstrating the evolution of banking services in major towns and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century bank with attached residence.
|(Criterion under review)
|Built in 1878, the place is important in demonstrating the evolution of banking services in major towns and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century bank with attached residence.
It is associated with the work of Melbourne architects Reed and Barnes as a variant of a standard bank design adapted slightly for the Queensland climate.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community as a finely-detailed and executed example of a revival classic commercial building. It is an important element in a group of civic buildings and makes an important contribution to the streetscape.
|(Criterion under review)
|It is associated with the work of the School of Arts and Ipswich City Council in providing library services.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15344,"place_ref":600569,"name":"Coorparoo Fire Station (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"219 Cavendish Road","suburb":"COORPAROO","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-11","description":"The former Coorparoo Fire Station is a two-storey, symmetrical timber framed building on low concrete stumps standing on the corner of Cavendish Road and Noela Street, Coorparoo. The building is clad with fibrous cement sheeting and horizontal timber batten cover strips to the first storey, has timber weatherboards to the lower storey and a terracotta tiled hipped roof. The front elevation is distinguished by an enclosed verandah balcony to the first floor which projects over the former engine room entrance below.
\nThe building is reached by a small flight of timber stairs from the open concrete carpark to the rear. The stairs arrive at the ground floor landing. The rear door (ground floor) opens into a small corridor from which the bathroom, a bedroom and the large central living room open. The bathroom’s modern fixtures and finishes are not of cultural heritage significance. Additional bedrooms open off the living room and a passage way south of the living room connects to a single room timber framed gabled roof extension to the southwest corner. The ground floor interiors surveyed are lined with tongue and groove boarding and the ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting and timber batten cover strips.
\nThe first floor is reached by a set of timber stairs rising from the ground floor landing. The first floor accommodates a central living room accessible via an entry corridor. The living room opens onto an enclosed balcony which overlooks Cavendish Road. Other rooms open off the entrance corridor and from a corridor travelling southeast off the living room. The living room and the rooms in the north and east corners open by French doors onto the enclosed balcony. There are glazed fanlights above these door and side lights to those off the living room. The interiors are clad with tongue and groove boarding and the ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting with timber batten cover strips. A number of rooms were unavailable for inspection in 2003 but it is known that a modern kitchen has been installed, replacing the original kitchen on the first floor. This modern kitchen fitout is not significant. The cupboard near the bathroom housing the firemen’s pole survives but the pole has been removed and a floor inserted. The early linen cupboard opposite the bathroom and a storage cupboard in the living room survive. A decorative timber archway with a prominent moulded keystone separates the living room from the corridor to the rooms to the southeast. The bathroom’s modern fixtures and finishes are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nWindows to the ground floor rooms are shaded externally by horizontal timber hoods supported on cantilevered timber brackets.
\nA single storey garage structure sits directly against the rear of the former fire station building and a concreted open car park separates this from a two-storey apartment building and garage at the rear of the block, none of which is cultural heritage significance. A concrete path from a gate entrance on Cavendish Road runs along the northwest side and another concrete path and a set of concrete stairs and ramp runs to the glazed front entrance in the centre of the building. A timber fence has been built on the site boundary and borders Cavendish Road and Noela Street.
","history":"A modest, functional civic building, the former Coorparoo Fire Station was the operational centre for fire services in Coorparoo from 1935 until 1976 when it was decommissioned and replaced by the Camp Hill Fire Station.
\nBetween 1860 and 1868 there were five attempts to form a fire fighting service for Brisbane. Each brigade struggled to survive; unable to attract a viable subscription base and hampered by inadequate equipment and an unreliable water supply. The establishment of an effective fire service did not enjoy a high priority among civic and government leaders.
\nA fifth brigade, the City Volunteer Fire Brigade, was established in 1868. New rules provided for better financial control and balanced representation through the Fire Brigade Board with membership from the Brisbane Municipal Council and Insurance companies. These arrangements were consolidated by the Fire Brigades Act of 1881. Funding for fire services came from contributions by Queensland State Government, Brisbane Municipal Council insurance companies and subscriptions. In 1889, the first full-time firemen were employed and a permanent fire brigade was established. A new headquarters, designed by HW Atkinson, was completed on the corner of Ann and Edwards Streets, Brisbane (on a corner of the Normal School site) in 1890. This began a long association between the Fire Brigade and the various architectural firms with whom Atkinson was associated.
\nThe firefighting needs of the city increased as Brisbane continued to develop. The Fire Brigades Act Amendment Act of 1902 allowed local authorities to establish independent boards and brigades. Brigades were formed in Nundah (1916), Hamilton (1917), Windsor (1917), Ithaca (1918), Toowong (1918), Taringa (1919), Wynnum (1921) and Sandgate (1923). These were voluntary bodies with only the superintendent and immediate assistants receiving a salary. The Fire Brigades Act of 1920 rationalised the network of fire brigades in Brisbane and suburbs, centralising control under the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board in 1921.
\nDuring the 1930s, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board (funded by the State Government) was resisting old fire stations and erecting new stations as part of an upgrading of fire services under the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Edward Hanlon. Under this program, a new purpose-built two-storey station was constructed to a design by HW Atkinson and AH Conrad on Cavendish Road, Coorparoo.
\nThe department’s commitment to an efficient and modern approach to fire-fighting is clearly reinforced at Coorparoo Fire Station through its seminal use of a modern form that suggests European influence. The lack of ornament, simple form and corner windows (which provide good light to all four walls of rooms and a feeling of spaciousness) are demonstrative of the endeavour by the architectural profession in Queensland during this period to explore new forms and building construction methods. The design elements employed in this building were to become increasingly popular and developed into post-war timber vernacular.
\nBefore the opening of this fire station, the suburbs of Coorparoo, Camp Hill and Holland Park had been vulnerable to severe damage from fires as the attendance times for units coming from the South Brisbane and Balmoral Fire Stations were high. The Coorparoo Fire Station served as a model for the group of fire stations constructed soon after in Nundah (1936) [QHR602119], Wynnum (1938) [QHR602143] and Hamilton (1941). A timber fire station was constructed at Yeronga (1934) [QHR602144] using the same planning principles but with a different planning arrangement to accommodate the peculiarities of that site.
\nThe new building at Coorparoo housed the station facilities on the ground floor and a residence for the superintendent on the first floor. The ground floor accommodated a large central engine room, watchroom, dormitory, reaction room, kitchen and bathroom. The engine room was accessed via a concrete ramp from the driveway crossover in Cavendish Road. The rooms on the ground floor were a step above the engine room. A new floor was inserted in the engine room bringing it to the same level as the other rooms during the occupation by the health clinic. The residential quarters above, accommodated a kitchen, living and dining rooms, bathroom, three bedrooms and an open balcony. A cupboard near the bathroom accommodated the fireman’s pole which ran down into the station below. This combination of station and residence was common in fire stations and this plan was duplicated at Nundah, Wynnum and Hamilton.
\nDecommissioned in 1976 and sold to the Queensland Health Department in 1978, the former fire station operated as a maternal and child welfare clinic during the 1980s and early 1990s. The building changed hands in 1995 and operated for a period as a boarding house. A two-storey apartment block has been constructed to the rear of the block since 1995 and a single storey garage building has been erected at the rear of the fire station building. The fire station building is used for multi-unit residential dwelling purposes.
","criteria":"The Former Coorparoo Fire Station is an important example of the upgrading of fire stations undertaken in Brisbane suburbs by the Queensland Government through the Metropolitan Fire Board during the 1930s. The building was in continuous use as a fire station from 1935 to 1976 and is important as the first of and model for the group of fire stations designed and constructed during this upgrade.
|The Former Coorparoo Fire Station is an important example of the architecture and planning of Brisbane suburban fire stations of the 1930s incorporating offices and engine room to the ground floor and a residence to the first floor. The interiors in both the operational and domestic areas reflect the operation of 1930s fire stations and are substantially intact.
|The Former Coorparoo Fire Station has aesthetic and architectural significance as a former modest, functional civic building. Robust and austere, with its simple horizontal banding and use of readily available materials, it is easily identified in the streetscape. A landmark on Cavendish Road, the former fire station is sympathetic in scale, form and materials to its residential setting.
|The Former Coorparoo Fire Station is a fine example of the work of the architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad. Atkinson, through the firms he was associated with, sustained a long association with the Fire Services in Brisbane commencing in 1890 with his design for the new headquarters for the Brisbane Fire Brigade. His architectural practices were responsible for many of the fire stations throughout Brisbane. It is a proto-Modern building and elements evident in the design may have been influential in popularising their use.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15345,"place_ref":600570,"name":"Residence, 1 Burnett Street (c1874)","alternate_name":"William Berry residence","street_address":"1 Burnett Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The house at 1 Burnett Street sits on a compact allotment, at a corner with Omar Street, approximately 1km from Ipswich town centre. It occupies a prominent position on a hill overlooking a wide expanse of the town. It is clearly visible at a distance when travelling along Limestone St and from the northern end of Burnett St where Ipswich Grammar School is located. There are a number of other houses on the eastern section of Burnett Street that are entered on Queensland's Heritage Register, including 'Idavine' (600572) on the adjacent allotment and 'Notnel' at 6 Burnett Street (600571). Across the street, a number of timber vernacular cottages have been converted into a single restaurant.
The original house of rendered and painted brick is sited in the front eastern corner of the 617 sqm lot. The render has been scored to create the illusion of large masonry blocks. Its main roof is hipped with a short-ridge and sheeted in corrugated iron. The timber verandahs face the two streets with the eastern verandah edge sitting on the fence-line and the other setback approximately 1.2m. Their roof is continuous with the main roof at a slightly reduced pitch. The upper storey's balustrading is cast iron obtained from elsewhere by the Whybirds. A number of balusters are missing, and some aluminium frieze pieces have been fitted around the lower storey. A photo supplied by the current owner and taken late in the 19th century shows the original verandah edge made up of simple timber columns with capitals, carved brackets and horizontal pieces between them. One chimneystack protrudes from the main roof at the eastern end of the ridge and there is a lone acroteria decorating it. There is also a lone decorated soldered rainwater head fitted to the western face.
A flight of stairs rise through the vernadah space overlooking Omar Street. They were likely built in the period prior to the end of the Second World War when the house was converted to flats. The stairs are screened with lattice and run between the two window rows on this façade.
One end of the gable-roofed, single storey kitchen abuts the main house on its southern façade. Its eastern face is in line with that of the main house. The steeply pitched corrugated iron roof has no overhang with the fascia fixed to the outer wall. This structure has painted brick walls and two hooded windows facing Omar Street and the east. The hoods are skillion with timber battening to the sides and a carved timber piece to the front. The two upper storey rear windows also have these hoods. The kitchen windows are sash with 6 panes in each leaf. A sunroom, laundry and covered patio separate the kitchen structure from the small square of garden to the house's west facing the neighbouring property. The sunroom's walls appear to follow a similar scheme to the main house using scored render. A steel sheeted skillion roof (Lysaght Klip-Lok profile) covers both, having no gutters.
Access to the tiled lower-storey verandah is gained from Burnett Street up a short flight of concrete stairs. The front door has a pivoting glass fanlight and opens onto a central hallway divided in two by an arched opening. The walls are plastered brick and a scraping has revealed a two-part colour scheme (light green atop dark, separated by a thin maroon band). Two rooms open to each side of this hallway. A set of stairs begins at its end and an opening to the sunroom fits under them. To the right are the living and dining spaces, which are joined by a broad archway. There is evidence that this wall was originally complete and featured a two-way fireplace, matching that which is found between the two rooms opening to the left of the hall. A section of brick chimneystack remains within the roof space. The ceilings are 3m in height and lined with 20cm wide beaded tongue and groove boarding. The boarding features a central dummy bead. The hallway's ceiling is lined in a similar manner.
The current owners removed a fibro sheet ceiling to reveal the ceilings boards, 2-part cornices and picture rail fitted at 2.5m. The walls are plaster with a shaped timber skirting, matching the other rooms on this level of the main house. One window opens to the front and back of the house. They, as are all the others in the 8 main rooms are sash with 4 panes in each leaf. The windows and doors throughout feature painted timber architraves and reveals. The floors in the hallway, dinning and living rooms are pine boards.
The two rooms opening to the left off the hallway are yet to have their fibro sheet ceilings removed. The mantelpiece to the fireplace in the front room is possibly polished Cedar, while the opposite one has been painted. It consists of a simple mantel top supported by two columns in relief. The arched cast register grates are still in place, the front rooms' being painted white. In the rear room, used as a bedroom, the brick hearth extends some 15cm with slates laid under the grate. The front room's hearth appears to be stone or concrete.
The stairs have been sanded back in places and appear to be made of Hoop Pine. They complete a 180 degree turn in making their way to the upper storey. Its layout reflects exactly that found below. The outer stringer is not continuous at the bend, suggesting some change has been made. A high window overlooks the stairwell. All internal walls are plaster as the ones below are. However the internal wall corresponding to that which separates the hall and living room below, has been breached to reveal boarding that matches the ceilings downstairs. There is matching joinery to all windows and doors. The room above the dining room has been converted into a bathroom. All ceilings are lined with fibro sheeting. They slope down to meet each external wall in a 30cm wide zone. The upper storey hall opens via a door onto the verandah. The current owners report that the Whybirds lowered the level of this verandah, and this is evident in the three steps leading off this doorway. When this change occurred the original verandah timberwork was replaced. Bolts and nuts can be seen on the interior of certain walls where the verandah roof has been tied back.
On the ground floor, from the rear of the central hallway opens the sunroom. To the left are two doors leading through a thick wall to the large kitchen. Above the doors are fixed frames of rough painted lattice. Its ceiling is lined as the living and dining rooms' are and is sloped at each side. The boards at the south end of the flat section of the ceiling are all cut at a distance of approximately 80cm from the wall. This might suggest the existence of an earlier hearth. In the sunroom, on the wall shared with the main part of the house is a faintly visible curved line suggesting a curved roof may have been removed when the skillion was constructed. The line stops short of the current width of the sunroom.
Grounds
The fences to both streets consist of small columns and a base of concrete blocks cast to resemble rough-hewn stone. They are capped by red clay-bricks with bullnose edges that are laid stretcher face down. Between the columns of the Omar Street fence are fitted painted steel frames with bracing.
A two-storey pavilion, said by the current owners to have been built by the Whybirds, occupies the rear western corner of the allotment. The current owners also believe that this was previously the site of the stables. On the ground floor is a double garage accessed by a driveway coming off Omar Street. Above this are bedrooms. A set of stairs and awning roof connect the pavilion with the covered patio attached to the sunroom.
","history":"History
The residence at 1 Burnett Street, West Ipswich, is a brick house built c1874 for William Berry.
The allotment on which this residence is situated was first purchased on 11 May 1855 as allotment 101, parish of Ipswich, county Stanley [1r 32.5p], by William Berry at a cost of £35. Berry was an Ipswich district farmer who was born c1811 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and by 1843 was resident in the Moreton Bay region. In March of that year he was one of the signatories to a petition to Sir George Gipps, Governor in Chief of New South Wales, requesting the sale of Crown Lands in the Moreton Bay area to be transferred from Sydney to Brisbane where the petitioners, "being Men of limited Capital", could afford to attend to purchase allotments. The appeal proved to no avail and in the subsequent Crown auction held in Sydney on 11 October 1843 Berry was among the first purchasers of Ipswich allotments. It is not clear exactly when Berry moved to Ipswich, however he was reputedly living there by 1848 and quickly acquired a distinct local patriotism. In 1849, he signed a petition that urged the then New South Wales Governor in Chief, Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy, not to introduce more than a fair proportion of Crown prisoners to the Ipswich and Moreton Bay region on the grounds that their presence in the area would reduce the future prosperity of the district. Twelve years later Berry was again placing his signature to a petition, this time objecting to the incorporation of Ipswich as a municipality, which the petitioners believed "would be impolitic and injurious to the interests of the inhabitants".
Although extant records indicate Berry was a farmer by occupation, it is known that he was also a land owner and was referred to in his death documents as a freeholder. Between 1852 and 1854 he purchased three town lots in Cleveland, Brisbane, and in August 1866 the title to 2 Burnett Street was transferred to Berry. By 1870, Berry had also acquired Lots 98 and 99 next to 2 Burnett Street, and the area generally became known as Berry's Hill. Ipswich Municipal Council Valuation Registers indicate he utilized these allotments as his garden and he resided in a modest timber cottage at 1 Burnett Street until c1874 when Council records show a brick house was built on the property.
The construction of this larger residence was indicative of both Berry's burgeoning financial status and the increasing economic prosperity of the Ipswich region during the mid to late 1870s. It was an impressive house which Berry described, in an advertisement for sale in September 1886, as having a slate roof, eight rooms, kitchen, servant's room, bathroom and bath, large underground tank, two-stalled stable, buggy shed, wash house and other offices. In April the following year, Berry died suddenly at his Burnett Street house, aged 76 years.
Following Berry's death the property was held in trust by his wife, Margaret Berry, and George Miles Challinor, a clerk of Esk, until July 1889 when title to the land was transferred to William Berry's son, Alexander, although Margaret Berry appears to have remained as occupant of the house.
By March 1900, title to the property had been transferred to Paul Marcel Terlier who retained title to the property until 1945. During this period the allotment was subdivided, with one subdivision sold to the then owners of 2 Burnett Street, Sophia Helena Lewis and Norman Lewis, for use as a garden. The house remained on a reduced parcel of 24 perches and four-tenths of a perch. It was also during Terlier's ownership of 1 Burnett Street that the house was reputedly divided into flats and the verandahs enclosed with fibro sheeting.
In the 30 years after 1945, the property passed between 5 owners, until 1974 when it was registered in the name of Allan and Lily Maude Whybird. Allan Whybird had served as an alderman on the Ipswich City Council in 1964 and as Deputy Mayor between 1970 and 1973. He was also the grandson of John Whybird who established the first removalist company in Ipswich in 1857. The Whybirds carried out some internal renovations during their 10 years of ownership and replaced the original balustrading on the upper verandah with cast iron inserts obtained from the local branch of the Bank of New South Wales, which was demolished in the second half of the 20th century.
By 1984, the property was used as a shelter for homeless youths and was owned by the Ipswich Independent Youth Service, before passing into the hands of the present owners, who have restored the building to its original function as a family home.
","criteria":"The residence at 1 Burnett Street was constructed c1874 and is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history in that it is representative of the burgeoning economic fortunes of the Ipswich region during the mid to late 1870s. The original owner of the residence was a farmer and the construction of this large brick house is indicative of the prospect of rising social and financial status offered to early settlers as Ipswich developed into a wealthy commercial and industrial centre of Queensland.
|The house also assumes a prominent position in the Burnett Street area and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places and because of its aesthetic significance. The house remains a well-preserved example of 1870s residential architecture and contributes to the overall historical character of the Burnett Street precinct.
|With its rich historical milieu, Ipswich abounds with significant examples of early Queensland housing and architecture and as such this residence represents an important landmark in the local area and forms an integral part of the overall streetscape of the city.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15346,"place_ref":600571,"name":"Notnel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6 Burnett Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Notnel is located on a long, rectangular, 0.22ha allotment within the suburb of West Ipswich; approximately 1km west of the Ipswich CBD. The site faces northeast to Burnett Street and slopes to the west, bounded by residential properties. It comprises several structures including: a residence named Notnel (c1861) adjacent to Burnett Street; a sulky shed (c1861-1946), southwest of the residence; a poultry shed (c1861-1946), southeast of the sulky shed; and a well (c1861-1946), between the residence and poultry shed. Mature plantings, include a mango and an olive tree. Notnel is located in an elevated position and expansive views overlooking residential properties and Ipswich Grammar School [QHR60601] are available to the north.
\nNotnel (Brick Residence) (c1861)
Notnel is a single-storey, lowset brick and timber residence with corrugated metal-clad, steeply-pitched roofs and southeastern brick chimney-stacks. The building is approximately L-shaped in plan, constructed of brick in Flemish bond and surrounded by timber verandahs. It comprises a main core of four rooms with stairhall and attic, and a dining/kitchen wing with an attached skillion-roofed timber framed and clad laundry at the rear. The main house has a hipped roof and its corrugated metal-clad dormer windows retain early timber shingles under the metal sheeting. The dining room, which extends under the adjacent southeastern verandah has a gabled roof and the tall volume of the kitchen is sheltered under a hipped roof. Adjacent to the kitchen and laundry on the southern corner of the verandah is the timber framed and clad larder.
All verandahs have timber floors, rectangular timber posts and raked ceilings. The verandahs fronting Burnett Street have posts with capitals and ceiling linings of wide boards, stripped of earlier deteriorated lead paint. Lattice doors between plain, timber posts provide access from Burnett Street; flanked by rebuilt cross-braced valances and narrow cross-braced timber balustrades. Painted brickwork delineates the location of a recent addition in the northern corner (now removed). The northwestern verandah is mostly enclosed to form a sleep-out and bathroom. The L-shaped rear verandah (flanking the main house, kitchen and dining wings) has exposed roof framing. The kitchen wing’s southeastern verandah has timber floorboards and wide beaded board ceiling linings.
\nThe interior of the main house comprises four rooms (a large bedroom and lounge room at the front, with two bedrooms, separated by a central hall with a set of steep stairs, at the rear) and an attic above the front portion. All ground floor rooms have clear-finished timber floorboards, plaster walls and ceilings clad in wide beaded-boards. The rear, southwestern bedroom and the staircase retain early floor linings of patterned linoleum. A fireplace, with a cedar mantelpiece, tiled hearth and cast iron grate, is centred on the southeastern wall of the lounge room. The attic is a large, single volume that has unpainted timber floorboards, horizontal timber wall linings and ceiling linings. The dormer windows are lined with wider boards and the northeastern dormer window recess has a painted finish. A timber fixture on the wall adjacent to the stair may be part of an independent communication system. Various names and dates have been etched into the southwestern wall, with the earliest noted dating to 1981.
\nThe dining room, an early infill between the main house and the kitchen, is a long space extending under the verandah, with a wide beaded-board ceiling lining that changes pitch, from angled to flat in alignment with the main house wall. All walls are plastered and the northwestern wall retains its early lath and plaster construction. The brick walls projecting under the verandah with fixed windows either side of the chimney replace earlier timber framed and clad walls which had become unstable due to persistent dampness. The floors are lined with the original pine boards except for a small section in the eastern corner.
\nThe kitchen is a tall volume with a rebuilt mezzanine (using former joist housings) creating an upper-floor bedroom accessed by a steep stair. A timber framed and clad larder adjoins the kitchen, located on, and accessed from, the southeastern verandah. The kitchen and mezzanine have painted brick walls and a coved ceiling of timber beaded-boards. The southwest wall contains a small oven and a former fireplace which houses a woodstove. The larder has beaded board ceilings and timber floors. All walls are lined with horizontal timber boards, with the exception of the northwestern wall flanking the kitchen, which is facebrick. Early built-in shelving is retained.
\nThe laundry retains early fabric and is accessed via the northwestern side. The timber walls and roof framing, including shingle battens, are unlined. Timber floorboards are located at the northwestern end of the space and flagstones, bricks and pavers form the flooring at the southeastern end. A bricked-in sink recess (copper now removed) is located to the southeast of the kitchen chimney. Particularly intact brickwork is located on the wall northwest of the chimney showing early glazing.
\nEarly timber joinery is retained throughout the house including: skirtings and architraves; most of the flooring; panelled French verandah doors with external timber screen doors; low-waisted timber doors with early door hardware; a multi-light double-hung timber-sash window; and a ledged door clad in vertical timber boards (to the laundry).
\nSulky Shed (c1860-1946)
\nThe timber-framed sulky shed is a lowset structure that stands on timber stumps, is rectangular in plan, and has a corrugated metal-clad, gable roof. The walls are clad on the northeastern and southeastern sides with early timber weatherboards, and on the southwestern and northwestern sides with corrugated metal sheeting. Although shorter than its original form, the reconstructed northeastern gable-end retains early fabric, ventilation holes at its apex and original doors. The shed has timber floors and the timber roof and wall framing is internally exposed.
\nPoultry Shed (c1860-1946)
The poultry shed is a lowset, timber structure that has a corrugated metal-clad, skillion roof. It is comprised of two sections: a timber weatherboard-clad southern end, and a partially enclosed northern end that has mesh hung between early timber posts. A timber weatherboard-clad wall separates the two sections, and access is available from the northwestern and northeastern sides. The northern end is divided into two areas by mesh and a small section of early timber slabs is retained on the northeastern wall. At the southern end, timber wall and roof framing is internally exposed.
Landscape Elements
The grounds are well established and include a large mango tree (Mangifera sp.) and a mature common olive tree (Olea europaea) at the rear of the residence. A well (c1860-1946) of an unknown depth is located between the residence and poultry shed. It is covered with a modern, steel grate (not of cultural heritage significance).
The scalloped timber fence aligned with the Burnett Street boundary is a modern reconstruction, based on historical photographs.
Other Structures
Other structures and footpaths within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"
‘Notnel’, a residence at 6 Burnett Street, West Ipswich, is a brick house built c1861 for David McLaughlin. It is one of Ipswich's earliest surviving residences.
\nIpswich was one of the earliest settlements in Queensland, commencing as a convict out-station known as ‘Limestone’ in 1827. Following free settlement in 1842, the township soon developed as an important regional centre because of its location at the head of navigation of the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers and at the junction of routes to the Brisbane Valley and the Darling Downs. Goods from and to these regions were channelled through Ipswich, and this trade contributed significantly to Ipswich's rapid growth and prosperity. The Ipswich community, together with the Darling Downs pastoralists agitated for Ipswich to be made the capital of the prospective Colony of Queensland. While Brisbane assumed that role after separation from New South Wales in 1859, Ipswich continued to develop as a major regional centre, declared a municipality in 1860 and then a city in 1904.
\nThe allotment on which this residence is situated was first purchased on 11 May 1855 as allotment 97, parish of Ipswich, county Stanley [1r 32.5p], by Patrick O'Sullivan at a cost of £31. O'Sullivan was born in 1818 in Ireland and at the age of 19 he was found guilty of assault with a bayonet at Canterbury, England, and transported to Australia. By 1847, O'Sullivan had settled in Ipswich where he worked as a shopkeeper and was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1860.
\nBy March 1857, the title to allotment 97 was transferred to David McLaughlin, an Ipswich builder. He was born in Newtown, Limavardy, in Ireland, and it appears that it was there that McLaughlin first became acquainted with William Lackey Ferguson, a bricklayer. Following Ferguson's emigration in 1860, McLaughlin and his fellow Irishman from Newtown began a building contracting business in Ipswich known as McLaughlin & Ferguson and which successfully tendered for work on the Ipswich Grammar School. As a builder, McLaughlin was in an advantageous position to have his own house built and Ipswich Municipal Council Valuation Registers indicate that a brick cottage and workshop existed on the allotment in Burnett Street as early as 1863.
\nThe cottage may have been built by 1861. In November 1861, a five-roomed brick cottage with detached kitchen, situated in Burnett Street, was advertised for let.[1] The property had a closed-in yard with garden and fowl house. Enquiries were directed to Mr David McLaughlin, on the premises; however, the street number was not provided. The Burnett Street property was also advertised for let in April 1862, with a servant’s bedroom added to the list of features.[2]
\nIn 1870, McLaughlin appears to have removed from 6 Burnett Street with Council records indicating that Alfred Dann was the occupant. When sold it was described as \"just the thing for a gentleman on the lookout for a town house\" and intriguingly said to enjoy \"sea breezes\". Despite the enticements, the property remained in the ownership of David McLaughlin until June 1872, when title to the land was registered in the name of John North. At the time of purchase, the garden had reportedly been a ‘mass of trees and shrubs, with a fernery, an aviary and room to keep ponies’.[3]
\nNorth was born in Hertfordshire, England, and migrated with his sister to Australia in 1854 on board the Genghis Khan. Within 2 years North was living in Ipswich and working for the major department store, Cribb & Foote, where he remained in employment for over 40 years. By 1876, he had acquired allotment 98 adjacent to 6 Burnett Street from William Berry, the then owner of 1 Burnett Street. Ipswich Municipal Council records indicate that North demolished a timber cottage that had stood on this allotment and utilized it for the next 22 years as his garden.
\nNorth died at his Burnett Street residence in August 1898 and the property was passed to his wife, Laura Ann North, who remained there until she sold the estate on 1 February 1907 to George William Wesley Rylatt, a dentist of Brisbane Street, Ipswich. Ownership was then passed to Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Runge who was listed as the registered owner of the property in April 1920. Runge, who also owned 2 Burnett Street at the time, did not live in the house at 6 Burnett Street and continued to rent it until his death in 1923, after which time it was held in trust and eventually transferred to his son, also named Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Runge. After taking possession of the property, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Runge junior sold allotment 98 as subdivisions.
\nBy 1934, the title to the land had once again changed hands and George Hawley was registered as the owner of the property. The Hawley family had migrated to Australia from England and were farmers in the Fassifern Valley. The Burnett Street estate remained in the family for 56 years and it was named \"Notnel\" (Lenton backwards) by George Hawley in memory of Lenton Avenue where he had lived in England.[4]
\nNotnel was occupied by Miss Olive Hawley and her cousin Ethel Hawley until the late 1980s, and was subject to limited change during the preceding decades. An aerial photograph from 1946[5] shows the hip-roofed residence with kitchen and laundry wing, and two outbuildings to the rear – in the current locations of the sulky and poultry sheds. A third, smaller outbuilding (no longer extant) was visible to the southwest of the laundry and plantings were evident to the west of the kitchen, in the location of the mature mango and olive trees that remain.
\nIn 1990, the title to 6 Burnett Street was transferred to the Small family. George Small and his son Alister and daughter-in-law Desley carried out substantial refurbishments and repairs. [6] Original features were preserved wherever possible and items found on the property, including a brooch, a buckle, coins, a pill box, a purse and crockery pieces have been retained. Major work was carried out by professional builders, bricklayers and joiners. The remainder of the building work was done by George and Alister Small. Works included the rewiring of the residence where previously there had only been two power points. The bathroom was rebuilt and reconfigured to accommodate a shower and the addition of a hot water system; the original bath tub has been retained.
\nIn 1991 there was a program of works carried out to both the interior and exterior. Excavations were undertaken along the southeast side of the house and several rows of brickwork were replaced to address issues with drainage and damp, and a paved courtyard was formed in that area. This side of the residence reportedly had a path and brick retaining wall, which had collapsed during the early Hawley days. The weathered cedar louvre shutters – evident in photographs from the early 1900s – and later boarded enclosures to the northeast and southeast verandahs were removed due to their poor condition, and the cross-braced timber balustrades and valances were rebuilt to approximate original details. The double hung sash windows that enclose the northwest verandah were also installed at this time. In the gardens, brick pathways and a courtyard were added.
\nWorks to the kitchen wing, at the rear of the house, included repairs to the small eastern verandah and larder and the installation of a new timber mezzanine over the kitchen, utilising existing joist housings in the brickwork.
\nThe dining room (an early infill addition located between the main house and former detached kitchen with lath and plaster timber framed end walls clad in wide chamferboards) had its eastern end walls replaced with brickwork and new window openings at this time due to problems with the structural integrity of this part of the room. The chimney piece was also replaced as the original cedar piece had serious water damage, and a cast iron insert was installed.
\nIn recent years, the timber-framed poultry shed (2011) and sulky shed (2012) were reconstructed in their existing locations, using extensive original fabric. The sulky shed, which had been extended in the past, was reduced in length and set above the ground at the northern end but retained its original width and height proportions. Sections of the northeast and southeast house verandahs were also rebuilt in 2013. The brick feature wall and the kitchen garden were added in 2009.
\nIn 2015, Notnel remains in use as a private residence. The place retains extensive early fabric and comprises a brick dwelling with a dormered attic, brick dining and kitchen wing, and a timber framed laundry extension to the rear; set in a large garden with mature trees, a well and timber outbuildings.
","criteria":"Built c1861, Notnel is one of Ipswich's earliest brick houses and remains important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The house was constructed in a period characterized by high unemployment and poor economic conditions, however Ipswich emerged as a centre of business and industrial activity. The house remains one of Ipswich's finest and most significant examples of early Queensland domestic architecture from a period when the growing strength of the city was reflected in the more substantial residential buildings being constructed from the mid-1860s onwards. Built originally for David McLaughlin, a contractor, is an example of a substantial early house in the Ipswich area and remains of interest for its unique features such as the attic and dormer windows.
|Built c1861, Notnel is one of Ipswich's earliest brick houses and remains important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The house was constructed in a period characterized by high unemployment and poor economic conditions, however Ipswich emerged as a centre of business and industrial activity. The house remains one of Ipswich's finest and most significant examples of early Queensland domestic architecture from a period when the growing strength of the city was reflected in the more substantial residential buildings being constructed from the mid-1860s onwards. Built originally for David McLaughlin, a contractor, is an example of a substantial early house in the Ipswich area and remains of interest for its unique features such as the attic and dormer windows.
|Located on Burnett Street, Notnel also assumes an important aesthetic role in the historical streetscape of Ipswich. In a precinct shared with other heritage-listed properties, the house makes a significant contribution to the character of the area and stands as a well-preserved landmark of Ipswich's past.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15347,"place_ref":600572,"name":"Idavine","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Burnett Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Idavine is located on a compact lot facing Burnett Street to its north-east. It sits atop a hill approximately 1 km from the Ipswich town center. The house is situated approximately 3m from the front fence line at its narrowest point and 4.5m at its widest. The eastern face of the building is approximately 3m from the side boundary, and the western face is approximately 4m from the boundary at the narrowest point. The front verandah provides the visitor with an uninterrupted vista along Limestone Street, the approach route from the town centre.
The house is timber-framed and externally clad on its exposed faces in chamferboards. All its original timber stumps have been replaced with concrete ones. While the timber floor framing appeared to be in good condition, it was noted that a number of steel bearers had been introduced. Painted timber battens screen the gaps between each exterior concrete stump. The building has two gable projections on the front façade. The smaller of the two sits above the verandah, while the other incorporates a triple window. The main roof is short-ridged and slopes continuously to the edge of the verandah. Where the kitchen abuts the dining room, the main roof is joined to another short-ridged roof sloping at right angles to it. The entire roof is of corrugated galvanized iron with recently installed vents in each ridge.
The bargeboards to the verandah gable are shaped and rounded at each end, with a star pattern cut out from the resulting panel of timber. The triangular gable infill is made of decorated timber. A similarly ornate infill panel adorns the other, larger gable. It projects approximately 30cm from the wall below and is supported by carved timber brackets. A double set is located either side of the triple window below. A finial projects from the gable's ridge.
Entry to the verandah is gained via stairs at right angles to the gable projection and through a set of double lattice doors. Its open edge is decorated with tapering, chamfered timber posts. Between each post is an arched frieze panel in-filled with timber battens and divided by a carved timber drop. The ends of the arched friezes rest on timber capitals. The open edge is also decorated with cast iron baluster panels and balusters beneath a timber handrail. The panels display a cornucopia design motif featuring two horns, one filled with fruit and the other with vegetables. Below the symmetrically curved horns are bunches of wheat and another plant. Located centrally at the bottom of the panel, where the ends of each bunch cross, is a horseshoe. The balustrading pattern matches one registered in Victoria on 7 April 1892 by J Cochrane & G Scott (Turner, B Australia's Iron Lace, St Leonard's, NSW: Allen & Unwin. 1985:183-184.)
The combined effect of the cast iron balustrading and the decorative timberwork to the verandah is to give the house a strong street presence. This is despite the fact that these elements are hidden somewhat by foliage. The cast iron balustrading and handrail continues for almost the entire length of the eastern face of the house, however part of the verandah is enclosed with windows.
The framing is exposed on the exterior face of the building adjoining the verandah. This wall is single skin, vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding. Exposed framing is found elsewhere facing the kitchen and sleep-out areas. A tripartite, double-hung sash window opens from the verandah into the current living room. A casement window opens between the sleep-out and verandah. The front door, consisting of one side panel and a pivoting glass fanlight, also opens off the verandah. Next to the front door is fixed a timber plaque on which the name 'Idavine' is painted in gold. It was in place when the current owners took possession of the property in 2001.
The front door opens onto a hall with an approximately 3.5m high ceiling. The ceilings in all rooms, except the kitchen, laundry and sleep-out (enclosed verandah), are this height. The hall is divided in two by an arched doorway, on either side of which are fixed glass panels. The walls are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding, as are all other walls in the house. In the hall are located the only skirting boards to be found in the house. The floor is polished timber boarding, as are all others excluding those in the bathroom, ensuite, kitchen and laundry. The ceilings in both segments of the hallway are pressed metal, as are the cornices. There are further pressed metal ceilings in the living room, kitchen and main bedroom. All other ceilings, excluding those in the sleep-out and verandah, which are sheeted, are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding.
Six rooms open off the hallway, two to the left, three to the right and one to the rear. Above each doorway (all fitted with timber doors) is a decorated frieze panel, except above the rear door where there is a pivoted fanlight. The rooms to the left are the current living and dining rooms, which are joined by a large, rectangular shaped opening. Its shape and the difference in ceiling finishes in each room suggest that this was an amendment to the original plan. Both rooms have doorways onto the sleep-out that feature frieze panels. The living room's pressed metal ceiling incorporates a border and concave cornice. In the centre is located a single square featuring a cherub. In the rear wall of the dining room there is an unusual shaped opening. Above a long rectangular servery is centered a square fixed glass panel. This panel's head height matches those of the doors, as does its width. Therefore it could have been a door at some point. The framing for the hallway walls is exposed in the rooms opening off it.
The majority of rooms with windows opening through the western and southern facades of the house have skillion hoods. Those that do not are sheltered by the overhang of the ensuite's skillion roof. The hoods feature flat, galvanized iron roofs, timber battens to each side and carved timber brackets. All windows are double-hung sashes, except three opening off the ensuite, which are casement.
The last room to open to the right off the hallway has a picture rail fixed at a height of approximately 3m. In its western wall a door opens into an ensuite. This was built after an application was made by the current owners to the Cultural Heritage Branch in November 2001. The ensuite fills in what had been a small entry verandah accessed by a short flight of stairs. The stairs remain, as does the lattice door that once opened into the verandah. One of the ensuite's three casement windows has been covered, although it is visible on the exterior. The door between the bedroom and ensuite has a fixed glass panel above and a timber threshold.
In plan, the kitchen is 'L' shaped and one enters from the hallway at its corner. Three more rooms open off this space. The first is currently (2003) a main bedroom, the second is the main bathroom, and the third room is a small laundry. A bank of timber, casement windows line the external wall of the kitchen, and open onto a patio, which is recent and roofed with clear PVC sheeting. Both doors accessing these rooms from the kitchen have timber thresholds. The main bathroom has a tiled floor from the later part of the twentieth century. Its walls are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove, and pine boarding divided by a picture rail at door head height. The bedroom's only window is divided into three parts.
The ceiling to the kitchen slopes to match that found in the sleep-out and verandah areas. In the south-west corner of the house, where the kitchen opens into the sleep-out, there are two windows. One is fixed glass and visible on the rear façade. The other window can only be seen from inside the toilet, which has been added to the building, possibly when it was used as flats. Taking the evidence of the slope in the ceilings and the location of timber thresholds, fixed glass panels above doors, and exposed framing, it is likely that the kitchen space was open at some point.
Grounds
The front fence consists of painted timber frame and palings atop a low, stepped brick wall. The pedestrian and driveway entry gates are made of white, painted tubular steel. A brick pathway leads from the pedestrian gate to the entry stairs. A large palm tree shelters part of the front façade, extending the height of the house's western gable end. There is some small to medium size shrubbery situated within the zone of the front setback.
When moving around the exterior of the house, it becomes clear that a number of level changes occur on the lot. In general terms, a continuous step divides the eastern and western sides of the lot. The western area is flat and allows cars to be driven along the driveway and under the rear of the house. A step of approximately 1.5m runs perpendicular from the rear boundary and meets the underside of the house where the patio has been attached. It moves underneath the house and the difference in level is dissipated toward the front boundary. The eastern half of the yard is also largely flat. Adjoining the verandah are three established trees and some low planting. A large brick BBQ sits against the eastern fence at the point where the patio stairs empty out.
","history":"Idavine, a residence at 2 Burnett Street, West Ipswich, is a timber house for which existing evidence indicates a construction date during the Federation Period.
The allotment on which this residence is situated was first alienated in 1855 as allotment 100, parish of Ipswich, county Stanley [1r 32.5p], by Henry Mort at a cost of £25. Mort was a pastoralist and company director as well as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council between 1881 and 1900. The allotment appears to have remained unoccupied during the 11 years of Mort's ownership.
In August 1866, the title to allotment 100 was transferred to William Berry, an Ipswich district farmer. Although extant records indicate Berry was a farmer by occupation, it is known that he was also a land owner and was referred to in his death documents as a freeholder. Between 1852 and 1854 he purchased three town lots in Cleveland, Brisbane, and in 1855 was the owner of the property, adjacent to 2 Burnett Street, at 1 Burnett Street (allotment 101). Berry resided in a modest timber cottage at 1 Burnett Street until c1874 when he built a brick house and Ipswich Municipal Council Valuation Registers indicate he utilized allotment 100 (2 Burnett Street) as his garden. By 1870, Berry had also acquired Lots 98 and 99 next to 2 Burnett Street, and the area became generally known as Berry's Hill.
Despite Berry's real estate interests in Burnett Street, allotment 100 remained unimproved during his ownership. In 1886 title to the land was transferred to August Knopke and it appears that Knopke erected a timber house on the property c1887-88 as his residence, as indicated in the Ipswich Municipal Council Valuation Register for 1888.
No documentary evidence exists to definitively date the residence which is now located at 2 Burnett Street, however the overall form of the house, ascertained through site inspection, suggests it was built in the Federation period, possibly after the turn of the century. It is unlikely that the current house was constructed by August Knopke and the link between the name 'Idavine' and its owner in 1913, Ida Retschlag (nee Boettcher), may be significant.
Retschlag remained as the registered owner of the property until 1918 when it passed into the hands of Sophia Helena Lewis, daughter of Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Runge & Wilhelmine Charlotte Runge. The property remained in the Lewis-Runge family for the next 60 years and it was reputedly during this period that the house was at one-time used as flats. It is significant to note that following the establishment of an immigration incentive scheme in Germany during the late 19th century, German emigrants formed close communities in many Queenland towns and the association of this house with German owners from 1886 onwards is symptomatic of their influential presence in the Ipswich area.
Since the mid-1970s the property has passed between 6 owners and remains a well-preserved example of the architectural style of its era.
","criteria":"Idavine at 2 Burnett Street is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places insofar as it is a representative example of Federation-style residential architecture in a precinct of Ipswich containing historically significant timber and brick houses. Its long association with German owners from 1886 onwards is also indicative of the influential presence of German emigrants in Queensland following the well-planned immigration scheme established in Germany during the late 19th century.
|Idavine at 2 Burnett Street is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places insofar as it is a representative example of Federation-style residential architecture in a precinct of Ipswich containing historically significant timber and brick houses.
|It is also important because of its aesthetic significance, which contributes to the overall historical character of the Burnett Street precinct. As a whole, the streetscape of Ipswich abounds with significant examples of early Queensland housing and architecture and this residence remains an important and well-preserved example of Federation housing in the area. Its well-maintained state also gives it individual aesthetic value, with many of its original internal and external features intact.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15348,"place_ref":600573,"name":"St Michaels Nursing Home","alternate_name":"Gwennap | St Michael's Nursing Home","street_address":"68 Chermside Road","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Michaels Nursing Home is a two-storey, brick dwelling with a pyramid corrugated iron roof and a stepped down, straight roof over verandahs to each side. The house is wrapped by verandahs at both levels, although the rear and the southern sides have been enclosed. The land drops away steeply from the footpath, such that from the street, the house appears to be only one storey. A fretwork pediment with paired supports marks the entry at the upper level. This level retains cast-iron balustrades and valance and is accessed from the footpath by a short ramp which bridges the excavated drop down to the ground level. The house has several chimneys, two roof ventilators and paired supports beneath the main roof's eaves.
Units have been added to the site on the northern and southern sides of the original house. They are set well back from the footpath, such that they have little impact on the streetscape qualities of this section of Chermside Road.
The interior of the house is accessed by a large entrance hall which extends to the rear of the original house structure. There is a small foyer area at the front created by a decorative timber partition extending across the hall with an open door-way in the centre. The central feature of the entrance hall is the high, dark-timber, vaulted ceiling extending from the front door to the rear. The foyer partition does not extend to the ceiling so that the continuity of the ceiling is not obstructed. The hall is unusually large and utilises a lot of the internal space on the upper lever of the house making it likely that it would have been used for entertaining purposes.
On the left-hand wall immediately upon entering the foyer is an original ornate timber mantle piece with a central mirror. This has been moved from its former position in the adjacent room, most probably a room used for entertaining.
The upper-floor consists of four main rooms off the hall and an open area with a reception counter in the centre section on the right hand side of the hall, as well as two rooms on the enclosed verandah on the southern side of the house. A sitting room to the right of the entrance displays large original timber window frames facing the verandah (which are duplicated on the other side of the entrance) as well as a fireplace on the internal wall. There are two large rooms on the northern side of the house with doors leading from the hall as well as doors to the verandah. There is another room in the rear South -eastern corner. Most of the original timber window and door frames are extant.
The new additions extend perpendicular on either side of the rear of the original house. The modern wings are constructed of brick and concrete.
","history":"St Michaels, or "Gwennap", as it was originally known, was built for timber merchant Josias Hancock around 1874. At that time the area around Chermside Road Fiveways was a considerable distance from town, the only other families in the area being the Bullmore's of "Rockton" and the Shillitos.
The name "Gwennap" originates from Hancock's birthplace in Cornwall. At the age of 16 his family emigrated to Australia. They arrived in Sydney on 1 November 1856. Josias' father, Thomas, the elder brother of local builder William Hancock, moved to Queensland in 1864 and eventually established a pit-sawing business at Pine Mountain, later purchasing timber mills at Rosewood and Ipswich.
In 1874 Josias married Emily Trevaskes and built "Gwennap". It is possible that the house was built by his Uncle William Hancock. Late in the 19th century Josias left Ipswich to start his own business in Brisbane. Originally this was called Josias Hancock Timber Merchant, later Hancock and Sons and later again Hancock and Gore. His brother Thomas stayed in Ipswich and later became associated with the historic house "Fairy Knoll".
"Gwennap" was purchased by bookseller William Tatham, who moved here from his first home, "The Palms" on Denmark Hill. Tatham had come to Ipswich from Yorkshire and worked at Cribb and Foote until opening his own business on the site of what is now Woolworths. Around 1950, "Gwennap" was purchased by Mr M Daly and was converted to a nursing home. At this time the name was also changed to St Michaels. In July 1970, the nursing home was bought by the Presbyterian Church's Department for Social Mission. While new wings designed by architects Fulton, Gilmour, Trotter and Moss have been added, the structure of the house itself remains essentially unchanged.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1874, St Michael's Nursing Home reflects a period of affluent residential development in Ipswich when many of the town's business and industry leaders built substantial, grand residences in keeping with their financial success and the solidification of Ipswich as a an important commercial and industrial centre.
|It is architecturally significant as a substantial, well constructed home, unusual for its era in its being a two-storey dwelling set into a deeply excavated site.
|St Michael's Nursing Home is also aesthetically significant as one of a number of significant dwellings sited on Chermside Road - opposite Queen's Park, and further north in the Ipswich Girls Grammar School area - which collectively form an important streetscape.
|St Michael's Nursing Home is important for its association with the Hancock family of timber merchants, and the Tatham family who had previously owned "The Palms".
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15349,"place_ref":600574,"name":"Ipswich & West Moreton Building Society","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"45 East Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society is an imposing two storeyed building set on the corner of Limestone and East streets. It is constructed of brick which has been rendered and painted on two street frontages with face brick on the rear and side elevations. The building was constructed in three separate stages, the front section in 1888, the centre section was built in 1912 and the rear amenities block was probably constructed in the 1950s. The different stages of construction can be clearly seen on each side facade with different roof, brick and window types apparent.
The East Street facade of the building is symmetrical and divided into three parts, with a central section rising above the parapet which conceals the roof line behind. The central section contains a semicircular arch containing the words 'Building Society 1888 AD' in relief, crowned with a pediment with "Estab 1877" underneath. The keystone of the arch features a symbol consisting of a wand with entwined snakes which was associated with good luck and commerce. Each side of the central section contains pilasters with composite capitals supporting an entablature and pediment. The awning over the footpath and the shop fronts on the street level are recent.
The Limestone street facade is less elaborate and is of rendered brickwork. The parapet continues around to conceal the roofline of the 1888 section while the hip roof of the 1912 section is exposed. The earlier section contains timber double-hung windows with flat arch window heads, while the 1912 part of the building has timber five-light casement windows.
The interior of the building has been extensively remodelled with new partitioning and suspended ceilings. A mezzanine floor has been inserted into the original banking chamber. Very few original interior elements are visible apart from the window joinery which has been partly concealed by suspended ceilings.
","history":"The former Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society building was constructed in 1888 to the design of the former Colonial Architect, F.G.D. Stanley. The Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society was the first building society established in Ipswich, and one of the first in Queensland. It was established in 1877 to meet a very real need for housing finance. A board of directors was appointed in July 1877 including chairman Enoch Bostock, directors E.W. Hargreaves, J. Scott and D. McKay, trustees W. Ginn, J. Mcfarlane and R. Tallon, surveyor S. Shenton and secretary T.W. Hoey. As there was no legislation covering building societies, the Ipswich society was registered in September 1877 under the Friendly Societies Act 1876. It was eventually registered again on 5 May 1887 when the Queensland Parliament passed the Building Society Act 1886.
The tradition of building societies goes back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England in the late 18th century. They were first formed by local members of working class communities to help each other finance the building of houses, of which there was a severe lack in the new industrial centres. They were a part of the self-help and mutual aid movement which saw the birth of friendly societies and trade unions as well as building societies in response to the lack of social welfare and protection for working class members of society. The first building society legislation in Australia came about in 1840 and from the beginnings of building societies in Australia in the nineteenth century they became an important part of the financial market during the 20th century. With the turn of the 21st century many of the original building societies have been taken over by larger financial institutions.
At first, the operations of the Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society were carried on in an office shared with Mr Bostock in Brisbane Street, Ipswich. Mindful of future needs, the Society purchased an allotment at the corner of East and Limestone Streets from James Foote in 1887, at the cost of £1,600. The following year, a two storey brick building with a large basement was erected at a cost of £4,052. The architect was FDG Stanley, the former Queensland Colonial Architect, and the building contractor was Peter Brown. Part of the building was initially leased to the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Co Ltd, and the clothing manufacturer Bishop and Woodward.
The architect, F.D.G Stanley was the former Queensland Colonial Architect from 1872 to 1881 as well being a prolific architect in private practice. He was one of the most prominent and prolific architects in nineteenth century Queensland demonstrating a high level of quality and diversity in his many works. Some of his buildings include The General Post Office, Queen Street, Brisbane (1871-72), The Supreme Court, Brisbane (1874-75) and in Ipswich the Congregational Church (1869-70) and the Governor Blackall Memorial (1879-80).
The building was enlarged in 1912, due to the expansion of its major tenant, Bishop and Woodward. A further triple-hipped roof brick section, at a cost of £1,245, appears to have been added to the rear. The architect was G Brockwell Gill, and the contractors Hastie and Halliwell.
The architect, George Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomas (1889/90), Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (1890/91), St Paul's Rectory (1895), The Ipswich Club (1916), The Technical College (1901), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914-16 and President in 1918-19.
The Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society survived the depression of the 1890s and the building itself survived the flood of 1893 when the water rose to the first floor of the building. It continued to operate during the first and second world wars and the disastrous years of the Great Depression. In the 1970's branches were established in leased premises at Booval and Goodna, and further branches, sub-branches and agencies were subsequently established in other places in the south-east Queensland region.
Bishop and Woodward closed in March 1959, and the Society's premises were altered again. Six ground floor shops were constructed, designed by architect RF Franklin, and built by contractor TP Turner. A further modernisation of the shop fronts was undertaken in 1976-77, as well as extensive interior remodelling by architects Lumley and Tait Pty Ltd.
On 4 November 1996 the Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society merged with the First Provincial Building Society which in turn was taken over by the First Australian Building Society in December 1997 both of which occupied the old East Street building. The building is now owned and occupied by the Bendigo Bank.
","criteria":"The former Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society building is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history being an example of the growth of Queensland's financial institutions, particularly building societies, in response to the need for funding for affordable housing. It also reflected the expansion of Ipswich as a commercial centre in the 1880s and subsequently the increased building activity which was taking place in the city centre.
|The building possesses aesthetic significance for the fine detail of its East Street façade and for its streetscape value, enhanced by its prominent corner position in the centre of the city of Ipswich.
|It has special association with the Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society which operated in the building from 1888 to 1996.
|It also has special association with the work of former Queensland colonial architect, FDG Stanley, who designed the building, and the architect of the additions, G. Brockwell Gill.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15350,"place_ref":600575,"name":"Ipswich Court House","alternate_name":"Old Court House; Court House Ipswich","street_address":"75 East Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Court House Ipswich is a single-storey sandstone and brick Romanesque building. The interior of the original courtroom (Court Room 1) is divided internally into four bays. The early bench is at the western end of the courtroom. The side wings of the 1859 section are of facebrick and are each divided into three separate rooms. The 1936 section is to the west of the original sandstone section. This section is in brick with ruled joint render, and includes a large room (Court Room 2) and several smaller rooms. Court Room 2 is also divided into four main bays. The western facade is of simple Revival Classic design. The building is surrounded on three sides by a rendered brick fence with rendered brick piers and pipe and chainwire infill.
","history":"The former Ipswich Court House is a sandstone and brick single-storey building, the original section of which was completed in 1859 to a design by Charles Tiffin. In the early years of Ipswich, the building was used for public meetings as well as a court house. The original building consisted of the central sandstone courtroom with a vestibule at the front, flanked by two brick wings. The building was too small for its task by 1904. In 1936, a major extension in rendered brickwork was made to the west, adding a new court room and ancillary rooms with the entry off Ginn St. With this addition, the building was able to continue its function until a new Court House was built on a different site in 1982. The State Government carried out conservation work in the 1970s and 1980s. After the building ceased being used as a courthouse, the bench was moved to the original court room and the building became a community cultural centre.
","criteria":"The size and quality of the building demonstrate the importance of Ipswich as a major centre at this time.
|Completed in 1859, the Court House is a rare example of a government building constructed in Queensland prior to Separation.
|It still contains early bench and court fittings and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early courthouse.
|An unusual Romanesque building of sandstone and brick, it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community and is a landmark on a major intersection. It contributes to a precinct of historic buildings on the edge of the Ipswich CBD.
|It is closely associated with the Ipswich community as the main court house for the district from 1859 to 1982, and also as a venue for early public meetings.
|It is the earliest major Queensland work of architect Charles Tiffin, at that time Clerk of Works for Moreton Bay and later the first Queensland Colonial Architect.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15351,"place_ref":600576,"name":"Uniting Church Central Memorial Hall","alternate_name":"Congregational Sunday School","street_address":"86 East Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"The Memorial Hall is a substantial polychromatic brick building with a corrugated iron roof. It has a two-storeyed wing with a gabled roof fronting onto East St, and a two-storey height hall with a gabled roof extending out to the east: the site slopes away and another storey is included at the rear. The East St elevation has a central entry portico, and a decorative gable breaks the roofline above. The eastern end of the building finishes by expressing the hall roof in a gable end, which is flanked by gables projecting to the north and south; this elevation also has a central timber portico. The north and south walls have skillion roofs under clerestory windows, and timber stairs and entrance porticos. The Memorial Hall is a distinctive member of a small grouping of public buildings on East St, which include the Police Station (1930s) and Courthouse [600575] (1859 and 1880).
The exterior is finely detailed, with rich variations in materials and openings. The base of the building has broad arches, while the upper level openings have hemispherical and flat arches. The gable peaks have circular vents. Surrounds include combinations of beige brick voussoirs and toothing, and terracotta voussoirs, hood mouldings, red brick surrounds, and toothed concrete sills and keystones. The main entrance portico to the west has series of concrete arches with keystones on brick columns under a gabled roof. Other external decoration includes beige brick quoins, and several string courses, made up of combinations of diagonally-placed bricks and projecting bricks, with a concrete string course at hall floor level. The building has in total five timber entrance porticos with fine timber detailing including battens and, cross-braced balustrades. The roof is crowned with a timber and corrugated iron fleche with four gables with finials, which when erected contained a Boyles patent ventilator.
Internally, the hall is encircled by rooms. The western end has a large meeting room, library and office either side of an entrance hall, and a timber mezzanine with balcony access to meeting rooms. To the north and south the hall is flanked by aisles, offices and storage areas. The south aisle has been converted to a kitchen. The eastern end of the hall has a stage and backstage area, and rooms under the eastern end are currently used for childcare.
The hall is an impressive two-storey height space with exposed timber trusses, clerestory lighting, a hardwood floor, and rendered masonry walls. The ceiling has exposed rafters and diagonal timber boards. The aisles are arcaded with arches springing from substantial square columns with square capitals and barley twists in the centre. Doorways to ancillary rooms are also arched. The aisles have raked timber boarded ceilings with exposed rafters. The mezzanine sits behind three arches springing from pilasters in the western wall, and has a wrought iron balustrade. The stage has timber partitions to rear, and behind the stage area is a gable wall with a three-light stained glass window. The clerestory windows have multi-coloured panes around their edges.
The principal entrance to the building to the west has arched doors with arched stained glass sidelights, leading to an entry vestibule; similar doors and sidelights lead to the hall. The entrance vestibule is a double storey height volume with timber stairs climbing around its perimeter. The stairs have finely turned and carved balustrades, striped timbers to the soffits, and meet an arched window with coloured glass at the half landing. The vestibule also contains a brass and timber honour roll. The adjacent library has extensive timber shelving, and the meeting room opposite has external entrance doors with coloured glass and timber boarded ceilings with a star-shaped ceiling rose. The mezzanine rooms have exposed framing under gable roofs, with diagonally boarded ceilings.
The Memorial Hall is a very fine and intact building; the interior spaces, particularly the hall and entrance vestibule, have impressive spatial qualities, and contain finely detailed elements. The exterior is distinctive and rich in its use of materials and fine detailing of walls, porticos and openings.
","history":"The Uniting Church Central Memorial Hall is a two storeyed brick building erected in 1895 to the design of architect G Brockwell Gill as a Sunday school for the Congregational Church.
The Ipswich Congregational Church was formed in 1854 with Reverend Edward Griffith as its first pastor. A year later, the first church was erected on a site in Brisbane Street. This was replaced in 1870, with the earlier building becoming the Sunday school. After the 1893 flood destroyed the Sunday school, a new site was sought. In 1894, the East Street site was purchased by the Church.
The site, opposite the court house and police station had previously been granted to the Ipswich Council as a site for the erection of the Town Hall, however this did not proceed and in 1893 was proclaimed a town lot. Plans for the new Sunday school were ambitious, however the work of the Sunday school was considered important, given the secular nature of the state's education system and their enrolment substantial. In 1895, the Congregational Sunday School had 429 scholars and fifty-one teachers under the superintendence of James C Cribb.
G Brockwell Gill's plans provided for a number of classrooms accommodating both children and adults. They were located in the wings of the hall, on the raised platform, and on the front second storey. An infants room and large storeroom were located under the platform at ground level. Opening off the entrance was a library and a room known as the Endeavour Room. The new school cost £3,000. The contractor was W Betts and the brickwork was undertaken by John Mackenzie.
In 1938, the Church acquired the adjoining residence previously owned by prominent church members the Cribb family. After this, Keiraville (QHR 600597) became the manse. In 1957, a new brick church was erected to the north of the hall. This was known as the Central Memorial Church in memory of those who served in the two World Wars. In 1978, the property was transferred to the Uniting Church. In recent years, the church and Sunday school were closed. The hall is now regularly used by various community groups. The lower former infants classrooms is used as a kindergarten.
","criteria":"The Uniting Church Central Memorial Hall is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the Congregational Church in Ipswich and the importance placed on education within the Church.
|It is a rare example of a substantial masonry Sunday School building, and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial Ipswich building by architect G Brockwell Gill.
|It is a rare example of a substantial masonry Sunday School building, and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial Ipswich building by architect G Brockwell Gill.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including the fine detailing and rich use of materials of the exterior; the contribution to the townscape as a distinctive and substantial decorated brick building amongst a group of public buildings on East St; the impressive spatial quality of the hall and entrance vestibule; the decorative detailing of major internal elements; and the fine craft-work of the stairs and stained glass windows.
|As the Sunday school and hall for over ninety years, it has a special association with the Congregational (now Uniting Church) community of Ipswich.
|It has a special association with the life and work of a number of people associated with the life of the church, in particular James C Cribb, Joseph Hargreaves, and Alexander Nichol, who served as Superintendents of the Sunday School; and members of the church, who served during the First World War, whose names are recorded on the roll of honour.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15352,"place_ref":600577,"name":"St Marys Roman Catholic Church Precinct","alternate_name":"St Marys Roman Catholic Church, Presbytery, Parish Hall and Convent, formerly; St Mary's Roman Catholic Church Precinct","street_address":"Mary Street and Elizabeth Street","suburb":"WOODEND","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The St Mary's Roman Catholic Complex is bounded by the wall along the southern side of Elizabeth Street, Mary Street and Roseberry Parade and is sited on a rise of overlooking the central area of Ipswich. The site comprises a number of large prominent buildings surrounded by established landscape features and plantings.
\nSt Mary's Church
\nSt Mary's Church is a substantial sandstone building with traditional cruciform plan, comprising a nave, side aisles, transepts and two towers flanking the eastern front of the building. The church is constructed from sandstone with details including coursing, mouldings, window and door surrounds and tracery.
\nThe walls and towers are in sandstone ashlar with the main wall surfaces in strongly-coloured Helidon freestone with dressed margins. Much of the upper work is light coloured ashlar sandstone work, including pinnacles of simple profile above the nave and outer walls. The front wall features a large mullioned window incorporating a rose window in the upper section. There is an outside door in each aisle as well as the main entrance doors at the east flanked by aisle doors at the base of the two towers.
\nThe body of the church is rectangular in plan with a nave, aisles and twin spires on the front facade. Like its predecessor, the church faces east, a reversal of the conventional church orientation, and addresses the city centre several blocks away. This principal facade of the building, the eastern elevation addressing Elizabeth Street, is symmetrically composed and comprises a central entrance, a large traceried window above, several smaller openings flanked by two large towers. The towers are surmounted by spires, constructed from ashlar sandstone. The principal entrance to the building is through a pointed arched opening recessed in a heavily moulded doorway set within a projecting porch element with steeply pitched gabled awning.
\nThe rectangular sacristy annexe at the western end of the church is constructed of stone from the earlier (1859) church. It is constructed in a more coarse sandstone. The architectural detail is also slightly different including a group of three lancet windows, high in the west wall. The corrugated iron gable roof on this section also at a shallower pitch than the rest of the church.
\nInside the entrance doors there is a narthex separated from the body of the church by a glazed partition in silky oak, with a choir loft above. The flat ceiling over the narthex and aisles has a diaper pattern with Gothic decorative detail. This pattern is repeated along the nave ceiling which consists of a pointed arched vault divided into bays by simple ribs. The same ceiling decoration is also found in the sacristy.
\nThe interior contains carved wooden pews and marble fittings. The nave is separated from the aisles by an arcade of eight bays supported on light coloured sandstone columns. The majority of the paired metal-framed aisle windows contain stained glass on commemorative and devotional themes. Clerestory windows are located in the nave walls in each bay. Bays to the external aisle walls are defined by attached buttresses. The marble tomb of Father Andrew Horan, surrounded by a marble railing with lancet window balustrading, is located in the south eastern corner of the church.
\nThe church grounds are separated from the rest of the St Mary's buildings by a wall in coarsely-textured dressed sandstone with coping, except on the eastern road frontage where it has been replaced by terraced, brick garden walls. A grotto is located in the north-eastern corner near the church. The area surrounding the church is paved in bitumen.
\nSt Mary's Presbytery
\nSt Mary's Presbytery is a two storeyed stone building constructed in 1876 in the manner of an Italian villa, to the design of the architect Andrea Stombuco. It is rectangular in plan with a stair hall leading to four rooms at each level. The restrained classical south facade consists of a double arcade, each of five semicircular arched openings supported on square columns of Tuscan detail and separated by Tuscan pilasters, doubled at the corners.
\nThe upper storey has a balustrade within each arched opening. The hipped roof is sheeted with corrugated iron and has a minimal overhang forming a classical cornice moulding. Two chimney stacks punctuate the roofline. The arcaded facade design returns on the eastern and western ends with three arched openings on each level, with recent additions on the northern side. The architectural ornament is generally austere except for decorated keystones to the arches. Exterior walls are rendered and painted white.
\nSt Mary's Convent
\nThe earliest section, two-storeyed and L-shaped, is constructed from stone with brick surrounds around doorways and windows. Later extensions have been carried out with stuccoed brick and timber. The southern facade comprises stone towers with pyramid roofs, flanking a lower arcaded verandah and a first floor balcony. Most of the stone and brick of the early building has been rendered and painted. The eastern elevation overlooks the river, while the western elevation faces Mary Street. The verandah and balcony at the western end of the southern elevation, part of the 1915 extension, is less grand than that which is part of the original building. The brick extension has stuccoed columns and timber valances. The first floor balcony has timber balustrades with decorative details. The ground floor verandah has three elongated sashed windows with fanlights and round-headed arches. Each window has a rendered sill and label moulding. A staircase has been removed along the eastern elevation and a doorway has been added. The doorway has brick quoining and a shallow arched brick header. Three French doors with brick quoining and breezeway are located along the elevation.
\nThe 1915 chapel extension, now used as a music room, is two-storeyed with a ground floor colonnade and first floor verandah. The verandah has been enclosed at the western end. The western façade is facebrick with parapet. Windows are located the ground and first floors. The former apse has elongated round arched windows and a projecting gabled roof with a timber bargeboard. Two sections are located beneath the projecting gabled roof. These two sections each have a double hung window with small square glass panes. The first floor section of the façade has three elongated double hung sash windows with decorative moulded detailing.
\nThree French doors with breezeways open from the southern verandah. The entrance foyer has a paired-panelled timber door leading into the convent. The doorway is surrounded by a breezeway and fanlight with coloured glass panels. The dado in the entrance is constructed from plaster and painted with a grain effect so that the plaster resembles stained timber.
\nA central hallway leads to a large room at the western end of the elevation. French doors open to the verandah. Two large double hung sash windows are located on either side of a marble fireplace located in the southern end of the room. A doorway leads to another room at the eastern end of the building. From this room, French doors open to the verandah along the eastern elevation. The first floor balcony has a timber floor boards
\nA circular bitumen driveway and garden is located outside the southern facade.
\nSt Mary's Parish Hall
\nThe Hall is a single storeyed brick building with stairs to a choir loft. The high-ridged roof has four ventilators spaced at regular intervals. The southern elevation faces Mary Street where a face brick extension projects beyond the brickwork of the earlier section. The original section of the southern elevation comprises of arched, small, square-paned windows incorporating polychromatic brickwork surrounds.
\nA extension was added to the eastern elevation of the Hall in February 1978. This extension partly covers the original gabled roofed elevation. The visible upper part of the elevation is made up of a polychrome brick window surrounds with projecting brick piers and dentils. The western and northern elevations are similar to the southern elevation comprising face brick divided into bays by brick pilasters with round arched window openings surrounding by polychromatic brickwork.. Dentils are located on both elevations. The round arched window openings in the western elevation are more elongated than the shorter, wider, round-arched window openings in the northern elevation.
\nInternally, the Parish Hall comprises a large open space with columns separating two smaller areas. A staircase is located in the north eastern corner of the Hall leading to a choir loft. A pipe organ is located in the choir loft. An elevated stage is located along the western facade.
\nThe Schools
\nThe Infant School, located at the north eastern side of the site adjacent to Roseberry Parade and overlooking the Bremer River is a partially one and two storeyed building. The original stone section at the eastern end is two storeyed and the more recent 1909 brick section is one storeyed. The building is approximately T shaped in plan with the stone section forming the stem of the T and the brick wing forming the transverse section.
\nThe stone section has a steeply pitched gabled corrugated iron clad roof and is surrounded by verandahs on all sides except where the brick wing extends. The verandah is supported on paired timber posts with concrete columns on the ground floor. The verandah balustrade is a simple dowel pattern. The interior has been renovated.
\nThe 1909 face brick extension has rendered detailing around door and window openings and more elaborate timber balustrade and valance treatment to the verandah which lines all sides of the building. Gabled pediments projecting from the verandah line emphasise the placement of entrances. The roof has pitched roof lanterns.
\nA small gabled weatherboard extension on the southern corner of the building may date from the earlier boys or girls schools.
\nThe Music Rooms, located adjacent to the Infants' School, are housed in two small buildings, One of the buildings is a masonry structure with hipped corrugated iron clad roof The larger building, closer to the Infant's School, is a more elaborate building and is divided into three tuition rooms internally. The building has stone foundations and is of rendered masonry construction. the openings on this building are triangular headed and a decorative frieze of projecting brackets lines the eaves line of the building. The roof of the building is also clad with corrugated iron.
\nThe Boys' Primary School, located at the corner of Mary and Elizabeth Streets, is a fine two storeyed building with stone ground floor and more recent brick upper storey. The hipped and gabled roof of the building is clad with Marseilles tiles and has a number of gables with battened timber gable ends, reflecting the strong Queen Anne influence of the upper floor. The interior of the upper floor has decorative pressed metal ceilings in neo-classical style.
\nThe Hitching Rail
\nLining the southern side of Elizabeth Street is a short concrete wall with a line of metal hooks which is believed to be an early hitching rail.
","history":"St Mary's Roman Catholic Church Complex is large precinct located in central Ipswich overlooking the central business area and adjacent to the Bremer River and was established from the late 1850s as the home of the Roman Catholic faith in Ipswich. The church has developed over time and now houses a large Gothic church from 1904; a rendered stone presbytery dating from 1876; a stone convent dating from 1874; a parish hall constructed in 1901 and a school building dating from 1884.
\nThe development of Ipswich dates to free settlement in 1842, with the first free settlers in Queensland establishing at Ipswich and West Ipswich. A Roman Catholic presence was established in Ipswich by 1849 when the Ipswich Mission was declared. By 1854 much of the bushland in Woodend Pocket, where the St Mary's Complex was to be located, was cleared and during succeeding decades Woodend became the residential area of well to do early settlers. Established in this area were educational facilities including the Ipswich Grammar School and St Mary's Convent .
\nFollowing the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859, a new Roman Catholic Diocese was created which separated the newly formed Diocese of Queensland from the Diocese of Newcastle. On 14 April 1859 James Quinn, who was residing in Ireland at the time, was appointed the first Bishop of Queensland and arrived in Brisbane on 12 March 1861. Between his appointment and his arrival, Quinn recruited desperately needed clergy and religious Sisters. He arrived in Brisbane with several priests and five Sisters of Mercy, under the guidance of the Mother Superior, Mother Mary Vincent Whitty. The Sisters of Mercy were principally a teaching order, founded in Dublin in 1831 by Catherine McAuley. The establishment of religious schools in the new colony was seen as critical to instilling and strengthening faith in the early community.
\nSt Mary's Church
\nSt Mary's Catholic Church was constructed in 1904 and was the third Catholic church to be built on the site. St Mary's Church was built during the pastorate of Father Andrew Horan, parish priest from 1872 to 1924 and was constructed according to the plan of St Joseph's Catholic Cathedral in Rockhampton, designed by FDG Stanley. The church was built on the same site as the second St Mary's Church which had replaced an earlier timber building located to the east.
\nThe land on which the church was built was owned by the Roman Catholic Church by 1858, and during the next few decades the Church acquired adjacent blocks, including several acres north of the church and presbytery. The first rudimentary church building, designed as a temporary hall, was described by Reverend Alan Brown as a small timber slab building without glass in its windows and with wooden shutters for protection and light. This church was located about midway between the presbytery and the present church. This first church was demolished to build the second St Mary's Church within a year of its construction.
\nThe foundation stone for the second church was laid by the Most Reverend John Bede Polding, OSB, Archbishop of Sydney on 24 October 1858. Father William McGinty, Ipswich's first parish priest, travelled throughout the sparsely populated parish ministering and raising funds for the construction of the church. The stone used in the construction of the second church was quarried near Ipswich and brought to the site on barges on the Bremer River. Gothic in design and cruciform in shape, this building had a slate-covered roof and could accommodate about 600 people. The church was designed by William Holloway Chambers and built by John Petrie, both of Brisbane at a cost of £7000. The building was open for worship in 1859.
\nAt around the turn of the century, it became apparent that the second St Mary's Church was inadequate for the growing community. Father Andrew Horan and the Catholic community resolved to construct a new larger church. Work began on the present church soon after the foundation stone was laid on 28 October 1900, by Archbishop Dunne. When excavating the foundation stones of the second St Mary's Church, a sealed bottle was located which contained a copy of the North Australian dated Tuesday 19 October 1858 and two coins. The North Australian was a newspaper widely circulated in the Ipswich and West Moreton area. Work proceeded on a day-labour basis with Father Horan as general supervisor and Mr Patrick Nugent as building superintendent.
\nWhile the third St Mary's Church was under construction, St Mary's Parish Hall was built to serve both as a temporary place of worship and as a future meeting place for Catholic societies, especially the Catholic Young Men's Society. Although the superstructure of the present St Mary's Church is built from Helidon sandstone, stone from the previous church has been incorporated into some elements of the new building, reputedly the sacristy. The church was dedicated on Rosary Sunday, 2 October 1904 by His Eminence Patrick Francis Cardinal Moran, the third Archbishop of Sydney, and within seven years of the dedication day, the cost of the £40,000 church had been cleared.
\nThe design of the church is said to be directly adapted from the design of St Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Rockhampton, which was designed by architectural partnership FDG Stanley and Son of Brisbane. St Joseph's was completed by 1899, only shortly before a design for the St Mary's Church was to be planned. The Gothic design of the church was very much in keeping with the nineteenth century English Gothic Revival, rather than the more Italian Renaissance leanings of the Roman Catholic Church.
\nThe Celtic crosses on each of the spires were designed by Mr J McGee of Toowoomba and cast at the foundry of Messrs Evans, Anderson and Phelan of Brisbane. The roof is supported by steel principals made by Messrs Barbat and Co, iron founders of Ipswich. The timber used in the roof was Oregon pine imported by Messrs Saxon and Binns of Sydney. Internally, the balustrade, the tower stairs and the gallery fittings were supplied by Mr A Cole. Seating accommodation was for about 2200 people. The pews were made by Mr John Madden of Ipswich. The paintings of the Stations of the Cross were placed in 1905 and are the work of Italian artist, Giorgio de Pyro, from St Stanislaus' College, Bathurst. The paintings are said to be copies of similar designs in Rome. A bell, hung in the eastern tower of the façade, was cast in Dublin for Father Horan by the firm of Matthew O'Byme. Plumbing work on the church was done by Mr MJ Cuthbert and Messrs Madden and Sons did the carpentry.
\nAlterations and renovations have been carried out on the church over time. In 1919, the original timber altar and altar rails were replaced with marble. The new altar was designed by Brisbane architect Jack P Donoghue and was manufactured by F Williams and Co of Ipswich'. This new work was blessed by Archbishop Duhig on 30 March 1919. One of the larger projects carried out, to mark the golden jubilee of St Mary's, was the reconstruction of the church precinct's entrance approach from Elizabeth Street by Monsignor Molony in 1954 at cost of £7000. The entrance was blessed and officially opened in October 1954. Monsignor Timothy Molony was inducted in 1951.
\nFurther renovations were carried out in 1979. The roof was repaired, the sanctuary was extended and the church was carpeted. In 1980, in keeping with changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council's decree on the liturgy, altar rails were removed and a plain altar facing the people was installed. The marble altar from 1919 is, however, still in place and sections of the marble rails now surround the grave of Father Andrew Horan who is buried inside the church.
\nSt Mary's Presbytery
\nThe first presbytery, a timber cottage, was built in 1860, but by the 1870s was in extremely poor condition and required replacement. It is reported that the Bishop of Brisbane exclaimed that he was, \"heartily tired of looking at the dilapidated pine hut, which has been renewed three or four times, and as often consumed by the indefatigable white ant.\" The congregation of St Mary's and the parish priest at the time, Father Horan, agreed to build a more substantial building. The present presbytery, built in 1876, was designed by the Italian architect Andrea Stombuco who had moved to Brisbane in 1875. The presbytery is one of the oldest buildings in the St Mary's Complex.
\nThe Neo-Classical style building was built of stone and plastered inside and out with Portland cement. The lime and cement was supplied by James Campbell of Brisbane and the carpenter and joiner was J Byrne of Ipswich. St Mary's Presbytery was constructed using day labour and was supervised by Father Horan. The building was constructed for a total cost of £2745/1/9.
\nSt Mary's Convent
\nThe present St Mary's Convent was constructed between 1874-1884 for the Sisters of Mercy, The building replaced the first convent which had been constructed in 1864 and demolished in 1900 when the third St Mary's Church was built on the site.
\nWithin a week of the arrival of Bishop Quinn and his party of priests and Sisters of Mercy in Brisbane on 10 May 1861, Catholics of Ipswich had approached the Bishop to request the immediate foundation of a convent school in the Ipswich area. The Ipswich deputation had requested that the Sisters settle in their town initially, however the first convent was established in Brisbane where development was ahead of Ipswich.
\nSoon after their arrival, in 1863, the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Ipswich to establish a school and convent. To begin, the Sisters rented a cottage in East Street, from Dr Dorsey as their first convent. The land on which the convent would be built was granted to James Quinn in 1864. The land was bordered by Mary Street on the western side and River Street (later Roseberry Parade) on the eastern side. Part of the original land was transferred to John Connor Flannery on 5 October 1874. Title was later transferred to Emily Conlan, Catherine Flanagan, Bridget Murphy and Honoria Griffin as joint tenants on 14 February 1879. Title for further land was transferred to Robert Dunne, Emily Conlan, Ellen Whiny, Mary Potter, Mary Carney and Honoria Griffin on 10 May 1886. The title for the whole of the property was transferred to the Corporation of the Trustees of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland on 5 November 1927.
\nThe foundation stone of the first purpose built convent was laid by Bishop O'Quinn on 25 July, 1864 at a site located between the second St Mary's Church and the Christian Brothers School. This convent was designed by Benjamin Joseph Backhouse and was constructed by Messrs John Murphy and Peter Connell. The two-storeyed brick building with a gabled, slate roof was plastered both inside and out and opened in 1865 at a construction cost of cost £1100. This building provided accommodation for six sisters, a refectory and wooden dormitories for school boarders. The convent was extended by Charles Balding in 1866.
\nThe first St Mary's Convent and the second St Mary's Church were demolished in 1900, to make way for the larger third church. Sandstone from the first convent were used to build Music Rooms, adjacent to the Bremer River. The Music Rooms building was designed by John Farrelly and is divided into three sections where the students were taught to play various instruments by the Sisters. These rooms are extant today.
\nAlthough the first convent was not demolished until 1900, plans to construct a new convent began in the early 1870s. In May 1874 the Most Reverend Roger Bede Vaughan, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Sydney was in Brisbane for the solemn dedication of the present St Stephen's Cathedral. Before he returned to Sydney he visited Ipswich at the invitation of Bishop O'Quinn and laid the foundation stone of a new convent. Another ten years was to elapse, however, before the building was completed. Located on the top of the hill behind the church, overlooking Ipswich, the Bremer River and the surrounding countryside, St Mary's Convent was dedicated to St Brigid on 17 June 1884 by Bishop Dunne and the Sisters took up residence.
\nPatrick Nugent did the majority of the masonry work and James Madden was responsible for the carpentry and joinery of the building.
\nAn extension providing additional accommodation for the nuns and a chapel was added to the Mary Street end of the building in 1915. The architects of the chapel were Messrs Coutts and Sons, and the builder was Mr Sydney Ash. The foundation stone was laid on 9 May. 1914 and the completed extensions were dedicated on 15 February 1915. Both functions were performed by Archbishop Duhig, who was at the time Coadjutor Bishop to Archbishop Dunne.
\nThe ground floor housed various reception room and offices and a chapel in the western wing. The chapel was converted into a library when the current chapel was constructed in 1915. With the 1915 extension a walkway on the first floor was constructed which connected the convent to the chape. Over the years, the numbers within the Order declined and the property was eventually sold to the St Mary's Parish in 1994. The Convent is currently unoccupied.
\nSt Mary's Parish Hall
\nSt Mary's Parish Hall was constructed in 1901 as a temporary place of worship while the third St Mary's Church was being constructed. The decision to build the St Mary's Parish Hall, initially as a church, is linked with the growth and development of the St Mary's Precinct during the late nineteenth centuries.
\nThe land on which the Hall would be built was granted to James Quinn on 13 April 1864. Title of the land was transferred to Robert Dunne on 5 May 1899. Near the turn of the century, it became apparent that the second St Mary's Church was inadequate. Work began on the church soon after the foundation stone was laid on 28 October 1900, by Archbishop Dunne. Built at a cost £1726 Archbishop Robert Dunne opened and blessed the building on Sunday 4 August 1901, while the third St Mary's Church was being constructed. The brick building was designed and constructed by Patrick Nugent, the carpentry was completed by Messrs Madden and Sons and plumbing was done by Mr J Cuthbert. Following the completion of the St Mary's Church in 1904, the building became the centre for the social activity of the parish.
\nThe Catholic Young Men's' Society held frequent debates in the Hall. Sir James William Blair, Chief Justice of Queensland, 1924-1940, was a member of one of the debating teams. Sir James was a politician, barrister and judge was born at Coalfalls, Ipswich on 16 October 1870. He was admitted to the Bar on 6 March 1894. Blair was friends with TJ Byrnes, the then attorney-general, and the two shared chambers until Byrne's death in 1898. Blair was considered a master of both written and spoken English.
\nThe hall was extensively renovated and enlarged by Monsignor Timothy Molony, parish priest of Ipswich from 1951 to 1976. An extension, which comprises the foyer to the Hall, was added to the southern elevation in 1978. The Hall remains as a centre for the Parish's social activities.
\nSchools
\nTwo schools on the St Mary's site, one erected for the Sisters of Mercy in 1884 and another erected in 1889 are significant elements of the educational facilities associated with Roman Catholic complexes.
\nUpon the arrival of Father Eugene Luckie in Ipswich to assist Father Manly in 1848, local subscriptions were taken for the erection of a Catholic school in Ipswich. The government agreed to subsidise the building work and a total sum of £125 was collected. A nearby cottage was used as a temporary school whilst this building was under construction. The new school was in use by 1849. In 1861 another school was constructed on the corner of Mary and Elizabeth Streets by Father McGinty.
\nA convent school was constructed on the St Mary's site in 1884, the same year that the Sisters of Mercy took up residence in their new convent. This building was constructed under the supervision of Mr P Nugent at a cost of £2213/613 and is located on the north eastern side of the site, adjacent to Roseberry Parade and overlooking the Bremer River. The school was operating by May 1885 and 300 students were initially enrolled. A description of the facilities and education available at the convent school were supplied in the 1904 Souvenir Booklet, commemorating the opening of the Church recording that the school provided training in drawing, painting, singing, fancy needlework and other fine arts including music.
\nOn 30 May 1909, Archbishop Duhig blessed the foundation stone of rear Additons to the original convent school. The Brisbane Centenary Official Souvenir booklet of August 1924 described the school as having, 'grounds that were beautifully laid out and carefully kept. There were two tennis courts...a very spacious school building in which children may receive Primary and Secondary education which includes Languages, Higher Mathematics and other subjects required for the Queensland University Examinations. Candidates are also prepared for Music, Scholarship, Commercial Course and Pupil Teacher Examinations.'
\nAs well as the Convent School, another school was erected in 1889 as a Boys' School. The first boys' school was constructed on the site of the present Music Rooms earlier. This became the first boys' boarding school in Queensland and was conducted by Father Brun and two fellows brothers from the French Assumptionist order. The Boys' School was relocated to the corner of Mary and Elizabeth Streets. The foundation stone of the new building was laid by Archbishop Dunne on 5 June 1887. This school was built with cut stone on concrete foundations for to cost of £3000 under the supervision of Mr P Nugent.
\nThe School was opened in 1889 and in 1892 the management was turned over from lay teachers to the Christian Brothers, a teaching order. Another storey was added to this building in 1915 making it a two storeyed building. This addition cost £5000 and was blessed by Archbishop Duhig on 14 May, 1916. In 1953 further renovations were made. The place is now known as the St Mary's Primary Boys School and in 1999 was still administered by the Christian Brothers.
\n","criteria":"
This extensive precinct was established in the late 1850s as the central site of the Roman Catholic Church in Ipswich. Development of St Mary's Catholic Church Complex reflects the principal phases of development and growth in Ipswich, particularly during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|The complex is a good and substantially intact example of a nineteenth and early twentieth century Roman Catholic Complex with a prominent church, presbytery, parish hall, school buildings and convent. The prominence of the site and architectural quality of the buildings make this a particularly good example of an ecclesiastical precinct in Queensland.
|St Mary's Complex is a landmark in Ipswich and has, for this reason, considerable aesthetic and social value. The site has a number of significant buildings and elements which, individually, have aesthetic and architectural value. St Mary's Church is a good and substantial example of early twentieth century Gothic Revival churches. The presbytery is a fine example of building designed in the Italian villa style, appropriate to the sub tropical climate of Brisbane. Further this building is important as a good example of the work of the renowned Catholic architect, Andrea Giovanni Stombuco. The school buildings, parish hall and convent are also fine buildings of considerable architectural merit.
|St Mary's Catholic Church is significant for its association with Father Andrew Horan, Parish Priest of St Mary's from 1872-1924. Father Horan supervised construction of the church and is buried and commemorated inside the church.
|St Mary's Catholic Church is significant for its association with Father Andrew Horan, Parish Priest of St Mary's from 1872-1924. Father Horan supervised construction of the church and is buried and commemorated inside the church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15353,"place_ref":600578,"name":"Ipswich Central Mission - Wesleyan Chapel","alternate_name":"Original name: Wesleyan Chapel | Ipswich City Uniting Church | Ellenborough Street Church","street_address":"Ellenborough Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The church is a simple Wesleyan Chapel extended at the eastern end to provide an entrance lobby and side rooms with gallery above, and at the western end to form a sanctuary and transepts.
The Revival Gothic form includes a steeply-gabled roof clad in corrugated galvanised iron and with a timber louvred roof ridge ventilator. The earlier portions of the building are of painted rendered brickwork with projecting buttresses and tall lancet windows. The rear portion is of English bond face brickwork with painted window and door dressings, string courses, gable decoration and buttress cappings. Window sills are of painted sandstone and the plinth to the walls is of painted rendered sandstone.
Internally, the floor is of hoop pine and the walls are painted plaster. The roof is supported on scissor beams and purlins with pine boards laid diagonally from ridge to eaves. Steel tie-rods connect the bases of each pair of scissor beams.
At the eastern end of the church there is an upper gallery built as the choir stalls and organ loft. The gallery is of timber construction with a stepped timber floor supported on cast iron columns and reached by a small staircase from the entrance foyer.
The sanctuary located at the western end dominates the interior, with a raised pulpit, organ pipes and elaborate stained glass window. Various marble memorial tablets have been placed on the side walls, while the church has many fine stained and coloured glass windows, most of which are memorials.
The built-in joinery work, notably around the sanctuary end of the church and the gallery balustrading, is well-detailed. The earlier work is constructed in cedar and pine while later work around the front entry porch including a panelled dado and screen is of silky oak. The most recent work such as hymn directory boards are in Queensland maple. The pews are of traditional design in pine.
The church occupies a prominent corner position in the city and is seen above a contemporary brick wall, metal fence and painted pilasters. Other buildings on the site are either of recent origin or are early buildings which have been severely modified and extended.
","history":"The Wesley Uniting Church is a brick church, the first section of which was built in 1858 as the Wesleyan Chapel. The original design was possibly by the contractor Samuel Shenton who later practised as an architect. The chapel was extended in 1863 to the design of Benjamin Backhouse and in 1892 to the design of Henry Wyman.
\nIt is the oldest church (in continuous use as a church) in Queensland and is one of a very small number of churches in the state which pre-date Separation.
\nThe first Wesleyan services in Ipswich were conducted by Rev William Moore in 1848, using buildings such as the Court House. Moore rode from Brisbane to Ipswich and back to conduct the services. A timber chapel was built in 1849 facing Limestone St, on land granted to the church.
\nA brick chapel was built in 1858 by Samuel Shenton, facing Ellenborough St. It was extended to the east in 1863 to a design by Benjamin Backhouse, the extension including a gallery with seating for 130 people. In 1892, north and south transepts and a vestry were added, designed by Henry Wyman and built by Perry and Betts.
\nThe church was renovated to celebrate its 75th anniversary in 1923 and again to celebrate its centenary in 1948. A side porch was added in 1924. A brick and steel fence was erected on the east and south sides of the church in the 1980s, designed by architect Jim Armstrong. A major conservation project was carried out in 1990 by Buchanan Architects. The pipe organ was installed in 1905 and rebuilt in 1977.
\nA two-storey parsonage was built by Samuel Shenton to the north of the church in 1864. The building was damaged by fire in 1920 and subsequently renovated, then was extended forward and very extensively altered in 1958 to convert it to offices known as Wyvern House.
\nThe present-day Sunday School Hall was built in 1877, extended in 1897 and remodelled in 1938 and 1967. The Young Men's Hall was built in 1921 and renovated in 1948. The second parsonage, now used as a day respite care centre, was built in 1958, architect Fred Scorer.
\nThe church as an organisation has been a major influence in the Ipswich community, particularly since 1954 when it changed its name to Ipswich Central Mission and became more oriented towards community service. It initiated a number of significant social welfare programs including Ipswich Blue Nursing Service. Light Industries sheltered workshops, Lifeline crisis help service, three aged persons complexes and a day respite centre. It also gave support to establishment of Ipswich Senior Citizens centre and care for \"street kids\" in the city.
\nOriginally a Wesleyan Chapel, the church later became a Methodist Church then in 1977, became part of the Uniting Church in Australia.
","criteria":"The place demonstrates the development of churches in Queensland and the desire of residents to build substantial structures to replace their original rudimentary places of worship.
|Completed in June 1858, the Ipswich Central Mission is the oldest surviving church in continuous use in Queensland and the oldest Uniting Church in Queensland; it is a rare example of a church built prior to Separation.
|Its form, structure, furnishings, memorial tablets and windows demonstrate the principal characteristics of a Protestant church building.
|The place is a fine example of a simple Revival Gothic church building and demonstrates aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. Its prominent corner position at a bend in a major road make it a local landmark and it is one of a group of important historic buildings in central Ipswich.
|The place has a strong association with the Ipswich community through its social welfare programs, and with important organisations initiated by it such as Ipswich Blue Nurses and Ipswich Lifeline.
|It has a special association with the life and work of important early architects Benjamin Backhouse and Henry Wyman, and with builder/architect Samuel Shenton.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15354,"place_ref":600579,"name":"Ginn Cottage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Ginn Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ginn Cottage is a brick cottage, rendered with ruled joints. The sharply-pitched hipped roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron. The cottage has an attic level and has dormer windows on the southern and northern faces and symmetrically-placed brick chimneys.
The main house has a verandah on three sides, the rear verandah being enclosed. The front facade has a central doorway with a multi-paned french door on either side, opening onto the front verandah which has a sandstone step onto the footpath. The southern side abuts Meredith Lane.
The interior has four main rooms, two with a fireplace. The two main rooms have pressed metal ceilings and some original four-panelled doors survive. The attic contains two rooms which are lined with tongue and groove boarding and which have internal shutters on the windows. A ledged and braced door is between the two rooms. The attic is accessed by a steep central staircase with simple square balusters.
The rear single-storey kitchen wing is of timber frame clad in fibro-cement and has a hip roof. This wing is extended towards the west with a skillion roof over a small bathroom.
Outbuildings include a weatherboard-sheeted rear toilet block built as amenities for the restaurant and a flat-roofed carport constructed of steel frame.
","history":"Ginn Cottage is a brick cottage with an attic, built in 1859 for William Ginn and his second wife Eliza Jane. The architect and builder are not known.
Ginn was born in Ireland and migrated to Sydney where it is thought he met his first wife, a Miss Graham who died in childbirth. In the 1850s, he moved to Ipswich and managed the produce store of G.H. Wilson. He married Eliza Jane Costly (date uncertain) and they built Ginn Cottage as their family home; the land was purchased in late 1858 and the cottage was built by 1860 when Council rates records begin. In 1886, Ginn complained to the Colonial Secretary that the sale had been defective and the cottage was actually built on part of the roadway behind the Court House; this boundary problem was resolved and the street was named Ginn Street.
In 1879, Ginn left Wilsons and, in partnership with Harry Hooper, formed the merchant firm Ginn and Hooper. Hooper died in December 1896. According to family information, Ginn had already decided to continue his business alone and had mortgaged Ginn Cottage to help finance himself; however he died in January 1897, just before this firm was due to open.
Ginn was also involved in other enterprises including coal mining, a store in Augathella and raising racehorses. He was a founding board member of the Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society and was involved in community organisations.
The cottage is said by the family to have originally included a detached kitchen and stables. A kitchen wing was built attached to the house (said to have been in 1910) and a bathroom and other rear extensions were added at some time prior to 1970. The verandahs were enclosed prior to 1970.
Other alterations include changing the shingle roof (seen in an early family photograph) to corrugated galvanised iron and rendering the brickwork. The dates of these changes are unknown.
By 1970, the building was in poor condition with some internal joinery removed. It was bought by Nita and Noel Buchanan and renovated. After use as professional offices for several years, it was again sold and converted into a restaurant.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|Built in 1859, Ginn Cottage is a rare surviving example of a brick cottage of the 1850s and still demonstrates many of the characteristics of this type of building which was once common in Ipswich.
|Built in 1859, Ginn Cottage is a rare surviving example of a brick cottage of the 1850s and still demonstrates many of the characteristics of this type of building which was once common in Ipswich.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community and contributes significantly to the streetscape of an important historical area in central Ipswich.
|It is associated with the life and work of William Ginn, a notable early Queensland resident and businessman who is also associated with the formation of the Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15355,"place_ref":600580,"name":"St Stephen's Church & Hall","alternate_name":"St Stephens Church & Hall | St Stephens Presbyterian Church & Hall","street_address":"22 Limestone Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The church's western spire makes it a landmark within the city's townscape and the most dominant element of its immediate streetscape. The spire's presence is further accented by it being painted cream, while the remainder of the structure, including the sympathetic addition of a sessions house at the eastern end, is dark brick. The building has a Latin cross plan, and a corrugated iron roof, with ventilation to its ridges. Its detailing, in keeping with the tall spire, is derived from the Gothic style. Its windows and door openings have pointed heads. Detailing to the spire includes: recessed pointed head arches, accented by tracery; voussoirs, alternately projecting; and elaborate moulding. A lighter coloured brick articulates the pointed heads of the church's other window and door openings.
Internally the church still contains most of its original fittings and furnishings including timber bench pews and decorative timber entrance screen. An original gallery overlooks the main floor of the church at the western end of the building and has access to the bell tower in the steeple.
An operational pipe organ sits in a pit on the southern side of the alter platform with the pipes and other mechanisms stored in the upper level of the southern transept. There is a chancelory situated in the northern transept.
A false rear wall has been constructed dividing the main church from the sessions house by a narrow hallway. The church and the sessions display several large cracks in the brick work due to shifting foundations and the floor in the sessions house is a 'floating floor' which is sinking.
The timber hall, separated from the church by a carpark, has a cross-shaped plan, and a gabled portico entry with double access stairs. The hall has a corrugated iron roof with large decorative ventilators, and tall bargeboards. Fine timber-work is used within the upper panel of each tall, narrow window to suggest the tracery of a pointed head arch. Although the hall is built of timber, its detailing is consistent with the Gothic references made in the adjacent church most evident on the gabled front entrance and the timber valances which encircle the building.
Internally the hall still displays its original design clearly with a platform stage at the eastern end of the building looking out over a simple rectangular hall with a curved timber ceiling. An extension has been added at the rear of the building which include the church offices on the northern side.
The lych gate, included in this precinct is at the corner of Gordon and Limestone Streets. It has a brick base and a tiled, gable ended roof.
The plantings include two tall thin pines, mimicking the spire. The squat cypress tree plantings appropriately allow the built structure to dominate the site.
","history":"St Stephens Presbyterian Church stands as the second church to be constructed on the current site in 1864 - 1865. This striking gothic style brick church was designed by architect Joseph Backhouse and continues to be the place of worship for one the oldest congregations in Ipswich.
\nThe first Presbyterian church service held in Ipswich was by Dr. John Dunmore Lang in December 1844. On 19 October 1851 the Reverend Walter Ross McLeod, of the United Presbyterian Church of South Brisbane, preached to a congregation of 150 people, the largest of any church congregation to that date in Ipswich. Following the induction of the Rev. William Lambie Nelson as minister for Ipswich on 30 August 1853, the congregation began to work towards a permanent worship place for the 'Scots Church of Ipswich'. By early November 1855 a church, 40 feet by 26 feet and with a square tower, had been completed according to the plans and specifications drawn out by Mr John Petrie.
\nThe official grant of the land on which the church stood, at the corner of Limestone and Gordon Streets, was not made by the New South Wales Government until 30 December, 1858. On 22 February 1859 there were two further grants of adjacent land, for a school house and manse, bringing the total to one acre.
\nProminent members of the Established Church of Scotland at that time were Arthur Macalister, later Premier of Queensland, John Pettigrew, William Hendren, William Craies and Hugh Nelson (later Sir Hugh). The church took on the name of St Stephens in 1862. This early church proved to have faulty foundations, and had to be replaced.
\nThe present St Stephen's church was erected during the time of the Reverend Samuel Wilson, who arrived in 1863, also the year that the twelve independent Presbyterian Church of Scotland congregations united into the one Presbyterian Church of Queensland, with the Rev. Wilson being appointed the first moderator of the united church.
\nThe foundation stone for the new church was laid by the Hon Arthur Macalister in August 1865. The architect for the new building was Joseph Backhouse, brother of Benjamin Backhouse who designed Ipswich Grammar School. It has been suggested that Joseph Backhouse only supervised the construction of the church under designs made by his brother Benjamin, however this not substantiated. Joseph Backhouse was an architect in Ipswich in 1864-65, and was the town surveyor for the Ipswich Municipal Council in 1865-67. Contractors were Farley, Renny and McHugh.
\nIn 1911-12 the church was virtually rebuilt owing to foundation problems which meant that the walls had to be replaced. The steeple and sessions house were retained in original condition, the roof raised, and two porticos were added at that time. The architect was G Brockwell Gill, and the contractor John Whitehead. The foundations still had problems, and in 1958 the church underpinnings were shored up by planting six metre pyramids of concrete under the building. The transepts were included at that time. However, the sessions house was not underpinned in 1958. In 1978 the sessions house was dismantled brick by brick and a new sessions house, incorporating a kitchen and new offices, was erected in the same place adjacent to, but not structurally adjoining, the existing building. A number of the stained glass windows depict the development of the Presbyterian Church and one came from the original St Andrew's Church in Wickham Terrace, Brisbane.
\nThe foundation stone for the church manse was laid on 12 August 1879, and the building opened in January 1880. The manse was located to the east of the church and it was recently relocated to an acreage property at Anstead. The church still owns the land where the manse had stood and a modern shop building now stands on the land with the rear of the building being used as a worship centre.
\nTenders for the erection of a Sabbath School, or Hall, were called for in 1888 on an allotment of land south of the church granted by James Ivory. The Sabbath School was constructed by builders Robert Wilson & Co for £751 10s 6d and was opened in 1889.
\nThe Women's Guild planted cypress trees at the front entry to the church in May 1941 in memory of their late president, Alice Kirke. A lych gate was erected on the north-eastern alignment in 1958 as a war memorial. In 1977, when several protestant churches united, St. Stephens was one of the congregations which continued as a Presbyterian Church, and its present parish, which extends from Gatton to Goodna, is essentially the original parish of 140 years ago.
","criteria":"St Stephen's Presbyterian Church and Hall are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as the buildings are a manifestation of the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland and the substantial and striking design of the buildings are a reflection of the importance of the Church in nineteenth century communities.
|The grounds of St Stephens Presbyterian Church contain a lych gate on the north-eastern corner constructed in 1958 as a war memorial, an uncommon type of war memorial in Queensland.
|St Stephens Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a nineteenth century gothic style brick church including the steeple and the pointed arched window and door frames.
|The Church has high aesthetic significance as a city landmark which has an important townscape contribution. The hall is also aesthetically significant for its fine timber detailing and together the church and hall create a cohesive composition of religious buildings dominating the corner of Limestone and Thorn Streets.
|St Stephens Church and Hall have a strong and special association with its congregation, one of the oldest congregations in Ipswich, as a place of worship and gathering since the 1860s.
|The church has special association with architect Joseph Backhouse (brother of Benjamin Backhouse) as his major work in Ipswich.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15356,"place_ref":600581,"name":"Ipswich Club House","alternate_name":"Ipswich Club","street_address":"14 Gray Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The Ipswich Club is a substantial, highset timber house, set on timber stumps, and built late in the Federation era. Its street presence is dominated by the structure's northern facade, which features a projecting octagonal porch, set centrally within a double access stair. The octagonal porch or verandah bay is an architectural element which the house has in common with "Bowerbank" and "Arrochar", both of which are also domestic designs by Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill.
A second faceted porch or verandah bay, on the eastern side of the building, has been partially obscured by additions to the rear of the building. The house has a terracotta tiled roof, which extends over verandahs to three sides, and which features terracotta finials.
A prominent feature of the house is the decorative timber work to the verandahs. The balustrades are wide, white slats, and centrally located in each verandah bay is a circular motif. A scalloped valance is also made from wide, white slats. Dark timber battens enclose the timber stumps supporting the house. An arch of white timber, much like an enlarged verandah bracket, is placed between the stumps supporting the northern, octagonal porch. Such unusual decorative timber features were typical of George Brockwell Gill's domestic work. The house is set back from the street and views of it are framed by mature plantings. It is especially prominent in the view south from Pring Street.
","history":"The grand two-storey timber building which is owned and used by The Ipswich Club was built for Ipswich butcher and pastoralist, J.P. Bottomley in 1916. Bottomley commissioned prominent Ipswich architect, George Brockwell Gill, to design the house as a family home. In 1898 Bottomley purchased allotment 16 from the Cramb estate and the adjacent allotment, 15, was purchased in June 1914. The Ipswich City Council water rates book for 1915-16 notes a new house on site from 1st March 1916.
Bottomley was the youngest of 14 children and was born in Bradford, Yorkshire. He came to Australia, arriving in Ipswich in 1884. Initially he worked with Watson Brothers, Butchers, but later he had his own butcher's business and bought pastoral land in the Burnett and western districts. The business he worked for was probably that of Richard Watson and his two brothers. Watson owned the grand residence, "Elamang", at East Ipswich. Bottomley became a high profile Ipswich figure, serving for nine years on the Purga Shire Council, including four years as chairman, and also serving the Ipswich City Council for two years. He was also president of community organisations including the Ipswich Show Society, Ipswich Chamber of Commerce, Queensland Pastoral and Agricultural Society and the Ipswich Bowling Club.
The architect, Goerge Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomeas (1889/90), Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (1890/91), St Paul's Rectory (1895), Ipswich Technical College (1898 - 1900) and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914-16 and President in 1918-19. It seems that Gill designed the residence for Bottomley in 1898, when Bottomley purchased the land, however the house was not constructed until 1916.
The house remained in the Bottomley family until it was purchased by The Ipswich Club 1959. The first men's club in Queensland, the North Australian Club, was based in Ipswich, but had ceased to operate during the 1880's. A colonial house in Foote Lane was purchased as premises for the Ipswich Club, which opened in 1949 with Tom Beirne as its first president. The Gray Street house was purchased for the club in 1959 and it officially opened in 1960. In Bottomley's time, the house was used for community social events and continues to be used for that purpose today as the Ipswich Club.
The building has undergone many internal changes since it became the Ipswich Club. Most notably the construction of a bar in the front east wing and the enclosure of the verandah on the front west wing for use as a restaurant. The rear east wing has been extended to the back of the building obscuring the original line of the verandah and creating a large open space for functions. All decorative ceilings have remained intact as well as the joinery in the central hall.
","criteria":"The Ipswich Club building is important in demonstrating the trend of affluent suburban development in Ipswich in the early twentieth century by entrepreneurs who constructed grand residences as status symbols of their wealth and success.
|The former residence has high aesthetic significance for its grand presence on Gray Street marked by fine timber detailing and set in large, established grounds.
|The club house also has a strong association with the local community for its important role in the city's business and social life as the Ipswich Club.
|The Ipswich Club has a special association with architect George Brockwell Gill as a fine example of his domestic work featuring unusual timber detailing. Gill was responsible for a number of significant civic and domestic designs in Ipswich. This structure is similar to "Arrochar", which has been described as its twin, and "Bowerbank". It also has a strong association with prominent Ipswich citizen, J.P. Bottomley for whom the house was built in 1916.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15357,"place_ref":600582,"name":"Residence, 109 Limestone Street (c1880)","alternate_name":"Colthup's House","street_address":"109 Limestone Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The house is set close to Limestone street presenting a single storey to the street with the land falling away to the rear of the property, with two storeys at the rear. It is of load bearing brick rendered with ruled joints. The roofline is a steeply pitched hip and is broken at the verandah line to form a curved profile. The house was constructed from recycled materials from St Mary's Convent and this can be seen in the size of the structural timbers and the distinctive windows.
The upper level consists of a central hallway containing a stair to the lower level, with three bedrooms opening from the left of the hall and two formal rooms opening from the right. The hallway is a generous size and both front and rear doors are original and feature sidelights with Gothic arches and coloured glass. The formal living rooms contain back to back fireplaces and open to the verandah via French doors. The verandah surrounds four sides of the upper level and is enclosed at one side to form a storeroom. The house has been extended at the rear to form a family room, kitchen and bathroom. The core rooms on the upper level have vaulted ceilings of tongue and groove boarding and double-hung windows with distinctive top sashes with curved tops. The hallway ceiling has been lined with plasterboard. The original window and door joinery is intact. The verandah was enclosed earlier and no elements of the original detailing remain.
The lower level consists of a hallway, two bedrooms and a new bathroom. One of the bedrooms was the original kitchen and contains a large fireplace. The area under the front verandah can be accessed from the lower level hall and is enclosed with rough stonework with a concrete floor and a small timber window. This space is said to be the original bathroom and contains a concrete tub, which was apparently a feature of all John Farrelly's houses.
","history":"This two-storey brick house is part of a row of four substantial brick houses on Limestone Street, starting from the corner of Waghorn Street, that were built around 1880 by Ipswich builder and architect John Farrelly. Farrelly originally bought Allotments 8, 9, 10 & 11 of Section 28 in 1878 and apparently built the houses from recycled materials salvaged from a fire which had destroyed St Mary's convent.
\nJohn Farrelly was listed as living at Waghorn Street (corner of Limestone Street) in Postal Directories until his death in 1904 and owned all four properties until that time, suggesting that Farrelly occupied the first of the four brick homes from the corner while leasing the other three houses to tenants. The house at 109 Limestone Street, along with the other three, are an example of the work of an early property developer who contributed to the middle-class suburban development of Ipswich.
\nJohn Farrelly was born in Bawnboy, County Cavan, Ireland where he worked as a builder before he emigrated to Queensland in 1861 and settled in Ipswich. He continued to worked as a builder in Ipswich and was listed as an architect from 1878 to 1901, although he had received no formal training in the field. Farrelly was active in local politics and was an unsuccessful Parliamentary candidate for Rosewood in 1888. He was a supporter of the Catholic Church and the eight-hour day. Some of his architectural work in Ipswich included Buildings for the Queensland Pastoral and Agricultural Society (1885) and St Patrick's Hall in Darling Street Ipswich (1879) among many other cottages and residences in Ipswich built from the 1870s through to 1900.
\nIn 1909 the house was sold to James Barnett Colthup who purchased Subdivision 1 of Allotment 11 of Section 28. James Colthup was a local ironmonger and later a trader in household furnishings and was listed as having commercial premises in Nicholas Street. The house carried the name 'Colthup's House'. 'Colthup's Chambers' are still extant in Brisbane Street as well as 'Colthup Home' in Thorn Street, a modern nursing home which has obscured the presence of an original 19th century residence owned by the Colthup family from 1918 to 1958.
\nIn 1918 James Colthup sold the house at 109 Limestone Street and the property continued to change hands many times during the 20th Century. The house was converted to flats most probably in the 1930s when the verandahs were enclosed and the stair case removed. The back verandah remains enclosed displaying coloured glass windows in the exterior wall.
\nThe house at 109 Limestone Street remains as the most intact example of the four houses constructed by John Farrelly. The original design is easily visible and all interior joinery is still intact. The house also clearly displays evidence that the building materials were recycled. The house still demonstrates the original characteristics of its initial purpose as a late 19th century middle class residence.
","criteria":"The house at 109 Limestone Street is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history in that it reflects the suburban development of Ipswich in the latter 19th century. As one of four houses constructed around 1880 by the builder John Farrelly it is an example of multiple property development in a time of growth and expansion for Ipswich. It also exemplifies a trend in usage of recycled building materials as common practice during the period of construction.
|The house is an intact example of an 1880s middle class dwelling with original design features and fittings still evident in the fabric. It stands as the most intact example of a group for four adjacent dwellings constructed around 1880.
|The house contributes significantly to the streetscape of upper Limestone Street approaching the hill towards Burnett Street and the surrounding area which is characterised by many examples of 19th century houses. Most notable is the coherent streetscape presented by the four adjacent masonry dwellings (being 109, 107, 105 & 103 Limestone Street) all of similar design and construction.
|The house has special association with life and work of local architect and builder and prominent member of the Ipswich community John Farrelly. Farrelly was registered as an architect in Ipswich from 1878 to 1901.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15358,"place_ref":600583,"name":"Liberty Hall - Mary Tregear Hostel","alternate_name":"Liberty Hall; Mary Tregear Hostel;","street_address":"84 Limestone Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Mary Tregear Hostel is a two-storey brick house with a half-gabled corrugated galvanised iron roof and basement cellar. It is constructed with the front wall against the road alignment. At the rear is an attached single-storey timber frame kitchen wing with a floor level approximately 300mm below the floor level of the original front wing. The site has been further developed with a flat-roofed brick and blockwork meeting hall which runs the full length of the eastern alignment.
The original two-storeyed wing has a painted ruled render exterior finish, with solid rendered architraves around the windows. The front elevation is of symmetrical design with a central front doorway flanked with two pairs of colonial sash windows. The upper level has three colonial sash windows. The original ground floor contains a central hallway leading to a small timber staircase and four rooms, one of which has a fireplace with simple painted cedar surround. Ground floor walls are generally of painted plaster, the joinery is of very simple design such as square section balusters under the cedar handrail to the stair. Ceilings are of fibro with timber cornice and doors are of the four-panel type.
The original wing's upper floor has a narrow transverse hallway entered from the stairway top landing. This level has five small bedrooms and a toilet. All of the upper level partition walls are of 300mm wide vertical beaded tongue and groove timber boards, single lined, and all doors are of the simple ledged type, sheeted with vertical tongue and groove. Ceilings of the upper level are of tongue and groove.
A basement cellar extends underneath the whole of the ground floor of the original wing up to the retaining wall against the footpath. The rear kitchen wing supported on concrete stumps contains a kitchen, store-room, dining room, two bathrooms and a toilet. External walls are of asbestos cement "shadowline" sheeting and casement windows. Rear stairs give access internally to a lower level enclosed landing.
","history":"Mary Tregear Hostel is a two-storey rendered brick house with a cellar, built between 1857 and 1860 for Chief Constable Edward Quinn. The property was sold to James Sloane in 1877, then passed to his widow in 1887.
The house then appears to have been rented by blacksmith Hugh Campbell. Hugh's father, Donald Campbell, had been the first free settler in Ipswich after George Thorn, arriving with his family in 1842 and carrying on his trade as a blacksmith. The firm reputedly shod the horses for Leichhardt when he passed through Ipswich on an exploring expedition.
Hugh Campbell also worked as a blacksmith and took over the business after his father died in 1857. The family home and business was at that time on the corner of East and Limestone streets, Ipswich. When the Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society was built on the site in 1887, the Campbells re-established further up Limestone street. Hugh was well-known in the Ipswich community, acting as Clerk of the Course on every raceday. It has been said that the building was called Liberty Hall because of his generous hospitality, but this may have been a local saying rather than a formal name, as the term was in general use at that time.
The house was bought by Hugh's three sons under nomination of trustees in 1910. The smithy closed down in 1916 and Hugh died in 1917 but the house remained in the family until 1942. The QCWA bought the property in 1942. The house was used as a girls' hostel and a fibro and timber army building was moved to the site as a meeting hall.
In 1964, the land was subdivided and a coal research laboratory was built on portion of it. The army hut was replaced by a brick hall on the eastern side of the block, and a rear kitchen wing was built, its materials and construction suggesting a date c1960.
","criteria":"Built between 1857 and 1860, Mary Tregear Hostel is one of the oldest buildings in Ipswich and is a rare example of a simple town dwelling in colonial Georgian style.
|Built between 1857 and 1860, Mary Tregear Hostel is one of the oldest buildings in Ipswich and is a rare example of a simple town dwelling in colonial Georgian style.
|Although its roofline has been altered, it retains much of its original symmetrical form and is valued by the community for its aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of central Ipswich.
|(Criterion under review)
|It is closely associated with the work of the QCWA and in particular, its role in providing supervised accommodation for country girls working in the city.
It is closely associated with the Campbell family, the first free settlers to arrive in Ipswich after 1842, and with an early senior police official Edward Quinn
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15359,"place_ref":600584,"name":"St Paul's Young Men's Club - Art Gallery","alternate_name":"St Paul's Young Men's Society Hall | Ipswich Regional Art Gallery | St Pauls Young Men's Society Hall | St Pauls Young Men's Society Hall","street_address":"48 d'Arcy Doyle Place (formerly Nicholas Street)","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The St Paul's Young Men's Hall is a simple two-storeyed load-bearing brick building with a painted exterior finish. The plan form is essentially a simple rectangle with an additional north-facing annexe at the western end. The external walls were originally facebrick in Flemish bond. A sandstone foundation stone is on the western wall at street level. The building is on a steep slope and on the northern side, entry is to the upper floor.
The roof is corrugated galvanised iron with ridge ventilators, narrow eaves and slatted timber infill to gable ends. These details together with the timber multi-paned windows contribute to the building's restrained Federation character.
The windows on both levels of the south street alignment are rectangular while those on the western elevation are arched, flanking a semi-circular headed window with projecting keystone, surmounted by a further horizontal window; most windows on this elevation are now filled with glass bricks.
The interior of the building has a fine upper floor ceiling space with exposed queen-post trusses and a ceiling above lined with tongue and groove boarding.
","history":"St Paul's Young Men's Club is a two-level brick building constructed in 1911 as meeting rooms for St Paul's Young Men's Society. The architect was George Brockwell Gill.
The construction of a building for the Society was first proposed in 1907 and in September of that year, Lady Chelmsford, wife of the Governor of Queensland, visited Ipswich to open a bazaar to begin fundraising. Plans were prepared by architect George Brockwell Gill in late 1908 and tenders were called, but the lowest tender of £1030 was beyond the Society's capacity. Further fundraising was undertaken and the foundation stone ceremony was finally carried out in March 1911. The building was opened in December the same year.
The Society's aims were to promote spiritual, intellectual and physical development and the building included a reading room, gymnasium, bath room, billiard room and piano, all for "wholesome exercises for body and mind". The Society's activities included sport, impromptu speeches and mock parliamentary debates.
During World War I, a Soldiers' Rest Room was proposed for Ipswich and the St Paul's Young Men's Society offered their hall. A patriotic committee comprised mainly of local women obtained additional furniture for the hall and also ran the rest room.
In 1938, Ipswich City Council decided to buy the building. The city's need for a new Town Hall and additional Council offices was a recurrent issue in Ipswich over many years and the purchase of the hall was part of a compromise solution. Petitions against the proposal were received but the purchase went ahead in 1939 and the building was used to accommodate Council engineering staff. The glass bricks on the western wall might date from this period but this is uncertain; they were in place by at least the early 1960s.
In 1975, the city library was moved into the building and about the same time, the external brickwork was painted cream to match the new Civic Hall opposite. In the 1980s, the Library was relocated and the building was renovated as Ipswich Regional Art Gallery. Internal modifications included sheeting across windows to provide more hanging space.
At some time, date uncertain, a clerestory or roof vent appears to have been removed. This is suggested by the geometry of timber supports in the ceiling structure.
","criteria":"Completed in 1911, the former St Paul's Young Men's Society Hall is important as an example of a purpose-built hall and meeting rooms for a church-based club.
A brick building with restrained Federation detailing, it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, particularly as part of a group of civic buildings in the vicinity of the Limestone St/Nicholas Street intersection.
It was closely associated with patriotic groups during World War I when it was used as a soldiers' rest room.
It is also closely associated with the work of Ipswich City Council in providing important cultural services for the community - a library and later an art gallery.
It is a good example of the work of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill, showing his skill in designing a small community building on a limited budget.
|Completed in 1911, the former St Paul's Young Men's Society Hall is important as an example of a purpose-built hall and meeting rooms for a church-based club.
It is a good example of the work of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill, showing his skill in designing a small community building on a limited budget.
|A brick building with restrained Federation detailing, it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, particularly as part of a group of civic buildings in the vicinity of the Limestone St/Nicholas Street intersection.
|It is a good example of the work of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill, showing his skill in designing a small community building on a limited budget.
|It was closely associated with patriotic groups during World War I when it was used as a soldiers' rest room.
It is also closely associated with the work of Ipswich City Council in providing important cultural services for the community - a library and later an art gallery.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15360,"place_ref":600585,"name":"Residence, 103 Limestone St (1879)","alternate_name":"Penrhyn","street_address":"103 Limestone Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The residence at 103 Limestone St Ipswich is a small two-storey load-bearing brick house with the external brickwork now covered in ruled render. Because of the steep slope of the land, the house appears single storey along its street frontages but there is access to a lower floor from the northern side. The house has a hipped and slated main roof and a concave curved corrugated galvanised iron verandah roof on four sides.
There are open verandahs on the north and east and an enclosed rear verandah extended to the west. The verandah to the south is enclosed with a rendered wall pierced with a row of louvred windows. Timber lattice covers these windows on the exterior. The southern and eastern verandahs abut the footpath.
The verandah balustrade on the upper level is of a simple square baluster design and the timber verandah posts terminate with a decorative capital immediately beneath the head beam. The lower level verandah is paved in sandstone blocks.
The four main rooms at the upper level have pressed metal ceilings, three of which are vaulted to obtain additional height. The walls are plastered and floors are timber. Most of the original multi-paned colonial sash windows have survived. Below the windows on the exterior is a rectangular recess, a typical Farrelly detail.
There are two cast-iron grate fireplaces on the upper level and an open fireplace at lower ground level.
The lower level has two rooms, each with a pair of tall, narrow multipaned casement windows. The larger room has a pair of panelled doors opening to the north. Behind these rooms is an undercroft area containing a large cement bath.
The small western extension has a pitched and gabled roof and is clad in grooved plywood. It contains a bathroom and an office room. It has colonial sash multi-paned windows and a small rear staircase and entry.
The cottage sits on a combination of brick and stone foundation walls. One of the main internal brick walls of the cottage is supported clear of the ground on a timber log bearer.
","history":"Penrhyn is a rendered brick house on two levels, built in 1879 by builder/architect John Farrelly.
Born in Ireland in 1831, Farrelly came to Australia in 1861 and settled in Ipswich where he worked first as a builder and later as an architect. He was a prominent member of St Mary's congregation and a supporter of Irish institutions such as St Patrick's Day celebrations.
In 1875, John Farrelly bought four blocks of land in Limestone Street and progressively built four brick houses on them, now Nos 109, 107, 105 and 103. No 103, now named "Penrhyn", was built in 1879 and was initially rented. Farrelly occupied it himself with his wife Susan from about 1884.
The house design makes it appear earlier than its actual date of construction and it is probably built partly from demolition materials. Farrelly is recorded as having used recycled materials on several other occasions including the music block at St Mary's and Knockmoyra in Darling Street. The bricks in No 103 appear very old and the concave curve of the verandah roof is more typical of an earlier style.
The house is built into the hillside on Denmark Hill and from an early date, there were problems with the level of Limestone Street. In January 1881, Farrelly complained to Council about "the filling-up of the roadway near his property." This process has continued and the front verandah, now enclosed, is below footpath level.
Farrelly died in this house in 1904 and the Limestone Street property passed to his widow Susan until her death in 1908. The four houses plus a cottage in Waghorn St (since demolished) were auctioned in late 1908 to settle the estate and No 103 was bought by the Watson family several months later. Later owners include the O'Keefes, Parcells and Macadams. It has been used as a rental property for many years and during this time, the verandahs were progressively enclosed.
Conservation work was carried out in the early 1990s. At this time, it was converted into a professional office and a small extension was built on the western side to allow kitchen and bathroom facilities to be relocated from the northern verandah.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|Built in 1879, the residence at 103 Limestone St is a rare example of a slate-roofed brick cottage with a concave corrugated galvanised iron verandah roof and it is one of a rare group of four adjacent houses of the c1880 period by the same builder/architect.
|It is part of a larger precinct of historic houses grouped around Baines Park and, with its prominent corner position, contributes significantly to the streetscape and exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|It has a special association with builder/architect John Farrelly as his own home and in some of its detailing, is a typical example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15361,"place_ref":600586,"name":"Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College","alternate_name":"Ipswich Technical College | Ipswich TAFE College","street_address":"88 Limestone Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College Complex is located adjacent to the Ipswich central business district on a 4092m2 site bounded by Limestone Street to the north, South Street to the south, park reserve to the east and Ellenborough Street to the west. The complex comprises four main buildings which are complimentary in design, scale and form and several smaller single storey outbuildings that house toilet facilities and stores. The technical college site also includes two very large shade trees, on the Ellenborough Street boundary.
1901 Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College
The first and most decorative of the buildings, the 1901 Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College is the cornerstone of the complex both in its location and commanding presence of its design and articulation.
The 1901 Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College building is located at the corner of Limestone and Ellenborough Streets. This intact stately two storey brick masonry building with basement has facades heavily ornamented with an eclectic combination of elements and details including the use of polychromatic tuck pointed brickwork and painted cement rendered details. The hipped roof is of red painted corrugated iron with a rectangular roof lantern which is surmounted by cast iron cresting.
The building entrance at the corner of Limestone and Ellenborough streets is symmetrically framed by identical breakfronts projecting toward the street alignment and between which the stairs to the foyer level are contained. The entrance comprises pairs of five panel timber doors under round arched fanlights accentuated by contrasting brick voussoirs, cement rendered label moulds and imposts and pedimented, bracketed string coursing to each street frontage. The ground floor fenestration comprises stilted round arched windows with five light fanlights and double hung sashes with light coloured brickwork voussoirs and cement rendered label moulds and imposts. The first floor fenestration comprises segmental headed double hung windows with five light sashes accentuated with dichromatic brickwork arches, cement rendered label moulds and imposts and contrasting brick string coursing at sill height The entablature which is punctuated with pairs of cement rendered eaves brackets bears the words DIAMOND 1897 JUBILEE TECHNICAL COLLEGE MEMORIAL in raised lettering to the frieze along the length of the two facades from the north east corner of the building to the south west.
Each of the breakfronts is heavily embellished with contrasting tuck pointed brickwork and cement rendered details. Cement rendered elements include the plinths, pilasters decorated with quoin stones to the ground floor and fluting to the upper section at the first floor level, sills, brackets, imposts, key stones, entablature parapet, pedimented gable and finials. The gable includes bullseye louvred vents.
The fenestration to the breakfronts includes a round arched window with eleven lights to the ground floor and pairs of segmental arched windows with fanlight and double hung sashes within a single segmental arch. The frieze to each breakfront bears the Latin words AUSPICIUM MELIORIS AEVI which roughly translates as 'command better lives' in raised lettering. At ground floor level, commemorative marble plaques with lead lettering detail the opening, architect and builder details.
A brick masonry fence with cement rendered plinth and capping and dichromatic piers and iron balustrading encloses the immediate grounds to the east and south of the breakfronts.
The 1901 college building is very intact and houses offices, a staffroom and a class room on the ground floor; additional offices and a dining room, kitchen and scullery associated with the domestic science facilities on the first floor and store rooms, a staff room and a class room are located in the basement. The scullery houses early sinks, benches and draining boards.
The entrance foyer opens into a large stair hall that is naturally lit by a roof lantern and central light well with sloping timber boarded ceiling. The elaborately detailed timber stair is an open newel type with two quarter space landings providing access to the first floor. The top landing curves to frame the stair well and the angled masonry walls accentuate this feature. These main stairs lead to the first floor only. The rear stair provides access to all three levels (access to the basement has been boarded up) and another single flight stair off the corridor leads to the basement from the ground floor.
1917 General and Commercial Building
The 1917 General and Commercial building is located in Ellenborough street adjacent to the 1901 college and is a simply decorated two storey brick masonry building with full height basement below street level. This building is constructed of tuck pointed brown brickwork relieved with red brick round arched fenestration at basement and ground level and segmental arched windows to the first floor all with cement rendered sills and double hung windows. The roof is divided into three bays of red painted corrugated iron hipped roofs with boarded eaves and the entrance is pronounced at the roof line by a raised parapet at the intersection of two bays. A steep narrow fire stair is located on the southern elevation and its landing is located about one metre above street level.
Access to the building is from Ellenborough street and the entrance hall, which houses the main stair, extends through the width of the building to a secondary timber stair attached on the eastern wall. The interior of this building generally comprises timber floors with rendered masonry walls and a fibrous cement sheeted ceiling with timber cover battens. The ground floor houses the library (which contains early fittings), sewing room, class room, staff room and auditorium. The first floor houses additional class rooms and a staff room and the basement houses an office, store and the engineering workshops which still contain some equipment. Borrowed lights in the footpath have been concealed with bitumen but are still evident in the western wall of the basement.
1924 Classroom Block
The 1924 Classroom Block is located on Limestone Street to the east of the 1901 Technical College building. It too is complementary in its scale and form and materials and as it is at the lower end of the site presents three storeys to Limestone Street. The Classroom Block comprises red brick tuck pointed masonry piers relieved with infill panels of rendered masonry below casement windows with fanlights and cement rendered flat window hoods. Each panel contains fenestration that comprises three eight-light casements with four-light centre pivoting fanlights above. It has a red painted corrugated iron roof with lined eaves. Floors are timber framed and lined and ceilings have a fibrous cement lining with timber batten cover strips.
Classrooms divided by partition walls of timber with a v-jointed tongue and groove board lining are located on each level and are very intact. A few pieces of original furniture survive. The classroom block is connected at first floor level to the technical college building to the west and workshops to the south by timber walkways and verandah.
1937 Workshops Building
The 1937 workshops building is a two storey building of the same construction as the 1924 classroom block and is located on the southern side of the Class Room block building. The open workshop area on the ground level is still evident although now used as a Canteen. The laboratory that was housed on the first floor is no longer operational but the benches and laboratory equipment survive. The timber roof trusses in this building are exposed and the ceiling of tongue and groove v-jointed boards follows the rake of the roof.
","history":"The Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College was opened by the Governor of Queensland, Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, on 4 June 1901, at a time when technical education was becoming firmly established throughout Queensland. Queensland's first technical college was established in Brisbane in 1882 and in 1898 The Brisbane Technical College Act was passed which governed only the Brisbane Technical College. Technical colleges established outside Brisbane during this period were initiated and run by independent boards not bound by statutes or regulations and the Ipswich Technical College was the first of these to be established and to construct its own purpose-built college. Other independent technical colleges to follow Ipswich were Warwick (1906), Mount Morgan (1909), and Toowoomba (1910).
\nIpswich commenced running technical classes in August 1891 after a public meeting was held in June where community leaders including the Mayor, the Headmaster of the Ipswich Grammar School and the Chairman of The Queensland Times accepted a Government offer of £250 to begin technical education at Ipswich. Prior to 1891 the only form of technical education available in Ipswich was through a limited range of courses at the Ipswich School of Arts.
\nThe technical classes began with book-keeping, drawing, algebra, and geometry at the Ipswich Middle State School, in rented premises and even in a rented foundry. Arrangements were also made to include dressmaking, cookery, ambulance work, geography, history, Latin and English to the syllabus. The financial difficulties bought on by the depression of the early 1890s forced the college to close between 1893 and 1896. It reopened in 1897 in O'Sullivan's Buildings in Brisbane Street. In the same year the first classes in coal mining began.
\nAt a public meeting in January 1897, it was decided to commemorate Queen Victoria's silver jubilee by erecting a new technical college. The local community raised £1000, and with a government grant of £2000 work began on a site granted by the city council in the Central Gardens. The college, a two-storey masonry structure with a basement was designed by prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill. The contractor was H Woodford and the brickwork was undertaken by G Williams.
\nThe architect, Goerge Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include 'Brynhyfryd' for Lewis Thomas (1889/90), Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (1890/91), St Paul's Rectory (1895), The Ipswich Club (1916), the Hotel Metropole (1906), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914-16 and President in 1918-19.
\nAt this time the college was managed by a local committee with local knowledge and as various committee members were connected with the railway workshops or mines the curriculum was able to meet the needs of the city.
\nBy 1902 the Board of Technical Education, created by thirty-four technical colleges throughout Queensland, was established to regulate and increase technical education and advise the Minister for Public Instruction. In 1903 annual examinations in Ipswich which were previously run by the local College Committee were placed under the control of the Board of Technical Education. In 1905 this Board was abolished when a separate branch of the department was established.
\nThe Ipswich student population expanded rapidly and by 1910 an electrical laboratory had been added to the basement. In 1910 the City Council also agreed that the site on which the College was situated be vested in the Minister for Public Instruction.
\nA lack of complete courses was remedied in 1912 with the introduction of the Mine Manager's Certificate course (issued by the Department of Mines) and the Mechanical and Electrical Diploma Course (issued by the University of Queensland).
\nThe building program was continued with the establishment in 1915 of a Domestic Science area on the top floor of the original college building (still evident today) and the completion of a brick building fronting Ellenborough Street in 1917. The top floor was devoted to the Commercial Day School, Engineering Diploma courses and laboratories and the ground floor was occupied by the Lecture Hall, Library, Dressmaking Room, Drawing Office and Teachers' Rooms. The basement was occupied by the Engineering Workshops, Storeroom, Patternmaking Shop, Plumbing Shop and Blacksmith's Shop.
\nIn 1922 the Domestic Science School, the Commercial Day School and the Preparatory Trade School were given High School Status and students were prepared for the University Junior Exams. In 1924 a new building was opened to house the new high school classes and in 1930 the three separate schools were merged to form the Ipswich Technical High School. This new building was extended in 1941 and stands visible from Limestone Street.
\nIn 1937 a workshops building was constructed on the southern side of the High School building which was later used as the Mining, Science and Student Amenities area. This building now has a canteen on the ground floor and the top floor is vacant with evidence of science laboratories still extant.
\nDuring the Second World War the facilities of the college were used to train a large number of Defence Trainees. The college expanded again in 1944 when a new complex was constructed on the west side of Ellenborough Street to house a Machine Shop and in 1945 a Woodworking Shop was opened and in 1947 a Plumbing Shop was opened on the same site. Both the plumbing workshop and the teachers' common room were built by the Commonwealth Reconstruction Trainees as part of their training program. (NB: This site is not within the listing boundary for the Technical College Entry in the Heritage Register.)
\nFrom 1948 the College Committee was in financial trouble on a number of occasions and in July 1951 the control of the college administration was taken over by the Queensland Government. In 1962 the Technical High School was separated from the Technical College and the Ipswich State High School was established at Brassal.
\nThe Technical College was later absorbed into the Bremer TAFE and now operates as a secondary campus to the main campus in Bundamba.
","criteria":"The Queen Victoria Silver Jubilee Memorial Technical College is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as it illustrates the development and growth of technical and higher education throughout the State. It is also significant in demonstrating Australia's close ties with the British Empire at the turn of the 20th century as it was constructed as a memorial to the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The place is also important in demonstrating the development of the civic centre of Ipswich.
|All structures on the site are a good example of technical college structures of the varying periods of construction which evolved in response to progressive thinking in the design and planning of educational institutions.
|The original 1901 building is of considerable architectural merit, and its form and fabric illustrate a skilled design approach It also displays fine quality of workmanship in the detailing of its materials and finishes. The whole site, including the mature trees on the property, makes an important contribution to the streetscapes of Limestone and Ellenborough Streets and the surrounding area, which includes a number of significant civic buildings central to the city.
|The place is significant for its association with the Ipswich community being a principal centre of education since 1901.
|The original 1901 building is a significant example of the work of G Brockwell Gill, who was responsible for many significant civic, commercial and domestic buildings in Ipswich.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15363,"place_ref":600588,"name":"To-Me-Ree","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Macalister Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":""To-Me-Ree" stands on the north-west corner of Moffat and Macalister Streets on the southern side of Denmark Hill with extensive southern views. "To-Me-Ree" is a substantial, brick villa with a complex gabled roof-line. Its southern facade has two projecting gables, connected by a verandah which has been enclosed with boarding and coloured glass casement windows. The gables each have round ventilator 'windows' and decorative timber pediments and finials. Each of the gables has cream render quoins which contrast with the home's red brick body. One of the gables has a projecting bay window, with its own three-sided roofing. The chimney is made from a decorative combination of red, cream and ash coloured bricks.
A verandah on the eastern side of the house is supported by timber posts with moulded capitals and elegantly plain, timber brackets and valance. The verandah wraps around to the rear of the house where a pergola extends from the roofline over a large square rockery. The pergola is supported by ornate Italianate pillars on the eastern side. The rockery is bounded at the rear by the driveway which has original decorative iron gates to Macalister Street. Beyond the driveway to the rear of the property is the garden with evidence of a previous structure amongst the established plantings.
The southern and eastern sides of the property are surrounded by an original low brick wall including an original decorative single iron gate displaying the name 'To-Me-Ree' fronting Macalister Street which leads to the front verandah steps.
The entrance to the interior is via a door on the eastern verandah which is surrounded by coloured, patterned glass (matching the glass on the verandah enclosure facing Moffat Street). The entrance leads into a hall-way, with a central timber arch, which extends to the rear of the house with rooms extending from either side.
The kitchen is in the south-western corner of the house which still displays one of two central fireplaces. The other fireplace is in a mirrored position in the living room on the opposite side of the wall to the kitchen fireplace. A room on the Western side of the house is an enclosed verandah which leads to the bathroom and laundry in their original positions on the north-west corner of the house.
","history":"The single-storey, Federation brick villa, "To-Me-Ree", is one of four houses George Williams built on the southern side of Denmark Hill around 1910. Williams and his wife lived opposite "To-Me-Ree", at "Almondsbury", a brick house with steeply pitched gables similar in style to "To-Me-Ree". Williams' daughter, Nellie (Mary Ellen), and her husband, Sydney May, lived at "To-Me-Ree".
The name "To-Me-Ree" stems from May's interest in Aboriginal words and is thought to relate to Port Stephens headland. It is said that May had an extensive collection of Aboriginal artefacts which he displayed in the west room converted from the side verandah. The collection of Artefacts were donated to the GAL and are now on display there.
May moved to Ipswich in 1905 to be organist and choir master at the Ipswich Congregational Church. He also lectured at the University of Queensland's school of music and initiated music summer schools.
A bush house and rock garden were maintained during the May's time, and their garden was an attraction for city visitors. Sydney May died in 1968, Nellie May died in 1972 and one of their daughters, Barbara, continued living at "To-Me-Ree" until her death in 1980.
The house is a fine example of the affluent settlement around Denmark Hill which continued from the latter 19th century into the early 20th century. The house is situated amongst grand residences and substantial brick and timber dwellings which give the area a cohesive character
","criteria":"To-Me-Ree is important in demonstrating the pattern affluent suburban development around Denmark Hill in Ipswich from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.
|It has high aesthetic value as a Federation brick villa which displays fine building and detailing and is part of a group of four house similar in style but architecturally atypical in the area. It also presents high streetscape value being on a prominent corner block on the southern side of Denmark Hill surrounded by substantial houses of varying ages and design.
|It has special association with the May family who occupied the house from its construction in 1910 until 1980, in particular Sydney May, a lecturer in Music at the University of Queensland, who was an active member of Ipswich society contributing to the musical life of the city.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15364,"place_ref":600589,"name":"Claremont","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1A Milford Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Claremont is a single story, Georgian style house with verandahs which addresses the Bremer River on the north. It is built to a U shaped plan with wings of differing lengths. The style is reminiscent of earlier houses in Sydney and Tasmania and is rare in Queensland, although Claremont has some resemblance to Oakwal in Brisbane and to Ormiston House at Wellington Point, which were built a few years later.
The house is symmetrically arranged with french doors opening onto the verandah, which extends around the sides of the house. There is a stone paved verandah at the rear. The verandah roof has been reconstructed to its original form of a concave profile roof supported by simple posts on plain plinths.
It is constructed of a local sandstone, possibly from Woogaroo quarry with brick walls internally. The form of construction is rare, incorporating timber tie beams at lintel level through the stone work. The framing for the original double hipped roof including the box gutter and some battening for slates, remains under the current roof which is single hipped and is clad with corrugated iron.
Decorative detail to the interior, such as the classical motifs on the cornices of the drawing and dining rooms, is simple and classically inspired in accordance with the Georgian style. There are nine chimneys and some original marble fireplaces and grates survive as does some door and window joinery.
There is a brick lined, stone flagged storage cellar beneath the former bathroom on the western side of the house. The original half spiral access stair survives, but much of the floor framing in this room is reconstructed. The kitchen also retains a stone flagged floor.
The gardens retain some elements of the original planting and a number of fine or unusual specimens including Ulmus parvifolia, golden bamboo, early varieties of hibiscus and an early, locally propagated variety of bouganvillea.
The view to the river survives.
","history":"Claremont is a Georgian style stone villa overlooking the Bremer River. It was designed in 1857 by William Claydon Wakefield for John Panton, a prominent Ipswich merchant and was built on the earliest site to be occupied by Europeans in Ipswich. In 1862 Claremont was purchased by George Thorn, originally superintendent of convicts at Ipswich, who became a politician, as did four of his sons. George Thorn Jnr. served as Premier of Queensland while living at Claremont and the house was for many years an important social and political centre in Ipswich.
In 1827, the Commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal colony sent a group of convicts up the Bremer River to quarry and process limestone for building purposes. Huts and a lime kiln were set up, followed by enclosures for animals. The site covered what are now the grounds of Claremont and their immediate vicinity and was named Limestone Station. In 1838 George Thorn was appointed Superintendent of Convicts at Limestone and lived with his family in a cottage to the north west of where Claremont now stands. He stayed on after the penal colony was closed and became a wealthy merchant and pastoralist. Physical evidence for this first European use of the site may survive below ground. The remains of the kiln were visible until the 1960s and their location, close to the current house, is marked.
In 1842, when Moreton Bay was opened for free settlement, the first survey of Limestone was made and this land was divided into blocks and sold. By 1852 it was held by several owners, but all the northern parts of section XXXVI were later acquired by John Panton, the son of the New South Wales Post-Master General, who had moved to Limestone in 1851 and had established himself successfully as a merchant. In 1855, he built a two story warehouse to the northwest of the present house. The site is at the head of navigation of the river and is just upstream of the Pool, an area which permitted steam boats to turn and which was then close to the wharves. His acquisition of this site and location of the warehouse emphasise the importance of the river to Ipswich as a trading centre before the coming of the railway.
In 1857 Panton added a villa designed by William Claydon Wakeling to the site and named it Claremont. Only a few years after this, in the early 1860s, Panton experienced financial difficulties and sold Claremont to George Thorn, who was by then a leading figure in Ipswich. The Thorns were closely involved in politics, George and four of his sons serving as Members of the Legislative Assembly at various times. The eldest son, George Thorn, junior, was Premier between 1876-77 while he was living at Claremont.
In 1874, a section of land running between Claremont and the river bank was resumed as part of the construction of the Brisbane to Ipswich Railway. This reduced the grounds to an area of 2 acres and 23 perches and Panton's warehouse may have been demolished at this point. The property remained in the Thorn family until 1906 when it was purchased by George Rennie Wilson. In 1919 the land was again subdivided and some sold, reducing the Claremont block to 1 acre, 21 perches.
Alterations occurred to the house in the 1920s with the rebuilding of the verandahs to a bungalow style. It was used as a boarding house between 1924 and 1939, when it was sold to Jessie Violet Preddy. The Preddys lived in the house only briefly before it was divided into three flats and the land further subdivided. During the 1940s the house became run down and the ends of both wings were demolished.
In 1964 the property was purchased by the Queensland Sub-Normal Children's Welfare Association and at this time some alterations were made to allow the house to be used as a hostel. These probably included converting the original double hipped slate roof into a single hip roof over the main rooms, installing bathrooms over the cellar and bricking in fireplaces. Landscaping was also done at this time, including the re-use of stone blocks from either the kiln or demolished sections, in order to form garden terraces.
In 1975 the National Trust of Queensland obtained a National Estate Grant to purchase Claremont, which was then sub-leased back to the Q.S-N.C.W.A. for three years. After remaining vacant for two years, the house was leased in 1980 to Architect Bruce Buchanan and restoration work began. In the following year the first open day for the general public was held. The Buchanan's moved out of the house in the mid eighties and the house has not been used since as a residence.
Considerable work has been done to Claremont since it was purchased by the Trust including the reconstruction of the verandah to its original form.
","criteria":"Claremont and its grounds demonstrate the evolution of Ipswich from a convict outpost for burning limestone, to an important early mercantile centre and a major city of Queensland.
|The house is a rare example of an early Georgian villa in Queensland and incorporates early and unusual building techniques.
|The house and its grounds have the potential to yield, through the existing buildings and from archaeological evidence, information on the early use of the site and on the lifestyle of early owners.
|It is also important for its aesthetic value as a work of architecture that is well liked by the community for style, material and detail.
|Claremont has a strong association with John Panton and with the Thorn family, who were connected with the site from the earliest European occupation and who contributed to the development of Ipswich and of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15365,"place_ref":600590,"name":"Brickstone","alternate_name":"Brixton","street_address":"11 Murphy Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Brickstone is a substantial brick dwelling with a steeply pitched roof which makes it an important contribution to the streetscape. The house comprises of three levels and is of load bearing brick rendered with ruled joints. It has a monopitch hip roof with a central gable to the front verandah and four dormer windows to the attic space. The current dormer windows were constructed in the 1980s when the attic was reopened after the house was converted from flats. New entry stairs were also added at this time to the verandah under the central gable. Earlier photographs show the verandah accessed from the corner stair.
The main level consists of a four room core with a cental hall surrounded by a verandah, which is open on two sides. The rear and part of the side verandahs were enclosed to form servant's rooms which are now bathrooms and storerooms. The stair was installed during the 1980s, originally from another building (apparently from a former doctor's residence at Ipswich Hospital). The majority of the joinery has been replaced, sourced from other demolished buildings, and ceiling roses added to many rooms. The iron columns and balustrading are largely intact on the verandahs.
The lower level contains two large rooms and a cellar. The joinery has been replaced and ceiling roses and other decorative plasterwork added. The attic was reconstructed in the 1980s with sheeted wall and ceiling linings and dormer windows.
A detached building said to contain the original kitchen and wash-house stands to the rear of the house, accessed from the lower level terrace. A new carport and covered walkway has been added at the side of the property.
","history":"This two-storey house with an attic stands on allotment 10 of section 17 proclaimed on 4 March 1861. On 15 April 1861 a section of the allotment was purchased as lot 53 by Mr. James Kirby Swan, a local wheelwright and town land owner. By 1869 a number of sections had been surveyed off the original allotment and all that remained was the section where the house stands, part 3A.
The house was constructed by prominent local builder William Hancock. The precise date of the construction of this house is unknown, however, Swan's name does appear on the 1864 electoral role as residing at this address, thus indicating that the house may have been built for him in the early 1860's. On 15 January 1863 Hancock purchased land adjoining that of Swan's, part 3 of allotment 10 of section 17.
The Hancock family history states that William Hancock built three houses in a line in Murphy Street being numbers 11, 13 and 15 Murphy Street. (This also suggests that the house at 11 Murphy Street may have been built in the early part of the 1860's.) The house at 13 was called 'Cornubia' and was Hancock's residence but has been altered beyond recognition. Hancock actually resided at 11 Murphy Street in late 1875 for a short period (rates, levied at 10% of the valuation of the land, were paid in Swan's name until 4 October 1875 when the land was registered in the name of William Hancock).
William Hancock migrated from England in 1856 and worked for a short time in Brisbane prior to moving to Ipswich where he lived until his death on 23 August 1892. Hancock was born at St Ives, Cornwall, went to live in Yorkshire, and was married at Leeds in 1844. Hancock was well known in Ipswich as a 'builder in brick' and building contractor and was involved in the construction of a number of buildings including, additions to Rockton Villa, Colinton Station, Booval House, the foundations of the first railway workshop, the Lands Office and the Wesleyan Parsonage as well as laying pipes for the waterworks in 1877. He also built and operated a lime-kiln on Limestone Hill and owned a soap and candle works at Churchill.
The house was built in a time of growth and expansion for Ipswich which was benefiting from the profits of coal mining and wool and cotton production. The town was a point of trade with the Port on the Bremer River the first railway in Queensland opening to Grandchester in 1865. William Hancock had directly contributed to this early growth in Ipswich and Brickstone can be seen as part of that contribution.
The house, which has three levels, originally had eight main rooms with a detached kitchen and laundry. In 1877 the house was sold to Mr Samuel Irwin, and since then there have been numerous other owners and occupants, including William Hancock's married daughter Elizabeth; and her unmarried daughter who lived there till she died in 1956.
From around the 1920's until 1982 the house was mainly used as flats during which time the house underwent a number of alterations, the most noticeable being the closure of the attic and removal of the stairs during the 1920's and the enclosure of the verandah. The grey slate roof was replaced by galvanised iron and the attic windows were removed around the same time. (Possibly a similar example of the what the original slate roof would have looked can be seen at 15 Murphy Street.)
In 1985 the house was purchased by Kirk Jensen and Peter Gelherr who reversed the conversion of the flats and redecorated and remodelled the interior of the house in a High Victorian style. The staircase to the attic was replaced with a recycled set of stairs from auction and the attic reopened with dormer windows put in on three sides of the roof. Almost all of the interior fittings and decoration have been added to the house during the 1980s renovations.
In 1989 the house was sold to Mrs Adele Rule who currently resides there.
While the origins of the name 'Brickstone' are unknown, the house is believed to have been known as 'Brixton' prior to renovations.
","criteria":"'Brickstone' (11 Murphy Street) is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history in that it reflects the beginnings of the substantial residential development in Ipswich around the area known as Denmark Hill. Constructed in the early 1860s this brick house reflects the growing strength of Ipswich as an industrial, pastoral and commercial centre in the latter 19th Century which encouraged the suburban development still evident in central Ipswich today.
|'Brickstone' also draws aesthetic significance from its contribution to the immediate streetscape and, more generally to the lower slopes of Denmark Hill. In particular the large scale of the house on a prominent corner block and the steeply pitched roof make Brickstone a local landmark.
|'Brickstone' has a special association with the life and work of prominent local builder William Hancock who constructed the house and later resided there for a short period. Hancock was a prolific 'builder in brick' and his work is evident in other substantial residences in Ipswich such as Rockton Villa and Booval House.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15366,"place_ref":600591,"name":"St Pauls Anglican Church and Rectory","alternate_name":"St Paul's Anglican Church and Rectory","street_address":"124 BrisbaneStreet","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Paul's Church occupies a whole block within the city centre of Ipswich.
The site includes the church, church hall, rectory, gardens and perimeter limestone walls, all of which are dominant landmark elements within the urban setting.
The Revival Gothic church is of Latin cross plan form, with the sanctuary placed at the western end. External walls are of face brickwork and contain five arched windows of stained glass with small pivoting vents. The steeply-pitched gable roof is sheeted with flat pan and roll galvanised iron and is penetrated by dormer window ventilators. The roof structure consists of finely-proportioned hammer beam trusses which intersect above the crossing, supporting a raised lantern roof ventilator. The entrance porch is at the eastern end and leads to a foyer beneath the upper choir loft with timber screen, cast iron lace balustrading and cast iron spiral stair access. The new floor of the church is of traditional clear-finished hoop pine and walls are painted plaster. The church pews are of traditional design and appear to be original.
The northern transept now contains the organ and choir stalls, while the southern transept is extended to accommodate two vestries. Side aisles extend along both sides of the nave, terminating in small chapels at the western end. The church interior contains some fine timber joinery including sanctuary screens, communion rail and panelling of cedar and pine. The interior also contains numerous marble tablets and memorials, pulpit, font and lectern of fine quality. A chapel in the north-eastern corner of the nave honours Mavis Parkinson and contains an altar faced with New Guinea tapa cloth and a small bamboo cross. in a glass case.
The RECTORY is a lowset timber building with verandahs on all sides and a fine projecting pedimented entrance porch to the east overlooking the town centre and d'Arcy Doyle Place. Walls are of chamferboard and the hipped roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron. The roof form has distinctive metal ventilators and banks of brick chimneys with terracotta chimney pots.
The interior plan form of the rectory remains relatively unchanged except for minor modifications to accommodate the church offices, meeting rooms and storage space. Most of the cedar joinery, except for one fireplace surround, has survived. Contemporary car accommodation has been constructed at the rear and a disabled persons ramp built alongside the northern verandah.
The CHURCH GROUNDS are raised above the surrounding footpaths and contained on all sides by early limestone retaining walls with sloping concrete copings, once surmounted by a small picket fence. A pair of circular crenellated gate pillars exist at the main northeast entrance and are constructed of random rubble limestone matching the walls adjacent. The garden contains some mature trees and a fine-grained Celtic cross memorial set on a stylobate of three steps and engraved with an inscription and traditional Celtic motifs.
","history":"St Paul's Anglican Church is a Revival Gothic brick church completed in 1859, supervised by William Wakeling but probably to a design by Edmund Blacket. The side aisles were added in 1888/89, architect F.D.G. Stanley, and the western extensions were added in 1929, architect G.B. Gill.
The first Church of England services in Ipswich were held in a timber building in Ellenborough Street. A brick church was then erected in 1850 on the corner of Brisbane and Nicholas Streets, opposite the present-day church. This was always intended to be a temporary building and was later used as a Sunday School and day school; it was demolished in 1877.
The foundation stone of St Paul's was laid in 1855 but the church was not completed until June 1859. The architect is believed to have been Edmund Thomas Blacket. Ipswich at that time was in the Diocese of Newcastle and similar designs were used for St Paul's at West Maitland and St John's at Newcastle. Blacket's former pupil William Wakeling arrived in Ipswich in 1856 and worked there for several years including some time as the partner of Thomas Casey as builder/architects; he carried out supervision of St Paul's and was also responsible for "the internal arrangements".
The building was of a high quality because the church was designed and built at a time when Ipswich was socially and economically buoyant. There was also intense rivalry between Ipswich and Brisbane and the rector was hopeful of attracting the new bishop to the church, making Ipswich a cathedral town. A pipe organ was imported from England and installed in 1860, the first in the colony. This organ still exists, although it has been rebuilt, repaired and relocated.
The gallery was built in 1882. At the same time, two lancet windows were installed in the eastern wall and a cast iron porch was added.
North and south aisles were added in 1888, designed by F.D.G. Stanley and built by Robert Wilson and Co.
In 1926, the old cast iron "Galilee porch" was replaced by the present porch; the bell in this porch is from the 1850 church. In 1929, Ipswich architect and prominent parishioner George Brockwell Gill designed and supervised an extension to the chancel, and the addition of an organ chamber, sacristy, chapel and vestry to the west end and southern transept. Major conservation work was carried out in 1992 under the supervision of Buchanan Architects.
The church contains fine stained glass windows and numerous memorials including marble tablets honouring people notable in Queensland history such as George Thorn and Thomas de Lacy Moffat.
In the north-east corner is the Martyrs Chapel which honours New Guinea martyrs including medical missionary Mavis Parkinson who was killed by Japanese soldiers during World War II. The chapel contains a small bamboo cross in a glass case presented by the Bishop of South Tokyo and a cross found in an abandoned German mission. A Celtic cross in grey stone near the church entrance porch also honours Mavis Parkinson.
HALL: A church hall was built in 1908 but was demolished in 1962 along with the timber belltower and replaced by a new brick and steel parish centre which was dedicated as a war memorial; it was designed by Conrad and Gargett Architects.
RECTORY: The rectory was built in 1895-6, designed by G.B. Gill. It replaced an earlier building on the same site which had become dilapidated. There have been only minor changes to this building since construction. It ceased being the rectory c1990 and is now used for church offices.
GROUNDS: The grounds of the church provide an attractive setting, and include a limestone perimeter wall, much of which was built prior to 1876. The Brisbane St section has long been a favourite place for Ipswich people to sit to watch processions. The limestone stone terraces were extended along Nicholas and Limestone Streets in the 1930s and the bus shelter in Nicholas Street was built in 1932.
","criteria":"The place demonstrates the pattern of Queensland's history, exemplifying the buoyant mood of pre-Separation Ipswich and the aspirations of its citizens to construct community buildings worthy of its perceived importance.
|Completed in 1859, it is a rare example of a church built prior to Separation and is the oldest Anglican Church in Queensland; it contains the oldest pipe organ in Queensland.
|(Criterion under review)
|The main church is a fine revival Gothic building constructed over a long period from 1855 to 1929. With its central city setting and landscaped grounds including a fine limestone wall and terraces, it is a major landmark in Ipswich.
|The church has been closely associated with the spiritual and social life of the Ipswich community since the 1850s.
|It is closely associated with two important Queensland architects F.D.G. Stanley and G.B. Gill and also with Edmund Blacket and William Wakeling.
\nIt is associated with the life and work of Anglican Church martyr Mavis Parkinson, a medical missionary who was killed in New Guinea during World War II.
\nThe rectory is a finely-detailed example of a late Victorian residence and is a good example of the domestic work of G.B. Gill.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15367,"place_ref":600592,"name":"Soldiers' Memorial Hall, Ipswich","alternate_name":"Memorial Hall, Ipswich","street_address":"63 Nicholas Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building contains three levels - basement, ground and first floors constructed of load bearing brickwork and timber floor framing, and stands prominently within a small central city park.
The elaborate pedimented front pavilion of the building is surmounted by a formal raised parapet which together with the rusticated voussoirs, projecting cornice, pilasters, and rising sun motif, give the front of the building an impressive street presence. To give further emphasis to the front, this pavilion is constructed with slightly-contrasting coloured tuck-pointed brickwork.
The entrance portico is approached by flanking balustrade quadrant walls at street level, with stairs leading up to the ground floor. The memorial chamber immediately inside the entrance holds the original marble World War I memorial and a series of timber honour boards for later wars. Several honour boards relocated from other places in Ipswich have also been installed within the building.
The memorial chamber was originally naturally lit from above through a large rooftop lantern and central light well with encircling gallery at first floor level; this is now closed over.
The ground floor also contains the former Assembly Room, Lounge and offices. A silky oak timber staircase leads down to the basement which contains meeting rooms and an office and has a separate entrance on the northern side from the adjacent park. The upper level, reached by a silky oak staircase, contains a variety of meeting rooms. The main meeting room features a large semi-circular window, originally the location of a stained and coloured glass memorial now removed.
The internal detailing of the building is not elaborate, and includes silky oak joinery, painted plasterwork and ceilings of fibreboard with geometrically placed cover battens.
A rear fire escape constructed of structural steel serves the ground and first floor levels.
The roof is a series of hipped and gabled corrugated iron roof forms with a central raised roof over the lantern light.
The adjacent park contains two granite memorials.
","history":"The Ipswich Soldiers' Memorial Hall is a three-storey brick building opened in 1921. It was designed by George Brockwell Gill and built by F.J. Lye. Brickwork was by A. Mansfield, plastering J. Jamieson and joinery Arthur Foote Ltd.
The Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia was formed in 1916 and a branch opened in Ipswich in September 1917. As the end of the war approached in 1918, the Ipswich branch requested land suitable for a building which could be a recreation hall and war memorial. Land in the Central Gardens was provided by the Department of Lands and construction of the hall was funded by a £6000 loan to the Council from the government, £1250 from the RSSILA and £500 from the Patriotic Committee. Further fundraising was carried out by community groups including Train Tea Ladies (a group which had met troop trains during the war), suburban Comforts Funds and Red Cross. The total cost of the building was £12000, representing a considerable community fundraising effort.
The foundation stone was laid in May 1920, coinciding with a visit by General Birdwood and the building was completed in November 1921.
During discussions with the RSSILA, Ipswich City Council had raised the possibility of combining the Memorial Hall with a new Town Hall for the city. Although this idea was rejected, a compromise was reached and the School of Arts Library, managed by the Council, was moved from the overcrowded Town Hall to occupy the entire upper floor of the Memorial Hall; it remained there until 1947.
The basement level originally contained a billiards room, games room, refreshment room, showers and bath while the ground floor contained the memorial hall, assembly room, secretary's office and lounge.
Following the opening, further fundraising was carried out and a memorial window was commissioned for the upper floor. It was designed by William Bustard and carried out by R.S. Exton and Company, Brisbane under the supervision of C.H. Lancaster. The window was unveiled in November 1922. When a new RSL Services Club was built at North Ipswich in 1979, the window was removed to the new premises.
The building has been a popular venue for many community organisations including billiards club, dancing classes, dances, Red Cross Blood Bank and the Bush Book Club. During World War II, a temporary "All Services Hut" was erected in the park adjacent to the Hall to serve as a recreation venue for servicemen; it was removed at the end of the war.
The Memorial Hall is currently used as the headquarters of the Ipswich Sub-branch of the RSL and as meeting rooms for the RSL Women's Auxiliary, Legacy and other service organisations. It is still the focal point of annual Anzac Day ceremonies in Ipswich.
Two additional monuments have been erected in the gardens to the north of the Hall - a general memorial in grey granite dedicated in 1986 and a column in grey granite erected by the Incapacitated Service Men's and Women's Association to honour service in all wars, specifically including Borneo and Vietnam. Both were carved by sculptor Tom Farrell.
","criteria":"The Memorial Hall Ipswich, built in 1920-21, demonstrates the patriotic fervour associated with World War I and the community's identification with the goals of the "mother country" Britain at this period in Queensland's history.
|It is a rare example of a very substantial brick soldiers' hall. The interior is generally intact and with the trend towards conversion of the larger halls for service clubs with poker machines, this is becoming rare.
|The Memorial Hall with its honour chamber, memorial tablets, meeting rooms, recreation rooms and offices demonstrates the characteristics and use of a hall for returned soldiers.
|The building is valued by the Ipswich community for its contribution to the townscape of the Ipswich CBD, and demonstrates a high standard of aesthetic design consistent with its civic and patriotic purposes.
|Since 1920, the Memorial Hall has had a special association with the RSL and with various allied groups such as Legacy, Women's Auxiliary and War Widows. It has a strong spiritual and social association with the general community and returned service personnel as the focal point for Anzac and Remembrance Day commemorations. It has strong associations with the wider community because of its use for other purposes such as the city library, blood bank and as a place for meetings and social events.
|The design of the building is the work of recognised local architect George Brockwell Gill and is a fine and typical example of his style at this period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15368,"place_ref":600593,"name":"Gooloowan","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"43 Quarry Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gooloowan is a large two-storeyed Victorian mansion standing in landscaped gardens.
The building is of load-bearing brick construction with the original facebrick external walls now rendered with ruled joints simulating stone coursing. Floors are of timber and the hipped roof, originally slated, is sheeted with corrugated galvanised iron.
Verandahs encircle the main block of the house on upper and lower levels, the upper level having cast-iron balustrading and a concave curved roof sheeted in corrugated galvanised iron. The verandahs are supported on paired timber posts extending through two storeys. Shuttered windows and french doors open from nearly all rooms onto the verandahs.
A two-storyed service/domestics wing extends at the rear; this wing also houses the kitchen. It has no verandahs other than a simple skillion-roofed enclosure to the southern side which has been converted into a conservatory. At the western end of this wing, above an attached laundry, are two corrugated galvanised iron rainwater tanks.
Internally, Gooloowan has fine cedar joinery including the main staircase and it has rare surviving bathrooms in the main wing. Other rooms include a drawing room, dining room, library (still with many of its early books), sitting room, kitchen, pantry, conservatory and breakfast room on the ground floor. The upper floor has nine bedrooms in the main wing and two former domestics bedrooms in the rear wing. An unusual hand-operated passenger lift is on the rear verandah. Several rooms have fireplaces including some with marble chimneypieces and the ceilings in the main rooms are plaster.
There are two outbuildings - a former billiard room and a double garage which is a contemporary structure. Both are weatherboard-clad with timber floors. The front garden contains large camphor laurel and hoop pines. The property is surrounded by a tall picket fence; a pair of restored original gates give access to a circular driveway and stone entrance steps.
","history":"Gooloowan is a two-storey rendered brick house built for Benjamin Cribb and his second wife Clarissa. The architect was Charles Balding. Tenders were called by separate trades and the work was well advanced by mid-1864.
Benjamin Cribb was born in Dorsetshire, England in 1807 and came to Moreton Bay in the ship Chaseley in 1849 with his first wife Elizabeth. He started a business in Ipswich which he named "London Stores". In 1852, his first wife Elizabeth died and he moved to Brisbane. The following year, he married Clarissa Foote whose brother, John Clarke Foote, became a business partner in 1855. The following year, he returned to Ipswich. As Cribb and Foote, the firm became well-known in Ipswich and the surrounding district, operating several different departments and a large mail order section from several buildings throughout central Ipswich. The firm was highly-regarded for its financial support of farming families in the nearby country districts, offering loans without security other than the word of the farmer. In the 1860s and 70s, it became involved in the cotton industry and owned cotton ginneries at Churchbank near Harrisville.
Benjamin Cribb represented the Moreton Bay district in the New South Wales parliament before Separation and in 1861, was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly. He helped found Ipswich Grammar School and his name appears prominently as a supporter of many community organisations.
After Benjamin Cribb's death in 1874, Gooloowan was passed down through the Cribb family and the related Walker family. The most prominent of the later occupants was Thomas Bridson Cribb who became Queensland Treasurer in 1901. The last occupant from the original family was solicitor Miss Marion Walker, one of the first women to be admitted to the bar in Queensland. The house was purchased by the Isbell family in 1988.
There have been few major changes to Goolowan since it was built. The brickwork was rendered, the slate roof was changed to corrugated galvanised iron and the early stables in the grounds were demolished, dates unknown. A rear verandah on the domestics wing was converted into a conservatory c1990, a new garage was built and the boundary fence was reinstated, supervised by Buchanan Architects.
The grounds have been reduced from the original 11 acres but the circular driveway remains with its mature camphor laurel trees, limestone rock terracing and steps to the front entry.
","criteria":"Its surviving early fittings and relatively intact rooms such as bathrooms, library, lift and servants' quarters are important in contributing to an understanding of the daily operation of a mansion in the 19th century.
|Built in 1864, Gooloowan is a rare Queensland example of a substantial two-storey mansion of the 1860s.
|Its surviving early fittings and relatively intact rooms such as bathrooms, library, lift and servants' quarters are important in contributing to an understanding of the daily operation of a mansion in the 19th century.
It is associated with early architect Charles Balding and is a good example of his work.
|The place demonstrates aesthetic qualities valued by the community, being a prominently-sited and handsomely-proportioned Victorian mansion set in an attractive garden.
|The place is closely associated with Benjamin Cribb who founded the important retail firm Cribb and Foote in 1849, and with other members of the Cribb and Walker families who were notable in Queensland through their involvement in retailing, law, politics and community service.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15369,"place_ref":600594,"name":"Central Congregational Church Manse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"21 Quarry Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a large-scaled, double-storeyed timber residence situated on the northern side of Quarry Street. It has chamferboard sheeting to external walls, surrounded by verandahs at both levels. The lower level verandahs have no balustrading while the upper level displays the original cross-braced balustrades to which vertical timber-slatting has been added behind. The original timber decoration to the verandahs is delicate and understated including decorative timber brackets at the top of the verandah posts and timber valances on the lower level. The main hipped roof and the verandah roof are of corrugated iron. There are three long rectangular windows on the upper level enclosed by louvred shutters, the same as the original design, and the lower verandah has a central doorway flanked by two larger rectangular windows on either side. The grounds are symmetrically laid out in sympathy with the house and some bushes are clipped to emphasise the symmetry.
","history":"This two storey timber residence was built as the manse for the pastors of the Congregational Church of Ipswich. The Congregational Church Yearbook of 1883 describes the Manse during its construction as follows: "The edifice will be a two storeyed weather-board house with verandah balcony all round, containing 12 rooms and finished in a style that will do credit to the denomination". It was designed and erected by architect/builder S Shenton, himself a member of the Congregational Church, costing £1221.18.7. Construction of the Manse was commenced and finished in 1883.
The Congregational Church of Ipswich was formed on 2 June 1854 as a union of necessity between the Baptist and Independent faiths due to small numbers of each in the pioneer town of Ipswich. The Ipswich Congregational Church was the first Congregational parish in Queensland and it soon expanded throughout the state in the later decades of the nineteenth century. The church was a fiercely independent denomination refusing to accept any government subsidies or land grants. In 1854 the Congregational Church established a building committee and in 1855 the first congregational church building in Ipswich was built by Samuel Shenton who later designed the manse, and who was a founding member of the Congregational Church. It was situated on the southern side of Brisbane Street near East Street and was a simple single story timber building.
In 1870 a new church was constructed to the design of Samuel Shenton adjacent to the old church which was used as a Sunday School. By this time the parish was known as the Central Congregational Church. The new church cost £2,110 and survived until February 1953 when it was destroyed by fire. The site of the church was bought by the Atlantic Oil Co and became the site of a garage and is now the site of Coles supermarket and carpark. Another congregational church was erected in East Street which is now the East Street City Uniting Church.
In 1936-37 the Manse was sold by the Church and was turned into a number of flats. In 1950 twelve and half perches of the manse grounds was resumed for road works and other sections of the land were subdivided.
Externally the residence remains remarkably intact displaying virtually no changes since a photograph taken in 1896 apart from extra vertical balustrading on the upper storey. The manse remains as the only evidence of the 19th century building activities of the Central Congregational Church in Ipswich.
The architect Samuel Shenton was one of the earliest prominent architects in Ipswich whose works are well known in the city and the surrounding area. He arrived in Ipswich in March 1851 and began work as a carpenter and building contractor. Among his early contracts were Dr Challinor's house and shop in Brisbane Street and fitting out the first Presbyterian Church (1853). Shenton made some significant improvements to central Ipswich in the 1860s with the School of Arts and the Lands Office. During this time he was preparing plans, specifications and quantities and in 1879 his contracting business was taken over by Worley and Whitehead (Ipswich Girls' Grammar School). Shenton practised solely as an architect from 1879 until 1889 when his practice was taken over by employee George Brockwell Gill. Shenton subsequently became heavily involved in community and business ventures as well as local politics. He was an alderman for many years and the Mayor of Ipswich from 1871-1872 and 1889. He died in Ipswich on 3 July 1893. Some of his other more notable and extant works are the Congregational Church Manse (QHR 600594) (1882-83) in Quarry Street, and Faerieknowe (QHR 600600) for EW Hargraves.
","criteria":"The former Congregational Church Manse is important in demonstrating the early development of the Congregational Church in Ipswich and in Queensland. The Congregational Church was one of the earliest independent denominations established in Queensland. Few Congregational parishes exist today due to the merge of many Congregationalist parishes into the Uniting Church in the 20th century. The former manse is significant for exemplifying the importance of the Congregational Church in Ipswich and of churches in general to 19th century Queensland communities.
|It also has special association with the work of architect and builder Samuel Shenton as a fine example of his work in Ipswich. Shenton was a prominent architect and builder in Ipswich from the 1850s to the 1880s.
|The former manse has aesthetic significance for its high streetscape value due to its scale and traditional materials and detailing.
|The former manse has special association with the past congregations of the Congregational Church of Ipswich and the pastors and their families who once lived there.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15370,"place_ref":600595,"name":"Toronto","alternate_name":"Devonshire Cottage","street_address":"30 Quarry Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Toronto is a two storeyed, timber house designed in the Carpenter Gothic style of architecture. The building is dominated by its roof that is basically two large intersecting gables. Beneath the corrugated iron roof cladding is the original roof clad with wooden shingles. Each gable features decorative scalloped bargeboards. A single brick chimney with a simple brick moulding protrudes above the roofline and is capped with two decorative terracotta pots. The external walls of the main house are hand-planed pine chamferboards which are approximately 300mm wide. Internal walls and ceilings throughout the house are vertically lined with tongue and groove boards. The house contains seven main rooms, four at ground level with three upstairs. The ground level central hallway is decorated with an intricate fretted semicircular timber panel positioned overhead midway down the hall. A steep and narrow, stained timber staircase connects the two floor levels towards the rear of the house. Most windows in the house are multi-paned double-hung sashes, except at the front where French door with louvred shutters have been installed on both the upper and lower levels. Concave metal hoods with decorative timber fretwork brackets are fitted to windows on both side elevations. Original timber joinery such as fireplace surrounds, doors, architraves and skirtings remain throughout the house.
Full width timber verandahs extend across both the front and rear elevations of the house and a small upper level balcony projects from its front gable. The verandahs and the balcony all have hipped roofs clad in corrugated iron. The front verandah and balcony both feature decorative scalloped valances. The balcony has cast iron balustrading and immediately beneath it is the main entrance to the house, highlighted by a wide valance decorated with tracery. The front verandah area is almost entirely screened with lattice, while the rear verandah is currently glazed and has been partly enclosed to form a modern bathroom.
The existing kitchen wing is a single storey structure, clad with weatherboards, that is attached to the rear verandah of the main house. A small laundry skillion has been attached to the west side of the kitchen. There are three multi-paned double-hung sash windows to the kitchen wing, each fitted with timber and corrugated iron window hoods which are quite different to those on the main house. Internally the walls and coved ceiling are lined with fibrous cement sheeting. The room has two different ceiling heights, the rear section being the lower. A concrete slab has been introduced for flooring. A toilet has been constructed in one corner of the building but is only accessible from the laundry. Adjacent to the kitchen wing is a large brick lined underground water tank to which is connected a hand operated pump.
Towards the south east corner of the property stands the former stables building, currently converted into a garage. The building is clad with wide chamferboards, similar to those used on the main house. A concrete slab replaces the original floor. A large timber fern-house is located at the rear of the property, orientated east-west.
","history":"Toronto is a two storey timber residence erected in 1863 for Mrs Elizabeth Lloyd, who bought the Quarry Street allotment No. 13 for £45 from the Crown in April 1863. Due to a period of great local prosperity, Ipswich, at that time, was considered a leading commercial centre, strongly contesting Brisbane as Queensland's premier city. The house, originally named "Devonshire Cottage", was apparently built for investment purposes for the considerably wealthy Mrs Lloyd, who did not live in the house except for a brief period during 1868. Like Mrs Lloyd, several of Toronto's earliest occupants were members of the Congregational Church. In 1870 the house appears to have been occupied by Reverend Mossop possibly as a Congregational Church Manse.
In September 1873, when the property was put up for sale, the house was described as comprising of five large rooms on the lower floor and four rooms upon the upper floor, making nine in total. There was also a detached kitchen, a servant's bedroom and a large washing shed. A broad verandah occupied the entire front of the house with a balcony above. In the yard was a large tank with a good pump, stables and a cow house.
William Tamlyn bought the house together with several other adjoining allotments. Like Mrs Lloyd, Tamlyn bought the house for investment purposes, choosing to live elsewhere. The house continued to be leased out until 1914, despite a change of ownership to James Jackes in 1882. Jackes was responsible for renaming the house "Toronto" after his birthplace, and for subdividing the property into two allotments in 1911. The reduced sized property was sold in 1914 to Josephine Rowlands, who became the house's first owner occupier.
Toronto was resold in 1940 to Peter and Alice McKelvie who made various alterations to the house including work to the front verandah, some restumping, a new opening between the living and dining rooms and substantial internal works to the former kitchen wing at the rear. The property changed ownership for five years to Colin Medlin and Margaret Grant from 1965 and was then sold to Donald and Ivy Follett who carried out further work to the house. The work involved restumping, rewiring, glazing of the rear verandah and reinstatement of the house's earlier colour scheme based on scrapings. A new timber fern-house was constructed at the rear of the property in 1977 and a new bathroom constructed in 1985.
","criteria":"Constructed in c.1863, Toronto, formerly called Devonshire Cottage, was built during a period of great prosperity in Ipswich when the town was considered a leading commercial centre, strongly contesting Brisbane as Queensland's premier city. The size, quality and favourable location of the house overlooking the city is indicative of the influx of wealthy settlers that moved into the area during the early 1860's in direct response to the town's prosperity.
|The house is an early, intact and rare surviving example of the Carpenter Gothic style of architecture, a typically used for domestic applications, particularly in the Ipswich region but also throughout Queensland.
|The house is an early, intact and rare surviving example of the Carpenter Gothic style of architecture, a typically used for domestic applications, particularly in the Ipswich region but also throughout Queensland.
|The unusual style of the two storey, timber house gives the building considerable aesthetic significance with its prominent gables, decorative scalloped bargeboards, traceried timber verandah and intimate scale. The building offers an important contribution to the Quarry Street streetscape, which is of interest for the variety and quality of nineteenth century housing close to the Ipswich city centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15371,"place_ref":600596,"name":"Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator (former)","alternate_name":"The Incinerator Theatre","street_address":"10A Milford Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The incinerator is in a landscaped setting within Queen's Park. The original building comprises two interlocking gable-roofed brick structures partially set into a hillside. The section to the east is four storeys high and that to the west two storeys high. An additional chimney stands alongside the building. The design includes moulded brickwork and concrete dressings but has fewer decorative elements than Griffin's other incinerators. The floors are concrete and the roof timber framed and clad with tiles. The theatre is entered by steps going up onto the flue between the chimneys and the stage has been installed at the far end in the tipping area. The lowest floor level behind the stage has facilities for the actors including a small kitchen. The level above this has dressing rooms and toilets and the top level, where trucks entered, is now used for the storage of scenery flats.
A rehearsal building has been constructed to the west of the incinerator and is a single storey brick building known as the Jean Pratt Building.
Immediately to the north of the former incinerator is a single storey concrete kitchen and amenities block built in 1994.
","history":"The Incinerator Theatre, situated in Queen's Park, Ipswich and opened in 1969, was converted from a 1936 refuse incinerator designed by Walter Burley Griffin for the city of Ipswich.
Architect Walter Burley Griffin was born and educated in America and graduated from the renowned school of architecture at the University of Illinios in 1899. Between 1901 and 1906 he was an associate of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1911 he entered a design competition for the future capital of Australia. His winning entry served as the basis for the design of Canberra and Griffin moved to Australia where he designed a number of significant buildings such as the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne and the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag. During the Depression, work for architects was severely reduced and Griffin and his partner, Eric Nicholls, gained the bulk of their work from designs for municipal incinerators. These utilised the reverberatory system patented by Australian engineer John Boadle. The Reverberatory Incinerator Company constructed twelve incinerators in the eastern states, all of distinctive design. Only six are believed to survive, none of them as incinerators. The construction of the Ipswich incinerator was supervised by local architect George Brockwell Gill and was opened in 1936. It is the only building designed by Walter Burley Griffin in Queensland.
To implement the processing of rubbish, the incinerator was built into a hill to allow road access to the top and bottom of the building. On the upper level, trucks carrying rubbish backed in through roller doors and dumped their cargo into hoppers. The refuse was then raked into two burning chambers. Unburned residue was doused with water then hauled by electric motor to an area to the west of the incinerator. The building was initially designed with one chimney, but adding a second work unit and chimney in 1940 extended its capacity. As Griffin was by then dead, it is assumed that his partner, Eric Nicholls, designed these.
The incinerator was designed to process the rubbish generated by a city of 20,000 people, but by 1960 the population of Ipswich was twice this number. Moreover, by this time it was no longer thought environmentally appropriate to dispose of rubbish by burning. Use of the incinerator was therefore discontinued and as the empty building began to be targeted by vandals, in 1965 the council considered demolishing it. Many people wished to see the building retained and a symposium sponsored by the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce supported its preservation. The Ipswich branch of the Arts Council approached the City Council who agreed to grant them a short-term lease providing that a viable use for the building was found. Following several renewals of this lease, in 1969, the Ipswich Little Theatre decided that the building should be converted to an intimate theatre and contributed financially to this project.
The Ipswich Little Theatre is a community theatre formed in 1946 after the pattern of the Little Theatre movement in Britain. Amateur theatre has been important in the development of Australian drama as it provided an opportunity for local playwrights to be heard, as professional theatres tended to stage British and American productions. When commercial theatre declined during the Depression, amateur dramatic societies became a significant part of the cultural life of Australia, being the only form of live performance accessible to a large section of the community. They have been and still are a training ground for actors, playwrights, directors and designers and have given the public an opportunity to hear locally written drama. Ipswich Little Theatre has always fostered local writers although they have also produced Australian and imported plays.
Since its inception, the need for a cheap and readily available venue for meetings, rehearsals and performances had been a constant problem. Initially, the society used the CWA clubrooms, the Cambrian Hall and the Town Hall for performances with meetings and rehearsals held at various places including private homes. Once the society began to acquire scenery, props etc. the need for a permanent venue became more pressing and a fund for this purpose was started in the mid 1950s. Progress received a setback when television arrived and eroded the interest of the public in live theatre. In 1966 the Little Theatre moved to the 4IP building in Brisbane Street. Performances were held at the Town Hall. However, in 1969 this closed and was no longer available as a venue.
In this year the Incinerator was converted into a theatre seating about 80 people. The conversion was effected by using the chimney end of the building, previously thought of as the rear, as the entrance. Engineer Ian Pullar, a member of the Little Theatre, carried out the design and planning. Changes made to effect the conversion included adding an entrance balcony with removable railings, toilets and changing rooms, fire escapes and a covered outdoor area. A rubbish hopper was removed to create a stage area and scenery tower and the space previously used for machinery was converted into an auditorium. The theatre was opened on 22 November 1969 by the Ipswich Little Theatre Company as the Incinerator Theatre.
In 1974 when the Ipswich Branch of the Arts Council went into indefinite recess a new group comprising ILT members and members of the community was formed to continue conversion of the incinerator and promotion of cultural activities. In 1977 ILT took over the lease and responsibility for the building. The available space was not quite adequate and in 1982 a new building designed by Graham Killoran and named the Jean Pratt building was constructed nearby for meetings, rehearsals and storage. The pressed aluminium roof provided to the incinerator in 1966 proved unsatisfactory and was replaced by tiles in 1988. A paved courtyard was created. The first conversion work to the incinerator had provided only primitive facilities and a new amenities building designed by Bruce Buchanan Architects was opened in 1994 to provide better catering facilities and public toilets. The Ipswich Little Theatre Society currently has a twenty-year lease from the Ipswich City Council
","criteria":"The construction, use, expansion and eventual obsolescence of the former Ipswich municipal incinerator demonstrates a growing concern with public health during the twentieth century and of the civic programs undertaken to promote it. In its secondary use as a community theatre the building also provides evidence for the contribution made by the Little Theatre movement to the growth of cultural life in Australia.
|The former incinerator is one of only six surviving examples of the twelve incinerators of this type built in Australia. It is also the only example of the work of architect Walter Burley Griffin in Queensland.
|Although the former incinerator was intended as an industrial building, it is also aesthetically pleasing in its form and setting and was sufficiently well regarded by the community to trigger a campaign to preserve it. Its aesthetic qualities have been important to the success of its recycling as a venue for the performing arts.
|As the first permanent home of the Ipswich Little Theatre Society, the building has a special connection with this community theatre which has made an important contribution to the cultural life of Ipswich.
|The former incinerator has a special association with the life and works of Walter Burley Griffin, illustrating a phase of his career and being as the only work by this architect in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15372,"place_ref":600597,"name":"Keiraville","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"20 Roderick Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"Keiraville is a single-storeyed rendered masonry house with a corrugated iron pyramid roof and timber verandahs on three sides. It has two wings forming a U at the rear of the building which adjoin a new brick extension. It is one of a group of three buildings on the Uniting Church site, being located in the well-treed north-eastern portion.
The verandah has paired timber posts with square capitals and decorative timber valances. It is covered by a curved corrugated iron roof, and has a wrought iron balustrade. The northern Roderick St elevation has a small front yard and a modest entrance (currently not used) comprised of rendered masonry stairs and a timber arch spanning between posts which has the words "The Manse" are inscribed upon it. This northern elevation has timber louvred shutters, while the west and east elevations have glazed timber doors with glazed fanlights above. The building sits on a brick screen base. Two tall rendered masonry chimneys and a metal ventilator rise above the ridge of the roof.
The house has a simple square plan with four rooms around a central corridor. It has timber boarded ceilings throughout, some with metal ceiling roses. The north-east and south-west rooms have fireplaces with timber mantelpieces.
The rendered masonry former kitchen wing is attached to the south-western corner of the main house, and has a hipped roof, and a brick chimney. The south-eastern wing is single skin timber with externally exposed framing, and contains two rooms which may have served as accommodation. The verandah to this wing has been enclosed. The space between the wings has been roofed and enclosed, and now links directly to a new brick extension.
The major alterations to Keiraville have focused on the rear of the building, and when viewed from Roderick Street, Keiraville remains an intact late nineteenth century residence in form and detail. Much of the interior detail of the house also remains intact.
","history":"Keiraville is a single storeyed rendered masonry house, the first stage of which was probably erected c1880s by contractor John MacKenzie. Soon after it was sold to the Cribb family. In 1938, it was sold to the Congregational Church for use as a manse.
Allotment 5 on which the house is erected was first proclaimed a town lot in 1884. It was sold in that year to John MacKenzie. In 1888, Clarissa Cribb purchased the allotment, together with the adjoining allotment 4 on the corner of Roderick Street and Warwick Road. The house was lived in by her son Harry Cribb and his wife until 1895. Harry, of the local firm Cribb and Foote, was a well known sportsman and it may have been at this time that the tennis court was erected on allotment 4.
In 1891, the property was transferred to Clarissa Spence, the eldest daughter of Clarissa Cribb. Subsequently the property was owned by various members of the Cribb family. From 1913 until the 1920s the house was lived in by Harry's son, Gordon and his family. Gordon was known as a naturalist and erected aviaries in the grounds. In 1919, the property was transferred to Gordon and in 1923, returned to Clarissa Spence. A photograph dated c1920s shows a detached building to the rear to the rear of the house. Sometime after this, a wing was added to the south east.
After the death of Clarissa Spence, Keiraville was acquired in 1938 by the Congregational Church for use as a manse. The Congregational Church of Ipswich, of which the Cribbs were prominent members, was formed in 1854. Their first church was erected in the following year in Brisbane Street. A second church and parsonage were later erected on the site. After the flood of 1893, the Church purchased property adjoining Kieraville in East Street. In 1895, the new Congregational Hall was erected on the higher ground. Not until 1957 was a church erected on the site, although Keiraville served as the manse for the Congregational Minister for some 40 years after 1938.
The house adjoined the site of the Congregational Church Hall For some 50 years Kieraville was used as the manse. In 1983, the house became the headquarters for the Blue Nurses. A carpark was constructed on the tennis court site. In 1992, a new wing was added to the rear of the building involving alterations to the house. The house is now used by Lifeline.
","criteria":"Keiraville is important in demonstrating the development of Ipswich, which is part of the pattern of Queensland's history.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late 19th century residence and makes a picturesque contribution to the streetscape.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late 19th century residence and makes a picturesque contribution to the streetscape.
|(Criterion under review)
|As a manse for over 40 years, it has a special association with the Congregational Church. It also has a special association with the Cribb family, who were prominent in the development of Ipswich.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15373,"place_ref":600598,"name":"Ozanam House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"66 Roderick Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ozanam House, a single-storeyed timber building with timber stumps and a hipped corrugated iron roof with cast iron ridge cresting and paired timber eave brackets, is located on a northerly sloping site fronting Roderick Street to the north and bordered by Waghorn and Omar Streets. The building is situated opposite Baines park and has views over Ipswich to the northeast.
The chamferboard building has verandahs all round, with the southeast corner enclosed and a kitchen wing at the rear southwest corner. Verandahs have single-skin exposed framed timber walls, curved corrugated iron awnings, curved timber valance and tapered timber brackets, timber dowel balustrades, battened timber skirt between stumps on the north, and timber lattice panels either side of the central entrance stair. The timber verandah details, together with the front row of square stumps, appear to be of a later date of construction than the house. Arch paned french doors open onto the verandahs, and the main entrance has a timber panelled door with patterned glass sidelights and fanlight.
Internally, the building has a central corridor with two rooms on the eastern side, used for storage and containing built in cupboards, and one large room on the western side containing a room divide with timber battened valance. Ceilings are hardboard with timber coverstrips, and walls are vertically boarded. A leaded glass door opens into the kitchen. A lean-to laundry is located on the rear of the kitchen, and a toilet on the southern side of the rear verandah.
A weatherboard shed with corrugated iron gable roof and concrete stumps is located to the south of the house. This building has high level timber hopper shutters and is used for storage. Two large trees are located to the west of the house, and a planted embankment is located along the Roderick and Waghorn Street frontages. A path and concrete steps with a metal gate lead from the house north to Roderick Street.
","history":"The majority of the land on which Ozanam House stands, originally allots 1 and 2 of Sec 83, was alienated from the crown by James Stirling in November 1879. The land transferred to William Berry in 1884 and then to Richard Davies Graham (1833-1918) in 1885.
The date of construction of the building is most likely c.1886, as RD Graham took out two mortgages on the property for £500 and £2000 in June 1886, and he is listed in the Queensland Post Office Directories as having a private practice in Ipswich in 1887 and a private residence in Ipswich in 1888. It is likely that Ozanam House was designed by RD Graham who practised as an architect, civil engineer, licensed surveyor, agent and auctioneer with his firm RD Graham and Son from 1883-87, and whose principal office was located in various addresses in Queen Street, Brisbane. The Ipswich office of the firm is only listed for 1887, and by 1889 Richard Davies Graham is listed as living in Albion and was declared insolvent in 1896.
The property transferred to Samuel Piper in 1892, and then to John Canty, a blacksmith, in 1906. Piper had mortgaged the property for £350 in 1905, and it is possible that the alterations to the front verandah occurred at this time. On the death of John Canty in 1946, the property transferred to Ethel May Senior. The land was subdivided in 1950 with Senior retaining the rear portion, and the Roderick Street frontage containing the house was transferred to Thomas Keith Johnson.
In 1960 the Metropolitan Central Council of Brisbane of the Society of St Vincent de Paul became the owner of the house, and in 1961 took possession of the rear portion of the land. An adjoining allotment fronting Omar Street was alienated from the crown in 1966. The name of the organisation was changed to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul State Council of Queensland and the land was amalgamated and a new Certificate of Title issued in 1983.
The Society has used the house as a venue for meetings and conferences, and for the storage and preparation of food. The Society named the property Ozanam House, after the founder of the Society Frederic Ozanam. A timber shed was moved onto the rear of the site in the early 1960s, and is used for the storage and sorting of clothes and donations. A hostel for homeless men was built at the rear of the site c.1982, and operated as such until June 1994, since which time it has been used as a welfare office and drop-in centre.
The Society of St Saint Vincent de Paul is an international fraternal organisation of lay people, and the largest lay organisation in the Catholic Church. The Society was named after Saint Vincent de Paul whose life was devoted to helping the poor and the underprivileged.
Saint Vincent de Paul was born in the village of Pouy, southern France in 1581 and ordained a priest in 1600. He devoted himself to the relief of the needy sick, improving conditions for slaves and for those in gaols and hospitals, establishing orphanages and educational facilities and helping those devastated by war. Some of his work became models for government institutions. He died in 1660, was canonised in 1737 and named universal patron of Catholic charities by Pope Leo XIII in 1885.
Frederic Ozanam was born in 1813 in Milan, at that time a French city. Two years later his family returned to Lyons where he spent his youth. At an early age he decided to commit himself to the promotion of better social conditions, the raising of moral standards and the restoration of the catholic faith in France. In 1833, at the University of Paris, Ozanam and his companions formed the Conference of Charity to visit and assist the poor, which two years later became the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Ozanam became renowned both for his defence of the faith and his charity towards adversaries. He died in 1853 after a long illness.
The depression of the early 1890s prompted the foundation of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Queensland. At the same time, the disastrous flood of the Brisbane River in February 1893 caused great hardship, particularly to the poor of the city. As the Red Hill area was one of the poorest in the city, the parish priest Father J Hegarty called a meeting of his parishioners and the first Conference was formed on 18 February 1894 at Saint Brigids Parish, Red Hill.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
|Ozanam House, one of a group of houses located in a prominent position overlooking Ipswich to the northeast, is a highly decorative 1880s timber residence which makes a substantial contribution to the Roderick Street streetscape and Ipswich townscape.
|The building has been associated with the community and charity work of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul within Ipswich since 1960.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15374,"place_ref":600599,"name":"Garowie","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"59 Whitehill Road","suburb":"EASTERN HEIGHTS","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The house is situated on the western side of Whitehill Road with an easterly frontage to the street. The house has a cement rendered, brick core, which is surrounded by verandahs at both levels. The lower level verandah features paired support columns and has no balustrades. A scalloped fringe of timber battens extends between the support columns, just beneath the upper level's balustrades. At the upper level, the paired supports are spanned by intricate, cast iron lace balustrading. The house has a corrugated iron, hipped roof with stepped down and slightly convex roofing over its upper level verandah. Its entry, facing east, is defined by a central gabled portico, with a fretwork pediment. A decorative, masonry fence and mature plantings, many along the property's front boundary, screen the house.
","history":""Garowie", a grand two-storey residence, was one of several mansions built on the Limestone Hill ridge. It was built by Mesrs Robt. Wilson and Co for James Clarke Cribb, the son of Benjamin Cribb who founded the Cribb and Foote business, and his wife Alice nee Browne. The house was designed by Ipswich builder and architect, Samuel Shenton, and was completed in 1888. It is said to have been modelled on the Denmark Hill home of Benjamin Cribb, "Gooloowan" (QHR 600593).
The architect Samuel Shenton, arrived in Ipswich in March 1851 and began work as a carpenter and building contractor. Among his early contracts were Dr Challinor's house and shop in Brisbane Street and fitting out the first Presbyterian Church (1853). Shenton made some significant improvements to central Ipswich in the 1860s with the School of Arts and the Lands Office. During this time he was preparing plans, specifications and quantities and in 1879 his contracting business was taken over by Worley and Whitehead (Ipswich Girls' Grammar School). Shenton practised as an architect from 1879 until 1889 when his practice was taken over by employee George Brockwell Gill. Shenton subsequently became heavily involved in community and business ventures as well as local politics. He was an alderman for many years and the Mayor of Ipswich from 1871-1872 and 1889. He died in Ipswich on 3 July 1893. Some of his other more notable and extant works are the Congregational Church Manse (QHR 600594) (1882-83) in Quarry Street, and Faerieknowe (QHR 600600) for E.W. Hargraves.
James Cribb served the family company until 1904, when he was elected to the Bundamba Shire Council. He was the Member for Rosewood and the Member for Bundamba (which later became the seat of Bremer), serving a total of 19 years as a state parliamentarian. Cribb was also a member of the Ipswich Hospital Board, a director of the Ipswich Gas and Coke Company and the Queensland Woollen Mills, a trustee of the Ipswich superintendent of the Congregational Sunday School.
After James Cribb died in May 1926, his brother Harry bought the house. Harry Cribb was a state level champion tennis player. Garowie once had a tennis court in the grounds on the southern side of the house which was converted into a bowling green during the mid 1920s. This portion of the grounds as well as the portion to the north of the house were subdivided and separate residences were built although the original fence still remains. Henry Cribb died in July 1944, and the house was sold to K V Mc Donnell. During World War II the house had been converted into flats.
In 1970 the house was bought by Dr and Mrs J Thomas, who began restoring it. The residence was originally brick, and was rendered after 1919. The billiard room, on the southern side, has been relocated. The original fretwork on the front portico is missing, the current fretwork being copied from another residence, "Lakemba", at 14 Chelmsford Avenue, Ipswich.
The name Garowie is supposedly an Aboriginal word for 'Fig Tree Camp'.
","criteria":"Garowie is important in demonstrating the pattern of affluent residential development in Ipswich in the latter nineteenth century by influential members of the local community made successful by the strength of Ipswich's industry and commerce.
|Garowie is also a good example of a late Victorian Queensland mansion with evidence of its extensive original grounds marked out by the masonry fence line along the frontage of Whitehill Road.
The house has special association as an example of the work of Ipswich builder and architect Samuel Shenton, who was one of the earliest prominent architects in Ipswich.
|Garowie is a striking grand residence with important streetscape value particularly for its established gardens and decorative two storey façade with iron-lace balustrading and scalloped timber battens and gabled portico. It's prominent position and scale make it a city landmark.
|It has special association with the Cribb family, built as their family home, in particular its first owner James Clarke Cribb, who served in local and state government. The Cribbs have been a prominent family in Ipswich since its early settlement involved in business, politics and education in the city and in Queensland. They are most notable for the long running department store, Cribb & Foote.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15375,"place_ref":600600,"name":"Fairy Knoll","alternate_name":"Jefferis Turner Centre (former)","street_address":"2A Robertson Road","suburb":"EASTERN HEIGHTS","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Fairy Knoll is a grand and imposing, two-storey, easterly-facing residence, on an elevated area bounded by Chermside, Robertson and Whitehill roads. It has expansive views from its surrounding verandahs, and it overlooks the south-eastern area of Queens Park. It has a brick core which is wrapped by decorative timber verandahs, the detailing of which creates patterns of light and dark, and is typical of Queensland Federation era architecture. The structure has a corrugated iron, pyramid roof, with a lantern at its apex. The lantern lights the home's central stairwell. The upper level verandah has separate corrugated iron roofing. At this level, a gable and pediment, with finial, define the main entry.
The polychromatic brickwork was described in The Queensland Times in 1901 as 'dark-coloured buff facing brick, relieved at the angle quoins and quoins of window and door openings with light-coloured bricks. The arches are finished with a dark brick, tuck-pointed, and the strings with bricks similar to the quoins." There is a ground floor extension to the rear of the house.
The house is situated on substantial grounds which still displays some of the original features and the subsequent changes over the past century. A set of concrete stairs extending from the southern verandah of the house leads to an open level lawn. The driveway accesses Robertson Street and is flanked by mature Mango trees planted in the 1950s. This driveway is the only portion of the original driveway which has survived. There is a set of concrete and brick stairs providing access from the driveway to the main entrance of the house. The large trees to the north-west corner of the house date from the early 1900s as well as the large palm trees to the east, adjacent to the main entry of the house. There are garden beds lining the east, west and south brick bases of the house, edged with matching brick which also date from the 1900s. There remains of a stone wall to the Robertson Road boundary. Remains of the former tennis court area are evident on the open level area cut into the bank beside the entry off Robertson Road. A rose garden now occupies the area.
","history":"The grand two storey brick residence, Fairy Knoll, was completed in 1901 by contractors Worley and Whitehead to the 1896 design of architect George Brockwell Gill. The residence was built for Thomas Hancock (Junior),a successful timber merchant, his wife Louisa Hayne and their ten children.
Thomas Hancock came to Ipswich in 1863 with his parents and brothers and sister. His father Thomas Hancock (Senior) commenced sawing timber at Pine Mountain and later acquired a sawmill in Rosewood. In 1875 he acquired the lease over the North Ipswich timber mill and in October 1880 Thomas Hancock & Sons opened a new mill in Lowry Street, North Ipswich. By 1885 Thomas Hancock & Sons was a successful expanding company employing 138 hands in Ipswich as well as many in their Brisbane offices totalling 274 people. The Ipswich complex included a mill, joinery and moulding plant and a lathe department which produced doors, window sashes and panelling.
Thomas Hancock Senior died in 1891 and the company passed into the hands of his sons Josias and Thomas Junior. Thomas Hancock Junior had married his second wife Louisa Hayne in 1878 and by 1885 they had two sons Thomas and Norman and a daughter Eva and were expecting another daughter, Florence. Thomas Hancock subsequently bought four acres on the crest of the hill above Chermside Road (then Boundary Road) from Ambrose John Foote with the intention of building a family home.
The first house Hancock built on the site was a simple timber home. By 1897 Thomas and Louisa Hancock had five boys and five girls and Thomas dreamed of erecting a two storey brick mansion to replace the wooden house. In 1896 he transferred the title to his wife Louisa and the following year is believed to have commissioned architect George Brockwell Gill to design the new home. Thomas Hancock did not live to see Fairy Knoll completed as he died in 1897. The house was constructed at a cost of £2000 and in 1901 Louisa Hancock and her ten children moved into their new home and Louisa continued to live there until 1947.
The architect, George Brockwell Gill, designed many of the grand residences and public buildings in Ipswich from the 1880s to the 1930s. Some of his works include Brynhyfryd for Lewis Thomas (1889-90), St Paul's Rectory (1895), The Ipswich Club (1916), The Ipswich Technical College (1901), and supervision of the construction of the Walter Burleigh Griffin Incinerator in 1936. Gill emigrated from London and settled in Ipswich in 1886 where he commenced work as an architect for the firm of Samuel Shenton. Gill took over Shenton's practice in 1889 when Shenton retired. Gill had been elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President in 1914-16 and President in 1918-19. Gill was also a member of the Board of Trustees for Ipswich Girls' Grammar School and on his retirement in 1948 he was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
The newly finished house was described in The Queensland Times in March 1901 which mentioned such features as the 10 foot wide front entrance hall with a solid cedar entrance door and side stained glass windows. An arched opening at the end of the hall led to a walnut staircase in the centre of the building. The staircase was three flights from floor to floor. It was lit by well-distributed light from the lantern in the apex of the roof. The water was supplied by two large, built in brick cisterns, immediately under the roof and lined with iron, which had a capacity of 4000 gallons. The water supply was drawn by gravity.
The gardens were a feature of Fairy Knoll and during the Hancocks' residence there included a gravel drive with the main entrance gates on Robertson Road. The drive was fringed with a Duaranta spp. hedge which made a circus ring in which the Hancock children played with their pony. The grounds also comprised fine lawns and beds and towards Robertson Road there was a circular pond. Today it is a flower garden now known as the Bull's Ring. It is a said that the mature Poinciana trees and Moreton Bay Figs were planted in the days of the first family home and they still stand on the western side of the extension. The grounds also contained a fernery, bush house, and fowl pens. A laundry, store room, earth closet and garage in one large complex stood next to the fowl pens on the northern side of the house. This structure was constructed of weatherboard and chamferboard and had a stone rear wall. The stone wall is still extant.
The Hancock family occupied the house for forty-six years and enjoyed a high standard of living for which the house was designed. The rooms were large and the bedrooms were designed to accommodate one or two persons as opposed to poorer households where the average was three and up to five persons per room. The rooms were furnished with solid oak and cedar furniture. The dining room contained a large table, capable of seating twenty persons, and a sideboard. The Hancocks employed two maids, a laundress and a gardener but none of these staff lived in the house.
During World War II the family were active with the war effort and the light well at Fairy Knoll was used as a spotter's tower as it provided a expansive view of Ipswich and the surrounding areas. After the war had ended much of the Hancock family land around Eastern Heights was subdivided and given to the Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian Churches and the Scouts.
Louisa Hancock died on 22 April 1947 aged 92. After the death of Louisa Hancock, Fairy Knoll was transformed into a maternal and child welfare home.
The Jefferis Turner Centre was opened in 1952 as part of the Queensland Labor Government's Maternal and Child Welfare program in the 1940s and 1950s. The Maternity Act of 1922 brought about changes in health care in Queensland elevating the importance of maternal and infant welfare to an unprecedented level. In the 1940s and 1950s the program concentrated on developing Mothercraft Homes which provided residential care for mothers and babies as well as training for staff in infant health.
Many alterations were undertaken in the conversion of Fairy Knoll to the Jefferis Turner Centre. Major external changes included the removal of the 4000 gallon water tank from the roof, the enclosure of the verandahs on the southern and western sides, the asbestos cement sheet cladding of the verandah valance and the construction of an extension on the northern side and new out buildings as well as a fire escape from the upper level of the original house. The house was substantially changed internally, the details of which can be found in the Conservation Plan for Jefferis Turner Centre by Margaret Cook and Paul Burmester (February 2001).
The Jefferis Turner Centre was officially opened on 3 August 1952 by the minister for Health and Home Affairs. The centre could accommodate four or five mothers and about ten babies and at the time of opening the home employed three nursing sisters and six trainees. By September 1952 there were six trained nurses living in, five mothers and ten infants.
The building continued as the Jefferis Turner Centre until 1986 when the Department of Health decided to close it and convert it to a centre offering care to intellectually handicapped children. The Jefferis Turner Centre was transferred to the Intellectual Handicap Service in October 1986, its new role being to provide short term respite care for intellectually disabled children while their families had a holiday or when there was a family emergency. Improvements to the appearance of the building were undertaken in 1988 by the Department of Public Works. Enclosed rooms were removed and the verandahs were opened up to their original form. In 2011 the building was again in use as a family home.
","criteria":"The erection of Fairy Knoll in 1901 exemplified the pattern of affluent settlement in Ipswich around the turn of the 20th century. The culmination of the 19th century saw much renewed building activity in Ipswich as a result of local commerce becoming established and was reflected in the establishment of grand residences by successful families in business. Many of these grand homes were established on the hilltop area east of Queens Park, where Fairy Knoll still stands today.
|Designed in 1897, Fairy Knoll is a significant example of a late 1890s grand residence specifically suited to the requirements of a large, wealthy family. It demonstrates early design practices in relation to room function, layout, responses to climate, building materials and workmanship despite its later adaptation for other uses.
Fairy Knoll has strong association with the work of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill as a good example of his work.
|Fairy Knoll possesses strong aesthetic value due to its prominence as a landmark in Ipswich which has dominant visual impact on the surrounding area and for its fine detailing and composition. The residence is characteristic of the Federation Filigree style of architecture which is demonstrated by its intricate timber screen, its slender columns of timber dividing the facade into bays, a timber frieze and brackets and timber railings. Its decorative external brickwork also contributes to its aesthetic value. Its setting on a large piece of land with gardens and mature trees is also of important aesthetic significance.
|Fairy Knoll has strong association with the community of Ipswich as a local landmark creating a strong sense of place in the city, particularly in the surrounding streets.
|The building is also historically important as the premises of the fifth mothercraft home established by the Queensland Government. It opened as The Jefferis Turner Centre in 1952 named after the first Director of Maternal and Child Welfare in Queensland, Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner. The Jefferis Turner Centre was part of an ongoing programme of maternal and child welfare instigated by the Theodore government in 1922.
It also has strong association with the Hancock family who built and lived in the home for 46 years. The Hancocks made a substantial contribution to the Queensland timber industry from the 1860s and were recognised as a well-known group of benefactors.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15376,"place_ref":600601,"name":"Ipswich Grammar School","alternate_name":"Ipswich Boys’ Grammar School","street_address":"Woodend Road","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ipswich Grammar School is a large complex on a generous, elevated site less than 1km west of the Ipswich city centre. The site is bounded by Burnett Street, Woodend Road, Waghorn Street, and Darling Street and the campus buildings cluster on a prominent high ridge across the northern half of the site. The southern half of the site is lower, with scattered buildings amongst playing fields and mature trees.
\nFeatures of Ipswich Grammar School of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAll other buildings, structures, and landscape features are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nMain Building (1863-1922)
The Main Building is the focus of the campus and stands at the southern edge of the hill, prominently visible from the south-west to south-east across the Maude Kerr Oval and from the 1955 entrance drive. The building is highly intact, retaining a high level of integrity and legibility of its original functions. The building retains important layers of alterations to its fabric made between 1863 and 1922 that reflect key changes to the school operations, and successive educational philosophies.
It is a brick one- and two-storey building on a stone base with a timber-framed roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The building is Gothic Revival in style, with striking features such as octagonal, battlemented towers, slit windows, stepped buttresses, quoining, bellcote, and steep dormers.
\nDue to the almost 80-year span of construction, there are important differences in the decorative detailing of its parts.
\nThe building comprises four attached, successive sections. These are:
\nFeatures of the Main Building of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Main Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nImportant open spaces surround the Main Building, providing natural light and ventilation of the interior and allow views to the principal (eastern and southern) elevations.
\nOpen spaces of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the open spaces not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nScience Building (1913)
The Science Building is a small, single-storey brick building standing to the south of the Main Building. The building is not highly intact – all doors and windows have been replaced, its gutters and roof ventilators have been removed, a verandah has been added to its southern side (1980s), and its interior has been refurbished and retains no visible original partitions or surfaces. The exterior is rendered and scored with ashlar coursing, but it is not known if this was the original exterior finish.
Features of the Science Building of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Science Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEdith Fox Dormitory Tower (1973) and JE Hancock Dormitory Tower (1973)
The Edith Fox Dormitory Tower (Fox Dormitory Tower) and the JE Hancock Dormitory Tower (Hancock Dormitory Tower) are two, almost identical, five-storey, brick and concrete boarding buildings. They both stand near the edge of the Maude Kerr Oval: the Fox Dormitory Tower near the north edge and the Hancock Dormitory Tower near the eastern edge but on the eastern side of the Entrance Driveway. They are cylindrical in plan form, with a conical roof and tall centre ventilation stack and have concrete and brick structures. They are accessed by a long, narrow sloping concrete ramp and their interiors are divided into wedges with a central round room.
The interior, which was originally more open plan, retains original partitions and stairs but has been refurbished to remove the original fitout of the central round ablutions rooms and convert the space to a central ‘hall’. Doors have been added to lead to the former bed alcoves which have been enclosed by new partitions to form bedrooms and an ensuite has been added to each new bedroom.
\nFeatures of the Fox Dormitory Tower and Hancock Dormitory Tower of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Fox Dormitory Tower and Hancock Dormitory Tower not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape Features
Landscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
Landscape features not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews
Views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
Ipswich Grammar School, located in the city of Ipswich in south-east Queensland, was the first secondary school established in Queensland under the Grammar Schools Act 1860. The school’s Main Building (1863-1922) is a fine example of Gothic Revival architecture, and its earliest sections were designed by noted architect, Benjamin Backhouse. The school, its buildings, and landscaped setting reflect education policies and architecture across more than a century, supported by strong, sustained community involvement.
\nDuring the 18th and 19th centuries, grammar schools in Britain began expanding their curriculum beyond the confines of classical languages and literature. Ipswich Grammar School was established in this climate of educational change, expansion, and centralisation.
\nEducation in pre-Separation Queensland was limited to the teaching of reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious instruction, and was often conducted from the parlours of private establishments or homes. After Queensland became a separate colony from New South Wales on 10 December 1859, the Queensland government faced the increasing need to provide an educational system for the new colony. Two important pieces of legislation were enacted in 1860 to facilitate the development of Queensland education ‒ the Education Act 1860, which established a Board of General Education that began standardising curriculum, training, and facilities; and the Grammar Schools Act 1860, which encouraged the establishment of grammar schools by providing a government subsidy of £1000 when an equal sum of money was raised by donation or subscription in any district.[1]
\nEarly efforts to establish a grammar school in Brisbane, resulted in sectarian rancour and suspension of the proposal. However, in Ipswich progress was made quite rapidly with £1000 subscribed by June 1861, although not without some debate. On 20 August 1861, the first meeting held to discuss the establishment of a grammar school in Ipswich was chaired by local Mayor, John Murphy and attended by approximately 200 people. Although sectarian rivalries resulted in the meeting ending in chaos and brawling, at a similarly turbulent meeting staged one week later, it was resolved to establish Ipswich Grammar School.[2]
\nDisgruntled Ipswich Roman Catholics, who believed they were not fairly represented on the committee to facilitate the establishment of the grammar school, subsequently withdrew their money from the fund. Nevertheless, the committee reported by 11 March 1862 that it had acquired all but £40 of the necessary funds. Two weeks later, the first Trustees were elected and in April 1862 they decided to call for plans and specifications, with prizes for the best and second-best submission. Ultimately, Benjamin Backhouse was the only architect to respond to the Trustees’ call and his plans were accepted after some modifications to allow for toilets within the school building.[3]
\nBenjamin Backhouse (1829-1904) practiced as an architect in Queensland from 1861 to 1868, and was responsible for the designs of more than 100 buildings across the colony. Awarded in May 1862, Ipswich Grammar School was a major commission and is his largest known Queensland building.[4]
\nBackhouse designed ‘some of Brisbane’s earliest buildings of architectural pretension’.[5] He had considerable experience with school design and was responsible for the designs of some of the earliest government schools (1864-7),[6] and produced a ‘model’ plan in 1864 for the Queensland Board of Education. This helped to introduce the concept of building standardisation, which influenced government school design and provision for more than a century.[7] Extant examples of Backhouse’s education designs are Warwick National School (1864, QHR 600947 ‘Warwick East State School’) and South Brisbane Primary School (by 1865, QHR 601222 ‘Brisbane State High School’).[8]
\nBackhouse was a prominent citizen, and his short time in Queensland made a notable impact. He was also a Justice of the Peace, council alderman, and played a central role in the establishment of the Brisbane Grammar School.
\nThe Ipswich Grammar School Trustees gained a more enthusiastic response to their call for building tenders following the acceptance of Backhouse's plans, with several replies received. Ipswich building firm McLaughlin & Ferguson was successful with a quote of £2890.[9]
\n1863-1900
Built on a 20-acre (8.35ha) site, within the traditional lands of the Yuggera Ugarapul People,[10] Ipswich Grammar School was located on the top of a ridge that overlooked the thriving town of Ipswich. The site was bounded by Woodend Road and Burnett, Darling and Waghorn Streets.[11]
Dubbed the ‘squatters’ capital’, Ipswich had evolved from the convict out-station of Limestone, established in 1827. Following its survey in 1842 for free settlement, Ipswich developed as an important commercial centre due to its location at the head of navigation of the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers and at the junction of routes to the important pastoral districts of the Brisbane Valley and the Darling Downs. Goods from these regions passed through Ipswich enroute to the coast and this trade contributed substantially to Ipswich's rapid growth and prosperity. Coal was mined at Ipswich from 1846; mercantile, civic, and ecclesiastical services were established during the 1850s; and in the late 1860s the town became the railhead of Queensland’s first rail line, Ipswich to Grandchester.[12]
\nBy September 1863, work on Ipswich Grammar School had progressed well and the Trustees announced in the Queensland Times newspaper that the school would ‘be conducted as nearly as possible upon the plan of the best public schools of the Mother Country... . The school buildings situated on the western hill - overlooking the town of Ipswich and from that elevated position command a varied and extensive view of the surrounding country’.[13] The school became a landmark of Ipswich and a reflection of the growing importance of the town as a centre for business and industrial activity. Its opening was suitably grand with the Queensland Governor, Sir George Bowen, presiding over the event on 25 September 1863.[14]
\nThe 1863 building was a two-storey, face brick structure with a stone base. It had a long east-facing front wing, and a short, perpendicular, rear service wing. The front wing was in two parts: at its northern end was a headmaster’s residence over both levels with visitors’ reception; and at the southern end were the teaching rooms (one large classroom and a double-height ‘school hall’) on the ground floor and boys’ boarding rooms on the first floor. The headmaster (and his family) managed and supervised the boarding operations, and the service wing accommodated a large kitchen, scullery, and larder on the ground floor, and servants’ bedrooms on the first floor.[15] To the rear of the building were open spaces on either side of the service wing: a large ‘kitchen court’ to its north; and a students’ quadrangle to its south.[16] The four functions of the building (headmaster’s residence, teaching rooms, boarders rooms, and service rooms) had separate but interconnected circulation routes, and had a hierarchy of details and decorative finishes.
\nThe school's first headmaster, Stuart Hawthorne (headmaster 1863-9), welcomed its first 18 pupils within two weeks of the school opening.[17] Enrolments quickly ‘far surpassed’ expectations, such that extensions to the 1863 building were deemed ‘urgent’.[18] By July 1864, Backhouse had designed a large extension that tripled the teaching space. This was constructed by McLaughlin & Ferguson in 1865 at a cost of £4500, plus £188 for fittings, twice the cost of the original wing. One third of this cost was covered by the Trustees, a ‘heavy liability’, but one taken on confidently due to the school’s success in attracting students.[19]
\nThe 1865 extension matched the earlier wing in details and materials. It comprised a long, one- and two-storey wing, perpendicular to and extending westwards off the southern end of the 1863 front wing. It formed the southern edge of the student quadrangle. The wing held two functions: teaching rooms at its eastern end, including an expansion of the school hall, two large classrooms, octagonal tower for ‘astronomical observations’,[20] library, and museum;[21] and a new boarding facility at its western end for up to 15 boarders, including kitchen, and laundry. It was managed as a separate business by the Mathematics Master who was also housed in the wing.[22]
\nThe Main Building was built in a Gothic Revival architectural style, reported at the time as being ‘similar [to] institutions at home [Britain]’.[23] It was considered an appropriate style for a grammar school, and was used for the initial buildings at Queensland’s first four grammar schools (1863-1881).[24]
\nThe building, which ‘occupied a very commanding position adjacent to the town’,[25] was considered a fine, prominent edifice in the townscape, illuminated with coloured lights and bonfires for special occasions as early as 1866.[26]
\nIn Ipswich Grammar School’s first three years, student numbers steadily increased, before waning in the subsequent three years owing to the worsening economic climate and the opening of the Brisbane Grammar School in 1869 (relocated 1881).[27] Other grammar schools followed: Brisbane Girls’ Grammar (1875); Toowoomba (1875); Maryborough (1881); Rockhampton (1881); Maryborough Girls’ (1883); Townsville (1888); Ipswich Girls’ (1892); and Rockhampton Girls’ (1892).[28]
\nQueensland’s ten grammar schools shared common characteristics. They typically occupied prominent, elevated, and central suburban locations, on a main thoroughfare. They had generous, landscaped school grounds, which were developed over time with quadrangles, sports fields, and mature ornamental trees. Their main buildings were architecturally similar, in a Gothic Revival or Italianate style, and included a range of teaching facilities (assembly halls, classrooms, and libraries), and accommodation for their headmaster/headmistress and student boarders (dormitories, bedrooms, dining rooms, common rooms, ablutions, boarding master accommodation, kitchens, laundries, and servant accommodation).
\nBetween 1869 and 1900, Ipswich Grammar School had just two headmasters – John Macrae (headmaster 1869-75) and Donald Cameron (headmaster 1875-1900). Although the period from the 1870s to 1900 was characterised by varying economic conditions, it was an era of expansion for the school with student numbers peaking in the mid-1880s, and building and grounds improvements being undertaken.
\nIn 1877, alterations and additions were made, carried out by John Farrelly at a cost of £1262.[29] This included the construction of a long, rectangular brick dormitory, dining, and laundry wing, extending along the southern face of the 1863 rear service wing, and forming the northern edge of the quadrangle.[30] It was a two-storey, face brick structure and brought boarder capacity to 33.[31] The ground floor accommodated a large boarders’ dining room at its eastern end (with access from the adjacent 1863 kitchen), a central stair hall and adjacent bathroom, and a large laundry and wash house at its western end. The first floor accommodated two large dormitories, separated by a central housemaster’s room, with openings and only part-height partitions to allow supervision and maximum ventilation.[32]
\nA long, timber verandah was added to the ground floor of the east and south sides of the quadrangle (to the 1863 and 1865 wings); its detailing matches that of the 1877 playshed so it is likely part of the 1877 work. The school reportedly had a ‘verandah’ added in 1890, built by contractors Worley & Whitehead, but its extent and location are not known.[33] By the mid-1880s, the original roof slates were being replaced by ironbark shingles, and later by corrugated metal sheets. In 1886, the face brick sections of the principal (eastern and southern) elevations and the towers were ‘cemented’ (rendered) over and scribed to resemble ashlar coursing. At the same time the classrooms and school hall interior walls were similarly stuccoed and scribed. Many other repairs and improvements were made to the building at this time.[34] In 1900, a ‘boarder’s balcony’ capable of accommodating a further 16 boys, was added to the school (not extant).[35]
\nFrom inception, sport played an important role at Ipswich Grammar School, as it did at Queensland’s other grammar schools for boys. At the time of the school’s opening in 1863, it was stated that the Ipswich Grammar School’s grounds had ‘ample room for the formation of a cricket-ground’.[36] Cricket fields were built at the other boys’ grammar schools – Brisbane (by 1882),[37] Rockhampton (1886),[38] Toowoomba (by 1889),[39] Maryborough (by 1894),[40] and Townsville (1927)[41] – and formed a prominent feature of their grounds and school life. The lack of a cricket ground was addressed in 1876, when a tender of £20 was accepted for ‘laying down of a cricket ground and clearing the paddock’;[42] (on land no longer owned by the school, located south of what is now Blair State School and bounded by Burnett, Herbert, Cribb, and Syntax streets opposite the current Maude Kerr Oval). This land had been granted to the school in 1863 as part of its endowment under the Grammar Schools Act 1860.[43]
\nThe Ipswich Grammar School grounds were subject to criticism during its early years. In the 1860s the grounds had been largely unimproved and decried by a correspondent to the Queensland Times: ‘the wretched condition of the grounds, uncleared, unstumped, without a drive or a gate at the front entrance ... is a discredit to the institution and the town.’[44] In 1876, another correspondent to the Queensland Times remained unimpressed: ‘There is little in the exterior of the Ipswich Grammar School to attract attention. Only within a few months has any improvement been made in the approaches, by a somewhat unpretending [sic] rail fence. The grounds surrounding are still in the “wattle-cum-gum-tree negligée” style … with a few specimens of shade-trees of modern planting, which really ought to “take umbrage” at the manner in which they have been planted.’[45]
\n1900-1945
In order to fund improvements to the school, an application was lodged with the Department of Public Lands in 1900 to sell a portion of the school grounds.[46] This unsuccessful application was later renewed and approval granted in March 1910. Subsequently, the sale of seven residential allotments comprising 2.5 acres (1ha) at the northeastern end of the school grounds occurred in February 1911 and realised £851.[47] The money raised, combined with a government subsidy and donations made by the Ipswich and district community,[48] was used to build new servants’ quarters (not extant),[49] a room for sick boarders in 1912,[50] and a two-storey timber verandah (not extant) off the northern side of the 1863 headmaster’s residence,[51] as well as to build and equip a new science building.[52]
The Science Building was designed by Queensland architect, George Brockwell Gill, built by John Whitehead at a cost of £1080, and completed in 1913. The funds for the building were raised by the Trustees from the Ipswich and district community and the Old Boys’ Association, as a commemoration of the school’s 50th anniversary.[53]
\nQueensland’s grammar schools followed the British format for providing an education based on languages, particularly the Classics, Latin, and Greek, and usually English, Mathematics, and other academic subjects. However, increasing emphasis was placed on the provision of physical (or practical) sciences (physics and chemistry). At Ipswich Grammar School in 1869, ‘elements of the most important physical sciences’ were taught to students aiming for the learned professions or a university education, while those (the majority) who were not aiming so high, studied natural sciences. In 1907, the Rockhampton Grammar School headmaster reported that parents were demanding practical science be taught or they would remove their children from the school, and universities were making the subject compulsory.[54] The following year, the same headmaster expressed the opinion that a modern science building would make his school ‘thoroughly up to date and compare it with any school in the state’.[55] At a conference for Queensland’s grammar school headmasters and headmistresses held in January 1908, attended by Ipswich Grammar School’s headmaster, it was resolved, that further provision for experimental science studies (physics and chemistry), was essential for grammar schools.[56]
\nCompetition from state secondary schools and technical colleges, and the trend of teaching science to access university courses, led grammar schools to recognise the need for science education supported by good facilities, to enable their continuance. Educational reforms in Queensland between 1909 and 1914 resulted in the introduction of high schools, expansion of technical colleges, inauguration of the University of Queensland, and establishment of a teacher training college. Starting with Brisbane, a high school was established within Brisbane Technical College in 1910, which was expected to feed students into the university’s departments of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and engineering. Warwick Technical High School commenced in July 1910 with a curriculum based on that of Brisbane Technical High School and with the same expectation of qualifying students for university matriculation in science and engineering.[57] In 1912, high schools opened at six major regional centres not already provided with a grammar school.[58] The high school curriculum included science teaching, with Gympie State High School’s laboratory in 1913 including £250 of apparatus and a fume cupboard. More high schools opened in the ensuing years at Roma and Brisbane (1920), and Cairns and Townsville (1924).[59]
\nIpswich Grammar School’s Science Building was a rectangular, single-storey, brick building freestanding in the grounds south of the 1865 wing.[60] It accommodated a large classroom at either end – physics at its eastern end, and chemistry at its western end. The chemistry room had a small protruding chimney, possibly used as a fume extraction ‘cabinet’. Between these was a preparation room (or rooms), accessed from both classrooms.[61] The interior was remodelled in 1953-4[62] and remained used for science until 1970, then geography until 1977, when it was refurbished for music classes. It remained in this use until after 2013 when it was converted for use as a uniform shop and staff offices. In 2023, it remains one of only three known-extant, early, purpose-built science buildings at a grammar school, the others being: Brisbane (1912) and Toowoomba (1918).
\nThe other boys’ grammar schools in Queensland similarly constructed new, purpose-built science classrooms at this time.[63] Although science had been taught at the schools for decades prior, this was usually in generic classrooms. The new physics and chemistry laboratories replaced these earlier, outdated facilities in usually freestanding buildings or semi-detached extensions. Similar science buildings were not provided at the four girls’ grammar schools until the 1920s,[64] by which time the boys’ schools were typically constructing their second generation of science buildings.[65]
\nSoon after the outbreak of World War I (WWI), Richard A Kerr became headmaster of Ipswich Grammar School and remained until 1945. These were tumultuous and uncertain times, but the school flourished under the leadership of ‘The Boss’, as Kerr was affectionately known. By 1921, the 1863 headmaster’s porch was replaced with a wider verandah.[66] Between 1914 and 1930 student numbers more than doubled from 96 to 198, and demand for extra teaching space and dormitories resulted in the 1922 construction of an extension on the western end of the 1865 wing, replacing the small 1865 service block here.
\nDesigned by Gill, the new extension was a two-storey, face brick structure and accommodated four large classrooms (two up and two down) separated by a central stair hall from east to west, that also connected through to the 1865 wing on both levels. It had a two-storey timber verandah along its western side and timber first floor balconies on north and south sides. Built by WE Pickles at a cost of £2466, it was completed early in 1922 in time for the school’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations the following year.[67]
\nOver time, alterations were made to the extension, including in 1954 when it was used to accommodate 18 senior boarders in small rooms and was named the ‘Bradfield Dormitory’. This was in honour of notable Queensland civil engineer and Ipswich Grammar School Old Boy, Dr John Bradfield, and later the extension was renamed ‘Bradfield House’.[68]
\nIn 1923, two timber buildings, accommodating student facilities and boarders’ dormitories, were built adjacent to the western end of the 1877 wing.[69] Subsequently, economic depression during the 1930s and the outbreak of the World War II (WWII), halted further building developments at the school.
\nHowever, the interwar period brought a number of improvements to the school grounds, following continued criticism expressed in print in 1922: ‘The school is a quaint-looking, old-fashioned building, and the grounds surrounding are bare and ugly looking. The poor gravelly soil is very unpromising as a bed for flowers and shrubs to reduce the bare look of the place, and is no great credit to the people of Ipswich. Lawns, gardens, shade trees, and rustic seats are required to give the building the suitable setting.’[70]
\nIn 1923, three early tennis courts (one from at least the 1880s and two from 1903),[71] located in the vicinity of what is now called Maude Kerr Oval, were being ‘thoroughly renovated’ (all were demolished by 1944).[72] In 1925, a new oval was constructed on the school’s land south of Blair State School, for £1200, using school funds and £200 donated by Ipswich Grammar School’s Old Boys’ Association.[73]
\nImprovement to the grounds continued during the 1930s. In 1932, three new tennis courts (not extant) were constructed north of the original driveway.[74] In 1934, a new lawn for sports was laid south of the Science Building .[75] Further work on this lawn, largely funded by the Old Boys’ Association, began in 1939, to create a ’junior sports field’ named in memory of Maude Kerr, the wife of the then Headmaster RA Kerr, who had died at the school in 1938.[76] During 1936 and 1937, the school’s first swimming pool (not extant) was constructed near the centre of the school site.[77] Much of this work on the school grounds during the Great Depression was undertaken by relief workers.[78] In 1939, the Queensland Times, reported that:
\nAs a result of many months of work under the relief scheme, the school grounds were now in a much improved condition. Three excellent tennis courts were available in a good situation; gardens and trees were making a much better show; and soon a junior sports field, which would be a great asset to the younger members would be complete. The field will be called the Maude Kerr Oval ... .[79]
\n1945-1960s
In the two and half decades following WWII, Ipswich Grammar School experienced substantial change. A succession of five headmasters served the school, beginning with William G Henderson (headmaster 1946-51). Enrolments increased as demand for secondary education rose in response to the emergence of new clerical and professional jobs requiring secondary education, and as baby boomers[80] reached high school age, necessitating more buildings to accommodate them. Changes to secondary education including: addition of Year 8 to the secondary school programme from 1964; review of the junior and senior syllabuses; and addition of new courses to the curriculum, also demanded more facilities.[81]
At the same time, Ipswich Grammar School experienced serious financial difficulties as it sought to upgrade its rundown facilities to accommodate increasing student and boarder numbers. The school sought fund-raising support through loans and from the Ipswich and district community through its Ipswich Boys’ Grammar School Centenary Building Fund, launched in 1957, to exclusively fund construction and maintenance of school buildings and facilities (later IBGS Building Fund). Additionally, financial and physical assistance was provided by the Old Boys’ Association and by the Ipswich Grammar School Parents and Friends Association (formed in 1953).[82]
\nIn 1946, a new boarders’ building was constructed.[83] This was named the Murray Hancock Memorial Block, after an Ipswich Grammar School Old Boy who had died during WWII, and extended off the northern side of the 1923 dormitory building. In 1947, the Old Boys’ Association established a War Memorial Library (in the ground floor of the 1863 front wing),[84] and in 1954 a brass memorial tablet was erected in the library (current location unknown) to commemorate Old Boys who died in WWI and WWII. The pressure on accommodation caused by the increase in boarders during the 1950s resulted in alterations to the Murray Hancock Memorial Block c1959, to enlarge the dining room and provide a new kitchen, laundry, and ablutions block.[85]
\nIn 1953, the Ipswich Grammar School Parents and Friends Association refurbished the School Hall through their voluntary labour, and were praised by the school’s new headmaster, Charles E Olsen (headmaster 1953-8).[86]
\nIn the immediate post-war years, further landscaping of the school grounds occurred. Remnant and regrowth native vegetation still covered the western half of the school grounds, apart from a central strip around the three tennis courts and the pool,[87] which was cleared by 1964. Over one weekend in 1951, ‘members of the Old Boys’ Association Council planted 500 pine trees in an L-shaped section of the Grammar School grounds facing Darling and Waghorn Streets … as a memorial grove’.[88] None remain in 2023, nor do other early planting schemes, such as one around the Maude Kerr Oval along Woodend Road and Burnett Street, in place before 1944.[89]
\nWWII had interrupted the construction of the Maude Kerr Oval,[90] but work resumed in 1953 and was completed in 1956.[91] The work required extensive excavation and upon completion the oval was approximately three metres lower than before and larger. The old cricket pavilion was moved from Blair Oval to the new oval, and a picket fence was erected around the perimeter by the Parents and Friends Association.[92] Both features were later demolished. In 1957, Ipswich’s Anzac Day ceremony was held on the new oval, attended by around 5,000 people.[93]
\nTwo more ovals were created by 1961. Oval No. 3 (not extant) was formed in 1956, on the eastern edge of the school grounds for the primary school, which had opened the same year. This oval was replaced by the Ivor G Morris Physical Education Complex in 1978. Oval No. 4 (later called Hancock Oval) was built in the southeast side of school grounds between 1960 and 1961, and was officially opened in 1963. This oval was extended in 1985.[94]
\nFormal entrance driveways were a common feature of Queensland grammar schools. They were typically lined with trees and some were built as memorials or with later memorial gates.[95] In 1955, a new, long entrance drive was completed at Ipswich Grammar School, which ran from the intersection of Darling and Burnett streets in the southern corner of the school grounds, north to the main school building, sweeping around the eastern side of the Maude Kerr Oval. It replaced the school’s original entrance drive from Waghorn Street, which had been planted on both sides with a line of trees. The new entrance onto Burnett Street, with breeze block walls featuring the school’s name and badge, was named the RA Kerr Memorial Entrance to commemorate the former headmaster. Shrubs were planted along the driveway and around the entrance gates and a double row of ‘poplars’ linked the entrance with the new classroom block. In the late 1980s, the lower half of the driveway was realigned to exit into Darling Street and the Memorial Entrance was replaced by a new RA Kerr Memorial Entrance on Darling Street in 1988.[96] In 2023, no poplars remain but a number of mature trees are extant along the driveway’s former alignment.
\nNear the new entrance to the school, a freestanding headmaster’s residence was built; completed in August 1961. It incorporated a visitor reception room/headmaster’s office and was a commodious, four-bedroom house. It was a considerably more private residence than the 1863 accommodations, and was designed by architect and town planner, Dr Karl Langer.[97]
\nIn the 1950s and 1960s, similar new freestanding headmaster’s/headmistress’ residences were built in the grounds of least five of the other seven other Queensland grammar schools operating at this time.[98] Of the six built in the period, five are extant in 2023. Alterations have been made to the headmaster’s residence at Ipswich Grammar School over time.
\nFollowing the completion of the new headmaster’s residence, construction began on a substantial new teaching building also designed by Langer, which at the time comprised the largest expansion of the school facilities since its establishment. The foundation stone was laid on 16 September 1961, and the building was completed in 1962. Costing more than £125,000, the building was funded using a Treasury loan, government subsidies, the Industrial Fund for the Advancement of Science Education in Schools, and donations to the Centenary Building Fund raised from the Ipswich and district community.[99] Of the eight Queensland grammar schools operating at the time, six constructed a substantial new classroom block with science component during the period.[100]
\nThe Centenary Classroom Block was a long, rectangular, four-storey structure with a flat roof. It was in a Modernist style, oriented with its long sides facing north and south. It was cut into the steeply sloping land so that it was only two-storeys at its western end, separated from the 1863 building by a pedestrian plaza, to which its main entrance fronted. The building was prominent from the east, due to its height and location on sloping ground.
\nThe building was laid out with a series of classrooms along its southern side and a broad, open verandah along its north with projecting enclosed stairs and a central toilet block. It had a grid-like concrete frame with face brick and windows in-fill walls, crimped-metal, sheet-clad, bag-rack balustrade, and featured projecting face brick headers and concrete breezeblocks on its end walls. The southern elevation was highly glazed with large, operable, aluminium-framed windows; the verandah wall featured vertical louvres of clear, ribbed glass at ceiling level above a face brick wall, and these facilitated a high level of natural (southern) light and ventilation of the interior.[101] The interior finishes included raw concrete for verandah floors, stairs, and some ceilings, terrazzo in the bathrooms, and flat-sheet lined walls and ceilings. The building’s proportions were substantial, with broad stairs, large classrooms, tall ceilings, and wide verandahs.
\nThe building greatly increased the available classroom space, accommodating 13 classrooms, two science demonstration rooms, three laboratories, offices, masters' rooms, locker rooms, a tuckshop, and a large basement assembly area. The classroom partitions of the upper level were moveable to allow it to be converted to one large space for functions, and the roof structure was supported on steel open-web trusses, exposed within the classrooms.[102]
\nSince construction, the 1962 teaching building has been substantially altered. In 1980, seven classrooms were refurbished and in 1984 the science classrooms were stripped and converted to humanities classrooms and the tuckshop was extended.[103] The greatest change to the building occurred in 1987 with the construction of a four-storey building, the Clive Wyman Building, abutting its eastern wall and wrapping around the eastern half of its northern side. This obscured the building’s prominent eastern wall, and openings were cut through it to connect into the new building. At this time, it is likely that the building’s exterior face bricks were overlaid with a split-face concrete block cladding to match the Clive Wyman Building. At some stage, its vertical louvres were replaced with fixed glass, some verandah walls were replaced by modern glass partitions, and alterations were made to the partitions between classrooms. Also, large red panels now cover the breezeblocks of the western wall.
\nEnrolments continued to rise, but school finances remained problematic. The Board of Trustees were advised that for the school to be financially viable, it was necessary to either cap enrolments at 450 or expand to 1100 students. The school decided to expand.[104] Ambitious fundraising efforts commenced to transform the school ‘from old and proud to modern and capable’.[105]
\n1970s-1980s
\nThe two decades of the 1970s and 1980s were a period of major growth for the school, with an enormous expansion of facilities. In 1972, the school’s first site master plan was completed for the school, by Queensland architect Stephen Trotter within the firm Fulton Collin Boys Gilmour Trotter & Partners, which envisioned a transformation of the grounds with many new buildings in two stages. Stage 1 of this plan was built by KD Morris & Sons[106] and completed in 1973. It included the construction of two new, five-storey dormitory towers (the Edith Fox Dormitory Tower, and the JE Hancock Dormitory Tower), a freestanding house for the dormitory housemaster, an administration building (not extant), library (later converted to a refectory), and a multi-purpose assembly and teaching hall (War Memorial Teaching Complex), all designed by Fulton Collin Boys Gilmour Trotter & Partners. These were all built to the south/southeast of the Main Building, dotted amongst the expansive open landscape.
\nBoarder numbers had grown between 1956 and 1970, prompting the two new dormitory towers, which were built to accommodate approximately 120-140 boys each[107] and were almost identical in plan. They were located far apart on the site – Fox Dormitory Tower standing at the northern end of the Maude Kerr Oval and Hancock Dormitory Tower to the east of the entrance driveway near its centre.
\nPositioned on steep slopes, they were both cut deeply into the earth, which was retained by tall, circular, concrete crib walls. Each was a cylindrical structure with concrete floor plates and loadbearing brick walls, with a tiled, conical roof featuring a tall central ventilation stack. Their exteriors were brick, lightly-bagged with render, and the windows were emphasised by projecting brick nibs and shielded by flat sheet hoods. A sloping concrete ramp provided the main access into the buildings at their second (middle) floor, and two stairwells provided internal vertical circulation. Each floor had a central, round ablutions room with a large ventilation stack to one side. Around this room ran circulation, opening off which were wedge-shaped bed alcoves, with two windows each and separated from each other by nib walls, and accommodating two bunk beds. Two smaller, more-private bedrooms were also provided per floor. This layout was repeated on the first to fourth floors with minor variations; early photographs show the ground floor had similar windows indicating it had a similar layout.
\nAlthough they were shared dormitories, the buildings provided a considerable increase in privacy and amenity for the boarders than had previously been provided by the school’s open, ‘barracks-like’ dormitories. The layout and carpeted floors reduced dormitory noise ‘dramatically’, allowing quiet and privacy for sleep and study.[108] The floor plans were intended to be changeable, with Trotter also providing two possible future interior arrangements.[109]
\nAfter the boys moved into the new towers, the Murray Hancock dormitories became redundant and were converted to art studios, with the entire building being demolished in 2020.[110]
\nThe 1972 master plan provided for a further three matching dormitory towers standing in the school’s northern grounds, however, this did not eventuate. Since their construction, the Fox and Hancock dormitory towers have had some alteration, but this has largely been confined to the interior. In a renovation of the interior completed in 1990 the central ablutions room was stripped of its fittings and converted to a round hall, accessing the surrounding bed alcoves, which were partitioned to form separate, shared rooms. In one corner of each of these new rooms was built an ensuite bathroom.[111]
\nThe Fox and Hancock dormitory towers were the first tall buildings built within the landscape of mature trees and sports fields on the southern half of the school grounds. As such, they were prominently visible from the surrounding streets, and became ‘a notable Ipswich landmark, visible from across town’.[112]
\nA small amphitheatre (named RG Edmondson Memorial Open Air Theatre, not extant) was constructed on the edge of the Maude Kerr Oval for $35,000 and opened on 28 Sep 1977 by the Hon WE Knox, MLA, Deputy Premier and Treasurer. Three new tennis courts were constructed in 1978 within the Ivor G Morris Physical Education Complex (on the site of the former rifle range adjacent to Waghorn Street). However, no tennis courts remain on site in 2023, having been replaced by a new tennis facility at the school’s Brassall complex in 2010.[113]
\nStage 2 of the master plan began in late 1978. It included an expansive sports facility (the Ivor Morris Physical Education Complex, opened in 1980),[114] the CA Turner Manual Arts Building (opened in 1981), the Harry G Wilson Science Building (opened 1983), and the Clive Wyman Building (humanities, library, and computers, opened in 1987).
\nBetween 1980 and 1982, the 1863 section of the Main Building and Bradfield House were refurbished. In 1989, the Ladley Centre (a four-storey, $2.7 million administration building with clock tower) was completed, standing to the northeast of the Main Building, and replacing the 1973 administration building in this location.[115]
\n1990s onwards
Additional buildings were added to the northern half of the site in the 1990s and early 21st century. Primary school classes were gradually re-introduced between 1994 and 2006, commencing with Year 7. Consequently, a new Junior School Building for Years 5 to 7 was constructed during 1998 facing Woodend Road, and opened on 10 October 1999. This was extended in 2005 to accommodate Year 4 students. In 2009, the building was joined to a new Early Childhood Education Centre for Prep to Year 3 students, for whom classes at Ipswich Grammar School commenced in 2006. This building was constructed between the swimming pool and the tennis courts, one of which was converted into a playground. It was officially opened on 12 October 2009.[116]
In the same year, another junior school building was constructed, the school’s multi-purpose Sports Dome, funded by the Federal Government’s Building the Education Revolution (BER). This building comprised an undercroft, a multi-purpose assembly area, and a library on the top level, and required removal of an adjacent school-owned house in Woodend Road and the relocation of another, plus rearrangement of the existing northern bus driveway. It was officially opened on 21 September 2011.[117]
\nFrom 2019 to 2023, work to the grounds and buildings immediately surrounding the Main Building occurred. The 1863 larder, rear and northern two-storey verandahs (by 1912), a 1912 building (likely servants’ quarters and stores), 1923 timber dormitory and boarders’ facilities buildings, and the 1946 Murray Hancock Memorial Building were demolished. These areas and the quadrangle were landscaped and a three-storey STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) building, completed in 2022, was constructed west of 1877 wing.
\nSocial history
Like most schools, Ipswich Grammar School became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past students, parents, and teachers. Throughout its history, Ipswich Grammar School has celebrated its milestones through commemorative events and school histories for its 50th, 100th, and 150th anniversaries.[118] A strong Old Boys’ Association has functioned since 1907,[119] providing labour and money for school improvements, such as endowing buildings and improving the grounds.[120] This organisation continues to provide such support in 2023.
The school takes pride in its former students’ achievements. Its long and distinguished history is reflected not only in its physical expansion over the years but also in the mentoring by many distinguished Old Boys, including Alfred Backhouse, son of Benjamin Backhouse and one-time Deputy-Chancellor of Sydney University; John Job Crew Bradfield, Chief Engineer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and designer of Brisbane’s Story Bridge (QHR 600240); Hugh Cornish, television executive; Sir Harry Gibbs, former High Court judge; as well as a host of excelling sportsmen.[121]
\nA number of war memorial projects were undertaken after WWII resulting in memorial buildings and memorial plaques being a feature at the school. The inclusion of war memorials in schools reinforced community connections. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute from the community and individuals to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia. In 1946, the Murray Hancock Memorial Building (not extant), a new wing for boarders, was funded by old boy Viv E Hancock as a utilitarian memorial in honour of his son who died during WWII.[122] The War Memorial Teaching Complex (1973) is a later representation of this type of commemoration.
\nHonour boards and numerous chalices for victories in various sports events are housed at the school, illustrating the academic and sports achievements of generations of Ipswich Grammar School students.
\nIn 2024, Ipswich Grammar School remains a prominent visual presence in the Ipswich townscape, and is represented through various media including photography, sketches, and paintings. The school’s significant buildings reflect its evolution in response to changing education curricula and policies over 160 years, while its landscaped grounds, including sports ovals and mature trees, demonstrate the continued importance of sport and setting to the school’s ethos. The school retains and reinforces strong social connections between it and its past and present school students and staff, and with the Ipswich and wider districts community.
\n\n
","criteria":"
Ipswich Grammar School (1863), the first secondary school established under the Grammar Schools Act 1860 and the longest in continual operation, is important in demonstrating the provision and evolution of secondary education by grammar schools in Queensland. It retains a selection of buildings designed by prominent architects that illustrate key developments in the evolution of grammar schools, set in landscaped grounds with sports ovals and mature trees.
\nThe substantial Main Building (1863-1922, its earliest sections designed by Benjamin Backhouse) is important in demonstrating the provision of education in colonial Queensland and reflects the development of Ipswich as a major regional centre.
\nThe Science Building (1913, designed by George Brockwell Gill), an early physics and chemistry teaching building, is important in demonstrating the provision of purpose-built science teaching facilities at secondary schools, due to increased emphasis on what was termed ‘practical science’ in the Queensland secondary school curriculum in the early 20th century.
\nThe Fox Dormitory and Hancock Dormitory Towers (both 1973, designed by Stephen Trotter) are important in demonstrating the major growth of Ipswich Grammar School boarding student numbers in the post-World War II period, necessitating expanded and improved boarding accommodation and facilities, in accordance with the school’s first masterplan for the site (1972).
\nThe landscaped site with sports ovals and mature trees demonstrates the importance of sport and appropriate setting in the grammar school ethos.
|Ipswich Grammar School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 19th century Queensland grammar school, a class of cultural place that has made an important contribution to the provision and evolution of education in Queensland. The first of its kind, the place is an excellent and substantial illustration of its class of cultural place, embodied in its:
\nIpswich Grammar School is important for its aesthetic significance, the Main Building (1863-1922) being an impressive Gothic Revival building in a landscaped setting. Prominently sited on a ridgeline, the Main Building's picturesque arrangement of building wings, gables, and towers silhouetted against the sky, viewed from Burnett Street across the flat, manicured grass of Maude Kerr Oval, is a landmark within the Ipswich townscape. More distant views of the Main Building are had from the surrounding neighbourhood to the southeast, and the place has been the subject of art works since the 1860s.
\nHighly intact, the Main Building (1863-1922) is notable for its fine architectural quality. It is a harmonious and visually pleasing assembly of formal building elements, comprising: well composed and proportioned elevations; asymmetrical forms and winding interior layouts; high-quality construction and decorative treatments; and a Gothic Revival style with attractive architectural features including lookout towers, bellcote, buttresses, tall gables, and steep roofs. The highly intact school hall interior is particularly beautiful with its lofty, trussed ceilings, tall windows, and mezzanine with tracery balustrade.
|Ipswich Grammar School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present students, boarders, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained involvement since its establishment in 1863. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Ipswich and the wider Queensland community, with generations of students taught at the school, and as a venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made through repeated volunteer actions and donations by the Ipswich and district community and by former students for over a century via the school’s active Old Boys’ Association.
|Ipswich Grammar School has a special association with architect Benjamin Backhouse, whose considerable architectural contribution, particularly his public buildings and schools, was important in shaping the early Queensland built environment. As the designer of the first two stages of the Main Building (built 1863 and 1865), which forms the school’s core, Ipswich Grammar School was one of Backhouse’s first major commissions and his most substantial built work in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15377,"place_ref":600602,"name":"Kyeewa","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 York Street","suburb":"EAST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":""Kyeewa" is a grand, single storey sandstone residence, with a long ridged, hipped, corrugated iron roof. It occupies the highest site in the street and is set up well back from the street alignment. It is located opposite another grand residence, "Merton", and there are an unusually high proportion of houses in York Street of architectural and streetscape value. A stepped down, convex roof shades verandahs to three sides of "Kyeewa", with the front verandah facing north. Above the verandah roof are paired brackets to the eaves of the main roof. The house is set less than a metre above the ground and is supported by brick piers. The verandahs are gracefully simple, with no balustrades. The timber support posts have moulded capitals and triangular shaped, cast-iron brackets. The front steps, now of sandstone, are believed to have originally been timber. The walls facing the verandahs are of rusticated sandstone, with smooth quoins and window dressings.
Full length, three sided bay windows project onto the verandah either side of the main entry. The rear of the house, not visible from the street, is constructed from timber. The garden features a number of established trees, including a large Moreton Bag fig, a mango tree, jacaranda and frangipani trees, and this contributes significantly to the property's value.
","history":"The house was built by workers from the Limestone Street monumental masonry works, run by Ernest Greenway. The stone is believed to have come from the Helidon area. Greenway was a great-nephew of the famous convict architect, Francis Howard Greenway. Greenway's family, from the West Country of England, were reputed for generations as quarrymen, architects, builders and stonemasons. Ernest Greenway married Elizabeth Femister, daughter of a well-known paperhanger and upholster, Alexander Femister, and they lived of "Kyeewa". "Kyeewa" is dated circa 1890. Records of a 1889 Greenway childbirth give Grey Street as the family address, but the next childbirth in 1891 is recorded with a Limestone Hill, so it seems the family had by this time moved to "Kyeewa".
At least until 1986, Ernest Greenway's son, Gordon, lived at "Kyeewa". He was born in 1894. In keeping with the family tradition, he began a career as an architect, working with noted Ipswich architect, George Brockwell Gill. Greenway continued architectural work with the Brisbane City Council and later with Brisbane firm, Conrad and Gargett. "Kyeewa" originally occupied a larger area of land, including an orchard and stables. The latter were on the site now occupied by a house, second from the corner of York Street and Chermside Road. Family records suggest that the house was not completed in accordance with the original plan, and this is further indicated by the rear of the house being constructed from timber, rather than sandstone. Originally the house contained only two bedrooms, a hallway and a drawing room in the masonry section and a kitchen in the timber framed section.
Recent additions to the house include a two story extension on the rear south-east corner of the house in October 1990 and another two storey extension on the rear south-west corner in 1999.
","criteria":"Kyeewa is important in demonstrating the development of Ipswich as a prominent commercial and industrial centre which fostered the construction of grand residences during the late nineteenth century, still evident as part of the city's suburban growth.
|Its scale and siting remain as evidence of a grand colonial dwelling, and the intactness of both the structure and its garden setting, make it a good example of its type.
|It has important aesthetic value as it contributes to the streetscape of York Street which consists of an unusually large number of houses with architectural and streetscape value. In particular Kyeewa's setting on a large piece of sloping land well back from the street, its mature gardens and decorative fence together with the frontage of the house contribute highly to its aesthetic significance.
|It has special association with the Greenways as their family home and their history of involvement with architecture and masonry. It also has special association with the work of Ernest Greenway, a well known, monumental stonemason in Ipswich.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15378,"place_ref":600603,"name":"Hotel Cecil | Jets Club","alternate_name":"Imperial Hotel","street_address":"15 Lowry Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Hotel Cecil is a two storeyed rendered masonry hotel located on the corner of Down and Lowry Streets at North Ipswich. Built in 1887, the Hotel is constructed of brick with a rendered ruled ashlar finish with a continuous sill to the ground floor walls upon which semi circular headed openings with cement rendered architraves finish on plinth blocks. The main entry to the building is from Down Street through a large 6 panel timber door with sidelights and a semi headed fanlight decorated with leadlights that include the name 'Hotel Cecil 1887'and stained glass panels depicting native flora. There are additional entrances at the truncated corner of the building and two further along Lowry Street. The arched windows to the main bar areas at the main corner of the building comprise pairs of semi headed double hung windows with circular lights above.
\nVerandahs on timber posts with cast iron valance extend over the footpath with balconies above to both street frontages. The balconies have timber posts with cast iron balustrade and brackets. Pairs of frenchlights with fanlights above open onto the balconies.
\nAbove the curved balcony roof the masonry walls are articulated by a cornice punctuated with pilasters in low relief the project above the coping on the parapet which conceals the corrugated iron roof. Centrally located on the parapet of each street frontage is a curved gable which bears the words HOTEL CECIL A.D. 1887 in raised lettering.
\nThe interior of the hotel has been recently renovated in a style that replicates details from the period in which the building was constructed. Surviving original interior elements on the ground floor level include the cornices, ceilings and roses, the cedar fireplace mantle and staircase and the walls to the stairhall. The upper floor is in a comparatively intact condition and contains much of its original layout and joinery. The rear verandah has been enclosed and the rear stair survives.
\nThe hotel was extended in 1915 with a skillion roof addition which included three windows to Lowry street. The recent extension has included the removal of the skillion roof and the extension of the building by several bays with a gable roof and verandah that then adjoins a single storey end wing with parapet. The end wing houses the bottle shop and new entrance to the hotel. These recent additions closely replicate the details of the original building.
","history":"The first hotel to operate on this site was the Unity Hotel which opened in 1880 run by Fred Larter. In 1883 James Cooper took over the hotel and in 1887 he changed the name to the Imperial Hotel and an article in the Queensland Times of 19 April, 1887 announced that he was trading out of the 'recently erected and furnished' Imperial Hotel, on the corner of Downs and Lowry Streets, North Ipswich. The competition from this new hotel seems to have led to the closure within a year of the Royal Engineer's Hotel on the corner of Downs Street and The Terrace, which had been operating since the mid 1860's. The Queensland Times of April 1888 reported the transfer of the lease to John Abbott, but by April 1889 the Queensland Times reported that the hotel was part of John Abbott's Estate, and on 3 August 1889 the Government Gazette announced that John Cooper had regained the licence.
There was a push by Ipswich residents to close a number of hotels, as their numbers were then in excess of that allowable by legislation. John Cooper's Imperial Hotel was one of three that consequently lost their licenses, as reported in the Queensland Times of 2 April 1891. However, in July 1891 there was an application by the National Workmen's Club for a club licence for the premises. Despite some reservations about whether the club had adequate control of the premises to satisfy the requirements for the licence, it was granted. The Government Gazette on 28 January 1904 announced the granting of a licence to Thomas Murray at the then-named Hotel Cecil. In 1904 the licensee was transferred to Thomas Murray, and in 1905 the licence passed to W Osborne. By 1911 it had passed to Alexander G Burnett, and in 1918 appears to have passed to his wife, Catherine. There has been a succession of licensees since this time.
In 1999 the hotel was expanded along the Lowry Street frontage which houses a new dining and poker machine area. The middle section of the building previously accommodated a drive through bottle shop and is now a dining courtyard. The exterior of the extension has been designed to replicate the exterior of the original hotel on a single storey level.
","criteria":"The former Hotel Cecil demonstrates the pattern of development in Ipswich in the 1880s when more substantial public buildings were replacing former more modest structures signifying the growth of Ipswich as a residential centre and its strength as an industrial and commercial centre.
|The former Hotel Cecil demonstrates aesthetic significance as a mid-Victorian hotel with high streetscape value.
|The hotel has special association with the local community as a place of social activity since its opening in 1887.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15379,"place_ref":600604,"name":"Railway Historical Centre","alternate_name":"Tarpaulin Shop | Railway Store | Railway Administration Building","street_address":"North Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a fine example of a Victorian warehouse constructed of load-bearing brick on two levels. Outwardly, the building is a symmetrical gable ended structure with a centrally projecting transverse gable to the northern and southern facades. The formal entry is defined by a round headed arch and stairs leading up from The Terrace. Immediately opposite this on the southern side, is an upper level loading platform.
The symmetry of the building is reinforced by equally spaced segmental arch windows on both levels, and ridge ventilators at each end of the corrugated custom orb profile roof.
Internally, the upper floor is dominated by Queen Post trusses which meet at the gable crossing with cruciform trusses. Along each end of the bottom chord are support rails with rope eyelets for suspension of tarpaulins. The original windlass is supported at the centre trusses for hoisting goods to and from the upper and lower levels through a timber trapdoor.
From the lower level, two large doors lead to the southern aligned railway tracks, and a tramway runs through the centre of the floor longitudinally. There is evidence of earlier service entry doors or cartways entering from the Terrace side.
The main timber floor frame is supported on sturdy hardwood columns with timber headstocks. Each bearer is jointed over the headstock with a scarfed joint and square timber key.
An early office compartment exists at the western end of the upper floor, constructed with a raised timber floor and tongue and groove timber partitions. At the eastern end there is a single storey timber frame extension which is not original.
","history":"This building, the oldest remaining on the workshops site, was built in 1878-9 by Ipswich contractors, McGregor and Brown. It was initially used as a Store. It was later used for Administration and then as a Tarpaulin Shop. In 1990, the Tarpaulin Store was converted into the Railway Historical Centre and was used for housing railway archival material and for other related functions.
","criteria":"The Railway Historical Centre is the only remaining building on the southern section of the site, it is evidence of the first period of development of the railway workshops 1864-1885.
|The building retains evidence of its various uses as stores, administration, and tarpaulin store.
|It is fine example of a Victorian brick and stone warehouse and is of particular architectural merit.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15380,"place_ref":600605,"name":"Ipswich Railway Workshops War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"North Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated within the grounds of the Ipswich Railway Workshops. It sits in a small grassed enclosure at the eastern end of the traverser, directly inside the main gate. The monument stands directly in front of a guyed flagstaff and is surrounded by a path which leads up to it. Large camphor laurel trees with circular seats are located nearby.
The memorial stands 32 feet from the ground and comprises a pedestal and obelisk surmounted by a digger statue.
The granite and bronze memorial sits on a painted concrete stepped base, surrounded by two steps of kerbing. Surmounting the base is a Victorian granite pedestal with a bronze Coat of Arms on the front face. The pedestal is square in section and the front and rear faces display ornate bronze plaques with the Queensland Coat of Arms and the Queensland Railway Badge. The names of the 300 (approximately) men who left the works to fight for King and Empire in the European War are listed on the plaques with letters in columns after the names to indicate the 28 who were killed and the 3 who died on service. The plaques also bear the names of the 28 members of the memorial committee and trustees as well as historical inscriptions regarding the signing of the Armistice and Peace Treaty.
The pedestal is capped by four triangular pediments which support a tall obelisk of Victorian granite. A bronze Coat of Arms is located on the front pediment and the dates of the First World War are in bronze on the front face of the base of the obelisk.
Surmounting the obelisk is a digger statue, which at seven feet, is larger than life sized. The bronze statue portrays an Australian Infantry Soldier standing to attention with his rifle held upwards by his side.
","history":"The Ipswich Workshop War Memorial was unveiled on the 27 September 1919 by Queensland Governor, Sir Hamilton J Goold-Adams. The stone memorial was designed by Queensland Railway architect Vincent Price and honours the 300 local men who left the workshops to serve in the First World War.
In July 1915 a mass meeting of the Railway Workshop employees was held to consider what could be done to perpetuate the memory of their 300 fellow employees who had left to serve in the war. By the end of the war 28 of these men had been killed and 3 had died on service.
At the meeting a committee was established to consider what form the memorial should take. It was decided to erect a monument and permission for its erection in the workshop grounds was gained from the Commissioner for Railways, Col. C E Evans, CMG. The grandeur and comparatively high cost (£1400) of the monument is reflective of the patriotic spirit of the railway yard workers.
The unveiling was a public event involving approximately 160 returned soldiers who marched from the Ipswich railway station under the charge of Lieutenant C W King. They were escorted by a Military Band to the workshops where they formed a guard of honour for the Governor.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The monument at Ipswich involved several makers and is an unusual example of the work of Queensland Railway architect, Vincent Price.
Price was born in Brisbane in 1868 and began his architectural career articled to Richard Gailey. He established his own practice in Brisbane in 1890 but soon became a draftsman in the Chief Engineers Office of Queensland Railways. He remained with the railways until he retired in 1933, his last position being that of Principal Railway Architect.
The digger statue is one of only two in Queensland designed by John Whitehead and Sons, sculptors of London. The pedestal was produced by A L Petrie and Sons of Toowong and the metal plates by Chas. Hanford of Brisbane.
The masonry firm of A L Petrie and Son at Toowong was the largest monumental masonry works in Queensland at this time and were responsible for producing many of the state's First World War memorials.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
It is also is also an uncommon example of a monumental memorial erected in a workplace and is a historical record of the participation and sacrifice of a Queensland government agency.
|As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland, but is also unusual as one of only two bronze digger statues in the state supplied by a London sculptor.
It is also is also an uncommon example of a monumental memorial erected in a workplace and is a historical record of the participation and sacrifice of a Queensland government agency.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1919, the memorial at Ipswich Railway Workshops demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland, but is also unusual as one of only two bronze digger statues in the state supplied by a London sculptor.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance both for its design qualities and as a landmark within the railway precinct.
|It has a strong association with the railyard workforce as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. It also has strong associations with Queensland Railway architect, Vincent Price, as an unusual example of his work, and with monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son of Toowong.
|It has a strong association with the railyard workforce as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. It also has strong associations with Queensland Railway architect, Vincent Price, as an unusual example of his work, and with monumental masonry firm A L Petrie and Son of Toowong.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15381,"place_ref":600606,"name":"Little Ipswich State School","alternate_name":"Ipswich West State School; Ipswich West Special School","street_address":"12 Omar Street","suburb":"WEST IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The listing boundary encompasses two separate state schools on a single site - Ipswich West State School and Ipswich West Special School, both of which contain early school buildings.
Ipswich West Special School, at the northern end of the site, contains two early timber school buildings, constructed in 1882. These buildings are typical of the schools constructed during the Ferguson Era (1875-1893) of the Department of Public Instruction and are similar to the B/T4 Type, usually designed for medium to larger schools.
The two wings are set at right angles to each other and are low set, timber framed buildings clad in chamferboards and supported on brick piers. They have steeply pitched gable roofs with stepped bargeboards to the original verandah spaces. Decorative timber brackets are set in front of timber louvred vents at each gable end. Each wing originally contained two separate classrooms with verandahs front and back. At each end wall a large bank of windows is protected by a timber window hood. The classrooms in the eastern wing feature tall, narrow timber windows which pivot from a cental fitting. The original verandah ceilings are lined with diagonal boarding on top of the rafters. Classroom walls and ceilings are lined internally with horizontal boarding. The northern wing has a separate teachers room set at 90 degrees to the main building and accessed from the front verandah.
The northern wing retains one classroom with internal boarded finish, the other classroom has been divided with plasterboard partitions into office spaces. The eastern wing contains two classrooms linked by a concertina door. The rear walls to the verandahs have been removed and the verandah space incorporated into the classrooms. A new classroom block and covered walkway has been added at right angles to the eastern wing.
An early timber play shed is located in the Ipswich West Special School grounds. It is a gable roofed open structure of the B/T5 Type. Surviving early fabric includes large-scale timber posts with curved timber brackets. The posts have been cut off at the base and supported on steel stirrups. The play shed has been re-roofed and the end wall enclosed with steel custom-orb sheeting with weatherboards to each gable end.
Ipswich West State School contains three brick school buildings which were constructed between 1907 and 1919. Brick schools were not as common as timber schools and these buildings do not conform to a particular typology. Brick schools were usually individually designed and were built in areas which had a larger population.
The buildings are set in a U-shape configuration, and are of face brick construction with steeply pitched gable roofs. Decorative timber fretwork is a feature of each gable end, and the south and west wings have louvred vents behind the fretwork. The 1907 wing is separated from the adjoining western wing, the western wing abuts the south wing at one corner and all buildings are connected by a timber verandah. A separate room was constructed for the principal's office at 90 degrees to the west wing, accessed from the verandah. The verandah is simply detailed with slatted timber balustrades, lattice panels and curved timber valances.
The 1907 north wing is a low-set building with equally spaced double-hung windows to three sides. Separate window hoods protect the end windows and the roof is extended down and supported with timber brackets to protect the windows to the northern side. The eastern end of the verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards to form a storeroom. The interior ceilings are lined with tongue and groove boarding and feature a central lattice vent. The original single room has been divided into two offices with a recent glazed partition. Adjacent to the verandah is an early school bell. The bell hangs under a small pyramid roof set on four timber posts on a stone base.
The south wing appears to be the earlier 1911 building because the west wing has been joined to it at the corner and the end window of the south wing has been bricked in. The south wing is high set at the eastern end with toilets under the building. The toilet space is divided by single-skin vertically boarded partitions. The fixtures are recent. The upper floor of the building originally contained three separate classrooms which have now been converted to two classrooms with a multi-purpose space between them. The south wall has equally spaced double-hung windows protected by a roof overhang supported by timber brackets. A timber framed addition with a hip roof is at the eastern end of the building, which is used for offices.
The west wing, probably built in 1919, is high set with play space and a tuckshop under the building. The upper floor originally contained three separate classrooms but has been modified to house the staff room in one original classroom space, with the library occupying two classrooms with the dividing wall removed. Large bays of casement windows to each end wall remain, with the top bay of windows set inwards at an angle. Window hoods with timber brackets and lattice panels protect these windows. Access to the classrooms is provided by double timber doors with fanlights above. A separate brick office, originally for the principal, is accessed from the verandah of this wing. It is a gable roofed extension set at 90 degrees to the building with a single double-hung window.
A brick toilet block stands to the east of the buildings. It is constructed of face brick with a hip roof and high-level louvred windows. Recent school buildings have been set well back from the early buildings and do not intrude on the setting.
","history":"The Ipswich West State School and Ipswich West Special School stand on a site which has been used as a primary school since 1861. Following the first Education Act of 1860 a government based education system was commenced in Queensland and schools began to appear across the state. In 1861, seven National Schools were opened in Queensland which included the coeducational school at Little Ipswich on 5 August. Little Ipswich (now West Ipswich) was an area of early urban settlement in Ipswich and in 1862 there were 52 pupils enrolled at the school.
\nLater agitation by the Ipswich National School Committee forced the establishment of a separate Boys' and Girls' Schools and a new Boys' School Building was erected in 1882 on the site of the present Special School. Contractors Reuben Worley and James Whitehead erected the building at a cost of £621, of which £200 was provided by the local community in accordance with government legislation of the time. The Education Act of 1875 introduced free, compulsory education for children aged 6 to 12 years which prompted an increase in school attendance and a need for additional educational facilities. Local communities were required to provide one fifth of the cost of construction and the Department of Public Instruction provided a teacher and resources.
\nThe school was erected to one of the standard designs of Robert Ferguson, Superintendent of School Buildings for the Department of Public Instruction from 1879 to 1893. This standard design was known as 'Carpenter Gothic', a style used in metropolitan areas and provincial cities from 1880 to 1893. The design addressed problems in earlier school buildings by providing wider verandahs, ample floor space, play sheds, well protected hat rooms, convenient lavatories and decent offices. The design of these school buildings also reflected a change in attitude to the education of children as it responded to the concerns of educationalists including improved light and ventilation for students.
\nThe former Boys' School building displays many of the original design features such as steeply pitched roofs, decorative finials and brackets at the end gables and diagonal boarding on the verandah ceilings. The grounds also contained a play shed, common in the Ferguson era, still standing today.
\nAfter the erection the Boys' School the girls continued to occupy the original 1861 school building. During the floods of 1893 the Girls' School was used for accommodating people who had lost their homes. Building of a new Girls' School began in 1907 and this involved construction of a brick wing by Mr. Harry Woodford at a cost of £613. In 1911 an additional brick wing was added by Wilson and Pickels contractors at a cost of £894/10/-. Work on the final section was commenced in 1919 at a cost £3,123 and was officially opened on 19 June, 1920.
\nThe gradual construction of the three brick school buildings from 1907 to 1919 reflected a change in the design and construction method of state schools due to the increased prosperity in Queensland in the early 1900s. Brick schools were all individually designed and were built in areas where a large population justified their construction. Brick schools were not commonplace which makes the Ipswich West State School buildings a good example of the type of school buildings erected in a established urban area during the period.
\nIn 1934 the Boys' and Girls' Schools again became coeducational, occupying only the brick buildings, with Mr. C.W. Munro as the Headmaster. At this time pupils numbered 232 and remodelling of the school was undertaken at a cost of £682.
\nFor twenty years the old Boys' School stood unoccupied and fell into disrepair. Demolition was resisted by the School Committee who carried out some maintenance and used it as a venue for fund raising functions. In 1957 vocational training for primary pupils of the Ipswich district was introduced and the old school became a manual training centre. The school is the now the premises for the Ipswich West Special School.
\nRecent additions to both school complexes include a new painted blockwork and timber covered way and classroom block designed by Bruce Buchanan Architects Pty Ltd and built in 1991 at a cost of $400,000at the Ipswich West State School, and a new block designed by David Pagenden Architects for the Special School, also built in 1991.
","criteria":"The Ipswich West State School and the Ipswich West Special School are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as the layers of school buildings constructed since 1861 reflect the growth of Queensland's education system.
|They are also prime examples of two different architectural types of Queensland State School buildings which changed in response to practical needs, changing attitudes to education and social trends in local communities and the state as a whole. The 1882 buildings (in the Special School Complex) were built to the standard Ferguson design, 'Carpenter Gothic', developed in response to requests by educationalists to improve standards of school buildings in Queensland. The brick buildings (in the Ipswich West State School Complex, 1907 - 1919) were constructed in a period which saw variance in design dictated by the size and wealth of the local community.
|The two school complexes are of aesthetic significance, the brick buildings creating a visually consistent composition unobstructed by recent buildings and framed by mature trees in the school grounds. Both the brick and the earlier timber buildings are significant for their architectural composition and detailing eg. the steeply pitched gabled roofs, timber brackets and finials, diagonal boarding and variety of window types.
|The schools have a strong association with the past, present and future generations of the school communities as a place of continuous education and recreation and as a focal point for the local community since 1861.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15382,"place_ref":600607,"name":"Apple Tree Creek War Memorial","alternate_name":"Apple Tree Creek","street_address":"Bruce Highway","suburb":"APPLE TREE CREEK","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated facing the road in a landscaped area within the Apple Tree Creek sports ground which encompasses a cricket ground, rodeo ring and small band rotunda.
The memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a small concrete obelisk. It is surrounded by an octagonal enclosure of concrete kerbing with a decorative cast iron fence comprising thin pickets with fleur-de-lis finials. The posts are also cast iron and surmounted by Latin crosses. In front of the enclosure is a painted timber fence with a centrally placed cast iron gate.
The monument is of Helidon sandstone and sits on a granite base with rough stone faces, margined and chiselled around. Surmounting this are another two steps, both smooth-faced. The lower step has a chamfered top and the words Apple Tree Creek Roll of Honour carved in high relief on the front face. The upper step has plain faces and is capped by cyma recta mouldings.
Surmounting this is the pedestal dado comprising a recessed square marble pillar with engaged columns at each corner. It has recessed marble plaques to each side recording the leaded names of the 77 local men who served in the First World War, the names of the fifteen who fell being on the front face.
The columns have capitals of scrollwork and acanthus leaves which support a large cornice made up of cyma recta and torus mouldings. Above this is a small square pedestal with crossed flags carved in relief on the front face and capped by a small cornice. This forms the base for a small concrete obelisk with tapered sides and a flat top.
The nearby band rotunda is constructed of timber with a corrugated iron pavilion style roof topped by a finial. It is octagonal in shape and is raised on hight stumps. It is accessed by a staircase on one side and a simple timber balustrade spans between iron columns which are located at each point of the octagon. There are acroteria at each corner.
","history":"The Apple Tree Creek War Memorial was unveiled on 20 March 1921. It was designed and produced by A L Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane at a cost of £230. The stone memorial honours the 77 local men who served during the First World War, including the 15 who died.
Apple Tree Creek developed as a farming community in the 1870s and 80s. The Central Sugar Mill opened in 1895 boosting the economy of the district and by the outbreak of the First World War there were fifty farmers registered in the Post Office Directory, a school, hotel, and store. The 77 men who volunteered from this district represented a substantial proportion of their generation and a movement to commemorate their participation began in 1917.
Prior to the erection of war memorials, Queensland had little public sculpture and there were few statues or monuments of note even in Brisbane. Although Queensland did send a contingent of men to South Africa during the Boer War (1899 - 1902) memorials to soldiers who served in this war are uncommon. Australia's participation in the First World War (1914 - 1918) however, had an immense impact on the population. The national loss was 60,000 dead and 152,000 wounded from a population of approximately 5 million. Almost 1 in 5 men who went to fight died and their bodies were not returned for burial. The battles were fought in countries far from Australia and even after the war visiting cemeteries in the countries where Australians fought was not possible for most families. The impetus for the creation of memorials as an expression of public mourning was therefore very strong and they became a focus for an outpouring of grief.
As substitute war graves they became symbols of remembrance which were treated with reverence and respect. The prominent siting of war memorials and the materials, designs and symbolism used in their construction were meant to honour those who served, ensure lasting remembrance of the dead and draw the attention of the 'rising generation' to their noble example. The memorials also served as an acknowledgment of what was seen as a coming of age for Australia as a nation and memorials honour those who died as having made 'the supreme sacrifice ' for the good of nation and empire. As memorials were funded by the community, they are true public expression of both grief and national pride and were erected in almost every community. No war since has triggered this kind of response., the dead of World War Two being commemorated largely by adding their names to World War One memorials or by dedicating practical projects to their memory.
The Apple Tree Creek memorial was funded by public subscription and prominently positioned in the local recreation reserve. This not only provided an attractive setting, but was a community gathering place and was sited opposite the local school. It was unveiled on 20 March 1921 and was originally crowned with a 'digger' statue. Although not highly regarded by artists or architects, this design was the popular choice of Queensland communities, perhaps seeming more personal to families and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian. Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were imported. They varied slightly in design, presumably to suit the needs of the communities who commissioned them. Originally a captured gun or 'war trophy' contributed to the setting, however, this has now gone. The pedestal of the memorial is a standard A L Petrie design, first used in 1918 at Ebbw Vale.
Andrew Lang Petrie was the grandson of Andrew Petrie, an early colonist of Queensland and a prominent architect-builder. When Petrie Senior died in 1872, he was succeeded by his son John. In 1880, A L Petrie joined his father to form the partnership John Petrie and Son, based at Fortitude Valley with branch masonry works at Toowong Cemetery and Townsville. In 1888, A L Petrie became general manager of the firm but was forced into insolvency in 1894. It was not until 1903 that he was able to re-open the monumental masonry business at Toowong Cemetery where many Queensland memorials were produced.
In the mid 1970s the memorial was vandalised. The surviving pieces of the statue were removed and put in storage at the RSL sub-branch at Childers. The statue was replaced by a concrete obelisk until a new digger was unveiled on 18 August 1999 by the Honourable Bruce Scott.
The reserve also contains a band rotunda in the vicinity of the memorial. This was built in 1911 for the Apple Tree Creek Citizens' Brass Band. It was in regular use for the first decades because many houses lined the creek at that time. By 1975 it had became derelict and underwent extensive repair and reconstruction in 1983. It is one of the few buildings remaining from the early settlement of the area and contributes to the aesthetic qualities of the park.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The War Memorial is important as a documentary record of those who volunteered for war service in the Apple Tree area as other records are generally organised by name or unit, making it difficult to determine the origin of individuals.
|It its also a demonstration of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1921, the memorial at Apple Tree Creek demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the appropriate use of various symbolic elements including columns and flags.
|It is of aesthetic significance both for its high level of workmanship and design and as a complementary structure within the park setting.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of a major historic event which had a personal impact on most families in the district.
|It also has special association with monumental mason A L Petrie as an example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15383,"place_ref":600608,"name":"Grand Hotel","alternate_name":"Childers Hotel; Grand Hotel Childers","street_address":"106-110 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Grand Hotel is prominently situated on the corner of Churchill and McIwraith Streets, Childers. It is a two storey brick building with a trapezoidal plan form that follows the street alignment.
The building has a wide surrounding two storeyed timber verandah with a convex curved corrugated iron roof. The brick walls of the building rise above the verandah at the first floor level and are decorated with a number of raised Greek crosses at the corners, long rendered sign panels and a continuous birdsmouth string course. The cast iron balustrade has been removed and the timber frame has been enclosed with fibre cement sheet. A small section of the cast iron balustrade survives on the southern verandah.
The main roof, which is clad in corrugated iron, is hipped and surmounted by the remains of a 'widows walk'. The decorative cast iron balustrade has been removed from this section of the building. There is a dormer window in the north face of the main roof which has a projecting gabled roof supported by timber brackets and surmounted by a short finial. The gable is infilled with a decorated timber bracket. A decorated cylindrical vent survives on the western face of the main roof.
Built hard up against the west verandah is a is a two storeyed brick building with a rectangular floor plan and hipped roof, which now serves as accommodation, bottle store and kitchen. A single storey convex corrugated iron verandah supported on timber posts is situated on the western elevation. The windows are double hung timber and the pair of windows on the west elevation have hoods. Attached to the east of this what may be the original kitchen, a single storeyed section with a pyramid roof.
The main entrance to the building is through a pair of heavy timber double doors with a half light over to a central hallway. To the west is the bar area, this has been opened up to form one space. Double hung timber windows open out onto the footpath in this area. To the east of the main hall is a large space that runs from the front to the back of the building, the transverse walls have been removed and there is a bar at the south end. This space opens through a single door onto an area beneath the southern verandah. The kitchen and bottle shop runs beside this with the hotel manager's accommodation section over.
The first floor is accessed via a timber half turn stair that has turned newel posts and turned balusters. The stair rises to a landing which has corridors leading off in three directions. These lead to accommodation rooms through four panel timber doors. The rooms are divided with vertical timber tongue and grooved boards mounted on an exposed timber post and rail frame. Each room opens onto the verandah via timber French doors. The south east and south west sections of the verandah has been enclosed for toilets and showers.
","history":"The two story brick Grand Hotel was built in 1899 for JWA Kulick by Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich on the site of Childers first hotel. The new hotel was one of 5 hotels established in the 1890s in the newly emerging sugar town of Childers.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district: in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board (1886) was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
William Ashby was one of the first generation of purchasers of town land following the subdivision of portion 870. He had previously been a publican and in 1886 moved a modest timber hotel in sections from nearby Horton and erected it on his land as the Childers Hotel. This was for several years the only hotel in the town and was described in 1892 as a 'comfortable hostelry'. In 1894 the site was enlarged to its present size when Ashby purchased the adjoining block. In the same year three more hotel licenses were granted for the Queen's Hotel, the Bellevue Hotel, and the Royal Hotel and in 1898 the Palace Hotel opened. In 1897 the Childers Hotel was purchased by Johann Kulick who replaced it with a new two story brick hotel in 1899 to the design of Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich.
Hettrich (1860-1946) emigrated to Queensland from Germany around 1884 when he set up in practice as an architect in Bundaberg; soon after winning competitions for the Bundaberg Town Hall and the School of Arts. He also designed the Primitive Methodist Church and Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Childers. Frederick Faircloth, who later designed many buildings in Childers, was his pupil.
The new hotel was called the Grand Hotel and photographs show how it dominated the townscape; towering over the row of single story timber shops which lined the southern side of the street prior and the single story timber buildings housing government and banking services on the northern side. In 1902 a devastating fire swept through the southern side of the street, destroying all of the buildings in this block except the brick Grand Hotel. Following this fire, new and elegant brick shops and a new Palace Hotel were constructed which radically altered the appearance of the street and more closely matched the style and detail of the Grand Hotel.
Photographs taken in the early 1900s show that the hotel had decorative cast iron balustrading on the verandahs and a widow's walk at the peak of roof. A 1902 photograph shows a single story brick building with a corrugated iron roof to the rear of hotel as well as a small building with a chimney to the rear of that building. These are presumably service buildings and it is not known if these were part of the new construction or had belonged to the former hotel building. By 1908 the verandah had been extended to the eastern elevation which gave a covered way along the western boundary of the site at ground level. By this time the centre of Childers was a thriving commercial centre and had many new commercial buildings including the Federal Hotel built in 1907-8, across the road from the Grand, by William Ashby.
In 1896 the railway line linked Childers to Cordalba, and later extended on to Dallamil and Booyal, which helped to build the number of settlers in the area and brought more people into Childers for shopping and recreation. As the sugar industry developed, the population of the district was swelled enormously by seasonal workers who came in to cut the cane harvest by hand. Special Saturday trains were laid on to take workers into Childers for shopping and to return them late at night. This influx of business contributed in a major way to the prosperity of the town. The closure of some mills in the Interwar period and the changeover to mechanical harvesting in the 1960s substantially reduced this influx of seasonal labour and the change to road transport saw the closure of rail link to Booyal closed in 1955 and to Childers itself in 1964. The town currently supports two operational hotels, the Hotel Childers and the Grand Hotel.
","criteria":"The Grand is one of a number of hotels which were erected in Childers within a few years of each other in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a provider of food, accommodation and entertainment, the number and size of hotels in a town were used as an indicator of the prosperity of a district. The Grand, as the earliest of the surviving hotels in Childers, illustrates the unprecedented growth then occurring in the Isis, when Childers was emerging as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
|The Grand Hotel, by its siting, form and detail is a good example of a late nineteenth century hotel.
|The hotel is a landmark in the main street and the roof has been frequently used as a vantage point for taking photographs of the town. By its scale, form, materials and detail it contributes to the architecturally coherent and picturesque townscape, acting as a visual termination to the visual rhythm of the main shopping block.
|Although some of the decorative elements of the hotel have been removed, it has a special association with Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich as a fine example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15384,"place_ref":600609,"name":"Jeffery's Building","alternate_name":"R & D Meats and DJG Fruit & Vegetable shop; Foodland; Childers Medical Centre; Jefferys Building","street_address":"66-70 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Jeffrey's Building is a single story row of masonry shops on the south side of Churchill Street, Childers main street adjoining the Palace Hotel. In common with other shops on this side of the street, it has a corrugated iron roof concealed by a parapet which is topped by a classical revival pediments and urns, each tenancy being marked by a separate triangular pediment. The central pediment is raised and carried the words 'Jeffery's Building' and the date '1902'in raised letters.
The awning across the footpath is now cantilevered and the building has modern shop fronts. The section of the building occupied as a medical practice has had the shop front reconstructed to resemble its original form.
","history":"The Jeffery's Building was erected in 1902 for Childers businessman Alfred Charles Jeffery following the fire that destroyed most of the south side of Churchill Street, the main street of Childers. It may have been designed by Bundaberg architect, FW Faircloth who was responsible for much of the new building following the fire the effects of which transformed Childers main street from a pioneer frontier township of timber and iron structures to the established centre of the flourishing Isis district with its new more substantial masonry buildings.
Childers is located in what was once the heart of the Isis Scrub. Following logging of the dense Scrub in the 1870s, Childers was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
1902 was a very dry year and Childers had no fire brigade. In 23 March, a catastrophic fire swept through the south side of the main street in town, where virtually all the buildings were timber and closely built. Those stores destroyed were: S Oakley, bootmaker; FD Cooper, commission agent; R Graham, fruiterer; ME Gosley, tailor; Foley, hairdresser; M Redmond, Palace Hotel; WB Jones, auctioneer; W Couzens, fruiterer; H Newman, general storekeeper; WJ Overell and Son, general merchants; P Christensen, cabinet maker; W Hood, stationer; T Gaydon, chemist; W Lloyd, hairdresser; Mrs Dunne, fruiterer; Federal Jewellery Company; Dunn Bros, saddlers; H Wegner, bootmaker. The Bundaberg architect F H Faircloth was engaged to redesign many of the replacement buildings and called the first tenders in June 1902.
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building in Bundaberg. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers.
The land (resub 7) containing 1 rood 6.87 perches was acquired by Amy Jane Thomason in 1894 after its subdivision by Charles Powers and Frederick John Charlton. She then sold it to Alfred Jeffery in 1898. Timber shops can be seen on this site in photographs taken before the fire, although it has not been possible to verify what businesses occupied them. After the fire there was some adjustment of boundaries to properties along the burned section and new Certificates of Title were issued.
The new buildings were masonry rather than timber, a choice no doubt influenced by the fire. The shops were elegant single story buildings with large display windows and awnings across the footpath supported by decorative posts. The use of classical revival pediments, urns, and balustrades on all the shops created a pleasing rhythm along the street while allowing individuality to each premises. Tenancies were also marked by the visual separation of the facades by the use of separate pediments. Jeffery's Building shares these features with the hotel and slightly later shop which flank it.
This building appears to have been meant as three different tenancies, however, the way in which the building has been occupied has not always conformed to this. In 1904 two tenancies were occupied by a wine merchant and in 1908, the building was shared by Garland's furniture warehouse and a café run by Stephen Crowe which continued to operate from here for many years. The property was purchased in 1909 by Mary Gaydon, though continuing to be leased out. In 1937 it was subdivided into two blocks and Stephen and Theodore Crowe purchased sub 1, which no doubt contained their café. However, in 1945 this was reacquired by the Gaydons who held the property until 1963 when it was sold to Jack Kasses. After a resurvey in 1975, the block was divided into 4 blocks, three to the street and a small block as the rear of the property. They were then sold to different owners. At this time, Boys Ltd, who were then operating in the large shop adjoining, purchased lot 3 and extended into one bay of Jeffery's Building. This section is now separate again and is a medical practice. The fruit shop and butchers which occupy the other two shops in Jeffery's Building are long term tenancies.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history representing evidence of the development of Childers in the early twentieth century in particular, the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s following the 1902 fire. Together with much of the southern side of Childers main street it provides clear evidence of the impact of fire on Queensland towns where adequate water supply and fire services were lacking.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 1900s country town masonry commercial buildings, in particular the awnings, shop fronts, lanterns, and overall form.
|It contributes to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact
|It has a special association with the life and work of Bundaberg architect FW Faircloth who was responsible for much of the appearance of the town of Childers in the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15385,"place_ref":600610,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":"Ye Olde Boutique; Wrench & Cobb; Childers Travel World","street_address":"50 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Queensland National Bank building is single story rendered brick building designed to fit an irregularly shaped corner block on the main street of Childers. It has a hipped roof concealed by a stepped parapet and an imposing, classically influenced street elevation. This is separated into bays by pilasters and features a heavy triangular pediment above an arched entrance flanked by a pair of matching arched windows. The upper section of the wall is finished with rough cast render. The entrance doors appear to be original, having a pair of semicircular glass panes echoing the arches of door and windows and large brass and timber handles.
The elevation to Ashby Lane is very plain with a parapet which conceals the roof and slopes away to the rear. It has two sash windows shaded by sun hoods, as does the other side which now faces the ANZ bank across a narrow laneway.
The interior of the building has timber ceilings and plastered walls. It retains the main features of the original layout including the manager's office, a strong room and part of the teller's counter and cash drawers. A further office has been constructed in the corner of the former banking chamber. A small hall leads into the former bedroom which has been divided by a partition wall into a kitchen and store, possibly in the 1970s.
The bank building itself is very close to its original appearance in form and interior layout, however, a large modern concrete block building has been constructed to its rear and is connected to it by a passageway. This extension is currently occupied by an accountant, pathologist, restaurant and veterinary surgery.
","history":"The former Queensland National Bank is a masonry building in the main street of Childers and was the second building used by this bank on this site. It was erected in 1919 to the design of Maryborough architect POE Hawkes.
The Queensland National Bank was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous 19th century banks. It was established in March 1872 by a group of prominent Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or intercolonial control. Its first office was established in Queen Street, Brisbane in that year and the bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage. In 1879 it secured the whole of the government's banking business. By 1880 it held 40% of deposits in the colony and dominated the Queensland economy. This was not, however, the first bank established in Childers, the Bank of North Queensland and the CBC Bank both being present in the 1890s and erecting premises in the newly emerging sugar town in 1900.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted by Maryborough interests in the 1880s as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey and Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub. The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also provided the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie, completed in 1890. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By this time, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the centre of a substantial sugar-growing district. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board (1886) was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
Whilst Queensland in general was slow to recover from the depression of the early 1890s and the 1893 banking crisis, the growth of commerce in Childers was attractive to banking institutions contemplating expansion. The Queensland National Bank initially rented a timber commercial building on this site, together with an adjacent timber house as a residence for the bank manager and opened for business on 9 July 1900. In 1909 they purchased this property and in 1919 erected a new and more prestigious building to the design of Maryborough architect, POE Hawkes. An undated floor plan in the National Australia Bank archives shows what appears to be the current building. It has counters surrounding a public area, a room for clerical use behind them, a specially reinforced strong room, a manager's room and a bathroom and bedroom for the bank officer to the rear. The bank was constructed by a Mr Steffensen at a cost of £1645 and the previous building was sold for removal.
Architect Philip Oliver Ellard Hawkes was born in 1882 in NSW and worked in Perth, Launceston and Melbourne. Moving to Queensland, he worked briefly for the Works Department in 1909 before setting up his own practice in Bundaberg and Maryborough in 1910. He designed a number of premises for the QN Bank: most of these were simple timber buildings, although the Kingaroy branch was a two storey masonry building, also in a classical revival style. This also featured round headed arches as do the Carroll building and Carrollee hotel in Kingaroy, which were also designed by Hawkes.
In 1943, a wartime rationalisation of branches in smaller centres resulted in the Commercial Banking Co. and the Queensland National Bank closing their Childers branches. The QN branch closed on 18 January 1943 and the property was purchased by Wrench and Copp, an accounting firm. It was probably then that the bank counters were removed and a further small office built into the corner of the former banking chamber. In 1948, the QN Bank merged with the Bank of Australasia, later the National Australia Bank, who already had premises on the opposite side of Churchill Street. In 1973 the former QN Bank building was purchased by the current owners who and operated it for many years as a clothing shop called Ye Olde Boutique. It is now the premises for a real estate agency and travel agency.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank building is important in illustrating the development of Queensland because it was purpose built as premises for a bank formed to serve Queensland interests and needs when the state was a self-governing colony. The quality of its design and construction also demonstrate the importance of this regional branch at a time when Childers had established itself as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, from the reassuring conservatism of the classically influenced design, to the layout which provided a reinforced strongroom and allowed for staff accomodation.
|As a well designed and detailed building it contributes to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact.
|It has a special association with the life and work of Maryborough architect POE Hawkes, who designed a number of banks for the Queensland National Bank, of which this is one of the most substantial. It is also associated with the development of the QN Bank, the earliest of Queensland's indigenous banks.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15387,"place_ref":600612,"name":"Shops and Cafe 54-58 Churchill Street","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"54-58 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"54-58 Churchill Street is single-storeyed rendered masonry building with pitched corrugated iron roofs, comprising four internally disparate shops which are united by a common parapet and awning. The building is similar in materials, scale and parapet features to other commercial buildings on Churchill St. It is located on a bend at the eastern end of the street, and contributes significantly to the picturesque townscape of the street.
The building sits on a wedge-shaped block, and has a truncated eastern frontage. The different shops reflect their different uses: no 54 is a small shop with a single display window; no 56 comprises two shops, a former bank, more generously proportioned than its neighbour, which has a rendered masonry street facade, and a narrow shop with a two display windows and a central entrance; no 58 is a large skylit cafe with two entrances and three display windows.
The street facade which links these shops comprises a substantial parapet, a flat sheet metal awning, shopfronts combined with a rendered brickwork facade. The awning is supported on turned timber posts which have an idiosyncratic variety of bases. It has a pressed metal ceiling with rich geometric floral motifs, and metal roses which are centred over each shop entrance. The front parapet has prominent features, with three recessed and framed panels topped with arched and triangular pediments rising above a deep cornice. The panels are spaced with expressed piers, and shaped parapet tops run between the pediments.
The building has fine intact display windows, with delicate timber beading around broad glass panels, recessed entrances with timber double doors, and timber stall risers. No 58 has a central bay supported by two internal columns with fanned capitals. Nos 58 and the shop at no 56 also retain their internal glazed and framed panels to the back of the display windows. The former bank at no 56 has barred rectangular windows with toothed white cement-rendered surrounds.
No 58 has a generously proportioned and impressive internal space, with a high timber lined half-raked ceiling with metal roses, a central rectangular clerestory skylight and exposed hammerbeam trusses. No 58 also has a timber lined and sheeted "clubroom" to the rear which is externally clad in weatherboard. The shop at no 56 has a flat timber boarded ceiling with several evenly-spaced funnel-shaped skylights which have been sealed over. The former bank at no 56 also has a timber lined ceiling, with metal roses, and contains a now disused rendered concrete strong room. All of the shops have areas of diamond-patterned ceramic tiled floors.
54-58 Churchill Street has a fine decorative facade, awning and shopfronts. No 58 has an aesthetically impressive interior, whilst other interiors appear to relate strongly to their former uses. The building makes a significant contribution to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street, in its location, form, scale, and materials.
","history":"54-58 Churchill Street, comprising three shops and a cafe, was erected c1912 in Childers' main street, for local farmers Robert Gant and William Brand.
The town of Childers grew up around a railway terminus opened in 1887 to facilitate timber getting in the Isis Scrub. By 1903, when the Isis Shire Council was formed, Childers had become the administrative centre of a prosperous sugar growing region with several local sugar mills and a large seasonal population, including, until the turn of the century, Kanaka labourers, who came to cut cane. From the 1950s increasing mechanisation in the sugar industry resulted in a decreasing population. In the 1980s, Childers, whilst remaining a "sugar town" also became known as a "heritage town", with much of the main street being listed by the National Trust as part of a conservation area.
In common with a number of other Queensland towns, Childers was surveyed as a private town rather than by surveyors appointed by the colonial government. In the 1890s much of the main street, including this site, was subdivided into small allotments. The site (known as resub 9) was acquired by William Thompson and Robert Dinnie of Childers in 1895 from Frederick John Charlton and Henry Jardine Gray. In the following year it was transferred to Robert Hancock; after his death in 1898, it passed to trustees. By 1900 a single skinned timber shop, probably known as Cocking's store is known to have been on the site. In March 1902 fire destroyed many of the shops along the southern side of Childers' main street, which were subsequently replaced by masonry buildings. The timber store on resub 9 was, however, spared.
In 1908, the property was acquired by Gant and Brand. By 1912, the timber shop had been replaced by the existing masonry building, believed to have been designed by Bundaberg architect, FH Faircloth, who was responsible for the design of many of the new buildings erected after the 1902 fire. In that year, resub 9 was subdivided. Sub 1 (nos 54 and 56) remained with Gant and Brand; sub 2 containing the Marble Cafe (no 58) was acquired by John Comino.
The Comino brothers, John, Paul, George, and Arthur arrived in Childers from the Greek island of Kythera in the early 1900s. Soon after they established a fruit and refreshment business in the town, apparently at 102 Churchill Street (QHR 600629). The Marble Cafe was established in the new building erected by Gant and Brand. The business comprised a fruit shop, wine bar, and cafe, which catered to the large population of workers associated with the surrounding sugar farms. The cafe was furnished with silky oak fittings, potted palms, and tables with Italian carrera marble tops, which gave the cafe its name. The cafe was run by Paul Comino until his death in 1978, after which time the fittings were sold.
Sub 1 (nos 54 and 56) remained in the ownership of Gant and Brand, and their respective estates, until 1959. It is not clear whether this part of the building was erected as one or a number of shops. However, it appears, that by the 1930s, it contained the three existing shops. For twenty years from the early 1930s, part of no 56 was leased to the Union Bank of Australia Ltd (now the ANZ Bank). Alterations including the installation of bars over the bank windows (part of no 56); the installation of a glazed shop front to the adjoining shop (part of no 56); and alterations to the awning of the building including sheeting the timber soffit with pressed metal may have been carried out about this time. Tenants of the other shops at this time were tailor, A Crossley (54) and the local newspaper, the Isis Recorder (part of no 56), who remained a tenant until the 1980s, taking over the bank premises as well from the 1950s. More recently, the shop at no 54 was used as electoral offices for the local Parliamentary members.
Since 1959, when Paul Comino acquired the three shops, members of the Comino family have owned the four premises comprising the building. The shops are currently occupied by a florist (54), St Vincent de Paul (56), a dress shop (56), and the Marble Cafe (58).
","criteria":"The shops and cafe at 54-58 Churchill Street, Childers, erected c1912, are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the development of Childers in the early 20th century as a properous timber and sugar town, forming the heart of the Isis Shire, and in particular the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of both an early 1900s country town commercial building in general (in particular the parapets, awnings, shop fronts, and overall form) and early 1900s Childers commercial buildings in particular, (in particular the form, scale, and materials).
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Childers community and visitors alike, including the spatial proportions, exposed trusses and clerestory lighting of no.58 which contribute to an impressive shop interior; the fine decorative parapet, awning, and shopfronts; and the building's significant contribution in form, scale, materials, and details to the architecturally coherent and picturesque Churchill Street streetscape and townscape.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of the Comino family, a characteristic Greek immigrant trading family; with the local newspaper, the Isis Recorder; and with Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth, as an example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15388,"place_ref":600613,"name":"Childers RSLA Club","alternate_name":"RSSAILA Club | Commercial Banking Company of Sydney","street_address":"55 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Childers RSLA club house is prominently located on the northern side of Childers main street, Churchill Street. It is a two story timber building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. The facade detail is intact and features front verandahs to both levels supported on paired posts. These have slatted balustrading and decorative valancing to both storeys. The central entrance, which originally led to the banking chamber, is reached by steps to the verandah through a two storeyed porch. The verandah sides on the upper level have been enclosed by fibrous cement panels.
The ground floor is used as a bar and club rooms and the first floor is used as a club manager's residence. There is a modern single storey extension to the rear which accommodates function rooms. The ground floor contains rooms which were offices and the former banking chamber which has an adjoining masonry strong room retaining its steel door. There is a corner fireplace faced with marble in what was probably the manager's office. A similar fireplace is on the upper floor. This floor is reached by stairs on each side of the building. At least one is a nicely detailed timber staircase with turned balusters etc.
There are Honour Rolls on the ground floor for Isis District (World War One with additions for World War Two), Doolbi and Horton (World War One with additions for World War Two), and the CSR Childers Sugar Mill (World War One only).
","history":"The RSLA Club was erected in 1900 as the Childers branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Limited. The bank was originally designed by architect James Percy Owen Cowlishaw as a single story building which in 1908 was raised to two storeys with the banking chamber located on the ground floor and manager's residence on the upper level.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey and Childers was developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also provided the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district: in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board (1886) was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
Whilst Queensland in general was slow to recover from the depression of the early 1890s and the 1893 banking crisis, the growth of commerce in Childers was attractive to banking institutions contemplating expansion. CBCS Bank opened its first branch in Childers, in rented premises, in 1897. Together with the Bank of North Queensland, who opened its branch in 1895, they were the first to capitalise on the need for banking facilities in the newly emerging sugar town. The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney was formed by New South Wales interests in 1834; establishing its first Queensland branch at Maryborough by 1860. Within a few years it had constructed a substantial masonry building in Brisbane. It is not known from which premises the Childers branch operated initially, as the Bank did not acquire the present site until April 1899. By March 1900, its new purpose-built banking chambers were close to completion. A photograph shows the new bank to have been single storeyed.
Architect James Percy Owen Cowlishaw was architect to the Commercial Banking Company and designed many of its buildings in Queensland. Born in 1867 he trained with architect J J Clark and in 1885 he joined the Public Works Department for a short time as a cadet, returning to Clark's office in 1887. By 1896 he was in practice on his own account. Remaining in practice until the 1920s, his other work is known to have included the Brisbane Gas Co Offices, Petrie Bight and the Lady O'Connell Wing Brisbane Children's Hospital.
In 1908 additions to the bank were carried out which involved raising the existing building and inserting a new storey at ground level with the banking chamber located on the ground floor and manager's residence on the upper level. Work was completed in January 1909. At the same time the bank purchased additional land to extend their frontage to the main street on the eastern side of the building. It is not known if Cowlishaw was the architect for the new work, though this is likely as he is believed to have still been the bank architect at this time.
In 1922 the bank purchased additional land to the west of the building adding to their earlier purchase. On 25 January 1943 the Childers branch of the CBC closed with business sent to Bundaberg; bank correspondence indicating that this was part of a wartime rationalisation of their services. The property was sold to Emma Makin in 1944 and operated briefly as a boarding house. In 1945, it was acquired by the local branch of the Returned Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA). In 1966 the name changed to the Returned Services League of Australia (RSLA). Tthe building remains in use as the branch club house.
","criteria":"The RSL Club building at Childers (formerly the Childers branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney) demonstrates the growth and prosperity of the Isis as a sugar district in the early 20th century and the establishment of banking institutions to serve an expanding rural economy. It also demonstrates the growth of associations for returned service personnel in Australia following two major wars in which many Australians served and their wish to continue wartime comradeship.
|The former bank building demonstrates a common early practice in the design of provincial banks in which accommodation was provided on the premises for the manager and his family.
|The RSLA Club is a dominant feature of Churchill Street and by its scale, form and detail makes an important contribution to the townscape of Childers.
|As an RSLA club house since the end of World War Two to the present, the building has an important association with returned service personnel in the district.
|The building is also associated with the life and work of J P O Cowlishaw as Queensland architect for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney and with the operation of that banking institution in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15389,"place_ref":600614,"name":"Hotel Childers","alternate_name":"Queen's Hotel; The Hotel Childers","street_address":"59 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Hotel Childers is a two storey building with an upper level balcony overhanging the street, between the National Australia Bank [600616] and the RSLA (former CBC bank 600613], on the northern side of Childers main street, Churchill Street.
The ground floor is constructed of timber boards and contains a bar, billiard room, lounge, gaming room and kitchens. Interwar detailing includes a timber staircase, which has been painted, plate rails, moulded ceilings and timber and glass doors and door furniture.
The upper level is clad with fibrous plaster sheeting and has deep balconies at the front and rear. That at the front has timber balustrading and that at the rear has been built in with fibrous plaster sheeting and glass louvres. This floor contains a large central hall with corridors running off it to each side from which the publican's flat and guest bedrooms are accessed. The hall and four of the guest bedrooms open onto the front balcony. There bathrooms on the rear verandah. The walls are of vertical boards and the rooms are ceiled with fibrous sheeting and battens.
Roofs are clad with modern metal sheeting and there is a beergarden and entertainment area to the rear of the hotel.
","history":"The Hotel Childers was built in at least two stages in the late 19th and 20th centuries and is one of several hotels built to serve the prosperous and growing centre of Childers.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50-acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened in 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890 and further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district: in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000.
The growth of the Isis district in the 1890s is reflected in the series of hotels constructed in Childers to accommodate travellers, businessmen and the many seasonal workers in the sugar industry. In 1894 Elijah Kirby purchased land on the northern side of the main street and applied for a hotel license. In 1895 he took out a mortgage for £600, which is probably associated with the building of his hotel. This was a single storey timber building with a verandah along the front and side and was called the Queen's Hotel. Childers was then served by five hotels; the Childers Hotel, moved from Horton in 1887 and on the site of Grand Hotel, the Isis (1892), BelleVue (1895) and Royal (1895). The Palace Hotel was built in 1897 and in 1899 the two storey brick Grand Hotel was constructed. It was the only building to survive a disastrous 1902 fire that destroyed most of the buildings on that side of the main street. In 1902-3 the town centre was rebuilt with fashionable new brick buildings more in keeping with Childers' success. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers. In 1907, the last of Childers Hotels, the Federal, was constructed.
In 1898 the Queen's Hotel was leased to James Thompson for five years. He was to be the first of a large number of licensees, some of whom only ran the hotel for short periods. The hotel also changed hands a number of times, only some of the owners actually running the hotel. By the first decade of the 20th century Childers' other hotels were all two storied and it is thought that the ground floor of the Queen's Hotel was incorporated into a major rebuilding which added a storey to the building. The date at which this occurred is unknown, though changes may have occurred in 1909 when Hilmar Andresen purchased the hotel and borrowed £2000 to do so. However, the hotel had least a major refurbishment in the 1930s, as much of the joinery and detailing in the interior of the hotel is consistent with that date. In 1939, the name of the hotel was changed to the Hotel Childers, possibly to mark this change.
The upper verandah was built in with fibrous cement sheeting for many years, but was reconstructed according to its original appearance in mid 2000. Refurbishment in recent years has also made some changes to the ground floor, including the installation of a gaming room. Much of the original detail remains, however.
","criteria":"The Hotel Childers is one of a group of hotels that demonstrate the rapid growth of Childers in the late 19th and early 20th century. As a provider of food, accommodation and entertainment, the number and size of hotels in a town were used as an indicator of the prosperity of a district. The hotel illustrates the unprecedented growth then occurring in the Isis, when Childers was emerging as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
|The Hotel Childers is hotel is a landmark in the main street that contributes to the architecturally coherent and picturesque townscape of Childers.
|The Hotel Childers is associated with the community of Childers as a public building that has formed part of the recreational life of the town for most of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15391,"place_ref":600616,"name":"National Australia Bank","alternate_name":"National Bank of Australasia | Bank of Queensland | Bank of Northern Queensland","street_address":"61 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The National Australia Bank, a single-storeyed chamferboard building with brick piers and a corrugated iron hipped roof, is located fronting Churchill Street, the main street of Childers, to the south. The building, built parallel to the western boundary, is set back from the street frontage with a lawn area to the east.
The building has a symmetrical parapeted facade above a wide street verandah. The parapet consists of timber pilasters and deep timber cornices, with much of the original fanciful timber work including pediment, finials and scrolls having been removed. The verandah has paired timber posts, a panelled frieze with timber mouldings, a timber rail supported by scroll shaped brackets, and wide timber entrance steps. The twin entrance doors with fanlight are framed by timber pilasters, and the paired timber sashes to either side have wide timber surrounds with deep cornices above.
The eastern side has undergone a number of changes resulting in a variety of window types, including paired sashes to the front banking chamber and hoppers to the rear. The western side has paired timber sashes with timber batten window hoods. The rear has a masonry chimney to the northwest corner.
Internally, the building consists of a banking chamber to the front with a manager's office, store and strongroom behind with a corridor leading to a kitchen area and toilets at the rear. The building has walls of vertically jointed boards, boarded ceilings, and deep timber skirtings and architraves. Doors into the manager's office are without fanlights and have narrower architraves. The masonry strongroom is located on the western side and has a steel door opening to the banking chamber. The rear kitchen area has a timber ceiling rose and fireplace surround. The central section at the rear, housing toilets and passage ways, has a slightly lowered floor level and hardboard ceilings.
A timber paling fence along the street boundary has an early corner post with turned capital at the eastern end.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber building, which initially comprised banking chambers at the front of the building and a manager's residence at the rear, was erected c1900 as the Childers branch of the Bank of North Queensland, established in Townsville in 1888. The Bank of North Queensland was the only bank ever directed from northern Queensland, and was the first to capitalise on the need for banking facilities in the newly emerging sugar town of Childers.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
Whilst Queensland in general was in a slow recovery mode following the depression of the early 1890s and the 1893 banking crisis, Childers offered attractive advantages to any banking institution contemplating expansion. The Bank of North Queensland was the first to seize the opportunity, and in a notice dated 6 September 1895, published in the Brisbane Courier on the following day, the general manager of the Bank of North Queensland, announced that an agency of the bank was now opened at Childers, for the transaction of all usual Banking Business. Joseph Harding Forbes is recorded as having entered the service of the Bank of North Queensland on 10 September 1895 as the first manager of the new branch at Childers.
It is not known from which premises the bank operated initially, as the Bank of North Queensland did not acquire the present site until August 1899. By this time a branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney had been established in the town, opening in rented premises in 1897. The CBC acquired a permanent site in May 1899, and by March 1900, their new purpose-built banking chambers were approximately 6 weeks from completion. This activity may have induced the Bank of North Queensland to erect new premises in the same year.
In August 1900, Brisbane architect HGO Thomas called tenders for the erection of new banking premises at Childers. This is understood to be for the Bank of North Queensland, as the CBC had already erected premises, and the only other bank in the town, the Queensland National Bank, had opened in rented premises in July 1900, and did not erect their own building until 1919.
The Bank of North Queensland building at Childers survived the 1902 fire which razed most of the premises on the opposite side of the street. The town was virtually rebuilt at this time.
In January 1917, the Bank of North Queensland and the Royal Bank of Queensland, established in Brisbane in 1885 to challenge the colonial dominance of the Queensland National Bank, merged to form the Bank of Queensland, and the premises at Childers were retained as a branch of the new bank. When the Bank of Queensland was absorbed by the National Bank of Australasia in 1922, the Childers building became a branch of the National Bank.
By c1948, a verandah had been added along the eastern side and rear of the building, apparently for the use of the manager and his family. In November 1953, the Isis Shire Council approved an application by the National Bank of Australasia Ltd to erect a new bank manager's residence in Childers, and photographic evidence suggests that at this time the living quarters at the back of the building were incorporated into the banking area, the side and rear verandahs were removed, as were the central pediment, finials, and brackets and capitals to the front verandah posts. The new manager's residence, erected at the rear of the bank building, on the block of land facing Crescent Street, does not form part of the heritage listing.
Since 1983, the Childers office has functioned as a branch of the National Australia Bank, formed by the amalgamation of the National Bank of Australasia Ltd and the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd.
","criteria":"The National Australia Bank building at Childers is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history, being erected during a period of unprecedented growth in the Isis, when Childers was emerging as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
|The building has been occupied as banking premises since its construction c1900, and survives as a substantially intact, small, rural, turn-of-the-century timber bank building.
|The building, particularly due to its decorative timber street facade, use of scale, form and materials, contributes to the heritage significance of the Churchill Street streetscape and Childers townscape. The composition and treatment of timber details illustrates a quality and competency of design.
|The place has a strong association with the work of the Bank of North Queensland, which was the first banking institution to open an agency at Childers, in 1895, and has been associated with the National Bank since 1922.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15392,"place_ref":600617,"name":"Ellwood & Co Drapery (former)","alternate_name":"F. Ellwood & Co Drapery | Joys Hairdress | Dimmeys | Boys Department Store","street_address":"62 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Ellwood's Drapery is a single story masonry shop on the south side of Churchill Street, Childers main street. In common with other shops on this side of the street, it has a corrugated iron roof concealed by a classical revival parapet which is topped by a broken pediment flanked by a pair of urns.
The awning across the footpath is now cantilevered and the building has modern shop fronts and a refitted interior. The section of the building occupied as a hairdresser has had the shop front reconstructed to resemble its original form.
","history":"The former F. Ellwood and Co Drapery was erected c1907 for William Brand and Robert Gant following the 1902 fire that destroyed most of the south side of Churchill Street, the main street of Childers. It may have been designed by Bundaberg architect, FW Faircloth who was responsible for much of the new building following the fire, the effects of which transformed Childers main street from a pioneer frontier township of timber and iron structures to the established centre of the flourishing Isis district with its new more substantial masonry buildings.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
1902 was a very dry year and Childers had no fire brigade. In 23 March, a catastrophic fire swept through the south side of the main street in town, where virtually all the buildings were timber and closely built. Those stores destroyed were: S Oakley, bootmaker; FD Cooper, commission agent; R Graham, fruiterer; ME Gosley, tailor; Foley, hairdresser; M Redmond, Palace Hotel; WB Jones, auctioneer; W Couzens, fruiterer; H Newman, general storekeeper; WJ Overell and Son, general merchants; P Christensen, cabinet maker; W Hood, stationer; T Gaydon, chemist; W Lloyd, hairdresser; Mrs Dunne, fruiterer; Federal Jewellery Company; Dunn Bros, saddlers; H Wegner, bootmaker. The Bundaberg architect F H Faircloth was engaged to redesign most of the replacement buildings and called the first tenders in June 1902.
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every important building in Bundaberg. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers.
Photographs taken before the fire show shops of single skin timber construction on this site and this is probably the location of Oakley the bootmaker's premises as his wife, Emma owned the land from 1896. Like the other shops rebuilt after the 1902 fire, the new building was a single storey masonry building with a classically detailed pediment, generous glass window fronts, and decorative columns supporting the awning over the footpath. Unlike many others, it appears to have been designed as a single shop, one of the largest in the main street, rather than intended for a number of different tenancies as other newly built shops were. It is not known if this was the work of Faircloth, but it was at least influenced by his work on other shops.
On completion the shop was leased to William Hood and Frederick William Ellwood as F Ellwood & Co, draper and outfitter. In 1922 it was leased to Herbert Stormonth, another draper. The shop seems to have been consistently used as a drapery and for clothing and in 1976 it was acquired by Boys Pty Ltd of Maryborough, a clothing store with branches in other towns. Boys extended their business into one shop of the group of three in the adjoining Jeffrey's Building. This is now a medical practice. A hairdressing salon now occupies a part of Ellwood's building as a separately owned shop, but the main occupancy is Dimmeys, a clothing store.
","criteria":"The former drapery is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history representing evidence of the development of Childers in the early twentieth century, in particular, the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s following the 1902 fire. Together with much of the southern side of Childers main street it provides clear evidence of the impact of fire on Queensland towns where adequate water supply and fire services were lacking.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 1900s country town masonry commercial buildings, in particular the awnings, shop fronts, lanterns, and overall form.
|It contributes to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact
|It has a special association with the life and work of Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth who was responsible for much of the appearance of the town of Childers in the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15394,"place_ref":600619,"name":"Childers Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"Childers Heritage Shop","street_address":"Bruce Highway","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"The Childers Post Office is located on the corner of Crescent Street and Churchill Street, Childers main street, opposite the court house. It is a single storey timber building set on low stumps with a corrugated iron roof and comprises two sections - the former residence in an earlier building to the east, and the post office proper.
The former residential quarters is situated to the east of the post office and in line with it. There is a projecting bay on the eastern side with a gabled roof and a verandah runs along the front of the residence in line with this. The front wall of a former bedroom opening onto this verandah has been opened onto the verandah to provide for a coffee shop. The post office section is on the corner and is accessed by one of two porches sitting to either side of a projecting gable and reached by timber stairs with timber balustrading. The eastern porch is now linked to the residence by a deck. The windows are shaded by sun hoods on timber brackets.
","history":"The Childers Post Office is a timber post office situated on a corner block on the northern side of Childers' main street opposite the Court House. It was built to a standard government design in 1890 and substantially extended by the Government Architect's Office in 1910, reflecting the growth of Childers and Commonwealth policy to improve the postal facilities of towns associated with agricultural and pastoral expansion. Currently the building operates as a gift shop but continues to provide post office services.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the Scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following the private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
A Post Office first opened in Childers in 1887. In 1890 a purpose built building was constructed and opened on 17 September 1890. It carried on both the post and telegraph office business as well as providing residential accommodation for the post master which was clearly separated from the business part of the building by a picket fence surrounding the front garden. In January 1894, the telegraph office was relocated to the newly opened Railway Station. The quarters were housed in a standard T11 form and the offices in an adjoining double gabled section on the corner. The T11 post office type was a porch and gable style developed during the 1880s and used outside major towns. The form was developed further during 1900 to 1940 and is typical of many post offices of the period. There are only a few examples left of the 19th century form.
Although in 1901 the Commonwealth Post Master General's Dept was created, transfer of responsibility from the colonies to new organisations was gradual. The new Commonwealth administration upgraded buildings and facilities in towns associated with agricultural and pastoral expansion. New post offices were built in some towns and others had facilities upgraded. In 1910, major additions were made to the Childers Post Office. The section of the building used as a post office was modified to a form identified by the 1983 National Estate study of post offices as a type T17 with a twin porch, gable and lantern, a form that became one of the most readily identifiable post office styles. It was architecturally important not only for the forms which developed from it in the 1920s and 30s, but for its visual appeal and the quality of construction and detail with which it was carried out.
In 1971, a new Telephone Exchange and Trunk Line building was erected to take place of the existing manual exchange and provide automatic trunk line switching facilities to surrounding district exchanges. A building to house this was ; building erected on site adjoining the Post Office with access from Crescent Street and there are easements between the two sites. In 1994 the building was sold into private ownership and now operates as the Childers Heritage Shop although some post office services are also continued. In 1999 alterations were carried out to allow the operation of a coffee shop in a former bedroom by opening the verandah on the residence and creating a roof deck section between the verandah and eastern porch of the post office. Paving and landscaping were also carried out to a forecourt area.
","criteria":"The former Post Office is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history, being a government facility erected during a period of unprecedented growth in the Isis, when Childers was emerging as the centre of a substantial sugar-growing district. It was substantially extended during the period before the First World War when the new Commonwealth government made a policy of upgrading postal services to developing agricultural and pastoral communities.
|The earliest section has been identified by a post office study as being one of the few of its type remaining.
|The post office building includes examples of two standard post office types developed by the Government Architect's Office during a period when a high quality of design and finish was achieved.
|The post office, in its scale, form and materials, makes a major contribution to townscape of Childers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15395,"place_ref":600620,"name":"Childers Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Childers Court House is located in the centre of Childers at the corner of Churchill Street (the main street) and Crescent Street. It forms part of a government precinct which includes the nearby Post Office [EHR 600619] and Ambulance Station [EHR 600621].
The earliest 1897 section of the Childers Court House is rectangular in plan form with its long axis set perpendicular to the street. The 1900 addition is attached to this running to the west which also has a rectangular plan form.
The building is a single storeyed and constructed in timber and set on timber stumps and is clad in a combination of weatherboard at the exposed walls and exposed frame in the sheltered areas under the timber verandah. The verandah, which has simple double horizontal rails as the balustrade, surrounds the original section of the building. There is also a verandah on the west end of the addition. There is an access ramp for people with disability attached to the eastern verandah.
The roof forms are gabled and clad in corrugated colourbond. The gables are infilled with vertical boarding which has a scalloped bottom edge and supported at the lower end by an exposed collar tie. The apex of the gable is surmounted by a timber finial.
French doors open onto the verandah in the original section. The windows in this area are double hung and are constructed as part of the exposed frame system. The windows on the addition, which functions as a Court Room, are narrow and at high level down the north and south elevations. These elevations also exhibit ventilation grill that were a part of the original design. Both sections of the building are now air-conditioned with a split refrigerated system.
Both sections of the building are clad internally with tongue and grooved boarding. The ceilings which are in the same material follow the rafter line to the bottom of the collar ties where they become flat. The 1897 building contains offices; the Court Room retains elements of early furniture that include the Judges bench, dock, reporters benches and clerks tables. The interior of the Court Room also displays the trade certificate of the carpenter.
","history":"The Childers Court House is a single story timber building erected in 1897; in 1900 a new court room was added to form a 'T' shaped building. It is one of a number of public buildings (including government and banking) which characterise the northern side of Childers' main street and was the first purpose built court house erected in the newly emerging sugar town.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district: in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board (1886) was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
Prior to the erection of the Court House court sittings were held in the former Land Commissioner's office at the Post Office [Entry in the Heritage Register 600619]. In 1896 the Secretary of the Isis Progress Association wrote to the Home Secretary urgently requesting the building of a court house in Childers as everyone is well aware of the amount of business transacted in the so-called Childers Court House, and everyone will agree with my Committee in their assertions that it fully warrants the erection of a more commodious edifice. According to the Committee there were numberless reasons to justify the building of a court house the most important of which is that the business of the court is not carried out in a manner agreeable to those persons interested such as for instance witnesses who are requested to wait outside in the street away from the hearing of the Court, until their services may be required, and if the weather should prove inclement, the inconvenience and unpleasantness are increased the so much more. My Committee contend that Childers is worthy of a Court House, which would do credit to the town.
In March 1897 tenders for the erection of a new court house at Childers were called; the tender of William Cristine Horton and Louis Bouttell for £306.7 being accepted in August. A drawing stamped 25 January 1897 prepared by the Government Architect's Office shows a single story timber building comprising public waiting area, court room, and an office to the rear surrounded by verandahs on all four sides. Plans for the court room furniture were also included. The Childers Court House is an example of one of a number of court house types developed by the Government Architect for use throughout country Queensland. The use of these types addressed the need for economy but also resulted in a high quality of public building even on this modest scale.
By November the building was almost complete with Inspector of Works Hannington advising that it will be necessary, on account of the site having been changed, to construct a dividing fence to separate the Court House ground from that of the Station Master's house and recommending shifting the front line of split paling fence, and erecting a new front fence of sawn battens, and supplying a bridge over water table. The specification included reference to the purpose built furniture for the court room and the building was to be coloured in a light stone tint and picked out in darker shades as directed.
Soon after, in 1900, additions were made to accommodate the District Court sittings to be held in Childers (in addition to the Police Court work already held). The Clerk of Petty Sessions reported that from his experience it will be necessary to provide two additional rooms (one for the PM [Police Magistrate] and Judge and another for the Jury to retire to). A third room would be convenient for witnesses waiting to give evidence especially to female witnesses who are sometimes subject to unpleasant insinuations cast at them when waiting about the Court. Plans prepared by the Government Architect show the addition of a wing to the western side of the existing building; with the earlier building to be remodelled to accommodate a jury room, the Police Magistrate and Judge's room, and CPS office. The new wing was to contain the new court room. The plans provided for high set windows (presumably to facilitate the privacy of the court) and lowset ventilating grills with existing court room furniture to be reused in the new room. Public access was from a verandah at the western end; official access was provided from the 1897 building (housing the court offices). Tenders for the additions were called in May; George Upham's tender of £256.6 to be completed in three months was accepted.
It is the 1900 reconfiguration of the court house which survives today with the 1900 court room still in use as the Magistrate's Court and the 1897 building used for associated administration. Recent works include the insertion of air-conditioning services and the addition of a ramp entry for disabled access (1995). Other changes include the removal of roof ventilators and a decorative white picket fence (shown in a 1908 photo; replaced by a chain wire fence).
As with other country court houses across the state, the Childers Court House is more than its name implies. Since Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, court houses have been an important symbol of the ongoing settlement of the colony (later the state) as well as in a practical sense a centre for government services. Thus, in addition to its court functions, the Childers Court House (which celebrated its centenary in 1997) is also an administrative centre providing an agency for a number of other state government departments and / or services to the people of the Isis region.
","criteria":"The Childers Court House is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history being erected during a period of unprecedented growth in the Isis, when Childers was emerging as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
Erected in 1897 (major additions 1900), the Court House has served the Isis community for over a century. In common with other country court houses it is associated not only with the administration of justice but also, from the earliest European settlement, as an administrative centre for a range of government services. The building of such infrastructure was a tangible expression of government's recognition and encouragement of the growth of the Isis; the Court House became one of a number of public buildings which characterise the north side of Childers main street.
|The Childers Court House (including court room furniture) is a fine and intact example of a timber country court house.
|The building, particularly due to its use of scale, form and materials, contributes to the heritage significance of the Churchill Street streetscape and Childers townscape.
|Erected in 1897 (major additions 1900), the Court House has served the Isis community for over a century. In common with other country court houses it is associated not only with the administration of justice but also, from the earliest European settlement, as an administrative centre for a range of government services.
|It has a special association with the work of the Government Architect's Office which developed a number of court house types which sought to respond to matters both economic and climatic, as well as providing a high quality of public building even on this modest scale.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15396,"place_ref":600621,"name":"Childers QATB (former)","alternate_name":"Isis District Centre QATB | Childers Ambulance Centre | Childers Neighbourhood Centre","street_address":"69 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former QATB building is located on the northern side of Childers main street, Churchill Street, on the corner of Randall Street. It forms part of a government precinct with the court house located next door and post office in the next block.
The building is in fact two connected low-set single storey buildings, one housing the residence and the other the station and offices. Both buildings have gambrel roofs. The Ambulance station is on the corner and at the street alignment, with the residence set to one side and to the rear. The station has a roller door opening to McIlwraith Street and on the opposite side of the building the roof extends over an entrance porch. It is plain in detail and is lit by sash windows shaded by sunhoods. A small gable facing Churchill Street holds a vertical sign with the word 'Ambulance'.
The residence has a gabled roof which breaks pitch to extend over a sleeping verandah on the eastern side. There is projecting front gable with triple casement windows and the main entrance to the east of this has been widened and is now reached by a ramp. A row of narrow decorative casements, set with pink and green glass, extends along the front wall bedside the entrance and down the eastern side of the house along what was the entrance and sleeping verandah. A subsidiary skillion roof at the rear covers a laundry section.
","history":"The former QATB building is situated on a prominent corner in the main street of Childers. It was erected in 1924 to plans prepared by Leonard Kempster of the Department of Public Works and is a single storey timber building comprising an ambulance station and superintendent's residence.
The Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade began in Brisbane in 1892. It was formed by Seymour Warrian of the Army Medical Corps after seeing an accident victim suffer considerable aggravation of their injuries through inexpert transport to hospital. The Brigade aimed to provide first aid and skilled transport to hospital for the sick and injured. In the first years the Brigade was wholly funded by subscription, but met such an important need that from 1895 they were subsidised by the government, both directly and by involving the Department of Works in the construction of ambulance buildings. In the late 1890s and 1900s they expanded into regional centres. By 1921, a specific layout for ambulance buildings had been formalised into policy. This incorporated a space for vehicles with easy street access, a casualty room, meeting room and sleeping room for ambulance bearers on a ground floor level and residential quarters for the Superintendent above. The Childers ambulance station differs from this scheme in that the rooms provided are the same but the residence is set on ground level slightly behind the station, rather than above it. This may have been so that the station complemented the court house complex and post office nearby.
By the 1920s Childers was the centre of a thriving sugar growing and processing district in the Isis. The area was opened up by logging in the 1870s, followed by development as an agricultural area. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey, Childers being developed by private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district: in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board (1886) was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
The first official hospital in Childers was opened in 1899 and members of the hospital committee acted as ambulance bearers when needed. In 1920, a Mr James Rushton purchased a garage, converted his Model T Ford and began a local ambulance service. He was instrumental in forming a QATB committee in Childers. The 1920s were a period in which public awareness of health issues grew, possibly triggered by the deadly influenza epidemics of the 1919-1920 period. The present hospital in Childers was built in 1929, but an ambulance station was constructed earlier, in 1924.
The Department of Works plans show the ambulance station as comprising a plant room (for the ambulance and equipment), casualty room, bearers' room, board room and superintendent's room. The building was lowset to allow vehicular access from Randall Street. Pedestrian access was via a porch with seating accommodation from Churchill Street. Set to one side and to the rear of the station was the Superintendent's residence linked to the station through the casualty room. Changes have been minor and include an addition to the northern elevation of the plant room (a possibility indicated in the original plans), replacement of the garage doors with a roller door and the replacement of the timber picket fence with a wire fence.
In 1986 the QATB came under the jurisdiction of the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Following plans for the reorganisation of the service, the Brigade was disbanded on 30 June 1991 and the Queensland Ambulance Transport Service was established as part of the Bureau of Emergency Services. QAS constructed a new station on adjoining land in 1999 and offered the old station up for sale. It is now the Childers Neighbourhood Centre.
","criteria":"The former QATB building in Childers is important in illustrating the development of ambulance services in the state, the importance of Childers as a flourishing centre of the Isis, a substantial sugar-growing district, and the support provided by government to both the QATB and expanding agricultural districts.
|It is important as an example of an Interwar ambulance station and residence and demonstrates the quality of design, construction and detail achieved by the Public Works Department during this period.
|The former ambulance station, due to its prominent position in the main street of Childers and its use of scale, form and materials, makes a major contribution to the townscape.
|It has close associations with the people of the Childers district as a community facility and with the work of the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15397,"place_ref":600622,"name":"Federal Hotel","alternate_name":"The Federal Hotel","street_address":"71 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Federal Hotel is a timber two-storey hotel located on the northern side of Childers main street, Churchill Street, at the corner of North Street.
The hotel is approximately L shaped in plan with the roof, core structure and awnings truncated at the corner facing the intersection. It is set on very low stumps and has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron with shallow decorated gables at the centre of each street elevation.
The hotel's major external feature is a two-storey verandah running along both streets, which is supported on paired and single posts with decorative cast iron brackets on both levels. The upper level has panels of cast iron balustrading above a pierced valance. The hotel has several entrances on the ground floor and accommodation on the upper floor, following the usual internal layout of two storey hotels in Queensland.
The principal entrance is at the street corner and opens onto a large public bar through bat wing doors. Leading from this on the North Street side are a further bar and dining area. On the Churchill Street side is a second major entrance leading into a wide hall. This has a billiard room to the left and a central arch leading onto a staircase with turned balusters to the rear. There are sash windows to the ground floor rooms and timber ceilings. Although alterations have been carried out in the bar and dining areas, the hotel is generally intact in detail. There is a single storey kitchen section, which appears to have originally been detached but is now linked to the main building, set behind the dining area.
The upper floor of the hotel contains a guest lounge at the street corner and there is a kitchen and bedrooms leading off the central halls that run along each wing. French doors open onto the verandah and toilets have been added to the upper level at the rear.
There is a beer garden behind the hotel.
","history":"The Federal Hotel is a two-storey timber hotel on a major street intersection at Childers and was constructed c1907 for hotelier William Ashby, following the redevelopment of the town centre after a major fire in 1902.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50-acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
William Ashby, who had arrived in Bundaberg in 1868, owned the first hotel in Childers. He moved to the Isis in the early 1800s and took up a large selection near Horton, building a hotel near the racecourse there. In 1886 he moved the hotel building to Childers and enlarged it as the 'Childers Hotel'. Ashby also acquired adjoining allotments, a store and butchery and was a member of the Divisional Board. The area developed quickly as the coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district: in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000.
The growth of the Isis district in the 1890s is reflected in the series of hotels constructed in Childers to accommodate travellers, businessmen and the many seasonal workers in the sugar industry. These included the Isis, Belle Vue, Royal, Queen's and Palace hotels. Ashby sold the Childers Hotel to Johann Kulick, who replaced it in 1899 with a handsome two-storey brick building called the Grand Hotel. This was the only building to survive a disastrous fire in 1902 that destroyed most of the timber buildings on that side of the main street in town. In 1902-3 the town centre was rebuilt with fashionable new brick buildings more in keeping with Childers' success, many of them to the design of F H Faircloth, a successful Bundaberg architect, who had designed the first Palace Hotel in 1897. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
It is said locally that Ashby approached Kulick in the early 1900s with a view to purchasing the Grand Hotel, before deciding to construct a new hotel diagonally opposite the Grand. The land on which the Federal Hotel is situated was originally granted as a selection to Ernest Dyne but changed hands before being extensively subdivided into town lots in 1892. William Ashby purchased several lots of land on the corner of Churchill and North Streets in 1905 and constructed the Federal Hotel around 1907. He also built a store on the adjoining block. This area of North Street appears to have developed as an offshoot of the nearby shopping area in the main street and was no doubt assisted by the presence of the hotel. The new hotel was very similar in appearance to a Gladstone hotel designed by F H Faircloth in 1900 and may also have been designed by him, as he was then carrying out extensive work in Childers, following the fire.
The hotel was leased to Hugh Carter from 1 January 1908 and it was leased for much of its existence, though it remained in possession of the Ashby family for many years after his death in 1920. It was patronised by canecutters, in the days when the cane harvest was brought in by hand, and later by small crop pickers. In 1968, it was purchased by Earl and Josephine Gillespie, after which it changed hands frequently over the next 20 years, before being purchased by Martin and Barbara Woods in 1989. The current owners have recently undertaken extensive refurbishment.
","criteria":"The Federal Hotel is important as one of a number of hotels which were erected in Childers within a few years of each other in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, illustrating the unprecedented growth then occurring in the Isis, when Childers was emerging as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district. Much of the built character of the town reflects the rebuilding of the commercial centre following a disastrous fire in 1902, when the simpler structures of the early settlement were replaced, largely to the design of architect George Faircloth
|The Federal Hotel, in its corner siting, form, layout and detail, is a good example of a hotel of its era. Change to the hotel has been minimal as the exterior is virtually unchanged and the layout of the interior remains much the same following renovations.
|As a well designed timber building on a prominent corner site, the Federal Hotel is a landmark in the main street of Childers and contributes to the architecturally coherent and picturesque townscape.
|It is associated with the community of Childers as a public building that has formed part of the recreational life of the town for most of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15398,"place_ref":600623,"name":"Palace Hotel","alternate_name":"The Palace Hotel","street_address":"72 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Palace Hotel is a two-storeyed rendered masonry and timber building with corrugated iron roofs. It comprises of a rectangular wing with verandahs fronting Churchill St to the north (c1902), linked by a narrow covered courtyard to a parallel wing to the south (c1902 and c1930s). Externally the building is complimentary in materials, scale and form to other commercial buildings on Churchill St. At the same time, it rises above the predominantly single-storeyed shops on Churchill St, and is prominent in the townscape. The northern wing has ground floor public rooms, with accommodation rooms above. The south wing comprises two adjoining buildings; a service building to the west containing a kitchen to the ground floor and former staff accommodation upstairs, linked by a corridor to a ground floor function room and upstairs hotel accommodation.
","history":"The Palace Hotel was erected c1902 for Malcolm Redmond after a fire destroyed many of the buildings along the southern side of Childer's main street. The new masonry building replaced an earlier two storeyed timber hotel. The new hotel comprised public rooms on the ground floor with accommodation on the upper floor; the detached kitchen was located to the rear, with modest staff accommodation above. A large brick room opposite the kitchen may have operated as a storeroom at this time. In 1932, the hotel was acquired by Corser and Co Ltd, and again was leased. A new second storeyed accommodation wing at the rear to the building may have been added at this time. The Palace Hotel remained as an operating hotel until the 1980s. It is currently undergoing conversion into a backpackers' hostel.
","criteria":"The Palace Hotel is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular it represents evidence of the development of Childers in the early twentieth century, including the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s; and the form, detailing, additions to, and outbuildings of, the hotel are evidence of the evolution of a country town hotel. The Hotel is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a early twentieth century country town hotel with its ground floor public rooms, upstairs modest accommodation, service wing, and significant contribution to a country town streetscape. It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the fine interiors, including the ground floor public rooms, and the building's significant contribution in form, scale, materials, and details to the architecturally coherent and picturesque Churchill Street streetscape and townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15399,"place_ref":600624,"name":"Hardware Store (former)","alternate_name":"Wyper Brothers Ironmongery | Pettigrew's Hardware | Mitre 10, Silly Solly's","street_address":"74-78 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former hardware store extends through three bays of a set of 5 single story masonry shops built conjointly on the south side of Churchill Street adjoining the Palace Hotel. It has a corrugated iron roof concealed by a parapet. In common with a number of shops on this side of the street, this building has classical revival pediments, some curved and some triangular, linked by a balustraded parapet topped by urns. The shop front has been modernised and is shaded by an ogee profile corrugated iron awning supported by posts to the street, although the cast iron valance is no longer present. The interior has been refitted with succeeding tenancies and at present the exterior is painted an unsympathetic vivid yellow.
","history":"The former hardware store is one of a row of conjoining shops situated between the Palace Hotel and Kerr's Buildings. It was erected in 1902 to the design of Bundaberg architect FW Faircloth, following a fire that destroyed most of the south side of Churchill Street, the main street of Childers. Faircloth was responsible for much of the new building following the fire, the effects of which transformed the appearance of Childers.
Childers is located in what was once the heart of the Isis Scrub. Following logging of the dense Scrub in the 1870s, Childers was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
1902 was a very dry year and Childers had no fire brigade. In 23 March, a catastrophic fire swept through the south side of the main street in town, where virtually all the buildings were timber and closely built. Those stores destroyed were: S Oakley, bootmaker; FD Cooper, commission agent; R Graham, fruiterer; ME Gosley, tailor; Foley, hairdresser; M Redmond, Palace Hotel; WB Jones, auctioneer; W Couzens, fruiterer; H Newman, general storekeeper; WJ Overell and Son, general merchants; P Christensen, cabinet maker; W Hood, stationer; T Gaydon, chemist; W Lloyd, hairdresser; Mrs Dunne, fruiterer; Federal Jewellery Company; Dunn Bros, saddlers; H Wegner, bootmaker. The Bundaberg architect F H Faircloth was engaged to redesign most of the replacement buildings and called the first tenders in June 1902.
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every important building in Bundaberg. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers.
Before the fire, photographs show a timber building on this site, however it has not been possible to establish what business was run from the premises. Thomas Gaydon may have operated his first pharmacy from this site in the 1890s although his premises after the fire were located a few doors away at 90 Churchill Street on land also owned by him. The family continued to own the land until 1973 when it was sold to John and Elaine Hughes and then to Ross and Wendy Smith in 1989.
Like other post fire buildings in Childers this set of 5 shops were masonry rather than timber, a choice no doubt influenced by the fire, and were elegant single story buildings with large glass shop fronts. Striped ogee awnings across the footpath were supported by decorative posts with cast iron infill. Each shop had a separate roof, some lit by lanterns and the individual tenancies were also marked by the visual separation of the facades by the use of classic revival pediments, urns, and balustrades. Although this row of shops was designed as five tenancies, two were owned by Albert Gorrie, who conducted a bakery in one and leased the other, and three by Thomas Gaydon, which were occupied as a single tenancy by Wyper Brothers, ironmongers, who also sold furniture and hardware. Pettigrew's Hardware who succeeded them in the 1920s, also used all of the Gaydon owned space, which practice seems to have continued. Although the building has now changed hands several times it has been a hardware store for most of its commercial life. It became Silly Solly's in early 1996.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history representing evidence of the development of Childers in the early twentieth century in particular, the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s following the 1902 fire. Together with much of the southern side of Childers main street it provides clear evidence of the impact of fire on Queensland towns where adequate water supply and fire services were lacking.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 1900s country town masonry commercial buildings, in particular the awnings, shop fronts, lanterns, and overall form.
|It contributes to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact
|It has a special association with the life and work of Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth who was responsible for much of the appearance of the town of Childers in the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15400,"place_ref":600625,"name":"Lloyd's Barber Shop (former)","alternate_name":"Robinson's Newsagency | Diamond Centre Jeweller | Lloyds Barber | Robinsons Newsagency","street_address":"80 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former barber shop is now a jewellers and is one shop within a row of five single story masonry shops built conjointly on the south side of Churchill Street, Childers main street adjoining the Palace Hotel. It has a corrugated iron roof concealed by a parapet and in common with the other shops in this group and other buildings on this side of the street, has a classical revival pediment with a balustraded parapet topped by urns. The interior is lit by a lantern in the roof and appears to have changed little. The shopfront is also much as original and is shaded by an ogee profile corrugated iron awning to the street supported by posts, although the cast iron valance is no longer present.
","history":"The former Lloyd's Barber Shop is one of a row of conjoining shops situated between the Palace Hotel and Kerr's Buildings. It and the adjoining bakery were built in 1902 for Alfred Gorrie to the design of Bundaberg architect FW Faircloth, following a fire that destroyed most of the south side of the main street of Childers. Faircloth was responsible for much of the new building following the fire, the effects of which transformed the appearance of Childers.
Childers is located in what was once the heart of the Isis Scrub. Following logging of the dense Scrub in the 1870s, Childers was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
1902 was a very dry year and Childers had no fire brigade. In 23 March, a catastrophic fire swept through the south side of the main street in town, where virtually all the buildings were timber and closely built. Those stores destroyed were: S Oakley, bootmaker; FD Cooper, commission agent; R Graham, fruiterer; ME Gosley, tailor; Foley, hairdresser; M Redmond, Palace Hotel; WB Jones, auctioneer; W Couzens, fruiterer; H Newman, general storekeeper; WJ Overell and Son, general merchants; P Christensen, cabinet maker; W Hood, stationer; T Gaydon, chemist; W Lloyd, hairdresser; Mrs Dunne, fruiterer; Federal Jewellery Company; Dunn Bros, saddlers; H Wegner, bootmaker. The Bundaberg architect F H Faircloth was engaged to redesign many of the replacement buildings and called the first tenders in June 1902.
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building in Bundaberg. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers.
Prior to the fire, photographs show a timber building on this site, which may have been Overell's Drapery. Following the fire, this land was purchased by Alfred Gorrie. A row of 5 shops were built, two of which were owned by Gorrie and the remaining three were owned by chemist Thomas Gaydon and occupied as a single tenancy by a hardware store. Like other post fire buildings in Childers this set of shops were masonry rather than timber, a choice no doubt influenced by the fire, and were elegant single story buildings with large glass shop fronts. Striped ogee awnings across the footpath were supported by decorative posts with cast iron infill. Each shop had a separate roof, some lit by lanterns and the individual tenancies were also marked by the visual separation of the facades by the use of classic revival pediments, urns, and balustrades.
Gorrie occupied one of his shops himself as a baker and confectioner. This shop was occupied by hairdresser and barber William Lloyd, whose premises had been destroyed in the fire. The shop was leased to another hairdresser in 1930 and then to other commercial tenants. In 1941 Gorrie died and the property passed to Edward Gorrie who sold it to William and Annie McKay in 1958. It was purchased in 1976 by Earle and June Robinson who subdivided the property so that each shop was on a separate title. It was used for many years as a newsagency, although it is currently a jewellers.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history representing evidence of the development of Childers in the early twentieth century in particular, the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s following the 1902 fire. Together with much of the southern side of Childers main street it provides clear evidence of the impact of fire on Queensland towns where adequate water supply and fire services were lacking.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 1900s country town masonry commercial buildings, in particular the awnings, shop fronts, lanterns, and overall form.
|It contributes to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact
|It has a special association with the life and work of Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth who was responsible for much of the appearance of the town of Childers in the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15401,"place_ref":600626,"name":"Bakery","alternate_name":"Sutton's Bakery | Isis Bakery, Childers Hot Bread and Cake Shop | A.E. Gorrie, Baker and Confectioner","street_address":"82 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The bakery is one shop within a row of single story masonry shops built conjointly on the south side of Churchill Street, adjoining the Palace Hotel. It has a corrugated iron roof concealed by a parapet. In common with a number of shops on this side of the street, this building has classical revival pediments, some curved and some triangular, linked by a balustraded parapet topped by urns. The shop front is shaded by an ogee profile corrugated iron awning supported by posts to the street, although the cast iron valance is no longer present.
","history":"The Bakery is one of a row of conjoining shops situated between the Palace Hotel and Kerr's Buildings. It and the adjoining newsagency were built in 1902 for Alfred Gorrie to the design of Bundaberg architect FW Faircloth, following a fire that destroyed most of the south side of the main street of Childers. Faircloth was responsible for much of the new building following the fire, the effects of which transformed the appearance of Childers.
Childers is located in what was once the heart of the Isis Scrub. Following logging of the dense Scrub in the 1870s, Childers was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
1902 was a very dry year and Childers had no fire brigade. In 23 March, a catastrophic fire swept through the south side of the main street in town, where virtually all the buildings were timber and closely built. Those stores destroyed were: S Oakley, bootmaker; FD Cooper, commission agent; R Graham, fruiterer; ME Gosley, tailor; Foley, hairdresser; M Redmond, Palace Hotel; WB Jones, auctioneer; W Couzens, fruiterer; H Newman, general storekeeper; WJ Overell and Son, general merchants; P Christensen, cabinet maker; W Hood, stationer; T Gaydon, chemist; W Lloyd, hairdresser; Mrs Dunne, fruiterer; Federal Jewellery Company; Dunn Bros, saddlers; H Wegner, bootmaker. The Bundaberg architect F H Faircloth was engaged to redesign many of the replacement buildings and called the first tenders in June 1902.
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building in Bundaberg. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers.
Prior to the fire, photographs show a timber building on this site, which may have been Overell's Drapery. Following the fire, this land was purchased by Alfred Gorrie. A row of 5 shops were built, two of which were owned by Gorrie and the remaining three were owned by chemist Thomas Gaydon and occupied as a single tenancy by a hardware store. Like other post fire buildings in Childers this set of shops were masonry rather than timber, a choice no doubt influenced by the fire, and were elegant single story buildings with large glass shop fronts. Striped ogee awnings across the footpath were supported by decorative posts with cast iron infill. Each shop had a separate roof, some lit by lanterns and the individual tenancies were also marked by the visual separation of the facades by the use of classic revival pediments, urns, and balustrades.
Gorrie rented out one of his shops to hairdresser and barber William Lloyd, whose premises had been destroyed in the fire. This shop he occupied himself as A.E. Gorrie, baker and confectioner. In 1930 the shop was leased to Beatrice Sutton who was also a baker and the business was later run as Sutton Brothers, bakers. In 1941 Gorrie died and the property passed to Edward Gorrie who sold it to William and Annie McKay in 1958. It was purchased in 1976 by Earle and June Robinson who subdivided the property so that each shop was on a separate title. The shop has changed hands several times before passing to the current owners, but appears to have always been a bakery. It is now Childers Hot Bread and Cake Shop.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history representing evidence of the development of Childers in the early twentieth century in particular, the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s following the 1902 fire. Together with much of the southern side of Childers main street it provides clear evidence of the impact of fire on Queensland towns where adequate water supply and fire services were lacking.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 1900s country town masonry commercial buildings, in particular the awnings, shop fronts, lanterns, and overall form.
|It contributes to the picturesque townscape of Churchill Street which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact.
|It has a special association with the life and work of Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth who was responsible for much of the appearance of the town of Childers in the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15402,"place_ref":600627,"name":"Kerr's Building","alternate_name":"Kingston and Kingston | Crow & Kingston | Kerrs","street_address":"84-86 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-25","description":"Kerr's building fronts Churchill Street, the main street of Childers, to the north with rear access off Macrossan Street to the south. The single-storeyed masonry building is located within a cohesive group of predominantly 1900s shops with street awnings and decorative rendered facades. The building has a ribbed metal gabled roof with a central clerestory skylight to the east and west which has been boarded up.
The rendered street facade is surmounted by a parapet with a heavy cornice and raised central pediment, supporting three urns, with EST 1902 in relief. The two shop fronts have face brick with aluminium framed glazing, with a recessed entry to the west tenancy and central corridor. An aluminium awning is slung from the facade replacing an earlier ogee awning on timber posts.
Internally, the building has a central corridor with office space to the west, with a hairdresser behind, and a coffee shop to the east. Walls are rendered masonry or partition. There is a suspended ceiling throughout the building.
At the rear, is an attached timber shed which is partitioned with a tenancy to the west and a store room to the east. It has a timber floor which is at a higher level than the front building, and no ceiling.
","history":"Kerr's Building was erected c1902 for Amelia Gertrude Overell, after a fire destroyed many of the shops along the southern side of Childers' main street.
The town of Childers grew up around a railway terminus opened in 1887 to facilitate timbergetting in the Isis Scrub. What became the main street was subdivided into small allotments in the 1890s. In 1893, Frederick John Charlton and Henry Jardine Gray sold 36 perches to Ellen Delaney. In 1898 the property was sold to Mrs Overell. It is not known what shops existed on the site at this time although J Delaney and later WJ Overell and Sons operated draperies in Childers. In March 1902 a fire destroyed the timber shop on the site, which was replaced by the existing masonry building. After the fire the southern side of the street was resurveyed resulting in the blocks becoming doglegged in shape.
In 1907 merchants and importers, Crow and Kingston, acquired the site. After the winding up of the company of Crow and Kingston Ltd the site was purchased by cousins Jack and Bill Kingston, who operated the store as Kingston and Kingston, merchants and importers, drapers and grocers. The site remained in the Kingston family until 1974 when it was transferred to Marjorie Ann Kerr. In that year, the shop was extensively remodelled. This work included internal partitioning, boarding up of the skylight, installation of a suspended ceiling, re-concreting the floor, and the remodelling of the front awning.
In 1977 the property was transferred to the present owners, who operate a real estate office. Alterations were carried out c1990 to enable the letting of various parts of the building. Existing tenants include a coffee shop and a hairdresser.
","criteria":"Kerr's Building, Childers, erected c1902, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, illustrating the development of Childers in the early 20th century.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Childers community, in particular its unity in form, scale and materials within the cohesive group of adjoining early 1900s shops; and its contribution to the streetscape of Churchill Street and to the Childers townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15403,"place_ref":600628,"name":"Gaydon's Buildings","alternate_name":"Gaydon's Pharmacy: Gaydons Pharmacy | Childers Pharmaceutical Museum & Tourist Information Centre","street_address":"88-90 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gaydon’s Buildings is a two story masonry building in a row of shops on fronting the south side of Churchill Street, Childers main street. It is a rectangular building with its long axis (north-south) at right angles to the street and has twin gabled roofs, with lanterns, clad in corrugated iron and concealed by a parapet. It incorporates two buildings (rebuilt 1902, combined and extended 1911) separated by a masonry firewall; the pharmaceutical museum (former chemist) to the west is wider than the dental surgery to the east.
\nThe decorative upper front façade is symmetrical and, in common with a number of shops on this side of the street, has classical revival style pilasters, entablature and pediment, with a balustraded parapet topped by urns. The date 1894 is shown in raised letters on the pediment with the name GAYDON’S BLDGS below. The upper floor is also lit by a pair of multi-paned windows with arched heads and moulded architraves to the street and plain double-hung sash windows at the rear. The ground floor shop fronts for the pharmaceutical museum and dental surgery are of varying designs and widths, and have separate entrances. They are shaded by an awning to the street lined with decorative pressed metal.
\nThe rear of the building is facebrick at ground floor and rendered with an ashlar finish to the upper floor. The upper level windows are arranged symmetrically around a centred doorway, which is accessed by timber stairs. Separate rear ground floor doorways access the pharmaceutical museum and dental surgery, which has a one story skillion-roofed extension (1927, former dark room) to the rear.
\nThe ground floor of the pharmaceutical museum interior is laid out with a shop at the front and offices and dispensary area to the rear. The upper floor has been incorporated into the adjacent dental surgery, with openings formed in the dividing masonry wall. The interior is extraordinarily intact and includes partition walls, furniture, fittings, counters, shelving, drawers and their contents and stock. Equipment such as the cash register and dental chair and tools and account and prescription books belonging to (former) Gaydon's Pharmacy are preserved. The whole forms an archive of information on the operation of an early twentieth century pharmacy. 137 items from the Wickham House pharmacy in Brisbane have been added to the collection.
\nThe ground floor of the dental surgery contains a reception / waiting room, administration office, surgery and workshop. The upper floor is accessed internally by an enclosed timber staircase that is located within the pharmaceutical museum. The western side of the upper floor contains a staffroom, records room, bathroom and compressor / suction room; the eastern side contains surgery and consultation rooms. Some early interior stop-chamfered timber stud walls, clad with tongue-and-groove (T&G) timber boards, are retained in the reception (fixed vertically), and staffroom and records room (fixed horizontally).
\nCeiling are generally lined with T&G timber boards. The ground floor ceilings feature square timber lattice vents and evidence of the original location of the lanterns, including a pressed metal panel (west side) and a moulded timber frame (east side). The upper floor ceilings feature round timber ventilation roses and centrally positioned roof lanterns (relocated 1911) that are lined with moulded timber (west side, larger) and T&G boards (east side).
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBuildings is one of a row of shops erected in 1902 to the design of Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth, following a fire that destroyed most of the south side of Churchill Street, the main street of Childers. Faircloth was responsible for much of the new building following the fire, the effects of which transformed the appearance of Childers. Extended to two storeys in 1911, the building housed Gaydon’s chemist and dental surgery (established on the site c1894), and several other important services to the town. Dentistry continues to be practiced at the premises and the former chemist, retaining extremely intact contents, became a pharmaceutical museum in 1989.
\nChilders is located in what was once the heart of the Isis Scrub. Following logging of the dense Scrub in the 1870s, Childers was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey; Childers developed following private subdivision at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887, and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
\nThe coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
\nThomas Gaydon arrived in Childers in 1894 and established 'The Isis Pharmacy' on behalf of Thomason Bros Co (Brisbane chemists). Born in Drayton in 1869, Gaydon completed his apprenticeship with JL Hodgson in Toowoomba, and was awarded the College of Pharmacy silver medal upon passing his Pharmacy Board examination in 1890. After several years as a branch manager with Thomason Bros Co, he established their Childers business as one of the first shops in the main street; clearing dense scrub prior to its construction on high ground opposite the post office. The 24ft x 20ft shop carried ‘drugs, patent medicines, toilet requisites and perfumery [and] also a large assortment of horse and cattle medicines’. Gaydon lived on site and the business offered dentistry, in addition to servicing the pharmacy needs of the community ‘at any hour of the day or night’.[1]
\nThe exact date Gaydon assumed ownership of the business is unknown; however, in September 1899, resub 18 of sub 3 of portion 870, was transferred to Thomas Gaydon and William Hood (tobacconist and stationer) as joint tenants. This was probably the land on which their adjoining timber shops were built.
\n1902 was a very dry year and Childers had no fire brigade. In 23 March, a catastrophic fire swept through the south side of the main street in town, where virtually all the buildings were timber and closely built. Those stores destroyed were: S Oakley, bootmaker; FD Cooper, commission agent; R Graham, fruiterer; ME Gosley, tailor; Foley, hairdresser; M Redmond, Palace Hotel; WB Jones, auctioneer; W Couzens, fruiterer; H Newman, general storekeeper; WJ Overell and Son, general merchants; P Christensen, cabinet maker; W Hood, stationer; T Gaydon, chemist; W Lloyd, hairdresser; Mrs Dunne, fruiterer; Federal Jewellery Company; Dunn Bros, saddlers; H Wegner, bootmaker. The Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth was engaged to redesign new premises and called tenders for the erection of eight brick shops, including Gaydon’s, in June 1902.
\nFrederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building in Bundaberg. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers.
\nThe new shops were masonry rather than timber, a choice no doubt influenced by the fire, and were elegant single story buildings with large glass shop fronts. Striped curved awnings across the footpath were supported by decorative posts with cast iron infill. Each shop had a separate roof, some lit by lanterns and the individual tenancies were also marked by the visual separation of the facades by the use of classic revival pediments, urns, and balustrades. Gaydon's Buildings with its broken semi-circular pediment matched the adjoining Hood's shop to the west.
\nIn September 1911 the tender of Bundaberg builder WC Horton was accepted to add an upper storey to the building for a new dental chamber and mercantile offices. Faircloth was the architect for the addition.[2] The addition included the narrower adjoining shop to the east, so that a new and larger decorative, symmetrical façade with pediment, parapet, pilasters, and moulded entablature and string courses was created. A photograph dating from around 1913 shows that other tenants, including a bootmaker and the New Zealand Insurance Company, used the eastern side of Gaydon's Buildings. The upper floor was lit by relocated lanterns in the double gable roofs and a pair of large arched compound windows, and so had excellent light for its use as a dental surgery by Thomas Gaydon, who in addition to his work as a pharmacist, also practised as a dentist, photographer and anaesthetist to the local hospital. He was a public spirited man and also served as president of the Chamber of Commerce, School of Arts, hospital and School committees at various times. He was the second chairman of the Isis Shire Council in 1919 and served in this role again between 1924 and 1930.
\nChanges to Gaydon’s Buildings in the first half of the 20th century included the replacement of the original shopfront awning with a steel suspended awning, and removal of the original posts and brackets c1910s. In 1927 Gaydon added a skillion-roofed darkroom to the rear of the building, for the processing of photographs as an agent for Kodak. The entrance to the eastern shop was remodelled prior to 1948, partially closing in the shop window.[3]
\nFollowing the death of Thomas Gaydon in 1935, the property was transferred to his two sons, T. Geoffrey Gaydon (a dentist) and S. Noel Gaydon (a chemist) who both practised from the premises. In 1938 Mervyn G Hooper joined the staff as a chemist and went into partnership with Noel Gaydon in 1956. When Noel Gaydon died in 1966, Hooper continued the business and the property was transferred to his wife in 1973. In 1982 Mervyn Hooper died and the then pharmacy was operated as a gift shop (with all pharmaceutical material retained) by his widow Isbell (known as Isa) Hooper. In 1987 the shop ceased trading and was sold.
\nThe Shire leased the building, after purchasing the contents, catalogued items and carried out conservation work. In 1989 Gaydon’s Pharmacy opened as a pharmaceutical museum with an art gallery on the upper floor. The work undertaken by the Isis Shire Council to prepare the building for use as a museum, tourist office, and gallery received a National Trust of Queensland John Herbert Award for Conservation Action in 1989.
\nDentistry continued to be practiced at the premises following the death of Geoffrey Gaydon in 1969: by William Steele, until 1991; Michael Kelly Wiseman, until 1994; and by Dr Brett Phillips, the current building owner. The gallery and tourist office were relocated in 2002, and substantial renovations were undertaken to the dental surgery at that time. The pharmaceutical museum is currently run by the Isis Historical Society and known as the Old Pharmacy, with the building managed in partnership between the current owner and the Bundaberg Regional Council.[4]
","criteria":"Gaydon’s Buildings is important in demonstrating the provision of pharmaceutical and dental services in regional Queensland. Established as a chemist and dentist c1894, rebuilt in 1902 and extended in 1911, the building retains important surviving evidence that documents its early and continued use.
\nThe building is important in showing the development of Childers in the early 20th century and in particular the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s following the 1902 fire.
|Gaydon’s Buildings is one of only a few pharmaceutical museums in Australia and is very rare in retaining a high level of its own early fittings, equipment and stock.
|Gaydon’s Buildings has the potential to contribute considerably to an understanding of the work of early dispensing chemists, particularly in country towns where they might provide a wide range of services. Analysis of its extensive collection of early fittings, equipment, stock and documentation could be undertaken to address research questions relating to the social and medical aspects of pharmaceutical and related services in early 20th century regional Queensland.
|Designed by Bundaberg-based architect FH Faircloth, Gaydon’s Buildings is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 20th century country town masonry commercial buildings, in particular the awnings, shop fronts with large windows and recessed entrance, lanterns, and overall form. The intact symmetrical front façade (1911) incorporates classical design elements including decorative pediment, parapet, entablature, arched windows and pilasters. The original configuration of two adjoining buildings (built 1902, combined and extended 1911) is evidenced by the double gable roof form, individual shop fronts, rear elevation and internal arrangement with dividing masonry firewall.
|With its elegant, symmetrical composition, incorporating classical elements, Gaydon’s Buildings has aesthetic significance due to its beautiful attributes and contributes to the picturesque appearance of Churchill Street, which is both remarkably architecturally coherent and intact.
|Gaydon’s Buildings has strong associations with the Childers community as a provider of pharmaceutical, dental and photographic services since its establishment in the late 19th century. The subsequent partial use of the building as a pharmaceutical museum run by the community is evidence of its social value to the community.
|Gaydon’s Buildings has a special association with the life and work of Thomas Gaydon, prominent community figure and chemist, dentist, anaesthetist and photographer to the Childers area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15404,"place_ref":600629,"name":"Shops at 102-108 Churchill St","alternate_name":"Coronation Building","street_address":"102-108 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"102-108 Churchill St comprises two pairs of single-storeyed rendered masonry shops with pitched corrugated iron roofs. The shops are united by a common parapet and awning. The building abuts the two storeyed Grand Hotel to the west, and continues the line, scale and form of awnings and parapets of Churchill St to the east. Nos 102 and 104 are modest shops with arched brick voussoirs and hipped roofs to the rear, while nos 106 and 108 are longer skylit shops with concrete lintels and parapeted gables to the rear.
The shops have a gently curved corrugated iron awning supported on an exposed timber frame and square posts. Like many awnings on Churchill Street, it creates a space of generous proportions. The posts have an idiosyncratic variety of bases. Ornamental detail to the building includes cast iron valances and trim to the awning, and flat-ended pediments rising above the cornice line, which are interspersed with gabled capping to externally expressed piers. The parapet is a modest version of the pedimented parapets further along Churchill Street.
The tall shop fronts to nos 106 and 108 have large timber beaded display windows and recessed central timber french doors. The shopfronts are separated by rusticated piers. The display window to no 106 is particularly fine and intact, retaining its timber stall risers, internal glazed and gridded timber panels and external coloured and frosted glass panes above the display area. Both shops have recessed timber french doors, tall fanlights, and fanned patterns in the ceiling panels above the door. Internally, nos 106 and 108 are impressive shop spaces with high ceilings, a central clerestory skylight and exposed Queen post trusses. The ceilings are timber boarded, half-raked, and have square lattice vents.
Nos 102 to 104 have flat timber boarded ceilings with central sheeted areas indicating that skylights have been closed off. The floors have patterned sections of ceramic tiles towards the front of the shops. The shopfront to no 102 is timber beaded with a central recessed entry, while the shopfront to no 104 has been more recently replaced with aluminium sliding doors.
102-108 Churchill Street contains two impressive shop interiors (106, 108), fine shopfronts, and contributes in form, scale, and materials to the architecturally coherent Churchill Street streetscape.
","history":"This set of four shops was erected in two stages in the early 1900s in Childers main street for Johann Wilhelm Albert Kulick, owner of the adjoining Grand Hotel. The first set of two (102 and 104) was erected between 1902 and 1907, the second set of two (106 and 108) was erected c1913.
The town of Childers grew up around a railway terminus opened in 1887 to facilitate timber getting in the Isis Scrub. By 1903, when the Isis Shire Council was formed, Childers had become the administrative centre of a prosperous sugar growing region with several local sugar mills and a large seasonal population, including, until the turn of the century, Kanaka labourers, who came to cut cane. From the 1950s increasing mechanisation in the sugar industry resulted in a decreasing population. In the 1980s, Childers, whilst remaining a "sugar town", also became known as a "heritage town", with much of the main street being listed by the National Trust as part of a conservation area.
In common with a number of other Queensland towns, Childers was surveyed as a private town rather than by surveyors appointed by the colonial government. In the 1890s much of the main street, including this site, was subdivided into small allotments. In 1894, Frederick John Charlton and Henry Jardine Gray sold the site containing 1 rood 17.39 perches to William Ashby. Ashby also owned the adjoining block on which stood the Childers (later Grand) Hotel. In 1897 the property was sold to Kulick. A single storeyed timber store known to have been on the site by 1900, may have been financed by a mortgage for £800 Kulick took out in 1897. In March 1902 fire destroyed many of the shops along the southern side of Childers' main street, which were subsequently replaced by masonry buildings. The timber store, then known as Martin's auction rooms, was however, spared.
By 1907, the timber shop had been replaced. The first set of two masonry shops (102 and 104) was erected on the eastern side of the site. About this time, the Comino Bros established a fruit and refreshment business in no 102; no 104 was occupied by the local newspaper, the Isis Recorder. By c1913, the second set of shops was erected, with Dittmer's Book and Stationery store occupying no 106 for some fifty years. Existing tenants are Weller's Shoe Shop (102), two cafes (104, 108), and a real estate office (106).
The shops were purchased by the Comino brothers in 1925. Their fruit shop was then moved from no 102 to no 108, where it remained until the 1960s. John, Paul, George, and Arthur Comino arrived in Childers from the Greek island of Kythera in the early 1900s. Soon after they established the fruit and refreshment business in the town, and later the Marble Cafe (QHR 600612) at 58 Churchill Street, which Paul Comino ran, until his death in 1978.
","criteria":"The Shops at 102-108 Churchill Street, Childers, erected in the early 1900s, are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the development of Childers in the early 20th century as a properous timber and sugar town, forming the heart of the Isis Shire, and in particular the rebuilding of the south side of the main street in the early 1900s.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of both an early 1900s country town commercial building in general (particularly the parapets, awnings, shop fronts, overall form and, in the case of Nos 106 and 108, the interiors) and early 1900s Childers commercial buildings in particular, (particularly the form, scale, materials and, in the case of Nos. 106 and 108, the interiors).
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Childers community and visitors alike, in particular the spatial proportions, exposed trusses and clerestory lighting of Nos 106 and 108, which contribute to impressive shop interiors; the fine intact shopfronts, in particular of No 106; and the building's contribution in form, scale, and materials to the architecturally coherent and picturesque Churchill Street streetscape.
|It has a special association with the life and work of the Comino family, a characteristic Greek immigrant trading family, and with the Dittmer family (106).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15405,"place_ref":600630,"name":"Dittmer's Store/Isis Town and Country","alternate_name":"James Butler | Butler & Ker | Dittmers","street_address":"92-94 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Dittmer's Store fronts Churchill Street, the main street of Childers, to the north with rear access off Macrossan Street to the South. The single-storeyed masonry building, with an ogee shaped corrugated iron awning, is located within a cohesive group of predominantly 1900s shops with street awnings and decorative rendered facades. The building has a corrugated iron gabled roof with a central clerestory skylight to the east and west.
The rendered street facade is surmounted by a parapet with a heavy cornice, balustrade and a rounded broken pediment supporting a single urn. The shop front has a central recessed entry with display windows to either side and a pressed metal ceiling with fixed arctic glass windows above.
The rear of the building is of face brick with supporting piers and barred windows. A freestanding brick toilet block is located adjacent to the rear entry to the building, and the rear of the site is grassed.
Internally, the building has a horizontal boarded ceiling which is raked from four sides in the centre to the clerestory skylight. Walls are rendered with some partitioning at the rear and the floor is concrete.
","history":"Dittmer's Store was erected c.1902 for chemist, Thomas Gaydon and stationer and tobacconist, William Hood, after a fire destroyed many of the shops along the southern side of Childers' main street.
The town of Childers grew up around a railway terminus opened in 1887 to facilitate timber getting in the Isis Scrub. What became the main street was subdivided into small allotments in the 1890s. In 1894, Frederick John Charlton and Henry Jardine Gray sold some 32 perches to tinsmith, James Slater. In 1899 the property was sold to Gaydon and Hood. In March 1902 a fire destroyed the existing timber shop, which may have been operated by Slater and later, Hood. Soon after the southern side of the street was resurveyed resulting in the blocks becoming doglegged in shape. The new masonry shop was occupied by Hood, whilst next door the partners erected a second store (QHR 600630b). After a second fire in the 1920s, the shop was operated as a men's mercer by LR Stevens and Benjamin Foley. Later it became an electricians shop, then a toy shop and sports store. In 1929 the shop was purchased by Thomas Gaydon's wife, Mary and remained in the Gaydon family until 1970 when it was purchased by the present owner.
","criteria":"Dittmer's Store, Childers, erected c1902, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, representing the development of Childers as a prosperous timber and sugar town, forming the heart of the Isis Shire, in the early 20th century.
Isis Town and Country, Childers, erected c1902, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, representing evidence of the development of Childers in the early 20th century as a prosperous timber and sugar town, forming the heart of the Isis Shire.
|It [Dittmer's Store] is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 1900s country town commercial building, in particular its intactness it forms part of a cohesive group of adjoining early 1900s shops.
It [Isis Town and Country] is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 1900s country town commercial building, and forms part of a cohesive group of adjoining early 1900s shops.
|It [Dittmer's Store] is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Childers community, in particular its interior, clerestory skylight, and decorative facade; its unity in form, scale and materials with the adjoining Town and Country store [600630b]; as part of a cohesive group of adjoining early 1900s shops; and its contribution to the streetscape of Churchill Street and to the Childers townscape.
It [Isis Town and Country] is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Childers community, in particular its unity in form, scale and materials with the adjoining Dittmer's Store [600630a] and as part of a cohesive group of adjoining early 1900s shops, and its contribution to the streetscape of Churchill Street and to the Childers townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15406,"place_ref":600631,"name":"The Old Butcher's shop complex","alternate_name":"Wrench and Thompson butchers | Leatherarts | HR Lassig butchers","street_address":"6 North Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The old Butcher's shop complex is located in North Street a short distance from Churchill Street and the Federal Hotel. The site comprises masonry butchers shop and adjoining timber shop with a dwelling at the rear.
The main shop is constructed of brick and is a rectangular building with its long axis at right angles to the street. It has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron and concealed by a parapet featuring a raised central section with an arched top, similar to shops in Churchill street. The shopfront is divided into two tenancies and has large display windows between and flanking the two panelled doors. It is shaded by an awning supported on two pairs of posts and is tiled at street level. The tiles are a glossy moss green with panels of geometric and stylised floral tiles in reds and greens beneath each window. Beside the windows at each side of the shop front are inset white feature tiles painted with the images of a bull and a ram in blue.
The adjoining shop is a simple timber building with an exposed stud frame and corrugated iron gabled roof. It also has a corrugated iron street awning which is supported on plain timber posts. Behind the shop is a timber dwelling which was not inspected. The butcher's shop includes fittings and furniture from its use as a butcher.
","history":"The Old Butcher's Shop complex is located just off the main street of Childers and near to the Federal hotel. The complex includes the former brick butcher's shop, an adjoining timber shop and a dwelling act the rear. It served several generations in Childers as a butcher's shop.
Following logging of the dense Isis Scrub in the 1870s, Childers, in the heart of the scrub, was promoted in the 1880s by Maryborough interests, as an agricultural district. The land in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Childers was surveyed in 1882 into 50 acre farm blocks. There was no official town survey and Childers developed following private subdivision of land at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. This was opened on 31 October 1887 and was intended principally to facilitate the transport of timber from the scrub.
The coming of the railway not only promoted the development of the town of Childers; it also proved the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district in the late 1880s. At the opening of the railway to Childers, Robert Cran, owner of Maryborough's Yengarie mill, announced that he would erect a double crushing juice mill at Doolbi, to supply his mill at Yengarie. This was completed in 1890, with the juice being brought in railway tankers from the Isis. Further expansion of the sugar industry in the Isis was closely related to the activities of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which erected a central crushing mill in the district 1893-94, and began crushing in 1895. By 1895, at least three other mills had been established in the Isis, with another two under construction, and Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing district.
The land on which the shops are situated was originally granted as a selection to Ernest Dyne but changed hands before being extensively subdivided into town lots in 1892. William Ashby, a hotelier, bought subdivisions 1 and 3. It is not known if he built on this land and subdivided and sold the section on which the butchers shop stands in 1905, before building the Federal Hotel on the corner of Churchill and North Streets in 1907. This area of North Street appears to have developed as an offshoot of the nearby shopping area in the main street and was no doubt assisted by the presence of the hotel. The facade of the Old Butcher's shop bears the date '1896' which may refer to the establishment of either a butchery on this site, or of the establishment in trade of the proprietor. Given the similarities between this building and those erected in the main street after the 1902 fire, the building may well have been built during this era of reconstruction in the town rather than in 1896. although the timber building adjoining it may well have been an earlier butcher
In 1905 the property was transferred to Eliza Wrench, wife of Robert Wrench who is listed in the Post Office Directory as manager of Childers Cash Butchery, although a 1907 photograph of the shop shows the name of the proprietors as Wrench and Thompson. Wrench had been a butcher in Childers since 1896, though by 1907 he was also acting as an insurance agent and may have run the New Zealand Insurance agency in the timber building. He eventually worked only as an insurance and commission agent and valuer. The land was divided into two and that with the butcher shop complex was sold in 1911 to Hermann Lassig, also a butcher. His change to the signage of the building consisted simply of substituting his name for that of Wrench & Thompson and removing the New Zealand Insurance hoarding. The front of the shop in this and the earlier photograph show an open front to the shop. It is not known when the closed and tiled shopfront was installed.
In 1915 the property was purchased by Daniel and Peter O'Regan, Daniel having been a butcher in Childers since at least 1900. In 1921 it was bought by the partnership of Robert Gant, William Branch, Richard Webb and William Webb and also run as a butchery. In 1928 it was purchased by Alexander Adie, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Isis Central Mill, who was to own five butchers shops. Adie died in 1940 and in 1944 the business became Stehbens Bros butchers, then Frank Slack, Butcher, before becoming Kings Meats Pty Ltd in 1962. Mr King was the last butcher to operate from the shop after a continuity of use that lasted over 60 years.
The shop is said to have been used as an iceworks and was empty for some time before being purchased in 1976 by Leonard and Cheryl Derley who used it to establish a leathergoods and pottery business and several government agencies. The shop was bought in 1988 by Anita Campden-Main who opened it as a museum and tourist attraction. The property was sold in 1996 and is currently being offered for rent.
","criteria":"As a handsome masonry commercial building in the commercial centre of Childers, the shop illustrates the change which took place in many Queensland towns as the simple timber and corrugated iron buildings of frontier settlement were replaced by more sophisticated premises as towns became stable and prosperous. The timber shop which adjoins it underlines this contrast. It is also an example of the fashion for building in brick in many country towns following the terrible fires which devastated commercial centres during the 'King' drought of the early 1900s, caused by a combination of closely-built timber structures and a water supply insufficient for fire-fighting.
|(Criterion under review)
|It contains much of its original equipment which has the potential to provide information on the way in which meat was processed for public sale and the equipment available to butchers, such as sausage machines, brine pumps, presses and mincers.
|The old Butcher's Shop complex in Childers is an exceptionally good and intact example of this kind of premises.
|The shops, particularly the masonry butcher's shop, which is constructed in a style similar to the rows of shops in Churchill Street, make a major contribution to the character of the streetscape of Childers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15407,"place_ref":600632,"name":"McCowat's Farm","alternate_name":"Koodla | McCowats Farm","street_address":"McCowat Road","suburb":"GARRADUNGA","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"McCowat's Farm comprises 9.032 hectares of land approximately 2 kilometres west of Garradunga, a small settlement in the northern part of the Johnstone district on the former main road linking Innisfail with Cairns. The surrounding land use is mainly cane farms and the North Coast rail line passes near the north eastern corner of the property. Approximately two-thirds of the property is rainforest. The main buildings and structures on the farm include the main residence, the cottage, the former cane barracks, and the implement shed.
\nThe residence is a high set four room bungalow with wrap around verandah on four sides. It has a rear annex showing typical elements of a raised two room workers cottage.
\nA symmetrical staircase with dowel railings leads from the ground to a porch coming off the front verandah. The wrap around verandah has two rail dowel balustrades on the north, south, and west sides. The east side of the verandah is enclosed with casement windows and corrugated iron. Storage areas, clad in corrugated iron with two sash windows each, are contained on the south-east and south-west corners of the verandah. There is a 1980s addition of toilet and shower in the centre of the west side of the verandah. Aluminum blinds are fixed externally on the north, east and west sides of the verandah and there a wall of lattice is present as the northern ground floor wall.
\nThe main section of the residence has exposed-stud framing lined internally with vertically jointed tongue and groove timber. Internal ceilings are lined, with unlined external verandah ceilings. Internally there are four rooms (3 bedrooms and a sitting room) and a hall. Internal doors have paired rectangular panels above and below the waist and are reportedly constructed of solid oak. The external doors, two doors leading from each of the three bedrooms to the verandah, are French doors, low waisted with 2 rectangular glass top panels and fanlights. The two doors of the rear bedroom have extra security measures consisting of metal wire sliding doors. There are no doors leading to the verandah from the living room. Italian Muranese glass has reportedly been used for fanlights, casement windows and colonial windows. The house sits on concrete stumps and there is a concrete floor underneath. The roof of the main residence and annexe is galvanised iron. The house is oriented north.
\nA small gabled annex to the main residence contains a kitchen, living area and bathroom and is joined to the rear verandah of the main residence by a short footbridge. The rear north eastern corner of the annex contains the bathroom and a set of stairs exits the annex at the rear, or south side of the building. The annex is externally clad in corrugated iron and the kitchen/living area is internally lined with pine boarding and hardboard. Only the partition walls in the bathroom are lined internally. Records indicate the framing of the annex is Pendar, a local rainforest hardwood. It is externally clad in corrugated iron and has two window shades and aluminum fixed blinds over sash windows on the eastern side.
\nA range of original furniture is present inside the residence, including dining tables, one constructed of large panels of oak, two double and one single cast iron bed, wardrobes and dressing tables, a baby's folding feeding chair and claw bath ensemble.
\nAn iron tank sits above a corrugated iron clad shed containing a shower room at the rear of the west side of the annex. To the south east of the annexe is a dog's grave marked with a cross shaped headstone and a lily garden. Oral history indicates a number of family dogs are buried here.
\nFive hundred metres to the south west of the main residence is the cottage. This is a low set three roomed gable roofed cottage with enclosed front verandahs. External walls are clad with fibrous cement sheeting and internally the walls are clad in a combination of fibrous cement and corrugated iron with timber floors. A corrugated iron lean-to is attached to the west side of the building.
\nThe cottage is raised on short concrete stumps. Three concrete steps lead to the front door. Ornamental cast iron work is attached to the base of the front wall. Three panel casement windows are present either side of the front door and there are three four panel sash windows on each side of the cottage.
\nThe implement shed is located to the west of the main residence. It is constructed of bush timber and clad in corrugated iron. A range of agricultural machinery is contained within the shed, including items such as a 1930s Caterpillar tractor and other old tractors, corn grinders, cane planters and an icy ball refrigerator.
\nThe cane barracks are a long, low-set building located at the front (northern) end of the property. They are constructed of bush posts with hardwood rails, clad in corrugated iron with no internal lining. The external iron has been painted red and the roof is galvanized iron. A bedroom wing runs east/west containing five bedrooms with internal partitions of corrugated iron, each opening onto a north facing verandah. Each room has a window on the southern side consisting of timber frames lined with corrugated iron, hinged as awning sashes. The north/south wing contains one large room which forms the kitchen and dining area, which also opens onto the northern verandah. A large 10-person table constructed of 2 boards, each 55 cm wide, is present in the dining area.
\nA grave stone is located c.9 metres south-east of the south-east extent of the main residence. The grave stone comprises a square concrete slab with a marble cross mounted on it and a brass plaque with the inscription: In Loving memory of Alice Bonar McCowat, Died 2 August 2006, Aged 81; belonging to God and among friends.
\nThe rainforest covers approximately two thirds of the property and forms an impression of a green curtain to the west of the farming complex. Typical species that make up this type of rainforest are described as Acmena graveolens, Alstonia scholaris, Archontopheonix alexandrae, Argyrodendron peralatum, Backhousia bancroftii, Beilschmiedia tooram, Castanospermum australe, Cryptocarya corrugata, C. grandis, C. hypospodia, C. mackinnoniana, Diploglottissmithii, Dysoxylum papuanum, D. parasiticum, D. pettigrewianum, Elaeocarpus angustifolius, Endiandra palmerstonii, E. pubens, E. sankeyana, Ficus racemosa, F. septica, Gmelina fasciculiflora, Helici nortoniana, Intsia bijuga, Musgravea heterphylla, Myristica muelleri, Palaquium galactoxylum, Syzigium cormiflorum and S.kuranda. At the time the place was entered into the Queensland heritage register no tracks were present into the rainforest on the property to preserve the rainforest flora and fauna.
","history":"McCowat's Farm comprises a residence, cottage, barracks, implement shed and remnant rainforest, representing the surviving core of a 120 acre cane farm operated by Thomas McCowat from 1926/7. The farm was subsequently subdivided into its current size for Thomas McCowat's retirement. The property contains the grave of McCowat's daughter Alice who died in 2006.
\nIn the early 20th century Garradunga, a small settlement in the northern part of the Johnstone district on the former main road linking Innisfail with Cairns, was a sugar production area.Innisfail (known as Geraldton until 1911), was founded as the port of Geraldton in 1880 by Thomas H Fitzgerald, who had arrived on the banks of the Johnstone River to grow sugar cane on a 10,000 hectare land grant funded by the Catholic Bishop Brisbane and All Hallows' Sisters of Mercy.. Others arrived soon after and a community was soon established with an economy based firmly on sugar production. A number of sugar mills operated in the Johnstone district: the Innisfail Estate Sugar Mill began crushing in 1881 but was closed by 18851; the Queensland Sugar Company's Innishowen Mill commenced on the Queensland Estate in 1883 and closed in 1891; Goondi Mill first crushed in 1885 and closed in 1986; the Mourilyan Mill opened in 1884; and the of the South Johnstone Mill was established in 1916. The South Johnstone mill remains operational. Mourilyan mill was so badly damaged by Cyclone Larry in March 2006, it was closed later that year.
\nDuring the early 1920s Garradunga became a staging point for the transport of goods and passengers travelling north/south by rail until the section of the North Coast Rail Line between Garradunga and Innisfail was completed in 1924. The Goondi Mill 2 foot gauge tramway, which connected the cane fields of the Johnstone district with the Mill near Innisfail, provided a temporary transport link connecting a 'missing section' of the north coast railway between Garradunga and Daradgee. The rail link transported a large number of passengers in the early 1920s (108,458 during 1921-22) but passenger use declined dramatically due to the advent of motorcars and during the Depression. By 1935 passenger use had dropped to 5-6,000 per year. The rail continued to provide an important transport link between the cane farms, the mills and the port at Mourilyan. In 1929, 92% of goods carried on the tramway were sugar or cane.
\nThe opening of the Brisbane to Cairns railway line took place in 1924 with the completion of the north Johnstone Bridge. This gave further impetus to the development of the Johnstone Shire. In the 1920s the district was producing record yields of sugar, and the prosperity engendered by this is reflected in the many substantial buildings erected in the district in the 1920s and 30s. Between 1920 and 1930 the total population of the Shire ballooned from 5,549 to 18,088 people. The number of recorded dwellings also rose during this time, from 700 to 3,130. Sugar production was regarded as the mainstay of production and white settlement on the north Queensland coastline.
\nThomas McCowat immigrated to Australia in 1904, aged 20, having been brought up at a Presbyterian orphanage in Scotland. He worked in the Presbyterian Ministry in Toowoomba before serving as the Presbyterian Minister in Herberton in 1909 and 1910. On 7 July 1909 he married Mary Barrie Outerson, a recent arrival from Musselburgh, Scotland. Mary reputedly suffered from tuberculosis and died on 13 March 1923 in the Herberton Hospital. Thomas and Mary had two children, aged 8 and 10 when Mary died. It was during Mary's illness that Thomas left the Ministry and worked as a fettler on the railway in Johnstone Shire, to fund Mary's hospice.
\nThomas married Alice Robina Bonar, a descendant of a mining family living in Herberton, in 1924. They had one child, Alice, in 1925. According to family oral history, as a result of Mary's health issues, Thomas was determined to provide comfortable living arrangements for his second wife.
\nThomas and Alice McCowat purchased 120 acres from Mr Ramlock, in 2 instalments on 16 July 1926 and 28 January 1927, for a total of £247, although family oral history indicates that the McCowat's had been farming in the Johnstone district in the 1920s prior to the purchase of McCowat's Farm. They named the residence Koodla, an Aboriginal word meaning shady place and continued the farms operation in sugar production.
\nA Mr Purdy, builder, from Innisfail, had erected the main section of the house in 1920 but what is now the kitchen/bathroom annexe appears to be an early style workers cottage, which was possibly erected at an earlier time. It appears that the annexe was joined to the main house when it was built in 1920. The residence was located on what was then the main road between Cairns and Innisfail. In 1936 the residence (main section and annexe) was dismantled and re-erected approximately 1 km away on its present site, which was the centre of McCowat's Farm, at a cost of £145 by carpenter F Shellback.
\nThe McCowat's lived in the cottage at the rear of the property when the main residence was moved to its present location. The cottage is of similar construction to the kitchen/bathroom annexe to the main residence, being a typical three room gable roof cottage. It is recorded as being constructed prior to 1920, and used as the original canecutters' barracks. The verandah was enclosed in 1936, presumably when the McCowat's lived in it.
\nThe barracks, typical of five roomed canecutters' barracks, and the implement shed, were erected in 1930. The barracks accommodated canecutters working on the McCowat's property and also was rented out to cutters working on nearby properties.
\nThomas McCowat managed the property until he died in 1963. The farm was subdivided in 1962 prior to his death, and the block containing the residence, cottage, barracks and rainforest was transferred to his wife and daughter. Following Mrs Alice Robina McCowat's death in March 1976, the property was transferred to her daughter, Miss Alice Bonar McCowat. Alice died on 2 August 2006 and is buried on the property. Her grave is marked with a simple square concrete slab, with a marble cross mounted on it, and a brass plaque with the inscription: In Loving memory of Alice Bonar McCowat. Died 2 August 2006, Aged 81; belonging to God and among friends. A seashell on the grave symbolises pilgrimage.
\nThe remnant rainforest on McCowat's Farm is a rare type of vegetation, classified by Paul Sattler and Rebecca Williams in The Conservation Status of Queensland's Bioregional Ecosystems as 7.8.1, complex mesophyll vine forest that grows on very wet and wet lowlands and foothills, on basalt derived soils in the Wet Tropical coast. Its biodiversity status is recorded by the Wet Tropics Management Authority as 'of concern' and is known to contain a number of rare or endangered floral species and is a known cassowary habitat. It is estimated that only 10-30% of the original extent of this type of vegetation survives, due to extensive clearing for agriculture. The lowland basalt soils were favoured for agricultural production as they had the optimum growing conditions of rainfall, fertility, topography and temperature.
","criteria":"McCowat's Farm is important in demonstrating the development of the sugar industry in north Queensland, particularly in the Johnstone district.
|The combination of main residence, cane barracks, early workers cottage and remnant rainforest vegetation represent a rare, uncommon or endangered aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The complex of farm buildings, specifically the residence, cottage, implement shed and cane barracks, demonstrate the principal characteristics of sugar cane farms.
|The place has aesthetic value, in particular the high-set Queensland bungalow style residence and the surrounding remnant rainforest vegetation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15408,"place_ref":600633,"name":"Jondaryan Woolshed","alternate_name":"Jondaryan Station","street_address":"264 Jondaryan Evanslea Road","suburb":"JONDARYAN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Jondaryan Woolshed is located about 3 kilometres south of the town of Jondaryan on a flat area close to Oakey Creek. It is now a focal point within the Jondaryan Woolshed Historical Museum and Park. In addition to the woolshed and associated shearers' quarters (now separated from the remains of the original Jondaryan Homestead by Evanslea Road), the complex is home to a number of relocated buildings from the district.
The woolshed is a large T-shaped building consisting of a main section running approximately east west, with a short stem of the T facing north. It is constructed of timber with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and is set within a system of timber yards.
The main section of the building houses the pens, board and wool classing areas. It has a central space with side aisles and timber trusses support the roof. The walls are clad with timber slabs, both original and recent replacements for the vertical corrugated iron sheeting which clad the walls of the west wing. The floors are timber with spaced boards in the pens to allow sheep droppings to fall through. The wool classing area has a rolling table for the fleeces, and has been extended over time.
The central section to the north has a small projecting gable formed by an extension of the roof which houses the pulleys of the wool-bale loading hoist. This area was a wool storage area that led from the classing bins and the wool presses in the same wing.
The shearers' quarters is a rectangular timber framed building to the rear of the woolshed. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and walls clad in vertical corrugated iron sheeting. It has a verandah running the length of one side supported on timber posts. Doors open onto this. At the rear are top hinged corrugated iron shutters. It is used for accommodation.
","history":"The Jondaryan Woolshed was built in 1859-60 to replace an earlier, smaller woolshed and was part of the complex of buildings comprising Jondaryan pastoral station. Jondaryan was established in the early 1840s during the first European settlement on the Darling Downs. In 1972, the then owner of the property offered the woolshed and 12 acres of land to the people of Jondaryan. As a result the Jondaryan Woolshed Historical Museum and Park Association was formed in 1976 and since that time the place has been developed as a tourist attraction.
The Darling Downs was visited in 1827 by botanist and explorer Alan Cunningham. A demand for land was growing as free settlement increased and Cunningham reported favourably on the potential of the area for grazing. European settlement was delayed for some years, however, because the presence of the penal colony at Moreton Bay restricted access to the area. In the 1830s pastoral settlement in New South Wales pushed northwards as graziers looked for new land and in 1840 the first sheep run was established on the Downs, to be rapidly followed by others. Henry Dennis chose land between Oakey Creek west to Myall Creek as a pastoral run in 1840. Although he had come to the Downs looking for suitable land for others, he failed to register this run, which he had reputedly wanted for himself, and in 1842 Charles Coxon took it up. Coxen sent his nephew Henry to run the property and it was he who named the place 'Jondaryan', thought to be a corruption of the Aboriginal name for a large lagoon. Henry Coxen established the first simple homestead in 1844, but built a new one later that year on the site of the present homestead, now separated from the woolshed by Evanslea Road, to avoid the lightning strikes experienced at the first location. He also constructed other buildings including a small shearing shed.
In 1845, the Coxons gave up the property and for some years southern investors owned it. The run originally consisted of 13,000 acres but land was added and by 1855 it comprised 128,000 acres. Robert and Edwin Tooth, who were also founders of the Tooth brewery, the Colonial Sugar Refining Company and the Bank of New South Wales, purchased Jondaryan for £30,000 in 1856. The Tooths began to buy large sections of the run under their pre-emptive rights to purchase their leased land. In 1858 the partnership of Kent and Weinholt, which owned adjoining properties, sub-leased Jondaryan, managed by James C White.
It was an era when wool prices were high and the pastoral industry was buoyant. Kent and Weinholt began a program of extending and improving facilities on Jondaryan. Between 1859 and 1861, 7 men worked for a total of 40 weeks cutting slabs and shingles. Large quantities of timber was also pit sawn into planks. A considerable amount of building was undertaken including that of a small church to serve the station community, called St Anne's (c1859), shearers' quarters (1860), a new station store (1862), a butchers shop, a hide and tallow house and a stable and coach house (1862).
J C White, who had at one time worked as a Clerk of Works for the Colonial Architect's office in New South Wales Government, designed the new woolshed. T Jones, a carpenter, carried out the construction, which was commenced in 1859. The roof was originally intended to be shingled, but in 1860 it was decided to use imported corrugated iron sheeting instead. The building was T shaped, comprising a short central section for baling and loading the wool, with two long wings set at right angles to this. Sheep moved into the building from each end, processing through pens to a shearing board with 52 stands on the perimeter and thence to counting out pens. The first shearing was conducted in 1861 and after this alterations were made to improve the design by builders Charles Hines & Co. These included excavating under the woolshed, gutting and refitting the building, and levelling and paving the yards with cobblestones. In 1863, Kent and Wienholt purchased the property for £108,000. The partnership had interest in other pastoral properties and also acquired adjoining stations to Jondaryan using it as a head station responsible for the distribution of pay, equipment and rations. Stations at the time had small 'village' communities for employees, there being a considerable number of people living on Jondaryan apart from the manager and his family. Accommodation for workers and their families and facilities such as a store, blacksmiths and other trades essential for running stations in an isolated area were built.
In 1867 the railway passed through Jondaryan land and reached Dalby in 1868. A settlement developed around the railway station at Jondaryan, taking on the same name, and by the 1870s had about 100 inhabitants. A Divisional Board was formed in 1879 and a Council in 1913, the importance of Jondaryan station to the area being reflected by the participation of its managers as Chairmen.
Sheep from other stations were sent to be sheared at Jondaryan woolshed. In the 1873 season, 24,000 sheep shorn were from other properties. In 1891 machine shearing was brought in at Jondaryan and the number of stands reduced to 36.
Jondaryan continued to expand with the acquisition of land and reached a maximum size of 300,000 acres. It was at one time the largest freehold station in Queensland with 155,000 acres of freehold land. It played a part in the struggle for improved wages and conditions in the pastoral industry that culminated in the Barcaldine Shearers' Strike of 1891. The owners and managers of such large stations as Jondaryan had considerable power to dictate terms to an itinerant workforce recruited for the shearing season. In 1887 the Queensland Shearers' Union was formed at Blackall. Within a year it had 1300 members, indicating a perceived need for collective bargaining to obtain fair pay and working conditions.
Jondaryan became an early test case because in 1888 its management used non-union labour and the union shearers refused to sign on for the following season. In 1889, the graziers banded together in response to union demands and moved to reduce pay rates. Jondaryan manager, Charles Williams, was a foundation member of the United Graziers Association. Many workers now joined the unions, pushing membership of the Shearers' Union over 3000 and the Labourer's Union to 2,250. At Jondaryan, no union members were employed for the 1889 season and in retaliation the shed was placed under union ban in 1890. The sheep were sheared by non-union labour but the clip was held up at each stage of its shipment, as members of other unions would not handle it. Bales of Jondaryan wool stood on the wharves until a compromise was negotiated. It was the first occasion on which unions had worked in federation, although the graziers did not abide by the negotiated arrangements on a wider scale, leading to the Barcaldine strike of 1891 and the subsequent formation of the Labor party.
In 1894 the Kent and Weinholt partnership was dissolved and a new company called Jondaryan Estates Company of Australia (Pty) Limited was formed, comprising Jondaryan and other properties. From the 1890s much of the leasehold land was resumed for agricultural use and wheat and lucerne was grown on Jondaryan for its own use. In 1906, the sale of the freehold portions was compelled by new land regulations, although by the early 1920s it was still one of the biggest of the Darling Downs properties and still shearing sheep for other stations.
In 1937 the homestead building burnt down and was rebuilt, but in the 1940s land sales continued to reduce the property. It was decided to voluntarily sell land directly, giving preference to former employees and men with previous farming experience, rather than allow the land to be disposed of through government ballot. From 1 January 1946, Jondaryan ceased to exist as a station and the company was wound up, though the homestead and 2000 acres on the southern bank of the creek were retained. It was at this time that the block containing the woolshed was sold and it is thought that part of the western wing was removed to be used as farm machinery shed. One of original blocks of shearers' quarters remained to the rear of the woolshed.
In 1972, following the success of celebrations held at the Jondaryan woolshed to mark the centenary of the Jondaryan State School, the owner of the property offered the woolshed and 12 acres of land to the people of Jondaryan. As a result the Jondaryan Woolshed Historical Museum and Park Association was formally established in October 1976 and since that time the place has been developed as a tourist attraction. Considerable renewal and reconstruction work has been carried out on the woolshed including the reconstruction of the western wing. From 1977 an annual Australian Heritage Festival has been held at the woolshed and the remaining shearers' quarters were adapted in 1978 to provide backpacker accommodation.
A considerable number of buildings from the surrounding district have been moved onto the site. Some were built on Jondaryan or its outstations, but have been relocated, such as an 1850s blacksmith's shop (relocated 1977); a shepherd's hut from Mt Moriah (relocated 1978); the 1880s Lagoon Creek homestead (relocated 1982) and a shepherds hut (relocated 1978);
There are also a number of buildings from other places such as the Woodleigh Cheese factory (relocated 1994); the Jondaryan Railway Station (relocated 1998), a shepherd's hut from Cecil Plains (relocated 1994); a police lockup from Peranga (relocated 1980); the Evanslea bagged grain shed (relocated 1979); the Oakey Bank of New South Wales (relocated 1986) and a railway building from Bongeen, now used as a 'barber's shop'.
An array of buildings has also been constructed including a dairy, sulky shed, hayshed, sawmill, barn, and shepherd's hut, together with various display pavilions, machinery sheds and yards. In addition a number of sheds have been erected for storage purposes. There is a large collection of farm machinery and tractors on the site. The new and relocated buildings are not included in this Register entry.
","criteria":"Jondaryan station, established in the early 1840s, was one of the earliest and largest pastoral enterprises on the Darling Downs. It preceded the settlement of towns and acted as a catalyst for closer settlement by providing employment and facilities for a large number of employees and their families in the area. The woolshed, which was erected in 1859-60 as part of a programme of expansion on Jondaryan, reflects the growth and prosperity of the wool industry in the decade between the mid 1850s and 60s. In its materials, construction methods and the way in which it has been designed to facilitate rapid processing of sheep to be shorn, it illustrates a number of aspects of the Australian wool industry in the nineteenth century. Changes, such as the extension of the wool table to accommodate fleeces from larger breeds of sheep, are also important in demonstrating changes within the industry. Jondaryan played a part in the early stages of the conflict between owners and labour in the pastoral industry that culminated in the Barcaldine Shearers' Strike of 1891 and the formation of the Labor party.
|The Jondaryan Woolshed is rare as a large and early woolshed in Queensland and is believed to be one of the earliest surviving woolsheds in this state.
|The area surrounding the Jondaryan woolshed is important for its potential, as an archaeological site, to reveal information about the way in which the shed was used and therefore on the early operation of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|The Jondaryan woolshed retains much of its form and fabric and provides good examples of the design, construction methods and materials used for this type of building in the mid 19th century.
|Its large scale and position on a flat plain make it a striking building in the landscape. Its form and materials as a vernacular building of a type characteristic of the Australian countryside have aesthetic qualities demonstrably well liked by the community.
|Its importance to the people of the local area is shown by community efforts to preserve it as the centrepiece of a complex presenting the history of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15409,"place_ref":600634,"name":"St Anne's Anglican Church, Jondaryan","alternate_name":"St Anne's Church of England; | Jondaryan Homestead church | St Annes Anglican Church","street_address":"Evanslea Road","suburb":"JONDARYAN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Anne's comprises a four bay nave with a clerestory. It is entered by a small gabled porch and has a chancel with a raised floor and a lower independent gable roof. The vestry on the south has a lower floor level than the church and is reached by steps. The building is on timber stumps and the roof is clad with corrugated iron and has a small belfry at the western end. There are scalloped barge boards to the front and rear of the building. The construction is largely of vertical slab and batten construction with the chamfered timber slabs of the east and west clerestory walls, the vestry and the lower gable walls laid horizontally with the upper section clad in weatherboards. The windows are narrow lancets and the clerestory lights are set in square frames. The Sanctuary window is set with borders of coloured glass.
Inside, the roof is supported by kingpost trusses and square hardwood posts. The walls of the clerestory and chancel are lined in horizontal beaded pine boards. The adzed ironbark slabs of the walls are exposed in the aisles. It is simply furnished with an altar table, lectern, altar rails and timber pews.
","history":"The timber slab church of St Anne's is one of Queensland's oldest churches and was constructed in 1859 as a private chapel originally located at Jondaryan Station.
Jondaryan was originally taken up in 1842 by Charles Oxen and was first run by his nephew, Henry. After changing hands several times, it was purchased in 1856 by Robert and Edwin Tooth, who were also involved in establishing the Tooth brewery and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. In 1858 it was leased by Kent and Weinholt who owned adjoining properties and was purchased by them in 1863 following Tooth's bankruptcy. Jondaryan was managed for them by James C. White. Stations at the time had small 'village' communities for employees, there being a considerable number of people living on Jondaryan apart from the manager and his family. Pastoral stations provided accommodation for workers and facilities such as a store, blacksmiths and other trades essential for running a station in an isolated area. By 1870 Jondaryan had over 500 employees.
The first itinerant minister for the Downs was the energetic pioneer clergyman Reverend Benjamin Glennie. In 1848 he was appointed to serve Moreton Bay and could only make infrequent visits, but from 1850 he was based at Drayton. He conducted services at a number of stations on the Downs as the first church was not built until 1856 in Toowoomba.
Churchgoing was important to the social structure of the community as well as spiritually and in 1859, James White is said to have arranged for an unknown Melbourne architect to provide a design for a church for Jondaryan. The station underwent an extensive building program from 1860 including building a new homestead, and the construction of the church may have been a first step in this upgrading of facilities. It was constructed by an Irish carpenter called Hugh Bradford and used materials from Jondaryan and ordered in from Toowoomba. The first service in the new church was conducted by the Reverend Benjamin Glennie, on 23 October 1959, an event recorded in his diary. A Sunday school was also run by Mr White's wife, Anne, for children living on the station. Though Glennie was Anglican, the church was available for the use of other denominations amongst the Jondaryan workers.
A township developed nearby also called Jondaryan and became more important after the coming of the railway in 1868. Even so, its fortunes were closely tied up with those of the station and the station church of St Anne's remained the town's place of worship.
During the severe floods of 1893, the church was the only building on the station above water level. Later in that year it was decided to move the church to its present site, about 1.6km from the Jondaryan township to a site donated by Thomas Taylor who owned the hotel there and also presented a carved lectern to the church.
When the building was re-located, a vestry was added, the ceiling and sanctuary were lined and the nave floor was lowered. It passed from private ownership to the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane and was dedicated on 18 December 1893. A carved Bishop's chair of Queensland beech was presented at the time. The pine pews and silky oak prayer book case were made by the Jondaryan station carpenter.
In 1988-90 reinforced concrete piers were introduced along the north and south walls to support steel beams inserted above the original timber stumps, which are no longer load bearing.
Regular services are still held at the church, which is also a tourist attraction.
","criteria":"St Anne's Church demonstrates the pattern of Queensland history by providing evidence for the way in which early pastoral runs were run as small communities. Jondaryan, run by the Tooths, an important pioneer pastoral family on the Darling Downs, had a 'village' for its employees and their families
|St Anne's is the earliest surviving church on the Downs and one of the oldest in Queensland.
|It preserves examples of early building techniques using locally available materials.
|It has considerable aesthetic appeal.
|It has a long association with families of Jondaryan and the community in and around Jondaryan township.
|It is also associated with the life and work of the Reverend Benjamin Glennie, the first incumbent Anglican clergyman on the Downs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15410,"place_ref":600635,"name":"Jondaryan Homestead","alternate_name":"Jondaryan","street_address":"Evanslea Road","suburb":"JONDARYAN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Jondaryan Homestead property is located on Evanslea Road, about 3.5kms south-west of the township of Jondaryan, which is approximately 45kms west of Toowoomba along the Warrego Highway. The property is partly bordered to the north by Oakey Creek. Significant structures of the Jondaryan Homestead Complex include a kitchen, butcher's shop, shearers' quarters, stables, dairy, toilet block and store. The present house was built after the original one was destroyed by fire in 1937. There are remnants on the site of a number of other structures, including horse stalls, a killing shed, hide store and Chinese gardener's glasshouse. There are also a number of gravestones on the property.
House
The present house is essentially rectangular in plan. Its sits low to the ground and has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. Its long facades are oriented east and west. The walls are clad in chamfer boards. A long verandah extending approximately three quarters of the length of the house opens to the east. Its edge is defined by square timber columns, between which are fitted canvas blinds and low timber benches. Two sets of casements windows open off this façade; one has four sashes, and the other three. All sashes have four lights. Three sets of French doors open onto the verandah, each door having five lights. There is a bank of awning windows on the western façade. Each column has three awning sashes in it. The covered walkway leading to the kitchen building connects to the house on this façade. To the north of this point are a series of large timber-framed double-hung sash windows.
Kitchen
The kitchen building, adjacent to the western side of the house, has a gable roof, with separate skillion roofs attached to one long and one short side. A further skillion verandah roof wraps around the remaining sides. This joins the covered walkway described above. All roofs are clad in corrugated, galvanised iron. The gable roof has timber finials at each end. A brick fireplace and chimneystack fits between the main gable-roofed core of the building and the area under the long skillion roof. The exterior walls are clad in weatherboards, while the interior ones are partly lined with horizontal, beaded, tongue-and-groove boards. The ceilings are lined to match the walls, and under the skillion roof, follow its slope. The floors are lined with shot-edge timber boards.
Butcher's Shop
The Butcher's shop is located to the south-west of the house. It is rectangular in plan, has a gable roof and sits on low timber stumps. Surrounding this core structure on all sides is a skillion verandah roof, the supporting posts of which bear directly into the ground. A proportion of the walls of the core are made of horizontal slabs slotted into vertical posts, while the remainder is open timber framing. The gable ends are clad in rough-sawn weatherboards, and pierced by timber-bladed vent panels. The bargeboards and fascias to the gable roof are simply scalloped, and a timber finial is attached to one end. All roofs are clad in corrugated iron.
On the interior, the roof framing to both the gable and skillion roofs is exposed. A number of horizontal roof ties are in place. The edges of the corrugated iron cladding to the verandah roofs extend, for a short distance, inside the wall line. The interior space is divided by a number of partial walls made either of framing alone, timber doors, or horizontal slabs. The height of these walls matches the top-plate height of the exterior walls. The floor is lined with shot-edge timber boards.
Shearers' Quarters
The quarters for the shearers have a broken-backed, hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. Sitting on timber stumps, the building is adjacent to the north-eastern corner of the house. A chimneystack pierces the roof sheeting at a central point along the ridge. Some of the structure's walls are clad in weatherboards, while the remainder are made of corrugated iron insulated with charcoal (according to both the NTQ & AHC descriptions). Between timber columns with capitals, the balustrading to the verandah is made of timber frames in which wool bail straps are fitted diagonally.
Stables
The stable building is located south of the house. It forms a long, narrow rectangle in plan, and has a gable roof clad in corrugated iron. The gable ends are clad in weatherboards, while the remaining walls are made of vertical slabs fitted between timber posts, which are positioned at corners, openings, and other structural intervals. One short wall, below the gable weatherboards, is open. All timber appears to be hand-worked or split, except the northern end's bargeboards, which are simply carved. The other gable end has a timber-framed, fixed-glass window, with six lights. A number of wide timber doors open into the adjoining timber-fenced yard, above which are hinged timber-paling gates. A window opens from the opposite elevation, which also has a number of wide, doorless openings. The building sits directly on the ground. Inside the roof framing is exposed. The long space is divided by a slab wall at one end, and a number of timber stalls. Two gabled coach sheds are located adjacent to the open façade.
Dairy
In 1999, the dairy was covered in creepers, but its interior was still accessible via a side door. Located on the northern end of the kitchen, it has a pyramid roof, on the underside of which shingles are still visible. Corrugated iron may be the exterior roof cladding. Part of the floor is lined with shot-edge timber boards. The floor to the entrance area appears to be made of flagstones. The walls, some of which appear to be at an angle, are lined, both on the interior and exterior, with timber weatherboards. There are also a number of openings in the walls. There are remains of vents fitted into the ceiling and floor.
Toilet Block
The toilet block, located about 7m to the north of the kitchen, is a narrow rectangle in plan. Its roof is hipped and clad in corrugated iron. The fascias are simply scalloped timber. The building sits on low timber stumps and its interior can be accessed, on one long side, via a short flight of timber steps. On the other long side, the ground is essentially level with the floor of the building. The wall framing is exposed, and chamfer boards line the interior. There are a number of small timber-framed windows, one of which has a single awning sash. A concrete encased sewerage line attaches to one short end of the structure.
Chinese Gardener's Glasshouse
This small structure sits adjacent to the eastern end of the toilet block, in the vicinity of the northern elevation of the house. Its gable roof is clad in corrugated iron, and covered by a flowering vine. There is a timber board door in the eastern façade. On the northern and southern facades are a series of square glass panes in timber frames. The sill height for these windows is approximately 1.2m high. Below this level the walls are made concrete, in which the outlines of formwork are still visible. On the eastern and western building faces, the gable ends above this level are filled with painted brick. The timber bargeboards are also simply scalloped.
Store
The store is an L-shaped building, with gable roof projections clad in corrugated iron. It is located between the butcher's shop and stables, to the south of the house. The walls are clad in weatherboards. The building has a small number of doors and double-hung sash windows, all of which have six lights in each sash. Two small timber-slated vent panels are fitted into the gable end of the short wing of the structure. Two timber-board awning windows open out of one of the short wing's façades. The wall and roof framing is exposed on the interior. The floor is lined with shot-edge timber boards.
Horse Stalls
There are two horse stalls located next to one another. Each has a gable roof clad in corrugated iron. The gables are clad in hand-worked weatherboards, while the walls are made of vertical timber slabs fitted between timber posts.
Killing Shed
This structure consists of two gable-roofed components, the larger of which has the line of its ridge positioned perpendicular to the other. While the larger, steeply pitched roof is constructed to correspond to the general height of people, the secondary roof is set above this by almost a metre. The larger, lower roof is supported by four timber posts, but the smaller one is supported by only two. Between the timber posts are fitted a number of timber slab rails.
Grounds
The zone occupied by the house, kitchen and shearers' quarters has a number of established trees in it, including a tall palm. This area also has a tended lawn. A dirt roadway separates it from the butcher's shop, store and stables. Some fencing is visible to the north of the toilet block and 'glasshouse'.
","history":"Jondaryan station was originally taken up in 1840 by Henry Dennis and the homestead site today includes a number of early buildings, including the kitchen from the original homestead erected in 1844 and several outbuildings constructed during the early 1860s.
In 1840 the search for pastoral land in New South Wales extended north to the Darling Downs. The Leslie brothers followed the path of Allan Cunningham onto the Downs in 1840 and established at Canning Downs the first station in the district. Other squatters soon followed. Jondaryan station was taken up by Henry Dennis, an employee of Sir Richard Todd Scougall of Liverpool Plains station in New South Wales, during this initial push into the region. Along with the Jondaryan lands he claimed the Jimbour and Myall Creek properties for Scougall. However, he failed to register the claim to Jondaryan and in 1842 Charles Coxen took up the estate.
Coxen was born at Ramsgate in Kent, England, in 1809 and arrived in Sydney in 1834. He had a strong interest in natural history and was a founding member of the Queensland Museum in 1862. Coxen was also active in the Queensland Philosophical Society, which was formed in 1859, and held several public offices during his career. Although chiefly known as a naturalist and politician, Charles was also associated with a large number of pastoral properties in southern Queensland. His initial pastoral experience was at Yarrundi station in the Hunter River valley, the property of his older brother, Stephen Coxen. From there he moved to a property on the Peel River as manager and in 1842 instructed his nephew, Henry William Coxen, to move to Jondaryan as superintendent. Henry Coxen was to become one of Queensland's most prosperous landowners, with an interest in at least 17 grazing leases, and at Jondaryan he was responsible for overseeing the initial improvements to the station.
By November 1843, when the Commissioner of Crown Lands for New South Wales visited Jondaryan, the site included 3 huts reputedly built by James Chatman, a convict carpenter who accompanied Henry Coxen on the trek from Yarrundi to Jondaryan. At this time there were just 7 residents at the station, but by the following year that number had doubled. The Commissioner of Crown Lands records for 1844 indicate that the number of huts on the site had decreased to 2, but 4 stables had been erected by that time and work began on the first house at Jondaryan. Chatman, who had obtained a ticket-of-leave in March 1844, was again employed to build what was believed to be a rudimentary slab or bark structure. However, the ironstone ridge on which this house was built attracted lightening strikes during storms and in late 1844 it was decided to erect a new residence 2 miles upstream, where the present homestead now stands. It was constructed from sturdy iron bark slabs and floors, and remained in use as the main house at Jondaryan until 30 December 1937 when it was destroyed by fire. The kitchen, which remains on site, is the only surviving part of the original house. At much the same time that this house was being built, other slab structures were erected to support the workings of the station, including a small shearing shed and yard.
The physical development of Jondaryan in the mid-1840s is also reflected in the increase in the station's holdings. By 1845, the size of the property had risen from the original 13,000 acres to 65,000 acres, and was stocked with both sheep and cattle. At this time, the land was owned by the Crown and occupied by licence. In 1847, the regulations regarding land settlement were changed and the lands of Jondaryan were converted to leasehold tenure. After Charles Coxen disposed of his interests in Jondaryan in 1845, the property passed to James Macabrieu Andrews and Robert Tertius Campbell. Campbell was grandson of Robert Campbell, one of Australia's earliest settlers, and was Director of the Bank of New South Wales and Bank of Australasia. He never resided at Jondaryan, preferring instead to stay in Sydney and to leave Andrews in charge of managing the property. In 1850, Campbell transferred his interest to John Gilchrist, Andrews' brother-in-law, before the leasehold was sold in 1854 to Donald Coutts and Walter Gray. In c1855 Coutts and Grey applied to purchase the freehold on a block comprising the homestead and woolshed.
Further leasehold land was added to Jondaryan by the mid-1850s, with its total area covering around 125,000 acres when brothers Robert and Edwin Tooth acquired the leasehold in 1856. They also made the last payment on the freehold block purchased in c1855. The Tooth brothers were merchants and brewers, with an interest in the bank of New South Wales as well as the Colonial Sugar Refining Company established in 1855. They resided in Sydney during their tenure of Jondaryan. James Charles White was manager of the property and continued there for 12 years after William Kent and Edward Wienhold became sub-lessees of Jondaryan in 1858. For the next ten years, Jondaryan entered a phase of prosperity and growth as conditions on the Darling Downs allowed pastoralists to accumulate previously unparalleled profits. Some of these profits were used to purchase portions of the leaseholding. By 1867, more than 22,000 acres of Jondaryan's 154 square miles of land had been purchased under pre-emptive right, making Jondaryan one of the largest freehold properties of the district at that time.
Profits from pastoralism were also used by Jondaryan's owners to improve the homestead site and station records indicate significant building activities were being carried on during the early 1860s. In 1860, the main residence was renovated, perhaps in anticipation of Governor Bowen's visit the following year, and quarters for the station's shearers were erected. A new butcher's shop, store, hides and tallow house, stables and church were erected around this time, and the woolshed (QHR 600633), was also completed during the early 1860s. As a homestead complex, Jondaryan had reached a state of completion during the 1860s, which was reflected upon in The Queenslander in 1922: 'cottages for employees, stables and enclosures for stud stock, and other buildings make quite a little township of themselves, and add to the completeness of the station'. For an earlier visitor to the site, who is quoted in Jondaryan Woolshed (1998), the head station 'was a very comfortable residence, very similar to the country gentlemen's house in England, except that it was all on one floor with a verandah all round and built of wood, and therefore covered a considerable extent of ground. It was surrounded by a vineyard, a garden full of flowers and fruit and vegetables, with a nice stream of water flowing past the front garden, where one could indulge in the luxury of a swim'.
In 1863, Kent and Weinholt acquired Jondaryan station from the Tooth brothers for £108,000 and they formed a company, which they ultimately called Jondaryan Estates. With an interest in some 40 holdings in southern and central Queensland, Jondaryan Estates became one of Queensland's largest pastoral companies. Jondaryan station continued to grow through the 1870s and 1880s, with a combined area of more than 300,000 acres of leasehold and freehold land. During the 1890s, despite the increase in freehold land to over 162,000 acres, the size of the leasehold area was reduced by government resumptions. From that time, the size of the run was continually decreased. In 1908, the first subdivision of Jondaryan was carried out and in the 1920s further sales of land occurred. By the time Jondaryan Estates entered voluntary liquidation in 1946, 184 individual parcels of land of Jondaryan station had been sold to 220 different owners. William Kent junior, grandson of the founder of Jondaryan Estates, retained the homestead site, which comprised some 2,000 acres of land, but as a result of the subdivisions the woolshed site was in the hands of different owners. The homestead property remained in the possession of the Kent family until 1974.
","criteria":"Jondaryan station was one of the earliest runs taken up in the Darling Downs region at the beginning of the 1840s.
|Despite the destruction of most of the original homestead by fire, a number of early buildings remain substantially intact on the Jondaryan site. These include a kitchen from the original homestead erected in 1844, and a butcher's shop and stables constructed during the early 1860s. They clearly demonstrate the operation of a large pastoral holding in Queensland from the earliest days of such activity in the area. The stables, horse stalls and killing shed are fine examples of slab construction from the early 1860s.
|Jondaryan has a special association with the Kent family, who owned the homestead property for over 100 years. The family became sub-lessees in 1858, and co-owners of the property in 1863. The company the Kents helped found, Jondaryan Estates, of which the Jondaryan run was a significant component, developed into one of Queensland's largest pastoral companies.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15411,"place_ref":600636,"name":"Westbrook Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Coupers Road","suburb":"WESTBROOK","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Westbrook Homestead comprises two single storey stone buildings set on a slight rise above Westbrook Creek.
The main house is rectangular in plan and is constructed of Toowoomba basalt in rough dressed coursed blocks. The exterior walls are very thick, being double, with a rubble fill, and have rendered brick quoining. The roof is hipped with a central valley and is clad in English slate and corrugated iron sheeting. The building is surrounded by a wide verandah with a separate concave roof of corrugated iron supported on timber posts. Wide sandstone steps at the front and sides of the house approach the verandah and the majority of rooms still have access to this verandah through French doors. On the rear verandah, several utility rooms have been formed by enclosing sections with timber walls and sliding glass doors. The verandah floor to the front and sides are timber, while that at the rear is concrete. Attached to the northwest wall of the house is a timber bathroom annexe.
The house has five double brick chimneys with cedar or marble fireplaces. The interior has plastered walls and timber ceilings, with extensive cedar joinery.
The former detached kitchen is a rectangular building to the rear of the house and is also constructed of basalt with brick quoins. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron and there is an open carport on the southern side. Sections of the north and west walls have been extensively reconstructed using bricks. The brick chimney and fireplace have also been reconstructed. Inside there are five rooms, which have rendered walls and timber ceilings as in the main house. The entrance is on the western side, which was once sheltered by a verandah.
The gardens retain terracing and traces of a circular drive. There are some mature plantings including large bunya trees. The site of the oval and building foundations are located to the north west of the house.
","history":"Westbrook Homestead was constructed in 1867 on land taken up by John 'Tinker' Campbell in 1841 as one of the first pastoral runs on the Darling Downs.
\nAllan Cunningham, botanist and explorer, first visited the region in which Westbrook is located, the Darling Downs, in 1827. He considered the discovery of this fertile pastoral land as one of his greatest achievements. Thirteen years later, grazier Patrick Leslie decided to look for land north of Penrith where he was renting a farm. With his brothers and a large party, he set out for the Clarence River district, and then, with one convict, set out to explore the Darling Downs. In 1840, he established the first pastoral runs on the Downs, Toolburra and Canning Downs.
\nOther squatters, including John 'Tinker' Campbell, who had arrived from Scotland about 1833, soon followed him. After selling tinware in Sydney, Campbell set up an inn at Muswellbrook and acquired two small runs, one on the Hunter River and one on the Gwydir in 1839. As this run was in dispute, he looked for land further north in 1840. After an abortive attempt to settle at Kittah Kittah near Goondiwindi, he moved to the Darling Downs in 1841, taking up Westbrook. However, Campbell then had the misfortune to experience bad seasons followed by the collapse of several commercial ventures, including the establishment of a boiling down works at Brisbane. This led to his selling Westbrook to John Stevens in December 1843 for £300 plus 12/6 a head for the stock. In mid 1844 the Campbells quit Westbrook and in late 1846 the run was sold to Hughes and Isaac, owners of Gowrie Station, and was reduced by 5000 acres to 45,000 acres in 1850. In 1853 Westbrook changed hands again, passing to John Donald McLean for £12,000. In 1855 McLean married and toured Europe for three years and William Beit, who had become McLean's partner, moved to Westbrook to manage it in 1856.
\nIn 1860 McLean leased a house in Sydney and in 1865 built a large mansion at Edgecliffe for his family, although in 1862 he became a Member for the Eastern Downs in the Queensland Parliament. By this time, he had acquired a financial interest in many runs throughout southern and western Queensland. The partnership made a number of improvements to Westbrook and by the early 1860s planned a more substantial homestead to replace the existing slab building, which had probably been erected by Campbell.
\nThe new homestead was built to the south of the previous one, which was well located in an elevated position overlooking Westbrook Creek and by then had a small 'village' of working buildings and accommodation around it. It was constructed of bluestone quarried on Westbrook land at a location near Toowoomba. The roof was of imported English slate and cedar was used for most of the joinery. William Beit married Mary Kellett in 1864 and McLean appears to have spent at least some of his time residing at Westbrook. The number of bedrooms and size of reception rooms in the new Westbrook homestead would have made the home appropriate for both Beit's planned family and to allow McLean to accommodate visitors and family members. However, Mary Beit was killed in a carriage accident in September 1865 and McLean was thrown from his horse on 16 December 1866 and killed, after briefly serving as Colonial Treasurer. He was buried at Westbrook and a parish nearby was named in his honour.
\nThe house was completed in 1867 and a freestone block above door is carved with 'McL & B 1867'. Given the prior deaths of both McLean and Mrs Beit, this may have been intended as a form of commemoration.
\nIn 1871 Beit married Sarah Kellet, possibly a relative of his previous wife, but he died on the return voyage from an overseas trip in 1872 and his son was born posthumously. Westbrook was sold by auction in Sydney and was purchased by the firm of Shanahan and Jennings who owned several large stations in New South Wales. J H Davidson, brother-in-law of Sir Patrick Jennings, past Premier of New South Wales, took up residence at Westbrook with his family. The second Mrs Beit moved to a large house that she had built in Toowoomba and which she named Westbrook Hall after the station.
\nAlthough Westbrook, like many early runs, had originally covered a huge area, land had been resumed in 1855, some of which became part of Drayton. After Queensland became a self-governing colony in 1859, frequent subdivisions occurred as various land acts sought to break up large runs for agriculture and closer settlement. McLean and Beit managed to maintain control over waterways by presumptive selection and converting land to freehold. In 1868, a reserve was resumed from the property that later became the town of Oakey.
\nShanahan and Jennings maintained possession of Westbrook until 1898 and planted 60 acres close to the homestead with vineyards, chestnuts, olives, peaches, and other fruit. The station was also well known for cattle and horse breeding. In 1898 nearly 10,000 acres of Westbrook land were acquired by the government under the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act of 1894, subdivided and sold as farm blocks. The blocks were eagerly purchased and the value of the land quickly rose. The rest of the estate was then privately surveyed, subdivided and sold and the homestead block, containing 9000 acres, was sold to Messrs Couper and Raulston, when it was cut into three dairy farms.
\nFGG Couper died in 1938. In 1942 children from the Tufnell Home at Nundah were evacuated to Westbrook and remained there until 1945, when Ralph Couper converted Westbrook into a boarding school for boys. It was intended that the pupils should receive agricultural as well as academic training. Work carried out at Westbrook included adapting and renovating the building and erecting two classrooms. A sports oval was cleared and two tennis courts created. During Westbrook's use as a school, large sections of the roof slates were replaced by corrugated iron. The school closed in late 1948 and most of the buildings were sold for removal. Hector McPhie purchased the property in 1949 and carried out renovations, including the subdivision of a bedroom into bathrooms. Westbrook was run as a dairy and stud farm until 1954 when it was sold again and further subdivided. In 1966 the house was divided to run as two separate households, so that two new kitchens were built into the original verandahs at the rear at this time. In 1969 the kitchen building contained three rooms; a large kitchen with a chimney that extended out from the wall, a pantry and a servant's room. This building was renovated as guest quarters soon afterwards, when two more rooms were created, the chimney was rebuilt and a carport was added to the side. In 1981 the property was sold and ran as a guesthouse. During this period the slab and stone sheds and stables were demolished.
\nWestbrook is now on 23 hectares of land and was purchased by the current owners in 1999.
","criteria":"In 1841, John 'Tinker' Campbell was one of the first squatters to settle on the Darling Downs; taking up a large run he named Westbrook. Subsequent owners built a substantial homestead at Westbrook in 1867 following a period of considerable prosperity. Westbrook Homestead illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early homestead on the Darling Downs, it has associations with the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Westbrook Homestead is uncommon as an early grand homestead and detached kitchen constructed of locally quarried bluestone.
|Westbrook Homestead and its grounds, on which other buildings once stood, have the potential to reveal information about the history of one of the earliest pastoral stations in Queensland.
|This criterion is under review.
|It has aesthetic significance as a well designed and constructed homestead residence that is pleasing in form, materials and detail.
|Westbrook Homestead has special associations with the community as the residence of one of the earliest pastoral stations established on the Darling Downs.
|Westbrook Homestead has associations with the life and work of its early owners who were important in the establishment of the pastoral industry on the Downs, including John 'Tinker' Campbell who established the station, and the homestead builders, John Donald McLean, also a politician and Colonial Treasurer in 1866 and William Beit, who was a founding committee member of the Darling Downs Agricultural Society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15412,"place_ref":600637,"name":"Westbrook War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"114 Main Street","suburb":"WESTBROOK","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated directly adjacent to the Westbrook Public Hall in a paved area. It faces the Toowoomba - Milleran Road; the main road between the two towns.
The memorial stands 4.2 metres high and comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
The memorial sits on a rock-faced, stepped sandstone base which bears a dedicatory inscription. Surmounting this is the slightly tapered pedestal, which is of smooth faced white sandstone. It bears the cut and blackened names of the ten local men who died during the First World War on the front face and the 37 who served on the side faces.
Above this is a sandstone capital comprising a rough hewn vertical face, margined and chiselled, which culminates in a concave cornice, also rough hewn.
Surmounting the capital is a large smooth-faced torus moulding, square in plan and a stepped base on which the digger statue stands.
The life-sized digger statue stands with head erect and hands resting on top of a reversed rifle which sits on top of his left boot. A tree stump is located behind the right leg for support.
","history":"The Westbrook War Memorial was unveiled prior to June 1922 by local M P, the Hon L E Groom. It was designed and executed by Bruce Brothers (successors of Walter Bruce) of Toowoomba, The memorial was erected by the residents of the district. It honours the 47 local men who served in the First World War, including the 10 fallen.
About half of the families listed are represented by more than one member, two families by four members, indicating the impact of the war upon the small community.
The town of Westbrook is located on the Darling Downs. The first white settlers arrived on the Downs in search of rich grazing land and by the 1840s, led by the Leslie brothers and John Campbell had established over twenty stations. Westbrook was the site of John Campbell's run. These stations prospered until their expansion was curbed due to the pressures of selection legislation and land was resumed for agricultural use. The area, which had previously been a primary producer of wool, diversified into wheat and dairy farming. By the 1920s, wheat had become the primary crop with State experimental farms located at Westbrook and other places providing the area with superior varieties of wheat.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
When first unveiled, the memorial stood in front of open fields however in recent years, a hall has been constructed around the memorial. Although executed by Bruce Brothers, it is thought that the statue was obtained from Batstone's of Brisbane. The pedestal was a standard design, also used by Bruce Brothers for war memorials at Dulacca (Queensland) and Amosfield (New South Wales).
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1922, the memorial at Westbrook demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland and is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship and design.
|As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland and is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship and design.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Toowoomba masonry firm, Bruce Brothers as an example of their work.
|The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Toowoomba masonry firm, Bruce Brothers as an example of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15413,"place_ref":600638,"name":"Kilcoy Homestead","alternate_name":"The Kilcoy Homestead","street_address":"Kilcoy-Murgon Road","suburb":"KILCOY","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kilcoy Homestead, a single-storeyed brick residence with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located at the end of a ridge to the north of Kilcoy, overlooking Kilcoy Creek and surrounding farmland. The building, reflecting a strong Georgian influence in its design, is approached from the southwest via a driveway along the ridge top.
The building, L-shaped in plan, is constructed of English Bond brickwork and is surrounded by verandahs with the southern side being enclosed. French doors with shutters open onto verandahs which have unlined corrugated iron skillion roofs and timber posts. The main entry is positioned centrally on the northeast, with a set of brick steps accessing the verandah to a flat arched doorway with double cedar panelled doors with fanlight and sidelights opening to the entrance hall. A matching doorway accesses the entrance hall from the enclosed rear verandah.
The building's core is one room deep, with the northeast wing consisting of a central entry hall, a bedroom on the north, a living room on the south, store rooms at the southern end and brick lean-to store rooms at the rear. The rear wing has one large bedroom, an enclosed verandah on the south housing a kitchen and a brick lean-to at the rear housing a bathroom.
Internally, the walls are plastered, the ceilings are boarded and skirtings, doors and architraves are of cedar. The entry hall has unset sandstone flagging to the floor and other principal rooms have boarded floors. The two northeast rooms have fireplaces with timber surrounds. The kitchen and bathroom are later alterations. The southern store rooms have a loft space, and a basement wine cellar which is no longer accessible. The lean-to store rooms at the rear, one being the former lamp room, have concrete floors.
The homestead grounds include mature Bunya Pines, with other plantings of native and european trees. A terraced area to the northeast of the building may be the site of an early tennis court.
The remains of a brick shed is located to the southwest of the building. This consists of two side walls, the northern one housing a fireplace, with a freestanding gable roof supported on metal posts.
A former railway station building, titled WINYA and constructed of weatherboard with a corrugated iron gable roof, has been moved onto the site and is located between the homestead and the brick shed.
A dairy and stables, constructed of brick and timber with a corrugated iron gable roof, is located further to the southwest alongside the driveway.
","history":"Kilcoy Homestead, a single-storeyed, substantial brick residence, was constructed c.1857, for the Hon. Louis Hope, British aristocrat and Queensland grazier, sugar plantation owner and politician. The remnants of the early brick cottage on the site, also erected for Hope, date to the mid-1860s.
The Kilcoy run had been taken up as a sheep station by brothers Evan and Colin Mackenzie, of Kilcoy, Scotland, who had started clearing the land and erecting huts by early July 1841. In October that year they secured the run officially, taking out the second pastoral licence issued for the Upper Brisbane. In the New South Wales Government Gazette of 11 May 1848, Kilcoy was described as comprising over 35,000 acres (14,000 hectares), bounded on the south by Frederic and Francis Bigge's Mt Brisbane Station, on the east by the Archers' Durundur Station, on the west by John Balfour's Colinton run, and to the north by the mountains separating Wide Bay from the Brisbane Valley. Establishment of Kilcoy station was resisted by the indigenous population, and the run is infamous for the mass poisoning of Aborigines that occurred there in February 1842.
As on most early stations, the first Kilcoy head station, erected in mid-1841, was a simple slab hut. In 1844 this was replaced by a brick dwelling, described in February 1845 as containing five rooms - one a large sitting room 20 feet by 20 feet and four bedrooms 10 by 10 feet opening from the parlour - with a verandah in front. The kitchen, which may have been the early slab dwelling, stood about 40 yards from the rear of the new residence, and was demolished c1928.
Although Colin Mackenzie remained in Moreton Bay and the Darling Downs until about 1857, Evan Mackenzie left Moreton Bay in mid-1845. Their Kilcoy run was transferred to Charles A Atherton in 1849, then to the Hon. Louis Hope and Robert Ramsay in 1853. Whether Ramsay ever worked the station is not clear; Hope was running it with the assistance of a superintendent by October 1857, when bricks were being fired on the property in preparation for the construction of his new residence, the present homestead. The 1844 residence was white-ant ridden, and is understood to have been demolished when the c.1857 house was completed. In 1863, Hope purchased Ramsey's interest in Kilcoy.
Hope had arrived in New South Wales in 1843, was an active participant in early Queensland economic and political life, and was instrumental in the development of the sugar industry in Queensland. In the 1850s he purchased and/or leased extensive landholdings in the Moreton region, including Kilcoy Station in 1853, Shafston House (QHR 600241) at Kangaroo Point in 1854, and land at Cleveland, 1852-55. Hope's Cleveland property, named Ormiston (QHR 600775), was being farmed by c1858, and in the early 1860s he experimented there first with cotton, then sugar cane, establishing at Ormiston Queensland's first sugar plantation. In 1864-65, Hope erected at Ormiston a substantial brick residence, not unlike the Kilcoy homestead, but more ornate. From this time the Hope family lived principally at Ormiston House, the homestead at Kilcoy became the manager's residence, and a brick cottage was built at Kilcoy for use by Louis Hope on his frequent visits to the property.
William Butler was appointed manager of Kilcoy in 1871, commencing an association with Kilcoy that lasted over 50 years. In 1882 the Hopes returned to England, leaving Kilcoy and Ormiston, which was rented out, under Butler's supervision. At Kilcoy, Butler established excellent relationships with local Aborigines, and after his death a Kilcoy street was named after him and a monument erected in his honour.
Louis Hope died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1894, but Kilcoy Homestead remained the property of his heirs until 1908, when the house on 524 acres freehold was purchased by William Butler. Local grazier Jeremiah Kennedy of Monte Cassino, acquired the homestead in 1922. Kennedy was very involved in local government and like previous owners, committed to horseracing. Kilcoy Homestead remains the property of the Kennedy family, but a caretaker has been in residence for many years.
","criteria":"Kilcoy Homestead is significant to Queensland history because it is one of the oldest surviving homesteads in the Brisbane Valley, and in Queensland. Built c1857 for prominent Queensland pioneer, the Hon. Louis Hope, MLC, it has a close connection with 19th century Queensland pastoral development, and in particular with the growth of the pastoral industry in the Brisbane Valley.
|Kilcoy Homestead is significant because it is a rare, well-preserved, substantial, late 1850s brick homestead, illustrating a class of buildings which were rare in Queensland at the time of construction, and are even more rare now.
|(Criterion under review)
|In its use of local hand-made bricks and timber from the property, Kilcoy Homestead is illustrative both of the contraints placed upon early Queensland pioneers in their attempts to 'civilise' their bush environment, and of the means and methods adopted to overcome these constraints.
|Kilcoy Homestead, a fine example of an 1850s residence reflecting a strong Georgian design influence, together with its dramatic siting and stand of mature trees, imbues a sense of landmark in the surrounding landscape. The simple detailing and interior finishes of the homestead expresses quality of design and workmanship.
|Since 1922 it has been associated with the Kennedy family and their long-standing contribution to the Brisbane Valley community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15414,"place_ref":600639,"name":"Booubyjan Homestead","alternate_name":"Boonbyjan","street_address":"Booubyjan Rd","suburb":"BOOUBYJAN","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Booubyjan Homestead is situated on a 9000 acre run in the Kilkivan Shire, about 14km north of the small town of Tansey, which is north of Goomeri.
The homestead is on an elevated section of the run, allowing comprehensive views of the surrounding run. The complex consists of timber buildings, linked by open verandahs and covered walkways. Three principal buildings facing north east comprise the residence, with various outbuildings to the south and west of these.
The one storeyed building located centrally in the complex, the largest of the buildings, is referred to as the Homestead. This building, which is elevated on timber stumps, is of drop slab timber construction, although the front of the building has been faced with horizontal timber weatherboards. The hipped corrugated iron roof is centrally pierced with a brick chimney shaft, with simple brick corbelling and chimney hood.
Verandahs surround the building although these have been infilled and altered to the south west or rear of the building. Access is provided to the verandah via a centrally located open tread timber stair, which is emphasised with a planted trellis. Four half glazed french doors with transom lights above open from the homestead to the front verandah, and similar doors open on the north western and south eastern sides of the building. The corrugated iron verandah awning is supported on chamfered timber posts, and the soffit is clad with fibrous cement sheeting to the north west of the building.
Internally, the Homestead is divided into three principal rooms, to which the french doors provide access. These rooms are internally clad with fibrous cement sheeting braced with timber strips. Some of the internal walls are covered with calico and hessian lining. A chimney piece, with rudimentary timber mantle, is found in the largest of the rooms on the north west end of the homestead, and another in the adjacent room.
The rear of this building is lined with infilled and open sections of verandah, and also with substantial additions comprising a laundry, kitchen and billiard room. The timber frame additions are externally clad with horizontal weatherboards and internally with fibrous cement sheeting, similar to that found in the front rooms of this building.
To the north west of the homestead, abutting its verandah on this side, is a one-roomed timber building known as the Dining Room. This is thought by the Lawless family to be the oldest building on the site. The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof and verandahs to the north east and north west, the awnings of which are incorporated in the main roof made discernible by a slight change of pitch. The walls of the building are of drop slab construction, and apparent on the underside of the verandah are early shingles and framing. The building is constructed with a system of two roof structures, an external iron clad covering and another timber framed and clad under-roof which meets the top of the external walls, allowing the outer roof to remain at a distance above the walls, allowing a gentler pitch.
Three sets of half glazed french doors open onto the verandah from the interior. The interior walls of the Dining Room are plastered, with stained timber wainscotting to dado rail height. The stained timber beaded board ceiling is coved, following the rake of the under roof previously mentioned.
To the south east of the Homestead and connected to its verandah with a covered walkway, is a smaller timber building known as the Cottage. Encircling it are wide verandahs on all sides, with an infill section of the south east. This building is constructed of vertical slabs of timber housed in recessed timber sections at the top and base of the wall, and the building features a similar double roof system to that previously described. The verandah is supported on chamfered timber posts.
Half glazed french doors give access to the three internal room from the verandah, though some of these have been replaced with single half glazed doors. Internally the Cottage is clad with fibrous cement sheeting, braced with timber strips.
Several outbuildings of various ages surround the three principal buildings, these include a power house to the south-west of the homestead; an early bush house and entrance gates to the north west of the Dining Room; sheds, stores and garages to the north west of the bush house. Many mature trees and plants surround the homestead, these include a hoop pine.
","history":"Booubyjan homestead is a complex of timber structures built by the Lawless family at varying times in the nineteenth century as their accommodation needs increased.
Booubyjan Homestead has variously been referred to by a number of variations of the spelling of its title in both personal and business correspondence, Government publications and histories of the area. Such variations include Boombyjan, Boonbyjan, Booubijan and Boombagan.
The Lawless' occupation of the Booubyjan run began in 1847, when two brothers Paul and Clement Lawless took up three properties in the Burnett River district. The Lawless brothers arrived in Australia from County Cork, Ireland in 1841. After initially establishing themselves on a farm in the Hunter Valley, the brothers moved to the Moreton Bay district, where they took up the Nindooimba run in 1842. With the intention of finding land more suitable for sheep farming, Paul and Clement Lawless joined an expedition travelling to the Brisbane Valley, where they discovered their future home, Booubyjan, named after a near-by large rock.
A letter which Clement Lawless wrote to his sister-in-law, Alicia Lawless-Pyne, dated March 1849, provides many details about the early occupation of the Booubyjan run by the Lawless family. Lawless writes of the effects of the low wool prices and the consequent economic hardships which saw the importation and employment of many 'Celestials' on the station. The wages books from the station attest to the large proportion of Chinese labourers at Booubyjan, who were, it seems, paid considerably less than their European counterparts. The problems with language were overcome because the Chinese did everything by signs most readily and were excellent at tending sheep.
This letter goes on to give details of the early ownership of the station, We have not got any Title as yet from the Governor to our Station, which is keeping us in hot water, but expect it during the year. A great deal of business has accumulated in the Land's office in consequence of a change in Squatting regulations; the whole of the country has to be surveyed before they can give Leases, which must occupy a long time.
And by 1850, the New South Wales Government Gazette (June 19) published a list of successful tenders for runs in Crown Lands beyond the settled districts. Paul Lawless is listed with Windera and Clement Lawless with 'Boombagan'. According to early Lands Department Registers the Lawless brothers ran a station called Booubyjan and this comprised three runs, namely Booubyjan, Boonimba and Windera. These Registers indicate that Paul was the sole proprietor of Windera and Clement the sole proprietor of Booubyjan run and both brothers oversaw the Boonimba run.
An early Register indicates that a lease was issued for the Booubyjan (therein referred to as Boombagan) and Windera Runs in 1862 for a term of 14 years for an annual rent of £14. However, under Section 55 of the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, the Lawless' brothers surrendered their leases at both Booubyjan and Windera and were issued with new leases for the two runs in July 1869.
Clement Lawless returned to Ireland in about 1860 to marry and remained living in Kilcrone, Ireland until 1869 when he returned to Booubyjan for one year before, again, returning to his country of birth. In 1873 Clement sold his interest in both the Booubyjan station property and another family property, Imbil in the Mary Valley, purchased in 1857, to Ellen Lawless, the wife of his brother Paul.
In about 1858 Paul lawless had also returned to Britain where he married Ellen Nash in Bath, and the young couple set out for Australia in April 1859. Paul and Ellen had three children, and by 1865 it was necessary for the sake of Paul's health to return to Britain where he died shortly after. Ellen, who now held her husband's share in the Australian properties, and her young children spent some years travelling around Europe before returning to Booubyjan in late 1870.
After Ellen's death in 1922, the property was bequeathed to her two sons, one of whom, William Burnett Lawless was actually residing at the homestead at the time of his mother's death. William and his wife, Beatrice Muriel Walker, did not have children, and the property was passed on William's death in 1945 to William's nephews, Ivan Desmond Lawless and Burnett Rhys Lawless, who were the sons of John Paul Lawless, then in residence at Windera. Burnett Rhys Lawless continued on at the homestead for many years until his death in 1995, and Booubyjan is now run by Burnett's son, Michael along with his wife and children.
It is not possible to date the buildings and structures on the homestead with any degree of certainty. It seems that the oldest building is that known as the Dining Room, which is thought to have been previously used as a nursery. The Queensland Women's Historical Association placed their first 'blue plaque' in the state on this building in 1960, giving its approximate age as being from 1860. Photographs dating from the 1870s suggest that the two other principal buildings, referred to as the Homestead and the Cottage, were built either during or before the early 1870s.
Early photographs of the head station at Booubyjan indicate that the complex has been subject to many changes, where buildings have been removed or added, and in some instances moved slightly. There is evidence, for example, that an elevated timber building to the south west of the Cottage was removed from the complex of buildings comprising the homestead at Booubyjan.
The 1950s saw the destruction of an early kitchen to the rear of the Dining Room, and its replacement with another kitchen built onto the rear of the Homestead.
In the 1970s a storm unroofed both the Cottage and the Homestead, and these were replaced, though not in the previous steeply pitched Dutch gabled roof form, but simply with hipped corrugated iron roofs.
Photographs taken in 1928 by the travelling photographer of The Queenslander, show the remarkably unchanged state of the buildings from this time, particularly the interiors which retain many pieces of furniture and other items from earlier periods of inhabitancy.
","criteria":"As one of the earliest pastoral stations in Queensland, Booubyjan Homestead demonstrates the pattern of land use and settlement in rural areas of the state from the late 1840s and, in particular the development of the Burnett region.
|Booubyjan provides rare surviving evidence of early timber building construction techniques, including drop slab and vertical slab construction, and shingled roofing.
|Booubyjan Homestead has the potential to yield further information through archaeological research about timber building construction techniques of the mid nineteenth century and of the early pastoral station.
|The homestead is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland homesteads, constructed as the head station of a large run. The various accretions, dating from the 1860s, demonstrate the growth of the Lawless family.
|The buildings are picturesquely situated in an early garden at the crest of an incline, and have aesthetic significance. Booubyjan Homestead has a number of significant furniture pieces, important to the understanding of the history of the homestead.
|Booubyjan Homestead has special associations with the Lawless family, who originally took up the land in 1847, and have remained on the run to this day. The family included early pioneers of the Burnett region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15415,"place_ref":600640,"name":"Mount Clara Smelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Rossmore Road","suburb":"KILKIVAN","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Smelter remains which were renovated by Kilkivan Shire Council in 1978, are exposed to ground level. The smelter is made of brick and stone, the walls standing to a height of 170cm at the fire-box end, and to 120cm height at the opposite end of the smelter. These heights seem to correlate with the spring-level of the now collapsed arched roof. The internal ovoid form of the reverberatory smelter can be readily seen. The fire-box is particularly well preserved and has a deep below-ground access. Iron staples are inserted into the base plinth of the smelter at regular intervals and seem to be the support points for the rail reinforcing bars which would have originally bound the smelter.
The 13.8m high chimney stands close to the smelter and the entry point of the smelter flue, now collapsed, can be clearly seen at about 180cm up the western face of the chimney.
The slag heap is small (22m x 11m) and contains large square sand mould slag blocks, each about 80 x 40 x 15cm.
West of the smelter is an area of brick rubble and vitrified brick. This seems to be the dump spot where rubble removed from the smelter in 1978 was tipped. A chain wire fence was placed around the smelter and chimney in 1978 which prevents close access to the remains.
","history":"Mining probably commenced in the Mount Clara - Mount Coora area in 1872. The Mount Clara smelter was built in 1873 but only operated until 1875 when it was closed and the Mount Clara copper ore was subsequently carted to the Mount Coora smelter for treatment, following the purchase of the Mount Clara holdings by the Mount Coora Copper Mining Company in 1874. This may have been due to the fact that Mount Clara mine was two miles from the smelter, and ore had to be carted a considerable distance anyway. Mount Coora later had an ore roasting furnace built as well.
The eventual closure of the mines was attributed by Rands (in 1886) to the high cost of fuel for the smelters.
The Mount Clara smelter was among the earliest built in Queensland, being built after Peak Downs, Mount Perry and Flanagans smelters, but a year before those at Mount Coora, Blackall Mine and the Adolphus William.
","criteria":"Together with the small number of well-preserved 1870s smelters (Flanagans, Adolphus William) the Mount Clara smelter is important in demonstrating the evolution of base metal mining in Queensland.
|Smelters of this age and good state of preservation are rare aspects of Queensland's history. The smelter chimney is perhaps the oldest surviving mining industry chimney in Queensland.
|The site may also contain evidence that provides information contributing to the understanding of that period and of early mining in the Maryborough district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15416,"place_ref":600641,"name":"Goomeri Hall of Memory","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Boonara Street","suburb":"GOOMERI","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Hall of Memory is a high set timber building with a corrugated iron roof, which is prominently sited on Boonara Street, at the corner of McGregor Street, Goomeri. It is set in well-tended gardens and comprises a rectangular hall with a gabled roof and a smaller gabled addition set at one end. To the rear, toilet blocks are connected to the hall and it has been built in underneath to form a basement storey.
The main hall is a long rectangular building with its long axis presented to the street elevation. Along this elevation is an enclosed verandah and central gabled porch entry flanked by stairs. On the porch gable is the Commonwealth coat of arms surmounted by the words 'Hall of Memory 1914 - 1918'. A decorative timber ventilator surmounts the main roof. Attached to one side of the hall is the smaller separately roofed building which has a front verandah and separate stair entry.
The main hall is lined with beaded boards and has a timber ceiling and floor. One end has a stage with a curved front and a space for a piano to one side. The rear of the room has a modern bar with a projection box over. The access stair to be projection box has been removed to accommodate a steel cold room. Behind the bar is a large supper room leading into kitchens. There is a large kitchen range in the smaller room to the rear, although a modern cooking stove and kitchen cabinets have been installed in the larger room.
Inside the main room of the hall are a number of memorials. These include a modern timber roll of honour for Goomeri and District; timber framed metal honour rolls for World War I and 21 individual memorials in the form of decorative bronze plaques with an inset photograph of those honoured. Nine are for the First World War and twelve for World War II.
There is also a benefactors' memorial in the form of an open metallic book on a marble plaque. It reads: In grateful memory of John T Mayne a patriotic benefactor and Mary Mayne his wife and partner in benevolence.
The verandah along the front of the hall has been built in with casement windows glazed with obscure and green glass. There are large openings from the hall into them forming two long rooms. The central porch contains a ticket box accessed by a door in the hall and flanked by pairs of entry doors into the hall.
The basement area has been built in and has high, narrow windows. The toilet block on the corner is constructed of fibrous cement planks on a base of concrete blocks and has a skillion roof and sliding aluminium windows.
","history":"The Hall of Memory at Goomeri was opened in 1926 to commemorate all those from the district who had served in World War I, but this dedication has since been extended to also honour all those who have served in subsequent wars.
European settlement in the district took place in 1843-50 as large pastoral holdings were taken up. By 1870 these had been subdivided into smaller grazing farms. In 1902, the railway reached Goomeri and at that time was used principally by local farmers and to transport timber. In 1911, a sale of town commercial and residential blocks was held. More farms were established and a butter factory was built. The town of Goomeri developed with a school, showground and churches as a rural district centre in the 1930s.
The First World War [1914-1918], although fought in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, had a profound impact on Australia. At the outbreak of war Australia, settled as a British colony and with strong ties to the 'motherland', immediately entered the war in support of Britain and her allies. Over 300,000 Australians out of a population of 4 million volunteered for service overseas, with approximately 60,000 of these making the supreme sacrifice. Virtually every Australian community, including that of Goomeri, lost young men in this war.
Following the war, most communities wished to erect a memorial for those who served, and particularly those who had not returned. At Goomeri, a memorial was erected in Digger Perrett Park, although the Goomeri Memorial Clock, which stands opposite the site, replaced this in 1940. The Goomeri sub branch of the RSL received its charter on 1 January 1926 and members of this branch were a driving force behind the establishment of the Hall of Memory. A public meeting was held in March 1926 and a Memorial Hall Building Committee comprising Messrs. Mayne, Stanton, Wimberley, Maudsley and Wise was appointed with authority to obtain land and a building for use as a community hall. At the time, this was not a common form of memorial, most tributes to Queensland volunteers and war dead being monuments. It was not until the wake of World War II that such practical memorials as buildings and community facilities were favoured, so that the Goomeri Hall of Memory is one of only a small number of such buildings remaining.
The building committee purchased an existing timber store building from Cuthbert Butt at Nanango and A Kopp and W Toop had erected it on the site by May 1926. A crow's ash floor was laid for dancing and the hall was painted. It was initially leased to a Mr A Rich, who moved his silent picture show there from Boonara. Mrs Rich had a sweet stall under the hall, which appears to have been enclosed soon after the relocation. Funds to clear the debt and cover the purchase of furniture, crockery and other essential items were raised by holding a series of events from 1927. These included a concert and ball, a sports day and procession and a popular girl competition, won by Myrtle Wieland who was also one of the cinema pianists. These events were announced to have cleared the debt of £844 at Easter 1929 with a surplus of just £1/3/6.
In 1931 a large supper room with a kitchen was added. This room was also used for meetings and small functions. In 1935 sections of wall were removed between the hall and the enclosed verandahs to increase available space.
Mr A Duffy held a long lease on the hall to show films. He also acted as caretaker and installed electricity and equipment to show 'talkies'. In the 1940s he became one of the first operators in the country to install cinemascope.
During the Second World War, the basement area was used to store 600 tons of emergency supplies for the area in case of Japanese invasion. Following the war these were removed and the area was partitioned as clubrooms for the RSL. The Citizen's Military Forces also used the RSL space as a drill room and the grounds of the hall for parades.
World War II memorials to match those for WWI were ordered in 1950 from Smiths Rubber Stamp, Brass Plate and Stencil Manufacturing Coy in Brisbane for the sum of 7 guineas each. Murray Studios in Gympie supplied the photographs and the memorials were unveiled on Anzac Day 1951.
In the 1950s, the demand for film shows fell. Films were shown only once a week and were eventually discontinued in the late 1950s, although the hall continued to be used for other events. In 1971, the Kilkivan Shire Council accepted responsibility for the hall at the Trustee's request. Following this, the kitchens were modernised and a bar and cold room installed at the supper room end of the hall. The RSL kitchenette was modernised in 1991 and it is thought that the hall was re-roofed in 1995. The hall is still in regular use for a wide range of entertainments and social functions.
","criteria":"The Goomeri Hall of Memory is important is demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, as a memorial to the participation, and loss of, members of the Goomeri and district community in the First World War and later wars. Construction of the hall is also illustrative of the patriotic fervour associated with the First World War, and the community's identification with the British Empire at this period in Queensland's history.
|As a memorial hall it forms part of a relatively rare type of First World War memorial in Queensland, being a building for both memorial and recreational use, rather than the more common monumental memorial.
|The Goomeri Hall of Memory demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building designed for the use, both recreational and administrative, of returned soldiers and their families, with its honour rolls, meeting rooms, supper room, and dance hall. The large hall remains important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with a timber floor laid especially for dancing, a stage, supper room and large banks of windows to the street elevation.
|The Hall of Memory has landmark qualities as a large and well-detailed building on a prominent elevated site and makes a major contribution to the character of the townscape of Goomeri.
|The Goomeri Hall of Memory has a spiritual and social association with the Returned Services League as both a war memorial and a meeting place. It also has a special association with community of Goomeri and district because of its long use for many social functions, including balls, concerts and the showing of films.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15417,"place_ref":600642,"name":"Goomeri War Memorial Clock","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Burnett Highway","suburb":"GOOMERI","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a traffic island in one of the main intersections of Goomeri. It is a dominant landscape feature from most locations in the town.
The traffic island is located in the centre of the intersection, level with the road on the eastern side and dropping away on the western side. A flagpole is located on the north side of the monument which sits on a stepped concrete pad with short square concrete bollards at each corner.
The painted concrete monument rises to a height of 74 feet and comprises a tapered tower with clockfaces at the apex. Fixed to the west face of the foundation and to the north face of the clocktower are metal components from Goomeri's former memorial to the First World War.
The tower is subtly divided into three sections; a base, the body and the clock.
The base has shallow simply moulded details around the base and at each corner and has applied moulding at the termination of the base section. A substantial metal door bearing a bronze Australian Coat of Arms surrounded by a laurel wreath is recessed into the north face. The dates 1914 and 1919 are located above and below the wreath, also in bronze.
On each of the other faces are polished granite plaques with the engraved names of those who made the Supreme Sacrifice. The southern face bears the names of the nine who fell in the First World War and the dates 1914 - 1919. The western face displays the names of the twelve who fell in the Second World War, and the eastern face is blank.
Above the base is the body of the tower which is plain except for a simple central decorative element, painted dark brown. The uppermost section of the body has stop-chamfers to each corner which continue into the clock section.
The clock itself is located at the top of the tower and comprises four faces which are illuminated at night. The letters Lest we forget (reading clockwise) replace the numerals on each clock face.
","history":"The Goomeri War Memorial Clock was unveiled on 15 November 1940 by RSL State President RD Huish. The concrete memorial honours the 9 local men who fell in the First World War and the 12 who fell in the Second World War.
It was erected at a cost of £700 which was raised by the Goomeri Returned Services League Sub-Branch.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although many different types of war memorials were erected throughout Queensland, the clock type of memorial was comparatively rare. It is not known who designed the memorial, however the metal work was produced by Ernest Gunderson and was originally part of an earlier monument which also commemorated the First World War.
Ernest Gunderson established his metalworking company in Brisbane after migrating from Norway. The company operated until the mid 1930s and supplied honour boards and plates for memorials statewide. His work was distinctly original, often incorporating both Australian and British motifs.
The monument is painted, with details now picked out in darker colours.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
It also has special association with Brisbane metalworker Ernest Gunderson as an example of his workmanship.
|It is one of the few memorials in Queensland in the form of a clock tower and has uncommon decorative features.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1940, the war memorial at Goomeri demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance as a dominant landmark in the main intersection of Goomeri, being the reason the town is known as 'the Clock Town.'
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15418,"place_ref":600643,"name":"Wodonga House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Woolooga Road","suburb":"UPPER WIDGEE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Wodonga house is now situated near the clubhouse within the grounds of the Widgee Historical and Recreational Association.
It is a rectangular timber structure set on low stumps with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The roof over the rear section is angled down from the main roof, suggesting it was verandah that was been extended and built in. The floor joists, studs and rafters are split and adze dressed. An open verandah runs along the front of the building supported on plain timber posts. The building shows evidence of being constructed in stages, the walls containing examples of split slabs, hand dressed chamfer boards, pit sawn weatherboards and machine-sawn boards.
The interior is divided into six main rooms divided by timber walls. It has timber floors and is unceiled.
","history":"The former Wodonga house was constructed on its original site in 1902. The land on which it was located was first settled in 1849 when a number of runs were taken up by W B Tooth and Company. These holdings eventually developed into a cattle property known as Widgee Station.
Government resumptions of Widgee Station began in 1869, and in 1877 James Meakin jnr successfully applied for a 640-acre portion, which was to become Wodonga Station. In 1878 an adjoining portion was selected and further land was acquired until 1912 when Wodonga covered 1194 acres, making it one of the largest properties in the district. By January 1882, part of the holding had been transferred to James Meakin snr. The Meakins were cheese makers and also supplied produce to the residents of Gympie.
Prior to 1880, the Meakin brothers constructed the first homestead on the site. In 1887, Wodonga was transferred to Catherine Ellen Hillcoat, wife of John William Hillcoat, manager of Hope Crushing Battery at nearby Black Snake Mineral Field. Hillcoat's son Harold and his wife settled on the property and raised their family of five boys and four girls. The Hillcoats continued the practice of cheese making and dairying and the family lived in the original homestead until 1902, when they constructed the current homestead. The first stage comprised four rooms with a shingle roof. Pine floorboards were brought from the Gympie sawmill in exchange for pine logs from Wodonga. Two rooms were later added and the roof was extended and clad in corrugated iron.
The new building was located adjacent to the existing on the northern side enabling the kitchen to be re-used and eventually connected to the new building. It contained five bedrooms and a sitting room, with the original homestead building retained for use as a schoolroom and accommodation for visitors and workmen. The buildings were surrounded by a picket fence.
Around 1908 the Hillcoats ceased dairying and concentrated on raising beef cattle, supplementing their income by selling possum and kangaroo skins. In 1911-1912 the family worked timber getting in the surrounding area, though the property then reverted to dairying under Percy Pointen who married one of the Hillcoat daughters. When Pointen died the property was sold to the Wodonga Pastoral Company and was used to raise beef cattle again. From 1962 the homestead was unoccupied and became derelict. In August 1978, the homestead building was sold to the Widgee Historical Society and relocated to the Widgee Hall and Recreation Association grounds. Repairs have been carried out and it has been restumped and re roofed. It is currently used intermittently for community events. The original homestead and kitchen have not survived.
","criteria":"The house, formerly at Wodonga, is typical of many small homestead buildings, being built from local materials and showing evidence of being added to and adapted over the years to accommodate the changing needs of its occupants.
The building, as part of the former homestead that was constructed by the Hillcoat family in 1902, has local significance for its association with this family who occupied the original site for many years.
|The house, formerly at Wodonga, is typical of many small homestead buildings, being built from local materials and showing evidence of being added to and adapted over the years to accommodate the changing needs of its occupants.
|The building, as part of the former homestead that was constructed by the Hillcoat family in 1902, has local significance for its association with this family who occupied the original site for many years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15419,"place_ref":600644,"name":"Barambah Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Goomeri Road","suburb":"GOOMERI","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","history":"The summary information for this place is currently under review.
","criteria":"Barambah station was established in 1843 by Ferriter and Uhr in the wake of Henry Stuart Russell's exploration of the Burnett district in 1842. The Barambah site once comprised a complete homestead complex, with some structures reputedly built during the 1870s. Today, the timber residence built in c1905-06 stands as testimony to the development of Barambah as one of the earliest principal pastoral holdings in the Burnett district. The physical improvement of the site reflects the growth of the Queensland rural economy during the early 20th century.
|Despite extensive renovations to the house, the main original divisions between the living areas and private spaces...such as bedrooms, and the internal core and encircling verandahs...remain intact, with the exception of the rear enclosed vernadah areas. The place demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial Queensland timber residence built in the first decade of the 20th century. The significant associated buildings present in the homestead complex assist in demonstrating how this kind of pastoral property would have operated.
|The residence exhibits a high standard of workmanship and architectural design, and its elevated position, amidst early garden remnants and overlooking a watercourse, enhances the aesthetic appeal of the site.
|Barambah has a special association with the Moore family, who owned the property for nearly 100 years and who developed it during that time as one of the pre-eminent cattle stations in the Burnett district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15420,"place_ref":600645,"name":"Woolooga Rail Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Theebine - Kilikivan Line","suburb":"WIDE BAY CREEK","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Woolooga Rail Bridge, Wide Bay No. 2 Crossing Bridge, at 25.14 km (15m45c) comprises two 100 feet lattice girder spans with steel cross girders and timber longitudinals supported on concrete piers with timber piers on a concrete base at the centre of each span.
","history":"The Woolooga Rail Bridge was built in 1884 and crosses Wide Bay Creek on the Maryborough to Kilkivan branch line.
The Kilkivan branch was built while the Maryborough Railway was not connected to any other system. A short section to Dickabram on the bank of the Mary River was opened on 1 January 1886. The section to Kilkivan opened on 6 December 1886 after the completion of a major combined rail-road bridge over the Mary River.
The Kilkivan branch, built in the hope of stimulating gold and copper mining, was ultimately extended to serve the South Burnett. Besides a major bridge over the Mary River, the Kilkivan branch crossed Wide Bay Creek three times. Tenders were called for just 4 miles, and had to be called twice as the short length made the project unattractive to contractors. The work for the whole section to Kilkivan was let to MCDermott, Owen & Co in August 1884.
In order to strengthen the bridge to permit C17 locomotives to operate, instead of just PB15 and B15 classes, the 100 feet spans were divided in the 1933-35 period by inserting timber piers at the centre of each span.
","criteria":"The Woolooga Rail Bridge is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history in particular the development of the railway network from Maryborough and the development of gold and copper mining in the Kilkivan area.
|The Woolooga Rail Bridge is an example of a lattice girder bridge dating from the 1880s still in use, although the spans have been halved by extra piers.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15421,"place_ref":600646,"name":"Wylarah","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"South Burrandowan Road","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Wylarah is a pastoral property located approximately 50 kilometres west of Kingaroy.
The homestead is a single-storeyed, single-skinned timber building with a corrugated galvanised iron roof. The plan is unusual. It has a verandah on three sides, and a U-shaped hipped roof, encircling a double pitch over the central hall.
The central hall is encircled by bedrooms to the east and west, a large lounge to the north, a dining room to the north east, kitchen to the south east and several smaller service rooms to the south, the latter including the southern entry vestibule. The more formal entrance to the house is located on the northern frontage, which also features a metal belfry and weathercock flanked by two red brick chimneys.
An unpainted panel system is used throughout the interior as well as the exterior; it consists of an ironbark frame which is expressed, internally and externally, with vertically-jointed (probably cypress) infill panels trimmed with cavetto-section pine mouldings.
The central hall, which measures approximately 15 m by 11 m, has a polished beech floor, and a double-pitched, timber-lined ceiling with exposed rafters. A valley beam
running north-south has two intermediate chamfer post supports, and two timber ties run east-west. The southern gable ends are glazed with yellow patterned glass. Similarly patterned glass is used in the fanlights above doors opening onto the central hall. The doors have clear glazed panels.
The rooms surrounding the central hall to the north, west and east have timber-lined ceilings, and french doors with arched upper panels opening onto the verandah and fanlights. Brick fireplaces with timber mantelpieces serve six of these rooms. The verandah has chamfered timber posts with cross-braced timber balustrades, and a timber-lined ceiling with exposed rafters.
The grounds include lawns and gardens to the east and north, and remnants of the original orchard to the west. To the south of the homestead are several original service buildings: to the immediate south east is a corrugated iron bath house, with a corrugated iron water tank on its roof and a steel windmill immediately adjacent; a timber and corrugated iron blacksmith's shed sits further out to the south, and contains early blacksmithing and carpentry tools; to the west is a double-storeyed corrugated iron coach house, with the coachman's residence above and two coach bays; a timber hoist approximately 5 m high sits between the coach house and the timber and corrugated iron stables.
Most of the original buildings survive, and Wylarah stills functions as a pastoral property.
","history":"Wylarah was selected in 1890 by Alfred Greenup who was manager of "Maryland" near Stanthorpe from 1868. He named the property after the Aboriginal word for black cockatoo. It comprised a grazing lease of 9 000 acres (3 600 ha) and an agricultural farm of 1 267 acres (506 ha) which were part of the resumption of
Burrandowan Station.
In 1891 work on the main homestead commenced by J Gibbs, a Victorian, with assistance from Greenup. A slab hut was erected for use while the homestead was built. The hut's hearth survives. The bricks were made from clay on the property while the timber was milled at Chinchilla. Some of the furniture was also built by Gibbs at this time.
Originally planned to be U-shaped, the internal courtyard was considered too small, and so was covered and floored to form a central hall. An innovative feature was the integration of the kitchen into the house.
Although they visited the property in 1891 it was 1897 before the Greenup family moved to Wylarah. Alfred Greenup continued as manager of "Maryland" until 1905. Wylarah's hall was the venue for the district's church services and other community activities for many years.
After Greenup's death in 1915 the property was run by his son Harold. The lease area was halved in 1924. Following Harold Greenup's death in 1957 Wylarah was left to his daughter Frances, whose son now runs the property. He has undertaken considerable repairs including replacing the side verandah's floor and lining the service rooms at the rear.
","criteria":"Wylarah is significant in demonstrating rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, namely: it is an uncommonly intact example of a late 19th century homestead complex which served a medium-sized pastoral property; and the homestead is unusual and idiosyncratic in its construction, plan form, distinctive central hall, unpainted interior and exterior, and varied use of timber. Wylarah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century homestead complex on a pastoral property and its layout, unpainted materials, setting and harmonious colours of buildings and landscape exhibit aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community.
|Wylarah is significant in demonstrating rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, namely: it is an uncommonly intact example of a late 19th century homestead complex which served a medium-sized pastoral property; and the homestead is unusual and idiosyncratic in its construction, plan form, distinctive central hall, unpainted interior and exterior, and varied use of timber.
|Wylarah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century homestead complex on a pastoral property
|and its layout, unpainted materials, setting and harmonious colours of buildings and landscape exhibit aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15422,"place_ref":600647,"name":"Taabinga Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Old Taabinga Road","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Taabinga Homestead Complex is situated on Old Taabinga Road, off the Bunya Highway about 11km north-east of Kumbia and 15km south-west of Kingaroy. It comprises of a main homestead building, a number of associated outbuildings, the remnants of an extensive, carefully tended garden, a tennis court, and a small cemetery. The outbuildings include a kitchen, dairy, meat house, carpenter/blacksmith's workshop, and grain store, as well as garages, cottages, and stables. The main approach to the complex, and the front face of the property, is from the east. The outbuildings have been located in a zone to the west behind the homestead building.
House
The single-storey house is made of two gable-roofed sections, with broken-back extensions. Together they form a long, rectangular plan shape, the long sides of which are oriented toward the east and west. The northern section of the house is wider than the other by approximately 2m. This additional width extends to the west, on the rear elevation. The roof to the southern section of the house is slightly lower than the other, though its steep pitch is the same. A broken-back skirt of roof is created on its three exposed sides. On the eastern elevation, the long plane of roof set at a secondary pitch continues past the northern segment of the house, making a separate verandah roof. This roof bends to meet the wall of the first storey lookout, which nestles under the high ridge of the gable roof. A sandstone chimneystack projects from the site where the two main gable roofs join, near their ridgelines. Two sandstone chimneystacks project through the line where the roof changes pitch on the western side of the northern section of the house. On this elevation, where the two parts meet, the roof to the northern section is stepped back. This marks a narrow corridor and stair that separates the two sections. All roof planes are clad in corrugated iron, and unless otherwise stated this is the case with the roofs of other buildings in the complex.
A large proportion of the exterior walls to the northern section of the house are constructed of sandstone ashlar that is approximately 60cm deep. The sills and flat arches to windows and doors in these walls are also made of sandstone. The windows on the western elevation are timber-framed casements with a total of 3 lights in each sash, while the doors are five-panelled. In the short corridor between the two sections of the house, the ashlar is topped with weatherboard cladding. The exterior walls to the east and north-facing verandah areas are clad in wide chamferboards and have exposed timber framing. The northern gable end of this section of the house, and its first-storey lookout are clad in weatherboards. The lookout is open to the east and north, and its rails and balusters are timber. Fitted above these, framing each view, are simple, single-board timber brackets and valances. The verandah roof is supported by a series of square timber posts, which have simple timber capitals and are scored on their outward-facing sides. A scalloped fascia runs the length of the verandah roof's edge. The sloping ceiling to the verandah is lined with single-beaded, tongue-and-groove boards, while the floor is clad in shot-edge timber boards. Each double door opening onto the verandah has a low waist, 4 lights in each leaf, and a 2-paned fanlight.
The exterior walls to the southern section of the house are largely clad in chamferboards, except for a small section on the western façade, which is clad in wide, vertical timber slabs. A square verandah area occupies the south-east corner of this section of the house. The windows on the eastern façade are casements, except for a fixed pane of glass separating two double doors with upper lights. Two large windows on the southern-most end of this elevation have low sills when compared with the remaining ones. They each have three sashes, which are then divided into 6 lights. The remaining casement windows each have three sashes with only single lights. On the southern façade, the three windows match those described as having comparatively low sill heights, except they feature four sashes rather than three. A wide section of the western façade steps back towards the interior of the structure, separating the chamferboard and slab claddings. This stepped section is clad in wide, vertical timber boards.
House Interior
The southern section of the house is divided into two large rooms by a timber bi-fold door. The ceiling is coved and lined with tongue-and-groove timber boards. A long timber beam supported by timber posts supports the change in pitch of the roof. The single fireplace has a timber mantel and the wall it opens out of appears to be plastered.
The northern section of the house is divided into a number of rooms. Two large ones abut the eastern verandah, sit under the main gable, and are divided by a set of 6-panel timber bi-fold doors. Each room has a fireplace with a simple timber mantelpiece and curved back. The walls are lined with fibrous cement sheeting, which have beaded joints. They were originally lined with paper on hessian. The walls of the chimneys are painted stone. The ceilings are lined with wide, single-beaded tongue-and-groove boards, with timber cornices. Under the secondary pitch of the roof, facing west, there are a number of bedrooms. A corridor, parallel with the stairs, is situated at the southern end of this wing. It allows entry to the larger rooms behind.
It is believed that the stairs situated between the two parts of the house, lead to a corridor running under the main ridge to the upper storey lookout.
Kitchen
The kitchen building is located a few metres to the west of the sandstone section of the house, with a gable-roofed walkway connecting the two. It has a hipped roof with broken-back wings along the northern and southern sides. The ridgeline runs perpendicular to that of the house's gable roofs. The exterior walls are clad in a combination of vertical slabs and weatherboards. On the eastern façade is a double-hung sash window with hand-drawn glass, and on the opposite façade there is a bank of casements, possibly dating from late 1900s to early 1920s. To the south, a square open section, occupies the middle of the kitchen's slab façade. A single board door opens onto the interior from here. A french door with 8 lights in each sash opens off the kitchen onto a semi-enclosed verandah area on the northern facade. On the interior, the floors are covered with linoleum, the walls are lined with wide, single-beaded tongue-and-groove boards, and the ceiling is unlined, revealing the original shingles. The roof beams are adzed and the battens are pit-sawn.
Dairy
The dairy is located about 10m to the west of the house and 7m to the south of the kitchen building. It has a high-pitched pyramid roof clad in tiles (scale), the deep overhang of which is supported by simple timber braces. The sloping eaves are lined with wide, single-beaded tongue-and-groove boards. On the exterior, the walls are clad to sill-height with weatherboards, and above this with panels of galvanised metal louvres set in timber frames. The square-plan structure sits on a concrete slab-on-ground, and 2 ventilation blocks are fitted in each wall at slab level. Inside, the walls are lined with timber workbenches, and below and above the metal louvres are single-beaded tongue-and-groove boards. The ceiling is lined with shot-edge timber boards.
Cottage 1 (Single Men's Quarters)
This building was originally located on the other side of the stables, but was moved during the Second World War to accommodate women and children evacuees. It is currently located approximately 10m from the south-east corner of the house. The external walls are clad in weatherboards and the windows are casements.
Meat House
The meat house is located in a cluster of buildings over 35m to the west of the house, and adjacent to the tennis court. It has a short-ridge hipped roof, the fourth, north-eastern side of which has been cut back. On the remaining three sides the roof forms an overhang about 2m deep that is supported by timber posts. On the south-western elevation the edge of the roof is finished with a half-metre wide, solid valance of shot-edge timber boards. The building sheltering under the roof sits on a concrete slab-on-ground. The walls are clad in weatherboards to a height off the ground of approximately 600mm. A timber sill separates this from the fine steel mesh, which covers the timber frame above. There are double board doors on the north-eastern elevation. Inside the meat house is divided into two rooms by a wall made with steel mesh fixed to a timber frame. There is a single board door in this wall, which extends only to the height of the top plates of the exterior walls. While the underside of the corrugated iron roof is exposed in the first room entered, in the second there is a tongue-and-groove timber board ceiling. A step in the slab also separates the two spaces. The butcher's blocks are still in place.
Carpenter/Blacksmith's Workshop
This building has a gabled roof, and is located about 4m to the south-east of the meat house. The walls are clad in weatherboards, and there is a large opening in its southern elevation. Inside the floor is dirt and the sawn frame is exposed on each gable end and to the roof. On a wall that divides the room lengthways, timber boards are fitted vertically to the height of the top plates of the exterior walls. There are two casement windows in the northern elevation, each with 3 lights in each sash. Large double board doors open out of the building's eastern elevation. The forge appears to be made from a ship's tank, and the anvil and bellows are also still in place.
Garage and Chauffeur's Residence
This building is located about 4m west of the blacksmith's. In plan it is L-shaped, and gable roofs project along each wing. A part of the roof on the shorter wing has been extended to cover a strong room made with concrete walls and a steel door. The walls are clad in weatherboards and the windows are predominantly timber double-hung sashes with two lights in each sash. The entire building sits on a concrete slab-on-ground. Inside the garage occupies the long wing. There is a single room allocated for the driver, and its walls and ceiling are lined with tongue-and-groove timber boards. There are timber board doors. The garage was built to accommodate Arthur Youngman's Rolls Royce, which was said to be the second bought in Queensland. There is a greasing pit for the car nearby, with a simple curved roof supported on timber posts.
Store/Cottage 2
This building is located about 4m to the south-east of the blacksmith's. It is timber framed, sits on low stumps and has a gabled roof. The walls are clad in weatherboards. The building was originally the store and the storekeeper's residence.
Grain Shed
The grain shed is located about 15m to the south-west of the blacksmith's. It was originally used to store grain in bulk, however it is now used as theatre. It has a low-pitched gable roof and sits on low timber stumps. The walls are clad in weatherboards and the awning windows are made of timber boards. Entry is gained via a short flight of timber stairs on the north-eastern façade. Inside the floor is lined with timber tongue-and-groove boards. The seating was provided by the Princess Cinema in Mt Gravatt, Brisbane. Adjacent to the north-west of this building is an open gable-roofed barn supported by rough timber poles.
Stables
The stables are located about 10m to the west of the grain shed and hay barn (on an adjoining allottment). It is a long narrow structure with a low-pitched gable roof. The wall and roof framing is constructed of timber stumps and poles, and vertical slabs are fitted in between those to the walls. Its north-eastern façade has a single opening, while the opposing one has a number of them. A number of stalls are separated from the western yard with rails. The three sections the building is divided into on the interior are made with top plate height slab walls.
Cemetery
The cemetery is located over 200m to the east of the homestead, and can be accessed via a secondary track. One grave, with an elaborate headstone and metal railings surrounding it, is that of two Haly children who died in 1858. They were Anastasia (1 year) and Charles (13 months), who died within weeks of each other suggesting they may have been twins. Another grave belongs to Matilda Baker (3 years). The headstone records that she died in 1864, and was the child of George and Bridgetta Baker who were employed by the Halys. Another early grave belongs to a stockman, Henry Weldon, who died at age 19 years in 1869. The headstone's inscription reads 'Boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth'. As they are weathering, small metal, inscribed plaques have been affixed to these headstones by members of the Leu family. Arthur Youngman, who died in 1935, and his wife Daphne who died in 1975, are both buried here. The cemetery is currently in use, as later family members have been interred there. The current owners tell a story, which suggests that 8 graves marked by local boulders belong to Aboriginal children.
Gardens
There appear to be remnants of the gardens established by Arthur Youngman. On either side of the entry to the homestead complex, to the north-east of the house, stand two large palms. The area to the east of the house is covered in lawn. A Bunya pine stands to the north of the house. Adjacent to the south-western corner of the house stands another tall pine.
","history":"The Taabinga run was originally taken up by the Haly brothers in the 1840s and the main residence was developed during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the outbuildings on the Homestead site were built during the 1890s and early 1900s when Arthur Youngman was owner of the property.
The explorations of Henry Stuart Russell in the Burnett district during the early 1840s mark a watershed in the pastoral history of Queensland. Following the closure of Moreton Bay as a penal colony, Russell led the search for land north of Brisbane and the Darling Downs. He first arrived in Queensland in 1840 to stay with cousins on the Darling Downs and by 1842 he was the first European to pass through what was later to become Taabinga. Russell's expeditions in the Burnett had opened a district of rich grazing and agricultural land, and in 1843 he took up Burrandowan run on the Borne River as a sheep station.
Other squatters soon followed Russell and it was brothers Charles Robert and William O'Grady Haly who first settled on Taabinga station. The Haly brothers had arrived in Australia from Newfoundland in 1838 and settled on the Hunter River before moving to the Gwydir River. From there they assembled a team of men and some 5,000 sheep and travelled north through the Logan district during the early 1840s in search of land. Shearing records indicate the Haly brothers had settled Taabinga station by 1846, at which time it was an established sheep property covering 305 square miles. Despite their early occupation of the land, the Haly brothers did not apply for a lease over Taabinga until June 1850, which was granted on 10 February 1852 for a term of 14 years. By 1853, Charles Haly was at Tamrookum in the Logan district, where he married Rosa Harpur and was to remain until at least 1854. During this time it is most likely that either William Haly or a superintendent was managing Taabinga station. When William Haly returned to England in 1859, Charles became sole lessee of Taabinga and the following year was elected to the first Queensland Legislative Assembly as the member for the Burnett. In 1863 he acquired a freehold over 314 acres of the run and remained at the property until 1875 when he moved to Dalby.
While documentary evidence for the physical development of Taabinga is non-existent, Hector Munro, who was the son of George Munro, onetime manager of Boondooma station (QHR 600967), and who was a friend of the Haly family, described the first structure at Taabinga as a hut 'built with bark, then perpendicular slabs with a ground floor and bark roof. The house known as the Boss's residence was built with pit saw and timber foundation logs of wood, squared on one side with walls of horizontal slabs and floor in boards of pit saw and roof shingles'. From these rudimentary structures the homestead site gained more permanent buildings. It is claimed that the first part of the main residence, which still stands today, was constructed during the 1840s and was developed through to the 1850s. According to the Alford family, who later acquired Taabinga and whose papers have been published as Alford Family Notes, Charles Haly began residing at Taabinga with his family in the late 1850s, just prior to becoming sole lessee of the property. An article in The Queenslander in 1924 indicates the continued development of the homestead site in this period: 'Sixty-seven years ago where now stands this beautiful, and complete home, was little better than wild, crude bush'. While precise dating of the main house remains elusive, the freeholding of a portion of the Taabinga run by Charles Haly in 1863 would seem to indicate the existence of the main residence by this time. Its western wall is built from locally quarried sandstone and the cedar was obtained from the Bunya Mountains while the timber for the hardwood floors was taken from the property itself. At much the same time that the main residence was being constructed it is believed that the Halys also built the stockyards and stables. The stables, which remain well preserved, are located on an adjoining lot, however the stockyards were damaged in a fire during the 1950s.
On 27 March 1875, Charles Haly was preparing to sell his interests in Taabinga and the Brisbane Courier reported he had 'received what is considered a good offer . . . and it is not unlikely that the station may shortly change hands'. Two months later the Brisbane Courier reported that Taabinga, with some 3,000 head of stock, was just about 'ready to hand over. A short time after, it is understood, Mr Haly and family will take their departure from the station'. By October 1875, James Henderson, Boulton Molineaux and Thomas Littlejohn had acquired both the leasehold and freehold portions of Taabinga. The following year the leasehold was transferred to Thomas Littlejohn and Thomas Alford, and Richard Symes Alford, brother of Thomas, was charged with managing the property. Thomas Alford was originally from Drayton and by the mid-1870s had an interest in Coochin Coochin station (600034), where he lived, as well as Gwambagwine station. At the time of Haly's departure from Taabinga station both sheep and cattle were on the run, but Alford's prime interest in the property was in expanding the cattle breeding programmes of Coochin Coochin and Gwambagwine. In 1883, Thomas was registered as the sole owner of the leasehold and freehold portions of Taabinga and moved there to live after his brother, Richard, relinquished the position as manager of the station. Thomas remained at Taabinga until a riding accident in 1887 forced him to sell his interests in the estate.
Arthur Youngman, who was a close friend of Richard Symes Alford, took up the leasehold and freehold portions of Taabinga in 1888 from Thomas Alford. Youngman was born in Melbourne in 1862 and after an abortive attempt to study medicine he moved to Queensland to work as a jackeroo. He was relatively inexperienced at pastoral life, having gained his first taste at Rawbelle station before purchasing Taabinga, but benefited from the continued employment of John William Walters who had served as head stockman at Taabinga since the mid-1870s. Youngman was also able to call on Richard Symes Alford to return to Taabinga as a bookkeeper. Youngman built a house, once known as The Lodge, to accommodate Alford and his family, but this was not the only improvement made to the property during Youngman's time there. An article on Youngman in the Queensland Trustees Quarterly Review in March 1951 noted that when 'he first took possession of Taabinga he began to improve the property by a policy of ringbarking the heavily-timbered country, by the planting of artificial grasses . . . and by subdividing the large paddocks into smaller and more workable areas'.
A programme of rebuilding and renovation during the 1890s and early 1900s resulted in the homestead being modernized and expanded, as noted in The Queenslander in 1924: 'Modern in all comforts and conveniences, the home (which has been added to of late years) is distinctly charming in its simple, old-fashioned architecture'. Most of the outbuildings also date from Youngman's time at Taabinga and they remain in a well-conserved state as part of the homestead complex. These include a garage, store and meat house for which Brisbane architects HW Atkinson and Charles McLay called tenders in March 1909. Similarly, the gardens that surround the main residence are today a reminder of Youngman's improvements to Taabinga. The Brisbane Courier in 1932 described the gardens as 'one of the most glorious . . . that any one could possibly wish to see. In it Mr Youngman has personally expended much energy, and he has every reason to be proud of his achievement'.
While the homestead block remained unaffected, the increasing demand for land in the Burnett district had reduced the Taabinga run during Youngman's time there. Early resumptions had occurred during Thomas Alford's tenure, reducing the size of the leased land from the original 305 square miles to 154 ½ square miles at the time of Youngman's succession. Further resumptions occurred in 1901 and 1907, and in August 1911 the government resumed the whole of the run under the crown Land Act of 1897. Youngman was compensated £11,745 being the value of the resumed land, improvements and legal costs.
Youngman remained at Taabinga until his death in 1935. He was buried in the cemetery located within the homestead complex, and title to the property was held in trust by Frederick Septimus Lee, Queensland Trustees and Youngman's wife, Florence Daphne Youngman. In 1958, Roderick Gordon Graham replaced Lee as one of the trustees of the estate and following Graham's death in 1961 Dorothy Foster McWilliam was appointed in his place. When Daphne Youngman died in 1975 her remains were buried in a plot next to her husband on the homestead site. The property was further subdivided in the 1980s, with the homestead portion remaining in the Youngman family and operated as a professional homestay.
","criteria":"Taabinga station was established in the 1840s by the Haly brothers in the wake of Henry Stuart Russell's exploration of the Burnett district in 1842. The development of Taabinga is an important part of the pastoral history of Queensland, and the site stands as testimony to the emergence of Taabinga as one of the earliest principal pastoral holdings in the Burnett district. The physical expansion of the site, especially during the 1890s and early 1900s, reflects the growth of the Queensland rural economy during this period.
|The principal built elements of Taabinga include the main residence built between the 1840s and 1850s, as well as the kitchen; dairy; single men's quarters; meat house; carpenter/blacksmith's workshop; garage and chauffeur's residence; storehouse; grain shed; and cemetery. Most of these structures were built during the 1890s and early 1900s. The stables, reputedly erected around the same time as the main residence, are now located on an adjoining lot. The survival of these structures in a well-preserved state provides an example of an early homestead setting, and the relationship between these elements contribute to an understanding of early station life and as such it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.
|The Homestead site provides a well-preserved example of vernacular architecture of the Queensland pastoral frontier and its aesthetic significance is enhanced by its picturesque setting within mature landscaped gardens. The main residence exhibits a high degree of workmanship and design, and its use of local resources for building highlights the adaptive lifestyle of Queensland's pastoral pioneers.
|Taabinga has a special association with brothers Charles Robert and William O'Grady Haly, who were early pioneers of the Logan and Burnett regions. The site also has a special association with the Youngman family. Arthur Youngman was responsible for the development of the homestead complex during the 1890s and early 1900s and the property remains in the Youngman family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15423,"place_ref":600648,"name":"Burrandowan Station Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Kingaroy Road","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The homestead buildings are located in a garden setting without a formal approach drive. They comprise a dwelling in three sections, sheds, a guest cottage, an ant bed tennis court and traces of various other outbuildings just visible above ground.
The main residence consists of three buildings; a kitchen and office, a dining room connected to it by a covered way and a bedroom wing. The kitchen building is set on low timber stumps with logs as bearers. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting and the walls are constructed of split and trimmed horizontal slabs dropped between uprights. Windows with multiple panes overlook an area paved with dressed stone blocks, some of which are pecked and have tooled margins. This is shaded on the eastern side by an awning of corrugated iron on a pole frame supported by timber posts. The building is unlined but ceiled with fibrous cement sheeting. It has an early closed stove made by the Scottish firm of Smith and Wellstood and a modern kitchen counter. A door opens from the kitchen into an office which is a separate gable roofed building butted against the kitchen and which has a lower floor.
To the west of the kitchen is a passageway with stone paving which leads to the dining room. This is a large rectangular slab building with a gable roof clad in corrugated iron. Verandahs run along both long sides and French windows open onto them. Part of one verandah is used as a servery and part of the other has been enclosed as a bathroom. It has a stone fireplace and a coved ceiling. A wide covered area floored in timber links this to the bedroom wing. This is a gable-roofed rectangular building with three core rooms and is constructed of heavy weatherboards and has French doors. There are now three bedrooms and a sitting room. The verandah area at the rear is enclosed and has a bathroom at one end.
Some distance to the west of the main house is a drop log cottage with a new corrugated iron hipped roof and a bullnosed awning supported by timber posts along the front. This contains a modern kitchen and has a weatherboard extension to the rear.
The other major building is a large, rectangular shed to the east of the house. It has a steep hipped roof clad in corrugated iron and is also constructed of drop log slabs, is unlined and has a pole frame. One end has a small skillion roofed addition and has an earth floor. It is used as a garage. The adjoining section is separated from this by a drop log partition that reaches only to wall height. The building was originally divided into three rooms and a second partition has been removed, though the frame remains. A pole storage rack has been built against one wall and most of the floor in this area is paved with small blocks of timber placed in irregular rows. The shed has large barn doors at one end with forge-made hinges and fixings.
An open shed is situated to the north of the kitchen. It has a hipped corrugated iron roof supported on timber posts. It has some wall sections at the rear that are constructed of slabs.
The homestead grounds contain visible traces of outbuildings, and quantities of the dressed stone blocks of unknown provenance that have been used for paving and low seats around the house and garden. Some bricks also remain from the former homestead although few are whole. There is an ant bed tennis court.
The grave of Jane Warren, wife of Charles Warren, who died in 1903, can be seen about one kilometre to the south of the homestead, although the path that linked them has vanished. It has a headstone and ornamental metal railings. There are believed to be other graves located nearby, although they are not visible due to vegetation growth.
","history":"Burrandowan was established by Henry Stuart Russell in 1843 and was one of the first pastoral runs to be taken up in the Wide Bay area. The homestead buildings are early vernacular structures associated with the operation of this station.
Henry Stuart Russell arrived in Australia from England in 1840 and joined relatives in Sydney. These were the Hodgsons who had a property in the Hunter Valley and subsequently established Eton Vale station on the Darling Downs. Russell travelled with them to the Downs and in 1841 took up Cecil Plains station with his brother Sydenham.
Searches for pastoral land extended north in the early 1840s after the Moreton Bay region was opened for selection following the closure of the penal colony. Initial leases were taken up in the Moreton Bay, Darling Downs and Brisbane Valley regions, but by 1842 squatters were looking further north for suitable land. In May 1842, Russell joined an expedition to search the Wide Bay area for grazing country and in November of the same year, with Sydenham and William Glover, made another expedition to the Wide Bay area. They chose land that they named Burrandowan, said to mean 'big wind' in the local Aboriginal dialect. This area was outside the area officially designated for pastoral settlement, however, and so the run was not registered. After a second visit to the area, Russell returned to Cecil Plains, leaving Sydenham and Glover in charge and the new run was stocked with sheep from Cecil Plains in May 1843. Relationships with the local Aboriginal people at Burrandowan were, and continued to be, hostile and shepherds were reluctant to work there. Sydenham and Glover soon became dispirited and left, Sydenham being back in England by 1844. Russell returned to manage the property until he sold it to Captain G.S.N. Living in the same year.
In June 1847 Burrandowan was sold to Phillip Friell. In 1848 the Burnett District was officially opened for settlement and tenders for runs were opened. Friell's 1849 application for a lease was accepted in April 1850 and gazetted on 26 July 1851. He made improvements to the property including the surviving buildings, which are thought to have been built around 1848. A homestead was built which included a billiard room and library. Bricks from this homestead remain on the property and are stamped with a heart motif. It is thought that these were made by a local brickmaker, who also made bricks for other stations, including Jimbour, Jondaryan and Boondooma, using a different card suit design for each place.
Friell died in 1854 and the property appears to have been managed by Gordon Sandeman, possibly until it was sold to Robert Campbell in May 1860. In the mid-1850s, Burrandowan was reported to be the largest property in the Burnett district, carrying 65 000 sheep. In 1870 it was sold to Robert Towns and Alexander Stuart trading as Towns and Co., Towns holding a number of other properties at the time. In 1872 the run was acquired by Alexander Campbell and John Hay and in the late 1870s was restocked with cattle. In 1885 it passed to the Mercantile Bank of Sydney who consolidated the run. During the 1890s a series of resumptions for grazing leases began on properties in the area to encourage closer settlement following the 1884 land Act. The core section of the run was leased to the Commercial Bank of Australia in 1900 and sold by them in 1901 to Frederick Borton, who was placed at Burrandowan by the 1874 Post Office Directory and may have been a manager. Borton immediately transferred the property to George Keppel, Gerald, Mark and Roderick Borton.
In 1910 land sales were held of resumed Burrandowan land, which sold quickly as a railway to Nanango was anticipated. In 1917 the final sections of resumed land on this and several other runs in the district were allocated for the Soldier Settlement scheme.
Keppel Borton retired and Gerald Borton ran Burrandowan until he died in 1919 when his son managed the property until purchased by a Mr Turner in 1921 and then by Richard Tancred. The current homestead is assembled from three early buildings and is slightly higher and further away from Garden Creek than the previous main house. They are thought to have been assembled in this form around 1927 and comprise the Burrandowan store, part of the homestead and a building relocated from Cooinda, a grazing property formed from Burrandowan land in 1890. Tancred died in 1934 and his widow leased the property to George Lewis who purchased Burrandowan in 1943. The property was subdivided into three sections in 1987 and was purchased by the current owners in 2001.
","criteria":"Henry Stuart Russell took up Burrandowan run following his exploration of the Burnett River District in 1842. It was one of the first pastoral runs in the region and provided an impetus for further settlement. Burrandowan homestead illustrates the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland where the development of pastoral properties preceded agriculture and the establishment of towns. As an early pastoral property, which has remained in continuous use, Burrandowan has important associations with the development of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|Burrandowan has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history through historical and archaeological research. The buildings provide evidence of early building techniques and traces of other early structures remain on site and possibly below ground.
|Burrandowan homestead complex incorporates structures from the early operation of the station brought together in their current formation in the early 20th century. These include residential and working buildings that are good examples their types and demonstrate the recycling of useful structures commonly made on pastoral properties.
|Burrandowan homestead complex has aesthetic significance, comprising structures that are well made examples of traditional buildings that are pleasing in form, materials and detail.
|Burrandowan homestead has special associations with the life and work of Henry Stuart Russell who took up the run, with Philip Friell who was responsible for the construction of the buildings and with members of the Borton family of whom three generations worked on the property.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15424,"place_ref":600649,"name":"Forest Hill War Memorial","alternate_name":"Forest Hill Soldiers Memorial","street_address":"Gordon Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Forest Hill War Memorial is located in a small park at the end of Victoria Street, completing a vista down the town's main street. The finely carved memorial stands approximately four and a half metres high, and consists of a life-size grey sandstone Digger statue on a tall sandstone pedestal. The statue faces eastwards, in the direction of an adjacent steel flagstaff. The site is marked out with small steel fence posts and chains.
The pedestal rests on a plinth of blocked rusticated brown sandstone on a stepped concrete base. The lower portion of the pedestal is columnar, with leaded marble plaques, and rests on a block with shaped corners. The upper portion has a central wreathed column surrounded by colonnettes, and the statue is mounted on rounded base which caps the colonnettes.
The memorial contributes to the townscape of Forest Hill in its axial location at the end of the main street.
","history":"The Forest Hill War Memorial was erected by the Forest Hill Memorial League in 1921, in a small reserve adjacent to the railway line.
The township of Forest Hill developed during the 1890s, following the repurchase by the Queensland Government of 6 000 acres from the Rosewood station. Although the Ipswich to Toowoomba railway had been surveyed between Laidley and Gatton in 1865, it was not until c1881 that a siding was established in the Forest Hill area. Originally known as Boyd's siding, it was shifted to the site of the present Forest Hill railway station c1887. As the surrounding country was progressively opened and settled by farmers, Forest Hill became a busy transport centre for agricultural produce, often requiring special trains to be run from Forest Hill.
The masons for the monument were PJ Lowther and Sons of Brisbane, who were also responsible for memorials in Brisbane (the pedestal for the South African memorial), Blackbutt, Murgon, Goodna, Mount Perry and Tiaro. It is possible that the monument was actually carved by Charles Lowther, sculptor son of this Brisbane masonry family, and an ex-serviceman who fought with the Australian Light Horse in the First World War.
The monument cost £300, and was unveiled by five mothers of fallen soldiers. A plate with the names of World War 2 servicemen was added at a later stage.
","criteria":"The Forest Hill War Memorial is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as evidence of an era of widespread expression of Australian patriotism and nationalism, during and following the First World War.
|As a 'Digger' statue, it demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community, in particular the fine craft work of the sandstone carving and the aesthetic contribution of the monument to the townscape of Forest Hill in a vista down the main street.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15425,"place_ref":600650,"name":"Lockyer Hotel","alternate_name":"The Lockyer Hotel","street_address":"Victoria Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lockyer Hotel is prominently sited on the corner of Victoria and William Streets. It is a double-storeyed externally framed timber building, with generous verandahs overlooking the street, and a hipped corrugated galvanised iron roof. The building has a truncated entrance corner at the street intersection, and is abutted by an L-shaped single storeyed weatherboard annex to the east.
The hotel contains two bars on the ground floor, and accommodation upstairs. The principal bar, which is entered from the street corner, displays evidence of having once been two rooms, with an original timber archway and new post and beam replacing the wall. The bar has french doors and sliding sash windows, and arched sliding sash windows either side of the corner entrance. The entry vestibule to the upstairs accommodation to the south of the bar has a decorative arch above the foot of the timber stairs. The stairs have a carved balustrade, and a stained glass window at the half-landing.
The annex includes some fabric of the original outhouse kitchen, in particular the fireplace, chimney and stove, and windows which were once external.
The upstairs accommodation is comprised of small rooms flanking a central north-south running corridor. The walls are vertically-jointed timber, and all rooms have french doors opening onto a deep verandah.
The verandah has unpainted timber floors, iron lace-work balustrades, and is covered by a bull-nosed awning. The eastern verandah has been partially closed in. The verandah and awning are supported by chamfered posts with timber capitals resting on square concrete upstands; these posts are paired at the truncated corner. The exterior is further embellished with batten screens forming arches which run under the verandah. The battens have small decorative holes at their ends.
The external framing is mostly stud and nogging, with cross-bracing at the corners.
The exterior of the building is intact and its distinctive character and position makes the Lockyer Hotel one of the most prominent buildings in the town.
","history":"This two-storeyed timber hotel appears to have been built in 1906, for local Forest Hill farmer Alexander McAllister, who acquired the site in 1897. It was the town's third hotel, erected during the early 20th century growth of Forest Hill as a railhead and service centre, following closer agricultural settlement of the immediate area in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
From the 1840s to the 1880s, Forest Hill was part of the 20,000 acre Rosewood run, first taken up by DC McConnel in 1840, and later occupied by Kent & Wienholt, who worked the station in conjunction with their Jondaryan run. The Forest Hill land was heavily timbered, with some large gum swamps. The Ipswich to Toowoomba railway was surveyed between Laidley and Gatton in 1865, but a siding was not established in the Forest Hill area, about a mile and a half closer to Laidley than the present Forest Hill station, until c1881. Originally it was called Boyd's Siding, servicing the property of Mr AJ Boyd, about 4 miles from the railway line. Boyd, the first agriculturalist in the area, planted an orchard and named his property Forest Hill, after which the siding was named in the early 1880s. This siding was shifted to the site of the present Forest Hill station c1887.
In 1886 and 1889, Kent & Wienholt cut up 3,500 acres south of the second Forest Hill siding into farm selections. This was the impetus for the establishment of an agricultural community at Forest Hill, but the township of Forest Hill did not emerge until the late 1890s, following the Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of 6,000 acres of the Rosewood freehold on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station. This Rosewood Estate, comprising fertile black soil land, was cut into blocks of 70 to 125 acres, and sold at prices from £3 to £5 5s per acre, repayable over 20 years. The sale was part of a government initiative to encourage agricultural settlement of the rich West Moreton lands, by opening for selection nearly all the country between Lowood and Gatton. A further 18,000 acres in the Lockyer Valley were cut up and sold as farms in 1903, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township. By 1908, Forest Hill was despatching more produce than either of the older settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and of this, about 70 percent came from the farms on the repurchased estates.
The Lockyer Hotel was erected during this growth period. In November 1906, Alex McAllister was granted a publican's licence, but this was transferred a month later to Frederick William Wilson, who had taken out an 8 year lease on the property in October 1906. In February 1907 the licence was transferred to Janet Meredith, previously the licensee of the Station Hotel (erected c1900) in Forest Hill. Mrs Meredith took over the lease of the Lockyer Hotel in 1907 and purchased the property in 1911. From late 1911 she leased it to a succession of publicans but retained ownership until her death in 1955. The Lockyer Hotel remained in the Meredith family until 1969. The rear annex, which includes the dining room, was erected in the late 1970s.
","criteria":"The Lockyer Hotel, Forest Hill is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the early 20th century development of Forest Hill as a focal point for the surrounding agricultural district.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a two-storeyed, early 20th century, single-skin timber hotel in rural Queensland.
|As one of the most prominent and distinctive buildings in Forest Hill, the Lockyer Hotel makes an important aesthetic contribution to the character and townscape of the town, which is valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15426,"place_ref":600651,"name":"Shop, 3 Victoria Street, Forest Hill","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank","street_address":"50 Victoria Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Occupying the north western corner of a triangular site near the intersection of Victoria and William Streets, the former bank is a single-storeyed building, slightly elevated on stumps, with chamferboard walls. Rectangular in plan, this timber framed structure is distinguished by a restrained ornamental facade of asymmetrical design which faces Victoria Street.
The Victoria street facade consists of a parapet wall marking the western alignment, a wide skillion roofed awning which covers the footpath in front of the building and an attached entry porch on its northern side. The parapet wall is decorated by timber mouldings forming a simplified entablature. Behind the parapet is a simple pitched corrugated iron roof that terminates in a hip at rear of the building.
The awning is supported by a row of timber posts positioned at the edge of the footpath nearest the road. The posts are decorated with timber brackets and double timber posts emphasise the outer corners of the awning. Below the line of the awning are three double hung timber windows facing the street. At the northern end of the street facade are steps leading to the entry porch. Both the awning and the parapet wall extend beyond the main part of the building forming a front for the attached porch. The pitched roof over the entry porch together with the skillion roof of the footpath awning forms an unequal gable facing north which is infilled with timber battens. The porch has a timber balustrade and decorative arches.
A timber panelled door opens from the entry porch into the main room which takes up the front part of the building. Behind this is a larger room on the northern side and a smaller windowless room on southern side. The building has no hallway being simply a series of interconnected rooms. At the rear of the building are a number of smaller rooms connected by various doors and windows. Ceilings and internal walls are lined with v-jointed timber boards.
The northern elevation has three windows as well as the main entry door and a minimal roof overhang. The southern wall is a plain chamferboard parapet wall, previously concealed by the adjoining building which has been demolished. The rear or eastern facade has a minimal roof overhang. Timber steps lead from the centrally positioned back door to the rear yard. A rainwater tank is located adjacent to the south east corner of the building.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber building was erected c.1909 as offices for the Forest Hill branch of the powerful Queensland National Bank, established in 1872. The building was constructed on land leased, in November 1909, from Forest Hill property owner Allister McAllister. McAllister had acquired the site in 1897, as part of a larger block at the corner of Victoria and William Streets, on which he erected the Lockyer Hotel (QHR 600650) c.1906. The new QNB building was erected adjacent to the hotel and close to the railway depot, in the commercial centre of the town.
The Queensland National Bank first opened a branch office at Forest Hill on 10 September 1901, in leased premises. A c.1908 photograph shows the branch occupying part of George Wyman's store in Victoria Street. It was the town's first bank, opened during the early 20th century growth of Forest Hill as a railhead and service centre, following closer agricultural settlement of the area in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
Until the 1880s, Forest Hill was part of the 20,000 acre Rosewood run, first taken up by DC McConnel in 1840, and later occupied by Kent & Wienholt, who worked the station in conjunction with their Jondaryan run. The Forest Hill land was heavily timbered, with some large gum swamps. The Ipswich to Toowoomba railway was surveyed between Laidley and Gatton in 1865, but a siding was not established in the Forest Hill area, about a mile and a half closer to Laidley than the present Forest Hill station, until c.1881. Originally it was called Boyd's Siding, servicing the property of Mr AJ Boyd, about 4 miles from the railway line. Boyd, the first agriculturalist in the area, planted an orchard and named his property Forest Hill, after which the siding was named in the early 1880s. This siding was shifted to the site of the present Forest Hill station c.1887.
In 1886 and 1889, Kent & Wienholt cut up 3,500 acres south of the second Forest Hill siding, into farm selections. This was the impetus for the establishment of an agricultural community at Forest Hill, but the township of Forest Hill did not emerge until the late 1890s, following the Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of part of the Rosewood freehold, 6,000 acres of fertile black soil land on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station. The Rosewood Estate was cut into blocks of 70 to 125 acres, and sold at prices from £3 to £5 5s per acre, repayable over 20 years. The sale was part of a government initiative to encourage agricultural settlement of the rich West Moreton lands, by opening for selection nearly all the country between Lowood and Gatton.
In January 1903, the Board of the QNB decided to close the Forest Hill branch and transfer the business to Laidley, but this was reversed following protest from Forest Hill residents. The decision to remain was timely: a further 18,000 acres in the Lockyer Valley were cut up and sold as farms in 1903, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township. By 1908, Forest Hill was despatching more produce than either of the older and larger settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and of this, about 70 percent came from the farms on the repurchased estates. This boom corresponded with the erection of purpose-built bank premises for the QNB at Forest Hill, c1909.
The QNB, and later the National Bank, leased the site on which the bank building was erected, for over 60 years. The branch was closed temporarily on 2 February 1943, as part of the wartime rationalisation of bank branches in Australia, but was re-opened on 3 February 1947. In 1948 the Queensland National bank was amalgamated with the National Bank of Australasia Ltd, and the Forest Hill office then became part of the National Bank network.
In 1970 the leased land on which the bank building stood was purchased by the National Bank from the estate of Miss E McAllister, but the branch at Forest Hill survived only another 6 years, closing on 16 June 1976. The decision to close the Forest Hill branch after nearly 75 years, reflected a trend, occasioned by improved transport and communications, for district residents to purchase goods and services at the larger centres of Gatton and Laidley. Following closure of the branch, the land and premises were sold, and the bank fittings were removed. The building has served since as retail premises.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank, Forest Hill, erected c1909, survives as evidence of the early 20th century development of Forest Hill as a focal point and commercial centre for a prosperous agricultural district. In particular, the building illustrates the close relationship between the Queensland National Bank and the commercial activity centred on Forest Hill, prior to the Second World War.
|A restrained and economical design, the building demonstrates the priority of the street in country town commercial architecture through the elaboration of its front facade and the simplicity of the building behind. A distinctive bank image is created through the use of classical details and the discrete side entrance. The intact interior is an example of the domestic and work environments provided in early 20th century banks in smaller towns.
|A restrained and economical design, the building demonstrates the priority of the street in country town commercial architecture through the elaboration of its front facade and the simplicity of the building behind. A distinctive bank image is created through the use of classical details and the discrete side entrance. The intact interior is an example of the domestic and work environments provided in early 20th century banks in smaller towns.
|It has an important association with the former Queensland National Bank, which contributed substantially to the economic development of Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15427,"place_ref":600652,"name":"Forest Hill Hotel","alternate_name":"Station Hotel; The Forest Hill Hotel","street_address":"38 William Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Forest Hill Hotel is situated in the main thoroughfare of Forest Hill, built to the corner of William and Victoria Streets. It is a dominant part of the townscape in the small town of Forest Hill standing diagonally opposite the prominent Lockyer Hotel [600650]. The two hotels provide a visual focus in the town and form a major proportion of the built infrastructure in the main street.
The Forest Hill Hotel has two storeys with verandahs to each storey on the alignment to the principal streets. Constructed from timber and iron the hotel has a number of characteristics of the vernacular Queensland style. The main core of the roof is a simple pyramid with a separate roof over the upper verandah. There is a split-level timber addition on the northern side facing William Street which adjoins the core of the hotel and continues the ground floor verandah.
A wide bull-nosed street awning extends from the base of the upper verandah out to the edge of the footpath along the frontages of William and Victoria Streets and is supported by stop-chamfered timber posts decorated with capitals. It is possible that this awning was added at a later stage as a narrower ground floor verandah sits underneath this awning. The ground floor verandah encompasses the hotel and was sheltered by the original line of the upper-verandah. It is decorated with an arched timber valance with crude circular and slot motifs and features slender stop-chamfered timber posts with simple capitals and simple timber brackets. This verandah sits on a raised concrete slab and is punctuated by double French-doors along the building line. The structure and the diagonal bracing of the walls are exposed externally.
Each end of the upper verandah has been sheeted behind the balustrade otherwise it remains intact. The cast iron balustrades are identified as being the design of John Crase & Co. Foundry who operated out of Warren Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane from 1885 until at least 1902. (Turner, Australia's Iron Lace, 1985, p.85)
The interior of the hotel has been the most changed with new bars and a carpeted floor however the walls and ceilings are unchanged and intact. The large internal stairs, which were once accessed by an entrance hall to Victoria Street, have been closed off by temporary means at the ground floor level. The timber staircase displays simple timber balustrades. The stairs access the accommodation on the upper storey.
There are several bedrooms on the upper-level all of which would have originally accessed the verandah via double French-doors. The verandah doors were the only access to the bedrooms having no internal doors. The verandah acted as an external hallway. This is still evident in the layout however the rear verandah has been enclosed at some time to create extra space. The two bedrooms facing the rear now open onto an internal space which leads to a communal bathroom on the northern side of the building in the split level addition. The three bedrooms opening onto the northern verandah are still used as accommodation.
On the south side of the hotel a timber pergola has been provided to allow outdoor dining and drinking facilities. A side door and window were altered to accommodate two large doors on the southern side of the hotel. The doors are hinged to open upwards, attaching to the awning over the outdoor eating area. The doors are steel-framed and clad in UPVC boarding.
","history":"Constructed in 1898, the Forest Hill Hotel is a good example of a two-storeyed, timber, corner hotel typical in rural Queensland towns. It was established at a time of growth and consolidation in Forest Hill following closer agricultural settlement of the immediate area in the 1890s and the development of Forest Hill as a service center and railhead for the surrounding farmlands
From the 1840s to the 1880s, Forest Hill was part of the 20,000 acre Rosewood run, first taken up by DC McConnel in 1840, and later occupied by Kent & Wienholt, who worked the station in conjunction with their Jondaryan run. At that time the Forest Hill land was heavily timbered, with some large gum swamps.
In 1865 the Ipswich to Toowoomba railway was surveyed between Laidley and Gatton, but a siding was not established in the Forest Hill area until about 1881. At that time, the area which became known as Forest Hill was owned by Mr AJ Boyd who on first moving to the area found that the nearest form of conveyance was the railway line serving Laidley. Through intervention with the appropriate authorities, Boyd was able to arrange a siding onto his property 'Forest Hill'. Originally it was called 'Boyd's Siding' but was subsequently named for the property, Forest Hill. Boyd was the first agriculturalist in the area and cultivated an orchard on his property. In 1886 the Railway Department provided a continuation of the line beyond Laidley and a new siding was constructed one mile east of the Forest Hill siding, it too was called Forest Hill.
Also at this time, in 1886 and 1889, Kent & Wienholt cut up 3,500 acres south of the second Forest Hill siding into farm selections. This was the impetus for the establishment of an agricultural community at Forest Hill, but the township of Forest Hill did not emerge until the late 1890s, following the Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of 6,000 acres of the Rosewood freehold on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station. This Rosewood Estate, comprising fertile black soil land, was cut into blocks of 70 to 125 acres, and sold at prices from £3 to £5 5s per acre, repayable over 20 years. The sale was part of a government initiative to encourage agricultural settlement of the rich West Moreton lands, by opening for selection nearly all the country between Lowood and Gatton. A further 18,000 acres in the Lockyer Valley were cut up and sold as farms in 1903, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township. By 1908, Forest Hill was despatching more produce than either of the older settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and of this, about 70 percent came from the farms on the repurchased estates. The Forest Hill Hotel was erected during growth period.
By 1909 the township of Forest Hill was a thriving centre, boasting three hotels, a post office, bank and a state school. In that year, the Crown Hotel was burnt down, leaving two hotels remaining. (Forest Hill Hotel and Lockyer Hotel (QHR 600650)) The economic base of the town was the healthy agricultural community which surrounded it. The rich soils, combined with a high water table enabled extraordinary crops to be produced, several properties boasting seven cuts of lucerne in 1902, a drought year. During periods of drought this high water table served to protect the crops of many of the local farmers so that the local production remained at an acceptable level while neighbouring districts suffered.
The land on which the hotel now sits was first purchased as part of three parcels of land by Thomas Lodge Prior in 1867 comprising a total of 238 acres. The land was strategically located adjacent to the new railway station. After a series of complex transactions the land was subdivided and in 1888 Henry Chapman purchased Subdivision 1 of portion 47. Ten years later the land was sold to James Campbell who took out mortgages totalling £480 over the ensuing months. In 1900 a lease was registered to the Castlemaine Brewery, confirming that a hotel was, by this time, present on the land. A series of lessors undertook the management of the hotel over the ensuing years. In 1941 James Campbell died and the hotel passed to his widow, Margaret. Margaret, in her turn, passed the land to Charles Joseph Heenan and Kathleen Mary Heenan in 1948 who subsequently sold the place in 1951. Three years later the place was again sold, this time to Edward Walston Toohey and Muriel Mary Toohey who transferred the property to Joseph Conleth Carroll and Jean Carroll in 1955. In 1975 the property again changed hands with Ian William Wiseman and Margaret Betty Wiseman as joint tenants. Two years later the property passed to William Morris Graham, Dorothy Margaret Graham, Arthur Hugh Mears and Dulcie Margaret Mears. In 1980 the Grahams bought out the Mears' share and sold the property to the present owners in 1989. The property description was altered to Lot 1 on RP7905 in 1982.
During the years since the hotel was constructed numerous alterations have occurred in the interior, reflecting changing technologies and the desire of lessors to ensure that the hotel met the requirements of the public. The most recent alteration occurred in 1993, when the lessor undertook renovations to provide access to a side pergola or beer garden.
Prior to around 1940 the Forest Hill Hotel was known as the Station Hotel.
","criteria":"The Forest Hill Hotel in Forest Hill is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of the late 19th century development of Forest Hill as a focal point for the surrounding agricultural district.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a two-storeyed, single-skin timber hotel of the 1890s in rural Queensland.
|The Forest Hill Hotel makes an important aesthetic contribution to the character and townscape of the town as one of the most prominent and distinctive buildings in Forest Hill that is valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15428,"place_ref":600653,"name":"Exchange Hotel","alternate_name":"The Exchange Hotel","street_address":"134 - 138 Patrick Street","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Exchange Hotel, a two-storeyed brick building with corrugated iron skillion roofs concealed behind parapet walls, is located fronting Patrick Street, the main street of Laidley, to the west. The building has been built to the property alignment on the north, west and south, and has a T-shaped plan with a long projecting central wing to the rear.
The street elevation is constructed of flemish bond brickwork and has a wide awning to the ground floor and a semi-recessed verandah to the mid-section of the first floor. The verandah has a raised central gable section, with timber battens to the gable and arched timber valance, over a corrugated iron skillion awning. The verandah has paired timber posts with curved timber brackets, timber louvres enclosing the southern end, and cast iron balustrades. Opening onto this verandah are french doors with fanlights from bedrooms, and a central arched timber door, sidelights and fanlight assembly from a main hall. Either side of the semi-recessed verandah are projecting brick bays housing paired casement windows with timber and iron hoods, and surmounted by arched parapets with rendered cornice details and circle motif.
The corrugated iron skillion awning to the ground floor has paired timber posts to the central section, with triple timber posts either side, curved timber brackets and a solid valance for signage. The main entry is via a large arch to the north side of centre which accesses a recessed entry porch with a tiled floor, concrete balustrade and arched timber door, sidelights and fanlight assembly. The public bar is accessed via a timber and glass door with fanlight at the south, and a separate entrance to the lounge area is located to the north. The building has sash windows with arched headers, and the street facade has rendered details including sills, main entry arch and balustrade, and a deep skirting base. The first floor bridges a driveway on the south side of the building which services the rear of the property. The brick wall facing the driveway is painted, as is the single-storeyed brick annex containing toilets and storage areas at the rear.
The central rear wing, constructed of english garden wall bond brickwork, has had a number of alterations including bricked-in openings and exhaust ducting. Small verandahs are located at the rear of the front section on the north and south. The south verandah has been enclosed, and the north has a timber stair and french doors with fanlights opening from bedrooms.
Internally, the ground floor has a central hall leading to the rear dining and kitchen area, a public bar on the south and a lounge on the north. The building has rendered walls, boarded ceilings, and a timber staircase with turned balustrade and newel posts. The public bar and kitchen have been recently refitted, and the lounge and dining area have undergone earlier alterations.
The first floor has a wide central hall leading to the west verandah, and accommodates bedrooms to the front section of the building and a private residence in the rear central wing. Walls are of single-skin vertically jointed boards, ceilings are boarded and doors are panelled with fanlights.
The northern boundary wall is reported to have been over the southern wall of the adjoining property, which had been built slightly over the property boundary.
","history":"The Exchange Hotel at Laidley, a two-storeyed brick building, was constructed in 1902 for publicans Julius and Hansine Jocumsen, and replaced an earlier hotel of the same name on the site. It was erected during one of the most significant growth periods in Laidley's history, and although modest in size and scale, reflects in style and materials the confidence and optimism of a small, prosperous, turn-of-the-century country town.
Laidley was established in the 1850s as a transport stop along the main dray route from Brisbane and Ipswich to Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, and following the late 1850s subdivision of the Lockyer Creek floodplains, developed as the centre of a small agricultural district. A village of Laidley, located on the rise just south of the present town, was surveyed in 1858. In the mid-1860s the Southern and Western Railway was constructed about a mile to the north of the village, at which time a second survey of Laidley town blocks, this time near the proposed railway station, was undertaken in 1865. A small township developed around Laidley station during the construction of the railway, but after the gangers moved on or took up farms in the district in the late 1860s, this township consisted of little but the two-storeyed iron station building, and Laidley village to the south remained the principal town.
From the mid-1870s, however, the area around the Laidley railway station gradually became the focus of an expanding and increasingly prosperous agricultural district, and by the early 1890s had a population of over 600. The first Exchange Hotel, a single-storeyed timber building erected c.1876 for local farmer and storekeeper Frederick Chambers, was one of the earliest buildings in the relocated town. Chambers acquired title to the site in October 1877, and the property was retained by him, and later his wife Mary, until transferred to the Royal Bank of Queensland Ltd in 1895. In February 1896, title passed to Laidley storekeeper, produce merchant and publican August Giesemann, and then in early 1900 to Hansine Jocumsen, who had acquired the license in 1898.
From 1 December 1901, publican William Bergland, formerly a supervisor at Peter Murphy's Transcontinental Hotel in Brisbane, took out a 10 year lease of the Exchange, Laidley's oldest hotel, and paid £1,100 for the goodwill and furniture. When reporting this on 28 November 1901, the Queensland Times also commented that: It is Mr Jocumsen's intention to erect a large brick building in the near future, the present structure being decidedly out of keeping with the increase of business.
At the turn of the century, the Lockyer Valley was one of the most prosperous agricultural districts in Queensland, and this prosperity was reflected in a flurry of building activity in Laidley, which saw the town nearly double in size, and many of the earlier timber structures replaced with substantial brick buildings. These included the new Exchange Hotel (1902) (QHR 600653), Nielson's new Central Hall (1902), the new Giesemann's buildings (1902), Whitehouse's Bakery (c1904) (QHR 600656), and Wyman's new store (1906) (QHR 600654). As the principal town in the Lockyer district, Laidley was granted its own town council, distinct from Laidley Shire Council, in 1902.
In March-April 1902, architects Eaton & Bates, with offices in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Mount Morgan, Longreach, Clermont, Gladstone, Maryborough and Townsville, called tenders for the erection of a two-storeyed brick hotel at Laidley for Mrs Hansen (sic) Jocumsen. Eaton and Bates were experienced designers of rural hotels, including the Normanby at Rockhampton (1890s), the Great Western and Imperial hotels at Longreach (both erected 1898-99), the Royal Hotel (QHR 600700), Maryborough (1901), and the famous Queen's Hotel (QHR 600936) at Townsville, the first two stages of which were erected 1902-04.
In May 1902 Mrs Jocumsen raised a £2,000 mortgage on the property, and it is likely that this financed the construction of the new Exchange Hotel. The building was close to completion by late September 1902, and was finished by late November that year, when Bergland re-negotiated his lease on the new building.
When completed, the Royal Bank of Queensland, which had opened a Laidley branch north of the railway line c1890, occupied premises on the ground floor of the new hotel. The Royal Bank had been established in Brisbane in 1885 as a competitor to the enormously successful Queensland National Bank, and was the second bank to open an office in Laidley, the first being the QNB on 16 July 1886. These were still the only banking institutions in Laidley in 1902 when the new Exchange Hotel was erected. The branch office in the Exchange Hotel became an office of the Bank of Queensland following the merger of the Royal Bank and the Bank of North Queensland (established in Townsville in 1888) in 1917. In 1922, the Bank of Queensland was taken over by the National Bank of Australasia, and the Exchange Hotel office again changed name. The National Bank maintained its Laidley branch office in this building until 1956.
Between 1904 and 1924 the hotel was owned by the Giesemann family, who let the business to a number of lessees. In August 1924, the property was transferred to James King of Laidley, who bought the Exchange following the destruction by fire of his own Laidley hotel, the Empire, that year. The Empire was almost opposite the Exchange, and the latter received some fire damage to the front façade. Until 1950, the Exchange remained the property of the King family, who also ran the hotel until 1949, but there have been a number of owners and even more lessees since.
","criteria":"The Exchange Hotel was constructed in 1902 during one of the most significant growth periods in Laidley's history, and reflects in style and materials the confidence and optimism of one of Queensland's most prosperous, turn-of-the-century country towns.
|It survives as a substantially intact example of the work of respected Queensland architects Eaton & Bates, in rural hotel design. The building is significant also for the retention of evidence of the former banking office located within the hotel.
|The Exchange Hotel, possessing a finely articulated street elevation consisting of recessed and projecting awnings, bays, entrances and verandah, is the dominant member of a group of masonry commercial buildings constructed in Laidley at the turn of the century.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15429,"place_ref":600654,"name":"G Wyman Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"140 - 142 Patrick Street","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wyman's clothing store is located on the eastern side of Patrick Street in Laidley in a precinct of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings in the centre of Laidley. It is a single storey, brick building with a decorative rendered, masonry parapet and an iron bullnosed awning extending over the footpath supported by timber posts with decorative capitals and brackets. Below the awning, the front elevation has large glass display windows framed in timber which flank a central entrance way from the footpath.
Above the awning a rendered parapet rises above the roof line displaying the inscription in relief, 'G. Wyman Estd. 1883', and above on a semi-circular pediment, 'A.D. 1906'. The parapet is part of a continuous line of masonry facades which run along this part of Patrick Street presenting a coherent streetscape.
The interior of the store displays many of the original features in a large open-planned space. These include high coffered ceilings with diagonal boarding and ceiling roses, numerous chamfered timber columns with capitals and decorative cast iron vents in the walls. Most notable is the original timber service counter which stands free in the centre of the store. The counter is a large square with space in the middle for attendants. The counter features diagonal boarding and decorative pilasters and wide bench space.
There is a small partitioned office in the north-east corner of the store and some fitting rooms on the south east corner. The floor is covered with linoleum and the walls are still face brick painted white. There is evidence of former window openings on the northern wall which have been enclosed.
","history":"The G Wyman Building is a two storey brick building with an iron awning extending across the footpath, supported on timber posts. The building was constructed in 1906 during a period of economic prosperity in Laidley and it was the second building that George Wyman had constructed on the site, replacing a former timber structure established in 1883. The architect of the building is unknown.
At the turn of the century, the Lockyer Valley was one of the most prosperous agricultural districts in Queensland, and this prosperity was reflected in the flurry of building activity in Laidley which saw the town nearly double in size, and many of the earlier timber buildings were replaced with substantial brick buildings. These included the new Exchange Hotel in c.1902 (QHR 600653), Neilson's new Central Hall (1902), the new Geismann's buildings (1902) , Whitehouse's bakery in 1904 (QHR 600656), as well as Wyman's new store in 1906. As the principal town in the Lockyer district, Laidley was granted its own town council, distinct from Laidley Shire Council, in 1902.
George Wyman was a prosperous and active member of the community at Laidley. Born in Middlesex, England, his parents emigrated to Australia while he was still an infant. He learned the grocery business while employed by Cribb & Foote at Ipswich, and owned a business there for several years. His brother, Henry, was a noted Ipswich architect who served as Mayor of Ipswich between 1894-96.
George Wyman established himself at Laidley in 1883. Here he was very successful and married Ruth White, the daughter of Mr B White of Laidley, producing one son and two daughters. Ruth and George acquired adjoining blocks of land in Patrick Street, Laidley in 1884. The land was adjacent to the Exchange Hotel and handily situated in relation to the railway line. In February 1884 the previous owner of George's block, Mr R Little, had taken out a mortgage on his land for £900, possibly to develop the land for commercial purposes. There is no record of a mortgage against the property during Wyman's occupation of the site. The adjacent block appears to have been gifted to the newly- weds in Ruth's name by her father, Benjamin White.
Here George carried on his business for many years in a timber building, taking an active role in the social life of Laidley. Newspaper reports indicate he was involved in many of the activities of Laidley, and his wife acted as hostess to social evenings in their home. The 1890 Post Office Directory lists George as produce merchant, grocer, general storekeeper and draper, as well as being Hon. Secretary of the Laidley Agricultural Society and President of the Laidley Cricket Club. In addition he served his community as a justice of the peace. In 1902 George was elected Mayor of the first Laidley Town Council in which capacity he served for twelve months. In August 1906, Wyman purchased 29 hundredths of a perch from Heinrich Geismann, proprietor of the neighbouring Exchange Hotel, for the purpose of constructing a party wall. This transaction marks the construction of his new, brick store which encompassed each of the blocks owned by his wife and himself. The timber from the demolished timber structure was used in the construction of a house at 22 Railway Street, Laidley. By 1907 Wyman also had a store in nearby Forest Hill which was eventually sold to Tom Waller in 1927.
In 1911 George Wyman died and his property passed in trust to his widow and his daughter, Ada Ruth. The property remained in trust, passing in turn to other descendants until 1971 when Wyman's Pty Ltd became the owners. At the time of George Wyman's death his son Charles took over running the business. Wyman's Store had traditionally sold groceries, hardware, ironmongery, clothing and dressmaking and hat-making services and at this time it opened a petrol depot with the rise the motor cars. During the beginning of the 20th century Wyman's employed 22 shop staff including trained drapers and milliners.
In 1939 Charles Wyman died and the business was leased to Mr W Blake until Charles' son Trevor took charge of the business in 1950. At this time the sale of general goods was not economically viable and the Wyman's began to specialise more in drapery and millinery.
Another store was opened in Gatton in 1958 and Trevor's son David started in that store in 1964 and his other son Ross started in the Laidley store in 1971. David and Ross Wyman continue to run each store today.
The store remains remarkably intact. One major change which has occurred was the removal of the mezzanine floor at the rear of the store which housed the former millinery section. Along with this a large 'flying-fox' winch device used to move goods around the store was also removed in the latter 20th century.
","criteria":"Wymans Store is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as it is a good representative of the important role of the country general store in providing services in rural communities. It's construction around 1906 also reflects a period of renewed building activity and economic solidification in the town of Laidley, a trend common in many rural towns in Queensland at the time.
|The place is a good and intact example of a large country general store providing necessary services to a rural community. It's open plan design, large shop front windows and original central service counter all contribute highly to its identity as an early 20th century store.
|The place has high aesthetic value as it contributes strongly to the streetscape of Patrick Street in Laidley. It displays typical design and decorative features of its type which add to the aesthetic significance of the building.
|It also has special association with the community of Laidley as a local landmark which contributes greatly to their townscape and as a continuing place of service for over a century.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of Mr G Wyman, Mayor of the first Laidley Town Council when Laidley became a separate local government area, as well as three subsequent generations of his family who continue to run the store today.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15431,"place_ref":600656,"name":"Whitehouse's Bakery (former), Laidley","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"91 Patrick Street","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former bakery building stands on the Western side of Patrick Street and forms part of a group of substantial late nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial buildings within the main precinct of Laidley township.
The former bakery is a two storey, red face brick building with large shop front windows on the ground floor to Patrick Street and a narrow verandah on the upper floor with cast iron balustrade panels and an awning over the footpath. The building has a hipped roof structure with decorative parapet displaying art-nouveau characteristics on the façade. There are two single storey structures of the same brick at the rear.
The ground floor Patrick Street elevation displays four chamfered timber awning posts symmetrically placed framing the openings along the front face brick wall. There are two large shop front display windows with an angled bay design. These windows flank a central doorway surmounted by a rectangular fanlight, a former public entrance to the bakery service area. Another doorway, surmounted by an arched fanlight, stands at the northern end of the front elevation, a private entry to a separate room.
The upper level elevation displays decorative cast iron balustrade panels which were first patented in Victoria by A. Maclean in 1877 [Turner, p182]. The verandah is under a separate convex, corrugated-iron, awning supported by four slender timber columns with simple capitals at the top, and the edges of the awning are decorated by a cast iron frieze.
The Anglo-Dutch parapet [Apperly, p114] is surmounted with three spherical finials and the central pediment displays in relief the year '1905'. Two pilasters extend from below this central pediment and are each decorated with rectangular blue tile inserts and they flank a decorative geometrical motiff in the centre of the parapet. On either side of the pilasters a curved line eminating from the curved edge of the parapet culminates in a scroll at the middle of the pilasters. There are two shorter pilasters at either end of the parapet which also display blue tile inserts. The general decorative appearance of the parapet is of an art-nouveau style. The front wall of the verandah is also of face brick and has three double french doors with rectangular fanlights.
The sides of the building have sash windows to both levels and along the stuctures at the rear.
The two storey section of the bakery has an attached single storey brick room with skillion roof on the rear southern corner (formerly a preparation room for the bakery). This structure is accessed by a door on the northern side which lands on a patio area constructed of original bricks from different portions of the building. These bricks display heart-shaped frog marks. This structure, although attached to the main building, has no internal access to it. A second detached structure stands directly to the rear of the first and is connected only by a breezeway. This second structure has a hipped roof and is accessed by a door from the breezeway. It has a large chimney at the rear of the building which serviced two large bread ovens. Internally the iron doors to these ovens are still in situ on the rear wall, however, the brick interiors of the ovens which protruded externally out of the rear wall are in ruins.
The interior of the two storey section of the bakery is characterised by timber floors, high ceilings and timber VJ or rendered brick internal walls . There are four rooms on the ground floor. The former servery is a large rectangular room running parallel to Patrick Street. The wide timber floor boards are bowed at the northern end of the room from the constant weight of people tending the service counter which once stood in this position.
Next to this room is a smaller room running perpendicular to Patrick Street. Directly behind this room is another of the same dimensions. The largest room is located centrally in the rear portion of the building and contains a large timber staircase to the upper level. The timber balustrades on the staircase are of an unusual decorative design.
The upper level contains three bedrooms and one bathroom. Two of the bedrooms have access to the front verandah via the french doors. The internal doorways have rectangular fanlights with decorative timber fretwork. The walls and ceilings are of timber VJs and all of the rooms have ceiling roses. The interior and exterior of the building and out-buildings is remarkably intact.
The bakery is set within a small garden with mature plantings surrounded by a timber fence. A large palm tree on the north east corner of the building would be of considerable age.
","history":"The former Whitehouse's Bakery building at Laidley is a substantial two-storey, brick building which was constructed around 1904-1905 for local farmer, baker and confectioner, Charles James Whitehouse. It was the second bakery building CJ Whitehouse had built on the site since he bought the land in 1885, replacing a former timber structure. The architect for the building is unknown.
At the time the present bakery was constructed, the Lockyer Valley was one of the most prosperous agricultural districts in Queensland, and this prosperity was reflected in the flurry of building activity in Laidley which saw the town nearly double in size, and many of the earlier timber buildings replaced with substantial brick buildings. These included the new Exchange Hotel (c.1902) (QHR 600653], Neilson's new Central Hall (1902), the new Geismann's buildings (1902) and Wyman's new store in 1906 (QHR 600654) as well as Whitehouse's bakery. As the principal town in the Lockyer district, Laidley was granted its own town council, distinct from Laidley Shire Council, in 1902.
The land on which the bakery was constructed was subject to some very rapid land transactions in 1885. On 3 July the original 1860 land grant to James Fletcher was seized to Isabella Fletcher. On the same day a portion of that land was sold to Charles Nathan Schureck who subsequently purchased several other blocks of land in the subdivision. One month later, on 4 August, 1885 the land was sold to Charles James Whitehouse.
Charles James Whitehouse came to Laidley by a circuitous route from his birthplace in London in 1840. As a youth he was apprenticed to an Indian Merchantman in which he sailed to India, spending time in Calcutta during a mutiny on the vessel. He travelled to St Helena, Mauritius, New Caledonia and Melbourne where he obtained work at Mordialloc. Later he obtained work in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales as a miner and farmer. In 1867 Whitehouse married Sarah Ann, the daughter of a Mr White of Laidley by whom he had two daughters and four sons, one of whom died in infancy. For eighteen years he worked with the Queensland Railways as an engine driver, and in 1885 established a business in Laidley as a baker and confectioner. For a time he worked the 600 acres of land he had purchased at Laidley before handing it over to the care of a bailiff in order to concentrate on his business as a baker and confectioner for a period of eleven years. His business was conducted from Patrick Street. He retired to his farm at the age of 64 years and had virtually handed over responsibility for the farm to two of his sons, CJ (jnr.) and Benjamin. The farming business, like many in the district, was devoted principally to the production of lucerne-growing and dairying.
According to the testimony of Alice Maud Mann (a longstanding owner of the bakery), Whitehouses's bakery was significantly damaged during the floods of 1893 and subsequent to this blow CJ Whitehouse requested Edward Mann to take-over the running of the bakery business. In 1904, CJW's son, Benjamin, aged 26 years, undertook the management of the bakery in Patrick Street, Laidley, around the time of construction of the new two-storey brick establishment by his father at the Patrick Street address where the original bakery had once stood. It is interesting to note, however, that the 1906 Post Office Directory (QPOD) still listed only one baker in Laidley, an Edward Mann. The 1910-11 QPOD listed Benjamin Whitehouse as the baker but it is reported that Edward Mann was the actual baker and resident at the Patrick Street Bakery.
Charles James Whitehouse died on 22 November 1920 and the property passed to his two sons, CJ Whitehouse Jnr and David Hansford Whitehouse. The property had been in the Whitehouse family for some sixty five years before being sold to Jack Mann in October 1950. Jack Mann was the son Edward Mann and had previously been lessor of the property when it was in the ownership of Charles MacDonald Whitehouse, grandson of the original owner. On the death of Jack Mann in 1988 the property passed to his wife Alice Maud Mann who continued to reside there until 1995. According to Alice Mann she and Jack Mann had been associated with the bakery for a total of 67 years
Alice Mann also states that the bakery was damaged two more times by floods in 1959 and in 1974 when the external ovens at the very rear of the property were damaged beyond affordable repair. The remains of these brick ovens are still on the property.
Alice Mann ceased residing in the bakery when the property was sold to Ruth Brunton, Alice's sister-in-law. The property then passed out of the family and was sold to Julie Brimblecombe. At this stage the former bakery building was used as an arts and crafts space. In the beginning of 2001 the building stood vacant.
In June 2001 major reconstructive work was undertaken on the southern wall of the kitchen section of the building which was funded by an EPA Heritage Grant. The wall which was demonstrating major cracking and leaning was dismantled brick by brick and reconstructed with the original bricks to the original design.
The last transfer of ownership was to Mr Geoffery Hand in September 2001 and at that stage was still vacant.
","criteria":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as the substantial nature of its construction around the beginning of the 20th century reflects a period of renewed building activity and economic solidification in the town of Laidley, a trend common in many rural towns in Queensland at the time.
|The former bakery building is a good example of its type displaying many of the original characteristics of a turn-of-the-century bakery. The brick ovens and associated physical infrastructure of the bakery are still in situ providing a clear picture of the processes associated with the production of bread.
|The former bakery has important aesthetic value as a prominent, well composed building in the centre of Laidley which contributes highly to the streetscape of the main street, Patrick Street. Its design and decorative features together with the surrounding garden, in particular the mature palm tree on the north-east corner of the block, all contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place.
|It also has special association with the community of Laidley as a local landmark and a place of service for nearly a century.
|The place has a long association with the life and work of two Laidley families, the Whitehouse and Mann families, who were directly involved with the construction and running of the local bakery and as such were important members of the Laidley community since its very early days.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15432,"place_ref":600657,"name":"Corduroy Road Remains, Laidley","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Toowoomba-Ipswich Road","suburb":"LAIDLEY","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The corduroy road remnants are located on the Old Toowoomba Road between Head Road and Mulgowie Road, 1km southwest of Laidley. While the exact extent of the corduroy road cannot be determined, it is possible that it originally extended across current freehold properties adjacent to the Old Toowoomba Road.
Corduroy roads in general were constructed by overlapping full or half rounds of logs transversely and commonly used in swampy areas to stabilize road foundations. Gravel was sometimes used to seal the surface and due to the surrounding conditions corduroy roads were often covered by mud. The corduroy road at Laidley remains buried below 100-200mm of soil, making an assessment of its current physical condition impossible. In 1976, a section of wood from this road was forwarded to the Department of Forestry for investigation. It was revealed that the logs used were grey ironbark (Eucalyptus drepanophylla), a species in plentiful supply nearby, and that some deterioration of the wood had occurred owing to wet rot and termite attack.
","history":"The remains of the corduroy road at Laidley are located on the former main dray road between Ipswich and Drayton. It was constructed from grey ironbark (Eucalyptus drepanophylla) logs and dates most likely from the 1850s or 1860s. The remnant corduroy road has not been surveyed to determine its exact extent and it remains unexposed.
In the 19th century, the road between Ipswich and Drayton was one of the main roads of the Moreton Bay district. It was established in the 1840s as a bridle track between head stations, but soon became the principal route for wool drays and supplies, and by 1852 was listed by the New South Wales government as the only first-class road in the Moreton Bay area. Just four years earlier, however, it was described as being in a "wretched condition' and by 1859 very little had changed with the Darling Downs Gazette pointing out that "the road of Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was a bowling green" in comparison to the Ipswich to Drayton route. This was not a unique circumstance, with Queensland road networks in general described as "always bad and often impassable" in the Statistical Register of 1860. With a constant lack of money and a decentralized system of road administration it would be some time before conditions improved. Road construction was expensive and labour intensive with no local authority to pay for or facilitate road building.
As settlement spread the development and maintenance of roads became essential for a burgeoning rural economy. During the 1850s efforts were made to improve the passage to the Darling Downs. At Laidley Creek the banks were graded and a low wooden bridge was erected in 1850 at the instigation of the Downs squatters. The following year, the Colonial government spent £300 in the Moreton Bay district, including £170 on road improvements on the Darling Downs route. In 1854, Phillip D. Vigors was appointed by the New South Wales government as Surveyor of Moreton Bay Roads and instructed to oversee the construction of a trafficable road from Brisbane through Ipswich to Drayton. The work was painstakingly slow and when Vigors resigned in 1856 he reported 'there is abundant work for the next year at least for two surveyors to do nothing but survey and mark the roads in the district". More money was injected into road development in the Laidley area in May 1857 when the Brisbane Board of Works allocated £500 to build a bridge over Laidley Creek - a project completed 6 years later. It seems most likely that it was during this period of development in the 1850s and 1860s that the corduroy road was constructed.
The practice of building corduroy roads was common in Europe by the 18th century and was also a common form of construction in America during the post-colonial period. It involved overlapping full or half rounds of logs together transversely and was used in swampy areas as a cheap and simple method of stabilizing road foundations. With the scarcity of labour and financial resources in colonial Queensland, corduroy roads became an important and viable means of dealing with poor road conditions. Moreover, their simple method of construction meant that the employment of an engineer was not required as was the case with the more advanced and more expensive practice of building plank roads, as delineated in 1852 by Captain Payne, a former Royal Engineer, and as tabled in the New South Wales Legislative Council the following year.
In the Laidley region, bad road conditions remained a continuing problem until surfaced roads were laid. In 1893 a report in the Queensland Times outlined the frustration of Laidley farmers who "were prevented from conveying [their crops] . . . to market on account of the heavy and boggy nature of the roads, caused by the excessive rainfalls". As early as 1859 the area where the remains of the corduroy road are located was described by a surveyor as "lightly inundated" owing to its flatness. With a plentiful supply of gum and ironbark nearby, it was an ideal and necessary location for a corduroy road.
While corduroy roads were an effective means of traversing a quagmire, they were far from perfect. With rudimentary suspension systems in coaches of the day, travellers found corduroy sections to be far from comfortable. They were also subject to the kind of disrepair that made travel more precarious, as Nehemiah Bartley noted in his reminiscences of his business trips of 1854-55 to the Darling Downs in Opals and Agates: "The next day I had to tackle the scrub on the 'Spicer's Peak' Gap. This road . . . had been at one time paved with thick pine logs - a 'corduroy' road, in fact - and, while it lasted, all was well. But, the place was naturally almost a bottomless morass, full of springs; the logs had rotted in the middle, and the sound ends titled up in all directions; a lovely chevaux de frise. It was an awful place for horse, bullock, or vehicle of any kind, to face, the titled logs adding to the pitfalls of the boggy ground".
While the corduroy road at Laidley remains unexposed it is not possible to determine the condition in which it now exists. A proposal to have the road surveyed and researched with a view to exposing a small section for public viewing was discussed by the Laidley Shire Council in the 1970s, but to date no further action has been taken.
","criteria":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history insofar as it provides evidence of the earliest development of road networks in the Moreton Bay district during the 19th century and the means used by early settlers to cope with the poor condition of roads during this period. With the growth of the Darling Downs from the 1850s onwards there was a necessity to improve communication between communities and market access for farmers. The corduroy road is an example of the practical and inexpensive method employed to ameliorate road conditions in a period when funding for road improvements in the northern districts of New South Wales was limited to occasional government votes.
|The corduroy road demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places, being a representative example of a once common technique of road building which did not require specific engineering skills and was readily employed by local farmers and residents to overcome difficult conditions along supply and communication routes.
|The corduroy road demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places, being a representative example of a once common technique of road building which did not require specific engineering skills and was readily employed by local farmers and residents to overcome difficult conditions along supply and communication routes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15433,"place_ref":600658,"name":"Raspberry Creek Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Raspberry Creek Homestead","suburb":"BYFIELD","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Raspberry Creek Homestead is located in the grounds of the Byfield and District Historical Society, along Byfield Road.
The homestead comprises three sections which were originally attached. Since being moved to the society grounds, the original slab section has been detached. Some of the original material on the slab section of the homestead has been replaced, whilst in other sections the timber framework is exposed.
The two later extensions, located to the west of the slab section, remain attached. The larger of the two sections is constructed of timber on timber stumps with weatherboard cladding and has a verandah on three sides. The building has a corrugated iron roof. It is attached to the smaller extension on the north-east side. The smaller section is timber framed set on timber stumps, clad with weatherboards. A timber ramp is located on the south-eastern side of the larger, three roomed building where it joins with the smaller two-roomed section.
The homestead currently contains items that form part of the material collection of the Byfield and District Historical Society. A library is located in one of the rooms of the larger section. This material is not necessarily related specifically to the Raspberry Creek Homestead nor to the Hutton family.
","history":"The Raspberry Creek homestead was built by James Hutton and Mary Hutton nee Cameron, pioneers of the Shoalwater Bay area in central Queensland. Originally, a slab hut was constructed in the early 1860s and in ensuring years as the family grew, the homestead was extended. In 1965, the homestead was included in the area taken up as the Shoalwater Bay Training Area. In 1988 the Raspberry Creek Homestead was moved to its present location in the grounds of the Byfield Historical Society.
James Hutton was the son of William Hutton and Rose Ann Hutton nee Cleland. William was a farm labourer and native of Inch, Downshire, Ireland, and Rose Ann was a farm servant and native of Killyleagh, Downshire. William and Rose had ten children, all born in Ireland. The family migrated to Australia, departing from Greenock on 21 May, 1841 on the ship Percy. Arriving in Sydney on 28 August 1841. Mary Cameron was the daughter of John and Margaret Cameron of Fort William, Inverness, Scotland. John was a boat builder. He and Margaret had eight children, all born in Scotland. They migrated with six of their children on the ship Blonde, arriving 27 December, 1849.
Both the Camerons and the Huttons settled at or near Falconer Station, later Falconer Township, in the New England area of New South Wales. The families became close through intermarriage: James Hutton married Mary Cameron in 1852; Jemima Hutton married John Cameron in 1855; and Maxwell Hutton married Ellen Cameron in 1861.
Nine years after their marriage, James and Mary Hutton moved with their children to Central Queensland, taking up the Raspberry Creek run, north of Rockhampton, in 1863. The journey took six months and the family brought with them all their possessions, loaded on two buckboards driven by Mary and their seven year old son William, and some few hundred head of cattle. Family lore has it that James Hutton had previously visited the area with Robert Ross and his sons, James and John, who were also from the New England district. James Hutton and James Ross formed a partnership to acquire the Raspberry Creek Run. James Hutton then returned to New South Wales selling their property and organising the journey north to Central Queensland.
On arrival, the party went first to Cawarral, where Mary and the children remained until the first bark and slab huts were erected at Raspberry Creek. These huts were about three miles from the site finally selected and were later moved. The present homestead was built using pit sawn timber for the walls and shingles for the roof.
By 1868, the partnership between Ross and Hutton had dissolved and the Huttons became the sole owners of Raspberry Creek. From 1869, following resumption and opening of the resumed land to selection, the Huttons took up further selections at Shoalwater and Banksia. When the family grew larger, weather boards for extensions were brought in by boat along Shoalwater Creek most stores were brought in by boat as it was easier than overlanding.
In 1894, the Huttons moved to Sydney where they stayed until Mary's death in 1896. James returned to Raspberry Creek and continued to run the station with his eldest son William until his death in 1898. William Hutton resided at Raspberry Creek Homestead until his retirement in 1911. During his time on Raspberry Creek, William, and his wife Rose, gained a reputation for their refined hospitality.
Raspberry Creek was sold to William Naughton in 1914 and passed out of the ownership of the Hutton Family. William Naughton divided and sold the property with Fred and William Flowers brothers applied for resumed portions and forming their stations. Raspberry Creek was bought by Tom Creed in 1939.
Under Commonwealth Acquisition 728, Raspberry Creek homestead become part of the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area on 1 July 1965. Whilst included within the training area, Raspberry Creek homestead was not in permanent use, though it had been utilised as a base camp for reconnaissance parties and by the Federal Department of Construction employees working within the training area. From mid-1987, Raspberry Creek homestead was not utilised as a base camp.
Relocated from the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in 1988, with the aid of a Bicentennial grant, the Raspberry Creek Homestead is sited on a reserve for Cultural & Historical Purposes under the trusteeship of Livingstone Shire Council and leased by Byfield & District Historical Society Inc. The Society operates a museum and library in the former homestead.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|The former Raspberry Creek Homestead is significant as a extant example of the type of early pioneer construction in the Shoalwater Bay area. With later extensions, Raspberry Creek Homestead provides evidence of the evolution of vernacular architecture.
|The former Raspberry Creek Homestead is valued by the community as demonstrated by the project to preserve it as an important part of the history of the area, and it is associated with the historical society whose focus it has been since the late 1980s.
|The former Raspberry Creek Homestead is significant for its association with James and Mary Hutton, early pioneers in the Shoalwater Bay area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15434,"place_ref":600659,"name":"Joskeleigh Cemetery","alternate_name":"Sandhills Historical South Sea Islander Cemetery","street_address":"Joskeleigh","suburb":"JOSKELEIGH","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The South Sea Islander village of Joskeleigh is located 40 kilometres from Rockhampton, on the coast.
The cemetery site comprised approximately a quarter of an acre and was originally part of a 100 acre freehold block. It is bounded on the north by Joskeleigh Road and to the south, west and east by freehold property on which is located mature vegetation, including mango and pine trees. All headstones within the cemetery face easterly.
The plaque bearing the names of those buried there is mounted on a large memorial stone. Oral history suggests that some Islanders are buried outside the present cemetery boundaries [in some cases it is said that people are buried outside of the cemetery grounds even though their headstones are located within the grounds].
Glass ornamentation and shells surround most the graves. Shells were used quite often to decorate not only the graves, but also garden beds. Some graves are marked with timber crucifixes. There are a number of marble headstones, one of which has a metal grave surround.
A timber rotunda is located with the cemetery. The cemetery is surrounded by a timber fence with access via Joskeleigh Road.
","history":"The use of the area that became the Joskeleigh Cemetery was established on privately-owned land at Sandhills/Joskeleigh by the late 1890s/early 1900s by the local South Sea Islander community. By 1983 there were fifth generation descendants of the original cane workers brought to the Rockhampton district in the late 19th century living in the Joskeleigh area.
In the period 1863-1904, South Sea Islanders were the principal labour force in Queensland's sugar industry, and until about 1880 also worked in the pastoral and maritime industries. Approximately 50,000 Islanders took up indentures to work in Queensland in this period, many signing up more than once. Following federation of the Australian colonies in 1901 and the resultant triumph of the 'White Australia' movement, the new Commonwealth Government passed the Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901, which proclaimed that the recruiting of South Sea Islands labour was to cease from 1904 and that as many Islanders as possible were to be repatriated by 1907. Between 1904-08, 7,068 Islanders were repatriated and another 194 were deported in 1914. However, between 2,000 and 2,500 Islanders were exempt from repatriation and acquired Australian citizenship. In the late 1990s their descendants number around 15,000.
In Queensland, Islanders were introduced firstly as labour in the cotton industry and on pastoral properties, and later to work on the sugar plantations along the coast. Clearing the land before planting the sugar cane. In the Rockhampton area, extensive sugar plantations were established in the Yeppoon, Farnborough, Cawarral, and Joskeleigh districts. Sugar was first tried at the Sand hills by Mr Joske [after whom Joskeleigh is named] but the land was too arid. The Yeppoon Sugar Plantation employed up to 180 South Sea Islander workers, both men and women.
When forcible repatriation of Islanders was introduced by the Commonwealth Government in the early 1900s, the Islander population around Rockhampton comprised 79 island born, 47 Queensland born, and 8 married women not liable to deportation. No children were to be sent back, and of the island born all but 23 had lived in Queensland for more than 20 years and so could claim exemption from deportation. Of these 23, five were married to women who did not come from their own island, and so were permitted to remain, and the other 18 were able to stay because they were mostly earning their own living on land they either owned or leased.
The majority of Islanders who chose to stay in Central Queensland settled in the Keppel Sands [originally Sandhills] area at Joskeleigh, which has a beach frontage of several kilometres and is the nearest ocean beach to Rockhampton. By 1914 the population was estimated at 200. The Joskeleigh School was established in 1915, and by the 1930s the population had peaked at around 250-300. The community estimates that the Islander population had a 10% intermarriage rate with an Aboriginal tribe which lived in the area until the 1930s, when the last of these Indigenous people were forcibly removed to reserves.
The Islander community first rented land from Bill Cuff, the Sandhills storekeeper, for a nominal 2/6 per year, and on this they built thatched huts of blady grass in the traditional manner, with Tea Tree Bark and traditionally made rope from the wild hibiscus bark. The Islanders soon became self sufficient by growing crops and market gardens to provide food and an income for their familles. Their families grew up there and soon began buying their own blocks of land south of Mr Cuff's who first invited the South Sea Islanders to the Sandhills. He originally worked at the Yeppoon Sugar Plantation Sugar Mill at Farnborough. When the mill ceased to operate in 1904 he invited some of the Islanders who worked on the plantation to work for him on his newly purchased acreage. Another land owner, AC [Alexander Charles] Huth sold them some of his land. They worked for him in his gardens [cultivations] and with their earnings paid for their land.
Traditional skills in fishing, net-making, medicine, horticulture and building continued to be practised and even taught in the local school, and this was a rich source of cultural pride and community cohesion. Between 1901 and 1914 the Islanders accepted Christianity, taught by Gospel hall missionaries from Rockhampton, but retained many of their island religious customs and spiritual beliefs.
When someone died, a wake was held and in days gone by this celebration lasted for three days with a huge feast prepared and cooked island style. It was a happy time and celebrated that the spirit of the deceased had gone to a happier place. Inexpensive use of glass ornamentation, and shells around the graves, were used to decorate the graves. Shells were used quite often to decorate not only the graves, but also their garden beds. Glass ornamentation was used as the families could often not afford anything else.
The Joskeleigh Cemetery is associated mostly with the first generation of Australian Islanders who resided at Sandhills. Twenty-two men, women and children are buried there, almost all Islanders except for one English women who had married into the community. [Oral history suggests that there are other unmarked graves outside the boundaries of the cemetery].
The burial ground, established on about a quarter of an acre of a 100 acre freehold at Sandhills, appears to have been abandoned when the Islander community took up their own land south of Sandhills. By the early 1980s the cemetery had been badly damaged by farm machinery. Twenty of the graves had been bulldozed; headstones were broken and picket fences had abeen burnt to clear some of the area. This caused considerable distress amongst Joskeleigh residents whose relatives were buried there. In response, the local Islander community, led by Mrs Mabel Edmund, encouraged the National Trust to list the site [1981] and formed the Joskeleigh Historical and Progress Association [1983] to preserve the place.
Fund raising commenced and negotiations with the then landholder were undertaken in order to purchase the area of land where the graves were located. These discussions were unsuccessful and the Association, led by Mrs Edmund, lobbied the Queensland Government to resume the burial ground and officially declare it a reserve for cemetery purposes. This was achieved in 1984.
The State Government bought a quarter acre of land surrounding most of the graves to preserve the area as an historical site. The land was held in trust by the Joskeleigh Historical Society, however in recent times this has been handed over to the Livingstone Shire Council. The community also maintains the grounds. Little restoration work was undertaken until 1991, when graves were marked; headstones re-erected where possible; a stone monument was erected with a plaque which bears the names of all those buried in the cemetery; a fence and gates were constructed and a sign painted.
The most recent burial in the Joskeleigh Cemetery was Mrs Evelyn Warcon in 2001. The Joskeleigh Cemetery has become an important and attractive part of the landscape and a source of pride to the community and a permanent reminder of South Sea Islander heritage.
","criteria":"Joskeleigh Cemetery is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history as evidence of the development of Joskeleigh and surrounding area as a settlement predominantly of South Sea Islander people, who owned or leased land, farmed it, and lived in the area since the 1890s.
A well-known landmark, Joskeleigh Cemetery, with its grave surrounds, markers and headstones, set in a tended lawn, with the surrounding area bounded by mature vegetation, particularly mango and pine trees, is significant for its aesthetic appeal.
|The Joskeleigh Cemetery is comparatively rare in Queensland, as the final resting place for, predominantly, South Sea Islander people.
|Joskeleigh Cemetery illustrates some of the principal characteristics of a small burial ground, including a lack of denominational divisions and locally-connected interments.
|Joskeleigh Cemetery is especially important for its strong social significance and for the association it holds for descendants of the early South Sea Islander families of Joskeleigh and surrounding area with their heritage and the experiences of their ancestors in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15435,"place_ref":600660,"name":"St Christophers Chapel","alternate_name":"St Christopher's Chapel","street_address":"St Christophers Chapel Road","suburb":"BERSERKER","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Christopher's Chapel is located fronting St Christopher's Chapel Road, Berserker, to the southeast of Rockhampton. The site is located on the southeastern side of low hill, and the entrance to the chapel faces in an easterly direction.
The single storeyed open-sided chapel has a concrete base, and is constructed of undressed timber posts and beams supporting King post trusses with struts and a ribbed metal gable roof. The chapel is open at the front and to both sides, with a low random rubble stone wall to the perimeter. The low stone wall has a central opening at the front, and returns either side of concrete steps which provide access to the chapel from the entrance path. The gable end has fibrous cement sheeting with timber battens, and a cross of undressed timber at the apex. The entrance is flanked by two marble plaques; the southern plaque commemorates the maintenance of the chapel by the Returned Services League of Australia, and the northern plaque commemorates the erection of the chapel in 1943 by the United States 542nd Special Engineer Regiment.
The rear of the structure has a raised platform separated from the body of the chapel by timber altar rails. A random rubble stone wall to the underside of the roof trusses creates a recessed central altar with a door to either side accessing rear side rooms. The altar has a central rose window consisting of coloured glass in a fretwork frame, below which is a large shelf surmounting a marble cross set in the stone wall. A free-standing random rubble pulpit is located at the southern side of the altar. The rear side rooms are enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting, and each has a sash window at the rear and a door opening onto a recessed porch behind the altar. The northern room contains a commemorative plaque fixed to the side wall.
The chapel has a wide centre aisle with timber pews to either side. The struts to alternate roof trusses have been painted in red, white and blue, and the Australian and American coat of arms are depicted on panels fixed to the roof truss above the altar rails. Timber planks displaying American servicemen's athletic records have been attached to the upper section of both sides of the chapel.
An octagonal band rotunda is located on the northern side of the chapel. This structure has a concrete and random rubble stone base, and is constructed of undressed timber posts and rafters, with sawn cross members, supporting a pitched ribbed metal roof. The rotunda is open to each side, with concrete steps providing access from the eastern side. A low timber bench seat is located around the perimeter, and timber pews have been placed in the rotunda facing the adjacent chapel altar. A stone plaque fixed to the stone base commemorates the erection of the rotunda.
The entrance to the chapel is via commemorative metal gates and arch, with the name SAINT CHRISTOPHERS CHAPEL outlined in large metal lettering, fronting a parking area off St Christopher's Chapel Road. Similar gates are located at the southern end of the site. The entrance path is lined by a number of commemorative plaques fixed to stone cairns, and garden beds with stone borders are located adjacent. The site also includes many trees scattered around the vicinity of the chapel.
","history":"St Christopher's Chapel at Berserker was erected in 1943 by the American 542 Engineers, Ship and Shore Battalion. The timber and stone chapel was built on Harbour Board land made available to the U.S. Army by the Queensland Government. It reflects the presence of American troops in Queensland during the Second World War and stands as the only structure of its kind in Australia.
The area around the chapel had been used as a convalescent camp for American troops based around Rockhampton, and other U.S. units which had been sent to Rockhampton to rest after combat operations in the Pacific islands. During the peak time of American occupation more than 70 000 American soldiers from the 24th, 32nd and 41st U.S. Army combat divisions, and One Army Corps - '1 Corps', were stationed in the Rockhampton area.
In 1943 several army chaplains recognised the need for a non-denominational chapel, and approached the Corps Commander for assistance. The 542 Engineers Ship and Shore were given the task of constructing the chapel under the supervision of the chaplains. The timber roof trusses and the stones used in construction were collected from the surrounding area. When the work was completed late in 1943, the four chaplains (two Protestant, one Roman Catholic and one Jewish Rabbi) consecrated the chapel as a place of divine worship where non-denominational services could be held.
After the United States troops left in February 1944 there was a gradual deterioration in the building until Henry Beak, whose grazing property adjoined the chapel, began to take care of it in July 1947. From mid 1955 the Livingstone Shire and Rockhampton City Councils assumed responsibility for the chapel.
In 1958, Master Sergeant Jack Bauman, U.S. Army, returned to Rockhampton and attempted to raise funds for the restoration of the chapel. Jack Bauman died before funds were raised but the 41st Division in America forwarded $130 to the American 41st Division Association in Rockhampton to paint the chapel. An octagonal band rotunda was erected in honour of Master Sergeant Bauman adjacent to the chapel.
In 1959 vandals destroyed a number of articles in the chapel which precipitated the formation of a committee and the appointment of trustees from the R.S.S.A.I.L.A. and the 41st Division Association to preserve and maintain the chapel. The committee established an annual service held on the Sunday closest to 4 July, American Independence Day.
During the time the committee looked after the chapel the memorial fence was erected with each donor's name engraved on a stainless steel panel. The lower gates were donated by the R.S.S.A.I.L.A. Rockhampton Branch and the main gates were a gift from Henry Beak. The signs commemorating athletic events, which are located around the sides of the chapel, are mementos collected from a sports oval which was located near the chapel and used by the troops during their occupation. These signs were placed in the chapel by Henry Beak.
In 1986 the committee dissolved, at which time the R.S.L. was approached to be the new caretakers for the chapel. The chapel is now under the authority of the Livingstone Shire Council and is a public place.
","criteria":"St Christopher's Chapel, erected in 1943, reflects the presence of American troops in Queensland during the Second World War. The area surrounding Rockhampton had sustained around 70 000 US soldiers who were fighting in the Pacific, and this non-denominational chapel was constructed to service the religious needs of those troops.
|As the only structure of its kind in Queensland and Australia, the chapel is a rare and unique testament to the American presence throughout Australia.
|St Christopher's Chapel is of aesthetic significance as a rustic open-air structure constructed of local natural materials, and the place makes a considerable aesthetic contribution to the surrounding landscape.
|It has special association with the American troops who used the chapel as a place of worship whilst resting or convalescing in Rockhampton.
The chapel has special association for the people of the surrounding communities as a local landmark and a place for worship and ceremony.
|The chapel is also a rare surviving example of the presence of American servicemen during the Second World War.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15436,"place_ref":600661,"name":"Carbrook State School (former)","alternate_name":"Gramzow Provisional School","street_address":"597-605 Beenleigh-Redland Bay Road","suburb":"CARBROOK","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Carbrook State School building is a high-set timber structure located towards the rear of a large level site and is approached via an avenue of trees leading from Beenleigh-Redland Bay Road to the north.
The building has weatherboard cladding, a corrugated iron gable roof, and is supported by steel and concrete posts. A verandah is located on the north, with a corrugated iron skillion roof, central timber stair, timber posts and timber rail balustrade. Either end of the verandah was enclosed early to form two small rooms, with the northeast room being later extended to the central stair. The building has a central double timber door with glazed fanlight to the verandah, with narrow, paired timber sash windows to either side.
The rear of the building has a central double timber door accessed via a timber stair with a timber and iron awning, with a narrow paired sash window to the west, and the former east window having been closed over with weatherboard. The gable ends originally had three narrow sash windows, evidence of which can bee seen in weatherboard infill, but the west gable now has a triple panel of glass louvres and the east has four sets of paired casements with a timber and iron window hood. Each gable has a high level opening which has been closed over.
Internally, the building consists of one large room, with two enclosed rooms on the verandah. Walls have vertically jointed boarding, with boarded ceilings raked to collar beam height, and security bars have been fixed over windows. The northwest verandah room has unlined single-skin walls, a paired casement window, a timber door to the verandah and a doorway which has been cut into the internal wall. The northeast verandah room is larger, and has access to the verandah, but not the main room.
The sub-floor space has a concrete floor and has been partially enclosed with weatherboard and glass louvres to the rear. A storage room is located in the southwest corner, and has been enclosed with vertically jointed boarding and weatherboard.
The building has three corrugated iron rainwater tanks, and a flag pole to the northwest. Two fig trees are located to the north of the building flanking the central driveway, which is lined by an avenue of trees of various species.
A weatherboard toilet block with a skillion roof is located to the south of the building at the rear boundary. Pine trees line the road frontage and the east boundary, and the former playing field is located to the northeast.
","history":"The former Carbrook State School, now a high-set timber and iron building, was originally named Gramzow Provisional School when constructed in 1877.
The area around Carbrook was originally called the Logan District after Captain Logan who discovered the Logan River in 1826. The area was logged by timber getters before selectors began arriving in the 1860s. The first selector in the area was Herman Meissner who took up his selection in April 1868. The mainly German immigrants who settled in the Carbrook area named the settlement Gramzow after a town in Germany, and followed agricultural pursuits including the growing and milling of sugar cane and arrowroot. Later, the area supported dairying which gave way to bananas and a variety of small crops.
In 1876, farmers John Sommer, Charles Habermann, August Fischer and James Graham, formed a committee representing the community and requested the Department of Public Instruction to establish a State School at Gramzow. The request was refused as there were insufficient student numbers to justify the establishment of a State School, but the Department suggested that the best way will be to begin with a Provisional School at Gramzow, and when the attendance exceeds thirty, a residence can be added. A Provisional School was described as being one in which temporary provision is made for the primary instruction of children and not being a State school. These schools were established where an average attendance of between 12 and 30 pupils could be maintained and where the local promoters could provide a suitable building at their own expense. These buildings could be built on private land, Crown land or on land vested in the Minister. When the average attendance of the school rose to more than 30, the school committee was expected to raise the requisite one-fifth local contribution towards the cost of a State school.
In March 1876, farmers August Fischer and Herman Meissner each sold two acres of land, creating a four acre school site, to the Department of Public Instruction for the nominal price of five shillings each (registered in May 1876). The land had been alienated from the crown in 1868, with Fischer obtaining 38 acres and Meissner obtaining 50 acres. The school building cost £174, with the residents subscribing £70 (£50 cash and £20 value of the land), and the Gramzow Provisional School opened on 5 November 1877 with 23 pupils enrolled in the December quarter. The teacher's residence was completed on 17 January 1879 (no longer extant), the school became a State School on 20 January 1879, and was first inspected on 7 June 1879 at which time there were 33 pupils enrolled.
The School
The school building was built on low timber stumps with a timber shingled roof, unlined weatherboard walls and without a verandah. The building was set back from the road towards the rear of the lightly timbered site, as this was the highest position within the low lying land, which was described as being very flat and boggy in wet weather.
A verandah was added to the north side of the school building in 1889, with either end enclosed as a hat room and lavatory. The first Arbor Day was held in 1892, and between 1892-96 a gateway was erected and later, driveway trees were planted. In 1908 the school building was roofed with corrugated iron.
Children of German families from Gramzow walked to Alberton (formerly Elkana) every Thursday to attend the German School to learn German. The school was located near St Peter's Lutheran Church where services were conducted in German until the First World War. In 1916 the postal name for Gramzow was changed to Carbrook, and in November of that year the Department of Public Instruction approved the change of name of the School to Carbrook State School.
During the early 1920s there was much controversy between parents and teachers at the school, for a number of reasons. Various reports were conducted, with an October 1930 report by the District Inspector concluding that from the open way in which parents and children talked, I feel that modesty is not one of the virtues of Carbrook.
The school experimented with growing cotton in the school garden, but in April 1923 it was reported that the experiment was unsuccessful as the soil was poor and swampy. The school building was raised onto high stumps in 1932, and the interior walls were lined with vertical boarding. Later that year the rear and sides of the underfloor area was enclosed with corrugated iron.
In September 1936 electricity was connected to the teacher's residence and school building, and a ceiling was installed in the school building in May 1940. To increase light and ventilation, plans had been prepared in May 1941 for the replacement of the east windows of the school building, but it was not until August 1949 that approval was given for the removal of the east sash windows and their replacement with casement windows with fanlights and window hood. The southeast sash window was also removed and walled over.
A six foot fence was erected between the school and the teacher's residence in May 1952, replacing an earlier timber paling fence. In August 1954 approval was given for asphalting the underfloor area of the school building, which consisted of fine dust and dirt. Due to the removal of the teacher's residence in 1955, the electricity connection was rearranged, as both meters for the school building and teacher's residence were located on the verandah of the residence. In March 1956, the internal painting of the school building was approved, and prior to this the interior wall lining and ceiling had been unpainted. In June 1956 gravel filling was provided for the driveway, parade area and around the school.
In June 1960 two new lights were installed to replace the original single light. In February 1961 the Head Teacher was anxious to start a forestry plot, which was in existence by 1964 and eventually held 375 pine trees. By June 1963 the northeast end of the verandah had been enclosed to form a library.
Student numbers gradually declined (only 16 students in 1974) until 1976, when a significant increase in enrolments necessitated an expansion of facilities at the school. At this time, the school had an extremely high rate of student turnover, and the major source of students was claimed to be the nearby Aquatic Gardens Caravan Park and a Revival Centre.
The school celebrated its centenary in 1977, and a time capsule was buried to the northwest of the school building on 1 October 1977. The school building was restumped with concrete and steel posts, corrugated iron sheeting around the underfloor area was replaced with weatherboard and louvres, and the school was carpeted and repainted. At this time, a demountable classroom (no longer extant) was installed to the northeast of the school building, and an adventure playground was constructed to the west in 1978. From this time, consideration was given to increasing the school grounds but negotiations with neighbouring landholders were not successful. By 1979, the alternative of a replacement school site was being investigated.
In March 1982, a second demountable building (no longer extant) was installed to the east of the school building to be used for classrooms. The original school building was then used as a library, with a staff room on the verandah.
Due to drainage problems on the original school site, it was decided in 1983 to procure a replacement school site. A number of sites were investigated, with the chosen site being located to the west of the school along Beenleigh-Redland Bay Road. Negotiations for the purchase of the site were not successful, and in 1985 the site was recommended to be resumed. Stage one of the replacement school was completed in January 1987, and it opened for the new school year. The official opening of the replacement school was not held until 14 May 1988.
Since this time, the former Carbrook State School has been vacant. A plan to use the site as a Special Education Facility was investigated for a number of years, but was finally abandoned. The removal of a demountable building was approved in January 1993, and the site was approved for disposal in September 1993.
The Teacher's Residence
The teacher's residence, completed in 1879, was constructed to the east of the school building and was built on low timber stumps with a timber shingled roof.
The first Head Teacher, Horace Heywood, arrived from England in September 1877 and awaited a teacher's residence to be built before he asked his wife and family to join him. No accommodation was made available for him when he arrived, and he was forced to live with two bachelor brothers in filth and confusion ineffable in a small room which swarmed with fleas and bugs that bit me every night. During the Christmas holidays he lived in the school building, at which time the school committee erected a slab humpy, without a floor, and having very small windows. He had to cook on an open air fire, and as the building stood near swampy ground and leaked badly in wet weather his books were spoilt and bedclothing mildewed.
These problems were alleviated with the completion of the teacher's residence in January 1879, which consisted of an L-shaped plan with a kitchen and small verandah at the rear and three main rooms with a verandah at the front. This was later enlarged with the addition of a room at the rear, forming a U-shaped plan with a verandah between, in 1908.
In September 1936 electricity was connected, and in May 1940 a ceiling was installed in the living room of the teacher's residence. In 1954 the residence was severely damaged by a cyclone, and was reported as having been condemned for 17 years. In February 1955, authorisation was given for the residence to be removed, and it was sold to Mr HG Berndt of Woongoolba for £160.
","criteria":"The former Carbrook State School, which opened as Gramzow Provisional School in 1877, functioned for 110 years and reflects the development of, and changes in, Primary Education in Queensland. The building is one of the earliest structures in the area, and as a public building the school is a record of the development of the Carbrook area and the growth of , and changes to, the Carbrook community.
|(Criterion under review)
|The former school, with its tree lined driveway and original school building located towards the rear of the site, makes a valuable contribution to the Carbrook landscape.
|The former school has strong associations with the early German settlers of the district, which is reflected in the importance the current community attaches to the site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15437,"place_ref":600662,"name":"Mayes Cottage","alternate_name":"Pleasant Place","street_address":"36 Mawarra Street","suburb":"KINGSTON","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Mayes Cottage is a small one-storeyed timber building on a large block on Mawarra St, Kingston, which features a variety of outbuildings and established vegetation. The cottage is situated on the highest point of the block, with land gently sloping away to the north and east, providing the house with panoramic views of the surrounding area.
Mayes Cottage is a timber building, raised on sawn timber stumps and encircled by a verandah on three sides. The house and kitchen block have discrete roofs of corrugated galvanised iron, a high pitched pyramidal section over the house with a simple curved verandah awning; and a gabled roof over the kitchen wing. These parts are linked with an enclosed walkway, roofed with curved corrugated iron. The single skinned external walls of the main house have exposed diagonally braced timber framing, and are lined with horizontal boards. The verandah awning is supported on stop chamfered square timber columns, with square sectioned timber balustrade handrail and midrail.
A centrally located entrance door on the eastern facade, is accessed via a small open tread timber stair onto the verandah. The entrance is flanked by two timber framed window openings, housing sash windows of six panes with fine mullions and simple framing.
Internally, Mayes Cottage consists of four major rooms with additional rooms added to the verandah space of the western side of the building. Timber boarding is used throughout the cottage for flooring and internal partitioning, with beaded boards used to line the ceiling. Throughout the cottage there are simple moulded four panelled timber doors. The walkway joining the main house to the kitchen wing is enclosed with casement windows, glazed with coloured and clear arctic glass.
The kitchen wing is a simple rectangular building, clad with horizontal timber boards. Curved corrugated iron window awnings protect the windows, and a corrugated iron oven recess is attached to the northern end of the kitchen. This section is internally lined with v-jointed boards, raked at the junction between ceiling and wall.
The property houses several outbuildings and a substantial number of established trees and other vegetation. To the north of the house is a simple fully enclosed building, with a shingled roof, timber door and small unglazed window opening covered with a boarded timber shutter. To the west of this are the remains of the original home, consisting of framing elements and roofing. This structure is separated into two halves with a wall of timber slab construction. The northern half of the building has a raised platform, and a gabled roof covering, whilst the southern section has an adjoining skillion roof and an earth floor.
To the west of this are the milking yards, comprising a milking shed and remnants of a simple timber post and rail fence. The shed has an L-shaped plan, enclosed on the western end with the extending wing open to the north and framed with wide timber rough cut sections.
Several large mango trees, both on the property and adjacent to the north-eastern border, feature as early remnants.
","history":"Mayes Cottage is a small one storeyed timber dwelling on a large property containing several outbuildings. It was constructed as the family home of local pioneer, John Mayes in 1887, replacing an earlier house, reused as a store.
\nJohn and Emily Mayes and their two small children arrived in Australia as free settlers on July 9, 1871 from England aboard the Indus. The family moved from Brisbane to Waterford, where they selected a property of 321 acres soon after their arrival. The Mayes' lease was subject to conditions requiring improvements under the provisions of the Crown Lands Alienation Act (1868). Another local pioneering family, the Kingstons, settled in the district in 1872, under the same leasing requirements.
\nWhen they arrived at what was to become Kingston, the Mayes family lived in a tent on the property, but in 1872 a small timber slab hut was constructed. By 1877, when a property inspection was undertaken to ascertain whether the Mayes family were honouring their lease requirements, improvements to the property were reported. These included the erection of the 1872 hut, described as a two roomed house with bark roof, along with outbuildings including a kitchen slab with bark roof, and a water hole. A well was built near an already established water-hole popular with the local aboriginal community on the Kingston Road border of the house, providing water for the house prior to the construction of tanks. One of the daughters of John and Emily, Ruth, was drowned in the well. Extensive fencing and clearing of the land was evident in the 1877 inspection, orange trees were planted and cattle had been introduced. The original entrance to the property was via a sliprail on the Kingston Rd fence.
\nJohn Mayes applied to purchase the property, which the family called 'Pleasant Place' on January 30, 1883, and a Deed of Grant was issued on July 7 of that year. The following year an application was made by Mayes for a refund for land that had been resumed by the railway, which was due to open in 1885, reducing his property to 313 acres and 38 perches.
\nThe Mayes family were supported principally by timber getting on the property, providing timber for the pit props in the Ipswich mines, firewood, sleepers, fence posts and other undressed timber products. In 1886-7 the Mayes constructed a new timber house adjacent to the earlier hut, which they also retained. Early photographs of this house show a single storeyed timber building with exposed external framing, a pyramidal roof and extensive verandahs. Originally, as well as an outdoor oven to the west of the kitchen, an open fire and brick chimney were placed at the southern end of the kitchen providing limited heating facilities. This was removed from the kitchen and replaced by a window in the 1930s.
\nDuring the 1880s and 90s, the family grew a wide variety of fruit trees around the house, including mangoes, pineapples, citrus fruit, guavas and persimmons. About 20 head of cattle were introduced to the property during the 1890s. By about 1906 a milking yard was installed when J. Mayes, either the elderly John or his son Josiah, bought shares in the newly formed Kingston Cooperative Dairy Company.
\nWhen John Mayes died on June 10, 1908, Emily remarried John's brother, Richard, with whom she moved to Mooloolah in 1913. Josiah and his wife, Daisy, moved to Pleasant Place in 1913, and the transfer of property to Josiah's name was completed in 1918. Cream from the dairy cattle at Pleasant Place was taken to the Dairy Co-op to be sold, though the property was not really fertile enough to support dairy cows, and timber getting and fruit growing continued as the main sources of income. Josiah was a registered bee-keeper and 120 hives were introduced to the northern slope of the property.
\nBy 1912 the Kingston area was beginning to develop, with closer settlement and the opening of a local school and, later the Kingston Hall, used for dances and community meetings.
\nIn 1922, a dairy was constructed at Pleasant Place, and the original slab house, whose shingle roof was re-used for the new dairy, was itself re-roofed with galvanised iron, in accordance with the Dairy Produce Act of Queensland (1904), pertaining to dairy storage sheds. Milking was conducted in the milking yards, under a fig tree planted for shading the area.
\nDuring the 1930s and 40s, several alterations to various outbuildings were made, including the extension of the feed shed, the construction of a storage shed near the milking yard, the removal of an outdoor oven from the kitchen yard and the widening and enclosure of the walkway between the kitchen and the house. Electricity was connected to the house in 1937, and a Chevrolet was purchased in about 1935, thereby allowing the removal of the buggy shelter which was replaced by a laundry. Other changes to the property in the early 1940s included the planting of a row of oleanders by Josiah's son, Richard for his wife and the construction of a bush house by Josiah's daughter, Evelyn.
\nThe Mayes family discontinued dairying in 1945, and turned the dairy into a storage area for a honey extractor. By the mid 1950s, when Josiah was not able to maintain or work the farm, suburban development was allowed to encroach on Pleasant Place, leaving only ten acres around the house. The Queensland Housing Commission acquired the property, but surrendered it to the Crown in 1978 for use as a reserve, gazetted in June 1979.
\nThe property is now managed by Logan City Council as a house museum open to the general public.
","criteria":"Mayes Cottage is one of the earliest surviving houses in the Kingston district. The property was built by the Mayes family for many years, and is able to provide evidence of the wide diversity of the family's small scale occupations including farming and fruit growing. The property retains the 1872 house, the 1887 house, and a dairy and feed shed all of which were built from timber grown on the selection.
|The house and outbuildings demonstrate the characteristics of early timber slab construction, exposed frame, single skin construction and sawn shingle roofing, all common for early home builders, but now rare.
|The house and outbuildings demonstrate the characteristics of early timber slab construction, exposed frame, single skin construction and sawn shingle roofing, all common for early home builders, but now rare.
|The house and grounds have aesthetic value as part of a prominent and picturesque site, situated at the crest of a hill surrounded by open ground and mature trees.
|Mayes Cottage is one of the earliest surviving houses in the Kingston district. The property was built by the Mayes family for many years, and is able to provide evidence of the wide diversity of the family's small scale occupations including farming and fruit growing. The property retains the 1872 house, the 1887 house, and a dairy and feed shed all of which were built from timber grown on the selection.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15438,"place_ref":600663,"name":"QATB Centre (former)","alternate_name":"Longreach Arts & Crafts Centre","street_address":"111 Ibis Street","suburb":"LONGREACH","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former QATB centre is a two storey timber framed building with a corrugated iron roof. and has wide surrounding verandahs to both levels. The front of the building is clad with pressed metal sheeting which simulates bricks and stone quoins. This effect is heightened by appropriate painting. The sheeting is continued up into a parapet which conceals the roof from the street and carries the QATB Maltese cross insignia and the date 1921. The remainder of the building has exposed studs and a timber lining. The verandah to the upper floor has dowel balustrading and panels of lattice at the front corners and at the rear. There is a timber valance of vertical boards cut to form shallow arches between the timber post which support the verandah.
The building has been changed little to accommodate its new use and the extension building is connected only by a light pergola supporting vines.
","history":"The former Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade centre in Longreach is a two storey timber building purpose built for the Brigade in 1921 and in use as an Arts and Crafts centre since 1973. \t
The Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade began in Brisbane in 1892. It was formed by Seymour Warrian of the Army Medical Corps after seeing an accident victim suffer considerable aggravation of his injuries through inexpert transport to hospital. The Brigade aimed to provide first aid and skilled transport to hospital for the sick and injured. In the first years the Brigade was wholly funded by subscription, but met such an important need that from 1895 they were subsidised by the government, both directly and by involving the Department of Works in the construction of ambulance buildings. In the late 1890s and 1900s they expanded into regional centres. By 1921, a specific layout for ambulance buildings had been formalised into policy. This incorporated a space for vehicles with easy street access, a casualty room, meeting room and sleeping room for ambulance bearers on a ground floor level and residential quarters for the Superintendent above.
A Longreach branch of the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade was formed on 24 June 1919. A modified Buick car was purchased from Brisbane, and the ambulance began operations from the Commercial Hotel, before moving to premises in Galah Street, and then Crane Street. In 1920, the Ambulance Brigade committee petitioned the State Government for a dedicated reserve for ambulance offices at Longreach, and this was granted at 111 Ibis Street. After a year of highly successful fundraising, the committee was able to commission the construction of a purpose-designed ambulance building. Plans were submitted by Mr G Meacham and the Brigade superintendent, Mr Archibald Solway, and the contract let in 1921 to Messrs Edwards, Martin Ltd of Longreach, with a price of £3,185. The building was opened free of debt in May 1921, by the Longreach Shire Chairman, Mr RH Edkins.
The new building was a two-storeyed timber structure, following the now standard layout for QATB centres. The ground floor contained the casualty room, office, store, and accommodation for the Bearer - which comprised 2 bedrooms, an enclosed verandah which served as the living room, kitchen and toilet, shower and bathroom - and a cement floored area for housing the ambulance vehicles. On the upper floor was the Superintendent's quarters, comprising 3 bedrooms, a study, kitchen, bathroom, shower and toilet and a large verandah, where all meals were taken.
The Ambulance Service was transferred to the Longreach Hospital in 1958, after which the upper floor of the ambulance station was occupied for some years as a residence, but the ground floor remained vacant. The building began to fall into disrepair and in 1971, Longreach citizens formed an Arts and Craft group and petitioned to make use of the disused ambulance building. In 1973, the ambulance reserve was transferred from the Health Department to local trustees as a Reserve for Cultural Purposes and the Longreach Cultural Association undertook to restore the former ambulance building as an arts and crafts centre. Assistance came from local Rotarians and from State and Federal governments in the form of grants for restoration work and various Arts grants.
The building now functions as an Arts and Crafts Centre and accommodates various art and craft classes, an art gallery, potters' workshop, Flying Arts activities, a theatre group, and community group meetings. The upper level currently comprises the Gallery, a flat rented on a semi-permanent basis, a Tutor's Room for visiting arts tutors, a store room, a craft display room, and a QATB memorabilia room. The Gallery was officially opened in November 1979.
An adjoining structure that houses the potters' group and the theatre group was constructed in 1988 as a bi-centennial project.
","criteria":"The former QATB centre demonstrates the way in which the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade spread through Queensland and the importance of Longreach as a regional centre
|It is a good example of a regional QATB centre which uses the standard ambulance station plan comprising garage space, casualty room and bearer's room on the ground floor and accommodation for a superintendent above.
|The former ambulance station, due to its prominent position in the main street of Longreach and its use of scale, form and materials, makes a major contribution to the townscape and is a well designed and proportioned building adapting a vernacular style well suited to the climate.
|The building has a strong association with the people of the Longreach area as a community facility and with the work of the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15439,"place_ref":600664,"name":"Qantas Museum/Former Qantas Hangar","alternate_name":"Qantas Hangar","street_address":"Landsborough Highway","suburb":"LONGREACH","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Qantas hanger is located at the Longreach aerodrome, on the western side of the complex and is a large, freestanding structure which forms a dominant landmark in the area.
The hangar comprises a large open space, or hangarage, with annexes on either side and at the rear. The hangarage has a light frame of tubular steel which comprises a series of trusses supporting a gable roof with a ventilated ridge. The roof trusses are only supported by columns where the roof has been extended over the side annexes. The gable at each end of the hangar is also sheeted with corrugated iron and painted with the words QANTAS LTD on the northern (front) end and QANTAS LTD AIR SERVICES on the southern (rear)end.
At each side of the front elevation are new steel frames which support the recently constructed sliding doors when opened.
Internally, the hangarage has a concrete floor, whilst the floors to the annexes are of timber boards. The walls and roof of the hangarage and annexes are clad in galvanised corrugated iron and openings are cut in the walls in some areas to allow light to enter the interior. Windows in the form of corrugated iron flaps, hinged at the top are located down each side and at the rear of the annexes. The western annexe has been altered to accommodate offices and amenities associated with the operation of the place as a museum.
","history":"The town of Longreach was gazetted in 1887 as the new terminus of the railway line extending west from Rockhampton. Prior to this, the site of Longreach was a teamsters stop, however the completion of the railway in 1892 provided the impetus for the rapid development of the town.
Interest in air transport was accelerated after the First World War. In 1919, the Australia government offered £10 000 to the first Australian who completed the flight from England to Australia in twenty eight days. Two returned pilots, W Hudson Fysh and Paul J McGinness, with their former flight sergeant Arthur Baird as engineer, were prepared to attempt the flight but had to abandon their plans when their financial benefactor died shortly after the start of their attempt. Fysh and McGinness were experienced pilots, having been awarded with the Distinguished Flying Cross whilst serving in the Australian Flying Corps. They had also served in the Australian Light Horse and landed at Gallipoli in 1915.
Unable to take part in the race, the two pilots were subsequently employed by the Department of Defence to survey the route for the race contestants. This took them through western Queensland and the Northern Territory and it was during this exploration that they realised the potential for an air service linking outback towns not linked by rail.
In mid 1920, Fysh and McGinness decided to establish an air taxi and joy ride service from Cloncurry. They met with grazier Fergus McMaster and two other backers from the Longreach area, who agreed to become financially involved in the project.
The Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited (Qantas) was registered in November 1920 and the first official meeting was held at the Winton Club. Arthur Baird rejoined Fysh and McGinness as engineer and became the backbone of Qantas in the early years. In the same year, the company moved to Longreach, as it was a more central position from which to operate. Business was slow at first, as most of the interest was in joy rides which, in the early days of aviation, were expensive and sometimes dangerous. However, support from McMaster and the newly formed Country Party, as well as pressure from shire and municipal councils compelled the Commonwealth government to announce a tender for a mail run from Charleville to Cloncurry. Qantas won this tender in February 1922.
The first office in Longreach was located in Eagle Street. After this building was destroyed by fire, the office was moved to a temporary building in Duck Street before relocating to the Graziers Building across the street in May 1922. The first hangar was constructed near the site of the showgrounds in 1921. However, the contract for the mail service necessitated larger premises and a contract for a new hangar was won by Stewarts and Lloyds in March 1922. The hangar was completed in August 1922 and the inaugural mail service flight was made in November of the same year.
The new hangar was erected on the site of the new aerodrome which was one and a half miles east of the town. Constructed of a tubular steel frame with galvanised iron cladding, it measured 120 feet by 60 feet (36.5 metres by 18.2 metres) and cost £1 637. It initially had a dirt floor, but by 1924 when town water was connected, most of the floor had been concreted. The existing hangar near the showgrounds was dismantled and re-erected of the new site as offices and a store.
The mail service was extended to Camooweal and Normanton in the mid 1920s and the flying service grew to include transportation of food and people in times of flood and acted as an aerial ambulance in emergencies.
In 1926, the development of aerial communications throughout the Commonwealth was encouraged during an Imperial Conference in London, resulting in Prime Minister Stanley Bruce increasing the budget for civil aviation. In the same year, production of DH50 aeroplanes under licence from de Havilland commenced in the Longreach hangar. Although this practice ceased in 1929 when the DH50s were superseded by the more complex DH61s, the construction of aeroplanes became a secondary industry in the grazing district, creating jobs for many local people. This new use necessitated extensions to the hangar which included the additions of workshops at the sides and sliding doors to the front.
In June 1930, Qantas ended its occupation of the Longreach hangar when the headquarters were moved to Brisbane. This move was generated by the realisation that a takeover was imminent if they remained a small outback company. In 1934, Qantas merged with Imperial Airways
During the Second World War, the hangar was used by the Royal Australian Air Force and subsequently by the United States Air Force. After the war, the hangar became a terminal for the domestic services of various airlines, including local Longreach airline, Somerset Airways.
The most extensive alterations were carried out in the 1960s when a passenger terminal comprising a waiting room, a trolley way for baggage and offices was constructed at the north east corner of the building. At the same time, the roof sheeting, purlins and primary roof trusses were replaced and additional purlins were installed. The plans for these alteration were drawn by the Commonwealth Department in 1960, however the work was not completed until 1963.
The signage to the gable ends has been repainted a number of times. The Allom Lovell Marquis-Kyle Conservation Plan states that the positions of the gables were reversed during the 1963 alterations and that the signs were repainted in 1963, 1969 and 1972. The 1969 repainting included the painting over of the sign on the southern end which originally read Qantas Empire Airlines, the name resulting from the 1934 merge with Imperial Airways to enable international flights to England.
The hangar remained in use until 1996 when it was altered for re-use as a museum illustrating the history of Qantas.
","criteria":"The Qantas Hangar at Longreach was constructed in 1922 on the second site of then fledging airline, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service. Originally established in Winton, Qantas relocated to Longreach shortly after its registration. The hangar provides a tangible link with pioneering air services in Australia and demonstrates the evolution of air services in Australia as well as the development of the history of Queensland.
|It is rare as one of the few surviving structures associated with the establishment of Qantas, now one of the largest international airlines, and as one of the earliest aviation sites in Australia.
|The large uninterrupted space of the hangarage and the adjoining annexes demonstrates the principal characteristics of a structures of its type.
|The hangar is of aesthetic significance as a landmark in the area, The simplicity of its design and construction also contributes to its aesthetic value.
|It has strong associations with the community of Longreach.
|It has strong associations with the development of aviation in Australia. It also has special association with the founders of Qantas, W Hudson Fysh and Paul J McGinness, and engineer Arthur Baird.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15441,"place_ref":600666,"name":"Darr River Downs","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Landsborough Highway","suburb":"MORELLA","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-27","description":"Darr River Downs, located to the west of Darr River northeast of Morella, consists of a homestead, office and saddle room, store, woolshed, woolscour ruins and cemetery.
The homestead has been substantially altered, although parts of the original internal and external walls and paving stones around the exterior have been retained. All early internal joinery and linings have been removed. The homestead building is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The office and saddle room, a single-storeyed structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof and verandahs all round, is constructed of rough-squared field stone with clay mortar. Verandahs have tree trunk verandah posts and earth floors.
The store, a single-storeyed structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof and verandahs all round, is constructed of field stone with clay mortar. Internally, the building has stone paved floors and the roof is unlined.
The woolshed, located approximately two kilometres to the east of the homestead complex, is a corrugated iron clad structure with timber stumps and consists of arched metal trusses over a T-shaped plan. Internally, the building has timber floors, timber fencing and gates and evidence of early shearing equipment.
The woolscour ruins are located to the north of the homestead complex.
The cemetery, to the south of the homestead complex, is surrounded by a timber post and rail fence and contains two graves with headstones and metal surrounds.
","history":"The runs comprising Darr River Downs station were taken up during the early 1870s by a number of people, and were progressively acquired from 1876 by Baird, Rowan and Co.; a group of Melbourne businessmen carrying on business together as sheep and cattle farmers. Although the Darr River Downs runs were recorded as being stocked with cattle initially, during the 1880s many of the newer pastoralists commenced raising sheep rather than cattle.
Darr River Downs was consolidated during the late 1880s, and the lease taken up by Baird, Rowan and Co. The lease was transferred to William Taylor and Andrew Rowan, in partnership as Taylor, Rowan and Co, in 1888. Taylor and Rowan appear to have also been in partnership with Archibald Fisken and John Bertram, as in 1893, records indicate that the lease was transferred from Taylor, Rowan, Fisken and Bertram to the Trust and Agency Co. of Australasia. Rowan retired from the firm in 1897, and in August 1898, the lease again appears to have been held by Taylor, Fisken and Bertram. The lease was transferred to the Corporation of the Bank of Australasia later in 1898.
Darr River Downs, described in an advertisement in 1888 as a First-class sheep station in Queensland...comprising about eleven hundred square miles, [704 000 acres], was one of three large pastoral properties established in the district as a result of the consolidation of runs. The other two properties were Corona and Evesham.
A stone storehouse is understood to have been erected c1874 and used as the homestead on the station for some years, before a new stone homestead was erected. Other stone outbuildings were probably erected around this time. The stone for these buildings was quarried from the bed of the nearby Darr River.
Wool scouring developed as an alternative to sheep washing in Australia from the 1840s, and had almost replaced it by the 1890s. The Darr River Downs woolscour, reputedly the first to be erected in this part of Queensland, is thought to have been built during the early-mid 1880s. Construction of the scour has been attributed to the desire of the owners to overcome the difficulties involved in presenting buyers at the London wool sales with the cleanest possible wool. A document outlining the approximate cost of improvements on the Station suggests that the woolscour may have been erected in two stages, in 1883 and 1886, and it is recorded also that in 1886, Darr River Downs scoured its own wool for the first time. Darr River Downs was running approximately 135 550 sheep in 1890, and in 1893, the property recorded 1725 bales of wool.
The document outlining improvements to the station records also that a woolshed was erected on the property c1883. During the shearers' strike in 1891, a group of striking shearers unsuccessfully attempted to burn down the woolshed. A new woolshed appears to have been erected, possibly in the early 1900s, and is reputed to have formerly been a temporary pavillion/annexe for the c1880 Melbourne Exhibition, which was dismantled and shipped to Rockhampton, then transported to Darr River Downs where it was re-erected as the woolshed. An official record of the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880-1881 noted that the temporary annexes erected for the Exhibition were constructed of corrugated iron and timber, and the materials were subsequently sold at fair prices to the Victorian Railway Department to be utilised in building shed & c at railway stations. It is not clear whether all of the annexes were sold to the Railways Department, or whether some may have been disposed of elsewhere. It is also of interest to note that an A Fisken (presumably Archibald Fisken, a prominent Melbourne businessman who was involved with Darr River Downs during the late 1890s) was listed in the Exhibition record as one of the Commissioners of the Exhibition, and therefore may have been involved in acquiring one of the annexes for Darr River Downs. The woolshed was located just over one mile from the homestead, and included large holding pens for the sheep, and shearers' quarters.
Records of the station buildings in 1904 refer to a complex of buildings including homestead, house kitchen, quarters, store, wheelwrights and carpenters shop, stables, and huts.
In March 1910, the property was transferred to James Henry Coleman and Edward James Watt, of New Zealand, and was transferred into Watt's name in 1918. Watt was described as a generous employer, who, following the First World War, subdivided 60 000 acres from Darr River Downs, and gave it to four of the men who had worked on Darr River Downs and returned from the War.
Watt died in 1942, and Darr River Downs was acquired by TC Lowry, Watt's nephew, in 1950. Following Lowry's death in the mid 1970s, the property passed to Lowry's son and other members of the Lowry family. The property was acquired by the present owners in 1989. The portion of land on which the homestead and outbuildings, including the woolshed and woolscour ruins are located presently comprises 51 564 acres.
The woolshed, formerly crucifix-shaped in plan, has been partially dismantled and sections of the building re-erected on other properties in the area. The woolshed is still in use by Darr River Downs and other properties in the district. The homestead was extensively renovated c1987.
","criteria":"Established in the early 1870s, Darr River Downs is important in demonstrating the evolution of the pastoral industry in Queensland.
|The construction and layout of the woolshed, with the use of prefabricated arched metal trusses is rare and uncommon. The woolscour ruins (c1886) are a rare example of an early use of new technology which even by the late nineteenth century was only common in regional centres.
|The surviving 19th and early 20th century structures have the potential to contribute to an understanding of building technology and wool processing in western Queensland.
|Darr River Downs demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late nineteenth century/early twentieth century pastoral station by the layout, materials, scale and design.
|Darr River Downs demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late nineteenth century/early twentieth century pastoral station by the layout, materials, scale and design. Together with mature plantings, these elements contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place.
|The woolshed and woolscour remains also demonstrate a high degree of technical achievement for the period, through the early use of mechanical wool washing techniques and metal truss construction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15442,"place_ref":600667,"name":"World War I Cenotaph and Jubilee Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Alfred Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Mackay's World War I Cenotaph is situated on the southern side of Jubilee Park in the centre of the city. With its tall white marble column rising above the canopies of adjacent trees, it is the most prominent feature of the park and forms part of a formal composition of paths, lawn, mature trees, garden beds, and structures such as a band rotunda and lamp posts. Retaining much of its original form and fabric, the park continues to accommodate many of the activities and events carried out there since its establishment. As a setting for the cenotaph, and several other war memorials, the park provides a tranquil gathering space for large crowds attending memorial services there, appropriate to the solemn nature of these events.
\nOccupying the south-west corner of a large block of land known as the Mackay Civic Precinct, Jubilee Park is bounded by Wellington Street to the west and Albert Street to the south. The northern edge of the park adjoins the Sir Albert Abbott Administration Building rear car park, while the north-eastern corner is truncated by the Mackay City Library. Along the park's eastern edge is another car park for the Entertainment Convention Centre. The car park areas that fall within the heritage boundary are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe surviving elements of the park's early layout are the central band rotunda, circular paths around it and those radiating to the park's corners, the fig plantings to the west and east of the rotunda, the avenues of palms along each radial path, garden beds terminating its south-western and eastern corners, a sandstone-edged garden bed on the south-western side of the rotunda and eight lamp posts.
\nAround the central band rotunda are two concentric un-edged gravel paths. From the outer one of these three straight paths radiate to the park's corners. The fourth to the north-east has been removed with the construction of the library. Other changes to these paths include deviations at the ends of those on the north-west and south-east corners caused by the construction of car parks and new associated garden beds. Early palms line the straight paths and figs are grouped together symmetrically on the grassed areas between. Later trees are placed around the edges of the park, leaving the area around the central rotunda open. The park retains eight of its 12 original lamps posts: four surrounding the central rotunda and two each along the southern and western edges of the park.
\nAt approximately nine metres high, the WWI Cenotaph is an imposing feature both within the park and along Albert Street, flanked by two trees, the canopies of which provide shaded gathering areas adjacent to the monument. The monument faces north, towards the band rotunda, with which it is aligned. A gravel pathway connects the monument to the outer circular pathway.
\nThe base of the cenotaph consists of three steps of pinkish-red terrazzo around three sides of a rectangular concrete foundation; however, the bottom step now sits level with a recent apron slab with pebblecrete finish. Approximately 60cm wide, this slab wraps around the entire monument. Flanking the main pedestal is a low wall with ornamental square pillars at either end. Made from polished and un-polished grey granite, the wall defines the rear edge of the monument and features inset panels of polished red granite. The three outer faces of the pillars have Latin crosses, created by a slightly raised polished surface on a rough background.
\nThe pedestal is a square pillar with simplified classical detailing, made from polished and unpolished grey granite with inset panels of red granite. The base is slightly wider than the rest of the pedestal, displaying the dates 1914 - 1919 on its northern face. This lettering, etched into the granite, has been recently highlighted with white paint. A thin ledge separates the base from the middle section. Comprised of red granite panels framed by engaged square pillars of grey granite at each corner, each face of the middle section displays a rectangular marble plaque with a curved top. The plaques to the north, east and west bear the 159 leaded names. The top of these three plaques each bear a short statement: GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN - FOR LIBERTY AND RIGHT - FOR GOD, KING AND COUNTRY. [36] The plaque on the southern side, facing Albert Street, displays a bronze relief sculpture of the head of a helmeted soldier above lettering encased within a rectangular border - THIS MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED TO THE MEN OF MACKAY AND DISTRICT WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE GREAT WAR. The corner pillars have simply moulded bases and capitals and are slightly tapered. They support an entablature comprising a large fascia of grey granite and a small cornice. The inscription REX - GLORIA - PATRIAE, also highlighted with white paint, is on the northern side of the entablature.
\nSurmounting the entablature is a tall, fluted Doric column of white marble. Constructed from at least four marble sections joined by mortar, it appears additional fixing to the pedestal is provided by bolts passing through the bottom of the base, two on each side. A dark grey vein running though the marble at an angle gives the impression of a cracked or broken column. The column supports a marble orb with intersecting double meridian lines, made from raised strips of metal.
\nJubilee Park's rotunda has an octagonal pyramid roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting, supported on eight round concrete columns with simplified classical detailing at the base and capital. It stands on a raised concrete platform and has concrete steps on the southern side, facing the cenotaph. There is no balustrade and a garden bed runs around the edges. The ceiling is ornamented with a raised geometric pattern with art deco influences. The eight lamp posts are also made of concrete, with a simplified classical plinth and an eight sided, slightly tapered post. The lanterns have been replaced with modern casings but are fixed to an early metal capital.
\nAdditional war memorials have been located within the park, occupying the edges of the south-western corner and facing in towards the rotunda. Closest to the WWI Cenotaph is a World War II memorial of black polished granite with gold lettering. The next memorial consists of two plaques; one dedicated to the members of the 2/12 Battalion of WWII and the other a National Serviceman's Memorial, attached to separate sloping grey granite blocks on a shared, granite-clad base. Backing on to Wellington Street is a Vietnam War Memorial, with a white freestanding cross, white posts marking a rectangular piece of ground, and a brick wall with name plaques attached. A playground with two metal swing sets occupies the eastern side of the park and is not of state cultural heritage significance. Other elements within the park, such as park benches, metal light poles and recent signage, are also not of cultural heritage significance.
\nA notable characteristic of the park are its mature trees, many dating from the 1930s. Avenues of royal palms (Roystonea regia) line both sides of the straight paths, with the best preserved avenue along that to the south-east. Clusters of mature fig trees stand on the eastern and western sides of the park, three on each side planted in a triangular formation. Providing large shaded areas, the spreading canopies of these trees extend over the road along the western boundary, and over the library building and the adjacent car park on the opposite side of the park. Some of these figs were planted to commemorate significant events. One, a Ficus nitida on the west side of the park, has a bronze plaque attached to a timber sign, stating that is was planted by Mrs G. Moody, Mayoress of Mackay, to commemorate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 12th May 1937. [37] No other plaques or signs remain.
\nKey sightlines through the park exist along the straight pathways towards the band rotunda, and from the centre of the park towards the Cenotaph.
","history":"The Cenotaph at Mackay was first unveiled on the southern bank of the Pioneer River adjacent to the Sydney Street Bridge in 1929. It was designed by Townsville architect Stephen Harvey and commemorates the 159 men from Mackay and its district killed in action during World War I (WWI). In 1945 the memorial was moved to the northern edge of Jubilee Park, which had been constructed during 1935-6 to honour the jubilee of King George V, on the southern half of a block bounded by Albert, Wellington, Gordon and Nelson Streets. Again, in 1973 when the Mackay City Council was planning its civic centre complex, the cenotaph was moved to the opposite side of the park fronting Albert Street. Here it has remained as a focus for Anzac and Remembrance Day services, other war memorials having since been erected around it.
Mackay, briefly called Alexandra, was named after John Mackay who led the European discovery and settlement of the Pioneer River and its district. The township was surveyed in June 1863, with the first allotments being offered for sale in Bowen in October. Two years after Mackay's establishment, the first sugar was planted on the Pioneer Plantation, introducing to the region its key agricultural product and industry. The settlement and the port declared there otherwise served the district's pastoral industry. The first local government body formed in the region, the Mackay Municipal Council, held its inaugural meeting on 1 December 1869. Mackay was declared a town in 1902 and then a city in 1918. [1]
The pre-Federation defence force drawn from the male citizenry of Mackay and its district formed a company of the famous Kennedy Regiment, which was the first Australian infantry unit mobilised at the outbreak of WWI (1914-1918). [2] Many of its members volunteered to join the First Australian Imperial Force and a number distinguished themselves during the conflicts at Gallipoli and in France.
From Mackay, 1,594 men volunteered to serve, with another 36 coming from the nearby Nebo district. Mackay's cenotaph lists the names of 159 who were killed during active service; eight of whom were awarded military decorations. [3]
Australia and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before WWI, the memorials erected in its wake becoming our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Whereas the few memorials commemorating the deaths associated with the Boer War (1899-1902) had been sited in cemeteries, these were erected at prominent sites in towns and cities around the country where they would serve as aides to memory. Memorials took a range of forms other than statuary, including honour boards, memorial gates and halls, and avenues of trees. Australia lost 60,000 lives from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on it. [4]
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them they were sacred; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East, British policy having decreed that its Empire's war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word cenotaph, commonly applied to war memorials at the time, means 'empty tomb'. As well as being symbols of national mourning these memorials were also affirmations of nationhood, the new nation and its army having proved its value on an international stage. [5]
War memorials provide valuable evidence of a community's involvement in the war; not so readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit. Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.
Before the construction of the Mackay cenotaph in 1929, Anzac Day in the city was commemorated by a procession of returned servicemen and the gathering of crowds around a Cross of Sacrifice, a temporary structure usually placed in a central location. Wreaths and floral tributes were laid around the cross and a simple ceremony performed, with music provided by local bands and speeches given by local dignitaries. [6] By the mid 1920s a Fallen Soldiers Memorial Committee had formed to raise funds and organise the design of a more permanent monument, comprising about 20 members, including Mr G Hoffman, a returned soldier. [7]
Several sites for this monument were considered by the committee, the preferred option being to secure a portion of the drill shed grounds for a memorial park and erect it there. [8] Bounded by Gordon, Nelson, Alfred and Wellington streets, the area occupied by the drill shed and its grounds had always been intended as public open space, labelled a 'square' in the first survey of the new township of Alexandra (later Mackay) by Surveyor Thomas Henry Fitzgerald in 1863. In 1881 the land was gazetted as a temporary drill shed ground reserve and had passed to the Commonwealth Government around the time of Federation for use by its Defence Department. [9] Since the early 1920s the City Council had made several attempts to regain control of the land, bringing the matter before Prime Minister Bruce during his visits to Mackay in 1924 and 1927. [10] But the conditions imposed by the Defence Department for releasing it, involving land swaps and improvements to the site, proved to be beyond the means of the council. Thus the memorial committee relinquished the drill shed site and an alternative one was chosen on a small reserve on the southern bank of the Pioneer River, opposite the Customs House and next to the Sydney Street Bridge.
In April 1928 it was announced that the design of Mr A Harriss, a young architect working in Mackay, had been chosen for the monument. It was described in the Mackay Daily Mercury as 'a vertical design with four steps supporting a beautiful column of polished granite 30 ft (9.144 m) high.' [11] Tenders were advertised in various newspapers, including The Brisbane Courier; however after tenders closed on 23 May the committee decided not to proceed with Harriss' design. In July, it was reported that a Townsville architect, Mr Stephen Harvey, had visited Mackay and submitted a design for the monument, which was accepted. His design, of matching height to the earlier one, took the form of a column of white marble on a granite base. [12] During a subsequent visit Mr Harvey measured levels at the River Street site before returning to Townsville to finalise details in preparation for calling tenders. [13] These were advertised in late July. [14]
Stephen Harvey was born in Sussex, England in c1878 and immigrated to Australia with his family in 1912-13. [15] A joiner by trade, he had completed drawing and construction courses, and became an instructor in drawing for the Sussex County Council. [16] After working for an architect Harvey began practicing in the early 1900s. [17] Upon arrival in Australia, he worked in Toowoomba for two years before moving to Townsville, where he remained until his death in 1933. During his career in Townsville, Harvey was a well-known local architect who worked on a variety of civic and commercial projects. The Townsville Masonic Temple is one remaining example of his work (completed after his death). In 1918 he designed a large timber Roll of Honour board for the Townsville Town Hall, listing the names of all those who had served from the district (no longer surviving, name plaques alone re-installed in the new Town Hall). [18]
The tender for constructing the Mackay fallen soldiers' memorial was won by the well-known monumental masonry firm Melrose and Fenwick. Established in Townsville in the mid 1890s, Melrose and Fenwick grew to become the leading monumental masonry firm in northern Queensland, with branches in major centres such as Cairns and Charters Towers. The firm enjoyed continued success into the late 20th century and produced many war memorials including the: Finch Hatton War Memorial (erected 1921, QHR 600723), Townsville War Memorial clock tower (completed 1924, part of QHR 600934), and Cairns War Memorial (completed 1926, QHR 600378).
Mackay's Anzac Day celebrations in 1928 were held at the site of the proposed memorial with crowds filling the surrounding streets and balconies, and lining the Sydney Street Bridge. By November construction was well underway, with Melrose and Fenwick engaged on the stone inscriptions. However, due to shipping delays in Sydney, the foundation stone did not arrive in time for Remembrance Day. [19] A ceremony for its laying was held a week later, a large gathering in attendance. Mr G Hoffman, secretary of the Returned Soldiers League, addressed the crowd, paying tribute to the contributions of the Fallen Soldiers Memorial Committee members such as the Mayor, Alderman George Albert Milton, and Mr F Moore, its secretary. The Reverend AD Thorpe blessed the stone prior to its being laid by the Mayor. [20]
The completed monument was unveiled on 24 April 1929, the day before Anzac Day. Its cost was approximately £2,000, of which £1,750 had already been subscribed. As reported in the Mackay Daily Mercury, during the unveiling ceremony the gratitude of the committee was expressed towards the architect, Mr Harvey, who, after supervising the erection of the monument, had forgone his fee. The symbolic meaning of the various parts of the monument was explained as follows:
The column was approached by three steps, which were always indicative of the approach to a shrine. Then came a solid base foundation surmounted by the plaque bearing the names of the heroic dead. Above that was the strong Doric column on top of which was the round symbol of empire, held in strong bands. Thus the sacrifice of the dead heroes was supported by a strong foundation of Christian faith, with the column of strength and right holding up the empire, which was banded together in bonds of unity. [21]
In addition to these remarks about the cenotaph's symbolic elements, the three steps may correspond to those found on a Calvary cross used to mark Christian graves, which symbolise faith, hope and love (or charity). The granite pedestal was formed like a mausoleum, in this instance empty to recall the men buried where they fell. The pedestal and its flanking wall were decorated with Latin crosses, which are empty to remind observers of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope of eternal life.
The Mackay cenotaph [22] is a good example of a large civic memorial, designed by an architect and crafted by a prominent firm of monumental masons. This type of monument-a pedestal and classical column surmounted by a sphere or orb-is one of a wide variety of symbolic forms employed after WWI throughout Queensland. Many symbols used were already familiar in grave monuments and included urns recalling the ancient Greek practice of placing cremated remains in funerary vessels, and broken columns representing lives cut short. [23] One of the earliest WWI monuments in Australia took the form of a column and surmounting globe; that erected at Manly in Sydney and unveiled in 1916. [24] Other examples of this type in Queensland include the Cardwell War Memorial (1922, masons Melrose and Fenwick) made from sandstone with a cross on top of the orb (symbolising Christian dominion over the world); Graceville War Memorial (1920, QHR 602443) made from polished grey granite with a map of Australia and the word 'ANZAC' etched on the polished granite ball; the Mitchell War Memorial (1927, QHR 600038) with a polished red granite sphere supported by a simple granite column; and the Mothers' Memorial, Toowoomba (1922) made from polished and unpolished trachyte with a wreath around the surmounting globe. [25] In other memorials the surmounting globe symbolised the broader concept of humanity.
The Mackay WWI memorial has some unique features, such as a bronze relief sculpture of the side profile of a helmeted head (symbolism unknown, possibly that of the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, Athena), not known on any other monument in Queensland. Also unusual is the low wall flanking the monument, a feature appropriate to its original location on the river bank, which clearly delineates a front to the cenotaph.
Efforts by the council to secure part of the drill shed grounds for a public park continued into the 1930s. The City of Mackay Town Planning Scheme of 1934, Queensland's first town planning scheme that went on to serve as a model for other of the state's cities [26], recognised the need for the local authority to provide ample recreational areas for the city's growing population. An analysis of its existing parks at the time found them to be inadequate. The drill shed ground was identified in the Town Planning Scheme as an ideal site for a neighbourhood playground, due to its central position in a densely occupied residential area. [27]
These efforts came to fruition with the construction of Jubilee Park during 1935-36, one of several projects carried out in Mackay by depression relief labour. [28] It was built on the southern half of the block opposite the drill shed and was named to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the reign of King George V. Jubilee celebrations were held in the park on the 24 May 1935, when it was officially named by the Mayor, Mr G Moody, and a Jubilee tree was planted by his wife (this tree, a type of kauri pine, no longer exists). [29] The band rotunda was officially opened later in the year on 22 December, again by Mayor Moody, who congratulated the city engineer and workmen for the design, solidity and finish of the structure. [30]
Jubilee Park was laid out in a symmetrical pattern of two concentric paths surrounding the central band rotunda, from which four straight paths radiated out to each corner, along which were planted avenues of palms. Garden beds were sited at each park corner, where the straight paths ended and within the path rings. One bed retains its original sandstone edging; that on the western side of the rotunda. Over time, other memorial plantings were added, such as a large fig tree planted on the Wellington Street side of the park, one of four planted in the city to commemorate the coronation of King George VI in 1937. [31] Coronation Day celebrations on 13 May, which saw over 1000 people gathered in the park to listen to a radio broadcast into the late hours of the night, was one of many large public events held at the park. [32]
By 1945 the site of the cenotaph was being threatened by subsidence of the river bank and it was decided to move it to the drill shed grounds on the northern edge of Jubilee Park on axis with the band rotunda. When re-erecting the monument, the workers filled the base section with concrete. Anzac Day commemorations in 1946 were held at the new site and The Daily Mercury praised the wisdom of the new location and its appropriateness as the setting for the cenotaph. [33]
The park and drill shed existed alongside each other for several decades. In 1965, the Mackay City Council finally became trustees of the land, it being declared in the Government Gazette on 23 October as a Reserve for Local Government (Park and Civic Centre) Purposes.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, preparations were being made to establish a civic centre complex on the land to the north of the park. A larger area was required than was available there, and it was decided that a school reserve on the adjoining block should be utilised and the section of Nelson Street separating them closed off. [34] The council proceeded with this plan, also acquiring most of the freehold properties on the adjacent block. By 1973, construction of the first stage of the civic centre project, an Administration Building, was underway. In order to make way for this building, the WWI memorial had to be relocated for a second time and was moved to the opposite end of Jubilee Park close to Alfred Street, again on axis with the band rotunda. This time, moving the base of the monument proved very difficult because of its concrete fill added during the 1945 relocation, which had attached it too firmly to the solid foundation. The column was lifted off, but despite a concerted effort with the city's largest crane, wedges and jacks, the base could not be moved. To avoid damaging the monument, a series of holes had to be drilled through the concrete base to weaken its hold on the foundations. [35]
The Mackay Civic Precinct complex was completed in 1988 comprising the Sir Albert Abbott Administration Building, a library, civic centre and senior citizens building, arranged around a central fountain forming a southerly endpoint to Nelson Street. The library had been sited over the north-eastern corner of Jubilee Park, incurring the loss of some plantings and pathways. More recently an Entertainment Convention Centre has been erected to the east of the park and cenotaph.
Mackay's World War I Cenotaph continues to be the main location for Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies in the city, attracting large crowds and conducted in a similar way to those of the 1930s. Jubilee Park has also become home to several other war memorials-the Mackay World War II Memorial, 2/12th Battalion Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, and National Servicemen's Memorial-further enhancing the appropriateness of the setting it provides for events commemorating the sacrifices made during war by the district's servicemen and women.
","criteria":"Funded through public subscription, unveiled in 1929 on the southern bank of the Pioneer River and relocated to Jubilee Park in 1945, the World War I Cenotaph in Mackay, is important in demonstrating the profound impact made on Queensland communities by the great loss of life incurred by Australia's involvement in this war and the ensuing efforts to memorialise those sacrifices. As well as expressing the grief and gratitude of the district for its fallen servicemen, this monument also illustrates the tenor of the new nation's emerging identity.
|The Cenotaph at Mackay is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a monument erected to commemorate World War I and its impact on the new nation of Australia. These characteristics include its composition of symbolic elements-such as the three steps to its base, the mausoleum form of its pedestal, white marble Doric column and surmounting globe-the names of fallen soldiers recorded on the plinth, and its location in a public place. The form and fabric of Jubilee Park serve as an appropriate setting for events focused on the cenotaph and the other war memorials erected nearby.
|The World War I Cenotaph in Jubilee Park at Mackay is aesthetically significant for the accomplished composition of its design elements: the approach to a mausoleum-like pedestal representing the great loss of life incurred during this conflict and the wide-ranging grief expressed in response to the bodies of the fallen not being returned for local burial, its Latin crosses and three-stepped base recalling Christianity, its Doric column evoking the architecture of classical antiquity, and the surmounting globe of white marble symbolising allegiance to the British Empire and pride in the sacrifices made on its behalf by a new nation.
The aesthetic response evoked by this cenotaph is amplified by the high standard of design and workmanship it displays and the multiple viewpoints from which it can be appreciated both from within the park, as an appropriate setting for commemorative events or quiet contemplation, and from Alfred Street.
|The World War I Cenotaph at Mackay has a strong and enduring connection with the district's community as a symbol of the sacrifices made by its volunteer servicemen during this global conflict. This association has been further enhanced by the installation of later war memorials nearby-the Mackay World War II Memorial, 2/12th Battalion Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, and National Servicemen's Memorial. The cenotaph and these memorials, as well as the formal setting provided by Jubilee Park and its arrangement of original structures, tree-lined paths, lawn and garden beds, are a focus for events held to commemorate these significant contributions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15443,"place_ref":600668,"name":"St Pauls Uniting Church","alternate_name":"St Pauls Presbyterian Church; St Paul's Uniting Church; Paul's Presbyterian Church; St Pauls Uniting Church","street_address":"21 MacAlister Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"This single storey timber framed building is set on low timber and concrete stumps and clad in chamferboards. It has steeply pitched gable roofs sheeted with galvanised corrugated iron. The church is located in an established streetscape of mature trees, between two similarly scaled buildings, the Sunday School hall (1919) and the Youth Centre (1958).
A traditional latin cross plan, the church consists of a wide nave, two short transept wings, a chancel that contains the choir loft, a projecting organ bay and private rooms. The western end of the nave faces the street and is the main point of entry.
The front facade consists of a high gable wall with a lower attached skillion roof and wall that joins two gabled entry vestibules. The twin vestibules are positioned on the north west and south west corners of the nave. Each has a set of arched timber entry doors approached by a short flight of timber stairs. The building is symmetrical except for an elaborately detailed timber belfry located over the north west entry vestibule. This picturesque element has a steep hip roof with a broken pitch. Two additional gable roofed entry porches are located on the eastern side of the transepts.
The confined space of the entry vestibules opens onto a spacious nave with a high vaulted ceiling and finely detailed exposed beams and trusses. At the end of the nave a chancel arch frames the organ and choir loft. A dais with low timber balustrades is located in front of the choir screen under the crossing. The pulpit and baptismal font are positioned on this dais.
The transepts are visually separated from the crossing by structural timber columns and decorative timber arches that span between the columns. Tall slender arched windows with panels of coloured glass are arranged in pairs or groups of three. There are three stained glass windows of more recent design in the front facade. Externally the windows have timber hood moulds following the line of the arches.
The church has most of its original fittings and is very intact. Minor additions are in keeping with the character of the building.
","history":"The church is a large single-storeyed timber building which was opened as St Paul's Presbyterian church in 1898.
The Presbyterian congregation in Mackay was established in 1872. The first church was erected in 1875 and the manse was built three years later. Following the appointment of Reverend James Gibson in 1895 the congregation flourished and plans for a new church were begun. The design by Brisbane architect Walter Voller was accepted and construction began in 1897. Gibson, who claimed to have hammered in many of the nails himself, was prominent in the church in Queensland, three times Moderator, he was also a founder of Emmanuel College and Theological Hall. He later became Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church in Australia.
In 1918 Mackay was hit by the worst cyclone in its history which destroyed whole blocks of the city centre and much of the housing stock. The Anglican and Methodist churches, and the earlier Presbyterian church then used as a hall, were also destroyed. The new church suffered some damage. While undertaking repairs the choir loft and Elders' Court were added. A pipe organ was installed in 1953.
","criteria":"St Paul's Uniting Church demonstrates uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as it is a rare example of an intact 19th century timber church in North Queensland. St Paul's Uniting Church is one of the few public buildings in Mackay which withstood the 1918 cyclone.
|St Paul's Uniting Church demonstrates the principal characteristics of a provincial 19th century timber church.
|St Paul's Uniting Church accomplished design in terms of massing and composition, and its picturesque classical and gothic detailing exhibit aesthetic characteristics which are valued by the community.
|St Paul's Uniting Church has been strongly associated with the Presbyterian community and later the Uniting Church parish of Mackay.
|St Paul's Uniting Church has a special association with James Gibson, who initiated the project.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15444,"place_ref":600669,"name":"Mackay Customs House","alternate_name":"Customs House Mackay","street_address":"31 River Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The Mackay Customs House is a single storey brick building located at the corner of Sydney and River Streets, Mackay on the southern bank of the Pioneer River. It sits diagonally across the property, addressing the street corner and facing north-east towards the river mouth and the remaining buildings of the river port. Sydney Street continues north from this intersection as the Forgan Bridge across the river to North Mackay.
At the centre of the symmetrical plan of this building is the Customs Office or Long Room. To the front is the semi-circular Public Area with encircling colonnade, and to each side are offices, separated from the Long Room by a corridor. At the rear is an enclosed verandah, from which open several utility rooms including toilets and the strong room.
The elevations are also formal in composition, and predominantly symmetrical. The corrugated steel roof is highly modelled, with decorative timber gablets and rafter ends. The external walls are tuck-pointed red brick to the mid-height of the double-hung windows which have decorative metal security grills placed in place, with 'roughcast' stucco panels with brick quoining above.
Raised several steps above the ground, the curved entrance colonnade has columns of Doric order supporting a moulded entablature. At its centre is a raised parapet with the Royal coat of arms in relief at its centre. From this colonnade, there is access to the Public Area through two pairs of French doors with leadlight glass panels, and access to the staff areas through timber panelled doors. The owners have undertaken some minor works including the removal of metal grill gates at the top of the steps to the colonnade entrance, and replaced these with slat grey, steel framed doors with full glazing panels.
Dividing the Public Area from the Long Room is a moulded archway and a panelled cedar counter. The Long Room is a double-height symmetrical space with semi-circular clerestory windows to each side, decorative pressed metal ceiling, and plaster mouldings to the opening surrounds. The interior of the building has plaster walls and varnished cedar joinery including doors, architraves and skirtings. Apart from the Long Room and the Public Area, the ceilings are tongue-and-groove timber boarding.
To the south-east corner of the site is the former Bond Store. It is a rectangular single-storey building, which addresses Sydney Street with a gabled parapet and awning over the footpath. The external walls are rendered masonry, and feature stucco panels to the upper sections reflecting the detail of the Customs House. To the rear of the site is a garage building, with a central bay of brick and lean-to additions enclosed in steel mesh to either side.
To both street frontages is a timber picket and rail fence with brick corner posts. The garden has palm trees, lawns and concrete paths, with a bitumen car parking area at the rear of the site
","history":"The Mackay Customs House was completed in April 1902. The design of the building is attributed to JS Murdoch, District Architect with the Queensland Works Department, and it was constructed by MS Caskie for the tender price of £3797/18/0.
\nIn search of new pastoral land, John Mackay and his party entered and named the valley of the Mackay River in 1860, and the following year he returned to establish a cattle station. In 1862, the ketch 'Presto' entered the Mackay River landing stores and building materials, then surveyed the river mouth, which consequently was gazetted as a Port of Entry. The first settlers arrived in October 1862, establishing the settlement of Port Mackay on the south bank of the river. In January 1863, John Tanner Baker was appointed Sub Collector of Customs for the new port (Baker also acted as Harbour Master and Magistrate). He arrived in February setting up in a tent, but soon established the Customs Office in a corner of the large store of Byrnes, Basset and Co. located on the riverbank. By the end of 1863, the name of the river had been changed to the Pioneer, the first survey of the town of Mackay had been made, and the first land sale of town lots had been held.
\nIt was soon obvious better premises were needed for the Queensland Customs Service in Mackay, and in 1864, £1000 was allocated for a new building. By May 1865 the Colonial Architect reported that the new timber Mackay Customs House had been completed. It was located on the corner of a large 'Reserve for Government Buildings', overlooking the river.
\nThe town of Mackay soon began to prosper through the growth of the port, the nearby pastoral holdings, and the plantations along the river which included the beginnings of the local sugar industry. River Street developed as a busy waterfront precinct with wharves (the Government wharf opened in 1868), warehouses, offices, ships' chandleries, boat builders, hotels and boarding houses, and the Customs complex which by 1870 included the Customs House, the bond store and the Sub Collectors residence.
\nBy 1895, agitation had begun for a new Customs House befitting Mackay's prosperity and importance. Lacking funds, the Government constructed a timber extension to the existing building. The community protested, pointing out that these extensions contravened legislation and should have been of non-combustible materials. The agitation for a new Customs House continued, and in 1900 drawings for a new brick building were prepared and tenders called.
\nFollowing the federation of the Australian colonies as the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901, the new federal government assumed responsibility for the fixing and collection of customs duties on goods entering Australia. Customs duties imposed on inter-colonial trade were abolished. The operation of existing coastal customs houses and the establishment of new ones became a Commonwealth function. Under the new arrangements, the Commonwealth assumed control of Queensland's existing customs houses.
\nThe design of the Mackay Customs House is attributed to JS Murdoch, District Architect Northern Division for the Queensland Works Department. At this time, AB Brady was Government Architect and Acting Under Secretary of the Works Department (as shown on the tender notice), and Thomas Pye was District Architect Southern Division, and they both may have had input into the design. Under this team, the Government Architect's Office produced many of Queensland's finest public buildings, including a number for the new Commonwealth.
\nJS Murdoch was also responsible for the Customs Houses of Maryborough, Bundaberg and Townsville, which exhibit some similarities in style to that of Mackay. He later joined the Commonwealth Government where he was involved in the planning of Canberra and the design of the provisional Parliament House and the Canberra Hotel, and rose to the positions of Chief Architect and Commonwealth Director-General of Works.
\nThe Mackay Customs House was completed in April 1902. It was reported as featuring locally made bricks, cement and plaster finishing, rolled galvanised iron roof, wood and zinc ceilings, and joinery and fittings of cedar. The original timber Customs House was moved sideways to become the front portion of the adjacent Second Officer's Quarters.
\nThe original Reserve for Government Buildings was divided into the Customs House Reserve and the Post and Telegraph Reserve. In 1905, the Commonwealth subdivided the Customs Reserve further, returning the portion which included the Quarters to the State. Also in 1905, palm trees were planted to the north and the east of the Customs House.
\nIn 1921, the Commonwealth Bank leased the Customs House for 10 years, moving the Customs Service back into the adjacent timber building. The Customs House has since been altered several times for multiple occupancy, housing various other government departments. The brick Bond Store, on the south-east corner of the site addressing Sydney Street, was constructed about 1935.
\nFollowing the devastating cyclone of 1918, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth through the 1920s and 1930s. Local member and Premier of Queensland William Forgan Smith promoted Mackay's development, strongly supporting the Mackay Harbour Project and the Sydney Street bridge replacement. The first Sydney Street bridge, completed in 1887, was the second bridge across the river at Mackay, but for some time lead to nowhere. Located adjacent to the Customs House, it marked the 'head of navigation' of the Pioneer River. The new bridge was completed in 1938, increasing traffic along Sydney Street to North Mackay.
\nThe inadequacy of the river port had been recognised by 1914. In 1939, the new Mackay Outer Harbour was opened, and the services of the river port gradually transferred to the new harbour. Apart from the Customs House and the Bond Store, only a few of the buildings of the former river port still survive.
\nIn 1969-70, extensions were made to the rear of the Customs House. In the late 1980s, conservation and restoration works were undertaken, reversing some of the alterations which had been made to the interior of the building.
\nThe Customs House was sold in 2004 and subsequently housed offices for a financial planning firm. An ownership change occurred in 2020 and in 2024 the former Customs House houses a dental practice.
","criteria":"Completed in 1902, the Mackay Customs House is located on the site of Mackay's first Customs House constructed in 1865. Community agitation resulted in the earlier timber building being replaced by a new brick structure befitting Mackay's prosperity at that time. Originally part of a Government Reserve surveyed soon after the settlement of Mackay, the site has been associated with the Customs Service for over 130 years.
Located on the southern bank of the Pioneer River, the Mackay Customs House faces north-east towards the river mouth, and the precinct of the former river port of which it is one of few surviving structures. The Customs House also addresses the approach to the Forgan Bridge, which marked the head of navigation of the river.
|The Customs House was constructed in the first years of the new Commonwealth for Commonwealth use. It uses the architectural language of a domestic style of the period, sometimes termed 'Federation', which was part of a broader movement searching for a cultural identity for the new nation.
As the office of the Australian Customs Service in Mackay for a century, it displays the coat of arms in relief on the front parapet, and its central and grandest space is the Long Room, which is a symbolic and traditional element of a Customs House. The Bond Store which is an important part of a functioning customs house remains on the site adjacent to the Customs House.
The exterior and interior of the building are substantially as they were when constructed. Exterior features include the curved entrance colonnade, 'roughcast' stucco panels, gable treatments and tuck pointed brickwork. The interior has decorative metal and boarded ceilings, moulded plaster wall decoration and panels, leadlight door panels, cedar joinery, and clerestory windows to the Long Room.
|The design of the building is attributed to JS Murdoch, District Architect with the Queensland Works Department, during a period when many great public buildings in Queensland were designed by that office under AB Brady and Thomas Pye. It shows a high degree of technical competence, successfully combining picturesque qualities and domestic scale with the traditional formality of government buildings. Along with several contemporary Customs Houses, it is one of the few Queensland public buildings of that style. Murdoch later had a successful architectural career with the Commonwealth government, playing a substantial role in the development of early Canberra.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15446,"place_ref":600671,"name":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia","alternate_name":"Australian Joint Stock Bank | Australian Bank of Commerce Limited | Commonwealth Bank Mackay","street_address":"63 Victoria Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The bank building, in keeping with other North Queensland bank buildings of the period, is a two-storey building with a former residence on the upper floor. An extension has been attached on the east. The ground floor windows are modified within their surrounds with modern glazing and frames. The night safe is located in the front, on the left hand side.
\nThe front consists of a seven bay colonnade, of which the central bay is slightly narrower, but contains the entry and features a projecting one-storey portal, the entablature of which is free standing. The columns are round and stand on pedestals joined with a low wall. The entablature above the columns is enriched with classical triglyphs. The two central columns are positioned forward of the others as corner posts of the portal, the back of which is formed by square pillars topped by an arch.
\nThe upper storey has more slender cast iron columns above the masonry lower ones, holding up the veranda roof of corrugated iron. The balustrade is formed with cast iron lace with a pattern based on overlapping circles. The main roof is hipped, it's ridge at right angles to the street. Arched windows connect the veranda with the upper floor, containing paired glazed doors; the top pane of each is arched also. The roof is clad in corrugated iron and has a decoratively moulded chimney rises on the left side.
\nThe stucco on both levels is ruled to resemble ashlar masonry. The lower veranda is ceiled with boards. The upper floor is also lined with boards. These differ being run on the rake, are narrow and contain a rib mould at each joint.
\nThe former bank chamber has a central main door as well as two further doors, which may be former windows with sills removed.
","history":"The Commonwealth Bank building was constructed in 1880 for the Australian Joint Stock Bank and is the oldest commercial building in Mackay.
\nThe Australian Joint Stock Bank was established with the discovery of gold in southern states in 1852 and opened branches on Queensland goldfields as they were discovered. It opened a branch on the Broughton goldfield on 23 April 1872 and then established branches in other centres. The Mackay branch was opened in this building in 1881.
\nThe town of Mackay is named for John Mackay who entered the valley of the Pioneer River in 1860 and established a pastoral run there in the following year. In 1862 a settlement was begun on the south bank of the river and by 1863, the township had been surveyed and the first lots of land sold. It was gazetted as a port of entry and a customs house was opened. The town prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre, drawing business from nearby pastoral holdings and the sugar plantations being developed along the river. The 1880s saw an expansion in population as the Queensland economy enjoyed a boom and people poured into the colony. The sugar industry was also booming and Mackay continued to develop as an important regional centre.
\nThe new Australian Joint Stock Bank was one of a number designed by Colonial Architect F D G Stanley, although the construction was supervised by Brisbane architect Arthur Josling. Stanley undertook a variety of private commissions during his term with the Queensland Public Works Department and knew Josling from his employment by the Department as a temporary draughtsman between November 1878 and June 1879. Brisbane builders Southall and Tracey carried out the work. Construction began in January 1880 and the bank opened on 5 February 1881.
\nAlthough suffering a devastating cyclone in 1918, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth through the 1920s and 1930s, when it was the fastest growing town in Queensland. This was largely because its connection to the railway system in 1924 improved access to markets and reduced transport costs, thus boosting not only the sugar industry but also the developing dairy and tourist industries.
\nThe Australian Joint Stock Bank Limited had become the Australian Bank of Commerce in 1910 and traded under that name until 1931when it was acquired by the Bank of New South Wales. In 1934 the Commonwealth Savings Bank moved into the building.
\nThe Queensland Government Savings Bank established an agency in the Mackay Post Office on 3 January 1865. The Bank had been established in 1861 and was intended to encourage small deposit saving by working people. In 1864, the Savings Bank Bill provided a government guarantee to protect trustees and deposits and to allow depositors to easily transfer accounts. The Savings Bank merged with the Commonwealth Savings Bank in January 1921. The Mackay branch then leased the Customs House until they moved to the former Australian Bank of Commerce building.
\nThe interior has been considerably changed by a series of refits and renovations carried out over the years. In 2024, the building is no longer in use as a bank and is vacant.
","criteria":"Mackay, as an important sugar centre, made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland and to the development of the North in the late 19th century. The Commonwealth Bank, by the quality of its design and construction, demonstrates the importance of this regional branch and the prosperity of the city at that time. It is now the oldest commercial building in Mackay.
|The Commonwealth Bank building is a good example of its type and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, from the reassuring conservatism of the classically influenced design, to the layout, which provided a residence for the bank's manager on the upper floor.
|It was designed by one of Queensland's most influential architects and has aesthetic value as a prominent and finely detailed building that makes an important contribution to the townscape of Mackay
|The Commonwealth Bank, originally built for the Australian Joint Stock Bank, is important as a major commercial building by F.D.G. Stanley, who made a significant contribution to the development of the built environment in Queensland, both as the Colonial Architect and in private practice. It is also associated with the development of the Australian Joint Stock Bank, at one time the largest bank in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15447,"place_ref":600672,"name":"Queensland National Bank and bank residence (former)","alternate_name":"Metway Building | Hogs Breath Café","street_address":"79 Victoria Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Former QN Bank (Metway Building)
The bank on the corner of Victoria and Woods Streets is of dark face brick with rendered elements and is highly decorated. Though having only two storeys, it is a tall building, with the ground floor raised above pavement level, a lofty ground floor and an upper floor with a deep parapet above it.
The building faces the intersection with two closely matched elevations and a curved corner entrance. Four giant order columns with Corinthian capitals dominate the front; the central two are freestanding and frame the entry; the others are engaged to brick pillars. The main entrance is framed by small columns and has a curved entablature over the lintel. A leadlight window sits over the door, which is now a modern one of glazed aluminium.
On each side of the corner section, a colonnade runs along the street elevation with a narrow arcade behind this, with a matching verandah on the first floor level. Pilasters 2 storeys high with Corinthian capitals, having round arches between at each level, form the colonnade. The ground floor has large arched windows to match, containing leadlight panes in their central part. The windows to the upper storey are rectangular. The verandah is railed with a balustrade of urn shaped masonry elements. This was repeated on the ground floor, but has been partially removed for access. Above an entablature decorated with the completed Roman detailing, the parapet contains matching balustrading. The veranda ceiling is decorative, pressed metal/
The banking chamber has moulded beams running between substantial piers, and pressed metal ceilings.
Bank Residence (Hogs Breath Café)
The former bank residence is a two-storey building of rendered masonry with a relatively small rectangular plan area. It abuts the rear wall of the bank and is set back a few metres from the street and elevated. The windows are simple rectangles and the hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron and has shallow eaves lined with battens. The rafters are sawn to the profile: the sheets span self-supported out to the edge.
A balcony the full length of the first floor faces Woods Street. This is supported on cantilevered double joists and has turned posts. Moulded boards form a spandrel under the floor line and frieze at the eaves.
The space between the building and the boundary wall at both the front and sides has been filled with the corrugated iron roof of the new café extension.
","history":"The bank and manager's residence were constructed in 1923 for the Queensland National Bank.
The Queensland National Bank was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous 19th century banks. It was established in March 1872 by a group of prominent Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or inter-colonial control. Its first office was established in Brisbane in that year and the bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage. In 1879 it secured the whole of the government's banking business. By 1880 it held 40% of deposits in the colony and dominated the Queensland economy. The Queensland National Banking Company established a branch in Mackay in 1881 in rented premises.
The town of Mackay is named for John Mackay who entered the valley of the Pioneer River in 1860 and established a pastoral run there in the following year. In 1862 a settlement was begun on the south bank of the river and by 1863, the township had been surveyed and the first lots of land sold. It was gazetted as a port of entry and a customs house was opened. The town prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre, drawing business from nearby pastoral holdings and the sugar plantations being developed along the river.
Although suffering a devastating cyclone in 1918, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth through the 1920s and 1930s. It was the fastest growing town in Queensland, its population doubling between 1920 and 1940. This was largely because its connection to the railway system in 1924 improved access to markets and reduced transport costs, thus boosting not only the sugar industry, but also the developing dairy and tourist industries. Local Member and Premier of Queensland, William Forgan Smith, supported the growth of the region and important improvements were made to the infrastructure of the town and harbour. The construction of the new Queensland National Bank premises thus came at a time when Mackay was growing in economic importance in North Queensland.
The building was designed by FH Faircloth and constructed by local builder, W Guthrie, at a cost of £15, 300. Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building in Bundaberg. He also made a major contribution to the appearance and character of Childers after a fire devastated the main street in 1902.
In 1948 the National Bank of Australasia absorbed the Queensland National Bank, then in 1983 merged with the Commercial Bank of Australia to form the National Australia Bank. In 1986 the three branches of the National Australia Bank in Mackay were consolidated and this building was sold. It deteriorated as several proposals for re-use fell through, then was renovated and adapted in 1992 as commercial premises containing the Metway Bank, offices and the Hog's Breath café.
A single storey section has been added to the front and side of the bank residence as part of the conversion to a café. There are internal connections between the buildings.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank building and residence is important in illustrating the development of Queensland because it was purpose built as premises for a bank formed to serve Queensland interests and needs when the state was a self-governing colony. The quality of its design and construction also demonstrate the importance of this regional branch at a time when Mackay was the fastest growing town in Queensland.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, from the reassuring conservatism of its classically influenced design to the provision of a residence for the bank manager.
|It has aesthetic value as a prominent and finely detailed building that makes an important contribution to the townscape of Mackay.
|It has a special association with the life and work of important regional architect F H Faircloth. It is also associated with the development of the Queensland National Bank, the earliest of Queensland's indigenous banks.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15448,"place_ref":600673,"name":"Mackay Court House and Police Station","alternate_name":"Mackay Court House","street_address":"Victoria Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Court House and police complex is situated in the central business district of Mackay on the corner of Victoria and Brisbane Streets. The following buildings are on site:
The Police Station (Former Court House) is a classical revival building of rendered brick scribed to resemble stonework and is set well back from the street. The majority of the building rises to 2 storeys and the roof is clad with corrugated fibrous cement sheeting. The street entrance features an arcaded Tuscan order portico with 3 bays separated by square pilasters rising through 2 stories to the triangular pediment, which has a circular louvred vent in its centre. Three square windows are located in the spandrel over the arches, each with a moulded frame all around. This entrance is flanked by single storey wings which continue the arcaded effect with arched windows, now filled with glass louvres. The windows in the upper storey and the side windows and porches on the lower storeys are shaded by sun hoods on cast iron brackets. Windows were double hung and timber framed: some of these have been replaced.
There is a tall brick chimney set back from each side of the entrance serving the corner fireplaces in the former female witnesses room and barristers room. A third chimney rises at the rear. Internally, the courtroom space is now occupied by offices although the ground floor plan is actually little changed.
The Court House is a two storey Georgian Revival building constructed of face brick with rendered detail. It has two hipped roof bays flanking a parapeted Tuscan giant order colonnade, with paired cement rendered concrete columns and a wrought iron balustrade. The rear elevation also has a two storey verandah supported on Tuscan order columns with iron balustrading between. The high hipped main roof is clad in fibrous cement tiles and is topped by a fleche centred over an octagonal well in the first floor vestibule. The Brisbane Street elevation has a pedimented parapet with a circular louvred vent set in the gable. The building has multiple paned sash windows which are shaded by sun hoods on the lower floor. The interiors are well preserved and the entry and stair halls and the vestibule are panelled with polished silky oak, the floor being finished with coloured terrazzo.
The Police residences are a pair of brick bungalows prominently sited fronting Brisbane Street. They have hipped roofs; that of the Inspector's Residence being clad in corrugated iron and that of the Keeper's residence in corrugated fibrous cement sheeting. Each has a projecting gabled room to the front with a bay window under a strongly defined gable end. Although such gables are a feature of this style, they visually echo the triangular pediment of the police station which they serve. The front entrance is from a small verandah with timber balustrading which is approached by low timber steps. The windows are paired casements. The houses are not identical although similar in form, and the floor plans differ, presumably to suit the use of the first tenants. The interiors still reflect the era in which they were built, although the Inspector's house has been fitted out as an office. Both houses have hardwood floors, plastered walls and fibrous plaster ceilings with decorative mouldings.
The Watch House is 2 storey, rectangular in plan and is constructed of brick and patterned concrete blocks to an asymmetrical but balanced design. The main floor is elevated with undercroft car parking. Both levels are now used principally for storage. The northern wing is of face brick featuring boldly framed deep set square windows and houses a staircase, records and storage. It is linked to the main block by a lower, recessed section with a textured wall finish and slot glazing. The main block is screened by patterned Besser blocks. The interior is severely utilitarian in finish.
The Watch keeper's residence is an extension of the 1935 Keeper's residence and is similar in style on the exterior although the interior is more typical of its era and has an open plan layout.
","history":"The site has been associated with the police and judiciary in Mackay since the 1860s. Although buildings were erected and removed during the 19th and 20th centuries as the site developed, the major buildings remain and include the police station, built as a court house in 1886, the current court house, built in 1938, and two brick police residences from 1936-7. A 1960s watch house and keeper's residence are also on this site.
The town of Mackay is named for John Mackay who entered the valley of the Pioneer River in 1860 and established a pastoral run there in the following year. In 1862 a settlement was begun on the south bank of the river and by 1863, the township had been surveyed and the first lots of land sold. It was gazetted as a port of entry and a customs house was opened. The town prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre, drawing business from nearby pastoral holdings and the sugar plantations being developed along the river. There were 2 police constables in Mackay by late 1863.
1864 was the year in which a centralised police force under a Commissioner was inaugurated by Act of Parliament. It replaced a system of police districts where constables were under the direction of local magistrates and marked the beginning of a modern police force in Queensland.
The government faced the problem of policing a huge area with a scattered population on a limited budget. Transport also posed problems, especially before the development of reliable roads and a railway network. The situation was addressed by instituting a system of regional courts served by visiting magistrates or judges and which had police offices, accomodation and lockup facilities on the same site. The first report of the Commissioner of Police in 1865 recommended cutting costs and improving efficiency by combining police and judiciary functions in the same building. Because police travelled on horseback, the provision of stables and a paddock for police horses was necessary, so that police reserves for all these purposes were gazetted in major towns.
A police watch house was built in Mackay in 1865 at the northern end of the current site and a Police Magistrate was appointed to serve the district. In 1872 a simple timber courthouse with a shingled roof was constructed. It was built near the Customs House rather than the police facilities and was inadequate from the beginning. A new courthouse was built in 1873 to the south of the lockup and was soon extended, reflecting the speed with which the area was developing. A police station was constructed in 1878-9 comprising cells and barracks.
The 1880s saw an expansion in police numbers and in court cases as the Queensland economy enjoyed a boom and people poured into the colony. Police numbers were expanded and police and judiciary facilities constructed at such a pace that it became difficult to obtain suitably qualified contractors. The sugar industry was also booming and Mackay was amongst those regional centres where substantial new court houses were erected. In 1884 contracts for a new court house were prepared following the construction of new police stables and lock up keeper's quarters.
The new court house was designed by noted architect J.J. Clark, who was at the time Colonial Architect. John James Clark was born and trained in Liverpool, England. He arrived in Melbourne in 1853 and won a number of architectural competitions, his success in such competitions being a feature of his career. He designed some major public buildings in Melbourne, including the Treasury. He moved to Sydney in 1881 and in 1883 had become Queensland Colonial Architect. Although he left the position in 1885, he was responsible for some important public buildings including courthouses at Charters Towers, Rockhampton and Warwick. They and the Mackay court house were designed in the classical revival style thought appropriate for public buildings intended to convey a sense of stability and dignity, particularly a court house which represented the power of the law. The contractor for the work was Denis Kelleher and the cost on completion, including a strong room and furniture, was £4499/8/7. The court house was a single storey building with rooms extended to each side of the front entrance containing barristers and witnesses' rooms and which were later extended by one room on each side. Behind the bench were rooms for the judge, police magistrates, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Jury. It was opened on 27 May 1886 and the first local sitting of the Supreme Court was held on 15 June 1886.
A new gaol at North Mackay was completed in 1888 and facilities at the police complex and court complex improved with Quarters for the police sergeant proposed in 1889 and police quarters in 1896.
Although suffering a devastating cyclone in 1918, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth through the 1920s and 1930s. It was the fastest growing town in Queensland, its population doubling between 1920 and 1940. This was largely because its connection to the railway system in 1924 improved access to markets and reduced transport costs, thus boosting not only the sugar industry but the developing dairy and tourist industries. The growth of the region was supported by Local Member and Premier of Queensland William Forgan Smith and important improvements were made to the infrastructure of the town and harbour. Although Mackay enjoyed prosperity, the country as a whole endured widespread unemployment during the Depression years and extensive public works programs were put in place to alleviate this.
New police residences were designed in 1935. The Inspector's Residence was built in 1936 and the Watch House Keeper's Quarters in 1937, the difference in designation a subtle reflection of rank, although the buildings are very similar. They are unusual in that they are constructed of brick, although this may have been connected with the availability of good local bricks. They have the short passage and asymmetrical room plan typical of 30s houses in the south, but which was modern for Mackay where many houses of a similar size were still built with central passage layouts. The residences are of a better quality than comparable police residences in other regional centres and represent a dramatic improvement from early police accomodation which was often cramped and inadequate. The size and quality of these ancillary buildings reflects not only the prestige accorded to these officers, but the prosperity of Mackay and the importance of its court and police station to the region.
The next phase of the upgrading of the police and judicial complex was the construction of a large and handsome court house to replace the 19th century court house which had long been inadequate. At the time Andrew Leven was Government Architect. AB Leven was trained in Scotland and arrived in Queensland in 1911, working here and in New South Wales until 1914 when he became a draughtsman in the Public Works Department. By 1923 he was Assistant Architect and Chief Architect between 1933 and 1951. For 22 years he was the government representative on the Board of Architects, being Chairman for the last ten years. His office was responsible for the design of a number of public buildings in the Georgian Revival style. The Mackay Court House is amongst the grandest of these buildings with handsome internal detailing including panelled offices. The Court was also designed to accommodate other important government functions such as the office of the Lands Commissioner. The foundation stone was laid on 31 March 1938 by Premier Forgan Smith. The new court house addressed Victoria Street where the first police lockup had been and thus provided the main street with an imposing public building.
The old court house became a police station after the court moved to its new premises effecting a reversal of zones of usage across the complex. It underwent additions and modifications for this purpose in 1940-1, which extended the rear and created an upper level to part of the building to provide accomodation and a recreation room.
Plans were drawn in 1961 for a new cell block and facilities by Architect in Association Colin Tesch and the new watch house was constructed in 1962-3 at a cost of £35,140. It is designed in the International Modernist style developed in Europe about twenty years before, which makes this a late example, though perhaps not in the local context. It was built as part of a surge of post war development in response to growth in the population and economy and following the lifting of restrictions imposed on building during and immediately after World War II. A new watch house Keeper's residence, costing £4387, was built adjoining the existing residence at the same time.
In 1989 the demolition of the police station was proposed, but the people of Mackay strongly supported retention of the building, which underwent refurbishment in 1990-1 as did the 1938 Court House. A large new police building on site includes a watch house, the old one being used now mainly for storage.
","criteria":"The complex which contains the current and former court houses, police residences and other police buildings, illustrates several patterns important in understanding the development of Queensland. As the site of a court and police station which developed through the late 19th and 20th centuries in response to changes to legislation, population and the administration of justice, it illustrates the way in which the legal system was implemented and administered. This is individually and collectively reflected in the buildings on site. The quality of the buildings, in design and material, also illustrates the importance of Mackay as a regional centre, both in the 1880s when sugar was booming, and during the period between the World Wars when Mackay was the fastest growing town in Queensland. The 1930s buildings are major examples of buildings constructed as part of the public works program undertaken by the Labor government during the Depression to alleviate unemployment.
As major public works, the court houses are important in the life and work of government architects JJ Clark and AB Leven, both architects of distinction, who made an important contribution to the development of architecture in Queensland.
|The buildings on the site and the relationship between them, the fabric and design of the buildings and the extensive documentation connected with them are important because of their potential to provide information on both the city and the law which served it.
|The two court houses in particular are fine examples of public buildings of their era and are excellent representatives of the high quality work produced by the office of the government architect.
|As substantial and prominently sited public buildings, of architectural merit, they make an important visual contribution to the character of Mackay.
|The Court house and police complex have had a long connection with the people of Mackay and the surrounding district as the focus for the administration of justice in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15450,"place_ref":600675,"name":"Chillagoe Smelters","alternate_name":"Chillagoe State Smelters","street_address":"Mareeba Mining District","suburb":"CHILLAGOE","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The main smelter area contains the steel column mounts of two blast furnaces and evidence of two additional furnace mounts. A steel gooseneck flue atop the western furnace mount has recently collapsed. The most visible features of the area are a long brick flue which formed the base of the smelter shed charge floor before ascending the hill to the main smelter chimney. This brick chimney, which is round in section, dominates the smelter works and the township. The top of this chimney has been damaged by lightning strikes and is in poor condition.
Adjacent to the main smelter area is the power house, workshops and water softener plant foundations. The power house chimney is octagonal in section and is the most intact of the three brick chimneys at the site. The top of this chimney has recently been stabilised as part of a conservation program. Adjacent to the west of the blast furnace site is a matte re-heating furnace and four converters.
The lead sulphide pre treatment area, which is opposite the main smelter area, contains furnace foundations and plant remains for roasting and sintering, including a Dwight-Lloyd sintering plant, Edwards roasters, Huntington Heberlein plant, and the site of an original Edwards roaster furnace adjacent to a third brick chimney, known as the roaster chimney, which is round in section. Remains of a crusher are alongside the chimney.
From the smelter and pre treatment areas the surface of a large slag dump extends eastward to the bank of Chillagoe Creek. A concrete weir and foundations of a pump house are situated on the creek. Evidence of the smelter housing precinct lies across the creek from the slag dump. One family house survives in situ. Railway formations and earth embankments extend west from the smelter and pre-treatment areas to Smelter Junction on the Cairns - Mungana line. The foundations of an assay office, general office, stores, weighbridge and railway workshops are located in this area.
Plant:
- Primary crusher parts - No 5 Gates Gyratory Breaker & Krupp rolls.
- 4 Copper converter vessels.
- Blast furnace steel mounts - Walkers Ltd.
- 3 Blast furnace vats (none in situ).
Virginia firebricks - roaster chimney & Huntington Hebelein plant.
","history":"The first explorer in the Chillagoe region was J. V. Mulligan on his 1874 exploration trip. Then William Atherton took up pastoral leases in 1887 and built a timber homestead on the bank of Chillagoe Creek.
John Moffat sent the first prospecting party into the area in mid 1887 and they pegged many surface shows (Kerr, 1992:1). Mining on a serious scale began in the district in 1892 at Muldiva, where Moffat's company commenced silver production. Unfortunately a few months before the silver price crashed and the newly built smelter only operated for eighteen months. Moffat erected small exploratory smelters at Calcifer in 1894 and at Girofla (Mungana) in 1896.
In 1896, with mining developments at Mount Lyell (Tasmania) and Kalgoorlie causing great interest, Moffat sought to raise large scale capital to develop the Chillagoe field. In Melbourne, the heartland of Australian mining investment, he interested a syndicate of capitalists, including J. S. Reid, in a scheme to purchase his leases, to build smelting works and to construct a private railway more than 150 kms from the government railhead at Mareeba to the mines and smelter. A company called Chillagoe Proprietary Limited was formed in Melbourne and placed its proposal before the Queensland Government. Before the end of 1897, the Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act authorised the company to carry out its plans and granted it generous concessions.
Construction on the smelter site commenced in mid 1900 while the railway work was underway, and proceeded slowly, as all materials had to be carried overland from the advancing railhead which reached Chillagoe in August 1901.
In mid 1900 the Chillagoe Company had operating: three boilers, three steam engines (46h.p.), one active reduction works, two pumps, half a mile of two feet tramway, 2600 feet of water mains, two brick machines, one clay mill, two saw benches, one traction engine, and a dam constructed, valued at a total of £4,120. Walkers of Maryborough contracted for the iron frames of the furnaces and Jack and Newell were agents for a large amount of the smaller material for the construction of the smelters. The proposed smelting plant being erected under the supervision of J. M. Higgins (former metallurgist of Dry Creek Works, South Australia) and R. Shepherd (the construction engineer who had supervised the erection of the Mount Lyell smelters) was to treat 100 tons of ore per day and comprise six furnaces. By 1901 there were five boilers, ten steam engines (167h.p.), nine pumps, two rock breakers, one brick machine, six furnaces, four blowers, two lathes, three drilling machines, one traction engine, several small machines, one roller, and two grinders, valued at a total of £23,444.
Six furnaces were blown in on 13 October 1902, but did not run freely, treating only 8,129 tons of ore for five ounces of gold, 367 tons of copper, 15,721 ounces of silver, valued at £23,792, and the works were shut down for reconstruction of the company. A major problem was the lack of ore which was only being obtained from Redcap and Calcifer. The company had hoped to receive ore from Mount Garnet also. Managers changed frequently, Back in 1903 and T. J. Greenway in 1904. In the early years of operations the Chillagoe smelter treated lead ore from Girofla mine and Torpy's Crooked Creek silver lead mine, producing 17,661 tons of lead and 357,196 ounces of silver in 1904. The converters were blown in on 21 January 1905.
In 1907 the Huntingdon-Heberlein process plant was erected at a cost of £60,000. Extensive excavations were done and rails laid to ore bins on the hill opposite the main smelters. The process flow involved - rock breaker, converter kettles for 12 hours desulphurising process, then to the lead furnaces. A new electric plant was also installed.
A new lead furnace was blown in on 21 January 1908. However in 1908 there was hardly a mine operating outside of the company mines as an outcome of wage increases with the emergence of unions and declining copper prices. The new copper furnace was blown in on 20 February 1908 and the converter plant was operating effectively by early March that year. Much better lead recoveries were noticeable after the second converter was introduced into the line, and ores had to be preliminarily roasted as well. At a cost of £70,000 the Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company Pty Limited could treat sulphide ores from its Mungana mines as well as public ore. They could also treat the Penzance (Redcap), Boomerang (Calcifer) and Calcifer slag dump material, along with self-fluxing mixture with Ruddygore ore. To achieve this the company had to extend its tramline from the Chillagoe railway at Harper Siding to the Boomerang and Calcifer slag dump.
By 1909 the lead price had fallen markedly and the Huntingdon-Heberlein plant had to be partially shut down.
A fourth blast furnace was installed in 1909 to treat the copper ore. A larger air-blowing machine also improved the copper smelting. A heavy duty horizontal compound condensing steam engine with duplex air cylinders could blow two converter stands at once. A new high pressure motor-driven air compressor supplied air to the pneumatic ram used for relining converter vessels. A DC generator was ordered for the motors and lighting. The ore sampling floor was doubled in capacity. A high-lift motor-driven centrifugal pump for pumping furnace jacket water was added. A new sample crushing office was attached with electric motors driving the pulverizers.
Ore supplies locally were poor in 1910 and ore was scavenged across the Etheridge Goldfield to supply Chillagoe smelters. The roasting furnaces were supplied with all the Etheridge gold mine dumps, the copper smelters worked on sintered Havelock residues, along with Mungana copper-lead oxides and clean lead ores from the Lady Jane, Girofla and Etheridge mines. Overhead central flues were fitted over the copper and lead furnaces.
Heavy rain on the Etheridge watershed washed away the Tate and Lynd River railway bridges and the Chillagoe smelters had to close between 19 April and 3 May 1911. Copper smelting only operated for half the year. The copper furnace was remodelled in May 1911 with extra battery jackets replacing the brick shaft. The forehearths of cast iron were also replaced by riveted mild steel. The tanks were lined with chrome bricks. A 42 inch Dwight-Lloyd unit for the palate sintering process was completed by November 1911. However a large part of the smelter, including an electric crane, was destroyed by fire. The damage was quickly repaired and the smelter recommenced in February 1912.
Sixty feet of the main stack dust flue collapsed in May 1912. Rebuilding was completed by 13 June. A temporary chimney was used for the lead smelters only. In early June 1912 the Chillagoe lead smelter was closed down and 50 men laid off. The water jacket on the copper smelter burst and copper smelting also closed down. The lead smelter resumed on 2 August 1912 and the copper smelter on 4 September 1912. Both furnaces ran until October when the coke ran out. The Huntingdon-Heberlein furnace was out of commission. The roasting works operated solely on Mungana sulphide ores and on ore from Torpy's Crooked Creek mine. The Chillian mill (No.8 ball mill) operated on the fine ores.
In 1913 the smelters operated only intermittently. The company had men cleaning flues and working in the railway workshops. Union efforts to obtain a 44 hour week were also influential in the closure. Above all, the fall in company profits determined a bleak future for the Chillagoe smelters. The receipts for 1912 were insufficient to pay even the interest on the debentures. In February 1914 J. S. Reid approached the Queensland Government for £30,000 assistance. The Government refused and the company closed the smelters immediately. The mining press lamented the continual failures of the Chillagoe company in its history.
The smelters remained closed from March 1914 until January 1920. This was the World War 1 boom time for metal prices and other copper smelting companies, especially in the Cloncurry district, experienced the greatest prosperity they had ever known while Chillagoe was closed.
In July 1915, six weeks after the election of the Ryan-Theodore Labor Government the Chillagoe Company approached the Government about the sale of the railway. By Christmas the Government had found the possible means of funding upgrading of the smelters and mines by a mortgage over the railway. The agreement between the Queensland Government and the debenture and shareholders had to be passed by Parliament. The Legislative Council rejected the first bill and a second one was introduced in November 1917. The bill passed in November 1918, four days after the Armstice which ended the metals boom, and gave title to the Queensland Government over the railway for £661,000, smelters £30,000, Einasleigh mine £9,000, mining plant and machinery £1,000.
Peter Goddard was appointed Manager of Chillagoe smelters on 22 April 1919 for three years at a salary of £1,500 per annum. The smelters were administered by the Minister for Mines under the State Enterprises Act 1918 and under the Chillagoe and Etheridge Railways Act 1918.
Smelting recommenced in January 1920 with one copper and one lead furnace in blast. The smelters settled into a steady run of seven years production, drawing their copper ore supplied from Einasleigh mine and lead ore from the Girofla mine at Mungana. Metal prices continued to decline.
The State acquired the Mungana mines in 1922 and consolidated their smelter ore supplies. In 1921, the sole remaining asset of the old Chillagoe Company, the Mount Mulligan coal mine was shut by an underground explosion which killed all 75 miners underground and finally ruined the company. It was wound up in 1923 and the State acquired the coal mine only to discover that the coke works which had been under construction for years were useless as the coal was not suitable for coking.
Ore supplies continued to be a problem after the Einasleigh mine closed in 1922 and the Girofla and Lady Jane mines were handed over to tributers in 1926. Ore came via railways in varying parcels from all over North Queensland and the Cloncurry field
The 1920s were a controversial period with wide dissatisfaction and local rumour surrounding the involvement of manager, Peter Goddard, Mining Warden, Dunlop, Treasurer, McCormack, and mine owner, Fred Reid, in corrupt activities at the Chillagoe smelters and the mines. Opposition parliamentarians asked numerous questions in Parliament and after the election of a conservative government in 1929 and the appointment of former Chillagoe and O.K. butcher, Almaden ore-buyer and member of the Chillagoe pastoral family of Athertons, E.A. Atherton, as Mines Minister, a Royal Commission was established to investigate the operations of the Chillagoe smelter and mines. The smelters were re-opened in October 1929 while the Royal Commission was underway. The subsequent litigation against Theodore, McCormack, Reid and Goddard in the Supreme Court in 1931 destroyed the political careers of both Theodore, then Federal Treasurer, and McCormack.
Despite the uneconomic returns, the smelters continued to operate. In 1932 Chillagoe produced its highest ever annual copper output of over 3,000 tons, but 1933 was the last year of lead production from stockpiled ores. Coke costs at Chillagoe were brought down after 1933 when the Bowen State coke works opened, but this relief was not enough to offset the falling copper price.
The Chillagoe State smelters were being run as an instrument of the State's welfare policy, to create work in the depressed mining districts.
World War 2 saw a surge in base metal prices. In 1942 the Federal government conducted a review of base metal production throughout Australia, and in the cold light of wartime emergency, the Chillagoe smelters showed up badly: A run-down, forty year old smelter which made a loss ever year, operating at less than a quarter of its planned capacity, with more than half its ore being railed nearly a thousand miles from the Cloncurry mineral field, could not be allowed to survive. The controller of Mineral Production directed Mount Isa Mines to commence producing copper and this occurred in April 1943. The Chillagoe smelters closed for the fourth and final time in July 1943.
By the time of the final closure the total debt was over £453,451, the figure on 31 March 1940 when the Co-ordinator General decided not to spend any more money on the Chillagoe smelters from the Income (State Development) Tax funds. The files on the disposal of the smelters equipment and machinery record the official dispersal of items on the smelters site. Small machines and tools went to the Collinsville State Coal Mine in 1946 and secondhand bricks were sold off to private buyers. Part of the smelters were dismantled in 1949 and delivered to other departmental operations. The Queensland Government wrote off the figure of £2,832 on 30 June 1954 when the only remaining assets were an unsaleable building valued at £50 and the annual rent of a horse paddock for £10.
Since then the site has only been utilised for collection of slag for use as ballast on the Chillagoe and Etheridge Railways, and since the 1970s by tourists. There have also been unsuccessful mining lease applications in the 1980s to use the slag for sand blasting material.
The Chillagoe smelters produced copper in 37 of the years between 1901 and 1943 and lead in 25 of those years. The smelters total production can be summarised as follows:
Ore treated \t1,250,000 tons
Copper production\t60,000 tons
Lead production \t50,000 tons
Silver production\t6,500,000 ozs
Gold production\t175,000 ozs
A million tons of slag (as a minimum estimate) was poured onto the dump at Chillagoe. Chillagoe never made a profit in any year and the smelters probably lost their two owners a total of between four and five million pounds.
","criteria":"The Chillagoe smelters are significant in Queensland history as an important element in the great age of mining industry from 1870 to 1914 which opened North Queensland to settlement by Europeans. For much of the period from 1901 to 1943 the Chillagoe smelters and their ancillary industries were major components of the economic activity of the Cairns hinterland.
"... the legacy of this grandly inept company was the infrastructure of an entire mineral industry which the State could never have afforded to build for itself, and which functioned in the public interest for over twenty years at very little capital cost. Under both the company and the State, the Chillagoe venture created thousands of jobs, provided railway transport over enormous distances, and kept mines and businesses open throughout the north. Although the Chillagoe smelters never once made a profit, the multiplier effects radiating from them were responsible for a significant proportion of North Queensland's prosperity for nearly fifty years. In the last years the smelters were deliberately being run at a loss by the State in order to continue this economic role in the wider community".
Its operation as a State enterprise is significant in its regional history.
|The size, scale and evidence of, now rare, smelting processes are preserved in the physical remains at the Chillagoe smelters. The three tall brick chimneys surviving at the site are unique as a group. The slag dump is the largest remaining in Queensland.
|(Criterion under review)
|There are only a small number of mining sites in Queensland historically comparable to Chillagoe - Mount Morgan, Mount Isa, Mount Perry and Mount Elliott, and only Chillagoe retains the evidence of the smelting process.
Although the site has been stripped of most of its plant, what remains is sufficient to interpret the operation of the smelters, working conditions and health and safety considerations at Chillagoe.
The smelter site has strong visual and social associations with the Chillagoe township and functional associations with the railway. The location of the smelter is enhanced by the topography between ridges and creek.
|The Chillagoe smelters are an excellent demonstration of the technology of mineral (copper, silver, lead and gold) smelting at the turn of the century, when up-to-date plant was, assembled and then modified repeatedly between 1901 and 1911 to meet local conditions.
|The Chillagoe smelters are associated with the careers of mining entrepreneurs, John Moffat and J. S. Reid, with the development of the Amalgamated Workers Association , and with the political affairs of Labor leaders, William McCormack and Edward Theodore, whose careers were ruined by the Mungana Affair.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15453,"place_ref":600678,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Jessie Street","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Queensland National Bank building is a square-plan two storey Federation style bonded brick building that faces Jessie Street adjacent to the School of Arts building at the base of a slope below Loudoun House and the Irvinebank State Treatment Works. It has a corrugated iron roof with an attached cantilevered timber balcony on the upper level. The original unpainted and un-rendered external brickwork is retained. The plan of the building is typical of late 19th century bank buildings with a former banking chamber at ground floor level and a residence for the manager on the upper level.
The building's corrugated iron roof has a "U" shaped hipped configuration, which is worthy of note. While giving the perception of symmetry when viewed from the street, this type of roof was often constructed in order to reduce the height of the roof. Builders usually employed the technique where poor quality or undersize timber framing was not readily available, even though the original architects plans may have been for another style of roof.. As evidenced by this building, the configuration created a central box gutter (in the valley of the roof) that was prone to flooding, placing increased pressure upon the internal structure of the building. A central supporting wall, forming part of the hallway of the upper level, supports the increased load.
The upper level was originally used as a manger's residence. It has a timber balcony with a two-rail dowel balustrade, square stop-chamfered timber posts with shaped timber brackets above capital moulds, and covered by a bullnose corrugated iron roof on two sides. The floor of the balcony has been painted white, with dowels and timber brackets, and red/brown rails and posts on the balustrade. The main roof has quad gutters while the balcony has bullnosed guttering. Several sets of low-waisted six-panel (two timber at the base, the rest is clear glass) French doors with rectangular fanlight and flat arch open onto the balcony. The flat arch is formed by untapered bricks laid in a stretcher bond on about a sixty-degree angle, from either side in opposition, meeting in a v-shape forming a central triangle. This arch is repeated above the windows and French doors on the ground floor. The upper level leads to a freestanding extension at the rear of the building. The extension consists of a square timber framed building with single skinned timber walls and a hipped corrugated iron roof. The interior colour scheme includes the use of white, cream, green, blue and yellow paints.
A set of concrete steps with bullnose edges, leading to a short verandah along the front wall of the building, form the entrance to the lower level. The verandah has square posts and a two-rail dowel balustrade. An external flight of stairs to the upper level joins the verandah at the far end. The entrance on this level is a low waisted four-panel timber French door, with a three-pane rectangular fanlight (two panes of clear glass and one painted) and flat arch. The door and windows on this level are surrounded by a false quoin effect created by brickwork proud of the main wall face. Timber elements appear to have been painted red. External walls are constructed in brick with quoins on each corner. The lower floor has double hung timber sash windows with horns and flat arch. Timbers used to support the balcony rest on corbels between the windows and are painted white. A white-painted awning, made from timber palings finished to form a decorative edge, hangs from the balcony and covers windows on two sides of the building. The rear wall of the ground floor is built into the slope behind. This level consists of 3 rooms, two smaller ones that open onto the main room that runs the length of one side of the building. The main room contained the cedar bank counter, which divided the room into two halves. There is no internal access from this level to the floor above. The original unpainted and un-rendered external brick and stonework is retained. Square blocks of stone have been used in part of the rear wall on the lower level and the verandah. One of the side walls on the lower level also uses blocks of stone and has been painted white.
No significant plantings are associated with the building. There is a cut stone wall which extends from the rear corner of the building following the slope of the hill, parallel to the benched pathway between the Bank and the School of Arts which leads up to Loudoun House. A short distance from the building a flight of five steps is built into the wall, allowing access to the upper terrace and rear wall of the building.
Inspections in January 2004 revealed extensive damage to the internal fabric of the building, including original features. Remaining internal features include timber flooring, single skin timber walls, and cedar and glass panelling and suspended partitions on the lower floor.
The building forms an important part of the streetscape of Irvinebank because of its unusual roof design, wrap-around verandah, brick construction and visual accessibility from the main street.
","history":"The former Queensland National Bank building at Irvinebank was erected c1905 by the Irvinebank Mining Co. Ltd. A branch of the Queensland National Bank operated from these premises from July 1905 to April 1923.
The Queensland National Bank was established in Brisbane in 1872. The bank was formed by an influential group of Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers and businessmen who were anxious to secure development capital, which was free from overseas or inter-colonial control. Within 6 months, three branches had been opened. In 1878, the Queensland National Bank building opened a branch in London, and in 1880, one in Sydney.
In the 1870s and 1880s the Queensland National Bank was patronized by prominent public figures, including Sir Thomas McIlwaith (Queensland Premier 1879-1882, 1888, 1893) and Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer (Queensland Premier 1870-1874). In September 1879 McIlwraith, a director of the QNB, persuaded Parliament to confer on the Queensland National Bank the whole of the Queensland Government's banking business. By 1880 the bank held 40% of the total deposits and advances in Queensland, a higher proportion than any other bank in any Australian colony. The bank exclusively held the government's account for 42 years, until 1921. As the colony's most powerful banking institution, the Queensland National Bank dominated the Queensland economy.
Despite financial scandals and a brief suspension of operation as a result of the 'bank smash' in the 1890s, the Queensland National Bank contributed substantially to the development of North Queensland, lending generously to pastoral, sugar, and particularly mining interests. In 1948, it merged with the National Bank of Australasia Ltd.
Irvinebank (originally named Gibbs Camp) was established in 1883 as a tin town and the centre of entrepreneur John Moffat's mining empire. Prior to 1905, banking facilities at Irvinebank were non-existent. Spurred by profitable silver and tin smelters, the nearby town of Montalbion grew quickly during the 1880s and became an administrative centre. During this time, a branch of the Queensland National Bank operated at Montalbion, although it closed in 1893, the economic depression of the early 1890s crippling mining operations and causing the town to decline more rapidly than it had grown. Sources indicate that prior to the opening of the Irvinebank branch, some residents of Irvinebank (including John Moffat) banked at the Herberton branch of the Queensland National Bank.
The Queensland National Bank opened the Irvinebank branch on 6 July 1905. The architect is unknown and it appears that the Queensland National Bank did not the own the premises, but rented the building as an office and manager's residence from the Irvinebank Mining Co. Ltd. The Queensland Government Mining Journal of 15 November 1919:464 states that "the company also owns a brick building used as the Q.N. banking chambers and bank manager's residence".
According to bank records the first manager to occupy the Queensland National Bank building at Irvinebank was a Mr Harry Bathurst. Mr James Orr, who remained until 1908, succeeded him after only a short period. Jack Farquar took the role of branch manager from 1908 until 1920 and was followed by SJ Allison, who remained in the position until the branch closed on 30 April 1923. Due to the long travelling time and vast distance between the branch and its administrative centre in Brisbane, the managers of remote branches such as Irvinebank had a higher than usual responsibility.
Suggestive of the encouraging progress made by the Queensland National Bank in the town, the Bank of New South Wales also opened a branch in Irvinebank, operating from 1907/8 until 1915.
Moffat's own residence and office was a very short distance from the Queensland National Bank, and was connected to it by a benched pathway, demonstrating the complex inter-relationship between the bank and the North Queensland mining industry. By 1912 John Moffat's overdraft with the Queensland National Bank had reached £58,000. As protection of their loan, the Queensland National Bank demanded Moffat's retirement from the Irvinebank Mining Co. Ltd.
The company's management and interests were passed to Moffat's long time colleague John Reid, but consolidation of its enterprises could not be achieved. John Moffat passed away at Toowoomba on 28 June 1918 and the major part of Irvinebank's operation, the Loudoun Mill and associated buildings such as the mine manager's residence and the former Queensland National Bank premises, were sold to the Queensland government in 1919. After a lengthy period of mixed operation under government control the Loudoun Mill and associated buildings were leased to a private operator in 1983. From at least this period the former Queensland National Bank building at Irvinebank was used as a private residence.
In January 2004 the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines and Energy removed the lessee from the Loudoun Mill and the Queensland National Bank building. Subsequent inspection revealed that some original joinery in the former bank building had been damaged or removed. Among the missing fixtures were the original red cedar bank counter from the first floor as well as a number of the red cedar doors, door-frames and window frames from the upper storey manager's residence.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, particularly the association between the influential Queensland National Bank and the developing North Queensland tin fields, and as evidence of the infrastructure which developed to support North Queensland mining fields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|The place has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities, as well as for its contribution to the streetscape through its form, scale and design, which compliment the nearby School of Arts, Loudoun House, and other surviving 19th century buildings. Irvinebank's frontier setting, nestled amongst the isolated hills of Far North Queensland provides visual context contributing greatly to the aesthetic value of the building.
|The former Queensland National Bank building is an example of the a special association between the Queensland National Bank and the growth of the north Queensland mining industry, in particular it exemplifies of the close relationship between the Queensland National Bank and the Irvinebank Mining Co Ltd.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15454,"place_ref":600679,"name":"Irvinebank State Treatment Works","alternate_name":"Loudoun Mill; State Treatment Works Irvinebank","street_address":"Off Jessie Street","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place covers an area along the base of a spur running down to the junction of Gibbs and MacDonald creeks in the centre of Irvinebank township. The area forms a precinct containing a representative range of buildings and structures relating to mineral treatment, railways, residential dwellings and community activities. Structural and archaeological remains exemplify the layout and arrangement of a "state of the art" late 19th century reduction plant showing changes in technology and in the flow of improvement capital.
The focal building is the mill, now an electric powered plant based around a rod mill which continues to treat parcels of local ore. Surviving structures associated with the mill include timber ore bins (no longer in use), a primary crusher, early ball mill and blast furnace foundations, boiler house and chimney foundations, a workshop and a carpenters shop.
Three significant buildings on the northern edge of the precinct include the School of Arts hall - a weatherboard building used as a community hall, the former Queensland National Bank - a brick building now used a residence, and Moffatt's former house and office - a group of weatherboard buildings; the house now used as a museum.
The railway station and large goods shed remain intact. The railway formation and engine shed foundations are evident. The early smelter works and assay office are now mainly surface archaeological structures following their demolition and subsequent erosion. A pig sty log weir with stone and concrete infill continues to dam Gibbs and MacDonald creeks.
Plant:
2 Rod mills.
2 Wilfley tables.
Jaw crusher.
Retort/furnace.
Frue vanner.
Four-Cylinder oil engine.
Lathes and workshop plant.
Concentrating and drying plant.
","history":"Tin had been discovered in 1882 at Gibbs Camp, 16 km west of Watsonville by a party of Herberton prospectors. The best lode was the Great Southern assaying 60% tin. After persevering for further months without a crushing the miners were eager to sell their properties to capitalists prepared to erect machinery.
The Gibbs Creek properties were purchased in October 1883 on behalf of the Glen Smelting Company for £6,000 cash. John Moffat, the major shareholder, was the mining entrepreneur at Herberton, and this purchase consolidated his investments and determined his future influence in North Queensland tin mining.
The Glen Smelting Company immediately commenced building smelters at Gibbs Creek which Moffat renamed Irvinebank after his birthplace in Scotland. The site chosen for the mill was on an evenly sloping tongue of land between Gibbs and McDonald's Creeks where a "log crate" or pig sty walled dam was constructed to provide water for the concentrating mill. Moffat purchased a five head battery lying idle at Thompson's Creek, 14 km away and re-erected it above the Irvinebank dam. Kerr believes that it was very likely the first Australian battery using a continuous flow system of concentration. There were six terraces on the hillside. One was fed automatically from the tramway hoppers to the stamps. Between the second and fifth floors were the jiggers and Cornish buddles slowly rotated by a 6 m diameter water wheel. Below were settling tanks and a driver. In February 1989 Moffat built a high-set house for himself with an office underneath and a wide front verandah overlooking the dam.
The battery and smelter commenced operations in December 1884 and was called the Loudoun mill, after Moffat's Scottish family. The mill was valued at £12,000 and was managed by George McTavish, who had been a floor manager at the Tent Hill smelters and Stanthorpe. In its first year of operation the Loudoun mill crushed 3,840 tons of ore for a yield of 651 tons of black tin which returned 438 tons of metallic tin after smelting.
The development of tin mining on the Tablelands was controlled by the capacity of the Loudon mill and its crushing charges. Extra five heads of stamps were added in 1886, 1893, 1899 and extra 10 heads in both 1901 and 1904 in conjunction with smelting expansion. Tin separation facilities were improved in 1888, 1893, 1900, 1902 and 1904 to compete with Stannary Hills. By then the value of the mill had risen to £40,000.
Moffat gained a reputation for medieval technology and although frue vanners were installed in 1890, he was slow to upgrade machinery. The skyline changed with an extra chimney in 1903 and more in 1905 and 1906. The Krupp ball mill was replaced in 1908 (Kerr, 1992,3). L. C. Ball, Government Geologist, visited the treatment works in 1909 and described the processes. He noted the poor arrangement of the 40 head stamper battery and the high consumption of steam. He also noted that it was "the chief tin-mining centre of Queensland".
At its peak this was the largest tin battery and smelter in Australia. It was reached by the narrow gauge Stannary Hills tramway from Boonmoo siding on the Chillagoe Railway. Moffat was involved in many other Tableland mines but the Irvinebank mines were his mainstays even though the Vulcan mine ore halved in value in 1907. He later developed the nearby Governor Norman mine, which yielded £61,480 worth of tin between 1905 and 1914.
Declining assays, falling tin prices and rising overdrafts led to the demise of the Irvinebank Mining Company. the Queensland National Bank forced him to retire as a Director in 1912 in favour of J. S. Reid. The rationalisation program of his mines worsened industrial relations. World War 1 dispersed the mining population and the collapse of the European market in 1914 forced the closure of the works.
Reid liquidated the Irvinebank Mining Company in 1919 and Premier Edward Theodore who, as a former miner, had formed the Amalgamated Workers Association in Irvinebank, bought the Loudoun Mill, tramway, aerial ropeways and various mines for £22,500 as a State Enterprise on 25 October 1919. Suction gas replaced the ancient steam power plant.
In 1929 the works were handed over to the Whitworth Finance and Mining Corporation Limited as a private enterprise. Its failure during the Depression demoralised the local tin industry. The smelters were dismantled and the chimney stacks blown down. As ore supplies dwindled the Loudoun mill was barely a ghost of the Irvinebank Mining Company's glory.
In May 1934, when Charles Edford became manager, the mill was substantially as it was in 1919. With Mines Department support he modernised it in 1935 installing Isbel vanners, a rod mill and additional circuits to extract tin concentrates after each stage of the crushing to reduce tin sliming. In 1951 Diester Overstrom tables were introduced after Alf Hooley, an experienced manager from Kidston and Chillagoe took over. Throughout the 1950s the State Government injected £5,000 per year into the town for electricity, housing and additional milling plant. The stamps were finally abandoned in 1966 and today the mill operates with gyratory crushers, rod and ball mills, vibrating screens and wilfley tables.
In 1981 the State Government announced the inevitable - the decision to transfer the treatment works, the last of the State Enterprises established by Premier Theodore. Since July 1983 the works been operated by the Hilla family. The Irvinebank State Treatment Works (Sale and Operation)Act 1990 sets out obligations and responsibilities for continuing operation of the works.
","criteria":"The Loudoun mill, known as the Irvinebank State Treatment Works from 1912 to 1983, is highly significant in Queensland's history. Mining entrepreneur John Moffat, based at Irvinebank, created an empire in the Cairns hinterland which exported metals valued at £4 million over 25 years. The mill and treatment works have provided the focus of Irvinebank township and sustained it economically and socially since 1884.
|They are one of the few surviving mining complexes established as State Enterprises by the Ryan/Theodore Labor Government.
Such a mill is rare in Australia and in North Queensland where it is only rivalled by the Emuford battery.
|The complex of mill buildings and machinery has potential to provide further information about the development of tin concentrating technology and mining and metallurgical engineering in Queensland. Although the stamps and boilers do not remain, some of the ore bins timberwork and tramway formation date from 1884. Remnants of the blast furnace flue, brick chimney base, smelter retaining wall and assay office remain.
|The mill illustrates the history of tin mining technology in North Queensland from its inception in 1880 to the present. Plant, machinery parts and foundations remain in the mill and have the potential to interpret the full range of processes and technologies used at the mill during its 110 years.
|The mill has a special association with John Moffat, who operated it from 1884 until 1912, as owner and general manager of the Irvinebank Mining Company. He was a regional entrepreneur who controlled and developed North Queensland from 1880 to 1918 by establishing mines, constructing mills, towns, tramways, roads and public buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15455,"place_ref":600680,"name":"Loudoun House","alternate_name":"Moffat's House","street_address":"Macdonald Street","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Loudoun House is a high-set timber building with enclosed sub-floor and additional kitchen and bedroom areas on the eastern side. It has a westerly aspect from the top of a low spur in Irvinebank, near the ruins of the Assay Office and above the Queensland National Bank Building and the School of Arts. A number of trees surround the building, including mangoes, red cedar, boab, figs and a bunya pine. The Irvinebank to Stannary Hills tramway formation, is evident on the lower side of the property where it has been used as pedestrian access to MacDonald Street below.
The original house was a simple gabled roof timber structure with encircling verandahs. Offices were located in the sub-floor and the living spaces were above. Subsequent extensions were made on both floors during Moffat's residence.
The upper level is supported on cypress pine or ironbark stumps. The sub-floor is enclosed with walls of unlined corrugated iron. The floor is tongue and groove red cedar on lower and upper levels inside the building and concrete below the verandah overhangs outside.
The upper level has tongue and groove red cedar walls, ceiling and floor; the verandah is not tongue and groove. Studs are exposed on the exterior verandah and back walls. Studs are internal on the north and south sides of the building. The upper section of the house has a central living area, with four rooms at the rear of the building and two rooms on either side of the main living area. An additional room comes off the rear of the building and a stove alcove is on the northern side room.
Some of the original furnishings are still present in the house including Moffat's office desk and table, but most of the furnishings were removed by the Department of Mines in 1967/8.
Little remains of the once extensive landscaping apart from the established fig (Ficus sp.), red cedar (Toona ciliata), mangoes (Mangifera sp.), boab (Adanoria gregorii) and bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii).
","history":"John Moffat (1841-1918) was a mining entrepreneur of considerable standing. His influence dominated the mining industry of the Cairns hinterland from the early 1880s until the first World War: he was instrumental in founding the towns of Irvinebank, Watsonville, Chillagoe, Mungana, Mt Garnet, and Mt Molloy.
Moffat, the greatest mining magnate of his time in Queensland, is still remembered with affection in the North. He is credited with a scrupulous regard for ethical business practices, and the imposition of a benevolent paternalism over mining enterprises under his control. He was a man of high moral principles. The extent that Irvinebank residents relied on the industries created by John Moffat for their livelihoods is evident in the prayer "God Bless John Moffat" said to be taught by Irvinebank parents to their children at the turn of the century.
At a time when gold was the glamour industry of the region, Moffat concentrated his investments in base metals, notably tin and copper. He built a battery and smelter (the Loudoun Mill) at Irvinebank, centre of a rich tin lode district, and from 1883 lived in the town, first in tents and later in Loudoun House. His choice of a house site was characteristic of the man - whereas most wealthy mine owners disdained to live in the district where their mines were located, Moffat built right in the centre of Irvinebank, overlooking the Assay office, two minutes walk from the smelters and within earshot of the stampers. His house was also a very short distance from the Queensland National Bank [QHR 600678], and connected to it by a benched pathway; demonstrating the complex and powerful influence the bank had on the mining industry, or vice versa. The Irvinebank to Stannary Hills tramway ran between the Queensland National Bank and Loudoun House, and into the Tramway Station at Loudoun Mill.
Moffat's house was built c1883/4. An 1886 photograph (Kerr 200X:9) shows a two story timber house surrounded by verandahs on four sides (partly enclosed) with a small detached timber building to the rear. It is believed to be an early use of high timber stumps and infilling of the sub-floor to create a second floor at ground level. Drawings indicate an expansion program occurred around 1907 expanding the servant's wing on the eastern side of the building. Conventionally framed timber exposed studwork was used. An unusual construction method of single skin brickwork reinforced with timber framing was used in a surviving section of the earlier kitchen wing. This was presumably used for food storage. The original section of the servant's wing, or the eastern side, has a concrete floor. The additional rooms have timber floor, walls and ceiling. A concrete water tank is at the south-eastern corner of the servant's wing.
In correspondence Moffat described the house as built of local cedar cleared from Loudoun Dam and imported seasoned timber. It comprised a sitting room, two main bedrooms, four side verandah bedrooms, plus a front verandah affording a fine view over the Mill site and dam. The downstairs area was enclosed for cool offices, store, and assay rooms. Bachelor quarters were added twenty years later.
Moffat's mining empire fell on hard times with the fall in metal prices in 1907. In 1912 he was forced by the Queensland National Bank to retire (to his Cremorne home in Sydney) as the tin industry subsided. Shortly after his death from influenza at Toowoomba in 1918, the Irvinebank works were purchased in 1919 by the Queensland government as a State treatment works. The State Government continued to use the downstairs section as an office for the State Treatment Works with upper floor becoming accommodation for employees of the Works. It served for a time as the manager's residence. By 1980 it was still occupied as an office and storeroom by the Department of Mines. By 1984 it was in use as a museum building by the Irvinebank Progress Association. In 1987 R200 (lot 6 on plan HG710) was gazetted as reserve for museum purposes.
","criteria":"Loudoun House at Irvinebank was erected c1883-84 for mining entrepeneur John Moffat who dominated the mining industry of the Cairns hinterland for thirty years (1880s - 1910s). The house is closely associated with the development of the mining industry (in particular tin and copper) in North Queensland.
The use of high blocks to create a second floor at ground level is regarded as an early use.
|Its siting in close proximity to both the Loudoun Mill and town of Irvinebank (including the offices of the Queensland National Bank) are regarded as symbolic of Moffat's "hands on" approach to his business activities including his relationship with employees and their families and in the case of the Queensland National Bank of its major role in Moffat's business affairs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15456,"place_ref":600681,"name":"Vulcan Mine and Headframe","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mareeba Mining District","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The mine and machinery foundations are situated on a narrow bench excavated into a steep hillside at the head of a gully running down to Gibbs Creek.
The dominant structure is an steel headframe over the Vulcan shaft. Brickwork footings of the former boiler house and chimney are located immediately south of the headframe. Alongside are stone and brick foundations for a pump and air compressor. Immediately south again are large concrete foundations for a winding engine containing a relief inscription reading - Vulcan T M Co. 1906. Nearby are further boiler foundations connecting with the remains of a brick flue
A beehive brick below-ground tank is constructed into the hill above the headframe. Near the base of the tank is an adit which continues through the hill to connect with an open stope. The Tornado Mine winding and pump engine foundations are located on the hillside above and to north of the Vulcan .
Plant:
Steel headframe (base plate inscribed) - Engineering Supply Co of Aust Ltd Brisbane.
","history":"The Vulcan tin lode at Irvinebank was discovered in September 1888 by a party of Italian woodcutters and miners - Harry Maranta, Alexander Leone, Battista Leone and Guiseppe Lampatta. Several crushings in 1889 assayed 20% tin. The first few years of Vulcan mine development involved competition between claimholders and John Moffat, whom they feared would take over the mine.
During Moffat's absence from Irvinebank, a syndicate of local miners banded together to purchase the Vulcan mine from the Italians for £2,100 and formed a public company, the Vulcan Tin Mining Company Limited, on 13 December 1890 with a capital of £4,400 in £1 shares paid to ten shillings each. This company was the first joint stock company on the Walsh and Tinaroo fields to pay a dividend, in January 1891.
In order to continue to control the main mines on the field Moffat infiltrated the Vulcan company through nominees and within seven months he controlled 40% of the company's shares. Moffat also sought to amalgamate the Vulcan and Irvinebank Mining Companies. This confrontation and the secretiveness about the Loudoun mill operating costs and the direction of the Vulcan lodes hampered negotiations for a co-operative operation.
A third company, the Vulcan Tin Mining Company NL was formed on 29 March 1892 and its capital was increased to £44,000. The mine produced well and was the only mine in the district capable of paying wages in the 1890s.
Moffat continued his policy of technical innovation, installing in 1893 a first motion double action winding engine, the first on the Walsh and Tinaroo field. A 40hp Cornish boiler powered the 16hp Tangye winding engines with 1.4 metre drums on brick foundations and fitted with two 1.8 metre pully wheels at the base of a 9 metre timber headframe. There were two cages for miners to descend the 92 metre shaft.
Moffat's intervention overcame the operating problems and the Vulcan mine became the staunchest pillar of his empire. Over the next 15 years the Vulcan yielded 9,000 tons of black tin worth £377,362 and paid dividends totalling £162,030.
A feature of the workings was their depth. By 1903, the Vulcan was being described as one of the deepest mines in the southern hemisphere, as well as being called "the premier lode tin mine of Queensland". In 1905 the shaft was over 305 metre in depth and the winding engine could not pull up the ore from the deepest level, so a new engine was ordered from Walker's foundry in Maryborough. It was a first motion winding engine of a nominal 100hp, capable of winding ore from 610 metres.
The wooden headframe was replaced by a steel headframe 18.3 metre high between 1903 and 1912, according to photographic evidence.
During 1907 the ore from the seemingly inexhaustible Vulcan mine almost halved in assay value coupled with strikes and falling tin prices, the prospects of the Vulcan company dimmed and dissension among managers and miners was rife. Moffat maintained an aloof stance. Because it paid out so much of its profits in dividends, the Vulcan company was considered as a small man's company in which the local working miner could own a small parcel of shares and participate in North Queensland's mining wealth. Unfortunately for Irvinebank miners the output of the Vulcan mine fell in the period from 1905 to the outbreak of World War 1 from an average assay of 10.2% to 4% and the value of tin output dropped from £61,618 to £12,805, an alarming drop due both to declining tin prices and to poorer ore at the 366 metre level.
The 1907 and 1908 strikes seriously affected the value of the Vulcan ore in relation to its chief competitor on the field, the Stannary Hills Company operating the nearby Rocky Bluff battery. But because of Moffat's established monopoly of the field, the Vulcan company was able to continue production whereas the Stannary Hills company was forced to close the Rocky Bluff battery after 1909 and rail its ore to Irvinebank.
In 1913 an aerial tramway was installed from the mine to the Loudoun mill. Improved facilities for travelling between the surface and the working faces were installed in 1915 when the mine was down 445 metres. Production improved by 1918 to 934 tons of tin ore for a return of 26.5 tons of concentrates valued at £4,350 but no dividends were paid for the third year running.
Fresh chimney stacks replaced the corroded ones at the mine in 1921. The Whitworth Finance and Mining Corporation Limited employed over a dozen men renovating the surface plant at the Vulcan in early May 1929 prior to commencing dewatering operations. This included the placing of a new collar set in position above the shaft.
This implies that the mine had not operated for some years previously. The Whitworth Corporation failed and presumably the mine closed from the early 1930s.
North Broken Hill Limited applied for 60ha lease over the old Vulcan workings in 1947, but in 1981 Don Walker of Herberton purchased the mine which is not operational but it has become a local tourist site.
","criteria":"The Vulcan mine and headframe is significant in Queensland's history for its development as a local shareholders mine which supplied ore to the main battery, the Loudoun mill, in Irvinebank. It was the most productive tin mine in North Queensland.
|This steel headframe is one of very few dating from before World War 1 and still standing on its original site. A beehive brick covered underground water tank above the mine is now rare in the North Queensland context.
|It is Australia's deepest tin mine (at 464 metres) and has one of the largest headframes still remaining.
|Early development of the mine was associated with Italian miners.
There were major strikes in the Vulcan and nearby mines in 1907 which were catalysts of change in Irvinebank mine management practices. The place has some importance in the history of the Labor movement.
|The mine is also associated with William McCormack and Edward Theodore, later Queensland Premier and State and Federal Treasurer, who came to Irvinebank as an underground miner in the Vulcan mine and established the Amalgamated Workers Association (later amalgamating with the AWU).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15457,"place_ref":600682,"name":"Kingsborough Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"off East Street (old)","suburb":"KINGSBOROUGH","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kingsborough township is located about 30 km north of Dimbulah township with access through Thornborough township off the Dimbulah - Mt Mulligan road. The place is now abandoned save for one resident who lives in a concrete cavity brick house near the battery. The battery is located within the garden of a fenced allotment near the house on Caledonia Creek.
The place consists of a 5 head stamp battery, boiler, engine, jaw crusher, brick double chimney, corrugated iron tanks and earth ramp, some of which are covered by a corrugated iron roof with timber uprights. The stamper sits on a timber and earth wall and is marked 'Langland's Foundry Co. Ltd Melbourne 1882'. A belt connects the stamper to the flywheel which is attached to an engine sitting on concrete blocks beneath under the shed roof. The boiler sits off the ground on concrete stands immediately on the south-east of the shed and is marked 'Gold Medal Paris 1876'. The shed has been constructed from salvaged pieces of corrugated iron and bush timbers and is partially enclosed. There is evidence of termite activity inside the shed and the floor of the shed is concrete.
An earth ramp with a low incline leading to the stamper is on the north-east side of the shed. A jaw crusher sits at the head of the ramp adjacent to the stamper. The timber hopper has completely collapsed.
There is a double brick chimney on the western side of the battery shed that is no longer part of the operation of the battery. Four corrugated iron tanks sit about 5 metres to the north-east of the battery shed.
The surrounding landscape is dry sclerophyll, with some vegetable and flower gardens associated with the nearby masonry house located close to the battery. Neither the plantings nor the masonry house form part of the heritage significance of the place.
","history":"The Kingsborough Battery is located around 30 kilometres west of the town of Dimbulah within the former Kingsborough township in an area once known as the Hodgkinson goldfield. It was reconstructed from salvaged parts in the 1990's for processing minerals, although reprocessing at the site did not eventuate. The plant is comprised of a 5 head stamper, concrete foundations, boiler, earth ramp, corrugated iron shed and brick chimney.
The Hodgkinson Goldfield was proclaimed on 15 June 1876, after the first discoveries of gold on the Hodgkinson River by Venture Mulligan in February that year. Although the Hodgkinson was geologically similar to the great alluvial gold field to the north, the Palmer, it was predominantly a reefing field and did not prove to have the same attraction for small miners due to a lack of alluvial finds. The major mines were in the vicinity of the now abandoned townships of Kingsborough, Thornborough and Northcote. It was a neglected field through lack of capital, and although there was an optimistic outlook until the first decade of the twentieth century, it was clear by 1908 that its small yield no longer justified separate goldfield administration and accordingly, in 1909 it was incorporated into the Chillagoe Gold and Mineral field.
When government administration first arrived on the Hodgkinson on 19 April 1876 over 2,000 men were working on the field, mainly alluvial miners from the Palmer goldfield. Many of the men were disappointed in the lack of alluvial gold on the Hodgkinson and soon returned to towns such as Byerstown on the Palmer goldfield. As a result of the government administration visit, miners on the Palmer were warned through posters on the Hodgkinson track that the new find was a total failure and not to travel to the newly established goldfield.
However the Hodgkinson proved to be a valuable reefing field, and it was estimated that over 100,000 ounces of gold was produced from gravel and reef from the Hodgkinson up to 1877, over 44,000 ounces in 1878 and declining until 1891, when only 655 ounces were produced. There was subsequent rising production to 4,853 ounces in 1901. Crushing equipment was brought to the field from the Palmer and Etheridge and established at Tyrconnel, Watsonville (later Woodsville), Beaconsfield, Kingston (later Kingsborough) and Thornborough. In total, 8 machines were operating on the Hodgkinson and within a year of its discovery settlements were located close to the major reefs, with Kingston and Thornborough the major settlements on the field.
By mid 1877 Kingston (later Kingsborough) had a population of 1,100, with 8 general stores, 2 butchers, and 12 public houses. There was a lemonade factory, chemist, baker, auctioneer, assayer, blacksmith, newsagents, and brickworks as well as the Vulcan crushing battery. A small dam was built across the Caledonia Creek to ensure water supplies for the steam-powered crushing machinery. The town was surveyed on 1 May 1880. By 1886 the population of Kingsborough had declined to 50 (by 1901 the Mining Warden estimated the entire population of the Hodgkinson Goldfield to be 960). The Vulcan battery was purchased by the Tyrconnel Gold Mining Company in 1884 and relocated to Sam the Roman's camp in 1895.
In 1896 new finds in the Kingsborough district led to the erection of the Reconstruction battery (also known as Rowan battery, named after the family that re-erected the crusher) and a cyanide plant. Reconstruction battery had formerly been known as the Good Hope battery prior to its relocation from Limestone. The major focus of the renewed interest in the Hodgkinson was General Grant mine, a surface plant with a deep shaft that was sunk to 735 feet over the next few years.
In August 1901 the Reconstruction battery had to suspend operations for 4 months due to the lack of water caused by the drought and because of a leak in an old boiler which had to be replaced. The principal mines in the area, including the General Grant, had to lay off men and undertake development work rather than supplying ore for crushing.
By 1904, over half the population of the Hodgkinson were working in the wolfram industry at Wolfram Camp. Irvinebank Mining Company bought into most of the wolfram mines in 1907 and subsequently developed the Mount Mulligan coal mine. In 1914 the Irvinebank Mining Company constructed a rail line from Mount Mulligan to connect to the Cairns-Dimbulah railway.
It is presumed that the Reconstruction battery had ceased operating by about 1908 when goldmining of the Hodgkinson had faded. Photographic evidence published in Kirkman essay 'Mining on the Hodgkinson' in Readings in North Queensland Mining History (Vol 2 pp187) shows the Reconstruction battery had totally collapsed by 1979, only the brick chimney was still standing. Local knowledge indicates that any useful material such as corrugated iron was moved to Thornborough in the late 1970's and the site was totally abandoned in 1980.
The current caretaker of the site describes reconstructing the battery for use as a crusher in the early 1990's after an episode of vandalism left it in pieces. Reconstruction involved building an earth ramp and timber retaining wall, welding together pieces of the 5 head stamper battery that were found laying in pieces, bringing a jaw crusher from Mount Garnet and re-erecting the steam boiler. A corrugated iron shed was constructed over the battery. Crushing at the newly erected battery did not eventuate and the caretaker of the property currently uses the site as a storage area for machinery and other spare parts.
","criteria":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, particularly the development and decline of north Queensland mining and the re-use of available equipment for subsequent mining operations in remote areas.
|It contains the principal characteristics of reef gold processing sites, being a 5 head stamper battery, and corrugated iron shed, with a double brick chimney nearby.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15458,"place_ref":600683,"name":"General Grant Mine and Winding Plant","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Off Dimbulah - Mount Mulligan Road","suburb":"KINGSBOROUGH","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place includes a large winding shed, workshop, and two mine shafts situated on a terrace, set high on a steep hillside. Extensive mullock dumps extend from both shafts to the base of the hill. The collar of the main shaft has caved and is strewn with the timbers of a recently collapsed headframe.
The winding shed is constructed of heavy round timber uprights supporting a sawn timber frame. The building and adjacent workshop are corrugated iron clad. The building contains a winding engine, an intact Babcock boiler in a brick mount, a compressor and an air receiver. The Babcock & Wilcox boiler is equipped with a high steel chimney. A second shaft and an adit are located about 70 metres north-west with two colonial boilers.
Plant:
One-cylinder air compressor - R.Schran & Co. Engineers London.
Babcock & Wilcox boiler - no brand.
Two-cylinder steam winding engine - Walkers Limited Queensland No 870 1908.
2 Colonial boilers. (one not insitu)
Egg-end air receiver.
","history":"The Hodgkinson Goldfield was proclaimed on 15 June 1876. Although the Hodgkinson was geologically similar to the great alluvial gold field to the north, the Palmer, it was predominantly a reefing field with its major mines in the vicinity of the now abandoned townships of Kingsborough, Thornborough and Northcote. It was a neglected field through lack of capital, and although there was an optimistic outlook until the first decade of the twentieth century, it was clear by 1908 that its small yield no longer justified separate goldfield administration and accordingly, in 1909 it was incorporated into the Chillagoe Gold and Mineral field.
There was an initial rush of over 2,000 men and up to 1877 it was estimated that over 100,000 ounces of gold had been produced from gravel and reef; in 1878 over 44,000 ounces; then a decline until 1891, when only 655 ounces was produced. Since then there was rising production to 4,853 ounces in 1901.
The General Grant reef up to the end of 1882 recorded seventeen crushings totalling 957 tons of ore yielding 1,281 ounces of gold. The workings remained idle between 1883 and 1893, but in the next two years produced 1,048 tons of ore yielding 1,402 ounces.
The revival was unexpected, but the opening of the Cairns-Mareeba railway in 1893 had made the field more accessible and increased use of cyanding promised improved returns for reefing fields. The real impetus came in 1897 when the British group, the Cecil Syndicate focused on the General Grant mine.
With an infusion of capital not previously witnessed in the area, the syndicate erected sophisticated surface plant and sunk the shaft to 177 m. Between 1898 and 1910, it returned 25,622 ounces of bullion gold from 27,145 tons of ore. In 1902, when the shaft reached the reef at the 150 m level the syndicate decided to erect a battery at the mine and constructed a 10,000,000 gallon capacity dam. However crushing from the mine did not even recoup the £8,000 outlaid on the construction of the dam, battery and cyanide plant.
Intermittent working resulted in the shaft reaching the 229 m level by 1937 when it was owned by the Hodgkinson Gold Development Syndicate Limited. The reef was under consideration for dewatering and re-opening in late 1944, when it was thought that at least 8,000 tons of ore, with an average grade of 0.4 ounces gold, remained and although the grade is said to have improved at the bottom of the workings, it was not economical. Several small prospecting efforts have been carried out since.
","criteria":"The General Grant mine and winding plant is significant in Queensland's history because it was a major producer of reef gold on the Hodgkinson field between 1878 and 1910.
|In addition, the winding shed is one of two surviving in North Queensland housing an intact range of early winding plant. (The other is located at the Great Northern Mine, Herberton) The Walkers winding engine is one of the most intact examples surveyed, while the Schran air compressor is rare. The Babcock and Wilcox boiler in its brick housing is the only intact example surviving in the Mareeba Mining District.
|Isolation and difficult access has ensured the survival insitu of this representative and now rare mine haulage plant.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15459,"place_ref":600684,"name":"James Venture Mulligan's Grave, Mt Molloy Cemetery","alternate_name":"Mulligans Grave | James Venture Mulligan","street_address":"Bakers Road","suburb":"MOUNT MOLLOY","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"James Venture Mulligan is buried in the Mount Molloy cemetery, Bakers Road, Mount Molloy, 2.6 kilometres from Mount Molloy by road. A low cyclone fence, with three gated entrances, surrounds the cemetery. One entrance is for visitors on foot coming from the northern or road side, one for vehicles also from the north, and another for visitors on foot coming from the west.
The landform is open woodland slightly sloping towards the south-east. The ground appears hard and stony and little grass cover was evident at the time of inspection in October 2003. Tree species do not appear to be part of an overall planting scheme, and include species of Acacia, Melaleuca, Eucalypt and Grevillea. One frangipani and three palms have been planted in direct association with a recent grave. Termite mounds are evident across the cemetery.
Mulligan's grave is at the south-east corner of the cemetery, near a mature grevillea tree. It is marked with a marble headstone, made by W.A. & C. Whelan in Townsville and surrounded by a concrete border and cast iron fence. The fence is attached to the concrete with bolts. Both the fence and the concrete border are painted white. A bronze plaque, embedded in concrete and surrounded by white quartz pebbles, sits below the headstone. Loose white quartz pebbles are inside the concrete edging.
Other graves in the cemetery are constructed of materials such as marble, granite, concrete, tiling and cast iron.
","history":"Mount Molloy was established in 1880 after Patrick Molloy, a selector who had taken up land beside Rifle Creek on the Port Douglas to Herberton track, found rich copper deposits. Patrick Molloy attracted the interest of James Forsyth and Venture Mulligan, who promoted the potential of the area to Melbourne investors. The investors, including the Victorian Premier, formed the Mount Molloy Copper Mining Company in 1899. The mine was taken over by John Moffatt's Irvinebank Company in 1901.
James Venture Mulligan was born in 1837 at County Down, Ireland, to a Protestant family who rented farming land in Slievenaboley. Sometime during 1859 or 1860 he travelled to Melbourne, Victoria. Details of his early years in Australia are not clear, but it is thought he unsuccessfully attempted to join the Burke and Wills expedition from Melbourne, then travelled to New South Wales, to Nundle, Glen Innis and Armidale, where he is thought to have opened a butcher's shop and first tried his hand at prospecting. Mulligan left Armidale for the Gympie goldrush in 1867, travelled to the Gladstone goldfield in 1871 and the Etheridge goldfield in 1873. He is also thought to have prospected at Ravenswood and the Gilbert River goldfields.
Mulligan led a party of six men from Gilbert River via Mount Surprise in 1873, to investigate a reported gold discovery by William Hann on the Palmer River. Days after Mulligan's expedition returned the following announcement was posted on the door of the Gold Commissioner at Etheridge:
"JV Mulligan reports the discovery of payable gold on the Palmer River. Those interested may inspect at this office the 102 oz he brought back."
On 26 September 1873 Mulligan led a large party of 100 diggers to the Palmer. The Palmer was to provide considerable stimulus for the development of North Queensland in the late nineteenth century. Mulligan prospected for a short time on the Palmer and also spent some time in the newly established port of Cooktown. On 1 May 1874 he left Cooktown for another prospecting expedition. On this expedition Mulligan named the St George River, sited the short lived town of Toughville and explored tributaries of the Palmer, Mitchell and Walsh Rivers, and what was to become the Hodgkinson goldfield. On 29 April 1875 he led a government sponsored expedition which passed the future sites of Mareeba and Atherton, crossed the Herberton Range and discovered tin in the Wild River, but found little gold. The government paid Mulligan £300 to equip him for another expedition, to be raised to £1000 if he found substantial gold deposits.
On 23 October 1875 Mulligan led another expedition to the Hodgkinson. The party returned to Cooktown on 13 March 1876 with sufficient gold to stimulate the Hodgkinson gold rush. The Hodgkinson field was proclaimed in March or June 1876 and lasted until 1909 when it was incorporated into the Chillagoe Gold and Mineral field. Though geologically similar to the rich alluvial finds on the Palmer River, the Hodgkinson supported mainly reef mining, and disappointed miners blamed Mulligan for their misfortunes on the field.
In 1877 Mulligan settled at Thornborough and fostered business interests, such as the ownership of the Thornborough store with his old mate James Dowdall, and chairmanship of the local Progress Association. After the store was declared insolvent in 1879 Mulligan again turned to prospecting. He led another government sponsored expedition in 1882, prospecting at the Millstream, Wild River, Emu Creek near Irvinebank and Silver Valley. He led another three expeditions in 1883 in search of tin and gold deposits, to the Valley of Lagoons, Chillagoe and the Palmer/Laura region.
Widely respected for his bush skills and religious principles, Mulligan became a justice of the peace in 1894. In 1903, aged in his early 60's, Mulligan married Fanny Bulls, a widower from the Palmer goldfield, and they settled in Mount Molloy, then a bustling 'twin town' with one township close to the copper mines and another servicing John Moffat's smelters where the town of Mount Molloy stands today. It is thought that while living in Mount Molloy Mulligan continued prospecting on Mount Fraser, a few miles north west of the town.
The details about the events that led to Mulligan's death are unclear. It seems that on 23 August 1907 Mulligan was involved in a pub brawl, in which he sustained critical injuries. Conflicting accounts of the fight place it in Jimmy Forsyth's pub mid-way between the two towns, now marked by a large mango tree on the left of Bakers Road, or as reported in the Cairns Morning Post on 27 August 1907, at Mount Carbine, north of Mount Molloy. He was taken to Mount Molloy hospital and died the next day. The Cairns Morning Post records Mulligan was buried "in the little cemetery at Mount Molloy" the Saturday following his death. The Cairns Post suggested opening a subscription list for a memorial in honour of Mulligan. Local residents erected a marble headstone, made in Townsville, over his grave, which identifies Mulligan as 67 when he died (in fact he was 70) with the words "erected by a few old friends".
Mulligan enjoyed exploration as much as prospecting and was never secretive about his finds. His lively diaries, published regularly in the Queenslander were re-published in 1875 as "A guide to the Palmer River and Normanby goldfields". Mount Mulligan, a plaque at Mareeba, and the Mulligan Highway commemorate his name.
Mulligan maintained an association with Mount Molloy throughout its development, having led the first prospecting expedition through the area and later acquiring the copper mining claim in partnership with James Forsyth. This claim was then sold to a Melbourne syndicate and eventually operated by mining magnate, John Moffat. After initial mismanagement it had, by 1903, become one of North Queensland's leading copper producers.
Mulligan has the earliest marked grave in the Mount Molloy cemetery, followed by William James Cairn in 1908 and James Laing in 1909. Another seven marked graves, members of the George, McDonach, Campbell and Geraghty families, date to between 1924 and 1938. The cemetery continues to serve the Mount Molloy community and presently contains around 70 marked burials.
The site has ongoing significance to the community as evidenced by the placement of a bronze plaque and other commemorative activities at the plot.
","criteria":"Mount Molloy cemetery, in use from at least 1907, reflects the development of the region from that period to the present day. The cemetery is an important record of the cultural development of the area, representing the development of early mining activities and the subsequent decline in economic activity.
|James Venture Mulligan was closely associated with the discovery and opening of the Palmer goldfields, which was to provide considerable stimulus for the development of North Queensland in the late nineteenth century. Mulligan is also credited with the development of the Hodgkinson goldfield and is recognised for locating a number of potential mineral developments in North Queensland.
In addition to his published writings, JV Mulligan is remembered through the naming of Mt Mulligan and the Mulligan Highway. James Venture Mulligan's grave is the most direct and tangible reminder of the man and his life with its long associations with the mining history of North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15462,"place_ref":600687,"name":"Tyrconnel Mine and Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mareeba Mining District","suburb":"MAREEBA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The place contains four component groups - living quarters, mine, battery, and cyanide works. The living quarters and mine are located above the battery and cyanide works. The quarters include a corrugated iron clad cottage and kitchen, and several outbuildings. One of these buildings is a workshop which houses a small retort of comparatively recent origin.
The mine shaft contains a concrete collar and is now covered with a grid. Concrete foundations of a timber headframe survive. The headframe and winding shed were recently destroyed by fire. The winding plant includes the remains of a winding engine, a two-cylinder steam engine, two Cornish boilers, a colonial boiler in brick mounts, and an air receiver.
The battery shed is of heavy bush timber uprights carrying a light sawn timber frame. The building is corrugated iron clad and roofed. The battery contains two sets of timber ore bins. The primary crusher has been removed. Timber chutes on the lower bins feed into the two mortar boxes of 2 five head stamp batteries. Two Petter crude oil engines provide the power source for the battery. One engine remains in operating condition. Most of the concentrating plant has been removed with the exception of a wilfley table.
Below the battery shed the remnants of a tailings dump with seven cyanide tanks extends down to Tyrconnel Creek. The most recent cyanide treatment was completed in 1986. A corrugated iron clad cottage on Tyrconnel Creek alongside the cyanide plant was formerly the battery manager's house. The battery dam remains intact on Tyrconnel Creek.
Plant:
Colonial boiler - Walkers Limited.
2 Cornish boilers - no brands.
Two-cylinder centre flywheel tandem steam air compressor - Thompson Engineers Castlemaine.
Two-cylinder steam winding engine with flywheel - Tooth & Co Vulcan Foundry Maryborough (Vic).
Cornish boiler (not insitu).
2 Five head stamp batteries - Fraser Chalmers Erith England.
2 Mortar boxes (not insitu) - Fraser Chalmers 108A.
2 Two-cylinder crude oil engines with flywheels - Petter Yeovil.
Small kerosene engine with two flywheels - no brand.
Wilfley table.
Berdan pan (not insitu).
Grinding pan (not insitu) - Kalgoorlie Foundry Engineers. Silverthorne & Adair Boilermakers.
Egg-end air receiver.
Small retort furnace
","history":"The Tyrconnel mine has been one of the richest producers on the Hodgkinson Goldfield. Discovered in 1876 it was originally taken up by Redmond and McVeigh on 20 April 1876. The first battery erected at the mine was Warde and Company's in November 1876, evidently financed by A. Forsythe in Brisbane, from whom this expensive ten head stamp battery took its name. This battery began crushing in February 1877 and the local proprietors, John Warde and Thomas E. White, renamed it the Brisbane in March 1877. In early 1879 they obtained a berdan pan for it, obtaining one from the Spring Gully mill which had been idle since June 1878.
The Tyrconnel shaft was down to 128 metes in 1888 when it closed in the hands of the bank. The mine had not been worked for several years although its total production to date was 11,000 tons of stone for a yield of 18,000 ounces of gold. The mine had a 12h.p. engine and winding and pumping gear but was full of water.
The mine was advertised for sale by public auction at Herberton in May 1897. It was sold to a Sydney syndicate who floated it and the Sweet William mine at Mount Molloy on the English market £4,000 cash and 1,000 shares in 1898. It was then the deepest mine on the field. The float came to nothing. Because of water flooding, the lease holder, William Keating Snr, worked a new shaft to obtain good samples of which he sent a ton of four to six ounce stone to the 1899 Colonial Exhibition. He held the mine for several years of perseverance. He offered it to a Melbourne syndicate in 1899.
A new company was formed in 1912 and the mine reopened after many years. A Victorian mine manager, David Morgan, was appointed as the new Tyrconnel mine manager. By early 1913 they had the winding gear and ore bins erected. The owners bought the Great Dyke Company's ten head battery at Caledonia Creek near Thornborough. T. Harley, engineer-in-charge, had the contract for £80 to transport the battery to its new position. Their first twelve weeks of crushings from the mine were impressive yielding 1,041 ounces of gold from 945 tons of stone (sent out to another battery for crushing). They installed a compressor in July 1913 and rock drills in September. In October they struck a reef almost 2.4 m wide which offered two to three ounce gold quartz. The mine shaft was then put in order in November for skips. By then the battery was almost ready and the headframe was being put in position. They also had a suction gas engine sitting at Dimbulah awaiting transport to the Hodgkinson. The battery started crushing in February 1914 but broke down in May because the engine bed plate broke. The company was doing very well through Morgan's careful management and William Keating's confidence. They were obtaining one ounce stone continually in 1914 and the battery kept going as long as there was water.
The battery's suction gas engine broke down in October 1915 and crushing had to be stopped. An electrical plant (210 volt generator) was installed in 1915 to provide lighting and pumping facilities and the battery had a wheeler pan. In 1916 the mine boiler was retubed and the battery gas plant was being repaired and all other machinery overhauled. Dewatering of the mine was commenced at 81 m. Cyaniding was also undertaken. A new boiler was obtained for the winding engine and compressor. Crushing and cyaniding was producing satisfactory results and additional steam power was obtained in 1917. The Tyrconnel Gold Mines Limted bought the Cecil Syndicate battery at the General Grant mine and re-erected it at the Tyrconnel mine in 1917. The tailings from the milled ore were then run directly into the cyanide plant. The working shaft on the northern end of the property was sunk further in 1918 to work on one ounce stone. A large quantity of this stone was stoped out and sent to the battery. A 10 head stamper was brought from the General Gordon mine to enlarge the battery to 20 head. A large Cornish boiler was put in position at the beginning of 1918. A compressor to drive the drills was also being considered for purchase and, if the mine proved up well, then the water supply would have to be upgraded to supply the battery.
New head gear and another high pressure Cornish boiler were added to the Tyrconnel mine plant together with an eight drill air compressor in1919. A 7kw dynamo was installed in 1922 to provide light for the battery and the surface of the mine. Operations were suspended in 1924.
In 1930, 120 tons of the old sands from the mine were cyanided. With the granting of a 600 acre concession there was renewed optimism on the Hodgkinson goldfield. W. Craven treated 700 tons of old sands for 216 ounces of bullion gold valued at £190.14.7 in 1934. Machinery from overseas was ordered in 1935 for the mine. Renovations to the battery were proposed so as to treat 60 tons of ore per day and also to dewater the mine. The Queensland Gold Development Syndicate Limited reconditioned the mine, erected a new headframe and a 10 head battery, classifying and flotation machinery were installed. A concrete dam at the junction of Caledonia and Tyrconnel creeks was also constructed.
The Hodgkinson Gold Development Syndicate Limited erected a new battery in 1936 and an Ingersoll Rand drill was purchased. The ten head battery comprised a jaw crusher, ball mill, 10 head stamper, classifiers, amalgamation plates, 6-cell Kraut flotation machine, and drier. This company ceased operations on 22 July 1937 for lack of capital. After 360 fine ounces of gold and 114.5 ounces of silver and 29.21 tons of concentrates were sent to Chillagoe for refining, a caretaker was put in charge of the battery.
The battery was overhauled in 1940. A 12 and 14 inch jaw crusher and a No.5 wilfley table were installed. By the end of the war all the mines on the Hodgkinson Goldfield were closed. Oliver Reece, an American, owned the New Tyrconnel, General Grant and Cecil and had a caretaker, Amos Jones, in charge. No work was done on the mine in 1950.
The mine was reactivated during the late 1960s mining boom and again in the early 1980s. In 1983 the five head battery was operated by a Petter crude oil engine fuelled by bunker oil. However a fire destroyed the timberwork of the winding engine and part of the headframe in 1984. The mine dumps were cyanided again during the 1980s.
","criteria":"The Tyrconnel mine and battery is significant in Queensland's history as one of the most complete and impressive mine and battery sites in the State. It demonstrates technological developments from 1876 to the mid 1980s.
|The surviving combination of living quarters, mine, battery and cyanide works in close proximity is rare.
The battery shed is one of only a handful in North Queensland that are intact and contain plant; (others include the Emuford battery, Irvinebank Treatment Works, Kidston and Venus batteries). The current plant includes the third stamp battery on the site. The very intact Thompson air compressor is one of only two recorded in North Queensland (the other is at the Croydon State mine) and is rare, as is the Vulcan winding engine. The intactness of the cyanide plant relates to its recent use and is not common in the Mareeba Mining District.
|Buildings and plant are relatively intact and the complete gold mining process from raising the ore to the final extraction of gold through the milling and cyanidation processes, can be traced through the physical evidence remaining on site.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15463,"place_ref":600688,"name":"Pioneer Cottage Buderim","alternate_name":"JK Burnett (and family) residence","street_address":"5 Pioneer Crescent","suburb":"BUDERIM","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Pioneer Cottage is located on a small parcel of land in a suburban street in central Buderim, on the high ridge which forms the spine of the plateau, facing northeast.
It is a modest, single-storeyed, exposed-frame timber building, constructed of pit-sawn and hand-dressed local beech [floors and wall and ceiling linings], red cedar [joinery], tallowwood [bearers and wall plates] and hardwoods [wall framing and roof structure], and set on low timber stumps. It has a steeply pitched roof, with corrugated iron covering the original shingle battens, and two dormer windows on the southwest side, opening from an attic space. The four-roomed core is surrounded by verandahs with simple chamfered posts supporting the verandah roofs, which extend from the main roof at a different pitch. These are unlined, and the early shingle battens are visible. French doors open from each room onto the verandahs.
The core has a modestly-sized central hallway, from which doors open off to the front parlour on the right, and the front bedroom and rear dining room on the left. The dining room has a fireplace, the brick chimney of which, formerly rendered, is now exposed. A narrow staircase leads from the hallway to two attic bedrooms, preventing any access from the hallway to the rear bedroom on the right - this is accessed from the rear and north side verandahs. Evidence in the fabric indicates that this rear bedroom was at some period divided into two rooms, both accessed from the verandahs. The rear [southwest] verandah has been enclosed with c1920s/30s weatherboards and timber casement windows, possibly in more than one stage. In the process, a small room has been created at each end of this verandah.
The internal walls are all lined, mostly with wide tongue and groove beech boards with a single bead. The hallway ceiling is of wide beech boards, but the remaining ceilings are of later, narrow tongue and groove boards, possibly indicating that the original ceilings were of calico. The attic rooms are lined throughout with narrow tongue and groove boards. The interior has a number of finishes: the walls of the main rooms and hallway painted or wall-papered [this appears to be quire recent]; the attic rooms unpainted; the joinery varnished; and the floors bare.
The house is surrounded by a small garden, most of which is recent planting. The palm stands at the front entrance may be associated with early planting evident in late19th/early 20th century photographs. The original service wing has been demolished. There is a slab hut at the rear of the house, moved to this site after 1965. The street frontage to Ballinger Crescent has a late 20th century post and rail fence, associated with the renovation of the place as a house museum. In the north garden is a large iron pan associated with the Fielding-Dixon Sugar Mill.
","history":"The residence now known as Pioneer Cottage Buderim was erected probably in the early 1880s for Buderim Mountain settlers John Kerle Burnett, his wife Ann North and family. It remains one of the oldest surviving sawn-timber houses on the plateau, and currently functions as a house museum and headquarters of the Buderim Historical Society.
JK Burnett was the eldest son of schoolteacher John Burnett and his wife Jane Kerle, who with their 9 children emigrated to Queensland from Somerset, England, in 1866. They were accompanied on the voyage by Ann North, whom JK Burnett married in 1867. The Burnett family took up land at Burpengary. Several of the sons gained experience in the sugar mills around Caboolture and in the Tingalpa-Ormiston district, and became closely connected with the development of both the sugar and timber industries in post-Separation Queensland - on the north coast at Buderim Mountain, and at Wellington Point southeast of Brisbane.
From the early 1860s, Buderim Mountain had been extensively logged, principally for the fine stands of red cedar and white beech, which was shipped to Brisbane via William Pettigrew's wharf on the Mooloolah River. In 1870 the plateau was opened for selection. Many of the first selections were taken up purely for their timber resources [eg Pettigrew's and Grigor's selections], and early agriculturalists made an income from timber while clearing the land. By the mid-1870s, sugar cane was grown extensively in the area, with planters utilising South Sea Islander labour. Buderim Mountain sugar planters John Fielding and his son-in-law Joseph Chapman Dixon, established the mountain's first sugar mill in October 1876. At that time John Kerle Burnett and his brother Harry moved from Burpengary to Buderim to take up work at Fielding and Dixon's mill. JK Burnett's wife and young family arrived a few weeks later. Initially they resided in Thomas Ridley's house - most likely the small slab house which Ridley had erected on his selection [portion 45, parish of Mooloolah] by July 1874.
In November 1878, John Kerle Burnett purchased portion 49, parish of Mooloolah, for £15, obtaining the deed of grant in March 1879. The block was part of an earlier forfeited 40 acre selection, half of which [20 acres] had been reserved for school purposes in 1877, and the remaining 20 acres sold to Burnett. It was centrally located, adjacent to the school reserve, and at the intersection of two principal roads [now Main Street and Ballinger Road]. On part of this land Burnett built his family home [the present Pioneer Cottage], probably c1882/83. In the Caboolture Divisional Board Valuation Registers of 1881 and 1882, portion 49 is recorded as unimproved. There does not appear to be a record for 1883, but by 1884 the property was improved with a sawn house and stables - likely to refer to Pioneer Cottage. Early in 1882 JK Burnett raised a mortgage of £100 on the property, which may have been associated with the construction of the house.
The house was built of local timbers - tallow wood (eucalyptus microcorys) for floor bearers, white beech (Gmelina leichhardtii) for floors, walls, and ceilings and red cedar (Toona australis) for joinery - thought to have been felled on the property or acquired from nearby, and pit-sawn and handcrafted to make boards. Bricks for steps and a fireplace were hand-made, probably from local clay. The core initially comprised a central hallway and 4 rooms - front parlour, front bedroom, rear dining room and rear bedroom. The latter was partitioned into two bedrooms at a some stage - some Burnett descendants believe it was always partitioned. A short time later two attic bedrooms were added. Early photographs of the house show external walls of deep boards and exposed timber stud framing, encircled by verandahs and resting on low stumps. The high-pitched shingled roof had a short ridge, and the verandah roofs, also shingled, were supported on plain chamfered timber posts. Glass and timber-panelled french doors opened onto the verandahs from all rooms. The first front steps were of timber, but had been replaced by 1907 with masonry steps. Between early 1907 and mid-1909, the verandah roofs were replaced with corrugated galvanised iron; later the whole roof was clad with iron. An external oven and chimney is shown in the earliest photograph, dated c1880, but later a detached kitchen wing was built.
In 1880 a second sugar mill - The Buderim Mountain Sugar Company Mill - was established by local growers, with financial backing from James Campbell and Sons. By 1884, JK Burnett had left his employment with Dixon and Fielding to take up the management of the Company mill, with his brother Ernest employed as sugar boiler. The mill was located below the present post office, a short distance from JK Burnett's home. At this period there were still only 7 farming families on Buderim Mountain: Fielding, Dixon, Guy, Caton, Lindsay, Coghill and Ballinger, but they were able to support two sugar mills. Buderim farmers appear initially to have made a good return from the Company mill. Between 1881 and 1884, many of the early slab homes were replaced with sawn-timber houses, and by the late 1880s a small village had developed around the intersection of the two principal roads on the mountain, with a state school, School of Arts, general store, blacksmith's shop, 3 or 4 residences, and the Buderim Mountain Sugar Company Mill. However, from 1885, legislation designed to curtail the employment of South Sea Islanders on sugar plantations forced most Buderim Mountain sugar planters to turn to alternative crops - principally bananas, oranges and other fruits. By August 1889 the Buderim Mountain Sugar Company Mill had closed, and JC Dixon was the only Buderim Mountain farmer still growing sugar cane on a commercial scale, sustaining his mill until 1896.
JK Burnett left the Company mill in the second half of the 1880s, possibly by 1887, and established the mountain's first general store, at the corner of Ballinger Road and Main Street. From 1 March 1892, operation of the Buderim Mountain Post Office passed from mill owner Joseph Dixon to storekeeper JK Burnett. Burnett also farmed nearby land.
The JK Burnetts were well known in the district and played an active role in their community. Ann Burnett was widely respected for her skills as a nurse and midwife, and as one of the principal influences behind the establishment of the Methodist Church on Buderim Mountain. JK Burnett was a member of the local School of Arts committee. Ann died in 1905, and her husband remained in the family home until his death in 1921. In his later years he was cared for by his son Edward Lionel Burnett, a saddler by trade. After his marriage in 1912, Lionel, with his wife Etta Low and family, continued to live in the Burnett home. Lionel Burnett was also well known in the district, for many years delivering milk and vegetables daily to the local community.
Title to subdivision 2 of portion 49, par Mooloolah, co Canning [19 acres 2 roods containing the house site] was transferred from John Kerle Burnett to Edward Lionel Burnett in mid-1921, just prior to JK Burnett's death. The Lionel Burnetts made some alterations to the property: in the early 1920s the two small bedrooms at the back were converted into one larger bedroom; in the 1930s the detached kitchen was demolished, the two corners of the back verandah were enclosed, and one of these was furnished as the new kitchen. Etta Burnett died in 1944, and her husband is understood to have left the place in 1946, renting it to the local postman. Following Lionel's death in 1950, his former home passed to his daughter Dorothea, who subdivided the property [Ballinger Crescent was created at this time] and offered it for auction in January 1953. The house was purchased by Miss Sybil Addison Vise, whose family had lived on Buderim Mountain since the early 1900s, and who kept the place as a rental property. In 1965 Miss Vise subdivided the house block yet again, and offered the former Burnett residence, on 22.2 perches, to the local community. The offer was readily accepted. Title was registered with the trustees of the Buderim War Memorial Centre [formerly the Buderim School of Arts], and in 1966 the Buderim Historical Society was formed to care for the place. Local service clubs such as Apex and Rotary assisted in the community restoration of the old Burnett home, which was opened as an historical museum by Premier Frank Nicklin on 23 September 1967.
The stumps, verandah posts and verandah flooring were replaced in the 1960s with similar materials; the earlier corrugated iron also has been replaced.
","criteria":"Pioneer Cottage, the former JK Burnett home erected c1882-83, is important in demonstrating the early development of Buderim Mountain as an agricultural settlement, in particular the early success of sugar growing and sugar milling in the district.
|It is one of the oldest surviving residences on the plateau, remains substantially intact, and demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 1880s farmhouse built of local timbers no longer generally available.
|It is one of the oldest surviving residences on the plateau, remains substantially intact, and demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 1880s farmhouse built of local timbers no longer generally available.
|The rustic materials and simple form and plan have an aesthetic quality valued by the community.
|The place has a special association for the Buderim community, as evidenced by their acquisition of the property for museum purposes in the mid-1960s.
|Pioneer Cottage is significant for its close association with one of the early families of Buderim Mountain, the JK Burnetts, and for its close association with the work of the Buderim Historical Society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15464,"place_ref":600689,"name":"Maryborough Cemetery","alternate_name":"Cemetery Shelter; Cemetery Kiosk; Mortuary Chapel","street_address":"Walker Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Maryborough Cemetery is located on the outskirts of Maryborough, approximately 4km west of the CBD. It is divided by Walker Street into northern and southern sections, with the southern section known as the Monumental Cemetery and the northern section as the Garden of Rest Lawn Cemetery. The cemetery reserve is bounded by the Bruce Highway and Bright Street to the west, Kent Street to the south, an industrial estate to the south east, Slaughterhouse Road to the northeast and bushland to the north.
\nViews to both cemeteries are partially screened by perimeter plantings of mature trees. Within the cemetery grounds, views across the individual sections are generally open offering vistas of the burial sites. A variety of fencing types are used to enclose the cemeteries, none of which are early or significant. The Lawn Cemetery has two vehicular access points from Walker Street, while the Monumental Cemetery has three access points – one each from Walker, Bright and Kent Streets. The Walker Street entrance is the main pedestrian entrance and retains its early timber gate posts. This entrance also aligns with the only built structure within the Monumental Cemetery – the Mortuary Chapel.
\nMonumental Cemetery (1873 - )
\nThe monumental cemetery comprises ten approximately square-shaped denominational sections, each divided into two equal parts by a gravel pathway running in an east-west direction. There are also a number of smaller sections along Walker Street, in the southwest corner bordering onto Bright and Kent Streets, and a small section in the northeast corner. The sections are labelled alphabetically and recently erected, colour-coded posts at the corners of each section assist with identification. Sections A (Baptist and Independent) and B (Lutheran) in the southeast corner are located at the original Kent Street entrance and each have a small rectangular area excised on their southern edge. Section F (Roman Catholic) in the northeast corner extends further to the east than other sections, with sections T and RC at its eastern edge (the extent of unmarked burials along this eastern edge is unclear). The sections are divided by a grid of gravel driveways. Drainage ditches run alongside the driveways in places and may contain evidence of early drainage systems and pipes.
\nBurial plots all face east and are arranged in straight rows. Many are identified by a cast iron metal peg displaying a number that corresponds with the burial register. The cemetery includes single, double and family burial sites. There are a number of unmarked plots in between the established gravesites, the number varying across the sections. The largest areas of unmarked graves are located in the older sections, with very few headstones in sections G and H (containing non-Christians and paupers). A memorial for the people buried in unmarked graves is located on the northwest corner of Section F.
\nMature plantings around the perimeter of the monumental cemetery include very large figs trees (possibly Banyan Figs, Ficus benghalensis), stands of bamboo (Bambusa), and several varieties of pines, including Cypress (Cupressus sp.), Hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii), Norfolk Island (Araucaria heterophylla) and Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii). Feature trees and avenue plantings of a variety of species are also located throughout the cemetery, particularly along driveways. The driveway between the Walker Street entrance and the Mortuary Chapel is lined with large, mature shrubs (species undetermined), which are remnants of a former planting scheme.
\nThe cemetery contains many substantial headstones of high quality design and craftsmanship, dating from the 1860s to the present day. Many of these are excellent examples of the design work and craft skills of monumental masons. Materials used include marble, sandstone, granite, concrete and metal. The more elaborate memorials demonstrate a variety of monumental forms, including vaults, ledger stones, obelisks and sarcophagi. Grave surrounds such as concrete curbing and/or slabs are commonly used throughout the cemetery, occasionally decorated with ceramic tiles or painted. Other materials used to surround or fill a grave include stones, gravel and shells. Larger enclosures, such as family plots, are often delineated by low fences of cast or wrought iron, some of which are ornate. Others have low concrete posts with chains slung between them.
\nA wide range of Victorian and Edwardian-era memorial symbols are also on display throughout the cemetery, including Calvary crosses, Celtic crosses, draped urns, broken columns, anchors, mourning angels and cherubs, figures of Jesus and Mary, carved garlands, flowers (eg, passion flowers, lillies, roses etc.), stars, doves, ivy, clover, grapes, and clasped hands. Some ornamentation references the deceased's occupation, hobby or association with a particular society - such as a circular saw blade, rifle or a square and compass (Freemason’s symbol). There are also a variety of grave ornaments, including immortelles and urns for holding flowers, and large sea shells. Monuments in the mid to late-twentieth century sections tend to be more modest, with mainly upright slabs with concrete grave surrounds or slab-and-desk monuments. There are also a number of soldiers graves with plaques or standard marble headstones located throughout the monumental cemetery.
\nHeadstone inscriptions demonstrate a range of languages other than English, including Chinese and German. Some inscriptions include biographical information about the person's life or the circumstances of their death.
\nNon-significant elements within the monumental cemetery include post-1970s plantings (particularly Cadaghi trees, Corymbia torelliana) and modern signage.
\nMortuary Chapel
\nThe Mortuary Chapel is prominently sited at the intersection of two principal axes, in line with the Walker Street entrance. It stands between the earliest sections of four of the major denominations: sections C (Wesleyan Methodist), D (Presbyterian), E (Church of England) and F (Roman Catholic). The timber building comprises two intersecting barrel vaults, producing four identical round arched entrances. Surmounting the point of intersection of the vaults is a tall fleche, in the form of a tower and dome, which doubles the full height of the building. The vaulted parts of the building are constructed with timber-framed walls clad externally with horizontal timber chamferboards (weatherboards on the sloping surfaces of the tower) and internally with diagonally-laid tongue and groove boarding. The curved roofs of the vaults are clad with corrugated iron. The entrances are ornamented with wide, carved timber fascia boards which rest visually on timber piers flanking the entrances. Internally the ceiling space is lined with regularly spaced timber trusses in the vaulted sections, and lined with timber boarding over the intersection. Low timber bench seats run along the base of each wall.
\nThe timber tower is supported on heavy timber beams with brackets, found inside the chapel at the four corners of the central internal space. The tower has a rocket-like quality, as it tapers from an octagonal base to a narrower octagonal drum surmounted by an octagonal domed roof, clad with flat metal sheeting. On each face of the octagonal base and drum are round arched openings in-filled with small fixed timber louvres. Similar louvred openings are also found in each wall of the barrel-vaulted entrances.
\n‘Garden of Rest’ Lawn Cemetery (1960 - ), including the War Cemetery (1942-45)
\nThe lawn cemetery comprises rectangular grassed lawns divided by a grid of bitumen or gravel driveways. Access is via a main entrance gate at the western end of the front (Walker Street) boundary or a secondary driveway entrance at the eastern end, which leads to a small car park in front of a site office (c1993) and modern, metal-clad sheds. To the west of the car park along the front boundary are a War Cemetery and a Columbarium Section. To the east of the car park are two brick and fibro-clad residences with pyramid roofs. Both residences stand within a separate fenced yard. The cemetery reserve to the north and east of the residences remains undeveloped with remnant bush vegetation. The northwest corner of the 1960 lawn cemetery extent is a former garden area with a hip-roofed brick amenities and shelter block.
\nThe main entrance gates are constructed from orange brick, with metal gates attached to two high, tiered brick columns with a square profile and recessed ornamental panels. Low brick walls extend from either side for a short distance with pedestrian gates at either end. The metal pedestrian gates feature the lettering MCC (standing for Maryborough City Council).
\nIn five of the six lawn sections the graves are arranged in straight, regularly-spaced rows and marked with uniformly-sized, east-facing plaques set flat into the lawn. Plaques are made from a variety of materials, including granite and brass, and some have tiled borders. A more recently developed section in the northeast corner has plaques attached to concrete strips surrounded by a concrete border and filled in with gravel. Grave plaques in this section are either flat or raised on an angle, and many are ornamented with inset or placed vases.
\nThe War Cemetery is a small rectangular lawn area enclosed by shrubbery with a small brick gateway to Walker Street. The ten marble headstones are standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission designs, arranged facing east in a single row and standing within a continuous garden bed.
\nThe Columbarium Section occupies an oval-shaped area bordered by hedges and garden beds, with a flat-roofed, brick shelter shed in the centre. Standalone columbarium walls radiate out from the shed, the earliest of which are made from brick on a concrete base, while recent walls are of pale grey granite. The Columbarium Garden is a long rectangular area of lawn between the Columbarium Section and the main entrance drive. It comprises a small number of marked plots with concrete edging.
\nSeveral avenues and feature trees of various species have been planted throughout the lawn cemetery over time, most dating from the 1970s onwards. Some large gum trees and a pair of mature fig trees (species undetermined) survive along the Walker Street boundary.
\nNon-significant elements within the heritage boundary of the lawn cemetery include the chain link fence along the Walker Street boundary; the site office and sheds; the brick and fibro residences; recent garden beds; and modern signage, garbage bins and bench seating.
\n","history":"
Maryborough Cemetery was established in 1873 in the regional port town of Maryborough in the Wide Bay district. The cemetery demonstrates the evolution of burial practices from the 1870s to the present day, and includes a monumental cemetery (established 1873), a mortuary chapel (1883-84) designed by architect Willoughby Powell, a War Cemetery (1942-45) and a “Garden of Rest” lawn cemetery (established 1960).
\nMaryborough Cemetery is the third cemetery established in Maryborough. The first cemetery was part of the original Maryborough township (QHR 602393), which was located to the northwest of the current city centre on the bank of the Mary River. The township was occupied between 1848 and 1855 and the cemetery was situated on the high ground to the northeast of the settlement (near the intersection of Alice and Aldridge Streets). In 1850 government appointed surveyor Hugh R Labatt selected a new site for the town further downriver, as it was a more suitable location for a port. Both sites were surveyed in 1850 and the township of Maryborough was declared in 1851. The first blocks of the new town site (near the current Queen's Park, QHR 600708) were sold on 14 January 1852. As trade at the port of Maryborough grew the settlers gradually relocated there and the original township was virtually abandoned by 1856. A second cemetery was established within the bounds of the new town, in Kent Street.[1]
\nMaryborough was proclaimed a Port of Entry in 1859 and a municipality in 1861. An influx of immigrants, including many of Scottish, Scandinavian and German origin, began with the arrival of the \"Ariadne\" in 1862. Early exports from the port included wool, timber, tallow, sugar, and coal. Maryborough became the port for Gympie after gold was discovered there in 1867.[2] The sugar industry expanded around Maryborough (a mill was built in 1865), and a large timber mill opened. Sensing an opportunity, John Walker of Ballarat, Victoria, opened a branch engineering works, trusting that his experience with mining machinery would also bring contracts from Gympie.[3]
\nBy 1861 the location of the second cemetery was already considered unsuitable by the Municipal Council, due to the shallow depth of the soil, its small size and its close proximity to the town. According to Alderman Dowser, at a council meeting held on 3 July 1861, the site was “on a rocky ridge, and a very unpleasant odour arose in hot weather”. It was suggested by Alderman Howard that “they should imitate the practise now being adopted in England of removing cemeteries out of town”, and that they should postpose their decision to relocate the cemetery until a Bill for the regulation of cemeteries was passed by Parliament.[4]
\nDuring the eighteenth and nineteenth century European cemetery practices changed, with new cemeteries being established separately from churches and located away from town centres for reasons of hygiene and health. Cemeteries such as Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris (1804) were very influential, while in Great Britain a number of cemeteries were established by private companies. Cemetery planning also became important, with the grid plan predominating in Britain by the end of the 19th century. In broad terms, these were the traditions which were drawn upon in colonial Australia when makeshift graveyards were replaced by more planned arrangements. In Queensland the Cemetery Act 1865 provided for the establishment of general cemeteries under the control of local trustees – the model that was used to establish the third Maryborough Cemetery.[5]
\nA site for the new cemetery was selected in 1863. A report from the Cemetery Committee to the Council recommended section 169 on the north side of Kent Street, approximately 2.5 miles (4km) from the centre of town, comprising an area of 69 acres and 22 perches (approx. 28ha). The site was described as “beautifully situated, embracing as it does both sides of the hill, and having a very regular fall north and south”. The report was adopted after testing of the soil depth was undertaken.[6]
\nIt was not until 1871 that both the second cemetery and the new cemetery were officially gazetted as cemetery reserves. In the meantime, a board of Cemetery Trustees was appointed in September 1970, composed of representatives from the principal religious denominations in Maryborough. Works to prepare the new cemetery were underway by 1872, including tree clearing and plans to construct a “neat and ornamental” lodge for the sexton.[7]
\nThe new cemetery opened in June 1873, with the first burial taking place on 2 June (seven-year-old Ada Purser).[8] The second cemetery was closed by proclamation on 7 June.[9] The new cemetery originally occupied the central portion of the reserve, covering only about a third of its total area.[10] It was laid out in a grid of gravel pathways and divided into sections by denomination, including Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Wesleyan Methodist, Lutheran, and Baptist and Independent. Smaller sections at the rear (northern) end of the grounds were reserved for non-Christians (including Aboriginal, South Sea Islander, Chinese, Indian, Jamaican and Japanese people), paupers, suicide victims and executed criminals. The sexton’s cottage was located near the Kent Street entrance gate at the southern end.[11]
\nBy October 1875 the cemetery was well established with just over 500 burials, and its appearance received praise in the local newspapers. It was described as surrounded by a ‘sightly and substantial’ fence with an ornamental gate at the main entrance from Kent Street. A straight, broad, gravelled path divided the reserve into two parts, with space allowed for cross walks between the alphabetical divisions. Plantings included shrubs along part of the perimeter fence, different varieties of shade trees flanking the main pathway, and flower beds adjacent to the sexton’s cottage. An article in the Maryborough Chronicle commented that it did not have the usual “gloomy grotesqueness” of older cemeteries, conveying instead the impression of “…a cheerful and well-kept garden”.[12] A year later, improvements to the cemetery were carried out, including additional tree clearing, forming of the cross walks with space for trees and flowers along the borders, and the cutting of drainage ditches and a water race. The Trustees made an appeal to the public for donations of trees and plants to ornament the cemetery.[13] By February 1877 a gardener’s lodge had been added to the site, near the main entrance, and space had been reserved for the erection of mortuary chapels within each denominational section.[14]
\nDuring the 1880s the colony of Queensland prospered. The population of Maryborough and district grew dramatically between 1876 and 1881, and this continued into the late 1880s.[15] Maryborough's dominance as a regional centre was strengthened when a railway line connecting Gympie to Maryborough's port was completed in 1881.[16] The years 1870 to 1890 were extremely profitable for Maryborough and new commercial establishments, industries and financial and other institutions were established in the town. Many significant buildings were constructed, reflecting the prosperity of the times, including Maryborough Court House (1877, QHR 600714), the Bank of New South Wales (1877, QHR 600711), St Paul's Church of England (1879, QHR 600705), Maryborough Railway Station (1880, QHR 600702), Maryborough Grammar School buildings (boys' in 1881 and girls' in 1883, QHR 600697), the Criterion Hotel (1883, QHR 600719), Maryborough Hospital (1888, QHR 601907), and the Maryborough School of Arts (1888, QHR 600701) - as well as fine, architect-designed suburban villas for wealthy residents.[17]
\nThe 1880s saw significant changes and improvements to the new Maryborough Cemetery. In November 1882 the Maryborough Cemetery Land Sale Bill was assented to in Parliament, allowing the cemetery trustees to sell off the unused portion of the second cemetery for residential development. The land was auctioned in July 1883 and the proceeds from the sale were used to improve both cemeteries, including erecting an ornamental fence around the second cemetery, improving the existing buildings at the new cemetery site, and commencing plans for a mortuary chapel. [18]
\nAn article in the Maryborough Chronicle on 31 May 1883 expressed the Maryborough citizens’ desire for a mortuary chapel to provide shelter for mourners and be “a fitting ornament to the grounds”. In August 1883, plans to construct “a large octagonal mortuary chapel with open sides” were underway, and it was to be positioned “in the centre of the grounds, to where the paths through the different sections of the different denominations all converge.” In October 1883, tenders for the construction of a mortuary chapel and sexton’s cottage were invited by the architect, Willoughby Powell, and the successful contractor was Clement and Son. Construction of the chapel began in November 1883 and it was completed in 1884.[19]
\nThe architect, Willoughby Powell, was born in Cheltenham, England, in about 1848 and was articled to the Cheltenham City Architect before emigrating to Queensland where he worked for architect Richard Gailey. He joined the Public Works Department as a draftsman in June 1874 but won a competition for the Toowoomba Grammar School and left his government position to supervise the construction works in 1875. He maintained a practice in Toowoomba until 1878 before returning to practice in Brisbane in 1879. [20]
\nBetween 1882 and 1885 Powell worked in Maryborough, and during this time he designed many important buildings including Baddow House, the Royal Exchange Hotel, shops, the grandstand and stables at the Maryborough Turf Club, Tattersall's Hotel, Cafe Royal Hotel and a parsonage in Lennox Street. Powell again returned to practice in Brisbane in 1885 and designed the Warwick Town Hall and the third Toowoomba Town Hall. After the collapse of the local building trade in 1892 Powell remained substantially unemployed until he was again appointed to the Works Department in 1896 where he remained until 1902. Powell designed many fine buildings throughout Queensland and the Mortuary Chapel was one of the most unusual.[21]
\nMortuary Chapels are most commonly chapels associated with tombs located in a church, however it is also the term used to describe a cemetery chapel or other structure where “coffined bodies briefly lie before disposal”. As a building type this form of mortuary chapel is relatively rare. In some cemeteries, the mortuary chapel is located at the entrance to the cemetery grounds and is more typically a chapel, although the structure often also served as the vehicular access point. At Maryborough, although services were sometimes conducted in the Chapel, the predominant purpose was to provide shelter to funeral parties and the cortege. In some cemeteries, structures erected for similar purposes are more prosaically known as “shelter sheds”. The William Mitchner Shelter Shed (1926) at the Warwick General Cemetery, although quite a different style of building, shares some similarities with Maryborough. The octagonal structure is a single storey brick and cement building designed with bell tower and seating accommodation. A smaller masonry shelter shed (also dedicated to William Mitchner) was constructed at Allora Cemetery in 1926, with a square plan, gothic arched openings and windows, and a square timber steeple.[22]
\nThe Mortuary Chapel at Maryborough Cemetery was an intricate single-storey timber framed structure, cruciform in plan (two intersecting barrel vaults creating four transepts) with a domed tower (known as a fleche) at the centre. The tall rocket-like form of the fleche stood as a highly unusual folly in the generally flat cemetery grounds. The Chapel straddled the intersection of two cemetery roadways with arched openings large to admit a hearse and mourners. Timber fascias on the barrel vaulted, semi-circular arched openings and a horizontal band on the fleche were decorated with repetitive Gothic patterning and carving. The centrally placed chapel served all denominations, with the four entrances ensuring that each of the surrounding religious sections had equal access and ownership of the small chapel. [23]
\nIn addition to the construction of new buildings the cemetery layout also changed, with the Trustees announcing in October 1883 that they intended to move the main entrance from the south (Kent Street) boundary to the north (Walker Street) boundary. One likely reason for this was the construction of the Burrum Railway extension (formally opened 30 March 1883) which cut off the western end of Kent Street from the centre of town, making Walker Street the more convenient access road. The railway line ran close along the east side of the cemetery reserve and the northeast corner was resumed for railway purposes. Also in 1883, an addition of four acres on the opposite side of Walker Street was gazetted as cemetery reserve. This land was fenced and used as a parking area for visitor’s horses and buggies.[24]
\nThe location of the Sexton’s cottage designed by Powell remains unclear. The two cottages shown on an 1885 survey plan near the Kent Street entrance were probably the first sexton’s cottage and gardener’s lodge, both constructed in the 1870s.[25] Neither of these cottages survives, with one of them sold and removed from the site in 1930.[26] It is possible that the Powell-designed cottage was the one constructed on the north side of Walker Street within the 1883 cemetery reserve extension. Positioned directly opposite the main entrance gate, this residence was a timber building with an L-shaped verandah, surrounded by a fenced yard. It was demolished c1977 and two other residences (constructed between 1964 and 1977), a site office (c1993) and sheds have been constructed in the area.[27]
\nOrnamental plants were integral to the cemetery’s layout. The cemetery’s reputation as a beauty spot was due in a large part to its trees and gardens, the result of careful planning and maintenance by the sexton and cemetery gardeners. Sexton Harry Nicholas Hansen, who began working at the cemetery as a young man in the late 1870s, was renowned in Maryborough for the rose gardens he created at the cemetery and often exhibited his blooms at local flower shows.[28] When the Governor of Queensland, Sir Henry Wylie Norman, visited the cemetery in 1890 he was presented with a bunch of Hansen’s roses.[29] The cemetery trustees, all members of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society, undertook a planting program in 1886, and in 1891 the cemetery was described as “a paradise of flowers”. Tree plantings focussed primarily on the driveways and the perimeter of the cemetery, with photographs showing palms and pine trees used in early schemes.[30]
\nThe cemetery’s extensive collection of memorials and monuments dating from the 1870s provide important evidence of the social, demographic and cultural history of Maryborough and district. The early pattern of immigrant settlement is reflected in the numerous Scottish, English, Irish, German and Scandinavian names found on the headstones, as well as the many Chinese graves located throughout the cemetery.
\nMaryborough Cemetery is the resting place of many notable citizens of the town, such as Edgar Thomas Aldridge (1817-1888), pioneer of the original Maryborough township and owner of Baddow House (QHR 600690); Henry (Harry) Palmer (1822-1916), pioneer and first Mayor of Maryborough; William Simpson Sim (c1854-1929), pioneer of the Maryborough timber industry; Dave Weir (1881-1929), Labor Member for Maryborough; Andrew Dunn (c1854-1934), newspaper proprietor, former Mayor of Maryborough and Member of the Legislative Council; nurses Cecelia Elizabeth Bauer (1883-1905) and Rose Adelaide Wiles (1877-1905) who died from pneumonic plague after nursing a family of sick children; and Martin Geraghty (c1836-1904) and Patrick Brennan (c1845-1914), founders of an important Maryborough trading enterprise (Brennan and Geraghtys Store, QHR 600704).[31]
\nOther burials are associated with epidemics, accidents and disasters that affected the Maryborough community: victims of numerous industrial and railway accidents, for example seven men killed by a boiler explosion at Pettigrew and Sim’s Union Saw Mills in 1872; drowning victims such as 16-year-old John Barrett (died 1884) whose dinghy capsized in the Mary River; victims of horse and vehicular incidents, such three-year-old Muriel Ross who was thrown from a buggy (died 1897); several victims of an influenza epidemic in 1919; and victims of misadventure, such as brothers William and James Bayley who died in 1932 from accidental poisoning.[32] Graves of soldiers from World War I and later conflicts are also located throughout the cemetery.
\nCharacteristic of late-Victorian cemeteries, Maryborough Cemetery contains a wide variety of elaborate monuments that reflect popular taste at the time. The works of many notable monumental masons (both local and Brisbane-based) are represented, including: Andrew L Petrie (Brisbane); P J Lowther and Sons (Brisbane); J Simmonds (Brisbane); Webb and Gibbs (Kent Street, Maryborough); W Prout (Lennox Street, Maryborough); Henry Brereton (Kent Street, Maryborough); and J Knight (corner of Alice and John Streets, Maryborough).[33]
\nIn the early 20th century the cemetery continued to grow while its condition deteriorated. The Roman Catholic section (in the northeast corner) was extended to the east in 1904 as it had nearly reached capacity, and the (as yet unused) cemetery reserve on the north side of Walker Street was extended by 34 acres, 23 perches (13.8ha) in 1914.[34] In the 1920s the Cemetery Trust found it could no longer afford to maintain and operate the cemetery, and in late 1923 control of the cemetery passed to the Maryborough City Council. This coincided with the retirement of the sexton of 45 years, Harry Hansen.[35]
\nBetween 1907 and 1921, relatives of people buried at the closed second cemetery were given the opportunity by the Cemetery Trustees and Maryborough City Council to relocate headstones and remains to the current cemetery. The second cemetery site was later redeveloped as a public park (now the Elizabeth Park Rose Gardens).[36]
\nFrom c1928 a new main road was constructed from the northwest corner of the cemetery (the western end of Walker Street) northwest to Saltwater Creek, and in the late 1930s-early 1940s this road was upgraded to become part of the Northern Highway (renamed the Bruce Highway in 1944). [37] The cemetery reserve on the northern side of Walker Street was extended to the northwest in March 1939, increasing the total reserve area to its maximum extent of 324 acres (131ha), bounded by the Northern Highway to the west and the North Coast Railway to the east.[38]
\nIn 1939 an avenue of tall pine trees lining the driveway from the entrance gates to the Mortuary Chapel were removed due to an infestation of borers. The Maryborough Chronicle described the trees as well-known landmarks and noted that the Council intended to plant crotons and other shrubs in their place in an effort to beautify the grounds.[39]
\nA war cemetery was established in 1942 on the north side of Walker Street, to the west of the Sexton’s cottage. The original plan allowed for four plots of 64 graves each, however only ten servicemen, all of whom died between 1942 and 1945, were buried there. Initially marked by wooden crosses, these were later replaced with marble headstones of a standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission design. A timber picket fence was constructed along Walker Street in front of the cemetery. [40]
\nIn 1956 preparations for extending the cemetery on the north side of Walker Street began. The new section, covering approximately 30 acres (12ha) was to incorporate the “latest trends” in cemetery layout, based on Brisbane City Council cemetery examples. Rather than upright headstones, only ground-level “Garden of Rest” plaques would be allowed in the area fronting the road, and a “rest-room and hygiene block” was to be constructed within the grounds.[41]
\nResponding to international trends, a new type of cemetery emerged in the mid-20th century in Queensland that shifted burial practices away from traditional monumental cemeteries, which were difficult to maintain and vulnerable to vandalism, towards garden or lawn cemeteries. In 1949 the Queensland Government approved ordinances which allowed the Brisbane City Council, by resolution, to prohibit the erection of walls, fences, vaults, monuments or other structures in a cemetery. A memorial plaque, laid to ground level, was to become the standard in new burial grounds. Hemmant and Mt Gravatt cemeteries were selected for the new layout, and by the end of 1949 two sections of the Hemmant cemetery with an area for 3000 graves, were under construction. The Hemmant ‘Garden of Rest’ came into operation during the year 1952-53, and was described as presenting ‘a peaceful sylvan setting’.[42] It set the standard for cemetery design in the state, with existing cemeteries creating new “Garden of Rest” sections as they expanded.[43] Dedicated lawn cemeteries (without an earlier monumental section) appeared in the second half of the twentieth century.[44]
\nMaryborough’s lawn cemetery was laid out in large rectangular sections, separated by driveways and divided into two categories: Roman Catholic and Protestant. Graves were to be marked with regularly-spaced rectangular plaques set into the lawn. Several brick structures were constructed, including a wall and gates at the entrance to the main driveway in the southwest corner, a small gate to the War Cemetery, a brick amenities block in the northwest corner, and a shelter shed.[45]
\nThe Garden of Rest was officially opened in 1960.[46] While it remains predominantly open grass lawns, over time trees of various species have been planted alongside driveways and pathways and within some plots. A columbarium garden now surrounds the shelter shed, with the first columbarium walls constructed by 1969.[47] Over time, to distinguish between the two sections, the earlier cemetery south of Walker Street became known as the monumental cemetery.
\nBetween 1965 and 1980 the extent of the cemetery reserve along the eastern side of the monumental cemetery was gradually reduced by the construction of a road (now Kingston Drive, originally surveyed in 1928) and the excising of unused land for industrial purposes.[48] In 1969 a portion of the reserve was excised along the western boundary of the lawn cemetery as a reserve for a crematorium, which was constructed by 1977.[49] From the 1970s large numbers of trees (including Cadaghi’s, Corymbia torelliana) were planted along driveways and pathways within both the monumental and lawn sections.[50] Due to these trees causing damage to drainage pipes and monuments, as well as interrupting sightlines, many have since been removed.
\nIn 1983, its centenary year, the Mortuary Chapel underwent restoration works, which were funded by a grant of $15,000 to Maryborough City Council under the National Estate Programme. Restoration works included the repair and replacement of damaged timberwork, re-roofing and painting.[51]
\nToday the cemetery continues to be the main cemetery for Maryborough, with new sections of the lawn cemetery being developed in a variety of configurations. In 2004 approximately 44ha was excised from the northern end of the cemetery reserve, reducing the total area of the reserve to 67.26ha.[52] New signage has been erected at entrance gates and recently erected signage posts at the corners of each burial section in the monumental cemetery assist with navigation and interpretation of the site.
","criteria":"Maryborough Cemetery, established in 1873 as Maryborough’s third cemetery, illustrates the growth and development of Maryborough as a major port town in nineteenth century Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the pattern of establishing large public cemeteries in regional centres throughout Queensland following the passing of the Cemetery Act 1865.
\nThe layout of the cemetery and its wide variety of monuments demonstrates the evolution of nineteenth and twentieth century burial practices, as well as providing evidence of the occupations, social composition and demography of the Maryborough district, in particular the diversity of the town's cultural, religious and ethnic groups since the 1870s.
\nMajor improvements made to the cemetery in the 1880s are illustrative of a boom period in Maryborough’s history, with the large and elaborate Mortuary Chapel (1883-84), designed by noted architect Willoughby Powell, surviving as the most prominent reminder of this time.
|The Mortuary Chapel is an important example of a building type that is rare. Designed to provide shelter to funeral parties, the structure, with its tall tower, decorative timberwork and four entrances positioned over a main axis of the entrance drive, is unique in Queensland.
|Maryborough Cemetery has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of burial practices in a major Queensland centre from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century.
\nInvestigation of the sites of the first (c1873) and second (c1884) Sexton’s cottages have the potential to reveal information about this type of residence and the life and role of the Sexton in the management of cemeteries.
\nThe Cemetery contains monuments and grave surrounds from Maryborough’s second cemetery (1850s-1873) which may be the only surviving evidence of this earlier cemetery and therefore an important source of information.
\nMaryborough Cemetery also has the potential to reveal unmarked graves, outside the known extent of burial sections.
|Maryborough Cemetery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large public cemetery that has evolved over time. The progressive layering, development and diversity of styles of memorialisation contained within the cemetery, including the establishment of a lawn cemetery in the twentieth century, documents changing attitudes to burial practices and fashions in funerary ornamentation since the 1870s.
\nThe monumental cemetery (established 1873) is an excellent, intact example of a late-nineteenth century cemetery, retaining its original grid layout of driveways and pathways, separate denominational sections, mature trees, remnants of early planting schemes, and a variety of headstones and monuments that reflect the social, religious and architectural history of Maryborough from the 1870s to the 21st century.
\nThe Mortuary Chapel (1883-84), a fine and unique example of the work of architect Willoughby Powell, is intact, and continues to serve its dual role as an ornamental cemetery feature and a shelter shed for funeral parties and visitors. It retains its cruciform layout of four covered entrances, timber bench seating, decorative timberwork and domed tower.
\nThe War Cemetery (1942-45) is a modest, intact example of its type, illustrating the design principles of a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, comprising uniform marble headstones in a straight row set within manicured gardens, which serve to make a dignified and reverential memorial site.
\nThe Garden of Rest lawn cemetery (established 1960) demonstrates the twentieth century shift in burial practices towards cemeteries that were easier to maintain and more uniform in appearance. Remaining largely intact, it retains is rectangular layout of grassed lawns, regularly-spaced and uniformly-sized plaques set into the lawn or along concrete strips, mature trees, entrance gates, shelter shed and columbarium garden, and amenities block.
|Maryborough Cemetery has aesthetic significance as a picturesque landscaped site that creates an atmosphere conducive to repose and reflection that was, and remains, an essential part of the ritual of honouring and remembering the dead.
\nThe monumental cemetery possesses evocative qualities generated by extensive vistas framed by tree-lined drives and pathways; the formal grid layout and ordered arrangement of monuments and plaques; perimeter plantings of large, mature trees; remnants of early planting schemes; and the variety, age, quality and extent of the headstones and monuments.
\nThe striking Mortuary Chapel has strong landmark qualities, is highly ornamental, and acts as a focal point within the monumental cemetery. Picturesque views of the chapel are obtained along the driveways and from the various denominational sections through gaps in the trees.
|As Maryborough’s principal place of public burial since 1873, Maryborough Cemetery has a special association with the community for social and spiritual reasons. It forms an essential component of the ritual of honouring and remembering the dead which continues to be important to the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15465,"place_ref":600690,"name":"Baddow House","alternate_name":"Baddow House Maryborough","street_address":"366 Queen Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Baddow House is a large, two-storey residence with an extensive garden on the northern end of a ridge beside the Mary River, Maryborough. On two equal lots totalling 7284 m2, the land is bound on the north-western and south-western sides by treed parkland, on the north-eastern side by an unformed road reserve for Queen Street, and on the south-eastern side by Russell Street. The front of the house faces north-east to the road reserve and views to the Mary River are to the west.
The building is of brick construction rendered and scored to resemble ashlar coursing. It has a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a timber verandah with twin steel posts and decorative cast metal balustrade that wraps around the north-east, north-west, and south-west sides on both levels. The building, sitting within an established garden of lawns, trees, and garden beds, is in a Neo-Georgian style and the principal elevations are symmetrically composed. The house roof has three large, cement-rendered chimneys with mouldings and conical metal roof ventilators.
The north-eastern (front) elevation is viewed from the reserve of Queen Street below. A wide, central, cement-rendered stair leads from the garden onto the verandah. Flanking the entrance doorway and projecting onto the verandah are two octagonal bay windows rising across both levels with separate hipped roofs. Entrance is through a large round arched opening fitted with a panelled door surrounded by sidelight and a fanlight. The windows are large square headed openings fitted with double-hung, timber framed sashes.
The verandah is a reconstruction; has a timber floor, decorative cast-metal balustrade, frieze, and brackets; timber handrail; and panels of timber lattice screening the corners of the upper level. Under its own roof, the verandah wraps around to the symmetrical north-western elevation composed of three large windows and continues around onto the south-western elevation composed of one octagonal bay window and a secondary entrance via a central square-headed opening fitted with a panelled and glazed door surrounded by sidelights and a fanlight. The rear, south-eastern elevation, visible from Russell Street, has a central back door and a projecting service block at the eastern end containing laundry (ground floor) and bathroom (first floor). The laundry has large timber fixed louvred windows and the bathroom has small square-headed windows. The service block has a parapet roof that conceals a roof level water tank that supplied the rooms below. This tank was filled by a hand pump mounted externally on the wall at ground level which is connected to the underground beehive tanks nearby. The verandah on the upper level returns along the rear façade at the western end but it is narrower. Abutting the southern corner of the rear is a one-storey extension with hipped roofs and a large awning. This extension is designed to imitate traditional detail but is not of cultural heritage significance.
The plan of the two-storey part of the house is repeated on the two levels. A central, T-shaped hall provides access to the five main rooms and a decorative timber switch back stair with decorative turned balustrade and carved newel post finial provides vertical circulation. Generally, the interior walls are plaster with timber skirtings, timber architraves, and plaster cornices, all moulded. The floors and ceilings are timber boards. Internal doors are timber with four panels with bolection moulding and glazed horizontal-pivoting fanlights. The six fireplaces have moulded timber mantelpieces and metal fire surrounds and either a metal grate or stove. A timber partition of horizontal beaded boards divides the northern rooms on the upper level and this wall in the lower level contains large folding door with six panels with bolection moulding and matching timber panelling above the opening. The ceilings on the ground floor rooms are 4.2 m high with those of the first floor being 3.7 m high. The house contains cedar joinery throughout. The house contains much furniture and paintings brought into the house by the current owners. An octagonal side table and two framed paintings are in the dining room and may have been owned by the Aldridges. The Aldridge Collection is held by the Maryborough Military and Colonial Museum and contains domestic items donated to the museum by a member of the Aldridge family. It may give providence for the side table and paintings and also evidence of the domestic history of Baddow House.
The garden shows evidence of past landscaping including terracing for a past driveway and decorative cast-iron fence posts with chain link fence. There are two large brick underground 'beehive' water tanks in the grounds near the house. One is near the south-east side of the house and is 5.2 m in width and of a similar depth. The other is further down the bank in front of the house and is of a similar construction. A Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis) is planted near the front (northern) steps. Nothing of the other vegetation on the site is of cultural heritage significance.
Archaeological evidence may survive in the grounds or under the house that may provide information pertaining to the 1850s to 1880s occupation of the site by the first settlers in Maryborough or of earlier landscaping elements of the house.
","history":"Baddow House, Maryborough is a large brick residence constructed in 1883 for Edgar Thomas Aldridge and his family. It was designed by (at the time) Maryborough architect Willoughby Powell and constructed by local builder Fritz Kinne on high riverside land adjacent to the original site of Maryborough.
The original town of Maryborough, originally and unofficially called Wide Bay Village, was established on the Mary River approximately eight kilometres upstream from the current town centre. In August or September 1847 George Furber built a wharf and store on the southern bank of what was then generally called Wide Bay River. It operated as a reception centre for squatters running sheep in the area and primarily provided transport for wool. [1] The river was officially named Mary River on 7 September 1847 by Governor Sir Charles Fitz Roy [2] and the first shipment of wool was dispatched from the wharf in December 1847 [3].
Edgar Thomas Aldridge was born in Great Baddow, Essex, England in 1817 [4] and immigrated to Australia. Well born and educated, he became a hotel keeper [5] on the Macleay River near Kempsey, New South Wales from about 1843 and began a variety of business pursuits. In June 1849 [6] he married widow Maria Sarah Slater (nee Steele), a former convict. She had a child, Frederick Slater [7], from her previous marriage and Edgar and Maria had two children, Maria Rachael [8] and Harry Edgar [9]. In late 1849 the family moved to Maryborough. Edgar had visited the previous year to establish his businesses.
The Aldridges settled on the northern bank almost opposite Furber's wharf, establishing a store, wharves for timber and wool trading, and the settlement's first hotel, the Bush Inn. [10] Other settlers arrived and chose to settle near Aldridge. Furber then relocated his operations to the more popular northern bank.
The first years of settlement were extraordinarily troubled with deadly conflict between Europeans and Aborigines. [11] This situation discouraged settlement. Aldridge petitioned the New South Wales government to send extra troopers in order to encourage settlement. [12] The struggling settlement was officially named Maryborough on 23 January 1849.
In 1850 Surveyor HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to 'examine the River Mary ... to suggest ... the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other ... also ... point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation'. The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was already established but further east, a decision not well received by the existing settlers who had invested time and money into the original township. Immediately, a government wharf was established at the new location able to service larger ships than was previously possible, effectively ending further development of the old town. [13] Over the following decade the town relocated to its current location where it quickly thrived. The old town was abandoned and most of the buildings removed by 1856.
The Aldridges lived in their Bush Inn upon settling in Maryborough. Another child, Joey Edgar Aldridge was born in 1850 but died in 1851. At 1852 land sales of the new township, Edgar purchased many allotments in the new town and re-established his businesses there. In 1854 he purchased land at the old town including five allotments covering over 18,200 sqm. This land included part of a creek and the end of a spur of high land to the south. Aldridge built a timber slab house here. The land overlooked the nearby wharves and Aldridge's store and inn which soon ceased operation. The Aldridges cultivated extensive and productive gardens including experimental exotic species such as sugar cane, the first grown in the area [14]. This established the viability of what would become an important and profitable crop for Maryborough. By 1863 [15] the area was being called Baddow, presumably after the Aldridge house, but Aldridge letters and diaries call the area West Maryborough or The Old Town. The Aldridge finances improved rapidly with speculative land purchases and successful business ventures and in 1860 Edgar retired from business with management passing to his son Harry. [16] Edgar held the position of Alderman of Maryborough from 1861 to 1864 and 1865 to 1866.
The 1880s were prosperous for the colony of Queensland as migration and capital investment created unprecedented growth. [17] Maryborough's growth was based on its role as the main port and centre for an extensive pastoral industry in the Wide Bay district, a sugar industry in the immediate vicinity of Maryborough, the Gympie goldfields, a timber industry in and around the main waterways, coal mining at Burrum and manufacturing industries such as Walker's foundry. Maryborough's dominance as a regional centre was also strengthened by its role as the terminus for the railway line south to Gympie which was completed in 1881. [18] Many significant buildings were constructed in the late 1870s and 1880s in Maryborough including: Maryborough Court House (1877), Bank of New South Wales (1877), St Paul's Church of England (1879), Maryborough Railway Station (1880), Maryborough Boys Grammar School (1881), Criterion Hotel (1883), Maryborough Mortuary Chapel (1884), Maryborough Base Hospital (1888), and the Maryborough School of Arts (1888).
During Maryborough's prosperous period of the late 1870s and 1880s wealthy residents constructed fine, architect-designed suburban villas. During this period, the middle-class home was a stage for social ritual and was an outward manifestation of the occupant's status in the community. The middle-class desired to emulate the lifestyle of the English gentry. Suburban villas were often built on the fringes of established urban areas throughout the colony, remote from the town centres. [19] They are characterised by a semi-rural grandeur brought about by an elaborate and substantial detached house of a Classical style surrounded by a large restful garden. In Maryborough these included: villa for John Vivian Williams, Churchill Street (1879), Doon Villa (c.1882), Riversleigh, corner North and Elizabeth Streets (1882), villa for JE Brown, Woodstock Street (1882), villa for Robert Hart (1883), and Philadelphia Villa, corner Lennox and North Streets (1884).
Construction of Baddow House was begun in 1883. It cost approximately £6600 and replaced the previous Aldridge house except for the detached kitchen which was retained for use in the new house. It was designed by architect Willoughby Powell (c.1848-1920) who came to Maryborough in 1882 to capitalise on the building boom in the growing town. Powell was born in Cheltenham, England where he trained as an architect before immigrating to Queensland in 1872. He worked for Brisbane architect Richard Gailey before joining the Queensland Public Works Department in 1874. Powell won a competition for the design of the Toowoomba Grammar School (1875) and left the Department of Public Works to supervise its construction. Other examples of Powell's work include Warwick Town Hall (1888) and Toowoomba City Hall (1900). Baddow House for 'Maryborough's wealthiest resident' [20] was one of his first works completed during his three-year stay in Maryborough. He completed at least 14 projects including two other villas in the town [21] as well as shops, hotels, a mortuary chapel, and a parsonage. Baddow House was built by local builder Carl Friedrich 'Fritz' Kinne (1844-1929), a German immigrant who arrived in Maryborough in 1871. [22] Kinne was responsible for constructing many Maryborough buildings, including the extensions for St Mary's Roman Catholic Church for architect FDG Stanley in 1884, and was later elected Alderman (1890-98) and the Mayor of Maryborough (1895).
Maria Aldridge's health began to decline in the early 1880s and Aldridge diaries suggest she spent the majority of her last years at another Aldridge property at Booral, by the sea. She died at Booral 17 March 1886. Edgar paid for the construction of memorials to her within Maryborough - St Thomas's Church of England and a large free-standing bell tower for St Paul's Church of England - that were completed in 1887.
Edgar died 18 May 1888 in Baddow House. He was not a wealthy man by this time and when the house passed to his son Harry, who lived there with his wife Lappy and their children until his death 4 February 1910, in 1912 the Bank of New South Wales foreclosed on the property and disposed of it by auction. Lappy Aldridge and her children moved to the Booral property.
After the Aldridges, the house passed through many hands. First, it was transferred to Hugh Biddles in 1913 [23]. After his death in 1939, it was transferred to Ethel Stiler in 1942 [24]. Under her ownership the verandahs were removed and the grounds were cleared of gardens. [25] During the clearing of the gardens, a Canary Island Date Palm that survived from the Aldridge years was damaged in a rubbish fire. A photo taken during the latter years of the Stiler's ownership clearly shows the burnt stump has a regrowth shoot. Around this time the house is thought to have been used briefly as a girls' boarding house for St Mary's Catholic School, Maryborough. [26] Baddow House was transferred to the Crown in 1950 [27] with the intention of use as a migrant hostel. This never occurred and the house remained empty and unused and was greatly vandalised. [28] In 1954 the Boy Scouts Association of Queensland used Baddow House as their meeting hall [29]. By this time the kitchen that had been retained from the previous house had been demolished, although the cellar under it survived. [30] During the occupation by the Scouts some repair of the vandalism was undertaken by caretakers. [31] Allotments 1 and 2, upon which the house stands, were purchased in 1967 by Donald and Daphne Scott. [32]. The remainder of the estate land continues to be in Crown ownership and is part of the parkland reserved for the Old Maryborough Town Site. It was then purchased by John and Lois Hastings in 1973, John Stevens in 1981, Tony Nioa in April 1986, and then by Barrie and Janice Christison in November 1986. [33] The Christisons used the upper floor as their residence and opened the lower floor as a museum, displaying historical paraphernalia. In 1988 buried bricks were uncovered while building a car park. [34] These were considered to be from the cellar now buried and filled with earth. The opening of the house as a museum was well-published, popular, and successful. In this period when Maryborough was generally promoting itself as a 'Heritage City' the house gained a high profile within the local community which continues today.
In 2003 the house was purchased by Ian Russell and Anne De Lisle. The house underwent a substantial renovation during the following three years. Local architect, Marion Graham, managed the project which included concrete underpinning, repair of rendering internally and externally, rebuilding of verandahs, and the construction of a one-storey wing to the south corner containing kitchen, garage, study, and bathroom. With reconstruction, the interior is a combination of new and original fabric. This work included recovery, repair, and rehanging of the large folding cedar doors in the ground floor reception rooms; rebuilding fireplace surrounds; repair or replacement of cedar joinery, doors and windows rehung or replaced; floors and ceilings repaired with some replacements of boards; and the whole interior plastered and painted. The reconstruction of the verandah was done to the dimensions and character of the original. The gardens were extensively redeveloped and planted. Much of the renovation was done by local tradespeople. The book 'A Grand Passion: A memoir' by owner Anne De Lisle published in 2007 documents this period and the work undertaken and has raised the public profile of the house significantly.
Baddow House remains a private residence in 2011. Highly regarded by the local community, it is occasionally used as a venue for fundraising events.
Reference list
1. Matthews T. 'River of Dreams: A History of Maryborough and District.' Maryborough: Maryborough City Council; p.43.
2. ibid., p.42.
3. ibid., p.46.
4. Ryan TL. 'Residents of Wide Bay Village.' 1989; p.5.
5. Burn D. 'David Burn - journal of a voyage from London to Hobart in the barque Calcutta, 31 July-22 Nov. 1841, and journal, 1 Aug. 1844 - 19 Feb. 1845.' Sydney: State Library NSW; Transcript No. a1502115; Call Number B 190/2.
6. T Matthews, op.cit., p.50 and NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages, V1849 140 87/1849.
7. NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages, V1842 4526 121B/1842.
8. NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages, V1846 320 58/1846.
9. NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages, V1848321 58/1848.
10. T Matthews, op.cit., p.48.
11. ibid., p.52.
12. ibid., p.66.
13. ibid., p.83.
14. ibid., p.167.
15. The Courier, 'Maryborough: From our own correspondent.' 7 December 1863; p.2.
16. Maryborough Chronicle; 19 May 1888.
17. Evans R. 'A History of Queensland.' Melbourne: Cambridge University Press; 2007. p.108.
18. Riddell Architecture. 'Maryborough Heritage Centre: (former Bank of NSW) - Conservation Management Plan.' For Fraser Coast Regional Council; 2009. p.3.
19. Davies H. ‘The Hume Family of Toowoomba and Brisbane: A Case Study of Middle-class Social Mobility' [PhD thesis]. St Lucia Qld: University of Queensland; 2004. p.46.
20. Watson D, McKay J. 'Queensland Architects of the 19th century: A biographical dictionary.' Brisbane: Queensland Museum Publication. p.147.
21. Riversleigh House for John Walker, cnr. North and Elizabeth Streets built 1882 and Philadelphia Villa for Philip Heckscher, cnr. Lennox and North Streets built 1884. If these survive, both are less substantial than Baddow House.
22. Carl Frederich Kinne arrived 9 March 1871 aboard the Reichstag from Hamburg. Also onboard was Emilie Zegenhagen whom he married in October 1871 in Maryborough. Carl uses Fritz as his first name after landing in Maryborough.
23. Certificate of Title - Vol: S 1252 Fol: 79 Barcode: 11252079 No. 213589.
24. Certificate of Title - Vol: S 1252 Fol: 79 Barcode: 11252079 No. 213589.
25. De Lisle A. 'A Grand Passion: A memoir.' Sydney: Bantam; 2007. p.193.
26. Recollection of Barbara Anson, descendant of Aldridge.
27. Note added to survey plan by Labatt, 1851. Vol: 8 Fol: 46(3 or 8) M.1409.8.
28. A De Lisle, op.cit., p.193.
29. ibid., p.194.
30. ibid., p.194.
31. ibid., p.195.
32. Deed of Grant of Land, 12 October 1967. Vol: S 4092 Fol: 47 Barcode: 14092047.
33. Deed of Grant of Land, 12 October 1967. Vol: S 4092 Fol: 47 Barcode: 14092047.
34. Courier Mail; 14 Jun 1988. p.23.
","criteria":"Baddow House, Maryborough (1883) provides evidence of the development of regional Queensland during the economic boom of the 1870s and 1880s when Maryborough, already a busy port, became a major regional town and agricultural, pastoral, industrial, and commercial centre for Queensland.
The place, combined with surviving documentary and photographic evidence, contributes to our understanding of the way of life of wealthy families in the establishment and development of major regional towns.
|Baddow House has the potential to reveal further information about domestic life of wealthy regional Queenslanders in the 1880s through an examination of the existing fabric in combination with documentary evidence. In particular, the examination of the water reticulation system, including beehive water tanks, hand pump, and rooftop tank, which is a rare and early hydraulic system, may provide further information regarding the technical accomplishments in providing domestic services that were sophisticated for the time.
Baddow House has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the effects of the 1870s-1880s economic boom on an important early regional Queensland community. Baddow House has potential to contain important subsurface archaeological features and deposits from the 1850s to the early 20th century. This may include evidence associated with the second Baddow House (c1854-c1883), the construction and design of the extant house and early gardens, and its ownership by two generations of the Aldridge family. Archaeological investigations of Baddow House may inform on consumption choices and patterns of the Aldridge family before, during and after the 1870s-1880s boom period. These investigations may provide an important insight into the perceptions of class and taste over an extended time and in a period of important social and economic change in Maryborough.
|Baddow House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, architect-designed Queensland suburban villa of the late 19th century. These characteristics include: the form (detached, two-storeyed); structural materials (brick); planning of both the house (public rooms downstairs, attached rear service rooms, bedrooms on the upper floor, and verandahs) and the grounds (siting of the house overlooking the river amongst landscaped gardens); and decorative detailing and finishes (including external render, internal plaster, ornate cedar joinery, panelled doors, stained glass). The place evokes a strong sense of grace, genteel languor, tranquillity and seclusion through its setting - a characteristic of the original design which rarely survives at other suburban villas in Queensland.
It is a fine example of the work of Queensland architect, Willoughby Powell and of Maryborough builder Fritz Kinne, both skilled professionals, prominent and successful within their fields.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15466,"place_ref":600691,"name":"Post Office Hotel","alternate_name":"Post Office Hotel Maryborough","street_address":"Bazaar Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Post Office Hotel is a two storeyed brick building, with cantilevered first floor verandah, located prominently on the corner of Wharf and Bazaar Streets, Maryborough.
Principal facades address both streets, with entrance to the accommodation and dining rooms from Wharf Street and the access to the incorporated ground floor shops from Bazaar Street. The external walls to the street, of bagged and painted brick, are surmounted by a partially rendered brick parapet, concealing a hipped corrugated iron roof. The truncated corner of the hotel is emphasised by a signage panel, projecting beyond the parapet, with "POST OFFICE HOTEL - 1889", surmounted by an open-topped pediment. The parapet features rosettes above moulded string courses supported on paired plaster corbels. Several rendered finials are placed along the parapet, with a slightly larger feature one on each elevation emphasising the principal entrance from that side. The building rests on a rendered masonry base, though which ventilation holes are punched.
The cantilevered verandah, extending the entire length of the principal facades, has a bull-nosed awning supported on reeded cast iron columns, and featuring cast iron frieze and brackets. The timber slatted balustrade is a replacement. The rear of the building has a two storeyed post supported verandah, onto which internal rooms are accessed.
Openings to the ground floor have moulded plaster surrounds, and retain some early joinery and leadlight glazing, although there are some replacement louvres. First floor openings are generally inward opening, half glazed, french doors with operable fanlights above.
Internally, the ground floor comprises the public bar, shops, and entrance and stair halls off which the dining room is accessed. The dining room is clad with timber sheeting, and the beaded board ceiling features cast iron ceiling roses. A carved timber chimney piece, complete with cast iron fittings remains intact, though painted. The public bar has been substantially altered although an early glazed door remains.
The cedar, three-quarter-turn open well stair features fine turned balusters, carved newel and turning posts, and a swan-necked handrail. The first floor comprises many timber framed accommodation rooms clad with tongue and groove boarding and accessed from a central corridor featuring plaster arches and skylights at various intervals. This floor remains substantially intact, in planform and fabric, with early joinery, glazing, timber floors and internal fittings.
","history":"The Post Office Hotel was built in 1889, for Messrs Hanley and Williams of Maryborough to a design of Victor Emmanuel Carandini, a Brisbane architect. The building replaced a previous single storeyed building on the site, also called the Post Office Hotel.
The land on which the Post Office hotel was constructed was originally acquired by ET Aldridge by a Deed of Grant in May 1852. The original one storeyed masonry Post Office Hotel was constructed in about 1870 one year after the construction of the adjacent Maryborough Post Office, after which it was named. Aldridge retained the site until 1878 when it was sold to Mr John O'Brien, and Messrs Hanley and Williams acquired the property by 1889.
By this time, the Licensing Authority operating within the Maryborough district, under the provisions of the Licensing Act of 1885, were becoming more strict with the licensees of hotels about the condition of the buildings and provision of services. In May 1889 the licensee of the former Post Office Hotel, GW Gaynor was refused a further annual licence for the single storeyed building which then existed, and it was then decided by the owners, Messrs Hanley and Williams, that a new building was needed.
On August 7, 1889 the tender of Mr Murray, a local builder, was accepted to construct a new two storeyed building to the designs of Victor Emmanuel Carandini, an architect from Brisbane. A substantial brick building was constructed in 1889 and this is the date indicated on the entrance corner parapet.
The early post supported verandah which lined the two principal facades of the building, was replaced with a cantilevered version, in line with a general movement in Maryborough to modernise the central business area in the 1930s by replacing all post supported awnings with cantilevered alternatives. The early verandah extended on the ground floor to the street line and was supported on cast iron columns, and featured cast iron brackets and frieze. The upper floor, which has also suffered modernisation, retains the bull nosed awning, but originally had slender turned timber balusters and timber venetian blinds on the outside edge.
","criteria":"The Post Office Hotel, which has been operating since about 1870 in varied when the town prospered as a major port.
|The building displays the principal characteristics of a Queensland country town hotel, in its corner situation, verandah arrangement and internal planning.
|The hotel is significant for its contribution to the Wharf Street area of Maryborough, and is a good substantially intact example of Queensland hotel architecture.
|As an operating hotel and public centre for about 125 years the Post office Hotel is significant for its value to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15467,"place_ref":600692,"name":"St Marys Roman Catholic Church","alternate_name":"St Mary's Roman Catholic Church | St Marys Catholic Church","street_address":"271-275 Adelaide Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Mary's Church is centrally located in metropolitan Maryborough. The complex comprises the stuccoed masonry church, stone and concrete grotto, and two modern steel and canvas shelters.
The nave of St Mary's runs north west/south east on the block between Adelaide and Bazaar Streets with pedestrian access provided from both of these streets. The principal entrance to the complex is via Adelaide Street, at which end is the entrance of the church, with the chancel end of the building, and transepts at the Bazaar Street end. The building has a steeply pitched gabled roof, and with gothic accoutrements and essentially cruciform plan formed by the long nave and intersecting transepts, the building conforms with many of the ideals of gothic ecclesiastical architecture.
The principal façade of the building comprises the centrally located gable end of the building, abutted to the north east by a smaller gabled section surmounted by a small plaster statue of a rooster. On the face of the main gabled bay is a centrally located entrance formed by a gabled porch, surmounted by a statue of Our Lady and flanked by plaster moulded pinnacles. Above this is a large traceried stained glass window of five lancets with foils above. The roof is concealed by a moulded string coursed parapet which encircles the building. Surmounting this parapet on the central gable of the front of the building is a Latin Cross.
St Mary's Church has a seven bay nave, defined by internal columns supporting a nave arcade of pointed arched openings above which are small quatrefoil opening within triangular recesses forming the clerestory of the building. Around the altar the order of architecture changes to classical and, as a continuation of the nave arcade, Corinthian columns support an entablature to create the chancel space. On the entablature are painted, in relief lettering, several religions phrases in Latin, and this writing continues around the cornice line of the transepts at this end of the building. In one of the transepts is a large organ.
","history":"St Mary's Roman Catholic Church was constructed in several stages and incorporates the first permanent Roman Catholic church in Maryborough started in 1869 to a design of Charles Tiffin. The building was enlarged in two major stages of construction, the first in 1884-5 to the design of FDG Stanley and then in 1936 to the design of local architect, POE Hawkes.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed. As part of the survey two acres of land, through which a creek ran, in Section 85 was set aside for the Roman Catholic Church.
To service the early Roman Catholic community in Maryborough, Father James Hanley from Brisbane, visited Maryborough and held Baptismal services. The first service was held in August 1852 in the house of the local chief constable. Towards the end of the 1850s the town of Maryborough developed with the erection of several public buildings including churches, and in 1856 a decision was made by the catholic community to erect a timber building to house 300 people. The tender of Linklater and Thompson was accepted and the church was ready for use in 1858, though not on the reserved site which was subject to flooding. A new site had been donated to the church by James Cleary and this has remained the principal catholic church site in Maryborough. The timber building was erected principally as a school house, but used as a service centre when Hanley's replacement, Dean Rigby visited Maryborough.
After the formation of the State of Queensland in 1859, the Roman Catholic Church formed the Brisbane Diocese encompassing the entire state. Bishop Quinn was appointed and he arrived in his diocese in 1861 and immediately made plans to visit the populated areas, including Maryborough. He arrived in the town on 25 July 1861 with two fellow priests, one of whom, Father Tissot, remained in Maryborough as the first Parish Priest.
By 1867 Father Tissot and his congregation considered the timber building inadequate as their church and steps were made to construct a new permanent church. It was in this year that gold was found in Gympie and the development of Maryborough, as the port of the gold fields, was rapid. The services of Brisbane architect, Charles Tiffin were procured to design the new brick church and the foundation stone was laid on 29 July 1869. Tiffin was a well known public architect who was appointed to the position of Clerk of Works of Moreton Bay in 1857 and in 1859 he became the first Queensland Colonial Architect and was responsible for the design of many well known Brisbane landmarks, including Old Government House, Parliament House and the (now demolished) Public Lands Office. He also designed several buildings in Maryborough including the Government Bond Store in Wharf Street and the Post Office.
St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, as it became known, was completed and opened at a service conducted by Father Tissot on 4 February 1872. The building was constructed by local contractors G Smith and J Thomas under the supervision of WN Davidson. When completed, the church was described as Early English and of brick with stone quoining and detailing. The building had a steeply pitched gabled roof clad with shingles. Side aisles extended the length of the four bay nave and these were lined with double lancets. The plan incorporated a small porch, chancel and two sacristies. Father Tissot landscaped the grounds surrounding the church and provided the a chancel screen and other timber panelling carved by himself. He is thought to have been involved with the design of the high altar and the carved timber canopy, or baldacchino above the altar. Provision was made in the design for extension of the church at a later date.
On 21 November 1882, at a meeting presided over by the new Bishop, Robert Dunne, a decision was made to extend St Mary's. The services of Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley were sought and plans for alterations were prepared and the church was re-opened in May 1884. The contractor for the work was Fritz Kinne at a cost of £1871. The additions included the extension of the nave by three bays and the erection of a large chancel. The roof was reclad with slate and several ventilation gablets were added near the ridge. Internally the church was painted by Messrs O'Malley and Mill. A new set of Stations of the Cross from Lyons, described as oleographs or coloured lithographs printed with oil paints, were framed in gold.
During the nineteenth century the Roman Catholic Church in Maryborough continued to grow with several outbranches of the parish established in surrounding areas. A large presbytery, convent and school were constructed. In 1912 a new organ and blower, costing £900, were installed in the gallery of St Mary's.
Substantial alterations were made at St Mary's in 1936 to the design of innovative local architect, POE Hawkes and carried out by contractor, Herbert Neilson for £7000. Again, the length of the building was extended, north and south chancels were added, as were sacristies, confessionals and a Baptistry. The organ was moved from the gallery and placed in the Sacred Heart transept. Externally, the building was rendered and an entrance was formed from Adelaide Street, where previously access was provided only from Bazaar Street. A marble high altar was made by local craftsman, Mr Prout. A cock was added to the western gable of the church reflecting the French ties of Monsignor MacCarthy, the then parish priest. Cocks were traditionally added to the roofs of French churches to symbolise resentment over Italian dominance of the papacy.
Minor alterations have been made to the church since 1936, including the recladding of the roof with tiles and rib and pan roofing in two stages in 1959 and 1967. A section of the timber floor of the body of the church was replaced with concrete in 1979, followed by work in 1980 to stabilise foundations in the north western corner. A porch was constructed on the northern transept in 1987 and the timber canopy over the high altar was removed in 1989.
","criteria":"St Mary's Church the principal Roman Catholic Church in Maryborough illustrates the growth of the town from a small port to a large regional city. The church demonstrates the development of the catholic church in regional Queensland, from the establishment of centres in major regional towns in the mid nineteenth century to upgrading facilities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|The building is a characteristic example of a large regional Roman Catholic Church, with substantial sections dating from the nineteenth century and sympathetic early twentieth century additions.
|St Mary's has aesthetic and architectural merit as the work of a group of talented architects, forming a well composed building on a prominent Maryborough site. The building features fine craftsmanship, particularly the marble high altar, stained glass windows, Stations of the Cross and joinery.
|The building has important spiritual associations with the Roman Catholic community in Maryborough as their place of public worship for 125 years and has association with many of the parish priests who were responsible for adding to or altering the building.
|The building has associations with architects, Charles Tiffin and FDG Stanley and with POE Hawkes, an innovative Maryborough architect.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15468,"place_ref":600693,"name":"Australian Joint Stock Bank (former)","alternate_name":"Office of Sport and Recreation | Union Bank | Department of Primary Industries Building","street_address":"331 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Australian Joint Stock Bank is a prominent building in Maryborough, located on the corner of Richmond and Kent streets in the central business district of the town. The building comprises a two-storeyed section to Kent Street with a one storeyed wing to the rear, accessed from Richmond Street.
The brick load bearing building has stuccoed façades to Kent and Richmond Streets. Centrally located on the Kent Street façade is the principal entrance bay, comprising a two-storeyed recessed porch, broken at first floor level by a heavy entablature which lines the two principal façades of the building. Framing this recess are two sets of columns, Doric order at the ground floor and Corinthian order on the first floor. The ground floor has a smooth rendered base, above which the body of the walls are rusticated, with centrally located round arched window openings to both floors. The upper floor has paired Corinthian pilasters which frame the face of the sections flanking the entrance bay. Seemingly supported on the pilasters and the attached columns of the central bay on the first floor, is a dentilled entablature surmounted by a decorative parapet, with central triangular pediment flanked by balustraded sections over the side bays. Terminating the parapets are urns at each end. A steeply pitched, corrugated iron clad, mansard roof is partially concealed behind the parapet.
The Richmond Street façade of the building continues the architectural motifs of the Kent Street elevation, although the construction of a later verandah entailed the removal and replacement of some details on this elevation. Abutting the rear of the two-storeyed section of the former Australian Joint Stock Bank is a two-storeyed timber framed verandah, enclosed at the first floor and with deep scalloped frieze to the ground floor level. A single-storeyed section of the building to the rear of the Richmond Street elevation is constructed of painted and bagged brick and has a simple gabled roof and timber-framed verandah.
Internally the building has timber boarded floors and plastered ceilings and walls. Many internal alterations have occurred.
","history":"This bank building was constructed in Maryborough in 1882 as the third branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank to the design of prominent Queensland architect, Francis Drummond Grenville (FDG) Stanley.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow.
In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. [1] During the 1860s and 1870s it flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century.
During the 1860s and 1870s, many banking institutes established purpose-built premises from where they conducted business. One of the first banks established in this town was the Australian Joint Stock Bank which opened a branch at the corner of Kent and Richmond streets in 1864.
Floods in the 1870s destroyed the first Australian Joint Stock Bank and the building was rebuilt. By 1880 this rebuilt structure was considered uninhabitable and steps were made toward construction of yet another building.
FDG Stanley was the architect for the new building and he is known to have designed branches of the Australian Joint Stock Bank in Gympie, Mackay, Ravenswood and Townsville, as well as additions to the Rockhampton branch. The contractors for the project, local builders, French and Crystall, submitted a tender for £5378 which was accepted and it is thought the construction commenced in mid 1882. In August 1882 reports of the progress of building works appeared in the Maryborough Chronicle: ‘the AJS Bank premises are currently being pulled down to make way for a larger and finer edifice more in keeping with its rivals, a hint which might be taken by the owners of other somewhat insignificant buildings.'
A fine two-storeyed masonry bank was constructed with strong classical influences conveying the values of tradition and strength historically identified with this style of architecture. As part of the project a two-storey extension was constructed along Kent Street to house the local branch of popular Queensland department store, Finney Isles and Co. Along Richmond Street there was a one-storey bank manager's residence.
Maryborough was the birthplace of Helen Lyndon Goff who under the name PL Travers authored the well known Mary Poppins series of books. Her father was Travers Robert Goff, the manager of the Australian Joint Stock Bank at the time of her birth on 9 August 1899. A bronze statue at the front of the former bank commemorates Travers and her literary achievements. [2]
The bank continued in this branch until 1901 when it closed. By 1906 the premises had been leased to the Union Bank with a right to purchase the property, which was exercised in 1912. By 1924 a verandah had been constructed to the Richmond Street side of the building, requiring the removal of cornices and string coursing and the lengthening of several window openings to house French doors.
In 1952 the Union Bank merged with the Bank of Australasia to form the Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) Bank, which operated in Maryborough from the Bank of Australasia's premises. The former Union Bank was therefore offered for sale again and the Queensland Government purchased the building for $12,000 to house the local regional office of the Department of Primary Industries. Subsequently, the building became the home of the Office of Recreation and Sport, with the Correctional Services Department leasing space on the upper floor. It is now privately owned and houses a retail business.
References
Ref. 1 Extracted from the Walker's Shipyard history prepared by Brian Sinclair [Reported Place in CHIMS, Site ID 31936].
Ref. 2 Jan Downman; Louise Anemaat, 'Biographical Note', Guide to the papers of PL Travers in the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, (State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 1991).
","criteria":"Built in 1882 as the local branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank, this building illustrates the growth of Maryborough during the nineteenth century.
|The Australian Joint Stock Bank (former) is characteristic of a two-storey masonry bank, designed with a strong influence of classical architecture manifesting authority and strength, traditionally associated with financial institutes.
|The Australian Joint Stock Bank (former) is well composed and has considerable architectural merit. It is a landmark in Maryborough, contributing to both the Kent and Richmond Street streetscapes. The building is a good example of the commercial work of FDG Stanley and is associated with him.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15469,"place_ref":600694,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":"Woodstock House | Burrum Shire Council Chambers","street_address":"327 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Woodstock House is a substantial two storeyed rendered brick building prominently located in the Maryborough town centre at the corner of Kent and Richmond Streets. Principal façades of the building address both streets.
The principal façades of the rectangular planned building are elaborate essays in classical architecture, comprising five bays on the long side, addressing Richmond Street, and three bays to the shorter Kent Street elevation. The bays of the building are defined by double storeyed height pilasters with Corinthian order capitals which are square planned, except those flanking the Kent Street entrance that are round planned. The square planned columns are paired flanking the central Richmond Street bay. The pilasters support a detailed entablature with a projecting cornice with stylised Corinthian order detailing, including dentil mouldings and modillions (or small scrolled bracket giving the impression of supporting another projecting moulded band of the cornice). Surmounting the cornice of the building is an Italianate parapet, formed by a balustrade of elongated urns separated with panels aligned with the pilasters on the face of the building. On the parapet over the two central bays are flat rendered brick panels. The principal entrance to the building, from Kent Street, is through an aedicule or framed opening comprising two columns supporting a round headed pediment. More simple versions of these openings line ground floor in each of the other bays, although the smaller versions do not support a pediment, only an entablature. Above these openings are first floor window openings which are surrounded by architraves. At the corners of the buildings these openings have a blank Italianate balustrade at base level and are surmounted by triangular pediments. The openings in the central bays of each elevation are surmounted by round arched pediments, similar to those in the central bays of the ground floor.
The faces of the building which do not have street frontage are smooth faced and are lined with double storeyed timber framed verandahs which are infilled on the upper floor.
","history":"The Queensland National Bank (former) is a substantial two-storey masonry building designed in a classical revival style. Originally constructed for William Southerden in c.1863 to a design by Brisbane builder, James Treevan, the building was substantially reconstructed for the Queensland National Bank (QNB) in 1914-15 to the design of architect, Frederic Herbert Faircloth.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow.
In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. [1] During the 1860s and 1870s it flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century when the QNB building was constructed.
The QNB was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous nineteenth century banks. Established in March 1872 by a prominent and influential group of Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen anxious to secure development capital free from overseas or intercolonial control, the bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage including in 1879 when it secured all of the Queensland Government's banking business. The bank's first offices were opened in Queen Street, Brisbane in 1872. By the 1880s QNB dominated the colony's economy.
The land on which this former bank stands was originally granted to Edmund Blucher Uhr in 1852. By 1863, the land was in the possession of Maryborough businessman William Southerden. [2] That year, he accepted a tender for £2000 to erect a two-storey brick store covering an area of 60 feet (18 m) by 30 feet (9 m). The Maryborough Chronicle (9 June 1864) described the building as follows: ‘On the ground floor is first, on entering, a large store forty-two by thirty feet (13 m by 9 m); at the back of this a capacious office and private room; on the upper storey, which is reached by an easy flight of stairs, is one large room intended for reserve stock. The appearance of the building from Kent Street is very chaste, and from its loftiness very imposing. The lower part is furnished with two large plate-glass windows, surmounted by a handsome cornice, and above this are three sash windows, each having a single sheet of glass, and on the Richmond Street side five similar windows. The front towards Kent Street is stuccoed.' [3]
In 1872, the recently formed QNB acquired the land. [4] However, the bank did not operate from Southerden's former store but initially occupied a small timber building to the rear and then a purpose-built bank (no longer extant) facing Richmond Street. The bank leased the former store on the corner of Richmond and Lennox Streets to Stoward, Bryant and Co. and subsequently a number of other commercial operations before finally moving into the building in 1903. [5]
In 1914, the bank embarked on a substantial reconstruction of the building to the design of FH Faircloth. The Maryborough Chronicle (16 May 1914) reported that the original building would ‘form the base or skeleton of improvements and alterations that will completely transform the appearance of the old structure ...' A later article (15 June 1915) described the work as ‘dismantling and re-erection'. The reconstructed building occupied the same area as the previous building and the upper level window openings were located in the same positions.
The Chronicle described the completed building as follows: ‘The main building has a frontage of 33 feet (10 m) to the main street, with a depth of 60 feet (9 m) to Richmond Street, all of the work being done in cement on concrete foundations. The bricks used for the street frontages are of a reddish colour with white 'tuck' points, while the sand-stone coloured entablature, mouldings and embellishments form a fine set off to the effective looking Corinthian columns set on solid pedestals and extending to the full height of the two storeys, the extremities of the columns themselves being surmounted with beautiful entablatures and enriched cornice, further relieved with medallions and mouldings. Artistic effect is given in a lesser order in the Ionic style introduced on the line of the first floor, with small cornice and entablature butting into Corinthian columns and supported by Ionic columns and pilasters. The main entrance is attractively treated with Ionic columns and arched pediments whilst the windows on the first floor are also nicely relieved in fine architectural work. To save space the main entrance doors slide into recesses in the brick. Considerable artistic attention has been given to the general furnishing of the inside of the building, the walls being all finished in King's cement with appropriate colourings and the ceilings of stamped steel with very effective designs. The large banking chamber just inside the main entrance door facing Kent Street, has a length of 42 feet (12.8 m), and a width of 27 feet (8 m). The floor is tile covered, picked out in fine designs, whilst a beautiful semi-circular counter and partitions have been installed, the joinery work having been done by Messrs. James Fairlie and Sons. The effect in the room is enhanced by the antique copper gas pendants fitted up by plumbing sub-contractor, Mr W Wells. On the right hand side of the main door, connected with the banking chamber, is the manager's office, with a door leading therefrom to the chief office further back. Behind the banking chamber are the strong room and stationary room, with a passage leading to the clerks' entrance. On the Bungalow (south eastern) side is the entrance hall and a stairway leading to the upper storey. From the entrance hall access is gained to a large dining hall. The rest of the residential portion of the building is nicely furnished and well laid out with fine balconies on the eastern side and at the back of the premises.' [6]
The main contractor was NC Steffensen who had tendered to complete the work at a cost of £2997. [7] The bank moved into the new premises on 14 June 1915. [8]
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building there. He was also to have a major effect on the appearance and character of Childers where he was engaged to design replacement buildings after much of the main street was destroyed by fire in 1902.
In 1919 the block was subdivided and in 1922 the Bank of Queensland, formed in 1917 by an amalgamation of the Bank of North Queensland and the Royal Bank, merged with the Queensland National Bank. In 1949 a new title for this property was issued to the National Bank of Australasia Limited following a merger with the Queensland National Bank. These mergers meant that many bank buildings became surplus to requirements and in 1966 this one was sold to the Burrum Shire Council for use as their council chambers.
The Burrum Shire was formed in 1917 by the amalgamation of the Shire of Pialba, part of the City of Maryborough and parts of the Shires of Antigua and Howard. The Burrum Council met at first in the Maryborough Town Hall and then in a number of other Maryborough town venues. A building purpose-built for the council in 1938 was rapidly deteriorating by the early 1960s and alternative accommodation was needed, which prompted their move to the former bank building, which was prestigious in appearance and centrally situated. The Burrum Shire Council was formally decommissioned in 1976 when the building was sold into private ownership and used for office tenancies.
The name Woodstock House, which currently appears on the building's parapet, was given to it in the 1970s when it was purchased by doctors E Dunn and K Pearson for use as a surgery; Woodstock being the name of Dr Dunn's home in Lennox Street at the time. Major restoration work was carried out on the building after 1999 when the bricks were stripped and the columns were painted. [9]
References
Ref. 1 - Extracted from the Walker's Shipyard history prepared by Brian Sinclair [Reported Place in CHIMS, Site ID 31936].
Ref. 2 - This is not indicated in the historical title search but is supported by historical photographs and the Maryborough Chronicle (9 June 1864 and 19 November 1872). It is possible that the land was leased to Southerden.
Ref. 3 - Maryborough Chronicle, 9 June 1864, cited in 'A History of owners and occupants of Woodstock House', Jan Downman (unpublished paper).
Ref. 4 - Certificate of title and Maryborough Chronicle 19 November 1872.
Ref. 5 - Maryborough Chronicle 19 November 1872, 14 June 1873; Historical photographs and Maryborough Chronicle 11 February 1889, October 26 1886, cited in 'A History of owners and occupants of Woodstock House', Jan Downman (unpublished paper).
Ref. 6 - Maryborough Chronicle 15 June 1915, cited in 'A History of owners and occupants of Woodstock House', Jan Downman (unpublished paper).
Ref. 7 - NC Steffensen was responsible for the East Water Tower in Bundaberg, which is the only part of the 1902 Bundaberg Water Works scheme remaining and is entered in the QHR (600369). A Heritage Marker from the Queensland Division of Engineers Australia was placed at the tower in March 2011 to acknowledge its historical and technological importance [information viewed in March 2012 at http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/queensland-division/welcome-queensland-branch-webpage].
Ref. 8 - Maryborough Chronicle 15 June 1915, cited in 'A History of owners and occupants of Woodstock House', Jan Downman (unpublished paper).
Ref. 9 - 'A History of owners and occupants of Woodstock House', Jan Downman (unpublished paper).
","criteria":"The Queensland National Bank (former) (1914-15) is significant for demonstrating the growth of Maryborough during the early twentieth century as the centre of a large primary industry and manufacturing region.
|The former Queensland National Bank is a good and characteristic example of an early twentieth century bank, employing features of classical architecture.
|The Queensland National Bank (former) is prominently sited and well composed, making a major visual contribution to the streetscape and to the character of the city centre.
|The Queensland National Bank (former) is a major work of the important regional architect, Frederic Herbert Faircloth.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15470,"place_ref":600695,"name":"Engineers' Arms Hotel (former)","alternate_name":"Former Engineers' Arms Hotel | Mayfair Boarding House | Engineers Arms Hotel","street_address":"115 March Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Engineers' Arms Hotel is a two-storeyed rendered brick building located on what once was a five-way intersection but is now four-way. The site contains two single-storeyed brick buildings to the rear of the hotel.
The hotel, which has a hipped corrugated iron roof concealed by a string coursed parapet, is built to the property boundary of a acute angled block, giving it a V-shaped plan, truncated at the corner. The corner is emphasised with the addition of a pedimental element, projecting above the parapet. A relief moulding of the date '1870' appears on the parapet on this corner.
The building is lined on the March, Kent and Bowen Street facades with a two-storeyed verandah. The ground level of this has a shallow curved corrugated iron awning supported on cast iron columns, many of which have been replaced. The upper floor verandah, which continues to the rear of the building, has a skillion awning supported on timber columns which taper outwards from the building, due to the altered width of the verandah walkway.
There are three entrances to the hotel from the principal facades, a corner entrance, being a double, four-panelled and moulded timber door, to what was previously the public bar; and two doorways on March Street, one through an arched opening featuring multi-pane glazed sidelights and transom, and a four-panelled and moulded timber door. The exterior joinery is substantially intact and of high quality. All openings are untreated but for plaster sills.
The arched doorway leads to the stair hall, off which the principal ground floor rooms are accessed as well as the timber dog-legged stair. The stairway is naturally lit by an arched landing window. Internally, the building retains much of its early joinery, ceiling and wall cladding, timber ceiling roses and fireplaces. The plan arrangement remains intact.
","history":"The former Engineers' Arms Hotel in Maryborough was constructed in 1889 for Ann Dillane [1], to designs of Samuel Bragg, a local architect. It replaced an earlier building, also called the Engineers' Arms.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow. In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. [2] During the 1860s and 1870s it flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century.
The property on which the hotel is situated was first purchased by William Southerden as a Town Lot on 17 April 1861. The next registered owner was Thomas Dillane who bought the property on 13 December 1872, though he is known to have been running the former hotel on the site since at least 1870.
The former Engineers' Arms is so known for the adjacent Walkers' Engineering Works and Foundry which began operations in 1868, supplying mining equipment firstly to the goldfields which were flourishing in Gympie and then, later, more widely. The original two-storey timber hotel may have been constructed in 1870, as the date on the parapet of the present building indicates.
By 1889, the Licensing Authority operating within the Maryborough district, under the provisions of the Licensing Act 1885, was becoming stricter with the licensees of hotels about the condition of the buildings and provision of services. It may have been as a result of this that the Engineers' Arms Hotel was replaced with a two-storey brick building, to a design by Samuel Bragg, who was a former employee of the Works Department. The building was constructed by local contractor Mr Caldwell and ready for business on 5 July 1889.
Two single-storey brick cottages at the rear of the hotel were thought to have been constructed as residential accommodation at this time.
Changes to the building fabric include the narrowing of the upper floor verandah, where, it seems the timber had rotted at the ends and was therefore cut away making it necessary to taper the verandah posts from their original fixed position to the new narrower width of the walkway.
The hotel, which ceased operating in 1951 [3], has subsequently been the Mayfair Guest or Boarding House, a restaurant, community centre and otherwise used as accommodation.
References
Ref. 1- Jan Downman citing Maryborough Chronicle 2 May and 4 July 1889.
Ref. 2 - Extracted from the Walker's Shipyard history prepared by Brian Sinclair [Reported Place in CHIMS, Site ID 31936].
Ref. 3 - Jan Downman citing Maryborough Chronicle 30 June 1951.
","criteria":"The Engineers' Arms Hotel (former) demonstrates the growth of Maryborough, particularly as a result of the Gympie goldrush, when Maryborough began producing mining equipment in the area where the hotel stands.
|The Engineers' Arms Hotel (former) hotel is an important element of the streetscapes of the town, and is an interesting example of Queensland country town hotel architecture.
|As the local hotel for the foundry workers for over one hundred years, the Engineers' Arms Hotel (former) has considerable social value to the surrounding community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15471,"place_ref":600696,"name":"Hotel Francis (former)","alternate_name":"Metropolitan Hotel (1878-1935)","street_address":"310 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Hotel Francis (former) is a two-storeyed masonry building located on the corner of Kent and Richmond Streets, Maryborough. The site contains several smaller buildings to the rear of the hotel.
The hotel comprises two major elements; the early hotel lined with two-storeyed verandahs extending down the Kent Street facade and around the corner into Richmond Street where it is met by the second stage of the building, a two-storeyed stuccoed wing.
The early section is constructed of rendered brick which has been scribed to resemble stonework to the height of the parapet, which consists of a face brickwork band surmounted by a stringcourse with dentils above which is an italianate balustrade punctuated with moulded masonry panels. Centrally located on Kent Street facade of the parapet, interrupting the balustrade is a face brick curved pediment, accentuating the ground floor entrance to the former accommodation and dining rooms. The parapet conceals a hipped corrugated iron roof.
The two-storeyed verandah is supported on posts, the cast iron body of which sits on a timber base and is also extended through the frieze in timber. The truncated corner of the building is emphasised by pairs of columns flanking the corner entrance, extending through to the floor above. The ground floor verandah frieze is of plain timber slats with feature fretwork slats, below which are diagonally cut timber panels. One bay of the ground floor verandah space has been infilled with rendered and scribed brickwork. The verandah to the upper floor has an ogee curved profile awning, balustrading of similar detail to the frieze below, and slatted timber brackets and frieze. A rudimentary rear verandah is accessed by a straight timber stair.
Entrance to the former public bar is through the double glazed doors, with arctic glass transom window above, on the truncated corner. The Kent Street facade has several half glazed and moulded french doors with operable transom windows above and a centrally located double doorway, of four panelled doors, as well as large window openings with moulded sills and consoles. The joinery to this elevation is very fine and intact.
Internally the building features pressed metal ceilings, cornices and roses throughout and timber floors. The upper floor retains some single skin timber partitioning, though the original layout is evident in the pressed metal ceiling where different patterns were used for each room.
The later rendered masonry extension, in Richmond Street, features round arched openings to the ground floor and square arched openings above, which are shaded by a hipped awning of fibrous cement. The flat parapet of this section has 'HOTEL FRANCIS' in relief, concealing a skillion roof.
To the rear of the hotel is a small one storeyed brick building with a hipped corrugated iron roof and a large brick chimney stack at one end.
","history":"The Hotel Francis (former) is a two-storey building, constructed in multiple stages between 1878 and 1938. It is on the site of an earlier hotel, the Maryborough Inn, later known as the Steam Packet.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow. In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. [1] During the 1860s and 1870s Maryborough flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century.
The Maryborough Inn, believed to be the first hotel at the new town, was established on the site as early as 1853. The first licensee was James Davenport Walker. The site was subsequently occupied by the Steam-packet Hotel which was demolished to make way for the first stage of the present building. [2]
The first storey of the present building, then known as the Metropolitan Hotel, was erected in 1878. Described as a one-storey building with four sitting rooms and five bedrooms exclusive of those used by the publican, it had an 80 foot (24.4 m) frontage to Kent Street and a 33 foot (10 m) frontage to Richmond Street. Access was provided to the upper floors of the adjoining Helsham's Buildings for extra accommodation. [3]
On 1 May 1883, tenders were advertised for additions to the hotel. This was probably for the first storey of the rear extension facing Richmond Street. [4]
Further tenders were called in 1914 for additions and an extension to the bar; the architect being HWF Palmer. The hotel remained a single-storey building and was now described as having seven rooms for the public and three for private use. [5]
On 17 April 1919, the Maryborough Chronicle reported that plans had been prepared for a second storey. A photograph indicates this was completed by 1923. The photograph also shows, by this time, the Kent Street frontage was very similar in appearance to the present building but the rear, Richmond Street, extension (now two storeys) comprised only a single storey. [6]
The hotel was given its present name, the Hotel Francis, in 1935 while in the ownership of the Noonan family. In 1938 tenders were let for a second-storey addition to staff quarters facing Richmond Street. The architect was POE Hawkes. [7]
Surrender of the hotel licence was accepted by the Department of Tourism, Sport and Racing in September 1992. [8]
References
Ref. 1 - Extracted from the Walker's Shipyard history prepared by Brian Sinclair [Reported Place in CHIMS, Site ID 31936].
Ref. 2 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing J Downman, K Gassan, 'The village people: Wide Bay Village, Maryborough 1848-1856', Maryborough, Qld: Wise Owl Research Publishers, 1998; Maryborough Chronicle, 19 September 1871, 25 July 1878, 29 October 1878.
Ref. 3 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing Maryborough Chronicle, 25 July 1878, 29 October 1878, n.d. March 1879.
Ref. 4 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing Maryborough Chronicle, 1 May 1883, 1885 map of Maryborough, 1893 ‘flood photo'.
Ref. 5 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing Maryborough Chronicle, n.d. February 1914, 17 August 1917.
Ref. 6 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing Maryborough Chronicle, 17 April 1919, dated photograph in the paper.
Ref. 7 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing Maryborough Chronicle, 7 August 1935, 5 October 1938.
Ref. 8 - Jan Downman, 'Maryborough Inn' (unpublished paper), citing Maryborough Chronicle, n.d. September 1992.
Bibliography
Gavin Pattersen & Co. Pty Ltd Architects, 'Hotel Francis proposal for restoration and alterations' prepared for NIOA Holdings Pty Ltd, March 1992. (DERM Heritage Reports Collection, H-MARYB/005)
","criteria":"The Hotel Francis (former) demonstrates the growth of Maryborough.
|The Hotel Francis (former) is a good and intact example of a Queensland country town hotel, and is an important element of the Kent Street streetscape.
|As a hotel and public building for nearly 120 years, the Hotel Francis (former) is important to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15472,"place_ref":600697,"name":"Maryborough State High School","alternate_name":"Maryborough Boys' Grammar School | Maryborough Girls' Grammar School | Maryborough Grammar School","street_address":"Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Maryborough State High School comprises two campuses (formerly the boys' and girls' divisions of the grammar school) separated by Kent Street, the main thoroughfare of Maryborough. Standing in picturesque grounds, the school comprises two substantial brick buildings: the former boys' division building (1881); and the former girls' division building (1883). The school also retains a gymnasium (1880s), memorial entrance gates (1909), and King's Oval (1949). The two campuses are a complementing pair with the front entrances to the two grammar school buildings in alignment across Kent Street, visible between the memorial gates and framed by mature trees.
\nFormer Boys' Campus
\nStanding picturesquely in the centre of the 3.9ha boys' campus is the former boys' division building. Set well back from Kent Street behind a lawn and approached by a long, straight gravel path, the two-storey brick structure is impressive, well-composed, and in a Gothic Revival style. The building is approximately H-shaped in plan and its form expresses its original functions. A central wing, comprising ground floor classrooms and first floor living spaces, is terminated by perpendicular wings with prominent gable ends. The western wing contains an assembly hall (formerly double-height but now with a first floor inserted) and has prominent pier buttresses with rendered cappings, a series of high-level circular windows, and later skillion-roofed dormer windows lighting the first floor former dormitory. The eastern wing is longer, projecting from the rear, and contains a large classroom, former sitting room, and former kitchen rooms (now partitioned to create bathrooms) on the ground floor and a former hospital, large drawing room and bedrooms on the first floor. The building has red English bond facebrick walls, a steeply-pitched, multi-gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, and three tall rendered chimneys.
\nThe front elevation is approximately symmetrical around a projecting, central, gable-roofed entry porch. Timber-framed verandahs line the front of the central wing on both levels and have paired timber posts and a tall, scalloped valance of boards with geometric, patterned cut-outs. The first floor verandah balustrade is enclosed with later sheet material. Pointed arch windows have timber-framed sashes and are protected by awnings with iron brackets. The exterior features a variety of decorative treatments including contrasting rendered quoining, elaborate timber fretwork bargeboards, acroteria, and other fine timberwork. Central access is via a pair of large timber, low-waisted doors with an arched fanlight. Flanking this, and on the upper verandah, are glazed French doors that provide access into the classrooms.
\nThe eastern elevation is prominently visible from the town, facing the flat grassed expanse of King's Oval. The elevation is approximately symmetrical. A single-story, skillion roofed verandah runs along this side and has stop chamfered posts and a scalloped valance of boards that have patterned cut-outs. The verandah wall has panelled French doors and double-hung and centre-pivot windows into the classrooms. The upper level has timber-framed, pointed arch windows with gable roof projections, and a large central stained glass window featuring the boys' grammar school crest and MARYBOROUGH BOYS' GRAMMAR SCHOOL, FOUNDED 1881. A rendered pointed arch moulding above the window is sheltered by a gable roof projection that features timber fretwork bargeboards. Bricks of a different type surround the window and continue to the east, indicating the later addition.
\nThe rear (north) of the building shelters a small courtyard. The eastern gable wall is rendered on the lower half, indicating the location of the demolished service wing. The wall has double-hung windows protected by a hipped convex hood, clad in corrugated metal and supported on ornate cast iron brackets, and decorative timberwork in the gable apex. The remainder of the rear elevation is lined on the lower level with a skillion-roofed verandah with a scalloped and patterned valance, and stop-chamfered timber posts. A small weatherboard-clad enclosure of the verandah accommodates store rooms. The verandah wall has glazed French doors opening into the classrooms and timber-framed double-hung and casement windows with corrugated metal clad, timber-framed hoods on the first floor.
\nInternally, the ground floor layout comprises a central stair hall running from front to back with a perpendicular, central hallway providing access to the classrooms on either side. The classrooms have plaster walls with large, decorative skirting boards and detailed cornices. Most walls have timber picture rails and one classroom features a framed section of wall with student signatures that date to at least 1918. Classroom ceilings are lined with beaded boards. The ground floor of the 1890 extension is converted to bathrooms, and the eastern stair hall has been removed and a floor inserted to increase first floor space.
\nAt the western end of the ground floor is the assembly hall. It is the largest volume of the building and has timber floorboards, plaster walls, and large, moulded timber skirting boards. The elaborate pressed metal ceiling of the hall incorporates coffering, cornice, and vented ceiling roses. Mounted at intervals on the hall walls are eight impressive, large honour boards recording the grammar school bursary, scholarship, and academic award recipients. An additional honour board commemorates past students that served in World War I and II, and a wall-hung memorial plaque is dedicated to a former principal. In 2014 the hall accommodates a museum of school memorabilia that includes: trophies, shields, photos, and early furniture, textbooks and uniforms.
\nThe first floor is reached via concrete stairs and accommodates classrooms and store rooms, as well as a large space above the hall (formerly a dormitory). The large timber roof framing is exposed in this space and the ceiling is lined with diagonal boards and has dormer windows. The first floor classrooms have similar floor, wall, and ceiling treatments as those on the ground floor but ceilings here have vented filigree ceiling roses. Early window and door hardware is retained throughout the building as are decorative timber mantelpieces.
\nGymnasium
\nThe gymnasium stands on the northwestern edge of King's Oval, adjacent to Sussex Street. Originally open-sided, it is a timber and iron-framed structure enclosed with later timber-framed weatherboard-clad walls. It is lowset on concrete and steel stumps and has a bell-shaped hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and topped by a ventilated roof lantern. All elevations have banks of later awning windows. Timber stairs lead to timber doors in the southeastern and southwestern sides. Fixed timber-framed fanlights are above most doors and windows. Internally, it is one space. The iron framing is exposed and supported on large, stop-chamfered, timber posts. The walls are single-skin with internally exposed timber framing and bracing, with the exception of half-height weatherboard cladding on the northeastern wall.
\nKing's Oval is positioned between the former boys' division building and the adjacent Maryborough Central State School. Surrounded by established trees and grassed embankments, the flat ground is used for sports and recreation and is an attractive setting for the adjacent boys' building. In the face of an embankment is a flight of concrete stairs down from the boys' building.
\nMemorial Entrance Gates
\nMemorial entrance gates stand at the front entrance to both campuses, facing each other across Kent Street. Either side of the fine, wrought iron gates is a short section of curved fence comprising facebrick walls and pillars with rendered dressings and iron palisades.
\nFormer Girls' Campus
\nThe former girls' division building stands prominently in the centre of a 2.59ha site. It is set well back from the road and aligned across Kent Street with the former boys' division building. It is approached via a circular front lawn with established plantings and perimeter footpaths. The building is a graceful, two-storey brick structure in the style of a substantial Victorian Italianate Revival house, incorporating elements of the style including: elaborate verandah decoration with filigree iron balustrades and cast 'turned' balusters, bracketed eaves, faceted bays, round-arched windows, corner rustication, pilaster window mullions, a prominent cupola, and a picturesque relationship with the landscape. It is approximately H-shaped in plan, comprising an east and a west wing connected by a core. The west wing contains an assembly hall and is the most prominent and decorative. The building has red, English bond facebrick walls, a multi-gabled and hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, and three tall rendered chimneys. Original filigree, metal wall vents are retained.
\nThe front (north) elevation has a well-composed asymmetry with a central timber-framed verandah on both levels terminated by the end wings. The verandah posts are cast iron and stand on rendered plinths on the ground floor. The elevation features decorative treatments including corner rustication, shaped bricks, and rendered mouldings. The windows are large with double-hung or casement sashes and glazed timber French doors with fanlights (lunette on the ground floor) open onto the verandahs. The cupola has a bell-shaped roof clad with flat metal sheets, a flagpole finial, and is an open-sided structure with cast metal posts and a low, filigree cast iron balustrade.
\nVisible and accessed from Ferry Street, the western elevation is picturesque, arranged around a projecting central, faceted entrance bay aligned with the cupola. Windows on this elevation are generally timber-framed double-hung, fixed, or casement sashes with arch-headed fanlights. The entrance door is a panelled set of French doors with fan and sidelights with coloured, patterned, or leadlight glass - the fanlight features the crest of Maryborough State High School.
\nThe projecting side wings of the rear (southern) elevation shelter a central, paved courtyard. The gable end of the eastern wing is rendered, indicating the location of the demolished service wing. The western wing has a faceted bay with large windows with rendered mouldings. A central timber-framed verandah on both levels has stop-chamfered timber posts. A tall valance on the ground floor has geometric cut-outs. The upper level verandah has a cross-braced timber balustrade and a raked ceiling of beaded boards. Panelled timber, glazed French doors provide access to the interior on both levels and there are large windows with double-hung timber-framed sashes.
\nThe western elevation has a wide timber-framed verandah on both levels. The posts are cast metal and those of the ground floor stand on rendered plinths. The upper level verandah retains early lead flashings. Large windows with double-hung sashes and glazed French doors open onto the verandah on both levels. At the centre of the ground floor is a fine, panelled timber door with side and fanlights and an early brass knocker, which provides access to a stair hall.
\nThe interior layout is intact. The ground floor accommodates classrooms (in 2014 used as administration rooms) and the assembly hall, and the first floor accommodates former dormitories, and teachers' sitting and bed rooms. Partitions are solid brick, plastered and have tall, moulded skirting boards, architraves, and cornices.
\nThe ground floor former classrooms have fireplaces with moulded timber mantelpieces. Honour boards hang on the walls of the central classroom recording the names of the high school's captains, sports, and bursary winners. The south eastern classroom has been converted to bathrooms. A central hallway with clear-finished timber dado panelling leads to the western assembly hall.
\nThe assembly hall is the largest and grandest space of the building. The walls are plaster and the room features finely-worked, clear-finished timber including dado panelling, windows, fanlights, architraves, pediment-topped doors, and cornice. A marble mantelpiece surrounds a cast iron fireplace and four large honour boards are hung on the walls recording the names of grammar school prefects and high performing students. A low stage stands at the northern end of the room. The tall, elaborate ceiling is coved and lined with v-jointed boards in contrasting directions. This is divided into sections by clear-finished, moulded trimmings and features ornate plaster and timber vented roses and panels.
\nThe stair hall has a timber stair with decoratively-turned timber balusters and handrail up to the first floor. The first floor rooms are large with high ceilings lined with v-jointed boards with plaster cornices. They retain fireplaces with moulded timber mantelpieces, arched openings into bay window projections with moulded architraves, and filigree timber and glazed fanlights.
\nEarly furniture is retained in the building as is window and door hardware.
\nThe girls' campus has mature trees including hoop pines (Araucaria cuninghamii) near the girls' building and a variety of fig tree species, including a row of evenly-spaced figs along the Kent Street boundary.
\nAll other structures within the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nMaryborough State High School is a major element of a cohesive education precinct and a wider precinct of civic buildings primarily addressing Kent Street. The buildings and landscapes contribute to the streetscape and form an attractive landmark on the main thoroughfare of Maryborough.
\n\n
","history":"
Maryborough State High School was established as Maryborough Grammar School in 1881 during a prosperous period in the town. The school comprised two departments - boys' and girls' - and opened in a grand, new building designed by architect, John Richard Hall, on the north side of Kent Street. In 1883 the girls' department moved across Kent Street to their own separate site with an equally-grand, new building designed by architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley. The schools were transferred to state control in 1936 and were amalgamated and renamed Maryborough State High School in 1974. The buildings stand prominently on large, landscaped sites, facing each other across the main thoroughfare, Kent Street, and the schools have a strong connection with generations of Maryborough students, staff and parents as a centre of secondary education in Maryborough since 1881.
On the traditional land of the Badtjala (Butchulla) people, the small town of Maryborough grew quickly from its establishment in 1847. The site of the town was relocated downstream from its original position between 1852 and 1856; Maryborough was proclaimed a Port of Entry in 1859 and a municipality in 1861. Early exports from the port included wool, timber, tallow, sugar, and coal. Maryborough became the port for Gympie after gold was discovered there in 1867.[1]
The 1880s were a prosperous time for the colony of Queensland generally. The population of Maryborough and district grew dramatically between 1876 and 1881, and this continued into the late 1880s.[2] Maryborough's dominance as a regional centre was strengthened when a railway line connecting Gympie to Maryborough's port was completed in 1881.[3] The years 1870 to 1890 were extremely profitable for Maryborough and new commercial establishments, industries and financial and other institutions were established in the town.[4]
The first government school opened in the town in 1862 and Maryborough experienced a dramatic growth in schools beginning in 1875, with nine schools opening in 16 years. Granville State School and Tinana State School opened in 1875, the Sisters of Mercy Convent School in 1880, Maryborough Grammar School in 1881, St Helens State School in 1882; Albert State School in 1883, Maryborough West State School in 1886, a Christian Brothers School in 1888, and Sunbury State School in 1891.[5]
The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a focus/venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[6]
Education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. After separation in 1859, the Queensland Government addressed the growing need for an institutionalised secondary educational system by passing the Grammar Schools Act 1860, encouraging the establishment of secular grammar schools. Under the Act, if the local community could raise more than £1000 toward the establishment of a grammar school, the government would provide double the amount and an annual endowment. Due to this large deposit of money, Queensland grammar schools were only established in prosperous settlements with stable populations.[7]
The establishment of a grammar school in Maryborough began in January 1871 and came to fruition a decade later.[8] By the end of 1871, a 7 acre 3 rood and 22 perch (3.19ha) block was set aside in town for a grammar school, but this grant was cancelled in 1872 when local support waned briefly.[9] However, donations grew and in 1878 it was recorded that over £1493 had been raised. The first trustees decided the new school site should be on the edge of town on the Ululah reserve.[10] After strong public debate, this site was abandoned and the original site was reserved again in 1880, and increased to 10 acres (4ha). The school site was part of a 90 acre (36.42ha) reserve that also accommodated Maryborough National School (now Maryborough Central State School [QHR 601264]) and, later, other important civic uses including the Maryborough Railway Station [QHR 600702], police station, and a small hospital.[11]
In 1879, a competition was called by the Board of Trustees to design a substantial new building to accommodate 50 boys and boarding facilities.[12] The winning design was by important and prolific Brisbane architect, John Richard Hall.[13] Hall had previous experience supervising the construction of Brisbane Grammar School and had designed fine buildings throughout Queensland including buildings for the Queensland National Bank; residences including 'Greylands' [QHR 600230], 'Langlands' and 'Pahroombin'; commercial projects; churches; and hotels.[14]
Construction of the grammar school building began in 1880 and was completed in 1881 by Maryborough contractor, Henry Taylor, for £5500.[15] Standing in the centre of the site, the two-storey brick building faced south onto Kent Street and accommodated classrooms and a double-height lecture hall on the ground floor, and living rooms for the headmaster on the first floor.[16] It was in a Gothic Revival style, typical of grammar schools in Queensland at the time.[17] Upon completion, the classrooms were described as spacious, lofty, well ventilated, and allowed a desirable amount of subdued light to enter the spaces.[18]
Prior to completing the building, a 'Grand Bazaar' was held in the town in 1880 to raise additional funds to ensure a larger government contribution and annual endowment.[19] Above the anticipated amount, a £617/2/1 surplus was raised and reserved for the establishment of a girls' grammar school, a separate division of the Maryborough Grammar School.[20] The boys' and girls' divisions were to be controlled by one board.[21] In preparation for opening, advertisements were placed in prominent English newspapers and on 8 March 1881 Mr James Murdoch, a scholar of Aberdeen, Cambridge, Paris and Gottingen universities, was appointed the first headmaster of the boys' division and later in the year, Miss Caroline Darling of Dulwich College in England was appointed the principal of the girls' division.[22]
The Maryborough Grammar School opened on 5 September 1881 with 50 pupils (24 boys and 26 girls).[23]
It was the third school in Queensland to provide grammar school education for girls. The concept for formal academic education for women was just emerging in Australia in the late nineteenth century. Queensland's first grammar schools were exclusively for boys but in 1875 Brisbane Girls' Grammar School opened, the first in Queensland, followed in February 1881 by Rockhampton Grammar School, which had a girls' department.[24] Initial considerations for the girls' grammar school in Maryborough had been to lease a suitable building near the boys' school but this was soon rejected in favour of a purpose-built school building to be completed promptly after the school's opening.[25] Ten days after the opening of Maryborough Grammar School, a 4 acre 16 perch (1.65ha) site directly across Kent Street was reserved for a separate campus for the girls' division.[26]
The new girls' building was designed by Government Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley. Stanley immigrated to Queensland in 1861 and became one of the most prolific and well known Queensland architects of the late nineteenth century, responsible for a great number of important government and private buildings throughout the state, including the entirety of Queensland Government education architecture between 1875 and 1879.[27]
Construction of the girls' division building began in 1882 and was completed 1883. It was the first girls' grammar school in Queensland to be housed in its own separate building.[28] It was built by local contractor, Fritz Kinne for £3396.[29] The new, two-storey brick building opened 29 January 1883. It was designed in an Italianate Revival domestic style, as was typical and deemed 'suitable' for girls' grammar schools in Queensland at the time.[30] The ground floor included a large lecture hall, classrooms, a dining room for boarders, and a private dining room for the principal. The first floor included a large dormitory, linen room and bathroom, bedrooms, and principal's drawing and sitting rooms. The interior was described as 'having excellent lighting and ventilation, and extensive views of Maryborough and the surrounding areas'.[31] An attached rear wing accommodated a kitchen, laundry, servants' room, washhouse and toilets.[32] Later in the year, extensive plantings were added along Kent Street to correspond with the boys' campus opposite.[33]
The grand buildings of the boys' and girls' divisions are two of many significant buildings constructed in the late 1870s and 1880s in Maryborough, reflecting the prosperity of the town at the time. These include: Maryborough Court House (1877), the Bank of New South Wales (1877), St Paul's Church of England (1879), Maryborough Railway Station (1880), the Criterion Hotel (1883), Maryborough Mortuary Chapel (1884), Maryborough Hospital (1888), and the Maryborough School of Arts (1888) - as well as fine, architect-designed suburban villas for wealthy residents.[34]
Changes have occurred to both buildings over time. Completed in 1890 and costing £3500, remodelling and extension of the boys' division building was performed by local contractors, Messrs Crystall and Armstrong to the design of Brisbane architect, Victor Carandini. This work included a one-storey timber wing (later demolished) and a two-storey brick wing that extended the eastern elevation. Prominent from the central business district and the main thoroughfares, the building now appeared much grander and included a large stained glass window with the school crest and motto.[35] It accommodated a kitchen on the ground floor and two bedrooms and a 'hospital' on the first floor.[36]
In 1891 an extension was added to the girls' division building, costing £2300. Built by local contractors, Messrs Negus Brothers, under the supervision of Mr W Devon, Clerk of Works, the new wing dramatically increased the accommodation, doubling the size of the dining room, and adding an impressively-decorative assembly hall, an office, three bathrooms, three dormitories, and a sitting room.[37] This wing was attached to the northwestern side of the building and featured a prominent cupola.[38]
Works promoting health and exercise occurred at the boys' campus in the late 1880s. At some time between 1884 and 1890 a gymnasium was constructed by Crystall and Armstrong to a design by Carandini.[39] It was an open-sided structure, 54ft x 36ft (16.46m x 10.97m), standing to the west of the boys' division building.[40] It had an iron-framed structure with a domed, galvanised iron clad roof and the ground was a thick bedding of soft tan, intended to reduce injuries from falls. It was fitted with equipment including horizontal and parallel bars, swing rings, ladders, and poles.[41] By 1890 a cricket pitch had been constructed to the east of the boys' division building, between the new wing and Fort Street.[42]
In 1902 a first floor was inserted into the double-height volume of the hall of the boys' division building to provide extra accommodation for boarders on the first floor. This work included adding a pressed metal ceiling to the hall and improved the acoustics of the room. The dormitory above was described as large, commodious, well ventilated, and very cool. The works were designed and completed by Crystall and Armstrong.[43]
Funds donated by local Maryborough residents and past pupils of the schools contributed to the improvement and provision of facilities at the grammar school. In 1906, £5000 was bequeathed to the school by Robert Travis.[44] This money funded several additions to the girls' division building, as well as memorial gates constructed in 1909 at the front entrance to both campuses and dedicated to Travis.[45] A wide verandah was added along the eastern side of the girls' division building at some time prior to 1929.[46]
A Jubilee Fund was established by the Maryborough Grammar School's Old Boys' Association and funded an extension to the science laboratory, behind the boy's division building. The extension cost £299/7/11 and opened 5 September 1931 but was demolished by 1957.[47]
Also in 1931, the gymnasium was renovated, costing over £250. These works modernised the building by raising it up on a timber floor and enclosing it with walls. The building was then used as a meeting, dance, and general recreation space.[48]
The 1930s economic depression dramatically reduced student attendance at Maryborough Grammar School. In 1934, the school's Board of Trustees, the Director of Education, and the Minister for Public Instruction discussed the school's poor financial situation and condition of the buildings.[49] In October 1935, it was decided to transfer control of the school to the Queensland Government.[50] To do so, the Maryborough Grammar Schools Transfer Act 1935 was passed and the board and school were dissolved.[51] The school reopened as two separate schools in 1936: Maryborough State High and Intermediate School for Boys (in the boys' building) and Maryborough State High and Intermediate School for Girls (in the girls' building).[52] Boarding ended and the dorms were converted into classrooms. A domestic science building was constructed behind the girls' building during conversions in 1936-7, measuring 102ft x 32ft (31m x 9.75m), with two 29ft x 17ft (8.84m x 5.18m) front wings.[53]
The boys' school shared the site and facilities with the Maryborough Technical College and in 1943, the two schools were amalgamated.[54] In 1943 and 1950 Technical Training workshops were erected in the northwest corner of the site.[55] The workshops were demolished sometime between 2009 and 2010.[56]
The Advisory Council of the Boys' School was established in 1942 and immediately advocated for better conditions for students.[57] In 1947, Fort Street was closed to traffic between Kent Street and Sussex Street and the land was amalgamated into the boys' school grounds. It was decided to level this area (including the 1880s cricket pitch) into a large sports field and name it King's Oval in honour of, and as a reception place for, King George VI, who was soon to visit Maryborough. The work was completed quickly, but due to the King's ill health, the royal visit was cancelled. The oval opened on 7 May 1949 with a large fete.[58] Covering 4 acres (1.62ha), it was considered an asset to Maryborough and described as 'the most up-to-date sporting field in the city'.[59] It became an important gathering place for Maryborough citizens. Over 2000 children gathered there in 1953 to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and on 2 September 1959, Princess Alexandra was received on the field.[60]
In the 1950s and 1960s, new buildings were constructed on both campuses and alterations were made to old buildings to accommodate a strong increase in student population.[61] In 1956, the front verandah of the boys' building was enclosed to create additional room for the library.[62] In 1959 the gymnasium was moved to be adjacent to King's Oval. In 1966 it was moved again, to the northern edge of the oval, adjacent to Sussex Street.[63] The girl's campus was extended in 1964 to the south by 2 acres, 1 rood, 6 perches (0.92ha).[64] By 1966 the rear, timber wing of the former boys' school building was demolished and the brick face where the wing connected to the main building was concrete rendered.[65] In 1967, the boys' building was renovated and repainted, and between 1969 and 1974 the rear wing of the former girls' building was demolished.[66] Throughout the 1960s, the grounds of both campuses were complimented on their fine appearance, with beautiful shade trees and well-kept lawns.[67]
In 1974 the technical college (by then, a TAFE college) was decoupled from the boys' school and took possession of the entire boys' campus. The boys' and girls' schools were amalgamated and renamed Maryborough State High School and all students were taught, co-educationally, in the former girls' campus. The total enrolment was 927 and the school struggled with the limited accommodation. Initially, eight classes were held in the former boys' school building until the end of 1974 and the school continued to use the manual training, science, and toilet blocks on the boys' campus.[68]
Since the 1970s, new buildings have been constructed on both campuses; however, the two original grammar school buildings and the gymnasium remained virtually unchanged. The gymnasium was renovated at some time by the 1970s but alterations were only minor. By the 1990s, TAFE began to vacate the former boys' school building and the high school began to occupy the building as enrolments increased.
In July 2012, a small museum was relocated from the former girls' division building to the boys' division building and was opened to the public, exhibiting a large range of educational paraphernalia from the school's history.
In 2015 Maryborough State High School operates from both campuses using both original grammar school buildings. The buildings are linked across Kent Street between the memorial gates, framed by mature trees. The gymnasium and King's Oval continue to be used by the school for sports and by external organisations and Maryborough residents. The school is important to the town and district having operated since 1881 and having taught generations of Maryborough children. The attractive grounds and early buildings are a prominent feature on the main thoroughfare and the school remains a key social focus for the Maryborough community with the grounds and buildings used for regular community events.
","criteria":"The former Boys Grammar School demonstrates the growth of Maryborough in the 1870s and 1880s when the town was large enough to raise sufficient funding to erect a substantial Grammar School, second only to that in Brisbane.
|The building is an accomplished example of the nineteenth century architectural style, Gothic Revival, as applied to an academic building. The steeply pitched roofs; siting; Gothic detailing including pointed arched openings and polychrome masonry detailing; and massing of the building contribute to Gothic Revival styling. The building is characteristic of Grammar Schools throughout Queensland constructed in this style.
|The building is of architectural merit as a well-composed and interesting example of a Gothic Revival structure, adapted to the sub tropical Maryborough climate and well sited. The building is a landmark in the town.
|It has a special association with the town as a place of public education since the late nineteenth century.
|As a good and intact example of the work of Brisbane architect, John Hall, the building has special associations with him.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15473,"place_ref":600698,"name":"Maryborough City Hall","alternate_name":"Maryborough Town Hall","street_address":"388 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Maryborough City Hall is prominently located on the corner of Kent and Lennox Streets, in the central business district of Maryborough. The building is surrounded by grassed embankments to Kent Street and lawn areas and formal garden beds to Lennox Street.
The City Hall comprises a number of sections; the original building being two intersecting gabled wings, one wing forming the administration offices and principal entrance to the hall in a gabled sections running parallel to Kent Street, and centrally abutting the rear, south western side of this another gabled section of the same height housing the auditorium. Joining this, to the south west again, a large stuccoed fly tower was added. More recently, a two storeyed administration block was added to the northern corner of the original building.
The original sections of the City Hall are constructed from face brickwork with white limed tuckpointing and regular bands of smooth faced stucco. The two storeyed Kent Street section is dominated by a large central pedimented portico supported on six two storeyed Doric columns on the entablature above which is the lettering 'CITY 1906 HALL'. A triangular pediment above this is filled with brickwork and has a central oculus. Flanking the portico are a series of three square arched window openings, taller on the ground floor. The central, first floor, window on each side is lengthened to form a door and a small semi circular Juliet balcony surrounds this. These balconies are visually supported on large oversized keystones above the corresponding openings on the ground floor level.
Rising from the rib-and-pan roof of this section of the building, is a three storeyed stuccoed clock tower, with balustraded openings on the second floor and a four faced clock in the section above. The tower is crowned with a complex domed roof, clad with zinc. Large triangular pediments are formed in the gabled ends of this section of the building, and these are defined by closely space and oversized eaves brackets and feature a central segmented semi circular opening.
Internally this front section houses offices, meeting rooms, a large stair hall and entrance hall to the auditorium. The entrance hall provides access to the auditorium and other hallways through a series of double timber doors, some with arctic glazed panels and all surmounted by operable transom windows. A bifurcating concrete stair commences on the two sides of the entrance hall and meets at a landing above the entrance door, proceeding for another flight to the first floor level. At the first floor the stair hall is ceiled with painted pressed metal. Access is provided from the stair hall on this level to the Council Chamber and a large meeting room. As this area was subject to a damaging fire, much of the interior has been refitted, in the case of the these rooms with a reconstruction of what was originally built. The Council Chamber has a barrel vaulted plaster ceiling and is lined with timber wainscotting to about 2500mm.
The auditorium wing is constructed of similar brickwork, but without stuccoed banding. Externally the section is lined with a series of simple pilasters, and has square arched openings centrally placed between the pillars. Surmounting the ridge of the corrugated iron clad roof of this section is a number of simple ventilators. The interior of the auditorium has a raked timber floor toward the stage which is framed by a classically inspired proscenium archway; flanked by reeded Corinthian columns supported a gently curved entablature. The heavily coffered timber ceiling of the auditorium is barrel vaulted centrally. A gallery at the north eastern, entrance end, has a curved floor plan and features early seating. Flanking the auditorium are semi-open verandah spaces, to which access is provided from the hall through double French doors. Attached to the wall of the auditorium, toward the stage end of the room are five Honour Boards, commemorating the citizens of Maryborough's involvement in the various wars.
To the south west of the auditorium is a large wing constructed as a fly tower behind the stage. This is a concrete structure, without openings, stuccoed with rough cast render. The surface of the section is broken by shallow pilasters, and high level semicircular openings within the shallow gables of the roof.
Attached to the northern corner of the City Hall, abutting the entrance section, is a more recent two storeyed brick and glass extension, with skillion roof, tuckpointed brickwork and a modern interior fitout.
","history":"Replacing a smaller timber building constructed on a different site, the Maryborough City Hall was built in 1908 as the second Maryborough Town Hall. The building was designed by renowned Queensland architectural partnership, Hall and Dods.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852 the growing town was gradually transferred further north where ships were able to better navigate the river. Development followed and by March 1861, Maryborough was declared a municipality and Henry Palmer was appointed as the first Mayor. Meetings of the newly formed Council were held in various buildings until 1874 when a timber Town Hall was constructed, adjacent to the School of Arts in Kent Street. A Deed of Grant had been issued for the land in 1868 but construction of the building did not occur for several years. During the late 1860s and 1870s Maryborough developed rapidly as the port for the nearby gold rushes in the Gympie area. The new town hall, which was erected for about £400 was opened in 1876.
Dissatisfaction with the first town hall was voiced in the local press for many years, and attempts were made at various stages throughout the nineteenth century to replace the timer Town Hall with a masonry building reflecting the importance of Maryborough in regional Queensland. In 1884, The Maryborough Council sought permission from the State Government to exchange the land on which the Town Hall was built with land on the opposite side of Kent street facing the Town Hall, then used as a police and justice reserve. Though this permission was given in 1901 the construction of a new town hall did not commence until the several years after.
Lack of funds at the Council delayed the construction of a new Town Hall and meetings and business continued in the early timber building until 1908 when the current Town Hall was opened. Funding for the Town Hall was not forthcoming from the Council, but from a local benefactor, Mr George Ambrose White who donated £10,000 for the sole purpose of constructing a new Town Hall. Although generous this gift was to be offset by a annual payment by the Council to Mr White of 5% of the amount. White previously donated money for the construction of a public swimming pool in Maryborough and therefore he was already well known in the local community.
In 1906, work began on the new site in Kent Street, removing the early police and justice buildings many of which survived from the initial development of Maryborough in the 1850s and 1860s. An inspector's residence, stockade and stables were removed to the new police site in Lennox Street where a police station designed by the Public Works Department was being constructed. As well many buildings were removed from the site and sold including a court house, disused since the construction of a new court house in Richmond Street in 1877, lock-up, cells and police quarters.
What remained was for the Council to procure the services of an architect to design their new Town Hall, to be a fitting symbol of Maryborough's prominence. Initially it was thought that a competition to be assessed by LG Corrie, President of the Queensland Institute of Architects, along with Mr AB Brady, the Government Architect and a member of the council, would discover the most suitable design for the Town Hall. However this plan was abandoned when the assessors' fees and prize money was deemed to be too costly. Enquiries were made into which architects might be most suitable for the work and these pointed to the prominent Brisbane partnership of Francis Hall and Robin (Robert Smith) Dods. The Mayor travelled to Brisbane to interview Hall and Dods and they were commissioned to produce designs for the new Town Hall.
Hall and Dods formed in 1896 when Dods won a competition for the design of the nurses' home at the Brisbane Hospital. By 1906 the partnership was one of the premier architectural firms in Brisbane, achieving, in the words of local architect AE Brooks, "an architectural revolution in Brisbane" resulting largely from Dods' architectural sophistication and innovation from his professional experience in Britain where he became well versed in both the aesthetics and philosophical background of both the Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian Classicism. Hall and Dods' projects was wide ranging and included hospital, ecclesiastical, domestic and commercial work.
After preparing plans and specifications for the Maryborough Town Hall, Robin Dods was invited to a special meeting of the Maryborough Council to discuss the plans which were adopted in October 1906. The design for the town hall was a substantial brick building with steeply pitched gabled roof and four Tuscan Order columns defining the portico. The building reflected the Victorian ideal of municipal buildings strongly influenced by classicism, in this case stripped and manipulated with the sophistication characteristic of the work of Hall and Dods. The building was designed to house a 900 seat auditorium, council offices and a council chamber.
Tenders were called in December 1906 for the construction of the Town Hall, and that of local contractors, Crystall and Armstrong for £8976.13.5 was accepted and completion was to be within twelve months. A Clerk of Works, Mr Sayers from Sydney, was appointed to oversee the work. Among the other contractors were Fairlie and Sons who completed the timberwork including the internal joinery; G Horbourgh and Co who undertook the plumbing; Mr Fulsig the painting and Messrs Walker the ironwork, including the rib and pan roof. Messrs Rolley and Pagett of Brisbane supplied the patented casement openers for the side casement windows. Local bricks from Meredith Brickworks were used on a foundation of cement blocks cast on site. The auditorium was supplied with 500 bentwood chairs from Finney Isles and Co, with older chairs and forms supplementing this seating.
After some delays the new Town Hall was opened by the leader of the Federal Labour Party, the Hon Andrew Fisher, MHR. The building was received with mixed reviews, the Maryborough community, as expressed in the local papers described the building as plain and with a quality of "red-brickiness" whereas the national architectural journal, Building, praised its "simplicity with dignity in a splendid fashion". The interior of the building was more universally appealing with well crafted internal moulding and joinery and well proportioned rooms. The final cost of the building was £9000.
Soon after the opening, plans were made to alter the entrance stairs to a design of George Halibut and this saw outward sweeps added to the stair and plinths for lighting incorporated. The council also undertook landscaping work to improve the surrounds of the building. The next additions were made in 1918 when four honour rolls, made by Fairlie and Sons, were erected in the auditorium.
Substantial additions were made to the Town Hall in 1934 to the design of Brisbane City Council architect, Walter Kerrison who was on loan to the Maryborough City Council. These additions included the erection of a clock tower, the construction of a fly tower and the widening and lengthening of verandahs flanking the auditorium. In 1948 a single storeyed extension to the western side of the building was added to supplement office accommodation in the building. This was designed by Colin Tesch. A second storey was added to this section in 1978. The lettering above the entrance door, which on completion of the building in 1908 was "TOWN HALL" was changed to "CITY HALL" in 1964, although Maryborough was proclaimed a city much earlier in 1905. In 1971 other alterations were made to the entrance doors to the design of architect, Werner Hug.
The most recent alterations to the building occurred in 1990 when a serious fire substantially damaged the building interior. Restoration and reconstruction work was undertaken by Brisbane architect, Robert Riddel.
","criteria":"The Maryborough City Hall, a large regional municipal building, demonstrates the growth of Maryborough in the early twentieth century, as the focal town of a large fertile agricultural area. This site, which was from the earliest Maryborough surveys, laid aside as public land, has historical and social importance as the long time municipal focal point of the town.
The Maryborough City Hall has associations with the early development of the Maryborough Council, with prominent citizen George Ambrose White, and with Brisbane architectural partnership, Hall and Dods.
|The City Hall is a fine example of the work of prominent Queensland architectural partnership, Hall and Dods. The building is the only built municipal example of the work of Robin Dods. The building is characteristic of a regional town hall, with classically inspired design and fine craftsmanship, symbolising the prominence, stability and progressiveness of the town.
The building uses a variety of local timbers and is a fine example of local craftsmanship with fine plasterwork and joinery throughout the building.
|The building has aesthetic value as a well composed municipal structure, on a prominent site which is an integral part of the Maryborough townscape and the Kent Street streetscape.
|This site, which was from the earliest Maryborough surveys, laid aside as public land, has historical and social importance as the long time municipal focal point of the town.
|The Maryborough City Hall has associations with the early development of the Maryborough Council, with prominent citizen George Ambrose White, and with Brisbane architectural partnership, Hall and Dods.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15474,"place_ref":600699,"name":"Royal Bank (former)","alternate_name":"Windsor House | Queensland International Heritage College","street_address":"297 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Royal Bank is a substantial two storeyed rendered brick building prominently located on Kent Street, Maryborough.
The symmetrically composed principal façade of the building is divided into three bays by round pilasters on square planned plinths. The capitals of the pilasters are of the Corinthian order and from the base to about one third of the overall height, the pilasters are reeded. The central bay is flanked by single pilasters and the pilasters at the corner of the building are paired. Surmounting the pilasters are panels which project from the face of an entablature but have similar mouldings. Above this is a large broken triangular pediment which acts as a parapet, and runs the entire width of the building but comprises a central signage panel, broken arched pediment at the apex, mouldings and urns. Between the pilasters on the face of the building are a number of round arched window openings. The openings on the upper storey, glazed with timber framed sashes, are above blind Italianate balustrades. The central ground floor entrance, is through a round arched opening which is flanked by rusticated pillars supporting an entablature and a scrolled curved pediment. Flanking the central entrance, in the recesses of the side bays are round arched openings.
The three elevations of the building which do not address Kent Street are of rendered brick and are less richly decorated, featuring segmental arched openings, a double storeyed verandah and a moulded parapet.
","history":"The former Royal Bank was constructed in 1888-9 to the design of Brisbane architect, Victor Carandini. The building was the first branch of the Royal Bank opened in Maryborough.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to suggest the best sites for the towns and wharves. The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east to allow for the development of deeper wharves and from the early 1850s this is where the town developed. During the 1860s and 1870s Maryborough flourished as the principal port of the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained its growth as a major regional centre. .
Many banks opened branches in Maryborough during the nineteenth century, and the Royal Bank opened a branch in 1888 after many of the other banks were established. The Royal Bank was established in about 1886, and their head office was opened in February of 1886, with shareholders concentrating on business, mining and agricultural interests near the eastern coast. The architect chosen to design the Royal Bank was Brisbane architect, Victor Carandini who practised from 1885 in partnership with Alfred Banks and from mid 1887 in private practice. He won several competitions and designed a number of fine buildings throughout Queensland, including a fire station in Townsville; St Thomas' Church of England, Beaudesert; a School of Arts in Redland Bay and the Post Office Hotel in Maryborough. The new bank building was designed to incorporate the banking chamber and offices on the ground floor and a residence for the manager on the upper floor, a common practice in regional banks at the time.
The Royal Bank merged with the Bank of North Queensland in about 1917 to form the Bank of Queensland. In 1921 this in turn merged with the Queensland National Bank and became part of the National Bank of Australasia Limited in the late 1940s. This merging meant that many banks in Maryborough were surplus to requirements and the former Royal Bank was one of these., being sold in 1973. It became known as Windsor House and was leased as private tenancies, including some residential use and as a restaurant In 1983 it was purchased as a group medical practice and also contained pathology laboratories until 1995, when it changed hands again. It was then opened as the Queensland International Heritage College. At this time some of the internal partitions erected for previous tenants were removed and the building was painted.
","criteria":"The former Royal Bank is of historical importance for demonstrating the growth of Maryborough in the 1880s when many financial institutes established branches.
|The building is a good example of a late nineteenth century bank influenced by classical architecture, reinforcing the banking values of tradition and strength.
|The former bank is a well composed building of architectural value and a prominent element of the streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15475,"place_ref":600700,"name":"Royal Hotel","alternate_name":"Bush Inn","street_address":"Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Royal Hotel, Maryborough is a substantial two storeyed rendered masonry building on a prominent intersection on the corner of Kent and Bazaar Streets, Maryborough. The hipped corrugated iron roof, featuring a prominent glazed roof lantern, is concealed by a rendered masonry parapet of italianate balusters, punctuated by a series of moulded panels.
The principal facade, from Kent Street, is symmetrically composed around a central bay surmounted by a curved pediment above a moulded panel projecting above the parapet, emphasising the entrance. The symmetrical quality of the facade is offset by the addition of a cantilevered awning which features an arched detail, not over the principal entrance designated by the central bay, but over on an arched opening to the right of this. The central bay is flanked by a series of arcaded bays, divided by pilasters rendered to imitate vermiculated stonework. The ground floor features a series of large arched openings, some of which are balustraded, and flanking these are bipartite round headed arched windows to the public bar toward Bazaar Street, and modernised shop fronts in the other direction. The central bay is flanked on the first floor by five bay arched loggias terminated by the end wings of the building which feature three arched window openings, over an italianate baluster panel. The first floor loggia provides an indication of the original open character of the central section of the ground floor.
The cantilevered awning which is attached to the building with a series of iron tie-backs, has an elaborate soffit of coffered pressed metal panels and a reeded pressed metal fascia. The awning extends the whole distance of the Kent Street facade, is curved around the corner and extends only a short distance on the Bazaar Street facade. Surmounted on the Kent and Bazaar Street corner of the hotel is an illuminated sign supported on metal framework with lettering, "ROYAL".
Windows to the first floor nearest the corner of Kent and Bazaar Streets retain double hung sashes, though most other openings in the building have been glazed with aluminium framed windows. Leadlight glazing survives on the upper sashes of several arched windows of the public bar. Window joinery to the Bazaar Street elevation is generally more intact. The building has a rear first floor verandah, access from which is gained by a straight timber stair.
The building is accessed via the centrally located principal entrance, originally an open loggia entrance vestibule, but now closed with glazing. This space features a fine tessellated and encaustic tiled floor, which continues in less decorative form into the entrance hall and dining room. The entrance hall is punctuated by an arcade supported on heavy masonry columns with stylised ionic capitals, initiating the stair and forming a walkway through the space, indicating the entrances to other rooms. The bifurcating dog leg stair features very fine cedar joinery of carved timber balusters joined by a carved panel below the handrail. Heavy columns flanking the stair are met by the expanding lower treads and the wreathed handrail.
The dining room, originally extending through two storeys with gallery above, is now ceiled at the first floor. The coved ceiling of the gallery space features a large central clerestory, now boarded below the windows. Reeded pilasters line the plaster walls, and access to the loggia is given through a number of half glazed french doors.
The upper floor has a number of accommodation rooms, all with access to the loggia or rear verandah. The timber framed and boarded rooms retain original detailing including four panel doors, with timber fretwork transoms above and timber skirting and architraves. A large clerestory in the corridor provides natural lighting.
The public bar and subsidiary ground floor rooms have been substantially altered. A one storeyed concrete block extension has been added to the south of the Bazaar Street elevation. To the rear of the early building is an area of partially surfaced carparking.
","history":"The Royal Hotel, Maryborough is a substantial rendered brick building, constructed in 1902 to designs of Messrs Eaton and Bates, architects of Rockhampton. The present hotel was built for Mr RM Hyne, a local pioneer who developed many local manufacturing and community initiatives.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852 the growing town was gradually transferred further north where ships were able to better navigate the river. Development followed and by March 1861, Maryborough was declared a municipality.
One of the early settlers in the area, Mr ET Aldridge established a hotel, apparently first known as the Victoria but later named the Bush Inn, in the old town in 1848. In 1856, Aldridge moved the hotel to the south of the River in Kent Street, where the present Royal Hotel is situated, with the shifting of the focus of development. This was a large two storeyed timber building.
During the 1860s Maryborough flourished as a result of the gold discoveries in Gympie, for which it became the primary port. In 1870 a first floor timber balcony with cross-braced balustrade was added to the Bush Inn, which was to become known as the Royal Hotel in the next few years, by the owner, Mr Cooper. In 1873, Mr RM Hyne took over the licence.
Prior to establishing himself in Maryborough, Hyne engaged in various businesses in Gympie, including the running of the Mining Exchange Hotel. Astutely, he realised that Maryborough would become a permanent centre and port for the Wide Bay Burnett district and moved to the town, where he immediately became involved with the running of the Bush Inn/Royal Hotel. Hyne was interested in establishing Maryborough as a major respected centre, and worked towards improving health, education, welfare and recreation facilities. He was mayor for a term in 1878.
Upon arriving in Maryborough, Hyne acquired the lease of the Royal Hotel in mid 1873 and purchased the hotel soon after. Hyne busied himself with improving the hotel, he added bathrooms and replaced the timber balustrading on the balconies with a cast iron balustrade and established a driveway where he planted several Bunya Pines in 1878. This former Royal Hotel did not occupy the site immediately adjacent to the corner, and a two storeyed masonry building was constructed by Hyne on this corner site in 1892-3. This two storeyed building, which was to be incorporated into the current Royal Hotel, was designed by William Devon, a local architect as a shop for Hanleys, drapers in the town. Hanleys remained in the shop for about five years, when Finlaysons took over the lease until the shop became the public bar of the new Royal Hotel in 1902.
As the town continued to prosper, the Royal Hotel soon became the leading hotel establishment, and many important civic functions were held there. By 1900 the question of modernising the hotel arose. In a letter to Hyne from a relative in Glasgow, the latter suggests that plans be acquired for the best use of the site, with a corner bar, sitting rooms and an imposing front entrance, preferably further away from the public bar, as this area is always objectionable to Ladies. Other suggestions included the filling in of the front with shops and the provision of accommodation for 40 on the first floor.
A decision was duly taken to rebuild the Royal Hotel, and a competition of Queensland architects was held, from which eight entries were received and Messrs Eaton and Bates were chosen. The design competition specified that the new hotel was to incorporate 'the best features of the Oriental Hotel in Colombo and Shepheards Hotel in Cairo'. Though the final design was obviously not as elaborate as either of the hotels cited, it does have many features which could be loosely described as having eastern origin, in particular the open entrance, first floor loggias and the stair hall with their openness, arcades and tiling. The drawings which survive from this competition, now in the hands of the Hyne family, are signed by Messrs Eaton, Bates and Garlick.
When constructed the Royal Hotel was described as one of the finest hotels north of Sydney and the most complete in Australia. It incorporated the building on the corner of Kent and Bazaar Streets and extended along Kent Street with the principal entrance on this facade. Through this was a large entrance vestibule, open to the street through wide archways, beyond which was the extravagant stair hall. A large dining room, to the right of the stair hall, extended through two stories, with a gallery encircling the room at the first floor level and a large clerestoried ceiling section. Elsewhere on the ground floor was a large billiard room, the bar area, on the corner of the streets, and sample rooms for the requirements of commercial travellers. The bar area incorporated a public bar, two parlours and two private bars, all of which could be served from the same counter. On the first floor accommodation facilities were provided, those facing Kent Street opening onto a long arched loggia. Shops were found on the ground floor of the Kent Street elevation.
The hotel was not fully completed when Mr RM Hyne died on July 5, 1902, but action had been taken by this stage to move to the new hotel.
Many parts of the hotel was refurbished during the 1930s. The lounge was renovated in 1932, under the supervision of local architect POE Hawkes, when a timber floor and wall panelling was introduced, and fibrous cement was used to clad the ceiling. A variety of locally grown hardwood timbers, including mountain ash, red gum, spotted gum and iron bark supplied by Hyne and Son timber merchants, were used to create the striking parquetry floor. Tenders were called, again by architect POE Hawkes, on September 21, 1934 for the erection of a cantilevered awning clad with Wunderlich pressed metal panels to the front of the hotel, though this was not erected until 1939, when the shop fronts were modernised. This work was completed by local contractor, SV Stevens, and a stipulation of the contract was the employment of only local labour.
The hotel remained in the ownership of the Hyne family until 1960, when it was sold to another established Maryborough family, the Williams. The shops to the Kent Street elevation remain, and a family restaurant is situated in the entrance and dining room.
","criteria":"The Royal Hotel is important in demonstrating the pattern of development in Maryborough. A hotel has been on the site since the initial stages of the development of the new town of Maryborough, and the subsequent rebuildings indicate various phases of the town's prosperity.
|The hotel demonstrates the principal characteristics of a large hotel in a Queensland country town, designed to provide superior accommodation to attract travellers and local clientele. The hotel is influenced by eastern design traditions, appropriate in the sub-tropical climate of Maryborough.
|The well composed exterior employing classically derived features and the finely detailed interior, of high quality planning, joinery, tiling and plaster work, contribute to an impressive building, of value for its aesthetic characteristics.
|The building is important to the local community and recognised as the premier hotel in Maryborough, and a centre of the town's social life since its construction in 1902.
|The building is associated with the Hyne family, important pioneers of Maryborough and in particular with Mr RM Hyne, and also the Queensland architects, Eaton and Bates.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15476,"place_ref":600701,"name":"School of Arts","alternate_name":"Technical College and Recreation Club | Museum | Maryborough School of Arts","street_address":"427 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Maryborough School of Arts is a substantial two storeyed masonry building, prominently located on Kent Street adjacent to the new City Council Chambers and opposite the 1906 Town Hall. The site contains the building constructed to the line of the footpath with a two storeyed timber framed verandah to the south east covering a driveway to an open space at the rear. The School of Arts is a smooth rendered brick building with a hipped roof.
The principal, south western façade of the School of Arts, which addresses Kent Street, is symmetrically arranged and employs classical proportion and detailing. The façade is divided into five bays divided by rusticated pilasters at the ground floor level and by single and double engaged columns with Corinthian capitals on the first floor. The central bay features a recessed arched entrance porch to which access is provided via two concrete steps from ground level. The keystone of the moulding surrounding the archway has a plaster moulded bust of Minerva, goddess of the city and protector of civilised life. From behind her head foliage, of two different types, emerges. Flanking the entrance, in the recesses formed by the rusticated pilasters, are two square arched openings surmounted by oculi with decorative mouldings joining the two windows. At first floor level are five, equally sized, round arched openings, in the recesses of the attached columns, with sills resting on blank balustraded panels. Mouldings surround the arched heads of these windows, and moulded swags are found on recessed panels above the windows. The engaged columns support an entablature which acts as a parapet, with a central projecting panel featuring the words, "SCHOOL OF ARTS". Above the signage panel is a triangular pediment supported on a rectangular panel divided by squat engaged columns aligned with those on the levels below.
The north western façade of the building is attached to the adjacent City Council Chambers and a recent thoroughfare on the first floor of the School of Arts provides access to its neighbouring building. The south eastern elevation of the School of Arts is concealed by a double storeyed verandah covering a driveway on that side of the building. The verandah is supported, at ground level on a series of cast iron columns on masonry plinths, and has a deep scalloped timber frieze below first floor level. The first floor of the verandah structure is infilled with fibrous cement sheeting and glazing. The face of this side of the building continues the openings found on the principal façade for two bays. The rear of the School of Arts is unrendered brickwork, of two types of brick reflecting the growth of the building. There are only four small square openings at first floor level on this elevation.
Internally the building is arranged around a large central hall, accessed from the principal entrance off Kent Street. Rooms are found off either side of the hall on the ground floor and the hall is terminated in the eastern corner of the building with the stair hall. The entrance is through an elaborate double timber door opening from the recessed porch. The doors are half glazed and panelled, surmounted by a triangular pedimented entablature and all surrounded by clear glazed sidelights and semicircular fanlight. Generally the interior has timber boarded floors, plastered walls and timber boarded ceilings. On the first floor level of the building the ceilings are of timber boards which rake downwards to meet original walls. The dog legged timber stair is cantilevered above the midway landing and has turned timber balusters and substantial turned and carved timber newels. Providing natural lighting to the stairwell is a large round arched opening on the south eastern wall of the building.
On the ground level of the School of Arts, through a door on the north west side of the central hall is the early library of the building, now used by a local historical society. This large room, extending almost the full length of the building, has a timber gallery, which seems to be suspended with iron rods from roof beams, to which access is provided via a steep and narrow stair. The gallery is lined with a simple cast iron balustrade, comprising decorative iron newels joined by an iron rail, and a base skirting board of timber with trefoiled cutouts. The library is filled with early books and bookshelves, early museum display cabinets and other early items of importance to the understanding of the history of the building. Elsewhere on the ground and upper floor are smaller rooms with extant timber joinery and other fittings.
","history":"The Maryborough School of Arts was constructed in 1887-8 to the design of Melbourne and Adelaide architect, John Grainger. The substantial two storeyed rendered brick building replaced the first Maryborough School of Arts which was a small brick building constructed in 1861 soon after the establishment of a local School of Arts committee in 1860.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
By 1860 the local community had decided upon the erection of a School of Arts, where technical classes could be held for adults and provision made for a public library. Schools of Arts were established all over Queensland in the nineteenth century, the first erected in Brisbane in 1849. The institutions were part of a nineteenth century British movement encouraging widespread popular education, particularly in industrial areas. Mechanics Institutes and later Schools of Arts, co-operative societies, working men's colleges and the university extension movement were all formed to improve the education of working men and instruct them in various trades. This movement broadened to include all types of adult education, both technical and cultural. Applied or useful arts, rather than fine arts, formed the basis of the education provided at the Schools of Arts, as they became the forerunners to the technical education movement and in fact usually provided class rooms for what latter became technical colleges.
Four tenders were received by the School of Arts Committee on 10 October 1860 for the erection of a timber building and that of local contractor, W Holland for £430 was accepted. In January of the following year it was reported that the government had granted a site to the Committee for the erection of their building, describes as Allotment 4 on Section 85 containing an area of two roods. Governments generally supported the establishment of Schools of Arts throughout Queensland and often provided some sort of subsidy, in the form of a loan for construction as well as a land grant for their construction. The land granted was in Kent Street where the current School of Arts building stands, opposite the early police and justice reserve.
The foundation stone was laid on 5 February 1861 by newly elected local member Gilbert Elliott. On 17 October 1861 the building was officially opened with the hope that it would "be the first of a number of links which would unite all classes for the common good, it was a place where all could meet without distinction." The building constructed was of brick with a steeply pitched gabled roof and ornamental bargeboard, symmetrically arranged with a central entrance and simple flat arched window openings.
Although Maryborough was proclaimed a municipality in October 1861 it was not until 1874 that the town acquired a Town Hall which was constructed beside the first School of Arts. In 1884 a Maryborough School of Arts Land Sale Act (1884) was passed to enable the trustees of the School of Arts to sell a portion of their grant to finance the construction of a new School of Arts. As early as 1885 sections of the Allotment were sold with the largest section retained as the site of the new School of Arts.
Competitive designs were invited from architects for a substantial School of Arts in Maryborough and £50 prize money being offered. Thirty one entries were received and, at a meeting on 10 November 1886, that of John Grainger was awarded the first prize and the contract for the project. The prize wining entry was for a substantial two storeyed rendered brick building, with a prominent classically inspired façade which was to cost no more than £3000.
John Grainger was an architect of Adelaide and Melbourne who had opened an office in Brisbane after his partnership, Grainger and D'Ebro, won a design competition for the Brisbane Public Offices, later known as the Treasury Building. Their design for the Brisbane building was overlooked in favour of JJ Clarke's. Grainger returned to Melbourne and his partnership with Charles D'Ebro ended before he entered the competition for the Maryborough School of Arts. After completion of that project he was appointed to the position of Chief Architect of the Western Australian Department of Public Works.
The contract for the construction of the School of Arts was let on 1 March 1887 to local contractors, Jacob and John Rooney (J&J Rooney) and the final construction cost was £3500. The foundation stone for the building was laid on 3 June 1887 in an elaborate ceremony.
The building constructed was a substantial two storeyed rendered brick structure with a classically inspired façade reflecting the cultural and educational aspirations of the institution. Many public buildings constructed since the Renaissance employed elements of classical architecture to imbue the structure with a sense of tradition and authority. The principal façade of the Maryborough School of Arts employs classical proportion and symmetry as well as detailing like the round arched windows of the first floor, oculi openings above the ground floor windows, entablature surmounted by central triangular pediment flanked by acroteria, as well as a system of projecting pilasters and rustication encouraging a three dimensional quality. In a lengthy report on Maryborough in 1895, the Sydney Mail, described the School of Arts as the "lion of the town" to which "every visitor is duty bound to go over...and admire...with fervour."
The building was opened in a discreet ceremony on 21 May 1888 and a short report in the Maryborough Chronicle, described the building and services offered in the improved structure. The library, with over 5000 volumes, was housed on the ground floor as well as two large class rooms separated by cedar folding doors. On the first floor was a reading room with a groined ceiling and, adjacent to this, a smoking room. Later in 1888 the School of Arts Committee received a grant of £500 from local benefactor, Janet Melville for the establishment of a museum in the new building. Glass cabinets were fixed in the foyer and reading room and an extensive collection was amassed including timber and mineral samples, works of art and examples of taxidermy.
After a grant of £2500 was received from the government for the establishment of technical classes in art and science in 1890, the Maryborough School of Arts commenced teaching classes. The popularity and success of these technical classes, which would in time lead to the establishment of the Maryborough Technical College, meant that a timber class room extension was added to the rear of the building in 1895. J & J Rooney's tender of £165.2.0 was accepted on the 11 January and the extension was completed in June of 1895.
In April 1896 a verandah and ground floor loggia was added to the eastern side of the School of Arts to the design of local contractor Charles Crystall from partnership, Crystall and Armstrong. The tender of another local contractor, Henry Neale, for £189.10.0 was accepted for the construction of the verandah and loggia and the cast iron balustrading was got from the local Albion Foundry. The spaces thus formed were provided as a shady retreat in the "trying summer months". A verandah was also erected on the rear of the timber classroom extension in 1900, although this section was again extended in 1903-4 with the erection of another lecture hall. A Recreation Club was established in one of the rear timber buildings and this was furnished with billiard tables and assumed the role of the smoking room on the first floor of the main building which was converted into a reference library.
The next major alteration occurred in 1907 when Bundaberg architect, Frederic Herbert Faircloth was commissioned to design a gallery in the library of the School of Arts. Faircloth had previously designed a similar gallery for the School of Arts in Bundaberg. Tenders were called on 21 August 1907 and the lowest tender from T. McLeod of £94 was accepted. The final cost of the gallery was £134.1.1 and the timber structure provided a balustraded platform on three sides of the library and was accessed by a narrow timber stair from the ground floor. This addition allowed the book shelving to be extended to the ceiling.
The Maryborough Technical College, although still housed in the School of Arts, became a separately managed association with its own committee in 1910. When the town hall was erected opposite the School of Arts, the former town hall site was purchased for the erection of technical college buildings. By 1936 the Technical College had expanded and was removed from the School of Arts to the newly established High School, at the former Grammar School grounds.
From the 1920s government subsidies to the School of Arts were reduced, in favour of the technical colleges and this further reduced their role in the community. Renovation projects were undertaken at the School of Arts from the 1910s and the building became used as offices for various local community bodies, including the Country Women's Association, the Grammarians Recreation Club. During the World War II the School of Arts was resumed by the Government for use by the Australian Comforts Fund when extra bathroom facilities were added. A servicemen's club for members of the RAAF stationed in Maryborough was established in the building.
Although the library continued operating on the ground floor, the first floor of the School of Arts was maintained as tenancies for various bodies after the War. In 1949 the Australian Broadcasting Company and the Engineering Section of the Post Master General's Department moved into the first floor. Plans for offices and a broadcasting studio for the ABC were prepared by Brisbane architects, Hennessey and Hennessey and the local ABC radio was established in the building. At this time the eastern verandah was enclosed to house offices of the PMG's Department.
In 1943 the Libraries Act was passed which sought to make better provision for the establishment and management of public libraries. The Act empowered local authorities to establish libraries, and also to assume management of the libraries currently operated by Schools of Arts. It was not until 1972 that the Maryborough City Council and the School of Arts Committee drew up an agreement which meant resulted in the Council accepting trusteeship of the School of Arts land and buildings, and for the council to be responsible for any financial deficiencies of the Committee. The School of Arts Committee agreed to operate the library until a Municipal Library was established. The Maryborough Public Library was opened in May 1977 and this meant the closure of the library at the School of Arts. Following this the Maryborough Wide Bay and Burnett Historical Society remained in the building as tenants and were given a forty year lease.
","criteria":"The Maryborough School of Arts building demonstrates the development of adult education in Queensland from the nineteenth century movement concerned with providing popular education by local communities to twentieth century state education programmes.
|The building is characteristic of a large regional School of Arts, constructed in a classical style, and housing a reading room, library and class rooms. Though a standard feature of most Queensland towns of the nineteenth century, Schools of Art have been replaced by other education facilities and municipal libraries, and therefore a once prominent and integral feature of the town fabric, the civic role of the Maryborough School of Arts has been altered dramatically.
|The building is an important element of the Kent Street streetscape, with a prominent, well composed façade. The building features fine joinery, well crafted plasterwork and well proportioned internal spaces.
|The building, a public facility for over one hundred years and the forerunner to the current municipal library and technical college, has special importance to the local community.
|The building, a public facility for over one hundred years and the forerunner to the current municipal library and technical college, has special importance to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15477,"place_ref":600702,"name":"Maryborough Railway Station Complex and Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lennox Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Maryborough railway station complex of timber buildings runs for some distance along Lennox Street, contributing greatly to the streetscape. The Main Station Building also acts as a focal end point to the vista along Ellena Street. Four railway lines approached the station (which is aligned south-west to north-east) from the north-west. The station buildings, working along Lennox Street from north-east to south-west, include:
\n1878 Station Master's Residence (northern end of site on Lennox Street)
\nThis is a single-storeyed timber residence with verandahs to the southern, eastern and northern sides. It is set on concrete stumps on gently sloping ground. The house is clad in painted weatherboards and features French doors with fanlights, which provide access from the rooms in the main residence to the verandahs, and a mixture of 6:6, 4:4 and 1:1 vertical sliding sash windows to the kitchen and later rear extensions. A concave iron window hood returning at each end protects the triple sash window with louvered shutters on the front projecting gable, which also features bargeboards with supporting brackets along the eaves and a finial at the apex.
\nThe building is asymmetrically arranged with a number of corrugated zincalume clad gables of varying heights and skillion-roofed verandah awnings. The verandahs to the south and east are enclosed with lattice panels and the awnings are supported on chamfered timber posts with decorative capitals and brackets. The verandah to the north (former fernery) is enclosed with lattice and timber louvers. The rear extensions and original kitchen wing are also constructed with gabled roof forms interconnecting at varying heights. Many of the sash windows have sunshade awnings. A skillion-roofed garage at the rear of the kitchen is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe interior of the residence has been altered, but retains the original 4-room layout from the 1878 residence and the 2-room 1894 extension. The front door opens into a long hall, which leads off to rooms on either side and then to a large communal room. This front portion of the residence retains early French doors and window joinery, as well as a fireplace with decorative tiles and ironwork and timber mantelpiece in the front north-east bedroom (former lounge). This is the only fireplace in the house. The rear wing of the house has been altered to accommodate multiple bedrooms for railway staff. The internal walls are clad with sheet material over the original tongue and groove linings except in the kitchen and bathroom. The building is set in an established garden with mature trees.
\nAdministration complex, consisting of Traffic Manager and Engineers Office, Wagon and Traffic Offices, Loco Office, and Pay Office
\nThe Traffic Manager and Engineer's Office is timber-framed, low-set, and is clad in weatherboards. It has a gabled corrugated iron-clad roof. Most of the front verandah has been enclosed and the walls to the verandah have been removed. Internal partitions are tongue and groove-lined. The original open rear verandah links with the Wagon and Traffic Offices, forming a covered way.
\nThe Wagon and Traffic Offices are also low-set and timber-framed, and are clad with weatherboards. The gabled corrugated iron roof has a ridge lantern skylight which is closed off at ceiling level. The building is linked across two open verandahs with the Traffic Manager's and Engineer's Office to the south-east, and is also connected to the Loco Office to the north-west.
\nThe Loco Office is a low-set gabled timber building with a corrugated iron roof, set on concrete stumps and clad with chamferboards. Three of its verandahs are now enclosed and incorporated into the internal space. The open south-west verandah has stop-chamfered timber posts, simple strut brackets, and a timber handrail.
\nThe Pay Office is a weatherboard-clad timber structure with a gabled corrugated iron roof, connected by covered verandahs to the Traffic Manager and Engineer's Office and to the former Loco Office to the north. A small extension to the north-east corner accommodates a ladies toilet. Pay windows and barriers remain on the western side verandahs, and a concrete strong room extends out from the northern wall.
\n12 ton Weighbridge
\nThe weighbridge consists of a small timber skillion-roofed shelter with a scales mechanism inside, and a weighbridge steel plate surrounded by four timber bollards and concrete pads located to the south-west of the shelter.
\nRailway Station Building
\nThe station is a single-storeyed, timber-framed building, set at ground level. It is clad in chamferboards and has a gabled corrugated iron roof. The rear roof extends over the original station platform and is supported at its outer edge by unusual tapered stop-chamfered timber posts with octagonal capitals and strut brackets. The main front entrance consists of a projecting gabled portico supported on pairs of timber posts and features a timber arch and gable infill. A central passageway leads through the station to the main platform behind the building. There are skillion-roofed front verandahs, partly enclosed on the south-west side, either side of the portico. These verandahs have stop-chamfered posts and timber strut brackets that match those of the station platform. There is an extension at the south-west end of the station with skillion-roofed structures and a bracketed hood over the front windows. A separate timber-framed ladies waiting room and toilets with a gabled roof adjoins the north-east end of the station building. This has a domestic-scaled post-supported awning linked to the rear station platform. There are new male toilets in the former cloak room. A World War I Railways Honour Board is located at the rear of the station beside the ticket office.
\nGuards' Room and Porters' Store
\nThis is a gable-roofed timber building, clad in weatherboards, located to the north-west of the north-eastern end of the station building.
\nGoods Shed
\nThe Goods Shed is a timber-framed, corrugated iron-clad building with a gable roof. It has a weatherboard-clad, hipped roof office extension to the south-east. There is an elevated loading dock along the north-east elevation. Projecting rafters over the loading dock have decorative shaped ends and are strutted off the outer wall. The roof of the Goods Shed is supported on large timber queen post trusses. An internal platform and rail line runs the length of the shed against the south-west wall. The office wing has an open verandah on the north-east elevation. A modern steel canopy has been added to the northwest end of the Goods Shed, but this is not historically significant and has not been included within the heritage boundary.
\nMain Platform
\nThe platform was constructed in stages. The first seven bays of the platform roof are three-bays wide, with exposed king-post trusses each with lower arched brackets, and side skillion extensions. These are supported on tapering chamfered timber posts with octagonal capitals and decorative strut brackets of similar design to that of the station. The roof is clad in corrugated iron. The next four and a half bays (two bays wide) are to the north-east of the original refreshment rooms and are an extension of the original design for the main station building. To the north-west of refreshment rooms is a new canopy erected to cover a steam locomotive. From the refreshment rooms, the platform is an island, servicing tracks on both sides. The first nine bays maintain the original bell-cast roof profile, while the final 24 bays are a higher, simple pitched roof with stop chamfered timber posts and angle strut brackets. The roof to this section is of corrugated iron with curved ridge sheets and terminates at the north-west end with a weatherboard-sheeted gable, signage and surmounted clock housing. The tracks either side of the platform within the heritage boundary should be retained to assist interpretation of the site. A recent coach terminal has been added to the south-west side of the platform between the station and the former refreshment rooms, and a new canopy has been added northwest of the Refreshment Rooms, to shelter a historic locomotive. Neither of these two recent structures is historically significant.
\nRefreshment Rooms (former)
\nThe original Refreshment Rooms building is a timber-framed building clad with chamferboards. The gabled roof is clad in corrugated iron. The building is connected to the main station building by the platform and platform awnings. Internally the building consists of a kitchen and dining room area.
\nAir Raid Shelter
\nThe shelter is a concrete structure 47'6\" (14.5m) long, and 12' (3.6m) wide. The flat concrete roof is 6' (150mm) thick, and the walls are 12' (300mm) thick. Doorways are located at each end of the north-east elevation, with each doorway being set in a recessed area that is stepped back 4' (1.2m) from the end of the shelter, and 5' (1.5m) from the front face of the shelter. A sign on the north-east elevation reads 'Air Raid Shelter for Passengers Only'. The shelter is used for storage, and electrical cables enter it above the double timber doors at the north-west end. There is a single timber door at the south-east end. The building has not been inspected internally.
\nGrounds
\nThere is a large fig tree (Ficus sp.) in front of the Traffic Manager and Engineers Office, and there are mature trees around the 1878 Station Master's Residence.
","history":"The railway complex on Lennox Street in Maryborough consists of a number of timber buildings constructed between 1878 and the 1930s, as well as a brick and concrete platform and a concrete air raid shelter built in 1942. The Maryborough Railway Station was built as the terminus of a railway network that radiated from Maryborough, transporting timber, coal, sugar and other agricultural products to the wharves on the Mary River. Maryborough was also a busy rail terminal for passenger traffic. Although the Maryborough railway station is no longer used, the station buildings are a picturesque reminder of significant past economic activity and transport arrangements within the region.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a wool-store on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge, and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow [QHR 602393]. In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. Items shipped from Maryborough included wool, tallow, and timber and these were later followed by coal and sugar.
Maryborough grew quickly as the port for Gympie, where gold was discovered in October 1867, as it provided an alternative route - by ship to Maryborough, then overland south to Gympie - to the rough road running north from Brisbane. The long-term viability of the Gympie goldfield ensured the continued growth of Maryborough and the need for sawmills, foundries and construction firms. Coal mining on the Burrum River also needed Maryborough's construction industries and shipping. However, the Urangan Jetty in Hervey Bay, which opened in 1917, replaced Maryborough as the port for the coal mining and sugar industries. The closure of Walker's shipbuilding yards in 1974 spelled the end of Maryborough as a port.
Maryborough's rise as a railway centre also resulted from the discovery of gold at Gympie. In August 1877 the Queensland government approved three railways to connect mining towns to their principal ports: Townsville to Charters Towers; Bundaberg to Mt Perry; and Maryborough to Gympie. The railway to Gympie opened in August 1881, and in 1883 a branch line north to the coalfields at Burrum was started at Croydon Junction (Baddow), several kilometres northwest of Maryborough. When the line was extended north to Bundaberg in 1888 it followed this branch line, which meant that the North Coast line later bypassed Maryborough Station and left it at the end of a dead-end spur.
Maryborough station became the centre of a busy network of branch lines. A short branch line was built through the Botanic Gardens (QHR 600708) to the wharf area in 1880, and in 1883 this was extended eastwards alongside the river north of Kent Street to the Walkers Limited foundry and shipyards. It was later extended to the Maryborough Sugar Factory (established 1894). A branch line connecting to Maryborough was also opened from Theebine, south of Tiaro, to Kilkivan in 1886, and was later extended to Murgon, Proston, Windera, Kingaroy, Tarong and Nanango (the latter by 1911). A branch line from Mungar, south of Maryborough, to Broweena opened in 1889, and this line eventually extended to Gayndah, Mundubbera and Monto (1929). Coal from the Burrum fields eventually required better port facilities and a branch line was built to Pialba in 1896, from Colton, between Maryborough and Burrum. This branch was extended to Urangan in 1913.
Engine and carriage maintenance workshops were built and expanded in Maryborough from 1880. Henry Taylor Junior won the contract for a machine shop in January 1880, and this was extended in 1881, and 1884. The workshops, which were located to the south-west of the station, became less important after the Maryborough system was linked to the rest of Queensland in 1891. They are no longer extant, having been demolished for a shopping centre in the late 1990s.
After the line to Gympie was approved in 1877, drawings for buildings at the Maryborough station were prepared by the Engineering Branch of the Department of Railways. The site chosen for the Maryborough Railway Station was centrally located on a municipal park reserve. In 1878 construction at the site included a station master's residence, engineer's office (non-extant), store and blacksmith's workshop. A large programme of works in the years 1879 and 1880 saw the construction of a goods' shed, passenger station, closets and urinals, 30 foot turntable, loading banks, station gates and fences and a semaphore signal. The timber station building was handsome, yet modest in scale. A foreman's cottage was constructed in 1881 and a locomotive shed was built in 1882. In 1884 a gatehouse was built at the Ferry Street entrance, and new offices for the traffic manager and engineers were built the same year. In 1885 and 1886 a coal depot and a forkline were built, and the turntable was taken up. A new locomotive shed was built in 1900.
1878 Station Master's Residence (192 Lennox Street).
Drawings for the residence were approved by Chief Engineer Henry C Stanley on 16 April 1878. The builders were John Roddam and John Walker. In 1894 a verandah and an additional room were added on the south-west side. After 1896 alterations were made to the rear of the house, linking the formerly detached kitchen and service wing to the house. The building was later used as the District Traffic Manager's Residence, then as the District Superintendent's Residence by 1935 until about 1975, before being used by Queensland Rail as quarters for staff. Conservation work was undertaken to this building
in 2012.
Administration complex, consisting of Traffic Manager and Engineers Office, Wagon and Traffic Offices, Loco Office, and Pay Office
In 1884 drawings were made for new offices to replace the original (1878) Traffic Manager and Engineers Office. In plan the new building was a 42' (12.8m) by 18' (5.5m) rectangle containing four offices with verandahs to three sides. Additions were made to the south-west side later in 1884, and in 1911 a small rear addition was made for the Traffic Manager and Telegraph Office (later the Pay Office and ladies toilet). Soon after the Wagon and Traffic Offices were added to the rear, and in 1920 the Loco Office, with four open verandahs, was relocated to its present position behind the Wagon and Traffic Offices. By 1920, there were more offices at the northern end of the Traffic Manager and Engineer's Office, and it was linked to the Wagon and Traffic Offices in 1920. The complex was used by Queensland Rail as office space until 2008.
12 ton Weighbridge
This was extant by 1937.
Railway Station Building
Although the architect is unknown, drawings for the first stage of the station building were approved by HC Stanley on 24 October 1879, and the contract was awarded to Henry Taylor, Junior on 8 Jan 1880, for £1325. A head station building and a short platform were built. On 24 December 1892 Chief draughtsman Henrick Hansen approved alterations to the station and the main platform verandah, the demolition of the buildings extending to the north-west of the head station, and the enlargement of the lamp room. This contract was awarded to John Kyle on 24 January 1893, for £1176. The Station Master's office was enlarged in 1912.
Guards' Room and Porters' Store
The Guards' Room was built in 1917, and the Porters' Store existed by 1937 as an extension on the north-west end.
Goods Shed
The design for the goods shed was approved by HC Stanley on 8 July 1879, and the contract was awarded to G and E Negus in September 1879, for £698. The shed was 100' (30.5m) by 36' (11m), and included an office, warehouse crane, and docks. It had a raised timber floor and a single rail track running through the shed against the south-west wall. Four individual loading dock entrances penetrated the north-east wall, and a 50' (15.2m) outside loading platform was located at the north end. An extension was approved by Stanley on 4 October 1881, and Charles Whiting won the contract for £629. The extension to the south-west side of the Goods Shed was 66' (20.1m) long, with two docks and a warehouse crane. In 1908 a new office was built at the south-east end of building, and this was later extended. The office had an open verandah by 1920.
Main Platform
In 1880 the platform configuration included a covered verandah platform at the rear of the station building, plus a short uncovered platform extending to the north-west. In 1892 Hansen approved a platform verandah extension of seven bays by three bays wide, between the station building and a lamp room (which later became refreshment rooms), the carriage shed at the end of the platform was moved, and a fourth siding was built on the south-west side of the platform. Between 1893 and 1925 the island platform was extended several times to the north-west, to a total of 45 bays. In 1925 drawings for extending the main platform verandah included the last 24 bays of the current platform.
Refreshment Rooms (former)
The first (south-east) portion of the original Refreshment Room was built in the 1890s, and may have been a lamp room beforehand. It was doubled in size in 1909, and was closed in 1968. It has since been used for storage. A new refreshment booth was built to the south-east in the 1990s, under the main platform verandah.
Air Raid Shelter
One shelter survives of two built in the early 1940s to the south-west of the station building. The North Coast railway line was extremely busy during World War II, and the construction of air raid shelters at Maryborough railway station was probably linked to this increased wartime traffic as well as to Maryborough's value as an industrial target and transport hub. Government regulations regarding the safety of the population also prompted the building of shelters. In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Queensland's Premier William Forgan Smith ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Another 24 local governments in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public.
A large number of businesses also had to build air raid shelters. Owners of any building in the coastal areas where over 30 people would normally be present at any one time were required to build shelters either within the building, or adjacent to it. However, there was disagreement over who was responsible for building shelters at railway stations. At a conference in late February 1942 the Secretary for Health and Home Affairs, EM Hanlon, stressed that if Queensland Railways did not act on building public air raid shelters it would make it harder for the State to insist that other businesses and local authorities do so. It was recommended that the department of Public Works proceed to construct shelters on or adjoining railway premises.
On 2 March 1942 a memorandum from the Undersecretary of the Department of Public Works reported that Queensland Railways had already built shelters for its employees at some of the larger train stations, and it recommended that a further 28 full-size public surface shelters, three half-size shelters, and three sets of trenches, be built outside Brisbane, at a total cost of £16,150. Most of the recommended surface shelters and trenches were on the North Coast railway line, at 19 stations from Nambour to Cairns.
Queensland was apparently the only Australian State to build air raid shelters at its railway stations. The survival of the public air raid shelter at Maryborough railway station is fortuitous, given the rate of shelter demolition after the war. The only other railway air raid shelters to survive are at Landsborough, Toowoomba (QHR 600872) and Shorncliffe.
1878 Engineer's Office
William Elliot and James Patterson signed a contract to build the Engineer's Office on 20 February 1878. In plan it was initially an 18ft by 38ft (5.5m by 11.5m) rectangle, with four rooms and a verandah. Alterations and additions in 1884 were signed by HC Stanley. Thomas Ferguson and Thomas Holden were the contractors. The office was turned into the Traffic Manager's Quarters with two extra rooms at the rear, a verandah around the whole building, and a covered way to new detached kitchen wing. The building was being used as the Station Master's Residence by 1935. It was moved 10 metres to the north-east in circa 1999.
Maryborough station remained busy until the 1980s. During 1962 there were 240 regular trains each week, including 147 passenger services. In 1965 Baddow on the main northern line had 331 regular services each week and 48 steam locomotives operated from the Maryborough Locomotive Depot at this time. The Sunlander did not stop at Maryborough however, and it dropped any passengers for Maryborough at Baddow where a taxi service (an engine and van) completed the journey. All passenger services from Baddow to Maryborough ceased on 20 April 1986, to be replaced by a minibus service, and in 1988 a main line upgrade by-passed Baddow. A new station was established at Maryborough West. In late 2007 Queensland Railways still had a freight train presence at the Maryborough station yards.
In April 2010 the 1878 Engineer's Office was substantially damaged by fire and, after a no prudent and feasible argument was made, approval was given for its remains to be demolished. It stood at the southernmost end of the complex on Lennox Street and comprised two adjacent single-storey, timber-framed structures, the former office on Lennox Street and a kitchen building to the rear. Clad in weatherboards, both parts stood on concrete stumps with timber slats between them. The former office structure had a roof made up of a series of gablets, two terminating a gable running parallel to Lennox Street and two terminating twin gables facing the rear of the site. Each gablet had decorated bargeboards supported on timber brackets and single vents filled with timber louvres. The former kitchen building comprised a gable running parallel to Lennox Street with a broken-back skillion connecting to the office and separate skillion at the rear. Its stove recess was clad in corrugated metal sheeting and had a separate skillion roof. The land on which the Engineer's Office stood was removed from within the heritage boundary for this place in 2013.
In 2013 Queensland Rail maintains a presence on part of the station site in relation to rail freight, while other parts are being developed into a shopping centre.
","criteria":"The Maryborough Railway Station (established in 1878) demonstrates the importance of Maryborough as a port for the export of the products of the interior. Although the Port of Maryborough declined after 1917, the railway station is a reminder of the past importance of the city to Queensland's export trade.
The complex of timber railway buildings in central Maryborough, including a residence, the station building and main platform verandah, nearby train tracks, guards' room and porters' store, refreshment rooms, goods shed, weighbridge, and administration buildings, also demonstrates the importance of Maryborough, until 1891, as the headquarters of a separate railway network. The original station master's house is a fine example of a residence built for Queensland Government Railways during the nineteenth century, and it also demonstrates the important status of Maryborough in the railway system of the time.
The air raid shelter is important as surviving evidence of the Air Raid Precautions that were implemented as part of the defence of Queensland during World War II. Designed to afford protection for civilian and military travellers at Maryborough railway station in the event of a Japanese air raid, the shelter is important in demonstrating the impact of World War II on Queensland.
|The existing railway sidings and timber buildings provide a highly intact example of a nineteenth century railway station complex that was expanded substantially in the early twentieth century. Significant components include a residence, main station building, goods shed, and ancillary buildings such as the weighbridge, guard's room and porter's store, refreshment rooms, and administration buildings, including a pay office. The pay windows and barriers to the pay office demonstrate the obsolete practice of workers queuing to collect their wages.
The core of the Maryborough Station Building, constructed in 1880, is the oldest timber station building to survive at a major Queensland railway station. The station building is substantially intact and its design is representative of Queensland Government Railways' best practice at the time. The extensions to the station building, and possibly the original building, are associated with the work of the important railway architect, Henrick Hansen.
The original Station Master's residence (erected in 1878) is a good example of an early and substantial Queensland Government Railways residence adapted to the sub-tropical climate with features including wide screened verandahs.
|The timber railway buildings, and the large fig (Ficus sp.) tree in front of the Traffic Manager and Engineer's Office, have considerable aesthetic value and contribute significantly to the streetscape along Lennox Street. In particular, the railway station building, its early platform verandah, and the original station master's residence are of a handsome design.
|The Maryborough Railway Station is rare as a substantially intact coastal terminal and system headquarters complex of timber buildings, established in the 1870s and 1880s.
The Air Raid shelter is a rare example of a concrete public air raid shelter designed by Queensland Railways during World War II to provide protection for the travelling public during air raids. It is one of only two railway station shelters surviving on the North Coast railway line, the other being located at Landsborough. Only four such shelters survive in Queensland, the only Australian state to build air raid shelters at railway stations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15478,"place_ref":600703,"name":"Ilfracombe","alternate_name":"Lambert Hyne House | Blairholme","street_address":"335 Lennox Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ilfracombe is a large one storeyed timber constructed overlooking, to the east, a reach of the Mary River. Access to the house is via a laneway from the northern end of Lennox Street, with the building concealed from the street. Surrounding the house is a large garden which includes several established trees and plantings.
The house is a timber framed building clad with horizontal timber weatherboards. The corrugated iron roof of the building, which incorporates an attic, is quite complex, reflecting the complexity of the internal planning. The roof scape comprises a number of asymmetrically arranged and variously sized gabled and hipped sections, with a steeply pitched mansard roof over the attic, which is surmounted with a decorative cast iron balustrade, with projecting finials from the corners. Surmounting the gabled ends are similar cast iron finials. The house is lined on three sides by bull nosed verandahs although some of these have been infilled.
Generally the building has high quality joinery and craftsmanship; several projecting bay windows are filled with etched and coloured glass panels and the external joinery is of fine quality.
Internally the building generally has timber boarded floors, walls and ceilings. Occasionally the size or orientation of timber boarding varies indicating that much of the house may have been papered or otherwise lined internally when constructed. The interior is arranged around a central vestibule from which hallways lead to the principal entrance to the south and to the kitchen on the west. Many original features remain intact, including a fine anaglypta lined vaulted ceiling in the drawing room; internal doors and other joinery; a fine fireplace with painted tiles, despite many internal alterations.
","history":"Ilfracombe was constructed in the early 1890s as the residence of Andrew Heron Wilson's sister-in-law, Margaret Blair and her family, adjacent to Wilson's own residence, Doon Villa.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed. During the 1860s an 1870s, Maryborough flourished as the principal port of Gympie where gold was discovered in 1867.
Andrew Heron Wilson arrived in Maryborough in about 1866 and established the Maryborough Sawmills, where he worked for many years before joining in partnership R Hart and J Bartholemew, and constructing a larger sawmill for Wilson, Hart and Co., as the partnership was known, in 1881. He retired from milling after only two years at his new mill. Wilson was a large investor in Gympie gold mining and was a director of the Monkland South Glanmire Cos and also of the Maryborough Building Society. He was a Member of Parliament from 19 September 1883 until his death on 29 August 1906.
In about 1882 Wilson acquired the property on which he constructed his residence, a large timber house, known as Doon Villa overlooking the Mary River. This was an impressive house and an early history of Maryborough considers it one of the residential jewels of Maryborough, and indeed of Queensland. Wilson planned an impressive garden around the house, and in fact constructed a bowling green for use by a club at his home.
In 1889 Wilson and his wife went on an extended holiday, first to England and then to New Zealand, where they visited Mrs Wilson's sister, Margaret Blair and her children. Margaret Blair's husband, Robert, died on 18 February 1893 and his wife and children left New Zealand and went to live with the Wilsons at Doon Villa in Maryborough. AH Wilson is thought to have managed the construction of a new house, called Blairholme, for his wife's sister and her four children. Wilson purchased the land, being section 2 on Allotment 147, adjacent to Doon Villa's Sections 3 and 4, on which Blairholme was built in 1891 and the house is thought to have been built sometime after Mrs Blair's arrival in 1893. Wilson's involvement with the timber and iron industries in Maryborough may explain the absence of tender notices for the construction of the house, which has made identification of an architect difficult. It is suggested that the architect of Blairholme was from Rockhampton. By 1895 the house was completed and the Blair family were in residence.
The death of AH Wilson on 29 August 1906 resulted in his land being transferred to Queensland Trustees Limited as a condition of his will, although it appears that the Blair family remained in the house until 1935 when the allotments were subdivided and sold. Hugh Keys bought the property on which Blairholme stood and, two years later, on 8 March 1937, this property was transferred to James Richard Lambert Hyne, a member of another prominent local timber milling family.
The Hyne family were descendant from RM Hyne who arrived in Maryborough and established himself as the publican of the Royal Hotel in about 1873. Hyne realised that Maryborough was an emerging municipality as the port of the flourishing Wide Bay Burnett region and Gympie goldfields. He became interested in establishing institutions in the town and helped improved health, education, welfare and recreational facilities in the area. Hyne was mayor of Maryborough for a year in 1878. The Hyne family have a long interest in the local timber milling industry and their family company continues to this day.
The Hyne family had a family home in Lennox Street called Ilfracombe and when they bought Blairholme the name was transferred from this earlier residence. On the death of his father the property was transferred to Warren Henry Hyne who retains the house.
The building has been altered over its life with rear sections removed and replaced. Internally, many changes have been made including extending the kitchen area both into the space of the verandah and into an extension of the house.
","criteria":"Ilfracombe was constructed between 1893 and 1895 as the residence Margaret Blair, who was the sister-in-law of Andrew Heron Wilson on whose land the house was built, adjacent to his own residence. The house demonstrates the growth of Maryborough in the late nineteenth century and, in particular, this section of Maryborough which developed as a residential area for large timber homes overlooking a reach of the Mary River.
|The building is a fine and characteristic example of a large timber home built in Queensland in the late nineteenth century.
|The building is a fine and characteristic example of a large timber home built in Queensland in the late nineteenth century.
|The building is associated with prominent Maryborough families, the Wilsons and the Hynes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15479,"place_ref":600704,"name":"Brennan & Geraghtys Store & two adjacent buildings and stables","alternate_name":"Geraghty's Store | Brennan and Geraghtys","street_address":"62-66 Lennox Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Brennan & Geraghty's store museum is situated at 64 Lennox Street, Maryborough and is flanked by a house, 'Uskerty', built for Catherine Geraghty in 1904, and a cottage owned by the Geraghty family since 1934.
The store is a large, timber framed building on stumps with a gabled galvanised iron roof and a rendered brick facade. An awning supported on cast iron posts extends over the footpath. Two plate glass show windows flank the entrance and are protected by removable shutters.
The interior of the store is divided by two cross walls to form three main spaces. The front section is the shop and is subdivided by an arched screen along a line of former partitions. The centre section contains a small store room in one corner and the rear space is open and without a ceiling. All three rooms are linked by a trolley running on timber rails. The building contains fixed shelving, cabinets, counters, furniture and items associated with running the store.
The shop contains a collection of more than 100,000 items, all original to the store. Most stock items date from the interwar period but range from 1885 Canton tea to soap from the 1920s and toilet paper from the 1950s. They are displayed as shop stock and serve to illustrate changes to goods, household needs and shopping practices. An almost complete set of trading records for the store dates back to 1871 and there is an extensive collection of advertising material.
The structure of the shop is very intact and reveals a lifetime of changes which demonstrate the growth and recession of the business. The interior remains unpainted except for the shop area, where original painted finishes have been preserved. The exterior has been painted to match the last colour scheme which is believed to be interwar.
The stables are sited perpendicular to John Lane at the rear of allotment 10 and are a single skin weatherboard structure with a gabled galvanised iron roof. Floors are earth except for two rooms with timber floors at one end.
'Uskerty' is set back from Lennox Street with more pretension than the cottage at no 62. It is a medium sized, single skin ,timber-framed and sheeted house on stumps with a galvanised iron roof. It contains four main rooms, a hallway and a kitchen wing containing two additional rooms. The house has verandahs on three sides with cast iron balustrading. The rear part of one verandah is enclosed to form two additional rooms.
The house is intact and includes elements probably recycled from the butcher's shop. The garden is fairly intact with pathways and mature trees and is divided from the street by a timber fence and gates with a scalloped top and shaped pickets.
The cottage faces Lennox Street and has a picket fence and gate. It is timber framed and sheeted, high set on stumps with a galvanised iron roof. The exterior walls are lined with weatherboards on the sides and chamferboards on the back. There is a simple verandah on the front and the back verandah has been enclosed to form a kitchen and bathroom. The interiors are intact, retaining original joinery and hardware with unpainted main rooms.
Portions of the split post and rail fences which marked the allotments between the buildings remain. Those immediately behind the store are reconstructed from second hand material.
","history":"Brennan & Geraghty's Store was built by partners Patrick Brennan and Martin Geraghty in what was then a small commercial centre in Lennox Street, Maryborough. The store was operated by members of the same family until 1972, thus completing a century of trading, and contains original stock and trading records.
Maryborough was established at its present site in 1852 as an outlet for the trade of the Wide Bay and Burnett pastoral districts. Wool, tallow, cedar and kauri pine flowed outwards with backloads of essential supplies for the stations providing a thriving trade. Timber was milled there and the strong impetus provided by the discovery of gold at nearby Gympie in 1867 soon established Maryborough as a prosperous commercial and banking centre.
Maryborough was also a port of entry and 22,000 immigrants arrived there directly from overseas during the period 1862-1890.
In 1863, Patrick Brennan and Martin Geraghty arrived in Maryborough from Ireland. Brennan worked for some time as storekeeper at Kilkivan station and was involved in the early Gympie gold rush. Geraghty, who married Patrick's sister Catherine in 1864, bought land in Lennox Street and built a cottage at no. 64, from which he ran a joinery and undertaking business, then opened a store at what is now no. 60, in 1869. At the time, this section of the street supported a small commercial centre, including a hotel which was across the road from Geraghty's property.
In 1871 Patrick Brennan and Martin Geraghty formed a partnership and adapted Martin & Catherine's extended cottage as a store, after removing interior walls. They built a house next to the old store which they used as a receiving depot. Brennan & Geraghty's sold groceries and ordered stores in bulk, being the only importers in Maryborough. By the end of the 1870s, the families had set up orchards. They grew fruit, particularly oranges, to sell and for making marmalade and fruit wines at their factory, which may have incorporated the old store at no. 60. Their products were sold in the store and also wholesaled.
The 1880s saw the peak period of the Brennan and Geraghty business empire. The partnership was involved in a number of ventures, ranging from brickmaking to running a cross-river ferry service. In 1886, tenders were called to build a new, ornate facade on the front of the store. Store records show that a sum of two pounds was paid to a Mr Hansen to prepare the plans. The contractors, G. Smith and G. Cordwell, began work in May 1886 and the completed work cost two hundred and eleven pounds, fourteen shillings and ten pence. Gas was installed at the same time. The rear room and trolley were added in 1887 at a cost of sixty pounds, nine shillings and five pence. The work was carried out by contractors Hansen and Stephenson.
This was a boom period in Maryborough as it was for Queensland generally. However, in the following decade Brennan & Geraghty's business began to fail and in 1896 a meeting of the creditors decided to liquidate the firm. In the years between 1886 and 1903, assets were disposed of and all debts were eventually paid out. The store itself was purchased by Frank Geraghty, Martin's son, who rented it back to Brennan & Geraghty for ten shillings a week.
In 1902 Michael Geraghty purchased the butcher's shop next door to the store which was owned by the Kruger family. By this time Lennox Street was predominantly residential as it is today. The butcher's shop was demolished and Michael built a house on the site for his mother, Catherine, following his father's death in 1904. This new house was named 'Uskerty' after the birthplace in Ireland of Catherine Geraghty's mother.
From 1903, when the partnership of Brennan & Geraghty was finally dissolved, until her death in 1934, Catherine Geraghty ran the store with help from her family, particularly Agnes, Florence and George. In 1934 the Geraghty family also purchased The Cottage at 62 Lennox Street. This was a relocated building which incorporated an 1970s cottage with extensions possibly from the 1890s. The business continued to run until 1971, as George Geraghty wished to complete one hundred years of trading from the premises. He died in 1973.
Some of the contents of the house and store were sold after George Geraghty's death and a demolition order was placed on the store by the Maryborough City Council. The whole Geraghty complex was purchased by the National Trust in 1975. By this time, grocery shopping practices had changed and stores like Brennan & Geraghty's were rare. What made this store even rarer was the fact that George had not made changes and had not disposed of stock or records. Many items in the store were no longer manufactured, or are now manufactured or sold in a different form. A fund raising campaign for the conservation of the store and contents was begun in the 1980s and had strong local support. In 1990 the store was opened to the public as a store museum.
","criteria":"It also illustrates the changing fortunes of the Brennan & Geraghty business which was a significant trading enterprise in nineteenth century Maryborough, a town which was important as a trading centre.
|Brennan & Geraghty's Store is significant for its rarity as a grocery store which survives intact with its own stock and trading records.
|It has the potential to yield information that demonstrates changes in grocery retailing and purchasing in Queensland over a century.
|It is an unusually intact example of a type of store which was once common in Queensland. In addition, the Geraghty houses flanking the store are good, representative examples of south east Queensland timber houses from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|(Criterion under review)
|It also illustrates the changing fortunes of the Brennan & Geraghty business which was a significant trading enterprise in nineteenth century Maryborough, a town which was important as a trading centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15480,"place_ref":600705,"name":"St Pauls Anglican Church and Hall","alternate_name":"St Paul's Anglican Church and Hall","street_address":"178-202 Adelaide Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Paul's Church and Hall are prominently located on the corner of Lennox, Ellena and Adelaide Streets in Maryborough. The site comprises three principal elements, the church, facing north west to Lennox Street, the hall, aligned with the church along Ellena Street but facing south east to Adelaide Street, and a large detached tower in the western corner, adjacent to the Lennox and Ellena Streets corner.
St Paul's Church is a large nineteenth century Gothic revival building constructed of face brick with polychrome brick and stuccoed detailing. The building has a traditional cruciform plan, with nave flanked by aisles running parallel to Ellena Street, shallow transepts bisecting the nave and an apsidal chancel at the south eastern end. The modern zincalume-like clad roof is steeply pitched over the nave, with gabled projections over the transepts and hipped over the chancels. The side aisles of the church are skillion roofed and abut the nave below the trefoiled clerestory window openings.
The principal façade of the church has a centrally located shallow porched entrance, formed by a steeply pitched gable, within which is a heavily moulded pointed arched doorway. Flanking the doorway, at ground floor level are thin lancets detailed like all of the other openings on the church, with contrasting brick quoining and a stuccoed head and sill. The nave of the church is framed on this elevation by attached buttressing which projects above the roofline and terminates in pinnacles decorated with crockets. On the face of the side aisles, flanking this central bay of the church, are traceried window openings, comprising two trefoiled lancets and quatrefoils above. Over the central entrance of this façade is a large traceried window comprising four lancets and three foiled windows above. Surmounting the apex of the gable on this elevation is a stone finial-like element which comprises a circular disc with a quatrefoil cutout.
Internally, the church is divided into nave and aisles by a nave arcade of pointed arched openings supported on clustered cast iron columns. In the spandrels of the arched openings are timber panels with foiled cutouts. Arched braced timber roof trusses support the roof and these also feature timber panels with foiled cutouts. Entrances from the transepts are concealed with timber panelled boxes around the doors. Above these boxes are large wheel windows, glazed with coloured glass. Lining the side aisles are lancets generally glazed with stained glass panels. The chancel is divided from the nave by a pointed arch chancel screen. Within the chancel which has a semi domed, timber framed ceiling, are four panels of early stained glass.
The tower, adjacent to the church, is a three storeyed battlemented structure which is missing a spire. Attached buttressing strengthens the corners of the structure, which has string coursing defining the floor levels. The many lancet openings, in a group of three on the first floor and paired on the floor above, are all surrounded with stuccoed detailing. The tower is surmounted by a battlemented parapet above a moulded cornice which projects from the line of the building.
St Paul's Hall is a substantial brick building, of similar proportion and massing to the church, housing a central auditorium with a steeply pitched gabled roof, clad with terracotta tiles. The hall is flanked by side aisles and the building has transept elements at the north western end and apsidal chapels flanking the principal, south eastern, façade. The building is constructed of brick with stuccoed detailing. The principal façade features a central projecting porch to which entrance is through the two return sides. The porch is surmounted by a wide band of rough cast stuccoed panelling, with a central pediment, acting as a parapet. This facade has bands of stucco, and is divided into bays by buttressing terminating in pinnacles above the roof line. The side elevations of the building, are lined with semi-open verandahs, above which on the face of the body of the hall are large arched clerestory window openings. Penetrating the roof are small hipped roof ventilators. Light modern extensions have been made to the south eastern end of the hall.
","history":"St Paul's Anglican Church was constructed as the third Maryborough Church of England, replacing a timber church on the same site. The building was designed by prominent Queensland architect, FDG Stanley in 1879. A large memorial hall, designed by local architect, POE Hawkes, was added to the church site in 1921.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
The first Maryborough Church of England was constructed at the early settlement in 1852 and this was a timber slab building with shingled roof not exceeding £30 in cost. Much of the material and labour of this early church was provided without cost by the local community and in this year the first pastor, Reverend E. Tanner arrived in Maryborough. In 1853 the Parish of Maryborough was formed as the most northerly outpost of the Diocese of Newcastle.
With the movement of the town following Labatt's survey, the timber church was dismantled and re-erected on land in Lennox Street which has been variously described as being donated to the church by early Maryborough citizen, ET Aldridge or as being secured for £21 by the church in early land sales in Maryborough. The Church of England retains this land as their principle Maryborough property to this day. Upon re-erection of the first timber church, a timber belfry complete with bells were added to the site.
This newly erected church remained in use for ten years, until it was replaced with another timber church dedicated as St Paul's Episcopal church on 27 May 1866. This church was designed by Maryborough architect, William Montgomerie Davenport Davidson, who as a church warden provided his services without charge. Maryborough flourished in the late 1860s as a result of the discovery of gold in Gympie in 1867, for which Maryborough was the port. The trade of supplying the gold field went through Maryborough leading to the establishment of several secondary industries and a consequent growth in the population. During the 1870s immigration schemes and the introduction of indentured labour caused more population increases in Maryborough.
By 1877 a decision was made by the parish to construct a new permanent masonry building and the foundations tone of this new structure was laid by Sir Arthur Kennedy in March 1878. The services of Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley were sought and he furnished the church with a design. Although Stanley was employed by the Queensland Government as the Colonial Architect, effectively from 1871 until 1881, he was allowed to continue with private commissions but this remained a contentious point throughout his employment as other architects complained. In October 1877, Stanley submitted a resignation to the government detailing how he needed to supplement his income with private work which was causing him health problems. When granted a salary increase he withdrew his resignation but argued that he was committed to the work at St Paul's, Maryborough which he then brought to completion. Stanley resigned officially and vacated his position in July 1881.
The design Stanley provided to the Church of England for their church in Maryborough was very similar to his design for the Holy Trinity Church of England in Fortitude Valley. Both churches are constructed of brick on a masonry foundation and have a similar traditional church floorplan of central nave flanked by aisles with apsidal chancel and porch entrance. The clerestory in both buildings is supported on a cast iron pointed arched arcade extending for the length of the nave, with cedar panels set in the spandrels of the arches.
St Paul's Church of England was opened on 30 August 1879 by Bishop Hale and Bishop Stanton of North Queensland. The building was constructed at a cost of about £6000 and a report in the local newspaper described the completed building as Queensland's cathedral in reference to its size, architecture and prominence, thought to be greater than other Churches of England built in Queensland to that date. The report continues on to detail some of the internal decoration,
"The chancel has a neatly framed roof with quarter diagonals decorated with rosettes in alternating spaces...The lower windows in the sides, with the western ad wheel windows are of the new diamond glass - one whole sheet each with false diamonds and with the stained glass windows of the chancel were imported expressly for the church. The upper windows in lead frames were made in Maryborough. By night the church is lit by means of rose lights containing 12 jets one of which stands in every arch."
The church was constructed by local contractors; Mr Caldwell who was responsible for the masonry work and Mr Taylor, responsible for carpentering. The report does state that the building is similar to the Holy Trinity Church but calls St Paul's , "a vast improvement being very much larger and less costly". By 1883 an organ gallery was added to the north western end, also designed by FDG Stanley.
The next substantial addition to the church was in 1887 when a large free standing bell tower was erected near the church. The structure, with nine bells cast by Mears White Chapel Bell Founders of London, cost £3500 which was donated by ET Aldridge at whose suggestion the tower was constructed in memory of his wife, Maria. According to the National Trust of Queensland, the bell tower is believed to house the only full peal of bells in Queensland.
Another large addition was made to the site in 1921 when a memorial Hall designed by local architect, POE Hawkes was constructed. The hall was dedicated to the "glory of God and the memory of those who fell in the Great War." The foundation stone was laid on 3 August 1920 to co-incide with a visit to Maryborough by the Prince of Wales. The building which was designed to harmonise with the church, housed a hall with a stage, two dressing rooms and two vestries along with two wide verandahs which would serve to provide supper rooms and open air classrooms. The hall was constructed by local contractor, WE Ferguson at a cost of £5980. POE Hawkes was an innovative local architect responsible for many fine inter-war building in Maryborough, including residences and commercial buildings.
Within the church a Warrior's Chapel was dedicated on 3 July 1960 and Our Lady's Chapel was dedicated on 17 March 1963. Both the church and the hall remain substantially intact.
","criteria":"St Paul's Anglican Church, constructed as the third Church of England in Maryborough demonstrates the growth of the town during the nineteenth century. The size and quality of design of the building are evidence of the prominence of Maryborough as a port and centre for the Burnett region in the nineteenth century.
|The hall is an unusual example of a memorial hall built as part of a church complex. The bell tower houses a rare example of a full peal of bells in Queensland. The church and hall have considerable architectural and aesthetic merit as well composed prominent Maryborough buildings.
|The church is characteristic of a substantial nineteenth century Gothic revival ecclesiastical building.
|The buildings are associated with important Queensland architects, FDG Stanley and POE Hawkes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15481,"place_ref":600706,"name":"Eskdale","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"53 Pallas Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Eskdale is a substantial two storeyed brick house with stone foundations located on Pallas Street, Maryborough facing another early Maryborough house, Oonooraba [600707] at 50 Pallas Street. The house demonstrates the principal characteristics of the Colonial Georgian style of architecture which is noted for its gentle symmetry and simple rectangular shapes with conservative detailing.
The external walls of 18 inch thick brick in English bond construction. The building has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting. The house is lined on three sides with wide verandahs on both levels. The verandahs are incorporated under the main roof of the building and are supported on single stop chamfered timber posts with decorative cast iron brackets and, on the upper floor, cast iron balustrade panels. A valance of lattice marks the first floor level on the face of the verandah. The front façade of the building is symmetrically arranged and two large timber sash windows flank a central doorway framing double timber doors.
The front entrance leads into a hall with a central arch way and stairway. The walls are painted a soft green with decorative stencils lining the cornices and chair rails. The stencils have been reproduced from late 19th century styles. The front door is framed by lead-light windows, a fanlight above and rectangular panels on either side as well as two panels in the door itself. Another lead-light window is visible on the landing of the first flight of stairs. The hall leads off to rooms on either side and then through to an extension at the rear.
The hall with archway and interior decoration is replicated on the upper floor in the same position. The door to the front verandah has a simple fanlight with textured glass and features a green shamrock at the base of the window. All joists, cross bracing, lintels, doors, architraves and the staircase are of local red cedar.
On the northern side of the ground floor hall is a large living room. The wide timber (hoop pine) floor boards are exposed and polished, the walls rendered and painted dark red and the ceiling is lined with decorative pressed metal of the 1920s era. There are two doors accessing the hall at either end of the room. A large timber-framed sash window faces onto the front verandah and two similar windows line the northern side of the room facing the side verandah. This fenestration pattern also occurs in the rooms on the southern side of the house. A large fireplace with timber manell-piece is located in the centre of the rear wall.
On the other side of the hall is the dining room at the front and the kitchen at the rear. The dining room contains built-in bookcases of cedar with glass panel doors.
The house is set in established gardens with mature trees and still features some of the early outdoor structures and landscapes. The circular driveway at the front of the house is marked by the raised circular lawn with lantana hedge. Evidence of the former sweep of the driveway can be seen in the slight depression of the grounds to the north-west of the house. A landscaped garden on the northern side of the house consists of geometric garden beds set in concrete with concrete paths dating from about 1915. This area is lined by mature palms along its rear edge. A shed stands a short distance to the rear of this garden and includes some 19th century decoration, namely cast iron brackets. This was once the glass house and now stands as a timber framed structure with weatherboard cladding and a corrugated iron roof. There is also an underground brick water tank, 20 feet deep, the top of which is visible on the back lawn. This water tank is fed by another tank in the centre of the roof of the house not visible from the ground. This roof tank catches the rain water which is then diverted into the underground tank. Similar tank constructions can be seen at nearby Baddow House [600690] and they date from the time of construction.
","history":"Eskdale was constructed in about 1864 for the Mayor of Maryborough. A tender notice in the Maryborough Chronicle of 22 August, 1864 reads: 'Tenders are require on or before the 24th instant for the Brick and Stone Work of a Twelve-roomed House - Plans and specifications to be seen at Messrs Dowzer & Purser's.' No architect is specified and it is likely that Dowzer designed the house himself.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
James Dowzer and John Pursers both of Maryborough purchased Suburban Allotment 2 of Section 45, measuring five acres according to a New South Wales land purchase order. This was the land on which James Dowzer constructed a large two storeyed brick house as his residence, later known as Eskdale. Tenders were called in the Maryborough Chronicle for the brick and stone work of a 12 roomed house. It is thought that Dowzer designed his own residence as he is thought to have also designed the Church of England rectory in 1856.
Dowzer was born in 1826 at Clongall, County of Carlow, Ireland. In March 1853 he sailed for Queensland aboard the John Fielden and initially gained an appointment in the Ipswich Police Force. After leaving Ipswich, he arrived in Maryborough in November 1854 where he established a local business as a saddler and storekeeper in the fledgling town. He continued in business until about 1865, and was elected as the third Mayor of Maryborough in 1862. Little documentary evidence has been discovered about the origin of Eskdale, although 1864 seems to be the year in which it was built. Clay was apparently carried to the site and bricks were made at the rear of the property. Hand made iron nails were used in the construction of the European beech floor, and hand made brass nails were used in the construction of the doors. Internal joinery was made using local cedar.
In 1868 James Dowzer retired to a dairy farm near Tiaro and Eskdale was acquired by Edward Corser. Apparently when the Corser family moved to the house it was not yet finished. Edward Corser arrived in Brisbane in about 1863 and moved to Maryborough in the next year. Eskdale was named by the Corsers as a reminder of Eskdale in the Lakes District of Northern England. Edward Bernard Corser, the son of Edward Corser acquired Eskdale on the death of his father in 1874. EB Corser was a leading merchant and established the business, Corser and Co. For many years he presided over the Burram Divisional Board and was actively involved in many clubs and societies in Maryborough. From 1909 until 1915 EB Corser was a member of the Legislative Council and MHR Wide Bay within the federal government from 1915 until 1928, just three years before his death in July 1931.
Eskdale was transferred to EB Corser's son, Edward Stewart Corser in 1929 and he retained ownership until 1961. It remained in the Corser family until October 1975 when it was bought by Peter and Jacqueline Holtorf.
The Holtorfs used the residence as their family home until 1999 when they converted the house into a Bed and Breakfast. The original section of the house has been authentically restored and is used for guests.
The house originally stood on five acres of land on which there were three tennis courts, stables and gymnasium all of which were demolished due to subdivision. Of the original property the following buildings (apart from Eskdale House) are still in existence: 345 Ann Street (Sewart Corser's House - 'Charlcombe'), 352 Ann Street (The Gardener's Residence) and 47 Pallas Street (Herbert Corser's house - now 'Rhymney House').
A number of changes have also been made to the house itself. The lead light windows were installed around 1920 along with the pressed metal ceilings. The original roof was slate and the verandah roof was iron with alternate red and white panels. The slate roof was destroyed by a hail storm in 1966 and at the time the three chimney stacks were demolished to roof level, so that a new iron roof could cover them. The verandah roof pitch was also made steeper, so that the iron panels could be placed in a straight line.
The decorative cast iron baluster panels on the upper level of the verandahs were likely to have been designed and manufactured in Maryborough. This particular design used on Eskdale is featured in Brian Turner's book, Australia's Iron Lace (p 97), and is referred to as 'Maryborough iron lace patterns'. A foundry had operated in Maryborough from 1909 until 1981 run by the Daniels family and it '...produced cast iron panels of its own regional design.'
","criteria":"Eskdale, a substantial two storeyed brick house dating from about 1864, demonstrates the growth of Maryborough in the 1860s, after new wealth was generated by the nearby Gympie goldfields. It also reflects the trend of pioneering individuals who established themselves as community leaders in early townships to build residences reflective of their social status.
|The building is a good, intact example of a substantial 1860s two-storeyed residence in regional Queensland. The surrounding grounds and its various structures and landscapes and are also important in demonstrating the design and workings of an early Queensland regional residence.
|The building has aesthetic value as a substantial residence with attractive decorative features and balanced design, within a garden setting.
|Eskdale has special associations with both James Dowzer and Edward Bernard Corser who are of importance to Queensland's history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15482,"place_ref":600707,"name":"Oonooraba","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50 Pallas Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Oonooraba is sited on Pallas Street, facing, not south east toward that street but to the north east toward Ann Street, from where access was originally provided to the property. The site comprises the building, a substantial elevated one storeyed timber house, which is surrounded by a large garden with established trees including two Araucaria Cookii and several palm trees.
The building is timber framed and is supported on squared timber columns which elevate the home about 3 metres from ground level. Access is provided to the principal floor of the house via a wide straight concrete stair emerging from the principal, north eastern façade. The stair is flanked by concrete balustrade which terminates at the base with newels on which sit lion statues. Filling the cavity between the timber posts supporting the house is diagonal timber lattice panels. The house is clad with wide horizontal timber boards which are quite unusual with heavily beaded mouldings at the tongue and groove joints.
The house is essentially rectangular in plan with a kitchen wing adjoining the rear elevation on the south west side of the building. Wide verandahs line three sides of the building and on the principal façade where the two corners of the face of the building are punctuated with bay windows, this is reflected in the projecting line of the verandah. The hipped roof of Oonooraba also reflects these bays with the addition of small hipped partial pyramidal roof forms over the bays.
The bull nosed verandah awning of Oonooraba is supported on turned columns with curved brackets, paired toward the principal entrance of the house. Above the columns are frieze panels, comprising diagonal latticework flanking a central section of vertical battening. The verandah balustrades which are replacements of a cast iron balustrade, are of vertical timber battening with decorative cutouts in regularly spaced battens. Many early lattice screens and timber louvres survive in the verandah openings.
The principal entrance of Oonooraba is from the south east, where the steps provide access t the verandah, from which a large central doorway provides access to the house. The doorway comprises a substantial five panelled and moulded timber door, flanked by sidelights with leadlight glazing above moulded base panels. Theses are surrounded by a substantial architrave and the door is surmounted by a narrow operable fanlight. The doorway is surmounted by a centrally placed timber entablature which terminates in a broken pediment. Other openings to the house, flanking the entrance and from all internal rooms with access to the verandah, are full length vertical sash walk though openings surrounded by moulded architraves.
The entrance door gives access to a small entrance vestibule, which in turn provides access to a central hall from which the principal rooms of the house are accessed. The entrance vestibule has timber dado panelling, which comprises a skirting, an alternating timber boarded body and a wide dado rail. This pattern of dado panelling continues to other rooms of the house, with changes in other rooms of the amount of moulding and height of the skirting and dado rail and also the alternating timber boards, which here are two different types of timber, and with the lighter coloured timber reeded. Above the dado panelling in the entrance vestibule is early floral wall paper, divided into panels with vertical and horizontal border strips. Dividing this room from the central hall is a timber screen of half glazed double timber swing doors, flanked by similarly detailed half glazed sidelights and surmounted by transom lights. The glazing in the doorway is leadlight with a simple geometric pattern rendered in coloured and arctic glass.
The central hall is lined with unpainted vertical timber boards, above a dado panel similar to that found in the vestibule. Above a cornice around the timber boarding is a curved timber ceiling centrally placed in which is a lay light, or horizontal glazed panelling below a roof lantern, from which pendant lighting is hung. The rectangular lay light comprises three leadlight panels glazed with strongly coloured small sections of glass within regular borders surrounding three ceiling roses. Within the hall four doorways, with four panelled doors and operable transoms above lead to rooms on either side, and a round arched doorway in the far, south western wall, leads to the rear rooms of the house. Some early door furniture surviving in this section is of black enamel with handpainted scenes of foliage and birds in gold lacquer.
To the north west of the entrance hall are two large, public rooms, connected to one another by a squared arched opening in their shared partition. Both rooms are lined with a similar dado panelling to that mentioned previously, although in the room closer to the front of the building, the lighter timber in the body of the panelling is fluted, rather than reeded, and in the rear room, the lighter timber is smooth faced. Both rooms are lined with early printed wallpaper, of a hazy pattern of blotches of white and umber on a light warm grey base. The wallpaper is matched with a cut out floral frieze around the walls above the dado rail, and a larger frieze, below the cornice, comprising a wider cutout floral strip with regularly spaced large stylised scenes. The ceilings in these rooms are timber boarded with coffering and featuring several large ceiling roses, some with early colour schemes. Early door furniture survives in these rooms and is similar to that in the central hall but of white enamel rather than of black. A dark stained timber fireplace is in a truncated corner of the rear of the two rooms, and this is lines with ceramic tiles.
From this rear room access is provided via a four panelled sliding timber doorway into a large rear hall also able to be accessed from the arched doorway in the central hall. Another dark stained timber fireplace sits in a corresponding truncated corner. This room is lined to about 2500 high with vertical timber boarding, comprising dado panelling of only one type of timber but similar in other respects to that found elsewhere. From this room access is provided to a rear verandah from where the kitchen, and adjacent semi open room on the verandah and storage rooms are found.
On the other side of the central hall are the more private rooms of the house, and these are generally timber lined with vertical timber boarding, occasionally with string coursing at picture rail height and simple cornice and skirting. These rooms have interconnecting doors near the external walls. In a section of infilled verandah is an early (c1920s) bathroom.
","history":"Oonooraba was built in about 1892 to the design of prominent architect, George Henry Male Addison, for a prominent Maryborough citizen, James Malcolm Stafford. The house was supposedly built on the site of an early Aboriginal meeting place.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
The land on which Oonooraba was built was part of a ten acre lot, described as Suburban Section 29, which was first purchased by a William MacAdam of Maryborough on 20 September 1859. The land was apparently left undeveloped, and in 1886 the ten acre lot was acquired by George Ambrose White, who subdivided the land and offered for sale the smaller lots of land.
After the subdivisions James Malcolm Stafford a Maryborough solicitor, bought six acres of Suburban Section 29 in three purchases. The first, subdivision one of 2 acres, was purchased on 2 November 1889 from Otto Dias who had purchased the lot from White the year before. Next, Stafford purchased one acre described as resubdivsion 1 of subdivision 2 on 12 November 1889. On 21 September 1892 Stafford's wife, Jessie Wilson Stafford, purchased three more acres of Section 29. Presumably at about this date, after obtaining a six acre lot, the Stafford's had their house Oonooraba built. There is evidence that the house was constructed by 1895.
James Malcolm Stafford was practising as a solicitor in Maryborough from about 1883, after having practicing in Brisbane. He was born on 25 June 1859 in Ipswich and was educated and articled in that town. He was admitted as a solicitor in Brisbane on 7 March 1882 and practiced there before moving to Maryborough by about 1885 where he established a successful practice. He was elected to the position of Mayor of Maryborough in 1892 and retained this role until about 1896. Stafford died on 4 April 1900. In about 1892, Stafford commissioned George Henry Male Addison to design his one storeyed timber residence in Maryborough.
Addison was an important Queensland architect, who trained in England before emigrating to Melbourne in 1883 and joined the prominent Victorian architectural firm, Terry and Oakden. He became a partner and the chief draftsman and was a founding member of the Melbourne Art Society. He arrived in Brisbane in November 1886 to supervise construction of the London Chartered Bank which Terry, Oakden and Addison, as they were now known, had designed. He remained in Brisbane undertaking work as the northern partner of the firm, which again changed name and became Oakden, Addison and Kemp in 1887. In April 1892 he assumed responsibility for the Brisbane office of Anglican Diocesan architect, JH Buckeridge who had moved to Sydney. Addison left the partnership and practiced on his own until 1898 and formed several other partnerships in the early twentieth century. Addison designed many landmark buildings in Queensland, including the Exhibition Building of 1892 (now known as the Old Museum); the Mansions in George Street and the Albert Street Uniting Church. He also designed many of Brisbane's premier houses including Cumbooquepa at South Brisbane; Halwyn at Red Hill; Kirkston at Windsor; Fernbrook at Indooroopilly and Ralahyne at Clayfield.
George Layou's book about the history of Maryborough provides a long description of Oonooraba;
The place is named Oonooraba, so called because the ground was once the fighting place of the blacks. Four and a half years ago the house was built of fine pine and beech and the quality of the timber was of the best. The plot comprises six acres and it was on the spot where the house now stands that the first humpy was seen thirty five years ago. It commands a fine view of the Ulalah Reserve, a chain of fine waterholes where the old fowls love to dwell. Before the house is a fine circular lawn, two and a half chains in diameter, with a carriage drive around it. On either side of the lawn are ten beautiful Araucarias (Cookii). These forming the inner boundary of the drive around it, with Eugenia macrocarpa and Araucaria excelsa as the outer one make a pleasing and rich front. Mr Stafford has proved beyond question that the Japanese national flower, the chrysanthemum, is not alone suited to the cooler climates of the south as the .. chrysanthemum show in Brisbane he secured the champion prize for size and quality against all comers...One inestimable advantage of the situation is its opened. A fair view of the town is seen from the front, with the hospital buildings away on the south, while on the other side is a panorama of the rive, dale and hill...
James Stafford died on 4 April 1900 and the land was acquired by the Queensland Trustees. This did not comprise the entire block as his wife officially owned half of the land which she retained until her death in the 1930s. After her death the ownership of the property changed several times and, despite further subdivisions, has been retained as a private residence although with a much reduced garden.
","criteria":"Oonooraba demonstrates the growth of Maryborough during the late nineteenth century when a number of large residences were constructed, reflecting the growing infrastructure.
|The building is a rare surviving and substantially intact residence designed by prominent Brisbane, GHM Addison, with whom it has special associations.
|The house was supposedly built on a site where Aboriginal clans met, therefore the site has the potential to yield important information about early indigenous lifestyles in and around Maryborough.
|The building is characteristic of a large timber residence of the late nineteenth century, and is characteristic of the fine design skill of architect GHM Addison. The building has considerable architectural merit as a well composed and innovative residence.
|Many of the features of the building are of considerable aesthetic value including the joinery, particularly the entrance door, unpainted internally dado panelling which varies throughout; early wall paper complete with friezes and borders; other internal joinery and glazing; door furniture and fireplaces.
|The building is associated with prominent local citizen, James Stafford and with the fine architect, George Henry Male Addison.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15483,"place_ref":600708,"name":"Queen's Park","alternate_name":"War Memorial and Entrance Gates | Bandstand; Banyan Fig | Bunya Pine; Crows Ash | Sausage Tree | Queens Park","street_address":"Sussex Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"War Memorial
The First World War Memorial is situated in a dominant position at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens, surrounded by a low rock wall garden bed. At the rear of the memorial is a set of large swing gates of wrought iron painted white and bearing commemorative lettering and the AIF badge. The gates are flanked by Helidon sandstone pillars. The memorial stands 45 feet to the top of the obelisk and comprises a base, four statues and the obelisk surmounted by a Winged Victory statue.
The grey granite monument sits on two circular concrete steps. The base comprises three layers of banded rock faced granite, cruciform in plan. Above each end of the cross are smooth-faced plinths. Each end face of the cross displays a bronze plaque with the names of the 100 local citizens who fell during the First World War. In the centre of the two front plinths is a larger bronze plaque with a granite triangular pediment detail. The front plinths also have additional bronze plaques commemorating the 55 soldiers who fell in the Second World War.
At each end of the cross stands a Carrara marble statue, facing outward. The statues are life-sized, and represent a Red Cross nurse, a soldier, a sailor and an airman. They all stand at ease and are remarkably Italian in detail.
In the centre of the four statues is a large obelisk sitting on a smooth-faced base capped with cyma recta mouldings. Bronze wreaths are located on the side and rear faces. Latin crosses are attached to the front and rear faces, as are bronze letters forming the words LEST WE FORGET. Surmounting the obelisk is a larger than life-sized Winged Victory figure in Carrara marble.
Entrance Gates
The entrance gates are located at the rear of the memorial. They comprise a set of large swing gates of painted, wrought iron [British gun metal] bearing commemorative lettering and the AIF badge. The gates are flanked by Helidon sandstone pillars. Originally there were two sets of gates, however the outer pair were removed at some stage.
The Bandstand and Melville Fountain
The Bandstand is an ornamental pavilion in Queen's Park, Maryborough which was originally constructed as shade over the Melville Memorial Fountain. The pavilion comprises a cast iron ogee curved shade supported on cast iron columns bedded in a concrete plinth. The Melville Fountain is located in near the south-eastern corner of Queen's Park. It is cast iron and form the centre of a large basin a column rises with griffin heads around the cap. Water spouts out of the mouths of the griffins. On the top of the column are three cranes. From the centre rises a two funnel shaped, floral-type tiers, the lower tier larger, with a similarly designed upper tier. In the centre of the upper tier is a cherub clasping a horn of plenty from which a jet of water is thrown upwards.
Other elements of Queen's Park
The single story, double-domed fernery is constructed of besser block and concrete with green shade covers placed over a framework of metal mesh. It is a dominant landmark terminating Adelaide Street where it meets Sussex Street.
The Lily Pond
The Lily Pond is located in the north-western corner of Queen's Park.
Queen's Park has larger, mature plantings including the Cocos Palm Avenue (Queen palms [Syagrus romanzoffiana]) running north-south through the park and other trees, including banyan figs [Ficus benghalensis], poinciana trees [Delonix regia], celtis [Celtis sinensis] and weeping figs (Chinese elms or Hackberry trees [Ficus benjamina]), running north-west to south-east through the park and, especially, the banyan fig, crows ash [Flindersia australis], sausage tree [Kigelia pinnata] and bunya pine [Araucaria bidwillii], all of which are located in the south-east corner of Queen's Park close to the entrance gates.
Pathways and seating areas are located throughout Queen's Park.
","history":"A reserve for the botanical gardens was gazetted in October 1873. Since that time, Queen's Park, Maryborough has undergone changes in use and in architectural and aesthetic features associated with the park.
In 1842, Andrew Petrie discovered the Monaboola stream, later the Mary River, upon which Maryborough grew as a port. In July 1847, Surveyor JC Burnett was sent to survey the area of the Burnett River and to comment on the conditions. The Wide Bay River (after Petrie's Monaboola) was renamed the Mary River by the Governor (Fitzroy) after his wife. By July 1850, Surveyor HR Labatt arrived in what was to become Maryborough with instructions to 'examine the River Mary is to enable you to suggest to me the best site or sites for the laying of the town...' The site recommended for the town by Labatt was not where the initial settlement was established but further east. In 1852, the first sales of land at the present site of Maryborough were sold, and the settlement on the north side of the river became deserted, as larger vessels could not access these wharves.
The 1850s and 1860s were a time of growth and expansion in Maryborough, the first hospital was underway by 1859, a Court House and Lock-Up was constructed in 1857; the School of Arts was established in 1861; also that year Messrs Gladwell and Greathead began the first sawmill. Upon the separation of Queensland in 1859, Maryborough was declared a port of entry. In March 1861, Maryborough was proclaimed a municipality, and Henry Palmer became the first Mayor. Palmer helped shape Maryborough's destiny during its early years. During a meeting of the Municipal Council of 3 November 1865, Palmer proposed that 'immediate application be made by the Council to the government for all the portion of the Wharf Reserve not required for shipping purposes to be used as a public garden and for recreation purposes'.
During the mid-1840s, amateur botanist, explorer and sometimes businessman, John Carne Bidwill collected specimens of trees from the Moreton Bay region. This tree was known to the Indigenous population by various names including Bunya Bunya. In local European circles, it was called Pinus petrianna, a description applied to the species either by or in recognition of pioneer free settler Andrew Petrie who, it is claimed by the Petrie family, was the discoverer of the species. Bidwill sent his specimen to Kew Gardens in London, where it classified as being a new species of the Araucaria genus. In recognition of Bidwill's voluminous collectings in both eastern Australia and New Zealand , 'Petrie's pine' was officially recognised as Araucaria bidwillii.
In 1854 Sir Charles Moore and Brisbane Botanical Gardens Curator Walter Hill made a collection of specimens from Bidwill's garden. The Bunya Pine, located in the south-east corner of the Park, near the entrance gates, is thought to be a surviving tree from the collection . Amongst Bidwill's plants was at least one specimen of Sausage Tree [Kigelia pinnata], also known as a Fetish tree. The Sausage Tree in the park is thought to be a surviving tree from Bidwill's collection.
By the late 1860s, the Brisbane Botanic Gardens were a well established centre for all things botanic in Queensland. A popular means of show casing the work of the gardens was participation in the colonial exhibitions. Walter Hill launched an extremely successful exhibit at the Intercolonial Exhibition held in Sydney in 1867. Reports in the press were favourable and had the effect of heightening community awareness of the potential use of gardens. Capitalising on this increased public perception, Hill set out to expand the botanic work in Queensland. At this time premium parks in Toowoomba and Ipswich were already established. As a result of this activity, Hill set out to insert working gardens in other places through Queensland.
Urban public parks became a popular vehicle for 19th century movements concerned with public health - the park provided a place for the outdoor recreation of those unable to afford private gardens and improved the environment of crowded central city and town areas. Botanic Gardens were started as part of an increasing interest in scientific understanding of the natural world. A botanic gardens was established in Brisbane in 1855 in response to 19th century interest in botany which saw botanic gardens established around the world, particularly in those colonised areas of the world where little formal knowledge of the interaction between geography and botany existed. An integral part of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens was a series of branch gardens in provincial areas throughout Queensland which provided botanic data across the wide spectrum of Queensland ecosystems.
Before proclamation as a park, the Queen's Park site was the location of a boiling down works operated by Edmund Blucher. Following the gazettal of the site as a Reserve for Botanical Gardens in October 1873, Trustees were appointed. They were Henry Palmer, Peter Graham, George Howard, Henry Stoward and RB Sheridan, who was subsequently elected as Chairman by his fellow Trustees.
RB [Richard Bingham] Sheridan [1822-1897], public servant and politician was born in Ireland. He arrived in New South Wales in 1842 and joined the Customs Department in February 1846. In February 1853 because of ill health, he was transferred to Moreton Bay. On 10 December 1859, Sheridan was appointed sub-collector of customs at Maryborough. Sheridan was deeply involved in the life of Maryborough and was respected for his integrity, fairness and humanity. He initiated the Botanic Gardens and was involved in the foundation of the School of Arts and the hospital and was the first chairman of the building society. Sheridan won the Maryborough seat in the Legislative Assembly on 17 August 1883 and held it until 5 May 1888. In 1885 he had become a trustee of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.
In 1876, RB Sheridan, submitted the second annual Report on the Botanic Gardens, Maryborough. The report highlighted a number of factors relating to the park. The past season was considered to have been a highly successful one. At the time, the grounds placed under the control of the Trustees consisted of detached pieces, amounting to about 70 acres. One block, known as the Recreation Reserve, contained c58 acres, and was fenced with a 'substantial two-rail fence, and partially planted, and suitable gates are placed wherever found requisite, for public convenience'. The remainder, c12 acres, which was known as the Botanic Gardens, '..is that to which the Trustees devoted most attention, as it is situated immediately within the most populous part of town, and to some extent stretching along the river bank, renders it the favourite resort of the inhabitants, as evidenced by the great numbers who frequent the place...' The Botanic Gardens were planted with '...useful and ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers. By 1876, the Botanic Gardens also contained an ornamental bridge and a gardener's cottage, as well as the construction of fencing. By 1876, several new walks had been laid out, flower beds and borders had been planted, hundreds of rare trees and shrubs had been introduced.
It was also reported in 1876 that 'the establishment of a Botanic Garden in the town, in addition to the pleasure it gives the local inhabitants, by affording them a place of healthful recreation and instruction, has spread a taste for floriculture throughout the entire district' In addition to supplying many person with ornamental plants and seeds, the Trustees have had the pleasure of being able to distribute amongst several sugar planters, sugar cane cuttings raised from a number of choice varieties kindly supplied by Mr Walter Hill from the Brisbane Botanic Garden last year; besides they are forming a nursery for new and useful fruit trees and vegetables, from which they hope in time to supply plants and seeds to all who may require them...The Trustees acknowledge, with thanks, having received donations of plants and seeds from the undermentioned gentlemen - Mr Walter Hill, Botanic Gardens, Brisbane; the Acclimatisation Society; Mr Armitage, Mackay; Mr Woodhouse, Rockhampton; and from Messrs Byerly, Barton, Brown, Byers, Denman, Byrne and Jones'.
Early photographs of the area dated c1862 show the crows ash [Flindersia australis]. The crows ash is a species common to the original rainforests of coastal south east Queensland. Crows ash timber was used extensively for fencing, flooring, window sills and exterior decorative trimmings. Other historical photographs indicate that the banyan fig [Ficus benghalensis] was planted by at least 1905. Originating from Bengal in India, this particular species of fig is rare in Australia. The species is typified by its area roots which become multiple trunks and huge horizontal branches.
In 1890, the Melville or Fairy Fountain was unveiled under the rotunda. This was bequeathed by Miss Janet Melville to the City of Maryborough in memory of her brother, Andrew Wedderburn Melville. On his death in 1882 Janet inherited most of his fortune which she distributed locally. On her death she left £500 for the erection of a fountain and bandstand in the gardens.
The fountain chosen was exhibited at the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888 and arrived in Maryborough in December and was erected early the following year. Although band concerts were held in the pavilion there were some difficulties encountered viewing the members of the band as the structure sat on ground level, not elevated as is normally the case of bandstands. Early in the twentieth century the bandstand was moved 18m and re-erected on a concrete plinth.
The rotunda was imported from Glasgow, from the William MacFarlane & Co, Saracen in Scotland. The Hon AH Wilson MLA had chosen the structure in Glasgow after visiting the area. As constructed the rotunda was surrounded by a cast iron pilastered fence bed in a stone plinth.
At some time the fountain was shifted to allow the rotunda to be used as a bandstand. The fountain was a gift to the city from Miss Janet Melville who gave large sums of money to various Maryborough institutions including the hospital. The trustees of Janet's will authorised the member for Maryborough, AH Wilson, to investigate suitable fountains during a Scotland holiday. Wilson selected the fairy fountain at the Glasgow International Exhibition and it arrived in Maryborough on 31 December 1889.
Janet Melville was one of the most generous benefactors in Maryborough, she came to Australia from Scotland with her brother Andrew Wedderburn Melville and his wife Maria in 1849. Andrew wrote for the Maryborough Chronicle and was a speaker in the Legislative Assembly. He served a term as Mayor in 1863. He died 5 November 1882 and his wife died 23 October 1890.
A report in the Maryborough Chronicle detailed the unveiling of the fountain:
The Melville Memorial Fountain is now erected under the ornamental pavilion in the Botanic Gardens and is at least an attractive object. From the centre of a large basin rises a column with griffin heads around the cap, which will spout water form their mouths. On the top of the column are three cranes in various attitudes and from the centre rises a funnel shaped tier out of which springs another of a similar design but smaller and in the centre of this is a golden cherub clasping a horn of plenty from which a jet of water is thrown upwards...(Maryborough Chronicle, 6 March 1890, p3)
In the 19th century, Walter MacFarlane's Saracen foundry was the largest in the world of its day covering ten acres with its own railway station and satellite suburb of Possilpark. The company exported their castings all over the world.
The Maryborough War Memorial was unveiled on 19 November 1922 by Major General R Spencer-Browne. It was designed by POE Hawkes and produced by local monumental masonry firm FW Webb. The granite and marble memorial honours the 100 local men who fell during the First World War and the 55 who fell in the Second World War.
Originally there were two sets of gates, however the outer pair were removed at some stage. The swing gates are made from British gun metal. The Memorial Gates were cast by the local Croydon Foundry.
In May 1920, a Memorial Committee was formed to collect subscriptions for the erection of a war memorial. The foundation stone was laid on 22 May 1921 by Lieutenant Colonel J M A Durrant, however, fund raising efforts were slow and Maryborough citizens were reminded that suburbs and outlying districts had already erected memorials. It was almost 18 months later that the memorial was finally unveiled.
As well as designing the monument, Hawkes selected the site, arranged importation of the statues through Anselm and Odling of Sydney and supervised the work. His first designs were not accepted by the memorial committee and he was instructed to submit alternatives. This second group of designs was also to be subject to public scrutiny.
POE Hawkes was born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales in 1882. He worked as an architect in Wagga Wagga, Perth, Melbourne and Launceston before being employed by the Queensland Government in 1909. This was a temporary position from which he resigned in November of the same year. He subsequently worked in Maryborough, Bundaberg and Kingaroy, forming a partnership as Hawkes and Palmer in Kingaroy and Maryborough between 1914 and 1917. In 1919 he was employed by the Commonwealth Government as District Adviser, registering as an architect (Qld) in 1930.
The bronzework on the monument and the gates were made by Stevenson Brothers at Maryborough's Croyden foundry. At a cost of £2,300, the memorial is the second most expensive in Queensland.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
The Maryborough monument includes four statues and a winged figure of victory. Webb arranged for them to be imported from Italy through the Sydney firm, Anselm Odling and Company. Although they were commissioned for use in Queensland, they are very clearly Italian in character. This also occurred with other digger statues imported from Italy, however it is most obvious in this instance due to the number and types of figures. The memorial includes statues of a soldier, a sailor, an airman and Red Cross nurse. The latter, complete with rosary beads, is the most notably Italian in detail. Tablets commemorating the Second World War and subsequent wars were later added.
Since the mid-1990s, the Maryborough City Council has undertaken much restorative work to Queen's Park, including reinstating the Cocos Palm Avenue (Queen palms), the rose trellis, maze gardens, the Melville Fountain and the Judges' Walk. The pathway in Queen's Park, leading from Bazaar Street to Wharf Street, is known as Judges' Walk, in recognition of the judicial processions which took place there. The judges alighted from their carriages in Bazaar Street and proceeded in their robes to the court house. They were preceded by an escort and were followed by court attendants.
","criteria":"The Queensland botanic gardens network is important in demonstrating the introduction of multi-purpose scientific centres for the development of economic and ornamental botany for the benefit of the colony as a whole. Queen's Park, Maryborough, gazetted in 1873 as a Botanic Gardens is significant as the premier recreation and botanic retreat for the district. It demonstrates the importance of Maryborough as a major regional centre, demonstrating the desire to sustain a scientific, educational and recreational centre of international repute.
Founded on consistent ideological principles the Queensland botanic gardens demonstrate a clear and identifiable type of place. In terms of design, congruous hard and soft landscape features generate a sense of place that transfers to each a specific location. As a regional park, Queen's Park, Maryborough has maintained a position within a national and international network of botanic gardens of which the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, was the originating hub.
The Bandstand in Queen's Park, erected in 1890 demonstrates the growth of Maryborough in the late nineteenth century.
War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|Queen's Park, Maryborough, demonstrates the principal characteristics of a provincial botanic reserve, with a greater emphasis placed on the creating of a mixed collection of living exotic and native plants. The collection includes specimens rare in cultivation or of great maturity or both. Plantings dating from the nineteenth century include evidence of aesthetic, economic and experimental plants.
The bandstand is an unusual surviving example of an imported cast iron structure from William MacFarlane & Co, Saracen in Glasgow. The bandstand demonstrates the characteristics of nineteenth century cast iron bandstands.
Unveiled in 1922, the memorial at Maryborough demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|Queen's Park has individual items of particular aesthetic merit, including the Bandstand and Memorial Fountain (1890); the War Memorial and Memorial Gates (1922); the geodesic-domed Fernery, a dominant landmark, especially from the view along the streetscape where Adelaide Street meets Sussex Street; the Lily Pond; the avenues of trees, including banyan figs, poinciana trees, celtis and weeping figs, running north-west to south-east through Queen's Park; the Cocos Palm Avenue running north-south through the park, and mature plantings, especially the banyan fig, crows ash, sausage tree and bunya pine, all of which are located in the south-east corner of Queen's Park.
The structure [bandstand] is of aesthetic value as a picturesque addition to the park.
A major regional war memorial, it is also of aesthetic significance, as one of the most elaborately and unusually designed monuments in Queensland still surviving in its intact surrounds. It is also an uncommon example of statues which are representative of Italian models rather than Australian. As a large scale regional memorial it forms a dominant landmark within the town.
|As the first park established by the Maryborough City Council, Queen's Park demonstrates the commitment to provide recreational and educational facilities for the people of Maryborough and surrounding areas. Many important events have taken place in the gardens, and the place is generally held in high regard by the community and is a popular place for visitors to Maryborough. It is significant as a Maryborough landmark and for its visual amenity.
The place has social significance as a long used and popular reserve for public recreation and as an early example of the history of the state government vesting local authorities with the maintenance and control of public reserves. The park and garden feature a number of memorials and elements, commemorating well known local citizens, including Richard Bingham Sheridan.
The memorial has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Maryborough architect P O E Hawkes as an unusual example of his work and local monumental masonry firm, F W Webb.
|Queen's Park, Maryborough is significant for its special association with the pioneering work of Richard Bingham Sheridan, and Henry Palmer, the first Mayor of Maryborough. Queen's Park, Maryborough is significant for its association with Walter Hill. Every Queensland botanic garden from the nineteenth century network is associated with the ground breaking work of Hill. His powerful personality guided the establishment, location and development of this group of places. The expertise he contributed to the process was invaluable to the implementation of scientific principles in remote Queensland places.
The bandstand has a special association with the life of Miss Janet Melville and her brother, Andrew Wedderburn Melville, prominent Maryborough citizens.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15484,"place_ref":600709,"name":"Customs House and Residence (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Richmond Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The Customs House site contains two building, the former Customs House and the associated residence. These building are prominently located on the intersection of Wharf and Richmond Streets, Maryborough where several other important historical sites are located, including the Court House, Customs House Hotel, former Bank of New South Wales and the nearby Queens Park.
The former Customs House is sited toward the north western end of the site and addresses Richmond Street facing the Court House on the opposite side of the street. The residence, adjacent to the south eastern side of the former Customs House is more inwardly focussed with principal entrance on the southern corner. A small timber framed garage is an early remnant on the site. The former Customs House and residence are constructed from red brick and concrete on a dark brick base, and share similar rough cast stucco detailing. The principal difference in the buildings is that the Customs House is symmetrically composed, more outwardly focused and has details appropriate to public buildings. The residence displays more characteristics of domestic architecture in its scale and detail.
The former Customs House is symmetrically arranged, and has a rectangular plan with a Dutch gabled, terracotta clad roof, punctuated centrally by a square planned projection with a separate Dutch gabled roof, giving external expression to the former long room over which it sits. This projection is lined on four sides with face brick surrounded oculi on rough cast stuccoed panels, with brick quoining at the corners of the projection. Flanking this tower element, to the south east and to the north west are rectangular planned chimney stacks, rendered with rough cast stucco.
The principal façade, addressing Richmond Street, is dominated by a central entrance projection which integrates the brick fence with the building. The projection features three round arched window openings, which rest on an integrating sill and signage panel, with Art Nouveau lettering "H.M. CUSTOMS". Above the central opening is a concrete relief panel of the Royal Arms. Openings in the fence on either side of the porch provide access to concrete stairs which lead to smaller open porches on either side of the entrance projection. Large round headed arched openings on the face of the façade give access to these porches. On the outer side of these openings are segmental arched window openings, surrounded with face brick quoining. Excluding the central entrance projection which is face brick, this and all other external walls are face brick to mid-height and then rendered with rough cast stucco with face brick quoining.
The side elevations of the former Customs House have two segmental arched window openings. The rear elevation has a centrally located awning supported on oversized and closely spaced curved brackets. Flanking this are a number of window and door openings.
Internally the former Customs House is arranged around a large central room, formerly the long room which is under the tower element. This square planned space is divided from four adjacent recesses by round arched openings. The recess to the north west houses an entrance vestibule to which access is provided from the porches off the principal façade. The recesses on the other three sides of the former long room, house an office to the south east, opposite the entrance vestibule, and transitional spaces to doors on the north west and south west leading to offices flanking the long room. Internally the building generally has timber boarded floors, plastered walls and timber boarded ceilings with central fretwork panels featuring intertwined lettering "VR". Surviving in this building are several intact, though occasionally painted, fireplaces.
The residence is an asymmetrical two storeyed building, which shares the use of red face brick and rough cast stucco, on a dark brick base, found on the Customs House. It is an asymmetrically arranged building, with a complex roofline comprising many one and two storeyed hipped and gabled sections. A two storeyed verandah lines the north eastern side of the house. The verandah at the lower level is formed by a brick arcade of large round arched openings, and a timber battened balustrade. The residence has a large variety of window openings which contribute to its complex form, including several oculi, grouped lancet type windows with round arched heads and grouped square arched windows. Many of the windows in the house are glazed with pale glazed leadlight panels of regular geometric patterns.
The principal entrance to the residence is via a hipped roof porch which is in the recessed southern corner of the house. The terracotta clad awning of the porch is supported on small concrete Doric columns which rest on a brick plinth. The porch has a tessellated tile floor with a central panel of encaustic tiles. The porch provides access to a central entrance hall from which the stair hall and several other ground floor rooms are accessed. The entrance hall has a timber boarded dado panel, painted rendered walls, an elaborate dentilled timber cornice and a timber boarded ceiling.
A small seating recess is separated from the entrance hall with a round arched opening. A similar arched opening separates the dog legged timber stair. The stair hall is naturally lit with an oculus opening at the level of the first landing and three round arched openings at a higher level. The rooms on the upper level are accessed via a central hall leading from the principal stair to another smaller timber stair in the western corner of the building. Generally the interior of the upper floor contains timber boarded ceilings, plastered walls and timber boarded floors. Centrally placed in many of the internal rooms are decorative timber fretwork panels. Several fine fireplaces survive throughout the building.
","history":"The former Maryborough Customs House and associated residence was constructed in 1899 to the design of Queensland Department of Public Work's architect, John Smith Murdoch. The building replaced an earlier customs house and residence constructed in the 1860s.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established there in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where the settlement was emerging but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
With the separation of Queensland from the colony of New South Wales in 1859, Maryborough was declared a Port of Entry and a sub collector was appointed. As a port, the conditions of importing and exporting from Maryborough were subject to the control of the Queensland Customs Department. Taxation on goods entering and leaving the colony was an important source of revenue for the newly established Queensland Government and, accordingly, customs services were highly regarded and respected. Collectors and sub-collectors were appointed as towns along the coastline were declared Ports of Entry, and although most customs officers commenced their duties in humble or makeshift buildings, the importance of the service soon demanded customs houses of more prominence and grandeur.
Brinsley Sheridan, the sub-collector appointed to Maryborough, worked from a customs office established in what became the kitchen of an early Maryborough hotel, which was later known as the Criterion. In 1861 a purpose built customs house was constructed with funds granted by the government. Tenders were called for the building in early 1861 and the building was ready for occupation in March 1862. The site chosen was adjacent to the wharf area. The buildings erected at this time included a brick customs house facing the river and a timber residence adjoining the rear of the main building. In 1863 a bond store was constructed on the Customs House Reserve to store goods held on the Customs House site.
Through the 1860s and 1870s Maryborough grew rapidly, in response to the discovery of Gold in Gympie to which Maryborough served as port and also with the introduction of the railway. The first rail systems were privately owned and linked the wharves with surrounding businesses. In 1881 the State rail line was extended to Gympie.
By the 1890s, the 1861 customs house was deteriorating and this was more rapid after a flood in 1893. Soon after this, a decision was made to construct a new Customs House. A large new customs house was constructed in Brisbane in 1889 and the high quality and substantial nature of this building inspired many of the customs houses built in the federation period, which included that at Maryborough, and others at Rockhampton, Townsville, Bundaberg and Mackay.
In January 1899, AB Brady the colonial architect called for tenders for the construction of a customs house and residence in Maryborough. The tender of local contractors, Henry Neale and Son, was accepted with work to be completed within 12 months. The final cost of the two buildings was £5956 and they were constructed of locally made brick on concrete foundations with Marseilles roof tiles. The Customs House was single storeyed with a long room, offices, strong room and toilets. The residence was a two storeyed building with six bedrooms and wide verandahs allowing sweeping views of the river. Unlike the previous customs house this building was sited to face Richmond Street and the Court House gardens opposite which had been established with the construction of the new Court House in 1877.
The building has been attributed to the architect, John Smith Murdoch who was an architect in the Department of Public Works in Queensland, under the leadership of AB Brady. Murdoch emigrated to Melbourne in 1884 and by July 1885 took a positions with the Queensland Works Department under one of Brady's predecessors, JJ Clark, but was retrenched within two years. He returned again to the Department to work on the Victoria Bridge project managed by the then Engineer for Bridges and Government Architect, AB Brady. Brady appointed Murdoch to the position of Draftsman and Inspector of Works in 1897 and to Second Assistant Architect in 1899. In July 1904 Murdoch transferred permanently to the Commonwealth Department of Homes Affairs, where he enjoyed a successful career becoming Director General of Works in 1927.
Murdoch, throughout his career, displayed a remarkable talent, designing innovative and well planned buildings of considerable architectural merit. A recent paper on the architecture of Murdoch , discusses his fusion of styles which meld the contemporary desire for an Australian federation architecture which was closely allied with the English Queen Anne style, with the imperial architectural style of Edwardian Baroque creating an individualistic and sensitive manifestation of two cultural phenomena of late nineteenth century in Australian society, namely nationalism and allegiance to the Crown. The principle elements of his style were picturesque asymmetrical massing; overscaled classical elements, including broken pediments, coursing, entablatures, columns; crenellation; Royal Arms motif and other sculptural elements. The paper asserts that examples of Murdoch's architecture have become "cultural and architectural icons, proudly displaying Royal Arms conveying authority, tradition and a link to the empire."
The Maryborough Customs House is a good example of Murdoch's architecture, integrating the familiarity and aesthetic comfort of the form of Arts and Crafts with the authority and tradition associated with Classical details and motifs. These stylistic elements are employed with an environmental consciousness which pervades the planning of both the customs house and the residence.
In 1901 the newly established Federal Government assumed control of the Customs service throughout Australia. This resulted in a change of ownership of the Maryborough Custom House from state to federal government. In 1995 the Customs Service was removed from Maryborough and, although the buildings remain in Commonwealth ownership, they are used as the office of the Electoral Commission and the local Federal Member of Parliament, Warren Truss.
Since construction both the customs house and the residence have remained substantially intact with recent internal alterations allowing the buildings to be adaptively reused.
The buildings are no longer owned by the Commonwealth.
","criteria":"The former Maryborough Customs House and Residence, constructed in 1899, demonstrate the growth of the port of Maryborough in the nineteenth century. The prominence and high quality of the design of the buildings provide evidence of the importance of the customs service in Queensland.
|This substantially intact site which includes a customs house and residence, as well as a bond store (600716), demonstrates the principle characteristics of a late nineteenth century regional customs precinct, sited adjacent to former wharves. The buildings are characteristic examples of the high quality of design produced by the Public Works Department of Queensland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|The Customs House and Residence are of considerable aesthetic and architectural merit as innovative and well composed public buildings on a prominent Maryborough site. The picturesque massing of the buildings and manipulated classical detailing and elements clearly demonstrate the characteristics of the architecture of John Smith Murdoch in his fusion of Arts and Crafts form with Edwardian Baroque detail.
|The buildings demonstrate considerable creative innovation as very good Queensland examples of the late nineteenth Australian architectural influence of the English Arts and Craft movement.
|The building has special associations with the fine Works Department architect, John Smith Murdoch who designed many small innovative public buildings during his employment with the state government before his transfer to the Commonwealth.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15486,"place_ref":600711,"name":"Maryborough Heritage Centre","alternate_name":"Telecom Building | Post Master General's Department | National Parks and Wildlife Service Headquarters","street_address":"164 Richmond Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Maryborough Heritage Centre is a two storeyed rendered brick building prominently located on the corner of Richmond and Wharf Streets, Maryborough. This intersection houses four important historical sites of which the Heritage Centre forms an integral part.
The building is of loadbearing construction and has a rectangular plan and a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. The building is surrounded on three sides by a double storeyed verandah, with hipped curved awnings supported on cast iron columns on the first floor. A wide fascia board at the first floor level of the verandah, has signage, "Maryborough Heritage Centre". Joining the columns on the first floor are balustrade panels of decorative cast iron. Surmounting the columns on the first floor is a dentilled entablature, being the fascia of the awning. The ground floor of the verandah is lined with cast iron columns on rendered masonry plinths between which a wrought iron balustrade runs, also on a rendered masonry plinth.
The building has principal façades to both Richmond and Wharf Streets. The faces of the building are divided into vertical bays by shallow pilasters between which there are square headed arched window openings. The principal entrances to the building are through two timber framed doorways on the Richmond Street elevation. The openings on the ground floor align with similarly proportioned openings on the first floor, fitted with double half glazed French doors.
Internally the building is arranged from a narrow hallway accessed from one of the principal entrances at the south western end of the Richmond Street elevation, in which a timber stair runs to the first floor. The interior is generally timber boarded floors and plaster walls and ceilings. In the original banking chamber in the eh eastern corner of the building, which has its own entrance centrally located on the Richmond Street elevation and features elaborate plaster cornice and ceiling rose. Many rooms inside the former bank have ceilings clad with pressed metal sheeting. On the first floor the ceilings are generally timber boarded.
At the rear of the building are rendered masonry extensions, which have been added over time and are not always aligned with the original building, as is evidenced by a small set of internal stairs required to access the rear of the first floor. The extensions are both one and two storeyed. A timber open tread, quarter turn stair is located externally on the north western façade.
","history":"The Maryborough Heritage Centre was built in 1877 as the second purpose built branch of the Bank of New South Wales in Maryborough possibly to the design of Sydney architect, George Mansfield in conjunction with Queensland architect, James Cowlishaw.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where settlement was established but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
With the development of Maryborough, banking was introduced and during the 1860s and 1870s when Maryborough flourished as the result of the discovery of gold in Gympie, many banking institutes established purpose built premises from which they conducted business. Following close on the first discoveries of gold in 1867, the Bank of New South Wales established a branch in a portion of the Customs House Hotel at the corner of Wharf and Richmond Streets on 8 September 1868.
The Bank of New South Wales remained in this temporary accommodation during the construction of their first purpose built branch being a single storeyed building another of the corners of Richmond and Wharf Streets. This building was design by Joseph Backhouse, the brother of better known architect, Benjamin Backhouse.
As Maryborough expanded rapidly in the late 1860s and 1870s, a new, larger and more impressive branch of the Bank of New South Wales was planned in 1877. Tenders were called for this two storeyed rendered brick building on 26 January 1877 by bank manager, George Ranken. This suggests that the bank may have been designed by a southern architect. Other Banks of New South Wales constructed at this time include the Townsville Branch designed by James Cowlishaw (?1883); and the South Brisbane branch, designed by Benjamin Backhouse and supervised by AB Wilson (1884-5). Many Queensland branches of the Bank of New South Wales were designed from the 1860s by Sydney architect, George Allan Mansfield who continued to design banks until early in the twentieth century. It is thought that the bank, which has a plan standard to many Banks of New South Wales may have been designed by Mansfield and supervised by James Cowlishaw.
Over time additions have been made to the rear of the building. A new Bank of New South Wales was erected on the corner of Kent and Bazaar Streets in 1956 meaning that the 1877 building was redundant and was subsequently sold to the Commonwealth of Australia, when the Post Master General's Department moved into the building. By 1981 the Queensland Government acquired the property and the National Parks and Wildlife Service used the building as their regional office. In 1995 the building was acquired by Maryborough City Council who have, again, renovated the building for use as a local heritage research centre.
","criteria":"The Maryborough Heritage Centre is a former Bank of New South Wales constructed in 1877 when the town was experiencing rapid expansion as a result of the nearby Gympie goldfields for which it was a port and demonstrates the growth of the town during this period. The building is part of an important area, formerly the financial and judicial heart of Maryborough adjacent to the early port facilities.
|The building is a good example of a two storeyed masonry nineteenth century bank, with elaborate banking chamber on the ground floor and residence above.
|The building is a well composed and prominent landmark in Maryborough and has aesthetic significance.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Maryborough Heritage Centre is important for its use as a public building for about 120 years. Although the functions have changed over the years, the building has retained an important public role and is now the focus of historical research of the area.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15488,"place_ref":600713,"name":"Maryborough Government Office Building","alternate_name":"State Government Offices | State Government Insurance Offices","street_address":"123 Wharf Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Maryborough Government Office Building is a substantial rendered brick building prominently located on the corner of Wharf and Richmond Streets, along side the Court House. The building is designed to complement the proportions and massing of the Court House.
The building has a rectangular plan with a corrugated fibrous cement hipped roof over the body of the building, with hipped sections over the two bays at either end of the building. The corrugated fibrous-cement roof tiles simulate the appearance of terracotta tiles. The overhanging eaves of the roof are supported on moulded corbels which provide a decorative line around the cornice of the building.
The symmetrically composed Wharf Street façade of the Government Offices is divided into three bays, comprising the central portion and side wings. The ground floor of the building displays rendered stone coursing and is lined with a number of round arched window openings. Centrally projecting from the ground floor Wharf Street façade is a one storeyed entrance vestibule. This continues the ground floor stone coursing and has a centrally located round arched entrance which is surrounded by relief rendered quoining and an arched fanlight above. The central doorway is surmounted by a rectangular keystone which displays in relief the name 'Maryborough Government Office Building'. The upper floor of the building is lined with rectangular window openings glazed with six panelled vertical sash windows.
The side wings at either end of the building principally house the internal stairs and are distinguished externally by a central arched doorway to the street. The wings are stepped-back from the front façade of the building and flank the central core in symmetry.
The interior of the building comprises two levels which display much of the original fittings and joinery. The entrance to the lower floor leads into a large reception area which features a decorative terrazzo floor and large solid timber service counter. From this public space, the open-plan central office space can be seen and is accessed by a passage to the side of the counter. The central office area features decorative plaster coffered ceilings.
Located in the north-east corner of the ground floor is a records room adjoining a strong room which were part of the original plans. The strong room still displays its iron door, however both rooms are used for storage. In the south-east corner of the ground floor is a private office, originally the manager's office, which has original paquetry floors and timber panelled walls. This plan is replicated at the south-west corner of the ground floor, however this room does not display the same quality finishes. The north-west corner of the ground floor contains a separate room which was originally used at the typists' room.
Extending outward from the central open office space are two passage-ways which lead to stairways located in the side wings. The staircases and lower ground landings are intact and display terrazo flooring and steps with decorative rectangular cast-iron balustrade panels of a modern design consisting of three upright bars, the cental bar being a barley-twist. The handrails and upright posts are of timber. The ground floor landings also give access to Wharf Street via a double set of doors, the inner doors being French doors with six-panelled glass panes and the outer door of solid timber with surmounting fanlight. These landings also display original timber directory boards with glass panes.
The upper floor consists of numerous offices which flank either side of a narrow hall which runs the length of the central core of the building. This floor is characterised by its high quality timber features namely office doors and joinery and externally studded ceilings in a grid pattern. Toilets are located at either end of the upper floor, in the side wings.
The rear of the building, the northern face, fronts onto a landscaped pedestrian walkway which runs between the government offices and the court house. The walkway contains a recently completed mosaic ground mural in commemoration of the centenary of Federation.
","history":"The Maryborough State Government Offices were designed in 1939 by State Works Department architects GR Beveridge and RC Nowland to supplement the already existing state government office space provided for in the ground floor of the Maryborough Court House. The building was constructed on the Court House reserve in 1940, replacing an early garden between the Court House and Wharf Street.
The Maryborough State Government building is located in a precinct of substantial 19th and early 20th century public and commercial buildings around Wharf Street. It was designed to complement the adjacent Court House as well as the nearby Post Office and Customs House. The precinct around Wharf Street encompasses the core of Maryborough's historical public and commercial buildings which sprang from the development of the city's wharves in the area in 1852.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852 the growing town was gradually transferred further north where ships were better able to navigate the river. Development followed and by March 1861, Maryborough was declared a municipality and Henry Palmer was appointed as the first Mayor.
During the late 1860s and 1870s Maryborough developed rapidly as the port of the nearby gold rushes in the Gympie area. The first circuit court hearings were held in local hotels from the late 1850s. In about 1856 a permanent court house and lockup for Maryborough were designed by Alexander Dawson, Colonial Architect of New South Wales. By 1857 the New South Wales Government voted that the sum of £1000 be spent on the erection of a court house and lockup, but it seems this was not completed until after Separation in the early 1860s. These brick buildings, supposedly the first brick structures in Maryborough, were built on the corner of Kent and Adelaide Streets, on the site of the present Town Hall. Repairs and additions were made to these buildings in 1871 but, soon after, plans were being prepared for a new court house on another site.
FDG Stanley, the Colonial Architect of Queensland was responsible for the design of the new building which was completed by September 1875 when Stanley write a memo about his proposal;
\tthe design has been arranged so as to place offices of the Department of Roads, Public Lands \tand Survey on the ground floor as being more readily accessible from the street, and the courts \tand offices associated therewith on the upper floor as being removed from noise and as being in \ta better position as regards ventilation. The material to be employed is brick on stone \tfoundations faced in cement when not covered by verandahs; the roof to be slated and the \tinternal finishings of a plain substantial character.
Stanley remained in the positions of Colonial Architect for effectively ten years, from 1871 until 1881, during which time and with the help of his staff he produced many fine public buildings throughout Queensland, including several Maryborough buildings. The tender for the erection of the Maryborough Court House was won by John Thomas Annear with the sum of £7345 and work on the building was completed by 20 September 1877. The former court house was retained at its original site and became used as a quarters for police and was demolished to make way for the construction of the new Town Hall in 1908.
The Maryborough Court House was a large two storeyed building, designed to house the offices of several government departments on the ground floor and the court room and ancillary facilities above. The building was sited overlooking Queens Park and addressing both Wharf and Richmond Streets. Between Wharf Street and the court house a garden was established which enhanced the building's garden setting.
During the life of the Court House, only one major addition to the site has substantially altered the appearance, that is the addition of State Government Offices in 1940 between Wharf Street and the building, replacing the established garden. The offices already provided for government departments in the ground floor of the court house became inadequate and more floor space was needed and therefore the decision was made to erect a new building, in line with government policy for encouraging capital works in the 1930s to overcome the effect of the 1929 depression.
The building was designed by the Department of Public Works and two staff members seem to have been involved on the project. Two drawings of the proposed building were prepared. The first set was drawn by GR Beveridge and included elevations, ceiling and roof plans and general layouts of the site and the other, by RC Nowland is a detailed floor plan. Because the construction of the new offices solved problems of space in the court house, the court house was remodelled internally at the same time.
The Maryborough Government Office Building continues to house Queensland State Government Departments and displays much of its original design and fittings.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1940, the Maryborough Government Office Building is important in demonstrating the continued role of the city of Maryborough as a regional administration centre which developed from its significant position as a major Port of Entry since the 1850s. The building is also an example of construction work carried out under the unemployment relief scheme instigated by the State Government during the depression of the 1930s.
|The Maryborough Government Office Building is a good representative example of the Inter-War Georgian Revival style and is typical of the high standard of public buildings designed by the Queensland State Government Architects in this style prior to the Second World War. Other examples of this type of building include the Innisfail and Mackay Court Houses and the Government Offices in Cairns and Townsville. The intact interior design features such as the strong room, the individual offices and the high quality of finishes also demonstrate the workings of state government administration at the time of construction.
|The building is an important component of the Wharf Street precinct which comprises predominantly substantial commercial and public buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries which developed near the busy trading centre of the Mary River wharves and now present a coherent character throughout the area. The building complements other buildings in the Wharf Street precinct, particularly the adjacent Court House to which it is harmonious in scale and form, making a significant contribution to the townscape. The form, scale and fabric of the building illustrate a skilled design approach, and the detailing of the materials and finishes exhibit fine quality craftsmanship.
|The Maryborough Government Office Building has special association with the work of the Queensland Works Department as a good example of their inter-war work throughout the State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15489,"place_ref":600714,"name":"Maryborough Court House","alternate_name":"Maryborough Court House and Government Offices | Maryborough Courthouse","street_address":"Richmond Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Maryborough Court House is a two storeyed rendered brick building, situated on the edge of Queens Park, facing Richmond Street and addressing the principal façade of Customs House across Richmond Street.
The building has a rectangular shaped floor plan and a corrugated iron clad gabled roof. Lining the façades of the building are double storeyed verandahs, or loggias, which are recessed between rusticated corner pavilion towers. The verandahs are semi enclosed on the ground floor by a light timber framed arcade supported on timber columns. In the open spandrels of the arches are circular timber motifs. The upper level of the verandah comprises a number of regularly spaced timber posts with cross braced timber balustrading. The timber posts support a skillion awning which has a wide facia board where decorative timber brackets are aligned with the posts below. Above the verandah on the two short sides of the building are three semi circular openings above which is the gabled end of the roof. Centrally located on the edge of the verandah of the ground floor of the long elevations of the building, facing the park and the State Government Offices, are masonry pavilion entrances with round arched entrances.
The square planned corner pavilion towers between which the verandahs are placed, are rusticated at ground floor level with a round arched opening on each face, and smooth rendered on the first floor with a group of three round arched openings. Above these openings is a substantial cornice supported on closely spaced timber brackets. Above this moulding is a simple corniced parapet concealing the roofs of the pavilions. The parapet has a central moulded panel of interlocking circles.
The building was designed to accommodate offices on the ground floor and a court room and associated office space on the upper floor. The ground floor is presently essentially open plan with offices at the rear of the floor. The ground floor has a plaster ceiling with darkly stained timber grid framing. Regularly throughout the open section of the floor are substantial square planned stop chamfered rendered masonry columns. The rear offices are formed with plaster rendered walls and feature similar coffered ceiling framing.
The upper floor is accessed via a concrete stair in the southern tower, dating from the early 1940s. An open balcony on the first floor acts as an entrance vestibule to the court room which is entered via a double timber door. The court room is a large open plan room fitted with nineteenth century furniture. The original ceiling has been concealed with a suspended grid ceiling, housing lighting and other services. The room is naturally lit with a number of large windows and french lights opening onto the adjacent verandahs. Above these openings are high level semi-circular windows which sit on a string course lining the room. The walls are painted and bagged brickwork with a plaster skirting.
","history":"The Maryborough Court House was constructed in 1877 to the design of the then Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley for use as both a court house and government office block. The building is the second Maryborough Court House replacing an earlier 1860s building constructed on another site.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852 the growing town was gradually transferred further south where ships were better able to navigate the river. Development followed and by March 1861, Maryborough was declared a municipality and Henry Palmer was appointed as the first Mayor.
During the late 1860s and 1870s Maryborough developed rapidly as the port of the nearby gold rushes in the Gympie area. The first circuit court hearings were held in local hotels from the late 1850s. In about 1856 a permanent court house and lockup for Maryborough were designed by Alexander Dawson, Colonial Architect of New South Wales. By 1857 the New South Wales Government voted that the sum of £1000 be spent on the erection of a court house and lockup, but it seems this was not completed until after Separation in the early 1860s and seems to be unattributable to Alexander Dawson. These brick buildings, supposedly the first brick structures in Maryborough, were built on the corner of Kent and Adelaide Streets, on the site of the present Town Hall, which had been reserved for court house use in early Maryborough surveys. Repairs and additions were made to these buildings in 1871 but, soon after, plans were being prepared for a new court house. This was to be constructed on another site several blocks to the east of the first site, which had become available in 1874 following the relocation of the emigration barracks and the consequent extension of the adjacent Queens Park.
FDG Stanley, the Colonial Architect of Queensland was responsible for the design of the new building. Stanley arrived in Queensland in 1861 from Scotland where he trained. He was appointed to the Office of the Colonial Architect in 1863 as a clerk of works and in 1872 succeeded Charles Tiffin as the Colonial Architect. Prior to being asked to design the Maryborough Court House, Stanley was already experienced in the design of large public buildings, although this was early in his prolific career in Queensland.
Stanley conceived the Maryborough Court House as a double storeyed, arcaded pavilion with towers at each corner, sited between Queens Park and the adjacent street. The footprint of the building was set well back from Wharf Street providing space for a garden forecourt with Jacaranda trees enhancing the principal entrance. Stanley write a memo about his proposal for the Court House in September 1875;
\tthe design has been arranged so as to place offices of the Department of Roads, Public Lands \tand Survey on the ground floor as being more readily accessible from the street, and the courts \tand offices associated therewith on the upper floor as being removed from noise and as being in \ta better position as regards ventilation. The material to be employed is brick on stone \tfoundations faced in cement when not covered by verandahs; the roof to be slated and the \tinternal finishings of a plain substantial character.
The necessity of segregating the top and bottom floors caused Stanley to provide discrete stair halls at each end of the pavilion within the two corner towers nearest the park, at the rear of the building, to which access was provided from the north eastern verandah. The northern stair gave access for judges and barristers and the eastern stair was provided for prisoners escorted by police and the public.
The Maryborough Court House was constructed for about £7345 after Stanley's initial estimation of about £5500. Tenders were called on 20 October 1875 and on 19 November 1876 the lowest tender of local contractor, John Thomas Annear was accepted who undertook to complete the building within twelve months. The building was occupied, at least partially, by August 1877.
Stanley remained in the position of Colonial Architect for effectively ten years, from 1871 until 1881, during which time and with the help of his staff he produced many fine public buildings throughout Queensland, including several Maryborough buildings. The former court house was retained at its original site and became used as a quarters for police and was demolished to make way for the construction of the new Town Hall in 1908.
Many alterations have occurred since construction within the Court House precinct affecting both the setting and the building fabric. Firstly, stables were added by 1878. Very soon after construction another stair was built in the part of the south east verandah and for dedicated public use, where previously they were sharing the prisoner's stair. During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century window shades were added, repair and repainting work was done and additional closets were built.
The addition of State Government Offices in 1939 between Wharf Street and the building, replaced the established garden and dramatically altered the context of the building. The offices already provided for government departments in the ground floor of the court house became inadequate and more floor space was needed and therefore a decision was made to erect a new building. This was in line with government policy for encouraging capital works in the 1930s to overcome the effect of the 1929 depression.
The building was designed by the Department of Public Works and two staff members seem to have been involved on the project. Two drawings of the proposed building were prepared. The first set was drawn by GR Beveridge and included elevations, ceiling and roof plans and general layouts of the site and the other, by RC Nowland is a detailed floor plan. Because the construction of the new offices solved problems of space in the court house, the court house was remodelled internally at the same time. This remodelling occurred in 1942 at a cost of £4851 and involved limiting access to Richmond Street, removing internal partitions on the ground floor level and removing six fireplaces. As well new stairs were constructed in three of the four corners of the building and a stables was demolished to make way for an air raid shelter.
","criteria":"The Maryborough Court House, constructed in 1877, demonstrates the growth of Maryborough in the 1860s and 1870s as a result of the discovery of gold in Gympie, for which Maryborough became the principal port. The building demonstrates the early civic history of Maryborough and has special social value for the community for its long and continued use as a public building.
|The Court House is a good example of a Queensland court house of the nineteenth century, with classical architectural influences, adapted to the sub-tropical Maryborough climate. The layout and form of the building are characteristic of a late nineteenth century court house.
|The building has aesthetic significance as a well composed Maryborough landmark with inherent formal qualities, symmetrical massing and repetitive rhythmic detailing which combine to produce a strong composition in its Queens Park setting which contributes to its aesthetic value. The building forms an integral component of a civic precinct with the adjacent State Government Offices, which although later, are clearly designed to harmonise with the Court House.
|The Court House has special associations with its designer, FDG Stanley who was Queensland's most prolific Colonial Architect.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15490,"place_ref":600715,"name":"Customs House Hotel","alternate_name":"Custom House Hotel","street_address":"116 Wharf Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Custom House Hotel is a two storeyed brick building on the corner of Wharf and Richmond Streets, Maryborough. A two storeyed residential wing extends from the rear of the hotel.
The building has a rectangular plan, extending further along the Wharf Street elevation, where a sympathetic later extension is found. The corner of the building is truncated and this is expressed on the hipped corrugated iron roof. Two storeyed verandahs line the two principal facades of the building, though the corner of the first floor has been infilled. The verandahs, which are supported on square timber posts, feature a cast iron balustrade and frieze, though this has been replaced with different cast iron panels in some parts. Horizontal timber louvre blades to the second floor verandah survive on the Richmond Street elevation.
The public bar is entered via a door in the truncated corner of the building. This rendered concrete section has been infilled under the verandah, and has a cantilevered awning, and a series of nine hopper windows on each facade. The original wall of the building is evident within the public bar, though large holes have been cut away from it.
Access to the dining and accommodation rooms is through a double panel door flanked by a tripartite window arrangement surrounded by particularly fine joinery and sidelights. Over the door and windows are large glazed panels with signage, "CUSTOM HOUSE HOTEL" written. The entrance and windows are separated by moulded pilasters. Further along Wharf Street are many window openings of two generations, those closest to the corner of the Richmond Street have replacement arctic glass hoppers, whilst the remaining are multipane vertical sashes with deep reveals.
The entrance hall, through the opening in Wharf Street, features a pressed metal ceiling and cornice, and remnants of an early wall paper strip above the dado rail. The unpainted timber stair has an open welled three quarter turn stairway, with turned balusters and square newels surmounted by acorn finials. From the entrance hall is access to the former dining and billiard rooms which have been substantially altered with a suspended ceiling and recent brick archways, though a chimney piece survives.
The first floor remains substantially intact, with a central plaster walled corridor featuring timber and plaster archways, timber skirtings and a beaded board ceiling. The accommodation rooms, accessed from the corridor, remain substantially intact with early furniture and fittings, including corner sinks fitted into small timber boarded cabinets. Entrance to the front verandah from the rooms facing the front is via french doors featuring fine margin paned glazing. A wide rear verandah ensures that all rooms have access to external space.
","history":"The Custom House Hotel is the oldest extant hotel in Maryborough, constructed in 1868 for a Mr Galbraith.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852 the growing town was gradually transferred further north where ships were able to better navigate the river. Development followed and by March 1861, Maryborough became a municipality.
With separation in 1859, Maryborough was declared a port and a customs official, or Sub-Collector, Mr Sheridan, was appointed and worked out of a small room where the Criterion Hotel now stands in Wharf Street. By 1861 a Customs House had been constructed on the corner of Richmond and Wharf Street and two years after this a Bonded Store was built along side the Customs House to provide needed accommodation for the bonding of dutiable goods when ad valorem duties were introduced.
The land on which the Custom House Hotel was to be constructed was purchased as two lots in May 1852, one by Henry Palmer and the other by Hugh Labatt. In February 1865, George Galbraith became part owner of the lot closest to the corner of Richmond and Wharf Streets, where the initial stage of the hotel was to be constructed. A two storeyed brick hotel was built in 1868 by Galbraith, it is unclear who designed the building. In 1870, Galbraith also bought the adjacent lot, and extended the hotel further along Wharf Street in that year. At this stage further accommodation was added to the first floor and a Billiard Room was added to the ground floor.
Galbraith retained the hotel until July 1871 when John Franklin acquired the Certificate of Title. Franklin had previously leased and operated another hotel in Maryborough, the Rose and Crown, at the corner of Lennox and Albert Streets. The Custom House Hotel has changed ownership many times, but continues to function as a hotel.
When built, the hotel's two storeyed verandah had cross-braced timber balustrading, but this was replaced with the present cast iron balustrade by 1894. By the 1950s the public bar area was extended on the truncated corner and two street elevations to the underside of the verandah, and a cantilevered awning was used to shade this area.
","criteria":"The Custom House Hotel demonstrates the pattern of growth in Maryborough, particularly near the docks, in and around Wharf Street.
|The hotel is a good intact example of a Queensland country town hotel, characterised by its situation on a prominent corner with two storeyed post supported verandahs to the principal facades.
|The Custom House Hotel is an integral element of the Wharf Street streetscape, and is of value for its aesthetic characteristics, including fine joinery, cast iron verandah friezes and glazing.
|As the oldest extant hotel in Maryborough, the Custom House Hotel is of value to the community as a long serving public building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15491,"place_ref":600716,"name":"Government Bond Store (former)","alternate_name":"Maryborough Bond Store","street_address":"Wharf Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The former Government Bond Store is a two storeyed masonry building, with upper principal level aligned with Wharf Street and a partially subterranean basement level. The building is located within the Customs House reserve.
The building has a rectangular plan, principal entrances to the upper storey from Wharf Street, and a corrugated iron double hipped roof, which may have the remnants of an early roof lantern. The two entrances from Wharf Street are emphasised by projecting gabled roof section surmounting brick projections with round arched openings to the doorways. The two entrances are slightly different in detail and size, reflecting the development of the building. The former Bond Store is of brick and stone construction; the external walls are face brick and the foundations of the building are rock faced stone. The principal façade of the building, off Wharf Street, is dominated by the two entrances, which are separated and also flanked by segmental arched window openings.
Internally the building has two principal rooms on the upper level, one of which has a timber boarded ceiling, rendered walls and timber boarded floor. The other room, on the south eastern side of the building, has ceilings open to the various sections of roof framing, a timber boarded floor and painted and bagged brickwork walls. In the eastern corner of the former bond store is a straight open tread timber stair leading downwards to the basement level. Access is also provided to this lower level from Macalister Street through large double timber boarded and braced doors. This level has unpainted rubble stone walls forming several smaller spaces, with large arched openings connecting them. The floor is earth and several timber frames, presumable used as storage bases, line the floor.
","history":"The Government Bond Store in Maryborough, one of the earliest brick buildings in the town, was constructed in several stages from 1863. The building served for many years as a store for goods being processed by the adjacent Customs House.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established there in 1847-8 providing transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1850 Surveyor, HR Labatt arrived in Maryborough with instructions to "examine the River Mary...to suggest ...the best site or sites for the laying out of the town, having regard to the convenience of shipping on one hand and internal communication on the other...also...point out the spots desirable as reserves for public building, church, quay and for places for public recreation." The site recommended by Labatt was not where the settlement was emerging but further east and from the early 1850s this is where the growing town developed.
With the separation of Queensland from the colony of New South Wales in 1859, Maryborough was declared a Port of Entry and a sub collector was appointed. As a port the conditions of importing and exporting from Maryborough were subject to the control of the Queensland Customs Department. Taxation on goods entering and leaving the colony was an important source of revenue for the newly established Queensland Government and, accordingly, customs services were highly regarded and respected. Collectors and sub-collectors were appointed as towns along the coastline were declared Ports of Entry, and although most customs officers commenced their duties in humble or makeshift buildings, the importance of the service demanded customs houses of more prominence and grandeur.
Richard Bingham Sheridan, the sub-collector appointed to Maryborough, worked from a customs office established in what became the kitchen of an early Maryborough hotel, later known as the Criterion. In 1861 a purpose built customs house was constructed with funds granted by the government. Tenders were called for the building in early 1861 and the building was ready for occupation in March 1862. The site chosen was adjacent to the wharf area. The buildings erected at this time included a brick customs house facing the river and a timber residence adjoining the rear of the main building.
As trade increased through the port of Maryborough, the Government made provision for £500 to be spent on the construction of a Government Bond Store in which to store goods held on the Customs House site. The contract was let in 1864 to a William Hope and a simple rectangular single storeyed brick building was constructed to the south east of the first Customs House. The design of this section of the current Bond Store has been attributed to Queensland's first Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin.
Through the 1860s and 1870s Maryborough grew rapidly, in response to the discovery of Gold in Gympie to which Maryborough served as port and with the introduction of the railway. The first rail systems were privately owned and linked the wharves with surrounding businesses. In 1881 the state rail line was extended from Maryborough to Gympie. Trade increased and extensions, costing £158 were planned to the Bond Store in 1870. A storey was added to the building and a two storeyed wing extended the building to Wharf Street where an entrance was created. When extended the Bond Store was transformed from a simple rectangular planned building to an L-shaped plan.
Further additions, costing £962 were made by 1883 when another two storeyed wing was added between the original 1863 wing and Wharf Street, transforming the L-shaped plan to a rectangular planned building. As well a gauging store was constructed for a cost of £317 by local contractor Henry Neale around the lower floor level of the rear walls of the Bond Store.
In 1901 the Customs Service was transferred to Federal government management and therefore the Customs House and ancillary buildings, including the Bond Store were transferred to federal ownership. Although the building has altered very little since the last major additions were made in 1883, its function as a bond store was lost when the port was relocated near Hervey Bay and customs services became redundant in Maryborough. The building has since been converted to a place museum, interpreting the history of the former port of Maryborough.
","criteria":"The former Government Bond Store in Maryborough is evidence of the early history of the town as an important Queensland port.
|The building is a rare surviving and characteristics example of a nineteenth century bond store.
|As one of the earliest brick buildings surviving in Maryborough, the building has the potential to yield evidence of early construction techniques.
|The building is a rare surviving and characteristics example of a nineteenth century bond store.
|The building has aesthetic significance as a mid nineteenth century utilitarian brick building.
|The Bond Store has special associations with the local community as one of the earliest surviving public buildings in Maryborough and now home to a local historical museum.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15492,"place_ref":600717,"name":"Maryborough Waterside Workers' Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"96 Wharf Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-09","description":"The Waterside Workers' Hall is a single-storeyed timber and iron building facing Wharf Street to the north, with a view of the Mary River to the northeast.
This long rectangular building has a corrugated iron gable roof, timber stumps and a single skin chamferboard street facade with recessed central entry and a sash window to either side. These windows have sheet metal hoods and the gable has a mounted flagpole. The single skin weatherboard east elevation has sash windows and borders a service lane. Other elevations are of corrugated iron with a lean-to structure at the rear containing a gantry for unloading equipment.
Internally, the central entry leading into the hall, has a room to either side with single skin tongue and groove partition walls, most of which is missing from the northwest room. The roof is unlined and the rear lean-to, which has a raised timber floor, was accessed via an opening which resembles a proscenium arch.
The Criterion Hotel borders the west boundary and a diesel workshop and a large boarding house is located to the east. The rear of the property is grassed.
","history":"The Waterside Workers' Hall Maryborough is a single storeyed timber building erected c1918 for the Maryborough branch of the Waterside Workers Federation.
The port of Maryborough was regularly visited by a number of ships, most of which were associated with the carrying of timber. In 1850 the town of Maryborough was moved to its present site as that part of the Mary River was considered preferable for shipping. Gazetted a port in 1859, Maryborough continued to develop as the major port and centre servicing the Wide Bay region.
The Hall was used as a meeting place and pickup centre for the workers. It was funded by a levy of £2 struck on all members and was erected in Wharf Street, in proximity to the wharves and also to other buildings including the Bond Store, Customs House, and several hotels, also associated with the workings of the port. Prior to 1943, workers were selected according to the Bull System, that is workers for each shift were chosen by the shipping bosses. After that time, they were selected by the Union on a rotational basis. Both systems required the men to present themselves for work on notice of the arrival of a ship. In Maryborough some companies required the wharfies to meet at the wharves. Others, such as local firms Hyne and Sons and Wilson Hart are recorded as using the Hall as a pickup centre, which, as a sheltered building with seating was preferred by the wharfies to the open sheds on the wharves.
With changes in communication and transportation and the development and increasing importance of Urangan as a deep water sugar port, the port of Maryborough began to decline. By the 1950s Maryborough wharfies were increasingly employed at Urangan, but with Maryborough remaining the pickup place for local workers.
On 18 March 1963 the last work was performed by waterside workers at Maryborough. The Maryborough Branch and the Hall were, however, maintained, although all work performed by Maryborough workers was done at Urangan, Bundaberg, and Gladstone. In 1972 the register of waterside workers which was still maintained at Maryborough was closed and a register opened at Urangan. The Urangan Branch assumed control of the assets of the Maryborough Branch.
In the 1960s the back half of the Hall was rented to the present owner for storage. The front section was also rented - to bands for rehearsal and to weightlifters as a training centre. In 1980 the building was purchased by the present owner, who operates a marine engineering business from an adjoining building. The Hall is currently used for storage.
","criteria":"The Maryborough Waterside Workers' Hall, erected c1918, is important in demonstrating the pattern of the Queensland's history, in particular the development of Maryborough as a shipping port for the Wide Bay district and the development of Wharf Street to service that port area.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a worker's hall and meeting place.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular the unpretentious and elegant nature of the building's forms, its interaction with the surrounding buildings, and its contribution to the streetscape of Wharf Street and to the Maryborough townscape.
|It has a special association with the Waterside Workers' Union in Maryborough.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15493,"place_ref":600718,"name":"Gataker's Warehouse Complex","alternate_name":"Gatakers Warehouse | Rutledge and Netterfield | Netterfield and Palmer | Graham and Gataker","street_address":"106-108 Wharf Street & 310 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Gataker's Warehouse Complex comprises three buildings built along the east boundary of the site between Kent and Wharf Street and a fourth, Brown's Warehouse or Store, built on an adjoining allotment to the west fronting Wharf Street.
Kent Street Building
The Kent Street Building is a two-storeyed cement rendered brick building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The symmetrical south facade, to Kent Street, has corner pilasters, a protruding central bay and mouldings including window surrounds, eave brackets and a heavy cornice between floors. The first floor has a central sash window with an arched sash window to either side. The ground floor has a metal street awning with a skillion roof and timber trim, and timber framed glazing and doors. The west and north elevations are rendered and scribed to imitate stonework, with the west elevation having a metal access stair to the first level. A single-storeyed brick store with a corrugated iron gable roof and side awning is attached to the northeast of the building.
Internally, the ground floor has been refitted as an office with a concrete floor and partition walls but retains the original cast iron Ionic columns, some of the joinery and a section of the timber floor to the rear of the building. The first floor is accessed via a stair at the southwest corner and is used as a dance studio. A hardwood timber floor with insulation has been laid over the older pine floor, and partition walls used to create bathrooms and stores. This space has a raked boarded ceiling with exposed timber trusses.
Middle Warehouse
The Middle Warehouse is a two-storeyed English bond brick building with a corrugated iron gable roof and two-storeyed brick lean-to at the south end. Both floors have sash windows, some with bars, with arched brick headers and timber shutters, and each end gable has a lancet window. External steel stairs are located at the northwest to access a gallery space in the north of the first floor, and at the south to access staff amenities. A large, steel truss gable roof is attached to the southwest of the building covering the loading area, with a lower cement rendered toilet block and bike store to the west.
The ground floor has been extensively altered, with internal walls, columns and the raised timber floor at truck height being removed and a concrete floor laid and steel beams and columns inserted. Air conditioning has been installed, some openings bricked-in and an opening cut in the north wall to extend the space into an adjacent building. An internal stair at the south end leads to the staff amenities above, which has a suspended ceiling. The gallery space has a raked boarded ceiling with exposed timber trusses and heavy timber doors with original hardware.
Wharf Street Warehouse
The Wharf Street Warehouse comprises two single-storeyed brick sheds built at different stages. The front building has an unlined corrugated iron and cement sheet gable roof and barred louvred windows. Internally, the building has a concrete floor, a steel roller door to the south and a stair down to a lower door, opening onto Wharf Street. A large doorway with a sliding timber door opens into the second shed.
The second shed has an unlined skillion roof extending to a covered loading area to the west, with a concrete floor and steel roller doors. Remains of an earlier brick structure can be seen in the lower rear corner wall. A bitumen driveway runs along the western side of the site, and accesses car parking behind Brown's Warehouse to the west on Wharf Street.
Brown's Warehouse
Brown's Warehouse is a two-storeyed brick building with a parapeted, corrugated iron gable roof and a rendered facade to Wharf Street. This symmetrical facade consists of a central, arched recessed entry and flight of steps with iron gates and an arched sash window to either side. The first floor has a central sash window with J.E. BROWN ESTAB 1857 in relief above, with twin arched sash windows to either side. Render mouldings include a cornice and brackets following the gable with finials to the centre and corners, and window surrounds with horizontal cornice banding. The east elevation has a timber stair with a sliding timber door of diagonal panelling to the first floor and a steel roller door and sash windows with bars to the ground floor. The rear of the building has a steel roller door to the ground floor and the west elevation has only one window in the upper northeast.
Internally, the ground floor has cast iron columns and an exposed timber floor above. The building contains cedar joinery including panelled doors, staircase and architraves.
","history":"The Gataker's Warehouse Complex consists of four buildings erected on three allotments bounded by Kent and Wharf streets in proximity to the river and other buildings associated with the port of Maryborough.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow. In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. [1] During the 1860s and 1870s it flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century.
Gataker's Warehouse Complex comprises: the Kent Street Building (1867-1868) [2]; the Middle Warehouse (c.1869) [3]; the Wharf Street Warehouse (erected in stages from c1947); and Brown's Warehouse (1879) along Wharf Street. Since 1885, the Gataker family have owned the site on which three of the buildings are sited. Brown's Warehouse was acquired by the family company in 1972. In 1988, the three allotments were group titled.
Kent Street Building, Middle Warehouse, Wharf Street Warehouse
The Kent Street Building and Middle Warehouse (located immediately behind the Kent Street Building) are substantial two-storey brick buildings. The Wharf Street Warehouse, a single-storey brick building, is located behind the Middle Warehouse and fronts Wharf Street.
The Kent Street Building was built as a store for the owner of the land, Robert Travis, of the wholesale and retail firm, Robert Travis and Co. On completion of the store, the Maryborough Chronicle (20 June 1868) published the following description: ‘The façade carries two cornices, an upper and a lower one - the former supported by ornamental trusses, the latter corbelled out, the members of both exceedingly bold and massive in detail, giving an appearance of great solidity to the whole building. An exceedingly light close-boarded, and slated king-post roof - a peculiar feature in which is the entire absence of all common rafters - covers the building. In the rear of the main store, and attached thereto, is a brick wine and spirit store, and beyond that a packing-house, built of the same material. A splendid water supply is secured by a large circular brick tank having a depth of 22 feet (6.7 m) with a diameter of 11 feet (3.4 m). ... The store on the ground floor is a splendid room 15 feet (4.6 m) high, extending over the whole of the building, with the exception that an office occupies a space of 15 by 15 feet (4.6 by 4.6 m) of the lower end. Two rows of handsome iron columns add to the ornament of this large room, and at the same time give solidity to the floor of the upper storey. Access to this upper storey is made by a staircase at the lower end of the building, on mounting which it will be seen the whole floor forms one large room, except that in the centre an opening has been left for facilitating communication between the two rooms, the opening being surrounded with a light elegant balustrade. The internal fittings are all of French-polished cedar, most of it grown in the district...' [4]
The Middle Warehouse was also built for Travis. The Maryborough Chronicle (2 March 1869) gave the following description of the building: ‘(It) is a massive two-storeyed pile, of the utmost solidity and security that bricks and mortar, laid in the very best manner, can ensure, with a slate roof of correspondingly durable appearance. The dimensions are 100 feet (30.5 m) long by 30 feet (9 m) wide, the lower story being devoted to the reception of bonded goods, and the upper one, which contains two apartments, to the purpose of an ordinary warehouse.' [5]
In 1879, drapers Rutledge and Netterfield (later Netterfield and Palmer) acquired the site and it was subsequently occupied by a number of commercial or light industrial operations before being sold at auction to CF Gataker of Graham and Gataker on 20 February 1885. [6] Graham and Gataker subsequently acquired land behind the Middle Warehouse fronting Wharf Street.
In 1906 Graham retired and, soon after, Gataker's two sons, Melmoth Leofric and Charles James entered the business to form Gataker and Sons. Graham Gataker retired in 1913. At the height of the depression, in 1933, the firm was forced to assign its estate, but the following year Gatakers Pty Ltd was formed, and the company purchased the assets of the old firm recommencing operations.
After World War II, Gatakers expanded their business to become liquor merchants including the Wide Bay distribution of Four-ex beer and the bottling of Bundaberg Rum. In c.1947 the first stage of the single-storey Wharf Street Warehouse was constructed by local builder Jack Ferguson fronting Wharf Street immediately behind the Middle Warehouse. A second stage was constructed in 1969 and a third stage later linked the Wharf Street building to the Middle Warehouse. In the 1970s the timber floor of the Wharf Street Warehouse was removed and replaced with concrete at a lower level to enable the handling of goods on pallets.
In the 1950s renovations were carried out to the ground floor of the Kent Street Building including a new hardwood floor and the addition of internal stairs from Kent Street to the upper floor. The cast-iron columns, reputedly used as ballast in a ship from Britain, were retained. By 1959, the slate roof of the Kent Street Building had been replaced with corrugated iron sheeting. In the 1980s the building was internally refurbished and the front awning replaced.
In 1989 the ground floor and part of the first floor of the Middle Warehouse were leased to Australia Post. Additions and alterations carried out for this tenancy included the erection of a covered loading area, the replacement of the timber (over brick) ground floor with concrete, the replacement of cedar joinery and shutters with silky oak, and the insertion of internal stairs to the first floor. The remaining part of the upper floor is occupied by the Wide Bay Art Society Gallery.
Brown's Warehouse
Brown's Warehouse is a two-storey brick warehouse erected in 1879 for Maryborough wine and spirit merchant, James Edwin Brown.
Brown arrived in Maryborough in 1857 becoming a business partner of WF Naugton, who died soon after. In 1872 Brown purchased the Wharf Street property, which was somewhat closer to the river than his previous premises at Richmond Street. A timber building on the site was replaced by a brick warehouse described at the time as the finest of the kind in the district and modelled upon the ‘best business warehouses of the southern capitals'. Supervised by Maryborough architect and surveyor, James Buchanan, the building contained a storeroom on each floor with an internal stair and lift at the rear. The upper floor was supported by 10 iron columns cast at Walker and Co.'s local foundry. Brick and plaster work was undertaken by local builder F Kinne, who later became a businessman and Mayor, and woodwork by D Ross.
Brown's business interests prospered until the financial crash of the 1890s, which caused him to return from retirement to the business. In 1897, Brown was joined by his two sons who continued to operate the firm as JE Brown and Sons Ltd after Brown's death in 1899 at his home called Woodstock.
Ownership of the property passed out of the Brown family in 1951. After a number of owners it was purchased by Gatakers Pty Ltd in 1972. After being group titled in 1988 the building passed to the present owners.
References
Ref. 1 - Extracted from the Walker's Shipyard history prepared by Brian Sinclair [Reported Place in CHIMS, Site ID 31936].
Ref. 2 - Maryborough Chronicle, February 15 1868, June 20 1868, cited in J Downman, 'History of Gataker's building' (unpublished paper).
Ref. 3 - Maryborough Chronicle ref.
Ref. 4 - Maryborough Chronicle, June 20 1868, cited in J Downman, 'History of Gataker's building' (unpublished paper).
Ref. 5 - Maryborough Chronicle, 2 March 1869, cited in J Downman, 'History of Gataker's building' (unpublished paper).
Ref. 6 - Maryborough Chronicle, 21 February 1885, cited in J Downman, 'History of Gataker's building' (unpublished paper).
","criteria":"The Gataker's Warehouse Complex, Maryborough, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Maryborough as a shipping port for the Wide Bay district and the development of Wharf Street to service the port.
|The Gataker's Warehouse Complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of warehouses of the late 19th century, dating until the 1950s.
|The Gataker's Warehouse Complex is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, including the industrial nature of the buildings' forms and their interaction with the surrounding buildings; the difference in design of each building, displaying a hierarchy of use and intent; and their contribution to the streetscapes of Kent and Wharf streets and to the Maryborough townscape.
|The Gataker's Warehouse Complex has a special association with the life and work of Gatakers Pty Ltd, one of the oldest surviving Maryborough firms, who have occupied the site for over a century, and JE Brown, an early and prosperous Maryborough pioneer.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15494,"place_ref":600719,"name":"Criterion Hotel","alternate_name":"Riverview Hotel | Melbourne Hotel","street_address":"98 Wharf Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Criterion Hotel is a three storeyed painted brick building, facing the Mary River on Wharf Street. A hipped corrugated iron roof is concealed by a parapet featuring a linked-circular balustrade, and centrally located moulded pediment.
The building has verandahs to the first and second floors and is infilled under this on the ground floor. The verandahs have simple recently constructed timber posts and cross-braced balustrading,
The ground floor openings have been substantially altered with the addition of the tiled and rendered brick infill work, though some survive intact. Half glazed french doors with operable transom windows give access to the verandah from the upper floors.
Internally the ground floor of the building is much altered although many original elements survive. Entrance is gained from two doors, one, in the infilled section, leading to the public bar and the other, to the accommodation section and dining room. Where intact, the ground floor is generally of plaster walls and ceiling with modest cornices and skirtings throughout. A large moulded archway in the entrance corridors separates the dog legged timber stair from the hall. The stair, which has turned newels and square balusters, is naturally lit by a multi-paned arched window, at the first half landing.
The upper floors retain the original planform, of centrally located corridors running parallel to the verandah, off which accommodation rooms are accessed both to the verandah side and to the rear of the building. The rooms feature four panel doors, with large transom windows above, some of which are not glazed but covered with punched metal sheeting. The verandahs are enclosed on the transverse ends with louvred windows and sheeting, and the timber floors have been extended, increasing the width of the verandah.
","history":"The Criterion Hotel is one of only two three storeyed brick buildings in Maryborough, erected in two stages from 1878 to 1883 for the owner Neil Blue, to a design of local architect, James Robertson.
The original township of Maryborough was situated, not in its current place, but on the north of the Mary River, after wharves were established in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852 the growing town was gradually transferred to the south of the river which was considered preferable for shipping. Development followed and by March 1861, Maryborough was declared a municipality. The area in and around Wharf Street developed as a result of the wharves, and with the construction of the Custom House 1861 and Bonded Store in 1863.
The land on which the Criterion Hotel, first known as the Melbourne Hotel, was later built was first acquired by ET Aldridge in May 1852 by a Deed of Grant. An earlier Melbourne Hotel was constructed on the site by 1868, which was a timber building whose proprietor was TN Milner. Neil Blue acquired the hotel in October 1877, and on the 22nd of September 1878, the timber building was burnt down and another hotel was planned by him.
Neil Blue was born in Campbelltown, Scotland in 1845, and arrived in Maryborough in 1870 where he was involved with the steam coastal service. He married Sarah Gregory, daughter of local pioneers and the two remained as proprietors of the Melbourne Hotel until their deaths.
Blue commissioned a local architect, James Robertson, to design a replacement for the Melbourne Hotel, and tenders were called for this project on November 30, 1878. At this time two storeys were constructed using local builders, the Cooper Brothers and Henry Taylor for timberwork. The same contractors were used in 1883 when the second storey was added, though it is unclear whether this was originally planned by Robertson.
The Blues retained the hotel until about 1901, when Mr WE Boyce is listed as the proprietor. By 1916 the name of the hotel changed to the Riverview Hotel and Mr JR Ryan is the proprietor listed. The hotel then changes hands to Mr PJ Joyce and Mrs LM Joyce until 1939. By 1942 the name has changed to the Criterion Hotel with Mrs Mary Gummow as proprietor.
The building has experienced many changes including the replacement of a fine cast iron balustrade with a course timber cross braced alternative and the infilling of sections of the ground floor verandah space.
","criteria":"The Criterion Hotel is important in demonstrating the pattern of growth in Maryborough, particularly the evolution of the Wharf Street dock area.
|The Criterion Hotel is an important element of the Wharf Street streetscape, which is an intact area crucial to the understanding of the development of the port city of Maryborough.
|The hotel has been operating since 1878 and is important to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15495,"place_ref":600720,"name":"Shop, 134 Wharf Street, Maryborough","alternate_name":"Shop, Wharf Street","street_address":"134 Wharf Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building at 134 Wharf Street is a simple one-storeyed, rendered brick building with a steeply pitched hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A small awning at the front of the building is incorporated into the principal roof and is supported on timber brackets. According to the reports of local people there is a shingle roof extant underneath the corrugated iron.
The frontage of the shop consists of a large glass window on the western side with the entrance, a double, panelled, timber door accessed by two steps, on the eastern side. The front door has a large fanlight above with vertical iron security bars. The front portion of the interior is one large, open, room. A brick extension at the rear of the building is accessed by a narrow hall along the eastern side which leads off to two rooms to the right and then to the rear exit door.
The shop is abutted by a lowset brick office building to the eastern side and is bounded by a driveway to the western side which leads around to the back of the building where two external toilets are situated. At the rear of the building the land backs on to the back blocks of other properties creating what looks like a common space.
The building is of a simple construction with no decorative features.
","history":"The shop at 134 Wharf Street was built in 1869 as one of three shops [1] in the midst of the wharf precinct of the port of Maryborough.
Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow. In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1861. [2] During the 1860s and 1870s it flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century.
The small building was originally one of three identical shops with shingle roofs adjoining one another in a row fronting Wharf Street. The other two were located on its eastern side where a small office building is presently located. It is not known whether remnants of the former shops exist under the façade of this building.
The shop at 134 Wharf Street has always been used for small business purposes and has changed hands many times. It continues to operate as a retail store.
References
Ref. 1 - Jan Downman citing Maryborough Chronicle 12 June 1869.
Ref. 2 - Extracted from the Walker's Shipyard history prepared by Brian Sinclair [Reported Place in CHIMS, Site ID 31936].
","criteria":"The shop at 134 Wharf Street in Maryborough is important as one of the earliest surviving shops in the Wharf Street area, predating the late nineteenth century development which saw many of the earlier structures enlarged. It demonstrates the early development of the commercial precinct which occurred in response to the establishment of the port in the Mary River near Wharf Street.
|The design of the 134 Wharf Street shop, Maryborough, is characteristic of mid-nineteenth century shop design, with entrance door and window on the principal façade.
|The 134 Wharf Street shop, Maryborough, has aesthetic value for its contribution to the character of Wharf Street which is made up of many 19th century commercial and public buildings creating a coherent streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15496,"place_ref":600721,"name":"Lamington Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Gympie Road to Ferry Street, across Mary River","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Lamington Bridge is a low level bridge, designed for inundation, and crosses the Mary River immediately south of the city of Maryborough between Gympie Road and Ferry Street.
It is a reinforced concrete structure comprising eleven spans of 15.2 metres clear or 16.6 metre centre to centre of piers. The bridge is reinforced on both faces with eleven rails, which were erected as frames and are bolted to the pier tops underneath the concrete and spliced with fish plates.
The bridge has a solid deck, 6 metres wide, with circular segmental soffit and a depth at the centre of the roadway varying in each span from 3.4 to 0.51 metres. The roadway camber is 0.13 metres and there is an integral kerb at each side. The reinforcement consists of railway rails 92mm deep, with 82.6 metre long lower flanges. There are thirteen such rails running longitudinally in each face at 610mm centre, with clear cover of about 170mm. The top and bottom rails are formed into eleven frames, each bolted to the pier top. The top member is continuous over the length of the bridge, achieved by fishplated connections.
","history":"The Lamington Bridge, which crosses the Mary River at Maryborough, was built to the design of AB Brady and opened in 1896. It replaced an earlier highset timber bridge constructed in 1874 and is one of Australia's oldest concrete bridges.
The port of Maryborough was established in the late 1840s to supply sheep stations on the Burnett River and provide an outlet for their wool. It was a port of entry and during the 1860s and 1870s Maryborough flourished as the principal port of the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained its growth as a major regional centre.
The first bridge over the Mary River was a timber high set bridge constructed in 1874, upstream from the current bridge. During the disastrous floods of 1893, this bridge was partially demolished, cutting off the important road that linked Gympie to the port. The new bridge was designed by Alfred Barton Brady.
Brady was born and trained in England, designed many notable bridges and was one of Queensland's most important early engineers. He served the state for 37 years from 1885, at first with the railways, then from 1889 with the Public Works Department, and then as Government Architect and engineer for bridges from 1892. Although Brady designed many important and handsome public buildings, his forte was bridge design. As well as the Lamington Bridge, Brady was responsible for the design of the Herbert River Bridge at Gairloch (1889-90); the Granville Bridge in Maryborough (1889-90); the Burnett River Bridge in Bundaberg (1890-1900) and the Victoria Bridge in Brisbane (1893-97). Of the many bridges he designed, Lamington Bridge is his most technically innovative work.
In discussing his very early choice of concrete for the Lamington Bridge, Brady explained that 'the Author was induced to recommend a concrete bridge, as it ensures a structure of very great strength, almost everlasting in character, and the annual expenditure in maintenance is consequently reduced to a minimum'. The bridge was designed as a low level bridge, which was thought to be much safer during floods where floating debris causes much damage to high set bridges. Brady wrote a detailed account of the design and construction of Lamington Bridge in a paper he presented to the Institute of Engineers in 1900.
The bridge was designed in 1893 and tenders were called for the project in September 1894. The successful tenderers were Messrs AcArdle and Thompson of Brisbane. Construction followed and the completed structure cost about £25,000. The bridge was opened to traffic on 30 October 1896 by Hon. David Hay Dalrymple, MLA, Minister for Public Works. The bridge was named in honour of His Excellency the Right Hon. Baron Lamington KCMG, Governor of Queensland.
Lamington Bridge was widened in 1970 but the original handrails were retained and reused.
","criteria":"The Lamington Bridge, opened in 1896, is important in illustrating the development of bridge design in Queensland and the importance of Maryborough as a port and outlet for the Gympie goldfield in the late 19th century.
|The Lamington bridge has international importance as one of the first concrete girder bridges based on the Wuntsch system. It is technologically innovative as one of the earliest concrete bridges in Australia.
|The bridge is important as the most significant example of the work of Alfred Barton Brady who, during 37 years of work for several departments of the Queensland government, made a major contribution to the development of the state in both architectural and engineering design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15497,"place_ref":600722,"name":"All Saints Anglican Church and cemetery Yandilla","alternate_name":"All Saints Church of England","street_address":"Gore Highway","suburb":"YANDILLA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located on the road between Toowoomba to Millmerran, All Saints church is highly visible in a flat landscape. It is a Gothic influenced timber building on low stumps clad with pit sawn weatherboards. The roof is steeply pitched, clad with corrugated iron and topped by a louvred belfry and slender spire at the western end. It is painted white outside, as it originally was. The church is entered by a porch on the southern side of the building. On the northern side is a small vestry sheeted in vertical timber boards. The interior is oiled timber and is lit by plain lancet windows, with a set of three lancets windows set with stained glass in the chancel. This is connected to the eastern end of the church through a Gothic arch and is visually separated from the main body of the church by its smaller scale. The stained glass windows in memory of Reverend William Gore are above the altar and depict Christ the King. Two oak prayer desks and chairs heavily carved with cherubs, lions etc are set on either side of the chancel. The church is otherwise simply furnished.
There are 95 burials ranged around the church dating between 1864 and 1982. The earliest burial is that of Yandilla manager and partner, Charles Owen, who was murdered at Owen's Scrub, Yandilla on 29 April 1864. Some of the graves have railings and memorials include the work of masons R.C. Ziegler, Bruce Brothers, J.H. Wagner and Bailey (Toowoomba). The most elaborate grave, which has ornate ironwork, is that of Harriet Gore, wife of Francis Gore. There are some mature trees in the grounds, including a bunya. The churchyard is surrounded by a simple post and top rail fence.
","history":"All Saints Church is a timber church erected at Yandilla Station by the Gore family about 1878 on the site of an earlier church, which it closely resembles. The graveyard around the church is believed to have been established in 1863 supplanting the previous custom of burial close to the homestead.
The Gores were from a family of Irish landowners. They came out to Australia as a family, largely for reasons of health, following the death of their father, a clergyman, and the youngest son. Another son, William, became the Rector of All Saints Parramatta, while Ralph and St George Gore travelled to the Darling Downs in 1841 with sheep purchased from the Macarthurs. They established a run at Grasstree Creek, later known as Yandilla, and were joined soon after by brothers, Robert and St John and their wives. St George sold out his share in 1846 and took up Bodumba and Canning Creek. Later he became a member of Queensland's first Parliament and the first Minister for Lands. In 1846 Tummaville station adjoining Yandilla was acquired by the Gores.
The family were devout Anglicans and had a paternalistic sense of responsibility towards the welfare of their workers, there being a considerable number of people living on Yandilla apart from the Gores. Pastoral stations provided accommodation for workers and facilities such as a store, blacksmiths and other trades essential for running a station in an isolated area. In 1843, the visiting Commissioner for Crown Lands reported that 30 people were in residence and a woolshed and 11 huts had been built. At the time, Yandilla was part of a parish which extended in theory from the Hawkesbury River to Cape York. Visits by a minister were rare and irregular, the first service at Yandilla is thought to have been in 1843. The first itinerant minister for the Downs was the energetic pioneer clergyman Reverend Benjamin Glennie. His first visit to Yandilla was on 28 August 1848. From 1850 he was based at Drayton and visited Yandilla regularly. At the same time, a Sunday School was conducted by the ladies of Yandilla for children living on the station. There is thought to have been a chapel there from the earliest days though this may have been part of the homestead.
Reverend William Gore had visited Yandilla from time to time and conducted services during his visits. In 1860 he bought into the family firm and eventually became the major shareholder. The 'village' at the station by then had over 100 inhabitants and a new church was built close to the homestead in 1863. It was described in the Darling Downs Gazette as being of sawn timber and the dimensions 30 feet by 20 feet, with a very little chancel and porch attached. The roof is an equilateral triangle and has a very fine effect. A splendid stained glass window is being prepared and is intended to be placed in the eastern end of the building. In 1861, a minister had been appointed to serve 8 stations in the area, but the first service was held by Reverend Gore, who seems to have held services when the regular minister was not available. The church was, however, used by workers of all religious denominations on the station. Catholic services were held there from 1862 and Presbyterian services from 1891.
The present church was built in 1878, during the management of William Gore's eldest son Francis, who ran the property from 1866 until his death in 1904 and who was deeply involved in local and pastoral affairs, serving on a wide range of boards and committees. During this period large sections of pastoral runs were resumed for selection and this increased settlement in the area, some selectors having previously been station employees. This church is on the same site and echoes the plan and form of its predecessor, so that it may well contain some shared material. The work was undertaken by local carpenter and Yandilla storekeeper John Baillie, who is thought to have also built the courthouse and St Augustine's church at Leyburn. Baillie reputedly received assistance from station workers and from Aborigines living on Yandilla at the time.
The Reverend Gore died in 1885 and on 15 November 1887 the church and graveyard were consecrated as All Saints Church of England at the request of Francis, Gerard and Robert Gore. On this day Madame Blumenthal, formerly Leonie Gore, and a major shareholder in Yandilla, presented 3 stained glass windows to the church. They were made in England at a cost of £600 in memory of her uncle, Reverend William Gore. These were placed in the chancel of the church on the condition that the church was consecrated by the Church of England and that all burials in the churchyard were conducted by an Anglican minister. However, Catholic services were still held at All Saints and were financially supported by Mme Blumenthal.
The church provided services for more than the Yandilla residents and during the shearing season many shearers and seasonal workers attended. These were people whose itinerant work made it hard for them to attend church services and in 1888 a special Christmas service was held for them. In this year a pipe organ which had been made by the Rev Gore was installed. It was built of oak from a tree at Feniton Court, a Gore family home in Devon, England. At about this time two heavily carved oak chairs with reading desks were installed. One is believed to have been made in Florence and the other a copy made in 1886 by John Baillie.
In 1890 a professional gardener from London, Hartley Moore, was appointed to care for the grounds of the homestead and developed beautiful gardens around it. He also acted as caretaker and churchwarden, during which time he planted shrubs and kept the church grounds in good order.
Although the congregation dwindled due to a decline in the industry and the building of other churches in the area, a new spire and belfry were erected and a bell was imported from America. in 1900. In the early 1900s plans were made to subdivide Yandilla and to sell it piecemeal. In 1906 it was sold to the Lomax Pastoral Company. In 1910 a new vestry was added to the church and in 1913 a stone font carved was placed in the church in memory of Gerard Gore who had died the year before. He had been the churchwarden for many years and continued to provide financial support, though living in Melbourne. £1100 was also given to the Synod of the Church in his memory so that the interest could be used to assist All Saints. In 1914 the organ made by Reverend William Gore was sold and replaced by a smaller one.
The congregation declined over the years and in 1919 a fire destroyed the Yandilla station office taking with it the records pertaining to the church and cemetery. In 1923 the church enjoyed something of a revival when the Reverend T Bird became the minister to Millmerran and Yandilla and John (Jack) Rademy was appointed manager of Yandilla by new owners William Naughton & Co. Rademy and his wife were active in church affairs and continued their support of the church, even after purchasing another property in the district. In 1924 the parish of Millmerran was formed with services held at Millmerran, Yandilla, and Leyburn. In 1925 new brasses and hangings were installed in the church. In 1936 the Cowlishaw family took over Yandilla and took an interest in the church, maintaining its links with the property.
Other later work includes an altar presented in 1957 by Mrs Hazel Fysh of Pampas. In 1958, fourteen of the oldest headstones were renovated by Bruce Bros monumental masons of Toowoomba. Around c1968 the main Toowoomba to Goondiwindi road was relocated to pass close to the church between it and the homestead site. Any remaining trees from the pine avenue which connected the church with the homestead are thought to have vanished at this time. None of the homestead buildings have survived and the church is now the oldest building in the shire of Millmerran. The Gore family still retain an interest in the church with family reunions and christenings being held there in recent times.
In 1970, a new Deed of Grant was issued to the Anglican Church for the area containing the church and graveyard. In 1975 All Saints was listed on the Register of National Estate. In 1988 a cairn was unveiled in memory of the Gore family as a bicentennial project by the Tummaville branch of the QCWA.
","criteria":"The church demonstrates the pattern of Queensland history by providing evidence for the way in which early pastoral runs were run as small communities. Yandilla, established in 1841 by the Gores, an important pioneer pastoral family on the Darling Downs, had a 'village' complete with a school and church. The church, its memorials and the graves of family, employees and early selectors which surround it are now the only visible evidence of this settlement.
|All Saints is a good and early example of a church and accompanying graveyard, an arrangement common in Europe, but much less so in Queensland.
|The church building itself and the stained glass and furnishings of the interior have considerable aesthetic appeal.
|The church has a long association with the local community and the graveyard contains the burials of pioneers of the area.
|The building itself, the family memorials it contains and the burials in the churchyard have a strong association with the Gore family who were important in the establishment of the pastoral industry on the Downs and in the early political life of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15498,"place_ref":600723,"name":"Finch Hatton War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Anzac Parade","suburb":"FINCH HATTON","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Finch Hatton War Memorial stands within the road reserve of Anzac Parade / Mackay-Eungella Road, the main street of Finch Hatton, a town located approximately 58 kilometres west of Mackay. The memorial is highly visible within the town and faces southeast, addressing the street and the former Finch Hatton Railway Station [600985] on the opposite side.
\nThe sandstone monument is approximately 5.2 metres high and comprises a digger statue standing on a decorative pedestal, with a stepped base. Marble plaques fixed to the pedestal recognise members of the local community who served in WWI (southeast face) and WWII (southwest face).
\nThe monument was historically set within an enclosure (likely square in plan), with plantings at each corner of the base of the monument (by 1929).
\nFeatures of Finch Hatton War Memorial of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Finch Hatton War Memorial not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n
Note: The original finish of the stone monument is unknown; however, it was painted with khaki-coloured kalsomine (a lime-based paint/wash) by 1932. The date for the white paint scheme extant in 2021 is unknown. Mackay’s 1985 report, ‘Lest we forget’ recommended seeking advice on removal of the paint.
The Finch Hatton War Memorial, located in the town of Finch Hatton west of Mackay, was completed by 19 November 1921, at a cost of over £200, paid for by public subscription. The stone monument with a digger statue was designed and produced by Melrose and Fenwick of Mackay, and honours 16 local men who died in World War I (WWI). A later plaque honours seven who died in World War II (WWII).
\nThe erection of the memorial was made possible through the combined efforts of the settlements of Finch Hatton and Netherdale, both part of the traditional land of the Yuwibara people, in the Pioneer Valley west of Mackay.[1] European settlement of the Pioneer Valley began in the 1860s, with the establishment of pastoral runs. In 1883, the government commenced construction of a railway line running west from Mackay to assist sugar cane growers. This opened to Mirani in August 1885 and was extended over the Pioneer River in 1897. Although the line was extended west to Pinnacle by 1902, good quality agricultural land lay beyond the railway terminus, and the Queensland Government was soon lobbied to extend the line. The Government, however, had other priorities, resulting in the Pioneer Shire Council constructing the extension to Finch Hatton, which opened in 1904.[2]
\nFinch Hatton, then known as Hatton, already had one hotel and several stores by 1904. The railway line boosted the town’s development and closer settlement in the area, as did the opening of the Cattle Creek sugar mill in 1906. The Finch Hatton State School opened in 1909, and by 1913 the town had two sawmills. Finch Hatton became the main centre of the Pioneer Valley hinterland, and by the 1920s was the third largest township, after Mackay and Sarina, in the region. The Government took over responsibility of the Pinnacle-Finch Hatton section of the railway line from 1 July 1910, and a year later opened an extension west to Netherdale, which was initially called Eungella.[3]
\nLike all Australian communities, Finch Hatton and Netherdale were affected by WWI, fought from 1914 to 1918. The memorials erected after the war recorded its devastating impact on a young nation. From a population of 4.9 million, 416,809 Australians enlisted for service, and over 60,000 died.[4] Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.[5]
\nFund-raising for local war memorials was a voluntary community effort, as no State Governments, other than Victoria, made direct grants for local WWI memorials except for the building of halls, hospitals and schools, which were eligible for public money whether or not they were memorials.[6]
\nAt Finch Hatton, fundraising for the ‘Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Fund’ occurred during 1921, including a sports meeting, a horse race, and a grand ball. As the memorial would cost over £200, the locals were encouraged to ‘do their bit to…raise this tribute to our dear boys who have gone before’.[7]
\nWWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards, stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns or urns), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian (useful) structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the most popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states. The argument over whether a war memorial should simply be a monument, or have a utilitarian function, occurred all over Australia. Post-WWI, most Australian localities decided on a monumental approach (60%), with only 22% choosing utilitarian buildings (mostly memorial halls) and 18% choosing the compromise position of utilitarian monuments (such as memorial clocks or drinking fountains). After WWII, the utilitarian form of memorial increased in popularity, and fewer monuments were built. Typically, tributes to WWII or later wars were added onto or near existing WWI monuments.[8]
\nAustralian war memorials are distinctive in that many list not only the dead, but also those who served and survived. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Memorials which honour all who served from a locality provide valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit. Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.
\nMost statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were crafted by artists or imported. Melrose and Fenwick, the makers of the Finch Hatton monument, were a monumental masonry firm established in Townsville c1896. They were a large firm with branches throughout Northern Queensland, including Mackay.[9] They enjoyed continued success into the late 20th century, only ceasing business in the early 1980s.
\nThe monument at Finch Hatton was almost completed (prior to placement) by 3 November 1921, according to the ‘Fallen Soldiers’ Monument Committee’.[10] Placement of the monument in the street near the railway station was underway by 15 November by Melrose and Fenwick; and the memorial was finished by 19 November – this date being recorded on a plaque on the street (southeast) face of the monument, which lists 16 men from ‘Finch Hatton, Netherdale and Districts’ who died during WWI.[11] The pedestal of the monument is of an unusually ornate style.[12]
\nThere have been some changes to the Finch Hatton War memorial and its immediate context since 1921. In 1929, during a clean-up around the war memorial, four ‘rose trees’ were planted ‘in the enclosure’, one at each corner of the base of the monument (not extant).[13] The early enclosure (not extant)[14] was also painted white in 1932, the same year the monument was cleaned and painted with khaki-coloured kalsomine (lime-based paint/wash).[15] After WWII, an additional plaque was added to the monument, on its southwest face, listing seven local men who died during that conflict. A grassed enclosure with a concrete border was added around the monument between 1996 and 2004, and by 2009 the grass had been replaced with pavers.[16]
\nIn 2021, a century after it was first erected, the Finch Hatton War Memorial continues as a focus for remembrance activities by the local community.
","criteria":"The Finch Hatton War Memorial, erected in 1921, is a good example of a finely crafted monument and is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in a major world event. World War I (WWI) memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. As the focus of ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies, they are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Finch Hatton War memorial is a good example of a well-designed and finely crafted WWI monument with a digger statue, and is a fine example of the work of the monumental masons Melrose and Fenwick. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a WWI memorial, including its visible location in the centre of the town, stone construction, and plaques bearing the names of those who died. Its digger statue is representative of the most popular form of WWI memorial in Queensland. The later addition of a plaque dedicated to those who died in World War II (WWII) was a typical practice in Queensland.
|This particular memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship and design, and is a landmark due to its highly visible location on the main street, which enhances the Finch Hatton townscape. The pedestal displays a pattern and design which is unusually ornate for war memorials in Queensland.
|The Finch Hatton War memorial, funded by public subscription, has a strong and special association with the Finch Hatton and Netherdale communities. Commemorations at the cenotaph reflect the wider reverence felt for war memorials across Australia. As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies the monument is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15499,"place_ref":600724,"name":"Lt Thomas Armstrong Memorial","alternate_name":"The Valley Uniting Church","street_address":"Victoria Street","suburb":"MIRANI","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The memorial is a tablet of black polished stone, measuring 104 x 64 cms and forms the base for two white marble reliefs. The lower one is in the form of a scroll and sword and has the inscription:
In Loving Memory of Lieut Thomas A Armstrong 33rd Battalion AIF who was killed in action near Passchendaele, Flanders on 12th October 1917 aged 26 years. Greater love hath no man than this.
The upper white marble relief bears the battalion crest in polychrome and its motto, Strenue Percute.
","history":"This memorial is unusual in that it is dedicated to the memory of an individual soldier. It marks the death on 12 October 1917 of Lt Thomas A Armstrong who was killed at the age of 26 near Passchendaele, Flanders during the First World War.
Armstrong's family lived on a farm between Marian and Mirani. The memorial was erected behind the altar at St James Uniting Church (then Presbyterian? Methodist?) at Marian, a timber church located on Anzac Avenue near the Marian sugar mill. The mason who created the memorial is unknown. It was mounted behind the pulpit on the northern side of the church.
By 1991 the church was no longer in use and it was proposed that the Marian State School purchase the site for its use. Local church services were relocated to St Stephens Uniting Church at the nearby township of Mirani and the memorial was transferred from St James church to St Stephens, Mirani.
","criteria":"The Armstrong Memorial is important is demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, as a memorial to the participation and death in battle of a member of the Marian community in the First World War. In its depiction of martial symbols such as the sword and battalion crest, it reflects a pride in Australia's participation in the war as a nation within the Empire as well as personal loss.
|The Armstrong Memorial is rare in Queensland as a privately erected war memorial to an individual soldier.
|The Armstrong memorial has aesthetic value as a well designed and good quality war memorial publicly displayed in the church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15500,"place_ref":600725,"name":"Miriam Vale War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Blomfield Street","suburb":"MIRIAM VALE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Miriam Vale War Memorial is located at the southeastern end of a long, narrow, grassed and treed park reserve which runs parallel to the railway line to the east and Bloomfield Street, the principal street in the town of Miriam Vale, to the west. The memorial faces the morning light and the Miriam Vale Railway Station to the northeast, and provides a principal focus at the southern end of the business sector of town, which has retained an early-to-mid 20th century streetscape.
The memorial comprises a life-sized stone statue of an Australian Infantry soldier standing with head bowed and arms reversed, on a substantial and ornate sandstone pedestal resting on a granite plinth. The pedestal is capped by a gabled cornice with a moulded wreath in the front gable. On all faces of the pedestal are marble plates, the front plate bearing a leaded inscription and the names of 13 brave boys of this district who gave their all in the cause of freedom 1914-1919. The inscription ends with the words common to British war cemeteries throughout the world: Their names liveth for evermore. The southeast plate bears a matching inscription for the Second World War and the names of 8 local men who died in the conflict. The words Miriam Vale Roll of Honour are cast on the front face of the concrete base of the pedestal. The monument rests on a rock-faced granite plinth and is surrounded by its original concrete kerb and iron stake fence, with a gate at the southwest corner. The memorial enclosure in turn is defined by a two-rail timber fence with wrought-iron gates at the western corner.
A flagstaff is located at the northern corner of the memorial enclosure, just inside the timber fence, and the memorial is framed by a large fig tree to the south, just outside the timber fence but within the larger park reserve. From photographic evidence, this tree and other figs along Bloomfield Street and the cross-street leading to the railway, appear to date to the first decade of the 20th century.
","history":"The Miriam Vale War Memorial was erected in 1921 to commemorate the local men who had given their lives in the Great War. Funds were raised by public subscription, and the memorial was unveiled on 14 December 1921. It was designed and erected by the Brisbane firm of AL Petrie & Son at a cost of £238, including the iron fence. Although described in Petrie's account book as a no.8 design, the pedestal was not used for any other of the firm's many soldier-type war monuments throughout Queensland. AL Petrie & Son of Toowong in Brisbane was responsible for more of Queensland's numerous digger monuments than any other masonry firm. They offered a variety of digger monument types and prices, with the Miriam Vale memorial being in the middle of the range.
An inscription for those who died on active service in the Second World War was added later. The surrounding timber fence is of more recent origin.
","criteria":"The Miriam Vale War Memorial is significant historically as one of a group of structures erected by public subscription and intended to endure, which illustrate the conscious expression of emerging Australian nationhood, and which reflect early 20th century public fashion and social attitudes. Importantly, the memorial provides an historical record of local participation and sacrifice in two world wars.
|Whilst one of a group of similar monuments, the type of pedestal on the Miriam Vale War Memorial is uncommon - the only one so far identified in Queensland.
|The Miriam Vale War Memorial is significant historically as one of a group of structures erected by public subscription and intended to endure, which illustrate the conscious expression of emerging Australian nationhood, and which reflect early 20th century public fashion and social attitudes.
|Aesthetically, the memorial is significant as a major landmark in the small town of Miriam Vale, and makes a strong contribution to the Bloomfield Street streetscape.
|The memorial also has an important association with the work of stonemasons AL Petrie & Son, who did much to shape the nature of First World War memorials erected in Queensland, in particular popularising the digger monument type, which appears to be more prevalent in Queensland than in other Australian states.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15502,"place_ref":600727,"name":"Ventnor State School (former)","alternate_name":"Yarrol State School | Ventnor State School","street_address":"Yarrol Road","suburb":"MONTO","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Ventnor State School is located on Yarrol Rd, Ventnor. The school site consists of a one-room school building with verandah, a play shed, a girls' and boys' toilet, remnants of an old swing post and a flagpole. The block of land is a flat piece in a bush setting surrounded by a fence with steel cyclone mesh gates. New plantings along the front fence are memorials to donors and life members of the Progress Association.
The school building is a simple structure of timber with a corrugated iron hipped roof truncated where a skillion-roofed verandah has been added on its western side. The building sits on low timber stumps and a small set of stairs on the eastern side gains entrance to the classroom. The walls are timber tongue and groove vertical joints and the schoolroom has sliding 6 pane windows on three walls. The room has a coved timber ceiling with a central lattice vent and a large timber support beam across the width of the room. The room contains some of its original desks and chairs dating from 1946 as well as other original pieces such as framed embroidery by former students.
A doorway gains access to the verandah at the front of the room on the western side. The verandah contains evidence of hooks used for hanging school bags on its rear walls. There is a small storeroom located at the front of the verandah.
The play shed is adjacent to the school building on the verandah side. It is a pole frame structure with a corrugated iron roof, two walls and dirt floor. The play shed contains the original timber bar which was used for holding the school children's saddles during the school day.
The two toilets are located at opposite corners of the western side of the site and are timber framed structures with corrugated iron roofs and comprises a cubicle and entry.
","history":"The former Ventnor State School located just south of Monto was originally constructed as an open-air school in 1914 in Maryborough. The school was located at Teddington Rd, Tinana and opened on 11 November 1914.
As an open-air structure, the school was an example of one of the experimental designs for state primary schools instigated by the Department of Works in 1914. The schools were a response to the advocacy that suggested maximum ventilation was necessary for a school building. Open-air schools were constructed for only a short period and were not to become a permanent feature of Queensland's State School architecture. The problems associated with these schools outweighed the advantages and by 1922 the open-air school was phased out and more traditional designs reappeared.
By 1917 a new school building was constructed for the school at Tinana, now Parke State School, and the old open-air school was used as a play shed. In 1929 an application was made for a school at Wongalee and the old open-air school at Tinana was transported to Wongalee. School commenced at Wongalee on 21 September 1929 and in 1932 permission was granted for the construction of a play shed. It is likely that the open-air school was enclosed at this time along with the addition of a skillion-roofed verandah.
In April 1945 Mr R.M. Marshall delivered an application to the Department of Public Instruction in the Yarrol Road area. The application was approved and Tim Maloney, then owner of portion 111, donated three acres to the Secretary of Public Instruction on 25 September 1945 as the site for the new school. The school which had been moved to Wongalee was once again removed and transported to its present site at Yarrol Rd, Ventnor, just south of Monto.
The Ventnor State School commenced classes on 3 June 1946 with Doreen Turner as teacher. The school continued operate until 22 April 1960 when it was closed due to low enrolment numbers.
In 1963, local residents made an offer of 150 pounds to purchase the school from the Department of Education and the property was transferred to the Ventnor Progress Association on 15 March 1963. Since that time the school complex has been used as headquarters for the progress association, for religious group services, farming and pastoral bodies and fire control groups and was regularly used as a polling booth. The Ventnor Progress Association continues to own and maintain the premises.The former Ventnor State School located just south of Monto was originally constructed as an open-air school in 1914 in Maryborough. The school was located at Teddington Rd, Tinana and opened on 11 November 1914.
As an open-air structure, the school was an example of one of the experimental designs for state primary schools instigated by the Department of Works in 1914. The schools were a response to the advocacy that suggested maximum ventilation was necessary for a school building. Open-air schools were constructed for only a short period and were not to become a permanent feature of Queensland's State School architecture. The problems associated with these schools outweighed the advantages and by 1922 the open-air school was phased out and more traditional designs reappeared.
By 1917 a new school building was constructed for the school at Tinana, now Parke State School, and the old open-air school was used as a play shed. In 1929 an application was made for a school at Wongalee and the old open-air school at Tinana was transported to Wongalee. School commenced at Wongalee on 21 September 1929 and in 1932 permission was granted for the construction of a play shed. It is likely that the open-air school was enclosed at this time along with the addition of a skillion-roofed verandah.
In April 1945 Mr R.M. Marshall delivered an application to the Department of Public Instruction in the Yarrol Road area. The application was approved and Tim Maloney, then owner of portion 111, donated three acres to the Secretary of Public Instruction on 25 September 1945 as the site for the new school. The school which had been moved to Wongalee was once again removed and transported to its present site at Yarrol Rd, Ventnor, just south of Monto.
The Ventnor State School commenced classes on 3 June 1946 with Doreen Turner as teacher. The school continued operate until 22 April 1960 when it was closed due to low enrolment numbers.
In 1963, local residents made an offer of 150 pounds to purchase the school from the Department of Education and the property was transferred to the Ventnor Progress Association on 15 March 1963. Since that time the school complex has been used as headquarters for the progress association, for religious group services, farming and pastoral bodies and fire control groups and was regularly used as a polling booth. The Ventnor Progress Association continues to own and maintain the premises.
","criteria":"The former Ventnor State School is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland's state education system, in particular its response to the needs of small rural communities in the first half of the twentieth century.
|The former Ventnor State School demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 20th century school complex including the play shed, toilets and single room school building. Although the school building has been enclosed, the building is important as a remaining example of an original open-air school which were a feature of schooling in Queensland from about 1914 to 1922. The open-air school was a standard design implemented by the Department of Works in 1914 in response to climate and the need for ventilation. The open-air school was a testament to the experimentation undertaken by the Department of Works in relation to developing suitable school environments for Queensland children.
|The school has aesthetic significance as a well-kept, small-scale complex in a bush setting with structures that complement each other in size and form.
|The former Ventnor State School has a special association with the local community as a place of education and community gathering since 1946. It also has special association with past generations of school communities from Tinana and Wongalee, having operated as a state primary school at both these locations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15503,"place_ref":600728,"name":"Franklyn Vale Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Franklin Vale Road","suburb":"GRANDCHESTER","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Franklyn Vale Homestead is a single-storeyed weatherboard building with a projecting kitchen wing and a servants wing forming a northern courtyard. It sits on the crest of a low hill and has substantial early formal gardens, mature trees, including two lines of bunya trees at the eastern and western perimeters. There is a tennis court to the south.
The main section of the building has twin corrugated iron hipped roofs with a central box gutter and is surrounded by verandahs with skillion roofs. The two wings have corrugated iron broken hipped roofs with verandahs to the courtyard. A chamferboard schoolroom with a corrugated iron gambrel roof is attached to the north end of the servants wing and a chamferboard bedroom wing with a corrugated iron gable roof is attached to the southeast corner of the main house. The building sits on timber stumps and has a windmill pump in the centre of the courtyard and an arched entrance gate.
The perimeter verandahs have timber lattice balustrade and boarded ceilings. Timber shingles are visible below the corrugated iron roofs of the courtyard verandahs and lattice panels screen the kitchen verandah. French doors with fanlights and screens open to the verandahs, with the bedroom wing having panelled timber doors. The bedroom wing and schoolroom have tall sash windows with timber framed gauze shutters and the schoolroom has a boarded chimney
Internally, walls are painted horizontal timber boards with stained timber fanlights, doors, architraves, skirting and picture rails. A bay with french doors opens off the lounge and fireplaces have timber surrounds. Ceilings are boarded, with some roses, and floors are carpeted.
The kitchen has exposed roof framing with timber shingles visible below corrugated iron, a central brick double fireplace and walls are single-skin. The servants wing is also single-skin, has window hoods to the west and has a large shower head, originally operated by a cord to release tank water. The schoolhouse has a high boarded ceiling with pitched corners and a fretwork rose. The large fireplace has a timber surround and houses a stove.
A weatherboard meathouse with a corrugated iron pyramid roof and ventilator is located to northwest. It has a separate, internal, timber frame and gauze structure with meat hooks and a concrete floor. A stained timber post-and-beam summerhouse with a corrugated iron pyramid roof and ventilator is located to the southwest near the tennis court. It has a boarded ceiling above the rafters, and single-skin vertically jointed infill boards, with fixed glazing above to the rear, and a solid balustrade with timber gates to the front.
A slab timber shed with a shingle gabled roof is located to the north, with a lean-to to the north and east. The shed consists of timber posts with horizontal slab infill fixed into central grooves. A tankstand is located at the western end with a small structure below.
The grounds include a small weatherboard cottage to the northwest, sitting on timber stumps with a corrugated iron gabled roof and a front verandah. There is also a timber garden shed with a corrugated iron gabled roof and solid timber balustrade.
Exclusion of Furniture: The furniture contained within the homestead is expressly excluded from the cultural heritage significance of this place.
","history":"The present Franklyn Vale Homestead was erected in the early 1870s for Mr & Mrs Edward Crace, son-in-law and daughter of Henry Mort, the owner of the property. It replaced an 1849 slab dwelling, which then was used as a stables until demolished c.1949.
Originally, Franklyn Vale Station was part of the 60,000 hectare Laidley Plains leasehold which, along with Beau Desert, was taken up as a sheep run in 1843 by NSW squatter JP Robinson. The Laidley Plains run extended across the Franklin Valley, named after Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land 1837-43, and identified on Dixon's 1842 map of the Moreton Bay district.
In 1849 the lease and 13,000 sheep passed to Sydney businessman Thomas Sutcliffe Mort. His brother, Henry Jonathan Mort, who had been managing Cressbrook Station in the Brisbane River Valley for DC McConnel, then moved onto Laidley Plains as manager. In the early 1850s Henry began the conversion of Laidley Plains into a cattle station. In 1852 the lease was transferred to Henry Mort and his brother-in-law James Laidley, with Henry managing the Franklyn Vale section of the run, and James managing the remainder as Laidley Plains. This partnership was dissolved in late 1869, by which time government resumptions had reduced Franklyn Vale to about 4,000 hectares freehold.
Henry Mort removed his family to Sydney in 1855, where he joined his brother in Mort & Co. (later Goldsborough, Mort & Co. Ltd), and thereafter resided only intermittently at Franklyn Vale, which was run by managers. However, he maintained a strong interest in Queensland, representing West Moreton in the NSW Legislative Assembly prior to separation.
From 1871 to 1876 Edward Kendall Crace, Henry's son-in-law, resided at Franklyn Vale as managing partner. The Mort family understands the present homestead was erected for Mrs Crace.
By 1891 Franklyn Vale was owned jointly by Henry Mort and his sons Charles Franklyn and Arthur Edward Lisle. Charles had been associated with Franklyn Vale as bookkeeper/overseer from about 1872. In the 1890s he developed the district's dairy industry, establishing a creamery and butter factory at Grandchester c.1893. Arthur took over the management of Franklyn Vale, which ultimately became his home, in 1891. In the 1890s he acquired his brother's interest in the property, and after his father's death in 1900, became sole owner. He developed Herefords and dairy cattle at Franklyn Vale, but mainly used the run as a fattening depot for his two other Queensland cattle properties: Redbank in the Burnett and Avoca in the Brisbane Valley.
In late 1900, established Brisbane architects Addison & Corrie were commissioned to design a school room and guest wing for the homestead, and to undertake minor alterations. It is likely the shingled roof was covered with the present galvanised iron and that the kitchen was enlarged at this time. Mr & Mrs Arthur Mort also improved the garden and are believed to have engaged architect Robin S Dods to design the summerhouse. The homestead remains the property of their descendants.
","criteria":"Franklyn Vale Homestead and associated outbuildings and grounds is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of European settlement in the West Moreton district since the 1870s.
|The c1870s slab shed demonstrates a now rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, namely the principal characteristics of 19th century bush technology and building practices, which are no longer common.
|The 1870s homestead and slab building, the 1900s additions, the summerhouse and the formal garden, form a cohesive group which together demonstrate in their intactness and in their arrangement of elements, the principal characteristics of a south east Queensland homestead complex of the late 19th and 20th centuries.
|The relationship of the buildings in scale, form and materials, their siting in the landscape and relationships with the surrounding established gardens, exhibit an aesthetic quality valued by the local community and those interested in Queensland homesteads and their gardens.
|Franklyn Vale Homestead has a special association with the Mort family and their contribution to the development of the Queensland pastoral industry since 1849.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15504,"place_ref":600729,"name":"Grandchester Railway Complex","alternate_name":"Bigge's Camp","street_address":"Ipswich Road","suburb":"GRANDCHESTER","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Grandchester is in a predominately rural setting in a bend on the Western Creek. The station building is situated on a timber platform and adopts a unique architectural form with a hipped roof and peripheral verandah to all elevations, posted on the ends and roadside and carried on later plain brackets over the platform. There is a prominent central chimney stack with arched cowls (compare the surviving station master's house at Wallangarra [1887] and the former at Esk [1886].
External linings are rusticated with 265mm exposed faces and double hung windows without horns having glazing bards. Internal alterations have been extensive although evidence of the original two bedrooms, living room, waiting room and office is presumed to exist, especially in the form of early timber ceiling linings and cornices. There is a roll of honour board inside, painted by Hugh F. O'Brien, Toowoomba.
There is a signal cabin with a 22 lever T-bar machine in the down end of the building, placed out of service presumably in 1988 with the introduction of CTC.
The tank is a two tier cast iron tank altered from a single tier tank at an unknown date. The linings to the stand are recent and the shaped ends to the main beams project through the linings. There is an associated dam which is presumed to supply the tank , also a brick well and associated pumphouse.
The station master's house is a standard elevated second class house with a pyramidal roof, peripheral verandah and later(?) ventilator. The verandah post enrichment may be uncommon, but the overall form is not uncommon.
","history":"Grandchester, originally known as Bigge's Camp, is the western terminus for the first railway in Queensland and the first section of the Main Line to Toowoomba, opened from Ipswich on 31 July 1865. Works were carried out to the station building in 1875 and 1876. The goods shed was also built in that year. T. Neville signed a contract to undertake work on the station buildings on 19 December 1878.
The tank was relocated from Laidley in 1876 and a locomotive stationed here from 1885 to assist trains over the Little Liverpool Range. James Stewart signed a contract on 14 March 1885 to build an engine shed, and Worley and Whitehead signed a contract to build a second goods shed on 15 June 1885.
The station master's house was built in 1910 and alterations carried out to the station building around that time. By 1961 the complex consisted of a station building with signal cabin, two tanks, cream shed, closet, pumphouse, station master's house, forkline to cattleyards, engine shed and coal stage. The engine shed had been demolished by 1963 and the trucking yards were discontinued in 1991.
","criteria":"Grandchester Railway complex has historical importance as the western terminus of the first railway in Queensland, opened on 31 July 1865.
Grandchester as a place is commonly acknowledged to be an historical railway site of State significance. It was the first railway station built in Queensland using local materials.
|The survival of a station building incorporating quarters is also rare (compare Clifton, Springsure and Pentland).
|(Criterion under review)
|The station building and tank are key elements demonstrating its early date and are understood to have existed on this site from the mid-late 1870s, predating other railway buildings in Queensland with the possible exception of Gracemere (Central Line), Murphys Creek (Main Line), Nobby and Clifton (Southern Line).
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15505,"place_ref":600730,"name":"Grandchester Sawmills","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Symes Street","suburb":"GRANDCHESTER","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Grandchester Sawmills is located on the southern side of Symes Rd in the town of Grandchester. The sawmill is set back from the road on a sloping piece of land which backs on to the railway line. Grandchester Railway Station is visible from the rear of the sawmill.
The sawmill machinery is housed in a gabled structure with mono pitched roof extension at one end under which the locomotive boiler sits minus its undercarriage. The sawn timber roof structure is supported on round timber posts. It is not enclosed by any walls. The mill is powered by a locomotive boiler from Walkers - built C17 No.922 and a steam engine. The boiler has a name plate attached to one side reading 'Old Reliable'.
The sawmill is driven by a belt and pulley system. All saws, except for one small electric saw, are powered by the steam engine. A small pyramidal silo stands to the rear of the main sawmill structure which is used to store the sawdust for the boiler.
Three other structures stand on the property. A timber house to the north-west of the mill, a small timber building directly in front (north) of the mill bearing evidence it was once a petrol station and another small timber structure to north- east of the sawmill.
","history":"The Gillam brothers started the Grandchester Sawmills in 1941. While at this time World War II brought a severe reduction in housing activity, after a short resurgence when the depression lifted, the declaration of war with Japan at the end of 1941 was followed by a huge upsurge of construction for military purposes. As structures were needed quickly and were expected to be temporary, the demand for milled timber grew rapidly.
One of Queensland's earliest major industrial enterprises was Pettigrew's sawmill in Brisbane. Opening in 1853, the sawmill predated the separation of Queensland as a colony by six years. Within two decades sawmills were commonplace and were an important investment in the regional economy.
The Grandchester sawmill is powered by steam and this factor makes it an unusual phenomenon in Queensland and Australia. The steam engine was built by "Marshall Sons & Co. Ltd, Engineers, Gainsborough, England." The date of construction is unclear, however a small plate records a machinery inspection in 1911. The steam engine was first used in the Nestle's factory in Toogoolawah (since demolished). It was then used in the Lowood butter factory and afterwards in the Hoods Sawmill, Gatton.
Initially, two traction engines were used for boilers but the brothers acquired the boiler of a No. 922 Ipswich based railway steam engine, built by Walder Brothers, Maryborough in 1966. The boiler is fuelled by sawdust from the circular saws and is a cheap and efficient method of power.
The mill is still operating, being a small family operation cutting mainly crating timber.
","criteria":"The timber industry has been a significant part of Queensland's history as timber getters were among the first Europeans to live and work in the colony. Grandchester Sawmills demonstrates the evolution of the timber in Queensland. The small sawmill was opened in 1941 at a time when the Second World War demanded increased production of sawn timber in Queensland. The continued success of the business is attributed to it responding to the changing demands for sawn timber in Queensland.
|The Grandchester Sawmills is one of the few remaining steam powered sawmills left in Queensland, if not Australia, still in commercial use. The machinery used to power the sawmill is uncommon and of high technological interest.
|The saw mill has a long association with the Gillam family and their employees being owned and run by them since 1941 to the present day.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15506,"place_ref":600731,"name":"Rosewood Scrub Historical Society Building","alternate_name":"Walloon Shire Council Office & Meeting Hall | Rosewood Shire Council Office | Rosewood Shire Council Branch Office","street_address":"73 Edmond Street","suburb":"MARBURG","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This small, single-storeyed weatherboard building with a corrugated iron gable roof, fronts Edmond Street to the south and is located adjacent to the former Queensland National Bank and First World War memorial [600733].
The building has timber stumps and a verandah to the south with a single-skin exposed framed south wall with central, double entry doors. The verandah has a curved corrugated iron awning, timber posts, cross-braced balustrade and central stair.
The east and west elevations have a single sash window with a metal hood, and the north has a central timber door accessed via a timber ramp.
Also on the site is a masonry public toilet block to the southeast of the building.
","history":"This small timber building was erected in mid-1913 as offices and meeting place for the Walloon Shire Council.
Although the town of Walloon (on the Ipswich-Grandchester railway) was established in the 1860s, Marburg, established in the late 1870s in the centre of the Rosewood Scrub district, proved the natural administrative centre for local government. The Walloon Divisional Board, proclaimed in 1879, initially met at the Plains paddock, then at Woodlands (TL Smith's Marburg residence), and then at premises in Marburg. In 1903 the Walloon Divisional Board became the Walloon Shire Council.
In 1912 the council, whose Marburg office was considered beyond repair, petitioned the Queensland Lands Commissioner to grant part of the ungazetted Marburg water reserve for the purpose of erecting new council offices. That part of the reserve fronting Edmund Street was favoured, as it was centrally located and close to the railway terminus, which had reached Marburg late in 1911. Executive authority to reserve the site was granted early in 1913.
Tenders were called in March 1913, and the two-roomed premises were constructed the following June by Marburg contractor A. Jendrachowski, with a contract price of £126. The main room at the front was used for council meetings and the reception of ratepayers on council business. The smaller room at the rear served as the Shire Clerk's office, storage for council documents, and a strong-room. The Walloon Shire Council met in their new premises for the first time on 7 July 1913.
The building functioned as the shire offices and meeting place of the Walloon Shire Council until early in 1917, when the Shire of Walloon Shire was abolished and divided between Rosewood Shire and Ipswich (later Moreton) Shire, with Marburg falling within Rosewood Shire. The last meeting of the Walloon Shire Council was conducted in the Marburg Shire Hall on 8 February 1917. Rosewood Shire Council maintained the Marburg building as a branch shire office for some time, possibly into the 1920s, during the peak of Marburg's 20th century development.
The Queensland Country Women's Association leased the building from 1932 until c.1943, when the Marburg CWA went into recess and the building was used as the headquarters of the local War Comforts Fund. The CWA renewed their occupancy in 1946, and remained in the building into the 1970s. Concomitantly, the building has served as the meeting place for a variety of community clubs, societies and organisations, in particular the Marburg Scouts Group, and later the Marburg Progress Association. Currently, it is leased by the Rosewood Scrub Historical Society.
","criteria":"The Rosewood Scrub Historical Society Building, erected in 1913, is important in demonstrating the evolution of local government in the Marburg district, and the way in which local government functioned in a small Queensland country town in the early part of the 20th century.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Marburg community, in particular the building's form, scale and materials, and its contribution to the streetscape of Edmond Street and to the Marburg townscape.
|It is part of an historic precinct in the centre of Marburg, which includes also the adjacent former Queensland National Bank and First World War memorial [600733] and the Marburg Hotel [600732], which is valued by the Marburg and district community for social and cultural reasons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15507,"place_ref":600732,"name":"Marburg Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Edmond Street","suburb":"MARBURG","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This two-storeyed timber building, with a corrugated iron hipped roof, is located on the corner of Queen and Edmond Streets in the centre of Marburg, opposite the former Queensland National Bank and First World War memorial [600732].
Both street facades have double-height full length verandahs which are supported by timber posts. Both street facades also have cross braced exposed timber framing, but the rear walls are clad in chamferboard.
First floor verandahs have decorative cast iron work with the verandah floor sloping outwards to a noticeable degree. The verandah roof is formed by a curved corrugated iron awning which has sagged in places along its length. Ground floor verandahs have large advertising signage in the position of the original valance. Entry to the public bar is from the verandah via the front corner door.
The building sits on timber stumps. At the rear there is a single-storeyed chamferboard kitchen house, attached to the building via a covered breezeway and open deck.
The ground floor contains hotel facilities and has been substantially altered. The first floor contains accommodation, most of which is of original plan form. Internal walls are of single skin tongue and groove board. Internal doors have fanlights above on the ground floor and fretwork panels above on the first floor. Rooms open onto the verandahs via french doors, and rooms at the rear of the building have sash windows with pressed metal window hoods.
","history":"The Marburg Hotel, initially single-storeyed, was erected probably early in 1881 for Marburg farmer and Walloon publican, Weigand Raabe. The 0.81 hectare site was registered in his wife's name in mid-1880; a mortgage of £180 was taken out in January 1881; and by June 1881 races and sports were being held at Weigand Raabe's Marburg Hotel. It was among the first buildings in the town, and was the first hotel.
The Marburg district was developed principally by German settlers, who in the early 1870s cleared farms from the dense Rosewood Scrub. By late 1885 the district supported a population of approximately 5,000, and the town boasted a Court House, School of Arts, primary school, two hotels and electricity supplied from TL Smith's Woodlands sawmill.
Following Weigand Raabe's death in 1883, the hotel was placed under trusteeship. In mid-1884 Auguste Raabe, his widow, renewed the hotel license, and married Otto Sakrzewski, a Marburg storekeeper and carpenter, who then held the license from mid-1885 until mid-1887. Thomas Mortimer was licensee from mid-1887 until mid-1890, at which time Sakrzewski was appointed trustee and renewed the license. Sakrzewski raised a £600 mortgage on the property in 1890, and the second storey may have been added then.
The Sakrzewski family held the license until 1921, and the freehold remained theirs until 1925, having been sold to Otto's brother, Albert, c.1915. The hotel then passed through several owners, lessees and licensees until purchased by Queensland Brewery Ltd in 1936. It has remained Marburg's sole hotel since 1947. In 1986 the freehold was acquired by the Bowden family, who have been licensees of the Marburg Hotel since c.1944.
The Marburg Hotel remains one of the oldest buildings in the town. It has operated continuously as an hotel since 1881, and was a highway landmark and popular stopping place for travellers from 1923 to 1969, when the Brisbane-Toowoomba highway passed through Marburg.
","criteria":"Marburg Hotel, erected c1881 with additions c1890. is important in demonstrating the evolution of part of Queensland's history, being associated with the emergence of Marburg as the centre of a flourishing agricultural community in the 1880s.
|It is important in demonstrating some of the principle characteristics of a late 19th century Queensland rural hotel, in the intactness of the setting, street elevations and upper floor.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Marburg community, including the contribution through scale, form and material to the streetscapes off Queen and Edmond streets, and the landmark quality of the building, being an expression of the centre of the town.
|It has a strong and special association with the Marburg community, being: an integral part of Marburg social and recreational life since 1881 and part of an historic precinct in the centre of Marburg, which includes the nearby former Queensland National Bank and First World War memorial [600731], and the former Walloon Shire Council Office [600731].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15508,"place_ref":600733,"name":"Marburg Community Centre and First World War Memorial","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank (Former) | National Bank of Australasia","street_address":"71 Edmond Street","suburb":"MARBURG","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed chamferboard building, with a corrugated iron gambrel roof, is located on the corner of Queen and Edmond Streets in the centre of Marburg, opposite the Marburg Hotel [600732] and adjacent to the Rosewood Scrub and Historical Society Building [600731].
This building is L-shaped in plan, has concrete stumps with timber stumps to the perimeter, and a central parapeted section of the south wall, fronting Edmond Street. The southeast corner has a decorative timber porch with double entry doors, cross-braced balustrade, curved brackets and a parapet concealing a corrugated iron skillion awning. The western elevation has a partly enclosed verandah with timber posts, cross-braced balustrade, curved brackets and a corrugated iron skillion awning.
The building has sash windows and corrugated iron hoods with timber brackets and battens.
Internally, the building has tongue and groove boarding to walls and ceilings, moulded timber architraves and sills, a central masonry strongroom and carpeted timber floors.
A First World War Memorial, consisting of a marble plaque, and flagpole are located at the southeast corner of the site.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber building was erected in 1912 for the Queensland National Bank, as their Marburg branch premises.
The QNB had established a branch office at Marburg in 1887, occupying temporary accommodation in the Marburg School of Arts until construction of substantial bank premises in 1888. Following the banking crisis of 1893, the Marburg branch was closed early in 1894, and the bank premises and land were sold. In 1906 the QNB re-established a branch at Marburg, in a small timber building purchased from Weise Bros. It was the only bank in Marburg at the time.
With the extension of the railway line from Rosewood to Marburg in 1911, opening officially on 26 January 1912, confidence in the district's future increased. In August 1911 the QNB purchased the present site at the corner of Edmond and Queen Streets, near the railway terminus, and in the first half of 1912, Ipswich contractors Hastie and Halliwell erected new bank premises to a design prepared by Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill. The building housed the banking chamber, manager's office, strongroom, bedroom for a resident banking officer, and a bathroom. A kitchen was not included, and the manager's residence was separate.
By 1912 the QNB was one of two banks in Marburg, and an agency of the Government Savings Bank was established c.1915. After 1926, however, the QNB remained Marburg's sole banking establishment.
In September 1919 a flagstaff and memorial tablet, honouring local soldiers who had served in the First World War, were erected in the front yard of the QNB premises. Large numbers of Australian troops were being repatriated at this time, and such expressions of local patriotism were not uncommon. The choice of site for the Marburg memorial emphasised the central role of the Queensland National Bank in the district, both in its physical location in the middle of town, and in its provision of a financial infrastructure to the farming community it serviced.
The Edmond St premises were occupied by the QNB until 1948 and then by the National Bank of Australasia Limited. In 1970 the Marburg branch of the NBA was closed, but the building was maintained as an agency of the Ipswich branch until 1975. In 1976 the site was sold to the Marburg & District Residents' Association Inc., who use the building as a community centre. A doctor's surgery, supplying the sole local medical service, also operates from part of the premises.
","criteria":"Marburg Community Centre and First World War Memorial is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the growth of Marburg as a rural district centre in the 1910s and 1920s.
|The sapling flagstaff demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being an unusual type of war memorial in Queensland.
|The building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small, rural Queensland, timber bank premises of the early 20th century, being substantially intact and retaining the original bank vault.
|The place is important in demonstrating a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Marburg and district community, including the contribution of the building, through scale, form and material, and of the First World War Memorial, to the streetscapes of Queen and Edmond streets and to the Marburg townscape; and the decorative timber exterior joinery.
|The place is part of an historic precinct in the centre of Marburg, which includes also the adjacent former Walloon Shire Council Office [600731] and the Marburg Hotel [600732], which is valued by the Marburg and district community for social and cultural reasons.
|The place has a special association with the Queensland National Bank and its role in promoting the development of rural Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15509,"place_ref":600734,"name":"Woodlands","alternate_name":"St Vincent's Seminary | Marburg Campus, Ipswich Grammar School","street_address":"Seminary Road","suburb":"MARBURG","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Woodlands is a large, ornate, rendered brick building with two main levels surrounded by verandahs, plus cellar, observation deck and tower.
The roof comprises two hips, separated by a masonry balustraded tower section. A curved roof is set down on four sides over open verandahs, with cast-iron paired columns, valance, and upper level balustrade. The main roof eaves, decorated with zigzag fascia, project a small hip into the verandah roof over central doorways on the east and west.
The southern elevation has a double-storey portico, aligned with the central masonry section, bearing the name Woodlands and the year 1868. [This refers to the year Charles Smith first took up land in the Rosewood district, not the date of construction of the house.] Either side are two semi-circular pedimented frontis pieces. All have elaborately decorated crests, finials and bargeboards. A large bay window projects either side. This elevation, designed as a front entrance, stands close to steep terracing, overlooking secluded grotto areas. It opens into a vestibule some 2.4m wide, with early mosaic tiled floor. The building, however, is entered from the east, where the driveway encircles an expanse of lawn. This elevation is less formal with arched windows to the front dining room, and rectangular windows to service areas. External joinery to windows and doors is painted. The ground level verandah is concrete floored, and unlined above.
Internally, a hallway about 1.5m wide runs east to west. Doors are four panelled with sidelights and semi-circular fanlights, of varying pattern and colour.
Ground floor dining rooms and sitting room have plaster ceilings with elaborate circular surrounds to central lights. Doors are cedar panelled with rectangular fan lights over. Deep cornices and pelmets are of moulded cedar. The front dining room has walls of full height cedar, with 4 inch [100mm] beaded vertical boarding above the panelling to dado height. The fire place is dark grey marble. The sitting room has full height cedar panelling and a white marble fireplace. The formal dining room opposite has rendered walls with deep cedar skirting. The fireplace is painted. The adjoining office has an angled fireplace sheeted over. This room leads into a vaulted strong room in the northwest corner, rendered, with metal vent grilles.
The kitchen is a large square room with recent ceramic tile floor and fittings c1960s. Storerooms with rendered walls and tiled floors lead off under a wide-arched opening. The scullery in the northeast corner is of painted brickwork and hardboard ceiling, with recent mosaic tiled floors. The WC, between scullery and eastern entrance, has rendered walls.
There are stairs leading up at the eastern end of the hall, and adjacent to the vestibule. Balustrades are of turned cedar with monumental and elaborate newel posts. The underside of the eastern stair is painted boarding. That adjacent to the vestibule, of cedar panelling.
The upper level contains ten bedrooms, some of original dimensions, some divided by hardboard partitions, reusing in places, original panelled doors. Original walls are rendered, several with cornices and light surrounds matching the ground level rooms. The fireplace in the southwest bedroom is painted. The adjoining small bedroom is an exception, having window joinery painted internally. A sitting area above the ground level vestibule has a corrugated iron ceiling and moulded cornice. The door, and sashes to floor level, leading on to the southern verandah, are not early. Earlier glazed panels are in place above. The eastern door from hallway to verandah is of timber and glazed panels, with twin-paned fanlight of yellow patterned glass, and side lights of blue, above green bubble glass. The verandah is floored with 4 inch [100mm] shot edged boarding. The roof is unlined.
Central to this upper floor, a narrow winding stair, leading to the tower, has painted turned balusters and moulded rail. The tower overlooks, through arched openings, hipped roofs either side. Leading out to the masonry balustraded areas over the water tanks, are doors with semi-circular fan lights, boarded on the north, one panelled on the south.
From the ground floor, a stair with turned cedar balusters descends to the cellar. Cellar walls are of rough sandstone with arched openings headed in cross-bracing in spaces between 12 inch [300mm] joists. Along the eastern wall are low timber platforms.
Woodlands is an outstanding grand residence in a rural setting, overlooking undulating open country to distant hills. It is associated with a picturesque hillside graveyard; large secluded grotto; olive grove and other plantings including Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii); and disused dairy buildings. There are three other buildings in the grounds, formerly associated with St Vincent's seminary: now Bougainvillaea House, Poinciana House and Jacaranda House.
","history":"Woodlands, an imposing, two-storeyed brick residence, was erected in 1889-91 for Thomas Lorimer Smith, saw miller, timber merchant, contractor, sugarcane grower, sugar mill proprietor, and active member of the Marburg community. It was designed by Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill.
Thomas had married Mary Stuart in 1881, and at Woodlands they raised a large family. Their first residence was a modest, single-storeyed timber house near the saw mill. In the late 1880s they commissioned Ipswich builder/architect Samuel Shenton to design an imposing two-storeyed brick residence, to be erected on the hill above the Woodlands mills.
Shenton had established himself in Ipswich by 1851 as a carpenter, builder and contractor, and was advertising as an architect and builder by 1874. He had been involved in local politics since 1863, and served as Mayor of Ipswich in 1871-72 and in 1889. From 1886 talented young London architect George Brockwell Gill was employed in Shenton's office, and took over the architectural practice when Shenton retired in 1889. It is understood that Woodlands was designed by Gill, rather than Shenton, whose designs prior to being joined by Gill had been modest and pragmatic in style. The Smith family later attributed the design to Gill, whose other notable works included Brynhyfryd [1889-90] at Blackstone [demolished], Ipswich Girls' Grammar School [1890-91]and Ipswich Technical College [1898-1900].
Tenders for the construction of a mansion at Marburg for TL Smith were called by Shenton in January-February 1889. Construction took over 2 years to complete, the Smiths moving into their new home in July 1891. The bricks were made locally, likely on the property [as with brick-lined dams constructed near the sugar mill in 1883]. Red cedar used in the panelling in the dining and drawing rooms reputedly came from Wivenhoe in the Brisbane River Valley and was milled at Woodlands. Cabinet maker and joiner Joseph Klee is understood to have worked on the timber panelling for over a year.
In the 1890s, economic depression, falling sugar prices, unreliable rainfall, and government encouragement to dairy farmers, led to a decline in sugar cultivation in the Marburg district. TL Smith took out a substantial mortgage on his property in 1897, and in January 1906 the Woodlands Estate was subdivided and put up for sale by order of his mortgagees. At this time the estate comprised 29 improved scrub farms, a large sugar mill [to be sold with farm no.22], 1¾ miles of sugar tramway, 38 iron cane trucks, distillery, saw mill, milking herd, numerous small sheds, 12 small cottages and Woodlands Homestead, offered on about 7 acres with an orchard of fruit trees and olives. Several of the farms sold at this time, but the Smith family retained Woodlands residence and much surrounding land. The sugar mill was purchased by Marburg Sugar Co., the chief shareholders of which were Gibson Bros of Bingera, Bundaberg, but the era of the small mill was over - Marburg farmers were no longer keen to grow sugarcane, and the Marburg Sugar Mill closed c1919.
In 1925 TL Smith, still resident at Woodlands, was interviewed by the Brisbane press and a description of the house published:
On the crest of an isolated hill the "lookout tower" rises some 50ft above the ground level, giving a beautiful view of the surrounding country. The house is of two stories, built of brick, covered with a cement coating. Doors and windows, of massive design to conform with the spacious rooms, are all of beautifully grained red cedar cut in the Brisbane Valley. Above the top story are two brick 10,000 gallon tanks, which receive all the water from the roof, and from these tanks the water is reticulated through the house, and provides flushing for a septic system. The house took four years to complete, most of the bricks being made in the vicinity. At present the area held is about 300 acres. . . . .
Thomas Lorimer Smith died in 1931. Woodlands was retained by the Smith family for over a decade, until transferred in 1944 to the Corporation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane, along with nearly 130 acres of the Woodlands estate. Archbishop Duhig had purchased the property in the hope of encouraging missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word, evacuated from New Guinea to Brisbane in May 1944, to stay in Queensland.
The Society was founded in 1875 in Style, Holland, and had established a base elsewhere in Australia early in the 20th century to provide support for its missionaries in New Guinea. The Divine Word missionaries accepted Duhig's offer, and at Woodlands established the first mission seminary in Queensland. The main residence was renovated, two timber-framed buildings were erected in the grounds for use as classrooms and dormitories, and the place opened as St Vincent's Seminary in 1945. In 1954 title to the property was transferred from the Catholic Church to The Society of the Divine Word.
By 1986 the main building, then containing 8 bedrooms, 2 servants' bedrooms, sitting and dining rooms with full height cedar wall panelling, large sandstone cellar, and 8 fireplaces, remained largely in its original form. The grounds by this time included a 25 metre in-ground pool, two additional dormitory buildings, a chapel, and a small cemetery associated with St Vincent's Seminary, and in which 18 persons had been interred, including Dr Eucharist Sirois and his wife, who ran a private hospital in Marburg during the 1910s and 1920s. In 1986 St Vincent's Seminary closed and the property was sold to the Ipswich Grammar School, which uses the property for weekend activities, seminars, and conferences.
The Smith family established themselves in the Rosewood-Marbug district in the 1860s/early 1870s. Thomas' father, Charles, had arrived in Queensland from England in 1862, and in 1864 was joined by his wife and family. He established a saw mill at Sandy Creek, Walloon, on the outskirts of the Rosewood Scrub, in 1865, and c1866 took his eldest son, Thomas Lorimer Smith, into his saw milling business. Charles Smith was among the first to select land in the Rosewood Scrub, taking up about 1000 acres c1870. This included 568 acres [portion 392, parish of Walloon] selected in September 1870, on part of which Woodlands mansion was erected 20 years later. In 1876 TL Smith entered into partnership with his father, and together they erected a new and larger saw mill on portion 392, close to the then emerging township of Marburg, in the heart of the Rosewood Scrub. The Marbug saw mill opened early in 1877. In the same year Charles retired, leaving the running of the mill to his son. The mill was destroyed by fire early in 1880, but was rebuilt within a few months.
Charles Smith died in December 1880, his interest in the Marburg saw mill and land passing to his son Thomas. TL Smith named the property Woodlands, expanded the saw mill - adding a joinery plant - and in the early 1880s, as the district converted to agriculture, moved into sugar cultivation and manufacture. The first sugarcane was planted c1881, a sugar mill was erected next to the saw mill in 1882, and the first crushing and sugar manufacture took place in 1883. TL Smith invested heavily in the sugar mill, erecting a sugar refinery in 1884, an electric light system in 1885 [illuminating the mills, offices, stables, and his private residence], a telephone line between the Marburg mills and Walloon (the nearest telegraph station) in 1885 and a large rum distillery near the mills in 1886. In 1888 he installed more powerful machinery in the sugar mills and distillery, and laid steel tramways on the Woodlands estate to transport sugar cane and other produce to the mills. By 1889, TL Smith's sugar mill and distillery were considered the most powerful and by far the most modern, in Southern Queensland. In March 1889, giving evidence before the Royal Commission into the Queensland Sugar Industry, TL Smith stated that he was employing 36 South Sea Islanders at Woodlands, which comprised about 1200 acres, with 250 acres under cane. He claimed to have invested £20-25,000 in the sugar mill, distillery, planting, fencing, and tramway. In the late 1880s, Smith also began to plant grapes on the Woodlands estate, intending to expand into the production of wines and brandies.
In the 1880s and 1890s, TL Smith was the most influential landowner and employer in the Marburg district, and was actively involved in the progress of Marburg township [established early 1870s] and community. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1884, and in 1885 erected the Marburg School of Arts, for which he supplied electric power from his saw mill for the opening celebrations. He also negotiated with the Edison Electric Light Company to supply power to several buildings in the township. He was a member of the Marburg School of Arts Committee, and in 1890 was appointed to the Church of England building committee, having donated an acre of land on the Marburg-Kirchheim Road for the erection of an Anglican church in the Rosewood Scrub. In the 1890s he encouraged the expansion of the local sugar industry, agreeing to purchase cane from other farmers in the Marburg district.
","criteria":"Woodlands is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with early non-indigenous settlement of the Rosewood Scrub and the development of the Marburg district as a sugar-producing region in the late 19th century.
|It is a comparatively rare example of a substantial town mansion erected in a rural setting in Queensland, reflecting a way of life to which its builder, a successful entrepreneur of working-class background, aspired.
|The place survives remarkably intact, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a grand, two-storeyed brick residence with wide, ornate verandahs, observation tower, sandstone cellar, early water reticulation system, and set in substantial grounds [which include an olive grove, other significant plantings including Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii), and disused dairy buildings], and with fine vistas over rural surroundings.
|The place has aesthetic significance, generated by the formal design, the use of rendered brick and stone, the large public rooms and fine joinery work and cedar panelling internally, the decorative verandahs with cast-iron posts, balustrading and valances, the garden setting [which includes a picturesque hillside graveyard and a large, secluded grotto], and the prominent ridge-top location. The place has landmark value from the main Ipswich-Toowoomba road.
|The house is an excellent example of the 'grand scale' domestic work of Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill, and has a special association with saw-miller, timber merchant and sugar-mill proprietor Thomas Lorimer Smith and his family. As St Vincent's Seminary, the place has a special association with the work of the Society of the Divine Word in Queensland from 1945 to 1986. Two substantial timber-framed dormitory/classroom buildings and a later chapel [now kitchen-dining room] in the grounds are significant for their association with St Vincent's Seminary.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15510,"place_ref":600735,"name":"Glendalough","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"96 John Street","suburb":"ROSEWOOD","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Glendalough is a large, ornate , early 20th century timber home, high-set on a large corner allotment in the small town of Rosewood, near Ipswich. Despite a number of early accretions, the house presents a unified, elaborate form, with subtle suggestions of sectional rebuilding and extension.
The roof contains a central pyramid with square ridge crested in cast iron. Gables decorate the eaves line to the eastern front and south. A verandah roof, set down around four sides, is interrupted by a projecting dominant front gable with hooded sash and side lights, and a rear hipped kitchen section with a rectangular window bay. A gabled portico projects over the front stair landing. The front stair, with balustrade of crossed timber members, descends in one flight, turning out into the garden from an intermediate landing.
Adjoining the main roof on the southeast is a smaller, short-ridged pyramid which roofs that section of verandah, extended an equivalent width to the south. This forms the living room. Decorative eaved gables face east and south.
All gables are sheeted and battened, with scalloped bargeboard. The high east gable of the southern wing, has a barge board of differing profile.
An octagonal bedroom 5.27 metres wide projects from the northeast corner. It has a segmental low-pitched sheet metal roof with central finial. Within each face is a large window with four-paned upper, and two-paned lower sash, and a smaller twin-paned window above.
Open verandahs with consistent cast iron balustrade follow the southeast facing corners of the house, and remain in place along the tree-screened north, between an enclosed bathroom section and the octagon. Bay windows, of chamferboard to sill height, project into the front verandah space to the east and south. Walls between are of vertical boarding. The front wall and window are set back behind a line of timber posts supporting the main roof. A slatted valance spans between these posts. The verandah ceiling is flat sheeted and battened. Verandah posts are timber, with moulded capitals, and fretwork brackets. Wooden blinds filter light to the wide front verandahs. On the outer face of the southern extension, a high arched and dowelled valance, with pendant, elaborates the bays. Bay windows reduce a narrow verandah space to about half a metre.
Interior rooms have pressed metal ceilings. Early light fittings, and cedar joinery remain in place. Walls are 4 inch [100mm] vertical tongue and groove boarding. The opening from hall to lounge has been widened. Here and most notably in the hall, panels of lattice wrap around the central section of wall nibs. Fretwork of relatively recent date has been applied to the doorway between hall and dining room. The octagonal bedroom windows contain original pale green and yellow glass, and darker replacement panes.
From the octagon a walk-through sash opening leads to the northern verandah. Here a stair of later date leads down.
Under the house, all stumps are of timber. Diagonal battens surround the house, except where rear bays, sheeted in both weatherboards and chamferboards, enclose a storeroom and disused bathroom. There is, in places, attached, an additional outer skirt of short vertical battens. Along each side is a second line of diagonal battens one bay back.
A central stump supports the octagon, and here previously painted floorboards have been re-arranged, adding to evidence of the probable re-building of this room.
The house is set in a spacious garden accommodating formal and informal plantings.
","history":"This large timber residence was constructed in at least two stages, with the flamboyant early 1910s extensions constructed for Rosewood storekeeper Thomas Ernest Bulcock and his wife Edith Mary Bourke, who were married in June 1910.
Rosewood had been established as a private town following the construction of the Ipswich to Grandchester railway in 1864-65. Situated on the southern edge of the Rosewood Scrub, the town developed as a service centre to surrounding farms. In the late 19th and early 20th century the district boomed with the expansion of the dairying industry.
TE Bulcock was the son of seed and produce merchant and former Queensland parliamentarian, Robert Bulcock, MLA for Enoggera 1885-88 and MLC 1894-1900. He was born in Brisbane c1872 and worked with Brooks and Noble, hardware merchants, before moving to Alfred Shaw and Co. Thomas and his brother Arthur Bulcock launched their own business c1908, when they purchased a general store at Rosewood established by Frederick Lound, which they then conducted as Bulcock Brothers' The Trade Palace. The firm proved successful, and by c1919 was described as one of the most extensive general storekeeping businesses on the southern railway, between Ipswich and Toowoomba. By this date TE Bulcock also had an interest in a Rosewood auctioneering business, Whitworth and Bulcock.
In December 1910, Bulcock acquired title to a residential site of just over 1.25 acres in John Street, Rosewood. It is thought that a 6-roomed house was extant on the site at the time, and that Bulcock commissioned the flamboyant extensions which so distinguish the house from its neighbours, soon after purchase. He raised a mortgage of £800 on the land in March 1911, which may have helped pay for the additions. A c1919 [probably earlier] photograph of the house shows the extensions, which included a large billiard room on the south side of the house an octagonal summer sleeping room on the north side, and winged stair at the front. The accompanying description reads: Eight lofty and spacious rooms, in addition to kitchen and offices, are contained in the interior, while a feature of the house is a summer sleeping-room, formed by the bay, octagonal in shape, and 12 feet across, with windows on all sides. The house stood in a flower garden adorned with statuary.
A late 20th century fabric analysis suggests that the house was constructed in at least two stages, the first comprising living room, dining room, central hallway, three bedrooms and kitchen, with verandahs to three sides [the 6-roomed original house]. The large billiard room on the south side of the house and the verandah and sleeping room on the north side are clearly additions.
During the Bulcocks' residence, Glendalough was a focus for local social occasions. The family was well-known in the community, and TE Bulcock was a member of a local masonic club. About 1923-24 the Bulcocks appear to have sold their Rosewood business, and left the district. In late 1923 Glendalough was transferred to the Grant family, who resided there until c1958. The house remains a family home.
","criteria":"Glendalough, erected circa early 1900s with substantial early 1910s additions, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being a fine example of the home of a successful local merchant in a small Queensland town during the boom years of the early 20th century. TE Bulcock's success reflected the growing affluence of the Rosewood district, which prospered in the early 20th century along with the dairy boom.
|Glendalough is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, early 20th century timber residence of a wealthy and influential local citizen, designed to impress, which employs decorative timberwork, design elements which accommodate the warm Queensland climate - including wide verandahs on all sides and a well-ventilated summer sleeping pavilion - and a substantial garden. The layout of the large formal entertaining areas provides evidence of the social standing of its original inhabitants, and of the building.
|Glendalough makes a significant contribution to the Rosewood townscape, was closely associated with a prominent local businessman and the social life of the town, and is valued by the community as a local landmark.
|Glendalough makes a significant contribution to the Rosewood townscape, was closely associated with a prominent local businessman and the social life of the town, and is valued by the community as a local landmark.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15511,"place_ref":600736,"name":"St Brigids Church","alternate_name":"St Brigid's Catholic Church","street_address":"28 Matthew Street","suburb":"ROSEWOOD","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a large, ornate weatherboard church. It consists of three flush gables, the central one taller and wider, facing Railway Street. In plan it is a simple broad rectangle. Small gabled porches project at the front, and each side. At the rear, a skillion-roofed central section adjoins with gabled landings.
The church is set on timber stumps, about 1 metre high, with battening between.
Roofs are of corrugated iron, with front and porch gables surmounted by a cross and decorated with triangular timber fretwork panels on curved metal brackets. Three square, capped, ventilators line the ridge of the main gable. Three small steep louvred and gauzed gables ventilate the outside roof slopes. Windows are lancet shaped. Seven, of multiple openings, are aligned along each side; others symmetrically arranged at front, and at the rear. They are operated internally.
Rear stairs to the western side porch have been removed for the installation of a ramp. A detached timber-framed toilet block is under construction, close to the rear western corner. The rear landing is tilted on its stumps and closed to access.
A timber, cross-framed belfry with a shallow pyramidal corrugated iron roof, and bell in place, stands apart, to the rear of the church.
The church is set back some 50 metres from the street with a triangular grassed forecourt, hedged in part, with tall dense native shrubs. A flame tree (Brachychiton spp) and a fire-wheel tree (Stenocarpus spp) have been planted on the central axis of the church and forecourt.
Internally, a main high pointed vault is flanked by smaller similar vaults each side. A central aisle and smaller side aisles lead to a highly decorated chancel and side chapels. These spaces are divided by timber posts, chamfered. Between the posts, curved, chamfered timber members meet to form a line of pointed arches, above which extends a frieze of white-painted, moulded timber uprights.
Above the frieze are panels of pressed metal linking into the pressed metal vaulted ceilings, all highly decorative and painted in shades of blue.
The floor is of 4 inch [100mm] boards of crows ash, carpeted in the chancel, along the aisles and path linking side porches.
Walls are lined in 4 inch [100mm] tongue and groove boarding, with lower and upper panels vertical, and a central section in diagonal boarding. The rear chancel wall is flat-sheeted, with large stained-glass windows, high under each vault. The central window depicts St Brigid, the left St Agnew and the other St Philomena. The central window is surrounded by an emblematic painting of foliage, grapes and wheat. Either side of the altar, this wall is painted with angels in shades of blue.
The altar and altar rail are pointed to resemble marble. Doors, either side lead into the flower rooms and sacristy. The central, closed, rear landing is used to store cleaning equipment.
At the opposite end of the church, above the entry, a gallery is supported on smaller intermediate posts. To the underside, a pressed metal ceiling, similarly elaborately painted, is of a different pattern from the vaulted ceilings. The gallery is approached by a timber stair, its balustrade crossing a window space. The gallery floor is raked, of 6 inch [150mm] boarding.
A confessional, flat-sheeted, stands in one corner to the right of the ground floor entrance.
The church, a large and striking form, set in flat extensive grounds, exhibits a highly ornate and interesting interior.
","history":"This large elaborate wooden church was built in 1909-1910 and replaced an earlier, smaller St Brigid's Church, also of timber. It was designed by Reverend A Horan of the Ipswich parish who also donated the cost of the foundations. It was built on the day-labour system under the supervision of builder and contractor, RJ Murphy. A substantial amount of the labour was gratuitously performed by local residents.
Initially, Mass in the Rosewood district was celebrated in settlers' homes, and after 1875 in a room at The Rising Sun Hotel. This practice continued until the first St Brigid's Church was built in 1885. The locality was a prosperous one, with sugar, timber and dairying supporting the predominantly Irish and German population. The foundations of the second church were blessed on 13 December 1908 and the building, which could accommodate a congregation of 1000, was opened for Divine Services on 13 February 1910 by Bishop Duhig. Rosewood was the first country place in which, as a priest, Bishop Duhig had celebrated Mass.
St Brigid's Church remained part of the Ipswich parish until the appointment of Father Timothy Kelleher as Rosewood parish priest in 1915.
The interior of the northern wall was improved for the 1935 Jubilee Celebrations. Three stained glass windows by RS Exton & Co of Brisbane, and flanking murals on fibre supports by the important Queensland artist, William Bustard, were added. A scroll on the diagonal boards of the lower central section of this wall was probably painted about this time. After 1951 this part of the wall, including the top lancet-shaped sections of the vestry doors, was sheeted. It was painted with a new mural, using a photographic re-assisted technique. The scrolls on the lower sections of the side chapels were probably painted about this time. An early altar table used to celebrate Mass in settlers' homes has been brought into the church.
The altar rail gates, one of the confessionals and the organ have been removed. The rib and pan roof was replaced after 1973 and the earlier dark weatherboards are now painted a light colour. Plantings on the main southern elevation and the bitumen roads either side of the church are recent.
The place has been identified in the 1997 Expanded Ipswich Heritage Study as a place of cultural heritage significance to the community.
","criteria":"St Brigid's Church, Rosewood, erected 1909-10, is significant historically for its close association with the development of the Rosewood district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and with the expansion of the Catholic Church in Queensland.
|The place is significant for the rare ecclesiastical mural by important Queensland artist, William Bustard.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large, substantially intact timber country church built in the early 20th century.
|The place has considerable aesthetic appeal, generated by the form, materials, decorative qualities [especially the gable decoration and pressed metal ceilings] and artworks, including stained glass windows and painted wall murals.
The place is significant for the rare ecclesiastical mural by important Queensland artist, William Bustard.
|The place is valued by the local community as part of Rosewood's heritage.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15512,"place_ref":600737,"name":"Normanby Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cunningham Highway","suburb":"WARRILL VIEW","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Normanby Station is located on an eastern slope overlooking Warroolaba Creek and is accessed from the west via a driveway from the town of Warril View. The single-storeyed chamferboard building has a double hipped corrugated iron roof with a central box gutter and is encircled by a skillion roofed verandah. The building has a concrete block and stump base with brick steps.
The east verandah has cast iron balustrade and brackets with a fibrous cement lined raked ceiling and timber floor. French doors with fanlights and screens open onto the verandahs. The northern verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards and casement windows to form a sunroom, kitchen and bedroom. The southern verandah has been enclosed to form a bathroom and office with fibrous cement partitions.
Internally, walls are of painted tongue and groove boards with stained timber doors and architraves. Ceilings are of fibrous cement and floors are covered in carpet and linoleum. Large sliding stained timber doors separate the lounge and dining rooms. The dining room has a fireplace with a timber surround and an arched sash window on either side.
A hall has been inserted behind the southeast bedroom to give access to the bathroom on the south, and the southwest bedroom has been divided into two rooms. The guest room has an ensuite added on the west verandah and the kitchen has been modernised.
A double carport is located to the south, a tennis court to the north and an inground concrete swimming pool to the northeast. The west facade is screened by a vine covered trellis and a twin tankstand is located to the west.
Exclusion of Furniture: The furniture contained within the homestead is expressly excluded from the cultural heritage significance of this place
","history":"Normanby Homestead was constructed in 1866-67 for the George Thorn family of Ipswich, to a design by Ipswich architect and surveyor, Charles Balding.
The Normanby Plains south of Ipswich, on which the homestead is located, were named by government surveyor Robert Dixon in 1839, and occupied by European pastoralists from the 1840s. Initially, Normanby was part of Rosebrook, a 10,000 hectare run on the western side of the Normanby Plains, taken up c1843 by NSW pastoralist Donald McIntyre. In 1845 the Rosebrook lease was transferred to George Thorn of Ipswich, former superintendent of the government cattle station at Limestone from 1838, and one of the earliest free settlers at Moreton Bay. Whilst still a government employee, he had obtained permission to operate a small general store at Limestone, and in 1842 resigned from government service to establish Ipswich's first hotel, the Queen's Arms. Known as the 'father of Ipswich', Thorn represented West Moreton in the first Queensland Legislative Assembly. His sons George, Henry, John and William followed their father into Queensland politics.
In mid-1848, Thorn's property on the Normanby Plains was referred to as Rosebrook. Later, his son Charles took over a portion of the run, retaining the name Rosebrook; the remainder, about 8,000 hectares, was named Normanby.
By 1855 George Thorn had made improvements worth about £500 to the property, but the present house was erected only after he acquired the freehold to the homestead block., in 1861. In September 1866, Ipswich architect Charles Balding called tenders for the construction of a villa residence and outbuildings at Normanby for George Thorn, and it is believed the house was completed in 1867.
In the early 1870s John Thorn managed Normanby Station for his father until the latter's death in 1876. In 1875 the homestead was described as a 'pine palace' with a lofty, spacious, splendidly polished, and lined interior. The property was running 20,000 sheep and 2,000 cattle at the time. In 1878, when Normanby station was put up (unsuccessfully) for auction, the homestead consisted of a roomy house with a verandah all around, kitchen, servants' rooms, stables, coachhouse, outbuildings, garden and orchard.
In 1881 the property was transferred to Donald Smith Wallace of Melbourne, who had married Thorn's daughter Ida Australia in 1876. The station was run from 1883 to 1893 by managing partner Reginald Gardiner Casey, who in 1888 married Thorn's granddaughter, Evelyn Jane Harris. Casey was MLA for Warrego from 1888 to 1893. Their son, Richard Gavin Gardiner Casey, was to become Governor-General of Australia Normanby was still carrying sheep during the Wallace-Casey period.
In 1893 the Wallace-Casey partnership was dissolved and the property passed in 1894 to the Union Mortgage & Agency Co. of Australia Ltd, and in 1901 to Australian Estates, who subdivided and sold off the run in the following decade, with the first subdivisional sale taking place in November 1906. During this period the station was run by a series of managers, and cattle became the principal interest. John Bligh Nutting, a station inspector for Australian Estates, resided in the homestead for some years until acquiring the house and about 360 hectares in 1911.
George Hunt purchased the homestead on about 13 hectares in 1931, and the present owners have occupied the building since the early 1960s.
The original gateway to the property still stands, opposite the Warrill View State School. None of the earlier outbuildings or the former kitchen wing remains, but some vestiges of the 19th century formal garden layout are discernible. The house was renovated in the 1960s.
","criteria":"Normanby Homestead is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history because of its association with the early development of pastoralism in the Moreton Bay region, and in West Moreton in particular.
|It demonstrates rare surviving evidence of 1860s timber construction and plan form in a substantial rural residence.
|Normanby Homestead has a special association with the Thorn family and their contributions, pastoral, political and commercial, to the growth of Queensland in the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15513,"place_ref":600738,"name":"Tree of Knowledge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Barkly Highway","suburb":"CAMOOWEAL","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-08","description":"The Tree of Knowledge is a mature Coolibah tree (Eucalyptus microtheca) on the eastern side of the Georgina River, within walking distance of the town of Camooweal. It is located within 100 metres north of the new road bridge in the Camooweal Camping, Pasturage & Stock Dipping Reserve on the eastern flood plain of the Georgina River, 200 metres west of Camooweal at 19° 55.18 South and 138° 06.63 East. The tree is approximately 8 metres in height and its circumference a metre above the ground is 150 cm. There are scars around the base of the trunk and to a height of about 2.5 metres.
","history":"The Tree of Knowledge on the Camooweal Camping, Pasturage & Stock Dipping Reserve is a mature Coolibah tree, on the eastern side of the Georgina River and about 200 metres west of the town. It is said that for many years drovers and teamsters camped nearby and met and yarned beneath the shade of the tree.
Following William Landsborough's exploration of the Camooweal area during his search for Burke and Wills in 1861-62 pastoralists moved into the district. The first was John Sutherland who took up the Rocklands lease in 1865. Loss of stock to dingos combined with isolation, scarcity of labour and transport difficulties forced him to abandon his lease.
It was not until the mid-1870s that squatters moved back to the area. In 1883 local squatters petitioned the Queensland government, requesting that land for a town to service their pastoral properties be reserved at the junction of the main stock route down the Georgina River from Burketown and a track from the east to South Australia's Northern Territory. A town reserve of four square miles was gazetted on 15 December 1883 and was amended and re-gazetted in August 1884. The reserve was located on the Georgina River near Lake Frances, south of Rocklands Station Homestead. The first sections of the Town of Camooweal were surveyed in 1888.
By 1892 Camooweal had become an important outback township on major routes between Cloncurry and Burketown and Cloncurry and pastoral properties further west. Being only seven miles from the border with South Australia it had a customs post, as well as post and telegraph facilities, courthouse and police station besides 2 hotels, a school and various service and supply businesses.
A pasturage reserve adjacent to the township was declared probably in the 1890s. In 1917 the reserve was increased from 7,697 acres to about 14,000 acres. This reserve stretched from the west of the town of Camooweal to the Northern Territory border and the rabbit proof fence and shared its northern and southern boundaries with Rocklands Station. In 1933 the reserve was designated for Pasturage purposes and in 1973 it was declared as a Camping, Pasturage & Stock dipping reserve. It is currently about 5,480 hectares in area.
The Barkly Highway passes through this reserve and drovers taking stock to and from the Northern Territory, up and down the Georgina stock route and up to Burketown used this reserve as a rest area. To teamsters and drovers, camping on the reserve near the Georgina River meant a chance to rest, clean clothes, water and feed their animals and utilise nearby Camooweal facilities such as shops, medical help and postal services. It was also an opportunity for teamsters and their families who used this route regularly, to send their children to the local school temporarily. Oral history collected from various drovers who used the reserve regularly, records that a particular Coolibah tree on the pasturage reserve, far enough from the river that it was safe from flash flooding and sheltered from the southerly prevailing winds, became a popular meeting place for drovers and teamsters, where they would sit in the shade and share tea and gossip - hence the name 'Tree of Knowledge'. The tree was located on the eastern side of the Georgina River, north of the bridge and within walking distance of town and offered attractive shade to those on the trade route from Burketown to Camooweal.
","criteria":"The Tree of Knowledge on the Camooweal Camping, Pasturage & Stock Dipping reserve is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history. Before the advent of trucking, the reserve was used by drovers, teamsters and others visiting Camooweal as a place to camp, rest, collect mail and supplies and seek medical assistance at nearby Camooweal, before beginning the next stage of the journey. According to oral history, the Tree of Knowledge on the Camooweal reserve was a meeting place where the campers exchanged gossip.
|The tree has special association with drovers and their descendants and descendants of others involved in the pastoral industry. The Tree of Knowledge acts as a living, physical focal point for memories and reminiscences about their past and the role they and their families played in the development of the Barkly Tableland and surrounding area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15514,"place_ref":600739,"name":"Freckleton's Stores","alternate_name":"Synnot and Co. | Synnot, Murray and Scholes | Freckletons Stores","street_address":"Barkly Street","suburb":"CAMOOWEAL","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Freckletons Stores are situated on an allotment containing several single-storeyed timber and corrugated iron buildings, which include the Old Store (c1895) and the Bond Store/Gallon Licence (c1901). An iron covered timber storage rack and carport are also on the allotment.
The Old Store is clad in vertically-running corrugated iron on a timber frame and has a simple gabled roof flanked by skillions. The roof is supported by a simple structure of timber rafters, purlins and collar ties resting on round timber posts with brackets. The posts are founded on bedlogs, and the floor joists rest on the ground; this contact with the earth has created a white ant problem. The store contains extensive hand-hewn shelving for the storage of flour etc. Externally, an awning runs the width of the street elevation to the south. It is supported by five substantial round timber posts. It covers a section of footpath which is paved in local unworked limestone slabs set in a bedding of antbed, now concrete pointed, and is retained with a low concrete retaining wall. The building has a double door entrance at front and rear.
The Bond Store/Gallon Licence is clad in horizontally-running corrugated iron, and also has a simple gabled roof flanked by skillions. The building sits above the street on round timber stumps and steel posts. The store is lined internally with stained timber, and has extensive built-in timber shelving, cupboards and counters. An awning running the width of the gable end is supported on steel posts.
The two buildings compliment each other in form and materials, and contribute to the streetscape as a now uncommon pair of corrugated iron stores.
","history":"Freckleton's stores comprise a group of buildings located at the western end of Barkly Street, Camooweal, in north-west Queensland. The township of Camooweal was proclaimed in 1884, and developed as a pastoral centre for outback stations. Camooweal was also important in the context of pre-Federation customs collection, as it was only seven miles from the border with South Australia, later the Northern Territory.
The land was granted to Thomas Harding in 1888 and acquired by Frank Frith, a Camooweal storekeeper in 1891. The land was acquired by John Affleck in 1893. Affleck took out a mortgage with Patrick Synnott in 1895, suggesting that the earliest of the present stores which was built as a general store for bulk groceries such as flour, sugar and tea, was erected at about this time.
At the turn of the century a two gallon licence to decant and sell spirits was obtained, and c1901 a bond store was erected adjacent to the eastern side of the general store, which became known as the "gallon licence".
Although Normanton became the chief port into the Gulf of Carpentaria after the 1870s, it was from Burketown that the Camooweal district drew its supplies. Affleck and Synnott were Burketown merchants, of the firm Affleck, Synnott and Co.
Synnott and Co, storekeepers, were first recorded at Camooweal in 1903. Affleck took out a further mortgage with Burns Philp and Co in 1906. The stores were acquired by Patrick Synnott in 1911, and became known as Synnott, Murray and Scholes in 1918. They were managed by Synnott's son, James H Synnott, of Camooweal from 1934 to 1940.
In 1943 the business, including associated buildings, was sold to Joseph Freckleton a tank sinker and teamster originally from South Australia. By the 1940s the business had acquired the Shell and Qantas agencies and Freckleton was able to take advantage of wartime demand for aviation gasoline and other services during Camooweal's period as a military movements and supply centre.
By the late 1940s, in addition to the general store and gallon licence, the Freckleton family owned a number of buildings, including another store, in Camooweal. Around 1950 this store was moved onto the stores allotment and re-erected adjacent to the eastern side of the gallon licence, becoming the third building on the allotment. This former store was operated as a cafe and milkbar until the early 1980s.
Concrete footpaths and street gutters were laid by Freckleton during the early 1950s. Concrete retaining walls were erected around the early flagstone footpath outside the general store at this time. During the early 1950s Freckleton was involved in the purchase, dismantling and re-sale of ex army building materials and erected timber storage racks between the general store and gallon licence. Also during this period he erected a large iron shed at the rear of the allotment for bulk storage of liquor produce and fuel.
Freckleton died in 1964 and control of the stores passed to two of his children, Joseph Freckleton and Lillian Ada Miller. Substantial repairs and maintenance were undertaken on buildings on the allotment during the early 1970s. A kitchen and toilet were built onto the rear of the cafe for the manager, and a carport was erected at the rear of the allotment.
","criteria":"Freckleton's Stores, Camooweal, are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the pattern of inland development in north-west Queensland, and the role of Burketown as a supply centre for north-west Queensland.
|They are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early corrugated iron outback store buildings.
|They exhibit particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular their contribution to the character and streetscape of Camooweal.
|As longstanding stores in Camooweal and north-west Queensland, they have a special association with the Camooweal community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15515,"place_ref":600740,"name":"Community Hall, Camooweal","alternate_name":"Barkly Tablelands Shire Hall","street_address":"Barkly Highway","suburb":"CAMOOWEAL","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Camooweal Community Hall is located in a prominent position on the Barkly Highway in the centre of Camooweal. It is a single storey timber building with wide encircling verandahs set on low stumps and has a gambrel roof clad in corrugated iron.
The hall is rectangular in plan with the main entrance from the short axis to Nowranie Street. Entry is by a short flight of steps and there is a central front door flanked by sash windows. The exterior walls have exposed studs and french doors open onto the verandahs along the north and south sides. The verandah roof is supported on timber posts linked by dowel balustrading. The southern verandah has been enclosed by the addition of timber louvres and there are offices on the eastern side.
The hall ceilings are sheeted in decorative pressed metal. Local honour rolls in pressed copper are housed within the hall on the east wall.
A small accomodation unit with a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom adjoins the north east corner of the building.
","history":"The Camooweal Community Hall was built in 1922-23 for the Barkly Tableland Shire Council. as a Council chambers and community hall.
The Barkly Tablelands were discovered and named after the explorer Sir Thomas Barkly by William Landsborough while he was officially engaged in the search for Burke and Wills in 1861. The first European settlers were pastoralists who established sheep runs in the district a few years later. The recession of the late 1860s caused a withdrawal, but in the 1870s pastoral settlement started up again based on cattle. The area was part of Burke Division, later to become Burke Shire.
Camooweal was formed as a supply centre for pastoral runs at the junction of the Georgina stock route and Northern Territory road. It was surveyed in December 1883 and gazetted as a town in December 1884, the area of the reserve for township purposes being modified in 1894. It's position was important; it was on a major route midway between Burketown and Cloncurry and only 7 miles from the border between the colony of Queensland and the territory then controlled by South Australia. It was not only the chief supply centre for a wide area but was also important as a customs post in a era when the affairs of the colonies were separate and customs duty an important source of government revenue. Camooweal was supplied through Burketown and by 1892 was described in the Australian Handbook as being on a transport, post and telegraph route and having a customs post, court and police station besides 2 hotels and school and various service and supply businesses. It also served an important role as a social centre for a scattered community.
The Barclay Tableland Shire was formed on 10 February 1914 from portions of Burke and Cloncurry Shires with Camooweal at its centre. The name of the shire was changed to Barkly in 1919. The land on which the shire hall was constructed was a local government reserve on the corner of Nowranie Street and the Barkly Highway. The block also contained the police, court house and health reserves and so was a key administrative area in the town.
The hall was constructed for the shire in 1922-3 with the assistance of a State Government loan of £3000 to be repaid within 10 years. Plans and specifications for the hall were drawn by the Townsville firm of Rooney Ltd. and Hogarth and Hammond carried out the construction, having submitted the lowest tender of £2207. Use of the hall was provided free to the hospital for entertainments and they also had use of the office for monthly meetings. The patriotic service rendered by many men from the district during the first World War was not forgotten and in 1924 an ornate Wunderlich honour board of copper mounted on timber was installed in the hall.
The hall was too small for the shire's needs and the population of the township and surrounding area was increasing, so in 1935 the Shire again applied to the State Government for a subsidised loan. These were available to help provide work for the unemployed and it was proposed to extend the hall by 30 feet and build a residence for the shire clerk. The loan was granted in order to provide work for the unemployed and consisted of £1450 as a loan and the same amount as a subsidy. Rooneys were sent the plans and specifications for the old building and asked to prepare plans for the new work to match. The tender of H Wilder of Julia Creek was accepted, being £598 for construction of the hall and £895.00 for the residence. At a much later date a small flat was attached to the rear of the hall.
During the second World War, Camooweal the Barkly highway was sealed to accommodate supply convoys and Camooweal became an important refuelling stop. The airport was sealed and served as an important base.
The hall has been the venue for all important occasions in the town and has been used for church services, weddings, dances, concerts, weddings, as a voting booth and to entertain important visitors to Camooweal.
On 15 December 1962 the shire became Mount Isa Shire, reflecting the growth and importance of this centre and then was named Mt Isa City on 1 June 1968. Major work was carried out on the hall in 1984 for the celebration of Camooweal's centenary and again in 1993.
","criteria":"The Camooweal hall demonstrates the way in which much of western Queensland was settled by means of small service towns on supply routes. They provided a scattered population with essential goods, services, administrative facilities and the social structure to develop a sense of community. The hall also has important associations with the former Barkly Tablelands Shire which has since been absorbed into the Mount Isa local authority.
|The Camooweal Community Hall is a fine example of a timber shire hall in the vernacular style which has been extended over time while adhering to the original design principles. The wide verandahs with french doors opening out onto them and timber louvres illustrate traditional means of providing shade and ventilation in a hot arid climate.
|The Community Hall is an important public building in a prominent location and in form, scale and material makes an important visual contribution to the townscape of Camooweal.
|The Community Hall has had a long connection with the people of Camooweal and the surrounding district as the focus for a range of important community services and social events.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15516,"place_ref":600741,"name":"Hodgkinson's Marked Tree","alternate_name":"Hodgkinsons Marked Tree","street_address":"Rocklands Station","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Hodgkinson Tree is a mature Coolibah tree (Eucalyptus microtheca) on the northeastern bank of Lake Mary, in the Rocklands Station homestead paddock north of Camooweal. It leans over the lake, which is part of the Georgina River system.
The National Trust of Queensland holds a photocopy of a c1983 photograph of the tree, showing carved into a branch, above a fork in the trunk, a broad arrow over H over LXXXVIII over Sep 27 over 1876.
These markings are believed to be still visible.
","history":"Hodgkinson's Marked Tree on the northeastern shore of Lake Mary, Rocklands Station, near Camooweal, was marked during William Oswald Hodgkinson's North-West Expedition of 1876 to identify new grazing land in far western Queensland. This was the last government-sponsored exploratory expedition in Queensland, taking Hodgkinson to the Diamantina, Mulligan and Herbert rivers, then north to Normanton via the Gregory, Clonclurry and Flinders Rivers.
Explorer William Landsborough was the first European to pass through the Camooweal area. At the time (1861-62) he was looking for Burke and Wills. His reports led to the area being settled by pastoralists who established sheep runs in the district a few years after his expedition. The first settler to the area was John Sutherland, who with John Frazer and William Hanson of Sydney successfully applied for the Rocklands lease in 1865. Loss of stock to dingos combined with isolation, scarcity of labour and transport difficulties forced him to abandon his lease.
In September 1875 the lease was auctioned and Benjamin Crosthwaite purchased Rocklands. In September 1876 William Oswald Hodgkinson during his north west exploration camped beside Lake Mary on Crosthwaite's property, near the station homestead on the eastern side of the lake, just north of the later town of Camooweal.
William Oswald Hodgkinson first visited Australia in 1851 as a midshipman. By 1853 he was working for the Victorian Colonial Government until returning to England c1854. In 1859 he returned to Australia to join the literary staff of the Age newspaper. He started with the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition in 1860 and the following year joined in McKinley's search for them. He founded newspapers in Rockhampton and Mackay before moving to the Ravenswood gold fields in 1868. In 1870 he was appointed mining warden and police magistrate on the Etheridge goldfield and in 1876 James Venture Mulligan named the Hodgkinson goldfield after him. Hodgkinson was Member of the Legislative Assembly for Burke in 1874-75, resigning to lead the North West Expedition. From 1878 to 1886 he served as mining warden on the Etheridge, the Palmer and at Gympie. He was a member of the Queensland Parliament on several occasions, serving as Minister of Mines and Works from 12 December 1887 to 13 June 1888 and Minister of Mines and Public Instruction from 12 August 1890 to 27 March 1893.
By correspondence dated 29 September 1875, Hodgkinson was instructed by the Queensland government to seek out pastoral country known to exist on the Diamantina River and areas to its west towards the border with South Australia's northern territory. In 1877, Hodgkinson's report of his explorations from 13 April to 27 September 1876 was published in the Votes and Proceedings of the Queensland parliament.
On 17 September 1876 Hodgkinson traversed country below the junction of Rankin's Creek with the Herbert River, which had been occupied before but abandoned due to the pastoral crisis of 1866 and the scarcity of labour and transport. By 26 September Hodgkinson had travelled up the Herbert River to Lake Mary, where he found Landsborough's Camp 22 marked tree of 'XMAS 1861'.
Like Landsborough, Hodgkinson also camped on the shores of Lake Mary. He too marked a tree to show that his North-West Expedition had been there, reporting that he used a 'broad arrow over H over LXXXVIII over 27-10 over 1876'. On the map attached to his report he noted this camp as marked by a broad arrow over LXXXVIII over Sep 27 over 1876, and the entry date in his report is 27 September, not October. This was the last tree that Hodgkinson reported as marking during the 1876 expedition, but the map accompanying his report indicates further camp sites as the expedition continued north east along the Gregory River. Whether trees were marked at these other camps is not indicated on the 1876 map, but a 1920 survey plan showing pastoral holdings in this area indicates that Hodgkinson had marked a tree at camp 90 (broad arrow over H over XC over O), near where he crossed the O'Shanassy River. It is likely a tree was marked at each camp site as this was the usual practice of exploratory parties, so that others might follow.
Hodgkinson's Marked Tree at Rocklands Station was entered in the National Trust of Queensland's Register of Significant Trees in 1983. At that time a photograph attached to the nomination showed that the original markings were still visible. The place was entered in the Queensland Heritage Register in August 1992 under the transitional provisions of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
On Christmas Day 2003 a family group travelled by boat up the Georgina River from Camooweal to Lake Mary to check on the Hodgkinson Tree and found it was healthy and still leaning over the lake.
","criteria":"This Coolibah tree was marked on 27 September 1876 to record camp 88 of William Oswald Hodgkinson's government-sponsored North-West Expedition in search of unexplored pastoral country in far western Queensland. The tree marked the end of Hodgkinson's main exploratory work during this expedition, the country further north being reasonably well-known by this date. Due to Hodgkinson's efforts valuable pastoral lands were opened, leading to the viable development of far western Queensland. Hodgkinson's Marked Tree is symbolic of the nature and pattern of exploration of the Australian interior in the mid 19th century and is important surviving evidence of this principal theme in Queensland's history.
|This marked tree has a special association with the work of William Oswald Hodgkinson, an explorer, journalist, goldfields warden/police magistrate and politician who in many and varied activities made a significant contribution to the development of Queensland from the 1860s to the 1890s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15517,"place_ref":600742,"name":"Tent House (Mount Isa)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Camooweal Street","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Tent House is a small house standing on a flattened site adjacent to the Underground Hospital in Mount Isa. Accessed via Joan Street, it is a timber-framed structure low-set on short steel posts and comprises a narrow, gable-roofed core with rear, lean-to additions. The core of the house is sheltered by a free-standing, timber-framed fly.
The walls of the core are clad below sill height with ripple iron and above this with asbestos cement sheet. The core's roof is a fitted canvas cover held down by tie ropes at the top plate to the floor bearers. Loose flaps of the canvas cover extend down to the sill line on the front and side walls and the core's windows are unglazed, shielded by drop down canvas rolls. A door in the front (western) wall provides access to the interior.
The walls and skillion roof of the rear additions are clad with corrugated metal sheets. The additions have glass louvre windows and a door and short flight of steps provides access to the interior.
The fly is an open-sided structure standing clear of the core underneath. The timber posts are prominently braced. The southern gable end and the roof are clad with corrugated metal sheets. The fly stands clear of the core by approximately 600mm.
The core interior comprises three rooms: a central living room, with a bedroom either side. The floor throughout the core is timber boards and the walls are unlined. The coved ceiling is lined with hardboard with wide timber cover strips. The partitions are light-weight and timber-framed and do not reach the ceiling. They are clad with ripple iron up to sill height and hardboard sheeting with timber cover strips above. Early linoleum squares clad the bedroom floors. Doors open from the living room into the rear additions.
The rear additions comprise four rooms: a kitchen, sleepout, bathroom, and toilet. The floor throughout the rear additions is timber boards and the walls and ceilings are unlined. Early linoleum squares clad the sleepout floor.
The house contains early domestic furniture and other items for museum interpretation.
The timber entrance ramp and the understorey perimeter boards are later additions and are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Tent House in Mount Isa (built by 1937) is the last surviving tent house constructed in the town to accommodate mining workers.[1]
Traditionally the land of the Kalkadoon people, the remote area of Mount Isa attracted prospectors from the 1870s and sparse settlement by graziers in the 1880s. In 1923, prospector John Campbell Miles discovered rich lead, copper, silver, and zinc ore deposits and, along with four farmers, he staked out the first mining claims in the area. By the end of 1923, 118 leases had been pegged on the Mount Isa field. By 1925, mining company Mount Isa Mines had purchased the leases of virtually the entire area and intense mining progressed rapidly.[2]
As well as more permanent and substantial accommodation, temporary structures were constructed in Mount Isa to house workers from the 1920s to the 1950s. In 1924 the population of Mount Isa was estimated at 300 people, most living in temporary dwellings of iron, canvas, and timber.[3] The population grew rapidly from 1926 to 1930, causing an acute housing shortage. In 1929, there were hundreds of tents, housing railway and construction workers, sprawled between the town and the mine. Other huts had walls made from beaten-out chemical drums from the mill, antbed floors, and corrugated iron roofs.[4]
In June 1927 the Russo-Asiatic Consolidated Company, chaired by Leslie Urquhart, took control of Mount Isa Mines and the development of the town. The scale of mining was increased and the town grew, built by the company on its leases for its own employees. It was a planned and self-contained town which was approached through a valley guarded by a gatekeeper. The development of a company town in this way sprang from Urquhart's experience in Russia, realising that in a region with a harsh climate and a reputation for industrial unrest, employee welfare was an essential investment.[5]
Mount Isa was an early mining company town that provided extensive accommodation for employees. This was regarded as an 'interesting experiment' in 1929.[6] By mid-1929, 50 cottages for workmen and seven staff houses had been constructed, along with reticulated water supply and septic tank installation. A self-contained staff house with 21 bedrooms, a reading room, and dining room, had also been constructed. Five dormitories for single men, each accommodating 40 employees, and a mess hall to serve them were in the course of erection, but owing to the rapid increase of work at the mines, temporary accommodation capable of housing 400 men was erected. This included tent houses.
Tent structures have been used as a building form since the earliest European settlement of Australia. The application of this form of construction extended to houses, police stations, hospitals and asylums. Tent houses were commonly used as rudimentary, portable or temporary accommodation throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially on mining and construction sites. Canvas was a common building material, its popularity largely derived from its portability and low cost. The term 'tent house' was applied to the housing form comprising a canvas tent structure with increased stability and permanence due to improvements to the frame and additional materials used to shelter the tent.[7] Tent houses could be newly-built or created by making improvements to an existing tent.
During the Great Depression when there was difficulty financing housing developments, the 1934 Mount Isa Mines Directors' Report commented:
'A portion of the community consists of 60 tents erected in 1930. These were in a bad state of repair, and after representations by the employees in this section, the company agreed to furnish the material for converting these temporary dwellings into tent houses. The employees, co-operating among themselves, furnished the labour.'[8]
Photographs of Mount Isa taken in 1935 show an ordered grid of at least 50 standardised tent houses, emphasising Mount Isa Mines' organised approach to the town's development.[9] These tent houses comprised a long narrow building with canvas walls and roof sheltered by a separate light-weight, timber-framed structure with a corrugated iron-clad roof. The air space between the canvas roof and the iron roof assisted in keeping the tent's interior cool, as well as providing additional weather protection. Board or ripple iron cladding at the bottom of the walls provided further protection and dust control.[10]
The construction date and builder of the Mount Isa Tent House is unknown, but it was located at 16 Fourth Avenue by 1937. At this time the house was registered by its owner, Alfred Mills, who was a miner and employee of Mount Isa Mines from 1930 to 1953. In a statutory declaration in 1937 it was described as a 'three-roomed house, walls of galvanised iron and drum roof; roof of galvanised iron, partitions of iron and wood; floor of boards and earth'. There was also a lavatory and a shed.[11] Sold by Mills in 1940, the Tent House was then occupied by a succession of owners.
Another labour boom at the end of the 1940s led to further tent accommodation being constructed by Mount Isa Mines. After World War II the population of Mount Isa grew steadily. By the 1960s, tent houses were no longer constructed as worker accommodation. By the early 1960s they were progressively demolished or removed to make way for expanding mine operations.[12]
The Tent House in Mount Isa was purchased in 1978 by the National Trust of Queensland, which retained it in situ. It opened to the public in 1983 as a tourist attraction museum piece. In 1991 the only other surviving tent house in Mount Isa was demolished.[13]
The Tent House closed to tourists in 2011 and in March 2013 the National Trust gifted it to the Mount Isa Underground Hospital and Museum Inc. The house was moved approximately 750m east to Joan Street, adjacent to the former Underground Hospital [QHR 601102]. In its new location, the Tent House was repaired and its contents (furniture and other household items) were reinstated. In 2014 the Tent House resumed operation as a museum tourist attraction.
References
[1] Ivan McDonald Architects, Tent House Mount Isa: Conservation Management Plan, 2009, p.9.
[2] Queensland Heritage Register Entry QHR 601182 Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure and Mount Isa Mines History, http://www.mountisamines.com.au/EN/aboutXMIM/Pages/History.aspx accessed 26 May 2014.
[3] Ivan McDonald Architects, Tent House Mount Isa: Conservation Management Plan, p.6.
[4] Mimag, 1973, p.14.
[5] Blainey, Geoffrey, Mines in the Spinifex, 1970, p.158.
[6] Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 August 1929, p.332.
[7] Ivan McDonald Architects, Tent House Mount Isa: Conservation Management Plan, p.8.
[8] Mimag, March 1973, p.20.
[9] Tents used as accommodation seen from an elevated position at Mount Isa Mines, 1935, JOL SLQ, image no. APE-085-0001-0012 and Married Quarters at Mount Isa Mines in 1935, JOL SLQ, image no. APE-085-0001-0013.
[10] Ivan McDonald Architects, Tent House Mount Isa: Conservation Management Plan, p.9.
[11] Ivan McDonald Architects, Tent House Mount Isa: Conservation Management Plan, p.12.
[12] Blainey, Mines in the Spinifex, p.197, 225.
[13] Ivan McDonald Architects, Tent House Mount Isa: Conservation Management Plan, p.20.
","criteria":"The Tent House in Mount Isa (built by 1937) is important in demonstrating the development of Mount Isa, an early mining town in Queensland. It is a rare and representative example of early, temporary company housing provided to miners and contributes significantly to our understanding of this way of life.
|The Tent House is the last surviving example of the substantial number of tent houses built in Mount Isa from the 1930s to the 1950s and is one of few surviving examples in Queensland.
|The Tent House is important in providing a rare demonstration of the principal characteristics of the type. This includes: a timber-framed canvas tent sheltered by a separate timber-framed roof structure; low-set, narrow, gable-roofed form; and rudimentary detailing and fittings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15518,"place_ref":600743,"name":"Grand Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"39 Central Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Grand Hotel is a substantial two storey hotel prominently sited at the intersection of Mount Morgan's 2 principal streets.
The hotel is constructed of brick and is L shaped, addressing both street frontages, although the Central Street frontage is longer. The end walls, which face a laneway on Central Street and a vacant block on Morgan Street, are blank. The hipped roof of the building is concealed by a panelled parapet and its most striking feature is a corner bay with an octagonal corner projection surmounted by a timber framed tower with onion dome roof of flat sheet metal. The base of the tower houses one of the principal entrances to the hotel. A wide awning clad with corrugated iron and supported on posts runs along both street frontages and is truncated at the corner and steps up along Morgan Street in line with the street level.
On the upper level of the hotel, verandahs run between the central tower and a projecting room and the end of the building. That facing Central Street has timber posts and timber balustrading. Centrally located on the verandah is a pedimented gabled projection. A similar verandah runs along this guest bedroom wing at the rear of the building. The verandah facing Morgan Street has been built in. The tower has a shaded triple window on the upper level.
Internally the main bar occupies the ground floor corner space and has plastered walls, a pressed metal ceiling and a modern free standing bar. There is a second bar on a higher level corresponding to the slope of Morgan Street. The guest's entrance is from Central Street where double doors with coloured transom lights open into a wide lobby area which also has rendered walls and a pressed metal ceiling. A turned timber staircase is at the end of the hall and leads to the upper storey. To the right of this entrance is a large room created from several smaller ones and the service rooms connected with running the hotel. There are toilets and a detached wash house behind. On the upper floor are small bedrooms running back to back along the Central Street axis. Those facing the street open onto a verandah. The upper floor rooms on the Morgan Street axis comprise an apartment for the publican.
The two storey timber house, which was at one time used as an extension of the hotel's accomodation, survives largely intact although the verandahs have been built in.
","history":"The Grand Hotel is a two storey brick hotel building and was erected c1901 on the corner of Morgan and Central Streets, Mount Morgan.
The township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims occurred before 1882, the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top in that year. In July they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen before selling out to them in 1886 when the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was formed. By the following year even the Post Office Directory noted that 'the importance of this place as a goldfield can scarcely be exaggerated.' This led to the rapid development of a township to provide an infrastructure for the increasing population. This development included the construction of a number of hotels, of which the Grand Hotel was one of the most elaborate.
The land on which the Grand Hotel was to be constructed was originally part of the huge portion 247 of 640 acres, acquired in 1883 by members of the Mount Morgan Mine syndicate. It was subdivided in 1895 and leased to a number of people who probably had constructed dwellings and commercial buildings on it. In September 1900 a lease on sub 1 of section 6 at the corner of Morgan and Central Streets was acquired by Richard Daniel Shaw. Shaw was an auctioneer and real estate agent although he had held the license on the Leichhardt Hotel in Mount Morgan in 1897. He took out a mortgage for £2000 on his interest in November 1900 and also £4912/1/2 on subs 14-17 in the same block in March 1901.
There was a surge of building in Mount Morgan around the turn of the century and a number of new hotels were built. The Grand Hotel was probably constructed for Shaw and in late 1900 or early 1901 it was being run by Ernest Bale, a hotelier from Rockhampton. Shaw may have had financial problems, because the Queensland National Bank took out a caveat on the mortgage in 1901 and by July the Grand Hotel was being advertised in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin under the proprietorship of W.D. Eaton. It was claimed to feature 'every convenience of a First Class Hotel for families, visitors, tourists and commercial Gentlemen'. The coffee and dining rooms were lighted by gas, a service newly available in Mount Morgan, and a telephone line was installed. This was no doubt of value to the commercial travellers who used the sample rooms, as was its central position with regard to the railway station, post office, court house and central business district. A two storey building across the lane from the hotel on Central Street was constructed as a guest house to take the overflow of guests from the Grand, probably its long term boarders. Eaton did not retain his interest in the hotel, however, and in 1902 it was taken over by Joseph Moulds, an experienced local publican who had previously run the Mountain View Hotel, his lease being formalised in October 1903.
In 1906 the property was formally acquired by the Queensland National Bank as Shaw was declared insolvent in 1904. Moulds died in 1907 and in early 1908 the property, now described as subdivision 1 on section 6 of resubdivision 11 of subdivision B, and measuring about 24 perches, was acquired by Lucy Moulds, his widow. The property was purchased in 1917 by Francis Chardon, a butcher, who presumably purchased it as an investment. In 1923 a major fire occurred in the block along Morgan Street and the School of Arts was destroyed, probably also removing the series of small shops shown abutting the Grand Hotel in a 1913 photograph. In 1929 the hotel passed to James Hayes, a hotelier. Hayes ran the hotel until his death in 1937 although Mrs Hayes and then Charlotte Hayes continued to operate it. The Hayes family acquired the block next to the hotel and in 1949 this and the original subdivision 1 were sold to Richard and Violet McLean, who had been at the Grand since about 1945. In 1989 the hotel passed to the current owner.
Changes occurring to the hotel over time have been relatively minor and include the painting of the bricks, which were originally a rich ochre red with contrasting cement render detail. The verandah facing Morgan Street on the upper level has been built in and some alterations to ground floor walls and the furnishing and decoration of the bars has occurred.
The bat wing doors that were originally on the corner entrance of the hotel survive as exhibits in the local museum.
","criteria":"Mining has played an important role in the development of Queensland and Mt Morgan was an extraordinarily rich mine that operated for over a hundred years, making a major contribution to the economy of the state and the development of the region. As good quality hotel from an important period in the development of the township, the Grand Hotel demonstrates the rapid growth and importance of the field at the beginning of the twentieth century.
|The Grand Hotel is important as a good example of a substantial regional hotel, designed for a prominent site and employing strong architectural features, including a corner tower and well detailed verandahs to attract custom.
|Because the Grand Hotel is a local landmark, being prominently sited on the major street intersection in the town, and is a well composed building of architectural merit it makes an important contribution to the streetscape and character of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15519,"place_ref":600744,"name":"Masonic Temple Mount Morgan","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Gordon Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Mount Morgan Masonic Temple is a substantial two storeyed brick and concrete building facing Gordon street. It has a rectangular floor plan and a gabled roof, concealed by a prominent pedimented parapet on the principal facade. This facade is elaborate and classically inspired with a prominent, centrally located entrance portico. It is constructed from face brick with concrete detailing including quoining, base course, pilasters, pediment and entablature. The entrance comprises two substantial banded columns supporting a round arched vaulted awning which shades a double timber door surmounted by a round arched fanlight. On the fanlight is lettering 'MASONIC HALL AD 1903'.
Flanking the entrance of the Masonic Hall are two round arched window openings surrounded by quoining. At the level of the first floor line is a substantial cement rendered band, divided into three rectangular moulded panels with four blocks which support paired Doric order pilasters. Between the pairs of columns are square headed window openings, surrounded by cement rendered moulding. The pilasters seem to support a simple entablature at roof level which is surmounted by a triangular pediment which expands over the width of the this facade. The tympanum features a large central eye motif flanked by foliated mouldings.
There is a large supper room on the ground floor which is used for a variety of social events. The floor above has been braced by inserting a grid of large steel 'I' beams below the ceiling of this room. The upper floor is reached by decorative timber stairs and contains a anteroom leading into the lodge room. This is very intact and appears to retains its original furniture.
Modern facilities have been housed in additions rather than in the main building. A small timber kitchen annexe with a lean-to roof has been added to the rear south east corner and on the north west side of the building there is a 2 storey addition constructed of unpainted concrete blocks. It is affixed to the temple, but the original wall and windows have not been removed or altered. This contains toilets, a small kitchenette on the upper floor and storage space.
","history":"The Mount Morgan Masonic Temple was constructed in about 1903 to the design of Rockhampton architects, Eaton and Bates. The building was constructed by Newman Brothers for a cost of about £1500.
The township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims were made before 1882, the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top in that year. In July they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen before selling out to them 1886 when the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was formed. The township quickly developed, establishing infrastructure for the rapidly increasing population. The company continued until 1929 when a new company and continued to produce gold and copper until it closed in 1990.
Discussions about forming a Masonic Lodge in Mount Morgan were held soon after the town was established in 1882, although it was not until 29 May 1888 that an official meeting with the purpose of forming a lodge was held. On June 17, 1888 a second meeting was held and a resolution was passed 'that a Masonic Lodge be formed in Mount Morgan under the Scottish Constitution'. On 4 August 1888 a Lodge was officially formed and the first meeting held in the local Oddfellows' Hall. The Lodge met in many different places and in 1896 passed a resolution 'that the lodge take into consideration the advisability of purchasing a piece of ground for the purpose of building a Masonic Hall'.
After land in Gordon Street was secured in 1901, a competition was held for the design of the Masonic Temple. A newspaper article in the Queensland Times of Ipswich mentions that a Brisbane architect had been chosen, although Mr Haenke as runner up was to 'hold himself in readiness' should the unnamed Brisbane architect be unable to reduce the scope of his design to the budget of about £1000. However on 10 August 1901 the Lodge met again and reconsidered the tenders, deciding that the design of Messrs Eaton and Bates of Rockhampton was the most appropriate. An article in the Rockhampton Times of 1903 reads
The building is a handsome structure of brick, two stories high and with a composite front. The lower portion of the hall may be used as a dining room and made available for dancing and other functions. The cost was £1500, and was erected by Newman Bros of Rockhampton under supervision of TG Cornes, from the plan of Messrs Eaton and Bates, who were the successful architects when competitive designs were called.
Eaton and Bates were a partnership of GT Eaton and AE Bates who opened an office in Rockhampton in 1894 and following success, opened branch offices throughout Central Queensland. The partnership were responsible for many buildings throughout Queensland including a large number of hotels and other commercial buildings.
A small kitchen extension has been added towards the rear and there is a two storey concrete block addition to the side. These do not impinge on the original section of the building which is very intact.
","criteria":"The building, a substantial regional example of a Masonic Temple, was constructed in about 1903 and demonstrates the growth and prominence of Mount Morgan in the early twentieth century and the spread of Freemasonry through Queensland in the wake of European settlement.
|The building is an excellent example of a substantial masonry Masonic Temple, a category of building prominent in the streetscape and important in the social life of many regional towns.
|It is a well composed and interesting building of considerable architectural merit and, located on a hilltop, has landmark qualities
|The Masonic temple has a special association with those Freemasons living in and around Mt Morgan and with the Freemasonry movement as an early temple in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15520,"place_ref":600745,"name":"Mount Morgan Courthouse and Police Station Complex","alternate_name":"Court House and Police Station","street_address":"28 Hall Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Mount Morgan Courthouse and Police Station Complex comprises a collection of government buildings standing on a large site near the centre of Mount Morgan. Features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSite Layout and Views
\nThe site has a high flat area along the eastern half occupied by the Courthouse at one end and the Police Sergeant’s Residence at the other, facing opposite directions. Between them in the centre of the site is the Lock-up and the Lock-up Keeper’s Residence, both of which face west, and the Former Police Horse Stable. The western part of the site slopes considerably down to the west and is the former Police Horse Paddock.
\nThe buildings are arranged on the site to clearly express a distinction between the court (north) and police (south) functions, the buildings’ individual functions, and the relationships between buildings.
\nThe Courthouse faces Hall Street, is the most visually striking building on the site, and the only masonry building. It is surrounded by landscaped open space and is prominent within the Hall Street streetscape, with attractive views of the building obtained from Hall Street.
\nThe police station buildings are arranged in accordance with their original functions. The Police Sergeant’s Residence is located facing Pattison Street with an open area of land beside it originally occupied by the police barracks (demolished). Both buildings originally had a public function. The Lock-up Keeper’s Residence and Lock-up retain a visual connection between each other across open space, although the Lock-up has been moved further east from its original location. The Former Stable and Police Horse Paddock retain a clear ‘laneway’ path between them (used for moving horses) running immediately south of the Lock-up Keeper’s Residence.
\nCourthouse (1899)
\nThe Courthouse is a highly-intact, one-storey, brick building with smooth-stuccoed exterior and hipped roof. It stands on a flat platform of land formed in the sloping terrain.
\nThe building is symmetrically-arranged and its external form expresses the internal spaces, comprising a large central double-height court room flanked by shorter, small rooms (court offices and a witness room). The core roof, verandah roofs, and window hoods are clad with rib-and-pan metal sheets.
\nFacing Hall Street, the front elevation has a large central entrance portico in a restrained Classical Revival style. It has a broad cement rendered stair and columns and pilasters supporting a deep, moulded entablature. Modest moulded cornices wrap around the building and a short parapet conceals the roof.
\nMasonry stairs lead up to side and rear timber-framed verandahs, which shelter the lower doors and windows. High-level windows into the court room are above the verandah roof. Two stucco chimneys with octagonal pots rise from the two rooms south of the courtroom.
\nAn early (1908), small extension is attached to the rear (southwest) corner of the building, accommodating a strong room.
\nFeatures of the Courthouse also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nNOTE: joinery and timber furniture courtroom (witness box; prisoners dock; clerk of petty sessions desk; gallery rail; public screen/partition) have been removed from the building c2007 and are in storage
\nFeatures of the Courthouse not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLock-up (1887, moved to site and extended 1900, turned 180 degrees and moved eastwards within the site 1979)
\nThe Lock-up is a highly-intact, one-storey timber-framed and -clad building that stands at a distance behind (south of) the Courthouse. It is small and lowset with a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a verandah along the eastern side providing access to a series of five detention cells.
\nThe northern two cells and verandah at this end are the 1887 section from the original police station/senior constable’s residence (the extension line is clearly visible in the weatherboards). The other cells and verandah are 1900. The cells each have a sturdy metal security door with large deadbolts and hatches and high-level openings with bars and gauze.
\nAt the southern end of the verandah is an enclosure accommodating a Charge Office.
\nThe building stands in an open space with a visual connection between it and the Lock-up Keeper’s Residence across its former location.
\nFeatures of the Lock-up also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Lock-up not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLock-up Keeper’s Residence (1900)
\nThe Lock-up Keeper’s Residence is a highly-intact, modest, low-set timber-framed and -clad house with a gable roof. It faces west across the Horse Paddock to Central Street. It has a front verandah along three front rooms and a back verandah with a small kitchen at the north end and a bathroom at the south end.
\nThe rear verandah has a later lean-to extension accommodating a laundry, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Lock-up Keeper’s Residence also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nNOTE: the original metal roof fleche was removed from the building c2015
\nFeatures of the Lock-up Keeper’s Residence not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPolice Sergeant’s Residence (1887, moved to site and re-erected 1899)
\nThe Police Sergeant’s Residence is a highly-intact, modest, low-set timber-framed and -clad house facing south to Pattison Street. Standing in a small house yard, it has a front verandah along three front rooms and a back verandah with a perpendicular rear kitchen wing.
\nThe rear verandah has a later lean-to extension accommodating a laundry, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Police Sergeant’s Residence also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Police Sergeant’s Residence not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPolice Horse Paddock (1900) and Former Stable (by 1900)
\nThe Police Horse Paddock is an open grassed area of sloping land along the length of the west side of the site.
\nFeatures of the Police Horse Paddock state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Police Horse Paddock not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Former Stable (by 1900) is a small skillion-roofed building standing near the eastern boundary of the site, east of the Lock-up, that has been extended and converted to a car garage. The building has had its feed and harness room (originally on the eastern end) mostly demolished. Its three stalls have been combined into one space and the building has been extended to the south (in two stages) to accommodate two cars. The wall framing stands on short stumps.
\nThe Former Stable was not inspected internally.
\nFeatures of the Former Stable of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Former Stable not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Mount Morgan Courthouse and Police Station Complex Not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of the place not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n","history":"
The Mount Morgan Courthouse and Police Station Complex was established 1899-1900, replacing and incorporating buildings from the town’s original courthouse and police station on a new site. The new courthouse and police station complex was built during the peak production period at Mount Morgan’s gold mine to administer the growing population. Located near the centre of Mount Morgan, the complex comprises a Courthouse (1899), Lock-up Keeper’s Residence (1900), a Lock-up, and Police Sergeant’s Residence (both built 1887 as the original Mount Morgan Police Station, a single building, and separated and moved to the site in 1900). The court function was removed from Mount Morgan in 1991, after which the courthouse served as a police station. The buildings are highly intact, include rare features, and are excellent examples of the high quality designs of the Department of Public Works.
\nMount Morgan mine [QHR 600751] was Queensland’s most productive gold and copper mine. Established in 1882, it produced more gold per annum than any other mine in Queensland through the rest of the 19th century, peaking in 1889 of with an annual yield of about 323,542oz (9,172kg) of gold. Mining focus shifted to copper in 1906, and Mount Morgan became Queensland’s leading copper producer for nearly 20 years. Over nearly a century of operation, Mount Morgan produced 360,000 tonnes of copper and about 250 tonnes of gold, making it one of the richest single gold mines in the world.[1]
\nThe town of Mount Morgan grew rapidly after the mine was established. Subdivisions were surveyed in 1884, and civic services were established between 1886 and 1891. Police and justice were initially administered from Rockhampton, 40km away, but by 1887 the large scattered population (estimated at 3,000 within a five-mile radius) justified constructing police and court services within the town.[2] Constables were assigned to Mount Morgan in mid-1887.[3] The first police station was designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and built by contractor John Wotherspoon in late 1887 and early 1888, at a cost of £755. It stood on a site leased from the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, some distance from the present complex. It was a lowset timber-framed building with a U-shaped plan, built as a combined station and police residence. It accommodated the senior constable and his family, an office for three constables, two prisoner cells, and a separate stable building. Similar combined police station/residences were built at Irvinebank (1886), Emu Park (1892), and Laidley (1892).[4]
\nA timber courthouse was constructed next to the police station in 1888. Mount Morgan had been appointed as a place at which Courts of Petty Sessions could be held in October 1887, granting it jurisdiction over minor matters, including criminal misdemeanours, civil disputes, small debts, and administrative matters. The court was presided over by a Police Magistrate who visited the town on scheduled court dates.[5]
\nMount Morgan’s population reached 3,514 in 1891, and its policing and justice capability was increased. A resident Police Magistrate/Mining Warden was appointed in 1895, and Mount Morgan’s police presence doubled between 1896 and 1899. Over 900 mining applications, 256 police cases, 242 small debts cases, 11 publican’s license hearings and £1048 of Petty Sessions matters were processed in the courthouse in 1896.[6] The courthouse was too small for the volume of hearings and reportedly in poor condition, so in 1897 Mount Morgan residents advocated for a new courthouse building. Simultaneously, the Rockhampton-based police inspector advised that Mount Morgan’s two-room barracks was too small for the six officers stationed there. The DPW agreed to construct a combined complex with courthouse and police station/barracks, on a site closer to the centre of Mount Morgan. A 1-acre 1-rood (5058.5m2) site adjoining the municipal reserve in Hall Street was gazetted as a police reserve in August 1898. The site was divided roughly in half, the northern half to be used for the courthouse, and the southern half for the police station complex.[7]
\nThe new courthouse, facing Hall Street, was completed by July 1899. Rather than a new building, the original timber police station/residence and the courthouse building were moved to the site in late 1899. With little alteration, the original police station building was re-erected on the southeast of the site, facing Pattison Street, and became a police sergeant’s residence. The original courthouse was re-erected west of it, also facing Pattison Street, and converted to a police barracks (not extant). A standalone lock-up (detached from the original police station and extended) and a new lock-up keeper’s residence were built near the centre of the site. The work was completed by contractors Doyle and Gilbert at a cost of £1,272. The new complex did not include a separate police station, which likely functioned from the police barracks.[8]
\nThe grouping of the courthouse and police facilities with lock-up, accommodation and a stable, in a single complex, followed a common practice in Queensland. Similar complexes were built at Toowoomba, Croydon, Bundaberg, Birdsville, Ravenswood and Roma. The colocation of police and court buildings had numerous advantages. It allowed the entire justice process from arrest to trial to be provided expediently on a single site, facilitated prisoner management for police and kept alleged criminals from the public. Onsite, buildings and fencing were carefully arranged to separate police officers’ families from the prisoners’ pathway from lock-up to court.[9]
\nThe courthouse and police station complex became the administrative centre of the Mount Morgan district. In the absence of a separate government building, the complex housed the mining warden, electoral, banking, insurance, and social welfare facilities. The jury room served as a map room, and the Clerk of Petty Sessions office doubled as the land agent’s office. The court also served briefly as a District Court (1899-1903), with jurisdiction over an area 25 miles (40km) from the courthouse. Courthouse staff and police held social functions in the building. The site was extended to 2 acres (8094m2) in 1913, encompassing a realignment of Central Street.[10]
\nMount Morgan’s population peaked in 1909 at just under 10,000, dropping to just under 4,000 by the 1940s. After the last truckload of ore was removed from Mount Morgan mine in 1981, the population dropped below 3,000 people. The court function was removed to Rockhampton in 1991, though the police function remained, and the complex has since functioned solely as a police precinct.[11]
\nCourthouse (1899)
\nThe courthouse was designed by the DPW under the supervision of Government Architect Alfred Barton Brady. Tenders were called in May 1898, and contractor John Macfarlane’s was accepted. It was constructed at a cost of £2,995, with purpose-built furniture was supplied by Williams and Graham for £234.[12]
\nBetween the 1870s and early 1900s the DPW, operating from Brisbane to design Government buildings across Queensland, produced a remarkable and substantial body of high quality civic buildings that were ‘equal to any in the country’[13], including customs houses, post offices, and a number of regional courthouses such as those at Maryborough (1877), Bowen (1880), Mackay (1886), Charters Towers (1886), Rockhampton (1896), Roma (1901), and Gympie (1902). By 1899 the DPW was a large team of 20 draftsmen, one junior draftsman, and included other acclaimed Queensland architects Thomas Pye, John Smith Murdoch, and George David Payne.[14]
\nThe Mount Morgan courthouse was characteristic of the DPW’s designs, and the building fits within the notable collection of similar courthouses and civic buildings built in regional centres across Queensland. It was a symmetrical, rendered brick building with Classical Revival stylistic treatments and comprised a rectangular core with a prominent front portico with tall columns. The building had a hipped roof with three ‘Boyles’ ventilators. Rooms projected from each corner of the core, which were connected by side and rear verandahs. Sills and steps were of slate. The style and material of the courthouse were intended to convey a sense of stability, dignity, and the power of the law. The use of brick was uncommon – most Queensland regional courthouses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were built in timber – and the Mount Morgan courthouse is one of only eleven known surviving 19th century masonry courthouses in Queensland.[15]
\nInternally, rooms were laid out to delineate the court’s functions. The central and most substantial room was the courtroom (47x32ft) (14x10m). Other rooms were arranged around it, including jury room (20x14ft) (6x4.2m), offices for judges, land agent and petty sessions clerk, barristers’ room, and witnesses’ room (all 14ft2) (4.2m2). Separate entrances for witnesses, defendants, judge, and jurors ensured the correct movement of people through the court, keeping all parties separate before entering the courtroom, and preventing witnesses from hearing court proceedings. Deliberately positioned furniture also defined court functions. The judge or magistrate presided from a raised bench, which faced the main public entrance, dominated the courtroom, and elevated the judge. A Clerk of Petty Sessions’ desk sat directly in front of the bench. A witness box was attached to the bench, near the witnesses’ entrance door. Defendants faced the judge from an elevated dock, located opposite the bench. A barristers’ table stood in the centre of the room between the bench and the dock. The western wall featured a reporters’ gallery, and a jury’s enclosure was on the eastern wall. A public gallery, nearest the entrance, was separated from the courtroom by a hardwood rail running the width of the room, and an 8ft (2.4m) high timber screen near the front door hid proceedings from passing view.[16]
\nSessions of the Police, Magistrate’s, Petty Sessions, Warden, Licensing, Summons, Coroner’s, Children’s, Industrial, Small Debts, Inquiry and Fair Rents courts were heard at the courthouse, presided over by a police magistrate, mining warden, petty sessions clerk or justice of the peace. Alterations were made through the 20th century to accommodate government functions. A strong room was added to the rear in 1908 to provide fire-proof storage for court records. In 1917 a bench was installed in the former Clerk of Petty Sessions’ room for the State Savings Bank and State Insurance Office. A Baby and Child Welfare clinic operated from the courthouse from 1935, and was converted to police sleeping quarters in 1940. The Mount Morgan police, outgrowing their buildings, began moving into offices in the courthouse. The former jury room was partitioned, and a door opening was created between it and its side verandah. In 1957 the police inspector complained that the facilities were ‘totally inadequate’.[17] Small reconfigurations followed, as the space occupied by the police gradually increased, but these had little impact on the building.[18]
\nThe courthouse furniture remained in place until 2008 when the courtroom was transformed into a police day room. Two new offices were created in the space using removable partitions. Door openings were created between the former courtroom and witnesses’ and barristers’ rooms. Toilets and a shower were installed in the former jury room, and a holding cell was built into the former Clerk of Petty Sessions’ room. All verandahs were enclosed. Other changes were made to facilitate equitable access and add air-conditioning and other services.[19]
\nIn 2020 the courthouse furniture remains in storage.
\nLock-up (1887, moved to site and modified 1900)
\nThe lock-up was originally constructed within a rear wing to the 1887 police station building. It comprised two cells and a verandah. In 1899-1900, this was detached from the rest of the building, moved to the complex site, and extended with three further cells. It was re-erected just east of a new lock-up keeper’s residence, in a fenced prisoners’ yard. After its extension, it was a small lowset weatherboard-clad building with a corrugated iron gable roof and a west-facing verandah accessing the series of cells. An enclosure at the south end of the verandah accommodated a charge office. Accessed via heavy doors, the cells were lined internally and had a small high-set window. The end cell was padded, as recommended by the Rockhampton police inspector in 1897, ‘for the use of persons taken into custody on suspicion of being of unsound mind’.[20] The inspector’s recommendation reflected contemporary practices and attitudes towards mental health. The judicial process was the preferred means of committing people with mental health issues to institutions. The first stage of this process was usually apprehension by the police, reflecting the perceived association between insanity and criminality.[21] However, padded cells could be used for any prisoners considered at risk of harming themselves, a practice which continues into the 21st century.[22]
\nThe cell was originally lined with padded canvas, and replaced in 1941 and 1970 to the same or similar design. Intact early padded cells in standard timber lock-ups are extremely rare; of the 75 known extant standard timber lock-ups in Queensland, Mount Morgan is the only one with a padded cell. Many modern watch houses contain a padded cell, but the padding is of a non-flammable material.[23]
\nThe lock-up has remained largely unaltered since its 1900 re-erection. In the 1940s, the verandah was meshed in, forming a prisoner exercise area. The verandah ceiling has been relined; an enclosed shower cubicle was added to the northern end of the verandah; and toilet pedestals were installed in the two northernmost cells between 1962 and 1966. As standards changed, prisoners were transferred to modern lock-ups in Rockhampton. The early timber cells were decommissioned and used as storage facilities. However, two cells remained in sporadic use, and in 1979, following complaints about its proximity to the lock-up keeper’s residence, the lock-up was turned 180 degrees to face its verandah away from the residence and moved east to its present location further away.[24]
\nLock-up Keeper’s Residence (1900)
\nThe lock-up keeper’s residence was built in 1900 to a DPW design. It was a small lowset timber-framed two-bedroom cottage with a gable roof. The rectangular core comprised three rooms (two bedrooms and a sitting room) in a line and had a front and rear verandah. A kitchen and small storeroom projected from the rear at the southern end of the house and an enclosure at the north end of the rear verandah accommodated a bathroom.[25]
\nThe lock-up keeper’s role was performed by one of the police constables stationed at Mount Morgan, and his family occupied the residence. The lock-up was initially located about 3m from the rear of the residence, causing considerable discomfort to the keeper’s family, which at times included small children. In 1939, following complaints about the prisoners’ bad language, lack of privacy, and danger to the family, the rear verandah was ‘boarded up and latticed’.[26] Both verandahs were completely enclosed in 1979.[27]
\nPolice Sergeant’s Residence (1887, moved to site and re-erected 1900)
\nThe police sergeant’s residence, built in 1887 as the original police station/senior constable’s residence and moved to its present site in 1899-1900, required only minor adaptation for use as a sergeant’s residence. The building was a modest, lowset timber-framed building with a front and rear verandah and a gable roof with a ventilator. With a U-shaped plan, after re-erection it accommodated a sitting room, dining room with fireplace, three bedrooms, a kitchen and a detached bathroom. An enclosure on the rear verandah formed a storeroom. All rooms opened onto verandahs, facilitating natural ventilation. The bedrooms on the western side (originally a constables’ office and kitchen), were interconnected, as were the dining and sitting rooms (originally the sitting room and bedroom respectively).[28]
\nShortcomings of the residence, including lack of space and tendency to overheat, were reported in the mid-20th century. During the 1930s and 1940s, the sergeant’s four children slept on the front verandah, but a request for a new side verandah ‘sleep-out’ was refused. Both verandahs were eventually enclosed with lattice, and the rear verandah used as a dining area. The storeroom was converted into a bathroom.[29]
\nPolice Horse Paddock and Stable
\nHorses were essential for 19th and 20th century Queensland policing. Police reserves, including a stable and police horse paddock, were gazetted in all Queensland police towns. At Mount Morgan, a mounted officer was assigned to the station from 1887, and stables were built for both the courthouse and police station by 1900. The police stable was built on the eastern boundary at the centre of the site behind the Police Sergeant’s Residence, opening in this direction, away from the Courthouse. It was a small building of three stalls, harness and fodder room, and housed the police troop horses.[30]
\nA horse paddock was formed at the sloping western side of the complex, fronting Central Street. Fenced yards around the buildings were arranged to allow the police horses to be led from the stable on the high, flat eastern land to the western paddock. In addition to accommodating the police horses, the paddock served as confiscation and evidence storage for horses and vehicles.[31]
\nAs motor cars replaced horses in Queensland policing from the 1920s, stable buildings were converted to motor garages for police vehicles. Mount Morgan was allocated a police motor cycle in the 1930s but retained its troop horse. A shed was repurposed for the assigned police vehicle in 1939.[32]
\nThe proximity of the stable to the police residence caused distress to the occupants of the residence. In 1948 the stable was proposed for removal to the horse paddock, but the move was refused. By the 1950s, a horse was no longer stationed at Mount Morgan. The Chamber of Commerce proposed the use of the horse paddock for police residences in 1954, which was also refused. Police stationed at Mount Morgan were allowed to use the stable for their private vehicles from 1956. The stable was in poor condition, so they were repaired, extended and converted to accommodate large cars, including the removal of the fodder and harness room.[33]
\nOther Buildings
\nThe site formerly contained detached toilets which are no longer extant. The other buildings on the site, including radio communications equipment, toilet block, and sheds were constructed after 1960. A new police residence was built on the southwest corner of the site in 1978.[34]
","criteria":"Mount Morgan Courthouse and Police Station Complex, established on its current site in 1899-1900, demonstrates the growth and importance of Mount Morgan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the town’s gold and copper mine became Queensland’s most productive and achieved its highest per annum gold production. The complex was established to accommodate an increasing workload generated by mining and the area’s rapidly expanding population.
\nHighly intact, the Complex is important in demonstrating the government’s provision of court and police services in regional centres across Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is representative of the common co-location of police and court functions in precincts, facilitating the administration of justice on a single site.
|The Complex’s Lock-up retains the only known intact example of an early padded cell within a 19th century standard timber lock-up in Queensland.
|Mount Morgan Courthouse and Police Station Complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th/early 20th century justice complex in regional Queensland. Highly intact and with a high degree of integrity, the complex retains its: Courthouse (1899); Lock-up Keeper’s Residence (1900); Lock-up (1887/1900); Police Sergeant’s Residence (1887/1900); and Former Stable (by 1900), designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and with open spaces and relationships between buildings that reflects court and police functions, on a site central to the town; and its Police Horse Paddock (1900).
\nThe Courthouse is a highly intact example of a late 19th century courthouse in regional Queensland and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. This includes its: prominent central location in the town; high quality materials, construction, and design by the DPW; use of classical architectural style and symmetry; and an internal layout of rooms that reflects the court’s functions.
\nBuilt as the town’s first police station in 1887, the Police Sergeant’s Residence is highly intact and important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century police station in regional Queensland. This includes its: timber-framed and -clad lowset construction; symmetrical design; hipped roof with ventilator; verandahs; U-shaped floor plan with front rooms for official police business, a rear wing of domestic rooms, and a second rear wing for a kitchen and prisoner cells. Although the cells have been detached from the building and extended, they remain nearby on the site (the Lock-up).
\nBuilt as the rear wing of the town’s first police station in 1887, separated and extended in 1900 to form a freestanding building, the Lock-up is highly intact and important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th/early 20th century lock-up in regional Queensland. This includes its: timber-framed and -clad lowset construction; gable roof with roof ventilator and verandah; cells (including a padded cell) of robust construction in a serial arrangement; heavy, metal cell doors with observation hatch and deadbolts; and highset, barred windows.
\nHighly intact, the Lock-up Keeper’s Residence is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century police lock-up keeper’s residence in Queensland. This includes its: unobstructed visual relationship with the Lock-up; timber-framed and -clad lowset construction; gable roof; verandahs; and linear floor plan with projecting rear kitchen/service wing.
|The courthouse is important for its aesthetic significance brought about by its symmetrical, high quality design and construction, and use of classical architectural style by which the Queensland Government sought to convey a sense of order and justice.
\nStanding in a prominent, elevated location with an open front garden, the courthouse is impressive in the streetscape with attractive views from Hall Street to the building and its front portico.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15521,"place_ref":600746,"name":"Commonwealth Bank (former)","alternate_name":"Queensland Savings Bank","street_address":"38 Morgan Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Commonwealth Bank building is situated on the corner of Morgan and Central Streets, Mount Morgan, in the north east corner of the Central State School site. It is a single storey, timber framed structure, clad with horizontal weatherboards and set on low stumps. The building has a rectangular plan, truncated at the corner facing the intersection of the two streets to allow for a principal corner entrance. This is below an entrance gable and is accessed by concrete steps and shaded by a small cantilevered awning. The vented hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron sheeting which extends over the former verandahs. To the south is a skillion roof extension which houses the strong room and offices. There is also a fibrous cement clad extension on the south east corner which accommodates toilets. Banks of glass louvres under the eaves line the north and west sides of the building, which address the streets. The eastern side has a pair of sash windows shaded by a single sunhood.
The interior is now largely open plan, although a change in ceiling height demonstrates the position of former verandahs. The walls and ceiling are lined with tongue and groove boards. To the south are offices and a strong room with a heavy metal door inserted into a brick section between the timber office and toilets extension.
","history":"The former Commonwealth Bank at Mount Morgan was constructed in 1913 as the Queensland Government Savings Bank, and became a branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 1921.
The Queensland Government Savings Bank was established by one of the earliest pieces of legislation enacted by the government of the new colony of Queensland in 1861. Intended to encourage small deposit saving by working people, savings banks could be established by the gazettal of an application by ten or more house or landholders in any community of more than 500 people. In 1864, the Government Savings Bank Bill provided a government guarantee to protect trustees and deposits and to allow depositors to easily transfer accounts from one town to another. It was a great success and on 9 May 1887, the Savings Bank opened an agency at the Mount Morgan Post Office.
The township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims occurred before 1882, the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top in that year. In July they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen before selling out to them 1886 when the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was formed. The township quickly developed, establishing an infrastructure for the rapidly increasing population. The Queensland National Bank also opened in Mount Morgan in 1887, although this was a trading, rather than a savings bank, these activities at the time being kept separate.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia was founded under the Commonwealth Bank Act of 1911. This empowered the Bank to transact both savings and trading business under the security of a guarantee from the Federal government. It opened its first branch for business on 15 July 1912 in Melbourne and soon opened agencies in post offices throughout Victoria. The Queensland branch was opened on 16 September 1912. Post offices were used as agencies throughout the country as they had been transferred to Commonwealth control after Federation. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia merged with the state banks of Tasmania in 1912, Queensland in 1920 and Western Australia and New South Wales in 1931.
In 1913 the Queensland Government Savings Bank opened its own branch on the corner of Morgan and Central Streets on an area that was designated a reserve for the purpose. It was a modest timber building with timber dowel balustrades along both streets. The site was adjacent to the Central State School which had constructed its first building nearby in 1887. Subsequent building at the school eventually wrapped around the corner site on which the bank was built.
The business and assets of the Queensland Government Savings Bank were transferred to the Commonwealth Bank on 8 December 1920 and this bank operated from the premises from 3 January 1921. In the 1920s, there were three banks operating in Mount Morgan; the Queensland National Bank, the Bank of New South Wales and the Commonwealth Bank. Following the closure of the Bank of NSW in 1928 and the QN in 1929, the Commonwealth remained the only bank in Mount Morgan until 1950 when the ANZ bank opened a branch there. During the Second World War the Commonwealth Bank, it branches and agencies, acted as an agent for the government. As part of the growth in Australia following the war, home loans were offered from 1946.
By the late 1970s the original verandahs of the bank were enclosed and the exterior walls on these sides were removed to enlarge the interior space available. A set of concrete steps was added around 1980.
In 1990 the Mount Morgan mine closed, leading to a reduction of population and business in the town. The Commonwealth Bank ceased trading from this site in 1998. The building is currently being used as the offices of Learning Network Queensland.
","criteria":"The former Commonwealth Bank as a branch of the Queensland Government Savings Bank demonstrates the regional development of the state and its presence is suggestive of the large number of workers present in the town because of the Mount Morgan Mine.
|The building is characteristic of small timber banks in regional towns, modest in scale and finish, but occupying a prominent corner site.
|The former bank building has aesthetic value for its contribution to the Central State School site, a large complex of timber buildings similar in form, scale and material to which the former bank building, sited prominently at the street intersection, forms a centrepiece.
|As Mount Morgan's only bank for 21 years and one which served the community for the best part of the 20th century, and as the premises of the institution which acted as an agent of the Commonwealth during the war, the former bank building has an important connection with the Mount Morgan community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15522,"place_ref":600747,"name":"Central State School","alternate_name":"Boys School","street_address":"44 Morgan Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Central School buildings are grouped on a site which slopes down towards the intersection of Morgan and Central Streets. They are set amongst extensive plantings including mature pine and jacaranda trees.
The main structures comprising the school are timber buildings with gabled, corrugated iron clad roofs, elevated on stumps of varying heights to accommodate the slope of the site. These buildings are linked with verandahs and breezeways. The group is unified by construction techniques, materials and repetition of the same formal elements even if of different detailing.
A Block, which contains the original 1887 school, is now an administration block. The old hat room adjoining the verandah has storage for records and equipment. The wall which was between the classrooms has been opened but the new facilities have otherwise had a minimal impact on the building. It has a coved ceiling and casement windows with transom lights above at one end and louvres along the sides. There is a clerestory style panel along one side of the roof only.
B Block is the extension built in 1888 and contains the library. This has diagonally boarded ceilings supported by decorated trusses into which a clerestory has been set. It is also lit by panels of hopper windows to the verandah.
E Block, an 1891 building, is particularly well detailed. It has pairs of ornate turned brackets under the eaves at the ends of the building and the verandahs are ceiled with boards set diagonally. A small room is set across the verandah from the classrooms on the southern side. The interior is also ceiled with diagonal boards. The west wall has a large panel of windows which are supplemented by banks of glass louvres down both long sides of the building. The building is divided into two rooms, one of which is a classroom and one the music room. The school bell is mounted on the south west corner of the verandah.
C Block, the 1908 building, has three classrooms and verandahs to the north and south sides. The interior has a coved ceiling, beaded board linings and sash windows with hoppers over. This building is now air-conditioned. There is a lunch area under this building and a new shelter shed in the playground built along traditional lines.
D Block, the 1946 building, has three classrooms and is little different from the earlier buildings. It also has single skin timber walls and a corrugated iron clad gabled roof which extends over verandahs to the east and west. Walls to the verandahs have exposed studs and the interior has a coved ceiling, rooms that open into one another and large panels of windows in the end walls.
F Block, built in 1965, has a brick lower floor with a timber upper floor containing classrooms. Block G, built in 1994, is single storey structure with a metal roof and is sympathetic to the older buildings in form, scale and detail.
There is a timber pergola gateway, very domestic in form, over the entry from Central Street and situated behind later concrete fence posts.
","history":"The Central State School at Mount Morgan was opened in 1887 with an enrolment of 58 pupils, but this number rapidly grew and the first extension was begun the following year. Other buildings have been added as the school continued to expand. Both boys and girls have been taught at the school except during the period 1898-1930 when a separate girls' and infants' school operated elsewhere.
\nThe township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims occurred before 1882, the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top in that year. In July they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen before selling out to them 1886 when the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was formed. The township quickly developed, establishing infrastructure for the rapidly increasing population. The company continued until 1929 when a new company was formed which continued to produce gold and copper until it closed in 1990.
\nLand was set aside for a school soon after Mount Morgan was surveyed in 1884. In 1870 Queensland had become the first colony to provide free primary education. A Royal Commission on Education in Queensland was set up in 1874 and resulted in a State Education Act which took effect from 1 January 1876 and provided for a Department of Public Instruction under a minister and a system of State primary schools. The government provided a teacher and books, but expected communities with more than 30 potential pupils to put up a third of the school costs. On 5 May 1885 a public meeting was held in Mount Morgan to discuss obtaining a school for the town. Soon afterwards, an application was made to the Department listing the names of 34 eligible children in the district. Fundraising began and the General Manager of the Gold Mining Company, Wesley Hall, made a major contribution to the money raised.
\nThe first building on the school site was opened on 16 May 1887 with 58 pupils, but within a month enrolments had increased to 115 and an extension was built only a year after the opening. This extension increased accomodation almost threefold, but by May 1888, with the population in Mount Morgan rapidly increasing as the field boomed, enrolments at the school had reached 346 children with a teaching staff of 7. The school was further extended in 1891 and by 1897 had 871 pupils. By this time, not only was the school considered unhealthily overcrowded, but there were concerns expressed about the mixing of the sexes, thought inappropriate at the time. It was decided to build a second school for girls and children of both sexes under 7 years of age. The Girls' and Infants' School was built in Pattison Street and opened in August 1897.
\nOther schools opened in the district in the 1900s and the Boys' School was extended again with the addition of a new building in 1908. On 1 January 1929 the school became a mixed school again while pupils from grades 6 and 7 moved to the Intermediate School which was later to become the Mount Morgan State High School. In 1946 a building was moved to the site from the closed school at Walterhall, a suburb of Mount Morgan. This is now D Block. Facilities at the school have continued to expand with the construction of F Block in 1965 and an adventure playground in 1979. G Block was constructed in 1994.
\nAlterations were made to the 1887 A Block in late 1996-7 to provide better administration facilities and the refurbished building was officially opened on 29 July 1997.
","criteria":"The Central State School demonstrates the growth of Mount Morgan following the discovery of gold and the opening of the Mount Morgan Mine in 1886. The complex of buildings, constructed and extended since 1887, also demonstrates the development of timber schools in Queensland
|The buildings comprising the Central School demonstrate the principal characteristics of timber schools, reflecting the ways in which architects of the Works Department have addressed problems of light and ventilation in response to climatic conditions since 1887.
|The site is important for its townscape value, the buildings being unified in material and form to create a visually harmonious group on an important intersection in Mount Morgan.
|The Central School is important for its connection with the community in and around Mount Morgan as a provider of public education for several generations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15523,"place_ref":600748,"name":"Queensland National Hotel (former)","alternate_name":"Wesleyan Mission Hall","street_address":"28 Morgan Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Queensland National Hotel is a symmetrically composed two storey timber building with a central and is located on Morgan Street, Mount Morgan.
The building has an awning to the street supported on timber columns with a verandah to the upper floor. This upper section features three gabled projections, the central one of which is surmounted by an octagonal tower with a lantern. There are cast iron balustrade panels to the upper floor verandah and the tower. The upper verandah to the rear of the building has dowel balustrading and has had rooms inserted for toilets. The hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron.
The core building has exposed studs and is lined with beaded boards. The side verandahs have been built in and fibrous cement sheet and batten cladding applied to that section now used as a dining room. The side verandah on the opposite side of the building is now built in with modern fibrous cement planking.
On the ground floor, rooms open from a central hall with a staircase to the upper floor. There are indications of walls being shifted or removed, which appears to have occurred over many years. At least some original joinery is cedar and the doors, door handles and staircase in the hall are of high quality. The doors into the bar have quite ornate brass and timber handles. The main bar area is now open space without bar counters. Under the front section of the room is a small brick-lined cellar with a concrete floor.
The kitchen was originally detached and is now connected to the main building, though it is on a slightly higher level than the rest of the ground floor. It is lined and ceiled with beaded boards and contains modern kitchen benches and a commercial gas range.
The upper floor appears little changed and has bedrooms opening out from a central hallway with a linen press at the end. The rooms are lined with horizontal beaded boards and have 4 panel doors and clear glass transom lights to the hall with french lights leading on to the verandah.
The tower is accessed through a trapdoor at the top of a narrow stair. There is a small platform from which extensive views of the town and coastal area can be had. It has a timber floor and timber ceiling to the cupola with a balustrade of cast iron panels.
","history":"The Queensland National Hotel is a two storey timber hotel in Mount Morgan, designed in 1890 by Rockhampton architect, John William Wilson, for widow Sarah Heiser who, together with other family members, was to run several hotels in the district.
The township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims occurred before 1882, the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top in that year. In July they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen before selling out to them 1886 when the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was formed. By the following year even the Post Office Directory noted that 'the importance of this place as a goldfield can scarcely be exaggerated.' This led to the rapid development of a township to provide an infrastructure for the increasing population. This development included the construction of a number of hotels, of which the Queensland National was one of the most elaborate.
The land on which the former hotel stands was purchased by James Whitman in 1887. As surveys and land sales on goldfields frequently formalised existing property developments, it is possible that there was already a building on the site and a license had been previously granted to Bridget Schneider for a hotel of this name in Mount Morgan. The site was well located on a high point of land between the Post Office and the Queensland National Bank, from which the hotel is assumed to have taken its name, possibly to help visitors to the town to find it easily. Whitman only held the land briefly before selling it to Alfred Palmer who then sold to Sarah Heiser in 1888. She had held a license for the Queensland National Hotel from 1887 and was one of the earliest publicans in Mt Morgan. In 1890, as the wealth and population of Mount Morgan grew, a splendid new hotel was designed for her by John William Wilson.
Wilson was born in Scotland and immigrated to Ballarat around 1854 where he participated in the Eureka Stockade and is reputed to have designed the Eureka flag. In 1864 he moved to Rockhampton where he worked initially as a builder before setting up an architectural practice there in the early 1870s. During the course of a long career, he designed over 200 buildings in Rockhampton and the surrounding district, including many public and commercial buildings such as the Rockhampton School of Arts, Imperial and Commercial Hotels and the Harbour Board Building.
Mt Morgan boomed in the 1890s and a cluster of other hotels were soon erected. These not only provided much needed accomodation for boarders and visitors to the town, but offered meals, such facilities as sample rooms for commercial travellers and billiard rooms for recreation and acted as informal clubs. These functions made them very important in the life of a town, particularly a mining centre where many single men might be working. Mrs Heiser went on to hold the licences for a second Queensland National Hotel in Bajool and the Metropole in Mt Morgan until she died in 1909. The Queensland National was leased for some of this period, but also run by Zalic Heiser between 1899 and 1909. The hotel was finally put up for sale by the estate in 1925.
The tower of the former hotel is the best observation point in Mt Morgan and was used during WWII by the 'Mt Morgan Volunteer Air Observer Corps' to maintain a 24 hour watch. They informed Rockhampton base of allied aircraft movements to the west and possible enemy aircraft as Mt Morgan, being a source of essential materials, was considered a possible target.
A new mining company was formed in 1929 from the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and continued to produce gold and copper until it closed in 1990. Following the closure of the mine the population of the own reduced sharply. The Queensland National Hotel's license was revoked on 23 July 1992 and the building was put up for sale by auction.
In early 1993 it was purchased by the current owners to serve primarily as venue for church related activities and they took up residence there in 1994. Some modifications were made to the hotel to adapt it for its new use, such as the removal of the bars and refrigerators, but change has been relatively minor. It has been since used for religious services, including weddings, and for youth camps, residential schools, conferences and other events. The number of people using the building fell as people moved away from Mt Morgan and Rockhampton is now the centre of church activities for the region. The last religious service was held in the hotel in 1999 and it was last used for any church purpose in 2000.
","criteria":"Mining has played an important role in the development of Queensland and Mt Morgan was an extraordinarily rich mine that operated for over a hundred years, making a major contribution to the economy of the state and the development of the region. As good quality hotel from the early years of the establishment of the township, the former Queensland National Hotel demonstrates the rapid growth and importance of the field at this time.
|The former Queensland National Hotel is important as a good example of a substantial timber hotel of its era in form and layout, employing strong architectural features and prominent siting to attract custom.
It is connected with the life and work of noted regional architect John William Wilson as a good quality commercial building designed by him.
|Because the former hotel is prominently sited on a high point of the main street in Mount Morgan and is a well composed and detailed building, it makes an important contribution to the streetscape and character of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15524,"place_ref":600749,"name":"School of Arts Hall & Library","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"31 Morgan Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Mount Morgan School of Arts comprises two rectangular timber buildings with gabled roofs set on stumps: a very large hall and an adjacent library of more modest scale, parallel to each other and connected by a timber walkway secured by a gate at either end. The buildings are across the road from the former Queensland National Hotel and are separated by a large vacant block from the Grand Hotel.
The roof of the hall is divided into two sections, that over the rear, stage end of the building is elevated from the principal roof line and reflects the internal space required by a fly tower for raising and lowering scenery. There is an awning to the street supported on timber posts with fretwork brackets linked by a decorative frieze panel. Above the awning in a symmetrical arrangement are large circular and triangular openings filled with fixed timber louvres and two round arched windows. There is a central recessed entrance door flanked by two smaller entrances. On the side of the hall away from the library a small verandah runs along the building in front of the crash doors. A modern toilet block constructed of concrete blocks with a corrugated iron roof adjoins the building. The under stage area at the rear is now used as a child care centre.
The hall interior is a large rectangular space with exposed beams and a timber floor. It is lit by louvred windows in the side walls that also have four sets of crush doors. There is a stage at one end with provision for scenery and a small orchestra pit. The proscenium arch is sheeted with decorative pressed metal. On either side of the front entrance doors are internal stairs that lead up to a large dress circle with a raked floor. This has fold up seating and a projection box which is now empty. Beneath the staircases and extending slightly into the hall are two small ticket boxes. To the right of the main entrance there is a large curved snack bar counter with a laminex top incorporating a small refrigerated showcase. The walls below the gallery are lined with horizontal beaded timber boards and those to the main part of the hall are lined with fibrous cement sheeting.
The School of Arts Library is a simple rectangular building clad with weatherboard. At the front the roof is concealed by a stepped parapet. The central street entrance is flanked by a pair of sash windows. The rear and sides of the building have windows of a domestic scale shaded by sunhoods. It is in currently use as the Municipal library and tourist information centre.
","history":"The School of Arts was opened in Mount Morgan in April 1924 and was the third School of Arts in the town, built following the demolition by fire of the previous building.
The township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims occurred before 1882, the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top in that year. In July they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen before selling out to them in 1886 when the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was formed. The township quickly developed, establishing infrastructure for the rapidly increasing population. The company continued until 1929 when a new company and continued to produce gold and copper until it closed in 1990.
A School of Arts was built in Mount Morgan in 1889 and opened on 11 September 1891. It was destroyed by fire. A School of Arts Reserve was proclaimed in 1895 and a new building was constructed but was also razed by fire on 25 April 1923. A special meeting of the School of Arts Committee was held in the Commonwealth Bank on 26 April 1923 to discuss the erection of another building. The library of the School of Arts was re-opened in St Mary's Institute which was leased by the School of Arts Committee, with books imported from London by the Mount Morgan Mine Manager, AA Boyd.
The School of Arts Committee decided to approach Mr Boyd about the rebuilding of the School of Arts and he agreed that his Company would supply plans for the building. Tenders were called but both tenders submitted were rejected on the basis of price. It was suggested that construction by day labour would reduce costs and the building was eventually erected on this basis by W. Butcher and R.A Ames. The cost was largely covered by a loan of £3000 from the State Government.
The library and reading room were completed and opened to the public in 24 April 1924, the hall itself was opened with a Grand Ball held on 20 August 1924. The hall has been used for a wide variety of purposes, including the screening of films, balls, theatrical performances and most large scale public events occurring in the town. During World War II, American soldiers stationed at Rockhampton used the place for accommodation and recreation.
The hall and library are now operated by the Shire Council.
","criteria":"The Mount Morgan School of Arts hall and library are important as elements in the network of Schools of Arts which sprang up in any town of consequence in Queensland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were community based and played a valuable educational and social role in the dissemination of information and the provision of facilities for lectures, meetings, games of skill and the staging of community events such as balls, plays and concerts.
|They are good examples of School of Arts buildings comprising a hall and library and designed to provide the facilities for a wide range of community cultural events and needs, the large size of the hall demonstrating the size and importance of Mount Morgan in the 1920s.
|The buildings are a significant as part of the townscape of Mount Morgan because of its scale and location close to the town centre.
|The School of Arts is important for its connection with the community of Mount Morgan as an integral part of the social and community life of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15525,"place_ref":600750,"name":"The Coronation Lamp","alternate_name":"The Coronation Light | Boer War Memorial","street_address":"Morgan Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Boer War Memorial is situated in Anzac Park facing West Street in Mount Morgan. The park is on a sloping site with the Mount Morgan Gold and Copper Works in the background. It stands close to the road and is surrounded by mature trees. A sign which displays the name of the park is located directly in front of the memorial.
Also located in the park, directly behind the Boer War Memorial is the First World War Memorial.
The painted concrete memorial comprises a concrete pedestal surmounted by a lamp. The pedestal sits on a base capped with a cyma recta moulding. The pedestal itself has recessed sections with mouldings to each face. The front and rear faces have marble plates with cut and blackened lettering commemorating the local men who fell in the Boer War and celebrating the Coronation. The dado is capped by a large entablature comprising a frieze and cornice of multiple steps and mouldings. The cornice is surmounted by two more steps which form a base for the lamp.
The lamp is a cast iron gas standard, approximately 15 feet high. It is fluted and culminates in an Egyptian capital. Extending from the capital are two iron rods on either side and two fluorescent lights from the top.
","history":"The Coronation Lamp and Boer War Memorial was erected on the 26 June 1902 as part of Mount Morgan's coronation celebrations. The memorial was commissioned by the Municipal Council and is thought to be designed by Arthur Jenks who, at the time, was Clerk of Works for the erection of the Technical College. As well as commemorating the coronation of King Edward VII, it also honours the Mount Morgan troopers who fell in South Africa fighting under the Union Jack. It originally stood at the intersection of Morgan and East Streets, and although known as the Coronation Lamp, the lamp eventually became the site of Anzac Day celebrations, the first in 1916 and also of victory celebrations at the end of the First World War.
In 1947, the Coronation Lamp was relocated to Anzac Park when the main street was bituminised.
The township of Mount Morgan grew with the establishment of what was to become the richest single gold mine in the world. Although small mining claims had occurred previously, in 1882 the three Morgan Brothers pegged claims which encompassed most of the mountain top. In July of the same year, they formed a partnership with three Rockhampton businessmen. They became extremely prosperous before selling out to their partners in 1886 who then formed the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited. The township quickly developed, setting up a much needed infrastructure. The three partners continued the company business until 1929 when a new company was formed after many miners disputes. The mine continued to produce gold and copper until it closed in 1990.
At the time of the Boer War, the citizens of Mount Morgan showed a great deal of patriotism. The local children were encouraged to donate pennies to be melted down to form the huge Mafeking bell which originally hung in the Town Hall.
The Mount Morgan memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state. After the First World War, the construction of war memorials was prolific. Australian war memorials are valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.
Although there are now many different types of memorials throughout Queensland there are few Boer Memorials and only one known one in the form of a lamp. The memorial at Mount Morgan was originally a gas lamp but has since been converted to electricity.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The Boer War Memorial is an important Queensland monument. The memorial was constructed at an early phase of the history of war memorials in the state and is one of the few memorials in Queensland to commemorate the involvement and death of Queensland soldiers in the Boer War of 1899-1902.
|After the First World War, memorials were erected in most Queensland towns, however in 1902, when this memorial was unveiled, they were still quite rare. This particular memorial is also rare as the first known memorial in Queensland to the Boer War and as the only memorial to commemorate both the Boer War and the Coronation of King Edward VII. As a lamp, it is an unusual type of memorial.
|The memorial and its setting contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape. The memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15526,"place_ref":600751,"name":"Mount Morgan Mine Site","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Burnett Highway","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The present form of the Mount Morgan Mine has resulted from mining operations carried out there since the 1880s. Broadly the landscape of the mine is dominated by an open cut mine, several dams and many slag and tailings heaps. The open cut reached a depth of 320 metres below the original summit of Mount Morgan and is about 914 metres by 640 metres in area. A substantial part of the open cut is filled with water and some of the terraces formed during mining are apparent. On all sides of the open cut lie substantial overburden dumps and these form substantial and integral elements of the mine landscape. Another dominant feature of the landscape is the slag heap located near the main entry to the site. The slag was a product of the copper smelting and dates form the earliest copper smelting on the site in about 1900.
\nFormer Lower Works
\nThis is the earliest stage of development and includes the building now known as the old gold room and remnants of part of the plant. The old gold room formed part of the lower chlorination works and was completed in 1886. The building comprises three sections, the small northern wing, large three bay section constructed from rendered brick and recent annexe on the southern end. The remains of two brick tanks from the lower chlorination works and possibly of an early sawmill are in this area.
\nAssay Area
\nThe assay house was originally erected as the original power house in 1897 and converted in 1912. The building is a timber framed and clad structure with gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. Porthole vents punctuate the gabled ends of the building and several metal exhaust flues punctuate the roof. The building known as the research laboratory, located to the east of the assay houses is a single storeyed timber framed building on a brick plinth and with a gabled roof. The brick assay stack (c1908) has a square planned base and octagonal chimney with finely excited decorative brickwork at the junction of the two. Other small buildings in this area include two small brick sheds, a timber framed fibrous cement shed and an old pump shed. A switch room is a small brick building to the north of the assay houses has a corrugated iron clad roof.
\nThe General Office
\nThe general office is a substantial brick building comprising several wings reflecting a long period of development. The building is elevated on brick piers and has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. Wide timber floored verandahs surround the building to which access is provided via a timber twin stair. The interior of this building is generously proportioned and simply detailed. Transoms provide ventilation to each room and roof lights provide natural lighting. The drafting room, (1906) is a large open space with VJ clad partitioning and exposed Queen post trusses below clerestory lighting. Beneath the vinyl of the 1920 hall is a timber block floor.
\nHousing and Surrounding Area
\nThe area of the site has traditionally been used to provide accommodation for some of the staff. A large timber house (c1920) elevated on timber stumps is constructed with a timber frame and cladding. The verandahs of this house have been enclosed. Two large linked timber buildings dating from the 1920s are known as the Director's and senior staff quarters. The elevate position of this building allows views of the river and town. Wide timber verandahs surround the building and a breezeway connects the two structures. Several other houses dating from various periods re found in this area, along with a tennis court (c1912), pool garage (c1950) and store (c1920).
\nLinda Decline Shaft and Winder
\nThe Linda decline shaft and winder comprises a substantial timber framework, winder room and winding equipment. The decline shaft and tunnel (1907) intersects with the open cut below water level and both are now sealed. The headframe of the shaft houses winding equipment and tracks to the shaft along with an original Linda decline man car. The winder building (c1930) is a simple timber framed structure with walls and gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. The original Crompton winder engine remains intact within the winder building. The timber remains of a drillers' shed (c1950) are to the north of the Linda decline. A change room (1929-30) is found adjacent to the headframe and is a timber framed building with walls and gabled roof clad with corrugated iron.
\nWorkshop and Main Upper Works Area
\nA plumbers' workshop (1913-26) is a single storeyed structure of unusual construction. The walls are formed from hand made slag bricks. Timber framing and trusses support the gabled corrugated iron clad roof and a ridge ventilator runs the length of the building. The building is a large open space internally with a mezzanine level supported on timber posts at one end. Early timber moulds are found within the building.
\nCarpenters' Workshop
\nThe carpenters' workshop (1913-26) is a substantial timber framed and clad building elevated on timber stumps. Its gabled roof is supported on timber trusses and clad in corrugated iron. The interior, like that of the other workshop, is essentially a large open space and the building houses a number of early moulds and equipment. To the north of the workshop area is a slab brick retaining wall.
\nAn old workshop (1912-13) accommodates a foundry, machine shop, blacksmiths' shop, fitting shop and boiler shop. This is a substantial building with single and paired timber posts supporting a long gabled corrugated iron clad roof. The sides of the building are generally open although there is also some corrugated iron and timber sheeting. Concrete is used to floor the building, although in some areas the floor is earthen. Several simple timber framed annexes are attached to the eastern side of the workshop.
\nIn this area is also a timber framed and corrugated iron clad bicycle shed (1920); small timber gatehouse with gabled roof; No. 1 Store (1913) which is a rectangular building brick building with slag brick internal partitions with gabled roof clad with corrugated iron; No 2 store (c1945) timber building on concrete slab; second power house (1912) a substantial brick building with timber and steel framed gabled roof clad with corrugated iron containing much early equipment; No 4 Store timber post framed with gabled corrugated iron clad roof.
\nThe Main Stack (1905) is a large brick structure, towering over the site. Recently about 7 metres of brickwork, including corbelling has been removed from the top of the stack due to instability. Both the north and south faces of the stack contain arched openings, the southern one filled in with brickwork.
\nThe upper works and smelter is a complex agglomeration of structures from various periods of development including a coal bunker, chimney flue, brick wall, coal storage area, plant and black tank. Some evidence, including the built up timber and earth foundations of the tracks of the railway in this area remains. Several small buildings known as the smelter offices (1939-40) remain in this area. These building are constructed with a veneer of ash bricks. As well evidence remains of the old No 1 mill, flotation shed and two explosive magazines.
","history":"From about 1865 prospectors were fossicking for gold in the gullies near Ironstone Mountain [as Mount Morgan was then known]. After these initial discoveries of alluvial gold, more substantial finds were made in the early 1870s and efforts were made to file a claim. Three brothers from the Rockhampton based Morgan family pegged out claims on the mountain and named it Mount Morgan after themselves. Ownership of the mine changed hands several times until a Joint Venture was formed between Perilya and Aumin and Mount Morgan Limited in June 1993. The Mount Morgan Mine is now in the ownership of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines.
\nThe first formal mining agreement was drawn up in 1882 between Fred, Tom and Ned Morgan along with three Rockhampton businessmen; Thomas Skarrat Hall, William Knox D'arcy and William Pattison. In 1886 after the Morgan brothers sold their shares and other people became partners, a formal company, the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited was registered on 1 October 1886.
\nThe initial extraction methods used Mount Morgan were a combination of surface extraction from the face of the mountain and shallow underground mining. By 1886 several shafts had been sunk at Mount Morgan and by 1893 more than 4000 metres of tunnels and 1400 metres of vertical shafts (winzes) were completed. A shaft sunk in 1903-5, known as the main shaft, was the largest example in Australia. Mount Morgan pioneered electric winding gear technology at this shaft, which was the first of its kind in the country.
\nBy 1894 excavations extended to a depth of 48 metres and by 1896 steam shovels and steam engines were replacing picks and shovels, extending the open cut. A further advancement of technology occurred in the early 1890s with the use of mill or glory holes involving a passage and a series of underground hoppers with tramway trucks. Mount Morgan was noted for this system. Underground workings were established in 1886 and were developed extensively by 1891. These works were based on a chamber system, and this system was used until the early 1920s.
\nProductivity at Mount Morgan Mine has fluctuated over the course of its history. The highest production of gold was achieved during the period from 1887 to 1897, after which production fell. During the period from 1906-7 the production focus of the mine changed from gold to copper but falling copper prices impacted adversely on this. From 1932 open cut mining operations increased both copper and gold production.
\nAlong with fluctuating productivity, the ownership of the company changed several times over the years. In July 1914, shareholders of the company approved the establishment of a Melbourne board of directors. None of the original members remained on the board and power was removed from Queensland. The 1920s signalled a period of unrest at the mine, and this, combined with a fire and subsequent flooding of the underground works led to the demise of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited in 1927.
\nIn 1928, Adam Alexander Boyd, a former manager of the mine, formed a new company, Mount Morgan Limited, and a new era in the development of the Mount Morgan mine began. During the earliest days of the company's establishment, income was derived from recovering copper from water in the mine. Falling copper prices and a lack of finance, however, were creating problems for the company. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 meant that liquidation again looked certain.
\nIn 1932, however, the Queensland Government decided to subsidise the gold mining industry as part of a scheme aimed at increasing employment and open cut mining began in earnest. The intention of the government to assist the gold mining industry came at a crucial time for the future of Mount Morgan Limited. Extensive open cut mining and rebuilding commenced in the same year. So successful was the mine over a short period of time that, within eight months the initial loan of £15,000 was repaid and further government assistance was not required. By 1982, the open cut mine at Mount Morgan was the largest human manufactured hole in Australia. At this time, the cut had extended approximately 320 metres below the original summit of Mount Morgan. Between 1932 and the exhaustion of the ore body in 1981, the open cut produced 41,000,000 tonnes of ore and 89,000,000 million tonnes of waste.
\nThe enormous wealth generated by the mine left its mark on the surrounding region, however, the development of the towns of Mount Morgan and Rockhampton show vastly contrasting evidence of success. Although inseparable from the mine, the town of Mount Morgan reflected little of the fortunes made during mining days. The town was largely for the working miners, with few examples of grandeur and affluence in both the architecture and make up of the town.
\nIn contrast, in Rockhampton, the wealth of Mount Morgan transformed the town from a regional port to a thriving centre. This transformation was due mainly to the fact that Rockhampton, which had experienced the Canoona gold rush in 1858 attracting many prospectors to the area, was in a key position to develop once the Mount Morgan mine began to prosper.
\nMount Morgan Mine provided for a range of activities [including technology employed to treat the ore, such as chlorination] resulting in a diverse and complex site. The main shaft was sunk in 1903-05, and at the time of its construction was one of Australia's largest shafts. Mount Morgan pioneered the use of technology with this shaft as the electric winding gear, manufactured by Walkers of Maryborough, used was the first of its type in Australia. The Linda Decline shaft was sunk in 1907 and this was used for transporting men, timber and supplies. It was later used to transport waste material from the open cut. The Linda yard was further developed in the 1930s, to incorporate the existing headframe and winder equipment.
\nThe arrival of copper smelting saw the establishment of the greatest number of tall chimneys, dominating the landscape of the mine. The continual development of the mining activities during the 1900s led to a distinctive landscape not only in terms of topography but also due to the many tall, dominating chimneys. The first chimneys were constructed as part of the lower works and successive chimneys were constructed. The greatest number of chimneys existing on the site was around 1908 when at least six large and several smaller chimneys dominated the landscape. This number gradually declined until the present, when only two remain [Main Stack and Assay Stack].
\nThe first power house was erected in 1897 and in 1908 a towering stack was constructed to give as big an updraught as possible for the poisonous fumes. A second power house was erected in 1912-4. The second power house was constructed in 1912-14 close to the mine itself, and at the time of construction, was the largest in the state. Following the completion of the second powerhouse, the earlier one was converted into assay laboratories and continued to be used until 1990.
\nWorkshop facilities have been located on the site from the beginning of operations. The mine needed to be almost entirely self-sufficient in terms of the production of many parts of equipment and workshops were constructed close to the major treatment plants. In addition to the main crushing and chlorination buildings of the lower works, other buildings were also constructed in the area, known as the lower yards, forming a substantial complex. These included a single quarters block, a sawmill, timber shed, fitters and blacksmiths shop and a stable block. Once the lower works became redundant, workshops were constructed near the new upper works.
\nA large brick office [now known as the General Office] was constructed on the site from 1897-1902. The building was designed by TG Cornes, architect and builder for the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and comprises nine offices surrounded by verandahs. A second stage of the building was added in 1906, creating a draughting office for surveyors, engineers and draughtsmen. The next extension, an addition at the front for clerical staff took place in 1920.
\nFurther changes occurred at the mine in 1968 when Mount Morgan Limited became a subsidiary of Peko Wallsend Limited. The merger created one of Australia's largest mining companies with a dominant Australian equity. Following the merger, a new smelter was constructed in 1972 which continued to operate until 1984. Operations, however, were not without difficulties. An announcement to shareholders that mining would cease before the end of 1976 was made and on 13 February of the same year, staff numbers at the mine were reduced to below 500 [the day is known as Black Friday]. Hard rock mining ceased in 1981.
\nThe end of mining did not signal the end of operations. By 1993, ownership of the mine passed from Mount Morgan Limited to the state. Leases were assigned to Perilya and Aumin for the treatment tailings. As of June 2002, Moonraker Ltd were the holders of the mining leases and are in the process of the preparing to undertake a final recovery process. The Department of Natural Resources and Mines has long-term, large scale rehabilitation of the Mount Morgan Mine planned.
","criteria":"The Mount Morgan Mine is historically significant as one of the oldest mines in Australia and developed as one of the richest. The site has historical importance as an important part of the history of mining in Queensland and played a significant role in encouraging European settlement in central Queensland. The city of Rockhampton particularly benefited from the wealth of the mine for a number of years.
The establishment of the mine caused the development of the adjacent town of Mount Morgan which has grown with success at the mine and declined as mining activities dwindled. The mine has significance for its role in the development of the life and structure of Central Queensland, most significantly Mount Morgan and the port of Rockhampton.
The site is significant in its importance to the industrial development of the state.
|The Mount Morgan Mine is significant for its rarity in demonstrating a way of life that is no longer practised. As an example of its type, the Mount Morgan Mine is uncommon.
|The history of mining in Queensland is encapsulated in the place as the site retains evidence of all phases of development which have occurred at the mine since the 1880s.
The site provides physical evidence of the richness of the regional deposits and of the remarkable level of human interference.
Significant structures on the site include the slag heaps and dumps; [the dumps have aesthetic significance, but also demonstrate the continued evolution of mining activities and provide evidence of the type and scale of mining operations]; the Linda decline shaft and horizontal shaft, headframe and winder; the old gold room; former smelter area; main stack; assay stack; assay houses; second powerhouse; main office; former RG Patterson's museum; No 4 store; plumbers' workshop; carpenters' workshop; No 1 mill; smelter offices; No 1 store; directors' and senior staff quarters; railway bridges; swing bridges; switch room; stores; research building; cottage and other houses which all contribute to an understanding of the place.
|The extensive industrial landscape produced by the open cut, waste dumps, abandoned machinery and structures on a non-vegetated site, contribute to the extraordinary aesthetic significance of the place.
The Mount Morgan Mine is a landmark, particularly the stacks and waste and dumps.
|It was one of the first mines to employ the open cut mining process and was the deepest human manufactured hole in Australia in 1982, by which time it had produced a record amount of ore and waste.
The mine structures on site demonstrate the sophistication of engineering designs, construction methods and building materials required to implement the range of techniques.
|The site is also significant for the countless Mount Morgan Mine workers. Whilst the numbers of men and women who may have worked at the site cannot be ascertained, their association with the mine site is crucial in understanding the complex and how it operated.
|The site has significance for its associations with the Morgan Brothers and subsequent mine managers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15527,"place_ref":600752,"name":"Mount Morgan Railway Station Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mount Morgan - Wowan Line","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Mount Morgan Railway Station complex occupies a 3.1ha site situated between the Mount Morgan Mine site (west) and the town of Mount Morgan (south, east and west). The elongated site aligns north-south and is bisected by Railway Parade; it is bounded by the Dee River to the south and west, Glen Gordon Street to the north, and residential properties facing James Street to the east. Significant elements include: a station building, with platform and carriage shade, facing a forecourt concourse along Railway Parade; an adjacent shunter’s guard room, water tank and oil store; a goods shed and bath house, to the north; and former refreshment rooms and a trolley shed, to the south. Remnant train tracks run the length of the rail yards, to the west of the station, and a row of four mature fig trees align along the eastern side of Railway Parade. With its decorative façade, the station building makes an important visual contribution to the townscape and is a landmark for the area; set against the industrial landscape of the mine to the west.
\nStation Building with Platform and Carriage Shade
\nThe station building is a long, narrow, single-storey timber structure designed in a Classical Revival Boom Style, with elaborate roadside (east) elevational treatment and 10 bay carriage shade to the rear (west). The roadside elevation has a central arcaded portico carried on grouped stop-chamfered timber posts with decorative capitals, surmounting fretwork arches and timber parapet having a curved pediment and 'AD 1898 Mount Morgan' on the entablature. Flanking parapets and verandahs strengthen the building’s symmetry which is offset by the 1912 additions at the northern end, having their own portico in the manner of an end pavilion with pedimented treatment enhancing the overall composition. There are minor later additions (south) and verandah enclosures (north), and the parapet urns and decorative metal roof vents are modern replacements.
\nThe exterior walls are clad in chamferboards and the evenly-spaced windows along the east and west elevations are double-hung sashes. The main entrance has paired panelled doors with a glazed, arched fanlight. The station layout comprises: a central vestibule, which accesses the platform to the rear of the building through an opening with arched fretwork brackets and a picketed fence and gate; a ladies’ room and toilets, to the south of the vestibule; and a booking office, parcels office, and station master’s office, to the north. Early joinery including a bench and drawers remains in the booking office in 2017. Doors are generally panelled, with glazed fanlights. Interior walls and ceilings are lined with early beaded boards and later V-jointed (VJ) tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards, and floors are timber. An opening has been formed between the station master’s office and the adjacent enclosed verandah. Modern interior additions and alterations are flat-sheeted, with vinyl floor coverings.
\nThe carriage shade protects the platform and two tracks, and has standard curved Warren girder trusses supported on timber posts and corrugated metal cladding. A clerestory with a curved roof extends along the length of the ridge. The railway platform has a concrete upstand and a floor of large concrete pavers. It extends to the north and south of the platform shade.
\nShunter’s/Guard’s Room
\nThe shunter’s / guard’s room is a timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure with a gable roof. Rectangular in plan, it is orientated north-south and located to the immediate north of the station building. The gable end windows are double-hung sashes, with other windows louvred; all have modern external screens. Two boarded doors access the platform, with a centred joint with a timber bead indicating a point of extension. A skillion-roofed addition extends to the east.
\nWater Tank
\nThe 20,000 gallon water tank is situated to the northeast of the station, between two tracks. The two-tier cast iron tank is square in plan, and bears the manufacturer’s mark ‘WALKERS LIMITED ENGINNERS MARYBOROUGH’ on each side. It has two jibs and is supported on riveted and bellied iron beams, and sits on a timber stand comprising round posts and square beams. A storage shed with parallel gables and clad in corrugated metal, is located underneath.
\nOil Store
\nThe oil store is a timber-framed and chamferboard-clad structure with a hipped roof, located to the south of the water tank. Square in plan, it sits on a concrete slab and has north-facing, narrow-boarded double doors.
\nGoods Shed
\nThe goods shed is a timber-framed and corrugated metal-clad structure with a gable roof. Rectangular in plan, it is aligned north-south and has an internal timber platform and siding running along the western side; accessed via large gated doorways at either end. The roadside (east) elevation has wide eaves supported on timber brackets, and features four large boarded goods doors – the central two, along with a standard doorway to the south, being set approximately half a metre off the ground. A decorative metal rainwater head is retained at the southwest corner. Inside there is a warehouse crane, with the stencilled mark ‘I. TON’, at the northern end of the platform.
\nA timber-framed and chamferboard-clad office, set on timber stumps, is attached to the southern end of the goods shed. It has a gable roof, and a centred joint with a timber bead indicates a point of extension. Windows on the east and south sides are enclosed with corrugated metal and have timber-framed skillion hoods. A boarded doorway is located in the southeast corner.
\nBath House
\nThe bath house is a corrugated metal-clad, skillion-roofed structure with a skillion awning to the north. It is situated to the west of the goods shed, and previously contained showers and toilets for workshop and shunting staff.
\nFormer Refreshment Rooms
\nThe former refreshment rooms building, relocated for use as barracks, is a timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure set on modern concrete stumps. It is rectangular in plan, with a gable roof, and has a kitchen wing projecting to the rear (southwest). The roadside (northeast) elevation has three double-hung sash windows, with timber-framed and battened skillion hoods. A boarded door, accessed via timber steps, and a louvred window, are located on the southeast elevation; these along with a louvred window opposite have decorative metal hoods. The kitchen wing has a corrugated metal-clad stove recess to the rear and an adjacent boarded door, accessed via timber steps.
\nA timber outhouse is located to the immediate south. It is clad in chamferboards and has a curved corrugated metal roof.
\nTrolley Shed
\nThe trolley shed is rectangular in plan, orientated north-south, and located to the south of the refreshment rooms. It has a skillion roof and is clad in corrugated metal on three sides; the western side is clad in timber battens and has four large, battened sliding doors.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe railway station grounds are well established, with buildings and other elements that had a public function (station building, goods shed and refreshment rooms) lining Railway Parade to the east, and the operational railway yards to the west. A modern fence reinforces the distinction between to two areas.
\nThe station building fronts an open forecourt concourse area along Railway Parade, with a landscaped garden area opposite. The sealed concourse has been built up to almost level with the station building verandahs, which were historically accessed by low steps. A row of four mature fig trees (spp. Ficus), with landscaped surrounds, is situated on the eastern side of Railway Parade, between the station building and the goods shed.
\nThe railway yards retain sections of track as well as associated signalling and other operational features. A cast metal water crane is situated between tracks to the south of the station carriage shade.
\nOther Structures
\nOther buildings, structures, pathways, and sheds, and modern partitions, suspended ceilings and joinery, within the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nA range of movable items including rolling stock, luggage and furniture are on display in the station buildings and across the complex as part of its current use as the Mount Morgan Railway Museum. These objects contribute to the interpretation of the place as a working institution; however, only those known to have provenance directly associated with the Mount Morgan Railway Station are considered to be part of the heritage significance of the place.
","history":"The Mount Morgan Railway Station opened in 1898, as the then terminus of a branch line that connected the important mining town of Mount Morgan with the port of Rockhampton, via Kabra on the Central Railway. Located on Railway Parade, Mount Morgan, the 3.1ha complex retains its: timber station building with platform and carriage shade, designed by architect Henrik Hansen; forecourt concourse with avenue of mature fig trees; railway tracks and yards; and various ancillary structures constructed between 1898 and the 1950s. Although no longer operational, the Mount Morgan Railway Station makes an important contribution to the townscape and is important in demonstrating late 19th and early 20th century social and economic transport arrangements.
\nMount Morgan mine [QHR 600751] was the State’s most productive gold and copper mine. Established in 1882, it achieved its highest per annum gold production between 1887 and 1897, reaching its peak annual yield in 1889 at just over 323,542 oz. (9,127 kg). In 1906, the mine’s emphasis shifted to copper and for about twenty years, it was also the State’s leading copper producer. Over the 100 years of its operation, Mount Morgan produced about 250 tonnes of gold and 360,000 tonnes of copper, making it one of the richest single gold mines in the world.[1]
\nThe town of Mount Morgan grew rapidly after the mine was established. Town subdivisions were surveyed in 1884, and between 1886 and 1891 most of its services were established; the majority being located to the south of the Dee River, which bisected the town.[2] The Borough of Mount Morgan was gazetted in 1890 and the population of the municipal area reached 3514 by 1891, 6280 by 1901, and 9772 by 1911.[3] Development throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries resulted in many fine buildings; however, despite the wealth of the mine, the built environment of Mount Morgan was generally modest in comparison with the mining towns of Charters Towers and Gympie.[4]
\nAs the town grew, passenger and freight traffic on the road to Mount Morgan increased. The construction of railways in Queensland had been severely curtailed by the economic depression of the early 1890s and the government was initially reluctant to invest in a railway connection to what was considered a ‘one-industry’ town.[5] However, a branch line to Mount Morgan was eventually constructed under the ‘guarantee scheme’, with the Mount Morgan Municipal Council as nominal guarantors – backed by the Mount Morgan Gold-mining Company.[6] The government introduced the guarantee scheme under the Railways Guarantee Act to stimulate the construction of rail infrastructure, which was of vital importance for the wider economy, by encouraging local interests to request the construction of a railway in their area, on the understanding that they would meet half of any losses incurred in the operation of the line.[7]
\nPlanning the location of the railway station involved some contention between the various parties. The town council preferred the terminus be sited on the southern side of the Dee River, near the School of Arts on Morgan Street; while the Railways Department proposed a site to the north, reportedly to avoid the construction of a rail bridge crossing. The site on the northern side of the river was chosen, with a road bridge to be built across the Dee, and by the time the mining company became involved – offering some of its own land as an alternative site – it was too late to change.[8]
\nThe line linking Mount Morgan with Rockhampton, via Kabra on the Central Railway, was opened to Mount Morgan on Friday 25 November 1898, with a ceremony officiated by the Hon. J Murray, Minister for Railways.[9] The railway was opened for general traffic, both goods and passengers, the following Monday.[10] From the outset a service of three trains daily during the week was provided, with two trains on Sundays enabling residents to access the beach at Emu Park.[11] The section from the bottom of the Razorback Range at Moonmera to Moongan at the top was very steep and required an additional rack rail known as the ‘Abt’ system and specially built rack locomotives, which were maintained at the Rockhampton railway workshops.[12]
\nAn appropriate station building for an important provincial town was designed by Henrik Hansen who was responsible for similar stations at Cunnamulla, Winton, Archer Park [QHR 600777] and Emerald [QHR 600490] in the same period.[13] Hansen was a Danish architect employed by the Railways Department from the late 1870s until 1904. He designed numerous utilitarian structures and railway stations, of which his five country stations were the most elaborate – each prominently sited pieces of public architecture that announced the railway’s presence in important towns.[14] The first stage of the Mount Morgan station building was designed and constructed in 1898.[15] Following established planning principles at the time, although more ornate in form and appearance than standard station buildings, the timber station building had a finely detailed central portico that led to an open entrance vestibule, flanked by a ladies’ waiting room and toilets (south), and booking office and parcels office (north). The station faced an open concourse (east) and had verandahs accessed by low steps on three sides; a tar-paved platform with a large steel-framed, 10-bay carriage shade was attached to the rear (west).[16] The all-over arch roof of the carriage shade, designed to provide cover to passengers and goods being loaded at the platform, also featured in Hansen’s stations at Cunnamulla, Winton and Archer Park.
\nThe goods shed had also been built in time for the 1898 opening, gaily decorated to house a luncheon held on the occasion.[17] The mature Moreton Bay fig trees along the eastern side of the concourse were reportedly planted on 1 January 1901, to commemorate the Federation of Australian States; a century later they were re-dedicated as part of the Mount Morgan Shire’s Fig Tree Festival celebrating 100 years of Federation.[18]
\nThe locomotive water supply at Mount Morgan failed in 1901. The following year when water supplies failed completely, the mine and town were kept going by trains hauling water from Stanwell. Twelve trains per day unloaded into the bed of the Dee River from the nearby railway bridge (since made into a road bridge). The line was extended to Wowan on 16 October 1912. In 1917-18 the station yard was enlarged, a fork line installed to replace the turntable and the engine shed moved to a new site to allow more room. A photograph from 1918 shows the water tank, goods sheds and other ancillary structures in place at that time.[19] The builder's plate on the water tank connects it with the noted engineering firm of Walkers Limited of Maryborough. In 1919-20 an elevated coal stage was erected.
\nThe existing parcels office was extended with the addition of a station master’s office at the north end of the station building in 1912. The extension featured an entrance portico similar in design to the existing one, but smaller, and with slightly different detailing and verandahs which were later enclosed.[20] Refreshment rooms followed in 1921, erected by the railway authority and initially opened or taken over as part of the State enterprises policy.[21] By the following year, requests to enlarge the rooms were being considered, with an estimated doubling in size required to meet the demand from passenger traffic on the line.[22] The rooms were eventually closed and re-sited as barrack quarters in 1968.
\nBy 1940 the complex consisted of station building with carriage shade, refreshment rooms, dock road, 20,000 gallon tank, engine shed, oil store, examiners shed, 40 ton double rail weighbridge, goods shed, office and 10 ton crane with warehouse crane, station master’s house, fireman’s house, quarters, fork line, small coal stage and trucking yards. In April 1952, the Razorback Range deviation was opened, allowing the haulage of Callide coal through Mount Morgan with conventional steam locomotives. The rack line was abandoned. In 1955 a separate room for shunters was provided and the guard’s room moved. In 1959, the 10 ton crane (spare) was moved to Innisfail. A 75 ton double rail weighbridge was provided in 1964. A signal cabin was later relocated to the site from Glenmore Junction (North Coast Railway, junction for the Yeppoon and Emu Park closed lines).[23]
\nDuring the 1960s coal-fired steam engines were gradually replaced by diesel-electric locomotives which were maintained at the Rockhampton railway workshops. Previously the steam engines had been repaired and maintained at the Mount Morgan locomotive depot. The first diesel-electric locomotive to work through Mount Morgan was on 26 May 1964. Steam train operations through Mount Morgan ceased in October 1967. In 1971 the coal stage was dismantled. With activities at Mount Morgan mine declining to a point where there was little traffic, the retention of the Mount Morgan railway depot became uneconomical and in May 1984 the facility was downgraded to two employees. From 1 August 1987, after traffic to the mine ceased, the railway from Kabra through Mount Morgan to Wowan closed. The station and ancillary buildings, railway yard and a short section of track were retained. A number of surviving elements are relatively rare examples of their type including: the goods shed, comparable with those at Warwick [QHR 600955] and Wyandra which also retain warehouse cranes; Hansen-designed curved platform and carriage shade, comparable only with one at Archer Park; and the Walkers Limited water tank, comparable only with one at Quilpie.[24]
\nMount Morgan Shire Council was given tenancy of the complex in 1988 and owned the site from 1990.[25] In 2017 the complex is operated as the Mount Morgan Railway Museum and Tourist Information Centre by Mount Morgan Promotion and Development under contract to the Rockhampton Regional Council, the current site owner.
","criteria":"Mount Morgan Railway Station Complex (established 1898) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland’s railway network and the growth of Mount Morgan as a major mining town.
\nBuilt as the then terminus of a branch line under the Queensland Government’s ‘railway guarantee’ scheme, the substantial and imposing complex reflects the wealth and optimism of a thriving mining town, and was a key site for the movement of goods and people from the late 19th to the mid 20th century.
|Substantially intact, the water tank and curved platform and carriage shade are rare surviving examples of their types.
\nThe goods shed with warehouse crane is a rare surviving combination of these elements, demonstrating operational aspects of the railway complex.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century regional railway complex. Substantially intact, the Mount Morgan complex retains a comprehensive assemblage of elements that facilitated the transport of passengers and goods, including: station building, with platform and carriage shade, and forecourt concourse; former refreshment rooms; shunter’s/guard’s room; goods shed with warehouse crane; water tank; oil store; trolley shed; bath house; and rail yards with remnant tracks and associated operational elements.
\nThe timber station building, with its central portico and entrance vestibule flanked by ladies’ waiting room, booking office, parcels office and station master’s office, demonstrates station design principles of the era. It is the earliest example of a group of elaborate country stations designed by Railways Department architect, Henrik Hansen and retains its curved platform and carriage shade, a noted feature of Hansen’s designs.
|Mount Morgan Railway Station Complex is of aesthetic significance for its beautiful architectural qualities and contribution to the townscape.
\nThe station complex’s setting is enhanced by the open forecourt concourse and avenue of mature fig trees.
\nThe station building is of considerable architectural merit and its form and fabric illustrate a skilled design approach. The elaborate front façade, with central portico and decorative elements of finely-crafted timber work, and substantial curved platform and carriage shade, express the importance of Mount Morgan and of the railway in the town at the turn of the century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15528,"place_ref":600753,"name":"Mount Morgan Cemetery including Chinese Shrine and Linda Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"East Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Mount Morgan Cemetery sits on a west facing hill on the east side of the Burnett Highway, south of the township. The cemetery is bounded by a star picket and wire fence with some timber posts on the northern side. There are brick gates, also serving as a columbarium, on the eastern side adjacent to the Apex Park which separates the cemetery from the Highway. A standard stock gate to the north and three pedestrian turnstiles, two along the curved south eastern corner and one along the northern boundary, provide access to the cemetery.
The cemetery is divided into sections by paths connecting to a main avenue entered by a cast iron gate and turnstile. Large pines line the path and cast iron seating is found along it. The cemetery is arranged into denominational areas in north-south strips and have been developed east to west up the hill. The cemetery contains a wide array of monumental masonry. The headstones are laid in traditional east/west orientation, most are the work of Rockhampton masons although some were made by masons in Brisbane. A number of the graves are surrounded with iron railings in a variety of designs. There is an extensive range of materials utilised in the construction of the monuments mostly white marble, sandstone and grey granite, but also red granite, iron, concrete and timber. The styles of memorials range from simple Georgian forms to elaborate Gothic, Edwardian and Victorian structures, as well as Art Deco inspired and modern slab and desk types. A high proportion of graves have artificial flowers in glass domes, early examples being porcelain and recent ones silk flowers.
The Linda Memorial is a concrete structure approximately 6.5 metres high. It comprises a square base surmounted by a broken, reeded column, symbolising life cut short, which is about 2 metres high and surmounted by a wreath.. Marble panels on each of the four faces carry the names of miners killed in accidents. Floral emblems including the rose, shamrock and thistle, symbolising the countries of origin of the miners decorate the base of the memorial which is surrounded by a low concrete wall. An inscription on the front of the memorial reads: Erected by their fellow workmen and citizens to the memory of the miners who have lost their lives in the Mount Morgan Mine unveiled 7th November 1909 by James Morrison, Esq., Mayor.
The Chinese burner is sited with the hillside rising behind it, regarded as an auspicious location, and is constructed of rendered brick and concrete set on a concrete base. It is approximately 2.230 metres high and comprises a 1.250 metre square base surmounted by a truncated pyramid topped by a small two tiered ornament. There is an oven opening in the centre of one side with a metal door set it in and an opening for removing ash below. Small elongated oval vents are set to the right hand side of 3 faces of the pyramid top.
Other monuments of note include:
- a three metre high Celtic cross with shamrock motif erected for Thomas and Katherine Barret and their children (1910s);
- A three metre high sandstone broken column with a rusticated pedestal and white marble tablet and a sandstone football for Tom Harrow Manson in 1907 and 'erected by his many sporting friends';
- A white marble slab with an inscription laid in copper to Giovanni Dannetto who 'met his death at the copper works' , erected by his colleagues in 1909;
- A sandstone sarcophagus with stylised medieval cross in relief for Edward Pigott in 1928;
- A carving of an angel and a white marble stele to Ellen Lyons in 1908;
- A Chinese grave with narrow sandstone headstone with Chinese script to Ah Sha;
- a 1990s memorial cairn for the Bayali, the local Aborigine people, which marks bones returned from London;
- a number of graves with framed supports on which are set immortelles, some inside protective cylinders
There are only a few major plantings, mainly trees, which predominantly include eucalyptus and poinciana. There are some remnant plantings including orchids, mother of millions, various bulbs, aloe, yucca, camellia, oleander and geranium, but evidence on site suggests that other plantings may have been killed by poisoning. Ground cover is a mixture of native and introduced grasses.
","history":"The earliest burial recorded in Mount Morgan Cemetery is that of James Kennedy in 1886. The cemetery was reserved in 1889 and occupies an area of 4.5 hectares of land to the south of the township. It continues in use and has many fine and unusual memorials.
Mount Morgan is a town which developed to support the open cut mine of the same name situated on the Dee River, 30 kms south west of Rockhampton. It was part of Calliungal pastoral run taken up by the Leith Hay family in the 1850s. Although gold bearing ore had been found in the area in 1870, it was not until 1882 that the three Morgan brothers and other businessmen formed a syndicate to mine and process deposits at Ironstone Mountain, which proved extremely rich. Mount Morgan was mined for 99 years, yielding 225,00 kilos of gold, 50,000 kilos of silver and 360,000 tonnes of copper. The mine was the economic focus of the town until ore production ceased in 1981 and the company finally ceased operations on 31 December 1992. The cemetery has continuously served the town for virtually the whole of its existence.
The most striking memorial in the cemetery is probably the Linda Memorial. On 5 November 1908, an accident occurred in the Linda section of the mine in which seven men where killed. Widespread concern and sympathy were evoked and a large public funeral was held. Five more miners were killed on 4 November of that year and a monument was erected for all who had died as the result of accidents in the Mount Morgan Mine; a total of 26 miners between 3 December 1894 and 28 July 1909. The memorial was constructed in 1909 by Busby and Hurlow of Toowong, Brisbane and unveiled by the Mayor of Mount Morgan, John Morrison, on 7 November 1909. It is a fitting memorial in a mining town and a poignant reminder of the danger inherent in mining operations.
The cemetery also contains a Chinese ceremonial burner, (A heung lew or xiang lu), thought to be the only one of its type and age in Queensland, which was used for burning symbolic papers and offerings for the dead. There were many Chinese in Mount Morgan from its inception working in mining, trade and market gardening. Most Chinese in Australia in the 19th century were sojourners, working here to earn money and then return home. Traditionally, Chinese who died overseas were buried locally and their remains exhumed and repatriated when this could be arranged by their families. Because of this custom, some burials were accompanied by a bottle containing identification details, rather than by erecting a headstone. Many such burials were not, in fact, relocated and the burner was used both for funerary offerings and for special festival offerings. The shrine is one of the few physical reminders of the Chinese community of Mount Morgan, who played an important role in developing the town. It is not known if there are still accompanying burials.
The cemetery also contains a broad range of memorials from the 1880s to the present day, many of a high quality of workmanship.
","criteria":"The cemetery in its form, memorials and plantings illustrates the history of Mt Morgan, a major mining centre in Queensland which made an important contribution to the economy of the state for over a hundred years.
|The Mount Morgan cemetery contains a well preserved Chinese ceremonial burner believed to be the only example of its kind in Queensland.
|The cemetery has the potential to reveal information on burial customs of the late 19th and 20th centuries and on the social fabric of Mount Morgan.
|It is a good example of a regional cemetery in use since the end of the 19th century and includes a broad range of memorials, including some that are idiosyncratic and personalised.
|Many of the monuments in Mount Morgan cemetery have aesthetic significance due to the high quality of workmanship and design used in their construction and to their garden setting.
|The cemetery has a special association with the community of Mount Morgan and the surrounding area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15529,"place_ref":600754,"name":"Explosives Magazine and Detonator Store (former)","alternate_name":"Explosives Magazine and Detonator Store","street_address":"Magazine Street","suburb":"STRATFORD","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Stratford Explosives Magazine, currently used as a storage facility for the adjoining sawmill, is located on a level site fronting Magazine Street to the south and surrounded by worksheds to the north and west. The magazine consists of two structures, an explosives store and a store for detonators.
The explosives store is a symmetrical, rectangular building with a hipped corrugated iron roof on which the word EXPLOSIVES is still visible. Three square ridge ventilators, in sheet metal decorated with classical mouldings, are prominent on the roof. The walls are of poured in-situ concrete with a concrete render, the base of which sits slightly proud. The walls have numerous vents, with the longer north and south elevations having a central doorway flanked by three narrow windows to each side. The east and west elevations have three narrow windows, and the south entry has a small timber landing. All windows have timber frames, which once housed louvres and a wire screen, with timber shutters to the inside. Externally, both doors were copper sheeted fixed with brass screws. The south door has had the copper sheet removed but the screws remain.
The store for detonators is a small square plan building, with a hipped corrugated iron roof with a square ridge ventilator, located to the east of the explosives store. The walls are of poured in-situ concrete with a concrete render, with a door to the south and a single narrow window to each side. The door and windows are similar to those of the explosives store, but the windows house glass louvres and do not have timber shutters.
Internally, both buildings have boarded ceilings, with the perimeter raked to the exterior walls, with centrally positioned ceiling vents.
The railway line, from which the Explosives Magazine was originally linked via a loop line and siding, is located opposite on the south side of Magazine Street.
","history":"The powder magazine and detonator store at Stratford, near Cairns, were constructed in 1901 for Queensland's Marine Department, which was the government authority responsible for storing the large quantity of explosives, both government and privately owned, being shipped into the port of Cairns at the turn of the century.
From 1860 to 1963, control of all explosives/gunpowder imported into Queensland was the province of the Harbour Master's Department (1860-62), the Department of Ports & Harbours (1862-93), the Marine Department (1894-1928), and the Department of Harbours and Marine (1929-63). In 1964, responsibility was shifted to the Queensland Department of Health. Under The Navigation Act of 1876, the master of any ship entering a Queensland port with gunpowder to be unloaded, had to ensure that it was placed in a government magazine. The Ports & Harbours Department therefore was responsible for the provision of magazines and for the safe storage of explosives at Queensland ports of entry. The Act further regulated the conveyance and storage of gunpowder in any place in Queensland, not just in the ports.
From the late 1860s, government magazines were being erected at the principal ports and goldfields of Queensland. On the goldfields, magazines were administered by the Mines Department; control of magazines other than in ports was not vested in the Marine Department until 1907, under the provisions of the Explosives Act of 1906. These magazines were constructed of stone, brick, timber or iron, largely dependent on the local availability of materials. At some ports, floating magazines were utilised.
By 1900, magazines under the control of the Marine Department were situated at Brisbane, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Bowen, Townsville, Cairns, Cooktown and Normanton. None of these appears to have been of concrete construction. The magazine at Cairns was a barge, 50 feet by 16 feet, anchored off the east side of Trinity Inlet since October 1884, and was the reason for the naming of Magazine Creek on that shore.
In mid-1900, the Cairns magazine was receiving explosives at the rate of 2,716 cases per annum, the amount was increasing rapidly, and traders were clamouring for storage space. Explosives were imported to Cairns by Brisbane-based merchants such as Brabant & Co. and Hertzberg & Co., stored at the government magazine at a cost, and then sold to the mining companies and merchants on the Atherton tinfields and Chillagoe copperfields. As well, explosives were used in the construction of the privately-funded Mareeba to Chillagoe railway, commenced in August 1898. The first stage of this railway was opened in October 1900, opening up new mineral fields and plantations, and creating a greater demand for explosives, in the process.
In consequence of this rapidly increasing demand for explosives, the Marine Department requested in 1900 that a new magazine be constructed at Cairns. A suitable site of nearly 22 acres at Stratford was proclaimed a provisional Reserve for Explosives Magazine (R.180) on 30 May 1900. It was five miles from the centre of Cairns, fronted the Cairns-Mareeba Railway (permitting easier distribution of explosives to the hinterland), and was in a sparsely populated area.
Designs for a powder magazine and detonator store, brick with concrete foundations, along with a small timber residence for the magazine keeper, were produced by the Government Architect's office, and the contract was let to JC Thomson in November 1900. During construction, mass concrete was substituted for brick walls, in consequence of which costs were reduced. The buildings were completed in mid-July 1901, at a cost of £2,471.
The magazine provided storage capacity for over 6,000 cases of explosives, and was described in the Works Department's Annual Report for 1901-02 as containing means of ventilation, lighting, and other provision for safety, in advance of the best structures hitherto erected in the State for this particular purpose. Ventilation in the main magazine was supplied by roof ventilators and airholes covered by grates in the thick concrete walls, and the timber floor was built 3 feet above ground to allow air to circulate beneath. The explosives magazine and detonator store were surrounded by a high fence of galvanised iron, and the reserve was fenced with hardwood posts and rails. In addition, the Railways Department had constructed a loop line and siding to the magazine.
John Miller, who had been amongst the official party which accompanied David Spence to establish the port of Cairns in 1876, was appointed magazine keeper from 1 July 1901. He was succeeded in 1915 by Arthur Howgego, who remained as magazine keeper at Stratford until 1939. During Howgego's time, explosives were despatched mainly to Mt Mulligan, Mt Molloy, Mareeba, Biboohra and other tableland areas.
In 1911 the explosives reserve was extended to 157 acres, in anticipation of expanding the magazine facilities at Stratford. Reduced quantities of explosives entering Queensland during the First World War temporarily relieved the necessity for expansion, but in the 1920s, the Stratford magazine was handling substantial volumes of explosives once again. By the late 1920s, the spread of population in the Stratford area around the magazine was a cause of concern to the Chief Inspector of Explosives. In 1931 R.180 was cancelled, and a new reserve of 230 acres, further east along the railway line, was proclaimed. Due to budget constraints, however, construction of new magazine facilities was deferred for over a decade, and during the 1930s, the 1901 buildings remained in use on what was by then an unofficial government reserve.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, a military guard of 19 men was stationed at the Stratford magazine. By early 1940, the Government had made the decision to erect new magazine facilities, including caretaker's quarters, at Queerah, on the southern outskirts of Cairns. The Queerah magazine buildings were completed in October 1941, and by March 1942, all explosives from the Stratford magazine had been transferred there. The magazine keeper, however, resided at Stratford for the duration of the war, as the military guard were occupying the new caretaker's quarters at Queerah.
From early June 1942 until mid May 1945, the Stratford magazine site was occupied by the Australian Military Forces, who used the concrete buildings to store explosives. During the military occupancy, most of the galvanised iron fence around the magazine buildings was removed.
After the Second World War, the site was utilised as a yard and depot by the Department of Public Works, until in 1953, JM Johnston Pty Ltd, owner of the adjacent sawmill, obtained a thirty year lease of the buildings, on about 5 acres. JM Johnston Pty Ltd acquired a perpetual lease on the property in 1956, and freehold in 1980.
The former magazine keeper's cottage has been removed from the site.
","criteria":"The former Explosives Magazine and Detonator Store at Stratford is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being closely associated with the economic development of the Cairns hinterland in the early decades of the 20th century, and in particular with the expansion of railways and mining in the district.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, early 1900s explosives magazine and detonator store constructed in concrete, and illustrates c1900 techniques for the ventilation of explosives magazines.
|The place is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular its contribution through scale, form and materials, to the Stratford townscape, its utilitarian nature, and the intactness of the structures.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15530,"place_ref":600755,"name":"Cairns Railway, Section from Redlynch to Crooked Creek Bridge","alternate_name":"Surprise Creek Rail Bridge | Kuranda Railway Station | Rail Bridge over Christmas Creek | Stoney Creek Bridge | Cairns to Kuranda Railway","street_address":null,"suburb":"KURANDA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The Cairns Railway, Section from Redlynch to Crooked Creek Bridge is an approximately 23km long rail corridor commencing at Redlynch Railway Station (near Cairns) and following a circuitous route northwest to Crooked Creek Bridge (near Mareeba) in far north Queensland. In 2020 the line is operational, primarily as a scenic, passenger travel train.
\nRedlynch Railway Station
\nRedlynch Railway Station (11.6km from Cairns Railway Station) is located northwest of the Cairns CBD at the intersection of Kamerunga Road and Redlynch Intake Road. The main station building (c1887) stands adjacent to Kamerunga Road, elevated from street level on steel poles to the level of the rail platform, which runs along the building’s northwest side. The building is a small, rectangular timber-framed and chamferboard-clad structure with a corrugated metal sheet-clad gable roof, which extends on the platform side to form a verandah supported by timber brackets, supplemented by later steel pipe frames. The building retains original or early timber-framed doors and windows, including casement and double-hung windows, board-lined doors, and large folding doors, as well as fixed ventilation panels of timber louvres. Some early window and door hardware has been retained as well as early acid etched glass.
\nThe building layout comprises a goods room at the southwest end, an office and a passenger waiting area at the centre, and a ladies’ toilet at the northeast end. The goods room includes a small store room with shelves. The partition between the goods room and the office has been removed. The office space retains some original or early timber counters, and a stable door and ticket window through to the waiting room. The waiting room has a large, glazed double folding door onto the platform and retains timber bench seating fixed to the perimeter of the room. The ladies’ toilet, accessed from the platform, accommodates one basin area and stall with glazed timber door. The interior side of the external walls is not lined and internal partitions are timber-framed and single-skin. The floors are lined with timber boards as are the ceilings in the goods room and office – the waiting room and ladies’ toilet do not have a ceiling.
\nTo the southwest of the station building is the remains of gardens with concrete retaining walls to Kamerunga Road.
\nJust northeast of the passenger station building is a freestanding men's toilet block. Standing on a concrete slab elevated on low concrete stumps, it is a small, timber-framed building clad with chamferboard and has a skillion roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. Projecting from the platform side is a corrugated metal sheet-clad entrance porch, shielding the entrance, and there is a glass louvre window on the opposite (southeast) elevation.
\nNortheast of the station building on the other (north) side of the rail line is an earth loading bank with concrete retaining wall.
\nTo the southwest of the station building, past the railway crossing, a short branch of railway track survives at the beginning of the former western arm of the turning triangle.
\nRedlynch Railway Station to Stoney Creek Railway Station
\nFrom Redlynch Railway Station, the railway line heads south to Horseshoe Bend, before heading north along the eastern side of the Lamb Range and turning west into Barron Gorge and then to Stoney Creek Railway Station, approximately 11km along the line.
\nOn this length there are 16 bridges, 13 tunnels, and other features. In order they are (measured from Cairns Railway Station) (bridge numbering is derived for the purposes of this description and should not be confused with the historical numbering of the bridges, which changed over time):
\nStoney Creek Railway Station
\nSoon after Tunnel 13 is Stoney Creek Railway Station (22.53km from Cairns Railway Station), standing in a cutting within the Stoney Creek Gorge forest. It comprises a siding branch running off and parallel to the main line, re-joining it at the west end of the station. A shelter shed stands between the siding and the main line. The shed has an earth floor and a hipped roof, and is enclosed on its southern side with a part-height single-skin, timber-framed chamferboard wall with an unglazed window. An office enclosure is at the south east corner of the shed made of timber-framed single-skin walls of chamferboards. Walls and posts are mounted on low-height concrete walls. The office has unglazed window frames on its south and west sides, a pivoting timber window on its east side, and a timber door on its north side.
\nSouth of the siding, at either end of the station, are large stone-pitched open drains. At the west end of the station, uphill of where the siding re-joins the main line, is a water tower, with a sand shed to its west. The two-tier cast iron square water tank stands on timber supports, with its disconnected jib lying underneath. The skillion-roofed sand shed is clad in corrugated metal sheets, has two doors at the front, and stands on concrete base walls.
\nStoney Creek Railway Station to Kuranda Railway Station (approximately 10.7km)
\nFrom Stoney Creek Railway Station, the railway line heads across Stoney Creek, through the remainder of Stoney Creek Gorge, before heading north along the eastern side of the Lamb Range to Kuranda Railway Station, approximately 10.7km along the line.
\nOn this length there are 22 bridges, two tunnels, and other features. In order they are (measured from Cairns Railway Station):
\nKuranda Railway Station
\nKuranda Railway Station (33.23km from Cairns Railway Station) is located on the northeast edge of the town of Kuranda and is the northernmost operating station in Queensland.
\nThe station area is roughly rectangular and stretches northwest to southeast against the curving edge of the Barron River. Built on a raised island platform with rail lines passing either side, the station comprises a number of detached buildings, the largest being the passenger station building.
\nThe passenger station building stands centrally on the island platform and is a modest one storey rectangular building in a Federation-era style. Its walls are concrete to window sill height with horizontal precast concrete planks above, slotted into a concrete frame. It has a hipped-gable roof with hipped-gable dormers and metal Boyle's ridge ventilators, and on either long side it has an upswept, cantilevering awning over the platform, supported on steel lattice trusses. The roof is clad with non-original ribbed metal sheets, replacing the original tiles.
\nThe building accommodates a semi-enclosed booking lobby at the northwest end, station master's office, waiting shed open to the platforms, ladies toilets, passage between platforms, and at the southeastern end a gift shop and cafe, with an attached kitchen in a lean-to extension.
\nThe building has timber-framed doors with glazed fanlights, double-hung windows, and arched battened timber valances around the entrances into the booking lobby, waiting shed, and passage. Interior finishes are generally unpainted concrete floors and walls, and timber board-lined ceilings with latticed ventilation grilles. The ticket windows in the booking lobby have decorative steel grilles and between them hangs a timber World War I Roll of Honour commemorating Kuranda School Past Pupils. The building is enhanced by potted palms, ferns, and hanging baskets of tropical rainforest plants.
\nSubsidiary structures stand on the island platform to the southeast of the passenger station building, including a signal cabin and a utilities block. Both are also constructed using a precast concrete system and have non-original ribbed metal sheet-clad roofs.
\nThe signal cabin is a small rectangular one-roomed building with a Dutch-gable roof. It has timber-framed casement windows in a continuous ribbon on three elevations and the remaining elevation (northwest) has only a centrally positioned timber panelled door. The interior has a timber floor elevated above platform level and a timber board-lined ceiling. It contains a McKenzie and Holland 37-lever mechanical signal frame. Elements of the interlocked signalling system include the signal frame and its mechanism, plus all linkages, points, points indicators and signal towers located around the station yard.
\nThe utilities block is a small rectangular building with a Dutch-gable roof. It accommodates a men’s toilet, former lamp room (accessible toilet), and two store rooms. It has timber-framed double hung windows. A small hip roof projection shelters the entrance to the men's toilet.
\nAlso standing on the platform is a series of large garden beds at both ends of the platform.
\nThe platform contains structures that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance including: a 2005 stone cairn memorial to the building of the Kuranda Range Railway; a modern shade structure with a Dutch-gable roof; and a pedestrian overbridge and luggage lift (modern replacements of originals).
\nBeyond the platform are other features of the place. An old steel telephone pole stands near the overbridge, on the town (west) side of the line. Also on the town side stands the former station master's residence. This is a timber-famed building clad in chamferboards with an enclosed front and side verandah and a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. Standing further northwest is a railway turntable.
\nStanding southeast on the town side of the line is a goods shed with a gabled roof. It stands on timber stumps, and its walls and roof are clad with corrugated metal sheets. Adjacent to it is a loading platform of timber supported on steel poles. Further to the southeast, east of the line, stands a three-bay trolley shed (pre-1982) with a skillion roof and walls and roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. A two-lever ground frame with attached signals and points stands nearby.
\nFour semaphore signal towers, which include kerosene lanterns with coloured lenses, also stand in the southeast area, including one near the goods shed and a three arm tower near the trolley shed. A further signal tower stands outside the passenger station building and two further semaphore towers stand to the northeast of the passenger station building, including a second three arm tower.
\nThe station grounds contains features and structures that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance including: an old steel carriage used for storage; and a modern driver's quarters (opposite the goods shed).
\nKuranda Railway Station to Crooked Creek Bridge (approximately 1.5km)
\nOn leaving Kuranda Railway Station the line follows the curving Barron River northwest for a short distance to Crooked Creek Bridge, which crosses Crooked Creek, a small tributary.
\nFeatures Not of State-Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of the place not of state-level cultural heritage significance at stations and along the line include:
\nThe Redlynch to the Crooked Creek Bridge portion of the Cairns Railway constitutes most of the second section (Redlynch to Myola) of a planned railway line to Herberton. It ascends the coastal range and travels around Stoney Creek Gorge and through the Barron Gorge, to a height of 327.7m at Barron Falls Railway Station. It proceeds through Kuranda Railway Station 21.7km from Redlynch, to Crooked Creek Bridge 23.2km from Redlynch. Built between April 1887 and June 1891 through a steep and slip-prone landscape, the section is a feat of engineering, which in 2020 included 15 concrete-lined tunnels, 15 steel bridges, and 24 timber bridges (from Redlynch Railway Station up to and including Crooked Creek Bridge).
\nA new railway
\nMining provided the original impetus for building a railway line up to the Atherton Tablelands from Cairns. Cooktown thrived as a port for the Palmer River goldfield, discovered in 1873, but it was too far from the Hodgkinson goldfield, discovered further south in early 1876. Trinity Bay was chosen as the port for the Hodgkinson; the first settlers arrived in October 1876 and Cairns became a port of entry on 1 November 1876.[1] However, the founding of Port Douglas in 1877 almost stifled Cairns, as the former provided an easier access route to the Hodgkinson. When tin was discovered on the Wild River in 1880, the road from Port Douglas to Herberton was also preferred to the pack tracks from Cairns.
\nCairns salvaged its economy after a heavy wet season in early 1882 closed the road from Port Douglas, resulting in calls for a railway from Herberton to the coast. Linking mining areas to ports by railway was already government policy. In August 1877 the Queensland government had approved three railways to connect mining towns to their principal ports: Charters Towers to Townsville; Mt Perry to Bundaberg; and Gympie to Maryborough.
\nThe Minister for Works, JM Macrossan, commissioned the explorer Christie Palmerston to find a route from Herberton to Cairns or Port Douglas; but in August 1882 Palmerston reported that there was no natural route. The Johnstone Divisional Board commissioned Palmerston to find a route to Mourilyan Harbour during late 1882, but as the Board failed to pay him, Palmerston did not report his findings.
\nThe search for a rail route continued, with the Railway Department's surveyor, George William Monk, arriving in Cairns in April 1883. Surveys of the various possible routes to Cairns, Port Douglas and Mourilyan were carried out by Monk and other surveyors and in late 1884 Robert Ballard, the Railway Department's Chief Engineer (Central and Northern Railway Division) reported to the Commissioner for Railways the cost would be the same from any of the three rival termini, but Cairns was the better port.[2] The preferred route from Cairns was via the Barron Gorge, although the Mulgrave River had also been considered. The government's decision in favour of Cairns was announced, much to the outrage of Port Douglas residents, on 10 September 1884. The decision to build the railway from Cairns ensured that it became the preeminent town in far north Queensland; yet the Barron Gorge was chosen in ignorance of its unstable geology,[3] which later proved costly in both money and lives.
\nConstruction of the Line
\nParliament approved plans for the first 24 miles (38.6km) of the Cairns to Herberton railway in late 1885[4] but the contract let to Messrs PC Smith and Co. on 1 April 1886 was only for the first 8 miles (12.9km). On 10 May 1886, the Premier Sir Samuel Griffith turned the first sod. Smith lacked the experience for even such a short section and McBride and Co took over the contract in November 1886. The government then had to take over from McBride in July 1887.[5] The first section opened on 8 October 1887 and the terminus was soon named Redlynch. In 1911 a deviation shortened the first section, meaning that Redlynch was no longer at the eight-mile mark from Cairns.
\nThe ascent of the range to Kuranda began with the awarding of the 15 mile [6] (24.1km) second section of the contract (Redlynch to Myola) to John Robb of Melbourne in January 1887 for £290,984. Robb was an experienced contractor, and brought hundreds of men to the job. Robb also had mining, rural and business interests in South Australia, New South Wales and Melbourne, where he was a founding director of the Federal Bank in 1881. The Kuranda ascent was his most significant work, but his company's other contracts included Tasmania's and Western Australia's first railways. He returned home to Toorak when he left Cairns, was declared insolvent in October 1894 and died in May 1896, aged 62.[7]
\nWork on the second section began in April 1887. To aid construction Robb built a 2km branch line from Redlynch to the main construction camp at Kamerunga beside the Barron River, and public trains extended to Kamerunga from 20 October 1888. This branch line ran northwest from Redlynch Railway Station, up Kamerunga Road, before diverting north of Kamerunga Road near its intersection with Fairweather Road and continuing northwest towards the intersection of Harley and Sandwich Roads, Kamerunga.[8] Robb planned to work at various points along the line simultaneously, and tracks ran from Kamerunga to the sites for tunnels 2, 3, 6 and 9, to the Stoney Creek Bridge site and to The Springs.[9]
\nOne feature of interest near the beginning of section two is Horseshoe Bend, located after the third timber bridge from Redlynch. In December 1888 the embankment at the bend was described as 51 feet (15.5m) high, 15 feet (4.6m) wide at the top, and 170 feet (51.8m) wide at the base, and was sown with Couch grass (Cynodon dactylon) on the sides.[10] The embankment has since been widened using landslide material. Section two used Horseshoe Bend to gain height, followed by the line ascending to the top of Barron Falls. The section then followed the Barron River to Kuranda, terminating at Myola, almost 3km past Kuranda. Nineteen tunnels had been originally planned between Horseshoe Bend and Barron Falls Railway Station, but four (two between Stoney Creek and Tunnel 14 and two at Red Bluff) were subsequently replaced by cuttings. Sand from the bed of the Barron River was used as the base material for concrete work on the second section; all the tunnels were concrete lined, and culverts and drains were also built in concrete.
\nThe replacement of brick or stone with concrete for tunnel linings was a recent technical development in Queensland. Concrete was first used during the extension of the Southern Railway from Warwick to Stanthorpe (constructed 1878-81) due to the influence of civil engineer Charles Lambert Depree. Resident engineer on the extension from 1875-1878, Depree is attributed with the design of concrete culverts, the Gorge Dam retaining wall and the Cherry Gully tunnel [QHR 601517] on the line. Although the Cherry Gully tunnel was the first tunnel in Queensland to use concrete, it was partially constructed with brick. HC Stanley, Chief Engineer of the Railway Department, reported in 1880 that the use of concrete, instead of bricks, for the tunnel provided a considerable saving for the department. The 1882 Normanby Tunnel (no longer extant) on the Brisbane exhibition loop was wholly constructed of concrete, followed by the Woolloongabba Branch Tunnel in 1884 (no longer extant). A concrete-lined tunnel (extant) was also constructed c1887-1889 at Ernest Junction, on the South Coast Railway Line [QHR 650228].[11]
\nThe Cairns Railway's range ascent tunnels represent the largest group of tunnels in Queensland and were the 24th to 38th of the 64 tunnels opened in Queensland from 1866 to 1996.[12] By 30 January 1889 tunnels 1 and 2 were finished; Tunnel 3 was in a forward state, while 4-9 and 12-13 were ready for lining. Tunnels 10 and 11 had headings through only, while tunnels 16 and 19 were not yet opened. Work was authorised on the redesigned and lengthened Tunnel 19 in December 1889. Due to the cancellation of four tunnels, tunnels 16 and 19 were renumbered as today's tunnels 14 and 15.
\nAs well as tunnels, bridgework was a major element of the construction work on the second section. The total length of steel required to complete the bridgework was around 800 feet (244m). The steel work was all cut, fitted and partly riveted by Walkers Ltd of Maryborough. In 2020 the steel bridges between Redlynch and Kuranda included: six with lattice girders; plus Steel Bridge 9 (historically called Bridge 42) (1890), where fishbelly plate cross-girders have been reused as main span members; Mervyn Creek Bridge (which replaced an earlier timber bridge in the 1920s); and Jumrum Creek Bridge, which although mainly timber has a steel central span (the bridge was reconstructed in 1962). There were also five very short steel bridges by 2020. About 1.5km past Kuranda is Crooked Creek Bridge, which in about 1900 reused (shortened) plate girders from the 1867 Jumrum Creek Bridge on the Main Range. The bridge has been strengthened with new steel piers either side of the concrete pier, and its replacement steel cross girders also originally came from Jumrum Creek Bridge on the Main Range.[13]
\nThere were 24 timber trestle bridges extant in 2020, but none of these retain their original timber. The local scrub hickory originally used in the bridges was of poor quality, requiring replacement work in the 1890s to 1900s.[14] Components of the timber bridges are also gradually being replaced with steel, due to the scarcity of suitable hardwood, and over the years some bridges have been replaced with concrete culverts.
\nThe steel bridges have retained their integrity to a greater degree. The six steel lattice-girder bridges were all built during the construction of the second section. Three are located at Stoney Creek, Surprise Creek, and Christmas Creek.
\nStoney Creek Bridge in front of Stoney Creek Falls, is built on a 4 chain (80m) radius curve and was designed by the government engineer John Gwynneth.[15] The design is unique in Queensland, the curve being the only way to avoid tunnelling. By the end of 1887 the concrete foundations on which the wrought iron trestles (Phoenix columns) were erected were well underway.[16] It is one of only two Queensland railway bridges constructed with wrought iron trestles, the other being Christmas Creek Bridge, further up the line.[17] A visit to Cairns by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Henry Norman, in April 1890 was taken as an opportunity to inspect the construction works. A marquee, covering a banquet table and open to the waterfall, had been set up on the almost completed Stoney Creek Bridge with planks laid over the sleepers. There were no speeches due to the roar of the waterfall immediately behind the bridge.[18] The bridge passed load testing on 30 June 1890.
\nIn the period of the early 1900s large quantities of rock in the vicinity of the bridge were removed, due to the risk of rock falls. Work was carried out in 1916 to strengthen riveted connections, and in 1922 timber longitudinals were substituted for the ballast flooring of the original bridge, to reduce corrosion problems.
\nStoney Creek Bridge is one of the most photographed bridges in Australia due to the spectacular beauty of its location. Historian John Kerr called it 'the best-known structure on a line with the most spectacular scenery on the Queensland Railways'.[19] Trains would halt on the bridge and passengers could leave the train to walk along the bridge for a short period of time. In order to strengthen and improve the safety of the bridge, in the late 1990s new steel longitudinals were added under the bridge, the timber decking was replaced with steel grating and the walkways at the sides of the bridge were widened to improve maintenance access. The legs of the iron trestles were also reinforced.
\nSurprise Creek Bridge was constructed in 1890-91. Originally the main span had timber approaches, but these were replaced in the late 1890s by pin-jointed steel lattice trusses recycled from an older bridge. New interior steel longitudinals were added under the bridge in the late 1990s.
\nChristmas Creek Bridge was built in 1891. Some cross girders have been replaced after they rusted out.
\nThe construction of the section's tunnels and bridges required a lot of labour. Queensland signed a special treaty with Italy in order to obtain indentured Italian workers, and many Irishmen were employed. At the height of construction up to 1500 workers were employed along the length of line.
\nThe tunnelling work was done by hand. The usual danger from the extensive use of explosives in the tunnels and cuttings was increased by the unstable nature of the rock and the steep drop down the side of the Barron Gorge. The average slope of the ground was 45 degrees, covered with a disjointed layer of decomposed soil and rock varying in depth from 5 to 8m. Robb had to dig deep into hillsides to find solid ground, and multiple deviations from the original surveyed route also increased his costs. Red Bluff and Glacier Rock were exposed when earth, rocks and trees were removed,[20] again by hand, from above the line (escarpments had to be cleared and levelled back).
\nAt least 23 accidental deaths occurred during construction of the second section, the main causes being premature blasting, injuries from rock falls and cave-ins, and falling.[21] One man, Giovanni Zappa, fell 250m into the Barron Gorge in September 1888. Other deaths resulted from malaria, ticks, scrub typhus (mites), dysentery, fevers, and snakes. Hundreds of men were injured, but despite the existence of the Queensland Employers' Liability Act 1886, only one worker was compensated.[22] Other labour issues led to the formation of a trade union - the United Sons of Toil, which called a strike in late 1890.[23]
\nDuring construction navvies' camps were established at most of the cuttings and at each of the bridges or tunnels along the range section. The main townships other than Kamerunga included New Cairns (later Jungara); Rocky Creek Falls (between tunnels 8 and 9); Stoney Creek; The Springs (between tunnels 14 and 15); Red Bluff; and Camp Oven Creek (just past Tunnel 15).[24] There were also small towns at Tunnel 3, Surprise Creek, and Gray's Pocket on Rainbow Creek above the falls.[25] These small townships of tents and portable buildings usually had at least one hotel, a general store, and a boarding house for single men. At Stoney Creek Falls, Patrick Paton's hotel possessed a billiard room, dining room, bar, ballroom and 28 double rooms, while New Cairns below the Horseshoe Bend had a hotel, sawmill, and at least two general stores. In all 26 hotels were licensed to operate from Kamerunga and Redlynch to Kuranda from 1886 to 1888.[26]
\nDue to the difficulty of the project both the contract price and the completion date of 26 July 1888 were greatly exceeded. After a very wet season in 1891 there was major damage to the track; about 140 metres of ground slipped and an embankment at one tunnel collapsed and required the ground to be drained.
\nWhen Tunnel 15 and Surprise Creek Bridge were completed by 14 March 1891, it marked the end of major works. The last rails were laid for the second section in May 1891 and the line opened for goods traffic to Myola on 15 June; and for passengers 10 days later.[27]
\nDespite the difficulties encountered during construction, the line proved to be well built, a tribute to Willoughby Hannam, Chief Engineer for Railways, Northern and Carpentaria Division (from 1885 to 1889), who had to survey many deviations when the original route proved impossible to construct. Hannam was succeeded by Chief Engineer Annett.[28]
\nIn common with all railway contracts, the price was calculated by multiplying the quantity of each type of work required by the quoted price and summing up the individual amounts. If the survey was altered to require more excavation, the government paid for the extra at the schedule rate. The unstable nature of the terrain in the second section meant that the slopes of cuttings and banks had to be reduced. As Robb had to remove five times as much material as originally estimated for cuttings and tunnels, he was eventually paid £880,406. He claimed a further £262,311, but only received £20,807 of this after arbitration. With rails and other costs, the second section cost the Queensland Government £1,007,857; the most expensive line in Queensland.[29]
\nThe huge cost overrun on the second section, along with the financial depression of the early 1890s, delayed the Cairns Railway's extension to Herberton. The contract for section three (Myola to Granite Creek/Mareeba) was awarded to Alexander McKenzie & Co. in early 1891 (Robb’s tender failed) and this section was opened on 1 August 1893.[30] A lack of funding meant that the line stopped at Mareeba for some time. It did not open to Atherton until 1903 and to Herberton until October 1910. By this time timber and agriculture, rather than tin, drove the railway's extension and the line was extended past Herberton. It opened to Tumoulin in July 1911 and finally to Cedar Creek (Ravenshoe) in December 1916. Meanwhile, a branch line from Tolga opened to Yungaburra in March 1910, to Malanda in December 1910, and to Millaa Millaa in December 1921.[31]
\nKuranda Railway Station
\nBy 1891 Kuranda Railway Station was the most important station on the second section. It had also become a tourist destination due to its proximity to the Barron Falls. Kuranda was surveyed in 1888 in anticipation of development which would accompany the arrival of the railway and the first station buildings were relocated from Kamerunga after services to the latter location ended in 1891. The station master's house from Kamerunga was also moved to Kuranda, in 1908.[32] By 1913 Kuranda Railway Station included (from northwest to southeast) the office, a separate refreshment room (operated by the proprietor of the Kuranda Hotel from 1894), men's and women's toilets and a goods shed. Construction of the Chillagoe Company's private railway lines from Mareeba to Chillagoe and Forsayth, during 1898-1901 and 1907-1910 respectively,[33] increased freight traffic through Kuranda, and tourist traffic was also increasing prior to World War I.
\nA 1910 report had recommended a new station building at Kuranda on an island platform that could be made ornamental by planting trees. Vincent Price was in charge of the architectural section of the Railway Department's Chief Engineer's Office when the passenger station block, described by the Chief Engineer as 'after the style of a Swiss Chalet, the idea being to make Kuranda a show station',[34] was designed in 1911. Modified plans were drawn in 1913-14, and included the main station building (with booking lobby, booking office, waiting shed, ladies’ toilets, passage, refreshment room, kitchen, pantry, scullery and kitchen yard); a signal cabin; and a utilities block (with men’s toilet, porter's room, store room, and lamp room). Each of these three buildings was constructed of precast concrete units, in a Federation style with a Marseilles terracotta tile roof.
\nExpansion of the station began in 1913 and continued into 1915. Changes involved the extension of the platform and yard, the signalling and interlocking of the station and the construction of a timber overbridge and new station buildings. The main station building was 'nearing completion' by September 1914.[35] Its main spaces survive, although the former refreshment room and kitchen are now the gift shop and café, and the former kitchen yard is now a lean-to extension.
\nOne of the earliest stations to be built in Australia using standard precast concrete units, Kuranda is the second oldest remaining example of its type in Queensland. Two earlier examples at Northgate (1911-12) and Chelmer (1913) in Brisbane have both been demolished, while another example opened at Ascot [QHR 602195] in February 1914[36] survives. A luggage lift from the overbridge to the platform, installed in 1915, was demolished after 1939, but a new lift with a shed at its base has been built since 1994.
\nThe signal cabin included a fully interlocking McKenzie and Holland 37-lever mechanical signal frame (still extant). Before railway 'safeworking' systems were computerised and centralised in Queensland, mechanical signals were controlled from signal cabins, which dealt with the traffic on a particular block of railway line. Signal cabins coordinated signals that indicated whether or not a section of track was clear of other traffic. Early signals were mechanical, while later signals were operated electrically. The most common form of mechanical signal was the semaphore signal. These consisted of a metal framed tower with one or more arms that could be inclined at different angles, with the arm at the horizontal signalling 'danger', or do not proceed. Examples of this form of signalling system survive at Kuranda Railway Station. At night, lights were necessary, and kerosene lamps with movable coloured spectacles displayed different colours, including green (proceed), yellow (prepare to find next signal red), and red (stop).
\nTo coordinate signals so that it is impossible to give a 'clear' signal to a train unless the route is actually clear, the signals could be interlocked. An interlocked yard is a railway yard where semaphore or coloured light signals are controlled in such a way that the signals will not allow a train to proceed unless the points that operate in conjunction with the signals are correctly set. A mechanical interlocking device, located under a mechanical signal frame, is a system of rods, sliding bars and levers that are configured so that points cannot be changed in conflict, thus preventing movements that may cause a collision or other accident.
\nAlthough 169 Queensland railway stations had interlocking by 1918,[37] mechanical interlocking technology eventually became obsolete, as electrical interlocking or electro-pneumatic systems replaced it. Computerised Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) signalling systems now control most of the network.
\nAs well as the station buildings, signals and interlocking, the station was beautified. The ornamental planting proposed in the 1910 scheme was developed by George Wreidt and Bert Wickham, both station masters at Kuranda. The tropical vegetation in the platform's gardens and under the platform shelters helped to soften the lines of the station, which first won the Northern Division of the Railways' Annual Garden Competition in 1915 and was so often the winner in subsequent years that it became folklore that Kuranda won every year.
\nBy 1927 the station included a goods shed to the southeast of the main platform, and a turntable at the northwest end of the station. The current turntable is apparently smaller than the original, which was relocated to Port Douglas.[38] Elements that were present in 1932 which no longer exist include a motor shed by the turntable, and signalman's, ganger's and waitresses' quarters to the south of the station near Arara Street.
\nDue to the position of the station at the top of the range climb the station played a key role in freight handling. Extra trains would usually run to Kuranda where their load was transferred, as trains operating west of Kuranda were able to haul double the load they could carry up the range.
\nAs well as freight services, tourist trains ran to Kuranda, although the tourist service was not a formal part of the public timetable of the Queensland Railways until the 1960s.[39] The tourist potential of the second section was recognised early on, with Cairns Alderman Macnamara in September 1887 calling it a great engineering feat, which 'would prove a great attraction to tourists from all parts of the globe'.[40] In 1893 local representatives from the Barron Divisional Board met with the Railway Commissioners to discuss a proposed viewing stop on the line for the Barron Falls.[41]
\nThe growth of tourism in Kuranda was linked to the popularity of the passenger services of the Adelaide Steamship Company, the Australian United Navigation Company and Australian Steamships (Howard Smith Ltd). Travellers from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne came to Cairns by ship until the opening of the rail line to Brisbane in 1924. In the early 20th century Queensland Railways published a brochure called 'Train Trips While the Steamer Waits' which urged tourists not to miss the unsurpassable natural beauty of the mountains, best seen by taking the train to Kuranda. Another early tourist booklet 'The Glory of Kuranda' describes the station as the most picturesque in Queensland. In the late 1930s a 'Grandstand Train' ran to Kuranda. This had special carriages with two rows of tiered seats both looking out the same side, through scenic windows.
\nTourist travel stopped after Japan’s entry into World War II (WWII). However, Kuranda was one of the busiest stations at this time, handling freight for the many troops which were stationed on the Atherton Tablelands from early 1943 for rest, rehabilitation and training in a malaria-free environment close to New Guinea. Rail traffic was so great that the road from Cairns to Kuranda was constructed to relieve congestion. [42]
\nDiesel-electric locomotives were introduced onto the Cairns-Kuranda railway in 1959, and tourism recovered after World War II, with a 100 percent increase in passengers between 1965 and 1975.[43] During the 1960s Kuranda became an alternative lifestyle centre, and the Sunday Markets which began in the late 1970s boosted tourism to the town and the railway station, as did the building of the Skyrail ride in the mid-1990s.[44] By 2003 some 500,000 people visited Barron Gorge National Park each year via the Kuranda Scenic Railway,[45] often returning on the Skyrail.
\nThe tiled roofs of the station buildings were replaced with plain iron sheet in 1961 which was in turn replaced by ribbed metal sheeting in 1989-90. The southern section of the foot bridge was rebuilt in steel in 1990, and the northern section has since also been replaced in steel. The station master’s house survives just to the northwest of the railway station, although its verandahs have been enclosed.
\nOver time, other stations between Redlynch and Myola have included Jungara, Stoney Creek, The Springs, Barron Falls, Hydro, and Fairyland. Only Redlynch, Stoney Creek, Barron Falls and Kuranda retain any built structures, and those at Barron Falls are modern.
\nRedlynch Railway Station
\nIn 2020 the remaining infrastructure at Redlynch Railway Station included a station building with garden area, a men's toilet, and a loading bank. The core of the station building existed by 1890, although it originally had a curved roof.[46] The building may date from the opening of the first section of the Cairns Railway in 1887, as in August 1888 plans were afoot to erect station buildings at Kamerunga 'similar to those at Redlynch'.[47] The Kamerunga Railway Station building also had a curved roof and was later moved to Kuranda when the second section was opened in 1891. The steel pipe framing under the current verandah at Redlynch was once used to hang pot plants.
\nAn 1899 plan of the Redlynch Railway Station building included a store (2.4m), waiting shed (3m) and an office (3m). Around this time the office was extended another 2.4m to the southwest, with a ladies room (3.7m) added at the southwest end of the building. There was a partition for a toilet in the latter, which seems to have survived when the ladies room was converted into a goods area circa 1954. At this time the store at the northeast end of the building became the new ladies room, and a separate men’s room was constructed northeast of the station building.
\nThe wall between the office and the former ladies room has since been removed, and the roof is now gabled rather than curved. A World War II photo of the building shows weatherboard cladding at the northeast end. A goods shed present in a 1954 site plan, northeast of the shelter shed, is no longer extant. In this plan a timber stage was located west of the shelter shed at the end of a siding, on the site of the present car park. A station master's cottage was located within the turning triangle to the southwest of the shelter shed, but this has been replaced by modern buildings for a Queensland Rail (QR) maintenance gang.[48] Redlynch Railway Station was also known to have an impressive garden display, receiving a runner up award in 1939 for the northern division of the Queensland Railway Station Garden Awards.[49] The garden with concrete retaining wall located west of the passenger station building is likely the remains of the 1939 garden bed.
\nA log-faced loading bank is shown being constructed at in December 1943, (annotated on a 1927 site plan) in the position of the current concrete-faced loading bank, located northeast of the station building. This loading bank may have been related to the military’s use of Redlynch Railway Station, which was close to two wartime facilities. From late 1943 a US Army hospital (taken over by the Australian Army in early 1944) was located off Shaw’s Road at Jungara, south of Redlynch. In addition, the 16th Australian Personnel Staging Camp was established less than 1km northwest of Redlynch Railway Station, off Harley Street, with an entrance from Kamerunga Road. By mid-1943 this staging camp, which rationed and supplied solders transiting through Cairns on their way to the front lines, as well as troops on their way to the Atherton Tablelands, was visited by thousands of allied soldiers.[50]
\nStoney Creek Railway Station
\nAt Stoney Creek Railway Station, a gatehouse was erected in 1909. By 1911 the complex included an open shelter shed with an enclosed office, plus a ladies' room with a curved roof to the east.[51] By 1936 the complex consisted of the shelter shed; ladies' room; a water tank for steam trains, supplied from Stoney Creek Falls and a sand shed (west end of station); plus two fettler's camping quarters and a trolley and tool shed (either side of track, east end of station). Only the shelter shed, the water tank and the sand shed survive. The latter was once used to refill sandboxes on trains, which enabled dry sand to be dropped onto the tracks to assist traction. In the 1980s a telephone line and its poles were removed. The siding is used by QR maintenance gangs to wait for tourist trains to pass, and the shelter shed is used when it is raining. Exotic plantings in the station's gardens have been replaced by native species, in keeping with the National Park, although mature mango trees of heritage significance have been retained.
\nFor many years, Stoney Creek was notable for its gardens of coloured tropical foliage. This site was always expected to have tourism value - during construction, a piano was laboriously brought up the range to the Stoney Creek Hotel. The owner optimistically expected that future tourists would stay at his hotel to view the falls.[52] The Kuranda Scenic Railway (running from Cairns to Kuranda) no longer stops at this station.
\nChange since construction
\nSince construction of the second section, the weather and geology have continued to impact on the line. There were landslides during 1894, 1896, 1904, 1909 and 1910, but the biggest disruption occurred in the summer of 1910-11. Slips in December 1910 resulted in a tramway being built to bypass Tunnel 10, which was blocked on the Kuranda side, and the line was closed for 10 weeks. There were more slips and washouts in late March 1911, with interruptions to traffic until the end of April 1911.
\nIn 1939 18m of the Cairns end of Tunnel 14 required reinforcing, and the thinner concrete formwork is visible. There were also serious disruptions in March-April 1954 due to a landslide. The continued threat of rock falls and slips have meant that rock anchors have been deployed on boulders above the Stoney Creek Falls, and large barrier fences have been erected in places above the line.
\nThe original rails were replaced in the 1990s, from 60 lbs (27.2kg) per yard (0.9m) weight, to 41kg per metre. One in every four sleepers are now steel, with a one in two ratio on curves with a radius under 120m. Some cuttings were also widened in the 1980s and 1990s. Most cuttings are in earth or rock, but some have concrete lining or stone pitching in parts. Some timber bridge components, such as the piles or headstocks of trestles, have been replaced by steel, or whole trestles have been replaced by concrete piers. There are a large number of small open concrete drains passing under the line. Early cast concrete pipes and culverts (not reinforced) along the line will be replaced with reinforced concrete pipes if the originals collapse.
","criteria":"The portion of the Cairns Railway between Redlynch and Crooked Creek Bridge was built 1887-91 as part of a railway to the tin-mining town of Herberton. The railway's ascent of the coastal range demonstrates the Queensland Government's policy of building railways from ports to inland mining centres to promote economic growth.
\nThe Cairns Railway is closely associated with the economic development of Cairns and the surrounding region. As a result of its selection as Herberton's port, Cairns became the largest town in Far North Queensland. Although the railway did not reach Herberton until 1910, the ascent of the range facilitated timber getting and then farming on the Atherton Tableland.
\nThe place is also closely associated with the development of tourism in Far North Queensland. From 1891 the second section of the Cairns Railway facilitated visits to Stoney Creek Falls and the Barron Falls, and Stoney Creek Station and Kuranda Station became important stops for visitors. The township of Kuranda and Kuranda Railway Station remain major tourist attractions.
\nRedlynch Railway Station is significant as it contains early infrastructure located at the end of the first section of the Cairns Railway (built 1886-1887), and is the start of the ascent to Kuranda.
|Kuranda Railway Station includes three early (c.1914) surviving Queensland examples of pre-cast concrete railway station buildings, and has one of the few mechanically interlocked signal cabins still commissioned in Queensland. The complex is also a rare surviving resort station, comparable with those at Spring Bluff [Main Range Railway, QHR 601480] and Yeppoon [QHR 602563].
\nStoney Creek Station has a rare combination of scenic beauty and evidence of its past role as a service point for steam trains climbing the coastal range. The water tank provides rare surviving evidence of the age of steam trains in Queensland, and the sand shed is also rare.
\nThe design of the curved, steel lattice girder Stoney Creek Bridge is unique in Queensland's railways. It and Christmas Creek Bridge are also the only two Queensland railway bridges constructed with wrought iron trestles.
\nSteel Bridge 9 (historically called Bridge 42) employs reused fishbelly plate cross-girders as its main span members, which is rare.
\nSurprise Creek Bridge is one of a small group of bridges extant in Queensland with pin jointed spans.
\nChristmas Creek Bridge is a rare example using both lattice girder and lattice truss span members.
|The sites of former camps and townships within the railway reserve between Redlynch and Crooked Creek Bridge have the archaeological potential to reveal information on the organisation and domestic life of 1880s railway camps in Queensland.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a railway range crossing, incorporating 15 tunnels, 15 steel bridges and 24 timber bridges. The line's tight curves, embankments, cuttings, culverts and drains are also characteristic of the engineering techniques needed to traverse steep, unstable terrain. The culverts and drains are vital in a tropical climate with a high rainfall.
\nKuranda Railway Station is an intact station complex and is an excellent example of the work of the architectural section of the Railway Department's Chief Engineer’s Office under Vincent Price.
\nThe main elements of Kuranda Station which contribute to an understanding of the how the complex functioned include the concrete main station building, its platform and garden beds; the concrete male toilet block; the concrete signal cabin with its associated mechanical signal frame, linkages, semaphore signal towers, points, and points indicators; the goods shed; the trolley shed; the Station Master's residence; and the turntable.
\nStoney Creek Bridge has remained substantially unchanged since it was built and is an important example of large metal truss bridges, which played an important role in creating the Queensland rail transport network.
\nThe plate girder main spans of Crooked Creek Bridge are the oldest of their type still in use in Queensland, being a reuse of girders from an original 1867 bridge on the Main Range (Ipswich to Toowoomba line).
|The train trip through the Barron Falls National Park is a highly popular tourist attraction, due to the rugged beauty of the terrain, the many bridges and tunnels, and the views from the railway.
\nStoney Creek Station is a location of scenic beauty where day trippers once stopped to view Stoney Creek Falls and Stoney Creek Bridge. The latter is one of the most photographed railway bridges in Australia due to its remarkable location across a deep ravine with a waterfall backdrop. Photographs of the falls and the bridge have featured in railway advertising over many decades.
\nKuranda Railway Station is renowned for its dramatic setting, established gardens and showpiece station buildings. Harmoniously combined, these elements create a picturesque aesthetic effect.
|The ascent to a height of 327.7m at Barron Falls Station is an outstanding engineering achievement in a tropical environment, cut through unstable and rugged terrain. It demonstrates the nature of the challenge surmounted by John Robb, his workers and government engineers such as Willoughby Hannam and John Gwynneth. There were numerous deviations to the surveyed line during construction, and the railway utilises cuttings, embankments, tight curves, and multiple bridges, tunnels, culverts and drains.
\nThe place contains the largest collection of late nineteenth century tunnels and timber and metal span bridges of any other section of railway in Queensland of comparable length.
\nStoney Creek Bridge is a spectacular feat of civil engineering, with an 80 m radius curve, mounted on wrought iron trestles, passing in front of a waterfall. It is of technical significance for its degree of complexity on a difficult site.
\nAs early surviving, fully concrete-lined, 19th century railway tunnels in Queensland, the 15 tunnels along the line are important in demonstrating the innovative use of concrete as an economic and effective method of railway construction in the 1880s.
|The train trip from Cairns to Kuranda, in particular the ascent past Redlynch, is a socially significant scenic railway attracting thousands of local, national and international visitors each year.
Stoney Creek Bridge and its accompanying waterfall has been an attraction for tourists visiting north Queensland since the 1890s, while Kuranda Railway Station is one of Australia's most popular tourist destinations and is known worldwide.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15531,"place_ref":600756,"name":"Angellala Rail Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Roma - Cunamulla Line","suburb":"ANGELLALA CREEK","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Angellala Creek Bridge and approaches located at 442 miles 42 chains (549.630 kms) from Roma Street and consists of 3 x 2 x 1 x 20 foot (6.1 metre) timber longitudinal with a common braced timber trestle (pier one) and common concrete piers on piers two and three. 7 x2 x40 foot (12.2 metre) riveted half-through continuous plate girders with steel cross girders and transom tops, steel longitudinals, common concrete pier on pier four, common cast iron cylinders on concrete bases (piers five to ten), strengthened with two steel columns on concrete bases at each mid span (piers 4A to 10A) and a common concrete pier at pier eleven.
87 x 2 x1 x20 foot (6.1 metre) timber longitudinals, common braced timber trestles (piers 12 through to 100) or common concrete piers (piers 23-26, 31-32, 34, 38, 41, 51, 53, 58, 61, 64, 66-68, 71-72, 74, 76-80, 82-83, 85, 96-98). The bridge features a maximum span of 20 feet (6.1 metres) and is aligned on a straight track with the approaches being on a forty-chain curve. The abutments, piers and main spans of the bridge are original, however the approaches to the bridge have been reconstructed, and in 1994 intermediate supports allowing larger diesel-electric locomotives to operate between Roma and Charleville were incorporated into the structure.
","history":"Plans for the crossing of Angellala Creek at 66 kms east of Charleville were prepared in 1885 with the construction of the western extension from Roma to Charleville. Part of the Western Railway Act assented to on 25 September 1875 was repealed by the Railway Reserves Amendment Act of 1879, and the money in the Western Railway Account and all funds from land alienation were paid into Consolidated Revenue of Queensland. Construction west from Roma proceeded through the 1880's and there were approaches to build a land grant railway, into western New South Wales and to Adelaide through the south-west by several syndicates.
However the Queensland government undertook construction further west. The railway opened to East Mitchell in 1883, and after completion of the Maranoa River Bridge on 17 January 1885 into Mitchell itself. Further extensions took place to Dulbydilla on 24 August 1885, Morven on 1 March 1887 and opening through to Charleville on 1 March 1888.
Angellala (441 miles 74 chains - 550 kms west of Roma Street) was named after the nearby creek. It opened as a station from 2 May 1910, and was also worked as a crossing loop. From 1929 until 1932 the station was worked unattended, however a station mistress was appointed from 1932 date until 1971. Angellala was a watering stop for locomotives, with the water tank situated at the Charleville end of the yard, and the hydrant at the Roma end.
The crossing of Angellala Creek posed several design problems for the bridge designers, as it was situated in a shallow valley and extensive flood plain. The bridge across the western crossing features the longest timber trestle approach on a rail bridge in Queensland. Overall length of the structure is 2080 feet (634 metres). The main crossing of the creek features 7x 36 feet (12.1 metres) steel spans. The approach from the west is over 1740 feet (530 metres).
It was designed in 1885 when HC Stanley was Chief Engineer.
Plans were prepared for the strengthening of the bridge for heavier C17 class locomotives in 1946 when the spans were halved by installation of intermediate columns. With upgrading for main line (90 ton) diesel-electric's to be used west of Roma, the main spans were strengthened with additional steel pillars in 1994.
The Angellala bridge is the sixth longest in Queensland, the western approach (530 metres) is the longest approach of any railway bridge in Queensland. The riveted and gusseted half -through continuous plate girder spans are the second oldest of their type in Queensland.
","criteria":"The Angellala Creek Bridge is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history in particular the development of the railway network in Western Queensland
|The riveted gusseted half through continuous plate girder spans are the second oldest of their type in Queensland.
|The bridge is close to the Warrego highway and is and important landmark in the area being a feature of the western approach to Angellala.
|The bridge is close to the Warrego highway and is and important landmark in the area being a feature of the western approach to Angellala.
|The bridge is important for its association with the life and work of its designer Henry C Stanley, Chief Engineer for Railways.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15532,"place_ref":600757,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":"'Historic House'","street_address":"87 Alfred Street","suburb":"CHARLEVILLE","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Queensland National Bank at Charleville is a single storey timber building with an exposed frame and is set on low stumps. It has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron roof. There are verandahs to the front and sides of the building that have a corrugated iron clad awning supported by timber posts. A projecting central portico rising through the verandah awning marks the entrance to the building and is reached by timber steps.
Internally the building features high ceilings and cedar joinery and has four marble fireplaces. Several of the rooms are furnished as a place museum.
There is a picket fence to the street.
","history":"The former bank building was constructed in Charleville in 1888 as the premises of the Queensland National Bank, which had established a branch in the town in 1881.
The town of Charleville was surveyed in 1867 following the surveying of a number of pastoral runs in the district in 1863. Sited on the banks of the Warrego River along a stock route from New South Wales to Western Queensland, the town was to develop as the major service centre for the surrounding pastoral industry. Bullock teams passed through the town, Cobb & Co established stables (as well as a factory for the construction of mail coaches and buggies and an associated sawmill) and in 1888 Charleville's position as a strategic transport node for the south west was confirmed when it became the terminus for the main western railway line which was extended south to Cunnamulla 1898 and west to Quilpie 1917. The Queensland National Bank was the first bank to open a branch in Charleville on 30 July 1881.
The Queensland National Bank was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous 19th century banks. It was established in March 1872 by a group of prominent Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or intercolonial control. Its first office was established in Queen Street, Brisbane in that year and the bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage. In 1879 it secured the whole of the government's banking business. By 1880 it held 40% of deposits in the colony and dominated the Queensland economy.
In 1888 a larger bank premises was constructed at Charleville to the design of F.D.G. Stanley and built by A Anderson for the sum of £2049/14/9. FDG Stanley trained as an architect in Scotland and emigrated to Queensland in 1861. He joined the office of the Colonial Architect as a clerk in 1863 and was appointed Colonial Architect 1872. He held this position until 1881 when resigned to work full time in private practice. Among his regular clients were several banks including the Queensland National Bank, the Anglican Church and merchant companies. Stanley was one of the most successful architects to practice in nineteenth century Queensland and his work includes the Supreme Court Brisbane, GPO Brisbane, St Paul's Anglican Church Maryborough, the Queensland Club and the Queensland National Bank Brisbane. Stanley designed timber buildings for the QN Bank in St George, Normanton, Allora and Blackall.
The Charleville bank combined business and accommodation areas, as was common practice at the time for branch offices. At the front of the building were a public access area with a teller's area and safe and a manager's office. The rear section of the building provided living accommodation for the manager and his family, including a room for their maid. This and the quality of finish in the building suggest the social position of a manger of the bank in a regional town.
In 1942, probably as the result of a wartime rationalisation of branches in smaller centres, the Charleville branch was sold to Mr Alex Smith who used it as a residence during his lifetime. In 1948, the QN Bank merged with the National Bank of Australasia, later the National Australia Bank. After the death of Mr Smith his daughter, Mrs Claude Young, converted it into a boarding house, and upon her death the Charleville and District Cultural and Historical Society purchased the building, which is now a local history museum.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank building is important in illustrating the development of Queensland as purpose-built premises for a bank formed to serve Queensland interests and needs when the state was a self-governing colony. The quality of its design and construction also demonstrate the importance of this regional branch at a time when Charleville was firmly established as a centre for the pastoral industry of southwest Queensland.
|The former Queensland National Bank is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, being a good example of a timber structure combining a banking chamber, office and manager's residence; a type common for rural bank buildings from the nineteenth century until World War II.
|As a well-designed and detailed building the former Queensland National Bank contributes to the townscape of Charleville.
|The former Queensland National Bank has a special association with the life and work of architect FDG Stanley, who designed a number of banks for the Queensland National Bank. It is also associated with the development of the QN Bank, the earliest of Queensland's indigenous banks.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15533,"place_ref":600758,"name":"Charleville War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Edward Street","suburb":"CHARLEVILLE","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a park in Charleville, The park has an ornamental fence and gates and a path leads to the memorial. Also within the park are two guns or war trophies and a flagstaff.
The memorial itself is surrounded by a cast iron picket fence with fleur-de-lis finials and a centrally placed gate.
The Italian marble monument stands 23 feet from the ground. It sits on a terrazzo base step, the top of which is layed with light and dark tiles in a chequerboard pattern. Above this is the sandstone base of the monument. This is square in plan with corner buttresses and a simply moulded skirting and cornice. The base displays plaques on all faces, commemorating later conflicts.
Projecting from the centre of the base is a square pillar with engaged columns at each corner. The pillar is of Italian marble and bears leaded names of those who served in the First World War, including the fallen for whom the front panel is reserved. At the top of each face are carved shields bearing the stylised letters AIF (Australian Imperial Forces). The columns are made in three sections and have Doric order capitals and bases. They support a small cornice, surmounted by a larger cornice and frieze
","history":"The Charleville War Memorial was unveiled on October 9 1924 by the Queensland Governor Sir Matthew Nathan. It is thought to have been designed by George Brockwell Gill and cost £1000. The predominantly marble memorial honours the 310 local men who served in the First World War, including the 40 fallen.
The memorial was 'Erected by the citizens of Charleville and district, and Charleville sub-branch of the Returned Services League'. The cast iron fence was subsequently erected some time between 1925 and 1933.
In 1864, the Queensland Government Gazette proclaimed the boundaries of the Warrego Pastoral District. This followed the arrival of farmers from New South Wales in search of sheep runs on the Upper Warrego. The town of Charleville was gazetted in 1868 and laid out by government surveyor W A Tully in the usual grid form, allowing for the roads to be wide enough for large bullock trains to turn in. By 1880 the area had developed into a small town which continued to prosper as a resting point on the stock routes. Development was further encouraged by the railway which reached Charleville in 1888 and the establishment of Cobb and Co. in 1890. Other businesses were established to support the growing infrastructure, however the pastoral properties continued to be the town's main asset.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although many different memorials were constructed throughout Queensland, the only other known one of this design is at Esk. The Charleville memorial is attributed to Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill due to design similarities with the Esk Memorial, known to be designed by Gill.
George Brockwell Gill was born in England and emigrated to Australia in 1886 and was soon employed by Ipswich architect Samuel Shenton. When Shenton retired in 1889, Gill took over the practice. He designed many substantial buildings in Ipswich including Ipswich Girls Grammar School and the Ipswich Technical College. He was active in public and church affairs and became president of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1918. When he retired in 1943, his practice was taken over by Brisbane firm, Conrad and Gargett.
The memorial was constructed in Toowoomba by well known masonry firm, R C Ziegler and Son and then transported to Charleville. The firm of R C Ziegler and Son was established in Toowoomba in c1902 and produced many memorials throughout south western Queensland. The family company moved to Bundaberg where it was still operating in the mid 1980s.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1924, the war memorial at Charleville demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high degree of workmanship, materials and design. Memorials of this type are rare in Queensland. The only other known one of similar design is at Esk.
|As a memorial representing both the town and district, it has a strong and continuing association with a large part of the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with architect George Brockwell Gill, and with monumental masonry firm R Ziegler and Sons as an example of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15534,"place_ref":600759,"name":"Tarong Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cooyar Road","suburb":"TARONG","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Tarong Homestead comprises 630 acres of land bordered to the north by Cooyar Creek. The principal residence is situated on elevated land, overlooking flats to the south-west and north west.
The principal residence at Tarong comprises three timber buildings, of varying ages, separate in structure but joined by verandahs, an internal garden courtyard and a semi open breezeway. The first section, constructed in the 1840s, is a long, one room width, section running south east to north west; the kitchen constructed in 1859, runs perpendicular to the first wing and is joined to it at the south eastern end by a verandah. In the cavity of the L-shaped plan created by the two first buildings is a square planned building surrounded by verandahs built in 1890. The three sections manifest different timber construction methods. Access to the residence at Tarong is via the verandah of either the earliest section or through the wider verandahs of the 1890s buildings.
The earliest section of the building is constructed from adze cut, unpainted vertical timber slabs housed in painted timber bearers at the base and top of the walls. The building has a corrugated iron clad gabled roof, steeply pitched over the rooms and changing to a more gradual pitch over the front and rear verandah. At the south eastern end of this section, projecting from the original dining room which was at this end, is another fireplace formed from bricks clad with corrugated iron sheeting projecting from the end of the building. Adjoining the dining room on the north eastern side is a skillion roofed and timber framed extension clad with horizontal chamfered boards. Most of this section of the residence is elevated only very slightly from the ground level, although a gentle tapering downwards to the north west necessitates open tread timber steps providing access to the south western verandah.
This wing houses three principal rooms, with additional rooms of modern fitout added to the two ends. The rooms have access both to the front, south western verandah and to the rear verandah via both pairs of french doors and timber four panelled doors. The north eastern wall of this section of the residence is clad with fibrous cement sheeting. Internally this building has raked timber beaded board ceilings, timber boarded floors and timber boarded walls. Later V-J pine boarding lines the internal walls up to the level of the start of the ceiling rake in the two smaller rooms. The larger room, originally the dining room has a dark green hessian backed wall paper and a patterned frieze featuring a stylised landscape design. A small timber lined room, on the original south western verandah is entered from the former dining room. At the north western end of this part of the residence is a small two roomed extension, fitted as a bathroom with small gauge corrugated iron clad walls and fibrous cement internal lining.
The kitchen wing, the smallest of the three sections of the residence, comprises only two principal rooms and is of similar vertical slab construction, but the vertical slabs in some places are rounded and chamfered at the top and base. The building has a corrugated iron hipped roof, again steeply pitched over the main rooms and more gradual over the front and rear verandahs. An iron ventilator with decorative cap projects through the ridge of the roof. Attached to the south western end of the kitchen is a substantial brick chimney which services the main kitchen oven and a bread oven in that end of the building. The north eastern end of the kitchen wing supports a large climbing plant which, though picturesque, threatens to overtake the building. Internally the kitchen wing has a raked ceiling clad with unpainted cedar beaded boards, a timber boarded floor and an early white lime paint on all internal walls. The door to the kitchen from the north western verandah comprises three adze cut timber slabs, braced on the rear side. Early internal fittings in the kitchen include small cupboards, a long preparation bench, the stove and associated bread stove; and shelving. At the north eastern end of the kitchen block is a small storage room, with raked ceiling, unpainted timber lining boards and a boarded floor.
The 1890 section of the homestead, elevated on round timber posts, comprises five rooms of varying sizes all opening onto a wide verandah which surrounds the section. This section has a low pitched hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheets, extending over the verandahs where it is lined with fibrous cement lining sheets with timber cover strips concealing edges. The verandah is supported on slender square planned posts which have partially chamfered corners and sit on the hand rail of the chamfer board cladded balustrade. Infilling some of the verandah openings are a series of early timber louvres. The building is constructed from wide, horizontal hardwood slabs housed in dressed vertical studs. Doors and windows in this section are housed frames between the studs. The windows are vertical sash with two sheets of glass per pane. The doors in this section of the building are four panelled with bolection mouldings on the horizontal edges of the panels and chamfered vertical edges. Above most of the doors but separated by two sections of timber slab, are operable transom windows, aligned with the ceiling line.
A fireplace is found in the eastern corner of this section, formed by white washed bricks which project from one of the principal rooms onto the verandah space and taper towards the ceiling. A slender chimney, of unpainted cream bricks, projects from the roof and is crowned with a simple corbelled top. Adjacent to the south west side of the base of the chimney, on the verandah, is a timber V-J boarded phone box.
Internally this section of Tarong, which comprises five rooms, has cedar beaded board ceilings and timber boarded floors and V-J boarded walls lined with paper. The wall paper is backed with a hessian based lining in most of the rooms and is complete with a frieze paper, complementing the general wall paper. The paper in each room is different but four of the papers are of the same type vertical pattern and water-wave embossing on a satin base. Also in these rooms are sections of early linoleum and oil cloth floor coverings. One of the rooms features another paper, without lining, of an orange and yellow background and printed white large floral design and green and yellow patterned frieze. Early furniture and fittings, including wardrobes, drawers, shelving units, chimney mantle and fireplace survive in this part of the residence.
To the south east of the residence are a number of timber outbuildings, of various ages and construction types. Furthest to the south of this group of buildings is a hipped roof building clad with horizontal weatherboards and with a skillioned extension to the south, thought to be an early fowl house. One of the more substantial outbuildings is a timber framed and gable roofed structure, partially of vertical slab construction and most recently in use as a garage but formerly a residence, with two shallow hipped roofed extensions on either end. There are several other gabled roofed structures clad with horizontal weatherboards and in varying states of deterioration. From this section and continuing eastward are a number of aligned round timber posts which are remnant from an early woodshed. To the north west of the residence are two more outbuildings, both with hipped roofs clad with corrugated iron one of masonry and timber construction and the other timber framed and cladded.
To the north, north west and north east of the house are remnants of a large garden. Stone terracing and walling and extensive timber paling fences survive as do many established trees and plantings. The trees in this area include a jacaranda, several figs, pepperina, and orange trees. To the north west of this area is a small graveyard containing seven gravestones, mostly of the Clapperton family, dating from 1876 to about 1980. The graveyard is bordered with a course and recent single rail timber log fence without a gate. Extending eastward from the graveyard are a number of established olive trees planted in a line. Further to the north west are timber posts and remnants of an early woolstore and complex built on this site.
To the south west of the house at the base of the spur is a substantial lagoon, on the banks of which are timber posts, remnants from an early bath house and water slide. As well many trees and early plantings surround the lagoon.
About 200 metres distant from the house to the north west is a power line supported on large three tiered metal power poles.
","history":"Tarong Homestead was established in about 1842 with the arrival of James Borthwick to the South Burnett region. Soon after the run was acquired by Borthwick's manger, George Clapperton who retained the property until his death in 1875 when it was transferred to his estate. Tarong Homestead remains in the ownership of the Clapperton family.
In late 1842, John James Malcolm Borthwick, from Buaraba Homestead near Ipswich, and William Elliott Oliver visited Taromeo Homestead on their way north seeking land for establishing pastoral runs. After leaving Taromeo, Oliver soon discovered land on which he established Nanango Station and Borthwick continued northward where he decided upon 260 square miles of land which was to become Tarong Station.
Although he is believed to have established Tarong by the end of 1842, Borthwick did not receive official notification in 1850 of the acceptance of his tender for the 27 400 acres comprising the Tarong run, two years after the Burnett Pastoral District was established. A depasturing license was issued to Borthwick and Oliver by the New South Wales Government in 1844. Borthwick seems to have spent very little time at Tarong from an early date soon after its establishment. Leaving the day to day running of the property to his manager George Clapperton.
In 1857 Clapperton acquired the lease of the property and it is through a series of diaries, journals, ledgers and letterbooks kept by him that a record of much of the history of Tarong Station after the mid 1850s is kept. Clapperton was a prominent local citizen, involved with most local activities, including lobbying the government for the laying out of a township at Nanango. During Clapperton's ownership Tarong changed from principally a sheep station, to a sheep and cattle station in the 1870s, and under his son's ownership to a cattle station toward the end of the nineteenth century reflecting the region's future prominence in cattle production.
Although a comprehensive history of the complex of buildings at Tarong Station has not been established, an approximate guide to construction on the station can be discerned from the surviving records. The principal residence was constructed in three stages, the first as the residence of Borthwick, the second as the kitchen wing and the third stage as another general residential wing.
It is thought that the first section of the homestead was constructed in the 1840s. This is the south western wing of the extant complex, and is constructed from vertical adze cut timber slabs housed in dressed timber beams at the base and top of the walls. This building originally had a gabled roof clad with shingles and extending, with a lower pitch, over verandahs at the front and rear. There is little evidence to suggest a building date only that it was probably built within a few years of the arrival of Borthwick on the property. The building is similar in construction technique and age to structures on other early homesteads including the first stage of the Canning Downs principal residence built in about 1847 and also to the first stage of Cressbrook also built in the mid 1840s.
Substantial building work seems to have been carried out at Tarong in the 1850s, a time when more substantial records exists of life at the station. The woolstore, which no longer stands but was to the south of the residence, was thought to have been completed in the 1850s, as was the kitchen wing. In 1856 reports of the garden suggest that it was "in a poor state of cultivation having been for long used as a sheep yard, occasionally as a green barley park, and again as a maize field." attempts were made, therefore, to improve the garden and fences were constructed, and in the next few years a large number of exotic trees and plants were introduced including orange and lemon trees; walnut trees; chestnut trees; peach, nectarine and apricot trees; bergamot plant; pear trees; plum, sage and cherry plants and fig trees. The diaries give very good records of the work completed in the gardens; walks were laid out and a gardener's cottage constructed in 1874 and garden beds were bordered with brick edging in October 1884.
In 1856 the kitchen wing was constructed perpendicular to the original house and using slabs of timber from earlier slab huts and shingling from trees on the property. The construction work was completed by general employees of Tarong. In 1870 a chimney was constructed near the kitchen, which collapsed in 1872 and required replacement, which was done in conjunction with the covering of the shingled roof with iron sheeting.
On 15 December 1875 George Clapperton died, leaving the property to his wife, Anne Clapperton who later re-married, assuming the name of her husband, George Wilson. As a result of Clapperton's death, a small cemetery to the north west of the residence was established to house his grave stone. The cemetery continues to be used as the Clapperton family grave yard.
Throughout the 1870s and 1880s improvements were made to the residence at Tarong, including papering and painting walls and ceilings and constructing a fireplace in the dining room, which was the largest room of the first building and the room closest to the kitchen. The kitchen was white washed in 1881 and extensively refitted internally in November 1887. In June 1874 a brickmaker was employed full time at Tarong making brick for use at the property and also for selling locally as closer settlement increased the population in the Nanango area.
The next major phase of building was the construction of the five roomed square planned wing within the cavity of the L-shaped plan created by the kitchen and original residence. The Wilsons, who now owned Tarong, employed a local carpenter, Mr Hugh Davidson, to plan and calculate the quantity of timber for the proposed building in January 1890 and throughout 1890 the building was constructed firstly by Davidson, who was paid out and left in March, and then by another local carpenter, Jimmy Walsh. Assistance was offered to the entire project by a Mr Moppett who worked at Tarong for many years carrying out small carpentering, painting and papering jobs to the buildings. The new building was planned and timber was both bought from a local timber supplier, Parsons and acquired from the property for shingling. The unusual four panelled timber doors were acquired from a Mr Heimer in Nanango. By November 1890 the carpentering work was complete and Moppett was left with the wall papering and making and laying of carpets. Early in 1891 Moppett constructed and white-washed a chimney, presumably in the new section as he then went about repairing the other chimneys in the residence complex. From April until May of 1891 cedar boarded ceilings, skirtings and other mouldings were erected in the residence. In December of that year Moppett constructed wardrobes and lined and papered the original dining room in the eh first wing of the house.
At some time in the early twentieth century the verandahs of the 1890 section of the Tarong residence were extended, also necessitating the replacement of the shingled roof with a low pitched corrugated iron clad hipped roof. Many smaller buildings on the site were constructed including the meat room which was converted from an old store in June 1862; a bath house built on the lagoon in 1880; and other removals and reuse of timber among the smaller buildings.
The original lease holding of Tarong was reduced with the government encouraging closer settlement in the South Burnett region. This happened over many years from the 1870s, to consolidation in the mid 1880s and to the early twentieth century when two Land Acts (1897 and 1902) allowed the resumption of much of the lease.
","criteria":"Tarong Homestead was established by John James Malcolm Borthwick in about 1842, one of the first runs taken in the Wide Bay/Burnett area. The run demonstrates the development of Queensland, particularly this area from the establishment of pastoral holdings in 1840s to closer settlement from the 1870s. The property illustrates the development of pastoral practices in Queensland, particularly the development of the beef industry in the South Burnett Region.
|Tarong has many rare built elements including an 1840s slab hut; an 1859 slab kitchen and surviving wallpaper in six rooms probably dating from the late nineteenth century. The site remains remarkably intact, despite continual additions.
|The early date of Tarong with its many extant features and extensive early documentation suggest that a potential exists for further historical and archaeological research which may yield information which will contribute to an understanding of early Queensland station life.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland pastoral station. The arrangement of the early buildings and their relationship to outbuildings provides important evidence of early station life. The buildings comprising the residence demonstrate three nineteenth century methods of timber construction; with two forms of vertical slab construction and a later horizontal slab building.
|Tarong has aesthetic significance; the entire site has a picturesque quality resulting from the layering of various periods of building construction over many years and the siting of these buildings overlooking the surrounding flats. The residence has architectural significance for its composition and planning, producing an environmentally sensitive and comfortable building.
|Tarong has special associations with the South Burnett community as one of their first settled stations and a place of employment for local residents and their families many of whom remain in the area.
|The place is associated with the Clapperton family who have owned Tarong since 1857 and were instrumental in the development of the South Burnett region and the town of Nanango.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15535,"place_ref":600760,"name":"Cunnamulla War Memorial Fountain","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"John Street","suburb":"CUNNAMULLA","lga":"PAROO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a five way intersection, forming a traffic island in the centre. It is surrounded by a grassed strip and enclosed by a low post and chain fence.
The concrete memorial comprises a shallow trough, with a tall and elaborate centrepiece.
The trough measures 7 metres in diameter and is painted blue internally. A small leaded marble plaque on the north face bears the inscription; Erected by the citizens of Paroo Shire in memory of those gallant Australians who fell in the Great War 1914 - 1918.
The centrepiece comprises four basins, decreasing in scale as they reach the peak. The lower basin has scalloped edges which incorporates heads of gargoyles. It is supported by four large winged griffins holding shields bearing emus and kangaroos. They sit on a base with foliated designs at the centre and corner of each face.
Above the first basin is a square pedestal with moulded festoons on each face. This is surmounted by an urn-like element with four small winged griffins and scrollwork at the top, which is the support for the second basin. This is also has scalloped edges and heads of gargoyles. The shaft continues to rises to a third basin which is simpler in design and is surmounted by a small boy figure. The final basin is located above the figure's head.
The entire shaft, which tapers towards the peak, is heavily ornamented with a variety of design elements, including scrollwork, panels and foliated patterns.
","history":"It is not known by whom the Cunnamulla War Memorial Fountain was designed. The concrete memorial honours those who fell during the First World War. The names of the fallen are not listed on the memorial, but on an honour board in the Civic Centre. Indeed, if not for an inscription, the fountain would be difficult to identify as a war memorial.
By 1920 the Paroo Shire had decided to erect a war memorial fountain in the centre of Cunnamulla town. However, it appears that the memorial was not erected immediately as in July 1924, the masonry firm of A L Petrie, Brisbane wrote to the Paroo Shire Council offering designs. Little is known about the origins of the fountain, however there is an identical fountain (not a memorial) in the New South Wales town of Wellington, indicating that it was a stock line and not specially commissioned.
The town of Cunnamulla was first settled in the 1880s to serve the developing pastoral area. The railway was extended to the town in 1898, increasing its importance as a centre for the district.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, fountains were an uncommon selection as the main town memorial. They were more often used in school grounds where, as drinking fountains, they also served a useful function.
Fountains were selected as memorials, as water was considered symbolic of renewed life and cleansing. Water is a significant element in many memorials of note, including The Pool of Reflection in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Many other smaller memorials had drinking spouts and water troughs incorporated into their designs.
As water is a scarce commodity in rural Queensland, a fountain may have been considered a suitable 'sacrifice' as a memorial.
There was originally a captured gun or 'war trophy' within the enclosure, but this was removed at some stage.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
|War memorial fountains of this scale are uncommon in Queensland, however water is a popular symbolic element suggesting renewed life and cleansing. It is rare as a war memorial with imagery not found on other memorials.
|The memorial is of aesthetic significance as a distinctive landmark in the centre of a small country town.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15536,"place_ref":600761,"name":"Paroo Shire Honour Board","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16 John Street","suburb":"CUNNAMULLA","lga":"PAROO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Paroo Honour Board is a panel of pressed copper; richly decorated in low relief with patriotic symbols such as flags, laurel wreaths and cannons. This decoration provides a rich frame for columns of names, each on an individual brass strip. The honour board is mounted on a marble slab, measuring 1.82 x 1.55 metres, which is in turn mounted on a wooden frame with a bronze edge trim.
\nA total of 370 names of those who served in World War I are listed alphabetically with further spaces indicating that hostilities had not yet ceased at that time. In the tradition of memorials, the rank of the deceased is not indicated.
\nThe honour board is displayed on the east wall of the main collection room in the Cunnamulla Library. The wall and modern fixtures used to mount the honour board are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Paroo Honour Board commemorates those from Paroo Shire who served in World War I and was unveiled in 1918 by the then State Governor, Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams. It was originally located in the old Shire Hall, housed in the Civic Centre between 1971 and 2019, and currently on display in the Cunnamulla Library.
\n
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead, but also those who fought and returned. Australians were proud that their first great national army was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Many communities honoured their volunteers after the war ended, but the Paroo board is early and was installed before the close of hostilities. It has the date of the commencement of the war, 1914, on the left hand side of the memorial, but the corresponding space on the other side is empty. Spaces have also been left for names to be added. The design selected is a handsome, but standard type of Wunderlich honour board found in a number of other towns in Queensland. It commemorates all those from Paroo Shire who served in World War I, the dead not being indicated in any way.
Beneath the standard words 'Roll of Honor' and British and Australian flags is a plaque on which 'Paroo Shire' is encircled by the commemorative inscriptions 'Brave hearts and true, God guide them' and 'Shall their sacrifice be in vain?' This is an uncommon challenge; a more usual inscription on similar Wunderlich honour boards is 'Those who answered the Empire's call'.
The Honour Board was relocated to the public foyer of the Civic Centre in 1971, which was officially opened by the then Premier, Hon J Bjelke-Petersen on 23 April 1971. In 2019 it was relocated for display in the Cunnamulla Library.
War memorials, including honour boards, especially those dating from the Boer and First World Wars, are a local tribute to war dead and are an important element of Queensland towns and cities. They represent a conscious expression of emerging Australian nationhood and reflect public taste and social attitudes of their time. Such memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|It has an unusual inscription that has not been found on another honour board in Queensland.
|The memorials manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1918, the Paroo Shire Honour Board is an intact example of a lavish, though typical Wunderlich honour board; richly decorated, it is a good example of the work of this firm.
|Thoughtfully designed and finely crafted in decorative pressed copper, brass, bronze and marble, the Paroo Shire Honour Board is of aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes. It incorporates classical composition and symbolic details to provide a dignified focus for the remembrance of those involved in a major world event.
|The Paroo Shire Honour Board has strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. It is also associated with the work of Wunderlich, a company that was part of the fabric of the Australian building industry for much of the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15538,"place_ref":600763,"name":"Zero Obelisk","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"East Bank, Warrego River","suburb":"BARRINGUN","lga":"PAROO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Zero Obelisk at Barringun is a truncated pyramid of concrete render over stone, measuring 0.9 x 0.9 x 0.9 metres marking the Queensland - New South Wales border at Barringun. Part of an inscription on the Queensland side which reads 'G. WAT' (George Chale Watson) is still visible.
","history":"The Zero Obelisk marks the beginning of the first official survey of the border between the colonies of Queensland and New South Wales in 1879-80.
The need for an official survey of the border had been recognised for many years but the work was not begun until mid 1879, when officers from both colonies met at the telegraph station at Barringun in New South Wales which was close to the border (Latitude 29°S). The surveyors were JB Cameron and J Conder, Trigonometrical Surveyors, from New South Wales and GC Watson, Surveying Commissioner of Crown Lands, Warrego District, from Queensland.
John Brewer Cameron was born in Scotland and immigrated to Victoria with his family in 1853. Noted for being athletic and adventurous, he travelled first to the Victorian goldfields and then to New Zealand. Returning to Victoria, he joined a government geodetic surveying party working in the area near Mount Baw Baw. This experience decided him to take up a career in surveying. He went to Fiji as a surveyor in 1869, then returned in 1872 to Victoria where he specialised in surveying and geodesy. By 1879 he was a First Class surveyor in the Trigonometrical branch of the NSW Lands Department and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of New South Wales. In this year he undertook his most notable commission, to survey the border between Queensland and New South Wales.
The survey work began at Zero obelisk at Barringun, the division of work between the surveyors being described by Cameron in a letter to his uncle, Ewen Cameron:
Mr Watson is responsible for chainage while I am for the astronomical portion in finding true meridian, giving true bearing, setting off the chords, and finding latitude at every convenient site.
After observations at Barringun to determine the latitude, the team began surveying the border in a westerly direction to the intersection with the border with South Australia at Longitude 141° E, known as Cameron's Corner. This was a distance of 235 miles over difficult country. Watson and Cameron did not get on and they had to contend first with flooding in both the Warrego and Paroo systems and then drought. Health problems and shortages of both food and water added to their problems. Watson withdrew at the one hundred mile post due to lack of water, but Cameron was determined to carry on. This section of the survey took 12 months and 15 days to complete and details of it were given in the first Annual Report of the NSW Department of Lands 1880 Appendix 1.
In 1881 Cameron returned to Barringun to survey the easterly section to the Barwon River. This 200 mile survey was easier with good water and grass available throughout. When the survey was complete Cameron commemorated the event by placing a wooden post carved with his name on the river bank. Although this was not the first border survey, it was the official survey.
In 1883 Cameron moved to New Guinea where he carried out important surveys under the direction of Sir William MacGregor. He died in 1897 in Brisbane during a return trip to New Guinea and is buried in the Toowong Cemetery.
","criteria":"The Zero Obelisk, Barringun marks the first official survey of the border between what were then the separate colonies of New South Wales and Queensland when an accurate definition of the border was important for legal and economic reasons. It illustrates a remarkable feat of surveying in the nineteenth century and is a reminder of the extraordinarily difficult conditions under which many early surveyors worked.
|The Zero Obelisk is one of the few extant physical reminders of the official survey undertaking to mark the Queensland - New South Wales border.
|As a commemoration of one of his most notable accomplishments, the obelisk has an important association with the life and career of JB Cameron and other surveyors, whose work contributed to the development of Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15539,"place_ref":600764,"name":"St Patricks Church","alternate_name":"St Patrick's Catholic Church","street_address":"18 Pearson Street","suburb":"MOUNT PERRY","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Patrick's Church is an elevated timber framed building situated on a prominent ridge overlooking the town of Mount Perry and is a dominant feature of its townscape.
The church is rectangular in plan, comprising a nave and side aisles and is clad in weatherboards. At the western end is a projecting gabled section housing a stairwell that accesses the choir loft. It is flanked by twin porches and stairs. The twin entrance doors are arched and this motif is echoed in decorative open timber work to the porches and to the gables of the portico and main roof. At the eastern end of the church is the sanctuary and adjoining vestry with a separate entrance on the northern side. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and is steeply pitched over the nave with aisle roofs springing from below clerestory windows. Crosses are located at the ends of the main roof and the gabled roof of the entrance portico.
The church is lit with timber-framed lancet windows placed alternately singly and in pairs. The triple lancet windows in the sanctuary are set with stained glass.
The interior of the church is very intact and the clear finish to internal lining boards and painted decorative trim appears to be that applied when the building was first constructed. Light fittings, hardware and furniture including altar, pews, statuary and a small harmonium are also original.
","history":"St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church was constructed in 1904 in the then important copper mining town of Mount Perry.
The township of Mount Perry, about 100 kilometres west of Bundaberg, was established following the discovery of copper in the vicinity in 1869. The first Roman Catholic priest to visit Mount Perry was Father James Horan who was based in Gayndah in 1870. He is thought to have made arrangements for the construction of a church, although work did not begin until after he had left for Peak Downs in November 1872. The church was completed under the direction of the succeeding priest at Gayndah, Father C Rossolini, though its form is not known.
The population of the township quickly grew and 20 hotels sprang up in Mount Perry in the early 1870s, reflecting the high proportion of men without families on the field. However, the copper mine ceased operations in October 1877 and was sold by liquidators in January 1878 on the expectation that it would not be re-opened until the railway was completed. This occurred in 1884, linking Mount Perry with Bundaberg. Mount Perry became the railhead for the Upper Burnett and a major centre; now having nine hotels including 6 newly built ones, a courthouse, hospital and a School of Arts. However, after a period of growth the town declined, until the mine closed in 1891 due to a fall in the price of copper. In 1893, Father Rossolini, by then based in Bundaberg, died. Father Mimnagh, who had assisted him, took over as parish priest in Bundaberg and continued to minister to Mount Perry. He served as Parish Priest of Bundaberg until 1917.
Matters in Mount Perry soon improved as the London-based Queensland Copper Company bought the mine in 1898, sparking a revival in the town, and by 1904 the population in the field was 2000. In 1903 an Anglican church was built at Mount Perry reflecting the growth of the town and by this time, the early Catholic church had presumably become inadequate for the congregation. In August 1904 tenders were called for a new church to be built to the plans of Bundaberg architect F H Faircloth at an estimated cost of £500.
Frederic Herbert (Herb) Faircloth was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. Faircloth set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very successful, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every important building in Bundaberg, including extensions to the Church of the Holy Rosary. He was also responsible for much of the rebuilding of the town centre of Childers following a major fire in 1902.
The first Mount Perry church was sold for removal in 1904 prior to the construction of the new church, which was completed by builder John Guthrie in 1905 for a cost, including furnishings, of £667. St Patrick's was consecrated on 12 February 1905 with over 400 people from the surrounding area in attendance. Soon after the building of the new church, Mount Perry was created a separate parish. Father Sullivan at first occupied the back of the church, using the choir loft as a bedroom and eating with a neighbouring family. A Presbytery was built by the Maynard Brothers in 1914, but has not survived.
Soon after this, the peak demand for copper passed and many mines closed. The mining venture at Mount Perry collapsed and the smelters in 1915 closed with a consequent dwindling of population. Many buildings were demolished or removed and Mount Perry was placed in the parish of Gayndah.
The parish was reopened with the arrival of Father Frawley in 1939 and in September that year Archbishop Duhig visited Mount Perry and the surrounding area. In later years Mount Perry became at various times part of Gin Gin, Gayndah and Childers Parishes. It is now part of the Gin Gin parish and has a visiting priest from that town.
The church building has changed little. Early photographs show a timber bell tower to the north of the church, but this did not survive and the bell is now mounted on a simple frame.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Church is important for its close association with the development of Mount Perry as a noted copper centre in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and with the development of Catholicism within the Diocese of Brisbane, both of which illustrate the pattern of Queensland history.
|St Patrick's is a good example of the Carpenter Gothic architectural style used in church construction.
|The building has considerable aesthetic and architectural merit, and through its form, scale, materials, detailing and plantings and makes an important aesthetic contribution to the Mount Perry townscape. St Patrick's Church survives reasonably intact, with much of the original furnishings and finishes being retained.
|The place has a special association for local Catholics as a centre of Catholic worship and social gatherings throughout the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15540,"place_ref":600765,"name":"Masonic Lodge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Isabella Street","suburb":"MOUNT PERRY","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Masonic Hall at Mt Perry is a single-storey, rectangular-plan timber building of exposed stud construction now clad with fibrous cement sheeting on the sides and rear. The building is at street level at the front and is raised on posts at the back as the ground falls away to the rear of the block. The gabled roof is concealed at the front by a parapet and the street elevation is classically inspired although carried out in timber. It has a full width pediment supported by corner Tuscan pilasters. Framed beneath are two double hung windows flanking a central entry porch with a pedimented roof and supported by freestanding Tuscan columns.
In a striking contrast, the side and rear walls are completely plain and clad in fibrous cement sheeting. There are three plain rectangular windows placed high on both sides of the building towards the rear.
","history":"The Masonic Hall at Mt Perry is a simple vernacular structure with an ornate classically inspired façade and was constructed around 1904 when Mt Perry was important as a copper mining town.
Freemasonry spread from New South Wales into Queensland in individual lodges. The first Freemason's lodge in Queensland was established in 1859, shortly before Separation from New South Wales. New lodges were formed as settlement spread.
The township of Mount Perry, about 100 kilometres west of Bundaberg, was established following the discovery of copper in the vicinity in 1869. The population of the township quickly grew and 20 hotels sprang up in Mount Perry in the early 1870s, reflecting the high proportion of men without families on the field. However, the copper mine ceased operations in October 1877 and was sold by liquidators in January 1878 on the expectation that it would not be re-opened until the railway was completed. This occurred in 1884, linking Mount Perry with Bundaberg. Mount Perry became the railhead for the Upper Burnett and a major centre; now having nine hotels including 6 newly built ones, a courthouse, hospital and a School of Arts. However, after a period of growth the town declined, until the mine closed in 1891 due to a fall in the price of copper. Matters in Mount Perry soon improved as the London-based Queensland Copper Company bought the mine in 1898, sparking a revival in the town, and by 1904 the population in the field was 2000.
In 1902 the Lee Bryce Lodge was consecrated and in 1904, Henry Yeoman, Robert McRae, George Hardlaw, Thomas Province and Robert Scott acquired the land on which the Masonic Hall was to be constructed on 17 June 1904. Yeoman was a cordial manufacturer; McRae a storekeeper, Hardlaw and Province were graziers and Scott the postmaster.
The fellowship associated with Freemasonry was particularly important to men living in areas of isolated or scattered settlement or in jobs that were itinerant or seasonal. Lodges hosted social events, contributed to local charities and provided opportunities for local businessmen to meet socially, all of which made an important contribution to the life the town.
By 1912 the peak demand for copper had passed and many mines closed. The mining venture at Mount Perry collapsed and the smelters closed in 1915 with a consequent dwindling of population. In the succeeding years many buildings were demolished or removed.
The Bryce Lodge No.142 of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Queensland and the United Grand Lodge of Queensland is still based on this hall.
","criteria":"The Masonic Hall is important in demonstrating the development of Mt Perry and the spread of Freemasonry through Queensland in the wake of European settlement.
|The Mt Perry hall is important as a characteristic and intact example of a regional timber Masonic Hall, a category of building prominent in the streetscape and important in the social life of many country towns.
|The building exhibits aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular, it contributes to the streetscape and is an illustration of the prosperity of Mt Perry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|The Masonic Hall, Mt Perry, has a special association with those Freemasons living in and around Mt Perry and with the Freemasonry movement in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15541,"place_ref":600766,"name":"Strathpine Honour Board","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1347 Anzac Avenue","suburb":"KALLANGUR","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This World War I Honour Board is wall mounted in the old foyer of the Pine Rivers RSL and Services Memorial Club.
\nThe honour board is made of bronze on a marble background with timber edging. Predominantly rectangular in shape, the board has a panel to either top corner featuring a cavalryman with the Queensland state emblem and a soldier below. There are two enamelled flags at the top in the centre, the current Australian flag and the Union Jack, and on either side is the emblem of the AIF. At the bottom in the centre is a plastic replica of Britannia, with the words For king and country, and in each of the bottom corners is a cannon.
\nThe roll of honour features names on separate beaten plates screwed to the board with lettering beside indicating whether the person was killed in action, wounded, died of illness or returned home, many of which are missing. The lettering is in gold and the background is a dull brown metal finish. The board has a handcrafted quality but the figures appear to have been cast.
\nIn the same foyer is a timber honour board for North Pine State School. It has two columns supporting a curved timber gable with a central carved wreath in relief. Names are listed in two vertical panels and all lettering is in gold.
\nThere is also a cast metal plaque dedicated to the RSSAIAL featuring a crown with a sailor, soldier and airman in a centre circle. Also depicted are the Irish clover, Scotch thistle, English rose, Welsh leek and Australian wattle.
\nThe foyer opens to the north to a memorial garden. There is a paved central path with a low brick structure and plaque with the words Lest we forget. Two brick side walls with plates bearing the names of deceased members and three plaques with the emblems of the RAN, the AIF and the RAAF. There is also a flagpole and four rocks with plaques commemorating the US Army presence in Pine Rivers, the Vietnam War, all wars and all those lost at sea. The gardens also contain two guns and World War I memorial gates.
\nThe gates have painted carved stone gateposts with decorative wrought iron gates. The two central gates are larger and roll on wheels for opening. The posts are square in plan with carved stone capitals. The centre two are larger with carved wreaths at the top front, and all the posts have marble memorial plaques attached commemorating the Great War, World War II, Vietnam, Malaya, Borneo and Korea.
","history":"This honour board was designed by leading Brisbane metal worker, Ernest Gunderson in 1921. It was commissioned by the Strathpine Patriotic League and hung in the Pine Rivers Shire Hall until 1980 when it was moved to the local RSL club.
The board lists in alphabetical order the 76 names of local men who served in World War I. Some of the letters are missing and others were replaced in 1984 when a local, Fred Williams, refurbished the board.
Located near this honour board are other memorials to honour the districts service men. In 1985 the First World War Memorial Gates from the Lawnton Agricultural Show Grounds were relocated to Anzac Ave and the area between the gates and club have been constructed as a memorial garden.
The Brisbane based Gunderson firm manufactured cast bronze honour boards which were quite distinctive as the dark bronze background contrasted with the polished brass lettering and ornamentation. Gunderson's honour boards are unique to Queensland and few remain as intact as this example.
","criteria":"Evidence of a widespread social movement expressing the imperial loyalties of the period
|A member of a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure
|The aesthetic quality and craftsmanship
The memorial gates for their aesthetic quality and streetscape contribution
|A rare example of the work of Brisbane craftsman Ernest Gunderson
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15542,"place_ref":600767,"name":"North Pine Presbyterian Church (former)","alternate_name":"North Pine Presbyterian Church","street_address":"901 Dayboro Road","suburb":"WHITESIDE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former North Pine Presbyterian Church is a small, timber-framed church located in the historical village tourist attraction ‘Old Petrie Town’ in Whiteside, a suburb near Petrie. It stands in a prominent position surrounded by open lawns with its entry facing approximately north to a large grassed ‘village green’.
\nThe church is lowset and has a steep gable roof over the main body, a small gable roofed front porch, and a lower skillion roof over an attached rear vestry (likely an extension made in 1887). The vestry has a floor level one step higher than the nave.
\nThe church’s main body and porch are of single-skin construction with framing exposed externally, stop chamfering on corner studs, and diagonal bracing toward the building corners. The rear vestry is clad externally with weatherboards.
\nFeatures of the church of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Former North Pine Presbyterian Church was built in 1884 in Petrie and was moved 2.5km northwest in 1985 to form part of a historical village tourist attraction in Whiteside. It is the oldest surviving church in the Petrie district and is a good example of a small nineteenth-century Queensland church of single-skin timber construction.
\nThe North Pine River area is part of the traditional lands of the Kabi Kabi and the Yuggera Ugarapul People.[1] Convict timber getters were recorded in the area in the 1820s, and in the early 1840s pastoral runs were established on either side of the North Pine River. In 1859 Thomas Petrie established a 6400 acre (2590ha) run, known as Murrumba, which extended to Sideling Creek in the west, Redcliffe Point in the east, and to the Pine and North Pine rivers in the south. Petrie was also involved in timber getting, utilising the rafting ground at Sweeney's Reserve [QHR 602687], southeast of the present Petrie town centre.
\nCloser settlement in the area commenced in 1862, with the sale by selection of portions in the ‘Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve'. Having had his pastoral leases cancelled by this reserve, Tom Petrie purchased a homestead block (portion 23, east of the school site), and leased nearby Portions 24, 25, 29 and 30. A coach route from Brisbane to Gympie, with a staging post at Petrie's ‘Murrumba Homestead’, was established in late 1868 by Cobb & Co. A road bridge was built next to the ford at Sweeney's Reserve in 1877, and the North Coast Railway was constructed north from Brisbane to Caboolture by 1888. Tom Petrie took advantage of the railway running through his property to subdivide part of it as the North Pine Terminus Township in 1885. This became the nucleus of the township of North Pine. In 1877, Tom Petrie also donated land for the establishment of the town's first state school.[2]
\nThe first Presbyterian church in the district was known as the ‘Short Cut’, ‘The Pine’, ‘The Crossing’, or the ‘North Pine’ church, and was located several miles east of the suburb known today as Petrie. This church was demolished in 1915. As settlement surrounding the small town of North Pine increased in the 1870s, so too did the need for a new and more conveniently located church for the Presbyterian congregation.[3]
\nIn 1877, North Pine settler, William Townsend, gave one acre (0.4ha) of his 40 acre (16.1ha) selection along the North Pine River, to the Presbyterian Church. A church was not immediately built on the site. In 1881, however, a congregation meeting was held to discuss the construction of a new church. At this meeting Tom Petrie proposed that ‘a new building, to take the place of the one at the riverside, be put up on the church grounds on the hill’.[4] A building committee, comprising of several leading community members, including Messrs Petrie, McCulloch, Gordon, and White, was established. In July 1883, tenders were called for the construction of the church. The successful contractor was local builder and farmer, James Foreman, at a cost of £142. In 1883 the progress of the work was reported, ‘Mr Foreman has in hand another church, which he hopes to finish soon’.[5] It is not known if an architect was associated with the design of the church.
\nOn 8 June 1884, the completed church was officially opened and was described at the time as a ‘fine building’. Standing centrally on its elevated allotment, the church faced northeast to Old Dayboro Road, a main thoroughfare from North Pine, south to Brisbane, and was central to the growing township. Early photographs (undated) show it to have been of ‘single-skin’ timber construction. It was lowset and had a simple rectangular nave with a steep gable roof, a small projecting front porch. It had pointed arch windows either side of the porch and down the sides of the nave.[6]
\nThe distinctive single-skin timber construction technique evolved in Queensland from the mid-1860s. In this period, architects Richard George Suter, working for the Board of General Education in Brisbane, and Richard Hugo Oswald Roehricht, as chief draftsman for the Great Northern Railway at Rockhampton, were exploring similar architectural ideas for what was initially called ‘outside studding’. Exposing the structural frame and the outside face of the internal lining to the exterior increased the architectural expression of buildings and allowed for economic construction. Schools and churches built using this technique were a key influence in the widespread adoption of single-skin timber construction throughout colonial Queensland.[7]
\nThe North Pine Presbyterian Church committee meeting minutes record that on 25 April 1887 the committee accepted a Collins and McTaggart tender of £5/10s for painting the interior of the church, and Mr Whitmore’s tender of £15 for the erection of a small room at the back of the church (likely the vestry), as well as 10/- for ‘fixing in ventilators and cutting/fixing louvre windows in the gable ends’.[8]
\nOver the years, many social events have taken place within the church grounds, including Sunday school classes, fundraising fetes, picnics and community meetings.[9] Minutes record that funds were raised from the congregation between 1890 and 1892 to purchase an organ for £30. In 1911, following the death of Tom Petrie in August 1910, North Pine was renamed ‘Petrie’ in his memory. The church, however, remained known as the North Pine Presbyterian Church.[10]
\nFurther fundraising events for the church were held in the grounds of the Petrie family’s Murrumba Homestead, hosted by two of Tom Petrie’s daughters, Ida and Jessie, who continued to reside at the property following his death: ‘the picturesque grounds of Murrumba lent for the occasion by the Misses Petrie, made an ideal setting for the fete … The ornamental trees, planted so many years ago by the late Mrs Tom Petrie, made a delightful background to the stalls scattered beneath their shade’.[11]
\nIn June 1916, an honour board, dedicated to church members who had enlisted in World War I (WWI), was unveiled. The silky oak board was designed and built by Brisbane furniture manufacturers, F Tritton Ltd (Tritton’s).[12]
\nDuring World War II (WWII) several large military training camps, collectively known as Camp Strathpine, were situated in the Petrie district. Both US troops and Australian troops were accommodated at the camps at various times throughout the war. The North Pine Presbyterian Church congregation welcomed servicemen attending church services and provided supper on Sundays following the evening service.[13]
\nIn October 1983, the congregation celebrated its centenary and the event was attended by more than 200 people. One year later a new brick church was constructed beside the original one.[14] The WWI Honour Board was transferred to the new church at this time. The 1884 church was subsequently relocated in 1985 to a new site in nearby Whiteside for the establishment of North Pine Country Park (in 2020 known as Old Petrie Town), a historical village tourist attraction. Operated by the Pine Rivers Shire Council, it included other old buildings moved onto the site.
\nIn 2020, the church remains consecrated and is used for interdenominational services and weddings.[15] As the oldest remaining church in the district, the former North Pine Presbyterian Church has been an important spiritual and community centre since 1884.
","criteria":"The North Pine Presbyterian Church (former), built in 1884 and moved to its present site in 1985, is the earliest surviving church in Moreton Bay region and is important in demonstrating the development of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland and of Petrie in the late 19th century as a regional centre.
|The church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small, timber-framed church built in late-19th century Queensland. Highly intact, these include its: modest size; symmetrical, low-set, gable roof form with projecting gable roof front porch; timber-framed and -clad construction with single-skin elements; nave; vestry; and lancet windows. It also retains early characteristic fittings including pews, cabinet, organ and stool.
|The church is important for its aesthetic qualities, displaying beautiful attributes. This is brought about by its modest size, symmetrical form, exposed construction, decorative timberwork in a modest Carpenter Gothic style, and its simple nave with regularly-spaced lancet windows.
|The church has a strong and ongoing association with the Moreton Bay community. Established in 1884 through the efforts and fundraising of the community, and with sustained use as a church since, it has served as a prominent venue for spiritual worship, social interaction, community support, and valued customary traditions for more than 135 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15543,"place_ref":600768,"name":"Pine Rivers Shire Hall (former)","alternate_name":"Pine Shire Hall | Pine Rivers Shire Hall | Pine Divisional Board Hall","street_address":"238 Gympie Road","suburb":"STRATHPINE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Pine Rivers Shire Hall (former) (1889-c1935) comprises a small, single-storey building fronting east to Gympie Road, the main arterial road, in central Strathpine. It stands back from the front boundary behind a narrow front yard and is surrounded by open space on all sides. It shares its flat site with an adjacent, later brick council chambers building (1960) and a later large public carpark at the rear (bitumened by the 1990s), which are not within the state heritage register boundary. The site is bounded on its north, west, and south by Hall Street, which is a loop road around the site.
\nThe building is a modest, timber-framed and -clad building, elevated on short stumps, and has a corrugated metal sheet-clad roof. It comprises an original Divisional Board Hall that has had additions made in four later stages to accommodate the increased functions of the local government. The building is largely intact in its c1935 arrangement, and its different phases of construction are evident, with their original uses legible. In 2023 it is used as a community theatre venue, reflecting its significant ongoing community use.
\nFeatures of Pine Rivers Shire Hall (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFront Verandah (1889, extended 1932, substantially rebuilt 1984-86)
\nRunning along the east face of the building, the Front Verandah is timber-framed and has a skillion roof. It comprises two sections – an 1889 section across the front of the Divisional Board Hall and a 1932 extension across the front of the Council Office. The later section matches the earlier in form and most details. The Front Verandah has two short timber stairs, separating the entrances of the Divisional Board Hall and Council Office.
\nFeatures of the Front Verandah of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Front Verandah not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nDivisional Board Hall (1889, extended eastwards by 1932)
\nEntrance from the Front Verandah into the Divisional Board Hall is via a central double door, which has been sheeted over internally and is no longer used. The Divisional Board Hall (1889, extended by 1932) comprises a rectangular, long and narrow structure with a steep, gable roof. It has been extended (eastwards by approximately 7m) using the same materials and detailing as the original section but is legible in the fabric. The Divisional Board Hall comprises a single large room with a high, coved ceiling and has been converted for use as a theatre. The interior walls have been lined with flat sheet material over all windows to create a black box, however, the openings and most of their sashes remain in-situ behind. Original partitions (1889) forming offices at the hall’s western end have been removed (by c1905), however, evidence of their locations may survive behind later linings.
\nFeatures of the Divisional Board Hall of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Divisional Board Hall not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRear Extension (1905, substantially rebuilt 1984-86)
\nAttached to the rear of the Divisional Board Hall is a second addition, the Rear Extension (1905), comprising a lean-to block with a skillion roof. It is a timber-framed, single-skin structure, clad externally with chamferboards with its studs exposed internally. It includes a small rear porch (built by 1905, possibly including earlier fabric) providing access into its southern side. Two doors connect through the rear wall of the Divisional Board Hall into the Rear Extension, which accommodates two rooms separated by a partition with a connecting doorway. In 2023 it is used as backstage dressing rooms.
\nFeatures of the Rear Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Rear Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nCouncil Office Extension (1932)
\nAttached to the southern side of the Divisional Board Hall at its front is a third addition comprising the Council Office (1932). It is a square block with a steep gable roof perpendicular to that of the Divisional Board Hall. Accessed from the Front Verandah via a central door, the interior comprises one large room, which may be the original layout. A doorway (cut in 1932 for this extension) connects into the adjacent Divisional Board Hall. In 2023 the Council Office is used as the foyer for the theatre and a small enclosure has been made in one corner to form a box office.
\nFeatures of the Council Office Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nIt is not known how much of the existing interior wall linings of flat sheets-and-battens above a VJ board-lined dado with moulded dado rail is original. The original fabric is of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Council Office Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEnclosed Verandah Extension (1932)
\nThe Enclosed Verandah Extension (part of the third addition in 1932) comprises a wide, rectangular lean-to block with a skillion roof, and is accessed from the rear porch and two doors cut into the southern wall of the adjacent Divisional Board Hall (cut in 1932 for this addition). The interior, originally single-skin with its studs exposed internally, has been lined with modern flat sheet material (likely c1955) and partitions have been added to enclose a costume store within the space. In 2023 it is used as a backstage kitchenette and prop store.
\nFeatures of the Enclosed Verandah Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Enclosed Verandah Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStrong Room Extension (c1935)
\nAttached to the southwestern corner of the Council Office Extension is a fourth addition, the Strong Room Extension (c1935). It comprises a small, off-form in-situ concrete strong room with a skillion roof. Accessed from the Council Office, it is a small windowless secure room with a thick metal safe door.
\nFeatures of the Strong Room Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Strong Room Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Pine Rivers Shire Hall (former) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe former Pine Rivers Shire Hall (1889-c1935) is a timber building located in central Strathpine. It operated as the local government's centre of administration from its construction in 1889 until 1960, first as a divisional board hall then as a shire council hall and offices. The building has served the community since 1889, and in 2023 is used as a community theatre venue.
\nStrathpine is within the traditional lands of the Turrbal people.[1] Non-Indigenous occupation of the Pine Rivers area began during the 1860s, with European farmers producing sugar cane, potatoes, lucerne, and maize, plus citrus and stone fruit, before later turning to dairy farming. A rum distillery was operating on the South Pine River by the 1870s, and the North Coast Railway opened to Caboolture, with a station at Strathpine, in June 1888. Local government was centred on Strathpine after the Pine Division was established in January 1888, separating from the Caboolture Division (established 1879). In 1897 the Parishes of Samsonvale, Pine, and Whiteside were added to Pine Division, increasing its size from 172 square miles (445.5km2) to 200 square miles (518km2). The Pine Division became the Pine Shire in 1903.[2]
\nPine Shire was later extended north of the North Pine River, and by 1960 it covered 299 square miles (774.4km2). It was renamed Pine Rivers Shire in 1959, and later amalgamated with the Shire of Caboolture and the City of Redcliffe to form Moreton Bay Regional Council in 2008.[3] Its location on the northern outskirts of Brisbane led to the development of commuter suburbs in the formerly rural shire after World War II (WWII).
\nLocal government in Queensland evolved in three phases after Queensland’s separation from New South Wales. The first phase of local government, 1859-79, was a system of permissive municipal incorporation, where local residents could petition for the establishment of a local authority. By 1878, 18 towns and cities had been incorporated in Queensland.[4] Regional areas were serviced only in part by a system of Road Boards, which had been established under the Department of Works.[5]
\nThe second phase of local government was shaped by the Local Government Act 1878 (1878 Act), and the Divisional Boards Act 1879 (1879 Act), following expansion of closer settlement in Queensland. The 1878 Act established towns, cities, and shires (the latter being closely settled areas close to towns or cities); while the 1879 Act created divisional boards to cover rural Queensland outside the towns, cities, and shires.[6] Each division was governed by a board of no less than three and no more than nine members.[7] Pugh’s Queensland Almanac for 1881 listed 77 divisional boards. The initial divisions often proved ineffective (largely due to size) and were progressively revised so that by 1902 there were 116 divisional boards throughout Queensland. Of these, at least 38 were listed as meeting in divisional board ‘halls’ in 1902. The rest met in divisional board ‘offices’, ‘chambers’, ‘rooms’, or in other rented premises.[8]
\nThe third phase saw the abolition of divisional boards and the older form of shire by the Local Authorities Act 1902, which created a simpler system of towns, cities, and shires. The divisional boards became shire councils on 31 March 1903.[9] The former Pine Rivers Shire Hall demonstrates the latter two phases of local government – divisional boards and shire councils.
\nThe Pine Divisional Board, which had its first general meeting on 7 March 1888 in the residence of Henry Ireland, the Board’s Chairman, and later met in rented premises in Bald Hills, soon decided to build a hall for their meetings. In July 1888 the Board resolved to apply for half an acre of land (2,023m2), for a reserve for office purposes, fronting Gympie Road, and on 30 January 1889, Ireland moved that the Board consider erecting a hall. subsequently, in March 1889 a half-acre of land between the Strathpine Railway Station and Gympie Road was gazetted as a ‘Reserve for Divisional Board’s Offices’ – the same month that Ireland’s plans for the hall were adopted.[10] The tender of L Micklewright, for £229, 18 shillings, and 6 pence was accepted at the 4 April 1889 meeting of the Board, with two months to complete the work from signing of the contract.[11]
\nThe 1889 reserve was later gazetted as a ‘Reserve for Local Government Purposes’ in 1940, and was expanded to the west in 1971, to an area of 1 acre and 15.4 perches (4436m2), with the inclusion of land that had been gazetted as a Railway Reserve in 1919, and as a Pound Reserve in 1920.[12]
\nPurpose-built divisional board halls were typically modest in scale and material use, reflecting the tight financial budgets under which most Queensland divisional boards operated.[13] They stood prominently in their rural locations, typically fronting the main throughfare and were central within their local government areas. They were commonly built of timber, had pitched, corrugated metal sheet-clad roofs, a front verandah, and were elevated from the ground. Internally they accommodated offices (typically only two – one for a boardroom and another office for an engineer) and a meeting hall.[14]
\nThe new Pine Divisional Board Hall was typical of these halls. It was described upon its completion in early July 1889 by the local newspaper as being 40ft by 25ft (12.2m by 7.6m), with ‘a portion at the further end being cut off and divided into offices for the use of the divisional clerk and the chairman of the board’ … [and including] five windows on either side and one on each side of the main doorway, which [was] protected by a large and commodious verandah. The interior [was] ceiled and there [was] a plentiful supply of benches … to the residents of the district, it will prove to be of great convenience, being so centrally situated, for meetings, concerts, and balls’.[15] Its opening was celebrated by a ball and supper, reported as ‘most enjoyable’ but ‘overcrowded’ due to the hall’s modest size.[16]
\nAfter the abolition of divisional boards in 1903, the Pine Divisional Board was renamed Pine Shire Council and the hall was renamed the Pine Shire Council Hall.[17] The building was extended over time to meet the needs of the growing shire, and its users, to include more council offices and a larger hall. In late 1905, a skillion-roofed, lean-to addition was made to the rear of the hall, likely accommodating new offices, with Ireland’s tender of £39 and 18 shillings being accepted in October 1905. The partitions forming the old offices were removed at this time, expanding the hall space. At that time, the building was also used by the Australian Department of Defence as a drill hall (c1904/5 to 1909).[18] At some time before 1932, the hall was expanded a second time by removing the hall’s front verandah and front wall, moving them towards Gympie Road (eastwards) by about 7m, and extending the hall to fill the space between.[19]
\nAlthough the hall had a ceiling, the interior walls were most likely unlined originally, as internal wall lining was added to its far end c1925 for displaying ‘war memorials’. A war memorial honour board was present in the hall by 1917; while another honour board was commissioned in 1921 by the Strathpine Patriotic League.[20]
\nThrough the 1920s and 1930s in Queensland, many new shire halls were constructed, or older divisional board or early shire council halls were expanded, to accommodate increased local government activities and administration due to increasing populations. In the late 1930s this building programme was encouraged by the Queensland Government through subsidies to councils.[21] Typically, new shire council halls built at the time accommodated: a front counter for transactions of public business; more offices, both individual and shared, for a shire clerk and other council staff members; a strong room; a council chambers – a room for council meetings similar to a board room; as well as a public hall (sometimes also referred to as a dance hall) with a stage and dressing rooms, and attached supper and/or card rooms, providing increased community facilities.[22] Some existing shire halls were extended to provide similar facilities, such as at Pine Shire.[23]
\nIn 1932 the Pine Shire Council Hall was extended and altered for a third time to accommodate a larger council office area and increased community facilities. The Pine Shire’s population increased through the early twentieth century (nearly doubling from 2631 in 1911 to 4604 in 1933) and its old hall and small rear offices were inadequate.[24] The addition comprised a 20ft by 25ft (6.1m by 7.6m) block extending off the south side of the front of the building, built by M Tilley (tender of £77, construction only). It consisted of ‘an office for the Shire Clerk’ and a front verandah that aligned with the adjacent hall’s relocated 1889 front verandah, forming a continuous front verandah across the front of the old hall and new office. The verandah had two entrances from Gympie Road via lattice doors, one for the hall and one for the office. The additions were done with the assistance of the Strathpine Entertainment Committee, which had been formed to fundraise for local institutions and contributed £100 towards the cost. The committee also funded the full cost of the addition of a 36ft by 14ft (11m by 4.3m) enclosed verandah behind (west of) the new council office. The enclosed verandah opened off the hall and was later referred to as a ‘supper room’. The total cost of the 1932 additions was reported as £276, when they were officially opened at a ball in October that year.[25] After the additions, the building was renamed the ‘Pine Shire Hall Council Chambers’.[26]
\nThe 1932 additions were followed c1935 by the construction of a poured-concrete strong room, off the southwest corner of the council office – probably prompted by the use of explosives to blow off the door of the council’s safe in December 1932, and the theft of more than £248.[27]
\nAs well as its use for local government meetings, the hall was used for public meetings and fundraisers, and was rented out for functions, skating, balls, and church services. Users included the Albany Creek Ambulance Committee, Strathpine State School, Lawnton Cricket Club, the Salvation Army, and the Presbyterian Church.[28]
\nDuring WWII, the hall was requisitioned by the Commonwealth Military Authorities in January 1943 for use by the US Army.[29] Three unsealed airstrips had been established in the district for US aircraft in 1942 (A-1 in Lawnton, A-2 in Strathpine, and A-3 in Brendale), and these were later used by the Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, in particular ‘A-2’, which was sealed in 1943.[30] In mid-1943, the US 1st Calvary Division occupied Camp Strathpine, a divisional-sized military camp to the west of the airstrips.[31] During late 1943, Lieutenant Dick Ryan of the 1st Cavalry proposed using the hall as a welfare centre and he also organized American-style public rodeo displays by US soldiers on Sundays, riding local livestock and kangaroos, in the recreation reserve south of the hall (the site of the Moreton Bay Regional Council complex in 2023). The US lease of the hall ended in February 1944.[32]
\nAfter WWII the hall continued to be used by both the shire council and the public. It was also used as a picture theatre from 1950 until an attempted arson at the hall on 10 December 1952, which occurred soon after a change of picture theatre lessee was approved by the council.[33] Repairs to the building in 1953 included replacing the outside wall of the supper room (the enclosed verandah), adding two new louvre windows (likely new sashes added into existing window openings) between the supper room and the hall, and shelves to the ‘back store room’.[34] The remaining single-skin sections of the hall walls were lined internally with flat sheets and cover strips by 1955.[35]
\nIn the late 1940s, the area around Strathpine was still largely rural, although there were houses along either side of Gympie Road, both north and south of the hall.[36] Increased residential development is apparent in Strathpine in aerial photographs by 1959, especially west of Gympie Road to the north of Stanley Street.[37] The population of Strathpine, which had been 221 in 1911, rose to 1831 by 1966, and ballooned to 10,108 by 1986. The population of the shire as a whole also rapidly increased after WWII, rising from 4815 in 1947 to 7250 by 1960; to 13,309 by 1966; and 73,783 by 1986. By 2006 the shire had a population of 141,414.[38]
\nThe shire’s growing population through the 1950s led to the council constructing a new, separate, brick council chambers building, immediately south of the hall. In June 1955, Brisbane architect Clifford Ernest Plant was directed to prepare plans and specifications for a new ‘Council Chambers and office’ at Strathpine, although problems in obtaining finance delayed the building’s construction.[39] The rationale for the new building was stated in 1958: ‘The building now used as an office is part of a Shire Hall building [the 1889 hall] … due to the growth and importance of the shire it is now found that there is absolutely no room for the staff to work and … very little privacy for the Council to meet … as they meet in a public hall’.[40] The contract for the new brick council chambers building was finally signed on 20 March 1959, and the building was officially opened by the Premier, GFR Nicklin, on Saturday 5 March 1960, with afternoon tea in the old hall.[41]
\nWith the construction of a new building, the old building was once again renamed, this time as ‘Pine Rivers Shire Hall’, reflecting its change of use and the 1959 name change of the shire.[42] Public use of the old building was reduced during the 1960s-70s, when most of it was partitioned for offices for the Health, Building, and Engineering departments of the council, with an entrance door and stairs being added to the north elevation of the hall. [43] Another tenant was William H Bowden, who operated his real estate business from the building for five years during the 1960s.[44]
\nThe rapid growth of the shire meant that, despite occupying both buildings, there was still insufficient office space. A prefabricated office building (not extant in 2022) was constructed on the former Pound Reserve, to the rear of the 1960 brick council chambers building, for the Engineering Department, in 1970; and a public toilet and garage (latter not extant 2022) were also present, to the rear of the old building, by 1972.[45] A new civic centre was constructed during the 1970s in the former recreation reserve to the south, across Hall Street. The first stage of the new civic centre (new council chambers and administration offices) opened in 1974, followed by a second stage, a new office building, in 1978. As a result, the old Pine Rivers Shire Hall was no longer required for council offices from 1978.[46]
\nThe Pine Rivers Shire Hall was in a dilapidated state by the time it was inspected by the National Trust of Queensland in 1978, but that year the Pine Rivers Shire Council obtained an $8000 grant from the Department of Local Government for restoration work, and a committee formed to discuss the future of the building, with representatives from the council, Historical Society, National Estate, National Trust, and Pine Rivers Cultural Society. Removal of the building to the historic village at Petrie was considered.[47]
\nThe National Trust added the building to its register in 1982, and in 1984 it guided the council’s renovation of the building on its current site, which proceeded in 1984-86. By this time, the building had been vacant for several years. Since its construction, the building had gradually lost earlier decorative detailing over time through deterioration, extensions, or modifications, or unknown reasons (such as the removal of the bolection mouldings from the front doors by the 1970s) and without these details to copy, the renovation inaccurately and inauthentically applied these details. The renovation included considerable demolition of dilapidated original features and 1960s changes. The building gained a considerable amount of new fabric disguised as original, rebuilt not based on original fabric, which had been long lost. Some areas were altered using inauthentic heritage details. The Front Verandah was almost entirely demolished and rebuilt, which added inaccurate 1880s decorative timber detailing, applied inappropriately (against the Trust’s guidance) across both the 1889 section and 1932 section, not reflecting the Front Verandah’s two eras of construction. The Rear Office Extension was also almost entirely demolished and replaced, employing inaccurate detailing, such as 1880s four-paned windows added where surviving evidence points to the originals being simpler, single- or two-pane windows.
\nA photograph taken after the renovation shows the front of the building painted in two different, period-correct colour schemes, appropriate generally to the two different periods of construction (1889-1905 and 1932-c1935). The building was renamed the Pine Shire Hall Council Chambers after its restoration. It was leased to a local community theatre group in 1985, with its first performance in the hall on 1 July that year.[48] In 2002, an access ramp was added along the north side of the hall.[49]
\nFew divisional board halls are known to survive in Queensland, as most were simple timber buildings that were demolished or sold, as local government facilities were upgraded.[50] The former Pine Divisional Board Hall is the second oldest known in-situ example of its type. Three other surviving in-situ divisional board halls are located at Tinana (Tinana Divisional Board, built 1884), Nundah (Toombul Divisional Board, built 1891, QHR 600272), and Cardwell (Cardwell Divisional Board, built 1892 QHR 601768). The Caboolture Divisional Board Hall (1883) has been relocated (c1981) from its original central Caboolture site to the Caboolture Historical Village, Beerburrum Road, Caboolture.[51]
\nIn 2023, the former Pine Rivers Shire Hall continues in use as a community theatre venue.[52]
\n
The former Pine Rivers Shire Hall (1889-c1935) is important in demonstrating the origins and evolution of local government in Queensland from the 1880s to the 1930s. Built in 1889 as the Pine Divisional Board Hall and extended over time to increase office and hall space as its activities expanded, the place operated as the hub of its local government until 1960.
\nThe second oldest known in-situ divisional board hall in Queensland, the place retains its original Divisional Board Hall (1889) and Front Verandah (1889), as early surviving evidence of this period of administration.
\nThe place is important in demonstrating the evolution of rural local governments in Queensland into shire councils, as populations grew, and services expanded. This is illustrated by the retention of later alterations and extensions made to the earlier Divisional Board Hall to accommodate its evolution into a shire council hall and offices, including its Rear Extension (1905), enlargement of the hall (by 1932), Council Office Extension (1932), Enclosed Verandah (1932), and Strong Room (c1935).
|The Pine Rivers Shire Hall (former) has maintained a special association with the Strathpine and district community since 1889. It was used for local government, an essential community purpose, for almost 90 years, and has included multiple other community uses. It was recognised as a place of enduring community attachment in the 1980s, when Pine Rivers Shire Council adapted the building for ongoing community use.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15544,"place_ref":600769,"name":"St Pauls Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Paul's Anglican Church","street_address":"Cross Street","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a small brick church, now rough-cast and limewashed. Seen framed by spreading figs from the road approaching Cleveland Point, it is a simple, gothic, buttressed form, with a heavier polygonal porch.
An octagonal spire stands on the southwest end of the ridge of a steep gabled roof, clad in asbestos cement slates. The spire, with pinnacle clad in smaller slates, has a lancet louvered vent to each face.
All windows in the original church and chancel are lancet shaped. There are four tall windows each side of the nave. The northeast chancel, attached under a smaller gable, is end-lit by three stained glass windows. A smaller window is placed under the main gable, centrally above the chancel roof. In the southwest wall there are windows either side of the porch, and a smaller one, central above the porch roof.
The porch, in rendered concrete, has more elaborate stepped buttresses, a hardboard ceiling and a concrete floor. A rectangular window, facing southwest, incorporates a pair of dominant lancet panes.
The position of the former vestry roof, on the southeast, is indicated by marks on the external render. A timber door leading from the church to the former vestry has been removed and the opening brick-filled and rendered.
Internally, moulded timber trusses span a nave of four bays. Moulded plaster surrounds frame the chancel arch. Walls are of white-washed plaster, with recent varnished vertical boarding around the walls of the nave. The ceiling is of beaded tongue and groove boarding.
The stone font, now painted, stands outside in a paved area, with low garden walls and planting contemporary with the adjacent 1980s church.
","history":"This small brick church was constructed in 1873-74 for the Anglican congregation in Cleveland, on land donated in 1870 by George Thorn of Ipswich. Prior to this, services were held on the verandahs of the former Court House (c.1853) (QHR 600770) and the Grandview Hotel (c.1852) (QHR 600771).
St Paul's was the first Anglican church constructed at Cleveland. St Andrew's, at nearby Ormiston, was constructed c1868, but remained a private chapel for the use of the Hope family and employees, until transferred to the Anglican Church in 1882.
The Cleveland church was designed by Brisbane architect and engineer James T Furnival, and was erected at a cost of nearly £500. The first service was held in 1874 and the church was consecrated early in 1876. The first resident minister was appointed in 1877, and boundaries to the Parish of Cleveland were defined in 1878.
In 1898 the exterior walls, which were probably face brick work, were rendered. Asbestos roofing slates were substituted for the original wooden shingles in 1908, and an earlier weatherboarded and buttressed spire was replaced by the present structure in the same year.
In 1924, as a golden jubilee project, a porch designed by Brisbane architect Lange L Powell was added, and some work was carried out to the foundations. It is not known if the weatherboard vestry removed in the early 1980s from the southern elevation of the chancel was part of the original construction. A free standing belfry, a picket fence and Norfolk Island Pines have been removed as well.
In the 1980s, a new church was constructed adjacent to the 1873-74 building. The earlier building is now principally a venue for youth activities.
","criteria":"St Paul's Anglican Church, Cleveland, erected in 1873-74, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with early European settlement at Cleveland, and with post-separation expansion of the Anglican Church in Queensland.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small, gothic-styled brick church of the 1870s.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including its picturesque form and its setting in the streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15545,"place_ref":600770,"name":"Ye Olde Court House Restaurant","alternate_name":"Ostend | Cleveland Court House & Lockup","street_address":"1 Paxton Street","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former court house, [the earliest section of what is now an extended restaurant], is a single-storeyed painted brick building. It is a compact rectangular form, low set and abutting the footpath line, where Paxton Street leads down to Moreton Bay.
The hipped corrugated iron roof is bell-cast over the front and former verandah spaces along the rear and eastern side. On the western end, the hip incorporates a timber louvred ridge gable, with curved metal finial.
The front verandah is sheeted to sill height with weather-boards, in a bowed profile, fixed to shaped studs. The floor is timber boarded, and the roof unlined. Of a likely original six bays, four and part of the fifth remain open, with simple timber posts and brackets. Over remaining bays weatherboarding continues full height.
Windows in the front wall are six-paned sashes, opening inwards. Sills are of unpainted stone. Rear wall windows, now internal within the restaurant extension, are four-paned sashes. A bay window projects from the western wall. The sill is precisely shaped, painted masonry. Adjoining this bay, the wall is rendered, and ruled with stone course lines.
Internal walls are of painted brick, generally in English bond. Two are built in stretcher bond. Moulded cornices are consistent throughout. Ceilings are tongue and groove boarding. Circular fretwork vents are central to five existing ceilings. An unpainted brick fireplace remains in seasonal use. A second fireplace, originally from the Bellevue Hotel in Brisbane, has been installed in the enclosed verandah space adjoining the restaurant extension. The new section incorporates other relics of historic buildings. It extends the restaurant into an L-shape, around a recent paved and planted courtyard.
Ye Olde Court House Restaurant retains a significant historic form, in the early low-set open verandah abutting Paxton Street.
","history":"The brick core of this building is thought to have been erected c1853 for Hon. Francis Edward Bigge, MLA [NSW] and his brother Frederick William Bigge, following their purchase of the site in January 1852.
At the time, the Bigges were developing a number of trading, timber, warehousing and maritime activities at Cleveland Point, which had served as the port for Dunwich during the penal settlement of Moreton Bay. It is thought this building was erected as quarters for their workers at the Point.
Later the building was rented to the Commissioner of Police as the residence, court house and lockup for the district constabulary, until about 1880.
William Ross, a retired Brisbane furniture dealer and later chairman of the Cleveland Divisional Board, acquired the property in 1882, occupying it as his residence. He borrowed heavily against this property from the Queensland National Bank in 1889. By the mid-1890s Ross had returned to South Brisbane, where he died in 1895. The Queensland National Bank subsequently exercised its power of sale over the Cleveland property, and in April 1907 title was transferred to Charles Frederick Allen of Cleveland.
Extensions to the building appear to have been made in the late nineteenth century or early twentieth century.
The building remained a residence until the early 1960s, when converted into tearooms. When a large extension incorporating a restaurant and living quarters was added in 1977 to the northern elevation, the building assumed its present form and function as a restaurant.
","criteria":"Ye Olde Court House Restaurant at Cleveland, the core of which was erected c1853, is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the earliest phase of European settlement at Cleveland, and with the establishment of the administration and enforcement of European law in the Redland district.
|It makes an aesthetic contribution to the Cleveland Point townscape, in particular the bowed verandah section, set low abutting the footpath where Paxton Street leads down to the sea, which is valued by the Cleveland community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15546,"place_ref":600771,"name":"Grandview Hotel","alternate_name":"Cleveland House | Brighton Hotel","street_address":"49 North Street","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Grand View Hotel, a complex of buildings with a predominant two-storeyed masonry section built up to the footpath line on North Street, is located on the spur leading to Cleveland Point and overlooks water on three sides.
Open verandahs on each level of the two-storeyed section face the street, returning around the northeast elevation. The curved verandah roof is set down below a main roof of hipped perimeter. One chimney rises above the ridges.
The verandahs have cast iron balustrade, brackets and valance, alluding to, but differing from, an earlier design. Below the balustrade is a patterned boarded timber frieze. Rear and southwest verandahs are enclosed with flat sheeting.
The principal internal walls are of rendered brick. A wide central hall divides each level. The upper level, structurally intact, includes an ornate fireplace and has been adapted as private living quarters. French doors with fanlights open onto the verandahs, and a spacious stairwell, with painted turned timber balustrade, is lit by skylight through a tapering timber boarded shaft.
The lower level contains reception rooms and a kitchen. A large room with a marble and tiled fireplace opens to the northeast through french doors, with casement windows above, which may date from the 1850s. The main entrance, in the northeast wall, has side lights of clear and red glass with an early stencilled glass fanlight. The main foyer, formerly verandah space, contains some early brickwork free of paint or render.
Abutting the two-storeyed structure, on the southwest face, is a small chamferboard, single-storeyed building with a hipped roof and a separate curved roof over a narrow verandah. It opens on to the beer garden and, internally, a portion of the higher, boarded ceiling remains.
Adjoining these buildings is a complex of rooms, under shallow skillion roofs, surrounded by parapets.
The public bar contains a series of miniature wall paintings depicting local historical events.
","history":"The core of this complex of buildings was erected in the early 1850s for the Hon. Francis Edward Bigge, MLA (NSW), who purchased the site in August 1851.
In the 1840s and 1850s squatters from the Darling Downs and Ipswich interests urged for recognition of Cleveland Point, which had served as the port for Dunwich during the convict period, as the port for Moreton Bay. Francis Bigge, a grazier from Mt Brisbane Station, was one of the leading lobbyists. In the early 1850s he invested heavily in industry and housing at Cleveland.
The earliest section of the hotel, built as a prominent demonstration of confidence in Cleveland's future development, appears to have been erected by 1852, but appears to have remained unoccupied for several years. Known colloquially as Bigge's Folly, and formally as Cleveland House, it contained two sitting rooms and five bedrooms with a kitchen and servants' rooms connected via a covered passageway. The core was surrounded by a 3 metres wide verandah.
From 1855 to 1860 John Vincent Cassim, a Kangaroo Point boarding house keeper, leased Cleveland House as a boarding establishment. Stabling, a coach-house, store and tap were erected in mid-1860. By 1862 the building had been leased by publican William Rae as the Brighton Hotel, with its own bathing-house and jetty, and 10 tonne pleasure cutter.
The building also served as a venue for Anglican services prior to the construction of St Pauls Church of England (QHR 600769) nearby in 1874.
In 1878 the property was acquired by publicans Andrew and Mary Goodall, and the hotel appears to have been extended to the southeast. Major alterations that give the building its present two-storeyed form are likely to have been carried out in the late 1880s or mid-1890s, when the rail service was opened to Cleveland Central and later extended to Cleveland Point. It became known as the Grand View Hotel c.1910, and remained in the Goodall-Singh family until 1936.
Other outbuildings have been added since the 1940s. Five miniature, representational murals on the wall behind the public bar probably were painted in the 1950s, and the complex was renovated in 1982 and again in 1992.
The Grand View continues to operate as a hotel, and is one of the oldest hotels in Queensland in continuous use.
","criteria":"The Grand View Hotel at Cleveland, the core of which was erected in the early 1850s, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of early European settlement in Queensland, its construction illustrating the diverse forces operating within that pattern.
|It contains surviving evidence of one of the earliest buildings in Cleveland. The Grand View Hotel demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's history, as one of the oldest extant hotels in Queensland in continuous use.
|The building is important in exhibiting a landmark quality and contribution to the Cleveland Point townscape, which is valued by the Cleveland community.
|The place has a special association with FE Bigge and the movement to establish Cleveland as the port for Moreton Bay, and Ipswich as the capital.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15547,"place_ref":600772,"name":"Cleveland Lighthouse (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Shore Street North","suburb":"CLEVELAND POINT","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a timber-framed, hexagonal, tapering weatherboard tower, with glazed top panels capped by metal roofing. A narrow walkway, with pipe rail, surrounds the upper level, supported on metal struts.
External boarding is white painted with a notable chamfered lower edge. Timber stops, full height between each face, are round-edged. A timber boarded door, complete with early hardware, opens at ground level to the west. Small four-paned windows appear at first and second levels, in the opposite eastern face.
The interior is unpainted except for a priming coat evident on many new timbers. The cross-braced timber framing divides into three above-ground levels of timber decking, connected by a ladder.
At the top level five clear glazed panels and one red perspex panel overlook the water. Under the sill in the western face, a painted timber hatch opens on to the boarded walkway. A 200mm diameter cast iron pipe about one metre high stands bolted to the centre of this floor. The light has been removed from the slotted upper flange. A 100mm diameter central capped vent leads through the metal roof.
The reconstructed lighthouse retains its early form, and is set amidst shade trees near the loop road on Cleveland Point.
","history":"The former Cleveland Lighthouse was built late 1864 to early 1865 by the Queensland government, on an ungazetted reserve at Cleveland Point.
It comprised a fixed kerosene light, equal in power to a sixth order dioptric light, placed on the summit of a wooden tower at an elevation of 10.6 metres above high water mark. Visible at a radius of 14.5 kilometres, it was used by small craft trading to Cleveland, the Logan River and other places in the southern portion of Moreton Bay.
It was not the first light at the Point. A government light was first displayed there in April 1864, and prior to this the Hon. Francis Edward Bigge MLA [NSW], a grazier who lobbied in the 1840s and 1850s to establish Cleveland as the port for Moreton Bay, had erected several lights at Cleveland Point at his own expense.
The 1864-65 lighthouse at Cleveland Point was the first built in Queensland under the direction of the colony's first portmaster and marine surveyor, Captain GP Heath RN. It was a prototype for subsequent similar, timber-framed lighthouse structures, which could be relocated as the sandy coastline channels constantly shifted and reformed.
In 1874 the lens apparatus from the Comboyuro Point light was placed in the Cleveland lighthouse. A still more powerful apparatus, thought to be the one currently at Cleveland which bears a Chance Brothers, Birmingham, maker's plate dated 1875, was installed in 1879. A red sector was incorporated into the light in 1920. In 1934 the illuminant was changed to electricity and a round concentrated filament lamp was placed inside the prisms of the light.
The lighthouse was re-sited in 1975 to permit a new lighthouse to operate from the established nautical position. Some reconstruction was done at this time. The lens apparatus was removed and is displayed in the tower of the Redland Shire Council Offices.
","criteria":"The former Cleveland Lighthouse, erected in 1864-65, is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, being one of the first lighthouses built in the colony of Queensland, and a prototype for subsequent timber-structured lighthouses. It is significant also for its association with the early European settlement of Cleveland.
|It demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of the few remaining polygonal lighthouses of its type in Queensland and the only extant timber-structured, timber-clad 19th century lighthouse in Moreton Bay.
|The former Cleveland Lighthouse is important in being one of the first lighthouses built in the colony of Queensland, and a prototype for subsequent timber-structured lighthouses.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15548,"place_ref":600773,"name":"Dunwich Cemetery","alternate_name":"One Mile Cemetery","street_address":"Bingle Road","suburb":"DUNWICH","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Dunwich Cemetery overlooks Moreton Bay and is bounded to the west by a camping area. It is otherwise circled by Flinders Avenue, Bingle Road, East Coast Road and Yabby Street: a section on the north west faces a jetty. The reserve comprises an open grassed area scattered with mature trees and extends over 3.295 hectares. The cemetery is thought to contain approximately 10,000 burials, largely those of inmates of the Benevolent Asylum, though most of these are unmarked.
The cemetery reserve is entered from Flinders Avenue on the south through a gateway at the centre of a brick columbarium. In the north western corner are a cluster of memorials including those of the 26 passengers from the Emigrant, which are identified only by metal trefoil markers and a modern metal sign bearing all their names. Nearby are the graves of Dr David Ballow and Dr George Mitchell who attended them. The memorial over the Ballow grave is in the form of a sarcophagus and that over the Mitchell burial a stone obelisk; metal railings enclose both. There is also a memorial to Dr Patrick Smith, the first Medical Superintendent of the Benevolent Institution from 1885 to 1900 and sundry other memorials.
Near these memorials is a triangular brick structure, enclosed by a metal railing and bearing nameplates. This is constructed of bricks from the old Asylum laundry and commemorates those lying in unmarked graves.
There is also a cluster of memorials on the north east side of the cemetery and scattered across the reserve.
","history":"The first burials at Dunwich cemetery are believed to date from 1847 and it is one of the earliest surviving cemeteries in Queensland.
The European settlement of Stradbroke Island began in 1827 when a convict out-station was established at Dunwich to serve the Moreton Bay convict settlement based at Brisbane town. During 1827-28 a warehouse and accommodation for convict labourers, boatmen and soldiers were constructed. However, this settlement at Dunwich was short lived as problems with unloading goods in poor weather, smuggling, and hostile Aborigines, resulted in the closure of the out-station in 1831.
Between 1843 and 1847 the first Catholic Mission to Aborigines in the Australian colonies was established at Dunwich, with four Passionist Fathers occupying the former convict buildings. The mission failed, largely due to the poor state of the buildings in which it was accommodated, and the high degree of exposure of the indigenous peoples of Stradbroke Island to Europeans. However, Dunwich continued to be utilised by the government for a variety of institutional purposes for which its isolation rendered it particularly suitable, both for health reasons and in response to social and cultural values of the time.
Quarantine procedures were instituted in Australia in 1841 and in the following year Moreton Bay was thrown open to free settlement. In late 1849, in consideration of the numbers of free settlers who were expected arrive in Moreton Bay, the Colonial Secretary requested the Police Magistrate in Brisbane to suggest a suitable site for a quarantine station. North Stradbroke Island was proposed and in July 1850, Dunwich was gazetted as a quarantine area. At this time, some burials had already taken place at Dunwich, presumably at this site. The first is believed to be that of sailors from the Sovereign in 1847.
Within two months of the opening of the quarantine station, the ship Emigrant, with an outbreak of typhus on board, reached Moreton Bay. The ship was ordered into isolation at Dunwich, where a further 26 of its passengers died. They were buried at the cemetery, along with the Queensland Surgeon-General, Dr David Ballow, and the ship's doctor, Dr George Mitchell, both of whom attended the immigrants.
In 1867 the quarantine station was transferred to Peel Island, and the Queensland government officially established the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum in the former quarantine buildings, although Asylum inmates were housed at Dunwich from as early as 1864. The Asylum accommodated the elderly, disabled or infirm who had no other means of support. At the time, institutionalisation was considered to be the appropriate treatment of those who were unable to fulfil a useful role in society. Accommodation on an island close to Brisbane, yet separated from it, effectively removed Asylum inmates from society and made administrative control easier. The isolation of the island also made it a useful place to treat conditions believed to be infectious and a lazaret was established at nearby Adam's Beach in 1892, where it remained until moved to Peel Island in 1907. From 1896 the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum housed inebriates. Consumptive patients were also taken until 1935, but were accommodated in isolation 'camp'.
In 1946-7 the Dunwich lands were subdivided and the remaining Asylum inmates, mainly aged people, were removed to Sandgate Eventide Home, occupying a former RAAF base. All the Dunwich ward buildings were sold, dismantled and either moved to different sites within a newly surveyed Dunwich township, or removed to the mainland for government purposes. In June 1947 the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum was officially closed and the area was redeveloped for residential and other private purposes. In the 80 years spanning 1867-1947, 8,426 former inmates of the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum were buried in the Dunwich Cemetery. Those buried are believed to include many who were descended from the traditional owners Stradbroke Island.
After cleaning up the grounds in late 1947, control of the cemetery, which was on Crown Land, passed to the Department of Health and Home Affairs, though it was a matter of some dispute as to who should be responsible for its maintenance. It was not an official cemetery reserve and proposals to proclaim it as such were suspended in 1949, as Trustees had to be appointed. The cemetery was officially closed to further burials in 1952. Though a local, PIN Dickson, acted as an honorary caretaker in the 1950s, the cemetery gradually fell into disrepair as headstones and grave markers suffered from vandalism and theft.
In 1970 the Redland Shire Council agreed to become Trustees for the cemetery, providing that the government carried out the necessary survey. This was completed in 1973 and on 13 April 1974 the area was officially gazetted as a cemetery reserve with the Redland Shire Council as Trustees.
Restoration work was carried out on the cemetery in 1987/88 with the aid of Bicentennial grants and plans were made for a memorial wall. This was constructed of bricks from the former Asylum laundry, which had been demolished, by the sand-mining company Consolidated Rutile Limited, in honour of all the inmates lying in unmarked graves. Nameplates have been attached to it as the names of those buried have been confirmed by research.
A metal sign listing the names of the 26 immigrants buried at Dunwich was unveiled in the cemetery in 1993.
","criteria":"Dunwich Cemetery is one of the earliest surviving cemeteries in Queensland and is associated with the early European settlement of North Stradbroke Island and the Moreton Bay Region. The burials of passengers from the 1850 typhus epidemic aboard the Emigrant and those of the doctors who treated them are evidence for the early use of North Stradbroke Island as a quarantine station. The large number of burials of inmates of the Benevolent Asylum between 1867 and 1946 link the cemetery to this important phase in the history of the Island. They are evidence for 19th and early 20th century government policies and community values regarding health and social welfare that determined the isolation of the poor, elderly, infirm and diseased from the mainstream of society.
|The reserve has a long association with the community of Stradbroke Island and has particular significance to the descendants of those buried in the cemetery.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15549,"place_ref":600774,"name":"St Andrews Church","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Church","street_address":"Wellington Street","suburb":"ORMISTON","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This is a small church of early, single-skin, board and batten construction. It is clearly seen from the road, framed and backed by mature trees.
Its corrugated iron gable roof is aligned north-south, with a belfry over the northern entrance and a gable roof porch attached. The main entrance doors are four-panelled with early furniture.
On the south, the gable roof chancel extends at a shallower angle to the east over a vestry addition.
Finials decorate the belfry and northern end of the gable; the southern finial has been removed. The gutters have been removed recently.
Windows to the nave are lancet-shaped with two rectangular sashes and a pointed fixed sash above, all with a central glazing bar. There are casements in the chancel and vestry.
Internally, the nave floor is of hardwood tongue and groove boarding. Floor boarding is pencil-edged in the porch, and shot-edged in the vestry.
Hardboard lining which concealed the nave walls has been removed since 1987, exposing the boards and battens, which have been painted recently. Original shingles under the iron roof can be seen clearly over the nave, and remain unpainted.
Pews are of scrubbed beech.
The early structure of the church is evident and interesting in a picturesque setting.
","history":"This board and batten timber church was erected on the Hon. Louis Hope's Ormiston estate c.1868, as a private chapel, Sunday school and schoolhouse.
Hope had acquired land in the Raby Bay area in 1853-55 on which he created the Ormiston estate and sugar plantation, where the Hope family resided from c.1864-5 until their departure for England in 1882. The immediate property surrounding Ormiston House comprised over 200 acres bounded by Raby Bay, Hilliards Creek and Eckersley Street, but Hope's holdings in the area also included large tracts of land between Hilliards and Tingalpa Creeks.
Hope was influential in establishing the sugar industry in Queensland, producing the colony's first commercially milled sugar at Ormiston in 1864.
The land on which St Andrews Church stands was purchased by Hope from Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior in mid-1863.
The chapel is believed to have been constructed by James Yorston, a Scottish employee on Hope's estate. The timber was cut at Ormiston, pit-sawn to size, and dressed and shaped with an adze.
Originally the chapel stood amongst bunya pines and a number of flowering trees, and was separated from the road by a three-rail split post and rail fence with a picket gate. The early building had a shingled roof and double-hung, six-paned sash windows, and rested directly on the ground with a cement floor. The chancel and vestry are later additions.
The chapel pre-dated the first Anglican church at Cleveland by at least six years. Initially services were conducted either by lay persons of by clergy from St Marys Church of England parish. As well, the building served as a school for the children of employees on Hope's estate, until establishment of the Cleveland No.2 School (Ormiston State School) in 1872.
In 1882 the Hopes transferred the chapel on 0.2 hectares of land to the Anglican Church as a gift, and along with St Pauls at Cleveland [1874] (QHR 600769) it became part of the newly created Cleveland parish [1881]. The church never has been dedicated.
Major renovations were carried out in 1905 and 1920, and by 1924 substantial termite damage necessitated repairs. In the 1930s the building was standing on a brick plinth. In the 1960s the interior was lined and an inscription on the chancel arch was removed.
Since the late 1950s the church has been maintained by the Friends of St Andrews, a non-denominational group. Services are still conducted there.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Church at Ormiston, erected c1868, is significant historically for its association with the early development of European settlement in Cleveland, and with the Hon. Louis Hope and the establishment of the sugar industry in Queensland.
|It is significant as rare surviving evidence in southeast Queensland of board and batten construction, and for the intactness of the building and its fittings.
|(Criterion under review)
|It is significant for the grace and integrity of its architectural form.
|The place has a community and spiritual association as the earliest Anglican church in the Cleveland parish.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15550,"place_ref":600775,"name":"Ormiston House Estate","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wellington Street","suburb":"ORMISTON","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ormiston House Estate consists of a complex of buildings including the main house, a slab kitchen, former store, laundry, lodge and extensive grounds. A large monastery was built to the north. The property overlooks Raby Bay to the east, with the grounds extending to the water's edge with terracing to mangrove wetlands along the foreshore.
The single-storeyed brick house has a T-shaped plan form, encircled by verandahs, and two small rooms on the northwest. The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof, with the south section having two parallel hips with south gables and lower unlined skillion roofs to the verandahs.
Built in stages, the earliest southeast section is of Flemish bond face brick with the later stages, a north wing and western addition, being of English bond face brick. The south wall is painted.
The eastern verandah has brick paving, but elsewhere the verandahs now have sandstone paving. The north wing verandahs have paired, white painted timber, tuscan columns with stone bases; those to the southern wing have square chamfered timber posts with curved timber brackets at the corners and are partially lattice screened to the west.
The northern wing has french doors with large fanlights and timber shutters. The southern wing has casement windows and timber doors with glass panels. The entry hall, in the junction between the two wings, has a panelled cedar door with clear glass fanlight and sidelights at either end.
Internally, the entry hall walls are rendered, and walls elsewhere are rendered and papered, mostly to picture rail height. The principal rooms have ceilings 5 metres high. Most rooms have pressed metal ceilings, with the entry hall ceiling raking down above the west entry door with the fanlight cut into the rake.
The floors are timber and joinery throughout is of cedar with deep skirtings, wide architraves and sills, panelled doors, fireplace surrounds, french doors and casement windows. The water closet contains an early flushing cistern, and gas piping for the light fittings. The present kitchen has pressed metal sheets to the walls with wall mounted gas light fittings.
The split-log slab kitchen, sitting on large timber sleepers, has a corrugated iron gable roof and is situated to the west of the house. It has a brick paved east verandah with a lower pitch roof. Internally, the building has a boarded ceiling, casement windows and the original brick chimney and kitchen oven at the north end.
The former store, now containing toilets, is built of brick and is located to the north of the slab kitchen. The building shares the same roof and verandah as the kitchen.
A single skin timber laundry, attached to the western side of the slab kitchen, has a corrugated iron skillion roof and is open to the north. The laundry has a copper, a brick chimney and an attached timber lean-to to the south.
A white painted brick lodge with a steep, corrugated iron gable roof is located to the south. The building has enclosed north and southwest verandahs, a west porch with a gable roof and casement windows.
The grounds include an avenue of Bunya Pines to the southeast, mature exotic trees between the house and the road, large areas of lawn and other remnants of earlier plantings.
To the east stands a 1935 memorial cairn.
A two-storeyed brick monastery lies to the north of the main house, and they are separated by a high fence.
","history":"Ormiston House, a large, single-storeyed brick residence, was erected in stages between c.1858 and 1865 for the Hon. Louis Hope.
Hope had arrived in New South Wales in 1843, was an active participant in early Queensland economic and political life, and was instrumental in the development of the sugar industry in Queensland. In the 1850s he purchased and/or leased extensive landholdings in the Moreton region, including Kilcoy Station (QHR 600638) (in partnership with Robert Ramsey) in 1853, Shafston House (QHR 600241) at Kangaroo Point in 1854, and land in the Cleveland area overlooking Raby Bay, 1852-55.
Ormiston, said to be have been named after a Hope ancestral name in Scotland, was farmed from c.1858, and the slab hut which is now the kitchen wing at Ormiston House appears to date from this period. In the early 1860s Hope experimented first with cotton, then sugar cane.
By late 1862 the estate comprised just under 325 hectares of fenced land. Improvements included an established ornamental garden, 8 hectares under sugarcane, 5.25 hectares under corn, saltpans producing up to 4 tonnes of salt per day, a small brick house, a slab hut containing a kitchen, oven and two small rooms, huts for the farm workers, an overseer's house, a barn, stockyard and milking yards. Water was obtained from wells and waterholes on the property. In 1863 Hope acquired extensive adjacent lands from Post-Master General Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior.
In 1864 Hope erected Queensland's first sugar crushing mill, supplied by Cook & Co. of Glasgow, on the banks of Hilliards Creek. The first commercially milled sugar in Queensland was produced there in September that year.
Accompanying the establishment of his sugar plantation and mill, Hope erected on the property a substantial brick residence in 1864-65. The earlier small brick house appears to have been incorporated into the new structure, which featured gas lighting (probably a by-product of sugar manufacture), hot water and cisterns. Reputedly, Hope brought out Scottish workmen to erect the house, and sent cypress pine logs from Ormiston to England to be turned for the tuscan columns along the verandahs. The bricks were made on the property, and the timber was felled and sawn on site. The roof was shingled originally.
In 1865 the sugar plantation at Ormiston was the largest in Queensland. From September 1867 Hope was employing South Pacific islanders in his canefields, and producing 50-60 tons of sugar in a season. Most of this went directly to the station trade rather than to merchants in Brisbane. In 1869 the mill and a distillery were in active operation, with Hope both buying cane from smaller growers and operating the plant as a central crushing mill on the half-produce principle.
Hope continued with sugar crushing at Ormiston until c.1875 when, following protracted litigation with a neighbour who claimed that Hope had reneged on a promise to crush his cane, the mill machinery was sold. In the same year he leased the bulk of the property west of Hilliards Creek to his former manager Gilbert Burnett, retaining about 80 hectares with the main residence.
In mid-1881 Hope advertised Ormiston House for sale in anticipation of leaving the colony. The house was described as a large brick and stone residence of sixteen rooms, with wide verandahs to three sides, a detached kitchen, servants' quarters, and laundry. A lead-lined cedar tank in the roof supplied water for baths and three cisterns. The house and a four-roomed brick lodge sat in 3.25 hectares of ornamental gardens. Ormiston House was not sold at the time, but Burnett purchased from Hope the property he had been leasing since 1875.
In 1882 the Hope family returned to England, leaving Kilcoy and Ormiston under the supervision of manager William Butler, who leased out Ormiston House. Hope died in 1894, but Ormiston House remained in the family until 1912, when it was sold to grazier John Arthur Macartney of Waverley Station.
In 1935 the International Society of Sugar Technologists erected a cairn in the front grounds of Ormiston House to commemorate Hope's pioneering work in the Queensland sugar industry.
In 1959 the house on just under 11 hectares was acquired by the Carmelite Nuns, and subsequently a brick monastery was built in the grounds. With their permission, Ormiston House now functions as a house museum, operated by the Ormiston House Restoration Association, established in the mid-1960s.
","criteria":"Ormiston House Estate, established in the late 1850s to early 1860s, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, being closely associated with the establishment of European settlement at Cleveland and with the establishment of the sugar industry in Queensland.
|Ormiston House demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's history, providing evidence of early and uncommon gas, hot water and water closet facilities.
|Ormiston House Estate has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history, containing the site of early agricultural and industrial activity and extensive 19th century gardens.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principle characteristics of an 1860s country house and rural estate, and house and grounds make a strong aesthetic contribution to the Ormiston district and to the Raby Bay foreshore, which is valued by the community.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principle characteristics of an 1860s country house and rural estate, and house and grounds make a strong aesthetic contribution to the Ormiston district and to the Raby Bay foreshore, which is valued by the community.
|Ormiston House Estate has a special association with the life and work of Queensland pioneer Hon. Louis Hope, and his contribution to the development of the sugar industry in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15551,"place_ref":600776,"name":"Whepstead","alternate_name":"Fernbourne | Bay View Private Hospital","street_address":"Main Road","suburb":"WELLINGTON POINT","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Whepstead is a large, two-storey with attic, chamferboard building sited on the crest of a low hill and surrounded by established gardens and mature trees, such as Camphor Laurels, palms and fig trees - including a large, very old Moreton Bay Fig tree on the adjoining property, which spreads over the southeast corner of the present Whepstead grounds, and is an integral element of the garden setting. Whepstead and its surviving grounds is a prominent landmark along the principal road to Wellington Point, and the second level of the house commands fine views of Waterloo Bay and Moreton Bay, and a 360 degree view of the surrounding landscape.
The house has a corrugated iron hipped roof with projecting gables and a central flat section surrounded by cast iron balustrade. The gables surmount bays to the east and south elevations. The building sits on timber stumps and is encircled by verandahs.
The roof has dormer windows with rounded gables and twisted terracotta chimney flues. The gables have cast iron infill panels with decorative timber work, including arched vents and brackets to the eaves. The verandahs have concave corrugated iron roofs, with the first floor having cast iron brackets, valance and balustrade and the ground floor having cast iron brackets, lattice valance panels and timber batten balustrade with sections of the ceiling being boarded and panelled.
The verandahs to the south have been enclosed to form a glassed in function room on the ground floor and access to additions which include toilets and store rooms. The ground floor verandah to the west has been enclosed as a corridor with the southern end featuring leadlight windows and being used as a function room.
A single-storeyed kitchen and service wing is attached to the northwest. This structure has a corrugated iron hipped roof with concave roofed verandahs which have been enclosed or screened for storage space.
French doors with fanlights open onto the verandahs. The foyer has a single panelled door with sidelights and fanlight and a carved timber staircase with turned balustrade. An arch leads to a central hallway with dining rooms and a lounge to either side. The lounge has an elaborate marble and carved timber fireplace, a timber bar has been installed and the walls have been papered. The east dining room has a marble fireplace and the south wall has been removed with the enclosed function room having a lower metal ceiling. Walls are of single skin vertically jointed boards, interior doors have fanlights and floors have been carpeted.
The first floor consists of an east banquet room with a marble fireplace and the rest of the floor has been opened up into one large function space. A steep carved timber staircase leads from the foyer area to the two attic rooms and central corridor. A ladder from this corridor provides access to the flat roof above via a metal hatch.
The grounds include a fenced in-ground concrete swimming pool and children's playground to the north and a timber gazebo with a sheet metal roof to the northeast. Extensive brick paving and landscaping surround the building with timber stages located at the southeast and west and a fountain to the east.
","history":"Whepstead, a large two-storeyed timber residence with a substantial attic, was constructed in 1889 for Gilbert Burnett JP, a Wellington Point landowner, sawmill proprietor, and member of the Cleveland Divisional Board. Originally called Fernbourne, the house was designed by Brisbane architect Claude William Chambers and constructed by Cleveland builder Patrick Horisk. When first erected, it was considered one of the finest houses in the district, with unrivalled views of sea, shore, headland and islands. Set in a very fine, well-established garden, Fernbourne replaced an earlier Burnett family home on the same site.
Burnett had emigrated from England to Queensland in 1866, aged 20 years. He married Martha Ann Dawson in the late 1860s and in the early 1870s first managed his father-in-law's sugar plantation at Tingalpa, then was employed as overseer at Ormiston, Louis Hope's sugar plantation near Cleveland. In April 1875 he acquired from Hope a seven year lease, with an option to buy, on the bulk of the Ormiston estate west and north of Hilliards Creek near Wellington Point. This land he purchased from Hope in 1881.
Burnett called his Wellington Point estate Trafalgar Vale, developing it initially as a sugar plantation, dependent on indentured labour from the South Pacific Islands. He purchased Hope's sugar mill machinery and set up his own mill about ¼ mile west of Hilliards Creek. By mid-1883, Burnett's cane fields at Trafalgar Vale were well established, and he had operating the sugar mill [using the open-pan system which produced a dark sugar], a sawmill, and a bone-mill, the latter providing fertiliser for the cane. Burnett also was buying up local cane for crushing, and reportedly was considering ordering a large new vacuum pan to produce white sugar, which had proved highly successful in northern mills.
The sawmill at Trafalgar Vale was established initially to cut timber for extensions to Burnett's sugar mill, but local orders for milled hardwood had encouraged him to expand his sawmilling operations. Subsequently, political antipathy toward the indentured labour system and the potential expense of converting his sugar mill to the vacuum pan method, prompted Burnett to turn to sawmilling as his principal enterprise. By November 1884 he had ceased the cultivation and manufacture of sugar at Trafalgar Vale, and had established in its place what he claimed was the largest country sawmill in the colony.
Between mid-1883 and late 1884, planing and dressing machinery to work soft timbers such as pine, cedar and beech were acquired; the Eucalypta, an 85ft long steamer, was built for Burnett to transport cypress pine from the Moreton Bay islands [Amity Point on Stradbroke, Coochie Mudlo and Macleay] and hardwood from the Tweed Heads, Nerang, Coomera and Logan districts to his mill, the timber being unloaded at Hilliards Creek; a wharf with a large overhead travelling crane was erected on the creek about 300 yards below the mill buildings; a tramway was laid to transport logs from the wharf to the mill [in 1885 the tramway was extended about ¾ mile to give direct access to the bay]; and an 8-ton boiler was installed to generate the steam to drive the horizontal saw, circular saws, planning machines and lathes, which could produce 40,000 feet of dressed timber a week. The South Pacific Islanders had gone. In November 1884, Trafalgar Vale sawmill employed about 40 non-indentured workers, most of whom lived in cottages near the mill. By 1889 the number of employees had risen to 50. Several of Burnett's sons also worked in the family business.
In the mid-1880s, Burnett entered into partnership with a number of Brisbane businessmen to subdivide much of the former Trafalgar Vale plantation as the Wellington Point Estate. The estate sold reasonably well, as the railway was about to be extended to Wellington Point and on to Cleveland. Further subdivision and sales were made by the syndicate in the late 1880s, by which time the railway had arrived.
Gilbert Burnett was an important identity in the local community. He was a major employer of local labour, a Justice of the Peace, a member of the Tingalpa Divisional Board for many years, and first chairman of the Cleveland Divisional Board in 1885. In 1889, he replaced his earlier and more modest home with the large timber house now known as Whepstead, but initially called Fernbourne. Constructed of cypress pine supplied from the Trafalgar Vale sawmill, it was a large and flamboyant house with 14 rooms on three levels, designed to impress. The ground floor comprised drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, study, bathroom, pantries and wide entrance hall. From this hall a substantial timber staircase led to the first floor and the four principal bedrooms, all of which opened off a central hallway and onto wide, encircling verandahs with magnificent views of the surrounding country and out to Waterloo Bay and Moreton Bay beyond. Another staircase led from the first floor hall to two well-ventilated attic bedrooms. It is not clear whether any sections of the earlier house were incorporated into the new structure. In April 1889, architect Claude William Chambers had called tenders for alterations and additions in wood to a villa residence at Cleveland, and this is thought to refer to Fernbourne. Physical evidence suggests that the earlier kitchen wing was retained, but that the main part of the house was completely rebuilt.
In 1889, Fernbourne sat in a substantial garden of approximately 4½ acres [1.8 hectares], which had been laid out in the mid-1870s in association with the first Burnett residence. The garden contained an established orchard and vineyard, flower beds, kitchen garden, ornamental shrubs and trees, bushhouses with ferns, orchids and palms, and several fountains of stone and rock work. One of the most substantial and aesthetically pleasing in a district renowned for its fine gardens, the Fernbourne garden was watered from a bore 100ft deep, which fed a large tank on a stand 80ft high, creating sufficient pressure to feed the baths and taps in the house and kitchen, as well as to operate the fountains. Within the grounds were the stabling, outhouses and a kitchen, all of which may have dated to pre-1889.
Fernbourne was built during the wave of boom-time investment and speculation which characterised the late 1880s, but in 1891, as the boom burst and the credit squeeze tightened, Burnett was declared insolvent. His fine new house, together with its grounds of just over 4½ acres, was put up for auction in October 1891. Title was transferred a month later to Edward Robert Drury, general manager of the Queensland National Bank Ltd. When the Burnett family left Fernbourne [c1891?], they erected a smaller house on the eastern side of the railway line at Wellington Point, still on part of their original Trafalgar Vale estate and near the sawmill. This, their third home in the Wellington Point area, they also named Fernbourne, and it is likely that the first Fernbourne was re-named Whepstead at this time - certainly it had acquired this name by 1909, when the house was up for sale.
Despite the insolvency, the Burnett family continued operation of the Trafalgar Vale sawmill until c1899, when fire may have destroyed the mill. From 1899 to 1913, Gilbert Burnett, with his substantial knowledge of timbers and sawmilling, held a government position as a Ranger of Crown Lands in the Brisbane and Ipswich districts. He died at the second Fernbourne in 1925, and his name and those of his children are perpetuated in the names of the streets surrounding Whepstead.
After the Burnett family left the first Fernbourne [now Whepstead], there followed a succession of owners and lessees. In the late 1890s the house was occupied by James Vincent Chataway, Minister for Public Lands and Agriculture 1898-1901. Mrs Emilie O'Connell, widow of Hon. William Henry Bligh O'Connell, Secretary for Public Lands from 1899 until his death in 1903, appears to have occupied Whepstead from c1903 until it was purchased by pastoralist Edgar Gustav Parnell in 1911. The Parnell family resided at Whepstead until the mid-1930s, and reportedly made some changes to the grounds.
In 1943 Matron Ethel Dolley purchased the house and converted it into the Bay View Private Hospital. The grounds remained largely unaltered, but the house was sheathed in fibro, with louvre windows along the verandahs. A toilet block was erected post-1945. The property remained a hospital until 1973, when it reverted to a private residence. In 1977 the remaining land around Whepstead was subdivided, and the house on 5050 square metres was sold and refurbished as a restaurant. A number of owners since have maintained Whepstead as a restaurant and function centre.
","criteria":"Whepstead, erected in 1889, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being a rare surviving example of 1880s boom era architecture in the Redlands district, and a conscious expression of the confidence and pride in accomplishment engendered during that era.
|Whepstead, erected in 1889, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being a rare surviving example of 1880s boom era architecture in the Redlands district, and a conscious expression of the confidence and pride in accomplishment engendered during that era.
|The grounds may contain remnant evidence of the original 1870s-1880s layout and plantings, with potential to reveal important information about domestic horticulture and garden layouts at this period.
|Some first floor internal walls have been removed, but the place remains sufficiently intact to be of importance in illustrating the principal characteristics of a large, ornate, timber residence of three levels [two storeys and a substantial attic]. The house is also a good example of the early work of important Brisbane architect CW Chambers.
|The aesthetically pleasing exterior of Whepstead, in its setting of large, mature trees and garden, makes a strong contribution to the Wellington Point townscape, and internally, the aesthetic quality and craftsmanship of the carved timber stair and joinery are of note. The fine views from and to the place are also of aesthetic importance.
|The place has had an historical landmark quality in Brisbane's southern bayside suburbs for well over a century, which is valued by the local and Brisbane community as part of a unique heritage.
|Whepstead house [1889] and grounds [established mid-1870s] have a strong association with Gilbert Burnett and his important role in the development of Wellington Point in the last quarter of the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15552,"place_ref":600777,"name":"Archer Park Railway Station","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Central Railway Station","street_address":"Denison Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Archer Park Railway Station, bounded by Denison, Cambridge and Archer Streets, consists of a main station building which has a railway platform to the southwest and a verandah entrance to the northeast. Both the platform and tracks are covered by a steel framed carriage shade which runs the full length of the station.
The station building is a single-storeyed chamferboard structure supported on brick or timber stumps. The building has a corrugated iron hipped roof, with galvanised iron ridge ventilators, concealed behind a parapet surmounting a deep entablature. The parapet was originally surmounted by finials which are no longer extant. The front entrance of the building, which faces the adjacent Defence Reserve to the northeast, has a raised verandah which runs the full length of the original 1899 structure. The main entrance is located in the centre of the building, and consists of a projecting portico surmounted by a shaped timber gable with the date and title "A.D. 1899 RAILWAY STATION" in raised lettering. The portico is accessed via central concrete steps, and has paired cast iron columns flanking a wide central arch, with narrower arches to either side, and a timber lined ceiling. The arches are formed by delicate filigree cast iron valances, and fine cross-braced metal balustrading is located between the columns.
The verandah has similar cast iron columns, with cast iron brackets, supporting a corrugated iron skillion roof. The cast iron columns also act as downpipes for the verandah roof, and discharge into pipework built into the concrete verandah. The portico and verandah floor is finished in hexagonal concrete tiles, some sections of which have been removed. The northern and southern wings of the building have tall sash windows opening onto the verandah, with a single timber panelled door with fanlight (a converted sash window) to the southern wing. The northern wing has paired timber doors with fanlight accessing a luggage passage adjacent to the entry vestibule.
An extension containing the former refreshment rooms, which opened in 1908, is attached to the northern end of the building. This extension is similar in detailing to the original structure, but without the northeast verandah. The northeast elevation windows, while having the appearance of sashes, are fitted with a patent device (magic stays) which raises and pivots the lower sash against the upper sash. These windows have hoods, and a corrugated iron lean-to garage has been added to the northern end, replacing the wood, coal and coke yard.
The southern end of the building has a loading bay separating the men's toilet block and store from the main station building, all of which front the railway platform. The northern end of the building originally had a similar arrangement, providing a lamp room and store, but was altered with the construction of the extension containing the refreshment rooms. The loading bay has a cantilevered corrugated iron awning, with corrugated iron cladding enclosing the wall surface above to the underside of the carriage shade. The toilet block and store has corrugated iron wall cladding with metal louvred ventilation panels, and is roofed by a skillion with projecting twin gables with raised ridge ventilators. The gable ends have louvred panels and finials, and a glass rooflight is located between the gables lighting the urinals below.
The carriage shade is constructed of curved steel roof trusses supported on timber posts, and is sheeted with corrugated iron with a raised central ridge ventilator. The carriage shade has a corrugated iron valance along its southwest side, and a curved corrugated iron valance at either end. The structure currently covers the railway platform and single line of track, but originally a second line of track was also covered with a third line to the southwest of the structure. Every second post on the southwest side has been removed for access purposes, with the exception of the centre and end bays which have cross-bracing to stabilise the structure. There were originally highlight windows to the carriage shade, but these have also been removed. The railway platform has a concrete upstand, and originally was finished with hexagonal concrete tiles similar to the verandah, but these are no longer extant. The platform has been trenched in front of the signal box, which is situated on the southwest side of the station building fronting the former ticket and parcels office, creating a pit for control rods which has been covered with timber boarding. The signal box replaced the original free-standing structure which was located on the southwestern side of the carriage shade.
The main entrance has paired timber panelled doors, flanked by hinged timber side panels, and surmounted by a large arched glass fanlight. Tall sash windows are located either side of the entrance doors. Internally the building has boarded ceilings, with vertically jointed boarding to most of the walls, and rainwater heads protrude into the rooms along the northeast side of the building. The entrance vestibule has timber posts with cast iron brackets to the railway platform, and a low timber wall surmounted by a metal balustrade screens the luggage passage adjacent. Paired timber doors with fanlight open from the luggage passage to the former cloak room on the northern side. Two sash ticket windows with cantilevered timber counters access the former ticket and parcels office to the south of the entrance vestibule, with small hinged doors below.
The railway platform has tall sash windows, some of which have been painted out, and timber panelled doors with fanlights open from the adjoining offices and service rooms. Rainwater heads, draining the box gutter between the station building and the carriage shade, protrude into the platform area, with the downpipe inset into the station building wall. The signal box protrudes from the station building on a raised concrete base, and has sliding multi-paned windows to three sides.
The former ticket and parcels office has much of its original joinery, including benches to the ticket windows, and shelving. The raised signal box, which protrudes from the southwest side of the room, contains control levers and is accessed via timber steps to a platform with timber handrail. The adjacent former station masters office contains some early fittings including a timber screen fronting the southwest door, a corner basin, and a corner zinc coated shelf. The former cloak room originally had a central dividing wall, which separated a former ladies waiting room, and a timber panelled door with fanlight accesses the ladies toilet at the northern end.
The ladies toilet contains three cubicles, one of which contains an original earth closet which is not in use, another has been converted into a WC, and the third has been removed. An unpainted rear sanitary service passage, originally for the service of the earth closets, is located behind the cubicles. The service passage has a low narrow door opening onto the verandah, which replaced an earlier door which opened at the base of the verandah steps. An adjacent store opens onto the railway platform, and an opening has been created into the former refreshment rooms which is currently one large open space. This space originally contained a refreshment room, bar, two bedrooms, pantry store and kitchen. Paired timber doors open to the northeast, and sections of the room are currently unlined.
The men's toilet block and store at the southern end of the building has corrugated iron wall cladding over a timber frame. The toilet block has a concrete floor, and four cubicles with timber partitions. A sanitary service passage is located behind the cubicles, but the doorway providing access has been sheeted over with corrugated iron. A store has been created by partitioning off the southern end of the toilets.
The surrounds include a driveway and parking area on the northeastern side between Archer and Cambridge Streets, providing access to the front entrance. A number of trees are located scattered along the boundary with the adjacent Defence Reserve, and towards the southern end of the site. The carriage shade area has been enclosed with a high chain wire fence, and the ground to the southwest of the structure has been concreted.
A section of the eastern or southbound main line along Denison Street remains in front of Archer Park Station, linking it to its loop line.
","history":"Archer Park Railway Station, the former Rockhampton Central Railway Station, is situated on Denison Street and forms an important link with the social, cultural and transport history of Rockhampton and central Queensland. It was the major railway station in Rockhampton from the turn of the century until the mid 1920's, and is an important element in the development of the railway network in Queensland, and the growth of the North Coast Railway in the early part of the twentieth century.
The Archer brothers had made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy River. The Archers were also the first European pastoralists to arrive in the area. Their establishment of Gracemere station (QHR 600508) lead to further pastoral expansion into the area.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858, Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. Following the gold rush the town of Rockhampton developed as an entry and export town for central Queensland. Rockhampton continued to eclipse its nearest rival Gladstone for nearly a century as the principal port for central Queensland.
In 1863 the Parliament of Queensland passed the controversial Railway Bill, which committed Queensland to the use of a narrow gauge for the development of its main line in Queensland. Other colonies in Australia at this time had adopted broader gauges for use on their rail networks. The reasoning behind this decision was that a narrow gauge would have lower construction costs.
The first section of the Queensland railway network was opened between Ipswich and Bigges Camp on 31 July 1865, and later extended to link the towns of Warwick, Dalby and Toowoomba with Ipswich. At the time that the Railway Act had been passed, the 5000 citizens of Rockhampton objected to having no provision made for the construction of a railway to their hinterland, where copper was being exploited in the Peak Downs area. A railway was thought necessary to ensure development of the interior.
The first length of line was opened to Westwood some thirty miles (fifty kilometres) from Rockhampton in 1867. The line was extended beyond the coastal ranges in 1872, reaching Emerald in 1879. The Central Railway was progressively extended further west reaching Longreach in 1892, and remained an isolated railway system, with no connection to the southern division of Queensland railways until 1903.
In 1882 after Brisbane had acquired a railway to the seaside at Sandgate, Rockhampton clamoured for a similar connection to its resort at Emu Park. Construction of the Emu Park line was approved in 1885 and the line opened in 1888. The 1880's was a period of economic and civic expansion in Rockhampton as a result of the discovery and exploitation of the gold and ore body at Mount Morgan in the Dee Range forty kilometres from Rockhampton.
The line, similar to Bundaberg, featured a railway system divided by a major river. This consisted of a line running from a terminus in Stanley Street to Gracemere and westwards, and the line at North Rockhampton to Emu Park with no physical connection. Two years after the opening of the Emu Park line, the Railway Department began investigating the possibility of linking Rockhampton's two separate railways. The bridging of the Fitzroy River and the cost of land resumptions to join the two terminus stations were to be major difficulties in connecting the two lines.
Trial surveys in 1890 investigated two routes, but the financial crisis of 1893 forestalled further work. The impetus for bridging the Fitzroy River came from the decision of the Queensland Government to construct a deepwater port at Broadmount at the mouth of the Fitzroy River in 1894, and to link the Central Railway with North Rockhampton via a bridge across the Fitzroy and a line running via Denison Street. The original plan called for a single line down Denison Street and for a single track bridge, however the Rockhampton City Council protested against this decision. Following a visit to Rockhampton by HC Stanley, the management of the Lakes Creek Meatworks at North Rockhampton convinced the Railway Department to construct a double line to North Rockhampton, as it was felt that developments in livestock and goods traffic would justify the initial outlay. In 1895 construction was approved for what was to be known as the Rockhampton Junction Railway. The new bridge and connecting line were the first examples of double lines outside of the Brisbane-Ipswich metropolitan area. The Rockhampton City Council gave half of Leichhardt Park (Archer Park) and Denison Street which allowed for the construction of a central railway station. The Council approved this work in October 1896.
The future station at Archer Park was first sketched out in 1897 in Brisbane. The concept developed was for a station separate from the main line down Denison Street, but connected via a loop line crossing the southbound line by crossovers and slip points. A single platform was to be provided 300 feet long and 20 foot wide, with an arched carriage shade running full length of the platform. The track to the platform and the three track loop line left only a small strip of roadway available along Denison Street. The plan was subsequently altered to allow for a larger space for vehicular traffic on Denison Street.
An amended plan for the station building was prepared in late 1897. This incorporated a station building 140 feet long, with a 10 foot wide verandah running its full length along the street elevation. A cloak room was also added to the plan.
Final plans were produced in 1898 by architect Henrik Hansen (1843-?). Hansen had joined the Queensland Railways in 1877, and was responsible for the design of many utilitarian buildings and structures. He was also responsible for the design of the railway stations at Mount Morgan (1898) (QHR 600752), Cunnamulla (1898) and Winton (1898), the refreshment rooms at Toowoomba (1900) (QHR 600872), and Emerald Railway Station (1900) (QHR 600490). Hansen was also involved in the design of the new Railway Workshops at North Ipswich (c.1901-13) (QHR 601526). Hansen was retrenched in 1904. Similar features of the stations designed by Hansen, particularly at Mount Morgan, Cunnamulla and Winton, included an all-over arch roof or carriage shade, designed to provide cover to passengers and goods being loaded at the platform.
The tender for construction of the Rockhampton Junction Railway was awarded to GC Willcocks in 1897. The contract involved the construction of the branch to Broadmount, the Denison Street line, and the Alexandra Railway Bridge (QHR 600799). Construction was delayed until 1898 on the bridge due to flooding on the Fitzroy River.
Tenders were called in September 1897 for the construction of a residence for a Station Master for Archer Park. Thomas McWatters won the contract for £520, and the building was completed in sixteen weeks. In July 1898 tenders were called for the erection of a signal cabin at Archer Park, and one tender was received from Watson and McDonald for £168. The system of interlocking signalling and pointworks led to discussions between HC Stanley and Traffic Manager Thallon in 1898. Thallon had suggested to deviate the mainline so as to enter Archer Park station, to avoid running interlocking gear and signal wires along Denison Street. However the original plan to enable trains to run along Denison Street without entering Archer Park was retained.
Tenders were called for the Rockhampton Central Station in February 1899. Thomas Butterworth Renshaw and Harry Ricketts submitted a tender of £4,130. Electric lighting of the station was considered during construction, however gas was installed instead.
The Rockhampton Junction Railway was officially opened on 6 November 1899. With the completion of the Alexandra Railway Bridge, the Emu Park and Central Railway provided a unified rail link between the two halves of Rockhampton. The Archer Park station was not ready for the opening of the Junction Railway, and no official opening ceremony was held, however the station was opened for the use of the public from 11 December 1899. The official name Archer Park was adopted in October 1899, rather than Leichhardt Park, from which it was resumed.
Being the central station for Rockhampton, Archer Park superseded the Stanley Street station not long after its construction. Mail trains to Brisbane departed from Archer Park following completion of the Gladstone-Rockhampton link in 1903. Archer Park was designed as a passenger station, and did not handle goods traffic apart from parcels and mail. The station was also important as the departure and terminating point for services to Mount Morgan, Emu Park and the local suburban services to Lakes Creek at North Rockhampton. Excursions to the seaside at Emu Park and later Yeppoon were also extremely popular.
In 1906 plans were drawn up to extend the building to provide for a refreshment room. The refreshment room was to be provided at the northern end of the station building, and was to include a bar for patrons. The rooms opened in 1908, and were leased by private operators until the Government established the Railway Refreshment Room services in 1916.
Denison Street was to be a major problem for train operations within Rockhampton. As the route of the railway was along a major thoroughfare across several open level crossings, trains were limited to a maximum speed of ten miles per hour. Trains were also required to provide an audible signal to warn motorists and pedestrians along Denison Street of their passage. The warning was given by the fireman on the engine ringing a brass hand bell.
The Central Line continued to expand throughout the early part of the twentieth century. Prior to 1922, up to twenty five daily departures and arrivals could be recorded at Archer Park. By 1922 the station layout at Archer Park was too restrictive to handle the increasing length of passenger and mail trains. With the completion of the North Coast Line from Rockhampton to Mackay in 1921, operational difficulties were increased as the length of mail trains frequently fouled the crossover, leading to the blocking of the main line. The length of trains also meant that vision between the signalman on duty and the driver of trains was obscured.
As the signal cabin for Archer Park was situated on the western side of the station loop lines, firemen looking back along the length of the train were unable to be given a proceed signal. To assist in the problem of observing passing trains on the main line in Denison Street, sheets of galvanised iron were removed to open up a view from the platform area.
The Stanley Street station was enlarged in 1923 to cater for longer trains, and two 600 foot long platforms were provided. The station was further enlarged between 1924 and 1928, making it the major station in Rockhampton. The long distance mail and passenger trains all departed from the Stanley Street station leaving Archer Park to cater for more local services.
During the Second World War Archer Park station was again utilised for services to cope with the dispatch and transport of allied army troops stationed in the Rockhampton region.
The signal cabin on the Denison Street side of the station was moved into the station building in 1956. Prior to this the station had been downgraded in staffing in the early 1950's as an economy measure. The movement of the cabin had been protested by union representatives, as it would have also meant the loss of signalmen jobs. The move first proposed in 1922, and again in the early 1950's was accomplished by the end of 1956.
Further staff reductions took place in 1957. At the same time the General Manager for the Central Division recommended that only local passenger and railmotor services operate to and from Archer Park with all other services to by-pass the station. Summer traffic to Emu Park and Yeppoon maintained regular departures from the station as in the early part of the century. Most traffic was now generated from services to Mount Morgan, St Lawrence, and the Sunday only train to Mackay.
Branch line closures in the Central Division further reduced train services from the station. The Emu Park branch was closed in 1964 due to falling revenue, and with the withdrawal of the railmotor service from Archer Park to St Lawrence in 1968, the only trains to operate were Yeppoon services. The Yeppoon railmotor was withdrawn in 1969, and with no passenger services operating from the station, the decision was taken to close the station as of 2 February 1970. Tenders were invited in 1970 to attract a suitable lessee for Archer Park, but no offers were forthcoming. The station was then used as a freight terminal for a door to door service being developed by Queensland Railways. Every second post on the Denison Street side of the carriage shade was removed to facilitate vehicle access. Rooms in the station building were also used for storage. No maintenance was to be carried out on the building at the request of Queensland Railways.
Filling was placed at the northern end of the platform to allow motor vehicles access to the station area. In 1974 Queensland Railfast Express Pty Ltd were given a lease of the station area north of the entry vestibule. Partitions were removed in the refreshment rooms and the floor strengthened. Archer Park was the headquarters for QRX and its freight operations in Rockhampton from 1976 until 1989.
From 1982 until QRX vacated the site in 1989, local residents protested over noise and inconvenience generated from the freight activities on site. Rockhampton City Council made approaches to Queensland Railways for the station and yard to be developed as a museum complex. QRX found alternative accommodation at a location near Port Curtis Junction, and financed its move with assistance from Queensland Railways. Archer Park closed as a freight terminal and station on 14 January 1990. Mechanical and electric semaphore signalling was placed out of use, along with all points and crossovers leading into the station.
On 1 May 1990 Queensland Railways handed over the Archer Park station to the Rockhampton City Council as part of a plan to develop a museum on site. In 1996 conservation and refurbishment work was carried on the station building and carriage shed. The eastern or southbound main line along Denison Street was removed by Queensland Rail as part of its Main Line Upgrade programme. A section of the line two blocks in length was retained linking Archer Park station to its loop line, however all physical connection with the North Coast Line has now been removed.
","criteria":"Archer Park Railway Station is important in demonstrating the evolution of the railway network in central Queensland and in the city of Rockhampton. Archer Park, constructed in 1899, was the central railway station for Rockhampton and is an integral part of the original design of the Rockhampton Junction Railway, which included the double line street railway connecting Stanley Street station to the Alexandra Rail Bridge [600799] and North Rockhampton via Denison Street.
|The Denison Street double line is also a rare Australian example of road and rail traffic sharing the same corridor, and the station contains rare surviving remnants of its interlocking signalling system.
|Archer Park Railway Station demonstrates the principal characteristics of a main line railway station built in a regional city at the turn of the century, and is also a rare surviving example of the use of a curved carriage and platform shade, which was a common feature of railway stations designed by architect Henrik Hansen. Archer Park Railway Station has a special association with the life and work of Henrik Hansen, and other surviving examples of stations designed by him include Mount Morgan [600752] and Emerald [600490].
|Archer Park Railway Station is important for its intactness, being substantially unchanged since its construction. The structure is of considerable architectural merit, and the form and fabric of the building illustrate a skilled design approach. Archer Park Railway Station is an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton, and makes a considerable aesthetic contribution to the local streetscape and Rockhampton townscape.
|Archer Park Railway Station has a special association with the community of Rockhampton, and is significant as being the main passenger station in Rockhampton from 1899 until the 1920's at a time when the Queensland Railways were the major form of transport for people and freight.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15554,"place_ref":600779,"name":"The Range Convent and High School","alternate_name":"The Catholic College Residential | Our Lady of Good Counsel Convent and School","street_address":"263 Agnes Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Range college is situated on the Athelstane Range facing the Rockhampton town centre. The property is bounded by Agnes, Corberry, Penlington, Bauhinia and Gordon Streets on a prominent site.
\nThe Range Convent and High School has a number of significant buildings, structures and garden areas. These include Middle Hall, a two storeyed timber building with tower erected in 1907-8 as a school hall; a collection of brick buildings along the Agnes Street boundary of the school including the convent first used by the school in 1895 with later chapel, students dormitories built in 1921 and nuns boarding facilities dating from 1930; a cloister formed by the courtyard of several buildings which contains established plantings and a grotto; and the swimming pool.
\nThe Convent
\nThe Convent is a two storeyed timber and masonry building. It consists of the original Bishop's residence, onto which a second storey and subsequent additions have been added. The footprint of the original residence is evident on the ground floor where plastered walls contrast to the timber partitioning used elsewhere in the building. The first extensions to the building are evident in the timber partitioning, fretwork and joinery. The most recent refurbishment of the building is apparent by the external use of face brick, fibre-cement sheeting and the addition of modern services.
\nThe Chapel
\nThe present chapel was the most recent building designed as part of the Agnes Street streetscape. It is a rectangular brick building at the south end of the convent, with the main entrance on the western end. Internally the building features high quality timber joinery, four stained glass windows near the altar, as well as a number of important statues.
\nMiddle Hall
\nThe school house is a two storeyed timber building with a tower at the eastern end prominently situated in the middle of the school grounds. The rib and pan iron gabled roof is surrounded by verandahs on three sides, which are supported on pairs of chamfered timber columns. Small gables project over the verandahs defining the timber stairways. The tower is an extraordinary structure decorated with timber mouldings, dormer windows, religious motifs and a Wunderlich fish scale pattern spired roof. Wrought iron balustrading encircles the open platform outside the timber columns which are joined with cast iron arched frieze panels. Internally the first floor, a large hall, has a Wunderlich pressed metal ceiling as does the soffit of the 18ft wide verandahs.
\nGenazzano
\nGenazzano is a three storeyed symmetrically composed brick building located on Agnes Street, the first of the brick buildings on this boundary of the site and the model for the later buildings. The rectangular building has a corrugated iron gabled roof with iron ridge ventilators. The building has brick parapeted sections at the two gable ends to the north and south and defining the entrances on the east and west facades. The triangular parapets feature round head arches, mouldings and brick corbelled towers. The rectangular building is surrounded on four sides by three storeys of brick arched verandahs.
\nThe Convent Dormitory
\nThe convent dormitory is a three storeyed brick building, similar in appearance to Genazzano, to the north of the convent. It has three storeys of brick arched verandahs and a corrugated iron gabled roof with parapeted gable ends similar to those of Genazzano. The ground floor has lounge to the east and single dormitories to the west, a single flight stair joins the central corridors on the upper two floors, located off which are the single bedrooms which open onto the wide verandahs.
\nThe Cloister
\nMiddle Hall, the convent, dormitory and chapel frame a courtyard used as a cloister, which features a large established tree with other early planted beds and a vine-covered stone grotto with a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. This is a carefully designed space, which forms the introspective focus of the buildings on the site.
\nThe Swimming Pool
\nThe swimming pool is surrounded by a platform of rendered white concrete and has bathing sheds to the east.
","history":"The first Catholic school in Rockhampton was established in about 1864 by Dean Murlay. When the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Rockhampton in 1873, they took over the running of the primary school and established a high school on the grounds. The school and convent were moved to their current premises on the Athelstane Range, west of the city in 1895.
\nThe Sisters of Mercy in Queensland established the sixth foundation of their order in Rockhampton in 1873, twelve years after their arrival in the state. This was the northernmost foundation and acted as the base for expansion into Central and North Queensland. The seven Sisters under the supervision of their Superior, Sr M Vincent Whitty, were welcomed by Dean Murlay, the parish priest, who provided them with their first convent in Kent Street. Large areas of prominent land had been acquired for the church and a Catholic primary school established since Dean Murlay's arrival in Rockhampton in 1863.
\nThe Sisters immediately assumed responsibility for running the Catholic primary school, St Joseph's, and soon established a Catholic secondary school the first in Rockhampton. By October 1895 space at the school was inadequate and the sisters moved to the Athelstane Range slightly west of the centre of Rockhampton to Stoneleigh, the former residence of the Bishop of Rockhampton, Rev John Cani. The building was described as having verandahs on three sides, with four or five internal rooms opening from a central hall. A school room was added to the north wall in early 1896 and the school became known as the School of Our Lady of Good Counsel though due to its situation on Athelstane Range became commonly referred to as The Range Convent and High School. When Bishop Cani died in 1898 he left the heavily mortgaged building and grounds to the Sisters of Mercy.
\nImprovements were made to the school by the Sisters by 1900 when an upper storey with verandahs was added to the convent and a timber chapel was built. Two Rockhampton architectural firms were employed by the school in this year, Eaton and Bates and EG Walters.
\nFurther work was planned when James Duhig was consecrated as the third bishop of Rockhampton on the 10th of December 1905. He maintained a strong relationship with the Range convent through his years in Rockhampton and subsequently as Archbishop of Brisbane until his death in 1965. After his consecration Duhig, who espoused a philosophy of education for girls immediately began planning a new school house for the sisters. Local architect and builder, C. Slater, was engaged in 1906 to design the building, Middle Hall, and supervise construction. Bishop Duhig was also actively involved in the design of the building. Shortage of funds meant considerable delays in the construction and it was not completed until early 1908, though its official opening was at the end of year school concert on December 8, 1907.
\nMiddle Hall consisted of two storeys and a tower; ten music rooms, a library, and rooms for photography, art, cooking instruction and a kitchen were on the ground floor and on the first floor was a large hall used for classrooms. Above these rooms, climbing from the rear of the stage of the hall was a timber tower, this consisted of two levels under an open balcony. The open space was to be used as an observatory and cast iron frieze panels designed by Sidney Williams & Co of Rockhampton depicting stars and moons complemented this use.
\nA feature of Middle Hall was its attention to the health and safety of the occupants. Bishop Duhig consulted a local resident, Dr O'Brien, about these matters and consequently detailed attention was given to the design of the ventilation, drainage and hygiene resulting in 18ft wide verandahs surrounding three sides of the building, and the extensive use of Wunderlich pressed metal roof sheeting internally and on the verandah soffits. At its opening Middle Hall, built at a cost of in excess of £2000, was described by Duhig as one of the finest in the state.
\nSoon after the construction of Middle Hall in 1908 extensive landscaping was completed on the site including the addition of a tennis court carved in the side of the hill, and various walks and carriage ways near a grotto which had been constructed in the grounds by 1906. This area was to become the cloister and remained the focal point of external activity at the school.
\nFurther extensions at the Range were planned in 1920 when dormitory conditions became inadequate and a new building to house the student boarders was planned. The services of Sydney architects Hennessey and Hennessey in conjunction with local Rockhampton architects Hockings and Palmer were engaged A large three storeyed brick building, called Genazzano was constructed at a cost of £16,962/15/3 by a local contractor W. McDonald. It was situated fronting Agnes Street, manifesting the Catholic ethos, particularly that of the then Archbishop Duhig, of creating imposing built structures on prominent sites. The new boarding house accommodated 80 boarders and two supervising sisters, on the top floor, with refectory and recreation halls on the first floor and kitchen and laundry in the basement. Particular attention was paid to ventilation and to a high quality of construction and materials, with specially designed French doors, maple staircase, cedar and silky oak joinery, coved plaster ceilings, leadlighting by Exton and Co. and modern bath and toilet facilities.
\nIn 1926 a swimming pool, with ten changing sheds was constructed, believed to be the first school pool in Rockhampton. It was designed by local architects Hocking and Palmer and constructed by JJ Booker.
\nBy 1930 the nuns' boarding facilities were inadequate and the wing of the convent in which they were located was demolished and a brick dormitory block was constructed. This was also designed by Hennessey, Hennessey and Co, who were working from an office in Brisbane by this time, and erected by R Cousins and Co of Rockhampton. It was a three storeyed building providing community rooms on the ground floor and accommodation above. Archbishop Duhig returned to Rockhampton to lay the foundation stone, and it was opened by him on November 30, 1930.
\nFurther improvements were made in 1949, when a science block in between the convent and the school house was constructed by local builders, JJ Booker and Sons at a cost of £4,150. The building housed domestic science labs and offices on the ground floor and physics and chemistry rooms on the first floor. In 1951 this was extended to accommodate the increasing number of students staying on to complete the Senior Examination.
\nReligious services at the school remained in the timber chapel until 1956 when a new brick chapel was built to the south of the convent and opened by Archbishop Duhig on November 18, 1956. The timber chapel was moved, renamed Coolock, and used for boarding facilities, this was subsequently moved off the site. The brick chapel was designed by RJ Corbett and constructed by RS Cousins and Co at a cost of £30,000. Four stained glass windows which sat at the rear of the altar were imported from Ireland, and the statue of Our Lady of Good Counsel, after whom the school was named, was placed near its entrance. With the chapel extension the convent building was renovated which involved the removal of external decorative timberwork which was replaced with brickwork designed to complement the other buildings on the site facing Agnes Street.
\nMany school buildings were constructed on the grounds after this, including new education block designed by local architect R Corbett and constructed in three stages by contractors J Winterflood and G Cook in 1963-6; a new four storey boarding house constructed alongside the timber boarding house, Coolock in 1968; and a science and library block built by KD Morris, to a design by R Corbett in 1971. In the 1970s demountable buildings were erected and extensive landscaping completed. A small brick building was constructed to the east of Genazzano, as the Generalate of the Sisters of Mercy of Rockhampton. In the early 1980s a residence, Lynmara, was acquired by the Sisters of Mercy in the north east corner of the property for use by the 'Journey of Youth' programme.
\nRange College became a junior secondary college in 1983 and a new college, Emmaus was established as the senior Catholic college in Rockhampton. By late 1990 Range College was sold to the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton, who subsequently closed it when they established a co-educational school in an area adjacent to St Joseph's Cathedral in central Rockhampton. The boarding houses, Genazzano and Coolock, are used by boarding students of this new college and the Sisters of Mercy still use the convent and chapel.
","criteria":"The Range Convent is a site of cultural significance for its long association with the Sisters of Mercy; this was the sixth foundation of the order in Queensland and has been a head convent in North Queensland since 1873.
The convent and school have developed on the site on Athelstane Range for nearly one hundred years and provide evidence of the pattern of growth of both Rockhampton and the Sisters of Mercy in Central and North Queensland.
|Middle Hall has been a prominent landmark in Rockhampton since its construction in 1907-8 and is a virtuoso example of timber architecture. Genazzano and the nun's dormitory are good examples of the religious work of the architects, Hennessey and Hennessey.
The wide verandahs and internal planning of many of the early buildings on the site, including Middle Hall, Genazzano and the nun's dormitory were designed to ensure good ventilation and privacy in external areas of the buildings.
The buildings facing Agnes Street, including the nun's dormitory, the convent and chapel, Genazzano and Coolock form a prominent landmark in the city, thereby manifesting the catholic ethos of exploiting imposing sites.
|The buildings and spaces on the site form a cohesive introspective group which reflect its use by Sisters of Mercy for Catholic education.
|The Range Convent is a site of cultural significance for its long association with the Sisters of Mercy; this was the sixth foundation of the order in Queensland and has been a head convent in North Queensland since 1873.
The Range has associations with the first Bishop of Rockhampton Rev John Cani in whose house the convent was originally based and Archbishop James Duhig who, from 1905 until his death in 1956 was actively interested in the development of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15555,"place_ref":600780,"name":"Rockhampton Girls Grammar School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"155 Agnes Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-20","description":"Rockhampton Girls Grammar School, situated to the southwest of the city centre, is located near the crest of the Athelstane Range on a northeasterly slope. The main building, Paterson House, displays a strong gothic influence in its design and is located to the south of the site, with terracing to the northeast on which are located sporting facilities and school buildings.
Paterson House is a two-storeyed painted masonry building with a complex corrugated iron roof consisting of intersecting gables with turrets and hipped bays. The building was built in a number of stages extending to the south, and the brickwork patterns include English, English Garden Wall, Flemish and Stretcher Bonds. Some verandahs and courtyard spaces have been enclosed.
The northeast elevation consists of three projecting bays with verandahs in between. The southern section is setback and has an L-shaped verandah with a fire stair and a turret above the inside corner. A second turret is located near the northern corner above the pointed arch main entry, and the building has concrete mouldings expressing floor levels and wall openings. Verandahs have arched timber brackets with a diagonally boarded timber frieze to the ground floor, with the first floor being enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and glass louvres. Some cast iron balustrading is visible, with possibly more concealed behind sheeting. The narrow timber casement windows have hopper panels above and timber shutters.
The southeast elevation, fronting the driveway, consists of a slightly proud twin gable southern section with a wide central arch and two flanking narrow arches, housing recessed windows, on the ground floor. The central arch has the words AH PATERSON DRIVE above. The eastern section has a projecting bay, and the southern corner has a reconstructed open verandah with cast aluminium balustrading.
The southwest elevation, fronting Agnes Street, consists of two gable sections with the area between enclosed at ground level and housing kitchen and laundry facilities. To the south of this, and slightly recessed, is the Assembly Hall end elevation, which has a gable parapet with a rounded apex and a series of tall casement windows, the central one of which has an arched fanlight, with timber shutters. Stepping back from this element is the reconstructed open verandah.
The northwest elevation, accessed by a driveway from Agnes Street which also separates more recent school buildings to the northwest, has a mid twin gable section and an enclosed verandah with exposed cast iron balustrading to the northern end. The western end has service areas for the kitchen and laundry. Some timber sash windows have window hoods with decorative timber brackets.
Internally, the ground floor contains administration offices to the northeast and southeast. These include the Headmaster and secretary's offices, foyer and stair in the northern corner, which have stained timber fireplace surrounds, staircase and panelling, panelled doors with fanlights, architraves and skirtings. The kitchen and laundry areas to the west have been refurbished and refitted, as have the administration areas to the southeast. The Assembly Hall has arched timber trusses with a boarded ceiling at the collar-beam position and raked to the side walls. The hall has a triple lancet window in the northeast wall, which is now an internal wall to administration rooms beyond.
The first floor consists of dormitories with nurse's rooms in the northern area. The dormitories and bathrooms have been altered a number of times, with verandahs and courtyard spaces being enclosed. The most recent alterations have been to the southern dormitories and include new partitioning, fittings and finishes.
The building is accessed from the southeast via a driveway from the corner of Denham and Agnes Streets, which has a cast iron gate and brick piers. This is lined with Pine trees, with many more scattered about the grounds, particularly to the east of Paterson House and fronting Denham Street. A wide pathway leads around the northeast of the building, from which the land terraces to a asphalt tennis court, with brick retaining wall and concrete ramp, to the east, and Primmer House to the northeast. A paved terrace area is located to the north, opening off the dining and kitchen areas. The southwest is bounded by an embankment to Agnes Street above.
Located below the tennis court terrace is the netball court, with the music building forming the northwest boundary. This building, originally the open sided gymnasium, has a corrugated iron gambrel roof supported on square timber posts with a concrete floor. The building has been enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and glass louvres. A ceiling has been installed and internal partitioning has formed a series of music practice rooms and a larger central space.
The recently constructed Centenary Art building forms the northeast boundary to the netball court, with a greenhouse to the southeast.
","history":"The Rockhampton Girls Grammar School opened in April 1892 under foundation Headmistress Helen Downs. It was the ninth of the grammar schools to be established in Queensland and the third grammar school for girls. As with the other grammar schools, it was constituted under the Grammar Schools Act of 1860, one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the Queensland Parliament, which encouraged by way of grants of land and subsidies, the establishment of non government secular schools for secondary education within the colony. As Queensland was not establishing state high schools until the 1910s, nor the principal of universal secondary education until the 1960s, the state assisted (albeit independent) grammar schools represented the defacto state secondary school system.
From its establishment in 1881, the Rockhampton Grammar School (located nearby on the Athelstane Range overlooking Rockhampton) had included both a boys and a (smaller) girls department. The Government, however, refused to recognise the separate departments as entitled to separate subsidies under the Act, and as a consequence the Trustees soon insisted on a separate grammar school for girls. In 1886 the Girls Department was closed. The issue of education for women continued to be raised in the press, although, it was not until 1890 that sufficient funds were raised (via private and government subsidies) to proceed with the founding of the new school. In that year, competitive designs were called for a building suitable for a Girls Grammar School, providing residence accommodation for Headmistress and Staff, 20 Boarders, also School accommodation for 50 Scholars, with necessary classrooms etc. The building was to be of brick with the total cost not to exceed £4,000. Thirty-two entries were received with first prize awarded to EM Hockings of Brisbane and second to James Flint of Rockhampton. Brisbane architect, Richard Gailey, objected however to the awarding of the prize to Hockings on the grounds that the plans were prepared whilst Hockings was articled to Gailey as his pupil. At Gailey's request, the first prize was recorded as his, with Hockings appointed clerk of works.
Edwin Morton Hockings (1870-1942) was to have a long association with the school. In addition to his responsibility for the main school building, he was architect for the two major additions to it undertaken in 1897 and 1899, as well as a long serving member of the Board of Trustees (1908-1926), serving as Board Chairman in 1911 and from 1917-19. In 1895, Hockings became an Associate to the Queensland Institute of Architects, and from that year is recorded as practicing as an architect in Rockhampton. He was to practice in partnership with AM Hutton (1899-1907), LT Palmer (1916-1938), and for a short time, with his son, Thomas.
In 1890, the tender for the erection of the new school of £3,890 by Moir Cousins and Co was accepted. Prior to construction, the plan of the building was reversed, apparently as the extent of levelling to Denham Street was not sufficient to allow for the positioning according to the original plans. Delays in completion were apparently caused by repeated alterations to the building specification, including increased ventilation and the fitting of forty-four cedar venetian shutters.
The new two-storeyed brick building (known since 1971 as Paterson House, after Chairman of Trustees 1920-52, AH Paterson) was described by the local press as late nineteenth century, in keeping with the usual Australian Architect's interpretation of Gothic. On the ground floor were an assembly hall, two classrooms, drawing room, dining room, mistress's dining room and kitchen. The upper floor (accessed by three staircases, one each for pupils, mistresses and servants) housed two music rooms, two dormitories, three bedrooms for mistresses, servant's bedrooms, and bathrooms. The total cost was £5,666.5.3. The grounds were rough with only the school area and tennis court levelled.
In 1892, a timber caretaker's cottage (£180) and playshed (£162), designed and supervised by Rockhampton architect and competition runner up, James Flint, were erected. In the following year, the playshed was fitted as a gymnasium.
On Arbor Day, soon after the school's opening, forty-six trees, one for each pupil, mistress and Trustee present, were planted. These included, on advice from the Curator of the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens (JS Edgar), 12 mango trees planted on the town edge of the lawn tennis court, silky oaks, jacarandas, and bunya pines. In 1894 the orange trees planted above the tennis court were replaced by Araucaria Cunninghamii (Hoop Pine). By the end of 1894 planting was curtailed.
In the next decade, as the school expanded, three major additions were made to the school building. In 1897, a new single storeyed wing, designed by EM Hockings and built by R Cousins & Co, was added to the southern side of the building. The work costing £1,392.3.7. included a new Assembly Hall, two classrooms, and an office for the Headmistress. As a result the old assembly hall was formed into two classrooms (one being for cookery and chemistry). The excavated material from the site of the additions was used to form "the Terrace" in front of the school.
Further additions, again undertaken by Hockings (now Hutton and Hockings) and R Cousins and Co, were carried out in 1899. The two storeyed wing to the south east of the building included new dormitories and bathrooms to accommodate eighteen boarders, two new classrooms, and music rooms. The work completed in 1900 at a total cost of £2,019.10.0. also included extensions to the Assembly Hall and two of the existing classrooms, the demolition of the headmistress's office, and the excavation and completion of two new tennis courts.
The third stage costing £978 was undertaken in 1901. It included the incorporation of a classroom with the dining room, construction of two new upstairs classrooms, new staircase to the southwest, new laundry, housemaid's pantry, storeroom, bathroom, and servants bedroom.
Other improvements undertaken by this time included fencing, excavation, erection of parapet retaining wall, terracing, driveway and asphalting, gates, window shutters, a 2,000 gallon water tank, and painting of brickwork with red-oxide paint (apparently in the hope of combating the effect of rising damp).
In 1898, Miss Downs established the kindergarten for younger students. This was housed in the school room at the rear of main building, and from 1908 in the "detached residence" (erected 1899 as an isolation room for sick students). This was finally closed during World War II.
The initial "boom" period of the school could not however be sustained. For example, the establishment in 1919 of a state high school as part of the Rockhampton Technical School and later the depression (and a decrease in government endowments) saw a decrease in enrolments. In 1945 additions were made by school architect EA Hegvold to the upper storey of Paterson House. These included a staffroom, bathrooms, sickbay, and glassed in verandah. About this time the gymnasium was converted into a music building containing five practice rooms (later increased to eight), but it was not until the 1960s that further major development was to occur.
The opening of Luck House (containing boarding accommodation and classrooms) in 1962 was the first major building to be erected on the site after the main school building. It signalled the beginning of a substantial building program, as the school sought to deal with increasing enrolments and changing educational requirements. Later buildings include the Science Laboratory and Clarice McKeague Hall (1968), Principal's residence (1971), Colin H Grant Library and Resources Centre (1972), Millicent Jackson House (1977), Music Centre (1986), Primmer House (1987) - located on the terrace on the site of one of the original tennis courts, and Centenary Arts Building (1991).
Works were also carried out to Paterson House as it too adapted to changing requirements with teaching removed to other parts of the school. Work included the removal of cubicles in the dormitories (1978); alterations to dining room, kitchen, and laundry, renovation of a dormitory and a new sick bay (1983). In 1987, the Trustees instituted a long range project for the continuing refurbishment of Paterson House including work to dormitories and the balcony facing Denham St. The building currently houses facilities for boarding and administration.
From 1978, a program of landscaping the grounds was instigated, including the paving and planting by senior students of trees on the north terrace called "The Mall"; students' mural of Jackson House courtyard; planting of "Gallipoli Pines" near the swimming pool; planting of the Bicentennial Grove on land adjacent to the school boundary on the north and east.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Girls Grammar School is one of a number of grammar schools established in major Queensland cities from the mid to late 19th century. In Queensland, where the colony's [and later State's] educational emphasis was placed on universal primary education, the state assisted [albeit independent] grammar schools represent the historical beginnings of the state secondary school system. Opened in 1892 at a time when Rockhampton was securing its place as the major central Queensland city, the Rockhampton Girls Grammar School [the third grammar school in Queensland established for girls] is also part of a wider tradition which recognised the important of education for women.
|Paterson House, erected in 1891 [with several later additions] is the original school building and remained the only major school building until the 1960s. Designed by prominent Rockhampton architect EM Hockings, it is recognised by the school community as the symbolic heart of the school. In common with a number of educational buildings of the period, Paterson House employs the Collegiate Gothic architectural vocabulary to exemplify the pedagogical culture of the school. It is the principal member of an intact group of early terraced school facilities including the former gymnasium, tennis court and netball court.
|The school, surrounded by mature pine trees, is prominently sited on the Athelstane Range and forms a significant element in the Rockhampton townscape.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15556,"place_ref":600781,"name":"Rockhampton Grammar School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Archer Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Rockhampton Grammar School is sited to the north east of a ridge of the Athelstane Range overlooking Rockhampton. The site, bounded by Agnes, Archer, and Quarry Streets, comprises a number of buildings erected from 1880 to the present.
The Administration Building is the primary building of the group. It is a two storeyed brick building with a U-shaped plan and a symmetrically composed eastern elevation consisting of three projecting bays. Most of the building has been extensively altered, however the exterior of the central projecting bay, formerly the main entrance, and the interior of the trophy room remain substantially intact.
The central projecting bay has a brick base, a terrace to the first floor, and is surmounted by a pediment which spans the width of the bay. An octagonal belvedere rises above the roof line. The brick base has white rendered quoins, and two arched windows with rendered concrete surrounds and keystones. The windows flank a doorway with belted columns, ionic capitals and a small pediment. The terrace has two slender round columns with broader square piers at the corners, each with ionic capitals. The pediment has floral scrolls and a central school insignia in relief. The belvedere comprises an octagonal pitched roof on eight round columns with ionic capitals, with a braced timber balustrade. The roof has a tall weathervane, and a bell hangs from a frame to the soffit.
The trophy room is located on the ground floor of the northern wing, within a student common area. The room is encircled with timber honour rolls, and has timber french doors with timber surrounds. The centrepiece of this room is a war memorial comprised of a white marble plaque with a richly carved pediment and entablature on round columns. The plaque and surrounds sit on a granite base which has a black marble plaque.
The exterior of the central bay and elements of the trophy room are finely detailed. The grounds surrounding the Administration Building include a number of mature trees.
A small timber pavilion c1910 is situated on the western side of the upper oval
","history":"The Rockhampton Grammar School was opened in 1881. The main building, a two storeyed brick building, now known as the Administration Building, was erected in 1880 to the design of Rockhampton architect, Sidney Williams.
The Rockhampton Grammar School was the state's fourth grammar school. The grammar schools, as private schools partially funded by the government, formed an important part in the colony's fledgling secondary education system. During the 1870s a grammar school for the town was mooted and a parcel of land adjoining the town hall was reserved for such a purpose. However it was not until 1878, that the first trustees were appointed under the Grammar School Act and a site for the new school chosen on the Athelstane Range.
In the following year, Sidney Williams won an architectural competition for the design and the tender of £4,580 by prominent builder and politician, John Ferguson was accepted. This was later increased to £6,026 after the Colonial Architect FDG Stanley recommended some alterations including the deepening of the foundations and the addition of another verandah. The contract did not include furniture or any preparation of the grounds. Not until 1900 was the school's first oval completed.
The school building, which overlooked the town centre included accommodation for the Headmaster, male boarders, and classrooms. Contemporary reports described it as a prominent object in the landscape; its picturesque and airy site was considered appropriate for the education of young men and women.
From 1881-86, the school maintained both a boys and a girls department. In 1906,
FW Wheatley succeeded the first Headmaster, John Wheatcroft. He was followed in 1912 by HA Kellow who remained as Head until 1935.
A War Memorial containing the names of a number of old boys, who participated in the Great War was unveiled by the Governor General, Lord Foster in 1921. It was funded by subscriptions and was designed by architects Hockings and Palmer, based on an idea of Headmaster Kellow. It was executed in Ulam white marble by FM Allan. The brick base faced with granite was completed later in 1924. A war trophy, a German trench mortar, was also acquired by the school in 1921.
In 1928, the PF MacDonald Memorial Pool was erected to the design of Hockings and Palmer. During the depression, improvements made under the Government Intermittent Relief Scheme included new tennis courts and the building of a road from the pool to Wheatcroft Street. Other improvements to the grounds were made in the 1930s when the advice of Botanic Gardens Curator HG Simmons were sought for tree planting and landscaping.
Old boy Fitzroy Jardine was appointed Headmaster in 1936, remaining in the position until 1964. A number of building works were undertaken during this time. Additions were made to the north wing of the main building in 1940 to provide accommodation for two classrooms and a dormitory. At the end of World War II, two buildings were purchased from the military camp at Raglan. These were used as a dormitory and recreation room for boarders. Further alterations were made to the main building in 1951. This included the enclosing of the south verandah and the enlarging of the dining room.
In 1957, the gymnasium (1889) was demolished to make way for the construction of the Jardine Science Block and the Boland Wing. In the same year, the Old Boys club rooms were moved to the school from Denham Street to become the Second World War Memorial Hall. In 1960, the memorial drinking fountain was dedicated in memory of nine boys killed that year in a plane crash. The Macfarlane Wing was erected in 1965.
A large building program was commenced in the 1970s. Works included the Headmaster's residence (1970), the Palmer Wing (1970), the library and resource centre (1972), the Woolcock Science Block (1973), and the building of a second oval (1975).
In 1972, AEC Butler succeed MT Hewitson as Headmaster and in 1977, the school became coeducational and a girls dormitory was erected. Extensive alterations were carried out to the Main Building, including the replacing of the brick fronts and removal of balconies. The bell's tower was replaced with steel in 1986. Further additions to the building were made in 1987 with the construction of a wing to the rear.
Recent building work includes the Centenary Centre (1981), tennis courts (1981), assembly area (1984), library and humanities centre (1987), primary department stage 1 (1989) and stage 2 (1990).
","criteria":"Rockhampton Grammar School, opened in 1881, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the history of education in the state and the role of the Grammar Schools in the secondary school system, and the development of Rockhampton.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular its contribution to the townscape as a landmark, and the finely detailed elements of the Administration Building to the external eastern central bay and the trophy room The place has a special association with the community of the Rockhampton Grammar School for social and cultural reasons.
|It has a special association with the life and work of Trustees, Headmasters, teachers, students, and others associated with the school.
|It has a special association with the work of Rockhampton architect Sidney Williams.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15558,"place_ref":600783,"name":"Railway Workshops","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Railway Workshops | Rockhampton Roundhouse","street_address":"380 Bolsover Street","suburb":"DEPOT HILL","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"The Railway Workshops is located corner of Bolsover and South streets in Rockhampton. The site has undergone many changes over the years and comprises many buildings and structures associated with an operational railway workshop. Those buildings included in the heritage register boundary include the following.
Railway Roundhouse
The roundhouse is located at the corner of Bolsover and South streets and is a large circular shed with an internal courtyard containing a turntable. Round timber posts support a timber-framed roof. The roundhouse is clad with corrugated galvanised iron sheets.
The building comprises 7 sections, each containing 7 or 8 stalls, making a total of 52. Each section forms a major space or room in the building and is bounded by radial brick fire walls, by faceted inner and outer walls, by a concrete floor with rails and pits and covered by a trussed roof. Each locomotive stall forms a shed for a single engine. Storage roads radiate from a central point.
A two-storeyed steel and glass office building is inserted within 14 of the 52 bays.
Former Power House (Plant Maintenance Building)
The building is a steel-framed structure clad with corrugated, galvanised iron with concrete floors.
Former Machine Shop
The former machine shop, located to the east of the roundhouse along Bolsover Street, consists of 4 bays, comprising steel columns and trusses to the centre and timber columns and roof framing to the side annexes. The building is clad with corrugated, galvanised cladding with a timber and concrete floor.
Former Carriage Shop (Machine Shop)
The building has timber columns and steel roof trusses clad with corrugated iron and a concrete floor. A vented ridge is located along its entire length. The former carriage shop is joined to the former paint shop to the south-east.
Former Paint Shop (Building Maintenance Shop)
The building is timber-framed, clad predominantly with corrugated iron, with a curved light steel bow string truss roof. The structure is clad to the north-east with timber battens above window sill level and corrugated iron below. The building has timber casement windows in groups of 3. The floor comprises both concrete and timber sections. Timber-framed infills join the building to the former carriage shop.
Other buildings include: the timber-framed, gable-roofed, weatherboard-clad, former Apprentice Master's building to the west of the roundhouse along South Street; a small timber-framed, galvanised iron-clad urinal to the north of the roundhouse; the water fitters' store, a timber-framed, galvanised iron-clad building with a gable roof to the north of the roundhouse at the corner of South and Bolsover streets; and the occupational health centre and conference room which are single-storey, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad buildings located to the north and north-east of the roundhouse along Bolsover Street.
The railway workshops are surrounded by the remainder of the workshops buildings, sheds, tracks and pathways which have been continually modified for over 85 years.
","history":"The original workshops at Rockhampton were established in the late 1870s at the railway reserve area bounded by Denison, South, Campbell and Stanley Street. With a change of location in the early years of the 20th century, further development took place in the mid to late 1910s as part of a redevelopment of the entire railway infrastructure in Rockhampton. With many modifications and adaptations over time, the railway workshops continue to function as an operational railway workshop maintaining and repairing railway rolling stock.
In 1863 the Parliament of Queensland passed the controversial Railway Bill, which committed Queensland to the use of a narrow gauge for the development of its main line in Queensland. Other colonies in Australia at this time had adopted broader gauges for use on their rail networks. Queensland on the recommendation of Abram Fitzgibbon its first Commissioner and consultant engineer on the first survey, authorised the use of a 3 foot 6 inch gauge (1067mm) main line. The reasoning behind this decision was that a narrow gauge would be of economic benefit to the new colony. The economic benefit would be lower cost of construction work.
The first section of the Queensland railway network was opened between Ipswich and Bigges Camp on 31 July 1865. The projected development of the railway network was to link the towns of Warwick, Dalby and Toowoomba with Ipswich. At the time that the Railway Act had been passed the 5000 citizens of Rockhampton objected to having no provision made for the construction of a railway to their hinterland. At the period that railway construction was being agitated for connection with copper ore being exploited in the Peak Downs area. A railway was thought to ensure further economic development of the interior.
The first length of line was opened to Westwood 50 kilometres from Rockhampton in 1867. The line was referred to as the 'Great Northern Railway'. The first section opened was a major financial loss, as it terminated at a point before crossing the coastal ranges, and attracted no traffic. Further extension of the line westwards was not possible until 1872, when parliamentary approval was given to continue beyond the Comet River and Gogango Range. The line was built towards what is now the town of Emerald, being opened to that point in 1879.
The Central Railway was progressively extended further west reaching Longreach in 1892. With its headquarters at Rockhampton, the Central Railway remained an isolated railway system, with no connection to the southern division of Queensland railways until 1903. The Railway Department in 1890 investigated the possibility of linking Rockhampton's two separate railways.
In 1895 construction was approved for what was to be known as the Rockhampton Junction Railway. The combination of projected traffic for the port at Broadmount, and the anticipated growth of suburban traffic in Rockhampton, saw that the connecting line and new bridge would both be built with a double line, the first examples outside of the Brisbane-Ipswich metropolitan area.
The Central Line continued to expand throughout the early part of the twentieth century. A major element of this expansion was the approval construction of the North Coast Line to Mackay. With additional mileage being opened extra services were provided by the Railway Department to cope with increased patronage. New workshop and running sheds were also required to maintain and service the extra rollingstock operating on the Central line.
A partial roundhouse consisting of 7 roads had been erected in 1877 on the railway reserve area bounded by Denison, South, Campbell and Stanley streets. The original running shed was reported as being too small by 1878, and additional stalls were added in 1880. The extension of the railway network saw further stalls added. Further improvements were made in 1903, and locomotive service facilities (coal stage and water supply) were also upgraded at the same time. Available space at the roundhouse was at a premium and inaccessibility to servicing roads meant that storage problems were further compounded.
In the early 1910s, there were changes made to the administration of railways in the state. There was a large expansion in the infrastructure with many new facilities commissioned and constructed. There were also improvements in locomotive technology, in rolling stock and railway infrastructure.
In October 1909 estimates and plans were prepared for a new roundhouse with triple the capacity of the existing building. At the same time that plans were being drawn up for the new roundhouse, expansion of the railway workshops in Rockhampton was also being investigated. The Railways Department sought the acquisition of Fitzroy Square, a park and recreation area owned by Rockhampton City Council. The negotiations for resumption of Fitzroy Square were not completed until 1912. In a similar fashion to the development of the Mayne depot site (1911-30) large amounts of landfill were required, to level the area and provide foundation beds for heavy machinery.
Drawings were prepared by the Chief Railway's Engineer for workshop buildings, constructed as part of the redevelopment of the site in conjunction with the roundhouse, including the blacksmiths' shop (demolished) and the machine shop. Construction on the shops was delayed due to the shortages caused by World War I as there was difficulty in obtaining steel for the framing of the buildings. Expenditure to 1915 on the alterations to station yards and construction of the workshops at Rockhampton was £23,000.
The new locomotive roundhouse was opened in late 1915, while work continued on the rest of the workshop buildings. As the buildings were finished they were occupied one by one. By 1916 the machine shop was reported as being almost complete in the Commissioner's report for that year. By 1917 the former machine shop (now comprising only 4 bays and currently unused) and the former paint shop (now the Building Maintenance Shop) were completed and occupied by staff. The paint shop was an existing building that is thought to have been relocated to the site from Broadmount Wharf, a railway wharf established to the north of the city to service the deepwater port there.
The former boiler erecting shop (now the Fabrication Services Building), the former carriage repair shop (now the Machine Shop), the timber mill (demolished), the coppersmith's (demolished) and the former electricians' shop (now the Plan Maintenance Building) were completed by 1918. The buildings were generally of steel frame construction and sheeted in corrugated iron, with gabled roofs. Some had earth floors while others were floored in timber or concrete. With the construction of these buildings, the workshops were all but complete. In 1918, work was transferred to the new workshops. The old workshops were used for the storage of rail carriages.
The names of the various buildings at the workshop indicated their functions. For example, in the machine shop employees worked on small engine components, using a variety of lathes, milling machines, planing machines, grinders and drillers while the wheel repair shop repaired wheels of rolling stock.
The period of 1909-1914 was a period of massive expansion for the Railways Department in Queensland. New workshops and running sheds were to be constructed at Ipswich (North Ispwcih Railway Workshops Complex, QHR 601526), Mayne (in Brisbane) and Rockhampton. The first of these modern running sheds was at North Ipswich (1910, closed 1972 and demolished 1978). Along with this workshop, facilities were to be modernised at Ipswich and Rockhampton and other centres. Modern locomotives and carriage stock were also to be ordered. The expansion of the railway network was to culminate in the passing of the North Coast Railway Act 1910, which sought to unify the separate divisions of the Queensland Railways, into one network.
The former steam locomotive running shed (the roundhouse) is a significant element of the development and decline of the steam locomotive as a mode of traction for Queensland Railways in the years 1914-69. The roundhouse was a purpose-built building, designed for the storage, servicing, and running maintenance of steam locomotives allocated to the Central Division based on Rockhampton. The building is significant as the only full circle roundhouse ever constructed in Queensland for the use of steam locomotives, and as one of the last surviving examples of such a building in Australia.
The original plan had called for two roundhouses to be built in Rockhampton, however only one was to be constructed. Foundation work began in August 1913 for a complete circle roundhouse with 52 stalls allocated for stabling locomotives in traffic. Drop pits were to be constructed, along with inspection pits. The central element of the roundhouse was to be a revolving turntable allowing for access to each of the engine bays and individual stalls. In a design similar to the North Ipswich roundhouse an external circular running road was provided to accommodate a shunt locomotive held captive serving as a mobile boiler for wash out purposes.
Whilst the North Ipswich, and Willowburn (1928-9) roundhouses were developed using a two-thirds circular design, Rockhampton was unique in Queensland in featuring a fully enclosed space. The ambitious plans for 2 roundhouses at Rockhampton was similarly mirrored in the development of the Mayne steam locomotive depot where 3 semi-circular roundhouses were planned. These plans were later altered for the construction of a through engine shed design based on American patterning (c.1918).
The development of the Rockhampton roundhouse and workshops was a simultaneous undertaking. The design of the roundhouse was to feature external cladding of the walls with corrugated iron sheeting. Millled timber was supplied from the North Ipswich Railway Workshops. Bricks for construction of piers and to divide off locomotive bays were supplied from Mount Morgan brickworks. Departmental labour day labour was used on construction. The Capricornian described the work in progress in July 1914, mentioning that 'the finishing touches' were being put on the roundhouse and workshops roofing, brick piers and concrete flooring. The roundhouse was completed in November 1914. Contemporary accounts describe it as being capable of stabling 52 locomotives. It was provided with a turntable, which enabled each engine to be put into the stall required for washing out the boiler or for necessary repairs, while it also protected the engine from the weather.
The whole of the roundhouse was lighted with electricity. At its opening, the roundhouse staff consisted of about 20 fitters, 6 boilermakers, and 16 shed men, light up men; while the running staff comprised 80 drivers and 70 fire fighters and 26 cleaners. The smoke from the engine funnels was carried to the atmosphere through proper vents. The roundhouse was equipped with an up to date plant, including a cylinder boring machine, pneumatic tools, and oxywelding plant.
The roundhouse featured 5 entry and exit roads leading from the turntable to the depot yards. The major exit and entry road was situated near the South Street entry gates. The Running Shed Foreman's Office was situated adjacent to this running line. The office area was part of the running shed environment, from where the dispatch of locomotives was monitored from.
From the additional roads locomotives could be despatched for watering and coaling and prior to working from the Rockhampton yard. At the southern axis of the roundhouse an additional road gave access to the workshops environment, which was used for the movement of trolley's between the various workshop buildings.
Whilst the roundhouse was constructed with a capacity to hold 52 locomotives under cover, with additional storage space on roads radiating from the central turntable. The work environment was never fully utilised for the use of steam locomotives. Traffic demands within the Central Division did not require that the entire roundhouse be given over to exclusive occupancy of the running staff. Whilst the roundhouse was intended as a servicing and preparation area for locomotives, tinsmiths and coppersmiths were also accommodated in bays not needed for locomotives. This adaption was unique in the Queensland experience as all other semi-roundhouses constructed were utilised as steam sheds.
The second Rockhampton Roundhouse was never constructed. The area allocated instead was used as a modern coal stage constructed in 1934-5. The central point of the roundhouse, the turntable, was replaced in 1953 with a new turntable bridge capable of heavier axle loadings for locomotives. In the period of the mid-1950s the locomotive storage capacity of the Rockhampton depot was further increased when a special purpose steam shed was erected for the use of Beyer-Garratt engines transferred from the Southern Division for haulage of goods and passenger trains in central Queensland. A new steam shed was required as the overall length of the Beyer-Garratt engines exceeded the length of the turntable. Beyer-Garratt locomotives therefore could only use stalls in the roundhouse which did not require the turntable to spot them into the available roads.
In the period of the early 1950s new technological motive power was introduced onto Queensland Railways, when the first diesel-electric locomotives (DEL) arrived from the General-Electric Company. The new motive power was revolutionary and did not require the labour intensive maintenance and preparation, nor produce the dirty environment of steam locomotives. The first DELs to be shedded at Rockhampton were in 1966, for use on export coal traffic. Prior to this DELs were worked through on the main line from Brisbane to Cairns. Diesel-electric locomotives were serviced at a separate location in the Rockhampton yard. With the introduction of the new technology, withdrawals of steam locomotives took place. The final steam locomotive was overhauled in Rockhampton Workshops in 1969. The roundhouse was officially closed to steam traction on 29 September 1969.
Following closure as a steam depot the roundhouse was then used as a wagon repair and maintenance centre from 1969 until 1988 for wooden bodied vehicles. The roof was completely rebuilt in 1976-8 with hardwood timber being used to replace original pine framing. In 1982-3 in several stalls old concrete slabs were replaced with mass concrete, following complaints from employees. Carriage lifting gear and machinery was also installed at this time, as a partial modernisation of the working environment. In 1983 an office for subforemen was also built into one of the stalls in the roundhouse. In 1988 one of the bays was converted into a store area for breakdown equipment. The roundhouse was utilised as a wagon repair shop until 1990. In 1992-3 as part of a $20 million redevelopment of the Rockhampton Workshops, an administration complex was inserted into two bays of the south-eastern axis of the roundhouse, adjacent to the entry/exit road.
The railway workshops continues to function as an operational railway workshop maintaining and repairing railway rolling stock. Buildings are used for the repair of wagons, for the modification of wagons and locomotives and for general running maintenance. Queensland Rail is planning continued redevelopment of the site. In the future, it is proposed that Rockhampton will be the major workshop site for Queensland Rail in North Queensland. Particularly, the roundhouse remains today as a surviving infrastructural element of the steam era on Queensland Rail, and as part of the adaptive working environment of the railway workshops.
","criteria":"The Railway Workshops demonstrates the evolution of the Queensland Railways system and the growth of the Central Division based in Rockhampton. The site, including the roundhouse, workshop buildings, tracks and other buildings, spread over a large area, provides evidence that Rockhampton was, historically, a major railway terminus.
The Railway Workshops, particularly the roundhouse, demonstrates the evolutionary change of the motive power of Queensland Railways from steam based traction to diesel-electric and electric. The Railway Workshops is significant as it demonstrates an evolutionary solution to the need to service and stable labour intensive machinery.
|The Rockhampton Roundhouse is significant as the only example of a full circle roundhouse constructed in Queensland, and, as one of only two examples still extant in Australia, it is significant as a rare example of this type of structure.
|The building demonstrates the characteristics of a steam locomotive running shed and maintenance depot consisting of stalls in a covered environment, inspection pits, centrally located locomotive turning facility, storage roads radiating from a central point, and boiler washout facility.
With steel frames, concrete floors and corrugated iron cladding, the former machine shop (when originally constructed, but now comprising four bays) and the former electricians' shop are significant as examples of standard Queensland Railway designs. The two are part of the group of buildings at the site which are larger and higher than others, usually to accommodate gantries for heavy lifting.
With timber columns, steel roof trusses, corrugated galvanised iron cladding and concrete floor, the former carriage shop also demonstrates a standard Queensland Railway design.
The Railway Workshops buildings are significant as the extant structures of a major facility constructed on the site in the early part of the 20th century, contributing to the understanding of the operation of the complex.
|The Rockhampton Roundhouse is important for its aesthetic contribution to the railway workshop environment of Rockhampton, for its form and adaptation and particularly, for its contribution to the Bolsover and South Street streetscapes.
Together, the former machine and electricians' shops contribute to the industrial aesthetic of Bolsover Street. Set back from Bolsover Street, but still making a contribution to the streetscape are the former carriage repair shop and the former paint shop. The former paint shop has a curved roof, which makes a further aesthetic contribution to the complex. Both buildings are examples of the smaller workshops typically found at the site.
|The Railway Workshops is significant for its association with the steam locomotive era of the Queensland Railways (1865-1969) and the period of growth of the Queensland Railway from 1907-20. The roundhouse was a contemporary construction for the development of large steam depots such as Mayne (originally planned as three semi-circular sheds, later modified to two through shed designs), as well as a continuation of the roundhouse construction for other depots such as North Ipswich (1910) and later Willowburn (1928).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15559,"place_ref":600784,"name":"Schotia Place","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Senior Citizens Centre | Rockhampton City Markets (former)","street_address":"201 Bolsover Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Schotia Place allotment is bounded by Bolsover Street, and Market and East Lanes. The building consists of two main parts: a single-storey section addressing Bolsover Street that was built in 1898-99 and a large rear section built in 1974 that has single and double storey components. The front façade of the single-storey building sits opposite Rockhampton's Municipal Library and Theatre (600788), and its Town Hall (601572). The city's orthogonal grid is aligned to the Fitzroy River-which flows from the north-west to the south-east- and Bolsover Street is one of the main arteries. Schotia Place is on the southern edge of the central business district; the river is two blocks away to the north-east, and the central railway station three blocks to the south-east. The stretch of Bolsover Street in which Schotia Place is situated contains a high concentration of buildings of heritage significance. Apart from the two listed above, there are a further three that are included on Queensland's Heritage Register: the Rockhampton Technical College (600789), St Andrews Church (600785) and the GS Curtis Stores (600787). The Normanby Hotel is also located in this precinct of Bolsover Street, however it is only listed with the Australian Heritage Commission's Register of the National Estate.
Schotia Place, the front section of which was constructed using classical motifs, currently functions as a senior citizens' centre. The exterior walls to this section on Bolsover Street are built of reddish, sandstock bricks laid in English bond with white mortar, while the walls to the larger rear section are of dull coloured bricks laid in Stretcher bond. All are modelled to varying degrees with white cement render. The front façade to Bolsover Street is much more densely decorated than the remaining three. A large barrel vaulted roof, which reads on the front façade as a simple curved gable, acts visually as the building's spine. Three mechanical extract vents puncture its uppermost surface. Skillion roofs fall away from this structure to the three exterior parapet walls. All roofs are clad in corrugated Colorbond steel. Continuous lines of clerestory windows are positioned under each side of the vault, and at a matching level on the gable end facing East Lane and the north-east. The latter are louvred and their façade is also clad in corrugated Colorbond steel.
The front façade of Schotia Place is symmetrically arranged. Framing the curved gable (with rendered coping) are twin cupolas on short polygonal bases. The domes on these small towers are clad in faceted sheet metal and topped with globe lights. Each cupola face has a narrow, round-headed window in it. A pattern of horizontal lines is established by the stringcourse running below the dome, the window arches, keystones and imposts, and the sill and plinth mouldings, all of which are rendered. Positioned below the curved gable is the central section of the front façade, which stands slightly proud of the two equally sized façade sections flanking it. The central section is divided into three parts by four sets of twin Tuscan-style pilasters and is topped with entablature and parapet modelling in a similar vein. Above the central timber double door (approximately 2.7m high excluding its fanlight), the parapet line is interrupted by a simple pediment that is supported by pilasters. Each leaf of the double doors has four panels. On either side of the doorway are large, round-headed double-hung sash windows, which have render label moulds and keystones. A barrel-vaulted canopy clad to match the building's main roof extends over the footpath outside the entry door. This is a later addition, not evident in photographs from the first half of the 20th century.
Single pilasters frame the side sections of the front façade, which each contain two square-headed double-hung sash windows. The façade's plinth, pilasters, window and door frames, upper cornice-like stringcourse, and its coping are all modelled in white cement render. The lines of the plinth, upper stringcourse and parapet coping are carried through on the short, side facades that belong to this front section of Schotia Place addressing Bolsover Street. Their ends are made with pilasters modelled to match the others on the front façade.
The coping line of the parapet walls to the side and rear facades of the extension has been matched to an upper moulding line on the front section of the building. While a rendered plinth line has been created on these facades, its level does not match that of the front section. Its width diminishes over the gentle slope from East Lane to Bolsover Street. Rendered strips mark each line established by the heads and sills of the windows in these facades. The extent of render modelling has been greatly parred down, compared to the building's front section. Each of the long side facades- one addressing Market Lane and the other a paved and treed avenue- has three gated entry points. The first set is located adjacent to the front section of the building, while the other two sets divide the remaining façade areas evenly. On each façade, these two openings are framed by rendered pilasters and topped by a triangular rise in the parapet. A number of double-hung sash windows are set in the walls between the various entries. On the rear façade, in the northern corner, there is a double door accessed via a short flight of metal stairs and overhung by a small metal shade roof. There are also four louvred windows with high sill levels.
Interior
The main element of the building's interior, fitting under the barrel-vaulted roof, is a large hall incorporating a stage at its north-east end. To the side and rear facades, a single layer of small rooms surround this space on the ground floor and fit under the skillion roofs described earlier. This hall and surrounding rooms are part of the 1974 addition to the building. The entryway alcoves expressed on the side facades open directly into the hall. At the south-west end of the hall facing Bolsover St, there is a wide transition space separating the hall and a corridor beyond. This corridor lines up with the openings on the side facades closest to the building's front section, and separates the hall from the single layer of rooms fronting Bolsover Street. There are three of these disposed to each side of a central entry hall. The six rooms are occupied by a number of small retail outlets, a rest room, an office and a store. The corridor and these six rooms comprise the 1898-99 component of Schotia Place. Above the transition space from the hall and the rooms to each side of it, is a mezzanine level that fits beneath the barrel vault of the roof. This level has floors of polished timber boards and walls of plasterboard, with at least one large opening to the hall.
The floors to the hall consist of polished hardwood boards on a timber frame supported by brick or concrete stumps. Rather than matching the curve of the roof, the ceiling in the hall is faceted. It appears to be lined with plasterboard. The roof and ceiling are supported by an enclosed steel truss system. On the three sides of the vault there are long banks of clerestory windows. Beneath those on the side facades a curved lighting baffle has been installed. The lines where the vault and skillion roofs to the side facades meet are supported by single, centrally placed posts. Two square columns support this line at the rear of the hall and frame the stage. The walls of the hall also appear to be lined with plasterboard. The kitchen at the northern corner off the hall was refurbished in 1994 and fitted with new cupboards, stainless steel and laminated bench tops, stainless steel shelves and splashbacks, tile splashbacks and a new vinyl floor.
In the front rooms, entry hall and front corridor, the floors are made with timber boards lined with carpet. The interior walls to the front section appear to be plastered, and the ceilings are approximately 3.5m high. In the corridor separating the front and rear parts of the building there are bulkheads over each entry at about 2.7m in height, possibly housing air-conditioning ducts.
","history":"Schotia Place is a brick retail market building designed by architects Eaton and Bates for the Rockhampton Municipal Council. The building, which features twin cupolas and a barrel-vaulted roof, was opened on 18 April 1899.
Rockhampton was established on the Fitzroy River on land originally part of Gracemere, a pastoral property operated by the Archer family. Proclamation as a town occurred on 25 October 1858. The first sale of allotments was conducted the following month. A six-man council was elected in 1861, subsequent to the formation of the Municipality of Rockhampton on 15 December 1860.
Rockhampton's citizens first petitioned their Council for the establishment of a market in 1870. Land bounded by East, Bolsover and William Streets was designated a Market Reserve the following year. As the Council then lacked the funds to erect a suitable building, sections were leased for a period of fifteen years. Conditions applied to the type of construction allowed. In this manner it was envisaged that suitable buildings would be erected, while a fund for further development accrued.
The idea of a market for the sale of perishable goods was linked to the medieval concept of a designated day for buying and selling goods that were local in range and narrow in provenance. As open space areas with a free movement of people they became the centre of the community's commercial and social life. In England this form of market gradually was superseded by regional markets, where wholesale as well as retail trading was conducted. As transport and communication improved, metropolitan markets then developed. They featured the regular, contracted consignment of produce and wares to metropolitan factors or merchants. The Industrial Revolution introduced changes in marketing which led to the decline of the traditional, open market place.
Markets which served a public function were usually administered by trusts or corporations linked to local government. Although a temporary private market was established in the Queen's Wharf area of Brisbane around 1851, the city's first market trust operated from premises in Eagle Street between 1867 and 1881. Due to the inadequacies of the site it was not a great success. A new Brisbane market, more wholesale in style than retail, was completed in upper Roma Street in December 1884 and operated there until August 1964 when new premises were opened at Rocklea.
Markets also were established in other Australian capital cities and regional towns. As early as 1803, Sydney residents could purchase their supplies at a Saturday produce market in the vicinity of Circular Quay. Grocers nearby soon began to offer market foodstuffs for sale every day. After 1841 a market commission was established in Melbourne and premises sought. In general these markets, and the shops which clustered around their perimeter, provided everyday necessities for ordinary people. Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market, featuring single-storey buildings and open sheds, was established in 1878. A rebuilt 'Eastern' market, which included a large hall, opened in Melbourne soon after. The Argus of 23 December 1879 reported that this building 'provided ample accommodation for the requirements of every class of trade usually conducted in a market of this character.'
Some large cities in the USA referred to the places where farmers' produce could be sold as Eastern markets. The Eastern Market in Detroit commenced in the 1850s as an open-air site. Its first sheds were constructed in 1891. The usefulness of the Eastern Market in Washington DC centred on its open-plan brick building, erected c1872. Until this latter market was rented out for the sale of other commodities, farmers sold their produce on stands inside the hall, spilling outside and on to the street.
From its proclamation as a Municipality in 1860, the Rockhampton district was well catered for by the commercial agents and merchants of Quay and East Streets. The larger mercantile companies were 'universal providers'. Their warehouses and shops stocked dry goods, wine and spirits and stock and station supplies including fencing and saddlery. The city's grocers, who in the 1890s numbered nearly forty, sold flour, teas and sugars in smaller quantities.
Twenty years after the initial request for a public market in Rockhampton, no proper structure had been built. In March 1891 the Rockhampton General Advertiser called for the expenditure of not less than £5,000 for markets which would suit the city's wholesale and retail requirements, noting in the same article the considerable amount of money which already had been collected through the lease of Market Reserve land. A new petition was presented to Council. Until matters were resolved, farmers sold their produce from a temporary facility, an old stable in Bolsover Street.
The firm of Eaton and Bates commenced design work for the new City Markets in 1896. This architectural partnership had set up practice in Rockhampton two years previously. George T Eaton and Albert E Bates, later with Arthur B Polin, established branch offices in six regional Queensland towns before moving their main office to Brisbane in 1902. Amongst their buildings in the Rockhampton area are the Lakes Creek Hotel (QHR 600796) and Killowen, (QHR 600819).
At the request, and in the presence of the Governor of Queensland, Baron Lamington, Mayor Hugh Fiddes opened the new Rockhampton City Markets on 18 April 1899. That day the Governor observed that even Brisbane, then considered Rockhampton's key rival, did not possess a retail market.
Rockhampton's City Markets as a commercial venture did not survive much beyond two decades. Encroachment by other users was gradual. The Naval Brigade Office was located there in 1903, most likely in one of the offices facing Bolsover Street. Three years later stall-holders complained of the building being used by visiting entertainers during carnival week. An office for army recruiting opened in the front section of the building during the First World War. The City Markets also provided refuge for 200 people forced from their homes when early in 1918 the Fitzroy River rose a record 9.72 metres, lapping the walls of city buildings and inundating the river flood plain.
The City Markets for local produce ceased around 1920. Their closure was in line with the general decline caused to public markets as retailing modernised and shoppers patronised the new department and cash and carry stores. The short trading life of this market in particular may also have been influenced by the city's pre-existing, well-established body of merchants, grocers and fruiterers, some with exclusive trade agreements with farmers.
In the mid-1920s the Rockhampton City Council Electricity Supply Department began a long occupation of what was then being referred to as the City Markets Building. Classes from the nearby School of Arts (QHR 600788) were conducted there in the following decade. By 1940 the red-brick offices and former market were referred to as the City Council Buildings. During the Second World War the covered open space proved useful to the US Army. After the war its occupation by government utilities continued. The building's survival as a rare example of a public market of the late 19th Century owes much to the adaptability of its internal space.
In the 1970s the Rockhampton City Council restored the former Rockhampton City Markets as a community centre for senior citizens. As a part of this substantial renovation, the new rear section of the building was added. An undated photograph from the University of Central Queensland's Capricornia Collection (MB126) reveals that in the past a fan-shaped pattern filled the curved gable on Bolsover Street and the barrel-vaulted roof covered a large area at the rear of the allotment. The large, barrel-vaulted roof was replicated during the renovation, while the pattern on the fan-shaped roof façade was possibly covered over. The Federal Minister for Health, Dr Everingham, opened the community centre, renamed Schotia Place, on 15 November 1974.
","criteria":"Schotia Place, erected as a City Market by the Municipality of Rockhampton, is important in demonstrating the evolution of commerce in Queensland.
|The building is a rare example of a market building constructed to provide a dedicated venue for the retail sale of farmers' produce.
|The lofty, single-storey space with open plan to allow for stall arrangement, a principal characteristic of public markets of the period, was a feature of its construction.
|Schotia Place also is important because of its aesthetic significance. The front part of the building facing Bolsover Street is a well-composed example of 'free classicism' in which classical conventions are employed without a concern for academic correctness. This design attitude could be said to reflect the confidence with which Rockhampton's future was being envisioned. The facade of the front section of the building features a striking contrast between locally made red brick and painted cement render. The framing of the large curved gable by cupolas is also a distinctive design element.
|In both its early and recent history, Schotia Place has a special association with the community of Rockhampton. Built to serve commercial purposes as a public market, the site in the 1970s was renovated to become a community centre for senior citizens.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15560,"place_ref":600785,"name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church","alternate_name":"St Andrews Presbyterian Church","street_address":"280 Bolsover Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Andrew's Church, located on a level site on the corner of Bolsover and Derby Streets, is a rendered masonry building with a ribbed metal gable roof with gablet ventilators. The building has buttressing, expressed string courses, and the render is scribed to imitate ashlar. The entrance to the church faces Bolsover Street to the northeast.
The Bolsover Street elevation has a single-storeyed narthex flanked by projecting gabled entrance vestibules at either end, with the gable end of the nave behind. Each entrance has a pointed arch with expressed drip mould, paired timber panelled doors, and is framed by low engaged columns. Each gable is framed by buttresses crowned by gablets, and the top section of the gable has stone tracery. The northern entrance vestibule has a projecting curved section at the rear. The narthex has two lancets with expressed drip moulds and window surrounds, and is surmounted by a rendered balustrade parapet. The gable end of the nave has an inset central pointed arch with expressed drip mould and triple lancets. The gable is surmounted by triple lancet recesses crowned by a gablet.
The side elevations of the church consist of four bays, containing paired lancet windows with expressed drip moulds, separated by buttresses and surmounted by a machicolation motif. Shallow transepts project, with a pointed arch opening with timber doors to the side, and triple lancet windows with expressed drip moulds to the end elevation. The lancets are surmounted by a circular window, and the gable is framed by narrow corbelled buttresses crowned by gablets. The apex of the gable has a narrow lancet recess.
The rear of the church has a projecting gabled chancel with a low skillion roofed vestry on the southern side. The chancel has a central lancet window at the rear, and a wider lancet recess to the gable. The vestry has a pointed arch doorway at the rear, and a lancet window with expressed drip mould to the southern side. A concrete apron surrounds the building, and a memorial bell is located on the concrete apron adjacent to the vestry.
Internally, the church has rendered walls, arched braced trusses supported by corbels, and raked boarded timber ceilings with roses to the central section. A large pointed arch with expressed extrados and drip mould opens to the chancel, which houses a large ornate pipe organ, in front of which is a raised pulpit. Many of the lancets contain stained glass or leadlight panels. The entrance vestibules and narthex have encaustic tiled floors, and three pointed arches separate the narthex and the nave. These arches have timber screens, with the side arches containing doors. A partitioned 'crying room' has been constructed in the centre of the narthex, with a viewing panel inserted into the timber screen of the centre arch. The church contains a number of commemorative plaques, including First and Second World War memorials.
St Andrew's Hall is located on an adjoining site to the southeast of the church fronting Bolsover Street. The site has carparking at the rear, and some substantial plantings between the two buildings.
","history":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church was erected in 1893-94 for the Presbytery of Rockhampton formed in 1865. Architects were invited to submit plans for the church and the design of Brisbane architects Voller & Graham was chosen. Construction of the building was supervised by prominent Rockhampton architect John William Wilson. The erection of the Church was funded by a donation of £1000 from the Mt Morgan millionaire William Pattison which was accepted by the Presbytery on 7 June 1893. The church exemplifies a stage of prestigious development in Rockhampton which was a reflection of the wealth from the Mount Morgan Mines.
Presbyterian worship commenced in Rockhampton shortly after the population explosion caused by the Canoona gold rush of 1858. William John Brown, Sub-collector of Customs, was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland and conducted the first Presbyterian services in Palmer's store, Grant's timber yard and the local Court House. A building for worship was erected by all denominations for common use on ground which was granted to the Church of England. The building was ultimately left to that denomination.
Early in 1861, Rev Samuel Kelly, formerly of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, was invited to Rockhampton with a view to taking up a ministry. A public meeting was held on 28 May 1861 where a committee was appointed to establish a Presbyterian Church. Samuel Kelly became the first Presbyterian Minister of Rockhampton on 1 June 1861. The committee obtained a grant of 1 acre of land from the government on which a timber church was erected on the site of the present church. In 1864 a manse was erected on the southeast side of the church for Rev Alexander Campbell Smith corresponding with the rapid growth of the congregation.
In March 1876 Rev Alexander Hay formerly of South Brisbane entered the Rockhampton Ministry and in 1878 a second Manse was erected. In 1882, to accommodate the increasing congregation the church enlarged the original timber structure with a transept.
In 1888 a separate Presbyterian congregation was established in Rockhampton but the original congregation continued to prosper.
On 2 October 1890 Hay announced a promise of a donation of £1000 from Mount Morgan Gold Mine shareholder William Pattison MLA, towards the erection of a new church. In 1894 the Parish of St Andrew's acquired an additional loan of £800 from the Bank of New South Wales which was granted to the Trustees of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, namely William Burns, William Pattison and Alexander Meikle. The St Andrew's Presbyterian Act of 1891 had changed the nominated trustees from the original three who had all died. The church remains today as one of only two Presbyterian Churches (including Ann Street, Brisbane (QHR 600071)) that is owned by the trustees of the church and not the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.
The foundation stone was laid on 7 June 1893 by Mrs Peter McIntosh the daughter of William J Brown, the founder of Presbyterianism in Rockhampton. At the laying of the foundation stone, William McIlwraith, editor and joint owner of the Bulletin, read a brief history of events in Rockhampton and this was laid with copies of sermons by Dr Hay and his address to the General Assembly in 1891 in a bottle under the foundation stone. The church was opened on 15 April 1894 by Rev Dr McSwaine of St Pauls Church in Brisbane.
The building was originally constructed in tuck-pointed face brickwork with either stone or rendered facings. The original design of the church had included a tower facing Bolsover but at an additional cost of £560 it was omitted. With the tower, St Andrew's in Rockhampton would have born marked similarity to the timber St Paul's Presbyterian Church in Mackay (QHR 600668) designed by Voller in 1898. The two stand as remarkably similar designs attributed to Voller for the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.
The interior walls of St Andrew's were originally painted a dark 'French' grey and the channel arch and window facings were 'pure' white and the pews were of Queensland Pine. The church was lit by two 'sunlights' and twelve gas brackets. The interior remained incomplete until the pipe organ was installed and officially opened on 29 June 1900. The organ was built by Sydney firm Charles Richardson & Co to the specifications of the St Andrew's organist, Frank Kavanagh, and to the design of LS Robertson. In 1897 a bell was donated to the church by John R Palmer of Brisbane, possibly the son of John Palmer first Mayor of Rockhampton. The bell, cast in London, commemorates Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1837-97) and sits exposed at the south-west corner of the church.
By 1925, it was noted that the church required underpinning due to foundation movement. In 1926, new communion furniture was installed and dedicated in the church. In 1939 the congregation approved a plan to render the exterior of the church, and an appeal was launched in 1940 to pay for it. In 1947 the fixtures and fittings were changed to allow for a new position for the pulpit, communion furniture and choir seats. A choir room was also built at this time. Between 1947 and 1971 the stained glass windows were installed. In 1981 a structural survey of the building was conducted, in response to which a substantial program of works was undertaken in 1984. The church was closed for several months, and these works included laying a concrete apron around the exterior of the building; constructing a new roof and floor; inserting additional tie rods; repainting the exterior, and demolishing the bell tower.
A tender of £1,860 by PC Hook for the construction of a concrete building (the adjacent St Andrew's Hall) was accepted, and the Sunday School was officially opened on 18 July 1936 as part of the 75th celebrations. The old manse, which was located on the site of the new hall, was sold for removal for £210.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church was constructed in 1894 during a period of immense wealth in Rockhampton due to gold mining in Mount Morgan. The establishment of this substantial brick church was directly tied to the influence of Mount Morgan Gold, as it was funded by Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company trustee and millionaire, William Pattison, MLA. It is an example of the prestigious development which occurred in Rockhampton at a time when it was the premier commercial centre of central Queensland and was promoted by the separation movement as the ideal capital for a new northern state. The church also represents the expansion of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland. Established in 1861 the parish of St Andrew's was the first Presbyterian congregation to establish itself so far north in Queensland and the building reflects the prominence of the Presbyterian community in the early establishment of Rockhampton.
|(Criterion under review)
|St Andrew's Presbyterian Church is of aesthetic significance, and through its form, fabric and materials, the building makes a significant contribution to the Rockhampton streetscape and townscape. The building also has fine interior materials and finishes, the detailing of which reflects a fine quality of workmanship.
|The church has special association for the congregation of St Andrew's, being their place of worship for over 100 years as well as for the people of Rockhampton as a prominent feature of the townscape which contributes to the image of the city.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15562,"place_ref":600787,"name":"AMV Warehouse","alternate_name":"GS Curtis Stores","street_address":"10 Derby Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON CITY","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former GS Curtis Stores, a long narrow two-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a hipped gable roof concealed behind a parapet, is located fronting Derby Street to the southeast between Bolsover Street and East Lane. The building is located at the western edge of the warehouse precinct located around the former Rockhampton wharves.
The building has splayed entrance bays to both street corners, and the Derby Street elevation contains nine bays framed by pilasters. The first floor contains a continuous row of arched, louvred glass windows separated by pilasters and framed with rendered mouldings and sills. These windows establish the rhythm of the bays which alternate in width, with the wider bays consisting of three arched windows and the narrower bays of two arched windows. Each narrow bay is surmounted by a rendered arched moulding with central circle motif. The end bays also have similar circle mouldings located above the arched windows. The building has a parapet with corbelled cornice, and raised arched mouldings are aligned with the position of the bays. The ground floor has a single arched louvred glass window with recessed lower panel, flanked by rendered circle mouldings and raised string course, centrally positioned within each wide bay. A tall loading door is located within each narrow bay, consisting of a roller door to the lower section surmounted by timber louvres and fixed glazing.
The splayed corner entrance bays have similar detailing, and comprise paired timber doors with an arched fanlight to the ground floor, with an arched louvred glass window to the first floor.
The narrow Bolsover Street elevation is similar in detail, consisting of an arched central bay containing two arched louvred glass first floor windows, flanked by a single arched window either side. The ground floor has an arched louvred glass window to the central bay flanked by rendered circle mouldings and raised string course, with an arched window on the southern side and an arched infilled doorway on the northern side. The rendered detailing suggests that the building was designed to allow it to be extended along the Bolsover Street frontage.
The East Lane elevation has similar parapet detailing, but the rendered facade details finish at the edge of the splayed corner entrance. This elevation is finished in painted brickwork, and the ground floor has a single opening with timber louvres and fixed glazing, with evidence of brick infill of an earlier loading door below. A brick infilled arched doorway is located adjacent. The first floor has a loading door, consisting of a roller door to the lower section surmounted by timber louvres, and a smaller louvred glass window is located adjacent.
Internally, the building has eight centrally positioned cast iron columns supporting a timber framed first floor. The ground floor has a mostly open plan, with a concrete floor and painted brick walls, with the rear wall having infilled centrally positioned window openings to each bay. The northeast end has a concrete mezzanine floor supported by concrete block walls, with partitioned offices and store rooms below. A hoist is located adjacent, and a steel staircase is located at the northern corner. The first floor has an open plan, with a concrete floor at the northern end above the mezzanine, and the ceiling is lined with compressed sheeting.
","history":"This masonry warehouse was erected in 1883 for auctioneer George Silas Curtis MLA, as a consignment store for imported goods. It was designed by architect John William Wilson and stands in a precinct of 19th century warehouses that developed in the area to serve the passing trade at the wharves.
\nGS Curtis first arrived in Rockhampton in 1863 and returned in 1866 to enter Wormald's auctioneering firm which he acquired in 1872. 'As a prominent auctioneer, land holder and real estate speculator Curtis became one of the city's most vigorous and influential public figures'.[1] Curtis had campaigned 'through the Chamber of Commerce for railway extensions and a deep-water port for Rockhampton and from 1889 acted as the leading exponent of territorial separation in Queensland'.[2] Curtis was chairman of the Central Queensland Territorial Separation League when it formed in 1889.
\nIn late 1882 George Silas Curtis commissioned architect John Wilson to design a warehouse to accommodate his merchandise. The warehouse was constructed at a time when Rockhampton had established itself as the major port in central Queensland serving a vast area of pastoral, agricultural and mining lands and was entering a boom period corresponding with the commencement of gold mining at Mount Morgan in 1882. Rockhampton was the commercial centre of central Queensland where merchant's like Curtis could successfully base their business.
\nCurtis had originally commissioned Wilson to design a single-storeyed warehouse with foundations to carry a second floor, but was convinced by Wilson to construct a double-storey building outright. Wilson was reported in the Daily Northern Argus of 1883 as wanting to construct a building that would provide a continuing substantial capacity and that 'would be different in its general outline to other buildings in the town' as well as being reasonably inexpensive. P Waters & Sons commenced construction of the warehouse in August 1882 and completed the building in early 1883.
\nThe warehouse was described as 'substantial & roomy' and as the only building of its size in Rockhampton. The erection of the warehouse was seen as an advancement for the city and was associated with the atmosphere of confidence which promoted Rockhampton as the possible capital of a new separate state.
\nAt the time of construction the building had frontages to Bolsover Street, East Lane and Derby Street and had been rendered with a tint imitating the colour of the local Stanwell freestone. The Derby Street frontage had four double-sliding doors on the ground floor with arched windows above protected internally by iron bars and surmounted by a half-circle motif connected with the pilasters. On the upper storey there were 23 arched windows with the top portion hinged to allow opening.
\nAt each end of the warehouse was a corner splay which formed an entrance with the inscription 'G.S. Curtis, 1870' in ribbon lettering. The words 'G.S Curtis Consignment Stores' were also in relief at either end of the building. The second floor was accessible by two staircases which were boxed and separated from the ground floor, each fronting Bolsover Street and East Lane.
\nThe ground floor had an open plan with eight iron pillars supporting a timber first floor. The upper storey also had an open plan with the only opening for loading being a pair of sliding doors facing East Lane. The roof had 5 skylights and was constructed of king-post trusses with hips at both ends.
\nThe warehouse was constructed with the intention of dividing the ground Derby Street frontage into 9 shops at any given time by removing the brickwork between the pilasters, although there is no evidence that this ever occurred.
\nGS Curtis became insolvent in November 1898 and his affairs were liquidated. The property was transferred to Mount Morgan trustee Thomas Skarrat Hall in December 1898 and at the time of his death in June 1903, was again transferred to trustees. In 1918 the stores were purchased by Denham Bros of Rockhampton. The building was purchased by the current owners in 1973.
","criteria":"The former GS Curtis Stores represents the beginning of a period of substantial commercial development in Rockhampton during the latter 19th century. The warehouse, the second oldest surviving in Rockhampton, was built in what was to become a precinct of large warehouses situated near the trading activity of the river wharves. It reflected the prosperity of Rockhampton and its position as the premier commercial centre and port of central Queensland at a time when it was benefiting from the wealth of gold mining at Mount Morgan from the 1880s to the turn of the century.
|The building, a two-storeyed warehouse structure, has considerable street presence due to its long, decorative Derby Street elevation. The building's form, fabric, materials and distinctive detailing illustrate a creative design approach. The building is recognised as a local landmark and makes a significant contribution to the Rockhampton streetscape and townscape.
|The building has a special association for the people of Rockhampton as an historical landmark which contributes to the image of the city.
|It has special association with prominent Rockhampton architect John William Wilson who, during his 35 year practice, contributed largely to the townscape of Rockhampton in the late 19th century.
It also has special association with George Silas Curtis MLA as a manifestation of his enterprises which were important to the development of Rockhampton. Curtis was a prominent member of Rockhampton's early community and a vigorous supporter of the separation movement who influenced the history of the city and the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15563,"place_ref":600788,"name":"Rockhampton School of Arts (former)","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Municipal Theatre | Rockhampton Municipal Library","street_address":"230 Bolsover Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Rockhampton School of Arts, a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure, is located fronting Bolsover Street to the northeast and adjacent to the Rockhampton Council Chambers Town Hall (QHR 601572) to the southeast. The front section of the original 1894 structure is attached by a two-storey link to the 2009 Rockhampton Regional Library building at the rear.
\nThe building has an elaborately decorated symmetrical facade to Bolsover Street. A central colonnaded verandah with entrance topped by a pediment, is flanked on each side by projecting corner wings. The facade has Corinthian pilasters supporting a deep entablature, which is surmounted by a parapet with corner urns concealing a hipped corrugated metal roof. The pilasters, which surmount a base extending to the ground floor window sill height, are regularly spaced on the projecting corner wings. The central entrance has paired corner pilasters, and the entablature has the name SCHOOL OF ARTS in relief. Both ground and first floor verandahs have been enclosed with glass louvres above balustrade height.
\nThe ground floor has segmental arched sash windows to the projecting corner wings, with coursed rendered abutments. The ground floor verandah has arches with expressed imposts, and the first floor verandah has similar arches with expressed extrados and keystones. The first floor projecting corner wings have arched sash windows with expressed imposts, extrados and keystones, and semi-circular balconettes.
\nBoth sides of the building are unadorned, and consist of four bays with relief mouldings at sill and floor heights, with roughcast render finish between smooth finish pilasters, and centrally placed window openings with glass louvres. The northwest side fronts onto a service laneway, and the southeast addresses the grounds of Rockhampton Town Hall.
\nInternally, the building has boarded timber ceilings and painted masonry walls. The ground floor consists of a central entrance vestibule, leading to a staircase at the rear, flanked on each side by a series of large rooms interconnected via arched openings. Some sections of masonry walls have been removed. Bricked-up openings and some partition walls were uninstalled during the 2010 restoration. Internal doors are of timber panelling with fanlights and architraves, and French doors with fanlights open onto the enclosed verandahs. The staircase has turned timber newel posts and timber handrails, with cast iron balustrades panels, sections of which were restored in 2010. A stair has been installed in the northern end of the front verandah, toilets are located in the western corner, and several high level ventilation openings have been installed in internal walls. The first floor is similar in plan, with a roof lantern lighting the stair landing, and paired timber and glass doors with sidelights and fanlight opening from the central hall to the enclosed verandah.
\nAreas of the building which had deteriorated due to foundation subsidence and water ingress and resulted in large cracks in masonry walls, were repaired in 2010. New floors were installed in 2010 to replace failed sections of flooring. Air conditioning, data and electrical services and a lift were added in 2010.[28] Several archways have timber bracing, and tie rods are visible throughout the building.
\nThe rear of the place includes part of the 2009 library building and the connection to the School of Arts building, the fabric of which is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Rockhampton School of Arts building was constructed in 1894 and is an important element of the streetscape of Bolsover Street, Rockhampton. The building is a fine example of late 19th century Victorian Classical architecture. It has formed a major part of the cultural, social, civic and political life of Rockhampton since 1894, and has associations with a previous school of arts building that stood on the site from 1865. The School of Arts building is evidence of the growth of Rockhampton, and reflects the prominence of Rockhampton and the drive and energy of its citizens in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
\nSchools of Arts were synonymous with Mechanics' Institutes, established in Britain early in the 19th century, and transplanted throughout the British Empire during the colonial era. The movement was instituted by George Birkbeck who established a class for journeymen mechanics in Glasgow in 1804, and formed the first Mechanics' Institute in London in 1824. The purpose of forming such an institute was to improve the education of working men, and to instruct them in various trades. By the late 19th century, Mechanics' Institutes had become popular agencies of general adult education. They were part of a wider 19th century movement promoting popular education in Britain, at a time when co-operative societies, working men's colleges and the university extension movement were established. Mechanics' Institutes flourished as a means by which working men might improve their lot, either through self-education in Institute-provided reading rooms, or by participating in instructional classes organised and funded by Institute members.[1]
\nThe first Queensland School of Arts opened in Brisbane in 1849. They spread through the developing colony, serving as one of the principal sources of adult education. 26 were established in Queensland towns and districts by 1880. The government recognised the importance of such institutes by making land available, subsidising books and assisting with building costs.[2]
\nA School of Arts movement was initiated in Rockhampton in 1861, not long after the town was founded. The settlement of Rockhampton had emerged to serve pastoralists in the late 1850s and grew quickly following a gold rush at nearby Canoona. It was surveyed in 1858 and declared a town in 1861, with a population of nearly 700 people.[3]
\nFollowing a public meeting a School of Arts Committee was established in July 1861, with the aims of spreading ‘literary, scientific and other useful knowledge amongst members’.[4] Donations of books, magazines or money were sought from the general public. A one acre reserve was granted to the School of Arts under the 1862 Rockhampton Town Plan. The reserve, allotment 1 of Section 59A, was a centrally-located block, fronting Bolsover and William Streets on its north-eastern end.[5] It adjoined the Town Hall site, a reflection of its perceived importance.
\nDespite the Committee’s grandiose hopes of educating the community of Rockhampton, the movement initially met with a lukewarm response. Rockhampton’s small population was transient and not highly literate, and contributions were not forthcoming. The movement nearly folded in its first five years, but the Committee raised enough money to construct a building on the reserve, facing Bolsover Street, which opened on 24 February 1865. Shops and a hotel were built on the William Street frontage and leased to tenants, an additional source of income which proved vital during times of economic hardship.
\nThe School of Arts was the first public adult educational facility in Rockhampton, and soon emerged as the cultural centre of Rockhampton. Courses were offered in classical languages and scientific matters, though they relied on volunteer teachers and the standard of instruction varied. Between 1865 and 1890 the School of Arts’ membership increased from 40 to 380 and the library’s stocks grew from 250 to 7,000 volumes. Membership generally comprised middle-class residents who had leisure time and could afford subscription fees. The School of Arts also expanded physically, with an additional grant of land in 1869 and a museum which opened in 1872.[6]
\nWhile the institution was growing, however, the building was sinking. The clay soils on which the first School of Arts stood proved detrimental to the building, which began to crack. In 1882 a public competition was launched to design a new building and was won by Brisbane architect Alexander Brown Wilson. Reconstruction plans were also submitted by prolific local architect John W Wilson (no relation to AB Wilson) but financial difficulties prevented construction.[7]
\nDespite its deterioration, the School of Arts remained the centre of debate and learning in Rockhampton. Technical education began there in 1890, with classes in shorthand, model drawing and architectural drawing. The building was also used for the inaugural meeting of the Central Queensland Territorial Separation League (CQTSL) in January 1890. The CQTSL was the most significant of the separation movements which sprang up in north and central Queensland through the latter half of the 19th century. It agitated throughout the 1890s for the creation of a separate colony centred on Rockhampton. By this time, Rockhampton was the commercial centre of central Queensland. It was the major port in central Queensland, serving a plethora of pastoral, agricultural and mining lands. Wealth and immigrants poured into the town after gold mining at nearby Mount Morgan began in 1882 and the cattle industry fed further growth. With a population of around 11,600 people in 1891, it was the second largest town in Queensland, making it the logical choice for a capital for a central Queensland colony.[8]
\nAs an element in what was possibly the location of a new capital, a School of Arts building would have to represent the aspirations of its citizens. Sizeable new Schools of Arts had already been built in Toowoomba (1882), Maryborough (1888, QHR 600701), Bundaberg (1889, QHR 600362) and Townsville (1891, QHR 600925), while Rockhampton’s building continued to fracture. The Daily Northern Argus noted criticism of the building by a ‘stranger from the South’ and encouraged subscribers to agitate for better accommodation. The School of Arts Committee raised £1,000 for a new building, but this was deemed insufficient for a structure ‘intended to be the centre of intellectual life in the Rockhampton community.’ The Legislative Council passed the Rockhampton School of Arts Act in 1892, allowing the Committee to mortgage the William Street commercial properties. Despite an economic depression which had struck Queensland, the committee borrowed £5,000 from the Union Bank of Australasia. At an eventual cost of £5,578, the Rockhampton School of Arts building would be the most expensive in the colony.[9]
\nIn the ten years that had passed since the first design competition, the growth of the School of Arts had rendered AB Wilson’s plans ‘quite inadequate to present and prospective requirements.’ A new design competition was launched and won by local architect Walter Cherry in November 1892. Rockhampton newspapers announced their gratification that ‘a fellow townsman should have wrested the prize from Maryborough, Brisbane, and other foreign competitors’. John W Wilson was employed to supervise the design, and in January 1893 the contract was let to builder Walter A Lawson for £4,500.[10]
\nThere has been some debate about the identity of the designer, Walter Cherry being confused with Brisbane designer and works foreman William Cherry. The former was a Rockhampton-based licensed surveyor who worked for civil engineer, surveyor and architect FJ Byerley. No other architectural works attributable to Cherry have been identified. He advertised himself as an architect while living in Victoria in the 1870s but does not appear to have practised in Queensland, though he did teach the inaugural Rockhampton School of Arts architectural drawing class. Few other details are known about his life.[11]
\nHints of the influence of the Separation movement crept into the School of Arts building project. CQTSL president John Ferguson offered security for the building loan, while politician (and future premier) Robert Philp, responding to parliamentary criticism of the Rockhampton School of Arts Bill, declared that ‘it was little irritating things like this that made the people of the North dissatisfied with the South’.[12]
\nOn 6 March 1894 the School of Arts building was officially opened in the presence of the Governor Sir Henry Norman, who declared it ‘the finest school of arts he had seen in the course of all his travels in the colony’.[13] The two-storey building was designed in the classical style. From the Bolsover Street entrance patrons walked into a vestibule, with committee room, two classrooms and cloak room on the right, and a secretary's office and library subdivided by arched openings into four compartments on the left. Above this, accessible from a stairway on the right, was a suite of five apartments comprising the reading room, and on the left side of the building were four rooms for use as a museum and another classroom. An 800-seat hall stood behind this section of the building, accessible through the main building or via a service lane. The reading room apartments were ‘finely lighted and ventilated, and even in the hottest day in summer should be cool and pleasant’.[14] All rooms opened out onto the verandah. Ornamentation was limited to the façade, reflecting the School of Arts’ educational rather than aesthetic focus. The building jutted slightly into a service lane, later known as Millers Lane, next to the William Street commercial rental properties.[15]
\nThe building was quickly recognised as the ‘first in importance amongst the public buildings’ of Rockhampton. The ‘imposing mound of bricks and stone’, as the Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser described it, had ‘probably no equal in the colonies as a school of arts’.[16] The grandeur of the building, however, would not reflect its status as a new capital city. The CQTSL had come close to success when a motion to form a separate colony was placed before Parliament in 1897, but the advent of federation brought its downfall. The anti-separation Rockhampton Federation League also met in the School of Arts and the federation vote which effectively ended the movement was held at the School of Arts in September 1899.[17]
\nThe Rockhampton School of Arts continued to grow in the 20th century. Its ambit expanded to include entertainment, with a recreation room built on the site in 1902.[18] Under the education charter, new classes were offered in metallurgy, geology, chemistry, mineralogy and mining. The mining classes proved so popular that a two-storeyed School of Mines was built on the Alma Street frontage in 1907. Classes were transferred to the new state Technical College (QHR 600789) in 1915, and the vacated School of Mines building was leased to tenants. The School of Arts held the city’s only library and museum, and its hall hosted political meetings, fancy dress balls and patriotic rallies. The institution was so prominent that Rockhampton’s City Council looked to the School of Arts to provide an adequate public hall when new administrative facilities were planned in the 1930s.[19]
\nThe School of Arts building was improved in the 1920s and 1930s. The foundations were underpinned at the southern corner of the library in 1923. Portions of the walls were replaced by louvres and woven panels to improve ventilation. In the library, air passages were placed in the dividing walls, and a large lantern light was installed in the roof. The supper room verandah, which faced the service lane, was enclosed. Electricity and septic toilets were installed in the building in 1927, and the library floor was replaced in 1938.[20]
\nHowever, membership in Queensland’s Schools of Arts began to decline in the 1930s and 1940s. Schools of Arts had already faded in southern states, where legislation provided for public library services. In Queensland the institutions had persisted, with 233 operating by 1925, but the growing popularity of new forms of entertainment (radio and cinema) gave Queensland’s residents other options.[21] The growing obsolescence of Rockhampton’s School of Arts was apparent by 1938:
\nwhile the library has been maintained at high standard, its hall has been superseded by more modern theatres, the museum remains in embryo, the technical classes have passed, as a fully-fledged technical college, under complete government control, and other organisations have taken over the recreative activities for which it catered.[22]
\nIn 1943 the Libraries Act established the Queensland Library Board to promote a national standard of education and improve public access to books. The Act allowed public authorities to take over schools of arts. In light of its declining membership and reduced financial subscriptions, the Rockhampton School of Arts and its assets were taken over by the Rockhampton City Council on 1 July 1947.[23]
\nDespite the end of the School of Arts as an organisation, the building continued as a hub for Rockhampton’s cultural life. The library and museum were run by the City Council, though the library remained subscription-based until 1972 and the museum later closed. The building became the headquarters of the Rockhampton Little Theatre from 1945 to 1979, the Rockhampton and District Historical Society from 1949 to 1983, and the Rockhampton Regional Promotion Bureau from 1959 to 1971.[24]
\nMajor alterations were made to the site in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960 a mezzanine floor was added above the adult library section on the southern side of the entrance vestibule. Settlement problems re-emerged in the foundations, and in 1962 the hall portion of the building was deemed inadequate for continued use. It was removed in 1963 and replaced with an auditorium building called the Municipal Theatre. Outbuildings including the recreation room were removed in 1976 for a new building containing an immunisation clinic, club rooms for the Rockhampton Little Theatre and a caretaker's flat. The School of Mines building was removed and replaced by a child care centre. The immunisation clinic and child care centre, still extant in 2017, are not of cultural heritage significance. An 8.43 perch (213.22m2) section on the south-eastern corner of the site was excised and library facilities were transferred to a new location in March 1977.[25]
\nConservation programmes and proposals for the building’s reuse were floated in the 1980s and 1990s, but did not eventuate at that time. The commercial buildings on the William Street frontage (Queensland Hotel and Millers Buildings) were demolished in 1999 and the land sold into private ownership.
\nIn 2009-10 a major refurbishment of the School of Arts building was undertaken by architectural firm Riddell Architecture and JM Kelly builders. Structural improvements were made, including underpinning and stabilising the building, and laying new floors. Internally, the original layout was reinstated, air-conditioning was installed, the enclosed verandahs opened and the stairway was restored.[26] In 2008-9 the Municipal Theatre behind the School of Arts was demolished and replaced by a new library building (designed by Brewster Hjorth architects)[27]. Part of the 2009 building is included in the boundary of the School of Arts but is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nIn 2017, the Rockhampton Regional Library operates from both the 1894 School of Arts and 2009 buildings. The School of Arts is a continuing link with the social, educational and recreational aspirations of the people of Rockhampton and central Queensland.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton School of Arts is important for its contribution to the cultural and social development of Rockhampton. Constructed in 1894, the place demonstrates the growth and evolution of the School of Arts movement which fostered and developed an interest in education, cultural and social activities, and the performing arts, in towns and cities throughout Queensland in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The building is located on the site of an earlier School of Arts constructed in 1865, on land which was proclaimed as a School of Arts reserve in the 1862 Rockhampton Town Plan.
\nThe place is also important in demonstrating the development of the civic centre of Rockhampton, particularly during the late 19th century, and is significant for its association with the separation movement, which was established in the earlier School of Arts building in 1890, and which was active in Rockhampton and central Queensland in the period of 1890-1901.
|The School of Arts is a fine example of a major regional School of Arts building providing accommodation typical of this class of cultural place including a library, reading room, committee room, classrooms and museum. The substantial two-storey masonry building is highly intact and demonstrates the civic prominence of the School of Arts institution, with its ornate façade another important characteristic of a major regional School of Arts building.
|The School of Arts is important for its aesthetic significance as an example of Victorian Classical architecture of the late 19th century, and in making an important contribution to the streetscape of Bolsover Street, Rockhampton. The building is an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton, and its elaborately decorated symmetrical façade [imposing projecting entrance and ornate Corinthian pilasters] is expressive of the grand vision the community held for Rockhampton as a future northern capital during the separation movement of the 1890s.
|The School of Arts is important for its contribution to the cultural and social development of Rockhampton. The building replaced an earlier school of arts erected on the site in 1865. For the community of Rockhampton and district the place has a strong and special association with educational, cultural and social activities since the mid-19th century. The 1894 building is an important component of the Rockhampton civic centre and symbolises the community’s former grand vision of Rockhampton as a future northern capital.
|The place is significant for its association with the Central Queensland Territorial Separation League, which was established in the earlier School of Arts in 1890, and which agitated through the 1890s for the creation of a separate central Queensland colony centred on Rockhampton. League President John Ferguson guaranteed the loan for the building work, and several members of the League were involved with the School of Arts. The building’s design also reflects the association with the movement, as a substantial building designed to indicate the importance of Rockhampton as a potential northern capital.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15564,"place_ref":600789,"name":"'A' Block, Central Queensland Institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Rockhampton Campus","alternate_name":"Rockhampton State High School and Technical College | Rockhampton C.O.T.A.F.E.","street_address":"Bolsover Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Central Queensland Institute of T.A.F.E., Rockhampton Campus, fronts Bolsover Street to the northeast, Alma Street to the southwest, and is bisected by Bolsover Lane. The complex contains several buildings, with the significant structure being 'A' Block, which fronts Bolsover Street. 'D' Block (former Science Block now demolished), fronted Alma Street.
'A' Block (1914)
'A' Block, a Federation era two-storeyed brick and sandstone structure, has a ribbed metal gable roof with a central cupola, consisting of a dome supported by a ring of columns on a square base with a central ridge ventilator. The Bolsover Street elevation is a symmetrical composition, mostly faced with sandstone, consisting of a two-storeyed verandah penetrated by gabled projections either side of a central entrance.
The ground floor central entrance has low wrought iron gates and is flanked by Ionic columns supporting an entablature with the name TECHNICAL COLLEGE in relief to the frieze, and prominent dentils to the cornice. The columns are framed by pilasters with decorative carvings in relief. The entrance is flanked by an arch to either side, and each arch has an expressed keystone and extrados, with a decorative wrought iron balustrade. The first floor verandah has sandstone pillars with decorative wrought iron balustrading, and pilasters featuring relief carvings and wrought iron lamps above the entrance.
The gable sections have face brickwork with sandstone corner pilasters and window mouldings. The ground floor pilasters have relief carvings, and the first floor pilasters, which project above the parapet terminating in a shallow cornice, have expressed coursing. Both floors have a large central multi-paned casement window flanked by a narrower multi-paned sash window to either side. These windows have sandstone sill and head mouldings, with an expressed keystone to the central window. The gable parapet has a central circular opening surrounded by a sandstone moulding, with the letters A.D. to the southern gable and the year 1914 to the northern gable.
The gable sections are flanked by verandahs at either end of the Bolsover Street elevation. These verandahs have sandstone pillars with decorative wrought iron balustrading to both floors, and metal lattice valance panels to the ground floor. The end pilaster has relief carvings to the ground floor and expressed coursing to the first floor, and projects above the parapet terminating in a shallow cornice.
Both ends of the building have a gabled parapet, with a central circular opening surrounded by a sandstone moulding, with the year 1914 to the northern end, and regularly spaced multi-paned sash windows to both floors.
The rear of the building has regularly spaced multi-paned casement windows to both floors, and downpipes with pressed metal rainwater heads. A centrally positioned free-standing two-storeyed masonry structure is located behind the building, and is linked via a covered walkway on both levels. This structure has a corrugated iron hipped roof, high level multi-paned windows, and houses toilets for the use of students to both levels. An earlier opening at the rear has been bricked-up.
The main entrance has paired timber doors with fanlight framed by sandstone quoining and surmounted by a deep sandstone cornice. Each door has an oval, multi-paned glass panel to the upper section, and timber panelling to the lower section, and the fanlight has leaded glass. Adjacent to the entrance is a marble plaque with an inscription commemorating the donation of the land by James Stewart. The entrance is flanked by sash windows, and french doors with fanlights and sash windows open onto the verandah from both floors.
Internally, the entrance foyer has a timber panelled dado, and timber panelling surrounding the reception. The reception counter has an adjacent notice board, and both are surmounted by timber pediments with the names ENQUIRY and NOTICES in relief. A central corridor runs the length of the building, and a concrete half-turn stair with landings and metal balustrade is located opposite the entrance foyer. The stair and entrance foyer are separated from the corridor by segmental arches with expressed keystone, voussoirs and impost mouldings. A timber door, with a multi-paned glass upper panel, is located below the stair and accesses the ground floor of the toilet block at the rear. A second door is located on the upper landing of the stair and accesses the upper level of the toilet block. The building has rendered masonry walls, fibrous cement ceilings with timber battens, and linoleum floor coverings to public spaces.
A library is located at the northern end of the ground floor, a classroom is located at the southern end, and offices and service rooms open off the corridor. The first floor contains classrooms, offices and service rooms opening off the central corridor.
'D' Block (former Science Block 1919) - demolished
'D' Block, a two-storeyed brick structure, had an L-shaped plan with a corrugated iron gable roof to the front section and a hipped roof to the rear.
The Alma Street elevation was an asymmetrical composition, consisting of a gabled section with an adjacent entrance wing on the northwestern side. The building had rendered details including sills and window heads. The entrance was located at the northwestern end and was framed with rendered mouldings consisting of an arched head with expressed keystone, framed by pilasters supporting a deep cornice, and the name SCIENCE & ENGINEERING in relief to the frieze. A wide first floor casement window was located above the entrance, with narrower casements adjacent to the ground and first floor. The gable section had a slightly projecting central bay which housed a pair of wide casement windows to both floors. These windows were united by a common rendered head moulding surmounted by a shallow cornice. The gable had a central circular roof ventilation opening with rendered surround.
The southeastern wall was blank to the front section, with regularly spaced multi-paned sash windows to the rear wing, which was slightly recessed. The northwestern wall was similarly blank to the front section, with a central circular roof ventilation opening to the gable, and a slightly recessed stairwell projecting at the rear. The rear wing had a verandah along the northwestern side, which returned to align with the stairwell at the western end, and abutted a hipped roofed projecting room at the northern end. The verandah had timber posts, with curved timber brackets and a battened valance to the ground floor, and a curved timber valance to the first floor. The first floor had a metal railing, with a non-original walkway linking it to an adjacent building. Timber panelled doors opened onto the verandah, and the stairwell had a multi-paned sash window to the first floor. The lower part of the first floor exterior walls, along the northwestern side of the building, had been rendered in an attempt to overcome rising damp deterioration to the brickwork. However, the brickwork above the rendered section showed evidence of deterioration.
Internally, the entrance foyer had paired timber doors with an arched fanlight, and an adjacent reception/office with timber panelling to counter height, and multi-paned sash windows and fixed glazing above. The stairwell, located opposite, had a timber stair with battened balustrade, timber newel posts and handrail. The building had timber skirtings, architraves and window sills, and the ceilings were boarded. The ground floor walls were rendered, and the first floor walls were only partly rendered. The plan of the building consisted of a large classroom on the southwestern side fronting Alma Street, with a smaller classroom at the rear, and smaller offices and service rooms surrounding the stairwell. The building showed evidence of severe cracking due to foundation movement.
","history":"The Central Queensland Institute of T.A.F.E., Rockhampton Campus, in particular 'A' Block fronting Bolsover Street, is important for its association with the history of education in Rockhampton. The building is also an important component of the central business district of the city. The original building, 'A' Block, was constructed in 1914 and the Science Block, 'D' Block (demolished), was constructed in 1919.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858, Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry'. The first moves to establish classes for a Technical College in Rockhampton began in July 1861. This was initiated by the first committee of the Rockhampton School of Arts, which had stated its primary aims to include "the diffusion of literary, scientific and other useful knowledge to be attained by means of a reading room. The delivery of lectures, a library, and the establishment of classes." The School of Arts building, which was constructed in 1865, was replaced in 1894 when a new School of Arts (QHR 600788) was built.
Despite the grandiose hopes of educating the community of Rockhampton, initial community reaction to the use of the public reading room was lukewarm. Courses were offered in classical languages, at various times, but the standard of education was dependent upon interest from the local community, and the standard of school teachers who were willing to contribute to after hours lectures.
In 1890 a drawing class was established by the School of Arts Committee. Technical courses such as drawing classes were offered, which later provided the impetus for a centre of higher learning. Classes were also offered in mechanical and technical drawing, as well as other practical subjects such as carpentry.
The first Technical College was constructed in Brisbane in 1882. In 1898 the Brisbane Technical College Act was passed, which established a governing council for the College. However other technical Colleges, such as Rockhampton, were to be run by independent boards. In 1902 a Board of Technical Education, created by thirty-four Technical Colleges throughout Queensland, was established to advise the Minister for Public Instruction. The Board was abolished in 1905 when a separate branch of the department was established.
In 1904 a dedicated School of Mines opened in Rockhampton. This educational centre was conducted in Alma Street behind the School of Arts building. Classes were offered in metallurgy, mineralogy, geology and chemistry. An indifferent response from students saw the School of mines close in 1906. Additional classes were offered in regional centres such as Mount Morgan and Gladstone. The classes offered by the School of Arts Committee were subsidised by the state government.
The State Government passed of the Government Technical Schools Act 1908, allowing for the establishment of vocational/education based studies. In 1909 the classes were placed in control of a Technical College Committee that was separate from the Rockhampton School of Arts. The Technical College Committee was a partially elected, partially Government nominated body. Classes were still held in the School of Arts building, and additional classroom space was made available in the Market Building (QHR 600784), for cookery classes, opposite the School of Arts building in Bolsover Street.
The Department of Public Instruction had been involved with the design of primary and technical schools since 1907, utilising knowledge gained from overseas trips by other educational authorities in Australia. American educationalists favoured the establishment of separate departments in separate buildings, spread out over a large site, but grouped systematically together. Plans of this type were prepared for Technical Colleges in Mackay and Mount Morgan.
In 1910 additional classes were added to the curriculum, including mathematics. However the curriculum, and the number of classes being offered by the Technical College, was overtaxing available space in the School of Arts building. In 1911 a Certificate of Title was issued to the Secretary for Public Instruction for Allotment 2 of Section 48, granting title for over two acres of land in Bolsover Street, and planning began for the construction of a Technical College for Rockhampton.
In 1912 a donation of a half acre of land fronting Alma Street was made to the Technical College by James Stewart. The Science Block of the Technical College ('D' Block) was to be subsequently constructed on this site in 1919.
Stewart was the founder of James Stewart and Co., a millinery company that expanded into the retail and drapery trade during the latter part of the 19th century. Stewart's maintained branch stores in Blackall, Barcaldine, Longreach and Mount Morgan. The company was situated in Stewart's Criterion House, and in the 1920's employed over three hundred workers in Rockhampton. Stewart was generous in his gifts to the community, also purchasing a former Congregational Church in Bolsover Street and donating it for the use of the Presbyterian Church in Rockhampton.
Following the donation of land to the Technical College Committee in 1912, £1,400 was raised by local subscription towards the erection of a purpose built building for the Technical College. The Government was to supply four fifths of the cost of building and equipment for the Technical College.
The Department of Public Instruction approved the construction of the main building in July 1913, and estimated the cost of construction at £12,733. Construction of the building (now 'A' Block) began in early 1914, and Mr CG Davies was the overseer of the construction work. The work was supervised by the Department of Public Works, and the design was produced by the office of Government Architect Alfred Barton Brady (1856-1932). However, Deputy Government Architect Thomas Pye (1861-1930) is thought to have been involved in the actual design. Other buildings designed by this office include the Elizabeth Street building, Brisbane General Post Office (1908) (QHR 600148), Administration Centre, Challinor Centre (1914) (QHR 601821), and Windsor State School (1915-16) (QHR 600991). At this time, work was also proceeding on the Brisbane Central Technical College and Warwick Technical College.
The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin reported on the construction of the Technical College buildings in May 1914
The new technical college buildings in Bolsover Street are gradually assuming the shape intended by their designer... The whole of the subdividing walls are equally advanced, whilst the heavy timber joists have been laid ready to receive the reinforced concrete of which the floor will be constructed...The stonework hitherto has proved something of a check upon the rate of progress, chiefly because of the scarcity of masons, and the enormous amount of work that is necessary to prepare some of the arch pieces.
The building at this time had only fifteen workers actually employed on construction, six of them being masons. Stonework used was from the Stanwell quarry, and to speed up the building work four masons were sent from Brisbane. Decorative stonework was also to be incorporated onto the face of the building, consisting of eleven carved shields. Overall the work was expected to be finished within its specified completion date (end of 1914), and
there is every reason for believing that... Rockhampton will possess an up to date college building with a floor space of between 14,000 and 15,000 square feet.
The new Technical College building opened in 1915 for its first pupils receiving training in semi-vocational courses. In 1918 the Department of Public Instruction assumed full control of the Technical College. At this time the Technical Instruction Amendment Act had been passed by the State Government which was to further increase the centralisation of technical colleges, and to place them under the administration of the Department of Public Instruction.
On 3 February 1919, the Department established the Technical High School, in conjunction with the Technical College. Courses were to be offered for day students for the first time. The Technical College Committee, at the time of the takeover of the College, was in a relatively strong financial position, having £900 in the general fund and £300 in the building fund. The establishment of the High School combined with the Technical College was the first institution of its kind in Queensland.
The Science Block ('D' Block) was constructed in 1919. The two-storeyed brick building was constructed at a cost of £4,596. The building faced Alma Street, and contained
practical physics, engine testing and plumbing class rooms, together with office, teacher's room, and store on ground floor. The upper floor contains chemical laboratory, balance and lecture room, drawing room, and store.
The design was produced by the office of Government Architect Mr AB Brady, with construction being undertaken by the Public Works Department. The full block was not completed.
By 1920 the first Technical High School classes for day students were established. The increasing emphasis on technical and commercial courses saw an increasing number of enrolments in the Technical College. Additional classrooms were also provided at a cost of £1,127. Training was offered in a wide variety of trades for apprentices. Many trade workers in Rockhampton received training from the Queensland Railway Workshops, building, motor and electrical trades. During the depression era, the Rockhampton Technical College also offered free training to youths unable to find employment. Over one hundred young people were trained in wood working, sheet metal work and trade drawing.
The standard of education within the College received a further boost in 1925 when training was offered in the Queensland University Diploma in Mechanical and Electrical drawing (continuing on a curriculum tradition established by the Rockhampton School of Arts).
During the Second World War special classes were initiated under the Commonwealth Munition Training Scheme. Sixty fitters and eighty turners were trained and sent to various parts of the state involved in the production of war materials.
In 1933 Bolsover Chambers adjoining the Technical College property in Bolsover Street was purchased, and converted into a workshop in the same year. This was later converted into the Engineering Block with access from both Bolsover Lane and Bolsover Street. Another building, the former Evening News building, was also acquired for additional activities of the College.
An extension was made to the to the southeastern part of the 'A' Block building in 1934. The extension included a new assembly hall and domestic science classroom.
In 1945 the school became a Junior Technical Training College, and special classes were also initiated for returned servicemen under the Commonwealth Post War Reconstruction Training Scheme, as a rehabilitation initiative. In 1955 there were 1,650 enrolments in the various trade, diploma, commercial, art, adult and primary domestic science classes. A full time staff of 11, and a part-time staff of 29 provided education in the above courses.
In 1958 a two-storeyed additional building was built fronting Bolsover Lane. The building was established for the use of an Electrical Trades Block, and incorporated electrical laboratories, and heat engine laboratories.
A new High School was opened for students in Rockhampton on 14 May 1960, opposite the Rockhampton Show Grounds. From 1960 students began to transfer into the new buildings, as a result of overcrowding at the Bolsover and Alma Street location. At the end of 1960 approval was given for the construction of three additional wings at the new High School for a cost of £114,020.
A second trades workshop was proposed for the Technical College site in 1963, adjoining the 1919 Science Building ('D' Block). A Plumbing Shop on the site was to be demolished for the new workshop, which was constructed in 1964 at a cost of £63,167. A motor mechanics workshop was provided in 1966.
A proposal was also put forward in 1966 to convert the 'A' Block building into the Central Queensland Campus of the Queensland Institute of Technology. The new Institute of Technology was part of the further development of Queensland higher education being undertaken at this period. In 1966, the Capricornia Institute of Technology was established in Rockhampton. At the same time, the Queensland Institute of Technology was established at the site of the Brisbane Central Technical College. Newer Technical College campuses were also being established throughout Queensland, at places such as Yeronga and Eagle Farm. Regional centres were expected to develop their own centres of advanced learning. The Rockhampton Institute has since developed into the Capricornia College of Advanced Education, and the University of Central Queensland.
The Bolsover Street Campus did not form part of the development of the centre of advanced learning, but has since been converted into the administrative centre for the Central Queensland Institute of T.A.F.E., Rockhampton Campus. Work was undertaken in 1993-94 to underpin the foundations of the southern end of 'A' Block and to repair severe cracking.
Due to severe structural problems, 'D' Block was demolished in 1997-98, and lot 13 and part of lot 14 on plan LN 804845 were removed from the heritage register in May 1999.
","criteria":"'A' Block, Central Queensland Institute of T.A.F.E., Rockhampton Campus, is important for its association with the establishment and development of education in Rockhampton and central Queensland. The Government Technical Schools Act 1908 allowed for the establishment of vocational/education based studies, and the Rockhampton Technical High School combined with the Technical College was the first institution of its kind in Queensland, and was to be the precursor of other such developments in provincial cities throughout Queensland.
The place is also important in demonstrating the development of the civic centre of Rockhampton, particularly during the early part of the twentieth century.
|The place is significant in relation to criterion B.
|The building is also a good example of technical college structures of the period, which evolved in response to progressive thinking in the design and planning of educational institutions.
|'A' Block, constructed in 1914, is of considerable architectural merit, and its form and fabric illustrate a skilled design approach. 'A' Block also demonstrates a fine quality of workmanship in the detailing of its materials and finishes. The building makes an important aesthetic contribution to the Bolsover Street streetscape, and is an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton.
|The place is significant for its association with the Rockhampton community being a principal centre of education since 1914.
|The site is also associated with prominent businessman James Stewart, who in 1912 donated a parcel of land fronting Alma Street for the establishment of the Technical College.
The building is a significant example of the work produced by the office of Government Architect Alfred Barton Brady, and Deputy Architect Thomas Pye, other examples of which include the Elizabeth Street building, Brisbane General Post Office (1908) [600148], Administration Centre, Challinor Centre (1914) [601821], and Windsor State School (1915-16) [600991].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15565,"place_ref":600790,"name":"St Aubins","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Canoona Road","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Aubins is sited on two large allotments, the total area of which is almost 8100m2. They are located at the corner of Canoona and Kalare Streets on the western fringe of Rockhampton opposite the airport and near Lion Creek. It is an idiosyncratically designed two-storeyed, brick house with approximately three metre wide upper level verandahs on three sides- facing the east, west and south. The main roof is a short-ridged hip, while the skillion roofs to the verandahs are separate and hipped at their corners. The verandahs can be accessed on the southern and western facades via two single flights of stairs. The main entry stairs are constructed of rendered brick and their total width is approximately 2.5m. They are covered by a small gabled roof, which connects to the verandah roof of the western façade and is supported by two large circular columns. These columns rest on square plinths that form part of the low, rendered balustrades on each side of the stairs. The gable end is in-filled with a carved timber fretwork panel. Its bargeboard is also carved. The ceiling of the porch roof is lined with painted timber boards. The girth of the columns appears over scaled in comparison to the width of the porch roof. The second flight of stairs is of a similar width to the main one, with low rendered balustrades on each side, and exposed brick risers and treads. It is not roofed. All roofs are clad in corrugated iron.
The timber-framed verandahs are supported by rendered circular columns, the widths of which match those to the main stairs. However, at each corner the columns are square. All sit on a rectangular rendered plinth. The verandah roofs are supported on tapering stop chamfered timber posts that are positioned above the large columns. These supports are spaced at intervals of approximately 3m. Ornately carved timber brackets, different to those shown in the 1988 Morning Bulletin photograph (refer above), are fixed to the unpainted verandah beams and either side of the painted timber verandah posts. The timber balustrading consists of dowel pieces fitted between a top and bottom rail. The framing to the underside of the upper storey verandahs and their roofs is exposed. The verandah floors are lined with unpainted shot-edge timber boards.
The external walls to the ground storey are rendered. The French doors and windows on each of these facades have basket arch-shaped heads. A simply moulded impost marks the springing point of these arches. The ground floor walls are approximately 40 centimetres thick. On the north façade a triangular, rendered support has been put in place. An early in-ground, brick-lined water tank is situated under the edge of the verandah on the southern façade.
On the upper storey, the brickwork of the thick external walls is exposed. The main entry door, leading off the covered stairway, has narrow sidelights and a rectangular highlight. The three windows on the unsheltered northern façade have gently arched heads and curved hoods with ornately carved timber brackets supporting them. They also have rendered sills. The windows on the other three facades have matching heads and sills. All are double-hung sashes with single lights in each sash.
Interiors
The ground storey is divided by a central hallway that links the western and eastern sides of the house. The ceilings to this level have exposed timber joists behind which are fitted tongue-and-groove timber boards. If this is an original feature, it suggests that the lower level was intended for service or storage purposes only. All walls appear to be plastered. The internal ones are of a similar thickness to those on the exterior. On the southern side of the hall is a large rectangular room, used currently as a lounge. The exposed joists to its ceiling are supported by a bearer resting on a number of large timber posts. On the northern side are two rooms, one a kitchen and the other a study. The openings out of these rooms into the central hall have basket-shaped arches. A timber stair connects the lounge to the level above. The severed ends of a number of joists are visible in at least one stairwell wall. The doors opening onto either end of the central hallway have square highlights above them, and narrow sidelights. A small bathroom addition has been built against the eastern verandah façade.
The overall layout of the upper storey is very similar to that described above. A central hall opens off the main entry door on the western façade of the house. To the north of this hall are located three equal sized rooms. In the south-west corner is a study, where the stairs from the lower level arrive. A large space is made on the south-eastern corner where the hall opens out. The current owners have installed a bathroom at the end of the hall, on the east-facing verandah. The ceiling to the study is lined with tongue-and-groove timber boards. There are also painted timber cornices fitted.
The manner in which the internal spaces of both levels are arranged, in particular the stairs opening into an upper-storey room rather than a vestibule or hallway, and the relationship between these and the verandah stairs, suggests that extensive alterations have been made to the original layout of the house. It is difficult to ascertain from this evidence how the early house functioned.
Grounds
The corner allotment on which the house sits is accessed from Canoona Street. Each side of the entranceway is framed by two posts connected to one another by a low brick wall capped with painted render. The innermost posts are rendered, elongated cylinders, while the outermost are square and capped as are the low walls. These items can be seen in the photograph from the 1988 Morning Bulletin article (refer to discussion of history). The entrance is additionally framed by two tall Date Palms (Phoenix dactylifera L.) located inside the boundary fence line. These are also visible in the early photograph featured in the above article.
A small timber house is located to the east of St Aubins, and a plaque states that it was used before the main residence was constructed and then later as servant's quarters. It has a main gable roof, the ridge of which runs east to west, and a separate skillion roof over the verandah. The roofs are clad in corrugated iron, with two dormer windows in the southern face of the gable. The building is clad in weatherboards and the on-ground verandah faces south. A second early, in-ground, brick-lined water tank is situated adjacent to this building's verandah on the south.
Within the grounds of the St Aubins property, a number of timber structures have been relocated from elsewhere during the tenure of the current owners. These buildings do not comprise part of the of the historical significance of the property. They are largely clad in weatherboards with corrugated iron roofs. Also, the current owners have constructed a small brick building with a hipped roof clad in corrugated Colorbond steel. A driveway leads from the Canoona Street entry and between the southern face of the house and the adjacent collection of 'village' buildings. A timber picket fence separates the two areas. In the south-west corner of the property sits the most notable of the relocated structures. It is reputed to be the original Steam Tram Ticket Office originally situated near the Fitzroy River Bridge and Purrey Cottage- Purrey being the name of the French manufacturer of Rockhampton's Steam Tram fleet. The house has a gable roof that extends over a verandah facing Canoona Street to the west. There is a skillion-roofed addition to the eastern façade. All roofs appear to be clad in corrugated iron. On its northern, southern and eastern facades the building appears to be clad in weatherboards. However, on the façade to the verandah the framing is exposed with vertical timber boards behind. The building sits on low timber stumps. The roof edge to the verandah is supported on plain timber posts, between which are cross-braces fitted between a timber top and bottom rail.
The site is heavily treed, except for a wide expanse of lawn to the west of the house. Two established Jacaranda trees (Jacaranda mimosifolia) sit between the north-west corners of the house and the allotment. A large native pine tree sits between the northern face of the house and the Kalare Street boundary. The second of the early photographs featured in the 1988 Morning Bulletin article (refer above) suggests that part of the property was densely covered with tress as it is in 2003, but it is not possible to ascertain which remain from this earlier planting scheme, other than the Date Palms at the entry gate. The remains of a large clay pit are located on the two southerly adjacent allotments. These are not included in the heritage register boundary for St Aubins.
","history":"St Aubins is believed to have been designed and erected c1889 by John (Johann) Rodekirchen. The house site adjoins what remains of the clay pit and brick-making complex which Roderkirchen operated at Lion Creek, West Rockhampton, on land owned by local merchant and politician Albrecht Feez.
Born in Cologne in 1846, Johann Rodekirchen migrated from Hamburg to Rockhampton with his wife Eleanore and two children aboard the Fritz Reuter in October 1877. The Rodekirchen family was part of the boom in immigration that occurred in Queensland as a consequence of government attempts to boost development through population. For a time in the early 1880s the rate of increase in Queensland's population exceeded that of all other colonies and efforts to attract immigrants from Germany were particularly successful. Merchant Albrecht Feez was the representative of the German community in Rockhampton at the time.
Shipping records describe John (Johann) Rodekirchen as a worker or arbeiter, aged thirty years. Little is known of his early years, but Rodekirchen may have been one of the six brick-making works which a Capricornian correspondent reported were operating in the Lion Creek area by late 1885.
Such was the wealth in Rockhampton during the decade of the 1880s that the demand for bricks was considerable. Founded in October 1858, the city steadily had increased in importance as a trading centre for central Queensland. After 1882, when gold was discovered at nearby Mt Morgan, many substantial buildings which displayed the local area's increasing wealth and importance were constructed in Rockhampton.
One of those who profited by owning shares in what was then reportedly the richest single gold mine in the world was Albrecht Feez. A well-known merchant and politician, Feez was born in Bavaria in 1826. Before following his brother Adolphe to Australia in 1852, Albrecht Feez had served as an artilleryman in the Schleswig-Holstein war. The newly arrived Feez worked as a gold-miner, timber-getter, jackaroo and wool-broker before establishing a store in Quay Street, Rockhampton, in 1859. During the following decade his business outgrew this site, after which Albrecht Feez moved to East Street. There he sold wines, spirits, tea, sugar, hardware and what he described in advertisements as 'special lines for squatters'. During the 1870s and 1880s Feez was closely involved with the community of Rockhampton, as a key figure in the German community, Mayor of Rockhampton in 1879 and representative for Leichhardt in the Queensland Legislative Assembly between 1880 and 1883.
Albrecht Feez's ownership of the land on which John Rodekirchen operated his brickworks passed to his sons Adolph and Arthur Feez in 1887. Title to the land was not obtained by John Rodekirchen until 1923.
From the mid to late 1880s, Rodekirchen's Lion Creek kilns supplied bricks not only for his own house, to be named St Aubins by a subsequent owner, but also for a number of the imposing commercial and institutional premises constructed in the city. The list is believed to include Kenmore (QHR 600820), the residence constructed in 1894 by John Ferguson, and the Rockhampton Technical College (QHR 600789) constructed in 1914, now A Block of the Central Queensland Institute of TAFE.
The bricks used in St Aubins are hand made. This labour-intensive process used in the late 1880s kept the price of bricks at £5 to £6 per thousand. By 1895, however, Rodekirchen had mechanized his brick-making. In April of that year he advertised large stocks of machine-made bricks at 'bottom price'. Following mechanization the price of bricks in Rockhampton dropped to £1 12s 6d per thousand.
Exactly what type of machine assistance Rodekirchen used in unknown, although it was sophisticated enough to produce a constant supply of uniform bricks with the frog marked 'Rodekirchen Rockhampton'. Firing occurred in the kilns on site. In a February 1988 Morning Bulletin article, Rodekirchen's granddaughter Ethel Lloyd recalled that the 'bricks would be put into the kiln and the front of it would be plastered with clay. All the men in the district would help with the burning which went on all through the night.' Afterwards the kiln was allowed a few days to cool down.
The Rodekirchen family is believed to have lived at first in the small weatherboard cottage still on the property. The solid brick house they built to replace it featured two external staircases, one to the south that faced the pit and kilns and the other, which was the main staircase for the house, facing west. Ethel Lloyd's reminiscences suggest that, as originally constructed, the rendered brick stairs on the southern façade finished at a landing approximately one metre below the level of the verandah. The current owners speculate that at some time the stairs may have separated at this point and joined the verandah on each side. An undated, early photograph featured in the 1988 Morning Bulletin article (right) shows an opening in the balustrading that is filled by a long piece of similarly styled gate. It also suggests that ornately carved timber brackets were fitted to the verandah posts at least until the 1930s. The balustrading appears very similar to that which is currently in place.
A second early photograph featured in the 1988 Morning Bulletin article (left) also shows that a front gate and fence were constructed on the property's western boundary. Two Date Palms, which are still in place as at 2003, are visible in this photograph. The photograph further suggests that there was established planting on the property at this time.
Rodekirchen's house and brickworks were inundated by Rockhampton's highest flood on record during the months of January and February 1918. The damage was repaired and he continued making bricks until 1926 when, aged eighty, Rodekirchen transferred the business to his son, also named John. In July 1931 the elder Rodekirchen died.
Although the brickworks remained with the family at this time, the Rodekirchen house was sold in June 1934. A succession of owners followed. In 1952 Henry and Elise Brett purchased the property. It is believed they named the house St Aubins in remembrance of ancestors who had left France at the time of the French Revolution.
The current owners purchased St Aubins in January 1970, restoring it as a family home that is now the centerpiece of a tourist business and nursery specialising in herbs. The property, and that adjoining it on Canoona Street where the clay pit is located, currently operates as a 'historical village' where customers can view a number of timber buildings relocated from central Rockhampton alongside
relics found on the site, or purchase and consume light refreshments.
","criteria":"The residence St Aubins is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history because of its links, at a time of significant growth, with Rockhampton's built fabric.
|With the solid manner of its design and construction, attributed to German immigrant John Rodekirchen, St Aubins has the potential to yield further information on the adaptation of European living styles to a Queensland setting.
|In particular, St Aubins has a special association of over thirty-five years with the working life of John Rodekirchen. As a maker of bricks, Rodekirchen is representative of the skilled workers involved in the construction of Rockhampton's built heritage.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15566,"place_ref":600791,"name":"Walter Reid Community Arts Centre","alternate_name":"Walter Reid & Co","street_address":"203 East Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Walter Reid Community Arts Centre, a three-storeyed unpainted cement rendered masonry warehouse structure, is located on the northern corner of East and Derby Streets. The building is separated from Walter Reid Court [600815], another former warehouse, by Quay Lane to the northeast.
The building has masonry cross walls, from East Street to Quay Lane, which divide the structure into three sections. The widest section, consisting of three bays, has a basement and is located at the southeast fronting Derby Street. A narrower three bay section is located centrally, and a two bay section which provides vehicle access through the building is located at the northwest. However, these three sections are not apparent from the exterior of the building, which is composed of regularly spaced bays separated by engaged piers.
The engaged piers have horizontal recesses, suggestive of coursing, and a deep cornice separates ground and first floors. The roof is concealed behind a parapet wall consisting of a deep cornice supporting rendered pillars which surmount the engaged piers. The sections between the pillars have the name WALTER REID AND COMPANY LIMITED in relief. Each corner bay is surmounted by an open bed triangular pediment with the company coat of arms in relief to the centre. The centre bay to both street frontages is surmounted by a rounded pediment with a central vertical moulding crowned by a rendered ornament. The parapet has three surviving flagpoles, two of which are located along the East Street elevation at the western end and in the centre, and the third is located at the eastern end of the Derby Street elevation.
The centre bay to Derby Street is narrower than the centre bay to East Street, however both are detailed in a similar manner, with gablets to the cornice framing the ground floor entrance, a vertical moulding separating the sash windows to the first floor, and an arch moulding framing low sash windows to the second floor. The ground floor is the tallest, and the second floor the shortest of the three floors.
The ground floor elevation has tall, paired sash windows with fanlights to each bay, and the Derby Street section has short segmental arched header lights to the basement. The East Street elevation entrances are located in the central bay, which consists of a loading bay with tall diagonally boarded timber sliding doors, and the second bay from the Derby Street corner, which has a stair accessing recessed doors framed by diagonally boarded timber panels. Vehicle access is located in the second bay from the northern end, and consists of a roller door surmounted by multi-paned glazing, and an introduced fire escape door is located adjacent at street level. The Derby Street entrances are located in the centre bay, which has a stair accessing recessed metal framed glazing, and an introduced fire escape door at the eastern end at street level.
The first floor has paired sash windows with segmental arched fanlights and expressed rendered mouldings to each bay, with the centre bay to East Street having two sets of paired sash windows. The second floor has shorter paired sash windows with arched fanlights to each bay.
The Quay Lane elevation is not rendered, but has a similar composition of regularly spaced engaged piers with paired sash windows to each bay. The ground floor has four loading bays, three of which have cast iron gutter covers which are embossed with the firm's name.
Internal framing is provided by substantial timber columns, bearers and joists, with ceilings lined with galvanised ripple iron to the ground and first floors. Steel box beams are also used in some areas to increase clear spans. Flooring consists of rough sawn timber boards, some areas of which have been sheeted over, and piers to the basement and sub-floor are masonry. The roof has timber framed trusses with bolted connections, forming a saw-tooth profile, with glass louvred clerestory windows. Ceilings are lined on the rake with beaded tongue and groove boarding, and the roof is sheeted with corrugated iron.
The ground floor is split-level, with the northern section slightly above street level for vehicle access. Three openings are provided in the central masonry cross wall to access the central section of the building, which has access to the Derby Street section of the building via a central opening in the adjoining cross wall. A central corridor connects the Derby Street entrance, and the space is partitioned to provide various sized compartments which function as a gallery space, administration offices, amenities, meeting rooms and studio spaces. Fire stairs are located fronting East Street and Quay Lane, and along the Derby Street frontage exiting at the eastern corner. A lift has been introduced on the northeast side of the building adjacent to the Quay Lane fire stairs. A timber stair is located centrally and accesses the basement, which has rendered masonry walls and piers, and a concrete floor. A second timber stair is located at the eastern corner.
The first floor is partitioned similarly, with a central corridor, large gallery and studio spaces, performance areas, and amenities at the eastern corner. A mezzanine has been introduced in the northern section.
The second floor has larger spaces, and the three sections of the building are more identifiable. The northern section houses two large gallery spaces, accessed via two arched openings in the cross wall, and the central section is predominantly open space with amenities at the northeast end. The Derby Street section houses a performance space at the northeast end, and a visiting artist's flat and studio at the southwest end.
","history":"The Former Walter Reid & Co warehouse at the corner of East and Derby Streets was erected between 1900 and 1902 for the wholesalers Walter Reid & Co. The rendered brickwork building was designed by Rockhampton architects Hutton and Hockings and was built by Rockhampton builder Dennis Kelleher. It was the second warehouse to be constructed for the rapidly expanding merchandisers and was built when Rockhampton's activity as a thriving city port fostered such commercial development near the river wharves.
Walter Reid, the founder of Rockhampton's premier mercantile house Walter Reid & Co, came to Rockhampton in 1862 to manage a southern owned retail store in East Street which he subsequently bought in 1864. He moved from his shop to new premises situated in Quay Street in 1868. It was in these new premises where Reid began to specialise as a wholesaler, trading in wine, spirits and general merchandise, supplying the hotels and stations in central Western Queensland. Since Rockhampton had been declared an official port in 1858, it had acted as the major transport and trade centre of central Queensland making it a prosperous city in which wholesale merchants like Reid could base their business.
Walter Reid's business prospered in the expanding colonial economy. He diversified his interests, and ran lighters down the Fitzroy River to Keppel Bay where larger overseas ships unloaded their cargoes. The firm acted as a local agent for British based companies and it was through this business connection that the British company McIlwraith & McEachearn bought Reid out in 1881.
The new owners continued to operate the business under the name of Walter Reid & Co and during the 1880s the turnover was in the vicinity of £50 000 per annum. The firm acted as general merchants distributing groceries, ales, domestic and builders' hardware, farm produce, 'fancy' goods, rural products, drugs, stationery, confectionery, and cigarettes. It also acted as importers and exporters, bondkeepers, storekeepers, produce dealers, shipowners, insurance, stock and station agents, financial agents and general commission agents. By 1890 the business had expanded so dramatically that new premises were needed. The firm moved to the Corner of Quay and Derby Streets taking residence in its new warehouse which was designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey.
The prosperity which Walter Reid & Co had enjoyed throughout the 1880s was reflective of the wealth in Rockhampton during this period. The immense profit generated by gold mining at Mount Morgan from 1882 created a period of economic buoyancy in the city. The success of the firm during the 1880s helped it withstand the depression years of the 1890s and the following devastation which drought brought to Queensland in the early 1900s.
As the new century approached the firm once again needed larger premises and directors of the firm Rees R Jones and John Ferguson acquired land for the company on the corner of East and Derby Streets. The allotment was behind the 1890 warehouse, across Quay Lane and next to the Headrick & Co Warehouse in East Street.
The Walter Reid & Co Warehouse, built between 1900 and 1902, stands as evidence to the activities of the port of Rockhampton around the turn of the century. The building served the passing trade of imports and exports and was situated in an area surrounded by other warehouses and commercial buildings which had developed near the wharves during the prosperous later decades of the 19th century. The 1902 Walter Reid & Co warehouse was the largest mercantile store in Queensland at the time and as such was a symbol of the importance of the Rockhampton port.
The building was designed by Rockhampton architects Hutton & Hockings. Edwin Moreton Hockings was a pupil of Richard Gailey in Brisbane in the 1880s, and while there he entered and won a competition for the design of Rockhampton Girls Grammar School. He joined with Alfred Mowbray Hutton in 1898 after some years of sole practice in Rockhampton. Hutton & Hockings had designed other buildings similar to the Walter Reid warehouse including the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency (1894), and the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co offices in Quay Street (1897-98).
Construction of the Warehouse commenced in 1900 but the drought in central Queensland gave builder Dennis Kelleher (who also built the Rockhampton Post Office in 1892) trouble in finding heavy timber required for the supporting posts. This delay inflated costs for the construction of the warehouse and by 1901 more than £7000 had been outlaid for the building. When completed in 1902 the warehouse included a cartway that ran through the building from East Street to Quay Lane and a system of winches and lifts used to shift goods to the upper floors of the warehouse.
Walter Reid & Company continued to expand importing goods directly from England, America, Europe and India at the turn of the century. A new produce store was built on the corner of Stanley and East Streets, and later a brick wool store on the corner of Stanley and Quay Streets. In 1904 Walter Reid & Co took over one of the oldest established wine and spirit merchants in Brisbane, Brabant & Co as well as a subsidiary business in Mackay, WH Paxton & Co. A Sydney office was established in the 1910s and in the 1920s a large and expensive warehouse was built in the centre of Sydney.
During the Second World War both Walter Reid & Co warehouses on Quay and East Streets were used by American troops. The East Street warehouse was used as a United States Army Hotel, operated by the American Red Cross. After the war Walter Reid & Co moved back into the warehouses and began to diversify its business interests, becoming involved in pastoral and cattle properties, and hotel and retail establishments through subsidiary businesses. In the late 1950s, part of the East Street warehouse was used to manufacture tin and sheet metal until a new factory was built in North Rockhampton. The firm eventually went back towards retailing, buying department stores in Queensland provincial towns and marketing them under the name of 'Reid's'.
Walter Reid & Co was well enough established to survive the winding down of operations at the port in the middle of the 20th century and its main activities were no longer focussed on the river wharves. However by the 1970s the firm was experiencing losses in its grocery wholesaling department due to changes in shopping practices since the 1950s. The company decided to move out of grocery wholesaling and was relocated to North Rockhampton where it continued under the name of 'Reid's'.
Both of Walter Reid & Co's major warehouses in Rockhampton were sold in the 1970s. The warehouse at the corner of East and Derby Streets was bought by the Rockhampton City Council in 1977 and converted to a community arts centre. Before 1975 the building had undergone very little change. During the Second World War when the building was used as a Red Cross Club, toilets and bathrooms were constructed on the second floor. During the late 1950s part of the building was used as a tinware factory and the second floor may have been overlaid with concrete for this purpose, to support the necessary machinery.
In the 1970s two fire isolated concrete stairwells were constructed along the East Street and Quay Lane elevations and a passenger lift was introduced, enclosed in a brick shaft. The exterior of the building is virtually intact and the original dividing walls survive across the building, dividing it into three distinct parts. The overall impact of the changes to the warehouse have been minor and except for the fire stairs the changes could be easily reversed.
","criteria":"The former Walter Reid warehouse on the corner of East and Derby Streets, Rockhampton was erected between 1900 and 1902 and reflects the high level of commercial development which occurred near the wharves on the Fitzroy River during the latter 19th century. As the largest mercantile warehouse of its time in Queensland, the former Walter Reid warehouse stands as a legacy to the prominence of Rockhampton as a commercial city port during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Together with the adjacent Walter Reid Court [600815] erected in 1890 the building is an integral member of a highly intact warehouse precinct reflective of the early trading centre near the wharves.
|The building's exterior finish, of unpainted cement render, is a comparatively rare surviving example of a once common form of exterior architectural treatment.
|The Walter Reid Community Arts Centre is a typical example of warehouse construction, utilising masonry load-bearing external walls with heavy timber columns and bearers supporting timber floors and a saw-tooth roof. The building also retains elements such as the basement, through carriage-way, large interior volumes and evidence of early machinery, all of which are typical of warehouse structures.
|The Walter Reid Community Arts Centre, a three-storeyed former warehouse structure, has a considerable street presence due to its massive bulk, long street elevations and unpainted cement rendered facade. The building is recognised as a local landmark and makes a significant contribution to the Rockhampton streetscape and townscape. The building is of aesthetic merit, and the form, fabric and materials illustrate a skilled design approach.
|The building has special association for the people of Rockhampton as an historical landmark which contributes to the image of the city.
|It also has special association with Walter Reid & Co, a longstanding Rockhampton based mercantile company which was important in Queensland economic history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The building stands as an important example of the work of Rockhampton architects Hutton & Hockings (1898-1904).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15567,"place_ref":600792,"name":"Rockhampton Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Post and Telegraph Offices","street_address":"80 East Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"The Rockhampton Post Office, a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure with an arcaded sandstone facade and corrugated iron hipped roof, is located on the western corner of East and Denham Streets, fronting the East Street mall to the northeast.
The Post Office was originally constructed as separate postal and telegraph buildings linked together by means of a clock tower and an arcaded sandstone facade to both street frontages. The two buildings were separated by a laneway, above which the clock tower was located. This laneway has since been enclosed and now forms the central entry to the building.
The arcaded sandstone facade is punctuated by projecting balconies which are supported by columns at each corner flanking entrance steps. The balconies are located below the clock tower and centrally along both street frontages. The ground floor arcade comprises arches, with expressed keystones, separated by pilasters and surmounted by a deep entablature with triglyphs. The ground floor arcade has a raised base with a terrazzo floor with non-slip applied finishes. Steps are located below the projecting balconies and at the corner of East and Denham Streets, and the ceiling is finished with fibrous cement sheeting.
The first floor arcade comprises columns supporting an entablature with dentils, surmounted by a sandstone parapet balustrade to the roof. The arcade has arched sections with expressed keystones located behind the projecting balconies, flanking the clock tower, and at the end corners of both street elevations. The arched sections flanking the clock tower, and at the southern corner of the Denham Street elevation, are enclosed with large arched sash windows. The arcade has cast iron balustrade panels, with a sandstone hand rail, and the projecting balconies have a sandstone balustrade with corner pillars. The balconies are also framed by columns supporting a pediment crowned by a sandstone ornament. The arcade has a boarded ceiling, and a stair is located at the southern corner of the Denham Street elevation.
The base of the clock tower has a central entrance at the ground level surmounted by sandstone corbelling supporting a projecting balcony above. The entrance is flanked by pilasters, and the balcony is framed by paired columns, flanked by pilasters, supporting a broken pediment with central circular opening crowned by a sandstone ornament. The clock tower has a square plan with corner pilasters supporting a deep entablature with dentils surmounted by a sandstone parapet balustrade to the roof. The tower has a circular clock face with sandstone surrounding moulding to each side. The northeastern clock face has the words ANNO 1890 DOMINI (literally translated as 'in the year of our Lord 1890') in relief above, and TEMPVS FVGIT CITO PEDE (literally translated as 'Time flies on winged feet') in relief below. The tower is crowned by a cast iron cupola, which consists of a central dome, surmounted by a spire, with pediments supported by columns to four sides.
The northern end of the building has rendered coursing to the corners, rendered parapet details, and expressed coursing at the first floor sill height. The first floor has tall sash windows and the ground floor has arched sash windows, all with window hoods comprising metal brackets with timber battens and corrugated iron awnings. A tall masonry wall abuts this elevation, adjoining the adjacent building to the northwest, forming a vehicular entrance to the rear service court. A rear wing consists of the remains of an original rear annex with several additions. The wing has sash windows with window hoods to the early section, with louvred ventilation panels to the rear plant area.
The rear of the building has a large single-storeyed addition which infills the original U-shaped rear courtyard. This addition has a shallow pitch roof, masonry walls and metal framed glazing. The first floor has a verandah which is enclosed with mostly glass louvred panels and has an ogee shaped corrugated iron roof.
Internally, the building has rendered masonry walls, and contains suspended lighting and air-conditioning ductwork. The ground floor central entry, located in the infilled original laneway, has sliding glass doors accessing a central foyer with a metal framed and timber stair. The northern end contains the public counter, and has central timber posts with shaped capitals and boarded timber ceilings. Large sash windows and french doors with arched fanlights open onto the arcade. The southeast end contains mail sorting facilities, with partitioned office areas including the original strongroom, adjacent to the central entry. This area has boarded timber ceilings, and large openings which access the rear addition. The french doors and sash windows, which originally opened onto the arcade at the southern end of the building, have been removed to create arched openings which access a concertina arrangement of private mail boxes. The rear addition has open mail sorting space with three partitioned offices against the inside rear wall. This area has exposed metal roof trusses and vinyl floor tiles.
The first floor has large sash windows, french doors with arched fanlights (located opposite the projecting balconies), and timber panelled doors with fanlights opening onto the arcade. The southeast end has boarded timber ceilings, open office space with two partitioned rooms, and central timber posts with shaped capitals. The southwest end also has central timber posts with shaped capitals and boarded timber ceilings, and contains a lunch and amenities area with a central partitioned structure containing kitchen facilities, store and locker room. The southwest end contains toilet facilities, remnants of an original kitchen fireplace, and a metal framed and timber stair is located adjacent at the southwest end of the arcade.
The central section of the first floor has a fibrous cement panelled ceiling with a partitioned office which fronts the arcade with a large sash window in a rendered masonry wall. This section of the arcade originally overlooked the laneway, and retains the original sandstone balustrade and paired columns which are now positioned in front of the infill wall. This section of the arcade also originally contained two stairs, either side of the laneway, and evidence of this area survives including sections of rendered masonry walls with door openings. A metal ladder also accesses the clock tower above. The central metal framed and timber stair is located behind the partitioned office and accesses the roof space above.
The northern end has timber and fibrous cement partitions which divided the space into various sized offices. The ceilings have fibrous cement sheeting, and the northwestern rear wing contains service rooms. The rear verandah has a concrete stair with metal handrail at the northwestern end, and timber lattice screen with gate at the southern end.
","history":"This grand two-storeyed brick post office with sandstone facing was erected in 1892 for the Queensland Post and Telegraph Department. It was designed in the office of Colonial Architect George Connolly, and was built by Dennis Kellaher for £14 368. Situated at the corner of Denham and East Streets, it was the sixth post office to be established in Rockhampton after a succession of temporary and superseded post offices.
An unofficial post office was established at Rockhampton in 1858 at a store in Little Quay Street and in 1861 was relocated to a chemist shop. In December 1862, Postmaster General Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior recommended the establishment of an official post office in Rockhampton. By 1863 the first official Postmaster had been appointed and a temporary wooden post office building was constructed on the present post office site between 1863 and 1865.
During this period Rockhampton's postal services had expanded greatly. In 1865 Rockhampton was linked with Brisbane, via the inland route, through Taroom, Hawkwood, Dalby, Toowoomba and Ipswich and by the mid 1860s most outposts in Central Queensland were in touch with Rockhampton through fortnightly or weekly mail services. On 20 November 1864 a telegraph line was opened between Rockhampton and Gladstone and the first telegraph office was opened in a chemist shop.
The makeshift wooden post office was replaced in 1866 by an ornate two-storeyed brick building with decorative wooden verandahs. This building was designed by Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin but was originally planned for Maryborough. Due to the cost of materials exceeding the budget for the post office originally planned for Rockhampton, the plans for the post offices were swapped. The two buildings were designed concurrently by Tiffin.
In 1876, the Rockhampton Post Office had processed more than a quarter of a million ordinary letters and fifteen thousand registered letters as well as providing money order and savings bank services.
From 1879, postal and telegraph services were amalgamated under the Queensland Post and Telegraph Department, but the two services continued to operate separately in Rockhampton, with both a Post and Telegraph Master. In 1883 a new telegraph office was erected next to the old post office. At this time Rockhampton was the main telegraph traffic centre for central and north Queensland and was the largest telegraph office outside Brisbane.
In 1881 telephones were introduced to Rockhampton with the first telephone exchange opening in April 1884 in a low, wooden building behind the telegraph office and next to the old post office facing East Street. By 1886 the old post office of twenty years and the 1883 telegraph office were too small and the Colonial Architect was requested to plan a new building. With the construction of the 1892 Post and Telegraph Office the three buildings which housed Rockhampton's communication network were demolished and a temporary post office was established in the old Court House while construction was taking place.
The present post office was constructed of brick with a facade of sandstone from the nearby Stanwell Quarries. It was constructed by Dennis Kellaher when his tender for £14 368 was accepted as the lowest. Kellaher was also contracted to install the first floor accommodation for the Post and Telegraph Masters for £3579.
The original design of the Post and Telegraph Office was reflective of the separate services of the two departments. The Postal section was located on the corner of Denham and East streets and the Telegraph section was located at the northern end of the building facing East Street. The two were separated by a carriage-way and a clock tower which was installed in September 1894 by the Government Clockmaker. (The clock was made by Gillet and Johnston of Croydon, England, and cost £325.) The first floor was dedicated entirely to accommodation for the Post and Telegraph Masters, each of their apartments situated above their respective sections on the ground floor.
The front wing of the Post Office section was originally divided into rooms for the savings bank and money order office, delivery room and the private letter box office by partitions of cedar with embossed panels. The delivery room of the new Post Office introduced an innovation in customer service by installing a counter in order to hand correspondence to the public instead of the usual method of serving through a small window.
In the three decades leading to the establishment of the 1892 post office, Rockhampton had proved itself a thriving commercial centre due to its position as an official port of entry servicing a vast area of central Queensland. The immense financial boost from the Mt Morgan gold rush in the 1880s further established Rockhampton as a wealthy commercial centre. The grand structure of the Rockhampton Post Office symbolised the prominence of the city during this period and the confidence which was held for its future. Many buildings of similar architectural and aesthetic calibre which were constructed in Rockhampton during this period (eg. Quay Street) were a manifestation of the city's economic wealth. With Federation looming, the establishment of the Rockhampton Post Office was held as a great boon to the advancement of the separationist movement which had long supported a political rivalry with the capital of Brisbane.
Rockhampton was the communication nexus for the developing areas of central and north Queensland and the continuing use of the Rockhampton Post Office for postal services over the last century clearly demonstrates the development of communication technology in one of the most important postal centres of Queensland. While the grand, stone exterior of the post office has remained largely intact, the interior of the building has been altered a number of times to accommodate the changing needs of the postal and telegraph services.
During construction of the post office, parcel post was introduced to Queensland, and one of the first alterations occurred in 1896 to provide more suitable accommodation for the processing of packages. A separate space for parcels was created at the rear of the building with a new public counter accessible through the Denham Street arcade. Another extension was added at this time at the rear of the post office section adjacent to the carriage-way.
Following Federation in 1901, the colonial post and telegraph services were handed over to the Commonwealth Government and the Rockhampton Post Office became the Property of the Post Master General's Department. By 1913, the Telegraph Masters accommodation had been replaced with staff facilities and a telephone switch room which was subsequently expanded in 1921 to cope with the rapidly increasing demand for telephones.
In 1940, the present automatic telephone exchange building was opened enabling the telegraph operating room in the Post and Telegraph Office to be moved upstairs while the dispatch office and public counter remained on the ground floor. By 1945 the Post Master's accommodation on the first floor had been removed for use as offices and the first floor carriage-way had been infilled.
In 1945, the first floor telegraph rooms were updated with new telegraph and phonogram accommodation. Rockhampton was one of the seven original telegraph traffic centres to be equipped in 1947 with an Auxiliary radio channel for use during periods of land line failure.
In 1963 the ground floor carriage way was infilled and a central staircase inserted. A new main entrance was positioned at the former entrance to the carriage-way, under the clock-tower, and an extension was constructed at the rear of the building joining completely the two separate sections of the building.
In 1975, the Australian Post Master General's Office became two separate commissions, Australia Post and Telecom, with telegraphic communications no longer a constituent of the Post Office. The interior of the Post Office was refurbished in 1980 with the exterior maintaining its grand colonnaded facade. In the 1988 the french doors and sash windows which originally opened onto the arcade at the southern end of the building were removed to create arched openings to access a concertina arrangement of private mailboxes. The Rockhampton Post Office ceased functioning as the main post office in Rockhampton in May 1997.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Post Office, erected in 1892, is important because it reflects the rise of Rockhampton as the major commercial centre of central Queensland during the late nineteenth century. In the 1880s, Rockhampton benefited economically from the mining of gold at Mount Morgan. The immense wealth generated from the gold mines created a period of buoyancy in Rockhampton which produced many prestigious buildings of which the Rockhampton Post Office is an outstanding example. The Post Office building was a symbol of confidence for the future of Rockhampton and was held as a great boon for the separation movement which saw Rockhampton as the future capital of a separate state.
|The Rockhampton Post Office is a prime example of a grand Queensland Post Office with a sandstone facade. The building is important in demonstrating the planning of a nineteenth century Post Office, and of the four stone-faced post offices in Queensland (ie. Brisbane [600142], Warwick [600525], Toowoomba [600847] and Rockhampton) the Rockhampton Post Office is the most outstanding example of this type of structure.
|The Rockhampton Post Office is significant architecturally as an example of Victorian Classical architecture of the late nineteenth century. The building is of considerable aesthetic significance, and its form and fabric exhibit a skilled design approach. The Post Office, through its scale, detailing and prominent clock tower, is recognised as a local landmark and makes an important contribution to the Rockhampton streetscape and townscape. The building is an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton, and the detailing of its materials and finishes demonstrate a fine quality of workmanship.
|The Rockhampton Post Office holds a special association for the people of Rockhampton. Its landmark position and its role as a meeting place for the local community has established the post office building as a symbol of Rockhampton.
|The Rockhampton Post Office has a special association with the post and telegraph services in Queensland which spans over 100 years. It illustrates the changing functions of a major post office from the late nineteenth century to the present. The building is also an important example of the work of the office of Colonial Architect George Connolly from 1885-1891.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15568,"place_ref":600793,"name":"John M Headrick & Co. Building (former)","alternate_name":"Pinnochio's Nite Club; East Street Entertainment Centre | John Headricks Building | Burns Philp & Co.","street_address":"187 East Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The John M Headrick & Co. Building is located on a block of East Street, bounded to the south-east and north-west respectively by Derby and William Streets, and populated with a number of other buildings of heritage significance. Those listed on the Queensland Heritage Register include: the Walter Reid Community Arts Centre (600791) and the Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP) Building (600794), each of which is adjacent to the property under discussion. Further to the north-west on East Street are located the Rockhampton Post Office and Court House Precinct, both of which are listed on the Queensland Heritage Register and the Australian Heritage Commission's Register of the National Estate.
The street frontage of this two-storey, rendered brick building is approximately 33.5m long. It extends back almost 46m to Quay Lane, which runs along the north-eastern edge of the five occupied allotments. This subsidiary road forms part of a system of laneways that inhabits the city centre's orthogonal grid and services its primary streets. The grid is aligned to the course of the Fitzroy River that flows from the north-west to the south-east. The John M Headrick & Co. Building is situated within the central business district of Rockhampton; the main pedestrian mall is two blocks to the north-west, the river is a block away to the north-east, and the central railway station five blocks to the south-east.
The area covered by this warehouse building totals almost 1350m2. Its brick shell is articulated throughout with cement render; the painted front façade to East Street being ornately treated with freely employed classical motifs. It is composed of three major segments, each consisting of three bays formed with two framing and two centrally disposed engaged piers, which are topped by a course of pediments and a decorated parapet. Single narrow bays join the three segments. A number of striking horizontal lines are modelled across the front façade: a pedestal or base line, a stringcourse above the ground storey windows, a continuous sill line to the upper storey windows, a line of parapets above these openings, and a capping course running through the parapet. These do not interrupt the verticality created by the repetition of bays along the length of the façade.
The central façade segment is surmounted by a decorated parapet projection that spans the width of its three constituent bays. The two centrally disposed engaged piers are topped with a curved pediment, while the two framing piers are each topped with a small triangular pediment moulding. In the parapet, a small, semicircular gable and projecting panel supported either side by curved brackets mirror the curve in the pediment below. The words 'Headrick's' and 'Established 1860' are lettered on this part of the ornate parapet. Above each framing pier and their pediments the parapet is articulated with a pedestal-like moulding.
The two flanking segments of the front façade are similarly modelled, however, their central bays are surmounted by triangular pediments and lower, generally triangular projections on the parapet. Each pedestal-like projection on the parapet that is without further decoration is topped with an urn. Across the parapet panel that spans the length of the front façade, and between the pedestal modellings, are inserted the words 'John M - Headrick - & Company - General Merchants - John - Headrick - & Company'.
The line of pediments sits on a cornice-like stringcourse supported on numerous miniature consoles. The central bay of each façade segment is narrower that the ones that flank it. On the upper level of the façade, the top half of all flanking piers in this system are fluted. Within the central bay is a window with three transoms and a fanlight. The moulding course that separates fanlight from window is carried through on all upper storey windows. These central windows are decorated with semicircular label moulds and keystones. The flanking windows in this system are wider and divided in two by a rendered mullion. They have three transoms and fanlights split in two by the mullion. The shafts of the engaged piers that correspond to this level of the building are simply modelled in their faces addressing East Street.
The pattern of openings on the ground storey section of the façade is not as regular as that described above. There are narrow windows with fanlights located in the central bays of two of the three façade segments. The opening in the remaining segment is a door with fanlight. Those windows that flank them are generally divided in two by a rendered mullion, as are the ones above, but the arches to their fanlights are flatter. All windows on this level have four transoms. The segment adjoining the AMP building (600794) to the north-west of this property is the only one that conforms generally to the pattern suggested in the overall façade design. A large opening pierces the northern side of the central segment, while a smaller, shuttered opening fills the final bay on the south-eastern end adjoining the Walter Reid building (600791). A narrow canvas canopy has been installed above the widest opening, which currently serves as entry to the entertainment/nightclub premises. A series of Tuscan-style pilasters decorate the engaged piers to the ground storey.
On the rear façade of the building addressing Quay Lane, there are four triangular, gable-like projections to the parapet. The surface of the façade is roughly cement rendered with a number of openings on the ground level, a large one of which at the northern end appears to have been closed up. On the upper level the only openings are in the bay surmounted by the triangular parapet projection adjacent to the allotment that houses the AMP Building (600794). There are three: the cental window is tall and narrow, has a highlight and is divided by four transoms; and the flanking two are shorter but also have highlights and four transoms. These windows are evenly disposed over the width of the bay and each have projecting sills.
There are five downpipes and rainwater heads fixed to this façade. Two frame the northernmost bay, while two more are centred on the apexes of the southernmost façade sections. A final downpipe is fitted at the southern end of the façade. Given that the northernmost bay corresponds to the part of this building that was constructed first in 1894-95, and the position of the downpipes, it is likely that its roof between East Street and Quay Lane was a gable. The only other visible façade is that which faces the north-western allotment. It is rendered in a similar fashion to the rear façade and has no windows.
Interiors
The long corridor of building that corresponds to that which was constructed in 1894-95 is still evident in the ground floor layout. A long wall with engaged piers separates this section of the building from the larger part added during the renovations of 1911. In early 2003, the latter component of the building was being used as an entertainment centre with a nightclub above. Entry to the upper storey venue could either be gained via the shuttered opening on the front façade and a large flight of stairs, or via a second flight of stairs positioned against the dividing interior wall. The large ground floor entertainment tenancy was occupied by a series of brick piers. At the rear of this space, a store and services facilities have been installed.
","history":"The first two-storeyed brick and render section of the John M Headrick & Co. Building was constructed in 1894-95 to house the offices and stores of that mercantile company. It was designed by the architect Alfred Mowbray Hutton. Carrying through the classical motifs employed in the earlier design while almost trebling its frontage on East Street, the architect Edwin Morton Hockings renovated and greatly extended the building in 1911.
Rockhampton was established beside the Fitzroy River on land that was originally part of Gracemere, a pastoral property taken up by the Archer family in the 1850s. Following a gold discovery at Canoona station and a survey by Arthur F Wood, the town of Rockhampton was proclaimed on 25 October 1858. Wood had worked with the surveyor Robert Hoddle in laying out Melbourne, and the author of the town plan, Francis Clarke, was Victoria's surveyor general at the time. The involvement of these people may explain a certain similarity between each city's plans, as well as, in terms of Queensland, the uncommon generosity of scale with which Rockhampton was laid out. A municipal council was formed on 15 December 1860.
The patriarch of the Headrick family, John Mackay Headrick Snr, emigrated to Geelong in the colony of Victoria from the Scottish Lowlands in 1852 at age 32. He arrived in Rockhampton ten years later, and after two years he and a friend from Geelong, EP Livermore, established a business- Headrick, Livermore & Co.- on East Street just off Archer Street in the northern corner of the burgeoning town centre. Over the 20 year course of their partnership, the business was simply known as Headrick & Co. and operated from various locations in East Street.
Around 1880, Headrick, Livermore & Co was sold to Messrs Aplin, Brown & Co. and JM Headrick Snr dropped out of Rockhampton commercial life. This company, along with the business of Capt RM Hunter, was bought by a southern firm and became Sloan & Co. The mercantile branch of this business was then sold to Mr EK Ogg during the time that John Mackay Headrick Jnr was working for it. In July 1884 JM Headrick Jnr and Andrew Newton bought the mercantile business from Ogg and started JM Headrick & Co. in premises on East Street located between William and Derby Streets. Toward the end of the same year, Headrick Snr died at his residence on the Athelstane Range.
JM Headrick Jnr ran the business alone until taking on his younger brother, Arthur Edward Hutchison Headrick, as partner in 1893. Sometime prior to this Newton had retired. The 1890s was a period characterised by droughts and floods, which resulted in economic depression and hardship for the colony. Despite these conditions, JM Headrick & Co. purchased Kent Brewery on the corner of Bolsover and Albert Streets in 1894, retaining it until 1905. In the same year, due to a growth in its trade business, the company built the warehouse on East Street that is the subject of this entry. It was the first architectural commission in Rockhampton undertaken by the architect Alfred Mowbray Hutton. The contractors were Messrs Holmes and Henrikson. The three subdivisions of land upon which this building was constructed had been part of an allotment originally purchased in 1860 by Sarah Maria Pitts. The relevant subdivisions had been purchased by JM Headrick Snr in 1883 and their title was transferred to his wife after his death the following year. It was not until 1926 that title was transferred to JM Headrick & Co.
AM Hutton had been born in Victoria, and practiced there before taking over the Rockhampton practice of James Flint, to whom he was related by marriage, in mid-1894. He also designed a hotel for JM Headrick & Co. at Lake's Creek the following year. Hutton practiced widely in Rockhampton, both as a sole practitioner and in partnership with EM Hockings, who was to design the later extension of the Headrick company's East Street premises. The Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Building or ABC Studios (QHR 600812) in Quay Street was also designed by Hutton in 1897-98. He and Hockings completed design projects elsewhere in East Street during the term of their partnership, which lasted from 1898 until 1904. Hutton died in July 1911.
JM Headrick & Co. took over their new building in 1895. An advertisement in the 1897-99 Queensland Post Office Directory describes the company as general merchants and importers; station, receiving, forwarding and custom house agents; wine and spirit merchants, as well as brewers. Their offices and warehouse are noted as being in East Street. A 1901 advertisement gives their precise address on East Street as No. 201.
In September 1898 JM Headrick Jnr died at age 38 leaving the business to be carried on by his brother Arthur. The former had been born in Geelong and had worked for the Bank of NSW in its Clermont branch prior to coming to Rockhampton and establishing the company bearing his name.
Title for two further subdivisions of the original allotment bought by SM Pitts was transferred to AEH Headrick and JM Headrick's widow, Annie Isabel, in 1909.
In 1911, using the additional subdivisions purchased in 1909, the East Street warehouse was extended in accordance with a design by EM Hockings, who was born in 1870 in Brisbane. He first moved to Rockhampton in 1890 after winning a competition to design the town's Girls Grammar School. Richard Gailey's firm, to which he was articled, took over documentation of the project and he assumed the role of clerk of works. Hockings began his own practice in Rockhampton in 1895. The 1911 refurbishment he undertook trebled the size of the premises of JM Headrick & Co. Essentially his design repeated the basic template established by the earlier 1894-95 building, creating a coordinated façade out of three replications of it.
A photo in the Rockhampton District Historical Society collection, which was taken after completion of the 1911 extension, shows the signage on the building that remains in place in 2003. A second photograph from this collection depicts the original East Street building, before renovation (refer below). While the street façade of the 1911 extension is fully rendered with cement, only certain elements on the earlier façade are, the underlying brick being visible over much of it. A single-storey house and the AMP building (QHR 600794) adjoin either side of the property, which also had a gently curved footpath canopy supported on cast iron columns.
In 1923 AEH Headrick died and John M Headrick & Co. was converted into a limited liability company with FM Sealy, who had joined in 1885, made Managing Director. JAC Headrick, the elder son of JM Headrick Jnr, was made a Director, as was HJ Myles, the son-in-law of AEH Headrick. An April 1926 Morning Bulletin article describes this company as 'wine, spirit, hardware, and general merchants, station agents, receiving, forwarding, shipping, insurance and custom house agents, and direct importers of flour, teas, sugars, tobaccos, crockery, glassware, saddlery, wool pack, fencing wire, sheep shears, oil stores, and all station, hotel and storekeepers requisites, wines and spirits, and bulk and bottled ale and stout.'
It is not until the early 1980s that the title on the entire property, including all five subdivisions, was transferred out of the Headrick company. At this time extensive alterations were carried out. Sometime during the 1970s, the building and business was owned and occupied by Burns Philp & Co., the mercantile and shipping company having a long association with central and northern Queensland. Under the 1990s tenure of new owners, the building was converted into a nightclub and has continued to the present day as an entertainment facility.
","criteria":"The history of the John M Headrick & Co Building- erected in 1894-95 and extended in 1911- demonstrates the changing pattern of mercantile trading in a major regional centre of Queensland. The company was associated with the commercial life of Rockhampton from the boom decade of the 1880s for over 100 years. The building carrying its name occupied a prominent location in the heart of the city throughout that period.
|The structure retains the chief characteristics of a commercial premises built and extended during Australia's Federation Period; the street façade is articulated with freely employed classical details common among such buildings, while the unadorned side and rear façades reflect its utilitarian purposes.
|Although its interior has been greatly altered, the John M Headrick & Co. building maintains a strong presence in the commercial heart of Rockhampton and along the streetscape of East Street. Because of this it is aesthetically important. It sits between the former AMP Building (600794) and the Walter Reid Community Arts Centre (600791).
|The building- still bearing the name of its most long-lived occupants (John M Headrick & Co.)- has a strong connection with the Headrick family, whose business and civic interests in Rockhampton began as early as 1862. It is also an example of the work of prominent Queensland architect EM Hockings. The design of its East Street façade owes a great deal to the 'free classical' concepts employed by AM Hutton the designer of the original building component. He was a well-known local architect who designed many buildings in the city's historical central business district, including the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Building (or ABC Studios) on Quay Street (600812). This was his first Rockhampton commission.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15569,"place_ref":600794,"name":"AMP Building (former)","alternate_name":"Brahman House","street_address":"183 East Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP) Building is located on a block of East Street, which is bounded to the south-east and north-west respectively by Derby and William Streets, and populated with a number of other buildings of heritage significance. Those listed on the Queensland Heritage Register include: the Walter Reid Community Arts Centre (600791), and the East Street Entertainment or John Headrick & Co Building (600793). As Brahman House, the building is included on the Australian Heritage Commission's Register of the National Estate. Further to the north-west on East Street are located the Rockhampton Post Office and Court House Precinct, both of which are listed on the Registers described above.
The two-storey building is located within the central business district of Rockhampton; the Fitzroy River is a block away to the north-east, and the central railway station five blocks to the south-east. Running along the short, north-eastern edge of the allotments is Quay Lane, which forms part of a system of such laneways that inhabits the city centre's orthogonal grid and services its primary streets. The grid is aligned to the course of the river that flows from the north-west to the south-east. Together the two allotments total almost 430m2 in area.
Two corridors of space separate the AMP building from the properties on either side. The corridor facing the north-western allotment boundary is approximately 150mm wide, while that to the opposite boundary shared with the John Headricks Building (600793) is over 1m- wide enough to allow room for an external fire escape stair. The original AMP building occupies approximately half of the allotment addressing East Street, while a further quarter of the remaining site area has been filled by a recent single-storey addition. The rear section of site facing Quay Lane is used for car parking.
The 1888 building is constructed of brick faced with cement render, which is painted and modelled to varying degrees on each façade. An arcaded loggia almost 2.5m deep has been formed on the front façade using three evenly disposed archways. Horizontally this façade is divided into three bands...the ground and first storeys, and a decorated parapet- with classical modellings. The archways to the ground storey are framed by four Roman Doric-style pilasters topped with an entablature spanning the full width of the building. Above the middle archway, and supported on two central pilasters is a gently curved pediment. Its gable is decorated with a moulding of a shield and garlands to each side. The frieze of the entablature is embellished with triglyphs and rosettes, while the lower halves of the pilasters are fluted and sit on pedestals about 1m high. The lines of the base, plinth and pedestal mouldings are carried through to the wall from which the pilasters stand proud. The basket arches to the ground-storey loggia each have a simply modelled extrados and keystone, and are spring from imposts.
The upper storey component of the front facade is formed with four rectangular columns, which sit directly above the pilasters. There are basket arches formed by these columns, which are modelling in a similar fashion to those described earlier. The columns have Corinthian capitals and simple mouldings on their East Street shafts. Between each column, the balustrading is topped with a rail of modelled render. While the curved pediment from below fills the space between the central two columns and underneath its top rail, on each side sections of curved balusters are fitted. A further entablature, again running the width of the building, caps this arcade and separates it from the parapet above. The current name of the building 'Brahman House' is placed in the frieze, each end of which is finished with a rosette. The scale of this cornice is somewhat exaggerated. The parapet is framed with two pedestal-like projections at each end of the façade, upon which sit decorative urns. In the centre, above the curved pediment, the parapet projection has a second layer topped with a further cornice. The line of moulding with which the end pedestals are capped runs the length of the parapet, forming a top rail for the sections of curved balusters fitted to each side of the central projection. In the centre, below this moulding line the date 'A 1888 D' has been placed. A recent sign in the shape of two Brahman bulls, facing each direction of East Street, sits on this raised piece of parapet above the date.
There are two steps separating the East Street footpath and the loggia on the ground storey. The floor to this area is lined with a chequered pattern of black and white ceramic tiles that is bordered with coloured tiles (blue and tan). Ornate, cast iron gates close off the lower half of each archway. The interior façade of this loggia is faced with painted, cement render. A stringcourse matching the impost line from the exterior is carried through here. Two double doors and a large central window correspond with the position of the archways on the outer building face. The entry door is on the right hand side when approaching from the street. At each door, there is a step up into the building from the loggia level. The outer double doors are painted timber and each leaf is divided into three parts. A small tiled alcove separates the entry doors from a second set, which have etched glass inserts in each low-waisted leaf. These also have ornate brass handles and appear to be made of polished cedar. The inner façade's window is divided into three double-hung sashes- two outer narrow ones and a wide central one. The large sill is supported on four consoles. The heads of each door is formed by the impost or entablature moulding, which separates them from a transom light. The window heads are in line with the heads of the transom lights. The sides of this ground floor loggia are made with archways that match those facing East Street. They are filled with a low balustrading like that on the parapet and tall cast iron fencing. The ceiling to this space appears to be rendered and gently curved between the street and inside façade.
On the upper storey of the arcade is a verandah. The inside face of this space has three evenly disposed cedar doors around which are bands of render moulding. The doors are French, with curved heads in each leaf and rectangular pivoted fanlights above. The flat verandah ceiling has simple cornices and is lined with a sheet material made of tiny corrugations similar to 'ripple iron'. The sides to each boundary have archways matching those facing East Street.
The side and rear facades appear to be faced with render, which is scored to resemble ashlar and painted. While there are no windows in the north-western side façade, a number open out of the south-eastern one looking onto the fire escape corridor. The side walls extend above the level of the corrugated iron roof, which appears to be hipped. Its ridge runs on an axis between East Street and Quay Lane, and is punctured by at least one decorative iron vent. A modelled chimneystack also emerges out of the north-west face of the hip. The single-storey addition to the rear is constructed of painted concrete masonry walls and a hipped, corrugated Colorbond roof. On each level, there are three openings on the rear façade of the original building. The upper storey windows are still visible from Quay Lane. Two are square-headed double-hung sashes and another, positioned lower than these two, opens into the rear stairway. This is a double-hung sash with a semicircular head.
Interiors
The ground storey is divided into a reception area, a small open-plan work area and two offices at the rear. To the front of the building, against the north-western side of the building, is a long storage space partly occupied by a single flight of polished timber stairs. A door surrounded by a deep cedar frame, connects this space with the reception area. To the rear of this is a stair that doubles back on itself in reaching the upper level. The strong room is still evident between the storage corridor, the front reception area and a rear corridor. A lining of double brick is visible on the interior of the door opening into the strong room. The floors in this room are unlined concrete, while those elsewhere on the same level are variously lined with carpet or vinyl.
The ornately carved cedar reception desk remains in place. It connects into similarly carved cedar panelling that encloses the entry alcove described earlier. This sits below the level of the rectangular fanlight to the outer door, and is topped with a carved entablature supported by fluted pilasters. The reception desk is embellished with a number of panels of ceramic inlay.
The two offices at the rear of the building are separated from the front work area with a floor-to-ceiling height screen made up of a lower half of timber panelling and semi-transparent glass held in timber frames above. The timber is stained and polished to match the colouring of the other original cedar fittings. The ground floor ceiling height is approximately 3m throughout. The wall-to-ceiling join and two cross-beams are decorated with an ornate cornice, the most prominent feature of which are rows of dentils. The rear timber and glass screen collides with an ornately decorated cornice line and two plaster ceiling roses, suggesting that it was added sometime after the original building fit-out.
The rear staircase balustrading is made of ornately carved, polished cedar. Its underside is lined with ripple iron. The upper level is divided into a number of offices and a large meeting room that opens onto the East Street verandah. The ceiling in the one of the upper level rooms is lined entirely with ripple iron, and decorated with less ornate cornices than those installed on the lower level. There is an ornate vent panel in the centre of this ceiling. In one of the walls of this room there is a large metal door, possibly leading into a safe.
The meeting room has matching cornices and its mantelpiece is made of marble, with simply applied decoration framing each side. The fireplace consists of a cast-iron grate and a tiled hearth. Separating the mantel sides and the grate are columns of ceramic tiles with an elegant botanical motif. The door into the meeting room is made of painted timber, and has four panels and a pivoting rectangular fanlight. Throughout this storey, the floor-to-ceiling height is approximately 3m.
","history":"The AMP Building, currently known as Brahman House, is constructed in masonry faced most ornately with painted and modelled cement render on its loggia to East Street. Designed using classical motifs by the former Queensland Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, this two-storey structure was built for the Australian Mutual Provident Society (AMP) in 1888.
Rockhampton was established beside the Fitzroy River on land that was originally part of Gracemere, a pastoral property taken up by the Archer family in the 1850s. Following a gold discovery at Canoona station and a survey by Arthur F Wood, the town of Rockhampton was proclaimed on 25 October 1858. Wood had worked with the surveyor Robert Hoddle in laying out Melbourne, and the author of the town plan, Francis Clarke, was Victoria's surveyor general at the time. The involvement of these people may explain a certain similarity between each city's plans, as well as, in terms of Queensland, the uncommon generosity of scale with which Rockhampton was laid out. A municipal council was formed on 15 December 1860.
The land on which this building sits was part of a larger allotment originally purchased by John Bowen Peter Hamilton Ramsay (also known as 'Alphabet' Ramsey) and William Henry Gaden in May 1859 for £30. It was located in the heart of Rockhampton's burgeoning commercial district. The original allotment was subdivided in 1884 and one of the two parcels purchased in 1886 by the Australian Mutual Provident Society, whose presence in Rockhampton had been established in the same year by District Agent AM Sweet, and Agency Clerk A Haughton.
The Australian Mutual Provident Society had been launched in Sydney on New Years Day in 1849 as a life insurance company whose policies promised to ameliorate the potentially disastrous effects of the many hazards of daily life that existed for settlers in the Australian colonies. Its founders, Rev. WH Walsh, an Anglican clergyman, and two Sydney businessmen, Thomas Holt Jnr and Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, had met the previous year to discuss how such a society might proceed. Since its establishment, the AMP has remained one of the largest life insurance offices in Australia, and in 1999 when historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote a history of the company, it was the country's largest owner of both shares and city offices.
Following its first decade, the Society's membership began to increase steadily and in 1875 it established a separate Queensland board that was headquartered in Brisbane. This was in response to demands from Queensland members who saw their infant colony as having great potential and their concerns as requiring attention from local directors. At that time, policyholders living with 25 degrees of the Equator were required to pay a surcharge as it was commonly believed that Europeans living in 'the tropics' and doing hard work outdoors risked their health. It was only after 1873 that AMP policyholders were allowed to visit Rockhampton and places further north without seeking special permission regarding the effect of such travel on the validity of their policies. It was not until 1881, after some actuarial analysis of existing policies and owing to intense rivalry from other insurance firms, that these surcharges were lifted on all 'tropical' Australian policies.
The Society's practice of dividing colonies into selling districts was applied to Queensland in 1883- in which district an office would be set up in a specially designed building located in a central town, and the building's parapet would carry the Society's trademark statuary, 'the Amicus'. This had been sculpted by Charles Summers for the parapet of the Pitt Street building, which was opened in Sydney in 1880 as the Society's head office. The statuary was composed as follows: the centrepiece, Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune and luck, stood beside a cornucopia and held in her left hand a palm branch signifying victory; reclining below her were a youth on one side and a woman and child on the other. This statuary normally carried the Latin caption- Amicus certa in re incerta- meaning 'A certain friend in uncertain times'.
The AMP building in Rockhampton was built in 1888 from a design by the prominent architect F D G Stanley. Francis Drummond Greville Stanley was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and began his architectural training there in 1855. He emigrated to Queensland in 1861, set up private practice in 1862, and was appointed as clerk of works in the Office of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin, in 1863. He stayed in this position for nine years and was appointed as Colonial Architect in 1872 after Tiffin retired. Stanley held this position until 1881. It was during this time that he designed one of his most well known works, the Supreme Court building in Brisbane. Stanley continued to run a private practice throughout his term as Colonial Architect and this brought complaints from other architects. He left his government position when he was offered the commission to design the Queensland National Bank, also in Brisbane. He established his first branch office in Maryborough in 1882. In 1886 he was the first Queensland architect to be elected fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and two years later he became foundation President of the Queensland Institute of Architects. Stanley continued practicing until his death in 1897.
Stanley's design for the Rockhampton office reflects the classical mode in which the Pitt Street headquarters had been realised. William Cherry supervised the Rockhampton work for Stanley. A 1897 article in The Mutual Provident Messenger, the Society's in-house magazine, describes the interior of the Rockhampton building; its floors being laid with decorated tiles, the general office fitted with elaborate cedar fixtures, and the massive plaster ceilings decorated with panelled and enriched cornices.
The AMP regional office continued in this East Street building until 1970 when the Society moved to new Rockhampton premises on the same street. The property was sold in 1972 to the Australian Brahman Breeders Association. This organisation had begun as the Australian Zebu Breeders' Society in 1946 in an effort to promote a breed of cattle more able to withstand the effects of north Australia's cattle ticks and droughts than traditional British breeds. They continue to occupy the building on East Street.
","criteria":"The Australian Mutual Provident Society's establishment of a district head office in Rockhampton in 1888 reflects central Queensland's growing prosperity during this boom decade of the 19th century and the outcomes anticipated from consolidation of settlement in the region. It also demonstrates the increasing desire of settlers for some means by which to protect their families against the economic hardships often brought on by the death of a 'breadwinner' and the commercial competition that was occurring to meet this demand with life insurance provisions. Such concerns are indicative both of a willingness to consider the future financial well-being of dependents and the forward-thinking embraced by an increasing number of the region's settled inhabitants; against a backdrop of the government not providing welfare benefits to its citizens.
|The classical principles and motifs employed in the AMP Building- in a restrained fashion when a comparison is made with other commercial premises in the precinct- reflect the high standard of architectural design required of such a flagship building. It was one of many district offices that were constructed in main streets around Australia by what became one of the largest companies to begin operation in Australia and achieve an international reputation. Its parapet carried the Amicus statuary that was recognised throughout the country as the symbol of the Australian Mutual Provident Society.
|In addition to the aesthetic skill with which the East Street façade has been executed- in terms of scale, proportion and the deft use of classical elements- the extant interior cedar fittings, also incorporating components of the classical language, demonstrate a high degree of craftsmanship and the thoroughness of the building's overall design concept. The arrangement of rooms, and the quality and fine condition in which the finishes and fittings survive combine to make the building's interiors highly significant.
|The AMP building is significant for its long association with the work of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, serving as its central Queensland headquarters for 82 years. It is also a fine example of the commercial work of the prominent Queensland architect FDG Stanley, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career throughout the State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15570,"place_ref":600795,"name":"Rockhampton Court and Administrative Complex","alternate_name":"Supreme Court | Magistrate's Court (Police Court) | District Court (State Government Savings Bank, Commonwealth","street_address":"42 East Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Rockhampton Court and Administrative Complex, containing the Supreme Court, Magistrate's Court, District Court, Family Services' building and Government Office building, is located on a level site bound on three sides by East, Fitzroy and Bolsover Streets. The site is prominently located within the city centre at the entrance to the East Street mall, and adjacent to the approach to the Fitzroy Bridge leading to North Rockhampton. The Magistrate's Court, District Court and Family Services' building have been designed in a similar architectural style.
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court building is a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a sandstone northeastern entrance facade. The building has a T-shaped plan with a corrugated iron gable roof to the front section, containing the main Court room, and a hipped roof to the rear section. The building is located towards the centre of the site, and is surrounded by the Magistrate's Court to the northeast, the District Court to the east, the Family Services' building to the southwest, and the Government Office building to the west. To the north of the building is the site for a proposed new Court facility.
The building is approached from the northeast via a wide pathway through an avenue of Royal Palms (Roystonea regia) between the Magistrate's Court and District Court buildings. Gates are located at the East Street entrance, which consist of four large gate posts with wrought iron central gates and an open walkway either side. A curved wrought iron palisade on a sandstone base connects the outermost gate pillars with the adjacent Magistrate's Court and District Court buildings.
The northeast entrance elevation is faced with ashlar sandstone, and has a central prostyle portico to the first floor, the base of which forms the ground floor entrance. The portico has four Ionic columns, which are flanked by square columns at either side, supporting an entablature and pediment finished with dentils. Three tall sash windows, centred between the columns, are framed with pilasters, pedestal and entablature, and each is surmounted by a circular window framed with relief carving. The ground floor, forming the base to the portico, has banded rustication with a central doorway framed with a sandstone entrance canopy. The entrance is flanked by paired sash windows. The prostyle portico is flanked by lower corner sections which have a centrally located arched sash window to the first floor and a paired timber door to the ground floor. A shallow skillion roof is concealed behind a parapet which surmounts a deep cornice.
The rear section of the front wing, which contains the main Court room, has two-storeyed enclosed arcades on either side. The ground floor has arched openings, and the first floor has taller openings framed with pilasters supporting a deep cornice, infilled with metal framed window units and rendered masonry.
The rear wing, finished in scribed render to imitate ashlar, has sash windows with hoods consisting of cast iron brackets and corrugated iron awnings, and a central recessed two-storeyed verandah on the southwest. The verandah has cast iron columns and brackets, with a timber lattice valance, to the ground floor, and cast iron columns and balustrade, with louvred timber screens above the handrail, to the first floor. French doors open onto the first floor verandah, and the ground floor has panelled timber doors with fanlights, and sash windows. The northwest end of the rear wing has an enclosed ground floor verandah with fibrous cement cladding, casement windows and a curved corrugated iron awning.
Internally, the ground floor contains a central corridor with Supreme Court Registry offices on the northern side, and Civil Court offices on the southern side. A staircase was originally located at either end of the northeast elevation, however only the northern stair is extant. The Supreme Court library is located at the northwest end of the rear wing, and witness rooms, staircase and strong rooms are located at the southwest end. Internal load-bearing walls are rendered masonry, partition walls are lath and plaster, and ceilings are boarded. The building has cedar joinery, including architraves, skirtings, panelled doors with fanlights, and staircases with turned balustrades.
The first floor contains the Supreme Court Room with an enclosed arcade either side. Witness rooms are located at the northeast end, and the jury room, court reporter, barrister's and judge's chambers are located at the southwest end. The court room has tall arched windows opening to the enclosed arcades either side, with expressed extrados and imposts. The side walls have timber panelling to window sill height, and the rear of the court room has a timber panelled wall which extends to form a balustrade to a mezzanine gallery which overlooks the court. The non-original ceiling is constructed of suspended acoustic tiles with a lower bulkhead over the raised judge's bench, which is flanked by an arched vestibule to either side. The court room has cedar joinery, including judge's bench, witness box, jury stand, and press gallery, as well as public barriers, panelled doors with fanlights, architraves and wall panelling. The remaining rooms have similar finishes to the ground floor, and the rear rooms which open onto the verandah have timber fireplace surrounds and french doors.
Magistrate's Court
The Magistrate's Court, a single-storeyed rendered masonry structure, scribed to imitate ashlar, is located towards the northeast area of the site fronting East Street, and is surrounded by the Supreme Court to the southwest and the District Court to the southeast. The building has a tiled hipped roof to the central section, with parapeted elevations at the front and rear. The hipped roof has a cupola, consisting of a dome supported by a ring of columns on a polygonal base with a central ridge ventilator, and skillion roofed dormer windows projecting to the southeast, northeast and northwest.
The building, designed with Art Deco detailing, has a symmetrical East Street elevation with a recessed central portico surmounted by a high parapet and flanked by lower wings to either side. The portico is framed by a stylised relief entablature with central motif and paired pilasters to either side, with two square columns located centrally. The portico has central paired timber panelled doors flanked by multi-paned windows, which are surmounted by high-level multi-paned glazing. The side wings also have a central multi-paned window surmounted by high level multi-paned glazing, and the parapets are capped by stylised details.
The facade treatment of the side wings returns mid-way along the side elevations, with regularly spaced multi-paned casement windows with high level multi-paned glazing. The rear section of the side wings have recessed enclosed verandahs with stylised square columns. The verandahs have central paired timber panelled doors with stylised rendered architraves, flanked by large multi-paned sash windows and surmounted by high level multi-paned glazing. The northwest elevation has a lattice enclosed skillion roofed extension to the enclosed verandah.
The rear elevation has central paired timber doors, flanked by regularly spaced multi-paned windows surmounted by high level multi-paned glazing. The eaves protrude through the central section of the parapet, which is capped by stylised details and returns along the side elevations to abut the recessed verandahs.
Internally, the building has been recently refitted, and has rendered masonry walls and suspended ceilings. The building contains two court rooms, the first of which fronts the entrance portico and the second, where the original court room was located, is accessed via the enclosed side verandahs. The side wings contain offices and service rooms, and the rear section has interview and service rooms. Much of the original detailing survives, including architraves, skirtings and window sills.
District Court
The District Court, a single-storeyed rendered masonry structure, is located towards the eastern corner of the site fronting East Street, and is surrounded by the Supreme Court to the west and the Magistrate's Court to the northeast. The building has a tiled hipped roof to the central section, with parapeted elevations at the front and to both sides. The hipped roof has a cupola, consisting of a dome supported by a ring of columns on a polygonal base with a central ridge ventilator.
The building, designed with Art Deco detailing, has a symmetrical East Street elevation similar to the adjacent Magistrate's Court which consists of a recessed central portico surmounted by a high parapet and flanked by lower wings to either side. The portico is framed by a stylised relief entablature with central motif and paired pilasters to either side, with two square columns located centrally. The portico has central, non-original paired aluminium framed glass doors flanked by aluminium framed windows, which are surmounted by high-level glazing. The side wings also have a central aluminium framed window surmounted by high level glazing, and the parapets are capped by stylised details.
The parapet detailing continues along the side elevations which have regularly spaced non-original aluminium framed windows, surmounted by high level glazing units which have been closed over. The rear elevation has a central recessed verandah with skillion awning.
Internally, the building has been altered quite substantially, with partition walls creating a central court room surrounded by offices and meeting rooms, with service rooms at the rear. Surviving sections of original walls are rendered masonry, and ceilings are suspended. The entrance foyer has some surviving expressed mouldings including pilasters and cornices.
Family Services' Building
The Family Services' building, a single-storeyed rendered masonry structure, scribed to imitate ashlar, is located towards the southern corner of the site fronting Bolsover Street, and is surrounded by the Supreme Court to the northeast and the Government Office building to the northwest. The building has a tiled hipped roof with a parapeted elevation fronting Bolsover Street. The roof has a central cupola, consisting of a dome supported by a ring of columns on a polygonal base with a central ridge ventilator.
The building, designed with Art Deco detailing, has a symmetrical Bolsover Street elevation with a recessed central portico surmounted by a high parapet and flanked by lower recessed wings to either side. The portico is framed by a stylised relief entablature, with paired pilasters to either side and two square columns located centrally, and flanked by a tall multi-paned sash window with expressed architraves and sill to either side. The portico has three sets of paired timber panelled doors with glass inserts surmounted by high-level glazing with expressed architrave details. The side wings each have a separate recessed entrance, with the northwest entrance forming the principal entrance to the building with a disabled access ramp.
The side elevations have regularly spaced, tall multi-paned sash windows with expressed architraves and sills. The rear elevation has a central recessed verandah with tiled skillion awning flanked by projecting side wings. The side wings have two tall multi-paned sash windows with expressed architraves and sills, the verandah is enclosed with aluminium framed glazing, and high level glazing is located above the awning.
Internally, the building has been altered quite substantially, with partition walls forming a series of offices, a security reception area, and store rooms. Original walls are rendered masonry, and most ceilings are suspended. An original section of panelled ceiling is located in the toilets in the rear of the building. Original details include architraves, skirtings and some timber panelled doors.
Government Office Building
The Government Office building is located towards the western corner of the site fronting Bolsover and Fitzroy Streets, and is surrounded by the Supreme Court to the east and the Family Services' building to the southeast. The building has an L-shaped plan, with a three-storeyed wing fronting Bolsover Street, and a four-storeyed corner section fronting Fitzroy Street.
The building has a reinforced concrete frame with brick facing. The Bolsover Street elevation has a curtain wall of metal framed glazing, with polished granite spandrel panels with sandstone sills to the ground floor, which is divided by regularly spaced vertical concrete aggregate fins and which is framed by brickwork. The southern end of the Bolsover Street elevation has brickwork to the upper two floors surmounting the principal entrance, which comprises a recessed metal framed glass door with cantilevered awning accessed via an L-shaped granite stair and landing with metal balustrade. The southern end also has a narrow penthouse plantroom which is recessed from the exterior of the building, with rendered walls, and a curved roof facing Bolsover Street with a series of recessed circular details. The northern end of the elevation has a four-storeyed brickwork facade with three windows to each of the first three floors. The fourth floor partly extends above the curtain wall glazing, with a large recessed window unit and spandrel panel. A low parapet wall with sculptural copper spitters conceals a shallow pitched roof with sculptural copper ridge ventilators.
The rear of the building, facing the northeast, is treated in a similar architectural manner to the Bolsover Street elevation. The southeast elevation has a brickwork facade with three recessed panels to each floor containing metal framed glazing with spandrel panels, with the ground floor having a concrete surround with sandstone faced vertical dividing panels. A recessed vertical glazing strip is located adjacent to the recessed panels, and contains metal framed glazing and spandrel panels lighting an internal staircase. An entrance is located at the ground level, with a concrete awning with copper spitter, and a cantilevered balcony with a flag pole, surmounted by a lightning conductor, and metal balustrading is located above and opens off the penthouse plantroom. The penthouse plantroom has glazing to the southeast.
The northwest elevation, fronting Fitzroy Street, has a brickwork facade with regularly spaced window units to the first three floors. The fourth floor has a long recessed panel containing metal framed glazing and spandrel panels. A recessed three-storeyed section, located on the northeast side of this elevation, has metal framed glazing and spandrel panels lighting an internal staircase. This section was intended to form the linkage to a proposed wing facing Fitzroy Street which was not constructed, and its end facade has reinforced concrete framing and brick infill. The roof of the corner section has a metal balustrade and houses a large satellite dish and plant.
The building has a raised plinth, with raised brick gardens with sandstone cappings located to both the Bolsover and Fitzroy Street elevations.
Internally, the building has an entrance foyer with terrazzo floor at the southeast. The foyer has planter boxes to the southeast windows with polished granite facings and cappings, and marble cladding to the window reveals. The foyer is split-level, with steps leading to a raised lift foyer, with a central lift around which a terrazzo stair is located. The lift core has circular openings with metal grilles, giving a port-hole effect, and each floor has a terrazzo finished lift foyer. The penthouse plantroom is accessed via a narrow timber stair from the lift foyer below. The Bolsover Street wing is planned to have a central corridor, which is delineated by a row of columns to either side, with partitions dividing the office space. The central corridor has a lower ceiling housing a ventilation system with registers to the adjacent office space. Sections of the original partitioning system survive, with tracks for the location of partitions evident in the ceilings and walls. Toilets, stores and service rooms are located at the northwest end of the building, and have terrazzo floors and ceramic tiled walls. A second terrazzo dog-leg stair is located fronting Fitzroy Street at the northern corner of the building, with an entrance foyer with terrazzo floor. This stair has a sculptural balustrade consisting of tapered metal vertical members, shaped timber handrail, and solid vertical panels.
Grounds
The grounds contain a toilet block to the southeast of the Supreme Court. This structure has rendered masonry walls to door head height, with timber slats above to the underside of the corrugated iron hipped roof with central clerestory. The toilets have a central pedimented porch, which has been infilled with rendered masonry and glass louvres. The toilets are entered from either side by a timber door with upper lattice panel. Internally, the structure has a boarded timber ceiling, and timber framed partitions with timber doors which have upper glass panels.
","history":"The Rockhampton Court and Administrative Complex comprises the Supreme Court building (Block D 1886-87), Magistrate's Court building (Block B, former Police Court building 1934-36), District Court building (Block C, former State Government Savings Bank and Commonwealth Bank, 1915-16 and 1932-33), Family Services' building (Block F, former Labour Bureau 1934-36), and the Bolsover Street Government Office building (Block E 1950-55), which all form part of a significant group of buildings on the Government Reserve bounded by Fitzroy, East and Bolsover Streets, Rockhampton. The buildings all reflect the involvement of the Queensland Government in the development of the City of Rockhampton from the colonial period until the present day, in various areas such as the administration of justice, and the provision of government services within Rockhampton.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858, Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. The first sale of town allotments was held in Rockhampton on 17 and 18 November 1858. In 1859 Queensland separated from New South Wales, and at this time Brisbane became the base of the Supreme Court of Queensland. The Supreme Court provided sittings for circuit towns that included Ipswich, Drayton and Maryborough.
Rockhampton became a circuit town for the Supreme Court in 1863. In 1859 residents had petitioned for the provision of a Court House in the new town. A site for a Court House had been reserved fronting onto Quay Street in 1859-60. However community agitation was responsible for the establishment of a more central reserve for a Court House and lock up on five acres of land bounded by Bolsover, East and Fitzroy Streets. It was on this central reserve that the Court Houses of Rockhampton were to be built.
Original Court House (Block A, demolished 1978)
A Court House was built in 1861-62 on the corner of East and Fitzroy Streets. Total cost of the building was £1,130. The architect was Charles Tiffin (1833-73), who also designed such notable buildings as the Houses of Parliament in Brisbane (QHR 600069), the Ipswich Court House (QHR 600575), and (old) Government House, Brisbane (QHR 600118).
The completed two-storeyed building was constructed of masonry and had an L-shape plan. The building was described as being of arcaded Italianate style. Valances to both levels were constructed as timber framed segmental arches, and a single-storeyed court room was provided, with ancillary spaces. Stables and associated outbuildings were also provided.
Bowen had been made the home of the northern district Court in 1874. Rockhampton therefore had to be served by a judge on circuit from Brisbane. In 1881 a larger and more substantial Court House was erected in Bowen, which caused anger amongst the citizens of Rockhampton. Seperationists especially felt that Rockhampton was deserving of the appointment of its own judge, and the establishment of a Supreme Court.
The first Rockhampton Court House served the community of Rockhampton until the 1880's. At this time the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan, in the Dee Range some forty kilometres from Rockhampton, transformed the town. A major building boom occurred in Rockhampton as the wealth of the mine was shipped through the river port. As the boom was to continue into the early part of the twentieth century, the wealth generated was to create other major forms of public buildings in Rockhampton. These included the Customs House (QHR 600817), Post Office (QHR 600792), and the 1887 Supreme Court building.
The Tiffin Court House was replaced with an even more imposing building for the Court in 1887. The Tiffin Court House continued to serve as a Court building and then administration office building until 1969, when new purpose built offices were provided for the State Government in East Street. The Tiffin Court House was demolished in 1978.
Supreme Court Building (Block D, 1886-87)
The booming economy of the Rockhampton region was to find an expression of its wealth in the public buildings constructed in the period of 1885-1910. An example of this is the Supreme Court building.
With the growth in population in Rockhampton and central Queensland, the Tiffin designed Court House was found to be inadequate to the demands being placed on it by the community. A petition had been put before the Minister for Works in October 1882, for a new Supreme Court House for Rockhampton. The Morning Bulletin, October 4 1882 envisaged a
handsome capacious edifice in the northern part of the town... two storey's high, of Stanwell sandstone.
To accommodate the increased needs of the judiciary a replacement Court House was under design in the period of 1884. The Architect of the second Court building was John James Clark, (1838-1915). Clark had been born in Liverpool in England, and attended the Collegiate Institute in Liverpool, where he was trained in architectural drawing. In 1853 his family emigrated to Victoria during the gold rush era. Clark had begun his career as an architect with the Office of the Victorian Colonial Architect. In 1881 he moved to New South Wales where he designed the Town Halls for Orange and Waverley in Sydney.
In 1883 Clark was appointed Queensland Colonial Architect. His best known public building was the Brisbane Treasury Building (Public Offices) (QHR 600143) designed in 1883. Clark was dismissed from the Office of Colonial Architect in 1885. During the period that he was Colonial Architect Clark was responsible for the design of several Court Houses in Queensland including Charters Towers (QHR 600403), Mackay (QHR 600673), and the Rockhampton Court House (1885-87).
He was also responsible for other notable public buildings throughout Queensland, such as Yungaba Immigration Depot (QHR 600245), Townsville Post and Telegraph Offices (QHR 600911) and following his dismissal was responsible for the design of the Lady Norman Wing, Brisbane Children's Hospital, and the Townsville Railway Station (QHR 600906).
The sketch design was heavily criticised by local members of the Legislative Assembly, as well as by the Rockhampton Police Magistrate. Both criticised the new Court House design as not allowing for a multiplying population of Rockhampton. The design was also criticised as not providing enough office space, and appearing to be designed more for a country court house than for a growing major centre of population. Revised drawings were prepared as a result of these complaints.
Initially the proposal had been made to locate the new Court House building on the Rockhampton immigration depot, away from the reserve on East Street. Clark's design for the riverfront Court House was to be basically unchanged when the new building's location was changed to sit adjacent to the 1861-62 Court House on the Government Reserve, away from Quay Street.
Pressure was brought to bear on the Minister for Works to relocate the Court House to the centre of Rockhampton from various groups, including the Chamber of Commerce. It was felt by such groups that the new Court House should stand at a site close to the centre of town, and therefore help to improve the appearance of the town centre. The result of such pressure saw the Court House located to its present place, in the centre of the reserve for government buildings.
Tenders were called for the construction of the new Court House on 8 October 1885. Thomas Matthews was awarded the contract, for a total of £12,533. The tender documents also called for an alternate price should the whole external fabric of the building be constructed in stone. The option was not taken up. The tender was approved on 11 December 1885.
Construction took eighteen months. The Department of Public Works, Annual Report 1887, announced
Completed, under contract with T. Matthews, for the sum of exclusive of furnishings, of £12,533. This building is two storey's in height, built of brick, cemented, the front being of freestone. On the first floor is provided the court, with judge's, jury, witness, and other rooms. In the basement is provided strong room, prisoner's cell, and general office's for the transaction of Court business.
The Court House was further described in the Brisbane Courier of January 1893, however as being a "gloomy, sombre looking" building.
The first half yearly sitting of the Circuit Court was held in September 1887, but there was no official dedication ceremony. This was a further slight to the residents of Rockhampton, who were now advocating for the appointment of a Supreme Court Judge. The new Court House was still to be served from Brisbane. A second judge was appointed to the northern district in 1889, however the home of the Northern Court was relocated at that time from Bowen to Townsville.
The Rockhampton Court house became the focus of both state and national attention in May 1891, as a result of the shearer's strike of February-March of that year. Early in 1891 the central Queensland towns of Barcaldine, Clermont, Winton and Springsure had been the centre points of the strike, which had arisen over the signing of agreements between pastoralists and members of unions representing the interests of bush workers. Police, volunteer members of the Queensland armed forces and Special Constables had been despatched from Rockhampton, Brisbane and other centres to the central Queensland pastoral districts. Shearer's formed themselves into large camps, at Capella, Clermont and Barcaldine.
The government pressed for a judicial solution to the strike and proceeded to arrest strike leaders in March 1891. Most of those arrested were acquitted, however fourteen shearer's alleged to have been strike leaders, were charged with conspiracy. The conspiracy trial was held in the Rockhampton Court House in May 1891. Twelve were found guilty and sentenced to three years prison.
Unable to succeed through direct strike action, the labour movement was to seek social reform and change through political methods, the result of which was the formation of the Labor Party. The party began contesting seats in 1893.
The Court House was finally elevated to the status of having a resident Supreme Court judge in 1896. This was a result of the passing of The Supreme Court Act of 1895. Five Supreme Court judges were appointed, three in Brisbane and one each in Rockhampton and Townsville. The Central Supreme Court was established in January 1896. The Police Magistrates Court was forced to relocate back to the Tiffin designed Court House. It was not until 1935 that a purpose building was to be provided for the Police Court.
The interior of the building was carpeted in 1896. In 1908 a new strong room was provided on the ground floor of the building, which lead to the removal of a staircase. A wall was also removed in the titles and stamps office to open up the existing office space, and a new counter was provided for dealing with the public.
Further alterations were made to the building in 1922, with the removal of a brick wall in what had been the Clerk Petty Sessions General Office. Concrete steps were provided on to a verandah on the northern side of the building. Other partitions were removed to open out space, and windows were installed.
Other alterations were made to the building in 1933 in association with the provision of sewering the entire site, and the construction of the adjacent toilet block. A toilet, bath and wash basins were provided on the upper storey for the Judge's room, and the jury room.
The Supreme Court building at the present time contains the Supreme Court, Supreme/District Court Registry, Legal Library, and associated ancillary services for the staff and general public.
Since the Central Supreme Court was inaugurated in 1896, it has remained the only Supreme Court in residence in Queensland in its original setting and Court House. The Brisbane Supreme Court building, designed by FDG Stanley in 1879, burnt down in 1968. The Northern Supreme Court in Townsville, relocated from Bowen in 1889, moved into an adapted School of Arts, and was provided with a purpose built Court House in 1975. The Rockhampton Court House is the only one to maintain its connection with its place of inauguration. Although designed as a Court House for the Brisbane Circuit, it was intended for it to be the home of a Supreme Court.
District Court (Block C, 1915-16, 1932-33)
A Rockhampton Branch of the Queensland State Government Savings Bank was first proposed in 1914. Tenders for the erection of a new building to be built on the government reserve closed on 28 June 1914. In 1915 construction began on the new State Government Savings Bank. £2,685 was allocated by the State Government for the construction of the Savings Bank. The design of the State Government Savings Bank was supervised by AB Brady and Thomas Pye of the Works Department. AB Brady and Thomas Pye were also responsible for overseeing other notable buildings in Rockhampton, including the Customs House (QHR 600817).
The completion date was expected to be 1916. The building of the State Government Savings Bank was the first major construction work undertaken on the Government Reserve since the erection of the Supreme Court building in 1885-7. The bank building was to be one of the few purpose built State Government Savings Bank buildings in Queensland. Other Government Savings Banks were also built in Brisbane and Toowoomba. The Brisbane Office, constructed on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets, was completed in the period of 1914-22. It survives at the present time as the Family Services Building (QHR 600111).
The construction of the State Government Savings Bank was a result of the initiative of the EG Theodore Government. State enterprises were to be an important element of the social and political platforms of the Labor Party. This included intervention in the economy, especially through the provision of a wide range of products to allow for lower prices for goods and services.
The State Government Savings Bank had been formed in 1916 with the amalgamation of the Government Savings Bank, Agricultural Bank and the Workers Dwelling Board under The Queensland Government Savings Bank Act 1916. The new bank would compete in the economy utilising the same market approach as the private banks.
The State Government Savings Bank functioned as a separate financial identity until 1920, when the businesses and assets of the State Bank were transferred over to the Commonwealth Bank. Under this transfer to Commonwealth control, the state was to be able to borrow larger funds from the Commonwealth body.
The Commonwealth Bank took possession of the building in 1920, relocating from the previous rented premises at 74 East Street in Rockhampton. In the 1930's there was a demand for enlarged and improved accommodation for the Commonwealth Bank in Rockhampton. The building was considerably enlarged in the 1932-33 period. The expansion of the Commonwealth Bank building added new facades to the exterior.
An air-conditioning plant room was added in 1975. The building continued as a banking establishment until 1986 when it was purchased by the State Government, to alleviate overcrowding. The building was converted to house the District Court and associated staff, and general facilities for the use of the public and staff members of the Court.
Magistrate's Court (Block B 1934-36)
With the enlarging and extending of the former State Government Savings Bank being completed, an additional Court building was constructed by the Queensland Government. The new Police Court building design was part of a projected townscape of buildings on the Government Reserve, to complement the design of the Commonwealth Bank building. The Police Court building was also built in response to the impact of the depression on the local community.
The construction of the building was viewed as one of three possible projects to alleviate the unemployment problem in Rockhampton, decided on by a committee consisting of the ALP, Unions, and unemployed workers. A deputation from the committee to the Attorney General led to the approval being given for construction of the building in late 1933. The local Labor member for Rockhampton Mr J Larcombe, MLA, was an ardent supporter of the initiative.
The facade of the new Court was designed specifically to complement the Commonwealth Bank building. Construction of the building was begun in 1934 and completed in 1936. The Annual Report for the Department of Public Works, 1934 gave the following description
This building, which will be of concrete and brick construction with cement finish externally and tile roof, will provide accommodation for the Police Court and officials connected therewith. The main facade, facing East street, is designed with portico to match the neighbouring building of the Commonwealth Bank, and together with the Supreme Court, should complete a pleasing architectural group... accommodation will be provided for the Clerk of Petty Sessions and his staff, together with strong rooms, and also the Police Magistrate.... In rear approached from entrance drive to the Supreme Court, will be situated the new court room... with verandahs on either side and at rear, and with rooms for solicitors and witnesses... Altogether, the building when completed, should be an asset to the already long list of handsome buildings erected in this city.
Estimated cost of construction was to be £7,825. The colour for the Police Court building was also chosen so as to blend in with the Commonwealth Bank. At the same time new Police Buildings and Court Houses were being erected in Mackay, Dalby and Toowoomba. The Police Court was accommodated in this building until being altered to its present arrangement as a Magistrate's Court in 1991.
Family Services' Building (Block F 1934-36)
The present Family Services' building was constructed as part of the project to provide employment in Queensland through the capital works building programme of the Forgan-Smith government.
The Department of Public Works described the new building as being part of a continuing development of the Supreme Court site designed and constructed in sympathy with the neighbouring Commonwealth Bank building.
This building, of brick and concrete construction, with tile roof, will replace the existing wood and brick structure, and provide central accommodation for officials of the Department of Labour and Industry. Architecturally, it is treated in a similar manner to the Police Court now under construction in East street. The building will accommodate Labour Agent, General Office, Clerks, Female Labour Agent, Travelling inspector, and will have necessary lavatory accommodation.
Estimated cost of construction was to be £4,584. Work began in 1934 and was completed in 1936. The Labour Bureau was constructed to be one of two buildings designed to front onto Bolsover Street. The design was by the Queensland Department of Public Works under the control of Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966). Leven at this period was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor for the Department of Works, a position he held from 1933 until 1951.
The Labour Bureau building was sited so as to provide a court related to the rear facade of the Supreme Court building. The second building, intended to complement the Labour Bureau building was not constructed. Additional offices for the Bureau were to be eventually included in the Bolsover Street Government Offices. All of the public buildings on the Supreme Court site were further modernised with the installation of a sewerage system in 1933.
Bolsover Street Government Office Building (Block E 1950-55)
Construction of the Bolsover Street Government Office building was necessitated by the increased accommodation requirements of various Government Departments in Rockhampton after the Second World War, partly as a result of a policy of decentralisation. Previously, accommodation was supplied by a two storeyed former fire station on the Government Reserve. However, it was felt that this accommodation was not appropriate or in keeping with the remainder of public buildings on the Supreme Court site .
Shortages of building materials, as well as architects and technical officers to design and supervise building works, were experienced in the post-war years. The Bolsover Street Government Office building was designed in 1949 by English architect Harold John Hitch (known as John Hitch), and the building was constructed from 1950-55.
After working with well known firms in the United Kingdom and service with the R.A.F. John Hitch (b. 26 June 1915), and his Danish wife, emigrated to Australia to take up a position with the Architectural Branch of the Queensland Public Works Department in Brisbane on 6 February 1948. Hitch had qualified in London in 1938, and after the war in 1946 had spent approximately 12 weeks in Denmark and Sweden, and had seen some of what he considered the best pre-war Scandinavian architecture which would have a strong influence on his architectural aesthetic and design philosophy. John Hitch was one of approximately six British architects, appointed by the Queensland Government for a 3 year contract, who arrived with their families during 1947-48. The Queensland Government paid for passage and relocation costs, and initially accommodation was provided at the Yungaba Immigration Depot, Kangaroo Point. Several of these architects broke their contracts and moved interstate or back to the United Kingdom due to dissatisfaction with their conditions of professional appointment, and living and climatic conditions.
In March 1950 Hitch was promoted to Designing Architect Division 1, a position he held until he resigned in April 1951 after completing his three year contract to set up practice with Theo Thynne. In 1954 Hitch established an independent practice, and was commissioned to design a new Court House for Bundaberg, constructed 1956-57, which was described in Department of Public Works, Annual Report, 1957, as
A stone building which captures the quality, dignity and prestige expected in a court-house building and yet remains essentially a product of the present day.
Hitch was also appointed to the staff of the Architecture School of the University of Queensland as a part-time lecturer in c.1949. At this time, the school was located adjacent to Parliament House in George Street Brisbane, and classes were held in the evenings and comprised University and Technical College students. Eventually the school separated with its move to the St Lucia campus in May 1956. Hitch had also lectured on the influence of Scandinavian design on British architecture to members of the R.A.I.A. Brisbane Chapter.
In 1956 Hitch entered private practice with Ian Sinnamon, working on a variety of civic and commercial buildings. He also played a prominent role within the Queensland Chapter of the R.A.I.A. until he moved to Melbourne in 1958, where remained for the rest of his career. As a member of the publications committee of the Queensland Chapter of the R.A.I.A., Hitch was involved in the publication of Buildings of Queensland, published by Jacaranda Press in 1959 as a centennial record of architecture in Queensland.
Hitch was also responsible for the design and construction of a demountable travelling exhibition which displayed the activities of the Public Works Department, conceived as a bold public relations exercise. It was first displayed at the Royal National Show, and was later transported by rail to regional centres. Other exhibitions designed by Hitch include three Queensland Industries Fairs from 1949, the 1952 R.A.I.A. Convention in Brisbane City Hall, and the Architecture in Australia exhibition at the R.I.B.A., Portland Place, London from 28 February to 24 March 1956.
For the Bolsover Street site, John Hitch obtained through chief engineer Mr Kindler site survey information including flood level projections used for the construction of the nearby Fitzroy River Bridge. Hitch designed three schemes for submission to Cabinet, the first being a ten storey tower fronting Fitzroy Street, the second being two four to five storey blocks facing East and Bolsover Streets, and the third being a three storey U-shaped development fronting the three streets. The first and third schemes emphasised the State Government presence on the approach to the new Fitzroy River Bridge. Cabinet opted for the larger site coverage of the third smaller scaled alternative, and approval was given to proceed with one wing to the Bolsover Street frontage. A model of the U-shaped development was constructed, which John Hitch believes was the first architectural model in the State.
The office block replaced an earlier scheme for a second stage of building intended for the Labour Bureau. The first stage had been the adjacent 1934-36 Labour Bureau building. The Government Office building was constructed as the first wing of a proposed U-shaped building, with frontages to Bolsover, Fitzroy and East Streets, which would have established a courtyard around the Supreme Court House while maintaining the axial vistas to Bolsover and East Streets.
In 1950 work commenced on the three storeyed building, which was constructed of reinforced concrete with brick and stone facings. Estimated cost of the building was to be £175,000. Due to site conditions, reinforced concrete piers were driven to the basalt bed, and reinforced concrete perimeter beams were laid and detailed to read as a plinth to the building. The architect was not able to supervise the works, and the concrete perimeter beam was incorrectly stopped horizontally between pours. The Government policy of using direct labour on its building projects was handled entirely by the Construction Branch and on site visits by architects were rare and were discouraged. As a result of the faulty concrete pour, Hitch was directed to the site to arrange for the faulty work to be removed and the concrete repoured.
The building was constructed with a curtain wall of metal framed glazing with stone spandrel panels divided by regularly spaced vertical concrete aggregate fins framed by brickwork to the main street frontage. The aggregate fins were designed to have horizontal metal sunhoods which were not installed.
Satisfactory progress on the work was reported in the period 1951-53. It was anticipated that the building would be in partial occupation from the beginning of 1954, and the entire project completed by the middle of 1954. The Department of Public Works reported in its Annual Report, 1955
Early in the year the new block of offices in Rockhampton was completed and relieved the accommodation problem in the city.
When completed, the building was much admired by the architectural student community, providing a local example of the architectural aesthetic promoted by journals such as the Architectural Review. The building was one of the first substantial public buildings built by the Department after the Second World War, and demonstrated a radical change in design philosophy.
Internal refits were carried out in 1960, 1969, 1976 and 1984, but much of the original fabric remains intact. The remaining wings of the design were not completed. The Office building supplied the needs of the various Departments in Rockhampton until 1969 when new buildings were built away from the Government Reserve.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Court and Administrative Complex is significant for demonstrating the development of Rockhampton and the Government Reserve since 1861, and the provision of state government services in the City of Rockhampton and the region of central Queensland.
The Supreme Court building is important in demonstrating the evolution of the judicial system in Queensland through the growth of the Circuit Court, for its association with the establishment of the Supreme Court in Queensland.
The building is also a visible expression of the wealth generated by the economic boom during the 1880's as a result of the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan.
The Magistrate's Court, District Court, and Family Services' buildings reflect the involvement of the Queensland Government in the development of Rockhampton, from 1915 until the present day, in various areas such as the administration of justice, and the provision of government services within Rockhampton.
The buildings are significant for demonstrating the involvement of the Queensland Government, in the period of 1915-36, in providing court and administrative services to the Rockhampton community, and in the intervention of the economy through the provision of Government financial institutions. The Magistrate's Court and Family Services' building are associated with a construction programme, undertaken by the Queensland Government during the depression era, designed to generate work to alleviate unemployment.
The Government Office building is significant in demonstrating the post-war development of Rockhampton, particularly through the provision of governmental services and the introduction of multi-storeyed office accommodation.
|The Supreme Court building is important as the only surviving nineteenth century Court House that has served the Supreme Court continuously since 1896.
|(Criterion under review)
|The complex is also an important example of urban design, comprising a series of buildings dating from the 1880's to the 1950's which have been designed in a coordinated manner intended to enhance the civic centre of Rockhampton.
The building is one of only three surviving Court Houses designed by him in Queensland, and is important in demonstrating the planning of a nineteenth century Supreme Court House.
|The Supreme Court building is of considerable architectural merit, and the form and fabric of the building illustrate a skilled design approach. The building, together with the surrounding structures, makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the local streetscape and Rockhampton townscape. The building is an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton, and demonstrates the grand vision that the community held for Rockhampton as a future northern Capital during the late nineteenth century.
The buildings and grounds have considerable aesthetic significance which, designed as pavilion structures surrounding the Supreme Court building, demonstrate a coordinated design approach intended to enhance the civic centre of Rockhampton. The buildings, together with the Supreme Court, make a significant aesthetic contribution to the local streetscape and Rockhampton townscape, and are an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton.
The structure's form, fabric and materials illustrate a skilled design approach, and the building makes an important aesthetic contribution to the local streetscape and Rockhampton townscape. The building is an important component of the civic centre of Rockhampton.
|The complex has a special association with the Rockhampton community, containing some of the city's principal public buildings.
|The Supreme Court building is significant as an example of the work of eminent architect John James Clark, Colonial Architect from 1883-85.
The Supreme Court building is also significant for its association with the shearer's strike conspiracy trial of 1891, and the Labor Party that was to subsequently evolve as a result of the trial.
The Government Office building is significant as an example of the work of John Hitch, a post-war immigrant architect employed by the Department of Public Works, who made an important contribution to the post-war development of architecture in Queensland. The building is of considerable architectural significance, and when constructed was much admired by the architectural student community, providing a local example of the architectural aesthetic promoted by leading journals. The building was one of the first substantial public buildings built by the Department after the Second World War, and demonstrated a radical change in design philosophy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15571,"place_ref":600796,"name":"Lakes Creek Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"431 Lakes Creek Road","suburb":"NORTH ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Lakes Creek Hotel, incorporating elements of the Victoria Free Gothic style of architecture, is a two-storey timber building, clad predominantly with weatherboards. The building is generally L-shaped in plan, with twin faceted bays forming a symmetrical frontage with an asymmetric roof. The western bay has a gable with a decorative bargeboard featuring foil tracery. The eastern bay has a conical roof, with iron capping.
Externally, the principle, or southern elevation along Lakes Creek Road, has an enclosed frontage with a small portico front entrance framed by external exposed studs. Raised ground surface adjacent to entrance is bitumened, with cemented pathway with paving stones, leading to front entrance. External studs have some weathering near ground level. Original French doors are located in the front entry through the entrance portico. Providing access to the public area from the street are original French doors, which have been salvaged and used from internal renovations. Bay windows are located within original timber frames. Windows within the extension of the public bar (incorporating verandah space) on the western side are aluminium framed.
The first floor balcony, along the southern elevation, has been divided by both timber and plywood partitioning. Weathering has occurred to some balustrades and floor boards on the verandah. Two air-conditioning motors have been installed below the balcony to service ground floor areas. Some damage, including missing balusters, has occurred at the eastern end of the balcony.
Along the eastern elevation, of the ground floor verandah, is located sections of the original timber valance. Timber balustrading and valance continues northerly along the verandah to the garden lounge enclosure. Access to the hotel along the eastern elevation is through original timber French doors.
On the first floor balcony along the eastern elevation, new timber lattice board has been erected above the railing for added privacy for the private quarters. Another two timber partitions are located along the eastern elevation balcony to provide privacy between rooms. The verandah on eastern side has considerable damage, including missing balusters and water damage. Access to rooms is by original timber French doors.
On the ground floor of the northern elevation is located the garden lounge. The northern section, where the L-shape forms, is of single skin exposed stud weatherboard construction. At the western end of the northern elevation, where the building extends to form the L-shape, there is substantial movement of the verandah post as well as timber rot to the verandah boards and balusters. Timber valance and balusters remain substantially intact in this area. Three original timber French doors are located at the eastern side of the building. Two sliding glass doors also provide access along the northern elevation. One door provides access to the stairwell, the other to the dining room. The roof of the Garden lounge extension adjacent to verandah, has been adjoined to the original building. Air conditioning systems are located on the garden lounge roof with vents into the first floor of the hotel.
The drive through bottle shop is located along the western elevation. The ground floor section is single skin timber, whilst the first floor level is clad with weatherboards. Timber framed sash windows, with hoods with timber brackets, are located along the elevation. The chimney is cement rendered. The western verandah has been reduced to a small entry patio to make room for a new men's toilets and to allow a larger storage area/cold room facilities in the position of the original pantry.
Internally, through the main entrance, the public bar is located on the western side of the building. The bar has a flagstone floor, timber bar with modern chrome and glass fixtures and fittings. The front verandah has been reduced to one-third its original size, with entry now through the old bar entrance. A partition has been built to close off the adjoining entrance from the verandah to the original bar-room, and the bay doorway has been converted into a window. The bay area of the old bar-room has been partitioned off to provide a small office space for the management.
The public bar has been relocated to the western side of the hotel, allowing for the previously enclosed eastern rooms to be opened up [creating a more open and tropical atmosphere, in contrast to the early European fashion of smaller, separate rooms]. The new location of the bar room takes in the original position of the public lounge, store room, original entry passage and two-thirds of the front verandah, allowing for a larger public area which can accommodate a billiard table and bench room for patrons. A small servery area has been built between the new bar and dining room, directly in front of the internal cold room. The new bar area provides modern TAB and KENO facilities.
A false ceiling has been built in the new lounge area that once housed the bar rooms and provides SKY-Channel viewing for guests. Access is still available to the eastern verandah from this new lounge, and its area is defined by placement of lattice work, which runs down one side of the old passage-way. The old proprietors quarters, which had been converted into guest lounges, then a lounge and office area, have been opened up with the removal of all internal partitions, and now houses an assortment of gaming machines. At the end of the original passage-way, a female toilet has been built onto the verandah, with dual access to both the lounge area and garden lounge via the verandah.
The dining room has been enlarged by removing the partition to the adjacent store room on the western side of the building, with a new doorway to the back verandah added and the old under-stair doorway closed off. The kitchen has been updated by replacing the original brick fireplace with a modern gas appliance.
The scullery has been converted to male and female toilet facilities, the washroom updated to a modern laundry and storage room and the man's room converted to men's toilets. A smaller cold room has been built adjacent to this wash room for service to the outside garden lounge servery. An ATM has been installed within the stair well.
Access to the first floor is via the original red cedar turning timber staircase with turned newel and balusters. In the stairwell is located six windows grouped to form a picture or feature window. Three smaller windows, two square on either side of a rectangular window, are located above a group of three large rectangular windows. The glass panes have been painted. The larger group, two narrow rectangular windows on either side of a wider rectangular windows, are timber framed, sash with original glass panes.
The first floor has a central hallway with room opening off. The floor also has verandas running intermittently around the four sides, adjacent to the rooms. The rooms are all timber lined, some with original ceiling roses. An original brick chimney is located in a room along the northern wing and is easily seen extending from the roof-line. A modern exhaust vent exists externally and parallel to the original chimney structure. The timber verandah posts have simple, decorative brackets, with simple timber balustrade.
The first floor rooms have remained relatively unchanged, with twelve apartments, a store room, linen room and two bathrooms. The most notable additions to the apartments are plumbing and electrical, in the form of ensuites in all rooms, and kitchenettes in some. The two front bay bedrooms are reserved for the proprietors and the hallway that led onto the front balcony has been closed off.
External grounds to the western side and rear of the hotel are now covered by asphalt, and the street level has been raised to abut the verandah, a height of three feet from the original ground level, creating an all-purpose access. The surrounding verandahs remain as raised on stumps from the ground surface. The hotel has some landscaping along the creek on the eastern side.
","history":"The third hotel on the site, Lake's Creek Hotel was constructed in 1895 by builder T Moir, to a design by prominent Rockhampton architectural firm Eaton and Bates.
Lake's Creek was given its name after Captain Lake, who would run his ship into the creek to take on fresh water during the earliest days of Rockhampton's shipping industry during the 1850's. With the township of Rockhampton surveyed and established in 1859, outlying districts on both sides of the river were included and settled with increasing rapidity during the 1860's, including the district of Lake's Creek. The development of Lake's Creek as a village in its own right began in earnest in 1871 with the establishment of industry, educational, secular and social buildings in the form of construction of the Central Queensland Meat Preserving Company, school, church and public house.
With Cawarral Road (now Emu Park Road) commencing at Lake's Creek, at the site of the hotel, the establishment of a community there was important to the early development of the nearby settlements of Cawarral, Coorooman Creek and Emu Park. Lake's Creek Hotel became a 'jumping off' point for the horse-drawn coach service to Emu Park, which was a four hour journey one-way from Rockhampton.
While the business generated from the neighbouring meatworks would have been an influencing factor in choosing the site of a public house, it would not necessarily have precluded the decision to construct a hotel due to the rapid expansion of settlements, industry, agriculture and pastoralism between the Lake's Creek and Emu Park.
The first public house to be constructed opposite the new meatworks establishment in 1871 was considered by The Morning Bulletin as an unusually large and commodius hotel. While no plan or sketch of the Star Hotel could be found, its description is given as sixty feet by forty, containing seven or eight rooms, and fairly furnished.
Under the direction of James Cadden, the first licencee, the Star Hotel hosted social events that drew patrons from Rockhampton, including celebrations for the 1872 New Years Day Picnic. Travel to and from Lake's Creek for the southern settlers was by punt, the standard form of transport in the years prior to the construction of the first bridge across the Fitzroy River. Northern settlers were able to make their way to the hotel by way of a bush track that would eventually become Lakes Creek Road by means of foot, horse or buggy.
In 1877, the Star Hotel was renamed the Quarry's Arms Hotel. By 1879 the Quarry's Arms was under ownership of James Fenzi, with Martin Zimmerman holding the barman's licence. At three o'clock in the morning of January 6, 1880, the Quarry's Arms burnt to the ground. Reports at the time suggested that the fire was started by rats gnawing through shelving in the bar, causing bottles of liquor to fall and somehow ignite. The single story timber building was consumed within ten minutes of the start of the blaze. It appears probable that Martin Zimmerman purchased the site from James Fenzi and constructed a new hotel, presumably another single story house built also of timber, and named it the Lake's Creek Hotel.
This second structure continued to serve local patrons and travellers along the Cawarral Road and was purchased in 1890 by Thomas McLaughlin (Senior), the founder of Rockhampton's famous 'Mac Beer' and owner of the Fitzroy Brewery in Quay Street during the 1880's and early 1890's, until his death at sea in 1892 whilst travelling to New Zealand. His company, Thomas McLaughlin & Co., was managed by his sons Joseph and Daniel who continued to run the Lake's Creek Hotel. Ownership of the hotel stayed in the family until its sale in 1971 to the Victorian company, Carlton United Brewery. During the 1980's, the hotel once more passed into local ownership, being purchased first by the McClymont family, then to Leigh Wanless, before being sold to the current owners in 1994.
It was not long before the demands of the growing village of Lake's Creek, local settlers and travellers to the communities along the Cawarral Road and the township of Emu Park, caused the owners of the hotel to consider expanding their establishment to supply the needs of an increasing patronage. On April 2, 1895, The Morning Bulletin advertised for tenders for the erection and completion of extensive hotel premises, Lakes Creek, for D. McLaughlin, Esq., under the direction of Messrs. Eaton and Bates, newly established architects for Rockhampton and surrounding districts who offered to provide designs with all the latest improvements.
Messrs GT Eaton and AE Bates formed a partnership after working for John Kirkpatrick in Sydney, where they practiced for a short time before heading North to Rockhampton where their services would be found to be very much in demand by the prosperous and growing township and surrounding areas. Eaton and Bates were the architects of a number of Central Queensland buildings including the offices of the Central Queensland Meat Export Co., commercial buildings; town residences and villas, and hotels throughout Mount Morgan, Rockhampton, Gladstone and Longreach.
On April 18, 1895, The Morning Bulletin published an editorial of a successful tender by Mr. T. Moir for the construction of the new Lake's Creek Hotel for the sum of £1773. The article provides details of the floor plan of the new hotel, including descriptions of rooms, hallways, amenities, servant's facilities, stables and a brick cellar built under the bar.
The Bulletin described how, originally the hotel was raised on stumps to three feet (approx. one metre), with the first floor plan containing the bar within the bay windows, the eastern-most bay bearing a doorway for direct access to the main bar. The bar area itself was divided into two areas, a smaller section that housed a store room, and later a cold room, and was accessed from the main verandah or internally via the passages. The larger, main bar area serviced the eastern verandah and street entrance. Access to the cellar was likely obtained behind the servery area of the bar itself. The proprietor's quarters were located across from the bar, comprising a sitting room and bedroom which opened onto the surrounding verandah.
The Bulletin further described that located in the western bay windows of the hotel was a large public lounge. A large store room was adjacent to the lounge, which formed one side of the main entrance hall, and had both internal and external access. To the rear of the lounge was the dining room that had public access by either the lounge or rear verandah. Between this room and the central stairwell was originally a narrow store room that had one access from under the stairs. Adjacent to the dining room and running along the western side of the hotel was the pantry and kitchen with a large brick fireplace, the chimney of which extends through the above bedroom. Behind the kitchen a smaller stairwell opened onto the verandah and behind all a scullery, a wash house of similar size and a mans room. To the rear of the hotel was situated a stable, lavatories for men and ladies, and presumably storage areas for saddlery and buggy's. The main stairway leading from the ground to first floor is made of red cedar and embellished with decorative carvings on the barge boards, turned balusters and large, turned newel posts.
The first floor housed the sleeping quarters. Opening onto the front balcony was a guest's lounge. In all, twelve bedrooms were made available to guests on this floor, with a bathroom and linen room provided at each end of the building. A separate bathroom was to be provided at the rear for servants.
Significant changes have been made to the hotel since its construction, starting from the mid 1960's and continuing with the advent of new technology. Outbuildings, namely stables, garage and toilet facilities, extant on plans dating from 1965, have since been removed. A garden lounge was added to the rear of the hotel c1985, with an application to extend the lounge area and enclose it within a security fence in that year. A drive through bottle shop was added to the western side of the hotel in 1989.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1895, the Lake's Creek Hotel, the third hotel on the site, is significant in demonstrating the evolution of the village of Lake's Creek in association with the growing cattle industry of Coastal and Central Queensland and establishment of the Central Queensland Meat Preserving Company. A cornerstone for the developing village, the prosperity of the Lake's Creek Hotel has fluctuated with that of the meatworks, whilst remaining a focal point of the local community since the construction of the original public house in 1871.
|Designed by architects Eaton and Bates, who moved their business to Rockhampton in 1884 to take advantage of the prosperity flowing to Rockhampton from the local goldmine and cattle industries, Lake's Creek Hotel is a good example of Victorian Free Gothic architecture.
|The building incorporates traditional designs and adapting informal styles to create a well known landmark, important for its aesthetic façade and architectural style.
|Established to provide for the everyday person, particularly travellers between Rockhampton and Emu Park and the local workers employed by the CQ Meat Preserving Co, Lake's Creek Hotel has a strong association with the local and surrounding community who have used its services since its construction. The hotel's importance has continued unchanged to the present day, offering a glimpse into a social and cultural trend that has remained virtually unchanged in its 132 year history.
|Lake's Creek Hotel has a special association with the Central Queensland Meat Preserving Company and its employees since 1871. The importance of the development of the meat and livestock industry is recognised in Queensland's history, and the hotel occupies a special place in that history for the people who have worked within the cattle industry in all its various forms, from pastoralists, transporters, meatworkers and their families.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15573,"place_ref":600798,"name":"Wiseman's Cottage","alternate_name":"Mount Athelstane | Wisemans Cottage","street_address":"30 Nathan Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wiseman's Cottage is a single-storeyed stone structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof located fronting Lavarack Street to the west. The building is located at the rear of a high-set timber residence which overlooks Yeppen Yeppen Lagoon to the distant Mount Morgan Range to the south.
The building consists of a single room, with a masonry chimney stack at the northern end and a verandah on the western side. The building has masonry quoining with random rubble stone infill over which narrow ridges of lime mortar have been applied to give the appearance of pointing to coursed ashlar. The southern wall is cement rendered, and patches of render have been applied to various parts of the structure. The northern end has a masonry infill section, possibly in place of an original fireplace.
The western verandah has a stone paved floor, with timber posts supporting a skillion awning. A centrally positioned multi-paned french door with battered reveals and external timber shutters opens onto the verandah. A multi-paned casement window with external timber shutters is positioned above the french door and opens above the awning level. A plaque commemorating the construction of the building is hung on the southern end of the western wall, and the name 'Wiseman's Cottage' is located centrally hung from the verandah top-plate.
The eastern elevation has a similar french door and casement window arrangement, with a covered walkway connecting the building to the adjacent residence.
Internally, the building has a raked ceiling lined with compressed sheeting, and rendered walls with the northern internal gable being unrendered stone.
An underground water tank is located to the northeast of the building. Established gardens surround the building, and a number of mature trees are located at the northern end of the site. A low rubble stone wall forms a base for the perimeter timber fence to the property.
","history":"Wiseman's Cottage was constructed in 1859 as part of Henry Wiseman's residence which overlooked the Yeppen Yeppen Lagoon on the outskirts of Rockhampton. The stone structure was built as a storage section for the timber home of 16 rooms and is the only remaining part of the original residence. Credited as the oldest surviving structure in Rockhampton the cottage is significant for its association with Henry Wiseman, the Land Commissioner who was responsible for officially siting and naming the township of Rockhampton.
Rockhampton was proclaimed a township and port of entry in October 1858 after Henry Wiseman the Land Commissioner for the Leichhardt District was requested to find a suitable site on the Fitzroy River for a township. Wiseman agreed with Charles Archer (the original settler of Rockhampton who established a property at Gracemere Homestead (QHR 600508) in 1855) that as the bar of rocks across the river had already fixed the head of navigation on the Fitzroy, this was the natural site for a township. After suggesting the names of Charleston and Palmerston for the new town in honour of two early settlers who declined the offer of the namesake, Wiseman named the town after the principal characteristic of the locality, the rocks in the river. Wiseman first referred to the name of 'Rockhampton' in 1856.
In 1857 Wiseman decided to establish his own property in Rockhampton on a site at the southern end of the range overlooking the river flats in one direction and in the other, Yeppen Yeppen Lagoon. The erection of a basic structure consisting of several rooms was most likely completed by the end of 1857. The large 16-room slab house containing the stone 'cottage' was not erected until 1859. In February 1859 Colin Archer noted in his Journal that Wiseman was completing and furnishing his house 'in capital style, but will find the expense very considerable... It is a nice situation and could be made a first rate residence if £5,000 were expended on it.'
The main house was built of slabs cut from the surrounding bush and had a shingled roof. Wiseman named the house Mount Athelstane which gave its name to the Athelstane Range, where the house was situated. The 'Range', as it is referred to, became an area of affluent settlement in the following decades, for which Mount Athelstane set a precedent.
The stone room was constructed as a storage room from stone gathered on the property. The stone is supposed to have a faint date, 1859, scratched into the surface. A large underground tank also of stone provided the water supply.
The property was transferred to John McFarlane in 1874 and then to the Royal Bank of Queensland in 1889 who subdivided and sold off the original acreage. In February 1902 the property was transferred to Dorinda Curtis wife of George Silas Curtis MLA, one of the leading separationists in Rockhampton.
The timber house was demolished in the 1950s during the ownership of Henry Phillips, after which the present residence was built. However, the stone 'cottage' was retained and later used as a gift shop by the Parks who purchased the property in 1973. The Parks were the founding members of the National Trust in Rockhampton. It was during this time that two doors were cut into the structure. The property was bought by the present owners in 1983.
","criteria":"Wiseman's Cottage, a remnant of Henry Wiseman's Mount Athelstane, is one of the oldest surviving structures within the boundaries of Rockhampton and as such demonstrates the beginning of residential development in the city.
|Constructed in 1859, Wiseman's Cottage is a rare structure in Rockhampton, providing evidence of the original settlement in the area.
|The structure is aesthetically important due to its scale, form, and construction of rough-cut stone, and together with the surrounding plantings the building makes a subtle contribution to the local streetscape. The colour and texture of its walls reveal the character of the local stone used in its construction.
|Wiseman's Cottage has special association with Henry Wiseman, Land Commissioner of the Leichardt District who was responsible for officially naming and siting the township of Rockhampton in 1858 and precipitating a pattern of affluent settlement in the 'Range' area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15574,"place_ref":600799,"name":"Alexandra Railway Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Adjacent to North Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Alexandra Railway Bridge crosses the Fitzroy River, with the southwestern approach adjacent to North Street, Rockhampton. The bridge originally contained a double line railway, but now has a single line located centrally within the bridge.
The bridge consists of five truss spans supported on two concrete abutments and four common concrete piers. The concrete piers are the width of the bridge, and have buttress-like quoining at each end, with rendered detailing. The two northeastern piers are located on the northern embankment, with the remaining two piers located within the river. The two concrete embankments have rendered details similar to the piers.
The northeastern end has two 100 foot (30.5 metre) riveted 8 panel through Pratt trusses with parallel chords and decking. A similar single truss is located at the southwestern end of the bridge. The centre of the bridge has two 250 foot (75 metre) riveted 16 panel hogback double intersection Pratt trusses and decking on wrought iron caissons.
A pedestrian walkway, located along the southeastern side of the bridge, has a metal handrail and balustrade formed by intersecting diagonal members. A metal plaque commemorates the opening of the bridge, with the name of those involved in its construction.
","history":"The Alexandra Railway Bridge, constructed in 1898-99, crosses the Fitzroy River and is an integral part of the original design of the Rockhampton Junction Railway, and is an important element in the development of the railway network in Queensland.
The Archer brothers had made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy River. The Archers were also the first European pastoralists to arrive in the area. Their establishment of Gracemere station (QHR 600508) lead to further pastoral expansion into the area.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858, Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. Following the gold rush the town of Rockhampton developed as an entry and export town for central Queensland. Rockhampton continued to eclipse its nearest rival Gladstone for nearly a century as the principal port for central Queensland.
In 1863 the Parliament of Queensland passed the controversial Railway Bill, which committed Queensland to the use of a narrow gauge for the development of its main line in Queensland. Other colonies in Australia at this time had adopted broader gauges for use on their rail networks. The reasoning behind this decision was that a narrow gauge would have lower construction costs.
The first section of the Queensland railway network was opened between Ipswich and Bigges Camp on 31 July 1865, and later extended to link the towns of Warwick, Dalby and Toowoomba with Ipswich. At the time that the Railway Act had been passed, the 5000 citizens of Rockhampton objected to having no provision made for the construction of a railway to their hinterland, where copper was being exploited in the Peak Downs area. A railway was thought necessary to ensure development of the interior.
The first length of line was opened to Westwood some thirty miles (fifty kilometres) from Rockhampton in 1867. The line was extended beyond the coastal ranges in 1872, reaching Emerald in 1879. The Central Railway was progressively extended further west reaching Longreach in 1892, and remained an isolated railway system, with no connection to the southern division of Queensland railways until 1903.
In 1882 after Brisbane had acquired a railway to the seaside at Sandgate, Rockhampton clamoured for a similar connection to its resort at Emu Park. Construction of the Emu Park line was approved in 1885 and the line opened in 1888. The 1880's was a period of economic and civic expansion in Rockhampton as a result of the discovery and exploitation of the gold and ore body at Mount Morgan in the Dee Range forty kilometres from Rockhampton. A result of the isolation of Rockhampton from Brisbane, and the prosperity of the Mount Morgan mine, was the growth of the separatist movement which demanded separation from Brisbane. The colonial government of the period used railway construction, and the extension of the system, to counter the separation movement.
The line, similar to Bundaberg, featured a railway system divided by a major river. This consisted of a line running from a terminus in Stanley Street to Gracemere and westwards, and the line at North Rockhampton to Emu Park with no physical connection. Two years after the opening of the Emu Park line, the Railway Department began investigating the possibility of linking Rockhampton's two separate railways. The bridging of the Fitzroy River and the cost of land resumptions to join the two terminus stations were to be major difficulties in connecting the two lines.
Trial surveys in 1890 investigated two routes, but the financial crisis of 1893 forestalled further work. The impetus for bridging the Fitzroy River came from the decision of the Queensland Government to construct a deepwater port at Broadmount at the mouth of the Fitzroy River in 1894, and to link the Central Railway with North Rockhampton via a bridge across the Fitzroy and a line running via Denison Street. The original plan called for a single line down Denison Street and for a single track bridge, however the Rockhampton City Council protested against this decision. Following a visit to Rockhampton by chief engineer HC Stanley, the management of the Lakes Creek Meatworks at North Rockhampton convinced the Railway Department to construct a double line to North Rockhampton, as it was felt that developments in livestock and goods traffic would justify the initial outlay. In 1895 construction was approved for what was to be known as the Rockhampton Junction Railway. The new bridge and connecting line were the first examples of double lines outside of the Brisbane-Ipswich metropolitan area. The Rockhampton City Council gave half of Leichhardt Park (Archer Park) and Denison Street which allowed for the construction of a central railway station. The Council approved this work in October 1896.
The tender for construction of the Rockhampton Junction Railway was awarded to GC Willcocks in 1897. The contract involved the construction of the branch to Broadmount, the Denison Street line, and the Alexandra Railway Bridge. Willcocks at this period was one of Queensland's most prolific railway contractors, having been involved in the construction of various sections of the North Coast Line, as well as railway lines in the Brisbane area. The bridge contract was awarded to Willcocks at a cost of £43,471, and construction of the double line from Stanley Street to North Rockhampton was £65,137. Construction of the bridge was delayed until 1898 due to flooding on the Fitzroy River.
The bridge was designed by chief engineer HC Stanley and is similar to, but smaller than, the Albert Bridge (QHR 600232), which he designed to replace the Brisbane River crossing which was washed away during the 1893 flood. Five metal truss spans were used, two at 75 metres in length and two at 30.5 metres. No falsework was used during construction because of the risk of floods. The first of the main spans was floated into position on 14 June 1899. The method used to place the main spans was also similar to that used for the Albert Bridge, where a hulk was employed to float the span into position.
At the time of its construction, the maximum span of the bridge at 75 metres was the fourth largest achieved in Australia, after the first Hawkesbury Bridge, NSW (1889, 125 metres), Albert Bridge (1895, 103.7 metres) and the Burdekin River's Macrossan Bridge, Qld (76.2 metres).
The Rockhampton Junction Railway was officially opened on 6 November 1899 with a special ceremony held on the southern end of the railway extension. A double headed train and twelve carriages left the Stanley Street Station and broke through a ribbon on the Fitzroy railway bridge. At the time of its opening, no official name for the bridge had been decided, but it had been suggested that it be named after Alexandra, Princess of Wales. The Minister for Railways officially named the bridge "Alexandra" at the opening ceremony, after consulting with the Premier earlier in the day. With the completion of the Alexandra Railway Bridge, the Emu Park and Central Railway provided a unified rail link between the two halves of Rockhampton.
The Alexandra Railway Bridge has been restricted to weight limits since 1922 when C16 class locomotives and heavier engines were not permitted to pass on the bridge when it was occupied by another train. The introduction of larger locomotives to Queensland Railways and increasing axle loadings has led to additional restrictions on the speed of trains when passing over the bridge.
In 1930 the Rockhampton City Council erected electric lighting along the footway over the length of the bridge. In 1942, during the Second World War, the Mayor of Rockhampton suggested that a roadway should be constructed on the Alexandra bridge as City Council buses were unable to use the road suspension bridge over the Fitzroy River as a result of their five tonne weight.
With the road bridge also unsafe for use by military convoys, it was suggested that decking should be constructed on the bridge to provide for a 3.5 metre wide roadway. As a result, American military convoys were able to use the bridge to cross the Fitzroy River. Flagmen and guards were placed at each end of the bridge, and convoys were worked around train services where up to forty trains used the bridge per day. The decking was removed in 1945.
In 1948 the bridge was used to carry electric cables to supply power to Rockhampton, as an alternative to towers. In 1951 steel handrails were installed along the length of the bridge. Repairs to the bridge were carried out in 1958 and 1960.
With the introduction of diesel-electric motive power, concerns were voiced about the possible danger of having double headed trains using the bridge from 1970. A speed restriction was placed on diesel-electric locomotives using the bridge (20 km/h) similar to that used for larger steam locomotives. Restrictions were made to cover all trains using the bridge, ensuring that one train only was allowed occupancy of the bridge when passing. The restrictions were not removed until 1975 when the removal of the eastern set of rails was undertaken, thereby singling the double bridge.
Since 1977 community protest has been mounting for a new right of way to be found for trains in Rockhampton avoiding Denison Street and its street crossings, and the crossing of the Fitzroy River at the Alexandra Bridge. Most plans seek the relaying of the main line from Stanley Street station and crossing the Fitzroy River on a new bridge and alignment. Speed restrictions on the bridge are also cited as a cause of delay.
Longitudinal beams on the underside of the bridge deck were relocated in 1992 to increase the possible axle loading available for new generation diesel-electric locomotives to 20 tons. In November 1996 the timber pedestrian footway on the bridge was replaced by a non-slip surface mounted on plywood sheeting.
","criteria":"The Alexandra Railway Bridge has provided a major crossing of the Fitzroy River since 1899, and is important in demonstrating the evolution of the railway network in central Queensland and in the city of Rockhampton. The bridge is an integral part of the original design of the Rockhampton Junction Railway, which included the double line street railway connecting Stanley Street station and North Rockhampton via Denison Street. The bridge was also strategically important during the Second World War, providing a crossing of the Fitzroy River for American military convoys.
|The Alexandra Railway Bridge is of significance for its riveted through Pratt trusses which were the first of their type in Queensland. It is also significant for its riveted hogback double intersection Pratt truss main span, which is the second largest of its type in Queensland.
|The Alexandra Railway Bridge is of significance for its riveted through Pratt trusses which were the first of their type in Queensland. It is also significant for its riveted hogback double intersection Pratt truss main span, which is the second largest of its type in Queensland.
|The Alexandra Railway Bridge is of aesthetic significance, and makes an important contribution to the Rockhampton townscape and the Fitzroy River riverscape.
|The Alexandra Railway Bridge is of significance for its riveted through Pratt trusses which were the first of their type in Queensland. It is also significant for its riveted hogback double intersection Pratt truss main span, which is the second largest of its type in Queensland.
|The bridge is important as an example of the design work of Chief Engineer HC Stanley, and his contribution to engineering practices on Queensland Railways in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15575,"place_ref":600800,"name":"Criterion Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"150 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Criterion Hotel is a substantial three storeyed rendered brick building, situated prominently on the corner of Quay and Fitzroy Streets, Rockhampton. On the site as well as the hotel is an extension to the south west of the building, fronting Fitzroy Street and a semi-detached extension to the south east fronting Quay Street. To the rear of this extension, along the south east property line are early storage sheds and an early brick chimney.
The Criterion Hotel has elaborate façades facing both Quay and Fitzroy Streets. The early section of the hotel has a rectangular plan with principal entrance from Quay Street. The façades are lined with verandahs which are terminated and align with corner bays. Emphasising the corner of the building and the former, no longer extant, entrance to the public bar is a timber framed tower.
The Quay Street façade of the building comprises three levels of verandahs flanked by the end bays of the building. The ground floor verandah is lined with a rendered brick six bay arcade with full length openings with cast iron balustrading between the openings. The round headed arched openings are separated with shallow partly reeded pilasters. The verandah on the first floor level also features an arcade, though of shorter dimensions and with openings linked with an Italianate balustrade. The second floor verandah continues the rhythm established by the floors below but in the form of a series of paired columns surmounting a masonry balustrade, the sections between the columns of which are filled with a decorative panels of linked circular motifs. The symmetrically arranged end bays feature a pair of arched window openings on each floor shaded by convex corrugated iron awnings. Surmounting the façade of the building is a parapet concealing the roof on which are placed blocks and vases on each corner of the end bays. The line of the floors is expressed externally with a substantial string course continuing along the entire length of the façade of the building.
The Fitzroy Street façade of the Criterion Hotel is similar in detail to the Quay Street façade, though the verandah terminates at a return wall rather than at a bay on the south west end. The arcades are four bays in length and the arcade on the ground floor has been infilled with glazed and brick panels. Adjoining the south west external wall is a recent one storeyed extension with gabled roof.
The corner of the building, addressing the corner of Fitzroy and Quay Streets is one of the most prominent features. This bay is truncated and the doorway which was originally at the ground floor level has been partly infilled and is now a window. Above the window and formed by a shelf over the ground floor opening is a small rectangular Juliet balcony with Italianate balustrading. This has an ogee curved awning of Wunderlich decorative metal sheeting. Above this is another moulded element, a semicircular bracket which provides a transitional element between the corner of the building and the truncation. Surmounting this corner bay is a mansard roof clad with decorative metal sheeting and surmounting this is a timber framed tower/observatory with a steeply pitched pyramidal roof also clad with decorative metal.
Access is provided to the building from Quay Street, through the ground floor verandah to an grand entrance doorway with sidelights and a large framed semi-circular fanlight. The double entrance doors are many panelled and are pieces of fine quality timber craftsmanship.
Generally, the interior of the Criterion Hotel has many early features. The walls and ceilings are plastered on the ground floor with plaster walls and timber boarded ceilings on the floors above. High quality joinery - architraves, skirting and doors - is used throughout and much of this survives intact. Chimney pieces survive intact with timber surrounds and mantle, tiled or marble panels and cast iron fittings.
From the entrance door access is provided to a small entrance vestibule on the north west of which is a small office fitted with an early chimney place and to the south east is a ticket window. Separated from the entrance vestibule by an archway is a grand foyer space at the opposite end to the door of which is the stair. The floor of the vestibule and foyer is covered with alternating black and white marble tiles with coloured tessellated tile borders. Two sets of swing doors line the side walls of this space providing access to the public bar and function room to the north west and the dining room to the south east. These door have etched glass panels with lettering displaying the original purpose of the room to which they provide access. The public bar and other rooms to the north west have been heavily altered and have very few intact early features.
The dining room is a large open space, with two tall cast iron supporting columns, with Corinthian capitals in the centre of the room. Early fireplaces with face brick shafts and marble chimney pieces are features of the room. The dining room has many round headed arched windows providing daylight and ventilation. The arched section of these openings is filled with fine stained glass panels.
The stair hall, centrally located on the south west end of the building, in a semi circular recess, has a fine bi-furcating stair, turning 180 degrees and dividing at the landing between the floors and arriving at the next floor in two sections on either side of the central larger section. The stair has a continual handrail of fine quality craftsmanship. The stair hall has two sets of three arched window openings, filled with coloured and translucent glass.
The first floor is reached by the central stair which provides access to a stair vestibule, defined by segmental plaster archways resting on plaster corbels on the walls. These archways continue throughout the floor, defining the extent of the hallways.
The top floor of the building has a similar plan to that of the second floor, with halls running parallel to Quay Street from the stair foyer, and then parallel to Fitzroy Street at the ends of the buildings. From the halls access is provided to the many bedrooms. This floor is less ornate than the first floor and the timber boarded ceilings are slightly lower. The rooms facing Quay Street have access to the second floor verandah through half glazed French doors. The verandah awning is ceiled with fibrous cement sheeting. Except for the stair area there are no overhead archways and very simple cornices and skirtings on this floor.
Lightly attached to the south east of the building, with an overpass over a narrow lane is a two storeyed motel extension of brick veneer construction and very shallow gabled roof. To the rear of this is a timber framed and corrugated iron clad storage shed, in the centre of which is a large deteriorated brick chimney shaft and oven.
","history":"The Criterion Hotel is a three storeyed masonry building situated on the corner of Quay and Fitzroy Streets in Rockhampton. It has formed an integral and vital part of the social and cultural life of the town and City of Rockhampton since 1891.
In 1855 the New South Wales government had requested that William Henry Wiseman the Commissioner for Leichardt, locate a suitable place on the Fitzroy River for a settlement. Rockhampton's name and place had been decided on in 1856 although the settlement was not officially proclaimed a town until 25 October 1858.
The first building to be erected in Rockhampton was in 1857 a store. Richard Parker a resident of Gayndah erected the first hotel (or inn) for Rockhampton some six months later. Both Parker and Palmer had erected their buildings on what was crown land. Parker had built the inn opposite to Palmers store, and was in partnership with a man called George Gannon.
Parker and Gannon's establishment was known as the Bush Inn and was constructed of iron-bark slabs and shingle roof. In 1858 the discovery of the Canoona goldfield rapidly changed the fortune of the Bush Inn. The Bush Inn enjoyed overwhelming patronage and clientele over the four months that the rush lasted.
The Bush Inn was enlarged upon and rebuilt in 1859-60. The rebuilt building was of a single storey. The entrance to the public bar was from the corner of Fitzroy Street and Quay Lane, and the business premises extended along the Quay Lane aspect of the block. The layout of the Bush Inn now included a coffee room approached through a garden, and a billiard room at the Fitzroy Street end of the building.
Parker died in 1860 bequeathing the property to the eldest of his two daughters Dorinda Ann Parker. After his death Parker's widow Maria, kept the Inn going until remarrying with Mr. John Watt in 1861. The Bush Inn transferred licenceeship in 1862 to Mr. John Ward. Ward changed the name of the establishment from the Bush Inn to the Criterion Hotel. Ward also constructed the Rockhampton Hotel on Victoria Parade, a short distance from the Criterion.
Ward however did not maintain the licence very long, and before the end of 1862 had transferred it on to Thomas Nobbs. The Criterion was further rebuilt at this stage into a two storeyed weatherboard building with a first floor verandah fronting onto Fitzroy Street.
In 1865 J A Watt died and his widow Maria married John Cramp who was her business manager. In 1866 the lease on the Criterion expired. John Cramp and his wife, Maria took up the licence on the premises. Maria Cramp returned to the hotel owned by her eldest daughter, Dorinda. Maria Cramp kept the premises going with her husband until her own death in 1875, at the age of 39. Dorinda then took over the running of the hotel following the death of her mother. A brick extension was made to the Criterion after its purchase in 1875.
Dorinda Ann Parker in 1874 married George Silas Curtis. Curtis had been born in Tamworth in New South Wales in 1846, and educated at Sydney Boys Grammar. Curtis had first come to Rockhampton in 1863 overland and returned in 1866. He began a business career with the auctioneering firm of Mills Wormald, and after the death of Wormald in 1872 Curtis purchased the business.
Curtis was to become a prominent member of the powerful Rockhampton Chamber of Commerce, and also was to become in the 1890's the leading advocate of the separation movement in central Queensland. The marriage of Curtis to Dorinda Parker began a family association with the Criterion Hotel that was to last until 1947.
One of the licensees of the Criterion Hotel in the period of 1880-3 was Frederick Augustus Morgan who arrived in Rockhampton in 1879, from Bathurst in New South Wales. Morgan had been a gold miner in the Bathurst district. His two brothers Tom and Ned in July of 1882 were to credit themselves as locating the ore body on top of Ironstone Mountain in the Dee Range, that became the Mount Morgan Mine.
With the influx of wealth from the rich gold mine of Mount Morgan and with the growth of the importance of Rockhampton as the Port for access to the mine, the role of hotels such as the Criterion increased in the business and trade community.
Dorinda Curtis is credited with being responsible for the decision to construct the grand new three storeyed building at the corner of Quay and Fitzroy Street in 1889. According to J T S Bird in his Early History of Rockhampton, the building was rebuilt "by Mrs. G S Curtis, and the handsome three-storied brick building of the present day is one of the finest hotels in Queensland". Jessica Bloxsom attributes:
The Inn had been reconstructed twice up to then, when Mrs Curtis decided she would erect a fine hotel of stone, brick and marble, making it without doubt the finest hotel in Central Queensland.
It is unsure how much influence that George Curtis had in the business decision to construct the new building. In the rebuilding of the Criterion hotel the local press said that he also had an eye for improving the physical appearance of the town of Rockhampton. This was an ongoing process, with new construction work a physical manifestation of the wealth of Mount Morgan gold and its contribution to the town.
Tenders were called for construction on 5 March 1889. Twelve tenders were received from various contractors in Brisbane, Sydney and Rockhampton. The bid of Robert Kirkham of Sydney for £10 000 was accepted. Construction work began in mid 1889. Completion was expected to take twelve months.
The design was the work of James Flint, a Yorkshire born architect who had been articled to the Manchester firm of architects, Sherwood and Peverley. Flint had emigrated to Victoria in 1883. In 1887 he moved to Rockhampton to practice as an architect. In the booming economy of Rockhampton and Mount Morgan he designed several notable buildings, including Pinehurst, at Athelstane Range (1893-4), the Walter Reid and Co. Stores (1889) and the Criterion Hotel (1888-9). Importantly the grand new building was situated on a corner location on Quay Street and Fitzroy Street, where its main entrance overlooked the Fitzroy River. The old Criterion Hotel building was retained on its corner of Quay Lane and Fitzroy Street.
On 30 August 1890 when the finishing touches were being put on the building the Capricornian newspaper described the Criterion as being one of the sights of the town
People competent to judge declare that north of Sydney there is no better hotel to be found and the least that can be said is that there are few that excel it in the colonies.
The building, which cannot be described as belonging to any particular order of architecture, contains some of the most modern conveniences, including gas lighting and lavatories with ample ventilation.
Provision was also made for the installation of electric lights, and for the eventual inclusion of passenger lifts, which were not installed. The Criterion Hotel design was considered advanced for the period, and was expected to maintain its reputation as the leading hotel of Rockhampton. Its management was also considered the most progressive in Rockhampton.
It was hoped to open the new hotel building on 15 September 1890, in time for carnival week in Rockhampton. The hotel's licence was transferred to the new building on 8 October 1890. A special ball held on 21 October 1890 marked the official opening of the building for trading purposes.
Rockhampton was described in the following terms in 1893 as being well supplied with hotels and places of amusement. Its leading hotel the Criterion, is the equal of any in Southern Queensland.
The old Criterion Hotel was used for a variety of other purposes including accommodation for travelling salesmen. The ground floor of the former Criterion Hotel was set up as a sample room where salesmen were able to display their wares. It was also rented out for low cost accommodation. In 1957, the centenary year of the Bush Inn the building was sold to Mr. L G Duthie for demolition. The site of the old Criterion was rebuilt as office and shop space.
The Criterion Hotel became well known for the black tie balls and dinner parties that were held within its walls from the turn of the century until the 1950's. It has also hosted many distinguished visitors during its existence including the Duke of Gloucester (when Governor-General) , Princess Alice, the former Prime Minister of Australia Sir Robert Menzies, Dame Nelllie Melba, Sir Donald Bradman, and Charles Kingsford Smith.
Sporting teams such as the touring English cricket sides have also been accommodated at the Hotel. During the second world war it was commandeered for the use of American service personnel. It also served for a period of time as the headquarters of General Eichleberger who was on the staff of General Douglas MacArthur. Eichlelberger commanded over 70 000 American troops stationed within the Rockhampton region.
Until 1946 the Criterion Hotel remained part of the Curtis family estate. The last beneficiary was Ethel Curtis. In 1946, as remaining beneficiary of the estate Ethel sold the Criterion Hotel to Henry Smith. The Criterion Hotel was the only property in the city that remained in possession of the one family, being inherited from father, to daughter and on to grand daughter.
In 1950 the licence was brought by Charles Bloxsom and his wife Jessica. Jessica described the building as it was in 1950.
\t
This charming historic building , very compact in design, three storeys high, sitting on the bank of the Fitzroy River had forty-two bedrooms covering the two upper floors. The majority of these rooms each had a small balcony overlooking the river, then across to the Berserker Mountains.
The main entrance to the hotel was from Quay Street, up three welcoming marble steps to large double doors of cedar with elaborate brass handles and plates... the large foyer magnificent with its marble floor of large black and white diamonds. The ornate ...grand staircase of red cedar, the stained glass windows on each landing allowing light ...to flow through. To the right from the foyer, the ballroom highly polished floor, cedar tables, chairs and piano. To the left the dining room. Enter here by two sets of cedar doors, brass handles and plates with frosted glass inset saying dining room. The seating accommodation could be up to one hundred guests... Two large pillars in the centre of the room reaching to an unbelievable height; a fireplace, \tmany arched windows overlooking the river.
The ground floor also accommodated the office reception area, the control area of the whole establishment, the large bar, a very small private lounge, a tropical lounge, staff dining area, pantry kitchen...added to these were a series of small rooms enveloping the main building in an L shape; food store room, liquor store room, furniture store room, hot water system...laundry, ironing room, sample rooms and lastly the old building [ Criterion Hotel/Bush Inn] on the corner of the property.
Detached by ten feet from the hotel building we had staff quarters which were part of the original structure. There were six small rooms here, with bath and toilet downstairs.
A 1955 aerial photograph shows the Criterion Hotel a corner entrance t othe public bar and two one storeyed buildings om the south-western side of the hotel which extend from Quay Street to Quay Lane. From one of these buildings projects a brick chimney shaft in the same position of the extant chimney in 1996. As well, the earlier hotel a two storeyed building is evident on the cormer of Quay Lane and Fitzroy Street.
The Bloxsoms kept the licence of the Criterion Hotel until 1960. In this period major changes were undertaken in the hotel. Much of the furniture was worn out as well as the hotel linen. The Bloxsoms intention at this time was to make the Criterion a more upmarket place of accommodation. The Bloxsoms lease on the property expired in 1960.
The property was sold to the sons of Henry Smith and their sister Joan Johnston in 1966. From 1960 until 1981 under the ownership of the Smith family alterations were made to the building have including the construction of a motel unit complex on the southern side of the hotel, facing Quay Street. This was the first hotel-motel unit arrangement in Rockhampton. The first steak house in central Queensland was also opened on the hotel premises.
Other internal alterations have been made to the building including the refurbishment of the public bar on the corner of Fitzroy Street and Quay Street. The major change was the closing off of the public bar's entry from the truncated corner of the building at the corner of Fitzroy Street and Quay Street, and the removal of the bar's bat swing entry doors.
The Smith connection with the Criterion Hotel ended with the death of Les Smith in 1979. The business was auctioned off in 1981, and Keith Smith and his wife remained on as joint managers. In July 1981 the hotel was bought by members of the Balkin and Melit families. Previously at auction the business had been passed in for $575 000.
The Criterion was remodelled to give it a French theme similar to the Bonaparte's Hotel and restaurant in Brisbane owned by the Balkin's. $200 000 was spent on refurbishment's, including reconstruction of accommodation areas, the remodelling of the steakhouse (being renamed Bonaparte's Theatre Restaurant), and the former Riverview Restaurant- which then traded as Josephine's French restaurant. The hotel was renamed Bonaparte's Criterion hotel. In July of 1982 a newsroom bar was opened for the clientele of the Morning Bulletin newspaper. Additional renovations have been carried out in 1989-90 in preparation to celebrate the centenary of the opening of the Criterion Hotel.
The beer garden at the rear of the building was demolished in 1995 by the owner so a new roofed over beer garden/ entertainment venue could be added. Following approval the new addition was added and opened in 1996. The new structure abuts the rear wall of the hotel and in keeping with the historical development of the location was called the Bush Inn.
","criteria":"The Criterion Hotel building illustrates the growth of Rockhampton in the late 1880's as result of the wealth generated by the Mount Morgan Mine. The Criterion Hotel forms an integral part of the historical development of the City of Rockhampton being located near the site of the first public inn established in the embryonic settlement.
|The Criterion Hotel site has the potential to yield evidence of earlier occupation as the site of licensed premises in Rockhampton for 140 years.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a large masonry hotel built in the 1880's in a regional Queensland town designed both as local landmark to attract regular custom, and as superior accommodation to attract country and family visitors. It remains substantially intact, and is a good illustration of its type in both design and function.
|The Criterion Hotel is a substantial building which makes a strong contribution to the Rockhampton townscape and to Quay Street. It occupies a prominent position on Quay Street and is a local landmark. The building has many well crafted internal features including high quality joinery, a fine stair, plaster work, stained glass panels and chimney pieces.
|The Criterion Hotel is valued by the local community of Rockhampton as a centre of social activity for over a century.
|It is significant for its association with the Rockhampton architect James Flint, who also designed the Rockhampton Club building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15576,"place_ref":600801,"name":"Rockhampton Club","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"166 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Rockhampton Club is a two storeyed painted and face brick building located prominently on Quay Street overlooking the Fitzroy River. Adjacent to the Rockhampton Club, on the south eastern side, is Trustee Chambers which compliments the club in both size and scale.
The Rockhampton Club has a rectangular plan facing Quay Street with two rear extensions; a double storeyed service wing on the south eastern property line and a single storeyed former billiard room extension on the north western property line. The shallow hipped roof over the principal section of the building is clad with early corrugated iron. The rear extensions have more recent corrugated iron hipped roofs. A clerestory lantern is found on the apex of the roof over the former billiard room.
The Rockhampton Club's Quay Street façade, constructed of brick which has been subsequently painted, is lined with a double storeyed verandah, featuring ornate timber and iron work. At the ground floor level seven timber verandah posts rest on short masonry piers which form part of a masonry plinth. Surmounting the plinth and between the columns are fixed timber louvred panels which extend upwards for about one third of the height of the column. A frieze rail supports an ornate frieze of turned timber members, similar to balusters, with a central arched panel set among them. The corners between the frieze and columns are filled with unusual timber fretwork brackets. The upper floor of the verandah, which extends around the north western side of the building, has a cast iron balustrade linking the timber columns which have timber brackets. A narrow cast iron frieze runs between a timber frieze rail and the verandah beam. The soffit of this verandah is clad with timber boards.
The entrance door is located to the northern end of the principal façade and access is provided to this from Quay Street up several concrete steps interrupting the ground floor verandah, which is aligned with the ground floor level. The six panelled timber door is surrounded by sidelights and a rectangular transom light, which is fitted with etched glass with lettering "ROCKHAMPTON CLUB". Elsewhere on this façade are, on the ground floor, three other doors and two windows all regularly spaced, and on the first floor six openings, including some french doors.
The entrance door provides access to the ground floor of the Rockhampton Club which has seen many alterations, principally because the entrance door has been shifted from its former central location on the Quay Street façade to one end of the club. The various rooms on the Quay Street side of the building have been, essentially, joined to form one large space with very large holes cut in the existing walls, though the early floor plan is still evident. In the eastern corner of the building is a bar room which has a c1960s fitout with an amorphous planned bar with tapering side. In the western corner is a sitting room and beyond this, to the rear of the Club, access is provided to the former billiard room extension, now used as a dining room. Early half glazed double doors have been fitted within a new glass and plasterboard partition to form the entrance to the sitting room. Generally the ground floor has timber board ceilings, surviving plaster roses, timber skirtings and carpeted floors.
At the rear of the original entrance area, and separated by a plaster moulded archway is an elegant and finely crafted geometric stair, with winding handrail and a newel on the third tread. This stair arrives in a large open vestibule on the first floor defined with a number of large plaster archways. From this area access is provided to a large reception room above the bar room in the eastern corner of the building. Other than this room are many smaller rooms, formerly used as bedrooms, with rudimentary finishes and fittings.
The interior features many important pieces of furniture and fittings, including an honour board, an original Rockhampton Club sideboard other early furniture associated with the club and an early bell indication board. Beneath the bar on the ground floor is a brick lined cellar.
The two storeyed former service wing is also constructed of face brick though this has been painted in sections. Lining the north western façade of the wing is a double storeyed timber verandah. This is infilled on the upper level with horizontal timber boarding and is partially infilled on the lower level, accommodating a kitchen extension. The early kitchen survives on the ground floor of this wing. The upper floor, reached by a dog legged timber stair is attached to the main building with a partially open walkway. This contains several small rooms, partitioned with single skinned horizontal timber partitioning with vertical bracing, which are accessed from a infilled verandah.
The one storeyed former billiard room extension joins to the Rockhampton Club through one of the former reception rooms. It is a large space with window openings on all external walls and a central lantern. On the south western end of this extension are two smaller rooms which are roofed with a skillion awning attached to the extension. The openings on the north western wall have high sills, indicating that fitted seating may have been attached along this wall of the main room. This section of the building is clad internally with plaster walls and fibrous cement ceiling which is braced with strips of timber roll moulding, this cladding extends to the interior of the central lantern, where operable clerestory windows provide light and ventilation.
To the rear of the building is a substantial carparking space, with a brick boundary wall facing Quay Lane.
","history":"The two storeyed building known as the Rockhampton Club forms an important link with the history of the development of the social and cultural life of the town and City of Rockhampton. The Rockhampton Club has been in existence since 1888, and in residence at Quay Street since 1894. Its members have formed an important part of the social and political life not only of Rockhampton, but also of Queensland as well.
The Archer brothers had made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy river. With additional movement of European pastoralists and settlers into the area the significance of the Archer landing place on the Fitzroy increased.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858 Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. The first sale of town allotments was held in Rockhampton on 17 and 18 November. During these first land sales, allotment 5 of Section 45 was purchased by William Archer.
In 10 November 1881 a lease of indenture was signed between Thomas McLaughlin and William Archer. Thomas McLaughlin gave his occupation as a brewer. In 1880 the original Fitzroy Brewery had been established on the land owned by Archer. The brewery was owned by A L Bourciault, and F E Russell. Russell was involved in the business for only a few months, until being forced out. Thomas McLaughlin and William Kay Higson then became partners in the running of the Fitzroy Brewery. This partnership lasted only a few months until McLaughlin acquired the share held by Higson. The success of the business saw McLaughlin moving to new premises in 1884, situated on the corner of Quay, Wood and Wharf Streets.
The lease of indenture signed by McLaughlin listed the following buildings as being on the block owned by Archer
\tAll that store warehouse and buildings situated in Quay Street Rockhampton...with \tthe yards stables and outbuildings at the back...together with the cottage adjoining \texcepting out of this present demise the upper story of the said store or main \tbuilding and a stall for keeping a horse at the back of the said store....
The property also had a tenant on the upper storey of the building. Entry to the upper storey of the building was gained through the main entrance of the store. The full term of the lease was to be for seven years, £117 per annum in rent.
McLaughlin maintained the lease, and apparently extended the length of the lease as in August 1890 he was stated as being tenant for three years. In September 1890 an application was made to bring Allotment 7 of Section 45 under the Torrens Title system by William, Thomas and David Archer. The certificate of title was registered in December 1890. A trust was then established in 1891, with three trustees William Pattison, John Ferguson and Rees Rutland Jones being the nominees for the trust.
John Ferguson was a builder resident in Rockhampton. He had arrived in Rockhampton in the early 1860's and became a building contractor in the town. In 1870-1, he constructed the workers cottages at the Lakes Creek meat works. Ferguson retired from the building trade in 1888, after becoming one of the half dozen millionaires in Rockhampton, a result of his investing in the Mount Morgan mine.
Ferguson had become the founding chairman of the Rockhampton Club in 1888. The Rockhampton Club's first premises were rented in Cook's building in East Street, between William and Derby Street. He was also the president of the Central Queensland Separation League advocating the creation of a new state centred on Rockhampton. Ferguson went on to build the mansion residence of Kenmore in 1894, which he named after his birthplace in Scotland. It was also expected at the time that he would also become the first Governor of the separated state, should this objective be achieved. His home later became the Mater Hospital.
To cater for members from country areas accommodation was provided on the upper storey of the building. Members of the Club also were allowed to permanently room at the premises. The Club Secretary was a paid position.
The Rockhampton Club's membership at its largest extent has been nearly four hundred members. Prominent members have included William Kidston MLA, who was Premier of Queensland from 1906-11.
It would appear that between 1890-91 the Rockhampton Club had decided to move to new premises. Thomas McLaughlin had drowned in 1892, leaving open the tenancy of the land. The Rockhampton Club's first premises were rented rooms in Cook's building in East Street, between William and Derby Street. The Club had been formed with John Ferguson as its inaugural president. The Club was to provide for recreation, relaxation, and the company of like minded citizens in Rockhampton.
Tenders for the erection and completion of new premises for the Rockhampton Club in Quay Street had been called for by James Flint on 7 January 1892.
The design of the Rockhampton Club was the work of James Flint (1862-94). Flint was a Yorkshire born architect who had been articled to the Manchester firm of architects and building surveyors, Sherwood and Peverley. He had then moved to London and practiced there for a period of about eighteen months. Following this period of work, Flint emigrated to Victoria in 1883, and worked with a Mr Horsley of Melbourne.
In 1887 he moved to Rockhampton to practice as an architect and surveyor. He took up offices in Central Chambers in East Street. At this time John W. Wilson and James Flint were the main architects active in Rockhampton. In the booming economy of Rockhampton and Mount Morgan he designed several notable buildings, including Pinehurst, at Athelstane Range (1893-4), the Walter Reid and Co. Stores (1889) and the Criterion Hotel (1888-9) and the Children's Hospital, Athelstane Range (1889). Flint was also a member of the Rockhampton Municipal Council, as well as the Central Separation League, the lobby group pushing for separation from southern Queensland to form a state by federation.
The building was completed by 1893. The Rockhampton Club bought the building from the McLaughlin estate in 1904. In 1906 the trustees for the Rockhampton Club borrowed £ 3400. It is unsure the reason for borrowing this amount. John Ferguson trustee for the Club died on 30 March 1906. In October 1906 new trustees were appointed.
To cater for members from country areas accommodation was provided on the upper storey of the building. Members of the Club also were allowed to permanently room at the premises. The Club Secretary was a paid position. Prominent members of the Club have included William Kidston MLA, who was Premier of Queensland from 1906-11.
In 1915 a mortgage for £ 2000 was taken out from the Corporation of the Dioceses of Rockhampton, and was repayed in the same year. At the same time the trustees borrowed
£ 1200 from the Union bank of Australia.
Membership declined in the period post World War One. The Club at his stage was experiencing difficulties in maintaining numbers, and at the Annual General meeting of 1921, mention was made of the strenuous times the Club had passed through. New trustees for the Club were appointed in 1923.
From 1925-26 Peter Rees Jones (of the legal family in Rockhampton ) was president of the Rockhampton Club. He was also a permanent resident of the Club, being one of its longest members to be accommodated in the building. During a heatwave in February 1928, he apparently died in his sleep at the Club, a result of heart failure..
Alterations were made to the building in 1930, when a special committee meeting initially rejected a tender for proposed improvements to the building. It was felt that the Rockhampton Club would be unable to meet repayments. The decision was made instead to construct a downstairs billiard room suitable for two tables, make alterations to the bar and erect a suitable lavatory.
After the economic depression of the 1930's the Rockhampton Club again underwent a building extension program in 1938. However the outbreak of the Second World War again saw a slump in membership numbers.
The Rockhampton Club has always maintained a policy of opening its doors on time to it members. During the 1954 flood that devastated Rockhampton, flood waters reached the level of the top stair at the Quay Street main entrance. Members used the Quay Lane (rear entrance) during the crisis.
In the 1970's the Club experienced problems with declining membership. In the 1980's a proposal was put forward by the Anglican Diocese of Rockhampton to purchase the Club building, however the proposal was rejected. New trustees were appointed in 1986 for the Rockhampton Club
In 1991 in an attempt to attract additional members the 103 year old rule to exclude female members was revoked. Despite an increase in numbers with the inclusion of women, the Club was finding it difficult to maintain levels of membership. Increasing competition from other clubs and especially sporting clubs were affecting the continuing existence of the Club. By 1995 only 150 people were registered members.
Tenders for the sale of the building were offered in August 1995, the intention to find a buyer for the building who would be willing to lease the premises back to the Club. Proceeds from the sale were intended to be channelled into the facilities of the building, to cater for outside functions.
The eventual purchasers of the building were two Club members who have undertaken to lease the premises back to the Club.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Club building illustrates the growth of Rockhampton in the late 1880's as result of the wealth generated by the Mount Morgan Mine. It is in particular assocaited with the group of investors who benefited from speculating in mining shares from the Mount Morgan Mine in the late 1880's.
|The Rockhampton Club has aesthetic significance as a well designed prominent building which is an important element of the Quay Street streetscape. The building contains many important and well crafted features, including a geometric stair, early furniture and an honour board.
|The Rockhampton Club forms an integral part of the historical development of the City of as it shows the development of a club dedicated to the social and intellectual and leisure activities of a group of prominent professional people. It is significant as a continuing social entity from the nineteenth century, maintaining its identity of a social institution for central Queensland.
|The Rockhampton Club has a special association with the Rockhampton architect James Flint, who also designed the Criterion Hotel in Quay Street. It has a special association with the lives of John Ferguson founding president of the Rockhampton Club, and one of the leading lobbyist for a separate state centred on Rockhampton, and Rees Sydney Jones trustee of the Club and founder of the oldest legal firm still practising in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15577,"place_ref":600802,"name":"Trustee Chambers","alternate_name":"River Chambers | Residence of Dr William Callaghan","street_address":"170 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Trustee Chambers is a two storeyed rendered brick building overlooking the Fitzroy River on Quay Street, Rockhampton. The site, covering only half of the area between Quay Street and Quay Lane is occupied by the building which is of rectangular plan with a one storeyed brick wing extending from the rear along the north western property boundary.
Trustee Chambers has a hipped corrugated iron roof, recently reclad. The Quay Street elevation features a double storeyed verandah, the awning supported on the ground floor by six substantial cast iron columns with Doric capitals resting on square planned bases which are linked with a wrought iron cross braced balustrade on a rendered brick plinth. The fascia board above the columns at the level of the first floor has lettering "TRUSTEE CHAMBERS" painted onto it. On the first floor the skillion roofed verandah, hipped at the ends, is supported on timber columns aligned with the ground floor cast iron columns. The first floor verandah has a cast iron balustrade and the stop chamfered columns have simple timber brackets and decorative mouldings. The soffit of this verandah is clad with timber boarding and the concrete floor is carpeted. On the face of the building between the verandah awning and the eaves line are several single eaves brackets regularly spaced to align with the columns below.
The ground floor elevation has a centrally located doorway housed in an arched recess flanked by pairs of rectangular windows housed in rectangular recesses. The window openings are fitted with double hung casements. The upper floor has a series of half glazed french doors providing access from the internal rooms to the verandah.
The rear elevation is also lined with a double storeyed verandah, constructed from simple timber posts supporting a skillion awning. An open tread timber stair provides access from the ground floor verandah to the upper floor verandah which is partially lined with a fibrous cement balustrade and is ceiled with timber boarding. The rear of the building is of painted and bagged brickwork.
The interior of the upper floor of the building is arranged with a central hall running parallel to Quay Street which houses the stair and provides access to the rooms. The lower floor, has been subject to major alterations which have modified the floor plan. Most significantly walls have been removed and, in some places realigned, to form a large reception area, to which access in gained via the entrance doorway from the ground floor verandah. This doorway is fitted with four glazed hinged panels which are centre opening.
The building was constructed with plaster walls and timber boarded ceilings with plaster ceiling roses, many of which survive without light fittings. A suspended grid ceiling has been added to the ground floor and services, including lighting and air conditioning are ducted in the cavity formed between the original and the new ceiling. Individual air conditioning units have been inserted above the openings in many of the first floor rooms.
Generally the interior, where intact, is finely finished with elaborate plaster cornices and timber skirtings. Fine timber joinery survives throughout the interior and this is of high quality craftsmanship. Several chimney places survive including two white marble examples on the first floor, one with elaborate corbelling and complete with an early cast iron fireplace.
A fine timber stair has been reconstructed in its original position centrally located against the north western wall. This dog legged stair is lit by a large round headed arched stair window which has been recently fitted with a leadlight panel, incorporating five round stained glass sections with images which symbolise the various owners of the building.
At the rear of Trustee Chambers is a one storeyed brick extension with hipped corrugated iron roof, this extends toward the rear boundary wall of the site also of corrugated iron. In this rear area is a small carparking space.
","history":"Trustee Chambers is a two storeyed masonry building, built in 1877 in Quay Street, Rockhampton as the private residence of Dr William Callaghan house surgeon for the Rockhampton Hospital. It was designed by John W. Wilson and was the most expensive private contract for the design of a building carried out by Wilson. It has been used since 1919 as professional offices, and since 1950 has been the offices of the Union Trustee Company. \t
The Archer brothers had made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy river. The establishment of Gracemere station lead to further pastoral expansion into the area.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858 Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. The first sale of town allotments was held in Rockhampton on 17 and 18 November 1858.
William Archer purchased a block of land fronting Quay Street In 1859 John Cameron purchased Allotment 6 of Section 45 from Archer. This was subsequently transferred to William James Dalzell of Melbourne. In 1866 Heinrich Schmidt purchased the allotment. Quay Street at the time of the sale was a busy thoroughfare fronting onto the town wharves of the Fitzroy River.
Heinrich Schmidt was the first baker to be resident in Rockhampton. It is unsure whether a residence was erected by Schmidt on this property. In 1870 the allotment was sold by Schmidt to the original owner of the present building on this property, Dr William Callaghan.
Dr William Callaghan, who 170 Quay Street is best associated with arrived in Rockhampton in July 1861. Callaghan was born in 1832. William was the second doctor to practice in the town. A few days after his arrival in the town Callaghan began to establish his practice in the Rockhampton area. He was then appointed as the Coroner and District Medical Officer for Rockhampton a short time after arriving in Rockhampton.
Callaghan was subsequently appointed to the position of House Surgeon at the Rockhampton hospital. Dr. Callaghan became one of the best known individuals resident in Rockhampton from the 1860's until his death in 1912. He was well known for his love of horse racing, and was an excellent rider heavily involved in the local jockey club. The race course built in North Rockhampton was named Callaghan Park in honour of the medical practitioner.
The first residence of Dr. Callaghan was in Kent Street. The residence was sold by Dr. Callaghan in 1863 to Father Charles Murlay. It was then used as a small convent for the Sisters of Mercy after their arrival in Rockhampton
Dr. William Callaghan married in 1869, to Aimee Henrietta Cowper the daughter of the Dean of Sydney. After his marriage they resided in timber residence, before deciding to erect the residence in Quay Street.
A tender for a new residence for William Callaghan was let on 16 May 1876. The tender was awarded to builder John Ferguson. Ferguson had arrived in Rockhampton in the early 1860's and became a building contractor in the town. In 1870-1, he constructed the workers cottages at the Lakes Creek meat works. Ferguson retired from the building trade in 1888, after becoming one of the half dozen millionaires in Rockhampton, a result of his investing in the Mount Morgan mine.
Ferguson was later to become the founding chairman of the Rockhampton Club (1888), a club that would be eventually located next door to the home of Dr. Callaghan. He was also the president of the Central Queensland Separation League advocating the creation of a new state centred on Rockhampton. Ferguson went on to build the mansion residence of Kenmore in 1894, which he named after his birthplace in Scotland. It was also expected at the time that he would also become the first Governor of the separated state, should this objective be achieved.
Dr. Callaghan's residence was designed by John W. Wilson. Wilson was a prolific architect and builder active in Rockhampton from 1864. Wilson had been born in Scotland in 1829, and is thought to have migrated to Victoria during the time of the gold rushes. In 1854 he was present at Bakery Hill in Ballarat. Wilson also laid claim to the design of the Southern Cross flag that flew over the Eureka stockade.
After arrival in Rockhampton worked as builder and operator of a shipping concern from the Port of Yaamba to Rockhampton. He advertised as an architect from 1875. Wilson was responsible for the design of two hundred buildings in and around the Rockhampton region. Some of these included the School of Arts and the Leichardt Hotel.
The work of Rockhampton architect John W. Wilson was recognised by the Daily Northern Argus
\tDuring the last five or six years,...nothing in either stone or brick and mortar has \treared its head above the ground, although a good deal of patching up work has been \tdone, all of which has fallen into the hands of one architect Mr. J. W. Wilson who \tis...about the most practical man in the town in the profession... Amongst many of the \tjobs executed by him are those of the front of the Joint Stock Bank, a most creditable \tpiece of work... We also understand that Mr. Wilson is the architect for Dr. Callaghan's new residence in Quay Street, adjoining the old "Argus" office. The patronage bestowed upon Mr. Wilson fully corroborates our prediction some two years since, that he was the right man in the right place.
Total cost for the building was £5050, being for a two storeyed brick residence. The original contract as signed on 14 June 1876 was for a lump sum of £ 3 969 being for labour and materials.
After completion the residence became the home of the Callaghan family.
Dr Callaghan died on 1 April 1912, and the building remained the private residence of his widow Aimee Henrietta until 1919. At this time the building was bought by William Joseph Phelps Harris. In 1933 this title was transferred to Harris Pty. Ltd. Harris and Co also owned the Harris and Co. emporium store in Rockhampton, a three storeyed retail store, complete with electric lifts and a roof garden tea room.
The Callaghan residence was renamed River Chambers. Form 1920 until 1950 during the ownership by Harris the building was used as professional offices for various tenants including a dentist, stock and station agent. River Chambers was also the address for professional offices for individuals such as E R Larcombe, the only Barrister practicing in Rockhampton, B S Barcoe Stock and Share Brokers It also used as the consultation rooms for Dr. R S Leeds. In 1936 Arthur Bradford, Barrister resident in the offices, succeeding Larcombe as a Barrister practising in Rockhampton.
River Chambers passed into the ownership of The Union Trustee Company of Australia Ltd in August of 1950, (also known as the Union Fidelity Trustee Company). From 1952 the ground floor was occupied by the offices of the Union Trustee Company, with the upper storey being let out as professional offices. After the building was bought it was renamed as Trustee Chambers. Internal renovations were carried out at this time, with the main staircase being removed.
Changes have been introduced into the building since passing into the ownership of Union Trustee Comapny , including air conditioning on the lower level. Trustee Chambers has had the original entry way restored in 1991.
A special stain glass window was commissioned and installed in 1995 containing four scenes depicting the occupations of the previous tenants and owners of the building. These representations include William Knox D'arcy, who made a fortune in selling off shares in the Mount Morgan Mine syndicate. He was later to fund the search for oil in Persia, and found the company that gave rise to British Petroleum. Harris is also featured as a previous owner of the building when it was called River Chambers.
","criteria":"It is one of the earliest buildings still extant in Quay Street Rockhampton. Trustee Chambers is significant as an example of the development of Quay Street as a residential area and is contemporary to other buildings such as "Avonleigh".
|Trustee Chambers is a well composed 19th century building featuring many fine elements and makes an important contribution to the streetscape of Quay Street and compliments the adjoining Rockhampton Club.
Trustee Chambers has considerable aesthetic value as a well composed building which contributes to the Quay Street streetscape. The building contains many fine internal and external features, including the ground floor cast iron columns and the internal joinery and plasterwork.
|Trustee Chambers built in 1877 is significant for its association with the life and work of Dr William Callaghan resident of Rockhampton from 1861 until his death in 1912. It was the private residence of the Callaghan family from 1877 until 1919. It is also an important example of the work of prolific Rockhampton architect John W. Wilson , which includes four other buildings along Quay Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15578,"place_ref":600803,"name":"C J Edwards Chambers","alternate_name":"Sydney V Golik and Co Motor and Car Truck Dealers | Rockhampton Motors Garage and Engineers | River Motors Pty Ltd","street_address":"174 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Edwards Chambers is a simple single storeyed building on Quay Street Rockhampton, situated overlooking the Fitzroy River. The building extends to the Quay Lane boundary of the site, with access provided via a doorway to the rear of the adjacent Trustee Chambers' site.
The building is constructed with rendered masonry walls supporting a corrugated iron roof. The roof has a hipped section running parallel to the Quay Street facade perpendicular to which two long hipped sections run, forming a U-shaped ridge, ventilated in places with a long corrugated iron ridge ventilators. The roof is partially concealed by the Quay Street facade which extends beyond the line of the roof and on the long elevations by simple parapets.
The Quay Street facade of the building is symmetrically composed and dominated by a cantilevered awning running along the entire face and interrupting the composition. The facade comprises a central section with decorative, curved parapet profile, capped with a decorative moulding. The face of the parapet has the lettering "EDWARDS CHAMBERS" painted centrally and the number of the building above. At the street level of this section several openings for both windows and glazed doors have been inserted, and these are separated by corbelled mouldings. Flanking this central section are symmetrical end bays featuring large archways with architraves and keystone and voussoir elements scoured in the render. Though previously opened these archways, identifiable only above the awning, have been filled with glazed doors and windows, forming shopfronts. A panelled section of rendered masonry forms the parapet to these end bays.
The south eastern side party wall is shared with the one storeyed building adjacent to Edwards Chambers. The north western concrete wall has several small infilled openings at the far end where toilets are located internally. Surface mounted water pipes run the over this wall.
Because the building was originally a showroom , the interior was simply designed as a large open space and is therefore with subsequent renovation devoid of any features which suggest its early date. A recent (c1970s) office fitout has been inserted into the building and this comprises a central hall off which many small tenancies are accessed. These are formed with glazed and plasterboard partitioning, a suspended ceiling grid with fibrous cement panels, and a ceramic tiled floor. Many of the walls in the offices are veneered with acrylic timber cladding and carpeted. The rear section of the building, separated by a concrete wall is a large unceiled shed which extends to the Quay Lane boundary.
","history":"Edwards Chambers was constructed in 1914 as a motor garage for the Howard Motor & Cycle company of Rockhampton. It is representative of an early motor garage in a provincial city. \t
The Archer brothers had made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy river. In 1855 the Archers overlanded cattle to the region of the Fitzroy.
After the short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858 Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. The first sale of town allotments was held in Rockhampton on 17 and 18 November in the same year. In May 1859 Frederick Robert Hutchinson applied for title to land along the forefront of what is now Quay Street not far from the Archer landing place.
Hutchinson had been an early arrival in Rockhampton. At the time of the Canoona gold rush he was appointed as the Clerk of Petty Sessions. For Hutchinson this was a time of great social disturbance coping with the aftermath of several thousand diggers descending onto a settlement consisting of three buildings and a small wharf.
In May 1859 Huthchinson had written a letter to the colonial government in Sydney requesting the construction of a public wharf (Queens wharf) for the loading and unloading of vessels. In the same period Hutchinson was also requesting that the government provide public works in Rockhampton especially roads, as the tracks existing in the town at that time were impassable. In 1860 Hutchinson, Hunter and Company established a store at this location in Quay Street. The store traded mainly for pastoralists heading into the interior of central Queensland.
In June of 1895 a Certificate of Title was issued on Allotment 7 of Section 45. The Certificate of title was issued to George Ranken of Young, and Harriet Ann Cathcart Hutchinson of Windsor. She was described as being the widow of Frederick Hutchinson, orchardist of Mildura. George Ranken died on 6 May 1895.
In October 1913 James Howard purchased the property. James Howard was a well known name in the motor vehicle and cycle business in Rockhampton. Howard had a business listed in the Post Office Directory as a bicycle depot and importer since 1897. In 1898 James Howard's father William had constructed for himself the first motor cycle in Rockhampton, a tandem bicycle with a single cylinder 4 h.p. engine attached. The Howard business was situated at 95 East Street opposite the Rockhampton Post Office. The business acted as a cycle importer until 1907, when Howard & Co. listed themselves as "cycle and motor dealers."
Howard & Co. was one of the first businesses in Rockhampton to cater for the sale of motor vehicles and motorcycles. The horseless carriage had made its first appearance in central Queensland in 1902 when Dr FH Voss became the owner of a steam powered locomobile. He eventually sold this vehicle to W Howard who then converted it into a car powered by an internal combustion engine. W Howard was referred to as the father of the automobile industry in Rockhampton.
Howard & Co opened a branch of the company in Brisbane in 1903. Premises were initially at 333 Queen Street, before moving to 376 Queen Street in 1906. A new showroom, workshop and garage was opened at 303 Adelaide Street in 1909. Howard & Co were also to open other branches of the business in Hope Street, South Brisbane, Ipswich, Maryborough and Neil Street, Toowoomba, at later periods.
Agencies for the company were to expand into most country towns in Queensland. The Adelaide Street building was described in 1913 as being a spacious and handsome motor garage. The workshop, garage and display area occupied half an acre of floor space. The company at this period employed between 60 and 80 people in Brisbane, and was producing 1000 bicycles a year from its workshops.
In 1909 the Rockhampton Post Office directory listed the business as Howard Motor and Cycle Co. Ltd (late Jas Howard & Co.), cycle & motor manufacturers and importers, indicating a name change by the company. In the 1913-4 directory the business was listed as being the Rockhampton branch of Howard Motor & Cycle Co. Ltd "carrying large stocks of cycle and motor sundries." Repairs were carried out on motor cars, motor cycles and bicycles in the East Street office and workshops. Howard Motor & Cycle Co Ltd operated the motor dealership for vehicles from companies such as Buick, Cadillac, Dennis motor lorries, Wolseley, B.S.A. and motor cycles from Triumph and New Hudson.
In the period of 1906-15 four bicycle and motor dealers were trading in Rockhampton, Howard Motor & Cycle Co Ltd, A E Beal, Canada Cycle & Motor Agency at the corner of William and Fitzroy Streets, and Theo Kingel's bicycle factory in Bolsover street which was the local Ford dealer. The C C M Garage was the largest of the garages operating in Rockhampton until 1914.
The evolution of motor transport in Rockhampton was similar to the experience in Brisbane. Private vehicles were imported from overseas manufacturers, sold by the local dealerships, and maintained by the companies mentioned above. By October 1913 the Morning Bulletin commented on the growth of the motor industry, with vehicles being purchased for commercial purposes, and the modifications carried out by local workshops and garages.
\tMotor vehicles are gradually being brought into use in Rockhampton for business \tpurposes... Messrs T McLaughlin have purchased from the Howard Motor and Cycle
\tCompany, a two ton Dennis four cylinder, twenty eight horse power motor \tlorry... The body of the lorry was built by Mr Walley and fitted up in the Howard \tMotor Cycle Company's garage.
Following Howard's purchase of the land in Quay Street in October, tenders were called by Edwin Morton Hockings, the architect on 15 December 1913 for the erection of a concrete garage in Quay Street for the Howard Motor & Cycle Company. The new garage was part of the expansion and diversification of the company in Rockhampton.
Edwin Morton Hockings (1870-1942) was the son of Albert J Hockings one of the early mayors of Brisbane. Edwin Hockings was educated at Brisbane Grammar School (QHR 600780), and became the articled pupil of architect Richard Gailey. In 1890 Hockings won a design competition for the Girl's Grammar School in Rockhampton. Gailey's office took over documentation of the building and Hockings went to Rockhampton as clerk of works. He began his own architectural practice in Rockhampton in the mid 1890's. Hockings enlisted and served in the Third Queensland Contingent during the South African War, and re-enlisted and served during the First World War.
Hockings formed partnerships with A M Hutton from 1898 until 1904 and LT Palmer from 1916 until 1938. Hockings was architect on buildings such as St Peter's Church of England, Barcaldine (1898-99) and the Rockhampton Town Hall (1939-41).
On 1 July 1914 a lease was taken out by Howard Motor & Cycle Co. Ltd for five years at £321 per year on 174 Quay Street. The garage was opened by July 1914, as advertisements in the Morning Bulletin refer to the Howard Motor & Cycle Co. garage in Quay Street. The business was referred to as Howard's Motor Garage. Howard Motor & Cycle Co. Ltd also continued to trade from the East Street premises, using these as its show rooms. Howard's Motor Garage registered itself as an importer of motor cars and accessories, with repair work by skilled mechanics.
The building was designed as a motor show room and garage, with two entrances either side of the central show/ work area. Access to the front part of the building was through the arched doorways. Motor vehicles from companies such as Buick were delivered by ship to the town wharves. Vehicles were then driven up Quay Street to the Motor Garage from the wharves.
In 1927-28 the Howard Motor Garage was renamed the Rockhampton Motor Garage and Engineers, although it traded as Rockhampton Motors Ltd. The Howard Motor & Cycle Co Ltd had changed its name in 1925 and transferred the lease on the property to ownership. In 1929 Howard Motor Co Ltd changed its name to Howard Investment Co Ltd.
The Howard Investment Co. Ltd had a further name change to Howard Ltd in 1932. The Howard Motor Garage changed its name in 1938 to become River Motors Pty Ltd - Motor Car Dealers. River Motors opened a second office at 72 William Street, Rockhampton in 1941.
A plan of the re-subdivision of allotment 7 in June 1945 shows a main building identified as River Motors with several ancillary buildings fronting on to Quay Lane. These are identified as a lavatory fronting on to Quay Lane (enlarged in 1944), wood and fibro shower sheds, and a shed. Two areas were also identified at the rear of the allotment as being a washing section and a greasing section. A gate gave access on to Quay Lane between the washing section and lavatories.
The dealership changed hands in 1947 to become Sydney V Golik and Co. Motor Car and Truck Dealers. The premises in Quay Street continued to be run as a motor show room, however an addition had been made to the rear of the building when a galvanised extension was constructed to act as a workshop and repair facility. Agricultural vehicles such as tractors and ploughs, were also displayed on the premises. At the time that the dealership changed hands a large electric advertising sign was fixed to the front of the building. A photograph from 1955 shows the building with an awning smaller than the present one affixed to the front of the building.
In 1959, CJ Edwards and Co. Ltd bought the property from Howard Ltd. The former garage, workshop and showroom was then converted into several businesses operating from the one building in 1960 at a cost of £ 3000. C J Edwards was a public accountant company, leasing several professional offices and businesses. With the change in use of the building from a workshop to offices major internal changes were made to the building but the ceiling was left untouched. Garage space for the tenants was also increased in 1963.
Various tenants in the chambers have included apart from CJ Edwards real estate agents as well as other semi professional offices. In 1987 further alterations were made to offices in the interior of the building.
","criteria":"Edwards Chambers built as a car garage is important in demonstrating the evolution of motor transport in Rockhampton and central Queensland. The building demonstrates the servicing requirements associated with the introduction of motor transport in the early part of the twentieth century.
Edwards Chambers is an example of a purpose built motor vehicle garage and service centre established in a provincial centre in Queensland in the early twentieth century, and is a surviving example of a substantially intact motor garage building.
Edwards Chambers has architectural significance as an example of a precursor to modernism linked with the establishment of motor transport. The building illustrates an early parallel between the development of the automobile industry and the design of the buildings accommodating this industry.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
|Edwards Chambers has an association with the development of the motor industry in Rockhampton, and the company founded by Howard & Co which was one of the first businesses in Rockhampton to cater for the sale of motor vehicles and motorcycles. Howard & Co were to establish branches in Brisbane and throughout Queensland to become one of the major automotive dealers and suppliers in the state in the period of 1920- 1950.
\t
Edwards Chambers has a special association with the life and work of E M Hockings, architect. Hockings practiced in Rockhampton from the mid 1890's until 1940, producing some of the regions most impressive edifices, including the Girl's Grammar School (1890), (600780) St Peter's Church of England, Barcaldine (1898-9) and the Rockhampton City Hall (1939-41).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15579,"place_ref":600804,"name":"Callianiotis Constructions","alternate_name":"Rees R & Sydney Jones","street_address":"178 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Callianiotis Constructions building abuts Quay Street and occupies almost the entire site allotment that adjoins the CJ Edwards Building on the western side and Cattle House on the east.
The single storeyed brick building is elongated in form and consists basically of the original hip roofed section of the building at the front with a long gable roofed extension at the rear. The symmetrical facade of the building is cement rendered and strongly modelled with quoin work at each corner and around the front entrance. The original window and door frames have been replaced with modern aluminium style fixtures. Both windows have moulded architraves. A deep cornice together with dentils runs the full width of the building. The roof of the building is hidden from the street by a simple parapet. Internally the original section of the building consists of a central tiled corridor that provides access to three small carpeted offices on both sides. Most of the existing partition walls are original, as is much of the timber architraving. The acoustic ceiling throughout this section is suspended and is positioned approximately 600 mm below the original. The original rear brick wall is currently painted and former window openings have been sealed. The original brick lined vaulted safe still survives.
A large single storeyed addition is attached to the rear of the original building. The structure is built of brick with a steel frame and has a concrete slab floor.
","history":"The one-storeyed brick building at 178 Quay Street was built for solicitor Rees R Jones in about 1886. The building contributes to the 19th century commercial streetscape of Quay Street and represents a phase of commercial development and growth in Rockhampton during the late 19th century precipitated by trade at the port and the success of the Mount Morgan gold mines during the 1880s.
The legal firm Rees R and Sydney Jones was established in 1864 by Rees Rutland Jones and is today the oldest existing legal practice in Queensland. Rees Rutland Jones was to become one of the best known legal practitioners and prominent public identities in central Queensland, eventually becoming a member of the Municipal Council, member for Rockhampton North in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, solicitor for the Mount Morgan Mining Company and the town solicitor from the years 1871 until 1896. Rees R Jones at the time of his death was the oldest practitioner on the Roll of the Supreme Court.
Rees Rutland Jones had occupied three different premises prior to the construction of the 1886 building. On 24 July, Rees R and Sydney Jones acquired the site in Quay Street which until this time had been vacant. The building was erected in the year which sealed the success of the Mount Morgan gold mines and its construction reflected the boom in development which occurred in Rockhampton during the 1880s. The building occupied one the most advantageous positions in the city being situated close to the wharves and the other principal business premises along Quay Street. Rockhampton had been the major port in central Queensland since 1858, handling the pastoral and mineral products from the western settlements and it was the position of the wharves across from Quay Street which fostered the distinctive commercial development in the area.
Rees R and Sydney Jones extended their former premises in 1966-7 to cope with expanded staff numbers. In 1976 Central Queensland Salt Industries purchased the building and in June 1990 the present owners purchased the building. The firm Rees and Sydney Jones moved to the former Queensland National Bank premises on the corner of Quay and Denham Streets.
","criteria":"The former Rees R and Sydney Jones building, erected in 1886 forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct which is distinguished by its late 19th century commercial buildings. The Quay Street precinct stands as a legacy to the Port of Rockhampton which served central Queensland from 1858. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland and the river wharves fostered the substantial commercial development along Quay Street, enabling it to become the principal business district of the city. The solidity of the buildings were a symbol of Rockhampton's wealth, particularly generated by the Mount Morgan gold rush of the 1880s, and reflected the confidence with which the community and developers viewed Rockhampton's future.
|The building possesses important aesthetic value because it contributes to the continuity and character of the late nineteenth century quayside.
|It also has special association for the people of Rockhampton through its significant aesthetic and historic contribution to Quay Street, which for many is the symbol of Rockhampton and is very closely associated with the image of the city.
|The prominent Rockhampton legal firm, Rees R and Sydney Jones, has a long association with this building as its first owners and occupants for a period of 90 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15580,"place_ref":600805,"name":"Cattle House","alternate_name":"Union Bank of Australia","street_address":"180 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cattle House, the former Union Bank of Rockhampton, is a substantial two storeyed load bearing masonry building on Quay Street, facing north-east overlooking the Fitzroy River. The building, like the nearby former National Bank, employs classical architectural features, most prominently a double storeyed arcaded loggia on the principal Quay Street facade.
The building is L-shaped with a double storeyed loggia to Quay Street, rear double storeyed verandah and two storeyed service wing from the northern end of the rear elevation. Abutting this section a single storeyed wing runs. The corrugated iron roof, which is concealed behind a parapet comprises a hip over the principal section parallel to Quay Street perpendicular to which a double hipped section covers the remaining part of the principal building. Another hipped section extends over the service wing.
The end bays of these five bay loggias project slightly from the face of the building and are surmounted by triangular pediments. The end bays emphasise the two principal entrances of the building, the one to the northern end providing access to the ground floor, former banking chamber, and on the southern end providing access to the stair hall leading to the first floor. At the ground floor level the arcaded loggia features round headed arched openings, full length in the end bays indicating openings and partially infilled with a heavy solid masonry balustrade on the three central bays. The arcade openings are separated with single storeyed pilasters whose base mouldings align with the balustrade mouldings. The intrados, or soffit of the archway is clad with coffered plasterwork.
The arcaded loggia on the upper floor has fine rounded arched bays, corresponding to those on the ground level but with shorter supports. The archways rest on rendered masonry imposts which taper gradually towards the arch supports giving the opening a complex curved shape. Italianate masonry balustrading is found in each of the five openings. Pilasters separate the openings and these rest on bases which, again, align with the top moulded course, frieze panel and dentilled cornice. All this is surmounted by a parapet of Italianate balusters divided into sections by squat piers which align with the pilasters on the ground and first floor levels. Ornate plasterwork of foliage arabesque with rosettes is found in the spandrels of the archways in the end bays of the first level. Above these, in the pediment of the end bays is a cartouche flanked by acanthus and floral plasterwork. Surmounting the apex of the pediment is a plasterwork palmette moulding which also adorn the pediment as acroteria.
Two entrances provide access to the building from the Quay Street facade. Separating the entrance from Quay Street within the arched opening are double wrought iron gates. The northern end, where access is provided to the ground floor, is fitted with a double multi panelled door of painted timber, flanked by side lights and all surmounted by a semi-circular fanlight. Half glazed French doors are fitted to the internal section of the door frame. The other entrance, at the southern end, and providing access to the stair hall is fitted with a double timber door of also of multi-panelled design, flanked by long thin window openings and surmounted by a semi-circular fanlight.
Generally the interior of the building is notable due to the high quality of early decorative elements, in particular excellent quality joinery and plasterwork. The interior was planned to provide banking chamber and offices on the ground floor and a residence on the first floor and this layout is still able to be appreciated, despite changes particularly at the rear of the ground floor.
Upon entering the ground floor, one encounters the former banking chamber, now a large reception foyer for the Cattleman's Union. This room has a particularly ornate pressed metal ceiling divided into three sections with heavy beams clad with pressed metal. Each section is decorated with moulded ribs dividing the surface of the ceiling into smaller planes decorated with panels of foliated moulding and ceiling roses.
On the eastern wall of this room access is provided three rooms, two offices including the former manager's office which has window openings to Quay Street, and the former strong room, which has a massive concrete shell, heavy iron door and a vaulted concrete ceiling. The western wall of the former banking chamber has several large cut away openings making the room seem to extend into the rear of the building.
The stair and entrance hall, access to which is provided through the entrance at the southern end of the Quay Street facade, is a long room extending the breadth of the building and divided by a round arched opening with moulded architrave and imposts and with a prominent keystone. The archway separates the principal stair from the entrance area. This is a dog legged timber stair with turned balusters and turned newels at the landings and at the base and top. A vertical sash window opening is fitted with simple leadlights.
The upper floor of the former Union Bank is arranged with a central hallway running parallel to Quay Street from which the principal first floor rooms are accessed. The hallway has a timber boarded ceiling, plaster cornice and frieze rail, dado rails and timber skirting. The timber floor is covered with carpet. The former drawing room, now a meeting room, is a large room in the north-eastern corner of the building with two pairs of french doors opening onto the first floor loggia. This is the largest room on the floor and has a timber boarded ceiling with timber strip mouldings creating a geometric pattern over the timber boards and skirting boards. Two other rooms face Quay Street on the first floor of the former Union Bank, a small former dressing room and a former bedroom. The bedroom has a detailing similar to that of the drawing room but the other rooms on this floor have more simple timber boarded ceilings and less substantial detailing.
The interior of the former Union Bank features two quite grand chimney pieces, one in the former manager's office and the other in the former drawing room. The fire surround is constructed from highly ornate, carved timber forming two fitted shelving units flanking the fireplace and supporting, with five overscaled timber brackets over the fireplace, a substantial timber mantle. Several other chimney pieces in the building are derivative of these larger examples.
","history":"The Cattleman's Union building at 180 Quay Street, Rockhampton was erected in 1903 as a two-storeyed concrete-rendered brick building for the Union Bank of Australia. It was designed by Brisbane architects Addison and Corrie and was the second premises to be constructed on the site for the Union Bank. The original bank premises was erected in 1864 making it one of the earliest examples of commercial development in Quay Street. The Cattleman's Union Building contributes significantly to the streetscape of Quay Street which is characterised by commercial buildings of high quality from the 1860s to the 1900s.
A branch of the Union Bank of Australia had operated in Rockhampton in rented premises from 28 October 1862. By the end of 1863 a two-storeyed brick building with verandahs was nearing completion on the site of the present building. The contract price for the building was £3, 291/5/- and the final cost, including office fixtures and furnishings, was £3, 612/14/-. The building consisted of a banking chamber, strongroom, manager's room, clerk's room and dining room on the ground floor and a drawing room and four bedrooms on the first floor. The complex, on half an acre of land, also included a temporary brick kitchen, servant's rooms, outhouses and wooden stables. The Union Bank had been cautious to keep the cost of the 1864 building close to £3000 as re-sale was a possibility because of some uncertainty, in these early years, of Rockhampton's future as a commercial city.
The bank occupied one of the most advantageous positions in the city being situated on Quay Street close to the wharves and the other principal business premises. During the 1860s, Rockhampton was the major port in central Queensland which handled the pastoral and mineral products that came increasingly from the hinterland. It was in these early years that Quay Street developed in a commercial capacity to serve the passing trade at the wharves.
Development in Rockhampton and in Quay Street escalated greatly during the 1880s due to the immense wealth generated by the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan. The new economic buoyancy of the 1880s created a period of rebuilding throughout the city, a trend reflected by development in Quay Street. Nearly all the major buildings in Quay Street were constructed between 1882 and 1903. The establishment in 1903 of the north coast railway to Brisbane caused the importance of the port to diminish and further commercial development in Rockhampton to be more closely tied to the city centre. The construction of the new Union Bank premises in 1903 was a part of the tail end of the 19th century development boom in Quay Street.
The present building was erected after the Union Bank's General Manager sought approval from the board in 1902 to rebuild on the site of the run-down 1864 bank building. Despite his concerns about the poor economic conditions in the area due to drought, the new building was occupied at the end of July 1904. Tenders for the new bank premises were called in September 1903 by Brisbane architects GHM Addison and L Gillespie Corrie in conjunction with Rockhampton architects AM Hutton and EM Hockings. Addison and Corrie had practised as architects in Brisbane from 1898 to 1905 and designed such buildings as the Bank of New South Wales in Fortitude Valley and Queen Street, Brisbane (1899), and the former Chandler's building (Moon's building) in Adelaide Street, Brisbane (1900). GHM Addison had previously sustained a successful career in Brisbane from 1886, establishing himself as a prominent architect being responsible for the design and completion of the Exhibition Building in 1891.
In October 1951, the Union Bank of Australia and the Bank of Australasia merged to form the Australian and New Zealand Banking Corporation Ltd. The Quay Street Building remained the premises of the ANZ Bank until 6 November 1980, when the building was purchased by the Cattleman's Union who continue to own and occupy the former Union Bank building.
","criteria":"Erected in 1903 as premises for the Union Bank of Australia, Cattle House forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct in Rockhampton which is distinguished by its late 19th century commercial buildings. The Quay Street precinct stands as a legacy to the activities of the Port of Rockhampton which served the vast area of central Queensland from 1858. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland and the river wharves fostered the substantial commercial development along Quay Street, enabling it to become the principal business district of the city. The solidity of the buildings were a symbol of Rockhampton's great wealth during the latter 19th century which was precipitated by the success of the Mount Morgan gold mines discovered in 1882. Cattle House is an example of the later development in Quay Street which occurred before the diminishing importance of the wharves saw commercial development become more closely tied to the city centre and the new railway from about 1903.
|Cattle House possesses important aesthetic value contributing significantly to the streetscape of Quay Street which retains the character of a nineteenth century quayside. In conjunction with the neighbouring buildings, particularly the building belonging to Rees R and Sydney Jones, it forms a dominant block which strongly defines the corner of Quay and Denham Streets.
|Cattle House has special association for the people of Rockhampton through its significant aesthetic and historic contribution to Quay Street. This street is for many people the symbol of Rockhampton and is very closely associated with the image of the city.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15581,"place_ref":600806,"name":"Luck House","alternate_name":"Mansfield's Building | Australian Estates Co","street_address":"182 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Australian Estates building is a two storeyed brick building set in alignment with the street boundary. The building currently displays the street number 184. Its cement rendered facade is painted, and is asymmetrically arranged allowing for separate access to both levels of the building from the street frontage. The upper windows of the facade are timber framed double-hung sashes fitted into round-arched openings supported on pilasters, enframed by larger pilasters. The apron of each upper window is decorated with a relief, intersecting spherical design. The ground level shop fronts are aluminium framed single-paned glass windows, which are enframed by pilasters that have stylised leaf design capitals. Both entrance doors are multi-paned timber framed doors, which are not original. The gabled roof of the building is hidden from the street by a pediment that is capped with a simple cornice moulding. A large louvred ventilator exists in the rear gable end. Tie rods have been introduced into the facade and suggest previous structural instability. An awning has been unsympathetically attached across the width of the facade. The south-eastern elevation of the building is also cement rendered but is unpainted and features only an ashlar ruled finish. The other two elevations are face brickwork that has been over painted. The windows on these elevations are part of the original 1860's building fabric, being timber framed, double-hung windows with six panes per sash. Several of the upper level windows have had window mounted air conditioned fitted to them.
The ground floor internally has had most original dividing walls removed and various forms of portable glazed partitioning installed to create a new floor layout. Due to the introduction of air conditioning, false ceilings have been fitted throughout the floor effectively obscuring the original ceilings. The upper level is accessed via a set of narrow internal stairs located in the southern side of the building. The stairs lead to an L shaped corridor that, together with the stair well, has a plasterboard ceiling and simple cornice. There are six rooms at the upper level of which several have the original timber lined ceiling. The floors throughout are either exposed timber boards or covered in vinyl. Original architraves and skirtings survive.
Attached to the rear of the building are two small and relatively recent flat roofed additions that house toilet facilities. The larger, which is two storeyed, is constructed of brick and the other, which is smaller and only single storeyed, is constructed of concrete block. A timber staircase provides access to the upper level of the building from the rear.
Also located on the building allotment is a completely separate structure that is cement rendered and has small awning style windows. This building is a much later of construction to the main building.
","history":"The former Australian Estates building at 184 Quay Street, Rockhampton was originally constructed in 1861 as premises for the store and office of PD Mansfield. The present facade was added in 1884 when the building was altered. The additions were designed by the prominent Rockhampton architect John William Wilson. The building is one of the oldest surviving in Quay Street and it contributes to the 19th century commercial streetscape which bears testament to the once thriving wharves of the river precinct.
The building was originally used as an office and store for the general merchant Percival D Mansfield who was the first postmaster of Rockhampton and the second mayor in 1862. During the early 1860s Mansfield advertised as 'General Storekeeper and Commission Agent' in Quay Street but by 1867 he leased the building to numerous professionals who included three architects, a solicitor, a conveyancer and a surveyor. These tenants were listed in the Post Office Directories of 1868 in which the building was referred to as 'Mansfield's Building'. When PD Mansfield died in May 1869 the property was left to his daughter, Elizabeth Cuthell, but was not transferred until 1891. In the 1870s Walter Reid & Co had its office on the ground floor of Mansfield's Building and in 1874 solicitors WK D'Arcy and Rees R Jones' occupied the upper floor.
The 1884 additions were designed by JW Wilson who called for tenders from bricklayers and contractors in May of that year for the erection of additions, alterations and repairs to the Mansfield Building. Wilson dominated the architectural scene in Rockhampton from 1864 until the 1890s. His work contributed significantly to the consistency of the Rockhampton townscape with six of the Quay Street buildings erected before 1901 being Wilson's design. Wilson designed over 200 buildings in the central Queensland region during his 35-year practice and was one of the most prominent and prolific architects to have worked in Rockhampton.
The Australian Estates building represents two important stages in the development of Rockhampton as a prosperous commercial centre. The Canoona gold rush of 1858 helped establish Rockhampton as the major port in the region which later handled the mineral and pastoral products that came increasingly from the western settlements. Quay Street was one of the earliest parts of Rockhampton to be settled and it developed in a commercial capacity to serve the passing trade at the wharves which once stood across the road from the buildings. Quay Street developed rapidly from 1858-1882, with the construction in 1867 of the Northern Railway westward from Rockhampton increasing the flow of goods passing through the port. Very few buildings survive from this pre-1882 period and the former Australian Estates building is an example of early commercial development in Quay Street and Rockhampton.
The 1884 alterations reflect a boom time for the Quay Street precinct initiated by the Mount Morgan gold rush beginning in 1882. Rockhampton was well established by this time and the port attracted profits from the export of gold. The wealth from Mount Morgan allowed Rockhampton, and Quay Street in particular, to undergo considerable rebuilding, a trend reflected by the construction of the facade of the former Australian Estates building in 1884. In 1903 the Brisbane to Gladstone railway was opened and from this time the diminishing importance of the port caused the wharves to fall into disrepair and the development of the area to become more closely tied to the city centre.
The property remained in the Cuthell family until December 1941 when the Australian Estates & Mortgage Co purchased the building which they had leased since 1908. In 1980 the building was bought by Frank Luck Investments.
","criteria":"The former Australian Estates building, erected in about 1861 and altered in 1884, forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct which is distinguished by its late 19th century commercial buildings. The Quay Street precinct stands as a legacy to the Port of Rockhampton which served the vast area of central Queensland from 1858. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland. The river wharves fostered the substantial commercial development along Quay Street, enabling it to become the principal business district of the city. The solidity of the buildings were a symbol of Rockhampton's wealth, later boosted by the Mount Morgan gold rush of the 1880s, and reflected the confidence with which the community and developers viewed Rockhampton's future. This building is one of the earliest surviving structures in Quay Street, dating from about 1861, and is an example of the early commercial development near the wharves.
|The Australian Estates building possesses important aesthetic value because it contributes to the streetscape, continuity and character the late nineteenth century quayside.
|The Australian Estates building has special association for the people of Rockhampton through its significant aesthetic and historic contribution to Quay Street, which for many is the symbol of Rockhampton and is very closely associated with the image of the city.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15582,"place_ref":600807,"name":"R Rees and Sydney Jones","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank","street_address":"186 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former National Bank building is prominently located on the corner of Quay and Denham Streets, Rockhampton. The two storeyed rendered brick building has classically composed and detailed facades addressing both streets, with the principal entrance to the former banking chamber off Denham Street, and the entrance to the stair hall and former first floor residence off Quay Street. A shallow pitched hipped corrugated iron roof is concealed behind an Italianate balustrade surmounting the principal facades.
The principal facades of the former National Bank comprise two storeyed arcaded loggias. The arched openings are separated with double storeyed smooth finished pilasters with moulded bases and Corinthian capitals. These visually support an entablature comprising base string mouldings, a frieze with moulded rondels aligned with the pilasters and, above this, a dentilled cornice. Projecting slightly from the seven bay Denham Street facade is a central entrance portico with detailing consistent with the loggia with a triangular pediment bordered with the dentilled cornice moulding surmounting the entablature. The arched openings on the facades of the former National Bank have semi circular heads, with moulded architraves and imposts flanking the pilasters separating the openings. More decorative moulding around the arches emphasises the central projecting bay. The Quay Street facade extends for five bays, the middle bay of which has been recently infilled for the installation of a lift.
The arched openings are linked by cast iron balustrading on the two storeys. The ground floor loggia has concrete floors and a ceiling clad with small gauge corrugated iron and braced with chamfered timber beams. The upper storey loggia, which features arched openings of shorter proportion than those on the ground floor, has a timber boarded floor and ceiling.
The principal opening off Denham Street, accessed through the loggia within the projecting portico is a substantial double timber panelled and moulded door, with semi circular fanlight above, leading into a small entrance vestibule from which double timber framed and glazed doors, also with semi circular fanlight above, give access to the former banking chamber. Surrounding the double timber doors on the external wall is a plaster moulded architrave with prominent keystone. Flanking the doorway are two groups of three round arched window openings fitted with vertical sash windows and fixed louvre timber shutters. The moulded sills of these openings, and of those on the Quay Street facade of the building are integrated into a continuous string moulding at this level. At the northern end of the Quay Street facade is another entrance, comprising a single six panelled door flanked by sidelights, with a semi circular fanlight above. The first floor level features French door openings that correspond to the openings on the ground floor and also have round arched heads.
Internally the building can still be appreciated as a former bank, with layout evident on both floors, although recent modifications have been made. From the principal entrance, access is provided to the former banking chamber that is a large room in the centre of the ground floor of the building. The room is interspersed with several masonry piers and pilasters with Corinthian capitals, recalling the external detailing and providing support for large ceiling beams and defining the area where banking desks may have been formerly aligned. As well there are several cast iron columns, also with Corinthian capitals. The ceiling in this space has been replaced with a modern plasterboard ceiling through which services, including air conditioning, lighting and fire services, have been inserted. A modern steel framed mezzanine level has been added to the banking chamber. In a corner is a heavy masonry banking safe with a large iron door (John Tann, Patentee, London) and, internally, a vaulted concrete ceiling. Around the perimeter of the banking chamber access is provided via good quality moulded and panelled cedar doors to many offices that line the external walls of the ground floor.
The principal stair is located in the hall off the principal opening to the building on Quay Street. This dog leg stair has a large carved timber newel, cast iron balustrade and is cantilevered from the adjacent walls. The first floor level, which is smaller in plan than the ground floor, houses five major rooms arranged in an L-shaped plan along the two principal facades of the building. Access is provided to these rooms from an L-shaped hallway beginning at the stair hall and continuing around the rear of the building.
Generally the interior of the building has plaster clad walls with timber skirtings, concrete floors on the lower floor and timber floors on the first floor and plaster ceilings with deep plaster cornices. The joinery throughout the building is of very good quality cedar. Several chimney pieces survive intact including, on the ground floor, an ebonised timber with marbled infill panels, and on the first floor a green marble piece with red marble inserts as well as a white marble piece. These chimney pieces are complete with cast iron fire places.
","history":"The former Queensland National Bank is an imposing two-storeyed rendered brickwork building situated on the corner of Quay and Denham Streets in Rockhampton. It was erected in 1880 for the Queensland National Bank to the design of Colonial Architect FDG Stanley, however it was part of his private contractual work. It was constructed by Rockhampton builders Collins & Mclean for £8000.
The Queensland National Bank was the first and most successful of Queensland's three 19th century banks. It was established in 1872 and by 1880, (the year of the construction of the Rockhampton branch) the bank held 40 per cent of the total deposits and advances in Queensland, a higher proportion than any other banking institution in any Australian Colony.
The Rockhampton branch was situated in Quay Street, a precinct of solid commercial buildings which developed to serve the passing trade at the wharves from the 1860s until the early 1900s. The former bank's expression of confidence reflected the prosperity the river wharves brought to Quay Street during this period of high commercial activity. Although many of the fine buildings in the locality had their origins from Mount Morgan wealth, this bank predated the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan in 1882 by two years. The construction of a building of this calibre reflected the established success of Rockhampton as a major trade and transport centre of Queensland by the early 1880s.
Stanley's design for the building consisted of a banking chamber on its first floor, with a second storey providing a living residence for the bank manager. This combined function was performed by the building for nearly a century. At the time of its construction the Morning Bulletin referred to it as a "handsome structure". It was described by a visiting correspondent from the Brisbane Courier in 1893, as being "a stately colonnaded building".
The Queensland National Bank was to become a regular client of Stanley. Stanley's most impressive bank building was the headquarters of the Queensland National Bank in Brisbane which he designed in 1880 and was completed in 1885. Other Queensland National Banks designed by Stanley included, St. George 1878-9, Maryborough 1881 (QHR 600694), Warwick 1881-2, Toowoomba 1885 and Bundaberg 1887.
In 1886, Rockhampton architect John W Wilson called for tenders for painting the exterior of the building. Further work to the bank building was carried out under Wilson's supervision in May 1887 including painting and repairs to the building.
The Queensland National Bank on the corner of Quay and Denham Streets was vacated in 1975. The banking company moved from the premises to new offices situated in East Street.
In April 1975, the former bank building was purchased by the legal firm Rees R & Sydney Jones who had occupied a building three doors away since 1886.
Rees Rutland Jones founded the legal firm in 1864 establishing what is today the oldest legal firm in Queensland operating under its original name. Rees R Jones was one of the best known legal practitioners and prominent public identities in central Queensland, eventually becoming a member of the Municipal Council, member for Rockhampton North in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, solicitor for the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and the town solicitor from the years 1871 until 1896. Rees R Jones at the time of his death was the oldest practitioner on the Roll of the Supreme Court.
Repairs to the former bank building as well as modifications to the internal arrangements of the banking chamber were carried out after the change of ownership in 1975. The original entrance to the building leading from Denham Street was altered, creating a new main entrance off Quay Street. This helped to maintain continuity for the legal firm whose former offices fronted Quay Street.
In 1987 further upgrading of the work environment and the introduction of new work practices saw the refurbishment of the premises in 1988. The ground floor of the building (former banking chamber) was redesigned to accommodate professional members of the firm as well as the support and administrative staff. With the increase in staff numbers and the introduction of new workplace technologies, it was decided that a mezzanine floor should be built between the ground and first floor.
The first floor of the building (the former living quarters and residence of the Bank Manager) was converted into an area containing the Law Library, Board Room, interview rooms, kitchen and staff rooms. The exterior of the building was repainted, and the interior re-carpeted.
Externally the glass and aluminium sections that enclosed the Quay Street second storey verandah were removed opening up the verandah. Extensive areas of the original timber ground floor supporting structures were replaced. The entrance from Quay Street was also closed off and the main entry from Denham Street was reinstated, complying with the original design for the building. The refurbishment was finished in 1989. Additional work was also undertaken in 1993-4.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank building erected in 1880, forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct which is distinguished by its late 19th century commercial buildings. The Quay Street precinct stands as a legacy to the rise of the Port of Rockhampton which served the vast area of central Queensland from 1858. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland and the river wharves fostered the substantial commercial development along Quay Street, enabling it to become the principal business district of the city. The solidity of the buildings were a symbol of Rockhampton's wealth and reflected the confidence with which the community and developers viewed Rockhampton's future.
|The former Queensland National Bank is an outstanding example of 19th century colonial bank architecture. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial commercial building in the Classical Revival style, distinguished by the quality of its detailing and materials.
|The former bank building contributes significantly to the 19th century quayside of Quay Street being one the grandest and most prominently positioned buildings in the street.
|The former bank building has special association for the people of Rockhampton through its significant aesthetic and historic contribution to Quay Street, which for many is the symbol of Rockhampton and is very closely associated with the image of the city.
|Designed by FDG Stanley, the building is one of his finest works which bears testament to the prominence of Stanley's work in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15583,"place_ref":600808,"name":"Royal Bank Building (former)","alternate_name":"Winchcombe Carson | Rivers Restaurant | Diamonds & Pearls","street_address":"194 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Royal Bank building is a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure located fronting Quay Street to the northeast overlooking the Fitzroy River. The building adjoins Archer Chambers [600809] to the southeast.
The Quay Street elevation has four arched openings to the ground floor, with the entrance to the first floor located at the southern end consisting of paired timber panelled doors with an arched fanlight. The entrance to the ground floor consists of a timber framed door with glass panels and an arched fanlight, flanked by arched sash windows surmounting recessed wall panels. Each arched opening is surmounted by a rendered moulding, and a shallow cornice separates the ground and first floors.
The first floor has an arcaded balcony fronting Quay Street, consisting of four arches with expressed impost and extrados, and cast iron balustrades with timber handrails. The first floor is surmounted by a shaped gable, consisting of a central triangular pediment supported by pilasters above a curved pediment with expressed keystone ornament. The pediment is flanked by a low parapet with corner pillars.
The rear wall of the building has casement windows with segmental arched fanlights to the first floor, flanking a central door with a cantilevered metal framed landing and stair accessing a rear first floor deck. A ground floor rear courtyard is enclosed by a storage and office building fronting Quay Lane.
Internally, the ground floor has an entrance hall and stair on the southern side, with a dining room fronting Quay Street on the northern side, and a bar, sitting area and kitchen at the rear fronting a courtyard. A masonry cross wall separates the front and rear areas, with access provided by two arches with pilasters flanking a decorative wall niche. The original strongroom is located centrally on the northern side, and is used as a store. Ceilings are finished with compressed sheeting, and masonry walls are rendered. The rear bar and sitting area opens via french doors to a courtyard, which is mostly covered by a first floor deck, and which contains toilets, stair and access to the rear store and office building. The entrance hall has a timber stair with turned balusters, newel posts and timber handrails, a boarded timber ceiling, and rear access to the bar area via an office under the stair landing.
The first floor has a dining room and bar fronting the Quay Street arcaded balcony, with amenities located centrally, and a function room and kitchen at the rear with access to a deck above the ground floor courtyard. The Quay Street dining room has decorative plaster ceiling details, and consists of two rooms joined by a large opening with timber architraves. Four sets of french doors with arched fanlights open onto the arcaded balcony, and large folding timber doors provide access to the function room at the rear. The balcony has a boarded timber ceiling and tiled floor. The function room has a fireplace with a timber surround in the western corner, and a suspended acoustic tile ceiling. A central hallway accesses the rear of the building, with timber panelled doors with fanlights and architraves opening into adjacent rooms. A timber panelled door with arched glass fanlight and sidelights separates the rear of the hallway from the entrance stair.
The rear store and office building fronting Quay Lane is constructed of concrete block with a sheet metal roof.
","history":"The former Royal Bank building at 194 Quay Street, Rockhampton was constructed to its present form when a second storey and other extensions were added to an existing building on the site in July 1888. The additions were designed by prominent Rockhampton architect JW Wilson (1865-1899) and built by Wakefield McLean & Co.
\nThe land was originally owned by the early settler William Archer who purchased the site at a sale of Crown Land in November 1858 as Allotment 2 of Section 46, Parish of Rockhampton. The property was thought to have been used by the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin from 1861-62 until the building was destroyed by fire. The Royal Bank purchased subdivision 1 of Lot 2 of Section 46 in June 1887. The bank operated its business from a building on that property until mid 1888 when it temporarily relocated to the former premises of the Commercial Bank in Denham Street during the construction of the additions.
\nThe Queensland-owned Royal Bank was established in Brisbane late in the recession year of 1885. The Royal Bank was promoted as an alternative to the hugely successful Queensland National Bank. By early 1889, the Royal Bank had established 20 branches and agencies (Rockhampton 1887), including branches in London and Edinburgh, proving to be a viable competitor of the Queensland National Bank into the 1910s. In Rockhampton the Royal Bank was situated amongst the other leading banks on Quay Street including the Queensland National Bank (QHR 600807), the Union Bank (QHR 600805) and the former Bank of New South Wales as well as numerous leading mercantile companies.
\nTenders for the construction of the additions to the Rockhampton Royal Bank were called from May to June 1888 and work was commenced in July. A description of Wilson's plans printed in The Daily Northern Argus of 5 July 1888 said the alterations included \"a second storey on the present building\" and an extension of six rooms on the ground floor at the back of the \"present\" building. The front elevation was to be 35 feet high with an arcaded balcony on the upper floor finished with cement. The ground floor provided a banking chamber (25 ft ×30 ft), with a strong room, manager's room, large dining room, lavatories, and a private entrance hall. The two front rooms were to be divided by folding doors which provided a 20×30 ft room when thrown open. The building was to be completed in four months.
\nJohn William Wilson dominated the architectural scene in Rockhampton from 1864 until the 1890s. His work contributed significantly to the consistency of the Rockhampton townscape with six of the Quay Street buildings erected before 1901 being Wilson's design. Wilson designed over 200 buildings in the central Queensland region during his 35-year practice and was one of the most prominent and prolific architects to have worked in Rockhampton.
\nThe former bank was located in Rockhampton's principal business district which developed along Quay Street in the late 19th century to serve the passing trade at the wharves. Rockhampton had operated as a port since 1858 and had been the main centre for transport and trade in Central Queensland. A phase of increased development and rebuilding was apparent in Rockhampton during the 1880s generated by the immense wealth produced from the Mount Morgan gold mine discovered in the 1882. The extension of the Royal Bank building to its present form in 1888 was a reflection of this boom in Rockhampton.
\nIn 1903 the Brisbane to Gladstone railway was opened and from this time the diminishing importance of the port caused the wharves to fall into disrepair and the development of the area to become more closely tied to the city centre.
\nThe building functioned as the Royal Bank until 1917 when the Royal Bank of Queensland merged with the Bank of North Queensland to form the Bank of Queensland which in turn was absorbed by the National Bank of Australasia in 1922. In 1958 the selling brokers, Winchcombe Carson Ltd, purchased the building and in 1980 the building was transferred to Dalgety Australia Ltd. The property was resold in November 1980 and subsequently leased as the office for the Minister of Works and Housing of the State of Queensland from 1983 to 1991. The building was bought by the current owners in 1993. At the time of purchase the building was intended for the dual use as a residence and beauty salon/finishing school. At this time the timber deck was installed at the back of the building and the arched openings in the ground floor dining room were installed. The building was converted to a restaurant in 1996 by former lessees. In 2022, the building is occupied by a retail operator.
","criteria":"The former Royal Bank building, forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct which is distinguished by its late 19th century commercial buildings. The Quay Street precinct stands as a legacy to the Port of Rockhampton which served the vast area of central Queensland from 1858 and was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland. The river wharves fostered the substantial commercial development along Quay Street, enabling it to become the principal business district of the city. The solidity of the buildings were a symbol of Rockhampton's wealth, later boosted by the Mount Morgan gold rush of the 1880s, and reflected the confidence with which the community and developers viewed Rockhampton's future.
|The former Royal Bank building, through its form, scale and materials, makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of Quay Street. There is a continuity of cornices and parapets between the former Royal Bank building and the adjacent Archer Chambers [600809] which emphasises the nineteenth century character of the street and quayside.
|The building has special association for the people of Rockhampton through its significant aesthetic and historic contribution to Quay Street, which for many is the symbol of Rockhampton and is very closely associated with the image of the city.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15584,"place_ref":600809,"name":"Evans & Hearn","alternate_name":"Archer Chambers","street_address":"206 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Archer Chambers abuts Quay Street and occupies almost all of the building allotment bounding the Rockhampton Customs House [600817]on the eastern side and adjoining the Royal Bank Building [600808]on the west.
The building is a single storeyed brick structure, longitudinally planned to create three distinct sections from front to rear. A single hipped roof, which is clad in galvanised steel decking, covers the entire building. The front section, which is mainly one large partitioned office space, is cement rendered externally. Internally the brick walls have been plaster rendered. The office partitions are timber framed with infill panels. Louvred glass panels fitted to an aluminium frame have been used for partition walls separating the two minor offices towards the southern end of the space. A suspended ceiling in the office area provides space for electrical and air conditioning conduits. The original battened ceiling still survives. The building's facade is symmetrical and consists of a central door with large aluminium framed shop windows at either side. Below the cantilevered awning that replaces the original awning, the facade has been tiled. The roof is hidden from the street by a parapet that supports a segmental pediment at the front. The building has only three other windows that are located on the east side of the building facing the Customs House. These are all single paned, double hung, timber framed windows, each fitted with steel protection bars.
The central section of the building, which is smaller than the front section, has exposed brickwork walls both internally and externally. Roofing trusses and timber framing for a loft floor level are entirely exposed. Simple timber brackets attached to the timber frames provide support for rudimentary shelving throughout the area.
The rear section, which is of similar size to the front section, is finished in much the same manner as the central section, with exposed framing, trusses and brick walls. The brick wall at the rear of the building is currently overpainted. An upper floor level created at the northern end of the space provides a split level work platform, originally used in conjunction with the simple timber and steel gantry. Rails for the gantry are fitted at both sides of the section, and run the full length of the space. A single large opening at the rear provides vehicular access to the building's interior. The original arched opening has been altered slightly to accommodate an early model roller door.
","history":"The former Archer Chambers building at 206 Quay Street was erected in the 1870s for the pioneer Archer family. William Archer purchased the property at a sale of crown land in November 1858 as Allotment 2 of Section 46, in the Parish of Rockhampton and later constructed the building on subdivision 2 of the site as offices. The building forms part of the commercial streetscape of Quay Street which developed in the late 19th century to serve the passing trade at the wharves on the Fitzroy River.
The pastoralist-explorer brothers, William and Charles Archer, decided, on information given to them by Ludwig Leichhardt, to explore the country north of the Upper Burnett. In 1853 they discovered and named the land and waters of the Fitzroy River. In 1855 the Archer brothers founded a station called 'Gracemere' and chose the site of the future Rockhampton as their port. A settlement subsequently developed around the Fitzroy River, and the area was proclaimed a Port of Entry and a Pastoral District in October 1858.
The influx of gold seekers to Canoona in 1858 helped establish Rockhampton as the major Port in central Queensland which served a vast area supported by a network of roads which brought the exports of gold, copper, hides, tallow and wool from the hinterland in the 1860s. In 1867 the Northern Railway was established westward from Rockhampton which further increased the flow of goods through the port. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the major trade and communication centre of the region and until 1903, with the establishment of the North Coast Railway to Gladstone, it was the only link to the outside world.
Quay Street was one of the earliest parts of Rockhampton to be settled and it developed as the nucleus of the city during this period. The river wharves along Quay Street fostered the substantial commercial development from the 1860s to the early 1900s still evident in the precinct. The erection of Archer Chambers in the 1870s predates many of the fine buildings in Quay Street which were influenced by wealth brought to the city from the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan, south-west of Rockhampton, in 1882. It is an example of early development associated with the commercial influence of the port.
As a purpose built property for the Archer family, the former Archer Chambers, reflects the significance of the family in Rockhampton. Since establishing the township and the port in the 1850s the Archer brothers continued to contribute to the growth of the Rockhampton. Charles and William were joined by their brothers Colin in 1855 and Archibald in 1860 who became the MLA for the Port Curtis District from 1867-70. Several places in Rockhampton bear the Archer name including Archer Park and Archer Park Railway Station (QHR 600777), Archer Street and the memorial to Charles Archer and his horse Sleipner.
Colin Archer was the last of the Archer brothers to die in Rockhampton in 1921 and in that year Archer Chambers was leased as offices. In 1947 the building was purchased by the New Zealand Loan & Mercantile Agency Co Ltd and in 1960 it was transferred to Mactaggarts Primary Producers Co-Op Association Ltd. The building is now occupied by accountants Evans & Hearn who purchased the building in 1975.
","criteria":"The former Archer Chambers building erected in the 1870s for William Archer, forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct which is distinguished by its late 19th century commercial buildings. The Quay Street precinct stands as a legacy to the rise of the Port of Rockhampton which served the vast area of central Queensland from 1858. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland and the river wharves fostered the substantial commercial development along Quay Street, enabling it to become the principal business district of the city. The solidity of the buildings were a symbol of Rockhampton's wealth and reflected the confidence with which the community and developers viewed Rockhampton's future.
|The building contributes aesthetically to the streetscape of Quay Street. There is a continuity of cornices and parapets between Archer Chambers and the former Royal Bank building next door (194 Quay Street) which emphasises the 19th century character of the street.
|Archer Chambers has special association for the people of Rockhampton through its aesthetic and historic contribution to Quay Street. This street is for many people the symbol of Rockhampton and is very closely associated with the image of the city.
|Archer Chambers has special association with the Archer family, the first settlers of Rockhampton.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15585,"place_ref":600810,"name":"Commercial Hotel and Chambers (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"228 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON CITY","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Commercial Hotel and Chambers is located on the prominent corner of Quay and William Streets in the heart of Rockhampton's Central Business District. Quay Street, overlooking the Fitzroy River, is recognised as a streetscape of historical significance in the Australian Heritage Commission's Register of the National Estate. The Queensland Heritage Register features numerous other listings for this area, including the Former Cahill Stores (600811) and the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Building (600812), both of which are adjacent to the hotel to the south-east. Across William Street to north-west is Rockhampton's central pedestrian mall. Running along the short, south-western edge of the allotment is Quay Lane, which forms part of a system of such laneways inhabiting the city centre's orthogonal grid and servicing its primary streets.
A largely three-storey brick building, the former Commercial Hotel and Chambers is a visually striking example of late 19th century commercial architecture. The upper two storeys of its street facades are encased by verandahs decorated with elaborate cast iron work, the outer edges of which sit in line with the street facades below. The Quay and William Street façades are approximately 20m and 40m long respectively. A two-storey rectangle of building occupies the rear, south-west corner of the 809m2 allotment and houses the hotel's service areas. The Quay and William Street footpaths are covered by a curved canopy, which sits atop a broad fascia line and regularly spaced square timber posts decorated with carved timber brackets. The steel framing is exposed on the underside of this roof. Greatly altered over the life of the building, the ground floor street façades currently comprise aluminium-framed glazing separated by wall areas finished with ceramic tiles and an upper band finished with render. The roofs to the main building and the street canopy are clad in corrugated iron.
Painted bricks are visible on the exposed façades to Quay Lane and the adjoining property. The tops of the building facing Quay and William Streets are finished with a parapet modelled using cement render. At the main north-eastern corner, a raised parapet piece topped with an open-bed pediment features the name 'Commercial Hotel'. On either side of this projection the parapets comprise of open, circle-patterned balustrading, to the top and bottom of which are string courses. On Quay Street this is closed at the adjoining property boundary by a solid parapet panel. The open balustrading is finished with a similar panel on the William Street facade, and broken in the middle by a solid panel reading '1897'. These two panels, unlike their Quay Street counterpart, are topped with simply modeled pediments. Beneath the lower string course the parapet render reveals some narrow rectangles of brick. A rooftop promenade, behind the parapet line, remains and still provides a magnificent view of Rockhampton city and the surrounding country.
The components of the cast iron work decorating the verandahs are fixed to a frame of square timber posts and beams. At the corner of the building there are double posts. Single baluster, frieze and fringe panels fit between the posts, as do timber handrails. The fringe panels are formed together with the brackets fixing to each post. Walls projecting approximately 20cm above the line of the roof enclose the verandahs at the adjoining property on Quay Street and to Quay Lane on William Street. The floors to the verandahs appear to be finished with concrete. There is exposed framing to the underside of the verandah floors and roofs. Off the corner room on the first storey open a number of large double-hung sash windows (sill level with floor) with awning windows above. Off the other rooms (accommodation) open timber-framed french doors with awning windows above. A single flight of stairs at the western end of the William Street verandah connects the two upper levels.
Bar, dining and other entertainment facilities occupy the ground floor, while accommodation facilities occupy the upper two storeys facing Quay and William Streets. The upper accommodation levels can be accessed off William Street by a flight of stairs with polished timber handrails and paneling to the walls. The vaulted gable on the William Street footpath canopy, which once marked the entry to the accommodation levels above, no longer exists. The public bar area is still located at the ground floor corner of the building. In 2003, there are 24 rooms with shared modern facilities available. In each room a single wall with English Bond brickwork has been exposed. The long corridors into which the accommodation rooms open, are lined on the ceiling and walls with tongue and groove timber boards approximately 10cm wide. The doors opening into these rooms have timber frames and large pivoted highlights.
","history":"The Heritage Tavern, formerly the Old Colonial Hotel and originally the Commercial Hotel and Chambers, was erected in 1898 for Leah Johnson. Designed by prominent Rockhampton architect John W Wilson, the three-storey, concrete-rendered brick building featuring decorative iron-lace verandah balustrading was constructed by J. K. Evans at a cost of £6,500.
The former Commercial Hotel and Chambers is situated immediately opposite the wharves of the Fitzroy River, in the heart of Rockhampton's premier commercial district. From the 1850s, and especially in the latter part of the 19th century, the area around Quay Street attracted solid development, impressive new construction, which was fostered by the commercial activity the wharves brought to the quayside.
The Port of Rockhampton was proclaimed in 1868 with the discovery of gold at Canoona and became influential in establishing Rockhampton as the premier commercial city of central Queensland, handling the pastoral and mineral products, which came increasingly from the hinterland. The Commercial Hotel and Chambers building was a part of the confident commercial pattern of development that distinguished Quay Street in this period.
The substantial nature of development around the Quay Street precinct was also influenced by the immense wealth injected into Rockhampton from the Mount Morgan Gold Mine, discovered in 1882. Mount Morgan was the single richest gold mine in the world and its economic impact on the port city of Rockhampton was expressed through the confident and stylistic character of its principal business district on Quay Street. The period of development was also distinguished by the separation movement, which agitated for Rockhampton to be made the capital of a separate northern state. The erection of prestigious buildings, such as the Commercial Hotel and Chambers, reflected the notion of rivalry with the capital of Brisbane and was held as a great boon to the cause of separation.
Owner Leah Johnson was a well-known hostess in the Rockhampton hotel industry. With then husband Timothy Dean, the Welsh-born Leah Dean arrived in Rockhampton in 1871. The couple operated the Melbourne Hotel and an earlier Commercial Hotel until Timothy Dean's death in 1879. Leah Johnson ran hotels in Mackay and Charters Towers until the death of her second husband, H Johnson. After returning to Rockhampton Leah Johnson owned the Royal and the Oxford Arms hotels before construction commenced on the Commercial Hotel and Chambers.
Situated at the corner of William and Quay Streets, the site was well placed for a hotel. William James operated the Golden Fleece Hotel there from 1859. After many changes of hands the licence had expired and the building was vacant until Leah Johnson purchased the site in June 1890. Construction of the new Commercial Hotel and Chambers commenced in May 1898. With forty-six bedrooms, all of which either faced onto a verandah overlooking the street or an internal courtyard, the hotel opened for business on 2 November 1898.
Johnson's Commercial Hotel and Chambers evidenced the self-sufficiency the city displayed against the influences of the state capital, Brisbane. Rockhampton architect John William Wilson was responsible for the hotel's grand, balconied design. From early 1870 to 1915 Wilson designed over 200 buildings for the central Queensland region. Six to ten of them were located in the historic precinct of Quay Street, and approximately 30 of varying types stood within a three-block radius of the Commercial Hotel. Wilson was born in Banffshire in Scotland, emigrated to Australia shortly before 1854 and began his architectural career in Victoria before moving to Rockhampton and practicing there for about 35 years.
The local foundry firm Burns and Twigg manufactured the iron lace, so prominent a feature of the hotel's verandahs. Founded in March 1875 by engineer William Burns and pattern maker Edward F. Twigg, by 1900 the company employed over one hundred men and supplied engineering services throughout central and north-west Queensland.
The fine handcrafted cedar doors and window sashes fitted into the former Commercial Hotel were completed by the joinery firm founded by Walter Adam Lawson. At the time of its opening the furniture and fittings were obtained locally from such firms as James Stewart & Co. Williams and Graham, and W Kasch. The internal fittings also included a kitchen range manufactured by Burns and Twigg. The hotel's pottery, with its name stamped in each piece, was procured from Mr James Millroy of Liverpool House.
In line with commercial expansion throughout the region, the Commercial Hotel provided six ground-floor 'sample rooms' facing William Street, which could be used by commercial travellers to display their goods. Other attributes were a commodious bar, a parlour, sitting and dining rooms, as well as a family dining room. For meetings the second floor featured a clubroom connected to the bar by a speaking tube and lift. An article published in a local newspaper on the day of the Hotel's opening...The Record cited in M Caswell's 1989 thesis on the architect John William Wilson... describes a promenade flat on the top of the building that was reached by staircase and provided a view of Rockhampton and environs. Also, a 1906 photograph of the Hotel shows there was a vaulted gable on the William Street footpath canopy that marked the point of entry to the accommodation levels above. This photo also reveals that the solid parapet panels facing William and Quay Streets were each topped by pediments. (Figure 93 in Caswell's thesis sourced from John Oxley Library.)
Following the death of Leah Johnson in 1923, the Commercial Hotel and Chambers continued to operate under various owners until the 1970s when it was known as the Old Colonial Hotel. Parts of the hotel were modernised in the late 1970s in conjunction with its renaming as the Heritage Tavern.
","criteria":"The former Commercial Hotel and Chambers, now the Heritage Tavern, is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history because it provides evidence of the confidence in the future of Rockhampton, which the city's commercial interests expressed in the late 19th century.
The quality and luxury of hostelry services provided by the Commercial Hotel supported the view that Rockhampton was an important city financially and regionally, a key argument in the movement for secession at the time. The quality and detail of its built fabric, constructed by local firms using local materials, visibly challenged the notion that only in the capital city of Brisbane was the best and latest to be found.
|The former Commercial Hotel and Chambers is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of the late 19th century hotel. In a prominent corner location and of substantial masonry construction, the building features bars below and upper-level guest rooms and verandahs. The intricate ironwork balustrading, essentially intact today, establishes the building as a notable example of the use of iron filigree in hotel architecture.
|As well as this individual importance, the building contributes to both the integrity and aesthetic value of the overall Quay Street streetscape.
|The former Commercial Hotel and Chambers has a special association with the life and work of two well-known Rockhampton identities...Leah Johnson who commissioned the building in the late 1890s, and John W. Wilson, the prolific Rockhampton architect who designed more than 200 buildings in central Queensland over a period of thirty-five years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15586,"place_ref":600811,"name":"Cahill's Stores (former)","alternate_name":"KDalgety & Co. Ltd, WG Murray Ltd, Inglis Ltd, Kerrisk Bros | Flamingos Nightclub, Stadium Nightclub | Central Queensland Livestock Co-operative Society, Clarke's Building Cahills Stores","street_address":"232 - 234 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Cahill Stores, a single-storey brick building, is located on a block of Quay Street that is populated almost exclusively with other buildings of heritage significance; those listed on the Queensland Heritage Register include: the former Commercial Hotel and Chambers (600810) and the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Building or ABC studios (600812), on either side; the Herron Todd White building (600814); Walter Reid Court (600815); and Avonleigh (600813). Quay Street overlooks the Fitzroy River and is recognised as a streetscape of historical significance in the Australian Heritage Commission's Register of the National Estate. About 200m to the north-west of this building is Rockhampton's central pedestrian mall and four blocks to the south-east is the city's central railway station. Running along the short, south-western edge of the allotment is Quay Lane, which forms part of a system of such laneways that inhabits the city centre's orthogonal grid and services its primary streets. The grid is aligned to the course of the Fitzroy River that flows from the north-west to the south-east.
The parapeted front façade to Quay Street is composed of classical motifs modelled with cement render in a free but also spare way. The street frontage is approximately 20m wide. There is a parapet wall to the side façade adjacent to the former ABC studios (600812), which can be viewed from a narrow corridor of space separating part of the two buildings. It is clear from the patterning of brickwork in this façade that a number of its openings have been closed up at some point in the past. The former Cahill's Stores abut the Commercial Hotel and Chambers building (former) to the north. On Quay Lane, the roof toward the front of the building appears to be hipped, with a broken segment extending to the rear facade. It is clad in corrugated iron. The rear segments of the side parapet walls step down towards the rear façade, which is constructed of unpainted concrete masonry. A great deal of air-conditioning equipment and support structures populate the roof.
The Quay Street façade is divided vertically into six bays by a series of pilasters. Above the second bay in from each end, there is a tall parapet projection denoting where two entry doors open into the building. There are glass double doors in each bay, however those beneath the parapet projections have fanlights above them, rather than simple highlights. The parapet projections are accented with render consoles. Beneath the variegated parapet top, a render entablature runs between each end of the front façade. The depth of the blank frieze seems somewhat exaggerated when compared with those of the cornice and architrave. Above the end pilasters, the entablature is visually enclosed by two narrow projections of the parapet top. The modelling in line with the entablature is reminiscent of single triglyphs.
The Tuscan-style pilasters sit on bases and plinths, the plinth line being expressed in the rest of the façade. Beneath the line of the door heads, the pilasters are evenly divided by four stringcourses, reminiscent of rustication. There is simple render modelling around each of the square headed doors, which is suggestive of a frame. Those with the fanlights sit in a panel of wall that sits slightly proud of the remaining façade. Above each of the square-headed doors is a render panel topped with a cornice-like course and three modillions. The edges of the doors with fanlights are decorated with simple render frames. A render panel, placed higher than the others on the façade, sits above these door openings. The panel is topped again with a cornice-like course and three modillions.
Interiors
The interior has been extensively remodelled and currently houses nightclub facilities. The party wall that once separated the two segments of the building has been broken through at a number of points.
","history":"The former Cahill's Stores, built of brick and concrete render, were constructed for John and Kate Cahill in 1889. Designed by John W Wilson, the single-storey building housed the Rockhampton office and store of Dalgety & Co. Ltd between 1891 and c.1940.
The architect John W Wilson was a native of Scotland who had arrived in the Australian colonies c1854. He practised in Rockhampton from 1874 until 1909. Included in the list of 200 identified buildings for which he is responsible are the Rockhampton School of Arts (QHR 600788), the Commercial Hotel and Chambers (QHR 600810) and the Harbour Board Office (QHR 600816). Cahill's Stores were constructed between the sites subsequently occupied by the Commercial Hotel and Chambers and the offices of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. (QHR 600812).
Rockhampton was established on the Fitzroy River on land originally part of Gracemere, a pastoral property operated by the Archer family. Richard Palmer opened the area's first store on the south-western bank of the river from mid-1856. Following a survey by Arthur F Wood, Rockhampton was proclaimed a town on 25 October 1858. The first sale of allotments occurred the following month. The Municipality of Rockhampton was proclaimed on 15 December 1860. Along with the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan in 1882, the key importance of Rockhampton was its ability to provide goods, services and produce for the population of both the town and its regional hinterland.
Early merchants and storekeepers operated independent, locally based businesses. The first wave of these entrepreneurs, attracted to the area by the promise of gold at nearby Canoona, opened their stores in the late 1850s. A second wave arrived in the 1860s. Early merchants who survived the economic downturn of the late 1860s included John Headrick, Walter Reid and Albrecht Feez. By the 1880s many of Rockhampton's local merchants and agents operated in partnerships. Notable at this time were John M Headrick & Co., EK Ogg, Alex. Reid & Co. and WG Thompson & Co. The independence of these firms, supported strongly by local manufacture of ironmongery, timber joinery and items such as soap and cordial, was a reflection of the self-sufficiency that Rockhampton's community leaders expressed politically through a concurrent movement towards secession.
Commerce in Rockhampton in the late 19th century was very competitive. Up to twenty-seven separate firms provided services as shipping, mercantile or stock and station agents. Although numbers decreased after the bank crash of 1893 and the drought that followed, established companies from other parts of Australia also were attracted to Rockhampton by the profitability of the region.
Two years after its 1889 construction, Cahill's Stores were occupied by Dalgety & Co. Ltd, one of the first southern firms to set up business in Rockhampton. Born in Canada, Frederick Dalgety arrived in Australia in 1833. Initially he gained experience working in other mercantile houses. With two partners, in 1846 he formed Dalgety, Borrodale and Gore. Situated at first in Little Collins Street, Melbourne, this company earned substantial profits during the gold rushes of the 1850s. The head office of Dalgety & Co. was established in London in the same decade. Over the next twenty years the company opened mercantile offices in New Zealand and New South Wales (1878). The limited liability company, Dalgety & Co. Ltd, was registered in London on 29 April 1884, after which operations extended into Western Australia (1889) and Queensland (1891). Frederick Dalgety died in 1894.
The company's first Queensland office was in Cahill's Stores at Rockhampton. FHB Turner commenced as manager. Their Brisbane office was not established until 1894. The first Townsville office for Dalgety & Co. Ltd opened in leased premises in Denham Street in 1896. From that time the company was well represented in regional Queensland and played a significant role in the development of the pastoral industry, particularly in the production of wool. Unlike Rockhampton, where the company would always lease its premises, a new Dalgety & Co. two-storey building was constructed in Townsville in 1923-24. The company's need for investment in a substantial building in Rockhampton may have been reduced by the financial strength of other mercantile companies. Their competition included GS Curtis, John M Headrick & Co., Goldsborough Mort and Walter Reid & Co, all of which constructed large stores or warehouses in Rockhampton between 1883 and 1902.
At different times smaller companies also occupied sections of the former Cahill's Stores. These included WG Murray Ltd, a warehouse and manufacturing company based there in the first decade of the 1900s and Inglis Ltd, tea merchants housed in the northern part of the store in the 1920s.
Following the death of John Cahill in 1915, ownership of the building passed to trustees, then to Elizabeth O'Brien and later Brian O'Brien. In 1949 an easement was granted over the site, allowing it to be sold as two separate stores divided by a party wall. The Australian Red Cross Society purchased the northern store, closest to William Street. It was not until 1983 that the building was returned to a single owner. In the interval it had been occupied by, amongst others, Kerrisk Bros. and Central Livestock and Produce Co-operative Society.
In 1985 the owners of the Cahill's Stores building also held title to the Heritage Tavern, formerly the Commercial Hotel and Chambers. With side access opening directly into the hotel and its party wall removed, the former stores building was converted into a nightclub. The open, singular space inside the building has served this purpose since then.
","criteria":"The former Cahill's Stores are important in demonstrating the evolution of mercantile history in Queensland.
|Designed by architect John W Wilson, the former Cahill's Stores exhibit integrity as a single-storey warehouse and store building, at the same time contributing to the continuity and character of the streetscape of Quay Street.
|The Cahill's Stores (former) are of heritage significance as for nearly fifty years the building was associated with Dalgety & Co. Ltd, one of the largest and most successful pastoral firms in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15588,"place_ref":600813,"name":"Avonleigh","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"248 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Avonleigh, a two-storeyed structure with a concave hipped corrugated iron roof, is built fronting Quay Street overlooking the Fitzroy River to the northeast with rear access off Quay Lane. The building is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork with sandstone quoining, all of which has been painted. The building contains two professional suites to the ground floor, and two flats to the first floor.
\nThe building has a two-storeyed verandah with a concave corrugated iron awning fronting Quay Street and returning along the southeast boundary abutting the adjacent Herron Todd Valuers building [600814]. The verandah has cast iron columns, brackets, valance and balustrade, with pedestals and frieze to the ground floor. The ground floor has a masonry upstand supporting the columns and balustrade, with two openings to provide access to the original main entrance at the southern end, and to the addition at the northern end. A timber framed dog-leg stair has been inserted midway along the verandah, with a timber batten balustrade to the lower flight, and cast iron balustrade to the upper flight. The southern return has been enclosed at ground floor level with a dowelled timber gate and vertically jointed boarding. The ground floor arched openings have painted sandstone quoining and voussoirs, and the original main entrance has a timber panelled door with arched glass fanlight and sidelight panels, with a carved keystone depicting a lions head and shell motif. The entrance is flanked by french doors with arched fanlights and timber shutters. The northern end of the building has a single entrance door with arched fanlight, and adjacent french doors which have arched fanlight and sidelight panels with a carved keystone depicting an arm holding a sword.
\nThe first floor verandah has been enclosed at the southern end with glass louvres, and glass louvres and latticed timber panels frame the stair and form entrance screens to the two first floor flats. French doors open onto the verandah, and the northern end has timber slat blinds and a fibrous cement sheeted room with a corrugated iron hipped roof and a sash window with a timber batten and corrugated iron hood. The room abuts the northern boundary wall which has quoining to the Quay Street frontage.
\nThe building has two rendered masonry chimney stacks, and the rear of the structure has a first floor verandah which has been enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and casement and glass louvre windows. Two timber framed stairs access the first floor flats, and the rear wall of the building consists of painted brickwork and quoining at the southern end and rendered brickwork at the northern end. The ground floor has a lean-to addition at the northern end with fibrous cement wall sheeting and a corrugated iron skillion roof. The southeast ground floor verandah space has been enclosed to form a laundry area.
\nInternally, the building has rendered walls and cedar skirtings, architraves and panelled doors. The ground floor northern professional suite has decorative plaster ceilings and cornices, with central panels depicting cherubs located in the principal rooms. The northern entrance accesses a reception area, which opens into a rear room which has an arch separating a narrow rear section with a wired glass skillion skylight. The skylight has been sheeted over externally, and the arch has moulded imposts and a central shield depicting an arm holding a sword. The rear section opens to an attached lean-to housing a kitchenette. A large room is located adjacent to the reception, with french doors with arched fanlight and sidelights of coloured glass.
\nThe southern professional suite has two large rooms either side of a wide entrance and reception area. The entrance has coloured glass fanlight and sidelights, and an arch with Corinthian order imposts divides the space. This area originally housed a cedar staircase, the location of which is evidenced by infill to the boarded timber ceiling. The southern room has a corner fireplace with painted timber surround, and the northern room has a central fireplace with marble surround.
\nThe first floor northern flat has decorative plaster ceilings and cornices, with central panels depicting cherubs located in the principal rooms. The rear verandah has been enclosed to accommodate kitchen and bathroom facilities. The southern flat has two large rooms either side of a central entrance hallway accessed via a timber panelled door, with enclosed verandahs at the rear and to the south. The two large rooms have boarded timber ceilings with deep cornices, of which the southern room has expressed dentils. The northern room has a painted timber fireplace surround, and the southern room has a marble fireplace surround. The hallway has an arch at the rear, accessing the enclosed rear verandah, which originally housed a sash window to the stair as evidenced by extant framing and architraves. A kitchen and bathroom are located at the rear, and a laundry to the south. The enclosure at the southern end of the front verandah houses a second bedroom.
\nThe rear of the property contains a car parking area entered via Quay Lane.
","history":"Avonleigh was erected in 1885 for Frederick Augustus Morgan (b.1837, d.1894), who started mining with his two brothers at Mount Morgan in 1882. The brick building with sandstone quoining was constructed and designed by James McKenzie and was one of three town-houses (the others being Trustee Chambers, 1877, QHR600802; and the former Rockhampton Club, 1893, QHR 600801) established in Quay Street, offering a domestic contribution to a street dominated by substantial 19th century commercial buildings. It is part of the prestigious development which occurred in this period due to the wealth which Mount Morgan gold brought to Rockhampton.
\nThe site (initially Allotment Seven, Portion 61, of 32 perches) was originally occupied by the Clarence & Eagle Hotel, constructed in 1861 for John Champion, who was involved with shipping on the 'Clarence' and the 'Eagle' steamers. By early 1878 the land was owned by Patrick Donaghy, and later that year it was purchased for £1400 by Edward O’Reilly, who renamed the existing hotel on the site (the Sailor’s Home Hotel) as the Hibernian Hotel.[1] O’Reilly attempted to sell the Hibernian, then situated opposite the Australasian Steam Navigation Company’s wharves, in 1879; but it was not until 1882 that the site and hotel were purchased for £1200, by Dr John H Harricks. In August 1883 Frederick (Fred) Augustus Morgan obtained the property and the (former) Hibernian Hotel from Harricks, after paying out the £1000 mortgage.[2]
Fred Morgan had arrived in Rockhampton in 1879 to take over the Criterion Hotel and was joined by his brothers Thomas and Edwin, with whom he commenced gold mining at Ironstone Mountain (Mount Morgan) in July 1882. Fred and his wife Mary may have lived in the former Hibernian Hotel from 1883 to 1885, and named it Avonleigh – in September 1883 Mrs F Morgan, of Avonleigh, Quay Street, River Bank, advertised for a general servant.[3]
By 1884 Fred Morgan had sold all his shares in the Mount Morgan mine for £62000.[4] As a result, he was able to build the current Avonleigh sometime during 1885. In March that year John Esdale, bricklayer, asked the Rockhampton Municipal Council for permission to lay down building material and erect scaffolding in Quay Lane at the rear of Mr F Morgan’s residence; and at the same time Morgan was asking for permission to improve his stable in Quay Street.[5] By July 1885 the Morgans were advertising for a gardener, cook and laundress;[6] and by December 1885 James McKenzie, monumental mason and contractor, noted that his last undertaking during the previous year had been the ‘erection of a brick residence for Mr F Morgan, with stone facings, for which he [was] both architect and contractor’.[7]
McKenzie (b.1854, d.1896) immigrated to Queensland in 1866, was apprenticed to monumental mason George Hounsell, and took over the latter’s business in 1877. McKenzie’s Rockhampton Stone Works obtained large quantities of freestone (sandstone) from Stanwell near Rockhampton.[8]
When Morgan applied to change from the Old System to Torrens Title in 1886, the value of his land on Quay Street was stated as £4000.[9] By 1886 the Morgans brothers had completely sold out to partners Hall, Pattison and D'Arcy – who that year formed the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company – thereby foregoing the enormous yield that the Mount Morgan Gold Mines would produce.
After Fred Morgan had severed ties with the Mount Morgan gold mine he remained a prominent figure in Rockhampton, pursuing pastoral and other mining interests as well as holding the office of Mayor from 1891-93. Morgan died at Avonleigh in November 1894 and the funeral left his Quay Street house on 9 November 1894.
Morgan's house was originally a four-roomed structure (two upstairs and two downstairs) with an open encircling verandah and a central hall containing a cedar staircase. The external walls were of exposed red-brick with the base, quoining and facing of the house of Stanwell freestone.
Frederick's widow, Mary Morgan, obtained title of the property in May 1901 and after her death in September 1901 the title was transferred to Frederick George Morgan, her son, in February 1902. In September 1904 the title was transferred to John Henry O'Brien. The building was used as a boarding house at some stage before 1906.
In April 1906 Daniel Patrick O'Brien acquired the property for use as a private hospital. Dr DP O'Brien was a prominent medical practitioner in Rockhampton holding the position of Government Medical Officer, President of the Rockhampton Medical Association and medical officer to the local Hibernian association.
A May 1906 article stated that Avonleigh originally cost about £4000, and that the additions ‘just completed’ for Dr O’Brien cost £1000, with EG Waters being the architect.[10] At this time Avonleigh was described in detail. The walls were of brick, and the bases, quoins and facings were of dressed Stanwell freestone. There was a freestone rock-faced wall along the pavement line, which acted as a base for iron columns, surmounted by heavy moulded timber bressummers. Ornamented friezes and castings connected and spanned the columns. The balcony awning extending around the building was also carried on iron columns, with ‘palisading rail brackets and crestings’ of ornamental cast iron. Openings were fitted with cedar-framed French and marginal lights and Venetian louvre shutters.
There was an operating theatre on the first floor, with a ground glass roof, ground glass casement windows, glazed tiles on the floor, and polished cement wall surfaces. There were also a bathroom, lavatory, and 10 bedrooms on the first floor, and the ceilings to the new additions were ‘…works of art, the designs being neat and chaste. Each line, flower and figure, stand out in bold relief’.[11] The [plaster] was a non-conductor of heat. There was a cedar staircase between the floors, and another staircase, lighted by a glass dome in the roof, gave access to the ‘back premises’. The ground floor included Dr O’Brien’s consulting room and a waiting room, assistant doctor’s consulting room, a dressing room, dispensary, convalescent’s reading room, visitor’s room and nurses recreation room. There was also a ‘premises adjoining the main building’ which included six bedrooms.[12] Another bathroom, a ‘commodious’ kitchen, laundry and lavatories were also listed, apparently on the ground floor.
\nThe number of rooms mentioned in the 1906 article seems excessive, given the size of today’s Avonleigh, but c.1939 sketch plans of Avonleigh and its outbuildings on the allotment show a significant rear extension to the ground floor, plus a wing to the rear along the northwest elevation of the allotment, ending with earth closets adjoining Quay Lane. There were also stables at the rear of the southeast elevation of the allotment. None of these rear extensions, or the stables, are extant.
By 1930 DP O'Brien had opened Leinster Private Hospital on the corner of Spencer and Agnes Streets but continued to reside and have consultation rooms at Avonleigh until 1938 when he leased the building to Dr VTJ Lynch who used Avonleigh as a surgery and residence. DP O'Brien died in July 1941 and in 1944 the property was transferred to his widow Elizabeth O'Brien.
In 1947 the property was purchased by William James Hinton who had a carrying business and used a portion of the ground floor as a warehouse. It was most likely during this tenure that the internal cedar stairs were removed, the external stairs installed and the rear structures demolished. In 1954 council records show the office on the ground floor was altered and in 1959 a temporary garage was erected. In 1958 the former John Headrick & Co warehouse adjacent to Avonleigh on the northwest side, then occupied by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency, was destroyed by fire.[13]
\nIn 1962 the mercantile company John Headrick & Co purchased Avonleigh for the purpose of using the vacant land at the rear as a parking space. The City Council required the company to construct two sets of stairs at the back of the building so each upstairs unit had a fire escape.
\nFrom 1969 a portion of the first floor was used as 'Gallery Up Top' and display cases were installed. The timber entrance door of the gallery, originally internal, replaced a french light to emphasise the entry of the art gallery.
\nIn 1978 Avonleigh was purchased by Lynette B Lowrey and was used as a doctor's surgery, with other business offices on the ground floor and two residential units on the first floor. It was again sold in 2006.
\nReferences
[1] Conveyance in Old System, 49.114, 21 May 1878; Conveyance in Old System, 53.236, 31 October 1878; Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 29 October 1878, p.2.
[2] Attempted sale: Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 13 December 1879, p.3; Conveyance in Old System, 53.268, 26 January 1882; Conveyance in Old System, 57.33, 14 August 1883.
[3] ‘Wanted’, Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 10 September 1883, p.1
[4] ‘A Golden Quarry’, Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 16 December 1884, p.5.
[5] ‘Rockhampton Municipal Council’, Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 27 March 1885, p.5.
[6] ‘Wanted’, Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), 17 July 1885, p.1; and 28 July 1885, p.1.
[7] ‘Local industries: manufacturing’, The Capricornian (Rockhampton), 19 December 1885, p.3 S
[8] Watson, D and McKay, J, 1994. Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: a biographical dictionary’, Queensland Museum, p. 118.
[9] Application 6366, 17 November 1886.
[10] ‘Dr DP O’Brien’s private hospital Avonleigh’, The Queenslander, 26 May 1906, p.20.
[11] ‘Dr DP O’Brien’s private hospital Avonleigh’, The Queenslander, 26 May 1906, p.20.
[12] ‘Dr DP O’Brien’s private hospital Avonleigh’, The Queenslander, 26 May 1906, p.20.
[13] The existing building to the southeast of Avonleigh was built for Headrick and Co in 1887 (Morning Bulletin, 15 February 1887, p.4, right hand column). A fire also destroyed a two storey brick warehouse of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency in the same block in 1919, somewhere northwest of Avonleigh (‘Fire in Quay Street. Mercantile warehouse gutted. Adjoining premises in danger.’ Morning Bulletin, 13 June 1919, p.10.)
Information note
\nOn 17 April 2015 revisions to the history and description contained in the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register for Avonleigh, were made by the Department to update information in accordance with the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
","criteria":"Avonleigh forms part of the historic Quay Street precinct which is distinguished by its substantial 19th century buildings. Erected in 1885, Avonleigh is one of two buildings originally designed and constructed as domestic structures in the street which is dominated by commercial buildings and reflects the affluent development which occurred in Rockhampton during the boom time of gold mining at Mount Morgan from 1882.
|Avonleigh, through its form, scale and materials, makes a strong aesthetic and architectural contribution to the Quay Street streetscape and Rockhampton townscape. The building's decorative cast iron verandahs emphasise the nineteenth century character of the street and quayside, and are important in assisting the interpretation of the original section of the building as a substantial late nineteenth century residence. The building also has fine interior materials and finishes, the detailing of which reflects a fine quality of workmanship.
|Avonleigh has special association for the people of Rockhampton as part of the historical streetscape of Quay Street which is closely associated with the image of the city. Avonleigh's conversion in 1906 to one of the first private hospitals in Rockhampton and its subsequent use as a medical surgery gives it an association with the local community as one of Rockhampton's longstanding medical surgeries.
|Avonleigh has special association with Frederick Morgan who with his brothers in 1882, was responsible for the commencement of goldmining at Mount Morgan. Avonleigh was erected as his residence in 1885 after the sale of his shares in Mount Morgan and as such is a manifestation of the early success of the Mount Morgan Mines.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15589,"place_ref":600814,"name":"Clewett's Building (former)","alternate_name":"RM Gow & Co., St Andrew's Hospital, Herron Todd Valuers | JM Headrick & Co., W G Thompson & Co., Lamberton & Co., | Capricorn Survey Consultants Pty Ltd, Herron Todd White Building | Clewetts","street_address":"250 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Clewett's building is located on a block of Quay Street that is populated almost exclusively with other buildings of heritage significance; those listed on the Queensland Heritage Register include: Walter Reid Court [600815], the Former Commercial Hotel and Chambers [600810], the Former Cahill Stores building [600811], the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Building or ABC studios [600812 and Avonleigh [600813].
Running along the short, south-western edge of the allotment is Quay Lane, which forms part of a system of such laneways that inhabits the city centre's orthogonal grid and services its primary streets. The grid is aligned to the course of the Fitzroy River that flows from the north-west to the south-east.
The former Clewett's building is a two-storey brick building, of which the side façade to the south-east is undecorated but painted, the rear and remaining side façades are unpainted. The Quay Street façade is faced with cement render and painted. The long gable roof clad in corrugated iron is contained behind parapets on each façade. Its triangular shape in section is expressed on the rear façade. The front face of the building, approximately nine metres wide, is symmetrically arranged and its classical details are modelled using cement render.
Vertically, the building is divided into three basic parts by pilasters on each end and a central section sitting proud of the flanking walls. The central section of facade, approximately two metres wide, is surmounted by a tall projection of the parapet on which sit two decorative urns. The projection is capped with a cornice-like moulding, below which is a course of dentils and a further stringcourse. Curved render brackets connect the central projection to the lower halves of the parapet. Each end of the lower section, above the stylised framing pilasters, is accented with render globes. The capitals to the end pilasters incorporate some fluting, making them reminiscent of single triglyphs. Above these are placed single rosette-like ornaments.
A cornice-like stringcourse, running the full width between the outermost pilasters, creates a strong horizontal line on the façade to Quay Street. Beneath this is further render modelling and then a line of upper storey windows on either side of a central door. This French door opens onto a small, cantilevered balcony edged with cast iron balustrading. A simple label mould frames the semicircular fanlight atop this door, its ends resting on the tops of pilasters that extend to street level. The arched heads of the two double-hung sash windows on either side of the door are similarly framed. A suspended footpath canopy separates the upper and lower sections of the front façade. In the lower section, the four pilasters sit on an expressed plinth. Beneath the balcony is a set of French doors topped with a basket arch-shaped fanlight. On either side of this door are three double-hung sash windows, the heads of which meet the underside of the footpath canopy.
Currently entry to the building is gained through an entry area and opening in the south-eastern facade near Quay Street. This entry area appears to be built on the adjacent empty allotment.
The long south-eastern façade of the building is punctured by a number of small, square windows opening from the upper storey, and some service pipes. An uncovered stairway leads to the upper storey. A skillion-roofed concrete block addition has been added to the ground storey towards the Quay Lane end of this façade.
The lower storey of the rear façade has a central set of large loading doors. Above this are three symmetrically placed double-hung sash windows with brick sills and low arches to their heads. This façade has two rainwater heads and associated downpipes, the one in the southern-most corner appearing to be set into the wall. The façade to the north-west has only three, small windows in it.
Interior
The interior of the building has been extensively remodelled to accommodate commercial offices. A large room faces Quay Street on the lower storey, while three rooms do so on the upper storey. A row of steel columns supports the upper level floor. These have been encased in fire retardant panelling.
","history":"The former Clewett's building, built as a two-storeyed warehouse building, is thought to have been constructed for Felix Clewett in the mid-1880s.
Following its initial occupation by the Archer brothers at Gracemere after 1853, Rockhampton was proclaimed a town and declared a port of entry in 1858. The first sale of town allotments was held in November of that year. Charles Campen purchased the Quay street site, conveniently close to the town's Fitzroy River wharves, on 16 August 1860.
In 1884 title for the land was transferred to Felix Clewett who held the property until his death in 1913. Until the financial downturn of 1866 Clewett had worked as a trainee surveyor under Frederick Byerley, Engineer of Roads of the Northern District. Just prior to his purchase of this Quay Street allotment he was operating a wholesale and retail store in Blackall.
Rockhampton's early merchants and storekeepers operated as independent, locally based businesses. The first wave of these entrepreneurs, attracted to the area by the promise of gold at nearby Canoona, opened their stores in the late 1850s. A second wave arrived in the 1860s. Some operated in partnerships. By the late 19th century, commerce in Rockhampton was very competitive with up to twenty-seven separate firms providing services such as shipping, mercantile or stock and station agents. Notable in merchandising during the 1880s were John M Headrick & Co., EK Ogg, Alex. Reid & Co. and WG Thompson & Co. The independence of these firms, supported strongly by local manufacture of ironmongery, timber joinery and items such as soap and cordial, was a reflection of the self-sufficiency that Rockhampton's community leaders expressed politically through a concurrent movement towards secession.
Like many stores which operated at this time, the former Clewett's building was occupied initially by locally-based merchants. This changed from the early 1890s when large southern firms, attracted to the area by the wealth of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. and Rockhampton's rural hinterland, established branches in Rockhampton, supplanting many local stock and station agents, wool produce brokers and others in the chain of commerce. Amongst the first was Dalgety and Co., which opened an office in Quay Street in 1891.
By 1887, JM Headrick and Andrew Newton, operating as JM Headrick & Co, General Merchants and Importers, had moved their business to Clewett's Quay Street building where they had taken up a seven year lease from 1 April 1887. Newspaper advertisements from 1887 for John M Headrick & Co. identify the ship used to transport the company's goods, emphasising this local firm's direct links to suppliers overseas. Prior to taking up the lease on Clewett's property in 1887, JM Headrick & Co were situated in East Street. The Headrick family were strongly associated with business and civic interests in Rockhampton, with John Headrick Snr commencing business as early as 1862.
In 1893, after the retirement of Andrew Newton, John Mackay Headrick continued in partnership with his brother Arthur. Their success was such that at the end of their lease on Clewett's Quay Street site in 1894, the company moved to a substantial new two-storeyed premises in East Street, between William and Derby Streets. Despite Headrick's move out of the Quay Street building, an association remained between Headrick and Clewett, as in August 1890, Headrick had married Felix Clewett's daughter, Annie Isabel Clewett.
Following Headrick's move back to East Street to the company's new building (QHR 600793), the Quay Street store was occupied by the mercantile company and agency, Clewett and Thompson. William G Thompson was a well-known agent for a number of companies. After service in the Boer War, Thompson returned to his business, served as president of the Rockhampton Chamber of Commerce and, in conjunction with DW Jackson, as mercantile, insurance, shipping and forwarding agents. The firm also supplied stock and station requirements, groceries, wines, spirits, beers, tobaccos, cigars, cigarettes and butchers' requisites.
While still a partner with Thompson, Felix Clewett also had other interests. After July 1890 he served as a member of the Legislative Council of Queensland. In 1909, following the introduction of steam trams in Rockhampton, which opened up new areas for housing, Felix Clewett was amongst the first to develop residential estates in the Allenstown vicinity. After Clewett's death in February 1913, Thompson purchased the Quay Street store. In December 1922 he was elected to the Australian Senate. He served until June 1932.
Yet another store, wine and spirits merchants Lamberton and Co, was established in the building after 1926. Royal Insurance Co. and Bluff Colliery Co. Ltd also had their offices in the building.
In December 1943 transfer of title site passed to RM Gow Pty Ltd. This company, formed in Brisbane, manufactured the Gold Crest brand of produce and conducted a wholesale grocery business from the Quay Street site.
The use of the store did not change after 1967 when ownership of the building was transferred to Walter Reid & Co. This firm owned the warehouse nearby at the corner of Quay and Derby Streets. With the intention of establishing a hospital, the Presbyterian Church of Queensland purchased both sites in July 1976. This did not eventuate and the building was bought by Herron Todd Valuers in July 1979.
The building was extensively renovated in the late 1980s. The building continues to be occupied by the Capricorn Survey Group which encompasses Herron Todd White Valuers.
","criteria":"Thought to be constructed in the mid-1880s, for Felix Clewett, the former Clewett's building is important in demonstrating the pattern of mercantile trading in a major regional centre of Queensland, representing a phase of commercial development and growth in Rockhampton during the late 19th century precipitated by trade at the port and the success of the Mount Morgan gold mines during the 1880s.
|The former Clewett's building is significant as it retains the chief characteristics of a late Victorian commercial premises, comprising a street façade that is articulated with freely employed classical details common among such buildings, whilst the unadorned side and rear façades reflect its utilitarian purpose.
|The former Clewett's building exhibits integrity as a two-storeyed warehouse and store at the same time contributing to the continuity and character of the 19th century commercial streetscape of Quay Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15590,"place_ref":600815,"name":"Walter Reid Court","alternate_name":"Walter Reid & Co","street_address":"260 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Walter Reid Court, a three-storeyed unpainted cement rendered masonry former warehouse structure, is located on the western corner of Quay and Derby Streets. The building is separated from the Walter Reid Community Arts Centre [600791], another former warehouse, by Quay Lane to the southwest.
The building has a U-shaped plan, with masonry cross walls forming an enclosed courtyard space on the northwestern side. All of the original internal fabric has been removed, however the exterior remains largely intact, and to a lesser extent some of the early internal masonry walls which form the courtyard space. The building now has reinforced concrete floors and columns, and houses 16 flats, a solarium containing a swimming pool and sauna, garage space, and associated common areas.
The exterior of the building is composed of regularly spaced bays separated by engaged piers. The building has an expressed base, and expressed coursing separates the ground and first floors. The roof is concealed behind a parapet wall consisting of a cornice supporting short pillars with gabled crowns. The parapet is surmounted by a central shield shaped ornament, with the firm's name and coat of arms in relief, located above the central bay to the Quay and Derby Street elevations. Lower stepped ornaments are located above the end bays, and a number of flagpoles survive mounted behind the parapet. The name WALTER REID AND COMPANY LIMITED is located in relief on the frieze within the central five bays to the Quay and Derby Street elevations.
The Quay and Derby Street elevations have a three-storeyed recessed arch with expressed keystone to each bay. This arch frames a single window opening to each floor, with an arched opening to the second floor, and segmental arches to the lower floors. The ground floor window opening also has security bars and an expressed keystone, and all windows have been replaced with metal framed casements to the upper two floors and sash frames to the ground floor.
The Derby Street elevation has a vehicle entrance with a recessed roller door located in the central bay, and an entrance to a private flat is located in the southwest end bay. Both entrances are framed at the first floor level by projecting gablets supported by corbels from the engaged piers. This framing device is also used at the northeast end bay, which currently houses a window, and suggests this may have originally housed an entrance. An earlier doorway which has been converted into a window is located in the third bay from the eastern corner. The Quay Street elevation contains the main entrance to the complex, which consists of a metal framed glass door and fanlight with the name WALTER REID COURT in relief lettering above, located in the third bay from the eastern corner. The framing device used for the Derby Street entrances is also used for this entrance, and also on the third bay from the northern end which currently houses a window but suggests this may have originally housed an entrance.
The Quay Lane elevation is similar to the Derby Street elevation, but the ground floor has a number of roller doors inserted into the central bays. The window openings to this elevation have early multi-paned metal framed casement windows with wired glass panes.
The northwest elevation has no fenestration, with three bays at either end and a blank wall to the central section. These bays are regularly spaced, and are separated by engaged piers with a three-storeyed recessed arch with expressed keystone to each bay. The parapet detailing is similar to the principal elevations, and the firm's name is located in relief on the frieze to the three bays at each end. The ground floor has a fire escape door to the central section, and a roller door has been inserted into the third bay from the Quay Lane corner.
The building contains one, two and three bedroom flats, with a large games area on the first floor, and a solarium to the second floor. The flats are located fronting Quay and Derby Streets to each level, with common areas fronting Quay Lane. The Derby Street driveway entrance leads through to a courtyard area which contains car parking and accesses a garage fronting Quay Lane. The courtyard is also entered via a corridor from the Quay Street entrance, which provides access to the main stair and flats. The courtyard is enclosed by early masonry walls containing evidence of original openings, which currently house metal framed casement windows to the upper levels. Large openings have been inserted into the ground floor walls for garage access, and other openings have been bricked-up. Cantilevered metal framed walkways and stair almost encircle the courtyard space, and provide fire escape and access to flats and common areas. The southeast end of the courtyard has a large covered area with latticed balustrading to each floor, and is surmounted by a boarded gable.
","history":"The former Walter Reid & Co. warehouse in Quay Street, Rockhampton was erected for Walter Reid & Co. in 1893 to the design of Richard Gailey. The three-storeyed rendered brickwork warehouse was the first of the two large Walter Reid warehouses to be constructed in Rockhampton which now dominate the precinct of similarly scaled structures in the area. It was part of the commercial infrastructure which developed near the wharves during a boom period in Rockhampton from the 1880s to the turn of the century. The structure displays its original design externally but has been rebuilt internally at least twice.
Walter Reid, the founder of Rockhampton's premier mercantile house Walter Reid & Co., settled in Rockhampton in 1862 to manage a southern owned retail store in East Street which he subsequently bought in 1864. He moved from his shop to new premises situated in Quay Street in 1868. It was in these new premises where Reid began to specialise as a wholesaler, trading in wine, spirits and general merchandise, supplying the hotels and stations in central Western Queensland. Since Rockhampton had been declared an official port in 1858, it had acted as the major transport and trade centre of central Queensland making it a prosperous city in which wholesale merchants like Reid could base there business.
Walter Reid's business prospered in the expanding colonial economy. With the establishment, in 1867, of the Northern Railway which linked Rockhampton with the central western Queensland towns, Rockhampton's position as the most important port in the region was sealed. Reid diversified his interests, and ran lighters down the Fitzroy River to Keppel Bay where larger overseas ships unloaded their cargoes. The firm acted as a local agent for British based companies and it was through this business connection that the British company McIlwraith & McEachearn bought Reid out in 1881.
The new owners continued to operate the business under the name of Walter Reid & Co. and during the 1880s the turnover was in the vicinity of £50,000 per annum. The firm acted as general merchants distributing groceries, ales, domestic and builders' hardware, farm produce, 'fancy' goods, rural products, drugs, stationery, confectionery, and cigarettes. It also acted as importers and exporters, bondkeepers, storekeepers, produce dealers, shipowners, insurance, stock and station agents, financial agents and general commission agents. By 1890 the business had expanded so dramatically that new premises were needed.
Tenders were called for the erection of a warehouse at Rockhampton for Walter Reid & Co. in December 1892 by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. Richard Gailey was a prolific architect in Queensland in the late 19th century and designed numerous warehouses in Brisbane and other ports around the colony. The former Walter Reid & Co. warehouse was reported to have cost about £12,000 and was completed in 1893 at which time Walter Reid & Co. took residence in the new warehouse on the corner of Quay and Derby Streets. In 1895 alterations were made to the building by Rockhampton architects Eaton & Bates who designed an entrance vestibule and office fittings for the warehouse which was also used as Walter Reid & Co.'s head office. This alteration was most likely positioned at the southern end of the Quay Street frontage.
The prosperity which Walter Reid & Co had enjoyed throughout the 1880s was reflective of the wealth in Rockhampton during this period. The immense profit generated by gold mining at Mount Morgan from 1882 created a period of economic buoyancy in the city. The success of the firm during the 1880s manifested in the erection of the warehouse and helped it withstand the depression years of the 1890s and the following devastation which drought brought to Queensland in the early 1900s. In 1902 Walter Reid & Co. erected a second warehouse (QHR 600791)on the corner of East and Derby Streets, behind the original warehouse across Quay Lane, which was completed in 1904 and designed by Rockhampton architects Hutton & Hockings. The obvious presence of these grand warehouses reflected the prominence of Walter Reid as the major mercantile company in central Queensland.
Walter Reid & Company continued to expand importing goods directly from England, America, Europe and India at the turn of the century. A new produce store was built on the corner of Stanley and East Streets, and later a brick wool store on the corner of Stanley and Quay Streets. In 1904 Walter Reid & Co took over one of the oldest established wine and spirit merchants in Brisbane, Brabant & Co, as well as a subsidiary business in Mackay, WH Paxton & Co. A Sydney office was established in the 1910s and in the 1920s a large and expensive warehouse was built in the centre of Sydney.
During this time the 1893 warehouse underwent considerable change. On 11 October 1912 the warehouse was gutted, except in the south-west corner of the building, by fire which was started by lightening striking the roof on the corner of Quay and Derby Streets. A contemporary description from the Morning Bulletin of the path of the fire in the warehouse gives some idea of the building's original design.
The original design did not include an open courtyard, instead the second level was entirely covered by a roof. The ground and first levels had two two-storey high passage ways which extended from Derby Street and Quay Lane and met at right angles, separating the south-western corner of the building from the rest of the structure. During the fire the passage ways acted as fire-breaks preventing the destruction of that section of the building. The fire was said to have descended to the lower levels through a lift-well 'at one end of the building in Quay Street' indicating the position of a lift near the Quay Street frontage. The rapid spread of the fire through the second level was attributed to the open planning of the floor which was most likely changed in the reconstruction of the interior of the building to increase resistance to fire damage. The installation of the courtyard could have occurred after the 1912 fire, although, apparently there was another fire in 1918 which also gutted the building requiring internal reconstruction. However the description of the building in 1912 indicates the courtyard was not an original component of the building. The description also referred to the 'charred smoking beams' indicating the typical use of timber inside the original warehouse.
During the Second World War both Walter Reid & Co. warehouses on Quay and East Streets were used by U.S. troops. A large contingent of Americans were based in Rockhampton and they commandeered many buildings in the city. It is not certain for which purpose the Americans used the Quay Street warehouse, but Walter Reid & Co. continued to use the warehouse during the occupation.
Walter Reid & Co. was well enough established to survive the winding down of operations at the port in the middle of the 20th century and its main activities were no longer focussed on the river wharves. However by the 1970s the firm was experiencing losses in its grocery wholesaling department due to changes in shopping practices since the 1950s. The company decided to move out of grocery wholesaling and was relocated to North Rockhampton where it continued under the name of 'Reid's'.
Both of Walter Reid & Co.'s major warehouses in Rockhampton were sold in the 1970s. In 1979 the Quay Street building was purchased by St Andrew's Presbyterian Church Welfare Administration who intended to convert the old warehouse into a hospital. At this time the former warehouse was once again stripped internally in preparation for the conversion which did not occur. Instead the building was transferred in August 1980 to H Katranevas, G Callionotis, Halmont Holdings Pty Ltd and Swanray Pty Ltd and was intended for conversion to inner-city residential apartments. In October 1981 the building was purchased by Albecs Holdings, Degotard Investments and Watlepark Investments. The new apartments opened in 1983.
","criteria":"Walter Reid Court reflects the high level of commercial development which occurred near the wharves on the Fitzroy River during the latter 19th century. The Walter Reid building stands as a legacy to the prominence of Rockhampton as a commercial city port during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Together with the adjacent Walter Reid Community Arts Centre [600791] the building is an integral member of a highly intact warehouse precinct.
|The building's exterior finish, of unpainted cement render, is a comparatively rare surviving example of a once common form of exterior architectural treatment.
|Walter Reid Court, a three-storeyed former warehouse structure, has a considerable street presence due to its massive bulk, long street elevations and unpainted cement rendered facade. The building is recognised as a local landmark and makes a significant contribution to the Rockhampton streetscape and townscape. The building is of aesthetic merit, and the form, fabric and materials illustrate a skilled design approach.
|The building has special association for the people of Rockhampton as an historical landmark which contributes to the image of the city.
|The building has special association with Walter Reid & Co, a longstanding Rockhampton based mercantile company which was important in Queensland economic history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is also a significant example of the work of Brisbane architect Richard Gailey who was a prominent architect in Queensland from 1865 to 1924.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15591,"place_ref":600816,"name":"Harbour Board (former)","alternate_name":"Fitzroy Shire Council Chambers","street_address":"288 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Harbour Board building, a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure, is located fronting Quay Street to the northeast overlooking the Fitzroy River. The building has a twin gable roof, the front section of which is hipped with central box gutter draining to the rear.
The Quay Street elevation has an arcaded colonnade to the ground floor and balcony to the first floor, each of which consists of three elliptical arches separated by pilasters supporting an entablature. The ground floor is designed in the Roman Doric order, and the first floor in the Corinthian order. Each arch has expressed mouldings, including imposts and keystones.
The ground floor pilasters have a deep pedestal, fluting to the lower section of the shaft, and rosettes to the neck of the capital. The entablature has expressed triglyphs and a shallow cornice, and a low cast iron balustrade with central paired entry gates and newel posts is located between the arches. The first floor pilasters have fluting to the entire shaft, and Corinthian order capitals. The entablature has expressed modillions to the deep cornice, which is surmounted by a parapet concealing the roof, and a rendered balustrade is located between the arches. The parapet has a raised central section which is framed by corner pillars flanking a perforated ring course. The central section is surmounted by a flagpole, and has the name HARBOUR BOARD ESTD 1896 in relief lettering framing a winged motif.
The ground floor colonnade has an encaustic tiled floor and curved rendered ceiling. Entry to the ground floor is via an off-set central paired timber panelled entry door, with entry to the first floor located at the northern end of the colonnade. Tall sash windows open onto the colonnade, and window and door openings have rendered architraves and sills, and security bars have been affixed. An engraved First World War memorial marble plaque is affixed to the colonnade wall, together with two metal plaques commemorating the use of the building by the Rockhampton Harbour Board and the Fitzroy Shire Council. The first floor balcony has a painted concrete floor and timber boarded ceiling, and french doors with fanlights open from the front rooms. The Quay Street elevation detailing returns the width of the colonnade and balcony either end of the building.
The southeast elevation has sash windows to the ground and first floors, each with a curved corrugated iron window hood supported by cast iron brackets, and security bars have been affixed to the ground floor windows. The northwest elevation, treated in a similar manner, has no windows to the ground floor.
The rear of the building has a first floor steel framed verandah surmounting the junction of a single-storeyed rear wing, constructed of concrete blocks with a ribbed metal roof, which replaced the original verandah. The rear wall of the building has a twin gabled parapet, with central arched ventilation panels. The first floor verandah has vertical louvres above the balustrade, and french doors and sash windows open from the rear rooms. The northern end of the verandah has been enclosed, and a narrow addition containing toilets has been attached.
Internally, the building has rendered masonry structural walls and timber partition walls, with cedar architraves, skirtings and cornices, however several of the internal doors have been removed. The ground floor contains three offices on the southern side, a large central room, and stair and strongroom on the northern side. The central room has a large carved timber reception counter at the front, and the name FITZROY SHIRE COUNCIL is inset in the vinyl tiled floor to the entrance. This room has a central cast iron column and timber boarded ceiling, and a dumb-waiter has been installed adjacent to the strongroom. Exposed air conditioning ducts have been installed, with ducts penetrating window and fanlight openings. The stair to the first floor has a cedar newel post and handrail, with turned cedar balusters to the first floor.
The first floor has similar finishes to the ground floor, however most of the panelled cedar doors are extant. Two rooms and a hallway front the Quay Street balcony, all with access via french doors, and the southern room has a suspended acoustic tiled ceiling. A large opening has been inserted in the timber partition wall adjacent to the stair landing, and the southwest room has been subdivided by the insertion of lower partition walls.
The rear wing contains offices and service rooms, and the property is accessed by a driveway on the southern side of the site which exits to Quay Lane at the rear.
","history":"The former Harbour Board was erected in 1898 for the newly established Harbour Board of Rockhampton. The former Harbour Board building was designed by JW Wilson and built by Renshaw & Ricketts for £3 200. The Harbour Board was the authority for the Port of Rockhampton from 1896 until 1979 and operated in the Quay Street building from 1898 to 1977. The erection of the prestigious Harbour Board offices in Quay Street reflected the significance of the port of Rockhampton and the wealth of trade it brought to the city during the late 19th century.
Rockhampton was declared a Port of Entry on 8 October 1858 following the influx of gold seekers to Canoona. The port served a vast area of central Queensland, supported by a network of roads which brought the exports of gold, copper, hides, tallow and wool from the hinterland in the 1860s. In 1867 the Northern Railway was established westward from Rockhampton which increased the flow of goods through the port. The port was influential in establishing Rockhampton as the major trade and communication centre of the region and its operation soon became a vital commodity in Rockhampton's economy.
The Rockhampton Harbour Board was established in 1895 by the Rockhampton Harbour Board Act and assumed authority for the Port of Rockhampton in January 1896. The Queensland Government had passed the Harbour Board Act of 1892 in an attempt to decentralise and offload the expense of maintaining Queensland ports due the financial downturn of the depression. The Harbour Board Act provided for the establishment of Harbour Boards at any Port where there was enough shipping trade to ensure the individual Harbour Boards were self-supporting.
The Rockhampton Harbour Board was among the first three boards to be established in 1895 together with Townsville and Bundaberg. Within the next 20 years Harbour Boards were established at Mackay (1896), Cairns (1905) (QHR 601278), Gladstone (1913) and Bowen (1914) (QHR 600041). The Harbour Boards assumed work formerly carried out by the Marine Department, Customs Department, Shipping Agencies and the Municipal Council. However, control of the tidal waters remained with the Crown and provision of pilotage and navigation remained under the control of the Marine Department. In spite of this, the principle of local control was applied by the Act. To allow it to function, a Board was granted tenure over port lands for the purpose of wharfage or port purposes, and the power to levy harbour dues on all goods discharched or shipped within the harbour, together with the right to lease land and facilities to provide funds for the Board's responsibilities of wharf construction, dredging and provision of other ports needs.
The Rockhampton Harbour Board building was constructed in 1898 and was part of the prestigious development which occurred along Quay Street from the 1860s to the turn of the century. The erection of this grand two-storied masonry building reflected the particular wealth of the Rockhampton Harbour Board which was a manifestation of the prominence of the port.
Tenders for the erection of the building were called by John W Wilson in March 1897. Wilson dominated the architectural scene in Rockhampton from 1864 until the 1890s. His work contributed significantly to the consistency of the Rockhampton townscape with six of the Quay Street buildings erected before 1901 being Wilson's design. Wilson designed over 200 buildings in the central Queensland region during his 35-year practice and was one of the most prominent and prolific architects to have worked in Rockhampton. The Harbour Board stands as one of his most striking designs.
The foundations of the building were described as 'particularly strong' and were allowed to stand for a month before construction of the building continued in regard to the structural problems resulting from moving foundations experienced with other Rockhampton buildings. The former Harbour Board building is one of few Rockhampton buildings from its period which does not possess major cracking caused by foundation movement.
Externally the building is substantially intact, with the decorative collonaded facade fronting Quay Street. The rear of the building has been markedly altered with an extension replacing the original rear verandah. Internally, the brickwork walls were originally plastered with Portland's cement and finished with Keen's cement. On the ground floor the space for the public and private offices is still evident with its original cedar mouldings and doors. The service counter originally curved towards the rear of the building.
The building was purchased by the Fitzroy Shire Council in 1977 and was used as offices until 1995. The building was purchased by the present private owner in February 1995.
","criteria":"The former Harbour Board building erected in 1898 reflects the significance of the Port of Rockhampton which was influential in establishing the city as a major commercial centre of Queensland during the late nineteenth century. It also reflects a Queensland government initiative which saw the development of numerous Harbour Boards throughout the colony around the turn of the century to maintain and manage the ports of Queensland.
|The former Harbour Board, located at the southern end of Quay Street but visually isolated from the quayside precinct, is recognised as a local landmark and makes a significant contribution to the Quay Street streetscape and Rockhampton townscape. The building is of architectural and aesthetic importance, and the form and fabric of the building illustrate a skilled design approach. The detailing of the materials and finishes exhibit fine quality craftsmanship.
|The former Harbour Board building has special association for the people of Rockhampton as an historical landmark of Quay Street which is closely associated with the image of the city.
|The former Harbour Board building has special association with John W Wilson as one of his most prominent works. Wilson was a prolific architect in Rockhampton from 1864 to 1899 and designed about 200 buildings in the Rockhampton area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15592,"place_ref":600817,"name":"Customs House Rockhampton","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"208 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The Rockhampton Customs House is a well composed and substantial sandstone and rendered brick building prominently sited on Quay Street overlooking the Fitzroy River. Most of the buildings in Quay Street are built up to the line of the footpath except the Customs House which is set back from the street and has a large semi-circular entrance portico which contributes to its prominence in the street.
On the Customs House site is the Customs House, facing Quay Street and to the rear of this a two storeyed former bond store and in the north eastern corner a one storeyed former stables building which has a more recent addition along the north eastern property line. The former stables and the Customs House are contemporary.
The Customs House is a two storeyed rectangular planned building with a semi-circular porch projecting centrally from the north eastern façade to Quay Street and flanked by end bays. The building employs many classical architectural features. The principal floor housing the long room and large office spaces is on the first floor, beneath which, on the ground floor are secondary spaces. The first floor seems to sit on the heavy base provided by the ground floor which, externally, is heavily rusticated with banding.
The principal façade, facing Quay Street, is dominated by the centrally placed round porch to which access is given via two stone stairs starting from concrete steps from the footpath and curving around the projecting porch to the first floor. The porch comprises a row of Corinthian columns following the curve of this façade of the building, which support a semi-circular entablature over which a skillion roof sits. Flanking the porch are short arcaded sections which terminate and are aligned with the end bays of the building. The arcaded sections are formed from full length arched openings which have Italianate balustrading. Above the arches and aligned with them are elliptical openings. The symmetrical end bays have rusticated sandstone faces and an arched opening at first floor level which extends to the ground floor in the form of a long rectangular window opening. The base of the opening at first floor level has an Italianate balustrade. Flanking the opening at first floor level are pairs of Corinthian pilasters. These pilasters seem to support a string moulding which aligns with the entablature of the porch, forming a cornice along the entire length of the façade, above which a short parapet conceals the roof.
Projecting from the hipped, corrugated iron roof, centrally over the principal room of the building is a large dome clad with a copper and zinc alloy, known as Muntz metal sheeting. The metal sheets have been laid radiating from the central metal lantern in twelve sections with border mouldings which define the sections. The dome rests on a substantial sandstone drum which is pierced with twelve regularly spaced oculi or round windows, every second and third ones of which are blind openings. These are divided by slender pilasters which expand outward toward their base to form buttressing elements. The pilasters seem to support an entablature which surrounds the crown of the drum.
The north west and south east elevations of the building, continue the classical detailing of the principal façade of the end bays, with a series of round arched openings separated by pairs of Corinthian pilasters. The cornice detail and ground floor rustication continues around to these sides as well.
The rear of the building is of rendered brick, and is without the rustication and detailing which characterises the other façades of the building. Again a semi-circular bay projects from the centre of the façade and this is lined with rectangular window openings at ground and first floor levels. From this projects a two storeyed square planned section.
Access is provided to the Long Room from the porch through two doors on either side of the central projecting semi-circular bay. The doorways housing the double half glazed doors are surmounted with relief lettering "H.M. CUSTOMS" above which sits a corniced shelf. Rectangular windows line the face of the semi-circular bay and forming a lintel to these is a string moulding. The floor of the porch is concrete as are the floors throughout the first floor of the building. A wrought iron balustrade links the columns lining the porch.
Internally the first floor of the Customs House is arranged with a large central space, the Long Room, under the dome, and two long rooms flanking this along the sides of the building and articulated externally as the end bays. The flanking rooms are long spaces with plastered ceilings and walls, elaborate cornice and high timber skirting. Generally these rooms retain much of their original fittings, including joinery, plaster ceiling roses, ventilation shaft covers.
The Long Room is a grand internal space, classically proportioned and detailed in keeping with the parti of the building. The room comprises a central square planned space with the interior of the dome projecting above. Because the dome rests on a square base, that is the building, a pendentive, or series of curved inverted triangular sections in the corners of the square plan, join at their tops to form a circular crown on which the drum of the dome rests. The interior of the dome is ornamented with various moulded courses and panels and is regularly pierced with openings. Several round arched doorways provided access to this space from the corridors which flank the Long Room. A section of an early timber desk/counter is fitted within the space.
The ground floor is arranged about a central room beneath the Long Room with hallways running either side off which offices are found in the end bays of the building. Generally the ground floor ceiling is of timber boarding, the walls are plastered and modest skirting boards and cornices have been used. Much joinery remains and this is of excellent quality with unusual five panelled doors. Chimney pieces remain in some of the rooms and these are timber framed with tiled and marbled infill panels. Centrally located downstairs is a room formerly known as the Queens Warehouse, a large semi-circular space defined by a curved brick wall, forming the foundations of the porch the internal line of which it is directly above. The external line of the porch is supported on sandstone foundations which form another wall separated from the brick foundation wall by a walkway. The ceiling in this space is clad with small gauge corrugated iron. The Queen's Warehouse houses the 'Customs House Discovery Centre'. The interpretive centre includes wall mounted display cases, free-standing display cases, the use of crates and sacks and mannequins. The main feature is a reconstructed wharf sub-structure. The free standing cases and exhibits are secured by the placement of weights within the cases. A lightweight grid is suspended suspended from the ceiling toward the northern end of the area, indicating Rockhampton street signs and for possible use in later exhibition design. A wall mounted display case is also located in this area. Some multimedia facilities are included in the interpretation centre.
The former stable building which is on the north west corner of the site, with an elevation facing Quay Lane. This is a small rendered brick building with rustication similar to that found on the Customs House. The corrugated iron roof is half hipped and surmounting it are two decorative ridge ventilators. Four door openings and two window openings, plainly detailed, are found on the south eastern wall. The wall facing Quay Street has a centrally located double window.
With a wall to Quay Lane is the former two storeyed brick Bond Store. The corrugated iron roof of this building has slightly overhanging eaves which are lined with diagonal timber boarding. The ground floor is rendered brick and the upper floor is face brick with white tuck pointing. Six paned vertical sash windows with heavy timber frames and mullions are found on all façades and these are awned with corrugated iron awnings supported on substantial timber brackets with infill battening in some places.
The bond store is accessed from a door adjacent to the Customs House, though which an entry hall is reached where a timber stair provides access to the first floor. Rooms open from the entrance hall on the ground floor. The rooms on the lower level have many early features; joinery and ceiling panelling, though most have been painted and covered with surface mounted conduits. The upper floor is generally re-ordered with recent partitioning concealing an early layout and any early features.
","history":"The Rockhampton Customs House was constructed in 1899 as the third Customs House in Rockhampton. It is one of a group of Customs Houses built in Queensland at the turn of the century to the design of innovative and skilful architects of the Public Works Department. The architect responsible for the design of the Rockhampton Customs House is thought to be Thomas Pye with the assistance of George Payne.
The Archer brothers made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, and were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy river. They built a small wharf to allow for the transport of wool bales from their property, Gracemere station. West of the place chosen as the wharf a large bar of rocks prevented further movement upstream for sailing vessels, thereby dictating the siting of the eventual port of Rockhampton. The short lived Canoona gold rush of 1858 and its massive influx of over eight thousand diggers provided "the landing place" with its first major activity of loading and unloading of vessels.
In 1858 Rockhampton was officially proclaimed a port. The collection of Customs duties and the storage of bonded goods was carried out in a prefabricated timber building which was despatched from the Government of the Colony of New South Wales. A reserve was declared where the Customs House of 1899 was built, and another timber building was constructed as the Queen's warehouse. The area of the Customs House formed a focal point for transaction of commerce with frontages onto both Quay Street and Little Quay Street (later Quay Lane), and dominating the strip of properties with water frontage.
Within four years, increased use of the Port resulted in the pre-fabricated building becoming inadequate and cramped conditions dictated the need for a new building. However, on 14 August 1862 the timber buildings comprising the Customs House including the Bond Store and Quarters were burnt down. As a result tenders were called on 27 September 1862 for a new Customs building and this was constructed in the following year. The 1863 Customs House was a single storeyed, masonry building with a slate roof, a storage basement and a colonnaded porch facing Quay St. However the shallow foundations of the building were sunk in clay and the shifting of this strata was to lead to the eventual failure of the structure. A two storeyed brick bond store facing Quay Lane was constructed as part of this phase of development.
In the 1870's the Customs House Reserve was extended when portion 5 of Section 46 the site of the former Royal Fitzroy Hotel was acquired. A single storeyed brick bond store was constructed on this site. Further additions were made to this building in 1879. The building was known as the "Fitzroy Bond", and included frontages to both Quay and Little Quay Streets.
By the 1880s, the differential settlement of the soil around the foundations of the buildings on the Customs House site led to major structural problems. Repair work was undertaken at the recommendation of the Government Architect. However, this work failed to rectify the problem and it was necessary to attempt repairs a number of times during the 1880s and 1890s. Deputations were made from the Rockhampton Chamber of Commerce and Rockhampton Municipal Council in 1890 seeking replacement of the building. Because the growth and prosperity of Rockhampton as a new capital city was crucial to the separation movement, who sought to create a new state in north Queensland, it was thought that new public buildings constructed in Rockhampton should be equal in prominence and design to those constructed in the state's capital. In 1889 a large new Customs House was constructed in Brisbane and therefore the new Customs Houses throughout Queensland, and particularly those planned for Rockhampton and Townsville, would reflect the high standard of this building and the prominence of the northern cities.
At the time that funding was being sought for the construction of a new Customs House in Rockhampton the economic situation in Queensland was worsening with the depression of the 1890's. Colonial Architect, AB Brady, estimated some £6000 was required to finance a massive repair program to reconstruct the Customs House, money that was unavailable. Temporary premises were sought for Customs staff for three years until repairs could be made. Brady was aware of the need for a new building but was also aware of the reduced spending of the Colonial Government to cover new projects as a result of the depression.
Despite more alterations and repairs, major structural problems had reappeared by 1897. With accommodation in the Customs House untenable by this stage, tenders were called for the refitting of the Queen's Warehouse as a temporary Customs House.
In November of 1897, the Government Architect A B Brady submitted plans for approval to Treasury for a new Customs House. Estimated cost was to be £12 000. Completion was expected to take eighteen months. At this time other Customs Houseswere being constructed by the colonial government in other ports along the Queensland coast, in locations such as Townsville, and Maryborough. The construction of the Rockhampton Customs House was part of a major public works construction program leading to Federation of not only customs houses but also state government offices and post offices.
Tenders were called in March 1898 for removal of the old Customs House and demolition took place in May 1898. In August 1898, the Department of Public Works accepted the tender of Messrs Caskie and Thompson of Brisbane for £16,534.10. 2 to build the present Customs House. The design was produced under the guidance of Mr. A B Brady, the Government Architect. Chief Draughtsman Thomas Pye has been attributed with the design and George Payne is thought to have been responsible for many of the innovative and interesting details of the building. George Payne was also thought to be responsible for the design of the Townsville Customs House which was constructed soon after.
To secure adequate foundations for the building, Brady adopted a pile and rail method, whereby wooden piles 30 feet by 18 inches were driven into the ground, with 28lb. iron shoes driven to a depth of 20 feet, cut off at ground level, then tied on each side with rows of steel rails, with the tops of the piles and rails embedded in concrete. This was intended as a method to create a stable environment for the foundations of the building. As a result of this planning for the foundations, the building basement was situated above ground level and was to be utilised as the Queens' warehouse.
The building was constructed from Stanwell freestone dressings to the front and sides and a rendered brickwork superstructure. A reserve for quarry purposes had been gazetted at Stanwell for the supply of stone for the structure prior to construction. Most of the stone was procured from the Number 4 quarry at Stanwell. The Works Department ensured that Stanwell freestone would be used on the side walls and return fronts, although these initially had been specified to be rendered masonry. J W Esdale was the stonemason, J Innis the foreman of works and the Corinthian order capitals were carved by employees of the London firm, Farmer and Binnelly. Although the contract was to be completed by March 1900, the contractors requested an extension of time as a result of wet weather and labour shortages. Unusually the Royal Coat of Arms was not included on the building, though this is thought to have been as a result of the shortage of stonemasons rather than an oversight.
At the completion of the Customs House, Caskie and Thompson tendered for and were awarded other works within the Customs House reserve associated with ancillary buildings as well as landscaping. The stables were to be rebuilt, to incorporate lavatories, paved two stall stable, a feed room and coachhouse. As well a stone boundary wall along Quay Street, fencing, gates, driveways, stables and lavatories were to be constructed at a cost of £ 1615.00. Along the boundary wall fronting Quay Street three entrances with stone pillars and wrought iron gates were provided. Double iron gates were provided for the entry to the Fitzroy Bond. The tender was approved on 10 October 1900.
The Customs House provided a large central Long Room where business was transacted, a Queen's warehouse, ten offices and a strong room.
Faced with local freestone from Stanwell Quarries, the other portion being of brick set in cement, except the base course, which is of Brisbane porphyry. The outer dome is of timber covered in Muntz metal , the inner dome being of coke and cement concrete....The long room occupies the centre part of the upper floor with the principal offices on either side. Below the long room is the King's warehouse, with shipping and other offices at the sides. The outer palisading to street front is of hammered iron on freestone and porphyry walling.
Final cost of construction was £17 390/2/9 and ancillary buildings including walls and gardens cost £1 616/11/6.
The building was opened at a time when rivalry between Gladstone and Rockhampton was fierce and Rockhampton businesses were attempting to block construction of a trunk railway line between the two ports from the south. Rockhampton had been faced with a major deficiency as a port by being situated on a tidal river. Dredging programs were necessary to maintain a navigable channel to the sea. Construction of deep water ports at Broadmount and Port Alma both failed to rectify this problem of providing a deep water port for Rockhampton. By the turn of the century the actual area of river frontage used for wharfage had moved further downstream away from the area dominated by the new Customs House. Steam vessels of up to 4000 tons could make their way upriver. Larger vessels required unloading in Keppel Bay and transfer to lighters. After Federation customs collection was handed over to the Commonwealth although the state maintained responsibility for maintenance on the building.
After completion of the Customs House warehousing, necessary for storage of bonded goods, was found to be in excess of requirements. A result of this was that the Fitzroy Bond building was (Portion 3 of the Reserve) sold to the State Government in 1906.
The importance of the Customs House to the maritime activities of the Port of Rockhampton diminished gradually. During the second world war, war ships and supply vessels navigated to the town reach. However the advent of bulk shipping accelerated the decline of the area of the town wharves. In the 1960's major upgrading of the Port Alma wharves was undertaken, and road connection was also provided to Rockhampton. However, this development was overshadowed by the construction of deep water bulk handling facilities at Gladstone starting in the 1960's and accelerating through the 1970's and 1980's. The Rockhampton river port and town wharves were closed to shipping in 1966.
With a diminishing role in the activities of the Customs Service in the River Port the Customs House was adapted for uses other than the traditional collection of duties and storage of dutiable goods. The ancillary buildings of Customs House have been altered to reflect this adaptation. The Bond Store was converted into a Laboratory, and the stable and coach building was converted to provide animal pens for use by the Department of Health. A toilet block was also provided in 1923 along the northern boundary adjacent to the stables.
Further adaptations to the interior of the Customs House reflect the tenancy of the building by various Government departments. In the 1960's, the Department of Labour and National Service had become the major tenant. The ground floor offices on the southern side of the building were partitioned, and an amenities area was provided in the Queen's Warehouse.
The office for the Federal Member for the Rockhampton/Fitzroy electorate was also located in the building. The Long Room was divided internally with removable partitions. Within the area of the Queen's warehouse further partitioning was introduced to increase office space. Air conditioning was introduced in 1971 to offices on the southern side of both levels.
Decreasing importance of the Customs Department saw it being limited in space to an area of the Queen's warehouse, and bond store. The Commonwealth Employment Service Regional office occupied the ground floor. In 1986 all employees of the Federal Government departments resident in the Customs House vacated the building and transferred to newly constructed office.
In May 1987 the building was acquired by the Rockhampton City Council. At the time of the handover of the building it was anticipated that the Customs House would be used as either a museum or some form of tourist attraction. In 1989 the Rockhampton City Council sponsored a tenant for the Customs House- Skillshare Capricornia. Skillshare occupied various parts of the building and the laboratory/bond store for its activities. The Long Room, restored to its original layout, has been used for social and cultural functions including book launches, and art exhibitions. Part of the J. W. Wilson (Rockhampton Architect, designer of the School of Arts building) family furniture collection is stored within the office space in the building.
To commemorate the centenary of Federation [2001], the Rockhampton Customs House was one of 43 major projects that received funding through the Queensland Heritage Trails Network Project. The $110 million Queensland Heritage Trails Network was an Australian first, funded through the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments in partnership with local government authorities and local communities.
The project was designed to provide the city of Rockhampton with a central cultural attraction. The ground floor office partitions and air conditioning were removed and the area was refitted and currently houses the 'Customs House Discovery Centre'. The refit included the installation of a smaller air condition unit to the rear of the building on the ground floor. The Discovery Centre, which incorporates static and multimedia displays, introduces visitors to the city's history, Customs House, Quay, river and people of Rockhampton today. The principal [first] floor, continues to be utilised for meetings, conferences, functions, etc. In 2003, a lift was installed in the south-west corner of the building, at the rear of the site.
","criteria":"The Customs House, constructed in 1899, is significant as it represents the development of Rockhampton as the regional centre of central Queensland and in particular Rockhampton's role as the principal port of this region. At the time of its construction, the Customs House was seen as a symbol of prosperity and progress in the city.
|The building demonstrates the development of customs houses in Queensland and is significant as a good example of the substantial customs houses built along the Queensland coast at the turn of the century and designed by the Public Works Department.
|The Customs House has great aesthetic significance, it is a prominently sited building on an important street facing the Fitzroy River and a well composed substantial sandstone building with considerable architectural merit.
|The foundation work supervised by AB Brady shows an innovative engineering solution to the problems of unstable foundations that led to the collapse of many Rockhampton buildings.
|(Criterion under review)
|The building, designed by Thomas Pye with George Payne, has special associations with them and the Public Works Department who produced many fine public buildings at the turn of the century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15593,"place_ref":600818,"name":"Rockhampton War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Penlington Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Rockhampton War Memorial, a 64-foot Gracemere Grey Granite obelisk on a plinth, is located to the south of the kiosk in the upper section of the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens. The obelisk is situated on a raised circular mound and encircled by a path, low hedge and evenly spaced Canary Island Date Palms (Phoenix canariensis).
\nThe pedestal is located in the centre of a double stepped base which has rock faced vertical surfaces and smooth horizontal surfaces. The plinth is square in plan and is surmounted by the pedestal dado which is made up of three granite blocks. On the front face (west) of the dado are the words IN REMEMBRANCE TO THOSE WHO FELL and the dates of WWI and later conflicts. A polished granite plate has been bolted to the lower front face and also has dates of later conflicts. The top block displays the words SACRIFICE (north), UNITY (east), and FREEDOM (south). The pedestal is surmounted by a tall obelisk, which culminates in a pyramidal apex.
\nModern garden beds on the mound contain herbaceous plants pruned to form the words ANZAC (west), ARMY (north), RAN (east) and RAAF (south); these additions are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nA gun or war trophy is located adjacent to a modern pathway that accesses the memorial from the west. The gun is a German-built Krupp 10.5cm IeFH 16 serial no. 7785, manufactured by the Rheinmetall Company, Germany, in 1917 and deployed for service with Turkish Forces in Palestine that same year. The gun was captured by the 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment in October 1917 at what was reportedly the Battle of Beersheba.
","history":"The Rockhampton War Memorial, situated within the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens [QHR 601819], was unveiled on 16 October 1924 by the Governor of Queensland Sir Matthew Nathan. It was designed by architects Hockings and Palmer and produced by monumental masons, F M Allan. The granite memorial honours those who served in World War I.
\nThe area in which Rockhampton is located was first discovered by Ludwig Leichhardt and Thomas Mitchell between 1844 and 1846. The Fitzroy River was later discovered by the Archer brothers in 1853 and lead to the establishment and success of the region as a pastoral district. The initial development of the city itself was due to the discovery of gold at nearby Canoona in 1858.
\nThe Botanic Gardens were established in 1869 when Mayor RM Hunter’s request to turn the Native Police paddock into a reserve for botanic gardens was approved. The impetus for the gardens came from Frenchman Monsieur Thozet who was among the first to re-establish substantial plantings in Rockhampton by planting trees from his private nursery along the river bank in Quay Street. The first gardener, appointed in 1873, was J S Edgar, partially trained by Thozet. He was succeeded in 1903 by naturalist Richard Simmons. Simmons was still in charge of the gardens when war was declared in 1914.
\nThe memorials erected in the wake of WWI became the country’s first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on the burgeoning nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
\nEven before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
\nAustralian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they made the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
\nAustralian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
\nIn Rockhampton, a public meeting was held in February 1919, when it was decided to erect a memorial to those who served in World War I. It was to be a regional monument, representing surrounding districts, but erected in Rockhampton. In 1921, a site was selected on the riverbank and a national design competition was announced by the newly formed Central Queensland War Memorial Committee. This however, was not successful as most designs were too costly.
\nIn 1922, the committee commissioned Rockhampton architects, Hockings and Palmer to present a design for a memorial to be situated in the Botanic Gardens. Their design, at a cost of £2,654 was accepted and Rockhampton masons, F M Allan were contracted to complete the work. Hocking and Palmer’s design comprised an obelisk, a symbol of regeneration and related to the sense of national birth associated with WWI.[1]
\nThe firm of Hockings and Palmer was a partnership between Edwin Morton Hockings and Leslie Tarween Palmer.
\nEdwin Morton Hockings (1870-1942) commenced his architectural career under the tutelage of Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. In 1890 Hockings won a design competition for the new Rockhampton Girls' Grammar School [QHR 600780], and departed to Rockhampton as the project's clerk of works. In 1895 he was elected an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects and commenced his own practice in Rockhampton, designing amongst others, the CJ Edwards Chambers (1914) [QHR 600803]. In 1916 he formed a productive partnership with Leslie Tarween Palmer, a Victorian-born architect who was educated in Melbourne and practised in Horsham from 1907. He was later employed by EA Scott and Green, Architects in Sydney.[2] He worked alone for two years in Rockhampton before entering into partnership with Hockings in 1915. Hockings and Palmer designed a number of structures around Rockhampton, including the Therapies Block and Medical Superintendent’s Residence at the Rockhampton Hospital [QHR 601967] and the Rockhampton Town Hall [QHR 601572]. The partnership continued until 1938, when Palmer left for a job in Brisbane. Hockings died late in 1942, and Palmer in 1958.[3]
\nAustralia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. Although there were many different types of memorial erected throughout Queensland, few were of the scale or cost of the Rockhampton one. Funds however, did not cover the cost of recording the soldiers’ names on the monument and it was proposed at the unveiling that a list of names would be kept at the Town Hall. This is one of the few memorials in Queensland without lists of names.
\nThe Rockhampton War Memorial was unveiled on 16 October 1924 by the Governor of Queensland Sir Matthew Nathan. The Gracemere grey granite memorial obelisk stood on a plinth and was 64 feet (19.5 metres) high. The surrounding grounds were landscaped by Richard Simmons, with the memorial centred on a grassed mound that was surrounded by a circular path, a hedge of Pentas (Pentas lanceolata) in alternating colours and a circle of Canary Island Date Palms (Phoenix canariensis), which symbolise victory.[4] This arrangement reflected Simmons’ reported views on the need for a landscape treatment that could be readily maintained, as the effectiveness of the memorial depended, in part, on the condition of the surrounding area.[5]
\nThe landscaping around the War Memorial remained relatively unchanged until the 1980s, when a paved pathway accessing the western side of the circular path was added.[6] Garden beds pruned to read ANZAC, ARMY, RAAF and RAN were also added to the grassed mound in the late 1990s to early 2000s, and by 2008 a curved path connected the memorial to the arid gardens to the east.[7]
","criteria":"The Rockhampton War Memorial, erected in 1924 as a regional monument representing Rockhampton and surrounding districts, is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in World War I (WWI). War memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Rockhampton War Memorial is of uncommonly large scale. Dominating its immediate surroundings, it is the largest and most costly of all regional war memorials in Queensland.
|The Rockhampton War Memorial is a good example of a well-designed and finely crafted WWI memorial, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. Designed by architects Hockings and Palmer and built by monumental masonry firm FM Allen, with landscaped surrounds by Botanic Gardens curator Richard Simmons, the memorial incorporates classical references symbolising regeneration (obelisk) and victory (palms).
|The Rockhampton War Memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship, materials and design. The towering obelisk, set on a grassed mound encircled by the original planting scheme comprising pathway, low hedge and evenly spaced Canary Island Date palms, evokes a sense of awe and reverence, and has strong symbolic meaning to the community of Rockhampton and its region.
|The Rockhampton War Memorial has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15594,"place_ref":600819,"name":"Killowen","alternate_name":"Boland Residence","street_address":"86 Ward Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Killowen today is set on 1,386m² at the corner of Agnes and Ward Streets on The Range, west of central Rockhampton, one of the city's premier residential districts. The residence is single storey where it faces Ward Street with the sub-floor infilled at the rear. Constructed of timber with a corrugated iron roof, the high-set residence has been renovated at least twice, reportedly in the early 1920s and c1986 following subdivision and a relocation of the house closer to the Ward/Agnes Street corner.
The roofline is a complex of gables, hips and stepped verandahs, all clad in corrugated iron. Above the core of the original section of the building is a pyramid roof with a central metal ventilator. A brick chimney projects from a hipped section of roof to the north of the core pyramid. Two hip-roofed rooms are attached to the north-east and north-west corners of the building.
Killowen features verandahs on three sides - east, south (facing Ward Street), and west (facing Agnes Street). The front verandah faces Ward Street. At its south-east and south-west corners are octagonal verandah extensions. The distinct balustrade motif used accentuates the verandahs and their extensions. A similar motif, referred to in the 18th Century as 'Chinese railing', was incorporated into the entrance hall and balustrade of a house constructed in 1884 at Brighton, Victoria, for Dr Henry O'Hara. A less complex pattern was used on the suburban Brisbane residence at Yeronga for John Mills c1914-15 (QHR601472).
Central to the south verandah is the main staircase of approximately 2.2 metres width. This staircase is constructed of timber, including timber risers. At its base is a concrete pad impressed with the name Killowen. At the top of this staircase is a portico that extends 0.8 metres outside the line of the verandah and is supported by two stop-chamfered posts on each side. The portico features a projected flying gable incorporating frontispiece with timber fretwork, a design that is repeated in other projecting gables. The ceiling of the portico is VJ tongue & groove.
French doors from bedrooms and sitting rooms open onto the 2.8 metre wide eastern verandah which is enclosed by panels of wide horizontal and vertical slats and diagonal timber lattice. A horizontal lattice panel separates and secures this verandah from the southern or front verandah.
Symmetrical octagonal verandah extensions or pavilions are positioned at either end of the southern verandah. Each has a diameter of approximately 2.6 metres. Their roofs are supported at each angle turn by double stop-chamfered verandah posts. Below the floor level of these extensions the walls are weatherboard to ground level. The walls below floor level elsewhere are a combination of weatherboard and horizontal timber lattice. The southern verandah is approximately 3.3 metres wide.
The front entrance to the residence consists of a dark-stained timber door with sidelights of coloured, textured glass. This door is not as ornate as that facing Agnes Street. Projecting approximately one metre into the verandah from the corner of each front bedroom room are rectangular bays from which French doors open to the verandah. Narrow, vertical windows with top panels of pastel-coloured glass form part of the short sides of these rectangular bay projections. The same glass colours - orange, lilac, green and blue - are featured here and in other sections of the house.
The second staircase for the residence provides entry to the western (Agnes Street) verandah. This staircase is constructed using pairs of short, capped posts which support capped timber stringers with no balustrade. Entry to this 3.3 metre wide verandah is through a recessed set of timber lattice doors. This verandah also features horizontal slats approximately 15 cms wide and diagonal lattice. Above the three panels of lattice are elongated horizontal window frames enclosing small panes of coloured glass.
Entry into internal rooms can be made at four points along this verandah. The primary entry is through French doors between sidelights. The upper panels here feature leadlight in a simple art nouveau design. This pattern is also repeated in at least one internal door and fanlight inside the house. Both the east and west verandahs reduce in width towards the south verandah before opening out into the octagonal corner extensions. All three verandahs have VJ tongue & groove ceilings. Verandah wall framing is external and diagonally braced.
At the rear of the building are two semi-detached, gable-roofed weatherboard rooms. Each room has windows on two sides, protected by skillion-roofed, horizontally latticed sunhoods. The north-facing awning on the Agnes Street side also features a fretwork bracket. The end of each room has a flying gable with vertical infill in front of notched weatherboards.
Interior
The front door of the residence opens into a central north-south hallway from which rooms open east and west. Hallway walls are faced with horizontal tongue & groove while VJ tongue and groove is used elsewhere. Ventilating panels above doors are glazed, either clear or with a simple art nouveau design. Bedroom ceilings are VJ tongue & groove. Architrave corners are decorated with a circular moulding set into a square.
Directly to the north of the western bedroom is the only room in the house with a fireplace. This room features dark-stained timber and art nouveau glass panels in sidelight, fanlight and French doors. Immediately to the north of the eastern bedroom is a room which is lined to picture rail height with wallpaper of a striped floral pattern. Above this is plastered. In an interview in June 2004, Mrs Russell Boland recalled that a room referred to as the 'blue room' was redecorated during her time in the house (1942-1953) and was the only room in the house that had wallpaper. The wallpaper in this room would date from that timeframe.
The ceiling in this room features a central rectangular plaster panel with flower and ribbon motifs. The wall between this room and the eastern verandah is heavily glazed with textured glass framed by dark-stained timber.
At the rear (north) of the house are dining and kitchen areas as well as a new sunroom and bedroom. A new doorway provides egress between the semi-detached room on the north-eastern corner of the house and the new sunroom. A new staircase with return allows entry to the under-house section at the rear of the house. Layout of the under-house section is unknown. An external door allows exit into the rear garden.
Single skin walls between verandahs and internal rooms are predominantly horizontal tongue and groove. Internal walls feature VJ tongue & groove. The ceiling height is approximately 3.6 metres.
Gardens
The gardens of Killowen today echo the layout which existed prior to relocation of the building. Two large Cuban Royal palms (Roystonea regia) are located between the front gate and the main entry staircase. An octagonal aviary is placed in the same relative position on the Agnes Street side of the residence as one shown in an earlier, undated photograph. The timber and chain wire fence has been re-constructed, including the indentation into the allotment for the front entry gate, also of chain wire. At the rear of the house a railway carriage has been located in the garden' s north-eastern corner.
","history":"Killowen, a substantial, decorative, highest timber and corrugated iron residence, is believed to have been designed by architects Eaton and Bates, and constructed for RC [Robert Cecil] Boland in c1898. Killowen remained in the Boland family for many years, until the mid-1980s. RC Boland, a solicitor who came to Rockhampton in 1894 as a partner in the legal firm Rees R & Sydney Jones, reputedly named the house in honour of Baron Russell of Killowen (1832-1900), Lord Chief Justice of England, whom he admired.
Killowen is situated on The Range, west of the commercial centre of Rockhampton.
Very early in its history, Rockhampton showed class consciousness in advertisements for housing: there were two kinds, cottages and 'gentlemen's residences'. The cottages were usually in older streets close to the business centre, while more often than not, the address of a 'gentleman's residence' was The Range. This abbreviation is still used for Athelstane Range on the western side of the city, a name derived from Mount Athelstane which was the home of William H Wiseman, Crown Lands Commissioner for the Leichhardt District, who built the first gentleman's residence in Rockhampton in c.1859. The now demolished slab and shingle house had an adjoining stone storage building which is still extant (Wiseman's Cottage (QHR 600798)).
Many prominent Rockhampton citizens built their homes on The Range, particularly in the vicinity of Ward and Agnes Streets. Allotments were sought for their panoramic views over the city and the lagoons to the west and for the cooling breezes they afforded. Building contractor and politician John Ferguson MLA built two impressive residences - Kenmore House [c.1894], now the Mater Misericordiae Hospital (QHR 600820) and Killin [1890], later the Yungaba Migrant Hostel (QHR 601939) but originally constructed for his daughter, Catherine. Other notable houses include the McDonald family's Clancholla [by c.1922] (QHR 601592) and the Rudd residence [c.1923] (QHR 601923). Boland's home, Killowen, typifies the villa residences constructed on the Range in the late 1880s and 1890s.
The 2 acres 32 perches [8,903m²] of land at the corner of Ward and Agnes Streets on which Killowen was constructed was originally part of a 24.28 hectare [60 acres] portion alienated from the Crown in 1859 by William John Brown, the Sub-collector of Taxes at Rockhampton. In the 1860s, Brown sold this property in three 20 acre allotments, the later Killowen site being included in the 20 acres transferred to Rockhampton solicitor Thomas Bellas. Subdivision of this land commenced after 1867. RC Boland acquired title to the Killowen site of 2 acres 32 perches in July 1898, the allotment being reduced in size to 1 rood 15.9 perches [5,461m²] in 1900.
Originally Killowen was sited approximately thirty metres back from the Ward Street fence. This allowed for an entry avenue of palm trees and extensive gardens.
For nearly nine decades Killowen was the home of the Boland family. RC Boland, born on 16 August 1867, was named after his Darling Downs birthplace, Cecil Plains. His early education was at Toowoomba Grammar School. Boland passed his final law exams in 1890 and that same year commenced as the Brisbane-based solicitor of the Rockhampton legal practice, Rees R & Sydney Jones. Rees Rutland Jones had arrived in Rockhampton in 1864, establishing a practice as one of six solicitors in a town with a population of approximately 3,500. The firm Rees R & Sydney Jones, established c.1886, became one of Central Queensland's most prominent legal firms.
RC Boland moved to Rockhampton in 1894 when he was accepted as a partner in Rees R & Sydney Jones. In c1898 he had Killowen constructed and two years later married Louisa Penelope McLeod of Clermont. They had two children, Russell Lazare born in 1901 and Cecil Clive born in 1903. In 1905 Boland placed Killowen in his wife's name.
The architectural firm of Eaton and Bates is thought to have designed Killowen. This partnership of George T Eaton and Albert E Bates, later with Arthur B Polin, set up practice in Rockhampton c.1894. The firm established branch offices in six regional Queensland towns before moving their main office to Brisbane in 1902. Among their buildings in the Rockhampton area are the Lakes Creek Hotel, constructed in 1895 (QHR 600796) and Schotia Place which opened in 1899 (QHR 600784).
Some of the best examples of the use of light timber battening with more substantial turned or sawn timber components, as in Killowen, are found in coastal Queensland towns such as Rockhampton. This detailing is characteristic of many Queensland houses, particularly those in northern latitudes. The use of lattice to separate the private from public areas of the house was functional as well as decorative. Its light construction not only provided comfortable shade and allowed the free movement of cooling breezes, it lifted the heaviness of the all-timber posts, balustrades, brackets and valances.
This residence is believed to have commenced as a four-room house with central hallway and verandahs. Renovations, reputedly undertaken in the early 1920s, enlarged the house and its verandah space. Louisa Boland went on an extended overseas trip in 1925-26, which provides some basis for the c.1920s date for the renovations. Two semi-detached and gable-roofed rooms at the rear may have been constructed at that time. Verandahs surrounding the four square plan typical of early Queensland houses were often narrow and not very functional. The introduction of wider verandahs accommodated more activities by providing de facto living space. It is not known which architectural firm undertook the c.1920s renovations at Killowen.
(Cecil) Clive Boland followed his father into the legal profession. Educated at Rockhampton Grammar School, he served his articles with Rees R & Sydney Jones and was admitted as a solicitor in June 1927. His father died four months later. The Morning Bulletin of 5 November 1927 described the funeral cortege as it moved away from Killowen as one of the largest and most representative seen in Rockhampton.
From 1928 Clive Boland took a leading role in Rees R & Sydney Jones. He served in the CMF and the Second AMF during the Second World War and afterwards concentrated on commercial work for local industrial firms, including Mount Morgan Ltd, the Central Queensland Meat Export Co. Ltd and Central Queensland Salt Ltd. Clive Boland continued to reside at Killowen during this time.
Louisa Boland died in 1949, following which title to Killowen was transferred to Clive, who married Lucy Eyrie Rule in 1954. In 1954, following Clive's marriage to Lucy Rule, Mr and Mrs Russell Boland, who had also been living in the house at the time, moved out. Lucy Boland recalls that her husband made changes to the rear of the house prior to their marriage. The couple resided at Killowen. Clive Boland was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1974 and died in May 1984.
As well at the contribution the Boland family made to the legal profession in Central Queensland, they were prominent members of the community. The men of the family had a long and active association with horse racing in Central Queensland. The Boland Administration Building at Callaghan Park Racecourse, Rockhampton, is named in honour of Robert Cecil, Russell Lazare and Cecil Clive Boland, who between them served as members of the Rockhampton Jockey Club Committee from 1895 to 1973. By the time Killown was completed in c.1898, RC Boland was Chairman of the Rockhampton Jockey Club.
Killowen remained the property of the Boland family until the mid-1980s. In 1985 new owners subdivided the land further. At this time the house was moved on the site, closer to the eastern boundary. It is also at this time that servants quarters, at the rear of the property separate from the house, are thought to have been removed.
","criteria":"Killowen is historically significant because it provides evidence of the evolution of residential development in Rockhampton during periods of economic boom.
|This substantial timber residence displays an abundant use of verandahs as part of the living space, alongside traditional and formal interior rooms.
|Constructed late in the 19th century, Killowen is important because of its aesthetic significance, as well as for the contribution it makes to the residential streetscape of The Range.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15595,"place_ref":600820,"name":"Kenmore House, Mater Misericordiae Hospital","alternate_name":"The Mansion | Pinehurst","street_address":"31 Ward Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kenmore House, located on a northeast sloping site on the Athelstane Range, is a two-storeyed residence and administration centre built of Flemish Bond brickwork with rendered detailing and a hipped corrugated iron roof. The asymmetrically massed building shows Classical influences in its design, including a Corinthian columned portico on the north with a tower above, large cornice, arcaded loggias, quoining, pilasters, projecting bays, bracketed eaves and rendered balustrade.
The arcaded loggias have been enclosed on both floors with partition walls and windows set back from the arches. The single-storeyed former hospital reception area is attached as a lean-to on the northeast with a brick hydraulic lift shaft standing proud of the building's facade and a glass walkway linked to the first floor. A planted courtyard surrounds the eastern bay with the former ambulance bay at the southeast. A two-storeyed brick medical centre is attached via a covered ramp to the west of the building.
A single-storeyed steel framed laundry shed is attached to the rear of the building to the south. A two-storeyed masonry kitchen wing can be seen at the rear of the building, with a two-storeyed toilet block attached on the east side and a laundry and accommodation addition to the west.
Internally, the north entrance leads into a large, columned central hall containing a carved cedar staircase with a twin return and a large stained glass window, ornate plaster ceilings, marble floors with decorative tiled borders and converted gas lanterns. The front and rear entries feature an arched fanlight and sidelights of etched glass, with panelled doors to principal rooms featuring carved cedar pediments and architraves. Principal rooms have been subdivided into offices, but retain fireplace surrounds and joinery. Most rooms have false ceilings and air conditioning has been installed. The rear of the building has been altered, with a large laundry area being created within the original kitchen wing and later additions.
The first floor contains the Sisters' living quarters with bedrooms and a museum in the main house, and bathrooms, bedrooms and a communal room above the kitchen and laundry at the rear. The two-storeyed timber, former canteen building is linked to this level at the southwest via an enclosed verandah above a rear service entrance.
The north grounds, bounded by the recent hospital extensions to the northeast and the two-storeyed brick medical centre to the west, include a large Tamarind Tree to the northwest surrounded by bitumen carpark. The original banded, rendered brick entrance gate posts with wrought iron gates and balustrade, stand at the northwest corner of the site. Two large pine trees are located to the rear of the gates.
","history":"Kenmore is a two storeyed brick building erected c1894 as a residence for John Ferguson on the Athelstane Range overlooking Rockhampton. Its design is attributed to Rockhampton architect, James Flint.
Ferguson arrived in Rockhampton during the 1860s and quickly established himself as a builder and contractor. In 1884, he purchased a large share in the Mount Morgan mine, becoming very wealthy when the public company was floated. In 1888, he retired from building. Ferguson served on the Rockhampton Municipal Council from 1878-1890, becoming Mayor in 1880-81 and 1882-83. From 1881-88 he was the local Member for the Legislative Assembly, and from 1894-1906 was a Member of the Legislative Council. In 1901, he was elected a Senator in the first federal parliament.
"Honest John" Ferguson (as he was known) was also the President of the Central Queensland Separation League, founded in 1890. Kenmore, which reputedly cost £15,000, was according to traditions intended as a future government house for the new state. After meeting with British officials in London in 1892 as a delegate of the Separation League, Ferguson reputedly ordered monogrammed china and gold plate for the future official residence. Known locally as the "Mansion", the house was set in ten acres of land laid out with ornamental trees and gardens including rose trellises, hedges, and pergolas, Norfolk pines, a tamarind tree, and mango trees. The house contained a ballroom tiled with locally quarried black and white marble and a reception hall on the first floor. In 1894 it was described as one of the finest homes in Queensland with few compeers in any of the colonies of Australia. At this time the house may have been named Pinehurst, although by 1896 it was known as Kenmore, the name of Ferguson's birthplace in Scotland. In 1894, after the death of architect Flint, tenders were called by Eaton and Bates for the erection of two sets of grand entrance gates.
From circa 1904, Ferguson's brother-in-law, David Wiley, and his family resided at the house. After the death of Ferguson in 1906, the house was sold to pastoralist Stuart McDonald, whose family lived there until 1915, when it was sold to the Sisters of Mercy for £4,500 for use as a hospital. The sale included Kenmore House together with the three and a half acres in which it stood including the whole of the gardens and tennis court. A lower paddock was retained by the McDonalds and a house later erected on that site. On 14 November, the Mater Misericordiae Hospital was officially opened.
In 1940, a new maternity wing designed by Donoghue and Fulton was erected on the eastern side of Kenmore. After the opening in 1959 of a new convent and chapel, the upper rooms of Kenmore were converted into wards and nursing accommodation. After the opening of a new building in 1985, Kenmore became the administrative core of the hospital and a radiography and outpatients unit was established there. The upper floor houses a number of retired nuns and the Sisters' heritage centre.
","criteria":"Kenmore House, Rockhampton, erected c1894, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Rockhampton and Central Queensland, particularly after the establishment of the Mount Morgan Mine. It is also significant for its association with the longstanding role of the Sisters of Mercy and their Mater Misericordiae Hospitals in the state's health system.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century villa residence.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the asymmetrical massing of the building's classical elements; the contribution of building and grounds to the streetscape of Ward Street and to the Rockhampton townscape; and the quality of the building's interior, including the timber joinery, plasterwork, and floor finishes.
|It has a special association with the community of the Sisters of Mercy and the Mater Misericordiae Hospital since 1915, and with Rockhampton as a historic landmark for the city and district.
|It has a special association with the life and work of people of importance in Queensland's history, in particular John Ferguson, builder, businessman, politician and separationist; Rockhampton architect James Flint; and the Sisters of Mercy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15596,"place_ref":600821,"name":"St Paul's Anglican Cathedral","alternate_name":"St Paul's Church of England Cathedral | St Paul's Church of England | St Pauls Anglican Cathedral | St Pauls Church of England | St Pauls Church of England Cathedral","street_address":"75-79 William Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Paul's Anglican Cathedral is a simple substantial masonry building with steeply pitched gabled roof. The building is constructed from rock faced evenly coursed sandstone and has smooth faced sandstone detailing including windows surrounds, base course, string coursing and buttress caps. The building has a rectangular plan, with apsidal chancel and rectangular gabled porched entrance. Flanking the chancel is a vestry to the south and a warrior's chapel to the north. The building is divided internally into nave and side aisles by a pointed arched arcade of smooth faced Stanwell sandstone.
The High Altar is constructed with a Tasmanian black bean base and bronze and resin lining. The central figure on the altar is the Lamb from the Book of Revelations surrounded by four evangelists. The sedelia or stalls surrounding the altar are of timber. The Bishop's Cathedra or Throne is made form red cedar and canopied in Gothic style. Four mosaics set into the floor in front of the throne are thought to date from the eighteenth century and depict mythical beasts from Ezekial and the Book of Revelation. The pulpit is carved from Stanwell sandstone and features a cross carved in relief. The font, also of Stanwell sandstone, is situated in the south western corner of the building. The sanctuary of the church houses a Dean's stall, Precentor's stall and Canons' stalls. A brass lectern with eagle head is housed near the altar.
The Lady Chapel houses a small coloured statue of the Madonna and Child known as the Lady of Walsingham. The piece dates from 1963 and depicts the patron saint of the church. Also housed in the Lady Chapel is an Icon of St Paul. The Warrior Chapel houses a 1919 honour board bearing the names of the fallen from the Diocese. A ceramic bas relief of the Madonna and Child (after Della Robia) is attached to the wall of the southern side aisle. On the sills of some of the windows in the side aisles are small brass medallions which are modern interpretations of the fourteen Stations of the Cross.
The stained and coloured glass windows throughout the building are of high quality. The first window in the eastern end of the north aisle, of unknown origin, was placed in 1903 depicting Christ in Glory and dedicated to John Peddle. Windows in the southern aisle, with the exception of the one depicting St Paul on the Road to Damascus, were design by William Bustard of Brisbane. The three central sanctuary lights (Messrs Lawndes and Dowry, London, after the design of Miss Caroline Townshead) were placed in the memory of the first Bishop Nathaniel Dawes in 1914, depicting Agony and Crucifixion, the Risen Christ and the Day of the Pentecost. The two windows flanking these were placed in 1921 and also made by Messrs Lawndes and Dowry in memory of Marion Dawson, depicting the Annunciation and Visitation and Eucharist worship of the church.
","history":"St Paul's Anglican Cathedral was constructed as the Rockhampton Church of England, and completed by 1883 when it was dedicated. The building was designed principally by Brisbane architect Annersley Voysey. The building became the Church of England Cathedral in 1892.
Anglican services were held in Rockhampton from the late 1850s by lay ministers. In 1859 a small timber church and school building was constructed, however this was destroyed in a storm in 1860. The pioneer rector, Reverend Thomas Jones, arrived in Rockhampton in about 1860 and held services at Grant's Timber Yard Hall and at the local Court House. By 1862 he had raised sufficient funds to build a timber church on the site later occupied by the Parish Hall. This building, designed by Thomas Dixon Chater, was built on a dedicated church reserve adjoining the National School. By 1872 about £3000 had been collected for the construction of a third Rockhampton church.
Plans and specifications were prepared for the new church, later the Cathedral, in Brisbane by architect, Annersley Voysey. The stonemason employed on the first part of the project was Paul Sanderson who completed external walls to the height of one metre. By 1877 the walls were no higher and the money was spent, fresh tenders were called. Amid a flurry of concerns about the strength of the foundations as well the introduction of a new plan by Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, the construction at the church was recommenced in September 1879 to revised plans by AW Voysey and Frank Scarr. The masonry was continued by George Sanderson, carpentry was completed by David Wiley, plumbing by J Wakefield and painting by W Aspinall. Funding shortages again caused a work stoppage, this time in April 1881 just as the roof was to be started. Committee members pledged to raise £200 each and the work was recommenced. The building was completed and furnished by 18 October 1883 when it was dedicated by Bishop Hale assisted by Bishop Stanton. The building was not consecrated until 20 June 1911 when the building fund was repaid.
In 1892 the Rockhampton Church of England Diocese was formed and the church was upgraded to a cathedral. The foundation bishop was the Right Reverend Nathaniel Dawes who was enthroned on 30 November 1892. Entrance gates, designed by Louis Spier Robertson, were constructed at the cathedral in 1899.
Other changes to the building include the removal in 1968 of the High Altar from the eastern wall of the chancel to a more central position on the sanctuary. This work involved the removal of a rood screen, which was installed in the 1920s. The crucifix which was part of this screen is now affixed to a wall near the lectern. A Warriors Chapel was added to the eastern end of the one of the aisles in 1916. A Lady's Chapel was created in the other aisle in about 1953. A temporary bell tower with a peal of eight bells was erected in 1946 as a thanksgiving offering for victory in World War II.
","criteria":"The cathedral demonstrates the growth of Rockhampton during the late nineteenth century. The substantial sandstone building constructed by 1883 became a cathedral in 1892 when the Diocese of Rockhampton was formed.
|The building is characteristic of substantial Gothic revival cathedrals, with sandstone construction, cruciform plan, Gothic detailing and steeply pitched roof.
|The building has aesthetic merit as a well composed building and a Rockhampton landmark. Features of the building have individual significance as well crafted items, including internal furnishings and stained glass panels.
|The building has special associations for the Anglican Community of central and north Queensland as their cathedral.
|The building is associated with the architect, Annersley Voysey and with many influential archbishops of the Rockhampton Diocese.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15597,"place_ref":600822,"name":"St Josephs Cathedral","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"170 William Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral is a substantial sandstone building with traditional cruciform plan, comprising a nave, side aisles, transepts, apsidal chancel and two towers flanking the western front of the building. The cathedral is constructed from rockfaced coursed sandstone, with smooth faced sandstone detailing including coursing, mouldings, window and door surrounds and tracery.
The principal façade of the building, the west front, is symmetrically composed and comprises a central entrance, a large traceried window above, several smaller openings and all flanked by two large towers. The towers are surmounted by broach spires, constructed from ashlar sandstone. The principal entrance to the building is through a pointed arched opening recessed in a heavily moulded doorway set within a projecting porch element with steeply pitched gabled awning. On the face of the gabled section, above the doorway is diaper work carved in the stone.
The interior of the church is traditionally arranged, with a nave separated from side aisles by a pointed arched arcade. A narthex area, near the entrance, is also separated by a pointed arched arcade. The arcades are of ashlar sandstone and comprise simple round columns with moulded caps surmounted by moulded arches. The ceiling is vaulted to the shape of a shallow pointed arch and clad with horizontal timber boarding and lined with several heavy timber pointed arched rafters. The clerestory is formed with groups of three pointed arched openings. A gallery at the western front end of the church is supported above the narthex on the arcade separating the narthex from the nave.
The interior of St Joseph's Cathedral houses many finely crafted items, including a black and white Italian marble 'checkerboard' tiled floor and a number of stained and coloured glass panels depicting scenes from the New Testament. The stained glass windows were designed and manufactured by John Hardman and Son of England.
","history":"St Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral was constructed in 1893-9 as the first catholic cathedral of Rockhampton manifesting the creation of the Diocese in 1882. The building was designed by prominent Brisbane architects, FDG Stanley and Son.
The first official Roman Catholic service in Rockhampton was held in May 1862, when Bishop Quinn of Brisbane sent two young priests on a pastoral visit. Father James Scully and Father Patrick Duhig arrived aboard the Clarence and celebrated Mass in the local Court House with about fifty Roman Catholic people. Whilst in Rockhampton the two priests instigated a fund raising exercise to support the construction of a church. This building was opened by Father J Moynahan on 4 January 1863, dedicated to St Joseph. Its location was on the corner of Derby and Alma Streets.
Father Charles Murlay, later Dean Murlay, was appointed to the Rockhampton parish and looked after an area extending from Gladstone to Townsville and west to Blackall. In 1876 Bishop Quinn suggested that a site be found for the construction of a suitable cathedral as the parish was to become a Diocese. Land in William Street was secured by February 1877 and by 1883 the parish had raised £4000 for the construction of a cathedral. On 21 May 1882 Bishop John Cani was consecrated as the first Bishop of Rockhampton and he planned in earnest for the construction of a cathedral.
Plans were prepared by Brisbane architects FDG Stanley and Son. Francis Drummond Greville Stanley was responsible for the design of many substantial churches throughout Queensland including St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church at Gympie, Holy Trinity Anglican Church at Fortitude Valley and St Paul's Presbyterian Church, Spring Hill. Tenders were called for the construction of the cathedral in Rockhampton and construction began on 11 June 1894. A memorial stone was laid by Bishop Cani on 17 March 1895. Sandstone stone was quarried for the building from Stanwell Quarry, about 24 km west of Rockhampton and owned by Bishop Cani.
Cani died before the completion of St Joseph's Cathedral. His successor, Bishop Higgins, arrived on 20 July 1899 to a building only partially completed. Within two months of his arrival the cathedral was completed with a temporary east wall. Apparently local architects, Eaton and Bates were involved with the design of this final stage of construction. On 15 October 1899 an official opening ceremony was held when Cardinal Moran of Sydney celebrated Pontifical High Mass.
In 1918 the cathedral's flying buttresses were removed and strengthened. In 1980 the church received advice that the temporary wall of 1899 was unsafe and a programme was instigated for finally finishing the building. On 22 May 1982, His Eminence, Sir James Cardinal Freeman, Archbishop of Sydney, dedicated the completed cathedral. In 1987 the stained glass panels, first erected in the church in the first decade of the twentieth century, were returned to John Hardman Studios in England where they were restored before being returned to the St Joseph's Cathedral.
","criteria":"The cathedral demonstrates the growth of Rockhampton during the late nineteenth century. The substantial sandstone building constructed in 1892-3 as the first Roman Catholic Cathedral in Rockhampton reflecting the creation of the Diocese of Rockhampton in 1882.
|The building is characteristic of substantial Gothic revival cathedrals, with sandstone construction, cruciform plan, Gothic detailing, steeply pitched roof, towers with spires, stained glass panels and internal furnishings and fittings.
|The building has aesthetic merit as a well composed building and a Rockhampton landmark.
|The building has special associations for the Roman Catholic Community of central and north Queensland as their cathedral.
|The building is associated with the architect, FDG Stanley and with many influential archbishops of the Rockhampton Diocese.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15598,"place_ref":600823,"name":"Glenmore Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"46-48 Belmont Road","suburb":"PARKHURST","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The property is located on the east bank of the Fitzroy River, seven kilometres northwest of Rockhampton. The place is a homestead complex comprising successive residences of varying construction methods, including log cabin construction; a slab building and a limestone brick cottage with adobe gables.
The buildings included in the heritage register boundary include the log cabin [c1858-59]; the slab homestead [c1858 and moved to Glenmore in 1861]; the rendered limestone brick cottage [1862]; a timber blacksmith's shop [c1890] and timber framed sheds [c1920].
Log cabin
The log cabin is a one room hut built of horizontal logs checked into each other at the corners and lined with bark. Corrugated iron has been placed over shingled roof. The log cabin is currently used for storage of agricultural and other items associated with Glenmore.
Homestead building
Placed upon a stone foundation when moved to the site in 1861, the vertical slab building is an eight room structure, approximately twelve and a half metres long by five and a half metres wide, with a verandah on the western and eastern sides. French doors open along the entire length of the eastern verandah. The roof is clad with corrugated iron. A two-roomed, timber extension, originally housing a kitchen, is located to the south-western end of the slab building.
Internally, the main room is presented as the dining room. Rooms located at either of the main dining room opening onto the verandah as well as to the rear, or south-west section, of the building. The homestead building is no longer used by the Birkbeck family. Visitors to Glenmore can are able to view the inside of the building from the verandah.
Limestone brick cottage
A T-shaped building, the four-roomed, limestone brick cottage has lime-based, rendered walls with adobe gables, with a verandah on the south-western side. The roof is clad with the original gospel oak iron. The external walls are approximately 53 centimetres thick and the interior walls approximately 50 centimetres thick. Ceilings are of milled timber.
The largest room in the house is furnished as a sitting room. The sitting room contains many items which were brought from Mexico, including Damiana Birkbeck's silver crucifix, made in Italy, which sits on a small table with rosary beads in a box made of silky oak; two matching occasional tables; family portraits and musical instruments, including a guitar and mandolin. Two rooms have been set up with display cases. The fourth room is currently used for storage.
A toilet, constructed from stone quarried on the property, is located to the north-west of the cottage. A lavatory, comprising a timber beam supported by two timber uprights, with a concave tin plate on the ground, stands nearby. The timber framed shed which was constructed to house the lavatory, is no longer extant.
Other buildings located on the property include a souvenir shop constructed in 1985; a kitchen and dance hall constructed 1984; the owner's residence and shed and the former 'Walter and Eliza Hall Cottage', relocated to the site in 1985. [NB. These buildings are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance].
","history":"Glenmore Station was alienated from the Crown to SB [Samuel Bradford] Birkbeck by Deed of Grant dated 14 January 1864. The leasehold was first owned by John Arthur [JA] Macartney, who bought it in 1858. The complex was home to SB Birkbeck, his Spanish-Mexican wife, Damiana de Barre Valdez, and their eight sons and one daughter.
In 1860, Macartney was against a proposed area to be included in the petition for a municipality for Rockhampton (proposed area was around 225 square kilometres). Glenmore, on the northern side of the river, was as vulnerable as Gracemere (the proposed boundaries of the municipality included the head station and homestead at Gracemere). Glenmore, however, did not have the substantial homestead and outbuildings like Gracemere. Eventually, the boundaries for the Municipality of Rockhampton were established as the usual five square miles (around eight kilometres).
The Birkbeck family arrived in Rockhampton in 1861 from Mexico to inspect grazing land after SB Birkbeck had spent half his lifetime as a mining engineer and manager of a silver mine. Birkbeck had worked on his father's farm in Illinois, USA, during his youth, but had no experience of Australian pastoral life. He died in 1867. The property has remained in the family and up until the 1980s, members of the family resided in the limestone brick cottage and the slab building.
At the time of the arrival of the Birkbeck family, Glenmore Homestead consisted of a four-roomed slab house and two log cabins which were included as part of the station's improvements. It is believed that Macartney constructed the log cabin in 1859 and is reputed to be the oldest building north of the Fitzroy River. In the last fifty years it has been used for storage. It is not clear what became of the four-roomed slab house and second log cabin. No longer extant, it is possible that these may have been removed as new buildings were constructed.
The buildings proved inadequate for the needs of the Birkbeck family. SB Birkbeck bought and re-erected on the property a large slab building. Constructed c1858, the slab house was originally used as a hotel at Parkhurst and was moved to Glenmore in 1861. The slab homestead [known also as the Bush Inn] was built as an inn on the northern road to the Canoona goldfield. The limestone brick cottage was constructed by Dennis Cifuentes in 1862. Cifuentes came out from Mexico with the support of the Birkbeck family. The building was to be the beginning of a large, hacienda-style homestead, however, this was never completed. Later, Cifuentes took up a block in partnership with Carlos Birkbeck and, in 1874, took up 100 acres on the Cawarral Run.
The Birkbecks were the first in the Central District to be directly affected by the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868. On 1 January 1869, over seven thousand hectares of the Glenmore run was opened to selection. As early as 1862, however, the Birkbecks had been under pressure by the surveys of agricultural land taking place on the town side of their run. By the time the government had resumed half of Glenmore by late 1868, Samuel Birkbeck had passed away and his sons, Robert, Alfred and Carlos, were left to manage the property. They were offered a pre-emptive selection, but in order to keep hold of some of their former lease, the Birkbecks each selected blocks on the resumed half
The blacksmith's shop constructed on the property by c1890, with the sheds being constructed by 1920. Other buildings have been constructed more recently, including a kitchen and dance hall and the owners residence. The 'Walter and Eliza Hall Cottage' was moved to the site in 1985. In 1913, Eliza Hall donated £100 towards the provision of small homes for aged couples. It appears that the cottage was one of four constructed c1914 within the grounds of the Benevolent Society.
Glenmore Homestead is open to the public as a heritage tourism and functions centre.
","criteria":"Glenmore Homestead is important in demonstrating the development of the Rockhampton District, illustrating the pattern of early European exploration and settlement of Queensland. Taken up by the Birkbeck family in 1864, the complex is further significant as it is still in the ownership of the same family.
Glenmore Homestead is significant as a complex that provides a record of an evolving pastoral property comprising successive residences of varying construction methods, including a hut of horizontal log construction with extant shingle roof; slab-built homestead and a rendered limestone brick cottage, as well as associated outbuildings and structures, including a limestone toilet and water tank.
|The homestead is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland homesteads, constructed as the head station of a large run. The various additions, dating from the 1860s, demonstrate the growth of the Birkbeck family.
|Surrounded by mature vegetation including Ficus sp. and Burdekin plum trees, the complex has aesthetic significance.
|Glenmore Homestead has a special association with the life and work of several generations of the Birkbeck family who contributed to the development of the surrounding area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15599,"place_ref":600824,"name":"War Memorial and Heroes Avenue","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wyndham Street","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial encompasses a large area and comprises the avenues of trees, the cairn and the cenotaph.
The avenue of trees begins at The Railway Station, turns right into Wyndham Street and left into Bungil Street ending just after the intersection with Hawthorne Street. There are over 90 trees, all of which are bottle trees (Brachychiton rupestre)
The cairn is located outside the Post Office and is a white painted concrete pillar with a large chamfer on the top corner. The chamfered face displays a bronze plaque with the names of the 93 local men who fell in the First World War. These names were originally located on plaques attached to each tree.
The memorial located in Queen's Park comprises a cenotaph sitting on a slightly larger base, both of rock faced pale grey granite. The cenotaph has three leaded marble plaques which are recessed into the granite. The front face (facing Bungil Street) bears Laurence Binyon's ode 'To the Fallen' with a bronze AIF badge above. The rear plaque bears the 93 names of the fallen with a bronze laurel wreath above. A later plaque has been added to the eastern side to commemorate the 39 local men who fell in the Second World War.
The cenotaph is located in the centre of a paved area facing the end of the avenue of bottle trees. It is surrounded by a formal setting of kerbed paths and grassed areas. Encircling it is a semi-circle of nine pine trees which are allegedly grown from seeds collected from the Lone Pine at Gallipoli.
","history":"The Roma War Memorial was completed in two stages; the avenues of trees followed by the cenotaph.
The Heroes Avenue of 93 bottle trees (Brachychiton rupestre) was planted by 1920 and was the initial memorial to those in the First World War. Each tree originally bore a brass plaque stating the name of one of the 93 local men who fell during the First World War. Only one of these plaques survives, now on a cairn which was dedicated by the Roma RSL sub-branch on Remembrance Day, 1983. The cairn is located outside the Post Office near the corner of McDowell and Wyndham Streets. It also provides information regarding the rows of bottle trees and lists the 93 names originally displayed on the trees. Some of the original trees have been replaced and some have been removed to allow for increases in traffic.
The impetus for the Heroes Avenue began with the Mayor of Roma, Alderman Miscamble who had been impressed by avenues of memorial trees in southern states. The bottle tree was selected as it was a species commonly associated with Roma and it is thought that the first was planted in 1918 to commemorate the death of local soldier Lt Cpl Norman Saunders who was killed in France in 1916. This is the tree located outside the Post Office and known locally as the Tree of Knowledge. Trees were planted to commemorate subsequent deaths and although the plaques have disappeared each tree still retains its association with a particular soldier.
The Cenotaph is located in Queen's Park and was commissioned by the Local Repatriation Committee. It was unveiled on Anzac Day, 1938 by Colonel Sir Donald Cameron and honours the 93 local men who fell in the First World War (the same names that were originally recorded on the trees) and the 39 who fell in the Second World War. The erection of the cenotaph was delayed as the Committee's first priority was to provide for the welfare of returned soldiers. A memorial honour board had already been erected by the committee in the Town Hall.
Planted behind the monument are nine pine trees which were grown from seeds allegedly collected at Lone Pine, Gallipoli.
The traditional ANZAC Day march moved from the Railway station to the cenotaph in Queen's Park.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
The Roma avenue of trees was planted by 1920, and the 'cenotaph' was erected in 1938.
|Avenues of trees as memorials, and particularly those where each tree is attributed to a particular fallen serviceman are uncommon in Queensland. Most memorials erected during or after the First World War were of the monumental type.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements
|The war memorial planting is arguably one of the most impressive in Queensland and is of aesthetic significance as a dominant landmark in the town.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15600,"place_ref":600825,"name":"Cooyar War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"McDougall Street","suburb":"COOYAR","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War memorial is situated in Hack Menkins Park which is located beside the main highway through the town of Cooyar. The memorial comprises a monument and a separate plinth recording the soldiers names. Both are surrounded by a white painted cast iron picket fence with fleur-de -lis finials.
The monument stands 5.10 metres high and comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
The marble memorial sits on a double stepped base of painted smooth-faced stone. Two steps of a smaller scale support the pedestal itself which comprises a recessed section with a column at each corner. The front face bears the leaded names of the Brave Boys who fell in the Great War. Each column has carved foliated capitals and simply moulded bases. The four columns support a frieze and cornice surmounted by a concave section with pediments on each face. The pediments are plain except for the front one which displays a relief carved wreath and ribbon design.
Surmounting the pedestal is the life-sized digger statue. The soldier stands with his head bowed and his hands crossed on top of a rifle. The rifle is reversed and resting on the top of his left boot. A tree stump is located at the rear and to the right of the statue for support.
A smaller plinth is located on the south-eastern side of the main monument. This is a painted stone structure similar to a gravestone. It sits on a concrete pad and is surrounded by a red painted cast iron picket fence with fleur-de-lis finials. Both the plinth and the fence are located in the confines of the main fence. A leaded marble plaque on the front face records the names of the local men who served in the First World War.
","history":"The Cooyar War Memorial was unveiled on July 14 1923 by A E Moore (MLA). It was designed and produced by R C Ziegler and Son and cost £413.10.0. Funds were raised by public subscriptions and revenue raised from entertainments. The memorial comprises two pieces, the pedestal surmounted by a digger statue, on which the names of the 25 fallen are recorded, and a smaller plinth which records the names of the 110 local men who served in the First World War.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The pedestal for this memorial was produced in Queensland by monumental masons, R C Ziegler and Son of the Downs Electric Monumental Works, Toowoomba, however the digger statue was imported from Italy.
The firm of R C Ziegler and Son was established in Toowoomba in c1902 and produced many memorials throughout south western Queensland. The family company moved to Bundaberg where it was still operating in the mid 1980s.
There were originally two German machine guns situated near the monument, but these have been removed at some stage.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
Unveiled in 1923, the memorial at Cooyar demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1923, the memorial at Cooyar demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|This particular statue is of aesthetic value for its high degree of workmanship and design and is an uncommon example of a memorial still situated in its original and intact setting. It is of an extravagant scale in comparison to the size of Cooyar and is a dominant landmark within the town.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Toowoomba monumental masons, R C Ziegler and Son as an example of their work.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and also with Toowoomba monumental masons, R C Ziegler and Son as an example of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15601,"place_ref":600826,"name":"Goombungee War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Hartwig Street","suburb":"GOOMBUNGEE","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated at the intersection of the two main streets in Goombungee.
The painted sandstone memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
It sits on a large square based of smooth-faced stone. Projecting from this is recessed square section with leaded marble plates on each face. These bear the names of the 29 local men who fell in the First World War and the 8 who fell in the Second World War. Also projecting from the base, at each corner are free-standing columns with Doric order capitals and bases. These support a large cornice consisting of a series of steps and mouldings.
The digger statue stands above this on a base of three steps, square in plan, of decreasing size. His head is bowed and his hands rest on the top of a rifle which is reversed.
","history":"The Goombungee War Memorial was unveiled on 11 December 1920 by Major General Sir Thomas W Glasgow. It was designed by Henry James (Harry) Marks and produced by masons RC Ziegler and Son of the Downs Electric Monumental Works. The stone memorial honours the local men who fell in the First and Second World Wars.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
In 1919, the residents of Goombungee wrote to the New South Wales Memorials Advisory Board for advice regarding its proposed memorial. The board referred their request to the Queensland Institute of Architects and Toowoomba architect Harry Marks subsequently prepared the design.
Henry (Harry) James Marks was born in Toowoomba in 1871. After training with his father James, also an architect, he entered into partnership with him in 1892. He was considered a creative designer and was responsible for many buildings on the Darling Downs as well as two Roman Catholic Churches in Brisbane. In 1925 he became an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects, becoming a Fellow 1929. He died in Toowoomba in 1939 after spending his entire career there. The memorial is an unusual example of his work.
Although the monument was produced by well known Toowoomba masons RC Ziegler and Son, it is likely that the digger statue was imported from Italy.
The firm of RC Ziegler and Son was established in Toowoomba in c1902 and produced many memorials throughout south western Queensland. The family company moved to Bundaberg where it was still operating in the mid 1980s.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
Unveiled in 1920, the memorial at Goombungee demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Unveiled in 1920, the memorial at Goombungee demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|This particular memorial is of aesthetic significance both as a dominant landmark and for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event.
|It also has special association with Toowoomba architect HJ Marks as an unusual example of his work, and with monumental masons RC Ziegler and Son.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15602,"place_ref":600827,"name":"Leyburn State School","alternate_name":"Leyburn National School | Leyburn Provisional School","street_address":"34 Peter Street","suburb":"LEYBURN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Leyburn is a rural village on the southern reaches of the Darling Downs, some 50kms. northwest of Warwick, on the banks of Canal Creek. The school grounds are sited on the western fringe of the township. The school building addresses Peter Street to the west, and nestled behind it beneath a canopy of camphor laurels is the playshed. To the south of the school building is the residence, to the north a demountable classroom block, to the east is the sports field and to the northeast is the tennis court, toilet block, swimming pool and change sheds. There are several silky oak trees to the eastern and western perimeters.
The school building has two classrooms used as one, an office, store and staff area. It is a high set timber building with gabled corrugated iron roof. The original classroom is lined with tongue and groove boards, and the newer areas are lined with fibrous cement sheet. To the west is an open verandah with bag racks. There are timber stairs to the front and rear. To the east is a small landing with the original school bell. Underneath is mostly open with remnants of old school furniture.
The Playshed is a symmetrical open timber structure, which is rectangular in plan. It has a gabled roof framed in large timber sections and clad in hand-split hardwood shingles. There is wide overhang on all four sides, leaving large gablets clad in weatherboard. There are metal ridge and hip cappings. The roof is supported on ten stop-chamferred square posts, about 140mm. (6") square, which are bolted to buddy posts of a similar size, all set into the ground. There is triangular strutting to these posts which is also stop-chamferred, but some are replaced and some are missing. There are 120mm. (5") square perimeter roof beams, and 190x70mm. (8"x3") tie-beams. Where the struts are missing, the quality of the workmanship is evident in the precision of the recessed housings. As there is no internal linings, the quality of the timber and the workmanship are plainly evident when inside the structure. The words "All Are Welcome" have been painted on the beam on the north side.
There is a raised timber floor, one step above ground level, with 150mm. (6") wide boards. To the perimeter running inside the posts are timber benches, which leave entrance openings to the centre bay to each of the long sides.
","history":"The settlement on Canal Creek (a tributary of the Condamine River) had grown from the 1840s to service the colonising settlers following the stock route blazed by the Leslie brothers in 1840 to the southern Darling Downs. Known from 1853 as Leyburn, the first sale of allotments was held in 1857 following the survey of the town earlier that year.
By 1872 a state school, an Anglican Church, Police Station and Court House, two smithies, three stores, a sawmill and the inevitable three hotels made up the straggling wooden town centre along the Warwick road [Leyburn]. The town was described as always a sleepy little town ... whose calm was broken by the brief Canal Creek gold-rush in 1871-2 ... clothed in dust raised by the slow passage of teams and flocks through the town. Most men were either employed as carriers on the Toowoomba Goondiwindi road or else worked on nearby stations, rejoining their families at their Leyburn cottages on Saturday night.
As one of the Darling Downs droving, drinking, and administrative centres located on the old stock and work-routes, significant government infrastructure was located in the town: from 1852 Leyburn became a postal distribution point for the district with mail services branching out from the town; in 1872 Leyburn was connected to the electric telegraph system becoming an important repeating station between Sydney and Brisbane; in 1861 Leyburn was appointed as a place for the holding of Courts of Petty Sessions, a Police Magistrate was appointed, and a lock-up erected followed in 1867 by a court house.
Leyburn's first primary school (then called the National School) was established following the petitioning in 1861 by the local community of the colony's Board of General Education. Reputedly the twelfth in Queensland, the school opened with an enrolment of 46 pupils on 13 January 1862 in temporary premises described as a small, dirty and uncomfortable hut pending the building of a more permanent school.
On 22 January 1865 the purpose built school house was opened. Funded by a combination of local subscriptions and Board moneys, the school was erected on the eastern side of the existing school site bordering a narrow lane. At this time the school site consisted of blocks 8 and 9 (block 7 bordering Canning Street being added in 1945). The new school house was, in the style of the time, a low set building. It contained a single large school room and an adjoining smaller class room with the main entry by way of a covered porch. A verandah appears to have been added to the rear at a later date. Contrary to the Board of Education's recommendations, and owing to cost and time factors, the school was built not of brick but of timber (cypress pine). Soon afterwards, in fact, architect RG Suter was to convince the Board of the utility of timber schools and a number were to be erected throughout Queensland.
The bypassing of Leyburn by the western railways signalled its (and other similarly bypassed towns') decline: in 1868 the Toowoomba to Dalby link was completed and in 1871 the Toowoomba to Warwick link leaving only (yet significantly) the Goondiwindi traffic to pass through Leyburn. In the 1900s that too was destroyed with the building of the line known as the Border Fence from Warwick to Goondiwindi (later extended to Dirranbandi).
The shingle roofed playshed was erected in 1883 to the west of the school house and teachers residence (erected adjacent to school house by 1877). Tenders for the erection of a playshed at Leyburn school were called in late 1882 by the local school committee according to plans and specification supplied by the Department of Public Instruction. It appears that the spec may have been altered to allow for hardwood other than ironbark to be used as the committee advised that it was impossible to procure ironbark at the local sawmill.
William Clark's tender of £151 completion in 6 months, although not the lowest, was accepted apparently on the advice of the Superintendent of Buildings who advised that Clark performed excellent work for the Department and is now engaged at erecting a new School at Merritts Creek. He also noted that material must be very difficult to procure at Leyburn as the prices generally are very high. By comparison for example a similar playshed with shingled roof was erected at Kalkie in 1879 (QHR 600971) at the cost of £59.
"Playshed" is the name used officially as well as colloquially for these structures. They were commonly associated with early lowset schools and were superseded by the innovation of raising the school buildings on high stumps to provide shelter underneath. More recently however shade structures within the school playground have enjoyed a renaissance. Playsheds were not designed to facilitate any particular game (although the board for the game of "Stones and Glasses" has been engraved on two of benches in the playshed) but rather were more general purpose spaces. In Queensland they were a response to the climate as well as a mechanism for dealing with a fluctuating number of enrolments.
Timber flooring was added to the playshed in 1887. The words "All are Welcome" painted on one beam are believed to have been added in the early twentieth century. In 1973 and 1974 the playshed was reshingled with 10,000 iron bark shingles by the Parents and Citizens Association. An outline of the playshed forms the school's emblem and appears on T shirts and sweat shirts worn by the children and used on souvenirs for the 125th jubilee.
The existing (main) school building was opened on 20 October 1934. Following requests from the school committee and the Leyburn and District Progress Association for a new school and residence, the Public Works Department (who were at this time responsible for the building of schools) reported that the school was still sound but one of the most out of date on the Downs. It was recommended that the school and residence be sold for removal and new buildings erected in a different position.
The site chosen for the new school and teacher's residence was on Peter Street. Both buildings were erected by Brisbane contractor DWT Holmes according to types developed by the Public Works Department. The school, costing some £283, was (in contrast to its predecessor) a raised timber building (providing play space under the school) with a single classroom for 40 pupils with verandahs back and front, part of which were enclosed to provide hat rooms. This type of school building (described as E/T1) was constructed between 1930 and 1946 and was a continuation of earlier types developed for country schools, although differing from its predecessors in providing more lighting, a lower pitched roof, and wider classrooms. Unlike the sectional schools built by the Department of Public Instruction (which formed the majority of timber schools erected after 1920), this type was not originally designed for expansion.
As a response to both a shortage of teachers and perceived inadequacies in their accommodation (particularly in rural areas), the Department constructed during the 1930s a number of new residences. The residences which provided accommodation for married male headteachers were thus used as an incentive to teach in country areas. In addition they were justified as providing a resident caretaker and cleaner of the site. The teacher's residence at Leyburn, costing £700, was described as a standard number 3 type (D/R3) but with brick chimney. Constructed between 1929 and 1950, type 3 residences were timber framed buildings clad externally with weather boards except for the verandah walls which were single skinned vertically jointed T & G boarding. They contained three bedrooms and were generally highset. Atypically the Leyburn residence is lowset.
Soon after the opening of the school, the former school house and residence were sold and removed: the school was purchased by Robert R Colebon and removed to nearby MacIntyre Street where it is still used as a private residence; the teacher's residence was purchased by Mr T Hutton of Pratten.
Since its erection, the school has undergone a number of changes. In 1951 additions costing £544 were undertaken involving the extension of the classroom and verandahs on the northern side of the building; in 1957 part of the eastern verandah was enclosed for use as a library; in 1959 additions costing some £2000 were completed to convert the building into a two classroom school. In 1976 a further addition (to the southern end of the building) included a library and health service room.
The school celebrated its 125th anniversary in 1987; in the same year the pool (used regularly by the local community) was opened. In 1995 approximately 40 children are enrolled with the junior school housed in a prefabricated building adjacent to the main building housing class rooms for the upper grades and offices.
","criteria":"Established in 1862 and on its present site in 1865, the Leyburn State School (then known as the Leyburn Provisional School) is significant as one of the first of the colony of Queensland's national schools.
Together with the other buildings and sites associated with the development of Leyburn in the nineteenth century, Leyburn State School is a symbol of the more prosperous times of the town and of government's investment in that development.
The Playshed, together with the mature trees and (the second) school building and residence (both erected 1934) are important components which collectively demonstrate the development of the school site.
|It is a rare example of a surviving timber shingled roofed building made more remarkable by the survival of its shingled Leyburn relative, St Augustine's Anglican Church (1871) [EHR 600628]. Perhaps to a lesser extent, timber framed buildings constructed with large sections of timber carefully jointed are also now uncommon.
|The school is an integral part of the Leyburn townscape which presents a remarkably intact example of an early Queensland township which serviced the Darling Downs, Queensland's first settled and richest agricultural district.
Together with playsheds at Brisbane Central State School (1877) [Entry in the Heritage Register 600312] and Kalkie State School (1879) [EHR 600971], the Leyburn Playshed is one of the oldest surviving playsheds, a building type commonly employed in nineteenth century schools.
The school building (described as type E/T1) is a variation of an earlier type which continued to be used for small country schools. The residence is an interwar Type 3 teacher's residence (also described as type D/R3) and is evidence of the continuing departmental policy of the provision of accommodation (for married male head teachers) as an inducement to teach in country areas whilst also providing the school with an onsite caretaker.
|The Playshed has considerable architectural and aesthetic significance: it is a successful marriage of vernacular form and materials and is both a response to climate and a mechanism for dealing with fluctuating enrolments.
|The Playshed has considerable architectural and aesthetic significance: it is a successful marriage of vernacular form and materials and is both a response to climate and a mechanism for dealing with fluctuating enrolments.
|The school has had a long association with the Leyburn community: as both the centre of local education and a focus for community activity.
The Playshed erected in 1883 has become an emblem of the school and local community.
|The school and residence are significant as examples of building types developed by the Department of Public Works for the Department of Public Instruction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15603,"place_ref":600828,"name":"St Augustines Anglican Church, Leyburn","alternate_name":"St Augustine's Church of England, Leyburn | St Augustines Church of England | St Augustine's Anglican Church","street_address":"5795 Toowoomba Kara Road","suburb":"LEYBURN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Leyburn is a rural village on the southern reaches of the Darling Downs, some 50kms northwest of Warwick, on the banks of Canal Creek. St. Augustine's Church is located on the north-eastern approach to the village from Toowoomba, Dove Street. The church is timber of outside stud framing on low timber stumps with a steeply pitched gabled roof clad in hardwood shingles. It is reputedly styled on English village churches of the period, expressing many Gothic elements in a vernacular form of construction.
The church is positioned centrally within the site, which slopes gently to the east. The nave is orientated east-west, with the chancel at the eastern end and Dove Street to the West. Entrance to the site is through a timber arched gateway with a small pine tree and a short bay of picket fencing to either side. The remainder of the fencing is of timber rails. There are several saplings to the perimeter fence, and a clump of eucalypts to the northern side. To the east of the site is a small weatherboard store, and a memorial to the gold miner Dan Bray under an open shelter also roofed in shingles.
The church is a simple rectilinear form, with the chancel to eastern end and the porch to the south of the western end. The addition housing the vestry is to the south-east corner. The wall framing of studs, noggings and bracing is exposed to the exterior of the building, and purposefully arranged as a decorative element which is further emphasised by its contrasting colour. The wall cladding to the interior of the framing is pit-sawn planks of cypress pine, some 250mm (10") wide, laid horizontally. The roof is steeply pitched with gable ends, and a timber bell-cote with spire at the western end. The roof is clad in hand-split hardwood shingles.
The entry door from the south porch is a boarded and ledged door with a lancet head, and still furnishing its original bolt and rimlock. Inside, the nave has a special quality of light created by a continuous opening between the top of the walls and the roof framing, to the sides and the gable ends. The tall, narrow windows hand painted with a stipple pattern also contribute to this light. These windows have trefoil heads applied to the outside, giving them a Gothic-like shadow internally. They open by sliding along tracks to the inside of the wall. The floor is of wide raw cypress pine boards, which are hand-scrubbed clean to retain their bleached appearance. The exposed roof framing and trusses have been stained. All the major members are stop chamfered. The trusses feature twisted vertical tie rods. The chancel arch, also of lancet form, is lined with beaded board.
The furniture reputedly dates from the church's establishment. The altar, lectern, pulpit and pews are of stained pine. To the west end of the aisle is the movable stone baptism font. The altar has been moved away from the apse to face the congregation. The original timber screen from the altar is presently stored in the vestry. To the rear of the altar there are now stained glass windows. To the side walls of the chancel are gas lamps on swivelling brackets.
The later addition of the vestry is lined with narrow boards. It houses a dresser, washstand, bed, wardrobe, and the bellow organ. Also stored here are the original gas lamps from the roof, and the dedication chalice and plate.
","history":"The settlement on Canal Creek (a tributary of the Condamine River) had grown from the 1840s to service the colonising settlers following the stock route blazed by the Leslie brothers in 1840 to the southern Darling Downs. Known from 1853 as Leyburn, the first sale of allotments was held in 1857 following the survey of the town earlier that year.
By 1872 a state school, an Anglican Church, Police Station and Court House, two smithies, three stores, a sawmill and the inevitable three hotels made up the straggling wooden town centre along the Warwick road [Leyburn]. The town was described as always a sleepy little town ... whose calm was broken by the brief Canal Creek gold-rush in 1871-2 ... clothed in dust raised by the slow passage of teams and flocks through the town. Most men were either employed as carriers on the Toowoomba Goondiwindi road or else worked on nearby stations, rejoining their families at their Leyburn cottages on Saturday night.
As one of the Darling Downs droving, drinking, and administrative centres located on the old stock and work-routes, significant government infrastructure was located in the town: from 1852 Leyburn became a postal distribution point for the district with mail services branching out from the town; in 1872 the town was connected to the electric telegraph system becoming an important repeating station between Sydney and Brisbane; in 1861 Leyburn was appointed as a place for the holding of Courts of Petty Sessions, a Police Magistrate was appointed, and a lock-up erected followed in 1867 by a court house; the Leyburn National School opened in 1862.
The bypassing of Leyburn by the western railways signalled its (and other similarly bypassed towns') decline: in 1868 the Toowoomba to Dalby link was completed and in 1871 the Toowoomba to Warwick link, leaving only (yet significantly) the Goondiwindi traffic to pass through Leyburn. In the 1900s that too was destroyed with the building of the line known as the Border Fence from Warwick to Goondiwindi (later extended to Dirranbandi).
Anglican church services had been held in Leyburn since the 1840s when the Bishop of the newly formed Diocese of Newcastle (of which Queensland, then part of New South Wales was part) sent to the district the man who would become known as the Apostle of the Downs, the Reverend Benjamin Glennie. Early services were held at various locations including public houses and later the Court House. In 1861 the Anglican parish of Leyburn was formed and a parsonage erected on land donated by the Gore family of nearby Yandilla. A church, however, was not erected until 1871.
According to contemporary newspaper reports, the building of the church was mainly due to the Bishop of Brisbane (Edward Wyndham Tufnell) who chose Leyburn to be the beneficiary of moneys sent by a number of students of the college of St Augustine in England which were to be expended in the erection of a church in Queensland. The site chosen on the main Warwick Road near the Court House was purchased in 1870 for £4. Tenders for fencing in the English Church ground were accepted soon after; tenders for the erection of the new church were called by architect RG Suter in September. Built of 12" pit sawn timber with shingled roof, the contractor was John Baillie, the church of St Augustine of Canterbury was dedicated in September 1871 by Bishop Tufnell.
Architect Richard George Suter (1827-1894) was responsible for the design of at least ten of some thirty-four churches built during the episcopate of Bishop Tufnell (1859-74) including St Mark's Warwick (1867-70) and St James' Toowoomba (1868-69) as well as a number of timber churches including St Andrew's Lutwyche (1866) and (the first) St David's Allora (1868). Suter also undertook a considerable amount of work for the Queensland Board of Education. Like his churches, Suter's early schools used timber with outside studding as a construction technique, an ingenious modification of traditional half-timbered construction developed and popularised by Suter in Queensland. He designed relatively few houses, but residences such as East Talgai (1868) and Jimbour (1873-4) homesteads are some of the most substantial and distinguished ever erected in Queensland.
Following the decline in importance of Leyburn with the building of the railways, the parish name and centre was changed in 1889 from Leyburn to Pittsworth. To enable the Priest (who now travelled from Pittsworth) to stay overnight in Leyburn, a vestry was added to the church in 1918; the timber being supplied by Mr McDonald. The shingles were replaced between 1889 and 1924 and donated by Mr McWilliam. In 1924 the parish of Millmerran was formed of which Leyburn became a part. In 1931, the roof was again reshingled (by Mr T Hutton) with shingles cut by Mr W Lambley of Pratten; reshingling was again carried out in 1993 using ironbark cut from the property of local parishioners Clarrie and Nola Kirby.
In 1986 stained glass windows were erected behind the altar. More recently a memorial erected by the local historical society in the grounds of the church to gold miner Dan Bray (died 1901) as a tribute to all the goldminers of Leyburn's' early history who lie in unmarked graves in unknown places. Weekly services are held at St Augustine's.
","criteria":"St Augustine's Leyburn was erected in 1871 to the design of one of Queensland's most notable architects, RG Suter. Responsible for some of the state's most significant residences he also undertook considerable work for the Board of Education as well as the Church of England. His timber buildings in particular for both organisations established a local tradition, albeit without the architectural pretensions of Suter's original designs, of timber buildings with outside studding which combined economy, internal finish, and picturesque appearance. Architect also to several churches constructed in stone, it was Suter's timber churches such as St Augustine's (believed to be his only remaining timber church) which presented a challenge to the theological thinking of the time which viewed timber as an unsuitable material to be used in the construction of the houses of God.
Together with other buildings of the nineteenth century particularly of the 1860s and 1870s, St Augustine's is a symbol of the more prosperous times of Leyburn and an integral part of its townscape which presents a remarkably intact example of an early Queensland township as well as an important representation of the settlement of the Darling Downs
|St Augustine's is a rare example of a surviving timber shingled roofed building; made more remarkable by the survival of its shingled relative the Leyburn State School Playshed [600827].
|Although reputedly patterned on the form of English village churches, the expression of the timber work and the simplified Gothic motifs give St Augustine's a delicate lightweight vernacular charm; there is a special quality of the internal light through the eaves and translucent windows.
|Together with other buildings of the nineteenth century particularly of the 1860s and 1870s, St Augustine's is a symbol of the more prosperous times of Leyburn and an integral part of its townscape which presents a remarkably intact example of an early Queensland township as well as an important representation of the settlement of the Darling Downs
|St Augustine's Leyburn was erected in 1871 to the design of one of Queensland's most notable architects, RG Suter.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15604,"place_ref":600829,"name":"Quart Pot Creek Rail Bridge","alternate_name":"The Red Bridge","street_address":"Quart Pot Creek","suburb":"STANTHORPE","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Quart Pot Creek Rail Bridge comprises 7 50-foot (15.2 metre) spans of 3 rivetted deck type metal double lattice girders supported on six concrete piers and two abutments. It has a total length of 106.7 metres. The centre girders, the pier tops and bedplates have been altered. The No.7 span has been braced. The bridge carries a single 1.07m gauge railway.
","history":"The Quart Pot Creek Rail Bridge was constructed in 1886 as part of the Brisbane-Sydney interstate rail link.
The major impetus to development in Stanthorpe occurred in 1872 with the start of the practice of alluvial tin mining after discoveries of the valuable metal in the area in the mid 1850s. Stanthorpe become the collective name for two townships that grew as a result of the mining boom and became the only centre on the pastoral Darling Downs to develop with mining based revenue.
The Quart Pot Creek Rail Bridge forms part of the Southern Railway Toowoomba - Warwick- Wallangarra. The line reached Warwick in 1871 and was extended to Stanthorpe to serve the tin industry in 1881. The railway was then extended to the border with New South Wales. The Quart Pot Creek Bridge was built as part of this extension. The original plans were drawn in 1880 and the contract plans were drawn up in 1884. The line opened for traffic between Stanthorpe and Wallangarra, the change of gauge border station, on 4 February 1887. Interstate rail services commenced on 16 January 1888, linking Brisbane with Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
Plans to strengthen the 50-foot girder spans had first been drawn up in 1904 to permit the operation of heavier locomotives on the Sydney Mail and work began on the Warwick-Wallangarra section in 1910. The No.7 span was braced in 1913 to further accommodate 12-ton axle loads.
","criteria":"The Quart Pot Creek Rail Bridge is an important part of what was formerly the interstate link between Brisbane and Sydney. It is the fourth oldest bridge of its type in Queensland.
|The bridge demonstrates a robust engineering design, which has allowed it to be upgraded whilst retaining its essential character.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15605,"place_ref":600830,"name":"Central Hotel","alternate_name":"Sheahan's Hotel | Quinn's Hotel | Sheahans Hotel | Central Hotel, Stanthorpe","street_address":"140 High Street","suburb":"STANTHORPE","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Central Hotel, Stanthorpe is a two-storeyed brick building built to the corner of High and Victoria Streets. The hotel has principal facades addressing both Victoria and High Streets and a smaller wing parallel to Victoria Street extending from the northern end of the building. The building is lined with a double-storeyed verandah featuring cast iron balustrading and valancing. The verandahs are supported by double timber posts with capitals.
A striking feature of the building is the parapet decorated with symetrically positioned projecting arched and trianglular pediments. The decorative parapet is crowned on the front corner of the roof line with a multi-faced turret structure. Four brick chimneys are visible from the road.
The ground floor facades are lined with doors and windows with the main entrance being a double timber door with fanlight on the corner of the building. The upper floor verandah is also lined with glass panelled french doors gaining access to the bedrooms. The corner of the upper level has a large bay window from a bedroom.
A former rear verandah on the upper level has been enclosed at some stage and extending from the rear of this verandah is an addition which enclosed a formerly outdoor area in the centre of the originally U-shape building. This addition has a square lantern roof structure.
On the western side of the hotel facing Victoria Street is a drive-in bottle shop.
The interior of the hotel has been altered, the upper floor being the more intact example of the original design. On the ground floor the public bar extends the length of the High Street elevation and features exposed brick walls and decorative pressed metal ceilings. The bar itself runs lengthways down the room and there is a fire place at the northern end.
Internal doors at either end of the bar access the rear section of the building. On the southern side of the building the door from the front bar accesses a small hallway with an entrance door to Victoria Street. The hall leads on to two parlour rooms with pressed metal ceilings and brick fireplaces to the west, and the main central staircase to the east. A newer spacious lounge area is located in a central position in the rear section of the building which has the afore mentioned lantern style roof.
The upper floor is accessed by the central staircase with original timber balustrading. The ceiling over the staircase retains its decorative pressed metal. The stairs land onto a long north-south hallway which is clad with sheeting material and accesses a large doorway to the southern verandah. Three large bedrooms with original fireplaces line this hallway, all have doors to the verandahs. There are two narrow hallways running east-west on either end of the building each lined with bedrooms on either side. The southerly hallway still displays original Vertical Joint timber work and a decorative arch at its entrance. These hallways are connected by an intersecting hall along the former enclosed verandah at the rear of the building.
","history":"The Central Hotel, Stanthorpe was constructed in 1908-9 as Sheehan's Hotel. It was one of the largest buildings in the town at the time of construction.
The major impetus to development in Stanthorpe occurred in 1872 with the start of the practice of alluvial tin mining after discoveries of the valuable metal in the area earlier in the mid 1850s. Stanthorpe become the collective name for two townships which grew as a result of the mining boom and became the only centre on the pastoral Darling Downs to develop with a mining based revenue.
Stanthorpe was situated on part of the early Folkestone Run, which was occupied from November 1846 by Matthew Henry Marsh, who acquired 160 acres of the run on pre-emptive purchase in October 1852. Alford Greenup assumed the management of the run in 1868, and by 1878 as a result of the tin mining boom Marsh converted his run into the private township of Stannum, which is a Latin word meaning tin. The Government surveyed land on each side of Stannum and formed a township known as Stanthorpe. Stannum and Stanthorpe were incorporated forming the town of Stanthorpe. Public sales were held soon after the subdivision of the town into building allotments. The Central Hotel was constructed on land which formed part of the private township.
The Sheahan family, who later opened the Central Hotel, had arrived in Stanthorpe by 1872 when John Sheahan opened the Hibernian Hotel
The Central Hotel was initially opened as Sheahan's Hotel in 1909. An advertisement in Souvenir of the Stanthorpe District published by L.T. Hobson in 1908 proclaimed:
The Public and Visitors requiring accommodation in Stanthorpe are reminded that Denis Sheahan will open his New Two Story Brick Hotel at the Beginnin f the New Year, 1909. Everything New and Up-to-date. Tariff: 4s. & 8s per day, Special arrangements re Permanent Boarders. The largest and best appointed Hotel in South-western Queensland, containing 30 Bedrooms and 4 Parlours. Rooms Large and Airy, with twelve foot wide Balcony all round. Table Unexcelled. The comfort of Patrons carefully studied. Hot and Cold Water Baths. The Proprietor guarantees the Purity and Quality of all his stock of Wines and Spirits; only the very best are served. Letters and telegrams receive prompt attention. Cab meets all trains. 'Phone No. 4.
The hotel remained in the Sheahan family until the early 1920s when Queensland Breweries took ownership and leased the hotel to various managers until it was sold on again to a private owner in 1954. The hotel was known as Quinn's Hotel from at least 1960 - 1962 after the owner of the time, Lawrence Quinn. From 1962 - 1963 the hotel was called the Garden Hotel and in 1964 it became the Central Hotel.
In 1978 plans were submitted for a proposed drive-in bottle shop and lounge area together with provision for a liquor service point in the existing lounge of the hotel. The bottle shop now stands adjacent to the hotel on the western side.
The ground floor of the hotel has undergone many changes however much of the original plan is still evident. The front public bar which would have originally been two parlours is now an open area, the remains of the dividing wall evident in the ceiling near the front entrance door. A former outdoor area which was formed by the original u-shaped plan of the hotel has been enclosed and is now a lounge area (most likely at the time of the bottle-shop construction).
The hotel still provides accommodation on the upper level, the rooms still in their original layout.
An unusual feature of the hotel is a glass bottle collection displayed in the front bar which is passed on from owner to owner with the hotel.
","criteria":"The Central Hotel, a large, two storeyed masonry building was one of the largest buildings in Stanthorpe when constructed in 1908 and demonstrates the development of the town in the early twentieth century, when several large masonry buildings, including the nearby post and telegraph office were constructed.
|The Central Hotel demonstrates the principal characteristics of large masonry hotels in regional centres of Queensland. Such hotels were designed to attract local custom and to provide superior accommodation for visitors. It remains substantially intact particularly on the first floor, and is a good example of its type in both design and function.
|The hotel is a well composed building situated on a prominent corner contributing significantly to the principal street through Stanthorpe.
|The Central Hotel is significant for its association with the local community of Stanthorpe as a place of social gathering since the early 20th century.
|The Central Hotel is also significant for its association with the Sheahan family for whom it was constructed. The Sheahans were prominent locals who ran several of the town's many hotels in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15607,"place_ref":600832,"name":"Ballandean Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ballandean","suburb":"BALLANDEAN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ballandean Station is situated approximately 5 kilometres south-west of the township of Ballandean, which lies 20 kilometres south of Stanthorpe on the New England Highway. The large property borders part of the eastern edge of Sundown National Park, between the park and the NSW border, in an area of southern Queensland known as the Granite Belt. The former head station is located in a contained area in the north-east of the property, within a kilometre of Washpool Creek, a tributary of the Severn River. The homestead comprises a number of structures of cultural heritage significance, including a rendered masonry house, detached kitchen, creamery, killing and milking sheds, combined stables and hayloft and the remains of a blacksmith's shed and forge.
House
The residence is a single-storeyed, rendered (stuccoed) brick building with a central rectangular core surrounded by wide verandahs. The side and northern verandahs have been enclosed. The roof is an elongated hip clad in corrugated steel sheeting. On each plane of the roof, the pitch reduces along a particular line, creating a broken-back skirt over the verandahs. Two tall, symmetrically disposed chimneystacks pierce the north-facing plane. The principal entrance is in the northern (rear) elevation.
An open verandah extends the length of the southern (front) elevation and is supported by tapering timber posts that are stop chamfered. The posts rest on concrete plinths. Four sets of early French doors open from the core of the building onto this verandah.
On the northern elevation the verandah is enclosed and a small, central, gable-roofed portico (a later addition) shelters the main entry doors. The portico roof is supported on two timber posts identical to those on the southern elevation. The double entry doors are low-waisted with glass fitted between fine mullions in the upper sections and a three-centred fixed fanlight above the transom. A narrow band of green and red glass forms a border to the upper half of each door leaf. On each side of the main doors are single banks of timber-framed windows.
The interior arrangement of rooms demonstrates an early layout. The rectangular core comprises three rooms, each with French doors opening to the southern (front) verandah. There is no central hallway, but there are single leaf doors opening between these rooms. The central room is the larger, with two pairs of French doors in the southern elevation and another opening into an entrance vestibule on the enclosed northern verandah. French doors also open from the eastern and western rooms to the formerly open side verandahs, which have been enclosed as sunrooms.
The sunrooms are similarly sized and, positioned at either end of the building, contribute to the symmetry of the external elevations. In their southern and side external walls there are large timber-framed, multi-paned windows (some casements and some fixed) with low sills. The interior sills are wide, making a ledge that has been fitted with timber.
On the northern side the main entrance opens into a small vestibule from which a door in each side wall opens to an enclosed verandah room. In both rooms there is a brick fireplace with a timber surround and mantel. The fireplace in the western verandah room stands back-to-back with a fireplace in the western room of the core. The rear of the fireplace in the eastern verandah room protrudes into the eastern room of the core, but there is no fireplace in this room.
The northern verandah has been enclosed at each corner to make two additional rooms. The north-east room has been refurbished as a kitchen and the north-west room as a bathroom and laundry, with external access.
Ceilings throughout the house are lined with wide timber boards, with those in the enclosed verandah rooms following the slope of the roof and those in the core being coved. The ceiling and walls of the kitchen have been further lined with fibrous-cement sheeting with timber cover strips and there is a pressed metal ceiling in the bathroom/laundry. The interior partition walls of the core are brick and these and all interior faces of the exterior brick walls are plastered and rendered. Several of the rooms have moulded picture rails, which vary in profile and in position on the wall. There are timber skirting boards at least six inches high throughout, except in the sunrooms, which appear to be a later addition.
Detached kitchen
The detached kitchen is situated approximately 10 metres to the north-west of the house, connected to it by a concrete path. It is a timber-framed building elevated on low timber stumps and has a hipped roof, the ridgeline of which runs almost perpendicular to that of the main house. The roof is clad in corrugated iron sheeting. An approximately 1.5 metre wide verandah encircles the building on three sides. The main roof covers these areas and is supported at each edge by timber posts. On the northern elevation the plane of the roof does not extend over the end wall, which is of brick with two separate chimneys and a stove alcove, which has a skillion roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting.
The timber walls are single-skin, vertical tongue and groove timber boards, with the wall framing visible in the interior. The western elevation has three timber-framed, double-hung sashes and a single leaf door. There are two similar windows and a door on the eastern elevation.
Internally the detached kitchen is divided into two rooms, the smaller being accessed externally from the south. A timber board door connects the two rooms. The ceiling is lined with fibrous cement sheeting. In the rear masonry wall of the main room (the former kitchen) are a bread oven, a central cooking alcove with an early range and metal flue, and a brick fireplace with a gently curved head. This wall has been plastered at some stage.
Creamery
The creamery is sited approximately 6 metres to the west of the detached kitchen. It has a pyramid roof clad in corrugated iron sheets and walls constructed of horizontal painted timber slabs. There is a deep overhang on each face of this small building that is supported on large, undressed timber poles. In plan the walled part of the structure is approximately 2.5 metres square. There are a door opening and a screened window in the eastern elevation.
The killing shed is located almost 35 metres directly north of the detached kitchen, within an arrangement of operational outbuildings and yards. It is a small gabled structure made of vertical timber slabs. The roof is clad in corrugated iron sheeting. A single-leaf timber board door opens out of the southern elevation. Two timber-framed meat storage cupboards, lined with wire mesh, sit against the interior of the eastern elevation. The floor is a concrete slab, bordered by timber.
Milking Shed
The milking shed is located almost 20 metres directly north of the killing shed. The structure is comparatively long with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting. Its northern face and ridgeline run almost parallel to Lynams Road, which runs from north-east to south-west past the Ballandean yards. It is constructed of unpainted, vertical timber slabs fixed to an undressed timber frame. Some of the framing members appear to be large stumps. A timber stock herder feeds into the eastern façade, while a large timber board gate opens into an ancillary yard off the western façade.
Stables and Hayloft
The combined stables and hayloft sit about 10 metres to the south-west of the milking shed. This structure also has a gable roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting and is constructed of vertical, unpainted timber slabs. The upper part of the eastern gable is clad in weatherboards and has a high door into the hayloft. The west-facing gable also has a high door but is clad in corrugated iron sheeting. There are timber doors or gates in each elevation, some of which give access to a large fenced yard.
The interior is divided by a series of timber slabs partitions the height of the long, side walls. The plan consists of a central corridor, the walls of which are half-height and made with horizontal slabs. This corridor leads into a room for which the hayloft platform makes a ceiling. The rafters are made of stripped tree trunks, while the battening that does exist is dressed timber.
Remains of blacksmith's shed and forge
The blacksmith's shed and forge is situated over 30 metres to the east and slightly to the north of the milking shed, on the north-east side of Lynams Road. The shed is a skillion-roofed structure, of which only the undressed framing, some upper sections of timber slab work and a part of a lower slab wall remain. One timber board gate is also still fixed to the frame. This building overlooks the remains of a forge, which comprise an upright piece of rusting iron and some loose timber framing.
","history":"Old Ballandean Homestead comprises a c1870 residence, detached kitchen, creamery, killing shed, milking shed, yards, stables and remnants of a blacksmith's shed and forge. It was the third head station constructed on Ballandean run, established c1840 in the New England district.
Ballandean was among the earliest pastoral runs taken up in that part of the north-eastern districts of New South Wales that later became Queensland. Some reports claim occupation as early as 1839.
From 1837 Robert Ramsay Mackenzie held an interest in a number of New England runs, but resided in Sydney, leaving his New England properties in the hands of managers. Sometime prior to 1844 Mackenzie either established or acquired an interest in Ballandean. Documents and notices pertaining to Mackenzie's bankruptcy, declared in April 1844, indicate that he held an interest in and 400 head of cattle running on Ballandean under the charge of Mr HH Nicol. Mackenzie later recovered his financial position and became a prominent Queensland politician, but his association with Ballandean appears to have concluded in 1844.
In November 1845 Henry Hayter Nicol, who had been managing Ballandean for Mackenzie, was granted a licence to depasture stock on Ballandean and in 1851 he was granted an official lease. The establishment of Ballandean as a successful pastoral property is attributed to Nicol. His first home on the run was a bark-roofed slab hut close to Washpool Creek. Reputedly, when the creek silted up and formed a swamp, Nicol constructed a four-roomed slab cottage with a stone fireplace and a shingle roof closer to the site of the later head station. An early traveller on the Darling Downs, writing in 1926 of a c1857 journey through the Granite Belt, recalled that Nicol had not yet built the rendered brick house and that he still resided in a slab building.
Nicol's lease passed to John Brown Watt in 1863. Like Mackenzie, Watt was an absentee squatter who owned a large number of runs. He was a prominent Sydney businessman and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1861 to 1866 and from 1874 to 1890. It appears that Nicol continued to manage the property for Watt, and likely still held an interest in it, voting in the district until 1868 under his licence to depasture stock at Ballandean.
Robert Reid Cunninghame Robertson acquired the lease to Ballandean in 1865. Robertson was from Wellington Vale, west of Deepwater in northern New South Wales.
Donald Gunn, whose father owned nearby Pikedale station, visited the homestead c1868 as a child and later recalled it as one of the best houses in the district. Gunn attributed the improvements on Ballandean to Nicols, not Robertson, whom he believed spent little on the property. Timber used in the new dwelling was cut on the property and limestone for the mortar is believed to have been quarried from a Ballandean paddock.
During Robertson's occupation the colonial government commenced a process of large-scale resumption of lease-hold pastoral land for closer agricultural selection. Under the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, squatters had the option of protecting their homesteads and permanent improvements from this process by making a pre-emptive purchase of 2560 acres (1036 hectares) of their lease. In 1872 Robertson purchased the land surrounding Ballandean head station, which included the home station, meat station, woolshed, stockyards and most of the improvements.
In the 1870s the Ballandean lease encompassed 133,202 acres (53,905.52 hectares) extending north to Folkstone and south to the New South Wales border. In 1877 about half the leasehold, 98 square miles (25,382 hectares), was resumed for closer settlement.
While Robertson maintained Wellington Vale as his principal place of residence he also took an interest in the affairs of Ballandean. He appears to have spent some time there and used his freehold title to vote in the district from 1874. After his death in 1883 Robertson's executors consolidated Ballandean run concurrently with further government resumptions of the lease in March 1886. In 1889 they transferred the homestead and leasehold rights to James Fletcher, who erected a dingo proof fence on the property and cleared much of the run.
In 1889 the roads through Ballandean were surveyed. The Surveyor-General instructed that the road from Nundubbermere passing through the Ballandean pre-emptive should join the Red Rock Road near the head station, and Fletcher requested that the road pass the gate on the east side of his paddock. The road survey map shows the buildings of Ballandean head station near the gate and on the southern side of the new road. A woolshed was located some distance south and stockyards to the southwest.
Ballandean was acquired by John William Luke in 1906. Luke had been manager at Ballandean from about 1898 and did much to improve the property. He became a prominent public figure in the area, at one time serving as chairman of the Stanthorpe Shire Council. By the 1920s he had stocked the run with merino sheep. The property was noted for its high quality wool, a reputation based largely on the fact that it was free of many of the pests common elsewhere in pastures. At one time the run achieved a record price for its wool clip. Luke also ran ponies and Devon cattle on the property.
During Luke's ownership The Queenslander featured "the picturesque homestead of Ballandean station" in its issue of 24 May 1924. The author described the main residence as having been constructed in the mid-19th century, but the offices, stores, stables and yards were of more recent date. Although much reduced in size, the station still had 22 paddocks and a 'park-like' appearance with rich grasses and abundant water.
Since the late 1920s Ballandean has undergone several changes in ownership. Between 1967 and 1973 a cavity brick house was built on the property for use as the main residence. This is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance and is not included in the heritage boundary for Ballandean Homestead.
Between 1973 and 1977 new owners renovated the c1870 homestead.
","criteria":"Ballandean Station, established c1840, was one of the earliest pastoral runs taken up in the Granite Belt district of Queensland. Ballandean Homestead, erected c1870, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the pattern and nature of squatter occupation of the New England and Darling Downs districts preceding agriculture and the establishment of towns.
|The homestead is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early and evolving head stations on Queensland pastoral properties. Significant fabric in the homestead complex includes a masonry residence c1870, detached kitchen and a range of timber slab ancillary structures including cream house, killing shed, milking shed, and combined stables and hayloft. There are also the remnants of an early blacksmith's shed and forge. The residence has thick walls of rendered brickwork, coved ceilings, and early French doors, and is important in demonstrating an early (mid-19th century) arrangement of interior residential space.
|The homestead complex has aesthetic importance as a picturesque and rustic place set in a rural environment, which quality has been valued by visitors over many decades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15608,"place_ref":600833,"name":"Tambo Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"Tambo Telecommunications Museum | Post and Telegraph Office Tambo","street_address":"Arthur Street","suburb":"TAMBO","lga":"BLACKALL-TAMBO REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The two former post office buildings are timber structures situated adjacent to the Shire Council chambers and across the street from the 1904 Post Office.
The former 1876 post office is a timber building set on low stumps and constructed of vertical boards and battens with verandahs to all sides. It has a pyramidal roof clad in corrugated iron and the separate verandah awning is also of corrugated iron supported on timber posts. It has a four-room core with a central front door and casement windows. To the rear of the building there is a detached kitchen of similar construction comprising a single room with an awning along the front.
Alongside this building is the 1880s post office extension. This is also a timber building set on low stumps and is T shaped in plan, comprising two rooms facing the street and two rooms, set one behind the other, to the rear. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and is hipped over the front section and gabled at the rear. A verandah with a separate roof runs around the three sides of the front section and is supported on timber posts. The building has a central front door and sash windows.
","history":"Thomas Mitchell first explored the area in 1846 and following subsequent exploration in 1858 by Gregory and by Landsborough and Buchanan in 1860, the first pastoral run in the area was taken up in 1861 to be soon followed by others. By 1864 most pastoral land in the area had been taken up.
Tambo was the first township on the Barcoo River, a town reserve being gazetted on 27 June 1863 as 'Carrangarra'. In 1864 a license was granted for the Barcoo Club Hotel and the settlement quickly developed. In 1866 a Clerk of Petty Sessions was appointed to Carrangarra and a mail service was established at the Royal Carrangarra Hotel with the publican as postmaster. In 1868 the town was surveyed and renamed Tambo. The first land sales were held in the following year although 50 people and 34 buildings were already present in the budding township. In 1873 the post office moved to the store, the storekeeper becoming the Postmaster.
The Overland Telegraph network was begun in Australia in 1854. The first line in Queensland was that established between Ipswich in Brisbane in 1861. Lines continued to be constructed and by 1870 most major coastal towns and some western centres were linked to the system. An Electric Telegraph Station was opened at Tambo on June 16 1874 following the construction of a telegraph line between Tambo and Springsure. This line ran northeast to Springsure through Clermont to Nebo, where it joined the main northern line extending from Brisbane to Dalby through Hawkwood and Camboon to Rockhampton and then to Bowen, Townsville and Cardwell to Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The line made Tambo a key part of the Australian communications network link. In 1875 a further telegraph line was opened to Charleville and in 1877 to Blackall. In 1876 the first purpose-built Post Office was constructed at the northeast corner of Star and Arthur Streets, Tambo. It was a timber building with a shingle roof and was constructed to a typical plan for a rural post office of the period, being domestic in form with public offices at the front and accommodation for the postmaster and his family at the rear with a detached kitchen at the back.
In 1879 the Post and Telegraph Offices were amalgamated in Queensland and in 1883 a second telegraph line opened between Tambo and Blackall. Tambo was now a major relay station and the old post and telegraph office was inadequate. In 1885 a new building was constructed adjacent to the existing post and telegraph office and the older building became used wholly for accommodation, a common method of extending inadequate premises at the time. The new building consisted of a single room and in 1886 a battery room was added to the rear. Extension of the lines was continued and by 1887 there were five telegraph operators at Tambo. Although some additions were made in 1895 to increase office and mail box space, when the buildings were assessed at Federation, when control passed into the hands of the new Commonwealth Government, they were considered inadequate. A new Post office was planned in 1903 on the site of the existing buildings. Tambo ceased to be a repeating station in 1916 when Charleville became the main station.
When the new post office was completed in 1904 the old buildings were old for removal. The 1876 building was sold to Mr and Mrs Sullivan who were licensees of the nearby Telegraph Hotel and moved across the road to land next to the hotel. Mrs Sullivan had been the widow of Denis Mulhern who had held the licensee of the hotel since its establishment in 1877. Mrs Sullivan had seven adult children from this marriage and the property passed to Denis George Mulhern in 1921. The building remained in use as a dwelling until the mid 1990s.
The 1885 building was sold for removal in 1905 to builder Frank Murch and was also moved across the road to an adjacent block also owned by the Sullivans. A photograph taken in 1906 shows that a verandah had then been added to the front and a room to the rear, presumably to make it more suitable for residential purposes.
In 1922 William and Hannah Volk became licensees of Telegraph Hotel and purchased the 1885 post office building as a residence. Mrs Volk died in 1970 and her home was offered to Tambo Council as a museum. In 1973 the Tambo Shire Council took on responsibility for the building, offering it in 1992 as a venue for the Tambo Teddies scheme. This well-known and highly successful cottage industry project made and sold teddy bears made from local wool. The Teddies project has now moved into the former Shire Hall on the site of the Telegraph Hotel and the former post office buildings now comprise the Tambo Telecommunications Museum.
","criteria":"The former Post Office at Tambo, comprising an 1876 office and separate 1885 extension, illustrates an important phase in the development of a communications network in Queensland. In the late 19th century Tambo was the main communication point in western Queensland north of Charleville and the rapid development of this network is evidenced by the fact that several post and telegraph buildings at Tambo were constructed in sequence as each building became inadequate.
|Although some alterations have occurred, the buildings, particularly the 1876 post office, are rare surviving examples of post office buildings of their era.
|They are good examples of architectural types developed at this time by the Public Works Department, which was instrumental in improving the quality of building design and construction in Queensland.
|The former post office buildings have aesthetic significance as part of a series of public buildings along the main street of Tambo, including the courthouse, an early 20th century post office and the shire hall, which define the visual character of the township.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15609,"place_ref":600834,"name":"Tambo Court House (former)","alternate_name":"Tambo Shire Council Library","street_address":"9 Arthur Street","suburb":"TAMBO","lga":"BLACKALL-TAMBO REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Court House is a single storey timber building with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron with gables to the front elevation and over the main entrance. The building is T shaped in plan with the large rectangular courtroom set at right angles to a row of four offices to the rear, one of which has been converted into toilets. A verandah encloses the courtroom on three sides and is shaded by an awning supported on timber posts. A projecting decorative portico marks the entrance to the building, which is approached by low steps. A ramp has been constructed to the side of the building leading to the verandah.
The building has been refitted to suit use as a library but some of the original furniture survives including the Magistrate's Bench and Witness Box.
","history":"The former Courthouse at Tambo is a timber building that was constructed in 1888 and was used for judicial purposes until 1983. It has housed the Tambo Shire Council Library since 1991.
Thomas Mitchell first explored the area in 1846 and following subsequent exploration in 1858 by Gregory and by Landsborough and Buchanan in 1860, the first pastoral run in the area was taken up in 1861 to be soon followed by others. By 1864 most pastoral land in the area had been taken up.
Tambo was the first township on the Barcoo River, the settlement having begun with the establishment of an inn when a license was granted for the Barcoo Club hotel in 1864. A town reserve on the site was proclaimed as 'Carrangarra'.
The area developed quickly developed and in December 1864, Dr William Boyd was appointed Police Magistrate for the Mitchell District. A Clerk of Petty Sessions was appointed to Carrangarra in 1866 and in 1867 the town also had a Police Sergeant. In 1868 the town was surveyed and renamed Tambo. The first land sales were held in the following year although 50 people and 34 buildings were already present in the budding township. A mail service had been established in 1866 at the Royal Carrangarra Hotel with the publican as postmaster, but in 1874 a telegraph line was opened between Springsure and Tambo, making the town a key part of the communications network link with western Queensland. Further telegraph lines were opened to Charleville and to Blackall within a few years.
A building boom occurred in the 1870s during which a hospital, bank, post office, school and courthouse were constructed. The 1874 courthouse soon proved inadequate and tenders were called on 18 November 1886 for a new building. The contract was awarded to F W Bates on 1 January 1887 at a price of £1068. The new court was built to a standard plan, with a large courtroom surrounded by verandahs on three sides, placed at right angles to a row of offices at the rear. It is similar to surviving courthouses at Charleville and Mitchell. In February 1888, the people of Tambo petitioned the Colonial Secretary to have the courtroom furnished with a removable magistrate's bench, jury and witness stands so that the space could also be used for balls and other public events, there being no other public building in the town. The courthouse was ready for occupation by September 1888.
By 1897 the Lands Office, which shared the courthouse, needed more space to conduct its business. An additional office was added to the rear of the courthouse which provided an office and counter area. Other work carried out on the building over the years was largely maintenance and little change occurred.
The Tambo Shire Council acquired the building in 1983 following the erection of a new Police Station/Court House in Tambo. In August 1991 the Tambo Shire Council Library was relocated into the former Court House, which had been adapted for library purposes. The following year the offices at the rear were renovated to accommodate the Community Care Group.
","criteria":"The former Court House Tambo is part of the pattern of development of Queensland's history as evidence of the importance of Tambo when it was the main communication point and administrative centre in western Queensland north of Charleville.
|The former Courthouse is a good example of a small regional courthouse of its era, having a large courtroom with offices for magistrates and court officials to the rear in a T plan that was a standard plan for rural courthouses from the mid-nineteenth century until World War II.
|The former Courthouse has architectural and aesthetic significance as one of a series of public buildings along the main street of Tambo, including the three successive post offices and the shire hall, which define the visual character of the township.
|The former Court House Tambo has had a long connection with the people of Tambo and the surrounding district as the focus for the administration of justice, a venue for public events and as a public library.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15610,"place_ref":600835,"name":"Leichhardt Tree","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Yaldwyn Street","suburb":"TAROOM","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The town of Taroom is located where the Leichhardt Highway crosses the Dawson River, and the Leichhardt Tree is located about 150 metres up a steadily inclining slope from the bed of the Dawson River, on the west side of Yaldwyn Street reserve in Taroom, between Dawson and Kelman Streets. Yaldwyn Street forms part of the Leichhardt Highway, connecting Roma and Rockhampton, and is the main road in and out of Taroom. Although the tree's root system is largely covered by bitumen road, footpath paving and nearby commercial buildings, the tree appears to be in good condition.
The tree is a mature coolibah [Eucalyptus microtheca], indigenous to the Dawson River district. It has a height of about 14 metres, and a canopy spread of about 13 metres. Its age is estimated to be at least 300 years.
A sign placed in the branches of the tree reads LEICHHARDT TREE, but all blazes have been overgrown by the bark.
A plaque attached to the tree is inscribed: Leichhardt,, the explorer, passed over this track and marked this Tree in 1844.
At the foot of the tree, facing east to the street, is a small concrete block with a metal plaque attached, on which is inscribed:
THE LEICHHARDT TREE
THE EXPLORER
LUDWIG LEICHHART
MARKED THIS TREE IN 1844 "LL.1844"
DURING HIS OVERLAND JOURNEY
FROM JIMBOUR QUEENSLAND
TO PORT ESSINGTON
NORTHERN TERRITORY
THIS SETTING PROVIDED BY TAROOM LIONS CLUB
","history":"The Leichhardt Tree in Taroom, in the upper Dawson River district, is named for its association with the explorer Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt, who is thought to have blazed this tree during his expedition north from the Darling Downs to Port Essington in 1844-46.
Leichhardt, born in Prussia in 1813, was a student of philosophy, languages and natural sciences. He journeyed to Sydney in 1841-42 with the expressed intention of exploring the interior of Australia, and studied the geology and botany of the Sydney district before undertaking exploratory journeys between Newcastle and the Moreton Bay district in 1843-44. By mid-1844 Leichhardt was hoping to join a planned official government expedition from Sydney to Port Essington, but impatient with government delay and uncertain as to whether such an expensive expedition would be given official approved, Leichhardt mounted his own expedition, funded by squatter subscriptions.
Leichhardt and 5 volunteers sailed from Sydney for Moreton Bay, where they were joined by 2 more men, and by another 2 on the Darling Downs. The party left Jimbour Station, on the edge of the settled district of the northern Darling Downs, on 1 October 1844. By early November they had reached Juandah [Wandoan], where Leichhardt decided to reduce the party by two, these men returning to Jimbour. Continuing north, Leichhardt reached the Dawson River [named by Leichhardt in honour of a Hunter Valley settler], crossing it where the town of Taroom now stands. Of the Dawson Valley, John Gilbert, a naturalist in Leichhardt's party, wrote:
One of the most beautifully picturesque and extensive scenes met our anxious gaze. The immediate vicinity of the hills was like park scenery - clear undulating hills, with here and there small clumps of brigalo [sic], while the sides of many of the hills were dotted with single scrubs, as if picked out by hand. Beyond this to the westward, and round as far as we could see to the E.S.E was a carpet of evergreens for six or seven miles and then the high ranges rose up and formed a beautiful background to the most pleasing natural picture we have seen.
It is thought that Leichhardt camped on the southern side of the upper Dawson, where Pemberton Hodgson , tracing Leichhardt's track in mid-1845, found 3 large gum trees blazed with the letter L. The coolibah surviving in Yaldwyn Street, Taroom - with the blaze LL.1844 once visible - may have been one of these trees. In 1916 one L and part of the year 1844 was still discernible, but bark had grown over part of the date and the second L. In the mid-1970s the blaze was just discernible although unreadable, but it is no longer visible.
Leichhardt crossed the Dawson and stayed at Palm Tree Creek for several days before continuing westwards to Robinson's Creek, then crossed the Ruined Castle Creek area and the Expedition Ranges to the northwest. In late June 1845, John Gilbert was killed in an attack on the camp by Aborigines, but the remainder of the party survived and reached Port Essington, near Darwin, on 17 December 1845, completing an overland journey of nearly 3,000 miles [4,800 kilometres]. They returned to Sydney by ship in March 1846.
Leichhardt's journey, and the explorations of Pemberton Hodgson in 1845, did much to open the way to further non-indigenous settlement in southeastern Queensland. Even before Leichhardt's journal of the expedition was published in 1847, word had spread of the rich pastures of the Dawson River district, encouraging squatters such the Archer brothers [1850] to explore the area more closely. By November 1845, Taroom Station had been taken up, and by the time the Leichhardt pastoral district of 40,000 acres was proclaimed in 1854, most of the country had been taken up for pastoral purposes. The township of Taroom developed at the Dawson River crossing at the junction of several squatter tracks - one leading over the Great Dividing Range to Juandah, one through the Auburn Range to Gayndah, and one south to Roma, and developed slowly as a staging post between Roma and Rockhampton. A post office was established at Taroom in 1853, a courtroom gazetted there in 1857, and the town was officially surveyed in 1860.
At least two other blazes have been marked on the Leichhardt Tree. In 1893 the Dawson River flooded, reaching to the base of the Leichhardt Tree in Taroom. This level was marked on the tree, but is no longer visible; also a surveyor's blaze had been marked on the tree by August 1916. In 1925 the Irrigation and Water Supply Department surveyed the area for a proposed dam site, at which point another blaze supposedly was inscribed on the tree - again no longer visible.
By the mid-1970s, the tree had been heavily lopped and was suffering severe insect damage. In 1979 several cavities caused by previous lopping and breakage were plugged and sealed to prevent further rotting, and the tree has successfully regenerated.
","criteria":"Leichhardt's exploration of the Dawson River area paved the way for rapid pastoral expansion in the Leichhardt district from the mid-1840s to the early 1850s.
|Estimated to be around 300 years old, the Leichhardt Tree is a familiar landmark in the town of Taroom, making a significant contribution to the streetscape of the town, well-known to all residents and often photographed by travellers.
|Estimated to be around 300 years old, the Leichhardt Tree is a familiar landmark in the town of Taroom, making a significant contribution to the streetscape of the town, well-known to all residents and often photographed by travellers.
|The Leichhardt Tree at Taroom is important for its association with Prussian explorer FW Ludwig Leichhardt, who played an important role in early non-indigenous exploration of the Australian interior, particularly with his epic journey from the Darling Downs to Port Essington, which contributed significantly to European knowledge of the Queensland landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15611,"place_ref":600836,"name":"Dickabram Bridge","alternate_name":"Mary River Bridge (Miva)","street_address":"across the Mary River Miva (south) to Theebine (north)","suburb":"MIVA","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Dickabram Bridge over the Mary River comprises two 80 foot parallel chord lattice girder spans either side of a 120 foot hogback lattice girder span, having steel cross girders, supported on two cylinder piers and two double timber piers.
","history":"The Dickabram Bridge over the Mary River was the major bridge on the Kingaroy Branch line. The contract for construction of the line to Kilkivan was awarded to McDermott Owen & Co. in August 1884. Work was delayed in 1885 awaiting casting of the cylindrical piers for the central spans. The bridge was tested in November 1886 with a two-engine train. The line opened for traffic between Dickabram and Kilkivan on 6 December 1886.
The original road bridge across the Mary River at Miva had opened on 30 October 1878. This bridge was damaged by floods in July 1879 and swept away by floods in February 1880. A replacement road bridge was swept away by floods in October 1882.
It was provided in December 1882 that the proposed rail bridge be built to carry road traffic as well. Because of the delay in opening access roads it was March 1889 before it opened to road traffic.
The bridge has remained in use without substantial modification. Work since its completion includes undertrussing a 36 foot span in 1911, strengthening the 26 and 36 foot spans for C17 locomotives in 1935, a concrete base for pier 9 in 1968, and scour protection in 1976. Work strengthening the line from PB15 to C17 standard was completed between 1933 and 1935. Diesel electic locomotives were first permitted in 1977. The decking has been modified by adding a kerb in the 1970s/80s to separate road and rail traffic to save the need for a gatekeeper to control road traffic.
","criteria":"The bridge is a late 19th century and essentially unmodified high level road-rail bridge with half-through double by 2 lattice girder approach spans and hogback through double x 2 lattice girder main spans. It was constructed on the site of several low-level bridges that had been destroyed by floods.
|It is one of the few extant road-rail bridges in Queensland.
|It is the oldest extant of its type in Queensland with the longest hogback span of its type in Queensland.
|Its design was associated with the Chief Engineer, Henry C. Stanley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15612,"place_ref":600837,"name":"St Matthew's Church of England","alternate_name":"St Matthews Church of England | St Matthews Anglican Church","street_address":"Beatrice Street","suburb":"DRAYTON","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Matthew's Church is located on an elevated, approximately 0.42ha, rectangular site bound by Beatrice Street to the southwest, Lynch Street to the northeast and residential properties to the northwest, in the town of Drayton, 6km southwest of Toowoomba. The complex, comprises a church situated at the southeastern end of the property, a timber hall at the northwestern end, a freestanding bell tower and established trees, and has expansive views of the surrounding area. Primary access to the church is via Beatrice Street, through a gate within a low stone wall, with secondary access to the site available from Lynch Street at the rear.
Addressing Beatrice Street, St Matthew's Church is a four bay stone structure comprising a nave, porch, sanctuary and vestry. It has a gable roof clad in corrugated iron with gabled vents to the sanctuary roof. The walls are of hammer dressed square rubble bluestone laid in random courses. The vestry is built of basalt and sandstone and has a flat roof concealed by a parapet. Facings to the gable capping, externally exposed buttresses, doors and windows are Murphy's-Creek sandstone. Windows are lancets, some with decorated leadlight glass. Entry to the church is via the southwestern arched sandstone porch, through a pointed-arch timber door with cast iron detailing. Secondary access is through rear timber pointed-arch doors into the nave and vestry. A sandstone cross is positioned above the porch, centred with the front door, and axially aligned with two sandstone crosses at the apexes of the gable ends. The foundation stone is located on the eastern side of the front elevation and details the dedication of the church on the 19 August 1886, as well as the church's architect, James Marks, and contractors, JH Scott & Co. A plaque in the centre of the northeast elevation is dated 20 August 1993, and commemorates the work of Archdeacon, Benjamin Glennie, and the 85th anniversary of the church's first service.
The entrance porch, nave and sanctuary are on a southwest-northeast axis; the vestry bay is located adjacent the eastern side of the sanctuary. The southwestern front porch has a concrete floor, is reached by sandstone steps and opens into the nave of the church. The nave has an open, timbered ceiling supported by timber king posts and hammer beams resting on stone corbels. A timber pulpit is located at the northern end. The northeastern sanctuary is separated from the body of the church by a large pointed-arch opening. It is raised, rectangular in form, and features timber panelled walls and a segmental timber vault. The interior walls throughout the church are painted plaster and the floors are timber.
The hall, located on the northwestern side of the site and facing St Matthew's Church, is a simple timber structure with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal, and a central gabled porch on the southeastern elevation. Small crosses stand at the apexes of each gable end. The building is clad in weatherboards and the gable end walls feature trimmed flat panelling above wall height. A skillion roofed addition extends northwest from the rear of the building. The windows are generally lancets, both double-hung and fixed, and a triplet of windows on the northeastern gable end wall has decorated leadlight glass insets.
Other elements of significance on the site include a stone wall, established plantings and a freestanding belltower. The stone wall is parallel to Beatrice Street at the front of the site and tapers in towards a central entrance gate that is aligned with the church entrance. The wall is low, constructed of the same bluestone as the church walls and has sandstone pillars. Two well-established palm trees stand behind the wall, either side of the gate. The original church-bell is located in the southern corner of the site and is supported by a modern freestanding structure-the supporting structure is not of cultural heritage significance.
All other structures within the heritage boundary, including the new rectory at the northern end of the site, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"St Matthew's Church of England is a small bluestone church constructed in 1886-7 to the design of James Marks and is the second church of this name in Drayton, replacing an earlier 1859 church. It is complemented by a timber hall built in 1913 which was moved to this site in 1930, a modern belltower housing the original church bell and established plantings.
The site is part of a continuing tradition of Anglican worship established during the first years of European settlement on the Darling Downs. At this time the Downs were part of New South Wales and fell within the Diocese of Newcastle. The Reverend John Gregor visited the area, holding services in camps and private homes from 1840 until his death in 1848. The energetic Reverend Benjamin Glennie succeeded him and in 1850 was appointed the first Incumbent for the Darling Downs, having previously made yearly trips to the area. His first service on the Downs was held in the parlour of the Bull's Head Inn at Drayton in 1848, there being no church. In 1850, Glennie arranged for a parsonage to be constructed on land he had purchased on what is now Rudd Street. Glennie also used the parsonage for church services. By this time, the focal point of activity on the Downs was swinging some six kilometres northwards to an area known as 'The Swamp', later to become Toowoomba. Glennie approached his Bishop for permission to buy land for a church there. He envisioned four churches, each dedicated to one of the evangelists, in the four major towns of the Downs. This he eventually accomplished with St Luke, Toowoomba (1856), St Mark, Warwick (1857), St Matthew, Drayton (1859) and St John, Dalby (1866).
The first St Matthew's church constructed at Drayton was a simple slab building, the erection of a church proper being delayed by the cessation in 1852 of state aid for the construction of church buildings. In February 1853 Glennie sought permission to collect subscriptions for buildings at Drayton, Warwick, Dalby and Toowoomba on his tours throughout his parish. In April 1856 two acres of land north of the parsonage were acquired and the first service was held in the new church on 23 January 1859. The building was denounced by the Brisbane Courier as "neither pretty nor an ornament to the town" and the congregation was criticised for failing to support the building of a better quality church. Nevertheless, it served as a place of worship for many years being enlarged in the late 1860s.
By 1884 the church had again become too small and it was agreed to build a new one. On the advice of the architect, James Marks, a hilltop site with better conditions for the foundations was acquired for the new church. After considering costs in several different materials, it was decided to build a stone church and the tender for £850 by builders Seath, Hobart and Watson was accepted on 26 March 1886. The foundation stone was laid on 16 August by Bishop Webber in company with the Hon W.H. Groom, Mayor of Toowoomba and Rev. J. McCleverty, Incumbent of Drayton at the time.
The architect for the new church was locally based and the founder of a remarkable family firm of architects which had a lasting effect on the appearance of Toowoomba, being responsible for a large number of public, private and commercial buildings. James Marks arrived in Queensland in 1866 and first set up in practice in Dalby, moving to Toowoomba in 1874. He entered into partnership as James Marks and Son with his eldest son Harry, who joined his father's practice in 1903, and was to later work on the Rectory, and Reginald who joined in 1910. Charles Marks, James grandson, also worked as an architect in Toowoomba.
In order to reduce costs as much as possible, the church was built with a timber chancel and was dedicated on 22 December 1887. The original bell had been replaced in 1880 with a larger and heavier one purchased from Brisbane for £18 and in August 1889 it was suggested that the belfry should be removed and the bell placed on the porch of the new church, to which a sandstone bell turret was added. By 1892 this and a temporary vestry were completed.
The original church was used as a Sunday school and in 1901 was taken down, moved slightly and rebuilt, the shingles being replaced by corrugated iron. In 1903 a new rectory was built opposite the original church site to the design of William Hodgen, another noted Toowoomba architect and founder of an architectural dynasty, who undertook work throughout southern and western Queensland. The rectory was a single-storey timber structure standing on low stumps with a roof clad in corrugated iron. It was approached through a gabled porch and a small open verandah. A central hallway opened onto bedrooms on the southeast, and a drawing room with a corner fireplace and a bedroom on the northwest. At the rear of the house the hall opened onto a service area comprising laundry and study.
By 1910 it was apparent that the weight of the turret and bell were causing structural damage to the porch of the church. To strengthen it, the north and south sides of the porch were closed in and the bell was removed to the present free-standing bell tower.
In 1913, a new Sunday School hall was built on the old site. It included flooring from the demolished former St Matthew's church and re-used its 1901 roofing.
Between 1923 and 1935 the Reverend Samuel Atherton was Rector at St Matthew's and was responsible for a series of major projects to improve and extend the church. In 1930 the rectory and hall were moved from the old site and relocated close to St Matthew's. Addressing Beatrice Street, the hall was located at the northwestern side of the site. The rectory, positioned on the adjacent, southeastern lot faced northeast and was set back from the corner of Lynch and Glennie Streets. In the process the rectory was made more convenient by relocating the previously detached kitchen, pantry and bathroom to the rear (southwestern side) of the rectory. Plans for this were drawn up by Harry Marks. The verandah to Glennie Street was later built-in as a sun room.
In 1933 extensive work was undertaken to remove the old timber sanctuary and replace it in bluestone as originally intended. Between 1933 and 1935 this was panelled and other works were carried out including the removal of the bell turret from the porch. Various items were donated to the church following its extension, including the door knocker from the Royal Bull's Head Inn at Drayton, which was placed on the vestry door. The two palms at the front of the church were planted on 20 April 1935 in memory of Mr and Mrs Searle. In spite of the severe financial strictures of the Depression, the work was paid for in full by May 1934, a remarkable achievement. The contribution made to the parish by Rev. Atherton is remembered in the name of the park opposite the church.
In 1986 repair work was undertaken for the centenary of the church including the replastering and painting of the interior. In 1987 the temporary timber vestry was replaced in masonry. Around the same time many parishioners took part in a working bee to refurbish the rectory, which had previously undergone extensive work in the 1950s and 60s as an alternative to building new accommodation. A new rectory was constructed between 1993 and 1995, while further work was carried out to the 1903 rectory in 1995. The 1903 rectory was demolished between 2001 and 2004.
In 2015, the site retains the church building, timber hall, front stone wall, church bell and established palm trees. St Matthew's Church is important to the Anglican community, having operated on this site since 1887. The site of the original church, on the corner of Cambooya and Rudd Streets, Drayton, is now marked by a stone cairn.
","criteria":"St Matthew's is associated with the early development of Drayton and of the Anglican church in Queensland, being the oldest parish on the Darling Downs. It is the second church of this name in Drayton, replacing a timber slab church and illustrates the growth of the area. The Sunday school hall on site was built in 1913 and incorporates material from the original 1859 church.
|The stonework of St Matthews is well constructed and the building is a rare example of a church built in the local bluestone.
|The stonework of St Matthews is well constructed and the building is a rare example of a church built in the local bluestone.
|The site has had strong links with the Anglican community of the parish for many years.
|St Matthew's Church has strong associations with the life and work of James Marks, one of a family of prominent architects in Toowoomba. It is also an outcome of the work of the Reverend Benjamin Glennie, an important figure in history of Drayton/Toowoomba who laid the foundations for the development of the Church on the Darling Downs and with subsequent Rectors of the church, especially Rev. S. Atherton.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15613,"place_ref":600838,"name":"Royal Bull's Head Inn","alternate_name":"Bull's Head Hotel | Royal Bulls Head Inn","street_address":"Brisbane Street","suburb":"DRAYTON","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Royal Bull's Head Inn is situated on a slight rise addressing Brisbane Street. It is a two storey timber framed building with weatherboard and chamfer walls outside and brick nog dividing walls inside at ground floor level. There are ten rooms downstairs and five upstairs. The enclosed section of the verandah which contained the 1950s bathroom and kitchen is now used as a kitchen and tea room. The roof is clad by corrugated iron and pierced by four dormer windows which are a striking and well recognised feature of the of the building. The building is set on a 1970s concrete slab which replaced the original bed logs.
The early kitchen remains in a ruinous condition at the south west corner of the main inn building. A well, possibly from the hotel period, is close to the back wall of the inn.
Much of the original area of the grounds survives and contains garden and agricultural structures added by the Lynches and some early plantings. Parts of the stone pitched terracing from the hotel period remain. Picket and post and split-rail fences have been reconstructed. A new, free-standing toilet has been constructed in the paddock to one side of the inn.
The building contains Lynch family furniture and fittings. It has some original finishes such as wallpaper on calico scrim stretched between studs and joists upstairs. Most of the joinery is original and some is painted with decorative scenes. The pressed metal ceiling in the parlour survives.
","history":"The Royal Bull's Head Inn, a two storey timber and brick building, was constructed in 1859 as a major extension to William Horton's well-known 1847 hotel at Drayton.
In the early 1840s, squatters first began to take up pastoral runs on the Darling Downs, thus initiating European settlement of the area. In 1842, Thomas Alford set up a store near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes which led through Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps in the Range. The place was known to the Aborigines as chinkerry (water springs up) and to Europeans as 'The Springs'. In 1844 Alford gained a license to sell liquor and a cluster of buildings belonging to artisans and other businesses developed at 'The Springs' to serve the needs of pastoralists, bullock drivers and travellers.
In 1847, an inn of superior quality was built by William Horton at what was by then called 'Drayton'. Horton (sometimes referred to as Orton), was an ex-convict who had come to the Downs to work for Henry Stuart Russell of Cecil Plains, by whom he was highly regarded. Horton had run a hotel for George Thorn at Ipswich in the early 1840s and, with this experience, set out to make his new hotel a by-word for comfort and service on the Downs. He called it the 'Bull's Head' after 'Champion' a prize Durham bull on Cecil Plains station. The hotel soon became an important meeting place for squatters and also had a thriving bar trade. It offered lodging, a staging place for animals and was used for auctions, meetings and other social functions.
In 1848, Drayton was surveyed to allow builders to secure title to their property and Horton purchased lots 8 to 11 of Section 1, on which his inn was built, at the first land sale in 1850. Drayton continued to thrive as a service town, but faced persistent problems with its water supply which could not reliably keep pace with the number of people and animals who were using it. Wells were sunk, but did not cure the problem. Drayton's situation in a gully also made expansion something of a problem. In 1851 Horton purchased lots 15 and 16 on the hill behind his hotel, as a paddock, which were marked on the survey as unsuitable for building. At the same time, the area known as 'The Swamp', 6.5 kms away, which had been intended as suburban lots for Drayton, was developing quickly.
'The Swamp had a more reliable water supply than Drayton and soil well suited to farming. It was also closer to the new Toll Bar road over the Range which had a gradient better suited to dray traffic. By 1852 Horton was already arranging to build another hotel at 'The Swamp' and by 1855 was offering the 'Bull's Head' for sale with a three year lease in place. A rivalry between the two settlements had developed which would eventually result in Drayton's eclipse by Toowoomba, as 'The Swamp' was to be called.
In 1856 Horton sold his still unlicensed 'Seperation (sic) Hotel' at Toowoomba to Russell and James Taylor. He moved back to Drayton in 1858 and expanded the Bull's Head by a major extension constructed along Brisbane Street adjoining the original inn building. The new work was completed for the visit of Sir George Ferguson Bowen, Queensland's new governor, in March 1860 when he stayed at the inn following Drayton's public banquet there.
Improvements to the inn, now called the 'Royal' Bull's Head Hotel, continued with a installation of a billiard room with a first class Thurston table and new stables in 1861. In 1864, however, Horton died. He had been a genial and popular host and without his personal touch the hotel gradually faded along with Drayton during the 1860s. The hotel was leased to several different licensees over the next few years but none succeeded financially. In 1865, and again in 1867, the contents of the inn were sold by auction.
In 1875 Horton's estate was wound up and the older part of the inn and its outbuildings were sold for removal. At this time the inn complex consisted of the 1847 and 1859 inn buildings, a cottage, stables, butcher's shop, kitchen and billiard room. There was also a paddock for horses behind the hotel.
In 1879, the Royal Bull's Head finally ceased trading as a hotel and was purchased by Richard Lynch as a family home which he named 'The Terrace'. His family conducted a post office from part of the building between 1892 and 1952 and enclosed a section of the verandah as a bathroom and kitchen in the 1950s. When A.C. Lynch died in 1973 the former inn was purchased by the National Trust of Queensland. After extensive restoration and reconstruction it was opened to the public as a place museum based on its original usage as a wayside inn. Archaeological surveys have been carried out on the grounds and former kitchen, which may contain material from the 1847 building. Pathways, terracing and other early features have been revealed. Information gained from such surveys, including the cataloguing of quantities of bone fragments from food animals, are expected to expand understanding of the operation of such inn complexes from the early European settlement period.
","criteria":"The Royal Bull's Head Inn represents that early period of European settlement on the Darling Downs when Drayton was an important settlement located on a major trading route between the Downs and the coastal cities.
|As a pre-Separation inn it is a rare building in Queensland and its construction methods provide evidence of early and uncommon building methods. There are also rare intact finishes upstairs.
|As a pre-Separation inn it is a rare building in Queensland and its construction methods provide evidence of early and uncommon building methods. There are also rare intact finishes upstairs.
|The inn retains much of its grounds and the building, room layout and archaeology demonstrate its use as an inn complex.
|The building in its setting has aesthetic qualities which are recognised by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15614,"place_ref":600839,"name":"Harlaxton House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6 Munro Street","suburb":"HARLAXTON","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Harlaxton House (constructed 1869-70, extended by 1879 and by 1915) is a stone residence set in generous grounds with mature trees and remnant landscape features.[32] It is located in the north Toowoomba suburb of Harlaxton, to the east of the Harlaxton Quarry. The place occupies a 0.76ha site that slopes down towards Munro Street to the north and is bounded on its other sides by Prince Street (east) and residential properties (south and west).
\nThe residence stands near the centre of the site, with the terraced lawn to the north facilitating vistas overlooking the Toowoomba Range to the north and northeast. Within the largely cleared grounds are mature trees and remnants of an early carriage drive and entry stair.
\nFeatures of the place of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nResidence
\nThe residence is a lowset, single-storey stone house featuring a well-composed, largely symmetrical front elevation that looks out over a terraced slope to the Toowoomba Range at the north. The building is L-shaped in plan and is comprised of three main sections, constructed at different times. These are the:
\nThe original hip-roofed core is rectangular in plan, with its long elevations facing north and south. The eastern extension lengthens the building, continuing the hipped roofline and turning south to form a gable-roofed projection. The timber rear (south) wing has a separate hip roof and encloses the space at south side of the building’s L-shape.
\nThe west, north and east elevations are wrapped with a separately roofed verandah, which provides access to various interior rooms. The verandah is supported by slender timber posts featuring decorative cast iron brackets (brackets added c1885-90), and metal supporting rods (added by 1879) evenly positioned between the timber posts. To the north side of the verandah, a slight change in stone colour and a grey-coloured stepped mortar line (between the third and fourth doors from the east) indicates the division between the original core and eastern extension. The rear half of the western side of the verandah is enclosed with timber weatherboards and red brick.
\nThe interior of the original core is arranged around a central entrance hall, which runs north-south and is divided into two spaces. Doors along the western side of the entrance hall lead to two bedrooms, and doors to the east open into a large living room (Formal Room 1). Further to the east is another large living room (Formal Room 2). Formal rooms 1 and 2, the entrance hall and the northern bedroom open onto the front verandah.
\nThe eastern extension is orientated around a central hallway, which runs east-west, connecting the eastern verandah and Formal Room 2. It is divided in half by a partition. The central hallway accesses two northern living rooms (formerly a single room, divided c1930s into Formal Room 3, west; and Formal Room 4, east) at the front of the residence. These living rooms have doors to the front verandah. South of the hallway is two bedrooms, with a small southern lean-to, and the rear wing. There is an attic to the gabled roof space.
\nThe timber wing attached to the rear of the stone section of the house accommodates an eastern laundry and bedroom, central bathroom, western kitchen, and an externally-accessed toilet. Along the north end of the wing, a hall runs beside the former external wall of the original core of the residence (the stone has been painted in this section). The westernmost bedroom (within the lean-to) (added c1936-51) is not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nSome remnants of an early detached service (kitchen) structure to the south of the residence (east end), removed c1938-51), are visible in the ground surface.
\nFeatures of the residence of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Residence not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape / Setting and Views
\nThe residence is located on high, level terrain cut into the slope of a hill. It is surrounded by an open setting of spacious grounds, which allow views to be gained from the residence, across a northern terraced slope and out towards the Toowoomba Range. A concrete stair (formerly timber) runs down the slope to the north of the house and is aligned with its front entrance.
\nAt the base of the stair, a wide flat terrace indicates the early location of a carriage drive (formerly entered from what is now Munro Street and extending in front of the Residence). Part of the drive, on the Prince Street side, is no longer apparent due to the construction of a modern road. The steep slope below the former carriage drive is largely cleared (formerly planted with gardens).
\nFormerly a combination of open paddock space and orderly house gardens, the generous grounds retain some mature trees, including a tree in the southwest corner of the site, and a row of three trees east of the residence.
\nFeatures of the landscape / setting of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the landscape / setting not of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nHarlaxton House was constructed in 1869-70 for Francis Thomas Gregory and his family. Gregory played a role in Australia’s exploration history, particularly in Western Australia, and also held important positions as Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Maranoa, Warrego, and Darling Downs districts in the late nineteenth century, helping to facilitate pastural and agricultural settlement. The stately villa residence was constructed from locally quarried stone and situated high on the Main Range, close by to the railway line. Once surrounded by luxurious gardens, the finely appointed home was frequented by several Queensland governors. From 1891 Harlaxton House became the summer retreat for the Perry family, successful Brisbane ironmongering and retail family. In 1916 the Cook family purchased the property and resided at Harlaxton House until the early 1980s.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters first occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. Near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps through the Main Range, the small settlement of Drayton (originally known as ‘The Springs') evolved from 1842 as a stopping place servicing pastoralists and travellers. From the late 1840s, the Drayton Swamp Agricultural Area (‘The Swamp'), six kilometres to the north-east, began to be considered a more desirable location for settlement. Better land for market gardening, improved water supply, the support of squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, a better route to Brisbane (The Toll Road), were all advantages over Drayton.[1]
\nThe name ‘Toowoomba' had gradually taken over from ‘The Swamp' by 1857 and the settlement continued to expand. At the time of its incorporation into a municipality in November 1860, Toowoomba was on the way to supplanting Drayton as the principal service centre for the upper Darling Downs. Prior to 1859, Toowoomba's population was around 1500. Five years later this figure had doubled. The rapid economic and social development of Toowoomba in the 1860s was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements. In July 1865 the first section of railway line in Queensland was opened from Ipswich and by April 1867 the line reached Toowoomba, securing the town's future development and making it the hub for the Southern and Western railways.[2]
\nDuring the 1870s Toowoomba consolidated its status as the main urban centre of the Darling Downs. The economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing outlets, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were centred on the town. Toowoomba's progress was reflected in improvements to the physical environment. Important capital works were commenced or completed including the draining of the swamps, improved water supply, gasworks for lighting, extensive tree plantings and the initial development of Queen's Park.[3]
\nThe district in which Harlaxton House was built was initially called Irishtown, as Irish navvies working on the construction of the Main Range railway lived there. In 1862 Martin Meldon purchased 130 acres (53ha) of land in the area, and in 1869 Francis Thomas Gregory acquired the northern portion of this property.[4] The newly bought land was in an ideal position, on the summit of the Main Range with extensive views to the north and situated only a few miles from the centre of Toowoomba. With the railway line from Ipswich to Toowoomba having been opened in 1867, the line passed only a short distance from the property.[5]
\nFrancis Thomas Gregory (Frank Gregory) played a significant role in European exploration and surveying in Australia. He arrived in Western Australia from England in 1829 with several members of his family, including his older brother, Augustus Charles Gregory, who also played a significant role in Australia’s, and more specifically, Queensland’s exploration and surveying history. By the mid-1840s Frank Gregory was working as a surveyor with the Western Australian Survey Department with his brother Augustus Gregory, and in 1847 was appointed as staff surveyor. In this position he headed several important expeditions to explore the northern regions of Western Australia and made the first European discovery of several rivers and large tracts of possible pastural and agricultural land. In 1862 he moved to Queensland, where his brother, Augustus Gregory, had preceded him. In the same year he was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Maranoa and Warrego regions, followed by the Darling Downs. Also in 1862, he was awarded the prestigious gold medal by the Royal Geographical Society for his exploration and survey work. He remained in the role of Commissioner of Crown Lands until his retirement in 1872. Two years later he became a member of the Queensland Government’s Legislative Council, and under the McIlwraith government was appointed Postmaster-General for a short time.[6]
\nHarlaxton House was constructed between 1869 and 1870 for Frank Gregory and his family. Prior to this, in 1864 he had married Marion Hume, sister of Walter Hume and sister-in-law of Katie Hume (Walter’s wife). In a letter written by Katie Hume in early 1870, the construction of Gregory’s house was described:
\nIt is a really lovely situation! At the top of a sort of gorge, where the railway climbs up the Range. The ground falls away gently in front of the house for about 100 yards then drops away abruptly … the house … is substantially built of rough red stone found close by … They talk of adding to the house in the future … they expect to move into their new home in a few weeks.[7]
\nThe Gregory’s were residing in the house by early 1871, as their fifth son was born at Harlaxton House in January 1871.[8] The house was constructed using locally quarried stone. It was constructed by prominent Toowoomba builder, Richard Godsall, who was also attributed with building other buildings in Toowoomba including Weetwood (QHR 600870), Wesley Uniting Church (QHR 601695), and St James Church (QHR 601298), and the Toowoomba Railway Station (QHR 600872).[9]
\nFrom the 1860s ‘villa estates', located on the periphery of larger urban settlements in then semi-rural settings - on elevated locations such as along ridgelines - became an increasingly popular type of dwelling for Queensland's more affluent residents. This demographic included higher-ranking public servants, professionals and successful business people. The flight to residential villa estates by the well-to-do was a development pattern that occurred internationally during the Victorian era. Key elements of villa estates included large and comfortable houses, associated outbuildings such as servant's' quarters and stabling and expansive garden settings.
\nFrank Gregory was close friends with the owner of Westbrook Homestead (QHR 600636), William Beit. In 1872 Beit died on returning from an overseas journey. His widow, Sarah Beit, heavily pregnant, moved into Harlaxton House following this tragedy, and in November gave birth to a son. As one of William Beit’s trustees, Gregory and his family moved to Westbrook Homestead to run the property, where Marion Gregory gave birth to another son that year.[10]
\nSarah Beit resided at Harlaxton for several years; the house was described in a Darling Downs newspaper in 1874:
\nLeaving Toowoomba by the Highfields road, the first object that particularly drew my attention was Harlaxton, a fine stone building, the property of the Hon FT Gregory, MLC, and at present in the occupation of Mrs Beit. This residence commands a view of perhaps some of the wildest mountain scenery in the colonies, situated as it is on one of the summits of the Main Range.[11]
\nFollowing the sale of Westbrook Station in the mid-1870s, Sarah Beit had a fine stone residence constructed on a small portion of the Westbrook Station land, called Westbrook Hall (no longer extant). Subsequently, the Gregory family moved back to Harlaxton House.[12]
\nBy 1879 extensions to the eastern end of the house had been made, as evidenced in historic photographs. The additions included a lounge room, two bedrooms, a hallway and another chimney. A surrounding fence, with timber gates at the western side of the house had been erected by this time. By 1886, the western verandah had also been extended and an extensive garden had been established at the front.[13] Additionally in the late 1870s, a railway platform was built at Harlaxton at the summit of the range, close by to Harlaxton House.[14]
\nIn 1883, Harlaxton House was advertised for lease for twelve months by Gregory, describing the property as:
\nThis desirable family residence is situated on the summit of the Range, close to Toowoomba. It contains 10 rooms, 2 bathrooms, storeroom, pantry, kitchen, and 2 servants’ rooms, laundry, cottage for coachman and groom, extensive stabling, loose boxes, and coach houses, large garden, lucerne paddock and grass paddocks, and every other convenience. Every train to and from Brisbane will pick up or set down passengers at the gate.[15]
\nIt is unclear whether the home was leased at this time, but by 1884 the Gregory family were once again residing at the property. In the first of several vice-regal visits to Harlaxton House, in January 1884, Sir Anthony Musgrave, Governor of Queensland between 1883 and 1888, and his wife, Lady Musgrave, stayed with the Gregory family at Harlaxton House, ‘Sir Anthony Musgrave and suite will arrive at Harlaxton about four o’clock this afternoon by special train, and will be the guests of the Hon FT Gregory until Saturday next’.[16]
\nFrank Gregory died at Harlaxton House in October 1888, aged 68, and at the time was remembered as ‘one of the old pioneers to whom the colony owes so much’.[17] The property was subsequently put up for sale by the family and sold in 1891. Mrs Gregory and her youngest son moved to England.[18]
\nHarlaxton House was purchased by successful Brisbane retail business owner, William Perry, of Perry Brothers’ Imports. The Perry family were well known in Brisbane as ironmongers since 1860, and a building, Perry House (QHR 600183), at the corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets in Brisbane, still bears the family name. The wealthy Perry family resided at ‘Folkstone’, a large residence on the heights of Bowen Hills, Brisbane (now the site of Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church (QHR 601585)).[19] William Perry was also a member of the Queensland Legislative Council. In June 1891, only a few months after purchasing Harlaxton House as the family’s summer residence, William Perry died, ‘the name of Mr Perry has been honourably associated with the commercial life of the city for fully 30 years, and he has always been regarded as one of the most reputable, worthy, and wealthy citizens of Brisbane’.[20] His sons continued to run the business after his death.
\nFrom mid-1891 Mrs W Perry was residing at Harlaxton House which became the family’s mountain retreat, with Folkstone continuing to be the main family home in Brisbane. In the summer of 1899-1900, the property was leased to Sir Samuel Griffith, who at the time was Lieutenant Governor of Queensland. Griffith was an important figure in Queensland’s political and legal history, having been Premier for two terms, 1883-1888 and 1890-1893, and appointed Chief Justice of Queensland between 1893 and 1903, followed by Chief Justice of Australia between 1903 and 1919.[21] Harlaxton House was leased to Sir Griffith and his wife, Lady Griffith, for three months from November 1899, with several Executive Council meetings being held there while he was in residence.[22]
\nProsperous Darling Downs landowners, business-owners and professionals established residences in Toowoomba; and from the 1880s, the town acted as a summer resort for those seeking a cooler climate, including Queensland Governors. Toowoomba was first advocated as a location for a summer residence for the Queensland governor in 1877, because of its mild summer climate. Governor Sir Arthur Kennedy leased Lindenberg’s Freemasons Hotel in 1877 and from late-1878 leased ‘Fernside’ (QHR 600843) each summer until 1883. Almost immediately, local properties offered for sale were promoted for their proximity to the governor’s residence. Lord Lamington leased Westbrook Hall from 1896-99. In the interwar years, Sir Matthew Nathan leased Glen Alpine (QHR 600842) for the summer of 1921-22. The summer Vice-Regal residences in Toowoomba served to enshrine the town as a fashionable resort for the wealthier classes, and places like Harlaxton House were amongst those elite houses to have served that purpose.[23]
\nIn early December 1900, Lord and Lady Lamington leased Harlaxton House for the summer months. Lord Lamington served as Governor of Queensland from 1896 to the end of 1901.[24] It was reported at the time that ‘Harlaxton, Mrs Perry’s house at Toowoomba, has been taken this midsummer for the vice-regal party. The Governor and Lady Lamington and family will probably leave Government House for their sojourn at Toowoomba at the end of the week’.[25]
\nIn 1911 Mrs Perry died and the property was subsequently subdivided into smaller lots. In 1912 the Trustees Quarterly Review reported that:
\nA number of important property sales have taken place in Toowoomba during the last few months. One very important one was the subdivision of the late Hon W Perry’s Harlaxton Estate, comprising as are of 150 acres within two miles of the city. Under instructions from Queensland Trustees Limited, this property was subdivided into allotments ranging from a quarter to one acre, and at the two auction sales held, practically the whole of the property was disposed of … Harlaxton was however not sold and still remains open to the purchaser.[26]
\nThe majority of the original estate was sold to various owners over the next few years. In 1916 George and Dorothea Cook purchased Harlaxton House which remained on three and a half acres of land.[27] George Cook was a successful horse dealer. In the 1920s the Cooks had several subdivisions of the property made, dividing the property into eight separate lots, with the largest lot retaining the main house and auxiliary buildings. The other seven smaller lots were located to the south of the main house. These lots, with frontage to Gregory Street, remained vacant, however, until the 1960s and 1970s.[28] By 1968, two more subdivisions were made to the property at the southeast side with frontage to Prince Street.
\nIn 1946 an article was written about the history of the area in the Downlands Magazine and featured Harlaxton House. The article describes the house’s interior features, including the intact and original wallpapers, ‘the fittings of the house interior are of cedar. The original cedar doors are still in use – the walls are papered with the beautifully designed paper from Gregory’s day – as fresh and as lustrous as the day it was put on’. The numerous chimney mantle pieces were also made from cedar.[29]
\nVarious auxiliary structures were built on the property such as stables and a coach house in the nineteenth century, however, all nineteenth-century auxiliary structures have been removed. Two timber sheds remain on the property. The shed to the west is likely to have been constructed between 1936 and 1951, according to photographic evidence. The shed to the east was built ca.1951-55.[30]
\nIn 1965 the Women’s Historical Society of Queensland placed a plaque on the front of Harlaxton House to recognise the importance of the house to Queensland’s history. Dorothea Cook lived in the house until her death in 1982. In the following years the property remained vacant for several years, and in 1995 it was bought as a commercial investment by Sanbeg Pty Ltd., and remained vacant.[31]
\nIn 2009 the front verandah was repaired and reconstructed (stabilisation works), including the removal of the front section of the western verandah enclosure and installation of a new timber and wire handrail in its place. Timber floorboards were also replaced. Excavation under the verandah and the replacement of verandah stumps, bearers and joists was also undertaken at this time.
\n
","criteria":"
Harlaxton House (1869-70), first built for Francis Thomas Gregory, is an early, representative example of a substantial villa residence in Toowoomba. It is important in demonstrating the development of Toowoomba as a major regional centre of southern Queensland, where affluent members of society built substantial homes reflecting their wealth and status.
\nAs one of many houses used as the summer residence for governors of Queensland in the late-19th and early-20th century, Harlaxton House is important in demonstrating the pattern of summer Vice-Regal retreats in Toowoomba, dating from 1877.
|Harlaxton House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late-19th century villa residence in Queensland. Through its elevated siting in generous grounds with mature trees and vistas over the Toowoomba Range, formal plan layout, and high-quality interior aesthetic treatment (including the use of clear-finished timbers such as cedar, and decorative wallpaper), it reflects the wealth and status of the early owners, and the prosperity of Toowoomba, a major regional centre in colonial Queensland.
\nDeliberately sited in an elevated location overlooking the Toowoomba Range, the residence retains its formal plan including entrance hall, generously sized bedrooms and living (formal) rooms, with an early eastern extension (by 1879) and remnants of the original rear kitchen wing. The high-quality workmanship and materials used in its construction are evident in its stone walls, timber joinery and framing, and decorative finishes of cast-iron and cedar timber. Wide timber verandahs surrounding the stone core are accessed by French doors and provide a generous space for entertaining and enjoying the surrounding views. The eastern extension (by 1879) and the rear (south) timber wing (by 1915) demonstrate the evolving character of villa residences, many of which were extended for additional accommodation, from the late 19th to early 20th century.
|Harlaxton House has aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes, expressed through its well composed design that features high-quality materials, details and finishes, both externally and internally. Encircled by verandahs on three sides, the balanced form of the stately stone and timber residence is complemented by its austere exterior details and the symmetry of its front (north) elevation. The residence’s elevated siting, set back from the street and surrounded by spacious grounds, increases its prominence within its setting and allows views out over the grounds towards the Toowoomba Range to the north and northeast.
\nHighly intact, Harlaxton House’s fine architectural quality, arrangement of generous and refined formal and informal spaces, early finishes (such as stone, cedar timber joinery and mantlepieces, and original patterned wallpaper), and attractive setting with elevated vistas overlooking the Toowoomba Range, evoke a sense of an earlier, gracious lifestyle.
|Harlaxton House has a special association with the life of Francis Thomas Gregory, as his family home from 1870 to 1888. Gregory was a notable Australian explorer, surveyor, Commissioner of Crown Lands, and Member of the Queensland Legislative Council, who played a significant role in the history of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, and who is an important figure in Queensland’s history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15615,"place_ref":600840,"name":"Gabbinbar","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"344-376 Ramsay Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Located in the southern Toowoomba suburb of Middle Ridge, Gabbinbar is a large villa residence set in picturesque grounds with mature trees, landscaping features and outbuildings. It occupies an L-shaped, 5.7ha property bounded by Ramsey Street to the west and Nelson Street to the south. Residential development lies to the north and east, while land to the south and west of the bounding streets is largely bushland.
\nSignificant features of the property include:
\n· A gatehouse (c1877)
\n· A tree-lined entrance drive (established c1875)
\n· Gabbinbar house (established 1866, extended 1877 and 1920s)
\n· Mature trees and remnants of early gardens (established 1875)
\n· A bowling green/croquet lawn (established 1878) and tennis court (pre-1894)
\n· Remnant fences, earthworks, ruined structures and other early grounds features
\nThe house stands near the centre of the site and occupies a high point in the terrain, which slopes gently away to the north and east, and steeply to the southeast and south. The southern and western areas of the grounds are largely bushland, while the northeast area contains the gardens. The property is accessed via a formal driveway entrance at the northwest corner of the site and a secondary service driveway further south along Ramsay Street. Service areas including parking, sheds and staff facilities are located on the southern and western sides of the house.
\nThe grounds also contain three buildings that have been relocated to the site – a gable-roofed timber building known as the Billiards Room or School House, located west of the house (relocated here c1932); a timber barn and stables building, in the northeast corner of the grounds (relocated here from the Toowoomba property Wyallah in the mid-1970s); and a timber cottage, south of the house (relocated here from Jennings Street, Toowoomba, in 1992). These buildings make an important contribution to the aesthetics of the grounds.
\nGatehouse (c1877 with additions)
\nThe gatehouse stands at the entry to Gabbinbar from Ramsay Street in the northwest corner of the site. It is a lowset single-storey timber building with corrugated metal roof set within an area bounded by the entrance drive to the north and east, and to the west by an early timber fence and hedge that runs along Ramsay Street. The early four-room cottage, later extended to the west has an L-shaped verandah truncated to address Ramsay Street and the entrance drive and is distinguished by a corner gable with diagonal boarding.
\nThe house has a hipped roof with battened eaves, a simply detailed brick chimney and a curved verandah roof supported on stop-chamfered timber posts and beams decorated with brackets (capitals and astragals have been removed). There is no balustrade and the timber verandah floor is unpainted. At the rear, on the southern side of the house, there is a small lean-to addition with a low-pitch skillion roof.
\nThe building is clad in weatherboards with mitred external corners and its timber joinery comprises single-hung sash windows of various sizes and panelled doors. The north elevation of the original cottage features an entry door at its centre, flanked by windows either side. Set back from the north elevation, the western addition is accessed via a door from the verandah and a bay window that faces Ramsay Street is finished with fine timber glazing bars. The building is supported on timber stumps, concealed at the front by dark painted timber battens. The stonework base to the fireplace is also intact.
\nInternally, the layout comprises four rooms in the original cottage, a large room in the western addition (fitted out as a kitchen in 2016), and a double-sided brick fireplace between the two sections. The ceilings and walls of the original cottage are lined with beaded boards, with wall linings fixed vertically on internal partitions and horizontally on external walls. The fireplace in this section has an arched opening and features a decorative frontispiece of moulded timber. The western addition has beaded boards to the ceiling and eastern walls, and vertical, V-jointed, tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards to other walls. Its painted brick fireplace is simply detailed with a shallow arch on a metal lintel and a tiled hearth. Early door and window hardware is retained, and the floors throughout are lined with wide timber boards. Internal doors have been removed. Non-significant elements include the kitchen floor lining, and modern lighting and curtain fixtures.
\nThe gatehouse setting is defined by mature plantings that include a large Cypress (Cupressus sp.) at the front, a large Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia) to the southeast, hedging and mature trees along Ramsay Street to the west, and a clearing to the south, defined by a row of trees along the southern edge. More recent landscaping of ferns, shrubs and low sculpted hedges to the front and sides is not of heritage significance. A modern brick paved pathway provides access from the entrance gates to the front verandah.
\nEntrance drive (established c1875)
\nThe main access to the property is via a pair of reproduction timber gates at the northwest corner of the property. A dense planting of mature Bamboo stands behind the gates on the northern side. The formal entrance drive skirts around the gatehouse and heads south, before curving around to the southeast to reveal the principal view of Gabbinbar house. The drive culminates in a turning circle in front of the northern side of the house. The entrance drive has a recent gravel surface and is densely lined with both recent and mature plantings. The most significant plantings are tall, mature trees of a variety of species including Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii), Cypresses (Cupressus sp.); Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Figs (including Moreton Bay Figs, Ficus macrophylla), and Silky Oaks (Grevillea robusta).
\nGabbinbar house (established 1866)
\nGabbinbar house is U-shaped in plan and orientated to face northeast. Lowset on stumps, it is largely timber-framed and -clad, with the exception of the brick kitchen wing, and has a variety of roof forms, all clad in painted corrugated metal sheeting. Gabbinbar house comprises four main sections constructed at different times. These are:
\n· An 1866 kitchen wing in the southwest corner
\n· The main 1877 house along the northern side
\n· A ballroom (constructed by the 1890s) on the southern side of the east end of the house
\n· A 1920s addition on the southern side of the ballroom
\nEnclosing the centre of the U-shaped plan and adjacent former verandah spaces is a c2000 glazed structure forming a function room known as the Conservatory. This structure is not of heritage significance, however it is physically joined to early, significant elements of the house.
\nKitchen wing (1866)
\nThe kitchen wing is rectangular in plan, with a brick core and chimney and a broken-back hipped roof. The north and south verandahs are partially enclosed and the eastern verandah has been demolished for the construction of the Conservatory. The walls of the core are load-bearing red brick laid in Monk bond, with arched lintels over original door and window openings.
\nThe wall dividing the core into two rooms has former fireplaces on each side. The larger eastern room (used as a kitchen in 2016) has a tall fireplace with exposed brick surrounds, while the western room (used as an office in 2016) has a brick oven with a cast iron door above a smaller fireplace, and a brick-enclosed laundry tub in the northeast corner. Walls are painted brick and ceilings have been re-lined in flat sheeting.
\nThe northern verandah enclosure (used as a bar in 2016) has a large opening in the eastern wall for a counter. The walls and raked ceiling are lined with modern V-jointed (VJ) tongue and groove (T&G) boards, except for the northern wall which is clad in wide timber chamferboards.
\nA store room and food preparation room occupy the enclosed southern verandah, which has modern interior linings. Externally, these rooms have been re-clad in modern chamferboards.
\nEarly joinery (much of which has been relocated) includes: low-waisted, part-glazed timber doors with early hardware; low-waisted panelled timber doors with early hardware; six-light, double-hung windows; timber vertical board doors, and two sets of double-hung, leadlight windows.
\nNon-significant elements include: timber posts and decorative elements to the verandah; kitchen, office and bar fitouts; modern doors; modern wall and ceiling linings; modern floor linings including tiles and linoleum; and a skylight in the kitchen roof.
\nMain house (1877)
\nThe 1877 house is a long, symmetrically arranged building featuring prominent gables at either end of the main, northeast-facing elevation. Wrapping around three sides are stepped, skillion-roofed verandahs, with a gable over the wide, centrally-located, concrete entrance steps. External walls are clad in wide timber chamferboards. Two brick chimneys ornamented with bands of concrete render project from the ridgeline. Both are topped by a pair of terracotta chimney pots. The eaves of the main roof feature paired, ornamental timber brackets. The two main gables are detailed with boarded gable panels, large braced finials and bargeboards with a curvilinear pattern. The small gable over the entrance is infilled with diagonal timber boards and topped with a finial.
\nThe verandahs have a timber floor; paired timber posts ornamented with stop-chamfered edges and cornices; simple valances between posts, ornamented with circle cut-outs; and raked ceilings lined with wide, beaded timber boards. Opening onto the verandahs from each room are low-waisted, part-glazed French doors with rectangular, two-light fanlights. French doors along the northern elevation and one in the western wall are protected by louvred timber shutters. The main entrance has double, low-waisted, panelled doors with central door knobs, surrounded by a fanlight and part-glazed side panels.
\nAn early verandah enclosure survives on the western verandah, featuring double-hung, multi-pane leadlight windows and accessed by a part-glazed, low-waisted door fitted with matching leadlight panes. Identical leadlight windows from a similar early verandah enclosure (recently demolished) on the eastern verandah have been relocated to the kitchen wing.
\nThe layout of the 1877 house comprises a central entrance hall with two large rooms on each side, linked by a rear passageway. All rooms have timber floors; stained timber door architraves and wide skirtings; plastered walls (some covered with modern wallpaper); and VJ board-lined ceilings, with a variety of ceiling roses and timber cornices. Each of the four main rooms has a fireplace with early bell-pull levers attached to the sides.
\nBeneath the entrance hall is an excavated area, measuring approximately 1.5m square and 1m deep, formerly used as a wine cellar (inaccessible from the house interior). The doorway between the entrance hall and passageway features a semi-circular archway with capitals.
\nThe room on the western side of the entrance hall (known as the Drawing Room) features a marble mantelpiece and arched, cast iron firebox. A narrow picture rail runs around the room.
\nThe far western room (known as the Dining Room) has a mantelpiece of carved black stone and a cast iron firebox. This room also has picture rails and some walls have timber belt rails.
\nBoth the room on the eastern side of the entrance hall (known as the Library) and the far eastern room (formerly a bedroom, used for storage in 2016) have replacement timber mantelpieces.
\nInternal doors are single, stained timber, panelled doors with timber fretwork fanlights and early door hardware. The passageway doors to the two western rooms feature hand painted flowers on the rear face, reportedly painted by a daughter of one of the past owners. The door from the passageway to the rear of the house has side panels and a fanlight, similar to that of the main entrance but with a single leaf door. A door at the eastern end of the southern wall of the passageway leads to the ballroom.
\nRooms within the enclosed western verandah have raked ceilings and a variety of internal linings, including wide timber chamferboards to former verandah walls and wide beaded boards to one section of ceiling. A small enclosure on the eastern verandah (containing a toilet) is a modern addition and not of heritage significance.
\nBallroom (constructed by 1890s)
\nThe ballroom comprises a single long, rectangular room with its eastern wall aligned with the 1877 verandah. It is clad externally in wide chamferboards and has a hipped roof. Paired timber brackets ornament the eaves, and a skillion-roofed hood shelters two tall windows symmetrically placed in the eastern wall. These timber-framed, vertically-sliding windows feature semi-circular tops and borders of patterned and coloured glass.
\nInternally, the room has wide timber skirtings, plastered walls, and a plaster ceiling (date unknown) with a decorative border, cornice and round ceiling roses. In the southern wall, a panelled timber door with glazed fanlight and early door hardware leads to the 1920s addition. A similar door in the north wall leads to the passageway of the 1877 house.
\nNon-significant features include the double doors and glazing to the western wall; and pilasters, belt rails, picture rails and fixed frames attached to the walls.
\n1920s addition
\nThe 1920s addition comprises three former bedrooms linked by a passageway along the northern side. It is clad in timber weatherboards with a hipped roof and has a verandah with a stepped skillion roof along the southern side. Partly sitting on bare rock, excavated areas on the south and east sides of 1920s addition are evidence of the location of the original 1866 house.
\nThe verandah has a timber floor; timber verandah posts with stop-chamfered edges and cornice decoration; and an unlined raked ceiling. The verandah wall is clad in timber chamferboards. Opening to the verandah are three sets of part-glazed, low-waisted French doors with rectangular fanlights and early door hardware. A single, part-glazed, low-waited timber door at the western end of the verandah leads to the conservatory. Windows in a wing wall at the east end of the verandah are modern replacements.
\nThe eastern elevation is characterised by a rectangular bay window with timber-framed double-hung windows, sheltered by a hip-roofed hood that is supported by curved timber brackets. In an alcove to the north of the bay window is an entrance door leading to the passageway. Surrounded by glazing and a rectangular fanlight, all fitted with patterned glass, the single door is a low-waisted, panelled timber door with early hardware.
\nA decorative timber archway forms the entrance to the passageway from the conservatory. The passageway has a high, flat ceiling, and both walls and ceiling are lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. A timber picture rail aligns with the top of the door openings. Three doors open off the southern side of the passageway, all panelled timber doors with rectangular fanlights and early door hardware, including reeded timber handles.
\nThe eastern and western rooms both retain wall and ceiling linings of flat sheeting with cover strips and picture rails. The western room has been converted into ‘ladies toilets’ and has two toilet cubicles along the northern wall. Early features retained in this room include the timber-framed, double-hung window in the western wall, and lambs tongue-profile skirtings. The eastern room retains built-in timber seats on each side of the bay window.
\nThe centre room has been divided into two rooms –‘men’s toilets’ accessed from the passageway, and an ensuite bathroom and toilet accessed from the east room. The added partitions and internal fitout of these rooms are not of heritage significance. The ensuite door is a panelled timber door with fanlight, similar to the passageway doors.
\nConservatory (c2000)
\nThe conservatory is a large room with a hipped, glazed roof and enclosed by glazed walls at the southern end. The space is edged by the kitchen wing to the west, the main house to the north, and the ballroom and 1920s addition to the east. The verandahs which previously edged this space have been demolished and replaced by a raised, flat ceiling and rows of timber verandah posts. All structures relating to the conservatory beyond the building line of the surrounding house are not of heritage significance.
\nVisible from within the conservatory is a surviving early feature mounted on the southern wall of the 1877 house - a series of brass bells and cords, formerly part of the internal bell system. Traces of the location of former verandah walls are also visible on the exposed brickwork of the eastern kitchen wing wall.
\nNorthern gardens
\nThe gardens to the north and east of the house, between the entrance drive and the eastern boundary, comprise lawn areas, pathways and a wide variety of trees and plantings, some of which are very mature. Of particular note are two very large trees: a Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) to the north of the entrance drive turning circle; and a Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) north of the east end of the house. Other mature tree and plant species represented include a variety of Pines (including Hoop, Bunya, Brown (Podocarpus elatus) and Norfolk (Araucaria heterophylla) species), Cypresses (Cupressus sp.); Eucalypts; Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), a Magnolia tree (Magnolia, sp.), Palms (Arecaceae, sp.) and Bougainvilleas (Bougainvillea, sp.). Stumps of three large Camphor Laurel trees are located in the northeast corner of the grounds, on the south side of the barn and stables building.
\nA set of old timber gates (date unknown) stands to the north of the house, comprising thick, square posts supporting wide, battened gates. A second set of timber gate or fence posts stand to the northwest, close to the entrance drive. Near the northern boundary is a timber-framed, hip-roofed gazebo (date unknown) with glazed walls. In 2016, the blades from a former windmill are propped against a tree in the northeast corner of the gardens.
\nA lawn on west side of house contains a garden bed in the centre, which was the former location of a very mature fig tree (removed c2011).
\nNon-significant elements of the northern gardens include: low concrete walls forming the edges of pathways and the driveway turning circle; a fountain in the centre of the driveway turning circle; a large, recently-constructed, open-sided shelter shed known as the Pavilion; modern gravel and concrete pathways; modern garden ornaments, including an oversized chessboard; and recent garden beds, plantings and hedges.
\nEastern grounds, including tennis court (pre-1894) and bowling green/croquet lawn (1878)
\nNortheast of the house and close to the eastern boundary is a tennis court, established prior to 1894. The court has been resurfaced. The southern end is cut into the terrain and the sloping banks are planted with vegetation. An early gate is located near the southwest corner of the court. Non-significant elements include modern fencing around the court, the tennis net, and an adjacent timber shelter shed (constructed c2000).
\nOn the east side of the house is a built-up rectangular lawn area edged by hedges. Formerly used as a bowling green and croquet lawn (established 1878), it is a very early feature of the grounds. A set of stone steps ascends the eastern sloping bank, in line with an entrance to the 1920s section of the house.
\nOther features of the eastern grounds include: traces of a former carriageway in the terrain, which extended from the turning circle in front of the house, around the bowling green, and continued in a southwest direction; mature trees; and remnants of fencing.
\nSouthern grounds
\nExtending from the house to the southeast corner of the grounds is a steeply sloping lawn area, interspersed with a few large trees. A single Bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) stands on the eastern boundary. To the south of the house are a large clump of mature bamboo and a line of timber posts that are likely remnants of a former fence line.
\nFurther to the south the house, within an area largely overgrown by bush and scrub, are remnants of former outbuildings. These include segments of a collapsed, timber-framed structure with a corrugated metal-clad roof; sections of a timber fence and gate; sheets of metal; and what appears to be a concrete drinking trough. To the southwest of these, is a large pile of white-painted, weathered timber pieces. Two corrugated metal, cylindrical water tanks, lowset on timber and stone stumps, are located to the north of this pile, in a separate section of dense vegetation.
\nAn old timber gate remains in the fence line of the southern boundary.
\nWestern grounds
\nSouthwest and west of the house are driveways (including two driveways exiting to Ramsay Street), car park areas, pathways, modern sheds, a septic tank, and modern plantings including hedges. None of these features are of heritage significance.
\nViews
\nSignificant views of Gabbinbar house are obtained from the entrance drive and northern gardens, and are enhanced by its setting of mature trees, lawns and gardens. Numerous picturesque vantage points are encountered when walking through the gardens. The 1870s entrance drive also provides a deliberately dramatic arrival point, as the curve at the southern end of the driveway provides a long view, past the screening vegetation, to an oblique view of the house. Views of the entrance gates and gatehouse from Ramsay Street are also an important part of the arrival sequence and hint at the grandeur of the house itself.
\nThe view corridor from the house and grounds towards the east and southeast was an important influence on the layout of the property, as it was in this direction that views of the wider landscape of the Range and valleys below were obtained. In 2016 these views have been obscured by trees and neighbouring residential development.
","history":"Gabbinbar house is a substantial timber residence built in stages from 1866 to the 1920s, including a large addition in 1877 by architect Willoughby Powell, set within landscaped grounds. The property was established by the Reverend Doctor William Lambie Nelson, a foundation member of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland, who also had grazing interests. It was also occupied by the Rev Dr Nelson’s son, Sir Hugh Muir Nelson, who managed his father’s grazing properties as well as his own near Dalby, and later became Premier and Lieutenant Governor of Queensland. Gabbinbar is symbolic of the success of the early Queensland pastoralists who established their grazing properties, often served in local, colonial and state governments, and built fine homes in major towns such as Toowoomba. From 1877, various Queensland governors leased houses in Toowoomba during summer, including Gabbinbar from 1906 to 1909. Toowoomba was enshrined as a fashionable summer resort for the wealthier classes, with Gabbinbar one of four surviving Toowoomba houses utilised as Vice-Regal summer residences.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. The small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842, but was soon surpassed by a more desirable location six kilometres to the northeast, known as Toowoomba from the 1850s. Better suited to market gardening with an improved water supply and the support of squatters and land speculators, Toowoomba was incorporated as a municipality in 1860. Its rapid economic and social development was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements, including churches.[1]
\nThe first Presbyterian Church, St Stephen’s, was built in 1855 with the first service delivered by Rev Dr William Lambie Nelson (1807-1887).[2] Rev Dr Nelson had served as acting Presbyterian Minister at St Stephen’s Edinburgh and Inveresk in Scotland, before immigrating to Australia. He served as the minister for the district of Ipswich from 1853 to 1860, extending his pastoral visitations to Toowoomba and Drayton. He was a member of the original Body Corporate of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland in 1876. Rev Dr Nelson also had a number of grazing properties, which were managed by his son Hugh Muir Nelson (1833-1906).[3]
\nIn 1864 a number of small farms on the southern outskirts of Toowoomba were surveyed and offered for sale. Rev Dr Nelson acquired a 42 acre (17ha) farm (Portion 505) and employed William Kirk Cumming to build a small timber house with a detached brick kitchen there, completed in 1866.[4] The property was named ‘Gabbinbar’, which has been variously reported to mean ‘big view’[5] or ‘great joy’[6] in the local Aboriginal language, as the house is situated at the highest point of the Toowoomba range.[7]
\nIn 1874, Rev Dr Nelson purchased 84 acres (34ha) to the west of Gabbinbar (Portions 503 and 504) which he immediately subdivided and sold.[8]
\nIn January 1876, Rev Dr Nelson commissioned architect Willoughby Powell to design a substantial addition to the house.[9] Powell (c1848-1920) trained as an architect in England before immigrating to Queensland in 1872. He worked for Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, joining the Queensland Public Works Department in 1874. Powell won a competition for the design of the Toowoomba Grammar School (1875) [QHR 600850]. He then established his architecture office in Toowoomba in 1875, to supervise the project. Powell claimed to have erected all the principal buildings in Toowoomba and Dalby between 1875 and 1877. Gabbinbar was the first of seven private residences he designed in the Toowoomba district.[10] Of those identified, only Clifford House [QHR600857] and Gabbinbar remain. Powell later worked in Brisbane and Maryborough, designing many fine buildings throughout Queensland, including Baddow House in Maryborough [QHR 600690], Warwick Town Hall [QHR 600961] and Toowoomba City Hall [QHR 600865].[11]
\nThe Gabbinbar addition designed by Powell and built by Richard Godsall was completed in January 1877. It comprised a long, north-facing range that linked the original house and kitchen wing buildings. Symmetrically arranged and ornamented with decorative timberwork, the addition contained four generously-sized rooms and a central entrance hall, with 9 foot (3m) wide verandahs with French lights and Venetian shutters to each room. A cellar was constructed beneath the addition, and new outbuildings built to the rear (south) of the house.[12]
\nFrom the 1870s Gabbinbar’s gardens were laid out and maintained by professional gardeners. These gardeners were responsible for establishing features such as a tree-lined entrance drive and orchards. Rev Dr Nelson employed gardener John Wenzel at Gabbinbar from late-1875,[13] who had extensive experience in Brisbane.[14] Wenzel was later replaced by W Davidson,[15] who remained at Gabbinbar until at least 1879.[16]
\nIn February 1876 ownership of Gabbinbar was transferred to Nelson’s son Hugh (HM) Nelson.[17] While HM Nelson continued to manage his own property, Loudon Station near Dalby, his wife and three children lived at Gabbinbar from April 1876.[18] In May 1877, HM Nelson expanded the Gabbinbar property further by purchasing the land immediately to the south, across Nelson Street (Portion 563), comprising 34.75 acres (14ha).[19]
\nGabbinbar was visited by a news reporter in 1878 and described in detail: The entrance was through large white gates, with the gardener and lodge-keeper’s residence just inside. A driveway about 200 yards (183m) long and 18 feet (5.5m) wide was fringed by trees, shrubs and flowers. A gentle curve in the drive led to the entrance of the house through a circular turning space at its entrance, and extended around to the stables at the rear (south) side of the house. The property was planted with fodder crops, although it was described a ‘gentleman’s seat’ and not a farm. The Gothic-styled house had large and lofty rooms with a bowling green and croquet lawn on the eastern side of the house, where the views were unsurpassed.[20]
\nGabbinbar was one of many fine estates established throughout Toowoomba in the late-19th century. Toowoomba in the late-1870s was considered to be the capital of the Darling Downs with well laid out streets and fine architecturally designed masonry buildings demonstrating the town’s prosperity. Historian Duncan Waterson attests that ‘Toowoomba’s history is one of utmost uninterrupted progress, one of the great urban bourgeois success stories of Queensland.’[21]
\nTenders for alterations and additions to Gabbinbar were called in April 1881 by local architect James Marks (1834-1915). The exact nature of the work carried out is unknown.[22]
\nFrom the 1880s the social and political influence of the Nelson family increased significantly. HM Nelson began his political career in 1880 when he became chairman of the Wambo Divisional Board. He served the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1883 until 1888. His parliamentary roles included Secretary to Railways and Public Works, and Treasurer. Gabbinbar became his principal home following the deaths of his mother in 1885 and father in 1887 and he sold Loudon in 1892. HM Nelson served as Premier between 1893 and 1898. [23]
\nIt was during HM Nelson’s premiership in 1896, that newspapers first mention a ballroom at Gabbinbar.[24] A long, rectangular room, the ballroom was constructed in the verandah space between the original 1866 house and the 1877 addition. Gabbinbar was the venue for many social events, including tennis, croquet and horseriding,[25] and a place of meetings for politicians. NSW Premier George Reid came to Gabbinbar in late December 1896 to convince Sir HM Nelson to support Federation.[26]
\nHM Nelson was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1896. Then, while representing Queensland with T J Byrnes at the Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Celebrations in 1897, he was made privy councillor, Hon DCL Oxford, Hon LL D Edinburgh and freeman of his hometown Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.[27]
\nHis Excellency the Governor, Sir Herbert Chermside, was a guest of the Nelsons at Gabbinbar in October 1904, at the time of his departure from Queensland,[28] and prior to the arrival of Lord Chelmsford. Sir HM Nelson was appointed Lieutenant Governor in the interim.
\nSir HM Nelson, KCMG, died at Gabbinbar on 1 January 1906. His funeral which departed from Gabbinbar was attended by His Excellency the Governor, Lord Chelmsford. He arranged to rent Gabbinbar later that year,[29] initiating another chapter in the history of the house as the summer residence of the Governor; part of a pattern of Vice Regal summer residences in Toowoomba.
\nToowoomba was first advocated as a location for a summer residence for the Queensland governor in 1877, because of its mild summer climate. Governor Sir Arthur Kennedy leased Lindenberg’s Freemasons Hotel in 1877[30] and from late-1878 leased ‘Fernside’ [QHR 600843] each summer until 1883.[31] Almost immediately, local properties offered for sale were promoted for their proximity to the governor’s residence.[32] Lord Lamington leased Westbrook Hall near Drayton from 1896-99,[33] and Harlaxton House [QHR 600839] for the summer of 1900-01.[34] In the interwar years, Sir Matthew Nathan’s leased Glen Alpine [QHR 600842] for the summer of 1921-22.[35] The summer Vice-Regal residences in Toowoomba served to enshrine the town as a fashionable resort for the wealthier classes,[36] and places Gabbinbar amongst those elite houses to have served that purpose.
\nLord Chelmsford leased Gabbinbar for the summer months from December 1906,[37] and during 1907/8 and 1908/9.[38] A bore was sunk in November 1908, to water Gabbinbar’s gardens prior to the governor’s arrival,[39] remnants of which remain about 160m to the north of the house. A photograph taken in 1908 during the Governor’s visit to Gabbinbar shows a timber servants’ quarters building and stables somewhere in the grounds, most likely to the south or southwest of the house.[40]
\nBy the 1920s, Gabbinbar was a well-established property with mature trees and formally laid out flower and vegetable gardens, pathways and a tennis court. In the early-1920s Lady Nelson had the original 1866 house demolished, and a new wing added in its place by February 1924.[41] A large sale of building materials occurred in 1920; possibly from the demolition of the 1866 house.[42] The 1920s addition contained three bedrooms linked by a passageway along the northern side and a verandah along the southern side. A bay window projected from the eastern wall, to capture the southern views. The addition was not as wide as the demolished house, revealing areas of excavated rock on the southern and eastern sides where the 1866 house stood.
\nFurther changes of occupants of Gabbinbar occurred through to the early-1940s. Lady Nelson died at Gabbinbar on 2 April 1927.[43] Her son Duncan and his wife Colina (nee Munro)[44] occupied Gabbinbar from June 1927.[45] A small timber, gable-roofed building was moved to Gabbinbar in the early-1930s, to serve as a billiards room.[46] Following the death of D Nelson in 1938,[47] ownership of Gabbinbar and the property on the southern side of Nelson Street was transferred to his wife.[48] During WWII, the 2/1st Corps Field Survey Company, AIF, occupied Gabbinbar between May 1942 and July 1943. The unit was engaged in survey drafting and map production.[49] Local architect MC Williamson was reputedly employed to repair the house before Mrs Nelson’s return in December 1944.[50]
\nIn the mid-20th century the extent of Gabbinbar’s estate was reduced. The corner of Nelson and Ramsay Streets was truncated in 1955.[51] A five acre allotment was excised on the southeast corner in 1967,[52] which was further subdivided in the early-1970s. Portion 563 on the southern side of Nelson Street was sold in 1968.[53]
\nGabbinbar was purchased by Treveren and Joan Liesegang in 1970, who undertook extensive restorations. In the early-1970s they purchased a timber barn/stables and shearing shed building from the property Wyallah (since demolished) and relocated it to Gabbinbar.[54] Further subdivision to the east of Gabbinbar house reduced its land area to 9.8ha by 1974.[55]
\nIn 1992, a cottage that had formerly been the home of Toowoomba’s ‘spider man’, Pat Walker, was relocated to Gabbinbar from Jennings Street, Toowoomba. He had previously collected funnel web spiders from Gabbinbar’s grounds, which he provided to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory to develop a vaccine.[56]
\nGabbinbar was sold by the Liesegang’s in May 1995.[57] Extensive restorations were undertaken from 1997, with the intention of establishing a wedding venue. In c2000 a large glazed structure, known as the Conservatory in 2016, was built in the central courtyard area of the house, which necessitated the demolition of the enclosed rear verandahs. Other alterations included: the installation of new bathrooms and ensuites; the renovation of the ballroom, including new access doors; and other alterations to verandahs, particularly in the kitchen wing. At some point an early verandah enclosure on the eastern verandah of the 1877 house was removed and its leadlight windows relocated. In the grounds, the driveway turning circle was reformed, surrounded by new low concrete walls and garden beds, and the tennis court was resurfaced with a new timber shelter shed constructed c2000. In 2016, some early timber joinery removed from the house is stored on site.
\nWhile some weddings were held in 2003, there was local opposition to this use,[58] and council approval was not gained until 2011. Also in 2011, the property was subdivided into two lots, (Lots 65 and 66, SP248455). Changes to the grounds were also made, including the construction of a visitors’ car park to the west of the house.[59] From December 2013, Gabbinbar has operated as a specialist wedding venue, and an open-sided wedding chapel was added to the site during 2015.[60]
","criteria":"Gabbinbar, a substantial villa residence (established 1866), set within landscaped grounds, is important in demonstrating the development of Toowoomba as a prosperous regional centre of southern Queensland, where successful pastoralists and businessmen built substantial homes reflecting their wealth.
\nAs one of many houses used as the summer residence for governors of Queensland in the late-19th and early-20th century, Gabbinbar is important in demonstrating the pattern of summer Vice-Regal retreats in Toowoomba, dating from 1877.
|Gabbinbar is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late-19th century villa residence. Through its large size, high quality design, aesthetic treatment and landscaped grounds, it reflects the wealth and status of the owners, and of Toowoomba, a major regional centre in colonial Queensland.
\nConsciously sited in an elevated location on a high point on the Toowoomba Range, the house retains its formal plan, with entrance vestibule, generously-sized rooms, large ballroom, and brick kitchen wing. The high quality workmanship and materials used in its construction include decorative timberwork to the exterior, fine timber joinery, marble and slate mantelpieces, and leadlight windows. Wide verandahs accessed by French doors provide a generous space for entertaining and enjoying the surrounding views. Changes and additions to the house such as the ballroom and servants’ bell system demonstrate the way of life of its occupants over time.
\nGabbinbar’s extensive grounds retain a gatehouse residence; tree-lined entrance drive; numerous large mature trees; a bowling green/croquet lawn; and a tennis court.
\nThe 1877 section of Gabbinbar is a fine example of the work of noted architect Willoughby Powell, displaying his characteristic use of symmetry and finely-detailed exterior ornamentation.
|Gabbinbar has aesthetic significance for its picturesque qualities, created by the relationship between the house and its carefully-composed landscape design. Picturesque vantage points are encountered throughout the gardens, which contain a wide variety of mature trees. Dense vegetation secludes the house from its suburban surrounds, creating an atmosphere of tranquillity and exclusivity. The arrival sequence, from the gatehouse at the point of entry, along a tree-lined entrance drive to arrive at an attractive vista of the house, is an important landscape feature.
\nThe house has beautiful attributes due its elegant composition and high quality materials, details and finishes, both internally and externally. The main elevation is complemented by its setting, set back from surrounding formal gardens and trees so that vistas to and from the house are maintained.
|Gabbinbar has a special association with the community of Toowoomba as a well-known early residence of Reverend Doctor William Lambie Nelson, a foundation member of Presbyterianism in Queensland; Sir Hugh Nelson, one of Queensland’s premiers; and as the summer residence of Queensland Governor, Lord Chelmsford, from 1906-1909. The Nelson family regularly hosted social and charitable events at Gabbinbar; a tradition continued by subsequent owners.
|Gabbinbar has a special association with the family of Reverend Doctor William Lambie Nelson, a foundation member of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland, who established the property in 1866. The substantial enlargement of the house in 1877 and its occupation by Sir Hugh Nelson, a successful grazier and later government minister and Premier, enshrined the house as a venue for social and charitable events, leading to Gabbinbar’s function as a summer residence for the Governor, Lord Chelmsford, in the early-20th century. The Nelson family’s long and close association with Gabbinbar lasted for more than 100 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15616,"place_ref":600841,"name":"Whyembah","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"80 Campbell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-11","description":"Whyembah is a picturesque weatherboard house with a corrugated iron roof. It is located next to the Botanical Gardens, on a street with an avenue of mature trees and other timber houses, some of which are similar in form to Whyembah. The house is single storeyed, with a recent two storeyed extension to the rear which meticulously imitates the original in external detail.
The exterior is an assemblage of projecting bays and verandahs, with roofs intersecting at the base of a flat-top pyramid roof. The eastern elevation has a projecting hipped roof bay, adjacent to a closed in verandah with a curved roof. The street elevation has a small balcony at the end of the closed in verandah, which sits next to a projecting bay window. The street entrance, consisting of a projecting barrel vault supported on paired timber posts, is centrally placed. An L-shaped verandah links the street entrance to a less formal side entrance to the west, and contains a projecting corner bay window. Another bay window extends out from a projecting hipped bay at the southern end of the western frontage.
The house is rich in its decorative detailing. The verandah posts are chamfered, and have curved valances. The balustrades are cast iron. The main roof has curved eaves brackets, and sheet metal cresting adorns both the flat top of the main roof and the ridges of the smaller roofs. A polychrome brick chimney rises to the rear. The bay windows have small curved lead awnings, and the barrel vaulted entry has arched timber fret-work.
The house has timber sliding sash windows, and timber doors. The street entry door has stained glass set in timber surrounds. The house contains some fine pressed metal wall and ceiling sheeting.
Whyembah sits on the northern end of a block of 1942 sq metres; the garden contain mature palms to the rear of the block, and a timber gatehouse to the south west corner.
An internal inspection was not undertaken.
","history":"Whyembah was built c1896 for John Rosser, a commercial traveller with the Brisbane firm of Thurlow and Co. Whyembah originally stood on approximately 1r 29p of land, adjacent to the Toowoomba Botanic Gardens in Campbell Street. Rosser was a keen lawn bowler, and the grounds of Whyembah included a bowling green at one time.
The house was renovated and enlarged in 1906, and the ceilings and walls lined in pressed metal.
After Rosser's death in 1925, his widow Margaret Ferrier Rosser remained at Whyembah. The property was acquired by William Ross Mackenzie in 1943 with the condition that Margaret Rosser could continue to reside at Whyembah until her death.
The property changed hands a number of times. During the 1970s it was turned into flats.
Whyembah was acquired by the present owners in 1979, who have subsequently renovated and extended the house.
","criteria":"Whyembah, erected c1896, illustrates the pattern of Toowoomba's development as a regional centre for southern Queensland.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1890s ornate timber house in Toowoomba, and as a particularly picturesque house in a tree-lined street which includes a number of decorated timber houses, it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1890s ornate timber house in Toowoomba, and as a particularly picturesque house in a tree-lined street which includes a number of decorated timber houses, it exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15617,"place_ref":600842,"name":"Glen Alpine","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"32-36 East Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-11","description":"Glen Alpine, built into an eastern slope on the edge of Main Range, appears single-storeyed from the west, on the East Street frontage, but is two-storeyed from the east. The timber residence, the grounds of which fall away to the east and to Redwood Park beyond, faces east to the expansive view of the Brisbane Valley and Table Top mountain.
The building has a hipped ribbed metal roof with projecting gables and verandahs to both levels around the southeast and northeast, with chamferboards to verandah walls and weatherboards to exposed walls. The gables have flat sheeting with timber cover strips and eave brackets. Both the east and west elevations are symmetrical.
The west elevation, sitting on a brick base with exposed piers, has projecting gabled rooms to the southwest and northwest with shuttered sash windows and a central projecting bay shaped porch. The porch has a hipped roof, eave brackets, batten railing and arched timber brackets with a concrete stair to a landing which splits into twin steps to the ground. The panelled timber entry door has a fanlight and two side sash windows with rose and clear glass with red glass borders. Low level windows in the brick base, to either side of the porch, light a service corridor behind.
The east elevation has a central projecting gabled bay. The upper floor of this bay has a large fixed picture window, divided into three and broken into smaller square panes, with a red glass border, and the ground floor has arched timber casement windows. These windows have metal hoods with deep curved timber brackets.
French doors with divided fanlights open onto the verandahs which have timber posts with batten railing to the upper floor and solid timber arched valance and a concrete floor to the ground. The north end of the upper and lower verandahs, and a section of the upper south verandah, have been enclosed with glazing and timber panels.
The south elevation has an enclosed gabled room to the upper floor with an arched timber valance and casement windows. This sits on the brick base, the rear retaining wall of which continues south forming a three car garage with a fernery between. The garage has an extended timber front and a skillion roof.
Internally, the timber floors are mostly carpeted and the tongue and groove walls and boarded ceilings are painted. The west entry has an arched timber colonnade to the stair and north bay, with a wide hallway running northsouth on the west side of the building. At either end of this hallway is a door with patterned glass fanlight and sidelights. Bedrooms, the north room of which has early wallpaper and others have Masonite cladding, open off this hallway with the bathroom at the north end. The stair has timber fretwork railings and leads to the ground floor.
The ground floor has a concrete floor service corridor running under the upper hallway, with a brick retaining wall to the west and a single skin timber wall to the eastern rooms. A sitting room is located on the southeast with a remodelled kitchen and sunroom are on the northeast.
The grounds include a fenced garden to the west entry with a low brick pier and wrought iron fence; the remains of a carriage drive entering from the southwest and sweeping around the north and east of the building to the garages at the south; a fish pond with brick paving to the east; mature trees along the south, west and north boundaries and sections of hedges along the east.
","history":"Glen Alpine is a two-storey timber residence which is believed to have been built c1918 for Albert Rowbotham, of the Toowoomba firm Rowbotham and Co., bootmakers. The house was possibly designed by prominent Toowoomba architect, Harry J. Marks.
The land was granted to Thomas Perkins in 1875, then acquired by William Shaw in 1876. It appears that there may have been a previous dwelling also named Glen Alpine on the same site, possibly as early as 1882-83 when Richard Cobb, a Toowoomba builder and contractor acquired the land. Cobb was recorded as living at The Range between 1883 and 1887. The land was acquired by David Laughland Brown of the softgoods firm Messrs. D. L. Brown and Co in 1887. Between 1887 and 1910 there were various references in the Post Office Directories and Toowoomba newspapers to Brown and his family at Glen Alpine, Main Range. Rowbotham acquired the land in 1918.
The house was purchased in 1931 by Neal Macrossan, then a Barrister-at-law and later a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It appears that Neal Macrossan and his wife Eileen (daughter of T.C. Beirne) purchased Glen Alpine as a holiday home, indicative of the way in which Toowoomba was viewed as a 'summer resort' for heat-oppressed coastal Queenslanders (including the Governors), and a weekend escape for day trippers from Brisbane.
A swimming pool was built at Glen Alpine in 1931, designed by William Hodgen Jnr. It was one of the first domestic swimming pools built in Toowoomba.
Glen Alpine was temporarily occupied by the Army, c1940-42.
Macrossan died in 1955 and his daughter purchased Glen Alpine from his estate in 1957.
","criteria":"The house and grounds of Glen Alpine, erected c1918, are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the Toowoomba Range as a prestigious residential area.
|It exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Toowoomba community, in particular the formal symmetry of the building and its siting in relation to the view to the east, and the contribution of the building and grounds to the streetscape of East Street and to the Toowoomba townscape.
|It has special association with the life of Chief Justice Neal Macrossan as his Toowoomba holiday house.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15618,"place_ref":600843,"name":"Fernside","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"4-6 Fernside Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Fernside is built on a levelled area rising from Fernside Street to the west, the levelled area falls away to an escarpment to the east. The siting of Fernside provides spectacular views from the Great Dividing Range to the east. Fernside's well established garden setting incorporates a carriage drive located at the front, or western side of the house and native and exotic conifers.
The house is a low, symmetrical, rendered brick building, with a hipped roof clad with colourbond sheeting and gutters. The house has verandahs, under a separate roof, located on the western and eastern sides. Two moulded, rendered brick chimneys are located at the northern and southern elevations of the house.
The original section of Fernside was constructed c1876 with several additions at later stages, including an enclosed verandah along northern elevation, a bay window and dormer window added to the eastern elevation, possibly c1915 and an extension to the southern elevation during the 1990s.
The western elevation, the facade to Fernside Street, faces the carriageway, and is accessed via a set of wide concrete steps. The centred porticoed entrance, topped by a timber fretwork gable, supported by paired timber posts with timber brackets, leads to the front entrance, a timber panelled door, with sidelight and fanlight assemblies. Bay windows with simple timber architraves and a verandah rail with wrought iron balustrading, not originally from Fernside, are also located along the western elevation. A second panelled timber door, with sidelight and fanlight assemblies is located at the southern end of the western elevation.
The eastern elevation faces magnificent views from the Great Dividing Range. The verandah is supported by timber posts and brackets and the brick is marked out to resemble ashlar. The centred bay window with gabled roof has a french door and three sets of elongated windows with small square paned glass and breezeways. Two other timber, panelled french doors are located in the eastern facade. The dormer window is located to the north of the gabled bay window.
The northern elevation is timber framed and enclosed with glass windows and french doors, and houses service facilities. The southern elevation, extended during the 1990s, is timber framed with large windows with breezeway, french doors and a corrugated iron roof.
Internally, Fernside's core remains reasonably intact. Some original detail remains, including moulded pressed metal ceilings in the living and dining rooms. Fireplaces, one with moulded timber surrounds and another with marble surrounds and consoles, are situated in the living and dining rooms.
A number of doorways retain original cedar joinery including a door from the living room to the dining room which also has a breezeway with diamond shaped timber panels surrounded by decorative glass.
Fernside has a concrete fence with moulded concrete pillars with a non-original cast iron gate at the front.
","history":"Fernside, a low symmetrical brick building, was built c1876 for John Alexander Boyce who arrived in Toowoomba from Brisbane in August 1870.
From the mid 1870s, JA Boyce accumulated land around what are now Fernside, Arthur and Curzon Streets, including the transferral of two acres on 1 July 1876 and a further two acres on 20 August 1877.
JA Boyce was Clerk of Petty Sessions in Toowoomba from 1870 until at least 1893. In 1895, Boyce was appointed relieving Police Magistrate in Winton and in 1896 was stationed at Thargomindah and Muttaburra. Boyce travelled further afield in later years, holding positions at Barcaldine, Roma and Cunnamulla from 1897 and was appointed Police Magistrate at Townsville in 1903. In 1909, Boyce retired to Sandgate and died in 1927. His obituary was placed in the Brisbane Courier on 8 December 1927.
The house remained in the Boyce family for over 100 years, six generations of the family living there over the period of time, from William Boyce, father of JA Boyce to Lesley Anne, Colin, Rodney and Michael, the children of Peter Boyce, JA Boyce's great grandson.
JA Boyce sold Fernside to his daughter-in-law, Margaret Annie Griffiths, in February 1902. Annie owned it until she died in 1969, aged 100 years. Annie Griffiths was the daughter of George Washington Griffiths who established the Toowoomba Foundry in 1871. The Brisbane Courier reports on June 8, 1886 that 'three or four years after starting, Mr [George W] Griffiths took in his brother and brother-in-law to the business.' At this time the Foundry was known as Griffith Bros and Company, later, c1884, the name was changed to the Toowoomba Foundry Company Limited.
Annie married Gerard Boyce, JA Boyce's son in Toowoomba on 21 May 1896. News of the couple's marriage was printed in the Toowoomba Chronicle on June 4 1896. Annie Boyce took out a mortgage on the property in 1915, it is likely that renovations to the eastern elevation were undertaken at this time. By 1955, the street was known as Fernside Street, having been formerly known as Curzon Street.
After Annie's death, Fernside passed to her grandson, Peter Boyce, who owned the property until 1978. In 1978, Fernside was sold to people outside the Boyce family. The current owners have resided at Fernside since 1993.
The grandeur and position of the house were recognised as desirable from very early on. Sir Arthur Kennedy, Governor of Queensland from 1877 to 1883, used the house as his summer residence. The use of the residence as a summer retreat for the governor continued the trend of using several Toowoomba residences in this manner. Harlaxton House [600839] was rented by Lord Lamington, the eighth governor of Queensland (1896-1901). From 1906-1909, Gabbinbar [600840] was used as a place of summer residence by Lord Chelmsford, Governor of Queensland from 1905-1909. Vernon Redwood, Mayor of Toowoomba, MLA, rented Fernside in the early part of this century, as did other Toowoomba notables.
","criteria":"Fernside follows the pattern of the construction of substantial houses on the Darling Downs which came to be used as summer resorts by various Governors, demonstrating the development of the Darling Downs from a sparsely populated pastoral region to one of prosperity.
|Fernside is significant as an example of well-to-do domestic building from the 1870s, reflecting the wealth and status of a public servant in Toowoomba, a major regional centre in colonial Queensland.
The siting of the house and subsequent landscape works are highly significant. Its location and verandahed design provide spectacular views from the Great Dividing Range, demonstrating the importance of topography for early settlers when choosing a suitable site on which to build.
|(Criterion under review)
|Fernside has special association with the community of Toowoomba and surrounding area as a well-known early residence and summer resort of Sir Arthur Kennedy, Governor of Queensland from 1877 to 1883.
|Fernside has special association with the community of Toowoomba and surrounding area as a well-known early residence and summer resort of Sir Arthur Kennedy, Governor of Queensland from 1877 to 1883.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15619,"place_ref":600844,"name":"St Patricks Cathedral","alternate_name":"St Patrick's Church School | St Patrick's Cathedral","street_address":"154-156 James Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Patrick's Cathedral is located on the corner of James and Neil Streets in Toowoomba, less than half a kilometre to the south of the city centre. The substantial stone building has a strong presence on James St, which carries the Warrego Highway's traffic through the city. When approaching from the west, the long ridge of its main roof and the stone of its gabled front façade become visible from a distance of approximately half a kilometre. The Cathedral is a fine example of the Victorian Gothic architectural style, the distinguishing elements of which include steeply pitched roofs, buttresses, pinnacles, tracery and pointed arches. Also included in the Queensland Heritage Register's entry is the Presbytery, with walls of face brick and a tiled roof, which is sited on the eastern side of the Cathedral building.
St Patrick's is cruciform in plan, and almost 61m long and 31m wide (200ft x 100ft). The main gabled roof contains the nave and features a stone cross at its apex of the front gable parapet. It intersects with the gabled roofs over each transept. All are steeply pitched. To the south, there is a further high roof, which becomes a faceted half-dome over the sanctuary and apse. All roofs are currently clad in metal sheeting, which resembles what was originally installed. The current roof cladding was put in place during the renovations conducted in 1972. The original cladding was 'rolled and pan' galvanised iron in short 1800mm lengths. The Cathedral's 2001 Conservation Plan recommends that, when it is necessary to replace the building's roofing, the effort be made to return to the original, and also to reinstate the distinctive roof vents that were not incorporated in 1972.
The Cathedral's stonework is 'hammer dressed square rubble'. The pointing of whitish mortar was originally flush with the stone, however some areas were raised to form a large bead during the 1972 renovations. The dressings to the openings, buttresses, pinnacles, piers and quoins are sandstone from Murphy's Creek.
The aisles are flanked by a series of buttresses, with two short, tall ones on the front façade to James Street. These are terminated in octagonal pinnacles, while the design of the shorter two to the front ends of the aisles match the pinnacles on the entry gate's twin stone columns. Over the front doorway on the northern gable is located a large leadlight window with three lights and bar tracery head. Above this is a very small multifoil, circular window with leadlight. The leadlight windows to the aisles are divided in two by a central mullion with plate tracery and pointed arch above. Those in the upper level walls of the nave consist of a set of three lancet windows with label mould above. The leadlight windows in each transept gable are similar to the main one on the northern gable facing James Street, however the bar tracery is of a simpler pattern. The five apse windows in the facets of the south-facing drum are divided in two by a central mullion with plate tracery above.
The 1927 Presbytery is located within ten metres of the Cathedral's east transept. Its main gable roof, the west end of which is half-hipped, has two large gables projecting from it on the north façade. Under one of these, a smaller gable projects over a faceted, chamferboard-clad bay window. There are both timber-framed casement and double-hung sash windows on this façade. The glass is leadlight and the gable ends are timber battened. A brick chimneystack protrudes through the roof at the western end of the building. One large, timber battened gable end projects off the main roof at the east end of the southern façade. At the west end of this façade the roof is hipped. The gable end projecting east is clad in chamferboards. A space only 4m wide at its narrowest separates the Presbytery from a recently constructed brick Parish Centre to the south. Inside, a large room on the northern façade has a coffered plasterwork ceiling. It opens onto a smaller room in the north-west corner through a polished timber-framed opening with relief pillars and two narrow Doric-style columns on either side. This room has a polished timber mantelpiece and fireplace.
Interior of Cathedral
Entry to St Patrick's Cathedral can be gained from a number of points around the building, including on the front façade, centrally through either external wall to the aisles, and through the transept gable ends. Two doors allow the priests and other church personnel entry to the vestry on the north-east corner of the building. The nave and aisles to each side are separated by a series of pointed archways supported on octagonal piers with capitals. The arches throughout are fluted. This arcade supports the wall of clerestory windows above, each of which corresponds to the location of an archway. The walls throughout are painted plaster, however the octagonal piers are exposed stone. Large parts of the Cathedral's floors are carpeted, but in a number of locations polished tongue and groove boards remain exposed.
The stained timber roof to the nave is somewhere between an elongated arched-brace and hammerbeam. The ends of the arched braces connect to long curved brackets, which connect back to posts fixed against the walls. The meeting point of these two elements is connected back to the wall with a carved hammerbeam and bows out into the ceiling space. The columns or brackets fixed to the wall bear on a small extrusion of stone. At the apex of the roof, where the principal rafters meets, a carved drop-finial is fitted. Above the single tie beam the rafters have scalloped edges. The roofs to the aisles feature a principal rafter supported by an arched brace fixed to columns against the walls. At the Crossing's roof, two perpendicular arched-brace sets intersect. In each transept's roof a single arched-brace set features. The lining to all these ceilings, formed by a diagonal pattern of timber tongue and groove boards, is fixed behind a series of butt purlins. Above the sanctuary and apse the ceiling is arched and plastered. The multi-angular apse's facets are picked out with relief lines of plastered stonework that extend to the floor.
The organ is currently situated in a corner of the west transept. It and a gallery surround the entry door. They did occupy the sanctuary before the 1972 renovations. From the Cathedral's original fitting-out a great number of pine and cedar polished pews and book rails remain to line two sides of the nave and the transepts. A series of steps and a marble altar rail divides the Crossing from the sanctuary, and a marble pulpit stands in the south-west corner of the crossing. Both of these were donated and installed in during the donations made in the 1930s. The five windows over the apse were donated at this time by Downlands College and depict Sacred Heart lancets. Small chapels with marble altars and rails flank the chancel (the Sacred Heart and Lady Chapels). The leadlight windows, altar rail and pulpit are the strongest Gothic design elements on the interior of the Cathedral, aside from the overall shape and proportion of the spaces.
Grounds
The site fence to Neil and James Streets consists of sandstone piers and low walls, in-filled with iron railings. It was constructed in 1931. An entry gate and stairs align to the Cathedral's front door on James Street. A large open space at the corner of Neil and James Streets is formed by the eastern extent of the Cathedral and the north façade of the Presbytery. Before 1928, this area of lawn was occupied by a two-storey timber Presbytery and a number of mature trees, which were demolished and removed. A smaller area of lawn separates the Cathedral from the western site boundary it shares with a school. A line of well established pines provide a useful screen here. In the south-western corner of this space is situated the steel belfry and its bell.
To the south of the Cathedral and Presbytery are located a large parking area and storage shed, a preschool, St Patrick's Hall and the Parish Centre. These are recent additions to the site and are not considered to be of heritage significance.
","history":"St Patrick's Cathedral is a dominant Victorian Gothic church built from basalt and located on James Street, Toowoomba. It was designed by James Marks for the then Catholic Toowoomba Mission and was built between 1883 and 1889.
Early church services in the Darling Downs were often an itinerant affair conducted from private houses, inns or courthouses, and the origins of Roman Catholic worship in the region are to be found in the transient rituals conducted during the early 1840s. In 1843, Australia's first Catholic Archbishop, John Bede Polding, accompanied by Benedictine abbott, Dr Henry Gregory, toured the pastoral stations in Moreton Bay and Darling Downs with a portable altar. Along the way they preached to the shepherds they met and it was recorded in June 1843 that they "carried their own blankets with them and preferred sleeping on a sheet of bark on the floor . . . the custom of the Catholic priests . . . was, after a little desultory conversation, to ask if there were any Catholics present and that was all. In the morning the priest would walk out into the bush, accompanied by whoever was of his persuasion and there they would say what they had to say to each other". Five years later, Polding again visited the Darling Downs and that same year Father W. McGinty was appointed parish priest of Ipswich and the Downs. Although McGinty regularly toured the Darling Downs to celebrate Mass, parishioners of the area became more vociferous in their call for a resident priest after Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859.
By that time, Catholics constituted about a quarter of the population of the Darling Downs and the weight of their collective voices ultimately saw the establishment of the Toowoomba Mission (forerunner of the Diocese of Toowoomba) and the appointment of Father Fulgentius Hodebourg in September 1862 as parish priest for the area. The following year the first Catholic church in the region, which also served as a school and was known as St Patrick's Church School, was built in Toowoomba on the present site of St Patrick's Cathedral. It was located on a two-acre parcel of land at the corner of James and Neil Streets, which had been set aside in September 1858 for the specific purpose of erecting a Catholic church, school and priest's residence. Although the church was a modest timber building, it marked the start of an institutional presence on the Darling Downs for the Roman Catholic faith.
In 1868, Father Robert Dunne was ordained parish priest and it was during his time in Toowoomba that St Patrick's began to flourish. His flock increased steadily and in 1877 his plans included the erection of a cathedral. Father Dunne's grandiose vision for St Patrick's, however, was not immediately realized and extensions only were carried out to the existing church, which were completed on 5 June 1880. The next day St Patrick's Church School was destroyed by fire and the church's services were temporarily transferred to the Hibernian Hall in Ruthven Street. Reputedly, under the supervision of builder Robert Godsall and through the labour of volunteers, a new timber church was erected within two weeks of the old one being destroyed.
When Father Dunne left for Ireland in 1881, even the new timber church was envisaged as merely a temporary substitute for a much grander building. Father Thomas O'Connell was appointed parish priest of Toowoomba to replace Father Dunne and was immediately charged with chairing the Building Committee for the new church. On 13 August 1882 a meeting was held to discuss plans for the church and Archbishop Dunne, who had returned from Ireland and was by that time the Archbishop of Brisbane, suggested the use of stone for construction and beseeched the parishioners to "erect a portion to accommodate the congregation of today, and possibly for the next ten or fifteen years, and that portion might afterwards be added to, making a complete and harmonious whole". A subscription was enthusiastically embraced by those present, with nearly £1260 pledged before the end of the meeting. Four months later, £900 of the money promised had been collected and it was decided to call for plans for the church and to aim for St Patrick's Day on 17 March 1883 as the day for laying the foundation stone.
In March 1883, despite the receipt of two plans for the church and £1050, Father O'Connell decided it was expedient to delay the laying of the foundation stone until Whit Sunday on 13 May 1883, on which day the ceremony was duly conducted by Archbishop Dunne. That same month, a call for designs and specifications to be submitted with a construction cost of no more than £5000 was posted in the Toowoomba Chronicle as well as in Brisbane and Sydney papers. The design of James Marks was the one favoured by the Building Committee and he was awarded a prize of £25 for his submission.
Marks was born in Somerset, England, in 1834 and from the age of 16 he was employed by a Westminster building contracting firm. He eventually trained as a carpenter and worked in the trade until his migration to Queensland in 1866. Marks first established himself as a builder and architect in Dalby before moving to Toowoomba in 1874 where he established the first professional architectural practice on the Darling Downs. The reputation of the firm grew rapidly and in partnership with his sons (and later under their directorship) the Marks practice continued to flourish until 1962 when the business was discontinued. Although St Patrick's Cathedral is one of James Marks's most notable designs, his other significant works in Toowoomba included the Royal Bank of Queensland building, the Imperial Hotel, St Stephen's Presbyterian Church and several grand private residences.
St Patrick's was a large project, which was delayed by a shortage of materials and labour as well as by the desire of Father O'Connell to open the Cathedral free of debt. It took six years to complete during which time the builder, Richard Godsall, died, and the work was completed under the guidance of his firm, Godsall & Mayes. The Cathedral was completed in 1889 and consecrated on 17 March of that year at a ceremony presided over by Archbishop Dunne and witnessed by some 2000 people. The original projected costing of no more than £5000 had by completion blown out to a total of £8500, much of which had been funded by the continual raising of funds amongst the local community.
The Cathedral's walls and foundations were built from blue stone while the buttresses, pinnacles and piers were of freestone, which was mostly acquired from Murphy's Creek quarries. It was a dominant building within the Toowoomba townscape, measuring 124 feet in length, 60 feet in width and 56 feet in height. The newspaper press of the time resounded with praise for the new cathedral. The Brisbane Courier described the façade as having a "majestic and stately appearance" and the Toowoomba Chronicle reflected upon how St Patrick's was "stately yet elegant in appearance, at once handsome and massive, and by its beauty adds very much to the amenity of the town . . . . clergymen and parishioners alike may feel proud in the highest degree at the most praiseworthy and satisfactory result of their labours". Yet the Cathedral was not fully complete and plans were in place for the enlargement of the chancel and the addition of an eastern and western transept. Still other items were only temporarily in position, including the chancel window, the pulpit, and an Estey organ on loan from W.H. Paling & Co.
It was not until the 1930s that the Cathedral was fully completed and in the interim plans had been made by Reverend Monsignor Denis Fouhy to employ James Marks in designing a new tower for St Patrick's. While these plans did not come to fruition, Fouhy's successor, Father McKenna, was able to achieve his goal of building a new Presbytery in place of the old timber one. In 1927, the architect John Donoghue designed the new brick Presbytery, which was built by H Cheetham and consecrated on 12 February 1928. Also included in the building contract was the construction of a maid's quarters, a laundry, an underground tank, a brick belfry as well as some landscaping works for a total cost of £8863, funded by donations, loans from parishioners and the estate of Monsignor Fouhy.
Following the creation of the Diocese of Toowoomba in May 1929 Dr James Byrne was ordained as Bishop of the region. He immediately set about expanding St Patrick's and in 1930 the architect Arthur Bligh was employed to design a tower adjoining the front façade to the east with a belfry and spire as well as the construction of a mortuary chapel under the Sanctuary and sacristies for the Bishop, Priest, Sisters and altar boys. The total cost was to be £25,000 and the final result was to be a cathedral in cruciform measuring 200 feet long by 100 feet wide with a capacity to seat some 2000 people. The 1930s were difficult times marked by a severe economic depression and a decline in agricultural prices. Nevertheless, Toowoomba parishioners rallied to the cause and, by April 1932, £5000 had been collected. By that time, the first sod had been turned and the foundation stone laid on 24 April 1932. Work on the Cathedral's extensions then began in earnest under the direction of local builder, John O'Connell, who had earlier supervised the construction of St Joseph's Church in Dalby. On 24 March 1935, St Patrick's was completed and a ceremony, attended by 7000 people, was conducted by Archbishop Duhig.
Although the Cathedral benefited during this period from the generous donations of parishioners and local societies, which included furnishings, a new pipe organ and a new bell, the grand building works had left a debt of £8500 by December 1937. Although the parish debt had not been released by the early 1970s, the then Bishop, William Brennan, commissioned W A Durack of the architectural firm Durack & Brammer to carry out a report on the Cathedral's condition. Restoration was deemed necessary, including the replacement of the roof and guttering, sealing and re-pointing the outer walls, replastering the internal walls and various cosmetic works. J H Wagner & Sons were the main contractors for the job, which was started in May 1972 and scheduled for completion in February 1973. Father Patrick Doyle, as Administrator of St Patrick's Cathedral, was charged with facilitating the renovations, which included the removal of a polished timber choir gallery located below the main tracery window on the front façade and the separation of the marble altar from its reredos for repositioning in response to liturgical changes sanctioned by the Second Vatican Council. It was also during his time in the parish that a hall was built behind the Cathedral and the St Patrick Parish Centre behind the Presbytery was constructed in 1979 as a conference venue.
During the 1980s, the Cathedral's stained glass was replaced and parishioners invited to purchase a commemorative window pane in honour of a deceased relative and to help defray the $100,000 cost. In 1989, to mark the centenary of the opening of St Patrick's, a new bell tower was constructed by Bill Walsh and the Toowoomba City Council donated 35 trees for the cathedral's grounds as a civic gift.
More recently, restoration work was carried out to the Presbytery in 1991, and eight years later a new storage shed was constructed and alterations made to the Parish Centre. In 2001, a major conservation plan for St Patrick's was published for the Diocese of Toowoomba and the following year work began on stabilizing the leadlight windows.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Cathedral was built between 1883 and 1889 and represents the ecclesiastical development of the Toowoomba area at this time. St Patrick's was originally a modest timber church but following its destruction in 1883 by fire, work began on St Patrick's Cathedral. The building of the Cathedral was an indication of the emerging importance and institutional presence of the Roman Catholic Church in the Darling Downs region, and the development of St Patrick's following the creation of the Diocese of Toowoomba in 1929 reaffirmed the permanency and strength of Catholicism in the region.
|St Patrick's is also important because of its aesthetic significance. It remains a fine example of Victorian Gothic architecture and reflects the continued growth of Toowoomba as well as the Catholic Church between the 1880s and 1930s. The Cathedral stands as one of the most recognizable and most substantial stone buildings in Toowoomba and as such it continues to be a landmark within the Toowoomba townscape.
|The Cathedral is constructed from basalt, which was obtained from the local Corporation Quarry and which was commonly used for kerbing and channelling. It was less frequently used for buildings owing to the difficulties in applying it to construction. As such St Patrick's is a rare example of a basalt building and demonstrates a high degree of technical achievement for the late 19th century.
|Since its consecration, St Patrick's Cathedral has served as the symbolic and spiritual centre of Catholicism in the Toowoomba region. Its buildings and grounds have a special association with the life and work of the clergy who served at St Patrick's as well as with the Catholic community who contributed greatly to its development.
|It also has a special association with its designer, James Marks, whose prolific experience as an architect in Toowoomba saw him dominate local architecture during the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15620,"place_ref":600845,"name":"Bishop's House","alternate_name":"Kilallah | Dalmally | Bishops House","street_address":"73 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Bishop's House, located opposite Queen's Park on the corner of Lindsay Street fronting Margaret Street to the south, is a single-storeyed masonry building with rendered quoining and detailing. The building has a corrugated iron roof with projecting gables, a central clerestory surmounted by a cross, and three HJ Marks patented pot bellied chimney stacks.
The symmetrical south elevation has a central enclosed loggia consisting of five arches with rendered voussoirs, keystones and columns, supporting a parapet wall surmounted by two small triangular projections either side of a central gable with the name BISHOP'S HOUSE in raised lettering. The loggia is flanked by projecting bays at either end, and is enclosed with arched sash window units and masonry panels on the western side, and sliding aluminium window units on the eastern side of the entry. The central entry has steps leading to a timber door with leadlight panel insert, sidelights and fanlight depicting a crest. The projecting bays have sash windows, but evidence of the original HJ Marks patented extendable casement windows is visible. The bays are surmounted by projecting boarded gables, above which are semi-circular windows with rendered voussoirs in the gable to the roof.
The north elevation has an enclosed verandah with an accommodation wing attached at the northwest corner, which consists of a masonry section with a timber framed and fibrous cement clad addition with concrete stumps. The verandah is enclosed with vertically jointed boarding to sill height and multi-paned sliding timber windows with fixed green glass panels above. The east and west ends have a projecting five-sided bay room with masonry to sill height and extendable casement windows above. These windows have been replaced by aluminium sliding windows on the west bay. A small brick addition with a parapet wall and sash window has been constructed on the southern side of the east bay room.
Internally, the building has plastered walls with wide east-west and north-south halls which intersect below a central clerestory. Principal rooms open to the south enclosed loggia, with french doors and an arched sash window with rendered voussoirs. However, the original loggia wall to the west of the entry has been removed to create one large office into the loggia space. Secondary rooms open to the north enclosed verandah which is lined with fibrous cement and has a sash window painted to imitate stained glass opening from the former chapel. A large arched doorway containing a timber door with leadlight sidelights and fanlight opens to the rear of the central hall. The foyer has timber wall panelling, and throughout the building many of the doors, architraves and skirtings have an obscure grained finish. Ceilings are pressed metal of various designs, most of the doors and windows have patterned glass panels, and fireplace surrounds are of narrow face brick. At either end of the east-west hall are panelled timber doors with leadlight panel insert, sidelights and fanlight. The east bay room has coloured glass door and windows, and a partition wall has been constructed to create a hall leading to the south addition.
The northwest accommodation wing contains an office and kitchen in the masonry section, with a bedroom and bathroom in the fibrous cement section. The masonry section has rendered walls with boarded ceilings, and the addition has timber framed fibrous cement walls and ceiling.
The site has a low brick fence along the south and west boundaries, with driveway access at the southeast and to the northwest of the building. A metal front gate is located at the corner of Lindsay and Margaret Streets, with a path leading to the main entrance. The grounds contain substantial mature trees to the south and southwest, with a bitumen carpark to the southeast and carports to the northwest.
The site also contains the Marian Community Centre, a single-storeyed masonry building to the northwest, and a two-storeyed masonry residence for the Bishop to the northeast of the building.
","history":"Bishop's House, designed by Henry Marks, was constructed in 1911 as the home of Toowoomba businessman, William Charles Peak. In 1939 the house was purchased by the Roman Catholic Church and became home to the Bishop of the recently created Toowoomba Diocese.
Settlement of what was to become the Toowoomba area commenced at Drayton, now a suburb of Toowoomba, in the early 1840s. Thomas Alford opened a general store in the area in 1843. In the same year, residents of Drayton petitioned the Governor to form a township. A survey of the town was prepared in 1849. In laying out Drayton, Government Surveyor JC Burnett was instructed to mark out "suburban allotments for Garden and Agricultural purposes". The ideal site for what was known as the "Drayton Swamp Agricultural Reserve", later to become Toowoomba, was an area approximately three to four miles northeast of Drayton where two swampy creeks joined to form the headwaters of Gowrie Creek. The Agricultural Reserve included 12 allotments bounded by the left bank of the west swamp, and the present Bridge, West and Stephen streets.
Six of the 12 "Swamp allotments" were first offered at auction in November 1849, however some were not sold until 1853. By late 1857, the name "Toowoomba" had gradually taken over from "The Swamp", as the town continued to expand. At the time of its incorporation into a municipality in November 1860, Toowoomba had well outgrown Drayton. Toowoomba continued to develop as the service centre for the upper Darling Downs. It became the urban home of many pastoralists and businessman during the early twentieth century.
One of the many people who constructed houses during this period of expansion was William Charles Peak, born in Drayton in 1867 as the eldest son of a local councillor WJ Peak. In 1881 William Peak entered the company of Wilcox Bros, general merchants of Toowoomba and within fifteen years was the owner. He took an interest in the development of Toowoomba and held many positions in local industry and development including President of the local Chamber of Commerce (1914-15); Chairman of the Toowoomba Permanent Society; as well as being the instigator of the Greenmount Dairy Factory Co Ltd, who established one of the first cheese factories in the state. He was involved with the foundation of the Anderson Malting Company, the Darling Downs Building Society; the Toowoomba Steam Laundry and the Security Trust Company. Peak's other local involvements included the Royal Agricultural Society; the local Cricket Union and the Traders' Association. Today, two memorials to Peak are found in Toowoomba, one at the Toowoomba showground and another in Queen's Park where a drinking fountain is named in his honour.
In about 1910 as a reflection of his importance in the local community, WC Peak commissioned local architect Henry J Marks to design a house, initially known as Kilallah, for the Peak family at the corner of Lindsay and Margaret Streets, Toowoomba, adjacent to Queen's Park.
Henry Marks was a member of a prominent Toowoomba architectural family. James Marks, Henry's father, arrived in Queensland from England in 1866 and practised as an architect and builder in Dalby before starting his successful family practice in Toowoomba in the 1870s which remained active until 1962. Henry joined his father in practice in 1892 when the business became known as James Marks and Son.
Henry Marks was an innovative and creative architect, who invented and patented several products including pot-bellied ventilation flues and chimney shafts, windows and a walling system. He employed his inventions on many of his buildings and this helps to identify the buildings for which he was responsible. Several of these innovations are found at Kilallah, now known as the Bishop's House, including window openings and chimney stacks. Marks designed windows which allowed maximum opening capacity and also directed airflow around the opening. The windows designed for the end bays of the Bishop's House were extendable casements. Also on the house were several of Marks' patented design for "Improved Chimney Top and Ventilator" introducing a rounded base to the shaft of the chimney top directing air flow and with a V-shaped catchment plate and run-off for rainwater.
The planning of the Bishop's House reflects Marks' concern with air flow and natural lighting; a large ventilated roof light over the intersection of the entrance hall and the transverse corridor terminated at the east and west ends of the building with semi-open octagonal bays.
In her thesis on the Marks family architectural practice in Toowoomba, Morag Papi, describes the building as "one of the best examples of Harry Mark's work." Certainly the sophistication of the detailing, the composition of the exterior and regard to environmental issues suggest that this is a well considered building. His other numerous Toowoomba buildings include the halls at both St Luke's and St James' Churches (St James hall is known as the James Taylor Memorial Institute) St Mary's Christian Brothers building; Holy Name Convent; buildings at the General Hospital; White Horse Hotel; Union Bank and City Chambers.
The Peak family remained at Kilallah for only a few years when the house was purchased by a Mr Horrigan who sold it to the Fletcher family. The house was then rented out to a number of people until its purchase by the Roman Catholic Church of Toowoomba as a Bishop's residence in 1939.
The Catholic Church was established in Toowoomba in the early 1860s when a pastor was appointed. Robert Dunne, later Archbishop of Brisbane, was appointed as a parish priest in Toowoomba in 1868. The Roman Catholic Church in Queensland developed with the population increases and by 1928 Archbishop Duhig announced that two new dioceses, Toowoomba and Townsville were to be created, raising the number of diocese to four, alongside Brisbane and Rockhampton.
The first Bishop appointed to Toowoomba was James Byrne, born in Ireland in 1840 and educated at St Patrick's College, Thurles. Byrne was ordained by the Archbishop of Cashel on 21 July 1896 and volunteered to work in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. After work in Brisbane for many years he was appointed Domestic Prelate in 1923 and then was appointed as the Bishop of Toowoomba in 1929. St Patrick's Church in Toowoomba, constructed in 1883-89 to a design by James Marks, was consecrated as a cathedral on 1 September 1929.
The residence originally used by James Byrne was the brick presbytery alongside St Patrick's Cathedral, constructed in 1927 for a parish priest before the archdiocese was formed, to a design by Jack Donoghue. This was deemed too small to house both the bishop, parish priests and administrators of the growing parish and therefore a dedicated residence for the bishop was found in "Unara" in 1939. Previously, Unara was the residence of Sir Littleton Groom, Federal Member for the Darling Downs and was leased from Lady Groom by the Diocese for one year with the option of purchase at the end of this time. However, because the location of Unara, near the eastern boundary of the Diocese, was considered inconvenient the purchase option was not exercised.
Instead the Diocese bought WC Peak's 1911 residence, then known as "Dalmally", along with a timber house on property adjoining the main house on Lindsay Street. The house was called Dalmally by a lessee, Captain Serisier, in remembrance of a village in Scotland.
To facilitate the use of the house as a Bishop's residence extensive internal alterations and some external renovations were carried out to a design by local architects, Messrs Hodgen and Hodgen, a partnership of William Hodgen Jnr and his son. Hodgen was born in Toowoomba where he did an apprenticeship in the building trade before joining the Colonial Architect's Office as a cadet in 1886. He then travelled to London to broaden his professional experience and returned to Queensland in 1896 and began private practice in Toowoomba in February 1897 where he remained until his death in 1943.
The alterations designed by Hodgen for the Bishop's House, as it became known after its purchase by the Roman Catholic Church, were principally internal. Pressed metal ceilings by Wunderlich used in most of the rooms were retained along with the general floor plan of the building. Changes introduced included forming an entrance vestibule on the front loggia/verandah; alterations of the semi-octagonal end bays with the removal and bricking up of several sash windows; a room was planned as a chapel; a bathroom was added to the eastern end of the house in an extension designed for that purpose and some internal rearrangement of existing walls and doors was carried out to facilitate access to this extension. External signage, "BISHOP'S HOUSE" was added to the pediment above the entrance doors and sections of the front verandah/loggia were enclosed with glazing. Internally almost every room of the house was wall-papered to the picture rail.
Alterations to the grounds around the house included the demolition of the stables and replacement with a skillion roofed garage and construction of new entrance gates off Lindsay Street for motor-car access. A timber and concrete laundry was erected to the northwest of the house.
The various Bishop's of Toowoomba remained at Bishop's House until recently, when another residence was constructed to the rear, northeast side of the building. Bishop's House has been refurnished as offices for the diocesan administration and the Catholic Education Office.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1911, Bishop's House is a substantial brick house which demonstrates the growth of this area of Toowoomba during the 1910s, a period of commercial and social expansion for the town following closer settlement. The building's use by the Roman Catholic Church illustrates the development of the church in Queensland, in particular internal growth which saw the establishment of another two dioceses in 1929.
|The building is a very good example of the work of architect Henry Marks, combining much of his innovative detailing with a general concern for ventilation and natural lighting.
|Bishop's House, together with its mature plantings, makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the Margaret Street streetscape and Toowoomba townscape. The form and fabric of the building illustrate a creative and skilled design approach, and the detailing of the materials and finishes reflects a fine quality of workmanship.
|The use of the extendable casement window and pot-bellied chimney stacks, as patented designs, are important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement by the architect Henry Marks during the early twentieth century.
|The building is important to members of the Roman Catholic community in Toowoomba as the home of the Bishop of their Diocese for many years.
|The building is associated with Henry Marks, a prominent and prolific local architect; with WC Peak an important early Toowoomba businessman for whom it was constructed, and with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in Toowoomba who have owned the building as their principal residence since 1939.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15622,"place_ref":600847,"name":"Toowoomba Post Office (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"136 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"The Toowoomba Post Office is located on Margaret Street, near one of the main intersections in Toowoomba. It is sited adjacent to the Court House [600848] and complements it in style, form and material. These two building, together with the Police Station in Neil Street form a precinct of Government buildings, creating a landmark in the streetscape.
The Post Office comprises a two-storeyed front section with rear wings at either side which are also two-storeyed. Single storeyed extensions project from the rear of each of the wings. The originally open space formed by the U-shape of the front section and wings is covered with a flat roof with a sky light in the centre.
The front of the building is symmetrically designed around a central clock tower which displays four faces. The front facade and the external side of the western wing are faced with pale yellow sandstone, whilst the rear wings are rendered.
The building dominates the site which is asphalted at the rear and paved with gardens down each side.
The front section comprises the central projecting bay of the clock tower flanked by arcades with projecting sections at each end forming corner entrances. A series of arches divided by engaged pilasters with egg and dart moulding to the capitals are located across the face of each arcade. Simple metal balustrades with square profile balusters are located within each arch, and keystones are located above, at the centre of each arch. The end and central bays also have arched openings, with drip moulds above those at each end, and a key stone above the central arch. Quoins are located on the corners of each of the bays.
There are three entrances into the building; two which are set diagonally at each corner, and a central one under the clock tower. All comprise double timber doors with large arched fanlights above. All doors lead into the post office service area which has been substantially altered. It now consists of a service counter running along the east west axis with a display area in front.
The first level repeats the pattern of the ground level, with verandahs supported by stone columns with egg and dart moulding, separated by the end and central projecting bays are, which are enclosed. The end bays have a pair of tall, thin windows and the central bay has a more decorative arched window surrounded by a series of carved mouldings.
The main section of the building has a corrugated iron hipped roof, with decorative stone and timber brackets evenly spaced underneath the eaves. The central clock tower projects through the roof and comprises three sections. The base has decorative panels featuring a carved repetitive arch pattern. This is surmounted by the central section in which the clockfaces are located and an upper section of cornice and pierced parapet. Engaged pilasters rise through the base and central sections and are capped with carved acanthus leaves.
The eastern facade is rendered and has a side entrance contained within a recess which has a verandah at the second level. Arched timber valances are located above the ground and first floor levels and a balustrade the same as those at the front is located on the first level. Apart from this section, the eastern side is enclosed, with a variety of windows located along its length.
The western facade has an arcade at ground level which contains post boxes and private mail boxes. The sandstone of the front facade wraps partially around the western facade, with a rendered finish to the remainder of the wing. The double timber doors and winch of an early loading bay survive on the first level.
Internally the building has been substantially altered. The most intact areas are the rooms at the western end on the first level and the clock tower, which still contain early joinery details.
All details to other areas of the building have either been removed or are covered by subsequent additions, making it difficult to define the original layout.
","history":"The Toowoomba Post Office, of which construction was completed in 1880, is one of three extant post offices built in the Classic Revival Style, with the other two at Maryborough (1866) and central Brisbane (1871). The fourth building of this type was at Dalby (1867), but is now demolished.
The opening and closing of 'Postal Stations' reflected the fortunes of some of the more precarious settlements and indicates some of the difficulties faced by the Postal Department in providing services. Where the establishment of towns was closely connected with the opening of a railway, Post Offices were often at the railway station, where mail was received and sent, and where the Telegraph Office could benefit by the sharing of equipment with the Railway. The Post Office was one of the first Government functions to be established in a locality, and the need for regular communication was closely followed or sometimes preceded by the Police Station.
The period between 1859-1879 marked the separation of the Post and Telegraph Departments and a wide range of buildings appeared throughout Queensland to accommodate both functions. It was also the principal period of colonisation, with Government architect F. D. G. Stanley in charge of design and construction of post offices from 1872 - 1880, when a series of grand Post and Telegraph buildings were erected in both masonry and timber in the major provincial centres, of which Toowoomba was one.
The first postal service on the Darling Downs comprised a pack-horse mail service from Brisbane to Drayton in 1845, which was subsequently upgraded to a horse-drawn coach. By 1864 there were 42 mail services in Queensland, and the following year, Cobb and Co. were appointed the official carriers of the state's mail.
The first Electric Telegraph from Brisbane to Toowoomba was established in 1861 as part of the intercolonial route. Subsequent connections extended the line to Dalby, Roma, Charleville and the far north-east. Toowoomba was located at the junction of a number of telegraph routes and subsequently grew in importance. At this stage, the Telegraph office was located in a room in the 1865 Post Office on the corner of Ruthven and Russell Streets. The current Post Office replaced this structure to accommodate the need for both Post and Telegraph services.
Tenders for a new building to house both the Post and Telegraph offices adjacent to the new courthouse were called in 1877. The tender of John Gargett (also the contractor for the adjacent Court House and Mayor of Toowoomba) for £7250 was accepted. The original tender was for a building constructed of bond brick, however this was later altered to allow for the front tower and one wing (the Court House side) in cut stone at a new price of £8100. The stone used was pale yellow sandstone quarried from Highfields and was similar to that used in the construction of the courthouse, also quarried from Highfields. The new building opened in 1880, with delays due to wet weather, and provided separate facilities for each service, and residential quarters for both the Postmaster and Telegraph Officer. The contract for fitting up the clock was awarded to Mr Schoenle of Ipswich at a cost of £105.
The Toowoomba Post Office is a typical example of the Classical Revival style of architecture popular during this period and forms part of a government precinct which includes the Court House and Police Station. This was a frequent occurrence due to the Queensland Colonial Government's practice of acquiring, or retaining for itself, land suitable for government uses.
Since its construction in 1878, the Toowoomba Post Office has undergone substantial alterations due to changes in communication technology. The original layout comprised a two storeyed front section with single storeyed rear wings forming a U-shaped structure. The ground floor housed the post office and quarters for the Postmaster on the western side, and the telegraph office and quarters for the Telegraph Officer on the eastern side. Additional residential rooms were housed in the front section of the first floor. In 1896, bathrooms were added to both Living Quarters. More substantial additions were made in 1899, when a new mail room and battery were added to the rear of the building and an additional level was constructed over the Telegraph Officer's Living Quarters.
Later additions were also carried out which included the re-arrangement of the ground floor layout and the partial enclosure of the arcade in 1905, and the construction of a new telephone exchange on the first floor over the former Postmaster quarters in 1908. At this stage, the Living Quarters were transformed into workshops and the entire first floor was altered to house the Telephone/Telegraph operations.
In 1960, the first of the newly developed cross bar automatic system in Australia was installed in the Post Office.
The most substantial alterations occurred in 1968 when much of the original fabric, including external cast iron balustrades, timber valances, chimneys and hearths, and 1904 glazing to arcades, was replaced or removed. Everything apart from the 1908 and 1915 telephone exchange sections were removed from the rear of the building and replaced with a flat roofed mail room and loading dock. Little work, apart from general maintenance has been completed since this stage.
The Australian Postal Corporation has recently purchased new premises in Toowoomba and it is expected that the Post Office building will be sold in the near future.
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Post Office is located in Margaret Street and was constructed between 1878 and 1880. As a major staging point on the intercolonial telegraph, is demonstrative of the development of the state of Queensland.
The Toowoomba Post Office is evidence of the importance of the town as a major inland centre, and of its recognition as such by the government.
|The Toowoomba Post Office is one of three extant post offices built in the Classic Revival Style. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of this building type with the use of masonry construction, and classical form and detailing.
|Located near one of the main intersections in Toowoomba, it is a landmark in the town and a strong feature in the streetscape. A precinct of Government buildings is formed by the Post Office, the adjacent Court House [600848] and the Police Station in Neil Street.
The Toowoomba Post Office is of considerable aesthetic significance due to its landmark qualities and for its high degree of design and workmanship, including the exterior stonework.
|The place has strong associations with past and present residents of the Darling Downs as the primary centre for communication, by mail, telegraph or telephone since 1880.
|It also has special associations with Government architect F D G Stanley who was responsible for the design and construction of Queensland post offices from 1872 - 1880.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15623,"place_ref":600848,"name":"Toowoomba Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"46 Neil Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Toowoomba Court House is located at the corner of Margaret and Neil Streets, one of the main intersections in Toowoomba. It is sited adjacent to the Post Office [600847] and complements it in style, form and material. These two building, together with the Police Station in Neil Street form a precinct of Government buildings, creating a landmark in the streetscape.
The Court House building comprises the main section facing Margaret Street which is constructed of sandstone. At the rear of this are three additional wings, of which the two end ones are connected to the main section and the central one is freestanding. Although constructed of a different type of stone, the wing facing Neil Street is similar in design to the main section. The remaining two wings are of a more simplistic design and are of a rendered finish which is painted.
New landscaping surrounds the front of the building, whilst the rear of the site is asphalted for use as a carpark. The original stables, reconstructed as a garage, are located at the rear of the site behind the eastern wing.
The building is accessed by a set of shallow steps which lead to a central projecting bay with three open arches at the front and one at each side, creating an open portico at ground level. Within each of the three front arches are sets of wrought iron gates. The pillars between the arches have bases of rock-faced stone, margined and chiselled with simple mouldings above. A keystone is located at the centre of each arch. Entry into the building itself is via two sets of cedar doors with glass panels and side lights. They sit on either side of an arched panel recessed into the wall. The doors on the eastern side enter into a ground floor office, whilst the western doors open into an entrance space in front of the central staircase.
The first level is enclosed, with three sets of double hung windows with fanlights positioned above the three archways at the front and above the archways at either end. The solid sections between the windows form engaged pilasters with decorative relief carved capitals and simply moulded bases. Smaller decorative panels are located between each window at the height of the window head. A triangular gable is located over the projected bay with 1878-1979 in bronze within the gable and the words COURT HOUSE in bronze lettering across the entablature. Behind the central gable is an octagonal light lantern which internally, is located over the court house gallery.
The pattern of windows separated by engaged pilasters continues across the front of the building, with keystones above each fanlight. The side elevations of this section of the building are similar in detail to the front, with similar windows, but no pilaster detail. Doors are located on the eastern side and comprise two narrow leaves which are panelled, with a fanlight above.
The ground level of the Neil Street wing is constructed of a darker stone, which is ?-faced. A centrally located door with a semi-circular protruding hood is flanked by three deeply recessed arched windows. The door itself is recessed within a timber lined section and is of glass with an aluminium frame.
The upper section of the wing is rendered and painted with seven evenly spaced rectangular windows, deeply recessed with aluminium frames. An entablature divides the ground and first levels and another is located at the top of the first floor, surmounted by a parapet. The southern elevation of this wing is rendered and painted on both levels, with arched windows on the lower level and corresponding rectangular windows on the upper level.
The remaining two rear wings are similar in design to the rendered section of the Neil Street wing, with the eastern most wing having an external timber stair at the rear.
The building has a gabled roof, the main part of which runs east west and is intersected by the gable of the porch and the hipped roofs of the rear wings.
Internally the building has been substantially altered. The most intact areas are the central staircase and the court room, now used as a lecture theatre. The court room retains many original features including decorative cast iron columns supporting the gallery, timber trusses, cedar joinery and an octagonal light lantern.
Original details such as joinery and fireplaces are evident in some areas, but new partitioning and reconfiguration of the spaces to connect with the rear wings has reduced the original spaces. Features of interest but not part of the original fabric include 1943 balustrades and stairs which are concrete, natural in colour at the sides and red in the centre.
","history":"The main section of the Toowoomba Court House was erected between 1876 and 1878. At the time of its construction, the Colonial Architect responsible for the design of public buildings was F D G Stanley.
Toowoomba is the principal town on the Darling Downs which was first discovered by explorer Allan Cunningham in 1827. It was later settled by pastoralists in search of rich grazing land and by the 1840s, led by the Leslie brothers and John Campbell over twenty stations had been established. The first township which evolved to support these stations was Drayton, west of Toowoomba. Within ten years, the town had been established as a 'government town', with much support from the local squatters. As with other government buildings, the first court house on the Downs was constructed at Drayton.
However the success of Drayton did not last. The site now known as Toowoomba was eventually considered to be in a more suitable location for access down the range and in 1852, a town survey was secured.
The establishment of a new town was strongly supported by the squatters and Toowoomba challenged Brisbane as the new capital of Queensland. Although this status was not achieved, the town rapidly developed and by the 1860s had become the centre of pastoral development on the Downs.
Construction of the new Toowoomba law courts and public offices began in 1876. They replaced an earlier, smaller building, also located in Margaret Street, which was constructed in 1863. The new building was much larger than the previous one and of a more imposing design, indicative of the sense of prosperity and permanence felt by the town.
The building was erected in stages, the first of which was completed by 1878. The contractor for this section was J Gargett and the building was erected at a cost of £6 870. It was constructed of locally quarried cut stone from Highfields.
In 1913, a single storey building was erected at the rear of the site, for use as the Lands Office. It fronted Neil Street and adjoined the existing building. Although of a different stone, it was of a similar style to the original building, costing £1963-10 to erect.
Further additions were made to the site in 1943, including the addition of another storey to the 1913 building and two more two storeyed buildings behind the 1877 building. Of these, one was located at the eastern end of the existing building and attached to it, forming a 'U' shaped structure. The second building was freestanding and located in the centre of the 'U' shape. The additions were constructed at a cost of £28 799 and were designed by government architect R C Nowland.
In 1979, a substantial refurbishment was undertaken. The Court House is now used by a number of organisations, including the Police Department and the Department of Sport and Tourism. The interior layout bears little resemblance to the 1878 or 1943 layouts.
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Court House is located at the intersection of Margaret and Neil Streets and was constructed between 1876 and 1878. It is the third known Court House to be constructed on the Darling Downs, the first of which was at Drayton. As such it demonstrates the development of the district and consequently, the evolution of Queensland's history.
|The Toowoomba Court House demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type, externally as a substantial government building of classical style, and internally by the retention of the Court Room space.
|Located at one of the main intersections in Toowoomba, it is a landmark in the town and a strong feature in the streetscape. A precinct of Government buildings is formed by the Court House, the adjacent Post Office [600847] and the Police Station in Neil Street.
The Toowoomba Court House is of considerable aesthetic significance due to its landmark qualities and for its high degree of design and workmanship. This includes the exterior stonework and detailing of joinery, both internally and externally, and the sensitive quality of the additions.
|The place has strong associations with architect J C Nowland who was responsible for the design of the 1943 additions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15624,"place_ref":600849,"name":"Strand Theatre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"159 - 167 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Strand Theatre, fronting Margaret Street to the south, is a three-storeyed rendered brick building with a hipped corrugated iron roof concealed behind a shaped gable parapet.
Framed by pilasters, the decorative symmetrical street facade consists of a large semi-circular arch at the first floor level with a quatrefoil window to either side, and is surmounted by a deep cornice, giving the impression of a heightened entrance. This is bisected by a large turret, with three circular leadlight windows, which projects over the entrance and is supported by four large rendered brackets surrounding a statue of a female figure holding a lamp. Lunette windows to either side have leadlight panels.
The second floor has five arched windows with Art Nouveau style leadlight panels, above which is a deep cornice, with rendered relief work to the shaped gable above which is surmounted by three large finials. The street level has display arches either side of the entrance, with a recent cantilevered metal awning above.
Internally, little remains of the 1916 decor apart from the pressed metal ceiling and cornices of the auditorium, tessellated tiling in the ground floor foyer, and the finishes to the former hotel rooms on the second floor. The latter are partitioned in four inch vertical tongue and groove boarding and have pressed metal ceilings. Rooms open off a central corridor previously accessed from the former neighbouring hotel, now demolished. This area is now sealed off. The floor is supported by spanning steel beams which divide the auditorium below into seven bays. The original balcony remains intact although this is now used only as a link between the projection rooms of the new cinema.
Many of the 1933 decorative elements, such as the attached pilasters constructed of rendered canvas over a timber frame, are simply fixed over existing surfaces. Lyrebird motif grilles of gilded timber were adopted to cover the former window openings, and a mechanical ventilation system was installed. Art Deco banding which once surrounded the proscenium remain only as a frieze, following widening of the stage in the late 1950s to accommodate a cinemascope screen. The mezzanine floor foyer features an intact 1933 ceiling and wall grilles.
","history":"This three-storeyed brick picture theatre was erected in 1915-16 for James Patrick Newman, a Toowoomba City alderman.
It was constructed during the early and enthusiastic adoption of cinema by Australian audiences in the first two decades of the 20th century, when the new nation boasted a truly vibrant local film industry which competed healthily with imported British and American product. Its construction was illustrative of the early 20th century attempt to legitimise cinema as a respectable middle-class entertainment in Australia.
In 1915 Newman commissioned established Brisbane architect George Henry Male Addison to design a picture theatre on a site in Margaret Street adjoining the Crown Hotel. This site had operated as the Crystal Palace Picture Gardens since early 1914. Addison called tenders in July 1915, and the contract was awarded to Luke Halley.
The American-derived design was similar to picture theatres erected in other Australian cities during the 1910s. In particular, the large semi-circular glazed arch was reminiscent of the Majestic (1912) and Britannia (1913) in Melbourne and the Pavilion (1913) in Brisbane. It was, however, unorthodox in that the top level was designed as additional accommodation for the Crown Hotel, which was also owned by JP Newman. This third storey was accessed via a staircase from the hotel.
Newman leased the theatre to moving picture exhibitor Senora Spencer, who named the venue the Strand, like her theatres in Brisbane and Newcastle. The first screening, which was accompanied by the Strand Symphony Orchestra and an opening ceremony performed by the Mayor of Toowoomba, took place on the evening of Saturday 15 April 1916.
In 1918 the lease was taken over by Union Theatres, an early Australian distribution-exhibition conglomerate, who repainted and redecorated the theatre early in 1919, when the building was closed temporarily during the Spanish influenza epidemic.
From the mid-1920s the Strand was leased by independent exhibitors.
In mid-1930 sound projection equipment was installed and the theatre was host to some of Toowoomba's earliest 'talkies'.
In 1933 the owners of the Strand arranged with Birch Carroll & Coyle for Sydney architect and theatre designer Guy Crick, who was then designing Toowoomba's rebuilt Empire Theatre for Birch Carroll & Coyle, to revamp the interior of the Strand in art moderne (Art Deco) style. At the same time the first floor foyer and office space was extended to the upper level of a newly constructed two-storeyed building along the east wall.
So popular were movies during the depression that the Strand continued evening screenings throughout the renovations, although most of the daily matinees were cancelled. The newly refurbished theatre was opened officially in early December 1933, with the local newspaper claiming that the Strand was the first picture theatre in Australia to be refitted completely in the art moderne style.
The Strand flourished during the 1930s, proudly advertising 'Always first with the latest and the greatest', and screened premier features from Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers and United Artists to large audiences.
In 1957 the current owners acquired the theatre and introduced a wide screen format, and renovated the main foyer in the 1960s and again in the 1970s.
A major redevelopment of the theatre and the adjoining buildings was completed in 1992. The adjoining Crown Hotel and the amusement centre were demolished and four small cinemas were erected around the original cinema which was stripped of seating and refurbished to become a large foyer for the new cinema complex.
","criteria":"The Strand Theatre at Toowoomba, erected 1915-16, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the emergence of cinema as a 20th century social phenomenon.
|It demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular as a rare, purpose built picture theatre of the early 20th century, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 20th century picture theatres.
|It demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular as a rare, purpose built picture theatre of the early 20th century, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early 20th century picture theatres.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Toowoomba community, in particular its prominent siting and contribution through scale, form and materials to the streetscape of Margaret Street and to the Toowoomba townscape; and the quality of its 1930s interior decoration.
|It has a special association with cinema audiences of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs.
|It has a special association with the work of noted Brisbane architect, GHM Addison, and with important cinema architect, Guy Crick.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15625,"place_ref":600850,"name":"Toowoomba Grammar School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24-60 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The School House is a three storeyed brick building with a two storeyed timber verandah in the centre of the front facade. On the south western end, adjoining the School House, is the Old Hall. Formerly the main school room, it is a single storeyed, gable roofed building constructed from brick with concrete and stone trim. Sited on a rise in spacious grounds the building overlooks garden beds, large trees, lawns and ovals to the north and west.
The front facade of the building, described as "Domestic Gothic" in style, features contrast concrete and stone trim, label mouldings, hood moulds, and decorative banding. The vertically proportioned timber casement and double hung windows are rectangular or with pointed facade forming an axis which is reinforced by the placement of a decorative gable with central oculus and an octagonal fleche above the line of the doors. The fleche and three brick chimneys are located along the main ridge of roof. The verandah, which has paired timber posts and a simple timber balustrade on the first floor level, runs between projecting gable fronted bays. Ornamental timber work, such as decorative barge boards and valances, has been replaced by simpler timber members. The roof overhang is supported on timber eaves brackets.
The focus of the front facade of the old hall is a group of pointed arched windows. These windows, with the bulls eye and eight pointed star shaped openings above, form a single composition framed by a hood mould. Stepped or keyed edges provide a contrast in render around window openings and on the chimney and gable end which forms an entry porch on the south western elevation.
The original building, roughly H shaped in plan, has been extended several times. On the north eastern end is the 1906 extension, in a style similar to the original, and the 1941 extension, in a contrasting style. The three storeyed 1941 extension, a rectangular masonry structure with parapet walls concealing the roof, has pilasters with stepped tops ornamenting the external walls. Built onto the rear of the original building, in line with the main entrance, is the shower and toilet block. It is a gable roofed brick wing with concrete banding at the head of horizontally proportioned windows. A timber staircase, with a timber panelled balustrade and brass handrail, built around the same time as the shower block connects it to the original building.
Two other wings are attached to the rear of the building. The south western wing is three storeys tall with a gable roof. It has brick arches over casement windows to the lower and upper floors and banding at the line of the sill of ground level windows. The two storeyed brick wing, nearer the north eastern end of the building, has a hipped roof.
Internally the school house has rendered masonry walls on the lower levels and painted brick work on the upper level. A number of rooms have pressed metal ceilings. Timber wainscotting of modern design has been added to some ground floor rooms, including the Old Hall. On the second floor the building contains mostly dormitories, large spaces divided by partitions. Ceilings are partly raked and lined with timber boards or pressed metal. Metal tie rods and portions of timber roof trusses are visible below the line of the ceiling.
In the Old Hall the steeply pitched roof is lined with diagonal tongue in groove boards to form a raked ceiling above timber purlins and queen-post trusses. On the walls of this large room hand numerous timber honour boards. A fireplace with a stone mantelpiece is located in the centre of the south western wall. External access to the room is via a porch located adjacent to the southern corner of the room.
","history":"The Toowoomba Grammar School was the third Grammar School to be constituted under the Grammar Schools Act 1860-1864 following the establishment of Ipswich Grammar (1863) and Brisbane Grammar (1869). The foundation stone of the school house was laid by the Hon Charles Lilley on the 7 August 1875 and the school was officially opened on the 1 February 1877 by the Hon James Taylor, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
Toowoomba citizens took the first steps to establish a local Grammar School in January 1874 when a letter was sent to the Colonial Secretary, HH Massie, seeking approval for the project and a subscription list was opened in the Darling Downs Gazette. More than 2700 pounds was raised within weeks from both large and small donations, securing a government grant of 5333 pounds and further loan of 2000 pounds.
The Board of Trustees, elected during June of 1874, selected the Old Queens Park as the site for the school. Thirteen acres of this 50 acre site was granted by the government and the remainder was secured by the Trustees at 10 pounds an acre as part of the government endowment. The initial board consisted of seven members, three subscribers representatives; W Graham MLA, GH Davenport and SG Stephens and four Government representatives: J Taylor MLC, JF McDougall MLC, G Elliot and CJ Anderson.
On the 21 October 1874 architects were invited to submit designs for the proposed Grammar School and a premium of 50 pounds and second prize of 25 pounds were offered. The proposed building was not to exceed 5000 pounds in cost and was to house one large school room, at least 4 classrooms, dormitories for 30-40 boarders, quarters for the headmaster and his family, toilets, bathrooms and servants quarters. A terrace was to be build in front of the main facade and future extensions were to be indicated.
The winning design "Veritas" was by the Brisbane architect Willoughby Powell, then a draftsman in the Queensland Public Works Department and previously in the employ of Richard Gailey. Powell moved to Toowoomba to supervise the construction of the school buildings and practiced there until 1877. During this period he designed a variety of buildings including churches, residences and a flour mill. Powell had a further impact on Toowoomba when in 1899 he won the competition for the design of a new Town Hall, the construction of which was supervised by J Marks and Sons.
Separate tenders were called in January 1877 for the erection of a lodge, gymnasium, stables and entrance gates designed by Powell. These structures were subsequently erected at the cost of 530 pounds. The main entrance to the school was at the corner of Herries and Mary Street.
The first headmaster of the school was J Macintoch of Camden College, near Sydney, a graduate of Edinburgh University with honours in classics and mathematics. The initial enrolment was forty-four students including twenty boarders with numbers rising to 60 by the end of 1877. Macintoch died accidentally when thrown from a horse on 12 April 1879.
During the next 31 years Toowoomba Grammar had seven headmasters. Over this period the school experienced financial difficulties as enrolments declined to a record low of 29 in the year 1900. From this low point numbers began to rise so that by August 1906 tenders were being called for additions in Brick by J Marks and Son. These additions may have been part of Willoughby Powell's original design. Marks and Son supervised Powell's design for the Toowoomba City Hall, the winner of a design competition in 1899. A small timber building was also erected in 1906 at a cost of 105 pounds for use as a science laboratory. These funds were raised by public subscription, an initiative of Dr Hamlyn-Harris, the science master who in 1910 became the Curator of the Brisbane Museum. Additions to the school, referred to in a 1908 prospectus, included the boy's sitting room, a new classroom, a special dormitory for boys under 12, gas lighting, a new dining room, a headmaster's residence, servants quarters and a new library of 400 volumes.
By 1910 when GP Barbour was appointed headmaster the future of the school was no longer in doubt. He remained as headmaster until 1935 and was responsible for building up Toowoomba Grammar's academic reputation. This was considerably assisted by the achievements of his son RRP Barbour who in 1920 became the first graduate of the school to receive a Rhodes Scholarship. Improvements to the school between 1925 and 1928, intended to celebrate the school's jubilee, were concentrated on the grounds. Sporting facilities including an oval, swimming pool, new tennis court and an oval pavilion were established. A new chemistry building was constructed in 1925.
A library in memory of AG Stephens, the first student enrolled at Toowoomba Grammar and the literary editor of the Bulletin, was opened in 1937. In 1941 an addition was made to the eastern end of the School House to accommodate the increasing numbers of boarders. In 1947 the architect and planner Karl Langer prepared a master plan for the school which guided building at the school until 1968 which it was superseded by the tenth decade development plan. Buildings constructed during this period include the headmaster's residence, three boarding houses, an assembly hall, new science laboratories, opened on November 2 1962 by Sir Mark Oliphant, a small hobbies room and a resident master's house. A bathroom and toilet wing and new staircase was added onto the rear of the School House, probably between 1947 and 1953.
New buildings since 1970 include a number of classroom blocks, a new gymnasium, an additional boarding house and an arts building. The most recent building, built in 1989, is the WM Dent Library which is adjacent to the north east end of the school house.
","criteria":"Toowoomba Grammar School was the third grammar school to be built in Queensland and demonstrates the impact of the Grammar School Act 1860-64 on the developing of education in Queensland.
\nThe School House and old Hall, the original buildings built between 1875 and 1877, served for many years as the main buildings of Toowoomba Grammar School. They are a strong representation of the aspirations of the original subscribers and Board of Trustees.
|(Criterion under review)
|An Australian adaptation of an English grammar school, the \"Domestic Gothic\" style buildings were placed in a spacious park like setting. This is still discernible today in the open grounds and substantial trees located to the north and west of the School House and the original terrace located in front of the School House.
\nThe buildings are accomplished designs of the architect Willoughby Powell. Prominently located, they are the visual and organisational centre around which the subsequent planning of the school has evolved.
|A project enthusiastically supported by the local community when first conceived, the new school was a status symbol for the town and surrounding district when it opened and remains a focus in a city noted for the quality and quantity of its educational establishments.
|The buildings are accomplished designs of the architect Willoughby Powell. Powell, who came to Toowoomba as a result of winning the competition for the Toowoomba Grammar School, contributed a number of notable buildings to the town and surrounding centres including the Toowoomba City Hall.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15626,"place_ref":600851,"name":"Toowoomba Technical College (former)","alternate_name":"Southern Queensland Institute of Technical and Further Education (SQIT), Hume Street Campus","street_address":"124 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Toowoomba Technical College is located on the corner of Margaret and Hume Streets Toowoomba. The building occupies a prominent position in the towns centre. It is situated opposite Queens Park (601607) and marks the eastern entrance to the Toowoomba township.
The Toowoomba Technical College Building, Block A, is a two storey brick structure, relieved with sandstone dressings and some stucco, such as the pebble-dash balustrades marking the colonnade facing Margaret Street. All natural stone dressings are painted and the face brickwork has been coated with a clear finish. The eastern end of the north wing is equipped with saw tooth skylights facing south .
The building has an "L" shaped floor plan, with an internal staircase located approximately centrally on each wing. Many of the rooms still function as classrooms and fittings such as blackboards have been retained. Both floors of the college feature high ceilings with a 'Ripple Iron' finish. This finish has also been used in the two brick toilet blocks that were built at the same time.
A number of temporary internal walls have been installed on levels 1 and 2 to create office space and additional classrooms and a kitchen has been installed in what was once the clerks office on level 1 and the commercial room on level 2.
Apart from Block A, the other buildings on the site include two brick toilet blocks contemporary with the main building though partially altered; a timber building from 1913, now shifted and elevated (Block B); a brick classroom/workshop built in 1931 (Block D); and a temporary wooden building, built in 1955 (Block C). Apart from the toilet blocks, the later additions are substantially different in style and form to the original building (Block A).
","history":"The former Toowoomba Technical College, constructed in 1911, was purpose built for the provision of vocational education and training for the people of the Toowoomba and the Darling Downs region. Designed by the Department of Public Works employee, Thomas Pye, the building is a large two-storey brick structure and is a good example of the style of education facilities that government architect's were producing at the time.
Vocational education had been established in Toowoomba at least by 1898. Such education was in the form of the Toowoomba School of Arts. This building was substantially damaged by fire on 21 June 1898, an event that was reported in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 22 June 1898. Following the fire, the City Council decided that a new Town Hall should be built on the School of Arts site. The new City Hall [600865], constructed in 1900, incorporated a public hall, municipal offices and chambers as well as rooms for a school of arts and technical college.
The Technical College remained in the City Hall until the construction of the new building in 1911. The site for the Toowoomba Technical College building, now known as Block A, was acquired in 1908 and the building was constructed in 1911, the foundation stone being laid by Sir William MacGregor, Governor of Queensland. The development of a purpose built Technical College in Toowoomba followed the formation of the Department of Public Instruction in 1905, established to centralise the control of technical education in Queensland. Prior to this, technical eduction in Toowoomba had been organised by local committees, often associated with the School of Arts. With the intervention of the Government, funding improved and a number of new purpose-designed buildings were constructed.
The Toowoomba Technical College building was designed by the Department of Public Works and built by Alexander Mayes, a Toowoomba contractor and later Mayor of Toowoomba from 1916-1917. At this time, the Under Secretary for Public Works, Government Architect and Engineer for Bridges was A. B. Brady. The building was designed by architect Thomas Pye and in style, illustrates the most substantial type of educational institutions coming from the Government architect's office at the time. The solid, free-classical design is surmounted by a hipped room, covered with "rolled iron" and topped with a ventilation fleche; the signature of a public building from this age. The urban nature of the site is reflected in the corner pavilions, with cornices and parapets, that are built up to the street alignment of the property. The design also responded to the sun by minimising western windows and providing south light for the "art room" - two major studio style rooms that were situated on the first floor.
Pye's approach to the site was to design a large two-storeyed building with two smaller detached single-storey buildings to be used for a chemical laboratory and a carpentry workshop, and two buildings containing earth closets. The main building as built in 1911 substantially follows the original sketch design, however, the brick chemical laboratory and carpentry workshop were deleted. In 1913, a timber carpentry workshop was built in the position envisaged by Pye. In 1929, the need for additional space for Domestic Science was met by moving the timber carpentry workshop closer to the main building, raising it and building in underneath to form a two-storeyed block (Block B). In 1931, a brick workshop building (Block D) was built on the site of the original timber carpenters workshop, which had been relocated in 1929. A "temporary" timber building containing two classrooms was constructed between the two brick buildings in 1955 (Block C). When the main building was extended in 1939, a design sympathetic to the 1911 design was used.
The main building underwent minor alterations in 1940 and again in 1979 with few changes to the original layout of the building. The college and the high school remained combined until 1962, when the high school separated and moved to another site. The restrictions of the Margaret Street site, even for the technical college alone, became apparent and in recent years development has concentrated on other sites in Toowoomba. As a result, the context of the Margaret Street site is still clear and is not obstructed by later buildings.
","criteria":"The former Toowoomba Technical College was built in 1911 and holds a special association with the establishment of vocational education in regional Queensland and the development of Toowoomba as a regional centre.
The development of a purpose built Technical College in Toowoomba is associated with the formation of a branch of the Department of Public Instruction in 1905, established to centralise the control of technical education. With the intervention of the Government, funding improved and a number of new purpose-designed buildings were constructed, including the Toowoomba Technical College in 1911.
|The overall style and form of the building is also a good example of the style of educational facilities that government architect's were producing at the time.
|The building holds a prominent position in the town, marking the eastern entrance to the central city area and is similar in style and form to a number of other Government buildings in the Toowoomba township.
|The former Toowoomba Technical College holds a special association with the establishment of vocational education in regional Queensland.
|Designed by Thomas Pye, architect for the Department of Public Works and built by Alexander Mayes, Mayor of Toowoomba from 1916-1917.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15627,"place_ref":600852,"name":"Toowoomba Maltings","alternate_name":"William Jones and Son (Maltsters) Ltd | State Wheat Board | Redwood's Maltings | Queensland Malting Company Ltd | Northern Australia Brewers Ltd | Carlton Maltings | Queensland Brewery Co | Paterson Redwood and Co | Darling Downs Malting Company Ltd | Black Gully Malthouse","street_address":"11 Mort Street","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-01-21","description":"The Toowoomba Maltings is located in a mixed industrial and residential area in Newtown, north of the Toowoomba CBD. The site is bounded by Mort Street to the east and Black Gully on the north. Between the gully and the malt house is a disused siding which links to the railway line on the opposite side of Mort Street. The malt house, consisting of a long rectangular building orientated approximately east-west, is set back from the Mort Street frontage and stands on a flat platform of land cut into the sloping site.
The malt house is composed of a number of sections. Closest to Mort Street at the far eastern end of the building are the two 1899 kilns. Next to them are the 1907 kilns, with a cross-shaped malt dressing building running between and linking all four kilns. The largest part of the malt house is a two storey, rectangular, gable roofed shed at the western end, which contains the former germination floor on the ground floor and storage bins and steeping tanks on the first floor. Generally, the building has concrete foundations, load bearing brick walls, and timber internal and roof structures. All roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The numerous windows and doors are of a variety of sizes with shallow-arched lintels and are generally finished with original timber joinery, including window shutters and louvres. In 2014, original tools and machinery remain in the buildings.
A large 1980s shed located adjacent to the 1899 kilns on the eastern and southern sides is not of cultural heritage significance.
The two 1899 bluestone kilns are of coursed rubble construction with the lower level partly below ground. A central furnace once provided the heat for the drying process which took place on an upper level. Timber staircases, walkways and radial, timber framed floors within the kilns have been partially demolished. In 2014, one kiln roof has been demolished.
The two larger 1907 kilns are constructed of brick with brick arches on the lower furnace level and steel framed floors of perforated cast-iron tiles above. The kiln roofs are steeply-pitched, pyramidal roofs clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Ventilators located at the peak of the roofs have overhanging flat metal tops.
A gable roofed brick malt-dressing building runs between all four kilns. Machinery for processing grain (cleaning, moving, grading) is located on timber platforms at different levels connected by timber stairs. Sky lights over this area have rolled iron roofs. Rooms for the collection of dust are located on the upper level.
The large brick shed, measuring approximately 58m long and 25m wide, is accessed through doors at the eastern end of the northern side. The gable roof comprises a timber propped purlin and rafter roof frame clad in corrugated galvanised steel sheeting. The roof is punctuated by decorative galvanised steel ventilators and skylights. A dormer loading bay with double timber doors is located in the centre of the northern slope and a stepped tower element is located adjacent to the 1907 kilns.
The ground floor of the shed has a polished concrete germinating floor and is ventilated by timber louvred windows. Round cast-iron columns in a grid of 14x6 bays support the timber floor and floor framing above.
The first floor level, which occupies the roof space of the shed, has large, timber framed malt storage bins lined with pine boards on a malthoid paper backing. A central corridor running east-west along the length of the shed allows access to the storage bins and the dormer loading bay.
Above the central corridor under the ridge of the shed roof is a timber walkway and conveyor belt. The conveyor belt is connected via metal chutes with the storage bins. At the western end of this reversible conveyor belt, opening onto the germinating floor below, are two large steeping tanks supported on steel girders. Grain elevators are located at the eastern end of the conveyor belt in the malt dressing area.
To the north of the malt house the site is relatively open with large areas of concrete and bitumen and some grassed areas. The railway siding tracks remain in situ. Views of the northern side of the building and the prominent kiln roofs are obtained from Mort Street and the opposite side of Black Gully.
","history":"The Toowoomba Maltings, located on Mort Road, Newtown, comprises bluestone rubble kilns erected in 1899 and a two storey brick malt house and kilns erected in 1907 for the purpose of turning barley into malt using the floor malting process. The 1899 phase of the building (of which the kilns are the only remnant) was constructed for Paterson Redwood and Co. and was designed by Brisbane architect William A. Caldwell. The 1907 malt house and kilns were designed by notable Toowoomba architect Harry Marks for English maltsters William Jones and Son Ltd, who had purchased the operations in 1904. The site was used for malting purposes since the first malt house was constructed there in 1897 (no longer extant) and the complex was expanded and modernised in the 1960s. The 1907 malt house and kilns remain substantially intact and are the best preserved example of a floor maltings building in Queensland.[1]
European settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in the 1840s when squatters first occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. Located at the intersection of three large runs, the small settlement of Drayton (originally known as ‘The Springs') evolved from 1842 as a stopping place servicing pastoralists and travellers. From the late 1840s, the Drayton Swamp Agricultural Area (‘The Swamp'), six kilometres to the north-east, began to be considered a more desirable location for settlement. Better land for market gardening, improved water supply, the support of squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, a better route to Brisbane (The Toll Road), were all advantages over Drayton.[2]
By the time Queensland separated from New South Wales in December 1859, Drayton Swamp had become the town of Toowoomba, with municipal status granted on 19 November 1860.[3] Toowoomba became the principal centre of the Darling Downs, fostering early agricultural development and claiming most of the service, administrative and educational functions of the region.[4] A railway line between Toowoomba and Ipswich was opened in 1867, followed by railway links to Dalby (1868), Warwick (1871) and Brisbane (1875), opening up the Downs to greater communication and transport of goods.[5] As the regional capital expanded, its industries diversified beyond primary production, with specialised plants and factories making a range of goods. These included tanneries, flour mills (such as the Defiance Flour Mill, 1898, QHR601306), a bacon factory, butter and cheese factories, the Toowoomba Foundry (1871, QHR 601300), breweries and malt houses.[6]
Malt is germinated grain (usually barley), used in brewing and distilling.[7] The first breweries established in Australia used imported malt from England, but by the first decade of the nineteenth century, a number of breweries included malt houses, for converting local barley to malt.[8]
The first stage of the floor malting process involved soaking the grain in a large tank or cistern, frequently termed the ‘steep', to raise its moisture level. The next stage was the artificial germination of the grain to a specific point by the control of heat within the grain. This was done by emptying the barley onto the germinating, or malting, floor. The barley was heaped up to enable it to gain some heat to encourage the germination process. It would then be spread out across the malting floor to a depth of from 4 to 8 inches (100-200mm) to grow. It would be raked and turned on a regular basis to control the heat. The final stage was to stop the germination process by drying the grain in a kiln. The ‘green malt' was laid on the perforated floor of the kiln to a depth of between 8 to 12 inches (200-300mm), and was turned to aid the drying process. After kilning, the malt was cleaned, or dressed, and either stored in bins or bagged.[9]
To produce malt using the floor malting process, a malt house required a large level germinating floor; a steep for soaking the grain; a kiln to dry the green malt; and storage areas. While there were variations, in Queensland all malt houses were two storeys with the malting floor at ground level and storage above. The layout usually comprised a large rectangular germinating floor of smooth concrete, with a steep at one end and kilns at the other end. The first floor was used for storing and cleaning the barley before delivering it to the steep below, as well as for receiving the green malt for delivery to the kiln and for dressing and storing the malt. As the soaking of the grain and its germination is critically dependent on temperature, the requirement for temperature control influenced the design of malt houses. Thick brick or stone walls were used to provide an even temperature to the germinating floor, while air flow was controlled by rows of shutters or louvres to the side walls.[10]
Producing malt by the floor malting process was difficult in Queensland's warm climate. The elevated Darling Downs area, where the average temperature is between one and two degrees cooler than southeast Queensland, became the most sought after location for establishing malt houses in the state. Access to a potential supply of barley and railway connections to Ipswich and Brisbane were also important factors in determining the location of the malting industry.[11]
The first malt house in Queensland was constructed in 1871 at the Perkins Downs Brewery, Margaret Street, Toowoomba (no longer extant). Due to a lack of adequate barley supply, however, it closed in 1878, and over the next 20 years it operated intermittently under different owners. Despite this, in 1897 new malt houses were constructed in Toowoomba and Warwick. This optimism about the future may have been due to the general improvement in the economic situation between 1895 and 1897, which saw beer production rise by 29% and imports of malt by 21%. Import tariffs on malt and malting barley also provided protection to the infant industry.[12]
The new Toowoomba malt house was erected at Black Gully, about 1.6kms north of the town centre, for the Darling Downs Malting Company Ltd. It was operated by the Redwoods, a famous New Zealand malting family who were instrumental in developing the malting industry on the Darling Downs and in encouraging Downs' farmers to grow and harvest barley for malting. Alphonso H Redwood was the managing director. The site had ready access to a water supply (Black Gully is a tributary of Gowrie Creek) and to transport (a railway siding known as Redwood's Siding was constructed to link the malt house with the adjacent main south and west railway lines). The malt house was designed by architects J Marks and Son and was located close to the creek at the northern edge of the site.[13]
James Marks (1834-1915) was one of the most influential architects in Toowoomba from the late 1860s until the early twentieth century. He and his son Henry James (Harry) Marks (1871-1939), with whom he entered into partnership in 1892, came to dominate the architectural profession on the Darling Downs for more than half a century.[14] James Marks' works included homesteads (with their associated woolsheds and farm buildings), churches, shops, school buildings, residences, hotels, banks, offices and grandstands. His son Harry Marks was a highly creative designer who invented and patented numerous fittings for providing good ventilation and natural light to his buildings, including ventilators and reversible casement windows. As J Marks and Son (which practised between 1892 and 1910) the firm designed a wide variety of residential, religious and commercial buildings, while their industrial buildings included Dominion Flour Mill, Russell St (1897-98, demolished), Crisp and O'Brien's Defiance Flour Mill, Russell St (1898, partially extant) and Perkins Malt House, Margaret St (1900, demolished).[15]
The Black Gully site expanded in 1899 with the construction of a second malt house (known as the big malt house) to the south of the 1897 malt house (which became known as the small malt house). Designed by Brisbane architect William A. Caldwell, the big malt house consisted of a long, rectangular building fronting what is now Mort Street with two kilns at the rear (western) end.[16] The new building was operated by Paterson Redwood and Co. Later called the Queensland Malting Company Ltd, members of the Redwood family were also associated with this company as minor shareholders, with the directors and major shareholders being Francis J Paterson (later Town Clerk of Toowoomba) and Townsville merchant, Samuel Nesbitt Allen.
In 1901, both malt houses were purchased by Vernon Redwood and P O'Brien, with Redwood buying out O'Brien later that year. The business was then operated under the name Redwood, by Vernon (who had been chief maltster for Perkins and Co in Toowoomba and who later served as Mayor and a Member of the Legislative Assembly) with his father and brothers.
The business was purchased in 1904 by English maltsters William Jones and Son (Maltsters) Ltd with Vernon Redwood as general manager (1904-13). William Jones and Son, described as one of the foremost maltsters in the world,[17] was responsible for importing most of the English malt coming into Australia. After federation and the imposition of duty on malt, the company needed to establish themselves in Australia to maintain their business. In addition to the two malt houses at the Black Gully site at that time was a brewery tower (erected c1898) and residential accommodation.
In 1906 William Jones & Son embarked on a major expansion program at the Black Gully site, calling tenders in September for the erection of a new malt house.[18] Costing £6,999, the new building was designed and supervised by architect Harry Marks. The works comprised the erection of a new 240ft (73m) long malt house and kilns linked to the 1899 malt house, and the conversion of the existing brewery tower to a high water storage reservoir. The new malt house included steeping tanks, a large polished cement germinating floor, two kilns, malt dressing rooms, and a number of pine storage bins. Elevators and a conveyor belt, which traversed the length of the building, transported the grain in its various stages. The malt storage chamber was fitted with 38 Marks-patented reversible casement louvred windows and a number of Marks's roof ventilators. Special kiln top ventilators were also designed by Marks. The new complex, described as having the largest malting floor area in the Commonwealth,[19] was opened on 1 June 1907. The contractor was Montague Ivory with the plastering (including the cement germinating floor) by WJ Waldron, ironwork by the Toowoomba Foundry Co, and plumbing by Partridge and Co.
Poor barley seasons put a strain on the finances of William Jones & Son and the company ceased operating in Queensland after the 1914 season. The closure of this company reduced the malting capacity in Queensland from 260,000 to 60,000 bushels (4718 to 1089 tonnes). The extensive facilities vacated by William Jones & Son were used in 1916 by the Government to store, process and distribute wheat, and in subsequent years were leased.[20]
In 1923, the site was purchased by the Crown. In 1930 the maltings were repaired and reopened by the newly formed Queensland Barley Board, which had been established by the government in response to agitation by barley growers to resuscitate the malting industry. Malting continued at the site until 1942 when it was taken over by military authorities. After World War II, the maltings laid idle until 1951 when Northern Australian Breweries, part of Carlton United Breweries, took a seven year lease on the malt house to produce malt for its Queensland breweries. From 1958 it was the only active maltings in Queensland, due to Castlemaine Perkins Limited closing its Toowoomba brewery and selling the Margaret Street site for redevelopment.[21]
A new period of investment in mechanised malting technology began in the 1960s in Queensland. Automated methods for producing malt increased production and overcame the effect of Queensland weather on the malting process. In Toowoomba, Carlton United Breweries undertook a $1 million expansion of the Black Gully site. This included new buildings to house automatic malting technology, increasing its production capacity from 130,000 to 500,000 bushels (2359 to 9073 tonnes). The redevelopment involved the demolition of the 1897 malt house, the 1898 brewery and all but the stone kilns of the 1899 malt house. The 1907 malt house was retained and used for storage.[22]
In 1973, the maltings were transferred to Carlton United Brewers (NQ) Ltd. In 1987, the south-east portion of the site, formerly containing the water tower and other associated buildings, was sold. Ownership of the remainder of the site, containing the floor maltings and the automated maltings, has been transferred a number of times since. Further building extensions took place in the late 1980s.
Of the eight malt houses constructed in Queensland prior to the introduction of mechanised malting technology in the 1960s, all but two have been demolished. The 1897 malt house in Warwick still exists but has had the kilns removed. According to expert Ray Osborne, the surviving 1907 malt house in Toowoomba is one of the most intact floor maltings in Australia, and is an important part of Queensland's industrial and engineering heritage.[23]
In 2010, the sudden partial collapse of one of the 1899 kilns necessitated the controlled demolition of the kiln roof. Since 2011, malting has ceased to be carried out at the site and some modern equipment and structures attached to the 1907 building have been removed.[24]
References
[1] Ray Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland: The former William Jones & Son (Maltsters), 1907 Malt House, Toowoomba", Australian Journal of Multi-disciplinary Engineering, Vol 3, No.1 (2004).
[2] Maurice French and Duncan Waterson, The Darling Downs: A Pictorial History 1850-1950, Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press, 1982, p.17, 130.
[3] QHR entry for 602718 Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery
[4] French and Waterson, The Darling Downs , p.130-131.
[5] French and Waterson, The Darling Downs , p.110-112.
[6] French and Waterson, The Darling Downs , p.87-89.
[7] Macquarie Dictionary online, www.macquariedictionary.com.au
[8] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.43.
[9] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.43-4.
[10] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.44.
[11] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.44.
[12] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.44.
[13] Photo, Queensland Agricultural Journal, October 1903, p.317, in French and Waterson, The Darling Downs, p.102.
[14] QHR entry for 600854 Smithfield House
[15] Donald Watson and Judith Mackay, "Queensland Architects of the 19th Century", Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994, p.121-123; Martin Butterworth, "Russell Street Study: a heritage survey of twenty buildings and their street", 1994.
[16] The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 25 June 1898, p.3; Photo, Queensland Agricultural Journal, October 1903, p.317, in French and Waterson, The Darling Downs, p.102.
[17] The Brisbane Courier, Friday 16 December 1904, p.13S.
[18] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.45.
[19] The Brisbane Courier, 20 December 1906, p.23.
[20] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.46.
[21] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.46-7.
[22] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p .47.
[23] Osborne, "The industrial and engineering heritage of the floor malting industry in Queensland," p.47.
[24] ‘Historic city firm to shut doors', The Chronicle, 28 April 2011; EHP site visit photos, April 2014
","criteria":"Toowoomba Maltings is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the malting industry on the Darling Downs and the use of floor maltings.
|The Toowoomba Maltings is a rare and intact example of a Queensland malt house designed for the floor malting process. Of the eight malt houses constructed in Queensland before the introduction of mechanised malting technology in the 1960s, only two survive, of which the Toowoomba Maltings is the most intact.
|As a collection of structures and equipment associated with the technology of floor maltings, the Toowoomba Maltings is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a malt house, a building type that has made a strong contribution to Queensland's barley growing, malting and brewing history. The building contains all of the elements of a malt house operation, including a large, flat germinating floor on the ground floor; kilns at one end; steeping tanks at the other end; storage bins and malt dressing rooms on the first floor; and early plant and equipment.
The building also demonstrates methods used to adapt malt house designs to the warm Queensland climate, with thick brick walls providing an even temperature to the germinating floor and the inclusion of louvred windows and custom-designed ventilators to control heat and airflow.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular as an example of a functional industrial aesthetic.
|The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in an early 20th century floor malting complex.
|It has a special association with the life and work of Toowoomba architects James Marks and Son, in particular Harry Marks, and is a good example of their industrial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15628,"place_ref":600853,"name":"Ascot House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"15 Newmarket Street","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Ascot House is a single-storey timber residence with an attached two-storey timber extension, referred to as a folly. The house has a verandah around three sides under a separate roof, supported by slender double columns with decorative cast-iron capitals. Parts of the verandah have been enclosed.
The original section of the house is a simple U-shaped plan with verandahs extending beyond the length of the house. The folly stands within the central space created by the plan of the house, protected on each side by the enclosed verandahs and has external access at the rear of the house. Internal access to the folly is gained from the end of the large central hallway in the old house.
The folly is of a unique design with an intricately modelled façade of eclectic styles. The external timber features are reminiscent of neo-classical, neo-gothic and Dutch design. The folly is a tall narrow structure with layers of pediments, window and door frames, trimmings and brackets giving the façade a textured appearance.
The top of the façade is marked by two flying gables with triangular pediments and semi-circular valances with a central finial. The gables are supported by decorative timber brackets and they frame vertical timber panelling on the face of the building. The gables surmount small, elongated oriel windows with narrow rectangular glass panels. In the centre of the façade is a neo-classical triangular pediment which surmounts a Dutch-style pediment with a decorative timber 'heart' motif in the centre. On ground level, a protruding set of doors framed in Gothic style arches are protected by a double awning, the top layer convex and the bottom layer concave. The two awnings are separated by a large facia board decorated by rectangular panels.
The house is set on a large piece of land extending from the western side of the house towards Tor Street. The grounds contain mature trees, walking paths and fish ponds. A large palm on the north-west corner of the house is an original planting.
The front door to the house is surmounted by a fanlight with coloured glass and displays the initials 'WB' in the central panel (WB stands for William Beit, a previous owner and builder of the folly). The front door is flanked on either side by large step-down bay windows which are repeated along the sides of the verandahs.
The floors are carpeted internally except for the front living room and the dining room where the timber boards are exposed and polished and a decorative boarder design has been painted on the floor.
The front door accesses a long and wide hallway which leads off to bedrooms and formal rooms. At the end of the hall the ballroom of the folly extends perpendicular to the hall. It is a large room with timber vaulted ceiling. The original decorative painted stencils are still visible on the ballroom ceiling. On the eastern side of the ballroom is a guest bedroom built in an enclosed section of the original verandah. On the western side is the kitchen also in an enclosed part of the verandah.
Directly behind the ballroom is the former billiard room, now a public tea room, which is oval-shaped and features heavily panelled ceilings including square panels on the top of the ceilings and gothic arches around the cornices. On the eastern side of the tea room is the former maids' quarters accessed by a small set of steps. This area originally featured three very small bedrooms built into the enclosed verandah. The area has now been opened into one space but still demonstrates timber VJs and joinery. On the western side of the tea room also accessed by some steps through a gothic arch way is the commercial kitchen situated in what was originally the scullery.
The second storey of the folly rises only above the former billiard room area and is accessed by a curved timber stairway from the ballroom. This upper level contains two bedrooms with fireplaces and views to the surrounding area from the oriel windows.
","history":"Ascot House, a single-storey timber residence with an attached two-storeyed timber extension, referred to as a folly, has been called the largest and most extensive of the grand Toowoomba residences. While the exact construction date is unknown, Ascot was possibly built in the 1870s as a private residence for Frederick Hurrell Holberton, a Toowoomba storekeeper and later Member of the Legislative Council. The architect of Ascot house remains unknown. When built, the house stood on about 32 acres of land near the Toowoomba racecourse. The grounds of Ascot contained a glasshouse, stables, croquet greens, tennis courts and extensive gardens, which included trees and shrubs bought from overseas.
Holberton sold the property to William Beit Jnr in 1894. William Beit Snr died suddenly in July 1872 before the birth of his son. The Register of the Queensland Parliament, 1860-1927 states that Francis Gregory, the owner of Harlaxton House [600839], resigned as mining Commissioner for Stanthorpe in November 1872 to take over the administration on the Estate of his late friend William Beit, and the family moved to Westbrook. Gregory appears in the Post Office Directories as Station Manager, Westbrook, Toowoomba by 1874. By 1876, however, he is not listed as such. (The Toowoomba Chronicle, on 30 November 1875, reported a court case between Sarah Beit, as plaintiff and a number of defendants including, Henry Beit (William Beit's brother) and FT Gregory (as Trustees) as the Defendants.
It is thought that William Beit named the house Ascot, reputedly because of his interest in horse racing. In the 1890s, Beit added a two-storeyed extension with a large billiard room, designed by Harry Marks to the original U-shaped house. The extension was a very elaborate design, suggestive of the superstructure of a ship, and was known as Beit's Folly. Beit was reputed to have had a distinctly artistic temperament which was reflected in the buildings he owned. The folly has become the distinctive architectural characteristic associated with Ascot House.
The architect of the "folly", Harry Marks, was a prominent Toowoomba architect noted for his highly creative work. Harry Marks was born in Toowoomba in 1871. After training under his father, architect James Marks, Harry entered into partnership with him in 1892 and spent his entire career in Toowoomba. During his career he invented and patented numerous ventilators, reversible casement windows and a method of stucco construction. He continued the practice into the 20th century and his son Charles Beresford Marks became a partner in 1925. Harry Marks became an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1925 and Fellow in 1929. Harry Marks died on 1 March 1931.
Information from Anthony Battams thesis on William Hodgen states that, in 1899, plans were drawn by William Hodgen for extensions to the kitchen and stables. The builder for both of these projects was T. Olsen. There is also mention of a new cottage built for Beit in the same year, by G Gazzard and designed by Hodgen. It is not clear whether this cottage was built on the same property as Ascot House.
The Trustees Quarterly Review, April 1912 states that:
Queensland Trustees Limited, as attorneys for Mr William Beit, also placed on the market the beautiful house and park lands known as "Ascot", and though the house property itself failed to find a purchase, the remainder of the estate found great favour with the public, and the whole lot was sold at the auction sale from 275 to 450 pounds per acre.
Ascot was sold to Frederick Ernest Bennett in 1915, and has subsequently had a number of owners, being used for flats for many years. Articles in the Courier-Mail dated 21 March 1985, claim that American troops were stationed at Ascot House during World War Two.
The property has been progressively subdivided from the original 32 acres and it now stands on just over 2 acres of land. The house also suffered from the effects of vandalism during the 1970s. The current owner purchased Ascot House in 1984. Following extensive renovations, the two-storeyed extension of Ascot House, Beits' Folly, was opened as a tea room and house museum in 1994.
","criteria":"Ascot House is significant as one of the largest and most elaborate of all the grand residences of Toowoomba. Ascot follows the pattern of the construction of substantial houses on the Downs, demonstrating the development of the Darling Downs from a sparsely populated pastoral region to one of prosperity.
Ascot House is significant for its association with American troops stationed at the house in World War Two.
|Ascot House is also associated with the work of Harry Marks, who designed the 1890s folly, probably the most recognised architectural feature of the house and significant for its rarity amongst such residences.
|(Criterion under review)
|As one of the largest and most extensive of the grand Toowoomba residences, Ascot House high aesthetic value. The ornate decoration of the folly contributes significantly to this aesthetic value.
|(Criterion under review)
|Ascot House is significant for its association with prominent Toowoomba architect William Hodgen, who designed 1899 alterations to the stable and kitchen. Ascot House is associated with Frederick Holberton and William Beit Jnr, son of William Beit Snr, the Westbrook squatter.
Ascot House is also associated with the work of Harry Marks, who designed the 1890s folly, probably the most recognised architectural feature of the house and significant for its rarity amongst such residences.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15629,"place_ref":600854,"name":"Smithfield House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"8 Panda Street","suburb":"HARRISTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Smithfield House is located on the corner of Panda and Cheviot Streets, Toowoomba sited on a flat parcel of land. The site is composed of well manicured gardens which constitute what remains of the historical setting of the house.
Smithfield itself is a single storey residence of stone construction. The 0.6 metre bluestone foundations extend 4 metres deep into the ground. The sandstone was transported form England and the bluestone was quarried locally. The external walls are distinguished by bluestone blocks with rusticated sandstone quoins to door and window openings. The core of the building has a complex roof structure of corrugated iron with four prominent decorated sandstone chimneys. The bracketed eaves on the main roof impart an Italianate quality to the house.
Verandahs surround the north, east and west elevations of the house and are 3.6 metres deep and constructed of crow ash timber. Sandstone steps lead from the front garden to an elaborate portico which extends through the verandah at the front. Two large bay windows project onto the front verandah at the sides. These large windows consist of one multi-paned fixed upper sash and one sliding lower sash. The verandah roof is separate from that of the main house and is supported on decorative twin timber posts. The centrally located front door is framed between the two bay windows, whose forms are echoed in the main roof form. Decorative leadlight panes also surround the front door.
The front entrance leads into a wide hallway which runs the length the original house and is flanked on either side by symmetrically placed rooms. The hallway features two moulded arch archways as well as moulded cornices. The front easterly room is the main bedroom which includes a fireplace with decorative mantle and features timber inlay borders on the timber floors. Directly opposite this room is another large room used as a lounge with similar features. These rooms gain access to the front verandah via the large bay windows.
Internally the walls are finished in plaster and feature high quality timber joinery, while the floors are of wide hardwood boards.
A recent addition has been constructed to the rear of the original house during the period it was used as a restaurant and entertainment venue in the 1970s. This rear addition is externally clad in weatherboard and is not visible from the front elevation of the house. The original rear external bluestone wall now sits internally and marks the commencement of the addition from inside the house. Internally the addition is characterised by plasterboard cladding and includes a spacious dining and entertaining area, kitchen, bathrooms and laundry.
","history":"Smithfield House was designed by James Marks & Son in 1895 for James Taylor, a wealthy Darling Downs landowner. The contractor was Sydney (Harry) Andrews.
James Taylor is considered to have been the driving force behind Toowoomba's development, as he invested heavily in land in Toowoomba particularly during the late 1850s. Taylor took a leading role in encouraging the social, cultural and economic development of Toowoomba, donating land to various groups and churches, and he became known as 'the King of Toowoomba'. Taylor was Mayor of Toowoomba in 1890 and was a Member of Parliament between 1860 and 1893. Smithfield was the third house built by James Taylor. It was built on a 300-acre section of land on the southern side of the Toowoomba border, at the edge of the township of Drayton. Taylor planted and tended a fine stand of trees flanking the long carriageway, which, it has been suggested, have been preserved in parkland across from the homestead, though this has yet to be determined.
James Marks was one of the most influential architects in Toowoomba from the late 1860s until the early twentieth. He and his son Harry Marks with whom he entered into partnership in 1892 came to dominate the architectural profession on the Darling Downs for more than half a century. James Marks' own works include St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral in James St, Toowoomba [600844] and St Matthews' Church, Drayton [600873]. Smithfield House was designed under James Marks & Son whose works also include the Bandstand in Toowoomba Botanical Gardens, Ascot House [600853] and Vacy Hall c1900 [600858]. James and Harry marks have left a significant visible legacy in the buildings of Toowoomba of which Smithfield House is an important example.
James Taylor never lived at Smithfield house; he stayed at Clifford House [600857]. Smithfield's first occupant, ca. 1907, was Oscar Flemmich. Flemmich has been described as both a German industrialist and an Austrian Nobleman. He built extensive stables in the grounds, but left Smithfield during World War I. His reasons for leaving have been attributed to pressure from anti-German communities in the area.
Part of the Taylor estate was sold to Darcy Winton; a Charleville Grazier in 1908, and during the Second World War, the house was used as part of a private school. It was sold to the Anglican Church to house the Glennie Memorial School until 1962. Between 1962-1966 the property was leased by the Minter family from the Church of England
In 1966 it was sold for sub-division and during this time suffered a period of decay and attacks by vandals before restoration in the 1970s.
In 1974, Smithfield Homestead was bought by Barwick and Ceisolka. Initial plans to turn the property into a restaurant were objected to by Toowoomba residents, as indicted by letters to the editor in the Toowoomba Chronicle. However, any objections were unsuccessful as Smithfield Homestead was opened as a restaurant in 1975. In 1978 was sold to Kelvin and Thelma Roche, who continued to operate Smithfield Homestead as a restaurant. From 1975 until it was sold in the early 1990s, Smithfield Homestead was one of the most popular restaurants in Toowoomba, hosting many functions including weddings and receptions.
In 1994, the house was again up for sale. The current owners are Tracey and Gregory Wagner.
","criteria":"Smithfield House is reflective of the pattern of affluent settlement which occurred in Toowoomba in the late 19th century, demonstrating the transition of the Darling Downs from a sparsely populated rural district to one of prosperity and prominence. It is one of the many fine residences which reflect Toowoomba's leading position during the development of the rich Darling Downs. It is typical of a residence built for wealthy landowners on the Darling Downs during the period.
Also of historical significance is the land on which Smithfield house its. The relatively large property located amongst small suburban blocks is reflective of the pattern of land settlement in Toowoomba prior to sub-division and close urban settlement which occurred from the mid 20th century onwards. Smithfield originally occupied 300 acres and the current lot is the remnant of this early property.
|It also demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial affluent domestic building of late 19th century in Queensland.
|Smithfield House demonstrates significant aesthetic value as a substantial, well-composed house displaying fine workmanship and detailing. Its spacious gardens complement the house creating a sense of the balance between the substantially sized house and its surrounding environment.
|Smithfield House has special association with the work of prominent Toowoomba architect J. Marks as well as special association with the life of James Taylor who was a prominent figure in Toowoomba's development and Mayor of Toowoomba in 1890.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15631,"place_ref":600856,"name":"St James Parish Hall","alternate_name":"Taylor Memorial Institute | St Jame's Parish Hall","street_address":"112 Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-03-28","description":"St James' Parish Hall, fronting Russell Street to the north, is located opposite St James Church. The site is bounded on either side by single-storeyed buildings; a brick store built to the boundary on the east and a timber building and bitumen driveway to the west, with Baty Lane to the south. A single-storeyed timber and iron cottage is located to the southeast and a toilet block is located to the southwest. (The cottage and toilet block do not form part of the Entry in the Heritage Register.)
The building exhibits a strong arts and crafts influence in its design, with its picturesque terracotta tiled roof and prominent eaves, rough cast exterior, heavy base and stylised signage on the north wall.
The single-storeyed building has a brick base and utilises a 'hollow wall' construction system, consisting of a metal frame lined with chicken wire and a stucco render; a smooth finish trim with rough infill externally and smooth finish internally. A marble memorial plaque is located to the base of the north wall.
The building has a fanciful steep pitch terracotta tiled roof with sprocketted eaves and projecting gables to the east and west. Three turrets, to the centre, and the north and south bays, have been formed by the ridge being deleted between them and a curved capping piece inserted. The centre turret has a 'pot bellied', sheet metal roof ventilator, the other two have rounded finials.
The building has 'extendable casement' windows, only three of which are still intact with the remainder having been modified into standard casements. These consist of a metal track above and below the centre of the window, perpendicular to the wall, on which the window slides away from the opening and can pivot at 360° for optimum ventilation. The windows in the hall have fanlight and sidelights, and in the end bays have hopper windows above, all of which have green and obscure glass panes.
The northeast porch has decorative timber arched brackets and balustrade. These have been removed from the northwest porch, which has a ramp for disabled access. Double timber doors with fanlights open into the hall.
A shallow corrugated iron gable roofed kitchen and store, which has been added to the south of the building, has fibrous cement cladding with timber cover strips, large sash windows with green and obscure glass panes, timber and iron window hoods to the south and brick stumps.
Internally, the building has a raised timber stage to the south bay, and a central hall with side aisles from which the kitchen and store is accessed. The building has rendered walls, timber posts with decorative brackets and arches, exposed trusses and boarded timber ceilings. Diagonal boarding is a decorative feature used throughout the building, including the ceiling, panels in doors and partition walls.
The kitchen and store have metal trusses, a fibrous cement sheet ceiling with timber cover strips and tongue and groove walls. A section of timber floor following the line of the stage bay, and abutting the kitchen and store floor, is visible. A section of folding partition wall with a metal roller divides the store area and in its detailing appears to be originally from the hall.
A brick fence with a central gateway is built along the Russell Street boundary, and features piers with crucifix shaped concrete trim.
Status of 1950 Extension: The rear kitchen extension (c1950) does not contribute to the cultural heritage significance of St James Parish Hall (1912). It does not contribute in scale, form or materials to the Russell Street streetscape or the Toowoomba townscape. The extension is unremarkable in terms of quality or craftsmanship and is unlikely to be valued by the community. The rear extension is included on the Register only for the purpose of ensuring that its future demolition or renovation would result in an appropriate treatment of the rear wall of the original hall building, or that any building which replaces it, is sympathetic to the hall proper.
","history":"St James' Parish Hall was built in 1912 opposite St James' Church (c1868) in Russell Street. James Taylor donated the land and erected the Hall designed by architect Harry J. Marks, to stand as a memorial to his parents, the Hon. James Taylor and his wife Sarah. The Hon. James Taylor had given the land for St James' Church as a gift to the Parish some forty-five years earlier, and is credited with taking a leading role in the early development of Toowoomba.
The hall features Marks' unusual construction methods and details, including his patented "hollow wall" construction to give the appearance of a solid wall whilst being cheaper to construct than brickwork. Another interesting feature of the building developed and used by Marks is the extendable casement window which provides optimum directional ventilation. Only three of these windows remain in working order.
At the opening ceremony, the Hall was described as "a model of architecture" with ample facilities for the uses it was to be put to, including reading rooms and library, a lounge, and as a venue for Sunday school and meetings.
The Hall was repainted and minor repairs were undertaken in 1923-24, mostly to remedy damage from water penetration under the roof.
The brick fence at the front of the hall is thought to have been designed (c1940) by Charles Beresford Marks (Harry Marks' son), and bears a small plaque in memory of James Taylor as benefactor and foundation member of St James' Parish.
The building was substantially extended to the rear to form a large kitchen area c1950. Work was undertaken in 1991 to repair water damage to the roof and ceiling of the Hall.
","criteria":"St James Parish Hall, erected 1912, is significant historically for its association with St James Church and the development of the Anglican Church in Toowoomba.
|It is a picturesque example of an Arts and Crafts inspired church hall in Toowoomba, and exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Toowoomba community and congregation of St James church, in particular the contribution of the building in its design, scale, form and materials to the streetscape of Russell Street and to the Toowoomba townscape; and the quality of, and craftsmanship displayed by, the interior, including the timber joinery.
|It is a picturesque example of an Arts and Crafts inspired church hall in Toowoomba, and exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Toowoomba community and congregation of St James church, in particular the contribution of the building in its design, scale, form and materials to the streetscape of Russell Street and to the Toowoomba townscape; and the quality of, and craftsmanship displayed by, the interior, including the timber joinery.
|The use of the 'hollow wall' construction technique, the extendable casement window and pot-bellied roof ventilator, as patented designs, are important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement by the architect, Harry J Marks, in the early 20th century.
|As the parish hall for St James Church, one the oldest churches in Toowoomba, it has a special association with the Toowoomba community for social and cultural reasons.
|It has special association with the life of the Hon. James Taylor, who played a prominent role in the early development of Toowoomba, and his family; and with the work of Toowoomba architects Harry J Marks and Charles Beresford Marks, who were responsible for the design of many Toowoomba buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15632,"place_ref":600857,"name":"Clifford House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"120 Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Clifford house is a substantial sandstone, brick and timber building set in picturesque gardens on a block bounded by Russell St, Clifford Lane and Isabel St. It comprises a two storeyed residence with a brick and sandstone base and core, timber verandahs to the first floor, and a single storeyed brick Billiard Room to the west. The residence has single-storeyed brick and weatherboard buildings to the rear, either side of a two-storeyed brick water storage tower. The buildings have corrugated iron roofs, with several substantial chimneys rising above the roof lines. The gardens contain mature trees, which contribute to the streetscape of Russell Street.
The residence is set back from the street, and the formal, symmetrical northern frontage is approached via a circular drive. It has a sandstone and vine-covered square entrance portico, with arched openings, and an arcaded sandstone loggia (now enclosed). The verandah above has chamfered posts with square capitals, and timber balustrades with arch patterns, and diamond glazed windows to the eastern edge and north-west corner. The northern elevation is surmounted by a substantial parapet with a central panel with the words "Clifford House", flanked by a decorative balustrade.
The southern frontage of Clifford House comprises brick and timber service buildings. On the western side, a weatherboard and brick building extends out to the south; it contains the kitchen and former servants quarters, and has an enclosed verandah to the east, and a broad verandah to the west with timber stairs covered with a corrugated iron barrel vault. The brick water tower has a pitched corrugated iron roof, and is accessed by steep timber stairs, leading to a windowless room containing steel water tanks. A weatherboard building with a hipped roof, which has been extensively refurbished, adjoins the residence and water tower to the south east.
The Billiard Room adjoins the main building via a (now enclosed) walkway covered with a corrugated iron roof barrel vault with a pressed metal ceiling, which links to an ogee shaped awning supported on decorative fretted brackets to the northern face of the Billiard Room. The building has a simple rectangular form with a pitched roof, with a raised curved portion, and a chimney to the southern end. It has rectangular timber windows with timber louvred shutters, scalloped barge boards to the gable ends, and a scalloped timber trim to the awning. The northern gable is further embellished with projecting brick patterns which trace the outline of the gable, and form three central diamond patterns.
Internally, the house comprises major rooms to the north opening onto the loggia spaces, either side of central corridor and stair, with smaller service rooms to the south. Upstairs has a similar floor plan. The rooms have a range of fine decorative finishes. The ground floor entrance has black and white chequered marble tiles, whilst the loggia has polished timber floorboards with truncated corner patterns, and ripple iron ceilings. The loggia is accessed via timber double doors with louvres. Internal doors to the grand rooms have delicate hand-painted floral and pastoral scenes. The front rooms have fireplaces with tiled hearths and carved timber surrounds. The north-western room has gridded sheeted ceilings and a pressed metal cornice with elongated floral motifs. Beyond the entry portico, the entrance hall has timber doors with rich coloured glass surrounds, and an arch at the foot of the stairs. The stairs are decorated with carved panels to the sides of the stairs, and have a spiral handrail over the newel post. The half-landing has coloured glass windows.
Upstairs has been extensively refurbished, but retains its arched windows, and verandahs with timber lined ceilings which access onto the roof of the portico.
The Billiard Room is an elegantly proportioned room with timber floors and raked timber lined ceilings, lit by a raised central skylight.
The gardens contain many mature trees, including Jacarandas, Camellias, maples, pines, Plane Trees, oaks, Magnolias and Macadamia trees. The western garden has a lawned area defined by smaller trees, and a sunken garden defined by a rock wall. Out buildings in the garden include a shed and a water tank.
Whilst Clifford House has been extensively refurbished internally, the exterior remains largely intact, retaining its quality as a substantial residence with a finely detailed Billiard Room, in a picturesque garden setting. Some fine internal features remain, including fireplaces, rare handpainted doors, coloured glass windows and the well-proportioned skylit space of the Billiard Room.
","history":"This two storeyed building, intended for use as a Gentlemen's Club, was erected in the mid-1860s on land owned by the Hon James Taylor in Russell Street, Toowoomba.
The land on which Clifford House stands had been granted to William Horton in 1852, and was acquired by Taylor and his partner in Cecil Plains station, Henry Stuart Russell in 1855. Taylor is considered to have been the driving force behind Toowoomba's development, as he invested heavily in land in Toowoomba particularly during the late 1850s. Taylor took a leading role in encouraging the social, cultural and economic development of Toowoomba, donating land to various groups and churches, and he came to be regarded as 'the King of Toowoomba'. Taylor was Mayor of Toowoomba in 1890, and was a Member of Parliament between 1860 and 1893.
The first Congregational Church in Toowoomba was built on this site in 1860, when Taylor and Russell gave land to the Rev JT Waraker for building a school house and church. By 1863 the church had outgrown the Russell Street building, and a new Congregational Church was built in Margaret Street and opened in 1864. The land in Russell Street was sold back to Taylor.
In 1865 Taylor sold the land to a group of squatters (which included himself), who wished to start a club similar to the Queensland Club in Brisbane. The building appears to have been erected shortly after, however the club fell into financial difficulties, and the land and building were eventually sold back to Taylor in 1870. FT Gregory and his family lived at the Club House from 1867 until early 1870 when they moved to Harlaxton House [600839]. The building was believed to have been used as the District Surveyor's Office for a number of years prior to 1870, and it is also understood that Taylor used Clifford House as the Lands Office in his position as Secretary for Public Lands from January 1869-May 1870.
In 1870 Taylor had the Club House reconditioned as Clifford House, named after his father's birthplace in England. Richard Godsall, a prominent Toowoomba builder and later Mayor of Toowoomba carried out the alterations, which were described as being of a very grand scale, and Clifford House was also referred to as 'St James' Palace'. A billiard room, designed by architect James Marks, was added to Clifford House in 1883.
Taylor died in 1895, and his wife Sarah remained at Clifford House until her death in 1908. The property passed to her son James, who lived there for a number of years, during which time much of the grounds surrounding Clifford House were subdivided and sold. After James Taylor's death in 1939 the property passed to Henrietta Lethbridge, Taylor's cousin. Upon Henrietta's death the property passed to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane.
Clifford House was acquired by the present owners and converted to a restaurant and reception centre during the 1970s. In 1993 the ground floor of Clifford House was refurbished and leased to the Queensland Government.
","criteria":"Clifford House was erected as a Gentlemen's Club, then acquired and renovated by Taylor who entertained wealthy squatters from the surrounding district.
|The house contains rare late 19th century handpainted doors.
|The buildings, including the adjoining Billiard Room, have aesthetic quality and the grounds form an integral part of the mature streetscape of Russell Street.
|Clifford House is a substantial 1860s masonry building, which is associated with the life and work of the Hon James Taylor, who played a prominent role in the development of Toowoomba from the 1850s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15633,"place_ref":600858,"name":"Vacy Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"135 Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Vacy Hall, set back from Russell Street to the south on a site sloping gently east, is surrounded by gardens and mature trees to the south and east with single-storeyed hostel buildings to the northwest.
\nThis single-storeyed building, L-shaped in plan, has a twin hipped corrugated iron roof with a central box gutter, hipped projecting bays, a gable pediment to the south entrance and a central curved roof section to the northwest wing. The building is encircled by verandahs with lower skillion roofs, fluted square timber verandah posts and timber floors. The south elevation is symmetrical, and the entrance pediment, the central section of which is glazed in leadlight with the inscription VACY HALL, is supported by two large, rendered, square fluted columns framing concrete steps. Step out bays with sash windows and shutters open onto south, west and east verandahs from principal rooms. The panelled entrance door has a fanlight and sidelights with leadlight glazing.
\nThe building has English garden wall bond brickwork, with decorative glazed brickwork features including quoining to corners, bays, windows and doors, arched headers to doors and windows, a circle pattern above the entrance door and stretcher courses to the base, below the sills and below the eaves. The building has six decorative brick chimney stacks and brick eave brackets.
\nThe building has been refurbished for guest rooms and associated facilities. Internally, the building has cedar joinery including panelled doors with fanlights, architraves, bays with seats, fireplace surrounds and skirtings. The octagonal shaped central hall has ornate plaster mouldings and cornice, faux marble finish to arches and wall panels and a radiating parquet which continues into the front and rear halls. Walls are plastered masonry with wallpaper to dado or picture rail height. Ensuite rooms have been added.
\nAlong part of the northern property boundary is a single-storeyed, partially rendered concrete block building.
\nA single-storeyed weatherboard reception building, with a hipped corrugated iron roof and concrete stumps, is located adjacent to the building on the west.
\nThe grounds include a gravel drive from Russell Street with a turning circle and brick edging, mature trees to the south and east, hedges along the south and east boundaries and an expanse of lawn with gardens to the southeast.
","history":"Vacy Hall, a single storeyed substantial brick residence was erected in 1899 for Gilbert Gostwyck Cory and his wife Ann Sophy, daughter of the Hon. James Taylor. It is one of a number of substantial residences erected along Russell Street, including Taylor's own residence, Clifford House (QHR 600857). Designed by notable/prolific Toowoomba architect James Marks, and built by Alexander Mayes, a prominent Toowoomba builder and three-times Mayor of Toowoomba, it was the second residence to be erected on this site.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. The small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842, but was soon surpassed by a more desirable location six kilometres to the northeast, known as Toowoomba from the 1850s. Better suited to market gardening, with a more reliable water supply, and supported by squatters and land speculators, Toowoomba was incorporated as a municipality in 1860. Its rapid economic and social development was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements.[1]
\nToowoomba expanded rapidly from the late 1860s, becoming the main urban centre of the Darling Downs by 1888. The arrival of the railway in 1867 secured the town's development and subsequently made it the hub for the Southern and Western railways. The Selection Act 1868 brought selectors to the district, improvements to freehold estates, and revived trade with western areas. Toowoomba’s economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing firms, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were established in the town. Its progress was reflected in improvements to the physical environment, through important capital works projects, including the draining of its swamps, improved water supply, gasworks for lighting, extensive tree plantings and the initial development of Queen's Park. Earlier temporary structures were replaced with more permanent and impressive buildings.
\nToowoomba experienced an urban land boom throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Newtown, its first working-class suburb, was created in the 1880s, while speculators extended the ‘shopkeepers’ residential areas to the north east of Ruthven, Russell and Margaret Streets, the commercial core of the town. Prosperous Darling Downs landowners, business-owners and professionals established residences in Toowoomba; and from the 1880s, the town acted as a summer resort for those seeking a cooler climate, including Queensland Governors.[2]
\nGilbert Gostwyck Cory arrived in Toowoomba in the late 1850s, and was employed by James Taylor at Cecil Plains Station. Cory later became Taylor's partner and was involved in other pastoral ventures in Queensland. Cory was an active member of the Toowoomba and district community, serving on both the Jondaryan Shire Council, Toowoomba Municipal Council; Mayor of Toowoomba in 1891; a longstanding member and President of the Royal Agricultural Society; member of the Toowoomba Hospital committee; and a founding member of the Toowoomba Turf Club.
\nThe land on which Vacy Hall stands had been granted to William Horton in 1852, and was acquired by Taylor in 1868, as part of a number of allotments purchased by Taylor and Henry Stuart Russell in the late 1860s. A residence is believed to have been erected in the mid 1870s, possibly as a present from Taylor to his daughter on her marriage to Cory in 1873.
\nTaylor died in 1895 and the property passed into the hands of trustees, which included Taylor's widow, two of Taylor's sons, and Cory. In 1897 the property was transferred to Ann Cory. The 1870s house was destroyed by fire in late 1898.
\nThe house had been insured for £1400 and in 1899 Toowoomba architectural firm, James Marks and Son, was commissioned to design a new home. James Marks and Sons were comprised father and son architects James Marks (1834-1915) and Henry (Harry) James Marks (1871-1939). It operated from 1892 until 1910. James had commenced practice as James Marks, Architect in Toowoomba by the early 1880s and was successful, being responsible for notable and high profile buildings in the Downs region. Born and trained in Toowoomba, his son Harry was a highly creative and inventive designer, and together, the practice continued James’ success and was responsible for a variety of further impressive buildings. These included Rodway (QHR 600868), St James Parish Hall (QHR 600856), St Luke's Church Hall (QHR 600866), additions to the Toowoomba Maltings (QHR 600852), and Harry’s own family home ‘St Rest’ (known as Gladstone House in 2020 (QHR 601303)).[3]
\nAnn died in 1909, and the property passed to Cory, who remained at Vacy Hall until his death in 1924.Following Cory's death, Vacy Hall had a succession of owners. It remained a private home until the 1950s when it was converted to apartments, offices and finally a boarding house/hostel. By 1977 interconnected single-storeyed, concrete block hostel buildings had been constructed adjacent to the original building on the northwest side and along part of the northern property boundary.[4]
\nFollowing the sale of the property to new owners in 1986, Vacy Hall was refurbished for guest accommodation. The hostel section adjacent to the original building on the northwest side was demolished by 1994 and a timber cottage, constructed of materials recycled from three derelict timber houses, was erected on the site between 1988 and 1989, which is used as the Reception office and manager's residence.
\nIn 2004 the property was sold and in 2021, Vacy Hall is in use as a boutique hotel.
","criteria":"Vacy Hall, erected in 1899, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Toowoomba as a prestigious residential location for Darling Downs pastoralists.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, late 19th century masonry Toowoomba residence, and exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution of the building and grounds, through form, scale, materials and plantings, to the streetscape of Russell Street and to the Toowoomba townscape; and the quality and crafting of the materials and finishes, including decorative brickwork, parquet floor, cedar joinery, plasterwork, and step-out bays.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, late 19th century masonry Toowoomba residence, and exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution of the building and grounds, through form, scale, materials and plantings, to the streetscape of Russell Street and to the Toowoomba townscape; and the quality and crafting of the materials and finishes, including decorative brickwork, parquet floor, cedar joinery, plasterwork, and step-out bays.
|It has a special association with the work of prominent Toowoomba architect, James Marks, who designed a number of residences in Toowoomba; and with James Taylor and Gilbert Cory who were influential in the early development of Toowoomba as a major rural centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15634,"place_ref":600859,"name":"Toowoomba Permanent Building Society (former)","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society | Cleary and Lee Solicitors","street_address":"2 Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Toowoomba Permanent Building Society building is a single storey, facebrick building constructed in 1934 with later extensions to the western side, located in a prominent position on the corner of Russell and Neil Streets, Toowoomba.
The northern [front] elevation of the building, facing Russell Street, has a prominent, projecting, rendered front portico with a set of stairs leading to the entry, which has terrazzo tiles and timber framed french doors and a breezeway assembly with decorative glass. Double hung sash, timber framed windows are located along the front façade, including in the extensions of the western side of the property, and also along the eastern elevation, facing Neil Street. All the windows have a breezeway assembly with glass panels. A second entrance, with timber french doors, is located at the western end of the northern elevation, forming part of the later extensions. The rendered pediment is located right around the building and conceals the hipped roof clad with tiles. Raised lettering reading 'CLEARY AND LEE SOLICITORS' is located along the top of the projecting portico and along the eastern elevation.
Along the northern and eastern elevations, the building has decorative rendered and painted mouldings and a dentilled cornice. The facebrick western elevation has no windows or entrances. The southern [rear] elevation has timber framed, double hung sash windows along the elevation.
The original, detached facebrick garage located in the south-western corner of the site, now attached to the main building, is still apparent. The parapet concealing the hipped roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron is still extant.
Internally, the former Toowoomba Permanent Building Society has a large open area which forms the main section of the building. The large space has been divided in to a number of workspaces using partitions. The plaster ceiling in the room is divided into panels which have decorative plaster dentilled cornices and mouldings. The rendered walls have a timber dado rail located around the room. Doric pilasters are located on all internal walls in the main part of the original section.
In the original section, offices are located along the eastern side of the building. The walls in the offices have been rendered and each have a timber dado rail and picture rail. Most of the offices have a dentilled plaster cornice, however, one, at the southern end of the building has only a moulded plaster cornice, without dentils. The original strong room is still extant and is located on the southern side of the building. An office on the western side of the building, forming part of the original section, has been refurbished, including the lowering of the ceiling. A panelled, timber door, with sidelights, located in the north-western corner of the office, opens to the main office area. Toilets and kitchen facilities, with recent renovations, are located on the southern side of the building.
Brick extensions have been undertaken on the western side of the building. In this section, a number of offices open from a central corridor. These offices are austere with simple, decorative plaster cornices. The decorative plaster ceiling in the front office, which faces Russell Street are slightly more detailed. The original garage, which functioned also as a store room, located in the south-western corner is now divided into two offices. Similar to the other offices, these spaces are austere with simple, decorative plaster cornices.
A low, brick fence with rendered capitals on the plinths is located along the northern and eastern sides of the building and along part of the western side.
","history":"The former Toowoomba Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society building was designed as a solid and austere edifice of red face brick. It was constructed in 1934 by contractor WR Smith, at a cost of £4390. The design was by prominent Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen. The building was Hodgen's last major work produced by him before his death in 1943. The building was extended on the western side in 1982.
\nThe Toowoomba Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society was established in 1875 in offices in Margaret Street. As the business expanded larger accommodation was sought in 1906 in Russell Street. In 1934 a decision was made to build an office on another site in Russell Street and these premises were opened in October 1934. The Toowoomba Permanent Building Society remained in this building until 1979.
\nThe Toowoomba Permanent Building Society was the third permanent building society to be established in 1874, the other two societies being established in Brisbane in July and August. The establishment of a permanent building society had come about following the formation and subsequent closure of a number of terminating societies. Evidence suggests that the first terminating society was formed in Toowoomba late in 1862, on the initiative of WH Groom, the first Mayor of Toowoomba. The permanent society differed to the terminating society in that its system accredited interest annually rather that at termination.
\nMost Australian building societies were larger in size and function than the British societies with a tendency to evolve into building companies, land and mortgage banks or estate companies. They also tended to rely on small overdrafts from the trading banks in times of financial crisis or economic recession. Hence, in Australia, building society interest rates were frequently subject to the prevailing rates set by the banks, and the bank crash of 1893 was even the ruin of a number of dependent societies.
\nOn 16 Sept 1874, the Toowoomba Chronicle's Brisbane correspondent published an editorial comment on the principles of co-operation and self-help reflected in the building society movement. The article emphasised how 'an industrious man [has] an excellent opportunity to shake himself...free of his landlord...it facilitates the settlement in and around the settlement of trade of a....body of people who, having secured a stake in a place...are not tempted to migrate upon every trivial occasion...'.
\nThe benefits of retaining an itinerant workforce in or near a town meant increased population and, accordingly, increased prosperity. Such increases ultimately benefited the local building and agricultural industries, as well as commerce and trade. Greater government revenue became available through taxation and could be channelled into public works to the advantage of the town. The formation of the building society played an integral part in such economic growth. If wage earners could be encouraged to secure their own piece of land, they would make a contribution to the prosperity of the town.
\nSince 1876 the office of the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society had been located in a suite of rooms in Beirne's Chambers in Margaret Street. With the increased workload associated with the expansion of the business at the turn of the century, these premises became too cramped. By September 1905, the Directors began looking for new premises. In January 1906, rather than tendering for a new building, and declining Beirne's offer of the current premises for £1 per week, the Society called for offers of existing buildings. Within a week, the Society had six offers. On 15 January 1906, the Society accepted half of Bernard Dowd's offer for £1500 for premises situated on the southern side of Russell Street. Marks and Sons architects prepared plans and specifications for the renovation of the premises. The lowest tender, by HC Olsen for £260 and eight weeks, was accepted on 13 March 1906.
\nSeveral modifications of this office occurred, particularly in the 1920s. These included modifications to the office balcony, installation of iron bars on rear windows, the installation of a telephone, and later, plans were initiated to connect the office to the sewerage system. In 1928, no action was taken by the Society on the request from the City Electric and Radio Service to improve the lighting of the building and to install 'electric advertising'.
\nGiven the many modifications to the building, the Society began to consider moving to larger premises. In October 1929 the Board appointed a sub-committee to consider the question of new office premises and equipment. Failing to report by mid-1930, the sub-committee was urged to consider the alteration of the existing office to accommodate new equipment. In August it reported that no further alterations should be made, 'but that a suitable site be procured, and a building erected, that will meet the requirements of the Society for the next 25 years and that the foundation of the building be of sufficient strength to carry a two-storeyed building'. The matter, however, was not dealt with for some time while the Board was preoccupied with the requirements resulting from the Depression.
\nIn July 1932, the question of office accommodation was revived and the search for a site recommenced. Several possibilities were discussed including a site at the corner of Neil and Little Russell Streets. In June 1933, a new sub-committee comprising Director, HE Brown; an accountant, HJ Parsons and WR Smith, a builder-contractor, was given the brief of finding new premises or land within three weeks. On 20 July 1933, the sub-committee reported the purchase of the a property on the corner of Neil and Russell Streets from Mrs DE Campbell for £1500, including the existing dwelling valued at £300, which was sold at public auction in October. The Board ratified the purchase and engaged architect William Hodgen, a former Director, to draw up plans and estimates. On 18 October 1933, with Hodgen's estimate of £4390 and twenty-six weeks, was successful. Over the next few months there were several 'extras' brought before the Board, including sums for doors, steps and porch gates (£36); fanlights (£7-10-0) and a dwarf wall (£75). There was also the question of fences, lawns and cementing the driveway from the street to the garage.
\nThe new premises were ready for occupation in mid-October and the Society celebrated the move with a photograph and publicity piece in the Toowoomba Chronicle. The Board held its first meeting in the new Board Room on 18 October 1934.
\nBetween 1934-1979 the building served as the office and public symbol of the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society. Its corner position at the intersection of Neil and Russell Streets ensured that the building and its grounds were prominent in the streetscape. In August 1977, a special meeting of members authorised a change in name from the Toowoomba Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society to the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society. The Society moved to new premises in Ruthven Street in March 1979.
\nExtensions to the building were carried out in 1982, when the building was occupied by Cleary and Lee Solicitors. Extensions included placing a second entrance, a french door bordered by Doric pilasters, on the western side of the main entry. Part of the fence along Russell Street was demolished, following extensions to the building, to provide for a parking area.
\nWhen the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society vacated the premises in 1976 a time capsule was placed behind the plaque on the south wall of the plaza in the interior of the building, to be opened in 2026. The legal firm of Cleary and Lee Solicitors leased the building for a number of years from March 1980. Since this time the building has been used as office space by a number of occupants.
","criteria":"Designed in 1934 by William Hodgen, former Director of the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society and noted Toowoomba architect, the former Toowoomba Permanent Building Society, is significant as an example of a purpose-built commercial premise. The building is the last major work designed by Hodgen before his death in 1943, and served for many years as a public symbol of the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society.
|A good example of a typical monument of 1930s commercial enterprise, the former Toowoomba Permanent Building Society building is single story and austere building with classical Georgian elements. The fence and grounds of the building are significant as elements of the original concept portraying domesticity rather than a commercial enterprise.
|Located at the corner of Russell and Neil Streets, with its specifically designed low, brick and iron fence, the former Toowoomba Permanent Building Society building is significant for its contribution to the streetscape.
|This place is significant in relation to Criterion G.
|The former Toowoomba Permanent Building Society building is significant for its association with one of Toowoomba's oldest businesses and one of Queensland's longest-operating permanent building society's, and for its association with the members of the Society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15636,"place_ref":600861,"name":"Pigott's Building","alternate_name":"Piggott and Co | McDonnell and East | Pigotts","street_address":"381-391 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Pigott's Building is comprised of two connected buildings, an older two-storeyed structure which fronts onto Ruthven Street and a single storeyed brick building on Margaret Street. Rear entry to both buildings is via a carpark to the west accessed from Victoria Street. The Ruthven Street building, a large rectangle in plan of approximately 30m x 82m, is built to the site boundary on the street frontage and on the north and south alignments where it abuts the neighbouring buildings. The present structure is an agglomeration of the surviving parts of the first Pigotts Store built on the site and extensive additions and renovations carried out at various times.
The Ruthven Street building consists of two main storeys, a basement in the northeast corner and a smaller third storey at the rear. A predominantly masonry structure with parapet walls the building is roofed by a series of hipped corrugated iron or asbestos cement roofs with numerous skylights and sheet metal ventilators mounted along the ridges.
The symmetrical two-storeyed Ruthven Street facade retains the 1935 remodelling above the pavement awning. This painted and rendered masonry wall with stepped parapet and coloured leadlight windows features pilasters and mouldings embellished with floral and geometric patterns. The name of the store in plaster relief is positioned above a central arched window. Other first floor windows are rectangular sash windows with transom lights. Emblems ornamenting the facade advertise the Pigott's enterprise. The window glazing incorporates a decorative "P" for Pigotts insignia in a diagonal leaded pattern. The "P" also appears in the parapet and was
once flown from the facade's three flagpoles. The modernised ground floor of the facade has a wide central entry with plate glass shop windows on either side.
The oldest part of the building is the southeast corner facing Ruthven Street with subsequent extensions made to the west and the north. The ground floor of this southeast section has been extensively remodelled with most decorative features removed and original columns replaced by round steel columns. The first floor retains much of the 1910 interior including timber posts and an elaborate pressed metal ceiling. This coved ceiling is divided into three vaulted bays which run east to west. Each vault is roofed by a corrugated iron hip roof and illuminated by skylights with rolled corrugated iron roofs.
An area of a similar size to the west of the southeast section is independently roofed with similar triple hip roofs with box gutters and skylights. The first floor in this area has a boarded timber ceiling which rakes up around the skylights. A further area to the west retains, on the ground floor, the original columns and pressed metal ceiling in a wide variety of patterns and has a diagonal boarded ceiling on the first floor.
A 1935 extension to the north has been modified by the addition of a mezzanine to the ground floor and the removal of much of the previously external wall to create a more open plan. The two-storeyed extension has a corrugated asbestos cement hip roof and four hipped roofed skylights. Plaster ceilings with art deco cornices are raked up around the skylights on the first floor.
A 1956 extension to the rear of the 1935 extension incorporates a basement floor and roof level. A concrete staircase with a metal balustrade that connects the four floors is lit via a recessed window wall. The building is serviced by two lifts, one on the north wall adjacent to the stair and one on the southern wall, and two centrally located escalators. A distinctive curved desk providing complex storage facilities is located at the front of the General Office on the first floor.
A two-storeyed brick addition to the northwest corner contains toilets and a staircase and connects the Ruthven Street building to the Margaret Street building.
","history":"This two storeyed brick store was erected in several stages, the first in 1909-10, for MD Pigott, a successful Toowoomba draper.
The first Pigott's store was established by Michael Daniel Pigott at South Brisbane in 1886 and was run in partnership with TC Beirne. After the dissolution of the partnership, the two Irishmen opened rival drapery stores in Fortitude Valley. In 1896, Pigott opened a branch store in Russell Street, Toowoomba, which, after the sale of the Valley store to James McWhirter, in 1898, became his principal store. Branches were also opened at Warwick and other Darling Downs towns.
In 1902, Pigott and Co moved to rented premises on the present Ruthven Street site and extensive alterations and additions costing some £2,000 were carried out by local architects J Marks and Son in 1908. Following the fire on 8 July 1909, which substantially destroyed the two storeyed building, Pigott's was rebuilt with double the floor space and the Ruthven Street facade reinstated. The works, again carried out by J Marks and Son, included two light wells sited beneath roof skylights at the back and front of the store as well as roof ventilators patented by Harry Marks.
The site was purchased by Pigott and Co in 1914 and extensive additions by J Marks and Son were commenced. Three floors, connected by electric elevator, were added by contractor A Mayes to the southern side of the building enabling, on the ground floor, the extension of the manchester and dress departments, general office, and mail order department. The first floor contained the furniture department and tailoring and dress making work rooms; the smaller second floor was used as a bulk store room. A pneumatic cash cashier system, reputedly the first in Australia, and a complete sanitary system were installed.
In 1934 Pigott's acquired the adjoining block of land on Ruthven Street housing the Queen's Hotel. Part of the land was sold and on the remaining frontage to Ruthven Street was erected a two story addition with a new facade unifying the new work with the 1910/1914 building. The work was completed in 1936 at a cost of £16,000 included the installation of island windows and a Lamson pneumatic tube cash service. Architects were Brisbane firm, Hall and Phillips prominent in department store design in the 1920s and 1930s and builders, Kell and Rigby.
By the 1950's the family business had become Toowoomba's largest retail store. Country clients remained a major part of the store's business with regular mail order catalogues published until this time. In 1950, interior remodelling was carried out and in 1956, Pigott's diamond jubilee year, a four storey extension costing some £100,000 was added to the rear of the building, allowing the department store to expand into new areas of merchandising.
In the 1960's, as part of a strategy to compete with changes in local retailing, Pigott's purchased the former Gordon Motors site, and later the adjoining Palmer's Garage, enabling the store to not only expand into other activities, such as the sale of foodstuffs and the opening of a coffee lounge but also giving access to Margaret Street, becoming Toowoomba's first three street store.
The store was leased in 1983 to McDonnell and East, who vacated it in 1990. The property was sold by Pigott and Co Pty Ltd in 1988.
","criteria":"Pigott's Building, Toowoomba, constructed in a number of stages between 1910 and 1956, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, with the growth of the store reflecting the development of Toowoomba as a major commercial centre.
|As a surviving example of an early 20th century department store interior with intact lighting and ventilation systems, it demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a developing department store, in particular: the 1910, 1914, 1935 and 1956 fabric demonstrates changes in retail practice from compartmentalised department store to open plan trading; and the facade is an example in both the detailed ornament and overall image of the 1930s strategy of the department store facade as advertising emblem. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the commercial work of Toowoomba architects James Marks & Son and of Brisbane architects Hall and Phillips.
|The place has a strong and special association with Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, with Pigott and Co servicing both the town and country communities, via the mail order service.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15637,"place_ref":600862,"name":"Karingal Chambers","alternate_name":"Rowbotham Chambers | Krimmers Chambers","street_address":"386-388 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-28","description":"Karingal Chambers is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with a pitched corrugated iron roof which occupies a corner site bound by Ruthven Street, Bell Street Mall and Bank Lane. The Ruthven Street facade is parapeted, and decorated with classical elements. The building has a long rectangular C-shaped plan running east-west, which wraps around a centrally located service core of toilets, corridor and stairs. A passageway bisecting the eastern end of the building links to the adjacent Karingal Arcade, and gives access to the service core. The ground floor has been extensively refurbished (circa 1987), and contains six shops. The upper floor contains offices, workshop and storage areas. Changes in brickwork, roofline, lintels and internal linings suggest that the building was built in three stages extending to the east.
The western end of the upper floor consists of a series of offices (some now used for storage) surrounding a large central storage area which are lined with thin VJ timbers, fine picture rails and timber trims forming panels. The rooms overlooking Ruthven Street have arched timber-framed windows with coloured glass in gridded panes to the upper lights, except the centre room which sits behind a recess in the facade which has new aluminium windows. An office overlooking Bell Street Mall has a triangular shaped bay window which also has coloured glass in gridded panes.
The central storage area has a substantial skylight with clerestory lighting, and a smaller, chimney-like skylight. These skylights appear to be unrelated to the organisation of the rooms below them, suggesting that the timber walls are part of an early twentieth century refurbishment. Two larger workrooms extending further to the east are lined with sheeting and coverstrips, and a large workroom to the rear appears to have been refitted circa 1970s.
The elevation to Ruthven St is a symmetrical composition with a central trabeated alcove flanked by tall windows and pilasters, and spanned by a pediment set in a parapet with a balustrade. The pediment has a cornice with dentils, and a ribbon in relief, framing a badge with "1913" on it. The columns and pilasters have corinthian capitals, and meet a substantial cornice decorated with square and rectangular motifs, which is inscribed with the words "Karingal Chambers". The four central windows are arched, with exaggerated voussoirs, while the two outermost windows are surmounted with small pediments.
The Bell Street Mall elevation is divided into three by changes in the detailing, brickwork and roofline. The western end has arched doorways with keystones to its base, and flat arched windows with exaggerated voussoirs either side of the triangular bay window above. The rest of the facade has more modest flat arched windows.
The building contains some fine interior features, in particular the windows and VJ linings and panels to the western end of the building. The Ruthven Street frontage contributes to streetscape in scale and detail as one of a series of decorative early twentieth century facades on Toowoomba's main street.
","history":"Karingal Chambers is a two storeyed rendered masonry building erected c1913 on the corner of Ruthven and Bell Streets for Charles Rowbotham. It is attributed to Toowoomba architects, James Marks and Sons.
Rowbotham was a business man, whose family manufactured and imported all classes of shoes. For some years he was a Toowoomba councillor and was Mayor from 1901-02. He acquired the Ruthven Street site, on which a building apparently already existed, in 1906 and mortgaged the property to the Bank of New South Wales for £5,000. The first recording of the name, Rowbotham Chambers, occurs in 1910, however according to the facade the date of the building is 1913. It is believed that Harry Marks, who used the distinctive triangular bay window on his own home erected in 1906, St Rest (now known as Gladstone House), was responsible for the design of the building. Additions along Bell Street may have been added after 1913.
The ground floor contained shops whose tenants included the Frankfort Sausage Co and baker and confectioner, David Webster and later Toowoomba confectioners, caterers, and pastrycooks, TK Lamb and Co Ltd, who operated tea rooms there. The first floor contained offices, including for a number of years, dressmaker, Miss E Rynne and dancing and physical culture teacher, Miss C Marson.
In 1925, the property was acquired by William Charles Krimmer and the building became known as Krimmer's Chambers. It remained in the Krimmer family until 1974, when it was transferred to members of the Sklavos family and later to Western Properties Pty Ltd. In c1987, alterations were undertaken which involved work to the ground floor of Karingal Chambers so as to form an arcade with the adjoining property, which became known as Karingal Arcade. In 1991 the property was acquired by the current owners. The ground floor is leased to a number of shops owners and the upper floor to a women's clothing manufacturer.
","criteria":"The place is one of a number of buildings, including Pigotts [600861] and White Horse Hotel [600863)] contributing to the streetscape of Ruthven Street and demonstrating the development and continuing importance of Ruthven Street.
|Karingal Chambers in Toowoomba is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the contribution in scale and detail of the Ruthven Street frontage to the streetscape; and the interior which contains some fine decorative elements, including the windows and VJ linings and panels to the western end of the building.
In addition, Karingal Chambers forms an important townscape element of the Bell Street Mall.
|It is an example of the eclectic range of the commercial work of Toowoomba architects, James Marks and Sons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15638,"place_ref":600863,"name":"White Horse Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"456 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-12-17","description":"The White Horse Hotel is a double storeyed parapeted brick building with a street facade which is richly decorated with white cement render trim. It is comprised of two wings which form a T shape; a north-south running wing which fronts onto Ruthven Street, with an adjoining east-west wing extending to the rear. The roof is corrugated iron, made up of a combination of gabled and hipped roofs, with pot-bellied shaped ornamental chimneys and ventilators. The ground floor has been extensively refurbished (c1988) and contains two shops either side of a central entrance, a shop to the rear, and a now disused annex in the south east corner. The upper floor contains now mostly unused hotel rooms and offices.
On the ground floor, a central entrance passage leads to an entrance hall containing a finely turned and carved silky oak staircase. Both the passage and the entrance hall have pressed metal ceilings, and the stair soffit is decorated with a pressed metal panel. The shop at the rear contains a carved timber fireplace, and to its southwest corner, a room with a large fireplace recess and a pressed metal ceiling.
The stairs lead to a generous foyer on the upper floor which links the two wings of rooms, and has pressed metal ceilings. Arched timber double doors to the south of the foyer lead to a corridor with a delicately patterned plaster ceiling. The corridor gives access to small rooms, each with similar ceilings to the corridor, and metal ceiling roses.
The northern wing contains substantially larger rooms accessed by an east-west corridor which also has delicate decorative plaster detailing. The doorways to the corridors are framed in rendered masonry with cement scrolls. The rooms to the north retain their fine plaster decoration and metal ceiling roses, and are well lit with rectangular casement windows with square fixed-light timber windows above them. The southern rooms retain none of these features. The south and northern rooms are linked by a small entry hall with timber french doors opening onto a balconette, and square timber windows above.
The white cement render elements to the facade form a rich tracery over the brickwork. Pilasters rise above the street awnings, finishing in small arches over square windows. These are spanned in groups of three by larger arches bisected with finial-like pilasters. Central paired windows are surmounted by a curved pediment which also has a finial-like projection, and the words "White Horse 1912" inscribed upon it. The white render pattern is elaborated with curls, scrolls and floral motifs, and the parapet is decorated with varied acroteria. The facade makes a picturesque aesthetic contribution to Ruthven Street.
","history":"The White Horse Hotel is a two storeyed brick building on Toowoomba's main street, Ruthven Street. It was erected in several phases with major alterations c1912, including a new facade and internal refurbishing, attributed to Toowoomba architects, James Marks and Sons.
A hotel known as the White Horse Hotel is known to have existed on the site since 1866 when it was operated by Daniel Donovan. It was a two storeyed brick building with verandahs to Ruthven Street. In 1873, the property was acquired by Toowoomba storekeeper James Tant. After Tant's death, the hotel passed to his family and was operated by a number of licensees. In 1878, Louis Phillips is reported as running the White Horse Hotel, described as a well known and centrally located Hostelry with commercial rooms fitted with every convenience. Later licensees included John Long, who later built the Imperial Hotel, Daniel Schultz, and Edward Brosnan. In 1897, works costing £200 were undertaken by Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen and in 1906, tenders were called by James Marks and Son for improvements to the hotel.
The c1912 work is thought to be that of Reginald Marks, who from 1910-1917 worked with his father, James and brother, Harry. Reginald Marks is believed to have been responsible for the Taylor Building and Gaydon's Building in Toowoomba. Marks's building had a deep covered verandah which ran the length of the Ruthven Street elevation. Similar to the facade, it was ornately detailed. In common with many other Marks buildings it used ventilators designed by Harry Marks. Other substantial alterations to an earlier building appear to have been undertaken contemporaneously with the facade. Differences in ceiling treatments, some windows, chimneys, and detailing suggest that both wings of the hotel were remodelled at this time.
In 1914, the hotel was leased to William Hart, who advertised the hotel as the most central and comfortable hotel in the Queen City of Queensland with hot and cold baths and first class cuisine. In 1925, the hotel was acquired by John Donaghue. From 1924-1930 the hotel was leased to Albert George Callaghan. After Donaghue's death in 1930, the pub was run by his family.
By 1978, the verandah overlooking Ruthven Street had been removed and an awning was in place. About this time an extra ground floor room was created by enclosing the space between the Ruthven Street wing and the kitchen wing onto the rear lane, Jessie Street. In 1986, the hotel was closed. Extensive work was undertaken by the new owners to turn the pub into office and retail facilities. Work included the building of shops at ground level. The current owners acquired the property in 1988. Two ground floor shops fronting Ruthven Street are leased as clothing stores, whilst the rear kitchen area is used as a hairdressing salon.
","criteria":"There has been a White Horse Hotel on this site since 1866, and the place is significant historically for its association with the growth of Toowoomba as a regional rural centre since that time.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century hotel, in particular the flamboyant facade and interior elements such as the main stair, pressed metal ceilings, doorways, and fanlights.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the rich decorative detail of the facade makes a picturesque contribution to Ruthven Street; it also contains some fine decorative elements, in particular the pressed metal and plaster ceilings and silky oak staircase.
|It has a special association with the work of Toowoomba architects James Marks and Sons, as a good example of their commercial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15639,"place_ref":600864,"name":"Tyson Manor","alternate_name":"Strathmore | Craig Furth | Downlands College","street_address":"64 Ruthven Street","suburb":"HARLAXTON","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Tyson Manor is a two-storey bluestone and polychrome brick building, located within the grounds of Downlands College.
\nThe building footprint comprises a square core (c1880 ground floor, 1905 first floor), with a two-storey wing (1905) to the east. The external walls of the original ground floor are bluestone, with sandstone quoining (painted). The first floor and wing extension are dark-brown, glazed, English bond face-brick, with contrasting brick quoining. The exterior stone and brickwork has tuck pointing and displays quoining to all corners of the building, around all windows and doors. A brickwork bay, with double-hung sash windows, protrudes from the ground floor on the north elevation.
\nThe house has open verandahs on three sides. Verandahs on both levels are supported by slender columns with cast iron brackets, frieze and valance. The upper level verandah has a cast iron balustrade; with a timber boarded valance below. Former verandahs to the rear of the house are enclosed, clad with chamferboard and featuring timber framed casement windows. The corrugated metal clad roof is a complex design, with a single gable protruding from a simple pyramidal core on the western side, and a gable to the eastern extension. Four dark-brown brick chimneys, with contrasting quoining and terracotta chimney pots, are visible from the ground.
\nThe front elevation is symmetrically composed, with the exception of the protruding gable and associated first floor fenestration at the northern end. The main entrance is centred and accentuated by a protruding bay. The panelled front door is surrounded by a quoined arch, with decorative panes of leadlight to the arched fanlight and sidelights. Windows are double-hung sashes, with six-panes to the upper sashes on the first floor.
\nInternally, much of the joinery and fittings dating from the alteration of the house in the early 20th century, are still evident. The entrance foyer displays coloured encaustic tiles on the floor and has a large timber staircase on the northern side with two flights accessing the first floor. The ground floor foyer leads onto a central hallway with timber doors accessing entertaining rooms on either side. The door from the rear of the ground floor hall leads to an enclosed space (former verandah) between the house and the attached school building to the rear. A staircase in the enclosed space provides access to the cellar below. The first floor is arranged with rooms off the central hallway, with a central door accessing the front verandah.
\nGround floor rooms retain decorative pressed metal ceilings, and pressed metal dados feature in both the ground and first floor hallways. Fireplace surrounds vary, with decorative timber mantles to the ground floor and simple timber mantles to the first floor. The ground floor room to the rear of the 1905 extension has a tongue-and-groove lined ceiling, and retains evidence of a wide opening (possibly a fireplace) with carved timber surround.
\nFeatures not of significance in relation to the Tyson Manor building include: extensions attached to the south and east elevations (Hyland Wing and Jubilee House); clotheslines; metal antennae; recent pavers to footpaths, driveway and southeast yard; recent signs; and recent landscaping (hedges and shrubs).
","history":"Tyson Manor is a substantial stone and brick residence, constructed in phases between c1880 and 1905. Now standing within the grounds of Downlands College, Tyson Manor retains its grand appearance, a testament to the prosperity and optimism surrounding the late 19th century development of Toowoomba as a regional centre.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area commenced in 1840 when squatters first occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. Near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps through the Main Range, the small settlement of Drayton (originally known as ‘The Springs') evolved from 1842 as a stopping place servicing pastoralists and travellers. From the late 1840s, the Drayton Swamp Agricultural Area (‘The Swamp'), six kilometres to the north-east, began to be considered a more desirable location for settlement. Better land for market gardening, improved water supply, the support of squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, a better route to Brisbane (The Toll Road), were all advantages over Drayton.[1]
\nThe name ‘Toowoomba' had gradually taken over from ‘The Swamp' by 1857 and the settlement continued to expand. At the time of its incorporation into a municipality in November 1860, Toowoomba was on the way to supplanting Drayton as the principal service centre for the upper Darling Downs. Prior to 1859, Toowoomba's population was around 1500. Five years later this figure had doubled. The rapid economic and social development of Toowoomba in the 1860s was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements.[2] In July 1865 the first section of railway line in Queensland was opened from Brisbane to Ipswich and by April 1867 the line reached Toowoomba, securing the town's future development and making it the hub for the Southern and Western railways.
\nDuring the 1870s Toowoomba consolidated its status as the main urban centre of the Darling Downs. The economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing outlets, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were centred on the town. Toowoomba's progress was reflected in improvements to the physical environment. Important capital works were commenced or completed including the draining of the swamps, improved water supply, gasworks for lighting, extensive tree plantings and the initial development of Queen's Park.
\nAs Toowoomba developed as the leading centre of the Darling Downs and surrounding areas, its prosperity was translated into impressive commercial, civic and residential structures. A new town hall, befitting Toowoomba’s improved status, was designed by Sydney architect, Albert Myers, and opened in 1880.[3] During the late 1880s and early 1890s, the residential area of Toowoomba was rapidly expanding, with large holdings in the smaller surrounding shires subdivided for residential allotments.[4]
\nTyson Manor was erected c1880 as a single storey residence by local builder Richard Godsall. The residence was reportedly built for the Mattinsons.[5] John William Mattinson was a merchant and commission agent in early Toowoomba, and his wife Elizabeth Mattinson (nee McIntyre)[6] was the sister of Lady Nelson, the wife of Sir Hugh Muir Nelson, owners of Gabbinbar [600840]. However, ownership of the original residence is unclear as the Certificate of Title for the land on which the house was built (current Lot 1 on RP17507) was in the name of Mary Meldon, wife of Joseph Meldon, from 1868 until a Trust was established over the property in June 1878, with Hugh Muir Nelson and Joseph Sharp McIntyre as trustees.[7] The land directly to the south was also in the Meldon’s name, until Nelson and McIntyre became trustees in July 1879[8]. In September 1879, the Trustees borrowed 1,000 pounds against both lots, possibly to fund the construction of the single storey residence.[9]
\nThe second owner of Tyson Manor was William Sly, a pastoralist from the Burnett District who purchased the property in 1882. Sly also purchased the adjacent lot to the north in 1883[10].
\nThe property was known as ‘Strathmore’ until 1902, when John Tyson Doneley purchased the house and 40 acres of land from the Slys and renamed it ‘Tyson Manor’. Tyson Doneley, according to French and Waterson in Darling Downs: A Pictorial History, had the Beauaraba Hotel built, around which a farmers’ service township grew in the 1880s.[11] Beauaraba was later to become known as Pittsworth. Tyson Doneley was a near relative of the millionaire pastoralist James Tyson. James Tyson was born on April 11th, 1823, and with other graziers who Duncan Waterson in Squatter, Selector and Storekeeper, describes as “big men”, Tyson dominated the Darling Downs’ great export industries, such as sheep and cattle.[12] In 1905, Tyson Doneley built a second storey of brick to add to the bluestone portion, and a brick wing was built at the rear of the house, providing more accommodation for the family and for the entertainment of guests. The second storey was designed by William Hodgen and built by J. France at a cost of 2,378 pounds.[13]
\nThe son of a building contractor, William Hodgen Jnr became a cadet in the Colonial Architect's Office in 1886. In 1891, he resigned and travelled to London to broaden his experience. He enrolled at the Architectural Association and worked for a variety of architects in London, becoming an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1895. He returned to Queensland in December 1896 and established his Toowoomba practice with an advertisement in the Darling Downs Gazette of 6 February 1897, announcing himself as a new Toowoomba architect.[14] Hodgen’s initial achievements include a major commission for Brisbane retailer, T.C. Beirne, and winning the competition to design a new wing of the Toowoomba Hospital in 1898.[15] Growth and development in both Toowoomba and the Downs and his own efficient work meant he soon had a busy and successful practice.
\nWhilst trained in Queensland, his London experiences and knowledge of the Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian Classicism were expressed in some of his buildings. He tended to employ a ‘free’ style, modifying the prevailing Queensland vernacular by introducing individualist elements.[16] Hodgen’s architectural career spanned 46 years and he designed a large number of buildings varying from small cottages to more substantial residences, sporting facilities, halls and large complex hotels in Toowoomba and on the Darling Downs.[17] Notable designs include: Kensington for George Pitlow Merry [QHR 601322]; the third Toowoomba City Hall [QHR 600865]; the Toowoomba Permanent Building Society [QHR 600859]; Tor [QHR 601325]; Wislet [QHR 601324]; and the Hotel Corones [QHR 601282]. Remaining in practice with his sons until his death in 1943, he was the founder of an architectural dynasty.
\nThe Tyson-Doneley family was one of Hodgen’s major clients; engaging him as architect for a total of eight new works, and nine alterations and additions.[18] Hodgen documented approximately 335 residential works[19] and Tyson Manor was one of his most substantial residential commissions. Other extensions to Tyson Manor designed by William Hodgen included a meat house, constructed by R. Hodgen in 1903 for a cost of £55.[20] A bush-house was formed as was an extensive water scheme.[21] Both of these structures no longer exist on the site.
\nTyson Manor was the centre for many social gatherings. As a home to the Tyson Doneleys for 19 years, Tyson Manor ‘continued to be the most popular and hospitable rendezvous for the elite of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, and many notable guests were entertained there, among them being Lord Northcote and Earl Dudley, during their terms as Governors-General of Australia’.[22] Tyson Doneley, described as an outstanding figure, a good Catholic and esteemed citizen, died in 1915.[23]
\nFollowing the death of her husband, Mrs Tyson Doneley assumed the responsibility of running the manor estate, along with the role of general manager of pastoral properties Devon Park, Yarrandine, Goondoola, Fairy Mount and Boondandilla.[24]
\nIn 1921, Dr Alexander Horn acquired the property from the Tyson-Doneleys and named it ‘Craig Furth’. Horn donated 30 acres of the property for a public park, and sold other portions of it with large acreage remaining.[25] The Corporation of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart purchased the property in 1930 for the purpose of establishing a college. Tyson Manor was occupied by Fr. Hyland, Fr. Smith and Br. South in September 1930, and the school was made ready for the arrival of the first students in 1931 by the addition of a large wooden dormitory (the old maternity wing of the Toowoomba General Hospital) relocated behind the main building and the construction of a modest chapel alongside.[26]
\nDuring WWII, Toowoomba became a military town and the Downlands College was utilised as a military hospital, accommodating the 117th General Hospital, Australian Medical Corps, between 1942 and 1943.[27]
\nExtensions to Tyson Manor have been constructed to the east (rear) and south of the building. These extensions are connected with the use of the site as a secondary college and include the Hyland Wing (1934), comprising a dining room on the ground floor and a multi-purpose open-plan space on the top floor. Also connected to Tyson Manor is Jubilee House (c1981), a single storey accommodation wing for members of the religious community.
\nIn 2018, the ground floor of Tyson Manor is utilised as a meeting space for Downlands College, and the first floor is a residence for members of the religious community.
","criteria":"Tyson Manor, constructed in phases between c1880 and 1905, is representative of the pattern of affluent settlement which occurred in Toowoomba in the late 19th/early 20th century, demonstrating the transition of the Darling Downs from a sparsely populated rural district to one of prosperity and prominence. It is one of the many fine residences which reflect Toowoomba’s growth and development as a major regional centre in Queensland.
|In its form, fabric and layout, Tyson Manor is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a fine residence from the late 19th/early 20th century. An important intact example of the residential work of architect William Hodgen, it comprises a substantial building of quality design and materials, with entrance foyer and ground floor entertaining rooms.
|Tyson Manor is of aesthetic significance for its highly intact picturesque architectural qualities. The substantial brick and stone residence has considerable architectural value as a building of well-composed features and high-quality materials, detailing and finishes, both internally and externally.
|Tyson Manor has a special association with former owner John Tyson Doneley, who is connected with the establishment of Pittsworth (formerly Beauaraba), and who was responsible for the additions to the house and its role as a centre of social activity.
\nTyson Manor is associated with the work of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who purchased the property in 1930 for the purpose of founding a college. It was the original building in what is now a large school complex and continues to provide accommodation for members of the religious community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15640,"place_ref":600865,"name":"Toowoomba City Hall","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Town Hall","street_address":"541 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Toowoomba City Hall, a two-storeyed masonry building with a central, square tower and corrugated iron gabled roof to the rear, is located in the centre of Toowoomba fronting Ruthven Street to the east. The Hall has tuck-pointed masonry with rendered classical detailing. The roof of the front facade is concealed behind a facebrick parapet with decorative rendered accents to the skyline.
The form of the 1900 Hall is still reasonably intact with meeting rooms situated at the front of the building and the auditorium at the rear. Renovations and alterations, predominantly to the theatre, were undertaken in 1937, part of the northern elevation was also infilled at this time. In 1972-3, further refurbishment to the theatre was completed. In 1995, a link between the Hall and the adjoining Commonwealth Offices was constructed.
The Ruthven Street section has a symmetrical, ornately decorated facade with classical detailing to the street, consisting of a wide, projecting, central bay with narrower bays to either side. The building is framed by curvilinear gables at the northern and southern ends of the parapet.
The ground floor has three arches to the central section, with rendered, rusticated columns and squared Corinthian pilaster decoration. The central arches open to an entrance portico accessed via wide steps.
The first floor is composed similarly, with three central arches with decorative motif to the centre of the arch and a crowning triangular pediment. The central arch is flanked by paired circular Corinthian pilasters with square Corinthian pilasters at the corner of the projecting bay.
The clock tower, with extant clock faces, is square in plan, with square Doric pilasters at each corner. The tower has arched mouldings surrounding each clock face. The top portion of the clock tower is painted brown and the bottom portion is cream. Square ventilation openings are situated on each side at the bottom of the tower, and grouped, arched ventilation openings are situated at the top. The tower is topped by a balustraded parapet.
Bays on the ground level on either side of the central entrance have sash windows surrounded by rendered architraves. Ramp access is situated at the southern end of the front facade. The bays to either side of the first floor balcony have oriel windows with decorative mouldings. The oriel windows are framed by rendered, squared Corinthian pilasters. Windows flanking the central arches are surrounded by rendered architraves with a centred decorative moulded motif.
Tuck pointed brickwork continues along the eastern end of the northern elevation. Both the ground and first floors have two double hung sash windows and a single, narrower window along the eastern end of the facade. The infill undertaken during the 1930s refurbishment is evident along the facade. The staircase at the western end of the facade, originally external, has been infilled and roofed in corrugated iron. As part of the 1970s refurbishment, arches along the western end of the elevation were infilled and replaced with windows and doors.
The rear of the hall, the western elevation, has a corrugated iron gabled roof with ridge ventilators. A steel fire stair has been added to the northern end of the facade. Door and window openings which have been infilled are evident along the entire facade. Access to the rear of the building is via three doors associated with the fire exit and via a doorway in a square, brick extension, built during the refurbishments in the 1970s, at the southern end of the building. The face brickwork facade is divided by piers at regular intervals.
The front entrance, paired, panelled timber doors in a moulded, arched entrance, with fanlight assembly, opens to a central lobby. The paired, glass doors in the foyer have timber panels at their base and open to a foyer with an arched hall. The turning timber staircase, in its original position and adapted with stainless steel handrails to conform to regulation heights, leads to the first level. The square-based turned newels are topped by a moulded capital. The shafts have decorative, circular, moulded motifs at the top, the remainder is chamfered with recessed moulded detail.
Internally on the first floor, offices flank the central foyer opening off corridors running north and south. From the foyer, the offices are accessed via paired timber doors in arched entrances. The reception area, to the north of the foyer, (which is also accessed via a door in the lobby), includes a strong room which formed part of the original design of the building. The rooms are simple in design and decoration and are connected via two separate, panelled, timber doors with architraves. One doorway is topped by a single-pane fanlight. The rooms have a plastered cornices and a back to back fireplace with timber surrounds and mantle.
To the south of the foyer, the rooms are similar to those situated to the north, comprising simplicity in design and detail. The one exception is the largest meeting room on the ground floor, which is the original council chambers. The ornate plastered ceiling is decorated with moulded panels and a ceiling rose. The timber fireplace, with timber panels in the lintel, has a tiled register grate and decorative timber consoles.
Internally, the second floor has a reception area created by the addition of free standing walls. Large, paired, panelled timber doors with fanlights, open, on the eastern side to the a large function room, and, on the western side, into the bar area. The rooms on the eastern side of the floor open off a corridor.
The large function room, which can be closed off via a timber partition, has a fireplace located at southern end of the room and three french doors opening onto the first floor balcony. The room has a skylight with clerestory windows. The skylight is lined with timber panels and has a circular ventilated opening, with decorative fretwork. The ornate plaster ceiling is decorated with panels and a ceiling rose.
Other meeting rooms on the first floor are similar to those on the ground floor with plaster cornice detail and timber architraves. The Mayor's office is located at the southern end of the floor. A bay window faces the east and a timber fireplace is located along the southern end of the wall. The plaster ceiling has moulded designs around the light fittings. The adjoining office has a timber ceiling with a plaster ceiling rose, surrounded by a ventilation grate.
The auditorium is lined with non-original timber panelling. The seats are tiered and are covered in non-original black upholstery. Fire exits are located along the western wall. Other doorways are located in the northern wall and the eastern wall. The door in the eastern wall leads to a staircase to the ground floor lobby area.
Internally, in the area that was infilled in the 1930s, toilets are located along the northern end of the ground floor. A small corridor leads to the pre-function room which joins the auditorium foyer via a folding partition. On the first floor, on the western side of the building, also part of the 1930s infill, is a large meeting room.. The room has three regularly spaced ceiling panels comprising glass sections with fluorescent lighting behind the panels. A similar ceiling panel is situated in reception area on the first floor.
Internally, to the rear of the ground floor, a second turning timber staircase, part of the 1970s refurbishment, leads to the auditorium. A set of swing doors, also part of the 1970s renovations, lead to the auditorium foyer. Openings to the southern side of the section lead to a lift lobby and out to the covered courtyard.
On the first floor, located on the western side of the floor is the function area including a bar and kitchenette. Amenities blocks are located along the western side of the link. A lift is also located along the western side of the wall. This section of the floor leads through to the glazed, steel-framed link to the Commonwealth Offices on the adjoining block. The link is constructed over a courtyard.
The Hall has a fence at the front of the building with non-original cast iron railings and original moulded concrete pillars. The rear of the site has a bitumen surfaced carpark.
","history":"Toowoomba City Hall, the city's third town hall, was built in 1900 to a design by Willoughby Powell on the site of the School of Arts. When first constructed, City Hall incorporated municipal offices and council chambers, rooms for a school of arts, a technical college and public hall.
A settlement was established on the present site of Drayton in 1842, and a mail service commenced in December 1845. A survey of Drayton in 1850, the third to be carried out, followed a severe drought at the end of the 1840s which taxed Drayton's water supply. This shortage prompted many residents to consider moving to the Drayton Swamp Agricultural Area (The Swamp), where water was plentiful.
In 1853 a survey of the swamp area was carried out and land sales took place in November in the same year. The Swamp was subsequently named Toowoomba in 1858. On June 30 1860, a petition by Toowoomba residents seeking incorporation as a municipality was successful and proclamation occurred on 24 November 1860. Local government was established in November 1860, and elections were held in January 1861. One of the first projects undertaken was the construction of a town hall. Built in James Street, the simple timber structure was completed in January 1862.
In July 1865 the first section on railway line in Queensland was opened to Ipswich and by April 1867 the line reached Toowoomba, securing the town's future development. The 1860s saw the rapid expansion of Toowoomba with the founding of the Toowoomba Chronicle; the establishment of the first banking business, the construction of a gaol, the opening of the School of Arts and a Court House. The 1870s witnessed the opening of the Toowoomba Grammar School, the commencement of the foundry, the draining of the swamps and the commencement of waterworks. In 1887 Toowoomba was proclaimed a town.
As Toowoomba developed as the leading centre of the Darling Downs and surrounding areas, the prosperity was translated into impressive commercial and residential structures. The Council decided a new town hall was necessary and the first town hall was demolished and the new building, designed by Sydney architect Albert Myers, opened in 1880. The land on which the second town hall was built was later sold to the State Government who built the South Toowoomba Boys' School on the site in 1906.
When the second town hall was constructed, the form of Toowoomba as a town had not been firmly established, in particular the town centre was not well defined. Commercial activities tended to focus on the lower end of Russell Street, near the railway station, while government activities centred on the courthouse in Margaret Street, north-east of the town hall. By the 1890s it was evident that neither government or commercial activities were interested in moving. As a result of the increasing isolation of the town hall from the commercial centre, the Council began examining the feasibility of building another town hall in a more central location. A major problem was the acquisition of a suitable block of land, which, by this stage, would have meant considerable expense for the Council. A proposal that a new hall be built on the site of the School of Arts in Ruthven Street, a site acquired by the Toowoomba Council in 1887, was rejected on the basis that such an action would involve building a new School of Arts.
Later, however, when the School of Arts building was badly damaged by a fire on 21 June 1898, the proposal to build a new town hall on the site was again raised in a Council meeting and the motion was approved.
Prior to acquiring the site in Ruthven Street, the Council proceeded with a competition, with a prize of 30 guineas, for the design of a new town hall. Following approval to build a hall, a sub-committee examined the entries and recommended that William Hodgen be awarded first prize. However, Toowoomba Municipal Council Minutes from 3 October 1898 report that the recommendation was rejected. A new competition, with a prize of 25 guineas, was announced. Five entries were received and first prize was awarded to Willoughby Powell for his design entitled 'Sincerity'.
Willoughby Powell was born c1848 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England and died in Queensland in 1920. Powell emigrated to Australia in 1872 and worked for Brisbane architect Richard Gailey before joining the Queensland Public Works Department as a draftsman in 1874. From 1875 to 1877 he maintained a busy practice in Toowoomba, later claiming to have erected 'the majority of the principal buildings' there and in the surrounding district. Powell was eventually appointed to the permanent staff of the Works Department in 1899. Powell had to give up supervision of the construction of the Hall to Toowoomba architects, James Marks and Son, to receive his permanent appointment. Some of Powell's designs in the Toowoomba area include Toowoomba Grammar School [600850] and master's residence in 1875; Jewish Synagogue, corner Herries and Neil Streets (1875-76); Gabbinbar [600840] for Rev. William Lambie Nelson (1876) and additions to Clifford House [600857] for the Hon. James Taylor in c1877 and the Warwick Town Hall [600961]. In its exterior form, Toowoomba City Hall is similar to the smaller and less elaborately decorated Warwick Town Hall, built of sandstone in the late 1880s.
Alexander Mayne's tender of £6440 was accepted on 22 November 1899, and on 20 February 1900, the Foundation Stone was laid by His Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Sir Samuel Griffiths. Officially opened by the Mayor of Toowoomba, Alderman Matthew Keefe, on December 12, 1900, City Hall was originally divided into three parts.
The School of Arts and Technical College on the first floor included class rooms and Committee Room at the southern end, a large Reading Room opening out to the first floor balcony and a Ladies' Reading Room and another class room at the northern end. A corridor led to another classroom and the Library located towards the western side on the first floor. The Public Hall or Theatre was at the western end of the building. There were a number of entrances to the Gallery including a ground floor Lobby and staircase on the northern wall of the building.
Contemporary publications describe the Hall as 'a spacious hall ten feet in width, and running right through to the theatre...on the ground floor are the municipal offices, those on the right being occupied by the Town Clerk and the Mayor. On the left hand side...comes the Rate Collector's Office and another for the Town Engineer....the Municipal Chamber...in finish and appointments...is very fine...The ceiling is particularly artistic, being stamped metal and picked out in soft and suitable colours'.
'Ascending the grand staircase...here [upper storey] are located the suite of rooms for the School of Arts and Technical College...Four rooms are provided for Technical College purposes, one being a particularly large classroom...the theatre [at the western end of the building]...carries 231 reserved stall seats, 108 second stall seats and 450 seats in the pit...The auditorium is a very handsome piece of work, being of stamped metal...underneath the stage are the dressing rooms'. There are a number of fireplaces located on the ground floor in the Council Chambers and in other offices, and on the upper level in the Reading Rooms and the Committee Room.
The original plans for the building did not provide for a public clock and the tower was planned as a much lower structure with a spire. During construction of the building, the matter of installing a clock was raised and at the council meeting of June 4, 1900, it was decided that a clock should be imported from England. The tower clock was installed in the early 1900s at a cost of about £400. It was made by Billett and Johnston, still one of Britain's great turret clock manufacturers. Its installation remains a monument to Toowoomba watchmaker Mr H. Walker, who for many years conducted business as Henry Walker and Son Ltd in Ruthven Street almost opposite Bell Street. Devonshire, it is believed, was the ship which brought the clock and bells to Australia. On one of the two bells that chime the quarter hour, the words S.S. Devonshire can still be seen. Of the original four ornamental pillars used in the external landscape works to City Hall, two were removed and installed at the old Toowoomba Showgrounds in Campbell Street as gates posts in the 1940s. On the closure of the showgrounds in 1985, when the Royal Agricultural Society moved to its current premises at Glenvale, the two pillars were dismantled and re-erected outside City Hall.
After its construction in 1900, City Hall was the venue for many uses. For more than sixty years the main administrative functions of the Toowoomba City Council were located in the hall. It has been an important venue for educational activities and housed for over 50 years, Toowoomba's main lending library. Situated on the first floor, the library began as the School of Arts Library.
A School of Arts committee was established in Toowoomba in the late 1850s, and the first School of Arts was erected in 1861 on land donated by Arthur Hodgson. This was the same site on which City Hall was erected in 1900. According to Toowoomba City Council records, a second and more substantial building was erected in 1877. This was the building that was demolished following a fire in 1898, to make way for the new town hall. For over 20 years, the library was well patronised, however, by the 1930s, the School of Arts committee began to have difficulties maintaining the collection. Lack of government funding, the growth of local circulation libraries and a diminishing number of subscribers added to the problems. Eventually, the library was taken over by the city council and remained in the hall until 1951. The School of Arts also conducted classes in technical and general education, one of the few avenues available to those wishing to pursue higher education. The hall was the venue for technical education for more than a decade. As the number of students increased, accommodation became a serious concern. In 1911, a purpose-built technical college [600851] was erected in Margaret Street and the State government assumed responsibility for technical education from the School of Arts committee.
Added to City Hall's municipal and educational events, were the cultural and social events, which have been one of the building's most enduring functions. Such activities included public meetings, concerts and other musical events, drama and even sporting events, such as boxing and wrestling. Over time different requirements and standards have resulted in various alterations and additions to the building. The theatre has undergone more changes than any other part of the building. Prior to renovations in the 1940s, the raked floor and fixed seating of the auditorium limited its use. Whenever there was an audience facing the stage, the gentle fall was not a problem, however, it could not be used for dances or balls.
By the mid-1930s the need to improve the facilities became urgent. In early 1935 the Toowoomba Art Society was formed and one of their first activities was to lobby the Council "to make provision in their plans for a room suitable for the display of works of art." Space had become available in the City Hall following the relocation of the Technical College to its own building [600851] at the corner of Hume and Margaret Streets in 1911. After Council decided to renovate the theatre and provide space for an art gallery and additional offices, work was undertaken in two stages. The first stage involved extending the building to provide a room on the first floor for an art gallery and office space on the ground floor for council staff. This extension was completed in 1937 at a cost of £2400 and was designed by the local firm of W Hodgen and Hodgen. It was an unobtrusive addition and involved the enclosing of the open space between the front section of the building and the theatre on the northern side. Skylights were installed to provide lighting to the art gallery and also to the main stairwell.
The second stage, in the 1940s, involved major alterations to the theatre, at a cost of £5200. The existing gallery was demolished and replaced with a smaller gallery. In the main auditorium the seats were rearranged to provide easier access and better sightlines to the stage, but reducing seating capacity. Other work involved remodelling the interior decoration, the installation of a new proscenium, improvements to the ventilation, raising of the roof above the stage and gallery and the fitting of new seats.
In 1972-73, further major alterations were undertaken to City Hall principally involving the theatre. Carried out under the direction of local architects Durack and Brammer for a cost of more than $300 000, the work included the removal of the main floor and balcony and the construction of a new floor to improve sight lines, new seating which again reduced capacity, refurbished foyer, refreshment facilities, new dressing rooms, and wider stage and improved backstage facilities. The theatre was re-opened in July 1973 by the Mayor, Alderman Nell Robinson.
When opened, the council chambers and offices were situated on the ground floor, however, as staff numbers increased, so did the demand for extra space. When the technical college moved out in 1911, council staff took over their rooms. More space was available for council staff when the former School of Arts library vacated the building in 1951. By the early 1950s, both the ground and first floors of the front section of the building, with the exception of a room on the first floor for the art gallery, were devoted to council offices. Eventually it was necessary to construct a new office complex, and in 1963 a three storeyed building, the Council Administration Building, was constructed in nearby Herries Street. In late 1963, when the Board of Education moved in, City Hall was again the venue for educational activities. The Board have subsequently relocated.
The Toowoomba Art Gallery moved out of City Hall in March 1994 into their own premises nearby in the former SWQEB building. Commencing in 1995, City Hall has undergone major refurbishment by Allom Lovell Marquis Kyle Architects. Provisions were made to enable Councillors, staff and others to move from City Hall to council offices located in the adjoining Commonwealth Building. The symbolic seat of local government has returned to its original place of residence as the Council Members once again meet in City Hall.
","criteria":"Toowoomba City Hall is significant as the focus for local government in Toowoomba for more than ninety years. Its generous size and grand character provide evidence of the prosperity and importance of Toowoomba as a major regional centre at the turn of the century.
|Toowoomba City Hall is significant as a good and intact example of an early twentieth century civic building in Queensland incorporating eclectic stylistic elements in its design.
|With its east elevation facing Ruthven Street, Toowoomba City Hall makes an important contribution to the streetscape and provides a focal point for that part of the street with its landmark tower.
|As the site of the first School of Arts, prior to the construction of the hall, and with the hall housing a School of Arts and Technical College during its early years, the place demonstrates the continued public use of the property for over 100 years. The building continues a long association with the people of Toowoomba and surrounding areas as a focal point for social, and community functions.
|Toowoomba City Hall is associated with the work of architect Willoughby Powell, as one of a number of substantial public buildings in Queensland designed by Powell during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The building is also associated with prominent Toowoomba architect William Hodgen, who designed the 1937 alterations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15641,"place_ref":600866,"name":"St Luke's Church Hall","alternate_name":"St Lukes School and Parish Hall | St Luke's Church Hall | St Lukes Hall | St Luke's Hall","street_address":"152 Herries Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Luke's hall stands at the corner of Herries and Ruthven Street to the south of the church and parallel to it. It is an unusual building and has a number of Marks trademark features and innovations including the use of extensive provision for light and ventilation, a patented construction method and flamboyant decoration.
The hall is single storey and is 80' long and 40' wide with a plan suggestive of that of a church, having a nave and side aisles. There are bays at each end which are flanked by pairs of gable roofed porches. The foundations are brick and the building is constructed of cement applied over chicken wire on a timber framework. This technique was also used by Marks for the Taylor Memorial Institute at St James' Church and the main building at the Glennie School, both contemporary with this hall. The main roof is hipped, clad with corrugated iron and has ventilating gables spaced right around the roof edge and along the side aisles. The ridge of the roof is capped with unusual ventilators reminiscent of Byzantine cupolas surmounted by crosses. Shallow triple casement windows are placed under the eaves beneath the gables forming a clerestory and larger sets of triple casements line the side aisles. Those in the western bay have flat heads with arched mouldings above them. The eastern bay has been extended to incorporate toilet facilities and a store. The four entry porches are supported on timber columns with elaborate capitals and are reached by low steps.
The interior of the hall is a large and well lit space with a timber floor and vaulted ceiling lined with timber. The nave has square timber posts on each side supporting the clerestory and is continuously arcaded. There is a modern kitchen in the western end and a stage at the other.
","history":"St Luke's Church Hall, constructed in 1911, is a large, single-storey building, designed by H.J. (Harry) Marks of the prominent family of Toowoomba architects. It forms part of a church precinct at the corner of Herries and Ruthven Street.
The site is part of a continuing tradition of Anglican worship established during the first years of European settlement on the Darling Downs. At this time the Downs were part of New South Wales and fell within the Diocese of Newcastle. The Reverend John Gregor visited the area, holding services in camps and private homes from 1840 until his death in 1848. The energetic Reverend Benjamin Glennie succeeded him and was appointed the first Incumbent for the Darling Downs in 1850. A parsonage was built at the "Springs" (Drayton) in 1851 but by then the focal point of activity on the Downs had swung some six kilometres northwards to an area known as 'The Swamp', later to become Toowoomba. Glennie approached his Bishop for permission to buy land for a church there. He envisioned four churches, each dedicated to one of the evangelists, in the four major towns of the Downs, St Matthew's at Drayton, St Mark's at Warwick, St John's in Dalby and St Luke's at Toowoomba. In 1854 he purchased two acres of land in Ruthven Street for £8/4/- at one of the first land sales held.
In 1856 a 2 room schoolmaster's house was built on the land, followed soon afterwards by a slab building which combined the functions of church and school. The first service was held in March 1857. The building was soon inadequate and was extended, but a new and larger church, named St James, was built on land donated at Mort Street in 1869 and became the main Toowoomba church by default, although St Luke's had been intended as the parish church. Services were conducted alternately at the two churches and St Luke's was used for the Sunday School until 1883 when weekly services were recommenced and the church was again extended. The school function ceased in 1880 when state aid to denominational schools ceased.
In 1891, because of the growth of Toowoomba, St Luke's was established as a Parochial District and a new incumbent was appointed by the Bishop. The Reverend T. St. J. P. Pughe immediately set out to raise funds for a more suitable church. Plans were commissioned from Diocesan Architect J.H. Buckeridge for a stone church in 1892 and the new building was dedicated in February 1897. The old St Luke's continued in use as the parish hall, but must have seemed inappropriate to the enhanced status of St Luke's as well being inadequate in size.
The provision new parish hall had become urgent by 1908 and a venue to conduct classes for primary school children was also needed. A building committee was appointed and by August 1909, architect Harry Marks had submitted plans for a building which would act as both a hall and primary school, the drawings for which were carried in the October Parish Paper. Tenders were called in January 1910 and subsequently, a contract was signed by H. Andrews for the sum of £1436.
H.J. (Harry) Marks was one of a remarkable family firm of architects which had a lasting effect on the appearance of Toowoomba, being responsible for a large number of public, private and commercial buildings. James Marks arrived in Queensland in 1866 and first set up in practice in Dalby, moving to Toowoomba in 1874. He entered into partnership as James Marks and Son with his eldest son Harry, who joined his father's practice in 1903, and Reginald who joined in 1910. Charles Marks, James grandson was also an architect working in Toowoomba and died in 1966. Harry Marks was innovative in his approach to design and patented several ideas for building systems and components. He was interesting in providing good ventilation and natural lighting and these are features buildings designed by him.
The foundation stone for St Luke's hall was laid by the Archdeacon of Brisbane on 28 May 1910 in the presence of a large and representative assembly of people and is inscribed 'To the Glory of God and in memory of Benjamin Glennie, B.A., sometime Rector of Toowoomba.' The Rector's Warden, Mr Frank Hooper, referred to the devotion of Canon Glennie who was virtually the founder of St Luke's from a material and temporal point of view. The late Canon Glennie had, he said, 54 years before purchased for £8 the two acres of land, and that day they saw the outcome of his foresight. The completed hall was opened on 11 April and dedicated on 15 May 1911 by the Archbishop of Brisbane at a cost of £1554.
","criteria":"As a large and elaborate Parish Hall designed by Toowoomba's most distinguished architectural firm, St Luke's Hall is a demonstration the development of the Anglican Church on the Downs and the importance of Toowoomba in the early twentieth century.
|The hall forms part of the St. Luke's church group consisting of St. Luke's Church, the Hall, Rectory and Bell Tower and has high aesthetic value in its own right, making an important contribution to the character of the city of Toowoomba.
|The hall features a number of Harry Marks innovative and patented design features from its basic construction method to finishing details such as ventilators.
|It has strong social links to the Anglican community in Toowoomba as the venue for many functions over the years.
|St Luke's Hall has strong associations with the life and work of Harry Marks, one of a family of prominent architects in Toowoomba, and is also an outcome of the work of the Reverend Benjamin Glennie, an important figure in history of Drayton/Toowoomba who laid the foundations for the development of the Church on the Darling Downs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15642,"place_ref":600867,"name":"Geeumbi","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 South Street","suburb":"RANGEVILLE","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Geeumbi is a substantial and complex four-level residence of concrete construction set in expansive cultivated grounds on the northern side of South Street, Toowoomba. The property is situated close to the escarpment of the Southern Toowoomba Range and the house is oriented to take advantage of the easterly views. The allotment covers an area of 1.69 hectares and the relationship between the house, gardens, garden structures and the expansive views are critical to the significance of the place.
The South Street entrance to Geeumbi is marked by two low concrete walls flanking a central driveway, with mature hedges extending along the front boundary creating a distinctive fence line. The circular driveway is constructed of decorative concrete slabs, and is distinguished by a round garden bed in front of the entrance to the house. The circular drive area is surrounded by tall mature hedges, making the entrance to the house a secluded space.
The house is constructed of solid concrete about 30 centimetres thick. It is built on four levels which include the ground floor, the common room, bedrooms and living areas on the second floor, the "den" on the third floor and a flat roof with solid concrete railings containing an observatory as the fourth level. It is asymmetrical in plan and elevation, and has two distinct sections which differ in style. The front portion of the house is distinguished by the imposing octagonal tower and walled open roof and presents the appearance of a Mediterranean Villa with a rendered concrete finish, while the rear of the house is reminiscent of the Arts & Craft style popular at this time with a steeply pitched complex tiled roof and dormer window among other features. The rear section of the house also incorporates some weatherboard cladding. There is a clear line where the two different design styles meet which is visible from the eastern elevation.
The eastern side of the house is distinguished by the garden terraces that lead down to a flat, open grassy plain which in turn leads into bushland. The orientation of the house towards the easterly outlook is demonstrated by the large, now enclosed, verandah running along the eastern elevation as well as the octagonal tower which also comprises a large portion of the eastern elevation. The domed roof structure visible on the tower, once housed telescopic equipment.
Close to the rear of the house is a concrete tennis court with red pigment, part of the original lay out of the grounds. The rear garden also comprises a wide terrace extending north into bushland and is bordered by formal plantings.
The western side of the house still retains the original vegetable gardens, fruit trees, grape vines and utilitarian structures such as the large concrete water tank and concrete retaining walls and drains. A pathway leads from this part of the garden to a side entrance door on the western elevation of the house which gains direct access to the kitchen, reflecting the practical purpose of the 'kitchen garden' in the daily working of the house.
Internally, the house is highly intact, retaining many of its original design features. The front portion of the house contains the formal entry and formal lounge and dining to the eastern side and the kitchen to the western side. Entry to the tower is gained from the formal lounge at the southeast corner of the house and comprises a narrow spiral staircase leading to what was Dr Price's den. This den is constructed in a mezzanine style and overlooks the internal lounge below.
","history":"Geeumbi (the Aboriginal name for Table Top Mountain, which the house overlooks) was built between the years 1914 - 1918 by Ernest Pottinger for Dr T.A. Price and his wife. The house is a substantial concrete structure of unusual design set in extensive mature gardens on the southern Toowoomba Range commanding wide-ranging easterly views. It is situated amongst other substantial properties including Rodway [600868] across South Street constructed in 1904. The owner, Dr Price, designed Geeumbi himself having been an architecture student for two years in Brisbane before leaving Australia to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh.
Dr Thomas Price arrived in Toowoomba in 1903 to take up a position at the Willowburn Mental Hospital. He later went into private medical practice but following World War I started a practice as an Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist at both the Toowoomba General Hospital and St Vincent's Hospital. From the time of his arrival in Toowoomba Dr. Price had been concerned for the health of the community as mosquitoes were a major problem due to the swamps and open drains that ran throughout the town. Despite campaigning for the appointment of a Government Inspector to control the mosquito problem he was not successful until he stood and was elected to the City Council in 1912. After he was elected Mayor in 1918, Dr. Price stepped-up his campaign and was eventually successful in draining the swamps and eradicating the mosquito problem in Toowoomba. He was similarly interested in the welfare of the youth of the city. He was a Scout Leader and with the assistance of his wife started the Boy Scouts and Girl Guide movements in the city using his own property for camps and orientation exercises. In the 1930s at the height of the Great Depression, Dr. Price organized a self-help camp at Redwood Park for the itinerant unemployed. Much of the fresh vegetables to feed the men in this camp came from the kitchen garden around Geeumbi. Shortly before his death in 1957 Dr Price sold Geeumbi and retired to live in Sydney. His wife Hester had passed away at Toowoomba in 1944. The Dr Price Memorial Mothercraft Centre perpetuates his memory in Toowoomba.
The land on which Geeumbi sits has been transferred and subdivided a number of times since the original deed of grant was proclaimed on 25/9/1889. William Tirril was the first owner of the land which comprised 200 acres of steep, heavily timbered land on the escarpment of the range. Tirril cleared much of the land and established a dairy farm on the site. The farm had originally extended from the present Rowbottom Street in the west to the boundary of Hartmann's land to the north and had South Street as its southern boundary. (Hartmann's land eventually became the Picnic Point parklands.) At this stage much of the land on the Southern Range was sparsely populated and devoted to farming and timber getting.
The land passed through several hands until Dr Price purchased a sub-division of the original farm in 1912 on which the old timber farmhouse and several out buildings were situated. Before and during the construction of their new home, the Price family lived in the original farmhouse just a short distance away from the building site. Evidence of this first house can be found in the concrete pathway leading from an opening in the hedge on the South Street frontage and in a low wall, once a portion of the foundations. This wall has been incorporated in the garden terracing to the southwest of the front entrance of Geeumbi.
At the beginning of the twentieth century many of the houses built on the escarpment of the Range in Toowoomba were substantial and affluent places intended as summer residences eg. Harlaxton House [600839] and Rodway [600868]. A trend had developed by the end of the 19th century for wealthy Squatters and prominent Brisbane businessmen and politicians to take advantage of the spectacular views and natural environment of the Toowoomba Range as well as the 'invigorating' climate. The construction of Geeumbi from 1914-1918 followed this pattern of affluent settlement in the area which established the Range as a prime residential precinct in Toowoomba.
Construction of the house was commenced in 1914. The foundations and walls of the new house were constructed by pouring concrete into box framing made from timber and flattened tin, an innovative approach for the time. Dr Price was a keen astronomer and the tower end of the building was designed for viewing the night skies from a clear vantage point above the tree line. The house was positioned to take advantage of the distinct view of Table Top Mountain and the night skies as opposed to the immediate views. The unusual appearance and construction of Geeumbi was clearly a result of the creativity of Dr Price, who designed the house with his particular needs and desires in mind, making the building a departure from the standard residential development occurring at the time. Minor alterations have been carried out on the most noticeable of these being the enclosure of the southern verandah for protection against the wind.
Dr Price, a keen gardener and bush walker collected native plants from around the local ridges and planted them in the garden that he developed after the completion of the house. Terraces were formed close to the building to act as extensions to the living areas of the house. Lower terraces were formed further down the hill and planted with various forms of hedge plants. A hedge was planted on the South Street frontage and the along the eastern edge of the land adjoining the escarpment reserve. To the western side of the house an extensive kitchen garden was established again on terraces stabilised by the construction of concrete walls. Fruit trees were also cultivated in this area. Whilst the garden about Geeumbi was large, it was mostly free from as opposed to the controlled shapes and designs that were popular in the earlier stages of the development of Toowoomba gardens. The largest proportion of the grounds remained as open grassland or patches of scrub were left. The Price children owned several horses and had walking tracks through the area.
Following the retirement of Dr Price the house and accompanying five acres of land first passed to the Price children and then in 1954 was sold to Francis Bushby who in turn sold to Cyril Conroy. The property remained in the hands of the Conroy family until 1972 when it was sold to Dr. John and Mrs Judith Noble. At this stage the house and gardens were in a rundown state. Although the form of the Price garden remained, many of the original plants had been allowed to die and ivy had covered a large portion of the tower of the house.
In 1972 the land was subdivided into two sections with the western section being sold off as five residential lots. This section included a portion of the kitchen garden. In 1973 Drs Mary and Godfrey Gapp, purchased Geeumbi and further subdivided the land into two blocks and more recently another block was sold from the southwestern corner of the garden. The remaining 1.69 hectares of land was resurveyed as Lot 1 on RP 142232.
The gardens around Geeumbi have basically retained their early form with the remaining portion of the vegetable garden still used in the same way. The terraces and other features such as the tennis court and old concrete water tank have remained. A structure understood to be a swimming pool was removed a number of years ago. The front garden has been maintained despite the loss of a large tree that was a feature of the round bed in the centre of the driveway.
","criteria":"Geeumbi is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Toowoomba as the service centre for the Darling Downs Region and the development of the Range area as a prime residential precinct in Toowoomba.
|Constructed from 1914 - 1918, Geeumbi is an unusual example of a substantial residence from the period in Queensland. Its poured-concrete construction and distinctive design principles distinguish Geeumbi from contemporaneous development in Queensland and bears testament to the creativity of its owner and architect, Dr T.A. Price, as a residence of great individuality and innovation.
|Geeumbi is aesthetically significant as an unusual and interesting building set in extensive grounds with expansive views to Table Top Mountain from its position on the Toowoomba Range. Its design and setting make a strong visual impact to South Street and the surrounding area and its external and internal detailing and fittings are all significant in contributing to the aesthetic importance of the place. The grounds contain many mature trees and other plantings, such as grapevines and hedges and flowers, which are also highly aesthetically significant.
|Constructed from 1914 - 1918, Geeumbi is an unusual example of a substantial residence from the period in Queensland. Its poured-concrete construction and distinctive design principles distinguish Geeumbi from contemporaneous development in Queensland and bares testament to the creativity of its owner and architect, Dr T.A. Price, as a residence of great individuality and innovation.
|Geeumbi has special association with the life and work of Dr T. A. Price who was an influential member of the Toowoomba community, having been Mayor from 1918 - 1919 and a prominent medical practitioner who contributed highly to the local community. His memory is commemorated by the Dr Price Memorial Mothercraft Centre and by his association with Geeumbi as the house he designed and where he resided and conducted some of his work until 1954.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15643,"place_ref":600868,"name":"Rodway","alternate_name":"Sylvia Park","street_address":"2 South Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Rodway is a single-storeyed chamferboard residence with a corrugated iron hipped roof and projecting north gable. The building, located on the Toowoomba Range, is situated on a south sloping site, overlooking the Brisbane Valley to the southeast, with a border of mature camphor laurel trees to the west boundary and Norfolk pines to the north.
There are verandahs to the south, east, northeast and northwest, and a kitchen wing and an attached enclosed tankstand to the west. The south and northwest verandahs have been enclosed, and the building has timber stumps with batten panel infill, except to the kitchen wing which has a brick base enclosing a laundry and store. There are three brick chimneys, of which the eastern two are cement rendered.
The symmetrical east elevation has a central porch with an ornately shaped timber surround and a wide flight of timber steps. The open verandahs have an unlined corrugated iron ogee shaped awning with timber posts, brackets and grid-like balustrade. A bay to either side of the entry, and one to the north, pierce the verandah awning and are hipped at the eaves. These bays, and at either side of the dining room, contain HJ Marks' step-out 'disappearing' sash windows. The north projecting dining room bay is surmounted by a gable with timber brackets to either side and decorative timber bargeboard and finial, with an awning and timber brackets to the bay window below. The northwest enclosed tankstand is taller, and has a shallow hipped roof and pressed metal window hoods.
The main entrance has a panelled cedar door with leadlight fanlight and sidelights. Internally, there is a wide central hall with a timber arch, walls are of tongue and groove boards with painted timber architraves and skirting, and doors are panelled cedar with fanlights. The northeast room has arched divides to the bays, and later fibrous cement ceiling and brick fireplace. The southeast room has an arched divide to the bay, a white marble fireplace surround and more recent ensuite. The dining room has plastered walls and ornate, pressed metal ceiling and cornice. Pressed metal ceilings also feature in the enclosed verandah rooms off the south bedroom and ensuite.
The western verandah enclosures include a guest bedroom and storeroom in the tankstand, with the original verandah posts still in place. The kitchen has been remodelled and a bathroom added to the west end of the verandah, with the verandah having an ogee shaped boarded ceiling. Stairs lead down to the laundry, which contains the original copper, and store below.
A chamferboard double garage with a corrugated iron gable roof is located on the boundary to the northwest, with iron gates to the west which originally led to an avenue which accessed the former property to the southwest. The western border of camphor laurel trees remain, the southwest section of which is fenced off to form a horse paddock. The north garden contains two large jacaranda trees with pine trees along the boundary and a timber and wire fence. Garden beds with terracotta tile surrounds and brick drains border the north garden and the grassed driveway to the east. The southeast area of the site is lower and contains the remains of the original tennis court.
","history":"Rodway is a single storeyed timber house erected in 1898 for John Long, to the design of architect Harry Marks, on a 40 acre site on the Toowoomba Range.
\nThe site was acquired by Long, a hotel keeper, in 1896. He had previously commissioned Marks' father, James Marks in 1885 to design the Imperial Hotel in Ruthven Street, which Long operated for a number of years.
\nIn April 1898 the Darling Downs Gazette reported Long's 'splendid new house' on the Range was in the course of erection. The house was built by August of that year, when Queensland Premier TJ Byrnes and his touring party visited the Long's residence, during a visit to Toowoomba. The property became known as Sylvia Park.
\nIn 1910, the property was acquired by grazier, John Oliver Frith and his wife Annie Peek Frith as a town residence. Frith lived in semi-retirement but maintained his Augathella property, Toolmaree Station. Renamed Rodway after his birthplace in Somersetshire in England, the house was described as one of the most picturesque and beautiful homes in the vicinity of the city. A gabled north projecting dining room bay may have been undertaken by Frith, and was certainly in existence by 1919. Interior alterations to the dining room may also have been carried out at this time. It is thought that the kitchen wing was added after 1904.
\nMembers of the Frith family are recorded as living at Rodway until 1940 although it is believed the house was rented and used as a boarding house during the 1930's. About this time new fireplaces were installed in the living and dining rooms as well as a new ceiling in the living room. After the death of Annie Frith in 1952, the property was transferred to PJ Seymour, LH Corser, and Leo and Isabel Lynch. The property was subdivided and later sold, with the Lynches retaining the house on a 5 acre block, later reduced to 4 acres to allow for the provision of new roads.
\nThe property was again subdivided in the mid-1990's, and the land the west of the house beyond the border of camphor laurel trees was removed from the heritage register in 1998.
\nInformation note:
\nOn 2 April 2015 revisions to the statement of significance (criterion A, replacing c1904 with 1898), and history contained in the Queensland Heritage Register entry for Rodway, were made by the Department to update information in accordance with the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
\n","criteria":"
Rodway, erected in 1898, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Toowoomba as the service centre for the Darling Downs Region, and the development of the Range as a prime residential area.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial federation period timber house.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Toowoomba community, in particular the form of the house and its relationship to the expansive southeast view, and the layout of the gardens and mature trees and their contribution to the streetscape of South Street and to the Toowoomba townscape.
|It has a special association with the life of Toowoomba architect Harry Marks as an example of his domestic work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15644,"place_ref":600869,"name":"Concordia College Administration Centre","alternate_name":"Redlands","street_address":"154 Stephen Street","suburb":"HARRISTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Redlands, a two-storeyed brick building, is located on a level site facing a formal garden and is approached via a long avenue of mature pine trees to the north. The building has a U-shaped hipped corrugated iron roof with a central valley, paired eave brackets and verandahs on the east, north and west with unlined curved corrugated iron awnings.
The symmetrical north elevation has a projecting double storeyed porch, with a flight of stone steps, surmounted by a cross. The verandahs have timber posts with cast iron balustrade, brackets and valance. The northeast and northwest corners of the ground floor verandahs have decorative coloured glass and pressed metal screens and infill panels.
The building has flemish bond brickwork with painted quoining, step-out sash bay windows on the ground floor and a central arched entry to the north with stained glass fanlight and sidelights. The first floor also has a central entry of french doors with stained glass inserts, featuring painted birds, fanlight and sidelights. The south elevation has been cement rendered.
Internally, the building has a central hall with a carved cedar staircase at the south. The ground floor has rendered walls, elaborate pressed metal ceilings of varying designs and cedar joinery. The northwest room has a black marble fireplace surround with hand painted tiles depicting birds. The northeast room has a white marble fireplace surround and other rooms have carved timber surrounds, all with painted tiles. The foyer has an arched internal doorway with patterned glass fanlight and sidelights. The first floor has papered walls, panelled or boarded ceilings and cedar joinery.
The formal garden to the north forms a turning circle and consists of a central fountain, flagpole, hedge border, garden beds in the form of the school's initials and areas of lawn.
A covered path links the building to a more recent classroom and staff block immediately to the south. Other school buildings built since the late 1950s, predominantly of two-storeyed brick, are built to the east, south and west. Playing fields are located either side of the entrance drive to the north, leaving the building's northern outlook open.
","history":"Redlands, a two-storeyed brick residence, was designed by Toowoomba architect James Marks and built by Henry Andrews in 1889 for Edmund Wilcox, a merchant and prominent citizen of Toowoomba. Redlands was originally built on about 28 acres of land near the Drayton Road, approximately 1½ miles from Toowoomba.
Wilcox received his early business training with the firm of Messrs Cribb and Foote of Ipswich and with Holberton's of Toowoomba. Later, Wilcox together with his brother Robert founded the firm Wilcox Brothers merchants, located in Ruthven Street for a number of years. Wilcox Brothers eventually sold out to Messrs Laidlaw and Peak.
The outbuildings originally included a 3-stalled stable, harness room, carpenter's shop, two bedrooms, fodder room, coach house and hay loft; battened fowl house, piggery, and cow pens, to accommodate Wilcox's interest in farming pursuits as a hobby at Redlands.
The foundations of Redlands are reputedly of local bluestone, the bricks supplied by the local brick and tile company, the glass by Exton and Gough of Brisbane, and the iron railing for the balcony and cresting by the Toowoomba Foundry Company. Redlands is said to still have the original corrugated iron roof which was imported from England and which bears the stamp of its producer on every sheet.
The avenue of Norfolk and Bunya pines lining the approach to Redlands was planted when the house was constructed. It is thought that Wilcox also created the "teardrop" garden at the front of the building, complete with fountain, at around the same time. The original fountain has since been replaced.
In 1919, some time after his retirement, Wilcox sold Redlands to Dr Alexander Horn. In 1921 Redlands was sold to Mr Edward Farmer, a grazier. In 1945 the Lutheran Church resolved to purchase Redlands from Farmer's widow, for a sum of approximately £5 000.
In 1946 Redlands was dedicated as Concordia College, a co-educational Lutheran Boarding School.
Since the establishment of Concordia College, Redlands has served a number of purposes including a residence for the first Headmaster and his family, offices and other uses associated with the College. A major building program commenced in the 1960's with the addition of several school buildings in the grounds of the College. Redlands is presently used as the central administration block for the College.
","criteria":"Redlands, erected in 1889, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the pattern of Toowoomba's growth during the late 1880s.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large, late 1880s residence.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Toowoomba community, in particular the decorative composition of the building's facade; the quality and craftsmanship of the cedar joinery, pressed metal ceilings, marble fireplace surrounds and stained glass; and the formal layout of the building, north garden and avenue of pine trees and their contribution to the streetscape of Stephen Street and to the Toowoomba townscape.
|Redlands has a strong association with the development of the Concordia College, as the college's original building and site of dedication.
|It has a special association with the life of prominent Toowoomba businessman Edmund Wilcox; and with Toowoomba architect James Marks as a major example of his residential work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15645,"place_ref":600870,"name":"Weetwood","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"423-427 Tor Street","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Weetwood is situated on the corner of Tor and Higgins Streets on two large allotments in West Toowoomba. They are each 4047 m2 in size and abut the Clifford Park Racecourse to the west. Tor Street has two lanes of traffic running in each direction and is therefore very busy, particularly with a number of large vehicles. The Toowoomba city centre is located approximately 2.5km to the east.
The single storey residence is sited close to the western boundary with the Racecourse, approximately straddling the common boundary of the allotments. This provides a wide buffer of space between it and the road traffic. All exterior boundaries are lined with established trees and planting, allowing only partial glimpses of the house. There are two entries onto the site from Tor Street, however only the one toward the north-east corner is currently in use. The allotments are largely flat, and the house is founded on a base of raised ground, approximately half a metre high. This provides a 1.5m wide skirt of flat ground around the house, the edges of which slope steeply away. The sloped edge is less prominent at the south-east corner. The front façade best reflects the principles of unforced symmetry to which the design of the house largely adheres.
Weetwood's main hipped roof is U-shaped and surrounded on three sides by a curved verandah roof. This is penetrated by a barrel-roofed entry porch and elaborately framed timber pediment. A ridged roof joins the main one on the north-west corner of the building. The exterior walls to the main house are face brickwork. Along the length of the house's west face, is attached a skillion-roofed extension. This is clad externally in chamferboards. Located between the house and the western boundary is a large gable-roofed carport area. At the south-west corner this roof has been halted to allow for a pergola and small gable-roofed shed clad in weatherboards. These recent structures run the full length of the original house.
All roofs are clad in corrugated Colorbond steel and the main one is decorated with acroteria. The small overhang to the main U-shaped roof is supported by a series of double, carved timber brackets. These rest on a lip of brick extruded from the external wall. The brackets do not feature on the rear western façade. The eaves of the main roof are lined with painted, shot-edge timber boards. Two double and two single chimneystacks protrude through the main roof, and all are rendered and painted brickwork.
The verandah edges rest on 25cm high brick walls and are capped with painted timber boards. The posts are divided into two parts by stop chamfering, and have astragals, capitals and carved timber brackets. On the east-facing edge, a low timber seat fits between each post and forms a simple balustrade. The verandah area's floor is clad in narrow shot-edge timber boards and is approximately 3m wide. The exposed underside of its curved roof is not supported by rafters, except where a hip occurs, such as where the barrel-roofed entry porch intersects with it. The verandah area looking north is partially enclosed by timber framing that supports some fixed glass, a sliding glass door and a low weatherboard-clad balustrade. All timberwork, except that lining the floor, is painted.
A short flight of stairs brings the visitor under the entry portico up to the front door of the house. The portico's pediment timberwork is elaborately framed in a style that James Marks & Sons became renowned for, while the front door has leadlight glass and timber panels to each side and a full-width, semi-circular fanlight above. All rooms overlooking the verandah have one or two sets of double doors with rectangular glass fanlights opening onto it. These double doors are all low waisted. A corbelled pattern of light brickwork, differentiated from the predominant dark speckled brick, surrounds all door and window openings. A large timber panel-clad bay window projects from the northern face of the house into the verandah space.
Interiors
Contained beneath the main U-shaped roof are six rooms opening off a central hallway, which is accessed via the front door. This hall is divided in two by an arched opening. The semi-circular arch rests on plasterwork relief capitals. Two rooms open off the first segment of the hallway. These are currently used as bedrooms. The room to the right is extended by the bay that looks onto the north-facing verandah. This bay has two double-hung sash windows in its front face, and one on each of its angled sides. The sill height matches the low waist of the double doors. On the wall it shares with the adjoining room, this room also has an ornately carved timber mantelpiece and fireplace lined with ceramic tiles. A metal fire grate sits on the hearth, which is also lined with ceramic tiles. These walls only feature a plaster picture-rail fixed at approximately 3.5m. The room opening to the left off the central hallway has a mantelpiece and fireplace without ceramic tiles, also in its west-facing wall. The mantelpiece is decorated with simple, applied timber shapes and the hearth is edged with a low timber rail. A door opens from this bedroom into the next room along the hall.
Four rooms open off the second segment of the hallway. The first on the left is used as a bedroom. It has a mantelpiece and fireplace in the wall it shares with the next room towards the rear of the hall. This mantelpiece and fireplace match those in the bedroom described earlier, however there is no timber guardrail. The last room to open to the left off the hallway again has a simply decorated timber mantelpiece. However, its fireplace does feature an ornate rim and grate. Its guardrail, hearth and sides are lined with tiles, but only a few matching those in the first bedroom remain in place. A full-height, built-in cupboard has been attached to the wall between the fireplace and the exterior wall. It is lined with fibrous cement sheeting and is clearly a later addition as it disturbs the pattern of boards on the floor. In this room's west-facing wall there are a double-hung sash window and a door. These open onto the space contained by the rear skillion roof.
The first room that opens to the right off the second segment of the central hallway is used as a living room. Its fireplace and hearth, back-to-back with that in the first bedroom, are made of brick, while the mantel is of timber. Its walls have a painted timber picture rail fixed at 2.5m. The second room off this side of the hallway is used for dining. The design of its mantelpiece and fireplace matches the geometry of those found in the three rooms to the left of the hallway. It is centred on this room's northern wall, which it shares with the kitchen. The skirting in the dining room differs from those found elsewhere. Doors open from this room into the living room, the kitchen and a study to the rear of the house.
The floors throughout the main house are lined with wide, tongue and groove Pine boards. In the dining room and kitchen tiles have been laid over these. The floor to the fourth bedroom, in the south-west corner of the main house, is encircled with three rows of timber boards. The central line of boards is finished with a dark stain. There are eight-inch skirtings throughout, as there are six-inch architraves. All joinery and mouldings are of polished Cedar. The ceilings in each of the six main rooms and in the hallway are approximately 4m high. The kitchen, which sits under the ridged roof, also has a ceiling this high. The walls throughout are plaster. The original plaster ceilings in all the main rooms have been lined with fibrous cement sheeting and decorated with simple timber beading. The cornices in the second and third bedrooms, and in the living room are simple scotias. Those in the other rooms are simply timber boards fixed to the ceiling. Square, lattice grills are centred in the ceilings of the second and fourth bedrooms, and the dining room. Metal ones are featured in these and other rooms.
At the rear of the central hallway, a door with plain glass side panels and rectangular fanlight opens onto the space contained under the skillion roof. This opens into the carport area with a door and a number of small double-hung sash windows. The bathroom is situated at the southern end of this corridor of space. And at its northern end are a study opening with two double doors into the dining room, and a laundry opening into the kitchen. The brickwork remains exposed on the rear wall of the main house, which it shares with this corridor. The carport area consists of a very large covered space running the full length of the house and two storage sheds, which sit between it and the rear boundary to the Racecourse. This is where the original service wing would have been located.
Grounds
Weetwood is surrounded by a large garden with low planting and many established trees. To the north between the house and the boundary are located a large area of paved driveway and a small gable-roofed shed clad in weatherboards. A vine hedge separates this from a fenced swimming pool. Along the boundary to Tor Street, on either side of the currently unused entry, stand two Norfolk Island Pines (Araucaria heterophylla). Between the house and its boundary with Higgins Street stands a large Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) in an area fenced off from the rest of the property. There is also a large Bougainvillea (Bougainvillea spectabilis) between this tree and the house. In the south-western corner of the second allotment is a smaller fenced-off pen with a timber and iron shelter, which may be the original fowl yard. All boundaries have timber-paling fences.
","history":"Weetwood, a residence at 427 Tor Street, Toowoomba, is a brick house built in 1888 for Richard William Scholefield.
The allotments on which this residence is situated were originally a part of the land purchased in 1862 as Portion 176, parish Drayton, county Aubigny [160 acres], by James Taylor, politician and Mayor of Toowoomba in 1890; Thomas George Robinson, stock and land salesman and first Australian-born Mayor of Toowoomba in 1865; and James Watts Grimes, a local auctioneer.
During 1873, the title to Portion 176 was transferred to George Beresford King before it was again sold four years later. Thomas George Robinson was once more registered as a joint owner of the land along with James Williams and Gustavus Hamilton. On 28 March 1883, Robinson passed away and the following year Hamilton died, soon after which Williams subdivided the land for sale. Subdivisions 11 to 14 comprising 6 acres were sold to Richard William Scholefield for £200 and registered in his name in December 1884. Scholefield was born in England in 1844, the son of William Scholefield and Charlotte Hay. He arrived in Australia in 1862 and went to Westbrook Station (600636) for 'Colonial experience'. Between 1868 and 1873 he managed 'Avington Downs' and 'Alice Downs' on the Barcoo until they were sold. Francis Thomas Gregory, who moved to Queensland in 1862 and subsequently served as a member of the Legislative Council and as Commissioner of Crown Lands in Toowoomba, then offered Scholefield the job of managing Westbrook Station. He remained there until 1878 when Westbrook was sold and then entered into a partnership with Gregory in a stock and station firm located in Russell Street, Toowoomba.
In Toowoomba, Scholefield quickly acquired a prominent profile. He served as a Justice of the Peace and was a distinguished member of various local clubs, including the Downs Club and the Toowoomba Turf Club. His land in Tor Street adjoined the racecourse (now known as Clifford Park Racecourse), and between 1878 and 1890 Scholefield held four positions with the Turf Club, which instituted the Weetwood Handicap to honour his work. This race is still held annually in March. Scholefield was also a committee member of the Toowoomba Hospital and the Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland.
In the 4 years after acquiring the land on which Weetwood now stands, Scholefield was continually stumping and burning off but it remained unimproved until 1888 when tenders were called for the construction of Weetwood. Scholefield kept meticulous records pertaining to the house, which was designed by James Marks and built by Robert Godsall. Both Marks and Godsall had previously worked together on the construction of St Patrick's Cathedral in Toowoomba (600844) and were well known in the area for their work. Marks was one of Toowoomba's most prolific and experienced late-19th century architects and his most significant buildings include the Royal Bank of Queensland building, the Imperial Hotel, and St Stephen's Presbyterian Church.
Of the several grand private residences in Toowoomba designed by Marks, Weetwood remains one of his best. It was constructed to exacting standards, with Marks advising contractors to "take care that no paint or other stains are left on the floors or walls" and that "any damage done . . . by the contractors or the man in his employment will have to be made good at his (the contractors) own cost". This exactness was as much a reflection of Marks's professional application as it was an indication that Weetwood was intended to be the perfect home for Scholefield, his wife, Eva Louisa Scholefield, and their three children who were all born at Weetwood. No expense was spared, with the house costing a total of just under £2350 to build and Scholefield having 21 cases of fine furniture for his new house shipped from London on board the Taroba during 1888.
Construction ran smoothly during the latter half of 1888 and Scholefield recorded that he "commenced to reside" at Weetwood on 1 January 1889. The house was named after his father's home in Leeds, England, and the premises included a lawn tennis court and stables described by Scholefield's daughter as "beautifully built with tongue and grooved hardwood timber, and [consisting] . . . of three horse stalls, a large buggy shed for two buggies, a harness room, a feed room, and a man's room". On the 6 acres of land the Scholefields also maintained a paddock for horses and cows as well as a fowl yard. The large garden included a variety of fruit trees and vegetables, which was attended to by a full-time gardener, George Smith, who was with the family for 20 years.
Following Scholefield's death in March 1902, his wife continued to reside there until her death in 1939. However, it was not until July 1945 that title to the property was registered in the joint names of Hector Kitchener McPhie and Victor Alexander Carpendale McPhie. Two years later Hector Kitchener McPhie became the sole owner of the estate and in 1948 transferred subdivisions 11 and 12, which left Weetwood standing on the present parcel of 2 acres.
In 1952, title to Weetwood was transferred to Campbell Stuart Jiear and since that time has passed to 2 further owners. The house has been well preserved and its grounds well maintained, with the recent addition of an in-ground swimming pool, shed and new boundary fencing. The horse stables, however, are no longer in existence.
","criteria":"Built in 1888, Weetwood is one of Toowoomba's grander private residences of the late 19th century and remains important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The house was constructed during a period of economic boom in Queensland and during the development of the Darling Downs as an important regional centre. The grandeur of the house reflects the burgeoning strength of Toowoomba during the 1880s and it remains a significant example of late-19th century domestic architecture.
|Built in 1888, Weetwood is one of Toowoomba's grander private residences of the late 19th century and remains important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. The house was constructed during a period of economic boom in Queensland and during the development of the Darling Downs as an important regional centre. The grandeur of the house reflects the burgeoning strength of Toowoomba during the 1880s and it remains a significant example of late-19th century domestic architecture.
|Toowoomba abounds with buildings and residences of cultural heritage significance and Weetwood remains an important and well-preserved element of the local streetscape. In this way, Weetwood contributes to the overall historical character of Toowoomba and its individual aesthetic appeal makes it a valued part of the area.
The aesthetic significance of Weetwood is characterized by a number of general and specific qualities. The specific qualities include the use of patterned face brickwork, and the proportions of the barrel-vaulted entry porch with elaborately framed timber pediment, the latter being a distinguishing element in the design work of the architectural firm James Marks founded with his sons. On the interior, the attributes of Weetwood's aesthetic significance include the finely crafted timber mantelpieces, and the quality and condition of the timber joinery throughout.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15646,"place_ref":600871,"name":"Swansons Rail Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6km north of Toowoomba","suburb":"BALLARD","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Swanson's Bridge is located on the Main Range railway, 1.5 km south-south-west of Blue Mountain Heights and 6km north of Toowoomba, over an unnamed gully near the top of the Toowoomba Range. It is precisely located at the 154.960 km mark on the Brisbane - Toowoomba railway.
The bridge is an unreinforced concrete arch construction. The bridge carries a single 1.07 metre gauge railway and is built on a steep slope. It is curved in plan and consists of three 10.1 metre circular concrete arches, two concrete piers and two abutments. It is built to a 12 ton axle load. It is 99 feet in length.
It is detailed with prominent cornices at the bases of the arches and incised lines on the spandrel walls of a form similar to the joints that would occur in a stone bridge.
The bridge is in a remote location accessible only by rail staff. It commands a vast view over the Toowoomba Range. The bridge is still in use, is in good condition as well as being in its original state.
","history":"Following separation from New South Wales in 1859, the first Queensland Parliament met in May 1860. It was almost precisely three years later, in May 1863, that the bill to authorise construction of the first railway was introduced. It was passed in September of that year and provided for the construction of a line by the government from Ipswich to Toowoomba, Dalby and Warwick - the Southern and Western Railway as it was first called.
Construction of Swanson's Bridge was commenced in 1899 and was completed in 1900. The new Swanson's Bridge replaced a former bridge of deck-type metal truss construction built in 1867 with the initial construction of the Main Range railway. As built, the Main Range railway had a considerable number of bridges which over the years were replaced by embankments and culverts so that the number of original bridges became fewer. But in 1899 an official three year program was commenced to ease curves on the railway and replace high timber bridges with concrete culverts due to the increasing weight of rolling stock. The construction of Swanson's Bridge was a part of this program. The Commissioner's Annual Report for 1900 (p 76) notes:
Deviations on the Main Range for the purpose of easing curves and substituting earth embankments and concrete works for the iron bridges, which have been condemned as being too light for the increasing weigh of rolling-stock, have been carried on continuously by day labour. Several have been opened for traffic, including a three concrete arch viaduct.
Swanson's Bridge was the first of six concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland Railways between 1900 and 1913. The drawing for the bridge was dated 1899 although the stress diagram is dated 1905. Professor O'Connor acknowledges Queensland and South Australia as distinctive in Australia for their concrete arch bridges. He attributes the design of Swanson's Bridge to William Pagan, Chief Engineer at the time.
The bridge does not appear to have been altered since construction and is still in use.
","criteria":"Swanson's Bridge is important in demonstrating the evolution of mainline engineering practice and more importantly the pioneering use of concrete as a form of construction material on the Queensland Railways.
|The bridge is the first of six concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland Railways between 1900 and 1913 and as such is an important and good example of its type as well as being an uncommon work of railway technology of the time.
|The bridge is the first of six concrete arch bridges built for the Queensland Railways between 1900 and 1913 and as such is an important and good example of its type as well as being an uncommon work of railway technology of the time.
|Swanson's bridge has aesthetic value for its pleasing viaduct design as well as its position in the midst of the bush of the Toowoomba Range giving it a dramatic outlook from the escarpment it is built upon. The bridge has been used as a photographic location for photographers since after its construction.
|Swanson's Bridge is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in the pioneering technique of concrete bridge construction. It is the first substantial unreinforced concrete arch rail bridge built in Queensland.
|It also has special association with the work of William Pagan, Chief Engineer, who was responsible for the design of the bridge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15647,"place_ref":600872,"name":"Toowoomba Railway Station, Honour Board and Railway Yard Structures","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Toowoomba Railway Station, Honour Board and Railway Yard Structures complex is located on Railway Street, within walking proximity of the Toowoomba town centre. The Railway Station complex comprises the main station building, awnings and outbuildings, and several yard structures. The station building consists of adjoining two-storeyed rendered masonry buildings with single storeyed annexes and outbuildings with corrugated iron roofs. The buildings line the edge of a concrete platform, which is covered with corrugated iron canopies, and which extends out beyond the main buildings to the north and the south. The buildings comprise the central Station Building (1874) connecting to the Railway Refreshment Room Wing (1902), the Tea Room extension (1915) and Honour Roll pavilion (1918) to the north, and annexes and platform outbuildings to the south. The yard structures, located to the north-east of the station building, include a substantial corrugated iron and timber Goods Shed, a two-storeyed signalling shed known as Cabin A, modest timber and corrugated iron structures associated with maintenance and worker accommodation, the brick Westinghouse Brake Examination pit and corrugated iron shelter, a wagon weighbridge and timber shelter, and a cast iron water crane. The complex also includes two WWII bomb shelters.
The Station Building (1874) is a substantial symmetrical building with an elongated rectangular plan with gabled bays to the east and west, and hipped roofs to the north and south. The building is finely detailed externally: the corners have pilasters formed by projecting quoins; floor and sill levels are articulated with string courses; the western ground floor openings have arched heads with keystones framed by continuous mouldings, and include a wide arch over a centrally placed entrance to the platform; the eastern ground floor windows have square heads and projecting quoins; the upper floor windows are framed with scrolled brackets supporting moulded projecting heads; the cornice has dentils and the gable ends have cartouches. Later alterations to the western elevation include concave awnings over the upper gable windows, and an enclosed timber verandah running between the two gabled bays with a corrugated iron awning projecting from the soffit. Two cast iron queuing rails are located outside ticket windows adjacent to the western entrance.
The upper floor of the Station Building contains currently disused offices, while the ground floor contains station operations rooms, offices and store areas. Timber stairs with cast-iron balusters are located on the western side. The first floor interiors retain some vertically jointed timber lined walls and a small timber service window. The ground floor interiors retain some masonry arches and timber columns with decorative timber capitals. The annex to the southern end contains store-rooms and toilets, including a Ladies Waiting Room of generous proportions. A small timber lined kiosk (1936) with timber roll-down louvred shutters opening out onto the platform is located at the northern end.
The Railway Refreshment Room wing (1902) is a two storeyed rendered masonry L-shaped building with a single-storeyed addition to the north (1915 tearoom), and hipped corrugated roofs which rise above those of the Station Building. It contains the Railway Refreshment Room on the ground floor (which is still in operation), and officers on the upper floor. A steel and timber framed pavilion attached to the north of the dining room wing houses a fine timber Honour Roll. The building has rusticated piers at the corners, arched openings with profiled surrounds, expressed piers with decorative capitals and circular motifs at ground floor level, and windows with flat heads and keystones to the upper storeys.
The Railway Refreshment Room is an impressive and generously proportioned space containing timber serveries at both ends, and round timber tables and timber chairs. The walls are decorated with large black and white photographs of local beauty spots, and the tables are set with monogrammed silverware and crockery. The interior is finely detailed with pressed metal ceilings with elaborate roses, cast iron columns with floriated capitals, and decorative pressed metal cornices and beam encasings. The adjacent Tea Room (1915 - now used as offices) also has a high pressed metal ceiling.
The finely crafted Honour Roll is housed at the northern end of a steel framed and timber pavilion with open sides. The Honour Roll is set on diagonal boarding, and has a central panel with a broken pediment on scrolled brackets, divided from side panels with pilasters. Carved into the broken pediment are the Australian Coat of Arms and the words Roll of Honour, 1914-1919, Queensland Railways Toowoomba Employees. The side panels are also framed by pilasters crowned with decorative motifs of the Queensland Railways emblem, scrolls and shells. The pilasters also frame lighter timber plaques with names in gold point. The Honour Roll is flanked by smaller memorial plaques with gold lettering and motifs.
The platform canopies have been constructed at different stages, in different forms and materials. The canopy attached to the Station Building and Refreshment Room Wing is framed in timber and has an arched corrugated iron roof. The roof rests on timber trusses with arched top cords and is stabilised with lateral trusses. The roof structure is supported on steel posts (which have replaced timber ones) with curved brackets and valances. Extending out to the north are two canopies with butterfly roofs on open-webbed steel frames with central supports (1910). Immediately to the south is a cantilevered canopy also on an open-webbed steel structure (c1911).
The station environment also contains intact structures associated with former railway operations.
The Porter's Shed and Guard's Hut (1908-15) are located to the south of the main station buildings. These modest weatherboard buildings are connected by a battened store, and have pitched corrugated iron roofs with awnings supported on timber brackets.
Cabin B is a weatherboard clad room adjoining the main entry to the platform which contains intact safeworking and interlocking equipment - comprising several steel levers, a yard diagram, and electrical staff equipment with shaped red painted steel and brass encasing mounted on a concrete pedestal.
Located within the railway yard, The Goods Shed (1896) is a long rectangular building with substantial timber trusses and bracketed central columns. It is clad in corrugated iron, and has a pitched roof with bracketed eaves and a raised central roof light. It also has timber platforms supported on large cut logs.
Also located within the railway yard is the Westinghouse Brake Examination Pit and shelter. It comprises a modest corrugated iron building with a barrel vaulted corrugated iron roof covering a long rectangular brick-lined pit. The building contains boards detailing brake examination schedules, and a workbench.
Other yard structures include Signal Cabin A, a water crane and a wagon weighbridge. Signal Cabin A is a two-storeyed chamferboard-clad building with pitched corrugated iron roofs, a cantilevered timber catwalk overlooking the railway at first floor level. The building contains intact but disconnected mechanical signalling equipment. The first floor contains a large frame of colour-coded mechanical steel signalling levers, timber and brass track indicators, and a yard diagram. The Water Crane comprises a cast iron hollow tube surmounted by a rotating cast iron feeder arm with valve controls and a canvas tube attached, mounted on a concrete pedestal and adjacent to a concrete drain. The Wagon Weighbridge comprises a large steel scale housed in chamferboard-clad building with a pitched corrugated iron roof, and a large metal balance plate.
The station also has two WWII air raid shelters: a brick and concrete shelter adjacent to the front entry stairs on Railway Street, and a smaller concrete shelter located on the northern platform near the honour board, which was designed for the use of QR employees.
The Toowoomba Railway Station contains intact evidence of its growth, development and workings in its Station Building, Refreshment Room Wing, Goods Shed, annexes, platform outbuildings, Honour Roll, canopies, and yard structures It also contains finely detailed architectural elements in the exteriors of the Station Building and Refreshment Room Wing, the Honour Roll, and Refreshment Room interior, furnishings and fittings .
","history":"Toowoomba Railway Station represents an important site in the study of the railway network of Queensland. As the focal point of one of the major railway routes in Queensland the Toowoomba station has reflected the growth and decline of railway passenger traffic in Queensland.
Conceived originally as an imposing two-storeyed structure the Toowoomba station was designed by Sir Charles Fox in England in mid-1866. As designed the building was to be prefabricated in England and shipped to Queensland. It was anticipated that this building would act as the administrative centre for the railways centred on Toowoomba.
After the collapse of the Agra bank in 1866, this contract was cancelled and a replacement structure erected instead. This was of a similar design to Laidley station. The building rapidly outgrew its usefulness and in 1871 the decision was taken to construct a new station. Delays occurred, but by March 1873, R. Godsall of Toowoomba, was awarded the contract. This building designed by FDG Stanley, the Colonial architect, was eventually handed over on October 26 1874. As designed by Stanley and built it was the first masonry station building to be erected in the Queensland country area.
The original station design featured a refreshment-dining room area but by the turn of the century it was apparent that larger facilities would be required. Construction of a new Railway Refreshment Room Wing began in 1901, and was completed in 1902. Two major extensions were added on to these facilities; the Tea Room in 1915 and two extensions in the Dining Room area in 1920 and 1926.
A further addition was made to catering facilities c1937, with the provision of a kiosk. This is of interest as in 1930 the uniform gauge railway link had been opened from Kyogle to Brisbane effectively by passing Toowoomba as the interstate link.
Extensions have been made progressively to station canopies and platforms as well within the station block itself. In 1906 the platform was extended towards Russell Street, and canopies followed this extension in 1911.
During this period, a wrought iron overbridge was provided for pedestrian access in 1905 at the cost of 4000 pounds. Two subsequent extensions followed in 1937 and 1949. In 1985 the overbridge was relocated to a sports ground near Grantham.
The station out buildings form as important a part of the history of this station as passengers' amenities. In the period of 1908-15 timber out buildings were provided South toward Russell St. These included parcels rooms as well as luggage rooms. Accommodation for guards and porters were provided in two smaller buildings. Of these extensions only the Guards and Porters buildings remain. Whilst of a standard design they reflect on the conditions worked under by Departmental workers.
The two world wars are also reflected within the station environment. From 1914-19 a magnificent wooden Honour board at the north end of the station pays tribute to the role of Toowoomba railway workers. Of interest is the fact that it was crafted at the North Ipswich railway workshops, and unveiled by commissioner Charles Evans, a former Toowoomba railwayman himself. The station also has two WWII bomb shelters: one near the Honour Board built as protection for railway employees; the second lies outside the main station entrance and was constructed to protect the general public from bomb splinters.
Part of the present assistant station-masters office comprises the Toowoomba B signal cabin, one of two in the Toowoomba yard. It was installed during the 1950s to replace the original tower cabin B. Although now disconnected (May 1993) the interior of this cabin illustrates older methods of safeworking and train control now superseded by automatic signalling.
A series of ancillary structures and servicing facilities evidence the development of the station environment. The Watering Crane standing alongside the tracks was originally used as a water replenishing point for steam locomotives. Worker's huts and accommodation are also located within the yard; it is possible that both of these structures were erected in the 1920's as part of the station yard re-organisation. These huts at present are in use as accommodation as shunters and train examiners shelters. At the Eastern edge of the shunting yard a mechanical balance scale is still extant, housed in a weighbridge shelter shed. The weighbridge balance scale bears a foundry plate marker on it. Slide balances were used to measure wagon weights for train marshalling.
The Westinghouse brake examination pit and shed, possibly constructed circa 1900 is also located in the outer areas of the yard. The brake inspection pit appears to be constructed of local bricks. This is unusual as most surviving locomotive/carriage inspection pits tend to be of concrete construction. Of particular significance is the checkboard placed on wall of interior of this shed, listing passenger car brake examinations and overhaul dates. Most vehicles listed have now been withdrawn or disposed of as railway items.
Also associated with signalling and safeworking in the Toowoomba yard is the A signal cabin, taken out of use mid 1993. This cabin possibly dates from the 1920's. The cabin interior is still intact, and includes signal levers, safeworking instruments and Toowoomba yard diagram. Associated with this structure are the now dismantled semaphore signals from the signal gantry.
The Toowoomba Goods Shed dates from 1896, although a smaller goods shed was constructed with the 1867 structure. Plans had been prepared for this replacement shed as early as 1884, the new plans called for a shed 250 by 75 feet of timber and galvanised iron on pile foundations with two 150 by 15 foot platforms and two 5 ton cranes.
The artefacts and structures listed above all form an important role in providing an overview of the working environment not only of the station, but also of the railway yards themselves. They are significant because they add to the understanding of both the station as a separate entity, and as a fully operational working railway environment.
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Railway Station, Honour Board, and Railway Yard Structures are important in demonstrating the development in the 19th century of the first main line railway in Queensland, and the growth and decline of railway passenger traffic in Queensland. The station building, erected in 1867, is the oldest extant masonry railway station in Queensland, and the Railway Refreshment Rooms are the last remaining commercially operating public refreshment rooms at a railway station in Queensland.
The intact yard structures are evidence of the development of railway operations since the turn of the century.
|The Honour Roll is a rare example of a memorial element crafted in railway workshops.
|The place has a strong community association as the site of the Toowoomba railway station since 1867, and as the railway station building since 1874, and a special association with colonial architect FDG Stanley,
|The fine detailing of the exterior of the Station Building and Refreshment Room Wing, the impressive interior and fine detailing of the Refreshment Room and its internal furnishings and fittings, and the finely-crafted Honour Roll have aesthetic quality.
|The place has a strong community association as the site of the Toowoomba railway station since 1867, and as the railway station building since 1874, and the Queensland Government, in particular the Railway employees.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15648,"place_ref":600873,"name":"All Saints Anglican Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Darnley Island","suburb":"DARNLEY ISLAND","lga":"TORRES STRAIT ISLAND REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"All Saints Church is a mass concrete structure with a timber framed red corrugated asbestos cement and galvanized steel roof, located 5-15 metres from Badog Beach on the south west side of Erub (Darnley) Island in the Torres Straits.
The area of the building is about 250 square metres, featuring a central nave with side wings. Walls, constructed of concrete, vary in thickness from 300 to 450mm and are plastered internally and externally. Internal walls between the nave and the wings of the building are rendered white and feature columned arches. The floor is concrete.
The façade of the building, facing east, is decorated with a niche, projecting columns and beams, frieze and other architectural features. The main entrance is on the southern side of the side of the building, through one of the side wings. External walls of the side wings are buttressed at the corners and intermediary points. The sanctuary is at the western end of the building with a vestry extending to the southern side of it.
The building is located on a small level area between the beach and the north east headland of Badog Beach. The vegetation includes mature coconut palms and a natural forest setting.
","history":"The first missionaries, representing the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, arrived at the newly established settlement of Somerset, Cape York, in March 1867, followed by the London Missionary Society in July 1871. The London Missionary Society arrived at Saibai Island in July 1871. The first substantial building for Christian worship was constructed in 1881. This was replaced by the Holy Trinity Church, on which construction began about 1919 and was completed by about 1938.
\nThe first Christian missionary in the Torres Straits, Rev F.C. Jagg, was appointed on behalf of the 'Society for the Propagation of Gospel in Foreign Parts', and arrived in Somerset with his family on 15 March 1867. A young English schoolteacher, W.T. Kennett, funded by the Queensland Government to establish a school at Somerset, arrived with Rev Jagg and started a mission school on 1 October 1867. A lack of funding, lack of support from the government administration and dismay at the brutality of the police meant that the mission was closed by June 1868.
\nIn 1871 the London Missionary Society arrived in the Torres Straits on the schooner Surprise, after the French Government had demanded their removal from the Loyalty Islands and New Caledonia in 1869. They decided to expand into the Torres Straits and New Guinea. They were represented by 2 Englishmen, Revs S. MacFarlane and A.W. Murray, 8 Lifu (Loyalty Islander) evangelists, Tapeso, Elia, Mataika, Guchong, Kerisidui, Wauaded, Sevine and Josaia, and their wives.
\nThe missionaries arrived at Erub (Darnley Island) on 1 July 1871, an event that came to be known as the 'Coming of the Light'. Dabad, one of the tribal elders of the island, met them at Kemus Beach. Dabad befriended the missionaries and introduced them to Amani, another tribal elder, and the rest of the Erub Islanders. His role in the bringing of Christianity to the Torres Straits is recognised by 'Dabad's Monument' at Badog, on which the inscription reads 'In loving memory of Dabad 1871: A man who denied his tribal laws and accepted the good news of salvation'.
\nSouth Sea Islanders had an important role working in the beche-de-mer and pearl farming industries in the Torres Straits and had established relations with the islanders prior to the arrival of HMAS Surprise. Reports indicate that objections were voiced to the Erub Islanders by Rotuma Islanders working on the island, who had experienced Christian missions at Rotuma and believed the missionaries to be cruel, evil and capable of selling people into slavery. A European man, known as Thorngreen, was living on Darnley Island at the time and accompanied Darnley Islanders on board Surprise the following day. Being a Sunday, a service was held, in Lifu language. This was the first recorded service in the Torres Straits (although Rev Jagg would have undoubtedly held services during his 12 months at Somerset).
\nTwo evangelists, Mataika and Guchong, and their wives, were left on Erub on July 5 while Surprise went on to Tudu (Warrior) Island.
\nThe missionaries were welcomed at Tudu by Captain Banner, who had an established pearl shell fishery on the island. John Joseph, an employee of Banners, travelled with the missionaries as an interpreter to Dauan on 6 July, and finding most of the islanders were away on Saibai Island, they were taken to Saibai by Nudai, the chief of Dauan. Two Islander missionaries, Josaia and Sevine, were left at Saibai and Dauan. Further missionaries were left on Yorke and Yam Islands, while Surprise sailed to the newly established settlement at Somerset.
\nThe London Missionary Society established temporary headquarters at Somerset from where they could expand their operations into other Torres Strait Islands and the mainland of New Guinea.[1] Between 1871 and 1878 at least 131 Pacific Islander teachers, mainly from the Loyalty Islands, Cook Islands, Niue, Society Islands and Rurutu, taught in the Torres Straits and New Guinea, along with their wives and families. Only four European missionaries taught in the same period.[2]
\nIn 1872 the London Missionary Society revisited selected islands in the Torres Straits. They reported that the missionaries that had been left on Dauan and Saibai had been accepted in to the local tribes and had been given land by the local chiefs. They reported weekly services were being held at Darnley, and were conducted in a pigeon form of the local language, Kala Lagaw Ya.
\nThe Queensland Government annexed the islands of the Torres Straits within 60 miles of the mainland in 1872, followed by the remainder of the islands in 1879. This was in response to fear of rival colonial powers controlling what had become an important shipping route and also as a means of controlling the increasingly lucrative beche-de-mer and pearl shelling economies, and in particular regulating the use of Torres Strait and South Sea Islander labour in these industries. The government moved its administration centre from Somerset to Thursday Island in 1877, however the lack of government resources, such as a regular patrol boat, meant that administration of the islands was left to the London Missionary Society .
\nA theological facility called the Papuan Institute was established on the island of Mer to train Torres Strait Islanders as priests, and suitable students were selected by the London Missionary Society. The Institute was closed in 1888, but had trained a number of local priests who were familiar with both formal missionary teaching and the local Islander customs.
\nBy 1890 the London Missionary Society was beginning to slow its operations in the Torres Straits. Conversion on the islands had been successful and Papua was seen to be 'waiting for the Light'. A full time superintendent on the islands was no longer deemed necessary and the incumbent priest, Rev J Chalmers, moved to Saguane in the Fly River in New Guinea. The Queensland Government appointed teacher/supervisors on various islands, and in 1904 the Protector of Aborigines assumed comprehensive control of Islanders lives under the Queensland Aboriginal Protection Act 1897.[3]
\nWorship on various islands was then led by the Islander priests who had been trained at the Papuan Institute, with annual inspections by London Missionary Society representatives travelling from New Guinea.
\nIn 1914 the secretary of the London Missionary Society requested that the Bishop of Carpentaria, Gilbert White, take over the missionary work in the Torres Strait due to financial pressure. This was formally accepted by the Australian Board of Missions in November 1914 and the Anglican Church assumed responsibility for the Torres Strait Mission. All the leases granted to London Missionary Society, including the buildings, were transferred to the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church instituted 'Coming of the Light' celebrations soon after they took over, as a tribute to the London Missionary Society and perhaps as a way of ensuring continuity of worship. This celebration continues to be celebrated annually by Torres Strait Islanders, both in the Torres Straits and in Torres Strait Islander communities on the Australian mainland. Kemus Beach, on Erub, is a particularly important focus for Coming of the Light celebrations, as this is the place of first contact between Torres Strait Islanders and the London Missionary Society. The event is commemorated on Erub with a 'Coming of the Light' monument constructed, consisting of a 3.5 metres high white cross standing in a ship named 'Surprise' as its base.
\nThe All Saints Church was constructed in 1919 below the site of the original London Missionary Society mission house and school, using locally produced lime from burnt coral and basalt, under the direction of an Erub Islander named Manai and a South Sea Islander named Albert Ware. It was originally known as the Ziona church. The Church of England, now the Anglican Church, remodelled this building in 1963 with limestone from surrounding coral reefs. Remodelling included raising the roofline and extending internal walls. Erosion has threatened the preservation of the building, and in 1976 extensive erosion of the beach necessitated the building of a stone sea wall approximately 15 metres from the building for protection from erosion from the strong tides.
","criteria":"All Saints Church, Erub (Darnley) Island, survives as important evidence of the development of missionary activity in the Torres Straits and serves as a focus for the annual July 1 'Coming of the Light' festival that celebrates the arrival of the London Missionary Society in the Torres Straits in 1871.
|The substantial building, constructed in 1919 mainly of locally acquired materials including burnt coral and basalt, forms a prominent landmark in the architecture of Erub (Darnley) Island. It has aesthetic significance through its prominent siting on Badog Beach and as an example of the vernacular architectural style of churches in the Torres Straits that includes projected corners and beams and buttressed corners and cement construction material.
|Erub (Darnley Island) has a strong and special religious significance with Torres Strait Islander Christians as the first place of contact between Torres Strait Islanders and London Missionary Society missionaries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15649,"place_ref":600874,"name":"Holy Trinity Church","alternate_name":"Holy Trinity Church of England","street_address":"Saibai Island","suburb":"SAIBAI ISLAND","lga":"TORRES STRAIT ISLAND REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Holy Trinity Church is situated on the waterfront of Saibai Island. It looks across to New Guinea which is less than 7 kms away. The building is about 12 metres from the water's edge and is protected from waves by a sea wall.
The building is constructed of unreinforced mass concrete footings, floor and walls, constructed from crushed coral, sand and cement. The building has a timber framed gable roof clad with fibrous cement sheeting. Timber roof trusses are exposed internally and there is no internal ceiling lining.
The form of the Holy Trinity Church is simple, with 3 bays extending from the rectangular central nave area. The 3 bays consist of a front entry area facing the road, alcove at the rear of the building towards the coast and bell tower to one side of the building. Double arch doors are present on each side of the building and double rectangular doors lead to the front entry area facing the road. The bell tower is no longer used, the higher section being constructed from mass concrete blocks with little or no mortar connecting them. The bell tower has an independent steeply pitched roof constructed with the same materials as the main roof.
The grounds are grassed with a small number of trees and shrubs. An independent timber framed bell tower is present on one side of the building, behind which is a freestanding crucifix depicting an image of Jesus. A white rainwater tank is at the rear of the building.
","history":"The first missionaries, representing the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, arrived at the newly established settlement of Somerset, Cape York, in March 1867, followed by the London Missionary Society in July 1871. The London Missionary Society arrived at Saibai Island in July 1871. The first substantial building for Christian worship was constructed in 1881. This was replaced by the Holy Trinity Church, on which construction began about 1919 and was completed about 1938.
The first Christian missionary in the Torres Straits, Rev F.C. Jagg was appointed on behalf of the 'Society for the Propagation of Gospel in Foreign Parts', and arrived in Somerset with his family on 15 March 1867. A young English schoolteacher, W.T. Kennett, funded by the Queensland Government to establish a school at Somerset, arrived with Rev Jagg and started a mission school on 1 October 1867. A lack of funding, lack of support from the government administration and dismay at the brutality of the police meant that the mission was closed by June 1868.
In 1871 the London Missionary Society arrived in the Torres Straits on the vessel HMS Surprise, after the French Government had demanded their removal from the Loyalty Islands and New Caledonia in 1869. The London Missionary Society decided to expand into the Torres Straits and New Guinea. They were represented by 2 Englishmen, Revs S. MacFarlane and A.W. Murray, 8 Lifu (Loyalty Islander) evangelists and their wives. The missionaries arrived at Darnley Island (Erub) on 1 July 1871, an event that came to be known as the 'Coming of the Light', an event which is now celebrated by Torres Strait Islanders annually.
Two islander missionaries were left on Darnley Island while the remaining missionaries travelled to Warrior Island (Tudu), where they were welcomed by Captain Banner, who had an established pearl shell fishery on the island. John Joseph, an employee of Banner's, travelled with the missionaries as an interpreter to Dauan on 6 July, and finding most of the islanders were away on Saibai Island, they were taken to Saibai by Nudai, the chief of Dauan. Two islander missionaries, Josaia and Sivene, were left at Saibai and Dauan. Further missionaries were left on Yorke and Yam Islands, while HMS Surprise sailed to the newly established settlement at Somerset.
The London Missionary Society established temporary headquarters at Somerset from where they could expand their operations into other Torres Strait Islands and the mainland of New Guinea . Between 1871 and 1878 at least 131 Pacific Islander teachers, mainly from Loyalty Islands, Cook Islands, Niue, Society Islands and Rurutu, taught in the Torres Straits and New Guinea, along with their wives and families. Only four European missionaries taught in the same period .
In 1872 the London Missionary Society revisited selected islands in the Torres Straits. They reported that the missionaries that had been left on Dauan and Saibai had been accepted into the local tribes and had been given land by the local chiefs.
The Queensland Government annexed the islands of the Torres Straits within 60 miles of the mainland in 1872, followed by the remainder of the islands in 1879. This was in response to fear of rival colonial powers controlling what had become an important shipping route, also as a means of controlling the increasingly lucrative beche-de-mer and pearl shelling economies and in particular regulating the use of Torres Strait and South Sea Islander labour in these industries. The government moved its administration centre from Somerset to Thursday Island in 1877, however, the lack of government resources, such as a regular patrol boat, meant that administration of the islands had to be left to the London Missionary Society .
A theological facility called the Papuan Institute was established on Mer, an island of the Torres Straits, to train Torres Strait Islanders as priests and suitable students were selected by the London Missionary Society. The Institute was closed in 1888, but had trained a number of local priests who were familiar with both formal missionary teaching and the local Islander customs.
By 1890 the Torres Strait Mission was beginning to slow its operations in the Torres Straits. Conversion on the islands had been successful and Papua was seen to be 'waiting for the Light'. A full time superintendent on the islands was no longer deemed necessary and the incumbent priest, Rev J Chalmers, moved to Saguane in the Fly River in New Guinea. Teacher/supervisors were appointed on various islands by the Queensland Government, and in 1904 the Protector of Aborigines assumed comprehensive control of Islanders lives under the Queensland Aboriginal Protection Act 1897. 3
Worship on various islands was then led by the Islander priests who had been trained at the Papuan Institute with annual inspections from London Missionary Society representatives travelling from New Guinea.
In 1914 the secretary of the London Missionary Society requested that the Bishop of Carpentaria, Gilbert White, take over the missionary work in the Torres Strait due to financial pressure. This was formally accepted by the Australian Board of Missions in November 1914 and the Anglican Church assumed responsibility for the Torres Strait Mission. All the leases granted to the London Missionary Society, including the buildings, were transferred to the Anglican Church. Coming of the Light celebrations were instituted by the Anglican Church soon after they took over, as a tribute to the London Missionary Society and perhaps as a way of ensuring continuity of worship. This celebration continues to be celebrated annually by Torres Strait Islanders both in the Torres Straits and in Torres Strait Islander communities on the Australian mainland.
The first building used for worship on Saibai is described in the '50th Anniversary of Holy Trinnity Church Saibai Island' as an 'island style building' . It was replaced with a more substantial building called 'Panetha' built by Nemia, a Samoan missionary who arrived on Saibai in 1881.
Chief Council Gauga Awabu decided that 'Panetha' needed to be replaced and a third church building called 'Mari Yoewth', built from corrugated iron salvaged from 'Panetha', was used temporarily while the Holy Trinity Church was being constructed4. Three generations of Saibai Islanders worked on the construction of the Holy Trinity Church over 19 years. Saibai men worked on boats in the fishing industry to raise funds for timber, cement and the corrugated iron roofing needed for the building.
Construction materials consisted of Portland cement for the foundations and concrete slab floor, lime gravel and sand poured into a mangrove timber framework for the 30 cm thick cement walls and wongai timber rafters. Canoes brought coral for lime from the Saibailgua Maza (Saibai Reef), Dauanalgau Maza (Dauan Reef), Gawal Maza and Wai Reef. It was burned on the beach to form lime and mixed with sand and gravel in canoes using wooden paddles. Dauan Islanders assisted with burning the coral and transporting it to Saibai and Boigu Islanders provided food for the workers during the monsoon. The wongai timber was brought from the New Guinea mainland, some was also recycled from 'Panetha'.
Foreman carpenters were Saibai Islanders, specifically Kanai, Baudu, Isua, Elu, Zsunai, Aniba, Bamaga and Waiangu. A European mission carpenter with the surname Irish, supervised the construction of the roof and Rev John Done, based on Mabuiag Island, provided plans and visited the construction site from time to time.
In 1917 the Archbishop of Queensland blessed the granite foundation stone of Holy Trinity Church. The Church was dedicated by Rev Stephen Davies, the Bishop of Carpentaria, on 4 December 1938. Islanders from throughout the Torres Straits and New Guinea mainlanders attended the dedication travelling to Saibai in pearl, beche-de-mer and trochus luggers and in outrigger canoes.
The Holy Trinity bell, donated by Thomas Soki, was installed in the bell tower around the time of WWII. Previous to the installation of the bell a bu-shell, a native shell to the Torres Straits reefs, had been used to call people to church.
Holy Trinity Church incorporates hand carved furnishings of Wongai plum originally used in the early church, 'Panetha'. Along with these are new carvings also from Wongai were produced for Holy Trinity. Involved in the carving of the early furniture were islanders Aki, Kebisu Baira and Daku Garmai. This furniture comprised a cross, two candlesticks and a lectern.
","criteria":"Holy Trinity Church, Saibai Island survives as important evidence of the development of missionary activity in the Torres Straits that started in 1871.
|The building is an important example of a Torres Strait Christian church and was constructed over a period of 19 years by Saibai Islanders and London Missionary Society missionaries using local materials such as burnt coral, mangrove timber and Wongai plum timber and incorporating materials and hand carved furnishings of the previous church, 'Panetha', constructed by a Samoan London Society Missionary in 1881. It is influenced by Torres Strait vernacular architecture with elements such as locally sources construction material, mass unreinforced cement footings and decorative internal arches.
|The place has a strong and special religious significance with Torres Strait Christians and with the London Missionary Society and Anglican Church and has served as a focus of Christian worship since the construction of the first church at this site prior to 1881.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15650,"place_ref":600875,"name":"Thursday Island Cemetery (incorporating the Japanese Cemetery & the Grave of the Hon. John Douglas)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Summers Street","suburb":"THURSDAY ISLAND","lga":"TORRES SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Thursday Island Cemetery is a 12.77 hectare reserve located on the central northern side of the island, bounded on the south by Summers Street, from where the land slopes north/northwest down to Aplin Road. A track winds down a gully from Summers Street to Aplin Road, providing access to graves on either side. The main entrance is now from Aplin Road.
The terrain varies from steeply sloping in the southern section to flat in the northern section. The ground is comprised of clay and granite, and the surface is extremely rocky. Vegetation is predominantly indigenous, with Eucalypts and other native trees providing light tree coverage throughout the reserve, most densely along the eastern ridge. Native grasses provide a dense ground cover over most of the reserve, restricting access to the graves, particularly during the wet season, when the grass is long. In addition, some areas on the western side of the track are overgrown with bean tree [Leucaena sp.], which prevents access at any time of the year. The newer sections of the cemetery have a few specimen trees and shrubs such as frangipani [Plumeria rubra], Hibiscus [Hibiscus sinensis] and Crotons [Codiaeum variegatum].
The grave furnishings in the cemetery are diverse in design and materials - the latter including timber, polished granite, marble, sandstone, early cast iron, and later concrete and tiles. The variety of materials used in grave marking reflect social attitudes to death, the availability of materials, cultural and religious backgrounds, and the changing socio-economic conditions of local residents. Early headstones in the cemetery were imported from well known monumental masons in southern centres, mostly from Melrose and Fenwick (Townsville), but also from firms such as John Petrie and J Clements of Brisbane. Designs include columns, obelisks, desks and upright slabs, generally with the more elaborate decoration found on early Catholic graves. There is also a range of Christian cross designs.
Some of the earlier graves have iron railing grave surrounds, or evidence of where this was used. The majority of graves, both marked and unmarked, retain their numeric metal cemetery markers. Most of the early graves face east, as is traditional in European burial grounds. However, graves in the Japanese pearl-divers' section and most of the more recent graves, tend to face west.
More recent graves have elaborate decorative tiling on a concrete base, and are extremely colourful. Placing a permanent photograph of the deceased on the headstone is also very popular. These graves are illustrative of a genre of grave marking which has emerged from the unique ethnic and cultural mix to which the Torres Strait islands have been subject since the 1870s. Although most Islanders are Christians, they have incorporated what is believed to be a traditional [pre-1870s] mortuary rite, the tomb-opening ceremony, within their current religious practices. This ceremony occurs 12 months or more after a burial, at which time the grave markings are installed. Throughout the year there is evidence of tombstone openings in the form of decorations remaining after opening, tombstones wrapped and covered awaiting opening, or newer graves with wooden roofing constructed over them awaiting opening.
Early graves appear to be grouped according to religion or ethnicity, but a clear picture of the original cemetery layout is not possible. Little early documentation survives, parts of the site are inaccessible, and much of the remainder is so overgrown that the identification of graves, iron markers and headstones is difficult. A conservation plan for the Thursday Island Cemetery, completed in May 2000, identified 21 distinct groupings of graves [Areas A-T], but there were sections of the reserve which were inaccessible at time of survey, and unable to be recorded.
From what can be discerned, the original layout of Thursday Island Cemetery reflects the social structure and hierarchical patterns established on Thursday Island in the late 19th century, with the most influential social groups located at the top of the hill near Summers Street, and the least influential located near Aplin Road on the flats.
The southern and highest end of the cemetery was the earliest section of the reserve to be established. On this section, at the top of the hill adjacent to Summers Street and overlooking Ellis Channel [Area L], are the graves of some of Thursday Island's early European 'elite', including the Hon. John Douglas, Premier of Queensland 1877-79 and long-term Government Resident on Thursday Island 1885-86 and 1888-1904, who died on the island in 1904. His grave is marked by a tall obelisk in polished blue granite. All the graves in this area face east.
On the southern and western slopes of this hill, closer to Summers Street, is the original Protestant section [most likely mainly Anglican], which includes the earliest metal cemetery plot marker [Area M]. There were burials in this section from at least 1887, and the earliest marked graves date to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Also in this section of the cemetery is an early monument to seven pilots in the Queensland Pilot Service who died in the Strait between 1894 and 1917. Some of the graves on the western slope of this hill face west, and those on the southern slope mostly face south. The conservation plan records evidence of a track leading west around the hill and providing access to graves in the area, which is now overgrown and inaccessible.
The early Catholic burial ground is located a little further down the hill, to the west of the cemetery track, in the steep southwest section of the cemetery [Area N]. Graves here face east. Most have concrete grave surrounds, and many also have metal railings embedded in the concrete. Most have marble headstones, crosses or cairns. Much of this section is overgrown and access is difficult, but at the crest of the hill are the graves of at least three Catholic nuns, and these appear to have been specially maintained. A marble memorial to William Conroy, a Senior Constable of Police who died in the line of duty in 1895, has also been maintained. Two of the most prominent and decorative of the Catholic headstones are those marking the graves of Thomas and Ellen McNulty, who established the Thursday Island Hotel in 1879, and who were important in the establishment of the Catholic Church on Thursday Island in the 1880s.
On the steep slopes east of the cemetery access track, still in the southern part of the reserve but north of the Protestant section near Summers Street, are a large number of overgrown graves, mostly of Japanese origin [Area K]. Some have granite cairns engraved with Japanese lettering. Still on the eastern side of track, but further toward the centre of the cemetery and closer to the track, are the graves of Muslim Indonesians and Malays, and some Torres Strait Islanders [Areas I-J]. These are on relatively flat land and are generally well maintained. Wherever Muslim or Shinto burials have taken place, there are likely to be offerings of food and toys.
Graves in the central section of the cemetery, on flatter but still elevated and sloping land, and on both sides of the access road, are predominantly Christian, both European and Islander [Areas E-G, O-Q]. There are no immediately discernible denominational divisions, but family groupings are evident. Area P is inaccessible due to an infestation at bean tree [Leucaena sp.]. Area H, adjacent to the Christian graves on the eastern side of the access track in the central part of the cemetery, contains a small grouping of graves which appear to be of Islamic origin. Two early graves in this section face east.
Closer to the northern end of the cemetery reserve, on gently sloping land east of the access track, is a section of mainly early 1900s European graves [Area D]. The denomination is not evident. Two substantial stone cairns have been built here in memory of two servicemen. These have concrete grave surrounds with artillery shells standing at each corner. The majority of graves in this section retain their metal cemetery marker.
North of this area, still on the eastern side of the track, is a section of older European graves mixed with later mostly Islander graves [Area C]. All graves face west. The graves in the southern and eastern sections of this area are inaccessible due to an infestation of bean tree [Leucaena sp.] To the north of Area C is a grouping of more recent, mostly Torres Strait Islander Christian graves. This area is very well maintained.
At the northeast end of the reserve, on the flat land beside Aplin Road, is the Japanese pearl-shell divers' burial ground [Area A]. This area is reasonably well maintained. Most of the graves in this section have raised mounds covered with stone, concrete, or a combination of both. Many are marked with granite or concrete columns, usually consisting of three sections, and a few have European-style marble and concrete headstones. Graves without such markers are marked either with wooden posts painted white with Japanese characters lettered in black; or with unpainted timber posts with engraved inscriptions of Japanese characters. A few graves remain as mounds but are otherwise unmarked. On some of the Japanese graves are small concrete birdcages, housing food for the spirits of the departed divers, and on some graves, frangipani [Plumeria rubra] have been planted. The majority of graves in this area contain a metal cemetery grave marker.
To the northwest are the graves of mainly Torres Strait Islanders [Areas R-T]. The most recent graves are located here, in Area B and in some of the central sections of the reserve, and generally are well maintained. However, there is a dense infestation of bean tree [Leucaena sp.] in Area S, on the western side of the access track.
","history":"Thursday Island Cemetery was established c1887, ten years after the formation of a permanent settlement on the island. It contains hundreds of graves, including between 600 and 700 Japanese (mostly pearl-shell divers), entrepreneurs and fortune hunters of all nationalities, Torres Strait pilots, sailors and ships' passengers drowned at sea, as well as generations of Thursday Islanders. The Hon. John Douglas, a former Premier of Queensland and long-term Government Resident on Thursday Island, is buried in the cemetery.
Thursday Island [Waibene] is located within the Prince of Wales [Muralag] group, just off the northwest tip of Cape York. Although one of the smallest of the Torres Strait Islands, Thursday Island is the principal port and administrative centre for the district. It is also Queensland's [and Australia's] most northern town.
The original inhabitants of the Muralag islands, the Kaurareg people, shared some cultural characteristics with Cape York Aborigines and spoke the same basic Australian language, Kala Lagaw Ya. However, they were a maritime people who lived from harvesting the sea, shifting camp sites regularly. Waibene ['the dry island'] had no permanent water supply, and no permanent Kaurareg settlement was established there.
During the first half of the 19th century British shipping began to make regular use of Torres Strait, entering into a passing trade with the Islanders. Colonial occupation commenced in the 1860s and 1870s with the arrival of bêche-de-mer crews, pearl-shellers, Protestant missionaries from the southwestern Pacific, and government officials.
Queensland had no jurisdiction over the Torres Strait until its annexation in 1872 of the islands of the southern half of the Strait, a measure intended largely to protect Queensland interests in the pearl-shelling and bêche-de-mer fisheries in the Strait and along the Barrier Reef, and to regulate the employment of South Sea Islanders in these enterprises. At annexation, Torres Strait Islanders acquired the same official status as mainland Aborigines.
The official Queensland government settlement at Somerset on Cape York [established in 1864] was moved in 1877 to the newly surveyed town of Port Kennedy on the southern side of Thursday Island. The new location provided a sheltered, deepwater anchorage, and was more centrally located along the main shipping route through the inner channel of Torres Strait - the principal trade route to Asia and the northern route to England. The first sale of crown land at Port Kennedy was held in April 1878. Although only sections 1-3 at the southwest end of the town [closest to the government buildings] were offered for sale, allotments in these sections were eagerly purchased by Queensland entrepreneurs.
In 1879, at British Colonial Office direction, Queensland jurisdiction was extended to the islands of the northern half of the Torres Strait. This enabled Britain to secure the Torres Strait shipping channel without having to annex New Guinea.
By 1884 Port Kennedy was the principal port for cargo and passengers being trans-shipped to Normanton, and was the hub of the pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer fisheries in the Torres Strait. The town had a permanent population of about 70, and served a district of nearly 700 inhabitants. In addition, within from 3 to 50 miles of Thursday Island pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer fishing stations were employing about 1500 people of all races [including significant numbers of South Sea Islanders, Japanese and Filipinos]. In late 1884, for example, about 100 Japanese divers were recorded at Thursday Island. At this period about 800 or 900 tons of shell were exported annually to New South Wales and [mainly] Britain, and the Queensland Government was collecting substantial revenue from licenses.
A local census taken c1885 identified over 300 persons resident on Thursday Island, comprising 'whites' [approximately 45%], Malays, Manilla, Chinese, Japanese, East Indian, Arabs, and 'natives'. Further successful sales of crown land at Port Kennedy were held in January 1885 and September 1888, and by 1890 the island's population had grown to 526, composed of Europeans, Chinese, Torres Strait Islanders and Aborigines, South Sea Islanders, Malays, Filipinos, Japanese, Singhalese, Indians, and a few Thais, Arabs and Africans. This ethnic and cultural mix characterised the communities of the Torres Strait prior to the Second World War.
With the expansion of non-government settlement on Thursday Island, the provision of a public cemetery became a necessity. It has not been established where the earliest burials on the island took place, but the earliest section of the present Thursday Island Cemetery - 8 acres along Summers and Blackall Streets, on a high ridge in the centre of the island - had been identified as a suitable site for a cemetery by January 1887. It was proclaimed as a permanent cemetery reserve on 8 July 1887, and in September cemetery Trustees were appointed. The trustees were drawn from amongst the town's principal 'white' entrepreneurs. By the time the cemetery reserve was officially surveyed in February or March 1888, several interments had taken place and a track off Summers Street into the cemetery had been established. The trustees employed the same surveyor to survey the cemetery into denominational and/or nationality divisions at this time, but no record of this survey is known to have survived. In February 1888 the Trustees formed regulations and by-laws for the effective operation of the cemetery, and in mid-1888 paid nearly £100 for the construction of wire fencing on the reserve. By the end of 1889 a sign-board had been erected, and work had started on the formation of paths within the cemetery. During 1893, the Trustees had shade trees planted and further work on clearing and making cemetery paths was undertaken.
The Trustees soon found that much of the reserve was unsuitable for burial purposes, being too steep and rocky, which escalated the cost of burials and made drainage of the site difficult. In the wet season, the cemetery paths became gullies, and had to be repaired on a yearly basis. In the mid-1890s, as the population of Thursday Island increased rapidly, the Trustees requested two extensions to the cemetery reserve. On 11 July 1894 the reserve was doubled in size to 16 acres, with the addition of a strip of land about half the width of the existing cemetery reserve, which extended north to the military track (now Aplin Road) along the foreshore. This included more level, less rocky land, and also provided access along the foreshore road to the hospital on Point Vivien, in the southwest corner of the island. The reserve was expanded yet again on 29 April 1896 to 26 acres 1 rood 4 perches, when the northern boundary of the eastern half of the reserve was also extended as far as the military road. These extensions encompassed the area now known as the Japanese [Divers'] Cemetery, near Aplin Road.
Japanese divers made a significant contribution to the development of the pearl-shell industry in the Torres Strait. Europeans who established the industry in the Strait in the late 1860s and early 1870s relied initially on South Sea Islander labour, who tended to dominate (often violently) the Torres Strait Islanders. In the 1870s boats equipped with helmeted apparatus for divers appeared, and in the 1880s the pearl-shellers turned to a more skilled, often more daring, and less confronting labour supply - Japanese divers [often ex-sailors] recruited principally from Hong Kong and Singapore. In the 1880s the proportion of Japanese divers in the Strait was no greater than any other ethnic group, but from 1891, when the Japanese Government removed its ban on emigration, numbers increased significantly. By 1893 the Japanese were the largest ethnic group in the Torres Strait pearl-shell industry, and completely dominated the industry between 1900 and 1940. By 1900 all the luggers built at Thursday Island were crafted by Japanese, and a 'Japanese town', with boarding houses, a public bath, stores and a brothel, had been established at the eastern end of Port Kennedy. This was destroyed during the Second World War by American troops, who reputedly utilised the building materials for barracks.
The pearl-shell industry came to a halt during the Second World War when Naval authorities requisitioned most of the luggers. After the war there was a brief resurgence of the industry, but pearl-shelling declined dramatically in the 1960s when competition from the booming post-war plastics industry usurped traditional uses for pearl-shell, such as buttons and knife handles.
Pearl-shell diving was a hazardous occupation and fatalities were high. One source suggests over 1,000 divers lost their lives in Torres Strait to the 'bends', from drowning or through shark attack. Thursday Island Cemetery contains between 600 and 700 graves bearing Japanese names. One authority records that most Japanese divers professed to be Anglicans, so that they could be buried at the Divers' Cemetery within the Thursday Island Cemetery. Certainly there was a strong Japanese presence within the Anglican community on Thursday Island. A Japanese school had been established by the Japanese community on the Anglican church precinct in Douglas Street by 1900, and the Japanese contributed to fund-raising for building the Church of England Parish Institute [1902-03] and various additions to the Quetta Memorial Cathedral Church in the 1890s and early 1900s.
In 1979, the Monument Building Committee of Japan erected a memorial/shrine in the Thursday Island Cemetery, to honour the hundreds of Japanese who worked, lived and died in the Torres Strait between 1878 and 1941. A resident of Japan established a trust of about $100,000 to ensure the future maintenance of the Japanese gravestones.
With the expansion of the Torres Strait pearl-shell industry in the early years of the 20th century the town of Thursday Island [formerly Port Kennedy] also grew, and a further extension to the Thursday Island Cemetery was made on 9 January 1913, with the addition of about 5 acres of mostly flat, less rocky land along Aplin Road to the west, bringing the area of the reserve to 31 acres 2 roods 9 perches. This remains the current extent of the Thursday Island Cemetery reserve [12.77 hectares]. The extension was intended to accommodate mostly 'pagan' burials, which constituted a large proportion of burials in the Thursday Island Cemetery at this period. [Prior to 1973, all non-Christian interments were recorded as 'pagan', despite the large number of other religions represented on the island including Shinto, Buddhism and Islam.] From 1912 until after the Second World War, Torres Strait Islanders were prohibited from residing on Thursday Island, which accounts for the smaller proportion of Islander graves of this period in Thursday Island Cemetery.
One of the more significant graves in the cemetery is that of the Hon. John Douglas, CMG, (1828-1904), pastoralist, Liberal politician 1863-1879 [serving as Premier of Queensland 1877-79], and administrator [Government Resident on Thursday Island 1885-86 and 1888-1904], who died on the island on 23 July 1904. He was deeply involved in developing the settlement on Thursday Island. He was an active warden in the Church of England and on 24 May 1893 laid the foundation stone of the Quetta Memorial Church. He served on various local committees, and was a Cemetery Trustee from 1889 until his death. He won the respect of the Torres Strait Islanders, who in the early 1900s funded construction of the west aisle of the Quetta Memorial Cathedral Church, dedicated in 1913 as the Douglas Memorial Chapel.
Although Thursday Island Cemetery contains hundreds of burials, the earliest of which date to at least 1887, there is no surviving record of interments prior to 1939. The Register of Interments held by Torres Shire Council starts on 31 March 1939. There are no entries between 22 July 1940 and 11 February 1948. Most Thursday Island civilians were evacuated in 1942 and did not return until 1946 or later. Thursday Island was administered by military authorities during 1942-45, and from mid-1946 to February 1948, Thursday Island Cemetery was managed by the local Stipendiary Magistrate. When local Trustees were re-appointed early in 1948, they found that the Cemetery was in poor repair, no maintenance having been carried out since 1940, and claimed £315 from the War Damage Commission to effect necessary repairs. They also discovered that the Minute Book, Cash Book and Cemetery Register to 1939, which in 1942 had been left on the island in a locked safe, were missing.
It took the Trustees some years, but by 1952 they reported that the cemetery was in good order, with fences, gates and roads repaired. The greatest difficulty was in securing grave-diggers. In the early 1960s the Trustees attempted to persuade the Thursday Island Town Council to take on the management of the cemetery, but eventually, State government officials and local priests took on the role of trustees.
Despite the establishment of municipal government on Thursday Island as early as 1912, the cemetery remained the responsibility of community trustees for over a century. In 1991 Torres Shire Council assumed control of the reserve and new by-laws were gazetted.
","criteria":"Thursday Island Cemetery, established c1887 and still open for interments, is important in illustrating the rich diversity of culture and custom on Thursday Island and in the Torres Strait in general, which is one of the most ethnically diverse parts of Queensland. The cemetery contains the graves of hundreds of people from many nationalities, cultures and religious backgrounds [including Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto and Islam]. The large Japanese [Divers'] Cemetery within the reserve is illustrative the role of the Japanese in the development of the pearl-shell industry in the Torres Strait, the dangerous nature of this work, and the close cultural and economic connections which the people of the Torres Strait have had with the sea and maritime industries.
|Thursday Island Cemetery is significant as a unique historical record, illustrating important aspects of the island's history including its pearling industry, the First and Second World Wars, its social structure from the late 19th century, and attitudes towards religion and burial practices. The names on the headstones in the cemetery illustrate the high degree of ethnic intermarriage in the Strait since the 1870s. The degree of cultural diversity and the existence of a substantial and early Japanese Cemetery within the reserve is rare in Queensland.
|The place has potential to reveal further information about the history of this most northern part of Queensland, and of late 19th century cemetery layouts, particularly if the ground cover were cleared to reveal the full extent and diversity of burials and burial customs.
|The place has strong aesthetic appeal, engendered by the variety and detail of the headstones and other grave markers which range from the 1880s to the present day [contemporary Islander graves are particularly colourful and dynamic], and the romantic island setting, with views to the water from most parts of the reserve.
|The place is highly valued by the community of Thursday Island and by those outside of the community who have relatives buried in the cemetery. It is also a popular tourist destination.
|The place is significant as the resting place of a former Queensland Premier and Government Resident of Thursday Island, the Hon. John Douglas (1828-1904), whose grave is located at the top of the highest hill in the cemetery, overlooking Ellis Channel and the islands of the southern Torres Strait. The cemetery contains a number of other significant memorials, including a large monument to the Japanese, and an early memorial to Torres Strait pilots who lost their lives in the execution of their duties.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15651,"place_ref":600876,"name":"Fort Complex Magnetic Island","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"East side of island","suburb":"MAGNETIC ISLAND","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The fort complex was built during 1943 on the eastern side of Magnetic Island between Horseshoe Bay and Arcadia Bay. It was anchored into granite boulders on a heavily timbered, mountainous point overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The site contains derelict concrete structures with some timber and concrete remnants of the fabric such as the water pipeline, command post, searchlight tower, ammunition store, radar station, signal station, gun sites and direction finder. The remainder of the accommodation area can be seen in the form of concrete slabs on flat land near the pathway to the fort complex proper.
","history":"The fort complex was constructed in 1943 to protect the harbour and town from what was believed to be imminent attack as Japanese forces moved south through the Pacific islands. Townsville was the major supply depot for Allied troops in the southeast Pacific and a staging post for troops moving north into the war zone.
The fortifications were armed with French 155mm M3 guns on Panama carriage mounts which were commonly used on a number of Pacific islands as coastal defence weapons. The four guns on Magnetic Island had been enroute to Bhutan until it fell to the Japanese. They were redirected to Townsville to protect its vital port against the expected rapid advance of the Japanese. History shows that they were not needed and after the war the guns were returned to the American forces.
At this time the fort was stripped of its fittings and left to return to nature. With the establishment of the Magnetic Island National Park, Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service assumed control of the complex, installed information signs and pathways and now administers the area.
","criteria":"This is a significant site which highlights the role of Townsville and the region in the Allied struggle to protect Australia from the advancing Japanese forces during the crucial war years of 1942-43.
|Its significance is further highlighted because this site, together with those at Kissing Point, Townsville and on Cape Marlow at Pallarenda, are rare wartime fortifications of unique value.
|Its construction on a rugged headland and the installation of the hugh guns were wartime engineering achievements of some magnitude.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15652,"place_ref":600877,"name":"Rosebank","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"21 Lawson Street","suburb":"MYSTERTON","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Rosebank is a substantial, single-storeyed, timber house resting on low brick piers, with a short-ridge roof of corrugated-iron, wide surrounding verandahs and a detached kitchen wing at the rear, accessed from the back verandah. The single-skinned external walls have deep chamferboards with exposed stud-framing. Decorative details include cast-iron cresting and finials on the roof, cross-braced timber balustrading and ornate timber brackets on the verandahs, and a finial and fretwork bargeboards to the small gabled entrance portico at the front. The interior has some fine pressed metal ceilings, which have been restored, and early 20th century light fittings. The kitchen and bathroom of the service wing have been modernised. A double brick garage and pool at the left of the house are late 20th century additions. While some of the c1885 mango trees remain, more recent cottage gardens have been established.
The house is fronted by Townsville City Council parkland which was part of the original property.
","history":"Rosebank, a substantial, single-storeyed timber residence, was erected c1885 for well-known Townsville identities Rose and Andrew Ball.
Andrew Ball was one of the first Europeans to explore the Cleveland Bay district, and is acknowledged as the founder of Townsville. In 1864 he was managing Woodstock Station [to the south of Ross River] for pastoralists Robert Towns and John Melton Black [who together owned Jarvisfield and Woodstock cattle runs and Fanning Downs and Victoria Downs sheep stations], when Black asked him to explore the country to the north, to find a suitable wharfage site at Cleveland Bay from which to handle station produce. Ball, accompanied by Mark Watt Reid and two Aboriginal stockmen, set out in April 1864 and eventually found the mouth of what later was called the Ross River. The site Ball selected for a wharf and port was on Ross Creek, a tributary of Ross River. Lying beneath the huge sandstone outcrop of Castle Hill, the location reminded Ball of Castletown, the capital of the Isle of Man, and that was what he called the place. When a government town site was surveyed here in 1865, the name was changed officially from Castletown to Townsville, in honour of Robert Towns.
Andrew Ball was occupied for the next few years with pastoral work before returning to Townsville in the late 1860s, and was a partner in Ball & Grimaldi, Townsville, in 1869. In 1877 he married Mrs Rose O'Neill, widow and licensee of the Exchange Hotel in Flinders Street since 1873. The Exchange had been erected in 1869 by Edward Head and was made the terminus for the Ravenswood coach service in 1870, but it was the popular Rose O'Neill who improved the hotel's reputation and nearly doubled its size in the mid-1870s. Rose O'Neill eventually purchased the hotel and following her marriage to Andrew Ball and his taking over of the licence in 1877, the Exchange became one of the most popular hotels in town. Ball was charming and widely known, with business interests both in Townsville and on the goldfields [Ravenswood and Charters Towers], and together, he and Rose developed a large and loyal cliental at the Exchange. In 1881 the two-storeyed timber hotel was destroyed by fire, but Townsville was booming and Ball immediately rebuilt in brick, the substantial new two-storeyed Exchange Hotel opening in 1882. That year Andrew Ball gave up the licence, he and Rose retiring from hotel work but retaining numerous Townsville business interests. They resided at West End for some years before moving to Rosebank in the mid-1880s.
In January 1885 Rose Ball acquired title to a 2 acre site about 3 miles out of town, southwest along the Charters Towers road, at a time when the western and southwestern suburbs of Townsville were emerging as fashionable addresses for successful Townsville businesspersons. On this property Rose and Andrew Ball erected Rosebank, a large timber residence picturesquely situated overlooking a small lagoon and creek [now filled in and part of Mindham Park]. The front entrance drive from the main road crossed a causeway and two bridges over the creek/lagoon, then became a circular drive lined by bunya pines and mango trees, surrounding a large rose garden in the front yard. The back approach to the house passed through banyan and Moreton Bay fig trees. Rosebank was developed as a self-sufficient semi-rural estate, with a dairy, cowyard, chicken run, vegetable garden, stables and various storage and fodder sheds, and an underground water supply. Rose Ball also developed a very fine flower garden and bushhouse at Rosebank, which were famous in the Townsville district.
Andrew Ball died at Rosebank in September 1894, aged 62, and his widow remained there until her death in February 1925, aged 83. In January 1912 their only daughter, Annie Alice May, married lawyer Robert Johnstone Douglas [later a Supreme Court Judge]. Mr & Mrs Douglas are understood to have resided at Rosebank from 1912, when they employed Townsville builder E Crowder to renovate the building. The renovations included the installation of a number of pressed metal ceilings, removal of a partition wall to form a library, enlargement of the dining room by opening up the sewing room and pantry, and extension of the kitchen. The verandah floorboards also were replaced at this time. In 1919, title to the property was transferred from Mrs Ball to her daughter.
The Douglas family, one of whom became a leading orthopaedic surgeon, owned the house until 1972, when it was purchased by the present owners. In 1903 and again in 1971 the house was damaged by cyclones and the owners carried out major alterations and refurbishment to parts of the structure in 1912 and 1972. Blocks of land on the left side of the house were sold off in the first part of this century and in 1940 the local Council resumed the watercourse in front of Rosebank to create public parkland, reducing the 8.094 hectare property to the house block of today.
","criteria":"Rosebank, erected c1885, survives as important evidence of the development of Townsville as the principal port of north Queensland in the 1880s, when businesses were consolidating, the principal commercial premises were being re-built in brick, and fine gentlemen's residences were being established in the western and southwestern suburbs. Its imposing style reflects the prosperity of its owners and of the region during the boom period of the 1880s.
Renovations in the 1910s and 1970s testify to its continued use as an elite residence for well over a century.
|Rosebank is an excellent example of a substantial, decorative, timber residence of the mid-1880s, complete with detached kitchen house, standing in the remnants of larger grounds and garden
|The house remains highly intact, and together with the surviving grounds, is important for its aesthetic qualities.
|Rosebank is considered one of Townsville's finest colonial homes, and has a strong association for the residents of Townsville with the early development of their city.
|It is important also for its close association with Andrew and Rose Ball, prominent and early Townsville residents, Andrew Ball being acknowledged as the founder of Townsville.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15653,"place_ref":600878,"name":"Yongala Lodge","alternate_name":"Nestle Private Hospital | Matthew Rooney's Residence | Lister Private Hospital","street_address":"11 Fryer Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Yongala lodge is a two-storeyed, L-shaped timber building which is currently used as a restaurant and managers residence. The building is located at the base of Melton Hill and fronts Fryer Street to the northwest.
The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof and is surrounded by two-storeyed verandahs, with the southeast side being enclosed. The original central section of the building has decorative cross-braced cast iron balustrade and single-skin, exposed frame construction. The later side verandahs have cross-braced timber balustrade and more recent timber brackets. Most of the northeast wall has been enclosed with chamferboard and a pergola structure attached to the northwest front. A decorative cantilevered timber porch with a concave corrugated iron awning has been added to the front entry. The rear of the building has been clad with vinyl boarding.
The main entry features a panelled timber door with patterned glass fan and sidelights surrounded by timber pilasters supporting a large cornice. French doors with fanlights open onto verandahs on both levels.
Internally, the building has a central corridor opening into dining rooms, a bar and kitchen. The dining area has had fretwork arches added, and existing arched openings have had their balustrade removed. A central stair, with turned timber balustrade and twin flights from the landing, leads to the first floor dining and the managers residence at the rear. A steel framed stair has been recently inserted on the southwest to meet fire regulations.
A lower two-storeyed brick motel wing is attached to the rear of the building. A higher, two-storeyed, split level brick motel block has been built on the site's rear rocky slope. An inground concrete swimming pool is located to south of the building surrounded by bitumen driveway and carparking.
The southern section of the site consists of a steep rocky slope at the base of Melton Hill.
","history":"The earliest section of this two-storeyed, former residence was erected between 1883 and 1887, on land acquired by Townsville builders and timber merchants John and Matthew Rooney, in mid-1883.
In the late 1860s, Irish immigrants John and Jacob Rooney had established a building and timber-milling business at Maryborough, where later they were joined by their brother Matthew. In the late 1870s John and Matthew established a branch of J & J Rooney, builders, at Townsville, which was developing as the port for the Ravenswood and Charters Towers goldfields. In 1882 John and Matthew established their own business interests at Townsville, setting up the firms of Rooney Bros (architects, builders and contractors) and, in partnership with James Harvey, the timber-milling enterprise of Rooney & Co. By the mid-1880s they were operating their own fleet of small vessels to bring timber from Maryborough and other Queensland ports to their mill and factory on Ross Creek.
By controlling every stage of the building process - logging, milling, prefabrication, design, construction, hardware supply, and later furniture manufacture and paint sales -and by adopting highly mechanised production techniques and large volume turnovers, Rooneys' dominated the North Queensland building industry until the early years of the 20th century.
Matthew Rooney's house in Fryer Street exhibits decorative finishes typical of a Rooney building - including the distinctive cast-iron balustrading and the remnant timber moulding of the lower verandah frieze - and was one of few two-storeyed, timber residences erected in Townsville before the turn-of-the-century. Constructed entirely of oregon pine, initially it comprised two rooms on each floor, with a single-storeyed kitchen house at the rear, and verandahs front and back. By 1900 the kitchen house had been replaced with a two-storeyed rear extension, and verandahs had been added at the rear and along the northeast side. Part of the latter was enclosed.
Rooney and his family do not appear to have occupied the Fryer Street residence until the early 1890s. Matthew Rooney was a prominent Townsville citizen, first chairman of the Townsville Harbour Board, 1896-97, and a strong supporter of the Catholic Church. On 23 March 1911 he, his wife and his youngest daughter were drowned in the wreck of the SS Yongala, south of Townsville. The Rooney firms were already losing their pre-eminence in the North Queensland building industry, and after Matthew's death, declined rapidly. The heirs reconstructed as Rooneys Limited, concentrating on building prefabrication initially, then furniture manufacture and retail trading, until winding up the firm in 1946.
In 1916 the Fryer Street house was leased to matron Katherine Terry, who converted it into the Nestle Private Hospital (renamed Lister Private Hospital by 1919). In 1926 Rooneys Ltd sold the property, which coincides with its conversion to Lister Flats. Between c.1925 and c.1933 a two-storeyed enclosed verandah was added to the southwestern side, and a single-storeyed extension at the rear probably dates to the mid to late 1930s.
In the early 1980s the building was renovated as part of the Yongala Lodge motel.
","criteria":"The manager's residence/restaurant of Yongala Lodge has a strong historical connection with early Townsville builder and businessman Matthew Rooney, who, through the family building firms of Rooney Bros and Rooney & Co., made a substantial contribution to the development of North Queensland in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Constructed for Matthew Rooney in the mid-1880s, and occupied by him and his family, the building is important in illustrating the work of these important North Queensland building industry firms, and was one of the few two-storeyed, timber residences erected in 19th century Townsville.
|It is now even more rare, being the only identified, 19th century, two-storyed residence to survive in Townsville, and retains sufficient original fabric to be illustrative of its type.
|In addition, the building contains some elements of individual architectural merit including the finely detailed staircase and entrance, the cantilevered porch and the construction technique of exposed framing.
|The building makes an aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of Fryer Street, particularly in the quality of some of its architectural elements, including the cast iron balustrade, main entry door and surround.
|The manager's residence/restaurant of Yongala Lodge has a strong historical connection with early Townsville builder and businessman Matthew Rooney, who, through the family building firms of Rooney Bros and Rooney & Co., made a substantial contribution to the development of North Queensland in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Constructed for Matthew Rooney in the mid-1880s, and occupied by him and his family, the building is important in illustrating the work of these important North Queensland building industry firms, and was one of the few two-storeyed, timber residences erected in 19th century Townsville.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15654,"place_ref":600879,"name":"St Mary's Church","alternate_name":"St Marys Church | St Marys Catholic Church | St Mary's Catholic Church","street_address":"34 Ingham Road","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-01-02","description":"St Mary's Catholic Church is a one-storey, timber-framed building clad with chamferboards. It stands on a level corner site and faces north onto Ingham Road, the main thoroughfare of West End, Townsville. The church is set on low square concrete stumps and the understorey is enclosed by perimeter timber battening.
The building has a T-shaped plan: entered from the north, a long nave with side aisles terminates in an altar at the southern end. Southern transepts accommodate a vestry on the west and confessionals with waiting area on the east. The corrugated metal-clad roof reflects this layout with three long gables sheltering the nave and aisles and transverse gables over the transepts. The largest gable, over the nave, has a ventilated ridge.
The front elevation is symmetrical, composed of three large gables and a central gabled entrance porch. The building features banks of timber-framed lancet windows containing awning sashes and have pointed arch heads and hood moulding. Gables have wide barge boards fixed onto and concealing the original decorative timber barge boards behind.
Internally, the building has exposed timber scissor trusses with a diagonally boarded ceiling. Timber columns support the central gable and divide the nave into three volumes. An organ and choir gallery is located over the north entrance and is partially cantilevered. The building has pointed arch doors, with the entrance doors having timber battened ventilation panels above. Interior walls are lined with plywood.
The building has an ornate grey marble altar and Calvary Arch, high quality plaster statues and carved timber pews, font, and Stations of the Cross.
Evidence of the original extent of the church can be seen underneath with a masonry supporting wall. A steel support structure has been installed under the altar.
The church stands in landscaped grounds of lawns and maturing trees and is prominently sited within the streetscape. Surrounding it are associated buildings including the Presbytery, School, and Parish Hall.
","history":"St Mary's Church was erected in 1888 as a church and school for the Catholic parish of Townsville. It is the second oldest Catholic church in North Queensland.
Early settlement in Townsville began in the mid-1860s at the mouth of Ross Creek, and along the beach front to the north, but later development was concentrated along the creek to the west. By the late 1880s, west Townsville was a well settled area, and Catholics in this area lived a considerable distance from St Joseph's Church and School on the Strand (established in the 1870s). Fr William Mason Walsh, second parish priest of Townsville, made the decision to establish a church and school in west Townsville, acquiring the St Mary's Church site in 1887.
The church was designed by Rooney Bros, who were the premier builders, and frequently also the designers, of vernacular architecture in Townsville and North Queensland during the latter part of the 19th century. Matthew and John Rooney and their families were strong supporters of the Catholic Church.
When St Mary's was erected by contractors Cowell & Holt in 1888, it was a simple rectangular structure with a nave and entrance porch. The present cedar pews in the nave date from this period. In 1888 the Sisters of Mercy opened St Mary's School at the church until a new school building was erected on an adjacent block at the rear of the church in 1917.
The Sisters of Mercy, an Irish teaching and nursing order of Catholic nuns, had arrived in Townsville in 1878, in response to a request from Fr Walsh. For ten years the Mercy nuns taught solely at St Joseph's on The Strand. From 1888 some of the nuns travelled by sulky to teach in the classrooms established at St Mary's Church and took up residence nearby when the parish of St Mary's was established in 1917, Townsville's second Catholic parish.
To accommodate the Sisters of Mercy within the new parish, the diocese purchased a timber residence in Castling Street, adjoining the church and school, early in 1917. The Castling Street residence is thought to have been constructed in the 1880s, but not on its present site.
The original location is unknown, although it is likely to have come from one of the goldfields - probably Ravenswood or Charters Towers - to the west of Townsville. It was moved onto the site, possibly in 1897, when a mortgage for £130 was taken out on the property by the owner, Gustave Anderson, who had purchased the site at a Crown land sale held on 23 December 1890. Anderson died at his Castling Street residence in January 1898, but his widow remained resident in Castling Street for some years. In May 1901, she married Lauritz Henriksen Hoyer, and a Lawrence Hoyar is listed in Castling Street in the 1904 Queensland Post Office Directory. Mrs Hoyer had sold the property to the Pritchard family by 1912, and they in turn sold to the Catholic Church.
The house, which was set on low stumps when acquired by the church, was raised on high wooden blocks, and the front southern room was extended into the front verandah to create a small chapel for the nuns. The front porch infill and rear extensions appear to date from this period also. Rooneys Ltd carried out the improvements, and St Mary's Convent was opened and blessed by Dr Shiel, Bishop of Rockhampton, on 12 August 1917. The sisters occupied this building until 1964, when it became the parish house for the priest. In 1975 the priest moved out and the house was leased to private tenants.
In December 2013, after being vacant and derelict for some time, the former convent was destroyed by fire. At the time of its destruction, the former convent was a high-set single-storeyed timber building with a corrugated galvanised iron roof, situated at 15 Castling Street, West End, Townsville. The building comprised a six-roomed core under a hipped roof, with a gabled entry porch to Castling Street and an encircling verandah of lesser pitch that met the walls below the eaves line.
Major alterations to the church were carried out in 1923 by Doig & Ritchie, under the supervision of Ardel Rooney of Rooneys Ltd. The building was widened to include transepts on either side of the main altar, side aisles and a sacristy. The marble altar, wooden side altars, baptismal font, altar rails, pulpit, pine pews in the aisles, and wood and plaster stations of the cross, date from this period. Also in 1923, cottage style gardens were constructed around the church.
The interiors of most Catholic churches in Australia were modified as a result of changes in church thinking following Vatican II in 1963, but no alterations were made to St Mary's Church.
In 2014, St Mary's Church, West End, Townsville continues to operate as an important place of worship for the local Catholic parish.
","criteria":"St Mary's Church, erected in 1888 with 1923 additions, is important in demonstrating the establishment and growth of the Catholic Church in North Queensland.
|St Mary's Church remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a timber church built in the late 19th/early 20th centuries in Queensland.
|Through its scale, form, and materials, St Mary's Church makes a significant contribution to the Ingham Road streetscape and Townsville townscape. The building is also significant for the quality and craftsmanship of the interior and fittings.
|St Mary's Church is the second oldest Catholic church in North Queensland and is significant for its strong and special association as a centre of Catholic worship, education, and community life in Townsville since 1888.
St Mary's Church is significant for its special association with the Rooney family and their important North Queensland building firms of Rooney Bros, Rooney & Co. and Rooneys Ltd.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15655,"place_ref":600880,"name":"St John's Anglican Church Precinct","alternate_name":"St Johns Anglican Church Precinct","street_address":"30-34 Macrossan Street","suburb":"SOUTH TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St John's Church, Church Hall and Rectory are located on the southeast side of Macrossan Street, South Townsville, between Allen and Cannan streets, opposite the South Townsville State School. The district is suburban residential in character.
St John's Church (1907)
St John's Church is located in the centre of the church property in Macrossan Street, flanked by the rectory to the northeast and the church hall to the southwest. It is a simple but aesthetically pleasing timber building which employs Gothic stylistic detailing along with accommodation for Townsville's warm sub-tropical climate.
The building is rectangular in plan with the central front bay projecting slightly. It is high set on concrete stumps, clad with chamferboards, and has a corrugated iron sheeted gabled roof that extends over verandahs along either side. A small timber belfry is located at the forward end of this roof and the front gable beneath the belfry has simple timber battening as a decorative in-fill. The side walls to the verandahs reveal exposed stud framing. The southern verandah is open for its full length and the northern verandah is enclosed at either end.
The side verandahs are supported on timber posts with decorative timber capitals and brackets and have a simple timber balustrade comprised of a top rail and two uprights in each bay.
There is a small, centrally positioned front entry porch, with a separate gabled roof. Surmounting the apex of the gable is a small timber Christian cross. The porch has side openings in the form of lancet arches, which once permitted access from both sides. There is now a set of later stairs at the northern side of the porch only. The southern entrance is partially enclosed with a simple metal balustrade and the stairs have been removed. The front of the entry porch is enclosed with chamferboards and has timber louvres within a lancet arch frame for ventilation purposes.
A separately-roofed extension in the rear elevation accommodates the sanctuary.
Most of the fenestration is restricted to the front and rear elevations and is in the form of lancet windows. These include pairs of windows in the front elevation that open from the side verandahs and in the gable above the entry porch. There are also single lancet windows either side of the entry porch, which light the nave and mirror those in the rear wall either side of the sanctuary.
Internally, the nave is separated from the sanctuary by a wide lancet arch. The walls along the side of the nave each have two rectangular openings enclosed by pairs of unequal timber framed and diagonally boarded sliding doors, which when opened provide cross ventilation. These openings are protected by the deep flanking side verandahs, which may be used as aisles.
The ceiling is lined in tongue and groove timber boards and the timber trusses supporting the roof are exposed. Flooring throughout is timber boarding. Significant church furniture includes early timber pews.
St John's Church Hall
St John's Church Hall
St John's Church Hall is a simple timber framed building, high set on concrete stumps and clad externally with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips. It is rectangular in plan, with a gable roof of corrugated iron. Like the adjacent church, it has a small separately-roofed entrance porch, which is partially enclosed with a fibrous-cement sheeted balustrade. Entrance to this porch is via timber stairs on the northeast side of the porch. There is a small, centrally-positioned, skillion-roofed extension in the rear elevation. This also is clad in fibrous-cement sheeting, but is lower set. In each side elevation there are four pairs of tri-paned stained glass casement windows.
St John's Rectory
St John's Rectory (c1907)
St John's Rectory is a single-storeyed building, timber-framed and timber-clad, set on low mostly timber stumps. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated galvanized iron. The building is L-shaped in plan, with a projecting asymmetrical front gable. It has skillion-roofed verandahs to front and back, both of which are enclosed with later fibrous cement sheeting and glass and timber louvres. The southern end wall of the residence is clad externally but the northern wall and the wall of the projecting transverse gable are mostly single-skin, with exposed stud framing and chamferboards and an external cladding to the upper front gable. The windows in these walls retain their early double-hung timber-framed sashes and have window hoods, which are timber framed and sheeted in corrugated galvanised iron.
Grounds
The grounds, which slope to the southwest, are grassed and there are concrete paths connecting the church and church hall. Plantings considered to be of cultural heritage significance include an indigenous Terminalia at the south/southwest corner of the site and mature Frangipani (Plumeria) trees. There is a tall metal flagpole in the front yard of the church and in the yard behind the church and hall is an area formerly levelled for a tennis court. A small, skillion-roofed, concrete block toilet block at the rear, between the hall and the church, is of later construction and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Along the street alignment, partly in front of the rectory and partly in front of the church, there is an early, low concrete retaining wall and entrance steps flagged by low, square concrete columns topped with cast iron capitals. This appears to indicate an earlier configuration of buildings on the site. The remainder of the frontage has a later low retaining wall, of concrete and concrete block.
The precinct has an aesthetic appeal based on the picturesque quality of the simple timber buildings in their garden setting and visually complements the school grounds across the street.
","history":"St John's Anglican Precinct at South Townsville comprises a small timber church constructed in 1907; a timber rectory constructed c1907; and a small timber and fibrous-cement sheeted church hall. St John's Church is the third church erected on this site, replacing an 1898 church destroyed in 1903 by cyclone Leonta, which in turn had replaced an 1884 church destroyed by cyclone Sigma in 1896. The rectory also is the third residence on the site, replacing vicarages destroyed in the 1896 and 1903 cyclones. These buildings remain amongst the earliest surviving Anglican church buildings in the Diocese of North Queensland.
Townsville was established in the mid-1860s as a port to service new pastoral runs being taken up in the Kennedy District. The town centre developed along the north west bank of Ross Creek, while suburban settlement spread to the north along the beach front, to the west along what later became known as Ingham Road and south across the creek to Ross Island. The discovery of gold at Cape River in 1867 and the boom in the pastoral industry consolidated Townsville's position as a port and administrative and commercial centre during the 1870s. The port expanded and rail facilities were established in 1881 with the construction of the Great Northern Railway from Townsville to Charters Towers and later to Hughenden further west.
The Church of England early established a presence in Townsville and opened St James' Church in 1871. At this time the district was part of the Diocese of Sydney. The Diocese of North Queensland was formed in 1878, when North Queensland's mineral fields and grazing industry were flourishing. The Rev. George Henry Stanton was consecrated the first Bishop of the new Diocese, arriving in Townsville in May 1879 and establishing his seat at St James' Church (which became the pro-Cathedral). Stanton proved very popular and was adept at attracting overseas funding for the new Diocese. As Townsville expanded during the early 1880s, he assisted his parishioners to establish new churches at West End in 1883 (opened as St James' Mission Church and renamed St Peter's in 1884) and at Ross Island (St John's) in 1884.
Ross Island was a focus for settlement as early as 1868 when the first Townsville hospital was constructed on the island. By the mid-1870s a thriving suburb had been established, with Palmer Street the commercial centre. In 1883 the island was officially surveyed, excised from Thuringowa Division and incorporated into the Municipality of Townsville as South Townsville. To serve the burgeoning population, the South Townsville State School was opened in February 1884.
Prior to the construction of St John's, occasional Anglican services had been conducted at the immigration depot on Ross Island. At the first sale of Ross Island subdivisions in May 1883 Bishop Stanton acquired two adjacent allotments in Macrossan Street for church purposes (allotments 6 & 7, section 161, comprising half an acre in total and directly opposite the school reserve). In June 1884 title to the land was transferred from Bishop Stanton to The Corporation of the Diocesan Synod of North Queensland, which had been established in June 1883 for the purpose of acquiring and managing church property for the Diocese.
In August 1884 the first St John's Church was dedicated on this site. At this period the new church was part of the parish of Townsville and was administered from St James' pro-Cathedral. The Townsville Herald of 24 December 1887 described the building as 'a pretty little church' and 'well patronised'.
Ross Creek boomed during the second half of the 1880s. In 1885-86 the Great Northern Railway was extended east into South Townsville and the Ross Island jetty was extended into deeper water to facilitate the shipment of station produce from the far west of Queensland. The Victoria Bridge (600928), opened in July 1889, was constructed across Ross Creek, linking the island to Townsville's central business district along Flinders Street. Wharves, railway yards, a meat works and foundries at Ross Island became major employers and the surrounding district developed as a working class residential suburb. By the late 1880s it was the fastest growing area in Townsville.
In 1889 Ross Island was declared a parochial district within the Diocese of North Queensland, with the Rev. L Ketchlee as the priest-in-charge. It is likely that the first St John's vicarage was erected at this time.
In January 1896 cyclone Sigma destroyed St John's Church and Vicarage at Ross Island. A contemporary report estimated the loss at about £600. A second St John's Church was opened in 1898, constructed at a cost of £450.
In May 1901 the Diocesan Synod acquired title to an adjacent allotment in Macrossan Street (allotment 5, section 161). This is the site of the later church hall. It may have contained an existing residence acquired for use as a vicarage.
On 9 March 1903 another cyclone, Leonta, destroyed the second St John's Church of England and Vicarage at Ross Island. Photographs of the site taken shortly afterwards show a pile of tangled timbers and iron roofing. The local press reported that the church furniture had been saved through the efforts of the incumbent priest, the Rev. Goodchild.
Cyclone Leonta had struck at a time when the Diocese of North Queensland was in severe financial difficulty, arising from the impact of the early 1890s economic depression and the closure of many Queensland banks, closures of many gold and tin mines and a fall in world copper prices in the 1890s, and a severe drought 1898-1902. Diocesan architects and civil engineers Tunbridge and Tunbridge of Townsville, engaged to report on the cyclone devastation, estimated that £2,600 worth of damage to Diocesan property had been sustained in Townsville alone and £6,250 throughout the Diocese. Bishop Frodsham, then Bishop of North Queensland, travelled overseas to raise funds to save his Diocese and by May 1905 over £6,000 had been subscribed from various diocese in Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong; from British church societies; and from individuals.
Ross Island was a working class district and had suffered substantially during cyclone Leonta, with many homes reportedly destroyed or unroofed. It took the parish nearly four years to replace their church, with the third and present St John's Church of England dedicated on 17 February 1907.
The third St John's Church was designed by architect Charles Dalton Lynch, the Townsville partner in the architectural firm of Tunbridge, Tunbridge and Lynch from 1907 to 1910 and in partnership with Walter Hunt from 1911 to 1921. Lynch was a noted and influential architect, who designed many buildings in North Queensland, including several of Cairns' most prominent buildings: the School of Arts (600380) and Harbour Board Offices (1907), new Court House Hotel (1908) and Central Hotel (600379) (1909). Works by Lunch & Hunt include Agora House (600913), Townsville for Howard Smith & Co. Ltd (1910-11), Cairns Shire Council Offices (601913) (1912-13) and St Joseph's Church (602130), Townsville, (1920-21).
Lynch addressed the problem of cross ventilation in a tropical climate by providing St John's with large sliding doors along each side of the nave, which were sheltered by open verandahs and when opened allowed air to circulate freely through the building. The use of banks of side doors was a popular ventilation device of the period employed in large auditoria such as public halls and theatres, but was less commonly used in church buildings.
The third St John's vicarage may have been erected around this time, and evidently by 1911. St John's Church Hall may date to this period, but this has not been confirmed.
Ross Island (South Townsville) remained a vibrant working class community until port facilities began to move closer to the harbour mouth in the second half of the 20th century. By 1958 the population in the parish of South Townsville had reached 4,000.
St John's Church and Rectory were entered in the Register of the National Trust of Queensland in May 1980 for their historical and architectural interest. Regular Sunday services are still held at the church.
","criteria":"St John's Anglican Church Precinct is important in illustrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the expansion of Townsville as a regional port and the growth of the working class suburb of South Townsville in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The church and rectory remain amongst the earliest surviving Anglican church buildings in the Diocese of North Queensland.
|St John's Anglican Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including the adaptation of traditional Gothic-styled timber church design to accommodate the warm North Queensland climate. The building remains highly intact and retains its original detailing (including lancet windows and arches, double sliding timber doors to the verandahs, decorative detailing to deep verandahs and early timber pews). It is an excellent example of the work of architect CD Lynch, who made a substantial contribution to North Queensland architecture in the early 20th century.St John's Anglican Church Precinct is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places: an early 20th century religious precinct. These characteristics include the grouping of church, church hall and rectory within a restricted and defined area; the intactness of the three principal buildings on the site; the consistent use of materials (principally timber, galvanized iron and fibrous-cement sheeting); and the garden setting (including an early low concrete retaining wall and entrance with low concrete columns with cast-iron capitals, along the street frontage).
|St John's Anglican Church is of aesthetic significance for its use of Gothic stylistic influences within the Queensland vernacular idiom of high-set timber buildings, the result being a balanced, visually pleasing design incorporating traditional European church motifs and Queensland-style deep verandahs.St John's Anglican Church Precinct has a picturesque quality engendered from the consistency of scale, form and materials and the lineal arrangement of the group of simple timber buildings in a garden setting. The place makes an aesthetic contribution to the streetscape, visually complementing the state school across the road.
|The place has a special association with the work of the Anglican Church in North Queensland. The fact that it contains the third St John's Church and Rectory erected on the site between 1884 and 1907 is testimony to the strength of the Anglican Church in North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, overcoming obstacles such as distance, remoteness, climate, s small population base and lack of Diocesan funds.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15656,"place_ref":600881,"name":"St Brigid's Church","alternate_name":"St Brigids Church | St Brigid’s Catholic Church","street_address":"523 Stuart Drive","suburb":"STUART","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Brigid's Church (1904) stands in a semi-rural setting facing Flinders Highway (Stuart Drive) in the suburb of Stuart. It is a traditional timber and corrugated iron building with Gothic features of the Federation era. Chamferboards are attached to the exposed stud frame which is diagonally braced and strengthened additionally by timber buttresses. Plain bargeboards and a decorative fretwork panel highlights the frontal gable. Two sets of railed wooden stairs lead to a decorative open porch. A sacristy is attached to the north side and the whole structure is supported by modern steel stumps.
An elaborately carved wooden altar, flanked by a pair of marble angels, dominates the interior. Pointed windows, a timber vaulted ceiling and the original wooden pews complete the interior furnishing.
The 1946 presbytery is located within the churchyard, approximately 10 metres north-west of the church. It is an idiosyncratic structure, having single layer (4½in) brick external walls in stretcher bond set high on a substantial concrete column and beam frame. In plan it comprises a rectangular brick core of three non-connecting rooms, each of which has front and back French doors with Arctic glass and fanlight above, opening to a wide encircling verandah. This verandah was open initially but has been enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and windows, and lined internally with fibreboard. The street elevation has a raised cross centrally mounted. The whole is surmounted by a hipped roof of corrugated metal sheeting. The upper level is accessed on the southern side via a set of steps with a metal balustrade.
The church grounds are grassed and contain a number of mature trees, including a grey bloodwood (Eucalyptus clarksoniana), white fig (Ficus virens), black bean (Castanospermum australe) and African mahogany (Khaya senegalensis). Toward the front of the churchyard, between the church and the presbytery, is a steel-framed bell tower and bell.
","history":"St Brigid's Church at Stewart's Creek (later Stuart) was constructed in 1904 by Townsville builders Doig & Ritchie, who also supplied 8 timber pews. Messrs Rooney and Co. of Townsville (builders, sawmillers and joiners) supplied the pine altar and other furnishings.
Title to the initially 50 acre [20.23ha] site was acquired by Fr William Mason Walsh, the parish priest at Townsville, in 1885, but it took nearly 20 years before a church was erected and furnished, at a cost of about £225 - illustrating the relative poverty of the local Catholic community. The building was opened on 2 October 1904 by the Right Rev. Dr Murray, Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown, who had journeyed from Cairns to Townsville especially for the purpose.
In 1904, Stewart's Creek was under the administration of St Joseph's on The Strand, which still lay within the Diocese of Rockhampton. Later it came under the jurisdiction of the parishes of West End and then Mundingburra, before Stewart's Creek was established as a separate parish in 1945. Father TA Kelly was appointed the first pastor of Stewart's Creek, and a presbytery was erected adjacent to the church in 1946, at a cost of £1,680.
The church has been painted many times since 1904 and the wooden stumps were replaced in 1974 with steel pipe stumps. The care with which this building has been maintained since 1904 has preserved its integrity.
","criteria":"St Brigid's Church at Stuart is important historically for its association with the expansion of the Catholic Church in the Townsville area in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, during the consolidation of Townsville as a major regional centre.
|Though similar to Catholic churches at Brandon and Torrens Creek, St Brigid's Church at Stuart remains highly intact and is a particularly fine example of a gabled, exposed-frame timber church with a timber vaulted ceiling and Gothic motifs, including lancet windows.
It retains most of the original furnishings, including the carved timber altar and timber pews.
|It remains an exceptional timber church, combining style and appeal with simplicity. It contributes pleasingly to the landscape along the Flinders Highway.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15658,"place_ref":600883,"name":"Bishop's Lodge","alternate_name":"Bishops Lodge","street_address":"13 St James Drive","suburb":"BELGIAN GARDENS","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Bishop's Lodge is a large timber building situated on an exposed northerly ridge of Castle Hill. The ground falls away from the house on three sides and the Lodge is visible from the surrounding suburb and from the sea. In turn the house has splendid views of Cleveland Bay towards Magnetic Island from its verandah.
The architect has used this position to advantage, creating a striking house which is a flamboyant blend of Victorian Gothic and vernacular architecture; perhaps appropriate for an English church transplanted to tropical Australia. It also responds well to the climate with wide verandahs right around the house to obtain the best of both breeze and view. A terrace at the front of the house has a lawn with trees and flowering shrubs.
Bishop's Lodge is symmetrical and roughly U-shaped in plan, enclosing a courtyard at the rear. It is set on low stumps and has steeply pitched gabled roofs clad in corrugated iron and topped with large decorative ventilators. In form it consists of two large wings parallel to each other and linked by a transverse section at the front. A wide passage through the centre of the building serves as a breezeway linking the front and rear verandahs, and effectively divides the house into two parts, with bedrooms on one side and living areas on the other.
The front elevation is dominated by the ends of the high twin gables. These extend across the verandah and are supported by decorative bracketed posts, creating two bays between which the central section runs. This has a lower roofline and a single ventilator in the centre of the ridge. At the centre of this section is a small gable forming an entrance porch. All three gables are decorated with timber bands placed to resemble half timbering. The central gable is surmounted by a cross.
The verandahs at the sides and centre front are also supported decorated timber posts and those at the front corners of the building have clusters of bracketed posts. The verandah balustrades are composed of wooden dowels. A modern metal security gate has been installed in the front porch.
The courtyard area has been developed as a covered greenhouse linked to the wide verandahs around the courtyard. Attached to the house by a covered way is a separate timber building, also with exterior studding. The building is raised on concrete stumps and has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron.
A modern concrete garage has been constructed to the rear of the house.
","history":"The Bishop's Lodge was constructed in 1897 to the design of Tunbridge and Tunbridge, an important Townsville architectural firm, as the residence of the Anglican Bishops of North Queensland, it has continued as the official residence ever since.
Townsville was established in November, 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a supply centre and by 1873 the port was receiving international as well as coastal traffic. By 1880 Townsville was the port for several major goldfields and had opened the first stage of the railway line westwards through Charters Towers and beyond, consolidating its importance as a port and mercantile centre.
Townsville was at first part of the diocese of New South Wales. Although it is not known when the first Church of England services were held in the township, it is known that the first services were conducted in the Court House, which was built by March 1866. A Reverend Searle visited intermittently from Bowen and requested the appointment of an incumbent to the parish of Townsville. This was accepted by the Reverend James Adams.
On 24 December, 1872, land for a church was purchased at the foot of Melton Hill by trustees James Gordon, Frederick Walker and William Aplin and St James Church was constructed with a vicarage beside it. By 1877 a school, St James English Church School, was in operation and in 1878 the diocese of North Queensland was created, with the new Bishop, George Henry Stanton, based in Townsville. There were 2 other Anglican churches, St Peter's at West End and St John's at South Townsville. In 1883 Bishop Stanton selected land in the suburb of Belgian Gardens for a bishop's residence. About the same time a movement began to erect a cathedral and the first stage of this was constructed between 1887 and 1892.
Presumably because the building of the cathedral took precedence, the bishop's residence was not begun until the next bishop, C.G. Barlow, was installed, having arrived in 1891. The lodge was constructed in 1897 to the design of the well known Townsville architectural firm of Tunbridge and Tunbridge. Walter Howard Tunbridge was born and trained as an architect in England. In 1884 he migrated to Australia and worked for Rooney Bros in Townsville. He left to establish his own practice in 1886 and invited his younger brother, Oliver, to join him in 1887, founding the partnership of Tunbridge and Tunbridge, who were to become an important architectural and civil engineering firm in North Queensland.
Of the bishops who have resided at the Lodge, John Oliver Feetham is particularly well known, partly because of his 35 years in office. Feetham was an attractive and eccentric personality, born in England in 1873 as the son of a vicar. Intelligent and well-educated himself, he took an interest in the provision education which was to be a focus for much of his work in North Queensland. Before becoming ordained, he carried out a lay ministry for 18 months in the slums of London, an influence that remained with him for life. Feetham came to Australia in 1904 as a principal of the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd. A strong belief in the value of the work being done by the Brotherhood to spread religion in the outback and a care for its people were distinctive marks of his episcopate. He was unanimously elected to the See in 1912.
Feetham died in his bed on the verandah of the Bishop's Lodge on 14 September 1947. In the 1960s he was designated by the Synod of the Diocese of North Queensland for liturgical commemoration and styled "Blessed John Oliver Feetham". In the 1970s a memorial chapel was established on the verandah where he died.
The Lodge, like many buildings in Townsville, has suffered damage from cyclones, notably in 1903 and 1971, followed by extensive repair work. In the 1970s a bathroom was added on the south west verandah and the Feetham chapel was created on the north east verandah by glassing in this area. This has preserved a view across the bay seen beyond the altar of the chapel.
During the 1970s, a considerable portion of the Lodge's land was subdivided. The house is still the official residence of the Bishops of North Queensland.
","criteria":"The Bishop's Lodge, as the first and subsequent, purpose-built, residence for the Anglican Bishop of North Queensland, is important in demonstrating the pattern of establishment and growth of the Anglican Church in North Queensland in the late 19th century.
|The Lodge has aesthetic value as a good example of a high quality, well detailed and fashionable residence of its era and was designed by one of North Queensland 's leading architectural firms.
|The Bishop's Lodge is closely associated with the life and work of the Blessed John Oliver Feetham, Anglican Bishop of North Queensland 1913-47. It is also associated with the important North Queensland architectural firm of Tunbridge and Tunbridge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15659,"place_ref":600884,"name":"Currajong","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"5 Castling Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Currajong is now located at 5 Castling Street, West End as part of a museum complex which includes a miner's cottage and a 1920s farmhouse. Currajong backs onto the street, overlooking Council parkland. It is a large, single storeyed timber dwelling raised on low brick piers. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The house is surrounded by wide verandahs supported by timber posts with decorative brackets and cross braced balustrading. There is a timber staircase with matching balustrading at the side of the house. The main stair to the front entrance is cement rendered and curves to widen at ground level.
The house contains seven rooms, two with verandah annexes. The core consists of four rooms paired on either side of a hall. An arched opening divides the rooms which originally were dining and drawing rooms.
It is interpreted as a conjectural Townsville interior furnished to demonstrate the lifestyle of an affluent family of the period.
","history":"Currajong is a large, single-storeyed timber residence which was built between 1887 and 1888 for Alfred MacKenzie who was a manager of the Australian Joint Stock Bank and had been a pioneer of the sugar industry in north Queensland. It was initially situated amongst other suburban villas in the then fashionable area along the road to Charters Towers.
\nIn 1885, subsection 4 of section 3 of portion 2A parish of Coonambelah was purchased from the estate of Robert Towns by Gilbert Francis Elliott. The following year he sold the land to his brother-in-law, Alfred Peter MacKenzie. In 1870, MacKenzie, together with his brother and sister, had pioneered sugar growing at Gairlock, near the present town of Ingham. It was not successful and MacKenzie worked for the AJS Bank at Charters Towers before being appointed to the branch in Townsville. At sometime during the period between September 1887, when MacKenzie was living in Stanton Hill, and during October 1888 he wrote to the Divisional Board from his new property on the Fullham Road, Currajong was built.
\nIn 1889, MacKenzie was transferred to Toowoomba and the property was sold in 1890 to Alfred Hunt. Hunt had major interests in mining and had been a member of the partnership which owned the Great Cumberland Mine at Georgetown. This had been sold in 1885 at a great profit and the proceeds financed investments in the pastoral industry, including Carpentaria Downs. Currajong is said to have been named after seedlings brought by Hunt from Carpentaria Downs to plant around the house. While in Townsville, Hunt was a director of the North Queensland Meat Export and Agency Company, the Townsville Newspaper Company and the Townsville Gas and Coke Company. He died in 1901 and his widow, Mary, continued to live at Currajong until she died in 1926.
\nThe house was then sold to John Joseph Fanning who was well known in business circles as the North Queensland manager of the National Mutual Life Assurance Company. He was also an identity in racing circles and rode as an amateur jockey and show rider. He owned horses and was a highly regarded judge of them. During his day, the stables at Currajong were well known. He was transferred to Brisbane in 1929 and died in 1931, whereon Currajong passed to James and Jessie Ferguson, whose background was in the pastoral industry. They occupied the house until the outbreak of World War Two, when it was requisitioned by the RAAF as a Medical Receiving Station.
\nIn order to convert the building to a medical facility, some changes were made to the layout of the rooms, although the form of the building was not changed. As the core consisted of two rooms on either side of a central hall, two of which were linked by an open arch, the wall between two bedrooms on the other side was removed to create two large wards. An operating theatre was added and toilets and showers were installed.
\nAlthough the building was initially intended to act as a training centre, it saw urgent use in 1942 when it received casualties from the fighting at Milne Bay. In December 1944, it was decided that the medical centre was no longer needed and the staff vacated the house by January of the following year.
\nMr and Mrs Ferguson did not return to the house after the war and it was rented out to a series of tenants until being purchased by the Redemptorist Fathers for use as a monastery in 1952. In 1955 the property passed to the Sisters of Mercy and the buildings of the new Mater Hospital were erected in the grounds over the next few years. Currajong, however, remained in use as a residence for the Sisters.
\nIn 1978, the land on which Currajong stood was needed for the expansion of the hospital and the house was scheduled for demolition. A major effort by the local branch of the National Trust of Queensland, Townsville City Council and the Sisters of Mercy enabled the house to be saved. A Federal grant was also secured to enable its transference to a new site at Castling Street, West End.
","criteria":"Currajong is significant for demonstrating the lifestyle of several families who were prominent in the development of north Queensland. Its conversion for use as a military medical facility in World War Two reflects the importance of Townsville in the conduct of the war in the Pacific.
|Although it has been relocated, Currajong is a good and early example of a large, late nineteenth century timber residence in Townsville.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15660,"place_ref":600885,"name":"Drystone Wall, Melton Hill, Townsville","alternate_name":"Townsville Supreme Court | Townsville Library and School of Arts/Licence Testing Centre | Queensland Transport","street_address":"2-4 Cleveland Terrace","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The former Townsville Supreme Court was an imposing one and two-storeyed timber building with a corrugated iron roof. It was located on the north-eastern side of Melton Hill, part of the foothills of Castle Hill (601218), and faced north over the Strand and Cleveland Bay. The platforms of the site are part of a series of terraces formed in the rocky hillside.
The site is on the corner of Melton and Cleveland Terraces. It sits between a group of public and government buildings (which includes the Customs House 600937 and the State Government Building 601384) on the lower side of the hill, and a group of substantial early residences higher on the hill to the west.
The condition of the drystone wall varies from sound to areas of partial collapse or missing stones. The wall is situated on the boundary of Lot 3 on EP2361 and Lot 6 on T118300. The site is generally rocky and granite ridges run through the base of the wall continuing down the slope. The approximate 800 mm width of the stone wall is neither straight nor parallel with the title boundary.
The wall is approximately 1.5 metres high however, it is thought to have been substantially higher, possibly as high as 1.8 metres. Extensive fallen rock is visible on the ground within Lot 3 on EP2361. The rocks used to construct the wall are of random size, with some as large as 400 x 300 x 500 mm, and smaller fragments scattered among them.
There is a 100 mm (4 inch) Metters cast iron pipe line running up the hill, approximately north-south, within Lot 6 on T118300. This descends into Cleveland Terrace where it enters an underground drain near a manhole manufactured by Northern Iron and Brass Foundry.
Following the wet season the drystone wall is mostly covered with creeper vine, which restricts visual reference and additional research into the feature.
","history":"The Drystone Wall, Melton Hill, Townsville is the only remaining physical evidence on the site of the former Townsville Supreme Court, which was constructed as the Townsville Library and School of Arts building. The building opened in September, 1877 and was designed and constructed by Townsville architect and building contractor Charles Alexander Ward, who "won a premium" of ten pound for the design. In 1889 the Supreme Court Bill provided for the relocation of Queensland's Northern Supreme Court from Bowen to Townsville. By the end of that year plans were underway to convert the School of Arts to house the Northern Supreme Court. The alterations were carried out by Townsville building firm Rooney Brothers.
The School of Arts Reserve on Melton Hill was proclaimed in 1872, close to the site of the first court and customs houses which were constructed by 1872 and the first Town Hall. Also nearby were private residences, most notably that of FA Fryer and John Melton Black, founder of Townsville. The earliest survey plan for Melton Hill dated 26 June 1865 shows John Melton Black as the owner of three acres of the top of the hill. There is also a sketch plan made in around 1867-8 for the Queensland Department of Public Works records shows John Melton Black's property extending down the hill as far as the north-eastern boundary of the School of Arts site. The main house, known as "Bachelor's Hall", was a four roomed building surrounded by verandahs with a detached kitchen. The main house was surrounded by four other buildings, an observatory and several structures downhill towards the original School of Arts site. It has been suggested that the drystone wall is the remains of the boundary walls of the property of James Melton Black, which if correct, would make them the oldest surviving structure in Townsville.
Planning for the School of Arts building began in January 1877 when the Committee sought government funding for the project. The government offered a thousand pound if the local community raised five hundred pound. Difficulties arose over the location of the School of Arts on Melton Hill. Heated discussion took place within the Committee and in the community over whether the reserved land was too far from the business centre of the town, which, by 1877 was already moving westward along Flinders St. Argument revolved around a site in Sturt St, one in Flinders St near Denham St, and the Melton Hill site. Finally, at a meeting of the committee on 11 January, 1877, the motion to build the new School of Arts on Melton Hill was carried 14 votes to 12.
On 3 February, 1877 the School of Arts Committee resolved to call tenders for plans and specifications for the new building which was to have a large hall, reading room, a library and a room for a museum. The committee offered "a premium of ten pound" for the best plan. In March, 1877 the committee considered the five plans submitted and by an almost unanimous vote chose the design prepared by Charles Alexander Ward, of Townsville. Charles Ward worked in various capacities, as a contractor, joiner and cabinet maker. He operated a workshop which made furniture to order, as well as selling bedsteads and sewing machines. Besides the School of Arts he was architect and builder of a number of public and commercial buildings in Townsville including the Queensland Hotel (demolished)...
Ward's tender for the construction of the School of Arts was accepted with the building completed by September, 1877. The building was designed with a double storeyed section at the front and a hall behind. On the ground floor a central passageway led to the hall with a committee room and library on either side above the two front rooms was a reading room. The hall was 80'x35', with a deep stage and a gallery at the upper level. The building had a corrugated iron roof and was constructed of timber imported from Maryborough.
On the 18 September 1877 a concert was given by the Orpheus Glee Club, which is believed to have marked the opening of the new School of Arts.
The new building became the focus of social and cultural life in Townsville. The School of Arts, which had the largest hall in the town, became the entertainment centre for the community. Concerts both by local amateurs and visiting theatrical troupes were staged regularly. It housed the first presentations of both full operas and oratorios in the town. It was also used as the first skating rink; it housed the exhibits of the early Townsville Shows and provided a venue for lectures on a variety of topics. Balls, fancy dress balls and banquets such as the one staged to greet the Premier in 1885, were also held in the building. The first evening classes in the town were held there. French, popular physiology, natural history, botany, photography, German, bookkeeping, architectural drawing and freehand drawing were some of the subjects taught.
Once the building was officially opened and operating, the Committee carried out a series of modifications. It appears that the installation of ceilings was not part of the original contract because the Committee "... decided to invite estimates for ceiling the hall, library and committee rooms of the building" in July, 1875. Between 1877 and 1889, a skillion extension to the south was constructed and in 1878 a handsome proscenium was built especially for an amateur performance.
In 1874, as a result of the rapid development of North Queensland, the Queensland Government decided to appoint a Supreme Court judge to serve the northern part of the colony from Bowen. However, as Townsville's importance in the region grew there was a move to relocate the court.
In September 1887 the issue was debated in parliament and a decision was made to relocate Queensland's Northern Supreme Court to Townsville. However, no action was taken at the time. In May, 1888 there was a change of government and two members for Townsville were elected. In March, 1889 a delegation of nine northern members requested the Premier implement the 1887 resolution, with the result that in September, 1889 the Supreme Court Bill was introduced which provided for the appointment of a second northern judge and for the removal of the court to Townsville.
While it appeared that the government first planned to construct a new court building, by December, 1889 plans were underway to convert the School of Arts for use as the Northern Supreme Court. No information has been found on the purchase of the School of Arts, however, a new theatre and library on the corner of Stanley and Walker Streets, were opened 27 May, 1891 by the School of Arts Committee, using funds from the sale of the Melton Hill building.
The conversion of the building for use by the Supreme Court was dogged with difficulties. Well known North Queensland building and timber merchant firm Rooney Brothers, were selected by the Justice Department to do the work at a cost of between £950 and £1000 This quote covered the cost of the removal of skillion rooms and extension of the main building 20ft to the rear. The two storey portion of the building was to be extended 30ft over the hall and the stage was to be removed. Furniture for the Court Room was to be provided as well.
Rooney Brothers do not appear to have signed a contract nor were drawings prepared. Matthew Rooney was seen as a practical man who had particular expertise in solving problems using his skill with design and it is possible that he was chosen to carry out the alterations to the building because he was seen to have the required skills. During construction Rooney made design suggestions ie the extension of the western verandah and a flight of stairs to give the judge easy access to his rooms. Matthew Rooney also suggested that the windows be enlarged with circular heads and a lantern light be installed in the upper corridor to increase light in the building. The alterations cost £2703 and were the cause of some dispute with the Department of Works despite the fact that the extra work was authorised during construction.
Mr Justice Chubb, newly appointed Northern Judge is believed to have been involved in design changes to the building as well. The extent of his involvement is not known and , indeed, when the cost of alterations became an issue, he denied any substantial interference. It is known, however, that he did order the installation of venetian shutters.
During the subsequent one hundred years the building was altered in minor ways and severely damaged by cyclones on several occasions. In 1896 Cyclone Sigma caused damage to the roof, broke the lantern light to the upper hall, the roof of the strong room was blown off and the walls of the building damaged with water. In 1903 Cyclone Leonta damaged the roof, and destroyed the jury room. Roof damage occurred in 1940 and major damage to the whole building, including the roof, occurred in 1971 during Cyclone Althea. On New Years Eve, 1965 an explosion, at the entrance to the building, destroyed the front doors. In 1961, a cell block was moved to the site from Railway Estate Police Station after the old cell block was demolished.
In 1970 the Supreme Court moved to new premises and the Vehicle Licensing Division of Department of Transport occupied the front section of the building. The building became vacant after the Department of Transport moved to new premises in the mid 1980s. In 1972 the caretaker's residence was sold for removal. In 1994 the roof was reinstated using Federal "One Nation" funding. The building was also painted around this time. However, on 14 April 1998, before the conservations works could be finished the Former Townsville Supreme Court building was destroyed by fire. What little of the timber building that remained after the fire was later removed from the site due to safety concerns. The remains of the late nineteenth century drystone wall is the only remaining physical evidence on the site. At the time the building was destroyed it was described as:
The axis of the building is north-south, with the main entry at the northern end facing Cleveland Terrace. The north facade has a two-storeyed verandah with crossed timber balustrades and curved boarded valances to both levels, and a central projecting portico with paired timber posts topped with a pediment and a flagpole as finial. The double entry doors have an arched fanlight, and large single pane double-hung windows with arched heads to either side. Behind are two levels of offices and chambers each side of a central corridor.
This northern section of the building has hipped roofs in a U-shaped configuration. There is a glazed lantern with curved domed roof on one of the ridges. The double-hung windows, smaller than the those of the front, have two panes per sash and are shaded by continuous curved corrugated iron hoods. The walls are clad in weatherboards.
The interior of this section has walls lined with wide horizontal beaded boards, and high ceilings of double beaded boards. The entry has the remnant of a gold painted sign beside the arched opening. The room beside the entry retains its moulded timber counter. In the cupboard under the stair are small remnants of theatrical posters dating from 1879-1880. Doors here are typically low-waisted four panel, some with fanlights. The floors are timber boards.
In the upper level, the lantern provides a boarded rooflight to the central corridor. At the end of the corridor, an arched opening and timber balustrade form a balcony which overlooks the Courtroom. To the very upper portion of the walls is a panel of perforated zinc ventilation grilles. The former Judges chambers retain their cedar bookshelves. From this level, the northern verandah has views over Cleveland Bay.
Detached to the west of this section is the strongroom of painted brick. It has a curved corrugated iron roof, iron door and small barred window.
The central part of the building is the single-storeyed Courtroom. The gabled roof has dormer windows and ventilators along its ridge. On the east side is the Courtroom's gabled entry porch, which has a scalloped bargeboard, boarded valance and timber posts with capitals. A verandah with similar valance runs the length of the western side. From this verandah, an external timber stair leads to the Judges' chambers.
The Courtroom has exposed scissor trusses with stop-chamfered members, and raked ceilings lined in diagonal boarding above. There is a dormer window to each side of the ridge. The large double-hung windows, two to each side, have single pane sashes and arched heads, and are similar to those beside the main entry. Again, the walls are lined in horizontal beaded boards and the floors timber.
To the southern end of the Courtroom is an elevated timber stage, with stairs to either side. Court furniture retained in place includes the cedar judges' bench with screen behind, the stand for the witness box, the defendant's dock, the jury stand, and a timber rail and tiered benches for the public at the rear.
To the rear of the Courtroom are three small offices at the level of the stage. From here, a link of latticed walls and curved corrugated iron roof connects to the Jury Room to the east. The Jury Room is a single timber room, with toilets added to the north. Its subfloor construction includes brickwork of an earlier building in this position. It has a pyramid roof and ventilator at its apex, and timber hoods to its windows.
Behind this block is a small brick shower room, with lean-to roof and boarded shutter. Behind the shower and of similar height, is a stone pitched retaining wall marking the rear of the site.
Along the western side of the main building runs a graded brick retaining wall, forming the terrace of the remainder of the site. Further to the west, is a timber cell block and a timber toilet block.
","criteria":"The Drystone Wall, Melton Hill, Townsville is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history. The drystone wall is all that remains on the site of the Former Townsville Supreme Court building. Initially constructed as a Library and School of Arts in 1877, the building was one of the largest timber School of Arts buildings in Queensland. It played an important part in the social life of Townsville in the late 1870s and through the 1880s. When it was completed the hall was the premier entertainment venue in Townsville. For 86 years the building served as the only timber supreme court building in Queensland. It is also distinguished by the fact that it was a converted building, which differed from the usual practice of purpose built court houses.
|The Drystone Wall, Melton Hill, Townsville has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history. In particular, the drystone pitched wall on Lot 3 on EP2361 and Lot 6 on T118300, have the potential to yield information on the early government and residential area of Townsville. The wall is believed to have been constructed in the late 19th Century and has characteristic British origins, with its approximate 800 mm width consistent with English walls. There is the possibility that the drystone wall may be associated with John Melton Black's private residence on Melton Hill c.1867, it has the potential to extend the current body of knowledge about this early civic leader.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15661,"place_ref":600886,"name":"Warringa","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"26 Cleveland Terrace","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Warringa is a large, single-storeyed brick residence located on a prominent site on Melton Hill, overlooking Cleveland Bay. The house is situated in a suburban environment among dwellings of a similar or earlier period, most of which are set amid tropical gardens. The house has a traditional plan form: a square core with pyramid-shaped roof of corrugated galvanised iron, and wide encircling verandahs with roofs separate from the main roof and decorated with cast-iron balustrading, fretwork brackets and double timber posts. A highly decorated portico projects over front steps centrally positioned. Two wings at the back of the house create a u-shaped courtyard, in which a small garden has been established. One is the original kitchen wing, now modified as two guest rooms; the other wing is a recent addition, comprising kitchen and sitting-room above a 3-car garage. Internally the building has high ceilings [some with pressed metal], large rooms, walls of rendered brick, and substantial silky oak joinery, including a large archway between lounge and dining rooms.
","history":"Warringa was erected in 1912 for Swiss-born Jacob Leu, a partner in the prominent Townsville law firm of Roberts and Leu, and his wife Susan. The builder was Edward Crowder of Townsville. Leu's parents had emigrated to Queensland in 1871, when Jacob was a child. He completed his education in Brisbane and in 1876 commenced his articles with Brisbane solicitor Daniel Foley Roberts. In 1881, Roberts' son George Alexander Roberts established a practice in Townsville, and Leu went with him as an articled clerk. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1884, Leu joined GA Roberts as a partner, the firm of Roberts and Leu developing into North Queensland's most prominent law practice. In 1886, Leu married Susan Hansen Overland. Following Jacob Leu's death in 1921, Susan Leu left Warringa. George Vivian Roberts (jnr), grandson of George Alexander Roberts, purchased the house in 1981.
","criteria":"Warringa, erected in 1912, is of cultural heritage significance for its class, aesthetic character and historical associations. It is an exceptional example of a large and elegant house of the late Federation era which is quite rare in the Townsville region, and even rarer for its use of brick at this period. It makes a prominent aesthetic contribution to the Cleveland Terrace streetscape and to the Townsville townscape. The place is also significant for its close associations with Jacob Leu and GV Roberts [jnr], both of whom were/are principal partners in the longstanding and influential North Queensland legal firm of Roberts, Leu and North.
|It is an exceptional example of a large and elegant house of the late Federation era which is quite rare in the Townsville region, and even rarer for its use of brick at this period.
|Warringa, erected in 1912, is of cultural heritage significance for its class, aesthetic character and historical associations.
|It makes a prominent aesthetic contribution to the Cleveland Terrace streetscape and to the Townsville townscape.
|The place is also significant for its close associations with Jacob Leu and GV Roberts [jnr], both of whom were/are principal partners in the longstanding and influential North Queensland legal firm of Roberts, Leu and North.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15662,"place_ref":600887,"name":"St James Cathedral","alternate_name":"St Jame's Cathedral | St James Anglican Cathedral","street_address":"36 Cleveland Terrace","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St James Anglican Cathedral, constructed in English Bond red brick with dressed sandstone trim, is located on a terraced site on Melton Hill between the Townsville central business district and Cleveland bay.
The Gothic Revival building was built in two stages, both of which are quite obvious, both in materials and design. The main roof is clad with slate and has a small spire over the nave and transept junction. The lower roof to the side aisles and ambulatory has ribbed metal cladding.
The chancel is surrounded by an ambulatory which contains the vestry and a Seaman's Chapel. The north transept has a large organ loft inserted and the roof features exposed trusses with a diagonally boarded ceiling. Cast iron columns with clerestory above separate the side aisles from the nave. The clerestory of the original section of the building contains stained glass windows.
The 1959 addition appears to be a Modernist interpretation of what was originally intended. It has amber glass hopper windows with external concrete screens to the nave. The west entry consists of a large recessed pointed arch with undistinguished mosaic artwork to both the interior and exterior. The floors are of concrete and the building features carved timber pews, reredos screen and pulpit. A large statue of St James is attached to a bell tower on the northern side of the entrance.
A 1950s Deanery is located to the northern side of the building, above an excavated stone embankment and facing Cleveland Terrace. This building is outside the listing boundary.
A single-storeyed timber Synod Hall [600888], on a separate site, is located to the east of the building beyond a large bitumen carpark.
","history":"St James Cathedral was erected in two stages, 1887-1892 and 1959-60, for the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland. The first church on this site was a shingle-roofed, weatherboard building erected in 1871, and prior to its construction, Anglican services in Townsville were conducted at the court house.
When Townsville was established in the mid-1860s, its Anglican parishioners were part of the diocese of New South Wales. In 1878 the diocese of North Queensland was created, with the new bishop, George Henry Stanton, based at St James' Church in Townsville. Stanton initiated the cathedral project, and in 1885 architect Arthur Blacket of Blacket Brothers, Sydney - sons of Edmund Blacket, the New South Wales colonial architect - was commissioned to design a cathedral church, to be erected on the hill behind St James Church. The original design was for a church built in stone, with a low wide central tower which would act as a ventilation shaft, and a single tower at the northern door. It was to cost £24,000, but would be built in sections.
The first sod was turned on 27 June 1887, and the building was erected by Townsville contractors MacMahon & Cliffe. Subsequent financial constraints forced changes to the design, and the cathedral was constructed in brick, with concrete facings, a temporary roof and no towers.
Following protracted dispute between the Sydney architect and the church building committee, Arthur Blacket's services were dispensed with in 1890, prior to completion of the building. Complete supervision of the final stages of construction was entrusted to Townsville architect Walter Morris Eyre, who had been acting as supervising architect since the commencement of building. This first stage of the cathedral was consecrated on 27 October 1892.
The original cathedral organ was donated to the cathedral parish by SE Holland in 1884, and installed in St James Church in 1885. In 1892 it was moved to the cathedral. Between 1900 and 1902 a second organ was purchased from North Ward, and the two were coupled together until rebuilt as one instrument in 1958.
In 1903 cyclone Leonta demolished the 1871 St James Church, and the roof of the cathedral. The latter was rebuilt with higher walls and a permanent roof.
The second stage of the cathedral, the 1959-60 western extension and tower, was designed in 1955 by Melbourne architect Louis Williams, with Townsville architects Black and Paulsen responsible for its execution. The statue of St James was sculptured by German-born Brisbane sculptor, Erwin Guth.
The main western facade together with the statue of St James, part of the roof and a section of the eastern wall were severely damaged by cyclone Althea in 1972, and restored in the same year. The completed cathedral was consecrated in 1978. It also serves as a concert hall in the wider Townsville community.
The deanery adjacent to the cathedral was erected in 1959-60, replacing an earlier structure. It does not form part of this listing.
","criteria":"St James Cathedral, erected in two stages 1887-92 and 1959-60, is important in demonstrating the pattern of establishment and growth of the Anglican Church in North Queensland in the late 19th century.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community in general, and by the Townsville Anglican congregation in particular, namely the contribution of the building, in its scale, form and materials, to the Townsville landscape; its value as a major Townsville landmark; and the quality and craftsmanship of its interior and furnishings.
|It has had a strong and special association as a centre of Anglican worship and community life in Townsville for over a century, and as part of an historic church grouping which includes Synod Hall (1888) [600888].
|It has a special association with the work of 19th century Sydney architect Arthur Blacket and with 20th century Melbourne architect Louis Williams, and their contributions to ecclesiastical architecture in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15663,"place_ref":600888,"name":"Synod Hall","alternate_name":"Parish Room | Jubilee Hall","street_address":"36 Cleveland Terrace","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Synod Hall is nestled into the south-western side of Melton Hill, which separates Townsville's central business district from Cleveland Bay, and is part of the foothills to the east of Castle Hill [601218]. The hall is sited to the east of St James Cathedral [600887] on a small terrace, with thicket behind and the stony hillside falling away from the front of the building. The principle facade overlooks the city centre to the south, and is prominent from Denham Street, a major thoroughfare.
The hall is a rectangular timber building on a near north-south axis, with verandahs along both sides. The gabled roof is painted corrugated iron, with a gabled ridge vent running most of its length, and a lean-to roof to each verandah. At each end of the ridge is a finial-like timber cross.
The building is set close to ground level on a concrete slab, with the timber framing mounted on hobs. The walls are lined with chamferboards and the timber framing exposed externally. Above the windows and within the gables the walls are sheeted with chamferboards externally also.
The southern facade facing the city has three tall narrow openings, symmetrically arranged. The outer two are a pair of timber louvre shutters, with corrugated iron hoods over. The central opening has similar shutters and a fixed panel of louvres above, plus a more ornate gabled hood.
The building is approached from the elevated carpark to the west. The western verandah is open, apart from a small store to the rear also of exposed framing. The verandah is framed in stop-chamfered posts and rafters. Opening onto the verandah are two substantial sliding doors clad in beaded boards, with panels of open timber battening above. Other doors are also boarded.
The eastern verandah is enclosed as a kitchen, clad with external chamferboards and glass louvres, and lined with fibrous cement sheet. Towards the rear, the Green Room projects past the line of the verandah, and is clad in chamferboards with panels of fixed timber louvres.
The internal walls of the hall are the beaded face of the horizontal cladding boards. There is a timber floor to the hall, and a timber stage to the northern end.
The ceiling is divided into six bays by curved and moulded timber brackets, joined by tie rods across the room. A pressed metal ceiling rose is centred within each bay. The ceiling also is lined with beaded boards, running diagonally where the ceiling rakes up to the collar tie.
Behind the stage are two windows of adjustable timber louvres, trimmed with moulded architraves and with triangular pediments over.
","history":"Synod Hall was opened during the first week of January, 1898.
Townsville was founded in November, 1864. Although it is not known when the first Church of England services were held in the township it is known that the first services were conducted in the Court House, which was built by March 1866. These services were conducted by local lay preachers or itinerant ministers. In February, 1866 Rev Mr Searle, visiting minister from Bowen, requested the appointment of an incumbent to the parish of Townsville with Rev James Adams accepting the position by mid 1866.
On 24 December, 1872 land for a church was purchased on Melton Hill by trustees James Gordon, Frederick Walker and William Aplin. In February, 1884 control of the land passed to the Corporation of the Diocesan Synod of North Queensland.
On 18 November, 1887 tenders were called for the construction of a 'Parish Room', to be built to a design prepared by Townsville architectural firm Eyre and Munro. The building does not appear to have been constructed at that time because the Mayor and Alderman of the Townsville Town Council received a letter, dated Thursday, 30 December 1897, from St James Parochial Council inviting them to the official opening of the Jubilee Hall on the following Wednesday, 5 January 1898.
The new hall, constructed in 1897, the Diamond Jubilee Year of Queen Victoria, was given the name Jubilee Hall. It is intersting to note that 1887, the year tenders were first called for a "Parish Room", was the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The 1897 hall may have been constructed to a design by Townsville architect Walter Morris Eyre, a member of the Cathedral Committee and supervising architect for the Sydney firm of Blacket and Sons, designers of St James Cathedral. Eyre took over the supervision of the construction of the Cathedral after the Diocese dispensed with the services of Arthur Blacket on 5 March 1890. By 1897, Eyre who was no longer in partnership with Munro, was practicing as an architect, civil engineer and building inspector. He was also still on the Cathedral Committee and it seems probable that he designed the Jubilee Hall.
After it was constructed the hall became a focus for parish and diocesan activities including the gathering of the Ninth Synod of the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland who met in 1898 soon after the building was opened. The name was later changed to Synod Hall, probably because the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland continued to hold their meetings in the building.
In 1899 Miss Florence Buchanan of Thursday Island, was invited by Bishop Barlow to work among Chinese and Japanese children in Townsville. A Japanese school was opened in Synod Hall by Miss Buchanan and a school for Chinese children was opened in the Mission Hall, constructed below Synod Hall. The Japanese school continued at least until 1902 when Miss Buchanan returned to Thursday Island. The mission hall was destroyed in Cyclone Leonta in 1902 and does not appear to have been rebuilt.
At one time the Anglican High School for Girls (later St Ann's School) held classes in the hall and in 1903, while repairs were being carried out after St James Cathedral was damaged during cyclone Leonta, Synod Hall was used for church services.
Several early photographs show the Synod Hall from the early 1900s. The land between the hall and the cathedral was level, with access to the hall via a driveway rising up between the buildings. The north-western verandah has changed little, but there was a handrail between the posts with blinds behind. The south-eastern verandah was similar to the other, being open at the front with some infill panels of boarding between posts towards the rear. This confirms that the present Green Room was a later addition, perhaps between the wars. At the front is a decorative fretwork panel above the gable tie. On the flat land between the two buildings, photographs from the inter-war period show a structure which appears to be a tennis court.
The hall, used as a parish centre for one hundred years, lost this central roll after a new parish building was constructed on a nearby site in the 1980s. In keeping with it's past role as a social and administrative centre, the building is presently leased to the Townsville Little Theatre and is used as a rehearsal studio, performance venue and headquarters for the theatre company.
","criteria":"Synod Hall demonstrates the early development of Townsville and the growth of the Anglican Church in North Queensland. It housed the meetings of the Synod, church services during repairs to the Cathedral, school classes and social and community functions. It is one of a group of buildings, including St James Cathedral [600887], which still form the focus of the Anglican Church in Townsville.
|Built in 1897, it is one of few surviving examples of a timber public building constructed with an exposed timber frame, a technique important in the development of North Queensland. It is also one of few surviving timber public buildings in Townsville from that period.
|Its design demonstrates a response to the tropical climate with the use of a substantial roof vent, side verandahs and sliding doors, and timber shutters and window hoods. These hoods, shutters and other ornamentation of the primary facade combine to form a composition of architectural competence.
|The hall, whilst not imposing, is a landmark on the city side of Melton Hill. It overlooks the Central Business District of Townsville, and is readily appreciated from Denham Street, a major thoroughfare.
|The hall has had a long association with the Anglican community, functioning as a parish centre for almost a century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15664,"place_ref":600889,"name":"James Cook University Department of Public Health and Tropical Medicine Building","alternate_name":"Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine | Anton Breinl Centre | JCU","street_address":"Clifton Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Anton Breinl Centre is a two-storeyed rectangular building with encircling two-storey timber verandah. It is located within the grounds of the Townsville General Hospital, dwarfed behind Blocks 'A' and 'B', which now have the views of the bay. Facing north-east, it sits on the corner of an internal roadway, on a sloping site being partly cut into the hill, and partly mounted on a plinth. There is a garden of palms and tropical plants to the north-eastern and north-western sides.
The corrugated steel roof is half-hipped with gablets to the front and rear. The timber verandah has a dowelled balustrade to the upper level, and a boarded valance, ripple iron ceiling and concrete floor to the lower level. From the upper level are views to the north over adjoining buildings. The south-east and south-west verandahs are enclosed and clad with chamferboards.
The external walls are rendered masonry, with external engaged piers. There are french doors and casement windows to both levels, opening onto the verandahs. The internal walls are vertical beaded tongue-and-groove boards.
The Ground Floor has a central corridor with offices to either side accessed through four-panel doors with fanlights. Within the corridor are several display cases containing equipment and photographs of Anton Breinl's trips to Papua in 1912 and 1913. This equipment includes a microscope, rifle, camera and various medical equipment.
The First Floor contains the Library and laboratory spaces. The Library has a pressed metal ceiling and timber bookshelves and cabinets. One cabinet contains a collection of journals owned by Anton Breinl, including Bulletin of Hygiene from 1927, Journal of Hygiene from 1930, and Tropical Diseases Bulletin from 1925. One of the laboratories has been named the Angelo Gabrielli Research Laboratory.
","history":"The Anton Breinl Centre was opened on the 28th June 1913 by the Queensland Governor Sir William MacGregor.
During the early years of the twentieth century there was much debate in Europe and Australia about the need for research into tropical diseases. British debate was motivated by economic and commercial imperatives rather than a concern for the health and welfare of the Empire. According to late nineteenth century thinking and beliefs the tropics were seen as unsuitable for white people because of confused notions about race, place and causes of disease. Certain diseases were believed to be related to place and climate although research was to show that disease was related to social and economic environment as well. These long held European ideas reinforced the belief that there was a need for medical research in order to ensure the economic success of European colonies in tropical regions.
In response to the thinking and concerns of the day research schools were opened in 1899 in London and Liverpool. Following Britain's lead European colonial powers also opened research institutes. At first Australia sent funds to the British institutes to support their research program but, by 1902, Australian medical practitioners were suggesting that a similar research facility be established in Australia.
The establishment of an Australian research centre was seen imperative after malaria parasites were discovered in blood samples in Cairns. Anglican Bishop Frodsham of Townsville led the campaign after a member of his staff died from an unknown disease. He gained local support and in 1907 Gordon Ross, Medical Superintendent of the Townsville Hospital, recommended to the Department of Health that a pathologist be employed to research and treat patients suffering from a number of tropical diseases. Ross' plan was to discover the causes of disease in order to prevent further outbreaks.
In 1908, responding to the concerns of the medical profession and the community, the Government decided to establish an institute in North Queensland, although some concern was expressed about the distance of the research centre from southern medical schools. While generally the medical profession hoped that the inaugural doctor would be Australian, Dr Anton Breinl, an Austrian, was appointed. Breinl, who arrived in Townsville on 1 January, 1910, had been working in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He was an exceptional medical scientist who had received awards for his contribution to tropical medicine, particularly for his work with H. Wolferstan Thomas, on a cure for sleeping sickness. The treatment he helped develop, using an organic arsenical "atoxyl", later became a corner stone in the early development of chemotherapy.
Breinl and his laboratory assistant Fielding, were the only members of the New Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine. They were housed in a three room building which had been a wardsman's quarters in the grounds of Townsville Hospital. Part of the work included field work collecting native fauna for examination in the laboratory, examining data for medical practitioners and collection of data.
By 1911 Breinl was able to show the need for more staff and better premises when the Commonwealth Government gave approval for expanded research into physiological and anthropological problems associated with white people living in the tropics. To facilitate this growth in research a new laboratory and animal house was constructed. The new Institute was opened on the 28th of June 1913 by Queensland Governor, Sir William MacGregor.
In 1912 the staff was increased to six with the employment of a parasitologist, bacteriologist, biochemist and entomologist. The work of the Institute expanded as the scientists investigated diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, filariasis, typhoid, hookworm, many unidentified fevers, amoebic dysentery, tropical sprue, leprosy, yaws and gangosa. During this period Breinl identified Amoebic Dysentery during one of his research trip to New Guinea.
The outbreak of World War 1 and the loss of hospital staff seriously affected the work of the Institute. Breinl had to assume the role of Medical Superintendent of the Townsville Hospital and Quarantine Officer while at the same time continuing his research at the Institute. During the war years he also treated servicemen sent from New Guinea and from the Middle East who were suffering from malaria. In early January 1916 Breinl resigned from the position of Quarantine Officer after becoming embroiled in a bitter public controversy over his Sudeten ancestry. While many in the community supported Dr Breinl and valued his work others called for his deportation or suggested that he be confined behind "barbed wire".
Despite his resignation from the Quarantine position Breinl continued his research work in the Institute. Unfortunately, after the war, the Commonwealth tightened control over finances and the direction of research. Staff were not replaced and by 1920 Breinl was the only medical staff member. Research became impossible because of the lack of funds and staff for field trips. After the Institute was absorbed into the newly established Commonwealth Department of Health, Breinl lost control, completely, of the direction of research. He resigned in October 1921 and spent the rest of his life in private practice in Townsville.
A succession of directors followed Breinl's resignation, including Raphael Cilento, appointed in 1923. Cilento remained Director until 1928. In 1930 the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine was moved to the School of Health at the University of Sydney.
Drawings dated 1957 show the Ground Floor including TB labs, Research Labs, and an Acoustics Test Room, and the north end of the First Floor converted to a Bachelor's Flat.
By 1971, survey drawings called the building the 'Commonwealth Health Laboratory, Townsville'.
Drawings dated 1984 show planning for the 'restoration' of the Tropical Institute was underway.
About 1990, the Angelo Gabrielli Research Laboratory was installed as a memorial, with assistance from Townsville Mt Stuart Lions Club. The work was done by the Gabrielli family building firm whose director, Angelo died of a rare tropical disease.
A plaque within the corridor says the Anton Breinl Centre for Tropical Medicine was officially opened by the Honourable Neal Blewett, Minister for Social Security on 2 July 1992.
","criteria":"The Public Health and Tropical Medicine building, constructed as the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in 1913, was the first tropical institute in Australia, and important in establishing tropical medical research in North Queensland.
The building was one of a group of international Institutes of Tropical Medicine, and its research was recognised internationally.
|Although not the first building they used, it was the first building purpose built for this use. Opened in 1913, it is the oldest surviving building in the Townsville General Hospital complex, and the last of that style surviving.
|Now part of the James Cook University, it is still in use as a research facility for tropical medicine. The Library, which is substantially intact, contains collections of journals which belonged to Anton Breinl.
|The building is significant for its association with the work of Anton Breinl, an exceptional medical scientist who, before his arrival in Australia in 1910, had received awards for his contribution to tropical medical research. During his time as director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine, Breinl instigated research into many tropical diseases, identifying several and, along with other team members, developed treatment for many of the diseases which plagued early settlers in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15665,"place_ref":600890,"name":"Australian Meat Industry Employees Union (Queensland Branch)","alternate_name":"Bank of New South Wales","street_address":"101-111 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Australian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU) building is a two-storeyed stuccoed masonry structure on the corner of Flinders Street East and Wickham Street, Townsville. With the Tattersalls Hotel (600916), the Queensland Insurance Building (600909) and the Burns Philp and Company Ltd building (600914), it forms a group of late-19th century commercial buildings on the four corners of this intersection. Flinders Street East also retains many other late-19th century commercial masonry buildings.
The principle facades of the AMIEU building are set on the street alignments of Flinders and Wickham Streets, and joined by a curved bay at the street corner. The facades are asymmetrical, and are divided by pilasters and by a horizontal moulded string course between the levels. In each bay are sets of windows, mostly double hung but some louvres and fixed lights to the curved bay at the corner, all with external moulded architraves,.
The simple squared parapet has a moulded and bracketed cornice above the windows, and a higher decorative parapet with 'Bank of NSW' in relief above the main Flinders Street entrance. This entrance is emphasised by moulded pilasters to either side, decorative plasterwork and a segmented arch over the doorway.
Behind the parapet is a hipped roof with moulded chimneys and ventilators. The facades not facing the street have little decoration, apart from the two-storeyed verandah to the north-eastern end of the building. The upper level of the verandah, now enclosed with louvres and fibro, has segmental arched openings and cast iron balustrade, and the lower level has moulded semi-circular archways infilled with timber and masonry.
Through the Flinders Street entry doors is a decorative timber vestibule, with timber and glass panelled walls and doors, which leads to the former banking chamber. The former chamber features highly decorative pressed metal ceilings, moulded architraves and dados, and two central decorative cast iron columns. It also has a concrete safe which retains its safe door and some timber shelving, and a curious window opening to the stair landing reputedly for managers to supervise their staff from above.
From Wickham Street is a second entrance lobby, and vestibule with tessellated tiles. The timber stair features substantial newels, twisted balusters, and boarding to the underside. From the mid landing is the window opening to the former chamber, and a doorway to a small room and stair to the exterior.
The remainder of the Ground Floor includes several former offices between the chamber and the stair, and a series of small service rooms to the rear. Projecting from the north-western corner of the building is a single-storey wing, with three small former services rooms opening onto a common verandah. This wing has details consistent with the two-storey part of the building.
The First Floor has a central corridor with rooms opening to either side. The corridor is divided by a pedimented and panelled partition with a pair of glazed French doors, and by an adjacent fibro partition. The First Floor interior features moulded timber skirtings and architraves, some panelled doors with toplights, some double hung windows, and decorative metal ceilings and cornices.
At the top of the main stair is a hall, divided by a square arch with panelled architraves, and by a fibro partition with a small hatch. To the north-eastern end of this level is a verandah enclosed with louvres and fibro sheet, but with the cast iron balustrade still visible from the exterior.
At the north-western corner of the site is a rectangular concrete building, mostly covered with vines and other vegetation. It is a single room, with access from a covered entrance porch.
To the western end of the site is the garage, reputedly the former stables, which is constructed of brick with a corrugated iron skillion roof, double-hung windows and boarded doors. Access to the western yard is through a rendered masonry fence on the Flinders Street alignment. Along the north-eastern boundary is a face brick fence, with a curved coping, engaged piers and recessed panels.
","history":"The Australian Meat Employees Industry Union Building was built for the Bank of New South Wales in 1887. It was third building which the bank had constructed. Built by Townsville builder Denis Kelleher at a cost of £7,500, the building was probably designed by Sydney architect John Smedley, with construction supervised by architect WM Eyre of the Townsville firm of Eyre and Munro and Brisbane architect FDG Stanley.
\nThe Bank of New South Wales was the second banking company to be established in Townsville. The Australian Joint Stock Bank opened on 19 February 1866 and the Bank of New South Wales on 20 March 1866.
\nThe Bank of New South Wales was founded in 1817 in Sydney, New South Wales. In 1851 Robert Towns, a Sydney businessman, became a shareholder. During the early 1860s Towns formed a business partnership with John Melton Black in his North Queensland properties and investment speculations, including the establishment of a port on Cleveland Bay. Keen to protect his investment in the new settlement at the port and to encourage the expansion of the Bank of New South Wales into North Queensland, Towns facilitated the establishment of a branch of the bank in Townsville within a year of settlement.
\nThe first branch building, leased from Towns and Black, was located in Flinders Street East near the site of the present building, but the managers and staff soon complained that the building was hot and plagued by mosquitoes from Ross Creek. A decision was made to move after Queensland Bank Inspector, Alexander Archer, reported that the bank and its records were unsafe located amongst a group of wooden buildings.
\nThe second bank building and a manager's residence were constructed in 1869 on the corner of Wickham Street and The Strand on the present Customs House site (600937). While these premises were well placed for the sea breezes, the building was again deemed unsuitable because of the distance from the centre of town and the difficulty of access via Wickham Street.
\nBy August 1875 the Bank of New South Wales had purchased a new site closer to the centre of town while still taking advantage of the sea breezes. However, the block on the corner of Flinders and Wickham Streets remained undeveloped for a further twelve years, despite Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw calling tenders on 8 January 1883 for the erection of banking premises at Townsville for the Bank of New South Wales.
\nDuring the 1860s, Cowlishaw had supervised the construction of the Brisbane branch of the Bank of NSW for Sydney architect GA Mansfield, and was also involved in the construction of branches in Bowen and Rockhampton. It is not certain whether the 1883 tender for a new bank building in Townsville was for a building designed by Cowlishaw, or another design by Mansfield to be supervised by Cowlishaw. However, newspaper reports of 1887 suggest that, either way, the 1883 design for a Bank of New South Wales in Townsville was not constructed.
\nBy October 1887 however, the Townsville Herald noted that FDG Stanley, architect for three buildings being erected in Townsville including the Bank of NSW, inspected these with his local representative Mr WM Eyre who was supervising their construction. Three months later on 24 December 1887, the same newspaper congratulated the architect Mr Smedley of Sydney for his design of the newly completed Bank of New South Wales building. This suggests Smedley was Mansfield's successor as the bank's design architect in Sydney, and Eyre was the local supervising architect with Stanley his senior partner.
\nThe new premises included the banking chamber, manager and accountant's offices, strong rooms and ablution facilities. The manager's residence included nine private rooms, kitchen, bathroom linen press and pantry. Included in the complex were stables , a coach house and a messenger's room.
\nIn 1925 Townsville architect Walter Hunt supervised alterations to the building including the installation of the pressed metal ceiling in the banking chamber. The work was carried out by contractor J Hillman.
\nOn 17 November 1931 the Bank of Commerce amalgamated with the Bank of New South Wales. In Townsville the combined businesses operated from the Flinders St/Wickham Street offices until 12 January 1935 when the main office of the bank moved to new premises at the corner of Flinders and Stokes Streets.
\nThe former premises became known as the East Flinders Street Branch of the Bank of New South Wales, with the branch operating from the building until it was sold. Historical Services Section of the Westpac Banking Corporation provided information that the property was sold in 1940 for £2500 but titles information indicates that the building was not sold until 26 February 1941 when the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union (Queensland Branch) [AMIEU] purchased it.
\nWith the threat of invasion of Australia by Japan during the early years of WWII, Townsville was selected as the supply base for the allied forces in the south west Pacific. By 1941 many buildings in the city had been requisitioned including the former Bank of New South Wales from the AMIEU.
\nA detachment of Area Signals personnel established a telegraph, switchboard and dispatch rider service in the building prior to February 1942. For a short time after Pearl Harbour, Col Frank North, Commander of the Townsville area, established his headquarters in the building along with the Signals Corp. During this period PMG style switchboards were installed and the communication centre connected to service units being established throughout the region. Telegraph facilities in the building were linked to Charters Towers and to units further west as well as to Victoria Barracks, Brisbane. Part of the first floor was also used as living quarters for the Area Signals Officer and Operations Officer.
\nDuring this period, a concrete bunker was constructed at the rear of the property to house a cypher group who worked to decode Japanese messages. Pigeon lofts were also built in the yard to supply ships and aircraft with carrier pigeons.
\nTowards the end of 1942 or early 1943, the switch installation became a security monitor of all telephone calls, both civil and military, emanating from North Queensland. About twenty AWAs manned the switch which was connected to the Security Monitoring Centre at Stuart, south of Townsville. The monitoring unit remained in the building until the end of the war.
\nThe AMIEU, located in Denham Street during the war, did not move into this building until about 1948. For the next three decades the AMIEU building became a bastion of the Labor movement in Townsville and North Queensland, with the building and surrounding area becoming a focus for workers seeking permits to work at the Ross River Meatworks, seeking social security in the Queensland Building (600909) diagonally opposite, and visiting the Tattersalls Hotel (600916), across Wickham Street which was a favourite recreation venue for all those who lived and worked in the area.
\nFrom the late 1940s until the early 1970s, the building was a hive of activity and the centre of labour issues for North Queensland. During this period. apart from the AMIEU, the Trades and Labour Council and the Seaman's Union operated at various times from offices on the first floor, and later the Communist Party had an office on the Wickham Street verandah.
\nThe Seamen's Union, miners unions, the Trades and Labour Council and affiliated unions, and particularly the Communist Party were involved in the 1948 Railway Strike; a strike which highlighted the conflict between the unions and the Labor Party and a conflict which was to split the party a few years later. The Seamen's Union and various mining and craft unions played active roles in this conflict with the Queensland Government and the industrial court over wage fixing measures introduced by the court in 1939. This conflict was to raise questions of fundamental importance to a democratic society, such as the extent of civil liberties, the use of violence, and the distortion of truth.
\nThe labour organisations in this building were also involved in the Mount Isa Strike of 1964/65 when the Qld Trades and Labour Council, representing unionists at the mine, came into conflict with Mount Isa Mines management over bonus payments. The Communist Party was also involved to a lesser degree through union officials and members who were members of the Communist Party.
\nFrom 1 January 1954 Remington Rand Charters Pty Ltd leased most of the ground floor and part of the first floor of the building. They had a showroom of typewriters and business machines in the banking chamber, a workshop at the rear, and accounting branch offices upstairs connected by a stairs to the banking chamber. A partition in the corridor divided them from the other tenants. Remington Rand vacated the building early in the 1970s, then for several years ex-employees continued to work from the building. The ground floor has remained vacant since these workshops closed in the late 1970s.
\nAbout 1962-3, the toilets on the first floor were altered to divide the single male toilet into male and female toilets. This became necessary after the introduction of a Federal award which, after some 60 years, again allowed women to work at the meatworks, and so women would be coming to the union offices in the building for their work tickets.
\nThere were also apparently substantial wrought iron gates in the Flinders Street fence and at the Wickham Street entrance, which have all been removed.
\nDuring the VP50 Celebrations in 1995, a small ceremony was held in the building and a plaque presented recognising the service of the men and women of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals here during WWII.
","criteria":"Built and occupied by the Bank of New South Wales from 1887-1935, the building is associated with the establishment of the presence of the bank in Townsville and the growth of Townsville as a major port in North Queensland.
|It is typical of bank buildings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a ground floor plan banking chamber and a second floor residence for the manager.
The interior of the building is substantially unaltered since WWII. It is of extremely high quality in its design, detailing and finishes. It is one of the few intact ground floor commercial interiors of all the historical buildings of Flinders Street East. The upper level retains its layout as a manager's residence, and includes a white marble fireplace and timber joinery.
The building was probably designed by Sydney architect John Smedley, and constructed by Townsville builder Denis Kelleher under the supervision of Townsville architect WM Eyre and his partner FDG Stanley of Brisbane. Eyre's firm, Eyre and Munro, were later responsible for other Bank of NSW branches including Georgetown, Winton, Cairns and Charters Towers.
|The exterior of the Former Bank of New South Wales remains remarkably intact. The street facades form a major contribution to the streetscape of the Flinders Street East area, which retains many historical commercial buildings. The facade of the building along Wickham Street also contributes to the linking of this area with the historical government precinct of lower Melton Hill. The intersection of Flinders and Wickham Street has a prominent historical building on each of its four corners.
|(Criterion under review)
|The building is associated with the Royal Australian Corps of Signals who occupied it between 1941-1948. The announcement of the end of WWII first reached North Queensland through this facility.
Purchased by the AMIEU in 1941, and occupied by them in 1948, the building is significant for its long association with the Union, over 50 years, and the substantial role that the Union played, in connection with other organisations such as the Ross River Meatworks, in the social and economic framework of Townsville.
The building is associated with a number of other Unions, with offices being occupied at various times by the Seamen's Union, the Communist Party and the Queensland Trades and Labour Council (Townsville Branch). Whilst in this building, these organisations were involved in several industrial disputes, including the Mount Isa Mines Strike of 1964-5, in which the Trades and Labour Council played a key role.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15667,"place_ref":600892,"name":"Magnetic House","alternate_name":"AMP Building","street_address":"143-149 Flinders Street East","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"Magnetic House is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building, with a corrugated iron gable roof behind a parapeted facade, located on the north side of Flinders Street at the base of Melton Hill. The building houses three shops to the ground floor and offices to the first floor, with the symmetrical facade being composed of three sections.
The protruding central section has a triple arched sash window with arched doorways, with recessed double timber doors, to either side. The eastern door enters the centre shop, and the western door leads into a through corridor and stairs to the first floor. The first floor features a central double arch sash window framed by pilasters supporting a pediment, with a decorative relief and quoining to either side and a balustrade and laurelled plinth above on which the AMP statue originally stood. The street awning has paired cast iron columns, a central sign with the words MAGNETIC HOUSE, and an arched cast iron valance to either side.
The two end sections have a timber framed glass shop window bay with recessed door. The first floor has a double sash window surmounted by a decorative pediment and a cornice to the roofline. The street awning is supported by single cast iron columns and has a deep cast iron valance.
The rear of the building has an open first floor verandah, with a toilet enclosure to either end, with timber posts and cast iron balustrade. The ground floor verandah has been enclosed to form kitchens and has metal flues which extend to above the roofline.
Internally, the central shop features a ceiling rose, plaster cornices, a strong room at the rear and sash windows into the enclosed rear verandah. The two end shops have been recently fitted out as fast food outlets with drop ceilings and modern fixtures, with the eastern shop's strongroom being converted to a coldroom. The corridor leads to a timber stair with turned balustrade.
The first floor consists of a central corridor with offices either side, three of which have strongrooms. All joinery has been painted, doors have been rehung and amber bottle glass panels inserted in fanlights and some doors.
The rear of the site has a large concrete area with a brick retaining wall and a small toilet structure.
","history":"This two-storeyed masonry building was erected in 1886-88 at a cost of nearly £6,500, as the Townsville office of the Sydney-based Australian Mutual Provident Society. The site was acquired by the Society in 1885.
The AMP Society had been established in Sydney in 1848/49 under the NSW Friendly Society's Act of 1843, and was one of a number of benefit and friendly societies established in the Australian colonies in the mid and late 19th century. Founded by a group of prominent Sydney philanthropists, the AMP Society initially offered life assurance policies, endowments and annuities, aimed principally at ensuring that women and children were not left destitute on the death of the principal income earner.
Growth in the early 1850s was slow, but in 1857 the Society was incorporated by act of parliament, and by the 1890s it was the most prominent of the Australian benefit and insurance societies, with a world-wide reputation. The first Queensland office was opened in Brisbane in 1875, followed by Townsville in 1883, Maryborough in 1884, and Rockhampton in 1886.
The first Townsville office opened in a small timber building. It serviced North and Central Queensland centres as far afield as Cooktown, Mossman, Ravenswood, Winton, Mackay, Blackall and Tambo, and loans and mortgages from the Society could be raised against policy or property. By the mid-1880s the Townsville branch had proved so successful that substantial new accommodation for the Society was proposed, on a site fronting Flinders Street East, then Townsville's principal business address.
The new building was designed by prominent Sydney architects CHE Blackmann and John Sulman (later Sir John). It appears that the design was initiated by Blackmann in late 1885 or early 1886, prior to Sulman joining him in partnership sometime in 1886. Within a few months of the partnership being established, Blackmann fled the country, leaving Sulman to pay his debts, and Sulman probably supervised the final drawings and interior fittings for the Townsville building during 1886/87.
The contract was let to Townsville builder Dennis Kelleher in 1886, and the Society moved into their new premises in January 1888, occupying two rooms on the ground floor: a spacious, cedar-fitted public office at the front, and the district secretary's office, with strongroom, at the rear. The remainder of the ground floor contained two shops, which were let to tenants. The upper floor comprised office accommodation, with strongrooms, let to business and professional persons. At the time, the building was considered a handsome addition to Flinders Street.
Above the pediment was a marble tableau illustrating the Society's motto Amicus certus in re incerta [a certain friend in an uncertain event]. The tableau depicted an erect female figure, with a cornucopia by her right side, holding the palm of victory above a seated woman and child to her left. To her right was a seated male figure, alienated from the family grouping. Until the logo was changed in 1988, an Amicus tableau was erected on every AMP building, and usually was removed when the Society no longer occupied the premises. AMP occupied the Flinders Street East building until 1938, when their new premises, a three-storeyed building at the corner of Stanley and Flinders Streets, was completed. The Amicus tableau appears to have been removed to the new building.
The Flinders Street East building was sold in 1940, renamed Magnetic House prior to 1978, and has remained principally as shop and office accommodation. Between 1978 and 1982 the building was renovated, and the upper floor housed Tonnoirs Fine Arts Gallery from 1978 to 1990.
","criteria":"Magnetic House is important in demonstrating the evolution of Townsville as the principal town and port of North Queensland in the late 19th century.
|Magnetic House demonstrates two rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of the few known examples of the Queensland work of important Sydney architects CHE Blackmann and J Sulman. Magnetic House is one of the few substantially intact examples of its type surviving in Townsville.
|Magnetic House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a compact, two-storeyed, masonry Queensland regional office building of the late 19th century.
|Magnetic House is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular its quality of design and composition of classical elements, its contribution to the Flinders Street streetscape and Townsville townscape and the quality of its cast iron work.
|Magnetic House has a special association with the important AMP Society and their contribution to the development of North Queensland in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15670,"place_ref":600895,"name":"Australian Joint Stock Bank (former)","alternate_name":"The Bank Nite Club | Australian Bank of Commerce","street_address":"173 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Bank building, located on the northern side of Flinders Street at the base of Melton Hill, is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with a hipped corrugated iron roof concealed behind a symmetrical classical facade. The building is set back from the site's side boundaries with a service lane on the eastern side and a walkway on the western.
The facade, consisting of loggias to both floors, is divided into five bays. The ground floor has Tuscan Order columns and pilasters supporting an entablature with a deep cornice, and the first floor has Corinthian columns and pilasters surmounted by arches with entablature, deep cornice and balustrade above, all of which return the depth of the loggia. The centre entrance bay projects on both floors, and is surmounted by a pediment. The words AUSTRALIAN BANK OF COMMERCE LTD can be seen in relief along the first floor frieze. The ground floor has double timber central entrance doors, with arched sash windows to either side which have been painted out and covered with steel grilles. The first floor has five sets of french doors with fanlights and both floors have rendered balustrades.
The first floor residence is accessed via the western side walkway to an internal staircase with turned timber balustrade. The first floor, consisting of rooms along the loggia with a passage behind, has sash windows to the rear with a bathroom at the western end. A kitchenette has been added above the staircase and is accessed from the loggia.
The ground floor is accessed via a central foyer with painted double timber doors, with etched glass panels and sidelights with a timber pedimented surround, which leads into the nightclub space. This space has a much higher coffered plaster ceiling, the central section of which is raised and blacked-out with a lighting grid below. Above this is a clerestory, possibly with a domed vault. A western side verandah has been enclosed for a seating area and the rear of the building has single-storeyed concrete block staff amenities.
The ground floor interior, with a lurid colour scheme, has a sunken centre dancefloor. A disc jockey booth has been added to the eastern side, toilets inserted to the west of the foyer and a bar to the east.
","history":"This two-storeyed rendered brick building was erected in 1887-88 as the Townsville branch of the Sydney-based Australian Joint Stock Bank (AJS), on land acquired by the bank in 1881.
The AJS Bank was the first financial institution to establish an office in Townsville, in March 1866, in a small timber building on the Strand. In 1875 the bank erected more substantial offices, but these were replaced with the present building in 1887-88. Its construction, at a cost of approximately £7,000, reflected the business and building boom which accompanied Townsville's growth as the port for the Ravenswood and Charters Towers goldfields, and for the North Queensland sugar and pastoral industries.
The new building was designed by former Queensland colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley of Brisbane. Stanley designed a substantial number of North Queensland buildings for the AJS, Union and Queensland National banks in the 1880s and 1890s, and as Colonial Architect from 1873 to 1881 was responsible for Townsville's more imposing public buildings, including the 1877 magistrates court [600929], the first hospital (1870s), the 1878 gaol, and the 1879 telegraph office.
Stanley called for tenders for the AJS Bank building in December 1886, and the contract was let to Townsville contractors MacMahon and Cliffe. Elements of both the design and the construction were considered innovative. The colonnaded front elevation was a new concept in Townsville architecture, accommodating to a tropical climate, and rolled wrought-iron beams were utilised in the construction, rather than the cast-iron girders used extensively in Townsville buildings at that period. The floor of the balcony was constructed of cork concrete, a lighter product than the more usual blue metal mix.
On the ground floor, the entrance doors opened into a large vestibule, from which a manager's room opened off to the right, and a stationary store to the left. Beyond the vestibule was the banking chamber, a large room 12.2 metres by 11.6 metres, with 6 metre high walls and a lantern light, or clerestory, with arched sashes and small engaged columns, reaching nearly 10 metres above the floor of the chamber. Cedar screens divided the main chamber from the bill department and the accountant's office on one side, and the ledger clerks on the other. At the rear of the banking chamber were an ante room for the clerks and a strong room, separated by a wide hall. The first floor comprised residential accommodation, consisting of sitting rooms, bedrooms and bathroom. It was accessed via a hall and stair off the ground floor vestibule. Alterations to the residential accommodation were made in 1898. They were designed by Townsville architect Walter Morris Eyre, who had been employed by Stanley in the early 1880s.
The building remained as banking premises for over forty years - from 1910 as a branch of the Australian Bank of Commerce Ltd (ABC), another Sydney-based bank, which took over AJS Bank in that year. In 1931 the ABC in turn was absorbed by the Bank of New South Wales Ltd, which first rented out and then sold the building in 1938. Since 1931 the former bank has functioned as general offices and, more recently, as a night club.
","criteria":"The Australian Joint Stock Bank (former), erected in 1887-88 as a branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank, is important in demonstrating the pattern of development and evolution of Townsville as the principal town and port of North Queensland in the late 19th century, and is a reflection of the building boom which transformed the town's central business district in the 1880s and 1890s.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of: a regional masonry bank building of the Queensland boom era, and of the commercial work of former Queensland Colonial Architect FDG Stanley.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular its quality of design and composition of classical elements; its contribution to the streetscape of Flinders Street and to the Townsville townscape; and the quality of its surviving, original internal elements.
|It is important in demonstrating creative and technical achievement in an innovative use of design and materials, in particular illustrating important design adaptations to the tropical Townsville climate.
|It has a special association with the Australian Joint Stock Bank and its contribution to the development of Townsville and North Queensland in the latter half of the 19th century, and with former Colonial Architect FDG Stanley and his contribution to North Queensland architecture in the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15671,"place_ref":600896,"name":"Queens Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"175 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Queen's Building is located on the main commercial street of Townsville and is a two storey, brick building closely matching in style, though differing in decoration, the former Atkinson and Powell Building adjoining it.
The Queen's Building is rendered on the street elevation and has classically influenced moulded decoration. The upper floor has four round headed windows with prominent voussoirs, separated by pilasters. Above this is an entablature and balustraded parapet. The central section is raised and has a tablet decorated by swags and topped by a draped urn. This conceals a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. There are glass louvres fitted into the lower section of the windows. Early signage is visible on the entablature.
Below a cornice, a bullnosed corrugated iron awning shades the shopfront. It is supported on cast iron columns, but the cast iron frieze to the awning does not survive. The shop fronts have been modernised and have aluminium framed windows and doors with panels of glass louvres above. There is a separate entrance to the upper level on the western side between the shopfronts of the Queen's building and the former Atkinson and Powell building which it abuts.
","history":"Queen's Building was designed in 1887 by Tunbridge and Tunbridge for the chemist Pio Armati, and named in honour of Queen Victoria's Jubilee year.
Townsville was established in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a supply centre and by 1873 the port was receiving international as well as coastal traffic. Improvements were carried out to port facilities to allow larger ships to anchor. By 1880 Townsville was the port for several major goldfields and had opened the first stage of the railway line westwards through Charters Towers and beyond, consolidating its importance as a port and mercantile centre.
Pio Armati was one of the earliest Italian settlers in North Queensland. Born near Rome, he immigrated to Australia in 1874 as a young man and was naturalised in 1876. He entered into partnership with Chiafredo Venerando Fraire in the 1870s. Fraire had also immigrated in 1874 and both men, particularly Fraire, were to assume an important role in encouraging and promoting Italian Immigration to North Queensland. The firm of Armati Fraire and Coy were drapers, ironmongers, wine sellers and general merchants. In 1878 Armati acquired the land on which this building stands and appears to have had a shop at this address. The firm were successful and in 1881 Fraire bought the retail drapery section of Burns Philp. When the Queen's Building was constructed they ran a drapery business, but in 1889 the partnership was dissolved. Armati ran an insurance agency at this address and Fraire alone is listed as a draper by 1890. By 1892 Armati had a chemist shop at another Flinders Street address and continued in this trade for many years. He became the leading pharmacist in Townsville and was socially prominent. He died in 1923. Both Armati and Fraire have streets named after them in Townsville.
The building was constructed to the design of the newly established local architectural firm of Tunbridge and Tunbridge. Walter Howard Tunbridge was born and trained in England as an architect. In 1884 he migrated to Australia and worked for Rooney Bros in Townsville. He left to establish his own practice in 1886 and invited his younger brother, Oliver, to join him in 1887. This partnership subsequently became an important architectural and civil engineering firm in North Queensland. Their design complemented the adjacent Atkinson and Powell's building, constructed in 1886, having several design features in common.
The Queen's Building has been occupied as shops and offices. Tenants have included an accountant, architect and surveyor, watchmaker, jeweller and tailor. The North Queensland Mortgage and Investment Company held a lease from 1906 to 1931. In 1940 the property was sold to Peter Phillips and was subdivided in 1957. It was purchased by the current owner and has been used as a hairdresser's and gift store since 1973.
The building has been altered on the ground floor and has aluminium framed windows and doors. On the upper level the main change has been the partial replacement of window glazing with louvres.
","criteria":"The style and quality of the Queen's Building illustrates the boom period of Townsville in the 1880s when Flinders Street was being redeveloped with substantial buildings. This prosperity reflects the way in which North Queensland was developed by the establishment of key ports as commercial and administrative centres.
|The Queen's Building is important as an example of a small scale but good quality commercial century office building of its era in North Queensland.
|It is located on the major commercial street of Townsville where, by its design, form and materials, it is a substantial visual component of the built character of the city.
|The building is associated with the life and work of Pio Vico Armati, one of the earliest Italian settlers in North Queensland and a well-known figure in Townsville. It is also an example of the commercial work of the important North Queensland architectural firm of Tunbridge and Tunbridge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15672,"place_ref":600897,"name":"Atkinson & Powell Building (former)","alternate_name":"Atkinson and Powell Building | Matchbox Theatre","street_address":"181-183 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Atkinson & Powell Building is located on the main commercial street of Townsville and is a two storey, brick building closely matching in style, though differing in decoration, the building adjoining it.
The building is rendered on the street elevation and has classically influenced moulded decoration. The upper floor has four rounded headed windows with prominent voussoirs, separated by pilasters. Above this is an entablature and a balustraded parapet with a triangular pediment. This conceals a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron.
A bullnosed corrugated iron awning shades the shopfront. It is supported on cast iron columns linked by a cast iron frieze. The central and eastern bays of the original timber framed glazed shopfront survive. There is a separate entrance to the upper level accessed through a timber door on the western side.
","history":"The former Atkinson & Powell Building was designed in 1886 by Willoughby Powell for chemists Atkinson & Powell, a firm in which in which the architect's brother was a partner.
Townsville was established in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a supply centre and by 1873 the port was receiving international as well as coastal traffic. Improvements were carried out to port facilities to allow larger ships to anchor. By 1880 Townsville was the port for several major goldfields and had opened the first stage of the railway line westwards through Charters Towers and beyond, consolidating its importance as a port and mercantile centre.
By the mid 1880s Townsville was enjoying a building boom owing to the growth of the town and the destruction by fire of a number of buildings in Flinders Street in the early 1880s. It was subsequently declared a first class area, where only building in stone, masonry or metal was permitted. This meant that timber buildings from the first stage of settlement were replaced with substantial masonry ones, an encouragement to do likewise even for those whose property had escaped fire damage.
In 1887 a mortgage on the site was taken out by Joseph Atkinson and Francis Powell to allow the construction of a substantial pharmacy building. It was designed by Willoughby Powell, the brother of Frank Powell, who was a dentist. The new premises had a large shop at the front and two smaller rooms behind, one of which was used as a surgery by Powell. The upper floor was a warehouse, used purely for storage, and was accessed by an outside stair and a small lift for raising goods. The ground floor originally had a central entrance flanked by windows, but in the 1890s, a side door and internal staircase were inserted. The curved frames of the original windows can still be seen.
Willoughby Powell was born and trained as an architect in England. In 1872 he emigrated to Australia with his brother and worked for Richard Gailey in Brisbane before joining the Queensland Works Department in 1874. After winning a design competition for the Toowoomba Grammar School he set up a practice there between 1875 and 1877. After travelling to England in 1878 he worked again for Gailey before moving to Maryborough to supervise his own work between 1882 and 1885. He then returned to Gailey in Brisbane until 1893 when the financial crash saw the bottom drop out of the building trade. His own design work seems to have largely been for churches, public buildings and large houses. The Atkinson and Powell building is his only work in North Queensland one of very few shops known to have been designed by him. A drawing of the completed building was featured in the 1887 Christmas issue of the Townsville Herald.
Soon after the Atkinson and Powell building was constructed, a building was erected adjoining it for Pio Armati by the well known Townsville firm of Tunbridge and Tunbridge. Their design complemented Atkinson and Powell's building, having several design features in common.
In 1893 Atkinson was declared insolvent and the building was acquired by the North Queensland Mortgage and Investment Company Limited who held the mortgage. The building was leased to a number of different businesses including a dentist, a chemist, and a watchmaker. In 1920 the building housed offices for the Australian Oriental Line, the Townsville Chamber of Commerce and a restaurant. The Vacuum Oil Co leased the ground floor between 1922 and 1932. The building is believed to have been later occupied by a newsagent on the ground floor and the upper storey was the headquarters of the Townsville Book Club, a private lending library. In 1965 the building was converted for use as the 1965 Stage Door Theatre. In 1979 they moved and the Performing Arts Department of the Townsville College of TAFE occupied the building.
","criteria":"The style and quality of the former Atkinson & Powell Building demonstrates the prosperity of Townsville in the 1880s and reflects the way in which North Queensland was developed by the establishment of key ports as commercial and administrative centres.
|The building is important as a good example of a substantial nineteenth century office building in North Queensland.
|It is located on the major commercial street of Townsville where, by its design, form and materials, it is a substantial visual component of the built character of the city.
|The building is associated with the life and work of architect Willoughby Powell and is believed to be his only commission in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15673,"place_ref":600898,"name":"T. Willmetts & Sons printery and stationery warehouse (former)","alternate_name":"Willmett Stationery Warehouse (former) | Capitol Seafood Restaurant","street_address":"193 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Willmett's building is located on the northern side of Flinders Street in the centre of the block between Wickham and Denham Streets. The site rises steeply towards Melton Terrace at the rear.
The building is in two parts with the block on Flinders Street having a rectangular plan form and is of three storeys constructed in brick with a symmetrical rendered facade. The ground floor shopfront has been replaced in anodised aluminium but the original entrance to the upper levels, which has a single panelled timber door with side lights, survives to the right of this. A short hall leads to a later concrete block stairwell that rises to the top level. Above this is a later horizontal awning and above this three round headed windows with moulded hoods that run into a string mould that runs into piers at the corners of the facade. Similarly there are three rounded headed windows at the top level also with moulded hoods over. All the windows have been replaced in aluminium. Above this is banding with the words "Stationery Warehouse" in raised lettering with cornices above and below. This is surmounted by a parapet with a raised central section which has a segmental top supported on piers. The facade has been recently painted in a contemporary colour scheme. Behind the parapet is a simple corrugated iron roof with a central raised skylight.
Abutting and sitting higher than the front section of the building is a two and three storey wing constructed in brick with a cement rendered finish all around. This block also has a rectangular floor plan but is slightly wider on the eastern side. The roof is clad in corrugated iron and has a gambrel form. A series of high level timber windows are located on the sides of the building at the upper level. There is a small entrance lean to on the northern side with pathway access to Melton Terrace above.
No internal inspection was made as the property is not in use.
","history":"The former Willmett's stationery shop and printery is located in the main commercial street of Townsville. It is a three storey masonry building, constructed in 1883 and 1886 for Thankful Willmett, a well known stationer and printer who was also active in local and regional politics.
Townsville was established in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a major supply centre and by 1880 was the port for several major goldfields. Because commerce was important to the development of the town, many businessmen were also involved in local politics and the majority of early mayors were also businessmen. Thankful Willmett was mayor several times and was also a prominent member of the North Queensland Separationist movement.
Thankful Willmett had been in business in Rockhampton and Nebo for several years before arriving in Townsville in 1868. He ran a store and acted as postmaster at the Cape Diggings and in 1870 settled in Townsville, working for Clifton and Aplin and operating a small stationery business. In 1873 he resigned to devote his time to his own business, though he was also involved in local politics as he became Mayor for the first time in 1880-1. In 1882 he imported a printing press and bookbinding equipment to expand his stationery business and opened the Excelsior Printery in one of three new brick shops next to the Exchange Hotel. This met an urgent and growing need in an era when all news, correspondence and business was carried on wholly on paper. In the following year a building was constructed for him by Waagepetersen and Bevan and it is interesting to note that the first trial telephone call in Townsville was made from the Exchange to Willmett's printery in March 1883. In 1884 a new printing office was constructed to the rear of the stationery shop and bookbinding and lithographic departments were added.
On 15 October 1885 he received a severe setback when the shop was destroyed by fire, though the printery at the rear survived and he still managed to get Willmett's North Queensland Almanac published by the end of the year. In 1886 the current three storey shop was built incorporating the printery behind. It contained warehouse space, offices and a retail shop. The business was extremely successful and in time had branches at Cooktown, Thornborough and Charters Towers. It was more than a printery as they imported and sold paper, produced account books, sheet music and all kinds of stationery and art materials.
Willmett's sons and other family members worked for the firm and expanded the business. Willmett's eldest son had originally prompted the movement into printing and Miss E. Willmett ran the book and music departments. Percy Willmett joined the firm in 1904 and took over when Thankful Willmett died in 1906.
In 1927, the machine room in the printery was extended to accommodate new machinery and an additional storey to this section was added as bulk storage space. This work was done by contractor George Lear for architect C.V. Rees. In 1932 the business continued to expand by opening a second premises at 287 Flinders Street. There Willmett's used the ground floor as a stationery shop and let the upper floor as Willmett's Chambers. It remained a branch store for almost 50 years. Hume Willmett, a grandson who joined the family firm in 1918, ran the business from 1943, following his uncle's retirement. He retired in his turn in 1970 and Grahame Willmett Weir, a great grandson of Thankful Willmett, then took over. Family members have also been active in local affairs and so both the business and the Willmett family are prominent in Townsville history.
Willmett's moved to South Townsville in 1975 and in October 1980 the firm was purchased by North Queensland Newspaper Company of which it became a wholly owned subsidiary. In 1981 the shop was purchased by Kern Corporation. It has since changed hands several times and has been leased out. The ground floor has been used by a restaurant for much of the time, during which openings were made in the party wall with the building next door which was also used by the restaurant. The upper section has been converted into a loft flat for the owner.
","criteria":"The style and quality of the former T.Willmett and Sons stationery store and printery demonstrates the prosperity of Townsville in the 1880s and reflects the way in which North Queensland was developed by the establishment of key ports as commercial and administrative centres. As an early printer and the publisher of an almanac as well as a stationer, Willmetts was closely associated with this development.
|The former Willmett's building is a good example of a retail business with works, warehouse and offices on the premises. As such it demonstrates a nineteenth century practice no longer usual in a city central business district.
|The design, form and materials of the former Willmett's building make a major aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of Flinders Street.
|The building is strongly associated with the life and work of Thankful Willmett, an important Townsville businessman and Mayor, and with other members of this prominent family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15674,"place_ref":600899,"name":"Stanton House","alternate_name":"Hof's Building","street_address":"197-203 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Stanton House is one of a group of nineteenth century commercial buildings situated at the eastern end of Flinders Street, the major commercial street of Townsville.
The building backs on to Melton Hill and the top storey does not run for the full depth of the building. The two lower storeys are of brick rendered at the front and the later section to the top is of concrete and is much plainer in form. The street elevation is asymmetrical and has two pairs of windows on one side of the entrance and stairwell and three windows on the other, indicating the position and size of the original shop space. The fenestration on both upper floors demonstrates this arrangement of space. The ground floor has modern shop fronts with aluminium framed windows sheltered by a modern cantilevered awning. The front door is flanked by glass panels and has glass transoms. The timber staircase to the first floor remains, as do most internal walls. Timezone, an amusement centre, occupies most of the ground and first floors.
The first floor has rounded headed windows separated by decorated pilasters and a smaller central window at the head of the staircase. The top storey has similarly spaced rectangular windows and is very plain. The parapet is severely plain and conceals the metal clad roof.
","history":"Stanton House was constructed in 1885 for John Frederick Hof, who had owned the land since 1867, and replaced two timber shops on the same block.
Townsville was established in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a supply centre and by 1873 the port was receiving international as well as coastal traffic. Improvements were carried out to improve port facilities and to allow larger ships to anchor. By 1880 Townsville was the port for several major goldfields and had opened the first stage of the railway line westwards through Charters Towers and beyond, consolidating its importance as a port and mercantile centre. Retail business was an important part of this development.
John Frederick Hof arrived in Victoria from Germany in 1856 and worked on a number of goldfields in that colony as a carrier. Moving to Queensland in 1861, he followed a variety of occupations before working again as a carrier at the Cape River diggings in North Queensland. He also took up speculative ventures in mining, acquiring a crushing plant at Georgetown in partnership with Willmett. In 1882 this was sold to the Papa Company and Hof moved to Townsville at the beginning of 1883 with a view to building a set of shops on his Flinders Street block.
Recent fires had destroyed a number of buildings in Flinders Street and it was declared a first class area, where only building in stone, masonry or metal was permitted. This meant that timber buildings from the first stage of settlement were being replaced with substantial masonry ones, an encouragement to do likewise even for those whose property had escaped fire damage. Because of the subsequent building boom, labour and materials were scarce and some buildings remained at the planning stage for extended periods. Presumably in response to this, Hof set up the Brunswick Brick and Tile Works and is said to have used bricks produced by himself for 'Hof's Buildings' completed in 1885. This and other buildings effected a redevelopment of the street which reflected the success of the town as a commercial centre. By 1900 there was a line of handsome and fashionable buildings down both sides of Flinders Street.
Hof's new premises were 2 storeys high and comprised 3 shops with an entrance hall and stairway leading to offices on the upper floor. Leases were immediately taken out by Otto Geburek and Michael Sandstein and Philip Harris. The Beale & Co. Ltd piano and musical instrument showroom, who occupied the largest of the premises, held a special event with demonstrations of piano playing in late May to mark their opening. Willmett's printery business next door responded to a perceived need by offering sheet music for sale.
A number of tenants leased space in the building for many years. The New Zealand Insurance Company's initial lease began in 1906 and they did not move out until 1935, the Mains Roads Commissioner had offices in the building throughout the 1930s and by 1944 were occupying space on the top floor extension added in the late 1930s. When this occurred the original decorated parapet was not reinstated.
In 1933 the building was purchased by the Corporation of the Diocesan Synod of North Queensland, although it was already used as the Diocesan Registry. The building was named 'Stanton House' in honour of George Henry Stanton who became the first Bishop of North Queensland in 1878.
The Diocese sold the building in 1978. It has changed hands several times since and continues to be leased for various commercial purposes. Although renovations have taken place, the layout and functioning of the 3 original shops and offices are still discernible.
","criteria":"The rapid growth of Townsville in the late 19th century occurred because of the way in which North Queensland was developed by the establishment of key ports as commercial and administrative centres. Stanton House, as a substantial masonry commercial building of the 1880s, demonstrates the prosperity of Townsville in that period when considerable redevelopment was taking place in the city centre.
|Stanton House, in spite of alterations, is a good example of a commercial building of its era, being a set of substantial masonry shops with offices above.
|In form, scale and detail, Stanton House makes a major visual contribution to the streetscape of Flinders Street. It forms part of an important group of nineteenth century commercial buildings at the eastern end of the street.
|As the Anglican Diocesan Registry for many years it has an association with the development of the church in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15675,"place_ref":600900,"name":"Atinee Building","alternate_name":"Commercial Banking Company of Australia (former)","street_address":"205-207 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This symmetrical three-storeyed building of the Federation period has deep shady verandahs on the upper two levels. These verandahs, which extend over the footpath, are decorated with cast-iron balustrades and friezes, together with timber fretwork.
The ground floor shop front and interior have been modernised while the upper floors remain basically intact. The brick building, which is well designed for the tropics, is surmounted by a parapet and centrally placed pediment. While the structure is in need of maintenance, it is still in reasonable condition and its integrity is basically intact.
","history":"The building was erected in 1897c and was the second premises of the Commercial Banking Company of Australia Ltd. The Bank operated from this building for forty one years and the Relatino Restaurant for twenty three years from 1955. Recently the building has become well known as the Back Packers Hostel.
","criteria":"The impressive style of the structure emphasises the role the Commercial Bank of Australia played in the economic growth of the region during the early twentieth century.
|The Atinee Building is commercial structure of unusual design in the Townsville region and as such it is a feature of the streetscape in Flinders Street.
|It is a good example of a commercial building constructed with wide verandahs and decorated with timber and cast iron.
|The Atinee Building is commercial structure of unusual design in the Townsville region and as such it is a feature of the streetscape in Flinders Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15677,"place_ref":600902,"name":"223 Flinders Street, Townsville","alternate_name":"Pinocchio's Restaurant | Clayton's Apothecaries' Hall | Bamboo Inn","street_address":"221-223 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"223 Flinders Street, Townsville is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building, with a corrugated iron gable roof concealed behind a parapet wall, located on the northern side of Flinders Street at the base of Melton Hill.
The ground floor facade has a recessed central entry with anodised aluminium framed windows on each side and glazing and glazed tiles to the walls. A metal awning is supported by the first floor facade, which consists of three arched windows with aluminium framed hoppers, framed by pilasters and cornice, surmounted by a central pediment with rendered balustrade.
The first floor is at ground level at the rear, with a concreted courtyard, containing air conditioning equipment, and separating it from a single-storeyed residence fronting Melton Terrace.
Internally, the restaurant has original stairs on the eastern side linking the ground and first floor, false ceilings, partition walls and recent fixtures and finishes.
There are dining rooms to both floors, and a kitchen is located on the ground floor at the rear with a concrete stair, built against excavated rock face, accessing the rear courtyard above. A third staircase has been inserted in the centre of the building to conform to fire regulations.
","history":"This two-storeyed masonry building was erected in 1885 for Townsville chemist William Clayton, who acquired the site early in 1885.
Clayton, an English pharmaceutical chemist, arrived in Townsville in the early 1870s, and purchased John E Rutherford's chemist business, the Apothecaries' Hall, established in Townsville in 1866 by AH Cooper. In less than 15 years he developed the business into a prominent enterprise, as evidenced in the 1880s construction of his new building.
William Clayton was an active community member: alderman on the Townsville Municipal Council for many years; Mayor of Townsville in 1890; member of the Thuringowa Divisional Board; member of the Hospital and School of Arts Committees; Master Freemason; and magistrate.
Clayton sold the Flinders Street East building in 1890, but then leased it until about 1909. The business then was then moved further west in the street to premises adjacent to Brodziak & Rodgers [600921], in what by the early 1900s had became a more central location. William Clayton died in 1920, but his business was carried on by his son, Victor Osborne Clayton.
Since 1909, the Flinders Street East building has housed general offices, small business, shops and at least two restaurants.
","criteria":"223 Flinders Street, Townsville, erected in 1885, is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular its contribution in scale, form and materials to the streetscape of Flinders Street and to the Townsville townscape. It has a special association with early and prominent Townsville resident William Clayton, and his contribution to the development of Townsville in the late 19th century.
|223 Flinders Street, Townsville, erected in 1885, is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular its contribution in scale, form and materials to the streetscape of Flinders Street and to the Townsville townscape.
|It has a special association with early and prominent Townsville resident William Clayton, and his contribution to the development of Townsville in the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15678,"place_ref":600903,"name":"Samuel Allen & Sons (former)","alternate_name":"Samuel Allen & Sons | Samuel Allan and Sons | Hogs Breath Cafe","street_address":"247 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The building is constructed of brick with contrasting bands of stucco on the facade. It is surmounted by a parapet with heavy decorative accents, which conceals the corrugated iron roof.
The window frames have been replaced with aluminium and the ground floor facade has been painted cream.
The 1910 street awning, with timber supports, remains intact although a large sign has been added.
Most of the interior has been altered, but the original ceiling of the upper floor remains.
The building, although altered internally, survives among a group of colonial to federation period structures in a commercial streetscape.
","history":"This building was constructed in 1881 as a single-storeyed produce store for Samuel Allen & Company [later Samuel Allen & Sons]. The company had been established in Townsville since 1872 and became an Australia-wide mercantile firm.
With the expansion of the firm, a second floor was added in 1910 and the façade was altered with the addition of a heavily decorated parapet.
After the building was sold in 1979 the ground floor facade was renovated.
In 1991 the structure was converted to a cafe/nightclub.
","criteria":"Samuel Allan & Sons (former), constructed in two stages [1881 and 1910], is significant historically as the Townsville headquarters of the important trading firm of Samuel Allen & Sons, and is a surviving example of a late 19th century commercial building.
|Samuel Allen & Sons (former), constructed in two stages [1881 and 1910], is significant historically as the Townsville headquarters of the important trading firm of Samuel Allen & Sons, and is a surviving example of a late 19th century commercial building.
|It contributes to a distinctive historical commercial streetscape at the western end of Flinders Street East.
|Samuel Allen & Sons (former), constructed in two stages [1881 and 1910], is significant historically as the Townsville headquarters of the important trading firm of Samuel Allen & Sons, and is a surviving example of a late 19th century commercial building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15680,"place_ref":600905,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":"Queensland National Bank","street_address":"295-303 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-01-28","description":"The former Queensland National Bank, located on the northern side of Flinders Street Mall, is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building with a hipped corrugated iron roof and classical revival facade. The building is built to the site's front and side boundaries, with the side verandahs being enclosed.
The facade, consisting of verandahs to both floors, is divided into three bays. The ground floor features Tuscan Order columns supporting an entablature with cornice, and the first floor features paired Egyptian inspired, Lotus Bud capital, cast iron columns supporting a corrugated iron awning. The arched centre entrance bay projects on both floors, and is surmounted by a gable and both floors have cast iron balustrade, but of a different design. The ground floor has a timber framed glass entrance door with an arched fanlight, with a large sash window on the west and a casement on the east. The first floor has french doors with timber louvred shutters.
Each of the side verandahs have been fitted out as a shop at ground level. The first floor has paired timber posts with the rear being enclosed with glass louvres. The rear of the building has a single-storeyed masonry wing, with a corrugated iron gable roof, which has had recent concrete block additions. The east verandah tenancy has a long single-storeyed concrete block addition with a skillion corrugated iron roof. The rear of the site is concreted and used for carparking.
Internally, the ground floor has a large front office, with a strongroom, some partitioning, false ceilings, floor vents and two steel columns. Windows onto side verandahs have been enclosed. At the rear, a timber stair with turned balustrade leads to the first floor from a rear foyer which has double timber doors with arched fanlight and sidelights. The rear wing has been refitted and extended to house staff amenities.
The first floor contains a kitchen at the rear, large offices opening onto the front and side verandahs, plaster ceilings, painted timber joinery and panelled doors with fanlights.
","history":"This two-storeyed rendered brick building was erected in 1878-79 as the Townsville branch of the Queensland National Bank, on a site acquired by the bank in December 1877. It was erected during the boom which accompanied Townsville's growth in the 1870s as the port for the goldfields centred around Ravenswood and Charters Towers.
The QNB, established in Brisbane in 1872 by a group of prominent Queensland businessmen, flourished during the last quarter of the 19th century. In the 1870s and 1880s it was patronised by Sir Thomas McIlwraith and Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, and for 42 years, from 1879 until 1921, the QNB held the Queensland Government's banking account. Despite financial scandals and collapse in the early 1890s, the QNB contributed substantially to the development of North Queensland, lending generously to mining, pastoral and sugar interests. It was the third bank to establish a branch in Townsville, in a small timber cottage in 1873. In 1875 the QNB purchased a site in Wickham Street, on which larger premises were erected in 1876. This building was destroyed by fire in 1877, following which the bank operated from temporary rented premises until the present Flinders Street building was completed in 1879.
The new offices were designed by then colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, who from the late 1870s to the late 1890s designed a substantial number of bank buildings in Queensland for the QNB, the Australian Joint Stock Bank, and the Union Bank. The contractor was Townsville builder CA Ward. Total cost of the new premises, including land, was just over £6,000. At the time, it was the most substantial building in Townsville. The ground floor offices comprised a large banking chamber, manager's room, strong room, and stationary store. The manager's accommodation on the first floor consisted of a large drawing room, bedrooms and a bathroom. The dining room was located on the ground floor at the rear, with easy access to the kitchen. Verandahs to both levels at the front and sides, demonstrating what appears to be the first use of elaborately decorative cast-iron balustrading in North Queensland, were an important adaptation to the climate.
The building functioned as banking premises for one hundred and three years, first as the QNB, and from 1948 as the National Bank of Australasia Limited, following the merger of the QNB with the NBA in that year. The NBA closed the branch in April 1982, and sold the property in 1983.
In 1984 the building was refurbished and re-opened as commercial offices. The principal lessee in the 1980s was the Queensland Tourist Travel Corporation.
","criteria":"Its location demonstrates the development of Townsville as a port for the Ravenswood and Charters Towers goldfields and as the principal town in North Queensland at that time.
|The former Queensland National Bank, erected in 1878-79, is a characteristic 1870s regional bank building adapted to a tropical climate, and is one of the few remaining 1870s buildings in Townsville.
|The former Queensland National Bank, erected in 1878-79, is a characteristic 1870s regional bank building adapted to a tropical climate, and is one of the few remaining 1870s buildings in Townsville.
|The quality of design and composition of classical elements are of considerable aesthetic value, and it is a fine example of the work of Queensland colonial architect FDG Stanley.
|The building is part of the Queensland National Bank's contribution to the development of North Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century.
The quality of design and composition of classical elements are of considerable aesthetic value, and it is a fine example of the work of Queensland colonial architect FDG Stanley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15681,"place_ref":600906,"name":"Townsville Railway Station and North Yards Railway Workshops","alternate_name":"Northern/Townsville Railway | Great Northern Railway Station and Workshops","street_address":"502 and 792 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Townsville Railway Station and North Yard Railway Workshops complex is located about 1km to the south-west of the Flinders Mall, at the western end of Flinders Street. It presently consists of the Railway Station buildings and some eight workshops, and a series of ancillary buildings, all arranged in rectilinear formation. The site, running between Flinders Street and Ross Creek, is largely flat.
Buildings and elements on the site include:
Townsville Railway Station
The Townsville Railway Station is an asymmetrical building of the Federation period. Two principal materials, brick and stucco, have been used to create contrasting colour and texture in the facade. The long rectangular building has a hip roof with two gables at the front marking the administrative and platform entrances. Balustraded verandahs span the front facade on the second and third levels.
The front and eastern side of the building on the ground floor is shaded by an awning supported by magnificent iron brackets. The ticket hall remains in its original state with tiles on the floor and walls, together with the roll of honour board commemorating the railway employees who died during the 1914-1918 war. Internally, very little of the original structure remains.
The women's toilet, although repainted, still has a pressed metal ceiling. The original colour can be seen in a small piece of ceiling hidden behind a partition in the foyer of the toilet. A square stairwell with stick balustrading is still intact, as are the french doors with glass fanlights which open onto the verandahs of the upper levels.
Machine Shop
The Machine Shop is a long rectangular building measuring approximately 14m x 77m, running parallel to Flinders Street. It is on the north-western side of the complex, with other workshop buildings adjacent at either end. It is still in use as a workshop, and contains a variety of engineering machines. The building has a gabled corrugated iron roof with a steeply pitched vented lantern running its length and a lower pitch to the remainder of the roof. Visible changes in the roof sheeting are the result of damage sustained during Cyclone Althea in 1971.
Most of the long side walls of the building are adjustable steel louvres with awnings and panels over of translucent fibreglass. Both ends of the building have walls clad with corrugated iron.
Blacksmith's Shop
The larger Blacksmiths' Shop measures about 12.2 x 99.0m. Immediately to south-west of the Machine Shop is the former Blacksmiths' Shop, which was built in the early 1920's and extended in 1937. It too is framed in timber with a corrugated iron gabled roof, penetrated by brick chimneys. Its walls are partly clad in timber and corrugated iron. It contains 8 brick forges, now disused, and several other pieces of machinery including steam hammers and a drill, on a gravel floor. Only the north-eastern end of the building is still in use. To the north and west of the Blacksmith's Shop are three small timber buildings. Two of which are clustered together inside the present gateway. These are clad in chamfer boards, with corrugated iron gabled roofs and metal window hoods.
Motor Shop (Building No 38)
The Motor Shop is a long rectangular building framed in timber, with both the gabled roof and walls clad with corrugated iron. The roof is framed with clear span Queen-post trusses at about 3.7m centres with knee braces and posts. The floor of the building is lined with concrete. The north west elevation addressing Flinders Street has a continuous bank of timber louvres to the upper part of the wall under the eaves. Below are horizontally pivoting timber windows with 6 pane sashes. The north eastern end elevation has two pairs of sliding corrugated iron doors.
Tender Shop
The two sheds are framed with curved Warren Girder steel trusseson timber posts. They have open ends, and side walls partially enclosed with corrugated iron. The floor is concrete. The gable-roofed link has walls of timber battens dividing it from the sheds. Each shed measures about 45.9 x 15.35m, and the overall width of the two sheds and the link is about 45.9 x 35.95m.
Carpenters' Shop
The Carpenters Workshop is a long rectangular building with timber framing and corrugated iron gabled roof. The walls are clad in corrugated iron with metal louvres. The north-western side has a timber gabled frame roof, with the south-western side roof by a lean-to extension. The building measures about 16.32 x 42.8m, with an addition of 6.55m to the length.
Boiler/Wheel Shop
A large rectangular building, and taller than the other pre-war workshop buildings. It is framed in steel with curved Warren girder roof trusses with flat bottom chords. It is a clear span single space. On the south-western side, it has buttress timber frames supporting the external wall. The building measures about 19.75 x 78.55m plus a small extension.
Garage and Motor Store
The Motor Store is a long narrow single storey building, with timber framing and a gabled roof. The roof and walls are clad in corrugated iron, with come areas of batten walls and mesh gates. The building measures about 24.8 x 8.3m.
Wagon Repair Shops 1 and 2
The Wagon Repair Depot Stage II is a very large building with a steel frame and walls clad in metal deck, with louvred windows. The brick cairn is some 13 courses high, at the western corner of the new building, with one plaque explaining the bricks and the old repair shed, and the other for the opening of the new shed.
Westinghouse Brake Shop
The building measures about 18.15 x 12.45m.
Breakdown Shed
The garage is located between the Canteen and the Machine Shop. It is constructed of timber framing and a concrete floor. The gabled roof and walls are clad in corrugated iron walls and gabled roof. There is a pair of wire mesh gate to south-western end. The building measures 6.1 x 12.3m.
Spring Shop
The Spring Shop measures about 9.15 x 24.8m.
Bosh/White Metal Shop
The Bosh is a building small in plan, but tall. It has a timber frame. It measures about 6.4 x 10.35m.
Running Shed
A long narrow building with steel framing, a lean-to corrugated iron roof, a concrete floor and open sides.
Signal Cabin 'A'
It is an elevated timber-framed cabin with a gabled roof. It is accessed by a timber stair. Clad in chamferboard. An elevated timber gangway was for communication with the drivers.
Gatehouses
The second of the two has an interesting construction of an airspace between the roof sheeting and the boarded ceiling.
Canteen, Store and Office
The Canteen, Store and Office are all rectangular single-storey timber framed buildings, with hipped corrugated fibro roofs, and low-set on concrete stumps. They are connected by timber landings, the between the Office and Canteen being enclosed.
Strong Room
The Strong Room is constructed of a concrete floor, walls and roof. It measures about 4.14m wide x 5.35m long. There is a setdown to the perimeter of the roof, with threaded bars projecting vertically, which may have been for connection to timber framing. The external walls suggest the formwork used was 185mm horizontal boards. Entry to the building is through a riveted steel door, about 2130 x 760mm. Internally, along both side walls are banks of riveted fixed steel shelves. The concrete slab surrounding the bunker is in several parts, and in total measures about 16.7 x 13.93m overall.
Bicycle Shed
The shed is constructed from steel-rail posts, and timber roof and wall framing. The skillion roof and wall facing the Flinders Street are clad in corrugated iron. The floor is concrete. The shed is divided into 11 bays. The posts are 85mm light gauge rails, apart from the centre post which is 110mm. The shed is about 26.85m long and 1.95m wide with an overhang of 900mm.
Compressors
Building 11 is located behind the Bosh. The building measures about 7.35 x 9.25m. Building 33 is located next to the Electrical Substation (No. 32). The building measures about 4.9 x 11.3m with an addition of 3.35 x 3.32m.
Electrical Substation
The Electrical Substation is a two-storey brick building with a corrugated fibro roof and a concrete floor. The building measures about 10.82 x 5.66m. A change in colour of the bricks at about the mid-height of the walls suggest it may have been a single storey, and a second level was added to hold larger equipment.
Schedules Office
The Schedules Office is a single storey concrete block structure with a flat metal deck roof. It measures about 11 x 11m. In the western corner is a WC framed in timber and clad in 125mm chamferboards, beaded internally. It contains two cubicles, a urinal with a pull-chain flush, a basin and a store room.
Refrigeration Shop
The Garage and Motor Store is a small timber-framed building with its gabled roof and walls clad in corrugated iron. It measures about 6.15 x 6.1m. It is located beside the Toilet Block. To the north-eastern end wall is a servery-type opening which occupies most of the wall. The south-western part of the interior is an office enclosed by fibro partitions.
Toilet Block
The Toilet Block is a rectangular building, framed in timber with a corrugated iron skillion roof, concrete floor and clad in 125mm chamferboards. It measures about 3.1 x 8.1m. It is located between the Loco Store and the Garage and Motor Store. The internal walls and partitions are lined with flat fibro sheet. There are 7 cubicles along the north-western wall, with a urinal and a basin at the end.
Amenities Block
The Amenities Block is a two storey brick building with concrete framing and a low pitched corrugated fibro roof. The building measures about 9.05 x 21.38m. It is located behind the eastern corner of the Boiler Shop.
","history":"The Townsville Railway Station and North Yards Workshops were established in about 1880 shortly after the commencement of the Northern Railway running west from Townsville, and the establishment of the Northern Rail Division, one of four separate railway divisions of Queensland. At this time, the Townsville Station was on the edge of the yards, making this site the operating centre of the Northern Division. The early growth and evolution of the Northern Railway was reflected in several upgrades of the North Yards Workshops by 1902. Construction of the North Yards railway workshops began in 1880 with the construction of the first railway station and the Machine Shop in 1881. The present railway station, the second station in the complex, was constructed between 1910 and 1913. The North Yards Workshops were permanently closed in 1990 and the major train services, the Sunlander and the Inlander ceased to run to the Station prior to 2004 when a new station was constructed to the west of the Workshops.
\nDuring the second half of the nineteenth century in Queensland there was a proliferation of separate rail systems spreading west from several coastal centres. Queensland's geography made for a decentralised railway system, with lines penetrating the interior from a number of points along the coast. Earlier rail systems had been constructed, mostly in response to the requirements of pastoralists in the main pastoral areas. This second phase of construction saw railways spread into the new, isolated mining districts. Reflecting the growth of Queensland and the difficulty of dealing with such a vast state the Government divided the railways into three divisions in 1878. The divisions were the Southern, Central and Northern Division which was centred on Townsville.
\nThe discovery of gold in 1869 at Ravenswood and in 1872 at Charters Towers was the main impetus for the construction of the Northern Railway from Townsville. With the development of each separate rail system came competing claims for the most suitable terminuses. In north Queensland there was competition between Bowen and Townsville. The first port in north Queensland had been established at Bowen in 1860, however, pastoralists and new mining settlements north and west of the Burdekin River were choosing to utilise the more convenient port at Townsville. Although Bowen had the better harbour, the Burdekin River proved too difficult a barrier. As well, Townsville's influential political connections convinced the government to make Townsville the railway terminus.
\nThe Government, on 7 August 1877, gave approval for the construction of the first stage of the line from Townsville to the top of Mingela Range. Before the completion of the track to Reid River on 20 December 1880, development of a Townsville Railway Station and maintenance workshops, as part of the support system for the Great Northern Railway, was commenced. By 1882 the line had reached Charters Towers and by 1884 the line had terminated at Hughenden, the heart of the pastoral region. Townsville's success in gaining the terminus of the Northern Railway ensured the towns economic survival. Within a short time Townsville merchant firms such as Samuel Allen and Sons, Clifton Aplin (later Aplin Brown and Co) and Burns Philp overshadowed their Bowen rivals.
\nAs the terminus of the Northern Line, the Townsville Railway Station and Workshops formed a complex group of support services. Buildings constructed during the first construction phase included a station, carriage shed, stores, goods sheds, weighbridges, turntables and lines into the workshops and the Machine Shop. By 1886 the importance of the maintenance section was illustrated by the number of support facilities established in the yards including wagon sheds, a bolt shed, tool shed, engine shed, carriage shed, coal store and smithy shop.
\nThe Northern Railway quickly became Queenslands most profitable line, with major upgrading taking place only five years after its inception. There was also periodic redevelopment of the workshop buildings during the 1880s and 1890s to meet the growing demand for maintenance of rolling stock on the busy line. The Northern Railway became known as the Great Northern Railway in 1905. Until 1910, with the passing of the North Coast Railway Act, and the Great Western Railway Act, the Queensland railways existed as separate identities or divisions. Coastal shipping was the preferred method of travel along the Queensland coast, with the railways acting as a transport corridor to inland districts. The first major linking of different divisions in Queensland occurred in 1903 with the opening of the Gladstone to Rockhampton railway line, which united the Southern and Central Divisions.
\nThe passing of the two railways Acts provided a major impetus for increased spending and construction works on the Queensland railways. New stations were built along the main lines in places such as Brisbane, Gympie and Townsville between 1910 and 1917. A corresponding development of improved locomotive technology, rollingstock, and railway infrastructure in general characterised this period, along with the construction of new rural branch lines throughout Queensland.
\nIn spite of improvements and extensions to the infrastructure in the North Yards during the early years of the twentieth century the problem of too little space was not overcome. Maintaining rolling stock in the cramped conditions of the yard was difficult, although improvements in 1921 overcame the worst inefficiencies.
\nThe completion of the North Coast line near Innisfail in December 1924 completed the projected main line between Brisbane and the Cairns railway system. However, even after completion and during subsequent upgrading of the Sunshine Route as it was known, track limitations on axle loads for locomotives, limited larger main line locomotives operating north of Townsville until the 1950s. As a result, Townsville remained the northern limit of the more modern engines.
\nDuring the early years of the Depression maintenance on the Northern Railway was reduced, however, deficiencies in the original construction of the line and the lack of maintenance were rectified during the late 1930s when the Queensland government established Relief Labour schemes to alleviate some of the problems of massive unemployment. Loan funding was channelled into deviations of the track, aimed at improving gradients on the line to enable locomotives to haul larger trains.
\nThe North Yard again became cramped and reclamation work was begun across Ross Creek in 1935. The work was completed in 1939 and carriage and wagon shops were transferred to the South Yards. The removal of some of the maintenance activity to South Townsville saw changes of use of many of the North Yard buildings.
\nUpgrading work on the Great Northern Line prior to the Second World War enhanced the importance of the northern railway. New rolling stock was introduced, maintenance workshops, including Townsville were improved and a passenger service, the Sunshine Express, from Brisbane to Cairns, was introduced.
\nThe significance of the Railway Station to the Townsville community has been demonstrated on a number of occasions. In 1910 the Mayor and community successfully partitioned the government to have the proposed new station located in Flinders Street rather than close to the mouth of Ross Creek. The role of the Railway Station and North Yards Workshops in World War 11 was recognised by the people of Townsville during the VP 50 Celebrations when thousands greeted a \"troop\" train at the station on 11 August 1995.
\nWithin ten years of establishment, Northern Railway staff became involved in union activity. Continuing involvement in union disputation during the next fifty years changed the face of industrial life in Australia. Charters Towers Miners' Union, established in July 1886, began a dispute with a mining company over reduction of wages. The dispute spread to the Croydon and Etheridge fields in 1889. As prices for gold fell miners became concerned about retaining their jobs. These concerns spread to the sugar industry and into various other industries. As unemployment grew trade unionism spread across North Queensland. The Australia wide, 1890 Maritime Strike saw unionism strengthened in North Queensland as the strike spread to other industries including the railways.
\nUnion activity in the North Yards was led by George Rymer after WW1. Rymer was employed on the Northern Railway and was a member of the Queensland Railway Union (QRU) and a member of the strike committee set up to assist unionists striking over a retrospective pay dispute in 1917. This strike was in serious breach of decisions made by the newly established Arbitration Court. The strikers, forced back to work under threat of dismissal were left with a feeling of discontent and resentment towards the Ryan Labor Government. A legacy which was to colour the northern railwaymen's attitude to Labor governments throughout the 1920s.
\nNorthern railwaymen continued to seek better pay and conditions from Labor governments throughout the next two decades and conflict between the left and right of Labor politics saw the emergence of the Communist Party in north Queensland. During key strikes such as the 1919 Meatworkers Strike, the 1925 Railway Strike and the 1928 sugar dispute Townsville suffered serious economic difficulties and turmoil, particularly during the 1919 riot outside the gates of Stewart Creek Jail in protest over the arrest of some railway unionists.
\nThe Northern Division, which had been established in 1878, was phased out in 1992 and management returned to Brisbane after 114 years.
\nTownsville Railway Station
\nThe first railway station, built in 1880, was located in Flinders Street near the corner of Jones Street, about three blocks west of the present station building. The original plan during the construction of the Townsville Railway was to locate the station near Magazine Island at the mouth of Ross Creek. The idea was revived when plans were being drawn up for a new station in 1910. Commercial interests backed the Mayor who argued that Ross Creek would cut off the railway terminus from the city centre. The community successfully partitioned the government to have the building located in Flinders Street between the town centre along Flinders Street and the busy business district at West End.
\nConstruction of the new terminus for the Great Northern Railway commenced in 1910 and the building opened on 24 December 1913. Vincent Price, an architectural draftsman in the Railway Department, prepared the drawings. The new terminus was an impressive and imposing building, built in the tradition of the grand railway stations of the 19th century in Britain, Europe and the United States. The building, which initially served as the headquarters of the Great Northern Railway with the letters GNR prominently displayed on the facade, contained the offices of the general manager and ancillary staff.
\nSubsequent changes to Townsville Railway Station have included the replacement of a large metal carriage shade which extended over three tracks with a smaller cantilever awning in 1969. The corrugated, galvanised iron roof and front awning was also replaced. A four storey, brick extension on the western end of the building was constructed in 1965. The main foyer retains original finishes on floor and ceiling. A World War 1 roll of honour board is located in the foyer. The interior of the upper floors has been modified including the partitioning of large rooms into smaller offices. While the General Managers office was moved into the new building in 1965 the upper floors of the station continue to be used as administrative offices.
\nIn 1997 some of the interior was refurbished, including the pressed metal ceilings in the toilets and other ground floor rooms.
\nMachine Shop
\nOn 3 June 1881 the tender was accepted for the construction of the Machine Shop from prominent North Queensland builders, Rooney Brothers, for the sum of £118.18.0, labour only, to be completed within a two month period. The design of the machine shop was similar to those built by the Railway in other parts of Queensland, notably Rockhampton. The construction consisted of a heavy timber frame of a row of strutted timber posts through the centre supporting a trussed roof with continuous lantern, and floors of asphalt and concrete. The building when completed in 1881 was 75' (23m) long. Wooden flooring was installed in 1884. An extension of 36' (11m) was added to the north-eastern end of the building in 1895, as part of the workshop additions of the 1890s.
\nThe expansion and reorganisation of the workshops in about 1901 included the extension of the Machine Shop at both ends. The construction matched the existing timber framing, wall cladding and fenestration. The two end walls of weatherboard and corrugated iron cladding were re-erected at the new ends of the building. A store building at the north-eastern end was relocated at the new ends of the building extended 44' (13.4m) to create more work space, with an extension to the wooden floor. At the south-western end another shed was removed, and an extension of 70' (21.4m) was constructed containing an engine and boiler room with a concrete floor, and a store for tyres with an ash floor.
\nBlacksmith's Shop
\nThe original Blacksmith's Shop, constructed before 1900, was perpendicular to and behind the Machine Shop. By the time of its demolition in 1937, it had become the Tinsmiths' and Coppersmiths' Shop. Its demolition for extensions to the boiler shop, reinforced the northeast-southwest axis of the setout of the buildings. This Blacksmiths' Shop was constructed before 1932. To the north-west is a smaller building also labelled as Blacksmiths' Shop, which was constructed between 1940 and 1960, which later became the Spring Shop.
\nMotor Shop (Building No 38)
\nThe Motor Shop was constructed between 1902 and 1932. By 1932 it was the Paint Shop, and it was proposed to become the Traffic Motor Shade in 1940. It had two roads (rail-lines) entering from the north-east. By 1960 it had become the Mechanics Shop.
\nTender Shop
\nThis building was constructed about 1902 as two separate Wagon Sheds, each measuring 150'x50'. A photograph of about 1916 shows people displaying splints and crutches presumably for WWI made in this building.
\nCarpenters Shop
\nBy 1902, the Wagon Shop, and Carriage and Paint Shop each measuring 100'x50' (305x15.25m) sat behind the Machine Shop, and lined up with the two wagon sheds. In 1902, a 60' (length 48.8m) extension was also proposed on the end of the Wagon Shop for a sawmill which connected to the Machine Shop.
\nBoiler/Wheel Shop
\nThe Boiler Shop was constructed before 1932. An extension of 90' to the north-east end in about 1940 forced the demolition of the original Blacksmiths' Shop. The building is now known as the Wheel Shop at the north-east end, and Metal Fabrication to the south-west end.
\nGarage and Motor Store
\nBy 1932, there was a small Loco Store and a Motor Shop to the north-eastern end of the Machine Shop. By 1960, the Loco Store had become a long narrow building, probably combining parts of the earlier two buildings. There was a Storeman operating in here until the 1970s, when the operation was moved.
\nWagon Repair Shops 1 and 2
\nThe original Wagon Repair Shop was a brick building constructed in February 1889. By 1932 it is noted as the fitting Shop with two roads running its length, and a long repair pit shown to each road. A 90' extension was proposed for the building about 1940, but this does not seem to have gone ahead. By 1960 the building was noted as the Wagon Repair Shop. This building was demolished in June 1984.
\nWestinghouse Brake Shop
\nThe Westinghouse Brakes Shop was constructed before 1932. For many years, Westinghouse was the only brand of braking system used for locomotives and rolling stock, hence the building's name. However in recent years, a second brand was also used, and it too was overhauled in this shop.
\nBreakdown Shed
\nThe Breakdown Shed was constructed between 1940 and 1960. It housed the 20 ton breakdown truck which was full of equipment for assistance to breakdowns and derailments until the 1990s. The breakdown gang would travel west to Pentland as well as north and south.
\nBosh/White Metal Shop
\nPossibly constructed in 1930. Originally used for Bosh, which was a bath of caustic soda with steam running through, which was used for cleaning parts before they were to be repaired. White metal was a low friction metal coating put onto a curved brass block which was the bearing system. This block sat in the axle box, which had oil-soaked wool in its base to oil the axel. If the bearing was not a good fit, the friction would ignite the wool.
\nRunning Shed
\nConstructed about 1944. Here, damage parts were cut off wagons and carriages to prepare them for entering the Workshops.
\nSignal Cabin 'A'
\nThis cabin was constructed prior to 1932. At this time, it was shown as having 12 levers. It controlled access to the North Yard Workshops. Also, at this time, to the south-west of the cabin are shown geometric garden plots running parallel to Flinders Street. To the south-west of the gardens was the overhead bridge also built before 1932, perhaps in 1899. This crossed the railway lines to connect to a bridge over the river. This bridge was destroyed in cyclone Althea in the 1970s.
\nGatehouses
\nBy 1932, there were 3 small buildings inside the main gates. The nearest and smallest was the Ambulance Cabin, and the other two noted as 'Checks'. By 1960 only the largest was shown, and labelled 'Office' or 'Ambulance Office'. There are presently two chamferboards buildings located in this position. The building closest to the entry was the Stores Distributor's Office. He would check stores arriving at the yards, and send them to the relevant shop. The second of the two small huts was the First Aid Attendant's Room.
\nCanteen, Store and Office
\nThe canteen was built in 1945 and opened a week before the end of World War II. It probably replaced Railway Institute Dining Room (probably the former Chief Engineer's Office 1886) which had been next to the Motor Shop. The Canteen, Store and Office could all have been built about the same time, and were all existing by 1960. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the 'Railway Institute' as it was then known became on the well-known public dance halls of Townsville.
\nStrong Room
\nThe Strong Room was built prior to 1932. It may have been associated with the Chief Engineer'' Office built in 1886, which was a rectangular timber building with encircling verandah. A building of this form was shown as the Railway Institute Dining Room by 1932, adjacent but not connected to the Strong Room on its north-east side. This Dining Room was replaced by the Canteen constructed at the end of World War Two. In 1932, the Strong Room had a Fibre Store connected to the rear, and to the south-west, in front of the Machine Shop was a Bandstand. The Townsville Railway Band were Queensland Champions in 1918-20 and 1930. By 1960, the bandstand had been demolished.
\nBicycle Shed
\nBy 1932, there were two Bicycle Sheds of similar size on either side of the entrance gates. By the 1960s, the south-western shed had been removed. The present bicycle Shed was constructed after 1960. The earlier sheds had included timber slats to stand the bikes in. During the 1930s when the yards were at their peak, most of the 1000 workers at the yards travelled by bicycle. Traffic in Flinders Street would be stopped at finishing time to allow the wave of bicycles to leave the yards.
\nCompressors
\nPossibly constructed about 1930. Building No.33 Possibly constructed about 1936.
\nElectrical Substation
\nConstructed during the 1960s, possibly in 1967. There was previously a small office constructed in this location before 1932.
\nSchedules Office
\nThe Schedules Office was constructed after 1980. Here schedules were prepared for the carriages and wagons entering the workshops. It was the centre for the computer network of the yards, connected to terminals in each of the shops. It is now known as the Workshop Development Office. The WC was constructed before 1960. There was a similar sized WC shown next to the Strong Room in 1932.
\nRefrigeration Workshop
\nThe existing building is part of the former Refrigeration Workshops. The building once extended towards the east, where a concrete slab remains. In this workshop service and repairs were done on train air-conditioners, water coolers, building air-conditioners and refrigerated containers. The workmen here wore white overalls and this shop was commonly known as \"ice-cream factory\". The hole in the north-east side, which resembles a servery, once contained louvres.
\nToilet Block
\nA small WC is shown as being in this position by 1932. The present block was constructed before 1960.
\nAmenities Block
\nThe Amenities Block was constructed during the 1960s. It currently has a lunch room and training areas on the upper level, and lockers and change rooms on the lower level.
","criteria":"The establishment of the Townsville Railway Station and North Yards Workshop demonstrates the growth of a separate Northern Rail Division and, also, the economic development of Townsville in the late 19th century. The development of the Northern Railway was, in combination with the port, instrumental in the economic growth of Townsville in the late 19th century.
|The complex is a rare, surviving example of regional 19th century Queensland railway workshop and station complex, which operated for over a century.
|The site has the potential to yield further information about the history of the northern rail line and the 19th century railway in Queensland.
|The Townsville Railway Station Complex demonstrate the railway policy of maintenance and repair work completed on site with available skills and materials.
The complex, including the buildings, contents, configuration of the rail tracks, and the landscape elements, including the remnant cabin garden, the trees along Flinders Street and the mango trees, contribute to an understanding of the development and operation of the railway in Northern Queensland and are characteristic of a large regional railway complex.
|The Townsville Railway Station and North Yards Workshops have aesthetic significance as a prominent complex of buildings and structures, predominantly of timber and iron construction which express their industrial function and contribute to an interesting and complex site. The character of the yards, including the trees along Flinders Street, contribute to the character of the commercial district of Townsville, and have prominent townscape value.
|During the early years of the 20th century, improvements to the workshops and the construction of the new Townsville Station between 1910 and 1913 demonstrate a new government attitude to the Queensland railways, with the introduction of new Acts, increased spending and the first integration of the separate rail divisions.
|As the principal railway station and complex of a large Queensland city, the Townsville Railway Station Complex has social value as a landmark of significant public use over a long period.
|As the principal railway station and complex of a large Queensland city, the Townsville Railway Station Complex has social value as a landmark of significant public use over a long period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15682,"place_ref":600907,"name":"Henlein & Co. Building (former)","alternate_name":"H F Henlein & Co. Building | Henlein & Co. Ltd Building | Henleins Building","street_address":"408-410 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Henlein & Co. Building (former) (1902) is a two-storey, brick and timber-framed warehouse with basement, fronting Flinders Street in central Townsville. It stands on half of a long and narrow allotment, which extends to a rear service lane, Ogden Street. A four storey, concrete and concrete block building (built c1961) stands on the rear half of the allotment abutting the Henlein & Co. Building and is outside the cultural heritage boundary.
\nAlthough Henlein & Co. Building (former) has been altered for later non-significant uses, it retains fabric and features of its original warehouse use of state-level cultural heritage significance. It is rectangular in plan form, with loadbearing brick perimeter walls built to the allotment boundaries. It retains areas of original, timber floor structure of the ground and first floor, comprising heavy posts and beams, cross bracing between joists to support shifting loads, and timber floorboards. It has a timber-framed gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, although it has lost its original, metal-sheet ridge ventilators. It retains a section of its original, elaborately decorated, face brick and cement render facade, although it has been altered and partly demolished. The interior spaces have been altered to accommodate later, non-significant uses and its original brick rear wall has been entirely demolished, including the parapet above the roofline.
\nFeatures of Henlein & Co. Building (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Henlein & Co. Building (former) not of state-level cultural heritage significance are all alterations made and fabric introduced after 1902, including:
\nHenlein & Co. Building (former), located at 408-410 Flinders Street, Townsville, is a two-storey, brick warehouse. It was purpose-built in 1902 for Townsville merchants, H F Henlein & Co. (established 1894) and occupied by the business for 28 years. H F Henlein & Co. and its subsequent companies conducted by Henry Frederick Henlein and his brother Sigismund, Jewish migrants from Germany, operated in North Queensland until c1930. The building is rare known surviving physical evidence of the commercial activities of Jewish immigrants in Queensland before the 1930s.
\nSited on the traditional lands of the Gurambilbarra Wulgurukaba People,[1] Townsville was established in 1864 as a service centre and port for pastoral settlers in the region. Located on the western shore of Cleveland Bay on the banks of Ross Creek, the settlement was ideally situated for trade to and from its hinterland. The port of Townsville was proclaimed a ‘Port of Entry and Clearance’ in 1865 and a small customs service established there. The first sale of Townsville allotments occurred in 1865 and the settlement was proclaimed a town in 1866. Flinders Street, near the early wharves, became the principal commercial street of the settlement.
\nTownsville continued to grow during the remainder of the 19th century, becoming ‘the major commercial, social, ecclesiastical, legal, medical and education centre for the entire region of North Queensland from Bowen to Cape York’,[2] and was declared a city in 1902. A series of factors during the 19th century stimulated Townsville’s continued development and population growth. These were: discovery of gold in Townsville’s hinterland at Cape River (1867), Ravenswood (1868) and later at Charters Towers (1871);[3] the establishment of a railway (commenced in 1879) from Townsville to Charters Towers (1882), Hughenden (1887), and ultimately to Mount Isa (1929); and the development of an artificial outer harbour to overcome the shallow depth of the port by 1900.[4] Around the turn of 20th century, these factors and the construction of the Victoria Bridge (between 1887 and 1889) linking both sides of Ross Creek, also led to the extension westward of the town’s commercial activity along Flinders Street towards the Townsville Railway Station [QHR 600906].[5]
\nEstablishment of H F Henlein & Co.
H F Henlein & Co. commenced operations in North Queensland in 1894, with Henry, as its senior partner, in partnership with his brother Sigismund. In May that year, Henry Henlein relocated from Brisbane to Townsville to act as the agent for West End Brewery, which was based in Brisbane. H F Henlein & Co. was first registered as a wholesale spirit dealer in Townsville in September 1894 and by December that year, the business also operated from Messrs Newman’s auction building in Charters Towers. By February 1895, the business had received its first licences to sell tobacco ‒ in Charters Towers and Townsville. By January 1896, H F Henlein & Co. operated as wine, spirit, and general merchants, insurance and forwarding agents, had voting rights on the newly formed Townsville Harbour Board, which commenced operations on 1 January 1896.[6] By 1901, H F Henlein & Co. supplied alcohol to hotels from Ayr to Burketown to western Queensland and, at the end of the year, successfully tendered to supply the refreshment room at Reid River Railway Station for the Queensland Railways Department.[7]
Both Henlein brothers had migrated to New South Wales (NSW) in the early 1880s. Henry Frederick Henlein arrived in Australia as a saloon passenger on the SS Liguria from London to Sydney in September 1881.[8] In Sydney, he established H F Henlein & Co., importing general goods described as ‘cottonware’,[9] and ‘clay goods and hollow glass…from Hamburg’.[10] Henry’s brother, Sigismund, joined him in NSW in 1883, as a representative of a continental firm dealing in cloth or soft goods. Born circa 1857 and 1862 respectively, these Jewish brothers came from Frankfurt-am-Main or nearby Wiesbaden, Germany.[11]
\nHenry Henlein’s business venture in NSW failed in 1884. In April that year, he was charged with insolvency in the NSW Supreme Court by his creditors Sir Benjamin Samuel Phillips, Knight, Samuel Henry Phillips, and George Faudel Phillips of London, England, who operated the firm Faudel, Phillips & Sons, merchants of London. This action resulted in Henry Henlein being declared bankrupt in 1885.[12]
\nIn May 1884, Henry travelled from Sydney to Townsville[13] and at some time before May 1887, Henry had commenced another chapter in his life, initially travelling throughout Queensland as a representative of Quinlan Gray & Co., brewers, and later as the company’s ‘town representative’, based in Brisbane. This business formed in 1878 with Gray as managing partner, and established a brewery at Milton in Brisbane in conjunction with E and N Fitzgerald of Victoria. In 1887, the businesses amalgamated into the public company, Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd. Sigismund Henlein also worked as a representative of this company by July 1888; travelling widely in Queensland, as well as acting as its representative in Toowoomba for some years.[14]
\nHenlein & Co. Building
From c1895, H F Henlein & Co.’s premises were located on the ‘left-hand side’ of Flinders Street between Stanley and Blackwood Streets, the last building before the Blackwood Street intersection. From May 1902 until its closure about 1930, H F Henlein & Co. and its subsequent companies occupied the purpose-built H F Henlein & Co. Building on the southern side of Flinders Street between Stokes and Stanley Streets (now 408-410 Flinders Street).[15]
The former Henlein & Co. Building, a commercial warehouse, was purpose-built for H F Henlein & Co, although owned by Townsville businessman, Henry Abbott. The building was designed by architecture firm, Eaton, Bates & Polin, established in Rockhampton c1894 and operating as Eaton and Bates until 1901. They conducted an extensive architecture practice in the early 20th century, with branches across Queensland producing a diverse range of building types. Tenders were received in October 1901 and the building was sufficiently completed for a seven-year lease between Abbott and H F Henlein & Co. to be signed on 1 May 1902, implying that the building was at least partially occupied from that time.[16]
\nNumerous commercial warehouse buildings were constructed in the Federation period across Queensland. These buildings shared common characteristics including: a central, commercial location near other retail and commercial premises and goods transport services/routes (train, wharf, road, etc); and solid, secure construction of typically loadbearing masonry walls and large timber, steel, or iron internal posts and beams, supporting timber-framed floors with herringbone bracing between joists to support heavy, shifting loads. They also typically had highly decorative front elevations, contrasting with plain other elevations, as well as security measures, such as barred windows. They were functional buildings, laid out with a small front section used for retailing or welcoming customers (typically wholesale buyers), accessed from the street. The largest portion of the buildings was for warehousing, comprising robust, large, and open goods storage spaces, secured and indirectly lit to protect goods, that would be goods-specific if necessary (such as cellaring for alcohol). They usually had a relatively small office space for administration, and a despatching section with rear or side access from a loading yard via loading doors, goods lift, chute, or winch.[17]
\nWhen completed, the building for H F Henlein & Co. shared these characteristics. Centrally located, it fronted Townsville’s main retail street, Flinders Street, and was near the wharves and railway station. It was a loadbearing brick structure[18] of two storeys with a basement, built up to the Flinders Street and side boundaries. It had an open area at the rear used as a service yard, accessed from Ogden Street (originally named Flinders Lane). Its timber-framed gable roof was clad with corrugated metal sheets, and had tall, conical ridge ventilators. The front facade was elaborately decorative, featuring face brick walls, cement render decorative treatments, raised cement render letters ‘H.F. HENLEIN & CO’ on the building’s first floor frieze, a tall central pediment above the parapet, and an arched, recessed ground floor main entrance reached by steps up from the footpath. It had timber sash windows in the ground and first floor levels, secured with iron bars. Through its large, arched front door with multi-paned side and fan lights, the ground floor was almost double-height. It had a timber board floor and through the middle of the space ran a line of large timber posts supporting the timber-framed floors with herringbone bracing above. The first floor was also a very tall space, and it is not known if it had a ceiling or its roof frames were exposed. The basement was a low space with a line of heavy timber posts supporting the braced floor above. The rear yard was at the same level as the basement floor.[19]
\nHenlein family
The Henlein brothers, like many Jewish migrants to Queensland from the 1860s up to the 1930s, adopted the Britishness[20] dominant in Australian society and became involved in the Townsville community. Henry Henlein was naturalised as a British subject on 22 August 1894 and his brother followed suit in 1902. In 1895, both Henry, age 38, and his brother Sigmund, age 33, became eligible to vote in Queensland based on the value of their residences on The Strand. Henry was involved in community activities in both Brisbane and Townsville from the 1890s. Between 1890 and 1892 he held the rank of acting lieutenant in the Kennedy Regiment of the Queensland Defence Force (Land). Henry also served as a Justice of the Peace from 1899. In 1901, Henry endowed a commencing scholarship at the Toowoomba Grammar School and served as a trustee at the school from 1909 to 1911. He was a member of the Townsville Central State School Committee from 1907 to 1911. Henry was a committee member of the Townsville Turf Club, based at Cluden Racecourse, in 1904 and 1905 and served as one of its totalisator stewards in 1906. Sigismund was less involved in community and philanthropic activities, but was a Vice-President of the Townsville Australian Natives’ Association Band in 1913, and like his brother took an avid interest in horse racing and was a Townsville Turf Club member.[21]
Nevertheless, the Henlein brothers also upheld non-British connections. In April 1893, Henry chaired the committee of German residents in Brisbane, organising a public reception for the Archduke of Austria who was touring Australasia. In 1910, Henry was appointed vice-consul of the Netherlands at Townsville, and Sigismund was appointed to this position in his brother’s place from December 1911.[22]
\nBoth brothers married and raised families in Townsville. Sigismund married Harriet Goldring, a member of Toowoomba’s Jewish community, in the Toowoomba Synagogue in 1897, and their marriage resulted in four children. Henry married Jeannie Long in 1899 and two sons were born to them, in 1900 and 1910.[23] The brothers were known to be Jewish.[24] The families both resided near Townsville’s city centre.[25] After Henry died in Brisbane in May 1911, The Telegraph newspaper described him as a ‘highly respected northern man’[26] and ‘a popular business man in the north…well known and highly respected by commercial houses in Brisbane’[27] A large group of well-connected mourners attended his funeral, which was conducted with Church of England rites.[28]
\nFollowing Henry’s death, Sigismund continued in business, converting H F Henlein & Co. into the limited liability company, Henlein & Co. Ltd, registered on 10 October 1911. This company was established with capital of 30,000 one-pound shares. The principal shareholders were Sigismund Henlein (merchant; 9999 shares), Hyman Goldring (accountant; 9999 shares), Jacob Leu (solicitor; 9999 shares) and Jeannie Henlein (Henry’s widow; 500 shares).[29]
\nDespite the loss of its senior partner, Henlein & Co. Ltd persisted and grew. The company continued to trade in wholesale wine spirits, as well as other merchandise, including wool in 1913.[30] By 1921, Henlein & Co. advertised as ‘Wine, Spirit, Produce and General Merchants, Commission and Forwarding Agents, Townsville, stocking all the leading brands in wines, spirits and groceries’.[31] In 1921, Henlein & Co. Ltd purchased the Henlein & Co. Building from its owner, Henry Abbott.[32]
\nHowever, in October 1924 the company went into voluntary liquidation resulting in a regrouping of the business rather than its end, and the sale of the Henlein & Co. Building to the English, Scottish & Australian Bank (ES&A Bank) in 1925. In March 1926, a new limited liability company, Henleins Ltd, was established with £50,000 capital. Through a five-year lease from 1 August 1926, Henleins Ltd continued to share the Henlein & Co. Building with the ES&A Bank and occupied 75 per cent of the 20-perch (1000m2) property.[33] Prior to this, in September 1925, Sigismund and several family members also established Innisfail Stores Ltd at Innisfail, in conjunction with the Moran family. This company traded as retail and wholesale merchants, grocers, fruiterers, amongst other things. By 1928, Henleins Ltd was also operating as a bonded warehouse in Townsville, one of 22 bonded warehouses in Queensland in that year; four of which were located in Townsville.[34]
\nFollowing Sigismund’s death in September 1928, Henleins Ltd was wound up by May 1931,[35] and most likely quit the building by May 1930. The Henlein name continued in the company name Frasers Henleins Ltd, registered on 3 May 1930 and most likely formed through buy-out of Henleins Ltd. Frasers Henleins Ltd (later Fraser Henleins Pty Ltd) based in Sturt Street, Townsville, traded as wholesale merchants in North Queensland until c1946.[36]
\nThe Henlein brothers operated as merchants for more than 30 years in the competitive North Queensland market. Between 1895 and 1918, there were between six and 17 wholesale spirit dealer licences held in Townsville each year, with more based in other towns in North Queensland (rising to 58 in 1914).[37] The company was named as one of the 17 leading mercantile houses in Townsville in 1921[38] and in 1928 the Daily Mercury newspaper in Mackay described the company as a ‘well-known mercantile firm’;[39] while more recently Townsville historian Dorothy Gibson-Wilde called H F Henlein & Co. a leading Townsville liquor wholesaler.[40]
\nJewish migration to Queensland
Jewish people were resident in the Colony of Queensland from the 1860s.[41] Their population rose from 49 in 1861 (0.16% of the total population) to a 19th century peak of 809 in 1891 (0.21% of Queensland population), before falling to 733 in 1901 (0.15% of Queensland’s population of 498,129), before rising again from the 1910s due to events in Europe.[42]
The Henlein brothers were members of a small Jewish community in Townsville, which comprised 11 males and 12 females in 1901. The Townsville community made up 3.14% of the total Jewish population in Queensland of 733, and 0.005% of the state’s total population, in 1901.[43] Oral history states that a room in the home of fellow Jewish man, Sama (original surname: Hillel), who resided nearby at 14 Kennedy Terrace, served as a meeting place for Jewish worship in Townsville.[44] Throughout the 19th century, the majority of Queensland’s Jewish population lived in Brisbane (422 of 733 or 57.3% in 1901), [45] forming the nucleus of the Brisbane Hebrew Congregation founded in Brisbane in 1865.[46] A smaller congregation resided in Toowoomba and established Queensland’s first synagogue in 1876, while Brisbane’s much larger synagogue was consecrated on 18 July 1886.[47] The remainder of the Jewish population was scattered across the colony.[48]
\nQueensland’s early Jewish community (1860s-1920s) assimilated into the wider community. They strongly supported the British Empire and its monarchy, and adopted Britishness.[49] In Brisbane, the presence of a Jewish congregation from 1864 assists identification of its members.[50] Jewish migrants living outside Brisbane usually worked as hawkers, pedlars, or storekeepers in small country towns.[51] Others were tradespeople and merchants, who were often self-employed.[52] According to Jennifer Creese, author of Jewish Life in Queensland: Celebrating 150 years since 1865, in regional Queensland, it is ‘hard to track colonial Jewish business owners because there is very little reliable way to identify them as Jewish because the communities were so small … and often the businessmen convert[ed], or marr[ied] Christians, or [didn’t] record their faith so they [could] fit in’.[53]
\nAs a result, there is little known physical evidence of Jewish people and Jewish-owned commercial buildings in regional and country towns of colonial Queensland during the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The Jewish Synagogue in Toowoomba was demolished c1929 after loss of its congregation.[54] The main evidence of the Jewish presence in regional and country Queensland is Jewish gravestones in cemeteries.[55]
\nExtant business/commercial properties purpose-built for Jewish business people from this period in Queensland are few. Regional and country places identified are: the former Henlein & Co. Building, Townsville; the Australian Hotel, Boonah (built by the Blumberg brothers and run by Adolphus and Levi Blumberg, and Levi’s wife Elizabeth from 1888 to 1903); and the Royal Hotel, Mt Usher Road, Bouldercombe, Central Queensland, which was built for Samuel Heiser in 1897 and operated by him.[56]
\nEven in Brisbane, known extant commercial buildings that accommodated Jewish businesses (but were not purpose-built for them) are limited to: The Alderley Arms Hotel, Samford Road, Brisbane (opened 1889), which in 1902 was owned and run by Solomon Lipstein, a well-known Jewish publican and long-time resident of Rockhampton and Pimpama; and the Allan & Stark Annex, Brisbane [QHR 600162 Myer Store (former)], which was built by Thomas Illidge as an investment property in 1881. The first tenant was Jonas M Myers, fancy goods merchant, and also lay leader of the Brisbane Hebrew Congregation.[57]
\nEnglish, Scottish & Australian Bank Changes
Established in Queensland in 1889, the English, Scottish & Australian (ES&A) Bank operated only a Brisbane branch until 1906, when it expanded into rural and regional Queensland. Following its purchase of the Henlein & Co. Building in 1925, the ES&A Bank shared occupancy of the Henlein & Co. Building until 1942.[58]
During the bank’s use of the Henlein & Co. Building, a number of changes were made to the building. The raised cement render letters ‘H.F. HENLEIN & CO’ were cut off the building’s first floor frieze, and four painted signs ‘English Scottish & Australian Bank Limited’ were added to the building’s front. It is possible a bank vault was added into the basement for this occupation or had pre-existed.
\nCarfoots Pty Ltd Changes
In July 1938, the ES&A Bank leased the Henlein & Co. Building to Carfoots Pty Ltd, furniture dealers, for ten years.[59] At the time, this business was described as having ‘built up a State-wide trade as wholesale suppliers of furniture to [Queensland] provincial stores’ and traded as far south as Lismore before entering the retail furniture market in Townsville in 1934. Their existing retail space nearby had become inadequate, so plans were prepared by March 1938 for the Henlein building to be refurbished to include a shop and warehouse for Carfoots, in addition to the bank branch. This would include ‘modern showrooms on two floors with basement accommodation, and a factory adjunct at the rear’, although the latter does not appear to have been accommodated at opening.[60] The showrooms were to have 5500 feet (1676m) of show space and were to be ‘elaborately fitted up, with an attractive frontage and cantilever awning’.[61] Tenders for the remodelling were called from February 1938 by Brisbane-based architects G H M Addison and Son & H S MacDonald in association with Townsville architects Walter and Maurice Hunt.[62]
At its opening day in December 1938, Carfoots’ new premises was described as comprising ‘the whole of the basement, the big part of the ground floor of the building, the large upstairs portion, a spacious mezzanine floor and considerable shed and ground accommodation for packing and handling of delivery’. [63]
\nThe building’s elaborate face brick and cement render street front was altered to facilitate the conversion of the building to a retail shop. This included adding a large footpath awning the full width of the frontage, top hung from the building, and demolishing the front wall below this for the occupants’ new entrances. Carfoots' new 5m (17’) wide frontage, approximately half the building’s total frontage, included a large show window and marble tiled vestibule entrance that extended 12m (40’) from the footpath into the ground floor space. This likely required the demolition of the original floor structure of the ground floor here, and rebuilding it a lower level closer to that of the footpath. Carfoots’ ground floor showroom was approximately 21m (72’) long, and on one side were staff offices. Above the entrance vestibule and show window was a new mezzanine level between ground and first floors, used for storage. A stair led to the first floor, which accommodated a 9m x 27m (30’ x 90’) showroom with ‘large windows and casements’. The basement and rear storage sections of the building were said to ‘extend right back to Ogden-street’, accommodating ‘general purposes such as temporary storage, packing, and arrangements of delivery’.[64]
\nThese descriptions of the size of the building do not correlate with the footprint of the brick building that survives in 2024, which is only approximately 20m long (Carfoots’ ground floor is described as 34m (112’) long with further rooms behind). This indicates that by this time the building included rear sections for further accommodation, which may have been original or additions.
\nOccupation of the building by Carfoots and the ES&A Bank was interrupted during World War II (WWII) when the building was requisitioned for use as a United States Armed Forces Post Office (APO 922), from April 1942 until July 1944. Due to the rapid advance of Japanese forces in the Pacific after December 1941, Townsville became a major staging point for the Allied war effort in the Pacific from 1942. The city’s population increased from about 30,000 to approximately 90,000-100,000. The lack of materials and labour available to the Allies, meant commercial buildings and private homes in Townsville were requisitioned for military purposes. Buildings located in the city centre were close to telecommunication facilities and essential services and many US and Australian military units were based there. During this time, it appears that the vault in the basement of the Henlein & Co. Building was used as a dark room.[65]
\nFollowing WWII, the Henlein & Co. Building was sold to Jack Nicolas Parpoutis in September 1947. In December 1948, he extended the lease to Carfoots for a further 10 years. However, in February 1954, the building was sold to Carfoots Pty Ltd for use by the company and Sunshine Taxis. At this time, the building was described as having a 50m (165’) depth ‘to Odgen Street’, which correlates to the entire length of the allotment.[66]
\nIn 1961, a four-storey concrete and concrete block extension was built over the rear half of the site, accommodating an expansion of Carfoots to occupy all areas of the premises. Designed by Brisbane-based architects Goodsir & Carlyle, the new building required the demolition of an earlier structure (called the ‘Linoleum Department’) attached to the rear of the original main building (age unknown). Other changes were made to the main building, including demolishing its brick rear wall on all levels to connect through to the new building, demolishing interior stairs and office partitions on the ground floor, and demolishing the basement toilets and adding a new concrete basement floor. By this time, the 1938 Flinders Street frontage had been replaced with a single, recessed entrance with large show windows, likely performed c1954.[67]
\nBest & Less changes and later
A new phase in the building’s life commenced in the 1970s. The property was sold to Carricks Limited in September 1976, and quickly resold in May 1977, to clothing retailer Best & Less (Fairfield) Pty Ltd, which operated from the building until c2006.[68]
To modernise the shop front for the Best & Less occupation, in c1977 the frontage was again demolished and replaced.[69] By this time, the front facade had been painted and its first floor timber double-hung windows had been replaced with metal-framed glass louvres. Most of the basement’s timber posts and beams had been demolished and replaced with large concrete posts and beams in new locations of longer spans. It is possible at this time that the basement floor was also concreted. A fire-rated ceiling was added to the ground floor, concealing the timber-framed floor structure of the first floor, and the non-original mezzanines were demolished. A new concrete stair and concrete block stairwell were added to one side of the ground floor, leading up to the first floor, and a suspended ceiling was added to the first floor.[70]
\nIn 2006 the interior was refurbished to accommodate a new fit out, with new partitions constructed throughout the ground floor.
\nAfter 2006, the shop front was again demolished and replaced with aluminium-framed hinged doors and fixed windows forming two entrances, one into the ground floor, and one to a stairwell to the first floor, which operated as separate tenancies to the ground floor. The first floor was partitioned into small offices and a suspended ceiling was installed throughout. This ceiling obscured an earlier, coved, timber beaded-board-lined ceiling with lattice vents and iron tie rods.
\nFrom September 2019, part of the ground floor and part of the basement was leased to an art studio and gallery.[71] Around 2023, further modern partitions were added to the first floor to accommodate a new multi-tenancy occupation.
\nIn 2024, the Henlein & Co. Building (former) is used for multiple tenancies, and an art gallery and studio. While the building has been used as a multi-tenancy commercial building for many years, it retains original features from its warehouse use. Purpose-built for H F Henlein & Co., the building is rare, known, surviving physical evidence of the commercial activities of Jewish people in Queensland before the 1930s.
","criteria":"Henlein & Co. Building (former), as rare surviving physical evidence of the commercial activities of Jewish immigrants, many of whom conducted businesses contributing to Queensland’s commercial development during the colonial period and early 20th century, is important in demonstrating the Jewish diaspora in Queensland. The building (constructed 1902) retains original and early interior fabric and surviving original features of the facade.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15683,"place_ref":600908,"name":"Great Northern Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"500 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Great Northern Hotel is located on a prominent corner site at the intersection of Flinders and Blackwood Streets, within an historic precinct which includes the 1914 Townsville Railway Station and oval lawn, garden and mature trees [600906], the 1932 Newmarket Hotel on the opposite corner, and the vista towards Castle Hill.
The Great Northern Hotel is a substantial two-storeyed, L-shaped brick building with facades to Flinders and Blackwood Streets. It has a corrugated-iron roof, hidden behind a parapet decorated with classical motifs. Wide verandahs with bullnose roofing, cast-iron balustrading and friezes and a wooden valance on the lower level, adorn both street frontages. The timber verandah posts on the ground floor are decorated with fluted columns and capitals, and leadlight glass is a feature of the street level windows.
Internally the building remains largely intact, despite some refurbishment of the Flinders Street wing of the ground floor, which contains the public bars. At this eastern end part of the ground floor has been converted into two shops and one has been reconstructed to form part of a second bar area. The main entrance doors in the Flinders Street wing have been replaced with aluminium and the bars refurbished.
The main door of the hotel addresses Blackwood Street, closest to the railway station and leading to the reception, dining and accommodation areas of the hotel. This entrance retains its original timber joinery and sidelights and opens into a foyer with the original timber dado panelling. To the left of this foyer is the original office and office furniture. The former dining room to the right has been converted into a reception room and a new dining room opened in a room through the leadlight doors at the back of the foyer. The main internal staircase, rising from the Blackwood Street foyer, has well-crafted turned timber balusters and above the landing is a feature window with early leadlight central panes.
Upstairs, there has been little alteration to the fabric of the building. The ceilings and most of the bedroom partition walls are the original tongue and groove boarding [horizontally-jointed on the walls]. Many of the original fretwork panels above the internal doors survive, while others have been replaced with glass or timber. The upstairs rooms are accessed from a T-shaped hallway with decorative masonry archways at regular intervals, and each bedroom has french doors opening onto front or rear verandahs.
","history":"The Great Northern Hotel, a large, two-storeyed brick and timber hotel, was erected in 1900-01 for Townsville timber firm Wilson Hart & Company, owners of the site. It was designed by prominent Townsville architects Tunbridge and Tunbridge.
The application to build the Great Northern Hotel appears to have been initiated following the State government's announcement in 1900 of plans to erect a new Townsville railway terminus on land off Blackwood Street beside Ross Creek, which would bring the terminus closer to the eastern end of Flinders Street and to the retail and business heart of Townsville. Almost immediately [June 1900], applications were lodged to erect hotels on two corners of the nearby intersection of Flinders and Blackwood Streets - one being the Great Northern, the other replacing an existing hotel [the Newmarket?]. Both applicants intended to erect first-class hotels, both argued that Townsville suffered a lack of first-class accommodation - the hotels erected during the boom of the 1880s no longer offering the level of comfort and facilities required by turn-of-the-century travellers - and both applications were approved provided the buildings were erected within the time specified [9 months in each case]. Only the Great Northern came to fruition, and when opened early in 1901, was marketed as the hotel closest to the new Townsville terminus of the Great Northern Railway - hence the name of the hotel.
The architects, Tunbridge & Tunbridge, designed a first class brick and timber hotel of 36 bedrooms, estimated to cost between £8,000 and £9,000. The Tunbridge brothers [Walter Howard and Oliver Allan] had entered into partnership in Townsville in 1887, and soon developed a substantial North Queensland architectural practice with offices in Charters Towers and later Rockhampton. Tunbridge and Tunbridge designed many Townsville hotels, including the Metropole [1887], Victoria Park [1896], Lowth's [1897 - demolished], Victoria Bridge [1900 - demolished], Empire [1901], Sovereign [1904] and Carriers Arms [1906 - demolished].
Although work on preparing the Blackwood Street site for the new railway terminus was underway in 1900, the station building was not erected until 1914. Despite this delay, the Great Northern Hotel proved popular with travellers from its opening. Designed and run as a first-class hotel, the Great Northern offered a high standard of service, good food, comfortable airy bedrooms and spacious public rooms. It also played a major role in the social life of the growing town. As with most early hotels in Australia, the Great Northern was a place for the community to meet and socialise, and for nearly a century the hotel has remained a popular drinking venue and prominent and well-known element of the city townscape.
","criteria":"The Great Northern Hotel, erected 1900-01 in anticipation of the extension east to Blackwood Street of the Townsville railway terminus, illustrates the pattern of Queensland's history.
|It is a well preserved building valued by the local community and visitors alike as a symbol of tropical Townsville, and has the potential to contribute significantly to further study of Queensland hotel architecture.
|The Great Northern Hotel survives as a good example of its type, demonstrating the principal characteristics of a two-storeyed brick verandahed hotel with elaborate external cast-iron decorative detailing, most commonly found in tropical Australia. It exemplifies the gracious, slower early 20th century lifestyle of the western landowners and travellers for whom it was built, and survives as Townsville's finest example of this style of architecture.
|The aesthetically pleasing facade in particular survives remarkably intact, and its decorative detailing, combined with the substantial scale of the building and its prominent corner position, make a strong contribution to the streetscape of Flinders Street, and to the townscape of Townsville.
|The building has functioned as a hotel and performed a strong social role in the life of the Townsville community for close to a century, and as such has a strong association for Townsville residents with their social history.
It is a well preserved building valued by the local community and visitors alike as a symbol of tropical Townsville, and has the potential to contribute significantly to further study of Queensland hotel architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15684,"place_ref":600909,"name":"Queensland Building","alternate_name":"North Queensland Insurance Building","street_address":"104-106 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Queensland Building is located on the south east corner of Wickham and Flinders Streets, Townsville, and has been designed to make the best use of its position with frontages to both streets and a corner entrance. It is across the street from the former headquarters of Burns Philp and Company which has similarities of form and detail.
The Queensland Building is a 3 storey structure of rendered brick in a free classical style with arcades at each level. There are pronounced cornice mouldings marking each storey. The central entrance is approached by a flight of low steps and is surmounted by a triangular broken pediment. It is flanked by a 3 bay arcade on each side, the round headed arches being separated by pilasters with Doric capitals. The arches on the ground floor have been filled in with glass to create windows and have round canvas window hoods.
The arcade on the first floor is similar in form but has Ionic capitals and a balustrade linking the arches. Sash windows are visible in the wall to the rear of the loggia created. The top floor is similar in form, but the arches are separated by consoles. The area above these was originally profusely decorated with swags of moulded render, but is now plain. The roof is concealed by a simple parapet of rendered brick.
","history":"The Queensland Building was built in 1890-2 by the important North Queensland firm of Burns, Philp Co. Ltd. as the headquarters for its subsidiary insurance company, which role it retained for over eighty years.
Townsville was established in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a supply centre and by 1873 the port was receiving international as well as coastal traffic. Improvements were carried out to improve facilities and to allow larger ships to anchor. By 1880 Townsville was the port for several major goldfields and had opened the first stage of the railway line westwards through Charters Towers and beyond, consolidating its importance as a port and mercantile centre. Townsville had many prosperous mercantile and shipping firms including the major partnership of Burns Philp.
James Burns arrived in Brisbane in 1862 with his brother John, who set up a store there while James worked on a pastoral run. In 1867, James established a store in Gympie, beginning a long commercial association with mining fields. In 1872 he moved to Townsville and set up his own business there, as improvements to the port and the wharves on Ross Creek were beginning. He was joined in 1874 by Robert Philp who had previously worked for shipping agents in Brisbane. Burns moved to Sydney in 1877 and established himself as an importer and shipping agent, while Philp continued business in the north. In 1883 they formed a company, Burns Philp and Company Limited, registered in Sydney. Philp was elected to Parliament in 1886 but continued to represent the northern interests of his company.
Burns Philp developed rapidly during the boom of the 1880s and Townsville owed much of its importance to the fact that it was the headquarters of this company. Within a decade of Burns arrival in Townsville, the company dominated trade in North Queensland, supplying a huge range of goods and establishing branches in such places as Charters Towers. They also became a major player in Pacific and New Guinea trading. By the time that the Queensland Building was constructed, Burns Philp had passed beyond being a North Queensland company only and had shed some of its local retail activities, selling its drapery interest to Hollis Hopkins, for instance. It's shipping business was so important that the North Queensland Insurance Company was initially formed in 1886 to cover its own maritime interests.
The land on which the Queensland Building stands was originally purchased by Robert Towns and John Melton Black in 1867. It was situated near the Burns Philp wharves on Ross River and at the opposite corner of Wickham Street from the Burns Philp Offices. In 1890, Burns Philp purchased the land for an office for its subsidiary insurance company. Sydney-based architect Mark Cooper Day, who had just completed a house for Sir James Burns at Parramatta, was engaged to design the building. Construction was carried out by the Brisbane builders John Petrie and Son and supervised by local architects Eyre and Munro. When completed, the quality of the workmanship in the building was highly praised. The position of the new offices in relationship to the existing Burns Philp and Company building on the other side of the intersection may have been taken into account in the design, so that two company buildings harmonious in scale and design formed a gateway to the Burns Philp wharves on Ross Creek beyond.
The North Queensland Insurance building originally provided space on the ground floor for the resident company secretary, the manager, public offices, a strong room and stationery room. The two upper floors had two suites of offices with strong rooms on each floor. North Queensland Insurance was highly successful and soon moved into other areas of insurance, absorbing North Australian Lloyds in 1887 and in 1896 took over the Sydney-based Lloyds Underwriters' Association. To reflect its wider business interest the word 'North' was dropped from the company name in 1907.
In 1946, part of the block surrounding the offices was subdivided and sold. In 1971 Cyclone Althea took the roof off the building and damaged the ornate parapet. The mansard roof was not replaced and new, lower ceilings were installed during repairs. The current plain parapet was probably installed at this time. In 1972, The offices were purchased by the Townsville Harbour Board, who leased out office space. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the building was tenanted by a doctor who used the two lower floors as consulting rooms and who filled in the arches of the arcade with windows. The top floor was used as offices and living accommodation by an architect.
In 1987 the building was bought by Barrier Reef Resources who used part of the building as a residence. It has been for some years the head office of a group of companies. The interior contains offices and residential accomodation of the top floor. The exterior of the building is little changed in form, although some of the surface decoration carried out in moulded render, which can be seen in early photographs, has been removed. The Museum of Tropical Queensland has been constructed on adjoining land.
","criteria":"The style and quality of the Queensland Building demonstrates the prosperity of Townsville in the 1880s and reflects the way in which North Queensland was developed by the establishment of key ports as commercial and administrative centres. As the premises of a maritime insurance company set up to serve the enterprises of Burns, Philp and Company Limited, the building is closely associated with this development.
|The Queensland Building is important as a good example of a substantial nineteenth century office building in North Queensland which has design elements to accommodate a tropical climate.
|It is located on the major intersection of Wickham and Flinders Streets, where, by its design, form and materials, it makes a substantial visual contribution to the character of the city.
|The Queensland Building is closely associated with the mercantile entity of Burns Philp and Company Limited, who were an important component in the development of Queensland, as a purpose built office for its subsidiary insurance company.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15686,"place_ref":600911,"name":"Townsville Post Office (former)","alternate_name":"The Brewery","street_address":"252-270 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-05-30","description":"The Post Office is a cement-rendered brick building, which displays Renaissance features. Its asymmetric facade has a loggia on the lower level, which shades the building along Flinders and Denham Streets and a verandah along the front and side facade of the upper level. The lowpitched hipped roof of corrugated iron extends into four gabled projections, while a slender clocktower and parapeted cupola dominates the corner.
\nOn the upper level, french doors open onto the verandah, with sashed windows in all other openings. The interior is not as intact as the facade because of years of alterations. The building stands in a commanding position in the streetscape at the eastern end of Flinders Mall. It can be seen from across Ross Creek and enhances the western end of historic Flinders Street East. Despite interior modifications, the basic structure is intact and in excellent condition.
","history":"The Post Office was constructed in 1886 at a cost of £17,235. Dennis Kellcher submitted a tender and carried out extensions in 1888, while a clock tower was built by Henry L Davis & Co. Chimes were imported from England in 1889 and installed by 1891. As a result of severe bomb damage done to buildings in Darwin, the clocktower was dismantled in 1942 and the mechanism was stored away. A greatly modified tower was built in 1963-64 by JE Allen & Co. of Townsville at a cost of £42,135. The interior was also modernisation at this time. Because of its prominent location, the Post Office often became the scene of political rallies around a speaker on a soap box.
","criteria":"The Post Office is a most significant building of its type and in its particular location. It is a fine example of a purpose-built colonial government building displaying Renaissance elements.
For over one hundred years it has been a landmark in the streetscape of the town.
|The Post Office is a most significant building of its type and in its particular location. It is a fine example of a purpose-built colonial government building displaying Renaissance elements.
|For over one hundred years it has been a landmark in the streetscape of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15687,"place_ref":600912,"name":"Perc Tucker Regional Gallery","alternate_name":"Union Bank of Australia | Australian & New Zealand Bank","street_address":"253-259 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Perc Tucker Regional Gallery is prominently situated on an important corner allotment of the city. It is a classically designed building which is constructed of cement rendered brick. It has colonnaded verandahs on both floors of the Flinders Street Denham Street facades.
The facades consist of Roman arches with pilasters enhanced by Corinthian capitals. The whole is surmounted by a simple but effective Italianate parapet which conceals the roof.
The ground floor, which originally housed the banking chamber, has been refurbished as an art gallery display area. A side entrance in Denham Street leads to an entrance vestibule and a staircase to the upper level. This was once the domestic quarters of the bank manager, but has been converted to storage, toilets and additional display space.
The modernised interior contains an acoustic ceiling, fluorescent lights, air conditioning vents and an elevator.
A brick extension with a corrugated iron roof has been added at the rear, together with an external fire escape, and a skillion over the back entrance.
","history":"This building was erected 1884-86 as single-storeyed premises, designed by former Queensland colonial architect FDG Stanley for the Union Bank of Australia. The second storey, possibly designed by Cairns architects Hill and Taylor, was added c1933.
Townsville was established in the mid-1860s to service the pastoral lands of the interior, and with the opening of the Charters Towers goldfields in the 1870s, developed rapidly. By the early 1880s Townsville businesses were consolidating, timber commercial premises, particularly those along Flinders Street, were being replaced by brick, and it was clear that Townsville had a strong future. A branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank had opened at Townsville in February 1866, of the Bank of New South Wales in March 1866, of the Queensland National Bank in 1873, and of the Bank of Australasia in January 1881.
On 21 February 1881 a branch of the Union Bank opened in Townsville in rented premises. About 1882 the bank acquired the site at the corner of Flinders and Denham Streets, then occupied by a c1866 hotel, which was demolished in 1884 to make way for the new Union Bank building.
The new offices were designed by Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, who as colonial architect from 1873 to 1881 was responsible for Townsville's more imposing public buildings, including the 1877 magistrates court [600929], the first hospital (1870s), the 1878 gaol, and the 1879 telegraph office. From the late 1870s to the late 1890s Stanley designed a substantial number of bank buildings in Queensland for the Queensland National Bank, the Australian Joint Stock Bank, and the Union Bank. In Townsville he designed 3 large masonry bank premises: the Queensland National Bank [1878-79 - 600905], the Union Bank [1884-86 - 600912] and the Australian Joint Stock Bank [1886-87 - 600895]. Each of these survives, and as a group they offer important evidence of Stanley's adaptation of classical design to a tropical climate.
During the latter part of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century Townsville, with its port and railhead, grew to be an important commercial centre. This economic growth necessitated the addition of an upper floor to the Union Bank building in the 1930s. The extensions are thought to be the work of Cairns architects Richard Hill and AJH Taylor. In detail and form they mimicked Stanley's design and were skilfully executed.
In 1951 the Union Bank of Australia amalgamated with the Bank of Australasia to form the Australian & New Zealand Banking Corporation. For several years both Townsville branch buildings, on opposite corners at the intersection of Flinders and Denham streets, traded as the ANZ bank. In 1955 the former Bank of Australasia branch was closed, but ANZ continued trading from the former Union Bank premises. At this time some alterations were made to the interior.
In 1981 new premises in Sturt Street were opened for the ANZ Bank and their building at the corner of Flinders and Denham streets was sold to the Townsville City Council. The council converted the building into the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, named in honour of a former mayor of Townsville who was a long time campaigner for an art gallery in the city. The gallery displays the city's art collections and visiting exhibitions.
","criteria":"Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, erected c1885 as a single-storeyed building with a c1933 second storey, survives as a good illustration of the effect of the 1880s 'gold' boom in transforming Townsville from a shanty town into the most important port in North Queensland.
|In the elegant facade, the building demonstrates the principal features of a regional bank whose classical design, by prominent architect FDG Stanley, is adapted to tropical conditions by the use of verandahs.
|The Perc Tucker Regional Gallery is an imposing and aesthetically pleasing building which makes a strong contribution to the streetscape both by its prominence and its corner position, its landmark qualities linking the Flinders Street East heritage streetscape with that of Denham Street.
|The building is significant for its strong association with the work of the Union and ANZ banks in Townsville, and more recently with the Townsville City Council and its establishment of the Perc Tucker Gallery. As one of a group of three late 20th century masonry bank buildings in Townsville designed by Stanley, it provides important evidence of Stanley's work in adapting classical design to suit the climatic conditions of the tropical North. The 1930s additions, which echoed the Stanley design, evidence the success of the original work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15688,"place_ref":600913,"name":"Agora House","alternate_name":"Reid & Bruce Ltd Building | Patterson | Howard Smith Company Building","street_address":"224 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Agora House is a two-storeyed concrete building fronting Flinders Street to the northwest, with Denham Lane to the rear.
The ground floor has a central recessed entry, with double doors and fanlights into a shop either side and a central foyer. Each shop has a large display window, and a recessed entrance door, leading to a staircase to the first floor, is situated on the western side. A metal awning is slung from the first floor, which has a recessed loggia and a parapet concealing the roof form, which is possibly shallow, hipped corrugated iron with ridge ventilation.
The first floor loggia consists of three arched bays with rendered balustrade, separated by pilasters supporting deep cornices on either side of a raised central rounded pediment surmounted by a shield. Sash windows open onto the loggia, with a door at the eastern end.
The rear of the building has metal framed hopper windows with a two-storeyed, skillion roofed amenities addition on the western side, and a single-storeyed carport/loading area with roller doors beside.
Internally, the central foyer splays open off a short hall and has a shop at the rear. The foyer space has a row of original cast iron columns along the eastern side and a recessed lighting grid to the ceiling. The eastern shop has a section of pressed metal ceiling at the front, and enclosed window openings can be seen along the eastern wall. The rear shop has a strongroom and a large sliding door to the rear carport/loading area.
The first floor possibly has rooms at the front, a large open space behind with a kitchenette and bathroom along the rear wall, and sections of raised timber floor.
","history":"This two-storeyed commercial building was erected in 1910-11 as new offices for the Townsville branch of the Howard Smith Company Ltd, a substantial Australian coastal shipping company.
The firm was established in Melbourne in the early 1850s by Captain William Howard Smith. Its operations were extended to Central Queensland in 1870, and to Townsville in 1882, in the form of an agency. The firm, by then known as Howard Smith & Sons Ltd, made an important economic contribution to the development of North Queensland through its trading ventures and shipping network.
By the 1890s a Townsville branch had been established at Queen's Wharf. About 1900 the firm leased a single-storeyed brick building in Flinders Street [600918], erected for them by shipping and commercial agents Aplin, Brown & Crawshay, who occupied the adjacent building at the corner of Flinders and Denham Streets. Shortly after this, in 1901, the business was reconstructed as the Howard Smith Company Ltd. In 1909 Harry Bellingham Howard Smith (managing director of the company and son of the founder of the firm) purchased two allotments on the other side of the leased premises in Flinders Street. On these, Howard Smith Company's own building was erected in 1910-11, and occupied in March 1911.
The new building was designed by Townsville architects Charles Dalton Lynch and Walter Hunt, and was erected by contractors Hanson & Sons. It was considered to be of progressive construction at the time. The front section of the building was two-storeyed, and contained offices for lease. The rear was single-storeyed, and contained a single large chamber which accommodated the company's own offices. Part of this space was enclosed by a counter, which was flanked by offices of the manager, accountant, correspondence clerks and engineer. These were divided by low partitions in silky oak and oriental glass. Above was a flat roof of reinforced concrete and a large skylight, with windows operated by continuous rod-gearing. The architects invented their own formula for waterproofing the concrete roof. A second storey, with a clerestory, had been added to this rear section in 1920.
Howard Smith sold the building in 1969 to Paterson Reid & Bruce Ltd, and in 1979 the present owners acquired the building. The ground floor interior was altered to accommodate three shops, and it is understood the name was changed to Agora House at this time. In 1991 the first floor was converted to residential accommodation.
","criteria":"Agora House, erected in 1910-11, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being surviving evidence in Townsville of the important Queensland economic recovery of the early 20th century; an early use of concrete construction in a Townsville commercial building; and evidence of the continued development of Townsville as the principal port of North Queensland in the early 20th century.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century, two-storeyed commercial building in Townsville.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular the contribution of the building, through its composition of classical elements, to the streetscape of Flinders Street and to the Townsville townscape; and the quality of design of the building and surviving original interior elements.
|It has a special association with the important Australian coastal shipping firm Howard Smith Company Ltd, and its contribution to the economic development of Townsville and North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15689,"place_ref":600914,"name":"Burns, Philp & Company Ltd Building (former)","alternate_name":"Burns, Philp & Co.","street_address":"108-124 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-08-27","description":"The former Burns, Philp and Company Ltd building, located on the southern corner of Flinders and Wickham Streets with Ross Creek at the rear, is a rendered masonry building consisting of a two-storeyed corner section with an adjoining three-storeyed section along Flinders Street.
The two-storeyed corner section consists of five arched bays along Wickham Street, a corner bay and two bays along Flinders Street. Each bay is separated by a pilaster, with a deep cornice between floors and at the roofline concealing a hipped corrugated iron roof. Originally an open arcade, the arched bays have been enclosed with metal framed glazing with an open corner entrance at the ground level. The corner is surmounted by a pavilion, consisting of paired arches, rendered balustrade and a rebuilt ogee shaped roof with diamond pattern metal tiles. The corner nightclub entrance below has a mosaic style tiled floor and steel gates.
The facade of the three-storeyed Flinders Street section, consists of four bays separated by paired pilasters with a deep cornice at the roofline concealing a curved corrugated iron roof, which is evident on the southwest end elevation. Each bay, except the second last bay, houses a pair of aluminium framed windows per floor. The other has four windows per floor, with the ground floor having been remodelled with an unbalanced single entry with two windows, and cantilevered awning. The rear of this section has aluminium framed windows.
Internally, the corner section has been refitted as a nightclub on both floors. The ground floor extends into the adjoining section through openings framed by paired columns supporting an entablature, part of which is missing, with a deep cornice and surmounted by false arched fanlights. Cast iron columns, located centrally, bear plaques with the date 1895. Most fixtures, fittings and finishes are recent, including the staircase, ceilings, air conditioning, rear kitchen and toilets.
The Flinders Street section has a central entry and staircase with office space to either side. Only the exterior walls remain from this section of the original building.
A plant room, constructed in 1978, is attached to the rear of the building, and contains a sub-station and switchboard on the ground floor, air-conditioning plant on the first floor and a cooling tower room on the second floor.
","history":"This large masonry building was erected in 1895 as the principal offices and warehouse for Burns, Philp & Company Ltd, one of North Queensland's most successful trading enterprises.
\nThe firm was founded in Townsville in 1873, when James Burns established a general retail business in Flinders Street. Robert Philp (later Sir Robert, KCMG and twice Queensland premier) acquired a share in the business in 1876. Due to ill health, Burns returned to Sydney in 1877, leaving Philp to manage the Townsville store.
\nIn the late 1870s and early 1880s, Burns and Philp individually established trading networks in North Queensland, which were amalgamated as Burns, Philp & Company Ltd in 1883. By 1887 the company had disposed of their retail concerns, concentrating on the importation and wholesaling of general merchandise, and general shipping and insurance, with branches in London, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, Thursday Island, Normanton, Charters Towers, Cooktown and New Guinea. The firm was employing 300 persons, owned their own fleet of small trading vessels, and was pioneering trade, communications and exploration throughout North Queensland, New Guinea and the South Pacific. The company also had interests in North Queensland sugar, gold and pastoralism. Although Robert Philp was bankrupted in the 1890s and resigned his interests in the firm in 1893, the name of Burns, Philp & Company Ltd was retained.
\nIn Townsville, Burns, Philp & Company Ltd had acquired approximately 200 metres of Ross Creek frontage, on which they erected wharves and warehouses, with their offices in an old building which had been erected in the 1860s for Robert Towns and John Melton Black, the founders of Townsville. By 1895, Burns, Philp & Company Ltd dominated trade in Townsville, and their importance to this town and to North Queensland in general was illustrated in the erection of substantial new premises.
\nThe new building was erected in nine months by contractor GS Gordon, and was opened on 12 November 1895. It was designed by Sydney architects the McCredie Brothers. Claude Chambers, in partnership with the McCredies from 1889-1893, supervised the construction of this building to the design of George McCredie. Arthur McCredie designed Burns, Philp & Company Ltd's principal Sydney offices, completed in 1901 and extended in 1909. [1]
\nThe two-storeyed section with frontages to Wickham and Flinders Streets housed the main offices: the shipping department on the ground floor and the manager's office and cashiers' and correspondence department on the upper floor. There was also a strong room and lavatory at each level. The three-storeyed section fronting Flinders Street was mainly warehousing, although the merchandise department, and behind this, the spirit room, were located on the ground floor adjacent to the shipping office, and accessed from this office via a door beneath the front staircase.
\nThe building was designed for expansion. The walls, including the north-western end wall of the warehouse, were constructed with bricked-in arches to facilitate later extensions. In 1903 the company planned a three-storeyed brick extension to the warehouse along Flinders Street; this scheme was not carried out, but in 1913-14 a long, single-storeyed, concrete warehouse extension was erected (no longer extant).
\nIn 1922, the company's architect in Townsville, Walter Hunt, designed alterations to the offices and ground floor of the warehouse, extending the office area. These were carried out in three stages during 1922 and 1923. At this period, the arches separating the shipping and merchandising departments were exposed, and the large arched doorway from Flinders Street into the warehouse was bricked in, and three windows were placed in the bay.
\nOn 22 January 1949, fire gutted two floors of the hardware section of the building, causing substantial damage to the interior of the warehouse, including the collapse of the first floor.[2] The roof and floors were replaced.
\nBurns, Philp & Company Ltd retained the building until 1977. At this stage the two-storeyed section was converted into a night club, a doorway was cut in the second end bay of the former warehouse, and the latter was converted to office accommodation. The building (including the former office accommodation) has largely been used as an entertainment venue since its initial conversion, with the property transferred to new owners in 2021.
","criteria":"The former Burns Philp & Company Ltd Building, Townsville, erected in 1895, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, being evidence of the close association between Burns, Philp & Company Ltd and the development of Townsville as the principal town and port of North Queensland in the late 19th century.
|It demonstrates several rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being the only surviving 19th century warehouse/office complex along Ross Creek, and a surviving remnant of Burns, Philp & Company Ltd's former substantial Townsville complex which, in the 1890s, extended along 200 metres of Ross Creek, back to Flinders Street, and across Wickham Street, and included shipping and insurance offices, a passenger depot, wharves, warehouses and workshops.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial commercial building in which the combined functions of offices and warehouse are reflected in the hierarchy of its classically derived architecture; and of the commercial work of Sydney architects McCredie Bros.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular the strong streetscape and townscape contribution it makes as it addresses the intersection of Flinders and Wickham Streets; the quality of design of the building; and surviving interior elements.
|It has a strong and special association with the Townsville community as a local landmark and as a focus for community pride in Townsville's historical development as the principal port of North Queensland.
|It has a special association with the important and successful Burns, Philp & Company Ltd, its origins in Townsville, and its substantial contribution to the development of North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15691,"place_ref":600916,"name":"Tattersalls Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"87 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"1899 Tattersall's Hotel with incorporated 1868 remnant.
Tattersall's Hotel is part of the Flinders Street East Precinct. Tattersall's Hotel is a two-storeyed rendered brick building with frontages to Flinders and Wickham Streets. A timber verandah supported on timber posts extends along the two street frontages. The verandah has a cast iron balustrade separated by double timber posts. The iron lace is of a rare design.
Tattersall's Hotel is located on a prominent corner site at the intersection of Flinders and Wickham Streets, within an historic precinct which includes the Queensland Building (QHR 600909) the former Australian Meat Industry Employees Union (QHR 600890) and the former Burns, Philp & Company Ltd building (QHR 600914).
It has a single pitched corrugated iron roof, hidden behind a parapet. Bull nosed awnings, wide verandah's and a wooden valance adorn both street frontages.
The exterior of the hotel has changed little with the exception of the original curved valance which was replaced with a horizontal profile during the 1960s. A remnant section of the original valance design still exists at the angled corner of the hotel.
Up to four former doorways on the footpath of the Wickham Street section have been bricked in and rendered. This is the 1868 balconied section that was incorporated into the 1899 extension.
Ground floor
There are two bars on the Flinders and Wickham Street frontages. Almost no original fabric is visible, the walls being rendered and the ceiling covered in fibro. Over the bar area air conditioning ducting has been enclosed in a lowered ceiling.
A cellar exists under the bar area. It was filled with cracker dust approximately ten years ago as it had become unusable due to water penetration.
A timber internal staircase rises from the Flinders Street foyer. It has a well-crafted turned timber baluster on one side and handrail height panelling against the wall.
First floor
Several guest rooms from the 1899 extension remain with enamel room numbers located on doors. Many original fanlight panels and ceiling roses are extant.
Courtyard
An open area exists to the rear of the building which originally contained a section of the 1868 extension. What appeared to have been a U -shaped courtyard has since been covered over with a1960s singe storey masonry extension.
","history":"The City of Townsville was established in 1864 as a port for rapidly developing pastoral districts in the hinterland. John Melton Black, who had pastoral runs in the Cleveland Bay area, formed a partnership with Robert Towns to secure financial backing for plans to establish a port at the mouth of Ross Creek. The port was proclaimed in October 1865 and by the end of the year the population was between 100-200 people. Townsville was proclaimed a municipality in 1866 and became the centre of substantial and continuous growth, particularly with the discovery of five major goldfields in the vicinity within six years.
Wharves, stores, shops, hotels and housing were rapidly established at the new port. The land now at the corner of Wickham and Flinders Streets proved an ideal location for a hotel. Opposite the wharves, the site was first developed by Hermann de Zoet & Company as the 'Townsville Boarding House, Cleveland Bay' in 1865. In December 1865 de Zoet applied for a licence for the Townsville on the same site at the corner of Flinders and Wickham Street.
The original hotel was a single storey timber building of simple design incorporating two sitting rooms and four bed rooms with an awning facing both streets. In 1866 Joseph Fletcher and Bernard O'Neill purchased the property, retaining the hotel for six months before selling in December to Alexander Mollison.
In March 1867 the township experienced its first cyclone which destroyed the hotel and much of the town. Mollison rebuilt the hotel in a matter of weeks and reopened with 'a Grand Ball'. However by the time he reopened the hotel he had exhausted his funds and he died the following year. The place was purchased by James Evans who renamed the hotel Tattersall's. This name evoked the model of sporting clubs established in Britain and their connection with horse racing, a sport which Evans was actively involved in. At this time Townsville's Tattersall's Hotel was only the second Tattersall's in Queensland, a club having been established in Adelaide Street, Brisbane in 1856.
On 11 April 1868 the Cleveland Bay Express featured a tender notice for a two storey extension to the hotel. The decision to expand was probably due to both economic and environmental factors. Recent gold discoveries had brought more mining prospectors to the town, and a better class of hotel was required to compete with the likes of the popular Criterion and Exchange hotels. A decision to construct out of brick may also have been a direct response to the cyclone the previous year.
The new section in Wickham Street consisted of two, two-storeyed buildings. Both were constructed of imported brick, as brickworks were not yet established in Townsville. When travelling down Wickham Street from The Strand, the first of the two new buildings was a plain building with access from the street. The next building adjoining the 1865 timber hotel featured a balcony with a timber balustrade which incorporated simple cross braced panels and a facia with an unusual corrugated decoration.
Evans incorporated an "American Bowling Saloon" to attract clients, provide entertainment and fill the void of bowling activity left after the destruction of the saloon at Hamilton's Hotel in Denham Street by the 1867 cyclone.
Although Flinders Street may have been the commercial centre of the township, Wickham Street was the administrative core. By the end of the 1860s it contained the Court and Customs House, Telegraph House, Post Office and a Bank. In July 1869 Evans advertised that the hotel had received 'extensive improvements and additions' and could accommodate 'a much larger circle of patrons in 'first-class style'; [it] had 'cool' ale, spirits, porter and wines always on hand as well as 'first class stabling'.
The Townsville economy continued to boom in the 1870s and 1880s as the gold fields created new markets for the flagging pastoral industry. New industries were developed such as sugar crops and manufacturing. Infrastructure and administration also developed as the population expanded to total 1500 in 1875. Civic and commercial works underlined Townsville's growing importance as the regional centre and port of an extensive pastoral and mineral district.
Evans left Tattersall's in 1872 to supervise the building of his new 'Queens Hotel' on the Strand. James McGrath became the licensee of Tattersall's in 1874 beginning a long association of the extended McGrath family with the hotel. Following his death in 1878, his son Daniel McGrath became the licensee. In that year, Thomas Enright, who became a leading community figure associated with Tattersall's hotel, became the licensee of the Post Office Hotel, Townsville. Enright had come to Townsville in 1878 working with his father, Thomas Enright senior on a variety of civil infrastructure projects. He had spent the previous years from 1876 exploring the Hodgkinson region inland from Cairns (a potential goldfield) and before that had been licensee of the Commercial hotel at 'Sadlier's Waterholes' [Morven] from 1873-75 and the Drover's Arms, Hoganthulla 1875-77.
In 1881, the original 1865 hotel was demolished. In its place, a two-storeyed timber and corrugated galvanised iron structure was added to the brick 1868 section. It featured exposed framing and lace brackets on the supporting posts of the verandah and roof. The new Tattersall's was reported to be 'a handsome new structure'.
In April 1884 Enright transferred the license of the Post Office Hotel to JR Riley while Daniel McGrath continued to hold the license to Tattersall's. In 1885 Enright's wife tragically died and in the following year he took over the license and running of Tattersall's Hotel. Townsville continued to boom with the population growing from 1500 in 1875 to 3032 in the 1881 census. Tattersall's was centrally located in the growing township with the town's first buses operating from the hotel and continued to be the terminus of Townsville bus routes for nearly a century.
During the 1880s the growth of the sugar and mineral industries encouraged the construction of rail lines from Townsville to Ayr, Charters Towers and Hughenden. There was also considerable expenditure on harbour improvements with the construction of jetties at Ross Island and improvements to the eastern breakwater.
Enright remarried in 1888 to Miss Parker, the daughter of a leading Ipswich butcher and he continued to run the new Tattersall's. By 1895, Townsville had grown to the extent that Tattersall's was considered to be 'one of the few connecting links between old and new Townsville'. The new hotel was considered to be one of the most comfortable in the municipality accommodating fifty. The hotel had a bottle department selling directly imported liquor and made up and dispatched country orders. Enright was also the sole promoter of Nimrod's Consultations which conducted horse racing sweeps that were 'becoming more and more popular'.
In June 1895 a right of way added to the rear of the property, presumably to enable better service access. It is unclear whether the partial demolition of the non-balconied 1868 extension occurred at this time or whether it was severely damaged during Cyclone Sigma in 1897. The remaining section was rendered from the street frontage, presenting a blank wall and the roofline totally altered. Images taken soon after Cyclone Leonta in 1903 reveal this remnant section, detached from the main hotel. It remains the oldest identified building in Townsville.
In 1899 shortly after being elected mayor, Enright replaced the 1881 two-storey timber section with a new two-storeyed brick building. W. G Smith and sons Architects produced plans for the new hotel. Smith and Hansen were contracted as the builders.
The 1881 section was moved on rollers along Flinders Street to the Western corner of Blackwood Street where it became 'Fritz Grosskoff's Boarding House'. With this structure removed, the 1868 balconied section of Tattersall's had its balcony and roof demolished. The new hotel incorporated this section into its length down Wickham Street with a uniform verandah, parapet and roof. On completion in 1899, it presented as a unified whole.
The interior, finished in silky oak and cedar, was lighted by gas. The courtyard formed by the wings of the building was paved and was described as being like a conservatory. Wide verandahs and fretwork panels above the doors were designed to channel the Strand's breezes through the hotel. The iron lace pattern used on Tattersall's was also used on two other Townsville buildings, Matthew Rooney's House and 'Kardinia'. The North Queensland Herald regard the new Tattersall's as 'an architectural acquisition to Flinders Street'.
Enright remained as landlord for three years transferring the licence to his brother-in-law George Sullivan in 1902. During the 1930s the hotel was renamed 'Ramages' while Sid Ramage was proprietor however its name reverted to Tattersall's after his departure. The exterior of the hotel has changed little with the exception of the original curved valance which was replaced with a horizontal profile during the 1960s. The hotel was renamed 'Molly Malone's' in the late 1990s and themed as an Irish bar and grill.
","criteria":"Tattersall's Hotel, erected in 1899 and incorporating an earlier 1868 brick section demonstrates the pattern of Queensland's regional history associated with the development of Townsville as a key northern port and service centre for the surrounding mining and pastoral districts.
Tattersall's Hotel is associated with the Tattersall's hotel empire which had connections to numerous Queensland towns.
The hotel complex, including the 1868 and 1899 buildings, demonstrates the utilitarian pattern of approach adopted in the late 19th Century towards reconstructing business premises by incorporating earlier sections as the place developed.
|Tattersall's Hotel has considerable aesthetic appeal and is located at a prominent junction of Flinders and Wickham Streets, Townsville. It is opposite the Queensland Building (QHR 600909) the former Australian Meat Industry Employees Union (QHR 600890) and the former Burns, Philp & Company Ltd building (QHR 600914) and contributes to the visual and historical significance of the Flinders Street East, Wickham Street precinct.
|Tattersall's Hotel features a rare pattern of cast iron balustrade particular to North Queensland. The incorporation of this design of balustrade is an important link to the other two buildings it survives upon in Townsville; the private residences of the former Rooney's House/Yongala Lodge [QHR 600878] and 'Kardinia' [QHR600938].
The place demonstrates the incorporation of older brick structures into newer buildings during the Nineteenth Century. The 1868 sections are the oldest structures identified in Townsville.
|Tattersall's Hotel demonstrates the principal characteristics of a two-storied 19th Century hotel through its prominent location at an intersection, its incorporation of accommodation on the first floor, public facilities on the ground floor and wide sweeping verandahs.
|The 1868-69 additions use of brick prior to local manufacture has the potential to reveal further information about materials and construction techniques that were adopted during the foundation years of the settlement.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15692,"place_ref":600917,"name":"Rooney Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"241 - 245 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Rooney Building, constructed in 1883, has a plain symmetrical facade with some classical features such as arched windows and a decorative parapet which conceals the corrugated iron roof. The ground floor facade of this cement-rendered brick building has been altered and the original awning replaced with one of a modern cantilever design. This floor is now divided into three shops. Aluminium windows have replaced the timber framed windows on the upper level while the interior of the first floor has been renovated to house offices.
","history":"The building was constructed for Edmund Harris Thornburgh Plant, mill owner, company director of a number of mines in the Charters Towers-Ravenswood area and a member of parliament from 1905-1923. After construction in 1883 it was occupied by Pollard's Music Store and by the Royal Bank of Queensland from 1890.
In 1892 Rooney & Co., the leading builders of the region, took out a lease and traded from there for the next forty-nine years. In 1917 Rooney Ltd purchased the building and in 1928 modernised the ground floor as a large furniture showroom. The produce firm of Samuel Allen & Sons Ltd, established in the city in 1872, purchased the site in 1953. In 1979 the windows on the first floor were replaced with aluminium and the ground floor facade altered to accommodate three shops or restaurants.
","criteria":"Its importance is enhanced because of the contribution these commercial firms made to the development and consolidation of Townsville in the 1880s.
|While this building is representative of commercial structures of the it is also important as a unifying part of the Flinders Street East area.
|While this building is representative of commercial structures of the it is also important as a unifying part of the Flinders Street East area.
|The long association of a leading building firm with the structure, together with its construction for a prominent commercial and political figure and its later purchase by a longstanding produce firm makes this building significant.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15694,"place_ref":600919,"name":"Aplin Brown & Company Building (former)","alternate_name":"Aplin Brown & Co. | Toula's Taverna | Family Services | Buckaroo's Restaurant","street_address":"232-234 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Aplin Brown and Company building is a masonry building situated on a wedge shaped block of land at the corner of Flinders and Denham Streets, opposite the post office and Perc Tucker Art Gallery, formerly the Union Bank.
The main part of the building at the corner is two storeys in height and the section to the rear along Denham Street is single storey. The corrugated iron roof is concealed by a severely plain parapet.
The elevations to Flinders and Denham Streets are rendered and divided into bays by pilasters, with horizontal architraves and a projecting cornice above. Between are single-pane vertical sash windows with rounded heads and render mouldings. Formerly an arcade, the archways of the lower level of the northern elevation have been infilled with windows similar to those of the remainder of the building, although the mouldings to these former archways are a higher level than those of the adjoining windows.
The entry is presently at the eastern end of the Flinders Street elevation, rising up several steps to the glazed entry. Once inside, a timber staircase gives access to the upper level. A lantern was built above the staircase - is it still there?
There is a rear entry to the building from the laneway to the south. The interior of the building has been altered substantially for office accomodation with the installation of air-conditioning, false ceilings, partitions and toilets to the rear of the single-storey wing and the upper level.
","history":"This building was constructed in 1887 by Rooney Bros. as offices for the trading endeavours of Aplin Brown & Company, one of the leading mercantile companies in North Queensland.
Townsville was established in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns and was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865. It grew quickly as a supply centre and by 1873 the port was receiving international as well as coastal traffic. Improvements were carried out to port facilities to allow larger ships to anchor. By 1880 Townsville was the port for several major goldfields and had opened the first stage of the railway line westwards through Charters Towers and beyond, consolidating its importance as a port and mercantile centre. Townsville had many prosperous mercantile and shipping firms including that of Aplin Brown and Co. Both Aplin and Brown were mayors of Townsville, Aplin in 1869 and Brown in 1883, demonstrating the importance of commerce in the growth of the city.
William Aplin commenced business with William Clifton as merchants in Townsville in 1864, at that time catering for the pastoral industry. They purchased a block of land at the corner of Flinders and Denham Streets, conveniently close to the Ross Creek wharves, but their building was destroyed in a cyclone in 1866. They rebuilt and Henry Aplin joined the firm. In 1879 William Villiers Brown, formerly manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Townsville, became a partner, and in 1880 when Mr Clifton left Townsville, the firm became Aplin Brown & Company. By 1880 Aplin Brown one of the leading merchants firms in Townsville, servicing both the pastoral industry and the extensive gold mining centres of the inland. Amongst other activities, they imported mining and industrial machinery
In 1881, the Queenslander noted that 'the Hon. W. Aplin is about to embark upon pastoral pursuits, having retired from the firm of which he was the popular chief.' The firm then became a limited company and continued to expand. The first steel ship built in Townsville was built for them in 1884 and in 1885 the firm acquired a wharf in Brisbane and set up a branch which specialised in importing goods from the USA. They established branches at Burketown and Port Darwin and in 1887 Aplin and Brown commissioned Rooney Bros. to design a new head office for the company, taking out a mortgage on the land for £6000.
Rooney Bros. was a partnership of Irish brothers John and Matthew Rooney. John Rooney had initially been in partnership with another brother, Jacob, in Maryborough where they worked as builders and contractors from 1868. In 1875 John became the Townsville partner in the firm and in 1882 formed a new partnership with Matthew as architects, builders and contractors. They formed a second company, Rooney & Co. in partnership with James Harvey and this firm were timber merchants, sawmillers and joiners. Amongst other business, they supplied mining settlements with timber, prefabricated buildings and such items as ironmongery and furniture.
The new building reflected the prosperity and prestige of the company, being a handsome masonry structure of neo-classical design. It was also designed to amply fulfil the business needs of the company. The ground floor had rooms branching from a central hall that housed insurance, shipping and sales departments, a private office, bookkeepers and cashiers offices and a strong room. The upper level contained a large correspondence room and office, but did not extend over the sales and shipping department which occupied the rear of the ground floor.
In 1891 the building was leased to the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney for three years, but the connection with Aplin Brown did not cease and in 1899 a new title for the property was issued under the name of Aplin Brown and Crawshay Limited. In 1913 the building was purchased by another important northern trading company, Bartlam's Limited. They were general merchants who supplied stations in western Queensland and who, by the mid 1920s had also taken over the premises of Wright Heaton in Charters Towers, thus having offices at both port and western centre.
The ground floor of the building on the northern elevation to Flinders Street was originally built as an arcaded loggia with the window line recessed one bay. This was enclosed, probably during the 1930s, and the former front wall removed. This may also have been when the balustraded parapet was removed. In 1944 the property was transferred to Alfred and Arthur Howard Emery, but by 1950 was owned by the Mutual Life & Citizens Assurance Company Limited.
The former Aplin & Company building was acquired in 1974 by the Queensland government and the land designated Reserve 740. The building was used by the Department of Family Services and during this occupancy the interior was modified to meet office requirements. The Government sold the building in 1995 to the current owner who initially converted the ground floor for use as a dress shop. Since 1997 this floor has functioned as a restaurant.
","criteria":"The design and quality of the former Aplin Brown & Company building demonstrates the prosperity of Townsville in the 1880s and the way in which North Queensland was developed by the establishment of key ports as commercial and administrative centres. Located on a major intersection of Townsville's central business district and conveniently close to the wharves, the Aplin and Company building is a reminder of the importance of trade to this development.
|The former Aplin Brown & Company building is important as a good example of a substantial nineteenth century office building in North Queensland.
|The former Aplin Brown & Company building is located on the major intersection of Denham and Flinders Streets, where, by its design, form and materials, it makes a substantial visual contribution to the built character of the city.
|The building was constructed for Aplin Brown & Company, a mercantile and shipping firm who made a major contribution to the prosperity of Townsville in the 19th century. It is also connected with Bartlam's Limited, another important North Queensland merchant and with the firm of Rooney Bros. who were influential in North Queensland as architects, builders and contractors.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15697,"place_ref":602520,"name":"Dalgety Offices and former Warehouse frontage","alternate_name":"Sunskill House","street_address":"1-13 Sturt Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-08-26","description":"The Dalgety Offices and former Warehouse frontage is located at the corner of Denham and Sturt streets within the central business district of Townsville. It is situated within the same city block as the former Magistrate Court (600929) and Osler House (600931). The building comprises two sections; a two-storeyed building along Sturt Street and a single-storeyed building facing Denham Street. Both are of reinforced concrete construction.
The Office building is a substantial structure situated on a corner block facing both Denham and Sturt streets. The exterior of the building retains original features such as pilasters and arched windows. A decorative plinth, finished with painted stucco runs across the width and breadth of the building interrupted by doorways. At its highest point on the Sturt Street side, the plinth stands at a height of 6 ft or approximately 1.8 metres and originally set an impressive entrance to the main office building. This entrance area is flanked by four partly fluted decorative pilasters, which incorporate neo-classical details and small ionic capitals and is capped by a modest concrete cornice. The pattern of decorative pilasters extends upwards to the cornice and capped by ionic capitals. It does not extend to the top of the parapet.
On either side of the main Sturt Street entrance more modest pilasters extend from the plinth level through to the parapet giving a uniform visual effect. These are spaced at regular intervals. A second less ornate entrance is situated on Denham Street. On both Denham and Sturt streets above the base plinth are white painted top hung aluminum windows situated at regular intervals. Original timber four-segmented lights cap them. The aluminum windows are sympathetic to the original double hung timber windows.
Above each ground floor window are formed plastered arches and a decorative keystone. On the upper floor level of the building the timber windows have been replaced with aluminum and glass but again are sympathetic to the original.
The high parapet of the office portion of the building conceals an unusual five vaulted roof of steel construction and built in separate sections. It had two roof vents per roof which have since been removed. There is also a smaller skillion roof at the back of four of the vaults.
The interior of the former Dalgety office building has been modified from two to three floors with the original bottom floor level raised up and the basement made into two business areas, one large and one small. The smaller business area is located predominantly along the Denham Street side. It has two original small timber and glass windows protected by metal grills located along Denham Street and one window facing Sturt Street. This has been enlarged and the grilling removed. Access to both businesses in the basement is via a foyer which was the original main entrance situated on Sturt Street. Modifications include the removal of the large timber doors and large timber staircase leading to the first floor and the area blocked off. Out the front on Sturt Street there is an introduced metal and canvas awning.
The first floor has been internally modified with the removal of entrance stairs and the raising of a portion of the floor to give the basement area enough head clearance. This is the first structural bay in from the street frontage of the building. Half of the internal floor is the original height and is constructed of ex 5 inch hardwood boards and extends to the back of the building. Access to the modified floor is achieved by a small set of stairs at regular intervals around the room. The strongroom remains in operation at the back of the building and includes its original Protex fire resisting door. The brand name clearly in view. Original boxing around the timber columns has been removed exposing the sawn timber columns on the first floor, which are now incorporated as design features. Exposed air conditioning ducting has been added below the second floor ceiling with the main plant room possibly located in the old strong room area. The original louvre vents are retained on the exterior wall of which some have been covered up internally.
The second floor has not been raised or lowered and retains many original features. The space provided for the two main businesses is very likely to be similar to the original division of space although modern glazed aluminum screens, doors, and partitions have been added as entry to the businesses. The kitchen, storage and toilets remain located along the back wall under the skillion roof area. Original features on the second level include 6-inch hoop pine floorboards, fibrolite ceiling with timber strapping, simple cornice and floor mouldings and no internal architraves around the windows. Boxed facings to the timber columns have been removed exposing the sawn timber columns which are now incorporated as design features. Between the columns some original pine floorboards have been removed and replaced with 3-inch hardwood boards. Substantial air conditioning ducting has been added below the ceiling and is painted in the same colour as the ceiling. Partitions erected in one business, as small consulting rooms do not extend up to the ceiling and are reversible. Aluminum and glass windows have replaced the timber windows and have been made in a style sympathetic to the original. Access to upstairs is gained by a flight of stairs or lift from Denham Street as well as from other service stairs from Sturt Street. These smaller service stairs retain some original features such as art nouveau vents, but alteration to the configuration of the stairs is evident.
Dalgety's warehouse section has been converted into a shopping arcade which is accessed through a concrete tiled ramp and has a painted aluminum roller door. The warehouse has been fitted out with a series of individual shops incorporating aluminum and glass shop fronts and access to the shops within the warehouse is either from a central arcade which runs perpendicular to the main arcade entrance or from Denham Street. One business accessed from Denham Street has an aluminum and glass door fitted in the space originally occupied by a window. The original timber framed segmented window above each window remains. Modest canvas awnings are located over the windows and doorways along Denham Street.
Due to the retention of many internal features, the overall size, aesthetic street elevations and position on a corner block, the integrity of the building remains high. It is a building displaying uniform visual features and retains aspects of neo-classical design popular for commercial buildings in Queensland during the 1920s.
","history":"The two-storeyed office section of this large reinforced concrete building was erected for Dalgety & Co. Ltd in 1923-24 and the single-storeyed warehouse, which fronts Denham Street, was constructed in 1924-25. The designer of both sections was prominent local architect Walter Hunt and the contractor was WH Turner. The complex was constructed during a period of economic boom in Queensland and overall rising rural prosperity, despite the collapse of the north Queensland beef export trade in 1921.
In 1846 one of Australia's largest and most successful 19th century pastoral companies was established in Melbourne as Dalgety, Borrodale and Gore. The company flourished during the 1850s gold rushes and in the middle of the decade opened an office in London. In 1859 this became the head office from which the company's various Victorian and, by then, New Zealand interests were controlled. The firm expanded to New South Wales in 1878, to Western Australia in 1889 and South Australia in 1897. The first Queensland office was established at Rockhampton in 1891 in response to the company's heavy involvement in the Central Queensland grazing industry. A branch was established in Brisbane in 1894 and a Townsville branch in 1896. Subsequent Queensland sub-branches were opened in Hughenden, Longreach, Blackall, Charleville and Toowoomba. Dalgety and Co. Ltd. played a significant role in the development of the pastoral industry (particularly through wool brokerage and property investment) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the single largest supplier to Queensland's first wool sale, conducted in Brisbane in 1898, which contributed to the establishment of Teneriffe in Brisbane as Queensland's principal wool-stores precinct. By the late 1920s, the company was promoting itself as the largest wool-selling house in Australasia.
Dalgety & Co.'s Townsville office and warehouse were housed initially in leased premises in Denham Street, just south of Sturt Street. By 1920, the need for additional accommodation was becoming critical. Dalgety had emerged as a major provisioner to North Queensland pastoralists and farmers and purpose built Townsville premises would consolidate their position. In 1920 Dalgety & Co. acquired title to a site at the northern corner of Denham and Sturt Streets, which had remained vacant since the destruction by fire of the Day Dawn Hotel some twenty years before. The company commissioned Walter Hunt, arguably Townsville's most experienced architect, to prepare plans for new offices and warehouse facilities. Hunt commenced practice in Townsville in 1909 and taught architecture at the Townsville Technical College, maintaining his Townsville practice until retiring to Sydney in 1932. He designed the reinforced concrete St Joseph's Church, Fryer Street, erected in 1920-21 (602130) and was in the process of designing the Dalgety & Company building in Sturt Street while he supervised the construction of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (QHR 602471).
Although tenders for the Dalgety building were called in May 1920, they were difficult to obtain as local contractors feared labour stoppages combined with an increase in the price of building materials. Nothing further was done toward erecting new premises until December 1922 when the board approved that tenders be called for a concrete building. This was delayed until July 1923, anticipating that by then several leading building contractors would be less busy and the competition might be keener. The suggestion of a reinforced concrete rather than brick building was endorsed by the General Manager who remarked that concrete was preferable to brick with an additional advantage that it would be less costly. A long established Townsville builder, W H Turner, submitted the lowest tender with a price of £15,938. Building commenced on 1 August 1923. The whole was to be constructed within 12 months, with the offices erected first.
The Dalgety & Co. building was one of the largest reinforced-concrete projects undertaken during Townsville's building boom of the early 1920s. Townsville's two leading architects, Walter Hunt and CV Rees, designed a substantial number of reinforced-concrete buildings for Townsville and other areas of northern Queensland in the early 1920s. Some of the larger projects included an engineering works, showrooms, factories and offices. A number of single storeyed shops and offices in reinforced concrete were commissioned including a large residence in Flinders Street for Dr Brienl, Walter Hunt being the architect. As well, many businesses were incorporating reinforced-concrete in remodeled premises. Hunt and Rees encouraged the use of reinforced-concrete as a cheaper and more readily available alternative to brick. At the time building materials in Townsville were significantly higher in price than in the south owing to high transport costs. While it was expected that this would be relieved by the completion of the railway line to Townsville, face bricks from Brisbane still cost £20 per 1000, thus giving prominence to alternative building materials.
Poor weather and labour materials hindered construction. However, by July 1924 rapid progress was being made with the office block and by October 1924 it was nearing completion. Dalgety's Townsville staff finally moved into their new offices on 1 December 1924, and into the warehouse just prior to 30 June 1925. This was despite the fact that the warehouse was not quite finished.
The new office and warehouse offered a frontage of 93 feet to Sturt Street and 165 feet to Denham Street. Although the office section was only two-storeys, it gave the appearance of a three- storeyed building, with the ground floor 7 feet above the Sturt Street pavement at the main entrance. This entrance to the offices had a carved handrail leading up to the first floor. The new building made an imposing contribution to Denham and Sturt Streets and was described in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland in October 1924 as being one of the most modern and imposing concrete structures in North Queensland
The design and choice of material was noted for its cyclone resistance with ample provision made for light, ventilation and modern sanitary arrangements. In particular the ventilators were regarded as a suitable addition to a tropical climate and were a notable feature.
Dalgety & Co Ltd. occupied the ground floor offices and the first floor was leased to two legal firms. The fittings and fixtures in the offices were of paneled silky oak and arctic glass, with the ceilings fitted with fibrolite, a popular new product made of asbestos sheeting. The window fittings were constructed of oak.
The ventilation of the building consisted of special ventilators positioned in both the interior and exterior of the building. The interior walls had vents made out of fibrous plaster and situated between the picture rail and the ceiling whereas the exterior ones were made of louvred galvanized iron. Cornice and base mouldings were kept to a minimal in an endeavour to avoid dust being carried through the ventilation system.
A Montgomerie Neilsen oxidising non-septic toilet system was installed with a large brick tank under the building. This basement was accessed from the rear of the building. Inside the building the toilets were located at the rear of the office on both levels. There were two strong rooms on the first floor for the use of the tenants, and a third strong room on the ground floor for Dalgety & Co. The downstairs strong room was fitted with a protex door. The warehouse when complete had a truck loading dock and vehicle access ramp.
Dalgety & Co.'s Townsville branch offered a range of financial and merchandising services which helped sustain the North Queensland pastoral sector. In 1925-26 the firm advertised as financial, insurance, stock and station and shipping agents; wool, grain and produce brokers; and general merchants, with Queensland branches at Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville and Toowoomba and sub-branches at Charleville, Longreach, Hughenden and Blackall. The firm bought and sold stock and stations throughout Australia and were agents for a raft of insurances to suit rural property owners, including marine, livestock, fire and accident insurance, as well as being the agents for firms handling worker compensation claims. In addition the company was the agent for many specialist companies supplying oil engines, irrigation plants, gas plants, pumps and boilers, portable steam engines, traction engines, road rollers, centrifugal pumps, farm machinery and separators. The firm also merchandised a range of practical products for farmers and graziers, such as fencing wire, gates and steel droppers and was an agent for motor cars such as Daimler, Austin and Rover and Halley and Lacre commercial lorries. In the mid 1920s Dalgety & Co. were agents for two shipping lines - the Aberdeen and White Star - and at Townsville was the booking agent with these lines for domestic passages south to Brisbane and Sydney and overseas to England.
After World War Two Dalgety & Co.'s commercial focus shifted to more general lines such as groceries, hardware, wine and spirits. Through their role as shipping and insurance agents they continued to provide important services to the regional community and were the principal domestic and overseas airline booking agent in the region.
Dalgety & Co. sold the site in 1978. In 1979 the two-storeyed section was converted into three storeys of shops and offices including two restaurants and a bar in the old basement area. The single-storeyed warehouse was converted into a shopping arcade. In the early 1980s, canvas awnings were erected over the several doorways.
","criteria":"The Dalgety Offices and former Warehouse frontage, constructed in 1923-25 for important Australian pastoral firm Dalgety & Co Ltd., is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history. It provides evidence of the 1920s building boom during which a number of substantial warehouse and offices in Townsville were constructed and reflects an important period of north Queensland rural prosperity. It is one of the largest reinforced-concrete buildings to survive from this era, when reinforced concrete dominated in commercial building construction in northern Queensland.
|The Dalgety Offices and former Warehouse frontage remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class. It is a substantial structure in reinforced concrete, combining clearly differentiated office and warehouse areas. This demarcation is articulated in the exterior façades, with the office section located prominently at the intersection of two streets and designed to present an aesthetic façade to both streets and the warehouse presenting a more functional, less decorative street elevation. The building illustrates adaptation to the tropical climate, including a substantial ventilation system and steel-framed roof constructed in vaulted sections to withstand cyclones in the office section. The use of a multi-vaulted roof on the office section is unusual. The place is a good example of the work of influential Townsville architect Walter Hunt, who designed a number of reinforced concrete commercial buildings in the 1920s and 1930s.
|The Dalgety Offices and former Warehouse frontage, through its scale, design, materials and decorative detailing presents an aesthetic exterior and makes an important contribution to Townsville's inner city townscape. Its location within the same city block as the Former Magistrates Court (600929) and Osler House (600931) enhances the heritage significance of the Sturt Street streetscape and inner city precinct.
|As the Townsville offices and warehouse of Dalgety & Co Ltd for over half a century, the place has a special association with one of the largest and most successful pastoral firms in Australia. It provided a Townsville focus for the north Queensland pastoral community through much of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15698,"place_ref":600923,"name":"Eureka Hotel (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Thornton Gap Road","suburb":"HERVEY RANGE","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Eureka Hotel is a colonial period structure built of ironbark with a gabled roof of modern corrugated iron over the central core of three rooms. The encircling verandahs are enclosed with asbestos cement sheeting and covered with a skillion roof. The horizontal slab structure, which is raised on low, round ironbark stumps and massive half round timber bearers fixed with wooden pegs, is a rare example of bush carpentry.
It would normally have had an earthen floor, but has been raised and a timber floor added. There are no ceilings in the core: all rooms are open to the unlined iron roof, while the walls of the largest room are lined with asbestos-cement sheeting. The building stands in well tended modern gardens of trees, shrubs and plants popular in the early part of this century. Behind the structure is a modern rectangular building which is used as a kitchen/livingroom by the present owner. Behind and to the left of this structure is an old shed and post and rail stock yards.
","history":"The first recorded licensee, Charles Saville Rowe, was operating from the hotel in 1865. It was built at the top of Thorntons Gap on Herveys Range to accommodate travellers moving down to the plains at Townsville and up to the new gold fields and pastoral leases west and north of Charters Towers. The hotel was first known as the Eureka, as the Sanatorium by 1879c, as Rolfe's in 1882c then as the Eureka from 1884-1886 and finally as the Range from 1886.
William James Rolfe became the licensee in 1875c and he or members of his family were responsible for the name changes for the next thirty three years. After acquiring the property in 1875 William Rolfe erected another building of sawn timber while retaining the original structure. The second building was moved to a property in the Upper Ross area sometime this century and was later destroyed by a bushfire.
After the licence was surrendered sometime after 1908 the building was owned by the Moodie family who used it as refreshment rooms and a dance hall. It was later acquired by the Fryer family, early landholders in the region, and sold to the present owners in 1984.
","criteria":"It is a good example of the early shanty style of hotel and its significance is enhanced because of its association with the development of the mining and pastoral industries in Northern and Far Northern Queensland.
|The Eureka Hotel is representative of a transitional type of construction which led to the development of the Queensland vernacular style of architecture and, together with the Bowen River Hotel (600042), it is a rare survivor of this early bush carpentry period of construction.
|It is a good example of the early shanty style of hotel and its significance is enhanced because of its association with the development of the mining and pastoral industries in Northern and Far Northern Queensland.
|The Eureka Hotel is representative of a transitional type of construction which led to the development of the Queensland vernacular style of architecture and, together with the Bowen River Hotel (600042), it is a rare survivor of this early bush carpentry period of construction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15699,"place_ref":600924,"name":"Grandstand, former totalisator building and main entrance gates, Cluden Racecourse","alternate_name":"Cluden Racecourse","street_address":"1 Racecourse Road","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The three buildings which form components of Tunbridge's suite of buildings for the site have generally retained their character and much of their original form.
In spite of upgrades to facilities made over the years and repairs following at least two cyclones, the grandstand has retained its character and has a continuity of usage. Its appearance has not changed greatly since opening, although a large section at the back has been glassed in, diminishing its original airy, pavilion-like appearance. It still has flagpoles at ridge and roof corners. It has a hipped roof with a concave profile clad in corrugated iron and supported on timber posts with cast iron brackets between the posts. Brackets to the interior are formed from wrought iron into tendril-like spirals. The seating is tiered and the original slatted timber seats remain. Beneath the grandstand are refreshment and bar facilities. These are now modern, but reflect the original type of facilities, if not their form.
The totalisator is a timber framed building clad with weatherboard and fibro set behind and to one side of the grandstand and can be clearly recognised from early photographs. It is a narrow T shape in plan, with a two storey hip roofed section set at right angles to a single storey gable roofed section. The roofs of both are clad with corrugated iron of the same profile as the grandstand and the hipped roof retains finials at each end of its ridge pole, though the flagpole at the end of the single storey gable has gone.
A wide verandah with a concave corrugated iron roof supported on timber posts surrounds the building and has been partially built in on two sides. This verandah is not shown on early pictures, though its date is unknown. Skylights have been added to the single storey roof on one side. The building has been used as offices for some time and the interior was not inspected.
One of the 1896 entrance gates remains as the main entrance to the course. It is timber and consists of a pair of ticket offices on either side of an entry and turnstiles. The whole is spanned by a corrugated iron roof matching that of the other Tunbridge buildings on site. This has retained its flagpoles and traces of a red and white striped paint scheme. The outer side has the words 'Townsville Turf Club' over the entrance and each ticket office has two grilled windows to the street and a door to the rear. The entrance when closed is protected by a modern security screen of vertical metal rods.
","history":"Townsville was founded in 1864 by partners John Melton Black and Robert Towns as a port and commercial centre for the pastoral industry north of the Burdekin. It was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865 and grew quickly. The first sporting institution formed was the Burdekin and Flinders Turf Club in May 1866. The patron was the Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, who supported horse racing as a means of improving breeding and with an eye to the development of a Queensland cavalry. The inaugural president was Robert Towns. The first race meeting was a three day event held in mid-August 1866 with substantial prizes being offered. Early meetings were held in several locations, including Cleveland Park in the Garbutt area and Hermit Park. In 1874 the government granted the club a reserve for a racecourse and the name was changed about this time to the Townsville Turf Club, which name it has retained. Work soon began on a proper track on a reserve of 64 acres on the Dalrymple Road.
The discovery of gold gave great impetus to the development of Townsville and by 1880 it was serving several major goldfields in the north. A railway was proposed to link Townsville with the important goldfield at Charters Towers in the late 1870s. The line from Townsville opened to Mingela in late 1881 and to Charters Towers in December 1882. Dr Frost and Mr A.H. Rourke of the Townsville Turf Club proposed a change of site for the course so that advantage could be taken of this rail service. Cluden Park had been established on the south side of Ross River in the early years of settlement and was about three miles from Townsville by rail. The site selected for the new course was only a few minutes walk from the Cluden station. A race track was cleared and marked out and a temporary stand erected for the first meeting. In spite of reservations about the move from members and patrons, the vastly improved accessibility of the new course made it successful from the start. Improvements consisting of a grandstand, stewards and press stand, booths and totalisator were constructed in 1883 at a cost of £2500.
On January 26, 1896 Cyclone 'Sigma' swept through Townsville, causing considerable damage. At Cluden railway station, the rails were six feet under water and the racecourse buildings were devastated. The grandstand had collapsed and the stables, training sheds and a number of local houses had been swept away. The Annual Townsville Turf Club Race Meeting was scheduled for 14 July and the committee decided that it would attempt to rebuild the course in time for this. Although Tunbridge & Tunbridge, as a major architectural firm in the city, was inundated with work at this time, W. Howard Tunbridge designed a new set of buildings for the course. They consisted of a grandstand to seat 700 with a lunchroom beneath at a cost of £1600, plus a totalisator building, judge's box, gates and stables. The existing damaged grandstand was recycled with more comfortable seating as a St Leger stand, which has since been removed. The whole project was estimated to cost over £2000. Thanks to strenuous efforts on the part of the architect, the Club Secretary, Mr James S. Love, and the contractor, Mr Reid, the new amenities were ready for use on time, although the final details, like painting, had to wait until after the meeting.
This was an immense success with 923 people arriving by rail alone. £370 was taken at the gate and £8107 at the totalisator over the two days, setting a new record. Prize money totalled £840. The new facilities, especially the grandstand and the well-ventilated and commodious lunch room and bar underneath it were much appreciated by the public and highly praised in the press. Even 'Feminine' who provided social notes for the North Queensland Herald, commented approvingly on the wide aisles and more spacious seating, because 'in this age of large sleeves and full skirts, we require rather more than elbow room'; an interesting comment in the light of the opinion of the racing press that levels of female attendance had a strong effect on the success or otherwise of a race meeting.
A totalisator was constructed to the rear of the grandstand and the building is still present, though now used as offices. The totalisator system has been in use since the 1860s, though the earliest system, the Pari-Mutuel, was cumbersome and expensive, needing a large number of clerks to make the necessary calculations. The system works on the principle of totalling the bets made on a particular race and then dividing this sum, less a percentage for the operator, amongst those selecting the winning horse in proportion to the amount of their wager. Bets are registered and dividends displayed on a special board. In 1887 a partially automated system was in use in Australia and may have been in use at Cluden, there having been a totalisator on the course before the 1896 rebuild. A Totalisator Tax Act was introduced in 1892 in which the government deducted sixpence in the pound of stake receipts. In 1913 an Australian, George (later Sir) Julius, invented a fully automated system which was introduced at Randwick in September 1917 and was soon widely in use in Australia and overseas.
By the next meeting of the Townsville Turf Club, work had been completed on the new buildings and the grandstand roof was painted in broad stripes and topped with flagpoles at each end of the ridge and roof corners, giving the building a distinctly carnival air. Similar stripes were also applied to the shallow concave roof lines of the totalisator building and two sets of entrance gates. A lower tier of seating, which was not undercover, was originally at the front of the grandstand, but seems to have been removed at an early stage in favour of a sloping lawn.
Major repairs were needed to the grandstand following Cyclone Leonta which struck Townsville with devastating effect in 1903 and a new members bar was added in 1923 by C.V. Rees. He also added a new stewards' stand and such improvements as new lavatories to the grandstand in 1927.
During the Second World War, the racecourse was used as a military camp by the Australian Army. However, the CO understood the value of the races to the morale of the troops and public and so the whole troop concentration moved out every Saturday so that the races could be held.
After Cyclone Althea in 1972 repairs were again needed and a toilet block and car park were added at this time. In 1983, a substantial upgrade of facilities was carried out by architects Martin Dillon and Associates. New toilets and drink serving areas were provided to the ground floor of the grandstand and new totalisator facilities, a glassed-in viewing area and catering facilities on the first floor. The roof sheeting was replaced, but the original seating was retained and materials were chosen to be sympathetic to the structure. Additional covered areas and a kiosk replaced sheds adjacent to the grandstand at this time. The refurbished facilities were opened in 1984 by the Minister for Racing.
","criteria":"The 1896 structures at Cluden racecourse in Townsville illustrate the importance of horse racing in Queensland, which was the earliest organised sport in the colony and was the first sporting institution in Townsville. In the nineteenth century, horses were the main form of transport and were used in warfare, police work and many industries. Racing them was thought to improve the general quality of the breed as well as being an entertainment and was officially encouraged. The breeding, training and racing of horses has been important in Queensland as an industry in its own right and the quality of facilities on an early racecourse such as Cluden demonstrates this.
|The grandstand is a good example of its type and its visual appeal and amenity were much praised when it was constructed. This, together with the totalisator building and entrance gates form a suite of original public racecourse buildings at one of the most important courses in the state
|These buildings were designed by Walter Howard Tunbridge, one of North Queensland's most notable architects, and the aesthetic qualities of the grandstand in particular have been generally admired by the public. It has a light, airy quality less evident in grandstands in the Southern states.
|The structures are important for their association with the Townsville Turf Club, the first sporting institution in Townsville and one of the oldest in the state. The buildings, in spite of assaults by the cyclones which are part of the region's weather patterns, have survived in regular use on this important course for over a hundred years.
|The grandstand, totalisator building and gates are major works of the important North Queensland architectural firm of Tunbridge and Tunbridge, especially Walter Howard Tunbridge, who did the actual design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15700,"place_ref":600925,"name":"Townsville School of Arts","alternate_name":"Townsville Arts Centre | Dance North","street_address":"Stanley Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Townsville School of Arts building, or Dance North, is located on the corner of Stanley and Walker Streets and comprises a two storey structure with an adjoining theatre building running parallel to its rear and accessed from Walker Street and from within the School of Arts building.
Both buildings are constructed of exposed face brick and are roofed in corrugated iron. The former School of Arts building is two storeys high and is fronted on the Stanley Street elevation by brick columns, square in plan, rising from rendered plinths through both storeys to create deep verandahs. The verandah at street level is reached by low steps and has decorative iron railings and matching gates. The front entrance is through double doors flanked by sash windows. The upper floor has cross-braced timber balustrading to the verandah above a deep timber valance. The verandah is accessed by french doors with transom lights above. The ground floor houses offices, toilet facilities, lobbies and the main foyer. A timber staircase gives access from the foyer to the first floor which is divided into two sections by an arch and which it is intended to use as dance space.
The single storey extension at the corner of Stanley and Walker Streets is also brick and is similar in style and finish to the main building. The opposite side of the Stanley Street elevation has a brick arch which leads onto a passageway.
The theatre is a large rectangular building divided into bays externally by shallow brick piers. There is an entrance onto Walker Street and the rear has large doors which were designed to allow for the movement of scenery and large props. Inside, the building has a large auditorium with a timber floor and a stage area which has a basement beneath. On the northern side of the building, the dressing room bay has been extended by the construction of a 1960s brick amenities block. This has been modified as dressing rooms and a performers area. On the southern side an extension runs the length of the building and houses the studios and offices of the 4TTT radio station.
","history":"The School of Arts building was designed by Townsville architects Eyre and Munro. It was constructed by local builder James Smith and opened in May 1891.
The first Mechanic's Institutes or Schools of Arts were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self improvement and to promote moral, social and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no free public libraries and books were expensive, so that access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important service. The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 with the aim of 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to set up schools of arts, which became one of the principal sources of adult education. The government recognised this by making land available, subsidising books and assisting with building costs. Most Schools of Arts also had a hall with a stage which could be hired, thus encouraging the arts as well as providing a source of revenue.
The first School of Arts committee met in Townsville in 1866 and comprised a number of leading citizens including the town's founders, Captain Robert Towns and Mr J M Black. Townsville had been established only two years previously as a port and commercial centre for the pastoral industry north of the Burdekin. It was gazetted as a port of entry in 1865 and grew quickly. The School of Arts began modestly in a small rented cottage with a foundation library of 30 books. It soon moved to larger premises, but did not acquire a permanent home until 1877 when a substantial building was constructed on a reserve granted for the purpose on Melton Hill. Gradually the business heart of the city moved westward so that by 1889 it was believed that the School of Arts on Melton Hill was too far from the centre of town.
The Melton Hill property was sold to the Government for conversion to a court building and a new site was purchased on the corner of Stanley and Walker Streets. A design competition was held for the new building and was won by Townsville architects Eyre and Munro. Walter Eyre was an architect, engineer and surveyor. He trained in England and arriving in Brisbane in 1880, worked in the office of his cousin, FDG Stanley, from 1881 until he was appointed City Engineer of Townsville in 1885. In 1887 he left to set up in practice as an architect and soon gained enough work to take on WHA Munro as a junior partner. The firm supervised the work of southern architects as well as designing buildings and were responsible for a number of major works in north Queensland before the firm ceased operations in 1892. Their design for the School of Arts was constructed by local builder James Smith and was opened in May 1891 with a debutante ball on opening night and a concert on the 27 May.
The new building had meeting rooms and class rooms on the ground floor with a large library above. Classes were held in such subjects as drawing, singing and woodwork. The first gas cooking classes in Townsville were held here in 1895 utilising a specially installed Darren gas cooker. Connected to this building was a theatre building, originally called 'Her Majesty's', which could seat 600 persons. This was a large rectangular space rising to 2 storey height with a stage flanked by extensions housing dressing rooms. It was used by many visiting theatrical groups and performers, including a Chinese Opera company in 1894. It was the town's leading theatrical venue until the second Theatre Royal opened in 1900, although it continued to be popular after this, Nellie Melba appearing at the theatre in 1909. 'His Majesty's' was also the venue for the first Aboriginal stage performance in Townsville when a variety company, formed by local Aborigines performed there in 1907.
The building suffered cyclone damage from Sigma in 1896 and again by Leonta in 1903 when the offices were unroofed and the theatre was partially demolished. This damage was repaired in 1904 by the architects Tunbridge and Tunbridge. By this time it had become obvious that the theatre was too small and in 1913 the size of the auditorium was increased by an extension at the Walker Street end.
During the Depression the cessation of government subsidies to Schools of Arts spelt the end for many of them. The Townsville School of Arts remained in use until the 1930s, although the verandahs were enclosed and a single storey office building was attached on the Walker Street side between 1929 and 1934. Alternatives for education and leisure activities and the Libraries Act of 1943, which provided for free lending libraries, all contributed to the gradual closure of Schools of Arts around the state.
This change was slightly anticipated Townsville in 1938 when the Trustees resigned and vested the assets of the School of Arts in the Townsville City Council as Trustee, creating the first free public lending library in Australia. In 1941 the building was requisitioned by the Defence authorities and became the main RAAF postal office for the Pacific region. After the war it became the offices of the newly formed Townsville Regional Electricity Board. They vacated the building in 1963 and the Northern Electricity Authority occupied the building, moving out in 1968. The building then remained vacant for some time.
In the late 1960s the Townsville Arts Centre Association formed and in 1976 the building underwent extensive renovation. It became an arts centre, used as the office of the Pacific Festival and a base for the Townsville Little Theatre and a community radio station, 4TTT. It is home to the North Queensland Ballet and Dance Co Ltd better known as Dance North. Further work to the building was carried out in the 1990s during which the upper verandah was reinstated.
","criteria":"The School of Arts building is important as part of the network of Schools of Arts which sprang up in any town of consequence in Queensland during the 19th and early 20th centuries and were a measure of prosperity and progress. The scale, material and form of the building amply demonstrate the wealth and importance of Townsville as a regional centre at this period. Schools of Arts were community based and played a valuable educational and social role in the dissemination of information and the provision of facilities for lectures and meetings and the staging of events such as balls, plays and concerts. They were an important stage in the development of adult education in Queensland.
|It is a good example of a School of Arts building in a major regional centre, originally comprising a library, meeting rooms and a theatre designed to provide the facilities for a wide range of community cultural events and needs.
|As a prominent and well designed building, the Townsville School of Arts makes an important contribution to the built character of Townsville in form, scale, material and because of its location close to the town centre.
|The School of Arts building is important for its connection with the community of Townsville and the surrounding district as an integral part of the social and community life of the town.
|The Townsville School of Arts building is a major work of the North Queensland architectural firm of Eyre and Munro.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15701,"place_ref":600926,"name":"Townsville Astronomical Trigonometrical Station","alternate_name":"Townsville Observatory","street_address":"Stanton Hill","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Townsville Astronomical Trigonometrical Station is situated on the northern boundary of a home units complex which occupies the summit of Stanton Hill.
It is constructed of concrete and is cone shaped. The pillar stands 1.5 metres high by 0.3 metres in diameter with three holes in the top, which supported the theodolite.
A paved area and gardens surround the trig station.
","history":"In 1891 an astronomical observatory and trigonometrical [trig] station were constructed at the top of Stanton Hill in Townsville, to the design of government surveyor and astronomer Robert Hoggan. The observatory no longer survives, but the concrete trig station remains.
In the late 19th century, trig stations were erected in most of the principal towns of Queensland, as part of the first attempt to map Queensland on a large scale using common data. Despite the passage of years this data remains important because of its comparative value for modern surveyors. Most of the Queensland trig stations were timber posts, only remnants of which survive, erected to support a theodolite which measured vertical and horizontal lines. At Townsville and Thursday Island, concrete pillars rather than timber posts were erected, and these have survived largely because of their more substantial construction.
While surveyors no longer need to use the Townsville trig station it is still in a serviceable condition.
","criteria":"The Townsville Astronomical Trigonometrical Station, erected in 1891, is significant for its historical role in land surveying in Queensland, and typologically, as one of only two concrete astronomical trig stations constructed in Queensland in the 19th century.
|The Townsville Astronomical Trigonometrical Station, erected in 1891, is significant for its historical role in land surveying in Queensland, and typologically, as one of only two concrete astronomical trig stations constructed in Queensland in the 19th century. As one of only two surviving Queensland 19th century trig stations, the other being at Thursday Island, the place has rarity value.
|The Townsville Astronomical Trigonometrical Station, erected in 1891, is significant for its historical role in land surveying in Queensland, and typologically, as one of only two concrete astronomical trig stations constructed in Queensland in the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15702,"place_ref":600927,"name":"Wolverton","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"95 Stagpole Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Wolverton is a modest, single-storeyed timber residence, high set on concrete stumps, surrounded by a modern tropical garden of ferns, palms, shade trees and lawn. A semi-circular driveway is a feature of the front yard together with the original concrete fence foundation and posts.
The building has a complex hipped and gabled roof. There are two small symmetrically placed gables at the front of the house and a gabled frontispiece which extends through the front verandah. A large square ventilator is centrally placed on the ridge of the corrugated iron roof. The verandah, with dowel balustrading and lattice screening, extends around three sides of the building. The front porch is decorated with simple fretwork and a wooden arch over the front steps. The single-skin timber external walls have exposed framing. Boards have also been used throughout the house on the internal walls and ceilings.
","history":"Wolverton, a single-storeyed, decorative timber residence, was constructed c1903 for Thomas Turton, a well known Townsville painter and decorator. The architect and builder are unknown.
Turton, Savage & Co., painters and glaziers, and glass, oil and colour merchants, had established a business in Flinders Street, Townsville, by c1889. The business proved successful, and for over 30 years Thomas Turton was Townsville's principal painter and decorator.
It appears that Turton's private residence, Wolverton, was erected c1903. Title to the West End property was transferred to Emily Helen Elizabeth Turton, Thomas' wife, in mid-1903, and Thomas Turton is listed as resident in Stagpole Street in the 1904 Queensland Post Office Directory.
The original structure is thought to have comprised two large rooms divided by a central hallway, surrounded by verandahs, with a detached kitchen at the rear. Later the rear verandah was enclosed and an additional wing added. Wolverton was one of only five Federation era timber houses with a distinctive multi-gabled roofline, built in Townsville. One of these has been demolished, another shifted to a rural site; the three (including Wolverton) remaining in Townsville have been refurbished.
Thomas and Emily Turton resided at Wolverton until c1916, after which the house appears to have been rented out. Title was transferred from Mrs Turton in 1925, and the property passed through a variety of owners and lessees in subsequent years. It is understood the house was moved sideways in the 1930s to create a vacant adjacent block and in the 1950s it was divided into two flats. In the 1980s Wolverton was restored to its pre-1950 appearance.
","criteria":"Wolverton, a prestigious timber residence erected c1903 during the expansion of Townsville as a port for the mineral rich rural hinterland, illustrates the pattern of Queensland's history.
|It is significant in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Federation-era timber residence with distinctive multi-gabled roof and timber decorative detailing, unusual in Townsville, and is one of a group of only three such residences surviving in the city.
|It is significant in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Federation-era timber residence with distinctive multi-gabled roof and timber decorative detailing, unusual in Townsville, and is one of a group of only three such residences surviving in the city.
|Wolverton is a highly decorative building, and makes a distinctive aesthetic contribution to the suburban townscape of Townsville's West End.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15703,"place_ref":600928,"name":"Victoria Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Stokes Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Victoria Bridge was originally one of only two metal girder, swing bridges in Australia. It was an all steel structure except for wooden decking. A central drum, from which the central span swung open, housed the gas, free piston Otto engine. A row of modern shops has been built along its length, with a restaurant under the eastern end of the structure. An office is located beneath the western end.
Although the swing span no longer moves, the bridge is structurally sound. The gas engine was removed and in 1991 was mounted at the city end. The addition of a modern superstructure of shops and the removal of the approaches has substantially altered the visual aspect.
","history":"Apart from Victoria Bridge, built in 1888-89, the only other metal girder swing bridge constructed in Australia was the smaller one at Leith in Tasmania, built in 1884. Tenders were called by the Department of Works, Bridges Branch, on 25 September 1885 for the Townsville structure. A tender submitted by G.H. Royce & Co. of Sydney was accepted at a cost of £18,868. The approaches were constructed by Robertson & Stein and cost £1,780.
It was opened to traffic on 2 July 1889 and saw active service until 1975. The innovative design of a swing bridge pivoting on a central drum was an unusual method of allowing river traffic to pass up shallow Ross Creek. The central swing allowed large ships to pass through in the deeper, left hand channel, while smaller craft could take the shallower right lane. During the years after the bridge was opened the commercial centre of Townsville expanded and the warehouse district was gradually confined closer to the mouth of Ross Creek. Ships were no longer required to move up the creek to unload. By 1924 the swing section had ceased to function because of movement of the central drum.
However, vehicular traffic continued to cross for another fifty years. The bridge had seriously deteriorated by the 1980s and was threatened with demolition, until 1988 when it was leased by the Townsville City Council to a developer. Conservation work was undertaken as part of the re-development. A new superstructure of shops was built onto and around the existing fabric and the approaches to the bridge and the banks were landscaped. The kiosks installed along the northern bank are now a favourite meeting place for the community.
","criteria":"The design of this central pivoting, swing bridge was a innovative solution to the problem of a bridge over a shallow waterway.
Only one other bridge of a similar design was constructed in Australia.
Victoria Bridge is also held in high regard because it has been a feature of the townscape and played a major part in the development of the city for over one hundred years.
|Only one other bridge of a similar design was constructed in Australia.
|The design of this central pivoting, swing bridge was a innovative solution to the problem of a bridge over a shallow waterway.
|Victoria Bridge is also held in high regard because it has been a feature of the townscape and played a major part in the development of the city for over one hundred years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15704,"place_ref":600929,"name":"Townsville Magistrates Court (former)","alternate_name":"Townsville Museum | Townsville Court House","street_address":"81 Sturt Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This single-storeyed building was constructed in two distinct parts. The front section was made of rendered brick and the rear of timber.
The Sturt Street frontage, which originally housed the magistrate's office, is a symmetrically designed structure. The classical portico, which is reached by a short flight of stairs, features a gabled pediment, columns and round arched door and windows. The restrained nature of this section gives the impression of strength and permanence.
The timber rear of the building, with its wide verandahs and timber valance, is more in keeping with the tropical environment.
A section across the back of the structure has been enclosed with glass louvres, while the 1901 strong room remains intact.
The building has a hipped roof of corrugated iron and a skillion roof covers the original strongroom at the rear.
A modern garden of lawn and shade trees enhances the building.
This structure retains its early façade despite interior alterations.
","history":"This single-storeyed brick building was constructed in 1874-76 as the second Townsville Magistrates Court. It was designed by colonial architect FDG Stanley, and was constructed by Townsville builders J & J Rooney, at a cost £4,463.
The Magistrates Court was the second brick building erected in Townsville, and took two years to complete due to of a shortage of suitable brick clay.
The Townsville Magistrates Court held circuit sittings of the Northern Division of the Supreme Court [twice a year], as well as sittings of the Northern District Court [twice a year], the Police Court [daily], and the Petty Debts Court [twice a week] - the latter two presided over by the Police Magistrate. A lockup and quarters for the lockup keeper were associated with the Court House.
The court house was repaired and painted in April 1895 and a verandah on the western side was added in 1897. In 1901 James Brady constructed a strong room on the rear western side.
The building functioned as a court house for almost 100 years. With the construction of new court facilities in Walker Street, the old structure was threatened with demolition. Community agitation saved the building and it was purchased by the Townsville City Council in the early 1970s.
After restoration it was used as a day care facility, then as a tourist information centre and in 1985 it became the Townsville Museum. The building was vacated in November 2003.
","criteria":"Magistrates Court (Former), completed in 1876, is significant historically as evidence of the early consolidation of Townsville as a government administrative centre in northern Queensland, and in illustrating the early use of brick in Townsville.
|It illustrates some of the principal characteristics of its type, with the imposing classical design exemplifying the building's important judicial and authoritative role.
|The Magistrates Court (Former) is an aesthetically pleasing 19th century building which sits well in a modern townscape, as well as contributing significantly to Townsville's surviving historical townscape.
|The place is valued by the local community as an important part of their cultural heritage, as evidenced by the 1970s purchase of the property by the Townsville City Council.
|It is significant as an example of the work of colonial architect FDG Stanley, and of the early work of the Townsville-based North Queensland building firm, J & J Rooney.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15706,"place_ref":600931,"name":"Osler House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"35 Sturt Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Osler House is a two-storeyed house of rendered brick in an Italianate style reminiscent of terraced housing of its period. It has a corrugated iron roof and lantern concealed by a balustraded parapet and has a projecting bay on the northern side. Adjoining this is a verandah to the upper level with cast iron balustrading, It is supported on cast iron pillars with decorative cast iron brackets in-filling the upper corners to create an arched effect.
Each level of the house on the front elevation has two entrances with a sash windows between. Both doors and windows have round headed transom lights. There is a balcony to the rear and this has been enclosed, having casement windows to the upper level, although a lattice section remains at the side. A single-storey service wing projects at the rear. This is of brick and has apparently been re-roofed. In the 1950s the building was joined to the next door structure by an enclosed timber bridging section at the upper level, to allow ingress of vehicles to the rear yard.
The interior of the building, though now used as offices, retains the original layout of the earliest section and joinery details including doors, windows and elaborate fretwork transoms over ground floor doors.
","history":"Osler House was designed in 1888, by WG Smith and Sons, for prominent North Queensland businessman and Parliamentarian, John Deane. It is believed to have been designed specifically for rental as a doctor's surgery and residence and was ready for occupation in April 1889.
The building was constructed as an investment property for John Deane, a prominent northern parliamentarian, businessman and mining magnate, who had owned the land since 1869. The building, as described in the North Queensland Telegraph of 29 April 1889, did not have a projecting gable on the northern side. As such it would have resembled a single bay of a terrace of the kind built in the southern colonies and to a far lesser extent in Brisbane. As the house was built to one side of Deane's block, it is possible that it was originally intended to add adjoining bays.
Osler House is the only known example of the domestic work of the important North Queensland architectural firm of W.G. Smith and Sons. William George Smith was born in London and arrived in Brisbane in 1861, initially working as a carpenter and joiner. By 1869 he was a building contractor in Maryborough. In 1875 he became a foreman for the Queensland Department of Public Works and was transferred to Townsville in this capacity in 1879. In 1886 he left the department to join his son, W.G. Smith Junior, who was already in practice as an architect in Townsville. In time they were joined by Smith's other sons; Charles, Frederick and George. The firm had branch offices in Charters Towers, Mackay and Cairns and are best known for the Town Hall and Market Reserve Buildings in Townsville and also designed a number of large hotels. The firm continued in business until 1910.
At the time the house was built, its style was considered most unusual in Townsville, representing 'a departure in residential street architecture', according to the local newspaper. When built, it had a surgery and dining room on the ground floor and a drawing room, two bedrooms and a pantry on the upper floor. A separate brick building to the rear contained the kitchen, bathroom and servant's room. That it was intended as a doctor's surgery and residence is indicated by the fact that the largest room, which would normally be used as the drawing room, was located upstairs and a rather smaller room downstairs was designated as the surgery. It was common practice in the 19th century for doctors to set up a surgery in their home, but this was normally an adaptation of an ordinary house. This is the earliest surviving building identified in Queensland which appears to have been purpose designed for a medical practitioner's use. The building was also well ventilated being praised as 'about the coolest in town'.
Dr Sidney Spark was the first tenant and occupied the house until he moved to the South in 1891. Dr Walter Nisbet, another well-known medical practitioner, was the next tenant until 1899 when he left to join the Australian medical contingent during the Boer War. Nesbit served at one of the largest military hospitals in South Africa for 2 years, rising to the rank of Major.
In 1901, the property was leased by the Commercial Travellers Association who established a club in the building. This may have been the period when the two storey verandah extension was added, as in the 1890s a small shop occupied that section of the block, but in a view of the area taken in 1906, the shop has gone and the verandah can clearly be seen. It had arches and a cast iron valance matching the front of the building and may well have also been designed by Smith and Sons. If there had been any intention of constructing a small terrace, it had been abandoned at this point. The club only lasted in the building for a few years and in 1906 the building was again occupied by a medical man, Dr Stuart Burnie. In 1910 it was purchased by Jane McWilliam. The medical association continued as she rented the property to Dr DEA Buchanan, later well known as the Superintendent of the hospital at Rockhampton.
In 1918, the property was purchased by Dr Gordon Ross, who had rented it since 1914. Dr Ross was prominent in northern medical circles. He was founder of the Lister Hospital, the forerunner of the present Mater Misericordia Hospital, and had been superintendent of the Townsville General Hospital. Ross sold Osler House in 1928 to yet another well-known northern medical practitioner, Dr H.J. Taylor. It is thought that the building may have been named Osler House in the 1930s in honour of Sir William Osler, a distinguished Canadian physician who developed modern methods of clinical training and was the author of the influential Principles and Practice of Medicine.
In 1937, Dr Taylor sold the building and the practice to Dr Leslie Halberstater. Dr Halberstater was well known throughout the north, both in medical and racing circles, and was prominently associated with the development of the Mater Hospital. In 1957, the land was subdivided into 2 blocks and in 1875 a building was constructed on Lot 1 and was sold in 1981. After Dr Halberstater's retirement, the building was rented by other well-known medical practitioners, the last being Dr Michael Rooney who purchased the property in 1983, but sold it soon afterwards. The building fell into disrepair for a few years, but was renovated as offices.
Osler House was originally free standing but is now flanked by modern buildings. The verandah to the side has been enclosed and a further timber extension has been made at the first floor level over the driveway. The original cast iron frieze, columns and balustrade were replaced with a full height screen of louvres and the curved profile verandah roof was replaced by a straight profile sheeting, possibly in the Interwar period. This alteration has recently been reversed. Changes have also been made to the interior to accommodate change of use over the years.
","criteria":"Osler House, as an early purpose designed surgery and residence for medical practitioners, demonstrates an aspect of the growth of medical services in Queensland. Buildings designed for private medical practice are known in Brisbane at this date, but not in North Queensland and foreshadow the move towards such specialised buildings in the early 20th century.
|It is a rare surviving example of a 19th century combined doctor's residence and surgery which appears to have been specifically designed for this usage. It is also a rare example of a building of this style and material in North Queensland.
|Osler House has a long history of usage as the home and workplace of a number of noted North Queensland medical practitioners.
|Osler House is the only identified example of the domestic architecture of W G Smith and Sons, an architectural firm that had considerable influence on the architecture of north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15707,"place_ref":600932,"name":"Commonwealth Offices","alternate_name":"Scott, Dawson & Stewart Building | Rooneys Ltd Building | D & W Murray Ltd Building","street_address":"42 Sturt Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-06-15","description":"The Commonwealth Offices, a three-storeyed building with subfloor, is a rendered masonry structure with a triple corrugated iron hipped roof concealed behind a parapet wall.
The building, located on the south side of Sturt Street, shows classical influences in its facade which consists of four bays separated by pilasters supporting a deep cornice between each floor, with a rendered parapet with open circle motifs. Each bay has two arched sash windows, except the second bay which is narrower and forms the entrance, with single arched sash windows above and is surmounted by a pediment with a plaster sculpture of the Townsville City seal. The entrance has an arched door, with a cantilevered metal awning, located midway between the ground floor and subfloor. The western bay has a large arch with iron gates which accesses a driveway to the rear of the building.
The side and rear elevations have been altered, with some windows enclosed, window openings added at the southern corner, metal louvre sunshading attached and a rear steel fire stair.
Internally, the building has been refitted several times. The split level foyer has an hydraulic lift with a staircase either side, a sloping ceiling, timber veneer wall panelling and vinyl tiles. A staircase is located in the northern corner and false ceilings with air conditioning have been installed. Each floor has cast iron columns, some concealed by partition walls creating offices and corridors.
","history":"This three-storeyed masonry building with subfloor was erected in two stages, 1884 and c1889, as warehouse and offices for the established British drapery firm of Scott, Dawson & Stewart, who were the first to conduct a large wholesale drapery business in Townsville.
\nScott, Dawson & Stewart had offices in London, Glasgow and Brisbane before establishing the Townsville branch in 1884, when the subfloor and first level of the present building were erected. At the time, it was the most substantial wholesale drapery warehouse in Townsville. The firm's closest rival, Hollis Hopkins & Co Ltd, had established a wholesale drapery business in Townsville in 1881, but their substantial brick premises, also in Sturt Street and almost opposite those of Scott, Dawson & Stewart, were not erected until 1886-87. These have since been demolished.
\nThe establishment in Townsville of wholesale drapery firms, from which local drapers were able to buy goods in wholesale quantities at wholesale prices, revolutionised the drapery business in that town, with price reductions being passed on to consumers. Scott, Dawson & Stewart also received regular shipments direct from London, avoiding additional freight costs from Brisbane.
\nIn 1887, the subfloor of their building consisted of display and storage space on two levels, with a large packing room at the rear of the lower flat, and a bulk store housing surplus stock. The first level contained the manager's office and a counting house, and white cedars had been planted as shade trees at the front of the building.
\nIn August 1889, Townsville architects WG Smith & Sons called tenders for additions to the premises, and it appears that this was when the further two storeys and the dray entrance were added. The approximation of the Townsville city seal, above the pediment, appears in a photograph dated 1897. According to council records, the design was drawn between 1897 and 1899 for the Townsville Municipal Council.
\nD&W Murray Ltd, a wholesale importing firm based in London, leased the premises from 1899, and purchased them in 1913. In 1928, Townsville builders, timber merchants and furniture manufacturers, Rooneys Ltd, occupied the building as a store and furniture showroom, purchasing the property in 1933. Rooneys Ltd, whose business was being wound down, moved out of the building c.1938, and it remained vacant until acquired in mid-1941 by the Commonwealth of Australia for defence purposes, serving as Australian Defence Headquarters, North Eastern Area, during the Second World War.
\nAfter the war the building remained Commonwealth Offices, housing the RAAF's Recruiting Offices and Air Training Corps Headquarters. More recently, it was occupied by the Department of Social Security, until sold by the Commonwealth in 1987.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, illustrating the growth of mercantilism in Townsville in the 1880s, and of the town's development as the principal commercial centre of North Queensland in the late 19th century. The Commonwealth Offices also illustrated the role played by Townsville in the defence of Australia during the Second World War.
|The Commonwealth Offices demonstrate a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of the few substantial, masonry warehouses erected in Townsville in the late 19th century.
|The Commonwealth Offices are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large and substantially intact, masonry warehouse of the 1880s, in Townsville.
|The Commonwealth Offices are important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular their scale, form and materials, their composition of classical elements and their contribution to the Sturt Street streetscape and Townsville townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15708,"place_ref":600933,"name":"Masonic Hall, Townsville (former)","alternate_name":"Townsville Choral and Orchestral Society Building | Townsville Choral Society Inc. Building | Townsville Choral & Orchestral Society Building | Calvary Temple | Assembly of God Hall","street_address":"485-493 Sturt Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Masonic Hall in Townsville is a single-storeyed structure overlooking Sturt Street to the south-east.
The building has a rendered classical front facade consisting of a tetrastyle portico, in the Ionic order which, within Freemasonry, symbolises strength. In 2009 the entablature was painted with the words TOWNSVILLE CHORAL SOCIETY. The facade, with pilasters supporting the entablature with a square parapet above, sits on a raised concrete platform.
The hall has a gabled roof clad with metal sheeting with lean-to structures to either side and the rear. These additions are constructed in concrete block and have louvred windows to the north-west and south-west, and a covered driveway along the eastern boundary.
Internally, the building has undergone major refurbishment with new wiring, floors, ceilings, kitchen and fittings. A large, tiled baptismal font is located under the current stage and survives from the building's use by the Assembly of God.
A two-storeyed chamferboard residence is located at the rear of the allotment, with a concrete block toilet building adjacent. Both are outside the heritage register boundary.
The front of the site is concreted with a low masonry wall and metal fence.
","history":"This single-storeyed masonry building was erected in 1889 as Townsville's first masonic hall, on a site acquired in 1888 by the Townsville Masonic Hall Company Ltd, all the shareholders of which were freemasons.
Freemasonry was established in Townsville in 1866, with the creation of the Hibernia and Albion Star Lodge, no.289 under the Irish constitution. Townsville Lodge, no.1596 under the English constitution, was established in 1875. Both lodges met at a variety of venues until the purpose-built masonic hall was constructed in 1889. Its location in Sturt Street West reflected the 1880s spread of population to the West End, where the need for a building suitable for lodge meetings was growing evident by the late 1880s. The project was a combined effort of both lodges in Townsville, but was initiated by members of the Hibernia and Albion Star Lodge.
The hall was designed by North Queensland architects WG Smith & Sons, and erected by contractors Sparre & Hansen, with a contract price of £1,175. Smith (it is not clear whether this was William George Smith senior or junior) and Sparre were freemasons. The foundation stone was laid in May 1889, and an elaborate opening ceremony was conducted the following August. The building was described at the time as simple and severe, but beautifully finished and delightfully cool.
The hall served masonic purposes until 1934, when it was sold to the Townsville Assembly of God, who occupied the building until 1980. The Assemblies of God (Queensland) was formed in 1929, with the amalgamation of ten pentecostal groups from around the state, including that established in Townsville c1924.
In 1970-71, several old structures at the rear of the building were demolished, the sides and back of the hall were extended, and the building was re-opened by the Assembly of God in 1971 as the Calvary Temple. The building was used principally as a meeting place, but for a brief time in the late 1970s it housed an Assembly of God school for grades 1 to 10.
In 1980 the building was transferred to trustees of the Townsville Choral and Orchestral Society; providing office and rehearsal space. The Society formed in 1906 as the Townsville Musical Union. In 2013 the former Masonic Hall continues to be used by the Townsville Choral Society Incorporated.
","criteria":"The former Masonic Hall, erected in 1889 as Townsville's first masonic hall, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the West End of Townsville in the 1880s and 1890s.
|It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small masonic hall establishing a strong street presence/identity.
|It is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Townsville community, in particular its strong contribution, through its architectural form, scale and materials, to the streetscape of Sturt Street and to the Townsville townscape; and its classical facade, seen as a landmark which reflects masonic identity.
|The building has had a special association with Freemasonry in Townsville for over 45 years, and with North Queensland architects WG Smith & Sons, as an example of their work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15709,"place_ref":600934,"name":"Anzac Memorial Park and adjacent Banyan trees","alternate_name":"Townsville War Memorial | The Strand Park | Anzac Park","street_address":"The Strand","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Anzac Park, Townsville, extends along the foreshore overlooking Cleveland Bay, with views to Magnetic Island. It is bordered to the west by Tobruk Memorial Baths, to the south by The Strand, to the east by the Townsville Bowls Club, and to the north by reclaimed land forming part of a recent marina development. The park is surrounded by a low concrete edging with obelisk-like pillars at regular intervals. Steel chains stretch between the pillars along the sea front (to the north) only.
\nThere are mature Banyan trees along The Strand boundary, just outside the park reserve, and early garden beds along the street and throughout the park. More recently-planted palm trees are scattered throughout the park.
\nAnzac Memorial Park forms a garden setting for a number of adjacent buildings of cultural heritage significance, including the former Queen's Hotel [600936] and former Customs House [600937] along The Strand, further up on Wickham Street, the State Government Offices [601384], and at the corner of Cleveland Terrace and Melton Terrace, the former Supreme Court Building [600885].
\nAnzac Memorial Park contains a number of memorial structures. The memorial Bandstand is centrally placed at the eastern end of the park. [West of this are newly established gardens and a recent children's playground.] In the centre of the park, opposite the main entrance gates to The Strand and Wickham Street, is the 1959 Queensland Centenary Fountain. To the north of the Fountain is a 1992 memorial to the Battle of the Coral Sea. The entrance gates, Fountain and Coral Sea Memorial form a north-south axis which bisects the park. West of the fountain is the First World War Memorial, also centrally located. At the western end of the park is the WJ Castling Memorial, again, centrally positioned. The WJ Castling Memorial, First World War Memorial, Queensland Centenary Fountain, and the Bandstand, form an axis east-west, and each is set in a paved surround within the grassed area of the park's centre.
\nW J Castling Memorial, 1908
\nThe W J Castling memorial drinking fountain is an exercise in the use of classical elements, based on a simple square form plan with an attic storey raised on Ionic columns.
\nThe structure derives from the Roman triumphal arch, with its four columns standing on pedestals and rising to an entablature, above which is the attic storey with a semicircular decorative motif. The arches have been displaced by the capitals, and occur within the structure as a shallow dome above the central urn on its octagonal base.
\nThe curves of a basilica roof are reduced to a convex pyramidal form, topped with a decorative carved finial.
\nCarved of yellow sandstone, the columns, roof and urn are supported on a plinth and attached column bases of white marble. A basin has been formed in marble on each side of the drinking fountain.
\nBandstand, 1913
\nThe bandstand is also an exercise in the language of classical architecture, using a simple square form plan with a pyramidal roof raised on composite order columns. The Mannerist composition of the screen derives from the Renaissance illustrations of the classical orders, in which the elements of the entablature surmounting the capital are interpreted as panels of open space between flat pilasters.
\nThe frieze band of the entablature is infilled with decorative cast iron panels, framed between chamfered square section timber posts and visually supported on corner brackets to the underside of the taenia, or plate that separates the frieze from the architrave below.
\nPanels of decorative cast iron are fixed between columns to form a continuous balustrade, broken only at the top of the steps where it meets round iron posts with ball finials. Paired columns at each corner are infilled with frieze panels above and balustrading below, with curved corner brackets at each junction to form an egg-shaped opening in the screen.
\nColumns are set on a base of rendered brickwork, set one metre above the surrounding garden beds with rendered steps and curved strings.
\nWithin the bandstand is a recent hardwood boarded floor, and a flat VJ lined ceiling extending beyond the screen of the walls to form boxed eaves stopped at a deep timber fascia.
\nThe roof is sheeted in corrugated galvanised iron, and has a turned timber finial. The structure is finished in a green plastic paint except for the floorboards which are unpainted and the ceiling and finial which are painted off-white. There is no guttering nor rainwater goods, and the original interior light fitting is missing.
\nFirst World War Memorial, 1923-24
\nThis memorial is a column of rough cut, rusticated grey granite supported on a red-white marble plinth and bracketed by three white marble fins each supported by triple columns on attached bases. The column is finished with a projecting abacus of granite, and is supported on a concrete stylobate of two steps, surfaced in red granite chips.
\nWhite marble tablets are fixed to the column between the fins, and high on the column's four faces are inset circular bronze plaques, each sheltered by a narrow bracketed shelf of white marble. The four plaques depict an eagle, crossed swords, anchor, and the seal of the City of Townsville, and replace four clock faces.
\nQueensland Centenary Fountain, 1959
\nThis is a circular fountain approximately 1 metre high with central sprays. It sits in a shallow pool fed by perimeter sprays set in a low masonry ring.
\nBattle of the Coral Sea Memorial, 1992
\nEarth is banked in a glacis against two low, outward-sloping walls that form two facing quadrants around a circular paved area.
\nThe walls rise in an arc to a height of about one metre in their centre, and are finished in red granite. The lettering and illustrations that tell the story of the Battle of the Coral Sea are picked out in contrasting rough and smooth finishes on the surfaces of the walls.
\nWithin the paved area are two truncated columns, bearing bronze information plaques.
","history":"Anzac Memorial Park was established as The Strand Park in the 1910s, but the foreshore along The Strand, Townsville's main frontage to Cleveland Bay, had developed as a recreation area from the 1860s, the earliest days of settlement. The whole of the foreshore between King and Howitt Streets was gazetted a temporary reserve for public purposes in February 1901, and a section of this, between the Customs House and King Street, was proclaimed a permanent reserve for park purposes in June 1912.
As early as 1866, Townsville's more affluent residents were constructing homes along the beachfront, and by 1872, three hotels had been erected opposite the present Anzac Memorial Park. The Strand was unformed at this time, being little more than a track along the foreshore, and there were no shade trees, but the beach was popular with bathers (mainly male) from at least the late 1870s. In 1881 the town council planted 30 cedar trees along the foreshore, and added cocoa and betel nut trees in early 1882. In 1883, following strong public demand, a road was made along the beach front to Kissing Point. By 1889, The Strand, between King Street and Kissing Point, made a glorious promenade on a moonlight night when the breeze blows straight and cool from Magnetic Island. Photographs of The Strand in 1888 show banyan trees several years old, as well as more recent plantings, and a reserve for public baths (opposite the then quarry site on The Strand) was gazetted in 1889.
One of the earliest structures erected along the foreshore was an ornamental fountain/bird-bath, extant by 1905, which remained in the park reserve to the 1950s at least. In 1908 a drinking fountain was constructed opposite Queen's Hotel, near the corner of Wickham Street and The Strand. It was located outside the park proper, on the road verge, and was erected as a memorial to WJ Castling, a butcher and former Mayor of Townsville. This drinking fountain was moved to the western end of the park, probably during road works after 1924.
One of the principal instigators of the establishment of a formal park along The Strand was John Henry Tyack, owner of Queen's Hotel 1899-1913, alderman in the Townsville City Council 1906-1913, and mayor of Townsville in 1912. He had commissioned the elaborate re-building of Queen's Hotel, one of the few grand hotels of Northern Queensland, starting in 1902-04, and took an interest in beautifying the foreshore opposite. In April 1912, during Tyack's term as mayor, Townsville City Council applied to have the foreshore along The Strand, from the sea baths to King Street, gazetted as The Strand Park. The Council had already spent a considerable amount of money on foreshore improvements, and intended to spend more. In June 1912, about 4.5 acres were proclaimed a permanent reserve for park purposes, extending from King Street to Cleveland Street.
As early as 1901, Council had considered erecting a new bandstand on the beach, but this project did not eventuate until 1913. Through Henry Tyack's efforts, a public subscription was raised for the construction of a small, ornate bandstand in the park. The structure was designed by Sydney architect AB Polin, who had designed the new Queen's Hotel for Tyack c1902, when resident in Townsville as the North Queensland representative of the architectural firm of Eaton, Bates and Polin. J Crase & Co., ironworkers and brass founders of Brisbane, supplied the cast iron scroll work and pillars for the bandstand, in the same design as that used on the Queen's Hotel, and construction was carried out by municipal employees. The bandstand was nearing completion when Tyack died on 28 July 1913, and it was dedicated in Tyack's memory on 27 September 1913, by Alderman RW McClelland, Mayor of Townsville. The stand was intended to cater for both band and vocal concerts, mainly during the summer months.
Initially, the bandstand was located opposite the main entrance gates to the park. It was relocated to the eastern end of the park when the Queensland Centenary Fountain was constructed on the same site in 1959.
In 1914-15, a bowling green and clubhouse were constructed on land at the southern end of The Strand Park, the land being leased by the newly established Townsville Bowls Club from the City Council. The first clubhouse was destroyed during cyclone Althea in December 1971, the grass was replaced with an artificial green in 1992, and in 1994 the land occupied by the bowls club was excised from the park. It no longer forms part of the Entry in the Heritage Register for Anzac Memorial Park.
From at least the 1920s, The Strand Park was a focus for Anzac Day activities. In 1923-24 a memorial clocktower was erected in the park, to the west of the bandstand. The memorial was financed by public subscription, and was designed and constructed by monumental masons Melrose and Fenwick of Townsville. The design had been finalised by September 1923, and the monument was completed by Anzac Day 1924, when it was unveiled and dedicated by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan.
When first established, a picket fence divided the park from the roadway. By 1924, that section of the timber fence opposite Queen's Hotel, near the intersection of Wickham Street and The Strand, had been replaced with park entrance gates and fencing of wrought-iron panels set between masonry pillars. Also by 1924, several canon, probably trophies from the 1914-18 war, were located east and west of the bandstand; the park was lit by gas? lamps; and a children's playground had been constructed at the western end of the park, near the sea baths. No evidence of this early playground survives.
In October 1925, the park was described as being tastefully laid out and planted with ornamental trees, shrubs with foliage of variegated colours, and lawns of couch grass, and attracted hundreds of people to the Sunday evening band and orchestral concerts. In the 1920s, the park was considered a tourist attraction, and was extended to over 6 acres in July 1926, by including the land up to the sea baths reserve.
Early in 1934, the name was changed to Anzac Memorial Park, and a metal arch bearing the new name was erected above the entrance gates, in time for the April 25 Anzac Day commemorations.
In April 1953, Anzac Memorial Park was extended to 9 acres, and in 1959 the bandstand was relocated within the park to permit construction in its place of a fountain to commemorate the centenary of Queensland's separation from New South Wales.
In December 1971, cyclone Althea caused substantial damage to the park. Many of the 1880s trees were destroyed and others stripped of their leaves. Subsequently, the Townsville City Council erected a plaque in the park, to commemorate the role of the Australian Army in the restoration of Townsville after the cyclone.
Prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea Commemorations in 1992, the gardens in Anzac memorial Park were replanted and most of the memorial structures were cleaned and/or repainted. A large Coral Sea Battle Memorial was built to the north of the Centenary Fountain. The memorial commemorates the role of Australian and American servicemen in the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. About the same period, a new children's play area was created between the bandstand and the Centenary Fountain.
","criteria":"Since the early 20th century, the park has provided a community focus for commemorative activities, and contains a number of memorials to events or persons of significance in Townsville's history, including the WJ Castling Memorial (1908), the Bandstand (1913), the First World War Memorial (1923-24), the Queensland Centenary Fountain (1959) and the Battle of the Coral Sea Memorial (1992).
The First World War Memorial is a member of a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure, and along with the re-naming of the park as Anzac Memorial Park, survives as evidence of a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism in the interwar period.
The Queensland Centenary Fountain is significant as Townsville City Council's major contribution to the celebration of the centenary of Queensland's separation from New South Wales in 1859.
The adjacent mature Banyan trees are significant as some of the earliest surviving street plantings in Townsville.
|The WJ Castling Memorial and the Bandstand are finely detailed, classically-derived structures that reflect the Mannerism of the Victorian and Edwardian Periods and the tradition of constructing public buildings in a classical style.
|The bandstand in particular is an aesthetically pleasing and skilfully executed composition based on the language of classical architecture. Furthermore, the principal original elements of the composition are intact. The WJ Castling Memorial is significant for its craftsmanship and intactness.
The First World War Memorial is a dominant structure in Anzac Park, and in its aesthetic quality and craftsmanship, makes a significant contribution to the townscape quality of the park.
|The establishment of the park was closely connected with civic leader and publican John Henry Tyack and the re-development of the Queens Hotel opposite, and for the first half of the 20th century, remained one of Townsville's principal tourist attractions.
|Anzac Memorial Park and adjacent Banyan trees are important for their association with The Strand and Cleveland Bay foreshore as one of the earliest recreation venues in Townsville.
Since the early 20th century, the park has provided a community focus for commemorative activities, and contains a number of memorials to events or persons of significance in Townsville's history, including the WJ Castling Memorial (1908), the Bandstand (1913), the First World War Memorial (1923-24), the Queensland Centenary Fountain (1959) and the Battle of the Coral Sea Memorial (1992).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15711,"place_ref":600936,"name":"Telecasters North Queensland Ltd Building","alternate_name":"Queen's Hotel","street_address":"The Strand","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Telecasters North Queensland Pty Ltd building, located on the southern side of The Strand and returning into Wickham Street, is a two-storeyed structure containing television studios and offices built of English Bond brickwork with rendered detailing. The brickwork has been sandblasted to remove a coat of paint, and the building has a hipped ribbed metal roof, similar in form to the original roof.
The Strand elevation shows Art Nouveau and Indian/Colonial influences in its design, including turrets crowned by cupolas framing low tower forms along the northern frontage, decorative render panels, wide eaves and arcaded loggias to the ground floor with verandahs above. The two large and two small tower forms differ slightly in their design and proportions, with the two larger having a broad, recessed arched entry with a recessed loggia above and surmounted by a steep pitch ribbed metal roof. The smaller forms are surmounted by a rounded pediment. Sections of the ground floor arcaded loggias are enclosed with timber framed glazing, and the open sections have cast iron balustrade and french doors with fanlights. The verandah, off which french doors with fanlights also open, has paired timber posts with cast iron balustrade and valance. Metal stanchions have been added to the face of the brickwork for the purpose of tying the roof down, and sections of floor have been replaced with concrete. Four bays of the eastern end of the building have been demolished and the verandah now returns along this face to the rear.
The Wickham Street elevation has a rendered corner parapet and a timber verandah with paired posts, timber brackets to the ground floor and cast iron balustrade and valance to the first floor. The southern end of the building has been demolished, and the facade altered, with window and door openings having been enclosed or moved.
The rear of the building has been substantially altered, with only one of the original masonry two-storeyed toilet blocks remaining, and a large television studio and communication equipment have been added. Sections of the rear verandah remain as internal corridor, off which french doors with fanlights open. The rear of the site contains carparking.
Internally, the building has been substantially altered. The entrance hall contains a carved cedar staircase with a twin return, two figurine lamps on the bottom balusters and leadlight sash windows at the landing. This space has a raised ceiling with plaster mouldings including a deep cornice with recessed lighting, laurel relief, ornamental ventilation panels and a centre glazed skylight, which no longer admits natural light. There are sections of original joinery throughout the building, including doors with etched glass panels into the former dining room, internal doors, architraves and skirtings.
The building has false ceilings and air conditioning throughout. There are sections of marble tiled floor in the foyer and former Palm Lounge, now the Telecine room, but they do not match early photographs of these areas. The first floor is mostly office space, with the former bedrooms being enlarged by the removal of partition walls.
","history":"The former Queen's Hotel, a large, two-storeyed masonry building, was erected in several stages between 1902 and the mid-192Os. It was considered the finest hotel in North Queensland.
Townsville's first Queen's Hotel, a two-storeyed timber structure, was erected at the corner of Wickham Street and the Strand in 1872, and was extended along Wickham Street in the 1880s. It early acquired a reputation as one of the best kept hotels in Queensland, patronised by visiting dignitaries.
In 1899 the property and license were purchased by John Henry Tyack. He raised a £14,000 mortgage on the property, and called for competitive designs to replace the timber building with a substantial brick structure. The winning entry was submitted by architects Eaton, Bates & Polin, who had opened an office in Townsville c.1901. Eaton & Bates had trained in Sydney, but by the turn of the century their principal offices were in Brisbane, with branch offices in Rockhampton, Townsville and Toowoomba. Arthur Polin was managing partner of the Townsville office.
The original design was more modest in size than the final structure, extending along the Strand only as far as the eastern tower, and around the corner of Wickham Street for eight bays. It was erected in stages, with trade continuing from the original hotel on the corner of Wickham Street and the Strand until 1925. In 1901, Tyack purchased an adjoining block (site of the former North Australian Hotel) along the Strand, which permitted construction of the first section of the new Queen's Hotel, comprising the eastern tower and four bays to its west, c.1902. This section was extant by March 1903. In May 1904, Tyack replaced the first mortgage with one for £20,000, which probably financed construction of the second section, completed by 1905. This involved demolition of part of the timber building along the Strand, and the extension of the brick building a further six bays toward the corner of Wickham Street. The contractor was a Mr Boyle, and work was underway in January 1904. For the next twenty years, Queen's Hotel consisted of a brick wing along the Strand, and a corner timber section which continued back along Wickham Street.
Publican John Tyack continued the tradition of fine service and hospitality at the Queen's. He was active also in civic affairs, and, as Mayor of Townsville in 1912, encouraged council improvements along the Strand and foreshore in front of the Queen's Hotel. This included the 1913 construction of a cast-iron bandstand, with balustrading to match that on the hotel. Tyack died in 1913, prior to construction of the final stages of his grand hotel.
Following Tyack's death, the hotel was placed in the hands of Queensland Trustees Ltd, who transferred the various properties to Queen's Hotel Townsville Ltd in 1924-25. At the same time, Queen's Hotel Townsville Ltd acquired three adjoining allotments along the Strand, which permitted the construction of a further 10 bays of the hotel toward the east. The remaining timber section of the hotel was demolished, and the western tower and Wickham Street wing were completed.
The 1920s additions and alterations, costing approximately £40,000, were designed by respected Townsville architect Walter Hunt, and constructed by established Townsville contractor WH Turner. Work was underway by the end of 1924, and the eastern extension, comprising 48 rooms, was completed in mid-1925. The timber building was demolished in late 1925, in preparation for the next stage of the new building. The section at the corner of the Strand and Wickham Street was erected in 1925-26, and occupied in August 1926. This ground floor of this section comprised the main entrance hall, extensions to dining room and lounge, offices, and bars; bedrooms and balconies occupied the first floor. A detached block at the rear, comprising kitchen and scullery on the ground floor and bathrooms and toilets on the first, was erected at the same time. The final stage along Wickham Street was erected in 1926-28. Work was commenced in mid-1926, but a 1927 strike in the building industry delayed its completion. Included in this wing were parlours, a commercial room, nursery, servants' dining room, two shops and some bedrooms on the ground floor, and bedrooms on the first floor.
Through the 1920s and 1930s, when the license was held by Bridget Mary Guinane, Queen's Hotel retained its reputation as North Queensland's premier hotel. During the Second World War, when Townsville was the principal Australian base from which the Pacific war was fought, the Queen's Hotel was occupied as an American army officers' mess. After the war, the hotel fell into gradual decline. In 1966, Far Northern Theatres Ltd acquired the property, and demolished several bays at the end of each wing. The building was sold to Townsville firm Samuel Allen & Sons Ltd in 1973, and in 1977 was acquired by Telecasters North Queensland Ltd, who restored the exterior and converted the interior into television and radio studios and offices.
","criteria":"The former Queen's Hotel, erected in several stages between 1902 and the mid-1920s, was once the premier hotel of North Queensland, and survives as important evidence of the evolution of Townsville as the principal city of North Queensland by the early 20th century.
|Sufficient of the fabric remains to understand the building as a large, ostentatious, two-storeyed masonry hotel, and to illustrate the work of Queensland architects Eaton, Bates and Polin.
|The place has a strong association with the Townsville community as a local landmark, and is significant aesthetically for the composition and massing of the building's architectural elements, the quality of the building's surviving interior elements, and its contribution to The Strand streetscape and Townsville townscape.
|The place has a strong association with the Townsville community as a local landmark, and is significant aesthetically for the composition and massing of the building's architectural elements, the quality of the building's surviving interior elements, and its contribution to The Strand streetscape and Townsville townscape.
|Sufficient of the fabric remains to understand the building as a large, ostentatious, two-storeyed masonry hotel, and to illustrate the work of Queensland architects Eaton, Bates and Polin.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15712,"place_ref":600937,"name":"Townsville Customs House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wickham Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The Townsville Customs House is located on the corner of The Strand and Wickham Street, at the base of Melton Hill overlooking Cleveland Bay. It is one of a number of buildings at the eastern end of the city which are of cultural heritage significance.
The building is a two-storeyed, L shaped, red brick building with an elaborate semi-circular corner entrance. Verandahs exist on both levels on both street elevations, with iron balustrading on the ground floor. There is a tower on the Strand side, which has a lookout for the observation of shipping. The roof is roll and cap iron.
The ground floor interior includes the Long Room which contains the public counter and work area; a communications room; several general offices; two store rooms; an entrance hall, main stairs and lobby; colonnades; a safe; clearing office; strong room; amenities room; field store; and a flat containing a bedroom, bathroom, balcony and portion of the colonnade.
The first floor contains the Sub-Collector of Customs living area. Within this area are three bedrooms created using modern partitioning, a living room, lounge, kitchen, and colonnades on both the north and south facades, which contain laundry and bathroom facilities. There is also a lobby into the living area (former Titles Office), a staircase lobby, a gallery over the Long Room, a pantry and store.
The surviving internal timber work and timber fittings are of cedar. There are a number of tiled fireplaces throughout the main offices.
There are leadlight windows in the original dome. The cedar and plaster mouldings of the dome are also intact.
","history":"The former Townsville Customs House, the fourth customs building in Townsville, was constructed in 1901/02 to a design prepared in 1899/1900 by architect George Payne of the Government Architect's Office in the Queensland Department of Public Works.
Townsville had been established in the mid-1860s by pastoralist John Melton Black and his Sydney business partner, Robert Towns, as a port to service Woodstock Station. There were already ports at Bowen and Cardwell but during the wet season Woodstock and other stations to the west were often cut off from these centres by floodwaters.
In November 1864 Black's employees Andrew Ball and Mark Reid set up camp close to the mouth of Ross Creek on Cleveland Bay and in the next few months Black and Towns invested in the construction of a warehouse and wharf. A residence was constructed for Melton Black on Melton Hill overlooking the fledgling port.
At this period Robert Towns, with interests in banking, pastoral, shipping and commercial industries, was one of Australian's most influential businessmen. Having invested heavily in the early establishment of this new Queensland port facility, Black and Towns lobbied the colonial government to declare the new township a port of entry. They received support from the Queensland Collector of Customs and on 17 June 1865 Cleveland Bay was proclaimed a "Port of Entry and Clearance". At that time a small Customs service was established in the township. Staff included the Sub-Collector of Customs who, for an annual fee of ¦300, served as the Police Magistrate, Clerk of Petty Sessions, and Harbour and Port Master. Two staff were employed as customs and harbour workers, boatmen and constables. The construction of a bond store and customs warehouse was also authorised at that time.
On 29 July 1865 the Surveyor-General's Department decided that the new Customs House should be located next to the harbour entrance on Ross Creek. A town survey had been completed and the first land sales took place on 31 July 1865. On 6 September 1865 the Queensland Executive Council, referring for the first time to the township as "Townsville", approved a block of land bounded by the Strand and Flinders Street as an appropriate site for the Customs Reserve and new Customs House. It was in an elevated position and commanded an excellent view of the harbour.
Early in 1866 the Municipality of Townsville was declared with Black elected as Mayor. In October 1866 the Province of Townsville was declared, covering a large area centred round Townsville.
The discovery of gold at Cape River in 1867 and Ravenswood in 1869 stimulated the development of Townsville as a port and administration centre. By 1870 a new building had been constructed to house customs and court functions and a wharf built on the Customs Reserve on Ross Creek. The new building was a cramped, three-roomed wooden structure. Early in 1871 an additional two offices were added at the rear of the building. To create more space the Sub-Collector of Customs suggested that a bond store be built, which was constructed in July 1872 on the Customs Reserve close to the wharf facing Flinders Street.
In March 1874 the Sub-Collector of Customs further suggested that the Court House facilities be removed from the Customs building and in February 1875 approval was given for a new court house, which was constructed in 1876 in Sturt Street.
The Customs Service grew rapidly as road and rail networks in the Townsville hinterland expanded to meet the needs of the pastoral industry and gold fields. By the late 1870s the early timber framed government buildings in Townsville were beginning to be replaced by ore substantial structures. The new, more imposing buildings reflected the growing prosperity of the region. In 1884 the Customs Bond Store on the bank of Ross Creek was extended.
In 1889 the importance of the Customs Service was demonstrated with the opening of the new Brisbane Customs House. By September 1891 the inadequacy of the Townsville office was obvious and the decision was made to convert the former Post and Telegraph Office into a customs house. This work was completed by June 1892. At this stage the quarters of the Sub-Collector of Customs comprised a timber structure at the rear of the Supreme Court.
By 1898 the Customs Service had again outgrown its building. At the same time the Queensland government embarked on an ambitious building program to make a generous contribution to the planned Commonwealth of Australia by constructing new customs houses or upgrading existing ones prior to Federation. Included in the building program were new customs houses at Rockhampton (1898-1901), Townsville (1898-1902), Bundaberg (completed c1902) and Mackay (completed in 1902) and an upgrading of the 1870 Maryborough Customs House in 1900.
Townsville Customs and Estate Agent JN Parkes, commissioned to find a suitable site for a new Townsville customs house, recommended two blocks bounded by The Strand, Wickham and Cunningham Streets. The site, owned by the Bank of New South Wales, was purchased by the Queensland government in November 1898 for £1600. Plans were prepared in 1899 by architect George Payne employed temporarily in the Government Architect's Office. The plans were approved by the government in January 1900, just prior to Federation and the creation of the new Australian Customs Services.
George Payne was a London born and trained architect who arrived in New South Wales c1887. In the late 1880s he achieved success in a number of design competitions and in the early 1890s established his own architectural practice in Sydney. He was a foundation member of the Sydney Architectural Association and in 1891-93 its inaugural vice-president. Due to the effects of the economic depression of the 1890s on the architectural profession, Payne gained a temporary position as a draftsman in the Queensland Public Works Department, taking up the appointment in March 1898. It has been suggested that Payne may have been the catalyst for the sophistication of the subsequent work of the Department's Professional Branch. He prepared working drawings for the Rockhampton Customs House, in which he likely contributed to the design detailing and in 1899 designed and documented the Townsville Customs House. With the tropical climate and the government's desire to impress in mind, he designed a colonnaded Romanesque building with an imposing presence to the Strand and shaded, well ventilated interiors. In late 1902 Payne resigned from the Public Works Department to oversee construction of his winning design for St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Brisbane, for which he acquired a national reputation.
Payne's Townsville Customs House was a brick and stone building of generous design, with high ceilings to allow for maximum air circulation and broad, colonnaded verandahs to provide shade for the internal rooms. While no plans of previous Townsville Customs buildings have been located it is probable that this building provided, for the first time, the traditional arrangement of Customs Service rooms, based on the British tradition of a lofty and impressive 'long room' for the reception of the public. It appears to have included residential accommodation for the Sub-Collector of Customs on the upper floor and a basement. As with other Queensland customs buildings designed at this period, the Townsville Customs House, through its architectural distinction, was designed to impress and to present the Customs Service as a crucial arm of government.
Tenders were called in February 1900 and the tender of £26,642, submitted by Messrs Crawford and Cameron of Kangaroo Point, Brisbane was accepted on 7 March 1900. The works supervisor was ES Hunt. The building was constructed of brick and stone with concrete foundations and a plinth of granite from Cockle Bay on Magnetic Island. The use of local labour and materials was intended to stimulate local industry. However, it is thought that the stone dressings (sandstone colonnade, balustrade rails and bases) came from Stanwell near Rockhampton. Construction was completed in late 1902.
Following the federation of the Australian colonies as the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901, the new federal government assumed responsibility for the fixing and collection of customs duties on goods entering Australia. Customs duties imposed on inter-colonial trade were abolished. The operation of existing coastal customs houses and the establishment of new ones became a Commonwealth function. Under the new arrangements, the Commonwealth assumed control of Queensland's existing customs houses. By December 1908 the Townsville Customs House, valued at £32,201 (£27,261 for the structure and £4,940 for the site), had been transferred to the Commonwealth.
The building was severely damaged by cyclone Leonta in March 1903 when two chimneys fell and crashed through the roof into an office below. Despite repairs the roof began to leak and in 1910 the tiles were replaced with galvanised iron pan tiles. The tiles on the portico turret roof were left in situ until 1938 when leaks developed and the whole roof was replaced with galvanised steel.
Besides the Commonwealth Customs Service, the building also accommodated a number of Queensland government agencies, including the Stamps and Titles Office (c1938), Department of Works, the Bankruptcy Branch and the Electoral Office. During the second world war the Commonwealth Department of Works and Buildings expanded and in 1943 constructed a temporary, two storeyed building in the southwest corner of the grounds. The balcony above the Long Room became office space and a temporary wooden mezzanine floor was erected in the Long Room. Part of the first floor residence became office space for the Department of Works and Buildings and the basement was converted into an air raid shelter with an exit door to Wickham Street. During the war years Works and Buildings was responsible for the construction of war facilities across north Queensland. The department constructed military facilities as well as converting private property to military use and continued to operate from the Customs House until the 1980s.
The roof was damaged again in 1971 by cyclone Althea, following which the domed roof was reclad with galvanised steel and the turret roof with zinc in 1973.
By 1973 other government departments were again occupying the building including the Department of Works, the Department of Primary Industry and the Department of the Navy.
In 1978 the building was entered on the Register of the National Estate. Restoration work in 1983 won a John Herbert Award for Meritorious Conservation Action. This work included a new roof of specially formed painted steel to the original 1910 profile and gutters replaced to match the original ogee profile. The flat at the west end was vacated and verandah enclosures removed, with restoration of the stone and brick work on the balcony. The building was painted and exterior masonry was dressed and re-pointed.
In 1992 $620,000 was allocated by the Federal government for the restoration and conservation of the building, including the repair of the sandstone, masonry and roof sheeting.
The place is no longer owned by the Commonwealth.
","criteria":"The former Townsville Customs House, completed in 1902, was commissioned by the Queensland government prior to Federation during the period of planning for the hand over of government departments and their facilities to the new federal government. Purpose-built as a customs house, the building was used by the Australian Customs Service for close to a century. It is significant historically as an expression of the importance of the customs service to Queensland and to Australia.
|The former Townsville Customs House is an elegant, imposing brick building with sandstone detailing. It remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of place, being one of a group of imposing, two-storeyed brick and stone customs houses designed by the Queensland Public Works department and constructed around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is important in illustrating the best work of the office of the Queensland Government Architect and in particular the work of respected architect George Payne. The former Townsville Customs House provides important evidence of adaptation to the climatic requirements of north Queensland particularly in its high ceilings and wide colonnades along the length of both street elevations. It possesses a strong, visual unity in its use of scale, materials and texture and has architectural significance on a national scale.
|With its distinctive entrance portico and domed roof the former Townsville Customs House makes an outstanding contribution to an historic and aesthetic streetscape that includes Anzac Park (601462), the former Queen's Hotel (600936), the State Government Offices (601384), Tattersall's Hotel (600916), and the former Bank of New South Wales (600890).
|The place has a special association with the work in Townsville and north Queensland of the Queensland and Australian customs services for close to a century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15713,"place_ref":600938,"name":"Kardinia","alternate_name":"Japanese Consulate","street_address":"11 Victoria Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kardinia is a substantial, high-set timber residence occupying a commanding position on top of Stanton Hill overlooking the central business district of Townsville. Some external walls have an exposed stud frame while others are lined on the outside. It has a corrugated iron gabled roof. The house is raised on brick piers with some more modern concrete piers.
The house has an unusual asymmetrical façade and a U-shaped plan form, reflecting five periods of extension. A central hallway, with large rooms opening off it, extends the length of the main body of the building. To the left of this hallway there are two rooms which are divided by a large cedar arch. To the right, all the rooms open onto the verandah through french doors which have fanlights decorated with etched glass and fretwork. The verandah balustrading is made of cast-iron in a design found in only a few houses in North Queensland. An elaborate wooden frieze extends the full length of the verandah and early timber venetian blinds provide shade and privacy. The rear section, once open verandah, was enclosed to create extra rooms and a bathroom. The service wing which originally contained a maid's room or pantry, kitchen and scullery was converted into a kitchen, possible in 1912. A large dining room was added in 1912 across the rear verandah from the service wing, together with a room built under the house where the land falls away. The windows in this area are of unusual painted glass.
","history":"Kardinia, a decorative, single-storeyed timber residence, was erected during the boom years of the 1880s.
The site was alienated in April 1883 by Arthur Walters, and sold by November that year to Edward Bevan, a surveyor then in partnership with Christian Waagepetersen as Waagepetersen and Bevan, architects, surveyors and agents, Townsville. By 1883 Bevan was also editor of the Daily Northern Standard, a Townsville publication, and became well known as an artist and writer. It is not known whether Walters or Bevan erected a house on the site, but physical evidence suggests that the original building comprised just 2 rooms with a surrounding verandah, and was enlarged subsequently to create the present form. Bevan was resident on Stanton Hill by 16 June 1884, when his son Guy Felix was born, and in September 1886 took out a £400 mortgage on the property, which may have financed the renovations. Title to the property was transferred in August 1888 to John Graham Macdonald, explorer, pastoralist, and police magistrate of Townsville from May 1888 to April 1899. In August 1889, Macdonald also took out a mortgage [£1,400] on the property, but whether it was he, or Bevan, who commissioned the renovations, has not been established. Photographic evidence suggests that the house was enlarged, and had acquired its unusual asymmetrical façade, by c1889.
Macdonald was one of the first Europeans to explore the area between Bowen and the Gulf of Carpentaria, and later invested in northern pastoral properties such as Carpentaria Downs, in partnership with Robert Towns and Sir John Robertson. After the pastoral slump of the mid-1880s, Macdonald took up the important position of police magistrate in Townsville, and played a significant role in the life of the town.
Macdonald resided at Kardinia from c1888 until c1895, and from 1896 to 1908 leased the house to the Japanese Government as Australia's first Japanese consulate, servicing the needs of the growing number of Japanese living in North Queensland, and promoting improved trade relations between Australia and Japan. After the consulate moved to Sydney in 1908 the house was occupied by prominent Townsville businessman, alderman and civic worker John Newport Parkes, at which time the name Kardinia is first listed in the Queensland Post Office Directory. In 1911 title to the property transferred from Macdonald to Alberta Green, wife of prominent North Queensland newspaper proprietor and editor, [Humphrey] David Green. The Green family played a prominent role in the newspaper industry of North Queensland for more than half a century. During their occupancy the house was visited often by the noted North Queensland journalist and author Edmund James Banfield ["Beachcomber"] who was a lifelong friend of the family. Kardinia remained the property of the Green family until acquired by the present owners in 1984.
","criteria":"Kardinia, erected in the 1880s, is significant historically, architecturally, aesthetically and socially. As the first Japanese consulate in Australia, it was connected with important events in Australian-Japanese trade and diplomatic relations, and illustrates the important connection between Japanese migration and North Queensland in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
|As a colonial house, Kardinia is unusual because of its asymmetric façade which was a rare design feature until after the depression of the 1890s.
|The building also is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of the prestigious type of timber house built in Townsville in the latter part of the 19th century.
|Kardinia, erected in the 1880s, is significant historically, architecturally, aesthetically and socially.
|The place is significant for its strong associations with several prominent people in Townsville, including police magistrate John Graham Macdonald and newspaper editor and proprietor David Green, and for its associations with the work of the Japanese government in establishing consular services for its nationals resident in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15714,"place_ref":600939,"name":"Sacred Heart Cathedral","alternate_name":"Church of the Sacred Heart | Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral","street_address":"266 Stanley Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Sacred Heart Cathedral is rectangular in plan and is modelled on a roman basilica design, with a high ceiling above the nave, aisles on either side and an apse which is framed by a timber arch lined with tongue and groove timber. The tunnel-vault with truss design ceiling is of tongue and groove board. The gable roof is of corrugated iron, and the facade has two turrets and large Gothic windows on either side of the central statue niche. The external walls of red face brick have tuck pointed mortar joints and contrasting cement rendered mouldings. An unusual feature of the structure is that it faces north-south rather than the traditional east-west direction of most cathedrals. The restricted hillside site was probably the reason for the placement of the building. The site is accessed from the northeast street frontage, and the altar faces southwest.
The cathedral is built on a rocky spur of Castle Hill, across from the equally commanding St James Cathedral, overlooking the central business district of the city. The lower slopes of the hill are covered with grass and small shrubs which cling to the rough terrain. A rock faced retaining wall edges the cathedral block and creates a roadway from Stanley Street. Grassed areas surround the building together with small shrubs at the base of the main stairs. Close to the cathedral is a 1938, two-storeyed brick building which houses the bishop of the Sacred Heart Cathedral and the priest of the cathedral parish. This building of red brick and stucco echoes some of the decorative features of the cathedral.
","history":"The Church of the Sacred Heart at Townsville was erected in at least two stages between 1896 and 1902, to plans prepared by Melbourne architects Reed, Smart & Tappin in 1894. Queensland architects Eaton, Bates and Polin of Brisbane, Townsville and Rockhampton supervised the work, and the contractor for the superstructure was Denis Kelleher.
The first Roman Catholic church in Townsville, St Joseph's, was erected on the Strand in the 1870s. Townsville itself had been established in the mid-1860s as a port to service the pastoral lands of the interior. Following the discovery of gold at Ravenswood and Charters Towers in the 1870s, the town boomed, and by the 1890s was the principal port of North Queensland. As the population of the town expanded and settlement moved west along Ross Creek, a more prominent, substantial and centrally-located Catholic church became a priority for the parish. In January 1884 Father William Mason Walsh, Townsville's second parish priest, acquired title to a half acre block in Stanley Street on the slopes of Castle Hill, above the main business district of Townsville, in anticipation of erecting a fine new church. However at this period the parish of Townsville was part of the Diocese of Rockhampton, and was neither large nor wealthy, so did not commence a building programme for the church on Stanley Street until the 1890s.
An 1894 design competition for the new church was won by prominent Melbourne architects Reed, Smart & Tappin. Their design was for a substantial brick building of Gothic style, comprising a large basement space, a superstructure consisting of naive, aisles, transept, sacristy, chapters and sanctuary, and an imposing front tower and spire rising 162ft. There is some suggestion that the design for the Townsville church was a smaller version of the Sacred Heart Cathedral at Bendigo, Victoria, designed by the same architectural firm.
Excavation of the Stanley Street site, foundations and basement were carried out in 1896, at a cost of £1,160 for the basements alone. No further progress was made until 7 October 1900, when the Right Rev. Dr Higgins, Bishop of Rockhampton, laid the foundation stone. However, not until early 1902 did work commence on the first stage of the superstructure - nave and aisles. Denis Kelleher, who had erected the Catholic cathedral in Rockhampton, won the contract, which was completed within 10 months at a cost of £8,330, and the building blessed and opened by Bishop Higgins on 16 November 1902. The interior was considered to be remarkably well finished and the ceilings of varnished pine, cut into panels and with fretwork borders, very fine.
Little more than 3 months after the November opening, the Church of the Sacred Heart was severely damaged by cyclone Leonta, which struck Townsville on 3 March 1903. The building was unroofed [over 2 tons of iron sheeting] and substantial water damage to the interior resulted. The damage was repaired, but the original plan to build a belltower and extend the transept back towards Castle Hill in order to create a chapel behind the altar, was never carried out. Later a steel bell tower was erected.
Following the creation of the Diocese of Townsville c1931, the Church of the Sacred Heart, as the church of the Bishop of Townsville, acquired cathedral status.
The roof was damaged again in 1972 during cyclone Althea, causing water damage to the interior northern wall. The steel belltower was removed and donated to the non-denominational chapel at Lavarack Barracks in the 1970s. Part of the side fence of decorative iron and brick posts was removed at the same time.
","criteria":"Townsville's Sacred Heart Cathedral, erected 1896-1902, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, reflecting the struggle of the Catholic Church to secure its position - spiritually, politically and economically - in the frontier towns of 19th century Queensland. That the whole of the original design was never carried out illustrates the fluctuating fortunes of the Catholic Church in North Queensland, as well as the principal turn-of-the-century economic determinants, including the 1890s depression, drought 1900-02, and cyclone Leonta of 1903.
|Designed to impress, the Sacred Heart Cathedral remains important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large brick church incorporating traditional Gothic stylistic elements, yet located in a tropical environment.
|The cathedral occupies a commanding position on Castle Hill overlooking the city, and has strong aesthetic value, contributing significantly to the townscape of Townsville.
|As a landmark, it has a strong association for the local community, and the place remains a focus of Catholicism in North Queensland. Sacred Heart Cathedral is important also for its association with Catholic worship in Townsville since 1902.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15715,"place_ref":600940,"name":"Wyaga Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Millmerran Road","suburb":"GOONDIWINDI","lga":"GOONDIWINDI REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-05-05","description":"The core of the c1862 homestead consists of a simple north-south running rectangular plan with a verandah along the western frontage, and remains of a verandah along the eastern frontage. The end rooms have been altered and extended, however the central living and dining rooms remain mostly intact. These rooms have double leaf french doors, with louvres to the outer leaf and glazed timber doors to the inner leaf; the doors have casement fanlights above. The interiors are lined with wide horizontal painted timbers, and boarded ceilings.
The western wall has deep chamferboards which may be pit-sawn. The verandah has been closed in with flyscreen, but retains its splayed, chamfered verandah posts. The eastern verandah has been extended out to the east to form part of a large living room; the verandah posts, also splayed and chamfered, are now in the centre of this room, which links the original homestead remains to the rest of the later additions.
An appreciation of the overall form of the house, including the now corrugated iron-clad gambrel roof, can be gleaned from the west, and a substantial brick chimney rises above the ridge of the roof.
","history":"Wyaga is situated north-east of Goondiwindi and is thought to be one of the oldest cattle runs in the original Darling Downs district, when the Wyaga run of approximately 60 000 acres was leased by David Perrier in 1849.
By the late 1850s Wyaga had been acquired by Thomas de Lacy Moffatt, and W M Turner. Moffatt was the MLA for Western Downs from 1860-1864 and Colonial Treasurer from 1862-1864. In 1860 it was acquired by Donald Gunn senior. The improvements on the property included a woolshed and several huts. A homestead was built for Gunn c1862 from timber hand sawn on the property, with a shingle roof and using square, hand made nails.
Gunn sold Wyaga to the Holmes family c1863, and the property passed through a number of hands before being acquired in the 1890s by Thomas Cook and Hugh Munro as part of their grazing empire. The property had been progressively reduced in area.
After Thomas Cook's death in 1912, the property was bought by Munro. In 1913 a new partnership was created between Munro and FC Turner. The Wyaga merino stud was founded in 1938. A number of outbuildings, including a new woolshed are believed to have been constructed in the 1930s. The partnership between Munro and Turner was dissolved in 1944, and the Wyaga Partnership created. By the 1950s Wyaga was running both cattle and sheep.
The homestead was substantially altered and extended, possibly during the 1950s. Wyaga remained in the Munro family until 1975. It was acquired by the present owners in 1982.
","criteria":"The surviving sections of the c1862 Wyaga Homestead demonstrate a now rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular, 19th century building practices which are no longer in common use. The surviving sections of the c1862 homestead have the potential to contribute to an understanding of the development of building technology in Queensland.
|The surviving sections of the c1862 Wyaga Homestead demonstrate a now rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, in particular, 19th century building practices which are no longer in common use.
|The surviving sections of the c1862 homestead have the potential to contribute to an understanding of the development of building technology in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15716,"place_ref":600941,"name":"Jimbour House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"86 Jimbour Station Road","suburb":"JIMBOUR EAST","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Jimbour House is a rural homestead complex located in open country on the Darling Downs north of Dalby and approximately 250 kilometres northwest of Brisbane. The main residence is situated on a slight rise but is now masked by the mature trees of the surrounding garden. The complex includes a substantial two-storeyed sandstone residence set in extensive gardens and a number of auxiliary buildings and structures, some of which predate the main house.
Grounds
The house is approached along a drive planted with mature Jacaranda trees. Beyond the entrance gates, the house is surrounded by a large formal garden, laid out and largely planted in the 1920s, with a curved gravelled driveway wrapping around a circular garden bed divided into four sections with a fountain at the intersection of the bisecting paths. The gardens feature planting out beds and large mature trees including a number of Queen palms (Arecastrum nomanzofflanum), and furniture of substantial construction. A low stone wall marks the southern boundary of the 1870s garden. Beyond this there is a swimming pool (1950) to the south of the front circular drive and a productive kitchen garden at the rear of the main house.
Main House (1874-77)
Jimbour House comprises three bays; two longitudinal projecting end bays with a central transverse bay, lined on the principal façade with an open terrace on the upper level supported on Doric order columns on stone plinths, paired in some places. Centrally located on the principal façade is a semi-circular projection, apparent in the roofline and through both storeys. This defines the principal entrance. The roof is steeply pitched, hipped over the three bays of the building and clad with Welsh slates. Dominating the roofline are four large brick chimneystacks with corbelled caps. Projecting from the two ends of the building are classically-inspired single-storeyed wings with parapets concealing their rooflines. The terrace on the upper level of the house has been built in at the rear and there is a single-storeyed brick kitchen block below it.
The interior of the house has a wide hall running for most of its length on both levels. The lower level hall has a fireplace on one wall, reminiscent of the galleries in English country houses used as winter promenades. The joinery is of a high quality.
The ground floor contains receptions rooms, a billiard room and a large, square entrance hall with the main bedroom opening off it. The upper floor echoes the layout of the ground floor and has an open paved terrace, bedrooms, and suites of rooms. One bedroom has two hunting scenes frescoes (drawn directly onto the plaster of the walls) dated 16/11/1879.
Bluestone Building (1868 residence, remodelled in the 1870s as a kitchen and staff quarters and in the 1920s as men's quarters)
To the rear of the main house and separated from it by a garden area, is a single-storeyed, low-set bluestone building with sandstone quoins, rectangular in plan, which was formed from the lower storey of the 1868 main homestead residence. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The wall at the eastern end of the building is of weatherboards with bricks infilling between the quoins, following the removal of an adjoining wing. The rooms are arranged in a linear fashion, each opening onto a verandah along the southern side. The interior has fibrous cement linings and battened ceilings. One room has a brick fireplace.
Outbuildings (various dates) and Airstrip (1950s)
Several working buildings are set low to the ground around an open area to the rear (north) of the bluestone house. These include a timber and corrugated iron stables and garage that shows variations in building methods and materials corresponding with the various historical stages of construction. A workshop, situated between the stables and the bluestone house, is of timber construction with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron, a verandah along the front (western) elevation, and a later lean-to extension along the rear (eastern) elevation. It contains a shaft and drive belt from a shearing machine. This group of ancillary buildings also includes a small timber cottage, originally two-roomed, relocated from the site of an early woolshed complex to the north of the airstrip. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and an attached verandah. To the east of this small building is a metal arched hangar of the 'igloo' type, and beside this is a small timber framed and corrugated iron clad fuel store, with a gabled roof. The airstrip is located to the north of the outbuildings.
Chapel (1868)
At some distance west from the main house and north of the main drive is a simple timber chapel set on low stumps. It is rectangular in plan with the sanctuary under a separate roof at one end and a porch at the other. The main roof is clad with late 20th century tiles and has a small belfry. The roofs of the belfry, sanctuary and porch are clad in corrugated iron. The porch roof has been raised to accommodate a small film projection room above the door, illustrating the multi-functioned use of this building. Small projection windows perforate the wall into the church. Inside, the main roof is supported on scissor trusses and is ceiled with timber. The nave is lined with composite board and is lit by small lancet windows with coloured glass. There are carved altar rails and font and timber pews.
Water Tower (1870s, converted 1950s into residential use)
West of the chapel and the main drive is a tall timber tower, 4 storeys in height and square in section, with walls sloping inwards, supporting a large, square, cast iron water tank. The framing is of trimmed tree trunks and hand hewn timber, clad externally with weatherboards dating to the 1870s. The interior now accommodates residential use and is lined with fibrous-cement sheeting and timber cover strips. The ground floor has modern metal-framed sliding doors and windows and contains a visitors' centre and gift shop. The top storey room is decorated with several naïve paintings, executed between 1924 and 1956 by a former employee at Jimbour. From this level, there is external access via a timber ladder to the water tank above. A single storey timber extension has been added to one side.
Bell Memorial (c1881)
The Bell Memorial is located to the south of the water tower. Modern metal railings surround the memorial, which comprises a painted masonry obelisk decorated very simply with a border of acanthus below the plinth on which the shaft rests. The memorial below this is square in section with a plaque to each face, two of which are inscribed in memory of Sir Joshua Peter Bell who died in 1881 and of his son Joshua Thomas Bell who died in 1911. The other two faces are blank.
Stone Store (1864; converted 1960s into residential flats)
To the west/southwest of the main house is a large, rectangular building of pecked sandstone blocks, which now accommodates residential accommodation on two levels. Originally constructed as a store, evidence remains of the massive barred windows and catshead to the upper level. The building has a gabled roof with close eaves, clad in corrugated iron, into which dormer windows have been inserted. The end walls have arched openings on the upper level, which are now glazed. One of them has a small balcony. The building has sash windows and one of the external doors has a mail hatch from the days when this building was used as a post office. Partition walls and some ceilings inside are timber. One of the rear rooms has a blue-green lime wash finish that is believed to be early.
Adjacent to the store is an underground tank or silo and to the north is an early underground water tank or well.
","history":"Jimbour House is a large stone house designed in 1873-74 by Brisbane architects Suter and Voysey and completed by early 1877 as the Darling Downs residence of Joshua Peter Bell, a prominent Queensland pastoralist and politician. It was also the head station of one of Queensland's earliest pastoral properties.
Allan Cunningham, botanist and explorer of the Darling Downs in 1827, considered the discovery of this fertile pastoral land as one of his greatest achievements. In 1840, impelled by the push northward for grazing land, the Leslie brothers arrived on the Downs from the Clarence River district and took up Canning Downs, the first pastoral run in the district.
Soon afterwards, in 1841, Henry Dennis claimed a run of about 3,000,000 acres on behalf of Richard Todd Scougall who owned Liverpool Plains. The area was then known as Jimba or Gimba and the boundaries of this vast run were described as between the Bunya Mountains and the Condamine River. By 1842, when the penal settlement at Brisbane closed and the area was thrown open to free settlement, a cluster of huge pastoral runs had claimed most of the productive land on the Darling Downs. At this time Jimbour was stocked with approximately 11,000 sheep and 700 cattle. Financial difficulties caused Scougall to sell the Jimbour run in 1843 to Thomas Bell of Parramatta, for £3200. At that time the area comprising Jimbour Station was reduced, though it remained one of the largest properties on the Downs. In 1844 explorer Ludwig Leichhardt stayed at Jimbour, at that time the most northerly station on the Downs, preparing for his trip to Port Essington. Dennis, who had been retained as manager of Jimbour by Thomas Bell, accompanied Leichhardt on the first two days of his journey north. Following Dennis' death in 1847 Thomas Bell's sons Joshua Peter and John Alexander arrived to manage the property for Bell & Sons, the family business that comprised Thomas, Joshua Peter and John Alexander Bell. Soon, however, the entire management fell to Joshua, the eldest son. Although only 21 when he took control, Joshua built on the foundations of previous managers to develop Jimbour as one of the best-conducted stations on the Darling Downs, running sheep principally. He married Margaret Miller Dorsey of Ipswich in 1861, and at Jimbour they raised their family.
JP Bell began the association of the Bell family and Jimbour with Queensland politics. In 1860 he ran unsuccessfully for the first Queensland Parliament, but was elected as Member for West Moreton in 1862. He remained involved in politics for the rest of his life and held several cabinet posts, being first appointed as Treasurer in the Herbert ministry in 1864. In 1868 he was returned for the Northern Downs, a constituency that included his own property (Jimbour), and held the seat until he was appointed President of the Legislative Council in 1879. In 1880 he acted as administrator of the Colony for nine months, reflecting the high public esteem in which he was held, and was appointed KCMG in 1881.
In 1864, utilising their pre-emptive purchase rights, Thomas Bell, Joshua Peter Bell and John Alexander Bell acquired title to 4786 acres (pre-emptive portion 1) of the Jimbour holding as tenants in common. This pre-emptive purchase included the head station site. In the same year they commissioned architect Benjamin Backhouse to design a substantial stone store at Jimbour. A small dwelling formerly used by Dennis had been supplemented by a house built for Scougall that the Bell brothers occupied when they first arrived. This burnt down in 1868 and was replaced by a two-storeyed house built of bluestone. As with most large pastoral properties, a small village settlement developed around the main residence, the buildings including a butcher and smithy, and accommodation for a large number of employees, including a manager and overseer. A timber chapel was constructed in 1868, and this also served as a provisional school in the 1870s.
The Jimbour shearing shed was built some miles away from the homestead complex and could handle 250,000 sheep during the season, illustrating the size of the Jimbour pastoral enterprise.
Following Thomas Bell's death in September 1872, the Jimbour freehold was transmitted to Joshua Peter Bell, John Alexander Bell and a third brother, Marmaduke Bell, as tenants in common.
In 1872 Joshua Peter Bell became a founder member and director of the Queensland National Bank. This was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous 19th century private banks and attracted widespread Queensland patronage. In 1879 it secured the whole of the government's banking business. By 1880 it held 40% of deposits in the colony and dominated the Queensland economy.
The decade from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s had been a boom period for wool prices and as squatters gained secure tenure of their runs, they began to build handsome houses. About 1873 fashionable Brisbane architects Richard Suter and Annesley Voysey, in partnership from January 1872 to September 1874, were commissioned to design a new sandstone house, handsome and ambitious in scale and quality, as the main residence at Jimbour. These architects had designed homesteads for other prominent Darling Downs pastoralists, including East Talgai Homestead near Allora for Hon. George Edward Clark in 1868 (Suter), and in partnership as Suter and Voysey, Euston at Drayton for William Kent in 1873, and Westbrook Hall near Drayton for Mrs William Beit in 1873-76. These were substantial residences, but none rivalled the scale and grandeur of Jimbour, which appears to have been the largest, grandest and most expensive private house constructed in Queensland in the 1870s.
Work on Jimbour House commenced in late 1874, and was completed by early 1877. With the exception of the Welsh slate used to clad the roof, all the construction materials were sourced locally. Timber included cedar, hoop pine, bunya pine, satin wood, ironbark, spotted gum and blue gum. The quarries at Bunjinnie, a few miles distant from the homestead, provided the sandstone. 10 stonemasons, 9 carpenters and a number of labourers were employed on the house, and nearly 200 men were employed in stone cutting and timber getting and carrying.
The completed residence had a floor space of about 23,000 square feet. The rooms on the ground floor contained the public spaces, including a large dining room, drawing room and morning room. The upper floor contained the bedrooms. Most rooms had fireplaces, and there were also fireplaces in the hallway on both levels. Water, and gas manufactured on Jimbour, were laid on, an exceptional luxury for a rural property at the time. A four-storey timber water tower was constructed to support a large tank and provide water pressure. When the new mansion was complete, the 1868 bluestone residence was converted into a kitchen and staff quarters, connected to the main house by a covered way.
In 1881 a shortage of working capital led the Bell brothers to merge their financial interests in Jimbour with those of Premier Thomas McIlwraith and JC Smyth, forming The Darling Downs and Western Land Company. In October 1881 most of the Jimbour freehold was transferred to the Company, but an area of 100 acres (sub 1 of pre-emptive portion 1), containing the house and most of the outbuildings, was retained by the Bell brothers as tenants in common.
JP Bell died suddenly in December 1881 and his family commissioned a memorial obelisk that was placed to the west of the main house, near the water tower and church. At this time JP Bell's interest in Jimbour House was transferred to his wife Dame Margaret Miller Bell, Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer and Boyd Dunlop Morehead as Trustees. In 1886 JP Bell's Trustees, John Alexander Bell and Marmaduke Bell raised a mortgage on Jimbour House from the Queensland National Bank.
Following JP Bell's death Dame Margaret travelled to England with her children to further their education and did not return to Jimbour until 1889. In the interim, the Darling Downs and Western Land Company experienced financial difficulties and the Queensland National Bank foreclosed on the company in 1884.
Jimbour House continued as the principal residence of Dame Margaret and her eldest son, barrister Joshua Thomas Bell, following their return to Queensland in 1889. JT Bell became a director of the Darling Downs and Western Land Company, and served as private secretary to Premier Sir Samuel Griffith 1890-92. Following the collapse of the Company in the early 1890s, it is understood that the Bell family assigned their interest in the Jimbour freehold to the Queensland National Bank, on the condition that the family was allowed to occupy Jimbour House, which they did until c1912.
JT Bell entered the Queensland Legislative Assembly, serving as Member for Dalby from 1893 until his death in March 1911. He served as Secretary for Lands 1903-1908 and briefly as Secretary for Public Lands and Railways from 6 February to 3 July 1907, during which time he introduced land reforms under the Closer Settlement Act 1906, and paved the way for environmental reform with the State Forests and National Parks Act 1906. He served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from mid-1909 until his death in 1911.
In 1899 Jimbour still comprised close to 130,000 acres and ran about 100,000 sheep. Merino and Lincoln studs were kept, and sheep and cattle from western properties were fattened at Jimbour. In 1907, during JT Bell's control of the Public Lands portfolio, the Queensland Government purchased 121,061 acres of Jimbour land from the Queensland National Bank, under the provisions of the Closer Settlement Act 1906. This land was released for farm selection between 1907 and 1910. The Bank retained 6000 acres of Jimbour land adjacent to Jimbour House. Also during his period in office, JT Bell lobbied for construction of two branch railway lines through the newly opened Jimbour lands, to transport the new wheat crops. The first line, opened in 1906, ran from Dalby to the new town of Bell, named after JP Bell, and the second, opened in 1914, was constructed from Dalby to Jandowae, passing through the new town of Jimbour.
In 1903 JT Bell had married Catherine Jane, widow of Rockhampton solicitor Sydney Jones and daughter of John Ferguson. With JT Bell heavily occupied with his political career, they resided much of the time at their Graceville home, Rakeevan, with Bell returning to Jimbour House when Parliament was not sitting.
Following the death of JT Bell in 1911, the contents of Jimbour House were auctioned in July 1912 and Dame Margaret retired to Brisbane. Through the remainder of the decade the house was occupied by Messrs Thomas and Ryder of Jimbour Station, although they did not acquire title to the house site. In the early 1920s the house on its 100 acres was sold by order of the mortgagee, the Queensland National Bank, with title transferred in November 1922 to Charles Whippell.
The association of the Russell family with Jimbour House commenced in the 1920s when Roma pastoralist Wilfred Adams Russell purchased the property from Whippell. Title was transferred to Russell in January 1925.
WA Russell was born in Queensland in 1874 and educated in New South Wales, where he later acquired pastoral and agricultural interests. In 1909 he acquired an interest in Dalmally Station near Roma and took up residence there in 1910. He further extended his pastoral interests with the acquisition of properties at Cunnamulla and Jimbour Station. Like the Bells before him, WA Russell of Jimbour became involved in local politics. He served as an alderman of the Dalby Town Council and as the member for Dalby in the Queensland Parliament from 1926 until his death in 1932.
At the time of Russell's purchase, Jimbour House was derelict, with several of the ceilings collapsed and only parts of the building habitable, and the gardens were a wilderness. In 1924-25 WA Russell commenced a major programme of restoration and repair. Ceilings were replaced; a new kitchen was added behind the house, incorporating part of the former covered way between the 1870s house and the 1868 bluestone house; and the gardens were redesigned and extended by Brisbane landscape designer Harry Stokes. The bluestone building was badly damaged and parts of the upper floor had crumbled so it was decided to salvage the ground floor as a single storey building and use this as men's quarters.
On 21 November 1925 Jimbour House was formally re-opened with a fund raising fete for Dalby Hospital. This commitment to work for the well being of the community has been continued by the Russell family.
Wilfred Russell died in 1932, and the management of Jimbour passed to his son Charles Russell and Charles' wife Hilary. Continuing the connection between Jimbour and Queensland politics, Charles Russell was elected as a Wambo Shire councillor in 1936 and served as the Member for Dalby in the Queensland Parliament from 1947 to 1949. From 1949 to 1951 he held the Federal seat of Maranoa.
In the 1930s, two large wooden pergolas over the drive at each end of the house and four smaller pergolas in the rose garden were erected, and the rose garden was divided into the four quadrants that now define it. In 1938 the drive was constructed from the front gate to the water tower, and Jacarandas and shrubs were planted along both sides.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Russells developed agriculture (especially wheat) in conjunction with livestock at Jimbour, and new facilities were constructed such as stores, grain silos, feedlots and piggeries. Work on the early buildings and the garden also continued. In 1950 a large swimming pool and wading pool were constructed in the front grounds of Jimbour House and children from surrounding properties were welcome to visit Jimbour and use the pool during the summer months. An airstrip was established at the rear of the house in the 1950s. In 1956 the timber water tower was converted into a four-level residence for the gardener. In the 1960s, the 1864 stone store was converted into two flats with the construction of a mezzanine level and the insertion of dormer windows, and a citrus orchard was planted to the east of the swimming pool.
Charles Russell died in 1977, but Jimbour House remains the property of the Russell family. In the late 20th century a stone fruit and pomme fruit orchard was established to the west of the swimming pool and avenues of trees (planted by distinguished visitors) were commenced on the eastern and western sides of the garden. A vineyard was established on Jimbour land in the late 1990s, but this is not included within the heritage boundary.
","criteria":"Jimbour House, as the main homestead on one of the earliest stations established on the Darling Downs, is important in demonstrating the pattern of early European exploration and pastoral settlement in Queensland. The place is associated with the development of the Downs and of the pastoral industry in Queensland and is important in demonstrating the wealth and ambition of early Queensland pastoralists.
|Jimbour House was an ambitious house in terms of size, style and finish and was intended to support the social and political aspirations of Joshua Peter Bell, an important politician and businessman as well as grazier. It is unique in Queensland as the only really grand country house in the English manner to be built in this State. Other substantial stone homesteads of the era, such as Talgai, Glengallan and Westbrook, came nowhere near to rivalling Jimbour in either size or opulence.
|As a hierarchy of residential and working buildings, the complex of buildings at Jimbour House has the potential to reveal information about the history of one of the earliest pastoral stations in Queensland, and about the nature of early pastoralism in Queensland, which will contribute to our understanding of Queensland's history.
|While Jimbour House and its gardens and ancillary buildings are not typical of a Queensland homestead complex, the building techniques and materials used in their construction, together with the relationship existing between residential and working buildings, provides a good example of a 19th century pastoral station complex.
|Jimbour House has outstanding aesthetic significance as a well designed and constructed house that is pleasing in form, materials and detail. It sits within notable gardens and is a landmark against the flats of the surrounding landscape.
|Jimbour House has special association for the Darling Downs community as a focal point of social life in the region for many years.
|Jimbour House is important for its association with early Darling Downs pioneers and Queensland politicians including Sir Joshua Peter Bell and his son Joshua Thomas Bell.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15717,"place_ref":600942,"name":"Hillside","alternate_name":"Thuruna","street_address":"25 Weewondilla Road","suburb":"GLENNIE HEIGHTS","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hillside is a substantial sandstone residence located on a prominent site in Warwick, overlooking the township from the nearby Glennie Heights.
Hillside comprises an 1860s sandstone section which is approximately half of the present house, and subsequent timber and sandstone extensions. The house is surrounded on three sides by a verandah, whose awning is discrete from the corrugated iron hipped roof of the central body of the building where there is terracotta ridge and hip flashing. Two sandstone chimney shafts extend through the roof.
The northern elevation, where the principal entrance doorway is located, comprises the early sandstone section to the east, and a weatherboard and sandstone addition to the west, which infills the early verandah space. The early entrance doorway is centrally located on the facade, to the north of the 1860s section of the building. This timber framed doorway, features a transom and side lights of etched glass. The four panelled and moulded timber door, housed here, has the two upper panels replaced with glass.
Running along the entire length of the eastern facade is a verandah, supported on stop chamfered timber posts, rectangular in section, with simple capitals and bases. The facade of the building is punctuated with five, irregularly spaced, French doors which are fully glazed within a cedar frame, with side opening transom lights above. Shade is provided to the openings with full length timber shutters. The soffit of the verandah is unlined with principal edge rolled framing members, and the floor is timber boarding, with chamfered weatherboards on the faces of the base of the building. Access is provided to the verandah from the terrace via three sandstone steps flanked by low sandstone walls.
The southern elevation, originally verandahed, is now largely the later section of the building, with roughly tooled and margined sandstone to the underside of the window sills and vertical timber boarding above.
The western sections of Hillside are largely recent works, with rooms constructed to the west of the early house and a wing adjoining the building to the south west. These additions have been added in weatherboard and sandstone at various times and enclose a small central courtyard.
Internally the building comprises the 1860s section, including the central hallway and three room to the east of this; and the later additions to the south and west of the central hallway. The hallway, which runs north south for the length of the house from the principal entrance on the north of the building. The hallway has a beaded board ceiling and slab floor and is divided into three areas with transverse plastered sandstone walls, with timber framed four panelled cedar doors, demarcating the entrance, formal and rear zones of the house. Housed in the hallway is an early fitted cedar cupboard.
Provision is given from the central section of the hallway to a dining/drawing room separated by a three leaf folding door. These rooms have beaded board ceilings, small moulded cornices and frieze rails, high cedar skirting boards and rendered walls. Both rooms feature polished cedar chimney pieces, with timber corbels supporting the mantle. French doors provide access to the verandah on the east of these rooms. Further along the hallway, in the rear section a doorway leads to a small room, seemingly the former study, which has similar but simpler details than those found in the drawing/dining rooms.
A looped driveway provides access to the house from Weewondilla Road, the central lawned section of which is planted with native trees and plants. To the east of the house, overlooking Warwick, is a multi-tiered terrace garden, edged with sandstone and concrete walls. A feature of the southern garden is a paved sandstone semi-circular seating area adjacent to the terrace retaining wall, in which there is a outdoor cooking alcove. Another feature of the grounds is a trellised walkway to the west of the house.
","history":"Hillside was constructed as the Anglican parsonage for Reverend Benjamin Glennie in 1862-4 to designs of prominent Brisbane architect, Benjamin Backhouse.
The Reverend Benjamin Glennie held Anglican services in Warwick as the Incumbant of Moreton Bay and the Darling Downs from 1848. The services were held in the old Court House in Alice Street until 1858 when a timber slab church was constructed on the corner of Grafton and Albion Streets.
Benjamin Glennie was born in Dulwich, Surrey, England on January 29, 1812, and after his education arrived in Sydney in January 1848 following his three brothers who had arrived in the colony earlier. Glennie was made deacon by Dr W. Tyrrell on March 19, 1848 and appointed to Moreton Bay, where he faced numerous challenges encouraging the growth of the church. Originally he was based in Brisbane, but made extensive tours of the surrounding areas, including Ipswich and the Darling Downs.
After his ordination as a priest in 1849 he was transferred to Drayton, on the Darling Downs, where he was responsible for the whole of the Downs. This remained his responsibility until 1860 when the parishes were re-organised and he was then moved to Warwick where he served as the parish priest until 1872. He was an arduous and tireless worker, establishing churches, purchasing land and encouraging congregations.
After moving from Warwick, Glennie was appointed to Drayton where he served until 1876, when he returned to the Toowong parish of Brisbane. He had been appointed an archdeacon earlier in his career, but was now able to devote his full time as an examining chaplain and in the training of younger members of the holy orders. Glennie is often considered the pioneer of the Anglican movement in Queensland, and is particularly fondly remembered on the Darling Downs.
The house was not completed to original plans, only the eastern half and central hallway were constructed. Though rooms were planned to the west of the hallway, as is indicated by the doorways in the hall, this section was never constructed to Backhouse's designs.
It was during his time in Warwick that Glennie built the first purpose-built parsonage in there, Hillside. His first residence was in McEvoy Street, but when this proved inadequate he had plans prepared for a new parsonage on the outskirts of Warwick overlooking the growing township.
The land on which Hillside was later built was purchased by Edward Wyndam Tufnell, the Anglican Bishop of Brisbane on March 28, 1865 for £58.3.1. Plans were prepared for the parsonage in 1862-4 by Brisbane architect, Benjamin Backhouse, who was in partnership at the time with Thomas Taylor. The contractor for the project was William Craig. A newspaper report of August, 1867 suggests that the parsonage had just been completed and that various members of the congregation were presenting Glennie with £120 of drawing-room furniture.
Glennie remained in residence at the parsonage until he was relocated to Drayton in 1870, and soon after when James Matthews was the rector at Warwick it was decided that Hillside was too far from the church and another parsonage was planned. Hillside was transferred to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese in 1872, and another rectory was constructed in the church close.
In 1878 Hillside was leased for a period of seven years to a George Sumner Renwick Dines and then passed from the Anglican Church and changed hands many times, until it was bought by local architect Conrad Cobden Dornbusch on September 19, 1908 for £1150. The large block of land on which Hillside was situated was gradually subdivided and from the original 16 acre lot only one hectare remains around the house.
","criteria":"Hillside demonstrates the development of Warwick and the growth of the Anglican Church in regional Queensland. As one of the oldest sandstone residences in Warwick, it pre-empts the tradition of sandstone building in the town.
|The building is a good, yet incomplete, example of the domestic architecture of Benjamin Backhouse, and, of a colonial residence constructed during the 1860s.
|The building is valued on aesthetic and architectural merit, as a substantial early residence.
|The building is valued by the local community, particularly the Anglican community, as the parsonage of the first resident priest in Warwick.
|It has strong associations with Archdeacon Benjamin Glennie, a figure of importance in the early religious history of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15718,"place_ref":600943,"name":"St Marks Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Mark's Anglican Church | St Marks Church of England","street_address":"55 Albion Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Mark's Anglican Church is a sandstone building located on the intersection of Grafton and Albion Streets, Warwick. The building conforms to a traditional cruciform plan, with additions in the corners of the chancel and transepts, and a tower abutting the western end of the nave, adjacent to the entrance.
The building is constructed of coursed sandstone blocks, from the Sidling Quarry, with picked surfaces. Window reveals and sills, tracery, carvings and buttress facings are all of smooth faced sandstone. Encircling the whole building, two courses from ground level, is a course of projecting rock-faced stonework, approximately half the height of the sandstone blocks. The various stages of construction of the church are manifest in slight variations in the colour and wearing of the stonework.
The Colorbond roof of the building, is gabled over the transepts, nave and chancel, with discrete gables over the infill sections between the chancel and transepts on the eastern end.
Entrance is gained to the church from the western elevation, which addresses not a street but a driveway from Grafton Street. The projecting entrance porch is surrounded by a concrete stair of three steps. Three pointed arched openings, separated by buttressed piers surmounted by gabled pinnacles, open onto the small single storeyed porch. The roof of the porch is concealed behind a parapet with a moulded stone coping, interrupted by the pinnacles of the buttressing. Above the porch, on the face of the western wall is a gable rose window, with heavy circular tracery. This is glazed with panels of multi-paned diamond shaped coloured glass.
The tower, extending through two stories and a bell tower, sits on an arrised plinth with string course mouldings. The tower was built in two sections, the base and first storey of sandstone and the belltower, which is of cement rendered brick. Single lancet windows on the tower extend from slightly above the plinth, to just below the bell tower extension. These windows have hood mouldings and traceried awnings. Tripartite elongated rectangular window openings are found on the upper, cement rendered, section of the tower.
The north and south elevations of the church consist of the transepts with small entrance porches and the nave and 1939 chancel extensions. Entrance is through a pointed arched opening above which is an inverted eyelet window in the transept porches, which have steeply pitched gabled roofs, with smooth faced sandstone coping terminating in carved corbels at the base of the sides of the gable. The steps on the north have been replaced by a ramp providing access for people with disabilities. Above the porches in the gable of the transepts are circular windows with heavy circular tracery, above which are trefoil window openings. The nave elevations are characterised by bipartite lancet openings, in pointed archways, separated by buttressing. The 1939 extension of the western, entrance end is distinguishable by squared headed window openings and wider buttress spacing.
The eastern elevation of the building comprises three gabled sections, the central earlier section projecting slightly from the flanking wings. A large traceried window is featured in this central section, and above this is a recent trefoil opening. The flanking gables have a single centrally located lancet opening.
Internally, St Mark's Church, is composed of a six bay nave intersecting with transepts and terminated by a chancel, these being separated from the nave by pointed arched openings. The interior is generally of coursed rock faced sandstone, with arch linings, corbels and interior detailing of smooth faced sandstone.
The chancel, which is housed in a gabled section of lower height than the body of the church, has a ceiling lined with timber rafters which are supported on simple sandstone corbels. The eastern wall of the chancel features a quinpartite lancet window arrangement, above which, partially concealed by the roof framing, is a trefoil window. Lining the lower part of this rear wall is a stained timber reredos, with panels of pointed arches and carved trefoil and quatrefoil motif. A brass communion rail separates the chancel from the body of the church.
St Mark's has hammerbeam roof trusses and the underside of the roof is lined with diagonally arranged timber boarding. High level openings, which are now generally of glass louvres, were previously filled with timber panels, operable from inside the church, allowing light and ventilation. Some of these panels remain.
The north transept of the church, which was extended with the 1939 addition between this and the chancel, is now a chapel. The addition was added through a square opening with a timber bulkhead above. The south transept is also a smaller chapel. A vestry, in the addition between the south transept and chancel, has rendered walls and a plaster ceiling, with sandstone quoining around the openings. A reinforced concrete strong room in found in the vestry.
An organ gallery is located in the most western bay of the church, and is accessed via stairs in the base of the tower. Two pointed arched openings, under the gallery, in the southern wall, provide access to the tower, which consists of a first floor and bell tower.
A particularly noteworthy feature of the interior are the stained glass lancet panels, paired in the nave and, singularly in the transepts of the church. These William Bustard designed panels are very finely worked with figures housed in Gothic inspired architectonic forms. This stained glass, which is generally read over the coupled panels, depict various biblical stories, including Jesus welcoming the children; the birth of Jesus; and the visitation of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary.
","history":"St Mark's Anglican Church was constructed to designs of prominent Brisbane architect, Richard George Suter from 1868 as the second of the Anglican Churches in Warwick on this site.
The first Anglican service in Warwick was held in about 1848, and services continued in the temporary accommodation offered by the old Court House in Alice Street until 1858 when a timber church was constructed on the site of the present stone building in Grafton Street. This first church was a simple slab structure with nave and transepts, covered by a shingled roof. The building was constructed at a cost of £329/10/0 and was built by John Niblock and John Thompson. At this time the parish did not own the land, but it had been set aside for Church of England use according to a Survey Plan dated 1856. It was not until March 1872 that the land was actually granted to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane by the Governor of Queensland.
The Reverend Benjamin Glennie held Anglican services in Warwick as the Incumbent of Moreton Bay and the Darling Downs from 1860 until 1872 when he was made Rector of Warwick. Glennie was born in Dulwich in 1812 and, after coming to Australia, was ordained a deacon by Bishop Tyrrell in Morpeth, New South Wales in 1848.
It was during Glennie's time in Warwick that the decision was made to construct a more permanent church building, and the foundation stone of the present sandstone church was laid by Bishop Tuffnell on March 19, 1868. John McCulloch was the contractor of this early section of the present building. The stone used was quarried from Bishop Tuffnell's Sidling Quarries. The original building consisted of a short nave, transepts, chancel and a small octagonal vestry in the corner of the chancel and southern transept. A broach spire surmounted the intersection of the nave of the church and the transepts and the roof was of timber shingles.
The architect chosen for the building was Brisbane based, Richard George Suter.
The Queenslander of May 2, 1874 indicates that additions were made to church, and from early photographs these additions are thought to have been the extension of the nave, the addition of transept porches and the insertion of stained glass to the western end of the building.
In 1938-9 substantial alterations were undertaken to designs of Brisbane architect Lange L Powell, tenders were called on August 6, 1938 and the tender of H Sanlan and Son for £8500 was accepted. These alterations, which were carried out in similar sandstone to that of the earlier building, included the flanking of the chancel with similar sized gabled structures, in the corners between the chancel and the transepts - one to serve as a vestry and the other as a chapel extension. The nave was extended at this time and the base of a tower was built at the western end of the building. Lange Powell died before the job was completed and construction was then supervised by Dods and Thorpe Architects of Brisbane. An extension, faced with concrete scoured to resemble the stonework of the body of the church, was added to the tower in 1962.
","criteria":"St Mark's Anglican Church, Warwick, demonstrates the growth of Warwick as a provincial centre, and the development of the Church of England in Queensland.
The church has associations with prominent early Brisbane architect, Richard George Suter, and with the first Rector of Warwick, Benjamin Glennie.
|The church demonstrates the principal characteristics of a nineteenth century Church of England in Queensland, influenced by the interest in Gothic revival ecclesiastical architecture.
|St Mark's is of considerable aesthetic value; it is a well composed building on a prominent site, which is an important element of the surrounding streetscape. The building contains many finely crafted elements including internal joinery such as the ceiling and roof trusses, reredos and seating pews; glazing and stonework.
|The William Bustard stained glass windows of St Mark's are of considerable creative and technical achievement. The provision of ventilation and diffused lighting via the high level louvred openings is a considerably innovative achievement.
|The church has a strong association with the Warwick community, and in particular, with members of the Anglican community who have used the building as their church for nearly 130 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15719,"place_ref":600944,"name":"The Commonage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"69A Dragon Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Commonage is a single-storeyed brick cottage with an attic space beneath its steeply pitched roof. It faces east onto Dragon Street, a residential street only several blocks from the main street of Warwick. Nearby, on the same side of this street is Pringle Cottage [600945]. The front wall of the Commonage is at the street alignment, with an awning overhanging part of the present footpath. There is a narrow laneway to the north, between the cottage and the adjoining shop, giving access to the rear yard.
The bricks, laid in Flemish bond, are reputedly hand-made locally but, apart from the two chimneys, are painted externally to resemble their unpainted colour. The footings, doorsteps, thresholds and window sills are of local sandstone. There is a steeply pitched corrugated iron gabled roof with fretted barge boards and turned finials. To the front is a reconstructed convex corrugated steel awning at the front extending to the former kerb line. To the rear is a contemporary yet sympathetic skillion addition with a corrugated steel roof and fibrous cement plank cladding.
The frontage has two doors, apparently separate entrances for the shop and the residence. These doors each have flush lower panels, a glazed upper panel of six panes, and a glazed fanlight above. The two large double-hung windows are either side of the southern door indicating this was probably the shop. There are smaller double-hung windows to the sides, including the attic space, some of which are original. The plan is rectangular with four rooms and a central corridor running from the shop to the recent addition at the rear. This addition contains the kitchen, dining and bathroom areas.
The plasterwork to the interior walls extends upwards from the chair rail, leaving a dado of exposed brickwork whilst the rising damp dries out. The rooms of the lower level have polished 200mm (8") wide floorboards, most of which are original. The high ceilings are lined with wide beaded boards. The polished cedar joinery includes two chimneypieces and internal flush four-panelled doors.
From the room which was formerly the shop, is the straight varnished cedar staircase leading to the attic. It has turned balusters and newel, a panelled spandrel below, and a beaded board soffit over the doorway. The balustrade to the attic is simpler with squared posts and balusters. The attic is a single long room with tongue-and groove beaded boards to the side walls, flat and raked ceiling, and end walls of painted brick.
","history":"Evidence indicates that this brick cottage, known as the Commonage, was erected during the late 1860s or early 1870s for John Leonard of Warwick.
Warwick was established as an administrative centre in 1847, and a post office established there in January 1848. From late 1848 an embryonic town was emerging, and surveyor JC Burnett made an initial survey of the town of Warwick in March 1848. Burnett undertook further survey work in April 1850 and the first sale of crown land in Warwick took place on 31 July 1850. By 1859 Warwick was recognised as a major urban centre on the Darling Downs, and on 25 May 1861 Warwick was proclaimed a municipality under the 1858 Municipalities Act (NSW). The municipal boundary followed the original Warwick Town Reserve of five square miles. At the first Queensland census taken in April 1861 the town of Warwick recorded 241 houses (34 of which were either uninhabited or unfinished).
The allotment on which the cottage is located was acquired by Isaac Bennett in 1862, and transferred to Leonard, then described as a carrier, in 1863. The 1868 Warwick Post Office Directory records Leonard's address as Albion Street, however by 1874 Leonard's address was given in the Directory as the Commonage.
The building appears to have been erected as a residence and shop for Leonard, who was subsequently listed as a shopkeeper. The building included two street entrances and large front windows.
Locally it is understood that the shop to the north of the Commonage was erected by Leonard at a later date. Rate books from 1881 provide separate valuations for a house and shop on the allotment, indicating that a new detached shop may have been erected by this time.
In January 1890, Leonard advertised the whole of his Dragon Street property for sale. At this time it comprised a half acre of land on which were erected a brick dwelling house of 4 rooms downstairs and 2 rooms upstairs, with kitchen, large produce shed and horse and cart shed, and a new brick store with a good 3-roomed dry store at the rear. The new store was stocked with drapery, groceries, boots and shoes, and Leonard advertised as the National Stores, Dragon Street.
The property did not sell at this time, and following Leonard's death in May 1898 was transmitted to his widow, Annie Leonard. Annie continued to run Leonard's business as a general storekeeper until c1914 at which time she disposed of the stock.
Annie died in 1924 and the property passed to Thomas John Holland. The property subsequently changed hands a number of times. The original out house and wash house were demolished c1949, and a skillion-roofed weatherboard addition erected at the rear of the house.
The allotment was subdivided in 1951, creating separate allotments for the Commonage and the shop.
The property was acquired in 1977 by the present owners who have subsequently undertaken substantial conservation work to the building, including reconstruction of the front awning, repainting the exterior and interior of the building and renovation of the c1949 addition.
","criteria":"Constructed of brick, the dwelling is illustrative of the use of this building material in Warwick during the late 1860s and early 1870s.
|The Commonage is an unusual surviving example of a single-storeyed dwelling incorporating a shop; this dual function is reflected in the street elevation of the building, which has separate front entrances to house and shop.
|The Commonage makes an aesthetic contribution to the Dragon Street streetscape, which includes Pringle Cottage [600945]. The building retains much original fabric including joinery, and plaster and boarded linings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15720,"place_ref":600945,"name":"Pringle Cottage","alternate_name":"Miss Lukin's Boarding School | Milton College / Mountview | John MCulloch's Cottage","street_address":"81 Dragon Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Pringle Cottage is a two storeyed sandstone building, prominently situated facing Dragon Street, within the grounds of the Warwick and District Historical Museum, which comprises several other smaller buildings.
The building has a simple rectangular plan, with kitchen wing extension on the rear and a verandah on the eastern, entrance facade. The corrugated iron gabled roof runs north south, and is partially concealed by a moulded stone parapet on the eastern facade, behind which is a box gutter. Stone chimney shafts extend from the apex of the stone capped gable ends on the north and south elevations. The sandstone blocks used in the construction of Pringle Cottage are generally coursed rubble, with picked faces. The cottage sits on a plinth of margined rock faced sandstone.
The eastern facade of the cottage, which faces Dragon Street, is dominated by the ogee or double curved corrugated iron verandah, supported on chamfered timber posts. The returns of the verandah, above the line of the posts are infilled with timber lattice panels. A centrally located half glazed entrance door is flanked by two pane vertical sash window openings. These openings are all surmounted by transom lights, narrow over the windows and more generous above the door.
The northern facade of the building is a flush gabled sandstone wall, with two four pane vertical sash windows on the second floor and one on the ground floor. These openings, like others to the house generally, have sparrow picked sandstone quoining, margined on the opening edge, with a smooth faced sill, a sparrow picked stone lintel is surmounted with a simple voussoir detail. The western end of this wall is unfinished, with alternate sandstone blocks continuing on from the corner of the building. A recent infill section of timber boarding has been added to the north west corner of the building, aligned with the kitchen wing on the south west.
The kitchen wing, a two storeyed sandstone structure, attached to the rear wall of the cottage, has a corrugated iron roof, hipped on the edge nearest the cottage, and gabled at the other end. Again a sandstone chimney shaft, with brick extension, surmounts the apex of the gable. A corrugated iron enclosure is found on the western wall of the kitchen wing.
The double entrance door, which has round headed glazed cutouts, accesses a central hallway from which the major rooms on the ground floor are accessed as well as the stair. A round headed archway in the hallway separates the front two rooms from the rear section of the house. Generally the interior of the ground floor is of rendered masonry, masonry floor and plaster ceilings.
The interior rooms of the ground floor feature early chimney pieces, mantle pieces and cast iron fire grilles. The rooms are generally quite simple, with timber skirting boards, stained architraves and stained timber boarded ceilings.
A timber stair leads from the rear of the central hallway and winds at the top to a first floor space, from which the principal rooms on this floor are accessed. This stair has square sectioned balusters and a chamfered newel post.
The upper floor rooms have walls lined with fibrous cement boarding, timber floors and ceilings of timber boarding which rake toward the eastern and western ends of the building in accordance with the roof line. Early fitted floral carpet survives in one of the rooms on this floor.
The kitchen is accessed from the rear of the central hallway on the ground floor and has whitewashed stone walls, unlined timber ceiling and stone floor. There is a stone chimney piece on the western wall, to the south of which is a small doorway leading to a corrugated iron oven recess. A steep straight stair is on the eastern wall, and has open tread timber steps, square balusters and a simple handrail. The stair leads to a timber boarded room, with recent timber boarded raked ceiling, which is naturally lit by small windows on the western and southern walls.
","history":"Pringle Cottage is a two storeyed sandstone building, located within the Warwick and District Historical Society's museum grounds. It was built by a local stonemason, John McCulloch as his own residence in the 1860s or 1870s.
The land on which the cottage was built was first acquired by Deed of Grant by Edwin George Rigby in November 1862. This was transferred to John McCulloch in September 1863 when a new Certificate of Title was issued.
John McCulloch, a stonemason, arrived in Warwick in about 1862 and was responsible for the stone work of many of the sandstone buildings in the area including the Court House (1885); St Mark's Anglican Church (1874); St Andrew's Presbyterian Church (1869); Methodist Church (1875); and the Central School (1874).
McCulloch is reported to be living in Warwick, as a stonemason, in the earliest Post Office Directory of 1868, although his address is not specified. Between 1871 and 1874 McCulloch borrowed about £950, and this may have been for the construction of his house.
The property passed from McCulloch's hands in March 1902 when it was transferred to Mrs Helen Devine, and then in April 1903 to Elizabeth Ann Devine. Archibald and Mary Crawford purchased the property in 1929, and it changes hands again in 1942 when Evan James William Mason acquires it.
Reputedly, a private school was run by a Mrs FS Pringle and her daughter, Miss FHM Pringle in the upper floor of the cottage from 1898 until at least 1905, when the last recorded break-up event was held. It is after these teachers that the Warwick and District Historical Society, who gained possession of the building in November 1979, renamed the cottage.
","criteria":"Pringle Cottage survives as an early sandstone dwelling in Warwick, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of development in Warwick as a residential location from the 1860s.
|The building, located within the Warwick and District Historical Museum, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early domestic design and construction from sandstone as it developed in Warwick.
|The simple, but harmonious, facade is an important and prominent feature of the Dragon Street streetscape.
|(Criterion under review)
|Pringle Cottage has strong associations with an early builder in Warwick, John McCulloch, who built the cottage as his own residence. As the home of the local historical society for sixteen years the building is important to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15721,"place_ref":600946,"name":"Leslie Park","alternate_name":"Warwick War Memorial and Gates | Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates | Morgan Memorial","street_address":"Fitzroy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Leslie Park is a Park Reserve of just over 4.05ha in Warwick on the Darling Downs. Located within the central business district, it is bounded by Fitzroy, Guy, Albert and Palmerin Streets. Leslie Park comprises a number of significant elements, including lawns crossed with pathways, mature trees, croquet lawns (1906), lawn bowls lawns (1909), the Warwick War Memorial (1923) and War Memorial Gates (1925), the Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates (1941) and the Morgan Memorial (1911).
\nThe park features axial and transverse pathways, between 3.9m and 4.2m wide, generally covered with decomposed granite and edged by the lawn. The paths are lined with large trees of different varieties including mature; Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), Bunya Pines, (Araucaria bidwillii), Silky Oaks (Grevillea robusta), Kurrajongs (Brachychiton populneus), one Bottle Tree (Brachychiton rupestris), Bookleaf Pines (Thuja orientalis), Japanese Maple (Acer palmatuma), and Date Palms (Phoenix dactylifera).
\nThe southeastern section of pathway has been concreted providing sealed access from the corner of Palmerin and Fitzroy Streets through the War Memorial Gates, the War Memorial and beyond. Formal parterre gardens on either side of this path, edged in concrete, planted with annuals, are symmetrically arranged either side of the war memorial. The path reverts to gravel beyond the flower gardens, towards the centre of the park.
\nWar Memorial
\nThe War Memorial is situated in the southeastern corner of the park, inside the War Memorial Gates. It stands on a stepped granite base, the upper step of which is rusticated and has a foundation stone on the southwest face. The memorial is a substantial Helidon sandstone and granite structure, standing 10.7m high, and comprises a plinth, pedestal, and surmounting Celtic cross.
\nThe plinth features AIF badges (rising sun), and a marble plaque with leaded lettering listing the 122 local soldiers who died in World War I. The pedestal features four polished granite columns with Corinthian capitals and has a carved wreath, carved lettering The Honoured Dead, and Roman fasces on each corner. The entablature features a frieze with the dates 1914 - 1918 carved in relief. A 1996 plaque commemorating those who died in WWII, Korea and Vietnam is mounted on the eastern side of the memorial.
\nTo the west of the memorial, is a German field gun war trophy, along with a black marble obelisk on a granite base, approximately 1m high, commemorating those who served in Malaya, Borneo, Korea and Vietnam. Standing nearby is a small sandstone plinth with a brass plaque commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of the war with Japan. On the eastern side of the main memorial, is a German trench mortar gun trophy, and another small sandstone plinth with brass plaque dedicated to the Milne Force. These are all elements of the war memorial precinct of Leslie Park.
\nWar Memorial Gates
\nThe War Memorial Gates comprise four 2.9m high sandstone pillars with rusticated courses. The outer two pillars are surmounted with marble globelike finials and each pillar supports marble tablets with leaded lettering listing those from the district who fought in World War I and returned. A pair of wrought iron swinging gates allows vehicular traffic between the inner pillars and single gates provide for pedestrian traffic between these and the outer pillars.
\nCroquet and Lawn Bowls Lawns
\nTwo croquet lawns (32m x 25.6m) are located in the northwestern quadrant of the park, facing Albert Street. A bowling green (40m2) is situated within the southeastern quadrant of the park facing Fitzroy Street. All adjacent clubhouses and shade structures are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nLeslie Centenary Memorial Gates
\nThe Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates, located at the southwestern corner of the park, comprise four 3m high sandstone pillars with rusticated column and base, supporting wrought iron gates with arrow topped bars. The central pillars sit either side of the 4.2m path and support a pair of entry gates. Smaller pedestrian openings are located on either side, each with a single wrought iron gate, approximately 1.2m wide. Both central pillars have been propped at their rear, with galvanised iron piping. Some movement in the foundations have led to the gates being misaligned. Marble plaques with the words ‘Leslie – Centenary 1840 - Memorial 1940- Gate’ have been added to each pillar.
\nMorgan Memorial
\nThe Morgan Memorial is situated at the northeastern corner of the park at the intersection of Albert and Palmerin Streets. It comprises a coursed sandstone column with capital on a stepped concrete base surmounted by an urn. Marble plates on three sides of the memorial are inscribed details of members of the Morgan family.
\nOther elements not of cultural heritage significance
\nOther elements of the park which are not of cultural heritage significance include: the new shelter shed in the centre of the transverse paths; the children’s playground close to Fitzroy Street, and the teenagers’ playground close to Albert Street; the new outdoor theatre space and barbeque between the teenagers’ space and the croquet lawns; the gardeners’ sheds, close to Guy Street; the picnic shelter and barbeque near Guy Street, the public toilets and the winding concrete path on the southern part of the park. The spiral rose garden near Guy Street, reflects the historic planting of roses in Leslie Park, but was not established until the late 1990s.
","history":"Leslie Park in Warwick is one half of a recreation reserve allocated during the first survey of the town in 1849. While the northern section has now been largely built upon, the southern section remains a public park. It was named Leslie Park in 1901, honouring the Leslie brothers; Patrick, George and Walter who established Queensland’s earliest pastoral runs on the Darling Downs in 1840. The park comprises a number of significant elements: the pathways, dating to at least 1867, a croquet club (1906), lawn bowls club (1909), Morgan Memorial (1911), War Memorial (1923), War Memorial Gates (1925), war trophy guns (relocated to Warwick 1921) and the Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates (1941). The Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates were donated to the town in 1941 by the owner of Glengallan Homestead [QHR 600007].
\nAllan Cunningham, explorer and botanist, was the first European to sight the Darling Downs in 1827; naming the district after Sir Ralph Darling, Governor of New South Wales (NSW). Cunningham was impressed with the potential of the area which comprised wide expanses of fertile grasslands, rich soils and verdant natural vegetation and gentle climate. Patrick Leslie met Cunningham in 1839 and he and his younger brothers George and Walter, and their sheep flocks, followed Cunningham’s route north. Arriving in May 1840, they selected areas that were to become the pastoral stations ‘Toolburra’ and ‘Canning Downs’ [QHR 600525]. Patrick returned to Sydney to register the runs and Walter Leslie remained on the Darling Downs camped at the end of Leslie’s blazed trail.[1] Numerous grazing runs were taken up on the Downs between June 1840 and 1843.
\nThe Leslie brothers, George and Walter, established themselves on the Downs, with Patrick Leslie initially dividing his time between ‘Canning Downs’ and his uncle’s property near Penrith NSW. Patrick built Newstead House [QHR 600265] in 1846, selling it to his brother-in-law, Captain Wickham in 1847 and returning to the Darling Downs. The town name of Warwick was gazetted in May 1847, replacing ‘Canning Downs’, as a place where Petty Sessions were appointed to be held. According to the memoirs of George’s wife Emmeline, George and Patrick chose the town’s name from a novel by Edward Bulmer Lytton;[2] ‘The Last of the Barons’ (1843).
\nThe Village of Warwick was surveyed by Colonial Surveyor James Burnett in 1849. The town survey included a large recreation reserve comprising two town blocks bounded by Fitzroy, Guy, Victoria and Palmerin Streets. The Warwick Town Square was formally gazetted as a 20 acre (8ha) Reserve for Public Recreation, in December 1855. In May 1861, the five square mile (1295ha) town reserve was proclaimed the Municipality of Warwick.[3]
\nThe Leslie brothers had left the district by this time. George sold ‘Canning Downs’ to his cousin Gilbert Davidson in 1854. Patrick had acquired ‘Goomburra’ run to the north of ‘Glengallan’ in 1848 where he bred horses and ran sheep. Patrick sold both ‘Goomburra’ and the adjoining ‘Gladfield’ in late 1857 and returned to Scotland.[4]
\nIn 1867, the reserve squares in Warwick were divided in two with the opening of Albert Street through the centre. While it was re-gazetted by the Queensland Government in 1869 as one Reserve Square, the sections became known as the Southern and Northern Squares. They were fenced by the Municipal Council, with gates installed at each corner and the reserves planted with ornamental trees and shrubs obtained from Walter Hill, Curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.[5] In 1875 the reserves were described as; ‘two large public squares, planted with lawns, trees, shrubs and flowers [that] were a unique haven from the unpaved, dusty streets’.[6] The park has been the subject of drawings and photographs from 1883.[7]
\nWalter Hill reported on the parks’ progress in 1876 and made suggestions for their future development, including; laying out existing paths to a width of 14 feet (4.2m) and lining them with suitable trees, with shade trees be planted along the perimeter, 4 feet (1.2m) from the boundary, with allowances made for future plantings. By November 1886, the Southern Square was described as having a pretty appearance with healthy trees … beautiful flower gardens; predominantly roses.[8]
\nThe Warwick City Council became trustee of the recreation squares in May 1888. The squares were renamed in March 1901; the Southern Square became Leslie Park, and the Northern Square, Cunningham Park (now occupied by the Warwick State High School, the Senior Citizens Centre, and the Indoor Recreation and Aquatic Centre). From at least 1901, the council employed professional gardeners to manage its parks; Messrs Stephens and Scott, being praised for the unique display of 100 different varieties of roses in both Leslie and Cunningham Parks in 1902. [9]
\nIn June 1905 the Croquet Club received permission to establish two croquet lawns at the western end of Leslie Park. It may be that croquet lawns were initially established on the western side of the park and were relocated the northwestern side of the park where they are today. The Warwick Croquet Club was reported as reopening in October 1906, which may suggest relocation. By 1909, the lawn bowling club used the croquet lawn, while their bowling green was being prepared. Tennis courts were in the park from at least 1910, and a band rotunda was erected in 1913. From 1911, council created a boulevard along the eastern end of the park by planting two rows of trees, bordering a path, along Palmerin Street. [10]
\nThe Defence Department allocated two captured artillery guns to Warwick as war trophies in 1920 which were transported to Warwick in 1921.This initiated a fund-raising drive for a war memorial, and a public meeting was held in November 1921. Local architect Roy (Roderick) Campbell (AIF) produced plans for the sandstone memorial and iron gates on stone columns in December 1922. Campbell called for tenders for the project in January 1923. He was concurrently designing and supervising a similar set of memorial gates for Glen Innes, where he also had an office. Ipswich stonemason Frank Williams lodged the successful tender.[11] Two other war memorials had been unveiled in Warwick prior to this: the Footballers Memorial plaque in the Town Hall [QHR 600961] in May 1917 and the Railway Employees Honour Board at the railway station in February 1922 [QHR 600955].
\nThe war memorial and gates were located close to an existing memorial, erected in 1911 on the corner of Palmerin and Fitzroy Streets. The Morgan Family Memorial originally included a fountain. It is built of Helidon sandstone and was designed by local architects Dornbusch and Connolly. It honours James Morgan, his sons Sydney and Sir Arthur Morgan, and Sir Arthur’s sons, Franklin and Arthur Clinton Morgan. James, the proprietor of the Warwick Argus newspaper and his son Arthur were both mayors of Warwick. James was also a Member of the Legislative Assembly while Sir Arthur was premier of Queensland from 1903 to 1906. This memorial was relocated to the corner of Palmerin and Albert Streets in 1937.[12] The date of the removal of the fountain from the memorial is unknown.
\nThe foundation stone for the war memorial was laid on 7 June 1923 by the Prime Minister, Hon S M Bruce. The completed memorial was unveiled by the Governor, His Excellency Sir Matthew Nathan on 5 December 1923. War memorials were the first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of around four million, representing one in five of those who served. Australian memorials are unique in that they commemorate all those who served from a locality. The memorial includes a number of symbolic elements including a laurel wreath (mourning); rising sun (national birth); columns (honour) and it is topped with a Celtic cross (sacrifice).[13] While many Queensland towns provided landscaped parks or gardens to accommodate their memorials, Warwick’s Leslie Park was a natural choice, as the memorial complemented the well-established existing park, along the main street.
\nThe memorial gates, featuring the names of Warwick enlistments, were completed by Frank Williams in October 1924 and were officially opened on Anzac Day 1925, by Sir Littleton Groom and the Mayor, Ald. D Connolly. The gardens were re-designed to enhance the new memorial and gates, with a broader gravel path, edged with formal flower gardens, and a row of palms planted inside the hedges along Palmerin and Fitzroy Streets, (two of which survived to 2017). The war trophy guns were relocated from the Returned Sailors, Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) to Leslie Park in 1938.[14]
\nWarwick was declared a city in 1935 and the community began planning celebrations of the centenary of the 1840 foundation of the Darling Downs by the Leslie Brothers, and the subsequent founding of Warwick. A committee was formed to plan commemorative events in 1939 there was a desire for a permanent memorial in Leslie Park. The committee was made aware that the Slade family, which owned Glengallan Homestead [QHR 600007] had once offered the homestead gates to the Church of England. Glengallan Homestead was described as picturesque ruins in March 1940, and Oswald Slade eventually donated the iron gates and stone pillars to the council as a centenary memorial. The council funded their relocation and re-erection in Leslie Park. Local monumental mason Reg Booth and stonemason William Thompson began work on the foundations in January 1941. In late May, four marble slabs carrying the words ‘Leslie – Centenary 1840 - Memorial 1940 - Gate’ were added to the four sandstone pillars.[15]
\nPresident of the Warwick Centenary Committee, Donald Gunn, performed the opening ceremony on 16 June 1941. His wife was the daughter of John Deuchar, who had built Glengallan Homestead in 1868. Gunn recalled that the gates had been imported from Scotland or England, and thanked the Slade family for the donation of the gates. By 1949, Slade had offered the ‘Glengallan’ estate to the Anglican Church, with the intention of demolishing the house and partially re-erecting it at the Slade School in Warwick.[16]
\nWhile the committee of the Warwick and District War Memorial was taking steps to have the names of those killed in World War II (WWII) engraved on the war memorial in 1948,[17] this did not occur until July 1996, when plaques commemorating those who died in WWII, Korea and Vietnam were also added to the eastern side of the memorial Other war memorial cairns commemorate WWII and conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Borneo and Malaya; the end of the war with Japan and one dedicated to the Milne Force (2005).
\nA number of changes to the use of both Leslie and Cunningham Parks were re-gazetted in 1968. Leslie Park (R.644) was gazetted as a Park Reserve in the trusteeship of the Warwick City Council. Aerial photography indicates the tennis courts, established around 1910, were used through to the 1960s.[18] Cunningham Park was divided into a number of reserves for a swimming pool, playground and park, and school, and was essentially lost as a Recreation Reserve. Changes in Leslie Park include construction of a new rotunda in 1995 on the same site as the original one.[19] The Croquet Club replaced its old equipment shed in 2006[20] and both the croquet and bowls clubs have new club facilities. A new picnic shelter has been built at the centre of the park where the transverse paths meet. [21] This replaces an earlier rockery and fountain, which replaced a gold fish pond, built in the 1930s. A new set of low wrought iron gates on stone pillars (approx. 1m high), reflecting the style of the Memorial Gates, and erected in front of them on the kerbside, are not of state heritage significance.
\nLeslie Park remains the focal point of community activities in Warwick, being the location for Anzac and Remembrance Day commemorations, low impact sports such as croquet and lawn bowls, a children’s playground, regular markets, events such as Christmas carols and general relaxation and recreation.
","criteria":"Leslie Park is important in demonstrating the allocation of reserves for public recreation in the establishment of Queensland settlements. This early reserve dates to the 1849 survey of Warwick, and was gazetted as a Reserve for Pubic Recreation by the New South Wales Government in 1855.
\nLeslie Park retains important surviving evidence of the early layout of the park including pathways, mature plantings and formal gardens, as well as long-term recreational use by the croquet club (1906) and lawn bowls club (1909).
\nThe Warwick War Memorial (1923), War Memorial Gates (1925) and war trophy guns, are important in demonstrating Queensland’s involvement in major world events: World War I (WWI), World War II (WWII) and subsequent conflicts. Memorials are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state and are a tribute from a particular community to those who served and those who died. As the focus of Anzac Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies, war memorials are an important element of Queensland’s towns, and cities and are also significant in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Leslie Park is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early public park reserved from the mid-nineteenth century. These characteristics include grassed areas, pathways, formal plantings, memorials, recreational uses and a formal layout. It includes design influences from the curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Walter Hill.
\nThe transverse and axial paths, and croquet and bowling lawns are early and sustained recreational uses of the park.
\nThe Warwick War Memorial and War Memorial Gates are fine examples of well-designed and finely crafted WWI monuments, designed by local architect Roy Campbell and created by Ipswich stonemason Frank Williams, in enduring materials, funded by public subscription, and in a spacious location facilitating community commemoration. The Memorial includes symbolic elements found in War Memorials nationally, including columns (honour), laurel wreath (mourning) the rising sun (national birth) and the Celtic cross (sacrifice). The Memorial Gates include panels bearing the names of Warwick district residents who served and those who died. Together, the memorial and the gates demonstrate the principal characteristics of a war memorial; with their high level of integrity, workmanship and design, complemented by the war trophy guns and memorials to later conflicts.
|Leslie Park; including the War Memorial, War Memorial Gates, croquet and bowling lawns, Morgan Memorial and Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates, makes an important contribution to the aesthetic qualities of the streetscape of Warwick’s town centre. The aesthetic significance of the War Memorial and War Memorial Gates, overlooking the main street of Warwick, lies in their high level of integrity, workmanship and dignified design, set within landscaped surrounds. The formally designed park, with its vistas, planned gardens and historic plantings, provide a verdant backdrop to Warwick, and a place of quiet respite from the activities of the town. The picturesque park has provided a subject for artists and photographers from 1883.
|Leslie Park has a strong association with the Warwick community as a public park providing community recreation since its establishment in 1849.
\nThe Warwick War Memorial and War Memorial Gates, funded by public subscription, have a strong and special association with the people of Warwick. Commemorations at the memorial reflect the wider reverence felt for war memorials across Australia. As a focus for Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies, the memorial is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
\nThe Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates, installed at Glengallan Homestead [QHR 600007] circa 1868, and donated to the City of Warwick in 1941, commemorate the centenary of the arrival of the first European settlers, the Leslie brothers, to the Darling Downs in 1840, and the subsequent establishment of Warwick.
\nThe memorials provide symbolic meaning for the residents through remembrance ceremonies, and commemoration of Warwick’s history.
|Leslie Park, named in 1901, has a special association with the Leslie brothers who are credited with the establishment of Warwick, soon after their settlement of the Darling Downs in 1840. The stone pillars and iron gates, relocated from Glengallan Homestead [QHR 600007] in 1941, were renamed the Leslie Centenary Memorial Gates, when installed in Leslie Park; further honouring the Leslie brothers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15722,"place_ref":600947,"name":"Warwick East State School","alternate_name":"Warwick National School","street_address":"45 Fitzroy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Warwick East State School occupies a 4.045ha site located approximately 300m east of the Warwick CBD. The school fronts Fitzroy Street (south) and is bounded by Canning Street (west), Condamine Street (North) and Sawmill Street (east). The heritage boundary covers only the southwest corner (original 1850s reserve extents) of the school site.
\nThe former National School building is prominently sited in the school grounds, facing the main entrance and set amongst well-tended gardens.
\nFeatures of Warwick East State School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nNational School building (1865, modified c1878, 1913)
\nThe National School building (1865) is a one-storey brick building with a gable roof and verandahs along its long sides (c1878, east and west). The building is well-composed in a Victorian-era style, with decorative brickwork and finely crafted timberwork. The main school room is rectangular in plan and the principal elevation (south) features an offset gable-roofed entrance porch that is square in plan and has round arched openings on three sides.
\nAdditional doorways accessing the school room are centred on the east and west sides and flanked by evenly spaced arched windows. Larger banks of windows are located at the north and south ends, and two dormer windows (1913) punctuate the east side of the main gable roof.
\nThe lofty single school room interior features timber king post trusses with struts. A raised timber dais (after 1962, dais not of cultural heritage significance) is located at the northern end.
\nFeatures of the National School building of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the National School building not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLandscape features, open space and views
\nThe established gardens and grassed areas adjacent to the National School building form an attractive landscape setting and front entrance to the school from Fitzroy Street, with secondary access from Canning Street. Open space around the National School building facilitates natural light and ventilation, as well as views to and from the building.
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape features not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Warwick East State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEstablished on its present site in 1850, Warwick East State School (originally Warwick National School) was the first National School in (pre-separation) Queensland. The former Warwick National School is a one-storey brick building that was completed in 1865 to a design by noted, early Queensland architect, Benjamin Joseph Backhouse.
\nThe city of Warwick stands on the traditional lands of the Githabul People (Waringh Waringh).[1] The first surveys of Warwick were carried out by J C Burnett 1849-1850,[2] followed by the first land sale in July 1850. On 25 May 1861 Warwick was declared a municipality and continued to grow steadily as the service centre of the Southern Downs, a wealthy pastoral district that developed into an agricultural area. During the 1860s, the tradition of building permanent masonry buildings in Warwick began.[3]
\nIn pre-separation Queensland, education was provided initially by fee-charging religious schools and private academies. The standard of education varied and most of these early schools were short-lived. They catered principally for children in the main population centres of Brisbane and Ipswich.[4]
\nA more organised approach to education commenced when Governor Fitzroy set up the New South Wales (NSW) National Board of Education in 1848; charged with establishing and administering schools. Modelled on the Irish system, the Board’s purpose was to provide state-assisted, secular, elementary education for as many children as possible, particularly in more isolated areas. The Board established and administered schools where parents contributed one-third of the building costs and guaranteed an average attendance of at least 30 pupils.[5] Under provisions from this body, four National Schools were established in what was to become the Colony of Queensland. The Warwick National School (1850) was the first of these, followed by Drayton in 1851, and a boys’ and a girls’ school in Brisbane by 1860.[6]
\nThe national school in Warwick opened on 4 November 1850, with 30 students. It comprised a timber slab building on a gazetted site of 1 acre 1 rood (25.29sq m; allotment 1 section 17) located on the corner of Fitzroy and Canning streets.[7] The school was established largely as the result of efforts by local pastoralist, George Leslie, who was concerned about the education of children in the district. He started making enquires to the Board of National Education in September 1848, but it was not until September 1850 that the school was completed.[8] At this time, Warwick’s population was about 267.[9]
\nThe first headmaster was George Abbott, who ran the school until December 1852 when it closed. In April 1853, the school re-opened with George Lewis as the headmaster. Jonathan Harris was appointed headmaster in 1855 and retained this position until 1860.[10]
\nFollowing separation of the Colony of Queensland from New South Wales in December 1859, the Queensland Government passed the Education Act 1860, which created a Board of General Education (the board) to oversee the development and administration of schools in the colony. The Board combined the functions of New South Wales’ national and denominational boards and was responsible for funding both public and religious schools. Assuming control of existing national schools, the Board aimed to establish a Queensland system of national schools similar to the New South Wales model.[11]
\nAfter the 1860 Act, the Warwick National School, along with the three other government schools, came under the jurisdiction of the newly created Board of General Education. In 1864-1865, the present brick building was constructed on the site to a design by prominent architect, Benjamin Backhouse. This building joined the earlier timber classroom, constructed at the school's inception in 1850.
\nAs the Board did not have the resources to construct school buildings, it encouraged local committees to build and maintain their own schools. However, the Board fostered the construction of suitable school buildings by supplying standard plans, based on ideal space requirements, to local committees. Commissioned by the Board, architects prepared plans for communities as required. The Board preferred that national school buildings be single storey, but had no other architectural stipulations. Consequently, the buildings varied, depending on the architect responsible. While timber was the dominant form of material for school buildings, in urban centres such as Brisbane, Warwick, Toowoomba and Ipswich, stone or brick buildings were erected. National school buildings were constructed throughout the colony.[12]
\nBackhouse, who was based in Brisbane from mid-1861 until late 1868, designed more than 100 buildings for a wide range of public, commercial, and religious organisations, and for private clients. He prepared a ‘model’ plan in 1864 for the newly created Board, to be used for country schools and was responsible for the design of many of the early National Schools, including those at Toowoomba, Condamine, Laidley, Maryborough, Bowen, Nanango, Bald Hills and Goondiwindi; of which Warwick is the earliest known to survive.[13] Backhouse also designed the first two stages of Ipswich Grammar School’s main building [QHR600601: 1863, 1865] and many early permanent churches in Queensland, including the former St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Warwick [QHR600958], the now demolished Union Presbyterian Church in Brisbane, and the first plan for St Stephen's Roman Catholic Cathedral [QHR600107].
\nWhen completed, the National School at Warwick was a single-storey brick building, with asymmetrically placed entrance porch and small windows lining the eastern and western elevations of the building. It was constructed by Welsh contractor, William Conley, using local bricks from Snitzerlings Brickworks in Lyons Street, Warwick and had a hardwood shingled roof.[14] The original timber slab building continued to be used as a classroom and teacher’s residence.[15]
\nOf the Queensland Government school buildings built to 1865 the only known survivors are Gayndah State School (1861-63) (QHR600516), South Brisbane (by 11 January 1865) [QHR601222] and Warwick East State School (by 11 February 1865) [QHR600947]. Only two other 1860s school Queensland Government buildings survive in Queensland, both dating from 1867; Baroona Special School [QHR600278] and Fortitude Valley State School (former) [QHR602136].[16]
\nBy 1874 the Warwick National School was too small for the growing town, which had been connected by rail to Brisbane via Toowoomba in 1871.[17] The establishment of a new school, the Warwick Central School, was planned. The foundation stone was laid on 25 June 1874 by the Mayor, at a celebration attended by a large gathering of citizens.[18] When this new school, on the corner of Guy and Percy Streets, opened in 1875, the former Warwick National School, became known as the Warwick East State School.
\nBy 1877, the original 1850 timber school building was in a dilapidated state and tenders were called for its purchase and removal.[19] By 1878, the Inspector for Schools recommended that two ten-feet (3.05m)-wide verandahs be added to the 1865 brick building at Warwick East State School on the east and west sides, and that a northern end verandah be enclosed to house lavatories and classrooms. This work was carried out at a cost of £175, by contractor David Crombie.[20]
\nBy 1911, the site of the Warwick East State School was considered to be unfavourably situated. The surroundings were considered detrimental to children's health and morals, as they were bounded by an open sewer conveying drainage from the lower parts of the town; people of suspicious morals lived on the northern boundary; and to the south was a miserable hovel touching the school fence. A new site was not found. However, the school reserve was doubled in size through the resumption of Lot 2 Section 17 to its north and improvements were carried out to the existing buildings.[21]
\nAt this time, the provision of lighting and ventilation in the 1865 brick building was deemed inadequate. These problems were addressed by the Public Works Department when tenders were called in November 1912 for additions, alterations and improvements. D Crawford’s tender of £957 to alter the existing building, construct a new classroom building, and provide furniture was accepted in January 1913.[22]
\nAlterations to the National School building were undertaken for £289.[23] The multi-pane window on the southern elevation was enlarged and two dormer windows were inserted on the eastern side of the corrugated iron roof. Concrete floors were formed along the verandahs, a new interior timber floor was laid on concrete piers, and the face brick walls were kalsomined. A hat room, which had been added adjoining the east of the entrance porch, was removed.[24]
\nA timber classroom block was constructed to the west of the 1865 brick school building in 1913 (Timber School Building type C/T2) for £655. However, on 28 December 1914 fire razed this building. The school re-opened in January 1915 using the 1865 building and the enclosed play shed. In the same month, tenders were called for reconstructing the timber classroom block. The lowest quote of £534 by S Noyes was accepted in February 1915. The second version of the timber building was completed by October 1915.[25]
\nIn 1934, a timber Infants building (Sectional School Building D/T1) was added to the 1915 building, which together were known as Block A.[26] Open space to the immediate north of Block A was retained in site planning from the 1940s onwards, and is identified as a parade area by 1962.[27]
\nOver time, the school site was landscaped and expanded. By 1894, Arbor Day was celebrated at the school, which continued into the 20th century.[28] A new garden was created in front of the school in 1908 when the School Committee Secretary, J B Fell, the owner of plant nursery donated 27 trees.[29] Gardens were established on the corner of Fitzroy and Canning Streets by c1913.[30] The acquisition of land to the north (allotment 2 section 17), doubled the size of the original school grounds by 1915.[31] Head Teacher Tom Garland, appointed in 1917, is credited with heralding ‘a new era’ for the school. Plans were made for front gardens (along Fitzroy Street); a croquet lawn and tennis court (laid out in 1920 east of the National School Building); and areas were set aside for football, cricket and a horse paddock.[32] During the 1930s the school was known for its gardens and playgrounds:
\nAlong the fence between the schoolyard and the large playground were wattle trees and a few pepperinas…also a space was set aside for the would-be child gardeners!…. The school gardens out the front were…out of bounds. Flower beds and trellis and roses galore. Hedges shut in the netball and tennis courts.… near the large open [play] shed on the [south-east] corner.[33]
\nA flagpole was presented to the school in 1930 (replaced in 2020).[34] Further land additions to the east were made in 1947 (allotment 6 section 17) and later to the north (allotments 3, 4 and 5 section 17), bringing the school to its current extent.[35]
\nPlans from 1962 show the ‘old brick school’ was to remain for use for visual education and assembly. Proposed alterations included: the removal of a portion of the west verandah, adjacent to the entry porch; construction of a brick wall linking the southwest corner to an adjacent timber school building; and a suggested dais at the north end of the interior.[36] Flooding during December 2010-January 2011 caused damage to all the school’s buildings and resulted in the refit of the National School building at ground level.[37] Flooding also occurred in May 2022.[38]
\nFrom 1970, school buildings were gradually added to the site and some were removed.[39] On 19 July 2019, Block A was destroyed by fire and has since been replaced by a large new building.[40] Subsequent conservation works undertaken on the National School building included the removal of paint finishes to reveal the original face brick exterior.
\nThe importance of the school within the community has been demonstrated through regular social and fundraising events, anniversary celebrations, and through the publication of a commemorative history. In 1955, belated centenary celebrations were held for the school, including a parade, a fete and a concert in the town hall. On 5 October 1970, the Queensland Women’s Historical Association (QWHA) unveiled a plaque at Warwick East State School acknowledging the 120-year-old school as the oldest state school in Queensland. In 2000, the school celebrated its 150th anniversary and published a school history.[41]
\nIn 2024, the early National School building remains the focal point of the school and is remarkably intact. Currently, half of the space is used as a classroom for instrumental music lessons, while the other half is setup as a meeting venue, with some display cases of school memorabilia. The building is also used as a polling station for elections.
","criteria":"Warwick East State School, opened in 1850 in the early regional centre of Warwick as the Warwick National School, was the first national school established in (pre-separation) Queensland, and is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture, set in sufficient grounds to provide play space.
\nThe former National School building (1865) provides evidence of the growth of Warwick during the 1860s and is one of the earliest surviving government school buildings in Queensland. The building is representative of the earliest phase of government-provided education in Queensland, and precursor to the subsequent system of widespread standardised state education. One of five known surviving examples constructed during this period, it demonstrates early Queensland school architecture in urban areas, of substantially constructed masonry buildings.
|The highly intact National School building at Warwick East State School is significant as a rare surviving example of a Queensland government school building from the 1860s, a building type that has always been uncommon.
|The National School building is a rare, intact example of an 1860s Queensland government school building and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with subsequent modifications to improve lighting and ventilation. The building retains its: masonry construction with steep roof; large classroom with lofty interior; doors and windows that maximise light and ventilation; and a high standard of design and craftsmanship.
\nThe National School building is a good intact example of the work of noted early Queensland architect Benjamin Backhouse, and the earliest known surviving example of one of his National School designs for the Queensland Board of Education.
|Warwick East State School is of aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes and contribution to the streetscape. Highly intact, the well-composed Victorian-era National School building features decorative brickwork and finely crafted timberwork and is of high-quality materials and construction. Prominently sited in a landscape setting comprising open grassed areas and garden frontage, the National School building is an attractive feature along Fitzroy Street.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nWarwick East State School has a strong association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the Warwick community, as a place of education and as a community focal point since 1850.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15723,"place_ref":600948,"name":"Warwick Court House and Police Complex","alternate_name":"Warwick Courthouse | Warwick Police Station","street_address":"Fitzroy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Warwick Court House and Police Complex fronts Fitzroy Street to the north and is bounded by Guy Street to the west and Haig Avenue to the east. The complex consists of the court house, police station, lock-up, former lock-up keeper's residence, former acting sergeant's residence and service buildings.
Court House
The court house is a single-storeyed (with attic) sandstone structure located on the corner of Guy Street fronting Fitzroy Street to the north. The building has a hipped sheet metal roof, with metal ridge ventilators, and a clock tower on the Fitzroy Street frontage.
The symmetrical Fitzroy Street facade, of dressed sandstone, is stepped in plan with the central clock tower and pedimented entrance abutting the footpath. The pediment is supported by four pilasters resting on a deep base framing an entrance. The entrance has double timber panelled doors with fanlight surrounded by a sandstone moulding and keystone. A deep string course crosses above the entrance between the pilasters at eave height, with a metal coat of arms positioned centrally above. The clock tower is square in plan with a clock face, surrounded by sandstone mouldings and framed by pilasters with a deep cornice above, to each side and a convex hipped sheet metal roof. The lower wings either side of the tower have parapet walls and continue the eave height string course and top ledge of the sandstone base. The rear of the structure is of rough faced sandstone. Windows are mainly timber sashes and have sheet metal hoods with cast iron brackets.
The building is H-shaped in plan, with the taller court room forming the main section of the building with lower offices and service rooms forming the cross wings at either end. The court room has verandahs on either side, with the western side having been enclosed to form the main entry fronting Guy Street and the eastern having steel posts. High level windows above the verandah roof on the west light the attic space which was formerly a gallery level.
Internally, the building has been refitted a number of times. Walls are rendered and ceilings are mainly of hardboard. Some painted timber fireplace surrounds remain, as do some panelled timber doors with glass fanlights. A strong room, now used for storage, retains the original steel door. The attic space, originally a gallery level and now accessed by a steep timber stair, has a coffered, boarded timber ceiling which now supports a curved, suspended ceiling to the court room below.
Police Station
The police station is a two-storeyed sandstone structure fronting Fitzroy Street to the north. The building has a gable and half-gable sheet metal roof, with dressed sandstone street facade, chimney stacks and quoining to the side and rear with square-snecked rock-faced ashlar. The chimney stacks are capped by a cornice and have circular openings on the vertical face. The symmetrical street facade has an arched sandstone arcade to the ground floor, consisting of four central arched bays supporting a verandah to the first floor, with two smaller arched bays on either side. A central stone wall divides the verandah and arcade, reflecting the original function of the building, with a set of stone entrance steps to each of the end central bays. The arches have pronounced extrados, imposts and keystones, and the verandah has timber batten balustrade and french doors with fanlights. Downpipe heads have the year 1900 in relief, gables have decorative timber panels and windows are timber sashes. A section of verandah is located at the rear on the ground floor, and a single-storeyed masonry toilet wing has been added to the southwest corner. Tie rods have been inserted through the building in various places.
Internally, the police station has recently been refitted. Twin entrances each lead into a hall containing a staircase with timber balustrade. Rooms retain timber doors, architraves and skirtings, boarded ceilings and some timber fireplace surrounds. Walls are rendered and large pendant lighting has been installed in every room.
Lock-Up
The lock-up, located to the southwest of the police station, is a single-storeyed sandstone structure with a corrugated iron gable roof with central ridge ventilator and a verandah on the western side. The building, consisting of five cells, has dressed sandstone quoining with rock-faced ashlar. Each cell has a steel door, corner toilet, corner security camera and rendered walls, with the southern cell being originally a padded cell. The verandah has been enclosed with steel mesh to create larger cell areas. A shower building is located to the southwest of the cell block and consists of a timber structure with a corrugated iron gable roof and concrete floor. The lock-up compound is surrounded by a timber framed corrugated iron fence, the top of which is serrated.
Former Lock-Up Keeper's Residence
The former lock-up keeper's residence, to the south of the court house, is located adjoining the lock-up and fronting Guy Street to the west. The building, U-shaped in plan, is a single-storeyed sandstone structure with dressed chimney stacks and quoining with vermiculated ashlar. The chimney stacks are capped by a cornice and have circular openings on the vertical face. The hipped corrugated iron roof extends over verandahs on the north and west, which have been enclosed with chamferboard, hardboard and a variety of windows. A small verandah located within the U on the east has also been enclosed.
Internally, the building is one room deep and consists of one large central room with a room opening to either side, enclosed verandahs west and north, and two rear rooms with a small enclosed verandah between. The sandstone walls have been painted to the enclosed verandah sides, and rendered to the room interiors. French doors with fanlights open to verandahs, windows are timber sashes and ceilings are boarded.
Former Acting Sergeant's Residence
The former acting sergeant's residence is located between the police station and court house fronting Fitzroy Street to the north. The single-storeyed chamferboard building is L-shaped in plan and has a corrugated iron gable roof with a hipped rear wing and two metal ridge ventilators. Evidence of an early second rear wing is apparent in the joins of the corrugated iron. The building has timber stumps with battens between, and verandahs on the north and south have been enclosed with chamferboard and a variety of windows. Most windows are timber sashes and have corrugated iron and timber batten hoods on the east and west.
Internally, the building is one room deep and consists of one large central room with a room opening to either side, enclosed verandahs front and rear, and a rear wing of two rooms. Verandahs have single-skin exposed framed timber walls and french doors with fanlights, and rooms have boarded ceilings.
Service Buildings
The service buildings consist of two toilets and a store. The toilets, one located to the north of the lock-up, and one to the north of the former lock-up keeper's residence, are single room sandstone structures with rock-faced ashlar and a corrugated iron gable roof. The store, located to the north of the former lock-up keeper's residence, is a single room rendered masonry structure with a curved corrugated iron roof and steel door.
","history":"The Warwick Court House and Police Complex comprises a group of timber and stone buildings erected from 1885.
The town of Warwick was gazetted in 1847, and a police unit is recorded as being established in Warwick from this time. A shepherds hut on Canning Downs is believed to have been used as the first police station and barracks. In 1850 a township was laid out, and allotments auctioned. Warwick was incorporated as a municipality in 1861. Indications are that Albion Street was the main centre of Warwick during the early development of the town. A Reserve was set aside in Albion Street, and public buildings erected on this site included a Court House (1862) and Police Station, Post Office (late 1860s) and Telegraph Office (front portion of the Court House, erected 1875).
Court House
The Albion Street site was prone to flooding from the Condamine River, and by the mid 1880s plans had been prepared for a new Court House on an allotment purchased from Frederick Hudson, at the southeast corner of Fitzroy and Guy Streets.
The design for the Court House was prepared by the Department of Works, John J Clark being Colonial Architect at the time. The contract price for the building was just over £3700. The contractor for the building was William G Conley, and John McCullough completed the stonework on the building.
The decision to incorporate a clock tower at the front of the building was made during construction, and the clock was supplied by Messrs Flavelle Brothers and Roberts. A public clock appears to have been long sought after by Warwick citizens.
By late 1887, a shed and stables were needed; these were erected shortly after.
During the early years of use, the court house proved to be draughty and have poor acoustics, these problems being attributed to the "over-ventilation" of the court house through "superfluous" openings in the ceiling. Various measures were undertaken to overcome these problems, including capping the roof ventilators. A false ceiling was eventually added to the court room to reduce the volume of the space.
A brick strong room was erected at the rear of the court house in 1880. This building is now used as a store.
Consistent with its public function, the court house has also provided offices for government agencies including Land Agent, the Labour Bureau and various Registrars and Inspectors, for example, the Inspector of Factories and Shops. Part of the rear verandah was enclosed and extended in 1914 to provide additional office space.
Alterations to the building have been undertaken from the 1960s, including the formation of a public entry/waiting area by enclosing the western verandah, and the rearrangement of office spaces within the building.
Former Timber Lock-Up (1892) / Former Acting Sergeant's Residence
The difficulties associated with separate sites for court house and lock-up became apparent following the erection of the court house in 1886. For example, prisoners had to be escorted through the streets to the court house; a situation which was regarded as highly undesirable. Sketch plans indicating the placement of a new lock-up on the court house site were prepared in the late 1880s.
Tenders were called in November 1891 for a "new Police Station in the court house yard", the contract of J Ledbury being accepted in December that year. The contract price was £415, and the building which included 3 cells and living quarters, was generally referred to as the lock-up/lock-up keeper's quarters. Contemporary newspaper reports indicate that the building was completed by the end of April 1892.
With the completion of a new stone Police Station on the adjoining land in 1901, consideration was given to the future use of the timber lockup; the options for which included sale of the building, or its removal to another district where a police station was required. The matter appears to have been settled in December 1900 when it was decided that its was "...a first rate building in excellent repair, and will make good quarters for a married Sub Officer...". The building has provided residential accommodation for police officers from this time.
Records indicate that in September 1903 it was recommended that the old cells be pulled down and stacked, ready for removal to other areas. It is assumed that the cells referred to, were those erected as part of the timber lock-up.
Evidence suggests that this building, originally in a U-shaped form combining living quarters and cells, is one of few remaining buildings of this type erected during late nineteenth century.
Police Buildings
By the late 1890s, accommodation at the police station in Albion Street was described as "...very indifferent...", and it was suggested that the old post office premises, (a new post office having been erected in Palmerin Street in 1898) be handed over to the Police department to be made part of the station. The former telegraph and post office buildings were quite dilapidated by this time, and would have required major repairs to make them fit for habitation. As the town had extended in a south west direction, Albion Street was no longer as central, and attention turned to the allotment in Fitzroy Street adjoining the court house and timber lockup, as the site for a new police station.
Plans were prepared for the new building late in 1899 by the Department of Public Works, Alfred Barton Brady being the Government Architect at the time. The contract for the new stone police station was let to John Longwill of Warwick, at a price of just over £5700.
The final inspection of the new buildings was carried out in July 1901 by Thomas Pye, District Architect - Southern Division, who reported that "...The work has been carried out well, and the buildings as completed have a good and substantial appearance...". The new stone building provided office and residential accommodation, which included barracks and officer's quarters. Five new cells and a new lock-up keeper's residence, both of stone construction, and stables were also completed at this time.
Problems with the settlement of the foundations of the police station building required repairs throughout the early 1900s, including underpinning in 1908, insertion of tie rods in 1910 and bolting the walls in 1913.
During the 1940s an Air Raid Shelter was erected at the police station, which was converted into a police garage following the Second World War. Also around this time, the police stables were converted into a garage then Public Works Depot. These buildings have since been demolished.
Warwick Police District was created in the mid 1950s, the headquarters being at Warwick. It is likely that it was at this time the building ceased to be used for residential accommodation, with houses for police quarters being acquired elsewhere in Warwick. The building was rearranged to include an office for the district inspector and staff. An inspection of the station in 1971 found the buildings generally in poor condition, and there was some indication that plans for a new station were being prepared, although did not eventuate.
A new district office was erected at the police station c1990, and the station building was renovated c1992.
","criteria":"The Warwick Court House and Police Complex survives as evidence of the consolidation of Warwick as a centre for the surrounding district during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|It is a highly intact working example of a turn of the century police complex with adjoining late nineteenth century court house.
|Through the use of materials (in particular the local sandstone) architectural forms and scale, the complex is a significant element within the Warwick townscape and identifies with other major public sandstone buildings.
|The complex, which has evolved on this site from 1885 maintains a strong association with the Warwick community and continues to provide a focus for policing and administration of justice, and other administrative functions.
|The complex, which has evolved on this site from 1885 continues to provide a focus for policing and administration of justice, and other administrative functions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15725,"place_ref":600950,"name":"National Hotel","alternate_name":"O'Mahony's Hotel | Allman's Hotel | National Hotel, Warwick","street_address":"35 Grafton Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The National Hotel is situated on the corner of Grafton and Lyons Streets, some three blocks to the east of Warwick's main street. It consists of a two-storeyed brick main block with filigree verandahs to both streets frontages, a two-storeyed brick accommodation wing which runs west to the rear of the main block, and a small corrugated iron garage on the northern side. The building sits in the southern half of the property, with the now vacant northern half probably the former site of other outbuildings. To the east, across Lyons Street is the railway station complex.
The two-storeyed filigree verandah extends over the footpath to the south and part of the east side, then continues along the eastern and western facades. It has stop-chamfered timber posts which are tripled at the splayed corner. The upper level mostly has a cast iron balustrade, with a cast iron fringe and brackets below, but as the eastern verandah returns the balustrade becomes timber lattice with a boarded valance below. The verandahs have a bull-nosed roof with shaped rafters, and a ripple iron underside with internal gutters to its perimeter. To the street facades above the verandah is an articulated parapet with cornice, pedestals and urns, and at the centre of the eastern side the date of 1887. Behind the parapet are two parallel hipped corrugated iron roofs forming a central gutter. In contrast, the roof to the west wing is a single hipped roof. There is also several brick chimneys with corbelled tops and terra-cotta cowls.
At ground level the street facades have plaster mouldings including window and door surrounds, and quoining to the corners. Here, the brickwork between has been painted, but otherwise it is unpainted, laid in English bond. There are two entrances with "PRIVATE ENTRANCE" lettered in the architraves above the door. These are centrally located on each street facade, with panelled doors and leadlight side and toplights. There is also a further entry at the splayed corner which leads to the Public Bar. Although substantially remodelled, the Public Bar retains its pressed metal ceiling with beam surrounds, cornices and roses.
From both private entrances, generous corridors lead to a central arched vestibule which features moulded pilasters and archways with keystones. Adjoining is the main stair in polished cedar, with square moulded balusters and carved newels. The Stair Hall is lit by a stained glass leadlight window. Beside the Stair Hall is the Dining Room which also retains its pressed metal ceiling with cornices, borders, beam cladding and roses. There is a timber chimney piece and hatch to the Kitchen. Other ground floor rooms formerly the Parlour, the Smoking Room and the Lounge also retain their pressed metal ceilings, but have altered layouts partly because of the addition of toilets.
The First Floor of the main block is generally accommodation. The rooms to the southern end have been divided off as the Manager's Residence, but generally retains its layout and pressed metal ceilings and cornices.. There is a Lounge located centrally at this level, from which lead several corridors to the verandahs and to the west wing. Generally at this level, there are pressed metal ceilings and cornices through the halls and bedrooms. The doors are low-waisted four panel doors with tilting fanlights. To the north-eastern corner of the verandah is an external timber stair with moulded square balusters, square newels with ball motifs, and boarded spandrel, all less decorative than the main stair.
The west wing brickwork is laid in stretcher bond, which is different to that of the main block. Entrance at both levels is via a timber connection from the main block with the upper level being enclosed. From each entrance runs a central corridor with bedrooms to either side, with some rooms having been converted to bathrooms. To the exterior of the northern facade is a simple timber escape stair.
The building is substantially intact both internally and externally, with only minor alterations being made to the layout. It retains much of the pressed metal ceilings and joinery. Of the outbuildings, only one survives as the present garage, which was possibly the former laundry.
","history":"The National Hotel was constructed in Warwick in about 1907 for Daniel Allman to designs of J Marks & Son, architects of Toowoomba.
Warwick was established as an administrative centre of the emerging Darling Downs regions in 1847, with a post office being established in the town in 1848. This year saw the first survey work of the embryonic town completed by surveyor, JC Bennett, with further surveys in 1850, and the first sale of crown land in July 1850. On May 25, 1861, Warwick was granted the status of a municipality. The town continued to grow throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The introduction of the rail from Toowoomba in 1867 and its extension through to Stanthorpe in 1881 when tin was discovered contributed to Warwick becoming a major service and trade centre on the Downs.
The property on which the National Hotel was built, situated diagonally opposite the Warwick Railway Station was acquired by Deed of Grant to William McGarry in June 1858. In 1884 Bishop Tuffnell was paying rates for the property which was described as simply 'fenced' and he continued this ownership until 1893, during which time the railway station was constructed opposite the hotel.
The first railway terminal at Warwick was built on a site on the northern fringe of Warwick and was moved to its present site in 1887 when the line was extended through to Stanthorpe. At this time the present passengers' station and goods' shed were constructed. 1887 is the date marked on the parapet of the National Hotel however this is not the date of the construction of the building and it is unclear to what the date does refer.
The National Hotel was built by the Allman family who were prominent in Warwick for many years. Jeremiah Allman arrived in the town in about 1870 aged 28, when he married the owner of the Sportsman's Arms Hotel, a Mrs Mary Dwan. Allman moved to Stanthorpe some years later when the Stanthorpe tin mines were flourishing, and bought another hotel after which he removed to Toowoomba where he ran the Harp of Erin Hotel. In the late 1870s Allman returned to Warwick and the Sportsman's Arms Hotel. In 1887 he bought the Criterion Hotel in Palmerin Street one of the oldest and best known establishments in the town. In 1917 he rebuilt the Criterion and this substantial masonry building is extant today. (DoE file no. 600692)
Allman took a keen interest in the social and political affairs of Warwick. He was elected as an alderman of the Town Council in 1886 and remained on the Council until 1903 serving as mayor in 1895 and 1902. He was an active member of the Warwick Coursing Club and the Hibernian Society. Allman's active involvement in matters of Warwick progress resulted in the establishment of the Warwick Butter Factory, which he at least partially funded and he was also involved with the Warwick Hospital. He had five children from two marriages.
Jeremiah Allman acquired the property on which was later built the National Hotel in Grafton Street in 1897, after the death of the previous owner, Bishop Edward Wyndham Tufnell in 1893. Jeremiah leased the property to his son, Daniel Francis Allman on 5 March 1907. In February of that year the younger Allman applied to the Warwick Licensing Court for hotel premises to be erected opposite the railway station gates, corner of Grafton and Lyon Streets...The plans provided for a two-storey building with 16 bedrooms and handsome fronts to two streets.
The architects commissioned to design this hotel were James Marks and Son who were partnership formed by the prolific Toowoomba architect James Marks and his elder son, Harry. James Marks undertook many substantial building projects in Toowoomba, including the St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral and St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, along with many hotels including the Imperial Hotel in Ruthven Street, the Globe Hotel also in Ruthven Street. Marks and Son also designed many regional hotels and churches on the Darling Downs.
The hotel designed for Daniel Allman by Marks and Son and opened by early 1908 was a two storeyed masonry building, constructed by local contractor Daniel Connolly, who later joined in partnership with Conrad Dornbusch forming Dornbusch and Connolly, a prominent architectural firm of Warwick. Donnolly's tender price of £3960 was accepted in April 1907 and one of the conditions by which a license was granted to Allman by the Warwick Licensing Court for the construction of the hotel was that it would be finished within 6 months from the hearing in April of 1907.
On the death of Jeremiah Allman in September 1910, the National Hotel property was transferred to Daniel Allman and his brother John Michael Allman as tenants in common. In 1918 John Allman transferred his share in the hotel to a John Playford, who is listed as a Warwick farmer in previous Post Office Directories. On the death of Daniel Allman in July 1936 the property was transferred to his widow, Maria Allman. The property was then acquired by Queensland Brewery Ltd.
Minor changes were undertaken to the National Hotel in 1937. These were designed by Addison & Macdonald, an architectural partnership from Brisbane renowned for their work modernising many early hotels in south east Queensland during the inter-war period. A small addition was added to the underside of the verandah to the north of the ground level, housing an ironing and linen room.
The public bar has been internally re-arranged with a new bar which extends into the room less than the original but is of the same shape.
","criteria":"The National Hotel, a substantial masonry building, provides evidence of the growth of Warwick during the early years of this century.
|The hotel is a good example of a substantially intact hotel of the early twentieth century in Queensland, and contributes to the nearby railway precinct.
|The hotel is a good example of a substantially intact hotel of the early twentieth century in Queensland, and contributes to the nearby railway precinct.
|The building is associated with the prominent architectural firm based in Toowoomba, Marks and Sons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15726,"place_ref":600951,"name":"Residence (former)","alternate_name":"50 Guy Street | Latter Day Saints Chapel | Church of the Latter Day, Warwick","street_address":"50 Guy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former residence at 50 Guy Street is a one storeyed timber building with simple rectangular plan and encircled by verandahs on three sides. The building, which is slightly elevated from the ground level on short timber posts, is timber framed and clad externally with horizontal chamfered timber boards. The hipped roof of the building is clad with sheets of corrugated iron. The verandahs, on the principal facade to the east and on the northern and southern facades of the building have a bull nose curved corrugated iron awning supported on paired timber columns with decorative cast iron brackets. The verandahs are lined with cast iron balustrading.
Centrally located on the symmetrically arranged eastern facade of the building is the entrance door which is emphasised with a gable projecting from the main roof and projecting above the verandah line of the building. The gable features a triangular pediment supported on paired timber posts, projecting forward from those supporting the verandah, and these are infilled below the pediment to the level of the verandah line with timber fretwork panels. The principal entrance, a four panelled unpainted timber door, with the upper panels removed and glazed substituted for the panelling.
Internally the former residence is planned around a central hall from the front door which terminates at a rear deck on the western side of the building. All the major rooms of the building are accessed on either side of this hallway, which features a silky oak round headed archway about mid way along its length. The four panelled timber doors providing access to the internal rooms from the hallway have transom openings above, infilled with timber fretwork panels.
","history":"The residence situated at 50 Guy Street, Warwick was constructed for Vodeville Francis Doujère, a local merchant.
Warwick was established as an administrative centre of the emerging Darling Downs regions in 1847, with a post office being established in the town in 1848. This year saw the first survey work of the embryonic town completed by surveyor, JC Bennett, with further surveys in 1850, and the first sale of crown land in July 1850. On May 25, 1861, Warwick was granted the status of a municipality, and discussions soon after for the introduction of the railway which was in elementary stages of planning in Queensland.
The property, being 1 rood 35 perches, on which the house was constructed was acquired by Deed of Grant by William Tidman of Ipswich in September 1860, and transferred the following year to Henry Clinton of Main Range, and then to Arnold Weinholt of Maryvale in June 1862. Elizabeth Bridget Dourjère, a widow, acquired the property in July 1880 and on her death on 26 August 1882 the property was left to Vodeville Dourjère and Diamantina Dourjère.
The Warwick rate books for this period indicate that a house, valued at £35 was indeed on the property from 1888. These books show that Vodeville Dourjère who is variously described as a draper, grocer and storeman both dwelt in and owned the property from 1891, when its value increased from £35 to £150. This sudden rise in value seems to indicate that a house may have been constructed in this year.
William Kennedy Hyslop acquired the property at 50 Guy Street in May 1903 and retained it until November 1929 when the property was transferred to his wife, Mary Maria Hyslop. 50 Guy Street passed from the Hyslop family in February 1940 after the death of Mary Hyslop, when it was transferred to Alice May Charles. It changed hands many times and then, in 1985, was purchased by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. To accommodate the auditorium of the church in the residence internal walls were removed to turn three rooms on the north of the central hallway into a small auditorium.
","criteria":"The residence at 50 Guy Street demonstrates the growth of Warwick at about the turn of the century, and also, more recently, the spread of American Christian religions to regional areas of Queensland.
|The house is a well-composed Victorian timber building which contributes to the Guy Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15727,"place_ref":600952,"name":"St George's Masonic Centre","alternate_name":"St Georges Masonic Centre | Warwick Masonic Centre | Cunningham No. 90 Lodge","street_address":"50A Guy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Masonic Centre is a monumental double-storeyed sandstone building with a classical facade, and a corrugated iron hipped roof. The building assumes considerable prominence on the street, where its neighbours are single-storeyed detached buildings. The building has a simple rectangular plan running east-west, with a 1963 rendered blockwork annex to the rear. It contains a hall with an entry vestibule on each level: the upper level hall is richly appointed to cater to masonic ceremonial meetings, while the relatively spartan ground floor hall is used for more casual gatherings.
Externally, the rough hewn sandstone walls to the side and rear of the building contrast strongly with the finely carved symmetrical parapeted front facade. This facade has paired doric columns, flanked by one and a half squared pilasters. The columns are spanned by a large pediment inlaid with the compass and square symbol, resting on an entablature inlaid with other masonic and hebrew symbols. The columns and pilasters rest on a high plinth, and frame an arched doorway surmounted by a pediment and three arched windows.
The building, entered via central timber double doors opens into the ground floor entry vestibule. The entry vestibule has a dressing/store room to its right, and contains a fine set of carved cedar stairs with cupboards underneath. Another set of timber double doors open into the ground floor hall which has painted rough-hewn sandstone walls, timber boarded ceilings and a polished hardwood floor. The floor of the upper level hall is supported by two round timber columns and beams with decorative casings. The room is lit with timber sash windows with deep splayed dark timber reveals, and contains numerous lodge-related photos and prints.
The upper floor vestibule contains two banks of timber cupboards used for storage of robes, under a more recently added mezzanine. The timber boarded ceiling is decorated with two fine carved timber rosettes. The western wall has three arched diamond-glazed windows with stained glass borders and inset with masonic symbols.
The ceremonial hall is an impressive room with rich decoration and furnishings. The walls are embellished with fluted pilasters framing diamond glazed arched windows with stained glass edging. The pilasters are spanned by a substantial plaster architrave. A deep coved cornice rises to a timber boarded ceiling which has three intricate roses. The floor, which is stepped around its perimeter, is covered with red carpet, and has a black and white linoleum centrepiece in "masonic pavement" pattern.
The hall is laid out according to masonic practice with the Grand Master located to the east, the Senior Warden the west, the Junior Warden the south and the secretary to the north. The Grand Master's seat is framed with a carved timber aedicule with a curved pediment. All office bearers have timber "thrones" with triangular backs inlaid with the "jewels" or symbols of their office. These chairs are draped with collars also bearing the "jewels of office". A velvet upholstered bible pedestal sits in the middle of the room, with a triangular timber encased 'G' suspended from the ceiling above it. A polished brass rostrum bearing memorial plaques is located to the south east of the Bible pedestal. Other furniture in the room inscribed with masonic symbols includes four small timber cube-shaped tables, a velvet upholstered timber kneeling stool, a small timber lift-top desk, and three timber ionic, doric and corinthian half-columns which relate to the three key office bearers. The room contains numerous photos and certificates, and a carved timber and marble honour roll on the northern wall.
","history":"St Georges Masonic Centre is a double-storeyed sandstone building, the foundation stone of which was laid in November 1886. The building, which was opened in October 1887, was designed by Warwick architect William Wallace, who was also one of the trustees for the Masonic Lodge at this period. Wallace became the Mayor of Warwick in 1899. The centre was built on approximately half an acre of land, one block west of the main business centre of Warwick.
The site was granted to John Bennett in 1860, and had a succession of owners until it was acquired by Charles Baker in June 1885. In November 1885 the property was taken over by the trustees for the Masonic Lodge.
Both the laying of the foundation stone and the opening of the centre were elaborate occasions. The laying of the foundation stone was accompanied by full masonic ceremonials, including a procession of the "brethren of the mystic tie" through town to the site of the new hall. A scroll, the current coins of the realm and copies of the local newspapers were deposited in the cavity of the stone, before it was lowered into position. Both the laying of the foundation stone and the opening of the hall were celebrated with a ball.
At the time of its opening the centre was described as "... the addition of another public building, [to Warwick] surpassing all the others for magnificence...". The hall was notable for a number of features, including the patent springs under the ball room floor which had been manufactured specially for this purpose and were the first to be used in Warwick. The foundations of the masonic centre were composed of sand, and with the exception of the Warwick Town Hall [600961], this was the only building in Warwick at the time having sand foundations. The building was constructed of sandstone, and together with buildings such as the Court House [600949], Town Hall, Post Office [600963], Railway Goods Shed [600955] and various churches are among a group of important sandstone buildings constructed in Warwick in the late nineteenth century.
Ownership of the land was transferred to The Trustees of the St George's Lodge No. 20 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Queensland in 1959.
","criteria":"The building is a rare example of a sandstone masonic temple in Queensland and demonstrates the principal characteristics of both a substantial masonic temple in Queensland and a late nineteenth century sandstone public building in Warwick.
The building exhibits aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular; it contributes to the streetscape as a prominent monumental building and contains well-crafted elements, notably the furniture in the ceremonial hall, the stairs, the window reveals and plasterwork.
As a place which has been in continuous use as a Masonic Centre since 1887, the configuration of furniture and fittings in the upper hall has a strong association with masonic ceremonies and the masonic lodge.
|The building is a rare example of a sandstone masonic temple in Queensland and demonstrates the principal characteristics of both a substantial masonic temple in Queensland and a late nineteenth century sandstone public building in Warwick.
|The building is a rare example of a sandstone masonic temple in Queensland and demonstrates the principal characteristics of both a substantial masonic temple in Queensland and a late nineteenth century sandstone public building in Warwick.
|The building exhibits aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular; it contributes to the streetscape as a prominent monumental building and contains well-crafted elements, notably the furniture in the ceremonial hall, the stairs, the window reveals and plasterwork.
|As a place which has been in continuous use as a Masonic Centre since 1887, the configuration of furniture and fittings in the upper hall has a strong association with masonic ceremonies and the masonic lodge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15728,"place_ref":600953,"name":"Cloisters","alternate_name":"Sophia College | Our Lady of Assumption Convent | Assumption College | Abbey Boutique Hotel","street_address":"8 Locke Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Cloisters is a substantial two storeyed sandstone building prominently located on Locke Street, Warwick. The building consists of a central entrance bay running east-west, flanked by transverse wings which extend to the south forming a three sided courtyard at the rear of the building. Two storeyed verandahs are found on all elevations except the principal entrance facade.
The building is constructed of sandstone from Mitchell's Quarry, and is generally coursed ashlar on the northern entrance facade, and coursed rock faced on the other elevations. All stone detailing, including tracery and window surrounds, mouldings, carvings, copings, chimneys is of smooth faced sandstone.
The corrugated iron roof is generally hipped, and gabled over the transverse wings. Three dormer windows project through the roof on the northern and southern faces of the central wing of the building.
The entrance facade, addressing Locke Street, consists of the central bay, the gabled ends of the transverse wings, a prominent entrance porch and the bell tower, attached to the building at the intersection of the central bay and the eastern, chapel, wing. The entrance porch, located, not centrally, but slightly closer to the east of the building, is a pointed arched opening flanked by gabled pinnacles and all surmounted by a pedimented block, in which is a statue niche.
The octagonal sandstone and timber tower, to the east of the entrance porch, extends through two levels of the building and is surmounted by a belfry. Openings to the ground floor level of the tower are elongated rectangular windows filled with stained glass, and to the upper level are triangular headed windows, with similarly shaped hood mouldings joined at the intersections of the faces of the tower. The first floor of the tower is expressed with a string course, above which is a moulded course which is repeated above the first floor windows. A battlemented edge coping surrounds the top of the sandstone section of the tower. Surmounting this, is a timber extension recessed from the edge of the sandstone section and with timber louvred trefoil lancet openings. The tower is roofed with a lead sheeted onion dome, with expressed ribs and surmounted by a Latin cross made from metal.
The gabled eastern end of the entrance facade, projects past the adjacent tower only at the ground floor level. This projection has a central pedimented bay in which there is a statue niche. Flanking this are paired lancet windows of stained glass, and on the outside edges of the wing is angle buttressing. The projecting section has a parapet detail of trefoil arches between sandstone string courses, concealing a hipped roof. The first floor of this elevation of the wing features a tripartite lancet tapering window arrangement, above which is a smaller lancet opening. The apex of the gable, which has a moulded coping stepped at the gable corners, is surmounted by a carved sandstone Latin cross.
The western end of this southern facade, is similar, but considerably less decorative than the eastern, chapel, wing. A centrally located bay window, with similar parapet detailing to that on the projecting section of the eastern wing, is found on the first floor. This bay window is rectangular in plan, with three glazed openings, a wider central four panel sash, flanked by sidelights. These openings have corresponding transom lights. The first floor tripartite window arrangement and high level lancet, as well as the gable edge detailing, found on the eastern wing of the building, are also featured on this western gabled section.
The double storeyed verandah, which dominates the western facade of the building, is of stone construction on the ground floor and timber construction above. Vermiculated stone columns have carved Greek Cross motifs in their capitals. Stone balustrading, with a trefoil arched cutout detail infills the southern return of the verandah, and cast iron balustrading and timber lattice infill panels are used elsewhere. The first floor verandah is infilled with fibrous cement sheeting to balustrade level, above which are side opening arctic glass casement windows in bays of six.
The rear of the building, to the north, comprises a three sided courtyard bound by the transverse wings and the rear of the central bay, all dominated by two storeyed verandahs. The rear of the central bay features a hipped roofed octagonal section, expressing the internal principal stair. The verandahs to this section are stone on the ground level and timber above, where all other verandahs, some of which have been infilled with fibrous cement sheeting and glazing, are timber framed. The gabled elevations of the transverse wings are stone and have tripartite lancet windows, and similar gable edge detailing to that found on the front of the building.
The eastern elevation of the building, again dominated by two storeyed verandahs, has a centrally located projecting gabled bay, expressing an internal stair hall. Two pointed arched windows are found on the first floor of this and a door opening on ground level, covered by a recent walkway into adjacent schoolgrounds. To the northern (rear) of this bay the verandahs are timber framed with simple turned balusters, stop chamfered columns and fretwork brackets and infill mouldings. To the south of the central bay the verandah is stone on the ground level and timber above. The verandah fascia, at first floor level, is lined with a decorative timber panel with trefoil arched cutouts.
Internally, the building is arranged around a central corridor running east west through both levels of the building from which smaller rooms are accessed, with major rooms in the transverse wings. Generally, the lower floor has plastered ceilings and walls, and the upper floor has beaded timber board ceilings and walls. To the rear of the chapel, in the eastern wing, the 1914 addition is generally of timber internally.
The principal entrance, through the porch on the southern facade, features a double ten panelled and moulded high quality timber door, through which the entrance vestibule, in the porch is reached. This small area features two elaborate stained glass windows of grisaille glass where the panels are entirely of ornament, in trefoil arched openings, and a diagonally boarded stained timber raked ceiling. Through a pointed arched opening is an entrance hall with ribbed cedar wainscotting. Two elaborate timber doorways, with moulded architraves surmounted by entablatures, have four panelled doors with transom lights above, and access former reception and music rooms. These front rooms have two vertical sash windows each, with stained glass transom lights above.
Separating the entrance hall from the central corridor is a fine cedar screen, with three tiers of trefoil arched openings, some of which are glazed with embossed glass panels. Beyond the screen and separated from the corridor by a round plaster arch, supported on Norman-inspired corbels, is the principal half turn closed well stair of cedar, with a large carved newel post and turned blasters. The underside of the stair is lined with coffered cedar panels. A stained glass staircase window, of two vertical panels and a transom light, provides natural lighting. Two pointed arched openings in the corridor, flanking the stair, separate this principal entrance area from the remainder of the ground floor.
The chapel, which is at the eastern end of the corridor, is entered through a stained timber door with trefoil arched cutouts, surmounted by a triangular arched transom light. The chapel comprises two identifiable sections, the southern end being the original chapel, and the northern end a later addition; these are separated by a round arched opening in a central wall. The coffered timber ceiling, of the southern end, rakes toward the long sides of the room, to timber brackets which are supported on Norman-inspired corbels. A perforated timber frieze, just below the timber ceiling allows ventilation. On the southern wall of the room, adjacent to where a raised platform indicates the chancel area, are four fine stained glass window panels, in trefoil arched openings, depicting the four Evangelists and from the Royal Bavarian Art Institute for Stained Glass. The eastern wall of the front section of the cheap features large pointed arched window openings, with grisaille stained glass panels. The more rudimentary rear section of the chapel has a timber fireplace, a walk through sash window and french door with transom light opening to the adjacent verandah. To the north of the chapel, and separated by a stair hall, is the 1914 addition, which comprises large rooms with Wunderlich pressed metal ceilings featuring fleur-di-lis and Greek cross motifs and rendered walls with dado and picture rails impressed in the plaster.
On the western end of the central corridor of the ground floor, through a cedar doorway with transom and sidelights, originally to the exterior, is another half turn cedar stair. Two large rooms beyond this, with timber boarded ceilings and vertical sash windows, have been recently joined with a six leaf folding door. There is s generous bay window in the southern wall of this space. To the north of the ground floor are ancillary spaces, housed both in the rear of the western wing and in enclosed verandah spaces of the central bay.
The first floor of the former convent is, again, arranged around a central corridor, with timber boarded ceiling, running through the central bay terminated by large rooms in the flanking wings. Housed in the central bay, and accessed from the corridor, are many former bedroom cells, the northern ones of which access the rear verandah.
Above the chapel, in the eastern wing of the first floor, is another former dormitory, which features a vaulted timber ceiling, with moulded cedar ribs and purlins, and panels of stained pine boarding. The ribs are supported on Norman-inspired corbels. Half glazed french doors open from this room to the adjacent verandah. A transverse wall has divided the room, which was formerly the largest in the 1893 section of the convent, into two smaller spaces.
The western wing of the first floor of the building houses a very large, former dormitory space, with a lengthwise running timber boarded ceiling, flanked by generous coves formed by slender timber slats also running lengthwise. This ceiling features early paintwork, generally salmon pink and aqua on the coves.
The 1914 south eastern wing comprises a central corridor, off which many small former cells are accessed. Again, details in this section of the building; including the Wunderlich ceiling, joinery and glazing reflect the later date of its construction.
Two stairways from the first floor of the convent, provide access to the attic space, in the ceiling of the convent. This room, which was formerly used as a dormitory, has horizontal timber boarded walls, which are raked towards the ceilings and punctuated by six dormer windows.
The grounds in which the convent sits, contain many features which add to the amenity of the building, including the circular front walkway with central statue; the rose gardens to the east of this and the grotto.
","history":"Cloisters, formerly Our Lady of the Assumption Convent was built in 1892-3 as the second convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Warwick. Additions in 1904 completed the original plans of Brisbane architects, Simkin and Ibler.
The township of Warwick was declared a municipality in 1861, and prior to this was a developed centre of Darling Downs agriculture with the first land sales in 1850, and the establishment of the Horse and Jockey Inn in December 1848. In 1854 Roman Catholic services, like many other religious and social gatherings held in Warwick, began in the Horse and Jockey Inn. Father McGinty, one of only two Catholic priests in Queensland, travelled from Ipswich to celebrate mass. In 1862, Warwick became a separate parish of the church and Dr John Cani was appointed as the parish priest.
An order of the Sisters of Mercy was founded in Warwick on October 29, 1874, thirteen years after the Sisters first arrived in Queensland, from Ireland with Bishop Quinn. The Warwick community was the fifth branch house that the Sisters of Mercy established in Queensland, from the mother house at All Hallows' in Brisbane. The Sisters acquired their first convent in a brick cottage at the corner of Albion and Percy Streets, Warwick, and immediately took over the running of the catholic school, operated by the Missus O'Mara since 1867.
The Sisters remained in the cottage for nineteen years when, after many years of planning, their new convent was ready for occupation in 1893. The site, on Locke Street, was chosen by Bishop Quinn and purchased by the Sisters on August 27, 1877 from Edward Collins, who acquired the original Deed of Grant on February 1, 1854.
Several plans were submitted for consideration and those of Brisbane architects, Simkin and Ibler were chosen. When tenders were obtained for these plans: a two storeyed sandstone building consisting of a central bay flanked by transverse wings, it was too expensive to build, and, rather than alter the plan, the central bay and eastern, chapel wing were constructed with provision allowed for completion at a later date. The early drawing of the convent shows the building as a mirror image of how it now stands, which the chapel wings and tower to the left of the entrance porch rather than to the right.
In the early 1890s, Simkin and Ibler were responsible for the design of several other buildings constructed for the Catholic Church in Queensland, notably Darra, a residence on Ann Street opposite All Hallows' Convent, for Bishop Quinn, who died before its completion in 1891; St Stephen's Girl's School in Charlotte Street, Brisbane (1892); and St Mary's Church on Peel Street, South Brisbane (1892-3). George Simkin and John Ibler, who comprised the partnership, practised together from 1889 until 1894 and many of their buildings are notable examples of Victorian eclecticism and flamboyance.
The foundation stone of the convent was laid in August , 1891 by Archbishop Dunne, who also performed the opening ceremony two years later on March 11, 1893. These occasions were gala events in Warwick, and much of the cost of the building was defrayed by subscriptions raised at the ceremonies.
The building was described as a magnificent edifice...commanding a beautiful view of the town and district. A timber kitchen wing, which was replaced by a 1914 wing, was constructed to the south east of the building which comprised the kitchen, a boarder's refectory, laundry and servant's rooms. Water tanks were provided near the laundry and also above the attic, in the space between the ceiling and the roof of the convent.
The building contract was undertaken by Mr Alexander Mayes of Toowoomba, at a cost of £4500. The stonework was sub contracted to John McCulloch of Warwick, and the painting and decorating work was undertaken by Mr P Cameron of Fitzroy Street, Warwick.
The second stage, being the western wing of the building was constructed by E. Valley, in 1904 at a cost of £3215. This saw the completion of the original plan, with reception rooms on the ground floor and a large dormitory space above.
In 1914 an extension of the western wing was added to designs of local architects, Dornbusch and Connolly, who designed the second St Mary's Church in Warwick (1929). Tenders for this work were called in December 1912. The painting and decorating was by Mr Donald Crawford in this extension. Sandstone used for this extension was from Campbell's Gully. This work was undertaken to meet the newly introduced State High School provisions (1912), which required extra subjects and, therefore, extra rooms, to allow the students to graduate. It is thought that dormer windows were added to the roof of the building, providing natural lighting to the attic at about this time.
During the Second World War, boarders from All Hallows' Convent in Brisbane were transferred to the convent in Warwick, which required the closing in of the western verandah.
The Sisters of Mercy withdrew from Warwick in 1988, when lay catholics in the town retained Assumption College as a campus for tertiary education. The convent was re-named 'Sophia', a Greek word for wisdom, and opened on February 17, 1989.
The building was sold in 1994 and has become a reception centre. This required the addition of a toilet block to the west of the building, and a substantial internal renovation.
","criteria":"The former Our Lady of Assumption Convent demonstrates the pattern of growth of Warwick as a large centre of development on the Darling Downs; and the pattern of growth of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland.
|The building houses some very fine and rare stained glass panels, from the Royal Bavarian Art Institute of Stained Glass in Munich.
|The building is a good example of ecclesiastical Victorian architecture, influenced by the revival of interest in Gothic architecture during this period and adapted to the sub-tropical Queensland climate. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Sisters of Mercy convents, in its layout, finishes and features.
|The former convent has considerable aesthetic value, as a well composed substantial sandstone building, with fine detailing, including sandstone carvings and tracery; stained glass panels; and internal joinery, particularly the timber ceilings.
|Cloisters has a strong association with the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland and the Catholic community of Warwick.
|The building is significant as the home of one of the many branch houses of All Hallows' Convent, from where many of the state's early educational and social programmes were established.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15729,"place_ref":600954,"name":"St James' Hall, Warwick","alternate_name":"Assembly Hall","street_address":"6 Locke Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-08-21","description":"St James’ Hall, Warwick (1917, relocated 1987) occupies a level site within the grounds of Assumption College, approximately 1km south of the central business district in Warwick. Relocated from its original position on the adjacent allotment (Cloisters (Our Lady of the Assumption Convent) [QHR 600953]) and accessed from Lock Street to the north, the place stands at the western edge of the school grounds, southeast of the main school buildings and adjacent to the sports fields.
\nFeatures of state-level significance at the place include:
\nHall (1917, relocated 1987)
\nThe Hall is a rectangular timber building, set on low stumps, with its long sides facing east and west. It has a gable roof that wraps at its lower sections around the front (north) of the building to form hip-roofed awnings. The awnings frame a central gable-roofed entrance porch, which is accessed from its front (northern) side (balustrade has been altered - formerly accessed from its western side). A narrow hip-roofed projection extends from the rear (south) elevation and features a decorative gablet. No visible evidence remains of gabled roof vents.
\nThe interior comprises a large rectangular auditorium, separated by a full-height timber partition from a southern storage room (forming the southern projection). The auditorium has a low stage at the south end and a coved ceiling with metal tie-rods (the coved ceiling and tie rods are concealed by a removable suspended ceiling). Its walls feature a moulded timber dado and picture rails.
\nFeatures of the Hall of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of St James’ Hall not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSt James’ Hall, Warwick, was built in 1917 to the design of architects Dornbusch and Connolly for the Sisters of Mercy. The hall was named for Archbishop Duhig who opened the building in October 1917. Constructed as a recreation hall to provide music education and performance space for Warwick’s Convent High School, run by the Sisters, the hall was used by the school students and teachers for classes and public performances throughout the 20th century. Moved to its current site in 1987, the hall remains part of Assumption College, Warwick.
\nThe land around what is now Warwick has been occupied for thousands of years by speakers of the Bundjalung language group. Traditionally home of the Githabul People[1] the open country was carefully and deliberately maintained by its Aboriginal custodians in an annual pattern of controlled burns to preserve pasture for native grazing animals. European occupation of the Darling Downs by graziers and pastoralists began in 1840. The town of Warwick was surveyed by James Burnett in 1849, with the first sale of crown land in July 1850. Warwick was declared a municipality (Queensland’s fifth) in 1861 and grew from a squatters' town into the principal urban centre of the prosperous southern Darling Downs’ pastoral and agricultural district.[2]
\nEarly Catholic services began in Warwick at the Horse and Jockey Inn in 1852 with Father McGinty, one of only two Catholic priests in Queensland, travelling from Ipswich to celebrate mass. McGinty continued to serve the parish from Ipswich until 1862, when Warwick became a large separate parish within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brisbane. Dr John Cani, later first bishop of Rockhampton, was the first permanent parish priest in Warwick and during his posting the first St Mary’s Church [QHR 600958] was constructed, opening in 1865. A Catholic school, run by the Misses O’Mara in the Albion Street Oddfellows’ Hall, followed in 1867.[3]
\nThe railway linking Brisbane to the tin mines of Stanthorpe reached Warwick in January 1871, fuelling further development in Warwick. As the population grew, an order of the Sisters of Mercy was founded in the town on 29 October 1874. The order had arrived in Queensland from Ireland thirteen years earlier with Brisbane’s first Bishop James Quinn (1861-1881). The Warwick community was the fifth branch house that the Sisters of Mercy established in Queensland, from the mother house at All Hallows' in Brisbane (QHR 600200). For their first Warwick convent, the Sisters acquired a brick cottage at the corner of Albion and Percy streets, and immediately took over the running of the Catholic school.[4]
\nThe Sisters of Mercy, founded in Ireland by Catherine McAuley in 1831, was principally a teaching order. The establishment of religious schools in the Queensland colony was considered crucial to instil and strengthen faith in the community where religion was secondary to money-making.[5] By 1892, the Sisters were educating 7,000 students at 26 schools across Queensland, including secondary schools for girls in Brisbane and Rockhampton.
\nThe quality of education offered by the Sisters was high, including a comprehensive curriculum with specialist teachers in music and domestic science decades before these were introduced at state schools. It was also broad-ranging, providing education to young women before the concept of formal academic education for girls had become part of Australia’s educational system, and ecumenical, open to non-Catholic and Catholic students. Members of all religious denominations from regional centres across Queensland and northern New South Wales sought education at the Sisters’ schools. The number of non-Catholic enrolments exceeded that of the Catholic enrolments until the 1880s and remained equal to them until the turn of the century.[6]
\nAt Warwick, class sizes quickly increased beyond the building’s capacity, and in 1882, the school moved from the Oddfellows’ Hall to St Mary’s Church in Palmerin Street. The Sisters remained housed in the cottage until 1893 when after many years of planning, a new convent was ready for occupation. The site, a 14½ acre block on Locke Street, was chosen by Bishop Quinn and purchased by the Sisters in 1877. An imposing two storeyed sandstone convent, designed by architects George Simkin and John Ibler, was constructed on the site and opened in 1893 [QHR 600953]. The new convent included accommodation for 30 school boarders as well as the sisters, and helped give rise to the name ‘St Mary’s Convent School’ or ‘the Convent School’. A western wing, part of the original plan, was constructed in 1904.[7]
\nExtensive reforms in Queensland’s educational system in the early 20th century impacted on both Warwick and the Convent School. Although primary education and been made free and compulsory from 1875, Queenslanders had limited access to secondary or tertiary education before 1900. Secondary education was provided through a small number of grammar schools, denominational schools or private high schools; all charged fees, with only a limited number of state scholarships available to the grammar schools. From 1900, students who passed the scholarship examination could take up their secondary education at schools approved by the Governor-in-Council, which included private and denominational schools. In 1912, state high schools were introduced to Queensland. Though initially opened in small numbers, these schools vastly expanded Queenslanders’ access to secondary education and provided a pathway to the recently introduced University of Queensland, teachers’ training college or technical schools.[8]
\nWarwick was considered an ideal location for educational institutions, thanks to its climate (believed to be conducive to studying), ‘congenial surroundings’ and railway service.[9] From 1910 a number of state, private, boarding and day schools offering primary and secondary education opened at Warwick, including: the Warwick Technical College (1910; and High School 1914 [QHR 6500562]); St Joseph’s Christian Brothers College for boys (1912); Church of England Girls School (1917); Presbyterian Girls’ College (1918); Scots College (1919) and the Slade School (1926).[10]
\nWarwick’s Catholic residents, who comprised almost a third of the city’s population by 1911, also felt the need for their students to compete for any available scholarships. In 1912, Sister M Vincent Donovan began a room in the Convent School dedicated to secondary classes. At the same time, a number of male students were transferred to the newly-opened Christian Brothers’ College, allowing the Sisters to focus largely on educating girls.[11]
\nIn 1914 an extension of the convent’s western wing was added to designs by local architectural firm, Dornbusch and Connolly. This extension was undertaken in response to the newly introduced State High School provisions, which required additional subjects to be taught at the convent for students’ eligibility to graduate at junior and senior levels. The new extension furnished the convent with extra classrooms and space for boarders’ accommodation. Female secondary school students were relocated from St Mary’s primary school in 1915, marking the beginning of the Convent High School.[12]
\nWhile the new extensions facilitated secondary teaching, there was insufficient space within the convent building to assemble students in one space. Additionally, Warwick’s Sisters of Mercy had a particular and long-standing focus on teaching vocal and instrumental music and a suitable space for classes and concerts was also required. Convent school students were renowned for their ability in musical performance from the early 20th century, earning honours in music examinations and winning local and State competitions,[13] including the Queensland Eisteddfod piano competition in 1911, and the school choirs competition in April 1917.[14] Archbishop Duhig, attending a concert at the school in December 1916,
\n'mentioned that he had hardly ever listened to a finer concert than the one he had heard that evening. He congratulated the pupils upon their prowess, which was so largely the result of the excellent education given by the Sisters of Mercy, and which brought the children so closely in contact with those refining influences which make for so much in modern education.’[15]
\nThe Warwick Examiner and Times lamented, however, ‘that the concert room was not more spacious so that full justice could be done to the real excellence of the performances, and also add to the comfort of the audience’.[16]
\nIn 1917, the Sisters again engaged the services of Dornbusch and Connolly to design a large timber hall adjacent to the High School wing to accommodate their needs. Architect Conrad Dornbusch (1867-1949) had trained in England, and by 1887 was employed in the Brisbane office of the architects Oakden, Addison and Kemp. He was practicing as an architect in Warwick by 1891. He was elected an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1893, and a Fellow in 1913. He was an Alderman of the Warwick Municipal Council in 1901. In 1910 he entered into a partnership with Queensland-trained architect Daniel Connolly, with their offices located opposite the Town Hall. Dornbusch and Connolly worked on a number of prominent Warwick buildings, including the Christian Brothers’ School; the Mitchner shelter shed at the Warwick General Cemetery [QHR602152]; the Johnsons Building [QHR600960] adjacent to the Town Hall; the Langham [QHR600957] and Criterion [QHR600962] hotels on Palmerin Street; and the 1926 St Mary’s Church [QHR600959]. The partnership also designed the rest house at the Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial [QHR601632].[17]
\nDornbusch and Connolly received tenders for the Convent’s ‘recreation hall’ in February 1917. The contractor for the hall was Phillip Thornton and the painting was undertaken by John Ambrose Lefrancke. The building was officially opened on Monday 22 October by Archbishop James Duhig, and named St James’ Hall in his honour.[18] Some 500 people were in attendance and a fundraising concert was performed by students. The building of the hall had coincided with a push within the Warwick parish for a new church to replace St Mary’s, and the concert was the first public appeal for funds by the Sisters.[19]
\nSt James’ Hall was described in the Warwick Examiner and Times shortly after its opening. The building was 69ft x 40ft (21m x 12m), with a 40ft x 15ft (12m x 4.5m) stage. Behind the stage were two small teaching rooms (21ft x 10ft and 17 x 10ft) (6.4m x 3m and 5m x 3m). The main hall featured a 20ft (6m) high coved ceiling with pressed metal panels; fixed seating around the walls; four double hung outward-opening escape doors with fanlights, and eight casement windows with fanlights, ‘opening outwards so as to catch any breeze that may be passing’. Gables in the roof were louvered, allowing warm air to escape. A porch provided the main entrance at the building’s eastern end. The roof – a single span with subsidiary roofs and gables – had a 4ft (1.2m) overhang to provide protection from sunlight. Inside, ornamental columns and panelling provided screening at both sides of the stage, flanking a heavy curtain. The description emphasised the hall’s acoustic properties (a test of which had ‘given every satisfaction to the Sisters’), decorative features, ventilation and heat reduction features.[20] Later articles exhorted the hall’s aesthetic qualities of soft curves, quiet beauty, desirable acoustic properties, splendid lighting, ‘modern’ ventilation, handsome stage and embellishments and tasteful artwork at the back of the stage.[21]
\nWith accommodation for music training and performance space at St James’ Hall, Convent High School students maintained their reputation for musical excellence into the mid-20th century. In 1921 a Convent student was the first to receive the Queensland-wide three-year travelling scholarship from Trinity College London.[22] All of the school’s students were trained for Trinity College London and University of Queensland music board examinations,[23] and a number of the Convent students received high-level musical qualifications from Trinity College while under the Sisters’ tuition.[24] Others used their musical education at the Convent as the basis for professional careers in music.[25]
\nSt James’ Hall also provided a useful function venue for the school. The convent’s annual end of year entertainments and awards presentations were held in the hall, as were public music lectures; fundraising concerts; music examinations for students of the Convent and other Warwick schools; and euchre tournaments and dances, hosted by past students. Public concerts were held for high-ranking religious figures, beginning with an entertainment for the Apostolic Delegate to Australia in 1918.[26]
\nIn February 1922, the Warwick Convent School was approved as a school at which holders of state scholarships could attend.[27] The Governor (Sir Matthew Nathan) attended a performance at the school; Archbishop Duhig encouraged the Warwick parish priest to ‘be sure and show him [the Governor] the new hall’ at the school.[28] The Governor returned in December to present prizes at the school’s end of year event, when ‘the beautiful and spacious hall was arranged like a drawing-room with comfortable easy chairs and large carpet square’.[29]
\nBy 1964 St James Hall had been renovated to include temporary high school accommodation. In 1969 Warwick Assumption College was built next to the convent to provide additional facilities for the Convent High School. Year 11 and 12 classes were discontinued at the Convent High School in 1975. In 1980 Assumption College became a co-educational Junior Secondary College, absorbing the boys from St Joseph’s Christian Brothers College.[30]
\nSt James’ Hall, also known as the Assembly Hall, was moved from its original site west of the convent in 1987 to the Assumption College grounds.[31] Some features of the hall were altered or lost, including the stage with decorative arch, side screens and curtain; interior fixed perimeter seating; external gabled roof vents (removed 1975-6); and crosses to the gable ends of the main roof. Additional windows have been inserted and the porch altered with the removal and insertion of balustrading.
\nThe Sisters of Mercy withdrew from Warwick in 1988, marking the end of the convent’s association with school teaching. Lay Catholics in the town retained the convent as a short-lived campus for tertiary education (Sophia College) before the building was sold in 1994 to private owners.[32]
\nWithin Assumption College, St James’ Hall is still maintained as a space for assembling students and for teaching subjects including music.
","criteria":"St James’ Hall, Warwick (1917, relocated 1987), through its form, fabric and architectural composition, is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland. The hall was built as a component of Our Lady of Assumption Convent following the establishment of the Convent High School by the Warwick Sisters of Mercy in 1914.
\nBuilt as a recreation hall for the school, with a focus on providing music education and holding performances, St James’ Hall is also important in demonstrating the development of secondary education and specialist education including music, as well as the role of religious groups in providing that education. As a hall purpose-built for music education and performance, it is important in demonstrating the Sisters of Mercy’s long and significant role in providing music education to students in the 19th and 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15730,"place_ref":600955,"name":"Warwick Railway Complex","alternate_name":"Warwick Railway Station","street_address":"Lyons Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"The Warwick Railway Station complex, bounded by Lyons, Hamilton, Fitzroy and Percy Streets, is located several blocks to the east of Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick. It consists of a series of buildings scattered about the many branch lines and sidings: the stone Station building faces west along Grafton Street, with the footbridge providing a connection where Grafton Street once continued; to the north of the station building is the stone Goods Shed, the timber Sale Yards, and the Turntable (601521); to the east, the cluster of Railway Institute Buildings, and the various quarters buildings fronting Hamilton Street; to the south is the former Barnes and Co. warehouse and the Wheat Shed fronting both Lyons Street and the railway lines; to the west is the driveway and garden; and to both the northern and southern ends of the block are concrete traffic underpasses below the railway lines.
Goods Shed
The Goods Shed is a single-storeyed sandstone building, situated to the north of the Station. A narrow linear building on a north-south axis, it measures some 70m (220ft) in length by 11m (36ft) in width. The gabled roof is of corrugated iron, with translucent skylight panels and a deep overhang on the western side protecting the loading bays. The stonework is of picked finish with draughted margins, laid as coursed ashlar. Added to the south of the building is a small timber office, and to the west is a recent steel canopy structure. Inside the building is a railway siding, with the remainder being a timber platform. The building is still in use as a goods shed.
The western side of the building is divided into bays by stone piers, with seven loading bay openings with arched heads scattered between. Beside these openings are timber bollards. The roof overhang is supported by curved timber brackets resting on stone corbels at the piers. The rafters, doubled at these brackets, have decorative fretted ends. There is an external timber platform at Doors 1 and 2, and at the northern end, and there is evidence there was previously one at Door 5. The east side of the building is also divided into bays by piers , with arch-headed fixed windows of eight panes at every second bay. The north and south ends have large battened gates giving entry to the internal siding, and lunette windows centred within the gable. Connected to the south end of the building is a timber office, with a posted verandah to its north and west sides, and a gabled corrugated iron roof. Enclosing this part of the complex is a perimeter fence of timber posts with a piece of upturned railway track as the rail.
The interior of the Goods Shed is substantially intact. The raised timber platform runs the full length, beside the internal siding. To the loading bay openings are substantial boarded and cross-braced sliding doors, and above are robust exposed timber roof trusses. Also within the building is the warehouse crane (by Dorman and Long) at Door 4, and the scales (by Henry Pooley and Sons) with checkers desk and cupboard. To the southwest corner are partitions enclosing a small office.
Passenger Station
The Passenger Station is also a single-storeyed sandstone building on a north-south axis, with the platform running along its eastern side. The western facade features an entrance portico and verandah. The roof is hipped and mainly of corrugated asbestos cement sheet, apart from the kitchen wing which is corrugated iron. Above the roof are two rendered chimneys with decorative mouldings and a cornice. There is a cantilevered steel awning over the platform, which continues past the Station building in both directions.
The rendered entrance portico has columns and pilasters of Tuscan order, mounted on pedestals. Above is a projecting cornice, then a simple parapet. To either side is a timber-framed verandah with a battened valance. The walls of the building are sandstone laid in ashlar coursing, with picked finish. The stones of the quoins and opening architraves project slightly and have draughted margins.
The station platform is of concrete, and still evident is the line of the former edge, before it was widened. The platform awning is of a common railway design with a butterfly roof reducing to a simple cantilever at the station, on a framing of narrow steel lattice girders.
The interior retains little of its original fabric, and has been largely remodelled. It presently houses offices, staff facilities, toilets and the entrance hall. The entrance hall still features the marble World War I honour board.
There are two outbuildings immediately to the south of the Station. The first is a small brick building, formerly a toilet block, with a hipped corrugated iron roof and roof ventilator. The second is a smaller timber building with a gabled roof. In front of the Station in the island formed by the driveway is a flower garden with shrubs and small trees.
Grafton Street Footbridge
The Footbridge spans across the railway lines from west to east connecting the two parts of Grafton Street. There are three central spans of some 17.5m (58ft), and approach sections at each end of some 7.5m (25ft). It is framed with steel lattice trusses, with timber decking and steps. The handrails are back-to-back steel angles, and together with the steel stringers, incorporate a curve down to the landing of the stair. There are steel T sections curved to form brackets supporting the balustrade. The balustrade is enclosed with panels of chain-wire framed in timber.
Sale Yards
The Sale Yards are a series of open pavilions with bush-timber posts, concrete floors, dressed timber roof framing and corrugated iron roofs. The roofs are a mixture of gabled, half-gabled and hipped forms, with fixed timber louvres infilling some of the gables. The yards contain a series of pens, framed in walls and gates of timber slats, with some of the walls being relocatable to vary the size of the pens. The gates have sliding timber slats used as catches. To the periphery are a series of uncovered pens and loading ramps for vehicles and the railway. The smaller pavilion to the east of the group contains an auction pit surrounded by timber bench seats. The yards are presently still in use weekly for pig and calf sales.
Hamilton Street Buildings
Along Hamilton Street to the east of the station, are the Railway Institute Buildings and a series of quarters buildings. At the eastern end of the footbridge is the Railways Institute Building which has corrugated iron walls and gabled roof, and a small timber lean-to addition. Beside this, is the Billiards Room also of corrugated iron, with trapezoid-shaped shutters. Also nearby are the corrugated iron Plant Store and another Store known as the Boxing Room (now housing model trains). This branch of the Railway Institute is still active.
To the south of the footbridge along Hamilton Street are the remaining quarters buildings. The first is the Single Men's Quarters, a timber building with a hipped corrugated iron roof, and a posted verandah to all four sides, onto which open several doorways. Connected to the rear is a timber addition housing amenities. Similar to other parts of the complex, it has a perimeter fence of timber posts and a piece of upturned railway track as the rail.
Next is the Inspectors quarters, a high-set timber house with front verandah returning to the southern side, which is apparently an standard elevated pyramidal gatekeepers cottage. At the corner is the Station Masters house, also of timber and corrugated iron, which has both open and enclosed verandahs. Between are more recent small fibrous cement cottages.
Subways
To the north and south of the site, on Fitzroy and Percy Streets, concrete subways have been constructed for the road traffic, with bridges for the railways, to replace the level crossings.
Turntable
The Turntable (601521) located in the northeastern corner of the complex, has been excavated and is being restored to working order. The present pit measures some 17.5m (58ft) in diameter, with evidence of the previous diameter of some 12m (40ft) remaining on the concrete base of the pit. The remaining original walls of the pit are of rendered stone, with the refurbished walls being in face stonework. The turntable itself turns on a single circular rail at the perimeter of the pit, and revolves about a central pivot. It is constructed of steel plate, with steel handrails to both sides, and is power-operated from a control point at one end
To the north of the turntable is the former site of the engine shed. Four of the concrete-lined ashpits have been excavated, leaving three still covered. Between the rail lines are timber stumps which are the remainders of the shed's structural posts. The position of these pits and stumps are evidence of the shed's size and curved form.
To the south of the turntable is an iron water tank on a timber stand, which has been brought in from elsewhere. Although lower in height, it is said to be reminiscent of the original tanks which once stood in this location. To the east of the turntable is a recent steel shed in which railway carriages are presently being restored.
","history":"The Warwick Railway Station is an amalgam of buildings dating from the mid 1880s, when this site became the principal railway station in Warwick. The buildings include a sandstone goods shed and passenger station, a turntable, various staff dwelling and recreational buildings, warehouses and a goods sale yard complex.
Warwick was established as an administrative centre of the emerging Darling Downs regions in 1847, with a post office being established in the town in 1848. This year saw the first survey work of the embryonic town completed by surveyor, JC Burnett, with further surveys in 1850, and the first sale of crown land in July 1850. On May 25, 1861, Warwick was granted the status of a municipality, and discussions were held soon after concerning the introduction of the railway which was in primary stages of planning in Queensland.
The first rail line in Queensland, between Bigge's Camp (later Grandchester) and Ipswich, opened in 1865, and it was always the intention of the early Queensland Government to extend the line to provide the pastoral land to the west of Ipswich with a rail link. The line extended to Toowoomba in 1867. A contract was let for the extension of the rail line from Toowoomba to Warwick in February 1866.
This contract was awarded to David Williams of Muswellbrook, New South Wales for £267,566. But with the financial problems of 1866 the first section of this extension, from Toowoomba to Allora was not opened until March 1869 and from there an extension to Warwick was completed for the grand opening attended by the Acting Governor on January 10, 1871.
One of the principal forces shaping the government's construction of the line from Toowoomba to Warwick was the minimising the cost involved, and hence, the cheapest possible route was chosen. This explains why the location of the first terminus at Warwick was chosen to the north of the town and thereby not requiring a bridge over the Condamine River. This initial terminus, known later as Mill Hill, was furnished with a stone goods' shed and timber station building, but was only a temporary facility as the location of the Warwick terminus was resited when plans for extension of the train line were realised.
The discovery of tin at Stanthorpe prompted the government to make surveys for extending the train line from Warwick to Stanthorpe in 1873. This extension made necessary the construction of a bridge across the Condamine River and therefore another railway station was established closer to the settlement although both stations continued for some time simultaneously. In 1885 this second station became the main terminal station at Warwick and has remains so to this day. It is this second Warwick Terminus which forms the basis of the present study. The extension of railway was opened on May 3, 1881 at which time a platform and closets were erected. A shelter shed was erected on the site in 1882.
The station was known as the East Warwick Railway Station until 1885. A plan was instigated in that year for the redevelopment of the newly deemed terminal station, which was fortunate as the former station buildings on the site were destroyed by fire on 10 August 1887 just as the redevelopment plan was nearing completion. This redevelopment was spurred by the planned extension of the line to the New South Wales border, agreed to by Parliament in August 1884. Warwick was planned as a major station on this route.
Tenders were called on June 22, 1886 for the construction of a passenger station and goods shed at the new Warwick terminal station. The contract for the goods shed was let to MT O'Brien for £2710 and for the passenger station to R Godsall and others for £5624. A 40 foot turntable was also planned for the Warwick Railway Station at this time. These were the second set of tenders called for the station buildings as the previous tenderers were all too high.
A report in the Warwick Examiner and Times published on October 12, 1887 describes the progress on the redevelopment plan of the site. Implicit in this report is the frustration felt by the local Warwick community over the lack of official commitment to the project, supposedly manifest in the 'passable appearance' of the passenger station, the prolonged time taken for the tendering process and the lack of funding available. This perceived lack of support was thought to reflect the Queensland Government's uncaring disposition toward Warwick at the time. The article does not mention an architect, but does say 'the architecture (of the passenger station) is not of a very elaborate character, and is said by connoisseurs not to be of a particular order, being a 'homologation' of various orders, such as flitted across the mind of the draftsman when preparing the plans.'
Whilst thus dismissed the passenger station constructed was a substantial single storeyed stone building, with rendered brick portico of classical derivation. A stone kitchen was built adjacent to the station building. An early description of the passenger station describes verandah awnings attached to the eastern side of the building which provide shelter over the platforms. The awnings were supported on cast iron columns on stone bases and with cast iron brackets from the top. This awning was replaced in September 1934 when the extant steel cantilevered awnings were constructed. According to early photographs of the building, the roof of the passenger station was originally covered with a both rolled iron sections and corrugated iron sections.
J McCulloch, the prominent Warwick stonemason responsible for St Mark's and St Andrew's Churches, the convent, the courthouse, town hall and central school, superintended the stonework construction of the station.
Another major part of the redevelopment plan was for a goods' shed, which had been finished for 'some time' when the Examiner and Times reported on the progress of the site in October 1887. According to this report a carriage shed, engine shed and station master's residence had been planned but were not yet erected on the site. Local contractors, Campbell and Thompson were awarded the contract for the station master's residence on 31 July 1888, and this was constructed at the southern end of the railway site.
By 1900 a timber footbridge had been constructed off Grafton Street to plans of the Railways Section of the Works Department. This was planned to minimise the risk of people living on the eastern side of the railway complex, crossing the tracks. The Tighe brothers were awarded the contract, and the bridge which was lit with lamps, was built at a cost of £209/16/-.
During the first few years of the 1910s major redevelopment of the station was planned and the whole site was re-organised. The timber footbridge of 1900 was replaced with a steel framed structure with timber decking. The timber decking was replaced with steel mesh decking in 1932. Further extensions of the 1910s included the May 1912 replacement of a 40 foot turntable on the northern end of the site with a 58 foot model, to accommodate larger locomotives. Various alterations were made to the passenger station, these involved the addition of a refreshment room on the south end of the building joining the kitchen block to the station. Several residences were erected on the eastern boundary of the site, as well as various railway community buildings including the timber building used for crews' sleeping quarters. A timber extension of the Goods Shed used for offices, was extended again by July 1912. Plans were made for the erection of a semi-circular locomotive shed or part round-house in 1912. In 1921 a coal stage was added to the site.
A legendary event of 1917 at the Railway Station catapulted the site to national significance when an egg was thrown at Prime Minister Billy Hughes whilst he was visiting Warwick during the conscription referendum. This incident led to the establishment of the Commonwealth Police.
A c1940s photograph of the site shows extensive gardens on the west side of the passenger station, adjacent to the entrance, extending from Grafton Street.
From the 1960s the importance of the Warwick Railway Station diminished, with increased road competition and the consequent reduction of railway traffic. The passenger service by train to Wallangarra was withdrawn in 1972 and to Dirranbandi in 1992. Warwick now operates solely as a freight station.
A fire spread through the passenger station in September 1963, destroying much of the interior of the building and damaging some external areas. A north end bay of the building was removed at this time and not replaced. The roof of the passenger station has been replaced.
","criteria":"The railway station complex demonstrates the pattern of growth of Warwick, and the development of the railway in southern Queensland and the network of rail-lines centred on Warwick.
|The Passenger Station and Goods Shed are unusual among Queensland railway building, as they were constructed from stone, reflecting the abundant supply of local sandstone. The sale yards are another rare feature of the railway complex. Many saleyards were constructed within railway complexes in Queensland and few of these survive.
|The Warwick Railway Complex is an intact example of a railway precinct dating from the late 19th century. The additions and alterations which have occurred reflect the changes and development of the railway system in southern Queensland. The site with extant passenger station, goods' shed, footbridge, turntable pit, various residences, camping quarters, railway workers' institute and other communal buildings, sale yards and various other smaller buildings and structures, including the extant sidings is an important document of Queensland railway history.
|Several individual buildings on the site have aesthetic merit including the goods' shed which is a fine stone building; the passenger station; the goods yards; and the corrugated iron buildings on the eastern side of the block.
|The site has special associations with the Warwick community, as a centre of trade and travel for about 110 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15731,"place_ref":600956,"name":"Barnes and Co. Trading Place","alternate_name":"Smith and Miller Furniture Store | Barnes & Co","street_address":"118 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Barnes & Co. Store is a brick building of one and two storeys situated on the corner of King Street and Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick. The building has substantial frontages to both streets, with a two-storeyed central corner block which is square in plan, and single-storeyed wings extending both frontages to the east and south. The building is generally of brick, with rendered ornamentation to the street facades, a plate glass shopfront at ground level, a cantilevered awning over and a corrugated iron roof with rooflights. It now houses a furniture and carpet store known as Smith and Miller, and several other retail tenancies.
Each street facade of the two-storeyed corner block is divided into six bays by rendered pilasters. Between is tuck-pointed brickwork and pairs of vertical sliding sash windows with projecting sills and bracketed heads. Above is a projecting cornice, and a parapet with open circular motifs and finials with four-sided triangular pediments, however the finials of the south wing have been removed. The parapet has higher bays in brickwork emphasising the ends and the corner of the two-storey block. The present awning is cantilevered, replacing an earlier posted version, and supports some timber farm relics. Above the awning is a row of small clerestory-like windows with arched brick lintels, which light the ground floor.
The shopfront has large panes of plate glass divided by cast iron column mullions with simple moulded bases and capitals. Behind are circular metal columns supporting the brick facade above. The shopfront is punctuated by a series of truncated recesses leading to the entry doors, which are low-waisted glazed and panelled double doors.
Internally, the ground floor of the central area is a large open space interspersed with columns, apart from a later partitioned office to the south side. It features a high ceiling lined with ornate pressed metal including borders, cornices, roses and beam surrounds, but the volume of the space has been interrupted by the addition of a timber mezzanine level and a steel stair. To the south wall of this central space is a substantial flat-arched opening decorated with a moulded architrave, consoles and a cast-iron column of Corinthian order leading to the adjoining south wing. To the southeast corner is a walk-in safe with a large steel safe door. To the eastern wall is a timber stair with turned balusters and newels. Visible from the interior, at the north western corner of the building is a sandstone column and part walls at the rear of the building, which are believed to be the remnants of a previous building on the site.
The single-storey south wing has been divided by a timber tongue and groove partition wall, separating a retail tenancy. The boarded ceilings are have been covered with a later suspended tile ceiling. The east wing is presently under a separate title and was not able to be inspected at the time of writing. It has been divided into retail tenancies with new partitions, ceilings and shopfronts, but above the rooflights and boarded ceilings are still evident.
The first floor of the central area is also an open space with 190mm stop-chamfered timber posts supporting steel roof beams lined with timber boards. Over the new stair, there is evidence in the tongue and groove ceiling of the former location of the building's lift. To the south-east corner are partitions enclosing the toilets and a caged service hoist. Vertical sliding sash windows continue on those sides not fronting the streets but with less frequency, and from here can be seen the corrugated iron roofs of the single-storey wings. These are a series of parallel hipped structures with gutters between, and rooflights interrupting the ridges. These rooflights are small rectangular pavilions with windows on all four sides, and hipped roofs featuring acroteria to the gutter corners.
The rear of the building, fronting the corner of the laneway, has timber, brick and some stone walls, and a series of lean-to roofs creating some loading areas. From here a timber ramp runs back into the building, past the later partitions of staff toilets and store rooms.
","history":"The former Barnes & Co department store, now housing Smith and Miller furniture showroom, situated on the corner of Palmerin and King Streets, Warwick, was constructed in 1910-11 to designs of local Warwick architects, Wallace and Gibson.
The building was described in contemporary reports as a trade palace and was, in fact, a department store. Department stores became popular in England during the mid nineteenth century, assuming the popularity arcades formerly held for would-be purchasers. The new stores were large scale buildings, usually multi-levelled, with impressive architectural edifices raising them to the standards of public monuments. By the First World War the department store flourished as a middle class institution where shoppers were less intimidated and offered a wider variety of goods than were available in traditional exclusive shops.
Barnes & Co in Warwick was typical of many of the early Australian department stores. The company which was known under various names had been merchants in Warwick since 1874 and, in the tradition of many other large stores, considerable expansion and rebuilding occurred resulting in the 1911 building extant today.
George Powell Barnes who founded Barnes & Co, was born in 1856 in Castlemaine, Victoria. He was educated in Queensland when his father, a driver employed by Cobb & Co established the Brisbane-Gympie-Maryborough run. George worked as a cashier in various stores in regional Queensland before moving to Warwick in 1878 and opening a store. Early stores on the Darling Downs were a necessity to the farmers; their isolation made contact with potential buyers difficult and stores were able to act as middlemen and ensure the disposal of goods and produce.
A company started in 1880 by George Barnes in association with his brother, Walter Henry Barnes and Mr TF Merry was known as Barnes and Company Limited. Merry was a storekeeper in Toowoomba, with whom George worked earlier and whose daughter, Mary Cecelia was married to George in 1879. Barnes and Co was formed to control businesses in Warwick, Allora, Yangan and Roma Street and Commonwealth Flour Mills at Warwick and South Brisbane.
In 1898 Messrs Wallace & Gibson, local Warwick architects, called tenders for the erection of a business premises located at the corner of Palmerin and Fitzroy streets for Messrs Barnes & Co. This stone building, used as the registered offices of the firm, was constructed on land several blocks to the north of the site of the 1911 Barnes & Co building, and was known as the Emporium. A 1901 description of the business describe Barnes & Co Ltd as general merchants, having departments specially devoted to general drapery, millinery, dressmaking, groceries, crockery, and glassware, furniture, boots and shoes, ironmongery, farmers' produce and agricultural machinery. Another building owned by the firm, in another part of Palmerin Street, was known as the Exchange and was devoted to the selling of agricultural machinery. As before mentioned Barnes & Co were the proprietors of the Commonwealth Flour Mill, located in Wantley Street, Warwick. This was a complex of brick buildings used for the storage of wheat.
The culmination of the Barnes & Co expansion was the opening of their trade palace at the corner of Palmerin and King Streets. The land on which the building stands was acquired by Deed of Grant by William Brown on 23 November 1860 and had many owners until 23 March 1907 when George Powell Barnes bought the site for his new trade palace.
The building was constructed by contractor, Mr M Ivory and cost £9000. When constructed the building was featured in a lengthy report of the Warwick Examiner and Times and described as a distinct and unassailable illustration of the progress and wealth of Warwick and the rich agricultural and grazing belt surrounding it. The store was a large addition to Warwick in 1911, and of not inconsiderable architectural pretension. Externally, well composed facades of tuck pointed brickwork and plaster pilasters and cornices contribute to the quality of the design of the building and this is re-inforced by the internal finishes and detailing including the Wunderlich ceiling, timber joinery and plate glass. A Lamson pneumatic railway system was installed to connect with tubing nineteen points of sale with a cash office at the rear of the store, through which cash and documents could be moved around the building quickly.
Particular attention was given to internal lighting, with Webb & Weston electrical and mechanical engineers consulting on the installation of an electric generator, for lighting and general power. The roof was pierced with several skylights. Internally the plastered walls were kalsomined.
The interior of the former Barnes & Co store seems to have been divided into several smaller departments and a small note in the opening description describes wooden partitions as painted. The ground floor of the shop, with a total of 370 feet of plate glass frontage to King and Palmerin Streets, was devoted to various departments, including menswear on the corner of the streets, haberdashery, manchester, furnishing, grocery and crockery and dress departments along the King Street facade and the boot and furniture departments along Palmerin Street. In the upper floor of the store was the ladies' underwear department, the dressmaking and fitting rooms and a staff luncheon room.
The property passed out of the Barnes family in the late 1950s and has been used since that time by various commercial outlets.
","criteria":"The former Barnes & Co store is important as it provides evidence of the growth of Warwick during the early part of the twentieth century. The building demonstrates the development of trading companies and department stores in regional Queensland, and, in particular, the growth in Warwick and district of the prolific firm Barnes & Co.
|The building is a good example of an early twentieth century regional department store, with evidence of the original layout and previous use of the building with intact shop front and ceilings throughout.
|The building contributes to Palmerin Street which is the principal shopping street in the town and is a substantial well-composed prominent building.
|(Criterion under review)
|The building has special associations with a prominent Warwick resident George Barnes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15732,"place_ref":600957,"name":"Langham Hotel","alternate_name":"Langham's Hotel, Warwick","street_address":"133 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Langham Hotel is a two-storeyed brick building on the southern end of the business centre of Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick. The property is elongated, with the narrow eastern end facing the street. Its street elevation has a two-storey filigreed verandah extending over the footpath and a masonry facade beneath articulated with moulded archways and pilasters, and topped with a balustraded parapet of classical motifs. Behind this balustrade is a roof terrace giving commanding views of the main street and the roofs of the city.
The eastern end of the building contains mainly public spaces, and from it run two parallel accommodation wings along the northern and southern boundaries. These have simple elevations of face brickwork and window penetrations. Between these wings a roof has been added enclosing the lightwell below. The rear of the site extends into an extensive public carpark..
The front verandah has stop-chamfered timber posts, doubled at the central and end bays. The cast iron balustrade features the classical motif of a woman in flowing gowns at the centre of each panel. Below the balustrade is a pressed metal frieze, then a slatted timber valance. To the underside of the verandah has a ripple iron lining trimmed with moulded metal gutters. The hipped bullnose roof to the verandah is of corrugated iron, and framed with stop-chamfered purlins and shaped rafters. The gutter has a decorative metal acroterion remaining on one corner. Above is balustraded parapet of moulded plaster pedestals topped with ball motifs, concrete balusters and face brick surrounds. To each end are ornate metal rainwater heads announcing 1912 as the year of the building's construction. The balustrade returns at each end for only one bay, as the side elevations become much simpler and less ornate
At street level, the facade is an arcade of moulded segmental archways with pilasters, ornate capitals and keystones engraved with the letter 'L'. At the northern end are stairs to two entries to the public bar with double doors of silky oak and etched glass, and double hung windows between. To the central archway are white marble steps to a pair of similar doors with matching sidelights and arched toplight, which leads to the entrance vestibule. Beside the central arch is a small illuminated sign of the hotel's name. To the south is the entry to a retail tenancy with a recent aluminium shopfront.
The entrance vestibule has a pressed metal ceiling, and leads to the former telephone lobby which features tessellated floor tiles and a leadlight window. Through a further triplet of moulded plaster archways with keystones, capitals and balusters, is the main stair hall. The stair has squared balusters and newels, and a panelled spandrel below. Adjoining is the public bar whose layout has been altered, but it retains its pressed metal ceiling with roses, cornices borders and beam linings.
The rear of the ground level has also been largely altered. The light area between the accommodation wings has been roofed over to form the lounge bar and the former Billiard Room and Dining Room have had walls removed, but the Dining Room retains its pressed metal ceiling.
The stair to the first floor was lit by leadlight windows which are now blocked by the addition of later bathrooms. The stair hall at the first floor level has similar archways leading to the lounge which in turn opens onto the verandah. Also from the stair hall lead the corridors to the accommodation wings, which both have pressed metal ceilings with roses and cornices, four-panelled doors with glazed fanlights, and tall timber skirtings. All the bedrooms also have pressed metal ceilings. The southern wing has a coloured glass door leading to a verandah, onto which open several glazed French doors to further bedrooms.
The lounge also features a pressed metal ceiling with borders roses and cornice, also a picture rail and tall timber cornice. Opening from here and other rooms onto the balcony are panelled and glazed French doors with tilting fanlights. The facade treatment here is face brickwork with flat brick arch lintels, simple pilasters continuing from ground level to the parapet, and double-hung windows with moulded plaster sills.
The main stair continues to a third level, where the stair hall features the continuation of the stair balustrade, leadlight windows and pressed metal ceiling. Externally it is brick with a hipped roof of corrugated iron again with acroteria to the gutter corners. It opens onto the gravelled roof terrace with its views over the city. From here can also be seen the hipped roof of the north wing in metal deck, and the gabled roof of the south wing in corrugated iron. The brick chimney shafts have rendered mouldings and cornice, and terra cotta chimney pots. At the roof terrace they are grouped in stacks and turned on the diagonal, showing an Old English influence.
The building features many classical motifs, both internal and external, in its articulated street facade and ornamentation of the major rooms. There is an extensive range of pressed metal ceilings throughout the building, with the degree of ornamentation varying with the importance of the room. Also intact is a substantial amount of joinery, in particular the elaborate staircase.
","history":"Completed in 1913, the Langham Hotel was designed by Warwick architects Dornbusch and Connolly for Mrs Cobcroft. The Langham Hotel replaced an earlier hotel on the site known as the Rose Inn.
The property was acquired by Maria Dank in 1860, then transferred to John Heffernan in 1870 and to William Law in 1871. By 1881 records indicate that there was a hotel on the site, also a house and a cottage which fronted a lane. Records of licenses issued show that the hotel was known as the Rose Inn Hotel.
In 1911 the property was transferred to Arthur John Cobcroft, a Bank Manager of Warwick. In the same year Edward Portley, then licensee of the Rose Inn Hotel, was granted a licence to carry on business temporarily during the demolition and re-erection of the hotel premises. Title records indicate that Cobcroft leased the property to Daniel Allman from October 1911.
Tenders were invited in January 1912 for the erection and completion of the Langham Hotel, Palmerin Street Warwick for Mrs CA Cobcroft. A detailed description of the new hotel appeared in the Warwick Examiner and Times in August 1913. The erection of the hotel by Mrs Cobcroft was described as ... a progressive move on her part and provides an ornament to the town... , reflecting Mrs Cobcroft's optimistic view of the future of Warwick. The article noted that the Hotel will be conducted under the direction of Mr and Mrs Allman, and will be managed by Mrs Stokes, who has been managing Allman's Hotel in Grafton Street for the past four years. During the early twentieth century the Allman family owned and also operated the National (then Allman's) [600950] and Criterion [600962] Hotels in Warwick.
Sample rooms were provided in the hotel, and stabling accommodation was available. The main staircase of the hotel was designed to enable the subsequent installation of a passenger lift, however there is no evidence to indicate that this ever occurred. The article also indicated that the walls of the hotel had been built of such a thickness that two additional stories could be added at any time which indicates a possible reason for the provision for a passenger lift.
The ground floor of the hotel included a shop to the southern side of the main Palmerin Street entry, and in August 1913 PR Woods, a Chemist, removed his business to the commodious new shop in the Langham Hotel premises... .
The property was transferred to James Roach in 1919 and remained in the Roach family until 1948. The property was subsequently held by a number of people until 1964 when it was acquired by Anthony and Jacob Maroon. Jacob Maroon died in 1979 and his share transmitted to Anthony Maroon. The lease on the property is presently (1995) held by Anthony Maroon and Marcell Maroon.
","criteria":"The Langham Hotel survives as evidence of the role of Warwick as a commercial centre for the surrounding district.
|In street frontage, internal organisation and interior ornamentation, the building is typical of hotels erected in Warwick during the early 20th century.
Internally, the building retains substantial amounts of original fabric including pressed metal ceilings, plaster mouldings and joinery.
|Prominently located within the business centre of Warwick, this substantial two storey brick hotel with filligree verandah contributes to the Palmerin Street streetscape and the Warwick townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15733,"place_ref":600958,"name":"St Mary's Church (former)","alternate_name":"St Mary's Church | St Mary of the Assumption Church | St Marys Church (former) | St Marys Church | St Mary's Catholic Church (former)","street_address":"163 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former St Mary's Church is situated within the school grounds of the local catholic primary school in Palmerin Street, Warwick.
The church is of solid sandstone construction, and conforms to a cruciform plan, with nave extending to the east, transepts to the north and south and chancel to the west. The sandstone, which is finely tooled, is generally coursed, with larger blocks used as quoining.
The church sits on a plinth, formed by a course of sandstone projecting slightly from the face of the walls. The corrugated iron roof is gabled and has overhanging eaves lined with wide timber beaded boarding which returns to the interior of the space.
The eastern entrance facade features a small gabled entrance porch, with a pointed arched opening formed with smooth faced sandstone blocks. Buttressing is formed by extensions of the faces of both the porch and main body of the church, this detail is repeated on the transepts and western end of the building.
Above the porch is a rose window, of heavy tracery, with some early glass panels; above this is a ventilation opening in the form of a Latin Cross. Surmounting the apex of the gable is a carved stone Latin Cross.
The north and south, transverse elevation feature projecting side entrances and transepts, among regularly spaced single lancet window openings. The entrances from the sides of the church, feature pointed arched doorways on the eastern face, and single window openings of plate tracery, with small quatrefoil opening above. The transepts feature large rose windows in the gables.
The western, chancel, face of the church features a large geometric tracery opening, incorporating four lancet openings, two quatrefoils and a rose feature above.
Internally, the building retains very little of its ecclesiastical character, with the exception of the window openings. The walls are rendered, the floor carpeted and a ceiling of fibrous sheeting has been inserted. The space is divided into several smaller spaces with v-j boarding. The sandstone of church suffers from rising damp problems.
","history":"The former Saint Mary's Church, Warwick is a substantial sandstone building, constructed 1863-5 to designs of prominent Brisbane architect, Benjamin Backhouse.
From the 1840s, it seems that informal Roman Catholic services were held in Warwick by visiting priests from Sydney, Ipswich and Brisbane. The first recorded mass was held in 1854 by Rev. Father McGinty who travelled from Ipswich, and this was celebrated at the Horse and Jockey Inn, Palmerin Street, where services for most other denominations were held at this time.
In 1862 Warwick became a separate parish of the church, only one year after Warwick was declared a municipality on May 25, 1861. The first priest was Dr John Cani, who was later to become the first Bishop of Rockhampton. By August 20, 1863, discussions were being held for the erection of a church in Palmerin Street. £20 was subscribed on that day, and £180 was needed for the purchase of land.
Various people, including Michael Knole, William Cowper and Sarah Ransley acquired the various future church lots by Deed of Grant on August 16, 1860 (Allotments 7-12 of Section 49) By September 1863, John Cani and James Quinn, the parish priest and Bishop, became the registered owners of these allotments.
The plan for the church was duly prepared by prominent Brisbane architect, Benjamin Backhouse, to the specifications that it was to be simple but tasteful, in the Gothic style and in stone or brick. Benjamin Joseph Backhouse arrived in Brisbane in May 1861, and designed many buildings of architectural pretension in Queensland over the next six years, before he departed for New South Wales by 1868. He was responsible for the design of many churches including the second St Stephen's Roman Catholic Cathedral, additions to St John's Pro-Cathedral, as well as many other smaller regional churches.
Despite the setback of severe damage during a thunder storm the church the building was officially opened on August 23 1865 by Bishop Quinn, the first Bishop of Queensland. At this time the church was named the St Mary of the Assumption, now popularly shortened to St Mary's. This original building consisted of only the nave of the present church, with side entrances, not through porches, but simply accessing the body of the church directly. The roof of the building was slated or shingled. The contractor was CA Doran and the structure cost about £1500. The stone for the construction of the church was obtained from the Sidling Quarries, which were a small group of quarries in Warwick.
In 1865 Dr Cani was succeeded by Father Scortechini, who was soon after replaced by Father Hogan. By 1867 a catholic school, run by the Misses O'Mara until the arrival of the Sisters of Mercy in 1874, was established in the church by the next parish priest, Father O'Reilly. The church was partitioned with calico screens, firstly to separate the sanctuary from the teaching area and, later to divide the teaching area into smaller rooms in the body of the church. O'Reilly was replaced by Father McDonagh, who was the first resident priest, and after him in 1876 came Father James Horan who was to remain in Warwick until 1905. Horan was responsible for the completion of the church by 1894, when the transepts and chancel were added. By this time porches over the side entrances were also completed.
Monsignor Michael Potter was posted as a curate to Warwick in 1891, and continued there as the parish priest after Horan's death in 1905. It was Potter who decided that the original St Mary's Church was no longer adequate for the needs of his community. Thus he sought plans for the construction of a larger church, further north on the same block in Palmerin Street. Local architects, Dornbusch and Connolly drew plans for the new church which, like the original church, was to conform to a cruciform plan, but only the body has thus far been completed. The new church was constructed between 1920 and 1926, when it was officially opened.
After the opening of the new church, the original St Mary's was partitioned, lined and used as school rooms, for the catholic primary school which began in the building in its earliest days. It has remained as a community meeting hall and store to this day.
","criteria":"The church is important in demonstrating the growth of Warwick during the 1860s when the town became the centre of an agricultural region. The church is able to demonstrate the spread of the catholic church through regional areas where substantial buildings were erected in the mid nineteenth century.
The former St Mary's church is associated with the early prominent Brisbane architect, Benjamin Backhouse.
|The former St Mary's Church is rare as one of the earliest extant sandstone buildings in Warwick, and the earliest sandstone church.
|The building is a good example of masonry church design of mid nineteenth century Queensland, influenced by the English revival of early Gothic architecture.
|It is a well composed and constructed stone building, with fine stone tracery.
|The building has special associations with the Roman Catholic community in Warwick, as a former parish church and as the central focus of the catholic primary school since its construction in 1863-5.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15734,"place_ref":600959,"name":"St Mary's Church","alternate_name":"St Mary of the Assumption Church | St Marys Church | St Mary's Catholic Church","street_address":"163 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Mary's Church is a substantial sandstone building prominently located on the corner of Palmerin and Wood Streets, Warwick. The church, a local landmark, is visible from most areas in Warwick. It is situated on land adjoining the local catholic primary school in which the former St Mary's Church is situated.
The church, which remains incomplete, was designed with a the traditional cruciform plan, with entrance from Palmerin Street and north and south transepts and a sanctuary west of this. The body and tower of the church and were the only parts completed resulting in a curiously proportioned building.
St Mary's consists of a central nave, flanked by side aisles, a shallow sanctuary and a large tower on the eastern, entrance facade. The nave and aisles are expressed on the exterior of the church with distinct purple Bangor slate gabled roofs; the height of the aisle roofs allowing the loftier nave to be naturally lit by clerestory windows.
The tower, projecting through 29 metres on the south eastern corner of the building, is surmounted by an octagonal spire protruding above a crenellated parapet through which eight spired pinnacles project. The pinnacles, which extend from the angled buttressing strengthening the tower, are surmounted by sandstone fleur-de-lis, a motif which continues throughout the building. The tower features a number of openings repeated on all sides: a cinquefoil rose at the base; above which is a pair of double lancets with fleur-de-lis opening above; two quatrefoil openings; surmounted by two comparatively small tripartite lancet openings and finally, at the top, two larger lancet openings.
The building is constructed from coursed rock faced sandstone with smooth faced arch mouldings, string courses, copings, parapet detailing, tracery and carvings. The glazing in the building consists of leadlight panels, with stained and coloured glass sections.
The eastern entrance facade consists of a large central gabled bay adjoining a smaller gabled bay to the north and the tower to the south. Access is gained to a porch up seven stairs extending the width of the central bay, and through three segmental arches which are supported on circular granite columns with foliated capitals and resting on elongated octagonal bases. The archways are under a chevroned hood moulding resting on corbels; surmounting the central chevron is a cross. Above the porch opening is a large window of geometrical tracery, with lancets under a large circular light. Large sandstone crosses surmount the gable tops of both the central and subsidiary bays, which are demarcated by angled buttressing extending to pinnacles.
The northern and southern faces of the church consist of the transverse elevation of the aisles and, set back from these, the elevation of the nave. These elements are punctured with openings of geometric tracery featuring twin lancets and quatrefoil above. Concealing the roofs are parapets; over the aisle roof the parapets are moulded with protruding miniature gabled pinnacles and to the nave the parapet is crenellated with similar protruding pinnacles. The roof is punctured with ventilation gablets. Confessional rooms project from the transverse elevations of the building.
The western elevation of the church, which was to be extended, is of rendered brickwork and consists of a central gabled extension lower than the body of the church, flanked by two skillion roofed sections.
Entrance is gained to the body of the church via three double panelled timber doorways from the porch, and by two side entrances. The ashlar faced porch has a deep coffered timber ceiling and a grey terrazzo floor with dark red border.
Internally the church has a six bay nave, defined by a pointed arched arcade supported on granite columns with polished shafts. A large pointed chancel arch demarcates the sanctuary, which features a rose window and a fine marble High Altar. Two shallow side altars in pointed arched recesses flank the sanctuary and terminate the side aisles of the church
The concrete floor of the church is rendered with red ironite with terrazzo in the aisles featuring the recurring fleur-de-lis motif. The internal walls are all rendered masonry, with mouldings around windows and at dado rail height and below the clerestory windows of plaster.
The ceiling is of panels of diagonal timber boarding, alternately arranged. The timber king post roof trusses feature caps and sunk mouldings, with elegant moulded sweeps which rest on attached piers extending to the spandrels of the nave arches, where they are terminated by a carved sandstone corbel. Between the piers are the clerestory windows, featuring leadlight panels and a stained glass quatrefoil, the image on which differs on each window.
A gallery with silky oak panelling extending for one bay of the nave, is situated at the eastern end of the church and supported on cast iron columns. Confessional rooms are accessed from half glazed timber doors under recessed pointed archways in both aisles.
Many early features of the church remain intact, including the timber pews, timber framed Stations of the Cross, and a marble memorial plaque to Rev. Jacobi Horan. The chancel features a very fine Gothic revival High Altar of white Sicilian marble with panels of red and green marble and matching side altars and pulpit.
","history":"St Mary's Church, Warwick was constructed between 1920 and 1926, as the second Roman Catholic church in Warwick, to designs of local architects Dornbusch and Connolly.
From the 1840s, it seems that informal Roman Catholic services were held in Warwick by visiting priests from Sydney, Ipswich and Brisbane. The first recorded mass was held in 1854 by Rev. Father McGinty who travelled from Ipswich, and this was celebrated at the Horse and Jockey Inn, Palmerin Street, where services for most other denominations were held at this time.
In 1862 Warwick became a separate parish of the church, only one year after Warwick was declared a municipality on May 25, 1861. The first priest was Dr John Cani who was soon pursuing the need for a church building. A site was chosen in Palmerin Street and the land was acquired on the south of block bordered by Palmerin, Wood, Percy and Acacia Streets in central Warwick.
Plans were duly drawn by prominent Brisbane architect, Benjamin Backhouse, to the specifications that it was to be simple but tasteful, in the Gothic style and in stone or brick. Despite the setback of severe damage during a thunder storm the church was officially opened on August 23 1865 by Bishop Quinn, the first Bishop of Queensland. The contractor was CA Doran and the structure cost £1500. The stone for the construction of the church was obtained from the Sidling Quarries, which were a small group of quarries in Warwick.
Dr Cani left the parish and was succeeded by a number of priests in quick succession until Father James Horan was appointed in 1876, and remained the parish priest of Warwick until his death in 1905. Horan was responsible for completing the original church with the addition of transepts and the chancel by 1894.
Monsignor Michael Potter was posted as a curate to Warwick in 1891, and continued there as the parish priest after Horan's death in 1905. It was Potter who decided in the 1910s that the original St Mary's Church was no longer adequate for the needs of his community, and a larger more grand church was required.
Local architects, Dornbusch and Connolly were commissioned to design the new church, which was built on land immediately to the north of the original St Mary's Church. This land, Allotments 3-6 on Section 49, was acquired by Samuel Elphick on August 16, 1860 by Deed of Grant, and was bought by the Church by 1880. The foundation stone of the new church was laid by the Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix assisted by Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane on February 29, 1920.
The original plans for this church conformed to the traditional cruciform plan, with the chancel extending almost to the Acacia Street boundary of the property. Two lawsuits were held during the construction of the church, firstly over ownership of the rear section of the property and then with the contractors, Kerr and Clark who were sued for beach of contract, making work cease. This delayed the building work and meant that the construction of the church, which was eventually finished by day labour, took six years. The rear section of the church, including the transepts and the chancel was not completed, and, indeed, remains incomplete in 1995. The western wall and shallow chancel were temporarily undertaken in rendered brick.
Sandstone for the church was obtained from the nearby Yangan quarry and the granite, used in the piers both internally and externally, from Greymare. A damp proof course, of sheet lead in asphalt was inserted to all the walls.
The church was designed in a style described at the time of its construction as a revival of Gothic architecture practiced between 1274 and 1377, or Decorated or Middle Pointed Gothic. This is evident in the traceries and mouldings around the church. Major departures from this style include the internal nave piers, thought to be of earlier, Norman influence and the entrance porch of the later 15th century pointed Gothic.
Stained glass windows were the design and manufacture of Messrs RS Exton and Co of Brisbane. The supervisor of the stone work was Mr FJ Fuller of Toowoomba, and other building works were supervised by Mr FJ Corbett of Brisbane. St Mary's was constructed at a cost of £40,000.
When built, St Mary's incorporated electrical lighting, a fine set of stations of the Cross, and a pneumatically blown organ. By July 1929 a High Altar and two side altars designed by Dornbusch and Connolly and executed by Messrs F. Williams and Co of Ipswich were made for the church from white Sicilian marble with panes of Red Verona and Verde Antico. The following year a pulpit, again designed by the church architects and made by F Williams and Co. was introduced to the sanctuary.
The church has been used continually since its opening on March 21, 1926 by the Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig. In 1929 a grotto, a small replica of that at Lourdes, was constructed to the north of the church and this was donated by Mr and Mrs Martin Crane.
","criteria":"The immense scale and size of the planned St Mary's Church demonstrates the importance of Warwick as a major provincial centre.
|St Mary's Church is important in demonstrating the characteristics of early twentieth century Gothic revival churches, of which it is a fine example, although incomplete.
|The building has many fine elements including the stonework, particularly the tracery and carvings; internal joinery; and a very fine marble High Altar, side altars and pulpit. The building is a landmark in Warwick as the highest and most prominent building in the town.
|The church has special associations with the catholic church of Warwick as their parish church for over sixty years.
|It has particular associations with Rev. Father Matthew Potter, under whose guidance the church was constructed.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15735,"place_ref":600960,"name":"Johnson's Building","alternate_name":"Johnsons Building","street_address":"64-70 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-11","description":"Johnson's Buildings comprise four single-storeyed shops linked by a rendered masonry facade. The shops have brick party walls, individual pitched corrugated iron roofs, timber framed additions at the rear, and out-buildings.
The facade above the awning line has a cornice with dentils which forms a large central arch flanked by two smaller ones. These arches are topped with scrolls and a central stepped pediment. The parapet is decorated with acroteria and plaster reliefs of drapes and scrolls; the central arched panel bears the name "Johnson's Buildings", with "1913" set in the pediment above.
The cantilevered awning replaced an earlier one which was supported by posts. Internally, the shops retain some of their original fabric, including pressed metal ceilings in the two 1913 shops to the north. These ceilings have floral motifs set in a grid pattern to a large central panel, with a finer floral motif pattern to the edge and cornice.
The elaborately decorated facade of the Johnson's Buildings makes a distinctive contribution to the streetscape of Warwick's main street, which includes some particularly fine and intact nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings.
","history":"Johnson's Buildings are a group of four single-storey masonry shops linked by a common facade, adjacent to the Warwick Town Hall [600961] in Palmerin Street.
The land was acquired by Frederick Hudson in 1857 who held the land for a number of years before it was sold to Thomas Alexander Johnson in 1896. Johnson was an Alderman on the Warwick Municipal Council from 1879-1898, and was Mayor of Warwick from 1881-1884. Johnson was subsequently a Member of the Legislative Council from 1904 until his death in 1914. Johnson also held various positions such as President of the Warwick Progress Association, Vice-president of the Eastern Downs Agricultural and Pastoral Association and Chairman of the Warwick Farmers' Milling Co.
The two shops adjacent to the Town Hall were built in 1898. They were designed by Conrad Dornbusch and built by Daniel Connolly.
In 1900 these shops were altered and converted into premises for the Warwick branch of the Royal Bank of Queensland. The alterations were overseen by Dornbusch, acting for Hall and Dods in Brisbane.
In 1913 the premises occupied by the Bank were altered, and two new shops were constructed adjacent to the northern side of the Bank. A new facade was also constructed to link the existing and new buildings. The new shops and alterations were designed by local architect Hugh Campbell and built by LA Tessman.
Johnson died in 1914 and the building was divided between three of his children, leaving the two new shops to his daughters Helena Maria Rowell (64 Palmerin St) and Elizabeth Ellen Hardaker (66 Palmerin St). The premises leased to the bank were left to one of his sons, Thomas James Johnson (68-70 Palmerin St).
64 Palmerin Street was rented by Mrs Gertrude Florence Jensen from 1932 until 1948 at which time she purchased the shop. Mrs Jensen ran a ladies fashion shop known as "Jennette Salon". The shop was acquired by her son, Mervyn W Jensen in 1989, and continues to operate as a ladies fashion shop.
Elizabeth Hardaker owned 66 Palmerin Street until her death in 1923 when it passed into the hands of trustees. The property was purchased in 1949 by Mrs Jensen's son and daughter, Mervyn W Jensen and Dulcie D Jensen, and continues to trade under the name of Jensens Men and Boys wear.
The Royal Bank of Queensland, subsequently the National Bank of Australia, continued to occupy part of Johnson's Buildings until 1930 (68-70 Palmerin St), after which the premises were leased to a succession of tenants who operated a cafe. The property was acquired by Peter Stephanos, one of the lessees in 1943. In recent years, the premises have been divided into two shops, currently the Warwick Newsagency (68 Palmerin Street), and the Fair Lady Hair/Beauty Salon (70 Palmerin Street).
","criteria":"The buildings are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of the commercial centre of Warwick.
|Further, they are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a group of early twentieth century shops.
|The richly decorated facade makes a distinctive contribution to the main street of Warwick which is valued by the community.
|The Johnson's Buildings have special association with the life of Warwick businessman and politician, the Hon TA Johnson and his family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15736,"place_ref":600961,"name":"Warwick Town Hall","alternate_name":"Town Hall and Footballers Memorial","street_address":"72 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Warwick Town Hall is a two-storeyed sandstone building of Classical influence, with a symmetrical principal facade addressing Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick. This main western facade has recessed colonnaded verandahs to both levels, and a central entry bay emphasised by an imposing clock tower. The stone is laid in ashlar coursing and mostly of tooled finish with polished trims. This western end of the building contains two levels of offices, behind which is the main hall with the stage at the eastern end. Beyond this is a single-storey timber extension of backstage areas.
\nThe central bay to the street facade emphasises the entry with columns and pilasters of Tuscan order, and a segmental pediment with a shield motif at its centre. The upper level of this bay has similar columns and pilasters and a bracketed triangular pediment, with \"1888\" carved to its centre and \"TOWN HALL\" to its entablature. To either side at the lower level is a colonnade of segmental arches, and to the upper level is a recessed verandah of semicircular arches with cast iron balustrades and timber handrails. Above is a bracketed cornice and a stone parapet with circular openings, topped with urns. The clock tower is square in plan, with square pilastered corners and a clock face on all four sides. It is capped by a high-pitched truncated pyramid roof of corrugated iron, with horseshoe-shaped louvred vents, decorative iron cresting and a flagpole at its apex.
\nThe lower colonnade has a concrete floor, boarded soffit, and single-pane vertical sash windows with semicircular heads. Within the colonnade are archways to either side of the entry forming a small vestibule. Mounted on the wall is the Footballers Memorial (600964). The returns to this western facade are less ornate, with similar windows, projecting stone sills, string courses, and the continuing cornice and parapet. The exterior to the main body of the hall is less ornate again, with only projecting sills, tall awning windows also with semicircular heads, and a gabled corrugated iron roof with three decorative vents to its ridge. The roof behind the parapet to the western end is hipped, with a protruding stone chimney and dormer window. The chamferboard addition to the rear has an assortment of windows, and a corrugated iron lean-to roof with several skylights.
\nEntry to the building is through a pair of substantial six-panelled timber doors, which have a smaller segmental stone pediment over, and \"TOWN HALL\" set into the threshold. The Entry Hall has several four-panelled cedar doors with glazed fanlights to offices on either side. A toilet has been added into the space once occupied by an office, behind the front office on the northern side of the ground floor, and this toilet fitout is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nA moulded plaster archway leads to the cedar staircase up to the second level. This open-welled stair begins with a curtail step and handrail scroll, and features turned newels and balusters, and a boarded soffit lining. From the second landing is the entry to the Gallery through a similar doorway. At the top of the stair is a series of doorways to offices, formally the \"Mayor's Room\", the \"Council Chambers\" and the \"Town Clerk\", as announced by the painted signs on the doors' lock rails. Above this is a further stair of similar character but of lesser width which leads into the clocktower. The former Council Chamber has glazed French doors with semicircular fanlights leading onto the recessed verandah; a moulded cedar chimney piece; and two panelled cedar bulkheads to the Town Clerk's room, one of which still has its hinged panelled cedar dividing wall. Fixed to the south wall is a timber post, a remnant of a rail which has since been removed. The windows generally to the side wall also have semicircular heads. These rooms have boarded ceilings with fretted roses.
\nBeyond the stair lobby is a recently altered foyer space giving entry to the main hall. The foyer features two cast iron columns, with two more enclosed in glass cases built into the wall. The toilets on the north side of the foyer are not of cultural heritage significance. Entry to the Hall is through a pair of timber doors with glazed panels etched with \"TOWN HALL\", which appear to have been repositioned into the new wall alignment. The hall itself is a long rectangular room with the stage at the eastern end. Tall narrow windows with awning sashes and semicircular heads punctuate the walls on both sides. The coffered ceiling is of wide beaded board with beaded timber-clad beams between, and a curved perimeter of narrow horizontal boards. There is a pressed metal ceiling rose in every second coffer. The hall contains a gallery to the western end over the entry foyer. The gallery has a wrought iron balustrade and a pressed metal frieze along the fascia and return with brackets over the columns. There is an exit via a side door and a steel external stair. The modern retractable seating at the back of the hall, below the gallery, is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe stage is of timber boards. Over the stage is a proscenium decorated with timber mouldings. Above the stage is a timber catwalk, from which can be seen the substantial timber king-post roof trusses.
\nBeyond the stage is a single-storey chamferboard extension on timber stumps, which houses backstage areas, change rooms, a meeting room and a kitchen. It has wall linings of fibrous cement and tongue-and groove boards. Parts of these areas have timber brackets and beads to the wall and ceiling linings painted to give these rooms something of a Tudor flavour.
\nBehind the timber extension at the rear of the Town Hall is a freestanding brick lavatory block with separate entrances into either end: two toilet cubicles for women in the western section, and two toilet cubicles and a urinal for men at the eastern section. These entrances are shielded by L-shaped brick wing walls. The internal fittings are modern, and a concrete block wall has been added to further screen the women’s entrance. The lavatory block is not of cultural heritage significance.Attached to the northeast corner of the lavatory is a later addition, comprising two short remnant wing walls of brick with cement render, on two sides of a concrete slab, adjacent to the men’s entrance. This is possibly a remnant of a lethal gas chamber for exterminating stray cats and dogs. The walls have marks showing that there were probably other walls and a ceiling of masonry, forming a ‘box’ shape, which have been demolished. The lavatory block, remnant walls and slab are not features of state cultural heritage significance.
\nFOOTBALLER'S MEMORIAL
\nOn the external front wall of the hall is a marble plaque, the Warwick Amateur Rugby League War Memorial to Footballers. It lists nineteen footballers who lost their lives during the World War I. It is an honour board of classical influence with leaded lettering, and decorated with bas-relief carving. The base is supported by two brackets ornamented with acanthus leaves (a classical architectural motif). Pilasters with Corinthian capitals and foliage motifs border the role, joined at the top by a dentil cornice. Above the cornice is a triangular pediment, within which are crossed rifles (symbolizing war) over a football and a crown at its apex.
","history":"Officially opened in October 1888, the stone Warwick Town Hall on Palmerin Street is important in demonstrating the consolidation and importance of Warwick as a business and administrative centre for the surrounding district during the late 19th century. It is an excellent example of the work of architect Willoughby Powell, demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century town hall, is a landmark, and has a long association with the Warwick community. The Footballers Memorial, a marble honour board mounted on the front of the Town Hall, is a rare and unusual example of a war memorial that reflects the contemporary parallels drawn between war and sport.
\nThe first European pastoralists, Patrick Leslie and his brothers, arrived on the Darling Downs in 1840, and selected the land which became Toolburra and Canning Downs [QHR600525] stations. The New South Wales Government opened the Darling Downs Pastoral District on 11 May 1843, and in 1847 the site of Warwick was chosen as the business and administrative centre for the southern Darling Downs.[1]
\nWarwick township, surveyed in 1849, developed slowly during the 1850s and by 1857 the population of the parish of Warwick had reached just over 1300. Under the provisions of the 1858 Municipalities Act (NSW), any centre with a population in excess of 1000 was entitled to petition the colonial government for recognition as a municipality. Brisbane was proclaimed a municipality on 7 September 1859.
\nBy 1859, the year in which the colony of Queensland separated from New South Wales, the township of Warwick was recognised as a major urban centre on the Darling Downs, and when Queensland's new electoral districts (settled areas only) were proclaimed on 20 December 1859, the electorate of the Town of Warwick had its own representative in the Legislative Assembly.
\nIn February 1861 a petition calling for municipal status for the town of Warwick, with 110 signatures appended, was sent to the Queensland Governor, and on 25 May 1861 Warwick was proclaimed a municipality. The municipal boundary followed the original Warwick Town Reserve of five square miles. Warwick was the fifth corporation created in Queensland outside of Brisbane, being preceded by Ipswich, Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Maryborough. The first Warwick municipal election was conducted on 5 July 1861, and at its first meeting on 15 July 1861, the Warwick Municipal Council elected John James Kingsford as the first mayor of Warwick.
\nAt this time the first Warwick Town Hall was established in a slab building at the northern end of Albion Street, which had been constructed in the early 1850s as Warwick's first court house. In 1873 the Council purchased the Masonic Hall, a brick building in Palmerin Street, and this served as the Warwick Town Hall until imposing new premises were constructed in 1887, on a half-acre (2023m2) site in Palmerin Street purchased for £500.[2] During the late 19th century, Palmerin Street gradually replaced Albion Street as the main centre of commercial and public activity in Warwick.[3]
\nA sum of £2000 was borrowed from the Queensland Government, and a competition for the design of the new Town Hall was held in 1885, expenditure not exceeding £3,500. First place in the competition was won by Clark Bros, a partnership formed in Sydney in 1883 between architect brothers John J and George Clark; the design by Clark Bros coming closest to Council's budget. However, although more costly, the design of second placegetter, Willoughby Powell, was eventually chosen for the new Town Hall.
\nPowell had arrived in Queensland c1873, and practiced as an architect until c1913. During Powell's architectural career in which he alternated between employment in the Queensland Department of Public Works and periods of private practice, including working for Richard Gailey, he was responsible for the design of a number of substantial buildings in Toowoomba, Maryborough, and Brisbane including churches, private residences, shops hotels, and the Toowoomba Grammar School [QHR600850]. Powell was also responsible for the winning design in a competition for the (third) Toowoomba City Hall, although he subsequently had to give up supervision of its construction to Toowoomba architects James Marks and Son in order to take up an appointment in the Department of Public Works. Powell died in 1920.
\nTenders for the building were called in 1887. Although tenders were called for either a brick and stone or an all-stone building, Council accepted the tender of Michael O'Brien for a stone building, and the contract with O'Brien, for £4810, was signed in March 1887. Warwick had access to quality building stone from a number of nearby locations. As early as 1861 Warwick boasted 16 stone houses. By 1886, there were 14 stone masons working in Warwick, as opposed to four bricklayers. Warwick’s sandstone buildings indicated prosperity and importance, which reinforced its position as the major town on the southern Darling Downs.[4]
\nShortly after construction began, O'Brien advised the Council he was insolvent, and arranged for the firm of Stewart, Law and Longwill to take over the work, which they did on 9 July 1887. Work recommenced under the supervision of William Wallace, with sandstone transported from the Mt Sturt quarry for the Palmerin Street elevation, and from the Mt Tate quarry for the back and sides of the building.[5]
\nThe stone work was subcontracted to John McCulloch, a Warwick stonemason responsible for the stone work on a number of prominent buildings in the town including Pringle Cottage (McCulloch’s house) [QHR600945], the Court House [QHR600949], St Marks Church [QHR600943], St Andrews Church, Central School, the Sisters of Mercy Convent [QHR600953], the Railway Goods Shed [QHR600955] and the Albion Street Post Office.
\nThe foundation stone of the new Town Hall was laid on 13 August 1887 by Lady Griffith, wife of then Premier of Queensland, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith. A bottle, sealed with the Corporation seal and containing a copy of a commemorative scroll, copies of the local papers and coins, was placed in a cavity in the stone.
\nA clock tower was not part of Powell's original design for the new Town Hall. In late 1887, however, it was suggested that the building would be enhanced by the addition of a clock tower. At a meeting of ratepayers in December 1887, a vote was carried in favour of the addition of a tower which was subsequently incorporated into the building. The final cost of the Town Hall was £6317.[6] The clock itself was not installed until 1891-2. It is understood that the Council acquired a bell from St Mary's Church in Warwick, which was eventually installed on the outside of the tower.[7]
\nOccupied by the Council from September 1888, and hosting its first public performance on 7 September, the new Town Hall was formally opened on 1 October 1888 by the Mayor of Warwick, Ald. Arthur Morgan. The event was marked with a concert given by the local Philharmonic Society. In his remarks, Morgan described the new Town Hall as ‘...a credit to the town… If there was any truth in the saying that the history of a town was known by the character of its buildings, then the Municipal Council of Warwick had no reason to be ashamed of the page they had contributed to the history of their town’.[8]
\nThe Town Hall faced west directly onto Palmerin Street. It was reported that the front of the ground floor contained, either side of a 30ft by 9ft (9.1m by 2.7m) corridor, two rooms on the south side, each 20ft by 13ft (6m by 4m); and a front room on the north side, with another office behind. The southern rooms were meant for the aldermen, and the northern rooms for the Town Clerk and the rate collector, but these officials instead chose to occupy the first floor rooms. The first floor included two offices, ‘on the right’, each 14ft by 13ft (4.3m by 4m), with a front room extending the width of the building, for the Municipal Chambers. A narrow staircase ascended from the first floor, to a series of steps and ladders within the tower. The hall, with a panelled and coved ceiling and seven windows to each side, was 70ft (21.3m) long from its entrance to the stage, and 42ft (12.8m) wide, with walls 26ft (7.9m) in height. Doors led to the stage on either side of the arched proscenium – which had a 22ft by 18ft (6.7m by 5.5m) opening – and there were two dressing rooms at the rear of the building.[9]
\nThe Town Hall was the venue for a number of celebrations, including a ball for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. Fireworks were discharged from the tower to celebrate the Relief of Mafeking, during the war in South Africa in 1900, and the balcony of the Town Hall was used to proclaim the declaration of the WWI Armistice in November 1914 and of the City of Warwick on 2 April 1936. A reception was held in the hall in 1923 for the Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, when he laid the foundation stone for the war memorial in Leslie Park [QHR600946].[10]
\nIt was also used by community groups for balls, festivities suppers, concerts and flower shows. The hall’s acoustics attracted travelling performers, including JC Williamson, Peter Dawson and Gladys Moncrief. As well as hosting functions, the Town Hall was used for picture shows, with references to Cook’s Pictures being shown there as early as 1906.[11]
\nThe building has had a number of additions and renovations over the years. Gas lighting was installed in the building in 1889, and was subsequently replaced by electricity c1912-3. In October 1907 Conrad Cobden Dornbusch, architect, called tenders for the addition of a gallery (a tiered balcony for audience seats) and iron escape stairs in the hall.[12]
\nDornbusch (1867-1949) trained in England, and by 1887 was employed in the Brisbane office of the Architects Oakden, Addison and Kemp. He was practicing as an architect in Warwick by 1891, where he had an office in the Warwick Town Hall during the 1890s. He was elected an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1893, and a Fellow in 1913.[13] He was an Alderman of the Warwick Municipal Council in 1901. In 1910 he entered into a partnership with Daniel Connolly, with their offices located opposite the Town Hall.[14] Dornbusch and Connolly worked on a number of prominent Warwick buildings, including the Christian Brothers’ School; the Mitchner shelter shed at the Warwick General Cemetery [QHR602152]; the Johnsons Building [QHR600960] adjacent to the Town Hall; the Langham [QHR600957] and Criterion [QHR600962] hotels on Palmerin Street; and St Mary’s Church [QHR600959]. The partnership also designed the rest house at the Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial [QHR601632].[15]
\nThe new town hall gallery designed by Dornbusch was 42 feet (12.8m) by 13 feet 6 inches (4.1m) with five tiers for seating. The balcony fascia was panelled with pressed metal. On the southern side of the gallery was a fire escape door leading to an external iron stair to the alley running down the side of the building. The plans included substantial swing doors leading into the hall from the ground floor foyer, which were built under a separate contract. The contract for the gallery was awarded to HD Miller, who commenced work on 9 December 1907 and promised to have the gallery ready by Boxing Day, for the Caledonian Society’s 35th annual gathering in the Town Hall – a feat which was just achieved. The contract for the swing doors was let in September 1908 to JD Connellan and R Elloyes. Steel girders were installed on the front of the balcony to support these doors which hung between the vestibule and the auditorium.[16]
\nThe Town Hall was also extended at the rear in 1911. Efforts to extend the Town Hall date from about 1907, when new supper rooms at the back of the hall were recommended by the Town Hall Committee. By 1908 the committee also hoped to enlarge the hall. Loans were obtained from the Queensland Government, and in 1910 Dornbusch and Connolly were commissioned to design the additions. The work was undertaken in 1911 by contractors Connolly and Bell (for a tender of £1297), and when the Town Hall Committee inspected the additions in August 1911, it stated that 200 more chairs were required, due to the extension of the hall, and that the area underneath the ‘new dressing rooms’ should be enclosed with corrugated iron.[17]
\nThe Town Hall was also a place for a prominent memorial to remember the war dead. In early 1917 a movement was initiated by James Brown, Patron of the Warwick and District Amateur Rugby Football League, to erect ‘a memorial to honour the Warwick league football heroes, who have given their lives for their King and country (and those who may yet fall)’.[18] A committee was formed, subscriptions collected and a tablet unveiled at a ceremony on 12 May 1917. Inscribed with nine names (later 19) and placed to the right of the entrance to the Town Hall, the tablet was the work of Warwick masons Troyahn, Coulter and Thompson. In unveiling the tablet, the then Mayor of Warwick Ald. Gilham drew contemporary parallels between war and sport, suggesting that ‘There were worse places for young fellows to be than on the football field and places that were not such good training grounds to fit the young fellows for service to the Empire. It was said that Waterloo was won on the cricket fields of England. Probably some of the glories of the war had been contributed to, and to some extent made possible by, the previous practice the boys had received on the football fields of sunny Queensland’.[19]
\nA tablet/plaque to the memory of Colonel William James Foster CB, CMG, DSO, Australian Staff Corps, was also mounted to the right of the entrance to the Town Hall in 1930.[20] Colonel Foster was born in Warwick in 1881 and died in England in 1927. The memorial was erected by Colonel Foster's brother officers, of the Australian Staff Corps and Australian Light Horse.
\nFurther changes occurred in the Town Hall in the 1920s. Undated plans by Dornbusch and Connolly show that a strong room, 3ft 9 inches by 8ft (1.1m by 2.4m) with a concrete floor, was added to the upper floor adjacent to the gallery, and this occurred between 1925 and 1929.[21] In 1925 there were also plans to turn the Town Clerk and accountant’s rooms into the Council Chamber, and vice versa. Minor alterations to the vestibule were made in April 1926, to plans by Dornbusch and Connolly, and the nosing of the step at the entrance was modified. Tiles were added to the entrance vestibule c1929. On 6 August 1930 a contract was signed with James Straddock to build a ticket office in the vestibule in accordance with plans drawn by Dornbusch.[22]
\nThe Town Hall was again extended to the rear, including the construction of a separate lavatory block, in 1929-30. In 1928 the Town Hall Committee recommended renovations and further additions, including extending the dressing rooms and the back of the Town Hall, and erecting four brick lavatories.[23] The lack of ‘public conveniences’ had been an issue for Warwick for some time. There was only one latrine, in Leslie Park, in 1911, and more public lavatories for Warwick had become part of the local Labor Party’s policy by 1927.[24]
\nThe tender of P Thornton for £2877, for improvements to the Town Hall to be completed in 18 weeks, was accepted in June 1929. The improvements included a new supper room, measuring 42ft by 30ft (12.8m by 9.1m), which was almost finished in September 1929. By that time widening of the Council Chamber – from 13ft to 20ft (4m to 6m) – was about to commence.[25] The new supper room appears to have been added to the rear (east) of the existing 1911 timber extension.
\nThe lavatories were completed by August 1930, when Dornbusch (as architect) and Thornton (as contractor) were in a disagreement about Thornton’s adherence to the building specifications: the joists in the supper room were in many cases over 5 inches (12.7cm) wider apart than specified, while the rafters in the lavatory block were more than double the width apart that was specified.[26] The lavatories were attached to a septic system, as Warwick’s sewerage scheme was not implemented until World War II. The Town Hall lavatory block was seen as ‘out of date’ by 1948, and new public toilets were built on Grafton Street by June 1954 (since replaced).[27]
\nWarwick was one of the first municipalities in Queensland to have a lethal chamber for exterminating stray cats and dogs with coal gas, and one was added ‘at the rear of the Town Hall yard’ by March 1935. It was said to have been built of concrete, with a removable door and two pipes; one for pumping in the gas, and one for releasing displaced air. Death was supposed to occur within 3-4 minutes, and was seen as an improvement on the previous method of death by hanging. However, no written evidence has been found confirming its exact location.[28]
\nIn October 1935 Warwick celebrated (prematurely) 75 years of municipal government, and at this time the local press popularised the idea of the town being proclaimed a city. The Queensland Cabinet approved the granting of city status to Warwick on 2 April 1936, and this was celebrated in Warwick on 29 June.
\nBy the 1950s there was pressure to extended the Town Hall once more, and £7500 was borrowed, although the City Engineer claimed that £14,000 would be required to ensure adequate seating, stage space and dressing rooms, while completely replacing the supper room and building a new kitchen.[29] This work did not eventuate.
\nA Council employee, Tom Bryant, recalled that in the 1950s the room on the ground floor to the southern side of the entrance was used by a clerk and two typists, while immediately inside the office was a large public counter. In the 1960s the position of Health Surveyor was created and the room was divided to provide a separate office space. On the northern side of the entry was the committee room which was connected to the Shire Clerk’s Office. Upstairs, office space was provided for the Works Foreman and the Sewerage Foreman, while the Mayor had a private office and retiring room. The room on the southern side was used for Council meetings. A raised podium was provided for the Mayor and part of the room was separated by a rail to form a public gallery which had a separate doorway.[30]
\nIn 1965 the supper room was modernised in accordance with plans prepared by Warwick Consulting Engineer HA Leonard. Between 1962 and 1972 a kitchen extension was added at the rear of the hall, onto the other extensions.[31]
\nBy the late 1960s, the Town Hall was considered generally inadequate for the purposes of the City Council. A new administration centre was erected at the corner of Fitzroy and Albion Streets, and the last meeting of the Council was held in the Town Hall in August 1975.
\nThe Town Hall, after being listed with the National Trust in 1973, was re-roofed in 1975 with a National Estate Grant, and a damp proof course was inserted into the main building in 1976.[32]
\nFurther refurbishments occurred in 1984, when the ceiling and walls were repainted and new incandescent chandeliers replaced the former fluorescent lights. Stage lighting was renewed and improved and a bio box was installed behind the gallery to provide required lighting effects. Carpet was laid on the floor, which was provided with heating, and concrete was poured on the foyer floor. In the 1990s there was a problem with rising damp in the front, northern room, which did damage to the plasterwork, and repairs were made c1998.[33] The rear office on the northern side of the ground floor has also been converted to a men’s toilet at some point.
\nIn July 1994 the Queensland Government amalgamated the City of Warwick and the surrounding Shires of Allora, Glengallan and Rosenthal to form the Shire of Warwick; which was later amalgamated with Stanthorpe Shire in 2008 to form the Southern Downs Regional Council.
\nThe Warwick Town Hall remains in use as a venue for community functions including flower shows, school plays and other entertainment. In 2017 its ground floor offices were used for a tourism office and craft shop, while the upstairs rooms were used by the Southern Downs Regional Council’s Economic Development Unit. The building remains a prominent local landmark in the otherwise low-rise centre of the town.
","criteria":"Officially opened in October 1888, the Warwick Town Hall is important in demonstrating the consolidation and importance of Warwick as a business and administrative centre for the surrounding district during the late 19th century.
\nThe Footballers Memorial (1917), a marble World War I honour board mounted on the external front wall of the Town Hall, is important in demonstrating Queensland’s involvement in major world events. War memorials are an important element of Queensland’s towns, and cities and are also significant in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Footballers Memorial is a rare and unusual example of a war memorial that reflects the contemporary parallels drawn between war and sport, and provides a unique historical record of local participation and sacrifice in World War I.
|The Warwick Town Hall, an impressive example of the work of architect Willoughby Powell, is highly intact and retains the principal characteristics of a town hall built in Queensland in the 19th century, including: a central location, classical styling, and an imposing street presence, clock tower, civic office spaces, a council chamber, a hall and a raised stage.
\nThe Footballers Memorial, made by local stonemasons Troyahn, Coulter and Thompson, retains the principal characteristics of a World War I memorial tablet, displaying: fine marble craftsmanship, leaded letters listing the local men who died, a classically-styled form with its pedimented top, pillars and decoration.
|Prominently situated on Palmerin Street, this substantial two-storeyed stone building, with its dominating tower, is important for its aesthetic significance as a skilfully designed and constructed public building in a classically influenced style. Highly intact, the building features finely crafted elements of high quality materials including the external stonework, marble memorial plaque and internal timber joinery. It is a landmark building that symbolises the aspirations of the town, and makes an important contribution to the Palmerin Street streetscape and Warwick townscape.
|Used for council meetings from 1888 to 1975, the building continues its long association with the Warwick community as a focal point for social and civic functions and performances.
\nThe Footballers Memorial is important in demonstrating the Warwick community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute from the community to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15737,"place_ref":600962,"name":"Criterion Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"84 Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Criterion Hotel is a two-storeyed brick building, with a principal western facade addressing Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick. The long street frontage features a two-storeyed filigree verandah running its full length with a masonry parapet above, whose central bay announces the hotel's name, and 1917 as its date of construction. Behind the parapet is a meandering mostly-hipped corrugated iron roof, over the main wing and the three perpendicular accommodation wings running east. At ground level, the street frontage has a series of decorated entries to the different areas of the hotel and an adjoining tenancy.
The stop-chamfered timber posts of the verandah are paired at the ends and the three central bays. Arched between these posts on both levels is a slatted timber valance. To the upper level is a cast iron balustrade with a clover leaf motif to the centre of each panel. The underside of the verandah is clad in ripple iron, with gutters to its internal perimeter. The verandah has a corrugated iron bull-nosed roof with a gabled entry porch over the central bay.
The external walls are unpainted brickwork, with painted plaster ornamentation to the western facade. The openings to the lower level of this facade are decorated with moulded plaster archways with keystones, cornices and projecting window sills and are separated by fluted pilasters. There is a series of entrances which, beginning from the north, lead to a tenancy, a blocked shopfront possibly also a former tenancy, the Public Bar, the Stair Hall leading to the accommodation wings, and the Lounge Bar which leads into the Bistro area. The recessed entry vestibule leading to the Stair Hall features tessellated floor tiles. The main bedrooms open onto this verandah. The painted pilasters continue through the first level separating the doorways to the Bedrooms of this wing. Above the verandah roof is a rendered entablature and balustraded parapet with pedestals topped also with a clover leaf motif.
The rear wings are generally of unpainted brickwork, including several brick chimneys decorated with cornices and corbels. Each wing is terminated with a timber lean-to, housing the amenities. The verandahs of these wings have cast iron balustrades matching that of the western verandah.
The Public Bar features a silky oak bar with a curved central bay and mirrored shelving behind. The style of the bar matches that of the Lounge Bar, though the end bays are not consistent. This supports the possibility that the two bars were once part of the same public bar and have been rearranged and relocated. The Public Bar also has leadlight windows, and a pressed metal ceiling featuring the face of the "Virgin Mary" keeping watch over the patrons.
The Stair Hall also has several moulded plaster archways. The polished cedar stair has moulded square balusters, carved newels and a panelled spandrel beneath. The stair is dog-legged, with leadlight windows to the landing.
From the Stair Hall, entry to the Lounge Bar is through a doorway in a glazed timber bar screen. The bar, similar in style to that of the Public Bar, has a curved corner to the eastern end and a timber bar screen to western end, which is similar to the screen of the doorway. There is a pressed metal ceiling and cornice, forming coffers between the beams. Beyond the Lounge is the Bistro area which also has a pressed metal ceiling with borders, cornices and roses. From here several french doors lead into beer garden courtyard.
In the central wing across the courtyard is the laundry, the kitchen and the former Dining Room now used for serving breakfast. This wing is approached from the Stair Hall along a timber verandah which continues around the wing. The upper level of this verandah also has a ripple iron soffit with internal gutters.
The main stair arrives at the First Floor in the upper Stair Hall which has moulded archways less ornate than that of the lower level. From the mid-landing is a smaller stair of similar detail, which leads to the upper level verandah. From the Stair Hall run two corridors through the accommodation wings, a lounge leading to the western verandah, and the former Lobby and Ballroom which are now part of the manager's residence.
The Bedrooms to the accommodation wings typically have low-waisted four panel doors with tilting fanlights. The rooms and corridors have pressed metal ceilings and a variety of plaster and timber archways. Exit doors commonly have coloured glass upper panels and flush lower panels.
The Criterion Hotel retains a substantial amount of its internal joinery including the main staircase, although some has been relocated within the hotel. There is also an extensive range of pressed metal ceilings, including the unusual "Virgin Mary" motif in the Public Bar.
","history":"This two storeyed brick hotel, prominently situated in Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick, was erected in 1917 for the Allman family.
It replaced a single storeyed timber hotel, known also as the Criterion, which existed on the site from the 1860s, owned by David Bugden. Records indicate that although Bugden apparently left the Criterion in mid 1872, he retained ownership of the property and the hotel continued to be operated by members of the Bugden family until the early 1880s, then by JW Quinn until the mid 1880s.
The Criterion Hotel was acquired by Jeremiah Allman in 1887. Born in Ireland, Allman arrived in Australia in the mid 1860s, establishing himself on the Darling Downs and acquiring a hotel in Stanthorpe in the early 1870s. At around this time Allman married Mrs Mary Dwan, a Warwick widow and licensee of the Sportsman's Arms Hotel in Albion St, Warwick. The Allmans remained at the Sportsman's Arms until they moved to the Criterion Hotel in the mid 1880s.
From the mid 1880s, Allman was also actively involved in the development of Warwick. Allman was elected an alderman of the Warwick Town Council in 1886, remaining with the Council until 1903 and serving as Mayor in 1895 and 1902.
Mary Allman died in 1898. Some time after this Allman remarried to Catherine King, also known as Kate.
In 1899 a notice appeared in the Warwick Argus advising that the goodwill and plant of the Criterion had been purchased by Perkins and Co, the reason for the sale given as Allman had decided to take a long holiday. The sale does not appear to have eventuated however, as there is no record of such transfer on the Title documents.
Another notice appeared in the Warwick Argus in 1900 from J Allman to inform customers and the public that having purchased the above hostelry, he has had the premises thoroughly renovated, rendering the CRITERION one of the best appointed hotels in the district.
The license of the Criterion Hotel was transferred to Kate Allman in December 1908, prior to Allan's death in September 1910. Subsequent to Allman's death the property was transferred to Allman's son Daniel, Patrick Joseph Dalton and John Logan. During the early twentieth century the Allman family also owned the National [600950] and leased the Langham [600957] Hotels in Warwick.
Tenders for a new (brick) Criterion Hotel were called by Warwick architects Dornbusch and Connolly in December 1912, and again in March 1916. The estimated price of the new hotel was £12,000.
By February 1917 the original Criterion Hotel had been demolished to make way for a more palatial structure. Erection of the new hotel was in progress by March that year, and it was noted that even at this early stage the big structure has quite altered the aspect of Palmerin-Street...An examination of the hotel shows it has been designed on most modern methods, the general arrangements being very up-to-date. When completed the new Criterion will be one of the most imposing and finest hotels in the State. The contractors for the hotel were Messrs Connolly and Bell.
The ground floor of the new building also included shops to either side of the main Palmerin Street entry, and by the end of July 1917, letting notices for the shops in the new Criterion buildings appeared in the local press.
The hotel remained in the Allman family until 1968. The hotel subsequently had a number of owners before being acquired by the present owners in 1989, by which time it is understood that the hotel was in poor condition. Alterations undertaken to the hotel at this time included the reorganisation of the main bar area and bar furniture to create two separate bar areas.
","criteria":"The erection of the hotel in 1917, replacing an earlier hotel building, is important in demonstrating the high level of building activity in Warwick town during the early twentieth century when many of the general stores and hotels were re-built or renovated.
\nThe Criterion Hotel has an association with the Allman family, who ran other hotels in Warwick during this period, and who were actively involved in the development of Warwick from the 1880s.
|The Criterion Hotel retains a substantial amount of its internal joinery, and includes an extensive range of pressed metal ceilings.
|Prominently located within the business centre of Warwick, this substantial brick hotel contributes to the Palmerin Street streetscape and the Warwick townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15740,"place_ref":600965,"name":"Corfield & Fitzmaurice Store","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"63 Elderslie Street","suburb":"WINTON","lga":"WINTON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The former Corfield and Fitzmaurice Store is a large, timber framed building which is square in plan. The sides and rear of the building are clad with corrugated iron, as is the saw tooth roof. There are windows running along the sides high in the wall to supply good natural light to the interior. The street elevation of the building is more decorative and prestigious in appearance, being of timber and featuring a large expanse of display windows separated into two main sections by deeply recessed entrances. There is a small office on the right hand side of the building which is reached through a panelled door with a narrow sash window beside it. The shop front is shaded by a bull-nosed awning clad in corrugated iron and is supported by pairs of timber posts set in concrete blocks, probably an adaptation as the bases of the posts decayed. A decorative cast iron valance runs between the posts. The deep parapet above the awning is galvanised iron and features a pair of triangular pediments with the dates 1878 and 1916 above a deep entablature that carries the inscription "Corfield and Fitzmaurice Merchants". A stepped parapet completes the striking effect. At the rear of the building is an attached cold room clad in corrugated iron.
Internally the store appears to be largely intact and retains such features as early, long timber counters and timber storage shelving attached to the walls. A cash railway, known as a "flying fox", for transporting cash and receipts between the counter and a central timber office raised to mezzanine level still survives. The store is currently used for displays of local crafts, gemstones and minerals and a dinosaur diorama.
Behind the building are three rectangular storage sheds. They are set at right angles to the store and are set on low stumps and sheeted and roofed in corrugated iron.
","history":"The current 1916 building is the latest in a succession of Corfield and Fitzmaurice stores on the same site which established the main street of Winton.
The first pastoral run in the area was taken up around 1866 and the first lease was granted in 1873. Robert Allen, who also acted as an unofficial postmaster, had established a store and a basic hotel at Pelican Water Hole in 1876. This area proved to be subject to flooding, so when a site was surveyed for a township in 1878, a place about a mile away was selected. It was called Winton, after Allen's home in England. William Corfield, who had been in the carrying business since the mid 1860s, formed a partnership with Robert Fitzmaurice to set up a store and hotel in the proposed new town.
The partners left Townsville in July 1878 with a load of goods and set up a primitive store of saplings and tarpaulin, placing it by agreement in line with Allen's relocated building and Lynett's store. This row of buildings became the basis for the main street of Winton. Corfield returned to Townsville with a backload of wool and came back with timber, iron and a billiard table for a new hotel, to be known as the North Gregory Hotel. Fitzmaurice then went to Townsville to collect his wife and child and to bring the materials necessary to construct a more permanent store building. Both buildings were completed by 1879 and did well. Winton was gazetted as a town in the same year and the streets were named after surrounding runs including Elderslie Street where the store is located.
In 1880 the first land sales were held and Corfield and Fitzmaurice purchased the block on which their store stood. Winton flourished and soon had two stores, three hotels, a court house, bank and post office. By 1883 the population was 300 and increasing rapidly. In 1884 Fitzmaurice lost his sight and Corfield bought him out, selling the hotel on. He then went into partnership with W.M. Campbell. The transport company of Cobb and Co. set up a depot in Winton in 1885 and Corfield became their agent. In 1888 he entered politics as MP for Gregory, but in 1898 his partner became ill and Corfield returned to active participation in the business. Additions were carried out to the Corfield and Fitzmaurice store in 1899 by the Townsville architects Tunbridge and Tunbridge. This store was destroyed by fire in 1916 and was rebuilt. After Campbell's death, T.J. O'Rourke went into partnership with Corfield and was still so in 1921 when Corfield wrote the book 'Reminiscences of Queensland.'
"Corfield and Fitzmaurice" remained a general store and warehouse supplying the surrounding area with a diverse range of goods and almost anything could be ordered through them. Orders were despatched to Brisbane and returned via rail or road. The store proper housed grocery, household goods and drapery sections and sheds to the rear of the store held liquor, grain and farming implements. A sample room was also provided in one of these sheds where commercial travellers could display their goods. Corfield and Fitzmaurice became a well-known and important store in the area and shopping there was also a social occasion for families from outlying areas.
The Corfield and Fitzmaurice Store ceased trading in 1987. In April 1994 the building reopened as the Corfield and Fitzmaurice Winton Tourism Development Centre Association. It is used to display and sell locally-made craft items and features a display based on the store's history.
","criteria":"The Corfield and Fitzmaurice Store is situated on land which has been the site of a store in Winton from the nineteenth century, and as such, demonstrates the development of the town as a commercial centre for the Western Plains district.
|The Corfield and Fitzmaurice store is rare for the intactness of its interior space complete with many fittings such as shelves, display cabinets and counters for a traditional range of merchandise organised into departments. In particular the cash railway, or flying fox dispenser, is a rare example in situ of money handling technology of the early twentieth century.
|Corfield and Fitzmaurice Store is an excellent and well preserved example of the kind of variety store and warehouse which provided a vital service to country areas in the supply of goods and services.
|The elegant and well preserved shop front of Corfield and Fitzmaurice is a landmark in Winton and makes as major contribution to the character of its main street.
|The building has special associations with the life and work of its original owners William Henry Corfield and Robert Fitzmaurice who were instrumental in the founding of Winton.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15741,"place_ref":600966,"name":"Elderslie Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Winton - Boulia Road","suburb":"WINTON","lga":"WINTON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Elderslie Homestead is located near the confluence of the Western River and Wokingham Creek, three kilometres north west of the residual sandstone outcrop of Mt Booka Booka. Only this outcrop and the slight rise on which the homestead is located break the horizontal plane of the surrounding landscape. The homestead gardens provide a striking contrast to the sparse natural vegetation of the area.
The complex comprises accommodation and working buildings. Three buildings constructed from Booka Booka sandstone remain. These are the main house, quarters and blacksmith's building. There is also a timber and metal meat house and visible sites of several other structures.
The main house is constructed from squared rubble, with dressed faces. Door openings are picked out with finely tooled margins. This method of construction is more refined than that used for the other buildings which are of coursed rubble. The original 1881 section was essentially a one room deep rectangular structure with verandahs to all sides. An early wing was added to the north west side to form an L shape and the verandah has been extended to encircle this addition. The construction techniques used for the addition are cruder, using random rubble stone, rendered and struck to imitate ashlar. The hipped roof is sheeted with corrugated iron. The rooms have concrete floors and rendered walls, most of which open out on to the verandahs but are not interconnecting. The main rooms are lined and ceiled with pressed metal panelling. Three of the rooms have fireplaces. The entire verandah is enclosed with flyscreens.
The blacksmiths shop is a long rectangular building constructed of coursed rubble sandstone bocks laid straight on the ground. It has an iron roof and an encircling verandah set on a hardwood frame. Most of the verandah posts have been replaced with steel posts. The building has three similarly sized rooms at the eastern end, comprising a butcher's, store and office. At the western end are the former stables and between there is a semi-open area which was the blacksmith's shop and harness room.
The Quarters provided accommodation for senior staff and consists of two equally sized rooms separated by a wall with a double fire-place. The construction is similar to that of the blacksmith's shop with coursed rubble walls and a hipped roof sheeted with corrugated iron. Verandahs surround the building. The roof frame and verandah posts are of bush timber. The interior of both rooms are rendered and show traces of lime wash. Both rooms have stone paved floors.
The meat house is a lightweight structure to the north of the quarters. It has flat steel sheets over a hardwood frame reaching to high sills and is flyscreened above. The roof and verandah are framed in hardwood and sheeted with corrugated iron which replaced the original thatched roof.
Other buildings on site include a cowshed to the north of the main group, tankstands possibly dating to the early 1900s and a garage and prefabricated steel shed for machinery and vehicles.
There is a small cemetery near the homestead complex. Records suggests that it was first used in 1882.
","history":"Elderslie Homestead is about 60 kms west of Winton and is a complex of accommodation and working buildings set against the backdrop of Mt Booka Booka in an otherwise flat landscape. Three of the surviving buildings were constructed of local stone in the early 1880s as the nucleus of Elderslie Station.
The area in which Elderslie station is located was explored by William Landsborough and surveyor George Phillips in 1866, although some pioneer pastoralists had settled in the area as early as 1863. Severe drought in the late 1860s compelled some to leave, but there was a new wave of settlement in the early 1870s when the drought broke and interest in pastoralism grew due to rising wool prices. 1n 1873 the area was declared a pastoral district and a detailed survey of the Western River and environs was carried out in 1876.
In 1873 Samuel Forsyth took up thirteen runs along the Diamantina and Western Rivers. In 1875, seven adjacent leases were granted to Donald Smith Wallace. It is thought that Wallace may have chosen the name Elderslie for its link with his famous namesake, the Scottish patriot William Wallace of Elderslie. The first buildings on Elderslie were constructed prior to 1875, and are thought to have comprised a pise homestead and yards. A shanty and store were later erected nearby. In 1876, this area was flooded, and the store was moved to higher ground approximately a mile away. This later became the site of the township of Winton, with an area resumed from the Elderslie holdings for the purpose.
By 1879, all leases (a total of 21 runs) were transferred to the prominent Victorian pastoralist, Samuel Wilson. Wilson had come from England to the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s and had also managed a sheep station for his brother in that colony. His success in this industry was spectacular and he built up a pastoral empire with holdings in various states. He also became involved in Victorian politics and was a member of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. A munificent gift of £30,000 to Melbourne University was followed by a knighthood in 1875 and he moved back to England where he took up the former estate of Lord Beaconsfield and attempted to enter British politics. Although he retained ownership of Elderslie until his death in 1895, his interest in the place was therefore as a business property rather than a home. This is visible in the buildings at Elderslie which are functional working buildings rather than the residence of a wealthy man with social and political aspirations.
In 1881, substantial capital was invested in Elderslie in the form of a new homestead complex constructed some forty kilometres away from the original homestead at Wallace's Camp. This may have been because this site had flooded, was too close to the budding township of Winton, or simply because the new site was more centrally placed in the Elderslie holding.
The new homestead complex was erected no later than 1882 beneath Mount Booka-Booka, which provided the sandstone for the structures. The building technique and materials are similar to those at nearby Oondooroo Station, and it is thought that both complexes were constructed by a German stonemason with the assistance of locally available Chinese labour.
In 1891, an inspector for the Department of Public Lands described the Elderslie complex as including the homestead house, laundry and servants' rooms, kitchen, butcher's shop, men's hut, store and cottage, cottage, carpenters, wheelwrights and saddler's shop, gardeners cottage and garden, four earth dams, an overshop and 62 miles of fencing. Of these, only five buildings survive today, however, they are sufficient to demonstrate the layout and use of the homestead. Curiously, Wilson appears to have used the property to run only cattle, given that he had previous experience with sheep and that wool prices were high when he had acquired the station. Sheep were not introduced until the subsequent owners restocked.
The extant structures and the evidence of those which no longer exist indicate the scale of the property at this time. The station supported a large number of workers, reputedly up to ninety at its peak, and the infrastructure required would have been considerable. Early photographic and documentary records show large gardens, both productive and decorative, and that social needs for the Elderslie community were considered, with a School of Arts registered at the station in 1896.
In 1892, Elderslie was divided into two parts, one of approximately 4,400 square kilometres leased to Wilson and approximately half that amount intended to be subdivided for closer settlement, but over which Wilson had a lease to occupy. On Wilson's death, both sections were transferred to the Ramsay family. By 1912, the Ramsays had stocked the property with sheep, established horse studs and sunk three artesian bores. The additions to the house which created its present form probably occurred during this time. Although the period in which the Ramsays occupied Elderslie was a difficult one, coinciding with severe droughts and large resumptions of land, they managed to sell the property debt free to the Queensland Stock Breeding Company Limited in 1912.
After the First World War, further land resumptions for closer settlement were made and in 1924, Elderslie was transferred to the Australian Estates and Mortgage Company Limited who retained ownership until 1950. At this time the entire holding was resumed and divided into several grazing leases which were opened for selection. During the 1950s the verandahs were reconstructed and a hip extended to the south east of the first extension to create a bathroom and laundry. The kitchen was also relocated to the northern corner of the building and the verandahs were flyscreened. In 1954, the homestead block was purchased by Mr and Mrs Keith Watts. The original Elderslie buildings were by then in serious state of disrepair, and the Watts were instrumental in retaining and repairing them. Elderslie remains in this family.
The homestead complex has been, and continues to be, the subject of studies including a conservation plan prepared in 1991. In 1993 some conservation work was carried out on the blacksmiths building and quarters. The buildings have continued to suffer through storms which are common in this area due to the thermal conditions.
Although the homestead complex serves an area very much reduced from the original holding, it continues its original role as it has for a hundred and twenty years.
","criteria":"Elderslie Homestead is important in demonstrating how European settlement spread in remote parts of Queensland through exploration and pastoral usage, followed by closer settlement and the growth of service towns. The town of Winton is located near the site of the original homestead and may well have affected the choice of location for the homestead complex.
|It is rare in Queensland to find intact and substantial stone buildings from this era in such a remote setting.
|The buildings and the sites for previous structures, including accommodation and working buildings, gardens, graves, fences and mature trees. have the potential to contribute to our understanding of how such pastoral stations functioned and to demonstrate their principal characteristics over the hundred and twenty years in which the homestead has been in use.
|The buildings and the sites for previous structures, including accommodation and working buildings, gardens, graves, fences and mature trees. have the potential to contribute to our understanding of how such pastoral stations functioned and to demonstrate their principal characteristics over the hundred and twenty years in which the homestead has been in use.
|Elderslie homestead makes an important aesthetic contribution to the landscape, its low and simple buildings and the use of sandstone from Mt Booka Booka forming a harmonious link between this dominant geographical feature and the flat and barren landscape of the surrounding area.
|As the first station in the far north west, Elderslie has special connection to the people of Winton, whose main street is named in its honour, and with those pioneers of the pastoral industry within and around Elderslie's boundaries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15742,"place_ref":600967,"name":"Boondooma Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"8262 Mundubbera - Durong Road","suburb":"BOONDOOMA","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Boondooma Homestead complex is located near the junction of Boondooma Creek and the Boyne River, in a corridor of land between the two waterways that is less than 1km wide. Part of the Boyne River has been dammed to create the Boondooma Dam, which is adjacent to the Homestead site. Its eastern boundary is situated on the Mundubbera-Durong Road, approximately 75km west of the town of Wondai, which is 31km north of Kingaroy.
The principal surviving buildings in the homestead complex include a stone building and timber house from the 1850s; a dining room erected during the 1870s, a walkway between the house and the dining room; a cooling shed; cow bails (prior to 1939 used as stables); a structure which functioned as a postal receiving office from the 1860s; and a garage built in the 1950s. The various built elements are disposed around the site according to their functional relationship to one another.
Stone Building
The stone building is located at the southern end of the property, furthermost from the Mundubbera-Durong Road. In plan it comprises a rectangular core of random rubble laid in rough courses, which is flanked by a verandah on each long side. The verandah roof to the south-west is continuous with the main gabled roof, while that to the north-east is separate, meeting the core's wall just below the eaves line. The pitch on both verandah roofs is slightly reduced from that of the main roof. All bargeboards are timber. A single line of guttering is fixed to the north-eastern edge of the main roof. All these roofs are clad in corrugated galvanised iron. The timber rafters are exposed on the interior, and some battening from the original shingle roof is still evident.
The walls of the central core are constructed of large sections of stone arranged roughly in courses, between which smaller pieces have been inserted. The whole construction is jointed with mortar made from termite mounds (antbed). The stonework continues to the underside of the main roof, except at each gable end where roughly sawn, vertical timber slabs have been fixed. The lean-to verandahs comprise of post and sapling frames and are enclosed with vertical timber slabs on the western ends of their northern and southern facades, and on their short western facades.
All windows and doors have timber lintels and frames. The windows have shutters made of vertical timber slabs, which open onto the interior. They also have vertical iron bars. A window in the north-eastern facade has horizontal and vertical bars. A 1997 archaeological investigation suggests that the timber posts remaining adjacent to the south-western façade were part of the adjoining meat house.
Internally, the core space comprises one large room with unlined walls and exposed timber roof framing. A number of ironbark roof ties are in place. Paint on the stonework may be indicative of previous partitioning. The floor is constructed of wide, hardwood shot-edge boards. Beneath this lining are timber joists and bearers.
Timber House
The single-storey house has a broken-back, hipped roof clad in corrugated galvanised iron. A detached single-storey kitchen, with a similarly clad pyramid roof, is centred adjacent to its south-western façade. This roof has a simple vent piece fitted at its peak. A small, skillion-roofed structure is also appended to its south-eastern face. At the western corner of the house, between the kitchen building and another skillion-roofed extension, a covered walkway is attached. This structure links the house to a dining room to its north-west, and is constructed of a post and sapling frame with a curved corrugated iron roof. A short section of the walkway roof, close to the house, is no longer in place.
The underside of the front verandah roof is not lined, revealing that a great number of the original timber shingles remain in place under the roof sheeting. The deterioration of this verandah floor, which is lined with shot-edge timber boards like the south-western one, reveals that the floor joists of the house and the timber verandah posts bear on an outer line of bedlogs.
The house is laid out with a central band of rooms running north-west to south-east along the length of the rectangle. A long, thin outer room on the north-west wraps around to take a small part of the front verandah facing north-east. This room, and a small one adjacent to it, have been formed by enclosing the former open verandah. A second verandah area remains on the south-west of the house, between the core and the kitchen building. Its southern end has been enclosed to make a small room. A large fireplace projects into this verandah space from one of the main rooms. Its lower half is clad in wide, vertical timber boards, matching those used elsewhere, and its upper half under the roof is clad in sheet steel. The steel-clad chimneystack is visible above the main roof.
The external walls are clad in a variety of materials. The north-eastern façade to the verandah is clad in 8inch wide chamferboards, except for a short section at its eastern end where there are wide, timber boards fitted vertically. This boarding pattern also appears on the south-western façade to the second verandah, which is adjacent to the kitchen. On the north-western façade, and partly on the north-eastern one, there are unpainted weatherboards. Unpainted, horizontal timber boards clad the south-west facing walls of the kitchen building and the small extension next to the walkway. These boards appear to fit between the exposed vertical framing members. The timber wall framing is also exposed on each verandah. The skillion-roofed extension on the south-east of the house is clad in roughly sawn, unpainted timber slabs fitted vertically. Some corrugated iron has been fixed to the remainder of the south-eastern façade of the house, where the brick fireplace has collapsed.
Four sets of French or double doors open from the three central rooms onto the north-eastern verandah, while two open onto the south-west facing one. The internal doors are four-panelled with simple bolection mouldings. The timber-framed windows, some of which have fixed-louvre shutters, are generally casement with three or four panes. Joinery to the main section of the house, incorporating the three main rooms, is finely detailed and includes a variety of mouldings. The wall framing is exposed in these rooms, and where it appears around the remaining fireplace and the doors to that room, it is finely moulded. Most joinery elements are painted in either white, or various shades of green and blue-green. The walls are constructed of wide, vertical timber boards that appear to have been stained or oiled. Numerous layers of wallpaper and backing material are evident, some of which have been papered over with magazines cuttings. Remnants of ceiling paper and associated backing materials, and various types of linoleum are also evident in some areas. The floors are largely finished with shot-edge timber boards, while the ceilings in the largest of the three rooms are finished with painted timber boards. In the room with the extant fireplace, there is a simple pattern to the floorboards around its edge. The floor to ceiling height is generally about 3m, however in the larger room on the south-east end of the house it follows the slope of the roof for part of its length. In the main room there is a picture rail fitted at approximately 2.5m and above this the walls are lined with horizontal timber boards to match the ceiling.
The external walls to the secondary rooms, particularly those that infill the verandah space to the north-west are not lined. The internal walls they share with the main part of the house are lined to match those rooms, as are their floors. The ceilings in this external band of rooms are unlined and slope to follow the pitch of the roof. It is here, as in the verandah areas, where the shingles are visible. The walls to the detached kitchen are unlined and the framing is exposed. The boards are painted and simple mouldings fixed at the joints with the framing. The stove recess is lined with corrugated iron. Its pyramid roof ceiling is lined with unpainted, horizontal timber boards, with beading fixed at each joint.
Other Timber Structures on Homestead Site
The other remaining timber structures on the Homestead site are similar in terms of design and construction techniques; incorporating post and sapling frames, corrugated iron roof sheeting, and walls lined with vertical and horizontal slabs and weatherboards. Some of the walls to the covered walkway are clad in corrugated iron, while parts of its floor is made with wide, roughly sawn timber slabs apparently laid on the ground. The small, gable-roofed structure to the north-west of the timber house (originally a dining room) currently has open walls, with some wall slab remnants located nearby. Its gables are in-filled with steel mesh. Adjacent to the south-west face of this structure is the cooling shed, which was apart of the creamery. This is also a small gable-roofed structure, however its gables are filled with weatherboards, and its walls are clad in rough-sawn timber slabs fitted horizontally between the exposed frame.
To the south-east of the timber house is located the milk or cow bails, and the stockyards. This building is a long rectangle in plan, is gable-roofed and its end walls are clad in rough-sawn timber slabs fitted vertically. There are timber posts and rails still evident inside the shed and marking the pens of the stockyards. The post office is located west of the cow bails. It also is a gable-roofed structure with an attached skillion-roofed garage and awning. The post office walls are clad in rough-sawn timber slabs, fitted vertically, while its gables are clad in weatherboards. The garage walls are also clad in weatherboards. Further west is a stand-alone garage structure with a skillion roof and unevenly clad walls matching those of the post office.
Grounds
The grounds in which the Homestead complex is located shows evidence of a formally laid out garden comprising an orchard of citrus trees, and mature plantings such as blackbean, bottle, oak, pine and pepperina trees. Trellises for grape vines, garden beds and various fences are also evident located adjacent to the timber house.
","history":"Boondooma Homestead is located on the Mundubbera-Durong Road in Boondooma. The Boondooma Run was originally taken up in 1846 by the Lawson brothers and Robert Alexander, and the Homestead site today includes a number of historic buildings, including a stone building and timber house erected in the 1850s, and several timber outbuildings.
Searches for pastoral land in Queensland extended north in the early 1840s after the Moreton Bay region was opened for selection following the closure of the penal colony. Initial leases were taken up in the Moreton Bay, Darling Downs and Brisbane Valley regions and by 1842, explorations such as those led by Henry Stuart Russell had spread further north.
Russell first came to Queensland in 1840 to stay with cousins on the Darling Downs, and in the subsequent year established Eton Vale on the Downs in partnership with his brother, Sydenham. In conjunction with others Russell made exploratory expeditions to the Wide Bay area and in 1842 he was the first European to pass through what was later to become Boondooma whilst exploring the area west of Tiaro with William H Orton and an Aborigine named Jemmy. In the following year, he took up Burrandowan run on the Borne River as a sheep station and other squatters soon followed his example in establishing themselves in the area. Two of these were brothers Alexander Robertson Lawson and Robert Lawson, who set up Boondooma Station as a sheep run in 1846 along with Robert Alexander. Temporary huts and sheds were erected on the site and by 1851 Boondooma comprised the runs of Boondooma, Jua, Waringa and Waagineraganya, while Piar, Dangarabungy and Weir Weir were subsequently acquired. The Boondooma lease was applied for on 31 October 1851 by the Lawson brothers and Alexander, and approved the following year. In 1863 the lease remained in the Lawson family but was transferred to Alexander Robertson Lawson solely. Four years later, in 1867, Boondooma lease was transferred to William Oswald Gilchrist and John Young, before being transferred to Gilchrist solely in 1872 and then held jointly by Gilchrist and John Brown Watt in 1888. It seems unlikely that Gilchrist, Young or Watt resided at the property and it continued to be managed by the Lawsons until 1870 when they were succeeded by George Munro.
Despite an outbreak of scab in 1853 which caused the loss of 17,000 sheep, the property prospered during this early period as a successful sheep run. A wool scour and pressing plant were established on the Boyne River, allowing wool to be cleaned and baled before being backloaded by teamsters who arrived with supplies. This continued until the early 1890s when, due to the spread of spear grass, the owners were forced to dispose of the sheep and restock with cattle.
The period from the 1850s to the 1870s was in general an era of expansion for Boondooma and this is reflected in its physical growth at the time. In November 1855, Alexander Robertson Lawson married Emily Mountford Ball and the following year a son named Robert was born. By that time, it seems plans had already been made to replace an earlier house, which was reputedly located on an area archaeologically identified as being later used for a fowl house, with a larger residence to accommodate the Lawson family. Station correspondence from this period reveals building supplies and furniture being ordered in September 1855, including door hinges, locks, handles, window glass, wallpaper, calico for the wooden walls, a drawing room table and chairs, a hand basin, cooking stove, and bath. By late 1856, the Boondooma wages book indicates that 2 carpenters, John Groom and John Moules, were employed at the Station. Both carpenters worked at Boondooma until mid-1857, along with a team of 5 other tradesmen under their supervision, and it is most likely that the main timber house, which is still standing, was constructed during this period.
At much the same time, it seems the stone storeroom and an adjoining timber meat house were also being erected. The stone building was constructed from roughly coursed local rock obtained from a nearby quarry, sawn timbers, logs, and antbed, and was built by Wilhelm Brill, a stonemason. Brill was born in Germany in 1811 and arrived in Brisbane on 12 January 1853 on board the Johan Caesar. With his family, Brill first moved to Toowoomba before making his way to Boondooma by August 1855. In the mid-1850s, the Lawsons were actively recruiting German workers owing to the general 'scarcity of labour and the satisfaction those already in our service have given us' and the Boondooma wages book shows Brill was employed as a stonemason from 24 May 1856 to 21 July 1857. He remained at the Station until 1861 working as a shepherd, thereafter moving to Ipswich and then to Toowoomba where he died in 1886. The main stone structure remains well preserved and Brill's familiarity with metric dimensions makes this building one of the earliest in Queensland constructed to metric standards.
Although Boondooma was not officially registered as a postal receiving office until 1900, the structure commonly referred to as the post office was built during the early 1860s after Joseph Booth won the contract for the weekly postal run to serve the Burnett district, which passed through Boondooma. Extensions to this building were added during the 1950s. Another structure from the 1860s is often referred to as the cook's room. It was a three-panelled building originally used as a dairy, wash house and cook's room, and the only extant physical remain is one standing post.
A separate dining room and cooling shed were reputedly built on the site during the 1870s. The dining room was later used as a kitchen and at some stage was linked to the homestead by a covered walkway. Adjacent to the dining room was a cooling shed built at much the same time from Cyprus pine and with a wooden shingle roof which has since been replaced by corrugated iron.
In 1885, the consolidated Boondooma holding was brought under the provisions of the Crown Lands Act of 1884 and was accordingly divided into 259 square miles of leased land in the name of Gilchrist and Watt and 249 square miles of resumed area. At this time, George Munro served as manager of Boondooma and was succeeded by his son, Peter Munro, in 1895. George Munro died on 24 March 1895 at Boondooma and his grave and tombstone remain on the site.
In 1898 the lease to Boondooma was obtained by EJ McConnel, a member of the well-known Cressbrook Pastoral Company, and when title was transferred in 1904, it was to DC McConnel & Sons. The McConnel family were pioneer pastoralists in the Brisbane River Valley, establishing Cressbrook (600503) in 1841, the first sheep run in the district. The company of DC McConnel and Sons was established by David Cannon McConnel prior to his death in 1885 in partnership with his sons James Henry, David Rose, Eric Walter and Edward John, and daughter Mary McLeod Banks. None of the McConnel family ever resided at Boondooma and it was immediately used as collateral for a stock mortgage of £160,000. David Stevens served as manager of the Station from 1898 to 1908, succeeded by Archie Graham.
In 1905, the government resumed a further 60 square miles of Boondooma, reducing the holding to 198 square miles. Three years later a further 42 square miles of land was resumed from Boondooma, at which time the station was released from the mortgage acquired in 1904 and operated by the Marshlands Pastoral Company, which had 3 McConnel family members as shareholders.
In 1913, when the lease on Boondooma expired, it was thrown open for selection. A large portion was retained by the McConnels, including the Homestead block, but in 1922 the lease was again open for selection with Fred Palethorpe, who became Deputy Commissioner of Police, successful in obtaining the Homestead site. From Palethorpe the property was transferred to Jane Ann Thomson in the mid-1920s and then to her son, Edward Thomson. During the Thomsons' time at Boondooma it was used as a dairy farm as well as for growing cotton and rearing cattle. In 1975, the Wondai Shire Council received a Federal Government grant to acquire the site and the Council in association with the Boondooma Historical Society have since maintained an ongoing programme of conservation.
Over the years since the establishment of the Boondooma Run in 1846, land resumptions and tenure changes have resulted in the reduction of the homestead site to its present size. It remains, however, a site of significant historical value. Although natural deterioration and an auction held in 1919 to sell the jackaroo quarters, buggy shed, blacksmith's shop and several other ancillary structures have reduced the number of extant structures at Boondooma, there remains on the site a number of buildings which are important in reflecting Queensland's early pastoral development. The importance of this site has been recognized by the formation of the Boondooma Homestead Committee, instituted to facilitate the ongoing conservation of the homestead and surrounding buildings, and the receipt in 2001 of a Community Garden Grants Award.
","criteria":"Boondooma station was established in 1846 by the Lawson brothers and Robert Alexander in the wake of Henry Stuart Russell's exploration of the Burnett River district in 1842. The Boondooma Homestead site stands as important surviving evidence of the early exploration and settlement of the Upper Burnnett region, and its buildings are indicative of early pastoral life in Queensland. The physical growth of the site reflects periods of economic prosperity in Queensland, whilst periods of rural hardship can be reflected in the abandonment and sale of structures.
|Boondooma comprises built elements that are now uncommon examples of construction methods and techniques. The principal historic buildings include an 1850s stone storehouse, which is both rare in its method of construction and an early example of the use of the metric standard in Queensland. The main house and the post office are also important surviving structures. The survival of interior finishes in the main timber house, including wallpapers and linoleums, contributes to its rarity.
|The site remains a good example of the early vernacular homestead and contains a range of ancillary buildings in varying states of preservation. It provides present generations the opportunity to observe and understand the operation of early pastoral stations, and through further historical and archaeological research the site also has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of early European settlement in the Burnett region.
|The Boondooma site is an example of a homestead setting, with remnants of other structures including various outbuildings, graves, fences and mature trees. The relationship between these elements contributes to an understanding of early station life and as such it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.
|The Homestead site provides a relatively well-preserved and vivid example of vernacular architecture of the Queensland pastoral frontier and its aesthetic significance is enhanced by the ongoing preservation of the site. The individual buildings that remain reveal a high degree of workmanship and design. The use of local resources for building, as evidenced most notably in the stone building on the site in which rubble obtained from a nearby quarry and antbed are used for construction, demonstrates a high degree of skill and highlights the adaptive lifestyle of Queensland's pastoral pioneers.
|Boondooma remains valued by the local community for its strong and very important links with early pioneers of the Burnett district, including the Lawson family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15743,"place_ref":600968,"name":"War Memorial Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Brooweena-Woolooga Road","suburb":"BROOWEENA","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial Bridge is located 21km south of Brooweena on the Brooweena - Woolooga Road. Apart from the memorial pillars, it is a typical country bridge located in a treed landscape. It is constructed of timber and is supported by piers to form a slight arch over a small creek. A simple white painted timber balustrade runs between the pairs of pillars located at either end.
The white painted sandstone pillars sit on stepped bases and have pedimented entablatures. On the approach side of each pillar are leaded marble plaques. Those at the northern approach bear the names of the nine local men who fell and the theatres of war where they died on one side, and the names of the 38 local soldiers who returned on the other. The pillars at the southern approach display the dates of the First World War.
","history":"The Brooweena War Memorial Bridge was officially opened on 21 May 1921 by local clergyman the Rev Hardingham. Mrs A Brown, whose son was among the fallen, performed the unveiling of the honour roll. The memorial honours the 9 local men who fell during the First World War.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there were many different types of memorials throughout Queensland, this is the only known example of a memorial bridge. It was designed and funded by Mr L S Smith of Mount Joseph station and, apart from the masonry piers, was constructed by his station hands, some of whom were returned soldiers. The masonry work was carried out by F W Webb of Maryborough.
Although the Smiths lost no sons in the First World War, they still wished to make their own commemorative gesture. Upon completion of the bridge, it was handed over to the Woocoo Shire Council. This si indicative of the strength of Brooweena's patriotic support during the First World War. The residents of the town and surrounding district funded an ambulance in France and another memorial in the form of a digger statue is located in the town.
The bridge remained in use until a new structure was built in 1972. Shortly after this date, Mr Smith jnr erected a commemorative cairn explaining the significance of the bridge. It remains as a local attraction within the area.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Opened in 1921, the memorial bridge at Brooweena was erected as an enduring record of a major historical event.
|It is rare as the only known privately erected memorial bridge in Queensland and possibly in Australia. The use of a bridge as a memorial to the First World War is uncommon in Queensland. There is only one other known example, however, it was publicly erected.
|It is rare as the only known privately erected memorial bridge in Queensland and possibly in Australia. The use of a bridge as a memorial to the First World War is uncommon in Queensland. There is only one other known example, however, it was publicly erected.
|The Bridge has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. This memorial is of particular significance as evidence of the extraordinary patriotism of the people of Brooweena and specifically with the Smith family who were responsible for its construction.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15744,"place_ref":600969,"name":"Brooweena War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Smith Crescent","suburb":"BROOWEENA","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in the grounds of The Woocoo Historical Museum.
It comprises an unusually designed pedestal surmounted by a digger statue.
The sandstone memorial sits on a concrete base step. Above this are three smooth-faced sandstone steps, two of which are the same width, separated by a thinner step. On the front face of the two larger steps are leaded marble plaques bearing the names of the men and women who served in the Second World War. The uppermost step is capped with a cyma recta moulding from which the square pedestal projects. Marble plates are located on the side and front faces of the pedestal and bear an inscription in the form of a verse, the names of the 10 local men who fell and the 39 others who served in the First World War. Semi-circular hood-moulds are located over the top of each plaque. A series of moulded steps sit above this, on which the digger statue stands.
The digger statue stands with his head erect and his hands resting on top of a rifle which is in the reversed position and rests on the top of the right boot. A tree stump support is located behind and to the right side of the statue.
","history":"The Brooweena War Memorial was erected by the residents of the Woocoo Shire in late 1922. It is not known who designed the monument but it was produced by Maryborough monumental masonry firm F W Webb. The marble and sandstone memorial honours the 39 local men who served during the First World War including the 10 fallen. A later set of plates records the 43 local men and women who served in the Second World War.
The strength of Brooweena's patriotic support during the First World War was remarkable. It funded an ambulance for France and has another memorial (a privately funded bridge) south of the town. The size of the digger memorial is large in comparison to the size of the town.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60 000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.
Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.
The origin of this digger memorial is unclear. The pedestal is of a style not found elsewhere in Queensland and the inscription is also considered to be unusual.
The monument originally stood in front of St Mary's Church of England about three miles from Brooweena on the Mary-Biggenden Road. Prompted by fears of vandalism, it was moved to its present location in late 1992.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|This particular statue is of aesthetic value, both for its prominence as a landmark in the town and for its unusual pedestal design and inscription.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
Erected in 1922, the memorial at Brooweena demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|This particular statue is of aesthetic value, both for its prominence as a landmark in the town and for its unusual pedestal design and inscription.
|It has a strong association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. This memorial is also significant as evidence of the extraordinary patriotism of the people of Brooweena.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15745,"place_ref":600970,"name":"Yengarie Sugar Refinery ruins","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Old Mill Road","suburb":"YENGARIE","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The refinery ruins are located on Graham's Creek, a tributary of the Mary River, 1 km south east of Yengarie siding and 9 km south west of Maryborough. There were once wharves on the creek but these are not now evident.
The most striking feature of the site is the standing ruin of the main refinery building, measuring approximately 32 x 20 metres, as sections of brick, stone and pise walls on pise foundations. Most of the front wall remains and is pierced by a series of openings with round arched heads. Most of the wall on the side facing the river also remains standing but the other walls have collapsed. The building contains a large tank and several mature fig trees, the roots of which have penetrated the walls and foundations. The walls are buckled and slumped and have several large vertical cracks.
Concrete mounts for equipment are visible on the north eastern side of the building and although much of the site is overgrown with vegetation, it is believed that other evidence of use remains, including pits and a shaft leading down to a water channel. The presence of these obscured pits prevented safe inspection of some parts of the site. The area is scattered with loose bricks, some of which were made on site and are considerably more friable than others that bear the imprint of Brown & Sons of Paisley or manganese bricks from the chimney. Rubble from the machinery shed forms a mound about 100 metres behind the refinery building. Maintenance sheds were to the north of the refinery building.
The line along which the tram track passed is visible approximately 20 metres in front of the building. Other sections of line ran behind the mill and to the west, but these cannot readily be seen.
","history":"The ruins of the Sugar Refinery on Graham Creek at Yengarie are the remains of an important industrial complex, which began operations for the firm of Tooth and Cran in the 1860s. It produced meat extract before working as a sugar mill and then as a major refinery that serviced many plantations and mills in the area before closing in 1899.
Robert Tooth was born in 1821 and was the son of a hop merchant in Kent and nephew of a Sydney merchant and brewer who also owned numerous cattle runs. Robert and Edwin Tooth leased their uncle's brewery in 1843 and were joined by their brother Frederick in 1853. Robert speculated in pastoral properties and gold during the 1850s and was briefly involved with politics in New South Wales. He was also Director of the Bank of NSW in the 1850s and 60s and Director of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co, of which he was a major shareholder, between 1855 and 1863. He owned several pastoral properties in Queensland and in 1857 employed Robert Cran, first on Jondaryan Station and then as a supervisor at Pikedale.
Cran was the same age as Tooth and had come to Queensland from Scotland in 1849. He first worked as a stockman and was employed on several properties by Tooth until he became manager of Tooth's boiling down works and abattoir at Yengarie in 1865.
When the Maryborough Agricultural Reserve was thrown open for selection in March 1862, one of the first selectors was W C Giles, acting as agent for Robert Tooth of Widgee Widgee Station, who bought Lots 3 & 4 fronting the Mary River immediately below Graham's Creek. Tooth sold Widgee Widgee to JC White, who was his manager at Jondaryan. White set up a steam powered abattoir and boiling down works on the Yengarie land in 1863 but was financially ruined when pleuro pneumonia killed most of his cattle the following year. Tooth foreclosed on both the station and land. Robert Cran then took on the mortgage of Widgee Widgee and Giles leased the Yengarie land for agistment, though he also became insolvent in 1865.
Tooth was interested in the preservation of beef before refrigeration was available and the boiling down works was adapted with modern equipment as a meat extract plant, using Leibig's process. Tooth and Cran went into partnership with F F Nixon, Robert Lucas Tooth and Frederick Tooth as Tooth and Cran, the meat extract they produced winning a prize at the Intercolonial Exhibition in Sydney in 1870 and also receiving a prize at Amsterdam. By 1867 Yengarie had become a major business enterprise with bone crushing, wool washing and hide tanning divisions surrounded by what had become a small settlement.
Sugar was becoming increasingly important in the area and in 1867 Cran let contracts for clearing and planting cane and prepared to erect a sugar mill to work in conjunction with the meat extract factory. The first boiling in open pans began in October 1868. This produced a small-grained white sugar, immediately recognised as the best sugar available in the Maryborough area at the time. In 1869 a superior new process was installed under the supervision of Tooth, who was modern and innovative in his approach. The works at Yengarie were continually upgraded to keep pace with new developments and an increasing workload.
In 1870 the mill was expanded. New and larger boilers were installed and charcoal retorts added to utilise bone waste for refining sugar. A distillery was installed and J T Annear constructed a brick chimney. From 1871 Yengarie operated as a refinery, juice being supplied by mills in the surrounding area, many of which were constructed in the 1870s. The partners owned plantations at Yengarie, Yerra Yerra and Irrawarra. Melanesian indentured labourers were employed in both the refinery and at the plantations, as they were on surrounding properties.
With the increasing emphasis on sugar in the district, it was decided to close the meat extracting works in 1873. In the same year a horse-drawn tramway was constructed to the mill for conveying firewood, cane and later, juice. Juice mills were central to the sugar making process at Maryborough and by 1883, 28 small mills were sending juice to Yengarie by punt or through a network of pipes. At the height of its production, Yengarie produced three grades of sugar, rum, treacle and tar. The refinery became a very large undertaking comprising a factory, store, laboratory, distillery, brickworks, limekilns and wharves with a small township developing to accommodate workers and their families. Tooth and Cran also had their own steamer, the Nowra, which took sugar and rum to Maryborough for shipment south. From the 1870s gas produced to light the refinery was also piped to light the township, a luxury not then available in Maryborough.
In 1875 the partnership with Nixon and Croft, the manager of Yerra Yerra, was dissolved and Tooth left for England, leaving Cran in charge. Tooth began a new refinery, also called Yengarie, in the Philippines in his own name. The Tooth and Cran partnership was dissolved in 1879 and Robert Cran and Company ran Yengarie. In 1880 Cran spent some time in Europe arranging for machinery for a new refinery he planned to build in Bundaberg. This was opened in 1883 as Millaquin and Cran provided land at Yengarie for a short branch line and siding to connect the complex to the state railway. In 1885 there were 40 mills and 5 distilleries along the Mary River, although production and sugar prices began to fall. In 1889 Cran and Company opened a crushing mill at Doolbi to provide juice to Yengarie, thereby supporting the development of cane growing in the Isis area.
The 1890s brought problems due to depressed sugar prices and major changes in the sugar industry. Central mills servicing independent white farmers replaced the big plantations run by indentured labour, licenses to recruit Melanesian workers having ceased after December 1890. A number of plantations and mills closed and, by 1892, it was reported that much of the land along the Mary River was no longer under cultivation, or was growing crops other than sugar. The major flood in 1893 also damaged plantations and farms along the river and caused severe damage to the refinery. When Robert Cran died on 16 December 1894 he was insolvent and the Queensland National Bank took over his assets. The Yengarie site was permanently closed in 1899 and the land at Yerra Yerra, Irrawarra and Yengarie was cut up and sold between 1905 and 1908. James Mahoney, who owned a butchering business next to Yengarie, had occupied the land since 1900 and purchased it in 1908, using it for dairying, which became a major business in the area. His great grandson still owns the land.
The roof of the main refinery building was destroyed by fire and storm in the 1930s and 1940s. Numerous galvanised iron sheds at the southern end of the refinery were removed, as were worker's houses, a butcher's shop and a smithy associated with the refinery. Part of the refinery building was used as a cattle dip until the early 1950s. Over the years the machinery was removed and dispersed. The boilers were the last major piece of equipment to be removed and were sold for scrap in 1964. The brick chimney, having become unsafe, was demolished in 1983. Evidence for the placement of machinery can still be seen in the form of concrete mountings, pits and shafts.
The front and one side wall of the main building and sections of the other walls remain, though invaded by vegetation, particularly by a number of large fig trees growing within the building which have given the ruins a picturesque quality.
","criteria":"The ruins of Yengarie Sugar Refinery are evidence for a major early industrial enterprise that made an important contribution to the development of the sugar industry in Queensland.
|The ruins of Yengarie Sugar Refinery and surroundings are have the potential to reveal further information about the operation of both the sugar and meat works industries in Queensland in the 19th century.
|It is important for its association with the life and works of Robert Tooth and Robert Cran, who made a significant contribution to the development of the sugar industry in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15746,"place_ref":600971,"name":"Kalkie State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bargara Road","suburb":"KALKIE","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Kalkie State School, located on a level site on the western corner of Bargara Road and Zielke Avenue, includes an early school building, a playshed, groups of mature trees and a residence.
The early school building, consisting of two intersecting wings fronting Zielke Avenue to the northeast, is a two-storeyed weatherboard structure with tall concrete stumps and corrugated iron gable roofs. The ground level contains storage rooms and play areas with a concrete floor, while the first level has class rooms, offices and verandahs.
The northwest wing, separated from the angled intersecting eastern wing by verandah space, has undergone a number of changes and now contains a class room at either end with office and corridor space between. The western class room has diagonally boarded raked ceilings with exposed rafters and collar-beams, and the northern class room has boarded ceilings raked to collar-beam level and contains an enclosed section of the northwest verandah. Both rooms have louvred rectangular skylights, vertically jointed boarding to walls and a combination of aluminium framed louvres and timber casement and hopper windows.
The angled intersecting eastern wing contains a class room, principal's office, staff room and northern verandah. This wing has hardboard sheeting to walls and ceilings, and aluminium framed louvred and timber hopper windows.
The playshed, located to the south of the early school building behind the row of trees fronting Bargara Road, consists of a timber shingle gable roof with kick-out eaves to the boarded gable ends. The roof is supported by ten timber posts and has no ceiling with the roof structure visible. The playshed has a brick paved floor and perimeter bench seating.
The mature trees include four figs, two Cook Pines and one Camphor Laurel to the Bargara Road frontage; two Cook Pines near the playshed; three figs to the northwest of the school and two figs to the Zielke Avenue frontage. The Cook Pines are exceptionally tall and narrow, and together with the fig trees, create a substantial local landmark.
The residence, located at the eastern corner of the site, is a two-storeyed weatherboard structure with tall concrete stumps and a hipped corrugated iron roof with projecting front gable above a bay window. The building has verandahs, which have been enclosed with insect screens, to the northeast and southeast with timber batten balustrades and angled timber brackets. The southwest elevation has casement windows and timber batten window hoods.
","history":"The earliest building at Kalkie State School was erected in 1877, with the playshed constructed in 1879-80. It was the first state school established in the Woongarra Scrub, and is the oldest school in Woongarra Shire. The playshed is one of the earliest surviving shingle-roofed playsheds in Queensland.
The school was established to serve the needs of the small farming community of Kalkie, which developed in the early 1870s in the heart of the Woongarra Scrub, about 4 miles east of Bundaberg. The area was open to selection from 1869, following resumption of half of Branyan Station (taken up in 1855) for closer settlement under the 1868 Crown Lands Alienation Act. In the early 1870s, the area attracted a substantial number of British, German and Scandinavian families. In the early years the principal cash crop was maize, but in 1876 the price of maize fell by 600%, and by the early 1880s, the Kalkie/Woongarra farmers had turned to sugar. In 1882 the large Millaquin sugar refinery was established, and numerous juice mills, whose output was piped to the refinery, were erected in the Kalkie/Woongarra district in the following decade.
From its inception, the school served as a focus for a variety of community activities, including a meeting on 10 December 1879 in which prospective ratepayers of the Division of Barolin, which encompassed the Woongarra scrub, agreed to seek permission to elect their first divisional board under the new Divisional Boards Act. Whether the first board met at the school subsequently has not been established.
In April 1875, Kalkie residents petitioned the Board of Education for the establishment of a national school in their district. Henry Easther, Secretary of the School Committee, offered a 5 acre site, to be surveyed from his homestead selection (portion 388, parish of Kalkie), for school purposes. The block was on a corner location, on the Sandhills Road (now Bargara Road). An alternative site, a little west along the Sandhills Road, was presented by a Mr Hermann, but in mid-1876 the district inspector for schools recommended Mr Easther's block, which had the advantage of dual road frontages. The Committee was informed in November 1876 that their request for a school at Kalkie had been approved, subject to the conditions of the new Education Act of 1875, which stipulated that the school committee must raise one-fifth of the cost of construction. Subscriptions to the building fund were slow, with local farmers struggling to make a living from maize cropping. The school committee also appear to have been responsible for clearing the front half of the block, the whole of which was covered in dense scrub.
In November 1876, the new Department of Public Instruction requested the Department of Public Works to call tenders for a school and teacher's residence at Kalkie, to be based on plans then in preparation for a school at Wivenhoe, in the Brisbane Valley. Tenders were called in December 1876, but were considered too high. Subsequently, tenders were called in April 1877 for a combined school and residence, based on the plans then being prepared for Tallebuggera. The contract was let to Bundaberg builders Franz Kuhnel and William Starke, with a contract price of £375/12/- and construction period of 13 weeks. The building, which comprised a schoolroom 30 feet long and an attached teacher's residence of 8 rooms at the rear, was erected on the southern corner of the block, with the schoolroom facing the Sandhills Road, and the residence facing the side road, which became known as School Lane (now Zielke Avenue). Both sections were constructed of weatherboards, set on timber stumps, and roofed with timber shingles (replaced in 1898 with galvanised iron). Construction was completed early in 1878, and the school opened on 11 February that year.
In October 1879, the School Committee informed the Department of Public Instruction that a subscription of £15 had been raised toward fencing and clearing the school grounds, and erecting a playshed. Tenders were called in November, and the contract let to H Hunt of Bundaberg. The price of the shingle-roofed playshed was £59, and the fencing consisted of 14.5 chains of split two-rail fence, and 5.5 chains of two-rail and paling fence, and 2.2 chains of sawn batten fence with gates. Hunt's work was completed by March 1880. The fencing has since been replaced, but the playshed remains in its original location. The shingles on the northern end were replaced in 1970, as a combined Rotary and Kalkie P & C project, but those on the southern end are original. [To be confirmed]
By 1884 the school, which had been erected to accommodate approximately 30 students, was grossly overcrowded, with an average attendance of 60 to 70. There was no verandah, and the head teacher was forced to accommodate pupils in the attached residence. Tenders for additions, comprising a 20 feet classroom extension and a verandah 50 feet by 8 feet along the length of the building, with a hat room and lavatory at each end, were called in late May 1884. Despite tenders being called, the work was let by private contract in June, for the price of £230, which was substantially lower than the tendered prices.
It appears that the Cook Pines [Araucaria columellaris] near the playshed date to the 1880s.
In 1977-78, students who had attended Kalkie State School in the late 1890s recalled climbing these trees, which were then about 5 metres tall. The pines are native to French New Caledonia and surrounding islands, and may have some connection with the large South Sea Islander population brought to the Kalkie/Woongarra district in the 1880s and 1890s, to work on sugar cropping.
In 1900, the School Committee requested that the school be detached from the residence and removed to another part of the site, and the residence upgraded. This work was undertaken in 1906, with the school building re-located to the north, behind the playshed. A new verandah was added to the rear of the classroom block, with two new windows and a door cut into the wall to which the residence had been attached. Most of these and the original window openings were enlargened later, in the 1920s.
In 1934, the District Works Supervisor recommended that a new teacher's residence be provided, and that the school be extended with the addition of a standard teachers' room, 15 feet by 12 feet. Tenders for the new teachers' room and repairs and painting to the school building were called in mid-1935, and the contract was let to SJH Byrne of Bundaberg, with a price of £229. A southern wing was added later, probably in the 1940s, and the present staffroom was added in the early 1960s. These have been included in the heritage listing.
The new teacher's residence was finally erected in 1937, at a cost of approximately £1200. The second residence was erected in front of the 1877 house, where the schoolroom was located originally, facing the main road to Bundaberg. It was described as a standard Type 5 Teacher's Residence, constructed of timber and galvanised iron roofing, with 3 bedrooms, hall, bathroom, living room, dining verandah, kitchen, maid's room, front and side verandahs, a laundry under the house, an earth closet in the backyard, and two 1000 gallon tanks. At the request of the then head teacher, Arctic glass was substituted for plain glass specified for the windows. This building also is included in the heritage listing. In late 1937, the first residence was sold and removed from the site.
An expanding school population has necessitated the construction of a number of buildings and structures at Kalkie State School since the 1970s. These are not included in the heritage listing.
","criteria":"Kalkie State School is significant as the first state school established in the Woongarra Scrub, and as the oldest school in Woongarra Shire. The first classroom block, the original playshed, and the early plantings of Cook Pines, figs and Camphor Laurel trees, are important for their association with the earliest establishment of the school. They also provide evidence of the initial development of the Kalkie area in the 1870s and 1880s.
|The playshed is a highly decorative example of its type, and is one of the earliest surviving shingle-roofed playsheds in Queensland.
|The residence is an intact example of an interwar Type 5 Teacher's Residence, which, together with the first school building, playshed and mature trees, form the nucleus of the school.
|The Cook Pines, together with the group of fig trees, create an exceptional and substantial local landmark which also act as an identity marker for the school. The playshed and Cook Pines also form the school's focal point and are used to comprise the school's emblem.
|It has had a long association with the Kalkie/Woongarra community as the centre of local education and a focus for community activity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15750,"place_ref":600975,"name":"False Cape Second World War Defence Facility","alternate_name":"Leper Bay","street_address":"Yarrabah Road","suburb":"EAST TRINITY","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-18","description":"False Cape is situated at the entrance to Cairns Harbour and overlooking Grafton Passage, 9.5km NNE of the city as the crow flies, but 40 km from Cairns by road.
Structural elements of the coastal artillery battery and support base remain. These comprise:
Upper and Lower Gun Emplacements - symmetrical, single-storeyed structures of off-form concrete, waffle slab roof supported on three columns with earth fill on top, Australian-designed circular recoil pit with central pad and outlying rail for gun carriage traverse, side magazines of concrete and concrete block construction. Camouflage net pivot points are extant, and doors remain on the lower emplacement magazines. The robust off-form concrete construction is unlike the two-storeyed coastal battery gun emplacements of Moreton Bay, where timber as well as concrete was used structurally.
Battery Observation Post - situated on the high ridge above the gun emplacements, this is a two-level structure built of off-form concrete, to house the range finder and the command post. External timber stairs survive, and rooftop fittings that formerly carried a camouflage netted structure. The upper level contains original timber joinery to observation slit and doorway and four intact concrete mounting blocks, possibly for a vertical rangefinder. The lower level comprises one large room with steel-reinforced concrete support beam and pillar beneath the mounting blocks in the upper level. Both levels contain evidence of a later interior fitout as residential accommodation.
Main Magazine - constructed of off-form concrete, with a corridor around three sides of two rooms that are built against the side of the hill. Markings remain of the storage racks that held ammunition for the guns.
Machine gun position - an anti-aircraft gun mount is located above the main magazine, and comprises a vertically mounted length of steel pipe with flanges at each end. This is thought to be the only anti-aircraft gun mount remaining at a Second World War coastal battery in Queensland.
Signal Station - a steel ring in a concrete slab may have anchored the signal mast of the Port War Signal Station erected at False Cape by the Navy.
Winch area and cutting - there is evidence on the foreshore on the western side of the Cape, below the Battery Observation Post [BOP], of a concrete and rock pathway leading from the road down to the water, where 1940s photographs show a rock jetty in this position. A rusted gearbox lying beside this pathway may be that used in the winch. Above the road is the cutting [somewhat overgrown] where a rail line was laid to winch equipment and supplies from the road and the beach to the Battery Observation Post high on the hill. At the top of the cutting, to the side of the BOP, is a concrete slab which may have been associated with the rail wagon and winch area.
Base end station - a concrete platform resting on a stone and concrete foundation, is all that remains of the base end station on the eastern side of False Cape.
Rock with platform at Sunny Bay - situated at the north end of Sunny Bay, on the beach, is a large granite rock on which a concrete platform has been constructed. Recessed edges on the platform indicate that it once supported walls.
Road and Camp Site - approximately 500 yards south of the defence installations on False Cape there is remnant evidence of the camp site at Sunny Bay that accommodated the coastal artillery, searchlight, anti-aircraft, and naval signal units involved in port defence. The road from the camp to the defence installation is still trafficable, with a concrete culvert where it crosses over the intermittent freshwater stream at Sunny Bay. There is a concrete rainwater tank on the ridge midway between the former camp site and the Cape. The cleared area of the camp site is now overgrown with secondary growth, but several concrete slabs which formerly supported walls survive, and there may be others yet to be identified. Three timber stumps in the foreshore at Sunny Bay are remnants of the timber jetty which once extended into the bay.
","history":"The defence facility at False Cape was established in late 1942-early 1943 as coastal defence for the port of Cairns on Trinity Inlet. Although this battery was never involved in direct action, its establishment was prioritised by General Macarthur as of strategic importance to the overall defence of the east coast of Australia.
Following the establishment of Cairns in the mid-1870s, False Cape [named by James Cook in 1770 and accessible only by boat] became a popular recreational venue. In July 1884, 100 acres from False Cape to the creek running into what is now known as Sunny Bay, was proclaimed a reserve for a Pilot Station on Trinity Harbour. In 1910 this was extended to 250 acres. In late 1889 the bay on the southwest side of the Cape became a temporary lazaret when a Chinese and a Malay from Cairns were isolated here for a few months, pending transfer to the leper station at Dayman Island in the Torres Strait. They were housed in tents erected on the slope of the hill overlooking the beach, which became known as Leper Bay. Although False Cape was never gazetted as a lazaret, it may have served for some decades as an occasional, temporary isolation area. In the 20th century this function ceased, and the name of the beach was changed to Sunny Bay.
In February 1940, following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Australian military reconnaissance identified two possible sites for the installation of fixed coastal defences at Trinity Inlet: the Esplanade in Cairns, or a preferred site extending from Lyons Point to False Cape, across the inlet from Cairns. By April 1940 the decision had been taken not to proceed with the defence of Cairns, despite increasing Japanese aggression in the Pacific region through 1940-41 and repeated requests by the Queensland premier, Forgan-Smith, for the Commonwealth Government to construct fortifications along the Queensland coast. The Commonwealth committed little to northern coastal defences at this period, not even following Japan's simultaneous attacks on Hawaii, Hong Kong and Malaya in December 1941. Believing that alone, Australia could not defend the whole of the continent, the Commonwealth Government prioritised the defence of the industrial and commercial southeast of Australia, declared the area north of Mackay a war zone in March 1942, and concentrated on a policy of civilian evacuation from North Queensland.
Following the appointment of General Douglas Macarthur as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, South West Pacific Area, United States military forces which had retreated to southern Australia following their January 1942 defeat in the Philippines, were transferred to north Queensland. From early 1942 Townsville became the base for Allied operations in the Pacific, but both the Royal Australian Navy and the United States Navy concentrated their base operations in Cairns, as this port was less congested. Establishing an advanced operational air base at Cairns for the Royal Australian Air Force's Catalina squadrons also became a priority. Following the Coral Sea and Midway campaigns in mid-1942 the war moved north to New Guinea, and Cairns became an important base for air force and naval operations in the New Guinea offensive. The Port of Cairns became a Supply Service Depot, with deliveries from larger vessels broken up for transfer to small ships to reduce potential loss from enemy attack. In 1943-44 the Australian Army established major training and hospital/rehabilitation camps on the Atherton Tableland, just behind Cairns.
Despite the strong military presence in Cairns and district from early 1942, and substantial expenditure by the Allied Works Council on port improvements, Cairns harbour remained unprotected until General Macarthur instigated the coastal defence of selected Australian ports and naval bases following his arrival in Australia in March 1942. During 1942-43 nineteen 2-gun batteries [designated by alphabet letter and hence known as 'Letter Batteries'] were established and allocated to coastal defence in Australia and New Guinea. To equip these units, Macarthur requested from Washington the supply of 155mm guns, Sperry searchlights and associated equipment.
During 1942-43, Cairns was the closest major Australian port to the war in the South Pacific, and movement of shipping in and out of the port via Grafton Passage needed to be protected from enemy attack and from enemy minelaying. There was also a need to communicate with shipping, particularly with troopships in the Outer Passage. On 25 December 1942, 127 men of H Australian Heavy Battery arrived in Cairns to establish and man the battery at False Cape. The site selected commanded the passageway from Cairns Harbour to the open sea, and was of high strategic value.
Initially, H Battery was accommodated in tents near a small freshwater stream emptying into Sunny Bay, about 500 yards south of the gun emplacements, while camp buildings were erected there by the local Civil Construction Corps. Constructed mostly of timber from Johnson's sawmill at Stratford, on the outskirts Cairns, these buildings were of a standard rectangular design measuring 60 feet by 20 feet. They included: 7 barrack rooms, officers' quarters, sergeants' quarters [each of these having separate ablution blocks and latrines], battery office, quarter master's store, officers' mess and kitchen, gunners' mess and kitchen, canteen and recreation room, and a small battery charging room to supply the camp with electricity. About 150 yards north of the camp a workshop was erected, and north of this, about half-way between the camp and the defence installations, a hospital and RAP shelter were built. There was no road from Cairns to the camp, which had to be supplied via boat [the unit had its own two-masted vessel, the Eulalie]. A timber jetty was constructed at Sunny Bay near the camp site, and closer to the Cape a stone and concrete ramp for a landing barge.
The creek at Sunny Bay flowed only during the wet season, so a small pumping station was established further south at the creek emptying into Brown's Bay, pumping water through a narrow pipe along the foreshore to the camp at Sunny Bay and on to the Cape. A rough road was cut from Sunny Bay to False Cape, just above the foreshore, and the unit's one Blitz truck transported supplies and meals from the camp to the defence installations. A cutting was made for a small rail line which was used to winch supplies and equipment from the road and beach to the Battery Observation Post at the top of the ridge.
The defence installations at False Cape were concrete structures, comprising two gun emplacements, a battery observation post, and a main magazine which stored 400 rounds of 155mm ammunition for the two guns. Ready ammunition was housed in smaller shell and cartridge magazines constructed as part of each gun emplacement. Duty personnel quarters, probably of timber construction, were erected adjacent to the battery observation post. An anti-aircraft gun was mounted above the main magazine and No.2 gun emplacement. All of these installations were camouflaged with netting.
Staff in a typical Battery Observation Post measured bearing and range to the target. This information was plotted on a plotting table, which converted target data into gun data of azimuth and elevation, which in turn was called continuously to the sight setters on the guns. The standard rangefinder used was a vertical base rangefinder, whose effective range depended upon the height above sea level. For the rangefinder to be useful to the maximum range of the guns, it was necessary for it to be mounted as high as possible above sea level. The topography of False Cape favoured a vertical base rangefinder, set high on the ridge behind the gun emplacements.
Supporting H Battery at False Cape was the 105 Coastal Artillery Searchlight Section, comprising about 13 men of the Royal Australian Engineers. They operated two 150cm Sperry searchlights with petrol driven electric generation, one of which may have been located near the jetty at Sunny Bay, and the other on the eastern side of the cape. In September 1943 an advance party of the 64th Anti-Aircraft Searchlight Company set up 12 searchlight stations in and around Cairns, and it is possible one of these was located at False Cape. Coastal defence batteries were usually supported also by light machine gun and anti-aircraft positions for local and air defence.
In December 1943 the Royal Australian Navy established a Port War Signal Station at False Cape, shifting personnel from the war signal station at Archer Point, which was closed down early in December. They may have shared the observation post with the army, as at Magnetic Island, although a 1944 plan of the area indicates navy accommodation in a separate structure at the crest of the hill. The signal station closed at the end of June 1945, following the movement of the Australian Army south.
H Australian Heavy Battery remained at False Cape until February/March 1944, when they were moved to Townsville. They were replaced by S Battery, which had been formed in Sydney in September 1943, trained in Brisbane, then moved to False Cape in late February 1944. In August 1944 this unit was re-organised as Coastal Artillery Cairns, and is thought to have remained at False Cape until the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific in August 1945. The guns and searchlights are understood to have been removed at this time.
After the war the timber camp structures and the water pipeline and pumping equipment from Brown's Bay were sold to nearby Yarrabah Mission for removal. All that remained of the camp at Sunny Bay were the concrete slabs on which the timber buildings had been erected. In the late 1940s, fishermen erected small huts on a number of these.
In 1946, 298 acres at False Cape was acquired formally by the Commonwealth Government, anticipating that a coastal defence facility might be maintained here after the war. This area comprised the 250 acres formerly declared a Reserve for Pilot Station by the State Government, part of a recreation reserve to the south of this, and about 12 acres of the Yarrabah reserve, gazetted a Reserve for the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Colony in 1892, and extended to include this area in 1935. However, in 1947 the land was declared surplus to army requirements, and leased to private enterprise, including a tourist operator in the 1950s. No tourist facilities eventuated, but in the post-war year Sunny Bay and False Cape once again became popular as a recreational venue. A number of small weekend/fishermen's shacks were erected in the area, and the remains of a more substantial, stone-walled c1950s or 1960s weekender survive on the beach at Sunny Bay. Title to the site was transferred from the Commonwealth to private ownership in 1969.
","criteria":"False Cape Second World War Defence Facility is important historically as the principal coastal defence for the port of Cairns, which served as a major trans-shipping port for Australian and United States armed services supplies and troop movements as the war with Japan moved into the Coral Sea and then north to New Guinea in the early 1940s.
|It is thought to be the last surviving Second World War complex in the immediate Cairns region, and is important in illustrating Australia's role in building coastal defence installations during the Second World War.
|It also has the potential to yield further information about the relationship between the equally important components of this coastal battery complex, including the defence installations [battery observation post, gun emplacements, magazine and other remnant elements], the supporting base camp at Sunny Bay, and infrastructure such as the road, jetty remnants, and winch area and cutting.
|The place demonstrates some of the principal characteristics of a Second World War coastal battery in Queensland, but with distinctive local design and construction of gun emplacements to accommodate US-provided equipment, and the siting of the elements of the complex contribute to an understanding of how the coastal defence battery was designed to operate.
|The whole of the area has an aesthetic value, and the defence installations in particular have landmark quality.
|The place has a special association for the local community, not just as a recreational venue for over 120 years, but also for its association with the Second World War, which had a significant impact on Cairns and district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15753,"place_ref":600978,"name":"Empire Theatre (former)","alternate_name":"Empire Theatre","street_address":"56 Neil Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-05-31","description":"The Empire Theatre is located in Neil Street, Toowoomba, and is bounded on its north side by the Wesley Uniting Church, and by the Masonic Lodge on the south side. Both these buildings, which have historic value, are set well back off the street. This accentuates the Empire Theatre's dominant form in the streetscape. Directly to the east of the theatre are located contemporary single-storeyed brick buildings associated with the TAFE College use. Further to the east of these is a three-storeyed teaching block c1970 and behind this a single-storeyed teaching block which runs through to Hume Street.
The Empire Theatre's elevation facing Neil Street is in a 1930s Art Deco style finished in plain plaster work over brick. The form of this section of the building is a simple cube with a step back at the front to form a parapet. The height of the building is accentuated by the use of equally positioned projecting pilaster elements running across the front, down the sides and across what was the front of the 1911 theatre. The tops of these pilasters are finished in a pattern resembling palm fronds, the trunk of which extends down the face of each pilaster. In the panels between the pilasters are located two narrow windows at first floor foyer level which are divided by a projecting decorated mullion that extends above and below the windows. Geometrically decorated panels are located in these positions. Above this is a large rectangular panel with border, and above this at parapet level a further decorative panel divided by a profiled projecting truncated dummy pilaster. The front wall to the bio box is set back and is detailed in the same fashion with windows and decorative panels between palm frond topped pilasters. Above the parapet is the Empire sign, a linear jazz detail in ironwork, with neon lettering.
The awning which originally ran down the sides of the foyer and across the northwest and southwest exists now only over the footpath. Both sides of the foyer have been infilled by later development. Other than this change the integrity of the building remains high. Below the awning are the original timber and bevelled glass front doors which are intact as are the show cases at each side.
The external walls of the building are brick and incorporate some of the 1911 theatre that was destroyed by fire. These include the side walls, part of the front wall, and a substantial part of the rear wall of the auditorium. The 'baroque' detailing of the 1911 theatre windows in the side walls can still be observed.
The fly tower which extends to a height of 90 feet is constructed in timber with corrugated galvanised iron cladding. The roof is divided in two sections with the highest level having a hipped roof and lower half a gable form. The tower only extends to threequarters the width of the auditorium with the remaining area taken up by a skillion roof. The original working drawings show a single structure as wide as the auditorium with a skillion roof and a glazed ventilated cupola, but changes occurred during the construction phase.
The deep profile corrugated fibrous cement main roof is supported on single span steel trusses which have a segmentally curved bottom chord and have been manufactured from riveted angle iron sections. The bottom chord of the trusses are clad in fibrous plaster that sweeps down the walls and over iron supporting stanchions. The ceiling which follows the curve is lined with Craftex, a proprietary fibrous board. This material has been used extensively on the walls and ceilings inside the auditorium for its sound absorption qualities. Perforated fibrous plaster vents are located down the centre of the auditorium ceiling that connect to five ridge vents.
The Dress Circle is supported on a riveted truss that spans 70 feet supported at the side isles by steel stanchions and provides an uninterrupted view of the stage. Six cantilevered girders extend 24 feet beyond the line of the truss and connecting girders slope back from it to the rear wall of the auditorium. This steel frame carries a timber floor and Craftex ceilings below, with the fibrous plaster covering the beams and two stanchions. The steel construction was notable at the time and reported on in the October 1934 edition of Building.
The proscenium arch is constructed in a perforated pattern of fibrous plaster over a timber frame. It is noted for its size and the lighting effects that were a feature.
The theatre retains evidence of the original lighting system, including lighting switchboards at front of house and in the bio-box, large porcelain dimmers, and the proscenium arch lighting grid. Several original lighting fixtures also survive.
","history":"The present Empire Theatre consists of two layers of development, with the bulk of the fabric and design dating to 1933, but incorporating substantial sections of an earlier theatre which was erected on the site in 1911. Essentially, the Empire Theatre is a large, 1933, purpose-designed, Art Deco picture theatre.
The first Empire Theatre, a large masonry picture theatre with a seating capacity of 2,200, was opened on 29 June 1911, and proved enormously successful. It was built for an association of six Toowoomba businessmen and Brisbane entertainment promoter EJ Carroll (later one of the principals of Queensland's home-grown Birch, Carroll & Coyle picture theatre chain), who had commenced screening films in Toowoomba's large Austral Hall, Margaret Street, in 1909. The screenings were so popular that the erection of a purpose-designed picture theatre was inevitable. Titles to the Neil Street site were transferred to members of the association in 1910, and ultimately to Empire Theatre Ltd in 1911.
The 1911 theatre was designed by architect George Lane, formerly employed by Toowoomba architects James Marks and his son Harry James Marks from c1900 until 1906, and in partnership with Harry James Marks in 1909-10. The contractor was Henry Andrews. The design incorporated a proscenium stage, and the movies shared early programmes with vaudeville acts. The building was renovated in 1928, and in the following year sound equipment was installed. The first 'talkie' seen in Toowoomba - The Jazz Singer (US, 1927) - was screened at the Empire Theatre on 2 September 1929. By 1933, Dan Carroll had replaced EJ Carroll in Empire Theatre Ltd, and it would appear that the Empire was associated with the Birch, Carroll & Coyle theatre chain.
The first Empire Theatre, to which the Toowoomba community had developed a strong attachment, was destroyed by fire on 22 February 1933. Almost immediately a design for a new Empire Theatre, to cost approximately £30,000, was commissioned by the owners. In the interim, Empire Theatre Ltd leased the Town Hall for their film screenings.
Designs for the new theatre were prepared by the well-known Brisbane architectural firm of TR Hall & LB Phillips (1929-48). Tenders were called in April 1933 and the contract was let Kell & Rigby, of Sydney, Brisbane and Toowoomba, in May. Substantial sections of the 1911 brick walling had survived the fire, and much of this was incorporated into the new building. Accommodating 2,500 patrons, the second Empire Theatre was Queensland's largest provincial theatre, and second only in seating capacity to Brisbane's Regent. Nationally, the Empire was exceeded in size only by the State, Regent, and St Kilda Palais theatres in Melbourne, the State and Capitol theatres in Sydney, and the Brisbane Regent.
Of particular note was the use of 70 tons of structural steel to frame the large gallery which spans the width of the theatre. The structural engineer was CW Alexander of Hurren, Alexander and Langman of Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide, and the fabricators were Evans Deakin & Co. Ltd of Brisbane. The steel members were fabricated in sections in Brisbane, transported by Queensland rail to Toowoomba, and assembled (riveted) on site. At the time of construction, it was considered an exceedingly intricate piece of structural engineering, unique in Queensland, and a 'triumph' in steel construction.
The new theatre blended contemporary art deco style with picture palace ethos, much of the romantic atmosphere being conveyed by European-styled diffused lighting. Of particular note was the fact that not a single column interrupted audience view of stage or screen. The bio box was the largest in Queensland; acoustics were excellent; and the theatre contained one of the largest provincial stages in Australia, attracting all types of performance from vaudeville to opera. To accommodate large stage productions, the new design incorporated a large stage, fly tower and dressing rooms.
Edward Gold, the theatre's chief electrician and founder of Radio 4GR at Toowoomba, was responsible for the most striking of the interior features: the illumination of the grand proscenium arch in constantly changing colours. This was achieved by reflecting diffused light from the wall behind the arch, which was constructed of plaster open-work, and changing the colours via a complex dimmer system. As well, a huge central lamp of wrought iron and obscure glass ran much of the length of the main ceiling, distributing a soft even light throughout the auditorium. In 1933, local press claimed the Empire Theatre employed the most extensive use of diffused lighting in any theatre in the British Commonwealth, and was unlike anything else in Australia. In 1942, when the threat of Japanese air raids was a perceived reality, the large central ceiling light was removed as a safety precaution, and has never been recovered. Similarly, three fittings, in the same design, below the Dress Circle, were removed.
Empire Theatre Ltd advertised proudly that most of the contractors and materials were of local (Brisbane and Toowoomba) origin. The decorative fibrous plaster work was carried out by Brisbane's Stucoid Modelling Co., terrazzo work by Melocco Brothers of Brisbane, and cork flooring and tiling supplied by the Decorative Tile Co., Brisbane. Joinery and furnishings were supplied by Toowoomba firms. Cemuro art stucco, a new product to Queensland, was supplied Dyne & Co. of Brisbane.
Billed as the 'theatre supreme', the new Empire Theatre opened on 27 November 1933.
It was tied into the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer exhibition network in Australia, screening in the 1930s the films of Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy, Laurel and Hardy, and the Flash Gordon serials.
In the 1950s a CinemaScope screen was installed, with no widening of the stage necessary. Audiences declined, however, in the 1960s, mainly due to the impact of television. The last film was screened in the Empire on 1 April 1971.
In 1973, Empire Theatre Pty Ltd sold the Empire to two Toowoomba businessmen. The front shop additions were erected in 1973-74, and the building was occupied for about a year by Waltons Pty Ltd, a departmental retailer. In 1975 it was acquired by the Queensland Government for Technical College purposes, and has been used more recently as a TAFE facility.
The auditorium seating was removed when the theatre closed, but most of the Dress Circle seats remain.
","criteria":"With the fly-tower intact, the Empire Theatre is important in exemplifying the early symbiosis of stage and film theatre.
The building is important historically for its close association with the expansion of mass entertainment in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century, and survives as rare and important evidence of the increasingly sophisticated expectations of interwar cinema audiences.
|The building is important historically for its close association with the expansion of mass entertainment in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century, and survives as rare and important evidence of the increasingly sophisticated expectations of interwar cinema audiences.
|Nationally, it remains one of the largest and one of the most intact Art Deco provincial picture theatres, and is the finest Art Deco picture theatre surviving in Queensland.
It has technological significance for the use of riveted steel girders in the construction of the Dress Circle, and retains evidence of theatre lighting and film projection technologies of the interwar period.
|The Empire Theatre is an outstanding example of Art Deco theatre architecture in Australia, exhibiting fine exterior and interior Art Deco detailing of aesthetic importance.
The building makes a major contribution to the Neil Street streetscape, and is a Toowoomba icon and landmark.
|It has technological significance for the use of riveted steel girders in the construction of the Dress Circle, and retains evidence of theatre lighting and film projection technologies of the interwar period.
|The theatre has had an important and special association with Toowoomba as a major entertainment venue from 1911 to 1971, being particularly important in the development of film culture in the Toowoomba district.
|It demonstrates the range of expertise of established Brisbane architects TR Hall & LB Phillips, and survives as a monument to Queensland craftsmanship and local technology.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15757,"place_ref":600982,"name":"Anglo Saxon Mine and Groganville Township","alternate_name":"Limestone Cemetery","street_address":"TO BE DETERMINED","suburb":"GROGANVILLE","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-10-03","description":"The Anglo Saxon mine occupies a narrow terrace reached by a narrower access track cut into the western side of a steep hill spur. A gully at the base of the spur that extends south contains a number of building surfaces and associated building remains, stone retaining walls and small mine workings which may have been associated with the mine's manager's house and mine camp.
Ore tramway formations extend east, and northwest of the mine to Harbord battery. The main components of the mine terrace are a concrete collared shaft equipped with a pump arm, and a semi-portable steam engine. The semi-portable is a rare undertype engine equipped with a winding plant base. The winding drums have been removed. The Palmer River Historic Preservation Society has periodically coated the engine with oil to help with preservation. A second portable engine and a flywheel have been pushed over the side of the terrace. An extensive mullock dump descends down the hill from two shafts that have been stoped out into open cut workings.
Plant:
·\tSemi-portable steam engine - no brand. (Robey undertype semi- portable engine with self-contained winching plant base).
·\tTwo-cylinder (overtype) portable steam engine - no brand.
·\tPump arm.
","history":"The Anglo-Saxon Mine and Groganville Township, situated just south of what was known as the Palmer River Goldfield Reserve, was founded after prospector Harry Harbord located the rich Anglo-Saxon Reef at the head of Limestone Creek in 1886. The discovery came at a time when the output of gold in the Maytown/Palmer district to the north was waning. The discovery of the Anglo-Saxon reef instigated the last big rush on the Palmer River Goldfield before the hey-day of gold discoveries began to wind-down all over North Queensland.
The first reports of gold in the Palmer River area were made after the return of an exploration party led by William Hann in August 1872. It was not until James Venture Mulligan and party returned in mid 1873 with cautious, but nonetheless optimistic reports of payable claims, that the Palmer rush started. A rush of some 20,000 miners followed soon after, including a substantial influx of Chinese miners into Northern Australia.
Alluvial practices dominated mining in the Palmer River area during the first few years of the rush. During this period the goldfield became a prime example of the sort of transient settlements which were the result of alluvial gold mining and which were a major feature of North Queensland settlement patterns until the 1930s. The Palmer, archetype of alluvial goldfields, produced nearly a million ounces of alluvial gold in five years from 1873 sparking a monumental population movement into an area far beyond previous European settlement. (Bell, 1982:1).
In the late 1870s, efforts to extract the maximum profits from the Palmer River Goldfields led to the introduction of reef mining processes into the area (Comber 1991:11). Reef mining involved the working of surface deposits and if the results warranted it, the sinking of deep shafts. Such activities required additional equipment such as boilers, pumps and winding equipment, and well organised transportation infrastructure. As Grimwade (1989:5) notes
For the most part the reef mines were to be the mainstay of Palmer gold. Their bulk, their remote locations and their continuing existence, in albeit varying states of repair, are seen as fitting monuments to the early mines of the region as are the extensive stone pitched waterways and channels of the alluvial miners scattered widely through a harsh but challenging environment.
Only three principal quartz reefs were located in the area with reef mining activity principally concentrated within the southern catchment of the North Palmer River and south to the Palmer itself. There were a few notable exceptions further south, including the spasmodically operated Alexandra Mine near Dog Leg Creek and 'the productive and well preserved Anglo-Saxon Mine north of Groganville' (Grimwade, 1989:5).
Contrary to the transient development effects of alluvial mining, reef mining led to the development of more stable settlements. Charters Towers, with a peak population of 30,000 in 1900 was the most important, with Croydon, Ravenswood and Etheridge making up the bulk of other underground gold production.
The significance of gold mining to the development of Queensland in the late 19th century, both economically and geographically, cannot be underestimated. Blainey has pointed-out that in half the years from 1873 to 1906 Queensland's exports of gold and metals exceeded wool and the impact of gold on Queensland's growth was powerful. The ports of Townsville, Cairns and Cooktown were made or magnified by mining fields, and the whole colony was invigorated by the web of commerce spun by gold (Blainey, 1969:87). The total value of gold produced in Queensland to 1898 was £44, 499, 955 compared with tin £4,448,800, copper £2, 022, 927, and silver £697, 418. Gold did more to bring Europeans to Queensland and to establish white settlement in Queensland's tropics than any pastoral or agricultural product ever did. The placing of towns, ports and railways is a legacy of the early history of mining in a colony that once wanted a single substantial field (Fitzgerald, 1986:179).
After Harbord's 1886 discovery of the Anglo-Saxon Reef, the extremely rich initial ore sample gave 300 ounces of gold to the ton of rock, making the Anglo-Saxon Reef the richest reef on the north Queensland goldfields at this time. Harbord floated a company, the Anglo-Saxon Gold Syndicate, in England in 1887, based on the analysis of the initial stone collected at Limestone creek. In 1888 the Anglo-Saxon started crushing. After the first year, the February tally was 1, 175 ounces of gold.
By 1889 nearly fifty men were employed by the Anglo-Saxon Gold Syndicate - miners were paid £4 per week, blacksmiths, engine drivers and carpenters all earned more. Cartage to Cooktown was £25 per ton. It cost £8.4.0 to raise and crush 2,308 tons of ore which averaged 5.5 ounces of gold per ton. The company made good dividends of 14 shillings on every £6 which was remarkable for a gold mine in such a remote area.
There was a haulage road for carts, surveyed by John J. Davis in 1889, from the Anglo Saxon mine to the Harbord battery. The track climbs away from the mine across a spur, then between deep gullies and into a cutting along the face of the high country then down to the battery at Harbord. According to official records, the Anglo Saxon reef yielded a total of 30,892 ounces of bullion, or almost one third of the total production of all of the Maytown/Palmer reefs.
The mine was said to have produced dividends of £30,000 before expenses became too high. A shaft was sunk, hoisting machinery purchased and a tramway laid from the mine to the Harbord battery, (this tramway is now listed on the Register of the National Estate) the old system of carting quartz by drays having been found to be very expensive. The quartz was then run from the mine face into iron trucks, the same trucks placed on the safety cage and hoisted to the surface where the quartz was tipped into hoppers, and run into large iron trucks each holding 30cwt. One man took two of the trucks (or three tons at a time) down to the battery. The mine continued to operate during the 1890s depression but the area was abandoned by 1897.
The township of Groganville, also known as Limestone, was surveyed in May 1889 by John J. Davies and was named after Patrick Grogan who had the first butcher shop on the field. Businesses and dwellings soon started appearing on the steep banks of the Limestone Creek gully. Sites had to be excavated from the hillside to create a flat platform on which to build. Retaining walls were constructed by hand with local rock and gravel, and in one case a retaining wall was constructed from beer bottles.
By 1890 there was a school, Post Office, Bank of North Queensland, Limestone Hospital, 3 or 4 pubs and a butchers shop. A mill site was erected on the northern bank of Limestone Creek about 2 kms from the mine.
Patrick Grogan operated a hotel at Groganville from about 1890. In July 1890 there was a population of 500 and seven hotels, eight stores, two bakers, a butcher, two cordial factories, a bank, post office, news office, blacksmith, billiard room, reading room, chemist, doctor, police and a mining warden. There were 300 men and twenty-seven women at a Hospital Ball in May 1890 and a School Ball in August 1890.
In November 1890 200 people attended a public meeting to protest against Chinese mining, while six sly grog sellers were fined in court. In December a Roman Catholic priest visited to conduct marriages and christenings. In April 1891 the school and telegraph office opened and the Chinese erected a second temple near the school.
Unlike the spectacularly successfully reef mining towns of Charters Towers and Ravenswood, Groganville Township did not prosper after its gold-rush had ended. This was in part be due to the sheer isolation of its location, meaning transportation was difficult and costly, and also due to the impoverished soils of the district which were unsuitable for widespread agriculture and did little to enhance the development of permanent towns. By the close of 1891 the seven hotels had declined to two, and by the turn of the century the town was abandoned. Patrick Grogan moved to Thornborough and established the Royal Hotel in 1897, and by 1914, he had acquired interests in the new township of Mount Mulligan. However the remains of the mine, the township and the cemetery act as an important and legible physical document of how such a mining settlement developed and operated in late 19th tropical Queensland and of the ingenuity of the miners and the inhabitants who settled the site. It is representative of a widespread phenomenon that will never be repeated in the evolution of Queensland's history.
","criteria":"The Anglo Saxon Mine and Groganville Township are important in demonstrating the evolution of the gold-mining industry in Queensland in the late 19th century. The Anglo-Saxon reef was one of the richest producers on the Palmer River Goldfield during its short life from 1886 to 1897. Gold production was a powerful economic driver in Queensland from the 1870s through to the turn of the century and it is argued the discovery of major gold fields in central and northern Queensland saved the floundering colony from near bankruptcy. Gold mining in north Queensland also affected the patterns of settlement and the development of towns and port cities in the northern part of the colony that persist today. The remnants of a settlement like the Anglo Saxon Mine and Groganville Township bears testament to a once thriving community, supported solely by gold production that foundered when available gold veins were exhausted. It is representative of a pattern of desertion common throughout Queensland gold-mining towns at this time.
|The Anglo Saxon mine area provides evidence of reef mining, a practice uncommon south of the Palmer River. Reef mining involved the working of surface deposits and if the results warranted it, the sinking of deep shafts. Such activities required additional equipment such as boilers, pumps and winding equipment. Examples of this machinery remain in situ at the Anglo Saxon Mine including a rare and intact Robey undertype semi-portable steam engine probably dating to the 1880s. This is the most intact undertype engine recorded on a Queensland mining site.
The occupation remains at Groganville Township are relatively undisturbed and include rare and endangered elements of Queensland's cultural heritage and are unique to the mining settlements of the late 19th century north Queensland. Examples include the numerous habitation floors excavated into the hillside and found along the high creek banks of Limestone Creek, including one platform reinforced with a rare early beer bottle retaining wall.
|The Anglo Saxon Mine and Groganville Township represent a place with potential to yield information that will contribute to the understanding of north Queensland's gold-mining industry in the late 19th century. The gully from the mine south through Groganville Township to the Limestone Cemetery is a well-preserved cultural landscape and a rare example of an archaeologically intact group of habitation sites and associated occupation debris. The place had a brief habitation span and the archaeological remains provide a "snap-shot" into life in the Limestone district during the late 19th century. Extensive archaeological materials are extant on the surface and remain largely undisturbed. The potential for stratified archaeological deposits is however, assessed as low due to the rugged nature of the terrain and short occupation period. The high integrity of the remaining features provides future researchers with a potentially valuable resource for investigating the undocumented aspects of everyday life in the Limestone district during what was an important period in the history of north Queensland.
|The Anglo Saxon mine area provides evidence of reef mining, a practice uncommon south of the Palmer River. Reef mining involved the working of surface deposits and if the results warranted it, the sinking of deep shafts. Such activities required additional equipment such as boilers, pumps and winding equipment. Examples of this machinery remain in situ at the Anglo Saxon Mine including a rare and intact Robey undertype semi-portable steam engine probably dating to the 1880s. This is the most intact undertype engine recorded on a Queensland mining site.
|Anglo-Saxon Mine and Groganville Township and the Limestone Cemetery form a cultural landscape with high aesthetic value relying on the combination of large-scale remnants of mining infrastructure, smaller remnants of the human settlement such as stone retaining walls and the typically picturesque style of the 19th century cemetery with ornate stone headstones all set in a rugged bush setting against steep hills and valleys also complemented by a fresh water creek.
|The construction of a substantial tramway system linking Anglo Saxon Mine and the ore processing battery at nearby Harbord, demonstrates the technological developments in mining transportation and infrastructure made during the late 19th century. The presence of this route, designed to supersede the existing overland cart route and cut through solid rock and traversing treacherous terrain, provides a testament to the resourcefulness, skill and dedication of the miners at the Anglo Saxon Mine and of the wider inhabitants of the Limestone District.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15759,"place_ref":600984,"name":"Mirani Railway Station Building","alternate_name":"Hamilton Railway Station","street_address":"Victoria Street","suburb":"MIRANI","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-07-07","description":"The Mirani Railway Station is a single storey, timber framed building, set on low timber stumps, clad with timber weatherboards. The building has a gable roof clad with corrugated iron. Timber louvered ventilators are located high in the western and eastern elevations. The roof extends on both the northern and southern sides of the building creating shade to these sides.
The fretted shelter shed spandrels running the length of the structure on the northern and southern sides compare with the Finch Hatton Railway Station building, further west along the line.
Spaces that have previously been used as office area, ladies' room and closet (altered) are located to either side of the shelter shed area. Booking windows face the shelter area.
Station name boards are extant along the railway line.
A single storey timber trolley shed is located approximately 60 metres to the east of the railway station building.
NB: The children's playground area structures and equipment are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Mirani Railway Station opened on 10 August 1885. The station formed part of the Pioneer Valley Line of the Mackay Railway which opened on the same day.
In search of new pastoral land, John Mackay and his party entered and named the valley of the Mackay River in 1860, and the following year he returned to establish a cattle station. Other settlers quickly followed. In 1862, the ketch 'Presto' entered the Mackay River landing stores and building materials, then surveyed the river mouth, which consequently was gazetted as a Port of Entry.
In the earliest years of non-Indigenous settlement of the Pioneer Valley, the area was leased as two cattle runs, Hamilton and Hopetoun. They were worked as one property with the head station at Hamilton, across the Pioneer River from the township now known as Mirani. [Prior to the opening of the railway station in 1885, Mirani was known as Hamilton, after one of the cattle properties, but was changed so that no confusion could arise between it and the station of the same name in Brisbane].
Sugar cane is a bulky crop that transports well, but it needs to be processed quickly once harvested. In the 19th century, the only transport method that answered these requirements was the railway. Every sugar district developed a network of tramways and railways, provided by a combination of the sugar mills, local government and the State Government.
Agitation for a local rail network began in the late 1870s. The principal advocates were the independent cane growers who were forced to send their cane to the nearest plantation mill to be crushed. [The first sugar mill in the district, John Ewen Davidson's, Alexandra was established in 1868]. A government run rail network was a means of overcoming that dependence and allowing growers to choose which mill crushed their cane. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company had introduced the two feet gauge steam tramway to the Queensland canefields when it built three large sugar mills simultaneously, at Homebush south-west of Mackay, at Victoria on the Herbert River and at Goondi on the Johnstone River. Homebush Mill opened in 1883.
Approval for the Pioneer Valley line was granted by the Parliament in October 1882. Mackay was growing in name as the centre of a prosperous sugar district, and, due to the input on the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, already had private steam tramways. In 1880 John Spiller built a five kilometre line on his River Estate plantation and worked it with a locally built vertical boiler engine. The following year he built a similar line on his Pioneer plantation, both on the north side of the river.
A railway route was surveyed west from Mackay parallel to the south bank of the river to a point opposite Hamilton [later Mirani] station and construction began in late 1883. The contract was awarded to George Bashford & Co in late 1883. Nearly 2000 people assembled to watch the Governor ceremonially turn the first sod on his first visit to Mackay even though work had been underway for a month. The first stage from Mackay to Mirani was opened on 10 August 1885. A branch line commencing at Newbury Junction, west of Mackay, ran south towards Eton, the only other settlement of note in the district apart from Mackay and Walkerston. Construction work on the railway line was virtually halted for three months in 1884 due to flooding which, at the time, was the highest on record.
The Railway Station became a focal point of the township. A post mistress was appointed and all postal business was conducted from the station from 1888 to 1924 when separate postal facilities were established in Alexandra Street.Harry Wesche planted mango trees in the station's yard when he worked there c.1915. Some of those trees survive today.
In 1885, with the Mackay Railway terminating at Mirani, the town was the limit of closer settlement. Throughout the 1890s the government received requests for the Pioneer Valley line to be extended to open up more land for cane, particularly the extensive area of land that lay between Mirani and the Eungella Ranges. The Pioneer River however, was a significant barrier.
A short extension of the line was finally made over the Pioneer River at Mirani in 1897 to give growers access to rail transport. Expenditure for the bridge of five, 34 metre long steel spans on high concrete piers was approved and contract let to A Overend & Co, in August 1896. The two kilometres of track to Mirani West, officially opened on 11 December 1897, were laid without authority until the plans were resubmitted by the Philp Government and approved in December 1900. The extension further west to Pinnacle, opened on 7 July 1902. This was the first line completed under the new day labour system.
The Pioneer Valley Line of the Mackay Railway was the catalyst for the establishment of the township, Mirani, that became an important secondary centre within the Mackay region. Further, the Pioneer Valley line was instrumental in the expansion of the sugar industry, significantly increasing the amount of land that could be cultivated for sugar on an economically viable basis, as well as being a critical factor in the development of a central mill system, providing an alternate transport system to shipping, thus enabling cane plantations to be located away from major waterways.
There was little goods traffic. The line carefully avoided any contact with the Homebush mill tramway, whilst the sugar mills at Meadowlands, Te Kowai, Alexandra, Palms, Pleystowe and Marian continued to haul sugar to town and cane to the mill by road. Only Victoria Mill near Eton was right beside the railway. Matters were rectified after a visit to Mackay by Commissioner Curnow in April 1887, and the department agreed to build short spurs to Te Kowai, Palms, Alexandra and Pleystowe mills, with the owners repaying the cost over five years. A similar siding had already been built to Marian mill; it was repaid by a surcharge. The Government financed the construction of two Central Mills in 1888, Racecourse Mill beside the railway line at the Lagoons and at North Eton. The latter had a siding to Drapers [south-west of Mackay] which was shifted in 1902 to connect at Victoria.
By 1899, the Mirani Railway comprised the station building, with an addition to the roadside, as well as a detached kitchen. In 1899, Henrik Hansen prepared drawings for a ladies' room and closet to be added to the Finch Hatton end of the building.
In 1913, the building was remodelled resulting in the removal of the curved timber brackets to the shade [which was characteristic of nineteenth century railway architecture] and the substitution of ladder frame brackets carried on fretted struts and similar spandrels to the shelter shed with shades to both sides of the building located on an island platform.
By 1960 the Mirani Railway Station consisted of the station building, lamp room, quarters, loading bank, goods shed, whim derrick and forkline with trucking yards.
The Mackay Railway, from Kowari to Netherdale, officially closed on 19 December 1977 after being damaged by flooding. In 1981 a lease of the quarters was offered to the Pioneer Valley Historical Society.
In 1988, the station building and residence were to be sold for removal. The Mirani Shire Council was successful in obtaining a grant through the Bicentennial funding to adapt the former station building for reuse as a museum. The grant allowed for the former station building to remain on site. The section of the Mackay Railway between Marian and Finch Hatton [which included the Mirani Railway Station] closed on 2 October 1990. This is becoming a common pattern in sugar districts as industry deregulation results in cane lands going out of production and mills closing. Many tram and rail lines are disappearing and road transport is taking an increasing share of the harvest to the mills.
The former station building continues to be cared for by the Mirani Shire Council which owns the property.
","criteria":"The Mirani railway station building is important as a substantially intact example of a country branch line station building, demonstrating the importance of the Queensland sugar industry's railway networks and the gradual loss of this network following industry deregulation and a shift to road transport of harvested cane. Located on the Pioneer Valley Line of the Mackay Railway, the Mirani railway station building is an extant reminder of the growth of the district as pre-eminent cane growing area in the late 19th and early 20th century. The opening of the area through the establishment of the railway also prompted the development of the timber industry.
The Mirani railway station building is further significant as the earliest surviving building on the Mackay Railway and is closely comparable with Finch Hatton Railway Station building, further to the west.
|With spaces formerly comprising an office area, shelter area with shade to both sides of the building and ticket windows facing the shelter areas, the Mirani Railway Station building is a good example of a country branch line timber railway building. Its decorative fretted shelter shed spandrels compare with the Finch Hatton Railway Station building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15760,"place_ref":600985,"name":"Finch Hatton Railway Station","alternate_name":"Pelion Railway Station | Hatton Railway Station","street_address":"Mackay-Eungella Road","suburb":"FINCH HATTON","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-12-06","description":"The Finch Hatton Railway Station is a single storey, timber framed building, set on low timber stumps, clad with timber weatherboards. The building has a gable roof on the eastern side and a gambrel roof on the western side, clad with corrugated iron. Timber louvered ventilators are located high in the western and eastern elevations. The roof extends on the northern, southern and sides of the building creating shade to these sections.
The fretted shelter shed spandrels running the length of the structure on the northern and southern sides compare with the Mirani Railway Station building, further to the east along the line. The station building has timber louvred valance along the western elevation with station name boards.
Accommodation from east to west consists of the former ladies' room and closet, shelter area and office.
The building is surrounded by well manicured grounds and mature trees. A number of commemorative cairns are located within the property.
","history":"The Finch Hatton Railway Station opened on 21 September 1904. The station formed part of the Pioneer Valley Line of the Mackay Railway, the first stage of which opened on 10 August 1885 terminating at Mirani.
[History in "Register of Non-Indigenous Cultural and Heritage Sites in the Mirani Shire" states that although the line reached Finch Hatton in 1904, the Station was not built until 1910.]
In search of new pastoral land, John Mackay and his party entered and named the valley of the Mackay River in 1860, and the following year he returned to establish a cattle station. Other settlers quickly followed. In 1862, the ketch 'Presto' entered the Mackay River landing stores and building materials, then surveyed the river mouth, which consequently was gazetted as a Port of Entry.
In the earliest years of non-Indigenous settlement of the Pioneer Valley, the area was leased as two cattle runs, Hamilton and Hopetoun. They were worked as one property with the head station at Hamilton, across the Pioneer River from the township now known as Mirani. [Prior to the opening of the railway station in 1885, Mirani was known as Hamilton, after one of the cattle properties, but was changed so that no confusion could arise between it and the station of the same name in Brisbane].
Sugar cane is a bulky crop that transports well, but it needs to be processed quickly once harvested. In the 19th century, the only transport method that answered these requirements was the railway. Every sugar district developed a network of tramways and railways, provided by a combination of the sugar mills, local government and the State Government.
Agitation for a local rail network began in the late 1870s. The principal advocates were the independent cane growers who were forced to send their cane to the nearest plantation mill to be crushed. [The first sugar mill in the district, John Ewen Davidson's, Alexandra was established in 1868]. A government run rail network was a means of overcoming that dependence and allowing growers to choose which mill crushed their cane. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company had introduced the two feet gauge steam tramway to the Queensland canefields when it built three large sugar mills simultaneously, at Homebush south-west of Mackay, at Victoria on the Herbert River and at Goondi on the Johnstone River. Homebush Mill opened in 1883.
Approval for the Pioneer Valley line was granted by the Parliament in October 1882. Mackay was growing in name as the centre of a prosperous sugar district, and, due to the input on the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, already had private steam tramways. In 1880 John Spiller built a five kilometre line on his River Estate plantation and worked it with a locally built vertical boiler engine. The following year he built a similar line on his Pioneer plantation, both on the north side of the river.
A railway route was surveyed west from Mackay parallel to the south bank of the river to a point opposite Hamilton [later Mirani] station and construction began in late 1883. The contract was awarded to George Bashford & Co in late 1883. Nearly 2000 people assembled to watch the Governor ceremonially turn the first sod on his first visit to Mackay even though work had been underway for a month. The first stage from Mackay to Mirani was opened on 10 August 1885. A branch line commencing at Newbury Junction, west of Mackay, ran south towards Eton, the only other settlement of note in the district apart from Mackay and Walkerston.
In 1885, with the Mackay Railway terminating at Mirani, the town was the limit of closer settlement. Throughout the 1890s the government received requests for the Pioneer Valley line to be extended to open up more land for cane, particularly the extensive area of land that lay between Mirani and the Eungella Ranges. Selectors began to farm the fertile areas further west of Mirani within the vicinity of McGregor's Creek, however the unbridged Pioneer River was an impediment to further expansion.
A short extension of the line was finally made over the Pioneer River at Mirani in 1897 to give growers access to rail transport. Expenditure for the bridge of five, 34 metre long steel spans on high concrete piers was approved and contract let to A Overend & Co, in August 1896. The two kilometres of track to Mirani West officially opened on 11 December 1897.
Plans for major extension of the Pioneer Railway line were tabled before Parliament on 30 November 1900. The extension further west to Pinnacle, opened on 7 July 1902. This was the first line completed under the new day labour system.
The Pioneer Valley line was instrumental in the expansion of the sugar industry, significantly increasing the amount of land that could be cultivated for sugar on an economically viable basis, as well as being a critical factor in the development of a central mill system, providing an alternate transport system to shipping, thus enabling cane plantations to be located away from major waterways.
Whilst the Pioneer Valley line was extended to Pinnacle by 1902, good quality agricultural land lay for many kilometres beyond the railway terminus. Around the same time as the extension of the Pioneer Valley line, the Racecourse Central Sugar Company had embarked upon an extension program of developing cane growing in the Upper Pioneer Valley. The Sugar Company, together with the Pioneer Shire Council and the selectors in the area combined to turn what was previously a sparsely settled area into a productive sugar district. Playing a key role in furthering the area cultivated for sugar was the extension of the railway line through to Finch Hatton.
Almost immediately after the railway line was extended to Pinnacle, the government was lobbied to extend the line further. The government, however, had other priorities, resulting in the Pioneer Shire Council deciding to construct the next stage to Finch Hatton, as well as a branch line from Pinnacle along McGregor's Creek. The railway from Pinnacle to Finch Hatton opened on 21 September 1904. Finch Hatton now became the terminus for the Pioneer Valley line and this was the trigger for closer settlement within the area and gave rise to the establishment of the township.
In September 1904, the Mackay Chronicle reported that Hatton [as Finch Hatton was known] was beginning to assume a business air with the residences of Messrs Peoples and Zahmel within sight of the terminus. A hotel, run by a Mr Waters, had also been constructed. The extension of the railway line to Finch Hatton was a catalyst for the opening up of further land for sugar cane with the opening of the Cattle Creek mill, south-east of Finch Hatton in 1906.
[In 1906, Hatton was renamed Pelion, however a few months later the name was changed to Finch Hatton].
The government took over responsibility of the Pinnacle-Finch Hatton section of the railway line from 1 July 1910 and quickly constructed the extension west to Netherdale [this station was also known as the Eungella Range]. By 1914, tourists began to access the Eungella Range area by travelling to Netherdale by rail and walking up the newly improved road to Eungella.
Finch Hatton station had a station master in charge, attending to the substantial traffic to and from the adjacent Cattle Creek mill which had its own private siding. The Station Master, E Crow, was promoted in mid-1915, and the local newspaper correspondent mentioned the long hours at the station. There was also a Night Officer so that the station was manned two shifts.
In 1913, Queensland Railways published a brochure titled Tours in the Mackay District which highlighted the natural beauty of the region especially that of the Eungella Ranges. By the 1920s, Finch Hatton had become the largest township in the area outside of Mackay and Sarina.
In 1932, a special committee was set up, comprising the representatives of the departments of Land, Forestry and Agriculture and the Director of the Mackay Butter Factory to investigate the settlement, forestry and scenic potential of the Eungella area. The outcome of that investigation was that the area of 'primeval' jungle should be preserved. In 1941, acknowledgement of the importance of the Eungella area led to the gazettal of Eungella National Park.
The Mackay Railway, from Kowari to Netherdale [west of Finch Hatton] officially closed on 19 December 1977 after being damaged by flooding. The section of the Mackay Railway between Marian and Finch Hatton [which included the Finch Hatton Railway Station] closed on 2 October 1990. [The position of Station Master was abolished in 1988 and the goods shed had been sold for removal]. The Cattle Creek Mill also closed in 1990. This is becoming a common pattern in sugar districts as industry deregulation results in cane lands going out of production and mills closing. Many tram and rail lines are disappearing and road transport is taking an increasing share of the harvest to the mills.
By 1994, the railway complex comprised only the station building as the Station Master's house was relocated to Zahmel Street, Finch Hatton.
The former station building continues to be cared for by the Mirani Shire Council which owns the property, operating the building as the Finch Hatton Historic Railway Station and Internet Access Centre. The Station and Centre focuses on the local and social history and the development of the Pioneer Valley and opens on a daily basis.
","criteria":"The Finch Hatton railway station building is important as a substantially intact example of a country branch line station building, demonstrating the importance of the Queensland sugar industry's railway networks and the gradual loss of this network following industry deregulation and a shift to road transport of harvested cane. Located on the Pioneer Valley Line of the Mackay Railway, the Finch Hatton railway station building is an extant reminder of the growth of the district as pre-eminent cane growing area in the late 19th and early 20th century. The opening of the area through the establishment of the railway also prompted the development of the timber and tourism industries.
|With spaces formerly comprising of office area, shelter area with shade to both sides of the building and with ticket windows facing the shelter areas, the Finch Hatton Railway Station building is a good example of a country branch line timber railway building. Its decorative fretted shelter shed spandrels compare with the Mirani Railway Station building.
|The Finch Hatton railway station building is important for its aesthetic significance, particularly with regard to the station building's unusual architectural features, its intact state and by its picturesque setting in the main street of the township, close to the Finch Hatton War Memorial [EHR 600723].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15762,"place_ref":600987,"name":"Greenmount Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Greenmount Road","suburb":"WALKERSTON","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-09-06","description":"Greenmount Homestead, consisting of the main house and various outbuildings, is situated on an easterly slope with a ridge to the southwest. The site, one of the few elevated sites in the area, overlooks canefields and contains a formal garden to the north, a dam to the east and mature trees.
The main house is a single-storeyed timber building with a corrugated iron gambrel roof with projecting gables. The building is encircled by verandahs with lower skillion roofs which connect a kitchen house on the southwest and an office on the southeast, both with corrugated iron hipped roofs. The building has timber stumps with timber slab and woven sheet infill.
The north elevation is symmetrical with a central projecting gabled entry porch with twin side stair, recessed seat and timber louvres. The gable has shingle cladding and a lower awning supported by deep, curved timber brackets. The verandahs have crossbraced railing, timber posts and brackets and raked, lined ceilings. The verandahs have been enclosed, with the south and east having sash and casement windows, and the remaining verandahs having flywire. The kitchen house and office buildings are clad in corrugated iron and have metal window hoods.
French doors with fanlights open onto the verandahs, and the recessed main entry has a timber panelled door with leadlight glass inserts, sidelights and fanlight. An etched glass panel in the door has the inscription GREENMOUNT. The floorplan consists of bedrooms to the east and west, a drawing room on the north with a large bay window and a large dining room on the south. An ensuite has been built on the west verandah.
Internally, the building has ornate pressed metal ceilings, single skin tongue and groove timber walls, timber batten arches, sash windows and fanlights above internal doors. The building houses original furniture, fittings and artefacts which belonged to the Cook family.
The formal garden to the north of the building comprises a circular drive and lawn enclosed by hedges and palms. A fernery is located to the west of the building. An avenue of Mango [Mangifera indica] trees, lining the original drive way, is located to the south of the building and continues onto the adjoining property. Large figs [Ficus sp.] are located around the site which is currently accessed from the northwest.
Outbuildings include; hipped roofed, corrugated iron clad blacksmith's workshop, laundry/outside shower and a lighting plant shed to the south, sulky shed and garage to the southeast; a skillion roofed, corrugated iron clad staff shed with an ant bed floor to the south; a gabled roof, asbestos cement sheeted seed house to the west; and the timber and iron Balnagowan kitchen/schoolhouse and a cattle dip which are on an adjoining property to the southwest. Other structures include a kennel, chicken coop and tank stands. These buildings also contain much of the original machinery and fixtures.
Buildings and machinery recently moved to the site, and not part of the original homestead complex, include two small timber buildings, a gabled roof timber railway station located to the northeast and various farming machinery.
","history":"Greenmount Homestead was erected in 1915 for Albert and Vida Cook. Albert Alfred Cook was the son of Kennedy district pioneer John Cook, who took up Balnagowan Station on the northern side of the Pioneer River in 1862. Greenmount Station, on the southern side of the Pioneer River, was taken up in 1861 by John Mackay, the first European settler in the district. In 1864 Mackay forfeited ownership of the lease, and the property passed through a number of owners and resumptions until acquired in 1914 by Vida Althea Cook.
Despite having erected a new homestead at Balnagowan in 1908, which was extended in 1912, the Cooks chose to make their home at Greenmount. In 1914-15 Mackay architect William Sykes prepared the designs for Greenmount Homestead, modifying substantially Albert Cook's rough plans for modelling the new building on the second Balnagowan. The house was erected in July-December 1915 by local Walkerston contractors Arthur Carter & Co., on land overlooking the Cook family company's Pleystowe sugar mill. The fireplace and mantelpiece from the second Balnagowan were removed to Greenmount.
Most of the outbuildings and structures associated with the running of the homestead were erected in 1915: the cattle dip and yards, house well, tank stand, gas house, and septic tank; the motor buggy house at Balnagowan was dismantled and re-erected at Greenmount as a workman's hut; similarly, another motor house and box shed from Balnagowan became a garage at Greenmount. Early in 1916 a motor house was constructed using timber and iron from Balnagowan, a wash house was erected, and the Balnagowan bush house was removed to Greenmount. This was replaced in 1928, and re-built in 1988.
In mid-1918 a dray shed was erected from storm-damaged structures at Balnagowan; the passage connecting the bathroom to the main house was enclosed, as was the kitchen verandah on the southern side; and a schoolroom, constructed of timber and iron from dismantled Balnagowan buildings, was erected between the garage and gas house on the southern side of the house. This was removed in 1954 to a ridge near the cattle yards and used as married quarters. An electricity generator was installed in 1925, and in the following year a workshop and skillion were erected.
The house has been altered little since the 1920s. In the 1950s the western verandah and part of the front verandah were glazed and a bathroom added, and flywire screens were placed on the remaining verandahs. The roof and guttering were replaced in 1988.
At Greenmount c1917, the Cooks established one of Queensland's first Aberdeen-Angus studs. This breed had been introduced in Australia c1840, but by the 1880s, numbered little more than 1,000 head in Queensland, which was then the largest beef producer in the Australian colonies. In the 1910s, Queensland cattle breeders were reassessing the beef and milk production values of the Aberdeen-Angus, and Albert Cook was amongst this vanguard. Following Albert's death in 1948 his son Thomas took over the management of Greenmount, and in the 1950s introduced Brahmans and Brahman crossbreeds to the Greenmount stud.
Following Thomas Cook's death in 1981, the homestead on 11.3 hectares, together with three generations of the Cook family's furniture and effects, was given by his widow to the Pioneer Shire Council, which leases the property to the Mackay Historical Society as a museum. The grounds, maintained by the society as the Tom and Dorothy Cook Memorial Park, include a fig tree [Ficus sp.] believed to have been planted by John Mackay in 1862.
Several small timber buildings have been moved onto the site since its lease to the Mackay Historical Society: the old Walkerston railway station c1986, and two former single men's barracks from the Marian sugar mill, in 1991. These do not form part of the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.
","criteria":"Greenmount Homestead at Walkerston demonstrates a now uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, as the main house and its associated outbuildings and structures, and the formal garden, furniture and personal effects, form a cohesive and intact grouping which together demonstrate a way of life no longer common. The house, together with the large group of associated outbuildings and structures and the formal garden, and the physical arrangement of these elements, are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century Queensland homestead complex. The place is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular the landmark contribution of the buildings and grounds, through form, scale and siting; the quality and intactness of the interiors, including early fixtures and furnishings; and the landscaping, including the substantially intact formal garden. It has a strong association with the local community, which perceives the place as an historically significant element in the Mackay/Walkerston cultural landscape. It has a special association with the Cook family and their contribution to the development of the Mackay region and to the growth of the sugar and cattle breeding industries in Queensland over more than 120 years.
|Greenmount Homestead at Walkerston demonstrates a now uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, as the main house and its associated outbuildings and structures, and the formal garden, furniture and personal effects, form a cohesive and intact grouping which together demonstrate a way of life no longer common.
|The house, together with the large group of associated outbuildings and structures and the formal garden, and the physical arrangement of these elements, are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century Queensland homestead complex.
|The place is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, in particular the landmark contribution of the buildings and grounds, through form, scale and siting; the quality and intactness of the interiors, including early fixtures and furnishings; and the landscaping, including the substantially intact formal garden.
|It has a strong association with the local community, which perceives the place as an historically significant element in the Mackay/Walkerston cultural landscape.
|It has a special association with the Cook family and their contribution to the development of the Mackay region and to the growth of the sugar and cattle breeding industries in Queensland over more than 120 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15766,"place_ref":600991,"name":"Windsor State School","alternate_name":"Windsor State School & Windsor Infants School | Windsor Opportunity (Special) School | Bowen Bridge State School","street_address":"270 Lutwyche Road","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-08-01","description":"The Windsor Campus, located on the eastern slope of Windsor Hill, consists of two masonry school buildings, two toilet blocks and a swimming pool in large treed grounds overlooking Lutwyche Road on the east and bounded by Harris Street on the north and Constitution Road on the south. The main school, a two-storeyed building surrounded by verandahs with an open playspace at the ground level, is situated in the north west corner, the highest part of the site. The single-storeyed Infants' School with partly enclosed area under, is located on the southern side of the main building. Both buildings are constructed with brick walls and timber framed terracotta tiled roofs. A cutting forms the western boundary of the site.
The main school building, based on a U-shaped plan arranged around a playground, is comprised of a northern and southern wing connected at their eastern end by a third wing. Towers with steep bellcast roofs are located in the north east and south east corners, at the junctions between the wings. Each wing, consisting of two levels of classrooms above an open ground floor level, has a gambrel roof extended on two sides to cover the verandahs. The extensive timber verandahs, now enclosed, retain ripple iron ceilings and shingled valances. Movement between the wings is via the continuous verandah which wraps around the playground.
The impressive eastern facade of the central wing flanked by its four storeyed stair towers and surmounted by a fleche, sits above the sweeping grounds and is visible from Lutwyche Road. The main entrances are on the eastern faces of the stair towers where wide stairs lead to ornamented arched openings on the first floor level. The uppermost level of the towers have bullseye windows and openings supported by colonettes. The two further sets of stairs on the front elevation lead to the verandah and feature bullseye windows. Rear entrance, from the playground, is via stairs in the north east and south east corners placed at 45 degrees to the facades.
Attached to the verandahs on the playground elevations and on the eastern front elevation are three storeyed rendered masonry structures consisting of a single room on each level. These tower-like elements have hipped roofs connecting to the main roof of the adjoining wing.
The classroom interiors have high level windows, panelled fibro cement walls, fibro cement ceilings and timber floors. Floor framing is supported on large steel I-beams. Windows in exterior walls have vents above protected by the window awnings. A timber honour board is located on the first floor level of the south wing.
The north wing, originally the mirror-reverse of the south, is now twice the length with an internal stair at the western end. Adjacent to this stair on the upper level, an area which connects the two verandahs contains hat and coat racks.
Two toilet blocks, single storeyed brick structures with hip roofs, define the North west and south west corners of the playground.
The Infants' School is a rectangular building with long elevations facing north to the main building and south across a yard to Constitution Road. Divided into bays which step out from the corners of the building to the centre of each facade, the dark brick walls have contrasting concrete bands at the base and at first floor level and concrete sills. The central bay on the northern and southern facades is surmounted by a gable punctuated by an oculus and has a semicircular arched opening at the base. Brick porches on the eastern and western ends are now enclosed.
The main entrance is via two symmetrically positioned concrete stairs on the southern side of the Infants' School. At the top of the stairs are recessed porches, now enclosed by double glass doors, which open onto entry vestibules. Access to classrooms and offices is via these vestibules and the central corridor which connects them. The corridor, vestibules and porches have concrete floors. The rest of the building has timber floors. Some of the classrooms retain panelled folding partitions between adjoining classrooms. The classrooms are well lit via banks of timber casement windows. Hipped tiled awnings over the windows are supported on timber brackets.
An internal concrete stair on the northern side of the western vestibule leads to the ground floor level. Built as an open undercroft, the ground floor is now partly enclosed providing workshop and storage space. Toilets are located under the brick porches.
The tiled hipped roof which follows the stepped facade is ventilated by a centrally positioned octagonal fleche and features small gables terminating the main ridge.
A series of retaining walls with concrete steps divide the level of the school buildings from the lower part of the grounds. A fenced garden has been created in front of main building. The concrete swimming pool with brick change shed at the eastern end is located on the southern side of the oval. The pool is surrounded by raked timber seating on the other three sides. Mature trees are located throughout the grounds especially along the street frontages.
","history":"The first school building constructed at the Windsor Campus was the Windsor State School, erected in 1915-16 on land acquired by the state government in 1912 and 1914 as a school reserve. A large, two-storeyed masonry building, it replaced the earlier and vastly overcrowded Bowen Bridge State School (established 1865) opposite. It was opened officially on 7 August 1916, having been occupied a week earlier.
Its construction reflected a local population boom, partly an outcome of the extension of the railway line from Mayne to Enoggera via Windsor in 1899 and the consequent closer settlement of the larger estates. In 1904, Windsor was proclaimed a town, incorporating Albion, Wooloowin, Wilston, Windsor, Lutwyche, Newmarket, Swan Hill and portions of Eagle Junction and Kedron.
The state school building was designed by Philip Arthur Edwards, a British trained architect working in the Government Architect's office, for the Queensland Department of Public Instruction. Erected at a cost of £15,154, it was the second largest public works project of 1915, and was one of the largest and most modern brick state schools constructed in Queensland. The building could accommodate 990 pupils at double desks (built in Sydney by EJ Forbes & Son Ltd), and had floorage for 1100 children. Ensuring adequate ventilation was an emphasis of the design.
When occupied in 1916, the school had a population of 1000. By 1918 this had grown to 1093, and the old problems of overcrowding had arisen again.
In 1918 the school reserve was fenced with timber palings, and the first tennis court (earth surfaced) was constructed by the School Committee.
A 30-metre long concrete swimming pool, funded by the School Committee through a bank loan, was constructed in the school grounds in 1925, at a cost of £2,000. In 1926 the dressing sheds were completed and the pool was lit for evening swimming carnivals. It was damaged c1927 during a severe storm, but was rebuilt.
In 1926, Windsor was designated a practising school, where trainees from the Teachers' Training College received classroom teaching experience.
By 1927 there were almost 1500 pupils enrolled, and hundreds of students had no permanent classroom. The Works Department prepared plans for a separate infants' school early in 1927, but this did not eventuate until the 1930s. The school population peaked in 1928, with 1,642 pupils. Facilities were so strained that the school rented the verandahs and front room of the Windsor School of Arts Building as temporary classrooms, while a number of verandahs on the school building were being enclosed. The remaining verandahs were enclosed in subsequent years.
Between 1931 and 1933, over £8,000 was spent on site improvements, as part of the state government's Unemployment Relief Scheme. The grounds were cut and terraced into the three present levels: school; tennis and basketball courts; playing fields.
Finally, in 1934, a brick building was erected to the south of the main block, to accommodate the infant grades and relieve pressure on the main classrooms. It cost about £6,600 and was described at the time as a new departure in planning for infant pupils, providing accommodation for 360 school pupils as well as kindergarten classes, in a self-contained block with an extensive concrete play area below. Whether a kindergarten operated from this building in the 1930s is unclear.
In 1940, brick extensions were made to the western end of the northern wing of the main building, providing a further four classrooms at a cost of about £6,000.
The Second World war caused considerable disruption to school routine. Pupils travelling from a reasonable distance were ordered to attend their closest school; the classroom windows were taped in case of bomb blasts; and the playing fields were zig-zagged with about 366 metres of slit trenches. 1942 National Safety Regulations required that half the children attended school in the morning, and the other half in the afternoon.
Early in 1943 the Allied Works Council erected for the United States Navy, large storerooms on the school grounds at the corner of Lutwyche and Constitution Roads, reducing the available playing field area even further. Despite post-1945 attempts by the school authorities to retrieve the lost ground, these stores were used after the war firstly as a Rehabilitation Training Centre, and then to house Education Department supplies. They are not considered of significance to the entry in the Heritage Register for Windsor Campus.
The school sustained a strong enrolment well into the post-war years. In 1946 there was an average attendance of 756 pupils in the state school, and 323 in the infants'. However, attendance declined through the 1950s and 1960s, as the young families of the first half of the 20th century grew up and moved to the newer outer suburbs, and the local population aged.
With the decline in pupil numbers, changes were made to the school structure. An opportunity school section was opened in the infants' block c1965, and at the beginning of 1967, infants reunited with the older students in the main building, leaving the 1934 building to the opportunity school students.
In the late 1970s, Windsor qualified as a Special Program School, the district being considered of declining social and financial climate. By 1980 enrolment had fallen to 300, with a substantial percentage of children from non-English speaking backgrounds. In 1981 a preschool was established in the Harris Street wing of the main building. Since 1984, senior pupils from the special school (formerly the opportunity school) have attended a school at Newstead, and many of the juniors have been integrated into the regular classrooms. Since the mid-1980s, the state school, special school and preschool have been known collectively as the Windsor Campus.
","criteria":"The buildings of Windsor State School Campus and their functions illustrate changing government attitudes to education requirements over nearly 8 decades. The 1915/1916 school building was built to accommodate the requirements of the most modern of education philosophy in Queensland. Design features include verandah access, an emphasis on natural lighting and ventilation in design, and undercroft playspaces. The 1934 building was purpose-designed to accommodate infant grades, and includes internal circulation, flexible classroom space, and undercroft play area.
|The buildings of Windsor State School Campus and their functions illustrate changing government attitudes to education requirements over nearly 8 decades.
|The wide frontage of the 1916 building with its distinctive towers and elevated position in grounds sweeping down to Lutwyche Road contribute to its prominence as a landmark in the Windsor area. The organisation of this building, articulated into horizontal verandahed wings with attached vertical elements, and the picturesque composition of its facades displaying multiple roof profiles, a mixture of materials including tiles, brickwork, shingles and render, bullseye and arched openings and scenically placed external stairs, associate the school with Arts and Crafts design popular at the time. The 1934 building complements, through its siting and the use of similar materials and decorative motifs, the earlier building. A high quality of construction and detailing characterises both buildings.
|A reflection of changing demographic trends in the Windsor area since it was opened, the school has played an active social and educational role in that community since 1916.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15782,"place_ref":601007,"name":"Second World War Hangar No. 7","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"116 Lamington Avenue","suburb":"EAGLE FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The Second World War Hangar No.7, located fronting Terminal Drive to the south on the site of the old Brisbane Airport, is a timber truss igloo structure with ribbed sheet metal cladding. The structure is the last surviving Second World War timber truss igloo hangar at Eagle Farm.
The igloo is a form of light nailed hardwood timber arch construction, where each arch is made up of two half arches more or less freely pinned at two abutments close to ground level and at a central or crown pin. Each half arch consists of two adjacent trusses laced together at top and bottom chord level and each truss consists of a top and bottom chord laced together in arch form. As a result, each half truss is made up of four main timber chords sprung into arch form, and light timber bracing nailed in position to form a curved open-latticed box truss.
Hangar 7 faces east-west, and skillion roof additions have been added along the southern and northern sides. The southern side forms the main entry, and consists of a long skillion roof addition along most of this elevation, housing office accommodation, with ribbed metal wall cladding and metal framed glazing. A higher skillion at the eastern end of this elevation houses five metal doors for freight access.
The eastern end has ribbed metal wall cladding and two large metal doors for freight access surmounted by translucent ribbed sheeting. Sections of weatherboard cladding remain at the southeast corner. The northern side has a large steel framed skillion roofed addition with ribbed metal wall cladding, with storage at the northwest end and amenities at the western end.
The western end has weatherboard cladding with a single large doorway for freight access. This end originally faced the runway apron (straight six) and consisted of a central wide doorway with folding doors and high-level glazing. The high level glazing now has aluminium louvred infill, and a covered walkway linking the adjacent hangar 10 is used for covered car parking.
Internally, the building has a concrete floor throughout and exposed unpainted timber truss arches. Sections of the roof have translucent sheeting for light, and the eastern end is supported by scaffolding. The single-storeyed office accommodation along the southwest projects into the space, and is constructed in hardboard sheeting and is surmounted by air handling equipment. The hangar is currently used for freight storage.
Hangar 7 is surrounded by bitumen surfaces, with carparking to the south fronting Terminal Drive, and container storage areas to the north.
","history":"1. History of the Site to the Second World War
The Second World War Hangar No.7, located fronting Terminal Drive on the site of the old Brisbane Airport, is a timber truss igloo structure with ribbed metal sheet cladding. The hangar was constructed in 1942 for the use of the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit (ATAIU), as part of a major aircraft assembly depot and aerodrome under the control of the US 81st Air Depot Group, and under the US 5th Air Force under the command of General Douglas MacArthur's Supreme Headquarters of the South West Pacific Area. It is the last surviving Second World War timber truss igloo structure at Eagle Farm.
The structure is located adjacent to the site of the Eagle Farm Women's Prison and Factory [600186], the remains of which are located beneath the southeast end of runway 13/31.
In September 1829 Commandant Patrick Logan of the Moreton Bay penal settlement founded a secondary agricultural establishment approximately eight miles from the town at Eagle Farm. Female convicts are recorded at Eagle Farm from 1830, and in 1837 all female prisoners in Brisbane Town were removed to Eagle Farm.
By November 1838 the decision had been taken to abandon the Moreton Bay penal settlement, and by July 1839 all the female convicts had been removed. Eagle Farm was virtually abandoned, although it was still functioning as a government cattle station in 1841.
In 1842 the land was surveyed, put up for public auction and subsequently farmed. The buildings were demolished at an unknown date.
The land on which Hangar No.7 stands was purchased by John Westaway in April 1864. After his death in 1867, title passed to William Westaway who subsequently subdivided the land, and the area of concern was sold to Alonzo Sparkes in April 1914. Doomben Park Recreation Grounds Ltd purchased the site in October 1920, and it was leased in 1932 for 7 years to James Macfarlane and George Rea, after which it was acquired by the Commonwealth.
The opening of the mouth of the Brisbane River to deep water shipping, and the construction of the railway to Pinkenba stimulated growth in the area around Eagle Farm, and housing subdivisions gradually displaced the pastoral uses of the land.
The land at Eagle Farm was inspected by Captain EC Johnston, Superintendent of Aerodromes Civil Aviation Department, in February 1922 as a site for a civil aerodrome. This land (to the north of the site of hangar 7) was subsequently surveyed and acquired from William Lynn and David Wilson for a total cost of £5,464.0.8. The Commonwealth gazettal notice of the aerodrome site occurred on 29 June 1922, and at that time the site was described as containing 84 acres 2 roods 2.3 perches of partly cleared land with black soils, scattered heavy gum and ironbark, and some good grazing areas.
In July 1922 it was intended to lease portions of the aerodrome to various commercial aviation companies, and from 1923 the intention to acquire adjoining lands for expansion of the aerodrome was being expressed. A grass airstrip was formed in 1923, and a layout for hangar blocks with a caretaker's cottage was prepared in February 1924. The Brisbane Civil Aviation hangar was constructed c.1925, and the first commercial operations were commenced by QANTAS in 1926, who formed the Brisbane Flying Training School in 1927.
By August 1928, when the Australian Aero Club held their second annual Aerial Pageant, a second hangar housing QANTAS was located adjacent to the north of the Brisbane Civil Aviation hangar, with a caretakers cottage to the south. The aerial pageant included such events as the Balloon Strafe, where small gas filled balloons were released and the aeroplanes would endeavour to burst them with their propellers in flight. The pageant also included aerobatics, an aerial derby, speed championships, bombing displays, novelty events, crazy flying, parachute decents and an air battle. The entrance to the aerodrome was from the east off Schneider Road adjacent to Mr Wilson's property.
In 1927 Captain Johnston, then Director of Civil Aerodromes Civil Aviation Department, was again looking at acquiring adjacent lands, in particular the Doomben Park Recreation Grounds racecourse straight located to the south of the aerodrome, but costs were prohibitive and much of the surrounding land suffered from poor drainage.
The most significant event to occur in this period was the landing of the Southern Cross in June 1928. Squadron Leader Charles Kingsford-Smith and CTP Ulm completed the first trans-Pacific flight from California to Brisbane, landing at Eagle Farm. Kingsford-Smith and Ulm formed Australian National Airlines in 1929 and initiated scheduled services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Also of note in 1928, Squadron Leader HJL Hinkler AFC completed the first solo flight from England to Australia in 16 days in a light aeroplane.
In 1928 it was decided to acquire an area of land at Rocklea for use as a civil aerodrome in lieu of Eagle Farm. In August 1929 it was stated that as soon as the aerodrome at Rocklea (Archerfield) was acquired and prepared, flying activities would be transferred from Eagle Farm which would then be available for disposal. The two existing hangars would be moved but the caretakers cottage on the site would remain.
In 1929 the site was placed with the Department of the Interior for sale, and several options for disposal of the property were considered, including industrial sites or to the general public in broad acre lots or by subdivision. In 1931 it was assessed as having a poor prospect of sale, and it was recommended to lease the land until the real estate market improved. At this time the aerodrome was not required by the Department of Defence, and only one aircraft concern (Aircrafts Pty Ltd) was still operating from the site. The land was leased to Messrs Wilson and Campbell for the grazing of cattle and horses.
David Wilson died in September 1934, and his interest in the partnership passed to his widow Margaret Wilson. The partnership held the lease until March 1940. Part of the lease arrangements was that the Queensland Gliding Association was to be allowed to use the site on public holidays, to erect hangars on the land, and to install water supply and any conveniences.
In June 1939 the aerodrome site was still being considered for sale, and the prospects of the area were thought to have improved due to Brisbane City Council policies on oil storage depot locations, the erection of wharves at Hamilton, State government development of the area between Eagle Farm Road and the river, the development of industries in the area, and the small amount of available vacant land. The site was valued at £4,200.
At this time, the Minister for Civil Aviation, the Honourable JV Fairbairn, mentioned that the site was very suitable for training purposes, and directed that it be retained. Captain Johnston, who originally selected the site, also stated that it was suitable for instructional purposes. This decision is likely related to Fairbairn's attendance at a meeting in Ottawa in December 1939 in which the details of the Empire Air Training Scheme (which will be discussed later) were concluded. Australia had declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and the importance placed on the retention of Eagle Farm is reflected in Fairbairn's report to Prime Minister Menzies that the only activity that we have undertaken which could lead to the winning or losing of the war by our failure or success in carrying out our undertaking is the Empire Air Training Scheme.
2. Military Aviation in Australia, and Events Leading to the Second World War
The Australian Flying Corps were involved in the First World War as part of the Army. Following the establishment of the RAF in 1918, Australia's Minister for Defence, Senator GF Pearce, appointed the Swinburne Committee to report on the needs of military aviation. Australia's involvement in the Imperial defence strategy inevitably placed its senior military commanders in a position subordinate to their British counterparts, and as its starting point the Committee accepted the strategy's basis that Australia's security would continue to be based on sea power. The committee found that while they supported the establishment of an air service, they rejected any suggestion that it should have an independent role. Any Australian air force would exist solely to support the sea and land forces.
The Committee recommended the formation of a single, separate air corps, which would be administered by an Air Board comprised of members of the Naval and Military Boards, while the wings of the corps allotted to the Navy and Army were to be controlled by the Naval and Military Boards respectively. Cabinet approved the proposal on 18 February 1919, and the Air Board was formed with the Air Corps key role determined as surveillance. The Navy and Army had their own tasks for the air service, and in April 1920 put forward a proposal for the formation of an air force to meet certain fundamental needs of the Navy and Army, which included torpedo bombers, patrol planes, flying boats and seaplanes, fighting planes, reconnaissance planes and bombers. The Air Corps became the Royal Australian Air Force on 31 March 1921 with a total complement of 21 officers, and the bulk of its aircraft came as a gift from the Imperial government and consisted of essentially obsolete machines left over from the First World War.
The RAAF came into being as the worlds second separate air force, and its establishment coincided with the decision to place defence spending on a peacetime basis for the first time since the First World War. In 1924, the Air Board described the RAAF's condition as most unsatisfactory and that it survived on a hand to mouth existence, with 65 officers and 300 men and only two machines fit for war. Defence funding became even tighter in the Depression years, and the situation did not improve until the mid-1930s with the growing threat of war and easing of the Depression.
A particularly strong anti-RAAF move emerged in 1929 when there was a possibility that the Air Force would be dismembered and split between the other two forces, a threat which was apparent until after the mid-1930s. This coincided with Salmond Report of 1928 which recommended that Australia substitute air power (due to its speed, mobility, flexibility and offensive striking power) for sea and land power. As the Air Force entered the 1930s, it was still equipped with 1916-17 types of machines, although the growing threat of the Japanese air force had been recognised as early as 1925 in the Memorandum Regarding the Air Defence of Australia by Air Commodore Williams.
The 1920s had seen a vast improvement across the spectrum of aircraft performance, particularly in range and reliability. This was highlighted in 1928 when Squadron Leader Charles Kingsford-Smith and CTP Ulm completed the first trans-Pacific flight from California to Brisbane landing at Eagle Farm, and Squadron Leader HJL Hinkler AFC completed the first solo flight from England to Australia in 16 days in a light aeroplane. The capability now existed for long range strike operations against enemy shipping.
Australia's defence independence was constrained by the commitment to the Imperial strategy and the British connection. The Imperial Conference of 1923 declared that the basis of the Empire's security was the sheltering screen provided by the Royal Navy, a judgement which was confirmed at subsequent conferences until 1937. Twice during the interwar period, a review of the RAAF was thought necessary, but in each occasion the government turned to an RAF officer, resulting in the Salmond Report of 1928 and the Ellington Report of 1938.
Germany had invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and on 3 September 1939 Australia declared war on Germany.
The RAF realised that if massive expansion were necessary, Britain had the industrial capacity to increase aircraft production but it would not be able to train enough aircrew from British sources. Through Australia's commitment to the defence of Britain, agreement was reached that Australia and other Dominions would participate in a massive training program, subsequently known as the Empire Air Training Scheme, the details of which were concluded at a meeting in Ottawa in December 1939. Australia contributed over 27,000 men to the scheme throughout the Second World War.
The RAAF's involvement in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) was more complex than in Europe.
At this date, there were 12 RAAF squadrons, of which two existed in nucleus only and four were citizen force. The aircraft inventory consisted entirely of obsolescent machines. In Brisbane, aviation activities centred on Archerfield and Amberley (under construction).
The aerodrome was taken over by the RAAF for Flying Training purposes on 8 March 1940, and the Wilson and Campbell lease was terminated. In June 1940 the aerodrome accommodated the RAAF No.2 Elementary Flying Training School, as Relief Landing Ground property 41.
On 7 December 1941 the US Navy Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese. A US convoy bound for the Philippines was redirected to Brisbane, arriving on 22 December 1941. Shortly after the entry of Japan into the War, Australian foreign policy appeared to make its most dramatic shift since Federation. On 27 December 1941 Prime Minister Curtin stated that Australia now looked to America free from any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom...we shall exert all our energies toward the shaping of a plan, with the United States as its cornerstone.
At this time, the RAAF did not have a fighter remotely capable of combating the Japanese Zero, which served the Japanese Naval units.
By February 1942 Japanese forces had gained footholds in territories adjoining northern Australia which made it seem probable that the advance southwards would continue, culminating in the invasion of Australia. This threat of invasion in 1942 is summarised in a statement made by Prime Minister Curtin in 1944, in which he said now that Singapore was lost and we were unable to concentrate a superior fleet, the strength of our defences was inadequate to defend Australia...against an enemy with command of the sea and air. We lacked air support, possessing no fighters whatsoever, and our bomber and reconnaissance planes had been reduced to about 50 machines. No country faced a greater danger with less resources than Australia.
The RAAF had not performed well up until this time, with their involvement in the Far East campaign consisting of a series of devastatingly quick defeats, and a humiliating flight down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies before final defeat or capture. On the 19 February 1942 the Japanese bombed Darwin, and the Darwin Air Station was not well prepared. Several Australian and American aircraft were destroyed on the ground or shot down, and large numbers of the RAAF deserted their posts with 278 personnel still missing four days after the attack.
It was against this background that the decision to place the RAAF under General Douglas MacArthur was made on 18 April 1942. The directive appointing General MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) placed under his control all armed forces which the governments concerned have assigned, or may assign, to this area.
3. Second World War Construction Work at Eagle Farm
The acquisition of the six furlong (1320 yards) straight extension of Doomben Racecourse and adjacent land bordering the southern boundary of the aerodrome was proposed on 11 December 1941 and was valued at £1,727. The official transfer of the land did not actually occur until February 1954.
The US Convoy, which arrived in Brisbane on 22 December 1941, had crated aircraft on board which required unloading, assembling and flying to their Clark Field destination in the Philippines. A decision was made in January 1942 to develop Eagle Farm as a major aircraft erection depot and aerodrome from which the planes could proceed. Eagle Farm had direct road and rail links to Brisbane, it was close to port facilities and had potential for expansion and provision of multiple runways. The total cost of the development work to Eagle Farm over three years to the end of 1944 was £559,687.
Recognising the need for a co-ordinating agency for all Australian construction of a military nature, an Allied Works Council (AWC) was formed on 25 February 1942, and the works were mainly carried out by the Civil Construction Corps, into which labour and manpower could be drafted. The AWC was disbanded in September 1945.
The straight six extension of the Doomben Racecourse was utilised as a ready made apron for the hangars which were to be built. Initial works were delayed by heavy rain for three weeks converting the ground to a quagmire, and as a result thousands of feet of ashes and coke breeze were carted from the gasworks and deposited in order to keep trucks moving with borrow material from Nudgee. By 18 February 1942 the construction of one hangar had begun and the SW-NE runway was nearing completion. Shiploads of aircraft components were arriving at the port and had to be transported to Amberley for assembly until Eagle Farm was ready. The Americans advised that the runways were urgently needed for the fighter plane protection of Brisbane, and as a result two ten hour shifts were organised using 100 trucks which hauled 33,000 cubic yards of fill to complete the section, and on 29 March 1942 a squadron of P-39 aircraft landed.
The caretaker's cottage at Eagle Farm was repaired to be used as a flight office and daily accommodation for RAAF personnel. Construction of hangars 1 and 2 had begun to the south of the straight six section, and further urgent works were proposed to begin in March 1942, consisting of four 96 ft span hangars (No.s 3,4,8 and 9) of a total of twelve, for an Erection Depot for the US Army Air Corps. This caused some initial problems, as a Colonel Snead stated that he did not want any hangars at Eagle Farm as he had been instructed to operate the aerodrome as a pursuit field, and had 18 fighters based at the field and as such it was inadvisable to have an assembly depot close by.
The construction of hangars 3,4,8 and 9, to an Australianised RAF Type A 1917 design, were begun by contractor TH Dennis, but in April construction work ceased and the hangars were relocated to Charleville. This situation changed quickly, and the hangars were relocated back to Eagle Farm from circa November 1942, to eventually double the length of hangars 1 and 2, and create hangars 3 and 3A (work was still being carried out in January 1944).
By April 1942, Anti Aircraft Artillery units were disposed to protect the wharf areas near Eagle Farm, and camouflage painting of the hangars had begun, as well as treatment to the aerodrome and nearby Emergency Military Camps at Doomben and Ascot Racecourses.
The US Army 81st Air Depot Group was established on 11 May 1942 by order of the War Department in Washington with Headquarters and Supply Squadron located in Brisbane. The Group controlled all services operations relating to aircraft assembly, maintenance and reconstruction initially at Amberley, Tocumwal (NSW) and at Eagle Farm. These activities were centred on Eagle Farm after August 1942.
In June 1942 the possession of nearby houses and land was taken under the provisions of National Security Legislation for the construction of essential runways This was gazetted in July 1943. Cottages were removed intact to a site selected by the owner, with compensation paid for the value of the land with any improvements. The owners had to purchase the new sites themselves, and periodical compensation was paid by the Airboard from the date of possession in June 1942.
The Supreme Headquarters of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), under the Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces, General Douglas MacArthur, was based in Brisbane in the AMP Building [600147]. Tenants were compulsorily evacuated under military orders from 21 July 1942 until 14 June 1945.
In October 1942, MR Hornibrook was commissioned by the US Army to erect four large stores at Eagle Farm, most likely hangars 4,5,6 and 7 of an igloo design. The igloo is a form of light nailed timber arch construction. These hangars were built fronting the straight six section, as a ready made apron, with hangar 7 built for the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit (ATAIU) located separately at the end of the straight. These hangars were based on the US Army 104 ft span timber box frame design and were clad with galvanised iron, but when that material was restricted, terne-coated iron was used, a lead-tin coating usually used for fuel tank manufacture. There were various igloo designs, but the AWC designs were considered to be far more rugged than US designs, and were designed to have a reasonably long life under winds of up to 65 miles per hour, and used standard grade Group C hardwood timber.
The defence building program brought about severe shortages in materials and manpower. The priority for labour and materials, particularly steel, was directed into the war effort which resulted in innovative methods for construction. The AWC engineers adapted themselves to designing all types of timber framed buildings, in some cases utilising green timber due to shortages of seasoned timber. While most structures were designed to be temporary, wartime working stresses were adopted at least 33% greater than normal working stresses.
The standard igloo design resulted from a need for lightweight prefabricated structures which could be quickly erected as aircraft hideouts, or shelters in more remote areas. It has been assumed that the timber lattice arch truss design was based on American steel lattice structures. However, Emil Brizay, a French engineer refugee from Singapore in the office of MR Hornibrook is also credited with designing the construction system on which the igloo was modelled. The igloos at Eagle Farm were one of several designs for lightweight long span structures which utilised timber in small sectional sizes of chords to enable the lattice trusses to be hand nailed in jigs on site and speedily erected at low cost.
These timber truss igloos were widely used, and known locations include Garbutt near Townsville, Cairns, Eagle Farm, Allison Engine Works at Breakfast Creek, Schofield Army Base and Archerfield Airfield.
Hangar 8, a US Butler prefabricated steel portal framed structure located to the northeast of hangar 7, was the last hangar to be constructed in the Second World War period, apparently between May 1943 and July 1944, as a shelter area for aircraft reconstructed by the ATAIU. It was originally erected with a canvas curtain entry and metal roof cladding. Metal side cladding was added later.
4. Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit (ATAIU)
With the outbreak of the Pacific War on December 7 1941, Allied Forces had little or no concrete knowledge about Japanese aircraft and their performance capabilities. The air war over China had been in full swing for over four years, little attempt had been made by Allied Intelligence agencies to learn very much about the Japanese equipment, tactics and potential. Due to severe cuts in military funding following WWI, intelligence units had not been developed for gathering and disseminating this type of information, and the bulk of concern was placed on Hitler's growing airpower and conquests in Europe. Once the US was involved in the War with Japan, there was a frantic effort to fill this information void. There was no meaningful list of Japanese aircraft types, and no way to identify these aircraft when encountered in combat. During this period, every single-engine Japanese fighter was identified as a Zero, and anything else was called a Mitsubishi or a Nakajima.
To sort out this dilemma became the sole responsibility of the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit (ATAIU) South West Pacific Area. In addition to developing a common means of identifying these aircraft by type, it was essential that the new unit obtain information to develop drawings and models, as well as acquiring photographs. The unit's responsibility was to discover construction techniques, weaknesses, strengths, and latest camouflage techniques. Gathering performance information in comparison to Allied aircraft was essential for developing combat tactics with which to counter the Japanese.
The ATAIU, a small group of intelligence personnel, was formed in Victoria Barracks, Melbourne, and later moved to Brisbane under the US 5th Air Force under the command of General MacArthur's Supreme Headquarters of the SWPA in late 1942/early 1943. The project had the direct authorisation of General George C Kenney, Commander of Allied Air Forces in the SWPA. Its staff headquarters were in the AMP Building [600147] while the technical examination, reconstruction and simulated combat trials with captured Japanese aircraft was located at hangar 7, Eagle Farm. The 81st Air Depot Group controlled all operational activities of these aircraft.
Hangar 7 was the fourth timber framed igloo on the airfield, located some distance from the others at the end of straight six for security reasons. It became the workshops for the ATAIU, and was rectangular in plan with personnel access from centrally located skillion roofed door openings. The west end was clad with weatherboard, with a large central doorway for aircraft access. The building had corrugated iron roof sheeting with flush skylights as it had no artificial lighting. Internally it was divided by low partitions, creating separate cells for the various tasks associated with dismantling, analysing and reassembling the captured aircraft. Each cell had its own specialisation, which included workshops for aircraft engines, navigation systems, radio, weapons, and body reconstruction.
The group had to first collate field information, importantly descriptions of new planes that aircrew could only glimpse in battle. To overcome the confusion caused by the complex method of identifying the ever increasing number of Japanese aircraft types, a system of assigning easily remembered code names to each type was adopted. The Japanese-plane nickname system which came into common usage throughout the Allied air forces was developed. A different name was assigned to each aircraft as it became known to exist, and common first names were chosen.
To keep the plan simple, male names were given to fighters and float planes, and female names to bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and flying boats. Names beginning with T were given to the few transport planes in the Japanese inventory. Trainers were given names of trees, and gliders given names of birds. With the approval of General MacArthur, the MacArthur Southwest Pacific Code Name System came into being, circa September 1942, with an initial list of 50 names. The Tennessee background of Captain Frank McCoy, who was in charge of the ATAIU, was evident immediately because the initial names had a distinct hill-country flavour, such as Zeke, Rufe, Luke, Nate and others. The ATAIU quickly exhausted its list of hillbilly names and turned to names of friends and relatives.
Foreign designers and engineers had been widely employed in Japan's aviation industry prior to 1935, after which a curtain of secrecy had been pulled over Japan's aviation development. These new aircraft were being employed in the air war over China, with the first recorded crash of a Zero being made at Kunming, China in February 1941. It was not until a year later that enough information was gathered to be able to assign it the code name Zeke.
During the first six months of the war, technical intelligence information was almost non-existent due to Air Corps units being in constant retreat and lacking sufficient personnel. Once the Allies were on the offensive, downed enemy planes were able to be returned to flying condition by the ATAIU at Eagle Farm. Buna, in New Guinea, and Guadacanal, in the Solomons, were the first Allied land victories in the Pacific after nearly ten months of defeat.
Initially the field intelligence units inspected downed aircraft, but name plates were in Japanese and serial numbers were designed to be misleading, and few Allied field intelligence personnel read and understood Japanese. In many instances, the ATAIU relied on the assistance of indigenous work crews to retrieve the downed aircraft from remote areas and transport them to the coast, often dragging them through swamps or floating them down rivers on rafts.
A new version of the Zero, which served with the Japanese Naval units, was causing great concern, and battered examples were retrieved from the Buna-Gona area of New Guinea in January 1943. Field inspections gave some answers, but comparative rebuilding and trialing of it against Allied fighters, engaging in combat exercises, was needed. This aircraft was eventually named the Hamp (originally Hap after US Army Air Force Chief of Staff General Hap Arnold) and later named Zeke 32 when it was found to be a variant of Zeke 21, a Mitsubishi A6M3, Naval Type O Model 32 fighter. Australian ground forces were the first to come upon the new Zeke 32 when they occupied Buna airstrip on New Guinea in January 1943.
In most cases technical manuals were not available, so everything was worked out on a trial and error basis. The state of the art was quite common among all airplane manufacturers of that time. In most cases, Japanese flight instruments were replaced by US instruments for those aircraft intended for flight, but engine instruments were retained as they were calibrated for the function they served. US radio equipment and a new oxygen system also replaced Japanese types.
Captain William O Farrior became the first pilot to fly the earliest version of a rebuilt Hamp at Eagle Farm. The intended pilot was killed in a crash the same day, and Farrior was borrowed from a small group of 81st Air Depot test pilots and was to become well known for flying the early Japanese aircraft rebuilt at Eagle Farm. He later moved to Anacostia with the ATAIU and remained with intelligence his entire Air Force career. He first flew the Hamp over Brisbane for 30 minutes with the help of a captured Japanese pilot on 20 July 1943. An Allied aircraft always flew escort during tests of Japanese aircraft at Eagle Farm, and the Japanese aircraft were painted with their insignia to facilitate recognition photography. The Hamp (Zeke 32) was the first Japanese aircraft to be flown in simulated combat against top Allied fighter pilots.
Also flown at Eagle Farm were an Oscar Mk1 Nakajima Ki-43, first flown 17-18 March 1943, and later an Oscar Mk11 was put back in the air circa 4 July 1944. Another Oscar MK11 was flown to Eagle Farm from Hollandia circa July 1944. The Allies had captured the airfields at Hollandia on the northern coast of Dutch New Guinea circa June 1944. The Oscar was the workhorse of the Japanese Army.
A Tony, serialled by the ATAIU as XJ003, was also flown at Eagle Farm between 29 September and 7 October 1944. XJ was an acronym for Experimental Japanese Aircraft. The Tony was developed to use the licence-built Daimler Benz 601 inverted V12 liquid cooled engine of the German Messerschmitt 109. The engine proved unreliable with the Japanese armed forces, suffering from continuing lubricating problems.
Bombers were also assembled at Eagle Farm, including a Betty land based bomber and a Sonia light bomber, however these were never flown.
The ATAIU were ordered back to the US in June 1944 to set up base at Hangar 151, Anacostia Naval Air Station at Washington, D.C, but the shift must have taken some months. During their service in Australia, the ATAIU had not encountered new Japanese aircraft that had been expected to be introduced, but rather improved versions of existing aircraft. The decision was made to consolidate all ATAIU activities, captured Japanese documents and nameplate analysis closer to the Pentagon. The unit travelled by Victory Ship to San Francisco then by a private train to Washington. They retained an intelligence gathering capability in the war zone, with field ATAI units in the SWPA, Pacific Ocean Area, Southeast Asia, China and India. Field ATAI units were headed by a trained officer and included aviation mechanics, photographers, radiomen, ordnancemen, and often translators.
When the war ended, so did the emphasis for further evaluation of these aircraft. In time, most of the aircraft were bulldozed, with a few being retained for museums.
5. Post Second World War Developments at Eagle Farm
The war brought about major changes in the roles of the three airfields in the Brisbane area. Eagle Farm became established as Brisbane Airport for all international and major domestic aviation services due to its location close to the City and the Port of Brisbane. Archerfield receded into a secondary role as a commuter airport and freight transport centre, and Amberley evolved as the major military base for the RAAF.
In January 1946 the Department of Air advised its post war requirements of Eagle Farm with the Department of Civil Aviation. In July 1947, the former US Army assets at Eagle Farm were transferred to the Department of Civil Aviation at a cost of £100,000. These included buildings 1,4,14,17, hangars 1,2,3,3A,4,5,6,7 and 8, as well as the SW-NE runway, the SE-NW runway and the WSW-ENE runway.
In December 1947, Eagle Farm was in the possession of the Department of Civil Aviation. Originally, the land had been acquired in the Department's name, but further areas were acquired through funds by the Department of Air. In April 1948, through the Commonwealth Disposals Commission, the Department of Civil Aviation took control of various assets erected for the RAAF at Eagle Farm from the Department of Air. In May 1949, the transfer took place of buildings, contents, equipment and services from the Commonwealth to the Department of Civil Aviation for £301,318. Hangar 7 was described as being 104x240 ft with frame timber trusses, weatherboard end walls, 23 pairs of eight pane clear glass casements, and 72 reinforced obscure glass skylights.
On 17 September 1947 hangar 7 was leased to Trans Australian Airlines as a cargo handling warehouse. On 21 October 1947 the insurance valuation of the igloo hangar with 24 ft of hard standing either side and 60 ft onto the apron was estimated to be £3700.
Hangar 8 was foreshortened and added to by the transfer of a saw-tooth roof steel trussed hangar from Archerfield in 1948. Drawings dated July 1947 show the dismantling of the western end of the hangar, with the western end being reassembled at the eastern end and an ex-Archerfield hangar No.25 added to the western end. The plan also shows the sites of future hangars 9 and 10.
In June 1949, alterations to hangar 7 and 10 (not yet built) for QANTAS were estimated to cost £21,527. Work to hangar 7 consisted of the construction of; a cafeteria (later lunchroom) and kitchen; male and female locker rooms and toilets; personnel officers and first aid room; welding shop, upholstery shop, dope shop and engineers school; partition walls; new external walls to half way line along each side in asbestos cement sheeting and corrugated iron roof with sashes doors; a lean-to addition on the western end and provision of showers and wc's; installation of new skylights and rotator vents in the roof; installation of cold room; check and repair trusses; installation of light and power to workshop section, engineering school and kitchen (electrical work); drainage (civil engineering); and mechanical services. Total cost was estimated to be £11,769.0.0. A covered walkway was also proposed to link hangar 10 which was being built adjacent to the west, and the western aircraft doorway was enclosed.
Expenditure for the works was approved by the Minister for Civil Aviation in October 1949. The whole of the QANTAS Empire Airways DC3 fleet servicing and maintenance, and certificates of air worthiness, were being carried out in Brisbane. Because of the congestion at Archerfield, QANTAS was obliged to occupy Hangar 10 with a lack of facilities or security. In November 1949, QANTAS were occupying the western end of hangar 7 adjoining hangar 10. The majority of the work to the two hangars was completed c.1952.
Following QANTAS' relocation to the International Terminal in 1975, TAA took over the entire hangar as their air cargo facility. Further internal and external alterations included administration offices to the southwest, and steel framed skillion roofed extension to the north. Eagle Farm served as Brisbane Airport until 1988 with the commissioning of a new complex 5km to the northeast, at which time most major wartime structures were extant. With the opening of the new Domestic Terminal in 1988, the hangar 7 was vacated by Australian Airlines. Since 1991, hangar 7 has been used for warehousing purposes.
The hangars at eagle Farm have been used for airline terminal buildings, baggage handling facilities and amenities facilities.
","criteria":"The Second World War Hangar No.7 was constructed in 1942 to house the work of the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit which involved the technical examination, reconstruction and simulated combat trials of captured Japanese aircraft. The ATAIU was formed to collect technical information on aircraft with which to develop combat techniques to counter the Japanese, and their work was integral to the Allied victory in the South West Pacific Area.
The development of hangar 7 for the ATAIU, and of Eagle Farm as an aircraft assembly depot and aerodrome, is a result of a shift in Australian foreign policy in December 1941, when Prime Minister Curtin announced that Australia now looked to America free of the United Kingdom to shape a plan with the United States as its cornerstone. As a result, the RAAF was placed under the control of General Douglas MacArthur in April 1942. This contrasts with the previous role of Eagle Farm as part of an RAAF Elementary Flying Training School from 1940 which serviced the Empire Air Training Scheme to provide airmen for the defence of Britain.
The hangar is representative of the massive wartime infrastructure constructed at and around Eagle Farm, the existence of which resulted in the Eagle Farm aircraft assembly depot and aerodrome becoming the Brisbane Airport after the Second World War.
|The hangar is the last surviving of its type at Eagle Farm, and is one of the few extant Second World War structures which demonstrate the site's former role as a major aircraft assembly depot and aerodrome, and the contribution of that function to the defence of the South West Pacific Area.
|The hangar is an example of a timber truss igloo structure and represents an advancement in timber technology achieved during the Second World War, which enabled long span lightweight structures utilising hand nailed timber in small sectional chord sizes to be erected quickly and at low cost.
|The hangar is substantially intact internally, and through its form, scale and materials, makes an aesthetic contribution to the surrounding industrial landscape.
|The hangar is an example of a timber truss igloo structure and represents an advancement in timber technology achieved during the Second World War, which enabled long span lightweight structures utilising hand nailed timber in small sectional chord sizes to be erected quickly and at low cost.
|The hangar has been associated with the development of the Brisbane Airport until 1988, especially as a facility for QANTAS who have been associated with Eagle Farm from 1926.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15784,"place_ref":601009,"name":"Fairymead House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Thornhill Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-02-22","description":"Fairymead House is situated within the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens, located on the corner of Mt Perry Road and Young Street, Bundaberg. Sited on the southern boundary of the botanic gardens at the end of Thornhill Street, the house is on elevated land and surrounded by well manicured gardens. The principal entry to the place is off Thornhill Street and a bitumen car park is located in front of the house.
Built in the Indian Bungalow Style, Fairymead House is an impressive two storey timber and masonry residence with a large hipped corrugated iron roof. The house has been relocated to this site and as a result a definite distinction can be made between the original timber fabric of the upper floor and the new masonry structure of the ground floor.
The ground floor of the house is constructed on a combination of concrete posts to the exterior and steel columns internally. Spanning between the concrete posts are timber battened valances. The walls to the ground floor are face brick and mirror the perimeter walls to the upper floor core of the house. The ground surface directly under the upper floor verandah is paved. Internally the ground floor is a large open space, which is used for museum exhibition purposes as well as storage.
The upper floor of the house is of timber construction clad with timber chamferboard. The verandah surrounds the entire core of the house and links the separate kitchen building with the main house. The Verandah comprises of timber floors, posts and handrails with timber batten infill panels forming the balustrade. Timber lattice doors and panels are located at points where timber stairs adjoin the verandah.
Entry to the upper floor is via a set of centrally located timber stairs, which lead to the upper verandah and front door. Flanking the entry foyer is the function room to the left, the Margaret room to right and skylight room at the foyers end. The function room is the largest room of the house and comprises of the original dining and drawing rooms. As such it has a dual fireplace.
The skylight room ceiling is punctuated by a leadlight skylight and is currently used as gathering entry space to the museum as well as housing exhibits. Leading off the skylight room are the Toft room, Store Bell room and Gooburrum room, all of which house museum exhibits.
Internally the floors are predominately polished timber with the exception of the function room, which is carpeted. The walls and ceilings are clad with timber tongue and groove boards and the original timber joinery to doors and windows appears to be intact.
","history":"Fairymead House, a grand plantation home, was built on land adjacent to the Fairymead Sugar Plantation, Bundaberg, in 1890, for Ernest and Margaret Young. Ernest Young and his father Henry and brothers Arthur, and Horace, established one of Bundaberg's earliest independent sugar plantations and processing mills, the Fairymead Sugar Plantation.
The origin of Bundaberg's sugar industry dates back more than 100 years to the introduction of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations Act 1864. Faced with the high cost of importing sugar from overseas, the Colony wanted to find a way to encourage people to invest in sugarcane growing. The Sugar and Coffee Regulations Act 1864, was introduced into Parliament by Charles Coxen, member for the Northern Downs. The proposed regulations of the Act permitted persons or companies to select land suitable for sugar in lots ranging from half a square mile to two square miles. The introduction of the Act brought about a renewed interest in sugar cane growing and people raced to accumulate land up and down the coast of Queensland.
The Brown brothers, Alfred and Arthur, were one of many who acquired land under the Sugar and Coffee Regulations Act 1864. In the early 1870s, the brothers acquired 13 square kilometres of land and developed the cattle property, Tantitha. Working under the Act the brothers divided up a central section of their property into three blocks, Jamaica, Barbados and Mauritius and experimented with the growing of sugarcane. These subdivided sections later became known as Fairymead, after a friend of the family visited the plantation and described the place as being like a "fairy mead" on a misty morning. The Brown's abandoned their venture into sugar after the floods of 1875, which saw the land swamped and the cane trampled by cattle. They sold the 5 square miles of land devoted to sugarcane to the Young family in 1878.
Arthur and Horace Young, with their younger brother Ernest, began to transform Fairymead into a profitable, state of the art, sugar plantation. Like many others who had heard of the potentially profitable sugar industry in Queensland's north, Arthur, Horace and Ernest had no knowledge of the sugar industry except their father's theoretical experience. They had formally held two sheep stations in New Zealand, but when rabbits devastated these stations in 1878, the brothers began an eight-month search for another suitable investment. There original intent was to investigate the pastoral possibilities in Australia but they were immediately won over by the possibility of a profitable sugar industry in Queensland.
Arthur and Horace began operations at Fairymead in 1880, while Ernest went to England to acquire some necessary equipment for the plantation. By 1883 the rougher pioneering work was done and the first major crop harvested. For the first two years the Young's punted the juice from their crops to Millaquin plantation and sugar refinery. In 1884 they installed a clarification unit and boiling plant, which enabled them to refine their own sugar as well as the sugar crops of smaller plantations in the Bundaberg region. By the end of 1884 cane from the Fairymead plantation, processed by their own mill, was producing 15 tons of sugar daily.
The Young brothers were also responsible for the introduction of a number of innovative cane harvesting and crushing techniques, many of which are still in use today. In setting up Fairymead Mill the Young brothers chose to install 81cm rollers imported from Glasgow to crush the cane instead of the standard 76cm rollers. They installed a Relieux furnace to improve processing efficiency of the raw juice and in circa 1882, they initiated the use of Fowler's tramway system to bring cane to the mill, introducing the now universal system of cane railways to the Bundaberg district. In 1902 the Young brothers established an irrigation system to help combat the effects of long periods of drought in the region and began working towards the mechanisation of the cane harvesting industry.
In 1938 the Young Brothers took their first step towards the mechanisation of cane harvesting by financing the development of a new single-row cane-cutting machine. This machine was a significant advance in cane-cutting technology, capable of cutting over 200 tonnes per day in straight cane. This investment paid off during the labour shortages of World War II. The rest of the district also benefited from Fairymead's reduced demand for cane cutters, who were made more available to service other sugar plantations in the region. Their second step was the development of the successful two-row cane-cutting machine. This machine was a post-war development thanks to the mechanical skills of Jim Vichie and the encouragement of Charles Young (son of Ernest and Margaret Young).
In 1972 Fairymead Sugar Company merged with Gibson and Howes Pty Limited to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company Limited. Milliquin Sugar Company Pty Limited became part of the group in 1975. In the 121 years since the first primitive sugar juice mill crushed the area's first successful cane crop, Fairymead and the sugar industry has played a major role in the development and prosperity of the city and surrounding district. Fairymead Sugar Plantation is still one of Australia's largest cane farms today.
Fairymead House was built on land adjacent to Fairymead plantation in 1890. It was the principal residence of Ernest and Margaret Young and other members of the Young family for over 60 years. It is a good example of the grandeur of plantation accommodation in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Fairymead House was designed by Sydney architect John Shedden Adam. It is a large plantation style home with a floor area of 600 square metres and 16-foot ceilings. The extremely high ceilings are a feature of the house and were incorporated in the design to provide some relief against the Queensland summer heat. Architect, John Shedden Adam, introduced a number of special inclusions in his design to accommodate requests made by his sister, Margaret Young. One request was to design the front stairs with a landing a couple of feet from the ground so that she could alight from her carriage without soiling her shoes.
Between World War I and World War II the house was used as single men's quarters by Fairymead mill and plantation workers. In the early 1950s the house was used for European refugee accommodation. In 1960 Christopher Young (grandson of Ernest and Margaret Young) moved his family back into Fairymead House and remained there until 1986.
In 1988 the Bundaberg Sugar Company Ltd gave Fairymead House to the City of Bundaberg as a building of 'significant historical importance to the district' and as the Company's Bicentennial gift to the City. The Bundaberg City Council agreed to provide a site for the home and Fairymead was relocated to the City's Botanic Gardens on the corner of Young Street and Mt Perry Road.
In 1990 the Bundaberg City Council began work on a development plan for Fairymead House and over the next four years undertook a number of conservation works on the property. The adaptive re-use of the property from a residence to a museum involved utilising the space underneath the house, which was subsequently bricked in to provide room for a theatrette and Life Education Centre. The interior of the original home has undergone very few structural changes since its construction in 1890 and many of the rooms have been furnished according to their original use. Most rooms contain a series of static displays illustrating the lifestyle of a plantation owner in the late 19th Century and the social aspects of the development of the sugar industry.
Fairymead house opened to the public in 1994 and now operates as a memorial to north Queensland's sugar industry and the Young family's contribution to the development of the sugar industry in the Bundaberg District.
","criteria":"Fairymead House was built in 1890 for Ernest and Margaret Young, on land adjacent to the Fairymead Sugar Plantation, Bundaberg. Although relocated in 1989 to the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens, the house is a rare example of the grandeur of plantation style accommodation of the late 19th and early 20th Century and attests to the development of north Queensland's sugar industry.
|Although relocated in 1989 to the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens, the house is a rare example of the grandeur of plantation style accommodation of the late 19th and early 20th Century and attests to the development of north Queensland's sugar industry.
|Designed by Sydney architect, John Shedden Adam, the architectural style of Fairymead House demonstrates an approach to building design that was influenced by climate and culture. In particular, the Indian Bungalow style home features 16-foot ceilings, wide verandah's and extended eves, designed to provide shade and natural cooling against the Queensland summer heat.
|Although relocated in 1989 to the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens, the house is a rare example of the grandeur of plantation style accommodation of the late 19th and early 20th Century and attests to the development of north Queensland's sugar industry.
|Fairymead House also reflects the life and work of the Young brothers, Henry, Horace and Ernest, who established one of Bundaberg's earliest and most successful sugar plantations. The Young brothers made a number of valuable contributions to the development of the sugar industry in Queensland. They established state of the art irrigation systems to combat drought, integrated more efficient cane processing techniques and introduced the now universal cane transport system, the Fowler's tramway.
Fairymead House now operates as a museum dedicated to Bundaberg's sugar industry. The rooms within the Young's home have been furnished to reflect their original use and contain a series of static displays illustrating the lifestyle of Ernest and Margaret Young, a pioneering family of the late 19th Century, and their contribution to the establishment of Queensland's sugar industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15793,"place_ref":601018,"name":"Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (former)","alternate_name":"Darling Downs Northern School Support Centre","street_address":"133 Cunningham Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (former) is a single storey masonry structure, located on a 564m2 corner site in the central business district of Dalby. The rectangular site is bounded by Cunningham Street, Stuart Street and Groom Lane and by adjoining commercial offices on the southwestern side. The building occupies the entire site, provides an important civic contribution to the steetscape of the main thoroughfare of Dalby through its scale and ordered composition, and is notable for its Art Deco features.
\nThe building is a rendered masonry structure (facebrick at the rear) with a skillion roof that is concealed from the street frontages behind a painted masonry parapet. Roughly rectangular in plan, it has entrances to the northwest and northeast elevations. There is an extension at the rear (1935) in the same style as the original building. The adjoining building on the southwestern side is not of cultural heritage significance at a state level.
\nThe approximately symmetrical, main elevations face northwest to Cunningham Street and northeast to Stuart Street. The northwest elevation is centred on a projecting portico with a recessed entrance. The external corners of the portico walls step in toward the entrance and the recessed walls feature the shield of the Dalby Town Council in low-relief. The council’s shield is also featured in low-relief in the pediment above the portico, and inscriptions of the words “Dalby Town Council, Inc 1863” form the entablature. A pair of timber panelled doors, with a fanlight featuring decorative leadlighting, stand within the portico and are accessed via a small set of stairs, leading up from street level. The northeast elevation features a portico at the northern end, with the council's shield located at the centre of the pediment. A difference in blockwork sizes in the northeast parapet wall indicates where the rear extension was added. Verticality is expressed on the Cunningham Street and Stuart Street elevations by a series of, generally evenly-spaced, fluted pilasters. Located between the pilasters are long and narrow banks of four- and two-light, centre-pivoting casement windows that are surrounded by moulded architraves. Fixed four-light windows stand above the modern doors of the northeast elevation. Decorative low-relief, moulded horizontal bands run at window head-height and along the parapet of both elevations, and squares of a similar design are featured at the top of the pilasters. Vents within a projecting, ground level band ventilate the floor space. The metal bracket supporting a sign on the northeast elevation is modern and is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe southeast (and the rear section of the southwest) elevation, fronting Groom Lane, is facebrick with a horizontal, narrow rendered band running across the elevation at window head-height level. Three four-light, timber-framed, double-hung windows are retained, and the remaining windows have been blocked-up to create a firewall. A narrow section of the rear wall has also been enclosed with later facebrick.
\nInternally, the building comprises the centrally located, highly intact former Council Chamber space and strong room. The chamber has a parquet floor, a timber dado on all four walls with timber screenings on the windows. Changes have occurred to the other offices with the installation of screens to provide for office space; modern carpets and suspended ceilings have also been installed. The front office contains the original timber public counter. Decorative plaster ceilings with decorative cornices are located in the office which contains the strong room. A brass plaque fixed to the wall commemorates the opening of the former Council Chambers by the Premier. Internal alterations have occurred in the rear, former School of Arts, extension. The early walls and ceilings have been removed, and the original layout in this area is no longer discernible.
\n","history":"
The Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices (former), constructed in 1932 and located between Cunningham Street, Stuart Street and Groom Lane in the central business district of Dalby, was designed by prominent Queensland architects, Hall and Phillips Architects, and represents the Dalby municipality’s confidence in the future.[1] The building is a surviving example of the substantial growth and development of the town and surrounding region in the 1930s; primarily due to the reclamation of prickly-pear-infested land through biological control with the Cactoblastis moth.[2] Incorporating Art Deco features, the masonry building makes an important civic contribution to the streetscape of Dalby’s main thoroughfare. It has a special association with the people of Dalby and district as a public facility for social and community activities.
\nThe town of Dalby developed on the site of a crossing over Myall Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River. Henry Dennis, seeking grazing land for his employer, Charles Coxon, camped at the crossing site in 1841 soon after European occupation of the Darling Downs commenced.[3] A small settlement grew around 'the Crossing' and after several approaches to the New South Wales government by residents in 1852, surveyor, EO Moriaty, was instructed to set out a township of one square mile at Myall Creek.[4] Due to a mistake in the flood levels however, Captain Perry, Assistant Surveyor General, was sent in 1853 to resurvey the site for urban settlement. The nucleus of the township was laid out on a grid plan according to the regulations adopted by Governor Darling for the Colony of New South Wales, and Captain Perry renamed the town 'Dalby'.[5]
\nThe first official land sales in Dalby occurred in April 1857, and in August 1863, Dalby was proclaimed a municipality by Sir George Bowen, Governor of Queensland. The new municipality elected a Town Council of six that was led by Mayor Frederick Roche.[6] Dalby's first town hall with council offices was constructed on a reserve in Scarlett Street, south of Myall Creek and land for a School of Arts reserved in the same area.[7]
\nIn 1889 the Town Council building was destroyed by fire, prompting the council to move its offices to a site north of Myall Creek — an area that was becoming popular with local businesses. Located between a Commercial Bank building and the Dalby Post Office, the new council building faced the main thoroughfare of Cunningham Street and remained in this small timber building until it was destroyed by fire in 1909.[8] The council then relocated to a new timber building in Marble Street, which served a dual-purpose of Council Chambers and town clerk's residence.[9]
\nThe School of Arts had also moved north of Myall Creek, to a corner site addressing Stuart and Cunningham streets. When it was decided in 1917 the School of Arts would amalgamate with Dalby Town Council, the School of Arts site was transferred to the council.[10]
\nDalby grew significantly between 1926 and 1939 due to the reclamation of prickly pear land through the Cactoblastis moth biological control. Queensland-wide, 22 million acres of land, previously infested with prickly pear, was selected for settlement by 1941; allowing cotton, maize, wheat and other crops to be successfully grown, and dairy and wool production to increase.[11] As a result, the populations of the regional centres of Dalby, Chinchilla and Goondiwindi expanded, stimulating residential growth and significant expenditure on new buildings in the towns. For Dalby, this expenditure amounted to £200,000.[12] During the 1930s a number of civic buildings were constructed in Dalby including the Wambo Shire Council building, Dalby Fire Station [QHR602754], Dalby Courthouse and Police station, Dalby Swimming Pool Complex [QHR602564], Star Theatre and Union Bank building.[13]
\nAfter a fire destroyed the School of Arts building in August 1930, Dalby Town Council relocated their chambers back to Dalby’s main thoroughfare by constructing a new building in conjunction with the School of Arts on the Cunningham and Stuart streets site.[14] During the fire, a timber butcher shop on half of the adjacent, 11 perch (278m2) property was considerably damaged; the block was subsequently subdivided in 1931and the title for the northeastern, 5 ½ perch (139m2) half was transferred to Dalby Town Council by a Warrant of Execution.[15] Under the ownership of the council, the timber butcher shop was replaced between 1930 and 1932 by a new brick butcher shop that featured a tall parapet and a corrugated metal-clad, skillion awning.[16]
\nThe new Dalby Town Council building, designed by Brisbane architectural firm, Hall and Phillips, accommodated the Town Council Chambers at the front, facing northwest to Cunningham Street, and the School of Arts at the rear, facing northeast to Stuart Street.[17] Hall and Phillips Architects formed in 1929, when Lionel Blythewood Phillips was admitted into partnership with Thomas Ramsay Hall, formerly of Hall and Prentice (responsible for the design of Brisbane City Hall [QHR 600065] and Tattersall's Club [600093]). Hall and Phillips continued in practice until 1948 and their other projects included The Empire Theatre in Toowoomba [600978], Nambour Town Hall, and shire offices at Gatton, Murweh, Boonah and Monto.[18]
\nAt a meeting of the Dalby Town Council on 3 August 1931, 15 tenders were considered for the construction of the combined Council Chambers and School of Arts, and AE Hill and Brown's tender for £5075 was accepted.[19] Dalby's Town Clerk, Mr Thorley, acted voluntarily as Superintendent of Works.[20] Insurance from the damage to the old School of Arts building helped fund the construction of the new building, with the Dalby Council contributing £4000 to the overall cost of construction.[21]
\nThe Town Council Chambers and School of Arts masonry building was completed by the end of January 1932, at a cost of £5180. The Council Chambers were located centrally in the front portion of the building, with various office spaces to the west and east. As the Council had had problems with fire in the past, the new Chamber Offices included a strong room which housed valuable books and records. At the rear of the building, a library, reading room, committee room and billiard room were provided for the School of Arts.[22] The Cunningham and Stuart streets elevations of the building were centred on projecting porticos with recessed entrances. The crest of the council was featured in low relief within the pediment of the porticos, and ‘DALBY TOWN COUNCIL’ was inscribed above the Cunningham Street entrance. Fluted pilasters stood either side of centre-pivoting windows and decorative, low relief horizontal bands ran across the elevations, both at parapet and window-head height.[23]
\nThe Dalby Town Council and Offices was officially opened on Saturday 13 February by the Hon AE Moore, Premier of Queensland, with the Mayor of Dalby, Alderman Thomas Jack.[24] The following day, the Sunday Mail described the new Council Chambers and School of Arts as a building, ‘unique in architecture… and austere in style,’ [25] and that there was ‘no more up-to-date council building in Queensland or in the country towns of Australia.’ [26]
\nThe Dalby Town Council Chambers and Offices building is one of a group of Queensland interwar town halls and shire chambers that are considered fine examples of the influence of modern architectural styles in Queensland townscapes. Incorporating elements of the jazz-influenced Art Deco and the machine-age vision of the Moderne, these buildings were built as expressions of confidence in a bright and modern future. Stylistic elements of Art Deco and the Moderne include decorative treatments like geometrical motifs, decorative vertical banding and a streamlining of the building form.[27] These features are evident in many prominent civic buildings throughout the State including the Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers (former) [QHR 602810], Goondiwindi Civic Centre [QHR 600531], Southport Town Hall [QHR 601649], Murgon Civic Centre [602812] and Gayndah Shire Hall [QHR 602124].[28]
\nIn December 1934, the Dalby Town Council applied to the Treasury for a subsidised loan in order to resume land on the southeastern side of the chambers for the extension of the School of Arts facilities.[29] This application was approved on 4 July 1935 and £1800 was granted to Council for the addition.[30] It was constructed in the same style as the original building and was opened by Premier, EM Hanlon, on 16 November 1935.[31]
\nThe brick butcher shop building on the adjacent property was converted into offices for council use between 1951 and 1958; and at some point in the period between 1951 and 1962, the front skillion awning was replaced with a flat-profiled suspended awning. A photo shows the brick building occupied in 1962 as an office space for the Council’s ‘Accounts and Enquiries’.[32] Other alterations to the building over time include: the enlargement of window and door openings, removal of the recessed entryway, and addition of tile-cladding to the Cunningham Street elevation; as well as an addition of concrete capping and tile-cladding to the previously facebrick parapet. In 2015, the interior finishes of the building are no longer intact, and comprise a singular open space, concrete slab floor, flat plaster walls and a suspended ceiling.[33]
\nThe Dalby Town Council Chambers and former butcher shop building were vacated in the 1980s after new offices for the Dalby Town Council were constructed on a different site. The chambers have since been occupied by the Queensland Department of Education, the Darling Downs Northern School Support Centre, the Dalby Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a bank.[34]
\nOpenings along the southwestern elevation of the Council Chambers were enclosed in 2013, in order to form a firewall between the chambers and adjacent building.[35]
\nIn 2015, although the building is no longer used for the seat of local government, the interior of the former Council Chamber is still exceptionally intact; retaining its early stained-dark timber wall panelling and architraves, as well as its early layout. The interior of the former School of Arts at the rear of the building has been modified and is now fitted with modern floor linings and recent office partitions.[36]
\nReferences
\n[1] Sunday Mail (SM), 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[2] Alan Dodd, ‘The Conquest of Prickly Pear’, RHSQJ, 1945, 3, 5, pp. 359-61.
\n[3] ‘St John’s Anglican Church’ QHR602399.
\n[4] University of Queensland, ‘Dalby’, 2015,<http://www.queenslandplaces.com.au/dalby>, accessed March 2015; Clem Llewellyn Lack, ‘Dalby: a city built on wheat: centenary souvenir history of municipality’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 7, 1, 1963, p. 198.
\n[5] The Queenslander (TQ), 28 September 1938, pp. 4-5.
\n[6] GH Wade, ‘From swamp to city…1863-1963: The Story of Dalby’, Dalby Town Council, Dalby, 1963, pp. 50, 55.
\n[7] Wade, ‘From swamp to city’, p. 50.
\n[8] TQ, 28 September 1938, pp. 4-5, 9; Wade, ‘From swamp to city’, p. 50; Tony Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing: a history of Dalby and district’, Dalby Town Council, Dalby, 1988, p41; Brisbane Courier (BC), 22 January 1909, p. 5.
\n[9] Wade, ‘From Swamp to City’, p. 50; BC, 22 January 1909, p. 5; Warwick Examiner and Times, 23 January 1909, p. 8; Townsville Daily Bulletin, 22 January 1909, p. 5; Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 22 January 1909, p. 2; John Oxley Library (JOL), ‘Dalby-Buildings-Dalby Town Council Chambers’, Image 12312, c1923.
\n[10] The title for the School of Arts site was transferred to Dalby Town Council on 24 May 1917.
\nEddie Clarke, ‘Technical further education in Queensland: a history 1860-1990’, Educational History Unit, Department of Education Queensland and Bureau of Employment, Vocational and Further Education and Training Queensland, Brisbane, 1992, p. 5; Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing’, p70; BC, 23 June 1917, p. 7; Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM), ‘Certificate of Title: 10200028’.
\n[11] Dodd, ‘Conquest of prickly-pear’, pp. 359-61.
\n[12] Dodd, ‘Conquest of prickly-pear’, p. 361.
\n[13] ‘Dalby Fire Station’ QHR602754; ‘Dalby Swimming Pool Complex’ QHR602564.
\n[14] Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing’, p. 70; BC, 24 July 1931, p. 5.
\n[15] DNRM, ‘Certificate of Title: 10156105’; DNRM, ‘Certificate of Title: 11841111’; DNRM, ‘Survey Plan: RP48991’; BC, 23 August 1930, p. 17; Western Star and Roma Advertiser, 8 August 1931, p. 7.
\n[16] ‘Building’, 12 April 1932, p. 78; JOL, ‘Dalby-Buildings- School of Arts’, Image 12313, c1930; Western Downs Regional Council Library Image Collection (WDRC Library), ‘Image 53’; TQ, 25 February 1932, p. 20; TQ, 25 May 1933, p. 24.
\n[17] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[18] ‘Gayndah Shire Hall’ QHR602124; ‘Tattersall's Club’ 600093; ‘Empire Theatre (former)’ 600978.
\n[19] BC, 8 August 1931, p. 16; Matthews, ‘Beyond the crossing’, p. 70.
\n[20] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[21] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[22] ‘Building’, 12 April 1932, pp. 78-9.
\n[23] TQ, 25 February 1932, p. 20.
\n[24] BC, 27 January 1932, p. 14; SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6; BC, 16 February 1932, p14; TQ, 25 February 1932, p20; BC, 17 February 1932, p. 14.
\n[25] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[26] SM, 14 February 1932, p. 6.
\n[27] R Apperly, R Irving and P Reynolds, ‘A pictorial guide to identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and terms from 1788 to the present’, Angus and Robertson Publishers, Sydney, 1994, pp. 188-191; ‘Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers’ QHR602810; ‘Murgon Civic Centre’ QHR602812.
\n[28] ‘Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers’ QHR602810; ‘Murgon Civic Centre’ QHR602812; ‘Goondiwindi Civic Centre’ QHR600531; ‘Southport Town Hall’ QHR601649; ‘Gayndah Shire Hall’ QHR602124.
\n[29] CM, 28 December 1934, p. 4.
\n[30] CM, 5 July 1935, p. 18.
\n[31] CM, 16 November 1935, p. 15.
\n[32] JOL, ‘Dalby-Buildings- Dalby Town Council Chambers’, 1951; CM, 9 December 1954, p23; Brian Harris, personal communication, 18 February 2015; WDRC Library, ‘Council_32’, 16 April 1962.
\n[33] Applicant-supplied images, 2015.
\n[34] Thom Blake, ‘Dalby Council Chambers Heritage Impact Report’, 20 August 2013, pp. 3-4.
\n[35] Blake, ‘DCC Heritage Impact Report’, pp. 1-7.
\n[36] Blake, ‘DCC Heritage Impact Report’, p. 3; REA Group, ‘Unit 2b, 133 Cunningham Street, Dalby’, 2015,<http://www.realcommercial.com.au/property-offices-qld-dalby-501179467>, accessed March 2015.
\n\n
","criteria":"
The former Dalby Town Council Chambers is significant as it demonstrates the growth and development of Dalby and the surrounding area and the increasing self confidence placed in the town by the Council and by the local population.
As the site of the School of Arts prior to the construction of the hall, and with the building housing a School of Arts when constructed, the place demonstrates the continued public use of the property for over 60 years.
|The former Dalby Town Council Chambers, a brick and concrete rendered building, is significant as one of only about six buildings extant in Dalby dating from the early 1930s. Other buildings include the former Wambo Shire Council Chambers and the Dalby Fire Station, both of which have Georgian elements in their designs and the former Union Bank. Internally, contributing to its significance, the former meeting room of the Dalby Town Council remains highly intact with timber panelling and screening.
|The former Dalby Town Council Chambers is significant as example of an interwar building with Art Deco elements especially the decorative moulded relief work.
|Located at the corner of Cunningham Street, the unpretentious yet elegant building provides an integral civic contribution to the streetscape.
|Further, it held a long association with the people of Dalby and surrounding areas as a focal point for social, and community functions.
|The former Dalby Town Council Chambers is significant for its association with the well-known Brisbane architectural firm, Hall and Phillips, in practice from 1929-1948. TR Hall had previously been in partnership with GG Prentice as Hall and Prentice.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15795,"place_ref":601020,"name":"Residence, Abbott Street","alternate_name":"Narallen | Hart Residence","street_address":"41 Abbott Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The residence is a single-storey timber building, with brick fireplaces and chimneys, with a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof. An upper floor with a dormer window, added in 1999, faces Abbott Street. The eastern and northern elevations have verandahs and the western elevation extends over a laundry built at ground level with timber lattice work for additional protection. The verandah remains substantially intact, apart from a section near the kitchen which has been enclosed.
Internally, rooms open to adjacent verandahs with wide french doors with breezeway assemblies. The dining room has a fireplace with marble surrounds and a 'blind' bay window - a device Dods used to facilitate views towards the street or garden, but not towards the neighbouring house.
The kitchen has a bay window, which is a recent addition, along the southern wall.
","history":"The residence was designed by RS Dods as a rental house for his mother, and constructed in 1900. The residence was built adjacent to Dods' own house.
With the closure of the Moreton Bay penal settlement in 1842 Brisbane was opened up for free settlement, however, surveyors had begun subdivision plans for the New Farm area as early as 1839 and large acreage blocks were auctioned through the 1840s and 1850s. Throughout the 1850s the adjacent Fortitude Valley had begun to develop into a residential area, as more suburban allotments were offered for sale. The push towards New Farm was slow and did not take hold until the mid-1860s. Barrister and later Premier, Samuel Griffiths purchased part of New Farm in 1870. Queensland National Bank Manager, ER Drury joined the gathering social elite in 1875, purchasing acreage and constructing his residence on Bowen Terrace. Suburban residential development had extended solidly onto the New Farm peninsular by 1883-84. This growth was accompanied by the introduction of a public transport system which was to have a major impact on Brisbane's suburban development. In 1884 the privately owned Metropolitan Tramway and Investment Company laid Brisbane's first tram tracks. Electrification of the tramway system in Brisbane commenced in 1895. By this time, although industries were established in the New Farm area, significant residential development had continued. Private buses also provided residents with transport in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Deed of Grant for the land on which the residence was to be built was granted to John McConnell in January 1845. Title for the property was transferred to Elizabeth Gray Marks, mother of RS Dods, in June 1899. The following year, Dods had designed houses for himself and his mother. Situated on adjoining properties, these were constructed in 1900. Elizabeth Marks died in July 1908, however, the house stayed within the family for the next 70 years.
Dods, together with Francis Richard Hall, practising as Hall and Dods, is credited with achieving 'an architectural revolution in Brisbane.' For his houses and smaller buildings, Dods reassessed local timber construction, refining familiar elements. His planning and detailing of verandahs and external stairs and his ventilated roofs and gable decorations were widely imitated. Other ideas, such as his use of blind bay windows on narrow sites and his weatherboard enclosure of stumps, remain characteristic of his work alone.
The residence has been identified as forming part of the Significant Character Items outlined in Brisbane City Council's New Farm Teneriffe Hill Heritage and Character Study, within the Sydney Street precinct. Sydney Street is one of the earliest streets established in New Farm. A number of important architect designed houses occur along its tree lined length and in the streets to either side. From Brunswick Street, Sydney Street, rises gently up to Abbott Street. Dods' own house was sold when he moved to Sydney in 1913 and c1970 was demolished when a block of units was constructed. Some alterations have been undertaken to the Abbott Street residence, however, the house is still reasonably intact and remains as a good example of Dods' domestic architecture.
","criteria":"The residence is significant in demonstrating the continued growth of the New Farm area in the early part of the 20th century, following solid suburban residential development in the mid-1880s.
|The residence displays many characteristics which Dods valued in domestic architecture. These characteristics include a concern for climate, illustrated by the orientation and planning, provision of verandahs and large doors and the large, sheltering roof with ventilated ridge; concern for tradition, illustrated by the timber construction, well crafted from quality materials; concern for proportion and detail, evident in the substantial verandah posts and brackets. Internally, the blind bay window, characteristic of Dods' work, is still extant.
|The residence is significant for it contribution to the historic Sydney Street precinct, which incorporates Abbott Street. Apart from the loss of Dods' own house, much of the original housing stock remains.
|The residence has been identified as forming part of the Significant Character Items outlined in Brisbane City Council's New Farm Teneriffe Hill Heritage and Character Study.
|The residence was designed by Robert (Robin) Smith [RS] Dods, generally acknowledged as one of the best architects to practice in Brisbane. Dods is noted for the introduction of new ideas on architectural design which were then current in the United Kingdom which, subsequently, influenced Australian architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15796,"place_ref":601021,"name":"Dunwich Convict Causeway","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Junner Street","suburb":"DUNWICH","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-10-22","description":"Dunwich convict causeway is located at the end of Junner Street, Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island. On arrival at Dunwich the causeway is not visibly obvious as it forms the northern extent of the landing area which is obscured from view. Further investigation reveals the causeway is still an intact and integral part of the barge and water taxi landing facilities. The causeway itself functions largely as a pedestrian access for people walking out to catch the barge or water taxi. The reclaimed land to the south of the causeway carries all vehicular traffic to the barge. Recent community landscape projects have assisted in establishing a native vegetated boundary between the vehicular traffic area and the causeway thus helping to delineate between the old and the new.
Looking along the causeway toward Dunwich Junner Street dissects an elevated headland. The heavily vegetated, lower section of headland on the northern side of Junner Street was once the location of the military post and stores depot established by Captain Logan at the same time as the causeway. On the other side of Junner street is a higher section of headland referred to as Doctor's Hill. Whilst the area has undergone significant change the causeway has remained constant and played an important role in establishing Dunwich as the point of entry to North Stradbroke Island as well as influencing the resultant town structure.
The most complete view of the causeway is gained from the northern inshore public reserve near the beach swimming enclosure. From this location the extent of the causeway can be fully appreciated and the role it played as part of the military post and later Benevolent Asylum becomes more obvious. Additionally, the view clearly reveals layers of development contrasted against the fabric of the causeway. Whilst not significant, these layers mark the continued growth of the Dunwich landing area and broader town structure.
It is no longer possible to view the causeway in its entirety. The southern face of the structure has since been used as a stabilising wall against which further land reclamation has been carried out in order to improve and increase the barge landing area. The surface of the causeway is now covered by concrete pavement however was originally compacted soil. The eastern end of the causeway disappears into more recent boulder wall constructed as part of the sea shore stabilisation. At the water's end the causeway disappears into a more recent boat ramp constructed of boulders and concrete with a bitumen trafficable surface leading into the water. The wooden jetty constructed as part of the Benevolent Asylum has been replaced by a more recent jetty structure which angles to the south west away form the causeway end. A number of weathered wooden piles along the northern face of the causeway are all that remain of the protective frame constructed during the Benevolent Asylum period.
The causeway itself is approximately 90m (270 feet) long and 7m (22 feet) wide and constructed from rough, red coloured stone of regular size, laid in straight courses without mortar. It is believed the stone for the wall was taken from the beach or quarry face on the nearby Doctor's Hill. There are obvious sections of the wall that are deteriorating as well as sections of wall that have been repaired. These areas of repair are most easily identified as infills of irregularly shaped, sandy coloured stone, quarried from a different location on the island. In the areas of deterioration the method of causeway construction and layers of history can be fully appreciated. Through the rubble the layers of rock and causeway infill material are visible as well as segments of the tram tracks, layed as part of the Benevolent Asylum additions to the causeway. This exposure confirms the thought that whilst sections of the wall may be buried they are more than likely intact.
","history":"Dunwich convict causeway was constructed in 1827 as part of a military and stores depot servicing the recently established Brisbane settlement. A sandbar at the mouth of the Brisbane River meant it was impossible for large vessels to carry goods into Brisbane. Consequently, ships unloaded cargoes at Dunwich and smaller cutters carried the goods over the bar and on to the settlement. Following its closure in 1831 the causeway continued to service subsequent developments at Dunwich including a Catholic mission (1843-1847); quarantine station (1850-1864) and the Benevolent Asylum (1864-1947). Today the causeway is an integral part of the barge and water taxi landing facilities and has established Dunwich as the gateway to North Stradbroke Island.
In 1823 John Oxley discovered the Brisbane River and a recommendation was made that a settlement should be established on its banks. Redcliffe was suggested as the site for the first establishment due to its proximity to the river entry, central bay location and favourable landing at all tide times. However, Oxley maintained that the banks of the Brisbane River were better suited to a permanent settlement while Redcliffe should be seen as a military post and depot store. This discovery and subsequent recommendation followed Commissioner Bigge's instruction that a penal settlement should be established at Port Curtis, Moreton Bay and Port Bowen. Commissioner Bigge had been sent from Britain to comment on the state of the colony in New South Wales.
In June 1824 the government proclaimed an intention to establish a settlement at Moreton Bay or in the near vicinity. There was a general indecision regarding the type of settlement that should take place following Oxley's glowing report of the area. However, Governor Brisbane proceeded with his original instructions to establish a penal settlement at Moreton Bay, hopeful that one day the area may be opened up to free settlement. The decision proved frustrating as the British government later confirmed in January 1825 that they intended Norfolk Island to be reoccupied by convicts with Moreton Bay seeming more appropriate for colonisation. Whilst desirable, the directive arrived too late and with an increasing demand for places to send convicts Governor Brisbane had no other option but to establish Moreton Bay as penal settlement. As a compromise Moreton Bay became a place for minor offenders while more serious offenders were sent to Norfolk Island.
On the 1st of September 1824 the Government vessel, 'Amity', departed from Sydney bound for Moreton Bay. The ship included Lieutenant Miller, Commandant of the settlement; John Oxley, Commanding Officer and Chief of the expedition; Lieutenant Butler, assistant Surveyor; Allan Cunningham, Botanist; general troops and 29 convicts. Approximately half of the convicts had volunteered in the hope they may gain a ticket of leave for their efforts in establishing the first settlement. The convicts were from varied backgrounds including quarrymen, lime burners, bricklayers, marble polishers, stone cutters, brick makers, plasterers and labourers.
On the 10 September 1824 the 'Amity' arrived in Moreton Bay and following an inspection of St Helena, Redcliffe was selected as the site for settlement as originally recommended in 1823. However, the Redcliffe settlement was short lived. In late September 1824 the Amity was nearly driven a shore by a fierce storm prompting Oxley to declare the site an unsafe place to anchor. Following further exploration of the surrounding waters Oxley discovered a safer point of entry into the bay through the south passage between North Stradbroke Island and Moreton Island.
In October 1824 Governor Brisbane visited the Moreton Bay settlement and following a journey some 30 miles up the Brisbane River endorsed Oxley's earlier recommendations for settlement.
It appears that the settlement was officially relocated from Redcliffe to Brisbane in May 1825, however the dates are unconfirmed. There was also some confusion regarding the exact location of the settlement. Governor Brisbane had previously approved a location 9 miles from the mouth of the Brisbane River. However, instructions to Lieutenant Miller stated that a settlement was to be established at a distance of 27 miles. It is unclear whether this distance was from the river mouth or Redcliffe. Irrespective, it appears Lieutenant Miller took it upon himself to establish the settlement near the current Victoria Bridge location.
Proceeding the movement from Redcliffe to Brisbane John Gray, Pilot of Port Jackson received orders to survey and buoy the south passage as discovered by Oxley. To maintain the buoys a pilot was posted at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island. A sandbar at the mouth of the Brisbane River prevented large ships from entering the river and as such Amity Point became a pilot station at which large vessels unloaded and distributed their cargo to smaller craft which could navigate the bar and transport goods into Brisbane. The Amity Point pilot station was the first in the Moreton bay penal settlement and continued to operate till the wreck of the Sovereign in 1848 when it was relocated to Moreton Island and shipping then used the northern entrance to the bay via Cape Moreton.
In 1827 Governor Darling visited the settlement and amongst other concerns expressed a dissatisfaction with the inability of large ships to navigate the sandbar at the Brisbane River mouth. Captain Patrick Logan, Commandant of Brisbane, recommended the settlement be relocated to Green Point or Bird Island. Captain Logan wrote to Governor Darling,
\t
\t'......it appears to me that Green Point is not only the most eligible situation but likewise possesses every requisite for a penal settlement. The channels from the two rivers unite at this point and there is good anchorage for ships in six fathoms water; if a jetty was thrown out about 150 yards, vessels drawing 18 feet could lay alongside at low water. And besides, there is a small island one and three-quarter miles from the shore having four fathoms close to the beach. I think this would be an excellent site for a store and dockyard; vessels could here be discharged without having any communication with the settlement which would completely prevent smuggling. The boats belonging to the settlement could be hauled up here at sunset, which would prevent any surprise if the prisoners were disposed to seize them. There is a supply of fresh water sufficient for the largest city.'
In response to Captain Logan's recommendations Governor Darling wrote to Viscount Goderich, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies,
\t'With respect to the Settlement at Moreton Bay, its local situation appears to me highly objectionable. The tediousness and difficulty of the access render it extremely inconvenient. From the entrance of the Bay to the mouth of the Brisbane, on the left bank of which the settlement is situated is about fifteen miles, the intermediate space being in general so extremely shoal as to interrupt the Communication. The Settlement of Brisbane Town is at least fifteen miles further up the River, so that much time is lost in gaining the Settlement, and small vessels only, of a light draught of water, can accomplish it. I propose, as a means of remedying in some degree this inconvenience, to form a small Settlement at "Dunwich" on the Isle of Stradbroke, being the southern boundary of the Bay, for the purpose of receiving in the first instance the supplies sent from this for the Settlement, and the Timber, etc., to be forwarded thence to Sydney. According to this arrangement, the Vessels employed in communicating with Moreton Bay will not be detained longer than may be necessary to discharge and take in their cargoes at Dunwich, it being intended to station a small, Vessel at that place for the purpose of conveying the supplies from the Establishment to the Settlement and bringing down the Timber, etc. The Establishment at Dunwich will consist of a Warehouse or large store for the security of the supplies, until they can be forwarded to their destination. A few convict labourers will be kept there and a small Guard of Soldiers for the protection of the Establishment. The removal of the Settlement altogether might be desirable, but the Establishment at Dunwich will render it, at least, less necessary.'
On 29 November 1827 Governor Darling directed Captain Logan to establish a military post and stores depot at Dunwich formerly known as Green Point. Plans and materials were sent from Sydney with instructions to establish a warehouse and accommodation for convict labourers, boatmen and soldiers. In May 1828 Logan reported that the magazine at Dunwich was roofed and nearly completed and the military and prisoner barracks at Dunwich were finished and occupied.
It is believed the stone used to construct the causeway was quarried from the nearby Doctor's Hill and that earth used to fill the structure also taken from a nearby location. Both the rock form and colour present in the causeway are in keeping with the surrounding rock features.
Generally, the materials used in construction would have put together by hand using techniques traditional to European building techniques of the early nineteenth century.
The outstation at Dunwich only functioned for a few years. Based on Petrie's plan of 1839 it appears the causeway may have been extended at some point during this period. This extension increased the water depth at the causeway end from 4.5 feet to 5.5 feet. In 1830 Captain Logan was killed and in November 1831 Logan's successor Captain Clunie requested that the use of the settlement be discontinued. Clunie confirmed cargoes were still being lost over board during unloading in rough weather, local aboriginals were proving hostile and had killed a convict in the garden and the issue of smuggling had not been eliminated. Following its closure, a small guard remained to protect the buildings and records indicate that timber loading continued there until about 1837.
The settlement was briefly used as Catholic mission to the local Aboriginals from 1843 to 1847. However, the mission was never successful and the last Passionist Father was forced to leave the island after continued threats from aboriginals. From 1850 to 1864 the site was used as a quarantine station to receive all immigrants coming to Brisbane. One of the most notable and tragic entries to Dunwich was that of the ship, 'Emigrant'. Stricken with typhus fever the ship had already lost 16 people on its journey from Plymouth to Brisbane. Whilst at Dunwich a further 26 people died including the ships surgeon, Dr George Mitchell and Resident Surgeon for the Moreton Bay Hospital and Coroner for the Brisbane districts Dr David Ballow.
From 1864 attempts were made to establish a Benevolent Asylum at the old quarantine station. Eventually, in 1866 the asylum was officially opened at Dunwich. The institution was declared a home for the old and infirm, disabled, inebriates and for a short time lepers. The government steamer, Otter, carrying a captain and 11 crew, serviced the asylum twice weekly from Brisbane. To enable the steamer to birth at low tide a wooden jetty was constructed at the end of the causeway in 1886. To assist with the unloading of vessels a horse drawn tramline was laid from the end of the wooden jetty along the causeway and up through the settlement ending at the kitchen and laundry facility. Other vessels servicing the settlement included coal barges which docked along side of the causeway. To strengthen and protect the causeway and jetty timber piles and framework were constructed along the causeway face.
In 1947 the institution was officially closed as a result of overcrowding, deteriorating health conditions and maintenance concerns with the 'Otter'. The institution was then transferred to the old RAAF base at Sandgate, and renamed Eventide. Dunwich was then opened up to government land sales and mining of mineral sand resources. From 1947 to 1957 a number of passenger ferries serviced both Dunwich and Amity Point from Brisbane, Redland Bay and Cleveland. The first drive on drive off ferry commenced operation in 1964 and ran from Cleveland to Dunwich using the beach as a ramp for loading and unloading. However, with further development and an increase in sand mining a deep water car ferry ramp was needed. Consequently, plans were made to reclaim land to the south east of the causeway providing a place for barge landing. Today this reclaimed land is the site of barge and water taxi landings servicing an ever increasing number of residents and visitors.
The development of North Stradbroke island as a popular holiday retreat and rich mineral sand mining resource has meant the barge landing facilities at Dunwich have undergone continual change since 1947. Whilst not significant and sometimes destructive, the physical layers of growth do help to illustrate the development of Dunwich and the importance of the causeway site as an entry to North Stradbroke Island. Despite substantial additions to the south east side of the causeway the structure and the historical layers of the place remain intact.
","criteria":"Constructed as part of a convict outstation and the primary landing place for all vessels coming into Moreton Bay and Brisbane the causeway has historical significance for its valuable role in the early colonial settlement of Queensland. Since the closure of the convict outstation, the causeway has played an important role in subsequent developments at Dunwich.
|The Dunwich causeway is an extremely important and rare piece of Queensland's built history. With the Windmill and Commissariat Store in Brisbane it is one of three convict structures known to survive in southeast Queensland. More specifically it is perhaps the only example of a convict built maritime structure in the state.
|The causeway provides the community with the potential to yield a greater understanding of Queensland's history and the pivotal role this small structure played in the development of the Moreton Bay penal settlement and in turn the city of Brisbane and state of Queensland.
|The physical fabric of the causeway clearly illustrates both the principal characteristics of European building techniques in the early part of the nineteenth century and the construction methods used by convicts to build a structure of this nature.
|A degree of technical achievement is demonstrated in the construction of the causeway.
|The causeway has social significance for community groups involved with the Catholic Mission, Quarantine Station, Benevolent Asylum, residents and tourists as the point of landing on North Stradbroke Island.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15797,"place_ref":601022,"name":"Corbett and Son Store (former)","alternate_name":"Peerless Dry Cleaners | Isis Restaurant | Diamonds Dry Cleaners","street_address":"446-452 Brunswick Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-05-26","description":"The former Corbett and Sons store, a brick single-storeyed with basement structure, is located on the corner of Brunswick and Robertson Streets, Fortitude Valley. The building's roof is concealed behind a high parapet, with a street awning fronting Brunswick Street and returning into Robertson Street. The site slopes to the northeast, with the building having a two-storeyed elevation at the rear.
The principal entrance is located at the truncated corner of the two streets, and is surmounted by a decorative shaped gable with rendered detailing to the parapet. The paired entrance doors are recessed, with a marble step and tessellated tiled threshold, and surmounted by a panel of glass louvres. The shopfront, fronting Brunswick Street and returning into Robertson Street, has large paned display windows surmounted by high level multi-paned panels. Louvred panels located below the display windows along Brunswick Street have been sheeted over. A separate entrance is located at the western end of the Brunswick Street elevation, and consists of a recessed multi-paned door with tiled threshold. The street awning has a box fascia with cast iron columns, two of which are missing. The awning has a pressed metal soffit, and has recently been reconstructed losing some of Dods' original detailing. The building is constructed of painted English bond masonry, but originally consisted of red brickwork relieved with bands of white brickwork with rendered mouldings.
The Robertson Street elevation has a timber framed, hipped corrugated iron awning with window (formerly a separate service entrance with sliding timber doors). A lower entrance at the northern end of the Robertson Street elevation provides access to the basement. The rear of the building has a basement entrance at the northern corner, with a timber stair accessing the rear door to the shop level. Tall windows, with glass louvre panels and security bars, are located at the rear corners of the building, and the brickwork shows evidence of an earlier rear wing. The side elevation also has two small high level window openings, and a window with security bars lighting the basement at the rear corner.
Internally, the shop level has a pressed metal ceiling, areas of which have been damaged, painted masonry walls and a timber floor. The floor was originally set back from the Brunswick Street display windows to provide light and ventilation to the basement, however the setback has been infilled. A shallow bulkhead above the display windows indicate the position of screens which originally formed a backdrop to the display space. The rear northeast corner has a raised section of floor, which allows access from the Robertson Street entrance to the basement. The basement has a concrete floor, and timber posts supporting the floor above.
The northwest side of the site has a concrete slab, and the rear of the site is vacant except for a small shed at the northern corner.
","history":"This brick single storied with basement store was designed by architect RS (Robin) Dods in 1908 for wine merchants and grocers, Patrick and Michael Corbett.
The site, located on the corner of Brunswick and Robertson (then Jane) Streets, was purchased in 1907 by the Corbetts (who had operated a grocery store from the site since 1885) from the estate of Angus Ross subject to an easement, which provided rear access to nearby properties fronting Brunswick St. Ross had acquired the site, which formed part of the eastern suburban allotment (ESA) 37 by deed of grant in 1851, just two years after John Dunmore Lang's privately sponsored immigrants made their settlement in what became known as Fortitude (after one of the immigrant ships) Valley. According to the post office directories, the site remains unoccupied until 1878, when part of it is leased to builder and grocer, Frederick T Smith. By this time, this part of Brunswick Street, which provided the major thoroughfare to New Farm, is starting to develop as a mixed use area, combining small commercial and residential premises.
During the 1880s, development of this section of the Valley intensifies: Brunswick Street between John and Jane Streets now includes a number of commercial premises (music teacher, collar and harness maker, dyer and furrier, painter, and fruiterer) as well as two stores located on the subject site, including from 1885 a grocery store at no.450 operated by Patrick Corbett. Nearby on the opposite side of Jane Street, John Lennon's two story masonry premises (ground floor shop with residence on upper floor) are erected in 1885; and on the opposite side of Brunswick Street, two substantial tobacco factories are constructed in 1889 (Cameron Bros, later to become a brewery and Robert Dixson and Co).
In the 1890s, despite a downturn in the Queensland economy, the Valley continued to develop, lead by the large retailers, TC Beirne and James McWhirter whose Brunswick Street drapers stores quickly grew to become large department stores, and further fuelled by the developing Brisbane tram network in which the Valley was a central node. By the turn of the century the Valley was established as the second major commercial district of the city supplanting South Brisbane and the Woolloongabba fiveways. Corbett's store, although on the fringe of the main Valley commercial area, would conceivably have benefited from this development as well as from the increasing residential population as the land on both sides of Brunswick Street was subdivided.
In 1908, following purchase of the site, Patrick Corbett and his son Michael erect their new masonry premises. Architect RS (Robin) Dods (1868-1920) was to make the most of the sloping corner site. Although single storied, the height of the parapet and the simple bold enrichment of red brickwork relieved with bands of white brickwork (now obscured by paint) and cement dressings enabled the building to robustly address Brunswick and Jane Streets, as well as its nearby more substantial neighbours. The main entrance of the new shop was from the corner, a secondary door from Brunswick Street provided access to the basement level via an internal staircase. The shopfront was constructed to provide a generous display area as well as ventilation and light to the lower floor (via the setback of the floor). A separate delivery entrance to the upper floor was located on Robertson Street via sliding timber doors.
Although a relatively modest example of the work of Robin Dods, Corbett's store is a fine example of his commercial work, much of which has been demolished. From 1896-1916, Dods was in partnership with Francis Hall, as Hall & Dods. Dods is described as having a highly developed architectural imagination, his introduction of the formal and philosophical ideas of both the British Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian classicism and his significant functional solutions to the problems of living and building in Queensland combined to achieve an "architectural revolution in Brisbane" (Donald Watson & Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th century Queensland Museum 1994 p55)
In 1914, title was granted to Michael Corbett who continued to operate the business until his death in the 1930s. In 1938, the shop was leased to dry cleaners, Diamonds Pty Ltd; Joseph Diamond acquired the site in 1947. Diamonds continued to occupy the site until c1990, when it was acquired by Peerless Drycleaners and later by the present owner. Recent changes to the building include the demolition and rebuilding (with loss of some detail) of the awning over Brunswick St; demolition of a rear corrugated iron addition, and replacement of sliding timber doors to Robertson St service entry with a window. In the last decade, urban renewal has brought considerable changes to the Fortitude Valley area, including changes of use to a number of existing buildings: the upper story of the former grocery store / drycleaning premises is now a restaurant; the basement, a commercial tenancy.
","criteria":"It is important in illustrating the development of Fortitude Valley as it continued to develop into the twentieth century as a major commercial district.
|The store is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a corner store, albeit one with more sophisticated architectural pretensions.
The rear service laneway, which has provided access to nearby Brunswick Street commercial premises since at least 1907, demonstrates a type of land use and development relatively rare in Brisbane.
|The building makes a significant contribution to the Brunswick Street streetscape, and is an important element in the commercial townscape of Fortitude Valley.
|Erected in 1908, the former Corbett & Son store is a fine example of the commercial design work of architect RS (Robin) Dods, generally acknowledged as one of the most accomplished architects to practise in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15798,"place_ref":601023,"name":"Kitawah","alternate_name":"Wewak","street_address":"59 Heath Street","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"Kitawah is a large and imposing timber house, high-set on stumps with extensive verandahs and a massive hipped roof covered with Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. The house has two tall masonry chimneys with high level openings and a skirt of timber battens infilling the spaces between the posts. Much of the garden setting is intact, Kitawah is located at the back of the large block with driveways to both sides. The front of the block is a large levelled and grassed area that was formerly a tennis court. The entry staircase is a prominent feature of this elevation, along with a large weatherboard gable with a bold decorative screen in the plane of the bargeboards. Stairs from two sides arrive on a central landing and then a single stair leads to the front verandah, the landing is covered with a simple timber pergola and post and beam-style timber "arches" mark the bottom of the staircases.
The verandahs of the house are characterised by substantial timber posts and a simple balustrade. At the north-eastern corner of the house the verandah enlarges to become a semi-enclosed room of generous proportions, with large vertical timber louvres infilling the space between the roof and the balustrade. A set of stairs leads into the back garden from this room on the southern side. The planning and spatial arrangement of the house is complex, revolving around a number of axes with interlocking rooms of various ceiling heights. A long central hall runs through the house from a small vestibule just inside the front door. Three large bedrooms are located on the eastern side of the hall and are connected to a north-facing verandah which in turn, leads to the outdoor room on the north-eastern corner. Major public rooms are found on the western side of the hall.
The dining room and drawing room are linked by a wide opening with sliding timber doors. The dining room is the larger of the two rooms and has a large, dark brick, arched fireplace. The drawing room has an alcove located on the north side and has windows on two sides, not unlike an enlarged window seat but square in plan. All of these rooms are lined with timber vee-jay boarding and are stained up to the picture rail to simulate the richness of panelling. Bedrooms, hall and public rooms are all carpeted. The north-western corner of the house has now been enclosed with fibro-cement sheeting to form two large rooms, which are semi self-contained with basic bathroom facilities.
A secondary axis is formed on the western side of these rooms by a series of doors that link the kitchen to the dining room, drawing room and on to the front verandah. The back section of the house revolves around the large space of a well-proportioned back hall. The kitchen, bathroom, extra bedroom or study, former servant's room and back stairs all lead off this central space. The kitchen is located to the back of the dining room and has a large fireplace that is back-to-back with the fireplace of the dining room. A large walk-in pantry is located on the north-western corner of the kitchen. The kitchen, bathroom and toilet have recent fittings. The former servant's room is located up a short set of stairs adjacent to the back stairs.
A broad set of stairs with very wide timber treads leads into the wash house area on the ground floor. This area is distinctive of many of Dods' domestic designs with the hipped roof extending down to enclose a high, airy space accommodating a range of "back of house" functions in a semi-open space. This area is used as a laundry and wine cellar and contains the copper and a fireplace.
","history":"Kitawah is a substantial timber residence constructed in 1911 for Brisbane solicitor Llewellyn Stephens and designed by prominent Queensland architect Robin Dods (Hall and Dods). Kitawah is located upon a large block in East Brisbane that was originally part of Eastern Suburban Allotment 82, an area of 34 acres, one rood and eight perches, initially acquired by William Wilson in December 1853. Stephens purchased subdivision "H", on the corner of Barker Street and Heath Street in 1909 and commissioned Dods to design a home for his young family.
Stephens was the eleventh child of Thomas Blackett Stephens, a well known figure in early Brisbane. Amongst other achievements, Thomas Blackett Stephens was the second Mayor of Brisbane, a Member of the Legislative Council, Colonial Treasurer, Secretary of Public Lands and proprietor of the Brisbane Courier. Llewellyn Stephens was born at the family home Cumbooquepa (600305) in South Brisbane in 1873, just four years before his father died. He went on to become a solicitor and an Alderman in South Brisbane and established his own firm Stephens and Tozer which still exists in Brisbane today.
Stephens married Gladys Ryan in 1905 and they lived at another house designed by Dods at 622 Vulture Street, East Brisbane until Kitawah was completed in 1911. They had two children at this stage and went on to have another four who were all born at Kitawah. Family members recall a quiet, family-oriented homelife. The children played games in the garden with neighbouring children and had a number of ponies, Gladys held a monthly "at home" when visitors came to call. The house was extended sometime between 1915 and 1919. As Dods had moved to Sydney in 1913, the nature of his involvement in the design of the extension is not clear. A wing was added to the north-west corner to accommodate bedroom space for the boys, substantially altering the roof-form and appearance of the house from Heath Street. Prior to the extension, the house had verandahs on the western, southern and eastern sides and the massive crippled hipped roof presented an asymmetric front to the street. This asymmetry was maintained with the extension, adding another steep hip whose ridge was at a higher level than the hip on the western side. A gable roof was inserted into the central part of the roof and a decorative screen mounted upon the gable end became a central feature of this elevation. The front stairs were re-aligned to be centered with the new size of the verandah and as a consequence, no longer align with the front door.
Kitawah is a late example of Robin Dods' work in Brisbane, as the following year he moved to Sydney where he did not have the same opportunity to undertake large domestic commissions. Dods was an exceptionally talented and original architect, introducing to Queensland the "formal and philosophical ideas of both the British Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian classicism". At the same time, he refined and re-worked common elements of traditional Queensland houses and methods of construction and his houses exhibited a common-sense and often innovative approach to designing for the sub-tropical climate. Dods produced an impressive and high quality body of work in Queensland including hospital, commercial and ecclesiastical buildings as well as many residences. In the domestic realm his approach was widely imitated, in particular his planning and detailing of verandahs, external stairs, ventilated roofs and gable decorations.
Gladys Stephens continued to live at Kitawah after Llewellyn died in 1934. In 1936 a 28 perch section of the block on the western side was sub-divided and sold and a further two roods, eight perches sub-divided into four blocks at the back of the block to the north was sold in 1938. Then in 1943 the Stephens family sold the house to the Parer family. The Parers re-named the house Wewak after one of their plantations in Papua New Guinea. The Parers further sub-divided the block in 1951, creating three 24 perch blocks and one 27 perch block, leaving Kitawah on a block with an area of two roods and nine perches. In 1969, the house was sold to Dr James Hemsley and the name of the house reverted to Kitawah. The Hemsley family still maintain ownership of the house.
","criteria":"Kitawah, constructed in 1912, is important in demonstrating the continued growth and development of the East Brisbane area in the early part of the 20th century and illustrating the way of life of affluent families over a period of eighty years.
|Kitawah demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial timber urban residence. Set in extensive grounds and impressive in its scale, finish and design excellence, Kitawah is a key example of affluent domestic housing in Queensland.
|The building exhibits outstanding architectural quality and has significance as a surviving, intact example of the mature work of important Queensland architect Robert S.(Robin) Dods. The handling of form, scale, materials and details are exemplary. In particular, the interior finishes and planning are highly intact and of superior quality.
|Acknowledged as one of Dods most complex and sophisticated domestic designs, Kitawah demonstrates a high degree of creative achievement in the development of Queensland housing and has a special association with the work of RS Dods.
|Acknowledged as one of Dods most complex and sophisticated domestic designs, Kitawah demonstrates a high degree of creative achievement in the development of Queensland housing and has a special association with the work of RS Dods. The residence also has an association with the Stephens family, the prominent Queensland family who built the house.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15799,"place_ref":601024,"name":"Thomas Dixon Centre","alternate_name":"T C Dixon & Sons | Dixon's Shoe Centre","street_address":"406 Montague Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The Dixon Centre is a substantial two storey brick building, rectangular in plan with a super six asbestos-cement roof covering the original roof of asbestos-cement slates. The site is bounded by Montague Road and Drake and Raven Streets, along which are located a substantial brick fence (which becomes a retaining wall in places) surmounted by regularly spaced brick piers. The timber picket fence which original enclosed the space between the piers is no longer extant. Also located on the site is the store for the Queensland Ballet props (formerly the store for wooden lasts), the engine house, air raid shelter and 1965 brick addition to the main building.
The main building is located at the front of the site with the long axis following the Montague Road boundary. The foundations and ground floor are constructed of concrete which support load bearing walls of plain red machine-made bricks laid in English bond pattern. Attached buttresses are evenly spaced along the walls on the long axis, and sills, dressings and banding at the first floor and sill levels and are highlighted with dark blue salt glazed bricks. Two sets of new metal fire stairs are located on the eastern side of the building.
A single storey brick air raid shelter is located on the eastern side of the main building, the top of which is used as an outdoor seating area opening from the former engine room, now a kitchenette. The 1965 brick showroom at the southwestern corner also survives.
The front entrance, facing Drake Street is symmetrically composed, with a centrally located doorway flanked by windows on either side. The doorway features a pair of five panel bolection moulded doors, surmounted by a fanlight with scalloped glazing bars. The windows to the ground level have arched headers, and they and the entrance are surrounded by dark blue salt glazed voussoirs set out in the manner of a Gibbs surround. A sandstone tablet above the entrance is relief carved with the words ESTABLISHED 1873. The original nine paned windows to the first floor have been replaced with single panes of sheet glass and have flat arches of dark blue salt glazed voussoirs.
The rear elevation, facing Raven Street is similarly composed to the front elevation, but with a less decorative central doorway and rectangular windows featuring three vertical rows of glass louvres to both floors.
Each of the side elevations are also symmetrically composed with a regular fenestration pattern. All windows to the side and rear elevation have three vertical rows of glass louvres with flat arches of dark blue salt glazed voussoirs.
The brick fire wall is evident approximately one third from the Drake Street end of the building. It divides both the walls and the hipped roof which has ventilators evenly spaced along its ridge.
Internally, the space is divided into offices around a central corridor on the ground floor and four practice rooms, three of which are interconnecting, on the first floor. Stairs are internally located both centrally and at the northern end on the Montague Road side of the building. The former engine room is now utilised as a kitchenette.
The first floor practice rooms have exposed king post trusses which span the width of the building.. Evidence of the original use and form of the building includes a piece of equipment suspended within the roof trusses of the practice room at the southern end, hardwood columns in the reception space and exposed brick walls to some areas and an early fire system in the entrance.
A timber framed weatherboard building with a saw tooth roof is located in the south-eastern corner of the site. It is now used as a store for the Queensland Ballet and is an open space divided by wire mesh screens. The walls are unlined and the floor is timber. Light is provided by windows on the side elevations and on the vertical planes of the saw tooth roof.
","history":"The Thomas Dixon Centre was constructed in 1908 as premises for the expanding business of Thomas Dixon, bootmaker and tanner. A substantial two-storey brick building, it was designed by Richard Gailey Architects.
In 1869, encouraged by his brother who was already residing in Brisbane, Thomas Coar Dixon relocated from New South Wales, where he had established a small tannery, to Brisbane. Shortly after his arrival, Dixon established a tannery at West End, which was expanded in 1878 to incorporate a boot and shoe manufacturing business, with equipment, machinery and lasts brought by Dixon from Sydney.
Tanneries and boot and shoe manufacturing were among the earliest established industries in Brisbane. In Barton's Jubilee History of Queensland it is stated that by 1909 there were 21 boot making factories, employing over 1000 people in the metropolitan area. T C Dixon and Sons are mentioned as one of the companies having recently constructed a large factory.
The first Dixon shoe factory was opened in Russell Street and was announced in the Queenslander on July 6 1878. The advertisement guaranteed that the TCD Brand was 'equal to any boot manufactured' due to use of machines of the 'latest and most approved construction and the best materials only being used.'
Disruptions to the business occurred in 1885 when fire destroyed the buildings and again in 1893 when floods damaged goods and swept the tannery shed away. By the early 1900s, Thomas Dixon's son was urging him to construct larger premises. This was partially due to the loss of the previous buildings, but also due to delays of customer orders due to the lack of space available for the employment of additional hands.
In 1906, Dixon purchased the land bounded by Montague Road, and Raven and Drake Streets prior to travelling to Sydney to view the most recently constructed boot manufacturing premises. On his return to Brisbane, Dixon engaged architect Richard Gailey and (according to Dixon) with Dixon's suggestions and Gailey's skill they designed 'the present magnificent building.'
Richard Gailey was one of Queensland's most prolific architects. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to Australia in 1864. Described as the 'doyen of Brisbane's architects,' he is responsible for the design of many substantial buildings in Brisbane, including the Bapist City Tabernacle, a number of hotels including the Regatta and the Orient, private homes including Moorlands and Verney, and commercial buildings and warehouses including Smellie and Co.'s Warehouse, the Metro Arts building and Finney Isles and Co. He also designed many buildings in various towns throughout Queensland.
The contractor of the new Dixon's factory was Mr Burton. Constructed of brick, the warehouse was described by Thomas Dixon as second to none in appearance in the Commonwealth.
The building is symmetrically composed and uses materials which were uncommon for factory buildings of the period. It is Georgian Revival in style, with details including sills, banding and dressings picked out in dark blue salt glazed bricks. The roof was originally covered with diagonally laid asbestos-cement slates which were developed in France and not imported to Australia until c1904. They were not manufactured in Australia until after the First World War. The slates survive under the present super-six sheeting.
The front elevation features windows with arched glazing bars, whilst the fanlight above the door features scalloped glazing bars. The remainder of the windows were originally nine paned in rows of three which pivoted inwards or outwards, however most were replaced with sheet glass or glass louvres in 1983.
Internally, the ground floor originally consisted of an office and storerooms which were located at the southern end of the building. A brick fire wall divided them from the larger area which housed the workroom. The first floor was similarly divided, with the southern end housing a warehouse for finished shoes and a small showroom. The remainder of the first floor contained presses to cut uppers and an area for sewing the uppers. The engine room was located in a single storey building attached to the eastern side of the main building and the original gas engine which drove power shafts suspended beneath the first floor was replaced with an electric motor c1920. This method of power was replaced by self-contained sewing machines c1965.
The new factory was in close proximity to residential dwellings, indicative of the nineteenth century/early twentieth century practice of workers living close to their place of employment. It appears that Thomas Dixon also resided in West End upon his arrival in Brisbane, and the Post Office Directories record him residing near the factory from 1883 until his death in 1909.
After Dixon's death, the business continued under the management of his sons, one of whom managed the shoe factory whilst the other managed the tannery.
Additional buildings were constructed on the site, including a store for wooden lasts constructed prior to 1920, an air raid shelter constructed during the Second World War, and an addition to the south western corner of the factory comprising air conditioned office and showroom, constructed in 1965, all of which survive on the site. A staff amenities block and garage were also constructed, however these no longer survive.
The company of T C Dixon and Sons continued to operate from the West End factory until 1973 when they sold the factory to K D Morris and moved to new and larger premises at Wacol.
In 1975, the building was purchased by the Queensland Government and used as a store until 1991 when it became the home of the Queensland Ballet and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra after undergoing a $1.8 million refurbishment.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1908 as a shoe and boot manufacturing factory, the Thomas Dixon Centre provides evidence of an early Brisbane industry which is now obsolete.
Surrounded by residential dwellings, the location of the factory demonstrates the former practice of workers to live close to their place of employment.
|The Thomas Dixon Centre provides evidence of early manufacturing industries in Queensland. The significance of the building is further enhanced as few buildings providing evidence of early manufacturing industries survive in Brisbane.
The Thomas Dixon Centre is a rare surviving example of an early twentieth century industrial factory in West End and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type through its form and use of materials. It also incorporates unusually decorative features for a building of its type, such as feature brickwork and decorative glazing bars to the front windows.
|The Thomas Dixon Centre is a rare surviving example of an early twentieth century industrial factory in West End and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type through its form and use of materials. It also incorporates unusually decorative features for a building of its type, such as feature brickwork and decorative glazing bars to the front windows.
|It is a landmark within the streetscape due to its scale and elevated location. The symmetrical design and repetitive fenestration pattern, as well as details including the decorative windows to the front elevation and the use of dark blue salt glazed bricks contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place.
|As the headquarters of both the Queensland Ballet and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra since 1991, the Thomas Dixon Centre has strong associations with these particular cultural groups and the community of West End.
|The Centre has strong association with the Dixon Family who held a high reputation in Brisbane as a 'family' company with management providing good working conditions for their staff.
The place also has special association with architect Richard Gailey, as an example of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15800,"place_ref":601025,"name":"University of Queensland, Great Court Complex","alternate_name":"UQ","street_address":"12 Upland Road","suburb":"ST LUCIA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-03-08","description":"The Great Court Complex is set on the high ground in the centre of a site enclosed by Cemetery Reach, a bend in the Brisbane River, on the northern, eastern and southern sides, and St Lucia, a residential suburb, on the west. The Court, approximately semicircular in plan with eight unequal sides, is an open grassed space planted intermittently with trees and shrubs and intersected by an axially placed path. The perimeter of the court consists of a continuous colonnade that links five detached buildings, all clad in Helidon sandstone of varying colours ranging from rich purples through to creams and browns. The largest of these, forming the long northern side of the court, is really a complex of three attached buildings. It consists of the centrally located Forgan Smith Building, flanked by the Michie Building at the western end and Duhig Library to the east. The other buildings which face onto the central court are, moving around the perimeter clockwise from the Duhig Library, the Steele Building, the Richards Building, the Parnell Building and the Goddard Building.
\nForgan Smith Building
\nThe Forgan Smith Building, generally considered the front of the Great Court Complex, is a two storeyed reinforced concrete frame structure with masonry infill that is faced in Helidon sandstone. The building is roughly orientated east-west, and together with the Duhig and Michie buildings, forms the University's principle north facing facade.
\nThe building is much influenced in its design style by the Art Deco movement and shares many of this style's principle characteristics including relief lettering, a prominent tower, strong horizontal and vertical elements, monumental entrances, grouped openings, modem construction techniques, and stylised low and high relief sculpture.
\nThe main feature of the Forgan Smith building, and the focal point of the entire Great Court, is the five storey high central tower. The tower marks the university's former main entrance and effectively divides the building into two wings; east (also referred to as the Arts wing) and west (also referred to as the Law wing). External entrances to the building, including those to the two wings, are monumental in scale, and are approached by granite staircases that are equally prodigious. Each of the three entrances is adorned with various forms of sculpture that include low-relief statues depicting important Classical figures from the Arts (William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer (Plato and Justinian I on the eastern wing) and Law (on the western wing), together with the names of other significant individuals. Large friezes depicting symbols of Australia's primary industries, the heroism of Anzac and the history of University of Queensland are positioned on the parapets adjacent to each entrance. Smaller carvings depicting Aboriginal life in Queensland, the university's coat of arms and inscriptions also appear above each entrance. The external doors to each of the entrances are constructed of solid timber panels that have been formed into stylised cross designs. Vestibule doors are glazed with a varnished timber frame and chrome door hardware.
\nInternally, the Forgan Smith building retains many of its original high quality durable finishes. Original terrazzo, parquetry and rubber tiling (with faux timber finish) laid on concrete floors exist variously throughout the building. Linoleum and carpet have been introduced in more recent years in corridors and some rooms, particularly where there have been internal alterations, such as those at the top level in the far end of the eastern wing. The foyers to each of the three main entrances have been finished in a restrained Art-Deco styling featuring sandstone columns, some detailed with the original Queensland University emblem, sandstone balustrading, and lighting disguised as skylights. The central foyer extends through two floors. Floor finishes in the foyers of the tower are concrete, delicately tinted to harmonise with the sandstone. The vestibules and foyers of the Arts and Law wings are finished in red and ochre coloured terrazzo laid in a pattern strongly indicative of the Art Deco style. Five paned windows, framed in bronze, are used throughout the building and are generally grouped in threes. The original glass used in most of the windows is tinted pink and green that complements the sandstone colouring. Terrazzo used for window sills, stairs and skirtings are of similar pale, muted tones. Original varnished silky oak joinery, such as doors, skirtings and partitions, remains essentially intact throughout the building, except in areas where larger areas have been subdivided, or major refurbishments have occurred such as in the law library. Original chrome and bronze door hardware survives extensively, including the original metal number used to identify each room. Faux marbled tiles have been used as alternative skirtings in some public areas such as corridors and foyers.
\nIn the upper three floors of the tower, extensive alterations have occurred which have effectively created new floors within the space originally designed to hang a carillon of bells. The multipaned windows on these floors have replaced the sculptured and perforated panels that originally existed in their place. The architectural detailing of spaces is indicative of basic service rooms. A lift, located in the south-west corner, and a fire escape stair, located in the south-east corner, have both been introduced into the tower as a result of the alterations to the upper floors.
\nThe western wing of the Forgan Smith Building has an additional floor that extends from the tower to the Michie Building. The roof, which is clad with Colourbond steel sheeting, has a gentle curved form that rises slightly over the level of the original parapet walls. Internally, the majority of this wing has been greatly altered by the removal of the central floor space at the mid level and the introduction of additional columns at ground level and the creation of new top floor slab to replace the previous roof. The detailing of the top floor interior is entirely modern using stainless steel, aluminium windows, terrazzo elements and painted plasterboard. Reproduction of original detailing, such as silky oak joinery, terrazzo, bronze hardware and plaster cornices have been used in the refurbishment of the original two levels.
\nDuhig Building
\nThe Duhig Library is a six storey building with a lower ground level. The building is located at the eastern end of the Forgan Smith building and is similarly constructed using a reinforced concrete frame structure with masonry infill that is clad with sandstone. The large building stylistically has simpler architectural detailing than the Forgan Smith building, and also has a larger overall general form. Some evidence of Art Deco styling is evident in the building's symmetry, strong vertical lines and the parallel grouping of the principle windows in threes. The use of sculpture on the building's facades is comparatively limited and only the name \"LIBRARY\", minor inscriptions and the university's coat of arms and motto have been used to distinguish the former main entrance that is at the lower ground level. The solid timber doors are panelled in a design similar to those on the Forgan Smith building. The courtyard entrance is less ornamented and features only glazed doors with a metallic frame.
\nInternally, the Duhig Library's evidence of the building's earliest finishes is limited to its two lower levels. These finishes are similar to those used in the Forgan Smith building and include the patterned terrazzo flooring of the main foyer (the colour and design of which matches that in the foyers of the Arts and Law wings), terrazzo staircases, balustrades and sills, and marbled cladding to the internal columns of the main reception area on the ground floor level (similarly detailed to the columns in the tower foyers). The lower ground floor has been substantially refurbished in recent years and retains only the original dark coloured ceiling panels.
\nSteele Building
\nThe Steele Building, located south of the Duhig Library, is a two storeyed structure constructed using a reinforced concrete frame structure with masonry infill that is clad with sandstone. Later additions at the rear of the building are clad with face brickwork, except where it is anticipated that the building will be extended in the future. Steel sheeting has been used in this area.
\nThe building's principle facade faces west and its entrance is decorated in the same manner as those of the Arts and Law on the Forgan Smith building. The sculpture includes parapet friezes reflecting the advancement of chemical science from 16th century alchemy. The main courtyard entrance is decorated with the university's coat of arms and motto, and a pair of flanking low relief statues depicting famous chemists, Antone Laurent Lavoisier and John Dalton. A secondary entrance to the building is located at the rear facing south-east and is more modestly decorated only with the university's coat of arms.
\nThe interior of the Steele building has been altered and extended extensively. Remnants of the building's original finishes are mainly evident in its former main entrance vestibule, early corridors and staircases. Red and ochre coloured terrazzo flooring, laid in a pattern similar to that in the Arts/Law foyers, remains under the carpet in the main entrance vestibule. A crude copy of the design has been replicated at the building's rear entrance vestibule using slightly different coloured terrazzo. The walls of the vestibule are clad in sandstone and the internal doors are glazed with a varnished timber frame and chrome door hardware. At the lower level the original corridors have been laid with linoleum that has a contrasting border. The plain coloured walls have been finished with a ruled ashlar design. At the upper level the corridor floors have been laid with rubber tiles that have a faux timber finish and a contrasting border. These tiles are identical to those found in parts of the Forgan Smith building. The main central stair is constructed of contrasting terrazzo in a design similar but slightly simpler to those found in the Forgan Smith building. The stairwell is lit by overhead lighting which is disguised as skylights. Bronze window frames in the Steele building are similar to those in the Forgan Smith building, however many have been painted internally and tinted pink and green glass is fitted only on the external facing walls.
\nThe main auditoriums, originally located in the centre of the building, have recently under gone substantial alterations that have effectively created three smaller theatres out of the space previously occupied by two. The interiors of these theatres have been completely refit. Several of the larger teaching laboratories have also recently been refurbished with new fittings and finishes. Most other areas of the building are offices and small research laboratories that have been extensively partitioned. The earlier partitions are mainly constructed of timber veneered panels that have glazed panels that extend to the ceiling. Later partitions, have used to divide some of the larger rooms into smaller ones. Several new door entrances have also been introduced as a result of additional partitions.
\nRichards Building
\nThe Richards Building, located south-west of the Steele Building and opposite the central tower of the Forgan Smith Building. It is a two storeyed structure constructed using a reinforced concrete frame with masonry infill that is clad with sandstone. It is presently the smallest of the Great Court buildings.
\nThe building's principle facade faces north and its courtyard entrance is decorated with a carved parapet frieze depicting a prehistoric scene, the university's coat of arms and its motto.
\nThe internal layout and finishes in the Richards Building remain substantially intact throughout most of the building. The main entrance doors are solid timber that has a simple grooved design running vertically through the middle of each door. The glazed and timber internal doors and the coloured terrazzo flooring are both of similar detailing to that in the Forgan Smith Building. A bas-relief depicting Professor Richards is carved in the west wall of the sandstone clad vestibule. The central staircase, which is also of similar design to those in the Forgan Smith Building, is constructed of contrasting terrazzo. The corridor walls at ground level have a ruled ashlar finish that is painted and the floor has linoleum tiles laid without any border. Floors of the upper corridors are laid with rubber tiling (with faux timber finish) and a contrasting blue border. All internal room doors are varnished silky oak and retain their original bronze room numbers.
\nOffices and refurbished laboratories mainly occupy the building space. The library, which is located in the north-west corner of the upper floor, contains skylights that are externally covered over and a variety of floor finishes.
\nLocated at the rear of the building is a large circular under ground laboratory.
\nParnell Building
\nThe Parnell Building is located adjacent to the Richards Building, opposite the central tower of the Forgan Smith Building. The two storeyed building is constructed using a reinforced concrete frame structure with masonry infill that is clad with sandstone. The building is connected to the Physics Annexe at the rear via an enclosed walkway
\nThe main entrance is decorated only with the university's coat of arms and motto. The front sliding doors, which are varnished timber of identical design to those on the Richards Building, open into a foyer and corridors that have ruled ashlar walls and floors laid with rubber tiling (with faux timber finish) and a contrasting blue border. Two large lecture theatres occupy the central section of this building, extending through two floor levels. Both of these rooms have been entirely refurbished with suspended ceilings and updated teaching and seating facilities.
\nThe ground and upper floor levels of the Parnell Building are mainly occupied by offices and small laboratories that have all been refurbished to differing degrees. Only one small lecture room at the north-east corner of the upper floor remains substantially intact with its original tiered seating and wooden desks.
\nThe basement of the building consists mainly of store rooms towards the rear of the building with small offices, studios and work rooms towards the front. The entire basement area is crudely finished with exposed services and a low ceiling height.
\nGoddard Building
\nThe Goddard Building is located south of the Michie Building. The building, which is constructed using a reinforced concrete frame structure with masonry infill that is clad with sandstone, is a three storeyed structure, with the main courtyard entrance at the middle level. The building is arranged around two inner courtyards that are clad with brickwork only. Unlike the Forgan Smith Building, window openings throughout the building are grouped in pairs rather than threes.
\nThe building's principle facade faces east and its entrance is decorated in the same manner as those of the Arts and Law on the Forgan Smith building. Low relief statues, depicting: Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, famous figures in the history of biological science, flank the main courtyard entrance. Immediately above the entrance is the university's coat of arms and motto. Vehicular access to the building's inner courtyards is via a rear entrance to the building. This entrance is more modestly decorated, bearing only the inscription \"BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES\"
\nThe majority of the Goddard building interior has been extensively altered recently. Remnants of the building's original finishes are mainly evident in its main entrance foyer, the central auditorium, and the staircases. The building's main entrance doors are simple panelled sliding doors, which have a varnished finish. The walls of the foyer are clad in sandstone. The main central stair is constructed of contrasting terrazzo in a large double-return design, which extends through the building's three floors. Secondary steps, located at either side of the building, resemble the simple stair design used is most other Great Court buildings. Throughout the building, corridors are finished with pale blue vinyl coverings on concrete slab floors. Modem specimen freezers have been fitted along several sections of corridor. Previously varnished internal walls and doors throughout the building are currently painted. Steel window frames with terrazzo sills exist throughout in the building and are similar to those in the Forgan Smith building, however most frames have been painted internally and only clear glass is fitted.
\nThe main auditorium is located in the centre of the building, and extends through two floors. It area is substantially intact, and retains its original seating, demonstration desk and blackboard framing. Air conditioning ducts, positioned in intermittent vertical drops, have been installed along the side walls.
\nLocated above the auditorium is the Zoology Museum. Originally it was a single area with a mezzanine floor, however recent alterations have created two distinct floor levels. The lower of the two floors has been partitioned to form a number of small offices and laboratories. A short bridge, built recently, connects the rear of the museum across to the rear of the main building.
\nThe building contains several large teaching laboratories, of which all but one have been recently refurbished with new suspended ceilings, contemporary fittings and finishes. Staff offices and small research laboratories are located throughout the two upper floors of the building. The basement level mainly contains refurbished laboratories, stores and a large workshop.
\nSeveral structures have been erected on the roof of the Goddard building. Most of these are steel frame sheds and shelters and are used to store equipment and house large specimens.
\nMichie Building
\nThe Michie building is an eight storey building located at the western end of the Forgan Smith building. It is similarly constructed using a reinforced concrete frame structure with masonry infill that is clad with sandstone. The building is stylistically simpler than the Forgan Smith building, and similar in scale to the Duhig Library. Art Deco styling is limited to the building's symmetry, and the use of stylised relief work below each window on the building's facades. The main entrance, from level two on the northern facade, is far less monumental than most of the other buildings in the Great Court Complex, and is distinguished only by inscription over the doorway.
\nInternally the floors exhibit minimal use of architectural detailing. Only the lift and central spiral staircase foyer areas on each floor demonstrate better quality finishes such as exposed aggregate concrete panels, pebble mix surfaces, sprayed ceiling, pelmetted lighting and fibrous sheeting with a pale mosaic finish. The partitions to all the areas are constructed from lightweight aluminium frames fitted with dark veneered panels. Ceilings throughout the building are false and carry most of the internal services.
\nThe cloister
\nThe entire inner courtyard of the Great Court is surrounded by a Romanesque-Byzantine Revival style arcade of semicircular sandstone arches, supported by simple sandstone columns that are set on granite plinths. The cushion capitals of the columns are decorated with the coat of arms from universities in the British Commonwealth and other principle universities in the world. The same coat of arms is often inscribed on all four sides of the capital. Several shields, particularly in the south west section of the arcade are currently still blank.
\nEach of the main entrances to the individual buildings features arches with carved voussoirs depicting aspects of Queensland's flora and fauna. Several of the voussoirs are currently still blank, particularly in the north east section of the arcade.
\nProjecting grotesques decorate the upper reaches of the cloister walls. These numerous carvings are mainly of human figures, some based on the identities of particular people but many simply based on fanciful images. Recently completed grotesques have been specifically commissioned to represent particular people, chosen by the Senate for their contributions to University life.
\nThe setting
\nUniversity of Queensland is centrally located on a large allotment on a bend of the Brisbane River at St Lucia. The Great Court is sited to dominate the rise of the land and have a commanding view of the surrounding campus buildings, the playing fields and the river beyond. The Forgan Smith Building with its central tower is the focus of the complex both from the university's approach and within the Great Court cloister. The tower was designed to be on a central axis which addressed an intended bridge across the Brisbane River from St Lucia. The area delineated in the university's original plans as a great forecourt remains substantially intact. The current configuration of the driveway does not reflect the landscape design originally envisaged for the area. Full appreciation of the Forgan Smith Building facade as intended has been interrupted by the placement of the Mayne Hall and Central Library immediately in front of it.
\nThe areas between the various court buildings remain open and landscaped with lawns, fountains and a variety of vegetation. The areas provide visual corridors to the other university buildings which are located beyond the Great Court. The various plantings at the University of cypress and pine add to the setting of the place.
","history":"Proposals for a university in Queensland began in the 1870s. A Royal Commission in 1874, chaired by Sir Charles Lilley, recommended the immediate establishment of a university. Those against a university argued that technical rather than academic education was more important in an economy dominated by primary industry. Those in favour of the university, in the face of this opposition, distanced themselves from Oxford and Cambridge and proposed instead a model derived from the mid-western states of the USA. A second Royal Commission in 1891 recommended the inclusion of five faculties in a new university; Arts, Law, Medicine, Science and Applied Science. Education generally was given a low priority in Queensland's budgets, and in a colony with a literacy rate of 57% in 1861, primary education was the first concern well ahead of secondary and technical education. The government, despite the findings of the Royal Commissions, was unwilling to commit funds to the establishment of a university.
In 1893 the Queensland University Extension Movement was begun by a group of private individuals who organised public lecture courses in adult education, hoping to excite wider community support for a university in Queensland. In 1894, 245 students were enrolled in the extension classes and the lectures were described as practical and useful. In 1906 the University Extension Movement staged the University Congress, a forum for interested delegates to promote the idea of a university. Opinion was mobilised, a fund was started and a draft Bill for a Queensland University was prepared. Stress was laid on the practical aspects of university education and its importance for the commerce of Queensland. The proceedings of the Congress were forwarded to Premier Kidston. In October 1906, sixty acres in Victoria Park were gazetted for university purposes
The University of Queensland was established by an Act of State Parliament on December 10, 1909 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Queensland's separation from the colony of New South Wales. The Act allowed for the university to be governed by a senate of 20 men and Sir William MacGregor, the incoming Governor, was appointed the first chancellor with RH Roe as the vice chancellor. Old Government House [600118] in George Street was set aside for the University following the departure of the Governor to the Bardon residence, Fernberg [600275], sparking the first debates about the best location for the university.
In 1910 the first teaching faculties were created. These included Engineering, Classics, Mathematics and Chemistry. In December of the same year, the Senate appointed the first four professors; BD Steele in chemistry, JL Michie in classics, H. Priestly in mathematics and A Gibson in engineering. In 1911 the first students enrolled.
Practically from the start there was controversy about a permanent site for the University. Old Government House was too small and was seen by many as evidence merely of government parsimony. There was not much room for expansion and there were conflicts with the neighbouring Brisbane Central Technical College. Victoria Park had been chosen in 1906 for a permanent site and in 1922 a further 170 acres were vested in the University. The high cost of preparing the steeply sloping land at Victoria Park for building made it a less than ideal site despite its central location and proximity to the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Yeronga Park and St Lucia were considered as options. But in 1926 the whole issue was transformed when Dr James O'Neil Mayne and Miss Mary Emilia Mayne made £50,000 available to the Brisbane City Council to resume land at St Lucia and present it to the University. Opinion was divided with Professor Steele and many members of the medical profession against St Lucia because of its isolation and lack of public transport. A meeting of the Senate, on the 10 December, voted for the St Lucia site on the condition that the city council provided access. Those voting for St Lucia included Archbishop Duhig, EJD Stanley, ACV Melbourne and Professor Richards. Dr Lockhart Gibson, Chancellor AJ Thynne and Archbishop Sharp were amongst those who voted for Victoria Park. In 1930 the Senate handed over Victoria Park, less eleven acres reserved for a medical school, to the Brisbane City Council in exchange for the St Lucia site.
During the years of the Depression that followed the university suffered progressive reduction of government funding. Cuts were made to both staff salaries and numbers while student numbers trebled between 1923 and 1933. There was no prospect of building the new university until 1935 when the Premier, W. Forgan Smith, announced that the Queensland government would undertake construction at St Lucia. This was one of the three major development projects initiated in the mid 1930s by the Queensland government to create employment, the others being the Stanley River Dam and the Story Bridge [600240]. The University Senate called for and received schemes from various enthusiasts, including Professor Hawken, Dr FW Robinson, AB Leven and Dr JJC Bradfield. Taking ideas from these suggestions the Senate committee produced its own preliminary design. The principle building, containing Arts, Law and administration, was E-shaped and enclosed one side of an arcaded quadrangle. Related outer buildings contained Engineering, Biology, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, a museum and a teachers' training college. The Queensland government, despite hopes for a competition, appointed the Sydney firm of Hennessy, Hennessy & Co as architects for the project; and Jack Francis Hennessy (1887-1955) produced the coherent and logical plan that still lies at the heart of the University.
The foundation stone was laid in 1937 by Forgan Smith but it was another year before building commenced. Construction began in March 1938 with the main building, now known as the Forgan Smith Building, and was followed shortly afterward with the lower floors of the library and the Chemistry building. It was to proceed, due to financial constraints, in stages clockwise around the court.
Work was disrupted by the Second World War. The main building served its first use, from 1942-1944, as the headquarters of General Sir Thomas Blamey (head of the Australian Defence forces). The army evacuated the building and work re-commenced by 1948. The Forgan Smith Building was officially opened in May 1949 by Premier Hanlon. The Duhig Library (two-stories only and named for Archbishop Sir James Duhig) was also ready by this time, as was the Steele Building (named for the first professor of chemistry, Professor Bertram Steele).
In 1951 the Richards Building (named for the first professor of geology, Henry Casselli Richards) was completed. In 1955 the Parnell Building (named for the inaugural professor of physics, Thomas Parnell) and an addition to the west wing of the Forgan Smith Building were completed. In 1962, jointly funded by state and commonwealth governments, the Goddard Building (named for the second professor of biology, Ernest Jones Goddard) was completed. In 1965 three extra floors were added to the Duhig Library to the design of James Birrell.
The final building at the western end of the Forgan Smith was to have been a Great Hall. JD Story, the vice chancellor from 1938 until 1960, proposed in 1959 that this be replaced by a western Arts building and in 1972 construction began on the Michie Building (named for first the professor of classics, J.L. Michie). The state government announced in 1974 that it would provide the funding to clad the building in sandstone. The Michie Building was completed in 1978.
In March 1979 the colonnade between the Michie Building and the Goddard Building was completed enclosing the Great Court Complex.
A number of changes have been made over the years to the Great Court Complex. Some of buildings have been augmented or altered: there are various structures on top of the Goddard Building, and a new, discreet addition to the Law Library at the western end of the Forgan Smith Building which was designed by Robert Riddell. Perhaps the most significant change is that the planting within the Court is less formal than originally intended, and takes little account of Hennessy's plans for strong visual axes to tie the whole Court together. Notable also in this respect are Professor Gareth Robert's master plan for the university which involved the closing of the circular drive and the placement of the Main Library and the Great Hall in front of the Forgan Smith Building.
The Sculptors:
As part of Hennessy, Hennessy & Co's original concept, it was intended that the Great Court would include extensive sculptural work portraying historical panels, statues, coats of arms and panels of Australian plant and animal life. Many of the designs were done by Leo Drinan, who was the principle architect with Hennessy, Hennessy & Co. Work on the sculptures began in 1939, with German born John Theodore Muller and Frederick James McGowan as the principle stonemasons. Work was halted by the war in 1942 and McGowan died before it resumed three years later. Muller continued to carve until his death at more than 80 years of age, in 1953. At the time of his death all of the friezes, most of the statues, and half of the grotesques, coats of arms, arches and roundels were completed.
Carving virtually stopped at the University after Muller's death and resumed only after the Michie Building was under construction. A competition amongst several Queensland sculptors in 1976 led to the commissioning of Mrs Rhyl Hinwood. Mrs Hinwood has since continued to carve numerous grotesques and coats of arms for the Court, as well as the two monumental figures at the main entrance to the Goddard Building.
","criteria":"The University of Queensland, established in 1909, commemorates Queensland's 50th anniversary of its separation from the colony of New South Wales. As the state's first university, it demonstrates the gradual evolution of higher education in Queensland, which was considered a low budget priority despite recommendations made to the Government as early as the 1870's.
The selection of a permanent site for the university was the subject of intense government and community debate in 1926. The eventual acquisition of land at St Lucia is strongly associated with Dr James O'Neil Mayne and his sister, Mary Emilia Mayne who made £50 000 available for the Brisbane City Council to purchase the property. In 1935, its Silver Jubilee year, the University decided to commence construction at the St Lucia site. The project was one of the Forgan Smith government's major developments of the 1930's depression years, specifically aimed at creating employment. The premier's involvement is commemorated in the naming of the first completed building on the site. Between 1942 and 1945 the university played an important role in the activities of the Second World War when General Sir Thomas Blamey, head of the Australian Defence Forces, established the Forgan Smith Building as the Land Headquarters.
|(Criterion under review)
|The layout of the Great Court complex is the clearest and most intact example in Australia of a university set out in accordance with the innovative American collegiate planning principles introduced by Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800's. The Jeffersonian concept of an academic village is clearly demonstrated in the complex by the large, open central courtyard that is surrounded by interspersed pavilions representing different disciplines, linked together by internal colonnades. From its location on the highest rise of the land overlooking the surrounding campus buildings, the Great Court is regarded as an important visual symbol of and central core to the University of Queensland.
|Built over a forty year period between 1937 and 1979, the Great Court Complex is significant both architecturally and aesthetically as an extensive and distinctive example of Art Deco styling. Uniformity is an important attribute of the complex, demonstrated not only by congenial characteristics such as monumental scale and form, strong horizontal and vertical lines, and materials but also the abundant sculptural work such as friezes, statues, and grotesques depicting significant individuals and events in the history of the State, the Commonwealth and the University. The public interiors of the individual buildings, particularly those in the Forgan Smith Building, are of notable interest for the high quality detailing of its materials and finishes harmoniously executed in the same style as the exteriors.
|From its location on the highest rise of the land overlooking the surrounding campus buildings, the Great Court is regarded as an important visual symbol of and central core to the University of Queensland. Due to this symbolism, the complex has a strong association with past and present students and faculty members throughout the state.
|The University of Queensland, Great Court Complex has a special association with the work of Hennessy, Hennessy & Co, prominent Australian architects with offices in Brisbane and Sydney, who were responsible for designing a number of institutional and educational complexes throughout Australia during the 1920's and 30's. The original design for the university is regarded as their most aspiring proposal in Queensland and although not completed in its entirely, the Great Court complex part of the University generally conforms to the original plan.
The Great Court Complex also has a strong association with the notable craftsman, John Theodore Muller, a German stonemason responsible for completing much of the Great Court sculpture between 1939 and 1953 including the statues, friezes on the Forgan Smith and Steele Buildings: the distinctive frieze of prehistoric life on the Richards Building; and about half of the grotesques, coats of arms, arches and roundels. The sculptured works form an integral part of the Great Court Complex and represent an immense undertaking in stone.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15801,"place_ref":601026,"name":"Hanworth","alternate_name":"The Hospice | Hanworth","street_address":"109 Lytton Road","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-12-21","description":"Hanworth is a single-storeyed 1860s masonry residence with timber and masonry extensions, standing on a rise above Lytton Road. A drive leads from the Lytton Road to the main entrance, which faces north. There is a garden between Lytton Road and the building, which includes a lawn area and a number of pine trees.
The original section of Hanworth is a single-storeyed, U-shaped, unpainted redbrick building, with characteristics demonstrating a Georgian influence. The principal elevation faces north with a broad verandah running around the northern, eastern and western perimeter of the building. The original building is only one room in depth. The hipped roof and separate verandah roof are sheeted with corrugated iron. At each end of the roof is a moulded brick chimney. It is substantially intact with most of its original glazing, joinery and hardware.
The verandah has a timber floor and elegant cast-iron grille columns supporting the concave roof. The underside of the verandah roof is lined with tongue and groove boards. A timber hand rail and modern wrought iron balustrade run between the columns. The main doorway is in the centre of the northern facade with three sets of french doors to the east and two sets of french doors and a bay window to the west. All the french doors have external shutters.
From the northern verandah the large two-panelled front door leads to the entry hall which runs through to a rear door. The open verandah that ran around the internal section of the U has been enclosed. The drawing room opens from the right of the entry hall. It has a fine white marble fireplace surround and an internal door that leads to the dining room. The dining room has a large bay window and a black marble fireplace surround. The drawing and dining rooms contain pieces of furniture, sideboards, chairs and tables which probably date from the period of the conversion of Hanworth into a home for gentlewomen.
The dining room forms the north-west corner of the building. Behind it is the western wing containing the kitchen and a timber bedroom section. The kitchen is in the 1860s building, although this is probably not the original kitchen as there is no evidence of a chimney. The gabled timber section of the wing probably dates from the conversion to institutional use and contains 7 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Internally the walls are tongue and groove and the casement windows have diamond patterned glazing bars. A besser block laundry is at the end of this wing.
To the left of the entry hall three bedrooms open onto the northern verandah; two of the bedrooms have been created by subdividing one of the original bedrooms. The eastern wing contains three bedrooms and an office. A staircase leads to an attic above the 1860s building. The attic addition has three dormer windows and although not part of the original design probably dates from the Heath's occupation of the house. At the rear of the eastern wing is a two-storeyed, inter-war masonry addition which contains bedrooms and bathrooms.
","history":"Hanworth, a substantial, brick, single-storeyed residence near Norman Creek at East Brisbane, was erected in 1864-65 for Lieutenant George Poynter Heath, RN, Portmaster of Queensland and member of the Marine Board, and his family. It was designed by early Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw.
Hanworth originally stood on just over 7½ acres, first alienated by a Sydney land speculator in 1851. The land fronted the main road to Lytton, had a substantial frontage to Norman Creek, and from the highest point near the Lytton Road, possessed excellent views of the Humbug Reach of the Brisbane River, overlooking New Farm. In July 1863 Heath purchased this land for £241/8/-. It was close to a number of fine residences already established along Humbug Reach, including Eskgrove [600187] (occupied by the Heaths from at least May 1861), Riversdale [Mowbray Park - 600189] and Shafston House [600241] upstream, and Bulimba House [600179] further downstream.
GP Heath [1830-1921] was born at Hanworth in Norfolk, England, second son of Rev. Charles Heath and Mary Anne Poynter. Educated at Cheltenham College, he joined the navy as a cadet in 1845. In 1846-53 he served in HMS Rattlesnake (under Owen Stanley till 1850) and in the Fantome and the Calliope on the Australian station. On his return to England he worked at the Admiralty drawing charts of areas surveyed by the Rattlesnake. Late in 1859 he applied for the government post of marine surveyor in the new colony of Queensland and was appointed. On 23 February 1860, before sailing for Queensland, he married Elizabeth Jane Innes. They arrived in Brisbane in late August 1860, and Heath immediately took up his appointment with the Department of the Surveyor-General.
The early 1860s were formative years for the new colony. One of the first actions of the colonial government was to establish a Select Committee on Government Departments [1860], which recommended that a Portmaster be appointed to take overall charge of the Harbour Master's Department, and the appointment of GP Heath as Portmaster of Queensland, a position he held for nearly 30 years, was made in January 1862. During his long tenure, Heath was responsible for supervising the opening of 13 new ports [including Townsville and Cairns], establishing 33 lighthouses, 6 lightships and 150 small lights, and marking 450 miles of the inner route through the Barrier Reef. In 1862, the colonial government also established the Marine Board of Queensland, comprising the Portmaster of the colony and four other members. From 1869, when he retired from the Royal Navy as a Commander, until his Queensland retirement in 1890, GP Heath was Chairman of the Marine Board. He was also active in Anglican work, serving as chairman of various committees in Synod from 1876 to 1889. For many years he held a commission of the peace. He is memorialised in East Brisbane in Heath and Hanworth Streets and Heath Park.
Work on the construction of Hanworth had been commenced by 16 July 1864. The Heaths were prominent members of Brisbane society, and the architect they chose to design their new home was equally well-known and successful. James Cowlishaw practised architecture in Brisbane from 1860 until c1890, when he retired to devote his attention to his many other business interests, including ownership of The Telegraph newspaper. In the early 1860s he established himself as Brisbane's first successful architect in private practice, and at the time Hanworth was under construction, Cowlishaw had a dozen other major projects underway, including Oakwal [600345], the fine stone residence commissioned by Queensland's then Chief Justice, Sir James Cockle. The Heaths were still resident at Eskgrove in November 1864 when their third child was born, but had left by August 1865 and certainly had occupied Hanworth by the time twin sons were born in July 1866. It is likely they moved into Hanworth in the first half of 1865.
Hanworth was the Heath family's home for nearly 25 years. They moved amongst Brisbane's highest society, and entertained frequently; at the reception held at Hanworth on the marriage of their daughter Cecelia Georgina in 1886, guests included the Governor and Lady Musgrave, the Premier and Mrs Griffith, Treasurer James Dickson, Mr Justice and Mrs Harding, several high-ranking government officials and officers of visiting ships. On 30 June 1890, Commander Heath retired from the position of Portmaster of Queensland. Although the family returned to England soon afterwards, Hanworth remained in Heath's [and later his daughters'] possession, and by 1891 was leased by Brisbane bank manager, [later stock and share broker], Alexander Henry Hudson and his family. The Hudsons resided at Hanworth for about 22 years, and were still in occupation when the property was advertised for sale in October 1909. At this time the house was described as a Substantial Brick Structure, containing 8 rooms and all offices, with 7½ acres of land, having long frontage to the main Lytton road and Norman Creek. [Brisbane Courier 2/10/1909:9:1] The property did not sell, however, and in early 1912, after the Hudsons had moved to Kangaroo Point, was put up for auction as the Hanworth Estate, subdivided into 57 residential allotments. A number of the vacant allotments sold at this time, but the house remained unoccupied until acquired by Mrs Mary Marguerite Wienholt, who obtained title in July 1913. The grounds had been reduced to just over 3 roods, and did not include the former tennis court.
Mrs Wienholt was a member of the Brisbane branch of the Theosophical Society, established in New York in 1875 with the aims of universal brotherhood and the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science. At Hanworth in 1913, Mrs Wienholt established, in memory of her mother, a home for elderly, impoverished gentlewomen, and re-named the place The Hospice. Mrs Wienholt took a strong personal interest in the running of the home until handing over the place in mid-1927 to the Brisbane Theosophical Society, which continued to operate the home according to her wishes, for nearly 70 years. It was sold in 1995 to the Anglican Church, which has re-named it the Hanworth Home for the Aged. The place still accommodates only women.
A description of the house in 1930 suggested that the conversion to a hospice and nursing home in the early 20th century did not substantially alter the 1860s core. Most of the rooms in the long brick front wing remained intact, although one of the large bedrooms had been partitioned into two. A hallway ran from the front entrance [facing north/northeast] to the rear verandah. To the left were the bedrooms [some with marble mantelpieces]; to the right was the drawing room, and beyond that a large bow-windowed dining room, with doors opening onto side and rear verandahs. The drawing and dining rooms had back-to-back fireplaces, with marble mantelpieces. Side wings ran back from each end of the front section, creating a small U-shaped courtyard in which a grove of mandarine trees had been established. The east wing contained an attic room with gabled windows, which was accessed via a small lobby and staircase at the southern end of the wing. The grounds contained a number of mature pine trees of different varieties, and roses and creeping plants climbed the ornamental iron verandah posts.
The principal alterations appear to have been the construction, by 1918, of a timber wing off the west wing at the rear of the house - probably associated with the hospice conversion and possibly occupying the site of a former kitchen wing - and an inter-war two-storeyed brick addition at the south end of the east wing.
","criteria":"Hanworth, erected in 1864-65, is important in illustrating the early development of East Brisbane, and remains one of the suburb's earliest surviving houses. Like nearby Eskgrove [600187], Mowbray Park [600189], and Shafston House [600241], Hanworth, with its former frontage to Norman Creek and views of the Brisbane River, remains important surviving evidence of the fine riverine estates which lined the Humbug Reach of the Brisbane River in the mid-19th century.
|Hanworth, erected in 1864-65, is important in illustrating the early development of East Brisbane, and remains one of the suburb's earliest surviving houses.
|It also has potential to reveal further information about 1860s building techniques in Brisbane, and about the work of early Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw.
|The grounds have been reduced considerably, but the house survives as one of the most intact 1860s residences in Brisbane, and is an excellent example of its type. The simple U-shaped building with its hipped roof, concave verandah, cast-iron columns and red brick, retains the elegant symmetry and proportion of a Georgian-influence design. Internally the planning and proportions of the rooms are still evident and a substantial amount of original fabric remains, particularly joinery, which includes doors, windows, shutters, architraves and skirtings.
|The earliest section of Hanworth is important in exhibiting a number of aesthetic and architectural features. Its picturesque siting on a rise allowed for views up and down the Brisbane River and along Norman Creek.
|The place is important for its long and close association with George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland, who, during his long tenure of office [1862 to 1890], oversaw the establishment of many of Queensland's principal ports, and made the Queensland coast safer for navigation with the erection of an extensive network of lighthouses, lightships, small lights and markers. The place is significant also for its long association with the work of Mary Marguerite Wienholt and the Brisbane Theosophical Society in aged care for women.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15803,"place_ref":601028,"name":"West End Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"89 Ingham Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"The building lies on the corner of Ingham Road and Jane Street. It comprises a 2 storey rectangular building with a splayed corner, constructed in brick with timber floors and a corrugated iron hipped roof. There is a detached single storey rectangular building to the rear [kitchen]constructed in brick with a corrugated iron hipped roof. There are extensive modern mono-pitch extensions to the rear of the building which link to the detached kitchen block. The main building has a 2 storey timber verandah and awning to Ingham Road and Jane Street frontages, partly enclosed at first floor level with recent glazing and lattice work. It has a decorative timber balustrade of a 'union jack' design. The awning has timber posts with a simple timber slat curved valance between each post which is a recent addition to the awning. The roofs of the verandah and awning are of corrugated iron. The brick work is laid in English bond. The original red bricks have been painted over
The ground floor front elevation has an asymmetrical design with four original double timber and glazed casement doors with fanlights over to the west of the principal access door, and two modern solid timber doors with fanlights to the east. The splayed corner of the building has a modern timber door, while the side elevation to Jane Street has two modern solid timber doors with fanlights over. The west end elevation is of solid brick, while the rear elevation has three door openings and a window.
The first floor front elevation is also asymmetrical with four original timber and glazed casement doors with fanlights over to the west of the main public access door onto the verandah, and two original timber and glazed casement doors with fanlights over to the east. The enclosed side elevation was not inspected. [Early photographs indicate a casement door in the splayed corner and two casement doors to the side]. The west slide elevation has a single window, while the rear elevation has a door blocked door opening and six windows opening with modern louvre glazing.
The detached kitchen building has three door openings and a window to the south front elevation, and a substantial chimney to the west side elevation.
Internally the ground floor comprises a main access hall providing access to the staircase and rooms either side. To the west are two full depth rooms, linked by a large opening in the dividing wall, now used as pool rooms. To the east is a bar, with a comparatively modern u-shaped bar fitting. To the rear of the main building are a number of single storey mono-pitched rooms, comprising bar and kitchen accommodation, and toilets.
The timber staircase is of a simple design with a single run to a middle landing and a return run to the first floor landing. It has simple timber slat balusters. The first floor comprises the main access hall giving public access to the verandah, and until recently to a first floor rear extension [toilets] which has been demolished. To the west is a central corridor giving access to three bedrooms on either side. The doors are of timber with four panels. To the east is the residential quarters of the manager. This appears to have been formed by adapting the original four bedrooms off a central corridor. Two of the bedrooms and the corridor have been opened up to form a kitchen/lounge and while the others remain in use as bedrooms. The enclosed verandah was not inspected. The walls and ceilings have been covered over at a later date with sheeting and battens.
While there have clearly been changes, the overall form, design and interior layout of the building survives. It retains a majority of original timber and glazed casement doors to the ground and first floor, and other joinery details.
","history":"West End Hotel was constructed in 1885 by Townsville builder Peter Dean , who was also the first licensee.
Early settlement in Townsville spread along the beach in the present North Ward area, with the commercial centre located along the bank of Ross Creek (Flinders Street). As the town developed, settlement spread further along Flinders Street to the area which became known as West End. By 1868 a cemetery had been established in the area and by 1878 the Carriers Arms Hotel, a soap works, a foundry, commercial buildings and a large estate held by Frederick Ashton, were located at West End.
By the time West End Hotel was constructed in 1885, Townsville had grown to a thriving supply town for the pastoralists and miners in North Queensland. It had a port and was connected to Charters Towers and Hughenden by rail.
The West End Hotel was constructed in 1885 by Townsville builder and first licensee, Peter Dean. The hotel was built on Ingham Road opposite the Pastoral and Agricultural Society Showgrounds and close to the Racecourse. Located on the edge of the township, the hotel was on the road which led over Hervey's Range to the stations in the interior, a location which made it the first point of call for travellers arriving from the bush.
The two storeyed building was constructed of brick with a concrete floor throughout the ground level. On the ground floor there was a bar, three sitting rooms, a large dining room and a billiard room with a large, new table. Upstairs there was a large parlour, eight bedrooms and a bathroom. The timber balustraded balcony overlooked the showgrounds and the mountains to the south and west.
Special accommodation was provided at the rear for race horses. There were ten secure and well ventilated loose boxes as well as ordinary stabling for travellers' horses. The proximity of the hotel to the race track ensured that the accommodation was full during the racing season. By 1886 the showgrounds were in regular use for sports meetings and the hotel was the venue for the presentation of prizes in 1886. It was also the terminus for the West End Omnibus Line which travelled between Tattersalls Hotel, Flinders Street East and West End Hotel.
Townsville continued to expand with settlement spreading along the new, south western road to the goldfields at Ravenswood and Charters Towers. Commercial development along Charters Towers Road meant that West End was no longer a centre of business. Suburban development did not spread beyond West End until after World War II although the hotel continued to provide a service for travellers reaching town from the west and north west.
The hotel would have been very busy during WW11 because of its location close to an Australian Construction Corp camp at West End Cemetery. Although there are still rooms for rent, the hotel does not cater for the travelling public any more. However, it has continued to be a well patronised hotel, particularly during Townsville Show Week.
The building has been damaged by three cyclones since it was constructed and, while it has been restored, some components have been changed or lost including recent changes to the profile of the street awning.
","criteria":"Built in 1885, it demonstrates the town limits at that time, and its location has a strong association with the Showground and railway line. The building is important as a premises which has operated as an hotel since 1885 and as such has a strong association with the growth and expansion of Townsville.
|The building is important as a rare surviving example of an intact balconied hotel in North Queensland, very few hotels survive with their balconies intact and of these fewer survive with an intact 1880s balustrade.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15804,"place_ref":601029,"name":"School House","alternate_name":"Townsville Grammar School","street_address":"Paxton Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-12-31","description":"The T-shaped building is a two storeyed brick and timber structure with the majority of the brickwork painted dark brown except for a small section of the front verandah of the upper storey. The front of the School House faces NNE towards the Strand with a wing projecting at right angles towards Castle Hill from behind the centre front. A dominant feature of the internal architecture of the building is an archway in the centre of the back wing on both levels. The archway on the upper level is smaller and the supporting walls extend into the room further than the one on the lower level. There is also evidence in a filled in wall in the boarding masters' room on the lower level of another small archway. The rooms on both levels have tongue and groove ceilings with the ceiling on the lower level much higher than the upper one.
The building features partly enclosed verandahs on both levels. The WNW end of the verandah at the front of the upper storey of the building has been enclosed with tongue and groove boards to create a bathroom. Also on the upper level the WNW/SSW corner section of the verandah has been enclosed to form a room. Glass louvres feature prominently in this section. The balustrading of the remaining verandah on the SSW and WNW sides of the upper level have been enclosed using fibrolite. Verandah ceilings on the upper storey are lined with wide tongue and groove boards and the floors are of hardwood. The verandah posts have been stop chamfered on the edges with two mouldings, a smaller neck mould and a larger capping mould, placed around the post above the stop chamfering, so that the finished verandah post reflected classical influence. A frieze of timber battens defines the lower verandahs on the NNE, SSW and WNW sides of the building extending from under the upper storey. The WNW verandah on the lower level has been partly enclosed using cement breeze blocks which adjoin a two storey rendered block building that abuts the School House and houses bathrooms for the boarders. The upper level bathroom is at the level oft e staircase landing. The balustrading on the upper storey of the front of the building is vertical dowel elaborated by the addition of a second horizontal rail just below the top handrail with dowels finishing at either top or lower rail to create a regular pattern.
The corrugated iron roof appears reasonably new. The roof of the front wing is a hipped roof with a small gable introduced into the centre edge of each end and on the centre front edge. A finial projects through each of these. This gable and finial also exists in the centre edge of the roof on the SSW side of the building. The verandah roofs are stepped down from the main roof structure.
The steps on the NNE and WNW sides of the building appear to be cement rendered. The School House building features solid timber french doors however the ones on the upper level opening onto the verandah are glass and timber. Most french doors have fanlight windows above them. There are also a couple of heavy timber panelled doors. The original front entrance door has been replaced by a glass sliding door, however a panel of the original etched glass that would have surrounded the front door is still visible. Glass and metal louvres have replaced the original windows in the building however an original sash window still exists at the front of the building on the upper storey. Two window openings on the WNW side of the building have been bricked up however the flat arches of these window openings are still visible in the brickwork. The building and an older metal ladder at the ESE end of the front verandah. For comfort some modern features have been added to the building.
","history":"The present School House building at Townsville Grammar School was built in 1903- 4 to a design by Townsville architects Tunbridge and Tunbridge. It replaced an 1888 FDG Stanley-designed building which was severely damaged by cyclone Leonta on 9 March 1903. While sympathetic to the Stanley design, the Tunbridge and Tunbridge building was strengthened to resist future cyclones.
The Townsville Grammar School had opened in 1888, founded on the subscriptions of a number of influential members of North Queensland society including Robert Philp, Isaac Tyson, and Thankful Willmett. It was the last and most northerly of Queensland's grammar schools and gathered students from the vast area of North Queensland and overseas, providing the closest access to secondary education for children gaining grammar school scholarships in North Queensland.
The Queensland Grammar Schools Act 1860, under which the Townsville Grammar School was established, was modelled on the Sydney Grammar Schools Act 1854, and provided government support for the establishment of grammar schools in the colony of Queensland. Schools established under this Act provided the only government-subsidised secondary education available in Queensland until the introduction of free high school education in 1912. The 1860 Act provided that where local communities raised £1,000 the government would contribute another £2,000 toward the establishment of a grammar school, with a further £250 endowment annually when school fees of £250 per annum were guaranteed for 3 years. An amendment to this Act in 1864 increased the amount to be raised to £2,000, the guaranteed fees to £500 and the endowment to £1,000. Their curriculum and philosophy was based on the English tradition of liberal education and included sport, as well as classical and modern studies. In contrast to the southern colonies, Queensland's grammar schools were established along secular lines, providing secondary education for all classes and denomination...without any distinction. In support of this principal, grammar school scholarships were awarded on academic merit to eligible students in their final year of primary education.
Townsville Grammar School opened in 1888 as a boys' school, but the school has accepted female students since 1893 when Mary Foley applied for admission. There was much debate over the admission of girls, some parents considering them to be a disruptive influence on the boys' academic studies and that their admission would require expenditure on building modifications. However others saw the financial benefit of their admission in a time of economic depression, when declining student numbers threatened the loss of their annual Government endowment.
As the establishment of co-education was not specifically covered by the 1860 Act or 1864 Amendment there was no legal basis for refusing the admission of girls and the Under Secretary for Public Instruction advised that it was a matter for the Trustees to consider. Mr. Hodges, the Headmaster, stated he was willing to admit girls to the School citing the success of such schools in America as evidence for his decision. After consultation with parents, it was resolved that girls holding Grammar Scholarships would be admitted to the school as day students until such time as a Girls' Grammar School was established. However by 1905 the idea of establishing a Girls' Grammar School had been abandoned due to financial constraints and co-education at Townsville Grammar School was adopted as a matter of principle.
Townsville Grammar School's adoption of co-education from 1893, distinguished it from other grammar schools in Queensland where separate boys' and girls' schools were established. Over the years a number of girls who have attended Townsville Grammar have achieved distinction: Agnes McWhinney who attended the school in 1906 became the first female solicitor in Queensland in 1915, and in 1944 Shirley Richards won the Byrnes medal for the best Junior pass in Queensland.
When the 1888 Townsville Grammar School building was damaged in 1903, the Trustees borrowed £3,000 from the government to rebuild. Lieut.-Colonel WH Tunbridge, a leading North Queensland architect and civil engineer, was responsible for the rebuilding of the School House building, as well as the reconstruction of other Townsville buildings. In the restoration and rebuilding of these buildings the effects of cyclonic winds were taken into account. Evidence suggests that the School House building was completely dismantled and rebuilt using some of the same bricks. To strengthen the building Tunbridge, who was a pioneer of the use of concrete in Australia, used cement based mortar, instead of the more common lime, to lay the bricks in the new building. He also increased the thickness of the main walls to 18 inches below the surface and the 14 inches above. The roof appeared less steeply pitched and is said to have been braced with steel which created greater strength against future cyclones. His design was sympathetic to the original Stanley design and copied the T-shaped layout, however the new building was more tropical in appearance. It was considered a cooler better planned school building and featured wide verandahs on both levels which were used for sleeping in hot weather. This potential was advertised in the 1922 Illustrated Prospectus. Until 1940 all lessons, except for science, were conducted on the lower level of the School House building while the upper level provided dormitories for some of the boarders.
Like other schools in Townsville, Townsville Grammar was commandeered during the Second World War. The RAAF took over the buildings and grounds in February 1942 and its No.3 Fighter Sector HQ, which monitored and identified aircraft in the region and initiated air-raid warnings, were stationed at the school. Aerials and wires were visible on the roofs of the buildings, and huts were set up on the ovals to house members of the WAAAF. Meanwhile, the School moved into premises at Rosslea until January 1945, and did not regain full use of the whole grounds until later that year.
Since the 1950s the School has expanded dramatically both in student numbers and physically, with the School House building now virtually surrounded by other buildings. Classes are no longer taught in School House, which currently comprises two floors of accommodation for boarders and boarding masters. Modern bathrooms were added in 1955.
Over the years Townsville Grammar School has achieved academic distinction, with two past students awarded Rhodes Scholarships: GFE Hall in 1910 and Chester Parker in 1938.
","criteria":"The School House, erected 1903-4 as the Townsville Grammar School and as a replacement for the cyclone-damaged 1888 grammar school building on the same site, is important in demonstrating the history of education and the development of grammar schools in Queensland. Townsville Grammar School, opened in 1888, was the only grammar school established in North Queensland, and played an important role in the provision of subsidised secondary education to the North Queensland community, prior to the establishment of state secondary schools. It is also the longest surviving co-educational grammar school in Queensland. The place is also important to the history of Queensland because of its role as an aircraft monitoring and air raid warning centre during the Second World War.
|School House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century grammar school building, including provision for boarders.
|The building is important also in demonstrating the aesthetic achievements of early 20th century tropical architecture.
|The building is important also in demonstrating the technical achievements of early 20th century tropical architecture.
|School House has a special association with the Townsville community and the community of the Townsville Grammar School for social and cultural reasons.
|The place also has a special association with the work of WH Tunbridge, one of North Queensland's leading architects and engineers in the late19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15808,"place_ref":601033,"name":"Boggo Road Gaol Complex","alternate_name":"Boggo Road Gaol: No. 2 Division and Remnant No. 1 Division | State Prison for Women | No.2 Division Brisbane Correctional Centre","street_address":"150 Annerley Road","suburb":"DUTTON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-02-15","description":"Boggo Road Gaol Complex comprises a group of brick buildings and associated outdoor spaces, which formed the State Prison for Women (later called No. 2 Division), and remnants of the demolished No. 1 Division. The place occupies a large site on the rise of a gently sloping hill in Dutton Park, approximately 3km south of Brisbane central business district. Prominently fronting Boggo Road to the north, the site is bounded on its other sides by Annerley Road (west), Peter Doherty Street and Boggo Road Gaol Park (south), and a pedestrian thoroughfare and the ‘Ecosciences Precinct’ (east). The heritage boundary also includes part of Boggo Road Gaol Park, and the Annerley Road, Boggo Road, and Peter Doherty Street road reserves.
\nThe prison complex is largely secured by a tall Perimeter Wall, with primary access provided through a Gatehouse at the north. The Gatehouse accommodates the Entrance Vestibule and the Matron’s Quarters and Warders’ Quarters (accessed from the outer, non-secure side of the perimeter Wall). Standing to the eastern side of the Gatehouse is the Visitor Centre, added in 1987. Attached to the southwestern corner of the Perimeter Wall is the Sentry Cabin and Tower, overlooking the complex. Around the inside of the Perimeter Wall runs the Sterile Zone, an open track separating the prison’s inner buildings and yards from the Perimeter Wall. At the northern end of the complex is a central Quadrangle, flanked by two buildings: the single storey Receiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building (to its east); and the two storey Hospital and Offices Building (to its west). At the southern end of the complex is the central Parade Ground, surrounded by three, three-storey cell block buildings, and fenced exercise yards.
\nRemnants of the demolished No. 1 Division are at the northeastern corner of the complex.
\nFeatures of Boggo Road Gaol Complex of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nState Prison for Women (No. 2 Division)
\nPerimeter Wall, Sentry Cabin and Tower, and Sterile Zone
\nThe tall, face brick Perimeter Wall (1903) is arranged in a rounded rectangular plan form. To its upper half, the width of the brickwork tapers in, and squared face brick pilasters are expressed at regular intervals. The wall is topped with a rounded concrete cap, and is set on a base of Brisbane tuff.
\nWrapping around the inner side of the Perimeter Wall is the Sterile Zone – a band of open space, used as a security measure to facilitate clear observation of the prison. On its inner side, the Sterile Zone is generally defined by recent metal chain-wire fences (formerly timber) and cell block walls. Two gable-roofed sentry boxes, formerly located within the Sterile Zone, are retained within the complex.
\nAttached to the southwest corner of the Perimeter Wall, a Sentry Cabin and Tower (1903, extended 1955) overlooks the complex. It has an octagonal plan-form, and comprises a face brick tower base, integrated with the Perimeter Wall, that supports a timber-framed cabin (observation booth) on top of the wall. Accessed by a spiral stair within the base, the cabin is flanked by walkways that follow the curve of and cantilever over the wall below. The walkways retain their 1955 roof addition and extension.
\nFeatures of the Perimeter Wall, Sentry Cabin and Tower, and Sterile Zone also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Perimeter Wall, Sentry Cabin and Tower, and Sterile Zone not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nGatehouse, including Entrance Vestibule, Matron’s Quarters, and Warders’ Quarters
\nMarking the formal entrance at the north end of the prison complex is the Gatehouse, a face brick building that accommodates the Entrance Vestibule, a double-height central open cartway space, the two-storey Matron’s Quarters on the east side of the Entrance Vestibule, and the two-storey Warders’ Quarters on its west
\nThe front (north) elevation is symmetrical, featuring a large gateway into the Entrance Vestibule with lunette over, and a central rendered parapet with the lettering ‘HM PRISON for –MEN’ (originally ‘HM PRISON for WOMEN’). To each side of the gateway are triangular parapeted end pavilions, accommodating the Matron’s Quarters and Warders’ Quarters with verandahs to their outer sides featuring brick end walls. The front elevation features a well-proportioned composition, with wide corner pilasters, string courses and headers of contrasting red-brown and cream coloured face bricks, expressed circular vents, arched wall openings, and a symmetrical window arrangement. The south elevation is unadorned, presenting as a uniform face brick wall, with windows, doors, and a central arched opening.
\nEntrance Vestibule
\nThe Entrance Vestibule is a rectangular, double-height room with a hip roof. It is the primary entrance into the gaol, separates the interior and exterior of the complex, and is secured by tall, iron gates at its north and south ends. A concrete step runs along each long side of the interior, and doors and windows open onto the space from the Matron’s Quarters and Warders’ Quarters (there is evidence that some openings have been altered). A small, arched opening located high up in the southern wall formerly housed the prison bell (bracket remains, but the bell has been removed).
\nMatron’s Quarters and Warders’ Quarters
\nThe Matron’s Quarters and Warders’ Quarters are two-storey, L-shaped parts of the Gatehouse, mirrored in plan, flanking the Entrance Vestibule. They have gable and hip main roofs and separate skillion verandah roofs.
\nThe ground floor of the Matron’s Quarters comprises a northern former sitting room, separated by a stair from a central non-contact visits room (former dining room), with a southern spiral stair (1985-87) and toilet (former visitor’s room); and waiting rooms and visitor toilets to the east (former kitchen, and servant’s rooms). The building’s first floor features two hallways – one running north-south and the other east-west – accessing three northern rooms (formerly one room), two central rooms (formerly one room), and three rooms, two bathrooms, and a spiral stair at the south (formerly two bedrooms and a bathroom).
\nThe ground floor of the Warders’ Quarters comprises a northern armoury (former office), central visitor waiting room (former dining room), and southern storerooms and stair; with a western room and toilet (former kitchen and store). A hall running north-south along the eastern side of the first floor accesses three rooms (aligned north-south) and a southern room adjacent the stair. From this southern room, a short hall runs west to the stair and a large western room. Two openings to the ground floor verandah have been filled in (openings remain discernible).
\nA free-standing, face brick, skillion-roofed former toilet and laundry block stands to the west of the Warders’ Quarters (a matching toilet block east of the Matron’s Quarters has been demolished).
\nFeatures of the Gatehouse, including the Entrance Vestibule, Matron’s Quarters, and Warders’ Quarters also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Gatehouse, including the Entrance Vestibule, Matron’s Quarters, and Warders’ Quarters not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nQuadrangle
\nThe Quadrangle is a rectangular, flat, open space entered from the Gatehouse at the north and Parade Ground at the south. It provides access to a single-storey, brick building (the Receiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building) on its eastern side, and a two-storey, brick building (the Hospital and Offices Building) on its western side.
\nFeatures of the Quadrangle also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Quadrangle not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nReceiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building (later a Bakery, Library, Recreation Room, Legal Visits Rooms, and Dormitory)
\nThe Receiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building is a single-storey, brick building, located to the east of the Quadrangle. The earliest sections of the building form an L-shaped plan, on two sides of a rear (eastern) service yard, that has been built on with later additions (counselling rooms and store). The building’s western (front) elevation features a verandah, later enclosed.
\nInternally, the main wing of the building (running north-south along the Quadrangle) comprises a northern receiving room and bathroom, and a long, large southern room (originally two stores, a scullery, and kitchen). Wall nibs and changes in the brick walls of the southern room indicate its original layout and openings. The southern wing of the building (running east-west), is the former laundry (later a bakery).
\nThe building has undergone several changes to its fabric and layout since construction, including the enclosure of its western verandah for visitors’ boxes (legal visits rooms), removal of its eastern (rear) verandah (and replacement with counselling rooms), removal of its tall brick chimney, and the alteration of some interior partitions. A cream-coloured exterior face brick wall to the north side of the former laundry room indicates the former location of ovens (added for the room’s use a bakery, and subsequently removed).
\nFeatures of the Receiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Receiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nHospital and Offices Building (later Warders’ Recreation Area)
\nLocated to the west of the Quadrangle is the two-storey, brick Hospital and Offices Building. The building is rectangular in plan, with its long sides facing east and west. Its eastern (front) elevation features a verandah along the ground floor, and its western elevation originally opened onto two exercise yards (now Yard 7A, early openings have been enclosed).
\nInternally, the ground floor comprises a northern stair, a central room (formerly magistrate’s office), and three southern rooms (formerly two rooms: warders’ office and debtor’s office). A single-storey former dispensary room projects from the rear of the building, to the west of the stair. The first floor features a large southern room (former hospital ward), with a former warders’ room and bathroom to its north accessed by an eastern hall.
\nSome of the building fabric has been replaced following a fire in 1996 (particularly to the celling of the large southern room and former warders’ room to the first floor).
\nFeatures of the Hospital and Offices Building also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Hospital and Offices Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nParade Ground and Cartway
\nThe Parade Ground is a flat, open space at the centre of the prison complex, entered via the Quadrangle at its north. Six sided, the perimeter of the Parade Ground is formed by the front elevations of three Cell Blocks, and their surrounding fenced Exercise Yards. A shelter shed stands at its centre, which incorporates part of an original lamp post.
\nThe Cartway is a narrow lane that runs eastwards from the Parade Ground, between the Receiving Room, Kitchen, and Laundry Building and Cell Block D, to the Sterile Zone.
\nFeatures of the Parade Ground and Cartway also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Parade Ground and Cartway not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCell Blocks
\nThree Cell Blocks (Cell Blocks D, E, and F) are positioned in a radiating plan around the central Parade Ground and are separated by fenced Exercise Yards. The three-storey face brick buildings are rectangular in plan form, with their short (front) side facing toward the Parade Ground (Cell Block D west; Cell Block E northwest; and Cell Block F northeast). Blocks E and F largely feature the same detailing, while Block D differs somewhat due to its 1930 conversion from a workshop block.
\nThe interiors of the Cell Blocks contain a full-height central gallery, connecting 42 separate cells. The upper-level walkways running the perimeter of and through the central galleries are constructed of metal (iron) to Block E and F, and those to Block D, are of concrete. Stairs at the rear end of the galleries provide access to each floor.
\nEach cell comprises a small, rectangular space with a curved ceiling; concrete floor; heavy metal door; and an un-glazed, barred window opening. Many cells feature graffiti that dates from the later period of the prison’s use.
\nFeatures of the Cell Blocks also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Cell Blocks not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nExercise Yards
\nNine Exercise Yards (originally ten yards) are located between and adjacent to the three cell blocks and the Hospital and Offices Building, including two small yards to the rear of Cell Block E and Cell Block F. The yards are unroofed spaces that are secured by brick walls and metal wire fences (originally timber fences). Apart from the yards directly behind Cell Block E and Cell Block F, each yard features a skillion-roofed toilet block, and a metal-framed shelter shed dating to the later period of the prison’s operation. The concrete slab ground surfaces are built up over earlier layers, and marks in the concrete indicate the former location of earlier shelter sheds (now removed).
\nA sanitary yard to the rear (southwest) of Cell Block F retains features related to the washing and drying of sanitary tubs/buckets. It includes two timber-framed shelter sheds: a southwest shelter shed that features a concrete and a copper tub, brick piers (formerly supporting a hot water system and boiler), and a circular hole in the roof (indicating the former location of a flue); and a former shower block that is parallel and adjacent to the rear of Cell Block F (shower heads, water tank, and most plumbing has been removed). A sign painted on the yard’s eastern concrete block wall describes the ‘Procedure for washing sanitary tubs’.
\nThe yard to the rear of Cell Block E was originally un-fenced and was later converted for use as a plumbers’ shop (roofed), and a vulnerable persons’ exercise yard. It is only accessible via the Sterile Zone.
\nFeatures of the Exercise Yards also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Exercise Yards not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nRemnants of No. 1 Division
\nLocated in the northeastern corner of the complex are the Remnants of No. 1 Division, comprising a Watchtower and Detention Units Block.
\nWatchtower (c1969-78)
\nThe concrete Watchtower is approximately four storeys in height, and comprises a stairwell in its lower floors (constructed as part of No. 1 Division’s Hospital and Administration Block, c1969-72), which leads up to a later, skillion-roofed room (c1975-8). From this room, an overhead, open-sided concrete walkway (c1975-8) runs south to the roof of the Detention Units Block.
\nDetention Units Block (1974, ground floor cells 1988)
\nThe Detention Units Block is a narrow, three-storey concrete structure that is a remnant of the western end of the former Workshops and Services Building (1974). It has been substantially demolished and comprises: a narrow edge of a former basement room (originally part of a printing room, later a large gymnasium); remnants of a row of ground floor detention cells and their individual cell courtyards (one cell and its courtyard is retained whole; others retain the courtyard and only nibs of the cell walls), a western corridor (converted from a laundry in 1988), and a warder’s office in the northwest corner; and remnants of a row of first floor detention cells (comprising only nib walls of the former cells).
\nFeatures of the Remnants of No. 1 Division also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Remnants of No. 1 Division not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nVisitor Centre (1987)
\nThe Visitor Centre is a large building at the northeastern corner of the complex, to the eastern side of the Gatehouse that provided a secure space for prisoner contact visits (generally with family and friends). Its architectural design facilitated a more relaxed and family-friendly atmosphere than the prison proper, through the use of natural light, artificial turf, the former provision of a playground, and murals.
\nThe interior comprises a large contact visits room accessed from the west, with separate access for prisoners via a prisoner body search room and warders’ office at its southwest corner. The contact visits room is partially roofed and features a naturally-lit courtyard in the northwest corner, secured with a metal-framed cage-wire roof. Landscape murals (titled ‘A Sense of Freedom’, ‘A Lone’, and ‘Tranquility’ [sic]), painted by a former prisoner, Ray Wallace, are to the west, north, and east walls of the contact visits room, and are dated 1988.
\nFeatures of the Visitor Centre also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Visitor Centre not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSetting
\nThe complex is highly prominent in its streetscape due to its striking front elevation, tall Perimeter Wall, surrounding open space, and distinctive unified material palette that largely comprises red-brown and cream coloured face brick and corrugated metal.
\nOpen spaces to all sides provide a buffer from the public domain, and facilitate views to the complex, particularly from Annerley Road to the west, Boggo Road to the north, and Peter Doherty Street to the south, and allows the appreciation of the complex in the context of the city. The slope of the ground plane up to the complex from the surrounding roads emphasises the imposing presence of the former prison.
\nA stone retaining wall fronting the corner of Annerley and Boggo roads (east of the non-significant ‘Boggo Road Urban Village’ sign) is a remnant of a larger 1933-34 landscaping scheme.
\nThe former locations of timber picket fences to the north of the complex are no longer discernible.
\nFeatures of the Setting also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Setting not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBoggo Road Gaol Complex, comprising the former State Prison for Women (1903, and later called the No. 2 Division) and remnants from the demolished No. 1 Division (c1972-88), operated as Brisbane’s main prison during most of the 20th century. The site had served as a prison from 1883, when the men’s prison was opened. In 1903, the five buildings of the women’s prison were opened in their own enclave adjacent to the men’s. The women’s prison was designed and constructed to enable the operation of the ‘separate system’, a penological philosophy developed in the 19th century. In 1921, the women’s prison was converted to the No. 2 Division for men. It remained operational through the 20th century, while the 1883 prison (No. 1 Division) was demolished and replaced in the 1960s-70s, to reflect new legislation, design philosophies, and to overcome chronic overcrowding problems. After high-profile unrest in the 1980s and the condemnation of No. 2 Division (for not meeting modern prison and basic human rights standards), both No. 1 and No. 2 Divisions were closed by the early 1990s. No. 1 Division was largely demolished in 1995-6, retaining only remnants attached to the former No. 2 Division, which was retained intact.
\nQueensland’s gaol system
\nIncarceration developed as the primary form of punishment in Europe and America for those who transgressed the law from the late 17th century. Initially acting as temporary holding places for wrongdoers, prisons (known as gaols until 1890[1]) were later constructed to hold prisoners for longer terms, as other forms of punishment (particularly corporal) fell out of favour. The concept was an inherent component of European settlement of Australia, which began in 1788 with the establishment of a large open-air penal establishment for convicts shipped from England. Places of secondary punishment were established for reoffending convicts around the continent. This included the Moreton Bay Penal Colony, opened in 1825 (removed from Redcliffe 1824) at Meanjin, part of the land of the Yuggera and Turrbal people. While largely open-air, prisoners’ barracks and a Female Factory were built to accommodate and control convicts.[2]
\nFollowing free settlement for Europeans in Meanjin (Brisbane) from 1842, a prison was established at the former Female Factory in Queen Street (built 1829, converted and reopened 1849, closed 1860). Shortly after the separation of Queensland from the colony of New South Wales, a new purpose-built gaol was constructed on Petrie Terrace in 1860.[3] This was almost immediately overcrowded, and in 1866 a half-built quarantine station on St Helena Island was converted into a penal establishment to accommodate the overflow.[4] In 1880, with both prisons overpopulated, a site for a new Brisbane gaol was selected on Boggo Road in South Brisbane (now Dutton Park). The new prison – holding male prisoners on short-term sentences – was constructed and opened in 1883. Gaols were also built throughout the 19th century at a number of Queensland’s major towns to hold prisoners on short sentences, supplemented by police lock-ups at smaller towns.[5]
\nQueensland’s gaols were an integral part of a network of institutions that was established across the colony to receive and intern those who were perceived to have deviated from standard behaviour. Nineteenth and early 20th century solutions were to accommodate, control, and discipline such people away from society at a range of institutions, including prisons, mental hospitals, lazarets, asylums and Aboriginal ‘mission stations’. While some of these institutions were operated by charitable organisations, often with benevolent intentions, they rarely provided treatment, opportunities for reform, or a pathway for the incarcerated to leave the institution and rejoin accepted society. Queensland’s extant 19th century institutions include: mental hospitals at Wolston Park (QHR 600340), Ipswich (Challinor Centre, QHR 601821), and Toowoomba (Baillie Henderson, QHR 601161); the Peel Island lazaret (QHR 601901); Ward 13, Dunwich Benevolent Asylum (QHR 650265); the privately-operated Holy Cross Laundry (QHR 600359); and the Normanton Gaol (QHR 601501). None of Queensland’s 19th century prison complexes survive intact, with only ruins of the St Helena prison (within Saint Helena Island, QHR 600315) and some structures of the 1893 Townsville prison (Stewart’s Creek Gaol, QHR 601250) remaining.[6]
\nQueensland’s gaols operated on the ‘association’ system, allowing prisoners to intermingle freely in communal dormitories, workspaces, and yards. While 19th century theories considered criminality to be inherent and hereditary (thus to an extent inevitable),[7] concern was expressed that unconvicted (and potentially innocent) remand prisoners and first-time offenders would be corrupted into a life of crime by recidivists. In 1868 regulations were introduced to classify prisoners by nature of offence (felonies, misdemeanours, those awaiting trial, ‘lunatics’, and debtors), and keep them separate, ‘so far as the construction of the building and the necessities of the works and trades will admit’.[8] In Brisbane, long-term offenders were held at St Helena, with shorter term and remand prisoners at the Brisbane Gaol.[9]
\nWomen were also imprisoned separately from men. Queensland’s female prisoners were mostly convicted for offences such as drunkenness and prostitution. They were convicted in smaller numbers than males, but were considered more incorrigible and prone to recidivism.[10] From 1860 they were imprisoned in a wing of the Brisbane (Petrie Terrace) gaol, but, following complaints about the unsuitability of the conditions for female prisoners, the women were transferred to the former Toowoomba Court House (QHR 601315), converted to a gaol in 1870. A second female prison operated at the Fortitude Valley Police Gaol for short sentences, those on remand, or those awaiting transfer to Toowoomba.[11]
\nBy the 1880s, the subpar conditions at Queensland’s gaols were gaining public attention. All were overcrowded; prisoners’ living conditions were poor; and adherence to the strictest forms of prison philosophy was not obeyed.[12] Alleged abuses in discipline triggered a Parliamentary Inquiry into the management of the colony’s gaols in 1887. The inquiry found conditions at most of the gaols inadequate, and the female prison at Toowoomba was particularly condemned. Queensland’s comparatively high proportion of female prisoners was noted, which, along with the associated quarters, made the classification and separation of female prisoners impossible. This allowed career criminals to freely associate with – and corrupt – young first-time offenders, evidence of which the inquiry heard with concern.[13] Accordingly, the establishment of a new prison for women was recommended.[14]
\nOn 25 November 1890 the first Queensland Prisons Act was assented to, aiming to consolidate and amend the law relating to gaols, prisons, houses of correction, and penal establishments. This Act created a prisons department under the control of the Comptroller-General and clarified the distinction between a Police Gaol, being a specially proclaimed lock up or watch house, and a prison. The nomenclature of ‘prison’ was also adopted in place of ‘gaol’.[15]
\nRegulations were passed under the new Act in 1892, requiring the implementation of separate treatment for prisoners. Separate treatment, or the 'separate system', was born out of 19th century British penal philosophies espoused by prison reformers,[16] influenced by religious penitence theories, and adopted in a model prison at London’s Pentonville Prison (1842). The strictest form of separate treatment required a prisoner to be held in a cell in isolation, where they would eat, exercise, and work, and have no contact with other prisoners. This was occasionally modified to the ‘silent system’, in which prisoners could work together in a workroom but could not communicate with one another (more commonly used in America), or a combined classification and separation system, which grouped prisoners by type of crime, length of sentence or number of reoffences, and allowed prisoners within the class to communicate only with one another. As well as encouraging penitence by leaving prisoners alone with their thoughts, the separate system sought to avoid the creation of a prisoner underclass. Through separation, theoretically, a first-time prisoner could not be tainted by hardened criminals, enticing them into a life of crime, or exchanging ideas of how to better commit crimes.[17]
\nThe 1892 regulations classified Queensland’s prisoners into eight classes, from reoffenders sentenced with or without hard labour, to first-timers sentenced with or without labour, to debtors and lunatics. All prisoners were required to be held in separate cells for at least the first three months of their sentence, then allowed only to associate with others within their class. Those with prison terms of less than 12 months would be required to spend the entire sentence under separate treatment. The classification applied both to women and men.[18]
\nState Prison for Women (1903-1921)
\nConstruction of new prisons implementing the separate system did not immediately follow, delayed by an economic depression which struck in the early 1890s. Simultaneously, conviction rates and prison admissions climbed through the late 1880s and early 1890s, further stressing accommodation at the existing prisons.[19] In 1893, a new prison at Stewart’s Creek in Townsville was opened, operating as the main prison for north Queensland and relieving some of the burden on Brisbane’s prison population.[20] Conditions in the women’s prisons did not substantially improve,[21] however, and residents of both Toowoomba and Fortitude Valley continued to complain about the presence of the prisons in their neighbourhoods.[22] In annual reports for 1895 and 1897, the Comptroller-General of Prisons recommended the construction of a new female prison on the Boggo Road reserve to replace the ‘old and ill-constructed’ Toowoomba prison, and ‘unsuitable and ill-situated’ Fortitude Valley gaol.[23] Designs for a new State Prison for Women were finally prepared between 1898 and 1901.[24] The prison would be the first designed to fully implement the separate system in Queensland.[25]
\nThe 82-cell[26] State Prison for Women was designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW), during an era when it was producing many high-quality public buildings. Between the 1870s and early 1900s the DPW, operating from Brisbane to design government buildings across Queensland, produced a remarkable and substantial body of high-quality civic buildings that were ‘equal to any in the country’, including customs houses, post offices, courthouses, police stations, and schools. By 1899 the DPW was a large team of 20 draftsmen, one junior draftsman, and acclaimed Queensland architects Thomas Pye, John Smith Murdoch, and George David Payne.[27] That year the DPW reported ‘one of the busiest periods in its history’, with plans being prepared for:
\nthe completion of the Treasury Buildings; for new Lands and Survey offices, Brisbane; conversion of the Museum, in William Street, Brisbane, into Public Library; National Art Gallery in the Botanical Gardens, Brisbane; new Gaol for Female Prisoners, Boggo Road, South Brisbane; new Custom House at Townsville; new Court House at Roma; new Gaol at Roma; new Lock Hospital, Brisbane; Reformatory Buildings for boys, at Westbrook; new Police Buildings at Warwick and Bundaberg; additional wards at the Toowoomba Asylum; additions to the Goodna Asylum; additional buildings at the Hospital for Consumptives at Dalby; new Post and Telegraph Offices at Ipswich; extensive alterations to the Post and Telegraph Offices at Toowoomba and Townsville; [and] State School at New Farm.[28]
\nThe designer of the State Prison for Women is not known, but Murdoch, Pye, and William Patrick Hendry appear to have been involved in its design, supervision, and construction.[29] Tenders for the work were called in June 1901, and the contract was awarded to A Lind and Son, at a price of £18,795.[30] Male prisoners cleared and levelled the site in 1899, and construction of the prison began in October 1901.[31]
\nThe construction of a separate and purpose-built prison complex for female prisoners was unusual. ‘Female factories’ (women-only prison buildings) had been constructed at penal settlements around what is now Australia, purpose-built out of necessity.[32] In the colonial period, however, most women’s prisons operated within men’s prisons, both physically and administratively,[33] and usually comprised a single wing (reflecting both the lower number of women convicted, and the lower priority afforded them).[34] For Queensland’s new State Prison for Women, the large Boggo Road site offered the opportunity not only to fully implement ‘modern principles’ of prison design, and isolate male from female prisoners (which had proved difficult at other Queensland prisons[35]), but also to close the much-decried Fortitude Valley and Toowoomba gaols.[36]
\nThe State Prison for Women was constructed east of the men’s prison on the Boggo Road gaol reserve. Set back from Annerley Road on elevated ground, it was surrounded by open space. The entrance drive branched off the men’s prison entrance at the north of the complex. The prison itself covered an area of 240ft by 220ft (73 by 67m), encircled by a 20ft (6m) high brick perimeter wall. Within the wall, five separate buildings were laid out in a half-radial design, from a central (pentagonal) parade ground. This layout, allowing for centralised supervision, had also been implemented at Stewart’s Creek and Rockhampton prisons.[37]
\nAccess to the prison was via immense gates into the gatehouse, a building at the front of the complex which contained a large entrance vestibule, matron’s quarters and warders’ quarters (accessed from outside the prison), offices, a visitors’ room, and the prison bell. Passing through this building, a second pair of gates opened onto a quadrangle, with a two-storey building to the west (containing magistrate’s room, dispensary, warders’ room, debtors’ room, and hospital); and a single-storey building to its east (containing receiving room, kitchen, and laundry. From the quadrangle, a gate set into a ‘formidable looking’[38] iron palisade fence led to the parade ground,[39] an open space around which were three, externally-identical, three-storey buildings: one contained prisoner workrooms (later converted into cells and called Cell Block D); and two were cell blocks (later called Cell Block E and F), each with 41 single cells, a padded cell and darkened punishment cell, a central hall, iron staircase and iron galleries.[40] The three buildings were separated by six exercise yards (a sufficient number of yards to facilitate prisoner classification), and behind the hospital and office building were two further yards: a debtors’ yard; and a yard containing a photographic studio. Atop the southwestern corner of the perimeter wall was a sentry cabin reached by a tower built into the wall. It included a surveillance catwalk and overlooked the prison complex. Running along the inside of the perimeter wall was an open, 12ft (3.5m) wide track called the ‘sterile zone’, delineated from the inner prison buildings and yards by a 10-foot (3m) high timber fence.[41]
\nAll buildings within the complex were of face brick with corrugated iron roofs (supplied from James Campbell and Sons’ Albion brickworks), and featured buff brick bands and quoins and cement dressings, matching the men’s prison. Iron fittings (doors, gates, fences, columns, window frames, and galleries) were supplied by Master Sargent and Co., Britannia Ironworks, and gravel for the ground surfaces was sourced from the O’Connell Town and Bundamba quarries. Specifications provided for the prison had detailed the high quality of materials and workmanship required, with particular attention to the public-facing sections of the complex.[42]
\nIn 1903, the State Prison for Women was completed in June,[43] it was proclaimed on 30 September, and female prisoners were transferred there from Toowoomba and Fortitude Valley in October.[44] Female journalists visited the prison shortly after its opening and were given guided tours by the prison superintendent.[45] They drew attention to aspects of the prison intended to reform its inmates, including the enforcement of separation during the initial incarceration period; and keeping first-time offenders from recidivists.[46] They also noted the cleanliness of the prison, the rigid discipline, and the ‘dreary monotony’.[47]
\nDaily routine inside the prison was highly regimented, including parade and inspection times, meal times, and work, both to keep the prisoners occupied and to contribute to the cost of running the prison. Work for female prisoners included laundry washing, cooking and kitchen duties, and sewing work for other government institutions. In line with the ideals of separate treatment, those at the start of their incarceration ate, worked, and slept in their individual cells, allowing them ample time for the perceived reforming influence of quiet reflection and industry.[48] The cells had limited furnishings and no toilet or bathing facilities; instead, sanitary tubs were provided, to be emptied daily at the sanitary yard, behind the cell block under the watchtower.[49] Washing facilities were installed in the shelter sheds in each yard, though only cold water was provided.
\nFew changes were made to the prison in the following 18 years. In 1904, an ordinary cell in Cell Block F was converted into a ‘condemned’ cell to accommodate women sentenced to death.[50] A sewerage system was installed in 1911 to the staff quarters only;[51] and electric light was installed throughout the complex in 1912.[52] By 1916, the quadrangle and parade ground were planted with lawns, shrubs, and small trees.[53]
\nNo. 2 Division (1921-1974)
\nThe daily average number of female prisoners incarcerated in the State Prison for Women in 1903 and 1904 was 40. Accommodation had been provided for more than twice as many prisoners as were admitted, allowing the separate system practices to be retained. Over the next 20 years, conviction rates for women fell, and by 1920 the prison, with a daily average of 12 female inmates, was far from overcrowded.[54] On the other hand, male accommodation was overtaxed, due in part to the closure of the Cooktown prison for economic reasons and the conversion of the St Helena prison to a farm reformatory, which accommodated smaller numbers of prisoners.[55] In August 1921, the proclamation of the State Prison for Women as being a female only prison was rescinded.[56] The prison was renamed No. 2 Division, the women prisoners were moved out, and around 78 long-sentenced male prisoners were moved in.[57] The change was reflected on the gatehouse by the covering of the ‘WO’ in ‘WOMEN’S PRISON’; the workshop block and cell blocks were renamed blocks D, E, and F; and mesh was added to the workshop block. Boggo Road, comprising the No. 1 Division (men’s 1883 buildings) and No. 2 Division (former women’s prison), became officially known as His Majesty’s Prison Brisbane, or the Brisbane Prison, though its unofficial name of Boggo Road continued in use.[58]
\nIn the late 1920s, the remaining prisoners from the St Helena prison farm were transferred toBoggo Roadas the island was considered too costly and isolated to maintain.[59] To provide additional accommodation and occupation at Boggo Road, a new workshop block was constructed east of No. 2 Division in 1929, on the eastern side of the perimeter wall, connected through the wall via new openingsinto No. 2 Division.[60] The old women's workshop block was converted to a cell block (Cell Block D) in 1930, accommodating the St Helena prisoners.[61] Working gardens to the south and east, outside the perimeter wall of No. 2 Division, also occupied the prisoners.[62]
\nAs the prison network was reformed in the 1920s, attempts were also made to improve prisoner rehabilitation at Boggo Road.[63] Although the daily routine remained highly regimented, discipline was relaxed in the months leading up to a prisoner’s discharge,[64] and skills training was introduced to fit prisoners for life after imprisonment.[65] The prisoners’ work schedules were offset by occasional entertainments (including moving pictures and band concerts[66]). Radio loudspeakers were installed in the cell blocks, with educational programmes broadcast from the prison wireless set in the evenings, improved educational opportunities were provided, and recreation time in the yards was increased to approximately three hours each day.[67] By 1937, Queensland’s imprisonment rate was the lowest in Australia.[68]
\nApart from the conversion of the workshop block, only small changes were made to No. 2 Division between the 1920s and 1940s. The dispensary attached to the rear of the hospital and offices building was converted to a dental surgery, and bars were added on the external side of the windows in cell blocks E and F. The exercise yards, which had been asphalted in 1923, were concreted in 1938; the quadrangle and parade ground paths were also concreted in 1938. The prisoner receiving room, no longer needed, was converted into a further scullery and then a library. The laundry and ironing room, also superfluous, were converted to a bakery in 1945, while the debtors’ yard and photography studio were converted to saddlers’ and paint shops. The open forecourt in front (north) of the complex was landscaped by prisoner labour in 1933-34.[69] Increased security measures were installed after prisoner Arthur ‘Slim’ Halliday effected two escapes from the prison. This included adding punishment cells to Yard 5, and a reinforced door with three padlocks and a double-welded bed to Halliday’s cell (cell 9 in cell block D). Plans to extend the sentry cabin’s observation catwalk were drawn in 1947, though only implemented in 1955 due to material shortages.[70]
\nAs Queensland’s population increased after World War II, its prison population also grew. Between 1949 and 1954 the daily average of incarcerated prisoners in Queensland climbed from 392 to 608.[71] The majority of these were held in Boggo Road.[72] A record number of 300 prisoners was reported there in 1953; increasing to 588 by 1959. With accommodation stretched beyond capacity, condemned buildings were repurposed to hold prisoners, while others were sent to Townsville (maximum security) or prison farms (minimum security) to try to reduce numbers at Boggo Road. The punishment cells in cell blocks E and F were divided into two, creating additional accommodation. Further security was also added to the No. 2 Division buildings, including steel grilles in the staff quarters, safety mesh in the cell block galleries, a shelter shed in the centre of the parade ground, and a prefabricated armed post on the wall of the hospital and offices building overlooking the parade ground.[73]
\nA new Prisons Act was passed in 1958, attempting to implement changing philosophical approaches to incarceration and the separate system. To accommodate these changes and attempt to resolve the chronic overcrowding problem, a new ‘farm prison’ was opened at Wacol, eventually becoming a high security prison. New penalties, including parole, weekend detention, work release, and later community service, were also introduced, reducing the numbers requiring accommodation in Queensland’s prisons. While admissions fell in the early 1960s, they began to climb again in the late 1960s. An increasing number of civil liberties protestors were imprisoned in Boggo Road for refusing to pay fines on principle, and the prison became the centre of vigils held by their families and supporters. On their release, protestors publicised the poor conditions and treatment they had experienced in the prison. Prison officers also began publicly objecting to their working conditions, particularly following the death of an officer on duty in 1966.[74]
\nBetween 1966 and 1978, the 1883 No. 1 Division buildings (including the 1929 workshop serving both divisions) were demolished and gradually replaced with more modern prison accommodation, administration, hospital, and workshop buildings, constructed across the following decade. This new complex was built attached to No. 2 Division’s eastern perimeter wall.[75]
\nThe prisoner accommodation in the new No. 1 Division buildings provided a stark contrast to the No. 2 Division cells. The No. 1 Division cells included a bed, desk, running water, and toilet. They were laid out to a hollow square design, facing an internal courtyard, and received more natural light and ventilation than their early 20th century counterparts.[76]
\nSmall improvements were made in No. 2 Division, including the construction of contact visitation rooms on the verandah of the receiving room, kitchen, and laundry building; the conversion of the kitchen into a television room; the replacement of the timber fences in the exercise yards by mesh security fences; and the installation of televisions in boxes in the exercise yards. The obsolete hospital ward was converted to an officers’ mess. These changes, however, did not rectify the incompatibility of No. 2 Division’s separate system infrastructure with 20th century philosophies of rehabilitation, treatment, and reform. Attempting modern treatment in older prisons like No. 2 Division was either too liberal, leading to increased successful escapes, or too hard, resulting in a lack of essential service provision and resentment from both staff and prisoners.[77]
\nRemand and Maximum Security (1974-1989)
\nBy the 1970s, overcrowding in Boggo Road was rife. Its population of 650 exceeded the prison’s 500-man capacity, and up to three men were accommodated in a single cell.[78] No. 2 Division had been proposed for demolition and replacement, but in 1972, the Comptroller-General reported that its buildings would have to be retained ‘for some years’ in order to accommodate the large number of prisoners.[79] By 1973, No. 2 Division, formerly the ‘industrial section’, housed mainly ‘short-sentence and unemployable prisoners with little work.’[80]
\nUnrest amongst prisoners and prison officers grew in the 1970s, sparked by a range of factors including overcrowding, disruptions brought about by the rebuilding program, lack of prisoner occupation, the introduction of drugs into the prison, and poor working conditions. In January 1971, a riot was reported to have caused $15,000 worth of damage. Prison officers began striking to protest poor working conditions.[81] The imprisonment of two men convicted for mass murder by firebombing Brisbane’s Whiskey-au-Go-Go nightclub brought more notoriety to the prison. Shortcomings in security became evident following a number of breakouts[82] and the admission of four prisoners to hospital for swallowing razors and sharp objects. In May 1974, a three-day warders’ strike against the dismissal of a Wacol officer followed a prison riot, leaving prisoners locked in their damaged and burned cells for more than 50 hours.[83] Some judges refused to send young offenders into Boggo Road to be ‘contaminated’ by the hardened criminals;[84] conversely, the Minister for Welfare and Services reported that young offenders had to be separated from older prisoners for the protection of the latter, so ‘professional in their depredations’ were the young ‘vicious thugs’.[85]
\nFollowing the escape of two prisoners in 1973, an inquiry was held into the conditions of the Queensland Prison system (the Bredhauer inquiry), which recommended changes to Boggo Road. No. 2 Division was recommended to become a maximum-security prison, while No. 1 Division was to be used for medium and low security, remand, and holding cells. Security infrastructure in No. 2 Division was again increased, with additional mesh screening built atop the walls between the exercise yards and the parade ground. The yard shelters were replaced, and a new secure yard (Yard 1A) was added behind cell block E for particular classes of prisoners.[86] An electric shop was also built in the open yard behind the former receiving room.[87] Following breakouts and disturbances at the remand section in No. 1 Division, No. 2 Division was converted to a remand section in 1976.[88]
\nUnrest continued in the late 1970s and 1980s. A dog squad was introduced to Boggo Road in 1977 to control prison outbreaks. In 1979 more political protestors were jailed, including a federal member of parliament objecting to Queensland’s anti-march laws.[89] Prison officers held a week-long strike in 1982. In November 1983, prisoners held a hunger strike to protest the poor prison conditions, and this escalated into a two-day riot, allegedly followed by a mass bashing of prisoners.[90] No. 2 Division was quickly converted to the maximum-security section for Boggo Road, and barbed and razor wire was added atop all structures in the division.[91]
\nFollowing the 1983 incident, an investigation into prison conditions was held (the Longland inquiry), and a report on Queensland’s prison accommodation requirements prepared. At the same time, Boggo Road’s visitor facilities were altered.[92] A block of ten ‘remand interview rooms’ was constructed in the formerly open yard behind the former kitchen.[93] The matron’s quarters was altered to add non-contact visiting booths in its ground floor, and new partitions to form interview rooms in its first floor. In 1985-86, a new Visitor Centre was built adjacent to the former matron’s quarters, serving both divisions.[94] It officially opened in April 1987. In 1988, Ray Wallace, an artist then incarcerated at Boggo Road, painted three murals on the interior walls of the Visitor Centre, as well as two murals on the interior walls of the television room (former kitchen).[95]
\nAnother riot occurred in December 1986. Five hundred prisoners participated, setting fires to blankets, mattresses, and parts of the prison; spray painting walls; and climbing onto the roof to draw public attention to the poor conditions. This attracted high-profile public attention and criticism of the prison by prison research organisations, the Queensland Civil Liberties Council, and other members of the public. A protest outside the prison was held in support, resulting in numerous arrests. In 1987, after discovering a plot for prisoners to seize control of the prison, prison authorities reopened No. 1 Division’s ‘Black Hole’, an underground cell without windows or ventilation. Human Rights Commission officials inspected the cell and condemned the move as inhumane. The cell was closed in December. The laundry in the No. 1 Division workshop building was partially reconfigured to accommodate a six-cell detention block, with a new section built encroaching into the No. 2 Division sterile zone. It officially opened in April 1988.[96]
\nIn March 1988, after further disturbances at Boggo Road, four prisoners climbed onto the roof of No. 2 Division and remained there for one week. They communicated their complaints about substandard conditions inside the prison to the media and supporters surrounding the walls. In April, around 350 No. 2 Division officers went on strike, protesting the prison’s inadequate security measures.[97]
\nThese final years of unrest precipitated the establishment of the Commission of Review into Corrective Services in Queensland (the Kennedy Report, 1988).[98] By this time, the prison was seen as a symbol of all that was inadequate and deficient with the Queensland prison system. No. 2 Division, with its poor conditions and lack of sanitation, was particularly criticised. The Human Rights Commission submitted that the division failed to meet internationally recognised minimum standards for prisoners, lacking essential facilities like running water and ready access to fresh water; and reports of prisoner treatment were inconsistent with human rights standards.[99]
\nThe review found the prison ‘a blot on the urban landscape’ which was ‘hopelessly inadequate to provide corrective services’.[100] The conditions of No. 2 Division were considered so lacking that a commitment to demolish them was sought in the interim report; the final report recommended the demolition of the entire Boggo Road Gaol complex.[101] With the threat of closure and demolition, prisoners’ graffiti was allowed to remain on the cell walls and shelter yard structures.[102]
\nThe Boggo Road prison was renamed the Brisbane Correction Centre, bringing the terminology in line with late 20th century prison ideology, but the new name was short-lived. In the wake of the Kennedy and Fitzgerald inquiries, No. 2 Division was decommissioned in January 1989 and No. 1 Division closed in July 1992. Prisoners were transferred to other Queensland prisons. No. 1 Division was demolished in 1996, except for two small sections attached to the No. 2 Division’s eastern perimeter wall, which remained as remnants awaiting demolition.[103]
\nDescribed as a ‘blight on the community’,[104] Boggo Road’s No. 2 Division had been slated for demolition in the early 1990s. However, its heritage significance was recognised by the community who protested its demolition, and it, and the remnants of No. 1 Division, were retained. Management of No. 2 Division was transferred to a museum group comprised of former prison officers, who led historic tours and oversaw maintenance. Rooms in the gatehouse’s staff quarters, hospital and offices building, and receiving room, kitchen, and laundry building were refurbished and leased to community legal groups and additional museum collections. A range of tourism activities were held at the site into the early 21st century, including gaol tours, ghost tours, and overnight stays.[105] In 2009, Boggo Road Gaol Complex was incorporated into a planned ‘Boggo Road Urban Village’, covering a 9.5ha site. As part of this redevelopment, a large modern science research building, the Ecosciences Precinct, was completed in 2011, built on the location of the former No. 1 Division. Boggo Road Gaol Complex remained in use for tours until March 2022. In 2023, parts of the remnants of No. 1 Division were demolished to make way for further redevelopment of the site east of the perimeter wall.
\nThroughout its operation as a prison, Boggo Road Gaol had remained a focus of curiosity to those outside its walls. Reports of the buildings, daily life in the prison, escapes and escape attempts, biographies of high-profile prisoners, and ex-prisoners’ complaints about poor conditions were published in Queensland newspapers during the first half of the 20th century, morphing into reports on the deteriorating building conditions, unrest, and riots in the second half.[106] Former inmates and employees published biographies centred on their time in the prison, and Boggo Road Gaol historical interest and advocacy groups were formed.[107]
","criteria":"Boggo Road Gaol Complex, comprising the former State Prison for Women (later No. 2 Division, 1903) and remnants of No. 1 Division (opened 1883, rebuilt 1960s-1980s), is important in demonstrating the evolution of prison design and policy in Queensland.
\nThe former State Prison for Women (No. 2 Division) is important as Queensland’s first women’s prison complex and the only women’s prison designed to incorporate the ‘separate system’ in Queensland.
\nAs one of only three gaol complexes designed on the ‘separate system’ in Queensland, No. 2 Division is a rare and exceptional example of 19th century penological principles. Designed as a complex of buildings to punish and rehabilitate its prisoners through separation, its built and plan form, fabric, and layout reflect the conditions under which prisoners were incarcerated. Converted to a male prison in 1921, the complex continued to serve as part of Queensland’s most populous prison until its closure in 1989.
\nThe remnants of No. 1 Division (watchtower incorporating staircase of former hospital building (c.1969-72) and overhead walkway (c.1975-78); section of former workshop building (c.1974); and detention cells (1988)); and the Visitors Centre (1987) are important in demonstrating the evolution in prisoner accommodation and prison facilities in the latter part of the 20th century. The remnants of No. 1 Division are the only part of that complex to remain and as such they are reflective of the use of the much larger site as a gaol from 1883 and demonstrate its continuity of use for over 100 years.
\nFeatures added to the gaol complex during the 1970s and 1980s – including chain-wire and barbed-wire fences and roofs in the exercise yards (c.1970-1984), prisoners’ graffiti (c.1970s-1992), and detention cells (1988) – are important in demonstrating both the deteriorating conditions and the increasing political unrest and civil rights activism associated with the gaol. The gaol complex achieved notoriety for the inadequate conditions and treatment of those inside its walls, and was a focus for protests by prisoners and civilians, part of a broader social and political movement which occurred in Queensland in the late 20th century.
\nBoggo Road Gaol is significant as part of a network of late 19th and early 20th century institutions in Queensland which were designed to control and discipline. Through the gaol complex’s design, form and layout, it demonstrates the control exerted by the government over those interned.
|Boggo Road Gaol Complex (No. 2 Division) is rare as the only surviving intact gaol complex in Queensland reflecting 19th century penological principles, being one of only five such gaol complexes built (including Brisbane men’s prisons at Petrie Terrace (1860, no longer extant) and Boggo Road (1883, no longer extant), Rockhampton (1884, no longer extant) and Townsville (1878, rebuilt 1893, not intact as a complex)).
\nAs a rare Australian example of a prison complex purpose-built for women, the Boggo Road Gaol Complex (No. 2 Division) demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Boggo Road Gaol Complex (No. 2 Division) is important as a highly intact and rare example of a separate system prison complex established in Queensland during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of this type through its: collection of robust masonry buildings, forming a purpose-built facility for the incarceration of prisoners; tall perimeter walls/fences to prevent escape; defined, highly-secured areas for prisoners and semi-secured areas for staff and visitors; front, imposing gatehouse; tall observation (sentry) towers and open spaces for surveillance of prisoners; large cell blocks with separate prisoner accommodation cells, organised in a radiating plan form around a central observation point (Parade Ground); cells with curved ceilings, heavy cell doors locked from the outside, and purpose-built fixtures (metal shelves, and bed/hammock hooks), accessed via central galleries with central stairs and large banks of windows to their front and rear end walls; outdoor, fenced exercise yards with shelter sheds and amenity blocks; sanitation facilities (sanitation yard, and drains); ancillary buildings for administration, hospital, kitchen and laundry services and resident staff accommodation; and the use of robust materials (namely brick, stone, concrete and metal) throughout the complex.
\nThe complex is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the architectural work of the Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW), retaining an extensive range of excellent, highly-intact examples of DPW-designed buildings from the early 20th century. The principal characteristics of the DPW’s architectural work demonstrated at the prison complex include: well-designed, fit-for-purpose buildings with a dignified civic character; use of high-quality materials and construction detail; and provision of natural light and ventilation of interiors (except to cells).
|Highly intact, Boggo Road Gaol Complex (No. 2 Division) has aesthetic importance for its expressive and evocative attributes, high architectural quality, and strong landmark presence.
\nThrough the grand scale, imposing form and robust material palette of the Cell Blocks, Gatehouse, Matron’s Quarters (former) and Warders’ Quarters (former), the tall Perimeter Walls, the observation towers, and the barred and gated openings, the place expresses the power exercised by the State in applying law, order and social regulation during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The foreboding presence of the buildings, and the complex’s high level of security and surveillance (facilitated by sentry towers, open spaces, and visual observation alignments) conveys the sense of incarceration, punishment, and deterrence.
\nThe imposing appearance of the Gatehouse, and the connections between the prison’s spaces (revealing a sequence of movement through the Gatehouse vestibule, into the Quadrangle for processing in the administration buildings, through the Parade Ground and into the secured Cell Blocks and Exercise Yards), are evocative of the sense of restraint and coercion experienced by former prisoners on admission to the gaol complex. The size and scale of the buildings, and the use of solid materials throughout the complex to enforce compliance and deter escape, reflect the lived experience of the prisoners both on arrival and during their terms of incarceration.
\nAccentuated by high-quality and durable materials, elegant formal compositions (most using symmetry), assertive massing, and decorative treatments and refined finishes (such render details, dressed stone, and tuck pointing to brick walls), the architectural quality of the buildings reflects an ordered and moralistic approach to incarceration at the time of construction, the functional robust material requirements of a prison, and affords the complex a dignified townscape presence.
\nGraffiti to Cell Blocks and Exercise Yards, largely dating to the later period of the prison’s use, expresses the sense of confinement, seclusion, political and social ideologies, and sentiment of anti-establishment of former prisoners of Boggo Road Gaol around the time of its closure, and the sub-standard conditions to which they were subjected.
\nThe complex is a landmark in its setting due to the strong physical presence and visual dominance of its elevations (particularly those fronting Boggo Road (north), Annerley Road (west) and Peter Doherty Street/Boggo Road Gaol Park (south)), prominent siting on the rise of Annerley Road, tall Perimeter walls and unified material palette of face brick, concrete and stone.
|Boggo Road Gaol Complex is important for its social significance as a place of confinement within the community and has a strong association with those groups connected to the place, including ex-prisoners and their families, ex-prison warders and others employed within the complex.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15833,"place_ref":601059,"name":"Hillyards Shop House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"615 Stanley Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"Hillyards shop house is situated in Stanley Street between Clarence Corner and Merton Road, and adjacent to Pollocks shop house, another c.1865 two-storeyed brick building.
The building comprises a main shop on the ground floor, residential accommodation on the first floor, an arched covered carriage-way through to the rear of the property, and a brick and iron skillion-roofed kitchen extension, which projects as a one-storeyed wing at the rear along the western side. The carriage-way has been enclosed to create another shop.
The core is capped by a steeply pitched corrugated-iron roof with a square platform at the top. Probably it was shingled originally.
The front facade is distinguished by a small rendered brick parapet, possibly of later origin, which returns unrendered along both sides of the building. This parapet features three decorative urns and a pediment with a central circular opening which houses a ventilation duct leading via a small gable into the roof.
A cantilevered iron-roofed first floor verandah has been boarded over, and a curved iron street awning is supported by slender cast iron and modern steel columns.
The ground floor has been altered and the main shop facade appears to have been remodelled in the 1920s.
The first floor is substantially intact. It contains five rooms, including a large front parlour. Twelve feet high, timber tongue and groove lined ceilings feature central circular ventilators. The 370mm brick walls are plaster lined and divided internally by walls of eight inch wide tongue and groove vertical joint boards, with narrow timber picture rails and wide skirting boards. Three sets of wide french doors with single pane fanlights open onto the front verandah.
The kitchen wing consists of three rooms with a double fireplace, probably initially housing kitchen, dining room and servant's room.
Despite a number of modifications, the building retains much of the original character. The most significant alterations are the removal of both the early clock tower and the internal staircase.
","history":"This two-storeyed brick shop house was constructed in the mid-1860s for Brisbane watchmaker George Hillyard, who purchased the site in 1865.
It was one of the earliest masonry buildings at One-mile Swamp (Woolloongabba), erected during the 1860s development of that part of Stanley Street as an early commercial centre.
The Hillyard family ran a successful watchmaking and jewellery business from the premises for nearly twenty years. Their shop boasted a clock tower at some stage, an advertisement which served as a convenience for passing travellers and drovers.
After George Hillyard died in 1881 his widow opened a fancy toy shop in part of the building, and William Hillyard continued with the watchmaking business. They sold the Stanley Street property in 1885.
Over the subsequent century a variety of small businesses have operated from the ground floor, with the first floor rented as boarding rooms and more recently occupied by squatters.
","criteria":"Hillyard's Shop House is a rare surviving 1860s detached brick shop house complete with service wing and covered carriage-way, indicative of a way of life no longer common in Brisbane, and is important for its association with the early commercial development of the One-mile Swamp [Woolloongabba] area in the 1860s.
|Hillyard's Shop House is a rare surviving 1860s detached brick shop house complete with service wing and covered carriage-way, indicative of a way of life no longer common in Brisbane, and is important for its association with the early commercial development of the One-mile Swamp [Woolloongabba] area in the 1860s.
|(Criterion under review)
|The place is an integral part of the Clarence Corner streetscape, and particularly significant as one of a pair of c1865 brick, two-storeyed shop houses on adjacent properties fronting Stanley Street. It makes a strong contribution to the Woolloongabba townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15835,"place_ref":602544,"name":"Isis Downs Woolshed Complex","alternate_name":"Isis Downs Woolshed","street_address":"Isisford Blackall Road","suburb":"ISISFORD","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"The Isis Downs Woolshed complex is located on the Isisford-Blackall Road approximately 20 kilometres east of the township of Isisford, within the homestead complex of the Isis Downs Station. The complex consists of the shearing shed (completed with mechanical shearing motors and wool presses), holding yards, powerhouse (with an extensive array of machinery and infrastructure) and a stand alone bale hoist, located in close proximity to each other, and which were used conjointly to clip and process the fleeces.
\nWoolshed
\nThe dominant feature of the complex is the woolshed. A large, high-set semi-circle with a low-set section along the rear wall, the woolshed's curved exterior faces the property entrance. The whole is clad in corrugated iron and crowned by a three-tiered roof. The upper two levels of the roof are progressively smaller raised semi-circles that sit in the centre of the roof and do not extend back to the rear wall. These provide light and ventilation to the large interior space via clerestory windows and louvres.
\nIn the centre of the front curved wall is a central double-door entry that is met by the holding yard ramp. The sliding doors are rectangular and clad entirely in corrugated iron. Ten smaller sliding ventilation shutters of similar design are evenly spaced in the curved facade, five on either side of the double doors. At the rear ground level of the woolshed is another central double sliding door, clad in corrugated iron.
\nInternally, the woolshed has two levels - the main floor, high-set, of timber construction, and semi-circular; and a much smaller ground level floor, of concrete, along the rear, straight wall. There are no internal wall or roof linings, leaving the shed structural components clearly visible. The woolshed has a steel superstructure, with a central pillar that sits directly under the apex of the roof; located at the mid-rear point of the top roof tier. Steel web trusses radiate out from the central pillar over a clear space of 70 feet (21.3 metres). The trusses terminate at supporting steel posts, which frame the 52 shearing bays that follow the curve of the semicircle. Mechanical shearing motors are mounted on the tally boards above each bay, with smaller holding pens located between the bays and the exterior wall. The current motors are modern upgrades but an example of an original motor survives within the shed. The large open space between the central pillar and the bays was used to sort and class the fleeces. Wool presses are located on the rear edge of the timber floor and extend down to the narrow concrete ground level.
\nHolding Yards
\nImmediately abutting the curved wall of the woolshed is a series of timber let-out pens. The pens lead into 'counting-out' yards that surround the curved face of the shearing shed. The larger series of holding yards extending beyond the 'counting-out' yards are not included in the heritage boundary. A large timber forcing-up ramp gives access from the yards into the central opening of the woolshed.
\nPowerhouse
\nThe powerhouse is a simple rectangular building with a gable roof located at the rear of the woolshed, in the north-eastern corner of the complex. With the exception of a small number of windows and fixed louvres, the powerhouse is clad almost entirely in corrugated iron. A tall metal chimney extends out of the north-eastern corner of the roof and is supported by four cable ties. A smaller corrugated iron skillion shed extends from the northern corner.
\nThe powerhouse has two internal sections: a boiler room and a generating room, and still contains an extensive array of the machinery used during the woolshed's operation. The boiler room contains a wood-fired boiler and a high pressure water pump. External to the boiler room is a hydraulic accumulator and nearby, a ship's tank. Identified equipment within the generator room includes:
\n- Southern Cross Mark YEB engine, 1200 RPM, manufactured by the Toowoomba Foundry Pty Ltd;
\n- 240 volt, KW HP 12, continuous current generator manufactured by The British Thomson-Houston Co. Ltd;
\n- Lister alternator manufactured by Higgs Motors of Dursley, England;
\n- A generator manufactured by Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies of Ipswich, England; and
\n- A hydraulic pump manufactured by The Austral Otis Engineering Co. Ltd of Melbourne and Sydney.
\nThe powerhouse also retains much of the associated infrastructure such as pipes and the power board.
\nBale Hoist
\nThe bale hoist was used to load bales of wool onto transports and is located on the rear eastern side of the woolshed, adjacent to the powerhouse. The hoist is made from steel and consists of a vertical upright with a horizontal arm at the top. The arm is supported by decorative steel bracing. Part of the hydraulic power network, the hoist had a single cable that operated through a series of sheaves; the lower sheave is now missing. Historical evidence suggests a ball weight was mounted above the hoist hook, which was sufficient enough to pull the cable to the ground and force the piston into position for the next lift. The vertical upright of the hoist is supported by two angled steel braces.
","history":"The current Isis Downs Woolshed was completed in 1914. A prefabricated steel structure clad with corrugated iron, the shed was designed by Kay, MacNicol and Company Engineers for the then property owners, Sir Rupert Clarke and R S Whiting. Although smaller than the previous shed that had burnt down, the current shed's design is unique, creating a large semi-circular internal space.
The Queensland wool industry commenced in 1840 when Patrick and Walter Leslie established Canning Downs Station on the Darling Downs. Pastoralists followed explorers in opening up the land for utilization and by 1860 wool had become the primary export earner for the newly established colony of Queensland.
Isis Downs was one of the first properties to be established in the Isisford District of far west Central Queensland. The initial lease commenced on 1 January 1867 and was held by Charles Lumley-Hill, W St John Holberton and W B Allen. The run was named after the Isis River in England, which is actually the upper reaches of the Thames River. Following the taking up of pastoral properties throughout the area, a town was founded by William and James Whitman in 1877 to provide essential services for the district. It had various early names including Whittown, Wittown or Whittington, but in 1897 was officially named Isisford, as it was near to a ford and not far from Isis Downs Station.
Isis Downs changed hands a number of times before Robert Selmon Whiting and Sir Rupert Clarke acquired it in 1910. The eldest son of a prominent Victorian family, Sir Rupert Clarke was the 2nd Baronet of Rupertswood and held vast pastoral holdings across the Australian colonies. His father, William John Clarke, appears to have owned Isis Downs for 6 years from 1877, but let it go. Clarke's long standing business partner, RS Whiting, was a wealthy Melbourne based solicitor. The Clarke-Whiting partnership acquired vast land holdings in Queensland, including Isis Downs, Avington, Emmet Downs, Stockbury, Brynhyfryd, and Bellevue/Kiama in the Isisford area, Sedgeford near Alpha, and Albina near Springsure. Of all their holdings, both in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia, Isis Downs was regarded as their 'masthead' sheep station.
By 1910 Isis Downs had grown to over 200,000 hectares and carried a similar number of sheep. At that time the shearing shed on Isis Downs was a rectangular-shaped timber and corrugated iron structure with a central arched spine. Erected in the late nineteenth century, it contained 100 shearing stands and was larger than the current shed, but it was destroyed by fire in September 1912, immediately after the close of the shearing season.
By December 1912 the owners had commissioned Melbourne engineers Kay, MacNicol and Company to design a new shearing shed. A number of designs were considered but by late December the current structure was chosen as the "cheapest and simplest form of construction". The designers argued that "the use of one big pillar 30 feet above the ground and sunk to about five feet below, would provide a clear space of about 70 feet to cover shearing board, tables, bins etc". The design allowed for 52 shearing stands around the semi-circle, with the sheep-yards on the immediate exterior. On the flat, far side of the building were the wool bins and presses. A separate engine room provided its own electricity, with the lighting supplemented by clerestory windows. Large, rectangular ventilation shutters were spaced around the curved façade of the building providing more light when open.
Steel was ordered from Dorman Long and Co. of Melbourne in January 1913, the same company that later built the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The steel could not be produced in Australia at that time and therefore had to be shipped from Middlesborough (England) to Melbourne to be cut and prepared as per the design. It was then shipped to Rockhampton and moved by rail to Malverton, near Blackall. From there, the steel was carted to the property and installed under the supervision of the property manager, Mr Frank Luck. Construction commenced in 1913 and by April the foundations were well advanced, however, completion was delayed due to the late arrival of the steel. The shed was not complete by the 1913 shearing season, forcing the owners to make temporary alternative arrangements.
Adjacent to the woolshed a powerhouse was constructed to supply electric and hydraulic power for the various machines used in the clip. The interior of the Isis Downs powerhouse contained both a boiler room and a generating room. The generating room accommodated an Austral Otis hydraulic pump (which was coupled to an external accumulator) and a single cylinder reciprocating vertical steam engine that was attached to an electric generator. The system produced DC power for the Falkiner Boll shearing machines and hydraulic power for the wool presses, bale dump and hoist. Power was transmitted via a power-board in the powerhouse and a distribution-board in the woolshed. A diesel generator was eventually installed, followed by a belt driven set which was powered by a twin cylinder motor within the skillion annex; these systems were eventually superseded in the 1970s with the introduction of 240 volt electric power.
By April 1914 the shed itself had been completed and the machinery installed, but the external pens had not been completed and the shorn sheep chutes had not arrived. The external pens were designed to hold thirty thousand sheep, with an anticipated daily tally of five thousand sheep during the peak season. Accessing sufficient timber for the construction of the pens was a major logistical issue, as the nearest natural supply was 25 miles away. The shed, yards and powerhouse were finally completed in July 1914, at a total cost of £18,000.
Whiting and Clarke were known as innovators and had a substantial impact upon the station. In addition to the shearing shed, they built the homestead, sank 3 artesian bores, dug a 192km network of bore drains and introduced a 110 horsepower road train (imported from England). Their descendants held the property until 1979.
Isis Downs had substantial impact upon the development of the region. Before World War II approximately 150 permanent staff and numerous seasonal workers were employed at Isis Downs, undertaking the variety of tasks necessary to run the property, including the outstations. Increasing mechanisation drastically reduced permanent staff levels, which had a negative effect upon the local economy and community.
Environmental and economic factors led to varying stock numbers over the years. In the late 1950s only 60,000 head of sheep were grazed on the station, but by the 1990s stock numbers had risen to 100,000, due in part to the acquisition of surrounding properties. Stock levels eventually declined as the current owners moved toward cattle grazing. As sheep numbers fell, the shearing season became smaller and the final clip was made in May 2004 with less than 30,000 sheep.
In recent years the Isis Downs Shearing Shed has been used to host events such as the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra (2003) and the Outback Opera in the Shearing Shed (2005).
","criteria":"The large and distinctive semi-circular prefabricated shearing shed is the only example of its type in Australia. The collection of associated machinery within the complex is also 'unique' in terms of its composition and condition.
|The Isis Downs Woolshed Complex (constructed 1913-1914) is important in demonstrating the evolution of sheep shearing processes in Queensland, and in particular of early mechanised shearing.
The powerhouse is important in demonstrating the generation of non-grid electricity in remote and regional Queensland prior to World War I. The introduction of both hydraulic and electrical generating systems specifically for a shearing shed was only possible at the largest and most progressive sheep stations.
|The Isis Downs Woolshed complex has a special association with the business partnership of Sir Rupert Clarke and Robert Whiting who played a significant role in the development of the region and were known nationally as major figures in the Australian pastoral industry.
|The Isis Downs Woolshed is an innovative approach to design of large-scale pastoral infrastructure in Queensland. The use of prefabricated steel for the superstructure, unusual semi-circular shape, the provision for light and ventilation, is a unique attempt to address the functional, financial and logistical issues associated with a large shearing shed.
|Although designed as a utilitarian structure, the size and semicircular layout of the shearing shed at Isis Downs makes a dramatic visual impact against the flat, unwooded landscape. The use of corrugated iron cladding coupled with the setting of the Isis Downs Woolshed Complex within a flat, open landscape, evokes a strong sense of isolation.
|The Isis Downs Woolshed Complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large, early twentieth century shearing operation, comprising shearing shed (completed with mechanical shearing motors and wool presses), holding yards, powerhouse (with an extensive array of associated machinery and infrastructure) and bale hoist. The place was and remains one of the largest and most intact early twentieth century shearing complexes in Queensland, of exceptional value in contributing to our understanding of early mechanised shearing in this State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion F | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15836,"place_ref":601062,"name":"Industrial Ruins, south end of Macleay Island","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cliff Terrace","suburb":"MACLEAY ISLAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-04-06","description":"The industrial ruins are located at the south end of Macleay Island in southern Moreton Bay, on the foreshore east of Pininpinin Point and directly opposite Karragarra Island - GPS position 27 deg 38 min 5 sec South, 153 deg 21 min 37 sec east. Remnants of several stone structures on this site, nestled near the foreshore, just above high-water mark at the bottom of a steep, wooded slope, are visible from Moreton Bay. The setting is highly picturesque.
\nThe site comprises:
\nthe remnants of a stone structure [possibly the stone store mentioned in the 1874 advertisement] located on the foreshore at the bottom of a steep slope, about a metre above high-water mark - the foundations of the walls and the remains of a rubble floor, built up several feet above the level of the foreshore, survive, as does part of the east wall, which is of irregular coursing of roughly cut stone, held together with a coarse mortar - of the south and west walls only the foundations survive, and these have suffered erosion from wave action at high tide - recent attempts at stabilising these foundations with plastic netting and sheeting have been made;
\nremnants of a possible stone retaining wall along the foreshore at high-water mark, in front of the 'store' and further along to the west of the 'store' - recent wave action has deposit gravel on the foreshore, mostly the remnant retaining wall in front of the 'store';
\nremnants of the foundation of a secondary stone structure to the west of the larger 'store';
\na stone fire-box located less than a metre to the north [further up the slope] of the stone 'store' - the fire-box is cut lengthwise in an east-west direction into the side of the slope, and measures approximately 8m long by 3m wide - like the 'store', the fire-box is constructed of irregular coursing of mainly roughly cut stone, held together by a coarse mortar - however, some of the larger stones are more precisely cut and appear to have simple, decorative chiselled patterns on the face, possibly indicating that they have been recycled from some other structure - the fire-box is open-ended on the east side to allow the fire to be lit beneath the boiler, a stone-pitched flue at the western end of the fire-box drawing the flames and heat underneath the boiler;
\nthe shell of a hemispherically-ended, iron-plated Cornish boiler [c1860s/1870s], in situ in the firebox - the boiler has a diameter of 160cm [5ft 3in] and a length of 680cm [44ft 4in];
\na stone-pitched underground flue leading from the western end of the fire-box directly north up the slope approximately 14 metres to an open depression in the ground - possibly the base of a brick chimney;
\nan early road, in some places shored-up by stonework, wending diagonally down the steep slope from the top of the adjacent western allotment, to the boiler site;
\na timber slipway, visible at low-tide only, on the shore near the southeast corner of the stone 'store';
\npossible winch tracks on the road reserve adjacent to the eastern boundary of the allotment on which the stone ruins are located - the road reserve [surveyed c1885] runs north-south down the steep slope directly to the timber slipway at the water's edge, following two deep parallel depressions, approximately 1.5m apart, which are possibly the remains of some form of winching operation - these disappear into the bush above the industrial ruins site, continuing approximately 150 metres to the level land of the ridge above.
\nWhether the stone used for the boiler site structures was quarried on Macleay Island has not been established, no obvious quarry site being identified in the immediate vicinity. Geologically, the eastern side of the island belongs to the Kurwongbah Beds - a mix of phyllite, greenstone, minor quartz and argillite [sedimentary rocks subjected to consolidation and intense compression]; the western side of the island belongs to the Woogaroo Subgroup of later sedimentary rocks - mainly sandstone and conglomerate.
\nHistorical evidence suggests that a jetty and/or wharf, at the end of which was a fish-trap, was constructed by John Campbell in the late 1860s. The jetty/wharf is likely to have been positioned near the boiler site. Beside the slipway are the remnants of two posts which may have been associated with this jetty.
","history":"The Industrial Ruins, located at the southern end of Macleay Island appear to be associated with the 1869 establishment of a sugar mill, possibly in conjunction with a salt works, on the island. Although no early description of the mill and salt works has been found, documentary evidence reveals that a sugar mill was erected on the island in 1869, that both a sugar mill and a salt works were extant on the southern half of Macleay Island in 1871, but that possibly neither were operating by 1874. The surviving Cornish boiler in its stone fire-box is likely to date to the 1860s-1870s, Cornish boilers generally being superseded in Queensland by the 1880s. This reinforces the hypothesis that the ruins are associated with sugar manufacture/salt production on the island in the late 1860s/early 1870s.
\nAt this period, sugar cultivation and manufacture in Queensland was still experimental. In the late 1860s the principal sugar-growing area extended from Tingalpa and Cleveland south to the Redland Bay, Logan and Albert districts. The red clay soil on Macleay and Russell Islands in southern Moreton Bay was similar to that at Redland Bay, and the islands had the additional advantage of being free from frosts. On the mainland a number of small sugar crushing mills and distilleries were erected, employing an open pan system which produced a coarse, dark brown sugar. With the introduction in the mid-1870s of the more expensive vacuum pan system, which produced a finer white sugar, and increasing competition from the Mary and Burnett River districts, sugar cultivation and manufacture in the southern part of the colony declined. Some mills survived, but by the 1880s, farmers at Cleveland, Redland Bay and the Bay islands were growing mainly bananas, fruits and vegetables.
\nThere is little recorded activity on Macleay Island until it was taken up in 1865 as leasehold under the Sugar & Coffee Regulations of 1864, by the Campbell family of Redbank.
\nJohn 'Tinker' Campbell was one of the first squatters on the Darling Downs, taking up Westbrook run in 1841. In the 1840s he was associated with Evan Mackenzie of Kilcoy station in establishing a boiling down and tallow works at Kangaroo Point. Later he was associated with Joseph Fleming, and then with Robert Towns, in partnerships in Redbank interests. A bitter legal dispute between Towns and Campbell in the mid-1860s ruined Campbell financially, but with the help of his children, he turned his interest to sugar cultivation in southern Moreton Bay.
\nHis son Frederick Foster Campbell had already taken up land at Redland Bay, on the shores of Moreton Bay directly opposite Macleay Island, under the Cotton Regulations of 1860. In March 1865, John Campbell's youngest son, Robert Percival, applied for the southern half of Macleay Island [640 acres], and Rebecca Elizabeth Owen, Campbell's widowed daughter, applied for the northern quarter [320 acres] in September the same year. Macleay [or Tim Shea's] Island was officially surveyed into 3 portions in October 1865, following which Rebecca Owen successfully applied for the middle portion [350 acres], extending her leasehold to 670 acres, or the northern half of the island. Early in 1866 John Campbell and Giles B Daubeney [or d'Aubigne] also took up the lease of 640 acres at the northwest end of Russell Island.
\nJohn Campbell and Rebecca Owen were still resident at Redbank at this period, and it is likely that Frederick and Robert Campbell established the sugar plantations on Macleay and Russell islands. Mrs da Costa, a visitor to the islands in late 1866/early 1867, later recalled that two of the Campbells of Redbank had taken up land on Russell Island, where they were engaged in sugar growing with a French naturalist by the name of d'Aubigne. On Macleay Island, she was the guest of Mrs Owen and her brothers Robert and Fred Campbell. The Queensland Post Office Directory for 1868 lists R Campbell as farming on Macleay Island, F Campbell and Giles B Daubeney as farming on Russell Island, and J de Poix Tyrel as a manager on Macleay. By December 1867, Campbell & Daubeney of Brisbane had transferred their lease on Russell Island to WK Alexander, and by early 1868 John Campbell had taken up residence on Macleay Island. In June 1868, Robert Campbell transferred his lease of the southern half of Macleay Island to his father and his other brother, John Edwin Campbell.
\nBy late 1868, John Campbell had 40 acres under sugar on Macleay Island, and Rebecca Gosset [formerly Owen] 20 acres. At this period the Macleay Island cane was likely crushed on a floating mill [the Walrus] which operated in the southern Bay down to the Logan and Albert rivers.
\nIn 1869 the Campbells negotiated with the Brisbane mercantile firm of J & G Harris to take over the lease of southern Macleay Island, and transfer was effected in September 1869. John Campbell was still resident on Macleay Island and was supervising the sugar plantation there in early July 1869, when he gave evidence before the Select Committee on the Operation of The Polynesian Labourers Act of 1868\". The Campbells employed South Sea Islander labour, and Campbell had recently returned 44 Islanders from Macleay Island to their homes. His son Frederick had brought them in the Black Dog from Eromanga, Sandwich [Vite] & Tanna Islands about April 1866, and their 3 year contract was over.
\nBy October 1869, John Campbell had nearly completed the erection of a sugar mill on Macleay Island, but whether construction of the mill was financed by J & G Harris or the Campbells is not clear. By the end of 1869 he had 65 acres under sugar and a mill. The same amount of land was under sugar in 1870.
\nIn 1885, an unnamed author [possibly RS Hurd, Harris' manager on Macleay Island in the early 1870s] described the improvements on the southern half of the island during John Campbell's time there:
\nHere was the residence of the late Mr John Campbell, and some thirty acres were under cultivation for sugar-cane, as well as peach trees, bananas, and other fruits. There was in those days a good cypress pine house erected there, a large and well-stocked fruit and flower garden, well laid out and a complete plant for sugar-boiling and salt-making. All this, however, is a thing of the past . . . this ridge where the house was built is admirably suited for well-sinking, as the ground retains the water as well as if it were puddled. Mr Campbell had a well sunk there some 8ft deep, and it lasted out the driest season with no perceptible leakage . . . this is where the view is par excellence of the whole place to be obtained. Standing on the top of the hill, the ground slopes away in front to Pininpinin Point . . . In front are Karragarra and Russell Islands . . . this deep channel separating Macleay and Karragarra is one of the deepest parts of the bay, and well stocked with fish, Mr Campbell constructed a fish trap at the end of the jetty, and told the writer that he had caught large rock cod in it and abundance of mullet. There is a very pretty walk through the old plantation towards Perrebinpa Point, which is a narrow gravelly neck of land, reaching a long way out. There are a great number of pine seedlings growing along this track and one of the best residences at Breakfast creek is beautified with pine trees taken from this very locality.
\nAbout 1870, after the transfer of the southern half of the island to J & G Harris, John Campbell moved to the northern end of Macleay Island, where he supervised his daughter's lease, establishing a castor oil plantation there by September 1871. Following the death of Rebecca Gosset in Rockhampton in 1872, her husband transferred her Macleay Island lease to John Harris in June 1872, and the Campbell family may have left the island about this time.
\nIn August 1870, J & G Harris had converted their leasehold of the southern half of Macleay Island into freehold, and the plantation was advertised for sale in April 1871. At this time it comprised 640 acres of freehold land, with 40 acres under sugar; a furnished residence with fine views, out-buildings, and a large tank with a permanent supply of water for household purposes; men's huts, stock-yard, blacksmith's; a sugar mill driven by a 4hp engine; and a salt works. South Sea Islanders were working on the plantation. In October 1871, the plantation was sold to Arthur Cumming Biddle of London for £500.
\nThe plantation again was put up for sale in February 1874, at which time 50-60 acres were under sugarcane. Improvements comprised: a furnished 10-roomed house [the front section of which was of cypress pine]; 3 men's cottages; stables, cart sheds, stockyards, etc; a wharf; stone store; and a large underground tank furnishing a permanent supply of water. There was no mention of a sugar mill or salt works, and agricultural reports in The Queenslander of 1876 suggest that Macleay Island cane was crushed on the mainland at this period. The plantation did not sell in 1874, and appears to have been let run down subsequently.
\nIn October 1878, absentee landlord AC Biddle of London purchased from John Harris the northern half of Macleay Island, along with neighbouring Perulpa and Ngudooroo [Lamb] islands, for £925. In October 1884, title to the whole of Macleay, Perulpa and Ngudooroo [Lamb] islands was transferred from Biddle to Joseph Darragh of Brisbane, and then in June 1885 from Darragh to Gustavus Caesar Horstmann and William Alexander Wilson, also of Brisbane. Around this time Macleay Island was subdivided into a large number of residential and farm allotments, many of which were taken up by speculators in the 1880s and 1890s. The block on which the industrial ruins are located [subdivision 279 of portion 1 - a residential subdivision of 1 rood 10.6 perches], was purchased in June 1886 by Brisbane businessmen Edward Taylor, Edward Kelk and Frank Lescombe John Crosby, for £18. To date, no record has been found of any subsequent industrial, commercial or residential use of this site, suggesting that the industrial ruins are associated with the establishment of the sugar plantation in the late 1860s, early 1870s.
","criteria":"The Industrial Ruins, south end of Macleay Island [including the ruins of what appear to be a stone store, stone retaining wall/s, stone fire-box and Cornish boiler, stone-pitched underground flue and probable chimney base, early road, foreshore slipway and possible winching channels], are believed to be associated with the sugar plantation established on Macleay Island in the late 1860s/early 1870s, when sugar cultivation in Queensland was still largely experimental. They survive as important illustration of the early agricultural and industrial development of Queensland, and of the settlement of southern Moreton Bay in particular.
|The surviving Cornish boiler, common in Queensland sawmills and sugar mills of the 1860s and 1870s, is one of few of this type known to survive in Queensland.
|With further archaeological and historical research and analysis, the place has the potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history and early industrial technology.
|The ambience of the stone ruins, the bay, and the overgrown vegetation, combined with a distinctive position on the foreshore overlooking southern Moreton Bay and neighbouring islands, creates a strong aesthetic appeal which has attracted public interest and has invited 'exploration', for well over a century.
|For the southern Moreton Bay islands community, the place has a strong association with their heritage, and the place has had a landmark value for Moreton Bay boaters since the late 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15847,"place_ref":601073,"name":"Burke and Wills Dig Tree","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Nappa Merrie Station","suburb":"THARGOMINDAH","lga":"BULLOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-02-28","description":"The Dig Tree is located approximately four to six kilometres southwest of Nappa Merrie homestead, on a Reserve for Memorial Purposes. The Reserve of 4470m² is excised from Nappa Merrie cattle station, which comprises almost three-quarters of a million hectares of channel country. The homestead is close to the South Australian border, lying some 380 kilometres west of Thargomindah and forty-four kilometres east of Innamincka.
The Dig Tree is a mature Coolibah (Eucalyptus microtheca), believed to be 200 to 250 years old, common along this section of the Cooper and widespread in arid and semi-arid areas near watercourses and in seasonally-inundated areas. The tree stands high above the creek, on the southern bank of the Bulloo Bulloo waterhole.
Brahé cut three blazes into the tree in 1861. On the creek side of the trunk "B LXV" denotes Brahé and Camp 65. On the land side of the trunk "DIG 3FT NW" was the message to the returning party to find provisions buried approximately a metre to the northwest. On an upstream-side limb "DEC 6.60 APR 21.61" marks the date of establishment of the camp, and that of Brahe's departure. Much of the lettering is now obscured by overgrowing bark.
A boardwalk has been constructed around the tree to prevent the ground from being compacted as a result of visitor impact. A stone cairn is located 40ft northwest of the Dig Tree. Further to the northwest is the Conrick Plaque, a metal sign attached to a large stone. Recent signage near the Dig Tree tells the story of Burke and Wills and their ill-fated expedition.
The Face Tree (Eucalyptus microtheca), stands on the banks of the waterhole downstream (southwest) of the Dig Tree. It portrays a rendition of the face of Robert O'Hara Burke and the letters ROB.
","history":"The Burke and Wills Dig Tree on the banks of Cooper's Creek is associated with explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills. The tree was blazed on 21 April 1861 by William Brahé and party who had remained at Cooper's Creek while Burke, Wills, Charles Gray and John King forged ahead to the northern coast of Australia. Brahé's party was finally forced to abandon the depot and trek homewards, leaving a message pointing to a cache of hidden stores.
Burke was born in 1821 in County Galway Ireland, of Protestant gentry. Following an education at the Woolwich Academy, the young Burke served as a lieutenant in the Austrian cavalry and later the Irish Mounted Constabulary, before emigrating to Australia in 1853. After several postings with the Victorian Police, Burke was appointed to lead the Victorian Exploring Expedition, a position he had anxiously and diligently pursued.
Wills, born in Devon England in 1834, trained in medicine. He migrated to Australia in 1853 and after a short stint working as a shepherd at Deniliquin, New South Wales, Wills assisted his father with his medical practice at Ballarat, Victoria. Wills later studied surveying and astronomy, and accompanied the expedition as astronomer, surveyor, and third-in-command, behind camel master George Landells.
The Victorian Exploring Expedition was undertaken in the spirit of previous epics such as Edward Eyre's journey between Western Australia and South Australia in 1840, and Ludwig Leichhardt's 1844-5 trek from the Darling Downs in Queensland to Port Essington near Darwin. Organised by the Royal Society of Victoria and supported by the government, the expedition's objectives were hazy, beyond the desire to make the already-prosperous colony mightier by taking the lead in exploration efforts. The expedition would prove extremely expensive both financially and in lives, yet was ultimately successful in its bid to beat South Australia's McDouall Stuart to the first north-south crossing of the continent.
A large Melbourne crowd farewelled the explorers on 20 August 1860. The party comprised fifteen men, twenty-six Indian camels with their drivers, packhorses, wagons, food and supplies. In early October the party reached Menindee on the Darling River. Burke had already begun to shed baggage, determined to travel light and fast, leaving behind much of the equipment and some provisions at Balranald.
Burke left more provisions at Menindee. He also quarrelled with Landells, who subsequently resigned. Burke promoted Wills to second-in-charge and engaged local man William Wright as third officer. Despite having received clear instructions that he was to establish his main base camp at Cooper's Creek, Burke pressed on quickly with an advance party of eight, leaving the remainder of the men and stores under the unreliable charge of Wright. Wright lingered at Menindee for three months, contrary to Burke's orders to proceed to Coopers' Creek as soon as possible. Wright failed to arrive at Cooper's Creek with the all-too-important reserve provisions and transport before Burke returned from the Gulf of Carpentaria.
On 6 December 1860 Burke and his seven men established Camp LXV (65) at Cooper's Creek, having halted at several other spots along the Creek during the preceding three-and-a-half weeks while searching for the best location for a longer-term depot. Here Burke split his party once again, and on 16 December pressed on to the Gulf accompanied only by Wills, King and Gray. Brahé, Thomas McDonough, William Patten and Dost Mahomet were instructed by Burke to wait for at least three months (the more cautious Wills preferred four months), before retracing their steps homewards via the Darling River. During their stay at Camp LXV, Brahé's party erected a timber stockade to protect themselves and their supplies from the unwanted interest of local Aborigines.
Four months later on the morning of 21 April 1861, William Brahé and his party of three others including the seriously-injured Patten, left for Menindee. Before embarking on this four-hundred-mile return journey, Brahé carved three separate messages into a Coolibah tree on the banks of Cooper's Creek. The inscriptions marked the location of the cached stores, the camp number, and the dates of the arrival of the advance party (6 December 1860) and Brahé's departure.
Brahé noted in his journal that the party left the depot at 10 o'clock a.m., leaving 50 lbs. of flour, 50 lbs. of oatmeal, 50 lbs. of sugar, and 30 lbs. of rice buried near the stockade, at the foot of a large tree, and marked the word "Dig" on the tree.
Brahé headed towards Menindee, taking all the camels, horses and clothes, and the bulk of the remaining food stores. He later testified that he did not leave the message and stores in any real expectation of Burke's return, given that he was already well overdue. Rather, only for any party that should come up - that was most likely to come up from the Darling - to know what had become of us. I was very likely to miss any party coming up, he told the 1861-2 Royal Commission established to inquire into and report upon the deaths of Burke and Wills.
Burke's party, by now reduced to three with the death of Gray on 17 April 1861, reached Camp LXV on the evening of 21 April 1861. Only two exhausted camels survived and the men were perilously low on stores. They discovered that Brahé had departed that same day, leaving the messages carved into the Dig Tree pointing to the cache of supplies. Subsequent events would prove to be a litany of missed opportunities and failure to communicate.
A week after their departure from Camp LXV, Brahé met with Wright's party, heading north and finally en route to Cooper's Creek. Brahé and Wright then returned to the camp, but having noticed no evidence of Burke's return on 21 April, left no further messages or indications and retraced their steps southwards. Brahé arrived in Melbourne late in June 1861 to report on the missing men.
On April 23 Burke's trio began the 150-mile westward journey to Blanchewater Station, near Mount Hopeless in South Australia, preferring to take this direction over the longer, but known, journey to Menindee. Twice they were forced back to Cooper's Creek due to lack of water to the west. They then remained along the Creek throughout June. On 30 May 1861 Wills had returned to Camp LXV. He found no evidence of Brahé's return in early May, and placed his journals and a new note in the buried cache for fear of accidents, and returned to his companions waiting further along Cooper's Creek. After surviving on ground nardoo, which was slowly poisoning them due to their lack of expertise in its preparation in leaching out the toxins, Wills died alone on the banks of Cooper's Creek on 27 or 28 June. He had insisted that his companions head further down the creek to seek assistance from the Aborigines. A day or two later, Burke also succumbed, having sent King on to look for help. With the assistance of Aborigines, King survived along the watercourse until found on 15 September 1861 by Alfred Howitt's search party.
When it became known that the Burke and Wills expedition had foundered, such was the prominence of the undertaking that a number of search parties were quickly organised. Howitt left from Melbourne, John McKinlay from Adelaide, Frederick Walker from Rockhampton, and William Landsborough from Brisbane.
Howitt's party, which included Brahe and King, arrived at Camp LXV on 13 September 1861. The Royal Commission was told that they found the depot as Mr Brahe had left it, the plant untouched, and nothing removed of the useless things lying about, but a piece of leather. The party located Wills' remains where his body had been covered by King, some miles downstream of Camp LXV. They buried Wills on 18 September 1861, and inscribed a tree. Field books, notebooks and various small articles were recovered.
Three days later and approximately seven miles away, Howitt found Burke's remains near Innamincka Waterhole (two miles north of Innamincka) in South Australia. Burke was buried wrapped in a Union Jack, under a box tree on the south-eastern bank of Cooper's Creek. Howitt blazed this tree at the head of Burke's grave.
The Royal Geographical Society, organised to promote exploration, awarded Burke a posthumous RGS Founder's Medal in 1862. Wills was awarded nothing, as the Society's policy was to award only one medal to an exploration party. King received a gold watch, as did McKinlay, Landsborough and Walker for leading their various search parties.
These search parties helped open up vast areas of inland Australia for settlement, as a result of the increased knowledge of the country they brought back with them. McKinlay had travelled northwards across the Cooper, to Gray's grave, and on to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Landsborough came from the north, via the Barkly Tableland to the Cooper and then Menindee, and Walker arrived to find Burke's last camp, thence returning eastwards. By the time the public funeral for Burke and Wills was held in January 1863, pastoralists were driving their sheep and cattle up the Bulloo. Within a decade or so there were established homesteads on the banks of Cooper's Creek, including Nappa Merrie sheep station, taken up by John Conrick in 1873. Prospectors working their way north of Menindee found enormously rich deposits of silver, lead and zinc at Piesse's Knob, later better known as Broken Hill.
Called in 1911 by the Sydney Mail "William Brahé's Tree", an accompanying photograph showed the "DIG" inscription on the right-hand branching trunk partly overgrown with bark, obscuring the "D". Another blaze on the left-branching trunk showed some indecipherable letters and/or numerals. Surviving remnants of Brahé's stockade also are visible in the photograph. In 1928 the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia referred to the tree as better known as the 'Depot Tree', alluding to its function of marking a major stopping and storage place for the expedition. Frank Clune's 1937 book Dig has been credited with changing the tree's popular, and still-current name, to the 'Dig Tree'.
This particular tree had initially received less attention because it was not immediately associated with the deaths of either man. But by the 1880s the various explorers' trees marked by members of the expedition and by the various search parties had become valued by Australians as relics worthy of protection. The Dig Tree eventually came to be regarded as central to the story of the expedition, partly as a result of John Longstaff's iconic 1907 painting exhibited in the National Gallery of Victoria, The Arrival of Burke, Wills and King at the deserted Camp at Coopers Creek.
The Dig Tree has been considered of historical significance to Queensland for much of the 20th century. In 1937 the Conrick Plaque, erected by members of the family to first settle the area, was placed on a cairn near the Dig Tree. On 2 July 1964 the Queensland Government declared an area of approximately one acre surrounding the Dig Tree a reserve for memorial purposes, the land placed under the trusteeship of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland. The Stanbroke Pastoral Company currently manages the site on behalf of the Society.
The Department of Environment & Heritage erected interpretative signage in 1993. In 1996-7 further signage was prepared by the Department of Environment, in consultation with the Royal Queensland Historical Society, Bulloo Shire Council, and the Stanbroke Pastoral Company. Funded by Dick Smith's Australian Geographic publication, these new interpretative panels were erected c1997. Subsequently, boardwalks were built to protect the Dig and Face* Trees, and toilets were built in February 2001.
* The Face Tree is located on the same reserve as the Dig Tree. It portrays the face of Robert O'Hara Burke and the letters ROB, thought to have been carved in 1898 by John Dick.
","criteria":"The Dig Tree is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history, because the Burke and Wills expedition contributed to the opening up of the Australian inland to pastoralism. During the 1860s settlers, including the Duracks and Costellos in 1865, had pushed into the Channel Country grazing their sheep and cattle along Coopers Creek and the myriad channels and streams. Only twelve years after the deaths of Burke and Wills, the land encompassing the Dig Tree and depot area had been taken up as Nappa Merrie station.
|The Burke and Wills Dig Tree and Camp 65 is important for its special association with explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, who completed the first north-south crossing of the Australian continent and who both died during their return journey, in 1861. Their journey was remarkable not only as a feat of endurance and story of incompetence, but for the way in which it has permeated Australian historical consciousness, how it is celebrated in high art by verse and painting, and how it has contributed to the perpetuation of the Australian bush legend of struggle against the wilderness. The Dig Tree is a revered social landmark for many Australians, as evidenced by the many visitors to the site every year.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15851,"place_ref":601077,"name":"Mitchell Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Oxford Street (passenger station), Alice Street (goods shed) and Sheffield Street (station master's","suburb":"MITCHELL","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-08","description":"Mitchell Railway Station is located on Oxford Street, on the western edge of Mitchell township. The buildings and structures of cultural heritage significance include the passenger station (c1910 moved to the station c1933) the goods shed (1884-85 with substantial later modifications) and the station master's house (1884). The passenger station is located on the southern side of the railway tracks and faces Oxford Street. The goods shed is immediately opposite the passenger station on the northern side of the tracks. Over 100 metres away from these structures towards the north, is the station master's house located on a separate allotment accessed from Ann Road.
Passenger Station
The passenger station is a narrow building, timber-framed and clad in weatherboards, set on concrete stumps. It has a gabled roof of corrugated iron. A small extension to the south west of the building has a skillion roof. .
The south eastern elevation of the building faces the road. A set of double, framed and boarded doors provide the only access through this elevation. These open out onto a small loading platform and give access into the store room at the south western end of the building. Four timber framed, vertical sliding windows are distributed along the elevation to the east of the doors. A fifth window opening into the lavatory at the north eastern end is louvred.
The ends of the building are each provided with a single window. A vertical sliding window is located roughly in the centre of the north eastern end and a small louvered window is fitted in the middle of the other end near the top.
The platform extends along the length of the north western elevation. A series of doors and openings give access onto the platform. The waiting room is enclosed on three sides only. The fourth side is open to the platform and this forms the largest opening on the platform elevation. Single doors provide access to the records room and the male lavatory, two single doors open into the station office and a double door opens into the store. With the exception of the door into the male lavatory, the single doors are paneled, with the top panels of the doors into the office glassed. The double doors into the store are framed and boarded. Two vertical sliding windows open into the office. Access into the women's lavatory is via a single door from the waiting shed.
The roof of the building extends over the platform. A series of horizontal timber members extend from the wall out to the rafters over the platform. The space between the members and the rafters is in-filled with vertical slats. Short straight timber brackets extend from the mid-point of the horizontal member down to the wall at an angle of approximately 45o.
With the exception of the store room and men's lavatory, the internal rooms of the station are all lined. The women's lavatory, store room and waiting shed at the north eastern end are lined with vertical boards and the office with fibro or plaster board. Timber benches are fixed to two of the walls in the waiting shed.
Goods shed
The goods shed is a large timber framed structure, clad in corrugated iron. It has a gabled roof with wide eaves. On the north western elevation, two large ledge and brace sliding doors provide road transport access to an internal loading bay. A raised timber platform fills most of the interior of the shed. The concrete floored loading bay is the only section of the floor which is at ground level. Outside the shed on the south eastern side, a raised timber platform runs along the rail tracks almost the full length of the elevation. Two large ledge and brace timber sliding doors open onto this platform.
Station Master's House
The station master's house is a timber-framed building clad with weatherboards, sitting on short concrete stumps. It comprises an L-shaped, five-roomed core with a central hallway; a separately roofed, semi-detached kitchen; and a later skillion-roofed laundry along the southwest side, between the kitchen and the main house, resting on a concrete slab. All the roofs are clad with corrugated galvanised iron.
The core of the house has a gabled roof over the front four rooms with a hipped roof extending at the back of the house along the northeast side, to accommodate a fifth room and a passage leading to the kitchen. There are separately roofed verandahs to the front and sides of the core. These have a two-rail balustrade and simple timber brackets to the verandah posts. The verandah along the southwest side has been enclosed at a later date to accommodate a bathroom and toilet.
The north western elevation is the front of the house. Access is gained to the verandah via a short, centrally positioned staircase opposite a four-paneled front door. On either side of the front door is a double-hung sash window with four lights.
The northeastern verandah roof is extended by a skillion, approximately one metre wide, running the full length of the elevation. The extended roof is supported by a series of horizontal members extending from the verandah posts out to the rafters. Short straight timber brackets extend from the mid-point of each horizontal member down to the posts at an angle of approximately 45o. The space between the members and the rafters are in-filled with vertical slats. Two double-hung sash windows and a set of French doors (which open into the rear bedroom) are spaced evenly along the elevation.
The kitchen at the rear of the house has a projecting stove recess, clad with curved corrugated iron, in the south west elevation. Rear access to the house is gained through a door in the centre of the south east elevation of the kitchen building. The approach to the door is via a short staircase running parallel to the wall and ending on a small landing covered by a skillion roof. There is a double-hung sash window with four lights to the right of the door and a single set of later louvres to the left of the door. A corrugated iron tank on a tank-stand is located adjacent to the north eastern end of the kitchen.
The interior linings and fittings of the house appear to be of fairly recent origin. In the laundry, the north eastern interior wall (formerly an external wall of the house) is clad in weatherboards. The kitchen is fitted with built-in cupboards, sink and stove of fairly recent origin, but there is also an early wood stove in the iron stove recess.
The house is located on a separate allotment to the rest of the station buildings. A weld-mesh fence encloses the block. The allotment is almost bare of vegetation except for an assortment of small shrubs and trees growing mostly at the rear of the block. A steel carport and garden shed of recent origin are located to the south west of the house. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Mitchell railway station was opened on 17 January 1885 as part of a rail link to service western Queensland. Buildings of heritage significance on the site include the passenger station, goods shed and station master's house. The station complex reflects the historic role of Mitchell as a regional centre in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It provides good examples of typical railway architecture from this period in south western Queensland.
In Australia, government fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and providing social benefits. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers. An added incentive for rail development in Queensland was the very poor state of the roads. In wet weather especially, this hampered the transport of freight. Railway development became the province of government because of the doubtful economics of building and operating a rail service for the widely distributed, sparse population of rural Queensland. In most cases the capital costs were high in relation to the potential revenue likely to be raised from passengers and freight. These economies imposed a natural limit on the expansion of railways into remote areas.
The government initially gave priority to developing a railway west of Brisbane. As well as providing graziers and farmers with a more efficient transport link to the coast, railways were seen as a key to encouraging closer settlement west of the Great Dividing Range. The first section of rail, opened on 31 July 1865, was between Ipswich and Bigg's Camp, 34 kilometres west of Ipswich. By February 1868 the rail was extended to Dalby in the Darling Downs. With a railhead provided for the squatters in this region, extensions further west ceased while the railway was developed elsewhere. A line south to Warwick was opened in 1871 and in August 1872, approval was granted to extend the railway in Central Queensland and to start an Ipswich to Brisbane rail link. It was 1876 before construction of the railway westward from Dalby recommenced. The rail was opened to Roma in 1880 and to East Mitchell in 1883.
The region surrounding Mitchell was explored by Surveyor-General Sir Thomas Mitchell in the mid-1840s. The explorer spoke highly of the country's pastoral potential and within two years, squatters had occupied runs in the vicinity of Mount Abundance to the south of the present township of Mitchell. Eurella, Amby Downs, Mitchell Downs and Forest Vale, four pastoral runs in the vicinity of Mitchell, are believed have been taken up in 1861. The head station for Mitchell Downs was located on the site of the present town of Mitchell on the banks of the Maranoa River.
Mitchell Downs homestead was located on the western side of the Maranoa River, near the place where teamsters from Charleville, Bollon and St George crossed the river and was the logical site for a settlement to develop. One of the first settlers in the region recalls that after the Mitchell Downs homestead was damaged by flood waters in 1864 and had been moved to a nearby location, the remains of the original homestead were converted into the Maranoa Hotel. This was the township's first building. In 1876, Mitchell became a stage on the Cobb and Co. route from Roma to Charleville. Coach routes opened from Mitchell to Bollon in 1900 and to St George in 1905.
The rail reached the eastern bank of the Maranoa River across from the township of Mitchell in 1883. The river formed a natural barrier and until a bridge was constructed, a temporary terminus at East Mitchell was established. This was opened on 8 October 1883. A public holiday was proclaimed and a free 'excursion train' ran from Roma to the new terminus, but no formal ceremony was held owing to the lack of notice given of the opening (Western Star October 10 1883). With the opening of the East Mitchell terminus, the departure point of the Roma to Charleville Cobb and Co. route was moved to Mitchell. Coaches ran to Charleville three times weekly.
The Maranoa River bridge was completed on 10 September 1884 as part of the contract for the next rail extension. The bridge extends almost 210 metres and is made up of three spans on concrete piers with timber approaches. It is reputedly one of a small number of rail bridges built with continuous girders (Kerr: 1993, 4-107). Contracts were let in 1884 for a goods shed (still partly extant), engine and carriage sheds, booking offices, station master's house (still extant), cattle and sheep yards and three gate keeper's cottages at the site of the planned new terminus in Mitchell.
On 17 January 1885, the rail link between East Mitchell and Mitchell was opened by a ministerial party, which included Hon. W Miles (Minister for Works), Hon. CB Dutton (Minister for Lands), F Curnow (acting Commissioner for Railways), JF Thallon (Queensland Rail Traffic Manager), P McLean (Land Commissioner in Chief) and C Adam (Railway Traffic Inspector). At this time, the main station building and platform was almost complete and the goods shed, carriage shed and engine shed were in the process of construction.
The opening of the rail to Mitchell brought increased commerce to the township due to its role as the western rail terminus. Outward bound wool statistics for stations during the period when the western railway was being built shows that as the rail arrived at a township, that centre enjoyed a brief period of high goods traffic until the rail moved further west. Thus, in 1882, the year before the opening of the East Mitchell Station, Roma Railway Station recorded the highest quantity of outward bound wool on the Western Line at 6,687 bales. In 1884, this figure dropped to 1,308 bales with the new terminus at East Mitchell recording 9,545, the largest quantity on the western line. As the rail opened to points west of Mitchell, however, traffic through the station reduced. After the opening of Morven Station in March 1887, wool leaving Mitchell Station dwindled to 774 bales.
The extant passenger station is the third to occupy the site. The first building was destroyed by fire on the night of 13 December 1887. It was replaced by a shelter shed comprising a waiting area, office and lavatory. In about 1901, refreshment rooms (no longer extant) were erected comprising a bar, dining room and semi-detached kitchen. The second shelter shed burnt down on 29 June 1933. The present station was erected probably later that year utilising a shelter shed from Evanslea Station and a storeroom from Silverwood Station. The architectural style of the buildings suggests that probably they date to no earlier than 1910.
The core of the goods shed appears to date to 1884-85. Originally 101 feet (30.8 metres) long, the shed was quite large and this is indicative of the high goods traffic passing through the station initially. In February 1963, approval was given to reduce the length of the shed to 45 feet (13.7 metres). Material recovered was used for repairs to the building.
A contract for the station master's house, still extant on the site, was let on 19 July 1884 to Warren Brothers, the well-known building and architectural firm based in Roma and was likely completed by the time the Mitchell Station was opened in January 1885. Warren Brothers erected many government buildings in the Roma district including the Roads and Lands Office at Roma (1878), the Court House at Surat (1878-79) and the railway buildings at Roma (1880). The Mitchell station master's house may be a prototype for a later Queensland Rail standard design since its design is similar to Queensland Rail's architectural standard for first class station masters' houses in 1889. By as early as 1894 this standard had changed and in 1917 the Mitchell residence was recorded as a third class station master's house.
The architect responsible for the standard design for first class station master's houses was Henrik Hansen. Born in Denmark in 1843, Hansen had emigrated to Australia by 1877, when he was practising as an architect in Maryborough. Between October 1877 and 1904, he was employed in the Chief Engineers Branch of the Queensland Railway's Southern Division. In this position, he was responsible for the design of many standard railway buildings including station masters' residences.
Minor modifications to the station master's residence in the 20th century included the removal of the original brick chimney and replacement with an iron stove recess c1945 and extension of the awning over the northeastern side verandah in 1963.
After Charleville Station opened in 1888, the Carriage and Engine sheds at Mitchell Station were moved to Charleville. Of these two buildings, the engine shed remained intact until 2003 when it was blown down in a severe windstorm.
Since the station was first opened in 1885, accommodation for train and maintenance crews has been erected on the site. In the 1950s, train crews were quartered at Mitchell to relieve crews travelling from Roma and Charleville. A modified goods shed and two fettlers' cottages were moved to the site to accommodate crews. By 1961 there were 12 residential buildings on the site providing accommodation for maintenance and operations staff. Currently, there are only three residential buildings, comprising the station master's house and two more recent houses.
","criteria":"The Mitchell Railway Station, opened in 1885, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, providing physical evidence of Mitchell's role as a regional centre in the late 19th century. The station master's house and the core of the goods shed date to this period. The establishment of a railway station at Mitchell was consistent with the town's historic role as a node on southwestern Queensland's transport network, being located at the junction of roads to Roma, Charleville, Bollon and St George. As the western rail terminus for about two years after its opening, Mitchell was one of the busiest stations on the Western Line.
|The station master's house, constructed in 1884, is a substantially intact and now rare early example of a mid-1880s station master's residence. The earliest identified Queensland Rail standard drawing of this type of station master's residence dates to 1889, five years after the construction of the Mitchell house. The design was superseded by the beginning of the 20th century.
|The station complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of railway stations during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the importance of the rail link to the west was fundamental to the region's economic development. The station retains a number of principal elements from this period including the station master's house (1884), the goods shed (1884-1885) and the passenger station (c1910 moved to the station c1933). The station master's house is important in illustrating the varied work of Queensland Railway's architectural office during the tenure of Henrik Hansen, the Danish born architect who was responsible for the design of many standard Queensland Rail buildings of the nineteenth century. The passenger station is a composite of two buildings transported from Evanslea and Silverwood Stations in c1933 to replace the previous building which had burnt down. This is a good example of a Queensland Rail practice, common until the 1960s, of recycling railway buildings and structures.
|The station is a small, attractive railway landmark on the route of the 'Westlander'. The complex, including the station master's house, makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the townscape of Mitchell.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15853,"place_ref":601080,"name":"Selwyn House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cowleys Road","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"Selwyn House is a single story, high-set house set on timber and concrete stumps. The house comprises a fibro clad central section with enclosed verandah, flanked on the north and south by wings clad with ripple iron, with projecting, hipped gable roofs to the front [east] and the rear [west]. The roof of the enclosed central, projecting porch, with its hipped roof is similar in style to the projecting north and south wings. The roof is clad with corrugated, galvanised iron.
The north wing has a bay window in the front and casement windows along the northern elevation. The south wing has timber-framed, double hung sash windows in the front elevation and timber-framed, double-hung sash windows along the southern elevation. The lower section of the house has timber lattice work on the front [eastern] elevation. Originally, two sets of external stairs were located on either side of the open porch. The porch has been enclosed with a series of windows on three sides. The original timber brackets are extant. Located at the rear [southern] side of the house, at the north and south ends, are two timber staircases.
Internally, the original, now central, core of Selwyn House is evident and is clad with timber chamferboards. French doors open from the core to the enclosed verandahs. All the doors are extant. On the western side of the enclosed verandah, bathroom facilities have been built. The room on the northern side of the core is clad with vertically joined timber. The room on the southern side of the core is clad with fibro. An archway is located in this room, forming one large area. This room is likely to have originally been two smaller rooms. On the eastern side of the verandah, a doorway leads to the centrally located, projecting porch. This room is clad with fibro. A wall has been added to divide the verandah. Timber-framed casements windows with coloured panes of glass are located along the eastern wall of the verandah.
Internally, the north wing consists of one large room divided by a timber arch. This room appears to have originally been two rooms. The design of the pressed metal detail on the walls and ceiling is different in each room. Two doorways are located along the northern wing's wall. One is a set of french doors, with ornate leadlight detail, breezeway and fanlight assembly, leading to the central section of the house.
Internally, a pressed metal ceiling on the northern side of the house. The only internal wall clad with ripple iron is also located on the northern side of the house.
The southern wing is similar in style to the northern wing but less ornate. Internally, the south wing has horizontally lined with ventilators located in the timber lined ceiling. The kitchen is outfitted with c1950s décor and a stove recess is located in the southern side of the western wall. The room is clad with horizontally joined timber.
Selwyn House is situated amongst a number of mature palm trees and garden plantings. Two mature mango trees mark part of the western boundary line. While the area has undergone some changes, particularly with the establishment of businesses in the vicinity, Selwyn House is still predominantly surrounded by large areas of sugar cane and the Racecourse Mill is located only a short distance away in a generally south-westerly direction.
","history":"The core of Selwyn House, was constructed on land which originally formed part of the Meadowlands Plantation owned by William Henry Hyne and George Francis Bridgman. The first section of the building was likely to have been constructed c1896, when prominent missionary, Mary Goodwin Robinson operated the Selwyn Mission. Mrs Robinson was involved in the Selwyn Mission, as it was to become known, from its establishment, c1882 until her departure from the Mackay area due to ill health in 1903. Extensions to the northern side of the house were added in 1914 and to the southern side in c1918.
In search of new pastoral land, John Mackay and his party entered and named the valley of the Mackay River in 1860, and the following year he returned to establish a cattle station. In 1862, the ketch Presto entered the Mackay River landing stores and building materials, then surveyed the river mouth, which consequently was gazetted as a Port of Entry. The first settlers arrived in October 1862, establishing the settlement of Port Mackay on the south bank of the river. In January 1863, John Tanner Baker was appointed Sub Collector of Customs for the new port. He arrived in February setting up in a tent, but soon established the Customs Office in a corner of the large store of Byrnes, Basset and Co. located on the riverbank. By the end of 1863, the name of the river had been changed to the Pioneer, the first survey of the town of Mackay had been made, and the first land sale of town lots had been held.
The first sugar cane was planted in the Mackay region in 1865 and by the 1870s the industry was well established in the area. Queensland plantations turned to Kanaka indentured labour at this time as it was believed that Europeans could not perform manual labour in the tropics. The methods used to recruit South Sea Island people and the conditions within which they worked were the subject of considerable criticism, and so from the mid 1880s, a series of Government Acts sought to replace the large plantations worked by South Sea Islanders with small independent farms supplying central mills.
The Deed of Grant for the property on which Selwyn House was to be constructed was issued to William Henderson on 6 August 1866. [An area of just over 18 acres, the property was described as Portion 199]. Ownership was transferred to John Francis William Fitzgerald in December 1871. Fitzgerald was in partnership with Albert Throckmorton Ball, a pastoralist turned sugar grower. They continued in partnership, however, they incurred serious losses through the rust of 1875. The property was transferred to Michael McCluskey in September 1873. McCluskey was a publican and owned the Horse and Jockey Hotel, on Nebo Road, from 1869-76. Following his death in 1876, the property was acquired by George Francis Bridgman and William Henry Hyne. At this time, it became part of their Meadowlands Estate, first established in 1870.
Similar to most European communities in Australia, the early settlers in Mackay in the 1860s began to feel a need for a religious presence. Initially, the community had to rely on visits from the clergy. Dr Tufnell, Anglican Bishop of Brisbane called into the fledgling town in 1863, married two couples and arranged to have land bought for the church. A Roman Catholic priest was appointed in Mackay in November 1865. An Anglican clergyman arrived in 1867 to establish a parish. The first to show concern for the South Sea Islanders was Reverend Albert A Maclaren, Anglican priest in Mackay from mid-1878 until early 1883, and in 1891, founder of the Anglican mission in Papua New Guinea. It was through Maclaren's urging that the first Christian missions for South Sea Island people in Queensland were established.
In 1876, the Mackay Mercury began to advocate the introduction of missions for South Sea Islanders in Queensland. At Mackay, Father Maclaren was able to interest Mary Goodwin Robinson in ministering to South Sea Island workers. Mary Robinson was the wife of HJG [Henry John Goodwin] Robinson. In 1877, HJG Robinson took up a position as manager of Branscombe plantation. By c1882 Mary Robinson had begun giving Bible lessons to South Sea Islanders in her home. It has been suggested that Mary Robinson began teaching as early as 1879. Mrs Robinson, knowing many planters and plantation managers, asked for donations and funds to continue her work. Hyne and Bridgman of Meadowlands Plantation donated just over 3 acres of land.
By 1884, Branscombe Plantation had closed and HJG Robinson was transferred to Te Kowai Plantation, where he remained until 1890. HJG Robinson then took on the management of Marian Plantation, with Mary Robinson having to transfer her headquarters to Marian. After several years at Marian Mill the Robinsons returned to the Te Kowai area in c1896, at this time it is likely that HJG Robinson was involved in the Racecourse Mill, which began operation in 1889 as one of the first central mills in the district. It was around the time of the Robinsons' return to the area that a mission building was constructed on the land earlier donated by Hyne and Bridgman of Meadowlands. It is likely that this building forms the core of Selwyn House, which was a simple three room cottage design with a verandah.
Bridgman and Hyne held the property until September 1901, when title was transferred to the Corporation of the Diocesan Synod of North Queensland. At this time, the portion of land was subdivided. The subdivision comprised the area of just over three acres which Hyne and Bridgman had earlier donated to the Selwyn Mission. Here Mary Robinson ran a school for Melanesians. The response she received is reflected in a letter she wrote to Bishop Barlow on 15th April 1901. Robinson states that:
\t'I ought to have written 'ere this and reported myself, but indeed have scarcely known which \tway to turn for the crowds of heathens pouring in every night afresh to the School, making me feel quite alarmed as to where to put them all! What a harvest there promises for the future. I ask your prayers that I may have the strength and health to gather them in'1
From 1882 to 1903 Mary Robinson operated the Robinson, later Selwyn, Mission. In 1903, when old and seriously ill, Robinson retired to Adelaide. As the mission became established she had trained Melanesian lay preachers and had a European assistant. These people carried on the mission's work after Robinson's departure, but at a new base at St Mary's Church at Pioneer on the north side of the river. Alex Sayven was lay preacher at St Mary's from 1905 to 1914. By 1928, it was observed that the '...seed from the Selwyn Mission has been carried far...' 2
Selwyn House was sold in 1903 to TJ [Thomas James] Whitcomb. During 1903, Whitcomb was elected Chairman of Directors of the Racecourse Central Mill Company. He remained in that position until his retirement in 1915. Whitcomb may not have lived at the property during the earlier years of his ownership, as he is listed at a different address for several years. He undertook major extensions in 1914 and it is likely that, at this time, the house was raised on blockwork as well as the addition of the northern wing, complete with pressed metal walls and ceilings. It is likely that a section of pressed metal in the former verandah area was completed at this time. The property remained in the Whitcomb family until 1918. During Whitcomb's time as Chairman of Directors, the Racecourse Central Mill consolidated its resources with the purchase of Meadowlands Mill. Negotiations were commenced in January 1914. At the annual meeting of Racecourse shareholders held on 25 February 1914, the directors' decision to purchase Meadowlands was ratified. In February 1915, TJ Whitcomb retired from the Board.
In 1918, the house was purchased by JM [James Mark] Gibson, a major figure in the local sugar industry and the building was extended again, this time with the addition of a wing on the southern side, following heavy cyclone damage. Gibson was one of the largest sugar growers in the Mackay district and was involved with the Racecourse Mill for over 56 years; as chief chemist, manager and from 1923, as director. On his death in 1964, the house was divided into two flats and remained that way until the house was purchased by the current owners, who reverted it back from flats to a house.
","criteria":"Constructed c1896, the core of Selwyn House is significant for its connection with the Selwyn Mission, established c1882, and the education of indentured South Sea Islander labour and for its close connection with the sugar industry in Mackay.
|Selwyn House is significant as a possible rare extant, though now modified structure utilised during the period.
|Selwyn House is significant as a possible rare extant, though now modified structure utilised during the period. Further historical research will reveal more about the construction date.
|From the earlier simple, verandahed timber dwelling to the large house with intact pressed metal linings and external and internal ripple iron cladding, suitable for entertaining guests of a mill directors, the growth and development of Selwyn House has closely mirrored the development of the sugar industry in Mackay.
|(Criterion under review)
|Selwyn House is significant as a focus for local memory regarding the role played by South Sea Islander labour in the establishment of Mackay and the surrounding area as one of Queensland's premier sugar-growing areas. South Sea Islander people have all expressed a high level of interest in the house for its social value. Oral histories maintain that the bell which used to be located on the property was rung to bring people together. [The bell was removed around 1996].
Selwyn House is significant as it has strong social significance for residents of the Mackay and surrounding areas and is highly valued by the community. Selwyn House was identified in the Mackay Region Pilot Heritage Study.
|It is significant for its association with Mary Goodwin Robinson who established the Selwyn Mission, and was involved with it until her departure from the Mackay area in 1903. Mary Robinson provided a level of education to indentured South Sea Islander people who worked on the sugar plantations.
Selwyn House stands as a demonstration of the prosperity and vigorous growth of the industry and as an illustration of the lifestyle of major figures in this development, especially Thomas Whitcomb and James Gibson, both of whom held the position of Chairman of Directors at the Racecourse Central Mill.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15854,"place_ref":601081,"name":"Burdekin River Pumping Station (former)","alternate_name":"Charters Towers Water Supply Scheme","street_address":"Weir Road","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-07-03","description":"The former Burdekin River Pumping Station is located to the northeast of Charters Towers on the western bank of the Burdekin River. It is about one kilometre south of the present city weir and pumping station, on a peninsula at the junction of the Burdekin River and Sheepstation Creek. The pumping station, engineer's residence, worker's cottages and school were located on the north bank of the creek, which crosses the Water Supply Reserve from east to west. The school, cottages and engineer's residence are no longer extant.
The immediate site of the pump station has been fenced with a two metres high cyclone wire fence and the enclosed area has been well maintained. The ground between the creek and the bank of the river, which contains most of the remnants of the water supply system, has been kept clear of trees and larger shrubs. Some regrowth has occurred outside of this area and the creek is overgrown with vegetation. Scatters of machinery parts and building materials can be found along the banks and in the dry stream bed. Remnant pieces of machinery can be found scattered around the area close to the engines although some of these pieces have been gathered and stored to protect them from theft.
The western bank of the Burdekin River below the pumping station has become badly eroded. This erosion stems from the late 1880s when an inlet tunnel was constructed and flooding on several occasions washed away the disturbed river bank. The erosion has recently become so severe that the foundations of the steam pumps are threatened. The inlet tunnel remains although the stone work on the river bank entrance has been covered by sand. The access within the foundations of the engines remains intact.
Remnants of the aerial tramway (flying fox) foundations are located outside the fenced enclosure around the engines. Part of the tram track is visible in front of the flying fox foundations. The tracks run north-south along the river bank and finish near the engines. The chimney stands slightly northwest of the engines.
The steam engines and their foundations are relatively intact. After one hundred years the concrete steps and brickwork are deteriorating but have not yet reached a point where the security of the engines is threatened. The engines themselves are in reasonable condition, although some dismantling took place in the 1960s.
Behind the old engines is a fibrous cement clad building which was constructed to house the 1942 electric pumps. This building is in good condition and the electric pumps have been well maintained. To the south of the 1942 electric engine shed remnants of the rising main survive on the banks of Sheepstation Creek.
","history":"The former Burdekin River Pumping Station was erected as part of the important Charters Towers water supply system, constructed from 1887 to 1891 for the Burdekin Water Scheme Joint Board. When completed the scheme included a pumping station, rising main, reservoir on Tower Hill, chimney stack, engineer's residence, workers' cottages, provisional school, tram track, bridge across the Burdekin River and several trestle bridges to carry the rising main across small creeks between the pumping station and the reservoir in the town. The project cost around £80,000, exclusive of ongoing maintenance, the building of a weir in 1902 and construction of an aerial tramway (flying fox) across the river c1911.
The significance of the Charters Towers water supply system to the development of the surrounding goldfields cannot be overestimated. Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers was the richest of the North Queensland mining fields, and made a major contribution to the social, political and commercial development of North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peak production was reached in the early 1900s but by 1929 gold mining at Charter Towers had almost ceased.
Early Charters Towers mining activity depended on the local creeks, but the demand for water grew as population and mining expanded. Charters Towers was proclaimed a town in 1877, and by the early 1880s was a prosperous settlement with a rail link to the coast opened in 1882, yet still no sanitation system or reticulated water. In dry seasons the town survived on well water, and crushing slowed at the mines. A report and estimate for a water supply scheme for Charters Towers was prepared in 1878 by the Resident Engineer for Northern Waterworks, John Baillie Henderson, but action was delayed until the very dry years 1883-85 during which time a public campaign run by Thadeus O'Kane, editor of the Northern Miner, placed pressure on the government to provide an adequate water supply at Charters Towers. This campaign corresponded with a growing movement in industrialised countries for the establishment of water supply and sewerage infrastructures in urban communities.
In 1884 the Queensland Water Supply Department (established in 1881 with JB Henderson as the government Hydraulic Engineer) revived and modified the 1878 scheme. A new report was prepared but considered too expensive. Only following the 1886 speculative boom in Charters Towers did the government instruct Henderson to prepare a cheaper scheme. This was done by reducing the number of pumping stations from two to one and installing only one pumping engine initially. Water was to be pumped through a 12 inch cast-iron rising main to a circular reservoir on Tower Hill, from where it would be reticulated by gravity.
Under the Local Authority (Joint Action) Act 1886 the Burdekin Water Scheme Joint Board, drawn from members of Dalrymple Divisional Board and Charters Towers Municipal Council, was established to administer the project. Because the Board had no borrowing rights, loans of £30,200 each had to be raised through the Charters Towers Municipal Council and the Dalrymple Divisional Board, which were responsible for managing the loans.
In November 1886 a survey of the waterworks site was completed, with 7 acres reserved for the service reservoir at Tower Hill in Charters Towers, 53 acres reserved for the pipe track to town, and 742 acres at the junction of the Burdekin and Sheepstation Creek (13 kilometres northeast of Charters Towers) set aside as a water supply reserve [R.123] for the pumping station. The water supply reserve also functioned as a timber reserve to supply the wood to fuel the steam-driven pump engines, and was extended in the 1890s.
While the land survey and loans were being arranged Henderson prepared the plans and Frederick Talbot Joyce, a London trained civil engineer from Sydney, was selected as the site engineer. By early 1888 the Joint Board had placed an order with Hathorn Davey & Company of Leeds, England for a 75 horse power, inverted compound non-rotative engine coupled to a two-stage pumping system, with a capacity of 20,000 gallons per hour. The engine was designed by Henry Davey who made a significant contribution to the development of steam powered water pumping systems during the late 19th century. His differential system, applied to vertical compound engines, greatly increased the efficiency of non-rotative pumping engines and prolonged their viability as alternatives to rotating machines. Plans for the engine foundations, specifications for the assembling of engine and boilers, directions for the construction of buildings to protect them, and plans for a 60 feet high chimney arrived from Hathorn Davey in June 1888.
Despite initial progress, the project was plagued with problems and delays due to inexperience in implementing such a large project, a shortage of skilled labour, personality clashes and professional conflict between Henderson and Joyce. In mid-1888 the project ground to a halt and the Joint Board considered removing the project from the hands of the government engineers, but the loan structure prohibited this. It took intervention by the colonial secretary, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, for Henderson to abandon opposition to Joyce's plans and in June the Government approved issue of a loan so that the work could proceed.
Thomas H Mann & Co. was appointed contractor for the civil works at the pumping station, and in September 1888 F Taylor was appointed Foreman of Works and construction of the reservoir on Tower Hill commenced. Talbot Joyce prepared plans and specifications for the Charters Towers water reticulation scheme - 300,000 gallons pumped through 20 miles of pipe to service 5,000 people, with the possibility of supplying 600,000 gallons after the installation of a second engine. Thomas Tolson was granted the contract to dig the pipe trenches and build the trestle bridges across the small creeks between the pumping station at Sheepstation Creek and the town. In October 1888 Thomas Mann called tenders for making 80,000 bricks at the pumping station site, and in November the Joint Board accepted the tender of Contes and Company of London to supply pipes to the value of £22,700.
During January 1889 substantial progress was made with the civil works at the pumping station. An inlet tunnel 172 feet long to the river had been completed and was being lined with concrete and the pump shaft had been sunk to its full depth. The frame for the machinery shed at the pumping station had been constructed by Benjamin Toll, the boilers had arrived from England, and the site for the reservoir on Tower Hill had been excavated.
In 1889 conflict arose between the Dalrymple Divisional Board and the municipalities of Charters Towers, Millchester and Queenton, which were preparing to merge as one local authority, with the Divisional Board claiming that its ratepayers would have to pay higher water rates than those in the greater Charters Towers area. Disagreements over aspects of the waterworks project were common during Joint Board meetings and a violent disagreement over chairmanship of the Board in 1889 was resolved in the Supreme Court.
By late February the civil works at the pumping station were nearing completion. A major difficulty arose in April 1889 when it was discovered that Hathorn Davey had sent coal-burning Lancashire boilers when specially designed wood-burning boilers had been ordered. Hathorn Davey thought it understood that Lancashire boilers were more suitable for the site because they had two flues which allowed for the burning of either coal or timber, but offered to pay for the construction of furnaces. This offer was accepted and the furnaces, built of brick by Thomas H Mann & Co, cost £180 to install.
By August 1889 the chimney was under construction and work was progressing well, when Talbot Joyce tendered his resignation following a dispute with Taylor and the contractor for the reservoir. Joyce's resignation was accepted (illegally) by the Joint Board, Taylor was sacked and a new foreman (engineer William Bolland) appointed. By October the completion of works was slowing down and Talbot Joyce was reinstated, to resign of his own accord in March 1890. William Bolland took over as site engineer, and remained Resident Engineer of the Charters Towers water supply system until well into the 20th century.
An engineer employed by Hathorn Davey was sent from London to install the pump engine in 1889-90, and a tool shed and fence round the engine site were erected. The pump commenced operation in early February 1891, although not to full capacity. By August 1891 the reticulation system was operating fully, and by December 1,036 dwellings had been connected. After some delay the colonial government approved a £3,000 loan extension for the reticulation scheme and by 1894 3,132 premises were connected.
Flooding in 1894 caused problems at the pumping station when dirty water threatened to damage the pump and the intake tunnel silted up. To overcome this problem two shafts were sunk into the river bed to a depth of 42 feet so that sand-filtered water could be procured.
During the very dry years 1895-96 the high demand for water created difficulties in keeping the pumping station working, and the decision was made to purchase a second Hathorn Davey pump engine. By late May 1896 a new engine of the same capacity (20,000 gallons per hour) had been installed. The wood supply for these engines was exhausted on the western bank, so a low level bridge across the river was erected and a tram track laid for a distance of 1¾ miles to tap the supply of wood on the eastern side of the Burdekin.
In January 1898 Pumping Station Provisional (later State) School opened on land excised from the Water Supply Reserve [R.123], and served the families of the resident station workers and local farmers until closed in 1936.
The 1890s had been exceptionally dry and by 1900 Queensland was experiencing the worst drought on record. The drought corresponded with a large increase in population in Charters Towers and a subsequent increase in demand for water. There were 20,000 people in the district by 1897 and the population reached a peak of 26,780 in 1900. The reticulation scheme, extended in 1894, was not able to cope with the enormous increase in demand. The introduction of water restrictions changed the face of the town which, with the introduction of water reticulation in 1891, had become noted for its beautiful gardens and cool streets.
In 1902 the Board erected a substantial weir on R.122 upstream from the pumping station. The designer and site engineer was William Bolland, and construction was completed in November 1902. At 900 feet in length, 16 feet maximum depth and capacity of 400,000,000 gallons, the new weir was exceptional in scale and design for its time, and proved to be a tourist attraction and recreational venue for Charters Towers.
In the 1910s development at the pumping station included an aerial tramway (flying fox) constructed to replace the bridge across the Burdekin which was swept away in 1910/11; relocation in the creek bed of the rising main across Sheepstation Creek in 1913, eliminating on-going maintenance of the repeatedly flood-damaged trestle bridge; and in 1915-16 replacement of the Lancashire boilers with Cornish boilers purchased from the Brilliant and St George Mill and the Brilliant Central Mine. These were functioning by February 1916.
As the pump engines aged and the demand for a substantial supply of water continued, the provision of another pumping plant was discussed and a site selected up stream from the weir. However, before these plans were implemented the pressing need for water eased. By 1924 gold production at Charters Towers was on the decline, the population was falling, the demand for water had decreased and the pumps were able to meet the needs of the town. They continued in operation until 1942 when electric pumps were installed in a new shed behind the old pumps. These electric pumps remained in operation until 1975.
The 1942 installation of electric pumps was necessary because of the vast increase in population in Charters Towers and district during the lead up to the war in the Pacific. By February 1942 a Japanese invasion of Australia seemed imminent. To meet the danger, five US air bases with up to 15,000 personnel were located in the Charters Towers district. The Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Army also had bases in the area.
After the war No 2 Hathorn Davey pump engine was used occasionally but No 1 was not used again. No 2 pump was decommissioned in 1954 and it is understood that in the 1960s the boilers were removed and sold for scrap and the engines partially dismantled. In August 1975 a new electric pumping station was built at the weir.
","criteria":"The former Burdekin River Pumping Station demonstrates the substantial contribution of the late 19th century Charters Towers water supply system to the establishment of the surrounding gold fields at a critical period in the economic development of Queensland.
|The pumping engines are rare as they appear to be the only examples of Hathorn Davey inverted cross-compound non-rotative pumping engines surviving in the world, and are amongst the most important stationary steam engines remaining in Australia.
|The site also has potential to reveal further information about late 19th century waterworks technology, layout, construction and materials.
|The pumping station remains an important illustration of late 19th century waterworks technology employed at a time when local authorities in Queensland were becoming aware of the benefits of a clean, plentiful water supply to their communities. The pumping head from the Burdekin River to the service reservoir in Charters Towers of 570 feet was the highest employed in Queensland up to that time.
|They are fitted with Davey's patented differential valve gear and are valuable examples of late 19th century British technology imported to Australia, and particularly of the work of Henry Davey (1843-1928). Davey was one of the great British engineers of the late Victorian era, and had a profound impact on the development of steam water pumping technology at a time when local authorities were becoming aware of the significant benefits of a clean water supply to the health of their communities.
|The former Burdekin River Pumping Station has a close association with the work of engineers JB Henderson and FT Joyce and their contributions to the development of Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15855,"place_ref":601082,"name":"St John's Church","alternate_name":"Memorial Church of St John the Evangelist | St Johns Church | St John's Anglican Church","street_address":"Mundoolun Road","suburb":"MUNDOOLUN","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"St. John's Church, Mundoolun is a family chapel constructed of sandstone designed in Early English Gothic style to the design of John Buckeridge. It is sited on the rise of a hill with an avenue of Hoop Pines leading to the entry porch. A small cemetery, also planted with Hoop Pines, is located to the southwest of the church.
The church is simple in form but has a substantial quality that belies its size. It is orientated with the sanctuary to the southeast and comprises a combined nave and chancel, sanctuary, a southern vestry and northern porch attached, an organ chamber with a gallery and a western bell tower with a baptistry at its base. There is also a corrugated iron rainwater tank on the south side of the church.
The walls of the church are of random ashlar sandstone, their thickness indicating a rubble core. The stone is rough dressed with a birds eye texture on the exterior and smooth faced on the interior. Also on the exterior, window surrounds and buttress cappings are smooth tooled. The steeply pitched roof is clad with wide pan corrugated galvanised iron. The porch, vestry and organ chamber have separate gable roofs below the main roof eaves. The north porch ceiling is lined with v-jointed cedar boards and the ornate framed and boarded two-leaf porch door is also made of cedar. The outer porch door has been removed as a result of vandalism and has been replaced by a metal security screen door.
The walls of the tower are supported by buttresses. It has a castellated parapet and three belfry windows inset with timber louvres on each side. Lancet windows on each side of the church provide the only lighting for the church. Many of the windows have been replaced or repaired due to vandalism.
The interior is characterised by high quality joinery constructed of red cedar gained from the local district. The barrel vaulted ceiling of v-jointed cedar boards is supported by arched ribs, the vestry, porch and baptistry have flat ceilings also lined in cedar. The baptistry has a coffered ceiling with hinged sections, presumably to provide for bell ropes. The organ chamber has a stone vaulted ceiling. Pews, altar rails and other furniture are also of cedar. The floors of the chancel, sanctuary, baptistry and vestry are raised above the floor of the nave and along with the nave passage, are laid with carpet. Around the walls are memorial plaques to various local identities including members of the Collins family.
The small cemetery to the southwest of the church contains the graves of many members of the Collins family and their descendents, the Strachan, Delpratt and Balls families. Also buried here is Bullum, also known as John Allen, the last survivor of the Wangerriburra tribe who had a lifelong association with the family.
","history":"St. John's Church, Mundoolun is a private family chapel built in 1901 on a property settled by the Collins family in the 1840s. The property is located between Canungra and Beaudesert in the Albert River Valley, South East Queensland. The church is constructed of local sandstone to the design of the Brisbane Diocesan Architect John Buckeridge who was commissioned by the Collins family in 1899.
The chapel was built as a memorial to John and Anne Collins by their children, soon after the death of John Collins in 1898. The Collins had arrived in Australia from Ireland in 1839, the same year that the closure of the Moreton Bay penal colony made way for settlement of the area within a fifty mile radius of Brisbane. Anne's cousin, William Humphries, had taken up 17 000 acres at Mundoolun in 1842, a venture the Collins followed with great interest. In 1844, they joined him as partners and by 1847, the Collins had bought Humphries out. The family went on to be prominent pastoralists, eventually owning Tamrookum, Rathdowney and Nindooinbah, as well as the home station of Mundoolun.
The couple had five children. From 1863, when John Collins' sons joined him in the family business, they began to acquire properties further north and west. In 1877, Robert and William Collins formed the North Australian Pastoral Company in the Northern Territory with other shareholders and their interests and influence were wide-ranging. In 1878/79, Robert and William undertook a world tour which was to have a profound impact on Robert, in particular. In the United States, he was deeply impressed by the National Park movement and upon his return, began a serious campaign for the establishment of a national park in the McPherson Ranges. He continued this campaign until his death, becoming the Independent Member for Albert in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1896 and Queensland branch president of the Royal Geographical Society in order to further his goal. Unfortunately he did not live to see the proclamation of Lamington National Park which eventually took place in 1915, however, he has been credited with the title of Father of the National Park Ideal.
At about the turn of the century, Mundoolun and the Collins family were at the peak of their success. It was decided by the five children that a memorial to their pioneering parents should be built. They selected a site on a ridge of the Birnam Range, near the small cemetery overlooking the homestead and the Albert Valley.
The family commissioned architect John Buckeridge to design the chapel. Buckeridge had come to Queensland in 1886 to supervise the construction of St. John's Cathedral in Brisbane. He had spent five years in the London office of leading ecclesiastical architect J.L Pearson and came to Queensland on the recommendation of Pearson and the Archbishop of Canterbury to assist Dr Webber, the Bishop of Brisbane, in his ambitious building program for the diocese. Buckeridge was official Diocesan Architect from 1887 and erected about sixty wooden churches throughout Southern Queensland. He moved to Sydney in 1892 but continued as Diocesan Architect until 1902, delegating supervision of his plans to G.H.M Addison and then Hall and Dods.
Hence, it was architect Robin Dods who supervised the construction of St. John's, Mundoolun. Work began on 22 June 1900. The construction took nearly eighteen months to complete, with fifteen men employed almost continuously for this time. The local stone proved very hard to work and progress was slow. The sandstone was quarried from an area further along the spur on which the church was sited and was brought to the masons' shed by dray. The altar, lectern, prayer desk, seats, doors and ceiling timbers were made of red cedar felled at Mt. Tambourine.
The Archdeacon of Brisbane A.E David formally dedicated the church on St. John the Evangelist Day, 27 December, 1901. However, the church wasn't consecrated until August 1904. A tower was added in 1915 as a memorial to Robert Martin Collins who died in 1913. The footings for the tower had been laid in 1900 with the rest of the chapel, but took almost twenty years to be completed. Bells have never been installed. Services at that time were held in the church every second Sunday. More recently, the church has been used for weddings and other public events.
","criteria":"St. John's Church, Mundoolun is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of South-East Queensland, in particular the evolution of the pastoral district around Beaudesert.
|As a substantial masonry private family chapel, St John's Church, Mundoolun is a rare and uncommon type of building in Queensland.
|St. John's demonstrates the principal characteristics of an Early English Gothic Revival Church, specifically the use of lancet windows, simple rib vaults, buttresses and the addition of a square, castellated bell tower.
|It has strong architectural and aesthetic qualities derived from an accomplished design, a combination of local materials and fine workmanship and an attractive, bucolic setting.
|St John's Church, Mundoolun has a special association with the Collins family, early settlers of the Beaudesert area who became eminent and influential pastoralists with properties and business interests throughout Queensland and the Northern Territory. Robert Martin Collins is important for the pivotal role he played in campaigning for the establishment of a national park in the McPherson Range and for launching the movement for national parks in Queensland in the 1890s. The cemetery contains the graves of many members of the Collins family and Bullum, also known as John Allen, the last survivor of the Wangerriburra tribe, who had a lifelong association with the family.
|The church also has an association with ecclesiastical architect, John Buckeridge.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15861,"place_ref":601088,"name":"Langenbaker House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mitchell Street","suburb":"ILFRACOMBE","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-11-29","description":"Langenbaker house is located in the centre of town on Mitchell Street, Ilfracombe, and is described as Lot 908 on Plan No. 14173 being the whole of the land contained in Deed of Grant. Like most of the town's houses, Langenbaker house was brought from elsewhere - the light timber frame construction making it easy to dismantle and re-assemble.
There are four principal structures remaining on the land:
1. the dwelling house, with semi-detached rain water tank. The house is set on low stumps. It is comprised of a front verandah, a lounge, three bedrooms, a combined kitchen/dining/storage area, a back verandah with bathroom off to the side, and a ground level lean-to verandah.
The house is constructed of corrugated iron and timber and appears to have originally comprised of a front verandah; a central hallway with three bedrooms and one lounge room; rear verandah and semi-detached kitchen. The rear verandah is now fully enclosed and the original gabled roof has been replaced by a corrugated iron hipped roof. Windows facing to the south east and north west all have metal awnings. The front verandah is enclosed using laced hoop iron.
The interior of the home is as it was at the date of the son's accident, in approximately 1921. Parts of the bedroom, lounge room and kitchen walls and ceiling are clad with timber paneling. Other interior areas still have exposed corrugated iron walls and wooden beams. Furnishings within the home are of humble design, with some furnishings being hand-built by the owner. The central lounge still houses a Radio-Gram and the later addition of a television. Photos, Bric a Brac and other household utensils remain in the home
2. to the north west of the house, a former garage, now filled with bric a brac;
3. to the north east of the house, a shed, also partly filled with bric a brac;
4. to the east of the house, a detached lavatory.
An aggregation of building materials on the rear of the allotment, roughly between the two sheds, is the remains of a butcher's shop which was one conducted in Ilfracombe by Syd. Bailey. The original outdoor toilet with provision for Night Soil removal also still exists at the side of the dwelling.
The site is fenced, although the front gate has been removed. Shedding for vehicles and horses (night horse) still exist in the yard surrounding the home. No gardens have survived except for the Peppercorn tree in the front of the yard.
","history":"Langenbaker house, a small single story corrugated iron and timber house, was erected in Ilfracombe in 1899 by owner Harry Langenbaker, an outback teamster or carrier by trade.
The town of Ilfracombe dates from 1890, when ambitious settlers anticipated the arrival of the Central Queensland railway. However, some of Australia's largest and best known sheep stations had been established in the area from 1864. Rodney Downs, Portland Downs, Beconsfield and Wellshot were the original holdings in what is now the Ilfracombe Shire area.
From September 1891 Ilfracombe was a strategic railhead for teamster's traffic, positioned close to the final terminus of the Central Western Railway line at Longreach to capture road traffic from the large stations toward Aramac and Muttaburra in the north, and to the lower Barcoo in the south.
Teamsters or carriers as they were sometimes known, provided an essential service of carrying goods and stock across trackless country to the new stations of western Queensland. The first teamsters into a new country were limited to the use of drays, which were more manoeuvrable than wagons. Among the essential equipment of these first teamsters were axes to clear tracks of land, picks and shovels to make creek crossings and a piece of brightly coloured rag. The rag was tied to a wheel so that its revolutions could be easily counted. These rough measurements of distance gave carriers a guide for cartage charges and provided a bush standard which remained in use until the introduction of surveyors and roadmakers. Ilfracombe provided work for teamsters up until a branch railway line was opened from Jericho to Blackall in 1908. At this time many teamsters traded in their horse and ox and replaced them with motor lorries. Others hung up their reins and looked for work with the railways or at the wool scour which opened in Ilfracombe in 1898.
Henry (Harry) and Mary Ann Langenbaker nee Kahl, came to Ilfracombe in 1899 from Barcaldine, where they had married in 1890. They brought their house with them on their horse drawn wagon. Like many other teamster families it is likely that both the Langenbaker's and their house had already moved several times to various locations at temporary railheads along the railway line. Langenbaker house was assembled on Mitchell Street, Ilfracombe, in about April of 1899 and remained in the family until 1991 with the passing of Harry and Mary Ann's youngest son Bernard.
Harry Langenbaker, was one of many teamsters who took advantage of the chance which Ilfracombe offered to keep his teams in work. Bernard Langenbaker, youngest son of Harry and Mary Ann describes his father's life as a teamster;
Dad worked down on the lower Barcoo. Often he would be away for twelve months at a time, and while there was work to be had he wouldn't come home. While he was away Mum would often play the piano on Saturday nights at euchre parties and dances at the \thall next to the hotel. This way she got a few shillings to battle along. Dad had switched from bullocks to horses for his wagons when he came to Ilfracombe, and I \tsuppose he had about 50 horses altogether. The Gooch family, the Baileys, the Hanifins and Storches all had horses too, so when the teams weren't working there might be 500 horses running on the stock routes and reserves around the town. Peter Forest,(1988) A Rush for Grass, Murianji Press.
Harry was a typical teamster - hard working and hard living. Evidence of both his life and work exist in the Langenbaker house in the form of personal memorabilia and tools of his trade. Harry, unlike many others, continued to work as a teamster up until 1922 at which time he pulled his wagon to its final resting place at the side of the house and passed the time by making skewers for the local butcher and greenhide whips. In contrast, his wife Mary Ann was ladylike and dainty. She was an accomplished needlewoman, and many examples of her craft can be seen in the house. She was also a skilled pianist who taught piano to many Ilfracombe children, and whose services were much in demand at town social gatherings.
Harry and Mary Ann had eleven children. Ruby, born in 1891, Lillian born 1893, Julius born 1895, Ivy born 1897, Harold (Sonny) born 1899, Thelma born 1901, Les born 1904, William Roy born 1906, Estelle Gladys (Stella) born 1908, Vera born 1911 and Bernard born 1913. Three daughters married into the Bailey family, prominent carriers and business people in the town. Another four children intermarried with other local families, creating a network of relationships and friendships.
Affectionately known as "Daddy Lang" and "Mumma Lang" a feature of family life for many years, even after the marriages of the children, was a regular gathering at the Langenbaker house. In 1993 Marge Escreet (born 1922) daughter of Ruby Bailey nee Langenbaker describes a typical afternoon at the Langenbaker's.
All the Langenbaker girls and their children used to gather for afternoon tea and to see their mother most days. There was a large pepperina tree (Schinus molle) at the side of the house, chairs and stools stayed outside and afternoon tea was held outside. The children used to ride bikes and play on the big old wooden swing. They would stay there until the \tshade of the house came over and joined with the shade of the pepperina tree. It was lovely and cool out there. You would get a breeze out there. Dadda Lang built the swing. It was made from big heavy bush timber, and the trace chins from his harness. It was just near the back door behind the water tank.
The Langenbakers sixth child Les, was blind as the result of a horse riding accident in about 1921. After this time the family took care to change the layout and features of the house as little as possible so that Les could easily find his way about. This is one reason for the remarkably unchanged condition of the house today. It is full of old photographs, bric a brac and other personal items including a tennis trophy won by Bernie Langenbaker and Marge Escreet at the Central Western doubles championship. Other items include early metal all purpose tubs, a hand made wheelbarrow, a galvanised iron bath, an upturned hand made galvanised iron boat and more personal items including early 1930's hairdressing equipment.
Following damage caused by a windstorm in 1933 the rear verandah was enclosed and extended and the kitchen built in its present location. At about this time the originally corrugated iron gabled roof was also replaced by a corrugated iron hipped roof. In about 1942 an air raid shelter was excavated to the east of the rear of the house, but there is now no clear above ground evidence of this feature. Another notable feature of the house is the use of laced hoop iron to provide screening for the verandah. The hoop iron was originally used at the wool scour to bind wool bale packs and wool bales. Townspeople found the material ideal to create shaded semi-enclosed verandahs. The technique was once seen on most Ilfracombe houses, but now survives only at the Langenbaker house.
The last child of the family, Bernard, was born in the house in 1913 and died there in 1991. The house was then bought by the Ilfracombe Shire Council and has been conserved as a monument to the ordinary men and women of the outback.
","criteria":"Langenbaker House, relocated to Ilfracombe in 1899, is a rare example of what was once a typical Ilfracombe workers dwelling and demonstrates the evolution and pattern of western Queensland's transport industry and the development of western Queensland towns and communities.
|Langenbaker House, relocated to Ilfracombe in 1899, is a rare example of what was once a typical Ilfracombe workers dwelling and demonstrates the evolution and pattern of western Queensland's transport industry and the development of western Queensland towns and communities.
|Langenbaker House is thought to be one of the earliest surviving residences in Ilfracombe and a good example of what was once a typical workers cottage. The architectural style of the building and the significance of the removal and relocation of the property to its present site, demonstrates an approach to building design that was influenced by climate, culture and resources. This is particularly evident in the use of metal bales straps woven into a lattice and fixed to the front verandah of the house which demonstrates the creative ability of early settlers to make do with fabrics and materials at hand.
|Langenbaker House reflects the life and work of Harry and Mary Ann Langenbaker. Remaining virtually unchanged since its erection in Ilfracombe, the house and its contents, including personal memorabilia and numerous household utensils, provides an insight into the life of a pioneering family and the establishment of the town of Ilfracombe. Relocated from Barcaldine to Ilfracombe in 1899 by Harry and Mary Ann Langenbaker, the house remained in the Langenbaker family until 1991 with the passing of Harry and Mary Ann's youngest son, Bernard.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15864,"place_ref":601091,"name":"Peel Island","alternate_name":"Teerk Roo Ra","street_address":"Peel Island","suburb":"MORETON BAY","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-06-21","description":"Peel Island, situated in Moreton Bay four kilometres east of Cleveland, is a low lying island of approximately 590 hectares. The principal vegetation comprises acacias, eucalypts, and melaleucas, and the island is surrounded by mangroves except for a sandy beach which forms Horseshoe Bay on the southern side.
\nThe south east corner of the island contains remnants of the Quarantine Station. These include a well, concrete slabs, a brick building, cemetery, and stone jetty. Lying to the south of the stone jetty is the wreck of the SS Platypus.
\nThe island contains three main tracks; one from the south east corner of the island to the lazaret, another from the western jetty to the lazaret, while the beach track runs parallel to Horseshoe Bay.
\nThe lazaret is situated on the north east corner of the island. The buildings are grouped in three compounds (male, female and coloured), and four zones (administrative, treatment, recreational and perimeter).
\nThe male compound contains 19 huts and a bath house. The huts are similar in form and construction being one roomed timber buildings with a veranda. A distinctive feature of the huts is a roof ventilator. One hut was modified to serve as the Catholic Church. The female compound contains five huts and a bath house, and remnants of another six huts. The female huts differ for those in the male compound in having a kitchenette on the side.
\nIn the coloured compound, five huts survive. Four of these huts have adzed corner posts set into the ground, concrete floor, and clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The compound also contains several corrugated galvanised iron poultry sheds. The other hut is a timber building (moved from the female compound in the 1930s) and later used as stables.
\nAdjacent to the coloured compound are remnants of the Anglican Church. Posts marking the boundary of the church yard survive and four of these posts are incorporated with wood carvings executed by a patient in the 1930s.
\nThe administrative zone contains an array of buildings including nurses quarters (1926), matron's quarters (1948), superintendent's quarters (transferred from Stradbroke Island in 1907), medical officer's quarters (former Army hut relocated in 1948), powerhouse (1948) and several sheds. There are also remnants of the kitchen, and other staff buildings.
\nThe treatment zone comprises the surgery (1925 with additions in 1947), and remnants of the hospital (1937) and dispensary.
\nThe perimeter zone includes an incinerator, rubbish dump, pump house and cemetery. Remnants of 'holiday' huts built by patients are found elsewhere on the island.
","history":"Peel Island was known variously to Aboriginal groups as Teerk Roo Ra, Dairkooreeba, Chercrooba. The island was charted by Matthew Flinders in 1799. In 1873 the island was proclaimed a reserve for quarantine purposes. A quarantine station was established on the south east corner of the island and was in regular use throughout the 1870s and 1880s as the colony received a constant stream of immigrant ships. With a decline in immigration in the 1890s and an improvement in public health, the quarantine station fell into disuse. Between 1910 and 1916 the buildings were use as an inebriates' home.
\nIn 1906 an area of 160 acres on the north west corner was gazetted as a reserve for lazaret.
\nThe first case of leprosy in Queensland was discovered in 1855. Little interest was shown in the disease until the 1880s when there was a notable increase in the incidence of the disease. The diagnosis of the first European with leprosy prompted the implementation of the Leprosy Act of 1892. Two lazarets were established, one on Stradbroke Island for white patients, the other on Friday Island in the Torres Straits for non-Europeans. Both lazarets experienced considerably difficulties and in the early 1900s, the government decided to close these institutions and establish a multi-racial lazaret on Peel Island.
\nThe new lazaret, opened in 1907, was designed and organised on the principle of isolation. Patients were housed in individual huts grouped in three separate compounds - male, female and 'coloured'. The huts for white patients were small single roomed, timber buildings, while the huts for the coloured patients were more rudimentary structures of bush timber clad with tea tree bark. Other buildings on the site included bath houses, kitchens, dining rooms, and staff accommodation. In 1908 a church was built by the coloured patients near their compound.
\nAdditional huts were erected as more patients were sent to the island. In the coloured compound, the durability of the bark cladding was short-lived, and in 1909 the huts were reclad with corrugated galvanised iron. During the 1920s major improvements were undertaken, including the construction of a surgery, nurses quarters and new store. Kitchenettes were added to the female huts to enable the female patients to prepare their own meals. Four timber huts were erected in the coloured compound.
\nThe lazaret opened with 70 patients, and reached a peak of 84 soon afterwards. For many patients, being sent to Peel Island was a life sentence. More than 180 patients died on the island and were buried in the cemetery. For other patients the disease did go into remission, and after a series of negative tests were discharged.
\nThe patients were left to devise their own means of occupying each day. Some patients had boats and were allowed to fish off the island. Other patients had gardens, poultry and goats. Some patients were employed doing work on the lazaret as labourers, carpenters and seamstresses.
\nDuring the 1930s plans were made to establish a separate lazaret for the coloured patients and in 1940 the coloured patients were transferred to a new lazaret established on Fantome Island near Townsville.
\nIn 1947 patients began being treated with the drug Promin, and the success of the treatment soon became apparent. More and more patients began to be discharged and by the late 1950s, there were less than ten patients. In 1959 the lazaret was closed and the patients transferred to the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
\nWith the closure of the lazaret, various schemes for redeveloping the island were proposed. The lazaret buildings were offered for sale, but only a small number were removed from the island. In 1968 the Church of England Grammar School obtained a thirty year lease over part of the former lazaret.
\nPeel Island is unique in Australia as the only lazaret designed on the isolation method that survives substantially intact. At Fantome Island no buildings remain, and on Channel Island in the Northern Territory only remnants survive. Other lazarets such as at Derby in Western Australia and East Arm in the Northern Territory were more like a traditional hospital or institution with wards and dormitories.
\nPeel Island was declared an Environmental Park in 1989. Under its Quandamooka name Teerk Roo Ra (place of many shells), it was dedicated under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 as a national park and conservation park in December 2007. In 2017 the cultural and natural values of the island are jointly managed by the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation (QYAC) and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.
\n","criteria":"
Peel Island, as the site of a quarantine station, inebriates' home and lazaret, is important in demonstrating several important aspects of Queensland's history, including: how an extensive network of government institutions was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for the control and isolation of those who were considered morally, racially and physically unsuitable; how islands in Moreton Bay and elsewhere were used as places of social control and isolation; and attitudes to leprosy patients and the treatment of the disease in Queensland.
|The island is significant also for its retention of a rare aspect of Queensland's heritage: the only surviving lazaret in the state, which is also important as one of only two multi-racial lazarets in Australia and the only lazaret purpose built and organised on the isolation method.
|Peel Island is important also in exhibiting a range of aesthetic qualities valued by the community, in particular the lazaret site in decay, juxtaposed with the surrounding landscape and Moreton Bay seascape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15866,"place_ref":601093,"name":"Department of Primary Industries Building (former)","alternate_name":"Immigration Depot | Department of Agriculture and Stock | Department of Agriculture","street_address":"99 William Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-07-04","description":"The former Department of Primary Industries Building, an unpainted rendered and painted brickwork structure, consists of a two-storeyed with basement section fronting William Street with a lower three-storeyed wing at the rear fronting Queen's Wharf Road. The building, located adjacent to the former Commissariat Stores [600176], and across the road from the former Government Printery [600114] and adjacent former Land Administration building [600123], is built on a steeply sloping site, and has a hipped rib and pan galvanised iron roof.
The symmetrical William Street section has a central entrance with a projecting wing at either end. The ground floor has coursed render with quoining, the first floor has an expressed band at window sill height and the eaves are jettied.
The entrance consists of a two-storeyed gabled element which projects from the face of the building, and is composed of an arched doorway to the ground floor with unpainted rendered classical detailing above and to the first floor. The detailing includes coursed render to the ground floor expressing voussoirs, above which is located an open-crown pediment with relief mouldings which are described in the Brisbane Sculpture Guide (Judith McKay 1988) as The festoon of Queensland agricultural produce- including wheat, strawberries, macadamia nuts, bananas and pumpkins- (which) is given due status by the addition of classical acanthus leaves. Above this are paired columns either side of a shield, which originally housed the words DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, which support an entablature with an urn at either end and a low arched window with expressed keystone to the first floor in the centre. The pediment above has a central shield with the date 1898 AD. The doorway has double panelled timber doors, with an arched fanlight with radiating mullions.
The William Street facade has paired tall, narrow, multi-paned timber sash windows, with the end facades having single sashes. The ground floor windows are surrounded by unpainted rendered mouldings with expressed sills and cornices above, and the first floor windows have similar details but with keystone-type heads. The northern end facade has a central chimney, with curved details at first floor height, which is surmounted by a large cornice with double arched flue covers. The southern end facade, the point of connection to the recently demolished post-1899 extensions, has been rendered to suggest floor levels and the position of the original chimney.
The William Street facade also has two lightwells to the basement, located either side of the central entry abutting the end wings, which consist of a curved porphyry retaining wall with sandstone capping and wrought iron balustrading. The lightwells are bridged by a concrete walkway where they abut the end wings, accessing a single panelled timber door with fanlight, and featuring an iron gate with the letters DA intertwined. The southern door, however, has been enclosed and replaced with a sash window, and a later sash window has been introduced to the first floor flanking wall of the southern wing. A retaining wall with sandstone capping, end pillar and wrought iron balustrade extends from the building along the William Street frontage to the south.
The rear of the William Street section has verandahs to all three floors either side of the central rear wing and abutting the end wings. Originally enclosed with vertically jointed boarding covering verandah stairs with open arched sections either end, the verandahs have all since been enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and a variety of windows.
The rear wing is a three-storeyed painted masonry structure on a porphyry base, one level lower than the William Street section, with a crucifix plan and a number of additions which include a three-storeyed toilet block on the northwest, a two-storeyed enclosure on the southeast, and various stairs and single-storeyed sheds around the base. Floor levels are expressed with relief banding, windows are mostly multi-paned sashes, and timber and iron window hoods are located on most windows on the southwest.
The toilet block has arched sash windows to the base, with high level hopper windows to the floors above. This block is linked to the main structure via cantilevered walkways on the ground and basement levels, which consist of curved iron brackets supporting a timber walkway with iron balustrade. The two-storeyed enclosure on the southeast has a skillion roof, with fixed glazing above chamferboard to the basement level and brick piers. A steel fire stair is located at the rear of the building.
Internally, the William Street section has a central entry vestibule, with rooms accessed via the rear verandah or through adjoining doorways. A concrete stair with an iron balustrade and timber handrail is located centrally in the linking section to the rear wing, and is accessed through an arch which has been enclosed to form a doorway . Timber staircases were originally located on the rear verandahs, but only one flight remains linking the basement and ground floor on the southern side. This staircase has chamfered newel posts with turned capitals, and a timber batten balustrade which has been mostly sheeted over with hardboard. Some original timber verandah balustrading and chamfered posts are visible, again with the majority being sheeted over. Doors are panelled timber with fanlights, walls are plastered, and ceilings are boarded, some of which have been sheeted over with hardboard. Evidence of the former corridor linking the now demolished post-1899 extensions is visible in the first floor at the southern end, with timber and glass partitions dividing the space. The basement level has exposed porphyry walls to the lightwell, and a later lean-to bathroom is located on the south corner accessed via the verandah. Timber fireplace surrounds have been removed, but evidence of their form survives.
Internally, the rear wing consists of a large former immigration ward flanked by former kitchen and bathroom to each floor, with timber post and beam internal construction. The ground floor level has been partitioned with a central corridor leading to a large room at the rear, and has a central skylight which consists of glazed roofing sections which light glazed ceiling panels to the hall and adjacent side rooms. Ceilings throughout this section have pressed metal sheeting of various designs. The basement level has a lower floor level than the William Street section and boarded timber ceilings. The sub-basement level is similar, but with a number of partitioned rooms along either side. The toilet block has concrete floors, plastered walls and timber partition cubicles.
","history":"The former Department of Primary Industries building, finished in unpainted render and painted brickwork, is built on a steeply sloping site with two storeys and basement fronting William Street and a lower three-storeyed wing at the rear fronting Queen's Wharf Road, with a hipped rib and pan galvanised iron roof. The building was originally built as an Immigration Depot, and construction began in 1865 and completed in 1866.
\nThe building was constructed on part of the former Commandant's Garden. The garden had been part of an attempt to establish some principles of behaviour at Penal Settlements throughout the Colony of New South Wales by the introduction of a Code of Regulations by Governor Darling which, amongst other things, entitled the Commandant to four acres of garden to be tended by up to three gardeners.
\nA wharf had been constructed c.1825 in front of the adjacent Commissariat Stores [600176] and was originally known as King's Wharf, until 1837 when it became Queen's Wharf after the ascendancy of Queen Victoria. Queen's Wharf was a point of disembarkation of immigrants to the free colony from 1848 to 1897.
\nSuccessive colonial governments actively pursued a programme of immigration of free settlers after the Penal Settlement had closed down. The first immigrants to come direct from overseas arrived on 15 December 1848 on the barque Artemisia. The first immigrants were housed temporarily in the Old Military Barracks which were located where the former Treasury Building [600143] now stands. By the 1860s the barracks had deteriorated to such an extent that they were described in the local press as 'wretched and dilapidated hovels... repugnant and harrowing and an abominable shed'. The decision was made to erect a new facility, and the site was selected being a short distance from Queen's Wharf.
\nConstruction began in 1865 and completed in 1866. Designed by the office of Queensland's first Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin, the building was originally single-storeyed with basement to William Street with a three-storeyed wing at the rear. The rear wing contained three large separate wards, each 57 feet by 32 feet; one for single women at the William Street level, with married couples at the basement level and single men at the sub-basement level, which was also ground level at the rear. To each of these wards was attached a kitchen and bathroom, each on opposite sides. Earth closets were incorporated in a timber structure attached to the southwest of the building, and each ward had a separate entrance from the street. There were also residences for the matron and wardsman, and two rooms for the use of clerks and the Immigration Board in the William Street section. The sanitary arrangements were extensive, with a 2,500 gallon tank supplying water to the whole of the building through lead pipes, with a condensing apparatus in operation at the river which pumped water to the building to supplement the supply of rain water. A luggage room was located on the nearby wharf, as immigrants were not allowed to take baggage into the depot.
\nThe building had a hipped slate roof, unpainted brick walls, and footings of porphyry on weathered rock, and the rear section to Queen's Wharf had internal timber posts and beams supporting timber floor joists. The contractor was Mr J Petrie, and plumbers were Messrs Stewart and Watson. The original estimate was £3,800, but it was likely to have exceeded this estimate by several hundred pounds due to the construction of a substantial fence around the property, as well as a washing shed and luggage room.
\nIn December 1887, a new Immigration Depot at Kangaroo Point opened (Yungaba), and the William Street depot acted as a back-up facility until 1889. The ground floor was still being used in January 1890 as a ward for old men.
\nIn 1890 the building was adapted to form the first offices for the newly established Department of Agriculture. The Department was created in 1887, one of a number of steps taken in the expansion of the role of government during the late 1880s and 1890s, and in 1904 became the Department of Agriculture and Stock, and in 1963 became the Department of Primary Industries. From 1890 onwards the old Immigration Depot was progressively altered and extended to accommodate offices and laboratories primarily for the Department of Agriculture and Stock, and subsequently for other government departments.
\nBy December 1890 the Museum of Economic Botany was accommodated within the building. The following year the Minister of Agriculture was accommodated in the former Immigration Depot. The Minister appears to have been housed in the location previously occupied by the museum, at the rear of the building on the ground floor and the museum was relocated in 1893 to the basement (formerly single men's quarters). This area was partitioned, bunks were removed and a five foot high dado of vertically jointed pine was formed.
\nIn 1897 the Stock Branch of the Colonial Secretary's Department was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1898 tenders were called for extensions to the building, including two additional wings at either end and an extra storey to the William Street elevation. The extensions were designed by Thomas Pye, chief draftsman and assistant architect, and John Murdoch, draftsman and assistant architect, under Government Architect Alfred Brady. The form, scale and details of the alterations became the model for all subsequent additions. The tender by Caskie and Thompson was accepted. The extension was of load-bearing cavity brick set in lime-based mortar, with timber floors, and timber roof framing sheeted in galvanised iron rib and pan tiles. External walls were unpainted cement render, and internal walls plastered. The work included the installation of a central skylight in the rear section, and pressed metal ceilings and timber partitions were installed on the ground level of the rear section pre-1916. A toilet block containing earth closets with a nightman's stair was also constructed in 1899.
\nThese extensions reflect the expansion of the Department at this time, particularly the growth in accommodation for entomologists and plant pathologists, as this area of plant science was to continue to expand in response to Queensland's growth in primary production.
\nIn 1900 criticisms of plasterwork (specifically the external rendering over old brickwork to form quoins) led to a royal Commission of Inquiry. Remedial work was subsequently carried out in 1906. Prior to 1915, the southern doorway over the lightwell to William Street was enclosed and replaced with a sash window. In 1916 a new wing was constructed to the south (demolished 1994), consisting of foundation, basement, ground and first floor. This extension accommodated the Agricultural Chemical Laboratory, Entomology and Plant Pathology branches. It was built by day labour, and was intended to form the northwest wing of a new building, with the intention being to demolish the earlier sections of the building. Further extensions to the building were carried out in 1923, 1929, 1935 and 1936.
\nIn 1922 a new staircase was added between the front and rear sections of the building, and the toilet block was reworked in 1924 to replace the original earth closets with water closets.
\nIn 1940 a connection was made between the old photographic studio and the storeroom, and in 1944 the photographic studio suffered major damage by fire. The vertically jointed timber boarding to the rear verandahs was removed c1951 and replaced with fibrous cement sheeting. Due to the confined nature of the area, a gradual drift from the site began in the 1950s, with the Department of Primary Industries vacating the building in 1989. In 1994 the post-1899 extensions were demolished to make way for a proposed new government office complex.
","criteria":"The former Department of Primary Industries building, originally built as an immigration depot in 1865-66 and the interior of which substantially retains its originally planning, is representative of early Queensland Colonial Government infrastructure, and the importance that was placed on immigration and its contribution to the colony's future.
|Together with the adjacent former Commissariat Stores [600176], the building is a rare surviving riverside structure once associated with Queen's Wharf, an important point of transport and commerce from the time of the establishment of the Penal Settlement, and reflects the pattern of development of the surrounding government precinct.
|The building makes a significant aesthetic contribution, through form, scale, and materials, to the Brisbane townscape, and is an important member of a group of early government buildings including the former Commissariat Stores [600176], former Government Printery [600114] and former Land Administration building [600123].
|The building is also illustrative of the growth of the Department of Agriculture; and the importance of its contribution to the growth and development of the Queensland economy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15867,"place_ref":601094,"name":"Casa Grande","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Nettle Street","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"Casa Grande is Spanish Mission in style, built of 6" thick Denaro bricks with stuccoed outer walls. The white walls contrast with the dark timber framed sash windows and doors, and the building has terracotta roof tiles and balconies.
The large, U-shaped, two storeyed house, encloses a courtyard which is overlooked by surrounding verandahs supported by roughly hewn timber posts. Casa Grande is built on a rise and is a landmark overlooking the mine and the remaining houses of the Isa Mine (Mineside) settlement. It is located within well-kept grounds with a tennis court. The encircling drive and luxuriant gardens, a striking feature in such an arid area, add considerable distinction and presence to the house, emphasising the social standing of the Chairman of Directors within the community.
The area considered significant therefore includes the grounds and is bounded by the property fence on the western and eastern sides, by the footbridge on the southern side and by the entrance beyond the 'island' bed on the northern side.
The condition of the house is excellent, and the integrity good. Additions have occurred, but most have been sympathetic to the original design. The furniture compliments the house and has a significance of its own.
","history":"Work commenced on Casa Grande as a home for the then General Manager of Mount Isa Mines, Julius Kruttschnitt, in 1949. It was a 'grand house', designed by the prominent Brisbane firm of Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards, but reflecting the influence of Kruschnitt's time spent in both Arizona and Mexico.
Kruttschnitt, with a background of developing mines in America for ASARCO's mining department, had taken on the challenge in 1930, of revitalising the ailing Mount Isa Mine at a time when the company was unable to meet outstanding financial commitments. The 1930s, a time of depression and austerity throughout Australia, was reflected in the price of lead plunging to the lowest point in the history of the metal markets.
Kruttschnitt tackled Mount Isa's problems with relentless energy and after more capital was raised through overseas financiers, ore production commenced again in 1931. In earlier years of the mine's operation, the company expended large amounts of money providing housing for employees. Two-storeyed timber houses, a number of dormitories and community buildings were constructed for workers during these more buoyant years. The 1930s saw more austere housing accommodation for workers often in the form of tin huts and tent houses. The problem of a lack of financial resources for accommodation extended to Kruttschnitt's own residence. Initially, he was housed in a modest staff house overlooking Central Park and the Band Rotunda. Kruttschnitt was reported to be unimpressed with his quarters.
The finances of the company did not improve until after World War II. While copper had been discovered in 1930, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, and the consumption of copper in Australian factories and munition works, meant that Mount Isa Mines went into full-scale copper production during that period. By 1946, with the end of the war, and a soaring consumption of lead in the United States for assembly lines and defence stockpiles, the price of lead rose to the unprecedented height of £91 a ton. In 1947, for the first time, the mine was able to pay a dividend to its investors. With the mine in an increasingly healthy financial position and an influx of workers to accommodate, the company renewed its housing program. Houses of simple design were constructed, as were dormitories. The company included in its program improved recreational facilities, including tennis courts and a swimming pool.
By the late 1940s attention was also paid to providing improved housing for mine executives. The building of a house for Julius Kruttschnitt, now Chairman of Directors, was commenced in 1949 on part of Special Mineral Lease 5589, overlooking older company housing dating from 1928-29. The name given to the house, literally 'big house', reflected the prosperity of Mount Isa Mines at that time and is a term commonly used in Arizona and New Mexico to describe the 'boss's' house. Casa Grande was designed by the prominent Brisbane architectural firm of Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards, probably incorporating the ideas of their client, Julius Kruttschnitt.
On the 22 July 1950, a housewarming party was given at 'Casa Grande' by Mr & Mrs Kruttschnitt, who entertained their guests under a marquee on the lawns. Small groups of people were shown over the house; certainly the largest and most elaborate house to be built in the hot, dry western district of Queensland.
Casa Grande has been used for many social events. In 1951 when badges were presented to employees of MIM who had served twenty years with the Company, a dinner was arranged for the 87 men and their wives by Mrs Kruttschnitt. An annual New Year's Eve punchbowl party was just one of the functions hosted by the Kruttschnitts during their time at Casa Grande.
Julius Kruttschnitt resigned as Chairman of Directors in 1952 but did not return to the United States, settling in Brisbane at his home Casa Ita. He was succeeded at Mount Isa by George Fisher who lived with his family at Casa Grande until 1966. During the time of the Fisher's occupancy, the house was refurnished and much of this furniture remains at Casa Grande.
Casa Grande became a guest house for visiting directors of the company and VIPs from 1966. A suite at the house was redecorated and refurnished for Queen Elizabeth, who visited the town in 1970. A dining room table, with the tabletop constructed from one piece of cedar was bought by the Company for the Queen's visit.
Casa Grande reflects the period in the life of Mount Isa Mines when the first dividend was paid, and the Company, after years of struggle, was becoming profitable. By 1955 MIM Ltd was the largest mining company in Australia and a company with a strong international reputation.
","criteria":"Casa Grande, built on the original Mineside settlement, demonstrates the development of the Mount Isa as a mining industry town.
|Casa Grande is a late, but good, example of Spanish Mission style.
|The house is a landmark in Mount Isa as a prominent and grand house reflecting the relative importance of the position of mine manager in Mount Isa.
|The house has social value to the Mount Isa community as a prominent local residence and as a community gathering place.
|Casa Grande has a close association with MIM Directors, Julius Kruttschnitt and George Fisher, both of whom are men of international reputation. This is particularly the case with Kruttschnitt, whose Mexican/Arizona experience may have influenced the style of construction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15870,"place_ref":601097,"name":"Signal Station (former)","alternate_name":"Former Navy Signal Station Fort Cowan","street_address":"25 Dorothy Newnham Street","suburb":"MORETON ISLAND","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-02-01","description":"Located on the western side of Moreton Island at Cowan Cowan, the two storeyed Signal Station is positioned behind the first dune overlooking the beach and shipping channel. To the north along the beach are the remains of concrete gun emplacements.
A small timber framed building, rectangular in plan, it is mounted on low concrete stumps and clad internally and externally with asbestos cement sheeting with asbestos cement cover strips. On the south east corner a double row of stumps lead to a timber door indicating the former position of the entry steps. This door opens into the lower level which consists of two rooms joined by a connecting door. These rooms have suspended timber floors and double hung timber framed windows which are barred and screened.
The upper level, similarly divided into two, consists of a single room with a hip roof and a roof terrace. This upper level is inaccessible as the staircase, formerly an external stair on the eastern side of the building, has been removed. The room has continuous windows running around the perimeter walls which are interrupted only by the two doorways. A doorway remains which would have formerly been at the top of the stair. Another doorway, in the centre of the southern wall, opens from the room onto the roof terrace.
A number of small concrete slabs and other remains are located in the grass around the Signal Station.
","history":"Erected probably during the late 1930s by the Royal Australian Navy, and acquired by the Queensland Government in 1947, this structure was the second signal station to be used at Cowan Cowan, on the western side of Moreton Island.
During the early period of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, vessels entered Moreton Bay primarily through the South Entrance, which was the passage between Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands. The first navigation aids were placed in Moreton Bay in 1825, and marked the south entrance. A Pilot Station was established at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island by 1827.
The south entrance proved to be difficult and hazardous for vessels and during the 1830s, consideration was given to the advantages of using the northern entrance into Moreton Bay. Despite the hazards however, the southern entrance remained the main entrance to the Moreton Bay settlement as it better suited the colony, the entrances were already marked, and the pilot station was already established at Amity Point.
Following proclamation of Moreton Bay as a free settlement in 1842, the Regulations prohibiting all but authorised vessels to come to an anchorage at a penal settlement except in cases of distress or necessity, ... were revoked, and shipping activity in Moreton Bay increased. Brisbane was declared a Port of Entry in 1846, and a Warehousing Port in 1849.
By the mid 1840s both the north and south entrances were used by vessels entering Moreton Bay. Captain Wickham and Lieutenant Yule carried out extensive surveys in Moreton Bay in 1846, and buoys marking the northern entrance were laid soon after. Sailing directions for the northern entrance were published in the Moreton Bay Courier in April 1847, in preparation for the closure of the southern passage as the main entrance to the Bay. Following the sinking of the Sovereign in 1847, a harbour master was appointed for Brisbane. Additional buoys were laid to better indicate the northern entrance, and in 1848 the pilot station was moved from Amity Point, firstly to Cowan Cowan then to Bulwer, on Moreton Island. The pilot station marked the first official European settlement of Moreton Island.
The pilot station at Bulwer was closed in 1909, with the exception of the signalman who was also in charge of the telephone station. In 1912 the Signal Station was removed to Cowan Cowan, considered to be more convenient for vessels using the North West Channel which had been declared the safest entrance into Moreton Bay during the 1890s. The Channel ran close to the shore near Caloundra, across the bar in a southeasterly direction towards Moreton Island, and then southwesterly towards the mouth of the river, forming a Z-shaped route. James Palmer, the signalman at Bulwer, was appointed Signalman at Cowan Cowan Point from March 1913. Other signalmen stationed at Cowan Cowan included Charles W Hill, Keeper of the Cowan Cowan light for a number of years, and Harry Wadsworth appointed in 1939. By the mid 1940s, the Signal Station building which had been removed from Bulwer to Cowan Cowan, was in a deteriorated condition, and erosion of the coastline placed the building in danger of falling into the sea.
Fort Cowan, located north of the Signal Station, was completed in the late 1930s (sources differ as to whether this was prior to or shortly after the commencement of the Second World War), and formed part of the defensive system for southeast Queensland. Other fortifications apparent throughout Moreton Bay during the Second World War included Caloundra, Bribie Island [601143], and at Rous also on Moreton Island, which together with the existing installations at Fort Lytton [600248], provided a coordinated series of defensive batteries for the region.
The shipping channels in Moreton Bay simplified the proposed placement of batteries. The major access route into the Brisbane River was still the North West Channel, which dictated the ideal positions for artillery batteries, the most effective sites for guns being the closest points to the channel bends. Fort Cowan took over the role of an Examination Battery from Fort Lytton, and a Port War Signal Station (PWSS), also referred to as the Naval Signal Station, was erected in conjunction with this duty. The Examination Service was staffed by Naval Reserve Volunteers, who had been called up in August 1939. As described in a Navy paper prepared in 1949, the function of the Examination Service was to identify and ascertain the character and intentions of vessels seeking to enter defended ports. This was necessary in order that defences could be made aware of any attempted entry of suspicious or unfriendly vessels. Merchant vessels approaching a port would be met by an Examination Vessel, stationed permanently at the Examination Anchorage near the entrance to the port. If an approaching vessel could not be identified, it was directed to proceed to the Examination Anchorage under the observation of the Examination Battery, and further investigation was undertaken. The major function of the Naval Signal Station appears to have been to receive signals from the Examination Vessels and relay messages to the gunnery, rather than to send signals which would have revealed the position of the battery. Two examination vessels appear to have also been stationed at Cowan Cowan during the First World War.
All PWSSs were closed down after September 1945. In 1946, with its own Signal Station in a state of disrepair, the Department of Public Works in Queensland entered into negotiations with the Commonwealth Disposals Commission, for the purchase of the former Naval Signal Station, mast and a nearby cottage. Although consideration was given to acquiring and relocating the former Naval Signal Station, it was decided that to shift the building to another site would risk extensive damage to the fibro walls and roof, and that the Building in its present position is an ideal situation for Signal Station, with Signal tower mast and flag room close by ...This position has a commanding view of Bay and is more suitable than existing site of old signal station. The former Naval Signal Station, including mast, and a residence were acquired by the Queensland Government in May 1947, for a sum of £1 300.
In 1954 the Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) proposed to establish a radio telephone communication service between Brisbane and Cowan Cowan. The PMG had previously expressed interest in acquiring the former Naval Signal Station to house radio telephone equipment, however it was decided that the building was too large for the PMG requirements. The radio telephone equipment was housed in the Signal Station and maintained by Wadsworth in addition to his signal station and lighthouse duties.
With the advent of VHF radio communication for shipping in the early 1960s, the need for signal stations was reduced, and following Wadsworth's retirement in December it was decided to close the Signal Station (the lighthouse which had been converted to automatic gas light in 1950, would continue to operate unattended).
Wadsworth and his wife Jessie, had acquired land adjacent to the Signal Station in 1952. Following the closure of the Signal Station, the Wadsworths sought to acquire the use of part of the signal station building, and were granted an Informal Lease over the former Signal Station site in 1967.
The Australian Telecommunications Commission (Telecom) removed the radio telephone equipment installed by the former PMG's Department, from the building in 1976.
Harry Wadsworth died in 1979, and Jessie died in 1985. In 1987, the Brisbane City Council recommended that the land be set aside as a recreation reserve and a Reserve for Local Government (Historical Park and Recreation) Purposes was gazetted in 1989, under the control of the Brisbane City Council as trustee.
The timber stairs to the upper level of the structure were removed in May 1990. The radio mast/signal mast was removed to the Enoggera Army Barracks in 1993, as the mast was infested with white ants and one of the stays fallen on to the beach.
","criteria":"The Former Signal Station survives as evidence of the role of Cowan Cowan and Moreton Island in the Moreton Bay navigation network, from the mid-19th century when the pilot station was relocated from North Stradbroke to Moreton Island.
Located as part of the former Fort Cowan/Cowan Cowan Battery, this former Naval Signal Station has an association with the defence of Queensland during the Second World War by the Australian Military Force and particularly by the Royal Australian Navy. The former Naval Signal Station is also significant as part of the Cowan Cowan Battery, in turn, part of an integrated series of defence batteries around Moreton Bay.
|The Former Signal Station survives as evidence of the role of Cowan Cowan and Moreton Island in the Moreton Bay navigation network, from the mid-19th century when the pilot station was relocated from North Stradbroke to Moreton Island.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15874,"place_ref":601101,"name":"Rosewood Police Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 John Street","suburb":"ROSEWOOD","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-06-06","description":"The Rosewood Police Complex, located in the centre of Rosewood on the northern corner of Railway and John Streets, consists of a former court house and a police residence either side of a recently constructed police station. The complex forms a significant element within the streetscape of John Street, characterised by predominantly timber buildings.
The former court house is a single-storeyed timber building with a half-gable and hipped corrugated iron roof and concrete stumps. The building has a T-shaped plan with the court room, facing John Street to the southwest, surrounded on three sides by verandahs, and offices to the northeast.
The building has weatherboard cladding to the exposed northeast end, and single-skin exposed framing to the verandah walls. The northwest verandah has been enclosed with hardboard sheeting and louvred windows. Verandahs have a timber rail balustrade, timber posts and curved valance, with french doors and sash windows opening from the court room. The northeast end has sash windows with timber batten and corrugated iron hoods.
Internally, the building contains early court room furniture including a timber witness stand and Judge's bench. The building has boarded ceilings and vertical timber boarding to walls.
The police residence, located on the corner of Railway and John Streets, is a single-storeyed weatherboard building with a half-gable and hipped corrugated iron roof. The building has a verandah on the southern side enclosed with weatherboard and louvres, and a verandah on the northeast, which is a later addition, enclosed with weatherboard and casement windows. An enclosed verandah room is also located on the western side.
Internally, the building has vertically joined boarding to walls and boarded ceilings. Doors have fanlights and windows are mostly timber sashes.
The police station, a recent single-storeyed masonry structure, is located between the former court house and the police residence fronting John Street to the southwest.
","history":"The Rosewood Police Complex includes the former court house building and the police residence, both of which were completed in 1908.
Records indicate that a Police Station was established in Rosewood by the late 1870s. Until the early 1890s, Court at Rosewood was held in the single constable's room of the police barracks on the site of the present Police Residence at the corner of John Street and Walloon Road (renamed Railway Street). A detached Court Room was erected in 1892 on the adjacent site, fronting Walloon Road. By the turn of the century, court facilities were again inadequate and tenders for additions to the Court House were called in 1902.
In 1905, a report described the condition of the police buildings as being in very bad repair, and concluded that "...Rosewood being a town of considerable importance, ...the wisest course would be to erect new Police Station Buildings."
The local community opinion appears to have been divided over the site of the new buildings, between another site, possibly the School Reserve which would enable the existing site to be sold for business premises; and retention of the existing site. Eventually, it was decided that the existing site was the most central and therefore the most suitable, and a new court house with offices for magistrate and constable, and a new police station (used as the police residence), double-cell buildings and stable were erected by C Risdale in 1908 for approximately £800. The old court house and police buildings were sold and removed from the site.
The Court House
Following erection of the new Court House, the Police occupied the two offices at the rear of the building. This arrangement appears to have existed until 1916, when a Clerk of Petty Sessions (CPS) was appointed to Rosewood, after which the Police and the CPS occupied one office each. During the late 1940s, the Court House was also used as additional sleeping accommodation for Constables attached to the Police Station.
By the late 1960s, the facilities provided for the police in the court house were inadequate, limited to one office with no public counter and limited storage space. The northern verandah of the court house was enclosed in 1977 to provide additional office space for the police. By 1986, there was again insufficient space to accommodate the police, and a new police station was completed in 1987. During construction of the new building, the existing cell block and other outbuildings were removed, the cell block being relocated to the Rosewood BMX ground as a club canteen.
The Rosewood court house was closed in 1991.
The Police Residence
A verandah was added to the eastern side of the Police Residence in 1923, and enclosed in 1939. An additional residence was completed in 1985 on adjoining land, with frontage to Railway Street.
","criteria":"The Rosewood Police Complex survives as evidence of the development of Rosewood as a centre for the surrounding district during the early 20th century.
|The former court house is a good example of an architectural type developed by the Public Works department.
|Through the use of materials, architectural forms and scale, the complex is a significant element within the Rosewood townscape.
|The site, associated with the police from the 1870s and buildings dating from 1908, maintains a strong association with the Rosewood community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15875,"place_ref":601102,"name":"Former Underground Hospital, Mount Isa","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Camooweal Street","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"The underground hospital occupies an area roughly 20m square in the southeastern corner of the Mount Isa Base Hospital grounds. Its south tunnel lies very close to the hospital's southern boundary.
The layout of the underground hospital consists basically of three parallel east-west tunnels, joined at their eastern ends by a tunnel running north-south. All three parallel tunnels were once opened to the outside, but were blocked by rubble in the 1960s. The middle entrance is now partially opened.
The Tunnels
The three parallel tunnels run almost exactly due east-west. They have been driven in from the surface by drilling and blasting. Some of these drill hole are still visible around the entrance to the middle audit, and in the middle and south tunnels, the drill holes are well preserved in the roof and walls. All the visible stone in the tunnels is a hard, light-coloured shale, which fractures along steeply dipping joint lines. The roof and walls appear to be in good condition overall. Engineering advice since 1994 has indicated that the tunnels are in a sound condition although fist size rock pieces are lying on the floor of the tunnels.
All the rock surfaces in the underground hospital are slightly irregular and roughly finished, so all the following dimensions are necessarily approximate. The middle tunnel is 13.8m long from the upper lip of the entrance to the corner of the crosscut, and 2.7m wide. The south tunnel is 14.5m long from the crosscut to the last visible timber post standing in the shale mound blocking its entrance, and 2.6m wide. The north tunnel is the shortest and widest of the three, only 10m from the crosscut to the last timber set standing in the shale mound blocking its entrance, but 3m wide. The east tunnel is 20.4m long and the widest of the tunnels at 3.5m. At both ends of the east tunnel, opposite the north and south tunnels, are two recesses in the wall, the same width as the facing tunnels and each about 1.7m deep. The tunnel heights are very difficult to measure, as the entire floor of the underground hospital is covered with debris, and the original floor level can only be guessed at. The roof height, near the corner of the middle and east tunnels is about 2.5m The total exposed floor area of the underground hospital is about 188m square.
The ventilating raise is obstructed at its base by fallen stone and timber. It is located in the intersection of the crosscut and the north tunnel, and is about a metre square in section. It appears to rise a little to the north of vertical for four or five metres, narrowing down as it rises, and is then obstructed by stone and timber. Visibility up the rise is obstructed by a heavy growth of tree roots. A small tree, growing up the slope about 20m north-east of the buried entrance to the raise is probably the source of the tree roots.
The Timbering
Internally, the underground hospital was timbered like a mine, although two different techniques were used. The north tunnel was heavily timbered with three piece sets of sawn Oregon posts and top lagged with hardwood planks resting on the caps. Five sets were intact in October 1997. The rest of the hospital was lightly timbered with round logs of native hardwood about 1.5cm in diameter. Throughout most of the hospital only occasional posts were standing in 1997 and most of these were dislodged and leaning. A few intact set survived in the north east corner, showing the construction was generally similar to the sawn timber Oregon sets; having round caps and hardwood plank lagging resting on them. The sets were spaced by sprags resting on cleats nailed to the tops of the posts.
In his 1997 report, Peter Bell indicated that approximately three-quarters of the timber shoring in the underground hospital was missing. He also said that a portion of the remaining timber was suffering from termite damage and dry rot. Unfortunately the dry rot damage has accelerated since the 1997 fire because of the amount of water and foam pumped into the structure during the fire.
Wartime Fittings and Equipment
Little remains of the furnishings and medical equipment. There is no evidence of the operating theatre equipment, beds, cupboards and other moveable equipment. Some material remaining prior to the fire included benching along the eastern wall, timber shelving, light fittings and timber shoring in the north tunnel. There was also a considerable amount of post war material such as files, X-ray plates and medical equipment such as an autoclave. It is believed that the files and X-ray plates fuelled the 1997 fire.
In the south tunnel there were 1940s light shades, bed tables, as well as post war material such as unidentified machinery and furniture. At the rear of the north and south tunnels are two 2.7m x 1.7m recesses. Each recess was fitted out with a roughly constructed cupboard, of which only the northern one was surviving in 1997. The recesses and cupboards are thought to have been constructed after WWII.
Floor Deposit
Throughout the underground hospital, the floor is covered with a deposit of earth, fallen stone, ash, timbers, pieces of furniture, electrical equipment and other material. One conspicuous element of the floor deposit is the number of pharmaceutical bottles and ampoules it contains. Several dozen bottles and a smaller number of ampoules are visible on the surface. Most of the bottles are empty and unlabelled, but some contain liquids and powders. Some samples removed by firemen in 1994 contained ampoules labelled sodium glycophosphate, sulphur powder and saline solution.
","history":"The Mount Isa Underground Hospital, constructed during March/April 1942 in the grounds of the Mount Isa District Hospital, was built by off duty miners from Mount Isa Mines. The structure was designed by Dr Edward Joseph Ryan, Superintendent of the Mount Isa District Hospital. Construction work was supervised by Wally Onton, Underground Foreman at Mount Isa Mines.
The war in the Pacific reached the shores of Australia on the 19th February 1942. Darwin was bombed by aircraft operating from four aircraft carriers in the Timor Sea. Within days Timor fell to the Japanese, the Australian cruiser HMAS Perth sank during the Battle of the Java Sea, while Broome, Derby and Wyndham in Western Australia, and Port Moresby in New Guinea were all bombed by Japanese aircraft.
The threat to Mount Isa seemed very real because there appeared to be little military opposition left in the north of Australia after the devastation of Darwin and the West Australian towns. The Mount Isa Copper Mine was seen as a strategic resource of great value to the Japanese, being recognised as one of the world's major deposits of copper, lead, zinc and silver. It was believed that like the Japanese controlled tin fields and rubber plantations of Malaya, and the oil fields of Borneo, the Mount Isa Mine was probably a target for invasion forces and air attacks.
Reacting to the perceived threat, Dr Edward Ryan decided to take precautions to protect Mount Isa District Hospital from air raids. Dr Edward Ryan contacted Vic Mann, MIM Mine Superintendent, who offered the co-operation of the company and the services of Underground Foreman Wally Onton to supervise the project. The company supplied all the equipment for the work, which was done by Mount Isa miners who volunteered their time.
The drilling, blasting and mucking out was mostly done over a two-week period, with the fitting-out taking a few more weeks. The work was done during March/April 1942, during which approximately 100m of tunnel were excavated. Three parallel adits were driven into the hill face and then connected to a crosscut level to form a large underground shelter with an 'E' shaped plan. A vertical rise to the hillside above helped ventilation and was also equipped with a ladder to serve as an emergency exit. The excavation was timbered using the contemporary mining methods of the day, then equipped with furnishings and fittings to perform all the functions of a hospital. There were male, female, and maternity/children's wards, a surgical theatre and a delivery room.
The finished underground hospital was about 100m from the rear of the nearest hospital building, with access along a gravelled pathway. The three entrances were secured by locked timber gates. Inside the hospital was framed either with sets of round native timber or sawn Oregon timber, the ceiling was sawn hardwood planks and some of the walls were lined with gidyea logs. The floor was bare earth. The hospital was equipped with electric lights and a telephone. Furthermore, buckets of water and sand, stirrup pumps and shovels were present in case of an air raid.
Dr Ryan kept the shelter fully equipped and ready for use with linen, medical equipment, dressings and pharmaceutical stocks. Once a week there was an air raid drill, and nurses and orderlies wheeled less-seriously ill patients up the steep gravel path to the underground hospital.
Mount Isa never experienced air raids, and it soon became apparent that the attacks on Darwin and other northern towns were harassing raids rather than the prelude to an invasion. History shows that Japanese resources were extended to their limit and, after the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, their naval power was destroyed. The threat of invasion disappeared as the Japanese forces were driven from New Guinea and into retreat from the Pacific.
Although air raid drills ceased, the underground hospital remained in use for less urgent purposes. The shelter was used as a dormitory by the nurses on hot nights, then like most unused spaces, it gradually became a store room of hospital equipment and files. After the war, lax security allowed young children to play in the tunnels, which still contained medical equipment and pharmaceutical supplies.
The shelter was finally closed sometime during the 1960s when rubble, excavated during the construction of the new four-storey hospital wing, was used to close the three entrances. The ventilation rise was also filled in. For approximately ten years the underground hospital remained closed until the fill at the north collapsed in 1977, and at the main entrance in 1988. Each time an entrance opened there was debate in the community regarding the future of the site. In 1992 the main entrance again collapsed and there was considerable debate about the site because of the Australia-wide interest in WWII sites during celebrations which commemorated the Battle of the Coral Sea and the 1942 threat of invasion.
The entrance was again closed, but reopened in 1994. While the entrance was again open and its future was being discussed in the media, a fire broke out in the southern tunnel at 1.30am on 27 August 1994. Queensland Fire Services found water was ineffective and, not knowing the layout of the interior, or the source of the fire, they waited until daylight and filled the tunnel with high expansion foam to extinguish the fire. The Mines Rescue Unit and volunteers later removed most of the burnt timber and stacked it at the main entrance.
In response to the fire, the hospital administration installed a locked trapdoor of heavy steel mesh over the collapsed entrance, and the entrance has remained open but secure against entry for the past three years. A public meeting in late 1995 showed that community support has swung strongly in favour of conserving and developing the underground hospital rather than again burying the entrance.
In 1996 a Steering Committee, representing the owners, heritage conservation organisations and corporate and community representatives, was formed to manage the future of the underground hospital. A conservation strategy, funded under the Queensland Heritage Grants Program and the Queensland National Trust, was prepared at the request of the Steering Committee. Vandals lighted a second fire on Sunday 26 October 1997 causing further damage to the interior.
Plans are in place for the interior of the hospital to be cleared by Green Corps (Young People for the Environment) and volunteer labour. The work will be carried out in consultation with the Cultural Heritage Branch of the Environmental Protection Agency. All artefacts will be documented, tagged and stored at the North West Queensland Museum in Mount Isa. Re-timbering of the interior will be carried out under the supervision of Mount Isa Mines engineers who will also provide some of the equipment required for the project.
","criteria":"The Former Underground Hospital, constructed by Mount Isa Mines volunteer labour in response to the perceived threat of Japanese invasion, is thought to have been excavated between March and April 1942. Mount Isa Mines provided equipment and the services of the Underground Foreman, Wally Onton.
|The hospital, built entirely underground, is currently thought to be unique in Australia.
|As such, the site possesses considerable archaeological significance, with potential to yield evidence about 1940s medical and nursing technology and about local improvisation during wartime.
|The underground hospital, designed by Hospital Superintendent, Dr Edward Joseph Ryan is particularly significant as a civilian defence structure built during a period of war. It is also important as an example of mid-20th century mining technology, and the skill and speed of Mount Isa miners of the period.
|It is also important as an example of mid-20th century mining technology, and the skill and speed of Mount Isa miners of the period.
|The Underground Hospital has considerable social significance. Community concern regarding the conservation of the underground hospital is demonstrated by the number of organisations who have become involved in the conservation project, including the Mount Isa Hospital Board and City Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the North West Queensland branch of the Queensland Museum.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15880,"place_ref":601107,"name":"Mackay Town Hall (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"63 Sydney Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-05-29","description":"The former Mackay Town Hall is a two-storeyed rendered masonry building addressing Sydney Street, Mackay. The street facade, facing west, has a two-storey arcaded verandah is symmetrical about a central entry and clock tower. To the northern side and the rear of the building is a public park.
The street facade is divided into five bays of semi-circular moulded arches with pilasters between and string courses. At the centre is a square clock tower with balustrade parapet, ball finials and circular windows. Above the entry archway, which projects slightly forward of the others, is "Town Hall 1912" in relief.
The parapet of the verandah has a cornice and ball finials, and is at a lower level than the parapet of the main building. The upper level verandah has cast iron balustrading and the lower level masonry. The verandah ceilings are ripple iron.
To the side elevations are timber double-hung sash windows with arched heads, whilst those to the lower verandah have square heads. To the upper level verandah are several pairs of French doors. The side and rear windows have hoods of timber and corrugated steel.
Centrally located on the lower verandah, the main entry has a pair of timber panelled doors with brass handles and letter slots. Beyond the entry is a central corridor with offices to either side. The corridor contains the marble honour boards and the timber stair, which has turned balusters and newels. The honour boards, mounted on the southern wall of the ground floor corridor, list local servicemen from the First and Second World Wars. The dedication inscription has not been completed.
Ceilings throughout are decorative pressed metal with metal roses.
The upper level is a single room, formally the Council Chambers, from which French doors open onto the upper verandah.
Added to the south-east corner of the ground floor are toilets accessible from the exterior.
","history":"The former Mackay Town Hall, the second constructed in the city, was built in 1912 by local builder, Charles Porter, to the design of Mackay architect A Rigby. It was constructed on land purchased by the Mackay Municipal Council on 13 December, 1872.
John Mackay and his party had explored what was to become the Pioneer Valley in 1860. The present city blocks were surveyed in June 1863 when the settlement consisted of several dozen huts and tents in a line along a track parallel to the southern bank of the river, and the first land sale was held at the police office, Bowen, on 13 October 1863.
The settlement became the business centre for the pastoral stations in the district, providing services, supplies and port facilitates. By the mid 1860s the township of Mackay had a post office, telegraph connection to Brisbane, churches, banks, a racecourse and the road through the valley and over the range to Fort Cooper had been upgraded from a track.
By 1868, public meetings had discussed the establishment of a local municipal council. Further meetings and a petition signed by 178 householders, freeholders and residents of Mackay resulted in the proclamation of the Municipality of Mackay on 22 September 1869.
The inaugural meeting of the Mackay Municipal Council, which was comprised of local businessmen, was held on 1 December, 1869. This meeting was possibly held in the Court House in River Street, which served a number of government functions. Soon after, the Council met in the original Post and Telegraph Office in Wood Street. Subsequent meetings were held in a building in Sydney Street owned by Mr R Fleming.
The first Municipal Chambers of Mackay were constructed on Allotment 3 Section 33 in Sydney Street in 1872. By 1884, when Mackay was experiencing a sugar boom, the building was deemed to be inadequate and plans were prepared for a new town hall. However, it was not until 1909 that the Town Council accepted recommendations from its newly formed Town Hall Committee, that a town hall of brick be built and that Council apply for a ten year Government loan for that purpose. The following March, the Committee also recommended the building should be on the site of the original Town Hall in Sydney Street, and that competitive designs be called for.
Two designs were submitted, and that of Mackay architect and engineer A Rigby was accepted on 30 November 1911, with modifications to the roof as recommended by the Treasury Department. Tenders for construction were called, and the lowest, that of Charles Porter for £2327, was accepted. Porter had previously undertaken major building contracts for the South African Government, and his constructions in Mackay included several, nearby places of local significance, including Paxton's Shipping Office and Store, St Patrick's Presbytery and St Mary's Church in River Street as well as the Australian Hotel. His company also supplied building material and furniture to the Mackay community.
The earlier town hall was moved to the rear of the block, to make way for the new building. Tenders were accepted from T Cherry and V Warry for the supply of furniture and Porter's supplied gas fittings. Furnishings included "cork carpet" in the hallway, linoleum in the downstairs rooms, fibre matting on the stairs and the Council room left bare. Photographs of John Mackay and past Mayors were hung in the entrance hallway.
The Town Hall was constructed of locally produced bricks and the plan featured a central, square tower designed to include a clock. The clock was never purchased and circular, glass paned windows still remain on the west, north and south sides of the tower.
The new Town Hall was constructed during the year of the "Jubilee of 50 years of economic growth". The first official Council meeting was held in the new building on 19 October 1912 with the official opening the next day.
In October 1915 the Mackay Harbour Board requested that a Roll of Honour Board be erected in the Town Hall, listing the names of those from Mackay and district who had enlisted in World War I, together with photographs of those killed. The marble Honour Board, installed in March 1917, is mounted on the wall of the corridor of the Town Hall, although the inscriptions are incomplete.
In 1918 the Town Hall was one of the few buildings in Mackay which was not damaged by a severe cyclone and was used as a refuge for evacuees. A child born during this period was given the middle name of Hall.
Extensions to the rear of the building were completed by 1939/40. Further extensions were added in 1949 and 1959 to accommodate an increasing Council staff.
After moving to the new Civic Administration Building in 1974, Council planned to demolish the existing Town Hall and offer the site and adjacent parkland for commercial development to help defray costs of the new building. Following a public meeting of 500 people protesting the decision, 18 months of debate and a petition of over 8500 signatures, Council eventually agreed to retain the building. However, the 1949 and 1959 extensions to the rear of the building were demolished.
In 1982-3, Council spent $120,000 renovating the building. This work included repairs to structural weaknesses; the exterior repaired and painted; louvred extensions on balconies removed; floors tiled; railings on upper and lowers balconies restored; internal painting; wall papering and carpeting throughout; ceiling fans and new lighting installed; hand rails on stairs and all window sills scraped and polished and the original brass door knobs and fittings polished. In March 1983 the building was leased to the Department of Community Health.
In 1996, the Council coordinated public meetings to discuss the future of the now-vacant building. Strong attendance showed the community concern over the building, and favoured community uses for it.
","criteria":"The former Mackay Town Hall, the centre of administration for the Mackay Municipal Council, was constructed in 1912 on the site of the earlier timber town hall. This second town hall served as the centre of local government for over 60 years, until the construction of the Mackay Civic Centre in 1975.
|The building, which was one of few buildings of the Mackay City Centre to survive the devastating cyclone of 1918, is evidence of the growth and prominence of Mackay at that time.
|The former Town Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of regional town halls, being a substantial two storeyed building on a prominent site featuring a dominant clock tower.
|The former Town Hall, with its two storey formal street facade, two-storey verandah with moulded arcade and clock tower, makes a substantial contribution to the streetscape of Mackay's city centre.
|The importance of the building to the community has been demonstrated by public pressure to retain the building when it was threatened with demolition in the 1970s, and community interest in its ongoing use in the 1990s. Council undertook substantial refurbishment works during the 1980s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15884,"place_ref":601111,"name":"Holy Trinity Church Complex","alternate_name":"Holy Trinity Church, parish Hall and Presbytery | Holy Trinity Anglican Church Complex","street_address":"39 Gordon Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The Holy Trinity Church Complex is located one block south of Victoria Street, the main commercial street of Mackay, on the corner of Gordon and Sydney Streets which is a major thoroughfare through the city.
The Church:
The Holy Trinity Church is a substantial rendered masonry building sited on a north-south axis. The principal façade of the building faces north to Gordon Street. Front elevation has decorative parapet including dentil course and raked arch motif below the eaves line and crucifix finial. A central rose window is filled with coloured and leaded glass panel. The entry is defined by an arched gabled entry portico with twisted 'barley sugar' columns. The exterior is rendered with smooth white stucco. The gabled roof of the building is clad with red painted wide gauge corrugated iron roof which simulates terra cotta tiles. Along the outside of the nave is an arcaded arched colonnade loggia.
The interior of the building comprises a nave with the aisles surmounted by clerestory lighting. Lining the side elevations of the church are round-arched window openings. The clerestory windows are in pairs and filled with coloured glass. Below are glazed doors in geometrical patterned coloured glass.
The interior is also rendered with white stucco and has a cruciform plan. In one transept is the Warriors' chapel with three stained glass windows of St George, St Michael and St Alban. This chapel is divided form the body of the church through three round arched openings. At the rear is an organ loft on four columns. The ceiling is vaulted, with cross vaults at the bays of the engaged piers.
There are many memorials within the church, including several retrieved from earlier churches on the site. There is also a cedar Bishop's throne which could also be from an earlier church. The sanctuary arch is flanked by marble Corinthian columns. A simple marble alter sits within the half domes space of the sanctuary.
The Residence:
The residence is between the other buildings, set back from the street screened by a tropical garden. The residence is also rendered with white stucco and has a decorative front parapet, and a group of three round arch windows on the principal elevation. The roof is clad with red corrugated iron. Stepped fronted residence, gabled roof apart from the front parapet. The interior includes chevron decorative ceilings.
Parish Hall:
The front of the Hall faces north to Gordon Street. A foundation stone is at front of the building. The hall is a rectangular building on the same orientation as the church, north-south axis, but slightly larger. It too is rendered with white stucco and has decorative parapets repeating the raked arched motif of the church. The parapets are capped with terra-cotta tiles.
The front facade has a central projecting bay, with a group of three archways at the entrance. Above is a group of three arched windows housed within a large round arched recess .
Up several steps is a reception lobby with terrazzo floor, with small meeting rooms either side. Stairs to either side lead to further rooms upstairs. Through the three entrance doors with brass handles, is a large hall, of two-storey height. Centred is a dance floor. The hall area presently has a suspended ceiling and a mezzanine over its rear section. Along each side of the hall is an arched colonnaded aisle, with a mezzanine walkway to the perimeter. In some parts, there are large round-arched windows rising the two-storeys of the height. Below the stage is a basement with framed change cubicles.
","history":"The Holy Trinity Church, Mackay was constructed as the third church on the site and the first masonry church. The building was completed in 1926, although the design is thought to have been completed by 1923 by Brisbane architect Lange Powell. The church precinct was supplemented by a parish hall and rectory in the late 1930s.
The Church of England Diocese of Brisbane was formed at the time of Queensland's establishment as a separate colony in 1859 and took over what had been the Newcastle Diocese which had extended ten miles north of present-day Mackay. North of this area remained within the Diocese of Sydney. The district discovered by John Mackay in 1860 was thus already within a defined ecclesiastical district and Mackay alone, of the parishes of Northern Queensland, had been under the auspices of the Brisbane Diocese since separation. . Mackay was later incorporated into the Diocese of North Queensland which was formed in 1878.
John Mackay and his party had discovered what was to become the Pioneer Valley in 1860. The present city blocks were surveyed in June 1863 when the settlement consisted of several dozen huts and tents in a line along a track parallel to the southern bank of the river, and the first land sale was held at the police office, Bowen, on 13 October 1863. Among the speculators was Edward Wyndham Tufnell, Bishop of the Church of England, Brisbane, who purchased six lots in the heart of town for £396. A further twenty acres of land on what is now Nebo Road was purchased by Bishop Tufnell at a later date.
While early settlers in Mackay were cattlemen it was soon realised that the soil, climate and rainfall were suitable for the growing of sugar-cane. The growth of the sugar industry was accelerated by the Sugar and Coffee Regulations of 1864 and by the 1880s a system of plantation agriculture had developed.
The first Church of England service in Mackay was conducted by Bishop Tufnell at the Mackay Court House in 1863. By 1867 the Parish of Mackay was established and land for the construction of a church was purchased on 11 August, 1869. That the church was built at a time of depressed economic circumstances reflects a strong commitment by the congregation to their religious beliefs. None of the six town lots purchased by Bishop Tufnell was used for the site of the first Holy Trinity Church.
The first Trinity church was completed in 1871 of an English design with a steeply pitched roof covered with wood shingles. It was built of stone but collapsed in 1878 possibly because of a defect in the foundations. The Mackay Mercury reported on 10 March 1878:
"Last Sunday morning, during the heavy rainfall, we regret to state that the gable end of Trinity Church fell with a great crash and destroyed a considerable portion of the altar and Church furniture. The building had been in a dangerous state for some time past and, judging from the numerous cracks in the walls, and imperfect foundations, it is a wonder it has stood for so long."
Services were held in the Oddfellows' Hall, Sydney Street, until 1879 when a second church was consecrated. By 1884 the Mackay Parish complex consisted of a ...large, beautifully appointed Church, a large Sunday School building and a neat cottage for a parsonage. During the late 1880's a ladies' committee was formed to raise funds and this committee contributed 347 pounds towards the cost of a new parsonage. The term 'parsonage' became obsolete after 24 years and 'rectory' was substituted.
The second Holy Trinity Church was designed by the colonial architect, F G Stanley, who supplied the plans free of charge. The building was constructed of wood, and was of a Gothic design with a steeply pitched roof covered with shingles, sited on the southern side of the grounds and capable of holding a congregation of 500. This Church was fitted with a pipe organ, an altar of carved English oak, and carved oak rails in memory of prominent people with strong associations with Holy Trinity Parish. Lighting was by gas, with ornate brass standards, about seven feet tall, each surmounted by a cluster of three lamps representing the Trinity.
The second church was destroyed in a cyclone in 1918. A temporary church was constructed from salvaged timber and a fundraising drive was conducted throughout Australia. In 1923 the estimate for the new building was £10,800 but by time of construction in 1926 the cost had risen to £14,315. This resulted in modifications to the original plan which had included an imposing bell tower, 82 feet high and 17 feet square at the base. The plan also incorporated an arcade which would have been on the east side of the land.
The design of the third church is believed to be similar to that of the Mission Church of the Order of Saint John which was seen by Canon Halse in Bombay. It suggests the style of a Spanish church with the addition of open verandahs to allow for the harsh northern climate. The incumbent Rector, Canon Fortesque Leo Ash, arranged for a Warriors' Chapel as an integral part of the building in memory of those who had died in the 1914-18 war. The architect was Lange L Powell and the builders were A Stonage and Sons. The church, together with a rectory and a parish hall occupies a city block. The church was designed in 1923 and completed in 1926.
Lange L Powell was an early twentieth century architect who practised in partnership with Claude Chambers as Chambers and Powell form 1911 until 1920; and then with Beatrice Hutton as Powell and Hutton from 1922 until 1924. When Powell designed the Holy Trinity Church, Mackay he was in private practice. During his long career as an architect Powell designed many prominent buildings, including St Martins Hospital and the Masonic Temple in Ann Street, Brisbane.
In his design of the Holy Trinity Church, Powell used a blend of Romanesque, Spanish Mission and Mediterranean architectural styles, all popular during the inter-war period. A similar eclecticism was used by architect Eric Ford of Brisbane's Chambers and Ford on the design of the Holy Trinity Church at Woolloongabba in Brisbane. The massing and detailing of these two churches illustrates the use of Romanesque architecture which was popularised in America from the late nineteenth century by architect, Henry Hobson Richardson. That the churches are rendered with smooth cast stucco suggests strongly an overriding Spanish Mission influence.
Many of the memorials within the Holy Trinity Church are relics of the first and second churches which were salvaged and incorporated in the present building.
In the mid 1930s the early Rectory was condemned and the hall, built in 1918, required repairs. A new hall was constructed in a style to complement the church and it was proposed that the hall be built large enough for dances, meetings or general entertainment so that rental would pay off the building. The hall had 4000 square feet of floor space, a small hall for kindergarten, Sunday School and rooms for guilds and meetings. The hall was built during 1937-38 and the Rectory, constructed between the church and the hall, was built in 1939. The Premier W Forgan Smith specifically travelled to Mackay for the opening of the parish hall on 4 September 1937.
The foundation stone for the hall was laid by Premier W Forgan Smith in 1937. The architect was Harold Brown and the contractor was Queensland Engineering. The building was constructed at a cost of £15,000. The Mackay Daily Mercury reported on the 6 September 1937 at the laying of the foundation stone:
'the hope was that the hall would be the centre of culture for the city - physical culture, arts, drama and music - as well as providing rooms for smaller meetings for social, religious, and industrial purposes. The hall would be used a great deal for Church purposes and also for other social occasions that were well run and for the benefit of the people.'
The church hall was officially opened by the Bishop of North Queensland, Dr Feetham, 19 April, 1938, at a mask and domino ball reported by the Mackay Daily Mercury as needing little extra in the way of decoration owing to the aesthetic surroundings, but the lighting effects and the outstanding artistry of the interior required nothing in the way of additional support to add to the pleasure of patrons.
The rectory constructed in 1939 between the Church and the hall was designed in a style to complement the other buildings. It became a Parish Centre when a new rectory was built in 1974.
The existing church and hall, although not original, remains one of the few building complexes occupying an original site in the district.
","criteria":"The Holy Trinity Church complex is a substantial brick complex which is important in demonstrating the growth and importance of Mackay associated with the sugar cane industry from 1864 to the present time.
|The Holy Trinity Church Complex comprises three buildings constructed at different times all with reference to and in sympathy with the distinctive Romanesque inspired design of the 1923 Church. The Complex is a landmark in Mackay and has aesthetic and architectural significance for its siting, planning, quality of detailing and other design qualities. The Church is of particular architectural quality, with well composed interiors and detailing, and has special associations with the architect Lange Powell, in illustrating the breadth of this work.
|It has a long association with the Anglican community in Mackay.
|The church demonstrates the spread of the Anglican Church in regional Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15895,"place_ref":601122,"name":"Eumundi War Memorial","alternate_name":"Trees in Memorial Drive","street_address":"Memorial Drive","suburb":"EUMUNDI","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-12-05","description":"The Memorial Trees are situated over two streets in Eumundi. The most substantial planting is in Memorial Drive and comprises three figs (Ficus obliqua), three camphor laurels (Cinnamonum camphora), three lilly pillies (Syzygium paniculatun) and one jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia) planted in the roadway on the northern side, and two camphor laurels on the southern side outside the School of Arts. Three camphor laurels, two figs, two flame trees (Brachychiton acerifolius) and one lilly pilly line the western side of Gridley Street, within the boundary of Clem Park. Most of the trees are mature, and form a large and dominant canopy over the areas in which they are planted.
Memorial Drive is the main thoroughfare through the town, with Gridley Street running at right angles to it.
","history":"The Eumundi War Memorial Trees were planted during and after the First World War. Between 1914 and 1918, eighty seven men from Eumundi and the surrounding district served in the First World War. The trees were planted to honour the twenty men who did not return.
The impetus for the planting of the Memorial Trees was provided by the Eumundi Women's Patriotic Committee. Funds were raised by public subscription, the total cost being approximately £100.
Up until the early twentieth century, there were few statues or monuments in Queensland. However, as a result of the First World War (1914 - 1918), memorials were erected in almost every Queensland town. Such public expression of both grief for the dead and pride in the nation has not been generated by previous or subsequent wars.
The First World War had an immense impact on the Australian population. Of those who went to war, almost one in five did not return. It was common for families to lose more than one son and for small communities to lose a whole generation of men.
In 1916 the British Government prohibited the exhumation and return of bodies. This, coupled with the impracticality of visiting distant graves ensured war memorials became an expression of public mourning, revered as cenotaphs (literally meaning 'empty tomb') by those who erected them. Placed at prominent locations, they became symbols of remembrance and were considered to be as sacred as grave sites. As such, materials, design principles and symbols suggesting permanence, reverence and commemoration were important elements.
Queenslanders were at the forefront of sustaining public expression. In 1916 they were the first state to establish ANZAC Day as a day of remembrance, encouraging other states to join them in making April 25th a day of national commemoration.
It was expected that this tradition would be continued by future generations and that the memorials themselves would be honoured and respected. However it is apparent from the evidence of vandalism and alterations to memorials throughout the state that this has not always been the case.
The memorials are important, not only in terms of what they represent, but also for what they record. In addition to listing the local men who served and fell in the First World War, many memorials also display details regarding unveiling ceremonies and fund-raising committees, making them invaluable as social and historical documents. They are even more valuable when it is considered that all other documentary records of those who served in the First World War are listed either alphabetically or by military units, making it virtually impossible to determine the original locality of a specific serviceman. The memorials are therefore the only readily accessible records of the origins of the men who served and fell.
There are many different types of memorials throughout Queensland. However Memorial Drives of trees are relatively uncommon, particularly those in which each tree is representative of a specific fallen serviceman.
The original Eumundi Memorial Tree species were fig trees, of which twenty were planted. Of these, five are extant and the fifteen which didn't survive have been replaced with other species including camphor laurels, lilly pillies and jacarandas. The first trees were planted between the railway gates and the CWA Hall and the first two were replanted when the road was widened.
When first planted, each tree was enclosed by a neat 6' x 6' paling fence painted white. Each fence bore a '10" x 8" bronze tablet bearing in brass letters the name, unit, date and place of death of each deceased soldier,' By the 1970s, many of the trees had been replaced and the plaques had either been lost or had deteriorated. The twelve remaining plaques were replaced in 1976 by the Maroochy Shire Council and the original plaques placed in the Eumundi Historical Museum.
Soldiers from the Eumundi district commemorated by the Memorial Trees include:
Walter (Ted) Gridley (died; July 28 1918, France) was the great grandson of Joseph Gridley, the first settler to take up land in the Eumundi district.
Herbert William Cooke (killed in action; Gallipoli, June 30 1915). Jabez Abraham (died; August 21 1916) and Cyril Abraham (died; October 20 1918). These men were the son and stepsons of G H Cooke who came to Eumundi in 1911 to take up the position of local schoolmaster.
Aubrey Stuart-Russell (died of wounds; July 4 1918, France) who came to the district in 1910 with his family and was the grandson of explorer Henry Stuart-Russell.
Frank Morgan (died; October 9 1917) and was a timber cutter in the district prior to the war. His brother Bert also served, but survived and returned to the Eumundi district.
The road on which the trees are located was originally the principal thoroughfare North. Shops, hotels and sawmills were located along it, and it ran parallel to the North Coast Railway Line.
Eumundi is one of the few towns in Queensland which does not display a monumental type memorial to the First World War. However, the placement of the trees on the main thoroughfare through town adheres to the formula of placing memorials in dominant and central positions. Although traffic north has been diverted, the Memorial Trees still provide a focal point, both for local residents and visitors.
The trees continue to be significant to the local community. This is indicated by the community based suggestion to change the name of the street from Main Street to Memorial Drive in 1977. They are a local landmark and provide the focal point for the well-known Eumundi Markets which were formed in 1979 and have become the primary industry of the town. The Markets are community based, with all proceeds going towards community organisations and local charities. The trees also continue to be the focal point for remembrance ceremonies, particularly on ANZAC Day, when they provide an educational opportunity for the local school children who make floral tributes to place at the foot of each tree.
The trees and plaques are cared for by the Maroochy Council arborist and the Eumundi Historical Association.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War
|Avenues of trees as memorials, and particularly those where each tree is attributed to a particular fallen serviceman are uncommon in Queensland. Most memorials erected during or after the First World War were of the monumental type.
|They manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Eumundi demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative form erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the appropriate use of symbolic elements such as avenues of trees and plaques.
|The Memorial Trees and their setting are a landmark within Eumundi and contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the townscape.
|They are a continue to be a focal point for the community, providing the venue for markets which have become an important asset to the town.
The Memorial Trees have a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event. It also has special association with the families of the fallen, some of whom still reside in the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15896,"place_ref":601123,"name":"Taromeo Homestead complex and cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"624 Old Esk Road","suburb":"TAROMEO","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The homestead buildings are situated in open rolling country that features large granite outcrops and boulders. Rocky outcrops and large trees are interspersed between the buildings.
\nOn the western side of the entrance drive are two residential timber buildings, possibly from the 1930s, and a butchers shop. This has a pyramidal roof of corrugated iron with a core constructed of vertical boards, open below the roof. A flat modern roof has been erected on the western side. These buildings are separated from the earlier buildings of the complex by a fence. To the northwest is a kitchen garden fenced with timber slabs, which has a small timber structure in one corner.
\nThe stone stables and store face each other across the entrance drive and are the dominant buildings in the group. The store is a rectangular building with an east/west axis. It is made of granite blocks and has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. Windows barred by timber strips flank the central door on the southern side. The walls are thick and rendered internally and are lined with narrow shelves. It has a floor of wide boards and a loft area accessed by a ladder. There is a door high in the gable end that was probably used for loading from a cart into the loft area. A door on the northern side of the building has been filled in and there is a slab lean to section abutting this side of the building. Adjoining the store is a stone butchers shop. It has a lower roof with a small raised section along the centre of the roof ridge for ventilation.
\nThe stables have slab walls to plate height and comprise a rectangular core with a gabled roof and a verandah roof to the west, north and east. There is also a lean to extension to the east. The stables have a weatherboard hayloft added across the original gabled section. Openings along the southern side have large doors with forged pins, catches and hinges. To the north of the stables are yards.
\nBehind the store and butchers and separated from them by a large rocky outcrop is a single storey timber residence. Across from this to the north is a slab building with a gabled corrugated iron roof, which was the former blacksmith's shop. No blacksmithing equipment remains inside. In a line beyond this are a modern corrugated iron and weatherboard storage shed and a small bathroom structure comprising an enclosed, gabled roofed section with a drum shower suspended over a slatted timber floor. A corrugated iron partition divides this from an entrance area with a timber bench and washbowl. To the side of this is an open section sheltered by a skillion roof.
\nAbout 50 metres to the east of these buildings is a milking shed with a pole frame, open sides and a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The interior is fitted with cow bails. The adjoining yards are enclosed with sawn timber rails wired to posts.
\nTo the west of the homestead and across the creek is the family cemetery. A crenellated stone wall of coursed rubble encloses it and it is entered by an iron gate. Within the wall, arranged in two rows, are the graves of members of the Scott family. The memorials date from 1851 to 1962 and include including that of Simon Scott who died in 1858. A number of those buried were born on Taromeo in the 1840s and 50s. Some graves are outlined with granite stones, as is the narrow path down the centre. There are graves of Taromeo staff behind the cemetery enclosure including that of Charles Williams, the mason responsible for the stonework.
","history":"Taromeo was one of the original pastoral properties in the area and was taken up soon after land in Queensland became available for free settlement in 1842. The district was first divided into three huge runs, Taromeo, Tarong and Nanango, although Taromeo is thought to be the earliest of these by some months.
\nBy 1841 would be squatters were moving into southeast Queensland, settling first on the Darling Downs. The first sale of Brisbane land took place in Sydney in July 1842 and soon after an expedition comprising Andrew Petrie, Walter Wrottesley, W. Joliffe, Henry Stewart Russell, convicts and Aborigines set off to explore the Wide Bay area. Land holdings were quickly taken up, possibly as a result of their reports. In 1846 Capt S Perry and Burnett conducted surveys and Burnett alone made a second trip in 1847 looking at river systems mainly to establish a port to serve the area.
\nAlthough there is no evidence for the date on which Taromeo was first settled, it is known that in late 1842, John Borthwick, from Buaraba Homestead near Ipswich, and William Elliott Oliver visited Taromeo on their way north seeking land for establishing pastoral runs. Soon afterwards, Oliver took up Nanango and Borthwick continued northward to the land that was to become Tarong Station. Simon Scott had arrived from Scotland with his brother Walter in 1839. Simon worked initially on a property at Castlereagh and arrived in the Moreton Bay region in 1841 as part of a group delivering sheep to Cressbrook station. After taking up Taromeo he returned to Castlereagh and married Christine Swanson. In March 1847 Scott returned to Taromeo with his family and on 5 July 1847 applied for a squatter's license for an area of 200 square miles.
\nHe built a cedar house around 1850, probably replacing more primitive accommodation, and added ancillary buildings. Mrs Scott died on Christmas Day, 1851 and is buried at Taromeo, though the area was not officially proclaimed a cemetery reserve until 1878.[1] A stone pitched wall enclosing the cemetery was built by stonemason Charles Williams in 1882.[2] The smithy is thought to have been built in 1854 and Williams is said to have constructed a stone store and butcher's shop for Scott in 1856.[3] These were originally shingled and were separate buildings.
\nIn 1857 when a survey of the area was carried out, the station was flourishing with a number of buildings constructed and a large area under cultivation. Simon Scott, who had remarried in 1854, was killed close to the house in 1858 when he fell from his horse. His brother then ran the property until his son, also named Walter, came of age. The Scott family appears to have been on relatively good terms with local indigenous people and Walter Scott Junior, later MP for Burnett between 1871 and 1878, is reputed to have spoken their language fluently.
\n\n
By the 1860s, tenders were called for the conveyance of a mail service route between Ipswich and Nanango, via Wivenhoe, Mount Brisbane, Cressbrook, Colinton and Taromeo. A newspaper in 1870 reported that a tender for once a week services, by horse, had been accepted.[4] By 1882, tenders were called for the conveyance of this service by coach.[5] Taromeo was reportedly used as a horse-changing station, and a clearing house for mail, along this route.[6] The station ceased running sheep to raise cattle.
The original lease holding of Taromeo was reduced as the government sought to encourage closer settlement in the South Burnett region. Beginning in the 1870s, resumptions occurred over many years, through consolidation in the 1880s, to the early twentieth century when two Land Acts (1897 and 1902) allowed the resumption of much of the lease. In 1889 Walter Scott voluntarily allowed resumption of a large area on which the townships of Blackbutt and Benarkin were established, though most of it was subdivided into 160-acre farms.
The Queensland National Bank took over the property in the 1890s, leaving Mrs Scott as the manager after her husband died. She retired to live in Brisbane in 1897, when a relative then managed the property until the outbreak of World War I.
\nThe original homestead building was demolished in 1948, and a new homestead, guesthouse and meat house have been constructed to its south.[7] Work has been carried out to repair the early buildings. The stone walled cemetery is reputedly one of only two recorded stone walled family cemeteries in Australia and contains many of the Scott family graves.[8] There are a number of formerly unmarked graves of non-family members, staff and immigrants outside the walled enclosure.[9]
\nOn 9 January 2011, floodwaters breached the walls of the cemetery, severely damaging the stone walls and toppling the headstones. By 2012, South Burnett Regional Council secured approximately $180,000 in Federal and State government grants for its reconstruction, and a team of over 20 volunteers, including local residents, council staff, and members of the State Emergency Service (SES), rural fire brigade and the Blackbutt Heritage and Tourism Association, assisted in the cemetery rebuilding works. The walls were pieced back together by stonemasons Roy and Geoff Welling, using lime-based cement, and the stone of the remaining ruins. The marble headstones were cemented in place after being restored in Toowoomba and cleaned. The South Burnett Regional Council included a time-capsule within the cemetery walls, which includes a list of the names of the volunteers that worked on the project. On 23 February 2013, a ceremony took place to reopen the refurbished cemetery, and unveil new plaques listing its history.[10]
Taromeo Station was established by Simon Scott in about 1842 and is thought to have been the first run taken up in the Wide Bay/Burnett area. The run demonstrates the development of Queensland, particularly this area from the establishment of pastoral holdings in 1840s to closer settlement from the 1870s. The property illustrates the development of pastoral practices in Queensland, particularly the development of the beef industry in the South Burnett Region.
|Taromeo has a number of rare built elements including a stone walled private cemetery, thought to be one of only two stone walled family cemeteries in Australia
|The early date of Taromeo with its many extant features suggest that a potential exists for further historical and archaeological research which may yield information which will contribute to an understanding of early Queensland station life.
|The station complex at Taromeo is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland pastoral station. The arrangement of the early buildings and their relationship to each other provides important evidence of early station life.
|Taromeo has aesthetic significance; the site has a picturesque quality resulting from the layering of traditional buildings of various styles, materials and periods of construction set amongst granite outcrops and large trees.
|Taromeo has special associations with the South Burnett community as one of their first settled stations and as a place of employment for local residents and their families many of whom remain in the area. The place is associated particularly with the Scott family who are important pioneers in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15899,"place_ref":601126,"name":"Ayr Court House","alternate_name":"Ayr Courthouse","street_address":"163 Queen Street","suburb":"AYR","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Ayr Court House is a single-storeyed red brick building. The gabled and half-gabled roof is clad in corrugated steel and is surmounted by a painted copper fleche. The roof's original russet-coloured fibro cement slates, have been replaced with corrugated steel sheeting. The wide verandahs on four sides have timber balustrading and paired posts on brick piers. The entrance portico is marked with a decorative parapet.
The Ayr Court House is one of several buildings that contribute to the town's civic precinct in the main street, Queen Street. The police station, court house, town hall, library and post office dominate the north-west side of Queen Street between Mackenzie and Young Streets.
","history":"Constructed in 1935 on a site adjacent to the existing 1897 court house, this was the third court house in Ayr.
The Burdekin region was first settled in the 1860s, and the town of Ayr was surveyed in 1882. Tenders was called for a Court House and Police Station in Ayr in late 1882, and a building was erected in 1883 which comprised the police quarters, lock-up and court room. This building was situated on Allotment 6, bounded by Queen, Khedive (now Mackenzie), Omar (now Graham) and Bey (now Young) Streets. The Post and Telegraph Office and Residence were also located on this block. The town grew in support of the increasing number of sugar plantations and small sugar growers establishing themselves in the Burdekin region.
By late 1896 the court room was inadequate for court purposes. Construction on a new court house commenced in 1897, the former room being taken over for use by the police. The new court house was built on a site south east of the police building, at the corner of Queen and Khedive Streets.
Ayr was almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Leonta in 1903; much of the town was rebuilt after the cyclone. Part of the court house roof was damaged during the cyclone.
Ayr and the surrounding district experienced an unprecedented period of growth through he 1920s and 30s as a result of the expansion of the sugar industry, and other developments in the district from the turn of the century. The formation of the Ayr Tramway Joint Board and the opening of a railway line connecting Ayr and Stuart (Townsville) in 1901 overcame many difficulties previously associated with transporting sugar to the port in Townsville. The Ayr-Stuart line became a government railway in January 1913.
The early farmers in the Ayr district found that the supply of water to irrigate their cane crops was inadequate. Several irrigation schemes were proposed, however none eventuated until the Queensland State Government approved an irrigation scheme for the district in July 1916. The Inkerman Supply Board was constituted in February 1917 and the Irrigation Plant was opened in May 1922. While the depression was affecting most other parts of the country, the sugar towns of Queensland experienced steady growth and stable economies.
Additions to the court house in 1928, provided an office for the Department of Labour. By the early 1930s, the court house was again inadequate for the demands being placed upon it, and further additions to the building were proposed. In a deputation in 1934 to the Hon John Dash, then MLA for the electorate of Mundingburra (which included Ayr), members of the Ayr Progress Association presented a case for a new building, citing, amongst other reasons, the lack of room at the court house; the recent approval by the Commonwealth Government for a new Post Office and Residence in Ayr; and the importance of the business being transacted on daily and weekly bases in Ayr, as reasons for a new building. Approval was given for the erection of a new court house in December 1934, which would include a court room, witness rooms, rooms for a police officer, Clerk of Petty Sessions and four clerks, and a public space
Drawings for the new court house were prepared in 1935 by architect DFW Roberts, employed in the Queensland Works Department (AB Leven was Chief Architect at this time). The Ayr Court House is based on the early traditional "T" shaped plan of court houses, which were most commonly constructed in timber. The Ayr and Home Hill Court Houses are the only two examples of brick versions of this "T" plan form. Most other court houses of this period were adopting different plan forms. Provision was made in the drawings for future additions to be made to the verandahs at either end of the "T". Three distinct entrances to the building separated members of the public who had business dealings with the Clerk of Petty Sessions, from those who were appearing in the court house as a witness, or who were attending a court hearing. A description of the new court house prior to its completion concluded by stating that The Buildings will be an imposing structure and should prove an acquisition to the Architecture of the City.
During the 1930s Depression, Labor Premier William Forgan Smith established a government initiated works scheme under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Act (1930) to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen, labourers and the use of local materials in the design and construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices and state schools. The Ayr court house is a fine example of the brick buildings erected through this work scheme.
The court house was completed and officially opened in March 1936, and the former court house taken over for use as the police station shortly after. Offices in the building were occupied also by staff of other government departments, such as the Agriculture and Stock Department. Additional offices were constructed in 1941, at the south west end of the building. Landscaping of the court house grounds was undertaken in the early 1950s.
","criteria":"Completed in 1936 as the third court house in Ayr, this building survives as an example of the development of Ayr as a commercial and official centre for the surrounding district from the late 19th century, and of the prosperity accompanying the expansion of settlement and the sugar industry in the Ayr district during the early 20th century.
Designed and constructed as part of a Government initiated Works scheme created to generate employment throughout Queensland during the 1930s, the Ayr Court House is also a fine example of the work completed under this scheme.
|The Ayr Court House is a good example of a substantial brick court house which reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland designed by the Department of Public Works during the early-mid twentieth century.
|The form, scale and materials of the building, contribute to the Queen Street streetscape and Ayr townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15902,"place_ref":601129,"name":"Kissing Point Fortification & Jezzine Barracks (part)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"38-40 Howitt Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The military site at North Ward in Townsville - as bounded by Cook, Isley, Mitchell and Howitt Streets and the threshold of littoral land and cliffs facing the ocean - consists of two main precincts: the Kissing Point fortification and Jezzine Barracks. These occupy seven recently configured allotments. The fortification sits on a rocky outcrop in the north-east corner of the site (5/SP211556), while the Barracks spreads out at its feet to the west and south and is arranged around a series of roads. The heritage boundary of this place in the Queensland heritage register encompasses the whole of the Kissing Point fortification and part of the Barracks complex (5 & 7/SP211556; see below).
The views from the site, particularly those gained from the vantage point of the fortification, are panoramic and take in Pallarenda Beach and the Cape to the north-west, the Strand beach and Townsville harbour in the fore to middle grounds, and then Magnetic Island to the north and Mount Elliot to the south-east, both in the distance across Cleveland Bay. These views and the wider view shed of which they form a part are highly valued by the community and are bound up in the siting of the fortification for coastal defence purposes and the sense of security it has afforded Townsville since 1891.
Around the landward side of the outcrop where the fortification is sited are a number of stone retaining walls, the date of which is unknown.
1.0 Kissing Point Fortifications
Sited on the easternmost of two rocky outcrops that occupy the headland separating Rowes Bay and Cleveland Bay about two and a half kilometres north of Townsville city centre, the Kissing Point fortification comprises: two gun emplacements, an underground magazine and a casemate store, one machine gun position, a lookout and two Depression Range Finder (DRF) positions organised along a broad sunken pathway formed by a embanked parapet on one side and a long, low sandstone block retaining wall on the other, which opens out to form a small manning parade ground. Formal access to the fortification is via a roadway adjoining the northern end of the structure, while a track at the opposite end leads from the end of the Strand. The cliffs of the headland, the foreshore below and the ocean form the eastern perimeter of the fortification, while to the west a partially grassed and treed band of ground gives way after a steep, short slope to the eastern side of the Jezzine Barracks site.
The sunken pathway runs from the north-west to the south-east following the general contours and shape of the outcrop. Off its seaward edge are arranged, from north to south, the casemate with its tall red brick façade and three rooms recessed into the earth, the 1905 DRF and Battery Commander's Post, the lookout, the first gun emplacement, the magazine structure, and then the second gun emplacement. Forming the landward edge of the pathway is a low retaining wall of rough stone blocks. Into this are inserted one machine gun position opposite the casemate and the manning parade in the southern corner. Set off from the southernmost gun emplacement by approximately 18 metres is another DRF position.
1.1 Casemate or Underground Store Rooms
This structure is recessed into the earth and features concrete outer retaining walls, a concrete roof fitted with six steel vents and a commanding red brick façade addressing the sunken pathway, the west and a small machine gun emplacement. Done in Old English bond, this wall face is about five metres along its highest section connected to sloping side wings also constructed of brick. Three arched openings in this façade, about four metres wide, have been variously in-filled; two with concrete and a central strip of steel containing single steel doors and the last with steel partitioning and a central steel door . Above the archways are small circular openings that have been in-filled. Inside are three barrel-vaulted underground rooms or bays, the thick separating walls of which are brick and feature a number of doorways. The larger two rooms were for storage and measured about 8.5 x 5.5 metres (28 x 18 feet) in plan and 3 metres high (10 feet). The telephone room measures about 3.65 x 3 metres (12 x 10 feet) and almost 2.8 metres (9 feet) at the highest line of the vault. New quarry tile flooring has been installed throughout and all other interior surfaces have been painted sometime after 1997.
1.2 Lookout
This feature comprises a narrow passageway and stairs sunk into the earth and opening into the eastern side of the pathway, at the end of which is a sheltered lookout point. Its sides are retained with concrete walling that project a few centimetres above the ground.
1.3 Magazine
This brick and concrete structure comprises a series of rooms, corridors and trenches largely recessed into the earth that were used for the safe storage of ammunition and its protected delivery to the gun emplacements on either side. Opposing steep flights of stairs give access to a central bay of small, partly underground rooms, over which further side stairs give access to a long platform forming part of the roof to these spaces. A narrow passageway or trench led from this platform to a small DRF trench, square in plan with rounded corners, sitting near the sea cliffs. A slight depression corresponding to its general dimensions is all the remains above ground of this feature. The façade of the magazine is face brick done in Old English bond with two openings, an arched steel doorway and an arched window. Steel grilles fill the arches. Inside the magazine itself are a number of small rooms opening off a lobby and enclosed by a narrow corridor called a lamp passage. The rear room was the shell store. To the rear of these is another space from which lead two opposing passageways or tunnels connect to the gun emplacements via a gently sloping floor. The interior walls are recently painted brick, while the vaulted ceilings are off-form concrete as are the floors. There were once cartridge lifting devices at the ends of these tunnels used to raise the ammunition to the gun pit level. The associated openings were seeled during restoration in 1979-1980. The walls feature various recesses. A number of brick-lined ventilation shafts project from three of the rooms in the magazine, however only one has an early steel vent attached. This structure has been much restored as it was partly demolished during the 1960s. Painted steel tubular handrails are fitted to the stairs and open ledges. A large gravel bed has been laid over the general footprint of the northern tunnel, while two BBQs have been installed to the south, as well as a smaller gravel bed and a memorial wall.
1.4 Gun Emplacements
The two gun emplacements comprise a generally circular platform retained by semi-circles of concrete parapet walling to the east and accessed by stairs from the sunken pathway. Each parapet wall connects to the cartridge lift locations where the magazine tunnels end and feature a number of recesses known as expense magazines where various shell and cartridge components were stored before loading of the guns. In the centre of the circular platform is a concrete upstand or dwarf platform where two guns are currently mounted. The easternmost gun is a 6 inch Armstrong Mark V Coastal Defence Gun (Serial No. 7469) which investigation has shown was one of those installed at Kissing Point in 1892 and later salvaged from a crevice in the nearby cliff face . The westernmost gun is a 6 inch Armstrong breech loading gun (Serial No. 3777) that was part of the arsenal of Magazine Island Fort and acquired by the North Queensland Army Museum in 1983-4 when it was finally demolished.
1.5 Depression Range Finder Positions
These are mounting positions for DRFs and comprise a small trench about a metre and a half square and half a metre deep. In the centre on a base is a concrete pedestal where the DRF was mounted. At Kissing Point the northernmost of these (installed 1905) is accessed via a set of narrow concrete stairs and sits between the casemate and lookout, it and its access way sunk into the battered earth and natural rock. This position retains part of the steel fixing at the top of the pillar to which the DRF was attached. Another sat above the magazine (described above); while the other sits off about 18 meters to the south-east of the southernmost gun emplacement near the cliff edge. It is formed with concrete walls in five facets and a slab. It is about half a metre deep with a central pedestal and a short flight of stairs leading into its south-east side. The narrow trench that connected this position to the sunken pathway is no longer evident.
1.6 Manning Parade Ground
The manning parade ground consists of an area of flat ground enclosed on three sides by the low stone retaining wall that forms the landward defence of the fortification. There are simple garden beds ranged against its three sides.
1.7 Machine Gun Position
This is a small semicircle of ground sheltered by the low retaining wall sited opposite the casemate store. There is no longer evidence of the machine gun position located in the south-east corner of the parade ground.
1.8 Memorials
The American War Cemetery flagstaff sits between the sea cliffs and the magazine and features eight memorial bronze plaques at its base. Nearby is another memorial comprising a low wall with an undulating cap. A further memorial is set off from the low retaining wall about halfway along its length and comprises of a standing stone with a plaque commemorating the centenary of 31st Battalion, the Kennedy Regiment.
2.0 Jezzine Barracks
The Jezzine Barracks complex consisted of five main areas of development aside from the fortification (above) and the parade ground (see below). The first, to the south-west of the fortification outcrop, was characterised by a range of small single-storey, steel-framed sheds and timber-framed and -clad huts with either gabled or skillion roofs of corrugated steel arranged around a series of secondary roadways and open drainage lines. The second area, to the south of the fortification and strung along the easterly end of Howitt Street, featured six timber-framed and -clad married quarters houses on tall stumps (mid-1960s). The third and fourth areas, adjacent to the west of the fortification outcrop, are dominated by the structures of Jezzine House (1993) and the 31 RQR headquarters building (1962-64). The former comprises a double-storey, rendered masonry structure with decorative timber detailing set amongst mature gardens and on higher ground accessed via a sweeping drive. The latter concrete and masonry building is planned around an internal courtyard. It comprises offices and a porticoed entrance that addresses the parade ground; and a drill hall and mess rooms at the rear. The fifth area, to the far west along Cook Street, has most recently been the headquarters of the 11 Brigade and features: the Bellman Hangar (early 1950s) and a large open space between it and the intersection with Howitt Street enclosed by trees along Cook Street.
2.1 P1 Type Huts
To the immediate south-west of the remains of the entrance gates to the fortification are situated five P1 type huts, which appear to remain in the positions they had obtained early in World War II. Rectangular in plan, these timber-framed huts have gable roofs, the ridges of which run north-west to south-east. Roof cladding is profiled steel, while the eaves are unlined. They are all raised to varying heights off the sloping ground on prefabricated, concrete stumps. External walls are single skin with the frame exposed on the interior, while internal partitions are similarly framed with silky oak infill panels. The original cladding of vertically-jointed timber remains extant on each hut. All feature aluminium-framed louvers and sliders. A single board door opens from the short end of each hut onto a short flight of timber stairs. Surrounding the huts is a series of concrete paths and open drains lined with sandstone blocks. These are oriented with the huts. Within the north-facing courtyard formed by these huts is a large, half-buried sandstone boulder inscribed with the date 1901.
2.2 Parade Ground
The parade ground addresses Howitt Street and has been enclosed by north-westerly extensions of Mitchell and Eyre Streets onto the Barracks site (formation complete by 1952) and another sealed road running between these and in front of the 31 RQR headquarters building. It is necessarily flat and grassed with some trees lining its perimeter, most notably those to the north and north-east.
","history":"The fortification at Kissing Point occupies part of a rocky headland separating Cleveland Bay and Rowes Bay at the northern end of The Strand in Townsville; while the Jezzine Barracks complex extends approximately ten hectares to its south-west. The former was built in 1891 as a two-gun battery and part of the coastal defence scheme being established to protect the colony of Queensland and its ports from naval bombardment, installations of which started at Fort Lytton (QHR 600248; 1880-82) in Brisbane and extended to Green Hill Fort on Thursday Island (1891-92). Both during and after the war the adjacent Barracks complex grew up over the large site where the battery's garrison buildings were located and where regular training and annual encampments of northern military forces had been conducted since 1889, most particularly those of the Kennedy Regiment formed in Townsville in 1886. The entire former military site, encompassing the Barracks and the fortification, is delimited by Cook, Isley, Mitchell and Howitt Streets to the west and south, and enclosed by a semi-circle of sea cliffs and littoral land to the north and east; however the heritage boundary encompasses only those parts of state heritage significance, namely the fortification structures and earthworks, five P1 huts put in place during WWII, and the parade ground at the site's formal entrance (refer to site diagram and boundary drawing). The military presence on this headland has persisted over a period of just more than 125 years to 2007 when it was officially closed as an active army site; although the 31st Royal Queensland Regiment precinct, established as the North Queensland Military Museum, and Jezzine House, are still owned by the Commonwealth. The remainder of the site has been gifted to the Townsville City Council as Trustees.
Prior to the 1860s, defence of the Australian colonies had been solely the responsibility of the Imperial government, Britain considering that its navy would provide the first line of defence in any threat to her colonial empire. An investigation into colonial military expenditure in 1862 resulted in Britain demanding that the Australian colonies, by then self-governing, contribute toward the costs of maintaining Imperial garrisons on colonial soil, and encouraged them to provide for their own military infrastructure. Queensland, which had separated from New South Wales in December 1859, could not afford to contribute to this scheme immediately so Imperial troops were gradually withdrawn, the last leaving in 1870.
By the 1870s the Australian colonies were developing rapidly and concerns were renewed about potential threats from colonial powers such as Russia and France - the latter having annexed New Caledonia in 1873 - as well as about American privateers seeking gold. A series of incidents involving Russia and Britain added to the fears aroused during the Crimean War of 1853-56. One such 'scare' in 1876 motivated the colonial governments of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to jointly invite British Royal Engineers Colonel Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois and Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Scratchley, to inspect existing defence installations and make recommendations as to how they might be improved. Jervois had been Inspector General of Fortifications and Secretary to the United Kingdom Defence Committee and had superintended the construction of its defences during the 1860s. Scratchley's particular expertise was in the design and construction of deterrent coastal fortresses and he would have a profound influence on colonial Australian defence matters; his advice causing a number of fortified installations to be constructed along the coastline of Australia, including Fort Lytton at the mouth of the Brisbane River (1880-81; QHR 600248), Fort Scratchley in Newcastle (1882), Bare Island Fort on Botany Bay (1885), Fort Queenscliff and the system of defences for Port Phillip Bay in Victoria (1860-1891), and Fort Glanville in South Australia (1882).
Jervois and Scratchley arrived in Queensland in early August 1877 and had presented their report to the government by the end of the month. In it they identified the most likely threats to the new colony to be maritime bombardment, raids or extortion. They recommended that the mainland colonies develop their sea power in concert with a series of coastal defences. These defences were the standard means of defending ports and harbours following Britain's rise as a naval power, relieving the navy of its defensive functions and affording it greater scope for offensive attacks. Despite being physically closer to the source of most threats, Queensland, with its sparse population and limited resources, was not considered to be greatly at risk and Townsville of little strategic importance. The report did recommend that Brisbane, as the capital and principal port of Queensland, be defended with the construction of a fort at Lytton (QHR 600248).
Cleveland Bay and its nascent settlement were first declared a Port of Entry in September 1865, having been privately surveyed the previous year by agents of John Melton Black - the general manager of Robert Towns & Co, one of the largest pastoral interests in the Kennedy District. Towns entered a partnership with Black to provide financial assistance for this venture and early in 1866 the new municipality was named Townsville in honour of his contribution, although he visited only once. Forming the north-western limit of the township, the rocky headland of Kissing Point had been given its name by 1864 . In the five years following the establishment of Townsville a series of nearby gold discoveries were made, most notably those at Ravenswood and Charters Towers; the latter becoming the richest goldfield in North Queensland. The rail connections made in the early 1880s to service these fields - a network that spread out to connect other inland centres to the busy port - was to fuel Townsville's growth in size and importance, allowing it to evolve into the northern centre of not only the mining industry but also those of pastoralism and sugar.
Following completion of the 1877 assessment, Scratchley was retained as a consultant by several colonial governments including Queensland. Another war 'scare' erupted in 1878 when Russian forces advanced on the capital of Turkey, a British ally, and again galvanised colonial governments in Australia regarding their strategic forward defence. No. 4 Battery, a small detachment of 40 men from the Queensland Volunteer Artillery Brigade was formed in Townsville in June. It was not until January 1881 that Lieutenant-Colonel Blaxland, the Commandant of the Queensland defence forces, was able to make his first inspection of this group. He also selected the site for a battery at Kissing Point. As the year progressed a number of Volunteer Independent Rifle Companies were raised at Charters Towers, Townsville and Ravenswood. Scratchley continued to provide progress reports to the Queensland Government, submitting his final memorandum in 1882, which was the first to recommend specific measures for the protection of Townsville, which he had visited. These entailed mounting two available 64-pounder rifled guns on travelling carriages in positions so as to fire seaward, building a small associated magazine and enclosing a site to be selected. It was suggested that a sandbag battery could be constructed upon the outbreak of war.
The defence systems in Queensland were deemed to be lacking in cohesion and discipline, and a necessary reorganisation was soon established under the Queensland Defence Act 1884. It created a small permanent force as well as a partially paid militia force and voluntary infantry units, and set out new orders of battle and establishment. It also divided the colony into two Military Districts - Southern and Northern. On 24 February 1885 No 4 Battery was redesignated as the Townsville Garrison Battery in the Kennedy Division (KD) of the Northern Military Division (NMD). A number of volunteer companies, A through F, were formed in Townsville, Charters Towers and Ravenswood throughout the year. By June, when Queensland Premier Sir Samuel Walker Griffith toured the north and visited Townsville, the 64-pounder guns recommended by Scratchley in 1882 had been mounted at Kissing Point and Magazine Island and were fired. This entailed construction of a timber platform over which the gun carriage could move. The 10 acre site [about 4 hectares] where the battery was constructed was formally gazetted for Defence Purposes in 1886. Following reorganisation of the colony's regimental divisions, in October of the same year, the 3rd Queensland (Kennedy) Regiment was raised and headquartered in Townsville, subsuming the various Volunteer Independent Rifle Companies listed above. It received its colours in 1887 when its headquarters were shifted to Charters Towers.
The first annual encampment for the north Queensland component of the colony's Defence Force had taken place at Townsville in 1885 at Cluden Park, on the south-eastern outskirts of the settlement. In 1887 drill practice was being conducted at Kissing Point and Magazine Island. As more volunteer units formed these encampments grew larger, necessitating their removal to a larger open space. In 1889 they were moved to the newly gazetted public recreation reserve of 25 acres [10.117 hectares] known as Norman Park, adjacent to the west of the Kissing Point reserve and leased to the Queensland and later the Commonwealth governments by the Townsville Council. Regular encampments were held at Norman Park until the start of World War II. In preparation for these events the salt pan land adjacent to the south of the Kissing Point outcrop and subject to intermittent tidal flooding was drained with a dam and sluice valve. Similar earthwork, including a dam across a creek that flowed into Rowes Bay, was carried out to make the salt pan and mangrove areas along the western half of Norman Park into a suitable training and parade field. It was not until 1909 that the Deed of Grant for Norman Park was purchased for Defence Purposes by the Commonwealth.
By the late 1880s attitudes towards colonial defence were changing, as was technology both for weaponry and shipping. Techniques for defence against maritime attack were under constant review. Despite the ongoing debate the colonial government finally agreed to commit to building defences at Kissing Point and Magazine Island that would operate in concert to protect all approaches to the busy harbour.
Major Edward Druitt, who trained at the Royal Engineers submarine miners depot at Gosport near Portsmouth in England, was appointed to design and supervise the works at Townsville, arriving there in early 1890 and soon after preparing a plan for the Kissing Point battery . The fortifications comprised an embanked parapet facing seaward; two gun emplacements, an underground magazine linked by tunnels to these emplacements , a lookout, a partially buried casemate structure containing store and telephone rooms , and two Depression Range Finder locations , one combined with a Battery Commander's Post set off to the east of the guns near the cliff edge and accessed via a narrow trench. Behind these, facing the salt pans ran a sunken pathway and small manning parade ground protected by a low retaining wall and two machine gun emplacements. An iron palisade was to further protect this battery, with gates toward the northern end of the rear wall. Druitt used day labour under the control of the Government Foreman of Works, Mr A McMillan, to complete this work.
The Kissing Point battery was revised only slightly during construction, a process essentially complete by June 1891 at a cost of 3500 pounds, before Druitt moved on to Thursday Island to begin work on the Green Hill Fort (CHL 105419). He also supervised the fortification work at Magazine Island but this was delayed by renovations and extensions to the harbour. The battery guns at Kissing Point - two 6 inch breech loading guns had been mounted by October 1892, when officials were awaiting delivery of the range instruments. In total the Kissing Point battery was estimated to cost 7000 pounds, this sum comprising 3000 pounds for the guns, 3000 for artillery and submarine mining stores, and 1000 for contingencies. In 1892 another 700 pounds was loaned for the completion of these works, bringing the actual cost without ordinance to just over 4000 pounds.
Various buildings - raised off the ground on timber stumps, framed and clad in timber and roofed with corrugated iron - were erected near to the fortification, on the relatively flat land to its south to provide accommodation for the battery garrison; however the precise location of these buildings is not certain . They included officer's and sergeant's quarters, a recreation room, barracks, a kitchen and stables. The officer's quarters building was likely an earlier residence constructed between two rocky outcrops on the headland for the Inspector of Police soon after 1883 . It was associated with two portions of land adjacent to the south-western corner of the Kissing Point reserve. About 2 acres [about 0.81 hectares] in area, the larger portion was first gazetted for Police Purposes in 1883 before being re-gazetted for Defence Force Purposes in 1892, possibly when the other buildings associated with the Fort were constructed. A 1900 plan contained in the Fort Record Book indicates they were grouped together and other evidence suggests they were located on the larger of the portions along the northern end of Mitchell Street. They had all been removed from the site by the late 1960s.
In 1900 yet another comprehensive report on the state of the colony's defence was prepared and the fortification at Kissing Point was discussed in terms of its purpose in repelling attack from the north and the proposed use of the open ground behind the battery for a depot with seven days of reserves. It was at this time that the first adjustments to the battery occurred when air funnels and windsails for ventilation were installed in the roof of the casemate store. In 1905 a new Battery Commander's Post and Depression Range Finder, located between the lookout and the casemate, was installed. In 1936 the original 6 inch guns were replaced by two 4.7 inch guns. One of the original 6 inch guns was thrown over the cliffs at Kissing Point only to be salvaged in 1970 and installed at one of the gun emplacements in recent years.
Despite the fact that by Federation Charters Towers had become the second largest town in Queensland, and Townsville - the State's second port in terms of tonnage handled and passenger numbers - its link to the outside world; a Colonial Defence Committee remarked in 1906 that it was 'not suitable as a harbour of refuge for ocean-going shipping on account of the shallowness of its entrance channel' and that the town had no resources of strategic importance. A final blow was struck when Field Marshall Lord Kitchener completed his defence survey in 1909, and disparagingly remarked that the 'nice little fort' at Kissing Point was constituted of a prettily situated barracks and a few out-of-date guns. He declared that the fixed defences at Townsville were obsolete in his report of 1911 and not worth maintaining.
The Kennedy Regiment remained part of the Queensland Defence Force until 1903 when it came under the control of the Commonwealth following Federation and the centralisation of defence matters it heralded. It was then reorganised as the 1st Battalion, Kennedy Regiment with an establishment of four rifle companies. As a colonial regiment it had been involved in the 1891 breaking of the Shearer's Strike at Barcaldine. This event and the Great Maritime Strike of the previous year were both seminal influences on the terms of the Commonwealth Defence Act 1903, which explicitly prevented the raising of a regular infantry and prohibited the citizen army from being used in industrial disputes. More than ten percent of the membership of the Kennedy Regiment served in the Boer War in 1899 during which it earned its first battle honour. During the First World War many Kennedy Regiment men volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force and served with the 31st Battalion in France. Here its members again earned battle honours, including Private Joseph Bugden, an original member of the Regiment, who earned the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Battle of Passchendaele in September 1917.
The 31st Battalion was disbanded in March 1919, but in 1921 the militia reformed to perpetuate the designations and battle honours of the Australian Imperial Force. It became the 31st Battalion (Kennedy Regiment). From this time until the commencement of World War II it, along with other members of the Northern defence forces, used the area around the Kissing Point fortification for training, drills and annual encampments. In the years following WWI defence spending was reduced and public and political interest in military matters declined. All the land, including Norman Park, and the three parcels associated with the Kissing Point fort, was surveyed in 1938. Despite the constant use of the area, the buildings and fortification constructed in the early 1890s remained the only permanent structures on the site. From the late 1930s topsoil was gradually introduced to establish lawns and gardens, stabilize the site's sandy base and prevent the movement of unconsolidated sands.
When war was declared in September 1939 the north Queensland infantry battalions were mobilised and marched into encampments at Townsville Showgrounds and Kissing Point Barracks for training and guard duty; the existing facilities and grounds at Kissing Point being occupied by the 26th Infantry Battalion, 11th Brigade of the Citizen Militia Force. In 1940 the Queensland Main Roads Commission built permanent foundations and engine rooms for two searchlights at the Kissing Point battery (marked on a 1948 site place as being in the immediate vicinity of the gun emplacements) and two new 4.7 inch guns were installed. Few changes were made at the site until after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbour and the Malay Peninsula in 1941 and Singapore had fallen the following year. Townsville would become a major supply and deployment centre for Australasian and US troops and the RAAF aerodrome in the suburb of Garbutt became one of the largest air bases in the Pacific.
In 1941 the area to the south-west of the fortification had been renamed Jezzine Barracks after a town in Palestine where members of the 31st Battalion had been involved in a battle, part of the Australian 7th Division's advance on Beirut during the Allied Syria-Lebanon campaign, that had defeated French Vichy forces. Members of the Kennedy Regiment had volunteered for the Second Australian Imperial Force and would receive 43 decorations during the conflict. At this time the extent of development over the site included: a group of 19 huts, many of which were P1 type huts; three buildings along Mitchell Street dating from the 19th century; tents on the parade ground; and some long sheds on Cook Street where the Bellman Hangar stands today (1/SP211556). The P1 hut was a type of modular building designed by the Australian army in the late 1920s and employed to answer the urgent need for accommodation engendered by the radically different nature of World War II in relation to the experience of it on Australian soil. This 'total war' situation required the accommodation of greatly increased numbers of both the traditional arms of the military and also the plethora of people and operations required by the new technologies of air power and armour. The basic module of the series was the P1 Sleeping or Stores hut, which could be modified to produce such things as guard huts, messes, medical aid posts, classrooms and offices. It was rectangular in plan, raised on stumps, made with a timber frame, various wall cladding and a gable roof. They were designed to be made of readily available local materials and constructed by local contractors using common building techniques. Tens of thousands of P1 huts were built across Australia between 1939 and 1945; but despite being conceived of as temporary their adaptability and inherent strength meant they survived on many military sites long after WWII ended. However, more recently, changes in the standards of accommodation demanded by the standing armed forces, which were formed in the wake of that conflict, have meant these huts have disappeared from sites where they were once plentiful. This has occurred Australia-wide. Five of those still on the Jezzine Barracks site are insitu.
By 1943 the immediate threat of Japanese seaborne attack had passed and the war had begun to move north, so the need for a coastal anti-aircraft defence battery at Kissing Point was eliminated. During 1943 the 4.7 inch guns were removed to the Cape Pallarenda installation. A photograph from this period shows that the iron palisade constructed with the fortification in 1891 was still in place. Another shows parts of the site around the parade ground were used as a fuel dump and building materials store. The emphasis of war efforts shifted to long range anti-aircraft defence and Townsville became a major garrison town and logistics base.
Following WWII Jezzine Barracks was used as a base for various units including the 31st Battalion or Kennedy Regiment. In 1947 the Australian Regular Army had formed and was to be supported by a reorganised Citizen Military Force. This force became the basis of the national service scheme instituted by the Federal Government in 1951 and Jezzine Barracks from 1955 was used as a training depot for these groups. A flagstaff and base was removed from the American War Cemetery at Belgian Gardens, after the bodies were exhumed for repatriation in 1946, and installed at the fortification site.
From the late 1940s the Army erected a number of other P1 type huts on the Barracks site, in addition to those erected during the course of the war. Roads were gradually formalised, generally being extensions of the town street grid. By 1952 a Bellman Hangar, a prefabricated metal-framed and -clad structure designed to be re-located with ease, was brought from an unknown location and had been erected on Cook Street to serve as a warehouse. In 1957 the original Kissing Point defence reserve was subdivided and a lot on its eastern end was transferred to the Townsville City Council where they built a rock-enclosed, ocean bathing pool. Between 1962 and 1964 the 31 Royal Queensland Regiment headquarters administration building and training depot was constructed of brick and concrete over one level (3/SP211556) . Other facilities for a modern professional army populated the site, including six married-quarters houses along the north-eastern end of Howitt Street. During this time many of the earlier, nineteenth century buildings on site were demolished. In the late 1960s the WWII searchlight emplacements in the Kissing Point fortification were demolished, the 1891 gun emplacements and magazine partially destroyed and filled in, and the casemate retained in use as a store, a process which represented substantial changes to the fortification site. It was after the mid-1960s that Lavarack Barracks, also in Townsville to the south-west of the CBD and Castle Hill, was developed and the Shoalwater Bay Training Area north-east of Rockhampton established, Jezzine Barracks being too constrained by urban development by this time to accommodate such expansion. Jezzine House (4/SP211556) was built in 1993, on a site very near to where the police inspector's residence was erected in c1883.
In 1979 a team headed by the North Queensland Army Museum Committee of Management and assisted by many Army and local volunteers began the work of remaking what had been destroyed at the Kissing Point fortification just over a decade before, uncovering what had been buried and generally returning it to what was deemed to be its original state. With the permission of the Townsville Harbour Board, several steel door frames and lintels were taken from the Magazine Island Battery and installed at Kissing Point. The Museum opened in the Casemate Store Rooms in 1980. A memorial to the centenary of the 31st Battalion, Kennedy Regiment, was installed against the fortification's landward stone retaining wall in 1986.
The fortification completed at Magazine Island not long after that at Kissing Point and intended to work in concert with it, was identified as being of no further value for military purposes and free for disposal by the Commonwealth in 1919. The Townsville Harbour Board was leased the site before being offered the freehold on the property in 1927. It leased the land to two oil companies and proceeded to demolish all but the original battery complex by 1929. These were demolished in 1983-4, in the final stage of the harbour's expansion.
In 1997 Jezzine Barracks, including the outcrop where the Kissing Point fortifications stand, was identified by the Commonwealth as a potentially disposable land holding, a decision that instigated a round of studies and community consultation to establish what this would entail and how the site's heritage values would be retained. The public, through community activism illustrated in numerous newspaper articles, formation of a lobbying alliance and representations to local members of both State and Federal parliaments, demonstrated its strong concern regarding these issues. Members of the local Council also voiced concern about the future of the site, its importance to the community and the need for it to be used for public purposes. The fortifications were added to the Commonwealth Heritage List in 2004. In 2006 a public announcement was made by the Federal Government that certain parts of the site would be gifted to the Townsville City Council as Trustees, while the Commonwealth would retain ownership of the headquarters building and Jezzine House, which remains the residence of the highest ranking officer in the region despite all troops having been shifted to Lavarack Barracks in 2007. To enable this partial transfer of land the entire site was configured into seven lots and the internal roads were formalised. Prior to the transfer of land to the Townsville City Council, as a part of its remediation of the site, the Department of Defence removed most of the structures on 1 and 6/SP211556.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1891 on a headland affording panoramic views of the northern and eastern approaches to Townsville harbour, the small fortification at Kissing Point evocatively demonstrates theories and practices regarding fixed points of coastal defence working in concert with naval power, which had considerable currency in the late nineteenth century after all Imperial garrisons had been withdrawn from the Australian colonies. These types of fortifications were built at various points of strategic importance - such as Lytton and Green Hill on Thursday Island, also in Queensland; Fort Scratchley and Bare Island Fort in New South Wales; Fort Queenscliff and others on Port Phillip Bay in Victoria; and Fort Glanville in South Australia - and provide important evidence of how the colonies devised and operated their own schemes of defence. The Kissing Point fortification highlights the role Townsville played as an early, important Queensland port serving a vibrant regional economy.
The low-lying land to the south and west of the fort, where Jezzine Barracks developed during World War II, was used from 1887 for regular training and from 1889 for annual encampments by north Queensland military forces, including militia, national service and cadet units, battalions mobilised during both world wars, and the 31st Battalion North Queensland Regiment, formed in 1947 as a continuation of the Kennedy Regiment. Evidence of this long pattern of military use remains extant in the parade ground occupying 7/SP211556. The five P1 huts associated with the Barracks, installed in their current location during World War II in the south-western quadrant of 5/SP211556, are important and increasingly rare icons of Australia's participation in this conflict, the outbreak of which precipitated an unparalleled and urgent defence build up on home soil that relied heavily on prefabricated structures.
|Kissing Point belongs to a coastal landscape of granite outcrops, headlands and hills around Townsville, which forms a dramatic backdrop to the Great Barrier Reef Natural World Heritage Area, a vast territory of spectacular scenery esteemed internationally for its unique biological, zoological and geological qualities. The wide ranging views the fortification affords north-west to Cape Pallarenda, west to Magnetic Island and south-east over Cleveland Bay and the harbour to Mount Elliot, have been valued by generations of visitors to the site. It has also displayed striking landmark qualities for the numerous people who have appreciated the Point from other vantage points around Townsville and Cleveland Bay since early in the settlement's history.
|The Kissing Point fortification is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a nineteenth century coastal battery, of which there were only four built in Queensland (three extant, one demolished), and remain a significant demonstration of the State's pre-aviation military strategy and technology. The surviving fabric provides a snapshot of this period of international conflict and the approach to coastal defence of the newly self-governing colonies of Australia. The battery at Kissing Point retains its relevant, original parts - two gun emplacements, an underground magazine, depression range finder locations, a lookout, casemate store rooms, a machine gun position, and a manning parade ground. Also remaining uncompromised is the relationship between these elements enclosed within an embanked, seaward parapet and a landward retaining wall, and the panoramic views of the wider littoral and marine landscape, which was an essential component of its defensive purpose.
The Kissing Point fortification is an important example of the work of the designer and construction supervisor, Major Edward Druitt RE, who made a significant contribution to the defence of Queensland in the late nineteenth century as a military engineer engaged on this installation, and others on Magazine and Thursday Islands. In addition the place is an important example of the strategic defence planning work of Lieutenant-Colonel PH Scratchley who implemented the ideas central to the 1877 scheme of defence for Queensland devised by Sir WFD Jervois and himself, and later extended them when he advised specific measures for the defence of Townsville including fortification of Kissing Point. These recommendations were made to the Queensland government at a time when all the Australian colonies had to defend themselves without the aid of Imperial garrisons against a number of potential threats in the Pacific region. Scratchley played a key role in this national system of coastal defence.
|Kissing Point fortification and Jezzine Barracks (part) has strong associations for both the military and civilian communities of Townsville as a source of security and pride, evident since the earliest annual encampments held at the site in the late 1880s. These associations also are bound up in the aesthetic appeal of its location and the 45 kilometre range of views afforded across the city to Castle Hill, and over Cleveland Bay and Rowes Bay. This community attachment to the place was evidenced by widespread concern after the site was identified for disposal in 1997 and the widely-supported public campaign that resulted in the transfer of the place to the Townsville City Council in trust in 2009, specifically for public use and benefit.
|The Kissing Point fortification, the Jezzine Barracks P1 huts and its parade ground taken together are significant for their almost continuous association with the Kennedy Regiment, one of Queensland's oldest military units. First formed in 1886 in Townsville; it continued with one designation or another within the Federation-era Queensland militia forces; then contributed members to the two Imperial Forces that served in World Wars I and II and who garnered battle honours during both conflicts, later operated as a battalion and briefly as a company of the Australian Army, and was headquartered at the Barracks from 1947 until 2007.
|The Kissing Point fortification and the site immediately surrounding it has experienced a significant amount of disturbance during two key phases of demolition and restoration; first in the late 1960s and then in 1979-80; however it may still provide valuable archaeological evidence of the design and construction responses made to adapt these kinds of standard battery designs to local conditions. As it belongs to a colonial system of defence that stretches along the entire east coast of Australia, the Kissing Point fortifications would benefit from and add detail to the body of evidence gleaned from these other locations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15903,"place_ref":601130,"name":"Cleveland Hotel (former)","alternate_name":"Sorrento Flats | Cassim's Hotel","street_address":"109 Shore Street North","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-10-30","description":"The former Cleveland Hotel, fronting Moreton Bay and located on the steep east facing slope of the ridge running along Cleveland Point, appears as a single-storeyed rendered masonry building from Shore Street, but has a lower floor facing the water.
The building has a corrugated iron hipped roof with two projecting gables and a skillion roofed verandah with a central gabled entrance porch to the western street side. There are two chimney stacks and the gables have fibrous-cement sheeting with timber cover strips and weatherboards.
The west verandah has a weatherboard balustrade with rectangular open batten panels. There is a skillion roofed east verandah to the lower floor which has had the northern end and the entrance stairs damaged. The base of the building consists of rubble with concrete piers and concrete supports for the east verandah.
Interior walls are of rendered masonry with some fibrous cement partitions and the original arched entrance has been bricked in. A few casement windows survive, but most of the windows, doors and all of the french doors opening onto the front verandah have been removed. The upper floor is of timber. There is no internal access between floors.
A weatherboard double garage with a corrugated iron gable roof is located to the south at street level. This is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The steep site levels off to a flat foreshore area with a concrete retaining wall to the water. The hotel has views across water to Stradbroke Island to the east and Raby Bay to the northwest.
","history":"This two-storeyed masonry hotel was built c1860 for John Vincent Cassim and his wife Mary Tealy, Cleveland boarding house/hotel keepers since 1855.
Cassim was a Mauritian Indian, whom it appears was transported to Moreton Bay in 1840. A person named Cassim, who had been tried at the Port Louis, Mauritius, assizes, and had received a seven year sentence, was amongst a group of Mauritian convicts who were transported to Sydney via the Layton early in 1840 (Mauritius had been occupied by the British since 1810). In April 1840 fifteen of these men, including Cassim, were sent on to Moreton Bay, which was soon to be opened for free settlement, apparently to conduct experiments in sugar growing. Sugar was the principal Mauritian cash crop at this period, and was exported regularly to New South Wales. Presumably, the Mauritian convicts were considered to have had some experience in the sugar industry.
Cassim received a ticket-of-leave at Moreton Bay in February 1844, and in mid-1845 a John Cassim and his wife Mary were resident in Brisbane Town. It is likely that Cassim, John Cassim and John Vincent Cassim, who c1845 married at Moreton Bay an Irish girl named Mary Tealy, were one and the same person. Little is known about Mary, or how she came to be at Moreton Bay, other than that she had arrived in New South Wales in the early 1840s. By 1851, John and Mary Cassim were operating a boarding house at Kangaroo Point, which they maintained until late 1855.
From late 1855 to mid-1860 the Cassims leased Cleveland House [now the Grandview Hotel (600771)], and an adjacent dwelling, from pastoralist Francis Bigge. These buildings had been erected at Cleveland in the early 1850s as part of Bigge's unsuccessful push to establish Cleveland as the principal port of the Moreton Bay region. Amongst the earliest buildings in the township, they appear to have remained unoccupied for several years until taken up as Cassim's Family Hotel and Boarding House.
In the late 1850s, with Queensland separation from New South Wales imminent, there was some renewal of interest in Cleveland as the port to service Ipswich, which was still a strong contender for capital of Queensland. Although Brisbane interests prevailed and Cleveland was to remain an isolated seaside resort, by 1860 the township had gained sufficient popularity as a watering place to support two hotels: the Brighton (formerly Cassim's Family Hotel), and Cassim's new hotel, the Cleveland.
In 1858 JV Cassim had acquired allotment 1 of section 6, par Cleveland, adjacent to and north of Cleveland House, on the road toward Cleveland Point. On this site, c1860, Cassim erected his Cleveland Hotel. The building was extant by September 1860, when he took out a £300 mortgage on the property, and was required to insure the house situated on the land. About this time it was discovered that the hotel had been constructed across the southern boundary of the allotment; subsequently, a small parcel of land was surveyed as allotment 1A and purchased by Cassim in January 1861.
By 1863 the hotel comprised bar, parlour, sitting-rooms, bedrooms, storeroom, a kitchen with servant's room attached, and verandahs front and back. The grounds included stables, coachhouse, fowlhouse, garden, jetty and bathing house. In 1872/73, Cassim acquired the adjacent allotment to the north (allotment 2 of section 6), and in 1879, two adjoining blocks to the south (allotments 20 & 21 of section 6).
Mary Cassim died in 1861, and was buried at Dunwich Cemetery (600773). In 1868 John married Irish immigrant Anne (or Mary Anne) Rafter, who appears to have arrived at Moreton Bay in the mid-1860s. From neither marriage were there any children. JV Cassim died in 1884, and was buried at Dunwich. Anne held the license of the Cleveland Hotel until 1903, and retained the property until 1916. She died at the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum in 1921, and was buried at Nudgee Cemetery.
The Cassims were well-known and respected Cleveland identities and devout Catholics, whose hotel not only was synonymous with Cleveland as a seaside resort, but also served as a mass centre from the early 1860s until the construction of the first catholic church at Cleveland in 1877. John was a trustee of the local church in the 1870s and 1880s, and would not accept payment from any priest staying at the hotel. Cassim's Island, in Moreton Bay, is named after him.
By c1912 a verandah had been added to the southern side of the hotel, and the shingled roof had been replaced with corrugated iron. About 1919 the southern allotments containing the gardens were resurveyed into eight subdivisions, six of which were sold.
The building was renovated c1924, and continued to function as the Cleveland Hotel until severely storm damaged in June 1929. The property changed ownership in July 1929, but whether the building was repaired at this stage is not clear. In July and August 1929, Brisbane architect JP Donoghue called tenders for the rebuilding of the Cleveland Hotel, but in 1930 publican Nicholas J Thurecht, who had acquired the lease of the Cleveland Hotel in 1927, had removed to the new centre of Cleveland township and the new Raby Bay Hotel [now the Cleveland Sands], for which Donoghue had called tenders in September and October 1929.
Local residents believe the old Cleveland Hotel remained vacant until converted into flats during or just after the Second World War. This may correspond to a change in ownership in 1948. The renovations, still evident, included rebuilding the roof with its present gables and chimney stacks; removal of what was left of the southern and rear verandahs; replacing the front verandah balustrading with weatherboards; cutting additional doors in the north and south walls; and rendering the exterior.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the former Cleveland Hotel appears to have been known as the Sorrento Flats. The building is understood to have remained unoccupied since the 1960s, possibly following another change in ownership in 1965.
","criteria":"The former Cleveland Hotel, erected c1860, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with the establishment of the township of Cleveland in the 1850s and 1860s and with the evolution of Cleveland as a popular seaside resort in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The place is an integral element in a group of historic buildings along the road leading to Cleveland Point.
|It demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being one of the earliest surviving buildings in Cleveland and a rare surviving Queensland example of a substantial, c1860, two-storeyed masonry hotel, the structure and fabric of which is strongly evident despite the 20th century conversion to flats. It has potential to reveal information about 1850s/60s construction techniques and materials in Queensland.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of John and Anne Cassim and their contribution to the character of Cleveland as a popular seaside resort in the second half of the 19th century, and with the establishment of the Catholic Church in Cleveland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15904,"place_ref":601131,"name":"South Rockhampton Cemetery","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Cemetery | Dawson Road Cemetery","street_address":"Upper Dawson Road","suburb":"SOUTH ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-02-15","description":"South Rockhampton Cemetery is located on an easterly slope of The Range and covers the block bounded by Prospect Street, Upper Dawson Road and Ferguson Street with a landscaped park, tourist information centre and service station to the east side along the Bruce Highway.
\nThe cemetery is divided into denominational sections including Church of England, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Jewish and non-Judaeo-Christian by a main path leading north to south and a series of minor paths running east to west. There are approximately 2000 surviving headstones throughout these sections and many mounds of earth where graves exist, but the headstones have been removed. The graves form a terracing effect across the site with the exception of the non-Judaeo-Christian section where the burial traditions of the Chinese, Aboriginal and other groups left no visible memorial.
\nA watercourse runs from the southwest corner through the Church of England section to the eastern perimeter. Some headstones exist within overgrown areas of this watercourse, including the only surviving cast iron headstone. A sandstone ridge
\nsurfaces within the watercourse, and a headstone dated 1862 is thought to have been quarried from the sandstone on this site, as it has a different grain and colouring to the local Stanwell sandstone used throughout the rest of the cemetery.
\nOther types of local stone used include white Ulam marble from south of Rockhampton, black granite from west of Rockhampton and grey granite from near Gracemere. Imported stones include Harcourt granite from Victoria, porphyry from Brisbane, white Italian Carrara marble, pink Italian Rosa Porrino granite, Italian saudo grey granite, Baltic brown granite, Balmoral red granite from Finland and black slate from the Mediterranean.
\nMost of the stonework has been undertaken locally by firms of monumental masons including Jenkins and Allen, Jenkins, Allen and McKenzie, with individual masons signing their work. There are some examples of pieces which have been imported fully sculptured.
\nArchitectural trends are reflected in some headstones which have Gothic, Classical and Art Nouveau influences. In many cases, grave surrounds are an integral part of the headstone design in creating a piece of sculpture. Labour intensive practices, particularly in the grave surrounds, seem to have been simplified in the interwar period, with cast concrete posts and curbs becoming common, the detailed carving being confined to the headstone or plaque.
\nNotable plant species include Banyan trees (Ficus benghalensis) at the north entrance and in the centre, Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) and Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina) along the north boundary, Cook Island (Araucaria columnaris) and (Livistona drudei) palms to the southeast, and a native almond (Terminalia porphyrocarpa sin.T.thozettii), named after A Thozet, which is located to the east. The adjoining landscaped park includes barbecue and playground facilities.
\nDamage has occurred to some headstones through acts of vandalism, burning off or negligent mowing with stone or concrete surrounds being chipped.
","history":"The South Rockhampton (Dawson Road) Cemetery was surveyed in May 1860 as the town's first official general cemetery, encompassing less than half its present area, and fronting the Dawson (now Lower Dawson) Road. The 1858 Rockhampton town plan had made no provision for a public cemetery and, prior to c.1860, burials took place near the Fitzroy River, between Albert and North Streets.
\nThe Dawson Road cemetery, sited on a principal arterial road out of early Rockhampton, was established when the population numbered less than 1,000, and just five years after the first settlers had arrived in the area in 1855.
\nRockhampton grew rapidly in the 1860s. Between 1861 and 1866 immigrant ships filled a desperate labour shortage, and the discovery of gold to the west of Rockhampton enticed large numbers of Europeans, Chinese and southern colonists to the district. The rapid growth of the town into a major regional centre in the 1860s-80s is reflected in the history of its principal 19th century cemetery.
\nThe first burials were in the early 1860s (the oldest surviving headstone is dated 1861). Nominally, burials were supervised by the Rockhampton Municipal Council, but not until 1864 did the Council commence a proper administration of the cemetery. In late 1864/early 1865 they appointed a sexton, formulated cemetery regulations, started a register of burials, laid out the grounds to represent the major religious denominations, and authorised the removal of remains from the old burial ground to the new. In late 1886 trustees were appointed under the Cemetery Act 1865. In 1867-68, French botanist Anthelme Thozet donated trees and seeds from his famous Kalka (North Rockhampton) experimental gardens to the cemetery.
\nAlthough the cemetery had been in use for over a decade, it was not until 1872 that 3 hectares of the site were officially gazetted as a reserve for cemetery purposes. In 1880 the area was extended to nearly 13 hectares. The reserve then included all of the land bounded by Dawson and Upper Dawson Roads, and Prospect and Ferguson Streets. Prior to 1904 there were no burials west of the present north-south main cemetery path, as the ground was considered too rocky. For the same reason, few graves were dug east of the creek running through the cemetery. The resultant problems of overcrowding and shallow graves were exacerbated in 1900 with the outbreak of bubonic plague in the town.
\nLater the Rockhampton Cemetery Trust acquired additional land in North Rockhampton, and in 1930 the cemetery reserve at South Rockhampton was gazetted as closed, excluding burials in plots purchased prior to 15 May 1930. In 1937 about 1.6 hectares of the reserve fronting the Lower Dawson Road was surrendered for public park purposes, no graves being identified on this site.
\nIn January 1964 the Rockhampton City Council was appointed trustee of the cemetery reserve. Burials ceased c.1970. On 19 June 1986 the Queensland Governor in Council rescinded the cemetery reserve gazettal, and the site remains as vacant crown land. Neither a c.1865 sexton's cottage, nor a Chinese incense burner is extant. The wrought iron entry gates and posts, which in 1864 were moved from Rockhampton's recreation ground to the cemetery, have been removed to the Japanese gardens. A perimeter fence no longer exists.
\nOver 22,000 persons were buried in the cemetery between 1860 and 1970, including Aboriginal, Chinese, German, Jewish and other ethnic groups, with memorials to sailors, miners, soldiers, members of religious orders, mayors, Queensland Premier William Kidston (1908-11), and many of Rockhampton's early inhabitants. The site survives as a significant reflection of the city's social, political and demographic history.
","criteria":"South Rockhampton Cemetery, established in 1860, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history in that it provides evidence of the history and demography of the Rockhampton district, particularly displaying the diversity of the town's cultural, religious and ethnic groups. It is important also in demonstrating architectural trends in monumental design over more than a century.
|The diverse collection of memorials, the grounds, the formal arrangement of graves, and the historically significant collection of plant species, exhibit particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community generally, and in particular by persons interested in the demonstration of the craftsmanship of monumental masons and in the history of cemetery design and aesthetics.
|The place has a special association with persons of importance in Queensland history, and in the Rockhampton district, in particular William Kidston, Premier of Queensland [1908-11], and several mayors of Rockhampton.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15910,"place_ref":601137,"name":"Wiss House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Ann Street","suburb":"KALBAR","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-08-26","description":"This single-skin timber house with chamferboard clad rear wing sits on a northwest sloping corner site and has a corrugated iron hipped roof with two projecting gables above the east entry porch and to the north. The building is almost square in plan with verandahs to three sides and a kitchen wing extending to the southwest. The building sits on timber stumps with timber batten infill.
The building is embellished by the use of decorative timber elements including eave brackets, bargeboards, batten gables, arch brackets, balustrade and tapering chamfered verandah posts. A large lattice spandrel panels to the triple arched entry porch has a pressed metal sheet backing with the arches having a rope pattern pressed metal edge.
The east elevation is symmetrical, having a central entry with sidelights and fanlight and two bays with sash windows. The north elevation has a large bay below the projecting gable and the verandahs to the kitchen wing have been enclosed. French doors with fanlights open onto the verandahs, the walls of which are single skin VJ boards. A corrugated iron stove recess is located on the western end of the kitchen wing and window hoods are located on the south.
Internally, the building has single skin VJ pine walls, cedar joinery and pressed metal and boarded ceilings. Some of the rooms, including the hallway, are unpainted hoop pine. The plan consists of a central hall with four bedrooms at the front and the drawing room and dining room towards the rear. The drawing room on the northern elevation, designed to overlook the town to the northwest, has a large bay window which is expressed as a gable in the roof.
The grounds include a fenced in-ground concrete pool to the northwest and mature trees to the northern boundary.
","history":"This large timber house was erected for Lionel Ainger Wiss and his family following the mid-1912 acquisition of the Ann Street site in his wife's name.
LA Wiss had arrived in Queensland from Germany with his brothers Campbell and Alfred, c.1887. They were German-born sons of English parents. After a short time in northern Queensland, Alfred returned to England and Lionel and Campbell moved to Ipswich, where they worked for grocers W Siemon & Sons for about three years.
In mid-1890 the brothers acquired an acre of land at Engelsburg, in the heart of the Fassifern Scrub district, south of Ipswich, which had been settled in the 1870s by immigrant German farmers. At this time, the township of Engelsburg comprised a general store, two saddlers, a cabinetmaker and glazier, a hotel and store, a butcher's shop, timber yard and blacksmith. The Engelsburg State School had been established in 1885. There were two Lutheran churches in the district, a Baptist church, a Primitive Methodist church, a Catholic church, and a small Salvation Army meeting hall. Much of the brigalow scrub had been cleared, and the surrounding district was dotted with small farm selections of 60, 80 or 120 acres.
On their Engelsburg property, adjacent to Heinrich Welge's Fassifern Hotel on the principal road from Ipswich to the Fassifern head station, the Wiss brothers erected a small store and adjacent dwelling. In August 1890, Ipswich architect Henry Edmund Wyman called tenders for a store and dwelling to be erected at Engelsburg, and by September 1890, a store for Lionel Wiss was being constructed there.
Lionel married Danish immigrant Maria Elise Wiuff at Ipswich in late 1890, and in the same year joined Campbell in partnership as Wiss Bros, storekeepers, at Engelsburg. Wiss Bros was one of the earliest businesses in the town, which was emerging as a district centre following the closer settlement of the Fassifern Scrub for dairying and agriculture. Campbell Wiss had left the partnership by c.1904, but the name Wiss Bros was retained.
The firm prospered, a new store was erected in 1909, and Wiss Bros became one of the most important businesses in the district. Lionel ('Daddy') Wiss was a highly respected local identity, who took a prominent role in the community and the local Methodist church. In 1910, he acquired 56 acres in the centre of Engelsburg. About half of this he subdivided in 1916 into residential allotments, thereby creating most of the western half of the town of Engelsburg (renamed Kalbar in 1916 when the railway reached the town).
Despite owning acreage on the western side of George Street, when selecting a site for a more substantial family residence, Lionel Wiss chose four allotments in Annie Krause's 1912 residential subdivision of the eastern half of Engelsburg. The site at the corner of Ann and William Streets, on the small rise overlooking the township centre, was a prime location, and the house was amongst the first erected on the hill.
Lionel Wiss died in 1932. His wife, Maria Elise, resided in the Ann Street house until her death in 1957, and his daughters Adeline and Phyllis remained there until the mid-1970s, when the property was sold. Adeline ran Wiss Bros until the business was sold in 1947.
An underground air-raid shelter was constructed in the backyard during the Second World War. It is not clear whether remnants of this are extant.
","criteria":"The former Wiss House is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, illustrating the residential expansion of Engelsburg (Kalbar) in the 1910s, and the economic growth of both the town and the Fassifern district in this period.
|The former Wiss House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, largely intact, finely detailed and constructed residence of the late federation era, situated in a small country town.
|The former Wiss House is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, including the building's siting and its contribution through scale, form and materials, to the townscape of Kalbar and its rural setting, the quality of the building's timber work and pressed metal details and the quality of the building's interior layout and detailing, including the relationship of the principal room to the view of the town centre and beyond, and unpainted pine walls and cedar joinery.
|The former Wiss House has a strong and special association with the Kalbar community, contributing to the identity of Kalbar through its physical presence and location, and as the residence of one of Kalbar's most prominent citizens of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|The former Wiss House has a special association with Lionel Ainger Wiss and the Wiss family, who played an important role in the commercial, social and physical development of the Kalbar town, community and district from the 1890s to the 1940s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15914,"place_ref":601141,"name":"Alley Family Graves","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"113 Gillies Range Road","suburb":"GORDONVALE","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-23","description":"The Alley Family Graves site consists of three headstones and three plaques set on a concrete platform containing the graves of six family members. The concrete platform is framed by four palms, and the graves site is located fronting the Gillies Highway to the northwest, and surrounded by sugarcane fields to remaining three sides.
The headstones and platform surrounds appear to be mostly of concrete. The northwestern headstone is the smallest, and has an inlaid stone plaque in memory of Mary Ellen Alley. The centre headstone is engraved in memory of Sarah Blackwell and George Gorham Alley. The southeastern headstone is the tallest, and has a metal plaque affixed to the front engraved in memory of Mary Alley, Willie and William Saunders Alley. There are also three plaques, one of which is in memory of Richard Blackwell (buried Waverley cemetery, Sydney). The remaining two plaques are in memory of James Healy and Bridget Hill (formerly Healy), and William Saunders Alley (b.1887 d. 1977). A small metal nameplate has the name Melrose and Fenwick Ltd, who may have been responsible for the construction of the headstones or grave surrounds.
","history":"The Alley Family Graves sites contains the graves of William Saunders Alley and his wife Mary Alley, George Gorham Alley and his wife Mary Ellen Alley, Sarah Blackwell, and Willie (adopted infant son of Richard and Sarah Blackwell). There are also memorial plaques in memory of Richard Blackwell, James Healy and Bridget Hill (formerly Healy), and William Saunders Alley (b.1887 d. 1977). The site is located fronting the Gillies Highway, with sugar cane surrounding on three sides.
William Saunders Alley and Mary Alley (nee Banks)
WS Alley was born in London and grew up in Gosport. He was the son of a Commander in the British Merchant service, and at a young age went to sea and travelled extensively. Late in 1854 he became a member of the crew of the John Davies which sailed from Liverpool for Australia, arriving at Moreton Bay in May1855. He left the ship at Brisbane and married Mary Banks, who had been a passenger on the John Davies. Mary was born at Logniddry, County Haddington, Scotland. They had three children, Sarah (who married Richard Blackwell), Mary (who married Tom Williams) and George Gorham (who married Mary Ellen Healy).
In Brisbane, WS Alley was the proprietor of several hotels. He was also the owner of punts which ran between Brisbane and Ipswich. He left Brisbane c.1877 for the Blackall Mine in the Banana district, and then to the Mt Perry goldfields. From there he proceeded to Cairns and settled at Cairns and Smithfield. He was involved in trading and timber-getting at Smithfield and ran a steam launch, the Countess, and a sailing ship from Cairns to Smithfield. He was also involved in timber-getting on the Barron with his son-in-law Richard Blackwell and his son George Gorham in 1878. He was attracted by the stands of timber on the Mulgrave River, and with his family was the first to take a bullock team to the Mulgrave River (near where Gordonvale is today) in 1878. The journey to the Mulgrave took nearly three weeks, hacking a passage through swamp and scrub. On arrival at the Mulgrave they camped near where the Mulgrave Mill is located today.
The land from Cape Tribulation south was proclaimed open for selection 1 March 1877 under the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1876 which contained residential clauses. The first land was not taken up until March 1878. WS Alley, on 29 August 1879, took up the first land on the Mulgrave, which consisted of 640 acres and which he named Riverstone. The Alley Family Graves site is located on this land.
Initially he was involved in dairying and timber-getting. He erected the Riverstone Hotel in 1880, which was located on the pack track to Herberton. The Riverstone Hotel was described as 'perhaps the nicest and best loved development in providing for the traveller was WS Alley's Riverstone Hotel the most welcome over night stopping place. Here WS Alley laid out extensive and tasteful tropical gardens and orchards, kept his own dairy and supplied his guests and Cairns with fresh butter. It became the social centre for the district, in demand for farewell gatherings, testimonial dinners and such happy occasions. Here were held dances to the thin sweet strains of the concertina played with the background of the tinkle of bells of packers mules and horses bringing down their ingots of tin. This was built before 1882 and burned down in 1907.'
WS Alley reportedly erected the first dwelling, constructed the first bridge and road at his own expense, and grubbed (clearing of stumps), cleared and formed a road for about seven miles from Riverstone to Trinity Inlet. He was also a member of the Cairns Divisional Board and a Justice of the Peace.
According to their headstones, Mary Alley died in 1887 aged 50. WS Alley died on the 1 July 1889 aged 57. At the time of his death, the Cairns Post newspaper reported that he was buried by the side of his wife 'in a pretty flower decked grave in the garden he loved so well'.
Sarah Blackwell (nee Alley) and Richard Blackwell
Sarah married Richard Blackwell from Cornwall at the Blackall Mine in the Banana district. Richard Blackwell was originally motivated by the pursuit of gold. Before coming to Australia he had been at great Caribou rush in the Canadian wilds. In 1877-78 Richard Blackwell, with his wife and brother-in-law George Gorham Alley (aged 15-16), travelled overland in a dray from the Mt Perry goldfields to Brisbane. They then proceeded to Cooktown by ship, then to the Hodgkinson and Palmer Goldfields. They then travelled down the Kuranda Range and joined WS Alley in Smithfield where he was involved in trading and timber-getting. Sarah Blackwell was reportedly the first woman to ride down the Kuranda Range. Richard Blackwell was involved with WS Alley and George Gorham timber-getting on the Barron in 1878. They then accompanied WS Alley on the journey from Cairns to the Mulgrave River in 1878.
Richard Blackwell, on 18 October 1879, took up land in the Mulgrave area known as Plain Camp, near where Gordonvale is now located. He reportedly made a gift of part of this land for the establishment of the Mulgrave Mill. The Sugar Works Guarantee Act of 1893 provided for the erection of approved Central Mills on a government loan if farmers mortgaged their land as security. After the principal and interest had been met, these Central Mills were to be handed to the growers as Cooperative Mills. The Mulgrave settler's organisation evolved from a meeting held at Tom Mackey's farm, at which Richard Blackwell was in attendance. A provisional directorate was formed with Mackey as Chairman. The original memorandum of the Association of the Mulgrave Central Mill Co Ltd dated 14 November 1893, was registered in Brisbane 20 April 1895. Signatories to this included Richard Blackwell. The nominal capital of £40,000 was increased to £60,000 in 1896. The Mulgrave Central Mill enterprise proceeded rapidly, and Richard Blackwell was one of the first directors of the Mulgrave Mill. According to the plaque at Riverstone, he died in May 1920 and is buried in the Waverley Cemetery in Sydney.
According to her headstone at Riverstone, Sarah Blackwell died in April 1929 aged 71. Willie, the adopted infant son of Richard and Sarah Blackwell, is also buried at Riverstone aged 11 months.
George Gorham Alley and Mary Ellen Alley (nee Healy)
In 1877-78 at the age of 15-16, George Gorham accompanied his sister Sarah and brother-in-law Richard Blackwell who travelled overland in a dray from the Mt Perry goldfields to Brisbane. They then proceeded to Cooktown by ship, then to the Hodgkinson and Palmer Goldfields. They then travelled down the Kuranda Range and joined WS Alley in Smithfield where he was trading. George Gorham took a post in a store until 1878 when he joined Richard Blackwell and his father WS Alley timber-getting on the Barron. He accompanied the family on their journey from Cairns to Mulgrave in 1878. WS Alley selected land on the Mulgrave in 1879, but George stayed for a time on his own account rafting timber.
George felled timber for Burns Philp and other syndicates c.1883, and is described as a 'scrub pioneer of Tableland cedar' . The logs were to be put in adjacent creeks or the main river. The payment was at the rate of five shillings per 100 superfeet on logs when placed in a waterway and a further fifteen shillings on sound arrival at the mouth. After his father's death in 1889, he operated the Riverstone Hotel with Richard and Sarah. He later engaged in cane farming and was a director of the Mulgrave Mill. According to his headstone he died at Riverstone in August 1930 aged 67.
George Alley's wife Mary Ellen arrived in Cairns with the early settlers with her parents James and Bridget Healy, and brother Frank, in 1876. James Healy was a constable (most likely one of the first police constables in 1876 when a new police station was opened in Cairns). Healy was born at Ballinamuck, Ireland, and had landed in Brisbane in 1866 and joined the police force on 9 September 1868. He was stationed at Cleveland Bay when transferred to Trinity Bay and left Townsville on 28 October 1876. He brought his family to Cairns and but died soon after. His widow married James Hill, a selector on Wrights Creek where for a time he ran the Mulgrave hotel. According to her headstone at Riverstone, Mary Ellen died at Gordonvale in January 1943 aged 69.
","criteria":"William Saunders Alley, with his wife and family, was the first to take a bullock team to the Mulgrave River in 1878, and in August 1879 took up the first land on the Mulgrave which consisted of 640 acres and which he named Riverstone. Soon after, in October 1879, Richard Blackwell took up land known as Plain Camp, near where Gordonvale is now located.
|The site is of aesthetic significance, and its highly visible location and well maintained surrounds, including four mature palms, contribute to its local landmark status.
|The Alley Family Graves site has a close association with the life and work of the Alley and Blackwell families - early settlers, timber-getters, and proprietors of the Riverstone Hotel - in the establishment and development of the Mulgrave area south of Cairns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Alley and Blackwell families were also associated with the establishment of the Mulgrave Mill, and through their association with the Riverstone Hotel and other activities, were well known and highly regarded in the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15915,"place_ref":601143,"name":"Bribie Island Second World War Fortifications","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"North Street","suburb":"BRIBIE ISLAND","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-07-20","description":"The Bribie Island Second World War Fortifications are located along the eastern shore of Bribie Island and consist of the remains of three groups; Fort Bribie on north Bribie Island, Skirmish Point Battery to the north of Woorim at south Bribie Island, and the Royal Australian Navy Station No. 4 at the north end of Woorim.
\nThese groups are located facing the northwest channel, being the entrance to Moreton Bay from the Coral Sea/Pacific Ocean, and within sight of Moreton Island to the southeast and Caloundra to the north.
\nBribie Island is relatively flat and the northern end is affected by shifting dune formations and tidal erosion. As a result, some remaining structures do not have the same position in relation to the shoreline as they had when constructed.
\nFort Bribie
\nThrough the 1993 conservation study, a total of eight reinforced concrete structures have been identified and given element numbers 1-8. This study did not document the remains of the camp, consisting of concrete slabs and stumps of buildings and showing their layout.
\nThe majority of buildings are located behind the first row of dunes, with the exception being the northern searchlight which now stands exposed on the beach within reach of the high tide. The camp area is overgrown, mainly with lantana, and none of the original tracks and access routes can at this stage be determined.
\nElement No.1 -No.1 Gun Emplacement: This is the most dominant and visually striking structure within the group, and along with the No.2 Gun is centrally located behind the first dune. This symmetrical two-storeyed structure consists of a raised concrete platform, with buttressed supports, on which the six inch gun was fixed facing east. The structure is open to the east, curved to allow a wide angle of sight, and has a central metal gun mounting. It originally had steel doors. The western side of the platform is enclosed, with a shell handling facility on the northern side which accessed the storage area below. The platform is accessed from the west via an external concrete stair on the central east-west axis. The form of the structure, and the method of ascension, gives a sense of ritual and discovery. The platform is roofed by heavy timber logs, cantilevered to the east, with timber boarding and concrete above and cement filled hessian bag infill. Large timber post and beam support members are located on the exterior walls. Remnants of painted camouflage are visible on the northern wall. The ground floor contains a room at the southwest with the remains of a duty roster on the northern wall, with another room to the east of this. Shell storage rooms are located on the northern side.
\nElement No.2 -Southern Searchlight: The two searchlights remain at the extreme ends of the site, forming the northern and southern boundaries. This two-storeyed structure, rectangular in plan, is located behind the first dune and has an enclosed ground floor where the generator was housed. The first floor has an open eastern side, exposed to the sea for the operation of the searchlight. Window openings are located on each side, with a first floor doorway and landing on the southern side.
\nElement No.3 -No.2 Gun Emplacement: This is a similar structure to the No.1 Gun Emplacement, except that due to fire the timber members and roof structure have collapsed, resulting in a predominantly single-storey structure with rubble covering the platform. Rusted remains of the platform steel doors are located to the southeast. The ground floor is relatively intact, with a clearer duty roster than in the No.1 Gun Emplacement.
\nElement No.4 -Northerly Mine Control Hut: The two mine control huts were operated by the Royal Australian Navy. This single-storeyed structure, rectangular in plan, is mostly buried in the first dune, with an entrance at the southwest end and a vent pipe at the north end. The walls have timber grounds cast into the concrete.
\nElement No.5 -Southerly Mine Control Hut: This is the larger of the two structures, being square in plan and mostly buried in the first dune. The entrance is from the west, and has a front hall with a steel door which has been attached more recently. The walls have timber grounds cast into the concrete, and the ceiling has two vent pipes.
\nElement No.6 -Northern Searchlight: This is a similar structure to the Southern Searchlight, but is now exposed on the beach and within reach of the high tide. It was presumably in a similar position to the Southern searchlight originally. Caloundra City Council signs have been attached to the southern side of the structure, preventing further access past this point.
\nElement No.7 -Battery Observation Post: Originally this structure was approximately 15 metres in height, and overlooked the ocean observing shipping in the bay. It is located at the top of the first dune, and consists of a raised concrete platform, rectangular in plan, with a partial wall to the north and east. It apparently housed a Barr & Stroud Rangefinder.
\nElement No.8 -Signals Operations Room: This structure is located behind the first dune, and appears to have been originally buried within the dune. A single-storeyed concrete structure, it is rectangular in plan and is accessed via a stair from above on the northwest side. A large hole has been smashed in the western wall.
\nCamp Layout
\nA number of building locations have been identified, with the remains consisting of concrete slabs, concrete perimeter base walls, some of which have metal flashings, concrete stumps and more substantial reinforced concrete structures. These include:
\nCamp Area: Concrete slab remains of the Officer's Mess and Kitchen, concrete stumps and steps to the Command Post and other unidentified structures, and the flagpole base to the Command Post.
\nMen's Latrines: A concrete slab with a central row of eight WC's, back to back, which have been smashed off at their base. On either side is a concrete trough urinal. To the south is the position of the Officer's Latrines and to the west are the concrete stumps to the former water tanks and a row of timber posts which originally carried a pipe and led to the pump house.
\nPump House: A square, inground concrete structure with stairs on the northwestern side. The structure is filled with water, so it is unclear as to whether there are machinery mounting positions remaining.
\nSewerage Treatment Works: A tall concrete structure, open above, containing a central V-shaped chamber with timber gates/baffles either end and smaller chambers either side. A projection on the western side with a pipe outlet/connection suggests this is where the pipeline to the western side of the island, consisting of a series of concrete mountings, was connected.
\nPower House: A rectangular concrete slab, with two raised generator mounting platforms at the eastern end, and a timber power pole to the south.
\nSkirmish Point Battery
\nDue to erosion, most of the Skirmish Point Battery has been lost. The two gun emplacements, command post and two searchlights were located close to the beach between the ocean and North Street. The Battery Plotting Room, located on the corner of North Street and Fourth Avenue, does not survive.
\nElement 4A -Fortress Observation Post: This is the only element of the Skirmish Point Battery to survive, located 4-5 kilometres along the beach north of the Battery. Located on top of the first dune, originally it was positioned on tall timber stumps, but now rests on its side. The structure consists of a concrete box with an opening to the east, with concrete stands on which the readings were taken. Concrete footings are located nearby to the south.
\nRoyal Australian Navy Station No.4
\nThe RAN Station No.4 was inserted within the Skirmish Point Battery, but it appears that the naval and fort buildings had no direct relationship with each other. There are three remaining reinforced concrete structures, located at the north end of North Street Woorim.
\nElement 1A -Naval Control Post: This single-storeyed structure is located at the crest of the first dune, with a long corner window with a view to the north east. The structure has a flat concrete roof, and window openings have concrete hoods. The entry is from the west via a short hall with a steel door, leading into a central corridor with six rooms. Communication cables and ducting is attached to the ceiling in the corridor, and the interior of the building is covered in graffiti.
\nElement 2A -Southerly Engine Room: This single-storeyed, single roomed structure is located in a park behind the first dune. The structure has a flat concrete roof and has been painted green with bars attached to window openings and to the western entrance.
\nElement 3A -Northerly Engine Room: This is a similar structure to the Southerly Engine Room. It is located in the undergrowth to the north of a gravel carparking area which accesses the beach and four wheel drive track. The structure does not have bars to window openings or to the northwestern entrance.
","history":"The Bribie Island Fortifications were constructed from 1939 to 1943 as part of the systems of defence of southeast Queensland during the Second World War, and to provide artillery training for Australian soldiers for overseas service. Other fortifications were also apparent throughout Moreton Bay during the war, at Caloundra and on Moreton Island at Cowan Cowan Point and Rous, which together with the existing installations at Fort Lytton [600248], provided a coordinated series of defensive batteries for the region.
As events in Europe and Asia in the 1930s moved the world towards war, various sectors of Australia's defence, including coastal fortifications, were examined. There was an increased emphasis on defence rearmament from 1935. As major cities and ports along the coastline would be exposed to damage from naval raids or attack, coastal defences were to be upgraded. Batteries were established in Sydney, Darwin and along the Western Australia coast. Invasion was not a major concern at this stage, rather the batteries were for defence against seaborne shelling or the torpedoing of ports.
The defence of the Moreton Bay region was concentrated on the mouth of the Brisbane River at Fort Lytton [600248], constructed in 1880-81, until the mid 1930s, when attempts were made to upgrade the region's defence.
The shipping channels in Moreton Bay simplified the proposed placement of batteries. The major access route into the Brisbane River was the northwest channel, which ran close to the shore near Caloundra, across the bay in a southeasterly direction towards Moreton Island, and then southwesterly towards the mouth of the river, forming a Z-shaped route. This dictated the ideal positions for artillery batteries, with the most effective sites for guns being the closest points to the channel bends.
On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and on 3 September Australia declared war on Germany.
Fort Bribie
Bribie Island was a popular holiday destination from the early twentieth century. Steamers from Brisbane docked at the jetty on the southwestern side of the island, and a road led across the island to the settlement of Woorim, the surfing beach of the island. The island supported a small community, and the permanent residents of the eastern side were relocated from their homes when the Army began moving in to the island in 1939.
It appears that in 1939, temporary batteries were installed at Caloundra and northern Bribie Island, to provide defence support for the RAN against light raiding warships. A battery had previously been installed at Cowan Cowan Point on Moreton Island, possibly pre-1934.
Two six inch guns, surplus from the First World War, were transported across Pumicestone Passage from the mainland to form the Battery at the northern end of Bribie Island. The guns were originally installed on cruciform mountings, consisting of two steel members forming a cross upon which the gun was sited, which were found to be inadequate, for after firing the guns the pivot tilted quite dramatically.
During 1940, much discussion was carried out as to whether a Battery should be located at Caloundra instead. The two sites were weighted as to their respective advantages and disadvantages, and it was decided that Bribie was tactically better placed than Caloundra. It was decided that Fort Bribie would be developed as the principal defensive site of Moreton Bay, to be the Examination Battery at which ships identified themselves. At this stage, Fort Bribie was considered to be of little value from a defensive viewpoint, and it was announced that a detailed survey was to be made of the site.
Colonel JS Whitelaw, Commander Coast Defences, Eastern Command, inspected the Fort Bribie site during 1940-41 and advised on the required structures within the fort. His recommendations were carried out during 1941, and the fort was operational by early 1942. Construction work was undertaken by the Commonwealth Department of the Interior and cost approximately £55,000, including construction of the fortress buildings, administrative, logistical and residential structures, building works and engineering services. The Fort Bribie layout changed often, with the Command Post moving position and new buildings and dugouts being constructed. The fort contained two six inch gun emplacements, and a Battery Observation Post (BOP) 200 yards to the north containing the Battery Command and Depression Range Finder with a Barr & Stroud Rangefinder on a concrete platform to the east of this structure. Whitelaw recommended that a Fortress Observation Post (FOP) be installed at Caloundra, to work in conjunction with the BOP at Fort Bribie. Many of the barrack buildings, recreation halls and ablution blocks were constructed of fibrous cement sheeting or timber on a concrete base.
With the entry of Japan into the war in early December 1941, and their subsequent assaults on British and American positions in southeast Asia, Australia was under grave threat of invasion for the first time in its white history. Reinforcements were sent to Fort Bribie and Fort Cowan Cowan, strengthening the existing defences at the two forts.
The onslaught of the Pacific War brought the Americans, with large supplies of men and material. A number of 155mm guns from the First World War were provided to upgrade Australian coastal defences, and new forts were constructed during 1942-43 at Skirmish Point on south Bribie Island and Rous on Moreton Island. The Skirmish Point Battery at Woorim contained two fixed 155mm gun emplacements on Panama mounts.
The Australian Women's Army service (AWAS) arrived in 1943, and were involved in most aspects except the manning of the guns. Other smaller groups in attendance included the RAN (mine control huts), Volunteer Defence Corps, and a group of American artillery who were stationed at Toorbul Point but training at Bribie Island. Mosquitoes were a problem at the fort, and apparently many soldiers suffered from Dengue fever and were possibly treated at the camp hospital, not yet located.
RAN Station No.4
The defences of the Moreton Bay region were increased during 1942-43 with naval and anti-aircraft defences. Sites were chosen for the latter on the mainland, with the naval defences located at various sites on the Moreton Bay islands.
In June 1942, the Commander of the Allied Naval Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area requested as a matter of high priority that Moreton Bay be developed as a naval operating base. This involved a series of structures on both sides and within the greater bay region. In conjunction with the loop controlled minefields in operation off Fort Bribie (of which the mine control huts at this fort were a part), this naval base involved a system of indicator loops (submerged magnetic cables that would pick up the path of a vessel passing over them on or below the surface) between Skirmish Point at Bribie and Comboyuro Point on Moreton Island, harbour defences ASDICS (anti-submarine detecting systems) south of the loops, and anti-boat gun defences. These activities required a controlling position which would be located in the vicinity of the loop fields, which had been sited between Skirmish Point Battery and Fort Cowan Cowan.
The control position for the naval base installations in Moreton Bay was subsequently sited at Skirmish Point, just north of the 155mm Battery at Woorim.
The buildings were vacated by the RAN and occupied by the Department of the Army in September 1944. An inventory taken in 1945, when buildings were being disposed of, included the reinforced concrete Control Post and two engine houses, along with kitchens, ablutions, sleeping huts and stores.
Operations Scaled Down
The batteries had been reduced in personnel levels in the latter years of the war as the Japanese threat receded. In 1945, instructions were given for all coastal defences, except those in Darwin, Sydney and Fremantle, to be scaled down and kept in a state of care and maintenance. After the Second World War, the defence of ports came within the ambit of the navy and air force rather than the army. With the reassessment of Australia's defensive arrangements in the 1950s, the role of artillery batteries in coastal defence diminished. At this stage Brisbane was still a defended port, but by 1960 this arrangement was redefined and only the three ports previously mentioned were designated defended ports.
The batteries at Fort Bribie and Skirmish Point were scaled down as a result. Any building material at the fort that could be disassembled and used elsewhere was taken apart and transported off the island. Some of the barracks buildings were cut down off their stumps and sold as housing, with the concrete slabs remaining. The reinforced concrete structures remained however. The remaining fort structures at Fort Bribie have since been used as camping areas, shelter for itinerants and have suffered vandalism and neglect.
With the proximity of the structures of Skirmish Point Battery to the ocean, the gun emplacements and other structures gradually fell into the sea and were disposed of in the 1970s. The only remaining structure of the Battery is the northern Fortress Observation Post.
Most of the RAN Station No.4 buildings, located at Skirmish Point at Woorim, were dismantled. The station was handed over to the Army in October 1944. The reinforced concrete structures remain, and have suffered from vandalism.
In early 1993, a conservation study was carried out. A total of eight reinforced concrete structures were identified at Fort Bribie, one at the Skirmish Point Battery and three at the RAN Station No.4.
","criteria":"The Bribie Island Second World War Fortifications are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being part of the preparations for the defence of Australia, in particular the Moreton Bay region, during the 1930s and the Second World War.
|They have potential to yield information that will contribute to the understanding of Queensland's history, in that there are extensive remnants of Second World War fortification sites.
|They are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Australia's Second World War coastal defence fortifications.
|They are important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular the isolation, and sense of place, of the Fort Bribie fortifications, and the sense of discovery enhanced by the overgrown landscape; the form, scale and materials of the Fort Bribie, Skirmish Point Battery and Royal Australian Navy Station No.4 fortifications; and the siting and landmark quality of Fort Bribie, Skirmish Point Battery and the Royal Australian Navy Station No.4 fortifications.
|They have a strong association with the Second World War Queensland defence efforts of the Australian Military Force and Royal Australian Navy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15919,"place_ref":601147,"name":"Cooktown Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-08","description":"Cooktown Cemetery is a 9.72 hectare reserve situated approximately 1.7kms southwest from the centre of town. The reserve fronts the Cooktown-McIvor River Road [formerly the Palmer Road] to the southeast, and gazetted but unmade roads form its northern and southern boundaries. On the west it is bounded by a local government reserve for slaughtering purposes, and on the east by freehold land. There is a prominent, locally devised interpretative sign in front of the reserve.
The northern and southwestern portions of the reserve are covered in native vegetation: Melaleuca spp., Eucalyptus spp [principally Bloodwood], Pandanus palms, native gingers and various grasses. A granite outcrop about two-thirds of the distance into the reserve from the Cooktown-McIcvor River Road entrance has restricted most of the 3,000 plus burials to the southern and eastern sections of the reserve. The majority of the marked graves are located in an open, grassed section in the southeast quarter of the reserve. There are some trees in this section, mostly self-sown, but a number of frangipanni - possibly remnants of a tree-lined drive - and coconut palms, appear to be early planting.
There is an early cast-iron palisade fence with spear-headed stakes, manufactured by Bayliss Jones and Bayliss of London, along the front boundary of the reserve addressing the Cooktown-McIvor River Road. Early main entrance gates have been removed and replaced by a metal chain. From this entrance a road extends northward, forking in the middle of the reserve. The track to the west terminates at a Chinese Shrine in the middle western section of the reserve, and the other extends to the eastern boundary. These tracks and two secondary pathways divide the cemetery into denominational sections - Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of England, Methodist - and there are also Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, Aboriginal and 'pagan' groupings. The most recent graves, in less distinct denominational groupings, are found along the eastern boundary.
The graves in the grassed section of the cemetery are mostly Christian and are aligned roughly east-west, although there are some exceptions, and one faces directly west. Approximately 300 memorials of diverse design, mostly in sandstone or marble and some iron, are scattered through this area. Headstones mostly survive for the social elite and professional classes - the medical, religious and administrative group, along with successful Cooktown merchants, businesspersons and civic leaders. Graves of working people - labourers, carriers, dressmakers, market gardeners, miners - now tend to lie unmarked. Most of the stone memorials were constructed in Brisbane, Townsville or Cairns and shipped to Cooktown, and costs could well have been prohibitive. The surviving headstones and memorials reflect over 120 years of diverse memorial and cultural symbolism and illustrate the work of stonemasons Lowther, J Simmonds, and Hobbs & Carter of Brisbane; Patten Bros of Sydney; E Greenway of Ipswich; and Melrose & Fenwick of Townsville and Cairns. A number of the graves in this section have ornate cast-iron railings, the most elaborate of which is that around the graves of the Sisters of Mercy.
Other graves of note include those of Mrs Mary Watson, who died of thirst escaping hostile Aborigines on Lizard Island in 1881; Albert Ross Hovell, a prominent mariner and son of the explorer William Hovell, but known more specifically for his involvement in 'blackbirding'; Elizabeth Jardine, whose husband John founded Somerset on Cape York, and whose sons were pioneer cattlemen in Northern Australia; Mother Mary de Sales Meagher, founder of the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Cooktown; Albert McLaren, founder of the New Guinea Mission in 1891; Brinsley Guise Sheridan, police magistrate at Cooktown and Cardwell; Rev. John Hutchinson, first Roman Catholic Bishop of the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown; Dr H Kortum, understood to be Cooktown's and Queensland's last German consul; and a 1907 memorial to French mariners who died of yellow fever.
To the west of the grassy section is a small grouping of Jewish gravestones and some Aboriginal graves, marked with sapling branches at each corner, and north of these is the Chinese Shrine. Native vegetation has re-established in these areas. A few relict trees, including mangoes, line the main track to the Chinese shrine for a short distance.
The Chinese shrine comprises a rectangular concrete platform approximately 6 metres long by 3 metres wide lying in a north-south direction, at the southern end of which, and facing to the north, is an upright concrete memorial tablet, on which are written in large script the Chinese characters Tjin Ju Tsai: 'Respect the dead as if they are present'. There are two other, smaller, inscriptions on this tablet. That to the right gives the date the shrine was erected: 'a lucky spring day in the third month of the thirteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Kuang Hsu [1874-1908], Ch'ing dynasty'. On the left the inscription reads: 'Erected, with respect, by the Chinese community of Cooktown'. In front of this tablet is a low concrete altar, on which food offerings were placed for the spirit of the departed. The platform is enclosed by a concrete edging and an ornate cast-iron railing. Beyond the northern end of the platform and approximately 2 metres away are two ceremonial fire-boxes, constructed of fire bricks rendered with cement. Each is approximately 1.2m³ with a grate at the bottom. The open tops permitted paper prayers and temple 'money' to be burned, assisting the spirits on their journey to a life beyond this world.
Northwest of the consecrated ground lie the graves of individuals such as the 'Normanby Woman' and, in dense melaleuca scrub beyond this, the grave of Elizabeth Cooper, who drowned in the Endeavour River in August 1874, prior to the cemetery survey. Within this regrowth area is located a clay brick-pitched well, and beyond this a rectangular arrangement of shallow ditches , remnants of an irrigation channelling system purported to be of Chinese origin. The original cemetery survey indicated Chinese gardens adjacent to the Cemetery reserve, along Two-Mile Creek, but none within the reserve, so it is likely that if such a garden was established on the reserve, it was at some period after 1874.
","history":"Cooktown Cemetery, with over 3,000 burials, has been in continuous use since soon after the town was established in October 1873. Although gazettal was not until mid-1875 the site was used earlier: the oldest marked grave is that of Rev. Francis Tripp, an Anglican clergyman who died at Cooktown on 20 May 1874. Cemetery records date from 1875, with approximately 1830 burials recorded in the period 1877 to 1920. The colourful mix of nationalities and religions evident in these records and in the cemetery itself reflect the nature of Cooktown in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the Endeavour River port for the Palmer River goldfields.
Cooktown 'mushroomed' in the mid-1870s as a port and supply and administrative centre. Within six months of its establishment in October 1873 there were 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, 6 butchers, 5 bakers, 3 tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers, conducting businesses in the town; 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. There was an estimated 3,000 floating population in the town itself, and thousands of men en route to the goldfields. Large numbers of Chinese made their way to the Palmer goldfields via Cooktown in the period 1873-77, and Chinese storekeepers were amongst the earliest to establish businesses in Cooktown. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874, a state school, customs house, court house, post office and several churches were erected by 1875, and the town was declared a municipality on 5 April 1876. The 1876 census revealed a population of over 9,200 persons on the then extensive Palmer goldfields, and the town of Cooktown had a population of just under 2,200.
In the 1880s Cooktown business 'boomed'. A railway was constructed from Cooktown to Laura between 1884 and 1888, further opening the port to development. By the late 1880s it was the centre not only of a thriving mining district [boosted by the 1887 discovery of tin along the Annan River], but also of pearling, bêche-de-mer, and pastoral activity. After 1885 Cooktown was also the main port for Queensland trade with New Guinea. Despite the decline in alluvial output from the Palmer River goldfields in the mid-1880s and the corresponding decline in the town's importance as the principal port of Far North Queensland from the early 1890s, by the turn of the century the Cook and Palmer census districts still had a population of just under 6,000, [despite less than 1,300 persons on the Palmer, Coen and Hamilton goldfields] and the municipality of Cooktown retained a population of nearly 2,000.
In the earliest days of Cooktown settlement [the summer of 1873-74], there were a number of burials along the ridge above Charlotte Street, between Banks and Green Streets. When the town was surveyed in April 1874, this burial ground was surveyed as building allotments and roadway, and in the same month the first Cooktown Hospital was erected on some of these blocks. By September 1874 the Hospital Committee, which considered the shallow graves within the hospital grounds and on the adjacent roadway to be a health risk, was urging the colonial government to provide funds to remove the remains to the Cooktown Cemetery, apparently in use at that time although neither surveyed nor gazetted. In reaction to public concern, surveyor James Reid was instructed to formally survey the Cooktown Cemetery, a reserve of 15 acres south of the town near the Two-Mile Creek, and this was completed by early November 1874. What appear to be a number of graves are indicated on the survey plan, suggesting that the cemetery was in use already.
The Cooktown Cemetery was proclaimed formally in June 1875 and 5 trustees appointed - one representing each of the principal denominations in Cooktown: Church of England, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Hebrew and Wesleyan Methodist. No Chinese person was appointed, despite the high proportion of Chinese resident in Cooktown and surrounding district at this period. During the second half of 1875 the cemetery reserve was fenced [probably in timber] and cemetery gates erected. When the land around the cemetery was surveyed by surveyor Berwick in February 1876 as suburban subdivisions, the cemetery reserve was extended to the east by just over 9 acres, establishing a frontage to the Palmer Road and necessitating a repositioning of the cemetery gates.
In 1876 the cemetery was established more formally. From mid-June 1876 a sexton was employed, and timber was purchased for a sexton's cottage and separate office in the grounds; surveyor Berwick was contracted to lay out the grounds in subdivisions [denominational divisions?]; and roads were made through the cemetery. In September 1876 cemetery rules and regulations were gazetted.
The cemetery appears to have been well maintained during the 19th century. In April 1891 the trustees were commended by the community for improvements to the Cemetery avenue and flower beds, and visitors were warned against allowing dogs into the grounds.
The cemetery bears testimony to the diverse nationalities who came to Cooktown and the Palmer goldfields in the late 19th century, and includes the graves of French, Chinese, English, Swedish, Germans and South Sea Islanders. Of particular prominence are the Chinese - mostly gardeners, miners, labourers and storekeepers - who account for approximately one-sixth [about 300] of the burials in the period 1877-1920. It is understood that most Chinese initially interred here were later exhumed and returned to China. The contribution of the Chinese to the development of Cooktown and the Palmer River goldfields in the late 19th century cannot be underestimated. As late as 1901, when the population of the Palmer River goldfield was just 600 persons, 377 of them were Chinese, and Chinese accounted for approximately 7.5% of the population of the Cook and Palmer census districts. Cooktown itself had a substantial 'Chinatown' - storekeepers, boardinghouse keepers, restauranteurs - and in 1887 the local Chinese community erected a Shrine in the cemetery to honour their dead.
With the decline of Cooktown during the first half of the 20th century, Cooktown Cemetery fell into disrepair. Deliberately-lit grassfires caused considerable damage. Numerous complaints about the condition of the grounds and lack of maintenance prompted the Cook Shire Council in August 1941 to request to the Lands Department that the Council take over trusteeship of the cemetery. The surviving trustees finally tendered their resignations in February 1943, and the cemetery was placed under the control of Cook Shire Council. However, under Council control, responsibility for burials was left for many years to local undertakers, who appear to have worked to two different cemetery layouts, causing considerable confusion. Some community interpretative work has been undertaken in recent years, with a large sign erected at the entrance to the cemetery and several of the more historically significant graves decorated. In the mid-1990s, Cook Shire Council commenced a conservation programme.
","criteria":"Cooktown Cemetery is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history - in particular, the unique and multi-cultural history of Cooktown. The place has been in use as a cemetery since 1874, and the several thousand interments provide rare evidence of the diversity of national, ethnic and religious groups which shaped the development of Cooktown and district in the last quarter of the 19th century.
|Also, it is rare as the only identified Queensland cemetery in which a Chinese shrine is erected within the cemetery reserve. This shrine survives as an intact and in Queensland, rare, example of its type.
|Cooktown Cemetery offers a unique source of historical information, and also has the potential to reveal important information about the development of Cooktown and its multicultural society, through archaeological investigation.
|Cooktown Cemetery survives as a good example of its type, with denominational divisions, Christian graves aligned to the east, and a variety of headstones and monuments illustrating changing public attitudes to commemoration of the dead.
|Cooktown Cemetery is significant for its aesthetic qualities, which include the diversity and workmanship of the in situ monuments and cast iron railings, the hilly terrain and tropical vegetation as a backdrop to vistas both within and without the cemetery reserve, and the rustic cast-iron fencing along the front boundary. The Chinese shrine, with its simplicity of form and materials and its setting within a dense re-growth area, is of particular aesthetic significance.
|Cooktown Cemetery has a strong association for local residents with the town's flamboyant history, and is associated with generations of Cooktown families who have contributed to the development and identity of the town and district. It is valued as a strong and unique illustration of the special history of Cooktown, and is considered a major Far North Queensland tourist attraction.
|The place has a special association with several notable individuals and families who have contributed to the historical evolution of Cooktown and district and to the mythology associated with pioneering life and the late 19th century goldrush era.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15924,"place_ref":601152,"name":"Police Station and former Courthouse and Cell Block","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Macartney Street","suburb":"ST LAWRENCE","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-11-24","description":"Located in the south-west corner of the site, the St Lawrence Police Station and former Courthouse is a single story, 'T-shaped' timber building, with an exterior cross-braced frame supported on low stumps. The gable roof is clad with corrugated iron. The building is surrounded on the south, west and east by a verandah with timber posts, under a separate roof, clad with corrugated iron. The verandah to the north (rear) of the building, has been partially enclosed on the north-western side, to accommodate toilet facilities. This section of the building has a skillion roof clad with corrugated iron. This enclosure is part of the 1934 additions. The verandah has also been partially enclosed, with vertically jointed timber, on the north-eastern side to accommodate toilet facilities. This enclosure is later in date, and the framework is clad with chamferboards.
A set of timber stairs lead to the paired, panelled, timber doors. The entrance is centrally located under a gabled roof with a decorative, timber finial. A circular ventilator is located high in the southern façade. Narrow windows operating on pivots are located on either side of the entrance door and along the western and eastern sides of the building. Forming part of the transverse section of the building, on the eastern side, is located a set of long, rectangular casement windows, protected by a sunhood with timber brackets, clad with corrugated iron. A timber door at the northern end of the verandah on the eastern side, leads to the office.
Internally, the entrance doors lead to the former courtroom. The room is horizontally lined with timber on the western, eastern and southern side of the room. The northern side is vertically lined with timber. The central section of the timber ceiling is flat and the sides and ends are angled. A vent with decorative fretwork is located in the ceiling. The Magistrate's bench is located at the northern end of the room. Timber doors are located on either side of the bench. These lead into two rooms forming the transverse section of the 'T'. One leads to the office and the second to the interview room. Court records and the original straightjacket, issued for the restraint of violent prisoners, are located in storage in the former courtroom.
The office, located at the northern end of the building, is lined with timber on the western and eastern and southern sides and with chamferboards on the northern side. A door in the northern wall leads to a small office which forms part of the enclosed rear (northern) verandah. A second door leads to the open verandah. A timber door at the western end of the rear verandah leads to a small office, forming part of the original section of the building, which is used as an interview room. This room is lined with timber and there is a breezeway located in the eastern wall. A timber, panelled door in the southern wall opens to the former courtroom.
The cell block, a single storey timber building, set on low timber stumps, with a hipped roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron, is located almost in the centre of the property, to the north-east of the police station and former courthouse. On the eastern side of the cell, timber stairs lead to the verandah and cell doors. Part of the verandah, at the northern end, has been enclosed to accommodate shower facilities. Apart from a doorway, the verandah is surrounded by a metal grill. Rectangular openings with metal grills and mesh wire are located high in each elevation. Two cells are located within the block, at the north and south ends of the building, each measuring a few metres square. In both blocks, to one corner, is located a porcelain toilet set in concrete. The cells are accessed via a heavy, timber door with iron hinges and bolts, and a square opening with an iron opening and door latch.
An incinerator with the words 'CP ENG MK1' embossed on the body is located to the north of the police station and former courthouse building. Two mango trees are located in the north-west corner of the property. A number of other mature trees and plantings are located around the site. The property is surrounded by a modern chain wire fence.
","history":"The St Lawrence police station and courthouse, constructed in 1878, the second to be built on the site and the cell block, constructed by 1880, are situated in a prominent position overlooking the St Lawrence River, located on the site of a government reserve which has served the community as part of the justice system since 1863. Additions to the police station and former courthouse in 1934 included the enclosing of verandah in the north-west corner to build a bathroom. Other additions included the construction of earth closets and a cell block in the grounds. The buildings have had numerous repairs, including painting and restumping and minor renovations over the years.
European settlement began in the St Lawrence area by 1860, when John Arthur Macartney formed Waverley Station. The St Lawrence area had a strong connection with the pastoral industry in the 19th century. McCartney took up land at the head of Broadsound and Waverley in 1860 and used the banks of the St Lawrence Creek to land his supplies. Later that year a boiling down works for tallow was established. In 1861 the Rockhampton Port Master recommended the site for a port, and government buildings were soon constructed. These included a Telegraph Office, Police Station and Court House.
During the first years of settlement in what was later to become the State of Queensland, the police system was executed through the duties of a Police Magistrate. However, this proved to be inadequate and following the appointment of the first Governor of Queensland, Governor Bowen, in 1859, an organised force was established by appointing an Inspector General to be in charge of both ordinary and Native Police. In 1863 and 1864, the police system again changed form, following the appointment of the first Commissioner of Police, David Thompson Seymour. He introduced a new system based on the Victorian model comprising Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors, Sergeants, Constables and a Detective Force. In ensuing years, the structure of the Force underwent a number of additional modifications and by 1924 Queensland had the highest State ratio of policemen to residents in Australia, with one officer to every 725 persons.
By 1863 a government reserve of four acres had been set aside in St Lawrence in the north-west corner of the surveyed area, to the south of the St Lawrence Creek. This reserve was titled 'Custom House'. The first court house in St Lawrence, a single storey slab building with a shingle roof was constructed by 1866. In 1869 there were two government buildings in the town, a 'public house', a store and '8 or 9 huts'. This courthouse was repaired following cyclones in 1875 and 1877. By 1878, a new, timber building with a shingle roof was commenced by contractor Thomas Watson. It was completed by the end of 1878 for a cost of £520/18. The design, prepared by the Office of the Government Architect, was similar to the Port Douglas courthouse, constructed in 1879.
By June 1880, the Police Inspector reported that the '...Barracks consist of the old Court House and the original Barracks and Cells...' The former portion was occupied by the Sergeant and the latter by the Constable. At this time, there were two new cells under construction. The Inspector of Police reported that the Barracks were in an unsatisfactory state, the result of '...keeping a number of pigs, goats and poultry on the premises.' By October 1881, in compliance with the Inspector's instructions, William Tagg's premises at St Lawrence were rented to serve as a police barracks for twelve months at a cost of £25 per annum. By September 1882, the Constable at St Lawrence requested instructions regarding a renewal of rental terms. In October 1882, Tagg offered to sell the premises to the police, however, following an inspection, it was decided to erect a new police barracks on the site of the reserve, which were occupied by the courthouse, post and telegraph office and sergeants quarters. The Constable in Charge proposed that the slabs from the buildings to be pulled down to make way for the new police barracks, not be sold off, but reused to erect stables, a saddle room, a cart shed and other out offices.
In January 1914, Herbert Payne was awarded the tender to remove eight decayed stumps from under the court house and replace them with solid blocks. The decayed floor boards at the 'bottom front verandah' were also to be replaced and the building painted. The cost totalled £45.
In January 1919, the Commissioner of Railways informed the Police Department that a camp was to be established at St Lawrence for the construction of the North Coast Railway. The Commissioner thought that the town did not have a police presence, however, he was informed that there were two constables stationed at St Lawrence.
In 1921, it was proposed to build new accommodation for the single constable, as the old slab quarters, constructed c1870, were considered uninhabitable. Funding was not granted for this, and so the following year, the constable was directed to use one of the rooms at the rear of the court house. The Constable in Charge, who was also Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions, was already using the building for clerical work and 'indoor' police work. A toilet for prisoners was added to the rear verandah in 1935 when new stables and forage room was also built. The single constable's quarters was pulled down in 1923 and the slabs used to construct a harness room.
The arrival of the railway in 1921 provided an important economic boost to the area, as well as a transport link. St Lawrence was a meal stop for rail passengers and the refreshments rooms at one time employed 22 women. Drivers and staff also changed at St Lawrence. The town itself reached its peak in the late 1940s with a population of 3000.
The police barracks was demolished in the late 1980s and a new building was constructed. The railway station closed in 1992 and the last court was held in St Lawrence in that year. The police station and former courthouse and the cell block continue to be utilised by the police department.
","criteria":"Forming part of the old town of St Lawrence, the site of the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse (1878) and cell block, constructed by 1880, is significant as it reflects the history and development of St Lawrence and the surrounding area and its role as a regional judicial precinct in the early years following Separation.
|Few early timber police station and courthouse buildings survive and the St Lawrence police station and courthouse building is significant for its rarity as one of the earliest, intact, extant examples of this type of building.
|As a single-storey, timber, government building, with drawings prepared by the Office of the Colonial Architect, the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse is significant as an example of a typical type of design and construction.
The cell block is significant as an extant example of the typical timber cell blocks constructed by the Department of Public Works in the late 19th century.
|The St Lawrence police station and former courthouse has aesthetic significance due to the simplicity and symmetry of design of the building, and for its contribution to the MaCartney Street streetscape and the St Lawrence townscape.
|The site of a police reserve since 1863, the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse is significant for its long association with law and order and the dispensing of justice in the area. The building was the focus for a wide range of community services and this, together with the tradition of constables-in-charge, ensured that the St Lawrence police station and former courthouse provided an important community focus in the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15925,"place_ref":601153,"name":"Police Reserve Complex (former)","alternate_name":"Former Police Station and Residence","street_address":"Samwell Street","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The Police Reserve Complex, Croydon is located on the corner of Samwell and Alldridge Streets, Croydon. The site is one of a number of public buildings within the main street of Croydon, and is adjacent to a Courthouse, and near the Shire Hall.
The site comprises a number of simple timber buildings, including the police residence at the corner of the streets, the police station to the west of this with frontage to Samwell Street and cells to the rear, south of the police station.
The former police station, originally constructed as police barracks and following dismantling of sections of the building reused as the police station from 1937, is a single storeyed timber framed and clad building elevated on low stumps. The hipped roof of the building is clad with corrugated iron sheeting. Verandahs line three sides of the building. The timber verandah posts are stop-chamfered and located between the posts is timber dowel balustrade. A gabled projection on the southern, principal façade of the building emphasises the principal entrance.
The police residence is a single storeyed timber framed building slightly elevated on low stumps. The building comprises a central four room core with kitchen and bathroom to the north. The building is of single skinned construction with the frame expressed externally and internally lined with horizontal boarding. The pyramidal hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron sheeting and extends over a verandah lining the four sides of the principal part of the building. The roof is surmounted by an iron ridge ventilator. Simple timber verandah posts support the verandah and a simple timber dowel balustrade and handrail line the verandahs. Entrance to the building is provided on the southern face via an open tread timber stair. The rear wing abuts the northern edge of the verandah on the northern face of the building and has a small rectangular plan with gabled roof.
The cells located to the rear of the police station are constructed with a timber frame and corrugated iron sheeting cladding externally. The cells are elevated on low stumps. The gabled roof of the small structure is also clad with corrugated iron sheeting. A verandah lines the southern elevation of the building and access is provided via an open tread timber stair.
","history":"European settlement in Croydon commenced following the discovery of gold bearing reefs in the area in about 1885. At first, ore was crushed at the Etheridge field with facilities in Croydon established by the end of 1886 causing a rapid influx of prospectors. A town grew up around the gold field and the initial survey plans included a Police Reserve. The first police station was erected during 1886 for a cost of £196 and a court house incorporating offices for a mining warden and mining registrar was completed in the following year. By 1889 a lock-up, additional cells and stables were added to the Police Reserve.
As Croydon developed, the initial police and justice facilities were replaced with larger buildings. In 1896, local contractor James Lancaster constructed a large timber building for use as police barracks (now known as the former police station). In 1897 further cells were constructed. A residence for the Officer-In-Charge was completed in 1899.
The gold reef discovered at Croydon was exhausted by 1907 and development within the town waned. The police service continued at Croydon and repairs and repainting was undertaken at the police complex in 1911. Further work was conducted in 1937 when the barracks, now too large for the small number of officers serving in Croydon, was cut into sections and only a small section of the original barracks was retained as a police station. The kitchen of the barracks was removed for use as a tracker's quarters. The remainder of the building was sold as timber. Correspondence between the Croydon station and the Inspector of Police in Cairns suggests that the 'decline of Croydon' since the initial boom period was the reason for the dismantling and removal of part of the original police barracks. The population of Croydon in 1937 was 250.
In 1939 the verandahs of both the police station and the police residence were made fly proof with the addition of timber battening and fly screens. The trackers quarters were restumped at this time. Although the 1889 lockup was retained in the reduced complex, it was reclad.
In 1938 a police report of the police residence described the building as having three bedrooms, dining and sitting room, kitchen, pantry, bathrooms and verandah.
New police buildings were constructed at the rear of the police reserve in 1977 and the nineteenth century buildings were vacated but not removed from the site. The Minister of Lands gave permission to the National Trust of Queensland to occupy the early buildings in 1982. More recently, the Croydon Shire Council has used the police station as a library and museum.
","criteria":"The former Croydon Police Reserve Complex, established from 1886, demonstrates the evolution of the early Croydon township with the provision of essential services following the discovery of gold in the area.
|The complex is a good, representative example of a nineteenth century police precinct.
|The buildings have aesthetic significance as an intact precinct of nineteenth century timber civic buildings which contribute to the townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15926,"place_ref":601154,"name":"Nebo Hotel","alternate_name":"Fort Cooper Hotel","street_address":"2 Reynolds Street","suburb":"NEBO","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The Nebo Hotel is situated at the corner of two major streets in the town, Reynolds and Water Streets, overlooking Nebo Creek. The hotel comprises of two adjacent buildings. The older, larger corner building with bar at ground floor and guest bedrooms on first floor. The adjoining building houses the dining room and kitchen on its lower level with management accommodation over.
The main building is two storey, timber framed with green painted corrugated iron to the hip roof with skillion veranda awnings on three sides. External walls are clad with painted vertical corrugated iron. The former front section of the timber deck veranda has been removed, the lower level open rail balustrade replaced with weatherboards and steps added to access the bar. At the upper level the cross braced open balustrade remains as does the decorative fascia boards. Timber posts support the timber deck veranda which provides access to the tongue and groove-lined guest bedrooms through individual French doors. Behind the public bar stands an old hardwood insulated coolroom which is claimed to produce excellent temperature beer.
The adjoining building, situated to the east of the main hotel, is two storeyed with a painted corrugated galvanised iron hip roof. Originally single storeyed it is externally clad with painted vertical corrugated iron on the lower storey and ripple iron to the upper. The dining room has timber double hung windows and is lined with an early fibro sheeting. A skillion roofed veranda to the first floor level on the street elevation has been enclosed with flat fibro cladding. The living quarters behind it have recently been lined internally.
","history":"The Nebo Hotel, believed to be the second hotel on the site, was constructed in 1886 for Jack Davis who owned the hotel until 1906.
Ludwig Leichhardt first explored the area around Nebo in 1845. By the early 1860s pastoral expansion was pushing up the coast from Rockhampton towards land in the Mitchell and Kennedy districts and beyond. Land at a crossing on the Nebo Creek where good water and grass were available became a popular overnight camp for teamsters and other travellers. In 1862, Ben Reynolds, one of a party who crossed the Eton Range with a bullock dray, established a hotel on the banks of the creek. A licence for this hotel was granted in early 1863. Two years later the area around it was surveyed by TH Fitzgerald and gazetted as a township. It was called Fort Cooper after the hill that is a prominent landscape feature in the area and the hotel was named the Fort Cooper Hotel. The local people, however, had already begun to call the settlement Nebo, after the creek on which it was based.
Fort Cooper was intended as a service centre for the surrounding pastoral area. From the 1870s it also served a number of copper mines and the Mount Britton gold mine from the 1880s. Fort Cooper quickly prospered gaining a second hotel, a telegraph office and a Court of Petty Sessions. However, the population of the area dropped somewhat in the late 1860s as stations replaced sheep with cattle, which did not require as many hands to care for them. In 1886, Jack Davis, who also built a residence and store across from the hotel six years later, built the current hotel and retained the name.
In 1906, Davis sold the hotel to Jim Perry, who later sold it to a Mr Marshall. The place was again sold in 1918 when the German owner found that prejudice affected his trade.
In 1920 the license was acquired by AW Maclean. A number of his 13 children were born at the hotel and it has been a long association with the Maclean family. Maclean had a great interest in horse racing and for most of the time that he owned the hotel he was President of the Nebo Jockey Club. The hotel catered for race meetings and there were once stables and a stockyard on the grounds.
The adjoining two storey building that forms part of the hotel and linked by the hotel's eastern verandas, was built in two stages. The ground floor was constructed following the First World War as a billiard room. The upper storey was added in 1932 as private living quarters.
In 1939 Maclean sold the hotel owing to ill health. It was purchased by Tom Wright and Herb Davidson and was operated by various licensees. In 1948, local usage concerning the name of the town finally prevailed and both the township and hotel were renamed Nebo. In 1962 Jim Maclean leased the hotel and purchased it in 1964. His daughter took over the running of the hotel in 1991. The property has been sold twice since 1994.
Changes have been minor. The most noticeable exterior change has been the removal of the timber veranda deck to the Reynolds Street side and the installation of low steps to provide access to the bar and the side verandas. The timber rail balustrade was replaced on the ground floor by horizontal weatherboards. In appearance the hotel is both typical of its era and an increasing rarity.
","criteria":"Nebo Hotel, erected in 1886, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history standing, as it does, close to a creek crossing on what was a track utilised by explorers, pastoralists and settlers seeking land in the Mitchell and Kennedy Regions of north Queensland. Further, the hotel remains as an extant reminder of the time when Nebo was a service centre for the pastoral and mining areas surrounding the town.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Nebo Hotel is significant as a relatively intact example of a nineteenth century timber and iron vernacular hotel which is representative of its type and era of construction.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15928,"place_ref":601161,"name":"Baillie Henderson Hospital","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Mental Hospital | Toowoomba Lunatic Asylum | Toowoomba Hospital for the Insane","street_address":"1 Hogg Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-27","description":"The Baillie Henderson Hospital Complex occupies a 133.4 hectare site about three kilometres north-west of the city of Toowoomba in the suburb of Cranley. It is located on an elevated picturesque site on an east facing slope. The complex comprises over forty buildings, ten of which were constructed between 1888 and 1910 to the master plan of architect JJ Clark and five between 1915 and 1919 influenced by the principles upheld by Dr HB Ellerton.
\nEntry to the site is gained from the east via Mort Street or the south via Tor Street. The main access road encompasses the pre 1910 site with branches providing access to the staff accommodation at the western end of the grounds and to later hospital building to the west and north. The roads are lined with impressive avenues of mature trees including Bunya Pines.
\nThe symmetrical layout of the hospital is still evident although obscured from some views by well developed landscaping and the large scale of the recreation and therapy complex located to the west of McDonald Hall.
\nThe buildings, grounds and walkways connecting the buildings of the Baillie Henderson Hospital are of cultural significance and descriptions of individual elements follow.
\nJofre House (Ward A - Male) and Ray House (Ward 1- Female)
\nHistory
\nJofre House and Ray House were constructed in 1888 as identical two-storey face brick masonry L-shaped convalescent wards, mirror reversed on opposite sides of the central administration and service area and forming the eastern corners of the original plan for the hospital complex. They were symmetrical in plan form about their entries at 45 degrees to the wings of the buildings. Verandahs surrounded the ground floor.
\nOn the elevated site, both wards were afforded views over the valley toward the city and surrounding area. The buildings housed a central lounge, dormitories, single rooms and attendants rooms on both floors with the dining room, servery and bathroom facilities located on the ground floor. These buildings are largely intact and continue to house patients.
\nDescription
\nThe convalescent wards are two storey masonry buildings with hipped corrugated iron roofs. The red-brown English bond facebrick walls are relieved with banding at sill and floor level, contrasting lintels and multi-paned sash and frame windows. The first floor retains its symmetrical L-shape but later single storey masonry wings containing additional bathroom and recreation areas have been added to the east and south elevations (the north elevation of Ray House) breaking the continuity of the original surrounding ground level verandahs and restricting views.
\nThe interiors, with the exception of the bathrooms are generally intact and contain original joinery including staircases and doors with observation windows.
\nRush House (Male Ward B) and Pinel House (Female Ward 2), Clouston House (Ward D) and Female Ward 4 (Museum)
\nHistory
\nThe original plan for the Toowoomba asylum included six general pavilion wards, of identical design - two storey face brick masonry I shaped buildings with hipped corrugated iron roofs, symmetrical in plan form about a north-south axis, with verandahs at ground level to three sides and a covered way to the inside elevation.
\nThe ward buildings contained lavatories, stair, store and attendants room with fireplace in the wing adjacent to the covered way. The outside wing contained the dining room which had two fireplaces and the wing in between along the north-south axis of the building housed an 18 bed dormitory with 10 single 8'x9'cells and a stair and scullery adjacent to the dining room. The layout on the upper floors was similar with the exception of dormitories over the lavatories and dining room and an attendant's room above the scullery.
\nFemale Ward 2, Pinel House, was the first general ward constructed in 1888 and Male Ward B, Rush House was completed in 1892. Male Ward C and Female Ward 3 were constructed in 1898, and Clouston House and Female Ward 4 were completed in 1902.
\nLater wings containing bathroom facilities were added to the eastern elevation of each of the ward buildings and semi-detached wings for recreation areas were added to the eastern elevations of Rush House and Pinel House.
\nMale Ward C and Female Ward 3 were demolished in 1971 and Rush House has been more recently refurbished and continues to house patients. Female Ward 4 houses the hospital's museum and Clouston House is vacant. Shelter sheds and fencing that formed part of the original plan no longer survive.
\nDescription
\nThe general ward buildings are two storey I-shaped masonry buildings with hipped corrugated iron roofs. The red-brown English-bond face brick walls are relieved with banding at sill and floor levels, contrasting lintels and multi-paned sash and frame windows. Subtle differences between the construction periods of the pairs of wards is evident in the joinery treatment, window shutter details and ventilation grilles.
\nPinel House is vacant and is very intact with the exception of the painting some time ago of the external face brickwork. Female Ward 4 now houses the hospital's museum and is in a very intact condition. Clouston House is also in an intact condition and is vacant and used for storage.
\nRush House has been more recently refurbished and includes the removal of roof ventilator fleches and chimneys, the replacement of the roof sheeting in colorbond sheeting and the painting of the brickwork. Changes to the interior include the addition of partitions to dormitory areas, the replacement of joinery, lining of floors and the addition of suspended ceilings and air conditioning.
\nMacDonald Hall
\nHistory
\nMacDonald Hall was first constructed in 1888 as a T shaped single storey masonry building with a double gabled roof over its central volume and hipped roofs over the outer wings, all surrounded by timber framed verandahs and connected to kitchen, bathhouse and store behind and to the wards by the continuous covered walkway. Whilst designed as a recreation hall, the building was also used for hospital administration until the new administration building was completed in 1910. In 1913, the recreation hall was modified with the walls of the main hall increased in height to create a larger volume lit by high level sash windows to all elevations and a hipped roof was added.
\nDescription
\nThe Administration building is a single storey T-shaped building with verandahs to its east north and south elevations. The walkway connected to its west elevation has been removed.
\nIt has red-brown English-bond face brick walls relieved with banding at sill levels, contrasting lintels and six pane sash and frame windows. Four pane centre pivoting sash windows are housed in the auditorium walls above the surrounding verandah roof and have contrasting lintels and sills. The hipped roof of the main hall is supported on impressive timber trusses and the raked ceiling lined with panels of v-jointed tongue and groove boards laid diagonally to the walls. The sewing room in the northern wing has had a roof light added and a small semi detached wing containing toilets has been added to the south elevation.
\nThe main hall houses a large pipe organ and contains a stage with decorative pressed metal proscenium supported on v jointed tongue and groove walls. The single volume of the northern wing (the former sewing room) has been partitioned off into two rooms and only the north-western room was accessible from the stage. The southern wing was also not accessible. Fireplaces between the main hall and the wings have been bricked in. The later toilet addition is of stretcher bond masonry red-brown brick with a skillion roof.
\nAdministration block
\nHistory
\nThe construction of the Administration Building in 1910 completed the plan for the first stage of the Toowoomba Lunatic Asylum. The two storey masonry building with hipped roof, clock tower and detached toilets differed from the original building illustrated in an 1888 perspective of the proposed hospital but is located in the same position along the site's central axis overlooking the circular drive and surrounding gardens.
\nThe main entry to the building was via a central hall that opened from the front arcade into a stairhall intersected by a passage connecting the north and south side entrances to the building. Offices for the Medical Superintendent, the Assistant Medical Superintendent, the Steward, Matron, Chief Attendant, Dispensary and Hall Porter were contained on the ground floor with male visitors and female visitors' rooms located at the south and north ends of the arcade respectively. The first floor housed the Matrons' bedroom, sitting room, servant's room and kitchen as well as a library and photography and pathology room. The matron's bathroom was located on the northern end of the rear verandah and a dark room on the southern end. A stair from the western verandah led to the verandah at ground level.
\nDescription
\nThe Administration block is two storey brick masonry building with hipped corrugated iron roof and centred clock tower. Whilst its general architectural expression, its materials and detailing complement the hospital complex it clearly expresses the stylistic differences from the period in which it was built.
\nIt has a symmetrical layout about its east west axis and is located centrally between Ray House and Jofre House and along the same axis as McDonald Hall and is connected to these buildings by a covered timber framed walkway with gabled roof.
\nThe front elevation of the Administration building presents a formal public face raised on a plinth of quarry faced stone above which an arcade of semi circular and flat arches of red-brown face brick are relieved with quarry faced stone banding, voussoirs and keystones. The corners of the arcade have parapets of ashlar stonework with curved copings which rise to form the solid corner balustrading of the verandah above. Timber verandah posts support curved verandah beams and eaves brackets and are of a scale and detail that suggest the domestic function of the first floor.
\nThree of the first floor verandah bays have been enclosed by a half high wall with aluminium windows above, replacing the original timber balustrading. The verandahs to the north and south have been enclosed with weatherboards and casement sash windows. The two storey timber verandah at the rear has been enclosed on the first floor with weatherboards and aluminium windows. A single storey, one room masonry addition with hipped roof has been added to the south-west and north-west corners of the building.
\nDetached lavatory buildings for males and females are located outside the south and north entrances. These are identical single storey red-brown English bond facebrick structures with hipped corrugated iron roofs and louvred windows with contrasting sills.
\nBrowne House (Male Ward E) and Whishaw House (Female Ward 5)
\nHistory
\nBrowne House and Whishaw House were erected between 1917-1919 to the west of Wards 4 and D as a pair of male and female ward buildings providing additional accommodation for patients needing comparatively less supervision. The buildings were part of the second stage of development of the hospital complex during Ellerton's period in office and were sited east-west facing the grounds and views.
\nThey were constructed as two storey masonry buildings with projecting gabled wings at each end and a larger central projecting gabled wing with bay window to both levels. The ground floor comprised a large, central dining room, sitting room, dormitory, scullery, lavatories, bathroom and stores were built in a one storey annexe at the rear of the dining room centred between two semi detached masonry stairwells. The first floor comprised three large open dormitories.
\nDescription
\nThe substantial two storey buildings with corrugated iron roofs have red-brown face brickwork to first floor level and rough-cast render above relieved with contrasting lintels and multi-paned sash and frame windows. The projecting central wing on the front elevations was finished on both levels with rough cast render relieved with contrasting quoining, banding, copings and lintels. Two storey timber verandahs provided the infill between the projecting wings of the front elevation.
\nThe single storey annexe at the rear of Browne House has been replaced by a large two storey masonry addition constructed c1970 and another single storey semi detached masonry wing with skillion roof has been added to the western end of the north elevation.
\nWhishaw House remains relatively intact including early bathroom and linen areas on the ground floor. The dining room is currently used for recreation for patients and the first floor is vacant.
\nJames House and Hill House
\nHistory
\nJames House and Hill House (also known as Tuke Annexe) were constructed between 1915-1917 as complementary admission wards and formed part of Ellerton's building program. These buildings continued to follow the symmetrical layout of the site but are set further away from the central axis on the outskirts of the recreation ground which they overlook.
\nThey were a result of Ellerton's desire to provide more suitable accommodation for patients and provide more privacy and views. The buildings housed 10 patients in single rooms with bathroom in the western wing, a dormitory of 12 beds with bath rooms in the eastern wing, central sitting and dining rooms with bay windows opening onto a verandah over looking the recreation ground and semi detached kitchen and store.
\nDescription
\nJames and Hill Houses are a pair of single storey U shaped buildings with hipped corrugated iron roofs, red-brown facebrick walls relieved with contrasting sills and lintels and multi-paned sash and frame windows. The verandah connecting the kitchen wing to the main structure has been enclosed on both buildings.
\nJames House is intact and is currently being used as a site office for the redevelopment team. Hill House appears to be in an intact condition - access was not available.
\nTredgold - Hospital Ward
\nHistory
\nTredgold House was erected in 1917 as a hospital ward for treatment of patients with physical problems. It was one of three asylum hospitals built at the time which were all basically to the same plan. The smallest of these hospitals was built at Challinor and the other at Wolston Park which had a tile roof. Both of these are extant. Tredgold House continues to house patients.
\nDescription
\nTredgold House is a single storey red-brown face brick building of stretcher bond construction with large galvanised iron hipped roof. The building has a symmetrical plan form with a front entrance given prominence by a battened gabled end projecting above adjacent verandahs, a rough cast finish and roof fleche.
\nThe symmetrical floor plan contains central entrance hall and office areas with a wing opposite containing kitchen and scullery. A pentagonal activity room opens into two adjoining rooms beyond the kitchen area. The two wings that open off the corridor at an angle to the central portion provide dormitory accommodation and a large activity room with later additions to the end of each of these wings providing further accommodation.
\nAssistant Medical Superintendent's Quarters
\nHistory
\nThe quarters for the Assistant Medical Superintendent was built in 1898 as a single storey masonry residence with large hipped roof situated at the top of the slope on the western limit of the site for the hospital complex.
\nDescription
\nThe house is constructed of red-brown face brickwork with a hipped corrugated iron roof and projecting gables. It has an asymmetrical layout and includes an entrance hall, drawing room, dining room, three bedrooms, a bathroom and servant's bedroom. The pantry, kitchen and wash house are contained in a wing on the north west corner of the building with a masonry northern wall and timber framed and clad south and west wall. The house contains five fireplaces and has a verandah to the east and west.
\nThe house is the oldest one of five occupying the western end of site and overlooking the hospital complex. The other houses built from the 1930s-1960s for staff form a residential streetscape and edge at the west of the complex.
\nThe building is currently unoccupied but a tenant is being sought.
\nMedical Superintendent's Residence
\nHistory
\nThe quarters for the Medical Superintendent was built in 1888 as a single storey masonry residence with large hipped roof situated away from the complex to the south east. In its original form the main portion of the house had a T shaped symmetrical layout with verandahs to the north, south and east with a dining room, drawing room and two large bedrooms all with bay windows. Two small bedrooms were located at the rear of the house and a semi detached kitchen and pantry on the south eastern corner was accessible from a verandah. A later timber wing was added to the north west corner and a servant's bedroom and scullery was added to the kitchen in 1940.
\nDescription
\nThe house is constructed of red-brown face brickwork on a rendered base with a hipped corrugated iron roof with timber verandahs to the east and timber verandahs and bedroom wing to the west. The house was not inspected during the site visit.
\nThe building continues to be occupied by the Medical Superintendent.
\nRecreation Ground & Landscaping
\nHistory
\nThe landscape forms an integral part of the development of the Baillie Henderson Hospital complex as a major contributing element to the pleasant environment required for the treatment of patients in nineteenth and early twentieth
\ncentury asylum planning. Terracing of the site, the planting of trees, hedges, gardens and the incorporation of garden elements such as shelter sheds and fencing were designed to provide an attractive and restful environment whilst providing for the requirements of containment of patients within the complex.
\nThe recreation ground, located on the hospital plan's central axis formed an integral part of initiative of HB Ellerton for the second stage of the hospital development at Toowoomba providing a pleasant outlook from the complex of buildings erected at this time through trees to a large oval and beyond to more distant views.
\nDescription
\nApproached from the east, the Baillie Henderson Hospital becomes apparent at some distance as a tree covered sanctuary on the east facing slope of the valley set back from the approach roads in a rural setting. On the site, significant and mature landscaping elements are planted along the principal driveways to the hospital proper and residences, around the buildings to provide shelter and restful gardens, to create vistas, pathways and to frame the recreation oval. These plantings include Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwilli) and many other species.
","history":"Baillie Henderson Hospital is situated on the northwestern outskirts of Toowoomba. It was established as a lunatic asylum in 1890 and continues to provide psychiatric care with more than 400 patients and is the most intact nineteenth century asylum in Queensland.
The treatment of lunacy or madness underwent a reformation in the first half of the nineteenth century in America, France and Britain from physical restraint and bizarre procedures to management through the provision of a pleasant environment and work opportunities. The new approach was based on reforming an individual by placing them in a suitable environment and by the 1860s, asylums were accepted as the most appropriate place for the treatment of insanity.
Prior to Queensland becoming a separate colony in 1859, residents who were classified as lunatics or insane and required control were simply placed in the local gaol or sent south to an asylum at Sydney. Within thirty years of self-government, three asylums were operating in Queensland.
Queensland's first asylum was opened at Woogaroo in 1865. Within a decade overcrowding was a chronic problem and a Royal Commission in 1877 recommended the establishment of asylums at Toowoomba and Rockhampton. An asylum was established at Sandy Gallop (the Challinor Centre at Ipswich) in 1878 and operated as an annexe of Goodna until 1910 when it became a separate institution. The Rockhampton asylum did not proceed and plans for the Toowoomba institution were prepared by the colonial architect JJ Clark in 1885. These plans provided for a large complex with two rows of pavilion wards separated by service buildings.
The design and planning of the Toowoomba asylum was based on the principles of asylum design as enunciated by J Conolly in The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums and the original plan took more than 20 years to complete.
The power of symmetrical form with its inherent qualities of balance and order were used to great effect at the Toowoomba asylum in its master planning and building design. The site was laid out about an east-west axis on which service and ancillary buildings were centred with identical pairs of pavilion wards, males to the south and females to the north laid equidistant from the centre and from each other. The wards and service buildings were also of symmetrical design reinforced and connected by a continuous covered walkway. Each of the ward buildings had an associated outdoor area enclosed by a three metre high close boarded timber fence into which, shelter sheds and gates were set. The requisite requirements for a pleasant environment were enhanced by landscaping which including planting of gardens and perimeter trees to create vistas and more intimate areas for repose.
Construction commenced in 1886 and by 1890 sufficient building has been completed for the asylum to open. In 1891, the Toowoomba Lunatic Asylum comprised a male (Jofre House) and female (Ray House) convalescent ward, a general female ward (Pinel House), and a group of buildings comprising the administration building (now MacDonald Hall), kitchen, bathrooms, washhouse and store and the medical superintendent's residence which was situated adjacent to Hogg Street away from the main complex. The first patients were transferred from the Goodna asylum and by the end of 1890, the number of patients totalled 196. The second male ward (Ward B - Rush House), Pinel House's complement, was completed in 1892.
Construction continued throughout the 1890s and 1900s with additional pairs of male and female pavilion wards constructed in 1898 (Male Ward C and Female Ward 3) and 1902 (Male Ward D- Clouston House and Female Ward 4[now the Museum]), the assistant medical superintendent's residence (1899), nurses' quarters (1909) and administration block (1910). By 1910 the original plan was complete and the asylum accommodated more than 700 patients.
A second major building phase occurred in the period 1915-1919. In 1909 Dr HB Ellerton, an English trained medical practitioner was appointed Inspector of Hospitals for the Insane in Queensland. On his appointment, Ellerton immediately set about implementing changes and improvements to the asylums and re-ception houses in the state. Apart from numerous administrative changes, Eller-ton oversaw a major upgrading and expansion of the infrastruc-ture at Goodna, Ipswich and Toowoomba asylums.
At Toowoomba, five new buildings were erected as a result of Ellerton's initiatives. Ellerton was a strong advocate of the 'moral treatment' approach to insanity. This approach stressed the need for providing a pleasant environment for patients and useful employment and recreation. This philosophy was evident in a pair of new large blocks erected in 1917-1919 Female Ward 5 (Whishaw House) and Male Ward E (Browne House) set within landscaped grounds with views to the surrounding countryside. Also in this period, a pair of domestic scale wards (Male Admission Ward - James House and Female Admission Ward - Hill House) and a hospital ward (Tredgold House) were completed. These buildings faced a recreation ground centred on the east west axis of the original hospital plan. Throughout this period agriculture was important part of the asylum operations, partly to offset costs and also to provide employment for patients.
Few major building projects were undertaken in the subsequent decades. Improvements were limited to extensions to the nurses quarters (1934), new bathrooms, staff residences and laundrettes. The name of the institution was changed to the 'Toowoomba Mental Hospital' following the Mental Hygiene Act of 1938. This Act signalled a number of changes in the administration of mental health and coincided with new approaches to treatment, particular the use of drug therapies. A further name change to 'Toowoomba Special Hospital' followed the Mental Health Act of 1962. In August 1968 it was renamed 'Baillie Henderson Hospital' in honour of Dr John Hector Baillie Henderson (1902-1981), Assistant Medical Superintendent 1939-1950 and Medical Superintendent 1950-1969.
Following decades of only minor building works, a major program of upgrading and replacing existing facilities commenced in the mid 1960s. New service buildings included laundry (1968), canteen (1968), kitchen (1972) and artisan's block (1980). New wards and accommodation facilities included Conolly, Tuke and Digby (1974), Penrose and Maudsley (1977), and Gowrie Hall complex (1991). Most of these buildings were erected to the north and west of the existing complex. Male Ward C and Female Ward 3(1898) and the kitchen and laundry were amongst the original buildings demolished c1971 as part of this building program. The Recreation Complex located west of McDonald Hall was constructed during this later building program.
Since the 1980s, the number of patients has steadily declined with a greater emphasis on treating and caring for psychiatric patients in either community based facilities or facilities in general hospitals.
The Nurses' Quarters was demolished in 1997.
","criteria":"The Baillie Henderson Hospital is important for its association with the development of mental health care in Queensland since 1890.
Although altered and extended over the years, the Baillie Henderson Hospital represents an important era in mental health care in Queensland and is the most intact group of mental health buildings of the period.
|Of the three main asylums built in Queensland prior to 1920, Baillie Henderson Hospital at Toowoomba is the only mental hospital in Queensland to have formal symmetrical site planning and demonstrates most clearly through this symmetry and that found in its building forms and landscaping, an asylum based on a highly formal and systematic design. It also, is the only such institution to retain its rural setting. Wolston Park, by comparison, has developed in a more haphazard and less formal manner although there are groups of buildings that are arranged in a systematic manner. The Ipswich asylum was also well planned but the buildings were arranged in an arc along a ridge to maximise views to the countryside. The buildings were not arranged in a formal and systematic manner.
|(Criterion under review)
|The place demonstrates the nineteenth century principles of asylum design, enunciated in its planning, landscaping and the design of its buildings.
Baillie Henderson Hospital clearly demonstrates the principal characteristics of an asylum based on nineteenth and early twentieth century principles. The planning of the site and design of buildings was based on well established principles for asylum design as enunciated in John Conolly's The government and construction of lunatic asylums (first published in 1847). Another important publication concerning asylum design was the American Thomas Kirkebride, On the construction of asylums (1861). A common theme in both publications was the emphasis on the systematic arrangement of wards and service buildings and the high level of order and discipline required to control and manage a large number of patients. The buildings erected at Baillie Henderson between 1888 and 1910 were arranged in a systematic and formal manner. Despite the demolition of two of the earlier wards and some service buildings, and the erection of new buildings, the symmetrical planning is still clearly evident.
|Baillie Henderson Hospital is significant for the architectural qualities of its buildings, in particular those erected in the period 1888-1919. The buildings include the Administration Building (1910), McDonald Hall (1888-1913), Jofre and Ray Houses (1888), Rush (1892) and Pinel (1891) Houses, Clouston House and the museum (1902), Browne and Whishaw House (1917), James and Hill Houses (1915-17), Tredgold House (1919), the Medical Superintendent's residence (1888) and the Assistant Medical Officer's Quarters (1899).
The hospital complex is also significant for the aesthetics of its setting as a tree covered haven in a rural landscape with views afforded both from and to the site. Its mature plantings, including avenues of Bunya Pines, contained within its grounds and gardens and along its principal driveways and pathways and around its recreation oval contribute to the pleasant setting that was a principal characteristic of asylum planning in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Hospital is important for its association with the work of Colonial Architect JJ Clark and the Architectural Branch of the Department of Public Works. Clark was responsible for the site planning and design of the first stage of hospital buildings. The period between 1900 and 1915 was arguably the golden era of the Branch in terms of the quality of its work and the second stage of hospital buildings was designed and constructed during this period and are significant examples of the work produced by the Works Department.
\nIt has added significance through its association with Dr HB Ellerton and his approach to treating insanity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15929,"place_ref":601162,"name":"Townsville Central State School","alternate_name":"Former Townsville Gaol & Residence Police Inspector","street_address":"4-6 Warburton Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-10-01","description":"The school is located on Warburton Street at North Ward on a 3.405 ha flat site facing east at the foot of Castle Hill. The brick fence with iron balustrade to Warburton street is covered by a hedge and lined with mature shade trees. The gardens contain a variety of equipment, mature and ornamental trees, garden beds and seating areas. The site is bound to the south by a residential unit development on Gregory Street. A car park with entrance from Gregory Street, to the Dental Clinic adjacent to the west side of the quadrangle wall is fenced off from the school and sit adjacent to the hospital reserve. The Botanical Gardens form the western boundary and a day care centre and a preschool are located along the northern boundary to Kennedy Street.
'C' Block is located on the site of the former men's cell block, 'B' Block is positioned parallel to 'C' block but on the opposite side of 'A' Block. Both buildings are connected at first floor level to 'A' block by means of a covered suspended concrete walkway. 'D' Block has been designed to follow the curve of the old prison wall and the library, whilst rectangular in plan is located similarly adjacent to the wall. A large proportion of the quadrangle is retained between these buildings and is used for assembly and other activities.
'A' Block is the former Gaoler's and Turnkey's quarters that was later adapted for the Police Superintendent's use before becoming the administration building for the school. It houses administrative functions on the ground floor and the staff room and some teaching facilities on the first floor.
It is a two storey rendered masonry building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The building, of modest scale, has a symmetrical plan form with large entrance foyer which was once the check gate. Heavy masonry brackets provide support to the floor structure above. French doors, sidelights and fanlights have been fitted to the recessed basket arch openings at each end of this foyer. A projecting bay centred at the north houses a secondary exit and the stairwell. The exterior is articulated with horizontal brick bands at sill height, window head height to the ground floor and floor height to the first floor. Windows to the ground floor are round arched heads with double hung six light sashes and timber shutters, windows to the first floor are have square heads and six light sashes. Ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting and timber battens.
'B' Block and 'C' Block are highset school buildings, not dissimiliar in general design and planning to the prefabricated Boulton and Paul timber school building. Both buildings are constructed of brick with expressed horizontal mortar joints, gabled roofs of corrugated asbestos cement sheeting with concrete fin walls to support the verandahs.
Both buildings have classrooms with timber hopper windows from sill to ceiling to the long elevation facing west and with louvres fitted to the inside verandah wall to the east. 'B' block contains one floor of classrooms and 'C' block, a much larger scale building, has two floors of classrooms. The ground floor of each building houses toilet facilities with the remainder used for undercover play and lunch areas.
'D' block, constructed post 1976, is a single storey building of brick construction with a corrugated iron skillion roof. This classroom building has been constructed adjacent to the former gaol wall and its plan curves to match the radius of the wall.
The library, completed in 1980, is a single storey brick building with a skillion roof and rectangular plan form is located at the rear of the quadrangle adjacent to the former gaol wall.
The height of the curved former gaol varies around the site but has an average height of approximately 1200mm. East of 'C' Block, a long portion of the concrete bases survives about 600mm high. Part of the wall was removed to accommodate 'C' Block. The wall has been retained for the length of 'D' block and is continuous to its southern end with the exception of two small openings for access to the dental clinic and play grounds The slab for the sentry tower is located at the opening adjacent to 'D' block.
The concrete slab of the female cell block survives in the quadrangle with the outline of each of the cells clearly visible in the slab. White lines have been painted on the slab which is used as the handball court. Basketball courts and a pond are also located within the quadrangle. Outside the quadrangle are a rainforest, beach volleyball court, an adventure playground, preschool, tennis court, oval, cricket wicket, tractor shed and bush tucker garden.
","history":"The Townsville Central State School, first established as the National School in 1869, was relocated to its present site in Warburton Street in 1955 and incorporates the remains of the first Townsville gaol which was established in 1878 and relocated to Stuart Creek in 1891.
The Gaol
Townsville was proclaimed a municipality in 1865 with a population of approximately 100. By 1870, Townsville had become a major port in North Queensland with permanent infrastructure to support the needs of increasing population. The discovery of gold in surrounding districts contributed to the steady growth of Townsville, and with increased activity in the goldfields, criminal activity such as drunkenness, violence and vagrancy also escalated exceeding the capacity of the small timber police lock-up.
Plans for a new gaol were prepared by the renowned colonial architect, FDG Stanley who designed several other buildings in Townsville, including the Queensland National Bank in Flinders Street, the first Post Office, the Magistrates Court, the 1879 Telegraph Office and the Hospital.
According to a report written by Stanley for the Under Secretary of Public Works on 8 May 1875:
The object in view has been to provide a complete establishment which would be sufficient for the Gaol requirements of the North, for say the next ten or twelve years without material alteration.
And on its design and planning:
The general arrangement of the Plan adopted is that of the radiating principle as this great facility is afforded under this system for the economical working of the whole establishment. The accommodation of the Gaol when completed and as shown on plan consists of:
·\tOne prison ward for 140 male prisoners, forty in single cells per entire block
·\tPrison ward for 60 female prisoners. Twenty per block.
These buildings are designed in blocks, two storeys in height, as being in the first place more economical in cost than one storey buildings and secondly as occupying less ground area within the boundary wall, so leaving more yard space for exercise, work sheds etc.
·\tPrisoners' Kitchen with store attached.
·\tQuarters for Gaoler with Offices
·\tQuarters for Turnkeys placed on each side of entrance court and having check gate at the inner side.
·\tUnderground water tanks with sufficient supply for full complement of prisoners.
The whole of the prison portion of the Gaol is surrounded by brick boundary wall 16ft in height; and the yards in which the prison wards stand are divided from each other by brick walls 10ft in height; and from the outer boundary wall by a strong open stockade fence. Between this fence and the wall, a roadway 20ft wide is carried which will serve to give additional security and provide a space which can be used as a means of inspection over yards for drays and cleaning earth closets etc.
Tenders were called for the erection of a new gaol at Townsville in 1875 and the successful tenderer was contractor, J Rooney who was a major timber miller, builder and furniture maker in Queensland from the late 1860s-1938.
In May 1877, Stanley laid out the site for one of North Queensland's first gaols on part of the Botanical Gardens site occupied by the cricket club at the foot of Castle Hill. The walls and cells were completed for occupation by October 1878 and fully completed to include the gate house and gaoler's house in 1880.
The gaol became overcrowded almost as soon as it was completed. In 1891, a new gaol at Stuart's Creek was erected and all male prisoners transferred. Females were transferred in 1896. In 1896 the old gaol was reallocated to the Police Department and underwent many alterations until 1955 when the Central State School was relocated to the site.
The Townsville Central State School
In March 1869, 4 years after the settlement of Townsville, the first recognized school, the National School was opened in a building that had been used as the Burdekin and Flinders Hospital on the Strand. The school commenced with 48 students with an average attendance for the year of 53. The school expanded in 1873 to include a Girls School for which a new building was erected in 1874 and an infant school was established in 1876 with its new building erected in 1879. In 1878 over 200 girls were attending the school.
A new boys' school was erected in 1889 and the two schools became known as the Townsville Central Schools. The school buildings suffered cyclone damage in 1896 and 1903 and a long history of the school not being adequately maintained is recorded in school records.
In 1930 amalgamation of the two Central schools was investigated and was considered to be straight forward due to their close proximity. At the time the enrolments stood at 214 boys and 316 girls. The Education Department refused the request then, but granted it in 1936. The two schools were closed and reopened four days later as the amalgamated State School, Townsville Central on 30 June. A request for a new brick boys school was made in 1938 after the original boys school was condemned by the Works Department and approval was granted in 1940 for the construction of a new school to replace the existing Boys and Girls Schools.
The works were delayed, but following the second world war, the Works Department was confronted with a need to accommodate an expanding student population caused by the post-war baby-boom. Unlike the more formal and symmetrical plans of previous periods, plans were developed which tended to be asymmetrical and more open with interest developing in schemes which related to natural contours and existing vegetation. At Townsville Central State School, existing buildings and a strong planning arrangement were also taken into account.
Work on the new school commenced in 1954 and the school was occupied from 1955. The buildings were considered to be very attractive with ideal lighting and ventilation and the school was to become the 'show' school for the region. Of the former gaol buildings, only the old gaoler's and turnkey's quarters remained intact. An extensive program of grounds improvements was commenced the following year.
In 1957 the remaining gaol boundary wall was shortened with walkways cut into it for easier access. The women's cells were demolished at this time leaving only the ground floor slab.
The administrative office, formerly the old gaoler's and turnkey's quarters and then the office of the Superintendent of the Townsville Police District was renovated. A head teacher's office, deputy head teacher's office, male staff room and typists office were accommodated on the ground floor with a female staff room, toilets and library accommodated on the first floor. A room upstairs was also allocated for when the speech teacher visited the school to conducted lessons. Works to the exterior included the removal of the roof vents, replacing of double hung sashes, the addition of a balcony to the eastern elevation and brick flower boxes, to either side of the entrance.
The school population continued to increase and additional classrooms were constructed in 1960. Lawns were developed along the entire frontage of the school and numerous trees were planted in accordance with a plan prepared by the curator of the Botanical Gardens adjacent.
The new library was opened in 1978 and the school residence was removed in 1981 from the site adjacent facing Gregory Street where residential units are now located. The adventure playground was established in 1993 with funds raised by the P&C.
","criteria":"As the location of Townsville's first gaol constructed in 1878, Townsville Central State School provides important early evidence of the consolidation of Townsville as a government administrative centre in northern Queensland, and with the former Gaoler's and Turnkey's quarters and boundary wall, provides evidence of the early use of brick in Townsville. It is significant as an example of the work of colonial architect FDG Stanley and of the early work of the Townsville based, north Queensland building firm, J & J Rooney.
|It is also important for the evidence that survives of the gaol and the principles of its radiating design, and as an archaeological site, has the potential reveal information about the earlier functioning of the place as a gaol.
|It is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a new form of tropical school architecture and planning.
|Through the use of creative planning concepts including the incorporation of the surviving features of the former gaol into the school design, Townsville Central State School, together with its picturesque setting and mature shade trees at the foot of Castle Hill, demonstrates aesthetic attributes that contribute to the amenity of the school and to the townscape.
|Through the use of creative planning concepts including the incorporation of the surviving features of the former gaol into the school design, Townsville Central State School, together with its picturesque setting and mature shade trees at the foot of Castle Hill, demonstrates aesthetic attributes that contribute to the amenity of the school and to the townscape.
|The Townsville Central State School is a 'show' school valued by the community as an important part of their cultural heritage.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15930,"place_ref":601163,"name":"St Mark's Anglican Church and Dunwich Public Hall","alternate_name":"Benevolent Asylum Mess Hall | St Marks Anglican Church and Dunwich Public Hall","street_address":"Junner Street","suburb":"DUNWICH","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"St Mark's Church
\nSt Mark's Church is located at the corner Rous Street and Ballow Road, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island on a parcel of land that falls toward Ballow Road. The building is set back from the street frontages and a line of pine trees follows the street edge. A significant view across Moreton Bay and on to Brisbane is obtained from the front of the church looking toward Ballow Road.
\nThe church is elevated above ground level and is constructed of timber with a steeply pitched corrugated metal roof. The roof pitch flattens slightly at the eaves creating a semi bell cast profile. Externally the building is clad with timber weatherboards which extend below the floor level to create a solid skirt to the building. At the corner junctions, the boards are mitred and at the gable ends the weatherboards are slightly separated to create a vent to the roof space. Both the roof and weather board details are typical of Dod's work.
\nA recent addition to the church are the steel tie rods to the south eastern side of the building. These rods are integrated into the existing timber tie beams of the building and were installed to stabilise the structural failings of the structure. The tie rods are anchored back to substantial concrete footings which are raised above ground level. A timber cross brace has also been installed on the rear north east wall to further stabilise the structure.
\nEntry to the church is from the Ballow Road frontage by a more recent timber stair with steel handrails. The paired entry doors to the church have an arched head and are timber framed and clad with tongue and groove boards. Windows to the church are three panel timber framed casements with coloured glass infills.
\nInternally the church is a single volume space with a small vestry formed in the southern corner by low height partitions. The ceiling follows the line of the rafters giving greater height to the internal space which is punctuated by two large tie beams. Both the walls and ceilings are lined with timber tongue and groove boarding. A series of generous steps lead to the alter. The timber floors are carpeted in the nave and polished at the steps with a central carpet runner leading to the alter. The interior space is embellished with decorative timber mouldings to the cornice and tie beams.
\nFurniture to the interior space includes the altar of varnished timber with inset quatrefoil panels, a timber framed fabric curtain screen to the alter, the alter rail and varnished pews. A painting by the late aboriginal poet and local Stradbroke resident Oodgeroo Noonuccal ( or Kath Walker) hangs on the southern wall near the alter.
\nLocated at the rear of the site is a more recent building currently used as the thrift shop. This building is rectilinear in plan and is clad with cement sheeting with a simple metal butterfly roof.
\nDunwich Public Hall
\nDunwich Public Hall located at the corner of Junner Street and Ballow Road, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island. The site is generally an open grassed area with a small number of gum trees to the north east side of the building. Consequently the building is a prominent feature on arrival at Dunwich.
\nThe hall is a substantial low set stretcher bond brick structure which is rectilinear in plan with a simple corrugated iron hip roof. Set centrally on the hip roof is a gabled clerestorey roof comprising five windows on either side of the structure. A verandah extends the full length of the north east side of the building. Located on the south eastern end of the building is the boiler room extension which is constructed of brick to match the existing structure and has a simple skillion roof.
\nNew toilet facilities have recently been constructed in a separate building to the south west side of the hall. This structure is joined to the hall by an enclosed timber battened breezeway. While the structure's form and material echo the details of the original hall, it is clearly distinguished as a new addition to the site.
\nAccess to the hall is via timber framed French doors to the north western end of the building or from the southern end of the verandah. Six timber casement window suites with high level pivot fan lights punctuate the north eastern and south western elevations of the building. Doors and windows include simple paint finished rendered concrete heads and sills. Ventilation to the sub floor area and roof space is via metal and clay wall grilles and timber battened eaves soffits.
\nInternally the building is one large volume with the original servery and scullery at the south eastern end of the building and the new stage at the opposing end. Low height partitions separate the servery and scullery from the rest of the hall. The ceiling is clad with hardboard and timber cover battens and follows the line of the rafters exposing the primary timber trusses which are connected by way of steel plates. The focus of the hall is the central clerestorey which floods the space with natural light.
\nThe floor is polished timber and the walls are a combination of tiles to the lower section and painted brickwork above. A collection of memorial plaques are located on the walls.
","history":"The Benevolent Asylum
\nSt Mark's Anglican Church (1907) and the Dunwich Public Hall (1913) were once integral structures of the Benevolent Asylum located at Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island, from 1864 to 1947. The institution was declared a home for the old and infirm, disabled, inebriates and for a short time lepers. Previously the site had been used as an out station during the settlement of Brisbane (1827-1831), a Catholic mission to local Aborigines (1843-1847) and a Quarantine Station (1850-1864).
\nThe Benevolent Asylum may be likened to the English poorhouses which were established to house and feed those members of the community who were unable to provide for themselves. Under Nineteenth century legislation these poorhouses developed into the stricter regime of the workhouse. Conditions within these workhouses was generally appalling with inmates often being reduced to starvation levels, families separated and inmates forced to perform boring and demeaning work tasks.
\nThe Australian version of the workhouse was the Benevolent Asylum, however it was not a place of committal and was generally considered by the authorities and advocates to be of better social standing. Generally, governments of the period, including the Queensland Government, were loath to recognise the existence of a vagrant class. In the Nineteenth century class structure, poverty was seen as the fault of the individual and governments avoided providing relief to these groups for fear they would establish a level of government reliance. Instead, aid was provided to various charity groups, such as benevolent societies. The government subscribed to a view that this aid should be in the form of kind rather than cash which undermined self reliance and initiative.
\nThe desperate decline of some community groups saw the government eventually forced to subsidise some charity organisations. Unwillingly, they also assumed responsibility for the aged and infirmed who were unable to care for themselves and had no relatives or friends who could support them.
\nIn 1844 the Moreton Bay Benevolent Society formed as a charity administered by citizens. The society was given responsibility for the Brisbane hospital in 1858 as part of the New South Wales government hand over of hospitals to local committees. In 1861 the Queensland Government passed the Benevolent Asylum Act awarding funds to Queensland Hospitals to set wards aside as Benevolent Asylums.
\nWhilst the integration of the asylum into the hospital structure may have alleviated some of the pressure for the Queensland government, over expenditure and crowding stretched hospital facilities to their limit, resulting in requests from the Hospital Committee for the asylum to be removed. In 1863 the hospital committee resolved that the hospital and asylum should be separate institutions. It was suggested this new facility could be a combined benevolent asylum and orphanage. The new building would initially house men until funds became available for further extensions when women and children could also be relocated from the hospital.
\nIn 1864 the government proposed relocating the hospital to Bowen Bridge Road. The hospital committee considered this move a prime opportunity to officially separate the institutions. Following a visit to the asylum, Colonial Secretary Robert Herbert agreed with the suggestion, but on reflection, considered a separate building constructed on the hospital site could be used to house the asylum. The hospital committee disagreed and objected to the proposal resulting in Herbert arranging for the benevolent asylum to be housed by the immigration department.
\nIn 1865, under the control of the Immigration Department, the benevolent asylum was transferred to the old quarantine station at Dunwich, North Stradbroke. The government considered this a temporary relocation, however, the asylum remained at Dunwich until its closure in 1947. Following years of debate between the hospital and state government concerning the responsibility of the asylum, the Colonial Secretary assumed complete control of the facility in 1867 and established an administration which lasted until 1947. However, the government considered asylum inmates responsible for their own condition and as such the asylum was low on the government priority list and funds were administered begrudgingly.
\nDunwich became a repository for the male and female pauper population of Queensland including the old and infirm, the sick and disabled and the orphaned. The incredible mix of people meant the facility was overcrowded and difficult to manage. Coupled with poor funding and unqualified staff, asylum conditions were often appalling. During the depression years the asylum was in heavy demand for the unemployed an elderly who could no longer be cared for by their families. The asylum was now populated with able bodied people, and the administration developed a plan to create in house work which would help support the facility. This prompted the Brisbane Courier at the time to pose the question 'asylum or workhouse?'.
\nA site plan from 1913 illustrates the development of the expanding benevolent asylum at the time of its peak. The development quite obviously expanded the original quarantine station layout and was established on the high ground in a 'u' shape around a lower lying open community space (now the public reserve) which fronted the beach. The asylum at this point included a police station and lock up, visitor centre, public hall, ancillary service buildings, ward buildings, tent accommodation and recreational facilities. Early structures were constructed of timber however later buildings such as the bakery, kitchen, laundry and men's mess hall were constructed of brick.
\nIn 1947 the institution was officially closed as a result of overcrowding and deteriorating health conditions. Over its eighty years the asylum admitted and readmitted 21, 000 people. The institution was then transferred to the old RAAF base at Sandgate, and renamed 'Eventide'. Dunwich was then opened up to government land sales and mining of mineral sand resources. Ward buildings were sold and either relocated on site or to the mainland. More substantial brick structures were demolished. The parcel of land which once formed the community space was gazetted by the government in 1949 as a public reserve and since that time has stood as the community green space of the Dunwich Township.
\nThe development of North Stradbroke island as a popular holiday retreat and rich mineral sand mining resource has meant the barge landing facilities and surrounding area at Dunwich have undergone continual change since 1947. Despite the substantial development of Dunwich, the remnant structure of the benevolent asylum is still echoed in the current town layout.
\nSt Mark's Church
\nInitially church services at the asylum were held in Victoria Hall, the main assembly facility within the complex. This was rectified in 1907 when St Mark's church was constructed at the asylum. While the church was built for the Benevolent Asylum residents, it was not commissioned by the state government. The money to fund the church construction is reported to have been privately donated. The annual report to the Queensland Parliament for the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum for the year ending 1907 noted that, owing to the munificence of an anonymous donor, who takes a great personal interest in the poor, a small church is to be erected. The Church of England authorised the construction and part of the asylum site was leased from the government by the church.
\nLady Chelmsford, the wife of the Governor of Queensland at the time is reported to have donated the money for the construction of the church. In an address to the Queensland Women's Historical Society, Bonty Dickson, a long time resident of the island claimed that when Lady Chelmsford visited the Benevolent Asylum she was shocked and amazed to find that the inmates had no place of worship and so gave the money to build a church at Dunwich.
\nThe church was designed by the Diocesan Architect for the Church of England, Robin Dods. His tender books for October 1907 record the tender for the construction of the church being awarded to the builders Hall and Meyer for the sum of 273 pounds. Dods was an exceptionally talented and original architect, introducing to Queensland the \"formal and philosophical ideas of both the British Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian classicism.\" At the same time, he refined and re-worked common elements of traditional Queensland houses and methods of construction and his houses exhibited a common-sense and often innovative approach to designing for the sub-tropical climate. Dods produced an impressive and high quality body of work in Queensland including hospital, commercial and ecclesiastical buildings as well as many residences.
\nThe first chaplain of the church was Reverend W Richner who was appointed in an honorary capacity, representing the City and Dunwich and St Helena Mission. After the Benevolent asylum closed the church continued to be used by local residents. In 1973 the building was condemned by the Redland Shire Council as it was considered structurally unsound. However the Stradbroke residents united to raise funds to carry out emergency repair works and save the church from demolition. In 1977 the Archbishop of Brisbane the Reverend Dr F. R. Arnott held a service of thanks at St Mark's to celebrate the event. Since that time a series of conservation works have been carried out on the church .
\nDunwich Public Hall
\nDunwich Public Hall located at the corner of Junner Street and Ballow Road, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island, was constructed in 1913. Formerly the men's mess hall at the Benevolent Asylum, the building was ordered and funded by the Queensland government. Department of Public Works Tender records confirm that tenders for the proposed works were received at the Department of Public works on Friday 7 March 1913. The contractor selected to carry out the works is noted as Graham and Speering.
\nThe mess hall was located centrally within the asylum along with the kitchen, laundry and stores. Goods received from the mainland were transported to the mess hall and other buildings by a horse drawn tram system. This tram system was also used to transport food in huge pannikins from the kitchen, located approximately 200 yards away, to the mess hall. Consequently, food was often served cold which was a point of much debate amongst the inmates.
\nThe hall seated 400 single men and had provision for a servery and scullery at one end. The walls were partially lined with tiles for hygiene purposes and the clerestorey windows and large side windows ventilated the large room and flooded the space with natural light. Head attendants were said to supervise the meals which were served by inmate labour. After 1913 the building was extended to include a boiler room which provided hot water to the kitchen wash up troughs. It is reported that during WWII the floor of the hall was removed and an air raid shelter dug into the floor.
\nMost of the buildings associated with the asylum were relocated or demolished with the closure of the facility in 1947. The mess hall however survived this period and has since been used as the Dunwich Public Hall. During that period the building has remained remarkably intact with the only significant building additions being the enclosure of part of the verandah to accommodate toilets and the construction of an interior stage. Most recently the earlier verandah enclosure was removed and new toilet facilities established in a separate building connected to the hall by way of a timber battened breezeway.
","criteria":"St Mark's Anglican Church and the Dunwich Public Hall are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queenslands history, being surviving buildings of the former Benevolent Asylum.
|The places demonstrate rare aspects Queensland's cultural heritage being surviving intact examples of the type of buildings that were once part of the only nineteenth century Benevolent Asylum in Queensland.
|The places demonstrate rare aspects Queensland's cultural heritage being surviving intact examples of the type of buildings that were once part of the only nineteenth century Benevolent Asylum in Queensland.
|The establishment and administration of the Benevolent Asylum illustrates the social policies adopted by the Queensland Government of the late Nineteenth and first early part of the Twentieth century to deal with those elderly, sick or disabled members of society who were unable to care for themselves.
|The buildings are important for their aesthetic significance. St Mark's Anglican Church exhibits outstanding architectural quality and has significance as a surviving intact example of the ecclesiastical work of important Queensland architect Robert S.(Robin) Dods. Whilst modestly detailed, the Dunwich Public Hall is an evocative structure which is prominent on entry to Dunwich.
|As surviving remnants of the Benevolent Asylum both buildings have a strong social association with past inmates of the asylum and their families. Since the closure of the asylum in 1947, St Mark's Anglican Church has remained a place of worship and the former Men's Mess Hall has been used as the Dunwich Public Hall. Accordingly, both buildings have important social associations with the Anglican congregation of Dunwich and the broader Dunwich and North Stradbroke community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15934,"place_ref":601167,"name":"University of Queensland Medical School","alternate_name":"Mayne Medical School","street_address":"288 Herston Road","suburb":"HERSTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"Opened in 1939, the University of Queensland Medical School is an imposing, three-storey, red facebrick building in a Renaissance style occupying a commanding position on the northern ridge of a sloping triangular-shaped site of over six acres in Herston Road, Brisbane adjacent to the western boundary of the Royal Brisbane Hospital.
Approached by a steep driveway from Herston Road, a wide sweep of concrete stairs arrives at the main pedimented, temple-front portico entrance containing six giant order columns in a Doric order sitting on a rusticated base of arches framing the porch entrance. Two large decorative bronze lamps flank the central arch entrance to the portico which is marked by a large scroll keystone lettered above with the words "University of Queensland". A single range, the building is symmetrical about this entrance and rests on a rendered rusticated base, has regular bays of plain, flat-arched sash windows with rendered sills to each level and an entablature containing large mutules over a plain frieze containing the lettering "The Medical School". The tympanum contains a carved stone shield. A solid parapet above the cornice screens the accommodation on the flat roofs.
The rear elevation is symmetrical about a projecting broken pedimented entrance dominated by the lift tower which is emphasised by relieved rendered quoining. A small flight of concrete steps flanked by freestanding decorative wrought iron lamps arrives at the entrance porch which is sheltered by a moulded concrete awning supported by large console brackets. Repetitive rhythmic detailing of flat arched timber sash windows to this elevation gives it a stark presence to the street. The elevation is disrupted by the later flights of open metal fire stairs to the east and west ends.
The building is crowned with a 12-segment copper roofed dome over the central portico entrance block. The former flat roof to the east now accommodates offices, additional office and research accommodation has been erected to the west flat roof and both areas are now roofed with copper sheeted low pitched gable roofs.
Two open light wells to each side of the central entrance block ventilate and light adjacent offices, the ground floor toilet areas and the rear corridor.
The building is organised by a single-loaded corridor to the rear, the main rooms are entered from the organising corridor and subsidiary rooms are accessed from transverse passages. The vertical rises are on axis with the main entrance.
The concrete landing of the portico entrance opens through a set of double timber panelled doors into a small lobby which opens into the main entrance hall. A doorbell button is located to the left of the lobby entrance doors within the portico. The lobby is decorated with carved timber work to the panelled door surrounds, has a decorative cut glass fanlight to the main timber panelled doors and rosette pateras to the each side of the fanlight. The floors to the lobby and entrance hall are finished with red, green and yellow terrazzo in geometric patterns and the walls are panelled with stained timber to picture rail height. A decorative elliptical arch marks the junction of the hall and the rear corridor. The inscription within the moulded plaster architrave reads "CUM PIETATE ET SANCTITATE HANC ARTEM MEAM PROFITEBOR". The ceiling is decorated with a plaster relief border of tied straight twigs.
The central stairwell weaves around the lift well and has terrazzo treads and landings and features a grooved silky oak handrail with scrolled ends. The original lift is encased within a decorative lattice metal cage and retains its original interior. The lift operator lever mechanism within the lift chamber has been dismantled.
The rear entrance lobby has a fine terrazzo floor in red, green and yellow, has stained timber wall panelling and features a timber and glass public telephone booth to the southwest corner.
The toilets to the ground and second floors retain fine terrazzo flooring and privacy screens.
Original terrazzo sills to former ground floor laboratory areas remain. The large timber sash windows to the perimeter of the building have generous timber sills to the interiors and provide substantial light to offices, laboratories and the rear corridor. Windows to the corridor and east and west elevation retain much of the original blue-green tinted anti-actinic glazing.
The committee room to the southwest corner of the second floor retains original timber panelling and is now an office.
The library on the first floor has been altered and is now a meeting room with adjacent offices and catering area. This area opens onto the southern balcony, which affords sweeping views across Victoria Park, Victoria Park Golf Course, Queensland University of Technology Kelvin Grove Campus and over towards Gregory Terrace and beyond to Mt Coot-tha. Shelving and display cupboards from the ground floor have been relocated to the former library. The doors to the balcony have a shallow external awning supported by decorative consoles and are flanked by bronze torch globe lamps. The balcony is defined by the giant order columns separated by decorative wrought iron balustrading. Both sets of doors to the former library have decorative leadlight glazing panels and fanlights.
The first floor laboratory remains in use as a teaching laboratory and retains original display and storage cupboards. The benches have been altered and the internal space diminished by the insertion of a false ceiling and servicing.
The original double wall containing service ducts and wiring with sliding access door to the top remains to each floor.
The grassed and tree planted slopes to each side of the main driveway from Herston Road enhance the impressive elevated siting of the School and establish a dramatic forestage for viewing the School from Herston Road, Bramston Terrace and beyond while providing a shady retreat for hospital visitors, students and School and Hospital personnel.
A fence of solid shaped concrete piers with decorative wrought iron balustrading runs along the boundary to Weightman Street with sets of decorative wrought iron gates to the pedestrian entrance on the upper terrace and the garage entrance at the lower end. The grounds to the rear of the building are formed into two lawn terraces separated by a substantial retaining wall with a flight of concrete stairs. There are clipped lawns and round garden beds planted with roses to the upper terrace and a number of shade trees to each terrace . Planted edge gardens flank the path from Weightman Street to the rear entrance. A laneway at basement level provides access to the ground floor motor room.
","history":"A monumental, three-storey, red facebrick building in a Renaissance idiom occupying a ridge adjacent to the Royal Brisbane Hospital and overlooking Victoria Park at Herston, the Medical School was opened by the Premier of Queensland, Hon. W. Forgan Smith, on 11 August 1939.
The establishment of the University of Queensland Medical School was a significant moment for the State of Queensland and for the medical profession.
There were earnest attempts to form a medical school for Queensland over many decades. During the 1870s and 1880s medical personnel from the Brisbane Hospital and the British Medical Association in Queensland advocated the establishment of a medical school. In 1893 the President of the Queensland Medical Society renewed calls for the establishment of a university and a faculty of medicine. In 1913, in the early days of the newly formed University of Queensland, there were further pleas for a medical school.
In 1935, the Forgan Smith Government appointed a committee to investigate proposals to create a Faculty of Medicine within the University. When the Faculty of Medicine was established, the Government agreed to fund the building of a medical school despite the committee recommendation that make-shift provisions for accommodation were to be preferred to further delay in its establishment. "...the Government, after due consideration, decided to provide buildings worthy of the new venture". Recognised as the founders of the Faculty of Medicine, ES Jackson, EJ Goddard, JV Duhig and ES Meyers were instrumental in convincing the Government to fund the construction of the Medical School.
ES Meyers was an ardent campaigner for the establishment of a Medical School for Queensland and was actively involved in medical education throughout his professional life. He initiated the first postgraduate courses for medicine in Queensland, was instrumental in the formation of an Anatomy School, became the first licensed anatomist in Queensland, was actively engaged in the establishment of the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Queensland and was member of the first Faculty of Dentistry. Meyers, second Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1942 to 1955, presided over an era of significant change and in this founding role is recognised for his major contribution to the establishment and development of medical education in Queensland. The galleried lecture theatre in the Medical School has been named the ES Meyers Lecture Theatre in his honour.
The importance of medical research, particularly into tropical medicine, was a significant impetus for the establishment of the Medical School. Work undertaken by Dr Raphael Cilento on leptospiral disease among cane cutters had a significant impact on Premier Forgan Smith and was instrumental in convincing him of the need for Queensland to train its own doctors and provide specialist training in tropical medicine. Professor E Goddard, Professor of Biology in the University of Queensland, had a professional interest in tropical biology and campaigned for research and training in tropical health and urged the establishment of faculties in Medicine and Veterinary Science to facilitate such work.
The Forgan Smith Government was a major force in the expansion of the University and the construction of the Medical School was part of the building program initiated by the Government within the overall development of the University of Queensland. Forgan Smith demonstrated a particular interest in the establishment of a Medical School, recognising its importance for the practice of medicine in the State and as a prestigious project within his Government's building program. Together with the provision of hospitals and maternity clinics; dental clinics and the Dental Hospital and College; the Medical School was part of the Government's commitment to providing universal health care to Queensland. The importance to the Government of the establishment of the Medical School is clear in this comment by EM Hanlon, Minister for Health and Home Affairs, at the commencement of construction:
Queensland had a wonderful future... For a community, the building up of a university and a faculty (of Medicine) were of supreme importance... the Government could be proud that they had brought a complete university into practical politics... Mr Hanlon said the building (Medical School) would be well in keeping with the purpose for which it was being erected. It would not only be adequate, but would be of a dignified character.
Comment about the new Medical School included
as a feature of architectural dignity and importance the new Medical School, erected by the State Public Works Department, provides a most interesting study to all those interested in the development of Brisbane.
The Medical School was constructed during an intensive public works building program undertaken by the Forgan Smith Labor Government in Queensland during the 1930s to counter the effects of the Depression. Design responsibility for the Medical School was assigned to Raymond Clare Nowland, an architect in the Department of Public Works (DPW). Raymond Clare Nowland joined the architectural office of the DPW in November 1932 where he became a senior architect in 1938. He produced the most significant buildings of his career between 1932 and 1942 including the University of Queensland Medical School, Herston (1939); Brisbane Dental Hospital and College (1941) (QHR 601909); Police Barracks, Petrie Terrace (1942); Cairns Government Offices (1935) (QHR 600376); Rockhampton Police Court (QHR 600795); Toowoomba Police Station (QHR 601710); and Maryborough Government Offices (QHR 600713).
This design for the Medical School was developed after extensive consultation with members of the Faculty of Medicine and research into the design and operation of medical schools and colleges in America. The design was based on the model for medical education advocated by the Rockefeller Foundation which emphasised laboratory training in the basic medical sciences and use of hospitals for clinical training. The planning of the Medical School, with its specialist laboratories and proximity to the General Hospital, reflects this approach .
The first sketch plans for the proposed Medical School were prepared by Nowland in February 1936. A modest, three-storey, brick and concrete building "in an adaption of the Romanesque style" accommodating teaching spaces for an envisioned 150 students was sited on the northern part of the site adjacent to the Brisbane General Hospital with the main entrance to Weightman Street. This design was rejected by the Faculty of Medicine who suggested that "a simple Greek front with double columns on either side of the main entrance porch would give the building a more dignified and characteristic appearance and would look better and more striking from a distance". New sketch plans were prepared for a much larger scheme "for a three-storey building of brick, concrete and steel structure with flat roofs in the Renaissance Style" again to the rear of the site but with the main entrance to Herston Road. The School was constructed to this design except that the lantern roof was replaced with a dome. The building has been planned to accommodate further wings to each end.
The monumentality and civic grandeur given to the Medical School reflect the importance of the building to the Government, to the University of Queensland and to the medical profession.
When the building opened the ground floor contained: the main hall; main office; various laboratories and associated facilities including a mortuary. The library, laboratories, lecture rooms, associated offices and equipment rooms occupied the first floor. The second floor accommodated the main galleried lecture theatre, museum, two laboratories and associated support rooms. An animal house stood on the flat roof to the west. Consideration had been given to the provision of services and use of suitable materials to facilitate the effective operation of the building. All windows except those on the south-east were glazed with anti-actinic glass of a soft bluish-green to counteract the glare and reduce heat transmission. Other services and fittings included sound-proofing, ventilating systems, refrigeration, stainless steel and chromium plated fittings, and specialised electrical and drainage systems. A double wall running the length of the building to the rear corridor houses horizontal and vertical service ducts. Furniture and fittings throughout the building are of Queensland timbers and were constructed in the Government's Ipswich Road Workshop.
There is finely crafted decorative work throughout the public spaces including stained timber panelling and decorative carved timber work to the entrance lobbies and hall, decorative plaster work to walls and ceilings, leadlight and cut glass work to doors and fanlights.
Since 1939, all medical students at the University of Queensland have passed beneath the decorative elliptical arch between main entrance hall and the rear corridor which bears the inscription articulating the philosophy upon which the School was established "cum pietate et sanctitate hanc artem meam profitebor" freely translated as "May all members of the general community profit by the art and skill of those who learn, with deference and respect, their profession in this place."
The building has been altered including refurbishment of the galleried lecture theatre, library, some offices and laboratory areas and the roof accommodation. An annexe has been constructed to the east with a direct connecting link to the Medical School and a research and teaching facility has been erected to the west separated from the School building by an open walkway. The exterior of the building is substantially intact. The alterations have diminished the interiors and distorted some internal spatial relationships but much original internal fabric remains including the main entrance hall and main office, the rear entrance porch and telephone booth, terrazzo flooring throughout the building including fine examples of terrazzo in the entrances, panelling, joinery including doors and windows, shelving, furniture, anti-actinic glazing to the windows and leadlight and cut glass decorative glazing to doors and fanlights. Although altered internally, the building retains overall spatial integrity and continues to function as a teaching and research facility for medical education in Queensland.
The Medical School has been associated with the training of medical graduates from the University of Queensland since 1939 and is recognised for its achievements in teaching, service and research. The School has exerted a significant influence on the teaching hospitals in Queensland and research groups associated with the School continue to make major contributions to medical science.
","criteria":"Opened in 1939 as the foundation building for the Faculty of Medicine, the University of Queensland Medical School is important in the development of medical education in Queensland and demonstrates the development of the Faculty of Medicine and the University of Queensland.
The Medical School is important for its association with the extensive public works building program of the Forgan Smith Government during the 1930s and in particular the Government's contribution to the development of the University of Queensland and public health services in Queensland.
The Medical School is one of the most notable buildings in the body of public buildings designed by the Department of Public Works in Queensland and one of an impressive suite of important educational buildings erected throughout Queensland designed in a classical idiom.
The Medical School is recognised for its achievements in teaching, service and research. The School has exerted a significant influence on the teaching hospitals in Queensland and research groups associated with the School continue to make major contributions to medical science.
|The University of Queensland Medical School is important as the only medical school in Queensland.
|The planning and siting of the building is important in demonstrating the adoption of the American model for training medical practitioners which advocated increased laboratory training in basic medical sciences and the use of hospitals for clinical training. The walking and visual links with the Herston Hospital Complex are important in maintaining this association.
|The Medical School has aesthetic and architectural significance. Occupying a commanding position on a triangular site of approximately 6 acres adjacent to the western boundary of the Royal Brisbane Hospital, this grand public building with its symmetrical massing and repetitive rhythmic detailing has a monumental street presence. The views to the place from adjacent properties and from Herston Road are important in maintaining the monumentality of the place. The place is important for the vistas it affords across Victoria Park, Victoria Park Golf Course and Queensland University of Technology Kelvin Grove Campus towards Gregory Terrace and west to Mt Coot-tha; and the sweeping vista and breathtaking views across the north of Brisbane.
The building has a substantially intact exterior and is important for its remaining fine rare interiors including the main entrance hall, the rear entrance hall, lift and liftwell, the central stairwell, toilets, joinery including doors and windows, architraves and skirtings, shelving, panelling, furniture, anti-actinic glazing to the windows, decorative leadlight and cut glass glazing to doors and fanlights. The arch within the main entrance hall is important for articulating the philosophical ideals upon which the Medical School was established "CUM PIETATE ET SANCTITATE HANC ARTEM MEAM PROFITEBOR".
|The Medical School is important in the training of medical students and has a special association with medical students from the University of Queensland.
|The Medical School is important for its association with prominent medical practitioners and scientists including ES Meyers, ES Jackson, EJ Goddard, JV Duhig and R Cilento.
The Medical School is important for its association with the work of the architect Raymond Clare Nowland. The Medical School is one of the most notable buildings designed by Nowland, an architect of considerable talent working in the Department of Public Works during the period of extensive public works building in the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15935,"place_ref":601168,"name":"Fortitude Valley Police Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"119 Brookes Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"The Fortitude Valley Police Station, a two-storey, L-shaped building in red facebrick with contrasting imitation stone facings in cream cement render, is a striking presence to the corner of Brookes and Wickham Streets, Fortitude Valley. The prominent tiled hipped roof is interrupted at the street corner and building ends by high narrow parapets with relieved quoining. Built around a courtyard containing a lavatory block and garaging to the rear, the Station is distinguished by a rendered portico entrance below an electric clock and rendered arched timber sash window within the high narrow parapet to the corner and striking rendered arches with prominent scroll keystones to the ground floor timber sash windows to both elevations.
Single-height Doric columns flanked by rusticated pilasters beneath a dentilled cornice frame the main corner entrance portico which contains a set of terrazzo stairs and landing. The rusticated rendered arch with a prominent scroll keystone marks the side entrance portico to Wickham Street and is framed by rendered quoining to a high narrow parapet. Wrought iron ornamental grilles are provided to the ground floor street windows and ornamental iron gates to the arched vehicle entrance to Brookes Street. Overlooking Wickham Street from the first floor, an open porch framed by four half-height rendered Doric columns has an elegant, projecting oval balcony with decorative wrought iron balustrading. Bold brackets to lined roof eaves project over the plain flat arched sash windows to the first floor.
The narrow high triangular parapeted rear entrance is accessed from the courtyard from a door sheltered by a moulded concrete awning supported by consoles which sits beneath the large semi-circular window which lights the main stairwell.
The main corner entrance portico opens to a spacious main entrance lobby and hall around which the building hinges and from which central corridors run through each wing. Within the hinge, a dog leg timber stair connects to the first floor and a rear entrance opens to the courtyard beyond. The corridor to the Brookes Street wing opens to the vehicle laneway and the corridor to the Wickham Street wing terminates at a secondary dog leg timber stair. A side passage off this corridor connects via a battened gangway to the lavatory block in the rear courtyard.
The main entrance lobby, hall floors, Wickham Street side entrance lobby, stair treads and landings in both stairwells are in pale gold and white terrazzo with black terrazzo borders to the floors. Two large plaster rosette pateras lie to the upper corners of the main lobby to each side of the elliptical moulded arch with large scroll keystone which separates the lobby from the hall. This opening has now been glazed and contains a glazed security door. The main stair doglegs off the hall and has a grooved silky oak handrail and 6"x6" stop chamfered silky oak newels with sunk necking and domed caps. Ornamental consoles decorate the flat arched openings to the stairwell. The plaster ceilings to the lobby and hall are decorated with a border figure of tied bundles of straight twigs. The Wickham Street entrance stairwell has similar detailing but is narrower.
The offices on the ground floor are accessed from central corridors with semi-circular arched doorways to each end. The rooms retain their original spatial forms with some changes to doorways, some added internal glazing and refurbishment of tiling and fittings to the lavatory areas. The Constables' Day Room continues to be used for this purpose. The insertion of a mezzanine to the former Sergeant's clerks office has disrupted the form of this room. The dormitory accommodation on the first floor retains its spatial integrity and now accommodates offices and associated storage and interview rooms. The tilting fanlights to the bedrooms remain along with window and door joinery, architraves, skirtings, picture rails, fibrous cement ceilings with timber cover strips. The recreation room is now a locker room and opens to the balcony overlooking Wickham Street. The balcony has a concrete floor, decorative wrought iron balustrading and four half-height Doric columns. The balcony affords views across to Holy Trinity Church and associated grounds.
The rear courtyard contains the lavatory block and a two vehicle garage. A retaining wall separates the yard from the adjacent police carparking area which looks onto the former Fortitude Valley State School. This carparking area adjacent to the School was used as a playground by pupils attending the former Fortitude Valley State School until the 1940s.
","history":"Opened on 6 July 1936, the Fortitude Valley Police Station is a striking, two-storeyed red facebrick building with contrasting imitation stone dressings to arched entrances and window surrounds on the corner of Brookes and Wickham Streets, Fortitude Valley.
From the 1850s there was a spread of urban settlement into Fortitude Valley and the area quickly became a thriving village. By the end of the 19th century Fortitude Valley had emerged as an important commercial and retail area with a number of substantial buildings and was a popular residential area. The area continued to expand during the early decades of the 20th century.
The Fortitude Valley Police Station replaced an earlier station in Church Street when the area was elevated to the status of a police district in 1934 and the existing police station in Church Street was declared "quite inadequate for such an important quarter of the city." At the official opening the new station was described as the "finest, most up-to-date, and most comfortable police station in Queensland." The Station provided an entrance lobby and offices on the ground floor for the Inspector of Police and Clerks, Sergeant of Police and Clerk, Records, Station Sergeant's office, Constables and Non-Commissioned Officers' day rooms, plain and uniform Enquiry staff rooms with interrogating rooms, Paymaster and Enquiry rooms; dormitory accommodation, recreation rooms and sitting rooms, married and single men's messes, kitchen and lavatory and bathing facilities on the first floor; a lavatory block connected to the rear of the main building by a battened gangway; and garage to the rear corner of the courtyard. The dormitory was designed to provide commodious accommodation for single constables and were cross ventilated with tilting fanlights to each room. The building has been in continuous use as a police station since its construction.
With changes to police work practices the building has been altered on a number of occasions since 1962. The first floor dormitory accommodation has been adapted for use as office accommodation for the CIB, Records, interviewing rooms and intelligence data recording.
Glazed panels and door have been inserted within the elliptical arch between the main entrance lobby and the main hall; toilet and shower facilities have been refurbished; dropped ceilings have been inserted in some areas; plant for air conditioning and computers inserted; and an office mezzanine inserted within the former Sergeant's Clerks Office. The exterior of the building is substantially intact and much original interior fabric survives including window and door joinery; fibrous cement ceilings with timber cover strips; decorative plaster ceilings; plaster and timber skirtings and architraves; timber picture rails; decorative elliptical arch between the lobby and hall; terrazzo floors to the main entrance lobby and main hall; the main and subsidiary stair cases with terrazzo treads and landings, silky oak handrails and newels, decorative wrought iron balustrading and decorative consoles to the flat arched approaches to the stairwells. Formerly stained and varnished, the timber panelling to the walls throughout the public areas, cover strips to the fibrous cement ceilings, timber architraves, cornices and picture rails are now painted. The integrity and spatial relations of the internal planning remain.
The main entrance stair was an important component of the building and the french polishing section of the building specification referring to the stair handrails, newels and panelling states that "great care to be taken to show off the timber and panels to best advantage".
The Fortitude Valley Police Station is a landmark structure within a precinct of community service buildings including the Fortitude Valley Swimming Baths, former Fortitude Valley State School (QHR 602136), present Fortitude Valley State School, Holy Trinity Church (QHR 600202) and Holy Trinity Rectory (QHR 600201).
Designed by Raymond Clare Nowland, an architect in the Department of Public Works (DPW), the Fortitude Valley Police Station was constructed during an intensive public works building program undertaken by the Forgan Smith Labor Government in Queensland during the 1930s to counter the effects of the Depression.
Raymond Clare Nowland joined the architectural office of the DPW in November 1932 where he became a senior architect in 1938. He produced the most significant buildings of his career between 1932 and 1942 including the University of Queensland Medical School, Herston (1939); Brisbane Dental Hospital and College (1941) (QHR 601909); Police Barracks, Petrie Terrace (1942); the Cairns Government Offices (1935) (QHR 600376), the Rockhampton Police Court (QHR 600795), Toowoomba Police Station (QHR 601710) and Maryborough Government Offices (QHR 600713). Nowland undertook architectural studies at the Sydney Technical College (1911-14) and the Architectural Association School London (1919). In private practice from 1926-32, he undertook a range of domestic and commercial commissions including the Brisbane Clinic, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane (1930) (QHR 600171). His preference for designing within a restrained classicism reflects his architectural training, the prevailing professional architectural attitudes and the design direction given by the Chief Architect, A.B. Leven. Along with many British Empire architects of the 1930s, Leven and Nowland shared a respect for simplicity, order and rational planning which in his public work enabled Nowland to make a notable contribution to the architectural fabric of Queensland towns and cities.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1936, the Fortitude Valley Police Station was the second purpose-built police station erected on the police reserve. The prominent siting, scale and form of this distinctive L-shaped building to the corner of Brookes and Wickham Streets demonstrate the emerging importance of Fortitude Valley as an urban centre and the development of law and order services in the district. The Station provides evidence of the evolution of the role of police and police stations in a major urban district illustrating the decreasing importance of the provision of a supporting accommodation function to the establishment of the Station as an official base for extended police operations.
|The site has had a continuous association with law enforcement activities since 1889 and the present Fortitude Valley Police Station has been operating as a police station for the Fortitude Valley district since 1936. The place is a fine example of the planning of a 1930s police station with barracks though the barracks are now adapted for use as offices.
|A striking, L-shaped, two-storeyed, red facebrick building with contrasting rendered dressings, the Fortitude Valley Police Station is a landmark building on a busy arterial road and forms an integral part of an important group of community service buildings within the area. A prominent public building, the Station provides a strong civic presence and contributes to the streetscape. The careful detailing, use of materials and thoughtful composition illustrate competency in design and workmanship.
The Fortitude Valley Police Station is important for its intact exterior and for its surviving interiors particularly the main entrance lobby, hall and main stair.
The Fortitude Valley Police Station is an integral component within the picturesque precinct of ecclesiastical, recreational, law enforcement and educational buildings and associated grounds formed by the Holy Trinity Church (EHR600202), Holy Trinity Rectory (EHR201), Valley Swimming Baths, former Fortitude Valley State School (EHR602136) and present Fortitude Valley State School.
|The Fortitude Valley Police Station has a special association with Queensland Police, demonstrating the evolution of work practices and the changing nature of the lifestyle associated with police work in a major urban district.
The Fortitude Valley Police Station is important for its association with the extensive public works building program undertaken by the Forgan Smith Government throughout Queensland during the 1930s. The place is an important building within the body of work produced by the Department of Public Works in the first half of the 20th century. The Fortitude Valley Police Station is important for its association with the architect Raymond Clare Nowland. The building is one of the most notable structures designed by Nowland, an architect of considerable talent working in the Department of Public Works during the period of extensive public works building in the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15936,"place_ref":601171,"name":"Scott Street Flats","alternate_name":"Scott House","street_address":"2 Scott Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"Scott Street Flats is a two storey, timber and masonry Tudor Revival building located overlooking the Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point. The building contains two flats, each occupying a full floor with identical floorplans. Almost square in plan, the building has a pyramid shaped, terracotta tiled roof with overhanging eaves. It is constructed of red face brick at ground level and has a half timbered appearance at upper level, achieved through the use of fibro-cement cladding with timber cover strips. The plain exterior of the building is simply elaborated with arched brick openings at ground floor level, small panels of timber lattice and a timber corbel between the two floors. The western elevation facing the river has four faceted bay windows and downpipes with prominent rainwater heads at each end.
Entry to the flats is on the eastern side of the building. Timber stairs lead to an upper level entry porch enclosed in timber lattice. A similar enclosure is located under the stairs, providing access to the ground floor flat.
The front door opens into an antechamber which narrows to become a hallway. To the left of the front door is a small door opening from the former maid's room. The hallway terminates in a vestibule, shaped as a square on 45 degrees, with doors on each of the four sides leading into various rooms. To the left is the kitchen and dining room, to the right, the sitting room and second bedroom. The main bedroom and bathroom are located off the hallway. An enclosed porch is found on the northern side of the bedrooms, connected by half glass, French doors. A service area and back stairs are located on the southern side of the kitchen and bathroom and provides access between the former maid's room, bathroom and kitchen.
There are timber floors and linoleum throughout and interior walls and ceilings are lined with fibro-cement with timber mouldings. The sitting room and dining room have a narrow plate rail and the ceilings are decorated with a simple grid of flat timber cover moulding. Some early light fittings and linoleum remain. There are generous amounts of built-in storage in all rooms. An entire wall of the kitchen contains a variety of cupboards, drawers and pantry spaces. One set of drawers operates in both directions between the kitchen and adjacent dining room. These drawers sit within a carefully designed storage unit of timber and glass that faces into the dining room.
Windows throughout are generally multi-paned casement windows and doors are timber with three panels and high mid rails, with original hardware throughout. Multi-paned, glass French doors are located between the dining room and sitting room and between the sitting room and porch. The bathroom and kitchen have timber ventilation panels, original features such as a cast iron, claw foot bath and porcelain enamel sinks and a painted concrete floor. A laundry is located in the southern garden at the back of the building and contains concrete sinks and galvanised iron water storage.
","history":"The Scott Street Flats, a two storey building of masonry and timber built in c1925 for Professor and Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart was designed by Elina Mottram, a pioneer woman architect in Queensland. The building is located in Kangaroo Point, close to the river and overlooking the Town Reach to the central business district of Brisbane city. The block is an amalgamation of two allotments that were once part of the Wesleyan Church Reserve of 1850. Mrs Zina Cumbrae-Stewart purchased the land in 1913. Upon her death in 1956, the property passed to her son Francis who is still registered as the owner.
Both Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart and her husband Frank (Francis) were prominent and active citizens of Brisbane early in the century. Frank Cumbrae-Stewart was a barrister and King's Counsel and was appointed the foundation registrar and librarian of the new University of Queensland in 1910. Among his numerous involvements, he was a founder and president of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland and a founder and trustee of the Oxley Library. Historical papers he authored included histories of the Brisbane River, Brisbane bridges and surveyors of the Queensland coast. In 1926 he became Garrick Professor of Law at the University of Queensland.
Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart was equally active. A deeply committed evangelical Anglican, she was an executive member of the Australian Red Cross in Queensland for twenty-two years, was an original member of the Mother's Union and its president for nine years and president of the National Council of Women of Queensland for nine years. She helped found the Queensland Social Service League in 1931 to cope with problems related to the Depression. Other societies she was involved with included the Mothercraft Association, the Traveller's Aid Society and the Shakespeare Society. Zina Cumbrae-Stewart was the first woman to speak from the platform of the Brisbane City Hall and had early involvement in educational broadcasting.
The Cumbrae-Stewarts moved from Taringa to Kangaroo Point sometime around 1914-15. In 1917-18, the Cumbrae-Stewarts moved to 283 Main Street, a large house located on the corner of Main and Scott Streets, adjacent to the site of the Scott Street Flats, which were constructed sometime in 1925. The flats were occupied from about 1926, the first listing to appear was a Lesley Backhouse. The Cumbrae-Stewarts resided at 283 Main Street until 1930. They then moved to the flats, which became known as "Scott House". In 1936 Professor Cumbrae-Stewart retired and the couple re-located to Melbourne where Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart was born and both had been educated.
State Government legislation of 1920 that increased the rating powers of local government and resulted in a doubling of general rates may have provided the impetus for the Cumbrae-Stewarts to develop their block. Many of the large 1880s houses of the inner city suburbs were being converted into flats to address the housing shortages in Brisbane in the 1920s. The Queensland Magazine of May 1925 reported that in Kangaroo Point there were "many beautiful homes still occupied by tenants who have no desire to cut up their gardens to make room for small villas" but that "some very modern flats have sprung up". It was an enterprising move on the part of Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart to build the flats with the dual purpose of investment and providing a convenient home for her husband and herself in their latter years.
In the article "Women Architects and Victorian Modern: 1930-1960", Sarah Schoffel points out that women who were first to enter the architectural profession were restricted in their ability to attract clients, especially in the corporate sector - "women did not have access to the mysterious but often profitable workings of the 'old boy network'." Women did, however, begin to develop their own associations, Schoffel writes "there is also a likelihood that as women architects became more senior they formed connections with other influential women, particularly those involved in welfare and church work, through their membership of the various Melbourne Women's Clubs." We can assume that it was connections such as these that brought Zina Cumbrae-Stewart and Elina Mottram together as client and architect in the mid 1920s. Certainly, Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart was a member of the Lyceum Club in Brisbane and it appears that she took responsibility for most of the family's financial dealings.
Elina Mottram was born in 1903. The only child of building contractor Arthur Mottram, she had early encouragement to become an architect. In 1924, she was the first woman in Brisbane to open her own architectural practice. The Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland reported:
Brisbane has at last a lady architect, in the person of Miss Elina Mottram, of Nundah, who has commenced the practice of her professional in the T and G Building. We offer congratulations on her recent successes at the Technical College and trust that she will get her fair share of support.
She was fortunate to establish her practice during the pre-Depression building boom in Brisbane. Domestic commissions formed the basis of her early work but she went on to have a long and varied career in architecture. In fact, of the small group of nine pioneering women architects in Queensland (that is, those practising before World War II), Mottram was the only one to pursue her architectural career for the full length of her working life.
She taught Building Construction at the Brisbane Central Technical College and from 1926 was a sole practitioner in the central western Queensland town of Longreach. In Longreach she designed a number of houses and public buildings including the Masonic Temple and Longreach Motors, and re-modelled the AWU Hall and the School of Arts. In 1937 she was in partnership with her father in Rockhampton as "A. and E. Mottram. Contractor and Architect". One of their major jobs was the Longreach Hospital and in 1940, she was "foreman" of works on the first stage of construction of this building which was designed by Hall and Phillips. During the Second World War she worked as a draftswoman in the American Army Engineering Office in Rockhampton. Later as a Queensland Railways architect she designed the new railway station at Eagle Junction. A residence in Corinda and the Scott Street Flats are the only known remaining intact examples of her work in Brisbane.
The 1920s saw an increasing number of purpose-built flats erected in inner Brisbane. Tender notices in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland indicate that the number of new flats being constructed grew steadily in the early to mid 1920s, reaching record levels in 1929. The economic depression of the early 1930s brought a halt to flat-building activities, which began to recover again in the mid 1930s. 1933-36 was the boom time for flat construction in Brisbane. The Scott Street Flats are an early example of purpose-designed flats and reflect the interwar preference for Old English or Tudor Revival and Spanish/Mediterranean design themes.
Purpose-designed flats introduced a range of new domestic features, some of which are evident in the Scott Street flats. The amount of built-in storage is a significant feature - the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms are all equipped with sensibly detailed, space efficient units. A maid's bedroom was a feature of many of the more prestigious flats. The Scott Street flats are carefully planned to enable back-of-house movement between bathroom, kitchen, laundry and maid's room on the Southern side of the building whilst maintaining formal living spaces and bedrooms orientated to the North and to city and river views. The two-way drawers and narrow door from maid's room to entry hall are features that allowed the residents to maintain their genteel lifestyles in the new domestic environment of a flat.
","criteria":"Scott Street Flats, a two storey building of masonry and timber built in c1925, is historically important for its association with the entry of women into the professions in Queensland, particularly into the architectural profession.
Scott Street Flats is important in demonstrating the interwar residential development of Brisbane when flats appeared in inner-city suburbs, increasing the density and diversity of the city's housing stock.
|Scott Street Flats demonstrate rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as there are few surviving intact examples of the work of pioneer woman architects in Queensland.
|The building has aesthetic significance as a well designed example of an early purpose-built flats building in the Tudor Revival style.
|The Scott Street Flats have a special association with the work of Elina Mottram, the first woman to open her own architectural practice in Brisbane and Queensland's longest practising woman architect.
The Scott Street Flats also have an association with Professor and Mrs Cumbrae-Stewart, prominent citizens of Brisbane in the 1910s, 20s and 30s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15937,"place_ref":601172,"name":"Aramac Tramway Museum","alternate_name":"Aramac Tramway Station","street_address":"Boundary Street","suburb":"ARAMAC","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"The principal elements of the Tramway Museum are the goods shed, six other buildings, other structures and relics of the Tramway, rolling stock, the local history collection housed in the goods shed, and machinery and vehicles in the open air.
\nGoods Shed
\nThe most substantial relic of the tramway is the goods shed, built at the time the line opened in 1913, and used for the entire period it operated. The goods shed is rectangular in plan, about 30 metres long and 10 metres wide. It is timber-framed with a corrugated iron roof, and clad with chamferboards externally. The roof is unlined, and there is an air gap of about 20 centimetres between the roof and the tops of the side walls. The interior walls have been lined with opened-out wool bales, displaying the station brands of the Aramac district that once travelled on the tramway. The interior of the building is quite dark, lit only by the doorway, some fluorescent lights on the overhead beams, and a small amount of light that comes in over the tops of the side walls. On the railway side of the goods shed, a concrete platform four metres wide runs the entire length of the building, and extends 10 metres further at the southern end.
\nThe interior of the goods shed is dominated by the railmotor 'Aunt Emma', which is positioned in a cage of steel pipe and wire mesh running down the central axis of the building. As the cage is about three metres wide and 24 metres long, it leaves little space inside the building. Around the railmotor cage is a corridor a little more than a metre wide, fenced on both sides. Historical material is displayed between the fenced corridor and the walls of the goods shed.
\nAt the northern end of the goods shed, an area three metres wide running the width of the building has been set up as the Tramway Office, with a safe, desks and cupboards, some from the goods shed and some removed from the demolished railway station. Most of the collection in this area is directly relevant to the tramway: there are original tickets, waybills, reports. rubber stamps, and some important memorabilia preserved from the tramway closure, including a handwritten feltpen notice advising: \"Due to the closure of this tramway all goods and parcels will have to be collected from goods shed, office and railway wagons before 4.00 pm Wednesday 31-12-75\". On the wall is a photocopy of the cheque from the Australian Sugar Producers Association for $262 400, dated 10 June 1976. There are some historic photographs of the tramway on display, and two interpretation signs, one about the closure and one about 'Aunt Emma'. There are also rate assessment books and other Council documents on display in this area.
\nHoused along the walls on the other three sides of the goods shed is a general collection of historical material, very little of which is connected with the Aramac tramway. There are a wide range of household items, including clothing, chinaware, shaving gear, electrical appliances, musical instruments, typewriters, slide projectors, gramophones, sewing machines, trophies, and a large collection of glass bottles. There is a telephone exchange, workshop tools, stock bells, a wool press, a wheelchair, rocks pumps and watering cans. A number of books, photographs, medals and smaller items are housed in a glass case near the entrance. Several books are lying loose, some of general interest such as a home medical textbook, others of great relevance and value to the tramway such as an original manual for the railmotor's Gardner diesel engine.
\nOther buildings
\nThere are six other buildings on the site, but not all are related to the tramway, and only two are buildings that existed on their present sites while the tramway was functioning. The locomotive shed at the very end of the line is the second or perhaps third shed in that position. This very small steel-framed corrugated iron clad building dates from the tramway's last years of operation, and was probably built in 1958 to house the first diesel locomotive. The doorway appears to have been rather crudely raised in height, suggesting that the second diesel engine may have been slightly higher.
\nThe cold store is the only other surviving building of the tramway station complex. A small building clad partly in asbestos cement sheeting and partly in corrugated iron, it was built in the 1950s and stands near the southern end of the station platform. It is still in use as a Council-owned public facility for storing refrigerated goods.
\nParallel to the goods shed on roughly the former alignment of the main line is an open shelter shed, consisting of a low-pitched gabled corrugated iron roof supported on tubular steel posts, enclosed with cyclone wire mesh. It houses a passenger carriage and two small motorised railcars.
\nNear the southern end of the shelter is a small toolshed or workshop, timber-framed and clad with corrugated iron, which houses a maintenance trolley, a blacksmith's forge and other tools. The trolley sits on a short section of track which runs at right angles to the main line.
\nBeside the shelter shed is a three-sided hut of corrugated iron on a bush timber frame, containing a wood stove and a bedframe.
\nAt the northern end of the goods shed, and the first building encountered by visitors entering the museum, is a police lockup, measuring about seven metres by three metres in plan. It is built of timber, weatherboard clad, and consists of two cells side by side with a narrow verandah in front. It was brought to the site from the Aramac police station.
\nOther Structures and Relics of the Tramway
\nOn the site of the demolished railway station, about 80 metres north of the goods shed, the concrete platform runs for about 45 metres alongside the alignment of the main line. The cold store stands near its southern end. At the northern end of the platform are a row of four lengths of steel rail put upright in the ground as posts. These marked the site of the taxi rank, and were to stop cars encroaching onto the pedestrian area of the passenger platform.
\nFurther north along the main line, near the locomotive shed, are the concrete foundations of the diesel fuel tank. There is no sign of the coal bins or the station master's house.
\nThe remains of the cattle yards are on a side line about 100 metres east of the station platform. There are modern yards on the site, but these are completely different in their layout from the tramway yards. A cattle dip was located to the south, of which a small section of the concrete floor and an intact drain remain. A few disturbed pieces of broken-up loading ramps are still on the site. Near the cattle yards there are some timber pieces of the railway station building lying loose, including the base of a 30 centimetre diameter post set in concrete.
\nThirty metres south of the goods shed and parallel with the goods line is the wool loading platform, a raised concrete-faced earth platform 45 metres long, nearly identical with the platform at the station building.
\nMidway between the goods shed and the wool platform is a steel gantry straddling the goods line.
\nFour hundred metres south of the goods shed, the main line crosses the two channels of Aramac Creek. There are two low bridges, each about 30 metres in length, built to a standard Queensland Railways trestle design. The rails have been removed, but the timber structure appears more or less intact, although not capable of supporting a load.
\nRolling Stock
\nThe Tramway Museum still has six intact rail vehicles on site, and the partial remains of two more. Pride of place in the collection is the railmotor 'Aunt Emma'. One passenger carriage is still attached to the engine carriage.
\nIn the open shelter shed is a timber passenger carriage which was designed to be hauled by a steam locomotive. Most of the seats had been removed when fittings for a mobile fettler's camp were installed. Two refrigerators remain.
\nThe Tramway Museum also has two Fairmont light motorised trolleys. One Fairmont is in the open shelter shed, the other in the enclosed toolshed.
\nAlso in the open shelter shed is an even smaller motorised track inspection car, barely big enough for two people. It is enclosed with a glass windscreen, and is equipped with a stretcher to act as an ambulance in emergencies.
\nAbandoned near the end of the main line outside the locomotive shed are the remains of Engine No 1 and its tender. The tender is reasonably intact, although missing its wheels and bogies, but the locomotive consists of simply the chassis and boiler mounts, with the boiler, cylinders and driving mechanism, wheels, bogies and cabin all missing.
","history":"The Aramac Tramway Museum was constructed as the Aramac Tramway Station in 1912-1913, funded by the Aramac Shire Council. It closed on 31 December 1975.
\nWhen Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, the new administration was quick to throw open land for grazing, and a great wave of pastoral settlement swept across western and northern Queensland in the early 1860s.
\nThe establishment of towns in the west soon followed, for example Tambo, Blackall and Aramac which developed as commercial centres to service the pastoral industry. Aramac Town Reserve was gazetted on 26 June 1869 and the first businesses were established in the town that same year. On 6 April 1880, local government commenced when the Aramac Divisional Board, established under the Divisional Boards Act 1879, held its first meeting in the Court House.
\nNineteenth century Queensland development was further influenced by the pattern of building railway lines west into the hinterlands from the major ports, first from near Brisbane in 1865, then the Central Line from Rockhampton in 1867 and the Great Northern Railway from Townsville in 1880. The Central Line reached Barcaldine in 1886 and was extended to Longreach in 1892. These towns were founded when the railway arrived, and had the immediate effect of taking business away from the nearby well-established towns of Aramac and Blackall.
\nThroughout Australia, the early twentieth century heralded a time of rapid railway expansion, and competition between towns for services was fierce. Aramac had first asked for a railway extension in 1896, without success. Ten years later, in 1906, a deputation of Aramac Councillors visited the Premier, William Kidston, seeking his support for the railway. It also failed. Despite these disappointing responses, the Aramac Shire Council persevered with their plans. In 1908 Council asked the State Treasury for a special loan of £1 375 to finance a survey of the route of the proposed line. With some reservation from the Railways Department, Council was granted its survey loan, and employed George Phillips to peg out the route from Aramac to Barcaldine. When the survey was completed, Council moved in March 1906 to borrow £66 500 to build the tramway. The State Railways Department responded by commissioning two reports on the best commercial link between the Central and Northern lines. The second of these recommended the shortest and least expensive method of connecting the lines was by the Longreach - Winton route, and the Railways Commissioner decided in favour of this route.
\nAlthough it was to be another eighteen years before the Longreach-Winton line opened, the Aramac Shire Council committed itself to the courageous decision to construct a tramway for which the Council would be financially responsible. In March 1911, Treasury approval was given for a loan to Aramac Shire Council to build the Barcaldine-Aramac tramway. George Phillips was appointed Engineer in charge of construction.
\nAnother question for Council was exactly where the tramway station was to be located. In June 1911 Council fixed the station site \"at the Eastern End of Gordon Street about 100 yards before the bore drain\". That point was to become the end of the track, where the locomotive shed was built; the station building was actually built about 200m to the south, near the end of McWhannell Street.
\nConstruction from the Central Line commenced at Lagoon Creek, a mile west of the Barcaldine railway station, on 14 February 1912. The construction standard that Phillips adopted was the minimum acceptable to the Queensland Railways Commissioner; although the tramway belonged to the Council, it needed to conform to Queensland Railways specifications because government rolling stock would be using it. The line was to be 3' 6\" gauge, with very light 42lb Moss Bay rails. For most of its length, the line had no ballast, with the sleepers simply laid on levelled earth. This was a technique Phillips had pioneered on the Croydon-Normanton railway, and while it was frowned on by most railway engineers, it was satisfactory under light loads on level going. As most of the route extended over open grassed plains, simply following the gentle rise and fall of the ground, there was very little earthwork to do. There were only about 12 bends on the line, one cutting and no embankments, and 24 wooden trestle bridges, most of them over small creeks. Because the route ran through grazing country, the whole line was stock-fenced.
\nDespite this cheap and simple construction, there were to be long delays in building the line. Only six miles of line had been laid by April 1912. Unusually heavy rain on the blacksoil plains held up progress, and the workers struck for higher pay. The late delivery of sleepers was a constant problem throughout the project. In August the line reached the halfway point, and on 12 September the 21 miles of track to Mildura siding were officially opened to traffic. These delays meant that construction expenses had been heavier than Phillip's estimates, and in November the money ran out. Council was forced to go to the State Treasury for another loan of £10 000 to complete the work. The total cost of the completed tramway was £88 983, one third more than Phillips' estimate.
\nBy May 1913 the bridges over Aramac Creek were being built, and the tramway was approaching town. Final preparations were underway as the construction phase neared completion. The station buildings were being built by O'Brien and Company, and a contract was signed with Blair Athol Coal Company for the supply of coal. Phillips was to be kept on as Supervising Engineer after the line opened. The first locomotive to work the line was already in use during the construction work. It was an elderly Avonside Engine Company B12, built in 1877, which had spent many years in Queensland Railways service as Engine No 31 before being purchased by Aramac Shire Council to become Aramac Tramway Engine No 1.
\nThe official opening of the tramway took place on 2 July 1913. It was expected that the work would be completed by then, but unseasonal rain had again delayed construction, so the line was still a few hundred metres short of its objective. As the date had been chosen to coincide with the festivities of the annual race meeting, the opening went ahead regardless. The ceremony was held at the end of the completed line, which at that time was between the two channels of Aramac. The Honourable William Paget, Minister for Railways, performed the opening.
\nDespite the official opening, there were still two more months of construction work ahead. Building the 41 mile line tool 19 months in all, and it was not until September 1913 that the bridge over Aramac Creek was completed, and the first train steamed into Aramac Tramway Station.
\nThe station at the Aramac terminus of the line was the place where passengers and goods from all over the district converged on departing trains, and dispersed from arriving ones. The activities at the tramway terminus were spread out over a distance of about 400 metres running up the eastern side of the town, with the three east-west streets of the town grid all terminating at the tramway yards.
\nTrains arriving in Aramac crossed the bridges over the creek channels and steamed up the grade into the station. The main line led directly into the passenger station, and the train stopped under a large timber-framed corrugated iron canopy covering the line, an unusual and prominent building. The station master's office, ticket office and waiting rooms were in the weatherboard station building alongside the canopy, and when a train was due a row of taxicabs stood waiting in the street outside. Ahead of the train, built over the end of the main line, was the locomotive shed, and near it were the coal stage and the station master's residence.
\nWhen passengers had alighted, the train was reversed onto a side line which led to the goods shed and the wool loading platform, back in the direction of Aramac Creek. Here goods and parcels were unloaded into the shed which still stands, and a row of trucks and wagons lined up on the other side of the concrete platform to collect merchandise for the town's businesses. The Aramac yard had four tracks for shunting, and a triangle running east from the main line for turning the locomotives. That line also led to the sheep and cattle loading ramps and yards, east of the station.
\nImmediately it opened, the tramway had a beneficial impact on the economy of Aramac. Wool, the staple product of the district, was carried to market faster and more efficiently. From places all over the shire, goods, passengers and business which had once gone by road to the government railway stations at Longreach, Barcaldine or Jericho now all converged on the town of Aramac. The whole town took on an air of bustle and excitement with the arrival of every train, and all its businesses benefited. The tramway offered four regular passenger services each week, with additional trains for goods and livestock as required. In 1915, the second full year of operation, the tramway carried over 4000 tons of wool and 4000 tons of general goods, over 250 000 sheep and nearly 7000 passengers.
\nThe graziers and shopkeepers who made up the Aramac Shire Council found themselves in the unfamiliar business of running a railway, and it was to form a prominent part of their agenda for the next 62 years. The tramway was a financial success, but only marginally so; even in the busy year of 1915, total revenue was only 8% greater than expenditure. Running expenses had to be watched very closely, and many Council meetings became largely concerned with tramway management issues such as timetables, claims for delayed goods, locomotive maintenance, mail contracts and coal purchases.
\nExperience showed that the old Engine No 1 was not sufficiently powerful to operate the line, and in November 1914 Council resolved to call tenders for a second larger B15 steam locomotive. Engine No 113 was leased from Queensland Railways for a time, but proved unsatisfactory and was returned to State service. Then in late 1915 Council bought B15 class engine No 308 second-hand from the Railways Department for £2002. It had been built by Walkers Limited at Maryborough in 1897, and now became Aramac Engine No 2. The older engine remained in service for light work until it was scrapped in 1939. The engine shed was lengthened to take the second engine in 1915, and the bridges on the line were strengthened to take the extra weight.
\nSomewhat surprisingly, a Council meeting in November 1915 passed the motion offering the tramway to the Government and that the Minister for Railways be now written asking the Government to take it over as a State line. This may be the first indication that Council had doubts about the future viability of the tramway, or it may simply have been part of the plan from the beginning. There is no record that any reply was ever received from the State government.
\nThe initial success of the tramway was not to last. Drought, industrial unrest, and the economic slowdown brought on by the departure of volunteers from throughout the district to the First World War all combined to reduce traffic on the tramway. Between 1914 and 1918 Council brought in severe cost cutting measures. George Phillips was dismissed as engineer when it was believed the government would take over the line, and no other engineer was ever employed. Half the maintenance gang was laid off, and staff were withdrawn from the sidings along the line. In 1918 the station master's cottage at the Mildura siding was moved into Aramac and rented to the Aramac station master. Previously, employees had been paid the same rates as their Queensland Railways equivalents; now their wages were reduced by a third. Timetabled services were reduced to two a week, and freights and fares were raised.
\nThe Council managed to keep the operations of the tramway running profitably during this difficult time, but only at the twin costs of making the service less attractive to customers, and reducing maintenance on the line. After the first few years, the condition of the track began to suffer. Phillips' cheap construction methods had a serious downside, for the un-ballasted track was very difficult to maintain. It quickly deteriorated, giving passengers a rough ride, and leading to frequent derailments. The heavier B15 locomotive in use after 1915 exacerbated the problem.
\nThe decision to dispense with engineering advice and reduce track maintenance to only the minimum level of necessary repairs was a critical moment in the Aramac tramway's history. While successfully cutting operating costs in the short term, it meant that the tramway would have to carry smaller loads at slower speeds, giving customers a declining level of service over the years. The progressively deteriorating track would eventually doom its operations altogether.
\nBusiness picked up in the post-war era, services were increased again, and the tramway held its own and continued to run at a small profit each year. The accumulated reserve was sufficient to encourage Council to seek a Treasury loan of £7 500 to buy a new locomotive in 1924. The new engine was a PB15 built in the Ipswich railway workshops, and the first locomotive to be purpose-built for the Aramac line, unlike the two second-hand government ones already in service.
\nTraffic steadily declined as the 1920s advanced, and although the tramway continued to provide an economic benefit to the Aramac district, Council struggled to break even financially in most years. The service was never again as popular or as successful as it had been at the outset, and drought and rural depression continued to keep business down. There was increasing competition from road transport as private motor cars and trucks became cheaper and more popular in the 1920s. Operating perilously close to the edge of viability, the tramway faced a catastrophe in 1928 when cyclonic rains flooded the district. The damage to the line stopped all traffic for weeks, and the lost revenue combined with the cost of repairs sent the accounts for the year heavily into the red. Council had to levy a special rate to pay the tramway's expenses, and was unable to meet its loan repayments that year; there was no option but to go to State Treasury and negotiate a three-year suspension of payments.
\nThe tramway's prosperous heyday was over, and it was to be many years before things improved. The deepening depression made the situation even worse, and saw staff retrenchments and the withdrawal of concession fares and freight rebates for primary producers. The onset of the Second World War brought further austerity; there were constant labour and material shortages, and it was difficult to buy coal. By 1944 the tramway was offering the bare minimum of service to customers, and Council had exhausted almost every trick it knew to keep it running. Scheduled services had again been cut back to twice weekly, and track maintenance was reduced to only the most urgent and necessary repairs. The two old engines had both been scrapped, and the only locomotive left in service was now 20 years old. Treasury had been waiving interest and loan repayment for years, and had written off a part of the debt; effectively the State was subsidising the Aramac tramway because it was cheaper to do so than to provide an alternative service to the Aramac district at State expense.
\nFor three generations the tramway station was the main focus of Aramac's economic and social life. It was a very busy but also a very intimate enterprise in a small tight-knit community.
\nThe layout of the Aramac station changed over time, brought about by changes in the operation of the line. The locomotive shed, for example, was built in 1913 to house one locomotive, then doubled in length in 1915 to house two. It was apparently not lengthened again after 1912; Engine No 1 sat outside for the remainder of its life. The shed was shortened again after 1943, when there was once more only one locomotive in service. Then in 1958 when the tramway went over to diesel power, the old shed was demolished and a new and even smaller shed was built to house the much shorter engine.
\nThe other two major buildings - the station and goods shed - had no need for any such functional changes and remained virtually unaltered during the tramway's period of operation. The station was demolished in 1976 following the closure of the line, but the goods shed was retained .
\nIn the post-war era, the Aramac tramway faced its greatest challenge ever as its principal competitor, road transport, became stronger and more popular. From 1945 the face of Australian transport was completely transformed by ever bigger and more powerful trucks operating on much better roads. If the tramway had been faced with this challenge in its enfeebled condition of the 1930s, it would have been defeated very quickly.
\nThere were two important changes ahead for the tramway. The first was brought about by a dramatic boom in the post-war rural economy, which saw the price of some agricultural products increase by as much as ten to twenty times between 1939 and the early 1950s. Small outback towns such as Aramac experienced a sudden return to a level of prosperity not seen for decades. Traffic on the tramway picked up steadily from 1945 onwards, and while there was still a large burden of debt to overcome before the Council could think about declaring a profit, operations by the early 1950s were again running at a more comfortable level.
\nThe second change was a complete transformation of the tramway, by means of both long-overdue repairs to the track and the purchase of a new engine. Years of neglected maintenance had left the railway line in a deteriorated condition. In 1957 the Railways Department gave Council an ultimatum that unless the track was substantially upgraded, it would no longer permit State-owned rolling stock to be used on the Aramac run. The increased prosperity of the district enabled Council both to increase freight charges and levy ratepayers, raising £30 000 which was spent on the first major repairs to the line in many years, including rebuilding of the bridges.
\nThere was also a major upgrading of the motive power driving the tramway. In 1957, Council ordered a 150 horsepower Comeng diesel-hydraulic locomotive to replace its 33 year old steam engine. It was cheaper to run and easier to maintain, and weighing only 16 tons, it was much less subject to derailment and bogging. The old PB15 steam locomotive was sold to Queensland Government Railways, and the new diesel engine commenced service on 17 January 1958.
\nAfter fifty years of service with four locomotives, the tramway in 1963 finally hit upon the ideal vehicle for the line. To supplement the little diesel engine, Council bought a second-hand railmotor, RM 28, from the State service for £100. The railmotor remained in service for as long as the tramway operated. It was much lighter than a conventional locomotive, and its weight was spread more evenly over its length, so it performed much better on the rough track. Derailments became almost unknown, and in wet weather the locomotive sat in its shed while the railmotor was pressed into service.
\nCouncil bought still another new diesel locomotive in 1968. The 1958 locomotive was a little under-powered for heavy loads, and was supplemented by a slightly bigger 19 ton diesel-hydraulic locomotive built by Walkers Limited. For a time the two engines could be coupled together and operated as a single unit, but in January 1970 the State bought the old diesel locomotive.
\nThese developments and improvements of the 1950s and 1960s kept the tramway going into the post-war era, but they could not change the economic circumstances in which the service operated. Road transport was becoming faster and more efficient year by year, and the tramway simply could not compete. Passenger traffic dwindled to virtually nothing by the 1960s because nearly everyone travelled by car. Wool and livestock increasingly travelled by truck in dry weather. The tramway was only eking out an existence, and Council's aim was simply to keep the financial loss down as low as possible.
\nThe losses remained acceptable until 1970, when there was a sharp drop in income as competition from road transport really began to take hold. The condition of the track, reconditioned over ten years before, was again becoming a big problem, and there was industrial trouble with the workforce. The government agreed to subsidise the tramway service until the road was sealed from Aramac to Barcaldine. A Tramways Undertaking Fund was established, and State Treasury began to pay the annual shortfall. While this arrangement was in force, the great floods of January 1974 caused major damage to the line, and the cost of repairs dramatically increased the debt.
\nThe progressively increasing debt to the State added to the money owed to Treasury over the entire life of the tramway, since the original loan of 1911. By 1975, the accumulated size of the government loan was $225 000, and there was no longer any prospect of reducing it. The road was already sealed about halfway from Barcaldine, and the likelihood was that traffic on the tramway would soon shrink to nothing. No longer an asset to the Shire's economy, the tramway had become simply a burden on the ratepayers. In November 1975, the Permanent Way Inspector gave a gloomy description of the state of the track. In the face of this report, Council decided to close the Tramway. It was decided that the service would terminate on 31 December 1975, and tenders would be called for the sale of 150 tons of steel rails and the diesel locomotive.
\nThe tramway ran its last service at some time in the days just before New Year 1976. In February 1976, four tenders were received for the purchase of 82 miles of steel rails and the eight year old locomotive. Council accepted the tender of £262 400 from the Australian Sugar Producers Association, and the tracks were torn up and trucked away over the next few months. The bitumen-sealed road arrived in Aramac a few months after the tramway closed.
\nThe closure of the tramway left the Council's financial situation unresolved, for there was uncertainty about the status of the Tramways Undertaking Fund, and whether it had been composed of outright grants, or loans which had to be repaid. State Treasury took the view that the Aramac Shire should use the tramway sale money to repay the State's contribution to the Fund. The State Treasurer wrote to the Aramac Shire Council accordingly, however politics were to intervene in the Council's favour when the State Treasurer, Sir Gordon Chalk, Leader of the Liberal Party in Queensland, retired from Parliament after 29 years in politics on 13 August 1976. Aramac Shire kept the surplus tramway money.
\nAfter the tramway closed, its few remaining assets were dispersed. The railway station building was in poor condition because of termite infestation, and was demolished in 1976. The goods shed remained standing, as did the cold store near the station, which remained in service as a Council facility. The railmotor and its carriages, two maintenance trolleys, and some other passenger carriages that the tramway had acquired over the yars were placed in a steel mesh cage on a short length of the main line near the goods shed. In 1986 a group of railway history enthusiasts requested a railmotor carriage and with Council's approval removed it to a museum at Kunkala.
\nThe next wave of interest in the conservation of the remaining relics of the tramway came from two schoolteachers who galvanised community members into organising a local historical museum based at the goods shed. This involved housing the railmotor inside the goods shed by means of the major operation of demolishing and later rebuilding the end wall. The Aramac Tramway Museum opened on 29 September 1994, and the Aramac Tramway Museum Association was incorporated in 1997.
\nThe Tramway Museum has also become a focus for local historical activity generally, and in recent years people have donated a number of items which have been stored in and around the goods shed. There has also been a proposal put forward to reinstate a section of track to run the railmotor as a tourist attraction, and Queensland Rail has donated sleepers and rails for a kilometre of track.
","criteria":"The Aramac Tramway Museum is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, forming part of a tramway built during the rapid expansion of railways in Queensland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Aramac Tramway was funded by the local council as a branch line of the Winton - Longreach line, and remained under the control of the Aramac Shire Council for the entire period of its operation. It was the last of such locally-controlled tramways operating when it closed in 1975.
|Aramac Tramway Museum demonstrates a rare and unusual aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as an example of a railway service operated by a local community.
|The place has a special association with the Aramac community through their efforts to have the tramway constructed and maintained over a 62 year period. For many years the tramway provided an important economic and social link to Barcaldine and the Central Line running to Rockhampton. In times of flood, the road between Aramac and Barcaldine would be closed and the tramway provided the sole transport link between the towns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15938,"place_ref":601173,"name":"Meatworks and Wharf Site (former)","alternate_name":"Former Newport Meatworks Company | Former Broadsound Packing Co Ltd | Former Broadsound Meat Company","street_address":"Settlement Road","suburb":"ST LAWRENCE","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"The remains of the former St Lawrence Meatworks and Wharf site is located on several properties off Settlement Road, approximately eight kilometres south-east of the town of St Lawrence. Despite vegetation growth, considerable evidence for site is still visible above ground.
The main site includes three boilers, two of which are located to the west of the property and a third boiler located approximately ten metres to the east of the first two boilers. Situated around two of the boilers is brick rubble remains, providing evidence for the fireboxes which once surrounded the boilers. The third boiler, to the east, does not have any brick rubble remains surrounding it, indicating that it may have been moved from its original position.
Directly to the west of the boilers is a brick lined, sunken area with remnant concrete flooring. It is approximately nine metres square. The remains of a wall rendered brick wall are located in sections around the area and rise to a height of approximately one metre. An opening is located in the remnant wall in the north-west corner of the area. Also in this section is located an a metal grill. It is not clear if this grill is associated with some sort of heating element in the meatworks production line or if its purpose was more closely related to a cattle grill, and was to keep the animals within the area.
Approximately ten metres north of the brick wall and concrete floor area is the remains of another facebrick structure. This structure has three walls extant [north, south and west] and may have had at least two rooms, as the remains of what appear to be the brick base of an internal wall and a timber framed doorway, are evident. To the north of the facebrick building is located the remains of another structure with a brick base and a concrete floor area. The site has other brick, metal and timber remains scattered throughout. It is also likely that further evidence of the meatworks exist underground.
On another area of land, to the north-east of the main site, the remains of a donkey boiler and a mine shaft are extant. During the time of the meatworks, a tram ran from the site across to the main meatworks site. While no physical evidence of the tramline remains, what is apparent is an earthed, built-up area, indicating the position of the line. This is located to the west of the shaft and boiler and curves around, running south-west, disappearing before it reaches Settlement Road.
The former wharf site, incorporating timber posts, and much of the tramway, which joins the meatworks, are situated on tidal flats, forming part of the Newport Conservation Park. Other remains include further evidence of the tram line such as timber sleeper and metal remains. Also extant in the Newport Conservation Park is evidence of timber fording of Bund Creek and remains of what appears to be a corduroy road.
","history":"The former meatworks and wharf site is thought to be established in the 1860s as a boiling down works. By 1893, the meatworks had been established and remained in operation until around 1911.
The St Lawrence area was settled by 1860,when Macartney formed Waverley Station. Around the same time, John Mackay was travelling in the area.
The meatworks was one of the largest projects undertaken in the history of St Lawrence. It has been suggested that the meatworks owed its origin to the fact that a boiling down works had been established about four miles from the town near the wharf on Waverley Creek. The purpose of the boiling down process was to recover the fat or tallow from cattle which were usually considered below standard for putting through the butcher shop. The demand for tallow would have been much greater in that period of Australian history, for tallow was very much in demand for use in candles and for preserving harnesses.
Boiling down works have been an important industry throughout Queensland during a number of periods. The establishment of such works usually coincided with drought and low prices for wool and beef. Boiling-down factories were started in Brisbane in 1843 by John 'Tinker' Campbell and in Ipswich in 1847. By 1851, two works were located in Ipswich. Other boiling down works being established on the Darling Downs during the 1860s, included Campbell's operation on Westbrook Homestead, the depression of the time being the predominant reason behind the establishment of such industries. Consequently, reasons behind the establishment of the boiling down works at St Lawrence may also have been due to the effects of the depression.
By 1865 the Government was in the process of extending the telegraph line between St Lawrence and Bowen, and to the Gulf of Carpentaria. In 1866, the Government proposed an impost on wool, tallow and hides. The Legislative Council considered the resolution to present the Governor with a Bill to be introduced to the Legislative Council to impose an export duty on one halfpenny per pound on wool, one pound per ton on tallow, three pence each on hides and one halfpenny each of sheepskins. The House was divided and the motion was not passed.
In 1866, Septimus Nash Spong designed a wharf at St Lawrence. Spong received a Queensland government post in 1861, as clerk of works in the Colonial Architect's Office where he replaced Joseph Sherwin. Spong later moved to Rockhampton where he practiced as an architect, building and land surveyor from 1865 until 1874. As with its Canadian namesake, which has the fastest tide in the world, the basin at St Lawrence has a rapid and deep tidal surge and so was dangerous as a port. In 1873, as a cyclone and the storage of copper ore damaged the old wharf, a new wharf was established at Waverley Creek, which had better access by land and sea. Even so, the extension of the central railway also reduced trade and St Lawrence effectively ceased to be a port after 1879.
PR Gordon, the Chief Inspector of Sheep observed in 1871, that the preservation of meat had become an established industry in the Colony. WB Tooth of Clifton reported boiling down 32000 sheep. Boiling down works were situated at Burke, Baffle Creek, Dalby, Gladstone District, Mackay, Redbank, Rockhampton, Townsville, Westbrook and Yengarie. The Inspector stated that the Dalby and Westbrook Boiling Establishments reported having been obliged to discontinue operations on account of the excessive railway charges absorbing too large a share of the profits as the margin had become so small. The Inspector further reported that the during the present year, the Westbrook and Rockhampton curing establishments would be in active operation.
While there is no clear evidence as to who initially established the boiling down works by August 1893, the Chairman of the Divisional Board at St Lawrence, on behalf of the residents of the district wired a protest to Sir Thomas McIlwraith regarding the closing of the Customs and other government offices. The community considered that the closing of such offices would mean stagnation for the area instead of progress. It was suggested at the time that, as companies for boiling down and exporting meat and for coal mining were being initiated, the works would mean increased revenue for the district.
Two men involved with the works were TS Beatty and George Fox, who led the move to establish the factory. By September 1900, Beatty was described as one of the most enterprising men of the district, keeping the welfare of the town and district foremost in his thoughts. The meatworks was a prominent industry in the area at the time, particularly as copper mines in the area had failed, sheep were being moved west and the railway from Emerald to Clermont cut off traffic to St Lawrence. Despite difficulties such as devaluation and having little market for stock, which meant that it was almost impossible to fix a minimum price, the works were built and a price was established which had a fixed value to cattle proprietors, providing some stability in the industry. The works were described as being situated on Waverley Creek, about 'three and a half miles' from St Lawrence, connected to the wharf by a tramline and with every convenience to hand for the efficient handling of stock and carcasses.
The company had a strong propriety, both in London and the Colonies. By means of their steamer Tarshaw the works kept in direct communication with Rockhampton and the southern Colonies. Upwards of 120 men were employed and the company had a view to further extending the works through the construction of machinery for treating offal. FHT Walton, late of PD Armour and Company of Chicago, was the General Manager in 1900.
Their principal product line of the meatworks was tinned meats and extracts, with other general by-products. Stockowners received equal to 12s. 6d (1.25) per hundred (refers to weight) for the same class of stock they had previously had to accept six and six (65c) and seven and six (75c) per hundred, and save, besides droving and loss condition, when immediate neighbourhood, who supply the residents with fruit, vegetables, maize, butter, etc and the qualities of these products generally being exceptionally good. The meatworks also had freezing and chilling facilities on the spot, consequently, it was suggested that pig farming might be added to the product production.
American Clem Allcut had control of the works by the late 1890s. It appears that Allcut had taken over the preserving works at Broadsound after leaving the government service. James Pattison was in partners for some time with Clem Allcut, but eventually sold his share to Allcut. Allcut, however, faced financial troubles later and was forced to give up the works to his creditors. Soon after, he returned to the United States. The works certainly did not continue for any great length of time after Allcut left, and its closure is generally attributed to the shortage of cattle caused by the great drought of 1902.
The meatworks had some of the most modern equipment available at the time, for canned tongues and corned meat were loaded onto ships at the wharf and exported to southern markets. Local knowledge suggests that the water supply for the meatworks was pumped over a distance of more than two miles from a big lagoon on the lower portion of Waverley Plain. The pump was powered by a steam engine using an upright boiler known as a 'Donkey boiler', which is still extant.
The lagoon was located so close to the coast that the tidal waters eventually forced a breach into the bank which separated the lagoon from the sea, and ruined the supply of fresh water. Later an artificial bank or levee was built to keep the salt water out. This activity may be reflected in the name of the creek in the area, which is Bund Creek - a bund being defined as an embankment or an embanked quay.1 It is thought this occurred after the meatworks closed down, as it is considered unlikely that during the operation of the works, the owners would not have taken steps to stop the sea breaking through into the lagoon, unless this was caused by an unusually high tide.
The meatworks preserved large quantities of meat by drying and salting brisket meat, packing it in wooden casks and then canning the rest of the meat. The preserved meat in casks was bought and used to a great extent by ships, many of which might be out of port for extended periods. The tallow and hides were also marketed. Clem Allcut during his term of ownership also manufactured beef extract.
When the low prices of cattle prevailed, stock could sometimes be bought for as low as £1 per head. All the waste meat and scraps were run into a gully close by, which is thought to have filled and emptied with the rise and fall of the tide so that all this waste was carried into the nearby stream and out to sea.
By 1897-1899, the company was listed as the Broadsound Packing Co. Ltd. The Managing Director was CH Allcutt and the Secretary was WA Forth. By 1900, the company was listed as the Broadsound Meat Company with WD Preston as the Manager and WHA Britton the company accountant. In 1905, the Broadsound Meat Co had as its Manager, J Vickers, who continued in that position until 1911. From 1912, there are no further listings for the Broadsound Meat Company.
Besides drought, further competition from other meatworks such as Lakes Creek, near Rockhampton, the Rockhampton Boiling Down and Meat Works Ltd, Nerimbera, who advertised that they were prepared to treat stock on 'liberal terms', added to the difficulties faces by the meatworks at St Lawrence. With the Connors Range forming a formidable barrier to drovers with mobs of cattle, and the lack of a railway, the meatworks at St Lawrence was at a serious disadvantage.
Following its closure, machinery and any other equipment was dismantled and taken away by sea, apparently being sold, possibly to owners of other meatworks requiring the equipment. Today the former meatworks site is predominantly archaeological.
","criteria":"The Former Meatworks & Wharf Site, St Lawrence is thought to be associated with the tallow works established in the area in the 1860s, the earliest establishment of the town of St Lawrence and later with the extension of the site to include meatworks and boiling down works, from c1893 to c1911. The site survives as an important illustration of early industrial development of Queensland and of the settlement of the Broadsound area in particular.
The former meatworks and wharf site is significant in demonstrating early methods of addressing problems caused by the remoteness of areas used for stock raising and great distances between supplier and market in Queensland. It is further significant as the site survives as a legacy to the canning industry which lingered in the St Lawrence area when freezing was the dominant form of processing.
|The surviving Donkey boiler is one of few of this type known to survive in Queensland.
|With further archaeological and historical research and analysis, the place has the potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history and early industrial technology.
|The former meatworks and wharf site is significant as a well known tourist site and continues to attract public interest, with groups of visitors being shown the area by members of the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15940,"place_ref":601176,"name":"Buderim House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"10 Orme Road","suburb":"BUDERIM","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-03-02","description":"Buderim House, located on a northern slope of Buderim Mountain, sits amongst established gardens which include a section of the original scrub, to the west of the building, which covered the mountain.
The building is a high set timber residence with corrugated iron roof and verandahs to three sides. The corrugated iron roof has a central square belvedere and projecting gables with timber batten panels. The verandah roofs are at a lesser pitch and the belvedere has a ribbed metal, hipped concave roof with finial, curved timber eave brackets and casement windows.
The building has timber stumps with a timber batten skirt below the verandahs. Underneath the building has been enclosed.
Entry is from the northern side via a twin stair to a landing and a single stair to the verandah, which is framed by an arched timber battened valance and brackets. The verandah has battened timber balustrade and timber brackets, and single skin tongue and groove walls with french doors and fanlights. The recessed entry door has art nouveau leadlight fanlight, side lights and central panel with the name BUDERIM HOUSE depicted. The eastern dining room also has leadlight panels. The northeastern verandah has been screened for insects.
Internally, walls are single skin, with some rooms being wallpapered. Most rooms have boarded ceilings, with the living room and hall having plastered ceilings with decorative cornices. Internal doors have fretwork panels above, with the living room doors from the front and rear halls having leadlight panels. A steep internal stair leads from the front hall to the belvedere.
The southwest verandah has been enclosed with chamferboards and casement windows, and a skillion roofed store and covered stair have been added to the southeast.
The gardens contain an informal arrangement of lush, sub-tropical planting with a gravel driveway winding through clumps of established palms and sections of lawn.
","history":"Buderim House was built c1915 for Herbert Victor Fielding, son of pioneer Buderim sugar planter, mill owner and fruit grower John Fielding, who in 1876 selected nearly 49 hectares on the northern slopes of Buderim Mountain.
In the 1880s competition from imported sugar forced Buderim sugar planters into crop diversification, and by the late 1880s, Herbert Fielding was growing bananas on a large scale on the family property. Following John Fielding's death in 1890, the farm, by then reduced to about 40 hectares, passed to his wife Jane. When Herbert Fielding acquired the property in 1906, it extended from Orme Road to Mill Road and across the present Gloucester Road to the creek. He was a successful farmer, and in the early 1900s attended state-wide agricultural conferences as the representative of the Maroochy Pastoral Agricultural Horticultural and Industrial Association.
He is believed to have erected his first house on the property after his marriage in late 1904. This house and part of the farm was sold c.1915, at which time he erected Buderim House on a 16 hectare section of the property, on the highest point of the northern slope of Mt Buderim, overlooking the Maroochy coast and river valley. The architect was George Trotter of Corinda, and the contractor was Kangaroo Point builder Christian Schriver.
Prior to its completion, the house on about 11 hectares was sold in 1915 to Walter Frank Oakes, who insisted on the addition of a tower, flagpole and the inclusion of the name Buderim House in the leadlight panel in the front door, before the sale could be finalised. Oakes grew bananas on the property. Fielding meanwhile erected a third house on his remaining Gloucester Road farming land, from the same plan as Buderim House.
In 1925 Fielding bought Buderim House and the farm back from Oakes. He worked the farm with bananas, pineapples, winter small crops, coffee, and cattle, and rented out the house until selling it on about 1.6 hectares to HJ Murphy in 1927. Murphy, later an alderman in the Maroochy Shire Council, developed the present gardens around the house in the 1930s. He sold the house in 1954, and the land was subdivided further in 1967. The house now stands on about 0.6 hectares.
Close to the house a small section of vine scrub, known as Fielding's Scrub, was left as a break against the westerly winds. It remains one of the few vestiges of the dense scrub which covered Buderim Mountain and hindered agricultural development of the area in the 1870s. The cocos palms [Cocos nucifera L.] in this scrub reputedly were seeded by Fielding.
","criteria":"Buderim House demonstrates the principal characters of a substantial early 20th century Queensland timber residence. It exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the Buderim community, these being its landmark quality and the contribution of the house, established gardens and rare scrub remnant, to the Buderim landscape.
|It exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the Buderim community, these being its landmark quality and the contribution of the house, established gardens and rare scrub remnant, to the Buderim landscape.
|Buderim House demonstrates the principal characters of a substantial early 20th century Queensland timber residence.
|It exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the Buderim community, these being its landmark quality and the contribution of the house, established gardens and rare scrub remnant, to the Buderim landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15944,"place_ref":601180,"name":"Wickham House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"155-157 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"Wickham House is a five storey building, with an attic, of rendered brick with reinforced concrete floors located towards the eastern end of Wickham Terrace, overlooking the city centre. The ground floor features two shops either side of the entrance to the building on Wickham Terrace.
The Wickham Terrace facade, with three bays has restrained Georgian details including oriel windows with decorative mouldings, a centrally located balcony with rendered balustrading and brackets and moulded string course. Rectangular double hung sash windows, with multi-paned upper windows and moulded architraves, define each storey horizontally. The four upper floors of the building terminate in a projecting dentilled cornice, which does not continue right around the building.
The Upper Edward Street façade, has seven bays, defined by two oriel windows at either end of the façade and a centrally located balcony with rendered balustrading and brackets. Similarly to the Wickham Terrace façade, rectangular double hung sash windows, with multi-paned upper windows and moulded architraves, define each storey horizontally. At ground floor level, the building is rendered and scored to resemble ashlar. The row of double hung sash windows have keystone motifs. A second entrance is located in the Upper Edward Street facade. A round arched opening with large decorative brackets is located above the entrance.
Internally, the entrance foyer has a timber dado panel and timber staircase leading to the upper floors which contain medical suites. The floor is marble and the timber door has bevelled glazing.
","history":"Wickham House, a five storey masonry building, with basement, was constructed in 1924 to a design by Francis R Hall and built by FJ Corbett.
Known as Windmill Hill to residents during the 1840s and 1850s, the Wickham Terrace area was subdivided during 1856 and sold to wealthy citizens. Following the first land sales along the Terrace, also known as 'The Ridge', houses began being constructed. Due to its location, close to the city and elevated, the area soon became popular for professional and business families.
Wickham Terrace was evolving into an area of boarding houses and homes, schools, clubs and medical rooms. Doctors were living and practising on Wickham Terrace as early as the 1860s. One of the first was Dr Joseph Bancroft, who occupied several houses including Athol Place [600167], Inchcolm [600170] and Carlton House. During the 1880s, many doctors and their families moved onto Wickham Terrace, however, by the end of World War I, doctors became more specialised and starting setting up rooms on the Terrace, moving their families out to the suburbs, separating their place of work from their home.
A medical entrepreneur, Dr ACF Halford, commissioned architect FR Hall to design a building for consulting rooms for medical specialists. On 6 January 1923, Hall called for tenders for the construction of '...professional flats at the corner of Wickham terrace and Upper Edward street (to cost £25000)...'. Built by FJ Corbett, Wickham House was opened in July 1924. Allan Oxlade was the decorator and the joinery and floor lino were supplied by James Campbell and Sons Ltd. The building was featured in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland on 7 July 1924:
'Brisbane is be congratulated on the enterprise of Dr ACF Halford in erecting such a modern and up-to-date suite of professional chambers known as Wickham House, just completed... on Wickham terrace... The building consists of five floors and basement, that portion facing Wickham Terrace consisting of two shops, one occupied by Mr DJ Clark (Chemist) and the other by Medical and Surgical Requisites Ltd... the main entrance... vestibule... is panelled and floored in marble with swing doors of bevelled glass...'
Wickham House was part of the interwar redevelopment of the medical precinct along Wickham Terrace, which included Brisbane Clinic [600171], Ballow Chambers [600164], Inchcolm [600170] and Craigston [600165]. Their construction constituted the second phase, the first being in the 1880s, of the Terrace's growth as a medical precinct. The attic roof was a later addition to the building in the 1960s.
Wickham House, together with Ballow Chambers, was the scene of a tragic occurrence in December 1955. On Thursday, 1 December 1955, Karl Kast, carrying a home-made bomb shot dead two doctors, Dr AV Meehan and Dr AR Murray and wounded Dr MJ Gallagher and George Boland. A fourth doctor, Dr JRS Lahz was severely traumatised due to the incident. Dr Michael J Gallahger, Kast's first victim, was shot in his offices in Wickham House. Kast then ignited three bombs in the foyer of Wickham House. George Boland, a patient of one of the doctor's in the building, attempted to stub out the bomb only to have it explode and maim his hand. Kast then went to Ballow Chambers, around hundred metres down Wickham Terrace, where he shot Dr Andrew R Murray and attempted to apprehend Dr John RS Latz, who escaped. Following his rampage, Kast locked himself in the office of Dr Lahz, within Ballow Chambers, where he shot himself and ignited another bomb. He later died in hospital. The tragedy was reported in the Courier-Mail on Friday, 2 December, as '...a horrible crime ...[that]...sent a shock of horror through the city and all Queensland'.
Wickham House continues to accommodate medical specialists, maintaining the purpose for which the building was designed and constructed.
","criteria":"Wickham House is important in demonstrating the interwar evolution of Wickham Terrace as an example of specialist medical rooms in Brisbane, and is associated with the development of specialist medicine in Queensland. Wickham House was part of the interwar redevelopment of the medical precinct along Wickham Terrace, which included Brisbane Clinic [600171], Ballow Chambers [600164], Inchcolm [600170] and Craigston [600165]. Their construction constituted the second phase, the first being in the 1880s, of the Terrace's growth as a medical precinct, and was indicative of new directions toward specialist medicine in Queensland in the interwar years.
|Prominently located at the corner of Wickham Terrace and Upper Edward Street, Wickham House is an accomplished and intact building which is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built interwar medical office building, including in the restrained design the assertion of medical specialist prestige.
|As one of a related group of classical facades, Wickham House with its neo-Georgian facade exhibits a strong contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape.
|The building has a special association with Brisbane architect Francis R Hall, as a prominent example of his work, and as a building which continues to function for the purpose for which it was designed and constructed.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15946,"place_ref":601182,"name":"Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure","alternate_name":"Urquhart Shaft and Headframe | Mount Isa Mine Power Station | Mount Isa Mine Experimental Dam | Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant","street_address":"Barkly Highway","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-25","description":"Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure is located at the western edge of Mount Isa, in northwestern Queensland. The place comprises remnant early mining infrastructure, dispersed over four discrete areas within the Mount Isa Mine site.
\nFeatures of Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nUrquhart Shaft and Headframe is the northernmost of these features, located on the north side of Burma Road. Standing to its southeast is the Mount Isa Mine Power Station, on the corner of Burma Road and Hooper Road. Further south, the Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant is located on the south side of Mine Road. The southernmost feature is the Mount Isa Mine Experimental Dam, approximately 350m west of Rosalie Street. [Note: Burma Road, Hooper Road, Mine Road and Rosalie Street are internal mine roads].
\nLawlor Shaft and Winding Plant
\nThe remaining evidence of the Winding Plant consists of a partly intact two-cylinder steam winding engine without drums, manufactured by May Brothers Engineers of Gawler, South Australia, resting on concrete mounts. Adjacent and to the south of the engine are a further two concrete foundations, possibly for an air compressor. A return flue boiler is situated further south in line with the winding engine. The iron chimney of the boiler lies alongside. The entrance to the Lawlor Shaft, which is now secured with a grid, is located east of the winding plant within a wire mesh security fence. There is no apparent evidence of headframes bases near the shaft. Between the shaft and the plant is a low raised earth surface indicating the extent of the winding shed and containing concrete mounts with machinery bolts and the concrete base for an iron chimney. The remnants of a mullock dump are located south of the mine shaft. The place is situated alongside the main mine road and adjacent to the company's former residential and community retail area known as King's Cross.
\nUrquhart Shaft and Headframe
\nAn intact steel headframe of asymmetrical design is located over the Urquhart shaft. The headframe, occupying a hilltop position, is a community landmark and a symbol of Mount Isa Mines Limited and the City of Mount Isa. Headframe steelwork is attached to concrete foundations. The Urquhart headframe steelwork bears the name of the manufacturer, F Rodingham Iron & Steel Co Ltd., England. The concrete mounts of the original development headframe winding plant survive beneath the main structure. As the former main ore haulage shaft, the headframe is equipped with a large steel ore bin, which emptied directly into a primary crusher. The jaw crusher plant has been removed but the concrete structure of the crusher remains. From here the ore was conveyed to the three No.1 Concentrator mills.
\nThe Urquhart shaft Uskside Winding Engine, which was housed in a shed immediately to the north of the headframe, has been removed from the site and installed at the \"Outback@Isa Explorers Park\" tourist facility in the town. The original corrugated iron winding shed which had been replaced by more recent ribbed steel sheets on the former frame and concrete surface, has also been removed from the site.
\nMount Isa Mine Power Station
\nThe mine power station is located at the eastern base of the Urquhart Shaft hill. The power station forms a two-level complex comprising two sections, a boiler and furnace house on the eastern side and a turbine-generator powerhouse on the western side. The external appearance of both sections has remained comparatively unchanged since construction although substantial extension and adaptation of internal structure and plant have taken place with the development of the mine. The power station was initially coal-fired. The boiler house now contains oil-fired furnaces and waste-heat boilers which powered compressors to produce compressed air for the entire mine operation The power house which is a long steel framed corrugated iron clad building aligned north south has been substantially renewed and re-equipped since the 1950s. The original central third of the powerhouse remains structurally intact. This section originally housed Nos.1 and 2 turbo-generators. No.3 turbo generator (made in England by The General Electric Co Ltd., Witton, Birmingham) was installed in line north of No.2 in 1936 to replace No.1 generator after it blew up. No.2 generator has since been removed leaving No.3 as the only surviving early generator plant. No.3 plant comprising a General Electric alternator and turbine generator is coupled to a water-tube condenser unit (manufactured by Hick Hargreaves & Co Ltd., Bolton, England) situated beneath. The northern and southern sections of the powerhouse contain compressors installed in the 1950s. Mine power is now drawn from Mica Creek power station.
\nMount Isa Mine Experimental Dam
\nThe dam is constructed as a curved stone overshot weir, with later form-cast concrete additions above, at the entrance to a narrow gully of Kennedy Creek at the southern end of the Mount Isa Mine tailings and seepage ponds. The wall shows the height of original construction and of two subsequent extensions in height and width. The original section is of rendered stone, initially rising an estimated 5m above the original valley floor, assuming a current build-up of about 3m of silt. The 1m deep overflow was subsequently in-filled with roughly rendered stonework. The wall was later raised a further 2m with a form-cast concrete section constructed atop the original structure. The weir now stands 5m above the existing upstream silt level and is 23m in width.
\n","history":"
The Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure, established in the 1920s and early 1930s and located on the western edge of Mount Isa, is important as surviving evidence of the establishment of large-scale mining by the Mount Isa Mining Company (now known as Mount Isa Mines Limited (MIM)). It retains a symbolic association with the work of MIM, which, as Queensland’s richest mining venture, made an important contribution to the Queensland economy since its establishment. The development of the mining infrastructure was on a scale rare in Queensland mining, and the place has potential to reveal further information that may contribute to knowledge of the early mining processes used in Queensland.
\nMount Isa is located on the traditional lands of the Kalkadoon people.[1] John Campbell Miles discovered the ores of Mount Isa as lead outcrops early in 1923. Such a late find on a mineral field closely prospected for nearly sixty years was probably due to the fact that most Queensland prospectors were looking for copper or gold and lead mining was an alien tradition. However, while the discovery was first acknowledged in 1923, it is not improbable that the Mount Isa deposits were long known and ignored.
\nBy the end of 1923, 118 leases had been pegged on the Mount Isa field and of these William Corbould, formerly of the Mount Elliott Company at Selwyn, acquired 51 leases. In January 1924, Corbould's Mount Isa Mining Company was registered in New South Wales. Soon after two other companies were floated - Mount Isa Silver-Lead Proprietary and Mount Isa South, but by December 1925 both had been bought by Mount Isa Mines in a coup unprecedented in Australian mining - a single company held virtually the entire mineralised area of what promised to be a major field.
\nSupport for the new mining venture came from the Queensland Labor Government which gave the government geologist, EC Saint-Smith, permission to act as general manager at Mount Isa for six months to August 1924, and in September the State geological survey undertook Australia's first aerial photographic survey for geological purposes over six square miles at Mount Isa. In October 1925 the Queensland Parliament passed the Duchess to Mount Isa Railway Act.
\nDuring 1924 the Mount Isa Mines sank thirty-three shafts and realised that enormous capital would be required. William Corbould visited London regularly between 1924 and 1927 trying to raise capital. In June 1927 the Russo-Asiatic Consolidated Company chaired by Leslie Urquhart, took control of operation and development of Mount Isa. Corbould resigned but retained a non-voting seat as Honorary Advisory Director in London.
\nOn 7 June 1926 the company announced a major reconstruction scheme. The scheme, if successful would provide Russo-Asiatic with a working capital of £860,000 for its activities outside Russia. The announcement of the 'no capital' restructuring arrangements for Mount Isa saw an increase in the value of Russo Asiatic and a scramble to purchase Mount Isa shares. The scheme commanded considerable attention in the London Press with the Financial Times remarking that the 'no capital reorganisation' scheme was proving successful because it appeared to encourage the Queensland government to give its assurance that the government \"was anxious and willing to assist the enterprise.\"
\nThe resources of Russo-Asiatic, acquired through the restructuring assisted Mount Isa's development. The New York firm of HH Knox and JH Allen produced plans for exploration and development of the Black Star lode and devised a treatment process. In January 1928 Urquhart visited Mount Isa to inspect all-embracing plans for a major dam and pipeline, an employee housing program, and a development schedule for mining, milling and treatment. Knox arrived at Mount Isa in April to design the treatment plan and was followed by fellow American engineers, CA Mitke and JM Callow.
\nLawlor Shaft and Winding Plant (1920s)
\nRobert Lawlor held the 2.5ha Crystal Lease at Top Camp on the new Mount Isa field when the government geologist, EC Saint-Smith, inspected the area in September 1923. This lease was consolidated into Mount Isa Mines holdings by the end of 1924 but Lawlor's Shaft remained as the major access point to ores in the Rio Grande lode during the exploration and ore proving phase (1925-9). The headframe and ancillary buildings were featured in a photograph in the Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 August 1929.
\nIn 1930 the Rio Grande mine was described as being served by the three compartment vertical Lawlor Shaft, from which, at a depth of 54.4m, a crosscut in the hanging wall cuts through the lode of sulphide ore. Diamond drilling had already proved persistence of the ore to a depth of 305m.
\nIt is not known when the Lawlor Shaft stopped operating but the King's Cross area of the settlement developed nearby and would have constrained mining operations. During the Second World War it was used for copper extraction.
\nUrquhart Shaft and Headframe (1930-31)
\nBefore Russo-Asiatic's engineers had visited the field, Corbould and his geologists decided that separate shafts should penetrate each ore-body and a railway should carry the ore from the shaftheads to a central treatment plant in the valley to the north. After a year of diamond drilling however, the ore-bodies were found grouped so closely, that they could be worked cheaply by use of an underground railway linking them to central shafts. Charles Mitke designed the Man and Supply shaft to take all men and materials underground and the Urquhart shaft to hoist the ore and pump the water.
\nMitke's plan transferred the main ore shaft and treatment plant to the town side of the long ridge, which divided the struggling township on the river flats from the previous centre of mining activity in the valley. Mitke supervised the sinking of the Urquhart shaft in 1929. Work proceeded simultaneously with the service shaft and development shafts in the Black Rock and Rio Grande ore-bodies, but was not completed at the time of a ministerial inspection in April 1930. The Urquhart shaft had hit an underground reservoir and was never continued to the planned depth.
\nThe Urquhart Shaft and Headframe were erected during 1930-31 and the ore produced had been smelted into lead bullion for shipment overseas by the official opening of the Mount Isa Mines complex by the Hon. E Atherton, Minister for Mines, on 15 June 1931. The Urquhart shaft, which went down vertically for half a mile (0.8km), carried 3,000,000 tons of ore and rock each year. It operated for over thirty years until the biggest shaft on the Mount Isa field, then known as the K57 ore shaft, was opened in 1963.
\nMount Isa Mine Power Station (1931)
\nFrom mid-1927 the technical management of Mount Isa Mine was in the hands of the Urquhart group (formerly known as the Russo-Asiatic Consolidated). With their increased capital they set about developing the \"most modern mine of the age.\" The initial power house of Corbould's company was replaced by the steel framed power station consisting of a coal-fired boiler house and a generator house, designed by JM Callow in 1928 and located at the base of the Mount Isa Mine ridge overlooking the new tent settlement on the bank of the West Leichhardt River. The power station was operational by 1931 and a photograph of it appeared in the Queensland Government Mining Journal on 15 July 1931, which described the Ministerial opening of the new mining plant. It was described as having \"twin chimneys rising like black cigars above a roof of dazzling iron\".
\nThe powerhouse supplied electricity to the town and its houses as well as to the mine until the opening of the Mica Creek power station. In 1951 the powerhouse was extended to supply the new copper smelter. When the Mica Creek power station came into operation supplying electricity, the mines power station was adapted to supply compressed air for the entire mine operation. It continues to fulfill this function.
\nMount Isa Mine Experimental Dam (1920s)
\nFrom March 1923 when JC Miles discovered the lead outcrops of Mount Isa, shortage of water was identified as a \"temporary disability\" for the new field. Small soaks were opened in the bed of the Leichhardt River at both Top Camp and Lower Camp settlements. This appears to have been the period when the Experimental Dam was constructed, with a weir built at the entrance to a narrow gully, known as Hidden Valley, just south of the mine. The original stone wall of the weir was later raised with a form-cast concrete section.
\nWilliam Corbould of Mount Isa Mines knew that the treatment works would be greedy for water and EHR Greensill, a surveyor, recommended damming the gorge of Rifle Creek, 32km south of the mine. The Rifle Creek Dam was constructed by mid 1929 and a pipeline laid to Mount Isa, which became operational by 1930. Presumably from this time, the Experimental Dam ceased to function as a water supply augmenting the bores, which had been sunk. It was subsequently used for recreational purposes and there is a photographic record of a swimming carnival there about 1929.
\nMount Isa Mines – 21st century
\nMount Isa Mines has remained in continuous operation, with additions and upgrades to the broader site (outside of the heritage boundary), and the development and implementation of advancing technologies.[2]
\nGlencore acquired Mount Isa Mines in May 2013. The mine incorporated underground mines, mineral processing and smelting operations, and power generation facilities.[3] Of the early infrastructure, the Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant, Urquhart Shaft and Headframe, Mount Isa Mine Power Station and Mount Isa Mine Experimental Dam are retained.
","criteria":"The Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure, established in the 1920s and early 1930s, comprises: Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant; Urquhart Shaft and Headframe; Mount Isa Mine Power Station; and Mount Isa Mine Experimental Dam. This infrastructure is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of Queensland's history, being surviving evidence of the establishment of large-scale mining at Mount Isa by the Mount Isa Mining Company (later Mount Isa Mines Limited) in the 1920s and early 1930s.
The Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant (1920s) are significant in Queensland's history as the earliest surviving winding plant and shaft at Mount Isa. Because of their direct association with the early development of Mount Isa Mine from 1924 they also have symbolic value.
The Urquhart Shaft and Headframe (1930-31) is important in demonstrating the early development and growth of Mount Isa Mine. This headframe, which is an American A-frame rather than the more usual four poster frames of the period, was innovative at the time. The use of this style of headframe popularized the use of America A-frames.
The Mount Isa Mine Power Station (1929-31) at the base of the Urquhart shaft hill are significant remains from the initial plant construction period at Mount Isa (1929) made possible by United States capital and engineering design. The place is of historical significance for its long association with power generation for the town of Mount Isa and the mine, prior to construction of Mica Creek power station.
The Mount Isa Mine Experimental Dam (1920s) is the earliest surviving construction at Mount Isa and Mount Isa Mine, demonstrating the early development of Queensland's richest mining venture. The silted up dam remains as evidence of the vital need for storing water to enable mining operations to proceed. Its small size and out-of-the-way location on the Mount Isa Mine lease is in juxtaposition to the massive scale of the tailings dams, open cuts and tall chimneys marking the current operations.
|The development of the mining and mining infrastructure was on a scale rare in Queensland mining. It was also significant in Queensland that development was funded through an internationally accepted process of restructuring rather than through profits.
In addition [at the Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant] the two-cylinder steam winding engine manufactured by May Brothers, engineers of Gawler, South Australia, is a rare survivor and highlights the recycling of earlier Australian made equipment before specific heavy machinery was imported from England.
The operational, pre-Second World War (English) General Electric turbine generator and alternator [in the Mount Isa Mine Power Station] is an extremely rare survivor of the former three units that comprised the initial power station to the mine.
|The place has potential to reveal, through archaeological investigation, further information that may contribute to our knowledge of the early workings of the Mount Isa Mine.
The place [Lawlor Shaft and Winding Plant] demonstrates the continuity of mining history at Mount Isa and has the capacity to lend itself to interpretation of that history.
|The infrastructure has a symbolic association with the work of Mount Isa Mines, which has been important in the Queensland economy since the 1920s.
It [Urquhart Shaft and Headframe] is the largest, most complex and most visible of the two surviving steel headframes at Mount Isa Mine. Silhouetted on the skyline it has been a community landmark for over sixty years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15962,"place_ref":601198,"name":"The Substation","alternate_name":"Paddington Tramways Substation","street_address":"150 Enoggera Terrace","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-03-22","description":"The former tramway substation is a rendered masonry building with a flat concrete roof behind a parapet wall. It is situated prominently adjacent to the intersection of Latrobe and Enoggera Terraces.
The symmetrical facades demonstrate a classical influence in their design. The building has corner pilasters with the longer north and south elevations having a central pilaster. The building has a heavy cornice, feature panels of rough render and a base which is scribed to suggest large size stone blocks.
The building has large sash windows with mottled glass panes with a panel of galvanised iron louvres to either side of each window. There are also ventilation panels in the base and below the cornice. A set of large timber doors is located on the north, which has been painted bright colours, and a section of the base has also been painted.
Internally the building has concrete floors, painted brick walls and steel beams to the roof, with metal covers to the panels of louvres and pink glass inserts to the centre of the sash windows. The east end of the space has a raised floor accessed via a steep metal stair with a more recent steel pipe railing.
The original arrangement of equipment is evident. Floor ducting for the power supply is located in the west end of the space but has been filled in. The high tension switchgear and 1100 KVA transformer have been removed. The upper level has a concrete platform, supported on brick piers, where the rotary converter was located. The original location of the relay panel can be seen against the south wall, and the control and feeder panel against the east wall which supplied power to the feeder cables located either end at the top of the east wall. A toilet cubicle is located in the southeast corner of the space, over which an air compressor was once situated. An overhead gantry crane is still intact. A low exit door has been cut in the south wall, at a later date, and has an external timber access stair. The feeder cables were supported externally by large curved brackets on the east wall which remain intact with insulators. An AC transformer is located externally to the west.
On the western perimeter is a section of stone wall which was part of the gardens originally located on the site.
","history":"The former tramways substation was erected in 1929-30, during a period of tramways expansion which followed the Brisbane City Council's 1925 acquisition of the tramways system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust. It was erected on Cook's Hill, along the Paddington line, on land which was formerly part of the adjacent Ithaca Fire Station.
The Brisbane Tramways Company, a private enterprise formed in 1895, introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane in mid-1897. Following lobbying by the Ithaca Shire Council, a tramway was extend along Musgrave Road to Red Hill, and a line was laid along Caxton Street and Given Terrace as far as Latrobe Terrace in 1898. The Red Hill line was extended to Ashgrove in 1924, and the Paddington line was extended to Bardon in 1937. The spread of the tramways network was a catalyst for residential development in the western suburbs.
In 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council, anxious to control the city's electricity supply, decided to build its own power house at New Farm, under the supervision of the BCC Tramways Department. Opened on 28 June 1928, New Farm distributed 11000 kW AC power to a network of eleven suburban tramway substations erected in the 1920s and 1930s. The function of the Paddington substation, the seventh in the network, was to assist the Petrie Terrace substation (erected 1927-28) in providing a better distribution of power to the increased western suburbs tram services.
Considerable attention was given to the design of these substations. Roy Rusden Ogg, the tramways' architect and construction engineer from 1926 until the late 1930s, in conjunction with tramways' chief engineers Nelson (1925-26) and Arundell (1926-49?), designed at least ten Brisbane substations between 1926 and 1936, and the first two stages of the New Farm powerhouse (1927-29 and 1934-36). Ogg also designed the Tramways Department's Head Office building on Coronation Drive (1929). The Paddington substation, constructed of bricks and structural steel from the old Countess Street power house (closed in mid-1928), was the first of his substation designs to incorporate a parapet wall, flat roof and exterior render.
The Paddington substation was automatic, equipped with an 1100 KVA transformer, a British-Thomson-Houston 1000 kW rotary converter, switchgear, support services, and an overhead crane (designed by the Tramways Department). The substation received 11000 volts AC electricity from the New Farm Power station, via an underground feeder cable. The transformer reduced this supply, which the rotary converter then converted to 600 volts DC for the tramways network.
The substation commenced operation on 11 August 1930 and remained in service until the phasing out of Brisbane's trams in the late 1960s. In 1969 the Paddington line was closed, the substation's electrical equipment was removed, and the building became a storage depot. In 1985, Hands On Art was given a fifteen year lease of the building.
","criteria":"The Paddington Substation is important in demonstrating part of the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in that it provides evidence of Brisbane's early 20th century tramway system and its contribution to the growth of the inner western suburbs; and has had a close association with the development of Brisbane's electricity supply system.
|In elements of the fabric and design, the building demonstrates now rare evidence of the electrical system arrangement and working of an interwar, rotary converter type, tramways substation in Brisbane.
|The substation is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small scale industrial building designed for a prominent urban location.
The building has a special association with the work of tramways architect RR Ogg and chief engineer W Arundell.
|The substation exhibits a landmark quality and contribution to the Brisbane townscape which is valued by the community.
|The building has strong social and cultural associations with the Paddington community, being an integral member of an historic group of sites on Cook's Hill which includes the former Ithaca Fire Station [601199], the Ithaca War Memorial and Park [600274], and Ithaca Embankments [601209].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15963,"place_ref":601199,"name":"Ithaca Fire Station (former)","alternate_name":"Ithaca Fire Station","street_address":"140 Enoggera Terrace","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-03-02","description":"Ithaca Fire Station (former), situated near the junction of Enoggera and Latrobe Terraces, is a two storeyed building with a hipped corrugated fibro cement roof.
\nThe building is clad with chamferboards at the ground floor and fibro cement to the first floor. The north elevation has a central projecting vehicle bay with two sets of folding timber and glass garage doors. The ground floor has timber sash windows with decorative timber bracketed window hoods, while on the first floor there are casement windows.
\nInternally, the central vehicle bay has a concrete floor with timber floors to the locker room, recreation area and offices on each side. The ground floor walls have tongue and groove boards, the ceilings are boarded and a recessed bay with mottled glass panels opens off the vehicle bay to the locker room. The first floor has tongue and groove boards to the walls, fibro-cement ceiling, timber floors elsewhere, and bathroom and toilet. Some of the original fire station fittings survive.
\n","history":"
The ground floor of this timber and fibro-cement building was erected in 1918-19 as the headquarters of the Ithaca Fire Brigade. The brigade was formed in 1918 by the merger of the Ithaca and Milton Volunteer Fire Brigades, and provided the inner western suburbs with a permanent firefighting force of four, with six auxiliary staff.
\nThe building was erected on Cook's Hill, at the junction of Latrobe and Enoggera Terraces, near where the Ithaca Volunteer Fire Brigade station had stood. The new building was constructed by the firefighters themselves at a cost of £500, using materials from dismantled fire stations. It was designed by the superintendent, A J Harper, who also supervised the work. Site excavation, terracing, and installation of a septic tank were carried out by the Ithaca Town Council, who were eager to promote an improved firefighting service in the town.
\nThe station was opened on 8 February 1919 by the Mayor of Ithaca, Alderman Kaye. It comprised an engine room, recreation room, large dormitory, bathroom and verandah. Located within the grounds were a large shed, which possibly pre-dated the station building, and a fire hose tower, removed from the former Milton Volunteers' Baroona Road station.
\nIn 1921 Brisbane's fire brigades combined to form the Metropolitan Fire Brigades District, and the station continued to be known as the Ithaca Fire Station.
\nExtensive landscaping of Cook's Hill was undertaken in 1919 by the Ithaca Town Council's gardener, Alexander Jolly. Most of this was destroyed with the construction of the adjacent tramway substation in 1929-30.
\nIn 1938 a first floor was added as accommodation for the officer in charge. The architects were Atkinson, Powell and Conrad and the builder was FW Enchelmaier.[1] During the Second World War the building was a base for the Wartime Auxiliary Fire Service.
\nThe fire station functioned until August 1992, when it was vacated. It was the longest operating fire station in the Brisbane area. The hose tower was removed some time after 1981.
\nThe galvanised iron storage shed which was located between the fire station building and the adjacent substation was removed in 1995.
","criteria":"The Ithaca Fire Station (former), constructed in two stages, 1918-19 and 1928, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, as it is an integral part of a group of civic buildings and places along Enoggera Terrace which demonstrate the identity of the former Ithaca Town.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 20th century suburban fire station.
|It exhibits aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, including its landmark quality and contribution to the Paddington townscape.
|The place has strong social and cultural association with the Paddington and Brisbane communities as an integral member of an historic group on Cook's Hill which includes the adjacent Ithaca War Memorial and Park [600274], The Paddington Substation [601198], and Ithaca Embankments [601209].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15964,"place_ref":601200,"name":"Wiss Brothers Store & Dwelling (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"101 George Street","suburb":"KALBAR","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-29","description":"This store is located on a corner site fronting George Street, the main street of Kalbar. The rectangular chamferboard building, sits on timber stumps, and has a corrugated iron gabled roof with a skillion awning over the footpath. Four decorative metal ventilators are located along the ridge of the roof.
The street facade is a virtuoso assemblage of sheet metal in imitation of classical masonry detail. It has three arched windows above the awning, the central one being the largest and crowned by a pediment with the inscription WISS BROS. Pilasters feature to either side of the pediment, with the dates 1890 and 1909, and to the corners of the facade, and are surmounted by finials.
The building is embellished by the use of decorative pressed metal sheets, depicting a brickwork pattern to the front facade and floral and geometric patterns to the verandah awning, window display ceiling and sections of the store ceiling. The shopfront has three glass display bays with cast-iron columns at each corner of the central bay. There are french doors with fanlights, between each of the bays.
The building has high level, centrally pivoting hopper windows to both sides and rear. The rear has a corrugated iron skillion roofed verandah with two entry doors and sash windows.
Internally, the building has exposed timber trusses with diagonally boarded raked ceilings with a central flat pressed metal ceiling. The trusses are supported by central timber columns with timber arch brackets and some of the original timber partitioning, with turned timber balustrade capping, remains.
To the south of the store is the original residence, consisting of two small timber and iron dwellings connected by an enclosed verandah. A bulk store, constructed of timber with twin hipped corrugated iron roofs and lean-to awnings, is located at the rear of the store.
","history":"This large timber store was erected in 1909 for Lionel Ainger Wiss of Wiss Bros, a prominent Engelsburg (Kalbar) general store and trading firm. It replaced a smaller store built in 1890.
LA Wiss had arrived in Queensland from Germany with his brothers Campbell and Alfred, c.1887. They were German-born sons of English parents. After a short time in northern Queensland, Alfred returned to England and Lionel and Campbell moved to Ipswich, where they worked for grocer W Siemon & Sons for about three years.
In mid-1890 the brothers acquired an acre of land at Engelsburg, in the heart of the Fassifern Scrub district, south of Ipswich, which had been settled in the 1870s by immigrant German farmers. At this time, the township of Engelsburg comprised a general store, two saddlers, a cabinetmaker and glazier, a hotel and store, a butcher's shop, timber yard and blacksmith. The Engelsburg State School had been established in 1885. There were two Lutheran churches in the district, a Baptist church, a Primitive Methodist church, a Catholic church, and a small Salvation Army meeting hall. Much of the brigalow scrub had been cleared, and the surrounding district was dotted with small farm selections of 60, 80 or 120 acres.
On their Engelsburg property, adjacent to Heinrich Welge's Fassifern Hotel on the principal road from Ipswich to the Fassifern head station, the Wiss brothers erected a small store and dwelling. In August 1890, Ipswich architect Henry Edmund Wyman called tenders for a store and dwelling to be erected at Engelsburg, and by September 1890, a store for Lionel Wiss was being constructed there.
Lionel married Danish immigrant Maria Elise Wiuff at Ipswich in late 1890, and in the same year joined Campbell in partnership as Wiss Bros, storekeepers, at Engelsburg. They established one of the most important businesses in the town, which was emerging as a district centre following the closer settlement of the Fassifern Scrub for dairying and agriculture. They provided a general store which not only sold a great variety of goods, but also traded farm produce, acted as agent for major farm equipment suppliers, and offered substantial credit, doing much to assist local farmers. As early as 1892, Wiss Bros were the local agents for the United, Fire and Marine Insurance Co., and from 1894 to 1897 held the Engelsburg postal receiving office, until construction of an official post office in 1897. Until the railway came to Kalbar in 1916, Wiss Bros transported local produce to the nearest railhead at Munbilla on behalf of the local farmers. The firm was a principal employer in the town, with 8 to 10 employees by the 1920s.
In 1903, their premises consisted of the small store and a separate dwelling fronting George Street, and bulk store and large stables at the rear. Lionel Wiss's property had been extended with the acquisition of an adjacent acre to the south in 1898, and a further adjoining 2 roods in 1901. Campbell Wiss had left the partnership by c.1904, but the name Wiss Bros was retained.
When the new store was erected in 1909, the original store was moved a little to the north in George Street, and operated for many years as Surawski's Fassifern Cafe. In the 1980s this building was shifted to the Cunningham Highway.
Lionel ('Daddy') Wiss was a highly respected local identity, who took a prominent role in the community and the local Methodist church. In 1910, he acquired 56 acres in the centre of Engelsburg. About half of this he subdivided in 1916 into residential allotments, thereby creating most of the western half of the town of Engelsburg (renamed Kalbar in 1916 when the railway reached the town).
Following Lionel Wiss's death in 1932, the business was managed by his family under the supervision of his daughter Adeline Wiss. In 1947 the business was sold to Holmes Bros, and remained a general store until 1966, when transferred to Chemical & Air Services Pty Ltd, who occupied the buildings for over twenty years.
","criteria":"The former Wiss Bros Store and Dwelling is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, illustrating the growth of Engelsburg (Kalbar) as the centre of a thriving dairying and agricultural district in the early years of the 20th century.
|The former Wiss Bros Store and Dwelling is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an intact, early 20th century general purpose country store, with associated early bulk store and c.1890 dwelling.
|The former Wiss Bros Store and Dwelling is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, being a self-conscious element in the townscape, employing lavish and accomplished workmanship in sheet and pressed metal to imitate a classical masonry facade.
|The former Wiss Bros Store and Dwelling has a special association with Engelsburg (Kalbar) storekeeper Lionel Ainger Wiss and the firm of Wiss Bros, who played an important role in the commercial, social and physical development of the Kalbar town, community and district from the 1890s to the 1940s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15967,"place_ref":602472,"name":"Hefferan Park Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"260 Annerley Road","suburb":"ANNERLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Hefferan Park air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. It stands adjacent to a playground under the canopies of mature fig trees in the northern end of Hefferan Park, which is located at a major road intersection, and is near the Dutton Park Railway Station. The roof of the shelter is painted light green. The bottom sections of the piers are painted red, while the upper sections of the piers are painted white. The floor of the shelter is paved with red and white pavers in a diagonal pattern.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Hefferan Park as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the Hefferan Park air raid shelter were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter roof and piers have been painted and concrete pavers have been laid on the floor.
","criteria":"The Hefferan Park air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located in Hefferan Park is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Hefferan Park air raid shelter, now used as a park shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15968,"place_ref":601204,"name":"Ravenswood Court House Group (former)","alternate_name":"Court House and Police Station, Ravenswood","street_address":"Raven Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-01-27","description":"The Court House Group, on the northern corner of Macrossan and Raven Streets, is located near the town centre of Ravenswood on a raised site overlooking Elphinstone Creek to the south. Ravenswood is located in a mining landscape, which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinky apples and rubber vines. The group consists of three buildings; a court house, barracks and cell block.
The court house is a single-storeyed timber building with a corrugated iron gable roof and concrete stumps. The building has a T-shaped plan, with the court room forming the southwest wing surrounded on three sides by verandahs, and offices form the northeast wing with a verandah on the northeast side.
The building has weatherboard cladding to the exposed gable ends, and single-skin exposed framing to the verandah walls. Verandahs have a timber rail balustrade, with timber posts and capitals. French doors open to northeast verandah, with the southwest wing having sash windows and a central projecting gabled entrance porch with finial. The southwest gable has a finial and paired timber brackets, and the exposed gable ends have a casement window with timber and iron hood.
Internally, the building contains early court room furniture and fittings including timber gallery seating, witness stand, dock, and Judge's bench, with horizontal timber boarding to walls and a raked ceiling.
The barracks, located to the north of the court house, is a single-storeyed, single-skin timber building with a corrugated iron gable roof and concrete stumps. The building has a verandah on the southeast, the wall of which is clad with fibrous cement sheeting, with two french doors and a sash window and timber door. The exposed walls have weatherboard cladding, with glass louvred windows on the northwest, and a sash window with metal hood on the northeast. The southern corner has had some cladding and part of the verandah removed.
Internally, the building has three rooms, the northern one being lined with horizontal boarding, and boarded ceilings.
The cell block, located to the northeast of the court house, and to the west of the barracks, is a single-storeyed, single-skin timber building with a corrugated iron hipped roof and concrete stumps. The building has a verandah on the southeast, with four doors and a window. The exposed walls have weatherboard cladding, with glass louvred windows, a casement window and a door on the northwest, a glass louvred window on the southwest, and a sash window on the northeast.
Internally, the building has four rooms, some of which are lined and have boarded ceilings. Timber cell doors with original hardware have been removed, but remain on the site.
","history":"The Court House Group consists of three buildings erected on the site in 1882 - the Court House, Police Station, and Cells (formerly part of the Police Station), all of which were removed from the site in 1965 and subsequently returned during the 1980s.
The buildings replaced an earlier Court House (1870), Police Barracks (1871), and Lockup (1871), which were amongst a number of buildings erected by the colonial government to provide the necessary infrastructure to both encourage and control the early days of Ravenswood's gold rush.
Gold was to dominate mining in Queensland from the 1850s to the first World War, with major discoveries and consequential "rushes" in such places as Clermont (1861), Gympie (1867), Ravenswood (1868), Charters Towers (1872), Palmer Gold Field (1873), and Mt Morgan (1882). Such discoveries were to make Queensland the third largest producer of gold in Australia, after Western Australia and Victoria.
The initial and very successful gold mining in Ravenswood was by panning of the alluvial gold. This was then replaced by reef mining. By 1871, Ravenswood's troubles had begun; as mines sank beneath the water table it was found that the gold could not easily be extracted from the mundic sulphides. In Ravenswood this caused particular problems due in part to the variety and unpredictability of the distribution of sulphides in the ore. Greater capital was now required to fund the various technologies for extracting the gold. As a result many miners left for other gold fields, such as the recently discovered Charters Towers field, which was to quickly overtake Ravenswood as a gold producer and most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite the exodus, the town continued; the economy of town funded by mining (on a reduced scale) and the establishment of silver mines at nearby Totley. It was also substantially aided by the building of further government infrastructure, which included the opening of the railway from Townsville in 1884, a new Post and Telegraph Office (1885), and Hospital (1887) as well as the new Court House and Police Station (1882).
The Court House and the Police Station were erected by contractors A Donald (for £1,200) and FA Sparre (for £885) respectively and designed by the Department of Public Works. The designs were types (or variations of types) developed by the Department during this time which could be adapted to the varying requirements of the widespread colony. They enabled the Department to establish a high standard of public architecture for what were relatively modest buildings, which at the same time could be erected by local contractors.
The Court House was a "T" shaped timber building with verandah back and front; with a large court room located to the front and offices to the rear. The Police Station was erected as a "U" shaped timber building containing an office, quarters for the local policeman and his family, and three cells. At this time, a sergeant's residence is recorded as being on the site. This was sold and removed in 1929 and appears to have been the original Police Barracks erected in 1871. A stable to house the police horses is recorded on the site by 1899, however, this may well have existed prior to this time. By 1912, a brick retaining wall with a white picket fence had been erected along Raven Street.
By this time, the mining industry in Ravenswood was in decline. The great strike in Ravenswood of 1912/1913 left a bitterly divided community; the mines continued to decline and the outbreak of war in 1914 lead to an increase in costs and a scarcity of labour. This decline was to be repeated throughout Australia in the post World War I period; with the mining industry not regenerating (albeit in a new form in which coal, aluminium, and iron ore took precedence in the new markets) until after the second World War.
In the following years, mining in the town continued, but the boom was over: much of the population moved away, a number of buildings were removed, and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway. In 1928, the Police Constable (who also acted as Assistant Mining Registrar, Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions, Acting Stock Inspector and Land Agent) reported (in the context of seeking to justify expenditure on police buildings) that although mining was quiet, there were indications that it might accelerate at any time. In fact a small revival occurred during the 1930s and early 1940s and later revivals as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores, but Ravenswood never returned to the prosperity of the early 1900s and was not rebuilt.
In 1965, both the Court House and Police Station joined the long line of buildings to be removed from Ravenswood. Although some changes had been made to the buildings in the intervening years (including conversion of one of the cells to a bathroom), they were substantially as built when removed to Mt Ravenswood Station, where the Police Station was used (in several pieces) as ringers' accommodation.
Since the 1970s, numerous studies of the Ravenswood area have been completed; in the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. During this time, as a result of the flooding of the Burdekin Dam, the Police Station, Cells (now annexed from the station), and Court House were moved back to the site. This period also saw the commencement of open cut gold mining by Carpentaria Gold Pty Ltd and the growth of cultural tourism in the town. The Police Station is proposed for reuse as such; the Court House is used as a community facility.
","criteria":"Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region. The state's encouragement for such development was demonstrated by the establishment of supporting public infrastructure. Moreover, the Court House and Police buildings, erected in Ravenswood during the 1880s, form part of an apparently deliberate government policy to support the town during a period of economic decline.
|The group was erected according to architectural types developed at this time by the Public Works Department.
|Located on a prominent rise in the centre of the town, the Court House and Police buildings, as was the usual practice, were erected on the same government reserve. The Court House, which includes early furniture and fittings, is particularly intact.
|Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region.
|The group was erected according to architectural types developed at this time by the Public Works Department, which was instrumental in developing the quality of building in the state.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15969,"place_ref":601205,"name":"Picnic Point and adjacent Parkland","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"168 Tourist Road","suburb":"RANGEVILLE","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"As Toowoomba is approached by road from Brisbane along the Warrego Highway the bush-clad escarpment of the Great Dividing Range is sighted rising impressively above the Lockyer Valley. In recent years more cleared areas have been visible along the skyline of the escarpment and buildings are beginning to spill over this edge and dot the slopes with patches of unfamiliar colour. The well-established recreation facilities at Picnic Point are indiscernible from below to all but the informed visitor. This impression on approach conceals the intensity of the development of the recreation facilities and associated garden areas at the parkland from the visitor until the ultimate point of arrival is reached.
The final section of the roadway approach to Picnic Point and adjacent parklands is along Tourist Road through an avenue of mature hoop pine (Auracaria cunnninghamii) and South Queensland kauri (Agathis robusta) pine trees, conceivably the 'noble thoroughfare' anticipated by Holtze in 1910. The first substantial area of parkland, known as Lions Park, is on the northern side of the road. Its western edge is an open grassy area with both exotic and native tree species planted here. There is a children's playground here and a substantial bluestone shed which stores a children's train, operated on week-ends by the Lions Club. Strolling east through this parkland the waterfall area is reached but this is not visible from the road approach.
The visual cue to the traveller of arrival at Picnic Point is the gentle curve of Tourist Road to the left as it narrows and becomes limited to one-way traffic through the central area of the parklands. Traffic calming devices are also constructed across the carriage-way. Shrubs along the roadway to the north are heavily trimmed and shaped to a cylindrical form. Sweeping vistas over the escarpment to the north begin to open up. To the right (south of the roadway) is the area referred to in the 1995 Management Plan as the Central Precinct. This area is visually dominated by a dense canopy of mature Hoop Pines (Auracaria cunnninghamii) and Blakely's Red Gum (Eucalyptus blakleyii). There are a number of park fixtures installed under this canopy, including another children's playground, a band rotunda and strategically placed park bench tables and seating.
A small information shelter is situated on the left as the Primary Viewing Precinct is approached. Beyond this shelter a light eucalypt canopy and a new fence, designed to reflect the simple post and diamond placed top rail style of fencing which would have been used here earlier, mark the edge of the escarpment. To the right an access point pulls off this perimeter road to a car-parking area. Alighting from the car the visitor is drawn across the road and into the area which remains, and has been historically, the primary viewing precinct adjacent to the kiosk. A broad pathway leads to a stone cairn with a brass direction information plate on the top. Presumably this is the cairn provided by Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd. in 1930. It is from this vicinity that countless visitors over time have captured a signature photographic memory of Picnic Point against a backdrop of Tabletop Mountain. Early photographs indicate a lookout structure built out over the escarpment in this area but no immediately obvious evidence remains of this. Adjacent stairs descend to the pathway system along the face of the escarpment. Bluestone retaining walls in this area suggest that this path was part of the walkway system for which State Government loan funding was requested in 1954. Located prominently to the left of the stone direction plinth is the Puppy Memorial, erected in 1959, initially installed closer to the kiosk, and moved to its current location in recent times. This new location would appear to closely correspond with the preferred site indicated by the Toowoomba Thistle Pipe Band in 1959.
The kiosk structure itself forms the southern boundary of the primary viewing precinct. The relatively minimum visual impact of the current building on the site belies what, in reality, is quite an extensive function and day-tourist service facility. This illusion is achieved by the construction of a substantial part of the facility being under the brow of the escarpment with pedestrian access drawn down into the lower service level. To the west of the kiosk is the distinctive mushroom-shaped water tower, visually dominating the built environment and today a key reference point within the Picnic Point parklands.
The lower level of the kiosk structure, the main public eating area, leads out via a terrace to the north onto part of the escarpment walking track system immediately below the primary viewing precinct. At this point the path is fenced from the escarpment with chain-wire mesh fencing fixed to galvanized pipe posts and rails. Remnants of exotic vegetation, particularly of Bougainvillea creeper to the bank, are identified here. Walking northward along this track similar but more intimate vistas to the north are obtained to those from the primary viewing precinct above.
Further along the visitor enters the waterfall area on the site of the old quarry. This area is planted densely with tropical character foliage plants to both upper and under stories producing a cool shady pathway to the base of the waterfall. Large stepping stones are used to define the track around the base of the waterfall. A recent addition to the enclosed lawn area to the west of the waterfall is a small rotunda structure used as the focal point for celebrations such as weddings. Further westwards an informal track leads to the Bill Gould Lookout offering views down to the Warrego Highway below. To the south a lighted pathway and stairs, both paved with stone slabs, negotiate a series of low terraced garden beds through the shrubbery border to the enclosed lawn area, eventually leading the visitor along another formed pathway to the top of the old quarry and a viewing platform above the waterfall or across onto the Central Precinct area in the vicinity of the entry traffic island on Tourist Road.
The central precinct area is yet another component of these parklands with a particularly distinctive character arising from its designed landscape. As previously noted this area is visually dominated by a dense canopy of mature hoop pines (Auracaria cunnninghamii) and Blakely's red gum (Eucalyptus blakleyii) and there are a number of park fixtures installed under this canopy, including another children's playground, a band rotunda and strategically placed park bench tables and seating. Given the maturity of the dominant hoop pines and eucalypts here it seems reasonable to surmise that they are survivors of the "further ornamental trees" Curator Harding planned and planted at the park in 1913 for the Toowoomba City Council.
Returning to the car park at the top of the Central Precinct the visitor has the opportunity to explore the parklands further by car, along Tobruk Drive. This bitumen road is within the parklands and runs eastwards behind the kiosk along a gently dipping ridge, with a vegetation cover of predominantly open eucalypt forest. This area was grazed at least until the early 1960s. The ubiquitous natural bushland style of picnic facilities, popular since the raising of the awareness of environmental issues on the national consciousness, is installed in this area. Road edging is marked with low log barriers to prevent the entry of cars to the sweeping areas of shady lawn. Barbecues and park furniture are of a robust, basic and functional design as is the fencing and structure associated with the Bob Dodd's Lookout at the end of the roadway. To the south of the road a gully is being revegetated with rainforest seedlings with voluntary labour from the community and a small dam has been constructed at the foot of this gully to enable the seedlings to be watered as required. The Pardalote Walk meanders, as a graded track, along the bottom edge of the open northern picnic area here from the rear of the kiosk to the Bob Dodd's Lookout. From the Bob Dodd's Lookout the track leads around the ridge to the south to the rainforest gully and dam then joins the Fantail Circuit and eventually intersects with a Bridle Trail offering the enthusiastic hiker access to Tabletop Mountain. Other unnamed tracks criss-cross this escarpment area.
Returning along Tobruk Drive the visitor crosses Heller Street and enters the Heller Street Park precinct, part of the land acquired by the Toowoomba Council early in the twentieth century as an adjunct to the Picnic Point Reserve. This section of the parklands is not as intensively developed as other precincts however there is yet another large children's playground here offering a different range of activities to those available elsewhere in the parklands. The relatively open grassy expanse also offers the opportunity for informal ball games in this area. A new toilet block and parking area is located in the north-east corner of this precinct. To the west extensive views are enjoyed across the suburbs of Toowoomba. As the visitor leaves the park the avenue of mature trees along Tourist Road again closes in these vistas and completes the unique landscape experience of Picnic Point and its adjacent parklands as recognized and planned for over a century ago.
","history":"Picnic Point and its adjacent parkland is today a reserve of approximately 65 hectares (160 acres) situated on the crest of a prominent bluff along the top of the Great Dividing Range at Toowoomba. The site was selected by WH Groom, the first Lord Mayor of Toowoomba in consultation with WC Hume, the then Commissioner of Crown Lands on the Darling Downs as being "one of great beauty, easy of access, commanded splendid views of the deep gorges of the Main Range and the hills below it, and was the recreational resort of the people for a days outing."
The word "picnic" has entered the English language via the French term picque-nique, a term which, by the early 1700's, had come to describe "an informal communal meal to which guests brought their own food, or paid for themselves at a restaurant, but which increasingly took place outdoors". Picnicking became a popular leisure activity in Britain by the 1800s and British immigrants to Australia found that the mild climate, seemingly "boundless" opportunities for the provision of public open space, particularly in attractive settings, offered many opportunities to continue with this tradition. Picnics at public parklands or reserves offered people the opportunity to enjoy the company of large gatherings of families and friends in congenial surroundings, or for particular interest groups to socialize. It is of note that from the time the first portion of 38 acres (15 hectares) of this reserve was set aside in 1886 that the name given to the area was Picnic Point.
In 1888 the citizens of Toowoomba and surrounding districts petitioned Henry Jordan, the Minister of Lands to convey in perpetuity to the Municipal Council in Trust for the inhabitants of Toowoomba and district and to be devoted solely for the purpose of a public park, approximately 2000 acres of Main Range escarpment lands, at the time designated within the Toowoomba Town Common. The reserve at Picnic Point and the escarpment area below it were included in the lands identified by this petition. The petitioners described the land as follows,
"...a piece of land replete with beauty, and full of picturesque effects, such as, are most charming to the eye, and gratifying to the lover of landscape variety, - grassy slopes and rugged mountain gullies, clothed with verdant scrubs, and down which flow rippling streams from natural springs.
This spot is the favorite resort of pleasure seekers during the holidays, pic-nic parties and lovers of forest scenery: our children and hundreds of whom associate together for games and frolic may frequently be seen enjoying themselves and disporting on the grass and under the shade of the noble trees.
We are extremely anxious that this beautiful piece of land should be secured in such a manner as to remain an appendage to this town for the enjoyment of future generations.
Toowoomba is fast becoming a favorite temporary residence for our fellow colonists, especially from the north, for the purpose of renewing their health and vigour, and we are sure its reputation in this respect will be enhanced were it to become known that the town was in possession of so delightful a place for them to enjoy the gratification of such unrivaled scenery."
The wording of this petition strongly embodies two concepts emerging in British society (and consequently disseminated across the Empire) from the early nineteenth century. These concepts include a penchant for the seeking out and appreciation of the picturesque qualities of natural landscapes and a firm conviction that the general health of people could be enhanced if they spent more time outdoors. The petition appears not to have been acted on but nevertheless the initial reserve of 38 acres has been steadily added to over the intervening years.
Adjacent industry in the form of a quarry does not seem to have detracted from the scenic beauty of Picnic Point at the time the petition was presented, or perhaps the reason is that the location of the quarry below the escarpment meant that its workings did not visually intrude on the expansive outlook from the public reserve. Formal application was made to the Under Secretary for Lands by the Middle Range Shire in 1890 for permission to include 'the old quarry' in their application for use of "about five acres of vacant land near Picnic Point for the quarrying of suitable stone for roads". Council records indicate that in 1912 the Council works committee directed that 20 chains of Tourist Road be metalled using stone from the Picnic Point quarry. Quarrying operations ceased in 1940 and the area became part of the Picnic Point Park Reserve.
The elevated position of this land also saw it selected for the site of a Trigonometrical Survey Station between 1883 and 1891. This station was part of an ambitious plan set in train by Acting Surveyor-General Tully in response to the recommendation of an 1876 Royal Commission "that a comprehensive system of trigonometrical survey of Queensland would be economical and of benefit to the survey of the whole state". This survey work ceased due to lack of funding in 1891.
The first addition to the Picnic Point Reserve was made when the Municipal Council purchased two freehold allotments fronting both Heller and Rowbotham Streets in 1902. By 1906 the council had commenced tree-planting at Picnic Point under the supervision of Curator Harding of the Botanical gardens. A further expansion of the reserve was made in 1909. This resulted in a considerable flow of correspondence between the Toowoomba Town Council and the Lands Department concerning the boundaries of the addition as the initial gazettal had omitted to include a 'bluff point' along the northern brow of Picnic Point. This was rectified in 1910 and the whole of portion 364 and parts (the brow of the bluff) of Portions 365 and 366 were now included in the Picnic Point Reserve. Also in 1910 the Picnic Point reserve was proclaimed as a RESERVE FOR THE PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION OF NATIVE BIRDS under the "The Native Birds Protection Acts 1877 to 1884" and a Proclamation dated the 25 October 1905. Alexander Holtze writing in a commemorative publication to celebrate the jubilee of the establishment of the town of Toowoomba in 1910 commented, " There are numerous picturesque spots surrounding Toowoomba, notably Picnic Point, situated at an elevation of 2,300 feet - where there is a recreation reserve of 32 acres and from which wonderful panoramas of mountain and valley scenes are visible. This point of vantage is reached from the city by a drive through tree-clad avenues, which in a few years will form a noble thoroughfare."
It is conjectured that the avenue of mature Hoop and Kauri Pine Trees planted along Tourist Road on the approach to Picnic Point Reserve were planted during this period. Curator Harding planned and planted further ornamental trees at the park in 1913 for the Toowoomba City Council.
Although the crest of the escarpment was now secured and used extensively as a public reserve a substantial area of the adjacent parkland area of Picnic Point continued to be used as a grazing lease. In common with much of Queensland's grazing country in the early 1920s the land suffered badly from the infestation of prickly pear, particularly on the face of the escarpment. Visitors to the area saw this as a major visual scar on the landscape. Despite this situation in 1920 permission was granted by the Toowoomba Council, to lease part of the reserve as a park and to construct the first substantial kiosk building here. This building was completed in 1921 and leased by J McIntyre, initially for a three-year period. One of the conditions included in this lease was "That the leasing of the land will not interrupt or obstruct the free use of the Park for purposes of Recreation.". The Council also constructed a lookout platform in the vicinity, cantilevered out over the escarpment. It offered direct views to Tabletop Mountain and out across the Lockyer Valley. Construction of such facilities to support the recreational use patterns of established picnic grounds was typical of the 1920s and 1930s era. Lookout structures were popular additions to the designed landscapes of public parks, particularly if their siting was able to take advantage of naturally elevated vantage points. Frequently these lookouts were the most basic of structures such as the construction of a simple fence, or a low stone wall, built to ensure the safety of visitors while they enjoyed the views, rather than to make a design statement in their own right. Other examples of public lookouts established in Queensland, particularly in proximity to large urban settlements, are those on Mount Coot-tha in Brisbane and Castle Hill in Townsville.
In 1930 the Toowoomba office of Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd approached the Toowoomba City Council requesting permission to erect a Cairn at Picnic Point on which would be mounted a brass plate indicating the names and direction of numerous geographical landmarks visible from the point. Permission was granted with appreciation. The list of landmark directions suggested by the council was as follows: "Crow's Nest, Ravensbourne (NationalPark), Mt Taylor, Helidon, Gatton, Laidley, Brisbane, Cunningham's Gap, Warwick, Mt Barney, Mt Lindsey". Placement was suggested on "the Magnetic Meridan to simplify the placing in position". At the time of installation of this cairn efforts were made to identify the site of the 1891 Trigonometrical Survey Station and perhaps erect the direction cairn on this site. It appears that these search efforts were not successful.
Guide books for visitors to the area published regularly by the Toowoomba Tourist Bureau from 1926 to 1938 included a number of photographs taken from within the Picnic Point Reserve. Also included were numerous testimonies regarding the beauty of the vista from Picnic Point mostly from eminent British gentlemen who were visiting the area.
As with so many public lands in Australia facilities at Picnic Point were improved using relief labour during the depression of the 1930s. An area of steep ground south-east of the kiosk was identified as a suitable site for leveling for a camping ground. The City Engineer's report of 1936 notes, "The area suggested, which is just SE from the kiosk yard, is very steep and consequently would provide shelter from the west when completed. From clinometer readings and paced distances, it appears that an area about 66' wide and 180' long could be leveled off. At some points the batters would be up to 15' in height and nearly 2000c.yds of excavation would be required.". A letter on file from a camper in 1938 congratulates Toowoomba Council for the provision of such good camping facilities at Picnic Point.
The site saw camping of another kind during World War II. The First Australian Army troops took over the lease of the kiosk and occupied the area in general from April 1942 to December 1943. In correspondence to Toowoomba City Council in September 1944 the Rangeville Progress association complained: "At the present time the reserve is still practically in the same state that it was when vacated by the military. The fences have not been repaired where they were taken down, and cars and trucks now run throughout the whole of the park. ...thereby spoiling the natural beauty of the park. The association suggests that the fences be repaired and campers be confined to the area previously reserved for them, before the military took control, and the large pits filled in and leveled off.".
It does appear however that these parklands largely escaped the fate suffered by many large public parks in Australia after 1945, during a period of municipal rationalization in terms of limiting ongoing financial commitments to community services. Extensive ornamental display gardens which had benefited from maintenance using public works programs during the depression years were either simplified or removed. Low maintenance "shrubberies" became popular in their stead and a good deal of the public open space was regarded as potential "development" sites and in-filled with the construction of various community facilities. Picnic Point continued as a popular destination for both residents of and visitors to Toowoomba. A new lease agreement was signed for the operation of the kiosk area in 1948. New lands were added to the parklands in 1949 with the resumption for recreational purposes of two blocks of land fronting Rowbotham Street by the Toowoomba City Council. This is the present day Heller Street Park Precinct. A report from a Land Ranger to the Land Commissioner in 1951 notes that the land is "...used extensively as a tourist attraction because of the wonderful view of the Lockyer Valley one gets from the high plateau." and that the grazing lease to the bulk of the reserve did not interfere with public use in that there was "evidence of many campfires and other picnic facilities all over the slopes and gorges."
Intensity of use appears to have increased over the ensuing decade, fuelled by a substantial increase in private car ownership. In 1951 the RSL developed a proposal in conjunction with architect MC Williamson for the erection of a memorial beacon on Picnic Point. This does not appear to have ever been constructed.
In 1954 the Council successfully petitioned for a State Government loan to fund substantial improvements to the parklands at Picnic Point., including the construction of paved and kerbed pathways:
i)\taround edge of cliff to lookout and open air cafes
ii)\tfrom about centre of parking area to lookout
iii)\tto existing sanitary block"
1955 saw requests for permanent band seating from the Toowoomba Municipal Band and a request for additional shade trees from the United Executive and Progress Associations. In 1956 application was made to State Treasury for loan funds for the construction of a new kiosk at Picnic Point. By May 1957 the loan had been raised and the plans for the building completed by the City Architect, L Grienfel. In conjunction with these new works a request from a Lions Club to construct and operate a Wishing Well in the vicinity of the new kiosk was agreed to. The newly formed Picnic Point-Rangeville Progress Association requested that the old kiosk be removed to a near-by site to be used as the Progress Association Hall. (The result of this request is not known). The new kiosk building was opened by Mayor Alderman JF McCafferty on 13 September 1958.
Picnic Point and its adjacent parklands continued their popularity as a function venue for businesses, organisations and community gatherings and celebrations but cars were no longer allowed to be parked on the lawn under the shade of the trees. The 'Puppy Memorial' to the mascot of the Toowoomba Thistle Pipe Band was erected in 1959 (not at its current location). Records indicate that a grazing lease over the bulk of the property was relinquished in 1959.
The 1960s saw more construction works at Picnic Point. In 1963 a special reserve for Water Supply Purposes was excised from the park and the distinctive 'mushroom' style water tower constructed. Tobruk Memorial Drive was opened and declared a road excised from the reserve. This allowed vehicular access to extensive undulating and shady grassed picnic areas with extensive views across the Lockyer Valley and to Tabletop Mountain. This extension of formal access into a bushland area of parklands to facilitate its use for recreation coincided with the general understanding developing at the time in the wider Australian community of the environmental value and quiet beauty inherent in the Australian bush. Over a number of years members of the Toowoomba West Lions Club have continued to maintain and enhance this area as a major bushland picnic facility. In stark contrast to this voluntary work to restore and enhance the natural habitat at Tobruk Drive more designed site beautification work was carried out to the Lion's Park in 1965 when a waterfall feature was opened at the site of the old quarry on the northern face of the escarpment at Picnic Point. The project was sponsored by the Carnival of Flowers Association.
Additions to the parklands continued in the 1970s. In 1974 application was made for the erection of a small television tower off Tobruk Drive. Construction was completed in 1975. The kiosk building was damaged by fire in 1976 and application subsequently made for substantial renovation and extension work on the building in 1977. This work again included associated external works of "hot water supply and barbecue at Picnic Point ($5,000)", "kerbing, pathways and beautification around Picnic Point toilet block ($3454)". Toowoomba East Rotary Club sought permission in 1977 to construct and operate an amusement park in the Tobruk Memorial Drive area of the parklands. This was refused by the Toowoomba City Council on the grounds that "the proposal by the Rotary Club is in effect a commercial enterprise and would deprive the general public of free and unrestricted use of this particular part of the reserve."
In 1985 Tobruk Memorial Drive was closed as a public road where it entered the parklands but remained as an access track to the picnic facilities established adjacent to it.
By 1988 the 1978 extensions to the kiosk building were considered no longer adequate to cater for the visitor demand on facilities being experienced at Picnic Point and once again Toowoomba City Council called tenders "for the redevelopment of the existing Picnic Point Restaurant incorporating catering and tourist facilities. It is also proposed to extend the present lease area of 1899m2 to 3500m2 ". Responses to this advertisement by potential developers for the new facilities triggered a long-running and bitter public debate within the Toowoomba Community. The redevelopment scheme supported by the then Mayor and a number of councillors involved the construction of high rise accommodation facilities along with supporting tourist facilities and function rooms. Headlines such as "Save Picnic Point from High Rise" appeared in the Toowoomba Chronicle in 1989. Debate was ongoing and the Picnic Point Preservation Group was formed in 1991. Lobbying of council and government concerns continued with the heading of an editorial in The Chronicle in May 1992 reading Picnic Point a 'sacred site'. Public outrage maintained its momentum with the presentation of a petition to the Toowoomba City Council from the Picnic Point Defence Group in December 1993 opposing construction of high-rise plans for new facilities at Picnic Point. By 1994 plans for the redevelopment of the site had been thoroughly revised and all talk of a high rise tower being built at Picnic Point had ceased. The 1958 kiosk facilities were finally demolished in 1995 to make way for the third kiosk building on the site. This was opened in 1996, a contemporary newspaper article noting that "...the building set into hill-top to avoid obstructing views from park behind." Further alterations to this building were proposed in 1998.
Once again in conjunction with the construction of a new kiosk building an upgrading of the external facilities in the park was undertaken. The furore over the plans for the new kiosk development had overshadowed ongoing improvements to the external areas of the parklands. New lookout platforms had been constructed on the escarpment walking tracks by the Toowoomba Rotary and Lions Clubs in 1990 and 1991. In 1995 Hassell Pty Ltd, a multi-disciplinary firm including the professional areas of urban design and landscape architecture, was commissioned to undertake a study of the parklands and propose a staged Master Plan to direct the scope and intensity of future landscape works in the park.
The Hassell Master Plan to date has overseen the implementation of a number of recent changes to both the built and vegetative fabric of the parkland. A number of the changes to the vegetation were a response to better managing the health of the more mature plantings. Changes to the built fabric have included the minor re-sitings of the stone directional cairn and the Puppy Memorial in the primary viewing precinct and the demolition of the Camera Obscura, then inoperable, which had been a feature of the parklands for a number of years.
","criteria":"Discreet areas within the parklands demonstrate the principal characteristics of a number of important principles and styles used in the design of public parks and gardens and broader scale recreational 'natural' landscapes since the time of European settlement in Queensland.
|Picnic Point has a strong association with the Toowoomba community and is well known in Queensland and other areas of Australia, as an attractive public recreation area offering wide views of outstanding scenic beauty from the top of the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range across the coastal plains to the east.
|The exceptional and expansive views available from Picnic Point encompassing a 180 degree view from north to south along the escarpment and foothills of the Great Dividing Range at this point, include views to the world heritage area of The Scenic Rim to the south and east of this point. The aesthetic significance of this place and its outlook has been attested to over time, as a tourist destination. Examples of the aesthetic significance of Picnic Point range from recognized literary and artistic accolades through to vigorous expressions of public sentiment.
|The sustained use of Picnic Point and adjacent parkland as a tract of contiguous land reserves devoted to the primary purpose of public recreation and to an appreciation of the natural landscape, demonstrates the enduring importance of this type of leisure and aesthetic activity for Queenslanders from the time of European settlement.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15970,"place_ref":601206,"name":"Mabel Mill (former)","alternate_name":"Partridge Mill | Mabel Mill","street_address":"Barton Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-01-28","description":"The Mabel Mill, located near the town centre of Ravenswood and bounded by Elphinstone Creek to the south and Barton Street to the north, consists of the remains of a complex of buildings associated with the processing of gold, and to a lesser extent silver. Ravenswood is located in a mining landscape, which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinky apples and rubber vines.
The site, as indicated on the attached plan, includes the following remains:
(i)\tIn the centre of the site, a mullock road formation entranced from Barton Street which encircles the slab of the concentrate drying shed. The mullock road formation includes a shallow pit on the eastern side, which was probably the casing for a weighbridge. The concentrate drying shed, which has a wedge shaped plan, consists of a slab with post holes showing its original structure. Construction of the slab is by a cement sand screed over a rubble base.
(ii)\tTo the northeast, a general machinery display area on the site of the New Ravenswood Company office. The machinery display area includes a number of mining artefacts and machinery gathered from the Ravenswood Gold Field. Nothing remains of the New Ravenswood Company office.
(iii)\tTo the east, a safe, assay house and office. Roughly square in plan, the safe is a single-storeyed masonry building, with the perimeter wall built around a timber pole structure. The assay house is a single-storeyed timber pole structure with corrugated iron cladding to walls and roof. The building has a masonry chimney stack on the western end, and internally it contains two furnaces. The office is a single-storeyed timber framed building with corrugated iron cladding to walls and roof. The building has lean-to structures on the north and south.
(iv)\tTo the southeast, the sites of the chlorination works and cyanide tailings. The site of the chlorination works contain the remains of its footings. The site of the cyanide tailings includes areas of brick paving.
(v)\tTo the south, the stampers, boiler footings, base of stack and tailings wheel piers. From the original, only one head of stamps remain. This has timber framing and a concrete pad and timber butt base, with the surviving stamps branded with the name BRAND AND DRYBOROUGH. The footings of the boiler, used to drive the engine for the stamps and power the steam pump which drew from a well on the flank of the creek, are located at the base of the brick chimney stack. The remains of the tailings wheel, which lifted the tailings via a flume over Elphinstone Creek to the tailings area, consist of the two supporting rendered masonry piers, one of which has fallen on its side.
(vi)\tTo the southwest, the stack and flues, sites of the engine room and boiler house. The stack is a tall cylindrical masonry chimney on a square base. The remains of the flues to the south of this consist of four brick pipes, sections of which are damaged and bricks are scattered, leading to the former boiler house further to the south. The boiler house, which generated power for the mill, is survived by a line of steel posts marking the northern wall, and brick and concrete beds mark the location of the main engine room for the mill.
(vii)\tTo the northwest, the slab of a residence and stand of trees. The rendered slab is located between Mango trees, with Burdekin Plums and Date Palms nearby.
","history":"From the 1850s to the first World War, mining in Queensland was dominated by gold, with major discoveries and consequential "rushes" in such places as Clermont (1861), Gympie (1867), Ravenswood (1868), Charters Towers (1872), Palmer Gold Field (1873), and Mt Morgan (1882). Such discoveries were to make Queensland the third largest producer of gold in Australia, after Western Australia and Victoria.
In the early days, mining at Ravenswood, as with many other gold fields, was restricted to panning the alluvial gold in the gullies of creeks. Later with the establishment of reef mining, it was necessary to set up milling facilities to extract the gold. The Mabel Mill, located on the northern side of Elphinstone Creek, is known to have been established by 1871, by which time there were five mills on the Ravenswood Gold Field with a total of 52 stamps for crushing. The technology used at this time was amalgamation, involving washing the crushed ore over copper plates coated with mercury which amalgamated with the gold, scraping the amalgam off the plates, and driving off the mercury leaving the gold.
By 1871, Ravenswood's troubles had begun; as mines sank beneath the water table it was found that the gold could not easily be extracted from the mundic sulphides. In Ravenswood this caused particular problems due in part to the variety and unpredictability of the distribution of sulphides in the ore. Greater capital was now required to fund the various technologies for extracting the gold. As a result many miners left for other gold fields, such as the recently discovered Charters Towers field, which was to quickly overtake Ravenswood as a gold producer and most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite the exodus, the town continued; with the building of government infrastructure, such as the opening of the railway from Townsville in 1884 (with the station located conveniently opposite the Mabel Mill), new Court House and Police Station (1882) [601206], new Post and Telegraph Office (1885), and Hospital (1887); and other public buildings such as the School of Arts Library (c1876; dem 1992) and Hall (c1880); whilst the economy of the town was funded by mining (on a reduced scale) and the establishment of silver mines at nearby Totley.
The first reported description of the Mabel Mill site is in 1883, when a map shows the Mabel Mill as Machine Area no8 in the name of HH Barton; the site included a machine and crushing plant mill (a ten-stamp mill powered by one twenty-five horse power steam engine), furnace and stack, and a residence. At this time there were thirteen machine areas registered on the Ravenswood Gold Field with the Mining Warden's report recording that the only method in use here (Ravenswood) for dressing mundic ore is by the ordinary stamper mills and rotatory buddles, resulting in a great loss of mineral.
By 1885, the Mabel Mill was owned by "Joske & others", proprietors of the Ravenswood Gold Smelting Co, who had acquired some of the better mines in the town including the Grant, Excelsior, and Black Jack. The intention of the company was to use a smelting process to solve the mundic problem. According to the Warden, the Mabel was equipped with ten head of stamps, one buddle, two wheelers (Chilean mills?), two berdan pans, two arresters (arresteras?), and a reverbatory furnace. On the southern side of the creek, Joske was granted a five acre lease for depositing slag from his smelters.
Two years later, however, the Mining Warden reported that the methods employed by the Ravenswood Gold Smelting Co had failed and the company's capital was exhausted. The Mill (now renumbered Machine Area 28) was transferred to the Ravenswood Gold Co Ltd, under the management of previous owner, HH Barton, who also acquired the Sunset, General Grant, and Black Jack mines, and later the Melaneur and Duke of Edinburgh. A chlorination process to treat ore was installed which by 1889, was declared a success. The process involved roasting the ore to drive off the sulphur; treating the roasted ore with chlorine gas with the gold combining with the chlorine to form soluble gold chloride, which was then further treated to deposit the gold. Just two years later, however, the Mabel Mill was again in trouble with the Warden reporting that although the technology was successful as a treatment, it was not profitable.
Barton was in financial difficulties with the Banks, who took over the mill and his other extensive mining interests. In 1899, another of Ravenswood's entrepreneurs, Archibald Laurence Wilson, floated the New Ravenswood Co to acquire the assets of Barton's Ravenswood Gold Co. The new company with a capital of £50,000 had its directors in London, but was managed by Wilson. With the investment of English capital, substantial development occurred both in the town and the mines. Wilson's approach to "his companies" was reportedly high handed, but produced substantial (in 1901 and 1902, 50%) dividends for shareholders.
All of the company's acquisitions, including the Mabel Mill, were refurbished. Substantial changes were made to the mill site. Two shaking tables (known as the Wilfley type) were erected in 1901 at the Mill by Wilson, who is credited with introducing this new method of concentrating to Queensland. Under this process the ore was crushed in the stampers (without mercury), the crushed material was concentrated on the Wilfley tables, and the concentrate was sent for recovery of the gold.
Further changes were made the following year. In 1902, a new tailings (raff) wheel, measuring 48 foot (14.5 meters) in diameter, was erected higher up the creek for lifting the tailings (the fine material left after stamp milling and amalgamation) from the stamp batteries housed in a rambling galvanised iron shed on the northern side of the creek to the flume which transported the tailings across the creek onto the recently erected tailings area, where they were treated with cyanide. Cyaniding involved dissolving the gold out of the pulp with potassium cyanide and trickling the resulting solution through zinc shavings to which the gold attaches and smelting into bullion. The axis of the tailings wheel rested on brick pyramid piers sunk into bedrock, concreted, plastered, and painted); the flume was set on high posts the width of creek. Other work included a dam which was put in just below the Mill with the wall made of stone from the Ravenswood Deep Mine acquired by Wilson in 1900; the erection of a 70 foot (21.2 meters) high circular brick chimney stack; addition of new boilers to the steaming power of the battery; and an increase in capacity of the mill to thirty head.
A photo taken c1910 shows the complex to comprise the office building of the New Ravenswood Co (removed/demolished c1917), assay building, chlorination building (c1889), enclosed tailings wheel (1902), concentrate drying shed, road composed of mullock, stamper shed with elevator, main stack to boilers, and residence.
By 1912, the mining industry in Ravenswood was on its last legs; profits of the New Ravenswood Co had dropped substantially and the conditions of mine workers were in issue. The great strike in Ravenswood of 1912/1913 left a bitterly divided community; the mines continued to decline and the outbreak of war in 1914 lead to an increase in costs and a scarcity of labour. The town which had reached its peak population of nearly 5,000 people in 1903 was rapidly declining.
In 1917, the New Ravenswood Co went into liquidation, after which it is believed that much of the equipment and buildings were sold by the liquidators. This decline was to be repeated throughout Australia in the post World War I period; with the mining industry not regenerating (albeit in a new form in which coal, aluminium, and iron ore took precedence in the new markets) until after the second World War.
In 1918, a new company, Ravenswood Gold Mines Ltd, took up a portion of the abandoned mining leases of New Ravenswood; ore was sent to the Venus State Battery [600413] at Charters Towers for treatment. The Mabel Mill continued to provide crushing services for the reduced scale of local mining. A 1920 map shows the Mabel Mill (renumbered as Machine Area 203) with a significantly reduced area of 3 roods 8 perches. The formation of the new company, however, did little to arrest the rapid slide of Ravenswood (and the Mill) from its short period of glory. In the following years, mining in the town continued, but the boom was over: much of the population moved away, a number of buildings were removed, and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway.
A small revival occurred during the 1930s (Partridge and Ralston established a mill on the southern side of the creek of the Mabel Mill site to treat old tailings) and early 1940s and later revivals as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores, but Ravenswood never returned to the prosperity of the early 1900s and was not rebuilt.
The minor buildings on the site lasted until after World War II and by 1960, the site was virtually as seen today, apart from the more recent removal to the site of a collection of machinery. Since the 1970s, numerous studies of the Ravenswood area have been completed; in the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. This period also saw the commencement of open cut gold mining by Carpentaria Gold Pty Ltd and the growth of cultural tourism in the town.
","criteria":"As a symbol of the varying fortunes of Ravenswood, the former Mabel Mill, both in spite of and because of its state of ruin, is one of the most significant sites in the town.
At the same time, by its very nature as a ruin (which is such a part of the pattern of the contemporary Ravenswood townscape), it provides tangible evidence of the often mercurial nature of a community dependent on finite mineral wealth.
|As a ruin, the site still retains sufficient physical evidence to demonstrate some of the processes employed to overcome the problem of extracting gold in the Ravenswood area.
|(Criterion under review)
|The history of the site is linked to those of HH Barton (Ravenswood Gold Co) and AL Wilson (New Ravenswood Co), two of the town's most notable entrepreneurs and companies associated with the development of the gold mining industry in North Queensland, which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15971,"place_ref":601207,"name":"London North Mine, Ravenswood","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Elphinstone street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-02-22","description":"Ravenswood is located in a mining landscape, which consists of disturbed ground with scattered ruins and mullock heaps, set amongst distinctive chinky apples and rubber vines. The remains of the London North Mine, located near the town centre and bounded by Elphinstone Street to the northeast, London Street to the northwest and Macrossan Street to the southeast, consist of a headframe with mullock heaps to the north and south and an engine base to the west.
The headframe, straddling the mine shaft entrance, is a tall hardwood structure consisting of four inwardly-slanting legs connected at their apex by timber beams which once supported a pulley servicing one of the two compartments in the shaft. The structure has cross bracing to each side at the top, with some remains of cross bracing at mid level.
The northern mullock heap is supported by the remains of "pigsties" that were used extensively by miners for support of shafts underground and to shore up larger underground openings. The "pigsty" system provided a frame of timber logs that when packed with mullock could provide considerable structural stability.
The engine foundations, consisting of a concrete slab with its holding down bolts, is all that survives of the boiler house and engines. This is located across a small dry watercourse that possibly was of assistance for de-watering the shaft.
","history":"From the 1850s to the first World War, mining in Queensland was dominated by gold, with major discoveries and consequential "rushes" in such places as Clermont (1861), Gympie (1867), Ravenswood (1868), Charters Towers (1872), Palmer Gold Field (1873), and Mt Morgan (1882). Such discoveries were to make Queensland the third largest producer of gold in Australia, after Western Australia and Victoria.
In the early days, mining at Ravenswood, as with many other gold fields, was restricted to panning the alluvial gold in the gullies of creeks. Later, reef mining was established and it was necessary to set up milling facilities such as the Mabel Mill [601206] to extract the gold. The "London" Reef was discovered in the initial development of the Ravenswood Gold Field. An 1872 map shows the London Mining Co lease to include what were later known as the London Mine and the London North Mine.
By 1871, Ravenswood's troubles had begun; as mines sank beneath the water table it was found that the gold could not easily be extracted from the mundic sulphides. In Ravenswood this caused particular problems due in part to the variety and unpredictability of the distribution of sulphides in the ore. Greater capital was now required to fund the various technologies for extracting the gold. As a result many miners left for other gold fields, such as the recently discovered Charters Towers field, which was to quickly overtake Ravenswood as a gold producer and most important inland North Queensland town.
Despite the exodus, the town continued; with the building of government infrastructure, which included the opening of the railway from Townsville in 1884, new Court House and Police Station (1882) [601204], new Post and Telegraph Office (1885), and Hospital (1887); and other public buildings such as the School of Arts Library (c1876; dem 1992) and Hall (c1880); whilst the economy of the town was funded by mining (on a reduced scale) and the establishment of silver mines at nearby Totley.
During the 1890s, profitable mining was undertaken in the town but Ravenswood's second boom was not to occur until the turn of the century when Archibald Laurence Wilson floated the New Ravenswood Co. Funded by substantial British investment, the company acquired numerous mining interests in the town and undertook a major refurbishment introducing new technology to overcome the mundic problem.
In 1903, Ravenswood reached its peak population of some 5,000 people. In the same year, a Charters Towers group headed, according to the Mining Warden, by Thomas Upton, promoted the London North Mine with the intention of working the London Reef. The gold content of the reef was said to increase with depth and a vertical shoot, averaging 200 feet (60.6 meters) in length and from 200-458 feet (60.6-138.8 meters) in depth, was the first objective. A vertical shaft was sunk in the shoot, a headframe and brace erected over the shaft and a boiler, steam-winding engine and steam-driven pump installed. Underground, the lease was a maze of tunnels and drives covering some fifteen acres but the company had little space above ground with most of the surface near the shaft occupied by domestic buildings. Apparently due to this lack of space, "pigsties" (a particularly Australian method of support more usually employed in the underground shafts) were erected to contain the mullock.
Mechanically-powered shaft-hoisting equipment replaced whips and whims in the larger mines. The rope from a steam winding-engine (generally housed in a simple building nearby) passed over a pulley on top of the headframe and carried a hook on the end to which a cage, bucket, or other item could be attached for raising or lowering in the shaft. The brace provided a platform for handling both mullock and ore, the mullock being trammed to the mullock heap and the ore being tipped into bins for gravity-loading into either tramway trucks or horse-drawn drays.
In 1905, the Warden reported that the mine was covering its own expenses but in subsequent years no great improvement occurred; the heavy water that had confounded their neighbour, the "London" was now evident in the workings of the London North Mine. In 1907, the venture was sold to a local syndicate of Ravenswood investors who placed the mine with a tribute party. In the following years, the venture merged with the "London" and a combined lease was mined, but the results remained marginal. In 1910, the leases were purchased by the New Ravenswood Co; the workings were re-equipped but without any apparent increase in profitability.
By 1912, the mining industry in Ravenswood was in decline. The great strike in Ravenswood of 1912/1913 left a bitterly divided community; the mines continued to decline and the outbreak of war in 1914 lead to an increase in costs and a scarcity of labour. In 1915, the London North Mine was closed. This decline was to be repeated throughout Australia in the post World War I period; with the mining industry not regenerating (albeit in a new form in which coal, aluminium, and iron ore took precedence in the new markets) until after the second World War.
In the following years, mining in the town continued, but the boom was over: much of the population moved away, a number of buildings were removed, and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway. A small revival occurred during the 1930s (an attempt was made in 1935 to rework the London North lease, but bad air and heavy expenses in keeping water down led to its abandonment) and early 1940s and later revivals as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores, but Ravenswood never returned to the prosperity of the early 1900s and was not rebuilt.
Since the 1970s, numerous studies of the Ravenswood area have been completed; in the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. This period also saw the commencement of open cut gold mining by Carpentaria Gold Pty Ltd and the growth of cultural tourism in the town. The London North Mine headframe is one of the last survivors from a period when similar headframes were dominant elements of the Ravenswood townscape.
","criteria":"Ravenswood is one of the earliest sites associated with major gold mining in North Queensland which gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region.
|The headframe is a rare example of a surviving timber headframe in North Queensland.
|The mine itself, including the headframe, mine shaft, mullock heaps, and engine foundations are very much a part of the prevailing townscape of ruin, which provides a vivid reminder of the often mercurial nature of a community dependent on finite mineral wealth.
|The mine itself, including the headframe, mine shaft, mullock heaps, and engine foundations are very much a part of the prevailing townscape of ruin, which provides a vivid reminder of the often mercurial nature of a community dependent on finite mineral wealth.
|Situated overlooking the town, the London North Mine is, as the only surviving headframe in Ravenswood, both a landmark and a symbol of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15972,"place_ref":601208,"name":"Roma Street Railway Station","alternate_name":"Brisbane Terminus | Brisbane Terminal Station | Brisbane Passenger Station","street_address":"15 Countess Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"Roma Street Railway Station occupies a 0.55ha site within the extensive Roma Street Station transit complex, located on the western side of the Brisbane central business district. The substantial masonry station building (1875) is set back from and faces Roma Street (although partially obscured by later development), and has a prominent centred entrance to the front (south) and a platform along the rear (north). A later platform and awning to the south is associated with the former Country Station development (1939/40).
\nFeatures of Roma Street Railway Station of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe state-level periods of significance of the place are layered and relate to its origins and use as a passenger station (1875-1940) and railway design, traffic and management offices (1875-1974), and the establishment of the former Country Station (1939/40).
\nA large iron-roofed shelter (c1980) to the east of the station, small buildings to the west, and a lift, stairs and escalators accessing the modern subway below, are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nStation building (1875)
\nDesigned in a Victorian-era style, the station building features classically-influenced design elements based around symmetrical massing and floor plan geometry. The long, narrow building is constructed of face brick with a stone plinth, and comprises a central two-storey three-bay core flanked by single-storey wings at the east and west ends. The well-composed front (south) elevation has a prominent centred entrance bay with a projecting two-storey porte cochere (carriage porch, upper storey added 1915) and a ground floor arcade running the length of the core.
\nThe slate-clad roof is hipped over the range, with separate hips over the wings and carriage porch. Tall masonry chimneys punctuate the roofline. A ventilated lantern, clerestories and skylights provide natural light and ventilation to the first floor interior. Pedimented dormer windows fronting the wings strengthen the building’s symmetry.
\nDecorative stone mouldings contrast with the red face brick and articulate the extensive classically-influenced elements and ornamentation. Windows openings (front and side elevations) have face brick round arch heads with stone hoods, and are separated by pilasters with stone capitals. The ground floor window hoods and arcade openings are differentiated from the first floor fenestration by their gothic-influenced depressed pointed arches.
\nDesigned to support the former platform shade (removed 1959), the rear (north) elevation has a parapet and substantial buttresses at the east and west ends. Regularly spaced pilasters separate the paired first floor windows, and bring order to the irregularly-spaced ground floor windows and door openings.
\nThe layout and design of the building interior reflects its original and continued uses – ground floor passenger station and first floor railway administration offices. Evidence remains of the functional and hierarchical layering of spaces, circulation patterns and finishes that distinguished former public and non-public areas, passenger class divisions, and evolving railway operations. Substantial masonry walls outlining the three-bay core extend through both levels and contain fireplaces in public areas and offices. Ground floor rooms are accessed via openings directly from the arcade or platform, or via internal passageways, depending on their former function. The end wings contain stairwells (two west, one east) accessing the first floor, each with separate external entrances.
\nThe core ground floor layout comprises: (central bay) a large former booking hall, divided in two and with separate entrances for first (east) and second (west) class passengers, with a curve-walled ticket office centred on the northern wall, and an early strong room (1911) in the southwest corner; (east bay) former first class waiting rooms (originally separate ladies and gents rooms, combined c1920s for a parcels office), and a luggage passage at the eastern end of the arcade; (west bay) former Station Master’s office, second class waiting room and parcels office (1911 Traffic Collector’s office, west wall removed), arranged along an east-west passageway, and a former telegraph office also accessed via a lobby (openings altered and enclosed) at the western end of the arcade.
\nIn addition to stairwells, the west wing also contains a former book stall office (c1920s Traffic Collector’s office), toilet facilities and access passages. The east wing layout was partly reconfigured in c1920s for a printing office but retains evidence of a former guards and porters room (openings in north wall altered), lamp room (south wall removed), and passage (divided to form gas meter rooms).
\nThe first floor contains offices and associated rooms accessed via a central passageway that runs the length of the building, with an S-bend at the junction of the central and west core bays. A former messenger room and lumber rooms (by 1907) are located in the east wing. The rendered masonry bay walls are articulated by moulded archways where they traverse the passageway, and an elaborate central doorway separates the former Office of Engineer and Railways (east), and the Traffic Managers Department offices (west,). The offices are ventilated and well-lit by skylights and clerestories that supplement the natural lighting from the windows lining the building. Built-in office joinery, redundant communication systems and other services, along with wall-mounted ephemera, illustrate the former functions of the place.
\nStabilisation and conservation works undertaken in recent years have included the restoration and reconstruction of some original and early features in accordance with Burra Charter principles and practice.
\nFeatures of the station building also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nExterior
\nInterior – ground floor
\nInterior – first floor
\nFeatures of the station building not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPlatform (1875)
\nThe straight, narrow concrete platform along the northern side of the station building illustrates the original and continued use of the place as a passenger station.
\nFeatures of the northern platform also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the northern platform not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCountry Station platform and awning (1939)
\nThe long, slightly curved platform and awning extending to the west on the southern side of station building, are remnants of the Country Station (1939/40-1985) that was built between the station building and Roma Street.
\nFeatures of the Country Station platform and awning also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the southern platform and awning not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nViews
\nThe station building was designed by FDG Stanley to be a landmark seen from Roma Street so views of its southern elevation are of state-level cultural heritage significance. These views are partially obscured by later development including the Country Station platform awning, Busway Station and Brisbane Transit Centre.
\nOther views have been available over the life of the station building from a range of vantage points, including:
\nThe Roma Street Railway Station was opened in 1875 as the first Brisbane Terminal Station for use on the Brisbane end of the Southern and Western Railway Line from Ipswich. The two-storey station building was designed by Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, the Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Public Buildings, in 1873 and built over the next two years by Brisbane builder, John Petrie. The station operated as the Brisbane terminal station until 1889, as a major passenger and administration station until 1940, and Brisbane’s primary railway goods facility until 1991. It served as offices for the Queensland Railway Department (later Queensland Railways, later Queensland Rail) staff for over 100 years, and is the one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland.
\nIn the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers.[1] Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856,[2] and following separation,[3] Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres. The first line, between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp, 34km west of Ipswich (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in 1865. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. New railways opened west from Rockhampton in 1867 (the Northern Line, later renamed the Central Railway), west from Townsville in 1880 (the Great Northern Line), Cairns in 1887, and south from Normanton in 1891.
\nThe Southern and Western Railway served the pastoralists and industrialists of Ipswich and the Darling Downs, and was primarily for goods, rather than passengers. With the railhead at Ipswich, a railway to Brisbane was not initially considered essential, as goods could be shipped from Ipswich to Brisbane’s port for export. However, the Bremer and upper Brisbane rivers could not cope with large shipping, and lobbying began for an extension to Brisbane. A preliminary survey of possible lines was completed in 1865,[4] but concerns over the extension’s financial viability put work on hold. A Royal Commission on Railway Construction was called in the 1870s, and recommended the extension: the business generated by it was likely to be profitable, and the colony’s economy, which had collapsed in the mid-1860s, had been bolstered by the Gympie gold rush and was better able to afford new infrastructure.[5]
\nThe extension between Ipswich and Oxley was approved in August 1872,[6] and, the first sod on the extension was turned at Goodna in January 1873. From Oxley, two lines had been surveyed, terminating either at North or South Brisbane. After extensive debate, the route to North Brisbane, via a bridge at Oxley Point (Indooroopilly), was chosen as more cost-effective.[7] The terminus of this route, selected by Railway Department Chief Engineer HC Stanley, was located within the Grammar School reserve at the base of the ‘Green Hills’ (Petrie Terrace). The site was unused by the school and was large enough for a major passenger station and goods yard.[8]
\nThe section between Oxley and Brisbane was approved in October 1873,[9] and the Government called for tenders for the construction of the railway terminus station in Brisbane.[10] FDG Stanley, the recently-appointed Colonial Architect and Superintendent of Buildings within the Public Works Department, was the designer of the building.[11] Stanley had commenced with the Public Works Department in 1863, serving as Superintendent of Buildings after Charles Tiffin vacated the Colonial Architect’s position. He was the official Colonial Architect from 1873-1883, when the colony, recovering from the economic collapse of the 1860s, began to invest in public buildings. Stanley’s designs, balancing classical styles and stylistic features with climate-appropriate adaptations and economic restraint, helped define public architecture in Queensland.[12] Extant examples of major works, designed while he was Colonial Architect, include the original State Library (1876-9, QHR600177); Toowoomba Court House (1876-8, QHR600848); Townsville Magistrates Court (1876-7, QHR600929); Townsville Gaol (now part of Townsville Central State School, 1877, QHR601162); Brisbane’s Port Office (1880, QHR600088); Toowoomba Hospital (surviving kitchen wing 1880, QHR601296); post offices at Gympie (1878-80, QHR600534), South Brisbane (1881, QHR600302) and Toowoomba (1880, QHR600847); as well as the Brisbane Supreme Court (no longer extant). As Superintendent of Buildings he designed the Toowoomba Railway Station (1874, QHR600872), Government Printing Office (1873, QHR600114) and Lady Elliott Island Lighthouse (1872-3).
\nThe Brisbane Courier provided a detailed description of the proposed Terminus Passenger Station in October 1873:
\nThe general style of the building will be that known as the Italian Gothic order of architecture. The material used...will be pressed brick with cut stone facings, this being chosen on account of its durability and as also affording the greatest consonant with economy. The station will consist of a main building, two storeys high, flanked at each end by a single storey wing.[13]
\nThe building was designed to house both a passenger station and railway administrative offices. Passengers would access the station from Roma Street via a carriageway, disembarking at the station’s central carriage porch. The porch fronted a 10ft (3m) wide arcade running the length of the main building. From the arcade, passengers would enter either the first-class booking office on the east or the second-class booking office on the west, both served by a semi-circular ticket office on the rear (northern) wall. Female passengers travelling on second-class tickets could wait in a small room located along a western passage, while separate waiting rooms for first-class male and female passengers were east of the first-class booking office. Doorways in the rear wall of the booking offices and waiting rooms led directly onto the 190-foot (58m) long departure platform. Arriving passengers exited the station via a second platform across the rail line.[14] Luggage was loaded onto trains via the luggage passage, on the eastern end of the building. The guards and porters room, staff facilities, a lamp room and stairs to the upper floor were situated in the eastern wing. The western side of the building held public services, including the telegraph office, station master’s office, and parcel and book office, accessible via a public lobby at the end of the arcade. A private staircase to the traffic managers’ office, a staircase to the traffic department, and toilet facilities were located in the western wing. An office or book stall space, in the northwestern side of the building, was accessible from the platform.[15]
\nUpstairs, the offices of the traffic department, clerks, accountant, draughtsmen, Railways Engineer, Resident Engineer and contractors were accessed from a central passageway which ran almost the length of the building; with a small S-bend in the western end. An arch in the centre of the corridor marked the separation of the traffic department from the Chief Engineer’s office. Both wings hosted staircases.[16]
\nThe building included adaptations for the climate. The arcade sheltered the ground floor rooms from the sun, while skylights in the ceiling and a ventilated lantern provided light and ventilation to the upper floor. All public rooms and most of the offices were fitted with fireplaces. A platform shade, installed on the northern wall of the building over the platform, sheltered passengers from the weather, and was composed of material from an iron station building imported from England for use at Toowoomba.[17] It was supported by brick buttresses at both ends of the building (extant) and on the arrivals platform (no longer extant).[18]
\nCommensurate with Stanley’s design approach, materials used for the station reflected elegance but economy. Apart from the recycled iron roof trusses and columns, the building was constructed of machine-pressed bricks made from locally-sourced clay, more affordable than stone, and praised as ‘cleaner, sharper [and] finer’[19] than Brisbane bricks used in earlier buildings.[20] Freestone for the building dressings and columns was sourced from Murphy’s Creek.[21]
\nConstruction work took place over two years, after contractor John Petrie’s tender of £11,845 was accepted in December 1873.[22] Progress was slow, with the stonework foundations underway in June 1874,[23] and the building only ten foot above the ground by September.[24] The line from Ipswich to Brisbane was opened without ceremony on 14 June 1875. The platform at Brisbane Terminus Passenger Station was half-paved, the rooms and corridors incomplete, the roofing over the platform in progress and there was no permanent lighting. Nonetheless, an interested crowd gathered to watch the first outbound services leave the station.[25] The building was sufficiently complete by August 1875 for the Brisbane Courier to describe it as ‘in all respects convenient, handsome, and well-designed’.[26] The station’s arcade was later highlighted as one of Brisbane’s valued architectural features.[27]
\nThe Brisbane to Ipswich route quickly became the busiest section of line in Queensland.[28] Merchandise and imported goods from the ports were despatched along the line, while produce from the Darling Downs and surrounds – including coal, flour, wool, hay, maize, livestock, vegetable and dairy produce – was brought to Brisbane.[29] A central goods handling facility was opened at the Terminal Station, including a large (64m long) goods shed[30] and two sidings, erected in 1875-6 (no longer extant), while railway produce markets opened outside the station, along George and Roma streets. A maintenance yard also operated at Roma Street, including locomotive and carriage sheds. By 1882 the Terminal Station platforms had been extended to cope with the traffic and trade.[31] Traffic reduced slightly after some export goods were diverted to South Brisbane in 1884,[32] but expanded again.[33] Cattle yards, produce sheds, carriage sheds, gas works, goods sheds, coal stages, cold stores, additional locomotive sheds and siding extensions were all added to Roma Street’s goods yard. None of these structures survive in 2020.[34]
\nPassengers also used the line. Residential occupation of Toowong and Indooroopilly boomed as middle-class city workers took advantage of the four daily train services. In 1882 rail lines were opened from the Terminal Station to Sandgate and the Racecourse, taking day-trippers to the seaside and races, and bringing northern suburbs passengers into Brisbane.[35] In January 1888, the first through-service to Sydney departed from the Terminal Station. However, travellers criticised the lack of direct access from the Terminal Station to the central business district, and in 1889, the Brisbane Central Railway Station was opened. Central Railway Station (QHR 600073) – located closer to the General Post Office and city office buildings – became Brisbane’s main passenger station, and the original Terminal Station was renamed Roma Street Railway Station.[36]
\nDespite its diminished status, Roma Street remained a major centre for passengers and travellers. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, guards of honour lined Roma Street to greet and farewell significant visitors and figures, including premiers Morehead and Griffith,[37] governors Norman and Lamington;[38] Governor-General Munro-Ferguson;[39] the late politician JM Macrossan, who had died in Sydney;[40] singer Nellie Melba;[41] Lord Kitchener;[42] and Salvation Army General Booth.[43] Roma Street continued to operate as the Sydney Mail terminus until 1931, when the service shifted to South Brisbane.[44] Crowds thronged to Roma Street Station as soldiers departed for the South African War[45] and World War I.[46] Travelling circuses performed in the Roma Street yards,[47] and an historic parade in 1936 included a ‘Puffing Billy’ locomotive,[48] which was displayed at the yards until 1959. Roma Street also continued as the city’s primary goods terminus.[49]
\nThe station building played an important role as office accommodation for Queensland railway staff. Internal rearrangements were made to the building to accommodate growing staff numbers, and improve their working conditions. It was one of the first buildings in Queensland to feature electric light, installed in 1884.[50] The Chief Engineer vacated the building in 1901 and was replaced by the general traffic manager’s department, with a telephonic system of communication installed the same year.[51] Bunker, lumber and message rooms were added to the wings by 1907; a traffic collector’s office and new strongroom were installed in 1911;[52] and parcels, printing offices and machine rooms replaced the first-class waiting rooms, guards’ room and lamp room by 1920.[53] In 1915, an additional storey was constructed atop the central carriage porch, providing more accommodation for the Traffic Branch on the first floor.[54] A traffic control system, coordinating trains between Brisbane and Gympie, was installed and operated from the additional storey in 1927.[55]
\nQueensland’s railway network extended dramatically in the 20th century. The North Coast line connected Brisbane to Gladstone in 1898, Rockhampton in 1904, and Cairns in 1924, providing a direct rail link between Brisbane and Mackay, Townsville, Winton, Forsayth, Cloncurry and Blackall. Southern and western trains reached Dirranbandi, Surat, Cunnamulla and Quilpie.[56] Central Station initially hosted ‘country’ services, but it lacked room for expansion, and Roma Street’s larger site was earmarked for a new country station. Roma Street’s locomotive, carriage and marshalling yard facilities were transferred to the Mayne Rail Yards between 1911 and 1927,[57] and work began on the new station.[58] A 350ft (106m) reinforced concrete, tiled passenger subway was constructed from Roma Street to the platforms in 1936-7, replacing an overhead walkway.[59] A new steel awning was installed above the southern platform (Platform 3 in 2020), in approximately 1939.[60] It was used in conjunction with two platforms at the new country station (no longer extant) for country and other passenger services.[61]
\nOn 30 November 1940 the Country Station was opened at Roma Street Station. This low-lying face brick building and its additional platform sat directly between the 1873-5 building and Roma Street. The new passenger station relieved congestion at Brisbane Central Station and made Roma Street the chief station for long distance travel north. The original station was refurbished, its roof re-clad with corrugated fibrous sheeting; and its brick walls painted red and lined in cream to match the new station building. The southwest pediment was removed and replaced by a new storey on the western end of the building.[62] A covered area was added east of the building where the subway stairs emerged.[63] The original station building was turned over to the General Manager, with offices for clerks, traffic-, livestock-, coach- and wagon staff, maintenance and locomotive staff, telephone and telegraph exchanges, and the train control section.[64]
\nFurther plans to upgrade and alter the building were postponed by World War II, during which time troop trains departed from Roma Street,[65] and the pedestrian subway served as an air-raid shelter.[66] In 1945, plans were drawn to alter doors, windows and stairs in the wings, and partitions on the first floor.[67] A second storey was added over the west wing in 1953 (later removed),[68] and the General Manager’s staircase was repositioned in 1961.[69] Externally, the iron carriage shed platform shade over the northern platform was removed in 1959.[70]
\nExtensive change was undertaken at Roma Street around the original station building in the late 20th century. The southern and northern Brisbane railway systems were directly connected in the 1970s, with the opening of the Merivale Bridge in 1978. In 1985, the country railway station (1940 building) was demolished and replaced by a multi-storey centre incorporating new railway and bus facilities, a hotel, offices and function centre. The original station building was left intact, and two new interstate platforms with standard gauge rails were built on its southern side.[71] The pedestrian subway was refurbished in 1986, with a broom finish concrete and expansion joints, and grated drains were laid on the floor, and a ceramic tile finish on the wall faces to match the subway tiles at Central Station.[72] Roma Street’s rail freight facility was moved to Acacia Ridge in 1991.[73] During the mid-1990s the platforms north and south of the early station building were re-arranged and extended. A bricked waiting area and new roof were added east of the station.[74] Underground, a new concourse was constructed to replace the pedestrian subway, and a 19m section of the original subway converted to a storage room.[75]
\nThe station building remained the General Manager’s Office until 1974.[76] The station master, staff workers and archive storage occupied the building in the 1990s.[77] By 1993, Roma Street was acknowledged as the oldest surviving railway station building in an Australian capital city, and one of the oldest surviving railway buildings in Queensland.[78] A new office fitout was installed on the ground floor for Queensland Rail and the Queensland Police Rail Squad in 1999.[79] Stabilisation, waterproofing and reconstruction works commenced in 2012, including restoration of the brick, plaster, lead flashings, window joinery and stone works.[80] Replacement bricks were custom made in England; Welsh slate was imported from the UK; replacement stone came from Helidon; and rolled lead from England was installed. In 2015, a new steel beams and suspension system was installed between the two storeys, to lift a 65mm bow in the timber floor beams fit amongst the existing timber structures.[81] The second storey of the west wing was removed and the roofline reconstructed to its original configuration.[82] The restoration received an Australian Institute of Architects Queensland award in 2015.[83]
\nIn 2020 the building is vacant, pending further repairs.
","criteria":"Roma Street Railway Station, opened in 1875 as the Brisbane Terminal Station, is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland railways. Built as an extension to the Southern and Western railway, at the terminus of Brisbane’s first railway line, it is one of the earliest surviving station buildings in Queensland, and reflects the extension of the Queensland railway network in the 1870s.
\nThe station, which includes the two-storey passenger and administration building, northern platform and southern platform with awning (1939, associated with the Country Station), provides physical evidence of the social and economic importance of rail as a passenger and goods transport link throughout Queensland, as well as suburban commuter and recreational traffic. Its extensive original and early fabric demonstrate its role as a major city passenger station (1873-1940), goods station (1873-1991), and railway administration offices (1873-1974).
\nAs the oldest surviving railway station in Brisbane, and one of the oldest surviving in Queensland, the station has a degree of rarity. The building is one of Queensland’s few grand masonry 19th century railway stations, including Toowoomba (1874; QHR 600872), South Brisbane (1891; QHR 600307), and Central (1899; QHR 600073).
|Roma Street Railway Station is an excellent, highly intact example of a major 19th century Queensland railway station. Designed to accommodate ground floor station facilities and first floor offices, the building in its form, layout and fabric, provides legible evidence of this former use. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including: elongated, symmetrical two-storey form fronting a platform to the rear; well-composed principal elevation incorporating classically-influenced stylistic features; prominent centred entrance; booking offices, waiting rooms and associated facilities; and hierarchical layering of spaces and finishes, which distinguish public and non-public areas, passenger class divisions, and roles within railway operations. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of the era, which determined its roof form, joinery and decorative treatment, as well as climatic adaptations to enhance passenger comfort and provide abundant natural light and ventilation for offices.
\nThe original booking office with ticket window divisions for different classes of passengers is a unique example of its type in Queensland.
\nThe station building is a substantial, early example of the public work of prolific and prominent Queensland Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, illustrating his skilful deployment of eclectic styles, consideration of climate, and use of materials, to achieve both elegance and economy.
|Roma Street Railway Station is important for the beautiful attributes of its composition and fine architectural quality. The symmetrical front (south) façade is a well-proportioned composition of formal and decorative elements including an arcade and centred projecting carriage porch, which create an impressive entrance sequence. The skilled design approach and workmanship is further evidenced by the decorative stone mouldings that contrast with the tuck-pointed red face brick and articulate the classical and gothic-influenced detailing. The interior retains extensive original and early fabric, including lath and plaster walls and ceilings, timber joinery, an ornate cast-iron staircase and evidence of early decorative treatments.
\nDesigned to address Roma Street to the south, the substantial station building has landmark qualities. Its elegant composition, incorporating classical and gothic-influenced stylistic elements well-executed in high quality materials, expresses the optimism and importance associated with the establishment of the first railway terminal in Queensland’s capital.
\nThe distinctive 19th century station building can be appreciated from a range of viewing points spanning an east-north-west arc. Views can be obtained from Wickham Park and Albert Street, Countess Street and Roma Street Parklands.
|Roma Street Railway Station has a special association with generations of railway passengers as the Brisbane terminal station (1873-1889) and major Brisbane city station (1889-1940). The station has played a part in the cultural and social life of Brisbane people as a city and suburban railway station. The station was the departure and arrival point for recreational venues, commuter transport, and as the site of public displays and entertainments. It has been a significant greeting point for notable figures visiting Brisbane and Queensland, and a mobilisation point for soldiers on war service. It was also the terminus of the inter-colonial/interstate Sydney Mail Train from 1888 until 1931.
\nThe station building also has a special association with the Queensland Railway Department (later Queensland Railways, later Queensland Rail), its staff and railway workers, as offices built and used for administrative, management, design and traffic operations from 1873 until the late 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15973,"place_ref":601209,"name":"Ithaca Embankments","alternate_name":"Embankments - Musgrave Rd near Windsor Rd | Embankments - corner Macgregor & Rockbourne Tces | Embankment - Musgrave Rd opp Confederate St | Embankments - Latrobe Tce opp Gladstone St | Embankments - Windsor Rd, Prospect Tce & Victoria St | Embankments - Waterworks Rd & Lintern St | Embankment - Musgrave Rd opp Upper Clifton Tce | Embankments - Fernberg Rd near Government House | Embankment - Northam Avenue | Embankment - corner Latrobe & Macgregor Tces","street_address":"Latrobe Tce & Fernberg Rd","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-03-02","description":"These Ithaca Town Council embankments display similar landscape design, planting, materials, and idiosyncratic features of Alexander Jolly's work. One of the most intact is the Windsor Road embankment, extending from the corner of Prospect Terrace to the corner of Victoria Street, Kelvin Grove.
No 1 embankment
Embankment on Windsor Rd, Kelvin Grove, from Prospect Tce to Victoria St. This embankment surrounds the western crest of Red Hill, bordering Morris Tor apartments on the corner of Prospect Terrace and Windsor Road to the north, continues along Windsor Road in front of Nos 21, 19 and 15 to the corner of Victoria Street and culminates in front of No 65 Victoria Street to the south.
The embankment is covered in lush vegetation, including at least six varieties of Agave sp.; Queen Palms [Syagrus romanzoffiana] ; Camphor laurel [Cinnamomum camphora]; Bougainvillaea sp.; and a number of small shrubs popular in the early part of the twentieth century. The embankment is bordered by a concrete footpath and has several areas of natural rock face. There is a low three tier schist wall along part of Prospect Terrace and in front of Nos 21 and 19 Windsor Road.
A recent low bluestone wall borders the corner of Prospect Terrace and Windsor Road.
A set of concrete stairs is located on the Windsor Road side of the Morris Tor apartments and may have been for the earlier house which stood on the site. A sloping pathway with a timber railing fence leads through the vegetation to No 21 and is bordered by a low three tier dry stone porphyry wall.
A narrow driveway is located on the south boundary of No 19 and is surrounded by substantial groupings of agave sp. A driveway is located on the southern boundary of No 15 along the Victoria Street frontage providing access to No 15 and to No 65 Victoria Street and has planting to both the upper and lower sides. The embankment becomes a rock face in front of No 65.
Large trees are located along the frontages, and within the site boundaries, of the above properties and overhang the embankment below. There is one Weeping Fig [Ficus benjamina] and one Camphor laurel [Cinnamomum camphora] in front of Morris Tor, two Weeping Figs [Ficus benjamina] in front of both Nos 21 and 19, a Mango [Mangifera indica] in front of No 15 and four Weeping Figs [Ficus benjamina] and an avenue of Queen Palms [Syagrus romanzoffiana] in front of No 65. These trees, together with the embankment on Red Hill, form a local landmark visible from the surrounding ridges.
No 2 embankment
Embankment at corner of Windsor & Musgrave Rds, Red Hill, below the Red Hill Post Office, and an opposite divided street retaining wall with lower embankment. Two trees stand on the street corner with a concrete retaining wall and timber rail fence below. The planted embankment begins at the edge of the retaining wall and contains several varieties of agave sp., palms and small shrubs and is bounded by a bitumen footpath and a section of low dry stone wall. On the opposite side of the road is a lower stone retaining wall with a timber rail fence and concrete footpath on the top side and narrow roadway along the base. This roadway has a short embankment on the lower side to the corner of Zig Zag Street. This embankment has a section of stone retaining wall and several varieties of agave sp., trees and grasses.
No 3 embankment
Divided street embankment on Musgrave Rd, Red Hill, between Federal & Confederate Sts. This embankment contains a particularly intact section of dry stone wall which displays varying forms of construction. The embankment is bounded by a bitumen footpath with a timber rail fence along the top. There are several varieties of agave sp., palms, trees and small shrubs as well as areas of rock face.
No 4 embankment
Embankment on Musgrave Rd, Red Hill, below St Brigid's Church. This tall embankment has a retaining wall along the top, which forms the forecourt to St Brigid's Church, and is bounded by a bitumen footpath along the base. There are areas of rock face, several varieties of agave sp., trees, small shrubs and grasses.
No 5 embankment
Divided street embankment on Waterworks Rd, Red Hill, between Mornington & Lintern Sts, and returning into the latter. This embankment has a timber rail fence along the top and is bounded by Waterworks Road along the base. It has large sections of rock face with several varieties of agave sp., small shrubs and grasses, and a concrete stair at the street corner.
No 6 embankment
Divided street embankment on Fernberg Rd, Paddington, near the intersection with Kaye St, and an opposite embankment in front of Government House. The divided street embankment has sections of dry stone wall on the lower side, with several varieties of agave sp., trees and small shrubs. The opposite embankment also has sections of dry stone wall, of a different form of construction, and several varieties of agave sp., trees, palms, small shrubs and a grassed footpath.
No 7 embankment
Embankment on MacGregor Tce, Paddington, from Tooth Ave to Latrobe Tce, and returning into the latter. This tall embankment is bounded by residential properties on the top side and roadway along the base. The embankment has lush vegetation, including several varieties of agave sp., trees, small shrubs and vines with areas of rock face and remnants of a dry stone wall.
No 8 embankment
Embankment at corner of MacGregor & Rockbourne Tces, and returning into both streets. This embankment is bounded by a dry stone wall, prominent on the street corner, and bitumen footpath with areas of rock face along MacGregor Terrace. There are several varieties of agave sp., trees, palms and small shrubs.
No 9 embankment
Divided street embankment on Northam Ave, Bardon, from MacGregor Tce to approximately half the length of Northam Ave. This long embankment has a timber rail fence along the top side, a section of dry stone wall along the base and a concrete stair towards the end. There are several varieties of agave sp., trees, palms, small shrubs and grasses.
No 10 embankment
Embankment on Latrobe Tce, Paddington, from Enoggera Tce to the base of Ithaca Memorial Park. The embankment is bounded by the Ithaca Memorial Park, former fire station and tramway substation along the top side, with Latrobe Terrace along the base. There is a section of dry stone wall at the Memorial Park end with a substantial grouping of agave sp., and a section of dry stone wall at the Enoggera Terrace end, a remnant of the earlier gardens on the site. There are several varieties of agave sp., trees, palms, small shrubs, vines and grasses.
","history":"The rock gardens and early stone retaining walls and edgings on the embankments at Red Hill, were established c1917 for the Ithaca Town Council. In 1918 MacGregor Terrace and Waterworks Road were similarly landscaped after road works, as were Fernberg Road and Northam Avenue in 1923. The remnant Musgrave Road plantings most likely date from 1917-18. The plantings and stone retaining wall along the Latrobe Terrace embankment probably were associated with the landscaping of Cook's Hill in the early 1920s.
In the first decade of the 20th century, Ithaca experienced a housing and population boom largely attributable to the expansion of the tramways through the area. Subsequently, in the 1910s the Ithaca Town Council embarked on a programme of civic improvements which included the establishment of Lang Park [1917], the Ithaca Swimming Pool [1917], and the Ithaca Children's Playground [1918] [601787]; the formation and metalling of roads; tree planting; and the establishment of numerous embankment gardens, small reserves and street gardens throughout the suburbs of Red Hill, Kelvin Grove, Paddington, Rosalie, Bardon, and parts of Milton.
Because of the hilly terrain, many of the new streets were divided, leaving embankments which the Ithaca Town Council considered were cheaper to plant and beautify than to cut down. This approach placed the Council at the forefront of street beautification projects in the Brisbane metropolitan area. By comparison, Brisbane Municipal Council, under the direction of Parks Superintendent Harry Moore, established rock gardens and flower beds along roads such as River Terrace at Kangaroo Point, but generally did not plant out embankments. The South Brisbane Municipal Council appears to have limited street beautification to weed eradication and tree planting.
This innovation in Brisbane civic landscaping led to Ithaca Town Council receiving numerous requests from other councils, interstate as well as Queensland, for photographs and plans of Ithaca street improvements. At the second Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition, held in Brisbane in July-August 1918, the Ithaca Town Council exhibited photographs showing treatment of ugly cuttings and street improvements which beautify the street and at the same time solve practical difficulties.
Much of the impetus for the work came from Ithaca Town Council's landscape gardener, Alexander Jolly, (father of the first Mayor of Greater Brisbane, William Jolly), who was a horticultural enthusiast. Son of a Scottish farmer, Jolly had arrived in Brisbane in 1879, aged 22 years. He was head gardener on Alexander Stewart's Glen Lyon estate at Ashgrove for at least seven years before he went to work for the Ithaca Town Council.
Jolly was a self-educated man, whose lifetime of gardening experience transformed the Ithaca townscape in the period c1915-25. His work was praised by the local community, the Ithaca Town Council, and even Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland, who in 1925 wrote that Jolly's good taste has given constant pleasure to so many of us Ithaca residents. Some of Jolly's more prominent projects included the rockeries along Musgrave and Waterworks Roads; the landscaping of Cook's Hill; and the Ithaca War Memorial garden, which, after his death, was named Alexander Jolly Park, in memory of one of the most esteemed men in the district, and as a unique tribute . . . to the pick and shovel. Only small sections of the Waterworks Road rockeries remain, and most of the Cook's Hill garden was destroyed when the Paddington Tramways Substation was erected in 1929-30.
The rock gardens listed above survive as some of the more intact examples of Jolly's work. They also remain as testament to the Ithaca Town Council's public consciousness and active involvement in creating a distinctive town environment, in the early years of the 20th century.
","criteria":"The Ithaca Embankments are important in demonstrating the evolution of the Town of Ithaca, providing evidence of the active involvement of the Ithaca Town Council in landscape improvements, and its conscious attempt to enhance the quality of life for Ithaca residents in the early part of the 20th century.
|They are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Ithaca Town Council's early 20th century street beautification projects, being some of the best surviving examples, and provide important surviving evidence of stone retaining wall and edging techniques practised by Brisbane's public landscape gardeners in the early 20th century.
|They exhibit aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, in particular their contribution to the townscape of Brisbane's inner western suburbs.
|They are significant also for their special association with the work of Ithaca Town Council's landscape gardener, Alexander Jolly, and his transformation of the Ithaca townscape in the early 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15980,"place_ref":601216,"name":"Leeke Homestead","alternate_name":"Leekes Homestead","street_address":"Great (South) Keppel Island","suburb":"GREAT KEPPEL ISLAND","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Leeke Homestead is located on Great Keppel Island, east of Yeppoon. The Homestead is on the northern side of the island on a hillside overlooking tidal mangrove plains and Leeke's Beach beyond. The homestead is accessible by 4wd vehicle or walking. A simple timberlog fence defines the boundary around the homestead paddock. The house is sheltered by large spreading fig trees with several large, weatherbeaten Hoop Pines and Date Palms scattered throughout the yard. A number of recent, ancillary buildings are also located within this paddock.
The homestead is a simple square plan building with a pyramidal roof form without eaves. it is elevated on short timber stumps. Both the walls and roof are clad with corrugated iron, with some sections of weatherboards including those lining a small verandah on the north-west side of the house. This verandah has cross-braced balustrades, effectively the only external "decoration" on the house.
Internally, the house has six rooms. Floors throughout are wide boards of rough-sawn timber and walls and ceilings are lined with painted plywood with coverstrips. The former kitchen is located on the eastern side of the building with a large stove recess that used to accommodate a wood stove. The recess is clad externally with corrugated iron and has a galvanised steel flue. A recent kitchen and bathroom has been fitted in a small room in the north-east corner off the kitchen, that was previously a small bedroom (where Bill Leeke used to sleep as a boy). The largest interior space is the living room which is now furnished with a few pieces of period furniture and has framed family pictures on the walls. A small store room is located on the southern side of the living space, adjacent to the large bedroom. The largest bedroom is L-shaped in plan and has vinyl floor sheeting. The only internal doors are to the store room and bedroom. Windows throughout the house are double-hung, unpainted timber sashes.
The woolshed is constructed on the tidal plain. It has been recently re-built and has a concrete slab floor, structural timber frame and galvanised steel cladding.
","history":"Leeke Homestead, constructed c.1922-24 is a basic, timber and corrugated iron residence located on Great Keppel Island, near Yeppoon. The house was the home of Lizzie Leeke (formerly O'Neill) who lived on the island from 1922 until 1945. She originally moved to Great Keppel from Gladstone with her husband Michael O'Neill and they depastured sheep on the island from 1918 when they purchased the pastoral lease on the island. The O'Neills were by no means pioneers of the island, Great Keppel had been occupied by Europeans for over fifty years by the time they took up the lease. In these fifty years, dramatic and tragic events had already occurred in order to enable white occupation of the islands.
Cook sailed into Keppel Bay in 1770 and named the bay and islands after his superior in England, Rear Admiral Augustus Keppel. There were subsequent visits by other exploratory parties, however, white exploitation of Great Keppel Island began in earnest in 1866. Prominent Central Queensland squatter, Robert Ross, obtained leases over both Great Keppel and North Keppel Islands "from year to year and not exceeding five years" in partnership with C.E Beddome and Sir Arthur Palmer (MLA for Port Curtis, 1866-78 and Minister for Lands 1866-69). Over the next year, Ross began to "prepare" the island as a cattle property by driving 84 indigenous people into a cave and murdering them. In 1882, Ross acquired secure tenure for Great Keppel Island through land dummying, and depastured 4000 sheep on the island.
W. T Wyndham became stockkeeper for Ross and declared himself the first European to live permanently on the island. Despite his association with Ross, who was justifiably feared by the Aborigines, Wyndham was able to establish a good relationship with the Keppel Islanders. He had previously worked for Dr Walter Roth, the Northern Protector of Aborigines and had lived previously with Aboriginal people in New South Wales. Wyndham was a remarkable man who went on to make his home at Boyne Island, near Gladstone. He spoke a number of Aboriginal languages and recorded much valuable anthropological data in his diaries. On the island, Mount Wyndham and Wyndham Cove are named for him, his grave on Boyne Island, near Gladstone, is entered in the Queensland Heritage Register [601811].
In September 1883, Ross came across to Great Keppel and kidnapped seven men and twenty three women and children by luring them onto a boat with the promise of food. Wyndham resigned and told the story to the "Queensland Figaro" which ran the story titled, "Kidnapping Keppel Island Blacks." A public battle of claims and counter-claims followed. Years later, Dr W Roth, using Wyndham's diaries and his own observations, stated that "human lives were sacrificed for sheep."
Ross died in 1893 and his family nearly lost control of the islands until his brother Colin re-acquired the lease. James Lucas came to the island with his family and took up as stockkeeper, soon acquiring a reputation for cruelty and maltreatment of the remaining Keppel Islanders. By this time, the run had a two-roomed weatherboard house, a small shearing shed and several small fenced sheepyards. This house is not the Leeke Homestead and was located closer to the creek. The shearing shed, however, was subsequently used by Lizzie. By 1902, Meston, the Southern Protector of Aborigines had removed the remaining Keppel Islanders to government reserves, including the one at Fraser Island.
Lucas, who had acquired the leases from the Ross family, forfeited them in 1903. For many years after the removal of the Aborigines, the Keppel Islands attracted little interest. They were used mainly by boating parties and although several leases were issued, no stock was depastured and nor did anyone live on the island before the 1920s. The grazing lease for Great Keppel, covering almost the entire island was transferred to Michael O'Neill in 1918. O'Neill, who had several farm properties near Gladstone, unsuccessfully sought a more secure tenure than occupation licence through the support of George Carter MLA. O'Neill had depastured 1500 merino sheep upon taking up the lease and he and Lizzie moved to the island to live permanently in 1922, however, O'Neill died soon after in early 1923. Lizzie stayed on and "remained as a resolute and colourful character on the island for twenty-three years."
In October 1924, she married Ralph Leeke, a young fisherman from Keppel Sands. Lizzie continued to run sheep on the island and Ralph worked as a fisherman - they were considered an eccentric couple, not least because Lizzie was about 17 years older than Ralph. There is uncertainty about whether it was Leeke or O'Neill who built the homestead. Accounts from the Leeke family claim that Ralph took a barge to his home in Keppel Sands, dismantled the house and shipped it back to the island. He landed at the shearing shed and carried the material up the hill and re-built the house. The shearing shed remained from previous lease-holders, however, a new site was chosen for the homestead. Other accounts claim that O' Neill built the homestead before he died.
Bill Leeke, Ralph's nephew, spent many holidays on the island in the 1920s and 30s. He remembered the homestead thus:
I slept on the verandah of the Homestead on a stretcher bed. The bed had a spread made of possum skins lined with a cloth material. It crackled a bit when you sat on it. Possums were declared a pest and the Government paid a shilling a skin. The floor of the house was littered with possum skin rugs. The windows in the front of the house looking onto the verandah had curtains and the doorways had hanging screens made from reeds that grew in the salt pan and along the creek. There was a small parlour with lace cloths on occasional tables with pieces of coral and rare shells. The kitchen was at the back of the house and that is where we ate. Although the house was built of corrugated iron it had a woman's touch and always seemed cool and homely to me.
In 1933 Ralph left Lizzie and the island and Lizzie was left by herself to run the stock. The mid 1930s saw the beginning of a greater public use of the island, Fisherman's Beach was regularly being used by people as a camping area for various lengths of time. With the increase in the number of visitors to the island, stories of Lizzie and her life on the island became more common. Comments were often made of the physical and mental toughness of the woman to be able to not only survive on the island, but to also run the sheep successfully. Apart from shearing time when a shearer and wool classer would come to the island, the only help she had was from her two dogs.
Lizzie sold the lease in 1945 and died on the mainland a few years later. The lease passed through several hands and it appears that the homestead was never lived in permanently again as consequent lease holders built other houses on the island. In 1971, the grazing lease and the homestead were sold to the resort management at the time. The resort management retain tenure of the property. The shearing shed has been re-built and the homestead has been repaired and partly furnished and interpreted as Lizzie's home. Visits to the homestead are offered as an activity for guests at the resort.
","criteria":"Leeke Homestead is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being a representation of the development of Great Keppel Island. The Homestead is a part of the story of attempts to establish viable pastoral operations on the island through the violent displacement of the indigenous population. The Homestead is the only remaining physical link between the 4000 years of Woppaburra occupation and the tourist development that now dominates the island. Leeke Homestead illustrates the tenacity and determination of Lizzie Leeke in staying on the island for so long, tolerating isolation and flouting social convention in order to live the independent life of her choosing.
|Leeke Homestead demonstrates the principal characteristics of an isolated island residence. Built by the owner, at a time when the transport of materials was difficult and skilled labour was unavailable, Leeke Homestead is distinctive as an example of the kinds of dwellings erected under such circumstances in remote locations along the Queensland coast.
|Leeke Homestead is of aesthetic significance, due to its setting among Hoop Pines and fig trees on a high point of the island. The simple design and rudimentary construction techniques contribute to its aesthetic qualities and assist in the integration of the house in the landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15982,"place_ref":601218,"name":"Castle Hill","alternate_name":"Cutheringa/Cudtheringa/Cootharinga/Mt Cutheringa","street_address":"Castle Hill Road","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-05-28","description":"Castle Hill is an isolated granite outcrop which rises almost 300 metres above the central business district of Townsville. On the seaward side the foothills meet with pink granite bluffs which overlook the Strand foreshore. It is one of the most distinctive natural features on the Queensland coast, and remains an imposing backdrop to the heart of Townsville, despite encirclement by urban development.
The hill is an inselberg of Carboniferous-Permian origins, rising abruptly from the younger Quarternary coastal plain. The surface is primarily bare rock or shallow lithosols with small areas of duplex soils. There are three peaks to the summit.
The vegetation, largely regenerative, is dominated by indigenous plant species, with some minor areas of weed infestations. Floristic diversity is high, with approximately 300 plant species identified. Of particular importance are: Sarcochilus ceciliae [Orchidaceae], for which Castle Hill is the type locality, described by Ferdinand von Mueller in 1865; Aristida sp. nov. [Poaceae] and Arthrogrostis sp. nov. [Poaceae], both endemic to Castle Hill and currently being examined for description as new species; and Triodia stenostachya [Poaceae], a hummock grass community which represents an unusual coastal occurrence of this more typically inland spinifex.
The plant communities are predominantly mixed Eucalyptus spp. [E. drepanophylla, E. dolichocarpa, E. tessellaris, E. platyphylla, E. papuana] with a variable woody understorey. Small areas of semi-evergreen notophyll vine thickets, not native to the site, occur in mesic areas such as gullies. On the gentler slopes kangaroo grass [Themeda triandra] is the dominant herbaceous species, while giant spear grass [Heteropogon triticeus] dominates on the steeper slopes. Specialised flora also occur on the cliffs and rocky outcrops, in particular the Triodia hummock grass community, Ficus spp. [5 species] and orchids [2 species]. Introduced flora comprises almost 50 species, including banyans [Ficus benghalensis].
The fauna, which has not been surveyed comprehensively, includes the Unadorned Rock Wallaby. The avifauna has been censused, with over 50 bird species either visiting or residing on the hill. Peregrine Falcons and Brahminy Kites nest here.
The bitumen covered surface of Castle Hill Road winds for about 3 kilometres from the northeast slopes to the summit of the second peak, on which a concrete lookout platform, resting on a stone base, has been erected. Near the lookout is the stone monument from the Sydney grave of Robert Towns, founder of Townsville. There are several walking tracks around the summit, and a goat track leading from the lower northern slopes to the top of the cliffs.
There are several buildings and installations on the hill. On the southern face is a two-storeyed octagonal building of concrete block work, which formerly housed the Panorama Restaurant, but which now is vacant. A carpark associated with the former restaurant is located nearby to the north. Other structures on the site include several water reservoirs and three radio communications installations. On the northern-most peak of the summit is a 1942 observation post, a low, square, concrete bunker with observation apertures.
There is a former quarry site on the southern slopes, accessed via Stagpole Street, and on the northern cliff face a large graffiti of 'The Saint' is painted.
","history":"The natural formation known as Castle Hill [Cutheringa] has been synonymous with European images of Townsville since the 1860s. Aboriginal history and mythology associated with Cutheringa have not been recorded, but its name survives as one of only two known indigenous place names in the Townsville region, the other being Pallarenda.
Castle Hill was one of the earliest sites named by Andrew Ball who, together with MW Reid, were the first Europeans to explore the Ross River area in April 1864. The settlement established here was known initially as Castletown, until the name was replaced by Townsville in 1865. The hill became a much admired local landmark, evoking aesthetic delight and a unique sense of identity. This prominent link between urban life and nature largely determined the disordered layout of Townsville's streets, and in the late 19th century was frequented for recreational pursuits such as botanising and nature study.
Townsville residents also illegally plundered timber and firewood from the hill. Wild goats further ravaged the native vegetation, and by the late 1880s considerable public outrage, led by Edmund J Banfield, author, journalist and editor of the Townsville Herald 1882-1897, was being expressed in the local press at the continued denudation of Castle Hill. These concerns were being voiced at the same time as Queensland-wide debates on forest resource use, conservation, and human interaction with the environment. In an innovative approach to conservation, the Townsville Municipal Council applied to the crown to establish the hill as a reserve under their protective trusteeship, and on 30 June 1888 Castle Hill was gazetted a recreation reserve of about 228 hectares.
Despite the appointment of Crown Land Rangers and later a Conservator of Trees for Castle Hill, the Council was able to do little to revegetate the reserve during the depression years of the 1890s. Alderman Edward Downs and EJ Banfield privately planted various trees through the 1890s, including the surviving banyans [Ficus benghalensis], but by the 20th century, popular interest in preserving the natural vegetation of Castle Hill had waned. Small areas of the reserve were excised in the 1890's for water reserves and quarrying, but by 1900 it remained an unimproved recreational reserve of close to 215 hectares.
Not until the 1930s did the Council appear to address the Castle Hill environment. The goats were removed, permitting natural revegetation, and in 1935-6 a road to the summit was constructed as an employment generating scheme, partly funded by the Main Roads Commission. Hynes Road (now Castle Hill Road) and Lookout were named after the then Minister for Labour and Industry, Hon. MP Hynes.
The provision of a road to the summit facilitated the use of Castle Hill as a communications and observation post during the Second World War. Infantry and field regiments of the 5th Australian Division were deployed on the hill, and the observation post they constructed remains. In 1942 a radar station was established on the summit, and searchlights extended halfway up the hill. Also in 1942, the memorial stone from the Sydney grave of Robert Towns, founder of Townsville, was acquired by the Townsville City Council and erected at the summit, near the Hynes Lookout.
Since the 1950s, areas from within the recreation reserve, including the summit, were excised for a variety of purposes: further water reserves and quarrying, a restaurant, carparking, communications installations, and residential subdivision. Most of this development was undertaken in the 1960s. In 1963 about 52 hectares on the lower northern slopes were converted to residential subdivision, and in 1967 a large reservoir was constructed on the lower northern slopes of Castle Hill to service this suburb. In 1967-68, the Panorama Restaurant and kiosk, with a seating capacity of 600, was constructed near the summit, on the southern side of the hill, under special lease. This land has since been converted to freehold. By 1972 the recreation reserve had been reduced to about 143 hectares. In 1983 a further 33 hectares on the north-eastern slopes of the reserve were granted under special lease as a development site.
Since 1974, radio communications installations erected at the summit have serviced the Civil Aviation Authority, ambulance, fire brigade, police, state emergency services and customs.
Castle Hill remains a popular tourist and instructional venue in Townsville, with education groups regularly using the reserve to study natural environments, community history and urban geography. The North Queensland Conservation Council is undertaking a voluntary bush rejuvenation programme of the site, and the hill remains an important icon in community and tourist advertising and promotional activities.
","criteria":"It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as an early example of rapid environmental degradation and consequent conservation measures initiated by the local community.
|The site exhibits a landmark quality and natural aesthetic appeal valued by the Townsville community.
|The site exhibits a landmark quality and natural aesthetic appeal valued by the Townsville community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15983,"place_ref":601219,"name":"Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church Group","alternate_name":"East Brisbane Presbyterian Church","street_address":"22-28 Mowbray Terrace","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-10-22","description":"The Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church group consists of a church, with a small kindergarten room attached at the rear, and an adjacent hall to the east, which are located on a level corner site in East Brisbane.
The single-storeyed timber church, with timber buttresses, has been clad with fibrous cement sheeting and sprayed with a rough finish concrete render. The building has a steep pitched gable roof, a twin gable transept, sprocketed eaves, asbestos cement tiles laid in a diamond pattern and a sheet metal spire surmounted by a cross over the south end of the nave. A small apse extends to the north with a vestry to the west and a store with a corrugated iron roof to the east. A timber kindergarten room, clad in the same material, with a steep pitch gable roof is attached to the north. The building has narrow lancet hopper windows, with leadlight panels to the nave and transept, concrete stumps to the perimeter and a timber and asbestos cement tile hood to the north nave round window.
The south entry, almost to the property boundary, has twin double timber doors with arched fanlights and an asbestos cement tile awning supported by paired timber brackets. The gable above has a triple lancet window with leadlight panels and an arched timber surround, a battened top panel and paired timber brackets.
Internally, the church has a diagonally boarded raked ceiling with scissor trusses and arched timber braces to the nave. Faceted timber columns and pointed arches separate the double gable transept which internally is divided into four gables. The building has tongue and groove walls above the dado with silky oak panelling below. A large pointed arch opens to the apse, which houses a large pipe organ, with a round leadlight window above, and a pointed arch door to the west opening to the vestry. The church has carved silky oak altar, pulpit, rail and high-backed chairs. The entry is separated from the nave by a timber screen and the timber pews appear original.
The hall is a single-storeyed timber building with a steep pitch gable roof with asbestos cement tiles laid in a diamond pattern, roof vents and terracotta ridges and front finial. The east and west sides have a lower pitch, and the front and rear sections have lower hips. The building has concrete stumps, weatherboard sheeting to balustrade height and chamferboard above, with twin centrally pivoted hopper windows and coloured glass fanlights.
The south entry, at footpath level at the property boundary, has a central gable entry with recessed folding double timber doors with a long narrow fanlight and decorative timber brackets and battens. The higher gable behind has a panel of four sash windows with coloured glass inserts and a timber battened panel above.
Internally, the hall has a diagonally boarded raked ceiling, a flat section with fretwork vents at the collar beam and metal ties to the top plate. The building has a timber floor, tongue and groove walls, raised stage and side partitions with double timber doors either side, and timber posts with arched brackets which separate the side aisles. The central entry has a room to either side, and the rear section has a kitchenette.
The property has a concrete post fence with spherical tops, iron gates and wire balustrade on Mowbray Terrace, and a timber and wire fence on Geelong Street.
","history":"Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church was erected in late 1885 on land donated by Williamina Mowbray, widow of the 'father' of Presbyterianism in Queensland, Rev. Thomas Mowbray. In 1851, Mowbray was instrumental in establishing at Grey Street, South Brisbane, Queensland's first Presbyterian church. This building has been demolished, but his name and work is commemorated in the Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church.
In the 1850s, Mowbray acquired a substantial parcel of land, including what is now Mowbray Park and parts of East Brisbane, at what was then referred to as Kangaroo Point. In 1884 Mrs Mowbray sold part of the estate to Josiah Young of Brisbane. Young immediately subdivided this land as the Mowbraytown Estate, from which East Brisbane derives much of its identity. In 1885 Mrs Mowbray re-acquired from Young two allotments at the corner of Geelong Street and Mowbray Terrace, which she then donated to the church.
The rapid development of the East Brisbane Area during the 1880s prompted the establishment of a Charge in Mowbraytown. Mowbraytown was unusual also in that it emerged almost immediately as an established and self-sustaining charge. The first service was conducted on 22 November 1885 and a minister was appointed permanently in March 1886.
The Mowbraytown church was designed by newly established Brisbane architect Alex B Wilson - later an elder of the congregation - and was erected by South Brisbane carpenter and contractor Thomas Gillies at a cost of £600, inclusive of seats and fencing. When completed in November 1885, the body of the church measured 9.5 metres by 8.2 metres, and seated 230 persons. The building was entered via two porches either side of the front gable, and the roof was shingled. The windows opened on pivots, and those in the gabled ends had leadlight borders. The bell, sent from Scotland, was erected in January 1886.
In 1888 a small Sunday school hall, which later became a kindergarten, was built at the rear of the church. The northern half of the church transepts was added in 1899. In 1902 a pipe organ was installed, to which an electric blower was added in 1925.
In 1909, major alterations to the Mowbraytown church included completion of the second half of the transepts, construction of a new vestry, extension of the nave 3 metres toward the street, removal of the main doors from the sides to the front, and the addition of an entry porch. Later, two porches with side doors were added to the northern transept.
A larger Sunday school hall, adjacent to the church and facing Mowbray Terrace, was erected c1916, on land acquired in 1904 from church elder Alexander Smith Lang.
Following the First World War an honour board and memorial pulpit were erected in the church. The building appears to have been re-roofed c1927, with fibrous cement tiles similar to those on the hall. The exterior walls were clad and sprayed in 1966.
The leadlight windows at the front of the church were donated by AB Wilson, who as church architect had designed the extensions and both halls. Wilson designed several other Presbyterian buildings in Brisbane, including extensions to the Ann Street Presbyterian Church. Following his father's retirement in 1928, Ronald M Wilson was appointed church architect.
The Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church has played a strong role in the spiritual and social life of East Brisbane. The hall has been the venue not only for church activities, but also for community concerts, ballet and gymnastics classes, meetings and seminars, dances, children's play groups, and polling booths. Both the church and hall are local landmarks, and have featured prominently in heritage walking tours of East Brisbane organised by the Mowbraytown Residents' Association.
","criteria":"The Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of growth of Presbyterianism in Brisbane in the late 19th century.
|The Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church Group, including the church and both halls, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an evolving late 19th/early 20th century suburban church group in Brisbane.
|The Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church Group is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the Brisbane community and the church congregation, in particular the contribution of the buildings, in scale and form, to the Mowbray streetscape and East Brisbane townscape, the quality of the church interior, including the timber joinery, leadlight windows, furnishings, organ, memorials, decorations and inscriptions and the intactness and aesthetically cohesive nature of the group.
|The Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church Group has a special association with architect AB Wilson, and his contribution to Presbyterian church architecture in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15986,"place_ref":601222,"name":"Brisbane State High School","alternate_name":"Brisbane State High School, Block H | South Brisbane Primary School | Brisbane South Intermediate School | Brisbane South Girls and Infants School","street_address":"Cnr Cordelia and Glenelg Streets","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-31","description":"Brisbane State High School is located in South Brisbane, approximately 1.4km southwest from the Brisbane CBD. The school covers 4.1ha on two adjacent campuses separated by Cordelia Street.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock H (1865, extended 1877, 1929, and 1932)
\nPositioned centrally in the Merivale Street Campus, Block H is a two-storey masonry school building comprising two intersecting perpendicular wings with steeply-pitched gable roofs. The original building (1865) faces northeast and has a perpendicular extension (1877, extended 1929) to the southwest and a linear extension to the southeast (1932).
\nThe 1865/1932 wing has a first floor verandah on its northeast elevation and a two-storey verandah, partially-enclosed with chamferboards, on its southwest elevation. At the northern end of the southwest verandah is a face brick-enclosed concrete stairwell (1929).
\nThe 1877 wing has a two-storey timber verandah on its northwest and southeast elevations. The southwestern end of the northwest verandah has a face brick enclosure on both levels (1928, originally staff toilets) and the southwestern end of the southeast verandah has a weatherboard-clad enclosure.
\nBlock H has been converted for administration use.
\nFeatures of Block H also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block H not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTeachers Rooms (1914 and 1917)
\nTwo Teachers Rooms stand detached from Block H, to the southeast of the 1877 wing. They are small, single-storey, timber-framed and -clad building with Dutch gable roofs and ventilated gablets with timber battens. Accessible via low timber stairs, the buildings accommodate one room.
\nFeatures of the Teachers Rooms also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Teachers Rooms not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock A (1925)
\nBlock A is a three-storey, face brick school building located on the corner of Vulture and Ernest Street. It accommodates staffrooms on the ground floor and classrooms on the first and second floors.
\nIt has a long central wing terminating in short perpendicular wings at the east and west. The elevations have a rendered ground floor and face brick first and second floors. A brick parapet with rendered cornice conceals a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. A verandah runs along the northern side accessing south-facing classrooms with a projecting central bay accommodating the original entrances and stairs. The southern, western, and eastern elevations have banks of windows on the first and second floors evenly spaced between brick pilasters.
\nThe verandah wall has had its doors and windows replaced in the original openings to a different configuration – the openings are of state-level cultural heritage significance but the later configuration and fabric of doors, windows, and fanlights are not.
\nNorth of Block A is a flat parade ground retained by a concrete wall.
\nFeatures of Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFig Trees (predating 1946)
\nOn the Merivale Street campus are three mature fig trees. One stands on the Merivale Street boundary northeast of Block H and has a canopy approximately 25m in diameter extending over the road. One stands to the north of Block H near its front verandah and has a canopy approximately 12m in diameter. A third stands on the Cordelia Street boundary south of Block H and has a canopy approximately 35m in diameter.
","history":"Brisbane State High School (BSHS) comprises two campuses in South Brisbane: the former South Brisbane Primary School (established on the site in 1865); and the initial site of BSHS (established on the site in 1925). After the primary school closed the high school expanded to occupy both sites. The school includes:
\nBlock H, two Teachers Rooms, and three Mature Fig Trees
\nThe core of Block H was constructed by 1865 as the South Brisbane Primary School, with extensions erected in 1877, 1929, and 1932. The two Teachers Rooms were added in 1914 and 1917. The mature fig trees were planted prior to 1946.
\nIn Queensland the Education Act of 1860 established a Board of General Education and provided for a system of government-subsidised primary schools. Under this Act communities were required to contribute one-third of the construction cost for new school buildings but this was later relaxed and in 1864 more schools were constructed, including South Brisbane Primary School. Of the Queensland Government school buildings built to 1865 the only known survivors are Gayndah State School (1861-63) [QHR600516], South Brisbane (by 11 January 1865) [QHR601222] and Warwick East State School (by 11 February 1865) [QHR600947]. Only two other 1860s school buildings survive in Queensland, both dating from 1967; Baroona Special School [QHR600278] and Fortitude Valley State School (former) [QHR602136] [1]
\nFrom the 1850s South Brisbane rivalled North Brisbane as an important commercial and residential area. Moves to establish a school at South Brisbane commenced in 1860. In November 1861 the colonial government granted two acres (8093m2) of land between Cordelia and Merivale streets to the Board of General Education for school purposes. Subscriptions took some time to raise and in April 1863 a primary school was established in temporary, overcrowded accommodation at the Mechanics Institute in Stanley Street. Brisbane architect Christopher Porter (1801-1874) was employed to prepare plans for a new building. Porter was the first architect for the Board of General Education and his work included the design of the Normal School at North Brisbane and schools at Little Ipswich, Ipswich, and Gladstone.[2]
\nThe new school building at South Brisbane was built by Brisbane contractor Charles Beauchamp for £1050 supervised by Brisbane architect Benjamin Backhouse. It was completed for the commencement of the new school year on 23 January 1865, when it was officially opened by Minister for Lands and Works Arthur Macalister.[3]
\nIt was a two-storey brick building designed to accommodate 300 pupils, with one large classroom on each floor. Facing Merivale Street, the front (northeast elevation) had a central brick porch and a balcony on the first floor. A hall accommodating a staircase and hatroom projected centrally from the rear.[4]
\nFurther accommodation was soon needed. A balcony was added to the first floor of the rear in 1874 and substantial additions were made with the construction of a two-storey brick wing perpendicular to the rear of the building in 1877. This provided two new classrooms, one on each floor and each approximately 19ft x30ft (5.7m x 9.1m) and had verandahs running along both sides. It was built by Brisbane contractor Phillip Nott for £725. By this time a verandah had been added to the first floor of the northwest side of the 1865 section, but this was demolished between 1914 and 1930.[5]
\nSouth Brisbane continued to expand in the boom years of the 1880s. It was renamed Borough of South Brisbane in 1887 when the population reached 15,000. During this decade the school playground was filled and levelled, partly using rock excavated in 1884 for the South Brisbane Dry Dock. In 1888 the building’s shingled roof was replaced with corrugated iron sheets.[6]
\nBy the late 1880s the school was overcrowded. In 1888 the Department of Public Instruction divided the school, which had already been operating as two separate departments. A new building erected on the other side of Merivale Street, at the corner of Glenelg Street, became Brisbane South Boys School. South Brisbane Primary School closed and re-opened as Brisbane South Girls and Infants School.[7]
\nFew changes were made to Block H in the following three decades. In 1914 a small timber teachers room was erected on the northwestern side of the 1877 wing and in 1917 another teachers room was built on the southeastern side of the wing.[8] These were small, single-storey, freestanding, one-room buildings that were accessed by a small set of stairs from the asphalt verandah.
\nSouth Brisbane City Council was absorbed in 1925 by Greater Brisbane Council and the area became increasingly industrialised. Enrolments declined at Brisbane South Girls and Infants School and Brisbane South Boys School.[9] In December 1928 the two existing South Brisbane state schools were closed and combined on the former boys’ school site, reopening as Brisbane South State School.[10]
\nThe vacant girls and infants school building was converted to an intermediate school. Intermediate schools, equipped with workshops, laboratories, and domestic science rooms, were established in major Queensland towns after 1928. They reflected a fundamental change in Queensland education policy at the time, catering for 12 and 13 year old students, and offered a two-year course as a link between primary and secondary education.[11]
\nThe building was converted between December 1928 and November 1929, costing £5000. This involved: rendering the exterior walls; demolishing the brick front porch and converting the front door to a window; adding a brick-enclosed concrete stair to the northwestern verandah (requiring the move and refixing of the 1917 teachers room at a short distance on this side with a minor alteration to its front door location); extending the 1877 wing to its rear (southwest) on both levels by 8ft (2.43m); partitioning the four large classrooms to create ten classrooms (three on each level of the 1865 section, and two on each level of the 1877 section); adding larger windows to the southeastern verandah wall of the 1887 wing; adding a staff toilet to both levels of the northwestern verandah of the 1887 wing; and rearranging doors and windows. The building was officially opened in November 1929 as the Brisbane South Intermediate School.[12]
\nAlmost immediately it was planned to extend the 1865 wing by an additional four bays to the southeast, completed in 1932 for £1430. This added a further four classrooms (two on each level) a first floor verandah on the front, an enclosed verandah on both levels of the rear, and another internal stair.[13]
\nBy this time the school grounds included large open areas for play, freestanding toilets, playsheds, and a tennis court. The provision of outdoor play space at schools was the result of the early and continued commitment by the Department of Public Instruction to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Inspectors stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. In response, Arbor Day celebrations at schools began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, and developed aesthetic tastes. At South Brisbane Primary School, trees (including figs) were planted during the 1890s. Aerial photographs taken in 1946 show large shade trees near what was then the boundaries of the school. These included: one large tree on Merivale Street, one on Cordelia Street, and one adjacent to the northwestern corner of the teaching building.[14]
\nThe intermediate school concept was replaced in the 1940s and 1950s by high schools offering a variety of courses. Brisbane South Intermediate School was closed 31 December 1953. By August 1954 the nearby Brisbane South State School was transferred into the former Brisbane South Intermediate School premises. This school closed permanently on 31 December 1963 and the premises was absorbed by the adjacent Brisbane State High School. It was renamed Block H and used mainly for domestic science and manual training classes.[15]
\nBlock H was refurbished in 1989 and the Teachers Rooms were relocated within the school grounds. In 2015 they were moved again back near Block H but not to their original locations and Block H was reconfigured as administration offices by partitioning the classrooms and adding a freestanding lift.[16]
\nIn 2018 Block H and the Teachers Rooms are the school’s primary administration offices and the three large fig trees (predating 1946) provide shade in the school grounds.
\nBlock A
\nUntil 1912 Queensland secondary education was elective. Seeing higher education as having little relevance to Queensland's predominately industry-based economy the Queensland Government was initially reluctant to provide it. However, by the early 20th century this position was considered outdated and the state education system was modernised to provide compulsory, free secondary education.[17]
\nThe State Education Acts Amendment Act of 1912 raised the compulsory school age from 12 to 14, creating the need for increased school accommodation. The first state high schools were established at technical colleges in regional areas without grammar schools. The first purpose-built high schools were constructed in 1917 and were large elaborate timber buildings designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW), responsible for all education architecture.[18]
\nAt this time secular secondary education in Brisbane was limited. The community lobbied for the government to establish a state high school in metropolitan Brisbane. Initially the government provided secondary education as departments of the established Brisbane Technical College, Brisbane Central School, and Normal School but in July 1921 Brisbane State High School was formally established using the Normal School in the CBD as temporary premises. To accommodate the school permanently, land was excised from South Brisbane’s Musgrave Park and the DPW designed a substantial three-storey brick school building for the site. Its foundation stone was laid 22 September 1923.[19]
\nThe building was the first purpose-built state high school in Brisbane and cost £34,500. Minister for Public Instruction Frank Tennison Brennan opened the new school on 27 January 1925 declaring it ‘undoubtedly the finest and most costly school building yet erected by the [Queensland] Government’.[20] Contemporary newspaper reports remarked the provision of secondary education was ‘an absolute necessity in a rising democracy’[21] and South Brisbane parents should take advantage of the ‘golden opportunity’ to educate their children for free. Further, it was seen the school would ‘memorialise the centenary of the first actual settlement in the city and … mark the inauguration of the Greater Brisbane Scheme’.[22]
\nStanding on the site’s highest point, the new building had a commanding view north across a parade ground and playing field. Designed to accommodate 600 pupils, it had separate entrances, stairs, toilets, play areas, and cloakrooms for boys and girls. The ground floor accommodated a large double-height gymnasium in the western end wing. A northern verandah on the first and second floors provided access to a series of south-facing classrooms and it had sheet-and-batten-lined ceilings on the second floor. The classrooms were designed to maximise natural light and ventilation with large banks of south-facing windows.[23]
\nAlthough timber was far more commonly used in the construction of Queensland state schools, from c1900 brick school buildings were occasionally built in urban areas where the population was permanent or rapidly increasing. The number of brick school buildings increased sharply between 1928-1947 when approximately 30 brick school buildings were erected as a component of the Queensland Government’s unemployment relief scheme. After this period, brick school buildings were less frequently built.[24]
\nAt Brisbane State High School, Block A remained relatively unchanged until c1964 when its accommodation was reconfigured. This involved: converting the ground floor to staffrooms; inserting a floor into the double-height gymnasium for further classrooms; creating a new main entrance on the centre of the southern side; closing over the original entrances on the northern side; reconfiguring classrooms by demolishing and adding partitions; replacing windows and doors in the verandah wall; and inserting new stairs in the end wings.[25] In the 1990s further partitions were demolished, doors and windows of the verandah wall were replaced again, ducted air conditioning was installed, a new entry portico was added on the northern side, and further staffrooms were made in the ground floor. In 2009 double-glazed windows were added on the inside of the existing windows on the southern, eastern, and western elevations in conjunction with a new ducted air conditioning system.[26]
\nBrisbane State High School has played an important role in the Brisbane community and continues to do so. In 2018 it is Queensland’s largest state high school [27] and generations of students have been taught there. Many social events have been held in the school’s grounds and buildings and the school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.
","criteria":"Brisbane State High School is important in demonstrating the provision and evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. Established in 1865 as South Brisbane Primary School, the school retains excellent, representative examples of teaching buildings illustrating a continuum of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size, and ventilation by the Department of Public Works (DPW) to produce an ideal educational environment, set in landscaped grounds with mature trees.
\nWith its core built by January 1865, Block H is one of the first state school buildings constructed in Queensland and is representative of the earliest phase of government-provided education in Queensland, and precursor to the subsequent system of widespread standardised state education. Block H is one of three known surviving examples of a school building constructed during this period. The later extensions and alterations (1877, 1929, 1932) and the two Teachers Rooms (1914, 1917) represent important later stages of school design by the DPW.
\nBlock A (1925), the first purpose-built state high school built in Brisbane, is one of the earliest state high schools in Queensland not attached to a technical college. It illustrates the Queensland Government’s commitment to state-provided secondary education.
|Block H is one of the oldest state school buildings in Queensland, demonstrating rare evidence of the first phase of government-provided education. It is one of five surviving 1860s school buildings and is distinctive as the largest and only two-storey example.
|Block H is a rare example of an 1860s Queensland state school building with later extensions and modifications by the DPW. Intended as a fine, permanent civic asset, it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type, which include: masonry construction with steep roof; verandahs as circulation; doors and windows that maximise natural light and ventilation; large classrooms with lofty interiors; classrooms later divided into smaller classrooms by folding partitions; and a high standard of design and craftsmanship.
\nBlock A is an excellent, intact example of an Urban Brick School Building designed by the DPW. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type, which include: a handsome edifice standing in a prominent location; symmetrical two-storey form of classrooms and teachers rooms above an understory of open play spaces; a linear layout of the main floors with rooms accessed by corridors; loadbearing masonry construction; prominent projecting central entrance bay; and a high standard of design to provide superior educational environments that focus on abundant natural light and ventilation. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of its era, through its roof form, joinery, and decorative treatment.
|Block H has aesthetic significance as a two-storey masonry school building from the 1860s with cohesive later extensions. It has beautiful attributes brought about by its simple rectangular wings with tall gable roofs; well-composed elevations; durable, high quality materials and craftsmanship; open verandahs; and lofty interiors with high levels of natural light and ventilation.
\nHighly intact, Block A has aesthetic significance due to its formal composition, decorative elements, substantial size, and materials through which the DPW sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence. Standing at a prominent intersection, it is a landmark building in the South Brisbane streetscape.
\nThe fig trees on the Merivale Street campus have aesthetic significance for their streetscape contribution, substantial size and natural beauty within the context of an urban school campus.
|Brisbane State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the South Brisbane and Brisbane community. Generations of children have been taught at the school since state education commenced on the site in 1865. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Brisbane as a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16003,"place_ref":601239,"name":"St George's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St George's Church of England | St Georges Anglican Church | St Georges Church of England","street_address":"15 Cook Street","suburb":"EUMUNDI","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"St George's Anglican Church is a particularly small scale timber building situated on a residential street of Eumundi. The site comprises the church at the eastern end, a timber bell tower with cast bronze bell near the Cook Street entrance, a timber toilet block to the rear of the church and large established trees. The site extends from Cook Street to Ward Street. The western end of the site contains a large Coral tree.
Because the land is steeply graded toward the rear of the building, the front of the building appears to be at road level and the structure is elevated on timber stumps, which at the western end of the building are about 2-3 metres high. The eastern boundary of the site is bordered by an early timber and wire fence, which replaced an earlier picket fence.
The church is constructed with a timber frame and clad externally with local hardwood chamfered boards and internally with hoop pine boarding. The gabled roof of the building is clad with corrugated zincalume sheeting. The gable ends are decorated with carved timber barge boards.
The internal altar area is expressed externally on the eastern façade, facing Cook Street with a smaller gabled projecting section. This gabled section is dominated by a large pointed arched timber framed opening filled with amber coloured glass. The window provides lighting to the altar which is at this end of the building. The northern side of the building is lined with a recent wide timber framed verandah.
The principal entrance to the body of the church is via the western end, with the eastern end providing access to a small vestry. The western entrance door is a double pointed arched timber boarded door. Lining the nave of the church are lancet windows in timber frames, divided into three glazed panels, the two lower of which are hopper windows. The window glazing has been painted.
The internal walls of the church are lined with horizontal tongue and groove boarding. The floor is of ironbark. The flat ceiling is lined with timber boards. The altar recess on the eastern end of the building has a lower ceiling which has truncated corners, reflecting the pitch of the external gabled projection.
The altar of the church at the eastern end of the building is raised on a timber platform, surrounded by altar rails. The internal furnishing comprises a silky oak altar, twelve hoop pine pews, a red cedar and Queensland maple altar rail.
Beneath the elevated church areas have been enclosed for storage.
","history":"St George's Anglican Church, originally St George's Church of England, was constructed in 1912 by local builder Mr J Carbury who is thought to have designed the building.
The land on which St George's Church was built was selected by Joseph Gridley who arrived in Brisbane on the James Fernie in 1856 with his wife Ellen and five children and moved to the north coast hinterland in the late 1860s. In 1877 Joseph Gridley selected Portion 70 where the church now stands for timber getting.
In 1886, the Colonial Government proposed a township at Eumundi as a station on the railway line between Brisbane and Maryborough . The rail stop serviced the Eumundi timber getting area where selectors, including the Gridleys, had selected land during the 1870s. Residential land was auctioned in 1890 and the rail line was opened in 1891. By 1893 a local provisional school was operating.
In 1894 Joseph Gridley died and the title for the land passed to his widow. Upon her death in 1902 the title passed to the seven Gridley children. The land was subdivided and changed hands a number of times and on 22 July 1912 Lot 8 was bought by Richard Eugene Morris, William Davison and Ferdinand William Clifton acting as trustees for the Church of England. The title was transferred to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane on 6 January 1918. Fund raising for the new Church of England began in 1910-11 when a Building Committee and Ladies' Guild were established.
During 1909 a request was made to the local Council to subdivide for a new residential street which became known as Cook Street. It was in Cook Street that the Trustees for the Church of England bought land and erected St George's Church. Other denominations had erected buildings in Eumundi including a Methodist church which was constructed in 1911 replacing an earlier 1893 building.
The first sod was turned on the construction site of St George's Church of England on 23 April 1912, St George's Day. The Venerable the Archdeacon of Brisbane dedicated the new building on July 21 1912, only three months later. At the service, the Archdeacon congratulated the community upon their 'dignified and pretty little church' which was opened completely free of debt.
The church was constructed by Mr J Carbury of Crescent Road, Eumundi, who apparently also designed the building. The design may have been borrowed from elsewhere, and was certainly reused in the later design of the Church of England, Cooroy . The building was designed with a strong influence of the nineteenth century Gothic Revival and adapted to local traditions with timber construction and lined with verandahs. Many such churches were constructed in Queensland. This example is distinguished by its quality of design and integration with the surrounding streetscape.
The Church remains substantially intact, with only a verandah addition to the northern side of the building constructed in 1997-8 and replacing an original narrower verandah.
","criteria":"St George's Anglican Church, Cook Street was constructed in the early twentieth century. The Church is important in demonstrating the development of the Anglican Church in Queensland and Eumundi during this time.
|St George's Anglican Church, Cook Street was constructed in the early twentieth century and is of aesthetic significance as a picturesque and well executed example of a Gothic influenced timber ecclesiastical building. Many simple timber churches were constructed throughout Queensland, this example is distinguished by the quality of its design and by its visual cohesion with the buildings in Cook Street.
|As a place of public worship for nearly 90 years, St George's Church of England has social value for the local Anglican community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16004,"place_ref":601240,"name":"Centenary Pool Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"400 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-11-05","description":"The Centenary Pool complex comprises pools (a swimming pool, diving pool with diving boards and wading pool), a grandstand, a single storeyed bath house, and a two-storeyed restaurant and kiosk. These structures sit on a podium which is set into the north-eastern slope of Victoria Park. Constructed in concrete, steel, brick and glass, the elements of the pool form a loose composition of geometric and plastic forms. The complex is modernist-influenced in both design conception and detailing; in particular the buildings are related to the plastic expressionism of modernist architects and artists such as Oscar Niemeyer and Hans Arp.
The design of the pool complex was described by the architect in a brochure celebrating the opening of the pool: The pools are arranged in a random manner so the festive air is developed. Pools in line become too regimented for a park setting....The general aesthetic scheme is that of a free form shape pierced with geometric incisions, that is the concourse with the pools in it. ...hovering above this is another free form volume with geometric shapes placed in it, that is the restaurant with access stairs, ceiling lights and the roof terrace. (Birrell, 1959)
The boundaries of the complex form a fluid rhomboid shape. Within this boundary the pools and buildings relate to a bisecting north-south axis which extends through the park and finishes at the facade of the School of Medicine. The axis locates the central concourse. To the east of this concourse is the swimming pool, measuring 165ft by 60ft, whose eastern edge is lined by a stepped concrete grandstand (designed to seat 1200). The diving pool, measuring 90ft by 60ft, is located in the north west corner of the site and has a four-level diving tower to its western end, and single level boards at each end. A round wading pool is located in the south west corner of the site. The bath house comprises a long curved building which hugs the edge of the slope, and is entered via a ramp leading down to a central ticket office. The restaurant, a raised pavilion with curvilinear walls, also sits on axis and overhangs the swimming pool. The restaurant building contains a kiosk at ground level, and is entered via a concrete ramp which arches over the roof of the dressing sheds.
The buildings exhibit a combination of sculptural and technical inventiveness in their design and detailing. The curvilinear walls of the restaurant are formed with faceted glazed panels set in circular steel columns. The building has a curved off-centre service core containing open-riser concrete stairs spiralling around a concrete riser duct. The service core merges through the roof of the buildings to give access to a roof terrace via oval-shaped doors. The terrace is encircled by a steel balustrade with continuous horizontal rails. The service core is clad with glazed tiles with diamond motifs. The kiosk at ground level is rendered concrete, and has strip windows, a service counter, and T&G boarding running under counter height.
Internally, the restaurant is a fluid, transparent space, with the kitchen at the centre encircled by a curved wall clad in T&G boarding. The northern end of the restaurant has a raised round lit floor which has translucent glass panes set in a steel frame.
The bath house comprises a series of externally expressed steel portal frames, with a concave rendered concrete masonry wall to the south with obscured glass louvres at high level, a convex brick wall to the north with steel louvres, and a metal deck roof. It contains female dressing areas to the west, male dressing areas to the east, and administration, storage and ticketing areas in the centre, flanked by corridors giving access to the pools. The administration and ticketing areas are timber-lined. The change rooms have ceramic tiled floors, and rows of large concrete benches. The female change room has blue terrazzo partitions, while its male counterpart has grey terrazzo and blue glazed ceramic tiled partitions. Externally the brickwork is left unstruck, to express the plasticity of the material (Kennedy, 1993).
The pools and podium area also exhibit considered technical, decorative and sculptural detailing. The main pool has ceramic tiled rounded edging, a scupper channel to absorb waves, and hexagonal ceramic tiled patterns at the ends of the lanes on the floor of the pool. The wading pool is tiled in fluid abstract patterns. The diving boards are supported on splayed concrete columns, from which spring splayed cantilevered platforms, and steel balustrades and stairs with central steel stringers; the diving tower has curved stairs clinging to its northern face. The podium is paved with hexagonal concrete pavers flecked with exposed aggregate, and has raised seating and planting areas with hexagonal concrete edging. The diving pool and main pool have portholes which are accessed via a 'clubroom' below podium level.
The complex has complementary 'modern tropical' landscaping around its boundaries. The eastern and southern edges of the complex have domestically-scaled tracts of brightly coloured tropical plantings (for example Acalyphas, Hibiscus, Travellers Palms, Aloes). A substantial amount of this landscaping is original.
Centenary Pool is sophisticated in its design conception, and inventive in its sculptural and decorative detailing. The original plantings complement the buildings.
","history":"The Centenary Pool complex was constructed in 1959 by the Brisbane City Council, as its principal contribution to the celebrations marking the centenary of local government in Brisbane, proclaimed a City in October 1859, and the proclamation of the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in December 1859.
The complex was designed by Brisbane City Architect James Birrell and his staff, who commenced work on the design in 1957, and was completed in November 1959 at a cost of approximately £150,000. The contractor was Brisbane Master Builder, CP Hornick. The project was Brisbane's first Olympic standard pool and diving pool complex, and until the construction of the Sleeman Sports Complex at Chandler in 1980, remained Brisbane's principal aquatic sports centre. The inclusion of an up-market restaurant was an innovative concept which raised the status of the complex above that of simply a sports facility.
The City Council's choice of a pool complex of Olympic standard, reflected the intense public interest in competitive swimming which had been generated by Australian successes at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. Not only was Australia the proud host nation; at the Melbourne Olympics, Australia produced its best performance ever, winning 13 gold medals - 8 in swimming events. Throughout Australia, the popularity of competitive swimming surged, and in the ten years following the Olympics, the Brisbane City Council built seven new public swimming pools. Of these, the Centenary complex was the only one to incorporate diving facilities. The BCC was keen to include a wading pool in the Centenary complex, one of its principal objectives being to provide facilities for children of an early age to be taught to swim.
Centenary Pool was the first public pool complex to be designed by the City Architect rather than by the City Engineers. The Langlands Park pool, the first public swimming pool built by the Council since the early 1930s, was completed in 1958 with some involvement from James Birrell, but had been started by the Engineering Department.
On a national level, Centenary Pool was an Olympic-size pool similar to the Melbourne and Canberra Olympic Pools constructed in 1955. As a type, all three are significant as constructed either for, or as a direct result of, the Melbourne Olympic Games.
James Birrell, Brisbane's City Architect from 1955 to 1961, produced a substantial body of civic work for the BCC, including the Wickham Terrace Carpark, Toowong Library, Toowong Pool, and various suburban libraries. Of his civic work, the Centenary Pool Complex and the Wickham Terrace Carpark are his most important designs. From 1961 to 1966, Birrell was appointed Architect to the University of Queensland, overseeing the university's second major phase of construction development. His most notable buildings from this period include Union College, the JD Story Administration Building, Staff House and the Agriculture and Entomology Building. In 1966 he entered private practice.
Birrell had a talent for exploring new and exciting architectural trends, and of translating these to the Brisbane context. This is demonstrated in the design of the Centenary Pool Complex, which is unlike any of Birrell's other work, and is not in the mainstream of modern international style architecture that was being practised in Australia in the 1950s. It is more closely related to the work of Oscar Niemeyer, (one of the principal designers of Brazil's new capital, Brasilia, in the 1950s and 1960s. Like Niemeyer, Birrell attempted to create in the Centenary Pool design a work of art rather than a purely functionalist structure.
Like many architects of the 1950s, Birrell experimented with using familiar materials and technology in unfamiliar ways. The most innovative use of material in the Centenary Pool complex was in the structural steel in the restaurant and diving tower. Birrell utilised the skills of Brisbane shipbuilders Evans Deakins to shape the top and bottom beams of the restaurant, and of local steel fabricators Sargeants to bend the steel core of the diving tower.
The complex was designed to fit into the slope of the hill overlooking Victoria park, and little excavation was required. On technical aspects of the pool's construction, such as the size and positioning of the filtration equipment, Birrell worked closely with the Brisbane City Council's Chief Health Officer, JB Mabbett.
Underwater floodlighting and observation windows were included in the design, to permit coaches to view their pupils in action from below the surface. These features were highlighted at the official opening of the pool on the evening of 25 November 1959, when the Governor of Queensland, Sir Henry Abel Smith, was treated to an underwater diving display, viewed through the observation window to the diving pool.
The initial design of the complex included a landscaped entrance road and carpark to the south of the pool. Queensland subtropical landscape designer Harry Oakman, who was then manager of the BCC's Parks Department, is understood to have been responsible for the landscape design.
In 1960 the Centenary Pool complex was selected by the editors of the Melbourne publication Architecture and Arts as one of the top ten buildings in Australia. It was also the sole Queensland entry in the 1961 publication New Buildings in the Commonwealth, Australian material for which was compiled by Robin Boyd.
","criteria":"The Centenary Pool complex is historically significant as the Brisbane City Council's principal contribution to the Brisbane and Queensland 1959 centenary celebrations. Its construction also reflects the enormous popularity of competitive swimming in Australia following the successful 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
|It demonstrates the details, materials, and construction methods of a sculptural variant of Post-War International style. Nationally, Centenary Pool is a significant example of a 1950s Olympic-standard pool and diving pool complex, and can be ranked in importance with the Melbourne and Canberra Olympic pools.
|It is sophisticated in its design conception, and inventive in its sculptural and decorative detailing. The original plantings complement the buildings.
|It is sophisticated in its design conception, and inventive in its sculptural and decorative detailing. The original plantings complement the buildings.
|Its social significance lies in its contribution to the development of competitive swimming in Brisbane, having been the city's principal aquatic sports centre from 1959 to 1980.
|The complex is important as one of the major civic works designed by prominent Queensland architect James Birrell.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16005,"place_ref":601241,"name":"Grassy Hill Lighthouse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Grassy Hill","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-08","description":"The lighthouse is sited a few metres below the summit of Grassy Hill 170m above sea level and 1km northeast of Cooktown, within a 3.766ha Reserve [R.134] for Lighthouse Purposes. The tower is visible from sea during the day for many miles to the north and northeast, and is a prominent Cooktown landmark from the air.
A few metres above the lighthouse, at the summit of Grassy Hill, is a level viewing platform with interpretative signage and a sandstone cairn marking the bi-centenary of Lieutenant James Cook's visual survey of the reef at the mouth of the Endeavour River in 1770. This vantage point offers spectacular views of Cooktown and hinterland, and of the Endeavour River estuary and the reefs and ocean beyond. A graded road circumnavigates the summit, permitting vehicular access to the lighthouse and viewing platform.
The lighthouse tower, located at the side of the access road, is 6 metres high and has a truncated conical base approximately 3metres in diameter at the concrete ground floor level. The base has a timber frame with corrugated iron cladding and small rectangular windows situated on the south and east sides.
A small corrugated iron-clad, timber-framed entry with a convex corrugated iron roof is situated on the west side. The entry has tongue and groove timber double doors.
A surrounding walkway which is supported on timber brackets sits above the conical base and has a lightweight tubular balustrade. The cylindrical lantern with a hemispherical dome sits above the base and has a glazed top half divided octagonally on plan with cast iron skirt below.
Internal access to the light is via a timber stair. There are a number of large gas cylinders inside the tower, relics of the unmanned acetylene gas apparatus which functioned from 1927 to c1993.
Of the 7 timber-framed, corrugated iron-clad lighthouses erected by the Queensland colonial government in the late 19th century, only those on Grassy Hill [1886], Little Sea Hill [1886] and Goode Island [1886-87] remain in use and in situ. Caloundra Head [1896] has been decommissioned, removed to Golden Beach, and is now maintained by the Caloundra City Council. The lighthouse at Bay Rock [erected 1886 near Townsville] has been removed to the Townsville Maritime Museum and re-erected on a steel frame. Two other timber-framed, corrugated iron clad lighthouses - North Point Hummock [1894] on Moreton Island and Gatcombe Head [1900] near Gladstone - have been demolished.
","history":"Grassy Hill lighthouse was erected for the Queensland Department of Harbours and Rivers in 1886 to mark a safe passage to the port of Cooktown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River.
\nCooktown was established in October 1873 as the Endeavour River port and administrative centre to the important Palmer River goldfields. Within six months of its establishment the town contained 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, 6 butchers, 5 bakers, 3 tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers; 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. There was an estimated 3,000 floating population in the town itself, and thousands of men en route to the goldfields. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874, a state school, customs house, court house, post office and several churches were erected by 1875, and the town was declared a municipality on 5 April 1876. The 1876 census revealed a population of over 9,200 persons on the then extensive Palmer goldfields, and the town of Cooktown had a population of just under 2,200.
\nIn the 1880s Cooktown developed as the principal port of far North Queensland, and local business 'boomed'. Between 1884 and 1888 a railway was constructed from Cooktown to Laura, further opening the port to development. By the late 1880s it was the centre not only of a thriving mining district [boosted by the 1887 discovery of tin along the Annan River], but also of pearling, bêche-de-mer, and pastoral activity. After 1885 Cooktown was also the main port for Queensland trade with New Guinea.
\nPrior to the establishment of the light station at Grassy Hill in 1886, leading lights at the gable ends of the sheds on the Cooktown wharves enabled vessels to enter and leave the port at night. By 1882 a temporary light had been placed on the hill, but George Poynter Heath, Portmaster of Queensland 1862-90 and Chairman of the Queensland Marine Board 1869-90, reported to Parliament in 1883 and again in 1884 that this was very inefficient, and recommended that it be replaced by a proper building and apparatus. In the Estimates of 1884-85, the colonial government provided a £10,000 loan for the construction of a number of coastal lights, including that at Grassy Hill.
\nIn mid-1885 Heath undertook a tour of inspection of Queensland lighthouses, and at Grassy Hill fixed the site for a new light. Grassy Hill already had strong historical significance for the European community. Lieutenant James Cook, camped beneath this hill from 13 June to 4 August 1770 to repair the Endeavour, climbed Grassy Hill to survey the ocean for a passage for his ship between the reefs at Endeavour River Bay. Besides the temporary light, a signal staff erected in May 1874, and a small cottage constructed 1878-79 for the signalman, were extant on Grassy Hill when the position of the new light was fixed.
\nThe Grassy Hill lighthouse was erected in 1886 at a cost of £842/8/7 for the building and £156 for the lighting apparatus - a 4th Order Fixed Dioptric Light 180 made by Chance Bros & Co., Lighthouse Works, near Birmingham. GP Heath supervised the placing of the apparatus in the completed tower in mid-September 1886. It was a manned light, lit by kerosene. [As early as 1864 Heath had introduced the substitution of kerosene for oil, the former burning with greater brilliance.] The lighthouse keeper at Grassy Hill also maintained the signal station.
\nGrassy Hill lighthouse employs an innovative style of construction unique to Queensland. When separated from New South Wales in 1859, Queensland inherited only one lighthouse - the station at Cape Moreton, erected in 1857. The first lighthouses erected by the Queensland colonial government –Bustard Head in 1868 [QHR 601260] and Sandy Cape in 1870 [QHR 601712] – were constructed of cast-iron plates bolted to iron frames with internal iron staircases, the whole being prefabricated in England. However, for the Lady Elliott Island lighthouse [1872-73], Colonial Architect FDG Stanley designed a structure which utilised readily available local timber, specifying a hardwood frame clad with plated iron sheeting. This reduced the cost of construction substantially, and despite problems of termite infestation and rusting, this type of construction, or its derivative, a wooden frame with corrugated galvanised iron sheeting, became the standard for subsequent 19th century Queensland lighthouses. Between 1873 and 1901, 14 lighthouses were constructed in Queensland using hardwood framing and plated iron sheeting, and another 7 were constructed with hardwood frames and corrugated iron cladding. The latter were associated mostly with harbour entrances, such as at Grassy Hill at the mouth of the Endeavour River.
\nThe lighthouse was maintained as single-man station by a series of lighthouse keepers who served as signalman and keeper. The lighthouse, situated within walking distance of Cooktown, was less isolated than many of Queensland’s other lighthouses. Keepers could participate in Cooktown’s social life, and those with families could send their children to school and access civic services. The position of the lighthouse was also praised by keepers, with the family of keeper Thomas Carter (1912-18) describing it as ‘an ideal spot – 500ft above sea level – got every breeze that blew… On clear days, with the telescope, it was possible to see the surf breaking on the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef.’[1]
\nFrom 1 July 1915, the Commonwealth Government assumed control of Australian coastal lights, and the Grassy Hill light was among 28 Queensland lightstations transferred. At time of transfer, the Grassy Hill station comprised a circular galvanised iron tower on a concrete base, with nearby a flagpole and signal house and store. There was also the lightkeeper's quarters [erected in 1900 - possibly replacing the 1878-79 signalman's cottage] with a detached wooden kitchen, iron bathroom and sundry outhouses. The whole occupied a reserve of 10 acres, and buildings and optical apparatus were valued at £1,219. It was categorised as a 'Class C' station.
\nPrior to the 1915 transfer, a 1912 report commissioned by the Commonwealth Government, recommended that the Grassy Hill light be converted to an unwatched light. The light-keeper was to remain at the station for signal duties. Although all Queensland coastal light stations were provided with flag staffs and signal flags, at this period Grassy Hill was one of only 12 light stations connected with the State telegraph network. In 1913 a wireless station had been erected on a spur of Grassy Hill to permit radio contact with shipping, superseding the signal flag and heliograph previously used.
\nThe lighthouse had been unsupervised from time to time; after keeper Thomas Carter died on Christmas Eve 1918, the light was unwatched until a new keeper was appointed in 1920.[2] Later in 1920, however, it was announced that the lighthouse would be made an unattended light, due to improved tidal conditions and reduced shipping at Cooktown.[3] The last keeper, Harry Geater, transferred from Grassy Hill with his family in May 1927, and the light was converted to automatic operation in June and July.[4] The prisms were glazed, allowing the light to be seen from Cooktown,[5] and the apparatus replaced with an open flame acetylene gas burner. The flagstaff was also removed.[6]
\nAlthough Cooktown was not accessible by land until 1937, by 1929 there was little traffic into the port. By 1959 this was limited to small tourist and supply vessels operating from Cairns. The Grassy Hill lighthouse had been maintained regularly by the Commonwealth Works Department during the 1930s and 1940s, with yearly inspections and maintenance. The Grassy Hill light which had been a significant landmark for the shipping which made Cooktown a bustling and prosperous port during the heyday of the Palmer River goldfields in the late 19th century, became a popular tourist attraction in the second half of the 20th century. In 1970 a sandstone cairn was placed on the crest of Grassy Hill, on the lighthouse reserve just above the lighthouse, to commemorate the bi-centenary of Cook's survey from the summit.
\nIn November 1987 control of the Grassy Hill lighthouse was transferred from the Commonwealth back to the Queensland Government. Subsequently the lighthouse reserve was transferred unofficially to the Cook Shire Council as trustees, with the Queensland Department of Transport retaining responsibility for maintaining the light, and local community groups maintaining the tower. The light was converted to solar power c1993, and is maintained principally for the benefit of small craft and fishing vessels.
Grassy Hill lighthouse has been in continuous use as a navigation aid marking the entrance to the port of Cooktown at the mouth of the Endeavour River since 1886. It is significant for its close association with the growth of Cooktown as an important port in the 1880s, and illustrates the continued importance of maritime traffic to Cooktown, which was not accessible by land until 1937. It has historical significance as an early highway light on the Queensland coast, the site having been chosen by Captain George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland (1862-90) and a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. The place has historical significance also for marking Grassy Hill, the site of Cook's observation of the reef at the mouth of the Endeavour River, in 1770.
|The tower remains substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction - a round, timber-framed tower clad with corrugated iron - unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland materials and building skills.
Only 7 of this specific type of lighthouse were constructed in Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century, and only 3 remain in use and on their original site.
Grassy Hill lighthouse therefore is significant for its rarity and high degree of innovation.
|The tower remains substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction - a round, timber-framed tower clad with corrugated iron - unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland materials and building skills.
|The lighthouse is significant also as a Cooktown landmark, visible from sea and air approaches for many miles. Although a comparatively small structure, the lighthouse has aesthetic value, with the white tower, capped by a bright red dome, isolated against the green foliage of Grassy Hill. It makes a dramatic visual statement in the natural landscape.
|The tower remains substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction - a round, timber-framed tower clad with corrugated iron - unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland materials and building skills. This technology was innovative, and illustrates a unique adaptation of British technology to colonial economic and physical conditions.
Grassy Hill lighthouse therefore is significant for its rarity and high degree of innovation.
|The place has a strong association for the local and Queensland community with Cooktown history and identity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16006,"place_ref":601242,"name":"Wallangarra Railway Station and Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Woodlawn Street","suburb":"WALLANGARRA","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-03-28","description":"The station building consists of a long double sided single storey hip roofed brick station with cast iron verandahs after the style of an NSWGR building of the period with the exception of the Brisbane platform which has a cast iron curved shade similar to South Brisbane and Emerald stations. A small-stock slaughtering yard consisting of high-walled brick for the Refreshment Rooms adjoined the station building. The New South Wales side awning was built in 1890, and is sheeted with flat raked iron. Brackets and columns were cast by the Toowoomba Foundry. The elevations now overpainted, have pilasters at regular intervals with archways marking the location of the original lobby. Internally space was provided for offices and a large kitchen, dining room, bar and bedrooms for Refreshment Rooms staff.
The offices are located to the south of the present ticket lobby with refreshment rooms and post office now vacated to the north where there is also an enclosed yard (slaughtering yard). The refreshment room fittings have been removed. The station platform features a two road horse dock platform at its southern end. The Queensland/New South Wales border diagonally crosses the platform approximately 2 metres to the north of the horse dock platform.
The Station Master's house faces the Sydney platform and is constructed of brick adopting QGR forms and details. It is an asymmetrical villa, being constructed in a L shape with faceted bay in the projecting wing, posted verandah (reconstructed), stuccoed quoins and decorative brackets to the gable ends, and prominent chimneys.
To the west of the station are two buildings identified by Ward in his survey as being the Locomotive Inspector's quarters and running men (crew) quarters.
","history":"The Southern Line was extended from Stanthorpe to Wallangarra on 4 February 1887 almost a year prior to the completion of the NSWGR line from Tenterfield to Wallangarra on 16 January 1888, thereby opening an inter-colonial link between Brisbane and Sydney. Temporary buildings were first erected with the permanent buildings being erected from 1887 to 1890.
The first section of the Southern and Western Railway had opened between Ipswich and Bigges Camp (Grandchester) on 31 July 1865. The railway was constructed to link the pastoral areas of the Darling Downs, with the head of navigation on the Bremer River at Ipswich. The Southern and Western Railway was progressively extended to reach Toowoomba in April 1867, following completion of the Main Range section of the railway. Further westward extension of the line completed the Ipswich-Dalby line in 1868.
A line serving the southern part of the Darling Downs to Warwick, to be built in two sections was approved by Parliament in 1865. However major financial difficulties for the colony saw that the line was not completed to Hendon until 1869 and through to Warwick until 187. An indirect route from Ipswich was chosen branching off the western line near Gowrie, and running south via Westbrook, to save on construction costs.
The discovery of tin south of Warwick at Stannum Creek, and around present day Stanthorpe, in 1871 encourages a rush of miners to the area. The first agitation for an extension came from miners and people on the tin fields wanting closer communication with Brisbane and its port. A large amount of goods was also transported over the inter-colonial border and shipped from Northern New South Wales, whilst ore was also treated at a special smelter built in Brisbane. It was hoped that railway communication with Brisbane would secure this traffic for Queensland.
A trial survey was run out from Warwick to Stanthorpe in 1873, however the difficulties that would be experienced in construction of such a line through the Granite Belt, and its attendant cost forestalled further action. Two more surveys were completed in 1876 and 1877, and importantly these surveys continued beyond Stanthorpe through to Queensland/New South Wales border. Construction from Warwick to Stanthorpe was approved in August 1877. The section from Warwick-Stanthorpe was divided into two sections and work commenced in 1878 being completed in 1881.
Parliament approved plans for extension of the line southwards from Stanthorpe to the Queensland-New South Wales border in 1884 via Ballandean. New South Wales had proposed that the Queensland main line be extended beyond the border to Tenterfield (a distance of 20 kilometres). This suggestion had originally met with support from the Brisbane business community, as well as the New South Wales government. However the Queensland Parliament chose to create the break of gauge location at the colonial border. The transhipping station and yards would lead to the creation of two townships on the border, Jennings on the New South Wales side and Wallangarra on the Queensland side. The border township of Wallangarra had been described in 1885 as being of 'quite a pretentious appearance consisting of butchers, bakers, blacksmiths and with an aerated water factory.'
The New South Wales government had agreed with great reluctance to the extension of the line to the Queensland border. The contract for extension of the railway to the border 25 miles 19 chains - (42 kilometres) was let to the railway contractors George Bashford and Company in 1885 for £ 140,885.8.2, completion date being June 1887. The New South Wales government initially rejected the plans proposed by Queensland for Wallangarra station costing £ 28,000 as being too expensive. The decision was taken by the Commissioner for Railways on 18 November 1886 for a smaller station to be constructed wholly on the Queensland side of the border at a cost of £ 6 000.
Temporary station buildings were constructed until the completion of the permanent station platform in 1886. On 14 February 1887 the railway line was opened to the border, subject to a final decision on the break of gauge point. The platform and station yard layout was designed to incorporate the eventual extension of the New South Wales standard gauge lines to the border. A contract for the building of a station master's residence, goods shed, and removal of the carriage and engine sheds from Stanthorpe to Wallangarra was let in 1887 to George Bashford and Company. The contract was let for £ 2509. On 26 February 1887 the contract for the passenger station was let to George Bashford and Co. for £ 1741.
Previously the Stanthorpe Border Post had described Wallangarra as having a very fine platform but the buildings were 'ludicrously inadequate', as being temporary constructions, consisting of a shed 'as large as two boxes'. In February of 1887 a meeting had been held in Wallangarra to support the retention of the break of gauge point at the border, and not at Tenterfield as was being proposed. The Queensland/New South Wales border forms part of the fenceline for the Station Masters property. The station master's residence was unusual for a Queensland station residence was constructed in brick. A Post Office was opened in the station in March 1887.
The station was built on an island platform, with station awnings on both sides. The Queensland side awnings (western platform) being to Queensland design patterns and that on the standard gauge side (eastern platform) being built after New South Wales pattern. The New South Wales government completed its railway line to the border station in January 1888. The New South Wales awnings were not constructed until 1890. Both colonies had name boards in their usual style, the Queensland one having a hyphenated nameboard (Wallan-Garra), whilst New South Wales substituted with Wallangarra. The original station building occupies the present southern section, and consisted of office, lobby, store and closets. The booking office also served as the customs office and general waiting room as well as the Station Master's office. In 1892 drawings were prepared by Henrik Hansen for a new bar, dining room, Refreshment Room female staff (girls) bedrooms and kitchen.
By 1884 the train travelling between Brisbane and Stanthorpe had been referred to as a 'Mail' train running with a Travelling Post Office. The opening of the inter-colonial line saw the introduction of a regular train service between Sydney and Brisbane, the 'Sydney Mail'. 26 Up (Sydney Mail) and 37 Down (Brisbane Mail) were the premier service of the era. The timetable was improved in 1894 and remained unchanged until 1908, when a more powerful locomotive C16 class was introduced. In 1923 a new and heavier Sydney Mail train was constructed consisting of nine carriages including a parlour car based on observation platform at the rear of the train, to be hauled at what was the time the most powerful locomotives on a narrow gauge in Australia.
In 1921 the Federal Royal Commission into Standard Gauge had recommended that the mainland states and the Commonwealth commit themselves to providing a uniform railway network linking the capital cities of Australia with common gauge. As part of the standardisation of the disparate gauges, a new link between Sydney and Brisbane via Kyogle was identified as being a central element. Queensland in 1924 passed the South Brisbane Kyogle Grafton Act committing itself to the construction of a new standard gauge railway from South Brisbane to the border with New South Wales. New South Wales for its inclusion in the agreement between the Commonwealth and Queensland demanded a bridge over the Clarence River at Grafton and the upgrading of the Kyogle branch. The Commonwealth Government provided half the funding for the project. The interstate standard gauge railway line between Kyogle and South Brisbane opened in 1930. The importance of the Toowoomba-Wallangarra southern line diminished, as the new link via northern New South Wales and the Richmond Gap into Queensland did not involve a change of trains at a border station.
During the time of the Second World War the strategic importance of Wallangarra was vital in providing an inland transhipment and staging point during the defence of Australia. Large numbers of workers were employed to tranship goods in the New South Wales section of the yard. The extensive yard and station complex at this time consisted of the station building, closets and horse dock at the southern end of the station platform (the border dock). Refreshment Room staff and ambulance quarters were situated at the north end of the platform. On the western (OGR) side was a goods office, casual crew quarters with dining room, frame tent and library. To the north-east an engine shed was situated, reserve coal dump, locomotive coal stage, tool room, ASM's residence (1919), ganger's residence (1919) and trucking yards. On the east side (NSWGR platform) was the Station Master's residence (1887), 25 ton weighbridge, lamp room, waitresses quarters and the footwarmer furnace. Quarters were also provided for laundresses. Most of these ancillary buildings are now removed.
The last Sydney Mail (26 Up) ran on 29 January 1972, and the Brisbane-Wallangarra service was withdrawn as of 1 February 1972. The Wallangarra Refreshment Rooms closed to the public on 5 August 1973. The Refreshment Rooms were demolished in 1975. With the cessation of passenger services on the Queensland side of the border, the line reverted to a goods only basis. With the continuing decline of Wallangarra the decision was taken in 1984 to abolish one of the two positions of Assistant Station Master. The line between Tenterfield and Wallangarra on the New South Wales side of the border was closed to traffic in 1989. The line northwards of Guyra in New South Wales, and then Armidale was progressively mothballed by the State Rail Authority. In March 1994 the Assistant Station Master's and Ganger Residences at Wallangarra were sold. The Station Master's residence was sold in 1994-5, and the Station Officer withdrawn in 1995. The Southern line south of Warwick was threatened with closure in 1993-4, but the link was retained due to community protest, and a twice weekly goods service was still operated. In recent times trains have only been run on an as required basis, and all station staff withdrawn leaving Wallangarra as an unattended station.
","criteria":"Wallangarra railway station, associated trackwork in the railway yard and ancillary railway buildings situated at Wallangarra on the border of Queensland and New South Wales are important in demonstrating the pattern of transportation and communications in Queensland's history. In particular it demonstrates the pre-eminence of rail transport in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in Australia. The station building and yardwork was the response to the meeting between two separate colonial railway systems at a border using separate railway gauges. They demonstrate the inter-colonial rivalry with regard to railway gauges, which continued from the end of the nineteenth century, until major rail standardisation between the systems began in the 1960's.
|It is a rare complex of its type, being especially comparable nationally with Serviceton on the Victoria/South Australian border (1888) in terms of its construction date, large size and redundancy. It compares also with other late Victorian border stations at Albury and Wodonga.
The station building and Station Masters residence are uncommon in Queensland as being constructed of masonry which demonstrates the NSWGR influence.
|The station building and yardwork was the response to the meeting between two separate colonial railway systems at a border using separate railway gauges. They demonstrate the inter-colonial rivalry with regard to railway gauges, which continued from the end of the nineteenth century, until major rail standardisation between the systems began in the 1960's.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16009,"place_ref":601245,"name":"Church of Christ, Charters Towers","alternate_name":"The 'German Church' | St Johannes Lutheran Church","street_address":"Anne Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"The Church of Christ, Charters Towers, is a simple brick church with a substantial timber belltower to one side. The site is located in an early residential part of the city, three blocks from the main commercial street, Gill Street, and nearby to St Mary's Convent and Lissner Park (600397). Being situated on a corner, the belltower is prominent above the surrounding cottages.
The rectangular site is located on the corner of Anne and High Streets, and orientated north-south. The rectangular church is centrally located on the site, with the entry to Anne Street to the south. The belltower is at the street corner to the south-east. To the rear of the site at the northern end is a brick and concrete block community centre.
The church is unpainted brick with steeply pitched corrugated iron roofs. Projecting from the nave is an entry porch to the south, and sanctuary to the north with vestry beside. To each side and above the entry porch are tall narrow lancet windows, with borders of coloured glass. From the entry at ground level, the site falls gently to the rear exposing a base of random granite stones.
The side elevations of the nave are punctuated by brick buttresses, with lancet windows between having awning sashes and heads of coloured glass.
The belltower is framed and cross-braced in substantial timber members. Its construction is reminiscent of the mining headframes of the area, and similar to the bell tower to St Columba's Catholic Church (600399) further along High Street, which is believed to be of later construction. The belltower has a corrugated iron bellcast pyramid roof, mounted by a finial. It houses two large bells.
The white picket fence rune along the front of the site, and returns part of the way along High Street, past the belltower.
The interior of the church has exposed scissor trusses with a diagonally boarded ceiling above.
","history":"The Church of Christ, Charters Towers was constructed in 1885-7 as the first Lutheran Church in Charters Towers. After 1915 when the church was sold, the building became used as the Charters Towers Church of Christ.
Gold was discovered at Charters Towers in December, 1871. The first mining claims were issued in January, 1872 and the new gold field was proclaimed on 31 August, 1872. Populations on the fields grew with the most durable towns being established where reefing gold was the predominant form of mining. By the early 1880s technological innovation had improved production on the reef field. Large scale mining companies began to form at about this time in Charters Towers. The establishment of these companies was given a boost through the introduction of mining safety legislation and increased British investment.
By 1882 company mining became the rule rather than the exception on the Charters Towers field. One such company was the Day Dawn PC, formed after rich deposits of gold were found on land owned by a small group of German miners led by Frederick Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer and his partners, Messrs Heinrich Paradies, Carl Augustus Reidrich, Hamann, Romberge, Levers and Christian became enormously wealthy with the mine eventually yielding 1,000,000 pound in gold. The group, who sold the mine in 1887, were among the wealthiest men in the town. All of them remained in Charters Towers and later invested in other mining ventures.
The growth in reef mining led to a growth in population with miners and their families arriving from all over the world. The population structure of the new gold field is not well documented, however, it is fair to say that many nationalities were represented on the Charters Towers field, including a small group from Germany. This group was to become one of the first Lutheran communities in Queensland.
While some church groups were able to attend organised services after c1872 in Charters Towers, German Lutherans did not have access to a minister or church when they first arrived in the early 1880s. At first they met in private homes and later in the Oddfellows Hall. While this arrangement was satisfactory initially, in 1885 some members of the Day Dawn PC partnership decided to finance the building of a church for their community.
Many local German people contributed to the cost of a new building. Mr Christian Paradies, the founder of the congregation, donated more than £1800 towards the erection of a brick church which was known as the St Johannes Lutheran Church and he bequeathed a further £1000 to the church. Carl Riederich donated the building site and contributed to the building costs and the bells. Friedrich Pfeiffer and Heinrich Paradies shared the costs of building the parsonage. The foundation stone was laid on 5 December, 1885 and the church was completed in March, 1886. The total cost of construction of the church was £2500.
The designer and builder are not known but Mr Zander, formerly of Beenleigh, worked as a bricklayer on the site.
Pastor EO Maiser of German Station (later known as Nundah), the first pastor in Charters Towers, opened the church on 13 June, 1886. The bell tower, hung with two bells brought from Germany, was completed in 1887.
In 1897 the Lutheran Church community was affiliated with the State Church of Prussia and the church became the focal point for the German community in Charters Towers. Language classes and community festivities were some of the activities held at the church.
The Lutheran community remained active in Charters Towers until the First World War, when Pastor G Schafhirt was repatriated to Germany. The church community declined during the war and the property was sold to the Church of England in September, 1915. Since that time the church has been a place of worship for the Church of Christ community of Charters Towers.
","criteria":"The Church of Christ, Charters Towers is a brick building constructed in 1885-7 which demonstrates the development of the Lutheran community in Northern Queensland, particularly Charters Towers in the 1880s.
|The building has aesthetic merit as a simple brick church with Gothic detailing including a steeply pitched roof and lancet windows. The substantial timber bell tower is a prominent element of the streetscape and reminiscent of the construction of mine headframes once common in the area. The juxtaposition of the two distinct and unusual elements contributes to the aesthetic interest of the site.
|The church, which has been a landmark in Charters Towers since its opening, was an important centre for German cultural and social life for thirty years. The building has social value as a place of public worship for over 110 years. The site has special value to the Church of Christ community with whom it has a long association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16010,"place_ref":601246,"name":"Hornibrook Highway Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Hornibrook Highway","suburb":"BRIGHTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-07","description":"The Hornibrook Highway Bridge is a 2.685km long timber and concrete bridge that spans Hayes Inlet and Bramble Bay between Clontarf Point and Brighton, linking Sandgate to Redcliffe. It has identical rendered concrete portals at each end, and two rises along its length which permit small boats to pass underneath.
The bridge construction comprises a timber superstructure supported by reinforced concrete piers with three concrete piles of varying depths. The superstructure has substantial round ironbark girders on corbels, with girders supporting large section ironbark and tallowwood sawn decking. The decking is covered with coarse aggregate bitumen, and has concrete kerb edging. At each end, the first spans of the superstructure are constructed in ribbed reinforced concrete to protect the bridge from termites and fire.
The superstructure has a slight camber that permits periodic tightening of the deck via bolt fixings along the outer girders.
The bridge has steel balustrades comprising steel stanchions supporting two circular hollow section rails and ironbark lightpoles along its length.
The portals at each end are finely detailed monumental Art Deco structures comprising substantial pylons spanned by a deep spandrel facing landward, and more modestly detailed rectangular frames facing bayward. The pylons have banded rusticated bases on concrete pedestals, with central slot windows with decorative grilles on three sides, surmounted by stepped vertical elements. The spandrel is also banded, and has a rectangular central panel with the words Hornibrook Highway fashioned in raised brass lettering. The portals contain toll facilities, comprising a small office and strong room with night safe in the base of the pylons at each end. Externally these rooms are framed by Art Deco relief patterns. On the approach to the bridge the portals are preceded by smaller free-standing pylons either side of the road.
The bridge is now experiencing problems of decay including the cracking of the decking surface caused by rotting planks, the corrosion of steel in the concrete piers, and white ants in the girders.
","history":"The Hornibrook Highway Bridge was constructed in the years 1932-35, by the firm of M.R. Hornibrook. Conceived as a response to high unemployment, and economic recession, it also represented an opportunity to end the isolation of the residents of the Redcliffe Peninsula.
Prior to the construction of the Hornibrook viaduct, the Redcliffe Peninsula was accessed via two main methods of transport: ferry and road. Road transportation in particular was of great concern to the residents of the Redcliffe area. During times of wet weather, the Redcliffe road running via Petrie regularly became impassable to vehicles.
Several schemes had been drafted to improve the accessibility of the Redcliffe area to vehicle owners and also to the growing day-tripper market, having seaside holidays at Redcliffe.
These schemes favoured the construction of a new road link across Hayes Inlet and the mouth of the South Pine River. In 1926, the Redcliffe Council had proposed such a project be considered by the Main Roads Board.
Such a road link would involve crossing 2.7 kilometres of water by viaduct at a cost of 120,000 pounds. This road would then connect with Sandgate-Brisbane main road, avoiding the long drive via Petrie.
M.R. Hornibrook had holidayed in this area and saw the development potential of the Redcliffe area being linked by road to Brisbane. The onset of the financial depression of 1929-33 gave Hornibrook the impetus to plan and construct a road viaduct across from Redcliffe to Sandgate.
Major contracts for construction diminished with the deepening depression, and the decline in public spending. Hornibrook believed a major project was needed to keep together the construction force built up by his company during twenty-five years of work.
In 1931, Hornibrook approached the State Government with a proposal to construct a toll bridge linking the southern part of Redcliffe with the Sandgate area. Initially, this proposal was rejected. After further consultation with the State Government, an act of Parliament was pushed through allowing for the involvement of private enterprise in the construction of toll facilities.
The terms of franchise set the toll, as well as stipulating the length of lease. Hornibrook negotiated successfully for a forty year franchise on the projected road bridge.
The full extent of the project involved a road viaduct 2.68 km in length plus associated roadworks. To finance such a major construction, a prospectus was issued to encourage local investment in Hornibrook Highway Ltd.
Work officially commenced on the project on June 8, 1932, but in its first eighteen months progress was limited, due to a lack of financing. The entry portals at either end of the bridge were completed in early 1933. Continuing financial difficulties forced Hornibrook to attempt to re-finance the company to finish the work as planned by 1935. The major flotation was assisted by a £100,000 loan from the AMP Society, guaranteed by the State Government. Work recommended at a faster pace from July of 1934.
The portals were designed by architect John Beebe. Orginally a Bendigo based architect, Beebe moved to Queensland in 1916, and worked at the Queensland Works Department until 1926. He then moved into private practice in Brisbane until 1936.
Over 2.5 million superfeet of timber was needed to provide girders and decking on the bridge. Two sawmills were bought specially to process timber from the Mt Mee and Conondale Ranges. 250 timbergetters were employed to cut the required amount of timber. Concrete was supplied from the QCL works at Darra - the two portals being the first significant structures in Queensland to use material from this source.
The last plank on the viaduct was spiked into place on September 7, 1935. The bitumen road surface was laid in under three weeks setting an Australian record. The construction of the bridge was similar to other bridges in Queensland, but when it was completed it was the longest road viaduct built over water in the southern hemisphere.
The viaduct was opened to road traffic on October 4, 1935, foreshortening the road journey by several hours. Also a special coordinated road/rail bus service was inaugurated by the company to convey commuters between Sandgate and Redcliffe.
The Hornibrook Highway played an important strategic role during the defence of Australia in World War Two. Military road convoys were able to use the highway to move war material efficiently to points in Queensland.
By the 1970s increasing road volumes necessitated the investigation of a replacement structure capable of carrying additional traffic.
The Hornibrook Highway franchise was surrendered to the Department of Main Roads in 1975 after forty years of operation by the company. From this time the Main Roads Department assumed responsibility for maintaining the structure.
A replacement viaduct was authorised by the Main Roads Department in 1977 to cope with increasing traffic flows to and from the Redcliffe Peninsula. The Houghton Highway as the new bridge was named opened to traffic in 1979.
The Hornibrook Highway was closed to vehicular traffic with the opening of the replacement structure in 1979. It has since been used as a pedestrian thoroughfare and bikeway.
The Hornibrook Highway was a major catalyst in accelerating the urban development of the Redcliffe Peninsula and it's surrounding area. In its planning, construction and operation it represents a major innovation in construction activities in Queensland at a time of economic crisis.
","criteria":"The Hornibrook Highway Bridge, constructed 1932-35, was one of the first road toll facilities in Queensland to be authorised by special act of parliament. It is notable as a major public work constructed by private enterprise at a time of economic depression in Queensland. The bridge was the major impetus for the development of Redcliffe.
|(Criterion under review)
|The finely detailed monumental portals at each end have aesthetic quality.
|In its planning, construction and operation it represents a major innovation in construction activities in Queensland at a time of economic crisis. Its significance also lies in its relationship to the vision of its builder, Manuel Hornibrook, to develop the potential of the city of Redcliffe.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16011,"place_ref":601247,"name":"Selhurst","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24 Cleveland Terrace","suburb":"MELTON HILL","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-05-30","description":"Situated almost atop Melton Hill, Selhurst faces east towards the Pacific Ocean and is placed close to the front of the block of land, on Cleveland Terrace.
Selhurst is a low set single storey residence with verandahs on three sides. The corrugated iron roof has a ventilated raised ridge capping with louvred screens at each end to assist internal cooling.
The house has a timber balustrade and a timber 'skirt' down to the foundation. There are panelled doors at the front of Selhurst. The house has a central hall with rooms opening to either side and a small ballroom at the rear of the house which has been converted to a family room.
The house is constructed on a platform cut into the hillside. At the rear of the block, in the southeast corner, the land rises to a second level. The house is surrounded by gardens and includes a large rock wall and ivy hedge along the front of the yard. This wall is believed to be a remnant of an 1865 rock wall constructed by South Sea Island labourers as part of an enclosure which surrounded John Melton Black's property on Melton Hill.
Palm trees are scattered around the house giving it a tropical look. A white paling fence encloses the swimming pool and several ferns are intermingled with the palms and lawns in this area. Plans are in place to restore the rear garden.
Selhurst is one of only three houses of a similar design remaining in Townsville. It is the only one of this specific design to have survived.
","history":"Selhurst, built in 1919 was probably designed by Townsville architect Walter Hunt. The house was commissioned by John Alexander Carpenter, Townsville manager for the Burns Philp Company, as his private residence.
James Burns established his general business in Townsville in 1872 after several years working on stations in southern Queensland and as an assistant and later partner in his brother John's grocery business, branches of which were located in Brisbane and Gympie. The Townsville store, opened in 1871, was established as a wholesale business to supply goods to the recently established gold field of Charters Towers and to Cape River, Ravenswood and later the Etheridge, Palmer and Hodgkinson River gold fields. Burns also provided a wholesale and retail service for the isolated stations in the interior.
Robert Philp, hired by Burns in 1874, became a partner in the business in 1876, prior to Burns moving to Sydney to open a branch of the company.
The company, incorporated in April 1883 as Burns, Philp and Company Limited, came to dominate trade in North Queensland and the Pacific through its land and sea interests. Its success was bound up in the booms in the mining, pastoral and sugar industries in North Queensland.
During the early to mid 1880s the Burns Philp Company was involved in the Pacific Islander labour trade. Pacific islanders were imported as cheap indentured labour to work mainly on sugar plantations. In 1882 Philp, together with Burdekin plantation owner Colin Munro and other investors, formed the Townsville Shipping Co.Ltd. as a cover for recruiting South Sea Islander labourers. After the establishment of the company Burns Philp ships were openly dispatched on recruiting voyages. During 1883-84 the company had five ships working in the trade, however, they dropped out of the trade after two crew from a company ship Hopeful were found guilty of murder and the Captain and crew were found guilty of kidnapping in 1884.
Despite the loss of the Pacific labour trade, by the 1890s there were branches of the business at Cairns, Charters Towers, Cooktown, Normanton, Burketown, Brisbane, Sydney and in the Pacific. At the same time Burns became a shipping agent for companies such as the Queensland Steam Shipping Company which had the mail contract from London via Singapore, Batavia, Thursday Island, Townsville to Sydney.
During his years in Townsville, Robert Philp developed an interest in politics through his involvement in the campaign to expand the railway to the west and through his participation in the movement to create a separate north Queensland state. He entered politics in 1886 as the member for Musgrave, a constituency north of Townsville. Philp became member for Townsville in 1888, Premier in December 1899 and Premier again in 1907-8. He remained in politics until 1915.
Management of the Townsville Branch of the firm passed to several managers after Philp entered politics. John Alexander Carpenter, who later transferred to Townsville, was a very successful manager of the Cairns Branch from 1907 to 1914. The Cairns Branch, during Carpenter's time, became the biggest net earner of any branch in Australia. However, due to poor management and aggressive competition from firms such as Samuel Allen and Cummins & Campbell, the Townsville Branch slumped and John Alexander Carpenter was transferred to the Townsville office in June 1914.
Carpenter purchased land on Melton Hill on 22 October 1914. The property was transferred to his wife on 18 December 1916 and a year later the original house was destroyed by fire. The second house, Selhurst, was built in 1919 after the fire. While it is not known who designed and constructed the building it is possible that Townsville architect Walter Hunt was the architect. The house was sold to the Burns Philp Company, as a manager's residence, after Alexander Carpenter was transferred to New Zealand as General Manager in 1919.
The house continued as the manager's residence until 1976 when Burns Philp sold its Townsville office.
It is important to note that from early settlement Melton Hill has been the location for residences for managerial staff, lawyers and doctors. The first house was built by John Melton Black, manager for Robert Towns c 1865. The Commonwealth Bank and Bank of New South Wales also built managers houses on the hill, as did several insurance companies and the Shell Oil Company. Jacob Leu of the law firm Roberts & Leu also constructed Warringa as his residence (600886) next door to Selhurst.
Apart from Selhurst, a number of significant villa residences from the nineteenth and early to mid twentieth century survive along Cleveland Terrace. These places include The Rocks - 1888, former McMahon House - c1896, Mandalay - c1898, Illawarra - 1911, Warringa - 1912 (600886), Duncragan - 1917, the former Shell Company manager's house - c1930, and Former North house - 1940.
","criteria":"Selhurst, constructed in 1919 as the manager's residence for Queensland shipping firm Burns Philp, is an important component of early North Queensland commercial history and is indicative of the significant contribution made by the company to the economic development of Queensland.
|As an early North Queensland vernacular style residence, Selhurst is one of a number of significant villa residences along Cleveland Terrace. Together with Warringa (600886) and St James Cathedral (6000887), Selhurst makes a significant aesthetic contribution, through form, scale and materials to the Melton Hill streetscape.
|The house, which served as the managers' residence for the Burns Philp Company for fifty-seven years, is thought to be an example of the work of Townsville architect Walter Hunt.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16012,"place_ref":601248,"name":"Royal George Hotel and Ruddle's Building","alternate_name":"Ruddle's Corner | Freemasons Arms | Bush and Commercial Inn (aka Commercial Inn) | Ruddles","street_address":"323-335 Brunswick Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-03","description":"The Royal George Hotel is located on the western corner of Brunswick and Ann Streets, opposite the Empire Hotel [600199] on the southern corner. Ruddle's Building adjoins the Royal George Hotel to the northwest, and also adjoins the former TC Beirne department store to the southeast.
1. Royal George Hotel
The Royal George Hotel is a three-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a corrugated iron hipped roof concealed behind a parapet. The street corner of the building is chamfered, and the core of the building consists of the c.1850 section but essentially what is presented is a 1960s make-over of the Victorian hotel. It is believed that the surviving elements of the c.1850 core consist of the relative sections of exterior walls, chamfered corner, door/window openings, and some internal structural walls.
The ground floor has an awning to both Ann and Brunswick Streets. The awning is supported by metal tie rods fixed to the face of the building at the first floor window head height. The first and second floors have predominantly regularly spaced aluminium framed hopper windows to the Ann Street elevation, and aluminium framed french doors with metal balustrades to the Brunswick Street elevation, with continuous cantilevered metal awnings. The ground floor has predominantly regularly spaced aluminium framed door and window units accessing the public bar and lounge along the Ann Street elevation, and the main entrance which accesses the first and second floor accommodation fronts onto Brunswick Street. The ground floor walls are finished with ceramic tiles, and the Ann Street elevation has the name ROYAL GEORGE HOTEL in relief below the second floor windows.
The southwest end of the Ann Street elevation comprises a visually distinct section of the hotel, which was constructed prior to 1898 as a separate building (or buildings) and was amalgamated into the hotel during the addition of the second floor and verandahs by 1924. Whilst the external treatment of this section is similar to the main section of the Royal George Hotel, it is distinguished by a slightly recessed elevation, changes in floor levels and a stepped street awning. The first and second floors have aluminium framed sliding glass door and window units, with continuous metal balustrades and cantilevered awnings. The southwest end elevation has timber framed sash windows to the second floor, and a number of non-original openings have been introduced to the first floor.
The rear of the building has a series of metal fire stairs, and most of the windows have been replaced with metal framed units. The rear of the site consists mainly of a service area with access via a driveway from Ann Street on the southwest side.
Internally, the building has a public bar on the ground floor fronting Ann Street, with a lounge at the southwest end. A lobby entrance fronts Brunswick Street, with a lift and main stair accessing the first and second floor accommodation. A second bar, located at the northwest end of the Brunswick Street elevation, opens into the southern tenancy of the adjoining Ruddle's Building and onto a timber deck constructed over the footpath. Toilets and service areas are located at the rear. A central stair accesses a basement to the corner section of the hotel which is connected to the basement areas of Ruddle's Building to the northwest. The basement contains evidence of the original structure, particularly the structural walls.
The first and second floors comprise hotel rooms opening off a central corridor, with communal facilities at the rear, and a smoking lobby facing Brunswick Street. Original transverse structural walls survive at the first floor level, as well as the external walls fronting Ann Street. The southwest section has a higher floor level, and the hotel rooms in this section each have bathroom en suite. The northwest end of the first floor level also has hotel rooms with bathroom en suites, and the central corridor opens through to the first floor level of Ruddle's Building adjacent.
2. Ruddle's Building
Ruddle's Building is a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure with three parallel corrugated iron hipped roof sections concealed behind a parapet. The northwest hipped roof has a small non-original clerestory section with a curved roof which provided light to an internal stair which is no longer extant.
The building is comprised of the former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney premises on the northwest side, and three tenancies adjacent to the southeast. This is expressed on the Brunswick Street elevation at ground level as four shopfronts. The first floor elevation comprises a separate tenancy at the northwest end (the former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney), with the remaining three tenancies composed as a single unit with a unifying verandah.
The building is essentially an infill structure which has the overall effect of creating a gradual change of scale and proportion which responded to the adjoining Royal George Hotel (in its 1886 form) to the southeast, and an earlier form of the former TC Beirne Department store to the northwest. The unifying architectural elements included pedimented parapet details, comprising triangular and curved pediments on the Royal George Hotel which were later incorporated into the redevelopment of the former TC Beirne Department store, and which were consciously linked and referenced through the utilisation of triangular and broken apex curved pediments on Ruddle's Building.
The rear of the building, constructed of rendered masonry, has single-storeyed additions containing amenities, kitchens and store areas with corrugated iron roofs. Non-original steel framed stairs and walkways access the first floor.
2.1 former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney premises (northwest tenancy)
The northwest tenancy (the former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney), currently a bar/live music venue, has a non-original awning to Brunswick Street. The awning is supported by metal tie rods fixed to the face of the building at the first floor window sill height, and comprises a deep metal fascia and pressed metal ceiling. The ground floor comprises a non-original timber framed shopfront with central paired timber framed glass doors, with a recessed original doorway at the northwest end. This doorway retains original fanlight and architrave detailing, and originally accessed a corridor leading to the rear internal stair and rear offices. The doorway is currently not used, and the internal planning has changed. The first floor elevation is composed of a central recessed section which continues to the parapet, with an arch with expressed extrados and keystone flanked by wall sections which appear as oversized pilasters each with a central window. The arch opens to a recessed loggia with projecting curved balcony with a wrought steel balustrade, and each window has non-original glass louvres. Expressed drip moulds frame the arch and window openings. An oversized keystone and arched drip moulding, which originally framed the arched entry to the banking premises, is extant below the balcony and above the non-original awning, however much of the original detailing of the ground floor elevation has been removed. The parapet comprises a broken apex curved pediment, and the entablature has oversized dentils.
The building has a two-storeyed section at the rear, with an angled side boundary wall, which forms an access way at the ground level and houses toilets at the first level.
Internally, the ground floor of the northwest tenancy contains a stair on the northwest side accessing the first floor, a bar and seating area, and a separate room at the rear housing a pool table. The rear room has an original tall sash window with architraves, some original detailing such as picture rails, and evidence of early openings in the rear wall. The bar and seating area has a tiled floor, and the walls and ceiling are finished with compressed sheeting. The first floor houses a function room with three large openings onto the recessed loggia fronting Brunswick Street. The clerestory lights the rear of the space, and a door opens into the rear office which has a tall sash window and original details such as architraves and skirtings. A short corridor accesses a bathroom at the rear, which has a boarded ceiling with timber cornice, and original panelled door and architraves.
2.2 remaining three tenancies
The remaining section of the building, which comprises three tenancies, has an awning to Brunswick Street which steps between the adjacent awnings of the Royal George Hotel and the northwest tenancy of the building. The awning has a deep timber fascia, raked boarded timber ceiling and is supported by four columns with Ionic capitals, above each of which is a single sphere. The ground floor comprises three tenancies, currently comprising a cafe and two bars, none of which have original shopfronts. The cafe has a timber framed shopfront with central paired timber framed glass doors. The middle bar has one large opening with a roller door, and the southern bar has been incorporated into the adjoining Royal George Hotel. The southern bar has a raised timber deck constructed over the footpath, and the front wall consists of two sets of folding timber framed glass doors either side of a timber framed window servery.
The first floor elevation is original and comprises a central cantilevered verandah with turned timber posts and balusters, and an ogee shaped corrugated iron awning with oversized dentils to the eaves. A pediment with oversized dentils to the entablature surmounts the awning fronting the parapet, and is flanked by the letters WR on the southern side, and the date 1901 on the northern side. Above these are short sections of balustrade to the parapet. The verandah has a raked boarded ceiling, a central timber partition, and multi-paned french doors with fanlights and expressed architrave mouldings.
The rear of the building has a unifying first floor verandah which has been enclosed with a combination of multi-paned windows, weatherboards and vertical boarding.
Internally, the ground floor of the remaining section of the building houses three tenancies, consisting of a cafe and two bars. The cafe has a non-original raised ground floor, which functions as a mezzanine and affords views of the basement seating area. The cafe has a seating area fronting Brunswick Street to both the basement and raised ground floor, a kitchen and amenities at the rear, original deep cornices and a non-original stair at the rear. Both bars have non original fit-outs, and the southern bar functions as an extension of the adjacent Royal George Hotel. Both bars have basements, with brick arches in adjoining walls. The first floor, which consists of rooms opening off a central corridor, is currently used as accommodation for the staff of the Royal George Hotel, and is accessed via the first floor corridor of the hotel. Sash windows and french doors with tall fanlights open onto the rear enclosed verandah, which has a boarded raked ceiling and face brick exterior wall.
","history":"The Royal George Hotel and Ruddle's building are located on the strategic intersection of Ann and Brunswick Streets (now Brunswick Street Mall) Fortitude Valley. A hotel is known to have existed on this site since 1850. The three storey brick Royal George Hotel contains an early (possibly as early as 1850) two storey core to which several major stages of works have been undertaken. In 1886 major additions transformed the hotel into a late Victorian building; by 1924 a third floor had been added; works undertaken in the 1960s (the current manifestation of the hotel) stripped much of this Victorian decoration from the building. The adjoining two storey brick Ruddle's building was erected in 1901 by William Ruddle whose family operated the Royal George for some 60 years. The building was designed by Brisbane architect RS (Robin) Dods to complement the hotel (as it then was) and to accommodate a number of different tenancies including the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Together the two buildings form what was known as Ruddle's corner.
The site originally comprised part of Eastern Suburban Allotment 71 alienated in 1850 by James Gibbon. In that same year some 54 perches of ESA 71 was acquired by William Sam Sutton licensee of the Bush and Commercial Inn at Kangaroo Point. In December of that year Sutton was granted permission to transfer his publican's license to his new premises also known as the Bush and Commercial Inn (also known as the Commercial Inn), the forebear of the Royal George. Sutton's hotel was one of only a dozen or so licensed premises in Brisbane at this time including one other in Fortitude Valley, Jeremiah Scanlin's the Strangers Home located diagonally opposite the Commercial Inn.
The two inns were well situated on a strategic intersection of what were then known as the roads to (the former penal establishments of) Eagle Farm and New Farm. In addition to passing trade they serviced the fledgling settlement of Fortitude Valley, established in 1849 as a temporary village by some 256 immigrants privately sponsored by JD Lang, in response to the refusal of government assistance upon their arrival at Moreton Bay. By 1851 however, the Commercial Inn was no longer licensed and Sutton was in financial trouble; his property being offered for sale by the Sheriff in execution of a judgment obtained by Brisbane businessman John Richardson. The Sheriff's advertisement provides the first description of the earliest known hotel on the site; Sutton's Commercial Inn being described as a large brick Building - one portion carried up one story, and the corner portion roofed in and occupied as a Public-house ... There is also an excellent detached Brick Kitchen, Sleeping Rooms, and Stables, securely fenced in with a high Fence.
Based on a combination of evidence (including the Sheriff's advertisement, a later photograph of the hotel, and 1960s floor plans) it is believed that the hotel at this stage comprised a two storey brick section with slate roof and cantilevered verandah fronting Ann Street with a single storeyed brick wing wrapping around the corner of Ann and Brunswick Street (the distinctive chamfered section) attached to the northern end of the Ann Street section.
The property was not apparently sold at this time but instead passed to Sutton's creditor, John Richardson. In addition to his business interests, Richardson was the local representative in the New South Wales Legislative Council and a supporter of both JD Lang and separation. It is not known whether Richardson resided at the property although all buildings were apparently occupied (albeit the Commercial Inn was no longer licensed). In 1853 Richardson advertised the property for sale in two lots, the first lot containing the hotel described as a corner two-story House, two Cottages, and two Brick Houses in an unfinished state. The House contains two sitting rooms, kitchen, and three bed rooms, and is well adapted for a Public House or Store. The Cottages are plastered and comfortably finished; the whole substantially enclosed, and all occupied. The properties were described as well worth the attention of all who either require a house of their own or a good investment for their money, as they will be sold fifty per cent, under what they could now be built for.
In October the Moreton Bay Courier reported that the unfinished brick building at Fortitude Valley, formerly in the occupation of Mr Sutton, has been sold by Mr Richardson, the proprietor for £600, and will be opened as an Hotel. The property described as subdivisions 2, 3, and 4 of block 3 and sub 1 of block 6 of ESA 71 was acquired by William John Loudon (sometimes called London) who established the Freemasons Arms (also known as the Freemasons Hotel) on the site, obtaining a license in April 1854 becoming the only licensed premises in the Valley, the nearby Strangers Home Inn losing its license in that year.
By 1854, only five years after the arrival of the immigrants of the Fortitude, the (Fortitude) Valley was a thriving village exhibiting the most visible changes in Brisbane: there was a 'good brick inn' (Loudon's Freemasons Hotel) in the main street and a constable to keep order; North Brisbane and Fortitude Valley were almost joined with perhaps a kilometre of vacant land between the buildings of the two communities; the land through to Breakfast Creek was opening up; and Fortitude Valley became part of the suburban spread with the subdivision and sale of the early large allotments. (W Ross Johnston, Brisbane the first 30 years Boolarong Publications 1988 pp 235-6, 240)
Given that the hotel building was described on its sale to Loudon as unfinished, it is believed he must have undertaken some building works at this time, possibly adding a second storey to the corner section. During 1854 regular horse and cattle sales were held at the hotel which was apparently considered convenient for its abundant stabling, yards, and excellent paddocks close at hand for the reception of stock previous to day of sale without any extra charge. Loudon remained as licensee of the Freemasons Hotel (renamed the Lamb Inn in 1857) until 1859 although in 1858 the premises (including the hotel and 3 cottages) were sold to Jeremiah Daly. In 1860 George Challenger became licensee and in the following year John Harvey who remained until the hotel license was taken up in 1863 by George Dickens, who had acquired the hotel in 1861. It is Dickens who is believed to have changed the name of the hotel to the Royal George (in 1863). Apparently on account of ill health, Dickens advertises the hotel for let in July 1864:
THE ROYAL GEORGE HOTEL fronting Ann and Brunswick Streets Fortitude Valley. Comprising 18 rooms, out houses, good stabling, spacious yard, and capital cellar. The above is a corner allotment fronting Ann Street being the main road to Breakfast Creek, Eagle Farm, German Station, Bald Hills, Sandgate, and Pine River with a frontage to Brunswick Street leading to Bowen Bridge, Kedron Brook & c. The House is an old established one, and doing a good business, and the proprietor's reason for relinquishing business is on account of ill health in his family ...
A new licensee was not apparently found until the following year when the license was transferred to Henry Penfold and in 1866 to Michael Daly and in the same year back to Dickens (until 1868). In 1868 the property was conveyed to Dickens' mortgagee, the Anglican Bishop of Brisbane. A Sam Loudon (also written as London) is listed as licensee from 1869-70 when Henry Farley assumes the license until 1872. 1872 is to mark the beginning of a more stable proprietorship of the Royal George. In that year William Ruddle leases the hotel from the Anglican Church (officially the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane) who owned in addition to the Royal George several other blocks of land on this part of Brunswick Street. A photo taken during this time (between 1872 and 1886) shows the Royal George hotel much as it is believed to have existed in the 1850s. By this time a second storey had been added to the chamfered corner section; an adjoining single story building on Brunswick Street also formed part of the hotel site.
In 1885 Ruddle purchased the hotel with a mortgage back to the Anglican church of £3,000. The 30.5 perches of land included the site (to the west of the Royal George) on which the Ruddle's building was later to be erected. In the following year major alterations and additions were undertaken to the hotel, the first of two stages of work which transformed the building into a late Victorian hotel, a form the Royal George would take until the 1960s. This transformation was the work of prominent architect FDG Stanley. Stanley (1839-1897) emigrated from Scotland to Queensland in 1861 joining the Office of the Colonial Architect in 1863 becoming Superintendent of Roads and Buildings (later called Colonial Architect) from 1872-1881. Queensland's longest serving Colonial Architect, his work included the Brisbane's Supreme Court (1874-79) and the GPO (1871-2). Described as the best known of all Queensland's early architects because of the quality, diversity, and extent of his work (Watson & McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th century Queensland Museum 1994 p169), his private clients included several banks including the Queensland National Bank (for whom Stanley designed their headquarters in Queen Street (1880-85)) and the Anglican Church. His hotel work included The Grands in Maryborough (1884-5) and Bundaberg (1885-6), the Transcontinental Brisbane (1884) [600122] Lennon's Hotel George Street (1883-5; demolished), and the Clarence Hotel South Brisbane (1888-9).
A contemporary report describes Stanley's additions as including taking off the roof of the present building and raising it 4 feet, extending the hotel further along Brunswick Street, making a large cellar underneath, and the addition of cast iron verandahs to the Ann and Brunswick Street elevations. Internally there were new bedrooms, parlours, bar, large dining room, kitchen and offices.
The new Royal George was part of a 1880s hotel boom in the Valley including the nearby Empire Hotel [600199], Prince Consort [600212], Wickham [600213], and Jubilee [600211] hotels, all built between 1885 and 1888. Each was a substantial building located on a prominent site, designed to be conspicuous and offering extensive accommodation and the most modern facilities. Significantly each was funded by a Valley businessman investing in the local community. Such buildings (albeit the Royal George in a somewhat more modest way) reflected the optimism and bravado of the booming Queensland economy of the 1880s, a period of unprecedented economic growth when Brisbane was virtually rebuilt as a prosperous late 19th century Victorian era city, an image sustained until well after the Second World War.
Despite a downturn in the Queensland economy in the 1890s the Valley continued to develop lead by the large retailers, TC Beirne and James McWhirter who both established stores on Brunswick Street in the 1890s which quickly grew to become large department stores and further fuelled by the developing Brisbane tram network in which the Valley was a central node. By the turn of the century the Valley was established as the second major commercial district of the city supplanting South Brisbane and the Woolloongabba fiveways.
For several years after the completion of the additions (until c1894) the Royal George was leased: to Thomas Proe, then Perkins & Co, and back again to Proe. Apart from that period the hotel remained under the proprietorship of the Ruddle family until 1936. Against the backdrop of a flourishing Fortitude Valley, William Ruddle expanded his enterprise. In 1901 he purchased the adjoining block on Ann Street from Samuel Cohen. An 1898 plan shows two double storeyed brick buildings on the site; one facing Ann Street at the southern end of the site and the other adjoining the Royal George. Based on later (1960s) floorplans this adjoining building may in fact have been two buildings already joined. This was later to be incorporated as part of the Royal George.
In the same year (1901) Ruddle mortgaged his hotel block to the church for £10,000 apparently to finance the erection of the Ruddle's building: Hall & Dods called for tenders for the erection of 3 shops banking premises and additions etc. RS (Robin) Dods (1868-1920) had a highly developed architectural imagination: his introduction of the formal and philosophical ideas of both the British Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian classicism and his significant functional solutions to the problems of living and building in Queensland combined to achieve an architectural revolution in Brisbane (Watson & McKay p55). The two storeyed Ruddle's building situated between the Royal George and TC Beirne's store (for whom Hall & Dods carried out several large commissions including substantial works to the Valley store) comprised several different tenancies whose presence was variously articulated in the form and decoration of the building. The western portion of building was designed and used as premises for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (previously the tenants of TC Beirne the bank in the building until 1942 when they moved to their new premises on the opposite side of Brunswick Street). The ground floor portion housed the banking chamber; the first floor with its recessed loggia overlooking Brunswick Street (illustrative of Dods interest in climatic adaptations) may have provided accommodation for the manager. The portion adjoining the hotel housed several commercial tenancies initially including a jeweller, a ham and beef store and a dentist. Above the stores was a photographer's studio occupied by William Ruddle's son, Roland until 1930/31.
In 1902 William Ruddle's son, Ernest became the licensee. During his proprietorship a number of changes were made. By 1914 part of the adjoining Ann Street building (purchased by William Ruddle in 1901) had been incorporated as part of the hotel. By 1924 the second stage of the Victorian manifestation of the hotel had occurred with the addition of a third floor containing guest accommodation. This work involved the replacement of the semi-circular pediments by triangular pediments (echoing the eastern pediment on Ruddle's building) and included the addition of a third floor to the adjoining Ann Street building (or buildings) with verandahs at the two upper levels and pediment detailing continued from the hotel building to complete the visual incorporation of the building with the Royal George. An advertisement in the Brisbane Centenary Official Historical Souvenir (1924) proclaims the Royal George as One of Brisbane's Oldest Establishments (evidenced by a photograph dated 1854 to 1886 showing the early brick hotel) but also as A First-class New and Up-to-date Modern Hotel (illustrated by a contemporary photograph of the three story Victorian hotel; dated 1886 to 1923).
Following the death of William Ruddle in 1919, the hotel and Ruddle's Building passed in trust to his two sons Ernest and Roland. In 1927 the properties were acquired by Ernest Ruddle. In that same year internal alterations were undertaken by architects GHM Addison and Son and builders FJ Corbett and Sons. The modern hotel was described by the Architecture and Building Journal of Queensland although none of the work described appears to have survived:
The public bar is unique as far as Queensland is concerned having two island bars in the one room. These bars are both built of marble as are also the floors, and as the walls are tiled, the whole of the bar can be hosed out when required. Special attention has been given throughout to the fittings, which are of Queensland silky oak
In 1936, the Telegraph trumpeted the sale of the hotel to brewers Castlemaine Perkins: HISTORIC ROYAL GEORGE HOTEL IN VALLEY SOLD AT A RECORD PRICE. This was to mark the end of a 60 year association by the Ruddle family.
Work undertaken during this period included prior to 1949 a cantilevered awning being installed to the former bank section of Ruddle's building. By 1951 other changes to the Ruddle's building included the removal of various ancillary structures to the rear of the building, the erection of toilets at ground level to the rear of what was now the former bank section, and additions to the rear of the eastern end of the Ruddle's building. In 1961 drawings for the second major transformation of the Royal George were prepared by architect HS McDonald. The works costing £100,000 were undertaken by contractor FA Pidgeon. They involved the removal of the Victorian verandahs; the conversion of some french doors to windows, the removal of the entry from the chamfered corner, and the incorporation of part of the ground floor of Ruddle's building into the hotel.
In 1986 the properties were acquired by Quetel Pty Ltd (later Royal George Hotel Holdings). More recent 1990s changes have followed on the formation of the Brunswick Street mall which saw the construction of a raised platform across the former footpath outside the hotel and part of Ruddle's building and the removal of walls on the ground floor of Ruddle's building. Both the Royal George Hotel and Ruddle's building continue as active parts of the social fabric of the Valley: the Royal George accommodating both pub patrons and residents; Ruddle's building currently houses a bar and live music venue in the former bank and a cafe and two bars in the other section.
","criteria":"The forebear of the Royal George Hotel was established on this site in 1850. Known as the Bush and Commercial Inn (later called the Freemasons Arms, Lamb Inn, and from 1863 the Royal George), that early hotel building comprising two brick sections including the distinctive chamfered corner section still apparent today, is believed to form the core of the Royal George Hotel.
The evolution of the Royal George Hotel over several stages from the 1850s is important in illustrating the development of Fortitude Valley. The surviving 1850s core is important and rare surviving evidence of the beginnings of the area; its transformation in 1886 to a late Victorian hotel during Queensland's economic boom in the 1880s was part of a substantial rebuilding of the Valley at this time including the building and rebuilding of a number of Valley hotels. Despite the removal of much of the Victorian decoration in the 1960s the form of the Victorian hotel remains to illustrate this period when the Valley rivalled North and South Brisbane as one of the principal commercial precincts of Brisbane. Erected in 1901 by Royal George owner and licensee, William Ruddle, Ruddle's building was built to cater for the continued commercial growth of the Valley despite the general downturn in the Queensland economy during the 1890s.
|The surviving 1850s core is important and rare surviving evidence of the beginnings of the area; its transformation in 1886 to a late Victorian hotel during Queensland's economic boom in the 1880s was part of a substantial rebuilding of the Valley at this time including the building and rebuilding of a number of Valley hotels.
|Built just one year after a settlement was established in the area by the immigrants of the SS Fortitude, that core (including masonry load bearing walls in the basement and first floor) constitutes rare surviving early fabric which has the potential to reveal evidence of both the workings of a hotel and building practices in the mid 19th century.
|Although the Royal George Hotel has been substantially altered on several occasions, the building retains sufficient elements such as masonry load bearing construction, basement, ground floor public areas, accommodation to the upper floors, and the pattern of external openings which formerly opened onto verandahs, to sufficiently demonstrate the typical characteristics of a late nineteenth century hotel.
Ruddle's Building is important in exhibiting the principal characteristics of the work of architect RS (Robin) Dods, including a considered response to climate, robust detailing, and carefully composed elevations which, with the use of architectural elements, perform an important role in consciously linking and referring to adjacent buildings to create a coherent streetscape.
|Located on a prominent street corner, the Royal George Hotel and Ruddle's Building are important elements in the Fortitude Valley streetscape. Ruddle's Building is of architectural and aesthetic importance, and through its form, scale and materials, illustrates a skilled design approach. Elements such as the recessed loggia and cantilevered first floor verandah demonstrate a considered response to climate, and surviving fabric (particularly in the rear rooms) provide important evidence of the building's original robust internal detailing.
|Apart from two very short periods when the hotel premises were unlicensed, this site, strategically located on the corner of Ann and Brunswick Streets, once known as the roads to the (former penal settlements) of Eagle Farm and New Farm, has been in continuous use as a hotel site for over 140 years giving the site considerable social significance.
|Known together as Ruddle's corner, the Royal George Hotel and Ruddle's building, has a long association with the Ruddle family, members of whom were well known 'Valley' people.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16015,"place_ref":601252,"name":"Magnetic Island Craft Shop","alternate_name":"Picnic Bay State School | Magnetic Island State School No. 1567","street_address":"Granite Street","suburb":"PICNIC BAY","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-06-04","description":"The building consists of one room with a front verandah and an enclosed rear verandah. Timber and iron decorative window hoods protect all the windows. The roof has been replaced with corrugated iron although original gutters are intact.
The exterior of the building is clad with 14cm chamferboard. It is high set on concrete stumps with centrally placed front steps leading to a partially open front verandah. The exposed framing is a feature of the front verandah with the right end wall and part of the front enclosed with weatherboard. The remainder of the verandah has simple broomstick balustrading. The original front door remains in situ. It is a heavy timber panelled door which retains its original latch.
The size of the central room is 6.8 metres x 6.7 metres. The timber floor boards throughout the building are 8.5 cms wide as are the walls and ceiling boards. The ceiling in the original room is flat and slopes away to the front and rear to meet the walls. Ventilation is provided in the ceiling by a centrally placed latticed vent and by means of moveable floor vents situated at the base of the front wall. Cross ventilation is provided by casement windows on the north and south walls. Each pair of casements has a three paned hopper above, which can be opened. Fittings on the windows on the southern wall are original.
Access to the enclosed rear verandah is through a wide archway cut in the rear wall of the central room. The interior walls of the back verandah have been lined with fibro and hopper windows installed in the north and south walls. The tongue and groove ceilings on both verandahs slope down in line with the fall of the main ceiling. The original back door, constructed of tongue and groove boards retains some of its early fittings. The rear steps appear original and lead to a small landing.
The remains of two tank stands are located outside the building on the southern wall and the original drinking trough and hand basin are in their original position under the building. A more modern toilet block has been constructed under the rear of the building. The grounds contain plantings of introduced trees such as tamarind and frangipanni. The reserve is dotted with gum trees, a Norfolk Island pine and some Burdekin plums. The grounds are enclosed with cyclone wire fencing.
","history":"The Magnetic Island State School was constructed in 1921, probably by local builder Mr Shrock, and replaced an earlier provisional school building erected in 1913.
The island was first settled by the Butler family in 1877. Harry Butler and his family established a small dairy, orchard and a mixed farm in Picnic Bay. The family experimented with the planting of pineapples and after building small huts adjacent to their house the island became a favourite weekend and holiday destination for mainland people. They also established a ferry service which operated well into the 20th century. Other settlers had established farms in accessible bays round the island by the early 1900s. Vegetables, pineapples and fruit were grown for sale on the mainland.
Tourist development of the island began in earnest when Robert Hayles built an hotel at Picnic Bay in 1901. The island's reputation as a holiday resort brought many settlers to the various bays where guest houses and holiday huts were established. Tourism has continued to be the chief source of livelihood for many people residing on Magnetic Island.
With the early 20th century expansion of settlement on Magnetic Island came the need for the provision of local education. Although free, secular, compulsory education had been introduced to Queensland with the Education Act of 1875, school fees and contributions to school building funds still had to be met by parents, and compulsory attendance was rarely enforced prior to 1900. Magnetic Island children who did receive an education during this period generally boarded on the mainland and attended the Townsville schools.
Educational reform was slow in coming to Queensland as a result of the financial constraints placed on the Government by depression and subsequent drought during the latter part of the 19th century. Change began after the Education Act Amendment Act of 1912 abolished the need for local people to contribute to their children's education, raised the minimum leaving age from 12 to 14 years and reinforced compulsory primary school attendance. These regulations imposed considerable hardship on Magnetic Island families because the children were obliged to go to school on the mainland. They were forced to board with friends because schools in the town did not provide boarding facilities. The lack of education facilities on the island had became a serious problem which was exacerbated as the population grew.
In November 1912 a group of Magnetic Island residents, including Dodd S Clarke, editor of the Townsville Daily Bulletin, formed a committee to pursue the establishment of a provisional school on the island. The District Inspector of Schools visited Picnic Bay and recommended that a half-time school be established, with a teacher from the mainland appointed to operate the school from 3.30pm to 5pm on Thursdays and all day Friday and Saturday. In April 1913 the Department of Public Instruction agreed that if the parents could arrange accommodation for the school and the visiting teacher, approval would be given for the establishment of a half-time school at Picnic Bay. Mary McLennan, the first teacher appointed to the island, commenced work on 12 June 1913, in an open-sided shed with a concrete floor. The half-time school became a provisional school in 1915 and on 1 June 1920 was formally taken over by the Department of Public Instruction as a state school.
In 1921 the Magnetic Island community campaigned for a new school building. Pressure was also placed on the Department of Public Instruction by the Townsville City Council, who stressed the need for new accommodation for the 27 students at the school. In response, a new, one-roomed school house was built in 1921. Constructed to a Department of Works design, the new school, with open verandahs front and back, cost £785. The earlier school building became the play shed.
In November 1924 the Department of Public Instruction suggested a name change from Magnetic Island State School to Picnic Bay State School because there was now another school on the Island. The school committee accepted the name change in January 1925. In October 1927 the Picnic Bay Progress Association applied to rent half the school grounds for a sports field. The Department refused but agreed that the school grounds outside the fenced school building could be used for recreation purposes.
The school committee led an active campaign in the 1930s to have a well sunk and a windmill erected on the school reserve. They succeeded and the well and windmill were constructed in 1937. The south end of the front verandah was enclosed in September 1939 to create a hat room and the play shed was demolished in July-August 1940. Electricity was connected at the end of 1955 and the rear verandah was enclosed during September and October of 1958 to create more classroom space.
By the 1960s there were three schools on Magnetic Island. In rationalising its assets at this period, the Education Department decided to phase out the schools at Picnic and Horseshoe Bays, and to develop the school at Nelly Bay because of its central location on the island. The Picnic Bay State School functioned until May 1970. The building remained vacant until occupied in 1980 by the newly established Magnetic Island Craft Co-Operative, which has conducted a shop from the building since that time.
","criteria":"The Magnetic Island Craft Shop, formerly the Picnic Bay State School, is significant for its relationship to a period of early tourism and settlement on Magnetic Island and to a growth in public concern for education, in the first few decades of the 20th century.
|The building is significant also as a regional example of a one-roomed school structure, typical of the period (1920s), in remote areas of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16019,"place_ref":601256,"name":"Torbreck","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"182 Dornoch Terrace","suburb":"HIGHGATE HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-12-17","description":"Prominently located on the crest of Highgate Hill, Torbreck is a landmark, visible from many places in Brisbane. It comprises two modernist-influenced reinforced concrete and brick buildings on a one and a half acre site which slopes steeply to the north. The tallest is a fourteen-storeyed Tower Block which fronts onto and is accessed from Dornoch Terrace; it sits on four levels of garages and storage areas, and is crowned by a glazed observation room. The Tower Block links at foyer level to the top floor of the Garden Block. The Garden Block is eight-storeyed; it fronts onto lawns and a pool, and is also accessed from Chermside St. The stepping of the buildings on the site optimises the northerly aspect and views.
The external form of the Tower Block comprises vertically articulated concrete bays projecting out to the cardinal points from a brick core. It has full length verandahs to the north and south, and balconies facing east and west, including "Romeo and Juliet" balconies, angled out to catch glimpses of the southern views. The eastern and western bays have full height wide blue steel louvres flanked by textured concrete panels. The building rests on a concrete-louvred plinth, and steps up to meet the observation tower at its pinnacle. The garden block is a long rectangular building with verandahs to the north and walkway access to the south, which overlooks gardens with lawned areas, trees and a kidney shaped pool. It has brick walls to the east and west. All the brickwork on Torbreck is patterned and textured with projecting bricks.
The Dornoch Terrace entrance comprises a tiled undercroft with substantial square columns, adjacent to a leasable space with a faceted glass wall. This entrance links, via a waiting lounge, lift lobby, corridor and concrete bridge, to a large concrete viewing terrace on the top storey of the Garden Block. The Garden Block is entered via a porte cochere and glazed foyer in the undercroft.
Torbreck has 150 units, including bedsits, one, two and three bedroom units, and penthouse flats, with brick and reinforced concrete party walls. The Tower Block has a typical plan comprising four units forming a rectangle around a service core, with a single unit wing extending to the north and a double unit wing extending to the south. The typical plan of the Garden Block has seven adjacent units. The units are skilfully planned, optimising both space and views. The units have full-height timber sliding doors leading onto tiled balconies.
The building contains some details which are well-considered in relation to climate and human occupation. The balconies and verandahs have concrete planters with sloped steel balustrades above, flanked by frosted glass panels, providing both privacy and views. Metal sunshades with louvres above the Garden Block balconies and louvres to the Tower Block assist in providing thermal comfort. The walkways to the Garden Block have different coloured chequered tiled floors to each level for orientation. The lift landings in the Tower Block also have different decor for different landing levels. All landing levels in both blocks have steel garbage shute doors and timber milk bottle hatches. The observation tower has sloping glass walls which assist viewing, and contains a central stainless steel and brass direction dial. The observation tower commands exceptional 360? views of Brisbane and surrounds.
Torbreck demonstrates design skill in its adaptation of the 'international style' to site, climate and human occupation, in its maximising the natural advantages of the site; sunshading and louvres, detailing of balustrades, remaining original lift landing features, and observation room. It also demonstrates a clear 50s aesthetic sensibility in its articulation of external forms, and its use of materials, in particular the use of texture in the brick and concrete work, and in its use of steel louvres.
Torbreck remains substantially intact as an impressive Brisbane landmark.
","history":"Torbreck was erected in 1958-1960 to the design of Brisbane architects AH Job and RP Froud and comprised two stages; a low rise Garden Block to Chermside Street and a high rise Tower Block to Dornoch Terrace. Importantly, it was the first multi-storeyed home unit development in Queensland, constructed when Brisbane's Building Ordinances had no provision for home units, and advertised at the time as the greatest single contribution to home development in the state. When first promoted in 1957, the scheme received support from Premier Nicklin, who saw this high-density, inner urban residential development as an important contribution toward curbing Brisbane's urban sprawl.
Torbreck Pty Ltd, which became Torbreck Home Units Ltd from mid-1960, was formed in 1957, and was headed by accountant Wilfred Charles Betts, builder Noel Austin Kratzmann, and solicitor Sholto Douglas. The aim of this company was to promote and construct a new type of Queensland residential accommodation; the multi-storeyed home unit complex. The original sponsor of the scheme was Rowley Pym, a former Western Queensland fencing contractor, whose grandmother is understood to have owned the first Torbreck, a c1876 house whose name meant top of the hill. Title to this Dornoch Terrace site was transferred to the company in mid-1958. The blocks facing Chermside Street were acquired in 1961-62.
The home unit complex was designed by Queensland architects AH Job & RP Froud. Their work was influenced by post-Second World War International Style, particularly the North American model, which had a strong impact on architecture in Queensland in the 1950s. WG Alexander & HV Browne were the structural engineers.
Torbreck was erected by NA Kratzmann Pty Ltd, one of the largest building contractors in Queensland by the late 1950s. The eight-storeyed garden block was constructed using the lift-slab technique, whereby the roof and floors were prefabricated on the ground, then hoisted into position by jacks mounted on the vertical wall supports. This construction technique had not been used in Queensland before. The fourteen-storeyed tower block was erected along more conventional lines.
Rowley Pym formed Torbreck Real Estate Brokers to market the new development, and most of the units were sold before the complex was completed. Purchasers paid a one-third deposit, then the balance was paid in four instalments during the construction period. Owners became investors in the company, receiving £1 shares in Torbreck Home Units Limited to the value of the purchase price. Directors of the company were, and still are, elected from among the unit owners. Despite strata title having been available in Queensland since 1965, Torbreck remains under company title.
Torbreck introduced to Queensland a new concept in residential accommodation. The promotional literature offered Queenslanders a share of the American dream that had reached Australia via the Hollywood cinema: spectacular views, an acre of landscaped gardens, and luxurious, convenient, secure, private accommodation, with an estimated running cost to each owner of 10/- per week. Each floor was serviced by the latest in automatic lifts, and each unit owner was to be provided with a private garage and mail box. Each of the 150 home units was designed with at least one private balcony, and was fitted with built-ins, electric kitchen, two telephone connections (bedroom and lounge), sewerage and garbage disposal facilities, washing machine and clothes drier. Water, pumped from the city reservoirs to large storage tanks on the roof, was treated by the latest in American water-softening equipment. Television reception was available, and a swimming pool was constructed in the grounds.
Due to spiralling construction costs and/or lack of Brisbane City Council approval, some of the more elaborate aspects of the scheme had to be abandoned: shopping facilities and professional suites at ground level; basement laundry service; a top-class restaurant offering room service; a terrace cafe; roof and indoor gardens; and a tennis court, putting green and fully equipped children's playground. A planned rooftop observation lounge translated as an enclosed rooftop viewing deck.
However, the project captured public imagination even before construction commenced. By May 1958, 'Torbreck' had become the most popular lottery syndicate name in Brisbane. By mid-1959, the developers were sufficiently confident in the success of Torbreck to announce preliminary plans and schematic designs for Torbreck-Surfers Paradise and Torbreck-Burleigh. Neither of these developments eventuated, but Torbreck opened the Queensland market for home units. Other projects to follow included Camden along Kingsford Smith Drive, Glenfalloch in New Farm, and Kinkabool at Surfers Paradise. In order to market the property, the developers Reid Murray Developments Pty Ltd published a small brochure detailing the attributes of Torbreck and providing floor plans to the seven types of flats available in the tower block. This document recognises the 'commanding and panoramic views of Brisbane, coupled with the full benefit of cooling breezes' offered by the units.
In 1962/1963 the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (Queensland Chapter) awarded AH Job and RP Froud with a commendation for the Garden Block at Torbreck. The partnership were awarded other RAIA awards including for Residences of a High Standard for the McDough Residence, Fig Tree Pocket also in 1962/3; and a commendation for the Lane Residence, St Lucia in 1965.
","criteria":"Torbreck has historical significance as the first company-titled multi-storeyed home unit development erected in Queensland based on 1950s North American models. The construction of Torbreck pioneered the market for this type of home unit development in Queensland.
|Torbrek is of architectural significance as a well designed example of multi storeyed home unit building, particularly in its site planning and detailing.
The Torbreck complex is a good example of 1950s architectural and landscape design in its form, attention to climate control and use of materials.
|Torbreck has aesthetic and social significance as a prominent landmark of inner suburban Brisbane.
|The Garden Block is an early use of lift slab construction in Queensland and is of technological significance.
|Torbreck has aesthetic and social significance as a prominent landmark of inner suburban Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16022,"place_ref":601259,"name":"Fossey's Store, Charters Towers","alternate_name":"Pollard's Store | Daking-Smith & Company | Fosseys | Pollards | Target | D.S. & Co.","street_address":"18 Gill Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-10-03","description":"Fossey's Store stands at the western end of Gill Street, near the corner of Mosman Street, in the central business district of Charters Towers. This part of the town's main street also has a number of other prominent commercial and civic buildings.
The store is a two-storeyed building with an imposing street facade constructed of locally manufactured red bricks. The parapeted gable has a curved apex, piers projecting above the parapet, a large semi-circular window located centrally and octagonal towers at each end. Below the apex is a panel with the rendered letters 'D S & Co.' (Daking-Smith & Co.). The brick piers divide the parapet and the window into three. The upper sashes of this window have leadlight stained glass. To each side of the window are small circular recesses in the brickwork. The octagonal towers have elongated arched openings to each face with wrought iron balustrading, flat roofs and spires. The building exhibits characteristics of the turn of the century Federation architecture expressed in a commercial building in a free interpretive style.
The gabled roof is of corrugated galvanised iron, with a vented ridge and glazed rooflight located centrally.
To the street facade is an awning extending over the footpath. Framed in timber, it has a valance and parapet of fibrous cement sheet cut to a sawtooth between the posts. At the entry to the store are island plate glass display cases with red tiled bases, brass framing and leadlight upper panels. This area has a pressed metal ceiling and cornices. Above each entry is a sign painted on the glass including 'Stan Pollard & Co.' at the central bay.
The sides and rear of the building are of unpainted brickwork. Also to the rear facade but smaller than that of the front is a semi-circular leadlight window. Service access to the rear is via a laneway.
Internally, the building has a mezzanine level around a central well, with substantial columns of steel and timber. To the underside of the mezzanine is in extensive pressed metal ceiling and cornices, with a pressed metal cladding also to the balustrade. The ceiling to the store is raked, exposing the timber roof trusses.
","history":"The building was constructed c1909 for Daking-Smith and Co., drapers, furnishers and boot merchants, on the former site of the old Queens Hotel which had been demolished in 1906.
Between the years 1872 and 1969 the Charters Towers field produced 6,624,683 fine ounces of gold, and the Ravenswood field for the same period, 901,007 fine ounces. Peak production in the Charters Towers' mines was reached in 1899, when 319,572 fine ounces were produced. When Alfred Daking-Smith commissioned his grand department store building c1909, the economy of Charters Towers was buoyant and robust although the output of gold was starting to decline.
Although Charters Towers already had a single-storeyed departmental drapery store owned and run by the merchant brothers Joseph and Richard Arida, Daking-Smith believed that a more modern, 'genteel' shop was required for Charters Towers. He realised the commercial value of building along the lines of Melbourne and Sydney's emerging department stores, which recognised that shopping, as distinct from merely purchasing supplies, had evolved as an essentially female activity.
Between 1860 and 1920, with the industrialised world's rising level of affluence and leisure time, the 'art of shopping', once the prerogative of the wives of the wealthy, was adopted eagerly by the wives of the emerging middle classes. By the mid-19th century department stores were evolving world-wide to accommodate the rising numbers of middle class shoppers. The earliest of the 'grand' department stores was Aristide Boucicault's Bon Marché, opened in Paris in 1852, followed by Macy's in New York in 1860. These provided important models, but in the Australian colonies, the department store was also the logical extension of the typical general store, drapery or ironmongery.
To complement the refined department store environment, the customer experienced a superior quality of service, the object of which was to make her feel special and confident. Often this entailed an attitude of deference, but more commonly in Australia this developed into a 'cheerful, sensible, polite efficiency'. Whichever method was employed, the aim was the same: to encourage spending.
At the turn of the century Charters Towers, with its multi-cultural population, was known colloquially as 'the world'. Its isolated geographical position, accommodating a population of approximately 30,000 in 1899, seemed to justify the erection of a substantial, modern department store to service both the residents of Charters Towers and the wealthy surrounding district.
The impressive architectural style of the Daking-Smith building was unique for a remote North Queensland town. The locally manufactured bricks were unusual in a privately commissioned building of this era and location, demonstrating that little expense was spared in the construction.
Stan Pollard commenced working at Daking-Smith & Co.'s store in 1912 at the age of sixteen, however, in 1925 Daking-Smith's business was wound up and the store stood empty for a number of years. In 1928 a ten year lease of the building was taken by the ACB company, who conducted a mail order service for a short period before becoming insolvent. During this period Stan Pollard opened his own small menswear business alongside the Daking-Smith store in Gill Street, and by 1934 was able to purchase the Daking-Smith building in partnership with John Hall.
Stan Pollard had the store remodelled, removing the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows and using them to construct 'island' display windows. This remodelling saw most of the second level removed, and the cashier's station moved to the back of the store, then later relocated to a central position. The Lamson Paragon Central Money Exchange System was installed when Mr Pollard bought the department store in 1934 and was removed only after Fossey's moved into the premises in 1993.
Stan Pollard & Company issued two catalogues a year, which not only circulated in Charters Towers, but were sent to the increasingly wealthy, outlying pastoral regions. In the early days of the store large amounts of stock were purchased, usually to last for six months at a time. Hats, dresses, sheets and all types of manchester were made on the premises, therefore huge quantities of materials were stocked upstairs. Twelve women worked in the millinery room and a similar number in the dress-making room. These women, who provided a quality service to the community, trained in the upstairs workrooms of the store where the latest styles in clothing were interpreted quickly and usually only with the aid of illustrations. The store also sold glassware, gifts and toys.
During the Second World War, five American air bases, totalling 15,000 personnel, were established in Charters Towers as a defence against the perceived threat of a Japanese invasion. The Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Army were also present in the area. The extensive and sudden population increase placed heavy demands on the resources of Charters Towers. During this period the 'Big Store' became a favourite shopping place for military personnel.
Stan Pollard & Co. conducted business at the 'Big Store' until 16 January 1993. The building has been leased to Fossey's since August 1993.
","criteria":"Fossey's Store reflects the wealth of the Charters Towers community and district during the early part of the 20th century. It is important in demonstrating the development of the Charters Towers area as a rich gold mining and pastoral district which made a significant contribution to the economic development of North Queensland.
|Fossey's Store is a rare surviving example of an early 'grand' department store which brought a new style of luxurious shopping to remote North West Queensland.
|Still used as a department store, this building is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century department store in North Queensland.
|The building makes an important aesthetic contribution, through form, scale and materials to the Charters Towers townscape and is an important component of early civic and commercial buildings in Gill and Mossman Streets including the Stock Exchange [600406], the former Australian Bank of Commerce [600407], the Post Office [600400], the former Bank of New South Wales, and the former Queensland National Bank now City Hall.
|The Charters Towers community has always regarded the place as an important component of the heritage of the city and an important local retail store which has served the needs of the community through most of the 20th century.
|The place has a strong association for the community with the life and work of Stan Pollard.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16023,"place_ref":601260,"name":"Bustard Head Lightstation","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50kms south of Gladstone","suburb":"BUSTARD HEAD","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-11-03","description":"The Bustard Head lightstation is located in the north-eastern arm of Rodds Peninsula. The lightstation lies about twenty kilometres north-west of the Town of 1770, and about fifty kilometres south of Gladstone. The lightstation is situated on a 419 hectare reserve, bounded by the Jenny Lind Creek to the east and south, Pancake Creek to the west and the Southern Pacific Ocean to the north.
The 18 metre high lighthouse is circular in plan, constructed of cast iron plate, painted white, with splayed flanges at the base. The domed roof is clad with copper sheeting and painted red. It is surmounted by a spherical knob and weather vane. The balcony is of cantilevered iron construction with a simple iron balustrade. Fencing has been placed around the lighthouse. Further installations on the site include fencing around the fuel store.
Internally, a spiral staircase, constructed of iron, with open work cast iron treads, adjoins the internal walls of the building. A cast iron catwalk in the lantern room is supported on ornate iron brackets.
The two keepers residences are timber framed, clad with fibro cement sheeting with timber over battens. The hipped roofs are clad with corrugated fibro cement sheeting with stainless steel gutters.
The old Powerhouse, a timber framed building lined with cement sheet and a gable corrugated fibro cement roof with stainless steel gutters. There are a number of other more recent buildings including the new Powerhouse, built of brick on a concrete foundation.
Most of the service buildings date to c1940 and are of similar construction to the residences, timber framed and clad with fibro cement. Most have been subject to heavy vandalism.
","history":"Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
By 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander George Poynter Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. In the two years following, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights. Nothing was done regarding the issue of coastal lights and on 25 May 1864, Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to enquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include..the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
A Select Committee was also appointed by the Legislative Council with the specific field of reference to enquire into and report upon the requirements of this Colony, under its increasing trade and commerce, as to the provision of additional lighthouses for its coasts and harbors.
The reports of both Select Committees were in agreement regarding the necessity of a light at Sandy Cape. Other points where it was believed that lighthouses were required were Cape Capricorn on Curtis Island, Point Danger or Cape Byron and Bustard Head [601260]. Double Island Point [601722] and Lady Elliot Island were also mentioned by the Committee as possible suitable sites.
In 1864 the government placed orders with Hennet, Spinks & Co. of Bridgewater (England) for the manufacture of a prefabricated cast iron tower, and with Chance Bros of Birmingham, England for the provision of a lantern. The material arrived in Brisbane in April 1867. In August 1867, WP Clark was awarded the contract to erect the light and ancillary buildings for £2508. He agreed to complete the work within six months but problems in site preparation, availability of labour, and inclement weather affected construction and the work took four months longer than anticipated. The light was first exhibited on 29 June 1868. A report to the Marine Department's Treasure dated 30th June, 1895, states the initial cost of constructing the Bustard Head lighthouse was £6,959, with annual maintenance costs of £472.
The lighthouse was originally entered via a door on the second level reached by an external flight of stairs and a small landing. In 1935 the stairs were relocated within the tower and a ground floor entrance provided. Of the original constructions, only the tower remains. The original houses were replaced at some unknown date by timer-framed buildings clad in fibro and with corrugated fibro roofing. The workshop and brick powerhouse are also comparatively recent constructions. A cemetery in the area contains nine graves dating from 1879 to 1911. The graves include two unmarked, child sized graves, surrounded by a white picket fence.
When North Reef station was destaffed on 18 December 1977, Bustard Head monitored its continuing operation. The computer at Bustard Head was also equipped to monitor other stations in the area in the event that they too would be automated and destaffed. Bustard Head's new position as a computer monitoring station was soon extended to include the role of head communications station previously carried out by Cape Capricorn. For many years, Cape Capricorn had provided a central communication link between the stations of Bustard Head, Lady Eliott Island, Pine Islet and Dent Island.
During the course of 1985-86, the Bustard Head Lighthouse was automated and destaffed. The two prefabricated houses remain on site.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1868, the first lighthouse built by the Queensland government after separation in 1859, and still in use as part of the coastal navigation system, Bustard Head Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast. Bustard Head Lightstation reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
Bustard Head Lightstation is associated with Captain George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland (1862-90) and a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. The Heath period of lighthouse development saw the opening up of the inner reef route for commercial shipping.
|Bustard Head Lighthouse is one of only two prefabricated cast lighthouses built in Queensland and is significant for its rarity. The other prefabricated tower being the Sandy Cape Lighthouses [601712].
|The area also has the potential to reveal further information about infrastructure associated with the lightstation.
|The lighthouse is substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a construction technique using bolted prefabricated segments of cast iron imported from England.
|Located on the south tip of Bustard Head, within a plateau surrounded by sloping forest, the lighthouse has strong aesthetic value. It makes a dramatic visual statement in the natural landscape.
|Bustard Head Lightstation has strong association for lighthouse keepers' and their families who constitute an early maritime community. The group of people that are connected with lightstations are not limited to the lighthouse keepers and their families. The island's isolated location made considerable demands upon people, materials and logistics and stands as testimony to the tenacity of the people who inhabited the island after European settlement. Besides the lighthouse, the grave sites are the only other extant reminder from the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16026,"place_ref":601263,"name":"Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"615 Brookfield Road","suburb":"BROOKFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd is a single-storey, timber church set on wooden stumps, sited on a rise to the northern side of Brookfield Road. It comprises a four-bay nave, a chancel and a north vestry and west porch. There is a separate sanctuary with an independent roof and raised floor. The church measures twelve metres by six metres, excluding the vestry and porch, and has a seating capacity of approximately eighty. The church is clad externally in white painted chamferboards.
The east window is an under-scaled triplet and the taller flanking windows are set in square frames. The glass in the east windows, including the centre panel depicting the Good Shepherd, was installed in 1981. The west gable wall is characterised by the central west porch and the scalloped timber barge boards. The apex of the west wall has a vent opening with a pointed arch head and is fitted with timber louvres. The gable of the west porch is clad in weatherboards and the porch walls are open above the timber railing. The four lancet windows in each of the nave side walls comprise two centre pivoting timber-frame windows each with a central transom. The gable roofs of the nave and west porch are sheeted with corrugated metal painted red. The roofs over the nave and the porch have decorative scalloped timber bargeboards.
Internally, the nave has an open timber ceiling comprising tied principal rafters, purlins and diagonally laid boards. All ceiling timbers in the nave have been painted. The interior walls of the nave have been lined in sheet material with cover battens over the joints and painted. The unpainted timber ceiling over the sanctuary follows the polygonal plan and reveals rafters and diagonal boarding. Two metal tie rods restrain the sanctuary walls at eave level. The pointed arch chancel arch, somewhat awkwardly integrated with a square opening to the sanctuary, is surmounted by a louvred gable vent. The sanctuary walls have been clad in clear finished, horizontal pine boards. The suspended timber floor has east-west laid boards.
The Church is surrounded by mature conifers and eucalypts.
The Parish Hall [1985] is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd was constructed in 1892. The architect is unknown,
however, it is possible that the design may be attributed to the work of JH Buckeridge, Brisbane Diocesan architect for the Anglican Church from 1886-1902. Buckeridge lived in Sydney from 1892 and managed the design of church buildings from there.
Reverend John Vincent, the first chaplain in the penal settlement of Moreton Bay, then part of the Diocese of Newcastle, arrived in 1829. Up until the late 1840s, parishioners held services in makeshift buildings, open-air services and in private homes. In 1848 land was chosen in the present Queens's Park in George Street for the first Anglican Church in Brisbane, St John the Evangelist. With the establishment of the colony of Queensland in December 1859, it became necessary to form a new diocese within the Anglican Church. The Bishop of the new diocese, Reverend Edward Wyndham Tufnell, arrived in September 1860. Tufnell brought with him six young clergymen, inlcuding the Reverend Thomas Jones who played an important part in the early days of the Church of the Good Shepherd and other churches of the diocese.
By 1870, the Parish of Toowong had been formed and Brookfield was included as a remote part of that parish. By this time, Brookfield was settled by farmers and timbergetters who had arrived in the area in the late 1850s and 1860s. The Reverend Robert Creyke administered to the remote areas of the large parish. A centre for worship was established at Indooroopilly in 1887 and the Church of St Andrew was formally opened by Bishop Webber, Bishop of Brisbane, on 25 August 1889. It is possible that Hedley Allen Dunn was the architect of this church. On 9 January 1890, the Parish of Toowong was divided and the boundaries of the Indooroopilly Parish were fixed, making Brookfield a remote part of the Indooroopilly Parish. Even with a change in Parish boundaries, the Anglican parishioners of Brookfield were still required to travel some distance to church. During one of his visits to Brookfield for services the Reverend AR Rivers encouraged the local people to construct a church, and consequently, a Building Committee was established.
The land that was acquired for the building of a church, on the corner of Brookfield and Boscombe Streets, had been surveyed for sale in 1859. It was originally part of a land grant farmed by John McGrath, who obtained the Deed of Grant in January 1861. It was in October 1892 that the Building Committee purchased the land, for £20, from the owner, William Thomas Gee. On 21 November 1892, the solicitors, Wilson, Newman-Wilson and Hemming, forwarded to the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane the Certificate of Title for the land on which the Church of the Good Shepherd was to be build. The church cost £220 to build and was consecrated on Easter Monday 2 April 1893. The architect of the church is unknown, though, it is likely that it was not designed directly by JH Buckeridge, the Diocesan Architect. There were, however, plans drawn by Buckeridge which Bishop Webber made available to some Building Committees. These plans were intended to assist in costing and assessing sizes, and the Church of the Good Shepherd may have been based on one of these plans.
To reduce costs the interior was originally unlined, revealing the studwork, and the timber was oiled rather than stained or painted. The gable roofs of the church were originally clad with 'stringy-bark' shingles. The north vestry appears to have been added after the building was opened and may account for the presence of chamfer boards on the internal south wall of the vestry. The later addition of vestries was not uncommon was usually related to funding availability. Sometime in the 1930s, the shingle roof was replaced by iron sheeting and in the early 1950s, the interior walls were lined and painted. The chancel interior was clad with 'masonite' and louvre windows were installed on either side of the altar.
During the 1960s, further maintenance work was carried out and the church was repainted and rewired. The sanctuary was relined with clear-finished, horizontal pine boards and the floor around the vestry and pulpit was repaired. During this time the church floor was sanded and varnished.
In 1968, the Parish of Kenmore, Brookfield and Moggill was formed. During the 1980s, stained glass was installed and the church was repaired once more. The adjacent parish hall was built in 1985 to the designs of architect Philip Gough. The church bell, originally located outside the vestry, was moved to a position north of the west porch.
","criteria":"The Church is important in demonstrating the development of the Anglican Church in Queensland and Brookfield during this time.
|The Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd, corner Brookfield and Boscombe Streets, Brookfield was constructed in the late nineteenth century and is of aesthetic significance as a picturesque and well executed example of a Gothic influenced timber ecclesiastical building. Many simple timber churches were constructed throughout Queensland, this example is distinguished by the quality of its design and by its visual cohesion with other historic buildings in the area, including the Uniting Church, constructed in 1871, Brookfield School, established in 1874 and the Brookfield cemetery, established in 1872.
|The Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd, corner Brookfield and Boscombe Streets, Brookfield was constructed in the late nineteenth century and is of aesthetic significance as a picturesque and well executed example of a Gothic influenced timber ecclesiastical building. Many simple timber churches were constructed throughout Queensland, this example is distinguished by the quality of its design and by its visual cohesion with other historic buildings in the area, including the Uniting Church, constructed in 1871, Brookfield School, established in 1874 and the Brookfield cemetery, established in 1872.
|As a place of public worship for over 100 years, the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd has social value for the local Anglican community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16027,"place_ref":601264,"name":"Maryborough Central State School","alternate_name":"Central State School for Infants | Central State School for Girls | Central State School for Boys","street_address":"Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-31","description":"The historically significant buildings and structures at Maryborough Central School, bounded by Kent, John and Sussex Streets, comprise teaching block A (infants school), education centre block B (technical college workshop), teaching and administration block C (central school), three playsheds and a principal's residence.
Teaching Block A
Teaching block A (infants school), located fronting Kent Street to the southwest, consists mostly of a series rooms opening off an articulated northeastern verandah. The central section contains the altered original building, and additions have occurred to the northern end with a later school building being added to the eastern corner. The building, a single-storeyed weatherboard and chamferboard structure, has masonry and concrete stumps and corrugated iron gable roofs with large dormer windows and a spire to the central section. Gables have decorative timber eave brackets and fretwork panels, and verandahs have timber brackets and posts with rail balustrades. Windows are mostly casements, with sashes to the verandahs and hoppers to some later sections.
Internally, the central section has vertically jointed boarded walls and hardboard ceilings. Two partitioned staff areas have boarding to sill height with sash windows or fixed glazing above, and a separate staff room projects to the northeast of the verandah. The attached school building on the eastern corner has enclosed northwest and southeast verandahs, and the northern additions have boarded ceilings raked to collar-beam height.
Education Centre Block B
Education centre block B (technical college workshop), located to the northeast of teaching block A, is a two-storeyed brick structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The building has large multi-paned sash windows with angled headers and rendered sills, with rendered keystones to the ground floor windows. Entrances are located on the southwest and northeast, with the southwest entrance having a deep cornice supported by brackets above the door and with a fixed window above. The northeast entrance consists of a two-storeyed rendered composition of double timber doors with windows above to the ground floor, and similar doors with an arched fanlight to the first floor accessed from an external timber stair. An incinerator stack is located on the southeast wall, and an external timber stair is located on the northwest.
Internally, the building has no access between floors. Both levels have suspended ceilings and some timber partition walls, but are mostly open plan. A steep timber stair is located on the first floor and accesses the roof space.
Teaching and Administration Block C
Teaching and administration block C (central school), located to the southeast of teaching block A and fronting Kent Street to the southwest, is a two-storeyed rendered masonry structure, scribed to imitate stonework, with a hipped corrugated iron roof with projecting gables.
The symmetrical Kent Street elevation (southwest) has a central gable section which consists of an entrance porch to the ground floor with double timber doors and a sash window either side, and a triple sash window to the first floor and rendered quoining to the corners. The porch has paired chamfered timber posts, arched brackets and batten balustrade, a concrete floor and hipped corrugated iron roof, while the first floor triple sash window has a long hood supported by curled metal brackets. Either side of the projecting gable section are two-storeyed verandahs which return at either end of the building.
The verandahs have timber posts and batten balustrade, with a deep arched timber frieze to the ground floor and capitals to the first floor posts. Glazing panels have been inserted to much of the frieze, and skylight panels to the first floor verandah roof. The southeast verandah has been enclosed on both levels. The rear of the building (northeast) has projecting two-storeyed wings at either end and similar verandahs between.
Each wing has an internal stair, and the northern wing has a ground floor toilet block extension and the southern wing a ground floor entrance verandah. Windows are mostly casements, but some sash windows survive from the original structure.
Internally, circulation is via the northeast verandah. Stairs are concrete with timber handrails, and metal balustrades and newel posts. Structural walls are rendered masonry with others being timber partitions, ceilings are boarded and an honour board is located in the ground floor southwest entrance. Very few rooms have french doors opening to the southwest verandahs.
Playsheds
The three playsheds, one located to the northeast of teaching and administration block C and two located to the northeast of teaching block A, consist of corrugated iron gable roofs with boarded ends supported by timber posts and struts. The playsheds have bench seating and no ceilings.
Principal's Residence
The principal's residence, located in the northern corner of the site fronting Sussex Street to the northeast, consists of a single-storeyed chamferboard structure with concrete stumps and a corrugated iron gable roof.
The building was originally symmetrical to Sussex Street, with a central projecting gable with triple sash window and verandahs either side. The building was later extended to the northwest. The verandahs have timber posts and batten balustrade, and are enclosed above with a metal grille. Gables have decorative timber brackets and pendants, and most of the sash and hopper windows have hoods. An addition has occurred to the rear of the kitchen, and small verandah spaces on the southeast and northwest have been enclosed.
Internally, the building has a central fireplace, vertically jointed boarding to walls, boarded ceilings and french doors opening onto the verandahs. The kitchen fireplace has been removed and the walls sheeted with hardboard.
","history":"The first state school at Maryborough was established in 1862 in a small building at the northeast corner of Kent and Lennox Streets, but in 1865 shifted to a purpose-built schoolhouse at the corner of Alice and Lennox Streets. Despite an additional wing being erected in 1872, the Alice Street premises proved too small to cater for Maryborough's burgeoning population, and the school was moved yet again to the present Kent Street premises in 1877.
Maryborough Central State School has a number of historically significant buildings. Block C, a two-storeyed masonry building, was erected in 1875-76, initially as an immigration depôt, and was converted for school use in mid-1877. The adjacent single-storeyed timber infants' school [Block A] was erected in 1881-2, as was the teacher's residence on the far side of the school reserve, fronting Sussex Street. Two of the three timber-framed playsheds were erected in 1879, the other in 1909, and the two-storeyed masonry building [Block B] behind the infants' school, was erected in 1923-24 as a technical college workshop.
Block C
The Maryborough Central State School site initially was acquired by the colonial government as a reserve for immigration purposes, and the first building on the site [now Block C] was erected as an immigration depôt. In 1874 the Colonial Architect's office, headed by FDG Stanley, prepared plans for a new immigration building at Maryborough, in response to increased direct immigration to that port. The building was to accommodate on the ground floor, wards for single men, 2 storerooms, a visitors' room and warders' quarters, and on the first floor, wards for married couples and single women. To each ward was attached a kitchen, lavatory, bath room and earth closets. Tenders were called in December 1874, and the contract was let in early March 1875 to Maryborough builder John T Annear, who tendered with a price of £4,650, and a time of 10 months.
The immigration building had been completed by early April 1876, and the colonial architect recommended that a wardsman occupy the building at once. This action was approved, but it is not clear whether immigrants were ever housed at the new barracks. The principal obstacle to occupation was the lack of water storage. The Maryborough Chronicle of 4 April 1876, in describing the new immigration building, commented: Now that the buildings are completed they are perfectly useless until supplied with tanks for water. For this purpose there is no money available, and the building must remain untenanted until the necessary money is granted by the Government. Whilst funding was made available for fencing and gates in 1876, a contract for two large brick underground tanks, each 20 feet deep by 16 feet in diameter, was not let until March 1877. In the meantime, the colonial secretary had been approached with an alternative proposal for the use of the site.
By December 1876, the Department of Public Instruction was investigating the possibility of exchanging the Maryborough primary school premises in Alice Street for the new immigration building, proposing to convert the immigration barracks into state schools (boys and combined girls and infants), and to convert the former school buildings, which comprised a two-storeyed brick building, a single-storeyed timber building and two playsheds, into an immigration depôt. Although a new school reserve had been gazetted in October 1876 - bounded by Kent, Sussex, Ferry and Fort Streets and adjacent to the new immigration reserve - acute overcrowding, particularly in the infant classes, at the Alice Street school prompted more direct action. In February 1877, Executive Council passed the proposal to exchange the existing school buildings for the new immigration premises, with the cost of fitting up the school buildings as an immigration depot to be met by the Department of Public Instruction.
Whilst the majority of parents were in favour of the exchange, the wider Maryborough community was not. At a well-attended meeting held at the Town Hall on 8 June 1876, residents protested at the conversion of the present immigration barracks to any other use than that for which it was originally built. They sought instead to sponsor the construction of a new school building, and elected a committee, headed by Mayor JT Annear (contractor for the immigration depôt), to pass on their resolutions to the colonial government and to institute a building fund. The protest was too late; the exchange went ahead despite a recommendation from the assistant immigration agent in Maryborough, that the school buildings would be unsuitable as an immigration depôt, being in a most wretched state of decay, and dirt having quite the appearance of being hurried to dilapidation.
Specifications for remodelling the interior of the immigration barracks for school purposes were prepared in March 1877, and the work was completed by mid-July, at a cost of £248. On the ground floor, the partitions forming the sitting room and two bedrooms of the warder's quarters were removed, and the two kitchens (warder's and single men's) were converted to classrooms, with galleries suitable for boys over the age of 8 years. On the upper floor, the two kitchens (married couples' and single women's) were converted to classrooms with galleries suitable for children under 8 years of age. The bathrooms and earth closets on both floors were fitted out as hat rooms and lavatories. The two brick underground tanks were removed and re-erected at the former school buildings in Alice Street.
The Alice Street school was closed from 17 to 20 July 1877 for furniture to be moved to the new building, and re-opened at the former immigration barracks on 23 July, with boys accommodated on the ground floor, and girls and infants on the first floor. Although the latter was a combined school, the girls occupied one half of the upper floor, and the infants the other, and there was little exchange between the two staff. From January 1878, three separate departments operated at Maryborough Central School: boys, girls, infants, the total enrolment for the combined girls and infants school having reached over 600.
The school population increased rapidly in the first few years, and alterations costing just under £600 were made to the main building by Messrs J & J Rooney in 1880-81. The lack of classroom space was not eased, however, until the construction of a separate infants' building [Block A] in the school grounds in 1881-82.
In the period 1914-16, a second staircase was installed in the main building, leading from the girls' school on the upper floor over the playgrounds at the back of the boys' school. In 1917 the school building committee decided to memorialise past students of Maryborough Central School who had served with the armed forces overseas since 1914, with the erection of an Honour Board in the foyer of the main building. This was unveiled on 19 April 1917.
From 15 August 1932, the Central State School for Girls and the Central State School for Boys were combined as the Maryborough Central State School, under a single principal. Since 1877, the two schools had shared common premises and a single building committee, and in 1932 it was finally recognised that the schools could be more efficiently administrated if combined. The Maryborough Central Infants' School remained separate.
By the 1930s, the main school building was badly in need of repair. In 1932-33, Works Department prepared a remodelling scheme to cost approximately £2,400. This comprised partitioning each floor into seven classrooms and teachers' rooms; walls were remodelled to permit maximum light and ventilation; and two sets of concrete stairs were constructed from the first floor., at the rear of the building. The building was rendered at this time. Work commenced in late 1933, and continued into 1934. When school re-commenced after the summer holidays, pupils were accommodated at the Maryborough show grounds until the renovations to the school building were completed in late May 1934. The official opening of the remodelled school was held on 13 July 1934.
From 1941, the office of the Chief Medical Officer of School Health Services, Maryborough District, was located in the main building of the Central School.
From August 1942, the Royal Australian Air Force used the main building of the Central School to conduct instructional classes (outside of school hours) for its 65th Squadron, apparently based at Maryborough. In 1943, the Air Force enclosed one of the southeast verandahs of the building, as an Orderly Room.
Block A [Infant's School]
The former Immigration Barracks barely accommodated the Alice Street students who moved there in mid-1877; by early 1879, overcrowding had reached chronic proportions, with some parents refusing to send their children to the school. In 1880, the Department of Public Instruction agreed that a new building was required. Plans were prepared by Public Works, and tenders were called for a new infants school building in March 1881. The contract was let in June that year to Maryborough contractors G & E Negus, with a price of £1,601, and the building was completed in August 1882. It comprised one large central classroom, and smaller a classroom at either end.
In 1910, dormer windows were installed in the southern side of the roof above the central classroom, tenders being called in April and the work completed in August. In 1920, two additional dormer windows were inserted on the northern side of the roof.
In late 1934 the infants' school was remodelled, with the southern verandah and hatroom removed and the southern end wall sheeted in weatherboards; the galleries removed in the main room, its floors levelled and the space partitioned into three classrooms; all classrooms lined in pine; and windows throughout enlarged.
In the immediate post-Second World War years, the infant school population boomed. A new classroom was added to the northwest end of the building c1947, necessitating the removal of a hat room. About 1953, this was extended with a two-classroom wing, and another wing was added to the southeast end of the building.
Teacher's Residence
In October 1881, the Department of Public Instruction also let a contract for the construction of a teacher's residence in the grounds of Maryborough Central School. This was erected and completed in 1882 by builder Robert Menzies, for just under £500.
The residence has undergone a number of small renovations since first constructed. The northwest end of the building was extended in 1909, with the addition of a new bedroom, bathroom and front verandah. In 1935 a WC was added to the back of the building; this room and the bathroom and back verandah were remodelled in 1939 to the present configuration.
Playsheds
Two shingle-roofed playsheds, one for boys, the other for girls and infants, were constructed by W Hinsch in 1879. Re-roofed, these structures survive, although the former girls' and infants' playshed has been repositioned within the school grounds.
An infants' playshed was erected in late 1909 by Maryborough contractors Crystall & Armstrong. This was roofed with galvanised iron sheeting rather than shingles.
Technical College
In 1923, work started on a Technical College workshop in the grounds of the Central Schools. The first brick of this two-storeyed building was laid by Premier EG Theodore on 20 April 1923, and the building was occupied in 1924. Under the Apprenticeship Act 1924, attendance at technical classes was made compulsory, and over their 5 year contract, apprentices attended the new Maryborough workshop at night. A report in The Maryborough Chronicle of 11 December 1926, described the equipment as up-to-date, and includes turning lathes and other machinery.
Maryborough Technical College had been established in 1889 as an adjunct of the Maryborough School of Arts, and by 1900 was one of the largest in Queensland. In 1908, the technical college was set up as a separate institution, with a wooden building constructed at the end of the School of Arts in 1910. Under the Technical Instruction Act Amendment Act of 1918, control of country technical colleges was gradually taken over by the Department of Education, but the Maryborough college, a non-government institution, remained outside the Department's control until c1937. Some government control was exercised, however, through annual funding subsidies. When the Maryborough workshop was erected in 1924, it was the second building erected for the Maryborough Technical College, and was done so by the Department of Public Works, with State Government subsidy. The building was taken over by the adjacent High School in 1943, but currently is used by Maryborough Central State School as a resource centre.
","criteria":"Maryborough Central State School is important for its association with primary education in Maryborough since 1862, and the present Maryborough Central State School buildings are important in demonstrating changing attitudes to education from the 1870s. The 1875-76 building, although associated with immigration for only a brief period, remains as important evidence of the expansion of immigration to Queensland ports other than Brisbane in the 1870s.
Block B is particularly significant for its association with the expansion of technical education in Maryborough in the interwar period.
|The 1881-82 infants' school and teacher's residence survive as examples of timber school and school residence design in Queensland. The teachers' residence in particular is one of the oldest and most intact buildings of its type in the state.
|The Central State School is located within an historic precinct of educational facilities consisting of the adjoining former Boys Grammar School [600697] and the present State High School (formerly the Girls Grammar School). The school is an important component of the Kent Street streetscape of civic buildings, and comprises a variety of building types and forms, demonstrating changing attitudes to education and the resulting architecture considered appropriate. The buildings form an attractive group, contributing to the Maryborough townscape
From its lengthy association with Maryborough and its prominent position on one of the major arterial roads in that city, the Central State School, and in particular the two-storeyed 1875-76 building, has acquired landmark status in the community.
|From its lengthy association with Maryborough and its prominent position on one of the major arterial roads in that city, the Central State School, and in particular the two-storeyed 1875-76 building, has acquired landmark status in the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16028,"place_ref":601265,"name":"Main Beach Pavilion and Southport Surf Lifesaving Club","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"off Macarthur Parade","suburb":"SOUTHPORT","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-03-01","description":"The Southport Surf Lifesaving Club and the Main Beach Pavilion are prominently located on Main Beach with vehicular access from Macarthur Street on the west. The listing boundary includes the two buildings with associated plantings and a group of Norfolk Island Pines to the south of the Surf Lifesaving Club.
Both buildings illustrate the Spanish Mission style of architecture particularly on the decorative parapeted gables, the heavy pilasters, the external stucco render and the prominent roof sheeted with corrugated fibrous cement, reminiscent of the cordova tile.
Main Beach Pavilion
The Main Beach Pavilion is a single storeyed building, used as a public toilet, showering and changing facility, with a kiosk and storage rooms for public and lifesaving use. It is of brick and concrete construction, with a fibrous cement roof.
The pavilion is rectangular in plan with central projecting bays on the east and west elevation. Decorative parapeted gables form the facade of the projecting bays. The parapets conceal the gabled roofs which abut them. The north and south wings of the building are hipped roofed.
The symmetrically arranged west elevation facing Macarthur Parade features a decorative gable element. At ground level this steps out to form a protruding bay unit housing a signage area in relief render. The decorative elements of the gable, which occur directly above the bay, include decorative relief patterns, a cartouche inscribed with the date of construction 1934, curved brackets supporting a mid-height awning, a central octagonal multi-paned window opening and lettering 'MAIN BEACH PAVILION'. The edge of the stylised Baroque parapet has raised edge detailing which culminates in spiralled curved on the face of the parapet.
There are four sets of doors on the western facade, of which only one set is now accessible. The eastern elevation is similar in detail and arrangement. A skillion roofed awning supported by four heavy rendered piers stands in front of the decorative parapet wall. There are five entrances from this facade three of which have overhead window openings. The five openings are fixed with vertical rolling doors. The side wings of the pavilion feature high level windows which are now battened or boarded, with face brick sills.
Internal spaces have been altered with the addition of concrete block walls in many places both in the kiosk and in the change rooms. Timber roof trusses and the underside of the roof sheeting are exposed in most rooms. Sections of timber bench seating and towel peg rails from the 1930s remain in the change rooms. The entrance foyer on the western side of the pavilion has early turnstiles.
The Southport Surf Lifesaving Club
The Southport Surf Lifesaving Club is a double storey building of brick, concrete and cement block. It is used by the surf lifesaving club and provides dormitory, storage and recreational space , and toilet, showering and restaurant facilities. The building is associated with a large collection of Norfolk Island Pines to the south.
The club consists of the original 1934 building, now two storeyed with two major additions on the southern side. The first addition is a continuation of the southern wing of the original section and is similar in style and detailing. The second addition is a large two storeyed, flat roofed structure abutting the southern end of the first addition.
The western elevation of the 1934 section of the building has a central projecting decorative parapeted gable with two heavy pilasters surmounted by urns on either side. The gable has lettering 'SOUTHPORT S.L.S.C.', a cartouche with the date of construction, 1936 and parapet edge detailing similar to that of the Main Beach Pavilion. There are three window openings to the upper level, and two to the lower and a doorway accessed by a ramp from the south. The window openings have face brick sills. The roof of the 1934 building is gabled and clad with corrugated fibrous cement sheeting with a skillion roofed section on the northern wing. The upper floor of the 1934 building is supported on steel columns and is accessed by two steel and concrete stairways. Concrete block walls are used extensively throughout the interior of this and the extensions.
","history":"The Main Beach Pavilion and Southport Surf Lifesaving Club were constructed on Main Beach at Southport, in the mid 1930s by the Southport Town Council. The Main Beach Pavilion was erected in 1934, and provided public bathing facilities. The Surf Lifesaving Club was built 1936, and provided dormitory space, equipment shelter and club room facilities for the surf lifesavers. Both buildings were designed by Hall and Phillips.
The buildings were erected during an important stage of the development of Southport. There was rapid growth in coastal regions during the 1930s as bathing in sea water became increasingly popular as a recreational pursuit. The majority of the population by the late 1930s benefited from paid holiday leave, increasing leisure time and the opportunities for extended holidays. Councils of various coastal regions were competing for holiday trade by instigating beautification schemes and programmes for the provision of public facilities on the beaches. Many public and commercial buildings were designed during this period in Southport by Hall and Phillips including the Council Chambers (1934), the Pier Theatre (1926), accommodation units (1928), a service station (1929) and various business premises as well as two bathing pavilions and lifesaving clubhouse.
South east Queensland has a long tradition of beach-going, resorts were developed from the 1860s when Sandgate and, to a lesser extent Cleveland, were premier coastal destinations. Southport developed as an alternate resort when Sandgate became more accessible with the introduction of the rail line in 1882. Logging in the Southport area commenced in the late 1850s, and by 1875 the first sales of land opened the area for settlement. By the 1880s major Brisbane families favoured Southport as the principal sea-side area. The construction of major schools, banks and hotels stimulated Southport's growth as a fashionable nineteenth century resort as did the presence of the Governors residence in the 1890s. A rail extension from Beenleigh to Southport was opened in 1889 making Southport more accessible from Brisbane.
With increased accessibility and popularity of the beaches during the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, the necessity for bathing controls was soon realised. By 1906, Section 109 of the Local Government Act prescribed that individual local councils control swimming and swim-wear, nominating standards for bathing costumes, segregating bathing and defining bathing areas.
Main Beach Pavilion
In the first decades of the century councils permitted privately owned bathing sheds on the beaches, which provided direct access to the water after changing. In the 1920s custom became more relaxed toward bathing in public. Sea water bathing, formerly encouraged for its curative powers, was gradually becoming a recreational pursuit. South coast councils, realising the possible financial benefits from holiday makers provided firstly public dressing sheds and, later, bathing pavilions.
During the thirties, various councils of the coastal regions of south east Queensland such as Southport and Coolangatta Town Councils and Nerang Shire Council on the south coast, as well as Redcliffe and the north coast councils, competed for an increase in holiday visitors. Chambers of Commerce and Progress Committees urged councils to develop and beautify foreshore area. The Southport Town Council adopted a beautification plan in the mid 1920s which included the erection of bathing pavilions.
Two bathing pavilions were built, one on Main Beach and the other on the Esplanade close to the railway station. The contractors for the Main Beach Pavilion were Lee & Barnby, who constructed the building at a cost of £4,447, half of which was subsidised by the State Government. The pavilion was built as a single storey brick and concrete structure, with change rooms, showers and lavatories. It contained separate sections for men and women, each with 204 lockers and eight showers with seven lavatories for women and five for the men, an ambulance first aid room and an entertainment hall for dancing.
The two bathing pavilions were opened simultaneously on December 22, 1934. The ceremony was held at the Main Beach Pavilion, it being the larger of the two. The buildings were described as of Spanish design, with Hardie's fibro corrugated roofing and copper flashing to prevent corrosion. Upon opening, the pavilion was leased to a Mr and Mrs W.T. Vickers who provided maintenance in return for charging an entrance fee.
Various parties have held leases to sections of the building, from the 1940s the surf lifesavers leased several rooms for storage. From the mid sixties a kiosk was opened at the pavilion when it is thought that an external curved concrete wall was added to the southern end.
Internal concrete block walls were constructed by 1978 diminishing the size of the change rooms, for extended kiosk and storage space.
In 1991-2 a mural, by artist Derrick Wynness, was commissioned by councillor Dawn Critchlow, for the curved wall on the south of the pavilion. This mural depicts a hot-air balloon journey from Uluru to Main Beach.
The Southport Surf Lifesaving Club
In the first two decades of the century the increased popularity of bathing led to an increased number of drownings. This publicity surrounding deaths at the Southport beaches concerned the Southport Chamber of Commerce and, in an effort to reduce the number of fatalities beach inspectors were hired. However, because of their inexperience and lack of equipment the inspectors were rarely successful in their attempts at lifesaving. The Southport branch of the Surf Lifesaving Club was established in 1912, just six years after the first branch in Australia was formed at Bondi. It was disbanded soon after but reformed in 1919 as the Cable Surf Lifesaving Club, named after the first trans-Pacific cable between Australia and Canada which was located on Main Beach. Again the club disbanded when the cable station closed in 1923, but reformed under its previous and current name soon after. By 1931 there were nine clubs in the South Coast Branch of the Lifesaving Association of Queensland
The Southport Surf Lifesaving Club built their first permanent home in 1927. This high set building, 9 by 3.6 metres, was clad with timber boards and a corrugated iron hipped roof. The building housed a club room and an ambulance first aid room, and was destroyed in 1936 by cyclonic winds.
By 1934 the Southport Club were canvassing the Local Council and the State Government for subsidies to construct a more appropriate clubhouse. The council intended that the Main Beach Pavilion provide the required lifesaving accommodation. However the club felt that it was inadequate and refused to move to the building preferring to remain in their own shed. They immediately requested a separate clubhouse.
In 1936, the State Government subsidised a loan to the Southport Town Council for the construction of a surf lifesaving clubhouse for Southport. The building cost 'in the vicinity of 1,500 Pounds'. It was constructed by the contractor A. Ledbury, who worked on the Southport Bathing Pavilion two years earlier. The site of the previous 1927 club house was too exposed, and thus it was decided to align the new surf club with the Main Beach Pavilion.
The club was a single storey building with a large central room and two smaller side wings. When built the club house was described as a very fine structure...the interior furnishings of which are up-to-date in every respect. They have ping-pong and billiard tables, showers, boat house, 92 lockers and all other necessary conveniences.
The club has experienced several additions as the lifesaving club grew. New equipment and shortage of accommodation space prompted the first addition to club in 1958, designed by Colin Trapp Architect. This two-storeyed extension included storage areas and dormitories which abutted the south of the building. The roof line of the original club was extended to accommodate the new two storey wing. At this stage a second floor to the original building is thought to have been inserted along with a shelter on the balcony.
The second extension was undertaken in 1978 to incorporate restaurant and bar facilities to increase the revenue of the club. This was designed by John Mobbs and Associates, and consisted of several spaces on the ground floor for storage, living quarters and a gymnasium. The second floor was dedicated to a large function room. A balcony was placed along the eastern facade of the first Trapp addition, linking the original building's balcony with the 1978 work. The top ends of the pilasters and the parapet were partially removed to follow the line of the roof gable. At this time a junior lifesaving club was built at Main Beach north of the bathing pavilion. Minor alterations were prompted by a fire at the Surf Club in 1990.
In 1993 the producers of an Australian television programme, Paradise Beach, chose the Main Beach Pavilion and the Southport Surf Lifesaving Club as outdoor scenes for their serial based on life at the Gold Coast, external sections of both buildings were painted.
","criteria":"The area is pivotal in understanding the development of the Gold Coast as a holiday resort and in particular the growth of the Southport area. It demonstrates the evolution of sea bathing from a curative activity to a recreational pursuit.
|The buildings and associated grounds are now rare examples of the natural and built environment of the 1930s at the south coast.
|The buildings are examples of the influence of a Spanish Mission style of architecture and of the public work of the prominent architectural firm, Hall and Phillips, at Southport.
|(Criterion under review)
|The area has an association with the Surf Lifesaving Association of Queensland, and in particular with the Southport Branch of the Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16032,"place_ref":601269,"name":"Soldier Statue, Chinchilla","alternate_name":"Chinchilla 'Digger' Statue | Chinchilla WWI Memorial","street_address":"57 Heeney Street","suburb":"CHINCHILLA","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-01","description":"The Chinchilla soldier statue is located in the front grounds of the Chinchilla RSL Hall in Heeney Street, close to the building, and facing the street. It is a slightly smaller than life-sized (1.54 m) sandstone statue of an Australian infantryman with slouch hat, standing at ease and resting the butt of his rifle on the ground, supported at the base by a tree stump [as were most soldier statues]. The statue stands on a sandstone block, a remnant of the original pedestal, ornamented on the front face with crossed flags carved in relief. The flags, a British Union Jack and the Australian flag, symbolise the dual nature of Australian patriotism at the time and old photographs show that they were originally painted in red, white and blue. This block in turn rests on another, larger and more recent sandstone block, which has a brass plaque on the front face, with the inscription: 'Renovated & Relocated by the RSL Women's Auxiliary 1992'. The whole rests on a ground-level concrete foundation, and is surrounded by a modern metal fence (not considered of cultural heritage significance). A shade structure has been erected over it, which also is not of cultural heritage significance. Two metal flag poles are bolted to the outer rear corners of the concrete foundation. Unfortunately, the statue has been painted in semi-realistic colours, which was not the original intention, and the hands and rifle have been replaced following earlier vandalism.
\nThe Chinchilla statue is typical of the soldier statues supplied by the firm of AL Petrie throughout Queensland, which depict ordinary Australian infantrymen standing either at ease or attention, or in mourning with arms reversed. The former, as chosen by Chinchilla, was generally used if the memorial bore the names of all who served from a community whereas a figure in mourning was preferred if the memorial bore only the names of the dead. The original pedestal, the 'Coomera' type, was crowned by urns (a symbol of death) on all four corners and had corner pilasters with acanthus leaf capitals. It was similar to the pedestals supplied by Petrie's for the war memorials at Upper Coomera (the earliest, in 1918, Gold Coast City Council Local Heritage Register 0073), Cordalba, Moggill, Tingalpa, Kandanga, Gin Gin, Tewantin, Cooroy and Herberton (QHR 600541).
","history":"The Chinchilla soldier statue was erected as part of the Chinchilla War Memorial, unveiled on 30 January 1919 by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, GCMG, CB. The memorial was designed and executed by the well-known monumental masonry firm of AL Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane. In 1977 the statue was removed from its original position and separated from its pedestal and base. Part of the pedestal was re-erected in Fuller Place in Heeney Street in 1979, surmounted by a spire; while the statue was kept in storage until re-erected in front of the Returned Services League of Australia (RSL) hall further south on Heeney Street in 1992.
The Chinchilla district, on the northern Darling Downs, had been opened to non-indigenous settlement following explorer FW Ludwig Leichhardt's journey through this area in late 1844. Pastoral runs (both sheep and cattle) were taken up in the second half of the 1840s, including Matthew Goggs' Chinchilla run (by 1848). At Charley's Creek, on the main dray route from Toowoomba to western Queensland, teamsters regularly camped, and by late 1876 a small township of three hotels, three stores and two butcher shops had been established there. With the Western Railway extension from Dalby to Dulacca constructed in the 1870s, the Chinchilla Railway Station opened at Charley's Creek in January 1878, and remained the railhead until August that year. The town of Chinchilla was surveyed around the railway station in late 1880/early 1881, and in the last two decades of the 19th century, developed as a railway locomotive depot (mid-way on the Toowoomba-Roma run), and as a service centre to surrounding pastoral properties. In the early years of the 20th century, the town's progress was retarded by the spread of prickly pear throughout the district, and by devastating fires which destroyed many of the commercial buildings in Chinchilla Street (then the main street, occurred in 1917, 1920 and 1922 [one side of Chinchilla Street destroyed]). Rapid eradication of the pear following the introduction of cactoblastis larvae in the mid-1920s opened the area to closer settlement, and during the 1930s Chinchilla prospered as a district centre, despite worldwide economic depression.
As early as 1915, residents of Chinchilla formed a committee to raise funds for a memorial to the soldiers and a nurse from Chinchilla Shire serving or having given their lives in World War I (1914-18). At the time, war memorials were becoming a feature of the Australian landscape, recording the devastating impact of war on a young nation. By the war's end, some 60,000 Australians had lost their lives from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. By 1925 most communities across the nation had a war memorial, a visible expression of grief that cut across class, ethnic and other divisions of Australian society. To those that erected them, war memorials were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.
For their war memorial, the Chinchilla residents chose a monument to be supplied by the leading monumental masonry firm of AL Petrie of Toowong, Brisbane. The firm was responsible for many of Queensland's war memorials, distributing them via the railways and a network of country agents. Petrie's offered a range of memorial types, the most common being a soldier statue standing on a sandstone pedestal which bore a series of marble plates with leaded inscriptions and names; this in turn resting on a granite base - as was commissioned for Chinchilla. The cost of such a memorial averaged about £300.
Originally the Chinchilla War Memorial occupied a prominent position in the townscape, in a small memorial park in Chinchilla Street, near the footbridge over the railway line. In the early 1920s the Chinchilla branch of the Queensland Country Women's Association (established 1922), became involved in the landscaping of the park. A 1935 photograph shows a garden with four paths bordered by low bushes, leading to the war memorial, which provided the central focus to the park. Palm trees, trellises and a white picket fence and gate contributed to the park aesthetics. In 1952 nearly half of the memorial park was resumed for road purposes.
By the 1970s the town centre had shifted from Chinchilla Street to Heeney Street, south of the railway line, hence in 1977 the war memorial was also relocated. The pedestal, refurbished by the Toowoomba firm of Zeigler's and incorporating the original marble plates but not its four urns, was erected at Fuller Place in Heeney Street, in front of the Chinchilla Civic Centre where it was re-dedicated on 17 March 1979. The new structure was crowned by an aluminium obelisk while the soldier statue, which had been vandalised, was stored at the local museum. In 1992 the Women's Auxiliary of the Chinchilla Sub-Branch of the Returned Services League of Australia raised funds for the restoration of the statue and its relocation to the front grounds of the RSL Sub Branch Hall in Heeney Street, on the opposite side of the road and about a block south from Fuller Place and the official Chinchilla War Memorial.
The Chinchilla statue remains one of an important group of 55 surviving soldier statues, of the 61 erected throughout Queensland during or soon after World War I.
","criteria":"The Chinchilla Soldier Statue, erected in 1919 as part of the local community's memorial to World War I and funded by public subscription, no longer retains its physical association with the official memorial, however it still serves as a reminder of the contribution of the Chinchilla district to the war effort. It has acquired, in its relocation, a more recent association with the local branch of the Returned Services League of Australia.
The statue, now located just outside the local RSL Hall, surrounded by a metal fence, lacking its original pedestal and base - and consequently its associated inscriptions and name plates - and repaired and painted, has lost its landmark and documentary value, and also much of its aesthetic and symbolic value. However, it is one of an important group of soldier statues erected throughout Queensland during or soon after World War I, these being the state's most popular type of war monument.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16036,"place_ref":601273,"name":"Cactoblastis Memorial Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Warrego Highway","suburb":"BOONARGA","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1993-09-21","description":"A single-storeyed timber building set on low timber stumps with a pitched galvanised corrugated iron roof the Cactoblastis Hall is situated on the southwestern side of the Warrego Highway 12 kilometres southeast of Chinchilla. Set back about 35m from the highway the building, approximately square in plan, consists of a central dance room with adjoining aisles on the southeastern and northwestern sides. The dance room has a simple gable roof which changes pitch to form shallower skillion roofs over the aisles.
The building is clad in weatherboards and has timber doors and a variety of windows, the originals being double hung sashes. Most of the more recent openings are fitted with glass or metal louvres. On the rear elevation is a junction in the weatherboards indicating the later addition of the southeastern aisle. Windows and possibly some of the weatherboards from the earlier southeastern wall have been reused in the addition.
The main entry doors, located in the centre of the front facade, are protected by a timber-framed gable-roofed porch with a weatherboard balustrade. A ramp has been added to the southeastern side of the porch. Above the doors, below the ridge of the roof, is hung a large sign bearing the name of the town, the hall and the date of construction which replaced the original sign. A sign to the east of these doors acknowledges the hall as a venue for meetings of the Queensland Country Womens' Association. Double hung sash windows flank these timber panelled double doors.
On the northwestern side of the front facade double timber doors under a slender steel framed flat roofed porch have replaced a double hung sash window. Timber doors are also located on the side and rear facades.
The central space has an unlined roof, a timber dance floor, recently renewed, and a stage which is located at the southwestern end. A steel truss has replaced the original partition walls and swing doors between the dance room and the northwestern aisle. A large opening between the supper room in the southeastern aisle and the dance room is infilled with lattice. The ticket office is located in the northern corner, a kitchen in the eastern corner and toilets in the western corner of the building.
","history":"This timber hall was completed in 1936 at Boonarga, a small settlement approximately 12 kilometres southeast of Chinchilla. The hall was erected as a monument to the Cactoblastis moth which overcame prickly pear in Queensland and New South Wales during the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The appearance of prickly pear in Queensland has been attributed to a small number of prickly pear plants brought to Queensland c1843 as garden plants. By 1862 prickly pear was growing in the Chinchilla district and spread rapidly in areas where land holdings were extensive and population relatively low.
Prickly pear was declared a noxious weed in Queensland in 1893. By 1900 approximately 10 000 000 acres were affected by prickly pear; an area which had extended to an estimated 58 000 000 acres by 1920. About half of this area was so densely covered by prickly pear that the land was useless for production. The costs of mechanical and chemical methods of eradication exceeded the value of the land and therefore did not prove economically viable for controlling the spread of prickly pear.
By the 1920s investigations into the methods of biological control of prickly pear were well established. These investigations were regarded as "a great experiment in scientific research"; an experiment which was considered almost unique at this time. The progress of these investigations was followed by the international scientific community.
In 1925, 3000 Cactoblastis eggs were imported from South America. These eggs were divided between the Sherwood laboratory, and the Chinchilla Field Station which had been established in 1923 as one of four Queensland field stations responsible for rearing and distributing insect supplies. The first prickly pear plant was destroyed by the Cactoblastis moth at Chinchilla in September 1926. The last extensive area of prickly pear in Queensland was destroyed in 1933, and the Chinchilla Field Station was closed at the end of 1936.
The Chinchilla district was one of many areas which experienced renewed prosperity as land cleared of prickly pear was utilised for agriculture and dairying pursuits.
Proposals to erect a hall at Boonarga were first discussed in July 1934, at which time a public meeting was held and a Hall Committee appointed. Land for the proposed hall was donated by Mrs Fahey, a resident of Boonarga. In October 1934 the Committee decided to name the hall the Boonarga Cactoblastis Memorial Hall in honour of the Cactoblastis moth. Finance for the hall was arranged through the Bank of New South Wales in Chinchilla with a number of Boonarga residents acting as guarantors.
Tenders for the erection of the hall were called by the Committee in June 1935. Although a tender was recommended for acceptance, tenders were reinvited in July 1935. The hall was built by local builder Mr Jack Schloss, at a cost of £435 and opened in February 1936 by Godfrey Morgan MLA. A gala ball was held to mark the occasion.
Alterations to the hall in 1963 included the addition of the second aisle on the southeastern side of the hall. A new dance floor was laid c1985. The hall is presently used as a venue for dances, meetings and other functions.
","criteria":"As a hall erected to commemorate a significant scientific and economic event [the successful control of prickly pear by the cactoblastis moth], the Cactoblastis Memorial Hall at Boonarga is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history.
|It demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as the only known building dedicated to an insect.
|It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a timber hall built to service a small rural community.
|As a hall in continuous use since 1936, the place has a strong and special association with the Boonarga community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16037,"place_ref":601274,"name":"Barcaldine Shire Hall & Offices","alternate_name":"Barcaldine Council Chambers | Barcaldine Shire Hall and Offices | Barcaldine Memorial Gates","street_address":"71 Ash Street","suburb":"BARCALDINE","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The Barcaldine Shire Hall and Offices are built of timber with a corrugated iron roof, with the official rooms of the council at the front section, with the hall behind. The building lies in the administration precinct of Barcaldine, fronting Ash Street and bounded by Beech Street. It shares the town block with other government buildings, including the Court House; while the Post Office sits on the opposite (south-western) corner of Ash and Beech Streets. The hall and offices structure is well set back from both streets, and is centrally located within the government reserve. The site contains significant plantings which also line the street boundaries. Memorial gates dedicated to those who enlisted and those who died are located in front of the main entrance to the building.
In fabric, scale, and design, the building has not changed since the completion of the 1950s renovations. Much original joinery in the building survives basically intact, as does much of the original interior linings, including the stamped steel ceilings and beaded tongue and groove wall boards.
","history":"The present Barcaldine Shire Hall was built in 1911-12 and is the second official building used by the Council for the administration of the shire. The building was designed by Alfred Mowbray Hutton. Major alterations were made to the building in 1952.
The town of Barcaldine developed almost 'overnight' in 1886 with the extension of the Central Railway west from Rockhampton. The railway was a vital factor in opening up the central western regions of Queensland to European settlement in the mid to late nineteenth century. The original site of the terminus was to have been the pastoral station of Barcaldine Downs, established by pastoralist Donald Cameron in 1865. It was eventually decided to locate the terminus at Lagoon Creek however.
Barcaldine rapidly grew to prosperity, on a permanent scale, unlike most of the other railway townships on the central line. The town was surveyed by Victor Desgrand, the Government Surveyor, in July 1885 and sales of town lots were held in December. The town was laid out on a rectangular grid, parallel to and south of the railway line. A town reserve of 100 square miles was gazetted in June 1886, when further allotments of land were sold. The railway was not officially opened until December 1886, by which time the town had already 'assumed formidable proportions'. After a year of official European settlement, the population of Barcaldine in 1887 was estimated at 1500
The Divisional Boards Act of 1879 brought local government into the outback of Queensland. The Kargoolnah Divisional Board was created in this year and centred on Blackall, an early pastoral township. The geographical area serviced by this board covered a great area in western Queensland, taking in the future towns of Tambo, Barcaldine and Jericho. With Barcaldine developed rapidly from 1886, the residents formed the Barcaldine Progress Association, and began agitating for their own municipal representation. In 1893, a Divisional Board at Barcaldine was instituted, which was to evolve into the Barcaldine Shire Council.
At first the Barcaldine Divisional Board met in a building in Oak Street, but the building was burnt down during a fire in the town in 1896. It was decided to construct a hall to the design of the Rockhampton architects, Eaton and Bates. Completed in May 1898, the hall was located on the south-eastern corner of Ash and Beech Streets in the Divisional Board Reserve. This building served the community more than adequately into the twentieth century, witnessing the administrative changeover from Divisional Board to Shire Council in 1903. By the early years of the new century however, it was apparent that the hall was too small for the administration of the shire.
In 1911 the council commissioned the architect A.M. Hutton to design a new building for the Shire Hall and Offices. Hutton died shortly after completing the plans. The design was then taken over by Frederick Boddington, Hutton's partner. Robinson & Freeman, builders of Rockhampton, submitted the only tender, which was accepted with a price of £2675.
The new hall was planned to be completed to coincide with the silver anniversary celebrations of the settling of the town. Delays were encountered in its construction before the hall was completed in February 1912. It appears it was constructed adjacent to the former hall, which was then purchased by the Aramac Shire Council for £500 and removed.
The 1912 building was constructed largely as designed by Hutton although there were a number of slight modifications. It was built of timber with a corrugated iron roof, with the official rooms of the council at the front section, and the hall behind. The offices were designed as a separate but linked pavilion, with a single skin wall. They were surrounded by verandahs at the front and sides, with a six feet (1.8 metres) wide passage separating them from the hall. The main entrance to the building was identified by a large triangular pediment which capped an archway. The clock tower rose above the entrance in the centre of the building. Pediments were installed each end of the front verandah. Between these and the entrance, the verandah was divided into four bays with a lattice valance forming complimentary arches across the face of the building. Side verandahs to the office section were also treated similarly.
The council rooms opened out to the verandah on all sides with the french doors and casement windows. The Council Chambers and Shire Chairman's office were to the right of the central passage, and the offices for the Shire Clerk and a solicitor to the left. The floors of these rooms were generally covered in linoleum, with green or grey walls and white pressed metal ceilings. At the end of the central passage through two sets of double doors was located the hall. The hall featured a flat floor with a raised stage, and an upstairs gallery. The hall opened sideways onto the subsidiary verandah spaces. On the eastern verandah was a supper room, on the western were smoking rooms and toilets. The hall was of large proportions, measuring 80 feet (24.3 m) by 40 feet (12.2 m), and was well ventilated with vents and louvres, and fanlights which acted as a clerestory providing light and ventilation over the adjoining verandah roofs.
The gallery of the hall was reached through a staircase in the front section of the building. A passageway provided access from this gallery, out to the clock tower and along a viewing deck which sat above the verandahs of the office section.
The Barcaldine Shire Hall was the principal public building in the town. The hall was used by most citizens of the shire in some capacity, for fundraising activities, as a public venue, to attend meetings, for the associated operations in the efforts of two world wars, for the health and welfare of the people, and many other events.
In 1952 the Shire Hall underwent some rather major alterations, documented by the Brisbane architect C.W.T. Fulton with A.H. Job & J.M. Collin architects in association. The major change involved the demolition and removal of the clock tower and the promenade deck. The decorative front and side verandah to the office was also removed, and replaced with a new verandah design. The east verandah of the hall, which contained the supper room, was also partially rebuilt. New toilet facilities were added within the west verandah, which was also enclosed. The hall was also repainted, a new ticket office was installed, and memorial gates at the entrance were later built. These gates were planned by the Barcaldine War Memorial Committee and included plaques bearing the names of those from the district who enlisted and those who died.
In 1993 a conservation study of the Barcaldine Shire Hall was prepared for the Barcaldine Shire Council. In the mid-1990s, two new freestanding buildings were erected, one either side of the 1911-12 building at the front, and linked to it, providing new shire council offices and a new shire library.
","criteria":"The Barcaldine Shire Hall and Offices is significant as it demonstrates the growth and development of Barcaldine. It is significant as the major public building in the town for more than 80 years. The building is on the original Divisional Board Reserve, surveyed when the town was set out in 1885, and helps to define the town's original surveying. The Barcaldine Shire Hall and Offices is also important in demonstrating the modernising influence of the 1950s, with its extensive additions and alterations of that time.
|The building is significant as a rare surviving example of a late nineteenth/early twentieth century timber shire hall, many of which were constructed but few of which survive.
|The site is significant for its architecture, particularly its interesting plan form.
|(Criterion under review)
|The place has a strong association with the Barcaldine Community, being the centre for local government and the central social venue of the town, and having been used by most of the citizens of the shire in some capacity. The site has further significance to the Barcaldine community as it contains memorial gates erected by the Barcaldine War Memorial Committee following World War II.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16043,"place_ref":601280,"name":"Mill Point Settlement Site","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Elanda Pt","suburb":"LAKE COOTHARABA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"Tramway
The main tramway extends from the settlement area in a curving arc westward (see Figure 1). The heritage register boundary extends 5m either side of the middle of the tramway mound. Sections of the original rail remain in situ near the settlement site. Much of the remaining tramway is used as vehicle access. The tramway extends off the National Park into neighbouring properties, but its full extent has yet to be accurately mapped.
Cemetery
The Mill Point cemetery is located 2km west of the settlement area and the boundary forms a square extending from the 1993 memorial stone and interpretive signage in the south a further 200m north and is 80m wide (see Figure 2). The eastern boundary is defined by dense revegetation undertaken in mid-late 1990s by QPWS, which is encroaching into the cemetery area and make identification of the full extent of the cemetery difficult. A ploughed field that has also been revegetated by QPWS, although more recently, defines the eastern boundary. Originally there were grave markers at the cemetery, however, these markers have gradually been removed over the years. The base of one headstone remains at the cemetery and has 'Petrie, Brisbane' engraved on it. Some graves at the cemetery are recognisable by slight depressions in the ground. 15 depressions were mapped in 2004 and are believed to be the probable location of graves. They align in at least 2 rows and are generally orientated east-west as was typical of burial styles in the late 19th century.
Settlement area/Sawmill proper
The settlement area boundary extends from the dairy farmhouse (described separately below) through to the shores of Lake Cootharaba and 150m into Lake Cootharaba itself. The area consists of a section of mounded tramway raised above the melaleuca swamp, which extends for approximately 150m to the shore of Lake Cootharaba (see Figure 2 & 3). Evidence that the area was once a thriving town is provided by the rich archaeological remains. Most identifiable of these remains are the numerous handmade bricks concentrated under a large fig tree which is less than 80 years old. The bricks were made by many different people (this includes people from the company as well as outsiders) as evidenced in the numerous 'frogs' recorded. A large metal boiler dating to the time of the mill stands near the fig tree. Although of the correct period, it is unclear if this boiler comes from the site and is not in situ. The remains of a second boiler are located within Lake Cootharaba and could be related to the 1873 boiler explosion. The remains of the tramway abutment are also located near the fig tree. All that remains above ground level are a number of metal rods and two thick pieces of timber. Two metal pipes extend from beneath the fig tree into Lake Cootharaba and are thought to be related to transporting water from the Lake to the boilers. Between the farmhouse and the shores of Lake Cootharaba are the remains of 20th century yards with hundreds of wooden fence and rail posts. Cecil Potts (a former owner) erected cattle yards in the mid-1940s. Some of the fence posts still have the remains of a three-pronged, handmade barbed wire threaded through the rail holes. Recorded artefacts include numerous pieces of metal (including rose-headed nails, files and saddle buckles), ceramics (including plates, mugs and children's toys), glass (including broken pieces of bottle), and bricks (including different frogs such as 'J. Petrie', 'CLYDE' and 'PATON').
Lake Cootharaba
The Lake Cootharaba boundary extends from the modern shoreline out into the lake 150m (see Figure 2 & 3). On the surface and embedded in the lakebed are archaeological remains including bricks, sawn timber, glass, ceramics and metal. The location of pylons from the jetties and wharves associated with the operation of the mill remain in place as large, round stumps. A large metal tram wheel is also located within the waters of the lake.
Dairy farmhouse
The dairy farmhouse is located 350m west of the settlement area (see Figure 2 & 3). A large, rendered brick chimney is all that remains of the farmhouse, a feature that probably survive from sawmill times. The brick chimney is surrounded by a fence that was erected by QPWS to limit access to the chimney by visitors to the Park and for public health and safety. Three concrete steps are associated with the brick chimney that originally lead into the house, but now go nowhere. The concrete is very coarse and of a poor quality. There is a garden associated with the farmhouse that contains a number of historic plantings including crepe myrtles, guavas and bougainvillea. Two mango tree were planted in 1924 by Vera Grady (nee Crang), whose family owned and worked the property as a dairy. Near the mango trees is the original brick-lined well dating to the sawmill period. John Crang built a wooden cover for the well that was hinged in the middle in the 1920s, this has since been replaced with a metal ring plate and a wooden platform completely enclosing the well. A windmill, also built by John Crang is associated with the well. The four large timber posts around the windmill were erected by Cecil Potts. A plaque erected in 1993 is located at the junction of a walking track from the Elanda Point camping area to the south and tramway formation to the west.
","history":"The Mill Point Settlement Site on Lake Cootharaba contains remnants of a private 'company' township based around a sawmill and sustained by timber extraction from local forests which was in operation from the late 1860s until the early 1890s.
Exploration of the timber resources in the Cooloola area commenced in the early 1860s. William Pettigrew visited the area in 1863, exploring the Noosa River and its lakes. Although Pettigrew subsequently concentrated his timber operations in northern Cooloola, he recorded quantities of hardwoods including Cedar, Bunya Pine, Kauri Pine, Hoop Pine, Cypress Pine, Beech, Ash, Tulip and Yellow-wood in various locations. Cedar-getters appear to have been working in the Noosa River area by the mid-1860s. The development of the timber industry in southern Cooloola has been attributed, at least in part, to the capital injected into the area as a result of the exploitation of the gold resource at Gympie.
An application to select Portion 1 in the parish of Noosa, the land on which the Mill Point Settlement was established, was lodged by Charles Samuel Russell in March 1869. Portion 1 was later known as Cootharaba Station and fronted Lake Cootharaba. Russell, having previously visited the Noosa area and noted the 'attractiveness' of land at Lake Cootharaba, formed a partnership with four men involved in mining ventures in Gympie: James McGhie, Abraham Fleetwood Luya, Frederick George Goodchap and John Woodburn. Although Russell's name is recorded as the applicant, subsequent references are made to 'McGhie,
Luya and Co.' as the company, which established the Cootharaba Sawmills at Mill Point.
Following his arrival in Queensland in 1864, Luya had worked on various railways until 1869 when he moved to the Gympie goldfield. He established Cootharaba Sawmills, commencing a 30-year association with the sawmilling industry. Luya established McGhie, Luya and Co., merchants and sawmillers, with an office in South Brisbane. From 1888 to 1899, Luya was also the managing director of the Queensland Milling Company. Luya's involvement in Queensland and Brisbane politics included periods as MLA for South Brisbane (1888-93 and in 1899), and as Mayor of South Brisbane (1896-98). Luya died in Brisbane in July 1899. An article in the Brisbane Courier following Luya's death described him as 'one of the leading business men of the city for many years'.
By the end of 1869, McGhie, Luya and Co. had moved onto Portion 1. Improvements including houses and a sawmill were erected in 1870. A Mill Manager was advertised for in April 1872. Although Russell and his wife lived at Elanda Point, Russell's interest was transferred to the other partners in mid-1871.
The 'second class pastoral land' of Cootharaba Station was used as a cattle property to supply meat for the sawmill company's employees and as a source of bullocks and horses to haul the company's wagons and drays.
The Mill Point Settlement was built in a swampy area on the edge of Lake Cootharaba. The swamp was progressively filled in with sawdust to create and extend the timber yards. Initially timber was taken from Portion 1 and logs were rafted down Kin Kin Creek to the lake and held in a yard by a double line of piles forming a breakwater. During later sawmill operations, timber was taken from as far away as Mount Coondoo and hauled to a tram terminus. By the early 1870s loads of timber were sent along Cootharaba Road to Gympie.
Transporting the timber was initially the most problematic aspect of the operation at Mill Point. Bullock teams became bogged in the saturated, sandy soils and Cootharaba Road had swampy sections, steep pinches and seven miles of scrub along Kin Kin and Tinana Creeks. The difficulties of Cootharaba Road were resolved with the establishment of an outlet by sea via a depot at Tewantin, which was managed by Goodchap. Flat-bottomed paddle-wheel boats known as droghers, (the 'Black Swan', 'Countess of Belmore' and 'Elanda'), towed punts of sawn timber through Lakes Cootharaba and Cooroibah to Tewantin, where the timber was loaded onto the firm's steamer, the 'S.S. Culgoa' and taken to Brisbane three times a fortnight with loads of up to 35,000 super feet of timber. The S.S. Culgoa was built in Adelaide in 1865 and used on the Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers before acquisition by McGhie, Luya and Co. The Company established 'Noosa Sawmill' at South Brisbane in the early 1880s and the S.S. Culgoa carried passengers, general cargo and sawn timber on each trip between Tewantin and Brisbane until completion of the Brisbane-Gympie railway link in 1891.
To overcome the problems with swampy, sticky, low-lying and poorly drained ground conditions at Mill Point, during the mid-1870s the Company constructed a tramway system of 3ft gauge wooden rails, 4 by 2 inches in cross section, across the property. The wooden rails were wedged into slots on sleepers of penda and ironbark. The main tramway line ran for about a quarter of a mile in an easterly direction to the sawmill and settlement on Lake Cootharaba. To raise the tramway above the surrounding swampy country, felled melaleuca were laid with stout girders on top, sleepers were then laid at three feet intervals across the girders to secure the rails, gaps between were slabbed and filled with ballast consisting of sand and gravel from the Lake to provide traction for the bullock and horse teams. The line appears to have run through flat country except for one ridgeline, where a cutting reached the valley of Kin Kin. The line had relatively few curves and a gentle gradient from the hinterland to sea level at the lake. The terminus appears to have been bound by Eulama and Kin Kin Creeks, approximately 4 miles west of Mill Point.
A reporter for the Brisbane Courier in the mid-1870s noted that sections of the rail were 'smooth as glass' and one side appeared to be wearing out faster than the other. He was told that the worn side was made from ironbark wood and needed replacing once every six months, while the penda lasted two years and even then generally did not need replacing. By 1877, only penda was being used for rails, and in 1878 the wooden rails were replaced with 16 pound steel, negating the need for constant repair.
In August 1878, the Brisbane Courier reported that the 'company is preparing to lay down four miles of railway with 16 pound rails which would carry five ton wagons so logs could be hauled by three or four horses or by a small traction engine'. Logs were drawn to the sawmill along the tramway on wagons pulled by draughthorse teams; the traction engine option appears never to have been used at Mill Point. The use of the tramway was certainly much faster than the original bullock dragged method where logs were dragged from where they were cut to the sawmill for processing. It has been suggested that the Company was persuaded to establish the expensive tramway, at just under £300 per mile, to overcome the difficulties of inducing teams to work at Mill Point. However, at its peak a total of nine bullock and horse teams were employed at Mill Point. In December 1873, McGhie advertised for six bullock teams to draw cedar logs guaranteeing two years work. In late 1874, 100 men were reported as employed there and in 1878, McGhie, Luya & Co. advertised for teams, emphasising the constant work. The establishment of the tramway also provided certainty for McGhie, Lyua & Co. During periods of wet weather, bullock teams were generally unable to work, but the tramway teams could operate continually. Loading the felled timber onto the tramway wagons was done by using a winch on a trolley that was anchored to the tramway.
Five men were killed at the sawmill as the result of a boiler explosion on 29 July 1873. One man was killed instantly with another four men subsequently dying of injuries received as a result of standing near the boiler. Four of the five men died at Mill Point and were buried in the cemetery. The fifth died in Gympie after transport for treatment and is buried in the Gympie cemetery. The explosion was attributed to a weakness in the boiler rather than as a result of careless operation. The explosion was one of a number that occurred in Queensland that year and an inquest into safety ensued. Following the inquest, regulations covering the design of valves on steam boilers were tightened, and boiler operators needed a certificate to operate.
During the early period of its establishment the settlement was known as 'Kin Kin Sawmills' however it was subsequently known as 'Cootharaba Sawmill' or 'Cootharaba Village Settlement'. It has been known locally as both 'Mill Point' and 'Elanda Point' since the early 20th century. In 1871, the population of the settlement was 22 people. In May 1873, in preparation for a visit by Governor Normanby, an account of a visit by a journalist records 'Leaving the works and passing to the rear we found a regular little township of workmen's houses and others directly connected with the establishment, a good store, well-equipped, conducted by the owners, a butcher's shop, and there seemed nothing wanting to complete the comfort of all connected with the establishment'.
The Cootharaba School was established at the settlement and opened in August 1874 with an enrolment of 16 students. For the period of its operation the sawmill and associated settlement was a Company enterprise, and the only external employee was the school teacher. The sawmill proprietors provided a school building, including a library, reading room and grounds. The school also served as a community hall. In a report to Parliament in 1875, the school was described as a comfortable building with a verandah near the shores of Lake Cootharaba, better equipped than most schools in the colony.
A hotel operated from 1876 until 1878, when the building was destroyed by fire. Community life included picnics, excursions and sports days. For example, New Years Day in 1877 was celebrated with a cricket match, sawmill hands versus timber-getters and bullock-drivers.
A cemetery was established at the Cootharaba Settlement and 43 burials are recorded between 1873 and 1891, comprising 9 men, 4 women and 30 children. The first burials included four of the five men who were injured in the boiler explosion of 29 July 1873. Children buried in the cemetery died of causes such as lung problems, wasting, thrush, convulsions and drowning. The cemetery was never officially gazetted, being a private cemetery on privately owned land. Vera Grady (nee Crang) who lived on a later dairy farm in the area during the early 1900s remembered 11 grave markers at the cemetery during the 1920s. Several of the grave markers have since been collected by relatives and concerned locals and are held in the local Elanda Point Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service office. With their removal from original positions and no official record of burial locations, there is no reliable way to identify who was buried where in the cemetery. A single headstone is located in the Museum at Gympie.
During the 1880s, at the height of the sawmill's operations, it is estimated that there were between 100 and 150 employees and their families living at the sawmill and settlement.
From the mid-1880s, a series of events led to the eventual decline and closure of the sawmill complex in the early 1890s. The Queensland Government's introduction of royalties in 1884, intended to control wasteful cutting and competition from imported timbers, reduced the output of local sawmills and kept the price of timber down. These timber regulations were part of the provisions of the 1884 Crown Lands Act, forestry then being under the control of the Department of Public Lands. This Act established the system of perpetual leasehold and was the product of the philosophy of the new liberal government of Griffiths that the state should get a return from the private use of public resources. The new Minister for Lands, Dutton, saw the royalty as the timber equivalent of a pastoral rent. Opposition was intense, especially since the royalty was seen to give an unfair advantage to imports. By the early 1890s the softwood resources in the vicinity of the sawmill were nearing exhaustion, having been exploited for 20 years. Completion of the Brisbane-Gympie railway link in July 1891 ended the need for a ship and coach service between Brisbane and Gympie via Tewantin. The S.S. Culgoa was wrecked on the Noosa River bar in 1891 and the sawmill finally closed in 1892. The sawmill itself was eventually demolished and during the subsequent farming period materials were reused or left to fall down.
In 1891, Luya attempted to establish a 'village settlement' on Portion 1, offering leases of 40 acre blocks to prospective farmers. Eleven families moved onto the blocks in March that year and by November over half had left the area as the land proved unfit for cultivation, being either too wet or too sandy. Dairy farmers moved into the area in the early 20th century, but dairy farming was not successful either. This was partly due to the swampy country and the deficiencies of trace elements in the soil. A chimney remains as evidence of where the main dairy farmhouse stood near the former settlement of Mill Point. This chimney appears to date from the time of the sawmill and was adapted and reused during the farming period at the site.
Title records indicate that the property and its subsequent subdivisions changed ownership a number of times until it was transferred to the Queensland Government in 1983. The Mill Point area was gazetted as part of Cooloola National Park in 1985.
A commemorative plaque was laid at the site in 1988 near the junction of a walking track from the Elanda Point camping ground to the south and tramway formation to the west.
Australian poet Judith Wright visited the Mill Point cemetery and wrote a poem, first published in 1956, about life as she imagined it at the settlement during the late 1800s. The poem entitled Graves at Mill Point was written about the life of a man from the settlement known as Alfred Watt. In fact, Alfred was one of the first infants to be buried at the cemetery in 1874 at the tender age of four months and 20 days.
The local branch of the National Trust of Queensland erected a stone on 24 April 1993 bearing the inscription, In memory of the European settlers buried at Mill Point Cemetery, and engraved with the names of persons buried at the cemetery.
On 22 June 2004, six interpretive signs, designed by QPWS Elanda Point and Noosa Shire Council, were installed at key locations around the site describing some of its rich history.
","criteria":"The Mill Point Settlement Site is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the development of the timber industry in the late 19th century. As remnant evidence of a substantial timber extraction and timber processing enterprise and timber settlement in the Cooloola area from 1869 to 1892, it is important in illustrating the pattern of settlement in the Noosa hinterland. It was one of the first and most successful timber mills in the Cooloola area and played an important role in legislative reform in the boiler industry in terms of health and safety following the boiler explosion of 1873.
|The survival of extensive remnant material associated with the tramway, the cemetery, dairy area, jetties and wharves at Mill Point, including surface and sub-surface archaeological deposits to a depth of at least 2m below ground level, has the potential to reveal further information about 19th and 20th century life and burial practices at a company timber town in rural Queensland, and about timber extraction and processing.
|The Mill Point Settlement Site has social significance to the local Boreen Point/Noosa community.
|The Mill Point Settlement Site has a particular association with the work of McGhie and Luya who were influential in the development of rural southeast Queensland through the development of company towns and involvement in the gold rushes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16044,"place_ref":601281,"name":"Richmond Mill Ruins","alternate_name":"Richmond Mill","street_address":"Habana Road","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-06-04","description":"The Richmond Mill is situated on the Habana Road, about 14kms from Mackay on its northern side. The ruins of the mill are now part of a small private property of some 4.5 acres, surrounded by undulating canefields. At present, the Richmond Mill Ruins site includes the remnants of the mill train foundations, the brick chimney stack, the brick-lined well, a boiler, the juice tank, and many other artefacts including pans, tools and machinery parts.
The mill site is in the north-eastern corner of the present property, with Habana Road running parallel to the southern boundary. Near the entrance from the road are the remains of a brick kitchen fireplace and levelled ground indicating the site of the original homestead. Behind the present residence is further levelled ground reputed to be the site of the manager's house. Towards the centre of the site are several ruinous timber and corrugated iron buildings which were also part of the mill complex. The first is the old garage, then the single-roomed caretaker-manager's quarters with a small verandah on its south side, and the larger workmen's' quarters, which has partially collapsed. It is believed there were other workmen's quarters to the west of this building.
To the north of the timber outbuildings is a grove of trees on a slight bank, in which is nestled the juice tank. Still in its original location, the steel sides of the tank measure some 7 metres in diameter and 1.12 metres in depth, with a 100mm pipe outlet. Its top is no longer enclosed, and the offices and laboratory which reputedly sat above no longer exist.
Then in a partial clearing at the north-east corner of the property are the ruins of the mill, still in its setting of canefields. The most dominant feature of the mill is the brick chimney stack, which is still visible from the road. It is some 20 metres (65ft) high, slightly tapered and finished with corbelled and dentil courses at the top. The bricks measure 9" by 4½" by 3", and are laid in English bond separated by 15mm of sand/lime mortar. At the base are two openings on opposite sides with arched brick lintels. On the eastern face is the remains of the lightning conductor. On the inside faces of the stack are recesses in the brickwork which apparently were for housing the scaffolding as the stack was constructed.
Beside the stack is an open pan, some 2.2 metres in diameter. It is said to have come from the nearby Inverness Mill, but is very similar to the one which was at the Richmond Mill, which was said to have been mounted on a brick base. To the north of the stack is an area of brick paving believed to be the floor of the mill building. Within this paving are holes which may have been for the vacuum pan stand, under which was housed the smaller 12hp engine. Also in this area is another brick and concrete stand and a shallow pit, about one metre in diameter which is partially collapsed. Further to the north is a concrete trough which housed the fugals, which were driven by belts from the nearby 12hp engine. Here centrifugal spinning separated the molasses from the granule sugar.
To the west of the stack are three pairs of brick and concrete stands being the foundations of the mill train, which carried the rollers and engines. At present, several fig trees have taken root and are growing over these foundations. There are remnants of the rollers and other machinery on one pair of foundations. To the west of the foundations once ran the carrier, which transported the cane from where it was unloaded into the rollers. It was a continuous belt of timber slats housed in steel chains running between axles, and remnants of these chains and axles remain. Beside the foundations is a copper tray, also reputedly from a nearby mill. To the east of the stack is the remains of a boiler. It was one of two which provided steam for the larger 50hp engine which powered the mill. It was located beside the stack originally.
At the north-east corner of the site is the well. It is some 9m (30ft) deep with about a metre of silt at the bottom. Constructed of brick, it has only the top seven courses mortared. Recent remedial work has included the addition of a second brick skin to the exterior to strengthen its walls.
The site immediately to the south of the well is believed to be that of the blacksmith's shop, and to the west several holes now filled indicate this was probably the site of the refinery.
Scattered through the site is a large collection of artefacts including tools and machinery parts from this mill site and other locations.
","history":"Richmond Mill, Mackay was constructed in 1881 for John McBryde and Hector McKenzie Finlayson on 10 acres they purchased from the Richmond Estate. It was the first central mill in the district.
\nThe pastoral lands of the Pioneer Valley had been discovered by John Mackay and an exploration party in May 1860. Rapid settlement followed as settlers took advantage of the recently proclaimed Land Act to occupy the rich country of the area. Through the 1860s large pastoral holdings were established throughout the valley, but these were challenged when the Queensland Government introduced legislation in 1868 to encourage closer settlement. By the early 1880s most pastoral land in the Pioneer Valley had been converted to agricultural land.
\nIt is thought that sugar was first planted in the valley in 1865 on the Pioneer Plantation. Sugar production was encouraged by the Queensland Government because consumption of sugar in industrialised countries had increased enormously and supply had decreased as a result of the American Civil War. The British Government, through its Sugar and Coffee Regulations of 1864, also sought to encourage production of sugar in the colonies. By 1875, approximately 5,000 acres was under sugar cultivation in the Pioneer Valley.
\nThe Richmond Estate, selected in 1870 by Hugh McCready, was located in the Pioneer Valley, North Queensland. It is believed that Andrew Cumming was in partnership with McCready and that the plantation took its name from one owned by Cumming on St Vincent Island, West Indies.
\nCane production in the Pioneer Valley fell during the 1870s when rust disease destroyed most of the crops. During this time farmers concentrated on improving their production techniques and were more selective about the type of cane they planted. By the early 1880s, rust disease was under control and cane production doubled.
\nTo meet the resulting increase in demand for milling facilities, the Richmond Sugar Company was formed in 1881, the principals being Scotsmen John McBryde and Hector McKenzie Finlayson. John McBryde had first settled at Rockhampton in 1863 where he established a coconut plantation and bred horses. Prior to 1878 he went to the Pioneer Valley where he formed a partnership with Finlayson to breed horses and grow cane on Glenalbyn, North Side. They also owned the Inverness Plantation with FW Poolman.
\nThe aim of the Richmond Sugar Company was to develop a central mill to process cane for farmers in the surrounding district. The mill, which did not have its own plantation but relied solely on product from surrounding farms, has been hailed as a forerunner of the central mill concept because it was established four years before centralised milling became common in Mackay. Its establishment encouraged speculative investment in similar mills and investment in cane production because producers were now able to get their cane milled without having to process it themselves.
\nFor a short while the Richmond Mill was the only central mill north of Bundaberg. It produced both golden syrup and refined sugar. The golden syrup was produced in the off season using a charcoal filter process. The company won awards at the Mackay Show in 1883 for golden syrup and its white sugar won first prise at the Melbourne Exhibition in 1888. They also won a medal in 1886 at the British Industries Exhibition in London for sugar refining and a medal in 1883 at the British Industries Exhibition in South Africa for sugar refining.
\nMr Blackmore was the designer of the mill buildings and engineer for the construction of the machinery which was imported from A & W Smith of Glasgow. The mill was made up of a simple set of rollers 117cm long and 56cm in diameter and was driven by a 50hp, horizontal steam powered engine with two boilers. It was the first mill in the Mackay district to be driven by steam rather than fire heated batteries when Aspinall steam heated evaporative batteries were installed.
\nThe machinery was housed in a cathedral shaped building, 44 metres long and 9 metres wide, with the wings 9 metres by 6 metres. The juice tank, measuring 7 metres in diameter by 1120 mm in depth, with a 100mm pipe outlet, was built under the floor of the factory offices. William Robertson of the Victoria Foundry, Mackay built the 20 metre high chimney stack. It is similar in design to the Cornish boiler stacks of early North Queensland mining towns and was constructed of locally made brick. This brick, marked with an 'H', most probably came from either Hardwick Brickworks in West Mackay or Hayward Brickworks at Walkerston. The machinery and building cost £10,000.
\nThe mill was supplied by up to 7330 gallons of water per hour pumped from the nearby creek by a Cameron Pump. Within a short time a 9 metre deep well was constructed when the creek ran dry during a drought year. This well was built with two skins of brick, 230mm thick. It is believed that the well remained in use on the property until after the Second World War, when a windmill was built over it.
\nThe Pioneer Valley became an attractive investment prospect as sugar production expanded and demand increased. With the growth in the industry the Victorian Sugar Company, a subsidiary of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, was formed. The company bought 16,000 acres of land in the district and erected the Homebush Mill to process its crop. At the same time the company continued to purchase sugar from smaller farmers. Other southern investors followed the lead of CSR which spelt the end for smaller enterprises such as the Richmond Mill.
\nThe industry had reached a peak by the early 1880s and unfortunately inefficiencies in the industry were exposed when world sugar prices fell. Further pressure was placed on the industry when the government banned the importation of South Sea Islands labour. The resulting high cost of wages crippled the industry.
\nBy 1888 the Richmond Mill was only producing 75 tons of sugar and in 1894 the mill and the Richmond Estate plantations were offered for sale. The mill was closed in 1895 and a caretaker appointed.
\nWilliam Begg Fordyce arrived from Scotland in 1888. He came to the mill as a ploughman and was later appointed caretaker/manager. After his appointment Fordyce appears to have been involved in dismantling the mill. The buildings were removed along with most of the mill machinery. The stack, boiler, juice pan, well and machinery foundations remain on the site. Fordyce, who as manager shared in the mill profits, later purchased up to 1,000 acres of the former Richmond Estate, including the Richmond Mill site.
\nIn the 1990s, the mill site was owned by Mr EC Denman, the great-grandson of Andrew Cumming, original owner of the Richmond Estate, through the marriage of Cumming's daughter Helen Jane to Edward Denman. In 2003, the property changed hands and remains in private ownership.
","criteria":"Richmond Mill is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history because of its contribution to the early sugar refining industry and as an example of the earliest central milling process in the Mackay district.
|The site demonstrates a rare and endangered aspect of Queensland's history because the mill chimney stack is the last remaining stack in the district.
|The place has the potential to reveal information which could contribute to an understanding of Queensland's heritage, the mill remnants being important in demonstrating the early use of steam power in the sugar extraction process, which was first introduced to the Mackay district at Richmond Mill.
|The Mackay community, which has a strong and active interest in its history, values the Richmond Mill Ruins because of its association with the early sugar industry and for the landmark and aesthetic qualities of the chimney stack.
|The Mackay community, which has a strong and active interest in its history, values the Richmond Mill Ruins because of its association with the early sugar industry and for the landmark and aesthetic qualities of the chimney stack.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16045,"place_ref":601282,"name":"Hotel Corones, Charleville","alternate_name":"Corones Hotel Norman","street_address":"33 Wills Street","suburb":"CHARLEVILLE","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-07-01","description":"Corones Hotel is a two storey rendered brick and re-inforced concrete building running on a north south axis along Wills Street (Charleville's main street and part of the Warrego Highway) between Galatea and Edward Streets, Charleville. It has an adjoining single storey ballroom and a hall running to the east along Galatea Street.
A bar, foyer, dinning room, kitchen, shops, ballroom, hall and toilets and three shops occupy the ground floor; accommodation rooms and a guest lounge are located on the first floor. There are single storey contemporary motel units in the south east corner of the site which are not considered of cultural heritage significance. A double story building which included staff quarters on the upper level and garages below are located behind the motel units.
The building has a wide two storey verandah which extends over the footpath running down Wills Street and returning along Galatea Street. The verandah has a straight roof and is constructed of timber supported by timber posts with brackets at their tops. There is a simple timber battened balustrade at the first floor.
A high parapet with projecting piers sits above the verandah along Galatea and Wills Streets and returns along the southern elevation from Wills Street and runs south back from Galatea Street. The parapet is accentuated with shaped gable sections at each end and centrally along Wills Street and at the Galatea Street and south ends. A small cornice runs along the top of the parapet and the name HOTEL CORONES is cast in relief with a surrounding border on the south and north ends and centrally along Wills Street. Construction dates AD 1924 and AD 1929 are on the south and north ends of the building respectively. A heavy cornice with supporting dentals runs above the verandah roof between the shaped gables along Wills and Galatea Streets.
The main roof is a skillion form and is clad in corrugated iron.
A rear verandah is situated on the south eastern corner of the building and the kitchen wing with two prominent attached fireplaces extends at right angles from the rear of the building.
The exterior to the ground floor is punctuated with doors to the main entrance foyer from Wills Street and entrances to the bar from both Wills and Galatea Street. Deep casement windows some of which have leadlight designs are regularly positioned along both street frontages. A tiled dado runs along the walls to the bar and to the three shops on the southern end of the building where aluminium windows have been installed. At first floor level accommodation rooms open onto verandahs through French doors.
Adjoining the hotel to the east is a single storey ballroom with a central door and two symmetrically positioned windows with semi circular heads either side. The facade of this part of the building is plain with a simple cornice that forms a parapet to the flat roof over. Adjoining this area is Corones Hall. The Hall is set back from Galatea Street and is entered from a centrally positioned set of heavy wooden doors. The facade is rendered to the height of the adjoining ballroom roof and has piers supporting a dentaled cornice which rises over the entrance in a semicircular pediment. Above this is a brick gabled stepped parapet with projecting piers and plaster coping. The brick work has decorative diamond patterning at the apex of the gable and at each side above the cornice. The name CORONES' HALL is inscribed in plaster relief on a plaster tablet on the gable above the entrance door.
The interior of the hotel retains its original detailing. The foyer has a silky oak panelling, decorated plaster ceilings, and leadlight windows. The main stair is silky oak. Many original furnishings remain.
","history":"The town of Charleville was surveyed in 1867 following the surveying of a number of pastoral runs in the district in 1863. Sited on the banks of the Warrego River along a natural stock route from New South Wales to Western Queensland, the town was to develop as the major service centre for the surrounding pastoral industry: bullock teams passed through the town, Cobb & Co established stables (as well as a factory for the construction of mail coaches and buggies and an associated sawmill) and in 1888 Charleville's position as a strategic transport node for the south west was confirmed when it became the terminus for the Western Main [railway] Line (extended south to Cunnamulla 1898 and west to Quilpie 1917).
The first half of the 1920s was a time of economic prosperity in Queensland unrivalled for three decades. The boom was sustained longer in the building sector than in others; and in Brisbane the transformation of the city's central business district was a tangible legacy of the boom. In Charleville the main streets gave an air of solid prosperity to this centre of one of the richest areas of western Queensland ... it has fine hotels, stores, offices of the leading pastoral firms, and a full complement of general business concerns. There is a most attractive School of Arts, Town Hall, [and] three churches ... There is a most excellent club, the "Warrego" ... The fledgling QANTAS commenced their first commercial services from the town in 1922 ("replacing" the last Cobb & Co coach which ran in 1920); in 1924 the town turned on electric lights; and in 1926 a new Town Hall was completed. However a severe drought in 1926 described by the Charleville Chamber of Commerce as the worst season known by black or white man with losses of sheep to the enormous extent of eleven millions was to bring the state's pastoral and agricultural sectors to collapse and many rural towns entered a slow decline into the world-wide depression of the 1930s.
On the cusp of the boom/bust, Harry Corones was to commence building his grand vision of hospitality for the west to rival the capital's best hotels. Born on the Greek island of Kythera, Harry "Poppa" Corones arrived in Australia in the early 1900s coming to Charleville by 1909 when he was recorded in the Post Office Directories as a "fruiterer". Reputedly on the encouragement of a brewing company representative, Corones became in 1912 the licensee of the Hotel Charleville, which he operated until 1924.
In 1926 Corones became the registered owner of the Hotel Norman, a single storeyed hotel established c1895 located a block south of the Hotel Charleville on the corner of Wills and Galatea Street. In an advertisement in Pugh's Almanac for 1905, proprietor DC McDonald claimed the hotel as the leading hotel of the southern western line ... the home of the pastoralist, agriculturalist and tourist with lofty cool bedrooms, hot and cold baths, and good paddocking - claims which would be later repeated and amplified by Corones regarding his own hotel.
Construction of Corone's Hotel Norman (as it was then called) commenced in 1924. Rising phoenix-like on the site of the old Norman Hotel, the ambitious scheme was built in four stages from the south to the north to enable continuation of trade; the construction dates displayed at either end of the building testifying to the five year enterprise. Significantly, given the number of (timber) buildings in the town destroyed by fire including Corone's former hotel the Charleville (actually destroyed by fire twice), Harry Corone's new hotel was a masonry building. The first two stages were of reinforced concrete, the third including the ballroom and final stages of brick. Costing some £50,000 the hotel was built by day labour with preference given to men of the district. By the end of 1926 the new hotel was two thirds complete; only the bar area of the Norman Hotel remained. The mythology of Corones was also well advanced. According to the Australian Pastoralist, Grazing Farmers' and Selectors Gazette the hotel was the topic of conversation from Roma to Eulo, and out to the far west and north ... In every way the new Hotel Corones will be an example of hotel architecture and comfort scarce equalled in the Southern Hemisphere, and will undoubtedly be a great centre for all western men.
The final stage of building was completed in 1929. The hotel now stretched almost an entire block of Charleville's main street. According to the A & B Journal of Queensland it was a magnificent white building ... an outstanding feature in a progressive town ... the best equipped and most up-to-date hotel outside the metropolis ... generally acknowledged as the calling-place of all distinguished tourists and travellers... The Hotel itself produced a 12 page brochure about this time which included black and white photographs of the interior: on the ground floor the lounge had gleaming copper-topped tables, deep leather lounges and chairs and led to a writing room and telephone booth, the dining room enticing in its cleanliness was capable of seating 150; the private bar which gave exclusive service amidst convivial surroundings was screened from the public bar by an ingenious arrangement a French polished oak partition with mirrors; the public bar was very modern and luxurious and a cool cement court-yard formed an entrance to the ball-room. Upstairs all accommodation rooms opened onto the verandah - some were equipped with their own bathrooms designed to please the most fastidious and the upstairs lounge was just the place for a real restful smoke. Corones Hall located on Galatea Street had a floor unexcelled outside Brisbane and was largely in demand for exclusive balls, parties, and banquets. Capable of seating 320 at dinner, the hall was built for coolness with a number of high set windows and electric ceiling fans. The lights with Venetian shades of various hues [were] adjustable either to dimness or the reverse, and an orchestra platform added to its popularity and beauty.
Furnishings throughout including the bedroom furniture, dining room, lounge room, chairs, settees, sideboards, etc were designed and manufactured by that well known Queensland home furnisher F Tritton Ltd George Street Brisbane from that beautiful Queensland wood, the Queensland maple. Carpets, linoleums, floor coverings, curtains, etc (British throughout) were all laid and fitted by Trittons.
The architect of this magnificent modern hotel was William Hodgen jnr (1867-1943). The son of pioneer Toowoomba building contractor William Hodgen, in 1886 he became a cadet in the Colonial Architect's Office and in 1891 enrolled at the Architectural Association in London whilst working with a number of prominent London architects. In December 1896 he returned to Queensland commencing practice the following year in Toowoomba when he immediately received a substantial commission from retailer TC Beirne for works to his newly established Fortitude Valley premises as well as winning a competition for a new wing to the Toowoomba Hospital (the Victoria Wing). In practice until his death in 1943 (from 1935 in partnership with his sons as W Hodgen and Hodgen), Hodgen's practice, like that of contemporary Harry Marks (1871-1939) (who also was a member of one of Queensland's architectural family dynasties) was both extensive and broadranging from domestic (eg the Toowoomba residences "Tor" (1904) [DEH file ref 601325) and Tyson Manor (1905) [Entry in the Heritage Register 600864], institutional (eg Glennie Memorial School (1914), to industrial (eg flour mill and wheat and flour stores for Crisp O'Brien 1911) and a number of hotels in western towns including in Charleville, the Hotel Charleville (1913; rebuilt again after a second fire 1931). Hodgen's second Hotel Charleville was similar but of a smaller scale to the Hotel Corones - both had lost the classical and arts and crafts elements typical of his early hotels, and instead adapted simplified Art Deco decoration on the facade. Both hotels are a dominant presence in Charleville's main street; but it is the Hotel Corones which is regarded as Hodgen's major single work and the highlight of his career.
For over thirty years the Hotel Corones ("The Leading Hotel of the West") flourished as a tourist, pastoral and CTA (Commercial Travellers Association) House. Harry Corones' advertisements and stationery proclaimed vice-regal patronage; and in addition to wealthy local graziers, celebrities such as Amy Johnson, Gracie Fields, and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester were guests at the Hotel. In 1936 there were on average 133 guests per week and during World War II when "American" servicemen occupied the local aerodrome and hospital, "Poppa" Corones did a roaring trade with dances held "every night" in Corones Hall. In 1959, the state's centenary year, Charleville's civic welcome to its Royal visitor, HRH Princess Alexandra took place in front of the hotel and Corone's advertisement in the town's centenary souvenir book could still proclaim that Charleville Means CORONES because Corones is the centre of Charleville's social activities and the rendezvous where business agreements can be made in surroundings which, by their comfort and restfulness, provide the perfect setting for quiet consideration. People who insist on the best in fine living invariably made Corones their home while in Charleville.
Just a few years later, however, a Licensing Commission Report described Corones as at one time (past tense) the leading hotel in Charleville now overtaken by the new type of hospitality accommodation, the motel in the shape of the newly rebuilt Victoria Hotel-Motel. Drought in the 1960s was also to severely impact on the local (including Corones') economy: the heyday of both the town and the Hotel was over.
In 1972 Harry Corones died; his elder son, Peter and wife Mary who had operated the hotel for some time prior to Harry Corone's death continued its stewardship. In 1982 the hotel was acquired by Doreen and Bob Bishop. It was acquired by the present owners in 1989. In 1990 a motel was erected to the rear of the hotel: in April of that year, the disastrous flood which covered much of the town, entered the ground floor of the hotel. As a result substantial works including the restoration of the main stair were carried out; about this time some bedrooms on the upper floor were also converted into bathrooms and what are believed to be the former Commercial Travellers' sample rooms on Galatea Street were converted into a shop and motel style accommodation. In 1993, the hotel was listed by the National Trust of Queensland. The Hotel Corones is now operated by Gordon and Frances Harding as both a local pub and (in recognition of the hotel's iconic status) a cultural tourist attraction in the state's south west: Corones Hall is regularly used for functions such as weddings and balls, daily tours of the hotel are conducted by Mrs Harding, and the mythology of both the man and his hotel continues.
","criteria":"Riding on the statewide economic boom of the 1920s, Harry "Poppa" Corones built his hotel which was to become a byword for hospitality in the west. Spanning nearly a block of Charleville's main street, the Hotel Corones was also to become in the succeeding decades, a symbol of both the prosperity and the changing fortunes of the town and the pastoral industry of south west Queensland, which it served.
|The man and his hotel became synonymous: the use of the Corones name as the hotel name represented a significant break in the English tradition of the naming of hotels within an accepted nomenclature, a marketing strategy which was to see both the man and his hotel achieve (a joint and severable) iconic status in the west. That this icon was also of Greek origin was even more singular: Greek migration to Queensland in this century was most visible in the small business sector; the Greek cafe and green grocer became standard fixtures in the state's cities and throughout rural Queensland. Harry Corones' move into the hotel industry and the scale in which it was undertaken (uncompromisingly proclaimed by his ambitious plans for the Hotel Corones) represented a significant leap. Moreover in the (predominantly British) mythology of the (Queensland) west, the Greek hero was (and is) a rarity.
|The Hotel Corones is the major work of architect William Hodgen whose Toowoomba practice extended throughout the west including a number of country hotels including others in Charleville (Hotel Charleville 1912; and the Hotel Corone's close relative the Hotel Charleville as rebuilt (again) 1931). A dominant landmark in the Charleville townscape, the quality and intactness of the hotel in particular the interiors (including not only the accommodation areas of the hotel, foyer, and dining room, but also uncommonly, a substantially intact bar area) as well as furnishings and fittings make the Hotel Corones an exceptional example of an intact interwar hotel (albeit one conceived on a grand scale).
|In common with so many Queensland country towns, a number of timber buildings in Charleville (including the hotel previously leased by Harry Corones, the Hotel Charleville) had been destroyed by fire. The Hotel Corones was one of several substantial masonry buildings erected in Charleville during the 1920s and 1930s: particularly given that so few of the earlier major buildings of the town remain these buildings are an important part of the built fabric of the town as well as a demonstrable attempt to break with a rather bleak tradition associated with the use of timber as a building material in the hot dry climate of the west.
|Riding on the statewide economic boom of the 1920s, Harry "Poppa" Corones built his hotel which was to become a byword for hospitality in the west. Spanning nearly a block of Charleville's main street, the Hotel Corones was also to become in the succeeding decades, a symbol of both the prosperity and the changing fortunes of the town and the pastoral industry of south west Queensland, which it served.
|The man and his hotel became synonymous: the use of the Corones name as the hotel name represented a significant break in the English tradition of the naming of hotels within an accepted nomenclature, a marketing strategy which was to see both the man and his hotel achieve (a joint and severable) iconic status in the west. That this icon was also of Greek origin was even more singular: Greek migration to Queensland in this century was most visible in the small business sector; the Greek cafe and green grocer became standard fixtures in the state's cities and throughout rural Queensland. Harry Corones' move into the hotel industry and the scale in which it was undertaken (uncompromisingly proclaimed by his ambitious plans for the Hotel Corones) represented a significant leap. Moreover in the (predominantly British) mythology of the (Queensland) west, the Greek hero was (and is) a rarity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16046,"place_ref":601283,"name":"St James Catholic Church","alternate_name":"St Jame's Catholic Church & Altar I St James Catholic Church & Altar","street_address":"Monash Ave","suburb":"MALANDA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The St James Catholic Church is a small, lowset, single storeyed timber church located on Monash Avenue, set back on the crest of a slope and overlooking the town and district of Malanda.
\nThe timber-framed and -clad church is symmetrically composed and has a high-pitched gable roof. T-shape in plan, the rectangular core is aligned on an approximate northeast-southwest axis; projecting gable-roofed wings flank the southwest end and in 2019 contain a vestry and reconciliation room (northwest wing) and sacristy (southeast wing) that both have rear doors accessed by timber stairs. The building has a frontispiece at the northeast end, which forms a small porch that provides access to the front doors of the Church via side stairs and a modern concrete ramp.
\nTall, narrow, pointed-arch ‘lancet’ widows are located on all sides of the building. Single lancets are located in the frontispiece (timber louvred), and on either side of the front wall of the building. Three single lancets combine to form ‘Trinity windows’ in the front and rear gables. Along each side of the church are four double lancets. Both double lancet and Trinity windows are located in the vestry and storage room.
\nThe church interior contains a central aisle, flanked by timber pews, that leads to the altar. The communion rail has been removed; however, its original location is still visible in the timber floorboards. The c1960s timber altar is located in front of the original altar and allows the priest to face the congregation whilst conducting mass. The original ornate timber altar with reredos (decorative timber screen behind), transforms this otherwise simple, unadorned country church into a highly evocative place of worship.
\nTimber stairs positioned adjacent to the front entrance access the original choir gallery, approximately 2m wide, which is used for storage and contains overflow seating. The open roof space features overhanging principals with verge projections from the wall plates, supported on arched brackets with metal tie rods. The original decorative timber ceiling is concealed behind a c1960s sheeted false ceiling.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe St James Catholic church of Malanda, located west of Monash Avenue, was constructed in 1926 and opened in January 1927. A Malanda architect, Robert (Bob) Ransom Hassall, designed the church, and the altar with reredos, which were constructed from local timbers. Another local, Alby Halfpapp, built the church. James English, who was an early settler in the Malanda district, an important figure in the development of the dairy industry on the Atherton Tableland, and Chairman of the St James Church building committee, donated money to the church's building fund and provided the land on which the church was built.
\nMalanda is part of the traditional land of the Ngadjon-Jii people.[1] Amongst the first European settlers in Malanda was the family of James English (1865-1951). English, who is known as the founder of Malanda, came from the Lismore district of New South Wales seeking cedar, in 1907. The Special Agricultural Homesteads Act 1901 (renamed the Special Agricultural Selections Act in 1904) allowed groups of selectors, being either family groups or people who knew each other, to apply for adjoining blocks prior to a whole area being opened up for selection. This was designed to encourage the first settlers to help each other. The East Barron and Malanda area was opened up under this scheme in 1907, for 12 groups, and the ‘English Group’ was authorised to select 39 portions.[2] James English took up two parcels of land, with his son Patrick taking another two. Two friends who had accompanied English from NSW, Percy and Stan Davies, also took up land.[3] James English was a driving force in the establishment of the Eacham Shire, gazetted in 1910, and later served on the council during the 1920s.[4]
\nAs settlers removed the timber, dairy farming became a mainstay of the district. From 1908, James English introduced Australian Illawarra Shorthorn (AIS) cows, heifers and bulls to the Atherton Tableland. The breed soon dominated the local dairy industry. In 1918 he donated five acres (2ha) of land to the Eacham Show Society, of which he was Patron.[5]
\nEnglish, who with his wife Catherine had entertained many visitors to the district, also saw the need for a hotel for travellers once the rail line from Yungaburra opened in December 1910.[6] He applied for a licence and built the Malanda Hotel in 1911.[7] In addition, English preserved an area of natural rainforest behind his property, which, as ‘The Jungle’, proved a popular attraction for tourists to North Queensland from 1929.[8]
\nJames English also erected a timber mill. The Phoenix mill at Tolga was dismantled and reconstructed at Malanda from 1919.[9] This later supplied timber for many buildings of the Malanda township, such as shops in English Street, as well as the Majestic Picture Theatre [QHR 601743].[10]
\nThe Malanda district prospered due to timber and the dairy industry. By 1922, as well as the hotel, Malanda possessed two butter factories (1919, 1920), four sawmills, two blacksmiths’ shops, two saddlers’ shops, a cabinet and joinery factory, plumbers’ and tinsmiths’ works, two general stores, a drapery and a millinery, stationer’s shop, state school, shire offices, and a private hospital.[11] The nearby Malanda Falls was already a tourist attraction by this time, but visitation increased after the opening of the Gillies Highway in 1926.[12]
\nAlthough the town (surveyed in 1911) was thriving in the early 1920s, there was only one Church (Wesleyan) in Malanda by 1922.[13] In 1925 the Catholic community, of which the English family were staunch members, decided to build a church. At a meeting on the 9 August 1925 a building committee was formed to attend to the construction of a Catholic Church. At subsequent meetings, it was decided to build a church that could accommodate 200 people.[14] Local Catholics undertook fundraising events, including St Patrick’s Day dances.[15]
\nRobert (Bob) Ransom Hassall (c1882-1957) was commissioned to draw up plans and specifications and Lynch was appointed foreman of works. Hassall was an articled pupil of Addison and Corrie from 1899-1904, and a draftsman for them during 1905. He worked in the partnership of Addison and Hassall, Brisbane, from 1906-7, before working in Atherton from 1910-13. He served during World War I, and returned to work as a draftsman with J and HG Kirkpatrick, in Sydney, from 1919-20. He commenced work in Malanda in 1921.[16] Hassall’s later work in Malanda included an extension to the Malanda Hotel (c1928); St Matthews Anglican Church (1929); the Majestic Picture Theatre (1929); and the Malanda School of Arts (1932).[17]
\nAlby Halfpapp was deputed to build the church with the help of a permanent assistant, at the rate of £2 7 shillings per day for the two, with the additional help of three men for two weeks to start the work off. The building was to have a concrete floor with ironbark blocks. The outside walls were to be of water gum chamfers, and the ceiling and lining of bull oak, with all other timbers to be left to Hassall to determine. At later meetings, the proposal for a concrete floor was altered to that of a wooden floor, and the further suggestion was made that a choir gallery be included in the plans, if the estimate did not exceed £1,000. Timber mills from Millaa Millaa, Glen Allyn, Kureen, Yungaburra and Malanda were asked to tender for the supply of timber. The tender was given to Patrick English of Malanda who agreed to supply and deliver all timber to the site for 48 shillings per 100 super feet.[18]
\nJames English, who gave £100, as well as Mick Lynch, Dan O’Connell, Peter and Lou Kenny and Jack Hanrahan, who all gave £50, made the first donations towards the building of the church. These men were all members of the building committee. James English then donated 1 acre, 1 rood and 39.5 perches (0.6ha) of land, valued at about £600, from the grounds of his home, upon which the church would be built.[19]
\nCatherine English, an avid Catholic, wanted to see the church built in her time, but she died in January 1926.[20] Halfpapp commenced construction after late July 1926;[21] the building of the church was finalised by November 1926 and it was opened and blessed by Bishop Heavey on 23 January 1927.[22]
\nA contemporary newspaper article reported that the main building of the new ‘Roman Catholic Church’, built of Tableland timbers with an iron roof, was 52ft by 28ft (15.9m by 8.5m); with two attached sacristies measuring 12ft (3.7m) square. Located on a site overlooking Malanda, its style was Gothic, with double (lined) walls, and ‘an unusual feature is the overhanging principals of the roof, which have verge projections from the wall plates and make the appearance and ventilation much better. The principals are neatly chamfered, and are supported on arched brackets, which are connected with steel rods in place of the beams. The ceiling is also of an unusual type, consisting of diagonal panels, with wooden mouldings between the principals, each alternate panel being reversed, thus resembling a huge herring-bone scheme. The windows are of coloured cathedral glass…The seats and kneeling forms are light, strong and neat, and are of a pattern different from those commonly used’.[23] The timber had been supplied by Patrick English’s Phoenix sawmill in Malanda; the joinery was supplied by GE Smith of Mareeba; and electricity was laid on from James English’s home nearby.[24]
\nThe timber for the altar is said to have come from the English property as well. The altar with reredos (an ornamental screen behind the altar) was designed by Hassall and built in Mareeba by cabinet maker Steve Purcell, at a reported cost of £1200, and was delivered to Malanda in November 1928.[25] In 1941 the altar and reredos had a different colour scheme to that seen in 2019 (currently painted white, with gold trim), with the altar columns and plinth having a marbled appearance.[26] A sealed brass tabernacle (box) was added to the altar in the late 1950s; and the height of the dais, on which the altar with reredos stands, has been reduced since the late 1960s.[27]
\nThe church’s grounds were later extended to the north in 1946, when 3 roods and 39.5 perches (0.4ha) of land was transferred from four spinsters, who had owned it since 1932, to the Corporation of the Sisters of Mercy of the Diocese of Cairns.[28] A presbytery was built, just southwest of the church, c1959, when the parish of Malanda was established.[29] Sections of the church grounds, in the north and the south, were progressively sold, in 1961, 1987 and 2017.[30]
\nJames English died at his home in Malanda in January 1951, and his funeral was held at St James Church, before he was buried at Atherton cemetery.[31] In 2019, St James Church still stands on Monash Avenue, just north of ‘The Jungle’.
","criteria":"The St James Catholic Church (1926) is important in demonstrating the development of the Atherton Tablelands region following closer agricultural settlement in the early 20th century. The church was built with locally milled timber, on land donated by the English family, one of the earliest selectors in the area.
|The St James Catholic Church is a fine example of a Gothic timber church. It retains its high-pitched, gabled roof; chamferboard external cladding and horizontal tongue and groove internal lining; choir loft; lancet windows; Celtic cross finials; decorative brackets to the eaves; and most of the original furnishings, including the carved timber altar with reredos, and timber pews. The ventilation under the eaves represents the adaption of a European design to the Queensland climate.
|The simple design, incorporating carved internal detailing and furniture, demonstrates a high level of craftsmanship using local timber. The altar with reredos (c1928), a remarkable and highly ornate original fitting, has been retained and adapted to suit changes in the liturgy. In its open, churchyard setting, the church is an attractive feature within the streetscape.
|It has a special association with the Catholic community of Malanda. Both the fundraising for the Church and its design and construction were projects involving the wider community within the first 20 years of closer settlement in the district.
|The St James Catholic Church has a special association with the life of the English Family. Known as the founders of Malanda, James and Catherine English were early selectors who arrived in the region when the district was opened up in 1907 under the Queensland Government's Special Agricultural Selections Act 1901. James English, who later introduced the Australian Illawarra Shorthorn breed of dairy cattle to the Atherton Tableland, donated the land for the church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16047,"place_ref":601284,"name":"4BU Radio Station (former)","alternate_name":"The Strand Café/Restaurant","street_address":"55 Woongarra Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The former 4BU radio station is a two storey brick building with a flat roof. The building has floor to ceiling glass panels located in the front or southern façade and the western and eastern façade. The entrance doors, timber framed with glass panels and decorative, geometrically shaped handles, lead to the ground floor. As the building now functions as a café and restaurant, much of the ground floor has been fitted out with stainless steel preparation and cooking facilities. The safe is located in its original position on the western side of the building. A large, sweeping staircase, with original timber and metal handrail and balustrading leads to the first floor. The metal balustrading curves around and encloses the entire south eastern corner of the first floor. Adjacent to the staircase, along the western wall of the building, is a large group of floor to ceiling windows finished with original timber sunshading detail. Original concentric circle, metal light fittings are located on the first floor.
An original timber door with glass panel and louvred vents is located in the north-west corner of the first floor, and opens to an unoccupied room. On the door is painted the words 'White Lotus Studio', providing evidence of its former use when Bundaberg Broadcasters occupied the building. Centrally located, at the rear of the northern end of the first floor are double doors with timber frames and glass panels, opening to a small foyer. Opening from this foyer are three original timber doors with soundproofing features. These doors open to the highly intact former recording studios. One room in the north-east corner is the most decorative and has a ribbed, undulating ceiling and timber geometric wall design which runs the length of the walls. The studio in the north-western corner has decorative wall and ceiling elements incorporating a 'staggered' design. In each room, windows provide views to the adjacent studio.
The garage is located to the rear of the building and the brickwork on the western wall incorporates a decorative geometric design.
","history":"The former 4BU building was constructed in 1957 to a design by architect, H Stuart-Nairne.
Following a meeting in April 1935 at the offices of Wyper Bros. Ltd, the company of Bundaberg Broadcasters Pty Ltd was incorporated on 24 July in the same year. Broadcasting commenced on 16 December 1935, with a compliment of seven advertisers and a PMG licence at a cost of £25. The chairman of directors, Mr W Harvey, along with the co-directors, Colonel Christensen and Mr R Curtis, adhered strictly to a policy catering for all tastes in entertainment.
The transmitter and studio equipment were purchased for just over £1500. The studios of 4BU were located in a building leased from Wyper Bros. Ltd. During World War II, regular programs for Bundaberg and district troops in New Guinea and adjacent islands were provided. In 1938, two acres of land was purchased at Kalkie for a fee of £50. Later that year a further area was purchased so that Bundaberg Broadcasters Pty Ltd could install an antenna, having received consent to increase power from 200 to 500 watts. This consent was given in 1937, a small fibro cottage was supplied for the engineer so that he could live on site and be on call should problems occur.
During the 1930s and for many years broadcasting consisted of live stage plays, revues and concerts. The new transmitter station opened at Kalkie in June 1938. In 1941, the lease for the studios was extended for a further three years and in May of that year the old piping was dismantled. Until 1939, power for transmitting was supplied by a generator owned by Bundaberg Broadcasters Pty Ltd. It was not until 25 May 1939 that power was connected to the Kalkie site from the city electricity supply. In December 1943, a further lease and an offer to purchase was placed on the studios. This building was known as 'The Radio Building'. As the industry of the wireless grew so 4BU followed suit. Prior to having their building constructed, 4BU rented premises from the Council. With an ever increasing listening audience and updates in technology, Bundaberg Broadcasters decided to constructed a new building.
Designed by H Stewart-Narine, who had also designed other Bundaberg buildings, including the fire station, the building was opened in 1957. Stuart-Nairne incorporated a number of very distinctive elements associated with 1950s architecture. Like many similar designs, both non-domestic and domestic, the building was designed with a flat roof, a distinct 1950s departure from the domination of buildings by roof forms. Brisbane architects, Hayes and Scott produced many houses that experimented with the composition of windows, fine detailing of glass up to roof line and exaggerated projection of roof line, to heighten the illusion of the flat roof floating. By 1948, the initial problems of gaining the confidence of builders had been solved, consequently, this paved the way for interesting variations of ceiling forms during the 1950s. Stuart-Nairne's use of floor to ceiling glass in the design of the former 4BU radio station is architecturally typical of this era.
The former 4BU radio station demonstrates the rediscovery of texture in the 1950s. Materials composed as textural decoration included using colour, art works, sunshading devices, grids, patterns and fragmented building components. Decorative, textural detail extant in the former 4BU radio station include the interior decorative features, particularly the undulating ceiling and geometric wall treatments in the former recording suites and the timber sunshading features on the western side of the building. The decorative elements epitomise the use of rationalised ornamentation incorporating a sense of logic so archetypal of the 1950s.
In 1993, Bundaberg Broadcasters Pty Ltd were granted and introduced FM sound to Bundaberg. Known as HitzFM it was a very popular service, particularly with the younger members of the community. Once again, with updated technology and an increasing need for more space, Bundaberg Broadcasters moved from the Woongarra Street site to its current location in Crofton Street in 1992. The former 4BU radio station now houses a licensed café and restaurant.
","criteria":"With its flat roof, floor to ceiling glass and highly intact interior decorative features, particularly ceiling and wall treatments in the former recording suites, as well as original timber and glass entrance doors, windows with timber sunshading features on the western side of the building, original stairwell with balustrading and light fittings, original timber and glass doors to both the main entrance and the entrance to the 'White Lotus Room' recording suite, the former 4BU radio station is most significant as an excellent, intact example of commercial 1950s architecture.
A purpose built radio station, the building is significant for its association with Bundaberg Broadcasters, who have operated in the area for over 65 years, including broadcasting to troops in New Guinea during World War II. The former 4BU radio station is significant for its association with architect, H Stuart-Nairne. Stuart-Nairne prepared designs for a number of buildings in Bundaberg, including the fire station.
|With its flat roof, floor to ceiling glass and highly intact interior decorative features, particularly ceiling and wall treatments in the former recording suites, as well as original timber and glass entrance doors, windows with timber sunshading features on the western side of the building, original stairwell with balustrading and light fittings, original timber and glass doors to both the main entrance and the entrance to the 'White Lotus Room' recording suite, the former 4BU radio station is most significant as an excellent, intact example of commercial 1950s architecture.
|With its flat roof, floor to ceiling glass and highly intact interior decorative features, particularly ceiling and wall treatments in the former recording suites, as well as original timber and glass entrance doors, windows with timber sunshading features on the western side of the building, original stairwell with balustrading and light fittings, original timber and glass doors to both the main entrance and the entrance to the 'White Lotus Room' recording suite, the former 4BU radio station is most significant as an excellent, intact example of commercial 1950s architecture.
|A purpose built radio station, the building is significant for its association with Bundaberg Broadcasters, who have operated in the area for over 65 years, including broadcasting to troops in New Guinea during World War II. The former 4BU radio station is significant for its association with architect, H Stuart-Nairne. Stuart-Nairne prepared designs for a number of buildings in Bundaberg, including the fire station.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16048,"place_ref":601285,"name":"Roma Court House and Police Buildings","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"McDowall Street","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-07","description":"Roma Court House:
Roma Court House is located on a triangular block bounded by McDowall and Queen Streets and the Police Reserve. The building faces south toward McDowall Street and is aligned to this street. It is a single-storeyed rendered masonry building designed in a style that is influenced by Federation Free Style. Together with the adjoining police buildings, it forms a precinct of justice administration.
The H shaped plan incorporates the entrance facade, the court room which dominates the form of the building and rear wings. The symmetrical form of the entrance facade incorporates a prominent central curved vestibule, with four approach steps. The vestibule has four columns, two pilasters and entablature of the ionic order. The main entrance is double doors with 4 panels and is crowned by a Queensland coat of arms. Ornate notice boards are located either side of the door. The vestibule is flanked on the east and west sides by rooms featuring double hung windows, with semi circular fanlights, facing McDowall street. The entablature is continued around the front facade of the building. The entablature, string courses and window heads are cement rendered with a ruled render surface continued throughout externally.
Three clerestory windows are situated above the arcades either side of the building. Each window has five panes and a timber louvred panel. Three air conditioning units are located on the western arcade roof. Paired narrow double hung windows face south from the wings. The rear verandah is partially enclosed with fibro cladding and louvred and aluminium frame windows. The verandah provides access to the office spaces.
Arcades provide additional entrance points to the court room, the front rooms and the symmetrical east and west wings. The east side wing comprises a lobby area, Jury room and crown solicitors office. The west side wing comprises a lobby area, and the offices of the court of petty sessions and the police magistrate. Behind the court room, the Judges chamber and the office of the Attorney General are located. No room is larger than the central courtroom. The 1973 remodelling of the court room space created a clerk of the court public office that occupies the front section of the building. The main court room has a suspened ceiling and all original furniture has been replaced. The interior retains original decorative architraves, and other original details such as joinery and fireplaces are evident in some areas.
The rolled galvanised iron roof has five tall chimneys and seven roof ventilators of varied size. The court room roof is raised above both the roof of the rear and front sections. The separate flat arcade roofing at the half elevation maintains access for light and ventilation through the clerestory windows. The roof is a gable hipped, with ventilator louvres in the gablets and corresponding smaller gablets cap the east and west wings. A small forward projecting gablet proclaims the arched entrance to the rear verandah.
A masonry toilet block is located at the rear of the building. Five bottle trees [Brachychiton rupestris], Kurrajong [Brachychiton populensis] and other indigenous trees are located in the court house grounds. A simple flagpole is centrally located in front of the main entrance to the building.
Police Buildings:
The Police Buildings are located in the Police Reserve on McDowall street adjacent to the west of the Roma Court House. The Police Buildings comprise a timber police station and a timber cell block/lock up. The police station is a combination of two separate single-storeyed timber buildings with corrugated iron roofing, connected by a covered way. The Police Station faces south and is aligned to McDowall Street. The cell block is located at the rear of the Police Station and the 1998 watch house.
A modified E shape plan incorporates two buildings connected by a covered way. The western building is weatherboard clad with a hipped corrugated iron roof. A verandah runs the breadth of the building and has been enclosed at each end creating two rooms which are entered from the verandah. The verandah has paired verandah posts and timber rail balustrade. Four timber approach steps are off centre and directly access the main entrance door to the police station. A faceted bay window protrudes onto the verandah space. An eyelid dormer window with four small fixed casements is located above the bay window. A decorative fleche is centred on the roof ridge, aligned with the dormer and bay windows.
The eastern, smaller building, is assymetrical. Seven timber approach steps, with a simple iron balustrade led to a forward projecting gabled porch. Paired aluminium doors provide entrance to the screened verandah. The front verandah has paired verandah posts rising from weatherboard piers. The main pyramidal roof is extended over the verandah. A decorative fleche matching the western building is centrally located on the roof.
Casement windows with simple timber supported hoods are located on the western and eastern faces of both buildings. The covered way has five timber approach steps, entered via the garden area between the two buildings. This entrance provides access to the rear of both buildings.
The cell block/lock up is a simple weatherboard clad building with corrugated iron roof. A verandah is located along the south eastern face of the building with paired verandah posts that match those of the police station. The building is raised on timber stumps and is entered via four timber steps located at the south western end of the building. Three sets of louvres are located in the front verandah enclosure. Four south western and 6 north western facing hopper windows indicate the internal office space at the south western end of the building. Six small high set windows, with iron bars, are located on the eastern face of the building indicating the former cells.
Located at the former gate entrance of the Police buildings, is a simple concrete monument mounted with a granite tablet and plaque. It reads 'This plaque commemorates the first meeting of the Roma Town Council , 10 August 1867, Thomas McEwan, Mayor'.
","history":"The Roma Court House is a rendered masonry building located on a triangular block facing McDowall Street. It was constructed between 1900 and 1901 and was designed by John Smith Murdoch, the Second Assistant Architect of the Queensland Works Department. The Police Buildings were completed in 1919 as the Roma police station, barracks, offices and cell block, servicing the Roma district. The Roma Police Buildings are simple single-storeyed timber buildings adjacent to the Roma Court House, also facing McDowall street.
Roma was the principal town of the Mount Abundance district, which was established as a pastoral and agricultural region after exploration by Thomas Mitchell, New South Wales Surveyor General in 1846. It was originally settled by squatters, who established it as primarily a sheep grazing area. The township of Roma was proclaimed in September 1862, the first town formed in Queensland after separation. Roma was named after Lady Bowen, wife of the first Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. She was the daughter of a Governor of the Ionian Islands and her maiden name was Countess Diamantina Georgina Roma. Surveyor McDowall laid out the town reserving a section for public buildings bounded by Bungil, Charles, McDowall and Gregory streets. The first land sales were held in September 1863. The town of Roma was declared a municipality in 1867. The growth in Roma's economy and population was matched by similar development in the administration of law and order in the town.
Court House Context:
Over 145 Court Houses were constructed in Queensland between separation in 1859 and 1900. There was considerable variation in the types and size of structures , ranging from the slab construction in Cunnamulla in 1869 to the (masonry?) Supreme Court in Rockhampton in 1887. In the first course of construction, between 1860 and 1874, the government established 40 court houses in the initial establishment phase of townships. Between 1875 and 1890 the growth in Queensland's economy and population continued and the corresponding construction of court houses proceeded in newly formed townships. The marked difference in this second phase in development was the significant improvement in the quality of the built form. This period also saw the replacement of the temporary constructions of the earlier period. The 1890s saw a decrease in the building of court houses; an average of two buildings per year were completed in the ten years to federation.
The Roma Court House:
In 1865, a reserve for court and police purposes was selected, on the hill west of the town centre. This reserve was bounded by McDowall, May (now Souter), Queen and Albert Streets. The latter street once connected Albert and Spencer Streets. It was on this site that the first Roma court house was completed in 1866. [From 1863 local magistrates had conducted court hearings in rented premises.] The first court house faced Albert Street, and was a small timber building, extended in 1884 to accommodate sittings of the Supreme Court in circuit.
This first court house was the site of the first meeting of the Roma Town Council on 10 August 1867. A simple concrete monument mounted with a granite tablet and plaque, commemorating this event, is located at the front of the Police Station in McDowall Street. It was erected during centenary celebrations in 1967 and was unveiled by Gwydir Laycock, former chairman of the Bungil Shire Council.
Roma flourished with the advent of the railway in the 1880s, ensuring the efficient transportation of stock and produce to the coastal ports. The vast artesian basin was tapped in Queensland in the late 1880s and early 1890s, securing an alternate water supply for cattle and sheep. Consistent with the growth of the Maronoa district was the increasing demand for justice administration. During this period cases heard in the various courts held at Roma increased from approximately 210 in 1892 to 280 in 1898.
Roma's 1866 court house was replaced in 1901 with a new building erected a little to the east, on a new reserve for court house purposes gazetted in 1900. The court house reserve was created by combining a market reserve, at the corner of McDowall and Queen Streets, with part of the Albert Street road reserve which had been incorporated with the police reserve in 1883.
The Roma Court House was designed by John Smith Murdoch who at the time was the Second Assistant Architect, responsible for the designing and drafting staff, of the Queensland Department of Public Works. Murdoch arrived in Australia from Scotland, originally working in Melbourne. He began working for the Queensland Department of Public Works in the mid 1880s, leaving temporarily to practice privately with John Hall and Sons, before returning in the mid 1890s. Murdoch later went on to become the first Commonwealth Government Architect in 1919.
The original 1899 design for the new Court House was to be of timber, based on a H shaped design. However, the township of Roma demanded a court house that reflected the Western Districts' growth in population, economic importance and political power. The community thought a grand architectural gesture more appropriate than the planned building. The plans were altered to accommodate brick, thought to be more substantial and lasting. The laying of the foundation stone was performed in a ceremony by the Mayor of Roma, Alderman J.M. Hunter on 4 September 1900. The building was completed in December 1901 for a cost of £5964.
The new court house was built along side the old, allowing the legal and police activities to continue during construction. After the 1866 building was vacated by the court in 1902, it was converted to constables quarters and was finally removed from the site in 1931.
The major consideration in the design and planning of the 1900-01 Court House was the allowance for the correct movement of people in the building and the separation of the different groups involved in the judicial process. The verandahs and arcades allowed for specific delineated entrances to the buildings. Jurors and barristers entered the court house by an alternative route to the public on their way to the public spaces. Judges and the Attorney General had a private entrance and lobby via the rear verandah. The Police Magistrate and barristers could also access their rooms from this verandah. The prisoners would be brought directly from the police cells to the court room through the side arcade door. The separate female and male witness rooms, were located at the front of the Court House to avoid hearing previous evidence before making their testimony.
With consideration for the harsh western climate a detailed and technical ventilation system was constructed in the Roma Court House. Conventional cast iron wall ventilators were combined with Tobin's Tubes to carry cool air from beneath the building into the court room. Boyles roof ventilation using an air pump ventilator, connected by an iron shaft to a bell mouth over a ceiling ventilator, extracted the hot air from the building. Fireplaces were incorporated to provide heating in the winter.
In May 1931 trees were planted to beautify the Roma Court House grounds as part of the Unemployment Relief Scheme. In January 1934 five bottle trees, Kurrajong and other indigenous trees were added to the grounds. The bottle trees at the front of the building replaced the original picket fence and match the trees planted as part of Heroes Avenue [600824] to serve as a memorial to the Roma residents who enlisted in the First World War. It is not clear whether these trees were planted to serve a commemorative function.
The interior of the court room was extensively altered in the 1960s with the addition of a false ceiling and updating of the fixtures and the furniture. The new ceiling effectively blocked the clerestory windows and covered the domed roof, altering the patterns of light and ventilation. It is probable that the original masonry parapets on the rear of the buildings were removed during the recladding of the roof during these alterations. In 1973, alterations to the main court room to accommodate the clerk of court in the front section of the building, including the former witness rooms, was carried out. Air conditioning was added in 1978.
The Police Buildings:
The Police Buildings, which are single-storeyed timber structures, were erected in 1919. They comprise offices and barracks, addressing McDowall Street, and a cell block at the rear of the Police Reserve.
A lock up was the first purpose built police building in Roma, completed during the construction of the first court house in 1866. In 1868, a gaol servicing the wider region, was located on a separate reserve at the corner of Souter and McDowall Streets, adjacent to the court house and lock up. The gaol was closed in 1923 and the site is now occupied by three police residences.
The first Roma police station was built in 1885 and was located to the north of the 1866 court house, facing Albert Street. The building provided both accommodation for police and office space for official duties. Prior to the completion of the station, police were accommodated in timber huts, private lodgings or a choice of Roma's many public establishments. The 1885 police station was replaced in 1919 with a new police station and barracks facing McDowall street, on the site of the 1866 court house. At this time, the first police station was converted to Senior Sergeants quarters and removed or demolished in 1957.
The 1919 Police Station was designed by the office of the Queensland Government Architect. It was a modified E shape, that incorporated climatic design considerations and classical architecture features. A single-storeyed structure, the design separates the official police duties from the residential accommodation. A covered way and garden acts to both link and separate the two buildings and their relative functions. The police barracks are housed in the western building with the offices of the senior sergeant and the sub inspector housed in the eastern building. The design of the barracks indicates the improvement of living conditions for members of the force in comparison with the rudimentary conditions of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It incorporates dormitory, a billiard room, kitchen and cook's room and a generous dining area on the rear verandah. The use of lattice work on the rear verandah ventilated the dining space. The preference for single men as constables is indicated by the dormitory style quarters.
During 1962 there were major additions, alterations and spatial reconfiguration of the Police Buildings. New concrete stumps and weatherboards were installed and a new store was added to the western back corner of the McDowall Street building. The conversion of the police barracks to act only as a police station occurred at this time, the new arrangement of the spaces in the building was associated with this change. New toilets were installed in 1970; a covered work bay was added in 1978; and a tea room in 1979.
A cell block consisting of four cells, each 12 ft by 8 ft facing a verandah, was constructed at the same time as the 1919 Police Station. This building was used for remand of prisoners before trial or awaiting transfer to larger correctional facilities. In 1962, two new cells were added to the building, providing an extra female cell and a female toilet. In the western section of the building, two cells were converted to a charge room and records room; and a male toilet. In 1998 this building was repositioned on the police reserve to accommodate the construction of a new watch house.
","criteria":"The Roma Court House was constructed in 1900-01 and the Police Buildings in 1919. The Roma Court House and Police Buildings reflect the development of Roma, a pastoral service town, and the establishment of government administration for the prosperous surrounding district, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The large masonry form of the Roma Court House is indicative of the relevant importance of Roma in relation to other towns in western Queensland. The Police Buildings reflect the multi-functional use of the police reserve to accommodate residences, official duties and remand facilities.
|The Roma Court House and Police Buildings are good examples of Queensland Public Works court house and police buildings design in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|The Roma Court House and Police Buildings are of considerable aesthetic significance due to their landmark qualities and for their high degree of design and workmanship.
|The site of Roma Court House and Police Buildings is significant for a long association with law and order and the dispensing of justice in Roma since 1866. The Roma Court House and Police Buildings are an important community focus in the township of Roma, connecting the local and district community to governance in the Maronoa District of south western Queensland. The monument commemorating the first town council is evidence of the importance of this site to the community.
|Roma Court House has a strong association with important architect John Smith Murdoch, as an example of the development of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16050,"place_ref":601287,"name":"Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church","alternate_name":"Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church","street_address":"120 Douglas Street","suburb":"THURSDAY ISLAND","lga":"TORRES SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-12-07","description":"Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church is a substantial timber building with a gabled roof clad with galvanised iron, and concrete foundations. It is sited prominently in Douglas Street on the slope leading up to the east-west ridge which runs the length of the island, and from the water approach, is a conspicuous element in the Thursday Island townscape. It sits within a precinct which includes the Catholic presbytery, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart convent and school, and teacher's residence.
The building is rectangular in shape [no transepts] with a small front porch and side verandahs, and rear vestry. The timber frame is lined with single-skin chamferboards on the side walls, but the front wall, which is exposed to the weather, has an exterior weatherboard cladding. The vestry has been clad externally with fibrous-cement sheeting. The church is raised above the ground on concrete piers, and the undercroft is enclosed with concrete walling.
The front elevation faces south-east, and is distinguished by a fibre-glass spire - a copy of the original. The centrally located front door, the windows either side of the door, and the window in the gable infill, all have Gothic arches. Similarly shaped windows are located along each side wall. All the windows are multi-paned and have bright red and blue glass in the arch infill, and the windows and french doors nearest the sanctuary also have large panels of green glass. One of the front windows has panes of bright yellow glass.
The grounds are terraced with rubble stone retaining walls. Four flights of concrete steps lead from the lower terrace to the upper terrace and up to the front door of the church.
Internally, the building comprises one large space rectangular divided into nave and sanctuary, with chamferboard ceiling and walls. At the rear of the nave above the front entrance is a choir loft, accessed from a staircase in the southern corner. The choir loft has a decorative cast iron railing and fine timber work. A painted timber confessional is located at the rear of the nave, to the right of the main entrance. On either side of the nave, close to the sanctuary, is a set of french doors opening onto the side verandahs. The ceiling is lined with chamferboards.
The floors are of timber, that of the sanctuary being raised about 60cm above the floor of the nave, and accessed by two steps running the width of the floor. The railing which once separated sanctuary from nave has been removed. The sanctuary has a fine carved timber altar. The whole of the rear wall of the sanctuary is lined with sheeting and has a painted trompe l'oeil mural painted in 1935. There is similar trompe l'oeil work on the front of the altar. Above the altar in the rear wall is a circular window with painted glass. Two doors in the rear wall, one either side of the altar, lead to the vestry at the rear.
","history":"Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church at Thursday Island was erected by French and Italian priests of the Mission of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, who had arrived on the island in October 1884. On Thursday Island they established the first Catholic mission in the Torres Strait, erecting there a small church c1885. If this is the existing church [this is not substantiated], it is the oldest surviving building on Thursday Island. Photographic evidence suggests that by c1905, the church had acquired its present form and concrete footings.
Queensland had no jurisdiction over the islands of the Torres Strait until annexing them in 1872, largely to protect Queensland interests in the pearl-shelling and bêche-de-mer fisheries in the Strait, and to regulate the employment of South Sea Islanders in these enterprises. With annexation, Torres Strait Islanders acquired the same status as mainland Aborigines, and the official Queensland government settlement at Somerset on Cape York [established 1864] was moved in 1877 to Port Kennedy at Thursday Island. The new location provided a sheltered, deepwater anchorage, and was more centrally located along the main shipping route through the inner channel of Torres Strait - the principal trade route to Asia and the northern route to England. The island was known to the Kaurareg, a maritime people who inhabited the off-shore islands near Cape York, as Waibene.
By early 1884 Port Kennedy had emerged as the principal port for cargo and passengers being trans-shipped to Normanton, and was the hub of the pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer fisheries in the Torres Strait. The permanent population was about 70, and it serviced a district of nearly 700 inhabitants. In addition, within from 3 to 50 miles of Thursday Island pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer fishing stations were employing about 1500 people of all races [including significant numbers of South Sea Islanders, Japanese and Filipinos]. At this period about 800 or 900 tons of shell were exported annually to New South Wales and [mainly] Britain, and the Queensland Government was collecting substantial revenue from licenses.
The Mission of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart had been founded in France by Fr Louis André Navarre, Dean of Bourges, in the 1860s, and was approved of as a religious congregation by the Holy See in 1869. In March 1881 Pope Leo XIII requested that the Sacred Heart Fathers establish a mission in New Guinea, within the Vicariate Apostolic of Melanesia and Micronesia. Like the protestant evangelists who had arrived in the Torres Strait in the early 1870s, the Sacred Heart Fathers decided to facilitate their entry into New Guinea by establishing a mission in Torres Strait, to serve as a stop-over station and link between the Society's missions on the Australian mainland and their proposed mission in New Guinea.
On 24 October 1884 the first three Sacred Heart missionaries - Fr Louis André Navarre, Fr Ferdinand Hartzer, and Br Giuseppe de Santis - arrived at Thursday Island, soon to be joined by two more fathers and three young Italian brothers. Initially, Sunday mass was held at McNulty's Hotel [later the Federal Hotel], the congregation comprising mostly Filipino pearl-shell fishers [Manilla Men]. At Christmas the Filipinos came in their hundreds to attend mass and seek confession.
In January 1885 Frs Navarre and Hartzer purchased allotment 4 of section 4 [2 roods] in Port Kennedy for £6, at the first sale of crown land on Thursday Island. By February 1886 they had erected a small church and a dwelling house. By December 1886, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart mission at Thursday Island comprised three buildings, all constructed by the Italian brothers: a small, unpretentious iron church, some little distance up the hill, to one side of this a small convent accommodating four Sisters, and to the other a presbytery which also served as a sanatorium for fever-stricken and debilitated priests from New Guinea and other islands . . . It is not clear whether the c1885 church is the existing church.
From 1884 to 1889 Our Lady of the Sacred Heart mission at Thursday Island was the point of departure for all the Catholic missions - French, German, Swiss and other nationalities - in British New Guinea and New Britain. After 1889 the German Missionaries went directly to New Britain but the French continued to stop over at Thursday Island before going to their New Guinea mission headquarters at Yule Island. Later they went via Port Moresby.
The first Sisters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart arrived at Thursday Island in January 1886 and a year later opened a small school on the verandah of the convent. Not until c1900 was a purpose-designed schoolhouse erected. In the late 1880s the Sisters also established Thursday Island's first and only hospital, until a government hospital was constructed c1910. In 1889 the Sacred Heart missionaries also erected St Henry's Roman Catholic Asylum, a charitable institution conducted by the Sacred Heart Sisters, who offered board and education to children of every race and denomination within the Vicariates of New Guinea and New Britain. This was closed in 1942, reopened briefly in 1948, and in 1961-62 was converted to house Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School, the c1900 school building being abandoned. In 1973 a new Sacred Heart school was constructed.
In 1889 the Vicariate Apostolic of Melanesia and Micronesia was divided into the Vicariates of British New Guinea [later Papua], New Britain and Gilbert Islands. Thursday Island was placed under the Vicariate Apostolic of British New Guinea, Fr Louis André Navarre being appointed the first Vicar Apostolic and consecrated Bishop. Archbishop Navarre devoted the remainder of his life to his work in the Vicariate Apostolic of British New Guinea. Owing to age and ill health he resigned his position in 1908, Father Alain Guynot de Boismenu succeeding him. By the time of his death in January 1912 [at Townsville, en route south from New Guinea] the New Guinea Mission of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was served by 25 missionaries, 21 lay brothers, and 38 sisters; they had opened 38 schools and two orphanages; 28 stations had been established, each provided with churches, schools and residences; and from the central station on Yule Island, 78 villages were regularly visited and instructed.
The work of the Sacred Heart missionaries on Thursday Island was expanded in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1927 Father J Doyle was appointed Parish Priest on Thursday Island. He obtained permission from the Queensland Department of Native Affairs to establish a mission on Hammond Island [then without a resident population] to service the pearl-shell divers and their families in the area, and this was opened in 1929. In 1935 a mission church was erected on Naghir island, about 30 miles from Thursday Island, but this had been demolished by white ants by the early 1940s.
In 1935 David Sing, born at Thursday Island in 1911, painted the trompe l'oeil murals on the rear wall of the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church, and on the front of the altar. David became a lay missionary at the age of 17, and painted religious works in Catholic churches at Thursday Island, Port Moresby and Tully. [The Tully work, a painting on canvas hung behind the altar, no longer survives.] He studied with JS Watkins in Sydney, and was early influenced by the French Impressionist School, before entering the Trappist Order in the United States, where he studied at the Chicago Art Institute. About 1949 he entered the Carthusian Order in Italy - the first Australian to be ordained into the Order - and studied art in Paris and Rome. His paintings proved an important source of income for the Carthusians, and were collected by persons as prominent as Jaqueline Onassis and Patricia Nixon. In the late 1970s, during a 3-year visit to Australia, he painted portraits of a number of prominent Australians, including author Xavier Herbert and thalidomide researcher Dr William G McBride [both these portraits were entered in the Archibald Prize competition of 1977]. Sing also held an exhibition of landscapes, still-life and portraits in Sydney in 1978.
In 1938 the Sacred Heart Mission in the Torres Strait was transferred from the Vicariate Apostolic of Papua [formerly British New Guinea] to the Diocese of Darwin, becoming a Mission of the Australian Province. It remained within the Diocese of Darwin until transferred to the Diocese of Cairns in 1967, after which the parish was no longer staffed by Sacred Heart priests, but by Cairns Diocesan clergy. Since 1968, Sacred Heart school on Thursday Island has been run by Sisters of Mercy from Cairns.
With the transfer to the Cairns Diocese in 1967, Weipa and Bamaga on Cape York were annexed to the Thursday Island Mission, although Bamaga had been serviced from Thursday Island for some years prior to this. In 1982 Weipa separated from Thursday Island parish, which currently comprises the missions at Thursday Island [Waibene], Hammond Island [Kiriri], Horn Island [Nurupai] and Bamaga.
In 1983 the flat-iron spire of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church on Thursday Island was replaced with a fibreglass copy as the first phase of a centenary renovations programme. The roof was reclad in 1992.
","criteria":"Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church at Thursday Island, erected in the late 19th century, survives as important evidence of early European missionary activity in the Torres Strait. It also offers important evidence of the development of the island as the hub of the Torres Strait and gateway to New Guinea in the late 19th century.
|The place has potential to reveal valuable information about the early work of Thursday Island-born artist, David Sing, who achieved international status with his traditionalist oil paintings.
|The building remains substantially intact and is a good example of a late 19th century timber church with decorative Gothic elements and [less commonly] side verandahs. It retains many early fittings and fixtures, including the choir loft, pews, altar, decorative fretwork, the 1930s painted trompe l'oeil murals on the sanctuary wall and altar, and statuary which integrates with the wall mural to re-inforce the three-dimensional effect.
|The exterior with its decorative verandahs, porch and spire is aesthetically pleasing, and the place is a prominent landmark in the Thursday Island townscape. The place has a strong and special religious significance with a mainly islander community for cultural and spiritual reasons.
|The place has a strong and special religious significance with a mainly islander community for cultural and spiritual reasons.
|It has a close association with the work in the Torres Strait and New Guinea of the Order of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic congregation founded in France in the 1860s, and in particular with their founder, Fr Louis André Navarre; and with the early work of artist David Sing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16052,"place_ref":601289,"name":"Assmanshausen Winery and Residence (former)","alternate_name":"Toolburra Vineyards","street_address":"Serisier Road","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-01-06","description":"The former Assmanshausen Winery and Residence are situated on a low ridge just north of the intersection of Sandy Creek and Serisier roads about 11 kilometres northwest of Warwick. The Sandy Creek district retains its rural character.
Winery
The winery is situated a little to the northeast of the residence, on the same low ridge. It is a rectangular structure of dressed local sandstone, aligned lengthwise on an east-west axis, comprising a ground-level workroom and a deep cellar. It has a low-pitched roof of galvanised iron, replacing an earlier steeply-pitched shingled roof, evidence of which can be seen in markings and cuttings on surviving beams and plates. Along the southern side is a skillion-roofed, open-sided extension with timber posts, in the place of the former roof overhang. At the western end is a small sandstone extension with a separate skillion roof and a large timber door, set one course above ground level. The extension gives access to both levels of the winery - up one more course to the workroom and down a steep timber stair to the cellar. At the eastern end of the workroom are large, timber double doors, again set above ground level. On the northern side of the building is a small, skillion-roofed later extension in brick. There are small, formerly shuttered windows along the northern and southern sides of the building, for ventilation rather than light. One of these on the northern side has been converted into a doorway, to provide access from the workroom to the brick extension.
Internally, the structure retains much of the original timbering, including heavy, square-hewn timber beams and posts. The wide timber boards of the workroom floor form the ceiling of the cellar. At the western end, the floor joists are early split logs; those at the eastern end of the building are later milled timber. There is an opening in the workroom floor midway along the southern side, sufficiently large to enable barrels or butts to be lowered into the cellar below. The workroom roof structure is of much later milled timber, and is unlined.
The cellar is accessed from the stair at the western end of the building. It has an earth floor, with a number of depressions possibly indicating where the barrel racks were positioned. There are 6 air shafts built into the walls of the cellar - two each in the northern, southern and eastern walls. These slope upwards to just above ground level, and help regulate the temperature to a constant c50º Fahrenheit.
The workroom is utilised as a storage shed but the cellar is vacant. No equipment associated with wine production remains in the building. None of the vineyard, which was planted along the ridge close to the winery, survives. However, considerable potential exists to search for archaeological evidence of the verandahs which formerly surrounded the stone structure, and of the late 19th century timber extension to the eastern end of the winery.
Residence
The house is situated close to Serisier Rd, but facing south toward Sandy Creek Road, in grounds containing mature trees and shrubs [including conifers and pepperinas (Schinus molle)], and early terracing. The residence is of timber construction, with a double hipped roof of galvanised iron, and rests on low timber stumps. The timber frame is clad externally with 8" pine chamferboards. The core of the house is surrounded by deep verandahs, which have been enclosed across the back [north] and at the northern ends of the side verandahs. These have roofs separate to the main roof, and where un-enclosed, are supported by chamfered timber posts with timber capitals. Along the front and western verandah low benches have been constructed between the verandah posts. There is no evidence of an earlier balustrade. Steps lead from the front [south] verandah to a garden terrace with flagstone path and early stone-edged flower beds.
The core comprises four rooms and a generous entrance vestibule, accessed from a central front entrance. To each side of the vestibule is a bedroom with large, double-hung sash windows opening onto the front and side verandahs, and beyond the vestibule is the parlour. Opening off the parlour, to the east, is the dining room. These rooms have particularly fine cedar joinery, including door and window architraves, cornices, skirting boards, a decorative timber arch between vestibule and parlour, and elegant timber fireplace surrounds. There are two double chimneys and a fireplace in each of the four main rooms, with original plaster to the chimneys. Throughout, the original pine lining to walls and ceilings - 8" deep, beaded tongue and groove boarding, horizontally laid on the walls - has been masked by later masonite sheeting with timber cover strips and wallpaper. Lights above some of the doors have early decorative wax paper. Several of the rooms have early decorative pressed metal cornices or pelmets above the windows.
French doors open off the western end of the parlour onto the verandah, which has been enclosed to make a small room. The rear verandah has been enclosed and extended to house a modern kitchen and living room, replacing an earlier rear kitchen wing and a bedroom wing. The rear extension is accessed from the core via the original central back door out of the parlour and the original doorway from the dining room. Another door opening from the parlour to the former rear verandah has been sheeted over. The northern end of the eastern verandah has been similarly enclosed and extended, to house a guest bedroom, bathroom, and laundry, and to provide walk-in closet space for the front bedroom on the east side. A side door from the dining room now opens into this enclosed verandah space.
The grounds at the rear of the house contain mature trees and shrubs and several timber structures associated with the homestead, including a meat-house and wash-house. The house block is defined by fencing - a three-railed timber fence, painted white, along the western boundary addressing Serisier Road; a similar two-railed fence along the southern boundary; and wire fencing along the eastern and northern boundaries. Two large pine trees, important to the garden setting of the residence, lie just outside the southern fence.
","history":"Assmanshausen Vineyard at Sandy Creek, near Warwick was established in the 1860s by German immigrants Jacob and Elisabetha Kircher, who were also among the first in the district to establish commercial wine production on a substantial scale. In the late 19th century, Assmanshausen's award-winning wines were known throughout southern Queensland, and the winery was a popular attraction for visitors to the Warwick district.
Jacob and Elisabetha Kircher were early settlers on the southern Downs, arriving at Moreton Bay in March 1855. Jacob gained employment as a gardener at Canning Downs Homestead near Warwick, when the principal stations on the southern Downs had extensive orchards and gardens. About 1857 the Kirchers left Canning Downs, Jacob working as a bushman on Rosenthal station and at various other activities, before taking up farming in the early 1860s. In December 1861 Kircher purchased adjoining portions 238 [45 acres] and 239 [45 acres], near Sandy Creek, about 7 miles northwest of Warwick, for £81. The Kirchers were among the earliest farmers in the district. They fenced and cleared their land and experimented firstly with wheat, but after successive failures turned to vine growing, the first 1,000 vines being planted c1864. By 1870 they had established Assmanshausen Winery - named after a celebrated wine-producing district on the Rhine.
Viticulture and wine production in the Warwick district was pioneered in the mid-19th century by principally German immigrants. By 1861, Germans formed 9.75% [217 persons] of the population of the towns of Warwick, Allora, Leyburn and the rural portion of the Warwick police district. Like the Kirchers, most were farmers sponsored in the 1850s by southern Darling Downs squatters. Most of those who pioneered the wine industry on the southern Downs took up selections on the Warwick Reserve or Warwick Agricultural Reserve in the 1860s. By the mid-1870s a number of vineyards had been established along Sandy Creek, at Swan and Deuchar's Creek, and at the Jew's Retreat on Glengallan land. Only one vigneron relied solely on the vineyard as a source of income; most also grew wheat, maize and lucerne or had established orchards, and none of the vineyards exceeded 10 acres. All made wine on the premises, and all had constructed cellars [some in stone, often two-storeyed and partly underground] in which the wine was both made and stored.
By 1876 Assmanshausen was the principal vineyard and winery in the Warwick district, with 10 acres under vines. Older plantings included both white [verdeilho, muscadine and salvina] and red [black Spanish and Mataro] grapes, but more recent plantings were reds only: Mataro and Hermitage. Most of the vines were trellised, the newer ones planted about 6' x 6' apart, and Kircher had invented a horse-drawn cultivator which could weed and turn the soil close to the vines while the horse walked at a sufficient distance to prevent vine damage from the traces. Kircher was producing unfortified wines [dry wines made without the addition of cane sugar or spirits], and had already won prizes at the Warwick and Brisbane exhibitions. At this period the Assmanshausen winery comprised a dressed stone building of 3 flats: an underground cellar; a ground-level workroom; and a steeply-pitched shingled roof containing an attic space. The attic was ventilated by 12 air shafts fitted with shutters on the inside, ensuring that the temperature in the attic was cooler than that of the ground floor. There were also 6 air shafts in the cellar. These shafts sloped through the stone walls to the surface of the ground. Kircher had devised his own system of wine production: the press was located in the ground floor workroom; from here the must [unfermented grape juice] was suction-pumped through pipes up to the attic, where it was fermented in 500 and 300 gallon vats before being fed through more pipes to the underground cellar, where it matured in wooden butts.
In the 1870s, grape growing and wine production in the Warwick district emerged as an important economic activity. Warwick vignerons had reached a stage whereby they could hold much of their produce until it had mellowed and ripened with age, and the reputation of Assmanshausen wines in particular was growing. By 1881, Kircher had installed modern screw presses at Assmanshausen and his winery was described as one of the best in Queensland. At this period the presses were located in the attic, the must then gravity-fed down pipes to the ground floor where it was fermented in vats, before being piped to the underground stone cellar to mature. A timber, ground-level extension to the cellar may have been constructed by this time. Kircher had 11 acres under vines around his house, and a 5 acre vineyard about half a mile distant. He was also farming his land, with a 10 acre paddock under oats and 500 merino sheep. The Kirchers' residence [unlikely to be their first house on the property] was impressive also - described by one reporter in 1881 as the neatest, best finished, and most comfortable dwelling I have ever seen among Queensland farmers or selectors . . ., and in an 1887 report as one of the most perfect in the colonies.
Assmanshausen figured prominently in the 1889 report on viticulture and wine-making in the southern districts of Queensland, prepared by the Under Secretary for Agriculture, Peter McLean, who visited the Warwick district in late 1888 or early 1889. Assmanshausen was then one of the oldest vineyards in the district, and Kircher, with wine exports to Scotland, was the only Queensland wine-maker then exporting to Britain or Europe.
By March 1901, the Assmanshausen vineyard still comprised just 10 acres, but Kircher was devoting most of his time to wine production as distinct from general farming. The cellar was considered still one of the finest in the State, carrying on average about 18,000 gallons of wine, with annual output averaging 4,500 gallons. Assmanshausen wine was seldom sold until it had aged 7 or 8 years, and was in demand throughout southern Queensland. Kircher had secured about 60 prizes and certificates for his wines, some awarded for exhibits sent interstate and to Britain and Europe. Both the winery and the vineyard were managed by Jacob Christian Barth, son of the Kirchers' adopted daughter, Mary Rickert of Warwick.
In March 1902 Assmanshausen Farm, Vineyard and Winery was advertised for sale. The property still comprised 90 acres of first-class agricultural land, 10 of which were under vines, and contained a substantial 8-roomed timber residence and a winery comprising a 3-floored stone cellar, attached to which was a timber and iron cellar. It failed to sell at this time, and following the death of Jacob Kircher on 30 April 1903, the property passed to a trustee, the Kirchers having no children. Following Mrs Kircher's death in 1912, title passed in 1915 to an American nephew, Michael Kircher, who had been managing the winery since c1902, prior to Jacob's death.
In the early 20th century, following the federation of the Australian colonies and the removal of interstate tariffs, Queensland wine-production declined in the face of strong competition from more established wine producers in South Australia and New South Wales. Henri Macquarie Serisier of New South Wales was associated with Assmanshausen from c1915, and in 1920 purchased the vineyard and winery from Michael Kircher for £2,200. Serisier was the son of Jean Emile Serisier, a successful Dubbo [New South Wales] vigneron, and had both Australian and European experience of viticulture and wine-making. He changed the famous Assmanshausen name to Toolburra Vineyards, and undertook extensive new plantings, many of which were table grapes. By 1922 he had about 65 acres under grapes, and was expecting to produce about 20,000 gallons of wine that season - principally ports, muscat, madeira, sweet sherry, claret and hock.
HM Serisier remained at Toolburra Vineyards until a few years before his death in 1942, but in 1932 transferred the property to his son, Kelvin Eugene. KE Serisier sustained Toolburra Vineyards throughout the 1930s, but with the onset of the Second World War, when he joined the RAAF, the vineyard fell into decline and the winery ceased production in the early 1940s. At some period after the closure of the winery, the timber extension, and the shingled roof with its attic space, were demolished. The property remained with the Serisier family until 1980.
","criteria":"The former Assmanshausen Winery [c1870] and Residence [extant by 1881], is important for its association with, and as a role model for, and as surviving evidence of, one of the earliest economic activities on the southern Darling Downs - the establishment of vineyards and wineries.
The finely-finished house illustrates the success of the winery, and the desire of its immigrant owners to establish themselves in their adopted country.
|Despite the loss of the upper level, the sandstone winery survives as a rare and important example of its type.
|The place also has the potential to reveal, through archaeological investigation, further information about the nature of the structure, and to contribute to our understanding of wineries and wine-making in Queensland.
|It retains much early fabric [including the dressed sandstone and heavy adzed beams and posts ], and design elements [including the underground sandstone cellar, air shafts and small shuttered windows in the upper level], which contribute to our understanding of the construction and functioning of a 19th century Queensland winery. The addressing of temperature control through design and materials is particularly interesting.
Despite the loss of the kitchen and bedroom wings at the rear, the residence core remains important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a well-detailed farmhouse, in which the quality of finish is well above the usual. The house retains its early form and most of the original fabric, including particularly fine cedar joinery and fireplace surrounds, and early pressed metal cornices above the windows.
|Both the winery and the residence have considerable aesthetic appeal. The house, with its early form, wide verandahs, red roof and white chimneys, set amid a garden of mature trees and shrubs, is a local landmark. The winery has an aesthetic appeal engendered by the rusticity of the fabric, the atmospheric underground cellar, and the pleasant rural setting.
|Assmanshausen Winery has strong social significance - it was a popular tourist attraction in its time, and the names Assmanshausen and Toolburra Vineyards are well-known in Warwick history.
|The place is important for its strong association with Jacob Kircher's significant contribution to the development of the wine industry in southern Queensland, from the 1860s until his death in 1903, and illustrates the important contribution of early German immigrants to the evolution and development of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16054,"place_ref":601291,"name":"Sarina War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Broad Street","suburb":"SARINA","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-12-05","description":"The First World War Memorial is situated in a central median strip facing west.
The memorial comprises a pedestal surmounted by a digger statue and is surrounded by two fences. The first fence is located on the pad on which the memorial sits and comprises picked stone bollards, square in plan, and linked by metal rails. Another fence of short circular metal posts linked by a metal chain is located beyond this, forming a protective boundary around the memorial.
The memorial itself sits on a stepped base of five tiers which vary in size, the last two having chamfered tops Surmounting this is the pedestal itself, comprising a plinth capped with cyma recta mouldings and a dado Both the plinth and the dado have marble plaques attached with lists of the fallen on the dado, and commemorative verses on the plinth. The dado is capped by a substantial cornice of cyma recta mouldings, on top of which stands the digger statue.
The soldier statue stands with his head slightly bowed and hands crossed over a rifle which is in the reversed positioned and resting on his left boot. A tree stump is located behind the statue for support.
","history":"The Sarina War Memorial was erected for the ANZAC Day ceremonies of 1919 and was produced by monumental masons of Townsville, Melrose and Fenwick. Funds for the memorial were raised by public subscription. The memorial honours the local men of Sarina and the surrounding district who served in the First World War.
The town of Sarina is located 35 kilometres south of Mackay and was originally established as a pastoral holding. In the early 1880s, the area was thrown open for selection as sugar cane fields and flourished following the construction of the Plane Creek sugar mill in 1896. A supporting infrastructure of schools, theatres and halls was established, as well as residences for both workers and management. The town and mill serviced the southern part of the region and by the 1930s Sarina was the second largest town in the region. It continues to exist as a secondary centre to Mackay.
Up until the early twentieth century, there were few statues or monuments in Queensland. However, as a result of the First World War (1914 - 1918), memorials were erected in almost every Queensland town. Such public expression of both grief for the dead and pride in the nation has not been generated by previous or subsequent wars.
The First World War had an immense impact on the Australian population. Of those who went to war, almost one in five did not return. It was common for families to lose more than one son and for small communities to lose a whole generation of men.
In 1916 the British Government prohibited the exhumation and return of bodies. This, coupled with the impracticality of visiting distant graves ensured war memorials became an expression of public mourning, revered as cenotaphs (literally meaning 'empty tomb') by those who erected them. Placed at prominent locations, they became symbols of remembrance and were considered to be as sacred as grave sites. As such, materials, design principles and symbols suggesting permanence, reverence and commemoration were important elements.
Queenslanders were at the forefront of sustaining public expression. In 1916 they were the first state to establish ANZAC Day as a day of remembrance, encouraging other states to join them in making April 25th a day of national commemoration.
It was expected that this tradition would be continued by future generations and that the memorials themselves would be honoured and respected. However it is apparent from the evidence of vandalism and alterations to memorials throughout the state that this has not always been the case.
The memorials are important, not only in terms of what they represent, but also for what they record. In addition to listing the local men who served and fell in the First World War, many memorials also display details regarding unveiling ceremonies and fund-raising committees, making them invaluable as social and historical documents. They are even more valuable when it is considered that all other documentary records of those who served in the First World War are listed either alphabetically or by military units, making it virtually impossible to determine the original locality of a specific serviceman. The memorials are therefore the only readily accessible records of the origins of the men who served and fell.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian.....loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.
Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported They varied slightly in design, presumably to suit the needs of the communities who commissioned them.
Melrose and Fenwick, the makers of the Sarina memorial, were a monumental masonry firm established in Townsville in c1896 They were a large firm with branches throughout Northern Queensland, and provided many war memorials to that area. They enjoyed continued success into the late 20th century, with the business closing in the early 1980s.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Sarina demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the appropriate use of various symbolic elements including the digger statue, lists of the fallen and commemorative phrases. As a digger statue it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The memorial and its setting are a landmark within Sarina and contribute to the aesthetic qualities of the streetscape. The memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high degree of workmanship and design.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|It also has special association with the Townsville monumental masons, Melrose and Fenwick.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16055,"place_ref":601292,"name":"Koumala War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mumby Street","suburb":"KOUMALA","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-27","description":"The Koumala War Memorial is situated in a reserve next to the Koumala State School, facing Bull Street. The reserve is surrounded by a low chain wire fence with white painted metal frames. The setting in which the memorial is located is barren apart from new plantings of 'Ned Kelly' Grevilleas, and a flagpole which stands directly behind the memorial.
The memorial is constructed of white painted concrete and comprises a double stepped base from which rises an obelisk on a square plinth. The front face of the plinth features a plaque with a commemorative statement from the citizens of the Koumala district. The obelisk is surmounted by a small Latin cross.
","history":"The Koumala War Memorial was erected in 1959 and was designed and produced by ? Funds for the memorial were raised by public subscription, arranged by the Koumala sub-branch of the RSL. The memorial was erected in honour of those who served in all wars and particularly honours the six local men who made the supreme sacrifice in honour of their country during the Second World War.
Six small trees have recently been planted by the school children with each tree representative of one the six men. Temporary plaques displaying the names were placed beside each tree and it is intended that these will be replaced with more permanent plaques at some stage.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War.
|The monuments manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the inter-war period.
The memorial at Koumala demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the appropriate use of various elements such as the cairn and commemorative plaque.
|It has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16057,"place_ref":601294,"name":"Court House, Gayndah","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"20 Capper Street","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Situated in Capper Street, the main street of Gayndah, the Court House is a single-storeyed timber building with a hipped corrugated-iron roof and two projecting gables. A verandah runs along the front of the building between the gables. The gables have bell-cast timber-boarded sun hoods over the windows. The large central ventilator on the roof is the dominant decorative element of the building. The exterior of the court house is reasonably intact, except for metal louvres enclosing the verandahs. The Court House is set back from the footpath, and punctuates the streetscape which is composed of shops with verandahs supported on posts over the footpath
Gayndah Court House is a typical example of the work of the Public Works Department and is a continuation of the tradition of timber court houses in Queensland country towns, adapting to civic function vernacular elements and materials common to domestic buildings. The building has a T-shaped plan, with offices along the front and the court room at the rear.
The grounds of the court house contain a number of bottle-trees, Brachychiton spp.
Other important buildings in the town precinct include the two timber banks, the two hotels and the Shire Offices.
","history":"Located in the business centre of Gayndah, the Court House was erected in 1928, and replaced an earlier brick court house building located approximately half a mile from the present court house. The court house was designed in the office of the Department of Public Works; AB Leven was Government Architect at the time.
Gazetted in 1849, the town of Gayndah initially developed as the centre for a number of large sheep stations taken up in the Burnett region during the 1840s. Gayndah's early growth as a pastoral "capital" is largely attributed to the determination of the squatters, and for a short time, the town reputedly rivalled Brisbane as the capital for Queensland. Gayndah also developed as the administrative centre for the area, as a school [600516] was established in 1861, and post office and court house were erected. A branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney was opened in 1864, and a local government authority was established in 1867. By the late nineteenth century, cattle had replaced sheep as the dominant pastoral activity. Citrus orchards also flourished, and together with cattle and dairy farming, provided the basis for the development of Gayndah from the turn of the century.
The earliest official building records for the former court house refer to the addition of a verandah in 1861. The former court house, erected probably during the 1850s, and police buildings were located on a site adjoining the former hospital grounds east of the town centre.
By the mid 1910s, the court house facilities were insufficient, and inconveniently situated away from the central business area., and the erection of a new building was proposed. Although an allotment fronting Capper Street, in the centre of town, was reserved by the Government in 1922 as a suitable site for a court house, and preliminary plans were drawn the following year, it was not until 1927 that the final plans for the new building were prepared.
The new building was occupied early in 1929, and provided accommodation for Court business, the Police Magistrates, the Land Commissioner and Land Rangers, the Clerk of Petty Sessions and public offices, the Dairy Inspector, the Agricultural Bank and storeroom facilities. The plan of the building with the offices located at the front, closest to the street, and the court room at the rear, is a variation of the more usual arrangement found in timber court houses, where the court room is at the front and the offices are at the rear of the building.
A laboratory was added to the northern end of the office (front) section of the building in 1944, for the newly appointed Research Officer from the Department of Agriculture and Stock. Buildings at the rear of the court house included an Agriculture and Stock storage shed, a Citrus Budwood shed (as part of the Citrus Budwood and Seed Distribution Scheme), a Garage and Earth Closets.
Despite proposals during the mid 1960s, to remove the court house to a site in Pineapple Street adjacent to the police station (erected in 1935), in order to construct a swimming pool on the court house site, the court house remains in its central location.
","criteria":"Erected in 1928, to replace a court house dating probably from the 1850s, the Gayndah Court House survives as an important illustration of the pattern of Gayndah's development as an official and commercial centre for the Burnett district of Queensland. The prominent central location of the court house in Gayndah, also demonstrates the importance of the court house and its associated offices within the town.
|Gayndah Court House is a good example of a timber court house in a provincial centre. It reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland, designed by the Department of Public Works during the early-mid 20th century.
|Through form, scale and materials, the Gayndah Court House contributes to the Capper Street streetscape and Gayndah townscape.
|The prominent central location of the court house in Gayndah, also demonstrates the importance of the court house and its associated offices within the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16059,"place_ref":601296,"name":"Toowoomba Hospital","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Base Hospital | Toowoomba General Hospital","street_address":"Pechey Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Toowoomba Hospital is situated on an 11.3 hectare site bounded by residences and facilities to the north, Pechey Street to the east, West Street to the west and the rear of residences along Joyce Street to the south. The site is 2 kilometres from the central business district of Toowoomba and is elevated, making it visible from a distance. The site contains about 25 buildings, most of which date from the 1950s onward. Most of the early buildings are located at the south-west corner of the site and it is in this area that the heritage register boundary is located.
Freshney House (1912-13 Nurses' Quarters)\t
Freshney House is a symmetrically arranged two storeyed face brick building lined on both storeyed with wide timber framed verandahs. The building is located on the western boundary of the Toowoomba Hospital site, facing West Street, adjacent to the original entrance to the hospital. The building has a rectangular plan with central projecting bays on the northern and southern facades. Later additions have seen the floor plan further extended but these are distinct from the original building.
The steeply pitched hipped roof of Freshney House is clad with corrugated iron and is half gabled over the eastern and western ends and has projecting bays over the northern entrance wing. The entrance is emphasized on the roof with a large half timbered gablet with central ventilation panel. This gable detail is repeated at the half gabled ends of the building. Smaller ventilation gablets line the main hipped roof of the building. Two face brick chimneys project symmetrically from the roof over the entrance wing. The roof encompasses the upper storey verandah awning which is supported on timber columns with elongated art nouveau brackets. These columns are repeated on the ground level. Lining the first floor verandah is a timber balustrade of battened timber with central decorative timber panels within each verandah bay featuring an art nouveau motif. Forming the valance of the ground floor verandah and visually separating the two storeys is a wide fascia board clad with horizontal timber boarding which curves outwards, forming a skirt around the building.
Beneath the generous verandahs, Freshney House is a face brick building with stone quoining and rendered window and door surrounds. The building is lined with French doors, reflecting its original internal layout as separate bedrooms. The principal entrance to the building off West Street is expressed by a small balcony like projection in the first storey verandah supported on paired timber columns, and featuring a segmental arched opening in the fascia skirt, lined with dentils. Smaller entrances of this type are found on the other facades of the building.
The ground floor interior has been altered with the removal of original partitioning in the replanning of the floor. The first floor remains substantially intact, with original planning, and finishes including pressed metal ceilings.
There is a circa 1930s, timber framed and fibrous sheeting clad extension to the rear of Freshney House. Another, later annexe is found to the west of the building.
Cossart House (1927 Nurses' Quarters)
Cossart House is a large square planned, two storeyed, face brick building with a large central open courtyard. The building is lined on all external and courtyard facing facades with double storeyed verandahs. The hipped roof of the building is clad with corrugated iron and features eight large metal vents, one on each corner of the building and one at the mid-point of each wing. The vents are distinguished by their large size and number and have pyramidal roofs and corrugated iron clad faces. The roofs of the building encompass the verandahs which are supported on timber columns on the first floor and brick piers separated by a deep, arched timber valance on the ground floor. The upper storey verandah is lined with timber battened balustrade.
The face brick faces of the building are lined with French doors, originally giving access to the individual bedrooms. The planning of the building is typical of accommodation with central halls from which small bedroom were accessed. All of the rooms had further access to the encircling verandahs. Within the courtyard at ground floor level is a covered walkway joining the northern and southern wings.
1880 Kitchen (now specialist private clinic)
This is a two storeyed, face brick structure, with hipped corrugated iron clad roof and lined on all faces with square arched windows with rendered sills and heads. The building is sited at the rear of Freshney House and is linked via a series of covered walkways. This is the oldest building on the site and the only building remaining from the original complex. The building has been altered internally, but retains much of its external form and fabric with the exception of verandahs which have been removed.
Extending from the eastern side of the original kitchen is an early covered walkway, supported on a variety of columns, including two large masonry columns with moulded caps and bases which may have been part of the original 1880 hospital. The ceiling of the walkway is clad with fibrous cement sheeting.
1896 Morgue
A small, unusually richly decorated building on the southern end of the site, adjacent to Freshney House is an 1896 morgue designed by Henry Marks. The corrugated iron clad, truncated hipped roof of the morgue is lined with decorative barge board details. The building is situated at the western end of the site, near to a 1940 morgue. This building is now used as a store.
1916 Open Air Ward (now gardener's accommodation)
In the south west corner of the site is what was an open air ward comprising a small timber framed building on a concrete slab. The building is lined with fibrous sheeting and the hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron. The former ward is set diagonally on the most elevated corner of the site and comprises a T shaped plan. It is thought that the part of the building forming the upright of the T-shape was open to the weather and could be protected from the weather by canvas blinds lining the eaves of that section. Timber framed walls have been constructed replacing the blinds. The other part of the building was built in and provided bathroom facilities, and other ancillary facilities. The building remains substantially intact, with the erection of external walls the major alteration.
Grounds
Within the area defined by the heritage register boundary there are several features which contribute to the significance of the site. These features include the large established trees, fence along West Street and rendered masonry gates from West Street and the steam reticulation service. This, like many other hospital sites is characterised as a hospital by the extensive network of metal reticulated steam pipes, elevated from ground level on a series of metal columns.
1950s buildings
The 1950s buildings on the site are all two to four storeyed face brick modern structures, characterised by long thin plans, horizontal window bands, rendered concrete awnings, and flat concealed roofs. These buildings are not included within the heritage register boundary.
The largest 1950s building is located centrally on the site running from a medical block at the eastern end, with major extension housing surgery toward the western end. The 1955 maternity wing is a two storeyed face brick building in the south east corner of the site. The building is lined with horizontal window banks with cantilevered concrete awnings. A former thoracic block dating from 1957 sits on the north east corner of the site.
New work
The Toowoomba Hospital has recently been expanded to include a large new entrance and wards building, housing maternity and surgical services, a medical village for private practise and large administration and research buildings. Most of this development is at the eastern end of the site and is not included within the heritage register boundary.
","history":"The Toowoomba General Hospital was established on its present James Street site in 1880 as the third site of a public hospital in the city and its second permanent home. The Hospital has been altered since its establishment with major phases of development in the 1890s-1910s; 1950s-1960s and more recently in the late 1990s. Two buildings remain extant from the 19th century and several remain from the early part of this century. It is these earlier buildings that comprise the focus of this report.
Early public hospitals were established for the provision of health care services for those people who could not afford private medical attention in their homes or in private institutions. 19th century Queensland hospitals were established by local voluntary hospital committees, which usually experienced some difficulty raising funds for both the establishment and running of the hospitals. Government grants were commonly available for the construction of hospital buildings. It was not until the Hospitals Act of 1923 that hospitals and public health became basic responsibilities of the government, resulting in the creation of hospital boards throughout the state who assumed control of local hospitals. Toowoomba Hospital was established during the voluntary committee period and was taken over by the Hospital Board following the introduction of the 1923 Act. From that time, development of the site was largely controlled by the Board.
The idea of erecting a hospital in Toowoomba was discussed with the very early services to be provided in the town - reflecting the importance of a local health service for the early town. Discussions began in 1856 in the nearby town of Drayton which was soon overshadowed in development by the more dramatic growth of Toowoomba and therefore, by June 1859 a small house was rented in Russell Street for the purpose of providing hospital services. By 1864 a timber hospital was constructed at the corner of James and Ruthven Street on land granted by the Colonial Government. This building was destroyed by fire on 25 December 1867 and plans for a brick building on the same site were drawn up by Richard George Suter, a Brisbane architect influential in hospital design in the late 1860s. Suter was an advocate for hospitals based on the pavilion plan principle which maximized light and ventilation to all patients and this early Toowoomba hospital was one of the first examples of this principle which was to remain current for the design of hospital buildings through to the 1930s.
For many years discussions were held about the inappropriateness of the hospital site, thought to be too close to the centre of the growing city. Ideally, 19th century hospitals were sited away from the town or city centre on an elevated site which allowed enhanced ventilation of all buildings. The present James Street site was acquired in 1878, by which time Toowoomba was a large regional centre, servicing the requirements of a rich and fertile farming hinterland. The local Hospital Committee paid £870 for 29 acres of land on the present hospital site at the corner of James and Pechey Streets. £10 000 was provided by the Colonial Government for the erection of buildings at this time.
The early buildings on the site were designed by colonial architect, FDG Stanley and included a large two storeyed complex with four wards each containing 16 beds. Attached to this main block by covered ways was a two storeyed kitchen and laundry wing. The buildings constructed at this time were face brick with pointed arched sandstone detailing, in the manner of many of Stanley's other large public buildings including the Roma Street Railway Station and the Government Printing Office in William Street. Of the buildings designed by Stanley at the Toowoomba Hospital only the kitchen wing remains. The hospital was ready for opening in 1880.
Staff accommodation and a medical superintendent's residence was erected in 1889 and a Victoria Wing was added to the principal ward building in 1899 for a cost of £2250, designed by local architect, William Hodgen. An operating theatre designed by James Marks and Son was added in 1907. These buildings are not extant.
Henry Marks, from James Marks and Son also designed a small decorative morgue at the western end of the hospital in 1896. it was not until the construction of this building that the morgue services were removed from the original hospital site in Ruthven Street. The morgue is a one roomed building which was built for £158. Unlike the functional design of most morgues, the Marks designed morgue was richly decorated with timber fretwork on bargeboards, timber eaves brackets and roof detailing. This building remained in use until a new adjacent morgue was constructed in 1940. The 1896 morgue is now used as a store.
On 24 April 1912, Lady William MacGregor laid the foundation stone for a new nurses' quarters facing West Street, at what was originally adjacent to the entrance of the hospital. Now known as Freshney House and used as education and administration facility, this building was constructed for £5180 and designed by William Hodgen. Hodgen was born in Toowoomba and went to London to study architecture, returning in 1897 when he established private practice. He designed many fine Toowoomba buildings, mostly residences - integrating English derived Arts and Crafts motif with Queensland building traditions. The design of Freshney House follows this trend, integrating a traditional Queensland two storeyed building lined with deep double storeyed verandahs, with Arts and Crafts motifs including art nouveau column and balustrade details, half timbered gablets on the steeply pitched roof, and a pronounced entrance projection with over scaled classical detailing. Freshney House was constructed as a nurses' quarters and provided not only cellular accommodation, bathrooms and a dining room for nurses but also training facilities.
The open air, isolation ward was constructed in 1916. This building was constructed for the care of those with infectious diseases, on the principles of the miasma theory which suggested that because the germs were thought to be circulating in the air, health service accommodation should be isolated and maintained to allow the maximum flow of the air through the building dispersing germs. A report in the Darling Downs Gazette, of 1921 describes the isolation ward as being in a distant corner and under the shade of several large trees. Several similar wards were constructed at hospitals throughout Queensland, but very few survive. The buildings were a Queensland innovation. The building was designed to have a ward which be open to the weather and was protected by canvas blinds rolled down from the eaves. The blinds were replaced by timber framed walls due to the cold weather. A new open air ward, closer to the main building was constructed by the Commonwealth Government in 1921. This building does not survive.
By the 1920s the Toowoomba Hospital was one of the biggest and best equipped in the state Reflecting government reform and spending in the area of maternity and child welfare, a maternity wing was constructed in 1926. This building does not remain on the site and was replaced by a new maternity wing in the 1950s which is now used for the care of acute psychiatric patients.
In 1927 another nurses' quarters was constructed. This large brick building now known as Cossart House, was designed to supplement the nurses' accommodation at Freshney House. The building was constructed like many hospital buildings during this time which, following the introduction of the Hospitals Act of 1923 which caused the establishment of many new hospitals and the augmentation of many existing hospitals. In addition the introduction of the Hospital Nurses Award of 1921 initiated a statewide project upgrading nurses' quarters, regulating standards of accommodation and working hours. Nurses' quarters were constructed all over the state in response to this Award. The building was renamed Cossart House, in commemoration of a matron, Ethel Beatrice Cossart in the 1940s. With the construction of a new nurses' quarters in the 1960s, Cossart House was used for other purposes and now houses educational and administrative facilities. Alterations have been made to the ground floor to accommodate new services.
By the 1950s advances in medical technology and an increasing Toowoomba population saw additional demand for hospital services and the Toowoomba Hospital underwent major alterations with the removal of early buildings and the construction of a number of substantial brick buildings. The buildings removed included the original 1880 hospital building and the 1926 maternity ward. The buildings were based on the multi-storeyed hospital building principle and included a maternity hospital in 1955 (now the acute psychiatric ward); a thoracic wing in 1956; nurses' quarters in 1960; new boiler house; steam laundry; kitchen and a surgical wing in 1960. Much of this phase of the building work was designed by Brisbane architects, Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards.
During the late1990s another major building and development phase saw the construction of a breast screening clinic, a major new entrance wing to the medical block, multi-storeyed carpark and medical village to the east of the site. The medical village provides private consulting rooms for medical and associated para-medical practitioners. This new construction concentrates services and facilities on the eastern end of the site, in contrast to the early hospital which was mostly at the western end.
","criteria":"Toowoomba Hospital has historical significance as a good example of an operating public hospital dating from the 1880s, demonstrating phases of development reflecting changes in health care technology and public health conceptions. Freshney House and Cossart House, both former nurses' quarters are of particular historical interest in demonstrating the development of nursing education and the nursing profession in the state.
|The Hospital has two 19th century buildings, one from the original complex which are rare in Queensland. The former open air ward in the north-west corner of the site is a rare surviving example of this type of building demonstrating the early treatment of contagious diseases. The former 1896 morgue is a rare surviving 19th century morgue and an unusually decorative example of this building type.
|Individual buildings on the hospital site have architectural significance, in particular the 1912 Freshney House integrating Arts and Crafts detailing with traditional Queensland building characteristics; the circa 1927 Cossart House, a classically inspired residential building with large central courtyard and a hipped roof capped at regular intervals with unusual ventilation towers and the 1896 morgue, a small unusually decorative structure.
|Individual buildings on the hospital site have architectural significance, in particular the 1912 Freshney House integrating Arts and Crafts detailing with traditional Queensland building characteristics; the circa 1927 Cossart House, a classically inspired residential building with large central courtyard and a hipped roof capped at regular intervals with unusual ventilation towers and the 1896 morgue, a small unusually decorative structure.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16060,"place_ref":601297,"name":"Soldiers Memorial Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"149 Herries Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-12-17","description":"The Soldiers' Memorial Hall is prominently located in Toowoomba's central business district, on the corner of Ruthven and Herries streets and adjacent to the Toowoomba City Council Chambers.
The Soldiers' Memorial Hall comprises two sections: a substantial, two-storeyed, face and rendered brick building whose principal façade addresses Ruthven Street [1923-24 building with 1930-31 extensions]; and a large, single-storeyed brick section with partial basement, addressing Herries Street [1957-59 extension]. The commemorative and formal functions of the RSL are housed in the front section; a dance hall, function and club facilities are housed in the rear.
The design of the front section of the Soldiers' Memorial Hall employs classical elements to reinforce its commemorative and traditional function. The symmetrically composed principal façade is dominated by a large central projecting gabled bay which is arcaded on street level and forms the principal entrance to the building. The ground floor arcade comprises three segmented archways to Ruthven Street and an archway on the returns. The archways, which are moulded with traditional keystone and corbel detail, are separated by square planned, partially reeded, columns which extend to the second floor of the building supporting an entablature beneath the pediment of the triangular gabled end section. The gable end is facebrick and decorated with rendered banding and a central ovolo opening with rendered surround from which four evenly spaced corbels emanate. Above the spandrel of the ground floor arches are face brick panels fitted between the columns. Above the face brick panels early openings have been enclosed with arctic glass window panels in timber frames. The entablature features lettering "SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL HALL" in relief and painted. The gable end projects from the face of this section and regularly spaced dentils line the eaves, this detail continues throughout the earliest part of the Soldiers' Hall. Flanking the projecting bay, on the facebrick face of the Hall is rendered banding at first floor and cornice level and sash windows on both the ground and first floor. The banding and window openings continue around the Herries Street façade of the building and define the earliest part of the Hall. The window openings are surrounded with rendered surrounds, with moulded sills and heads.
The building is of loadbearing construction. The hipped and gabled roof of the Memorial Hall is clad with corrugated iron and is penetrated by several slender face brick chimneys with rendered caps and decorative banding.
The Herries Street façade of the first section continues the detailing of the Ruthven Street façade, with two gables, a repeat of the Ruthven Street gable toward the corner of the building, and a smaller version over a doorway at the Herries Street end of the front section. To the west of this is a face brick extension with parapet walls concealing a hipped roof and dominated by large steel-framed 4x4 window panels providing natural lighting to the dance floor and the club beyond.
The principal entrance to the Soldiers' Memorial Hall is through the arcade of the projecting bay on Ruthven Street which aligns with the projecting entrance bay of the City Hall. On the face of the Soldiers' Memorial Hall, under the arched entrance are three openings, a double half glazed door at the southern end and two window openings. On the wall to the right of the entrance door is a plaque with the inscription: This stone was laid by MAJOR-GENERAL SIR T.W. GLASGOW, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., V.D., K.C.B., Anzac Day, April 25, 1923. In Memory of the Fallen, And in appreciation of the living who took part in the great War, 1914-1918.
The entrance door provides access to a Memorial vestibule which is lined on the northern and southern walls with large timber Honour Rolls; that on the southern wall lists participation in the Second World War and that on the northern wall lists participation in the First World War. The Honour Rolls comprise a number of timber panels within frames on which is written in gold lettering the name of each soldier. The panels are framed with a moulded timber surround and surmounted by a broken pediment detail. The floor of the Memorial room is covered with fine grey terrazzo divided into panels with brass strips and featuring centrally located brass lettering 'RSL'. A large four panelled doorway provides access into the foyer beyond this room. The doors have high mid rails and are glazed above with a combination of arctic and clear glass. Surmounting the doors are transom lights, again with a combination of arctic and clear glass arranged in square and rectangular panels and with a central circular motif, recalling the circular motif of the Ruthven Street gable end. This timber glazed detail is repeated throughout the early part of the building. The walls of the Memorial room are lined with a flocked wallpaper with a design of Gothic inspiration.
The foyer and offices accessed from the foyer, beyond the Memorial room, have more simple detailing with timber skirting and picture rail. The ceilings throughout the ground floor have been covered with suspended ceiling systems.
The stair to the upper level is at the south end of the first section of the building, and comprises a large hall and a substantial timber staircase. The staircase has a heavy unpainted timber battened balustrade with simple art deco inspired newel posts. The underside of the stair is enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting.
The stair arrives at the first floor in a foyer which provides access to the major rooms of the upper floor. Along the Ruthven Street side of this floor is a large meeting room at the southern end and a former billiards room [now another large meeting room] at the northern end. Both rooms have French doors opening onto an enclosed verandah space, and each contains a fireplace. Generally the first floor rooms have plastered rendered walls, simple skirting boards and picture rails and ceilings sheeted with fibrous cement sheeting arranged into rectilinear patterns with simple timber moulded strips.
A change in level at the rear of the front section of the building marks the 1957-59 extension, which comprises a large timber boarded dance floor and club facilities on this level, and below this a partial basement with kitchen and supper/function rooms, accessed from Herries Street at the western end of the building. A feature of the bar area along the north wall of the upper floor of the extension is the use of several small leadlight windows depicting images or sentiments associated with returned soldiers and the war.
","history":"The Soldiers' Memorial Hall, Toowoomba was erected in three stages: 1923-24, 1930-31, and 1957-59, as a tribute to all those from Toowoomba and district who had served in the First World War, many of whom did not return, and for the use of returned servicemen and the citizens of Toowoomba. Local architect and Alderman William Hodgen junior and his firm designed all three stages of the hall.
The First World War [1914-1918], although fought in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, had a profound impact on Australia. At the outbreak of war Australia, as a former [and recent] British colony with strong ties still to the 'motherland', immediately entered the war in support of Britain and her allies. Over 300,000 Australians out of a population of 4 million volunteered for service overseas, with approximately 60,000 of these making the supreme sacrifice. Virtually every community in every Australian state lost young men in this war.
The idea of erecting a memorial hall in Toowoomba was first mooted at a meeting of citizens and returned soldiers held at the Toowoomba Town Hall in 1918. A committee to coordinate fund raising and the construction of the hall was appointed in 1919. The Citizens' Memorial Hall Committee purchased land for the hall in 1919 in Ruthven Street for £500, on the understanding that the Town Council acquired adjoining land at the corner of Herries Street. It was anticipated that the committee would facilitate construction and furnishing of the hall, which would then be handed to the Town Council, for lease to the Toowoomba Branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (R.S.S.I.L.A.) - more commonly known as the RSL.
By November 1921 the Citizen's Committee was planning to invite competitive designs for club rooms and assembly hall, the price not to exceed £5000. Highly respected Sydney architect John Sulman was appointed as sole adjudicator of the competition in February 1922, but it is unclear whether the competition eventuated. By mid-1922, plans for a two-storeyed brick clubrooms with large assembly hall at the rear had been prepared by Toowoomba architect and Alderman William Hodgen junior. Tenders were called and in January 1923 a contract was let to Smith Brothers of Toowoomba for the front section only, the clubrooms fronting Ruthven Street. The Citizen's Committee planned to erect the second section of Hodgen's design, the assembly hall at the rear, as soon as sufficient funds had been raised. The assembly hall was to be used for large social functions, lectures, and public meetings, and was intended as much for the citizens of Toowoomba and district as for returned servicemen.
The foundation stone was laid on Anzac Day, 25 April 1923, by Major-General Sir William Glasgow, who reflected the patriotic fervour that still gripped Australia when he said of the intended memorial hall: May it forever remind us of the duty we all owe to our country and to the Empire to which we are all proud to belong. By this date the Citizens' Committee had raised in cash and promises, between £5000 and £6000, and another £1500 was required to finish and furnish the first section of the building.
The Soldiers' Memorial Hall was officially opened by the Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan, on 5 September 1924 in the presence of a large gathering. Earlier on the same day, the Citizen's Committee had vested the property in the Town Council, and the RSL was granted a 99 year lease at a 'peppercorn' rent of a shilling a year, if demanded. A provision in the lease allowed that should the hall not be required by the soldiers in the future, the use and control of the hall was to revert to the Council for the general use of all the citizens.
At the time of the opening, the building comprised two storeys, with a single gable to each side of the roof and an open, gabled colonnade across the Ruthven Street elevation. A narrow, single-storeyed brick section at the rear appears to have been erected at this time also, [possibly containing additional storerooms and public lavatories]; as was a pair of brick pillars, wrought-iron gate and small brick fence along Ruthven Street, between the club building and the adjacent Commonwealth Research Laboratory, also erected in 1923.
The top floor of the Soldiers' Memorial Hall, used exclusively by returned soldiers as a club, contained a club room, billiards room, card room and lavatories. The ground floor comprised an entrance vestibule, office, restaurant, kitchen and cloakrooms. The RSL utilised the downstairs office, but also let parts of the ground floor to the Country Women's Association and the Theosophical Society for their meetings. The hall was fitted with all modern conveniences, including a septic tank system, electric light, and telephone. Furniture was of maple, and situated in a prominent position in the club room was a writing desk presented to the club by the Mothers' Memorial Committee.
Use of the club rooms was open to all returned soldiers, with membership fees set at 5/- for League members and 7/6 for non-members. Visiting ex-soldiers were admitted as honorary members.
The Soldiers' Memorial Hall was built to serve a number of purposes: as a war memorial; to provide administrative facilities to assist returned soldiers with employment and welfare services; to provide an institute with library, reading room and recreation facilities for returned servicemen; and as a locale where the comradeship of the returned servicemen could find expression, and where all who were suffering from the war could find relief. The building was considered a handsome attraction to the Toowoomba townscape, and the planned hall was seen as being of benefit to the whole of the community.
In 1927-28 the Toowoomba Town Council acquired a fourth parcel of land at the rear of the site, with a 54ft frontage to Herries Street, which was leased to the RSL for memorial hall purposes, enabling them to proceed with construction of the assembly hall. Hodgen's initial design, which was for an enormous hall of two storeys in height with a verandah on the north side and a gallery at the eastern end, proved too expensive an undertaking. Plans were prepared [apparently by Hodgen] for a smaller, single-storeyed, pavilion-style hall, which was erected in 1930-31. It was built to the same width as the front section of the building, and internally contained a dais along the western end and another along the northern side of the dance floor. On the northern side of the dance hall was an external entrance, accessed from Ruthven Street via the side gate erected in 1923. A brick portico was added above this entrance gate, and the c1923 single-storeyed section of the building was remodelled to provide internal access from the front section of the building through to the dance floor behind. At this period also the single-storeyed rear section was raised to two storeys, with a separate gabled roof. The new upper storey of this section contained a lounge, bar and card room.
In the early 1950s, renewed interest in the RSL as an institution - following Australian involvement in the Second World War [1939-45], Korean War [1950-53] and Malayan communist insurgency of 1954 - encouraged the idea of extending Toowoomba's Soldiers' Memorial Hall to provide improved club facilities for members, and a larger dance hall for the citizens of Toowoomba and district. The firm of Hodgen & Hodgen was once again asked to prepare plans, c1954. The proposed scheme was for the 1930-31 hall to be replaced with a larger, two-storeyed building with partial basement and roof garden - the basement to contain kitchen and supper room; the ground floor to contain the dance floor; and the upper floor to contain a cafeteria and bar. Tender prices proved prohibitive, so the extensions were modified to contain only a single-storeyed dance hall with basement kitchen and supper room, omitting any new facilities for RSL members. In negotiations with the Toowoomba City Council on this matter in March 1956, Dr Furness, President of the Toowoomba Sub-branch of the RSL, explained that the modified plan was intended for the citizens of Toowoomba, to provide a centrally located dance floor which could be used for a variety of public functions. The RSL believed that they should build for the whole community, not just for returned servicemen.
After some difficulties experienced in the raising of a loan and the letting of the contract, Toowoomba architect Malcolm Just was appointed supervising architect of the revised extension, based on the Hodgen and Hodgen scheme, in April 1957. The new dance hall and basement supper room was opened in the second half of 1959. At the time it was the largest dance hall in Toowoomba, with an excellent suspended timber floor, attracting most of the principal dance events in Toowoomba, including the annual Piggots, Toowoomba Foundry, Defiance Flour Mill, Masonic, Post Office and RSL balls.
Unfortunately for the aspirations of the RSL, the advent of television in the late 1950s changed social habits significantly, and from the early 1960s public dances and balls declined. In 1964, the RSL applied to the Toowoomba City Council to convert the dance hall into club rooms, and to raise revenue by sub-leasing the existing clubrooms in the 1923-24 building to other community groups. Despite community disappointment, conversion was proceeded with in the mid-1960s. The dance floor was converted into three principal areas: a bar and dining room along the northern wall, a games room at the western end, and a billiards room and library at the eastern end. An additional office appears also to have been created at this time, and it is understood that the false ceilings were installed at this time.
At present the dance hall remains partitioned, but the billiard room and library are now one large space, still utilised for dances, dancing classes, and weekly Bingo, and the small dining area on the north side of the building now houses gaming machines. In 1993 the band shell at the western end of the dance floor was converted into a kitchen, and the games room into a dining room.
The building is still utilised by a large number of community organisations: besides several branches of the RSL, the local Veteran's Advisory Service, the Light Horse Association, the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces, and the War Widows utilising the main sections of the building, five Rotary clubs and Toowoomba Lions Club occupy the basement.
","criteria":"The Soldiers' Memorial Hall, Toowoomba, erected in several stages between 1923 and 1959, is important is demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, as a memorial to the participation, and loss of, members of the Toowoomba community in the First World War and later wars.
|The Soldiers' Memorial Hall is a rare example of an elaborate soldiers' hall in Queensland. While a number of halls were built for this purpose in the period after the First World War, very few were as substantial as this.
|The Soldiers' Memorial Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building designed for the use, both recreational and administrative, of returned soldiers and their families, with its memorial vestibule, honour rolls, offices, meeting rooms, recreation rooms, dining rooms, and dance hall. The former large dance hall, although now partitioned into several public spaces, remains important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with original timber flooring, original ceiling, and large banks of hopper windows to the street elevation.
|The Soldiers' Memorial Hall has aesthetic value and makes a strong contribution to the civic streetscape of this part of Ruthven Street. The form and massing of the front section of the building reflect the adjacent 1900 Toowoomba City Council Chambers.
|Construction of the hall is also illustrative of the patriotic fervour associated with the First World War, and the community's identification with the British Empire at this period in Queensland's history.
The Soldiers' Memorial Hall has a special association with the Returned Services League and with other allied groups. It has a strong spiritual and social association with returned service personnel, and the general community, as a focal point for Anzac and Remembrance Day commemorations. It also has a special association with the Toowoomba community because of its use by a variety of community organisations, most noticeably Rotary, and for many social functions, including many of Toowoomba's principal balls and dances until at least the mid-1960s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16061,"place_ref":601298,"name":"St James Church","alternate_name":"St James Church of England | St James Anglican Church","street_address":"145 Mort Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"St James Church is located on the corner of Russell and Mort Streets, Toowoomba and is adjacent to a recently constructed rectory. A timber framed bell tower sits to the rear of the church. Gardens, including mature trees surround the church.
St James is a modestly scaled building, reflecting the importance of early English gothic revival architecture in parish churches during the second half of the 19th century. The characteristic elements of that style are seen in the steeply pitched roof with timber framed steeple, polychrome brickwork, stained glass windows in pointed arched openings and, internally, use of hammer beam roof trusses and dark stained timber furniture including pews, reredos and other altar furniture.
Because the church has been altered a number of times with extensions and replacement, the brickwork and detail is not consistent externally. The earliest part of the building is distinguished by the polychrome brickwork and sandstone detailing. Subsequent extensions have been constructed in monochrome brick.
The church has a cruciform plan, the nave running east-west, with the eastern, altar end facing Mort Street. The nave has a gabled roof clad with zincalume (or equivalent). The transepts from the northern and southern faces of the church also have gabled roofs, slightly lower in height than the principal nave roof. The point at which the roofs of the nave and transepts cross is punctuated with a small timber framed steeple. The steeple has an open decorative timber body supported on a timber base structure and capped with an elongated pyramidal metal roof with small openings.
The eastern end of the building, facing Mort Street, is one of the areas which has been largely rebuilt. The chancel is a square planned and with centrally located tripartite window openings. The external face of this façade has brick buttresses flanking the window opening and another pair of buttresses supporting the corners. Flanking the eastern end of the building are smaller gabled roof extensions housing vestries.
The northern and southern transepts of the building form the principal entrances to the church, through centrally located porches. The northern porch is open, with a brick base and timber battened balustrade and arched opening around the entrance. Above the porch is a tripartite window opening with brick surrounds. The porch on the southern transept has been replaced with a closed vestibule from the c1970s. This differs from the original porch in size and roof pitch. Lining the nave of the building are small lancet window openings, separated by brick buttressing.
The western face of the building features a small gabled roof projection which is later than the actual face of this façade. Above the projection is a tripartite window opening.
The interior of the church is a single volume with white painted rendered walls. The ceiling space is divided into the bays of the nave with stained timber hammer beam roof trusses. The ceiling is lined with diagonally timber boarding.
A feature of the interior is fine timber screens and rails associated with the altar. Stained glass windows line the nave and western end of the building. Early timber pews lined are organised into two sections with central aisle.
","history":"St James Church of England was constructed in 1869 to the design of prominent Brisbane architect, Richard George Suter. The building which has a number of additions, was constructed as the second Church of England in Toowoomba.
The first Church of England was established on the site of the present St Luke's Anglican Church, at the corner of Herries and Ruthven Streets. St Luke's Church was established on this site in a small timber building in 1857, but it was not long with Toowoomba rapid growth that this small rudimentary structure was considered too small for the growing community. There was much debate about the location of a more permanent structure, some of the townsfolk and the Bishop felt that a brick building should replace the existing timber building on the same site, whereas other influential members of the community preferred to see the church re-located to a site near the Mort Estate where land was offered to the church by James Taylor MLA.
Designs for the new building were acquired, firstly from local architect Arthur Hartley in 1866 and then from Brisbane architect Richard George Suter in 1868. At a meeting of the Church Parish in September of 1868 the Suter plans and specifications of the new church were approved and yet there was still no agreement on the site of the new building. It was only after the Bishop in February 1869 changed his mind on the matter that the site near the Mort Estate was finally chosen. The bishop felt that there was larger population here, although he acknowledged that the site would be less convenient for some of the parish.
At a meeting of April 1869 the tender of local contractor, Richard Godsall for the construction of the building for £1400 was accepted and construction began. Suter's design of the church was in keeping with the design of small parish churches in England of the time - modestly sized Gothic Revival buildings with steeply pitched roofs, small ornate roof towers, well executed brickwork and pointed arched openings throughout. The polychrome striped brickwork of the original St James Church is particularly interesting and unusual in the Queensland context. The church is similar in proportion and massing to other Church of England buildings designed by Suter including St Mark's in Warwick (1867-1870). Suter was a strong supporter and warden in the Church of England and was a popular choice of architect for many of the Church's buildings from the mid 1860s until the mid 1870s.
The land on which St James Church was built at the corner of Mort and Russell Streets, was acquired by Mr James Taylor, a prominent churchman, on 19 January 1865 from a Mr William Horton. The land was formally acquired by the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane on 8 February 1884 and trustees were later appointed. The Foundation Stone of the church was laid by the Governor of Queensland, Samuel Wensley Blackall in May 1869 and the church was completed before Christmas of that year. The opening of the church was reported in the Toowoomba Chronicle where the building was described as comprising a apsidal chancel, nave and transepts to the north and south, with bluestone foundation and freestone dressings. The transept and chancel roofs were set at a lower height than the nave roof with a spire at the crossing. The north and south transepts had small open timber porches.
The construction of this new building was thought by many, including the Bishop to have replaced the earlier St Lukes. However the building was named St James, after St James the Less, not St Lukes indicating a separate entity rather than a continuing tradition. In fact, those parishioners unhappy about the relocation of the site argued strongly for the retention of the early St Luke's site where services continued to be held in what was now regarded as a school room. Suffice to say, this debate raged for about 30 years and in the early 20th century, St Lukes and St James became separate parishes north and south of the Margaret Street dividing line.
By 1876, St James was considered inadequate and cracks appeared in the apsidal chancel at the eastern end of the building facing Mort Street. However money was restricted by the effective funding of two separate churches and it was not until 1882 that work was commenced on major additions to the church designed by local architect James Marks. The original apsidal chancel was replaced by a larger face brick extension which presented a new gabled end to Mort Street with a tripartite lancet window on the face of the wall known as the Davenport window. As well the nave was extended by two bays. During the 1880s an oak reredos (carved screen behind alter), altar rails and choir stalls were installed. Another major addition to the church was the installation in the northern nave windows of stained glass windows commissioned from English firm, Clayton and Bell and depicting the Nativity and the Agony in the Garden. The slate roof of the building was replaced in the 1890s with rib and pan iron sheeting.
As well as size restrictions, St James was faced with major structural problems and in 1904, the eastern wing of the building, facing Mort Street, was demolished. The chancel was rebuilt along with the northern transept and adjoining vestry. This work was supervised by Brisbane architect John Smith Murdoch and finished at a cost of £1000.
In 1953 the apsidal baptistery was demolished and rebuilt to the design of Toowoomba architect Charles B Marks.
More recent alterations have included the replacement of the southern porch with a brick gable roofed projection.
","criteria":"St James Anglican Church, an early surviving 1860s church, demonstrates the growth of the Church of England in south east Queensland.
|The original part of the Church is a uncommon example of a Gothic Revival building using polychrome brickwork, a common feature of equivalent English and churches of the southern states but rarely used in Queensland.
|It is a fine example of early English gothic revival architecture at the scale of a small parish church.
|St James is a good example of the work of prominent early architect, Richard Suter and is a fine example of early English gothic revival architecture at the scale of a small parish church. The original part of the Church is a uncommon example of a Gothic Revival building using polychrome brickwork, a common feature of equivalent English and churches of the southern states but rarely used in Queensland.
|The place has social and spiritual significance as a place of worship for 130 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16063,"place_ref":601300,"name":"Toowoomba Foundry Pty Ltd","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Foundry and Railway Rolling Stock Manufacturing Company | Southern Cross Works | Griffiths Brothers and Company","street_address":"251-267 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-07-07","description":"The Toowoomba Foundry site is bounded by Ruthven Street on the eastern side, the Defiance Flour Mill on the southern side, the Toowoomba Railway Station on the western side and the Southern Cross site on the northern side. The site forms an integral part of the industrial streetscape of the northern end of Ruthven Street and has landmark qualities from both the western and eastern sides. A combination of mature trees and recent landscaping is planted in front of the Ruthven Street elevation.
The main entrance is from Ruthven Street, along which runs a face brick single storey building. The main section of this building is divided by engaged pilasters into twenty two bays. Each bay contains a fifteen paned window with painted concrete sills and lintels, apart from the seventh bay from the southern end, in which a door is located. This section is surmounted by a concrete rendered parapet which is painted with the Toowoomba Foundry logo and colours.
An additional section at the southern end of the building is constructed of similar face bricks and also divided by engaged pilasters into bays containing windows with painted concrete sills and lintels, although the bays and windows are wider than in the original section.
At the northern end of the site, the building steps back to form a 'U' shape surrounding a carpark, continuing the pattern of bays divided by engaged pilasters.
Internally, these buildings comprise a reception area, office and canteen space on split levels. Most areas have undergone major alterations, with little evidence of original fabric surviving.
The remainder of the site comprises machine, moulding and core workshops, which are steel framed and clad in corrugated iron, apart from the southern end of the machine shop, which is clad in corrugated iron, but has a timber frame. Other buildings on the site are of a smaller scale, and are a combination of timber and steel framed buildings clad with corrugated iron. Some contain remnants of now obsolete industrial equipment, such as cranes.
The areas between the buildings are recently sealed, with remnants of railways tracks in the south-western corner of the site.
","history":"The Toowoomba Foundry is located in Ruthven Street on a prominent site adjacent to the Defiance Flour Mill and the Toowoomba Railway Station. It was established in 1871 by George Washington Griffiths and has continually operated as a foundry since that time.
Owned by Griffiths family descendants until 1987 when it was purchased by National Consolidated, the Foundry is one of the last surviving 19th century industries on the Darling Downs. Among other products, it produced rolling stock for Queensland Railways, and the Southern Cross windmill, one of the most enduring icons on the Downs.
The present site of Toowoomba was initially known as the Swamp and during the 1840s was secondary to the principal Darling Downs township of Drayton.
European discovery of the Darling Downs occurred in 1828 when Alan Cunningham provided a route through the Great Dividing Range which separated the Downs from the Moreton Bay region. In 1840, Patrick Leslie became the first settler on the Downs, quickly followed by others and in 1842, a more accessible route through the Range was opened. Drayton evolved from a stopping place for those reaching the top of the Range, although by 1848 water shortages prompted moves to The Swamp, which was renamed Toowoomba in 1858.
George Washington Griffiths of Bristol, England arrived in Australia in 1870 with his wife, daughter and two sons. After attending a lecture given by J C White of Jondaryan, Griffiths decided to settle in Toowoomba where he gained work as a builder.
The following year, Griffith's father sent out a consignment of ironmongery, enabling him to establish a shop and repair foundry in Ruthven Street, with his brother-in-law William Atherton. In 1873, Atherton left the partnership and Griffiths was joined by his brother John who was 'an engineer with several scholarships and degrees.' By November of the same year, the Toowoomba Chronicle reported that the 'little machine shop of Griffiths Bros. & Co' was being enlarged. (November 1873)
In September 1874, Griffiths sold the ironmongery business to Holberton and Company and purchased 2 acres of land on the corner of Campbell and Ruthven Streets with the intention of concentrating solely on the engineering aspects of the business. The new foundry, named Griffiths Brothers and Company, opened in February 1876 and was described in the Toowoomba Chronicle as comprising an office, storeroom and four workshops containing the sawing department, the fitting and machine shop, the casting workshop, (where the first casting in iron on the Downs was recorded) and the blacksmiths and boilermakers section. (15.2.1876)
In the same year, John Griffiths left the business to become Assistant Engineer in the Construction Branch of the Queensland Railway Department, although he maintained a financial interest in the Foundry.
The Foundry struggled during its early years, with Griffiths receiving funding from his father to cover debts. However, by 1881 the business had improved and the foundry was 'making steam engines and boilers, wool and other presses, washpool requirements, spouting and soap tanks, pumps, windmills, troughing, castings - iron or brass, ironwork for verandahs, and also contracting to provide railway stock for the Queensland Government Railways.' The construction of windmills, which were later to keep the company afloat during difficult times also commenced.
In 1883, Griffiths bought out his partners (sisters, Harriott and Lilly, brother John and brother-in-law K L Marshland) to form a public company which was floated on July 4 1884. The new company was known as the Toowoomba Foundry and Railway Rolling Stock Manufacturing Company Ltd, with Griffiths as managing director, and many notable citizens as provisional directors, including A C Gregory, W H Groom and James Campbell. Despite the formation of a public company, the Griffiths family purchased sufficient shares to ensure the foundry remained under their control.
By 1886, the Foundry employed 72 men and comprised a showroom (60ft by 33ft) for imported goods; a foundry shop containing a central furnace, a dozen forges, steam hammers, a rolling machine and an iron cutting machine; a moulding shop; and a brass foundry. The production of windmills, which were described as 'the pride and glory of the place,' also continued.
The Foundry continued to prosper until the early 1890s, when business began to decline due to the economic depression of the period. Despite this, the Toowoomba Foundry was able to purchase the trade, plant and goodwill of its rival, the Reliance Foundry, which had been established in 1882 by Mr Porritt, former employee of Griffiths Brothers and Company. The survival of the foundry during this period is attributed to 'the manufacture of cheap wood and steel Simplex windmills which were necessary on the Downs to raise water from the sub-artesian reservoirs' and were 'sold in their hundreds to farmers all over the Downs.
Trade increased in the late 1890s due to new rolling stock contracts. Due to the construction of new lines between 1906 and 1908, Queensland Railways found it necessary to let external contracts to private firms to build the required additional engines. Between 1909 and 1910, ninety engines were ordered from private firms including the Toowoomba Foundry, and between 1912 and 1913, the Foundry constructed an additional twenty locomotives of the light PB15 class for Queensland Railways. A further fifteen C16 class locomotives were ordered from the Foundry during 1914 -15, one of which survives as part of the Queensland Rail Museum collection at Redbank.
In 1903, the Southern Cross windmill was designed by Griffiths's son, George. This saw the beginning of a prosperous period due to specialisation in the windmill and water supply business, and the subsequent use of the name Southern Cross as the Foundry's trade name.
In August 1924, G W Griffiths died. His sons, Alfred and George continued the management of the business, which expanded to encompass sales divisions in the Middle East and South Africa. The onset of the Second World War saw further expansion of the Foundry, with over 1000 people employed and the production of engines, generating sets and pumping units under contract to the Australian Government and the Armed Services of Britain and the United States.
Despite a shortage of supplies following the War, the company continued to grow, ensuring viable batch quantities were maintained by establishing the trade name through its many overseas outlets. This proved so successful that an export division was established in 1945, and additional sales offices were established in Charleville, Townsville, Rockhampton, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Tamworth, Moree, Lismore and South Africa.
The Griffiths family maintained ownership of the company until 1987 when it was purchased by National Consolidated. Due to operational changes, the Foundry site has decreased in size in recent years. The buildings at the southern end of the site, which were formerly used to assemble and package windmills, were sold to Defiance Flour Mills (who operate from the adjacent site) in 1993. The buildings at the northern end of the site are owned by Southern Cross, who now operate as a separate entity.
Most of the buildings on the site appear to date from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and have been altered and extended during the two major periods of expansion in 1923 and the 1940s. More recent additions and alterations are also evident.
The site continues to operate as a foundry and machine shop and is currently owned by Austrim, who purchased it in 1998.
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Foundry was established in 1871 and commenced operations at its present site in 1876, and has remained in operation since that time. It is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history in particular:
- it is important in demonstrating the role of secondary industry, particularly in the provincial cities, within the State's economic and social fabric;
- the industrial precinct located in close proximity to the Toowoomba Railway Station (of which the Toowoomba Foundry and adjoining Defiance Mill are an integral part) is important in demonstrating the importance of the relationship between the provision of railway infrastructure and the development of Queensland secondary industry in the 19th century, particularly in the provincial cities.
|The Toowoomba Foundry is an uncommon example of an industrial site in Queensland which has had a continued use for nearly 130 years, and which remained in the same family for over 110 years.
|The Toowoomba Foundry has been in continual operation for nearly 130 years on this site and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an operational industrial site, which has evolved over time, and continues to do so. The site has undergone expansion and development according to fluctuations in demand for its various products, including rolling stock for Queensland Government Railways; windmills; and engines during the Second World War. The evolutionary nature of the site is evident in the location of the site as well as in the range of age, type, style and arrangement of buildings on the site.
|The place has aesthetic significance as part of the industrial streetscape along the northern end of Ruthven Street as well as being prominent in the wider industrial landscape, especially when viewed from the Toowoomba Railway Station. Its landmark qualities from the west are due to the massing of a number of industrial, corrugated iron clad buildings. The site presents a more formal face to Ruthven Street through the brick fronted office building and canteen.
|Established nearly 130 years ago, the Toowoomba Foundry, with its long history as a major employer in Toowoomba, has strong associations for past and present employees, and for the local community. The canteen erected during the Second World War is of particular significance, and company social occasions were also held here. The place also has a strong association with rural Australia as a well-known producer and supplier of windmills, which have become synonymous with the rural landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16064,"place_ref":601301,"name":"Tawa","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Boulton Terrace","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-31","description":"Tawa, a small single-storeyed brick residence with a steeply pitched hipped corrugated iron roof, is located fronting Boulton Street to the east.
The building has a verandah to the east with a concave corrugated iron awning supported by cast iron columns, stamped BUBB & SON, and a timber floor. The central entry has a panelled timber door with fanlight, and is flanked by a french door to either side. There are two rendered chimney stacks on the southern side, and the building has timber sash windows with arched headers. The northern and southern elevations are face brick, the eastern is rendered, and the western is partly rendered showing evidence of earlier additions which have been removed. A timber passage with a corrugated iron gable roof connects to a recent free standing structure to the west.
Internally, the plan consists of four rooms with a central rear foyer. Walls are rendered brick with wallpaper (with some evidence of earlier wallpaper), ceilings are hardboard with timber cover strips below early plaster and lathe, and cedar joinery includes panelled doors, architraves and skirtings. The two fireplaces have timber surrounds, and the floors consist of pitsawn boards with carpet over.
A narrow driveway is located on the northern side of the house, accessing the rear of the property, and an iron fence consisting of security grilles from the Baillie Henderson Hospital in Toowoomba is a recent addition to the eastern boundary.
","history":"Erected reputedly during the mid 1850s, this single storey brick cottage survives as one of the earliest dwellings in Toowoomba.
In April 1849, Surveyor JC Burnett laid out 12 allotments on the left bank of the West Swamp. The allotments ranged in size from 27-40 acres, and were known as the Drayton Swamp Agricultural Reserve. Six of these "Swamp allotments" were offered at auction in November 1849. As there were no bidders for these allotments, they were resubmitted to auction in October 1850, at which time William Horton, a publican of Drayton, acquired allotments five and six. Allotments one to four and the remaining six allotments were auctioned in March 1851; allotments seven to nine were acquired by Horton and allotments 10-12 were purchased by Sydney businessmen Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and Alexander Campbell Brown, and their Toowoomba partner Thomas Ayerst. The remaining allotments one to four were sold in July 1857.
Tawa is located on part of allotment 11 acquired by Mort, Brown and Ayerst. By 1855, Mort had acquired the three allotments in his own name; this area of Toowoomba came to be known as the Mort Estate.
Mort had arrived in Sydney in 1838, and during the early 1840s, proceeded to establish his reputation as an auctioneer, and was particularly involved in wool sales. From 1850-51, Mort, who by this time was considered the premier auctioneer in Sydney, entered into a business partnership with Brown, as Mort and Brown. Mort's wealth multiplied during the 1850s as a result of successful speculation in pastoral properties. Mort's later business ventures were undertaken through Mort and Co, established in 1855, and which included Mort's brother, Henry.
In December 1862, Martin Boulton of Toowoomba acquired subdivisions 21-24 of allotment 11. Prior to moving to Toowoomba, Boulton had operated a General Store in Leyburn. Boulton, a brother-in-law of prominent Toowoomba businessmen Thomas Alford, Joseph King and James Taylor, was actively involved in the granting of municipality status to Toowoomba (1860) and was elected as a member of the first Toowoomba Council.
Boulton had commenced subdividing the land by 1864, and established a row of terrace cottages on the Mort Estate which came to be known as Boulton Terrace. Boulton took out a mortgage on the land in 1866, increasing his borrowing the following year. Boulton was declared insolvent later in 1867, and the property taken over by the Bank of New South Wales.
An application for the land to be bought under the Real Property system in 1881, mentioned Boulton, Alfred Smith, George Weale and Stephen H Wichello as tenants of the land. A lease was issued to Wichello, a Toowoomba tanner, from July 1882.
The property was progressively subdivided from November 1891 and changed hands a number of times. By 1970 the front of Tawa had been enclosed with fibro. Tawa was renovated in 1971, at which time the fibro was removed, and wallpaper replaced with paper to match the original wallpaper. Norman and Elizabeth Oliver, owners of Tawa from 1971 to 1974, opened Tawa to the public.
Tawa was acquired by the present owners in 1979. A two-storeyed extension to the rear of Tawa was completed in 1983, and constructed of brick recycled from the old Toowoomba General Hospital.
","criteria":"Tawa survives as one of the earliest dwellings in Toowoomba, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of Toowoomba as a residential location from the 1850s.
|The building, located in one of Toowoomba's earliest residential subdivisions, is important in demonstrating 1860s methods of design and construction and makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the Boulton Street streetscape.
|The building, located in one of Toowoomba's earliest residential subdivisions, is important in demonstrating 1860s methods of design and construction and makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the Boulton Street streetscape.
|Located in Boulton Street, Tawa maintains an association with Martin Boulton, a prominent Toowoomba businessman. Tawa is also associated with Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, one of the land speculators in Toowoomba during the 1850s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16066,"place_ref":601303,"name":"Gladstone House and Cottage","alternate_name":"St Rest","street_address":"1B & 3 Gladstone Street","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The property consists of Gladstone House, the Cottage and associated grounds.
Gladstone House
Gladstone House, a single-storeyed weatherboard residence with a multi-hipped corrugated iron roof and timber stumps with batten infill, is located on a northerly sloping site fronting Gladstone Street to the east. The building has a 1970s split-level addition at the rear.
The strong geometry of the building is reflected in the cruciform plan, consisting of a central octagonal living room with three bedrooms projecting to the northwest, northeast and southeast, and a dining room to the southwest. The inside corner of each projecting wing is infilled with a triangular shaped room, with the main entry to the east, bathroom to the south, bedroom to the north, and originally an open deck to the west which has been enclosed and extended to create a kitchen. The 1970s split-level addition is attached to the west of the kitchen.
Each projecting wing has a hipped roof with finial, the infill rooms have skillion roofs, and the central octagonal room has hipped dormer skylights to the north, east and south, and a central look-out which was originally accessed via a western stair which is no longer extant. The skylights have centrally pivoted hopper widows, and a pot-bellied rendered chimney stack is located above the southwest wing.
The east entry has a central octagonal hipped corrugated iron roofed turret, surrounded by a skillion roofed verandah. The verandah has diagonally patterned timber balustrading, chamfered timber posts and a batten valance, and is accessed via a concrete platform and steps with steel handrails and diagonally patterned balustrade. The entry door is to the side of a central projecting bay, which has a patented Marks' AUSTRAL window, and is flanked by the same to either side.
The eastern projecting wings, and northern infill bedroom, have projecting triangular bay units with sash windows and skillion awnings. The upper section of the walls, between window heads and eaves, is finished with hardboard sheeting with spaced vertical battens giving a horizontal band around the building and separating the higher and lower gutter lines. The southern bathroom has a patented Marks' AUSTRAL window, and the dining room has twin sashes.
Internally, the building has timber skirtings and cornices, with vertically jointed boarding to walls to all rooms, except the central octagonal room which has horizontal boarding to the fanlight head height and vertical boarding above. Ceilings are boarded, with the central room having skylights located above the ceiling line forming angled recesses. This room has timber doors with glass panes and glass fanlights located below the north and east skylights, and a fireplace located on the southwest wall with an ornate timber surround with tiled inserts and a boarded chimney stack with timber mantle. A doorway has been inserted to the west of the chimney, and accesses the southwest dining room which may have been the original kitchen. This room has a concrete slab which may have been the hearth of a fireplace backing onto the existing living room fireplace.
The corners of the triangular infill rooms are squared-off to create small cupboards which are accessed from the adjoining projecting wing rooms. The bathroom has been recently refitted, and the rear kitchen area has undergone a number of alterations and currently links into the 1970s addition and opens onto a deck on the northwest.
The Cottage
The Cottage, now a separate residence, is located at the northeast corner of the northerly sloping site fronting Gladstone Street to the east. This single-storeyed weatherboard structure with a multi-hipped corrugated iron roof with a tall central clerestory skylight, has timber stumps with batten infill, curved timber eave brackets, and sash and casement windows with timber batten brackets and corrugated iron hoods.
The building is symmetrical to Gladstone Street, and has an entrance porch at either corner with the main entry being at the northeast and accessed via a timber stair with metal handrail. A small verandah has been enclosed on the northeast corner, which was formerly a rear entry, and a lean-to laundry has been attached at the rear.
Internally, the building consists of a central living room dominated by a clerestory skylight, with a bedroom to either side and a kitchen and bathroom at the rear. Ceilings are of hardboard sheeting with timber coverstrips, walls have vertically jointed boarding, doors have timber frames with glass panel inserts and ventilation strips above, and the kitchen has early cabinets and fittings.
Grounds
A driveway accesses the property to the north of Gladstone House, and leads to a recent brick garage built adjacent to the house at the northwest. A chamferboard shed with a corrugated iron skillion roof and timber doors is located to the northwest of the house, and the site contains a number of mature trees, including a large tree to the southwest of Gladstone House.
","history":"This single storeyed timber house, also referred to as St Rest, was completed c1908, for prominent Toowoomba architect, Henry James (Harry) Marks. The Cottage, known also as the former Gate-keeper's Cottage, was probably erected at around this time.
Gladstone House is situated on part of Portion 86, originally an area of 93 acres northwest of the central business district of Toowoomba, located in the former Gowrie Shire. Portion 86, acquired by John Shipman, was one of a number of allotments ranging in size from 22-133 acres on the western side of Toowoomba, which were auctioned in February 1858. The sale of these lots was one of a series of land sales at Toowoomba from 1849, and the success of these early sales provided the stimulus for the development of Toowoomba as the principal town of the district.
Shipman's land was known as Eton Farm, described as the best cultivated farm in the district, on which he grew wheat, oats, barley, lucerne and corn. Shipman also established an orchard, a vegetable garden, a dairy, piggery, stockyards, and a small horse stud on his farm.
Shipman died in 1862, and his land was subdivided during the late 1880s. Thomas Jones acquired 90 acres of Portion 86 early in 1889. Jones further subdivided the land into two parts, one of which was transferred to Mrs Ada McDougall, a Toowoomba widow, later in 1889. Mrs McDougall took out several mortgages on the land, before it was acquired by George Wonderley, a Toowoomba solicitor, in 1898.
During the late 1880s and early 1890s, the residential area of Toowoomba rapidly expanded, as large holdings in the smaller shires surrounding Toowoomba were subdivided for residential allotments.
Wonderley commenced the subdivision and sale of the newly created blocks from early 1899. William Robinson acquired six of these blocks, comprising three acres in 1900. Between 1903-1904, Harry Marks and his wife Katharine acquired four adjoining allotments on the west corner of Gladstone and Jellicoe streets (subs 31-34), and three allotments on the opposite corner of Gladstone Street (subs 63-65). The Marks' sold subs 63-65 in 1907.
Born and trained in Toowoomba, Harry Marks had entered into partnership with his father James, in 1892. James had commenced practice as an architect in Toowoomba by the early 1880s, and he and Harry have been described as dominating the architectural profession for more than half a century. Although Harry Marks was responsible for designing a number of buildings on both the Darling Downs and in Brisbane, much of his work was in Toowoomba where he designed a variety of buildings including Rodway [600868], St James Parish Hall [600856], St Luke's Church Hall [600866], additions to the Toowoomba Maltings [600852], and the Darling Downs Co-operative Bacon Factory. Marks was also described as being gifted with inventive genius, and he devised and patented a number of architectural elements, including roof ventilators, windows and a method of stucco wall construction.
Marks incorporated examples of his inventions in the design of St Rest, triangular bay windows and the AUSTRAL window which he designed reputedly for the house.
The Shire of Newtown was formed in 1913, from part of the Gowrie Shire area. Marks was an alderman on the Newtown Council from 1913 until 1917, when it was absorbed into the Toowoomba City area.
Following Marks' death in 1939, Katharine remained at Gladstone House and commenced subdividing the grounds of Gladstone House during the 1940s. The land on which the Cottage stands was transferred to Marks' daughter KM Muir, in 1951. Katharine died in 1954, and her son Charles Beresford Marks, also a Toowoomba architect, was appointed trustee of the property.
Gladstone House was acquired by Theodore and Doris Hallop in 1955, and the property has since changed hands a number of times. Alterations undertaken to Gladstone House during the 1970s included the addition of a room at the rear of the house. Gladstone House was acquired by the present owners in 1990.
","criteria":"Erected in the early 20th century, in a then outer part of Toowoomba [previously Gowrie Shire], Gladstone House survives as evidence of the growth and residential expansion of Toowoomba from this time, as formerly large estates and farms were subdivided and sold.
|Designed by prominent Toowoomba architect HJ Marks as his private residence, Gladstone House and Cottage, erected c1908, display an individual inventiveness and creativity typical of Marks' work in their design. Gladstone House includes examples of the AUSTRAL window designed and patented by Marks. The buildings possess highly articulated geometry in plan, elevation and roof form, containing many design elements associated with Marks' work, and reflecting many of his design considerations including the use of natural light and ventilation.
|Gladstone House, the Cottage and the surrounding plantings make a substantial aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of Gladstone Street, and complement the considerable range of extant HJ Marks buildings in Toowoomba.
|Designed by prominent Toowoomba architect HJ Marks as his private residence, Gladstone House and Cottage, erected c1908, display an individual inventiveness and creativity typical of Marks' work in their design. Gladstone House includes examples of the AUSTRAL window designed and patented by Marks. The buildings possess highly articulated geometry in plan, elevation and roof form, containing many design elements associated with Marks' work, and reflecting many of his design considerations including the use of natural light and ventilation.
|Designed by prominent Toowoomba architect HJ Marks as his private residence, Gladstone House and Cottage, erected c1908, display an individual inventiveness and creativity typical of Marks' work in their design. Gladstone House includes examples of the AUSTRAL window designed and patented by Marks. The buildings possess highly articulated geometry in plan, elevation and roof form, containing many design elements associated with Marks' work, and reflecting many of his design considerations including the use of natural light and ventilation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16069,"place_ref":601306,"name":"Defiance Flour Mill","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"269-291 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-02-26","description":"The Defiance Flour Mill site is bounded by Ruthven Street on the eastern side, the Toowoomba Foundry on the northern side, the Toowoomba Railway Station on the western side and a laneway on the southern side. The site forms an integral part of the industrial streetscape of the northern end of Ruthven Street and has landmark qualities from both the western and eastern sides.
\nThe main entrance to the site is from Ruthven Street. Included within the heritage boundary is: the 1911 mill building; flanked by two face brick buildings on its northern side and one face brick building on its southern side (refer to heritage register boundary map).
\nThe 1911 mill building is constructed of load bearing brick construction and the brick is laid in English bond. It is a three storey gable roofed building, with the gable end addressing Ruthven Street. This elevation is divided into two bays with pilasters at each end and in the centre. Each storey has a pair of timber double hung windows with painted concrete lintels which run the width of each bay. The words Defiance Milling Co. and Est. 1898 are painted on the gable end.
\nThe northern and southern elevations are also divided into bays by pilasters. Timber framed double hung windows with shallow brick arches are located within each bay on each level. The roof is of corrugated iron with regularly spaced transparent fibreglass panels on either side. Five ventilators are located along the ridge. Internally, the mill building has undergone alterations to accommodate new equipment. The building functioned as a flour mill over three levels, with an original set of stairs at the eastern end.
\nThe buildings on either side of the mill are also of face brick, with timber framed windows and painted concrete lintels. Each building has a regular fenestration pattern, although they vary from building to building. The office building to the north of the mill has a more ornamented façade than the other buildings on the site with a simply moulded parapet and string course, and glazed bricks surrounding the windows. The windows of this, and the adjacent building also feature shallow brick arches above the windows. The rear of these buildings are sheeted with fibro and have corrugated iron roofs. Most internal areas in the office buildings have undergone major alterations, with little evidence of original fabric surviving.
\n","history":"
The Defiance Flour Mill is located in Ruthven Street on a prominent site adjacent to the Toowoomba Foundry and the Toowoomba Railway Station. The company was established in 1898 by Patrick O'Brien, his wife Ellen, and George Crisp and initially operated from premises in Russell Street prior to moving to the present site in Ruthven Street in 1901.
\nEuropean discovery of the Darling Downs occurred in 1828 when Alan Cunningham provided a route through the Great Dividing Range which separated the Downs from the Moreton Bay region. In 1840, Patrick Leslie became the first settler on the Downs, quickly followed by others and in 1842, a more accessible route through the Range was opened. Drayton evolved from a stopping place for those reaching the top of the Range, although by 1848 water shortages prompted moves to The Swamp, which was renamed Toowoomba in 1858. From the 1860s Toowoomba prospered as a regional centre with the establishment of many industries.
\nPatrick and Ellen O'Brien were both Irish migrants who were married in Toowoomba in 1884. They established a produce and grocery store in Russell Street, near the Dominion Flour Mill which was managed by George Crisp. Crisp, who had migrated to Queensland in 1887, was an experienced miller and had also worked in other mills on the Darling Downs.
\nBy 1898, the O'Brien's produce store had developed into a successful business. They decided to finance a new flour mill in Toowoomba and entered into an equal partnership with Crisp, who became the manager and miller. At this stage, there were six other flour mills established on the Downs. Most of these were small operations using steam or water mills. In contrast, the Toowoomba Chronicle described the new Defiance Mill in Russell Street, which was designed by Toowoomba architects Marks & Sons as being 'fitted with the latest machinery from England and America by the celebrated firm of Thos. Robinson & Son Ltd, Rockdale England, capable of turning out 16 tons of flour in 24 hours.'
\nBy November 1901, business had substantially increased and the Defiance Milling Company purchased the former Gisler's mill in Ruthven Street. Crisp maintained management of both mills, with one of the Gisler brothers remaining as miller-in-charge at the Ruthven Street mill. Further expansion occurred in 1902 when Defiance purchased another a mill in the Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.
\nFollowing Patrick O'Brien's death in 1906, his wife Ellen continued to manage the business. Although Patrick had accumulated an impressive estate which included city properties, the mills and the store, Ellen required funding assistance to purchase wheat for the following season's milling. Raising money became Ellen's responsibility from this stage on, as 'Crisp would have nothing to do with [such] \"humiliating\" activities.'
\nIn 1911, a new milling building was erected on the Ruthven Street site. Designed by Toowoomba architect W Hodgen and built by WT Smith, it comprised a four storeyed brick building which was reportedly substantially damaged by fire less than two years later. The rebuilt building forms the core of the present site. New grain sheds equipped with handling machinery and a storage capacity of 28 000 bags were constructed to the north of the mill building in 1914.
\nCrisp's involvement in Defiance ended following the First World War when he sold his share to Ellen prior to retiring to Tasmania with his wife and daughter. The mill was then managed by Thomas Patrick, one of Ellen and Patrick's ten children. He was an experienced miller and upon discovering that the mill was in debt, set about producing the highest quality flour to become more competitive with other mills. Quality was a continuing passion, and Thomas often personally selected wheat directly from the farmers, even after the establishment of the Wheat Board in 1920.
\nIn 1923, the Brisbane Valley Mill was sold, and the Dalby Mill was acquired. The business continued to prosper and remained a family owned business until 1955 when the Defiance Milling Company Pty Ltd was formed with Thomas Patrick as Governing Director, sister Ellen McCafferty and brother EF O'Brien as Directors, and brother PW O'Brien as Manager.
\nThe 1960s saw much change and development in the flour milling business, largely due to the establishment of English based company, George Weston Foods in Australia. This brought about greater competition for flour sales, and the development of pre-mixed products for bakeries. In the late 1960s, Defiance constructed a mill at Rockhampton to protect their North Queensland business from other millers who were developing into the region. The 1960s also saw the construction of the first of the silos which now dominate the Ruthven Street site.
\nFollowing the death of TP O'Brien in 1969, the Directors decided to consolidate the shareholdings of the company. In 1975, Defiance Holdings Pty Ltd was converted to an unlisted public company named Defiance Holdings Ltd, and the company was floated as a listed public company known as Defiance Mills Ltd in 1976. During this stage, the Ruthven Street site underwent a full remodelling.
\nFurther expansion was made with the construction of a Melbourne mill to supply southern states, and by 1987 the fully owned mills at Toowoomba, Brisbane and Rockhampton, and the fifty percent owned Dalby mill were producing just over half of all the flour manufactured in Queensland, as well as soya bean and rye products.
\nWhen the Defiance Flour Mill was permanently entered in the Queensland heritage register in 2002, the main building, originally constructed in 1911, continued to function as a flour mill, with most of the flour used in other products produced by the mill such as pre-mixed cake and bread mixes. The remainder of the site comprised the pre-mix factory, retail factory and office.
\nAllied Mills operated the flour mill from 2002 until 2011, when the site sustained extensive water damage following the extreme weather event of January 10.
","criteria":"Established in Toowoomba in 1898 the Defiance Flour Mill is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as an example of an early flour industry continually operating until 2011.
|The Ruthven Street site has undergone expansion and development reflecting the evolution of flour milling technology. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of an operational industrial site which evolved from the early 20th century with an early central core. The main 1911 milling building demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 20th century industrial building. The site is located adjacent to the Toowoomba Foundry and demonstrates the development of the northern end of Ruthven Street as an industrial precinct in close proximity to the Toowoomba Railway Station.
|The place has aesthetic significance and is a landmark, both from Ruthven Street and from the western side of the Toowoomba Railway Station. The 1911 mill building is of architectural significance as a well composed early industrial building.
|Established in Toowoomba in 1898 the Defiance Flour Mill has strong associations for past employees, and for the local community.
|The place is also readily identifiable with a renowned Queensland product, Defiance Flour.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16070,"place_ref":601307,"name":"Gowrie House","alternate_name":"Largo","street_address":"112 Mary Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"Gowrie House is a large, low-set brick residence located on a large block on the corner of Mary and Arthur Streets, Toowoomba.
The core of this brick house has a symmetrical front facade; a central entrance porch separating bay widows which extend through the veranda roof and are surmounted by a finial. The steep hipped corrugated iron roof rises to a lace trimmed widows walk.
It is built of 23-32 cm thick cavity bricks on foundations of bluestone from Harlaxton quarry, and the limited subfloor has hit and miss brick infill. Wide concrete steps lead up to a prominent portico with Largo etched in the fretwork gable pediment which is supported by paired timber posts while the wide veranda is edged by intricate iron lace. Use of lighter coloured bricks for quoins framing windows and wall edges is also employed and this emphasises the separation of higher and lower gutter lines as do the timber brackets supporting the superior roof.
An arch with a timber panelled base and stained glass above frames the wide six-panel front door. The arch above the door consists of three arcs, stained glass separated by concrete. The U-shaped veranda is enclosed on the northern side, while on the southern side it terminates at a gable-roofed room. Concrete stairs from the veranda give access to the garden while a door surmounted by a fanlight give entrance to a bay-windowed room. The bay window has sash windows with concrete lintel and sill. Attention is drawn to the crenellated roof by the use of coloured brickwork. Above this is a flying gable with a finial.
As is typical with such houses, the service facilities are less ornate, so that the room on the other side of this gable-roofed room has the same double sash windows, lintel and sill but has a shallower hip roof. A small porch gives access to this room.
The three vented chimneys, unusual exterior sash windows and window decoration are typical of Harry Marks designs.
Internally, the building is largely intact. Apart from the modern kitchen, and a door opening between two of the former bedrooms, there are few changes. Surviving details in the house include doors, skirtings, all fire surrounds, plaster ceilings, coving, windows and stained glass. The original gas lamp remains in the entry.
Gowrie House is set back from the road and a new garden has been constructed around its western and southern elevations, while the grounds include several mature trees.
","history":"The low-set brick house, Largo, on the corner of Arthur and Mary Street was designed by HJ Marks for prominent Toowoomba businessman Alexander Mayes and built probably in 1901, and definitely by 1902.
Architect Harry Marks was born and trained in Toowoomba and he and his father James Marks have been described as dominating the architectural profession for more than half a century. While Harry Marks designed a number of buildings on the Darling Downs and in Brisbane, most of his work was in Toowoomba. He designed a number of buildings including Rodway [600868], St James Parish Hall [600856], St Luke's Church Hall [600866] and Gladstone House and Cottage [601303]. Marks was not only a good architect he was an inventive one, and he patented some of his innovative solutions such as his Austral window.
Alexander Mayes born at Largo, Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1859 came out to Queensland and established himself as a Toowoomba builder and contractor in 1886. He is known to have worked on the Town Hall, Post Office, Masonic Hall, Commercial Bank, Technical College and Vacy Hall and many private homes. He was mayor 1896, 1903, 1912 and was the first mayor of the enlarged city of Toowoomba 1916-17. He was also active in the community serving on the School of Arts and Technical College, East Toowoomba School Committee, was a staunch Mason and was honorary superintendent of the Toowoomba Fire Brigade for 42 years. He was also involved with the Austral Association [601315].
Successful and prosperous Alexander Mayes and his wife Helena Agnes, daughter of grazier William Grieve, had moved into their new architect designed home on the corner of Mary and Arthur Mary Street by 1902. This large masonry house reflected the status of the Mayes in Toowoomba's society. One of Mayes' sons described his boyhood home in the Toowoomba Chronicle of 4 July 1985. He remembered three large bedrooms, two at the front, the drawing room and dining room all opening of the central hallway. At the rear was a large room 'furnished with three beds and two long tables end-to-end', while the kitchen, pantry and maid's quarters were at the rear. Sons Emeritus Professor Bruce Toowoomba Mayes, Dr Alexander Mayes (involved with founding of St Andrew's Hospital Brisbane), Rev Charles Mayes and Hector Mayes were all born in this house.
In 1922 Mayes retired to northern New South Wales and Walter Watts occupied the house until Dr Albert Furness acquired it in 1936 and he employed noted Toowoomba architect William Hodgen for alterations. Hodgen's specifications include changes to the garage and laundry, adding panelling in the dinning room, installing electric light switches and polishing woodwork in the dining room, drawing room and master bedroom. Dr Furness sold it to the Young Women's Christian Association (YMCA) of Toowoomba in 1945.
The Young Women's Christian Association was founded in the 1850s in England to provide accommodation for women and girls. It soon spread to America and Europe, and is now an international organisation. The first Queensland branch was formed in Rockhampton in 1888 and Brisbane in 1890. A branch was established in Toowoomba in 1932 due to the initiatives of Lady Groom, wife of the local federal member.
During World War II the Toowoomba YWCA offered leave accommodation to servicewomen. The need for their own large premises saw the 1945 president, and South Girls School headmistress, Miss AM Wadley, with a deposit of £50 able to acquire a loan to purchase Largo for the YWCA.
Re-named Gowrie House, after Lady Gowrie the wife of the Australian Governor General, the site became the Toowoomba Young Women's Christian Association hostel. Mayor JD Annand officially opened it on 10 November 1945 as a hostel for young working and service girls.
The Toowoomba Chronicle of 12 November 1945 described the new hostel, saying how it was ideally situated on an acre of ground with mature shady trees and turf lawn and 'should provide a happy atmosphere for many students and Service girls away from home'. The solid brick house had a central hall off, which were four spacious rooms with fireplaces and large windows and doors which opened onto wide verandahs. These large rooms with cedar-framed windows, doors and mantle pieces had been converted into dormitories sleeping four to six girls. The veranda on the northern side had also been converted into a dormitory, just off this sleepout was 'the bathroom with gas heater, set-in basin, bath and shower'. Of three smaller rooms one would be used for the matron and the others for dressing rooms. At the end of the hall was a huge cedar-panelled dining room with eight tables each seating six girls. Facing east it opened onto a fernery and side garden. The staff room, servery and well-equipped kitchen opened off the south side of the dining room.
Increase in country girls wanting secondary education and needing accommodation in Toowoomba resulted in construction of Wadley Wing in the late 1950s. Increase in accommodation needs of business and secondary students necessitated further expansion, with a new wing named after past president Margaret Hofmann opened by 1971. It replaced a couple of army huts that had been used by senior girls.
With the Education Department's policy of building country high schools the number of girls requiring accommodation in Toowoomba reduced, however, there was a need for male apprentice accommodation, so in 1979 the branch adjusted to YWCA policy of admitting males and females to Gowrie House.
Due to the growth in tertiary education facilities and students in Toowoomba and disabled students needing accommodation in the late 1980s, the YWCA launched a major building appeal programme. The aim was to increase accommodation to 42, erect a new ablution and laundry block, and additions of kitchen, dining room and activities room plus wheelchair facilities. Fund raising, donations and a grant through the State Government Housing Accommodation Assistance Scheme enabled the expansion.
Extra facilities and accommodation have been added to the house over time, so that it could cope with pressure of changing times, for example wheel chair access and increased accommodation by adding new wings, as well as modernising and maintaining the complex. The Gowrie House complex is the association's Toowoomba headquarters and is the only remaining Queensland YWCA owned hostel that continues to provide accommodation to students, disabled persons, travellers and members with its 42 rooms that include single, double and twin rooms.
A 1995 survey of Toowoomba's heritage places, Toowoomba inner residential area heritage study, included Gowrie House as a place of special consideration sites.
","criteria":"Acquired by the Young Women's Christian Association of Toowoomba in 1945, it offered secure accommodation to young women working and studying in Toowoomba until 1979 when societal changes meant that both sexes could obtain lodgings in this old house. It is the only YWCA owned hostel still operating in Queensland. The use of the building and subsequent additions reflect the changes in accommodation needs for females and value of the YWCA to the community.
|Gowrie House displays the inventiveness and creativity typical of Marks' design work and is an excellent example of the architects work.
|It is one of a number of extant buildings designed by the Mark's family that contribute to the architectural character of Toowoomba.
|(Criterion under review)
|Gowrie House, a large low-set brick building designed by prominent Toowoomba architect HJ Marks for leading building contractor Alexander Mayes circa 1901. Mayes was a Mayor of Toowoomba and active in community organisations. Gowrie House is significant for its association with both these Toowoomba identities
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16071,"place_ref":601308,"name":"Carlton House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"3 Mill Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-31","description":"Carlton House, a single-storeyed with attic brick residence with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located fronting Mill Street to the east with access from Beech Lane at the rear. The grounds contain the former kitchen house, stables and servants cottage.
The house is symmetrical to Mill Street, and is constructed of flemish bond face brickwork, with chamfered corners to openings and rendered courses at the base and above door heads. The building has verandahs to four sides, with the northern side and most of the southern side being enclosed, and the brickwork at the rear being painted. Verandahs have unlined corrugated iron skillion roofs and square posts, with some early chamfered posts with curved brackets surviving. French doors with fanlights open from most rooms, and the central main and rear entries consist of french doors with sidelights and fanlight.
Two dormer casement windows are located on the east and west, the sides of which are sheeted with corrugated iron. Moulded rendered eave brackets feature above the verandah roof, with the name CARLTON HOUSE in relief placed centrally on the east between brackets. Two rendered chimney stacks with similar bracket design are located within the hip on either side of the building.
Internally, the building has rendered masonry walls with a central hall from the front to the rear, a large room to either side on the east, and smaller rooms on the west. The main rooms have cedar joinery, including panelled doors with fanlights, architraves and skirtings, most of which has been painted. The building appears to have been substantially redecorated in the interwar period, with ornate light fixtures and pressed metal ceilings located in each room, and wallpaper with a hand-cut frieze in the hall and eastern rooms. Each eastern room has a marble fireplace surround which supports a decorative timber panel surrounding a mirror.
The western rooms have corner fireplaces, with a timber surround in the kitchen. A small bathroom has been inserted into a room under a stair, and has pressed metal ceilings and sheet metal shower surrounds. The stair is entered through an arch from the hall, and accesses the two attic bedrooms. These have timber boarding to the walls and ceilings, and timber fireplace surrounds. A bathroom is located in the northeast, and a kitchen in the southwest verandah enclosures.
Located to the west of the Carlton House, across a brick paved courtyard, is the former kitchen house. This single-storeyed, flemish bond brick building has a gable and hipped corrugated iron roof and sash windows. The western side has a skillion roof verandah with brick floor, and is enclosed with a variety of materials including lattice, hardboard, chamferboard and glazing. The northern wall is of hardboard. Internally, the building is used as a self-contained flat, with hardboard lining and partition walls.
On the northern side of the courtyard space, at the rear of Carlton House, is the former servants cottage. This single-storeyed weatherboard building, with a hipped corrugated iron roof and timber stumps, has an enclosed southern verandah and small, western lean-to addition. The building has sash windows with curved metal window hoods.
To the west of the former kitchen house, and adjoining the western property boundary, is the former stables building. This corrugated iron gable roofed structure is constructed of brickwork to three sides, with the eastern side enclosed with corrugated iron and two narrow timber doors. The floor consists of stone flagging, and each wall has deep timber shelving. A corrugated iron lean-to garage is attached at the southern end.
A tank stand constructed of tree trunk posts is located on the southwestern side of Carlton House. A large deciduous tree is located to the north of Carlton House, and a tall palm is located near the eastern boundary.
","history":"Carlton House, which overlooks the Toowoomba Railway yards to the east, was erected by 1877 for James Augustus Pearson.
Carlton House is located on allotment 10, part of the first subdivision of land in Toowoomba, surveyed by JC Burnett in 1849. Allotments 10-12 were purchased in March 1851, by Sydney businessmen Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and Alexander Campbell Brown, and their Toowoomba partner Thomas Ayerst
Allotment 10 was acquired by James Taylor in 1862, then by Robert Anthony in 1874. Later in 1874, part of the allotment was acquired by Pearson, recorded in the conveyancing documents as a Toowoomba Storekeeper.
Given the proximity of Carlton House to the Toowoomba Railway Station it has been suggested that Carlton House was erected by Pearson as a guest house for incoming railway passengers. The railway line to Toowoomba was completed in 1867, and a railway station subsequently erected. This station outgrew its usefulness, and in 1871 the decision was taken to construct a new station. The new building was completed in 1874.
In December 1877, Pearson advertised Carlton House in the Toowoomba Chronicle, stating that Families, Ladies or Gentlemen visiting Toowoomba for a few days [would] find superior accommodation at Carlton House, Mort Estate.
Carlton House was acquired by Jane Thomas in 1894. An auction notice for Carlton House in 1899 described it as being well built, and contains in the main building, Drawing and Dining rooms, 5 Bedrooms and Bath room; Kitchen and Servant's room detached. Good brick stable and buggy house... . It appears that additional accommodation for servants was erected during the early 1900s. Carlton House was acquired by Bridget Horan in 1909, then by John Luddy, a Toowoomba victualler in 1917, and by William Glover of Toowoomba in 1924. Post Office Directories suggest that Carlton House operated as a boarding house during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Glover rented Carlton House to Colin G Burn, a pawnbroker trading in second hand furniture, in 1924. It is understood that Glover and Burn were brothers-in-law, and that shortly after Glover had purchased the House, he left Toowoomba to join his wife in Sydney.
A drainage plan of Carlton House prepared in 1928 indicates a number of proposed plumbing connections. It is understood that half of Carlton House and some of the outbuildings were converted into flats during the 1930s.
Burn purchased Carlton House in 1937, and remained there until his death in 1965. The property was transferred to Burn's sons Eric and William as trustees for Burn, and was acquired by Eric Burn in 1991. Eric Burn died in 1994; G Hicks is presently the trustee of Carlton House.
","criteria":"Carlton House survives as an example of the pattern of the urban development of Toowoomba during the 1870s, in particular the development of the area adjacent to the railway yards.
|The building, with its former kitchen house and stables, is a substantially intact group which date from the 1870s and exhibit design and construction of that time. The main house includes intact interwar interior finishes and fittings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16073,"place_ref":601310,"name":"Millbrook","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Phillip Street","suburb":"EAST TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"Millbrook, a single-storey weatherboard residence with a bellcast corrugated iron roof, is set on a large block of land fronting Phillip Street to the east, with gardens on the east, north and west sides, and a long drive on the south side. The core of the house is rectangular in plan and contains the bedrooms and formal living rooms. There is an attached service wing at the rear.
\nTwo chimneys break the symmetry of the front elevation. The steeply pitched corrugated iron roof rises to a ridge, and on the front elevation is a projecting gabled mock attic with fretwork bargeboards and finial. Its small casement windows have been painted. A central gable pediment roofs the entrance lobby; on either side are two open verandahs.
\nExtending onto both front verandahs is a bay window. Verandah balustrading is cast-iron, and poles with astragals support the brokenback verandah roof. Short balustraded steps lead to the central front door which has glass sidelights. Another front door gives access to the central hallway which has two rooms on either side. The two front bay window rooms are smaller than the other two rooms.
\nInternally all walls are lined with narrow VJs and ceilings are wide VJs with central double-beading. Doors opening onto the central hall are cedar surmounted by fanlights. Fireplaces have cedar surrounds with iron grates.
\nThe southern front room is a bedroom with a door opening onto an enclosed verandah which is used as a storeroom. The larger southern room has a bay window to an open side verandah and a door to a small room that could be a bathroom or workroom. This large room shares a back to back fireplace with a museum type dining room.
\nThe northern two rooms have cedar fireplaces and are the former doctors surgery and a lounge room. Both open onto an enclosed verandah known as the glass verandah; a partition with a door separates these two rooms. A door gives access to the side porch and steps to the garden. The verandah off the lounge has been partitioned to create two rooms, the glass room and a small bedroom. At the western end of the lounge is a bay window with a door that provides access to another verandah and service wing.
\nThe rear of the house contains a wide room set up to include a dining room, pantry and kitchen on the southern side of the back closed-in verandah. Beside the kitchen and at the end of the verandah is the bathroom and to the north is a large sundeck. Opening off the southern side of the kitchen is the maid's room and a door to a porch with steps that provides access to the external toilet, driveway and stable yard.
\nAn old laundry abuts the rear of the kitchen. A semi-formal side entrance on the northern elevation links the glass room to the front side garden. This porch has a roof with a gable pediment on three sides and steps with cast iron balustrading.
\nAdjoining the drive on the southern elevation is a narrow garden. The drive leads to the old stables used as garage and storage rooms. This timber structure of four rooms has a gable roof with slightly-pitched skillion extension and is in a poor condition. Several mature Chinese Elms planted by Mrs Row, and separated from the back garden by a recent picket fence, shelter the stable yard.
\nThe northern side garden is divided into two sections. The front lawn with its early marble birdbath [reputedly brought from the Ruthven Street garden] in a small pool is secluded from the street by large mature trees. Various old trees shelter the overgrown rear garden with its gazebo. Separating the two garden areas is a former fernery or shade house and an abundance of dense growth. A hedge with a gate separates the two garden spaces.
\nA picket fence separates the small front garden from the driveway and footpath. A pathway from the drive and front gate leads to the front door and around to the northern porch entry.
","history":"Millbrook is a large timber dwelling capped with a high pitched, hipped galvanised-iron clad roof. It has a U-shaped verandah, broken at the front by a gable pediment over the entrance lobby and a gabled attic room facing the road. The house was probably built on Ruthven Street in the 1860s as the family home of William Henry Groom. Following his death his widow moved it, in 1902, to Phillip Street.
\nConvicted of stealing, thirteen-year old William Henry (WH) Groom was transported to News South Wales in 1849. In 1854 and 1855 he was charged with gold stealing, the first time he was acquitted but the second time he was imprisoned. Released in 1856 he moved to Drayton, becoming an auctioneer and storekeeper. The store was run in partnership with John Littleton, whose sister Grace he married in 1859. The Littleton’s had been born in Millbrook, Cornwall. Groom was a prime mover for the establishment of Toowoomba as a municipality and was elected the first Toowoomba mayor after municipal status was granted 24 November 1860. WH Groom was Mayor of Toowoomba, and his wife Grace the Lady Mayoress, seven times, in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1867, 1883 and 1884. Groom became the member representing Drayton and Toowoomba in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1862. As the local member he ensured that state revenue assisted Toowoomba's physical and civic development and his consistent urging of agrarian land reforms were of immense benefit to small farmers throughout Queensland as well as the Darling Downs. He held his seat for 38 years, before standing and being elected as the district's first Member of the Australian House of Representatives. Groom was also a successful local business figure who was involved with the foundation of the Grammar School, School of Arts and Toowoomba Permanent Building Society. He was engaged in the Toowoomba Chronicle by 1874 and the sole owner from 1876. In 1900 he restructured the ownership to include his sons, with his eldest son Henry Littleton Groom becoming the managing director following WH Groom's death on 8 August 1901.
\nMr and Mrs Groom lived in Drayton after their marriage in 1859. Upon moving to Toowoomba they lived in a house on Ruthven Street, later the site of Dr Garde’s surgery and McKinney’s store, where their son Littleton Groom (later Sir) was born in 1867. It is believed that they established their family home further north along Ruthven Street near the Toowoomba railway station in the late-1860s; an 1874 photograph shows this large house with a well-established garden and Grace Groom holding a very young daughter. The house was known as Millbrook.
\nWH Groom died in Melbourne on 8 August 1901 (aged 67) while attending the first sitting of Federal Parliament. By February 1902, his widow, Mrs Grace Groom, had purchased from John Munro 2 roods 16 perches in Phillip Street, and had moved most of the Ruthven Street house to this site by June 1902. A reason given for this move was that she found Ruthven Street to have become too busy.
\nDue to the sloping terrain the house was set on higher stumps and new front stairs were constructed. It is thought that cast-iron balustrading replaced the original lattice verandah balustrading at this time. It appears that one wing of the house was not moved from Ruthven Street, as most of Mrs Groom's 8 children had married and established their own homes. Her youngest son, Leslie Walter (LW). LW Groom was a solicitor with Eden and Groom which became Groom and Lavers.
\nWidowed daughter Margaret Amelia Baynes and her sons Neville and Mervyn lived with Mrs WH Groom in the family home for many years and LW Groom's daughter Noela Brooks boarded at Millbrook for most of her school years. When Grace Groom died in 1932 her daughter, Mrs Baynes, was still living at Millbrook.
\nTwo Groom sons went into politics. Littleton Ernest Groom (later Sir) succeeded his father as the Darling Downs member of the Commonwealth House of Representatives. Henry Littleton Groom was a member of the Queensland Legislative Council from 12 July 1906 to 23 March 1922. As a parliamentarian's wife Mrs Groom had opened and laid the foundation stone for many of Toowoomba's public buildings, and as the mother of politicians she continued to play a role in politics. Mrs Groom was well known for her garden parties at Millbrook, and as a well-known figure she continued to present school prizes and open events until her final years.
\nGranddaughter Noela Brooks described the house and garden from memory in 1981. Mrs Groom not only grew prize-winning flowers but as was typical of the day her garden included useful kitchen plantings such as peach, apple, apricot trees, herbs and vegetables. The garden included a chicken run, well and stables.
\nMrs Brooks remembered various aspects of her life with her grandmother such as the glassed in northern side verandah used for morning tea and visiting close friends. Family afternoon tea was served in the dining room (now lounge room), except when the drawing room (front north eastern room) was used for important visitors. Fireplaces in the dining and drawing rooms shared a chimney, and beside the dining room fireplace was a tassel for calling the maid. The drawing room and Mrs Groom's room were carpeted, but all other rooms had highly polished linoleum.
\nAfter Mrs Groom's death in 1932, Millbrook was vacant only a short time before it was rented by Dr Allan Warren Row and his mother in 1933. Dr Row, the 1914 Queensland Rhodes Scholar, completed a year of medicine at Oxford before serving as a lieutenant with the British Army in World War I. After completing his studies he returned to Queensland in 1930 and joined a local practice for a few years before establishing his own surgery. Although he was a visiting surgeon to Toowoomba Hospital, like most doctors he established a surgery in his own house [Millbrook]. Dr Row used what had been the formal sitting room for his private medical practice. The closed-in northern verandah known as the glass room was partitioned and used as the surgery entrance and waiting room. He converted what had been Mrs Groom's ensuite into a workshop.
\nDuring World War II Dr Row served in the Australian Army Medical Corp. He was severely wounded at Tobruk and following his recovery in Toowoomba Lieutenant-Colonel Row was in charge of surgery at various Australian hospitals. In 1946-47 he was in charge of the Greenslopes army hospital. He returned to Toowoomba in 1947, and with Dr Woodhill and Dr Trennery set up the first blood bank transfusion service in Toowoomba. In addition to his private practice, Dr Row also worked as a senior surgeon at Toowoomba General Hospital, visiting surgeon at Baillie Henderson Hospital and Westbrook Farm for Boys, and Army Medical Officer for Cabarlah Signal Operations. He continued using Millbrook for his private practice until 1976.
\nIn 1948 Dr Row married Glennie schoolteacher Dorothy Lake. In 1955 the MJillbrook kitchen was modernised to her specifications. This included removal of an early stove, refrigerator and dresser and installation of a long workbench with built in cupboards that created two distinct areas; a kitchen and eating area. After Mrs Row had a serious accident in the outside laundry, modern facilities were installed on the enclosed verandah in a corner near the bathroom and kitchen in 1956.
\nDr Row died on 20 June 1979. During the 1980s Mrs Row started refurbishing the house. This included changing green kalsomine-painted walls to oil based pale coloured paints, and covering linoleum and timber floors with tiles and carpets. Front steps were replaced and the northern porch rebuilt due to aging. A small fish and frog pool in the back garden was created in what had been Mrs Groom's orchard. In 1983 a sundeck, able to accommodate 26 people, was constructed. Removal of 700 lead head nails in the roof occurred when rebuilding the roof space because of water damage. The following year the front fence was rebuilt using many of the original palings and an octagonal gazebo able to seat 8 persons built. Other improvements included enhancing some rooms by the addition of plaster ceiling roses and converting a bedroom into a dining room.
\nAlso known for her community activities, Mrs Row has been involved with SPELD (Specific Learning Difficulties), the National Trust of Queensland and the local repertory theatre.
\nAll of the trees in Mrs Groom's back-yard orchard have died and were not replaced, but many of the early garden plantings in the front and back yards survive, and the early 1900s stables remain.
","criteria":"Millbrook, erected c1860s in Ruthven Street, Toowoomba, and removed in 1902 to nearby Phillip Street, is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history. It is one of Toowoomba's few extant 1860s houses, and its removal from a main commercial street to Phillip Street, in the early 1900s illustrates the growth and expansion of Toowoomba as a major regional centre in the second half of the 19th century.
|The place demonstrates the principle characteristics of a large, c1860s residence with 1902 renovations, including large rooms and substantial garden areas useful for entertaining, attached kitchen wing, and associated outbuildings. The place is illustrative of a way of life no longer common.
|The place has strong aesthetic appeal, engendered by the intactness of the timber house and its mature garden setting, and makes a significant contribution to the Phillip Street streetscape.
|The place has a strong and special association with the Groom and Row families, which is valued by the community.
|The place has a strong and special association with the Groom and Row families, which is valued by the community. Newspaper proprietor and politician William Henry Groom represented Toowoomba in the first Queensland and Commonwealth Parliaments. MLA Groom's main interests were land policy, agrarian reform and ensuring expenditure on roads and services within his electorate. Millbrook is important also for its association with Mrs WH Groom, wife and mother of politicians and active member of the community, who resided here for 30 thirty years. Dr Row was an important Toowoomba medical man who served in both World Wars. Lieutenant-Colonel Row was in charge of the Greenslopes Hospital 1946-47. From 1948 to 1979 he conducted his private practice from Millbrook while being a surgeon at most of the local hospitals and the Toowoomba Army Area Officer.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16074,"place_ref":601311,"name":"Boyce Gardens","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6 Range Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-01-25","description":"Boyce Gardens comprises a number of major component parts. These include, the rainforest, located in the north-eastern corner of the site, the pine forest along Mackenzie Street on the eastern side of the property, the avocado orchard, displays of Australian flowering shrubs, tennis court, swimming pool, specialist garden areas including collections of ericas, proteas, roses, native orchids, carmelias and azaleas, the walled garden, the compost pit, the house lawn, courtyard, rock gardens, the cut flower garden and the grassed areas to the south of the main garden.
These diverse component parts are woven into a composition which makes the excellent use of the changes in levels available on the sloping site and the canopy from the large remnant eucalyptus scattered across these slopes. The house is sited on the end of the dominant ridge in the property, offering an outlook to the garden from all aspects of the house. This position also establishes the house as a prominent visual reference point from a number of places within the garden.
Today the Fairy Glen Scrub, as it was known in the 19th century, is an isolated but healthy remnant of this type of environment on the edge of the Darling Downs. Approaching the property from Range Street the garden is shielded from view behind a screen of dense perimeter planting. As the driveway of the property is entered, the working parts of the garden can be seen. The water tank and windmill are essential for the life of the garden and sit within the garden layout and planting design.
Rainforest:
The Rainforest fills the entire north-east corner, about two-fifths of the frontage to Range Street and all the frontage along Mackenzie Street. The rainforest contains only native trees, shrubs, climbers and ferns. There are several varieties of fig, Queensland Lace Bark and other Brachychitons, Lilli Pilli, Red Cedar, Deep Yellow Wood, Ribbon Wood, Hoop Pine, Silky Oak. There are also Birds Nest Ferns, tree ferns and many varieties of ground fern.
Avocado Orchard:
On part of the property, sloping to the east between the tennis court and the western edge of the rainforest are planted a number of avocado trees. Planted in 1952, the trees are almost fifty years old. Also in this area are some citrus trees.
White Garden:
A circular hollow was developed as the White Garden, and is located to the north of the property. This garden has creepers, treeferns, staghorns, camellias and hydrangeas. It can be viewed from the west from the Azalea and Espalier beds. The Rose Bed has also been established on the northern side of the property.
House:
The house is two story brick with bricked courtyard. The house was extended on several occasions, but retains many intact elements, including the timber dado panelling and plaster ceilings with decorative cornice and ceiling details. The internal staircase also has original decorative ironwork extant. Some of the rooms have original cedar joinery details, which have been painted over.
Walled Garden:
At the rear, or south, of the house is located the terraced cut flower area, cottage garden and walled garden, including an undulating brick wall, to the west of this section is the compost area, the site of the old vegetable garden and the windmill. Along the western border and shrubbery a mixed border has been planted including hibiscus, peaches, cherries, crab apple, wisteria,lavender, bella donna, spider, crinum, day lilies and daffodils.
Tennis Court and Swimming Pool:
The tennis court is enclosed with netting, originally antbed, it is now grassed. The tennis court is flanked by a double row of Jacarandas to the east separating this area of the garden from the avocado orchard. On the east bank of the tennis court is a group of Doranthus, a giant red flowering native lily grown from a seed collected at Cunningham's Gap. To the west of the tennis court is the swimming pool where plaques in memory of Dr and Mrs Boyce have been placed.
A walking track has been established in the Gardens and takes into consideration the health and physical fitness of walkers. Visitors may stay on the upper, flatter route or, they may take the steeper route which takes the visitor through the rainforest, through the pine forest and up to the avocado orchard and terraced tennis court area. South across the open park are views to Jellicoe Street and the university buildings.
[The buildings fronting Jellicoe Street, the former gallery and external studies building, are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance].
","history":"Boyce Gardens was named for Leslie and Margaret Boyce, who established the garden following their arrival in Toowoomba after their wedding in April 1930. A number of extensions were added to the house in 1940 and in 1955. The tennis court was constructed in 1937 and a swimming pool was constructed in 1947.
Harriet Margaret Rose Hall, of Silverspur in southern Queensland, purchased Portion 601 in 1929 The six hectares of land was located in an area that was, at the time, the north-eastern outskirts of Toowoomba. In the same year, Margaret became engaged to Leslie Atherton Gerard Boyce, a business executive at the Toowoomba Foundry (now Southern Cross Corporation). The land that Margaret had bought comprised a spur of eucalyptus woodland running south from Mt Lofty on its northern border, a section of natural rainforest and a run-down dairy farm, including one cultivated paddock. Portion 601 formed part of an area which was originally covered by a dense forest of Eucalypts and Scrub Box trees. The Eucalyptus forest originally covered most of the area on which Toowoomba stands. In the 19th century, the rainforest area was known as the Fairy Glen Scrub.
When Margaret Hall purchased Portion 601, all of the rainforest had been cleared east of Mackenzie Street. Margaret had designed the house site, drive and surrounding terraces, the spur was remoulded, every metre of top soil was removed, stored and later re-spread over the shaped terraces. The house was built and the Boyces moved in after their wedding on 29 April 1930. They lived and gardened on their property for the rest of their lives, and after their deaths [Margaret in 1984 and Leslie in 1988] their ashes were scattered in the garden.
Initially, the Boyces did not have it mind to restore the scrub. The house was constructed on higher ground on the side of Tick Hill [now known as Mt Lofty], looking east down towards what was then around four acres of scrub. Much of the timber had been cut out and stumps from eucalypts remained. Much of the natural vine scrub was heavily infested with lantana, blackberry and trees such as camphor laurel, celtis and japanese laurel. The Boyces spent time in the mountain and rainforest country of south-east Queensland, including camping in the Canungra Valley and Lamington National Park. Following these visits, the Boyces made the decision to 'restore, regenerate and preserve' the remnant rainforest on their property.
The garden commanded much of the Boyces' activity and much of their leisure time. At first, the lantana and blackberry was cleared, however, not wanting to make too many sudden gaps, not all the camphor laurels, celtis and other exotics were removed. Instead, they were ringbarked and poisoned and let to die where they had sprung up. Seedlings began to sprout, these were then pulled out to keep them from reinfesting the rainforest.
Upon beginning the restoration and preservation of the remnant rainforest, the Boyces had questions such as whether such a small area of native forest could maintain itself and whether or not to introduce new native species to the area. In all, around fifteen new species were introduced, all native to Queensland, though not present in the scrub when the Boyces purchased the property. Before the Boyces' time, most of the orchids, stag and elkhorns and tree ferns, as well as larger trees, had been milled.
After the exotics were removed a canopy of only about 12 metres remained. A plantation of hoop pines was established on the eastern border to provide initial protection and the Boyces began reintroducing indigenous trees, shrubs, vines and ferns, encouraging their growth with a built-in rain-like fine spray watering system, many years before such devices were common. Today the rainforest canopy is more than thirty metres high.
Over the years, they established a sunken garden [now the white garden], a terraced flower garden, a western walk and shrubbery, a walled garden, lawned terraces, rockeries and a fruit and vegetable garden. An avid 'plantswoman', Margaret continually experimented with new species, trying dozens of varieties of daffodils and iris and many liliums and rhododendrons, to establish which did and did not 'do' in Toowoomba. Good records were kept and these experiments have proved to be of great value to Toowoomba gardeners. This is of significance, particularly as Toowoomba began to gain in importance as a noted 'garden city'. One important aspect of Toowoomba's garden city title was the annual Carnival of Flowers. In September 1949, a public meeting was held in the town hall to discuss the idea of a street carnival for the city. It was decided to hold an eight-day festival from 21-28 October 1950. The Carnival of Flowers has continued every year since 1950, making it Australia's longest running annual festival. Established in 1973 was the Toowoomba Chronicle Exhibition Gardens program. Since that time, the Exhibition Gardens have run every year, promoting a display of non-competitive gardens at Carnival time. The Boyce Gardens have been included in the Exhibition Gardens program as an example of an outstanding, beautifully prepared, private garden.
The Boyces also collected plants and gardening knowledge on numerous trips abroad. They pre-empted the vogue for South African proteas and leucodendrons, planting a grove of them near the tennis court after a trip to Africa in the early 1950s. They visited most of the great gardens of the world and Margaret read and indexed many gardening magazines, Australian and foreign, building up a formidable knowledge of plants and design.
In May 1969, the Boyces gave the estate to the University of Queensland in trust, to hold the land in perpetuity for educational purposes and to preserve and maintain the gardens and natural forest for use as a Botanic Garden and Natural Forest for the education of the public. In 1973, Leslie Boyce was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Queensland for his contribution to education. Until their deaths, the Boyces continued on as Curators of the property, which they also endowed to provide a perpetual maintenance fund.
The present intention and hope for the future is to continue the development of the garden, forest, wildflower garden and park as a pleasure and demonstration garden for the public and a tourist attraction in Toowoomba, the 'Garden City'.
","criteria":"Boyce Gardens is significant as it demonstrates early experimentations with the regeneration of endemic vegetation to a disturbed area. It is further significant as a intact example of a domestic residence from the 1930s sited in its original designed garden context and retaining the original curtilage of the garden. Boyce Gardens is also significant as an important garden within the city of Toowoomba, noted for its excellent gardens, well known throughout Queensland as the 'Garden City'.
Boyce Gardens is significant as a record of gardening history in Queensland in its design form, species selection and experimentation, and in the accompanying documentation recording the progress of the growth of the garden since its establishment.
Boyce Gardens is significant for the scientific value of an established and documented regenerated rainforest ecosystem and as a well-designed large garden open to the public for enjoyment and education. Over 100 species of trees, shrubs and vines and 25 species of ferns have been recorded in the rainforest. The Australian Garden History Society has recognised Boyce Gardens as one of paramount importance to the history of gardens in Queensland.
|With a pocket of rare, isolated, but healthy, remnant rainforest, including a 150 year old strangler fig, on the corner of Range and Mackenzie Streets, Boyce Gardens is significant for its strong streetscape value and the aesthetic contribution of the site to the area.
|With a pocket of rare, isolated, but healthy, remnant rainforest, including a 150 year old strangler fig, on the corner of Range and Mackenzie Streets, Boyce Gardens is significant for its strong streetscape value and the aesthetic contribution of the site to the area.
|Boyce Gardens is significant for its association with Leslie and Margaret Boyce, prominent citizens of Toowoomba for over fifty years and for the many visitors who have viewed the gardens over the years.
|Boyce Gardens is significant for its association with Leslie and Margaret Boyce, prominent citizens of Toowoomba for over fifty years and for the many visitors who have viewed the gardens over the years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16075,"place_ref":601312,"name":"Oak Lodge and Spreydon","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Warra Street & 30 Rome Street","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-10-01","description":"Oak Lodge
Oak Lodge is a substantial, single storeyed timber dwelling designed in a picturesque style, located on a large block at the corner of Warra and Rome Streets, Newtown, a suburb of Toowoomba.
The dwelling is asymmetrical in form, with a steeply pitched roof, from which wide gables project on the main elevation and on the eastern side of the building. A corner bay window is carried through into the main roof and is expressed as a chamfered hip. Two tall brick chimneys protrude through the corrugated iron roof and the main section of the roof is capped with cast-iron ridge decoration. A short set of unbalustraded stairs leads to a wide verandah that wraps around to the northern elevation. The verandah is edged with a three-rail dowel balustrade and has a bullnose roof stepped-down from the main roof. The verandah porch is decorated with angular timber members in a pattern of triangles. This stick-style detailing is repeated on the main gable, which is decorated with an angular pattern of timbers which are held by brackets from the gable and barge boards. Under the gable is a bay window with a curved awning which is supported on large decorative timber brackets.
The mature Silky Oak tree [Grevillea robusta] from which the house derives its name still dominates the front corner, while mature and recent plantings around the house add to its the streetscape contribution.
Spreydon
Spreydon is a low-set, single storeyed timber dwelling facing north on a large block in Rome Street, Newtown, adjacent to but around the corner from, Oak Lodge.
The dwelling is asymmetrical in plan and form with a wide gable to the front and back projecting from a high-pitched roof. Single fretwork brackets support the roof either side on the front gable and eastern elevation. Above a bay in the front gable a rectangular box rises, decorated with timber stick infill. The bay has windows and doors opening onto a narrow bullnosed-roofed verandah which follows the shape of the bay. The skillion-roofed side and back verandahs are stepped down from the main roof and are enclosed with narrow weatherboards and glazing.
Either side of the front entrance porch are windows. That on the east is an 1890s double hung sash window with convex roof supported by fretwork brackets. The window on the west is a 1920s style rectangular bay window with hipped roof. Wide steps lead to the arched porch and recessed front door. Side and fanlights frame the low-waisted four-panel front door.
The front door opens into a passageway one room deep, from which, on the right, a door opens into a small front 1920s room. At the end of the passageway a door on the left opens into an arched, internal vestibule from which doors open to the large 1890s front room on the left, to the adjoining 1890s front bedroom on the north side of the vestibule, to the back verandah, and to a large 1920s room on the right. Dividing this space is a solid timber archway with central pendant. On the rear verandah side there is a skylight.
Internally all walls are lined in timber boarding, with the most complex timber detailing being found in the front gabled room [1890s construction]. Moulding above the dado, and framing the fireplace, door and windows, is intricate as are the deep cornices. The cedar corner fireplace has tiles surrounding the iron cob. The box-like bay window, which opens onto a small verandah, has two hinged doors either side of a central window and is surmounted by fanlights.
The 1890s vertically-jointed timber tongue and groove walls of the passageway and vestibule have a moulded belt rail and cornice that is repeated in the small front bedroom while the southern wall contains French doors with timber and glass panels on either side delineated by a chamfered doorframe. The eastern and northern 1920s walls have no mouldings. The 1920s long back bedroom has been converted into a stairwell and smaller bedroom with the roof space made over into an attic by the insertion of two rooms, both of which have new dormer windows.
The kitchen is located at the southern end of the 1890s gabled section, and shares a corner chimney with the main front room. It has an eastern facing casement window. The original door from the kitchen to the vestibule has been closed in with the same moulded belt rail as the rest of the wall. The core of the kitchen has the 13-foot ceilings found throughout the house. However, modifications have created two changes of ceiling pitch. The kitchen and skillion roof rear verandah stretches from the kitchen to a western room. This long room is an informal area with doors to the back verandah and laundry. Both the kitchen and back verandah open onto a rear timber deck.
The front yard has a painted picket fence with recessed gabled gateway, from which a path leads to the front door. At the Warra Street end a short drive leads to a later gable-roofed double carport near the back of the house. Behind this is a detached office and to the side is the large back garden.
","history":"Oak Lodge and Spreydon were erected in the 1890s as one house facing Warra Street, at the southwest corner of Warra and Rome Streets, Newtown. The house is believed to have been designed by the prominent Toowoomba architectural firm of James Marks and Son, for plumber and timber merchant Robert Walker Filshie. It was originally a large timber house with a steeply-pitched hipped roof and two projecting front gables in the Warra Street elevation. In the early 1920s, the house was divided into two sections, with the southern gabled section and hallway being moved around the corner to face Rome Street, and extended to the west.
Robert Filshie was born near Dumbarton, Scotland. He trained as a plumber and arrived in Queensland in November 1862. Having tried his luck unsuccessfully on the Gympie gold fields he moved to Toowoomba in 1868. In 1870 he established a Toowoomba plumbing business which he conducted for over thirty years. Filshie is better known for the timber merchandising business he established with James Broadfoot and James Marks in 1884, when they acquired the Hampton sawmill as Filshie, Broadfoot & Co. By 1912 this successful firm was one of the largest in Queensland. The Filshie connection with timber ended in 1987 with the closure of a 41-year-old cabinet making business by grandsons Earle and Ian Filshie.
Like many successful businessmen, Robert Filshie was involved with his local community, serving on the local council, and was active as a founder and prominent member of the Toowoomba Caledonian Society, and as a freemason.
In 1885, when sections of rural Newtown were subdivided for closer residential settlement, Filshie took the opportunity to acquire a number of blocks in the area, including over two acres fronting Warra, Rome and Russell Streets, title to which was recorded in his wife's name. Following Mrs Filshie's death in 1887, this property was administered by Robert Filshie until title was transferred to his eldest daughter, Janet Filshie, in January 1893. It is not clear from Post Office Directories or local authority rate books whether Filshie actually occupied any part of this property prior to c1904. His home was in Margaret Street in 1887, and he is listed as a Margaret Street plumber in the Directories throughout the 1890s, although this may have been his business address.
By the early 1900s Robert Filshie had erected two adjacent houses on Janet Filshie's property, both fronting Warra Street: the large gabled timber residence at the corner of Rome and Warra streets; and Auchentoshan, at the corner of Russell and Warra streets. Whether Filshie or his family resided in either of these places prior to the early 1900s is difficult to confirm, although he appears to be resident at Auchentoshan, which was also Janet Filshie's residence, by 1905, when he is first recorded in the Post Office Directories as resident at Russell Street, Newtown.
The house at the corner of Warra and Rome streets was a large, imposing, finely detailed timber residence with strong streetscape appeal, likely to appeal to middle class tenants. The distinctive architectural detailing, combined with Filshie's known business association with Toowoomba architect James Marks, suggests that the house was designed by Marks or by the architectural firm of James Marks and Son. James Marks was Filshie's partner in Filshie, Broadbent & Co., sawmillers, established in 1884, which firm likely supplied the timber for the construction.
James Marks was born in England, where he trained as a carpenter, and taught himself building construction, joinery and architectural drawing before emigrating to Queensland in 1866, where he immediately established himself as a builder and architect in Dalby, on the Darling Downs. In 1874 Marks moved to Toowoomba, where he practiced principally as an architect. On his elder son HJ (Harry) Marks becoming a partner in 1892, the firm of James Marks and Son was established. This firm dominated the architectural profession in Toowoomba and district for more than half a century. James Mark's residential work in Toowoomba includes Weetwood (1888) [600870] and Redlands (1888-89) [600869], and houses designed by James Marks and Son include Smithfield (c1895) [600854] and Vacy Hall (c1900) [600858].
From April 1893 2 roods at the corner of Warra and Rome Streets [now the site of Oak Lodge] were leased to Margaret Street musical instrument importer George Burnell for 3 years, at £85 per annum. It is possible that the house was constructed by this date, and that Burnell had occupied it as his private residence.
Nothing further is known of the occupants of the house until 1908. In 1907 sisters Elizabeth, Jessie and Margaret Thomson of Melbourne moved to Toowoomba, with the idea of establishing a girls' school conducted according to the standards of the Secondary Teachers' Association of Victoria. From its inception in the mid 19th century, Toowoomba had developed as a provincial education centre for southern Queensland, the first girls' school opening there in 1860. At Toowoomba, the Thomsons leased the Filshie house at the corner of Warra and Rome Streets, along with over an acre of land, and on 4 February 1908 opened the place as Spreydon Girls' College, a boarding and day school. The school offered classes from kindergarten to 'Sydney Senior Standard'. Elizabeth and Jessie Thomson were joint Principals, and Margaret was responsible for boarders. The building housed the Principals' and boarders' quarters, while a school room, kindergarten and tennis court were established facing Rome Street. Later the house was used for administration, dining and teaching.
The Thomsons sought the patronage of the Presbyterian Church in Brisbane, which was granted in May 1909. Steady growth in numbers necessitated new dormitories being erected early in 1911, with the school's boarding population nearing 16 out of the 60 pupils enrolled.
At Spreydon Girls' College the Thomson sisters established a school conducted on the lines of the Melbourne Presbyterian Ladies' College, with all teachers being specialists, students achieving high academic standards, and girls active in sporting interests and displaying the good manners and Christian standards insisted on by the Misses Thomson. At the end of 1914, however, financial difficulties forced the Thomson sisters to give notice of their intention to resign and return to Melbourne, prompting the Convenor of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland, the Rev. James Gibson, to give an undertaking that the Church would take full responsibility for the running of the school. A private company, The Presbyterian Ladies College Limited, was established and the name of the school was changed to The Presbyterian Ladies College, Toowoomba, which opened in January 1915.
Although school enrolments initially declined after the departure of the Thomson sisters the college directors negotiated a new ten-year lease with the owner of the property, Janet Filshie. While the new principal, Miss Amy Carson, faced difficulties such as drought, war and epidemics of influenza and whooping cough, the school grew rapidly in popularity and soon required a larger site. A new property, Fairholme, was acquired on the east side of Toowoomba, and a branch school was opened there in July 1917, under the full control of the Presbyterian Church. The remainder of the students and some of the Spreydon College buildings had been moved to Fairholme by the beginning of the 1918 school year. Miss Filshie, however, refused to cancel the 10 year lease on the Warra Street property, insisting on receipt of her monthly payments of £8/6/8 until the lease expired in December 1925.
Following Janet Filshie's death in January 1922 her property passed to trustees with the power of sale, who seem to have been responsible for converting the former girls' school into two detached houses, moving the southern gabled third of the building onto that part of the property which faced Rome Street [30 Rome Street] about 1923. This section contained two rooms under the gable, and an adjoining small front room, vestibule and hallway. Once shifted to face Rome Street, extensions, comprising two rooms and western and rear verandahs, were made on the western side of the hallway. The remaining two-thirds of the building still faced Warra Street, and was named Oak Lodge, apparently inspired by a large Silky Oak tree on the property.
During 1923 William Cattanach moved into Oak Lodge in May and Mrs Martha Hogg and Misses Jessie and Jean Hogg occupied 30 Rome Street in September. Oak Lodge was valued at £1,300 and both properties were subject to the Presbyterian Church lease until 19 December 1925.
Spreydon
Title to 30 Rome Street [Spreydon] on 1 rood 15.5 perches was transferred in October 1924 to William and Richard Hogg of Greenmount, who paid £800 for the property, which was still subject to the lease to the Presbyterian Church. It remained in the Hogg family until title was transferred in 1970 to Dr and Mrs James Syme, who refurbished the house and named it Spreydon. Since 1987 the house has had a number of owners. Verandahs have been enclosed and converted into rooms, including an ensuite bathroom off the main bedroom. The kitchen has been refurbished including walling in the door and fanlight into the hallway and extending the kitchen space to the back wall. A recent addition is a rear deck. Other additions include a skylight on the back verandah side of the hallway, and two rooms, each with a dormer window, created in the roof space in 2001.
Oak Lodge
Title to 7 Warra Street [Oak Lodge] on 1 rood 31.7 perches was transferred in May 1925 to Charlotte Cattanach, wife of William Cattanach, still subject to the lease to the Presbyterian Church. Dentist John Erskin Brown MacLean and his wife Laura acquired title to the house in October 1925 and it remained their family home until 1947. There have been a number of owners of Oak Lodge since
A Toowoomba Chronicle article of 12 September 1973 stated that Oak Lodge was about 35 squares, still retained beautiful cedar woodwork, three fireplaces and 13 foot high ceilings enhanced by solid timber cornices. The large living room, over 21 feet long, featured fine timber panelling which had no exposed joins. The wide verandahs facing Warra and Rome Streets had been closed in, and the original commodious pantry formed part of the modernised kitchen.
Another article published in The Chronicle of 5 December 1998 described Oak Lodge as a residence of imposing grandeur, the formal living room featuring fireplace and bay window with window seat and horizontal wall panels that extended its entire length. Either side of the main entrance were large bedrooms with VJ walls. The dining room opened to the kitchen while step-through windows led to the enclosed side verandah. The plethora of windows allowed ventilation and sunlight to shine on the polished pine floors.
Conservation architect David Roessler described Oak Lodge in 1999. He noted that when part of the house was removed it was carefully done and is not easily noticed. Having generous main rooms, the front gable-roof room was long ago divided into two. The hall and front rooms all feature timber wainscotting and deep cornices, architraves and skirting boards, while all mouldings are of timber and unusually large. The two front bay windows have timber-panelled ceilings and recesses. He particularly noted the impressive timber portal just inside the front door, reminiscent of a Greek temple with its classical entablature with rectangular pilasters and pediment. All of the three timber framed fireplaces are less elaborate than would be expected and all were painted. The building was renovated in 2000.
Oak Lodge was identified in the 1995 Toowoomba Inner Residential Area Heritage Study as a place of special consideration and the Rome and Warra Street precinct was included in the list of places and areas valued by the community.
","criteria":"Oak Lodge and Spreydon were erected in the 1890s as a single residence, commissioned by successful Toowoomba businessman Robert Walker Filshie and designed either by his partner in the Toowoomba timber merchandising firm of Filshie Broadfoot & Co., architect James Marks, or by the firm of James Marks and Son. About 1923 the large building was converted into two detached residences on adjoining allotments. As a place, Oak Lodge and Spreydon survive as evidence of the growth and residential expansion of Toowoomba, an important regional centre, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|They are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of building: a large, well designed and carefully detailed, 1890s timber residence located in a late 19th century subdivision which attracted middle-class residents.
It is one of a number of extant buildings designed by the Marks family, who contributed significantly to the architectural character of Toowoomba and region. The same detailing is evident in the earliest section of Spreydon.
|Oak Lodge is a picturesquely articulated and finely detailed timber building, and with its mature plantings it makes a substantial aesthetic contribution to the streetscape.
|Oak Lodge and Spreydon are valued by the community for their aesthetic streetscape contribution since the 1890s and for their association with prominent Toowoomba architects James and Harry Marks, the Filshie family, and Fairholme College.
|Because of its size and prestigious location, the home was used during the 1910s as Spreydon Girls' College and The Presbyterian Ladies' College, Toowoomba, and the place is important for this association with the foundation of Fairholme College, an important Queensland school
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16076,"place_ref":601313,"name":"Cottage (68 Stephen Street)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"68 Stephen Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-02-20","description":"68 Stephen Street, a small single-storeyed rendered laterite stone cottage with a steeply pitched hipped corrugated iron roof, is located fronting Stephen Street to the north.
The symmetrical northern street facade has a verandah with a corrugated iron skillion awning supported by timber posts, with a timber floor and batten balustrade. The central entry has a timber framed door with glass panels, and is flanked by a sash window to either side. There is a single brick chimney stack on the eastern side, and the building has timber sash windows with arched headers. The laterite stone has been rendered and painted, but the southwest corner wall exhibits evidence of stone coursing and the rough pitted surface of the laterite stone. The walls display large bulges and variation and texture. A timber addition is attached to the rear of the building, and consists of a corrugated iron gabled roofed structure with another timber free standing structure to the south.
Internally, the plan consists of four rooms with a central rear foyer. Walls are rendered and painted laterite stone, and display large bulges and variation in texture. The building has boarded ceilings, narrow skirtings, and doors have timber frames. The northeast room has a large fireplace with recessed storage boxes either side, and the floors consist of boards with carpet over.
The rear addition contains a kitchen and bathroom, with an early recessed stove and a terrazzo bath and basin. The walls and ceilings are lined with hardboard sheeting with timber cover strips. The rear structure contains a laundry and toilet.
A driveway is located on the western side of the house, accessing the rear of the property.
","history":"Records indicate that this single-storeyed stone cottage was erected by the mid 1860s, replacing an earlier timber building. Erected on part of Portion 46, initially an area of 27 acres acquired by William Shuttlewood and Charles Taylor during the late 1850s, it survives as evidence of the development of Toowoomba from this time.
Settlement of the area commenced at Drayton in the early 1840s, Thomas Alford opening a general store in 1843. In the same year, residents of Drayton petitioned the Governor to form a township at Drayton, and a survey of the town was prepared in 1849. In laying out Drayton, Government Surveyor JC Burnett was also instructed to mark out suburban allotments for Garden and Agricultural purposes; his ideal site for the "Drayton Swamp Agricultural Reserve" was an area approximately three to four miles northeast of Drayton where two swampy creeks joined to form the headwaters of Gowrie Creek. The reason for Burnett's selection of this area has been attributed to an incident whereby Shuttlewood, a timber-getter then living in Drayton, was one of two men sent by William Horton to cut reeds from the nearby swamp, and who upon returning to Drayton, had gossiped ... about the potential of the area and been overheard by Burnett. The Agricultural Reserve included 12 allotments bounded by the left bank of the west swamp, and the present Bridge, West and Stephen streets.
Six of the 12 "Swamp allotments" were first offered at auction in November 1849, however not all the allotments were sold until 1853 at which time Shuttlewood acquired Suburban Allotment One [SA 1], the southernmost of the Swamp allotments. Further allotments at the Swamp were surveyed in 1856. Portion 46, described as a Suburban Farm, located parallel to, and on the southern side of Shuttlewood's SA 1, was acquired in July 1858 by Shuttlewood and Taylor.
By late 1857, the name "Toowoomba" had gradually taken over from "The Swamp", as the town continued to expand. At the time of its incorporation into a municipality in November 1860, Toowoomba had well outgrown Drayton. Shuttlewood appears to have been actively involved in the development of Toowoomba, in matters including the establishment of the boundaries of the town (possibly because his major land purchases were situated in the vicinity of the proposed southern boundary). In January 1861, Shuttlewood was one of nine aldermen elected to the first municipal council of Toowoomba. Following Shuttlewood's death in 1894, he was described as ...one of the first to arrive in Toowoomba and take up his residence here. From the earliest period of its existence he has known the town and has watched its growth and development. ... he took a very prominent interest in all pertaining to the welfare of the district.
Little is recorded about Taylor. He appears to have been acquiring land at The Swamp during the 1850s. In 1857, Taylor acquired from Shuttlewood, the western half (15 acres) of SA 1, opposite Portion 46. Taylor's name appears immediately below Shuttlewood's on a petition published in the local newspaper in 1859. Taylor's will described him as a well-sinker of Stephen Street.
Shuttlewood and Taylor entered into a Deed of Partition in November 1859, at which time Taylor acquired sub A of portion 46, the western portion of the allotment. Although there are no further references to Shuttlewood in the title documents pertaining to this land, rates records refer to Shuttlewood as the "owner" of the property until the mid 1860s during which period there appears to have been an earlier building on the land, described as a slab and shingle house.
Taylor took out a mortgage on the land in February 1866; according to the mortgage documents, the money was used to subdivide the land. Although money was taken for 26 of the 31 allotments auctioned in April that year, not all purchases were paid in full at that time. A deposit was paid on the allotment on which the cottage is located by James Jennings, whose name is recorded in the rate books for the property for 1868-69. Jennings however, does not appear to have ever paid the final balance due on the land.
A new building appears to have been erected by the late 1860s, at which time rates records refer to a four room stone cottage. The stone used for the construction of the cottage has been identified as laterite, a reddish rock material rich in iron and aluminium oxides which is produced through the processes of weathering. Laterite, a soft and easily cut material when quarried, dries and hardens with exposure to the atmosphere, forming an extremely durable brick. Extensive deposits of Laterite, which typically occurs in humid, tropical conditions as well as some drier areas, are found in Toowoomba, including visible deposits at the top of the "Old Toll Bar Road" on the east escarpment of the Main Range. Although no comprehensive survey of stone buildings has been undertaken to establish how many, if any, other dwellings constructed of laterite are extant in Toowoomba, it is considered that this is an uncommon building in Toowoomba.
Taylor died in June 1866, and Samuel George Stephens and Thomas Perkins were appointed as Trustees. The resolution of Taylor's estate was a complex process, and was not finalised until 1902, when the estate was bought under the provisions of the Real Property Act. Rate records indicate continuing occupancy of the cottage during this period from the 1860s to the 1900s, although it is unclear as to the claim the persons being rated may have had on the property. Sale of the allotments on the estate commenced in 1903.
The The allotment on which the cottage is located was acquired by Ellen Clubley in 1903, and has continued to change hands a number of times. The ceilings, originally calico, were lined during the early 1910s, and the exterior of the cottage was rendered at about this time. A new bathroom, and kitchen/dining area appears to have been added to the rear of the cottage during the 1920s. A toilet and laundry block has also been added at the rear of the cottage. (The cottage was acquired by the present owners in 1975).
","criteria":"The cottage survives as one of the earliest dwellings in Toowoomba, and is important in demonstrating the evolution of Toowoomba from an agricultural reserve to an important municipal centre, from the 1850s.
|The stone building, an uncommon example of a Toowoomba dwelling constructed of laterite, also represents an unusual use of laterite as a building material in Queensland.
Located in one of Toowoomba's earliest residential subdivisions, the cottage is important in demonstrating unusual 1860s methods of design and construction and makes an aesthetic contribution to the Stephen Street streetscape.
|Located in one of Toowoomba's earliest residential subdivisions, the cottage is important in demonstrating unusual 1860s methods of design and construction and makes an aesthetic contribution to the Stephen Street streetscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16078,"place_ref":601315,"name":"Toowoomba Court House & Old Toowoomba Gaol Wall (former)","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Courthouse | De Molay House | Austral Museum","street_address":"90 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-06-30","description":"The place consists of the former Courthouse and the Old Toowoomba Gaol Wall.
The former Courthouse
The former Courthouse is a large low-set hipped-roof hall close to the street at 90 Margaret Street, Toowoomba. It is composed of several sections. The core is rectangular in plan, and the English bond brick two-storey structure is capped by a hip roof with clerestory. The front is a hip-roofed closed-in verandah. On the rear southwestern corner is a timber extension and off the core on the southeastern corner is the small hip-roofed caretaker's cottage.
Facing Margaret Street is the closed in verandah with centered french door main entrance. The name of the building 'DeMOLAY HOUSE' is above this central entrance. The eastern elevation is composed of three parts. A long sunshade supported by brackets extends over the ground floor windows of the building core. Above these windows are smaller windows close to the eaves that provide lighting for the upper level. Near where a passage links the main building to the cottage is the sole brick chimney. The cottage is a low-set two-room brick building with closed-in verandahs. The third part is the closed-in front verandah. The western elevation is close to the fence line and has a small extension at the rear.
The former Courthouse is set close to the mature camphor laurel lined Margaret Street and opposite Queens Park and adds to the streetscape of this important thoroughfare connecting Brisbane and Toowoomba.
Narrow Austral Lane terminates at the rear of the place. The core building has a rough stubble subfloor. A modern carport with concrete floor abuts the rear of the core and caretakers cottage. The large expanse of land is uneven but does include mature trees. A remnant of the old prison wall forms part of the rear boundary.
Old Toowoomba Gaol Wall
Part of the stone of the external perimeter of the Toowoomba Gaol constructed in 1864 is still extant. Constructed of courses of blocks of a conglomerate rock, set in a finely divided sand and lime mortar. The rock appears to be made up of ironstone nodules set firmly in a sedimentary matrix, it is a dark oxidised colour throughout. This two feet thick wall is two blocks deep and, is without a rubble core.
A north-south section that meets an east-west section is still visible from Stirling Street. At about 6 feet, this Stirling Street corner is the highest point and there are on average five courses of blocks above ground level, varying in size from one to two feet in each dimension. The interior ground is level with the top of the wall and exterior ground level at street level. From this corner, the wall extends north towards and forms part of the boundary of the former Courthouse, while the eastern section acts as a retaining wall and eventually disappears under rising ground.
A block of townhouses have been constructed in Sterling Street, using the Old Toowoomba Gaol wall as part of the foundations of the site.
","history":"The central brick rectangular core of the former Courthouse was constructed as the first Toowoomba courthouse between 1861 and 1863. The section is a two-storey with a hip roof with clerestory. In front of this is a symmetrical closed-in veranda which also has a steeply pitched corrugated iron hip roof. A small single-storey cottage is located at the rear of the hall. The complex has been added to and modified to serve as a female reformatory, museum, boarding house and community hall. The external boundary wall of the Toowoomba Men's Gaol was constructed using local stone and bricks on government land behind the courthouse in 1864.
\nDrayton was surveyed as a town in 1849 and it was there that the assizes for the district were held, and the first courthouse in the area was located. While 'The Swamp', as Toowoomba was first called, was surveyed as an agricultural area, it soon proved more suitable for urban living and underwent rapid growth. In 1859 Judge Lutwyche found the Drayton Courthouse so dilapidated that he declined to use it. The Colonial Architect designed a new courthouse that cost £2,018/6/4 in Margaret Street, the road linking Brisbane to Toowoomba. Work commenced in 1861 and the building was opened in January 1863. This courthouse was low-set with a hip roof, rectangular in plan with a small entrance porch and had an internal U-shaped verandah. One chimney provided a back-to-back fireplace for the Magistrate and Clerk's rooms. A new courthouse, nearer the town centre, was built between 1876 and 1878.
\nWhen Toowoomba became an assize town there was a need for a gaol to house criminals arrested on the Downs, the Maranoa and Warrego awaiting trial and for those convicted. The Colonial Architect's plans for the new gaol to be erected behind the courthouse were completed by 12 February 1862. Godfrey and Johnstone started work on Toowoomba's new gaol in early 1863. By June 1864 the building was ready for occupation except for the completion of the boundary wall and its gateway, this was completed by September 1864. This external wall had a buttressed footings of roughly dressed stone about a foot each in dimension, upon which was built an unrendered brick wall two bricks deep, or about nineteen inches; similar dimension to the Administration Building erected at St Helena Gaol in 1886. The wall was about 12 feet high, with tapered buttresses that stop halfway up the wall, and a sloped coping made of bricks.
\nIn 1870, due to overcrowding of women prisoners in Brisbane and removal of male prisoners to St Helena, all female prisoners in Queensland were incarcerated in the former Toowoomba men's gaol. As there was no provision within the gaol for juvenile female offenders, in 1882 the government employed J Nock contractor to convert the old Toowoomba courthouse to a female reformatory. This work cost £993 and included adding the clerestory to provide more natural lighting, partitioning parts of the verandah to make a section with hand basins, office and storage room, and building a small detached hospital.
\nAn article on the Toowoomba Reformatory published in the Darling Downs Gazette of 25 February 1889 described the building as verandahed and spacious. It had a large detached kitchen with adjoining laundry. Off the dining room was a schoolroom that seated 22 girls and surrounding these two rooms were compartments with beds and shelves. The place had a bathroom and lavatory. Two cells or 'darkrooms' used for serious offenders were located under the rear of the building. Girls some as young as 4 or 5 were lodged in the reformatory, which was outside the gaol in its own fenced enclosure, and separated from it by a lane. Ten large tanks formerly at St Helena's provide water for the residents and laundry needs. The Victorian attitude required that these females work and the well appointed laundry with 7 or 8 big galvanised tanks was used by many local families for their washing and provided the institution with £12 to £13 a month.
\nAfter the new Female Division at Boggo Rd Gaol opened on 3 October 1903 all Toowoomba female prisoners were transferred to Brisbane and the reformatory outside the gaol walls was also closed. According to the 1903 Post Office Directories it was known as the Girls Industrial School.
\nPoet George Essex Evans inspired by the 1903 Maryborough eisteddfod enthused enterprising Toowoomba residents into developing a similar festival and initiated the creating of a cultural organisation that aimed at developing Toowoomba as the leading centre of music, art and literature. Prominent men soon formed a committee and the inaugural Austral Festival, held in the town hall in November 1904, was a resounding success. Albert Edward Harston, a music school proprietor, suggested purchasing the old gaol site for future festivals. Members of the committee formed the Austral Finance Company to purchase the site; as this involved closing part of Austral Lane they did not become the registered owners until 1909. The Austral Finance Company employed architect William Hodgen to design a hall that could seat thousands and they utilised the former reformatory building as a museum. While many of the gaol buildings were demolished, Hodgen's design utilised the massive stone-rubble external gaol wall to form two of the walls of this vast hall; hence the hall only cost £1,495 to construct. The complex became the Austral Association Hall and Museum.
\nAustral Museum opened in 1904. Exhibits included a donated collection of South Sea Islander artifacts, collection of polished samples of timber from Filshie Broadfoot & Marks and samples of all soils to be found in Queensland.
\nVarious reasons such as the death of George Essex Evans, an established Toowoomba poet and enthusiastic supporter, during the 1909 festival and death of the King whose birthday the festival celebrated led to the decline in the annual event, with the last festival held in 1911.
\nEarly in 1916 Albert Edward Harston, an active and founding member of the Austral Association, purchased the site. About 1919 he subdivided the site into three land parcels. The former museum subsequently operated as a private hospital under Nurse Curtis for a few years before becoming a boarding house in the early 1920s. Rutlands was the Thompson sister's guesthouse from about 1930 to 1960. An advertisement in a booklet published by the Toowoomba Tourist Board in 1935 claimed it was a recently refurbished mansion that offered every home comfort, first-class cuisine, internal sanitation with hot and cold water, good garden and garage. The Toowoomba Chronicle of 7 April 1960 stated that Miss Thompson made $5,500 when she sold the 19-room guesthouse to the Toowoomba DeMolay Chapter.
\nThe DeMolay Order founded in 1919 at Kansas City was initially based on Masonic ritual. It gradually spread through American and grew into an international organisation. This non-denominational, non-political society for males 12 to 21 year olds fosters public speaking, leadership, competitive sporting activities, community involvement and family commitment. Like Scouts and other youth organisations they hold annual conferences, however, a mothers group is an important aspect of the society and volunteer work such as raising funds for charities like the Blue Nurses and visiting the elderly is encouraged. After leaving the order most of the young men join service groups such as Lions and Rotary.
\nAn article about DeMolay celebrating its 21st birthday in The Chronicle of 3 October 1978 included a photograph of Rutlands and DeMolay House. The photograph shows that Rutlands' front verandah was closed-in on the right but on the left of the central opening was open and the verandah edged with a two-rail slat balustrade. The Chronicle of 13 May 1983 reported that Toowoomba's DeMolay Chapter was in urgent need of funds for refurbishing their building, which had been in a run down state when purchased in 1960. While maintenance work on the foundation had been completed and some flooring replaced, they needed to re-roof the building. The original core 'measures 20 metres by 10 metres and has brick walls 35 centimetres thick'.
\nAccording to a long time member of the organisation when DeMolay purchased Rutlands, the hall had a central passage with partitioned rooms off either side of it, these were removed. Many of the bathroom fittings have been replaced but some still have their original cast-iron pipes. Other changes include closing-in the front verandah and verandahs on the caretaker's cottage. Original roof shingles were found when the roof was recently replaced. The site does have archaeological evidence of earlier uses; while fixing floorboards they discovered various artifacts such as shoes and a little girls dress. When excavating prior to laying the concrete for the caretaker's carport in the back yard, they located the old laundry.
\nThe Toowoomba Chapter is unusual; they are the only Order in Australia and only branch in the world to own their building. Because the order is run as a self-supporting business they rent the hall to various local organisations to raise revenue for maintaining the building and financing activities.
\nLong gone is the reformatory's 1882 detached kitchen with large laundry that was erected between the main building and gaol wall. It is not known when the front verandah or extension was added to the rear southwestern corner.
\nOf the old gaol the only visible remains are part of the external wall. Most of the bricks that topped the wall have disappeared though it is said that some were used in the construction of the Boer War Memorial gateway to the Mothers' Memorial, now located in War Memorial Park, Margaret Street. Some stone blocks were missing from the top course, and others had fallen and lie at the foot of the wall. However, the top course has been carefully repaired during the course of the recent building works on the site, and the wall no longer has missing stones nor fallen stones at its base. A flight of concrete steps, constructed in the mid-twentieth century, are set in the west part of the wall, leading to a flat concrete pad inside the wall. While much of the gaol was demolished, foundations for some of the buildings are still extant a great deal of archaeological evidence still exists below ground level, in the form of foundations.
\nA motel and a 1998 townhouse development has been built on the former prison area. While most of the site had been built over, much of the north-south and east-west parts of the old gaol boundary wall are still evident.
","criteria":"The core of the former Toowoomba Courthouse, built by 1863, and the old Gaol wall (1864) are evidence of early government buildings of the colonial period and demonstrate the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development of Toowoomba as an important Darling Downs town. As does the Toowoomba residents wanting to develop cultural facilities who took the opportunity of the closure of the gaol in 1903 to acquire a large expanse of land to build a festival hall and open a museum. Cultural festivals, eisteddfod and museums were an important part of early twentieth century life. The former Courthouse, as a museum and community hall, has been an important building in Toowoomba's cultural scene.
Changes in prison philosophy and the need to house Queensland's juvenile female offenders led to modifications to the former Courthouse in 1882 for its use as a female reformatory. Internal modifications to adapt the building for usage as a museum, boarding house and community hall have not detracted from its external appearance and reflect the evolution of structures over time.
The former Courthouse is part of the Margaret Street precinct which has historic value for its association with early settlement as it was one of the town's main early thoroughfares.
|The core of the former Courthouse is a rare surviving example of an early colonial courthouse while the extant parts of the old Toowoomba Gaol wall are rare remnants of an 1860s country gaol.
|The former Courthouse's changes of usage from courthouse, reformatory, museum to boarding house and the remnants of the gaol wall and buildings have potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|The former Courthouse has aesthetic visual streetscape because of the mature camphor laurels, bluestone kerbs, Queens Park and many grand 19th century houses.
|The survival of the wall demonstrates the a high degree of technical achievement for the 1860s.
|The Toowoomba DeMolay Chapter is part of a worldwide organisation that aims to develop the potential and individuality of young males and they are the only Australian Chapter to possess their own building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16080,"place_ref":601317,"name":"Alexandra Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"451-455 Ruthven Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-16","description":"The Alexandra Building is a two-storeyed masonry building with an elegant street façade on the western side of Ruthven Street in Toowoomba. It is located on a long and narrow site and consists of a 1902 building (hall and two retail spaces) with 1905 rear addition (former pavilion). Ancillary outbuildings and decks, and an adjoining c1930s-1940s building are located at the rear of the site.
The c1902 building consists of shops on the ground floor and lofty, open-plan office spaces on the upper floor. It has two long gable roofs (concealed behind a brick parapet) which extend from the Ruthven Street boundary about half way back on the site. The two roofs are joined by a box gutter and each has three lantern lights along the ridge. External walls are smooth rendered brick and the roofs and floors are timber-framed. Behind the southern-most roof is the 1905 former Pavilion which has a simple hipped roof and external walls of rendered brick and corrugated iron. To the north of this structure (and immediately behind the northern gable) is a two-storeyed face-brick building (c1930s-1940s) with a parapet roof which faces on to Duggan Street and Lamb Lane at the rear.
The Ruthven Street façade of the Alexandra Building is a composition of red brickwork and contrasting rendered brick decoration which emphasizes the windows and other decorative elements. The parapet is the most ornate part of the façade and is divided into three pediments that reflect the internal design of the upper floor - two large triangular pediments concealing the gabled roofs each with three tall glazed openings either side of a smaller central pediment to which the words 'Alexandra Building' is applied. Arched steel-framed windows light the upper floor and rectangular windows are located above a c1930s cantilevered street awning allowing light into the ground floor shops. Below the parapet the exterior has been rendered and painted where a former two-storeyed verandah was located. Shop fronts have been recently fitted out.
Apart from the street façade only small sections of the exterior of the 1902 building are visible. At the rear the twin gable ends are visible and consist of smooth-rendered brick walls with three high-level windows matching those on the front elevation. Recent gable flashings have been added. A lean-to structure (post 1930s) has been added to the rear of the northern-most gable end which opens out on to the roof of the c1930s-1940s building which forms an open deck space. Side elevations are not visible, being concealed by adjacent buildings.
The lantern lights running along the ridge line of each gabled roof consist of box-like structures with curved roofs of corrugated iron. Three reversible casement windows face both north and south on each lantern. Walls to the east and west are clad in ripple iron. Gutters are quad-profile.
The 1905 former Pavilion to the rear of the main building has a timber framed roof and floor. Walls to the north and the rear are of smooth rendered masonry. Other external walls (south and west) are timber framed and clad in vertically fixed corrugated iron. Three sets of high level timber framed, reversible casement windows run along both the northern and southern elevations. A small deck-like balcony (date unknown) has been added to the rear of the former Pavilion and a steel framed staircase leads to outbuildings at the rear of the southern side of the 1902 building.
The frontage of the ground floor of the 1902 building is divided into two shops which have again been subdivided forming four separate tenancies. All of these have been recently fitted out. An ornate and colourful leadlight window formed from steel encompassing the letter 'A' is visible above the level of the street awning within the southern-most tenancy. Similar steel-framed windows with clear cathedral-patterned glass are located above a recess in front of the northern-most tenancy the shopfront of which is set back from the street. A central staircase formed in timber with timber wall linings opens on to the street and leads to a foyer space accessing the first floor offices.
Early internal fabric remains where later fit-outs have been inserted into the former Café Alexandra space on the ground floor including wall-paper, timber stairs, posts and balusters, timber wall linings and decorative cornices.
The first floor space, formerly the hall, has been divided in half along its length. Each space has a high vaulted ceiling. The space to the north remains an open plan area with the lantern lights running centrally along its length. Low level partition walls form office spaces. The space to the south has been partitioned with walls and glazing from floor to ceiling forming two separate tenancies. The vaulted ceilings though divided by the recent walls are still readable.
Much of the early internal fabric on the upper floor remains despite the southern side of this floor being subdivided into smaller tenancies with service areas. The ceilings, the internal walls of the lantern lights and high level walls on the upper floor are lined with v-jointed boards. Lower walls and the flat ceiling below the box gutter have been recently lined with plasterboard. Early timber posts and beams with arrissed edge details and which form buttress-like structures are visible along the length of the external walls which support the arched roof. Tenon joints showing the location of supporting timber brackets (removed) are visible on the posts. Metal stays brace the roof and are located at regular intervals within the open ceiling space. Timber stays are visible within the lantern light spaces. Early timber-framed stairs which access the street below have timber treads, risers and stringers all of which are clear finished. Timber newels with rebate details are located at the top of the stairs.
The former Pavilion is a large, open room with high ceilings. It is accessed via stairs from the one of the tenancies on the ground level. Walls have a smooth rendered finish to the north and part of the walls to the west. Other walls are lined in v-jointed boards. The lower sections of the internal walls are lined with plywood and timber battened sheeting. The ceiling is lined with decorative pressed metal sheeting with large pressed metal cornices finished with leaf-shaped cornice mitres in the internal corners. Two decorative circular pressed metal ceiling vents are located on the ceiling. Metal ceiling roses (former pendant fittings have been removed) are also located on the ceiling. Wall and window trims are clear finished timber. Floors are timber tongue and groove boards. A door formerly accessing a dumbwaiter is located in a small alcove on the southern side of the room. A concrete wash tub is located in the north-west corner of the room.
The stairs accessing the former Pavilion are timber framed with treads lined with early linoleum. Handrails and balusters are both turned timber with a clear finish. Part of a former balcony space with fretwork balusters is also accessed from the stairs. Stair walls are lined with plywood and v-jointed boards. The early ceiling fabric of the former café is visible from the stairwell space. Ornate timber posts and brackets, timber and sheet metal cornices, wallpaper, friezes and diagonally laid v-jointed ceiling boards are visible of the former above the suspended ceiling of the northern-most tenancies.
Other structures are located below the former Pavilion building at the rear. These include an extension to the southern-most tenancy to form a larger shop space and an early amenities block formed in brickwork. To the north of these structures are extensions to the northern-most ground-floor tenancy (c1930s) as well as a c1930s masonry lean-to building housing amenities for the upper floor. A flat-roofed two-storeyed c1930s-1940s face-brick and concrete building is located in the north-west corner of the site. It has steel-framed windows on the upper floor and recent timber-framed windows on the lower floor. The interior of this building has not been inspected. The building's flat roof forms an open balcony space accessed from the lean-to addition above. Another timber-framed balcony structure is located behind the former Pavilion.
A recent courtyard and service driveway are also located at the rear of the site.
","history":"The Alexandra Building, a two-storeyed masonry building in Ruthven Street, Toowoomba, was constructed in 1902 to a design by prominent Toowoomba architect Henry James (Harry) Marks (1871-1939) for local businessman Thomas Kelsall Lamb. Marks also designed a 1905 extension at the rear of the building. The building originally comprised a banquet/concert hall on the upper floor and two retail spaces on the lower floor.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Toowoomba had established its position as the administrative and commercial centre of the Darling Downs, one of the first regions to be settled in Queensland. Squatters entered the rich pastoral region even before Moreton Bay was opened for free settlement in 1842 and by the mid-1860s Toowoomba had eclipsed its main rival, Warwick, as the largest town on the Downs. Located on the main route to Brisbane, it was a conduit for produce being hauled to the coast and the main source of supplies for the western pastoralists. By 1891, Toowoomba contained nearly twenty per cent of the population of the Downs.
As Toowoomba developed, a commercial centre emerged in the blocks bounded by Russell, Ruthven and Margaret Streets. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Ruthven Street was redeveloped with substantial masonry buildings and its pre-eminence as the centre of the city was confirmed with the construction of the third Town Hall in Ruthven Street in 1900. The Alexandra Building, erected in Ruthven Street between Russell and Margaret Streets in 1902, contributed to the consolidation of this street as the city centre.
The Alexandra Building was constructed for TK Lamb and Co., a well-established Toowoomba firm of confectioners and pastry cooks. Lamb had operated from at least two previous premises in Ruthven Street as a confectioner, baker and caterer with associated refreshment rooms, since 1885. Lamb also had a separate bake-house in Bell Street and a second confectionery shop in another part of Toowoomba. Like many merchants in Toowoomba, TK Lamb and Co. supplied not only the town of Toowoomba but the Downs and many other parts of western Queensland through a very successful mail-order business selling hams, small goods, dressed poultry and Christmas cakes. In the 1890s and early 1900s he also conducted a drapery business - TK Lamb & Co. (The Busy Drapers) - in addition to his catering, confectionary and baking concerns.
In 1901 TK Lamb acquired title to the Ruthven Street site of the future Alexandra Building and engaged HJ (Harry) Marks to design a building incorporating street-level shops and a hire-hall for balls, banquets and other large public functions such as public meetings, wedding receptions, parties and concerts. In addition he planned to build a new, modern cake factory and bakery at the rear of the building.
Harry Marks was one of a family firm of architects which had a lasting effect on the appearance of Toowoomba, being responsible for a large number of the city's public, private and commercial buildings. Born and trained in Toowoomba, he entered into partnership with his father James, in 1892. James Marks arrived in Queensland in 1866 and first set up in practice in Dalby, moving to Toowoomba in 1874. As James Marks and Son, Harry and his father dominated the architectural profession for more than half a century. Though Harry spent his entire career in Toowoomba and was responsible for designing many buildings on the Darling Downs including Rodway [600868] and St Luke's Church Hall [600866], he also designed St James Parish Hall [600856] at Coorparoo and another Roman Catholic Church at Bulimba in Brisbane. His brother Reginald joined the practice in 1910. Harry was made an associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1925 and a Fellow in 1929. His son, Charles Beresford Marks, became a partner in 1925.
Harry Marks was described as being 'gifted with inventive genius'. He was particularly interested in providing good ventilation and natural lighting and these are features of buildings designed by him. He devised and patented a number of architectural elements, including roof ventilators, a reversible casement window which provides optimum directional ventilation and a method of stucco wall construction using a hollow wall to give the appearance of a solid wall, but cheaper to construct than brickwork.
The Alexandra Building was completed in 1902 by Toowoomba builder James Renwick. Various sub-contractors worked on the building including Wheatcroft and Co. (painters), TS Burstow (fittings) and Keogh and Co. (suppliers of the dining tables and other furniture). Its construction reflected local confidence in the continued prosperity of Toowoomba and the surrounding district during a period of widespread drought. It spanned two allotments and had a prominent two-storeyed frontage to Ruthven Street - considered 'uncommon, and particularly striking' at the time - with an upper floor verandah with cast-iron balustrade, over the street pavement, and a decorative three-gabled face-brick parapet with the words 'Alexandra Hall' in relief on the middle gable. The building was named in honour of Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII of Britain and of Australia. Edward had succeeded to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, in January 1901 and the coronation of Edward and Alexandra was conducted in August 1902 around the time that TK Lamb's new building was opened.
The ground floor was divided into two shops, each 100ft (30.5m) long by 30ft (9.1m) wide, with plate-glass front display windows. The ceilings were high, and additional natural lighting was provided from high-level windows in the front and rear elevations. The northern shop was occupied initially by GP Merry's Drapery Emporium. The southern shop was occupied by TK Lamb and Co.'s Café Alexandra, which had counters and fittings in oak-grained pine, including a timber screen which separated the shop at the front from a dining room, 63ft (19.2m) by 30ft, at the rear, capable of seating 180-200 persons. Kitchens, pantries, storehouses and out-buildings were located beyond the dining room.
The Alexandra Hall, which occupied the entire first floor, was accessed via a 7ft (2.1m) wide timber staircase from a separate entrance off Ruthven Street, located between the two shop fronts. It was a high space, 60ft (18.2m) wide by 100ft deep, lit by windows in the Ruthven street and rear elevations, and from six large lantern lights in the roof. At night the hall was lit by gaslights with 'beautiful multi-coloured globes'. Reputedly the hall was capable of seating 900 persons, and when first opened seats for 600 were provided. Facilities included cloakrooms, dressing-rooms and water closets.
Four staircases led from the hall to front and rear verandahs, 12ft (3.6m) and 8ft (2.4m) wide respectively. These were located 4ft (1.2m) below the level of the hall, so that the retail spaces below were lit from windows front and rear, between the floor levels of the hall and verandahs. Another staircase led directly to the Café Alexandra dining room below, which could function as a supper room during concerts or other entertainments.
According to The Queenslander of 20 December 1902 construction of the hall supplied a much-felt want in Toowoomba, demonstrated by the almost continuous use of the hall in the first few months of opening. Toowoomba had lacked a large public assembly hall, and the Alexandra Hall's Ruthven Street location, in the centre of Toowoomba, made it especially attractive as a venue. The Alexandra Hall post-dated Toowoomba's third Town/City Hall [QHR 600865], constructed in 1900 in Ruthven Street on the site of the former Toowoomba School of Arts (destroyed by fire in 1898), but the City Hall theatre, with a seating capacity of 789, had a raked floor and could not accommodate banquets or dances. The Alexandra Hall pre-dated Toowoomba's Austral Hall, a large structure erected in 1904 by the Austral Association on the site of the Old Toowoomba Gaol in Margaret Street. It also pre-dated the Empire Theatre [QHR 600978] in Neil Street, which opened in June 1911 with a seating capacity of 2,200.
The Café Alexandra was said to be a great success and the Alexandra Hall was popular for dances, concerts and banquets. According to the Darling Downs Gazette rarely a night passed that it was not occupied. The venture proved so successful that in 1905 TK Lamb & Co. erected additions to the rear of the building, comprising a pavilion 32ft (9.75m) by 26ft (7.9m) and promenade balcony. The pavilion was accessed via a flight of stairs from the Café Alexandra on the ground floor, and could be used as a supper-room, banquet hall, or meeting room. The ceiling was of pressed metal and the room was lit by reversible casements (recently patently by Harry Marks). The promenade balcony was located at the rear of the pavilion.
In 1913 Thomas Kelsall Lamb passed away and title to the property was transferred to trustees: Queensland Trustees Ltd and Lamb's two sons, Arthur Kelsall Lamb and Herbert William Lamb. In 1947 title was transferred to TK Lamb & Co. Pty Ltd (TK Lamb Estates Pty Ltd from 1949).
A number of long-term tenants occupied the building. JM Harris (draper) occupied the northern shop from 1906 until 1935. In 1938 Gold Radio Service and 4GR broadcasting moved into the building, where they remained until 197X. The upstairs hall appears to have been sub-divided and used for offices by the late 1930s, but the Café Alexandra continued to operate on the lower floor.
Sometime between 1937 and 1943 the front verandah was removed and replaced by a cantilevered street awning, in line with a municipal policy that verandahs and street awnings supported on posts be removed as a road safety measure. Below the parapet the front of the building was rendered and painted when the verandah was removed. About this time the lettering on the building appears to have changed from 'Alexandra Hall' to the 'Alexandra Building'.
In 1973 title to the property was transferred from TK Lamb Estates Pty Ltd to the Master Builders Permanent Building and Bowkett Society. The Café Alexandra appears to have closed about this time.
When Brian Hodgen, grandson of well-known Toowoomba architect William Hodgen, purchased the building at auction in 1976 it housed Palmers Silk Centre, McKinstry and Somerville trading as Chas Sankey Fraser (optometrists), and Music Houses of Australia trading as Palings on the ground floor. The first floor was unoccupied. Brian Hodgen conducted his architectural practice, Hodgen & Hall, from the first floor space, later practicing with his son as Hodgen and Hodgen Architects.
","criteria":"The Alexandra Building with its highly decorated and articulated façade makes a substantial aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of Ruthven Street. Rising majestically above adjacent buildings it has a landmark quality generated by the imposing and ornate brickwork parapet facing Ruthven Street, and is one of a number of extant buildings designed by the Mark's family that contribute to the architectural character of Toowoomba. Interior spaces, designed to harness natural light and ventilation, are particularly fine.
|The Alexandra Building remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early twentieth century main-street commercial building incorporating a large hire-hall. These characteristics include: the imposing and decorative street façade; retail spaces on the ground floor; a large upper-floor hall with separate street entrance; the vaulted ceiling and decorative street-facing windows to the hall; and an attached former supper room with decorative pressed metal ceilings.
The building forms part of the body of work of prominent Toowoomba architect HJ Marks and displays the inventiveness and creativity typical of Marks' design work. His concern for natural light and ventilation in his buildings is demonstrated in the Alexandra Building through the use of his inventive, and later patented, window design together with the placement of windows above street awning level to allow natural light into the ground floor shops and the use of lantern lights on the first floor.
|The Alexandra Building, erected in 1902 and extended in 1905, was constructed for successful Toowoomba confectioners and caterers TK Lamb & Co. Comprising a large former public hire-hall on the upper floor and shops on the ground floor, it is important in illustrating the consolidation of Ruthven Street as the commercial and social hub of Toowoomba, one of Queensland's principal regional centres, around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Although intimately connected with the business of TK Lamb & Co., the Alexandra Hall also was one of the earliest large public assembly rooms erected in Toowoomba, pre-dating the Austral Hall (1904). It was popular for a variety of social functions including concerts, banquets, wedding receptions, dances and other public entertainments and meetings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16081,"place_ref":601318,"name":"O'Shea's Drayton Cottage","alternate_name":"OSheas Cottage | O'Shea Cottage","street_address":"56 Gwynne Street","suburb":"DRAYTON","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"O'Shea's Drayton Cottage is a small, low-set, single-storey timber building capped by a corrugated iron short-ridge roof. It sits well back on the block and faces northwest towards the Drayton Warwick road.
\nThe L-shaped slightly pitched verandah roof supported by posts is stepped-down from the main roof. A short set of two front steps lead onto the unbalustraded verandah, and are opposite the front door which opens onto a central corridor. Either side of this entrance door is a pair of casement windows.
\nInternally all walls are lined and ceilings are beaded boards. All rooms have a mix of vertical and horizontal beaded boards while the kitchen also has adzed slabs. The central hall is post and rail and narrower in the back half of the dwelling.
\nThe principal bearers are adzed hardwood. Due to the terrain the rear bedlogs are set in the ground, but the rest are supported on 300 to 400 mm hardwood stumps. The external rear wall and part of the southwestern kitchen wall are post and horizontal adzed slabs while the stove recess has vertical adzed slabs. Other walls are timber-stud construction. The front exterior wall is very wide chamferboards and northeastern sidewall and part of the western wall have narrow weatherboards. This sidewall has one window under the return verandah and another protected by a sunhood. The other sidewall is broken by two window openings, both at different heights.
\nThree old timber posts mark what is the entrance to the property, two of which are shaped. The drive goes beyond the house to an old gable roofed timber garage, which has a rear corrugated iron extension on the north and north western side. The shed has vertical slabs along the south western and rear wall. All three parts have dirt floors. A stand of mature bunya pines and a silky oak shelter these buildings. There are also some pepperinas near the back fence.
\nWhile there is no boundary fence around the dwelling two solid, unpainted shaped gateposts remain. To the left of the drive is a small front fenced home paddock. Along the fenced southwestern boundary are a line of mature she oaks. Two mature hoop pines also stand at the rear of the cottage, creating a major landmark feature in the landscape.
","history":"O'Shea's Drayton Cottage is a small, low-set, single-storey timber and tin house with a short-ridge roof with back verandah and L-shaped front verandah. Built originally about 1874 as a two-room dwelling and enlarged to four rooms, this property is less than a kilometre from Drayton on the Drayton-Warwick road.
\nThe Darling Downs attracted squatters from the 1840s and Drayton became the district's social and commercial centre. In 1849 Drayton was surveyed, as was the Drayton Swamp (later Toowoomba). The latter was meant to become an agricultural area to service Drayton. However, settlers and entrepreneurs were more attracted to the Drayton Swamp as it was more level land, nearer the Main Range's timber stands and had a more reliable water supply. Toowoomba's growth was ensured with the development of a more suitable route down the range in 1853. With Toowoomba granted municipal status in 1860 Drayton lost it importance.
\nIn 1865 Patrick O'Shea, his wife Bridget and three children moved from Pilton to Drayton so that they could educate their children. Patrick had acquired the first part of his Drayton holding by November 1864 and the next portion in 1865. O'Shea obtained more land in 1888 and had purchased at auction the fourth land parcel by 1906.
\nAbout 1874 Patrick O'Shea built the first two rooms of his Drayton farmhouse. He used his axe and adze to cut and shape the timber for bearers, joists, walls and household furniture. He used massive bed logs in the ground, drop slabs for the rear wall and capped his cottage with a shingled gable roof. Additions to the house resulted in two front rooms under another shingle gable roof.
\nPatrick started farming but soon found the conditions not suitable so often did other manual work such as clearing, fencing, planting and cultivating. Patrick O'Shea was interested in his local community and in 1874 was appointed a trustee of the Drayton Commonage. In 1879 the O'Sheas and other Irish families, encouraged by parish priest Fr Robert Dunne, moved to Southbrook. Patrick took up Rockmount for himself and the adjoining property for his 18-year old son Daniel. Patrick soon built a double gable roofed home very similar to his Drayton cottage. Here he established a dairy farm with the O'Sheas becoming important members of the Southbrook community. Rockmount, Southbrook is still owned by an O'Shea descendant.
\nWhile Patrick and his sons were dairy farmers at Southbrook, the Drayton cottage was used as a type of 'town house' and was where many of the children were born. In 1911, Mr and Mrs O'Shea retired from farming and moved to their Drayton cottage. A photograph taken at this time shows this four-room house as having a double gable roof with L-shaped front verandah. The rear gable's shingles had been replaced by corrugated iron but the front portion still had shingles. A window in the roof space indicates that the family used this area. The boundary fence around the dwelling included a gate with gateposts carved by Patrick.
\nPatrick O'Shea's obituary under the heading Drayton News in The Catholic Advocate of 28 December 1916 mentioned that he 'was an exceptionally handy and industrious man, and the many fine and substantial buildings, fences, etc on his late holdings mark the thoroughness with which he did things. He always took a very keen interest in all matters affecting the country'. His widow and daughter Mary continued to live in this cottage on the Etonvale Road.
\nMary Honara Boland nee O'Shea inherited the property after her mother's death in January 1925 when she and her husband were living at Eddington Siding on the Cloncurry line. By 1931 they had move to the O'Shea's large Southbrook property Rockmount. It is not known if she or other members of the O'Shea subsequently ever resided permanently in this 'town house' on the Drayton Warwick Road. In 1960, Mary Boland moved to 42 Clifford Street, Toowoomba, where she died 25 July 1970. As she had not made a will the Drayton cottage and land passed to the Public Trustee. A great grandson of Patrick O'Shea acquired the property at public auction in 1974. By this time the cottage had a slightly pitched short-ridge tin roof and L-shaped front bullnose verandah. The end of the return verandah had been closed-in with fibro and on the northeastern end of the rear verandah was a bathroom.
\nDuring the 1980s the owners moved a small four-room house from Ruthven Street to the adjoining block. To prevent vandalism and help pay the rates the cottages were rented. Since that time the front bullnose verandah has been replaced as has some external side wall cladding and the fibro verandah room removed. A carport and recreational area have been added at the back of the cottage. As the place has not been inspected internal changes are not known.
","criteria":"O'Shea's Drayton Cottage survives as one of the earliest dwellings in Drayton. While Drayton was surveyed as a town in 1849, and 'The Swamp', as Toowoomba was first called, was surveyed as an agricultural area, it soon proved more suitable for urban living and underwent rapid growth and the importance of Drayton declined.
|Because of its age this place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|O'Shea's Drayton Cottage and its construction techniques demonstrate the principal characteristics of the simpler houses lived in by pioneers and working class in the colonial period. Although originally built about 1874 as a two-room farmer's cottage it was subsequently enlarged to cope with a growing family. The foundations, timber profiles and enlargement demonstrates the technical achievements of colonial days and advancement in methods of early Queensland domestic architecture.
|The cottage has always been associated with the O'Shea family, and the original owner Patrick O'Shea was an early pioneer of the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16082,"place_ref":601319,"name":"Exchange Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"245-253 Margaret Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The Exchange Building is a two-storeyed building consisting of a row of four brick shops at street level with offices above. The façade is red brick with contrasting white rendered detailing to the windows and parapets. The upper façade is divided into four with a central section that indicates the central staircase. Each of the individual tenancies is marked by a pair of pedimented casement windows and a triangular pediment in the parapet. The parapet has EXCHANGE BUILDINGS 1, 2, 3 4 in raised lettering. The pattern of the paired windows, the pediments and interplay between the red brickwork and rendered architectural detailing results in a pleasing and economical composition for a commercial building.
Paired, timber, panelled doors lead to the central staircase which leads to offices on the first floor.
","history":"The Exchange Building a two storeyed row of 4 brick shops, constructed by at least July 1905 to a design by prominent Toowoomba architectural firm, J Marks and Son.
The Darling Downs was settled by European pastoralists in search of rich grazing land and by the 1840s. The first township which evolved to support these stations was Drayton, west of Toowoomba. However the success of Drayton did not last. The site now known as Toowoomba was eventually considered to be in a more suitable location for access down the range and in 1852, a town survey was secured. The establishment of a new town was strongly supported by the squatters and Toowoomba challenged Brisbane as the new capital of Queensland. Although this status was not achieved, the town rapidly developed and by the 1860s had become the centre of pastoral development on the Downs.
As Toowoomba developed a commercial centre emerged in the blocks bounded by Russell, Ruthven and Margaret Streets and the construction of a police station and post office near the court house (1877) firmly established the upper end of Margaret Street as a government precinct. By the 1890s the Russell, Ruthven Margaret Street block was pre-eminent as the commercial centre of Toowoomba.
Born and trained in Toowoomba, Harry Marks had entered into partnership with his father James, in 1892. James had commenced practice as an architect in Toowoomba by the early 1880s, and he and Harry have been described as dominating the architectural profession for more than half a century. Although Harry Marks was responsible for designing a number of buildings on both the Darling Downs and in Brisbane, much of his work was in Toowoomba where he designed a variety of buildings including Rodway [600868], St James Parish Hall [600856], St Luke's Church Hall [600866], additions to the Toowoomba Maltings [600852], and the Darling Downs Co-operative Bacon Factory. Marks was also described as being gifted with inventive genius, and he devised and patented a number of architectural elements, including roof ventilators, windows and a method of stucco wall construction.
The Deed of Grant for the land on which the Exchange Building was to be constructed was issued to William Handcock on 11 May 1854. Title to the property was transferred to Thomas George Robinson in April 1877. TG Robinson arrived in Toowoomba in 1859. He established himself as a stock and land salesman in 1860 under the firm name of TG Robinson and Co. He was elected at a bye election in 1864 as Alderman and became Mayor of Toowoomba in 1864. TG Robinson was connected with various progressive movements for advancement of the town and was instrumental in introducing stud stock to the town. TG Robinson's son, William Richard, was also involved with his father's business, taking over as sole proprietor following his father's death.
Following TG Robinson's death in 1883, title passed to Frederick Hurrell Holberton in August 1884. Holberton's wife was the Aunt of prominent Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen. Hodgen designed the Holberton's residence, 'Tor' [601325], in 1904. Title transferred to James Holmes Robertson in December 1897 and, following his death in July 1904, Transmission by Death was issued to James Campbell Robertson, the third surviving child of James Holmes Robertson, Gordon Holmes Robertson, a minor born on 20 February 1885 and Robert George Wonderly, on 15 July 1904. RG Wonderly was the son of Joseph Wonderly, Mayor of Toowoomba from 1868-1869.
It was during the time of James Campbell Robertson's ownership, that the Exchange Building was extended. It was built by at least July 1905, as, at this time, J Marks and Son, called for tenders for additions to No. 1 Exchange Buildings, Margaret Street.
James Campbell Robertson, stockbroker and soldier was born in Toowoomba in 1878. Following a distinguished miliary career, Robertson returned to Toowoomba where he set up a very successful stockbroking business. In 1936 he passed over the management of the firm to his son, Aylmer, resuming control again in 1939, when Aylmer was appointed to the 2/25th Battalion, AIF. Robertson died in Toowoomba in January 1951.
JC Robertson first appears in the Post Office Directories in 1929. He is listed as 'JC Robertson, Stock and Share Broker'. Street numbering appears in Margaret Street in 1931. At this time those listed at 249 Margaret Street are Hertzberg & Co (AM) Merchants; Downs Mercantile Finance Company Ltd; JC Robertson; Ocean Acct Corporate Ltd and GP Jackson, a jeweller and ironmonger.
Title for the property passed to Isabella Wonderly, wife of Robert George Wonderly, on 10 December 1905. Isabella held title to the property until her death in August 1956. Isabella leased the site to Robertson & Provan Pty Ltd. The terms were for five years from 2nd June 1941. Provan & Co were booksellers in Toowoomba. However, Provan & Co remained at their offices at 403 Ruthven Street from 1942 til at least 1949.
The Exchange Building continues to be utilised for commercial shops and offices.
","criteria":"Erected in the period at the turn of the century when Russell, Ruthven and Margaret Streets were being consolidated as the commercial centre of Toowoomba. The Exchange Building survives as evidence of the pattern of development of Toowoomba.
|Designed by prominent Toowoomba architect HJ Marks the Exchange Building displays architectural finesse typical of Marks' design work.
|The building has a decorative rhythmic façade which makes is a substantial aesthetic contribution to the streetscape of Margaret Street.
It is one of a number of extant commercial buildings designed by the Mark's family that contribute to the architectural character of Toowoomba.
|The Exchange Building is significant for its association with the Marks family, a prominent architectural firm.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16085,"place_ref":601322,"name":"Kensington","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"126 Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Kensington is a single storey timber building located on a large block of land facing Russell Street, Toowoomba.
Kensington has a symmetrical front facade that combines Classical Revival and Arts and Crafts motifs. A central gabled entrance separates a pair of semi-octagonal corner bay widows that project above the roof. The steeply pitched corrugated iron hip roof rises to a widows walk which features a finial at corners and cast iron lace. This roof capping is repeated for bays and side gable. Tall chimneys are symmetrically placed. While low-set it has a 'hit-and-miss' brick subfloor.
Simple wide concrete steps lead up to a carefully detailed entrance bay, with the classical-style pediment resting on an arch supported by posts. The wide verandah, which wraps around to both sides, is edged with cast iron lace. Simple unadorned posts support the convex verandah roof that is stepped down from the superior roof with its pairs of brackets supporting the guttering. The eastern elevation has a projecting gable for the side entrance.
Connected to the house on the eastern elevation is the modern staff area which has a low-pitch hip roof. The extension at the rear of the house is a long rectangular building capped by a low-pitched roof. The encircling verandah employs the same decorative features as used on the older parts.
The front and side garden is landscaped and contains mature camellias, pines, palms and other trees, while low hedges edge paths. The long tree-lined drive on the eastern side leads to parking at the sides and rear of the property.
Kensington was not inspected internally.
","history":"
Kensington is a large, low-set, timber building at 126 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba. Toowoomba architect William Hodgen Junior designed Kensington in 1897 for successful draper George Pitlow Merry. Purchased in the early 1990s by a legal firm, Victorian architect Jack Clark was responsible for the refurbishment of the house and extension at the rear to create a building suitable for usage as a professional office.
\nWilliam Hodgen established his Toowoomba practice with an advertisement in the Darling Downs Gazette of 6 February 1897 announcing he was a new Toowoomba architect. Growth and development in both Toowoomba and the Downs and his own efficient work meant he soon had a busy and successful practice. While trained in Queensland, his London experiences and knowledge of the Arts and Crafts movement and Edwardian Classicism were expressed in some of his buildings. However, he tended to employ a Free style, modifying the prevailing Queensland vernacular by introducing individualist elements. His English experiences are reflected in the classicist detailing of entrance pediments using timber, joinery and internal fittings. Hodgen was in practice for 43 years and he designed a large number of buildings varying from small cottages to sporting facilities, halls and large complex hotels in Toowoomba and on the Darling Downs.
\nHodgen designed Kensington as a large timber residence of eight rooms costing £1,035. It was a variation on Hodgen's standard cottage plan with corner bay windows that were articulated in the form of the roof, the side elevations with a gable over the dining room bay window and secondary entrance and a box roof over the core. His design also included a butler's pantry, servery and outbuildings.
\nGP Merry established his millinery and dressmaking business in Ruthven Street in 1894. The Darling Downs Gazette and Toowoomba Telegraph of 22 December 1894 in an evaluation of Christmas offerings remarked that Merry had decorated his two windows in the Toowoomba Exchange for his first Christmas in Toowoomba. While he catered for men and women, his windows displayed millinery, dress material and all those articles necessary to complete a lady's toilet.
\nMerry took the opportunity of acquiring a large allotment when Kensington Estate with 38 cleared allotments between Russell, Margaret, West and Cecil Streets and close to the city, railway station, churches and schools was auctioned 25 March 1897. In his wife Sophia's name he acquired land adjoining the late James Taylor's Clifford House [600857] fence. While GP Merry was in trade, the Merrys were part of the Toowoomba social scene and used their home for entertaining friends. Irish born Mrs Merry a staunch member of the Methodist church was involved in various philanthropic work such as the Ladies Benevolent Society and Brodribb Home. GP Merry sold his business in 1905 and he and his wife took the opportunity to go 'home' for a visit.
\nDr David Horn and his wife Amelia moved into Kensington in 1912. Scottish born David and his brother Alexander established Carlton High School in Christmas Street, Toowoomba, in 1897, but in 1901 the brothers decided to return to Scotland and study medicine at Aberdeen University. On their return in 1907 both established medical practices in Toowoomba.
\nBetween February 1919 and August 1922 two different families occupied Kensington. Firstly Mrs Edith Pauline Brasnett wife of William Leslie Brasnett of Murwillumbah then George Harcourt Crowther.
\nSolicitor Arnold E Lavers, his wife Ruby (nee Wilcox) and family moved into Kensington in 1922. Arnold Lavers resigned his position of First Clerk in the Crown Solicitor's Office moving to Toowoomba to become a partner in Groom and Lavers in 1909. He was a prominent member of the Queensland legal profession and in 1977 celebrated 60 years as a solicitor. Lavers, a founding member of the Toowoomba Rotary Club, was actively involved with the community and served on the Toowoomba Ambulance Brigade, Toowoomba Choral Society, Toowoomba Grammar School Trustees as well as being busy with the legal profession. After his death on 9 December 1968, tribute was paid to his long legal service to the Toowoomba City Council and the community. A former chairman of the Downs and South-Western Law Association Lavers was held in high esteem by the legal profession. A friend of George Essex Evans and Hoey 'Steele Rudd', he supported the Ladies Literary Society and was well known for his love of poetry.
\nA new owner in 1973 refurbished this private residence. Sold again in 1977, the house became a family residence and doctor's surgery. Kensington was up for auction in 1984 and an article 'Links with past' in Queensland Grain Grower of 15 Feb 1984 stated that Kensington had been skilfully refurbished. While upgraded for modern living it retained its cedar doors and archways, marble, ebony and cedar fireplaces, and wide verandahs trimmed with lace panels, however, the kitchen had been modernised. The large master bedroom featured built-in robes and ensuite, the drawing room had a parquetry floor and was large enough for a grand piano. The large garden had exotic shrubs and native trees, while a mature oak tree provided privacy for the swimming pool.
\nKensington opened as one of Toowoomba's superior restaurants in 1987. Features of this new restaurant were the entrance with intricate stained glass panels, original cedar doors, windows, architraves and skirting boards, but alterations involved removing a wall and fireplace to create a dining room that could seat 70 comfortable. The size of the house meant the use the back of house for three bedrooms for the owner/manager and family, with family room, study, rear garden and swimming pool for private use.
\nIn 1990 two legal firms who combined to become one of the largest in Toowoomba purchased Kensington. They spent over $1,000,000 on restoration, expansion and landscaping using Melbourne architect Jack Clark. The firm moved into the 300 square metre house and rear extension of 450 square metres in July 1991, with the new premises officially opened by Governor-General Hayden on 28 August 1991.
","criteria":"Kensington a large timber dwelling was designed in 1897 by prominent architect William Hodgen as a private residence for successful draper GP Merry. Its usage as a family home for prominent Toowoomba identities such as solicitor Arnold Lavers, 1980s conversion to a restaurant and refurbished and extended in the early 1990s by Victorian architect Jack Clark for use as professional offices demonstrates the evolution of usage and form that occurs with Queensland houses.
Erected in the late 1890s Kensington, illustrates the pattern of Toowoomba's development as a regional centre for southern Queensland and demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1890s ornate timber Toowoomba house.
|Kensington is a well designed and finely detailed house. It is an excellent example of a large timber home designed by prominent architect William Hodgen which contributes to the architectural character of Toowoomba.
Erected in the late 1890s Kensington, illustrates the pattern of Toowoomba's development as a regional centre for southern Queensland and demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1890s ornate timber Toowoomba house.
|It is an excellent example of a large timber home designed by prominent architect William Hodgen which contributes to the architectural character of Toowoomba.
|It is an excellent example of a large timber home designed by prominent architect William Hodgen which contributes to the architectural character of Toowoomba.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16087,"place_ref":601324,"name":"Wislet (Former Wesley Hospital)","alternate_name":"Wislet | Drynane","street_address":"127 Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-05-30","description":"The former Wesley Hospital is a two storeyed rendered masonry building originally designed as a residence and surgery, located on Russell Street to the north of the rail line through Toowoomba. The house stands on a large allotment of about half an acre and is set back from Russell Street with an established garden. A large pine tree dominates the Russell Street frontage of the former residence.
The house is an imposing and stark addition to the Russell Street precinct which, in this area to the north of the business district, is characterised by more ornate residences. The more contemporary house on the eastern side of the former Hospital has been designed to complement the former hospital.
The floor plan of the original part of the former residence was rectangular with a one storeyed rectangular wing to the rear, with projecting windows and entrance vestibules from most of the façades. To the rear of the ground floor of the original footprint of the building, additions have been made over time and this wing is now an amalgam of differently aged and constructed sections.
The building is of loadbearing masonry construction, rendered with roughcast stucco. The openings of the building are generally timber framed casement windows, occasionally filled with leadlight or coloured glass. The window openings generally have face brick sills.
The hipped and gabled roof of the two storeyed part of the building is clad with red terracotta tiles and is punctuated by a number of chimney stacks. The rear one storeyed wing is clad with corrugated iron. The chimney stacks are rough cast, to complement the render of the façades of the building, and are evocative of Art Nouveau elongated chimneys with narrow cornices and high level square openings beneath the cornice.
The principal façade of the former Hospital, facing southward to Russell Street, is unusual in the asymmetry and loose control of the fenestration and projecting features. The façade addresses Clifford House on the opposite side of Russell Street and is similar in massing. The façade of the building has two ground floor projecting features; a gabled roofed projection housing a four panel casement window on the western end and a smaller hipped roofed, enclosed entrance porch on the eastern end. Between these elements on the ground floor is a three panel casement window and a smaller, more recent sliding window. The first floor is lined with a number of variously sized and placed windows on the principal façade, including a central four panel casement decorated with a window planter box.
The eastern, side façade of the building is dominated by a projecting oriel window of German influence at the northern end. The window sits above a ground floor projecting bay which features a large 3 by 4 panel of timber framed leadlight window on the face of the projection and similar panels on the returns. The leadlight panels in blue and warm grey shades demonstrate Art Nouveau influence. Some of the glazed panels have been replaced in plate glass. Surmounting this projection is the timber framed and horizontal boarded rectangular planned oriel window supported on large curved timber brackets. The timber element is lined with timber framed casement windows filled with arctic glass and, seemingly, later than the other window openings of the building. The oriel window is roofed under the main gabled roof which terminates at the window and has a stuccoed and battened gable end slightly projecting from the face of the projecting window bay and again, supported on curved timber brackets. The boarding and glazing may date from a more recent renovation. Extending from the southern side of the oriel window is a small timber balcony supported on a single timber column and surrounded on its open sides with a timber battened balustrade. An external narrow metal stair from the ground level terminates at this small balcony.
The western face of the building is almost devoid of openings, except for two square openings filled with coloured glass giving external expression to the stair hall. The one storeyed wing at the rear of the western side is lined on the northern and eastern sides with wide verandahs which have been enclosed and now form internal rooms. The rear, northern façade of the building has a hipped projection at the western end and is lined on the first floor with variously sized casement window openings.
Generally, the interior has a mixture of timber boarded and concrete floors on the ground floor and timber boarded floors on the first floor. The interior walls of the ground floor are rendered masonry and the internal walls of the first floor are mostly rendered masonry with some timber boarded partitioning. The ceilings of the ground floor are rendered plaster and plasterboard and the ceilings on the first floor are timber boarded. Generally, the interior of the ground floor has been altered both in finish and planning and the interior of the first floor is more intact. Features such as the ground floor fireplaces, coat of arms and the platform in the hall are no longer there.
The first floor is accessed internally via a stair on the western side of the building which is housed in a hall lit by two square stair hall windows, filled with orange and yellow leadlight panels. The dog leg timber stair has a timber battened balustrade with square timber newel and turning posts which are decorated with a simple carved border detail at the top. The stair terminates at the western end of a transverse hall on the first floor, from which the major first floor rooms are accessed. A section of the partitioning of this hall, adjacent to the stair is constructed from timber boarding. The first floor of the building houses a number of large rooms with intact joinery, including a simple skirting board, picture rail, high mid-railed timber doors with brass hardware and a number of fireplaces. The design of the fireplaces is clearly influenced by Art Nouveau, with elongated vertical proportions, simple detailing and oversized bracket elements.
The garden surrounding the building contributes to its setting, and in the case of the front garden reinforces the German influence. A large pine tree dominates the front garden and partially conceals the house from the street. Other features in the front and eastern garden include hedges and garden beds with shrubbery. The western garden comprises a large flat lawned area, possibly the remnants of an early tennis court.
To the rear of the house is a one storeyed timber framed and clad shed with simple gabled corrugated iron roof and several timber boarded doors and a large timber garage door.
","history":"The Wesley Private Hospital built in 1908, is a large, two storey, rendered masonry building designed by architect William Hodgen jnr. and located in Russell Street, Toowoomba. It is situated on a large block, originally part of suburban allotment 9 "at the swamp near Drayton". This parcel of land of twenty three acres, two roods and thirty six perches was purchased by James Taylor in 1868 from William Horton who held the original deed of grant from 1852. James Taylor began to subdivide the land and the blocks passed through the hands of several owners.
In April 1908, the Certificate of Title was transferred to Dori Helene Hinrichsen, wife of Dr Freidrich Hinrichsen. At the same time, the Hinrichsens purchased an adjoining easement of 3.3 perches. At the beginning of 1908, the Hinrichsens commissioned Toowoomba architect William Hodgen jnr. to design a combined residence and surgery. The tender amount was £2125 and the building contractor was Henry Andrews. The house was adjacent to a house known as "The Rosery" which was owned by Dr Freshney, medical superintendent of Toowoomba Hospital 1892-1927, and it appears that the Hinrichsens built their house on the rose garden of this house.
Hodgen's original drawings show that the house was carefully designed to accommodate both Dr Hinrichsen's medical practice and the family's residence. The medical suite comprised of three rooms - a waiting room, consulting room and operating room and had its own entrance on the western side of the front elevation. A large, arched porch on the eastern side marked the entrance to the residence. This lead into a vestibule that linked together the medical suite and residence. A grand, central "hall dominated the ground floor of the residence. The hall measured 22 by 16 feet with a raised platform of 14 by 6 feet at one end. This platform was enclosed with leadlight windows to the east. Extensive servants quarters and service areas were also located on the ground floor, including a servant's hall, bedroom and bathroom as well as kitchen, laundry, pantry and store. A stable building and wood-house to the back of the block were part of the original design.
The upper floor accommodated the family's living spaces. The southern side was occupied by a large bedroom, dressing room and bathroom. The northern side had another bedroom and night and day nurseries. The night nursery had a small balcony perched over the roof of the ground floor and the day nursery is connected to a large north-east facing porch. Both these spaces demonstrate the emphasis that was then placed on fresh air for good health.
The Toowoomba Chronicle reported in 1973 that the Hinrichsens had designed their home to resemble their former home in Germany and that the Toowoomba residence was "a stately 22 room house... ...In what was once the drawing room of the old home is still to be found a coat of arms depicting a hunting party scene with lean hounds on leashes. The crest of blue-green mosaic tiles stands above a marble fireplace and includes the initials F.J.H. The marble for the fireplace was quarried from Dr Henrickson's (sic) family estate in Germany... ...Dr and Mrs Henrickson were reputed to be very talented musically and were devotees of the arts."
It is not known when Dr Hinrichsen arrived in Australia, however, it appears that he was first registered as a doctor in Queensland in 1904. He was a well qualified man. The Medical Board of Queensland's registration records show that he passed the Staats Examen in Germany in 1897 and obtained his MD from the University of Roslock, Mecklenburg in 1899. He was formerly known by the name of Cohen. He worked as a surgeon in Munich, Leipzig, Rostock and Berlin. He is listed as Honorary Surgeon to the Toowoomba General Hospital and presented a paper at the Australian Medical Congress in Melbourne in 1908. In 1911, Loxton's Medical Directory listed Dr Hinrichsen in practice in Roma. In November 1914, he was struck off the roll by order of the Medical Board, which lends credibility to local stories that he had been forced out of Toowoomba as a result of anti-German feeling during the time of the First World War.
William Hodgen jnr had a long and prolific architectural career in Toowoomba. The son of a building contractor, Hodgen became a cadet in the Colonial Architect's Office in 1886. In 1891, he resigned and travelled to London to broaden his experience. He enrolled at the Architectural Association and worked for a variety of architects in London, becoming an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1895. He returned to Queensland in December 1896 and opened his practice in February 1897, remaining in practice with his sons until his death in 1943.
Hodgen's time in London coincided with a period of intense creativity and originality in English architecture, with the likes of CFA Voysey, WR Lethaby and ES Prior designing key works of Arts and Crafts architecture. Although Hodgen's work reflects more fully the influence of his Queensland training and the local timber tradition, he does integrate up-to-date Arts and Crafts features and details into his work, some of which can be seen in the house in Russell Street. His unbuilt work is more strident in its application of English styles of the 1890s. An unrealised design of 1897 for a theatre in Toowoomba has typical Arts and Crafts elements such as asymmetrical planning and massing, "green slate" roof, centrally located roof lantern and façade treatments such as stone dressing and carved stone decoration at first level.
In January 1910 the house was purchased by Thomas Connolly, also a medical practitioner . He named it "Drynane" after his birthplace in County Armagh in Ireland. The Connolly family held the title until 1948 when the house was sold to Dr John Hulme, a colleague of Dr Connolly's, who resided and operated his medical practice there until 1963. In 1963, the property was sold to the Methodist Church who initially established an acute care hospital. The title transferred to the Uniting Church of Australia in 1980. From 1979-1984, the Uniting Church purchased many of the properties around the site of the hospital. The Wesley Hospital operated until July 1998 when the Uniting Church announced that they could no longer operate the hospital as "there is little chance that the hospital could be viable in today's market". The Toowoomba Chronicle reported that some staff members had been at the hospital for more than 25 years.
","criteria":"The former Wesley Hospital is important in demonstrating the development of Toowoomba, in particular the development of the district to the north of the central business district where a number of doctor's residences and private hospitals were located in the first half of the century.
The former Wesley Hospital has a strong association with the medical profession in Toowoomba. A succession of local doctors operated their practices and resided in the house from 1908. As the Wesley Hospital, the building provided medical care to the Toowoomba community for 35 years.
|The former Wesley Hospital has a strong association with the medical profession in Toowoomba. A succession of local doctors operated their practices and resided in the house from 1908. As the Wesley Hospital, the building provided medical care to the Toowoomba community for 35 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16088,"place_ref":601325,"name":"Tor","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"396 Tor Street","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"Tor is a low set timber residence bounded on the west by Tor Street, the east by Devon Street and on the north by Wombyra Street. The U-shaped residence is sheeted in chamferboard and has a corrugated iron roof. The house has a ridge roof extension above the dining room and a gabled roof kitchen extension at the rear. Verandahs enclose the house on three sides and the verandah roof is supported on timber posts. The rear (western) verandah has been enclosed. A section of the front verandah on the north-eastern side has also been enclosed. The entrance is centrally located under a projecting portico with gable. A staircase is positioned on the southern side of the entrance portico. A second staircase is located in the south-western corner of the verandah and a third along the western side. A timber finial and timber bargeboards decorate the portico, which has a pressed metal ceiling.
Internally, Tor contains a centrally located hall with rooms opening off from both the western and eastern sides. Similar to other rooms in the house, the hall has a pressed metal ceiling and extant cedar joinery. The hall has timber skirting timber cornices. The living room is located on the south-eastern side. The room has a bay window and an ornate pressed metal ceiling, with a recess located in the south-eastern corner. The recess also has a pressed metal ceiling. The room has two decorative moulded arches with moulded architraves and keystones. Originally enclosed, one of the archways has been opened up and is now a doorway.
A bedroom is located on the northern side of the entrance, the room has french doors opening to the northern end of the eastern verandah. This section of the verandah has been enclosed. The verandah returns on the northern side with french doors opening to the main bedroom. The bedroom has a high timber ceiling and fireplace with tiled surrounds. A walk-in wardrobe is located along the western side of the room. The pressed metal ceiling in the bedroom has been replaced with timber. On the northern side of the hall are located two bathrooms and a bedroom. The bedroom has a bay window opening to the enclosed western verandah.
The dining room, on the southern side of the building, opening from the hall, has an ornate pressed metal ceiling with a ceiling rose. The brick fireplace has a timber surrounds with decorative timber dentils. A bay window is located along the southern side of the wall. A door opens to the south-eastern corner of the verandah.
The kitchen, located in the south-western wing of the residence, was created when two smaller rooms were combined to become one large area in the late 1960s. A doorway in the north-western corner of the kitchen opens to the rear, or western, verandah. The verandah has been enclosed and contains a family room and bar area. This was closed over in the 1970s. Located in the north-western wing of the residence are four rooms. One larger room has been divided into three rooms and there is a bedroom located to the west of the three rooms.
Externally, Tor is located on top of a small elevation and is surrounded by a well-established garden containing mature boundary plantings. A carriage-drive beginning at the south-eastern corner, sweeps around past the entrance and finishes at the north-eastern corner. The driveway extends around past the southern side of the building leading to the modern garage and also to the original timber single-storey stable buildings, located in the south-western corner of the property. The front (eastern) elevation has views to the tennis court located in the south-eastern corner.
","history":"Tor, a single storey timber residence, was constructed in 1904 for Mrs Frederick Hurrell Holberton. The residence was designed by Toowoomba architect, William Hodgen, Mrs Holberton's nephew and built by John Sweeney.
The Deed of Grant for the land on which Tor was to be built was issued to Lucy Harriet Fletcher on 19 November 1860. The grant comprised Portions 155 and 156, an area of just over 60 acres. Title passed to William Lord in October 1861 who later subdivided the property in 1877. James Williams purchased subs 21-23 of section two of portion 155, in March 1877, which comprised just over eight acres. Title for the eight acres was transferred to Frederick Hurrell Holberton on 30 November 1888. The Holbertons subdivided their property again in 1915. John Mundell purchased three acres, on which stood the residence. Sophia Holberton held title to the remaining two acres, which passed to Edwin Chisholm Bernays in 1916, following her death.
Hodgen's first work on the site was in April 1903 when tenders were called for fencing. Sketch plans were prepared for the house before the end of February 1904 and tenders closed a fortnight later. John Sweeney's tender for £1,095 was accepted and a contract signed on 7 April 1904. Subsequent changes were made and further sketches were drawn. The extras for the changes (£53.4.0) was accepted on 6 June 1904 and the alterations added to the original contract drawings. By July, the roof framing was fixed.
While construction was proceeding, Hodgen had continued negotiations with his Aunt regarding many aspects of the house including, colour schemes and wall paper, as well as her requests for changes in window placements, verandah posts and mantles. At one point in a letter on 1 July 1904, Hodgen requests that his Aunt '...leave this to me to choose the best design I can for the money...'. Despite his efforts to please his Aunt, Hodgen was unsuccessful. At the end of August 1904, she humiliated him on the site and he requested that someone else supervise the completion of the house. Their dispute may have been resolved as she paid full fees for his services in December that year (5% on the contract sum of £1020.18.0).
The dining room, drawing room and hall were all built with tongue and groove pine boarding which was then stamped with pressed metal ceilings. A pressed metal ceiling was also placed in the first bedroom. The foundations of the chimneys and hearths, carried up to the underscore of the metal plates, were constructed using blue stone set with lime mortar. The inner and outer hearths of all the fireplaces were laid with salt glazed bricks. Hodgen also designed the stable buildings which are still extant. The specifications book provides details about stumps, floors, walls and ceilings, fascia boards, windows, the coach house doors and the stable doors.
Frederick Hurrell Holberton died less than three years after the construction of Tor, however, title for the property had passed to Sophia in May 1902. On 4 June 1915, Tor was sold to John Mundell, covering an area of just over three acres. At around the same time Sophia purchased land in Campbell Street and again had Hodgen design a new residence. A small part of the property was subdivided in October 1959 for road purposes. The property was sold and subdivided again 1960 and the area of land was reduced from three acres to its current area of just over two acres. The present owners of Tor purchased the property in April 1966.
Later renovations to the building include altering the south-western wing to allow a kitchen to built in the mid-1960s. The north-eastern and western verandahs were enclosed during the 1960s and early 1970s. Other changes include approval which was given in 1985 for the owners to build a garage at the southern end of the house.
In a study of the Toowoomba inner residential area prepared for the Toowoomba City Council in 1995, Tor was included in the section titled Places and Characteristics Valued by the Community.1
","criteria":"The architectural plans for Tor reveal the extent to which architects detailed their works c1900.
|Of particular importance are the stable buildings located in the grounds. Extant stable buildings forming part of the original layout of the property are rare and add to Tor's significance.
Extant architectural plans and documentation for domestic buildings from the early twentieth century are rare and add to the significance of the place. The material provides first hand information about the original design of the residence and its finishings and the stable buildings.
|Tor is significant as an example of well-to-do domestic building from the early twentieth century, reflecting the wealth and status of a public servant and his wife in Toowoomba, a major regional centre in Queensland. The residence is built in similar style to a number of other Toowoomba houses including Gabbinbar [600840], Fernside [600843] and Harlaxton [600839], combining large, low-set homes often surrounded by extensive landscaped areas.
|Tor is significant for its strong streestcape, forming part of a group of similar houses in the area including Weetwood [600870] and Ascot House [600853]. An elegant residence set on an elevation in a large garden with boundary plantings, tennis court and a sweeping carriage-drive, Tor has a high level of aesthetic significance.
|Tor holds strong social significance for Toowoomba residents and is highly valued by the community.
|Tor is significant for its association with William Hodgen, a prominent Toowoomba architect, who designed the residence for his Aunt, Sophia Hope Holberton, wife of Frederick Hurrell Holberton. William Hodgen was the founder of a Toowoomba architectural firm which continues to the present.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16089,"place_ref":601326,"name":"Elphin","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24 Anzac Avenue","suburb":"NEWTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Elphin is a large low-set single-storey weatherboard home, set well back from the road and located on a large block on Anzac Avenue, Newtown, Toowoomba.
Elphin is L-shaped in plan and asymmetrical on all elevations. A classical gable pediment in timber over the front steps separates a pair of gables that project from the medium-pitched corrugated iron hip core roof. The pair of gables have the 1920s half-timbered appearance, and both are enhanced with a turned-timber finial and pendant. There are four brick chimneys with double rendered tops.
The front of the house is nine veranda bays long. To the right of the entrance is it three bays in width and there are five bays on the other side. Simple posts with astragal and capitals support the skillion verandah roof which is stepped down from the main roof. The verandah is edged with a triple rail dowel balustrade and is open except for the end bay on the left side. This pavilioned room still has a type of metal sunhood. The entry has a five-panelled front door with fanlight and is flanked by sidelights above a timber panel. All windows opening onto the encircling veranda have step-through windows.
There are gables projecting from the core on both side elevations and these repeat the front gable's decorative features.
The large front garden contains a mixture of mature and recent plantings. A long paved drive down the right hand side leads to the old garage and shed at the very rear of the property.
Elphin was not inspected internally.
","history":"
Elphin on tree lined Anzac Avenue Toowoomba is large low-set single storey residence designed by prolific Toowoomba architect William Hodgen for Longreach pastoralist Andrew Crombie and his wife Ellen in 1907.
\nWilliam Hodgen established his Toowoomba practice with an advertisement in the Darling Downs Gazette of 6 February 1897 announcing he was a new architect for Toowoomba. Growth and development in both Toowoomba and the Downs and his own efficient work meant he soon had a busy and successful practice. While trained in Queensland, his London experiences and knowledge of the Arts and Crafts and Edwardian Classicism were expressed in some of his buildings. However, he tended to employ a Free style, modifying the prevailing Queensland vernacular by introducing individualist elements. His English experiences are reflected in the classicist detailing of entrance pediments using timber, joinery and internal fittings. His Toowoomba works include Kensington, Tor, Austral Hall, Glennie School [600853] and Flour mill, he was also responsible for buildings in Brisbane and other parts of the state such as the Allora grandstand, Oakey Post Office, Jondaryn Queensland National Bank, Hotel Corones, Charleville [601282].
\nHodgen designed an L-shaped house; the front core had a 9 foot 6 inches wide veranda on three sides. Either side of the 8-foot entrance hall was the main bedroom and drawing room. The drawing room and dining room shared a fireplace as did the master and second bedroom. Between the second and third bedrooms was a bay-windowed workroom, these rooms overlooked the side garden. Another bedroom, bathroom and boxroom were at the rear and opened off an internal central passageway. The 15-foot wide service wing stretching out behind the house contained the pantry, kitchen and laundry, extending of this was a storeroom and servant's room. The house cost £1,236/19/3.
\nHodgen also designed stables at the rear of the property for Crombie's Drayton Road property that cost £133. This weatherboard building had corrugated iron roof and gables and included a main room, coach house, harness room, feed room, workshop and cow shed.
\nBoth Andrew and Ellen Crombie were born in Tasmania, however, they started married life in New South Wales in October 1874, where he was managing a large property. In 1882 he and his partners purchased Strathdarr Station near Longreach. With his wife, governess, maid, two daughters and son, Crombie moved north to manage this new enterprise. While Longreach pastoral life was not easy with floods, droughts and bushfires he was very successful. Crombie in his book, After sixty years, or, Recollections of an Australian bushman, mentioned that he and CW Little of Coreena Station were the first to ship frozen sheep from Queensland to London on the owner's account. Crombie, in 1889, was a founder of the first graziers association of Queensland, the Pastoral Employer's Association of Queensland. Moreover, Crombie who was involved in the life of his locality also served on the local Aramac Divisional Board.
\nAndrew Crombie believed in preserving buildings from the past for future generations. In his book he reminisced that he was quite devastated when a pioneers' hut was needlessly destroyed by a property manager 'who was utterly devoid of sentiment in connection with pioneers and their great achievements'.
\nWhile Andrew Crombie retained his pastoral properties until the mid-1910s the family also had a town house in Toowoomba by the early 1900s. It was in 1907 that they acquired land on Drayton Road, Newtown, to build their own large home on over 3 acres of land. The house was named after Elphin near Launceston, where Ellen Crombie nee Richardson was born in 1849. The Crombies were part of Toowoomba's society and the house was eminently suitable for entertaining and for Mrs Crombie to hold her regular 'at homes'.
\nIt was during his retirement that Andrew Crombie wrote his reminiscences which were published in serial form under the title of 'Pioneering days' in The Queenslander during 1924 and 1925. Subsequently, Watson Ferguson published his work in book form, as After sixty years, or, Recollections of an Australian bushman in 1927.
\nBottle merchant and sports enthusiast Ernest James Busby became the owner/occupant in April 1937. He used the extensive back yard for his business. Facilities he developed included an office and bottle washing shed, while in the fenced off bottle yard were extensive racks for bottles and a boiler shed.
\nElphin was converted into flats by 1952. When Busby died in 1953 he was living in James Street and his children did not sell this revenue producing property until 1988. Because Elphin was put up for auction, various articles were published in The Chronicle during January 1988. Most called it a 'homestead' and stated that during World War II the house was home to US servicemen, had been divided into four flats and that it was in need of restoring.
\nAccording to The Chronicle of 16 January 1988 the house had 15 rooms, including four main bedrooms, two servants' bedrooms plus a guest room. Features included leadlight fanlights and windows, pressed metal ceilings and nine fireplaces.
\nThe house was sold before auction to a local businessman and his wife who refurbished it as a family home. Elphin was selected to be on the 1993 Heritage Building Society calendar because the society's chairman claimed, in The Chronicle of 25 November 1992, that they only desired 'those buildings which are examples of rich history of imaginative architecture for which Queensland is known'.
","criteria":"Andrew Crombie was a progressive pastoralist involved in promoting the export of frozen lamb and establishing the first graziers association. Elphin was built as the town house for his wife and family and was primarily entertainment. For pastoralists and other rural people Toowoomba was important as social and education centre and place to move to when retiring from the land.
That Elphin has been the large home of a wealthy pastoralist, home and business premises of a bottle merchant, used as flats and is again a home, demonstrates the changing usages of residential properties.
|Elphin is a large low-set timber house designed by Toowoomba architect William Hodgen in 1907 for Andrew Crombie. Elphin is an excellent example of a large Toowoomba timber home that was designed by prominent architect William Hodgen.
|The siting of the house, the design of the building, its fine classical detailing and layout of the garden with its mature plantings exhibited aesthetic characteristics of the early 1900s that are still valued by the community.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16093,"place_ref":601330,"name":"Kullaroo House","alternate_name":"Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd (Gladstone Branch)","street_address":"40 Goondoon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-03-05","description":"Kullaroo House, the former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Building, is a substantial two-storeyed brick building prominently situated in Goondoon Street, overlooking Gladstone Harbour.
The building is rectangular in plan with a large extension, which is connected to the rear of the eastern corner of the building. The building has a double height verandah on three sides and a projecting double height entry porch The porch is detailed with classical elements. The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof with a smaller hipped section over the porch. Three tall chimney stacks, of alternating bands of light and dark brickwork project through the roof.
The original layout of the bank contained the banking chamber and associated offices on the ground floor level, with the mangers residence above. When constructed Kullaroo House was face brickwork, the building has subsequently been painted and this diminishes the architectural articulation of the design.
Kullaroo House is entered via a flight of stairs leading to the entrance porch. The porch is plastered brickwork which distinguishes it from the rest of the building. The plasterwork is rusticated, on either side of the entrance double height pilasters support a triangular pediment. The pilasters have composite capitals and decorative swags. On the upper level of the porch the arched openings have been enclosed and the space is used as an air conditioning plant room. The two storey verandah has a small projecting roof at first floor level and is detailed in timber with paired columns, slatted balustrade and valance. On the southern section of the ground level verandah, the balustrade has been removed and the columns have been sliced off above ground floor level and are supported by concrete plinths.
At ground floor level all the major rooms associated with the original design of the building as a bank remain intact. The entrance porch opens onto the main banking chamber, which has all its original cedar door and window joinery, pressed metal ceiling and black marble fireplace. Part of the original cedar counter remains and has been modified for modern office use. The original safe is at the rear of the chamber and is intact with its patent fireproof door and domed concrete ceiling. Two large rooms open to the east off the main chamber. These rooms have cedar joinery, pressed metal ceilings and white marble fireplace surrounds that are intact with register grates and decorative tiles.
A small room at the rear of the banking chamber has an external door to the verandah and leads to the stair hall which has an intact cedar staircase and pressed metal ceiling. An arched opening at the end of the stair hall leads to the section of the building constructed in 1996-97. Behind the stair hall is a large room that has been created from two smaller rooms; it has a dropped ceiling and a new door to the verandah.
The stair case leads to the second level. On this level all the original ceilings have been removed and replaced with a dropped ceiling, with fluorescent lighting and air conditioning grilles. Most of the internal walls have been removed to create a large open office space. As this level was the residence of the Bank manager most of the rooms had french doors opening onto the verandah. The french doors remain, but benches and desks have been built across the doors so that they no longer operate as doors.
The 1997 extension is set back from Goondoon Street, externally it mimics the classical detailing of the original building. The junction of the original building and the extension is marked on the roof line by a timber belvedere with a corrugated iron roof. The extension is not considered significant and is not included in the listing boundary.
","history":"Kullaroo House was constructed in 1910-11 for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd, which moved into the building in June 1911. It was designed by Brisbane architect James Percy Owen Cowlishaw, who designed many of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney's Queensland premises.
The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Ltd had been formed in New South Wales by local interests in 1834, and had established its first Queensland branch at Maryborough by 1860. A branch was opened in Gladstone on 9 June 1897, long after the Australian Joint Stock Bank and the Queensland Government Savings Bank had opened offices there in the mid-1860s, but predating the Queensland National Bank [1905] and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia [1912]. The move by the CBC into Gladstone in 1897 appears to have been associated with the 1896 opening of the Gladstone meatworks and extension of the northern railway from Brisbane to Gladstone.
By the turn of the century the ubiquitous cattle tick was decimating the local grazing industry, affecting meatworks production and cattle shipments. This, coupled with the great drought of 1900-02 and the 1903 opening of the Rockhampton extension of the northern railway [which immediately deprived Gladstone of substantial port trade and passenger shipping], caused a crisis in business confidence in the town. The development of a local dairying industry, however, and the 1905 opening of a butter factory at Gladstone, did much to revive the town's fortunes, and the future of town and district appeared secure in 1909 when new Gladstone premises were being planned for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney.
Initially, the Bank had leased shop premises at 22 Goondoon Street, then in 1901 took a 10 year lease on premises at 30-32 Goondoon Street. As the expiration of the lease approached, the Bank made the decision to invest in new, purpose-built banking premises. The site at the southeast corner of Goondoon and Yarroon Streets, in the heart of Gladstone, was purchased in February 1909 for £600. Brisbane architect James Percy Owen Cowlishaw, son of early Brisbane architect James Cowlishaw, was commissioned to design the building, and the tender was let in May 1910 to AA Carrick of Brisbane, with a tender price of £4,650. In July 1910, the Bank appointed James Beattie as Clerk of Works to supervise construction.
JPO Cowlishaw's design was for a two-storeyed building, with banking chamber on the ground floor and manager's residence on the upper floor. The Gladstone manager, Mr WB Thomas, was keen to see a building of some substance erected: The figures of the Branch and the good prospects of both town and district, entitle a fairly good building. With the splendid harbour here there is every possibility that in time the town will develop into one of some importance. . . . There was no local brickworks at Gladstone, and the manager recommended concrete rather than timber construction. However, when he saw the plans prepared by Cowlishaw for a two-storeyed building of face brickwork, he was delighted: The building will be by far the best in town, and a good advertisement for the Bank.
Despite the contractor having some difficulty in managing the project satisfactorily, Beattie worked to ensured that the contract was completed, and the building was handed over to the Bank on 13 May 1911. Interior fittings were fixed, and the Bank opened for business in its fine new premises in June 1911. In the ensuing months a concrete retaining wall was erected at the rear of the site and along part of Yarroon Street, and picket fences erected on parts of both street frontages.
The two-storeyed brick premises at the corner of Goondoon and Yarroon Streets served the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney for nearly 50 years. In the mid-1950s the Bank commissioned new premises in Goondoon Street [designed by JPO Cowlishaw's son, architect George Owen Cowlishaw of Ure, McNaught & Cowlishaw, Brisbane], which opened on 26 May 1958. In September that year, the Bank accepted an offer of £4,500 from Gladstone businessman Mr MA Busteed, to purchase the former banking premises [land and building]. From the early 1960s at least, the building was occupied as a boarding house, known as Kullaroo House. The name Kullaroo is believed to be an Aboriginal word meaning road that leads to water, and from the upper verandahs of Kullaroo House fine views of Gladstone harbour can be obtained.
In the 1970s, new owners Goodwin, McKenzie, Forbes and Partners, lawyers, refurbished the building as law offices, retaining much of the original detailing. In the late 1980s Kullaroo House was used as a restaurant and in 1993 was acquired by the Gladstone Port Authority, which refurbished the building for office expansion. It is understood that at this time, most of the internal first floor partitions were removed. In 1996-97 further refurbishments were carried out and a large extension, imitating the original detailing, was constructed. Currently, both floors of the 1911 building contain office accommodation.
","criteria":"Kullaroo House, erected in 1910-11 as new premises for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney's Gladstone branch, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, demonstrating the renewal of business confidence in Gladstone and district in the early years of the 20th century. It was one of the CBC's more substantial regional offices, and illustrates how Gladstone was perceived at the time as potentially an important regional centre.
|Despite a number of late 20th century refurbishments, the building still illustrates the principal characteristics of a substantial, early 20th century, two-storeyed brick banking premises with classical detailing, designed to impress.
|The building is aesthetically pleasing, is located on a prominent site in the principal street of Gladstone, and makes a strong contribution to the Gladstone townscape.
|The place is considered locally as one of Gladstone's finest buildings, and is of landmark status.
|It is important as a fine example of the work of Queensland architect JPO Cowlishaw, and in illustrating the work of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney in central Queensland in the first half of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16094,"place_ref":601331,"name":"Gladstone Post Office (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"33 Goondoon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-05-07","description":"The former Gladstone Post Office is a single-storeyed rendered masonry building with a terracotta-tiled hipped roof, prominent clock tower and two-storeyed brick extension at the rear of the building. The building is situated in Goondoon Street, the principal street in Gladstone, and overlooks the harbour.
The principal façade of the building is to Goondoon Street with two flat roofed porches either side of a protruding gable. The building is designed in a stripped classical style. The clock tower sits above the gabled-end; it is square in plan, has a four-faced clock and is capped with a pyramidal terracotta roof. Below the clock tower the gable-end elevation has two sets of paired sash timber windows arranged symmetrically. There is evidence in the triangular pediment of the gable of the original signage.
The entrance to the twin porches is marked by two simple columns. The northern porch is entered by a flight of steps; aluminium shop fronts and doors give access to the building. The southern porch has been extended along the southern elevation of the building. The extension is rendered masonry, with paired sash windows and a flat metal deck roof. The southern porch has aluminium shop fronts and doors.
The northern elevation of the buildings has two sets of timber sash windows symmetrically arranged. The basement level below has three multi-paned timber sash windows.
Internally the main Goondoon Street level of the 1932 Post Office is one large open space. The original timber floor is extant, as is some remnant light internal partitioning. The ceiling has been removed as part of the process of refurbishing the building. The back wall of the original building was demolished when the extension was constructed.
The two-storeyed face brick rear extension has a flat roof. A concrete stairway leads to the lower level which contains a number of small rooms and connects with the two basement rooms of the 1932 building.
","history":"The former Gladstone Post Office was erected in 1932 as a purpose-designed Post Office for the Commonwealth Postmaster-General's Department, replacing earlier Post and Telegraph Offices on the same site. The 1932 building was at least the third purpose-built post and telegraph offices in Gladstone, and was designed by the office of the Federal Director-General of Works, Canberra. It was one of several important public buildings erected in Gladstone in the interwar years as work creation schemes, including the 1929 Commonwealth Bank Building, the 1934 Town Council Chambers and the c1940 Court House. As a group, these buildings contributed significantly to the development of a 20th century image for Gladstone, and remain important public landmarks.
Gladstone was established by the New South Wales colonial government in 1854, possibly in an attempt to create a more centralised alternative to Brisbane as the capital of any future northern colony. The town's first post office was gazetted on 1 July 1854, opening in premises at the corner of Goondoon and Yarroon Streets [later the site of the Commercial Hotel]. In the late 1850s and early 1860s postal services between Gladstone and Gayndah, Maryborough and Rockhampton were established, and to the Calliope Goldfields in 1864. In 1860, the Brisbane-Gladstone postal service came by fortnightly steamer, increased to a weekly service in 1871. On 28 November 1864 the overland telegraph service was opened to Gladstone, linking the town with Brisbane, Rockhampton and the hinterland.
In 1869 a substantial brick building was erected on the Customs Reserve at the corner of Lord and Goondoon Streets, Gladstone, as purpose-designed Post and Telegraph Offices and Customs House, with attached residences for the post master and the telegraph master. For a short time, post, telegraph and customs shared this building before it was designated as Gladstone Customs House. The post and telegraph departments then occupied temporary premises until a large timber building with separate offices and residences for post and telegraph was constructed in 1877-1878. This building was erected in Goondoon Street, at the intersection with Yarroon Street, on a prominent and centrally located site gazetted as a Post and Telegraph Reserve. Total expenditure on building and site by the Queensland government in the period 1877-1900 was £3,014. A telephone trunk line office opened at the Gladstone Post & Telegraph Offices on 20 September 1910, but the exchange was not built until 1911.
In 1912, most of Queensland's Post and Telegraph Department's property, including the Gladstone Post and Telegraph Offices, was transferred to the Commonwealth Government.
By the late 1920s, the shabby condition of Gladstone's Post and Telegraph Offices was an embarrassment to the local community. The Commonwealth Government's District Works Inspector, based at Rockhampton, recommended in 1925 and 1927 that the building did not warrant substantial expense on repairs, and recommended that a brick or concrete structure be erected in its place. Still the Postmaster-General's Department failed to act. By late 1928 the condition of the Gladstone Post Office had become an election issue, and in 1929, federal MHR for Capricornia, Mr FM Forde, lobbied on behalf of his constituents for a new post office.
Finally, provision was made in the estimates of 1930-31 for a new brick and tile-roofed building, to cost approximately £5,540. However, by the end of 1930, as world-wide economic depression worsened [with primary-producing Australia particularly vulnerable] this proposal was deferred. The depression deepened, and in November 1931, the Federal Works Director for Queensland, James Orwin, recommended to Canberra that urgently required new post offices at Gladstone, Muttaburra, Hughendon and Isisford be erected under relief scheme funding, using day labour. The proposal was accepted, and work on the Gladstone project commenced almost immediately. Before the end of the year, plans and specifications were being prepared by the office of the Director-General of Works, Canberra. By late January 1932, Mr D Gallogly had been engaged as foreman of works and the Post Office half of the 1870's building had been sold for removal.
The new post office was erected on the same reserve as the 1870s building, but with a smaller [66 feet] frontage to Goondoon Street. To enable construction of the new building, the Post Office half and clock tower of the 1870's building were removed first, and the post office temporarily shared facilities with the telegraph office. When the new building was completed, the old Telegraph Offices were removed, leaving a frontage of 64 feet to Goondoon Street for future development.
The new post office was a single-storeyed rendered brick building with symmetrically arranged entrance porches on either side of the front elevation. Unlike the earlier Gladstone Post and Telegraph Offices, the new building did not include quarters for the post master or telegraph master. Only 7 of this 'twin porch' type of masonry post office were erected in Queensland in the period 1923-1932, but 25 timber post offices of similar design were erected 1923-1939. The masonry post offices of this era illustrate the transition from timber to masonry post offices in Queensland, and from design by the Queensland Works Department to the Commonwealth Works Department. No new timber post offices were erected in Queensland after 1940, and the masonry post offices erected in the period 1941 to 1952 favoured the 'porch, parapet and hip' design.
The Gladstone Post Office was the only one of the Queensland 'twin porch' masonry post offices to include a clock tower, illustrating Gladstone's role as an important regional centre. The existing clock mechanism, already recycled from Maryborough and dating to at least 1900, was overhauled and used again in the new building. In 1932 the Gladstone Town Council agreed to illuminate, each night until midnight, the faces of the town clock which was to be installed in the new post office.
The new post office was opened officially on 23 July 1932, when members of the Gladstone Town Council, Chamber of Commerce and Harbour Board were taken on a tour of the building. At the time, the contribution of Mr FM Forde, MHR, in promoting the construction of this building, was acknowledged.
In the second half of the 1940s a two-storeyed rendered-brick Carrier Equipment Building [telephone exchange] was erected on the southern end of the post office reserve, about 20 feet from the post office building and fronting Goondoon Street. This was extended to the rear in 1965-67, linking the exchange with the 1932 post office. Perhaps at this period, and certainly between 1962 and 1976, the post office building was extended on the southern side to accommodate public telephones.
By 1976, the post office had undergone a number of modifications, including a large, two-storeyed brick extension to the rear of the post office, necessitating the removal of the rear wall of the 1932 building, and changes to the two public entrances. Internal verandahs had been created along the north and east sides by means of a rearrangement of the internal partitions, accommodating an expanded number of private post boxes. By the mid-1990s, changes in postal handling techniques made the building redundant to Australia Post, and it was sold to private enterprise in 1997. The interior has been gutted since, in preparation for an internal refurbishment as offices, but the principal street façades survive reasonably intact, and the prominently positioned building, along with its clock tower, remains an integral element in the Gladstone townscape.
","criteria":"The former Gladstone Post Office, erected in 1932, is important in illustrating the pattern of development of Gladstone as a regional centre. As one of a group of employment-generating public buildings erected in Gladstone during the interwar period, [including the 1929 Commonwealth Bank Building, the 1934 Town Council Chambers and the c1940 Court House], the former Post Office is significant in illustrating a more positive impact of the interwar economic depression on regional Queensland.
|As a group, these buildings contributed significantly to the development of a 20th century image for Gladstone, and remain important public landmarks. The prominently positioned former Post Office with clock tower retains a reasonably intact street exterior, and remains an integral element, with landmark status, in the Gladstone townscape.
|As a group, these buildings contributed significantly to the development of a 20th century image for Gladstone, and remain important public landmarks. The prominently positioned former Post Office with clock tower retains a reasonably intact street exterior, and remains an integral element, with landmark status, in the Gladstone townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16095,"place_ref":601332,"name":"Gladstone Court House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16 Yarroon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-05-29","description":"Prominently situated on Auckland Hill with the main entrance addressing Yarroon Street, the Gladstone Court House (former) is a two-storeyed brick building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. Designed in a stripped classical style, the red face brickwork contrasts with rendered string courses at floor and window levels. A rendered masonry fence appears to have been designed with the building.
\nThe building is H-shaped in plan with the main entrance centrally positioned. A flight of stairs leads to a verandah and portico with two Doric columns supporting an entablature with \"COURT HOUSE\" in raised lettering. The entrance doorway contains a two-leafed, eight-panelled door with fanlight and architrave. On the southern section of the main elevation a masonry ramp gives access to the verandah. All the windows throughout the building are timber framed with either six or twelve panes. At the rear of the building a single-storeyed extension encloses the space between the wings of the building.
\nInternally the ground floor contains a central corridor with a large general office on the right hand side and a former Magistrate's Court on the left-hand side. The space occupied by the Magistrate's Court was previously an office. An enclosed verandah at the rear of the building gives access to two staircases and the extension which was a lunch room. On the upper level the former main court room occupies the cross section of the H with the other two wings containing offices. The court room contains all the original court room furniture and has a suspended ceiling with modern light fittings, air conditioning and fans. The purpose-built silky oak court room furniture includes a judges' bench, witness dock, public gallery, jury benches, tables, benches and chairs. The furniture is sombre and plain with decorative battened panels to the front of the judges' bench, sides of jury benches, chair backs and other associated small benches/tables.
\nThe design and detailing of the building is robust and both internally and externally it remains intact. It retains most of its original fixtures and finishes including joinery, hardware, plaster ceilings, timber floors and concrete passageways and staircases.
","history":"Gladstone Court House (former), a two-storeyed masonry building, was erected in 1940-42. The building was designed in the office of the Queensland Department of Public Works, and replaced an 1873-74 court house and lands office. The 1940s building was at least the third purpose-designed court house in Gladstone.
\nGladstone was established by the New South Wales government in 1853-54, possibly in an attempt to create a more centralised alternative to Brisbane as the capital of any future northern colony. When Captain Maurice O'Connell, first Government Resident and Police Magistrate of the Port Curtis district, arrived in March 1854, the township of Gladstone had been laid out near Auckland Inlet, and the first slab buildings had been erected. O'Connell and his family set up residence [initially in tents] at Barney Point, a couple of miles south of Auckland Inlet, and around the residency there soon developed a small residential settlement.
\nO'Connell first conducted court matters from his tent office at Barney Point. Within a few months he had acquired a slab and shingled building on the rise of Auckland Hill - illegally erected by storekeeper Richard Palmer on a crown reserve, prior to O'Connell's arrival - as Gladstone's first court house and public building. About 1860 this building appears to have been replaced with a purpose-designed court house and watch house. This in turn was demolished in 1873-74 and replaced with a two-storeyed timber building, which accommodated both the court house and the land office. The 1873-74 building was situated on the court house reserve, but at the northern end of the block, overlooking Auckland Inlet, and was accessed via a lane from Auckland Street. The building was extended in 1882-83, and served as the Gladstone Court House until the early 1940s, when it was replaced with a two-storeyed brick building.
\nSite preparation for the brick building, which was to face Yarroon Street and the town rather than the harbour, was carried out in the second half of 1940, and plans for the new court house were prepared by the Queensland Department of Public Works in late 1940 and early 1941. A plan dated December 1940 showing front and rear elevations and ground and first floor plans, was drawn by architect Thomas Robert Gladwin, who had been employed as assistant architect in the architectural office of the Public Works Department since 1924. The design of the building is attributed to Raymond Clare Nowland who was also the designer of Stanthorpe Court House (1941) and Charleville Court House (1945). All three court houses are similar in planning, elevational treatment, materials and detailing. These were two-storeyed masonry buildings in stripped-classical style, H-shaped in plan, generally incorporating the court room on the upper floor, and government public offices on the ground floor.
\nThe new Gladstone Court House was completed in late 1942, at a cost of nearly £16,000. Like the Mackay and Charleville court houses, it was a combined court house/public offices, providing court facilities [court room, offices for the Judge, police magistrate/warden and police, and rooms for the jury, witnesses and solicitor] as well as offices for the land ranger, forestry officer, stock and dairy inspectors and mining registrar.
\nAlterations to the fabric of the building have been fairly minimal. Between 1966 and 1972, a single-storeyed brick extension, containing staff room and toilets, was erected at the rear of the building. Some minor internal refurbishment has been undertaken. The former police office on the ground floor has been converted to a small court room, but it is unclear at what date - possibly the mid-1970s. This does not appear to have involved the removal of any partition walls. In the early 1980s, a suspended acoustic ceiling was installed in the court room and a new judge's toilet was provided.
\nIn 2011 the court house building was subdivided from the larger government reserve and a new court house was constructed adjacent. The former court house is no longer owned by the Queensland Government and has been in use as office space.
\n","criteria":"
Gladstone Court House (former), erected in the early 1940s, is important in illustrating the pattern of development of Gladstone as a regional centre. As one of a group of employment-generating public buildings erected in Gladstone during the interwar period, [including the 1929 Commonwealth Bank Building, the 1932 Post Office and the 1934 Town Council Chambers], the court house is significant in illustrating a more positive impact of the interwar economic depression on regional Queensland.
|The two-storeyed brick court house remains substantially intact, and is a good example of interwar Queensland public works design. The court room is important for its collection of intact purpose-built furniture.
|Prominently positioned on the rise of Auckland Hill, Gladstone Court House (former) remains an integral component of the Gladstone townscape, and has landmark status.
|As a group, these buildings contributed significantly to the development of a 20th century image for Gladstone, and remain important public landmarks.
|The building is important for its association with the Department of Public Works and in particular with the work of architect Raymond Clare Nowland. The court house, and the former reserve on which it is located, is significant for its strong association with the dispensing of justice in the Port Curtis district since at least the 1870s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16096,"place_ref":601333,"name":"Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum","alternate_name":"Gladstone Town Hall and Council Chambers","street_address":"142-144 Goondoon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE CENTRAL","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-07-07","description":"The Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum is situated on the corner of Bramston Street and Goondoon Street, which is the principal street of Gladstone. The Art Gallery and Museum is a single-storeyed masonry building, with a basement level, designed in a free classical style.
\nThe main entrance to the building is from Goodoon Street through a portico with Doric columns and an arched entablature with \"TOWN HALL\" in raised lettering. The doorway is in an arched opening with decorative double doors and fanlight. On either side of the entrance portico are arched windows and pilasters; this western elevation is finished with a parapet and flagpole. Behind the parapet is a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The building is rendered and the details are moulded plasterwork. The side elevations of the building contain sash windows and decorative fanlights with a pattern of radiating glazing bars. This is a motif that is used throughout the glazing in the building. The southern elevation to Bramston Street has a secondary entrance to the building. A flight of steps with wrought iron lamp stands leads to an arched doorway. At the eastern end of the building is the concrete framed fly tower.
\nInternally the plan of the building is a central hallway, with rooms on either side, that opens onto the large space that was formerly the hall. The entrance vestibule has silky oak panelling to door head height, silky oak doors and fanlights all with the radiating glazing bars. Opening off the hallway to the north is the room that was the Council chamber. This room contains a very fine timber First World War honour board. The former Council chamber and hallway are connected by a hatch with a writing slope. On the southern side of the hallway are two rooms and a strong room.
\nThe former hall has been renovated to become an art gallery. This room has been lined so that the windows are covered, the proscenium arch has been removed and a wall placed between the former stage area and the hall. The room has two exposed air conditioning ducts running its length and a suspended track lighting system. The room has a curved ceiling with exposed timber trusses. The fly tower is used as a store room with a mezzanine above the stage area. The basement area is entered from Bramston Street and is also used for storage.
\nFeatures Not of State-level Significance
\nFeatures of the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum that are not of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum, designed by Rockhampton architect Roy Chipps, was erected in 1933-34 as the Gladstone Town Hall and Municipal Chambers. It functioned as such for about 33 years and then as an entertainment venue until 1980, when the City Theatre opened. In 1985 the building was converted to an art gallery and museum.
\nGladstone was established by the New South Wales government in 1853-54, possibly in an attempt to create a more centralised alternative to Brisbane as the capital of any future northern colony. The township acquired municipal status in 1863, and the first town hall was erected in 1868 in Goondoon Street, north of the Yarroon Street intersection.
\nGladstone languished in the 1870s and 1880s, but in the late 1890s sustained a period of strong development associated with the 1896 opening of the Gladstone meatworks and extension of the railway from Brisbane to Gladstone in the same year. However, by 1900 the cattle tick was decimating the local grazing industry, affecting meatworks production and cattle shipments. This, coupled with the great drought of 1900-02 and the 1903 opening of the Rockhampton extension of the northern railway [which immediately deprived Gladstone of substantial port trade and passenger shipping], caused a crisis in business confidence in the town. The development of a local dairying industry and the 1905 opening of a butter factory at Gladstone, did much to revive the town's fortunes, and sustained the town during the interwar period, when many Gladstone business premises were rebuilt or renovated.
\nConstruction of the 1933-34 town hall, a long-needed project, was made possible by low interest loans and subsidised labour provided by the State government during the height of the economic depression of the 1930s. Other buildings constructed in Gladstone during this period as employment-generating schemes included the 1929 Commonwealth Bank Building, the 1932 Post Office, and the 1940-42 Court House.
\nIn late 1932, Gladstone Town Council applied for a State Government loan for the erection of a new town hall at the northeast corner of Goondoon and Bramston Streets, and invited competitive designs for the project. This was won by architect Roy Chipps of Rockhampton.
\nThe Queensland Department of Labour granted the Gladstone Town Council a subsidy of nearly £5,000 to employ labour under the Unemployed Worker's Scheme; ie. men receiving the dole were not eligible for relief work until their sustenance rights were exhausted, and then when given work, were to be employed on a rotational basis of 13 weeks continuous work rather than the 1 or 2 days per week under the usual day labour system.
\nWork commenced about September 1933, under the foremanship of Mr FH Cecil of Brisbane. Bricks for the building were made in Rockhampton. The original brief and design was for Council Chambers only, but during construction a newly elected Town Council decided to extend the building to include a public hall and stage. The council chambers was already nearing completion, so Chipps had to convert the main chamber into a hall, with a stage and fly tower extension at the eastern end. This work was made possible with an additional State Government loan of £750, granted in January 1934.
\nThe new Gladstone Town Hall and Municipal Chambers was opened officially on Saturday 15 September 1934, by Hon HA Bruce MLA, Minister for Public Works. For the occasion, the front of the building was garlanded with 40 International Signal Flags borrowed from the Pilot Station at Gatcombe Head. The building was considered a fine ornament to the town. The council offices and meeting room were at the western end of the building, fronting Goondoon Street. The town's First World War Honour Board was relocated from the old council chambers and hung in the new council meeting room. Behind the offices was the public hall, 70 feet long by 38.5 feet wide, accessed via a foyer from Goondoon Street, and from a side entrance facing Bramston Street. A short winding staircase near the proscenium at the eastern end led to the supper room in the basement. Stage, dressing rooms and toilets were accessed from the basement.
\nGladstone Town Council's first meeting in the new premises was held on 8 October 1934, and from this time the council chambers at the north end of Goondoon Street was leased to the RSSLIA [Returned Soldiers]. The new Town Hall rapidly became the hub of community life, with a weekly baby clinic, 'talkies' screened 3 times a week [canvas chairs were placed in the auditorium], balls, stage shows, ALP sponsored bingo, and community group meetings of all kinds. In 1956 a children's library, and in 1957 a small adult library, were opened in the basement of the Town Hall, which no longer functioned as a supper room.
\nIn 1947 the 173rd anniversary of Matthew Flinders' birth was celebrated with tree plantings on Auckland Hill and outside the Gladstone Town Hall, and with the unveiling of a plaque at the hall. Flinders had named and explored Port Curtis in August 1802, during his circumnavigation of the Australian mainland.
\nWithin a decade of its opening, plans were being discussed to replace the Gladstone Town Hall and Municipal Chambers with a larger Civic Centre. These plans were deferred a number of times, and when finally built in 1958-59, the new Civic Centre comprised only one floor, with no council chamber, and no offices for council staff. In 1966 work began on the upper floor of the Civic Centre, and the Gladstone Town Council met there for the first time on 18 December 1967. From this date the principal use of the former Town Hall and Municipal Chambers was an as entertainment and meeting venue. The library in the basement of the Town Hall also was transferred to the Civic Centre in the 1960s.
\nThe first Gladstone City Council [1976-79] built a new library and art gallery, established an immunisation centre, chose a site for a City Theatre and planned its construction - all of which contributed to the redundancy of the 1934 Town Hall. In 1980 the new City Theatre opened, and in 1984-85 the Gladstone City Council converted the former Town Hall and Municipal Chambers into an art gallery and museum, to provide the citizens of Gladstone and visitors to the city with a venue in which to view art, of all media, by professional and amateur artists from locally and elsewhere and to acquaint themselves with the cultural and historic heritage of the area. The Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum was opened officially on 3 April 1985. The refurbishment necessitated the installation of 'total environment control', filling-in of the proscenium arch over the stage, and removal of the internal stairs from the hall to the basement. In 1998, a goods lift and internal staircase were added.[1]
\nIn 2003, a 200m2 wing, designed by Peddle Thorp Architects was constructed to the northwest of the former Town Hall and Municipal Chambers building, connected by a glass bridge walkway. It comprised a gallery space, workshop studio, administration offices and courtyard, and was built to accommodate a 19th century marble statue of William Ewart Gladstone.[2] This northwestern wing is not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nIn 2024, the place continues to be used as an art gallery and museum.[3]
","criteria":"Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum, erected in 1933-34 as the Gladstone Town Hall and Municipal Chambers, is important in illustrating the pattern of development of Gladstone as a regional centre. As one of a group of employment-generating public buildings erected in Gladstone during the interwar period, [including the 1929 Commonwealth Bank Building, the 1932 Post Office and the 1940-42 Court House], the former town hall is significant in illustrating a more positive impact of the interwar economic depression on regional Queensland. As a group, these buildings contributed significantly to the development of a 20th century image for Gladstone, and the former town hall remains one of the town's most prestigious buildings.
|The conversion into an art gallery and museum in 1984-85 necessitated some alterations, but the building remains sufficiently intact to be important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional town hall and municipal chambers of the interwar period, designed in a classically-derived style.
It is a fine example of the public work of Rockhampton architect Roy Chipps.
|Located on a corner block in the main street of Gladstone, the building has strong streetscape presence and townscape value.
|It is valued by the local community for its strong association with municipal government and community activities and entertainments since the 1930s, for its present role as the town's principal repository of Gladstone's history, and for its aesthetic value.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16097,"place_ref":601334,"name":"Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory (former)","alternate_name":"Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd Factory | PCD Factory","street_address":"6 Short Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-03-30","description":"The Port Curtis Co-Operative Dairy Factory is a complex of buildings located on a 1.92 hectare site that rises from the reclaimed flats of Barney Point up a rise to the eastern side of a cutting along the north-south railway line. The site is bounded to the north and east by a large vacant freehold property owned by Queensland Rail, to the south by Young Street and to the west by railway reserve.
The administration building is situated on the highest point of the site in the south-western corner adjacent to the railway bridge over Young Street. The building is comprised of two sections. Adjacent to Young Street the single storey rendered masonry section has articulated engaged piers to its southern elevation, a hipped corrugated iron roof surmounted by two small ventilators, quad guttering, later sliding aluminium windows and boarded soffits in line with the rafters. The two storey rendered masonry section attached along its northern also has a hipped corrugated iron roof and quad guttering but has a flat soffit with timber cover strips and no evidence of articulated piers. It has a rendered masonry string course below the window line. The windows comprise groups of six top hung sashes to the western elevation with later aluminium sliding windows generally throughout the remainder of the building.
The butter stores are located between the Administration building and the butter factory to the north. The butter stores are comprised of four parts. There is a two storey wing along the western end which has a despatch/loading area at the excavated platform level of the factory and staff amenities on the upper level which aligns with the ground floor level of the Administration Building. This section has a gabled corrugated fibrous cement roof and metal framed double hung windows - larger openings have fixed sidelights. The stores are divided into three bays and are located at right angles to and are attached to the eastern wall of the dispatch wing. Two of the bays (to the south) have external wall of concrete frame and infill construction with corrugated fibrous cement gable roofs surmounted by pairs of large ventilators. The gable ends are lined with flat fibrous cement sheeting with timber cover battens and house louvred vents below which a suspended fibrous cement awning provides protection to several large doors which open onto a platform. The third bay to the north is of a similar form but of different construction. It has a corrugated iron roof . and appears to have corrugated iron clad walls and steel framed windows.
The butter factory originally housed the laboratory, boiler house, engine room, vacuators and butter processing areas following which it accommodated the milk bottling plant. The factory is a large two storey volume building of concrete frame and infill external wall construction supporting a steel framed roof. The building is divided into two bays with corrugated iron gabled roofs. Gabled roof clerestoreys running the length of each bay provide natural light and ventilation together with steel framed multipaned centrally pivotting windows in the eastern end elevation. A third ventilated gabled roof supported on a steel frame is attached along the northern end of the building providing protection for a receiving/loading area. The tops of the clerestoreys are visible from the west above the large concrete framed façade which faces the city and railway line and prominently displays the Port Curtis Co-Operative Dairy name and insignia. The infill panels are omitted at ground level on western façade providing access to a platform adjacent to which are remains of part of the railway siding.
The railway siding comprised two tracks which entered the site near the south-eastern end across Young Street. These tracks converged at the northern end of the butter stores curving around the northern end of the factory and exiting to the main railway line at the north western end of the site. A spur off this siding returned around the factory along its western face. Sections of the track survive near the Young Street boundary, at the rear of the butter stores and to the west of the factory.
The factory office, relocated to the north of the factory from its original location to the west of the siding, is a timber framed building, lowset on stumps with timber top hung sash windows and a flat fibrous cement wall cladding with timber cover strips. It has a corrugated iron gambrel roof with eaves extended over the south-west elevation.
The ice room and store are located to the north east of the factory. The ice room is a is a two storey, timber framed volume with hipped corrugated iron roof. It has timber battens surrounding the base above which the walls are lined with vertical corrugated iron sheeting. Adjacent to the ice room is a store room which is a single storey volume with a hipped corrugated fibrous cement roof and wall clad in vertical corrugated fibrous cement sheeting.
The tin shed is located toward the north eastern end of the site and is a single storey building clad in vertical corrugated fibrous cement sheeting. It has a gambrel roof with a ventilated ridge and later metal doors and gablet detailing to its eastern end.
A water hole survives in the north eastern portion of the site and may be the salt hole from which water was drawn to form a vacuum in the pasteurisation process at the factory.
","history":"The Port Curtis Dairy Company Ltd [the PCD] was formed at Gladstone in 1904, with its first timber factory buildings erected at Gladstone in 1906. By the 1920s, the PCD was one of the largest co-operative dairy companies in Queensland. The activities of the PDC at Gladstone and in surrounding districts stimulated the expansion of commercial dairying in Central Queensland. State wide, dairying was an important economic activity for the first half of the 20th century, and a mainstay for farming communities during the economic depression of the early 1930s. Surviving elements of the Gladstone factory site include the 1929-30 factory building, an early factory office building, several cold stores, a c1938 single-storeyed office building with two-storeyed extensions erected 1948-1950, a 1938 re-tinning shed, an ice shed and store room erected during the Second World War, and sections of a 1914 railway siding and 1923 siding extension.
From the late 1880s, the Queensland government promoted the establishment of dairying in Queensland as a commercial, rather than subsistence, activity. The development of dairying as a staple industry was considered a means of relieving selector poverty and debt, and as encouragement to closer settlement of the land. The Meat and Dairy Produce Act 1893 was introduced to offer subsidies to dairy farmers and a tax on cattle, the latter funding the establishment of creameries, cheese and butter factories throughout Queensland. In 1895, Queensland produced its first butter surplus.
The real catalyst for the establishment of commercial dairying proved to be the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act 1894, under which valuable agricultural land long freeholded by pastoralists was repurchased by the government, then offered as selections [mostly on perpetual lease] to agriculturalists. By the late 19th century, pastoralists could no longer afford to maintain huge freeholds, and were keen to relinquish land through repurchase. In the Gladstone district, the 1894 Act led to the opening of the Boyne Valley to selection and closer settlement, and this, combined with the provisions of the Meat and Dairy Produce Act 1893, ultimately led to the establishment of a meatworks [1896] and a butter factory [1906] at Gladstone. The Closer Settlement Act 1906 with its provisions for repurchase and on-selling to agriculturalists as settlement farm leases, led to a dairying boom in the Mount Larcom and Yarwun districts behind Gladstone. The Queensland government further supported agriculturalists with its establishment in 1901 of the Queensland Agricultural Bank, aimed at increasing the flow of credit to selectors, further stimulating the dairying industry.
The Queensland Government also intervened to maintain and enhance standards within the dairying industry. In 1898 the government introduced compulsory grading of butter and cream, prohibiting the mixing of all states of cream (fresh, ripe and stale) in the same vat. The Dairy Produce Acts 1904-05 provided further quality control with the introduction of Government inspection of dairies and factories. In addition, Queensland's Margarine Act 1910 restricting the use of margarine, was aimed at protecting the local dairying industry.
One of the most distinctive characteristics of the early Queensland dairy industry was its organisation along co-operative lines. The co-operative movement, established in Switzerland in the 1880s, gained world-wide popularity at the Second International Dairy Conference held in 1905, but Queensland farmers were experimenting with the concept from the 1890s. In the 1890s and early 1900s, Victorian 'dairy immigrants' also brought ideas about co-operatives to Queensland.
In November 1903, a public meeting was held at the Gladstone Town Hall to gauge local interest in forming a co-operative dairy company and erecting a dairy factory at Gladstone. Supported by graziers and selectors alike, a provisional committee was elected, representing Mount Larcombe, Calliope, Clyde Creek, Boyne River, Gladstone, Bororen, and Miriam Vale. The committee canvassed the district for support, soliciting shares and guarantees of milk supplies. As a result, the Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd was registered in Brisbane in September 1904 as a joint stock company, with the registered office situated in Gladstone. The company's objective was to erect a factory at Gladstone for the manufacture and storage of butter and other dairy products. During 1904 articles of association were drawn up, and a founding committee comprising prominent local graziers and businessmen was elected. A site for the dairy factory was selected adjacent to the railway line, a couple of blocks southeast of the main Gladstone Railway Station, and the scheme was approved by the Meat and Dairy Board.
Tenders for the construction of a dairy factory [a timber structure] at Gladstone were called in June 1905 by Bundaberg architect FH Faircloth, with the contract let in August to J Connors. A dispute between the contractor and the dairy company delayed completion for several months, but finally the factory commenced butter production in April 1906. In 1914, Queensland Railways constructed a dead end siding for the PCD, which was extended in 1923 by 70 feet.
The establishment of the butter factory at Gladstone provided local farmers with a steady income and stimulated the town economy. For example the Queensland National Bank opened a branch at Gladstone in December 1905, and the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney erected substantial new premises in the town in 1910-11 [601330].
During the 1910s dairying expanded in the surrounding districts, particularly at Mt Larcom and Bracewell, and the PCD made steady progress. Following the appointment in January 1916 of Joseph W Rigby as Manager and Secretary, the area from which the Company received cream was extended and the Company's growth was greatly accelerated. In the period 1916 to 1923, suppliers increased from 216 to 502 and manufactured butter from 179 to 539 tons. Historian Lorna Macdonald [1988:170] suggests that during the 1920s the combination of Wilson [JL, of Calliope Station] as chairman, Rigby as manager, and RM Hill of Bororen who was elected to the board in 1924 . . . made the PCD one of the largest co-operative organisations in Queensland. JW Rigby remained as manager until November 1931.
By the mid-1920s, the Company was expanding at a substantial rate. Under the provisions of the Primary Producers' Co-operative Associations Act 1923, in order to continue to use the word 'co-operative', the Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd was de-registered under the Companies Act 1863 to 1913, and in February 1925 was re-registered under the 1923 Act as the Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd. In the same year the PCD erected its own cold stores at Gladstone, with storage capacity for 150 tons of butter. This obviated the heavy costs of railage to Brisbane, as well as Brisbane cold storage charges, and reduced loss in quality during transit to Brisbane. As a consequence, a higher grade of export butter, and direct overseas shipment of butter from Gladstone, were made possible. The installation of coldstores at the PCD's Gladstone factory had important long-term effects for the Port of Gladstone, where butter formed the staple export from 1926 to1934, prior to the first chilled beef [distinct from frozen beef] being exported in 1935.
From the mid-1920s the PCD led the way in consolidating the dairying industry in central Queensland, from just south of Bundaberg to Bowen in the north, and inland to Monto, Biloela and Wowan. Consolidation commenced in July 1927 when the recently established Central Queensland Dairy Co-operative Ltd, based at Rockhampton, [and which had already absorbed Mount Larcom & District Co-operative Dairy & Produce Co., established 1921], amalgamated with the Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd. The amalgamation was conditional on the PCD erecting a dairy factory at Rockhampton, which commenced operation in January 1928.
Further negotiations resulted in the absorption of the Bundaberg Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd, whose factory at Bundaberg operated as a branch of the Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd from 1 March 1928. From 1 April 1928 the Dawson Valley Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd's factory at Wowan operated as a branch of the PCD.
Following the opening of the Upper Burnett to closer settlement in the 1920s, the PCD established a butter factory at Monto in 1929, stimulating a phenomenal expansion of dairying and pig-raising in that district. In the same year the PCD installed a buttermilk drying plant at Gladstone, the powdered buttermilk sold back to dairy farmers for fowl, pig and calf rearing. This proved a popular side-line, and in 1933 the PCD installed a plant at Gladstone for converting buttermilk into a buttermilk curd.
The PCD closed its Gladstone factory on 1 July 1929 for re-building purposes, re-opening early in February 1930 to handle cream only, and was fully operational by September 1930. The 1905-06 building appears to have been demolished at this time, replaced with the present main factory building. The 1929-30 factory contained the PCD's first laboratory.
In addition to the substantial re-building of its Gladstone factory, the PCD opened a new factory in Mackay in March 1930, following the absorption of the Mackay District Co-operative Butter Factory Association Ltd by the PCD in 1929-30.
Dairying proved to be the economic mainstay of many Queensland farming communities, including those of central Queensland, during the depression years of the early 1930s. Pig and calf raising became important adjuncts to the dairying industry, utilising skim milk and later buttermilk from the factories, as stock feed. By the second half of 1934, the increased quantity of butter available for export necessitated the construction of additional cold stores at Gladstone, on land leased from Queensland Railways adjacent to the PCD factory. These commenced operation in January 1935. [This building was demolished c1970s.]
The PCD continued to expand its activities in central Queensland in the second half of the 1930s. In 1937 a dairy factory and buttermilk stud stock piggery [carrying capacity 500 pigs] were opened at Biloela in the Callide Valley. Another PCD buttermilk stud stock piggery, with a carrying capacity of 700 pigs, was opened at Monto in February 1938. In November 1938 the PCD installed a plant at the Gladstone factory for the re-tinning of cream cans, which proved popular with farmers.
PCD butter production peaked in 1938-39 with 9,302 tons. About 1938 a single-storeyed administrative building was erected south of the main factory building, and in May 1939 a contract was let to J Hutchinson for additional cold stores, capable of storing 40,000 boxes of butter, at the PCD's Gladstone factory. These were operational by October 1940, giving the factory a holding capacity of 65,000 boxes of butter.
The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 had a substantial impact on the operations of the PCD. Cheese factories were established at Bracewell [in operation May 1942 - 31 December 1954] and Theodore [in operation July 1942 - 31 January 1951], to meet requests from the British Government for extra cheese supplies. The processing of pasteurised milk at PCD factories was initiated with the arrival of United States troops at Rockhampton in 1942 - American military authorities did not approve the use of raw milk. At the Gladstone factory a number of new structures were erected, including an ice shed and store to the east of the PCD siding, both of which remain in situ.
During the war all surplus butter was bought by the Commonwealth, but the war-time shortage of refrigerated ships necessitated the construction of emergency cold stores throughout Australia, to store accumulated butter supplies. Gladstone was chosen by the Australian Dairy Produce Control Board as a centre for an emergency cold store for butter and meat, and in 1941-42 a timber cold store was erected there for this purpose In 1946 the PCD purchased the Emergency Stores for a fraction of its original cost, and leased it to Swifts Meatworks for storing meat.
Central Queensland dairy production peaked in the decade 1940-1950, with the PCD providing 28% of all butter exported from Queensland and 10% of the total Australian butter exports. During this period the PCD achieved its greatest diversification with production of butter, cheese, pasteurised milk and ice-cream (after the purchase of Pauls Ice Cream and Milk Ltd factory in Rockhampton in 1945). Facilities for ice cream holding and distribution were established by the PCD at Bundaberg, Gladstone, Mackay and Monto in 1946-47, and in 1948 a complete ice cream manufacturing plant was erected at Mackay for the PCD. In the immediate post-war years the PCD obtained the franchise for pasteurised milk in Rockhampton and established co-operative stores at Gladstone [on PCD land adjacent to the dairy factory, 1949], Biloela, Wowan and Monto, in converted surplus Army Storage Sheds acquired from Eidsvold and Stanwell. In this period the PCD also acquired a half interest in Central Queensland Co-operative Stock Feeds.
In 1947 an attempt to shift PCD headquarters to Rockhampton was defeated and in January 1948 a tender of £11,886 from John Young and Sons was accepted for the construction of a new PCD Head Office at the Gladstone factory [an extension of the c1938 administration building]. In December 1949 it was decided to add a second storey to the new office building, at a cost of about £1,600.
From the 1950s dairying in the Gladstone hinterland declined in favour of beef cattle and tropical fruit, and the PCD, following a national trend, turned to bulk milk rather than butter production, establishing milk pasteurising facilities and a bottling plant at its Gladstone factory in 1955-57. The factory building was refurbished to accommodate milk processing to meet codes of practice and included the introduction of a lower ceiling in the milk processing room and the re-finishing of the floor. Milk from the dairies was transported to the site by road and by rail. It was received at the northern end of the factory, whereupon the cans were weighed, milk was checked for freshness, sample cups were taken from each supplier and daily cream dockets were issued. The cans were placed upon a conveyor which tipped the milk into troughs and milk was strained into vats. The cans went to the can washer where they were cold rinsed, caustic washed, hot washed and steamed dried before being returned to the supplier for removal. The milk was centrifugally tested and pasteurised in the with the salt hole and pump house on the site providing the water for the vacuum before being bottled and then transported by conveyor to the stores.
The PCD's Gladstone factory continued its milk pasteurising and bottling operation until it closed c1980. For some years afterwards, the Gladstone Maritime Museum was housed in the former company administration building, and a number of small businesses leased space in the former factory buildings. In October 1994 the Port Curtis Dairy Co-operative Association Ltd was absorbed by Paul's Ltd [Queensland United Food Industries], which sold the former Gladstone PCD factory in the late 1990s.
","criteria":"The Former Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory, Gladstone, is important in illustrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, being the first in a chain of Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd [PCD] factories established in Central Queensland, and PCD headquarters until c1980.
|The place retains a number of elements integral to the function of the place as a butter [and later milk pasteurising and bottling] factory, including the 1929-30 factory building, an early factory office building, several cold stores, a c1938 single-storeyed company administration building with two-storeyed extensions erected 1948-1950, a 1938 re-tinning shed, an ice shed and a store erected during the Second World War, and sections of the 1914/1923 railway siding. These elements are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an early to mid 20th century dairy factory with company headquarters and important links to a principal railway network and to overseas port facilities.
|The Former Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory, Gladstone was a major employer for nearly 8 decades, through much of the 20th century, and retains strong social significance for the people of Gladstone and district.
|The place is significant for its association with the work of the PCD in encouraging the expansion of dairying as a commercial activity in Central Queensland through the first half of the 20th century. The PCD was one of the largest dairying co-operatives in Queensland, was highly successful in stimulating the expansion of dairying in Central Queensland, and was a major exporter of Australian butter - most of this via the Gladstone factory.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16101,"place_ref":601338,"name":"Commonwealth Bank Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"114 Goondoon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The former Commonwealth Bank Building in Goondoon Street, Gladstone, is a two-storeyed brick and concrete building with sub-floor, located in what has been the heart of the city's commercial precinct since the 1920s. It is one of Gladstone's more substantial interwar commercial buildings, and is designed in a restrained Mediterranean style, with a colonnaded entry porch, arched windows, and a terracotta tiled roof. The plan of the building is typical of 19th and 20th century bank buildings with a banking chamber at ground floor level and a residence for the manager on the second floor level.
The building is rectangular in plan, narrower across the street frontage than the depth, and is built up to the street alignment. It has been extended at the rear. It occupies approximately half of the block, with a bitumined carpark at the rear, accessed via a driveway off Goondoon Street along the north side of the building. There are several mature trees along the perimeter of the back yard, possibly related to the period of occupation of the first floor of the building as a bank manager's residence. The site slopes considerably to the rear [east] and to the south, accommodating a basement level with what was formerly a strongroom.
The building has concrete foundations, staircase, verandah floors and strong room. The external and internal walls are rendered brickwork. Internally the floors are timber The terracotta tiled roof is pyramid-shaped, with wide-eaves.
The principal facade of the building facing Goondoon Street has a central recessed entrance porch which leads to the banking chamber [currently occupied by Metway Bank]. A small flight of steps lead to the 3-arched colonnaded porch. Above the entrance porch the first-floor verandah, which mirrored the entrance porch, has been enclosed with glazing panels.
Another first floor verandah on the southern side of the building has been enclosed with brickwork and a small row of windows.
The symmetry of the street facade has been marred with the conversion of a window to the left of the front entrance into a doorway, to provide street access to the internal staircase leading to the upper floor. The original external side access has been enclosed. Most of the other external openings survive and retain their original joinery.
The ground floor, which remains in use as a banking chamber, has undergone refurbishment - including the insertion of a false ceiling and air conditioning ducting. However the space remains substantially intact. The timber counter and teller boxes have been removed, but the fine entrance, manager's office and rear ancillary rooms remain, and the original function of this space can be understood. There is an internal staircase at the rear southeast corner leading to the basement, which also is accessed externally at ground level from the rear of the building.
The first floor is reached via an internal and original timber staircase at the northwest corner of the building, which now is accessed only from the front street. The upper floor has been gutted and refurbished as office space not associated with the bank on the ground floor, hence the alterations to create a separate entrance. There is a set of external timber back stairs leading from the first floor to the back yard, at the original northeast corner of the building.
There is a concrete block extension, two-storeyed with sub-floor, at the rear. This has necessitated little alteration to the main building, with the former rear external wall now an internal partition.
","history":"This two-storeyed masonry building was constructed in 1928-29 as banking offices and bank manager's residence for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and remained the Bank's principal Gladstone branch until February 1972.
The federal government's Commonwealth Bank Act of 1911 established Australia's first bank empowered to conduct both savings and general [trading] bank business, with the security of a federal government guarantee.
On 16 September 1912 the Savings Bank Department of the Commonwealth Bank [later the Commonwealth Savings Bank] commenced business in Queensland. The new bank established a main office in Brisbane, and operated branches through the 194 post offices throughout Queensland which had been transferred to the Commonwealth after Federation, and which previously had acted as agencies for the [Queensland] Government Savings Bank [established in 1864 by act of Queensland Parliament]. The Gladstone Post Office remained the Commonwealth Bank's representative in Gladstone until 1921.
The [Queensland] Government Savings Bank had established a regional branch at Gladstone in June 1912 in rented premises on the eastern side of Goondoon Street, between Lord and Yarroon Streets, formerly occupied by the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. In December 1920 the Queensland Government Savings Bank was absorbed by the Commonwealth Government Savings Bank, following which the Commonwealth Bank's Gladstone Post Office agency was closed and all business moved to the former Queensland Government Savings Bank's premises in Goondoon Street, opening there on 3 January 1921 as the Commonwealth Bank and providing full commercial and savings bank facilities.
By the 1920s Gladstone's business heart was shifting south toward the railway station, and the Commonwealth Bank decided to erect purpose-designed banking premises closer to the centre of business. In 1927 vacant land in Goondoon Street, between William and Roseberry Streets, was purchased for £700 from J Friend. In 1928 plans were prepared by the Commonwealth Department of Works and Railways for a substantial, two-storeyed 'Spanish style' brick building, with ground floor banking chamber and upstairs manager's residence. The use of Mediterranean ['Spanish'] style was in vogue for both domestic and commercial buildings in Australia and overseas at this period, and the Commonwealth Bank, like other financial institutions, was keen to reflect through its buildings a modern, progressive and reliable approach to successful money management. Other popular architectural styles favoured by the Bank at this period were stripped classical and moderne.
Tenders were called in September 1928, and the job was let in November to local Gladstone contractor Mr FF Hill, with a tender price of £8,384 and a completion date of 30 April 1929. This was extended to 17 August 1929, and the bank opened for business in September 1929.
At the time of completion, the building was described as the finest banking chamber in Gladstone. Entrance to the new branch was through a small colonnade leading to a centrally located doorway into the banking chamber on the ground floor. The manager's office was located at the front, and the main counter, which housed three teller boxes, ran across the width of the banking chamber. Behind this were the strong room, staff facilities and store room. The manager's three bedroom residence was located on the upper level.
During the Second World War the Gladstone branch of the Commonwealth Bank became heavily involved with Commonwealth Bonds and other forms of government fund-raising for the war effort, and was the local agent for the meat and clothing rationing authorities.
During the late 1940s and 1950s, the Commonwealth Bank expanded its activities Australia-wide, opening hundreds of branches and agencies to cater for the increase and spread of population accompanying Australia's great post-war migrant influx, and reflecting the buoyant national economy of the 1950s. In December 1959 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was restructured and renamed the Commonwealth Banking Corporation.
In the 1960s and 1970s Gladstone entered a new period of prosperity with the establishment of an alumina refinery, an alumina smelter, a cement clinker plant, a huge regional power station, and three separate coal loading facilities. As early as 1970, the growth of business through the Commonwealth Banking Corporation's Gladstone office had increased to over 7,800 savings accounts and 800 cheque accounts, and the existing premises were proving inadequate for the conduct of bank business. In June 1970 a vacant site in Goondoon Street, directly opposite the 1928-29 building, was purchased, and larger bank offices were erected there in 1971-72. The new premises opened in February 1972, and the old premises were sold a month later.
At present the former Commonwealth Bank Building at Gladstone is occupied by Kinhill Cameron McNamara, consulting engineers, on the upper floor, and, appropriately, the Metway Bank on the ground floor. Conversion of the upper floor to offices necessitated the removal of most of the original internal partitioning on that floor.
","criteria":"The former Commonwealth Bank Building, Gladstone, erected 1928-29, is important in illustrating the pattern of development of Gladstone as a regional centre. As one of a group of employment-generating public buildings erected in Gladstone during the interwar period, [including the 1932 Post Office, 1934 Town Council Chambers, and 1940-42 Court House], the former Commonwealth Bank Building is significant in illustrating the less negative impact of the interwar economic depression on regional Queensland.
|The two-storeyed former banking premises remains sufficiently intact to illustrate the quality of interwar Commonwealth public works design; the exterior in particular still demonstrates the intention of the design to impress, and the building remains an integral component of the principal Gladstone streetscape.
|The two-storeyed former banking premises remains sufficiently intact to illustrate the quality of interwar Commonwealth public works design; the exterior in particular still demonstrates the intention of the design to impress, and the building remains an integral component of the principal Gladstone streetscape.
|As a group, these buildings contributed significantly to the development of a 20th century image for Gladstone, and remain important public landmarks.
|The place is significant for its strong association with the work of the Commonwealth Bank in Gladstone over four decades [1929-1972], during which time the town sustained the deepest economic depression of the 20th century, survived the worst global conflict of the 20th century, and finally, entered the greatest period of prosperity since the founding of Gladstone in 1853-54.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16104,"place_ref":601341,"name":"Friend Park and Graves","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Friend Street","suburb":"BARNEY POINT","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-03","description":"Friend Park is a 1.72 hectare site located on a low promontory or headland at the southern end of Barney Point Beach and Barney Point Park. The promontory juts into Port Curtis on its northern and eastern sides, with views across Port Curtis, and a rocky foreshore extends around the promontory from Barney Point Beach. On the west the site is bounded by Sutton Street and on the south by Friend Street.
The site slopes [gently in some sections, more steeply in others] down to the foreshore, the slope being rocky and covered with agave spp and indigenous small trees and grasses.
The foreshore is comprised of principally alluvial muds from the Calliope River and various creek systems entering Port Curtis, deposited over Carboniferous sandstones and mudstones of the Wondilla Group.
At the northern end of Friend Park a low dry-stone retaining wall separates a gentle sloping bank from the foreshore and Barney Point Park. The slope here is grassed and almost terraced, and a 'stair' of stones set into the ground at intervals enables easy access to the parkland above.
Above the slope the park comprises an open lawn with specimen trees [including a lone Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla), Ficus sp., palms, and Eucalyptus sp.], several memorials, a timber dais, and children's play equipment.
Close to the apex of the site is the 1954 cairn. This is a four-sided, tapering structure with a flat top, constructed of what appears to be water-polished stone. It rests on a substantial concrete base about 800mm high, and has a bitumened plinth and a low concrete-post-and-single-steel-rail surround. On the northern face of the cairn is a marble plaque with the lettering:
On this spot the first official residence in North Australia was erected, and Captain Maurice Charles O'Connell was installed first Government Resident, Police Magistrate and Commission of Crown Lands, on 17th April 1854 by Sir Charles Fitzroy Governor of New South Wales. Unveiled Centenary Celebrations 17th April 1954.
In the mid-north section of the park is a low-set timber dais resting on timber stumps, with timber railing to three sides and a timber ramp to enable easy access. Just west of this is the grave of Thomas Riddell. This has a stone sarcophagus with two inscriptions, and an iron grave surround [not original] with concrete corner posts. The inscriptions on the sarcophagus read:
Underneath this stone are deposited the remains of THOMAS MILLES STRATFORD RIDDELL eldest son of the Acting Colonial Secretary and Mrs Riddell.
and
He was born at Sydney on 22 January 1832 and died at Port Curtis on the 16 September 1854 aged 22 years.
Further west still is a steel flagstaff associated with the creation of the 1958 children's play area in Friend Park. This has a tapered concrete base, with a metal plaque on the western face which bears the following inscription:
This play area was planned and equipped by the Gladstone Junior Chamber of Commerce and presented to the citizens of Gladstone on 6th(?) December 1958.
While there are no above-ground relics associated with the use of the site as the Port Curtis Government Residence and Domain, there are likely to be sub-surface deposits of archaeological interest.
","history":"Friend Park is the site of the former Port Curtis Government Residence and Domain, established in 1854-56. The former residence was constructed for, and occupied by, Captain Maurice Charles O'Connell, who in 1854 was appointed Government Resident, Police Magistrate, and Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Port Curtis and Leichhardt districts of New South Wales. The Domain was laid out in mid-1854, and a stone residence was completed by the end of 1856.
The township of Gladstone was established by the New South Wales Government in 1853-54. Historian Lorna McDonald suggests that this was possibly an attempt to create a more centralised alternative to Brisbane as the capital of a potential northern colony, because unlike most Queensland ports, Gladstone was established prior to the expansion of pastoral settlement in the hinterland. In April 1853 the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy, announced the intention of establishing a township at Port Curtis, and in May that year surveyor Francis MacCabe was instructed to undertake a survey for the town of Gladstone.
In naming the town Gladstone, Fitzroy commemorated British Colonial Secretary William Ewart Gladstone, who in 1846 had attempted to establish a northern colony in the Antipodes. On 17 February 1846 Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent establishing the colony of North Australia, and the British Parliament passed an Act to define its boundaries, which included all lands and coastal islands north of latitude 26º south and extending from the east coast to the Western Australia border. The new colony therefore included all of the Northern Territory and most of what later became Queensland, with the exception of the Moreton Bay, Darling Downs, and Maranoa districts. On 21 February 1846 Queen Victoria appointed Fitzroy as governor and commander in chief of the colony of North Australia, and on 25 May 1846 appointed Lieutenant-Colonel George Barney as Lieutenant-Governor and Superintendent of North Australia, to administer the new colony on Fitzroy's behalf.
Gladstone's objective in establishing the colony of North Australia was to provide a place of exile for expirees and reformed convicts from both Australian and British gaols. This in effect meant a resumption of transportation to eastern Australia, and was bitterly opposed in New South Wales. In late 1846 Gladstone was replaced as Colonial Secretary by Earl Grey, who reversed his predecessor's colonial policies. On 28 November 1846 Queen Victoria revoked the colony of North Australia, but word did not reach New South Wales before an attempt was made early in 1847 to establish a settlement at Port Curtis.
Colonel Barney and his family had arrived in Sydney in September 1846. Despite finding considerable colonial opposition to the resumption of transportation, Barney carried out his instructions and in November 1846 explored the North Australia coast and selected Port Curtis as a settlement site. Barney and the first contingent of 87 officials and settlers arrived at Port Curtis by boat from Sydney on 25 January 1847, during the height of the wet season. Their ship ran aground and the passengers were embarked at Facing Island, where they waited in tents for 7 weeks, surviving principally on dried meat and biscuits, before a relief ship arrived in mid-March 1847. The wet season hindered the establishment of a settlement on the mainland, and there was discontent within the isolated community. The relief ship also brought news that the colony was likely to be abandoned. This was confirmed officially with the arrival of a second ship in mid-April 1847. The settlement was disbanded between April and July 1847, during which time Colonel Barney took the opportunity to explore the Gladstone district, which he considered had great potential as the site of future settlement. Port Curtis he considered one of the finest natural harbours in the Australian colonies. Barney Point and Barney Point Beach are named in his honour.
The second attempt at non-indigenous settlement at Port Curtis, made six years later in 1853, was more successful. By 23 October 1853 MacCabe had completed his Design for the Town of Gladstone, Port Curtis. Like Colonel Barney in 1847, he identified the area between Auckland Inlet and South Trees Inlet as the most suitable site for a settlement. The principal township was laid out near Auckland Inlet, but MacCabe set aside a substantial area from Barney Point to south of what is now Friend Park, as a reserve for Public Quay, Custom House and Public Offices; and a large reserve for Government House, Domain and Gardens further to the southeast, adjacent to Waapentake Creek. A large sand flat separated the proposed domain from the sea. MacCabe's plan was laid before the Executive Council on 6 December 1853 and the Town of Gladstone was proclaimed on
21 December 1853.
On 1 January 1854 Captain Maurice Charles O'Connell, grandson of former New South Wales Governor Sir William Bligh, was appointed as Government Resident, Police Magistrate and Commissioner for Crown Lands for the Port Curtis and Leichhardt districts. These pastoral districts were proclaimed on 10 January 1854, with Port Curtis declared a settled district although only two stations had been established here by 1854.
The first sale of town lots at Gladstone was held in Sydney on 9 February 1854, and by the time O'Connell arrived at Port Curtis at the end of March 1854, the first slab buildings had been erected near Auckland Inlet. O'Connell and his family and other officials set up residence in tents at Barney Point Beach, in the area proposed as public reserve and out of the way of commercial development closer to Auckland Inlet. Here a small residential precinct soon developed. The O'Connells lived aboard ship for a month while a temporary government residence was being erected: a large marquee with a timber floor. It is understood that this marquee was erected on the low promontory at the southern end of Barney Point Beach, in the area now known as Friend Park.
On 16 April 1854 Governor Fitzroy arrived at Gladstone to inspect the fledgling settlement, and the following day officially installed O'Connell as Government Resident. Whether this ceremony occurred near the temporary government residence, in what is now Friend Park, is not clear. During the 1954 celebrations of the centenary of the establishment of Gladstone, the Gladstone community re-enacted the arrival of Fiztroy on Barney Point Beach and the installation ceremony, which was conducted in Friend Park before an audience of 6500 people. To commemorate the event, a cairn was unveiled in Friend Park.
By early July 1854 O'Connell had decided that the promontory at the southern end of Barney Point Beach, which had been intended as a temporary camp only, would be a more appropriate site for the government residence and domain than the site near Waapentake Creek selected by surveyor MacCabe. O'Connell's domain was laid out with gardens and fencing, but work on construction of a permanent residence in stone did not commence until 1855, and was not completed until late 1856.
Amongst O'Connell's regular reports to Sydney was an account of the accidental death on 16 September 1854 of 22 year old Thomas Milles Stratford Riddell, eldest son of the acting NSW colonial secretary. Riddell had been among the first purchasers of Gladstone land at the February 1854 sale in Sydney, and is thought to have accompanied O'Connell to Gladstone in March 1854. He had been assisting in carting water to the township in September when he was thrown under the wheels of the dray and killed instantly. He was buried in the government domain [now Friend Park], and by the early 1900s his grave was marked by a stone sarcophagus. Another early burial in the domain was that of Lieutenant Le Strange. This grave was known in 1954, when a wreath was laid on it during the centenary celebrations, but is no longer evident.
At the first census of Gladstone conducted by O'Connell in May 1854, the small community comprised 127 non-indigenous residents. A young visitor to the place in March 1855, Richard Mitchell, claimed the township was known locally as Auckland Point and consisted of two commercial stores and a courthouse near Auckland Inlet, while everyone except the storekeepers lived at Barney Point - likely either on or adjacent to the area set aside [but not yet proclaimed] for a public reserve.
O'Connell, autocratic by nature and fiery of temperament, was not well liked in the small Gladstone community. Although his correspondence reveals that he had great hopes for the future of Gladstone and Port Curtis, his critics accused him of inaction, and in late 1855 he faced a Select Committee Inquiry into the conduct of the Government Residency at Port Curtis. As a result, the status of Port Curtis was reduced from that of a government residency with its own revenue and government administration, to that of a pastoral district. O'Connell filed his last report as Port Curtis Resident on 26 April 1856, but remained at Gladstone as Lands Commissioner, still occupying the temporary tent house erected for him in April 1854. In late 1856 he moved into the stone dwelling completed in the government domain.
O'Connell was reinstated as Government Resident in September 1858 to handle the rapid influx of population into the Port Curtis district following the discovery of gold at Canoona. A rush from August 1858 briefly revived the fortunes of the district, but O'Connell's hopes that Port Curtis and Gladstone would now develop their potential were crushed when it became clear that most prospectors were accessing the Canoona goldfield via Rockhampton. In June 1859 the non-indigenous population of Gladstone was 203, which represented an 8 person increase since 1856, while that of Rockhampton stood at 250.
In June 1859 Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent establishing the colony of Queensland north of the 29th parallel of latitude, and following the arrival of Governor Bowen and the proclamation of the new colony on 10 December 1859, the Port Curtis Residency became redundant. O'Connell was informed in February 1860, following which he moved to Brisbane where he served as President of the Queensland Legislative Council from 27 August 1860 to 23 March 1879. He still held an interest in the Port Curtis district, being the pastoral lessee of the Riverston run on the Boyne River.
Following the abolition of the Port Curtis Residency, O'Connell petitioned the Queensland Government to be allowed to purchase his former house and grounds at Barney Point, claiming that he had invested a considerable amount of his own money on improvements, but the colonial government refused.
A survey plan [G14.1] of the government buildings erected at Barney Point, completed by surveyor Clarendon Stuart by 9 July 1860, indicates that the government residency was located on what is now Friend Park. It was a well-ordered establishment comprising a main house, three out houses, stable, cow yard, a formally laid out garden with pathways, and front fencing. To the northwest of the government residence, outside what is now Friend Park, an old brick shed was identified, and further to the northwest, overlooking Barney Point Beach, was the house of the Clerk of Petty Sessions. To the southwest was a more extensive garden and stock yard, which appear to have been associated with the government residence. No graves were identified on the plan.
On 11 July 1862 Surveyor Permien completed a survey of sections 55 to 86 of the Town of Gladstone [survey plan G14.7]. The area of the government residency and domain was surveyed as section 65 of the Town of Gladstone [later Friend Park], and on this the improvements comprised a stone house, another stone dwelling, stables, garden and fencing. These correspond closely to the improvements indicated on surveyor Stuart's 1860 survey plan. Again, no graves were identified on the plan.
Whether anyone occupied the former government residence after O'Connell's departure has not been established. On 28 December 1864 section 65 was purchased from the Crown for £412/10/-, in the name of Alfred Henry Brown of Gladstone. This AH Brown was the six year old son of Henry Hort Brown, not to be confused with the Alfred Henry Brown of Gin Gin Station in the Port Curtis pastoral district. HH Brown was resident in the Port Curtis district by July 1858, when his son Alfred Henry was born, and was among a small party of Gladstone citizens who had prospected for gold at Canoona in mid-1858 and who were largely responsible for the rush of late 1858.
It has not been established whether the Brown family ever lived in the former government residence. The family was resident in the Richmond district of New South Wales during most of the 1860s, where children were born in 1860, 1862, 1863, 1865, and 1867. They had returned to Queensland by December 1867 and were still in this colony in November 1870, but may not have been resident in Gladstone. Thereafter no further record of this family in Queensland has been located. Henry Hort Brown died in the Helensburgh district of New South Wales in 1904. Following his death, the site of the former Port Curtis Government Residency was transferred to his widow, Theresa Brown.
The former government residence at Port Curtis had been long abandoned by late 1888, when a sketch captioned "Ruins of Government Residence, Port Curtis" appeared in The Australasian Sketcher of 27 December 1888. The sketch shows the partly crumbling walls of a roofless stone residence. Photographs of the ruins taken in 1905 and 1906 show only remnants of the stone walls, and the site overgrown with grasses and saplings.
By the 1920s some members of the Gladstone community were keen to seen the site conserved. In 1927 the Gladstone Chamber of Commerce urged the Gladstone Town Council to preserve 'historic spots' such as the graves at Barney Point [that is, those located in the former government domain at the southern end of Barney Point Beach]. Following the death of Theresa Brown in December 1927, the site was acquired in 1929 from her family [who were resident in Sydney] by Gladstone businessmen and former alderman Henry Friend junior. Friend had purchased the property with the express intention of presenting it to the Gladstone Town Council, which he did in November 1929. As a site of strong historical significance to the Gladstone community, the land was to be held by the Council in perpetuity for the people of Gladstone. To honour the generous gift, the site was named Friend Park.
In 1935 George Simmons, curator of the Rockhampton Botanical Gardens, provided sketch plans for Gladstone's three parks: Friend Park, Victoria Park [on Auckland Hill] and Central Park, and Rockhampton City Council gifted trees to Gladstone to assist in the park improvements.
During 1954 the highlight of the centenary celebrations was the unveiling by Gladstone's oldest inhabitant, Mrs Fanny Golding, of the cairn in Friend Park commemorating the installation of Captain Maurice O'Connell as Government Resident on 17 April 1854.
In the mid-1950s Gladstone's Junior Chamber of Commerce [established in 1954] made the creation of a children's playground in Friend Park its principal project. In December 1958 the Gladstone Jaycees handed over the completed playground to the Council.
The place remains one of Gladstone's principal parks, and a popular picnic area. In the late 20th century a decision was made by the Gladstone City Council to remove the stone foundations and remnants of the 1856 government residence.
","criteria":"Friend Park and Graves, Friend and Sutton Streets, Barney Point, Gladstone is one of the most significant historical sites in the Gladstone district, being closely associated with the establishment of Gladstone township in 1853-54. It is also a significant place in Queensland's history, being the site of the former Government Residence and Domain of the Port Curtis Residency, associated with the early development of Port Curtis as the potential hub of a possible northern colony separate from New South Wales.
|Although little above-ground evidence remains of the former use of the site as the Port Curtis Government Residence and Domain, the place is significant for its potential to reveal archaeological information which may assist in our understanding of Queensland's history. This includes evidence of structures and graves on the site, as well as artefacts associated with daily life in the government domain of a remote, mid-19th century British colonial settlement.
|The place is significant for the retention of historical views to and from the headland. In particular the view from the headland across Port Curtis varies little from that which Government Resident Captain Maurice O'Connell found in 1854, when he decided to establish the Government Residence and Domain on this promontory.
|The site has long been valued by the local community for its association with the early history of Gladstone. This is demonstrated in the purchase of the site and donation to the Gladstone Town Council in 1929 by Henry Friend jnr; the erection of a cairn in the park in 1954 to celebrate the centenary of the founding of Gladstone; and Gladstone City Council's nomination of the early graves to the Queensland Heritage Register in the 1990s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16110,"place_ref":601347,"name":"Lytton Quarantine Station (former)","alternate_name":"Lytton Quarantine Complex and Animal Detention Centre | Fort Lytton National Park | Customs Reserve","street_address":"160 South Street","suburb":"LYTTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-09-22","description":"The former Lytton Quarantine Station is located on low, flat land adjacent to and south of Fort Lytton at the southern head of the mouth of the Brisbane River.
The principal structures and elements on that part of the former Lytton Quarantine Station now incorporated within Fort Lytton National Park, include:
Jetty - constructed of timber planks bolted together and supported by wooden piles reinforced with concrete. It is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Reception House - a small, timber-framed, weatherboard-clad building with fibrous-cement sheeting and battening in the gabled ends. It has a corrugated iron roof and a verandah at the north end of the building which is constructed over tramway tracks that once linked the quarantine complex to the jetty to the west. The interior has been altered to accommodate offices, but the building remains substantially intact. It is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Tram/trolley bridge foundations - these comprise pairs of steel reinforced concrete footings set 2m apart, leading west from the Reception House toward the jetty. In some places wooden sleepers are visible, but the majority of the decking and all the rails are missing. This element is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Bath House - a large, rectangular, timber-framed, building with weatherboard-cladding to above sill height, above which is fibrous-cement sheeting and battening. It has a corrugated iron roof with ventilators along the ridge, and rests on a concrete slab. No evidence of services such as shower fittings, etc remains, but the original interior layout is still discernible and the upper level observation post, at the north end of the building, is intact. Two square brick-lined drainage traps [620mm x 620mm] are located on the eastern side of the shower block. The building is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Boiler House - a tall, rectangular brick building with engaged piers, corrugated iron roof, substantial external chimney stack and external drains, with boilers and associated fittings internally. The whole is remarkable intact, and is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Fuel Shed - this is a small, later, timber-framed, weatherboard-clad structure with a low-pitched corrugated iron roof, adjacent to the eastern end of the boiler room.
Disinfecting block - a large, rectangular, timber-framed, building with weatherboard-cladding to above sill height, above which is fibrous-cement sheeting and battening. It has a corrugated iron roof and rests on a concrete slab. The internal autoclave and associated fittings are in-situ, along with trolley track and trolleys. Trolley or tram lines run west out of the centre of the western end of the building, toward the jetty. An overhead pipeline from the boiler house to the south side of the disinfecting block attaches to the autoclave. The building is remarkably intact, and is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Laundry Block- a rectangular, timber-framed, building with weatherboard-cladding to above sill height, above which is fibrous-cement sheeting and battening. It has a corrugated iron gabled roof with iron ventilators along the ridge and on the west side of the roof. The building rests on a concrete slab, and has a verandah over a concrete pathway along part of the western side of the building. There is a later, tall metal roller door at the north end of the building, but the remaining doors and fenestration appear to be original. Concrete footings associated with former tank stands are evident on the east side of the building. The building is remarkably intact, and is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Enclosed laundry yard - the yard area to the east and south of the laundry block has a concrete retaining wall approximately 150mm high and 150mm wide. The west and east sides of the yard are bounded by round metal posts capped with concrete while the south side is defined by tram/trolley rails set vertically as posts [1500mm high]. There is an open concrete drain along the eastern side of the yard, inside the fence posts. The yard contains 12 square wooden posts approximately 2m in height, which are likely to have supported clothes lines. A service inspection hatch is located centrally in the southern section of the yard. This has a 1m x 1m concrete housing with a 600mm x 600mm steel lid with embossed cross-hatching and the lettering "Harvey & Son". A block of late 20th century relocatable toilets is also sited in this yard. Despite this, the yard remains substantially intact, and is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Two launchmen's cottages - these timber-framed, weatherboard clad cottages are located along the eastern boundary of that part of the former Lytton Quarantine Station which has been incorporated into Fort Lytton National Park, south of the laundry and laundry yard. Originally there were three cottages, but the middle house has been removed. The two remaining houses have corrugated iron roofs and rest on low concrete piers. Although no interior inspection has been made, these houses appear to be reasonably intact. They are associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Doctor's Quarter's - this two-storeyed building currently functions as the administration centre for Fort Lytton National Park. It was initially a single-storeyed, timber-framed, weatherboard-clad house which has been relocated from elsewhere on the site to its present position south of the Bath House, raised, to create a ground floor which is enclosed with fibrous-cement planking. Although no longer in situ, the place was associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Workshop - this is a small, rectangular, brick structure, resting on a concrete slab. It has a corrugated iron roof which is lined with timber boards. Internally, exposed roof trusses have been cut and braced to provide higher clearance for machinery. Outside, along the eastern side of the building is a concrete slab and seven pairs of concrete piers in ramp-like formation. On the western side of the building is This structure appears to correspond with a building marked 'workshop' identified on a 1918 plan of the site. It now functions as a machinery store.
Sewerage Treatment Plant - at the far southwest of the site is a small, early sewerage treatment facility 14.8 m long and 5.5m wide. It is of concrete construction, and has a central rectangular wire mesh cage filled with coarse rubble which possibly functioned as primary filtration of effluent. The plant remains substantially intact, and is associated with the earliest phase of the development of the quarantine station at Lytton, in the 1910s.
Apart from the relocation of the former Doctor's Quarters to the northwestern end of the site, the surviving buildings and other structural and archaeological elements maintain their original spatial relationship. The surrounding grounds are mostly grassed, with a new bitumen road, which leads to the present entrance to Fort Lytton, established west of the original metalled roadway into the quarantine station. There are a number of mature, though not large, trees, at the southern end of the site, associated with the former quarantine station.
At the north east end of the site is an unoccupied block, fenced off, and formerly the site of the administrative building, attendant's quarters, stores, isolation hospital and observation block, associated with the establishment of the Lytton Quarantine Station in 1913-14. All of these buildings have been removed from the site, but a number of archaeological elements associated with the quarantine station have been identified. These include the concrete foundation slab and some wall remnants of the former Laboratory Building/Morgue at the far eastern end of the site; the concrete foundation slab of a building marked 'laundry' on a 1918 plan, at the western side of the site; the concrete foundation slab of a small building identified as 'Receiving Shed' on a 1918 plan, at the northern end of the site; and elements of the early drainage system associated with the former Lytton Quarantine Station.
The Lytton Quarantine Station extended a considerable distance to the south of what is now Fort Lytton National Park, and included a venereal diseases hospital and animal quarantine facilities. The 1994 archaeological survey of all 31 hectares of the site identified 237 features associated with the historic use of the site from at least the 1910s. That part of the former Lytton Quarantine Station not included within Fort Lytton National Park is not included within the listing boundary for the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.
","history":"The Lytton Quarantine Station was established in 1913-1914, to accommodate newly arrived immigrants and persons considered to be at risk of causing infection to the general population. Situated at an isolated location at the mouth of the Brisbane River, the place illustrates early 20th century attitudes to quarantine practices and the provision of quarantine facilities, and is important as part of a continuum of sites in and adjacent to Moreton Bay, used for quarantine purposes from 1844.
\nThere were no human quarantine facilities at Moreton Bay during the penal era 1824-42, as all immigration came via Sydney. Following the opening of the district to free settlement in February 1842, a quarantine station was formed in 1844 at Dunwich, on Stradbroke Island, at the site of a former goods transfer depot established by convicts in the late 1820s. From 1864, Dunwich served as both quarantine station and benevolent asylum. The quarantine station was relocated briefly to St Helena Island in Moreton Bay in 1866-67, along with the newly erected gaol there, but was soon returned to Dunwich. From 1874 to 1915 Peel Island in Moreton Bay served as Brisbane's human quarantine station.
\nThe Lytton site, just south of Fort Lytton at the mouth of the Brisbane River, had a variety of uses prior to the establishment of the Quarantine Station in the early 20th century, occupying a former customs reserve [established 1858-59], sections of the early township of Lytton [surveyed in 1859], and an animal quarantine facility [established 1889].
\nThe history of the Lytton district is closely aligned to the establishment during the 1840s and 1850s of the Port of Moreton Bay at Brisbane Town, on the Brisbane River, rather than at Cleveland on the Bay. Moreton Bay was proclaimed a Port of Entry, with the facilities to collect customs, in June 1846. Brisbane was declared a warehousing port in 1849 and a Customs House was erected there in 1850. In 1857 the New South Wales colonial government began to investigate the suitability of establishing a customs station at the south head of the Brisbane River [present-day Lytton]. In August 1857, surveyor James Warner completed a preliminary survey of a site for a village, which was approved in November 1858, and in December 1858 tenders were called for the construction of a Customs Station nearby on the river. In February 1859 Warner officially surveyed sections 1 to 13 of the village of Lytton, as well as sites for a customs landing place and a signal station.
\nFrom 1 July 1859 a Tide Surveyor was stationed at Lytton. His job was to meet and board all ships entering the harbour, to prevent the evasion of customs duties. He was assisted by a coxswain and four boatmen, also stationed at the Lytton customs reserve. Following separation from New South Wales in December 1859, the Queensland government maintained Lytton's role as the customs entry to the Port of Moreton Bay. From c1864 Water Police-cum-Customs Officers were stationed on the gaol hulk Proserpine at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Sub-inspector of the Water Police, based at the Lytton Customs Reserve, was also appointed as a health officer, and inspected all vessels entering the port.
\nEarly buildings and structures associated with the Lytton Customs Station included: customs station (1858-9); electric telegraph station (1861); pilots' houses and sheds (1862); boatman's cottage (1863); boat slip (1863); health officer's house (1865); Lytton Wharf (1866); and additional boatmen's quarters (1872).
\nSome sections of Lytton township were alienated between 1860 and 1863, mostly by Brisbane speculators who anticipated the development of wharf facilities at Lytton. Few private buildings were erected there. The Crown and Anchor Hotel operated at Lytton briefly in 1865-66, when a government wharf adjacent to the Customs Reserve was built in 1866 to tranship railway stores and plant for construction of the Southern and Western Railway. From 1878 until c1905 the Lytton Hotel served local farmers and a military presence. Lytton State School was established c1882. In general, the district remained agricultural.
\nSir George Ferguson Bowen, on completion of his term as Governor and departure from Moreton Bay on 4 January 1868, officially named and designated Lytton as Brisbane's port.
\nIn 1877, Lytton was identified as the site for a defence fortification to guard the mouth of the Brisbane River. In 1880-82 Fort Lytton was constructed adjacent to and north of the Customs Reserve.
\nIn the 1880s, colonial concern with the quarantine of imported animals led to the June 1889 proclamation of a small Reserve for Quarantine Purposes at Lytton [Reserve 230 - 1a 3r 29p], on the river adjacent to the Lytton Town Reserve and south of the Customs Reserve. Its location suggests it was for maritime quarantine. By May 1890 builders John Petrie & Son had completed a cottage, stables and forage room on the Lytton Quarantine Reserve, and in 1893, dog kennels were constructed. In April 1894, in anticipation of an expected influx of imported animals following the lifting of restrictions on stock imports, an extension of 2 acres 2 roods to the Reserve for Quarantine Purposes at Lytton was proclaimed as Reserve 231. This extension occupied the southern half of the Customs Reserve. In 1891 and 1900, much of Lytton township was resumed for military purposes, with part of the 1900 resumption allocated to the Animal Quarantine Station. Several existing residences were used for customs personnel and others were removed from the site in the early 20th century.
\nFollowing the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, quarantine became a Federal responsibility under the Commonwealth Quarantine Act 1908. From 1908-1911, the Queensland Commissioner of Public Health [a position created under Queensland's Health Act of 1900] performed the duties of quarantine officer for the Commonwealth. In 1910 Dr JSC Elkington was appointed to this position, and in the following three years established Queensland's public health infrastructure, and oversaw the administration and implementation of State and Commonwealth quarantine practices. In 1922 Elkington wrote a text on quarantine procedures for the Commonwealth, which not only governed quarantine practice in Australia but was adopted as the model in at least three other countries.
\nIn January 1912, the administration of quarantine facilities and practices in Queensland was transferred wholly to the Federal Quarantine Bureau. In December 1913, Elkington resigned his State position and joined the Commonwealth Health Service in Brisbane, overseeing the establishment of the quarantine facility at Lytton.
\nThe establishment of a human quarantine station at Lytton was made practicable following the widening and deepening of the channel through the bar at the mouth of the Brisbane River, completed in 1911. This permitted deep-draught, ocean-going vessels to enter the Brisbane River. Construction of the Lytton Quarantine Station was undertaken by the Queensland Department of Works, financed by a Commonwealth loan, and approved by the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs. Tenders were called in June 1913 for the construction of an administration building, isolation hospital, observation block, attendant's quarters, domestic quarters and stores, with the contract let to Lyons and Paton with a price of £5,153. The quarantine buildings were erected on the north eastern part of the reserve [now a vacant site, part of which is incorporated within Fort Lytton National Park, and part on freehold land owned by Caltex Refineries (Qld) Ltd ]. It is possible that some of the buildings associated with the isolation hospital established at Colmslie in the early 1900s were relocated to the Lytton Quarantine Reserve at this time. In 1914, tenders were called for a laundry, meat store, incinerating shed, footpath and tramway/trolley lines.
\nThe quarantine station buildings were timber-framed and timber-clad with corrugated iron roofs and elevated on low concrete stumps. The wards were segregated with first, second and third class facilities [similar to arrangements on board ship]. Some wards were mosquito-proofed, but most were not. At various times the quarantine station buildings also provided accommodation for persons stationed at adjacent Fort Lytton. The fort also played a role in the function of the quarantine station, controlling ships attempting to enter the Brisbane River without appropriate health clearances. In 1919 the world-wide outbreak of Spanish Influenza which followed the end of the First World War was delayed in Brisbane by some three months, following a strict quarantine at Lytton of personnel returning on troop ships.
\nDuring Elkington's era, a venereal diseases hospital was established on the southern portion of the Lytton Quarantine Reserve, adjacent to South Street. This area is now owned by Caltex Refineries (Qld) Ltd.
\nBy 1928, the Lytton Quarantine Station facilities had been extended and enhanced. Vessels were met at the river mouth by the Health Authorities who boarded each ship [two launches were kept at Lytton] and inspected all goods and personnel on board. Suspect people and goods were landed at Lytton for fumigation and isolation. Jetty facilities permitted passengers to disembark on foot and a crane was provided for conveying sick passengers, luggage and stores to shore. A tram line ran from the jetty to the reception house. A permanent staff of a foreman assistant, two engine-drivers, a coxswain and four assistants was employed to maintain the facilities and attend to non-human quarantine, which included disinfection of luggage and materials using a steam disinfector [autoclave] with attachments for cyanide or formaldehyde gas. A bathing block permitted 10 cabin passengers and 20 crew, third class or deck passengers to bathe simultaneously. Separate accommodation in tents or troop huts had been established for Asiatics, with separate kitchen, dining-room, shelter shed, lavatory and bath blocks. Lighting was supplied from kerosene lamps. A water carriage sewerage system discharged directly into the river, with a chlorination chamber available for disinfection of sewerage as necessary. The medical officer's and foreman assistant's quarters were connected to the city telephone service and internal telephones served most of the principal buildings. A cemetery was located within the grounds.
\nThe Lytton facility functioned as a human quarantine station until the early 1980s, by which time the decision had been made to phase out human quarantine services. Arrangements were made for Kenmore Repatriation Hospital to provide observation facilities in the event that they were required, and in 1982 the Lytton facility reverted to its earlier role as an animal quarantine station, re-designated the Lytton Quarantine Complex and Animal Detention Centre. Facilities comprised a launch jetty, workshop, inflammable store, guinea pig area, imports treatment laboratory, utility buildings area, offices, stores, and animal quarantine detention facilities. In addition to its role as an animal quarantine centre, Lytton served as a communications centre, a base for south side shipping clearance and inspection, a facility for dealing with quarantine treatment and detention of materials, a training area and a depot for stores. Many of the buildings associated with the human quarantine station at Lytton were removed after the 1982 closure, some relocated to sites in the Lytton-Wynnum district.
\nBy the late 1980s the Lytton facility had closed completely. In 1988 management of part of the site and buildings, including the quarantine station jetty, was taken over by the Department of Environment, Conservation and Tourism, through the National Parks and Wildlife Service, associated with the administration of adjacent Fort Lytton, which was declared an Historic National Park in 1990. The building currently used by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service as the administration centre for Fort Lytton, was relocated c1982 from elsewhere on the former quarantine station reserve, where it once functioned as the doctor's quarters. In 1999, that part of the former Lytton Quarantine Station site managed by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service was incorporated into Fort Lytton National Park.
\nThe remainder of the former Lytton Quarantine Station site was transferred to the owners of the adjacent oil refinery [now Caltex Refineries (Qld) Ltd] in the late 1980s. No buildings associated with the quarantine station remain on this freehold land, but archaeological evidence of past human activity on the site was identified in a 1994 historical and archaeological survey of the former Lytton Quarantine Station, prepared for the Office of the Co-ordinator-General, Queensland. Although there has been little development of the freehold part of the site to date, for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland Heritage Register, the listing boundary is restricted to that part of the former Lytton Quarantine Station now incorporated within Fort Lytton National Park, at the northern end of the site, which contains a number of extant buildings and structures associated with the functioning of the site as a quarantine station. This does not in any way detract from the significance of the remainder of the site, which remains important for its association with early land use in the Lytton district from at least the 1850s, for its association with the human quarantine facility established at Lytton in the early 20th century, for its potential to reveal archaeological evidence, and for contributing to the sense of isolation which was characteristic of the quarantine facility established here in the 1910s.
","criteria":"The former Lytton Quarantine Station and site is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being associated with:
·\tthe early establishment of Lytton township and district prior to Separation in 1859;
·\tthe early establishment of maritime customs and telegraph facilities in Queensland;
·\tthe provision of animal quarantine facilities in the late 19th century;
·\tthe provision of human quarantine facilities in the early 20th century.
In particular, the place is important in illustrating the evolution of attitudes and approaches to the management of infectious diseases in Australia in the immediate post-Federation period. The place is also significant historically as part of a continuum of sites in and adjacent to Moreton Bay used for human quarantine purposes from 1844 to 1982.
|While only some of the Lytton buildings remain, the site still provides important, rare surviving evidence of early 20th century Australian quarantine stations.
|The place has potential to yield historical archaeological information, especially with regard to the location of the burial ground associated with the human quarantine facility, the likely location of which was adjacent to the morgue at the northeast end of the site.
|The surviving quarantine buildings, being substantially intact and mostly in situ, are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century Australian marine quarantine station, including the isolated location, building types [materials, forms, design, aesthetics, coherency and functions], spatial arrangements and grounds layout, and provision of services. Of the three early 20th century quarantine stations established by the Federal Government in Queensland [at Thursday Island, Cape Pallarenda (Townsville) and Lytton (Brisbane)], the Lytton facility was the first and the largest.
|Appropriate interpretation of the surviving buildings, structures and other elements at the northern end of the former Lytton Quarantine Station has the potential to graphically and physically illustrate the experience of the quarantine process which many immigrants to Australia encountered.
|The place has considerable social significance, being associated with the reception of immigrants in Queensland for nearly 70 years. Being quarantined at Lytton was often an immigrant's first experience of life in Queensland and in Australia.
|The place has a special association with the work of Dr JSC Elkington, who was responsible for the design and development of Queensland's early 20th century public health infrastructure, and who became an authority on quarantine practice in post-Federation Australia. The former Lytton Quarantine Station remains illustrative of his work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16116,"place_ref":601353,"name":"6 (390) Australian Anti-Aircraft Battery","alternate_name":"Hemmant Gun Emplacements | 390 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station Class A","street_address":"214 - 228 Fleming Road","suburb":"HEMMANT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-05-26","description":"The former 6 (390) HAA Bty, is situated along Fleming Road on the peak of Hemmant hill. Brisbane's CBD is visible to the north-west of the site.
The anti-aircraft battery consists of three separate underground ammunition magazines, four gun platforms and a semi-underground command post/plotting room, all constructed of reinforced concrete. The three separate magazines are of identical size, single-roomed, underground and show evidence of a ventilator. The noticeable drop in temperature on entering the structures illustrates the designers awareness of local conditions, and storage of highly explosive material in a sub tropical climate. All magazines and the command post/plotting room have had their steel doors removed.
Three of the four gun emplacements are visible, the fourth partially buried and built upon. The structures are octagonally shaped and surrounded by magazine/store rooms. The most visible example has been converted into a chicken pen. Two drains are located in the floor of the structure with holdfast points for the guns remaining. The second remains intact but has a private dwelling placed on top, and is used as a garage and storage area. The third emplacement has been filled with water and converted to a pool. All three (and presumably the fourth) have the encircling magazine/storage rooms intact. The command post/plotting room is structurally intact and has recently been converted into a gazebo and fernery.
The former 6 (390) HAA battery is the best preserved example of a Class A Gun Station in south east Queensland. It is also the last in the five station group that served Brisbane.
","history":"The 6(390) Australian Anti-Aircraft Battery was constructed c1942 as part of the defence facilities of Brisbane.
The 6 HAA Group was part of a series of "A class" (four gun) defensive positions constructed in an effort to monitor aircraft entering Brisbane airspace during World War II. Others included Colmslie (385), Balmoral (387), Amberley (391) and Archerfield (392). They were built to provide protection to nearby Australian and US naval facilities located along the Brisbane River at Hamilton and Eagle Farm, as well as providing cover for nearby Brisbane airfield. The sighting of gun stations near the Brisbane river also had strategic importance as enemy aircraft would use the river as a navigational aid when conducting reconnaissance.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, Australia's focus in the war turned to the Pacific. After the raid on Darwin in February 1942, many felt that as Brisbane was the largest city in Queensland, it could possibly be the next to experience a large scale raid by the Japanese. Brisbane was already designated as a staging point, with a significant US buildup underway and the best Port facilities in Queensland. Due to Brisbane's distance from the front line, it could not be raided by land-based bombers however, which had added to the devastation in Darwin. Thus any bombing attack would come from aircraft carriers or long range flying boats refuelled by submarines. Between March and July the Japanese conducted regular reconnaissance missions over Cairns and Townsville using long range twin-engined aircraft. Townsville was actually bombed three times in late July, and the town of Mossman once. During the Townsville raids, A Class stations of 16 HAA (X and Y Batteries) fired on raiding Kawanishi flying boats. While the Japanese were able to penetrate Australia's defences on these occasions, the May Battle of the Coral Sea prevented Japan from completing its objective of achieving large scale carrier based raids along the Queensland coast.
Although Brisbane was never bombed, reconnaissance missions, such as those from submarine based floatplanes or long range flying boats are likely to have occurred. Similar missions were conducted and have been documented over east coast towns from Cairns to Hobart. Sightings and unit records of aircraft capable "I" class submarines in deep water passages near Bribie and Moreton Islands have been recorded, and it is highly likely that similar intelligence gathering missions occurred over Brisbane. Depending on the completion date for the gun station, it is highly probable that 6 (390) HAA either sighted or was involved in action against Japanese reconnaissance aircraft during 1942-43. The site was manned by both AWAS (Australian Women's Army Service) and VDC (Volunteer Defence Corp) personnel from mid 1943, and these arrangements remained in place until August 1945 when all of the HAA sites were disarmed.
In 1942 the Commonwealth Government requisitioned an area of land in the quiet farming community of Hemmant. Known as a class A gun station, 6 (390) Australian HAA originally contained four 3.7 inch autofrettaged type guns, manufactured in Australia. The 3.7 inch anti-aircraft gun was developed shortly before World War Two and was the standard medium anti-aircraft gun for the British Army from 1938 to 1956. Effective range was around 9100 metres. The octagonally shaped emplacements with surrounding magazine/store rooms originally housed a sandbagged entry point with more bags placed on the magazine roof. Rooms contained rifle racks and anti gas equipment, 280 rounds of ammunition for the AA gun and canvas flap doors for the perimeter entrances. Hidden from aerial view, four separate underground magazines provided cool storage for high explosive rounds.
The guns were controlled by a centrally located command post/plotting room. Sightings of suspicious aircraft were relayed to the post for action by Fighter Sector Headquarters which was in turn in communication with observer units. Within the command post were pits for a height finder and predictor. Each gun had to be in sight of the height predictor, which could be no more than 10 feet above or below any gun. Further displacement caused errors, as the predictor could only solve deflection (angle). To find the height of an aircraft, a separate height finder had to be used. A kitchen, showers, latrines and three sleeping quarters were located to the northern extremity of the site next to Hemmant road. It is likely that these structures were prefabricated facilities. No evidence of these buildings remains. One of the four magazines constructed as part of the battery has also been demolished in the years since the end of the war.
","criteria":"6 (390) Aust HAA Hemmant is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as an installation designed to protect Brisbane in the event of enemy air-raids during that conflict. It was one of several anti-aircraft batteries located strategically along the Brisbane River, built to protect Australian and United States naval facilities and Brisbane airfield, and to monitor enemy reconnaissance activity.
|The Hemmant Battery is the only visible and substantially intact anti-aircraft battery in Brisbane, and as such demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The Battery, in its siting and planning, demonstrates the measures implemented for the strategic defence of Brisbane during World War II. It is a relatively intact example of the "Brisbane Line" fortifications and has the potential to yield further information about this aspect of Queensland's history.
|The Hemmant Battery, with its extant command post, gun emplacements and magazines, and its location in a prominent position overlooking the Brisbane skyline, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an Australian Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery.
|The Hemmant Battery, set among grassed lawns and paddocks in the sparsely populated suburb of Hemmant, is important because of its aesthetic significance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16120,"place_ref":601357,"name":"Newmarket Brickworks Chimney","alternate_name":"Hoffman Stack","street_address":"117 Mina Parade","suburb":"ALDERLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"The (former) Newmarket Brickworks site is located on Mina Parade, Alderley, on the southwest side of a low hill approximately 5km northwest of the Brisbane CBD. The register boundary includes a 408sqm area around the prominent Newmarket Brickworks Chimney, which is centrally located on the historically levelled brickworks site. In 2016, it is surrounded by modern low-rise industrial and commercial development.
\nThe brick chimney is located approximately 40 metres off the Mina Parade frontage. Access to the site is via an easement. The chimney rises to a height of approximately 55 metres, and is a prominent landmark. The square base is approximately 4.7 metres long and rises to about 10 metres; the tall stack above tapers uniformly to about 3 metres square. On each face of the chimney base there are a number of arched recesses, which appear to be decorative elements. One of the recesses, on the south side of the chimney, facing Mina Parade, has been enclosed with concrete. Corbelled brick cornices at the top of the base and the stack, which has a sawtooth course, provide further decorative elements to the structure. Small enclosed arches in the brickwork on the northeast and southwest sides, below the larger arched recesses, indicate the location of former flue openings. A metallic band running the length of the chimney on its eastern side appears to be related to deflecting lightning strikes. Similarly, on the upper section of the chimney, a number of metallic bands are attached around the structure.
\nThe brickworks chimney is a landmark feature visible from a range of vantage points including: foreground roads (Mina Parade, Frederick Street and Yarradale Street); major locality roads (Enoggera Road); and locality parks (Sedgeley Park).
\n\n
\n
The whole of the area formerly occupied by the brickworks has been redeveloped and the chimney now stands in its own space.
","history":"The Newmarket Brickworks Chimney was constructed in 1912 as part of a new brickworks complex at Newmarket, owned by the Brisbane Brick and Builders Supply Company Ltd - or Brisbane Brick, as it was widely known. The chimney, also referred to as the Hoffman stack, is the only surviving built element of the Newmarket Brickworks site.
\nBrickmaking has been practised in Queensland since the days of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement in the 1820s. Local clay was used for making bricks, firstly in Redcliffe, and then in Brisbane. The Brisbane clayfield was situated near a stream at the back of the convict settlement. A kiln was first built near the river but a new kiln was built at the field. Brick production was well under way by the beginning of 1826. A boost was given to the use of brick in colonial Queensland, following a disastrous fire in Queen Street in 1864. Changes made to Local Government Ordinances in response to this encouraged the use of brick for building, although the costs involved meant that brick was mainly used for commercial and public buildings.
\nIn 1911, a group of Brisbane builders and architects formed Brisbane Brick and Builders Supply Company Ltd to obtain and supply good quality bricks, which were then not plentifully available in Brisbane. Two of the company’s directors, William Wilson and John Cockburn acquired land adjacent to the Enoggera branch railway line at Newmarket.[1]
\nHistorically, the location of brickworks was generally determined by their proximity to clay deposits. The site at Newmarket contained a deposit of weathered Bunya Phyllite, a metamorphosed deep-sea sediment formation found in the Brisbane region.[2] Historical images indicate clay was extracted behind the brickworks structures (now sealed); over time the clay quarry extended further into vegetated land owned by Brisbane Brick at the rear of the site. Clay material was pulverised in grinding pans before being transported to dry pressing machines.[3]
\nThe Company based its brickworks design at Newmarket on the Hoffman method of brickmaking. The main kiln was known as the 'Hoffman Kiln'. Mechanisation of brickmaking began in the 1870s. By 1896 the successful Hoffman mechanical method of brickmaking was established in Australia, and for the first time, quality mass produced bricks could be bought at prices well below those of the hand-made equivalent. The Hoffman method was named after Friedrich Hoffman, an Austrian, who invented the technique in 1859. The Hoffman method enabled drying and firing to take place simultaneously. Known as continuous firing, one chamber would be stacked with 'green' bricks, other chambers contained bricks in increasing degrees of dryness, in another chamber firing may just have been commenced, while another may be in full firing, other chambers might be in various degrees of cooling while one chamber might remain empty.
\nAn estimated £25,000 was spent by Brisbane Brick and Builders Supply Company (Brisbane Brick) on establishing the works, featuring one of the largest kilns in Australia. The design catered for a daily output of 85,000 bricks. By July 1912, bricks were being made on the site for use in the construction of the works, and the official opening occurred in October 1912. Aleck Anderson, a former Clerk of Works, and builder, was the first manager of the works.[4]
\nWhile the use of bricks for construction expanded in Queensland during the interwar period, timber remained the dominant material of the state’s building industry, especially for residential purposes. Demand for bricks periodically fell below production and government price controls also impacted on the viability of Queensland brickworks. Brickyards, quickly piled high with large stocks of unsold bricks, were often forced to close down for from six months to two years. After one of these closures the Brisbane Brick issued new preference shares to obtain capital to refit and modernise its original plant at Newmarket, and resume manufacturing. From then until the outbreak of World War II, the company stopped production for one or two brief periods.[5]
\nDuring the war, the Defence Department utilised the Newmarket sheds, kilns and yards to store goods such as clothing, boots and other equipment. The company's engineering staff were engaged to maintain Liberty ships and other defence work. World War II set the brick manufacturing industry back many years, and forced the closure of the company's works at Newmarket.[6] With the end of the war, the brick manufacturing industry then faced the introduction of price controls. At this time, the modernisation of many plants was slowed considerably. With the lifting of price controls many companies, Brisbane Brick included, began a concerted drive to make up for what was considered 'lost time'. Plants were improved and production methods were streamlined. Demand for bricks for homes and new commercial buildings soon outstripped production.[7]
\nBrisbane Brick opened Strathpine Bricks Pty Ltd in 1961 on a site with a large clay deposit. The development of new processes, such as new tunnel kiln equipment to produce bricks, gradually overhauled shortages. The design of the new Strathpine site was considered 'as modern as tomorrow - the concept in brickworks design completely removes the traditional image of the old-type works with its towering smoke stack and unattractive factory'. In this period, Newmarket Bricks Pty Ltd, was a subsidiary of Brisbane Brick and Builders Supply Company, and was producing four million face bricks and eight million common bricks a year.[8]
\nOperation of the Newmarket brickworks was continued by PGH Industries (Queensland) from the mid-1960s. In 1981 the Newmarket brickworks were producing extruded bricks, pavers and screen blocks. By this time, the onsite Bunya Phyllite deposits had been exhausted and clay was obtained from elsewhere.[9] In 1985, the Newmarket site had frontages to Alderley, Wakefield and Yarradale Streets and Mina Parade.
\nIn 1987 the brickworks were demolished and the site subdivided. Buildings demolished included the Hoffman kiln (adjacent to the surviving stack), drying kiln, sorting sheds, dome kiln buildings and stack, and an extruder presses building. At the time of demolition, the chimney was excluded from the demolition permit on the basis of its rarity as a remaining example in Brisbane of a load-bearing brick chimney stack. The site has been fully redeveloped for industrial and other purposes.
The Newmarket Brickworks Chimney is significant as a rare, surviving example of the brick manufacturing industry in Brisbane, and Queensland, in the early part of the 20th century. At this time, brick makers often struggled for patronage in a state which, predominantly, utilised timber in building construction.
The Newmarket Brickworks Chimney is associated with Brisbane Brick and Builders Supply Company Ltd, or Brisbane Brick as it was widely known. Brisbane Brick, in particular, the Newmarket brickworks, provided bricks for buildings within the University of Queensland, including residential colleges and the MLC building on the corner of George and Adelaide Streets.
|The Newmarket Brickworks Chimney is significant as a rare, surviving example of the brick manufacturing industry in Brisbane, and Queensland, in the early part of the 20th century. At this time, brick makers often struggled for patronage in a state which, predominantly, utilised timber in building construction. In 1987, when the Newmarket Brickworks was demolished, the chimney was excluded from the demolition permit on the basis of its rarity as a remaining example in Brisbane of a load-bearing brick chimney stack.
|At a height of over 50 metres, clearly visible from Newmarket Road, Mina Parade and surrounding areas, the Newmarket Brickworks Chimney is significant as a well known Brisbane landmark, recognised by both local and wider communities.
|At a height of over 50 metres, clearly visible from Newmarket Road, Mina Parade and surrounding areas, the Newmarket Brickworks Chimney is significant as a well known Brisbane landmark, recognised by both local and wider communities.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16121,"place_ref":601358,"name":"AMA House","alternate_name":"Hunstanton | BMA House","street_address":"188 L'Estrange Terrace","suburb":"KELVIN GROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-07-04","description":"AMA House is a two storeyed house, with external faces clad in rough-cut granite. The building is on the highest part of the block, facing NNE, with expansive views of the surrounding suburbs. The property is entered via a driveway from L'Estrange Terrace which extends to the front of house. A large granite fence, with a tall circular fence post, bounds the property from L'Estrange Terrace on the eastern side of the driveway. Several large, established trees and early gardens are found around the house.
AMA House is asymmetrically arranged, with a T-shaped plan running east-west, with the transverse section at the western end. The house has a gabled roof with overhanging eaves, of Marsailles terracotta interlocking tiles, with several variously shaped sections emphasising elements of the plan. The house has steel members used in otherwise loadbearing construction.
The northern elevation features an attached circular tower at the eastern end, protruding over the roof line. The tower, which is a feature element of the exterior of the house, is roofed with an onion shaped copper tiled dome, surmounted by a simple finial. A large crest carved into the face of the granite and partially painted red, is featured on the tower, directly below the dome. At the western end of the northern facade, is a full length projecting circular bay, similar in size and scale to the tower at the other end. The bay features window openings with curved glass and leadlight glazing. The western facade features a rectangular oriel window on the first storey, supported on oversized carved granite corbels. Below this is the principal entrance to the lower floor, through double timber doors, large enough for use as garage doors.
The first floor of the building forms the original principal living and dining space, and the lower floor housed a garage or carriage storage, the kitchen and possibly servant's quarters. The main entrance to the house is on the northern facade, via a curved concrete stair, which terminates at a small porch on the first floor. The porch, emphasised by a discrete conical, copper tiled roof, is defined by pairs of turned timber columns joined by a timber frieze. The timber balustrade of the porch is integrated with a seating element.
The first floor of the house has a reasonably open plan, which later walls have disguised to some extent. A large verandah on the north side of the house and a breezeway through the house to a morning room, to the south of the entrance form the open spaces, which are different in treatment to the rooms. The verandah, which accounts for nearly half of the width of the house, has large arched openings, with rough-cut granite quoining, with marble sill. These openings are also found in the morning room. Ceramic tiles are found on both the floor and walls of the verandah, black and white chequer-pattern tiles on the floor and glossy brown tiles, with painted feature tiles, to dado height on the walls.
The breezeway is interrupted by an early concrete storage space around which a timber stair to the lower floor winds. The first floor has several elements of high quality timber joinery including architraves, window framing and skirtings. The lower floor is a more rudimentary space, with lower ceilings, very little decorative treatment and plain concrete dividing walls.
The house adjoins a more recent building via a walkway from an existing opening on the first floor.
","history":"This two-storeyed stone house was erected c1914 for William Mandeville Ellis L'Estrange, a prominent electrical engineer who arrived in Queensland in 1887.
Family records note that from the late 1870s until the early 1890s, L'Estrange worked as an assistant to the Surveyor for the Logan District, during which time he also owned and farmed land in the Upper Coomera district. In 1893 L'Estrange commenced work with Edward Barton of the electrical firm Barton and White. In 1896 L'Estrange left Australia to study in England and Germany, later working for the General Electric Company in the United States of America.
L'Estrange returned to Brisbane probably during the late 1890s, and became Secretary of the Brisbane Electric Supply Company Limited, which was reconstructed to become the City Electric Light Company in 1904. From the early 1900s until the late 1930s, L'Estrange maintained his involvement with electricity supply in the Brisbane area, serving as Secretary of the Ipswich Electric Supply Company and as a Director of the City Electric Light Company. L'Estrange was also a prominent member of the Queensland Institute of Engineers, and of the Brisbane division of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. During the late 1920s and early 1930s L'Estrange was also involved with the University of Queensland Senate.
In 1900 L'Estrange married Mary Emmeline Alder, daughter of EH Alder, Chief Inspector of Public Works for Queensland. L'Estrange had acquired the land on which Huntstanton was erected by mid 1914.
The architect of Huntstanton is not known, although family records speculate that the house was possibly designed by either L'Estrange or Barton, a relative of L'Estrange. The stone for the house was quarried reputedly at The Gap. It has been suggested that L'Estrange owned quarries at The Gap and at Grovely. It is understood that the verandah, hall and other indoor tiles were imported from either Italy or France, whilst the roof tiles bear the imprint of their manufacture in Marseilles, France.
Family history records that for a short time the L'Estranges lived with Mary's mother in Clyde Road Herston, moving to Huntstanton c1916.
In 1929 L'Estrange sold Huntstanton to Brisbane medical practitioner Dr James Vincent Duhig, nephew of Archbishop Duhig. Duhig had studied medicine at Sydney University, prior to serving as a medical officer in the Australian Imperial Forces from 1917 until 1919. Following the war Duhig studied pathology at King's College Hospital in London, before returning to Australia where he practiced as a pathologist from 1920, and established pathology laboratories at the Mater Misericordia Hospital also in 1920, and at the Brisbane General Hospital in 1924. Duhig is described as being a militant campaigner for the establishment of a medical school at the University of Queensland, and in 1938 he became the first professor of pathology at the University. Duhig also founded the Red Cross Blood Bank in Queensland.
In October 1955, Duhig offered Huntstanton for sale to the then Queensland Branch of the British Medical Association [BMA].
The inaugural meeting of the Queensland Branch of the BMA was held in Brisbane in May 1894, the role of the association being to advance the cause of medical science. There had previously been three attempts to form a medical association in Queensland; in 1871, 1882 and in 1886 as the Queensland Medical Society which eventually amalgamated with the Queensland Branch of the BMA in 1900. The first headquarters of the Queensland Branch of the BMA was a property in Adelaide Street, acquired by the association in 1912. In 1936 the association moved to a building on Wickham Terrace, which it named BMA House. By the 1950s, additional facilities were required by the association, and estimates were prepared for the erection of a new building on land behind BMA House.
Following Duhig's offer in 1955, the association rescinded its plans to develop the Wickham Terrace property, and purchased Huntstanton, renaming it BMA House. Possibly also a factor influencing the association's decision, was the location of Huntstanton in close proximity to both the city and the Brisbane Hospital and Medical School. The first meeting of the association in its new premises was held in December 1957. The name of the building was changed to AMA House in 1963, reflecting the change from the BMA to the Australian Medical Association.
A hall and additional office space was required by the early 1960s, and plans were prepared by the firm of Lange Powell, Dods and Thorpe for a new building to the northwest of AMA House. The new building was connected to AMA House via a walkway, and was officially opened in 1965, becoming the main administration building for the AMA. Alterations undertaken to AMA House have included the erection of partitions, and enclosing the verandah along the northeast side of the building with glass.
The AMA continues to use AMA House as a venue for meetings and functions, and a library/archive is also located in the building. Parts of the ground and first floor area are presently (May 1995) leased to private firms.
","criteria":"The house provides early evidence of internal open planning.
|The construction technique, including the steel members used in the framing and the granite cladding is unusual for a house of the 1910s.
|The house is a good example of architecture influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and adapted to tropical climate.
|AMA House has considerable aesthetic value, the external massing, materials and detailing which combine to create a picturesque quality.
|Erected by William L'Estrange, a prominent electrical engineer involved in the supply of electricity in Brisbane during the early twentieth century, and located on L'Estrange Terrace, AMA House has an association with L'Estrange.
AMA House is also important for its associations with prominent Brisbane Doctor, JV Duhig, and the Queensland Branch of the Australian Medical Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16122,"place_ref":601359,"name":"Dr Ludwig Becker's Grave","alternate_name":"Dr Ludwig Beckers Grave","street_address":"Bulloo River","suburb":"THARGOMINDAH","lga":"BULLOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-08-05","description":"Dr Ludwig Becker's grave, with the graves of Purcell and Stone, is located on a stock route along the western bank of Kooliatto Waterhole on the Bulloo River near Molesworth Station southwest of Thargomindah.
The gravesite, marked by a plinth with a plaque and three timber posts, is surrounded by a low metal fence.
","history":"Doctor Ludwig Becker, a member of the Burke and Wills expedition, died on 29 April 1861 and his grave, together with those of Purcell and Stone, is located on a stock route along the western bank of Kooliatto Waterhole on the Bulloo River.
Becker was born at Darmstadt, Germany in 1808. He achieved a doctorate of philosophy and left Germany for political reasons during the 1848 revolution. After some time in Rio de Janeiro he arrived at Launceston in 1851. He was described by Lady Denison as one of those universal geniuses who can do anything...a very good naturalist, geologist...draws and plays and sings, conjures and ventriloquises and imitates the notes of birds so accurately. In 1852-54, while gold digging in Bendigo, Becker made meteorological observations and produced sketches which he exhibited in Melbourne in April 1854. He became a council member of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts in 1856 and of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria in 1859, and was a leading member of the German Club. He corresponded with ornithologist and zoologist John Gould, known as the father of bird study in Australia, on the lyrebird, and was one of the first to try to raise a lyrebird chick and sent sketches of the egg to ornithologists in Germany and France.
His scientific knowledge and artistic ability qualified him for selection as a member of the Victorian Exploring Expedition in 1860-61, which has since become known as the Burke and Wills expedition. It was organised by the Philosophical Institute which in 1860 became the Royal Society.
The Burke and Wills expedition was led by Robert O'Hara Burke, who was a superintendent of police in the Castlemaine district when, in 1860, he was given leave to take command of the exploring expedition to cross the continent from south to north.
The objectives of the expedition were hazy and its route, from Cooper's Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria, was decided less than a month before it set out. Burke's instructions, sent after him because they were not ready at the time, were incoherent. The real object of the expedition appears to have been to snatch from the South Australian explorer, McDougall Stuart, the honour of making the first south-north crossing of the continent. Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria 1856-1863, described it as the glorious race across the continent between the expeditions fitted out in this and the adjacent colony of South Australia.
The Burke and Wills expedition was the most expensive in the history of Australian exploration. It cost over £60,000 and seven lives. Burke was the first Australian explorer to be provided with camels, over two dozen of them, imported complete with cameleers. There were horses and wagons, food for two years and lavish equipment. The party consisted of three officers; Burke, Landells the camelmaster, and William John Wills surveyor and meteorologist; German scientific officers Ludwig Becker artist, naturalist and geologist, and Herman Beckler medical officer and botanist; a foreman, nine assistants and the camel-drivers.
The expedition left Melbourne on 20 August 1860 and made progress through the settled districts to Swan Hill and Balranald and reached Menindee on the Darling River at the beginning of October. Burke was in haste and left much of his provisions at Balranald and more at Menindee.
Becker, as artist, naturalist and geologist on a salary of £300, received lengthy instructions from Doctor John Macadam, honorary secretary of the Exploration Committee, which stipulated that he should collect specimens, keep a diary and produce daily maps with illustrations and sections. He sent his first dispatches from Swan Hill, and from Menindie sent a number of specimens. He became despondent when these were not acknowledged.
Burke became impatient with the lost time in making scientific investigations and ordered that Becker and Beckler give up their investigations and work like the rest of the men and walk instead of ride. In a report to the Exploration Committee, Landells wrote that Burke requested him not to allow Becker to ride and had observed that if Becker accompanied the expedition, and got through, people would say that it would not be difficult to cross to Carpentaria, and that he was to be walked until he gave in. At one stage Becker did not eat for three days and became faint. He had to wait until everyone was asleep to do his writing and sketching.
After quarrelling with Burke, Landells resigned at Menindee and Burke promoted Wills to second in command, replacing him as third officer by a local man, William Wright, who proved incompetent and unreliable.
Burke's orders were that his base camp was to be at Cooper's Creek; instead, he divided his party, transport and provisions, dashing on to Cooper's Creek with an advance party and ordering Wright to follow with as little delay as possible. However, Wright waited in Menindee for three months - by which time Burke had travelled to the Gulf of Carpentaria and back - before transporting the vital reserve transport and provisions the four hundred miles to Cooper's Creek.
Becker was with Wright's party in Menindee, and frustrated due to the lack of communication from the Exploration Committee he no longer wrote his daily reports and concentrated instead on sketching. He became aware of the possible failure of the expedition, but his letter to the committee about the delays was ignored.
Wright's party moved north at the end of January 1861, and reached Torowoto, about half way from Menindee to Cooper's Creek on 12 February. By this time Becker and others were suffering from scurvy and the effects of bad water. At their camp at Rat Point, Becker and Purcell, the cook, were very ill. Wright moved on to try to reach Cooper's Creek, but only made it to Bulloo and returned. Beckler remained with the sick members, and on 8 April wrote to his brother of Becker's illness and the unlikelihood of his recovery, stating that I shall have to bury him here, and then what an outcry there will be for me in Melbourne! Wright wanted to send the sick men back to Menindee, but Beckler told him that they could not make a single days journey. Wright then ordered the party on to Bulloo, which they reached on 21 April. Wright's party never continued onto Cooper's Creek.
Meanwhile Burke, impatient for Wright's arrival at Cooper's Creek, selected Wills, King and Gray to accompany him to the gulf and left four men under the command of William Brahe, one of the assistants, at camp LXV at Cooper's Creek. Burke decided to explore on foot and took provisions for twelve weeks and six camels and a horse as pack animals. It took four months to complete the 1500 miles, and Gray died before they returned to camp LXV at Cooper's Creek. When Burke's party reached camp LXV on 21 April 1861, spent, starving and in rags, they found it deserted. Brahe's party, having given up hope of seeing Burke and Wills, had left that day for Menindee with six camels, twelve horses, all the clothes and most of the food. Burke decided that as they were in bad shape and had only two camels, they would not be able to catch Brahe's party and would not survive the 400 mile journey. He decided to make for Mount Hopeless, a 150 mile journey away, leaving a message of their intentions at camp LXV.
Brahe's party arrived at Wright's camp at Bulloo on 28 April. The natives were hostile, and had attacked the camp on 27 April. During this period, Becker was mostly unconscious and died on 29 April, and was buried near the graves of Purcell and Stone who had died a few days earlier. The Royal Commission to enquire into the causes of the deaths of Burke and Wills also found, from Dr Beckler's evidence, that Dr Becker died of dysentery and the exhaustion consequent upon it; of course with some peculiar symptoms, which were principally owing to the affection of scurvy. After his burial, Becker's clothes, bedding and tent were burned and his other effects were placed in a pack for conveyance to Melbourne.
Brahe decided to return to camp LXV at Cooper's Creek, to wait for Burke and Wills, which he reached fifteen days after he had left it. He did not find Burke's message and left again for Menindee for good. Burke, Wills and King, heading for Mount Hopeless, were too weak to get far. Only King survived, by living with the Aboriginals and sharing their food after Burke and Wills had died, and was rescued by AW Howitt's search party from Melbourne in September 1861.
A royal commission appointed to inquire into the deaths of Burke and Wills censured Burke for having dividing his party at Menindee and for entrusting Wright, of whom he knew little, with an important command, and that he had showed more zeal than prudence in leaving Cooper's Creek before the arrival of Wright and undertaking the journey to the gulf with inadequate provisions.
Burke kept no journal, there was no time for scientific observation and Burke's route was only practicable in unusual weather. Burke won the race to the north, but McDougall Stuart found the all-weather route. Solid gains in geographical knowledge were made by the explorers Howitt, McKinlay and Landsborough who led parties in search of him.
Becker had made meteorological observations daily until a month before he died. His death was lamented in newspapers and journals both in the Australian Colonies and in Germany, and he was mourned by colleagues at the Royal Society. Governor Barkly paid tribute to one of the earliest and most indefatigable contributors...the name of Ludwig Becker will...rank with those of Cunningham, Kennedy and Leichhardt and the rest of that noble band who have sacrificed their lives in the cause of science. The City of Ballarat commemorated the expedition with a clock tower in 1863 referring to the deaths of The Victorian Explorers Burke, Wills, Gray and Becker. The small Queensland parish of Becker perpetuates his name and some timber posts mark his grave.
This expedition paved the way for settlement in the area, with the first recorded settlement being Bulloo Downs taken up by Jones, Sullivan and Molesworth Green in 1864.
","criteria":"Dr Ludwig Becker, artist, explorer and naturalist, has been described as a martyr to science and his loved profession...both a devotee to science and to art. He was an integral member of arguably the most famous, and fateful, of the Australian exploring expeditions.
|His grave and its location are both a memorial to his life and to the Burke and Wills Expedition.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16126,"place_ref":601363,"name":"OK Mine & Smelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2286 Nychum Road","suburb":"BELLEVUE","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-10-02","description":"The smelter works and associated open cut mine workings are located around the base of a small hill, on the southern side of small watercourse.
The smelter site comprises four terraces with stone retaining walls, of which there are two main levels. The lowest level, or copper floor, contains a number of items of plant including four copper converter vessels and two converter hoods, a portable steam engine and an Aveling and Porter, Rochester steam traction engine. Below the upper level, or furnace floor, there is evidence of a long brick flue leading to the tall brick chimney which is octagonal in section. The chimney stands intact with some vertical shearing of brickwork around the top, probably as a result of lightning strikes. The power house site immediately east of the chimney contains concrete engine mounts, brick boiler foundations and the brick base of a metal chimney.
A large and remarkably intact slag dump extends north of the main chimney for about 120 metres to a small watercourse. An intact Pooley and Sons Ltd, Birmingham and London No 524, steel weighbridge is located on a former access track on the east side of the slag dump.
The mine workings southwest of the smelter comprise a large open cut containing several mine shafts. Rendered stone water tanks are located above the smelter terraces, and a limestone deposit is located to the west.
","history":"In September 1901, copper was discovered by John Munro in an area at the northern perimeter of the Chillagoe mineral district, part of the Walsh and Tinaroo Mineral Field. He named the site OK, reputedly after an empty OK jam tin. On 11 November 1902 Munro applied for a Prospecting Area of 400 square yards on a hill where copper carbonates were showing profusely and where he assayed copper at 34%.
The OK Copper Mines Development Syndicate NL was formed, consisting of members John Munro; railway contractors GC Willcocks and Acheson Overend; John Newell of Jack and Newell storekeepers; Edward Torpy, mineowner of Crooked Creek near Almaden; and CAS Andrew, civil engineer. The syndicate developed the mine and constructed and operated the OK smelters, and was the first copper company in North Queensland to declare a dividend.
Transport costs were a major obstacle for mining companies, and as the railway to nearby Mungana had recently been completed by Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited, the OK mining venture became viable.
Chillagoe mineral lodes had attracted official attention in 1888 following a report from the Mineral Lands Commissioner that John Moffat had engaged seventy-five men to prospect some 260 acres of leases, and planned to finance a tramway from Montalbion to Chillagoe to redress the isolation and lack of transport. However, as copper prices were depressed and the capital market was contracting, and there was no reliable geological opinion on which to float the properties, no major development eventuated. In 1894 Moffat renewed his interest in the Chillagoe properties, and equipped two groups of mines with small furnaces. Early assays were encouraging and the Mineral Lands Commissioner predicted that with cheap transport 'this will be the premier mineral producing field in Australia'. In 1897 separate reports by government geologists stated that only lack of capital for mining and rail communications was retarding development.
New mining company listings on the Melbourne Stock Exchange between 1896 and 1900 were almost double those for the preceding five years, and the trend was sustained during the first decade of the twentieth century as a result of British capital flow. Many of these new mining companies failed partly because promoters tended to splurge working capital on expensive machinery, rarely assessing ore reserves with any degree of thoroughness, and partly because investors sought immediate returns on their outlays once mining was commenced. Many mines were prematurely abandoned after the surface lodes were exhausted, earning some Australian promoters notoriety for dubious financial practices. Capital investment diminished when dividends ceased, and with the exhaustion of high yield surface ores, realisation costs escalated. Many British investors sought mining debentures, the most secure form of investment. By 1914, many Australian mining ventures were British controlled as a result of under-writing capital expansion in London.
In 1897, while the Mount Lyell (Queenstown Tasmania), Broken Hill, Mount Morgan and Western Australian mining successes were exciting Melbourne and London speculators, John Moffat, James Smith Reid and Charles William Chapman devised a grandiose scheme for the exploitation of the Chillagoe district. This scheme comprised the construction of a railway from Mareeba to Chillagoe, and the erection of central smelters and a mining programme. This required approval by the Queensland government as existing colonial mining laws and railway policies could not countenance such a proposal. The government was lobbied, and enabling legislation entitled the Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Bill was enacted in December 1897, after considerable opposition from Labor as it was considered a major departure from government policy. This allowed Moffat, Reid and Chapman to construct a private railway through mineral lands in return for an additional 1,800 acres of leases. A new company, Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited, was formed and with a promising prospectus considerable capital was raised making it a million pounds company. In 1899, a further agreement was made with the Queensland government to construct a branch line to nearby Mount Garnet.
During this time, the Queensland Mines Department was involved in a scandal with the Admiral Sampson Chillagoe Company involving the inflation of values and projected yields. The reputation of mining companies associated with the Chillagoe district was tarnished and this resulted in heavy selling on the London sharemarket.
The railway was completed and opened in August 1901 and the smelters were geared for blowing in early the following month. However, as a result of the sharemarket uncertainty, another report was commissioned to ascertain the amount of available ore, and this stated that there was less than half of the original estimate, and of a value less than what had already been expended on the infrastructure. The company subsequently collapsed and the smelters closed down in December 1901. All the infrastructure was in place however, and a new company was floated to raise more capital to continue with the mining which recommenced by May 1902. A flush of optimism resulting from the opening up of the OK Mines on the northern perimeter of the district resulted in an increased building programme at Chillagoe and Mungana.
At first the OK Copper Mines Development Syndicate NL employed a dozen men mining the rich surface ore (37% copper) which was hauled to Mount Garnet for smelting. A road was completed to Mungana on 9 August 1902, and the first three teams departed that day with 211 tons of copper ore for Mungana railway station for transportation to the Mount Garnet smelters at a freight cost of £3.10.0 per ton.
The syndicate decided to establish their own smelters and acquired the Mount Garnet smelters which were part of the Mount Garnet Freehold Copper and Silver Mining Company Limited liquidation. The OK smelter cost £5,000 and commenced operations on 29 November 1904. The company built a storeroom at the Walsh River for the wet season and planned to bring winding machinery from the Palmer Goldfield in June 1904.
The smelter operated effectively though intermittently at first until all the flux and carrying arrangements were finalised. Tenders were called for the monthly carriage of 400 tons of matte (impure product of smelting) and ore, and back loading of 200 tons of coke and stores from Mungana. Tenders were also called for carrying 10 tons of limestone daily for 12 months. Abdul Wade, a shareholder of the company, obtained the contract for carriage to Mungana for which he used approximately 400 camels. They proved expensive, caused labour difficulties with the unions and were susceptible to the local poison bush. As a result, ten wood-burning traction engines were purchased by the company for transport to and from Mungana.
By May 1905 the company had 400 tons of matte ready for export. At that time they believed there were 62,360 tons of ore in sight valued at £1,060,000. In June 1905 they declared a dividend of five shillings per share, the first copper mining company in North Queensland to do so. During 1905, the company produced £61,248 worth of copper. They paid £25,308 in dividends, and expenses were £16,192 on the copper matte, £12,189 on smelting, £6,149 on ore raising, £2,922 on management expenses, £781 on general expenses and £632 on the smelting plant.
In 1906 they produced 13,687 tons of copper valued at £135,774 from the 80 and 115 feet levels of the mine, which were still considered fairly backward in development. Two new Babcock and Wilcox boilers were bought, a new converter plant erected, new winding machinery obtained and lead frame erected. A new compressor and diamond drills were installed, and 250 men were employed.
High world metal prices in 1906-07 conferred short lived prosperity. From a high of £112 per ton in March, copper prices fell to ?62 per ton in December. Manifestations of militant unionism were also emerging, with strikes over award conditions affecting mining operations.
An octagonal brick smelter chimney was erected in 1907 to improve smelter ventilation and disperse the harmful fumes. Keith Maitland-Gibson, an experienced English engineer with American experience, significantly expanded the smelter in 1907 even though the income from the copper matte declined. The lead frame was completed and the winding gear and modern mine cages were installed. A six feet by three feet water jacket furnace, Bessemerising converter of four tons capacity and flue dust chamber were added to the smelter, and boiler capacity was doubled with the smelter having a 90 ton capacity. During this time, 1,424 tons of blister (almost pure) copper were produced from 16,000 tons of ore mined, and one dividend was paid of £16,872 because of the cessation of the smelter for two months due to lack of fuel.
In 1908, the company's fortunes changed. Copper quality deteriorated and no payable ore was located below 150 feet in the mines. The output dropped to 19,970 tons of ore yielding 1,479 tons of copper. In October 1909 mining operations were suspended due to a strike, which also affected Mungana. There had also been curious stock exchange share price rigging allegations in 1905, and difference of opinion between Willcocks and the other directors over the smelter and mine manager's work. The smelters closed in June 1910, and the mine and town also closed down in the wake of a court case in the Brisbane Supreme Court between the OK Company and Aaron Hirsch and Sons of Germany over breach of contract for the supply of copper matte. The writ had been issued for £30,000 damages, disputing the accounts of the company which had not allowed for depreciation of plant or an estimate of the ore reserves. Judgement was given for Aaron Hirsch and Sons and the OK Company was ordered to pay £19,570.5.3. The other strong reason for closing down the operations was the rapid decline in copper content of the ore. In 1909, 14,376 tons of ore were smelted for a yield of 193.5 ounces of gold, 1,323 ounces of silver and 752 tons of copper valued at a total of £46,409.
Although efforts were made to float a new company in 1912 it was unsuccessful as the mines could not be de-watered. The company offered the traction engines for sale and they were dispersed across the Atherton Tableland for use in the mining and timber industries.
The dislocation of world metal markets caused by the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, as much of the copper was contracted to German manufacturers, was overcome by the demand from the Imperial Government for munitions. Prices initially dropped until a market was found, but subsequently copper soared from £66 per ton in 1914 to £153 per ton in 1916. Four years of prosperity during the First World War, during which the Imperial government had control of the copper market, was followed by a severe slump in prices as wartime demand ceased.
Failure of mining companies to adopt new treatment methods contributed to higher realisation costs. Companies which relied on conventional methods of ore dressing by gravity mills and smelting by blast furnaces had to consider that treatment of ore with less than 10% copper content was a dubious economic proposition. Copper flotation, which had been successfully used in the United States since 1912, achieved a recovery rate 20% higher than gravity concentration, and this contributed to the recession of metal prices in the 1920s.
In 1920 a cyclone damaged the OK Mine and store buildings. A proposal to construct concentrating machinery to treat the mine dump did not eventuate, and machinery was removed from the mine and smelters for use in the Chillagoe State Smelters in 1921.
The mine opened again in 1930 supplying the Chillagoe smelters and closed in 1942 after producing 7,685 tons of copper. In 1951 the OK Syndicate erected a three head battery for trial treatment of ore.
","criteria":"The OK Mine and Smelter is important in demonstrating the establishment and development of copper mining in North Queensland, and the Aveling and Porter steam traction engine is a monument to ore transporting problems and costs.
|The place demonstrates the layout and processes of a mid-sized copper smelter, and contains a rare large, intact and very symmetrical slag dump.
The octagonal brick chimney dominating the smelter site is one of only three octagonal mining chimneys recorded in North Queensland, the others being at Chillagoe and Sunset No 2, Ravenswood. The Pooley and Sons weighbridge is the most substantial and intact weighbridge recorded in North Queensland.
|The place demonstrates the layout and processes of a mid-sized copper smelter, and contains a rare large, intact and very symmetrical slag dump.
|As a ruin the OK Mine and Smelter, including the large symmetrical slag dump, has considerable aesthetic significance.
|(Criterion under review)
|The OK Copper Mines Development Syndicate NL, which established and developed the mine and smelter, is significant in Queensland's history as the first North Queensland copper company to pay a dividend, due to its practical equating of technical requirements and expenditure on smelters and mine equipment against the known reserves of ore. No other public company on the Walsh and Tinaroo Mineral Field was able to achieve this.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16129,"place_ref":601366,"name":"Lytton Hill","alternate_name":"Signal Hill | Reformatory | Lytton Redoubt","street_address":"Via South Street","suburb":"LYTTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"Lytton Hill is a small, low hill located about 250 metres south and west of Crab Creek, near the mouth of the Brisbane River. It is situated east/southeast of Fort Lytton and commands views over the Fort and Moreton Bay. It is located on freehold property owned by Caltex Australia Ltd, toward the eastern side of the Lytton Oil Refinery, with large oil and gas holding tanks to the north and west. The eastern side of the hill has been heavily quarried for land fill, and currently presents a red escarpment. The north and west sides of the hill have been cut back somewhat and the slopes modified to reduce water run-off and erosion.
The principal surviving historical elements in mid-2000 include:
1. The former southern access road to Lytton Hill, which skirts the western margin of the site before curving north-east. The surface is of crushed blue metal gravel for about fifty per cent of the its length, then is sealed for the remainder [LH-003]. Since 1994, the road has become overrun with grasses [mostly kept mown], and an erosion ditch has been cut along that part of the road which curves around the western side of the hill. It appears that during this process the cattle grid [019] across the road was removed.
2. A small concrete shed [LH-002] with a timber-framed, galvanised-iron gabled roof, of uncertain date, located in the southwest corner of the site near where the access road begins to curve around the hill, and marked '9' near the entrance door. The raised concrete platform inside the building, and a small concrete unroofed extension on the southern side, suggest this may have been used as a generator shed. It may have been associated with Second World War defences, but possibly is of earlier date.
3. Part of the southwest demi-bastion [LH-005], a raised earthwork which formed the southwest section of the redoubt, completed in 1885. The remainder of the redoubt has been either demolished or eroded following fill being removed from the hillside.
4. A timber fence [LH-004] possibly dating to the Second World War, on the western side of Lytton Hill around the former southwest demi-bastion. As the site was heavily overgrown with lantana and grasses when inspected in July 2000, it is not clear how much of the fence survives. In 1994 the fence consisted of sawn timber uprights [average height 2.5m] spaced 3.3m apart, drilled through to accommodate barbed wire strands 0.22m apart. The uprights were sawn diagonally at the top with a bolt-fixed angled crosspiece to accommodate a further three strands of barbed wire, as in a security fence.
5. The site of the former Reformatory Superintendent's compound [LH-006] - a flat area 20m by 20m on the east side of Lytton Hill, south of the Reformatory compound and Redoubt, with possible garden remnants such as freesias and guava trees.
6. A lineal planting [LH-012] approximately 35 metres in length and 10 metres wide, dominated by two mature fig trees and an understorey of lantana and other fig spp. This is located just south of the former Post and Telegraph Office.
7. An alignment of Pinus Radiata trees [LH-018] following the access road which curves around the northern end of the site. A 1972 aerial photograph shows these trees once lined both sides of the road, forming an avenue approach to the former signals building - by 1994, all but one of the pines on the outside edge of the road had been removed.
8. The former Lytton Post and Telegraph Office (1873) [LH-024], a weatherboard building on timber stumps [with some replacement concrete piers]. It has a hipped roof with gabled transepts at each end. The roof is clad with corrugated iron, covering the original shingles, and there are two brick chimneys, which have sandstone bases. The front [north] has a small central verandah, which has been enclosed. The original kitchen house is extant, and has a skillion-roofed extension of later date. There is a timber-framed external bathroom shed clad with corrugated iron. The interior of the main building has been modified with the removal of one wall. The interior is lined with horizontally-jointed tongue and groove timber boards, much of which is wide, centrally beaded.
9. A rectangular concrete structure [LH-023] adjacent to the former Telegraph Office, probably associated with the Second World War facility established on Lytton Hill. The long axis is aligned east-west and the entrance is via a sliding timber door on the southern side. The structure has a flat concrete roof surmounted by a square concrete footing which supports an inset timber frame covered with corrugated iron. This appears to have functioned as a recess and mounting for an internal structure or machinery no longer present. Internally, the structure comprises two rooms, the east room being larger than the west room.
10. A former butcher's shop/meat store [LH-027] - a timber framed structure clad in fibrous cement and corrugated iron, with fly-wire windows on the south, west and north sides, and a corrugated iron roof. Internally, the building has a small servery at the western end, behind which is the butcher's shop, with two overhead pipes for hanging carcasses. Beyond this is a timber cool room with sheet metal floor covering and sheet metal around the cool room door. The latter is a wooden unit on runners with a guiding overhead rail. There is an access chute to an adjacent holding pen.
11. A holding pen [LH-028] associated with the former butcher's shop/meat store, measuring 9m long by 6m wide, with a perimeter fence of steel posts with wire mesh. A plywood chute on the west side provides access to the butcher shop/meat store.
12. A former signals building [LH-031], comprising a c1898 brick [English bond] building aligned east-west at the northern end of the site, with a substantial northern annex of vertically-jointed tongue-and-groove timber boards (1940s). The brick building rests on a concrete foundation, has a corrugated iron roof, early 6-paned double-hung sash windows in the western and northern elevations, and a doorway in the eastern wall. Internally, the brick section has two rows of cone-shaped porcelain insulators attached to the ceiling, and remnant material used to insulate high tension electric wiring or antennae entering the building. A timber floor has been constructed above an earlier concrete floor, and a network of underfloor channels, possibly once housing for cables, is visible between the two floors. In the southwest corner of the room is a heavy duty switch board, and a large power board is located in the middle of the western wall, in front of a window. There are tiles, possibly of rubber, on the floor. A large opening in the north wall of the brick building leads, via a timber-framed enclosed walkway, to the Second World War timber extension, which is high-set on reinforced concrete piers and has a corrugated fibrous-cement roof. It is accessed externally from the northern end, via a small flight of timber steps. The fibrous-cement ceiling of this extension has been removed.
Later structures on the site include a sheet and corrugated iron lined garage shed on a concrete slab, located to the southwest of the former telegraph office [010]; and SEQEB substation SG1061 - a brick generator shed set on a concrete slab, with a corrugated iron roof and roller door entry [021].
A pile of broken concrete to the southwest of the signals building suggests that some 'tidying' of the site has occurred since 1994. A number of elements identified in the 1994 report may or may not survive, including: a large rectangular concrete slab with part of a stone wall base along the north side, adjacent to the brick section of the former signals building, and known to have been extant by 1890 [LH-043]; a concrete pier [001]; iron posts [009, 022]; a concrete footing [011]; an iron water pipe [013] near the service wing of the former telegraph office; a small earthwork [016]; collapsed timber and wire fencing [017, 033]; concrete slabs [007, 025, 026, 029, 035, 037, 038, 039, 040, 041, 045, 050]; a concrete pathway [030]; a concrete pit [032]; a concrete culvert [034]; a small timber-framed lean-to with corrugated asbestos cladding to three sides and a corrugated iron roof, damaged by fire [036]; a north-south aligned bridge with east-west aligned culvert headwalls spanning a former drainage channel [042]; a Y-shaped path and junction to the south and east of the butcher's shop/meat store [044]; a small rectangular concrete housing for metal taps [046]; a concrete drain [047]; a cast iron grate [moveable relic - 048]; and fragments of earthenware piping near the quarry on the east side of the hill [049].
In July 2000 there appeared to be little evidence of the collapsed galvanised iron tank and stand [LH-014] to the southwest of the former Post and Telegraph Office, identified in the 1994 survey; nor of a flagpole [LH-020] comprising a galvanised iron upright with pulley, located northeast of the former cattle grid across the access road on the western side of the hill, and likely associated with a Second World War facility. Two corrugated galvanised iron tanks on concrete slabs [LH-015], aligned east-west, west of the tank stand, have collapsed and have been crushed and left as a pile of rusting iron.
The site has numerous plantings associated with occupation of the hill since at least 1873. A mature Ficus macrophylla [Moreton Bay Fig] to the notheast of the former Post and Telegraph Office may pre-date non-indigenous occupation.
","history":"Lytton Hill - also known as Signal Hill, Reformatory Hill, or the Lytton Redoubt - is highly significant in Queensland history. Strategically positioned at the mouth of the Brisbane River, the hill has been used as a customs lookout, signal and telegraph station, observation post and redoubt commanding the Fort Lytton defence complex, and boys' reformatory.
The history of the Lytton district is closely aligned to the establishment during the 1840s and 1850s of the Port of Moreton Bay at Brisbane Town, on the Brisbane River, rather than at Cleveland on the Bay. In 1857 the New South Wales colonial government began to investigate the suitability of establishing a customs station at the south head of the Brisbane River [present-day Lytton]. In August 1857, surveyor James Warner completed a preliminary survey of a site for a village at the south head, which was approved in November 1858, and in December 1858 tenders were called for the construction of a Customs Station nearby on the river. In February 1859 Warner officially surveyed sections 1 to 13 of the village of Lytton, as well as sites for a customs landing place and a signal station [Lytton Hill?].
Between 1860 and 1863 some Lytton township allotments were alienated, mostly by Brisbane speculators who anticipated the development of wharf facilities at Lytton. Few private buildings were erected there. The Crown and Anchor Hotel at Lytton held a license in 1865-66 - about the time a government wharf adjacent to the Customs Reserve was built in 1866 to tranship railway stores and plant. From 1878 until c1905 the Lytton Hotel served local farmers and the annual military presence.
Following separation from New South Wales in December 1859, the Queensland government maintained Lytton's role as the customs entry to the Port of Moreton Bay. In 1860-61 an electric telegraph line was constructed from Brisbane to the Lytton Customs Station - the first telegraph line in Queensland built specifically for internal administrative use, to communicate shipping intelligence and meteorological observations from Moreton Bay. The Lytton Telegraph Office opened on 1 June 1861, the third to open in Queensland after Brisbane and Ipswich on the inter-colonial line, which had commenced operation in April 1861. In 1864 the electric telegraph was extended from Lytton via Cleveland and undersea cable to Dunwich on Stradbroke Island and north to Cape Moreton on Moreton Island.
It is possible that Lytton Hill was functioning as a signal station as early as 1859, semaphoring news of the movement of ships to and from Moreton Bay to the Customs Station below, and from 1861, to the Lytton Telegraph Office. From 1866, Signal Hill, as it became known, also proved a useful post from which to observe semaphore messages from the prison on St Helena Island, which was not connected by telegraph.
Sir George Ferguson Bowen, on completion of his term as Governor and departure from Moreton Bay on 4 January 1868, officially named and designated Lytton as Brisbane's port.
The telegraph line at Lytton appears to have been extended from the Customs Reserve to Signal Hill in the early 1870s, when in 1873 tenders were called for the construction of an electric telegraph station and residence on the hill. This was a double-gabled timber building which combined office and residence, and a detached kitchen house at the rear, erected at a cost of £534. The style was the forerunner of the most common 19th century type of post and telegraph office, with decorative finishes to verandah fascias, and sun hoods. Only four of this type of post and telegraph office were constructed in Queensland - the others being at Blackall [1883-84], St George [1885] and Cunnamulla [1889]. The former Lytton Telegraph Office is the only one of these four remaining, and is also one of the earliest surviving, purpose-designed, post and telegraph office buildings in Queensland - pre-dated only by the former Cardwell Post and Telegraph Office [1870], and contemporaneous with the Mt Perry [Tenningerring] and the first Ravenswood offices, both erected in 1873 and both substantially modified.
From 29 April 1876, the Lytton Telegraph Office also functioned as a Post Office. In the 1880s, telegraph lines were extended from Lytton to the Pile Light (constructed 1883) in Moreton Bay and to Fort Lytton.
The history of Lytton Hill from 1880 is closely associated with the establishment of a military facility in the locality. In 1876, in an unprecedented act of colonial cohesion, the principal Australian colonies commissioned military experts General WFD Jervois, RE and Colonel P Scratchley, RE, to advise on colonial defences. As a consequence of their reports, a system of east coast seaboard fortifications was adopted, including Jervois' 1877 recommendation that the Brisbane River be defended with the establishment of a fortification and redoubt at Lytton, commanding lines of submarine torpedoes across the shipping channel at this point. Jervois recommended that the redoubt [an independent fortlet commanding Fort Lytton] be established on Signal Hill, which he considered would be an excellent point whence to watch the movements of an enemy in Moreton Bay.
In July 1878, Scratchley recommended that the occupants of the hulk Proserpine, a former gaol anchored in Moreton Bay which had been refitted c1871 as a boys' reformatory, be removed to buildings on Signal Hill as part of the defensible post to be established there. He considered that the Reformatory buildings would eventually form part of the hill defences, and that the boys could help with ground preparation and maintenance associated with the defence complex.
Despite some political debate, the Queensland colonial government voted to proceed with Jervois' and Scratchley's recommendations for the defence of Brisbane. Plans for the defence complex at Lytton were prepared in the Queensland Colonial Architect's office, and approved by Jervois in February 1879. The redoubt on Signal Hill was to include a large, single-storeyed, hardwood-framed, Reformatory building with chamferboard walls and a shingled roof; kitchen wing; WCs; and a boundary fence enclosing 2 acres.
The Reformatory buildings on Signal Hill were erected in 1880-81, before work started on the redoubt, using day labour assisted by the Reformatory boys. Dormitory accommodation was provided for 120 boys, along with schoolroom, workshops, store-room, kitchen and other facilities. A large vegetable garden was established and a superintendent's cottage was erected to the south of the Reformatory building, beyond the fortification earthworks. This cottage has been identified as an 1864 timber building - possibly moved from the Customs Reserve to Signal Hill c1880. The 1873 Post and Telegraph Office remained within the Reformatory stockade, and the complex was completed and occupied early in March 1881. At this period, Signal Hill became known as Reformatory Hill.
Following the 'Russian scare' of March 1885 [the mobilisation of British and Russian troops along the Russia-Afghanistan border], Colonel French, Commandant of the newly created Queensland Defence Force, took the opportunity to complete the fortification of the redoubt on Reformatory Hill, without which Fort Lytton was vulnerable to attack from land. To this end the stockade fence on the south side was re-erected 20 yards nearer the Reformatory, arrow-headed demi-bastions were formed at the northeast and southwest corners, a ditch was constructed around the fortifications, the trees in front of the redoubt were cleared, a telegraph line was installed from Signal Hill to Fort Lytton below, and ordnance were ordered. In much of this work, the Reformatory boys assisted. By 1887 the Redoubt had been completed, its armament had arrived [although never mounted in position], and French recommended that the Reformatory now be removed. Finally in 1899, just prior to Federation, tenders were called for the removal of the Reformatory buildings from Lytton and their re-erection, with additions, at Westbrook near Toowoomba.
The Lytton Redoubt was used as a semi-permanent military camp from 1881 until the early 1930s, principally during the Queensland Defence Force's annual Easter Encampments, at which militia from all over Queensland gathered at Lytton to practice manoeuvres.
When the Lytton Defence Reserve of 120 acres [48 hectares] was finally gazetted late in 1887, it included Reformatory Hill, Fort Lytton, and possibly part of the Customs Reserve. By 1901 the Defence Reserve had been extended to 640 acres [259 hectares] following the resumption [in two stages: 1891 and 1900] of Lytton township for defence purposes. In the early 1900s this land and all military structures at Lytton were transferred to the new Commonwealth Department of Defence, and the Post and Telegraph Office on Lytton Hill was transferred to the new Commonwealth Post Master General's Department. At this time the only other building identified on Lytton Hill was a military store, erected in 1898 at a cost of £515. This is thought to be the brick building extant at the north end of Lytton Hill, possibly replacing the building marked 'store' on an 1886 plan of the Lytton Redoubt.
The fortifications on Lytton Hill remained in use until at least the early 1900s, when Queensland troops camped and trained on the slopes of Lytton Hill for active service in the South African War [1899-1902]. The preparations for war was the longest continual use of the Lytton defensive positions since they were constructed in the 1880s. Some improvements to Lytton Hill were made at this time, including the construction a 20-stall timber stables building in 1901-02, and in 1903 the erection of a tent store and barbed-wire entanglement around the Redoubt. Subsequently the site deteriorated, prior to its re-occupation by the military during the First World War [1914-18]. In 1917 a dermatological hospital for Australian Infantry Forces and huts for men and officers were erected at Lytton Hill.
Between 1919 and 1931 the flats adjacent to the Lytton Quarantine Station [established 1913-15] were used as Brisbane's first airfield, and it has been suggested that Lytton Hill may have acted as an air traffic control observation station. This has yet to be substantiated.
During the Second World War [1939-45], Lytton Hill was occupied by military signallers and engineers. A number of concrete structures were erected on the hill in association with this use. In addition, the c1880s brick store at the north end of the hill was remodelled as a signals building, and a timber wing added.
After 1945 the Lytton defence facilities were virtually abandoned, but military authorities maintained Lytton Hill as a communications base into the 1950s. In 1954 a wireless station with radar facilities was erected on the hill for the use of the pilot service. It was staffed on a 24 hour basis, seven days a week.
Lytton Hill remained part of the Lytton Defence Reserve until title to the reserve passed to Ampol Refineries [Qld] Pty Ltd in 1963. Subsequent construction of the oil refinery and holding tanks has removed most traces of the Second World War defence installation, which included an airfield, with the exception of the top of Lytton Hill and a Second World War anti-aircraft position with concrete bunkers and gun emplacements, in the refinery grounds adjacent to Fort Lytton. For some years the post and telegraph office on Lytton Hill was occupied as a residence by an employee of the Ampol Refinery.
The Port of Brisbane Authority designated Lytton Hill as the control for the Port of Brisbane c1980, erecting an observation tower there to monitor Brisbane River and Bay shipping. A section of Lytton Hill was ceded from Ampol to the Port Authority for this purpose, but in the late 1990s the tower was removed and the land reverted to refinery ownership [Caltex Australia Pty Ltd, with which Ampol merged in the 1990s].
A 1994 field survey conducted by Austral Archaeology identified 50 archaeological elements visible on the surface of Lytton Hill, and all located above the 20 metre contour line. The bulk of these remain, but the former Post and Telegraph Office was vandalised in 1994, resulting in loss of interior casement windows, doors, light fittings and fireplace surrounds and grates.
","criteria":"Lytton Hill is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being:
- a significant communication and observation post at the mouth of the Brisbane River from c1860, illustrating the dependence of the Australian colonies on maritime trade and communications in the 19th century;
- associated with the early and rapid adoption of the electric telegraph in Queensland in the 1860s/1870s;
- a strategic and integral component of the 1880s military facility established at Lytton to defend the Brisbane River;
- associated with the conduct of a Boys Reformatory on the Hill form 1880 to 1899;
- associated with the activities of the Queensland militia from the early 1880s to the early 1930s and with Queensland preparation for participation in the South African War;
- the site of a military hospital during the First World War;
- the site of a strategic signals station during the Second World War;
- the site of the Control Tower for the Port of Brisbane in the late 20th century.
|The site has rarity value, not least for its layering of strategic communication, observation and defence roles for over 130 years. The 1873 former Telegraph Office is the only known surviving example of its age and type in Queensland, and is one of the earliest surviving purpose-designed post and telegraph offices in the State. The surviving section of the Redoubt is a rare example of a defence fortification built in Queensland in the 1880s.
|As an archaeological site, the hill has the potential to reveal traces of occupation from Separation until the present.
|The 1873 former Telegraph Office is the only known surviving example of its age and type in Queensland, and is one of the earliest surviving purpose-designed post and telegraph offices in the State.
|The place has aesthetic value for its sense of dramatic isolation and ruin within the surrounding well-ordered oil refinery, and for the panoramic views both from and to the hill.
|The site is significant socially for its association with the development of military culture in Queensland from the 1880s to the 1930s; and as the site of the Reformatory where boys were educated and trained in Queensland in the last two decades of the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16132,"place_ref":601369,"name":"Redland Bay State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"125-141 Gordon Road","suburb":"REDLAND BAY","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-08-04","description":"Redland Bay State School is located in the bayside township of Redland Bay, approximately 35km southeast of Brisbane. The school is situated inland from the centre of town within a residential area and addresses a main thoroughfare, Gordon Road, to the northeast. The approximately 6ha school site is long and narrow and slopes uphill towards the rear (southwest). The school buildings occupy the northeast end of the site, with terraced playing fields at the southwest end.
\nThe heritage boundary covers only the northeast corner of the school site (part of the original school reserve) and includes most of the Gordon Road street frontage (total area 0.84ha). The significant components of the school complex are:
\nThe two buildings stand in their original locations, set back from Gordon Road and in alignment with each other.
\nTeachers Residence (1886, extended 1898, 1914)
\nThe Teachers Residence is an elevated, timber-framed and -clad building orientated to face Gordon Road to the northeast. It is approximately square in plan, with verandahs on the northeast and southeast sides. It is accessed by a set of main stairs to the northeast verandah and a small landing to a rear entrance on the southwest side. It contains a U-shaped arrangement of seven rooms around a former dining verandah, and has a 1914 bathroom enclosure at the southwest end of the southeast verandah.
\nThe earliest section of the house, completed by 1886, comprises four rooms in an L-shaped configuration along the northern side of the house, including the northern end of the northeast verandah. The rear (southwest) room is the original kitchen with a brick fireplace in the southwest wall (covered over in 2018).
\nThe northeast corner of the house is an 1898 bedroom and verandah extension. The remaining two rooms, central dining verandah, southeast verandah, bathroom enclosure and rear landing were added in 1914. Evidence of the changes and additions made over time can be read in the building fabric, particularly through differences in joinery and internal linings.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nElements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: modern gutters and downpipes; replacement timber balustrade to the northeast and southeast verandahs (not to original design); insect screens to windows; non-original window sashes to northwest kitchen wall; louvred windows; flush doors; kitchen cabinets and tiled splashbacks; non-original flat sheet wall and ceiling linings; floor coverings; toilet enclosure and fitout; bathroom fitout and linings; concrete stumps, steel posts and timber batten screens beneath house; and the detached laundry building.
\nBlock B (1886, extended and modified 1932)
\nBlock B is a lowset, timber-framed and -clad building with a gable roof and southwest-facing verandah. It contains two classrooms divided by a central partition (1932), and has a small room at the northwest end of the verandah (enclosed in 1954). Part of an original hat room survives at the southeast end of the verandah (relocated in 1932). Evidence of the changes and additions made over time can be read in the building fabric, particularly at the join between the 1886 and 1932 sections, and through the differences in materials and joinery.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nElements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: non-original metal roof sheeting (ribbed profile); concrete stumps and ant caps; external fixed shade screens to the northeast windows; the window and skillion-roofed hood in the northwest classroom wall; timber-framed awning windows; louvred windows to verandah; the 1954 verandah enclosure with associated joinery and internal linings; non-original timber balustrades to verandah; verandah access ramp; lights and fans; and non-original shelves and cabinetry.
\nGrounds and views
\nIn 2018, the Teachers Residence and Block B remain nestled in their landscaped grounds. The open areas surrounding these buildings is revealed on approach from the school entrance on Gordon Road.
\nElements of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGrounds elements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: other buildings, structures and sheds; pathways; covered walkways; fences and gates; signage; and all other trees, vegetation and gardens not previously mentioned.
\nNon-significant features within the road reserve include: the footpath, road surface, kerb, and all other road infrastructure.
","history":"Redland Bay State School is situated approximately 35km southeast of the Brisbane CBD, within Redland City. The school has provided primary education to local students since its establishment in 1886. Its two original buildings, the Ferguson-designed teaching building and teachers residence, remain on site and have been in continual use since construction. The school grounds are fringed with mature trees including mango trees (Mangifera indica), once an important local crop. The development of the school reflects the transformation of Redland Bay from a highly productive farming area in the late 19th century, to a thriving suburban settlement in the early 21st century.
\nThe region was traditionally the land of the Quandamooka people. The Aboriginal name for the Redland Bay area was Talwalpin; after the cotton tree which was widespread in the area. This naming is reflected in Point Talburpin to the south of the current township.[1]
\nAfter European settlement, Redland Bay was established as a cotton plantation in 1865. Land was subdivided into small farms and housing lots from 1866. While cotton production was short-lived, sugar was a far more lucrative crop. William and Richard Newton established a sugar mill here in the early 1870s, before selling in 1879 to William Dart, who previously operated a sugar mill at St Lucia. In 1884, The Redland Bay Land and Investment Company was formed to further subdivide and sell the land.[2]
\nEducation in the Redland Bay district began with a number of part-time schools which shared teachers. Redland Bay’s first school, initially located at Victoria Point, shared a teacher with Mount Cotton from 1876. Attendance at these schools was intermittent. An 1881 public meeting in Redland Bay established a school committee, with early classes held in the home of mill owner William Dart from late 1881. In 1882 the Victoria Point School became full-time and in March 1884 another meeting was held to establish a school at Redland Bay.[3]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[4]
\nIn July 1884, Dart offered four acres (1.6ha) of his land (Portion 12) for a school. This land was gazetted as a school reserve in November 1884. Tenders were called for a State School and Teachers Residence in January 1885.[5] Local builder Patrick Horisk was the successful tenderer.[6] The land was purchased from Dart, surveyed, and the teaching building (Block B in 2019) and teachers residence were completed by December 1885. Classes commenced in January 1886 with 45 pupils under the first principal, William Nuttall.[7]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[8]
\nThe new teaching building was built to a standard design that had been introduced in 1880. Architect Robert Ferguson, employed by the Department of Public Instruction between 1879 and 1885, was responsible for these designs, and was the first to give serious consideration to the ventilation of their interiors. [9] Into the lowset, timber-framed buildings, Ferguson introduced a coved ceiling and vented the roof space. The number of windows and their size was increased from earlier designs; however, they were few in number and sill heights were typically more than 4'6\" (1.3m) above floor level, well above eye level of students. Modestly decorative timber roof trusses were exposed within the space. Built to this standard design, the new school building at Redland Bay was a lowset, timber-framed structure with gable roof, vented coved ceiling and verandahs front and back.[10]
\nThe Redland Bay teachers residence, also a Robert Ferguson design, was built concurrently. Departmental policy was to provide residences for married male teachers in country areas, where it was often difficult to obtain other accommodation. Residences were an inducement for teachers to teach in regional areas and provided the school with a resident caretaker. Ferguson introduced new designs for detached, low set residences with more rooms than previous designs, to better accommodate a family. Characteristics included a verandah at the front and a kitchen with brick fireplace at the rear. The design of Ferguson residences evolved over time resulting in several types, including – a rectangular, four room, hipped-roofed type (eg. former Rosevale State School residence, 1884); an L-shaped, gable-roofed type with four main rooms and a small rear verandah room (eg. Monkland State School Residence, 1883, [QHR602013]); and a larger, hipped roof, five room type (eg. former Templin State School residence, c1892). The Redland Bay residence was of the L-shaped, gable-roofed type, and was built to the southeast of the teaching building. Once common at early Queensland schools, Ferguson residences were extended and upgraded over time to meet changing spatial and functional requirements, or were replaced by more modern residences from the 1920s onwards. Today, Ferguson residences are rare, with only six known surviving examples in 2019, of which three are the L-shaped, gable roofed type.[11]
\nTenders were called for the erection of fencing and gates at the school in January 1887, and for a play shed in June 1889. Improvements to the residence were also undertaken between 1888 and 1890, including ceiling the kitchen and lining internal walls. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools and schools celebrated Arbor Day from 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[12] It was reported that no trees were planted on Arbor Day in May 1894, because so many had thrived from previous years. Similarly in 1895, it was reported that no space was available for more trees, and instead, the children had established flower gardens.[13]
\nTenders were called for painting and repairs to the school in 1897 and for additions to the residence in 1898. The additions, built by A Lind and Son for £84.10s, comprised extending the main sitting room and front verandah to create another bedroom and small rear room. A detached bathroom existed near the kitchen at this time. In December 1911, a tennis court and library were added, courtesy of the daughter of the local publican.[14] Redland Bay was booming at this time. A cooperative sawmill, established in 1911, supplied timber for both building and for fruit cases for transporting local produce. Local resident, William Meissner built a new school playshed in November 1913.[15]
\nWithin the school system, a limited form of rural instruction was introduced in syllabus changes made in 1905 and 1915. The principal avenue of instruction in primary schools was via project club activities such as livestock raising (pigs, calves, and poultry), bee keeping, milk testing, and forestry. Head teacher Alfred Somers initiated agricultural studies at the school in 1910. His 1911 report discussed the cultivation of a pineapple varieties, potatoes, other vegetables and flowers. On Arbor Day 1911, 108 rose cuttings were planted, forming an avenue from the school to the front gate.[16] The mango trees (Mangifera indica) along the front boundary have substantial canopies in the earliest available aerial photo from 1955. The Palms Chutney factory, established at Wellington Point in the 1890s, relied on mangoes from Mount Cotton and Redland Bay for its production. Mangoes were also planted at Cleveland West (Ormiston) and Wellington Point state schools.[17]
\nFurther extensions to the teachers residence occurred in 1914, after the recently appointed principal deemed the house to be un-inhabitable. These extensions by Carbrook builder Christian Kruger involved the removal of the original detached bathroom and rear verandahs and the addition of two new bedrooms on the southeast side; creating a U-shaped house with a dining verandah in the centre, between the new bedrooms and the kitchen. A new southeast verandah was built along the bedroom wing, with a small bathroom at the southern end.[18]
\nRedland Bay continued to prosper during the 1920s. The rich volcanic soils produced a range of fruit and vegetables, with an arrowroot mill established in 1921. A 1922 Royal Commission into proposals for a rail link to Redland Bay and/or Mount Cotton raised the hopes of local farmers for better access to markets. Evidence presented indicated that fruit farming was the main industry, with 50 growers sending 2,600 tons (2358 tonnes) by boat to Brisbane markets annually,[19] and 400 tons (363 tonnes) by rail to interstate markets. The Redland Bay State School principal advocated for the railway, which could potentially provide access to the Wynnum State High School. This railway was not built.[20]
\nExtensions to the teaching building were sought in 1920, but this was rejected, because enrolments had decreased after Victoria Point State School opened in 1916. By September 1931 plans for additions and alterations were produced by the Department of Public Works (DPW), which had assumed the role of school design and construction from 1893. Implicit in these designs were improvements in lighting and ventilation; ideally with enhanced southern lighting.[21]
\nTenders were called in June 1932, and won by E W Hiley in July, at a cost of £189. The teaching building was extended by seven feet (2.1m) to the east, creating two 21 ft (6.4m) long classrooms. A hat room was created on the eastern corner of the rear (southwestern) verandah. The verandah on the front (northeastern side) was removed and new large casement windows were installed with fanlights above. The eaves-overhang was supported by brackets. Gable-end windows and sunshades were removed and sheeted over. Double doors from the northeast wall were reused on the southwest wall extension. [22]
\nRedland Bay State School celebrated its golden jubilee in 1936. Electricity was installed at this time.[23]
\nWith the commencement of the Pacific theatre of war during WWII, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, although many reopened on 2 March 1942.[24] Slit trenches were dug in the grounds at Redland Bay State School by the local Volunteer Defence Corps. Redland Bay farmers employed women from the Australian Women’s Land Army to harvest their crops.[25]
\nAn extra classroom was added in 1953 (Block A in 2019) linked by stairs on the verandah of Block B. The exterior to Block B was painted in 1953, as was the interior of the residence kitchen.[26]
\nIn 1954, the government acquired a further four acres (1.93ha) to the southwest of, and contiguous with, the existing school site. This extended sporting fields beyond the small cricket field on the southwest boundary.[27] The new land to the southwest, which sloped uphill from the main road, was gradually cleared and terraced to create sporting fields during the late 1950s.[28]
\nA pine plantation comprising Pinus elliottii (slash pines) and Pinus taeda (loblolly pines) was established in 1950, initiated by the Principal Mr E Scatini. The plantation totalled 130 trees by 1958; but was reduced to 73 by 1974. Aerial photography suggest the plantation was not as substantial as those found elsewhere, such as at nearby Mount Cotton State School.[29]
\nBlock B has been altered over its lifespan in accordance with changes to educational policy and school needs. In 1954, the hat room on the western corner of the rear verandah was extended to create a library. It is likely that the casement windows on the northwestern gable end were added at this time to improve lighting in the classroom, following the verandah enclosure. Changes to the teachers residence include a new toilet to the southeast corner of the verandah in 1965/66.[30]
\nAnother adjoining land parcel to the northwest was acquired in 1976 (Sub 9, Portion 12A) comprising 8.577ha, allowing for the expansion of the school. By this time the school had an enrolment of 208 pupils; more than double its 1951 enrolments of 100.[31]
\nRedland Bay State School celebrated its centenary in 1981; acknowledging 100 years since classes began in Dart’s house. Celebrations were attended by two former pupils, both aged in their nineties, who had enrolled in 1886 when the new school building opened. [32]
\nBy 1983, enrolments reached 273, and the southern suburbs of Redland Shire, Victoria Point and Redland Bay, grew rapidly in the 1990s.[33]
\nIn 1993 a ramp was provided as access to the verandah of Block B.[34]
\nFollowing the retirement of the head teacher in 1993, the school residence became vacant. The school community were concerned that the residence would be demolished, as per departmental policy of the time, and nominated the building for inclusion on the Queensland Heritage Register (QHR) in 1994. The residence was entered into the QHR in 1997. Since 1994, it has been used for various purposes including a resources centre, speech and occupational therapies, remedial work and teaching areas.[35]
\nIn 2012 a performing arts centre was built on the site of the early tennis court, facing Gordon Road. Its construction necessitated the removal of most of the pine plantation, leaving nine pine trees along the southern boundary. Other remnant mature trees within the school grounds include a date palm (phoenix dactylifera), mango trees (Mangifera, sp.), a fig tree (ficus, sp.) and camphor laurels (cinnamomum camphora), chiefly on the front boundary.[36]
\nIn 2017 the school had an enrolment of 876 students who lived in a combination of rural and semi-rural acreage, and medium to high density housing estates. In 2018, some Redland Bay State School students represented the fifth generation of their family attending the school.[37] In 2019, Redland Bay State School continues to operate from its original site with its two original buildings, set in landscaped grounds with playing areas and mature shade trees. The school remains a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment in 1886.
","criteria":"Redland Bay State School, (established 1886) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland.
\nThe place retains early and rare representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. The suburban site with mature trees, and other landscaping features demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
\nThe Ferguson-designed Timber Teaching Building (Block B; 1886, extended and modified 1932) demonstrates an early standardised design that sought to address the practicality and comfort of school buildings; with later modifications that improved natural lighting and ventilation.
\nThe Teachers Residence (1886, extended 1898, 1914) provides evidence of departmental policy to provide accommodation for married male head teachers as an inducement to teach in country areas and to provide a resident caretaker on the site.
|The Teachers Residence at Redland Bay State School is a rare and important surviving example of a Ferguson-designed teachers residence, a building type that was once common in Queensland schools. Highly intact, it is one of six known examples of Ferguson residences surviving in Queensland.
|Redland Bay State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland state school complex, comprising a pair of buildings designed by Robert Ferguson, located on a large landscaped site with mature trees and play areas.
\nThe Teaching Building (Block B; 1886, extended 1932) is a good example of a standard Ferguson-designed timber school building with later alterations by the Department of Public Works and demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its lowset gable-roofed form with verandah; timber-framed and -clad construction; louvred gable end ventilation panels; vented coved ceiling and alterations to improve natural lighting and ventilation including: verandah removed from the northeast elevation; and introduced banks of timber-framed casement windows.
\nThe Teachers Residence (1886) is a rare, intact example of a Ferguson-designed timber residence with later extensions and alterations by the Department of Public Works (1898 and 1914). The Ferguson-designed section retains the principal characteristics of its type, including: its lowset, gable-roofed form; front verandah; original joinery and internal linings; rear kitchen with brick fireplace; and its L-shaped layout of rooms. The 1898 and 1914 additions are good examples of alterations that were commonly made to teachers residences to meet changing spatial and functional requirements, and include a dining verandah and bathroom enclosure (both 1914).
|Redland Bay State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1886. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Redland Bay, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made though repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16133,"place_ref":601370,"name":"North Rockhampton Borough Chambers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16-20 Bridge Street","suburb":"BERSERKER","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-09-27","description":"Situated in Stapleton Park and accessed via Bridge Street, the former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers is a single storey brick building, painted white, with a gabled roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron, with ogee shaped verandah surrounding the building on four sides. The verandah has timber balustrading and chamfered timber posts with moulded capitals. The roof has three ventilators on the northern and southern sides of the building. Timber finials and decorative timber fretwork to the gable are located at the western and eastern ends of the building.
The western elevation, the main entrance to the building, has three pointed arch windows with timber louvres in the upper section. Similarly, the eastern elevation has a single pointed arch window with timber louvres.
All four elevations have paired, timber doors with breezeways. Two timber framed, sash windows with timber shutters are located in the western and eastern elevations and four of the same windows are located in the northern and southern elevations. Concrete ramp access is located in the southern side of the building. Modern kitchenette and toilet facilities are located along the verandah in the south-east corner of the building.
A garden is located in front of the north-western side of the building and some mature trees are located to the west of the building. Vacant land surrounds the building to its southern and north-eastern side. Directly to the north is located an asphalted area with street signs, traffic lights and marked lanes, designed to educate the user about road rules. A basketball court is located directly west of the building beyond the garden area. The Police Citizens Youth Club building is located on a separate block of land to the west of the basketball court area.
[NB. The bitumen court area and the bitumen road training facility are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.]
","history":"The North Rockhampton Borough Chambers was constructed in 1885 by Messrs Burton and Smith to a design by Rockhampton architect, JW Wilson. The borough council remained in the building until 1919 when the amalgamation of the North Rockhampton Borough Council and the Rockhampton Municipality occurred. Since 1919, the building has been used by a number of groups, and from 1985, has been the home of the Rockhampton and District Historical Society.
Rockhampton emerged as an important Queensland regional centre during the 1850s and 1860s. The Municipality of Rockhampton was proclaimed on 15 December 1860. Rockhampton's development took on a greater prominence after the discovery of the mining wealth at Mount Morgan in 1882.
Rockhampton's first neighbour in local government was the Gogango Divisional Board which was proclaimed by Order-in-Council in 1879. It completely surrounded the Municipality of Rockhampton and included North Rockhampton. The Borough of North Rockhampton, with a population of less than 1700, was established in 1883, only two years after the opening of the first bridge across the Fitzroy River. Its thirty-six year existence was often difficult and unhappy. The borough had only a small population and its location across the river from the stronger and wealthier Rockhampton Municipality made negative comparisons inevitable and the development of its own identify almost impossible. Even at the end of its independent existence in 1919, it was described as a 'small and straggling hamlet'.
From the beginning great pressure appears to have been placed on the Mayors of the Corporation who were at loggerheads with their own councillors. In the last years of the borough's existence, bitter letters of complaint to the Home Secretary or petitions demanding the removal of mayors and councillors went to Brisbane on a number of occasions.
The first meeting of resident landowners at North Rockhampton to receive nominations for councillors was held at the Forester's Hall in October 1883 and the first council met in early December to fulfil initial civic commitments, though according to the Morning Bulletin, not in a 'very expeditious way'. It was further commented in the Morning Bulletin that councillors should attend some meetings of the Rockhampton Municipality to learn procedure. The first mayor of the North Rockhampton Borough Council was William Hopkins. In February 1884, however, he was replaced by the newly elected, JW Face.
The borough's most pressing, and recurring problem was how to obtain a good water supply and the first three suggestions were a well, a pump near Kalka Creek and a dam in the Berserker Ranges. The council opted for a well in Kalka Creek near the foot of the Berserker Ranges and a pump to draw the water. The borough was still trying to raise funds for a dam in the Ranges when it became part of Greater Rockhampton in 1919. Besides the water issue, the borough was concerned that, with the altering of divisional boundaries, it might lose the Lakes Creek area. Again the Morning Bulletin saw fit to provide advice to borough by suggesting that the 'infant community' should consider what an undue influence the Meat Preserving Company would have on its affairs, and thought that the borough would be better off without it. This is interesting as, it is likely that the municipality would have been strengthened by the establishment and continued presence of large industry.
In 1884, new plans for a tramway were put forward when the Rockhampton and Northside Tramway Company pushed ahead with plans for construction.. In early 1885 however, Railway Engineer, Robert Ballard, criticised the council for the dangerous state of the main thoroughfare [Yaamba Road] torn up for the tramway. By March 1885, it was apparent that a tramway north or south of the river would not be completed.
Despite these difficulties, the North Rockhampton Borough Council obtained a loan to construct a purpose-built council building. The building was designed by JW [John William] Wilson and constructed by Messrs Burton and Smith at a cost of £1,346.
JW Wilson [1829-1915] was born in Banff, Scotland and emigrated to Australia c1854, working in Ballarat as a foreman for the Victorian Works Department. After moving to Rockhampton in c1864, Wilson worked as a builder and carrier until November 1874 when he began practice as an architect and surveyor, filling a void left by AW Voysey's appointment to the railways. Wilson was seen as a practical architect and dominated the profession in Rockhampton until the 1890s.
The Northern Daily Argus on 17 December 1885, reported that the North Rockhampton Municipal Chambers were rapidly approaching completion. The Argus advised that on entering the interior, the first object that meets the eye was the substantial strong room situated in the south-east corner of the hall, built of brick in cement and plastered over with three quarters cement. Messrs Wiley, Holmes and Company supplied the four large cedar folding doors as well as the four, circular, wooden ventilators in the ceiling. By December 1885, partitions for four offices were in the course of assembly and the verandahs surrounding the premises were being covered by the plumbers with curved galvanised iron [described in the newspaper as O.G. sheeting].
The North Rockhampton Borough Chambers survived the 1880s without too many crises or achievements, however, in 1890, the Town Clerk was arrested for embezzlement. Relationships between the borough and the Divisional Board became an issue once again in 1893 concerning the issue of the two main roads north of Rockhampton - the Yaamba Road and the Black Ball Flats [now Norman Road]. Letters of complaint and accusation were passed between the two local authorities and the Colonial Secretary. Maintenance of the roads were key issues.
Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the North Rockhampton Borough Council was beset by other problems, including the entry of Labour politicians into the Council which alarmed the anti-socialist sector; personal accusations from one councillor to another, in one instance, a councillor claiming that one of the candidates for council was a 'traitor' and another councillor claiming that his questions to council had not been recorded in the minutes of the meeting.
A major change occurred in council structure and administration shortly after the First World War - the establishment of the Greater Rockhampton Scheme. When in 1918, the North Rockhampton Borough Council approached State Treasurer, EG Theodore, for a loan, he considered it unfortunate that the government should be asked to finance two water schemes of considerable dimensions for the one city. The two local authorities were requested to work together for the one scheme. This was not easy as proposals for Greater Rockhampton had been turned down on two earlier occasions either through apathy or 'mere prejudice' and it seemed that if Rockhampton wanted modern amenities these deterrent factors must be overcome. In the end it was government pressure rather than local agreement which brought amalgamation about and, in March 1919, there were thirty-two nominations for the first enlarged council of eleven councillors.
Following the subsuming of the North Rockhampton Borough Council into the Greater Rockhampton Scheme, the Main Roads Board used the building as its offices from the 1920s to the 1960s, when it moved to new government offices in Bolsover Street. The Navel Cadets then made it their Headquarters before moving to another venue.
The Rockhampton City Council commenced restoration work on the building in 1984. Since 1985, the former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers has been the home of the Rockhampton and District Historical Society.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1885, for the North Rockhampton Borough Council, the former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers is significant as it demonstrates the development of the institute of local government in North Rockhampton. It is an extant reminder of the North Rockhampton Borough Council which was subsumed into the new council structure with the proclamation of the Greater Rockhampton area in 1919.
|The former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers is a rare surviving example of a purpose built council chambers from the 19th century which were a common feature of Queensland towns from this period.
|The former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers is significant for its association with prominent Rockhampton architect, JW Wilson, who designed a number of buildings in Rockhampton including the School of Arts, Bolsover Street; the former Harbour Board Building and the Bulletin Building both in Quay Street.
|The former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers is significant as an example of a well composed local government building with a strong domestic influence. Located in Stapleton Park, the former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers makes a significant contribution to the landscape, and particularly for its contribution to the Bridge Street streetscape.
|The former North Rockhampton Borough Chambers has a special association with the people of North Rockhampton and continues to be a focal point for the community as the home of the Rockhampton and District Historical Society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16137,"place_ref":601374,"name":"Fernleigh","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"73 Shore Street East","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-03-11","description":"Fernleigh, fronting Shore Street East to the northwest and bounded by GJ Walker Park to the east and south, is a single-storeyed timber residence with a detached kitchen house overlooking Moreton Bay and Stradbroke Island to the east.
The residence has a corrugated iron gable roof, in which an attic space has been enclosed in recent years, with a large dormer window to both the northwest and southeast. The building has both timber and concrete stumps, with a timber batten skirt to the perimeter. It has verandahs to all sides with corrugated iron skillion roofs, boarded soffits and timber posts. The exterior walls are weatherboard and the building has sash windows of cedar, some of which have timber shutters, with a row of more recent silky oak sash windows to the eastern corner room. The southwest corner of the verandah has been enclosed with vertical boarding to form a bathroom and storeroom.
Internally, the building has four rooms with a central corridor. A stair has been added to the western room to access the attic bedroom. Walls and ceilings are of unpainted beech boarding, and floors are of polished beech. A brick fireplace with a timber surround is located in the southern room. The fireplace has had its earlier render removed. The attic has been lined with hardboard sheeting, it has a pine floor and casement windows are located in the gable ends.
The kitchen house is located to the south of the residence and is linked via a covered walkway. It has a corrugated iron gable roof with verandahs to three sides, the southeast wall being of weatherboard and containing a stove recess. The building has both timber and concrete stumps, with a timber batten skirt to the perimeter. The northeast verandah has weatherboard infill below the hand rail, with timber rail balustrade to the northwest and southwest. The verandah soffits are unlined and the southern corner has been enclosed to form a bathroom. The northwest wall of the kitchen house is constructed of split logs laid vertically, and the southwest wall is of pit-sawn vertical boards.
Internally, the building consists of two rooms with a vertically boarded timber partition between. The ceiling is boarded, walls are lined with hardboard sheeting with timber cover strips and it has mainly sash windows.
A recently constructed weatherboard garage with a corrugated iron gable roof is located at the southwest boundary.
The grounds include a very large Fig tree at the southwest boundary, two large Candle Nut trees framing the driveway near the northwest boundary, a Macadamia Nut tree and Black Bean tree to the west of the residence, large Eucalypts near the western and southern corners of the site, as well as numerous smaller shrubs and flowering plants. The northwest boundary has a timber paling fence, with a timber pergola structure over the entrance gate. The northeast and southeast boundaries have wire fences.
","history":"Fernleigh, consisting of a timber cottage and adjoining timber kitchen house, is located on Shore Street East in the area around the Cleveland Point where much of the early development of Cleveland took place. Fernleigh was permanently occupied from the early-mid 1880s by William Taylor, following his retirement from his business in Brisbane.
The first land sale took place in Cleveland in 1851, and was considered a great success, being described as "...The competition for the Cleveland lots was very spirited...the result [of the sale] shows considerable confidence.". At the time of the sale, Ipswich was still a strong contender for the capital of Queensland and there was strong rivalry between Cleveland (promoted by Ipswich interests, supported in turn by the Darling Downs squatters) and Brisbane, as to which would become the port to serve the north.
The allotments on which Fernleigh stands, lots 14-16 of section 11, were acquired in the 1851 land sale by Jeremiah Scanlan, Robert Cribb and William Augustine Duncan respectively. The three men were actively involved in the development of the Moreton Bay settlement: Scanlan as a Brisbane hotel proprietor; Cribb as a baker and politician who acquired extensive land interests; and Duncan, a former Sydney journalist who took up a position as Sub Collector of Customs in Brisbane from 1846.
As records do not clearly identify whether it was lot 15 or lot 16 on which Fernleigh was built, it is unclear whether it was Cribb or Duncan who actually was responsible for the erection of Fernleigh. It is however, evident that each of these men had an interest in the development of Cleveland and closely followed the debate regarding the future role of the township.
During the early 1850s, Cribb bought much land at both Brisbane and Cleveland land sales, apparently not wanting to "miss out" when the decision between Brisbane and Cleveland was made. Duncan was a strong advocate of settlement at Cleveland, expressing the opinion that "... Brisbane can never be aught but a country village..." and that "...the Government should not hesitate to open a Township at Cleveland Point...".
Locally, it is held that Fernleigh was built during the 1860s as a holiday house for Taylor, who had arrived in Brisbane in 1849. It is possible however, that references to Taylor at Cleveland during this period derive from his purchase of land, in the vicinity of Fernleigh, in the 1851 land sale.
By the late 1850s, Brisbane was finally recognised as the main port for Queensland. Cleveland remained isolated, developing into one of two fashionable Brisbane holiday resorts, the other being Sandgate to the north of Brisbane.
The Taylor family's first recorded connection with Fernleigh is in 1879, when Taylor's daughters, Ellen, Ann and Elizabeth acquired lots 14-15. Also in 1879, Taylor purchased the Cleveland State School building for £9, and it is understood that he moved this building to Fernleigh where it became the kitchen house. Prior to being used as a schoolhouse, the building was a cottage/shop in Cleveland, on land owned by the Hon A MacAllister. It was acquired by the Board of Education in 1868 for use as the first Cleveland State School which opened in April of that year.
Taylor acquired lot 16 in 1882, possibly at the same time he retired from his business (early-mid 1880s). Taylor moved to Fernleigh, where he lived until his death in 1895. The title to lot 16 passed to Taylor's daughters, and Fernleigh remained in the Taylor family until the 1960s.
The house was proposed to be converted into flats during the 1970s/early 1980s. Fernleigh was acquired by the present owners in 1987.
","criteria":"Originally a cottage, the kitchen house was used as the first Cleveland State School prior to its removal and re-erection at Fernleigh. Fernleigh is located on the land which was part of the first survey and sale at Cleveland in 1851 and demonstrates the pattern of subdivision and development of Cleveland along the peninsula.
|Fernleigh is characteristic of a modest 1860s timber dwelling, having a four room core and detached kitchen house.
|The timber buildings and established garden have aesthetic quality, and form an integral part of the mature townscape of Cleveland Point.
|These structures remain as two of few surviving buildings associated with the development of Cleveland from the 1860s, and as such maintain a special association with the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16138,"place_ref":601375,"name":"Urangan Point State School, Block D","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Miller Street","suburb":"URANGAN","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-10-03","description":"The Urangan Point State School, Block D, is a single-room, single-storeyed timber building with concrete piers and a hipped corrugated iron roof. The building is set back from the school's Miller Street frontage with a carparking area to the south, pre-school building and fenced playground to the west, and recent teaching blocks to the north and southeast.
The building has boarded ceilings, single-skin vertically boarded walls, with balustrade height walls at the northeast and southeast corners with sliding timber framed windows above. The timber entrance door is located on the northern side and is accessed via timber steps. A lean-to storage room on the western side is enclosed with horizontal timber battens and has a concrete floor.
Internally, the building has boarded ceilings raked to collar-beam height. Early timber shelving is located in the southwest corner, with the blackboard positioned centrally on the western wall.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber building was constructed in 1916 as the first Urangan Point State School. It was a Type 1 (Open-air) school design, built to plans prepared by the Queensland Department of Public Works. Of the 138 open-air schools recently identified as being constructed in Queensland between 1914 and 1922, the first Urangan Point school building survives as one of less than 25% such buildings still in use in Queensland schools. It is also one of the more intact of these structures.
European settlement of the Urangan area dates at least to the 1860s, when timbergetters moved through the area. In the late 1860s and early 1870s the area was thrown open for selection, with Maryborough solicitor Edward Corser taking up the bulk of the Urangan township blocks, first surveyed in September 1867. A small fishing industry was established at Urangan Point in the late 19th century, but the main impetus for the town's development was the construction of the rail link to Maryborough (opened 19 December 1913), and the deep water jetty at Urangan Point (erected 1913-1917). In November 1915, the township consisted of a station master's residence, boarding house, hotel, and several small stores. The railway had been completed, opening up Urangan (or Port Maryborough as it was more officially known) as a seaside resort, and the jetty was under construction. Fishing was still the principal commercial activity, and a number of South Sea Islanders who had opted not to return to their home islands under the legislation of 1901, which provided for the repatriation of all South Sea Islanders by the end of 1906, moved to the district and were associated mostly with the fishing industry.
Urangan Point residents petitioned the Department of Public Instruction in August 1915, for the establishment of state school in their community. They had the support of the Port Maryborough [Urangan] Progress Association, and Maryborough businessman and politician EBC Corser, who was the State MLA for Maryborough from October 1909 to May 1915, and the Federal MHR for Wide Bay from December 1915 until his death in July 1928. Corser offered to sell to the Department of Public Instruction a central Urangan site of about 2.5 acres, first taken up by his father in 1871, and transferred to himself in 1908. Following a community meeting held on 4 October 1915 and the establishment of a school building committee, a formal application for the establishment of a state school at Urangan Point was made. The prospective enrolment was around 24.
The Urangan community already had access to two schools in the district: Pialba, approximately 4 miles distant, and Torquay, just over 2 miles. Most Urangan children attended the overcrowded Torquay School, which was accommodating over twice the number of pupils for which it had been designed, and was in urgent need of additional accommodation. In his report of November 1915, the district schools inspector recommended that a school be established at Urangan, largely to relieve the pressure on Torquay, and that the site offered by EBC Corser would be suitable. Title was transferred to the Secretary for Public Instruction in July 1916.
As the Urangan Point settlement was a small one, and considered by the District Inspector of Schools unlikely to grow to any extent, an inexpensive Type I (Open-air) school building was recommended. The building comprised a single room, 21 feet by 14 feet, with desk accommodation for 30 students. It had canvas blinds to the window openings and two large canvas doors, one at the side and one in the front. There were no verandahs.
Open-air schooling had been experimented with around the turn of the century in England and Germany, and in the 1910s was promoted in Queensland by Dr Eleanor Bourne, Director of the Department of Public Instruction's School Medical Service from 1912. A recent study has identified 138 open-air schools constructed in Queensland between 1914 and 1922, with the bulk erected in 1915-16. Approximately 25% of these structures were constructed as annexes to established schools, but most were erected in sparsely settled districts as the only school building. They were comparatively inexpensive to construct, and were considered appropriate in areas unlikely to grow in population, or to transient mining or railway communities. Within a few years, the climatic disadvantages of these open-air schools, particularly those like the Urangan Point School, which had no verandahs, became apparent. When the canvas blinds were drawn against rain or wind, the schoolroom became dark and stuffy, and teaching was almost impossible. The canvas blinds were damaged easily, and required constant attention. They offered no resistance to intruders, and straying or native animals could not be kept out. In the early 1920s, all of the open-air buildings were enclosed with sliding sashes, timber walling and timber doors.
Tenders for the Urangan Point school were called in April 1916, with the contract being let in May to Maryborough contractor Christy Hansen, with a price of £183/5-, and a contract time of 3 months. The building was completed some months before opening to students on 9 October 1916. In the following year, local contractor James Ridgers was employed to fence the school grounds.
By mid-1918, the canvas blinds, which had no springs but used a weight, controlled by a rope, as counterpoise, were already causing problems. In 1924 these were replaced with the present sliding sash windows; the large canvas door at the front was replaced by vertically jointed timber to match the original walling; and the present entrance, at the side of the building, was filled in and a wooden door installed.
In June 1928, the school committee requested a shelter shed or verandah be erected, as on wet days children have to stand in the rain untill [sic] the arrival of the teacher. An awning or lean to was subsequently supplied, the work completed on 13 October 1928, at a cost of £20.
By mid-1931 the school building, which had been designed to accommodate 30 pupils, was seriously overcrowded, with an average attendance of over 40, and close to 50 pupils enrolled. Additional accommodation was considered urgent, and a new building, 21' by 18' with 8' verandahs front and back, to accommodate 40 pupils, was commissioned. The contract was let in late 1931 to Messrs McKewen and Eckstein with a price of £312, and the new building was ready for occupation by mid-February 1932. Students in grades 1-3 remained in the early building, and the older students moved into the new building. This second school building was demolished in 1977.
By the early 1960s, Urangan Point State School comprised three classroom blocks, and the first school building had become the school library. In 1977 it was relocated to another site within the school grounds. The building has been re-roofed, and the ridge original ventilator has been removed. It now functions as a music room.
","criteria":"The Urangan Point School - Block D, is significant as a substantially intact, small rural school building of the early 20th century. Evidence of its early open-air form remains in the extant sliding sash windows which replaced the original canvas blinds in 1924.
|The building remains one of the most intact of the former open-air schools surviving in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16144,"place_ref":601381,"name":"Men's Toilet, Russell Street, Toowoomba","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-06-06","description":"The toilet is almost square in plan (approximately 4m X 4m X 3.5m high) built in brick, and with a concrete floor. The northern (Russell Street) facade has a central arched doorway set in a brick frame and flanked with corner pilasters. Above the door, the word MEN is moulded in cement. (This departs from the plan where the word is GENTS.) The top of this facade has a scalloped moulding which continues around the two sides. The immediate surrounds of the door are presently painted white. There is large patch of white plaster on the western wall which may be the remains of the abortive 1933 alterations. No roof was ever planned or built.
A small atrium is formed immediately inside the doorway by a screen, and access is gained to the toilet proper through arched openings at each end of the space. Four porcel-ain urinals and a water closet are situated along the back (southern) wall. The original plan shows three extra uri-nals placed against the screen, but these do not appear to have been built. There is now a hand basin here.
The original plan shows that the urinal stalls were connected to a main drain by a 4 inch pipe. The closet was an earth closet. A brick archway in the wall at the back of the closet and evidence of brick infill shows where access may have been provided for a pan service.
","history":"The urinal was built in 1919 and is situated in Russell Street opposite the railway yard. The immediate social context for the urinal is to be found in the relevant history of Toowoomba. By the late nineteenth century, the lack of sanitation in Toowoomba became a pressing local issue. Earth closets were in a disgraceful condition and typhoid fever was prevalent. It was in these circumstances that Toowoomba's health program, and that of Queensland generally, began to take shape. Boards of Health were established but no real success was achieved until the first years of the twentieth century. Despite improved sanitary services, Toowoomba had 98 cases of enteric fever (typhoid) in 1916 although by 1918 this had dropped to 17. The foremost mover in these plans was Dr T A Price, public health advocate and mayor of Toowoomba in 1919.
The lack of a sewerage system had a major effect upon the provision and type of sanitation, especially for public toilets. Until a sewerage system was installed, all public toilets either had to be in a location where they could be cleaned by a pan service or else operated purely as urinals where the urine could be flushed away to a drain as normal dirty water. A pan service could scarcely be provided in the middle of busy city streets. It is for this reason that women's toilets were located in buildings or some discreet spot, while men could enjoy the use of dedicated urinals in the streets. This was the situation in Toowoomba until 1919. Public toilets with closets were available at the Railway Station for both men and women and there were a number of iron urinals for men in the streets of the city. These iron urinals were equipped with a water tank for the purposes of cleansing. They operated successfully, but in 1918, the Council recommended their removal and planned better facilities. This is when the new toilet in Russell Street was planned and built.
The original plans are unsigned but were probably drawn by the Toowoomba City Engineer, Mr Creagh. The urinal stalls were originally connected to the nearby drain; the closet was cleaned by a pan changing service. The whole ensemble was only connected to the sewerage system in 1926. The manhole covers at the rear of the toilet may date from the time of the sewerage connection. In 1933 plans were made to alter the building but these were not carried out. The building was originally set in a 'rockery and garden' which may have been destroyed after the Second World War. Certainly nothing now remains of the original rockery except perhaps the palm trees at the rear of the toilet.
Several factors were involved in the choice of the site. The building was an independent and free-standing toilet which needed both a urine draining system and a pan cleansing service. It therefore had to be near a drain and there had to be space and cover for the pan-changing operation. This may account partly for the location and the associated garden. Not only was the toilet built practically on top of a main drain, it was an easily accessible location, both for users and for the sanitary service men, and with sufficient room for a little garden of modesty and salubrity. A second factor concerns urban design. Dr Price wanted '... a healthy city, a convenient city - good roads, good footpaths, and an easy way of getting about, a beautiful city with trees and parks and gardens.' This linking of urban health to urban beauty fits the urinal neatly into a scheme for making the area around the railway station more attractive. There were plans to improve the railway precinct and these may have influenced the decision to site the little building with its garden at the city end of the railway station. The street facade of the urinal is certainly handsome enough to suit an urban beauty program. Indeed, this secondary role of urban design may explain why the toilet has quite such a delightful facade. In this sense, urban beauty became a sign of urban health.
Being between the railway station and the main part of the city, the toilet was very handy for as many people as possible provided, of course, they were men. There were women's toilets in the city, but generally more public toilets were provided for men than for women. The Russell Street urinal, taken in this context, is a visible example of the difficulties women had in managing a public life. But the urinal also demonstrates something of the lack of impact of technology upon women's public lives. The Russell Street urinal served as a model of how a full sanitary service could be provided in an open public place; and when it was seen to be successful, calls were made to extend the service to women. But the calls were not heeded, and even when a sewerage service was fully operational in the second half of the 1920s, the Council provided no toilets for women. Women had to take the issue up themselves. In 1931 the Country Women's Association lobbied the Toowoomba City Council for provision of lavatory accommodation for women and children. The Council did nothing and the women had to provide for themselves by opening the CWA Rest Rooms in Margaret Street in 1931.
Up until the early part of the twentieth century, the design of dedicated urinals was commonly of the iron pissoir variety (properly called a urinoir) which comprised a decorated iron screen formed into an appropriate spiral shape for both convenience and modesty. They came in single or double versions. There were a number in Brisbane, one originally in Merthyr Road now relocated in Newstead Park. They were made in Brisbane by Evans, Anderson & Phelan. The Russell Street urinal represents a kind of transitional design between the iron pissoir and the fully fledged toilet building. Like the pissoirs, the Russell Street structure has no roof and is designed with a screen instead of doors for maximum convenience. (Only the internal closet has a door.) Public toilets erected immediately after the Russell Street urinal are complete roofed buildings as, for example, the splendid set of lavatories in Toowong Cemetery of 1924. Part of the impulse behind this transition from modesty screens to complete buildings may have been the desire to make the actual style and design of the toilets indicate something about health. The Russell Street urinal is the only known 'transitional' toilet design in Queensland.
The history of drainage, sanitary services, sewerage systems and public toilets takes its place within the general history of public health in Queensland. Improvements in drainage and sanitary services have done at least as much to procure good health and save lives as any other branch of medicine. This general trend can be traced in Toowoomba very clearly; and the little urinal in Russell Street, in the context of its site, provides much evidence of this achievement.
","criteria":"As the oldest known existing public urinal in Queensland, the Men's Toilet in Russell Street, Toowoomba, constructed in 1919, offers evidence of the development of public health in early 20th century Queensland.
The facade provides evidence of early ideas about urban improvement, especially the links between urban design and urban health. The lack of a corresponding toilet for women is evidence of the failure of sanitary technology to be extended to impact positively upon women's public lives.
|The evolving technologies of sanitation are evident in the changes in the fabric of the building. Designed without a roof, the building marks a transition between the simple pissoir and the fully fledged toilet building.
|The building takes its place in the rich social fabric of Russell Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16145,"place_ref":601382,"name":"Woolloongabba Police Station (former)","alternate_name":"Woolloongabba Police Station | South Coast Police District headquarters","street_address":"842-848 Main Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-11-25","description":"The Woolloongabba Police Station (former) is located in Woolloongabba, approximately 2km southeast of the Brisbane CBD. It comprises a three-storey, brick main building (1913/1937) fronting directly west onto Main Street, and a rear three-storey, brick service wing (Service Annexe, 1937), connected via a two-storey enclosed bridge (Gangway, 1937). The site slopes steeply down from Main Street in the west to the east so that the rear yard is a full storey lower. Standing in the rear southeast corner of the site is a single-storey, brick police vehicle Garage (1937) and in the north is an external timber stair (Relief Workers’ Stair, 1937, reconstructed by 2001) connecting the Main Street footpath down to an open outdoor area (Former Relief Workers’ Assembly Yard, 1937) beside the Main Building.
\nThe place has been extensively refurbished (by 2001) to partially recreate an earlier appearance with the addition of modern services. In 2022, the building is vacant.
\nFeatures of the Woolloongabba Police Station (former) of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMain Building (1913/1937)
\nThe Main Building is rectangular in plan and symmetrical, comprising a 1913 central section of two storeys with a basement and 1937 extensions on either end, also two storeys with basement. It is in a Federation-era style and the extensions have been designed to match the earlier section, integrating with the original design.
\nOriginally divided internally into two three-storey parts separated by a party wall (accommodating a police station and snr sergeant’s residence), the building is largely in its 1937 configuration when the police station use occupied all rooms.
\nThe building layout generally comprises police station operations rooms and offices on the ground floor, officer bedrooms on the first floor, and prisoner cells, laundry, and Relief Office in the basement, separate from the rest of the building in function and circulation.
\nThe building retains a considerable amount of interwoven original (1913 and 1937) fabric and room configurations. The fabric and configurations from both eras are of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building has been comprehensively renovated (by 2001) to largely revert it to its 1937 configuration, involving reconstruction of 1913/1937 fabric, primarily timber joinery.
\nAll fabric post-1937, including reconstructed fabric, is not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Main Building of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Main Building not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGangway (1937)
\nThe Gangway is a narrow, raised, two-storey bridge connecting the centre of the Police Building and the Service Annexe behind at their ground and first floor levels. It has an open understorey and stands on non-original steel I-beam portal frames (c1966), which replaced the original face brick piers.
\nIt has timber-framed floors and walls and is lined on its exterior with weatherboards. The interior comprises a long corridor on both levels.
\nThe Gangway has been renovated (by 2001), involving the addition of a lightweight floor ramps the length of the Gangway, added over the original timber floor and short flight of timber steps at the Service Annexe end.
\nA large, raised, two-storey, steel- and timber-framed extension has been added on its southern side (c1966).
\nAll fabric post-1937, including reconstructed fabric, is not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Gangway of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Gangway not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nService Annexe (1937)
\nThe Service Annexe is a three-storey rectangular building with face brick walls and a hipped roof. Built as an ablutions, recreation, kitchen, and mess block to service the adjacent station building, it has undergone changes since construction including a major renovation completed by 2002.
\nEntered at the centre of the western side (at the ground and first floors via the Gangway), the building comprises a central stair hall with stair connecting all three levels. At the eastern end of the stair hall is a narrow passageway with small hatch to an incinerator chute, leading to a brick incinerator attached to the centre of the eastern wall.
\nThe building and its layout are largely intact. The basement retains its staff toilets and large recreation room. The ground floor retains its constables’ mess room and kitchen, although the small rooms forming the cook’s lavatory and pantry have been combined into the kitchen by removing the partitions, and the cook’s stair has been demolished and the cook’s entrance bricked over. The first floor toilets and ablutions block are somewhat intact, although later partitions have been added to form female toilets, and the small bath, shower, and boot rooms of the ablutions is now one large space with the demolition of all partitions.
\nAll fabric post-1937, including reconstructed fabric, is not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Service Annexe of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Service Annexe not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGarage (1937)
\nThe Garage is a face brick single-storey building with a timber-framed skillion roof clad with metal sheets. It is long and narrow with its western side open for vehicle entry and its other sides are blank. It stands in the southeast corner of the site and accommodates a single open space for six vehicles.
\nFeatures of the Garage of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Garage not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Relief Workers’ Assembly Yard and Stair (1937)
\nThe Former Relief Workers’ Assembly Yard is a large open area (approximately 380m2) occupying the northern part of the site. It is accessed by a timber stair (1937, reconstructed by 2001) down from Main Street. Originally a flat area surrounded and defined by mature trees and a perimeter fence and containing a small lavatory block for relief workers, these features have been demolished and the yard has been sloped and partially concreted to form a small car park and access driveway leading under the Gangway.
\nFeatures of the Former Relief Workers’ Assembly Yard and Stair of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Former Relief Workers’ Assembly Yard and Stair not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape Features (c1937)
\nLandscape features of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape features not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews & Streetscape Contribution
\nThe former Woolloongabba Police Station stands prominently, surrounded by open space, the only building on its block fronting Main Street. Important views to the building are had from surrounding streets.
\nViews of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n","history":"
The former Woolloongabba Police Station, built in 1913, is a two-storey brick building with basement, constructed at a time when the Queensland Police Force was experiencing significant expansion and change. Designed by the Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW), it initially comprised a police station with barracks accommodation for unmarried officers and family quarters for the senior sergeant. In 1937 the Woolloongabba Police Station became the headquarters of the South Coast Police District, following extensive reforms to the Queensland Police Force. The station was expanded that year to accommodate the increased functions, with the construction of a three-storey service annexe to the rear, and a police vehicle garage. An unemployment relief office was also added in the basement of the main building at this time, where police officers could administer relief work and rations for the unemployed, affected by the Great Depression. In 1993 the police station closed.
\nThe area now known as Woolloongabba is part of the traditional country of the Jagera and Turrbal People. Following European settlement, it was called One Mile Swamp due to a series of large waterholes stretching for a mile between what is now Stanley and Vulture streets. The roads from the Logan and Darling Downs districts converged there and in the 1850s bullock drays and livestock were rested at the waterholes. By the 1860s some of the waterholes had been drained and a fledgling commercial precinct emerged. The name, Woolloongabba, replaced One Mile Swamp in the 1870s.[1]
\nThe population of Woolloongabba, which had grown steadily between the 1860s and 1880s, increased rapidly following the expansion of the railway line to the suburb in 1884, and the extension of the electric tramway to Woolloongabba/East Brisbane in 1897. During the 1880s and 1890s it developed as Brisbane's fourth major shopping centre, the others being central Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and Stanley Street at South Brisbane. By the turn of the century, most of the allotments facing Stanley Street, Logan Road and Ipswich Road at the Fiveways were fully developed commercial sites.[2]
\nThe Woolloongabba Fiveways was arguably the city’s busiest and most dangerous intersection from the late 19th, and well into the 20th centuries. It was the confluence of several main roads, Main Street, Logan Road, Stanley Street, and Ipswich Road. There was also a railway-line and several tram-lines crossing through it, as well as pedestrians negotiating the intersection.[3]
\nIn 1896 the first cricket match was held at the newly established Brisbane Cricket Ground at Woolloongabba, which would become a major centre for sport in Queensland, and bring thousands of spectators to the ground for matches over the years, heralding a Queensland sporting icon, ‘The ‘Gabba’.[4]
\nDuring the first years of settlement in what was later to become the State of Queensland, the police system was executed through the duties of a Police Magistrate. However, this proved to be inadequate and following the appointment of the first Governor of Queensland, Governor Bowen, in 1859, an organised force was established by appointing an Inspector General to take charge of both ordinary and Native Police. Established in 1848, the Native Mounted Police was an armed retaliatory force, distinct from the ordinary police force, engaged to displace and dispossess Aboriginal people of the land that European pastoralists intended to occupy.[5]
\nIn 1863 and 1864, the police system again changed form, following the appointment of the first Commissioner of Police, David Thompson Seymour. He introduced a new system based on the Victorian model comprising Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors, Sergeants, Constables, and a Detective Force. In ensuing years, the structure of the Force underwent several additional modifications and by 1924 Queensland had the highest ratio of policemen to residents in any Australian state, with one officer to every 725 persons.[6]
\nThe first police station in Woolloongabba was established in a rented house on Stanley Street, near Boggo (later Annerley) Road. By 1888, the substantial population growth in Woolloongabba and surrounding suburbs meant the station facilities were no longer adequate, and the police station was removed to a rented house on Ipswich Road, near the Fiveways. A lock-up facility was built in the yard of the house, and two years later, the adjacent house was used for accommodation. By 1910, the needs of the station had again outgrown the building, and approval was given for the erection of a new police station in Woolloongabba.[7]
\nA portion (adjacent to a former Quarry Reserve) of the Woolloongabba Park Reserve facing Main Street was set apart as a Police Reserve, thereby avoiding the need for the Queensland Government to purchase land for the new station. The design for the new building was prepared in 1911, AB Brady being Government Architect at the time. The contract sum for the building, which was completed and occupied in 1913, was £4539.[8]
\nOn completion, the new building was described as:
\nA large two-storey brick building, having wide verandas and balconies relieved with rough cast work on the upper storey. Provision is made on the ground floor for a large dayroom for constables, with kitchen, scullery, and cook’s room, in addition to the sitting and living rooms and kitchen of the quarters for the sergeant. On the first floor, dormitories of ample dimensions are arranged, as also three bedrooms, completing the sergeant’s quarters, whilst bathrooms are also included on the balcony adjoining. The basement is devoted to wash-houses [one for the police station and a separate one for the sergeant’s quarters] and four roomy cells.[9]
\nWoolloongabba Police Station was one of a series of substantial, masonry two-storeyed police stations erected during the early 20th century. In addition to Woolloongabba, these included stations at Warwick (1901) [QHR 600948], Maryborough (1907) (extant), Charters Towers (1911) [QHR 600401], Cairns (1912) (demolished), Townsville (1914) (demolished) and Kedron (1916) (demolished).[10]
\nThe Woolloongabba station was divided vertically into quarters for the senior sergeant (north end of the building), and police station (south end) with day room and officers’ mess on the ground floor and officers’ barracks above. The dayroom was generally the base for station operations. This design reflected the contemporary mode of policing, where duty for constables generally involved patrolling the beat on foot and pursuing inquiries. Patrols were undertaken throughout 24 hours, divided into three eight-hour shifts, and one of the main functions of the station was therefore to provide accommodation for police officers. Four cells were also provided in the basement of Woolloongabba police station.[11]
\nBarracks accommodation in these large police stations was provided for unmarried men, with married men given a rental allowance for accommodation close to the station for themselves and their families. Of those living on site, only the senior sergeant living in the family quarters was permitted to be married. By the early 1920s there were eleven unmarried men accommodated at the station and six married men living elsewhere.[12]
\nNo accommodation for stables was included in the design of the Woolloongabba Police Station, as foot patrol of the district was preferred over mounted patrols. There was initially one bicycle for the officers to use, which ensured faster response times for policing inner-city areas. Bicycles had been slowly introduced into the Queensland Police Force from the late 19th century, with twelve in use by 1899.[13]
\nElectric lights were installed at the station in 1925, and the property connected to sewage in 1926. In 1928, a small, timber-framed, single-room addition was made to the rear verandah on the ground floor to accommodate a dining room for constables.[14]
\nIn 1934 Cecil James Carroll was appointed the new Commissioner of Police and carried out a reorganisation of the force. The population of Queensland had increased rapidly in the interwar years; however, the police force had not been expanded to keep up with this. Sweeping changes were made by Carroll, and in 1935 it was reported that ‘practically every section has been turned over, inspected, and chopped about. Promotions and retirements have been many; new districts have been created to dovetail into a set plan; mechanisation is partly accomplished; and a host of other changes, all calculated to benefit the service, have been made’.[15]
\nIn 1934 the Woolloongabba Police Station was named part of the broader South Brisbane Police District, which encompassed a vast area stretching south to the New South Wales border, west to Beaudesert and east to Wynnum. Headquarters were located at South Brisbane in a two-storey masonry police station building on Grey Street, close to the Vulture Street corner (demolished). To better reflect the area it encompassed, the district was renamed the South Coast Police District in early 1935, ‘it is felt that the district is more truly a South Coast district than a portion of the city.’ The South Coast Police District covered approximately 2060 square miles (5335 km²).[16]
\nAmidst these changes a new headquarters for the South Coast Police District was needed. In 1935 approval was given for the district headquarters to be moved from the South Brisbane Police Station on Grey Street to the Woolloongabba Police Station, as it was ‘ideally situated to be headquarters of the South Coast district. Main roads from Southport, Ipswich, Wynnum, and Manly, and Cleveland converged at the Woolloongabba Fiveways within a few yards of the station’.[17] Additionally, the site had vacant land available for future development. With the newly constructed Story Bridge nearing completion at Kangaroo Point, the position of the new headquarters was deemed advantageous.[18]
\nThe conversion of the Woolloongabba station into the district headquarters demanded additional office accommodation, and it was considered that the rooms occupied by the senior sergeant’s quarters could provide suitable additional office accommodation. The senior sergeant vacated his quarters at the station in October 1934.[19]
\nMajor additions to the station were undertaken in 1936, designed by the DPW, drawn by GR Beveridge and passed by HJ Parr.[20] Completed the following year at an authorised cost of £9555, this work comprised additions to the north and south ends of the existing building designed to match the earlier building in style and materials. The interior of the main building was changed to include smaller individual offices on the ground floor. The large, first floor dormitories were converted to smaller bedrooms by the insertion of new partitions. Also at this time, an additional three-storey brick ‘service annexe’ was built in the rear yard behind the main building, connected to it via a raised, enclosed two-storey ‘gangway’.
\nThe additions and remodelling of the station was outlined in the Department of Public Works’ Annual Report:
\nAdditions to the north and south ends of the existing building, an additional three story brick building at the rear of the existing one, also brick garage building … The three storey addition at the back will be connected to the existing building by gangways at each floor level. The basement will comprise recreation room, buffet and staff lavatories; on the ground floor will be the kitchen, pantry, and constables mess room … and on the first floor bathrooms, showers, bootroom and lavatories.[21]
\nOne of the requirements of the new headquarters was the inclusion of a room for police to administer relief work, a government program instituted under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Act (1930) to reduce unemployment during the Great Depression. Relief labour was used throughout Queensland during the 1930s, to carry out projects such as construction of retaining walls and roads, and improvements to school grounds. Police, as relief agents, were responsible for issuing rations and travelling cards to the unemployed, as well as finding them relief work.[22]
\nOn completion of the additions in 1937, rooms were provided in the basement for a relief office, records, and public counter, ‘the basement will give room for relief office, records, and public space approached by steps from the street level’.[23] With the inclusion of the relief office, ‘which had been kept entirely apart from the police section of the building’[24], the construction of a separate set of stairs from Main Street to the relief office in the basement of the original building separated the relief workers from the main police station. The work also included the formation of an assembly yard and toilets for relief workers at the northern end of the station grounds, adjacent to the relief office.[25]
\nUnder Commissioner Carroll’s reforms, the Queensland Police Force became increasingly mechanised in this period, and by 1938 there were 28 cars, 33 motorcycles, and several other vehicles such as trucks being used throughout the state. A motor garage had been established at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot for servicing and repairs. At Woolloongabba, it was necessary for a garage to be constructed to accommodate police cars and motorcycles; it was completed in 1937. It was face brick with a timber-framed roof and concrete floor, and was open on its west side. The large interior measured 58ft by 18ft (17m x 5.5m), with six car bays, and stood in the southeast (rear) corner of the site. It included an external wash down concreted area immediately in front, and was reached by a driveway sloping down from Main Street.[26] By 1940 the station had two cars and one motorcycle.[27]
\nConcreting of the station yard and other similar projects were undertaken in the late 1930s by relief workers.[28] The Police Reserve was extended to the north, to include a former Quarry Reserve at the corner of Main and Vulture streets.[29]
\nIn September 1937, the South Coast District Headquarters was moved from South Brisbane to the Woolloongabba station; newspapers reported ‘the headquarters of the South Coast police district will be at the Woolloongabba police station, which has been remodelled and enlarged to accommodate the staff of nearly 60 men and non-commissioned officers under the direction of Sub-inspector F.M. O’Driscoll. Many of the records and furnishings of the South Brisbane police station … were transferred by motor truck and police car yesterday’.[30] The new headquarters were officially opened by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Edward Michael (Ned) Hanlon, in early October 1937, attended by several dignitaries, including Commissioner Carroll. The Woolloongabba station was to be headquarters to 29 district stations that were staffed by 116 men.[31]
\nA park and playground were completed in 1938 on land adjacent to the police station, at the corner of Main and Vulture streets. The concept for the park and playground, which covered approximately two and a half acres (1ha), was attributed to the Police Welfare Club and included three tennis courts, dressing rooms, grandstands, umpires' stands, and a playground or \"children's sanctuary\" where children would be able to play in safety under the eyes of the police. A basketball court was constructed there in 1939.[32]
\nBy the late 1930s, the relief work was progressively being phased out. The relief office at the station was vacated during 1939, and the room taken over for records.[33]
\nThe building ceased to be used as a barracks in early 1951, the year the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) moved into the building. Rooms previously used as bedrooms on the first floor of the building were occupied as offices by members of the CIB and the uniform inquiry staff. In 1964 the Kangaroo Point and East Brisbane police stations were closed, and these former police divisions were absorbed into the Woolloongabba Police Division.
\nFurther alterations were made to the building c1967 to provide more office accommodation. The few remaining open verandahs were enclosed. A single-storey brick extension was made to the south end of the main building on the ground floor to accommodate a large ‘Traffic Office’ and its understorey was open. Behind this, a large, raised, two-storey, steel- and timber-framed extension was built, infilling the space between the main building and the service annexe on the gangway’s southern side. It accommodated further office space and was open in the understorey. The constables’ dining room extension (1926) was demolished, and rear verandah stairs were repositioned to make room for the extension. Changes were made to the gangway, and its understorey brick piers were demolished and replaced with steel I-beam portal frames.[34]
\nAt the same time, the service annexe was altered to accommodate different uses, as there was limited need for ablutions and mess hall now that there were no living/sleeping quarters on site. On the ground floor, the mess hall, kitchen, and cook’s rooms were converted to records rooms, store, and sergeant’s room, by removing all internal partitions and inserting new lightweight ones. The cook’s entrance was bricked over and the small corridor between the kitchen and the mess hall, east of the internal stair, was blocked off. On the first floor, the ablutions block was converted to a staff lunch room with all internal partitions demolished. Openings were made in the western wall of the service annexe’s ground and first floors, to connect into the new extension adjacent. The basement remained unaltered.[35]
\nChanges occurred to the police station grounds between 1977 and 1981 when a driveway was constructed through the site, beginning at the northern boundary, cutting through the former relief workers’ assembly yard, then passing beneath the gangway to connect with the southern driveway and parking area. Only the western part of the former assembly yard remained grassed after this time. The 1930s toilet block in the northeast corner of the assembly yard was demolished in the mid-1990s and the area was concreted and turned into walled storage bays by 1996.[36]
\nThe playground and basketball court are no longer extant. The tennis courts were removed in early 1993, and replaced by cricket practice nets. The station was vacated by the police in July 1993 when a new station was constructed at Dutton Park.[37]
\nIn 2000-01 the former police station underwent a two-stage major conservation and refurbishment project, by its then owners, the Department of Public Works, to restore lost original features and adapt the building for use as lettable office space. The building works were undertaken by QBuild, with Project Services as the project manager and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) providing detailed building conservation advice.[38]
\nStage one works included: replacement of the roof sheeting and rainwater goods; demolition of a 1967 addition at the southern end of the building; removal of cladding to the verandahs; reconstruction of joinery including verandah balustrades and screens, windows, and batten screens; and repainting the building in an historic colour scheme.
\nStage two works comprised internal refurbishment, including: upgrading facilities such as toilets and kitchens; installation of air-conditioning, insulation and acoustic modifications; and installation of a lift and ramp for disabled access. The roof sheeting of the garage was also replaced. Works to the grounds were undertaken, including: reconstruction of the timber stair from Main Street to the former relief workers’ assembly yard; replacement of the concrete path to the former relief office; new gardens and lawn; conversion of the storage bays into car parks; new carpark in the location of the demolished 1967 addition, and; new perimeter fences and gates.[39]
\nIn 2022 the Woolloongabba Police Station (former) remains a prominent building on Main Street. Reflecting the evolving policies adopted by the Queensland Police Force in the early twentieth century, the station retains aspects of its 1913 establishment phase and its later alterations and additions carried out in the 1930s as part of a modernisation drive, as well as the brief, but important, use as an unemployment relief office during the Great Depression.
","criteria":"The former Woolloongabba Police Station (1913, extended 1937) in its form, fabric, and layout, is important in demonstrating early 20th century policing in Queensland, and the evolution and modernisation of police policy and procedure in the 1930s in the state. Operating continuously from 1913 to 1993, the station was expanded in 1937 to become the South Coast Police District headquarters and included an unemployment relief office from 1937 to 1939. It provides important evidence of the evolving role of the Queensland Police Force and the advancements made in law and order services in Queensland from the early 20th century.
\nThe former relief office (1937), assembly yard and stair from Main Street are a rare and important demonstration of the role the police played in administering the Queensland Government’s relief work programs during the Great Depression.
|Highly intact, the former Woolloongabba Police Station is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early-20th century urban Queensland police station. Designed by the Department of Public Works, the principal characteristics the place retains include its:
\nRemaining intact, the changes made to the building in 1937 are also important in demonstrating the growth and modernisation of police operations occurring at that time. The principal characteristics of this evolution include:
\nThe former Woolloongabba Police Station is important for its aesthetic significance, as an intact civic building with beautiful attributes and a strong visual presence in its streetscape. Through its skilful, cohesive use of a Federation-era style, symmetry, robust materials, central gabled bay with flanking verandahs, and tall hip roof with fleche, the building is an attractive, well-composed design.
\nAs the only building fronting Main Street on the block, it stands prominently, surrounded by open space with views to it obtained from Main, Stanley, and Vulture streets.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16147,"place_ref":601384,"name":"Townsville State Government Offices","alternate_name":"Townsville Public Offices | Lands Department","street_address":"12-14 Wickham Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The Townsville State Government Offices is a two-storeyed brick building with basement and a hipped corrugated-iron roof. The facade of the building features two projecting end bays with round arched window and door openings. Between the bays is a two storey colonnade with open verandahs. A centrally located bi-furcated staircase emphasises the entrance. The building is decorated with classical design features including the round arched openings and prominent keystones and eaves.
The balconies and verandahs are designed as a response to the Townsville climate and allow for cross-ventilation of all rooms and offices. The balcony floors are of concrete and the ground floor verandahs, entrance hall and main staircase are finished in terrazzo.
","history":"The Townsville Government Offices were constructed in 1935-7 as part of a State employment scheme. The Queensland State Works Department was responsible for the design of the buildings, the Chief Architect of the time being Andrew Baxter Leven.
Townsville experienced its first phase of major growth when gold was discovered in the nearby town of Ravenswood, in 1868 soon after Townsville was proclaimed a town in 1866. The construction of the north-west rail line and the development of the beef industry in the north, created modest growth in Townsville in the early twentieth century.
During the 1930s Depression, Labor Premier, William Forgan Smith established a government initiatedworks scheme under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Act (1930) to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen, construction workers and the use of local materials for the construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices, schools and council halls. The Townsville State Government Offices is a fine example of work undertaken through this scheme.
The building was designed by the office of the Queensland Government Architect. The Chief Architect at this time was Andrew Baxter Leven. From 1910 to 1951 Leven was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951. Other members of the office involved in the design DFW Roberts and HJ Parr.
The ground floor of the offices was to accommodate the Labour Agent and officers of the Lands Department, and the first floor was to provided offices for staff of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, Department of Public Works and Workers' Dwellings, and the Machinery Inspector, Health Inspector, Land court room and visiting Ministers' room.
The State Government Offices is typical of the tradition of high standards in design and construction of the Public Works Department, and one of a group of government buildings constructed by the Department influenced by a classical revival style, including the Innisfail and Mackay Court Houses and the Cairns Government Office. The State Government Offices were designed to harmonise with the adjacent Customs House. The area around Flinders Street (East) and The Strand including Wickham Street where the State Government Offices are situated, was the site of the first settlement in Townsville.
","criteria":"The Townsville State Government Offices is an example of construction work undertaken under the unemployment relief scheme instigated by the State Government in the 1930s.
|Townsville State Government Offices, erected in 1935-37, is significant as a good example of the work of the Queensland Works Department, influenced by a classical revival style.
|The building complements the adjacent Townsville Customs House, and is harmonious in scale and form, making a significant contribution to the townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16148,"place_ref":601385,"name":"State Government Offices (former)","alternate_name":"Former Public Curator's Office | 419 Flinders Street","street_address":"419 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The State Government Offices in Townsville is a two storeyed masonry building with a basement. Externally, the building features a rock-faced granite plinth and cement rendered facade. The main entrance, on Flinders Street, is surmounted by a broken pediment with a crest supported on pairs of engaged square fluted columns, and is centrally located within a two storey colonnade. The ground floor storey has an ornate concrete balustrade whilst the upper storey a simple wrought iron balustrade. The corner bays of the building feature colossal order stylised ionic columns. The facade of the building is surmounted by a deep entablature, crowned by a parapet. Internally, the main entrance doors open into a vestibule from which a flight of marble steps, flanked by a pair of ionic columns, leads into the main corridor.
","history":"The State Government Offices were built in 1928 by the Queensland Department of Public Works to accommodate various departmental offices in Townsville in one central location.
\nTownsville experienced its first phase of major growth when gold was discovered in the nearby town of Ravenswood, in 1868 soon after Townsville was proclaimed a town in 1866. Townsville became the leading regional centre in north Queensland reflected by the construction of the State Government Offices, one of the earliest examples of purpose built offices for state government departments.
\nThe State Government Offices was constructed under the supervision of the Queensland Department of Public Works in 1928. The chief architect at the time was Andrew Baxter Leven who was employed by the Department from 1910 to 1951, also associated with the design of the building was another Works Department employee, FL Jones. The building is typical of many other government buildings of the time including the Cairns Court House, City Council building and Post Office, Cairns Post, Maryborough Government Offices and Maryborough Town Hall.
\nThe offices were designed to accommodate a further storey above the entablature. Various State Departments were accommodated within the building including State Insurance, Public Curator, State Children and Health Departments, Titles, Stamp Duties, Lands and Marine, Machinery and Mines. Provisions were also made for the installation of a lift in the event of the third storey being built. The building was designed to ensure adequate lighting and natural ventilation.
","criteria":"The State Government Offices [Former Public Curator's Office] in Townsville is one of the earliest examples of state government offices built outside Brisbane which reflects the prominence of Townsville as a major regional centre in Queensland in the 1920s.
|Townsville State Government Offices [Former Public Curator's Office], erected in 1928, is significant as a good example of a building designed by the Department of Public Works in the 1920s influenced by classical revival styles.
|The building forms a prominent landmark on the corner of Flinders and Stanley Streets and contributes to the streetscape value of Flinders Street which is characterised by buildings of similar scale and form.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16151,"place_ref":601388,"name":"Townsville General Hospital (former)","alternate_name":"Townsville General Hospital I North Ward Hospital | Fulton Gardens","street_address":"24 Eyre Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-04-26","description":"Townsville General Hospital (former) is a six-storied concrete and brick building with a flat roof concealed behind parapet walls. It is situated near the northern corner of the hospital reserve and overlooks Cleveland Bay and Magnetic Island. The external walls, which are rendered and painted white, sit on a base of exposed brickwork. The building has a narrow plan with the long north eastern elevation forming the dominant front facade.
\nThis symmetrical facade is divided into five distinct bays where the building steps back from the centre to the edges. The central bay is a tower-like structure which provides the main entrance on the ground level. The entrance is further emphasised through the use of exposed brickwork and a cantilevered awning. Steel framed windows form a vertical strip in the centre of the entrance tower above the awning.
\nOn the flanking bays each level is expressed through projecting balconies which run along the north eastern elevation. The balconies have light weight metal balustrades. At the edge of the balconies, underneath the balustrades, are deep horizontal bands or valances which provide sunshading for the windows below.
\nBuilt in a modernist style the surfaces of the building are undecorated. The composition of the building contrasts horizontal with vertical elements, and sheer surfaces with carefully controlled openings and deep shadowed recesses. The vertically proportioned elements are the central entrance tower and stepped corners. The former wards, with long open balconies curved and cantilevered at the ends, form the horizontals.
","history":"The first hospital in Townsville was opened in a cottage on the Strand in 1866 and was known as the Burdekin and Flinders Districts Hospital. In 1881 it was relocated to the present site on Stanton Hill. A two storied building was completed in 1882 and numerous buildings were subsequently built on the site.
\nThe new Townsville General Hospital was designed by Donoghue and Fulton between 1935 and 1939 but construction was delayed due to the outbreak of war. The foundation stone was laid in 1945 by EM Hanlon and the completed building was opened by him on April 21, 1951. The new hospital was to be the largest facility of its type in Australia outside a capital city and had been built at a cost of approximately £500 000 for building and equipment. It opened with approximately 270 beds. Dr Kiernan Dorney was the medical superintendent and the hospital claimed to have the largest staff of specialists outside Brisbane.
\nBetween 1932 and 1945 was a period of rapid development in hospitals in Queensland. This was partly due to the passing of the Hospital Act in 1923 which laid the foundations for the State Government to resume responsibility for financing and administrating public hospitals which had previously been run by voluntary committees. Under the Act the state was divided into regions and regions into districts. Each region was controlled from a base hospital which coordinated other hospitals in the region. Hospital boards, dominated by government representatives and excluding members of the medical profession, were created to oversee the administration of the hospitals. The State was to provide 60% of the running costs while the remainder was to be met by local government. The boards had the power under the act to appoint their own architects. EM Hanlon, who was minister for Health and Home Affairs from 1935 until 1944 and premier from 1946 until 1952, was responsible for many of the projects undertaken at this time. The Free Hospital Scheme was introduced to Queensland in 1946.
\nTenders were called in 1947 for new nurses quarters at Townsville designed by JP Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards. By 1964 the hospital complex also included a maternity hospital, a thoracic block, isolation and psychiatric annexes, a dental clinic, an Institute of Tropical Medicine (established in 1910 and the first medical research organisation in Australia) and a Commonwealth Serum Laboratory.
\nOther hospital works designed by Donoghue and Fulton include general hospitals at Kingaroy (1936-38), Ayr (1941) and Roma, the Nurses' Quarters at Nambour Hospital (1937-38, demolished) and maternity hospitals at Goondiwindi, Rockhampton, Warwick and Nambour. Later works include the Barcaldine General Hospital by Fulton and Collins built in 1957 and the Thoracic Block at the Toowoomba Hospital by Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards in 1958.
\nTownsville General Hospital demonstrates the emergence of the Australia wide trend for a progressive image, inspired by European modernist architecture, for highrise hospital design. The high rise plan, in which various functions could be concentrated in vertically stacked spaces, replaced the earlier pavilion planning principles, in which detached buildings containing single wards were widely separated. Developments in medical theory meant that ventilation and isolation were no longer considered as important to the health of the patient. New priorities based on more efficient use of space, staff, circulation between different parts of the hospital and reduced heating costs led to the popularity of the much more compact highrise type of hospital. Block 3 at the Brisbane General Hospital, designed in 1930, was the first hospital building in Queensland to fully incorporate the principles of the highrise plan. It was designed in the Spanish Mission style to coordinate with the earlier Blocks 1 and 2. The design for Townsville General Hospital was probably the first in Queensland to combine highrise planning principles with a progressive modern image.
\nFirst introduced into Australia in the 1930s the highrise plan soon dominated new hospital construction. Melbourne architects Stephensen and Meldrum, later Stephensen and Turner, and Leighton Irwin were noted specialists in this increasingly complex field of architectural design. The development of modernist architecture in Australia is often associated with hospitals designed by these firms in the 1930s and 1940s.
\nCharles Fulton is recognised as a key practitioner to have designed in the modern style in Queensland before the Second World War. Fulton was born in Sydney in 1906 and undertook his architectural training there. He worked in London for B George, Architects in 1931 and 1932. In 1933 he was employed by Hall and Cook in Brisbane and he established his practice with Donoghue in 1937. Fulton received acknowledgment for his skilled execution of this style for the Masel residence at Stanthorpe through a meritorious architecture award in the first Queensland awards programme in 1938 and again in 1940 for his own residence at Indooroopilly. In 1937 Fulton was appointed Lecturer in Charge of Architecture at the Central Technical College.
\nIn October 2001, Townsville General Hospital (former) was vacated when the hospital was relocated to a new complex in Douglas. In 2020, the adaptive reuse of the place for residential apartments is partially complete.
","criteria":"The hospital is one of the most prominent examples of the extensive hospital building program undertaken by Labour Governments in the 1930s and 1940s throughout Queensland as part of its commitment to government sponsored public health.
The first hospital in Townsville was opened in a cottage on the Strand in 1866 and was known as the Burdekin and Flinders Districts Hospital. In 1881 it was relocated to the present site on Stanton Hill. A two storied building was completed in 1882 and numerous buildings were subsequently built on the site.
|Townsville General Hospital, designed in the late 1930s, is significant as an early example in Queensland of a highrise hospital influenced by European modernist architecture. This style of architecture developed in the 1930s and 1940s in Australia, with new hospitals providing many of the most prominent examples. Through its simple geometry of horizontal and vertical elements, wide cantilevered balconies with rounded corners, flat roof concealed behind parapets and its plain surfaces, Townsville General Hospital is a good example of a hospital built in this idiom.
|Townsville General Hospital is significant as an institutional building designed by the important architectural firm Donoghue and Fulton which combined the latest ideas in hospital planning with recent developments in architectural design. Charles Fulton, who designed the building, was a key practitioner and teacher of the modern trends in architectural design in Queensland. Fulton was acknowledged for his work in this style. Both the Masel residence at Stanthorpe (1938) and his own residence in Indooroopilly (1940), received a meritorious architecture award in the early Queensland Awards Programmes
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16152,"place_ref":601389,"name":"David Fleay Wildlife Park","alternate_name":"Fleays Wildlife Park","street_address":"244-252 West Burleigh Road","suburb":"BURLEIGH HEADS","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"The original section of the David Fleay Wildlife Park comprises an area in the south-central section of the park. Over the years, the park has expanded so that it now almost completely surrounds the original section. David Fleay Wildlife Park is surrounded by 37.3 hectares of conservation park [Tallebudgera Creek Conservation Park]. Part of the David Fleay Wildlife Park is bordered by Tallebudgera Creek Road to the west and Kabool Road to the south.
There are a number of enclosures and structures in the original precinct. Some enclosures were purpose-built, such as the platypussary, which was used exclusively for keeping platypuses. Other enclosures and structures, however, have been used for many purposes and to keep different animals over time.
The aviary, platypussary and the former Fleay home are located in the original section of the David Fleay Wildlife Park, to the south of the main section.
Aviary (Wedge-tailed Eagle Enclosure) (enc 1)
The aviary is 9.1 metres long x 4.8 metres wide x approximately 5.0 metres high. It is a sawn timber framed structure with birdwire to the walls and roof. The south-west corner of the walls and roof are partially enclosed with Super-6 corrugated asbestos cement and corrugated iron. Some corrugated iron sheeting, approximately 600 mil1imetres, has been used to retain the high south side. Perches are made from sawn timber and some tree branches.
Platypussary (enc 4 - second enclosure)
The platypussary is constructed on a concrete slab. It is 9.5 metres long x 4.9 metres wide x approximately 3.5 metres high and is an open-sided timber framed structure supported on sawn timber posts. The structure has a Super-6 corrugated asbestos cement roof with small areas of translucent roof sheeting. The platypussary has been partially enclosed with hardboard sheeting to the north and south ends.
The long, narrow, in-situ poured concrete and fibreglass covered concrete blockwork contains tanks with fine steel mesh covers. The concrete blockwork and in-situ poured concrete burrowing chambers are attached to the eastern and western ends of the tanks. Some early signage remains intact in the platypussary.
Former Fleay Home
The house is a timber framed, weatherboard clad, corrugated iron roofed building with a pyramidal hip roof extended in bungalow style over the verandahs with a small gable to the front porch. The lower floor has been enclosed with flat asbestos cement sheets. Various windows treatments include timber casement, sliding, and double-hung windows and more recent aluminium sliding windows. The verandahs on the western and southern sides have been partially enclosed.
Internally, the walls and ceilings are predominantly lined with vertically joined tongue and groove boards with door openings incorporating decorative timber arches and fanlight panels with Federation era motifs. Much of the interior has been painted white. A modern kitchen has been installed. The bathroom has also been refitted. A Super-6 corrugated asbestos cement-lined carport is attached to the eastern side of the house. Currently, the downstairs area is used for storage and the upstairs area is unoccupied.
Other enclosures within the original precinct include:
Tree Kangaroo/Scrub Turkey Enclosure (enc 2)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 7.9 metres by 5.1 metres approximately. It is a 3.5 metre high timber-framed structure with birdwire to the north, east and south walls and eastern half of the roof. In the south-west corner, the walls are sheeted with flat asbestos cement roofing.
Owls Enclosure [Spare](enc 3)
The enclosure is a 2.5 metres high, timber framed structure sheeted with asbestos cement to much of the perimeter and birdwire to the remaining area. The enclosure measures 3.3 metres by 2.2 metres. It has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement roof.
Barking Owl Enclosure (enc 5)
Measuring 4.7 metres by 2.7 metres, the enclosure is an approximately 3 metre high, timber framed structure sheeted with flat fibre cement to the east side and chickenwire to the north side. A super-6 corrugated asbestos cement is located to the south the retaining wall and to the western side and west end of the roof. Chickenwire is located at the east end of the roof. Some early signage remains intact.
Saltwater Crocodile and Alligator Pool (enc 6)
The shallow concrete pool is surrounded by 10.2 metre by 7.6 metre by 1 metre high concrete blockwork walls topped with steel tube posts and birdwire used to enclose the sides and roof. Viewing panels are located in the northern wall with timber posts below, providing possible evidence for a former viewing platform. A timber sleeper retaining wall is located to the south side of the pool.
'Winter-Sun' - Flying Fox and Carpet Python Enclosure (enc 7)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 4.2 metres by 3.7 metres half-height concrete walls with timber framed walls and roof above. Birdwire and woven wire mesh is located above the concrete walls. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement roof with some translucent sheeting and wire mesh panels. The structure is enclosed on the east, south and most of the west sides and is open on the northern side. Some early signage remains intact.
Taipanary (enc 8)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 7.3 metres by 9.2 metres. The enclosure is a 3 metre high, timber framed structure sheeted with corrugated iron. The roof is steel framed with approximately 30% covered with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement and the remainder covered with birdwire and hessian sacks.
Goura Pigeons Enclosure - 2nd Enclosure (enc 9)
The enclosure is a 12.6 metre by 6 metre by 4 metre high tubular, steel framed structure on a concrete blockwork base. The walls and roof are covered with chainwire except for the south-west corner, which is covered with shadowline asbestos cement sheeting. The earth floor has slate 'waterfall' and 'creek' water features.
Goura Pigeons Enclosure - Original Enclosure (enc 10)
The enclosure has an earth floor and measures 4.6 metres by 3.1 metres. The timber framed structure is approximately 3 metres high with walls to the east, south and west sides sheeted with flat asbestos cement. The enclosure is open to the north side with fine metal mesh. Approximately 70% of the roof is covered with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement, while the remainder is covered with fine mesh. Super-6 corrugated asbestos cement sheeting is located on the south retaining wall.
Cuscus Enclosure (enc 11)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 3.7 metres by 2.4 metres. The enclosure is a 2.5 metres high, timber framed structure sheeted with flat asbestos cement to the east, south and west sides. The enclosure is open to the north side with mesh. The roof is sheeted with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement
Fluffy Gliders (enc 13)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 2.5 metres by 2 metres. The enclosure is a 2 metres high timber framed structure on a concrete blockwork upstand. The enclosure is built up against a kiosk block wall to the east. The north and south walls are sheeted with flat fibre cement. Open mesh is located on the west side. The roof is sheeted with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement with a small mesh section.
Kiosk - 2nd Kiosk (building 14)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 6.7 metres by 6.7 metres. The enclosure is a 4 metre high, unpainted, concrete blockwork structure with a timber framed, red, concrete-tiled gable roof and aluminium windows. Some early signage remains intact.
Powerful Owl Enclosure (enc 15)
The enclosure is built on a sloping concrete slab on the ground, measuring 6.6 metres by 3.1 metres. The enclosure is an approximately 4 metres high timber framed structure, clad on all sides with unpainted sawn hardwood weatherboards. Birdwire is located in a panel in the centre of the north wall. The roof is clad with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement sheeting except for a central mesh panel. A meshed horizontal vent panel is located at a low level on the southern side.
Tasmanian Devils Enclosure (enc 16)
The enclosure measures 5.2 metres by 3.1 metres. It is an approximately 3 metres high, timber framed structure with super-6-formed base walls to the south and part of the east walls with sheet metal above to the east and north. Vertical timber boarding is located on the remaining base walls with fine metal mesh above to the east and north. The roof is sheeted with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement roof sheeting.
Crested Hawks Enclosure - 2nd Enclosure (enc 17)
The enclosure measures 7.1 m by 3.6 metres by approximately 4 metres high. It is a tubular, steel-framed structure with metal mesh to the walls and roof. The south-east corner walls and roof are enclosed with corrugated iron. Original black paint has weathered back to bare metal.
Squirrel Gliders and Carpet Pythons Enclosure (enc 18)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 5.5 metres by 2.5 metres. It is a 2.5 metres high, timber framed structure enclosed on the east, south and west sides with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement sheeting. Full-height birdwire is located on part of the northern side. A half-height super-6-formed concrete wall is located to the remainder of the northern side. The skillion roof is sheeted with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement.
Tortoise and Freshwater Crocodile Enclosure (enc 19)
The enclosure is a concrete slab on the ground measuring 5.2 metres by 2.5 metres with a sloping pond floor. In-situ poured concrete base walls have tubular steel framing with wire mesh located on the upper half of the north wall.
Reptiles Enclosure (enc 20)
The enclosure measures 3.3 metres by 2.2 metres. It is an approximately 2.5 metres high, timber framed structure with timber boarding to the lower walls and angled metal mesh above the north side. The south side is fully enclosed with flat asbestos cement sheeting. The skillion roof is sheeted with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement.
Brown Snakes Enclosure (enc 21)
The enclosure measures 4.6 metres by 2.5 metres. It is an approximately 2.5 metres high structure with concrete blockwork base walls and tubular steel posts supporting upper level metal mesh and a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof. Flat asbestos cement sheeting is located on the west wall. The enclosure has elaborate timber perches and a steel framed and sheeted gate.
Rattle Snakes Enclosure (enc 22)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 3.3 metres by 2.4 metres. It is an approximately 2.4 metres high structure with base walls sheeted with flat asbestos cement and timber boarding. The upper walls are covered with angled metal mesh. The structure is fully enclosed with plywood sheeting to the south-east corner. The eastern side of the skillion roof is sheeted with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement.
Hairy-nosed Wombats Enclosure (enc 23)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 9.6 metres by 4.8 metres. It is an approximately 1.2 metres high semi-circular concrete blockwork structure open to the air except for a small reinforced concrete roofed area in the north-east corner. Reinforced concrete pipe tunnels are inserted in the east and west ends.
Flinders Island Wombats Enclosure (enc 24)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 6.8 metres by 2.4 metres. It is an approximately 2.5 metres high, timber framed structure with super-6-formed concrete lower walls. The structure has fine metal mesh to the west wall and full height super-6 corrugated asbestos cement sheeting to the south-east corner. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof with mesh panelling to the west end.
Potteroos Enclosure (enc 26)
The enclosure measures 7.5 metres by 3.7 metres. It is an approximately 1 metre high timber framed and sheet metal clad fence, with tubular steel posts angled in to support a birdwire perimeter to approximately 1.8 metres high.
Wedge-tailed Eagle Enclosure - Original enclosure (enc 27)
The enclosure measures 9.6 metres by 6.7 metres. It is an approximately four metres high timber framed structure with sapling corner posts and sawn timber framing. The walls are enclosed on the eastern half with birdwire and on the western half with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement sheeting. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement flat roof. It has been substantially altered from the original by roofing and wall enclosures.
Grass Owls Enclosure (enc 28)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 6.4 metres by 3.9 metres. It is an approximately 4 metres high timber framed structure enclosed on the east, south and west sides with flat asbestos sheeting and hessian, and on the north side with birdwire and hessian. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement gable roof.
Platypussary - Original enclosure (enc 29)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 6.4 metres by 3.2 metres. It is an approximately 3 metres high timber framed structure enclosed on the east, south and west sides with flat asbestos cement sheeting and vertical timber boarding. It is enclosed on the north side with birdwire. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof t the west end and a birdwire roof to the east end. A small enclosure is located to the west of the platypussary.
Boobook Owls Enclosure (enc 30)
The enclosure is a 1.9 metres-sided octagonal timber framed structure with an octastyle roof.
Koalas Enclosure (enc 31)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 8 metres by 3.4 metres. It is an approximately 4 metres high tubular steel-framed structure enclosed to the east and south sides with shadowline asbestos cement sheeting and chickenwire to the north and west sides. The structure has a metal deck gable roof with a central panel of chickenwire.
Death Adders Enclosure (enc 32)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 1.2 metres by 1.2 metres. It is an approximately 1.2 metres high timber framed structure on concrete base walls. The east and west walls are enclosed with flat asbestos cement sheeting. The north and south walls are open. The structure has a super-6 asbestos cement skillion roof. The enclosure contains an early chopping block possibly from the house.
Cockatoos Enclosure (enc 33)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 5.5 metres by 1.7 metres. It is an
approximately 3 metres high tubular steel-framed structure covered in chainwire. The south half of the gable roof is covered with super-6 corrugated asbestos cement sheeting. The upper parts of the south wall are enclosed with flat asbestos cement sheeting.
Platypuses Enclosure (enc 34)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 10.2 metres by 8.8 metres. It is an approximately 3 metres high open-sided post-supported timber structure with a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof. The structure has fibreglass lined concrete blockwork tanks with concrete blockwork burrowing chambers. A timber deck is located on the north side.
Platypuses Enclosure (enc 34)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 4.4 metres by 1.8 metres. It is an approximately 3 metres high timber framed structure with walls enclosed to the eastern half with flat asbestos cement sheeting and on the western half with birdwire. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement gable roof to the eastern half and birdwire to the western half.
Enclosure 36 (Use unknown)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 1.2 metres by 1 metre. It is an approximately 1 metre high timber framed structure with walls enclosed on three sides and woven mesh to the north side. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof.
Enclosure 37
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 1.6 metres by 1.4 metres. It is an approximately 2 metres high timber framed structure with walls enclosed on the east, south and west sides with flat asbestos cement sheeting. It is open to the north side. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof attached to the house.
Kite Enclosure (enc 38)
The enclosure has an earth floor and measures 4.2 metres by 2 metres. It is an approximately 2.5 metres high timber framed structure with flat asbestos cement sheeting to the south-east corner and chickenwire to the remaining walls. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof to the east end with chickenwire to the west end.
Sooty Owls Enclosure (enc 39)
The enclosure is built on a concrete slab on the ground, measuring 5.2 metres by 4.5 metres. It is an approximately 3 metres high timber framed structure enclosed along the western half with flat asbestos cement sheeting and along the eastern half with chickenwire. The structure has a super-6 corrugated asbestos cement skillion roof.
A network of paths and stairs connects most of the enclosures to both the house and the original public carpark and entry off Kabool Road. These are generally laid out in an east-west direction paralleling the natural contours of the site. The level pathways are connected between levels by stairways running north-south. Much of the path network has been damaged by either ground subsidence or tree root movement. Other miscellaneous structures include a range of modern, pre-fabricated meal sheds and enclosures used mainly for storage.
","history":"The David Fleay Wildlife Park was established by David Fleay in 1951 as a place of research and education.
David Howells Fleay was born in Ballarat in 1907 and established an interest in the Australian bush and its wildlife at an early age. Fleay accepted a teaching position at Ballarat Grammar School and, in 1927, moved to Melbourne where he taught whilst studying for a Bachelor of Science degree and a Diploma of Education at Melbourne University. At Melbourne University he met fellow science student, Mary Sigrid Collie, and they married in 1931, the year in which David Fleay graduated in Zoology, Botany and Education.
Between 1931 and 1934, Fleay taught at the Ballarat Church of England Grammar School and at State primary and secondary schools, while continuing his private study of native animals. By 1934 his reputation as a 'wildlife man' was sufficiently established that, when Melbourne Zoo decided to set up an Australian section as part of Melbourne's centenary celebrations, David Fleay was chosen to design and direct the section. He worked there for three and a half years, during which time he was able to achieve some significant scientific 'firsts' such as the first breeding in captivity of emus, scrub turkeys, some birds of prey, the tawny frogmouth and a variety of marsupials including the koala. He constructed his first platypussary (a home for platypuses). His time, however, with the Melbourne Zoo was not particularly happy as he disagreed with management on matters of principle. Reflecting his naturalist's viewpoint rather than traditional zoologists' thinking, he insisted that native birds and animals should be fed what they would eat in the wild. He was dismissed over this issue in 1937.
By chance, the wildlife sanctuary at Healesville, about 90 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, needed to replace Robert Eadie, who had been the honorary Curator since the early 1930s. In 1937, Fleay was appointed at £7 per week, the first paid Director of the sanctuary, to develop Healesville's wildlife sanctuary on temperate rainforest on Badger Creek. Fleay introduced 95 large tiger snakes to the sanctuary which were displayed on an island and milked for antivenene purposes. At Healesville, Fleay recommenced his breeding and conservation programs in earnest, achieving world-wide recognition. His greatest achievement at Healesville was breeding the first platypus is captivity in 1943. He designed and built a new platypussary, and, in November 1943, 'Corrie' the platypus was born. Despite numerous attempts by other scientist and sanctuaries, Fleay remains the only person to have successfully bred and reared a platypus in captivity.
In 1947, David and Sigrid Fleay travelled with three platypuses to New York's Bronx Zoo. The platypuses were accommodated in a new platypussary at the zoo, designed to Fleay's specifications. During the Fleay's stay in the United States, Fleay inspected the modern methods of housing and feeding animals at a number of zoos including the New York Zoological Park, Staten Island Zoo, National Zoological Park in Washington and the Golden Gate Zoo in San Francisco. It is not known whether he brought back with him from the United States any ideas which he intended to implement in Australia.
David Fleay returned to Healesville on 13 October 1947 to discover that the Board had fired him during his absence, for the alleged unauthorised donation of other sanctuary animals to the Americans. Whilst the accusation was false, this did not diminish the Board's hostility toward Fleay. After much public outcry, Fleay continued in a lesser role at Healesville as a consultant. Fleay continued to maintain his private fauna collection until 1951 when the Victorian Government banned private individuals from asking for and accepting admission fees from members of the public wishing to view personal collections of native fauna. This situation prompted Fleay to find a more suitable location which would enable him to carry out his research into the life and habits of native birds, animals and reptiles, and consequently, he and Sigrid Fleay moved north to Queensland.
In late 1951 David Fleay, after investigating around Brisbane and south-east Queensland, selected the Tallebudgera Estate as a suitable site for a fauna reserve. According to Fleay, the attraction of the site was the flood-free forested slopes and gullies, good run off, koala fodder gums with koalas in residence and the presence of fish, mammals and birds. The area at the time was used by small crop farmers who supplied the Victorian market in winter. The site preferred by Fleay comprised three properties owned by three separate individuals. Further, the land was not for sale and Fleay did not have the capital to purchase.
Persistence paid off, however, and Fleay steadily acquired the land in the names of DH and MS Fleay. He acquired Portions 20A (just over four acres), 21A (just over four acres) and 22C (just over nine acres) in May 1952. In July 1952, Portion 23A (just over seven acres) was purchased in Mary Sigrid Fleay's name. Portion 18A (just over twenty-one acres) was bought in October 1952. Further land acquisitions were occurred in June 1958 with the purchase of Portion 19A (just over 15 acres) and later, around 1965 a purchase of just over seven acres. This last portion became an additional car park.
Fleay's West Burleigh sanctuary was to be a place of research and education and David Fleay objected to descriptions of the place as a zoo. Fleay stated that 'It's a place where the animals are kept in conditions as close as possible to the natural environment - where they can breed freely and be studied "We're not in the job of sacrificing animals for the sake of showing them and I don't have a lot of time for many modern zoos."
Many of Fleay's animals were transported from Victoria and so animal enclosures were built rapidly. By October 1952, Fleay had constructed an interim platypussary. This was a large concrete water tank with artificial burrows and straw at one end, based on his design at Healesville. Large aviaries for the sea eagles, wedge-tailed eagles and the peregrine falcons were constructed, along with accommodation for the barking owl, great eagle owl and white goshawk. The barking owls' cages were built close to the house so that David Fleay could hear them.
The original layout of the sanctuary was designed by Fleay, who used a compass to ensure that each cage received breezes and the morning sun. Fleay designed the cages and specified the dimensions and the 'furniture'. The cages were always painted 'Lawn Green' with 'Mail Red' roofs. The timber was not undercoated or chemically treated. Chickenwire covered the platypus tank and raptors' cages to keep out carpet snakes. The sanctuary opened its doors to its first visitors on Easter Sunday 1952. Steadily new cages were built by David Fleay and his volunteers. The wedge-tailed eagles had a large timber enclosure with a frame inside in which they could build a nest. The cages had an inner shell of wire netting to guard against cyclonic blows and carpet pythons.
In 1955, a new, outdoor variety platypussary was constructed. This platypussary was later taken over by scrub turkeys who buried it under mounds of earth. A new, superior platypussary was built in 1958 with money provided by the United States in return for three platypuses taken by David Fleay to New York's Bronx Zoo.
The sanctuary survived principally through the hard work of David Fleay and his family, and at times, with the assistance of the local community. The family tended the animals and Sigrid Fleay provided teas on the verandah of the house to visitors. Sick and injured animals were brought to Fleays at all hours of the day and night, and at its peak the sanctuary cared for 450 animals. Volunteer labour and donations were vital to the sanctuary's survival.
The Fleay house was the original farmhouse on the property and, by its style and details, appears to have been built around 1910. It was purchased by Fleay in 1952 and was used as both the Fleay family residence and the base of operations for Fleays wildlife park during David Fleay's running of the place. From the period 1952 to 1985 the upper floor was used principally as the Fleay's residence. The lower floor was used for a range of park activities. Sick and injured animals were treated; food for the animals was prepared, including breeding rats and mice for food and snake specimens in bottles lined the walls. After the handover of the park to the Queensland Government in 1983, Fleay continued to live in the house until his wife's death in 1987, during which time the house was modified. After remarrying in 1987, Fleay left the house and lived in another residence adjacent to the park. He returned to live in the house in 1991 until his death in 1993.
David Fleay's achievements at the sanctuary were numerous. In 1955, he achieved the first known captive breeding of the mulgara, followed in 1958 by the breeding of the planigale (a midget marsupial). In 1958 he successfully delivered a further three platypuses to New York's Bronx Zoo and later that year was able to construct a new and improved platypussary at the West Burleigh sanctuary with a small grant awarded to him by the New York Zoological Society. In 1959, he achieved the first captive breeding of the taipan. Possibly his best known successes at Fleays were with owls and other birds of prey. His was the first known captive breeding of the powerful owl (1968), sooty owl (1969), grey goshawk (1971), mainland masked owl (1971), grass owl (1972), crested hawk (1975) and the wedge-tailed eagle (1977).
In 1970, Fleay continued his attempts to breed platypuses in a platypussary which, although slightly modernised, was largely similar to the one he built at Healesville, 28 years previously. There was no similar success at the sanctuary, although in 1972, Fleay did discover a small dead baby (50 days old) at the entrance to the burrow.
In recognition of the quality and value of his research and breeding programs, Fleay was awarded an MBE in 1960, an AM and Advance Australia Award in 1980 and was appointed an Associate of the Queensland Museum in 1978. In 1979, Fleay was appointed a Fellow of the Explorers' Club in New York. The accolades continued in 1984 when he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science by the University of Queensland and appointed a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow.
To ensure that the Fleays' sanctuary could survive intact, David and Sigrid Fleay decided to sell the land to the Queensland Government for a nominal amount. In 1982, a large portion of the land owned by the Fleays (37 acres) was sold to the government. The following year, the main area of the Fauna Reserve where the animals were enclosed (20 acres) was also sold to the government. The remainder of the site (7.5 acres) was transferred in 1985. This is the current public carpark. Under the terms of the handover, the Fleays continued to live at the sanctuary.
Some of the old enclosures, such as the old goshawk enclosure, were deemed beyond repair and were demolished. Minor repairs were made to the platypussary and small adjustments made to the barking owl aviary. A new platypus display and barking owl and powerful owl cages were designed by Fleay and were positioned according to his specifications. Fleay continued to work at Fleays Wildlife Park (as it was known) and to keep animals largely in their original enclosures. In 1983 the park closed for redevelopment. It reopened in July 1987, but without the original precinct being open to the public as it was considered unsafe.
David Fleay died on 7 August 1993 and his death was lamented by many. The regard in which he was held by his professional colleagues and the community is partly illustrated by the awards and honours bestowed upon him during his lifetime.
In October 1995, 7.4488 hectares of the site was gazetted as the 'David Fleay Wildlife Park' under the Nature Conservation Act 1992, and is operated by the Environmental Protection Agency Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Currently, the original precinct is off-limits to the public due mainly to the poor condition of the concrete paths and some enclosures. It is used for holding off-displays and sick or injured animals and for captive breeding. Many of the original enclosures are still in use.
","criteria":"Established in 1951 by world-renowned naturalist Dr David Fleay, forming part of the initial stage of development, the David Fleay Wildlife Park is significant for its contribution to Queensland's history, having a long tradition as a place for breeding and displaying native Australian animals, to draw community attention to Australian wildlife and the need to conserve Australia's native animals.
|As a type of zoo, which is defined as an enclosure where live animals are kept for public exhibition, the David Fleay Wildlife Park is further significant, as there are few such enclosures found in Queensland.
Retaining the enclosure in which the first wedge-tailed eagle was bred in captivity, as well as the platypussary and other breeding and displaying enclosures, the David Fleay Wildlife Park is significant for its rarity and for the high level of intactness of the layout of the original section of the park.
|The David Fleay Wildlife Park is significant as it provides examples of various types of timber-framed, steel-framed, blockwork structures and enclosures used in the fauna reserves. Of particular significance is the platypussary, the design for which, while modernised, is based on David Fleay's early, pioneering work.
|The David Fleay Wildlife Park is significant for its association with the many people who have visited, researched and been educated at the Park for nearly fifty years. The Park remains as a valuable asset to the community, where people may see native animals and where community awareness may be raised about the need to protect them, especially rare and threatened species. The David Fleay Wildlife Park combines community education, ecotourism, wildlife conservation and research.
|The David Fleay Wildlife Park is significant for its association with Dr David Fleay, known locally as the 'father of conservation'. It was during his time at the sanctuary that Fleay bred in captivity the first wedge-tailed eagle. The regard in which he was held by his professional colleagues and the community is illustrated by the awards and honours bestowed upon him during his lifetime.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16154,"place_ref":601391,"name":"Nazareth House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"272 Wynnum North Road","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-04-02","description":"Nazareth House is prominently located on an elevation along Wynnum North Road. The complex consists of a number of buildings including the original building [St Mary's], the Convent and Chapel and two more recent additions, St Joseph's Hostel (1960s) and the nursing home known as Larmeniere (1980s). Nazareth House has sweeping views across the north-east to Moreton Bay.
St Mary's
St Mary's is an H-shaped two storey brick building with basement and a terracotta tiled roof. Verandahs, some of which have been enclosed along the northern and eastern facades on both the ground and first floors, surround the building. A centrally located projecting entrance is situated along the northern façade of the building. The central section of the entrance rises above the roof line forming a parapet. A recess, in which sits a large rendered statue, is located in the upper section of the façade. The statue and recess are surrounded by rendered high relief moulding. Below the statue are the words 'NAZARETH HOUSE'. The parapet is surmounted by a rendered celtic cross and rendered pedestal. Decorative relief work is located along the parapet and on the piers on either side of the central section. The first floor balcony, where it forms part of the projecting entrance, has a large, rounded arch with a moulded keystone. The ground floor verandah, similarly to the rest of the building, has decorative blue brickwork, including blue brick crosses centrally located along the entire facades.
On the northern façade of St Mary's, the western and eastern end of the projecting wings have parapets surmounted by rendered celtic crosses on a rendered pedestal. This façade as the same decorative blue brickwork and decorative relief work on the underside of the parapet. The western façade, the former rear entrance, is now the main entrance to the building. The gabled parapet has a row of dentils on the underside and a group of five windows, four are narrow and rectangular in shape and the central window is larger with a round arch opening with moulded decorative detail. The parapet is surmounted by a rendered pedestal and celtic cross. The verandahs on the ground and first floors have been enclosed and the original doorway has been widened and replaced with automatic doors. A number of other paired timber doors are located along the verandahs on both the ground and first floors. The doors are panelled and have glass breezeway and fanlight assemblies. The foundation stone is located near the front entrance along the northern façade of the building.
Internally, the ground and first floors of St Mary's are similar in plan. The entrance is made up of an elaborate set of paired timber, panelled doors with large fanlight and breezeway assemblies which contain coloured glass and leadlighting. The front entrance of St Mary's, along the northern façade opens to a entry foyer with a pressed metal ceiling and timber panelled doorway and architraves. Rooms open on either side of the entrance foyer. A corridor runs east-west through the building. A turning, timber staircase with an ornate timber newel and timber rails is located off the corridor on the southern side of the central wing of the building. Rooms for the residents are located on both floors. Rooms containing offices open off the corridor. Pressed metal ceilings remain in many of the rooms including the dining room located in the south-western wing and the hall in the north-western wing. A staircase at the eastern end of the building has been isolated to form a fire stair.
Convent and Chapel
The convent is a U-shaped two storey brick building with a basement level. The building has a broken-back roof clad with terracotta tiles. The building has a centrally located projecting entrance with a gabled roof, along the northern elevation. The central section of the entrance rises above the roof line forming a parapet. The parapet is surmounted by a rendered celtic cross. Decorative relief work is located along the parapet and on the piers on either side of the central section. Paired round arched openings are located in the upper section of the façade. The openings are surrounded by decorative blue brickwork. The convent has verandahs to the ground and first floors and, similarly to the projecting entrance, the orange brickwork is surrounded by decorative blue brickwork. Along the ground level verandah has rounded arches and the first floor verandah squared arches. Double hung sash windows, some of which have been screened, are located along the entire façades of the convent.
Internally, the entrance foyer has a pressed metal ceiling and parquetry floor. Large double, timber, panelled doors with coloured glass and leadlighting with breezeway assembly, open to the central corridor. The hallway is rendered with decorative moulded detail along the wall. The Sister's rooms are simple in plan and decorative detail. The rooms have timber doors and architraves with breezeway assembly, painted walls and austere ceilings. Some are slightly larger then others. Hallways leading to bathroom facilities, along with the bathrooms, have terrazzo floors. The modern kitchen is located on the ground floor.
The chapel is built of brick with a gabled roof at the northern end and a clad with terracotta tiles. The entrance to the chapel is located in the southern façade. Also located in this façade is the chapel's foundation stone. The gabled parapet has decorative relief work the underside and a group of three round arched windows, A smaller, narrow, rectangular window with louvres is located above these. The parapet is surmounted by a rendered celtic cross. The chapel is fitted with copper gutters and downpipes.
Internally, the chapel is rendered with a marble altar at the northern end of the building. A number of stained glass windows, as well as timber pews, are located in the chapel. A window opens in the upper section of the west wall of the chapel, this same window forms part of the convent wall. From this window, Sisters within the convent are able to have a view of the altar.
A rendered statue on a concrete pedestal, depicting the Holy Family, the gift of Thomas Mahon and a grotto are located in front of the northern elevation of St Mary's. The entrance gates are brick with a metal archway. The archway contains the words 'NAZARETH HOUSE' spelt out with original metal lettering.
The later buildings, St Josephs and Nursing Hostel, are single storey brick buildings and are located to the south of St Mary's and the convent and chapel. Covered walkways join St Mary's with both buildings. Other buildings which form part of the complex include plant rooms, a laundry and a change room.
","history":"Nazareth House, situated on Tingal Hill, Wynnum, was designed by Brisbane architectural firm, Hennessy, Hennessy, Keesing & Co and JP Donoghue and built by George Turner. Nazareth House was officially opened by Archbishop Duhig in 1925 as part of the charitable institution established on the site by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth.
A Catholic presence in Wynnum was prompted by the establishment of the area as a popular seaside resort. The opening of the Wynnum South Station in 1898 encouraged further development, and the demand for a religious presence in the area grew. In 1903, the first Catholic masses were held in the Shire Hall.
The Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth was founded by Mother St Basil in London in 1854. The order was established to care for the aged poor at the request of Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster. The first foundation of the of the order to be established in Australia was at Ballarat in 1888. At the request of Archbishop Duhig, a Queensland chapter was founded in 1921. Archbishop Duhig had visited Nazareth House in London and subsequently petitioned the Mother-General to send a community of nuns to Queensland. Duhig then proceeded to search for a suitable site.
In 1918, Duhig purchased Mt Margaret, a property of around 60 acres at Tingal Hill, Wynnum, for the purposes of establishing an aged persons and children's home to be run by the Sisters of Nazareth. The property, which included a large villa, was purchased for £5000 from the trustees of the estate of the late William Kidston, Premier of Queensland from 1906-07. Kidston had entered into an agreement with Duhig prior to his death for the sale of his property for the purposes of establishing a home for the needy.
Due to the difficulties of transport after World War I, it was not possible to secure passages for the sisters until 15 January 1921. On this date, six women, Sister Francis Borgia, Sister St David, Sister M Fulgentia, Sister M Maelisa, Sister Patricia Columba and Sister Joseph Comgall, from Hammersmith, London were joined at Melbourne by Sister Francis Clare (Mother Superior) and Sister Mary Margaret from Ballarat. On first arriving in Brisbane on 3 March 1921, the sisters stayed for three weeks at All Hallows Convent with the Sisters of Mercy. On 4 March, they got their first glimpse of their new home - a dwelling of nine small rooms on rising ground overlooking the sea with Wynnum two miles distant on one side and Brisbane twelve miles on the other.
On Good Friday, 25 March 1921, the Sisters arrived to commence charity work at Wynnum. On 1 April, the first Mass was celebrated in the house by Archbishop Duhig, who also blessed the vestments and the house. The Reverend Dean Horan of Ipswich was the first resident. The sisters also took in and cared for seven elderly ladies. In 1922 the neighbouring property of Silversprings was purchased by Archbishop Duhig for £3500. The house and other buildings from Mt Margaret were moved to the new property where they were joined to the existing house to provide accommodation for the Sisters and those in need of care. By Christmas of 1922, the new home had 35 residents.
Within a couple of years more accommodation was urgently needed. With the help of their benefactors and supported by the Mother House in London, the task of building a new home was undertaken. Work began on the first section in 1924 with the firm Hennessy, Hennessy, Keesing & Co and JP Donoghue, engaged by Archbishop Duhig, designing the new building. The tender of builder George Turner was accepted for £44,200. The foundation stone of what is now the eastern wing of the present building was laid by Archbishop Duhig on 13 April 1924. The building was blessed on 15 August 1925 by Archbishop Duhig and officially opened by then Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan, the following day. £3000 was subscribed towards the cost of the new building.
In April 1926, the first children arrived from England to be cared for by the Sisters of Nazareth House. Local children were admitted in October the same year. The Sisters' objective was to care for orphaned or abandoned children. According to the Sisters of Nazareth House, children cared for at Wynnum during the succeeding forty years included both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. Between 1889-1980 some 4000 children including orphans, wards of the State and migrant children were cared for by the Sisters of Nazareth in 8 homes across Australia and New Zealand.
The Catholic Advocate in January 1930 described Nazareth House as a
'"stately and impressive brick building...terraced lawns leading up to the front entrance and a fine group of statutory in the drive outside...Wide cloistered balconies surround the new building...The entrance hall has richly coloured leadlight windows and in the sitting-room and dining-room on either side are pictures of Nazareth House, Hammersmith, London, where the Sisters had their training...The pretty chapel in the left wing opens into the Sisters' choir room..."
The second stage of construction of the main building was commenced in January 1938 with the foundation stone laid by Archbishop Duhig on 20 March. The opening was held on 2 July 1939. Comprising a convent, chapel and laundry, this section was completed in April 1939 at a cost of £30,000. According to a contemporary article in the Catholic Leader, the extensions consisted of 'one million bricks.'
In 1963, a brick building was constructed in the grounds to provide modern amenities for male residents and a new kitchen block. Two thirds of the cost of the extension was contributed by the Commonwealth Government. At the time of its official opening by Archbishop Duhig, Nazareth House was providing accommodation for 85 'senior citizens' and 70 children.
In 1982 Nazareth House ceased its function as a care facility for children with the move towards placing children in need with foster families. The need for a nursing home unit had long been required and it was decided that a new Nursing Home should be built on the area at the rear of the main building where the children's playground had been, and that the original building should be renovated to make single room accommodation, with ensuite facilities, for hostel residents.
The new Nursing Home was blessed by the Most Reverend EJ Cuskelly, Auxiliary Bishop of Brisbane and opened by Senator, The Hon. DJ Grimes, Minister for Social Security, on Sunday 17 June 1984. The new complex connected to the old building via covered passageways and provided four 4-bed wards, seven 2-bed wards and five single rooms. Work on renovation of the old building commenced in February 1985 and comprised the construction of 42 single rooms with ensuites.
Nazareth House continues to operate as an aged care facility.
","criteria":"Nazareth House is significant for its association with the establishment of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth in Queensland and the religious and social practices they implemented. The establishment of Nazareth House reflects particularly the active interest of James Duhig and his confident building program which saw the establishment of many of the Catholic Church's prominent buildings during his time as Archbishop of Brisbane.
|Prominently located along Wynnum North Road and visible for some distance from Wynnum, Nazareth House is significant for its considerable architectural merit, and landmark value, and is an important example of the works of one Brisbane's premier architectural practitioners and firms, Hennessy & Hennessy, Keesing and Co and JP Donoghue, who undertook many projects for the catholic church during Archbishop Duhig's time.
|Prominently located along Wynnum North Road and visible for some distance from Wynnum, Nazareth House is significant for its considerable architectural merit, and landmark value, and is an important example of the works of one Brisbane's premier architectural practitioners and firms, Hennessy & Hennessy, Keesing and Co and JP Donoghue, who undertook many projects for the catholic church during Archbishop Duhig's time.
|Nazareth House is significant for its association with those, both past and present, who have lived at the house.
|Nazareth House is significant for its association with the establishment of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth in Queensland and the religious and social practices they implemented. The establishment of Nazareth House reflects particularly the active interest of James Duhig and his confident building program which saw the establishment of many of the Catholic Church's prominent buildings during his time as Archbishop of Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16155,"place_ref":602539,"name":"Norman Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"102 Ipswich Road","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-07-12","description":"The Norman Hotel is a two-storey brick hotel prominently located on the corner of Ipswich Road and Qualtrough Street, Woolloongabba.
The hotel addresses both street frontages and has a main entrance on the Ipswich Road and a corner entrance to the public bar. It is confident and flamboyant in style with an ornate parapet concealing a hipped roof, which is clad in corrugated iron and pierced by tall brick chimneys. The ground floor awning and the verandah to the upper floor feature curved corrugated iron roofs supported on slender cast iron columns. Each is truncated at the corner following the line of the building and each is decorated with lacy cast iron valances. The upper level also has cast iron balustrading.
The wing to the rear of the main section along Qualtrough Street is much simpler in form and has sash windows with moulded decoration. The upper level of the hotel has French windows opening onto the verandah. The ground floor has narrow casement windows and a recessed entrance to Ipswich Road approached through a twin arches with a central pillar and matching pilasters to each side.
Inside, the hotel retains a brick cellar space with a ceiling supported by low brick arches and a concrete floor. This is still in use for beer storage.
The Ipswich Road entrance and hall remain, with the public bar on one side of the hall and the gaming area opening off from the other. Upstairs there are conference rooms, toilets and small service rooms. Doors and joinery details generally remain intact.
The kitchen, beer garden and open air eating area to the rear of the site are modern, as is a brick liquor barn, but these are not within the listing boundary.
","history":"The Norman Hotel was built in 1889 for Robert Heaslop to a design from the office of John B. Nicholson. It is a brick hotel prominently sited at the corner of Qualtrough Street on the busy Ipswich Brisbane Road.
In 1859, at the time of Separation from New South Wales, the road between Brisbane and Ipswich was considered by the incoming Governor of Queensland to be the only good road in Queensland and is still a major thoroughfare. At this time, quite a number of Europeans lived around the junction of the five tracks that were to become the Woolloongabba Fiveways, though it was not then thought of as a residential area. In June 1864 William Qualtrough purchased Lots 72 and 73 of Sub 167 on the Ipswich Road. He died in 1870 and left the land to his widow, Elizabeth.
In the 1880s Woolloongabba developed quickly, together with the adjoining suburbs of East Brisbane, Buranda and Stones Corner, following the expansion of the railway and tramway systems and the growth of associated commerce and light industry. In 1881 a dry dock was established at South Brisbane and the nearby coal wharves were linked to a railway goods yard at Woolloongabba in 1884. The first (horse drawn) trams in Brisbane ran between Woolloongabba and Newstead in 1885 and had reached Buranda by 1887.
In 1885 Robert Heaslop purchased the Ipswich Road land from Mrs Qualtrough. He appears to have been a member of a family that had retail interests in the area.
South Brisbane and Woolloongabba were amalgamated to form the City of South Brisbane in 1888 and in the following year the first Post Office opened in Woolloongabba and was serviced by tram. The area was booming, as was the Queensland economy generally, and Robert Heaslop chose this year to build a substantial hotel on his land, registering a mortgage on the title for £3,500 in November 1889. The expansion of the population in the area is reflected in the building of other hotels at the time, such as the Woolloongabba Hotel (1887), the Railway Hotel (1889) and Burke's Hotel (1890). Heaslop's new hotel was built by F Steffans and designed by John B Nicholson.
John Beauchamp Nicholson was born in 1852 in Surry and arrived in Brisbane around 1876. After working as a clerk and foreman for the contractor and later architect, Andrew Murphie and for plumber Hiram Wakefield, he set up an architectural office in October 1885. He worked in partnership with Constantin Mathea between 1886 and January 1887, with J Sinclair Ferguson and with Alfred R L Wright from March 1890 until going into involuntary liquidation in January 1891. During these few years, Nicholson's office designed a variety of handsome and substantial buildings including Lady Musgrave Lodge in 1891 and the 1888 Princess Theatre [600353] at Woolloongabba, though a good proportion of the work catered for the liquor trade and included a number of fine hotels and the Lion Brewery in Townsville.
The Norman Hotel opened in June 1890 with Heaslop as the first licensee. To fulfil the conditions of the 1885 Licensing Acct, the licensee had to live on the premises, so the license was quickly transferred to Henry Marsden, previously publican of the Bowen Hotel in South Brisbane. Heaslop was able to keep an eye on the premises, however, living just across the road from the hotel. Marsden remained as licensee until 1892 when J C Hauer briefly held the license before it was transferred to Samuel Heaslop, possibly a relative of the owner. In December 1896 the hotel was leased to Percy Hubbard at 5.10.0 per week. The lease was transferred to John Dwyer in July 1897, though the licence continued in Hubbard's name until 1898. John, then Mary Dwyer, held the licence until 1900, when the brewing company of Perkins & Co purchased the hotel.
Perkins & Co was one of two breweries, established by Irish families, who had first set up business in Castlemaine, Victoria. Perkins and the Castlemaine Brewery had established breweries in Brisbane and competed for trade. Both undertook the purchase of hotels as 'tied houses' selling only their own beer as part of this competition, Perkins purchasing Burke's Hotel in 1901 and Castlemaine the nearby Broadway Hotel in 1917. Perkins & Co leased the Norman Hotel to a series of publicans and in 1928 the Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan Gray and Company purchased Perkins & Co. Ltd.
From 1900 the Woolloongabba area experienced a slow decline and the hotel, though changing licensees, remained much the same. The main bar was renovated in the 1960s, though little other change occurred until the late 20th century. In 1987 the Cavill family of hoteliers purchased the Norman Hotel. They purchased adjoining land and added a beer garden and outdoor eating area, the steakhouse opening in 1988. In the process of the redevelopment, several detached structures were removed from the rear of the property including stables and an air raid shelter.
The hotel has been renovated and some walls have been removed on the upper floor to create two function rooms. On the ground floor the entrance hall area has been little changed, but the dining room, kitchen, pantry and spirit room have been removed and the space is now used as a gaming area. The main bar on the other side of the hall has been reduced in size and now opens on to the courtyard area through glass folding doors
","criteria":"The Norman Hotel is important in providing evidence of the development of Queensland in the 1880s, a boom period when many fine commercial buildings were constructed, particularly in Brisbane. It is also important is demonstrating the development of the Woolloongabba and East Brisbane area in response to the growth of the tramway system. It demonstrates the importance of the Ipswich-Brisbane Road as a major transport route in the 19th century.
|The Norman Hotel is important as a good example of a quality hotel of its era and demonstrates the principal characteristics of such a building, being prominently placed on a landmark corner site and designed both to attract attention and suggest the quality of service and accommodation on offer. It remains substantially intact and has well preserved exterior detail. It has had continuity of usage as a hotel for well over a hundred years
|The Norman Hotel is a local landmark, being prominently sited on a major road linking Brisbane and Ipswich. It is a well-composed building of architectural merit and makes an important contribution to the character of the area by employing strong architectural features, including an elaborate parapet and well-detailed verandahs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16156,"place_ref":601393,"name":"Halse Lodge","alternate_name":"Hillcrest Guest House | Bay View","street_address":"2 Halse Lane","suburb":"NOOSA HEADS","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-30","description":"Halse Lodge, a two-storeyed timber guesthouse with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located on a northwestern rise overlooking Noosa, the Noosa River and Laguna Bay to the northwest. The building is approached via a long driveway from Noosa Drive to the west.
The building has a U-shaped plan with a south facing courtyard flanked by a two-storeyed accommodation wing to the northwest, a single-storeyed caretaker's residence wing to the southwest and a two-storeyed amenities wing to the northeast. The three wings are connected via open verandahs at ground level, and the building has concrete stumps with timber batten infill. The main entry is located centrally on the southwest, with a steep pitch projecting gable above a timber stair and timber ramp entry. The gable has paired corner posts with shaped timber brackets, and a timber batten tympanum.
The accommodation wing has verandahs to both levels on the northwest and southwest. The ground level has a timber batten balustrade, timber posts and shaped brackets, a chamferboard valance, single-skin exposed framed walls, and multi-paned and dual-paned french doors with fanlights. The first floor, accessed via a timber stair on the southwest verandah, has a weatherboard balustrade with open timber batten panels with shaped timber surrounds, timber posts, unlined raked ceilings, single-skin exposed framed walls, and dual-paned french doors with timber batten fanlights. The northeast end of the accommodation wing has the first floor at ground level, with a timber ramp access, and a verandah which has been enclosed with casement windows. The rear wall of this wing has weatherboard cladding, with casement windows with timber and corrugated iron window hoods to the first floor, and a verandah at ground level. A single-storeyed kitchen has been added to the southwest of this wing, and has weatherboard cladding, casement windows with timber and corrugated iron window hoods, concrete block stumps and contains commercial kitchen equipment.
Internally, this wing has a large dining room at ground level, and bedrooms at the first floor level. The dining room has three ante-rooms opening onto the northwest verandah, vertically jointed boarding to the walls, fibrous cement sheeting with cover strips to the ceiling and upper walls, arctic glass to the casement windows and french doors, and a timber batten arch opening to the central ante-room. The first floor contains a central corridor with rooms opening either side, and a foyer area at the northeast with a timber ramp access to the garden. Internal doors have timber batten fanlight panels, and ceilings are boarded.
The single-storeyed southwest caretaker's residence wing has weatherboard cladding, a large metal ridge ventilator, casement windows with timber and corrugated iron window hoods, and a small fenced courtyard at the rear. Internally, it has been refitted and currently contains two bedrooms, a bathroom, office, kitchenette and living area.
The two-storeyed amenities wing has weatherboard cladding and casement windows. Internally, it contains a laundry to the ground level, and bathrooms to both levels.
A high-set activity centre, with a hipped corrugated iron roof and concrete block stumps, is located to the south of the building. This structure is similar in materials and form to Halse Lodge, and has weatherboard cladding, casement windows and a verandah to the west.
The grounds contain mature trees, including a large eucalypt near the western driveway entrance, and a mango tree to the southwest of the building. A terraced driveway and turning area has been established to the south of the building, with the ground sloping steeply to an overgrown gully and creek bed to the south and southwest.
","history":"Halse Lodge, formerly known as Bayview, then as Hillcrest Guest House, is a two-storeyed timber guest house which was substantially rebuilt during the 1920s. The site of Halse Lodge has been associated with boarding/guest house accommodation from the early 1880s. Halse Lodge is the only guest house in Noosa Heads to survive from the 1920s and is one of few sites in south east Queensland which has operated continuously as a seaside guest house from the late nineteenth century.
The land on which Bayview was erected was granted to James Forsyth, and comprised 80 acres. Title records indicate that although the land was purchased in 1871, the register was not actually signed until December 1880.
The land was transferred to Walter Hay, reputedly Forsyth's cousin, in 1881. According to family records, Hay had moved into the Wide Bay district during the 1850s, and by 1867 he leased the ferry which crossed the Mary River between Maryborough and Tinana. During the late 1860s, Hay moved to Tiaro where he ran a steamer between Maryborough and Tiaro carrying goods for Gympie and Kilkivan. By 1870, a more direct route was sought for the transportation of goods into Gympie, and Hay is credited with successfully finding/marking a route from Gympie to the Noosa River and the subsequent establishment of the town of Noosa. Lands Department records indicate that the name Nusa was used on Ham's map of Queensland published in 1871.
Hay acquired a large amount of land in the Tewantin-Noosa area, and by the 1880s was described as one of the largest land holders in the area. Hay placed an advertisement in the Gympie Times in March 1882, advertising that the house known as Bay View was available for letting. Situated on the South Head at the mouth of the Noosa River, Bay View was described as containing 10 rooms...on five acres of fenced-in land.
During the 1890s, the property was leased to Robert Walker, then to Heinrich Walkmann. Bayview was progressively enlarged, and according to local history sources, Bayview was one of two guest houses operating in Noosa by the turn of the century; the other being Laguna House located in Hastings Street. Photographic evidence indicates that by 1900, Bayview comprised a two-storeyed timber building with a detached structure at the rear. It is assumed that this forms the basis of the present building.
Title records indicate that the property was transferred to Charles Miles of Brisbane in 1904, then to Francis Henry Atkinson (Hay's half-brother) in 1910. It is understood that Hay's second wife Susannah assisted Francis to run Bayview. Susannah's involvement however is is not recorded on title documents, which indicate that the property was acquired by John Donovan in 1918.
Bayview was substantially rebuilt and extended during the 1920s, after which time it was known as Hillcrest Guest House. The property was subdivided in 1925; Leslie Hay acquired Sub 1 of Portion 171 which comprised just over 11.5 acres. The property was transferred to John Jones in 1929, and it is understood that the Jones and Hindmarsh families continued to run the guest house until the late 1950s.
The gradual development of Noosa as a tourist resort during the early twentieth century, increased during the 1920s as cafes and accommodation houses were erected along the beachfront (Hastings Street). The rise in car ownership, and increase in the amount of time people had available for leisure during the 1920s and 1930s meant that Noosa, like other coastal areas in south east Queensland, grew in popularity as a focal point for resort and recreation. A 1944 guest book from Hillcrest indicates that guests came from Brisbane, elsewhere in Queensland, interstate and overseas; a number of guests were sufficiently inspired by the house and its setting to record their impressions in verses and sketches.
Hillcrest Guest House was acquired by the Anglican Church in 1959, and renamed Halse Lodge, after Archbishop Halse. By this time the property included just over 2 acres of land. Between 1959 and 1988 few alterations were undertaken to the building, which was used mainly for group accommodation of up to 80 people. Halse Lodge was leased to managers in 1988.
Substantial renovations to Halse Lodge were undertaken in 1988, including the additions of a new front entry and kitchen block, demolition and erection of a new ablutions wing, refitting and re-roofing the caretaker's wing, erection of a new activity centre. Minor alterations were also undertaken to the main buildings, including reopening the verandah at the rear of the dining room, and the addition of internal doors to some of the upstairs rooms. Halse Lodge is presently operated as a guest house and has a capacity of around 60 people.
The name of the town was changed from Noosa to Noosa Heads in 1988. As a consequence of the ongoing development of Noosa Heads as a tourist resort, the Hastings Street streetscape and Noosa Heads townscape have undergone many changes, including the demolition of the timber guest houses which formerly lined the street; Laguna House was demolished in the 1960s.
","criteria":"Substantially rebuilt during the 1920s, and still in use as a guest house, Halse Lodge maintains its association with the site of guesthouse accommodation in Noosa Heads from the 1880s. As the only extant guest house in Noosa Heads from the 1920s, Halse Lodge is indicative of early twentieth century holiday accommodation, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of the development of Noosa Heads as a tourist resort.
As the site of the former Bayview, Halse Lodge is associated with the Hay family in particular Walter Hay who was active in the settlement and development of the Noosa district from the late 1870s.
|As the only extant guest house in Noosa Heads from the 1920s, Halse Lodge is indicative of early twentieth century holiday accommodation, and is important in demonstrating the pattern of the development of Noosa Heads as a tourist resort.
|(Criterion under review)
|Located in an elevated position overlooking Noosa Heads, this two-storyed timber building is an important landmark in the Noosa Heads townscape.
|Halse Lodge maintains a special association with the community, evidenced by the comments in guest books at the Lodge which, over several decades have changed little in their content and express the value and special qualities which Halse Lodge holds for its visitors.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16158,"place_ref":601395,"name":"TC Beirne Complex and Fortuneland Centre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28 Duncan Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The TC Beirne Complex occupies a prominent position overlooking the pedestrian thoroughfares of Brunswick and Duncan Streets, Fortitude Valley. Ann Street borders the eastern extreme of the Duncan Street side of the complex. The portion of the complex once used by the company as retail trading space fronts Brunswick Street and is now known as the TC Beirne Centre, while the Fortuneland Centre, once the warehouse, fronts Duncan Street which is now Chinatown.
The TC Beirne Centre
The Brunswick Street elevation is four storeys high and is constructed of rendered and painted masonry. There are thirteen windows on each floor, arranged in vertical panels between flat pilasters and becoming successively less decorated. The first floor windows are casements with semi-circular fanlights and distinctive projecting arched hoods. The second and third floor windows consist of pairs of rectangular sash windows with decorative moulding below the sill and around the frame. Moulded triangular pediments top the second floor windows. The top of each pilaster consists of a shamrock crest, positioned directly below a dentilled cornice.
Above the projecting cornice, the pilasters are extended with recessed panels between them to form a decorative parapet The recessed panels are infilled with masonry circles that shape the initials TCB and all the panels are topped with a flat moulded capping. The building is topped with large arched pediments, originally two in number, and then increased to three when the building was extended. The entrance and ground floor shop fronts are modern.
The interior has been largely replaced and now has an arcade with retail shops through to Duncan Street on the ground floor and modern offices and apartments on the upper floors. In the centre of the building what appears to have been a clerestory is preserved together with its ceiling decoration. The floors below it have been replaced by metal girders to create a light well. No other original internal decoration can be readily seen.
The Duncan Street section of the complex is five storeys high and is of painted brick. Generally, the windows are segmental arches, except on the eastern bay, which has semi-circular arched windows on the first and fourth floors, with square headed windows between. Bold Dutch gables unify the different buildings. The brick parapet has a stepped top with semi-circular pediments and circular vents. Alterations include a wide modern arcade entrance and a glass and metal overhead tunnel, designed by James Birrell, that links the centre to the buildings on the other side of Duncan Street. The shopfronts are now all modern metal and glass, though some of the metal pillars supporting the street awning survive.
Fortuneland Centre
The former warehouse is constructed of painted brick and has its major elevation to Duncan Street adjoining the main store buildings. The building has four storeys and a low brick tower to Duncan Street, similar to that on the TC Beirne section. The building has large segmental arch windows to the upper floors, those on the Duncan Street side being the original timber framed windows and those on the Ann Street elevation have modern metal frames. The top floor is composed largely of banks of multiple paned windows between narrow brick panels. The rear of the building overlooks a laneway and modern windows and small metal balconies have been added, as has a deck area.
The ground floor of the Fortuneland Centre contains 12 shops and restaurants with modern glass and metal shopfronts. The display windows at the corner of Duncan and Ann Streets have been replaced, but some original metal posts supporting the street awning to Duncan and Ann Streets remain. The upper levels of the former warehouse have been reconfigured as apartments and no original internal walls remain. The basement contains a car park.
","history":"The TC Beirne Complex was constructed for Thomas Charles Beirne in 1902 to the design of Robin Dods. The warehouse portion of the building was extended in 1906, and further extensions were made to the structure in 1910 and 1913, also to the design of Dods. By c1931, architects Hennessey & Hennessey had undertaken extensive additions, and in 1938 an extra 30,000 square feet of floor space was added. In 1956 the building was sold to David Jones, and has changed ownership several times since. Geoffrey Pie undertook alterations in 1974.
Thomas Charles Beirne was born in 1860 in Ballymacurly, Ireland, the son of farmers. He was apprenticed to a draper at the age of fourteen, and in 1884 emigrated to Melbourne where he worked as a draper's assistant and later joint manager for Eyre and Shephard and then Foy and Gibsons. Less than two years later a former employer in Ireland, Michael Piggott, invited Beirne to enter into a partnership and the firm of 'Piggott & Beirne' was established in Stanley Street, South Brisbane. By 1891 the partnership had dissolved and TC Beirne took his capital of £1200 and opened his own store in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, in premises owned by the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane. The shop employed six staff and had a frontage of twenty feet and a depth of fifty feet. TC Beirne had married Ann Kavanagh in 1887, and the Beirne family lived in quarters above the shop.
The success of TC Beirne's store was immediate, and within a few months of opening, the store underwent an expansion into a second and then a third adjoining shop. Beirne attempted to have the owner of the shops, the Anglican Diocese, pay to convert the shops into one store. When this request was rejected, TC Beirne purchased the Diocese holdings in Brunswick Street in 1897 for £8000 on a deposit of £50. The property consisted of five shops and a bank. Architect William Hodgen jnr designed extensive alterations to the property, and by 1900 the business was described as having 'evolved into large bright looking premises with a frontage to Brunswick Street of 110ft'. The same article pronounced TC Beirne & Co. to be one of the 'most popular shopping places in the city of Brisbane'.
By this time, the Beirne family had moved from their quarters above the shop to 'Clevelard', Moray Street, New Farm. In 1899 the family moved again to 'Glengariff', Hendra where additions to the residence were made in 1907 to the design of Dods. Robin Dods was also the architect of a house built for Beirne's eldest daughter, Mrs Morgan, in 1912 (now located at 9 Morgan Street, Albion).
The growth and expansion of TC Beirne & Co. continued for the greater half of the twentieth century. Within a few years of the purchase of the Brunswick Street property, Beirne acquired adjoining properties in Duncan Street. The company was eventually to boast a Brunswick Street frontage of 146 feet, a Duncan Street frontage of 311 feet, and an Ann Street frontage of 62 feet. The shop floor areas fronted Brunswick Street, and warehousing areas were located along Duncan and Ann Streets.
In 1902 Robin Dods of the architectural firm 'Hall & Dods', was commissioned to design the building that was to form the core of the present structure. Additions to the company's warehousing facilities followed in 1906 when Hall & Dods called tenders for 'premises, Duncan Street, Valley, for TC Beirne & Co.'. Master Builder, GA Baumber, completed the work at a cost of £6348. Other major work was completed in 1910 and 1913, also to the design of Robin Dods. The tender of GA Baumber was accepted in 1909, while the work completed in 1913 included a 'new storey and other additions, besides the modernising of the Brunswick Street premises at a cost of about £25,000'. This work increased the number of arches on the parapet from two to three.
Less than twenty years later, c1931, further extensions were made. Architects Hennessey & Hennessey were responsible for the additions. In 1938, 30,000 square feet of floor space was added by contractors GH Turner & Son at a cost of £30,000. The work was completed using structural steel, reinforced concrete and brick, and included the additions of a five-storey building to the Brunswick Street frontage of Beirne's property; and the addition of four storeys on the Duncan Street side of the building.
The success of the TC Beirne & Co. emporium extended outside Brisbane and branches of the store were established in the cities of Ipswich and Mackay, where buildings designed by Robin Dods were erected in 1902 (Ipswich) and 1907 (Mackay). TC Beirne also established a popular and successful mail-order service, extending the company's clientele base into more remote locations.
The early history of another Valley success story, McWhirter's, is directly linked to TC Beirne and Co. In 1894, James McWhirter joined TC Beirne as general manager and temporary partner before leaving to occupy premises on the opposite of Brunswick Street. Like Beirne, McWhirter was an instant success and the two stores, along with other principle retailers, Overells and later the ACB Company and Waltons, did much to ensure the popularity of Fortitude Valley as a shopping destination in the first half of the twentieth century.
While Thomas Charles Beirne became a household name through the success of his retail empire, he was also a prominent figure in wider Brisbane society. He joined the Brisbane Traders Association in 1898 and became its president in 1901. He was a director of the Brisbane Tramways Company, the Brisbane Gas Company, Queensland Trustees, AMP, Atlas Assistance and the British Australian Cotton Foundation. In 1905 he was elected to the Legislative Council where he remained until its abolition in 1922. He was University Warden from 1928 to 1941, and the T.C. Beirne School of Law was founded with his donation of £20,000. Other recipients of his generosity were the Mater Hospital, Duchesne College, St Brigid's Church, Red Hill, and the Holy Name Cathedral scheme. In 1929 he was awarded a Papal Knighthood of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great, Civil Class.
TC Beirne died on 21 April 1949. Seven years later, in 1956, the Fortitude Valley TC Beirne building was sold to David Jones. The building was sold again in 1973 and in 1974 alterations were made to the design of Geoffrey Pie. The TC Beirne building for some time housed a branch of Target, another department store.
In the mid 1990s, the TC Beirne store and the TC Beirne warehouse in Duncan Street to the rear became separately owned. Both buildings have undergone extensive internal alteration and refurbishment and now contain commercial and retail outlets on the lower level and apartments on the upper floors. The TC Beirne Centre also contains offices of the Brisbane City Council. The former warehouse, now Fortuneland Centre, has been subdivided into 49 strata titles.
","criteria":"The building and development of the TC Beirne Complex is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, reflecting the late 19th and early 20th century development of Fortitude Valley as a major commercial and shopping centre, which was sustained well into the post-Second World War period.
|The TC Beirne Complex is important because of its aesthetic significance as a prominent and visually appealing element in the pedestrian streetscapes of Brunswick Street and Duncan Street (China Town).
|The TC Beirne Complex has a special association with the TC Beirne company who played an important part in the development of retailing and department stores in the first half of the twentieth century. The place also has a special association with the life and work of the company's founder, Thomas Charles Beirne, and the work of architect Robin Dods.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16223,"place_ref":601460,"name":"Corpus Christi Church","alternate_name":"Corpus Christi Catholic Church","street_address":"136 Buckland Road","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-07-06","description":"Corpus Christi Church is a brick building situated on the crest of a hill, in Bage Street, Nundah, with expansive views to the north and east. The design of the church was influenced by the Romanesque revival style, in its massing and detailing. Several large trees and established gardens surround the building.
Corpus Christi Church is a symmetrically composed, polychrome brick building, with traditional Latin Cross plan and a polygonal chancel extending from the western end. The terracotta tiled roof, is gabled over the front and two transept entrances and hipped over the chancel. The dominant feature of the church is the copper sheeted dome, which extends about 100 feet above ground level above the junction of the transepts and nave. Surmounted on the dome is an octagonal lantern, with a Celtic cross finial. The dome rests on an octagonal drum, supported square planned arcade. The drum, of polychrome brick, features tripartite arched window openings on each of the eight faces.
The church features polychrome brickwork patterning, including chequer pattern banding on the gables, banding on external columns, dark brick quoining and a dark brick plinth. The external walls are buttressed with shallow attached piers.
The eastern elevation features an open portal, with a vaulted covering sheltered by a gabled awning, supported on coupled columns, featuring plaster cast capitals and bases. The portal opens onto an arcaded entrance porch, defined by similar columns, from which a closed timber quarter turn stair runs to the gallery. Panelled timber doors open off the entrance bay to the church. Above the portal are three round headed arched window openings, glazed with leadlight.
The entrances to the north and south transepts are similar to the main eastern entrance, but with vaulted awnings supported on moulded corbels. The western facade has a brick arcaded verandah echoing the octagonally shaped chancel.
Internally the church is dominated by the coffered interior of the dome at the intersection of the nave and transepts. This is supported on four wide arches, which span the internal width of the church, one of which forms the chancel arch. The chancel features an ornate marble altar and a large Italian painting. Flanking the chancel are two side chapels with religious statues. Unusually, a marble altar rail has survived, as have two confessional bays on the north and south walls. A gallery sits over the eastern end of the interior, with a large Whitehouse Brothers pipe organ. The interior is carpeted and has rendered brick walls with a timber boarded ceiling.
","history":"The Corpus Christi Church was constructed in 1925-6, for the catholic parish at Nundah, who formerly practiced in a small timber church on another site. The church was constructed under the guidance of the then Archbishop James Duhig, who promoted catholic presence in Brisbane by exploiting prominent sites, to produce landmarks. Corpus Christi may have been designed as a scale model for the Holy Name Cathedral which was in the planning stages at this time. The architects for the project were Hennessey, Hennessey, Keesing and Co.
Settlement in the Nundah area began with a Moravian mission set up for Aborigines in the area in 1838. Although the mission was closed by 1848 many of the missionaries and their families remained in the Nundah area. In the 1860s a strong German presence was felt in the area, particularly as a result of immigration. The first Lutheran and Methodist services in Queensland were held in Nundah.
It was not until 1903 that the catholic community in the area, who attended church at Wooloowin, Sandgate, or inner city areas, met to discuss the construction of a church. On June 19, 1904, Archbishop Dunne blessed The Church of the Real Presence, and spoke of the momentous occasion, which saw the opening of a catholic church in what was the birthplace of Protestantism in Queensland. The church cost £600, which was paid off before the opening and was located on the corner of Duke Street and Buckland Road.
A strong catholic presence in Nundah by 1915, dictated the need for a school, and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of St Joseph were asked to join the parish, to open this school. Previously, property in the area had been purchased by the church as a more suitable church site, due to its position on the crest of a hill. The property previously belonged to a Mr Henry Donkin who had constructed a large house, Marsten, which was used by the sisters as the first school and convent.
A presbytery was built on the grounds of Marsten, soon after 1920, when the Rev Archbishop James Duhig became the registered owner. The first parish priest was Father Jordan, who stayed with the Nundah parish until 1941. Previously, priests cycled from the Wooloowin presbytery to say mass in the small timber church. A site was chosen on the grounds near the school and presbytery for a more imposing church.
It was part of Duhig's grand plan for the development of the Catholic Church in Brisbane that a number of churches be built to manifest the strength of the church. Many of the sites Duhig sought were on hill tops. By 1940, when Duhig had been controlling the estate for twenty-eight years, forty-six new churches in Brisbane had been built since 1912, including St Joseph's at Kangaroo Point, St Ignatius at Toowong and St Agatha's at Clayfield. Duhig favoured certain architects, particular the designers of Corpus Christi, Hennessey and Hennessey, who planned the ill-fated Holy Name Cathedral with the Archbishop. Duhig felt that the construction of churches enhanced the catholic presence and signified the strength and wealth of the church.
Corpus Christi Church was planned to be a golden link in the chain of churches around Brisbane. Some sources state that it was a scale model for the Holy Name Cathedral, which was planned for a site in Ann Street, across the street from All Hallows' School. The design of both of these Hennessey and Hennessey buildings was thought to be reminiscent of St Peter's in Rome, which has the characteristic dome, surmounted by a lantern and cross.
The laying of the foundation stone of the Corpus Christi Church on June 14, 1925 attracted 20,000 people, who donated £2000 to the construction of the church, although the church was not fully paid off until the 1940s.
The church was designed by Hennessey, Hennessey, Keesing and Co, architects in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Jack Hennessey had recently completed the additions to St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, and was a friend and colleague of the archbishop at the time. The work was completed by local contractor, SS Carrick, for a total cost of £16, 840. Corpus Christi Church was opened on November 21, 1926, in a ceremony which saw eight tiers of lights illuminating the dome.
The original house, Marsten was demolished in 1959 to make way for a new convent. The church remains intact with very little alteration.
","criteria":"The Corpus Christi Church was built during a time of expansion of the Catholic Church in Queensland during Archbishop Duhig's time, when an effort was made to create a strong catholic presence, particularly in those areas of traditional Protestant dominance.
The design of Corpus Christi is significant as it paralleled the design of the ill-fated Holy Name Cathedral and may have been planned as a scale model for the cathedral. The Corpus Christi Church is a manifestation of the catholic ethos of exploiting imposing sites to produce prominent landmarks. This is particularly true of churches built during the time of Archbishop James Duhig.
|The church is a particularly good example of an inter-war church, influenced by the fashionable Romanesque revival of church architecture in Australia, with its feature dome, picturesque massing and polychrome brickwork, a style favoured by Archbishop Duhig.
|It is symbolically important to the catholic parish of Nundah.
|The church has special associations with Archbishop James Duhig and the architects Hennessey and Hennessey.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16230,"place_ref":601467,"name":"St Isidore's","alternate_name":"St Isidore's Farm College | Seaview House | Mapleton Homestead | St Isidores | St Isidores Farm College","street_address":"40 Post Office Road","suburb":"MAPLETON","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"St Isidore's is a large, high-set timber residence, situated on the eastern edge of the Blackall Range, at Mapleton. From the eastern rooms and verandahs, there are extensive views over the Maroochy Plains to the Pacific Ocean. The house once formed the vista at the northern end of the main road through Mapleton, but trees in the front garden now obscure the house from the street.
The house is timber-framed, clad externally mostly with weatherboards, and with vertically-jointed boards on those external walls protected by front or side verandahs. The western extension, which is of a later date to the core of the house, is clad in chamferboards. The original diagonally arranged battens between the stumps have been replaced with later weatherboards, but most of this is obscured by surrounding garden plantings.
St Isidore's presents an aesthetically pleasing exterior, engendered largely by its complex hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting [not the original], and decorative timberwork to verandahs and gables. The house has front and side projecting gables, separate roofs over front and side verandas, and a projecting, gabled portico over the centrally positioned front steps. There is decorative timber lattice, or a combination of lattice and fretwork, on each of the gables, including the front portico, but that on the western gable, which is a later addition, is much simpler in design. All the gables have timber finials. The eastern verandah has been enclosed, but the front and western verandahs retain their original timber detailing, including double chamfered posts with brackets and a simple dowel balustrade. A late 20th century deck extension off the enclosed eastern verandah, with its side entrance, has a replica gabled portico and steps, echoing that on the front elevation.
There have been a number of alterations to the rear [north] elevation, including the addition of a skillion-roofed, weatherboard-enclosed bathroom at the western end, and a recent breakfast room off the kitchen. Attached to the rear of the house is a conservatory. The remaining back yard is taken up by a swimming pool and garage.
Externally, the house suggests a symmetrical plan, but internally, the rooms are arranged in an idiosyncratic fashion, reflective of its construction in at least two stages. The c1915/16 layout is still highly readable, despite the removal of several internal walls and the creation of an ensuite bathroom for each of the four bedrooms.
The interior is remarkable for its extensive use of decorative pressed metal ceilings, cornices, ceiling roses, architraves, and dados, in almost every room of the house. Many of the designs are Art Nouveau in inspiration, including that of the dado panels in the vestibule, which has been identified in an early 20th century Wunderlich catalogue. There is also a pressed metal architrave used externally on the bay window to the bedroom in the front southwest corner of the house. This window is protected by a verandah.
In addition, much use of early 20th century coloured glass has been made throughout the house - in windows, doors, side and fanlights to doors and to windows, and as a screen between the entrance vestibule and the hallway which leads to the bedrooms. Etched glass has also been used, although not as extensively.
The most distinctive change has been the removal of two walls in the eastern wing, to form one large, L-shaped living room from two smaller rooms and a passageway. However, the pressed metal ceilings of the original rooms have been retained, indicating the original room arrangement. Large, clear-glass casement windows in the eastern and northern walls of this large room offer extensive views to the ocean.
The interior has been painted throughout, and some of the floors have had new timber laid over the original flooring.
The grounds contain several mature trees, possibly part of the early 20th century garden, including a large fig tree on the northern boundary of the house block. Some of the early garden layout may survive.
","history":"This substantial, high-set timber residence was erected in the early 1900s in at least two stages, for pioneer Mapleton orchardist William James Smith and his family, at their Seaview Orchard at the top of the Blackall Range. In the 1920s the well-known Seaview Orchard was acquired by the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, the Rev. James Duhig, who hoped to develop it as St Isidore's Farm College. Although this and adjoining farms remained the property of the Church until the early 1950s, the college was never established.
WJ Smith and his brother Thomas David were the first to take up land in the Mapleton district, and had an important association with fruit-growing in Southeast Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They had arrived in Queensland from England in 1880 with their parents, who established banana and strawberry farm at Redland Bay. In 1889 WJ and TD Smith, both in their early twenties, explored the Mapleton district [then unnamed] on the Blackall Range, in search of land suitable for banana growing. Since 1860 the Range had been logged for its extensive cedar, beech and pine resources, but difficulty of access had deterred farming settlement. In 1889 the North Coast railway was completed as far as Caboolture, and a coach ran to Noosa, but the only way into the Blackall Range was by foot.
The Smith brothers each selected land at the eastern edge of the range, near later Mapleton Falls, but WJ Smith relinquished his claim when he realised the block selected was not the land he anticipated. In 1890 they began clearing Thomas' selection, selling the red cedar to a logging company, and erecting a slab house. Their sister Amy came from Redland Bay to housekeep for them. By 1891 they had established a pasture paddock and had planted bananas [the butts obtained from Redland Bay] and subsistence crops. They also took contracts to open a road into the district - a track suitable for pack horses, opened in 1891.
In the early 1890s other settlers took up land in the area. Bananas were grown initially, but even with the opening of the railway to Nambour in 1890, low prices and the expense and difficulty encountered in transporting produce down the range produced small returns. By 1892, the Smith brothers were pioneering the cultivation of citrus at Mapleton. Strawberries were planted between the citrus seedlings, and these proved profitable as an interim crop.
In September 1891 WJ Smith married Sarah Anne Imogene (Annie) Collins, whose family were Redland Bay settlers, and the couple returned to the Blackall Range. In mid-1892 Smith selected the property which he developed as Seaview Orchard - portion 185v, parish of Maroochy, comprising just under 160 acres of dense vine scrub. About the same time David J Williams, who married Amy Smith in 1892, selected a block adjacent to WJ Smith.
For a brief period the district was known as Luton Vale, after a postal receiving office opened at EH Biggs' Lutonvale Orchard in January 1893. Later, at a public meeting held in March 1894, Mapleton was chosen as the formal name for the settlement, at WJ Smith's suggestion.
During the 1890s, most of the Mapleton settlers resided in slab huts while they established their farms and orchards. DJ Williams reputedly was the first to erect a pit-sawn timber house, in 1895. By August 1897, when WJ Smith was applying for a title to his selection, the family was still residing in a 22 x 18 feet, 4-roomed split timber dwelling with a shingled roof, valued at £20. They had about 8 acres of their 160 acres cleared and planted with fruit trees, 2 acres partly cleared and under grass, and 6 acres felled. Having fulfilled the conditions of selection, title was issued to WJ Smith in January 1898.
By 1900, Mapleton was emerging as an important fruit-growing district. A provisional school opened in mid-1899, and the original Nambour-Mapleton road, used by wheeled vehicles since c1894, had been cleared. The Smiths [David Smith snr (who had joined his sons at Mapleton c1894), TD Smith and WJ Smith] were the principal citrus growers in the district, Seaview Orchard alone containing over 1,000 fruit trees by 1903. Large quantities of strawberries were still grown, fetching good prices at Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
The first section of Seaview House may have been constructed by October 1906, when the WJ Smiths hosted a luncheon in their barn for the Governor, Lord Chelmsford, during his brief tour of the Blackall Range. At this time the place was described as a beautiful home, suggesting that it was much more than the slab hut extant in 1897. A photograph published in The Queenslander of 29 July 1911 [right] shows the core of the present house, with its two front gables and front and side verandahs, set in a partly established garden. The house contained 6 rooms originally, but was extended to 10 rooms c1913. The pressed metal internal finishes may have been installed during the extensions, since the Sydney-based pressed metal manufacturer, Wunderlich Ltd, had opened its Brisbane art metal factory and tile yards in January 1913. A photograph published in 1921 [left], but likely taken c1915/16, shows the house in its present form, with the western extension.
Timber used in the construction is likely to have been milled locally, WH Rosser having opened the Mapleton Sawmill, about 1 mile northwest of the township in January 1909. Although destroyed by fire c1911, it was quickly rebuilt by Rosser and Willbrandt on the eastern side of Mapleton Hall grounds.
The builder of Seaview House was James Blair Cramb, who married the Smiths' daughter Ethel Florence (Florrie) in 1912. He also built DJ Williams' new home, Caringa, c1911. The Williams were neighbours of the WJ Smiths, related by marriage, and their homes, situated within close proximity, were very similar in appearance. Caringa has been moved to Yandina.
In 1910, WJ Smith subdivided portion 185v, parish of Maroochy, Seaview house and orchard remaining on approximately 35 acres.
By the early 1910s Mapleton was a prosperous agricultural district, specialising in citrus and banana growing and dairying. In 1914-15 Maroochy Shire Council extended the former Moreton Central Mill tramline from Kureelpa to Mapleton to serve the Blackall Range fruitgrowers. The Range had become one of the leading fruit-producing districts in Queensland, and Seaview Orchard was famous.
The WJ Smiths were pioneers and leaders in their local community, assisting many new farmers in the district. They were heavily involved with the Mapleton Methodist Church and William was a member of the local masonic order and of the School Committee, Tramway Committee, and Progress Association, being elected President of the latter in June 1911. In 1914 he was made chairman of the influential Queensland Fruitgrowers' Industrial Trading Society. Annie Smith was noted for her community activities, and for her First World War patriotic work. In 1919 they retired from citrus growing and moved to Northgate in Brisbane, but prior to their leaving the Mapleton district, they were accorded a public farewell and address. In 1928 they moved to Maroochydore, where they conducted a store at Picnic Point for some years. Both William and Annie died in the 1950s, when in their eighties.
In 1919 WJ Smith sold Seaview Orchard and residence to James Miller, who in 1923 sold the orchard to the Archbishop of Brisbane, Rev. James Duhig. The sale included Seaview House: a large roomy structure, with a delightful garden in front, artistically laid out, with graceful palms at the entrance. Duhig acquired in total about 130 acres at Mapleton, which he intended to develop as a Catholic agricultural college. A dormitory wing extension to Seaview House was planned; a farm manager was employed; and the property was renamed St Isidore's Farm College. However, Duhig's vision was not shared by the Brisbane diocese in general, who refused to finance the establishment of a Catholic agricultural college at Mapleton. In addition, Duhig failed to attract a monastic order to take charge of the proposed college. He more or less abandoned the farm manager, who could not run the place effectively by himself and without funds. The once fine orchard was allowed to deteriorate, and the place was in debt. In June 1932, when Messrs D Zalatel & Co. took possession of the furniture at St Isidore's Farm College, the former Seaview residence had been little altered, comprising hall, sitting room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, breakfast room, laundry, four bedrooms, one verandah bedroom, and a bathroom.
It is unlikely that the former Seaview Orchard would have been sustained, even had the college become a reality. From the 1930s to the 1950s, citrus growing in the Mapleton district gradually gave way to dairying, timber, small cropping and, in the 1950s, pineapples. The once spectacularly successful commercial citrus industry on the Blackall Range disappeared, due to a collapse in the citrus market in the early 1930s, insect damage, and competition from citrus farming in irrigated areas [such as the Lockyer Valley].
By February 1947, when the National Catholic Rural Movement [NCRM] took over management of St Isidore's Farm College, aiming to bring it back into production and to establish an Agricultural Training College, there was no cultivation and no livestock on the farm, the property was overgrown with weeds, and its three houses, including the former Seaview residence, were in disrepair. Within 8 months, under a capable farm manager, fields of potatoes, onions and citrus trees had been planted, there were plans to commenced softwood silviculture, and an additional 150 acres had been purchased. Yet again, the college did not eventuate. In 1951 Duhig sold the property, which was worked as a private farm until subdivision in the late 1960s, following a real estate boom as weekend hobby farmers and retirees supplanted dairy farmers and fruit growers.
Mapleton is now principally a residential and tourist area, with some small-scale fruit and vegetable farming. By 1980, the former Seaview House was situated on a considerably reduced block of approximately 1 hectare. Known as Mapleton Homestead through the 1980s, it functioned as a private residence until opened in 1990 as Sea View Guest House, run by the MacDonagh family, and later by the O'Briens. The house was sold on yet a smaller subdivision in 1995, the new owners returning it to a family home and renaming it St Isidore's. The front yard remains, although the original garden layout has been altered. The front section of the garden, closest to the road, has been subdivided as two blocks, with different owners.
","criteria":"St Isidore's, erected in the early 1900s [in at least two stages] as the residence on Seaview Orchard, has historical significance for its association with the successful development of the Blackall Range as one of the principal citrus-producing districts in Queensland in the early 20th century.
|It is also significant as one of the few remaining substantial homes of this era left on the Range.
|The house is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial and well-detailed early 20th century rural residence.
|It has a number of aesthetic qualities, including the gabled form; decorative façade with wide verandahs intended to take advantage of the breezes and views over the Maroochy plains to the Pacific Ocean; extensive use of decorative pressed metal panelling and coloured glass; and the garden setting.
|The place is significant for its association with WJ Smith and his family and their important contribution to the establishment and growth of Mapleton and to the development of fruitgrowing in Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16233,"place_ref":601470,"name":"Mellors Drapery and Haberdashery","alternate_name":"Overells","street_address":"28 Capper Street","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1994-08-08","description":"Prominently located on the main street in Gayndah, Mellors Drapery is a single storeyed rectangular structure of concrete and timber with a corrugated iron roof.
The street facade, which faces approximately north northeast, is symmetrically arranged. It consists of a skillion roofed footpath awning supported by five timber posts, a glazed shopfront below the awning and a decorative parapet wall above. A flat ceiling lines the underside of the awning.
The decorative parapet, shaped to conceal the roof behind, consists of two peripheral bays and a central bay. The junctions between each of these bays is marked by an implied pilaster which protrudes above the remainder of the parapet. The lower peripheral bays slope up to a raised central bay; a rectangular panel which carries the name of the store. Mouldings are used to emphasise the composition.
With the exception of the shopfront the external walls of the building are massive reinforced concrete, cast insitu. The timber framed roof which terminates as a gable behind the parapet wall is hipped at the southerly end. A hipped roofed lantern is located on the ridge of the roof.
The shop front is comprised of three large display windows separated by two recessed entries. A strip of obscure fixed glass above the display windows lets light into the interior of the store. Each entry is fitted with a set of double timber doors and opens directly onto the interior of the shop.
The interior, a single large space, is divided along its central axis by a row of large timber posts supporting a timber beam which run from the front to the rear of the store. Male oriented departments are located to the east and female to the west of the axis. High level windows run along the upper part of the side wall which faces east southeast; the opposite wall has no window openings. Connecting the service areas on the easterly and westerly sides of the store with an elevated cash desk is a suspended wire system. The cash desk is located on the central axis near the rear of the store. An ornate metal and timber flying fox transports change between the service areas and the cash desk via this system of taut wires.
The entire space has a flat panelled fibrous cement ceiling with timber cover strips. Some panels feature lattice vents and pressed metal ceiling roses. A large skylight positioned on the axis between two posts illuminates the centre of the space. The sides of the skylight, lined similarly to the ceiling, slope inwards towards the top and terminate in the windows of the roof lantern. The timber framed pine floor is covered in carpet squares. The store retains many original timber shop fittings, including shelving units, timber counters and display cabinets. A skillion roofed extension, timber framed and clad in fibrous cement, has been built onto the back of the store near the south west corner.
A set of timber double doors, centrally located in the rear wall behind the cash desk, open onto an external flight of concrete steps leading to the back yard. Structures in this area include a timber and fibro shed with shallow pitched skillion roof and a small brick toilet block. Access to the yard is via an easement leading to Pineapple Street.
","history":"This single-storeyed building was completed by 1922 for Overells Pty Ltd, and replaced a previous building which had been destroyed by fire in May 1921.
Gazetted in 1849, the town of Gayndah initially developed as the centre for a number of large sheep stations taken up in the Burnett region during the 1840s. Gayndah's early growth as a pastoral "capital" is largely attributed to the determination of the squatters, and for a short time, the town reputedly rivalled Brisbane as the capital for Queensland. Gayndah also developed as the administrative centre for the area, as a school [600516] was established in 1861, and post office and court house were erected. A branch of the Commerical Banking Company of Sydney was opened in 1864, and a local government authority was established in 1867. By the late nineteenth century, cattle had replaced sheep as the dominant pastoral activity. Citrus orchards also flourished, and together with cattle and dairy farming, provided the basis for the development of Gayndah from the turn of the century.
The land on which the shop stands was acquired by Andrew Brown of Gayndah in 1858, then by Francis Brown in 1864. The titles documents describe Francis Brown as a storekeeper of Gayndah, and include mention of houses and buildings, possibly referring to a shop on this site. Following Francis' death in 1910, the land was acquired by Martin Conrad Stephenson of Gayndah in 1911. Stephenson is listed in directories as a Store Manager.
The land was acquired by William Henry Williams, a Maryborough merchant in 1911. It is likely that Overells leased the shop from Williams at around this time, as they are recorded as having a premises in Gayndah from c1912. Photographic evidence indicates that the building was divided into two; one half occupied by Overells and the other half by Ford's Cash Store.
Between May and July 1921, three separate fires in the main street of Gayndah destroyed a total of nine shops, including the Overells and Fords building. Overells suffered a loss of approximately £3000. Shortly after the fire, Overells purchased the site of the former shop, and had commenced rebuilding their shop by August 1921, when it was noted that the new premises "will be an imposing structure when completed."
Overells established in Brisbane in the early 1880s, when WJ Overell moved to Brisbane from Tasmania. Overell opened a store in Fortitude Valley in 1883, and a store in Queen Street in 1891. The floods of 1893 destroyed the entire stock in the Queen Street store. The store in Fortitude Valley was removed to the corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets c1901, and was completely destroyed by fire in 1904. The store was rebuilt the following year. By 1910, Overells had established a number of country branches, which included Charleville, Laidley and Pittsworth.
Overells new Gayndah premises was completed in early 1922. The recollection of a former employee of Overells, describes the re-opening of the shop as a gala day for old Gayndah.
Ownership of the site was transferred to Rothberg & Co Pty Ltd in 1937, then Ronald and Edna Beaton in 1943. Ronald Beaton is listed in directories as a Gayndah storekeeper.
In 1954, Cedric Mellor, of the firm Reddan and Mellor, took out a ten year lease on the shop. Reddan and Mellor, General Drapers and Boot and Shoe Warehousemen, had been established in 1886 at Bundaberg, by Michael Reddan and William Mellor (Cedric's father). Although Cedric Mellor moved to Gayndah in 1954, Reddan and Mellor of Bundaberg continued to trade under both names, finally closing in 1985.
Mellors Pty Ltd purchased the Gayndah shop in 1963, and John Mellor, grandson of William Mellor, has been Managing Director of the business since 1973. The rear of the building was extended during the 1960s.
","criteria":"Mellors Drapery and Haberdashery, erected by 1922, is situated on land which has been the site of a store in Gayndah from the late 19th century, and as such, demonstrates the development of the town as a commercial centre for the Burnett district.
|The intact interior space complete with many fittings such as shelves, display cabinets and counters housing a traditional range of merchandise organised into departments is a rare survivor of the pressures of commerce. In particular the flying fox cash dispenser provides rare evidence of money handling technology of the early 20th century.
|Mellors, an excellent and comprehensive example of a medium sized provincial store, is outstanding in its preservation of not only the physical fabric - the mass concrete construction, characteristic shop front, elegant interior and skylight; but also of the social fabric - a relatively unchanged style of management and service.
|(Criterion under review)
|Built in the early 1920s as a country branch of Overells Pty Ltd, the store has an association with Overells, previously one of the major department stores in Queensland. Mellors continues its association with the Mellor family, who have been connected with retailing in central Queensland from 1886.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16235,"place_ref":601472,"name":"Residence, 107 Kadumba Street (c1914)","alternate_name":"John Mills' Residence","street_address":"107 Kadumba Street","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"107 Kadumba Street is a large, picturesque single-storeyed timber residence, with a corrugated iron roof and timber verandahs. The house is one of a group of three adjacent substantial late 19th and early 20th century timber residences on Kadumba Street screened by a streetscape of mature trees, and contributes to both the streetscape of Kadumba Street and the townscape of Yeronga.
This deep plan house is covered by a capacious hipped roof with three projecting gables to the street-facing elevation to the south and one to the west, and sits above ground level on timber stumps in-filled with timber batten screens. It is encircled by verandahs of varying depths: narrow to the north for service access; more generous to the south for entrance areas; deeper again to the west adjacent to bedrooms, and forming a large outdoor room adjacent to bedrooms and kitchen to the east (an early extension). The verandah ceilings vary in height; flat under gables and raked elsewhere. The house is clad in chamferboard to gable ends and rear service areas, and vertically jointed timber with externally expressed framing in areas protected by verandahs. External rooms open onto verandahs with timber double doors with curved mullions and fanlights.
The southern, street facing elevation has three gabled bays with central stairs; the central, smaller bay is enclosed and forms the main entrance to the house. The bays either side have double square posts, with curvilinear valances, and a spandrel panel of timber battens above. The central bay also has valances, a smaller batten frieze, gable battening, and marbled timber door surrounds.
The house has a symmetrically organised plan, comprising two finely decorated major central rooms - a Drawing Room to the south and Billiard Room to the north, flanked by wings of bedrooms, with the kitchen in the north west corner. The entrance lobby projects into the Drawing Room, and has a front door with coloured glass surrounds, and small side doors with coloured glass panels. The Drawing Room is a generously proportioned and finely finished space, with a timber boarded ceiling with raked edges and a central coloured glass rooflight, and a frieze running between a timber picture rail and cornice. The door between the Drawing Room and Billiard Room has fine coloured glass panels in timber surrounds. The Billiard Room is encircled with 'grained' painted timber panels which run under a silky oak shelf at lintel height, with vertically jointed timber above, finishing in a stencilled frieze running between a timber picture rail and cornice. The north-eastern corner of the room has a diagonally placed fireplace with glazed ceramic tiles, and silky oak mantelpiece and cabinet above. The western end has a large mirror in richly carved surrounds, while the northern wall forms a bay with a central window, and has double doors either side of the bay. Bedrooms all are lined with vertically-jointed timber walls and ceilings, and have fretwork fanlights above the doors.
A weatherboard tennis shed, part of the grounds prior to subdivision and now moved to a new site, is located in the south-west corner of the rear garden, having been moved from another site. The front yard contains a number of mature Tallowwoods, thought to be part of the original forest.
","history":"This house was erected c1914/15 for John Charles Mills and his wife Sarah, who purchased the Yeronga site, which then comprised nearly 2 acres, in October 1913. The transfer was registered in the name of Sarah Mills in January 1915. A map of the Kitchener Estate at Yeronga, which was auctioned on 24 April 1915, refers to John Mills' new residence, and it is likely the house was completed by this date.
John Mills was a successful Brisbane printer, who traded from Adelaide Street as Mills and Green, printers and stationers, in the early years of the 20th century. From 1909, however, Mills was trading as John Mills Himself. During the First World War his business expanded, with a warehouse established at Newstead, and in 1919 he erected new brick premises at 40 Charlotte Street, Brisbane [600084], designed by Brisbane architect John Henry Burley of Queen Street. By the 1920s the business was well established, attracting clients such as Steele Rudd. After his death, the business was conducted by his sons, John and Sam, and remained in the family until the 1980s.
It is possible that JH Burley also designed the Mills' Kadumba Street residence. Burley established a sound architectural practice in southeast Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his residential work including St Joseph's Presbytery, Kangaroo Point [1899], Bellissima Guest House, Canungra, for the Lahey family [1916] and Inverness, the Nestles Company's manager's house at Toogoolawah [1917 - 600498].
John and Sarah Mills resided at Kadumba Street [the section between Grimes and Douglas Streets was known as Dunn Street until 1946] from c1915. John died in 1934, but his wife remained in their Yeronga home until her death in 1953. The property then passed to Queensland Trustees Ltd and was sold to Frederick William Filer and James Francis Swengley in 1954. In 1958 the house, on a reduced site, passed to James Francis and Grace Agnes Swengley, and they sold this property to Keith Eric Watt in 1962. In 1989 it was acquired by heritage conservation writer Ian Evans, who restored the house and grounds.
","criteria":"107 Kadumba Street is significant historically as important evidence of the evolution of Yeronga as a middle-class residential suburb, established as such in the late 19th century, and sustained into the second half of the 20th century.
|It has the potential to reveal further information about late 19th/early 20th century Brisbane architects and their work, and may prove to be a fine example of the work of Brisbane architect JH Burley.
|It is a substantial, picturesque, early 20th century timber residence set in a garden of mature Tallowwood trees, and contains particularly fine interiors.
|As one of a group of similarly substantial late 19th and early 20th century timber residences on Kadumba Street, the building contributes to the streetscape of Kadumba Street and to the townscape of Yeronga.
|The place is significant also for its association with successful Brisbane printer John Charles Mills, who from 1909 traded as John Mills Himself.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16236,"place_ref":601473,"name":"Astolat","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"96 Kadumba Street","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"Astolat is a picturesque single-storeyed timber residence, with a corrugated iron roofs and timber verandahs. It sits towards the rear of a wedge-shaped block, and has a front garden with mature trees and a circular drive. The house is one of a group of three adjacent substantial late 19th and early 20th century timber residences on Kadumba St screened by a streetscape of mature trees, and contributes to both the streetscape of Kadumba St and the townscape of Yeronga.
The house has an L-shaped plan, with a hipped primary roof encircled by a raked verandah roof. It has verandahs to the north and the west, and a projecting hexagonal bay at the north west corner. A wide set of timber stairs extends out to the north east from the hexagonal bay.
The house is lined with deep chamferboards and rests on a brick base with screened panels. It has timber double doors with fanlights and louvred outer leaves opening onto the verandah. The verandah has square timber posts with square capitals and arched timber valances, surmounted by spandrels with fine lattice battening, and cast iron balustrades.
","history":"Astolat was erected c1890 for Brisbane solicitor Adolph Frederick Milford Feez, following transfer of the 2 acre 20 perch site to Albrecht Feez, his father, in April 1890. It is thought to have been designed by Brisbane architect GHM Addison.
The house was erected during an important phase in the development of Yeronga. The Yeronga pocket, which fronts the Brisbane River on the eastern side of the Long Pocket Reach, had been taken up for farming purposes in the early 1850s. In the mid-1860s, part of portion 7 (the Kadumba Street area) was subdivided into large residential allotments fronting the river, but in the 1880s, the area suddenly became a fashionable suburban address. The impetus for successful Brisbane businessmen, lawyers, politicians, and civil servants to establish large residences on the river at Yeronga, came with the construction of the South Brisbane rail line from Corinda to Stanley Street, which opened in 1884 and followed Fairfield Road for much of the way.
The majority of fine 1880s and 1890s houses erected in the Yeronga area were built from 1885, following the opening of Yeronga Station that year. Only a few of these residences survive to illustrate the late 19th century development of Yeronga as a middle-class commuter suburb. Amongst those remaining are Como (1889-90) and solicitor Adolph Feez's home Astolat (c1890), which occupy adjacent sites on the southern side of Kadumba Street; Rhyndarra (1889) [600360] at the western end of Kadumba Street; and Avoca (c1880s) in nearby Feez Street.
Yeronga-Lea (c1883), the earliest of the large homes erected in the area, no longer survives. The residence of newspaperman and politician Charles Hardie Buzacott, and of Premier TJ Byrnes in the late 1880s and 1890s, Yeronga-Lea was located on the riverbank, on about 9½ acres of land adjoining the southern boundary of what became the Hayne property. Reputedly, the suburb derives its name from this house. In 1885 the Railway Department named the local station after Mr Buzacott's home, and by January 1886, local residents universally referred to the area as Yeronga, distinguishing themselves from the more generic term of Boggo, the early name for the whole of the district between Clarence Corner and Oxley. Kadumba, erected c1885 for the Grimes family, which had owned farming land at Fairfield/Yeronga/Yeerongpilly since the 1870s, is no longer extant, its name perpetuated in one of the suburb's principal streets.
Astolat may have been designed by respected Brisbane architect GHM Addison of the Melbourne-based firm Oakden, Addison & Kemp, who had called tenders for a house at Indooroopilly for Arthur Feez, Adolph's brother, in late 1887. The verandah detailing and the bay window expressed in the roof by a chamfered hip, are reminiscent of other Addison domestic designs of this period, including Ralahyne (1888) [600182], Kirkston (1888-89) [600351], and the 1888 extensions to Stanley Hall [600183].
The name Astolat is associated with the Arthurian legend, and was mentioned in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, published in England in the 1400s. Elaine, maid of Astolat, drowned herself for the love of Sir Lancelot, Knight of the Round Table. The Feez family appears to have had some fascination for the legend - Adolph Feez's first child, born on 7 March 1890, was christened Elaine.
Adolph Feez, for whom Astolat was commissioned, was born in Brisbane in 1858, son of Rockhampton businessman and politician Colonel Albrecht Feez and Sophia Milford, daughter of Moreton Bay's first Supreme Court Judge. Educated in Rockhampton and Sydney, he spent several years surveying in the Riverina and in western Queensland before taking up law. Gaining legal experience in Melbourne, Charters Towers and Cairns, he completed his articles with Peter MacPherson in Brisbane, and was admitted as a solicitor on 1 December 1885. From 1 January 1886, he was a partner in the firm of MacPherson, Miskin and Feez, solicitors. Miskin retired not long after and the firm carried on as MacPherson and Feez, and were retained in some of the major litigation of the 1890s. The partnership was dissolved c1900, following which Feez practised under his own name until 1905, when he entered into partnership with Arthur Baynes. In 1912, AFT Ruthning joined the partnership, and from 1927 the firm was known as Feez Ruthning and Company, and continues as Feez Ruthning. After nearly 60 years in the legal profession, Adolph Feez retired from practice in 1942.
Feez was a keen sportsman. He represented Queensland in Rugby Union, was an early Master of the Hunt with the Brisbane Hunt Club, founded the Queensland Polo Association, and was a foundation member of the Queensland Lawn Tennis Association. The Brisbane Hunt Club survived for about eight years in the late 1880s and 1890s, with draghunts held usually in the Yeronga district. Reputedly, Feez and his neighbour, JW Hayne, kept the kennels for the Hunt Club on their properties.
Following Albrecht Feez's death in 1896, the property passed to his two sons, Adolph and Arthur, as trustees. Arthur died in 1935, and Adolph's wife, Kate Elise Feez, was nominated trustee in his place. In the late 1930s the property was subdivided, at which time Astolat Street was formed, and by 1947 the Feez family had sold all the subdivisions apart from that on which the house stood.
Adolph Feez died at Astolat on 13 October 1944, survived by his wife and children. His son, Cecil Molle Feez, was appointed a trustee of the property in Adolph's place. Mrs Feez remained at Astolat until 1949, when the property was sold to Stanley Samuel Carrick. It remained in the Carrick family until acquired in 1963 by Dr Kenneth Wilson and his wife Jocelyn, and was transferred in 1980 to the present owners.
","criteria":"Astolat survives as an important illustration of the late 19th century transformation of Yeronga from small farming community to prestigious residential commuter suburb. From a broader perspective, it is important in illustrating the effect that access to rail transport in the late 19th century had on Brisbane's urban environment, creating in the 1870s and 1880s a string of 'outer' suburbs along the new railway lines into the capital. The place also illustrates the nature of Queensland's first generation of suburban rail commuters - principally the affluent middle-class. With the construction of this and other houses of similar status in the area in the late 19th century (including adjacent Como/Barrogill [601474]), the tone of the suburb as a quiet, middle-class residential retreat was established, and sustained into the second half of the 20th century.
|It has the potential to reveal further information about late 19th/early 20th century Brisbane architects and their work, and may prove to be a fine example of the domestic work of important Brisbane architect GHM Addison.
|Astolat is a substantial picturesque timber residence set in a garden of mature trees.
|As one of a group of substantial late 19th and early 20th century timber residences on Kadumba Street, the building contributes to both the streetscape of Kadumba Street and the townscape of Yeronga.
|The place is significant for its long association with the Feez family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16237,"place_ref":601474,"name":"Como","alternate_name":"Barrogill","street_address":"88 Kadumba Street","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"Barrogill, a picturesque substantial single-storeyed timber residence, with steeply pitched corrugated iron roofs, appears on the rise of Kadumba Street framed by its large trees. The house is one of a group of three adjacent substantial late nineteenth century timber residences on Kadumba Street screened by a streetscape of mature trees, and contributes to both the streetscape of Kadumba Street and the townscape of Yeronga.
The house comprises a picturesque composition of steep, decorated gables, encircled by verandahs. To the north, the line of the verandah roof is broken by an entry portico with a hipped roof. The residence is lined with deep chamferboard, has sliding sash windows, and sits on a brick base. The verandah has a gently curved corrugated roof, and cast iron valances and balustrades.
The residence exterior includes some fine decorative detailing. The gables have timber cross-braces, scalloped barge-boards and fretwork at the peaks. The roof is separated from the verandah by a stepped cornice with dentils. The entry portico has a pair of timber panelled arches with keystones, surmounted by a cornice with dentils.
The garden contains fine, mature trees. A row of mango trees lines the south western edge of the site; a large camphor laurel is centrally located in the northern yard; several mango trees line the northern boundary, and a tall hoop pine marks the driveway entrance.
In 1993, the house was described in an auction notice as having ... Wide entrance hall. 4 bedrooms. Formal lounge. Dining room with fireplace. Large sitting room. Reading lounge with fireplaces...Attic. High 3.66 metre ceilings. A newspaper article from the same year described a ...front door (with) spectacular stained glass side and fanlights featuring hand-painted birds and butterflies.
","history":"Barrogill, known earlier as Como, was erected in 1889-90 for Brisbane businessman James Walter Hayne, who had acquired the site in October 1889. The architect was Alexander Brown Wilson, and the contractor, accepted in late 1889, was a Mr Peterson, with a tender of £999, the work to be completed by February 1890.
The house was erected during an important phase in the development of Yeronga. The Yeronga pocket, which fronts the Brisbane River on the eastern side of the Long Pocket Reach, had been taken up for farming purposes in the early 1850s. In the mid-1860s, part of portion 7 (the Kadumba Street area) was subdivided into large residential allotments fronting the river, but in the 1880s, the area suddenly became a fashionable suburban address. The impetus for successful Brisbane businessmen, lawyers, politicians, and civil servants to establish large residences on the river at Yeronga, came with the construction of the South Brisbane rail line from Corinda to Stanley Street, which opened in 1884 and followed Fairfield Road for much of the way.
The majority of fine 1880s and 1890s houses erected in the Yeronga area were built from 1885, following the opening of Yeronga Station that year. Only a few of these residences survive to illustrate the late 19th century development of Yeronga as a middle-class commuter suburb. Amongst those remaining are Como (1889-90) and solicitor Adolph Feez's home Astolat (c1890), which occupy adjacent sites on the southern side of Kadumba Street; Rhyndarra (1889) [600360] at the end of Kadumba Street; and Avoca (c1880s) in nearby Feez Street.
Yeronga-Lea (c1883), the earliest of the large homes erected in the area, no longer survives. The residence of newspaperman and politician Charles Hardie Buzacott, and of Premier TJ Byrnes in the late 1880s and 1890s, Yeronga-Lea was located on the riverbank, on about 9½ acres of land adjoining the southern boundary of what became the Hayne property. Reputedly, the suburb derives its name from this house. In 1885 the Railway Department named the local station after Mr Buzacott's home, and by January 1886, local residents universally referred to the area as Yeronga, distinguishing themselves from the more generic term of Boggo, the early name for the whole of the district between Clarence Corner and Oxley. Kadumba, erected c1885 for the Grimes family, which had owned farming land at Fairfield/Yeronga/Yeerongpilly since the 1870s, is no longer extant, its name perpetuated in one of the suburb's principal streets.
AB Wilson, the designer of Como, was a highly respected Brisbane architect who had developed a substantial practice by the late 1880s. His domestic work included Kinauld (600225) in Highgate Hill, erected in the late 1880s, and Home (600242), the landmark house in Leopard Street at Kangaroo Point, built for the Lamb family in 1902. Wilson also designed the Mowbraytown Presbyterian Church (601219) in 1885 and additions to the Ann Street Presbyterian Church (600071) in 1897. His commercial architecture included The Plough Inn (600294) at South Brisbane, constructed in 1885.
JW Hayne, for whom Como was commissioned, was born in England in 1852 and emigrated to Queensland in 1864 with his parents, who settled in Ipswich. In 1877 he moved to Brisbane and entered the ironmongery firm of Perry Brothers, working his way up to chief clerk and accountant. In 1885 he left Perry Brothers and established a house and land agency in Brisbane, and in the 1890s, entered the boot trade. From at least 1909 until c1920, he was the Queensland representative of the Sydney Morning Herald and Sydney Mail.
At the time his new home was being constructed at Yeronga in 1889-90, Hayne was auditor for the South Brisbane Municipal Council, and secretary of various public companies. He resided at Yeronga with his wife and three daughters only until the late 1890s, but appears to have retained Como until 1915. Reputedly, JW Hayne and his neighbour, Adolph Feez, kept on their properties the kennels for the Brisbane Hunt Club, which flourished in Yeronga in the late 1880s and 1890s.
Thomas Lahey, of sawmillers and timber merchants Lahey Brothers & Nicklin, occupied Como from c1901-c1907. David Cannon, a western Queensland station owner, hotel proprietor and former Longreach and Barcoo shire councillor, 'retired' to Como in 1912, and in February 1915, the title to the Yeronga property was transferred to Margaret Cannon, his wife. Mrs Cannon died in 1923, following which the property passed to the Union Trustee Company of Australia Ltd. In 1925, Como was occupied by another semi-retired western Queensland grazier, Thomas Purcell of Galway Downs near Windorah, and in 1933 the title to the property was transferred to his widow, Subyna Purcell. Mrs Purcell had left Como by that stage, and from 1932 to 1935 the house was occupied by William E Gardner. In 1954 the property was acquired by Emily Perla Brown, and transferred the same year to Donald and Elsie Rosie. The Rosies renamed the house Barrogill, after a castle in Scotland, and in 1958 subdivided the land into five allotments. In 1968 a two-bedroomed, self-contained annex to the house was constructed, to plans drawn by Bligh Jessop Bretnall, architects. The house was retained by the Rosie family until 1993.
","criteria":"Barrogill survives as an important illustration of the late 19th century transformation of Yeronga from small farming community to prestigious residential commuter suburb. From a broader perspective, it is important in illustrating the effect that access to rail transport in the late 19th century had on Brisbane's urban environment, creating in the 1870s and 1880s a string of 'outer' suburbs along the new railway lines into the capital. The place also illustrates the nature of Queensland's first generation of suburban rail commuters - principally the affluent middle-class. With the construction of this and other houses of similar status in the area in the late 19th century (including adjacent Astolat [601473]), the tone of the suburb as a quiet, middle-class residential retreat was established, and sustained into the second half of the 20th century.
|Barrogill is a substantial picturesque timber residence set in a fine garden of mature trees, which appears on the rise of Kadumba Street framed by its large trees.
The house is an excellent and substantially intact example of the domestic work of important Brisbane architect AB Wilson.
|As the most visible of a group of substantial late 19th and early 20th century timber residences on Kadumba Street, the building and grounds contribute significantly to the streetscape of Kadumba Street and the townscape of Yeronga.
|The house is an excellent and substantially intact example of the domestic work of important Brisbane architect AB Wilson.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16238,"place_ref":601475,"name":"West End Cemetery","alternate_name":"Townsville General Cemetery","street_address":"33 Church Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-06-04","description":"West End Cemetery, Townsville is located on the southern slope of Castle Hill and is bounded to the north by unmade road reserve (Francis Street), on the west by Church Street, on the south by a recreation reserve fronting Flinders Street West and residential allotments fronting Norman and Musgrave Streets, and on the east by a school reserve.
The site is dissected east-west by two unmade paths, dividing the cemetery into Blocks A and C to the south, Block B between the paths, and Block D to the north. These paths meet a creek running through the eastern side of the cemetery. Between the creek and the school reserve on the eastern boundary is Block E, which was reserved for unsanctified burials. The graves of Chinese, Jewish and Aboriginal people as well as members of lodges and those who committed suicide are buried in this section. Only a small number of headstones remain in Block E and it is possible some graves have been washed away during floods because cast iron and headstone fragments can be found in the creek. Unlike many cemeteries, West End, with the exception of the unsanctified section across the creek, is not divided into denominational sections. However, all graves are oriented to the east in usual fashion.
Large banyan, fig and mango trees are the main plantings. An avenue of mahogany trees, running north-south from the adjacent recreation reserve, marks the original entrance off the end of Pridmore Street. There is an early perimeter fence of rendered masonry with cast iron panels along the Church Street boundary, with the roots of mature banyans grown over the fence and nearby graves. The main entrance, off Church Street, appears to have been constructed at the same time as the fence.
West End Cemetery contains many substantial headstones of quality design and craftsmanship, which illustrate trends in Queensland monumental architectural from the 1860s to the early 20th century. The oldest headstone in the cemetery dates from 4 March 1868. Materials used include marble, sandstone, granite and a concrete and pebble mix. The first marble headstones were imported from Carrara in Italy. After the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, marble from Ulam near Rockhampton was used. Sandstone, which was not available locally, was brought from Helidon Quarry near Toowoomba, Coffs Harbour in New South Wales and from around Sydney. The only local material identified is granite from Magnetic Island and pink granite from Herveys Range and Castle Hill. More recent headstones and graves are made from cast concrete and are less ornate. Of the graves established between 1896 and 1919, 52 percent are surrounded by ironwork.
Many early inhabitants of Townsville and North Queensland are buried in West End Cemetery. Andrew Ball, founder of Townsville and a prominent businessman in the infant town, was buried in 1894. William Hann, an early settler in the Kennedy District was buried in 1889 and Charles Rowe, a partner with JM Black in the establishment of Black's pastoral empire in North Queensland was interred in 1900. Thankful Willmett, printer and businessman, George Burns, MLA and Captain Sinclair, founder of Bowen, also are buried in the cemetery. A large mound in Block A is said to be a communal grave for child victims of an 1890s epidemic.
","history":"West End Cemetery, surveyed in 1865, was Townsville's first official cemetery and second burial ground. The first burial ground was located north of the main settlement along the beach in North Ward, but this was abandoned within a couple of years as settlement spread rapidly north around Castle Hill. It was not an officially gazetted cemetery, and was not included in the first town plan of Townsville, completed early in 1865.
The official Townsville General Cemetery [West End Cemetery] was surveyed along with Townsville's first suburban allotments, west of the main settlement on Ross Creek, in November 1865. It comprised 19 acres of Suburban Section 1 at the base of Castle Hill, and was bounded by unmade road reserves to the west, north and east, and separated from the main track into Townsville (later Flinders Street West) by private allotments. Although not officially gazetted as a cemetery reserve until 1872, the burial ground was used from at least March 1868 when Captain Henry Sinclair, founder of Bowen, was buried there.
Prior to 1872 there was no official administration of the West End Cemetery. In 1868 a committee was established to raise funds to fence the cemetery, and this was completed by July 1869, but there were no trustees and no burial register was being kept. Finally, in August 1872, the Townsville Cemetery Reserve at West End was gazetted and trustees were appointed, following which cemetery rules were gazetted in July 1873 and a burial register established later that year.
Prior to 1880, access to the cemetery was over privately owned land between Flinders Street West and the reserve. In June 1880 the trustees succeeded in having the cemetery reserve extended to include Lot 1 of Suburban Section 1, a 4 acre allotment adjoining the cemetery and fronting Flinders Street West, in order to create official access to the cemetery from the main road into Townsville. However, this extension was cancelled in 1884 and the land reserved for school purposes. In 1886 the southeast corner of the original cemetery reserve was excised for school reserve as well, and new access to the main road was established with the addition to the cemetery of Lot 4 of Suburban Section 1 (5 acres at the corner of Church Street and Flinders Street West).
When surveyed in 1865, the cemetery was well outside the town boundaries. However, within a decade settlement was developing around the Carriers Arms Hotel at what had become known as Townsville's West End. By 1878 a soap works, foundry and commercial buildings, together with Frederick Ashton's estate, were located close to the burial site, now situated within the town boundaries. By the 1890s West End was a thriving suburb as well as a commercial and business centre, and a state school had been established on the reserve at the corner of Wilson and Flinders Street West, adjacent to the cemetery.
As the suburb grew concern was expressed that the cemetery was badly located at the base of Castle Hill. The community was worried that rainwater leaching from the hill was likely to contaminate a nearby creek, and in the 1890s the trustees searched for an alternative location for Townsville's general cemetery. On 10 November 1900 a new cemetery reserve of 100 acres at Belgian Gardens, on the Townsville Town Common, was proclaimed. The sale of burial plots at West End Cemetery ceased in 1902, but the cemetery was not closed at this time.
With the establishment of the new cemetery at Belgian Gardens, lack of revenue for maintenance at the West End Cemetery became a major issue. In 1901 the trustees relinquished the unfenced part of the cemetery, about 3 acres at the corner of Flinders Street West and Church Street, reducing the size of the cemetery reserve to 16 acres. The excised land was gazetted a recreation reserve, administered by the Townsville Municipal Council. However, in 1910 the recreation reserve (minus a road reserve - now Pridmore Street) was returned to the cemetery reserve, the Council having failed to carry out improvements. It remained a constant source of annoyance to the cemetery trustees that their resources were being spent on maintaining ground which did not contain graves. However, the new road reserve created formal access from Flinders Street West to the main entrance gate and tree lined road through the cemetery.
West End Cemetery was closed officially in 1930, with only previously purchased plots used for burials after that time. Since 1930 up to 288 people have been buried in family graves at West End. Further changes to the cemetery boundary were made in 1935 when 3 acres, excised from the north east corner, was added to the adjacent school reserve.
During the Second World War a Civil Construction Corp camp was established on the unfenced section of the cemetery reserve at the corner of Church Street and Flinders Street West. It is believed that the cemetery entrance gates and turnstile at the end of Pridmore Street were removed at this time and a new entrance created off Church Street. This unfenced area was again excised from the cemetery reserve in 1958 to create the present recreation reserve. Since that time the cemetery reserve has comprised just under 15 acres.
Two important firms of monumental masons working in Townsville made significant contributions to the monumental architecture in the West End Cemetery. From the late 19th century until 1984, Melrose and Fenwick produced both headstones and wrought iron grave surrounds; Whebells, operating from the late 19th century to the 1950s, made headstones.
On 24 December 1971 cyclone Althea caused considerable damage to headstones and trees at West End Cemetery, and vandalism and neglect have added to the damage. However, in recent years the local community has campaigned for the cemetery to be preserved, and in 1996 the Townsville City Council commissioned the preparation of a conservation policy to give direction and guidelines for the future care and maintenance of West End Cemetery.
","criteria":"West End Cemetery is important because it provides evidence of the history and demography of Townsville and district. It also demonstrates architectural trends in monumental design during the latter half of the 19th and early 20th century.
West End Cemetery served as Townsville's General Cemetery from c1868 to 1902, and contains the graves of people important in the history of Townsville, the region and Queensland generally.
|In consequence, the cemetery provides a unique source of historical information about the development of Townsville and of North Queensland.
|The place remains a substantially intact example of a 19th Queensland cemetery, containing early headstones, plantings and perimeter fencing. In illustrating its type, the cemetery is an important source of information about the work of monumental masons and the history of cemetery design and aesthetics in Queensland.
|The diverse collection of memorials, the location at the base of Castle Hill, the plantings and perimeter fencing, also exhibit significant and evocative aesthetic characteristics.
|The Townsville community values the cemetery because of its association with the city and region's early founders, and because many local people have family buried there.
|West End Cemetery has special association with people of importance in Townsville, regional and Queensland history, including Andrew Ball, founder of Townsville, William Hann, early settler in the Kennedy Region, George Burns, an early Townsville MLA, Captain Sinclair, founder of Bowen, as well as a number of Townsville mayors and prominent citizens.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16239,"place_ref":601476,"name":"East Brisbane State School","alternate_name":"Brisbane East State School","street_address":"90 Wellington Road","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-11-06","description":"East Brisbane State School stands on a large, prominent site in East Brisbane, approximately 2km southeast of Brisbane CBD. The rectangular site is bounded on its east by Wellington Road, to which the school fronts, on its south by Stanley Street, north by Vulture Street, and west by the Brisbane Cricket Ground. Parts of the cricket stadium overhang and stand in the school grounds within easements.
\nStanding at the main front entrance of the school is Block A (1899-1900, extended 1939), a large brick classroom building, U-shaped around a central open area, the Former Parade Ground (1900). Standing southwest of Block A in the site’s southwestern corner is the Former Gymnasium (1907), a small, single-storey, timber building.
\nThe school grounds include six mature fig trees (Ficus sp. likely F. microcarpa) lining the south and east boundaries, remnants of a more extensive planting scheme (by 1946) that has been reduced over time.
\nFeatures of East Brisbane State School of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of East Brisbane State School not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock A (1899-1900, extended/remodelled 1939)
\nBlock A comprises three connected wings forming a symmetrical U-shape around the Former Parade Ground. It is highly intact, retaining original fabric (1899/1900) and fabric from its extension/remodelling (1939).
\nThe building faces east to Wellington Road and is highset to form an open understorey play area. The north and south wings are single-storey and the connecting centre wing is two-storey. The building is face brick with gable and hip roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. Verandahs run along the long sides of the wings and return across the east side of the side wings, providing access to the classrooms. Attached to the centre of the verandahs of the side wings facing the Former Parade Ground are small face brick blocks – former teacher’s rooms or hatrooms – with gable roofs. Projecting forward from the centre of the front of the central wing is a three-storey, square tower with pyramidal roof forming the main entrance and attached to it on one side is a round belltower with cupola roof.
\nThe building comprises two initial sections (1899 and 1900) that have been modified and extended (1939). Fabric dating after this is not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Block A of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nUnderstorey
\nVerandahs
\nTeacher’s Rooms (1899, 1900, and 1939)
\nCentral Tower
\nMain Hall
\nClassroom Wings
\nFeatures of Block A not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nUnderstorey
\nVerandahs
\nTeacher’s Rooms
\nMain Hall
\nClassroom Wings
\nFormer Parade Ground (1900)
\nThe Former Parade Ground is an open, flat forecourt east of Block A. It forms the main entrance to the school. It has been re-landscaped with modern materials but retains its original size and remains an open outdoor space.
\nFeatures of the Former Parade Ground of state level cultural heritage significance include its:
\nFeatures of the Former Parade Ground not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews to Block A from along Stanley Street and Wellington Road
\nViews of state level cultural heritage significance at the place include:
\nFormer Gymnasium (1907, and alterations for woodworking classrooms 1951)
\nThe Former Gymnasium is a small, rectangular, timber-framed building. Purpose-built as a school gymnasium, it is highly intact, retaining a substantial amount of 1907 fabric, as well as minor window additions from its 1951 conversion to woodworking classrooms.
\nIn 2023 it comprises a single large room used as an assembly hall with a raised stage at one end.
\nFeatures of the Former Gymnasium of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\n1907 Fabric
\nEarly alterations for improved lighting and ventilation
\nFeatures of the Gymnasium not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTrees within Grounds
\nTrees within the Grounds of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Grounds not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEast Brisbane State School opened on 10 July 1899 to meet the educational needs of the rapidly growing suburb of East Brisbane.[1] It retains excellent examples of school designs by the Department of Public Works (DPW), including: Block A (1899-1900, modernised and extended in 1939); and a rare, early Former Gymnasium (1907). These are set in landscaped grounds with play and sports areas, and mature trees.
\nEast Brisbane is part of the traditional lands of the Turrbul and Jagera peoples.[2] Non-Indigenous development commenced in the early 1850s with the establishment of three large residential estates along the southern bank of the Brisbane River between the Shafston Reach and Norman Creek.[3] East Brisbane's first suburban boom occurred in the mid-1880s, when the larger residential estates were subdivided. Further subdivision for houses was spurred by the 1897 introduction of an electric tram line to the suburb, which had more than 1600 residences by 1906. Before there was a school in the vicinity, East Brisbane children attended state schools at South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point, and Dutton Park.[4]
\nThe movement to establish a state school at East Brisbane commenced when a committee was appointed at a public meeting in 1890. A school reserve of 0.7ha was gazetted at the corner of Stanley Street and Wellington Road in 1895, adjacent to an 1885 drill shed reserve (to the north) and an 1895 cricket and sport reserve (to the west). Following appointment of a school building committee in 1897, establishment of the school progressed. Builder John W Young’s tender was accepted on 12 October 1898, and a school building was completed on 22 May 1899 – forming the first section of the building called Block A in 2023. The total cost of this first section was around £1910.[5]
\nThe government planned the building to have a 350 student capacity. The single-storey, face brick school building comprised two wings in an L-shape raised on brick arches to form an open understorey play area. Each wing accommodated one large classroom (50ft by 25ft - 15.2m by 7.6m); with males in one classroom, and females in the other. The ceilings were 14ft (4.3m) high, coved, and lined with diagonal pine boards. The windows were tall and narrow with high sills and the gable roof, which included iron structural members, was clad with corrugated metal sheets and had rooftop ventilators. Wide verandahs along the long sides of each wing provided access to the classrooms and had small central projecting hatrooms or teacher’s rooms. The understorey included ‘lavatories’ (handbasin rooms).[6] By January 1900 the school also had two earth closet toilet blocks near the western (rear) boundary.[7]
\nEast Brisbane State School was officially opened on Saturday 8 July 1899, and enrolments grew rapidly, with students transferring from other schools. Total enrolments in 1899 were 1008, far greater than its capacity. To cope, the understorey was enclosed with corrugated iron sheets to create teaching space, and the nearby military drill shed was also utilised.[8]
\nCommencing April 1900,[9] the building was extended, mirroring the original two wings to form a U-shape around a flat parade ground, and included a grand, three-storey face brick belltower. The building’s interior had rendered and whitewashed brick walls and the rooms were well lighted from high gable windows. Ventilation was via ceiling panels through iron tubing and Boyle’s [rooftop] ventilators.[10] It cost £2285/14s, bringing the total cost of the building so far to £4210, with one sixth of this to be paid for by the community, and was officially opened 13 October 1900. The extension increased the school’s capacity to 730 students. Total enrolments that year were 1277, with an average attendance of 756.[11]
\nThe school building was an ‘Urban Brick School’, a type built in Queensland from 1899 in response to the population explosion accompanying the post-1890s Depression recovery.[12] This type was constructed in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly increasing populations. They were each designed individually by the Department of Public Works (DPW),[13] with variations in style, size, and form, but generally followed the standardised classroom sizes, layouts, and window arrangements, with a focus on providing abundant natural light and ventilation of the classrooms.[14]
\nBy the end of 1905, a ‘very handsome honour board of artistic design’ had been erected by the committee in the school, ‘on which the names of pupils who gain scholarships and of the head boys and girls for each year are to be inscribed’.[15] The board was filled with names by 1914 and a second board was made, which in turn was filled by 1939 and was supplemented by wing panels attached to its side for further space. In 2023 these boards are hung in the main hall of Block A.
\nChanges to the school reserve occurred soon after its opening. The grounds were expanded to provide land for future school buildings in 1904, with the addition of 0.2ha to the north.[16] In 1905 the school building committee requested permission to plant trees along Stanley Street and also noted it ‘should be glad if some provision could be made towards … a gymnasium, as at present [the school has] no facilities for teaching physical culture’.[17]
\nGymnasiums were not typically built at Queensland state schools, and funds for such buildings had to be partially raised by the school and its community. They were designed by the DPW and were shed-like with high, vaulted ceilings and included equipment such as ropes and rings, parallel bars, horizontal and sloping ladders, wooden horses, and mats. Surviving pre-World War II (WWII) gymnasiums in Queensland state schools are extremely rare, with only two known examples.[18]
\nDue to the high cost of a gymnasium, a standard open playshed (not extant) was built first in 1906, in the northwest corner of the extended grounds. As a decision was made that only females could use this playshed, a second playshed was requested for the males. By February 1908, the gymnasium (also referred to as a playshed) was built in the school’s southwest corner, in part using funds the school raised itself. That year Thomas Pye of the Government Architect's Office said the school had ‘the best playshed accommodation in the state’.[19]
\nThe new gymnasium was a single-storey, timber-framed building with a raised timber floor set on low brick stumps. It accommodated a single, large room with a vaulted ceiling. It was fully enclosed by single-skin walls of vertical boards but had large sliding doors in its eastern side. It had a trussed hip roof with a central glazed hip lantern roof, and evenly-spaced banks of tall, narrow, centre-pivot windows in the north and west walls. Due to overcrowding at the school, the gymnasium was also used for classes, and for other community purposes.[20]
\nDuring World War I, East Brisbane State School raised funds from the surrounding community, particularly the parents of its students, to contribute to the Patriotic and Hospital Funds. At the breaking up day ceremony of 1915, a ‘roll of honour’ was unveiled, to list ‘past pupils of the school who had volunteered for the Front’,[21] which hangs in the main hall of Block A in 2023.
\nFrom the 1910s to the 1930s, East Brisbane grew gradually as a residential suburb. By 1909, average attendance at the school was 963, and classes were being held on the open verandahs and under the school. In 1910-11 a separate, single-storey timber Infants School building (not extant) was constructed north of Block A.[22] A contemporary school photograph shows a large fig tree standing in the school grounds on the corner of Wellington Road and Stanley Street and small, evenly-spaced fig trees planted along the Stanley Street boundary.[23] These small trees are considerably larger in a photograph of 1921.[24] By June 1918, enrolment had reached 1402, with an average attendance of about 1200.[25] In 1922, it was reported the school was ‘one of the largest schools in the State’.[26]
\nIn response to continued high enrolments in the interwar period, and changes in classroom standards, Block A was extended, and its older sections were modernised to create more classrooms within the single-classroom wings and improve natural light and ventilation.[27] Designed by the DPW, these changes reflected the evolution in state school design that it had implemented since the construction of Block A in 1899/1900. Prior to 1909, state school classrooms had an equal number of windows on the students’ left and right sides. From 1909, this was changed so that windows were concentrated on one wall only, to permit natural light from the left hand side of the student – the ‘correct’ side for enforced right-handed writing. Classroom sizes were reduced in 1914 to be a standard 21ft (6.4m) wide, accommodate a single class only, and multiple classrooms were separated by folding or fixed partitions.[28]
\nThe alterations to Block A, carried out between 1937 and 1939 and costing approximately £11,230, included extending the north and south wings eastwards by 40ft (12.2m), and adding a second storey to the central wing, accessed via a new stair in the central entrance hall.[29] Partitions were added into the four existing long classrooms (some partitions were folding) and in the new second floor to form a total of 20 classrooms (12 in the central wing, and four in each of the north and south wings) capable of accommodating 1000 students. New doors were added into each new classroom, and old high-level windows were altered, repositioned, and augmented by new windows to create larger areas of windows with lower sills on the students’ left hand side. The timber-framed western verandah and central hall were rebuilt in brick and concrete.[30] Some hatrooms were demolished, new teachers’ rooms were added to the western verandah, and timber verandah stairs were replaced by masonry ones in new locations.[31] The work was officially opened 29 September 1939.[32] Contemporary photographs show the front parade ground included large, brick-edged lawn areas near the building, lattice understorey screens, and circular garden beds with shrubs.[33]
\nLike many Queensland state schools, East Brisbane was affected by WWII. After Japan’s entry into WWII, in January 1942 the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools, and although most reopened 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war’s end.[34] East Brisbane State School resumed in 1942 with only 400 students (roughly half its 1930s enrolment), sharing the grounds until 1945 with Australian military training units, including the Royal Australian Air Force and Army clerks.[35]
\nAfter WWII, enrolments did not recover to pre-war levels due to declining inner-city populations, leaving the second floor of Block A vacant.[36] By 1946, the boundary fig trees were reaching maturity and included newer trees. The 1906 girls’ playshed was removed between by 1949,[37] when the school grounds were extended northwards by 0.6ha (for a total size of 1.5ha), acquiring the remaining drill shed reserve to form a large sport and playing field.[38] In 1950, the Infants School building was also removed from the grounds.[39]
\nIn 1951, a vocational training centre was established at East Brisbane State School, for boys and girls from 15 metropolitan state schools.[40] To accommodate woodworking classrooms, the gymnasium was remodelled by adding new partitions, windows, and doors. The original sliding doors were removed, replaced by French doors, casement windows, and a covered link to a new manual training building adjacent (Block C in 2023).[41]
\nFurther buildings and facilities were added to the school over time, including a highset brick classroom building extending off the rear of Block A (1954, demolished c2001); a swimming pool (1960, extant 2023) with grandstands and dressing shed (by 1966, extant); a small highset timber classroom building northwest of Block A (c1968, demolished c2001); and replacement of the old toilets with a new toilet block (1973, demolished c2001).[42]
\nOther changes have been made to the school grounds. During the 1990s, the school was impacted by the major redevelopment of the adjacent Brisbane Cricket Ground stadium, ‘The Gabba’. In the early 1990s an area of the school grounds was leased to the Brisbane Cricket Ground Trust to construct a light tower for the cricket grounds.[43] By 1997, when the school had 240 pupils, as part of the redevelopment of the stadium the school received $1.6 million in exchange for leases above part of the school grounds to allow the eastern stand to overhang the rear of the school’s grounds.[44] As a result, several school buildings were demolished, and by 2001 a new activities shelter and a toilet block had been constructed under the overhanging east stand, as well as a new building north of Block A. Around 2010, a new resource centre building was built to the west of the swimming pool.[45]
\nPost-WWII, there have been changes to Block A. Around 1961 external enclosed fire stairs were added to the central wing’s rear (west) verandahs (demolished c2001). In the mid-1970s administration was accommodated in the south wing’s classrooms, involving the addition of partitions and suspended ceilings. Enclosures have been made to the understorey, including adding storerooms, and tuckshop (by 1960, later replaced), and removing a teachers’ toilet. Lengths of verandah were enclosed over time. By 1981, classrooms in the north wing had been opened up into a single room by demolishing the 1930s partitions.[46] In the mid-1980s further partitions between classrooms were removed and verandahs enclosed, removing original balustrades. Further rear verandah fire stairs were added to the central wing around 1986. As part of the major redevelopment of the school in 1999, the former parade ground in front of Block A was remodelled to include garden beds, paving, and a curved brick entrance wall with a memorial plaque.[47]
\nChanges have also been made to the former gymnasium over time. The building was remodelled by 1981 to convert it to an assembly hall, which involved removing the partitions from the 1951 woodworking conversion. This reinstated its original large, single-room interior with a raised stage and small wings rooms added at one end. The work also involved extending the roofline on the north and east sides to form a verandah with a raised concrete floor. New French doors were added on these sides, replacing earlier windows and doors.[48]
\nFor almost 125 years East Brisbane State School has been the focus of community interest, with events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. Beginning with contributing funds to establish the school in 1899, the East Brisbane and surrounding communities have supported the operation of the school through donations, organising and attending fetes, balls, and concerts, and organising and membership of the School Committee (est. 1890), and Parents & Citizens’ Association (est. 1960s), which assisted the school to operate through managing the school tuckshop and uniform shop, fundraising for school supplies, working bees to maintain the school grounds, and arranging student social and educational events.[49] Money raised from functions organised by the community went toward constructing school buildings, providing student sports equipment and learning resources, and annual student trips to Redcliffe on the SS Koopa. Milestones in the school’s history, including its 50th and 100th anniversary, were celebrated by the school with commemorative public events and through memorials built within the school grounds. The school has maintained a collection of its important historical school memorabilia within Block A and school histories were published in 1998 and 1999.[50]
\nIn early 2023, it was announced that East Brisbane State School would be closed at the end of 2025, to facilitate the redevelopment of the Gabba for the Olympic and Paralympic Games being held in Brisbane in 2032.[51] In 2023 the school continues to operate from its original site and retains its Urban Brick School Building (Block A), and Former Gymnasium, set in landscaped grounds with mature shade trees on the school boundaries.[52]
East Brisbane State School (established 1899) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good, representative examples of government designs, which were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in generous, landscaped grounds with mature trees.
\nBlock A (built 1899 and extended 1900), the first of several Urban Brick School Buildings built in Queensland from 1899, represents a culmination of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size, and ventilation by its designer, the Department of Public Works (DPW). It also demonstrates the increasing construction of brick school buildings at metropolitan schools in prosperous, developing areas.
\nThe former Gymnasium (1907), the earliest known surviving example of a pre-World War II gymnasium built for a Queensland state school, is important in demonstrating the early emphasis on sport and fitness at Queensland schools, and the early pattern of local communities raising funds to provide sport facilities for its schoolchildren.
\nDesigned by the DPW, the extensions and alterations to Block A (1939), and alterations to the Former Gymnasium (1951), including introduction of folding partitions to create smaller classrooms (Block A), and changes to earlier window and door arrangements to improve natural daylighting and ventilation of the classrooms (both), are good examples of the standard alterations made to older state school buildings to reflect evolving educational philosophies.
\nThe Former Parade Ground (1900) and the provision of outdoor and understorey play areas and mature trees, demonstrate the Queensland Government’s educational philosophies that promoted the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Highly intact, Block A is an outstanding example of an Urban Brick School Building (1899-1900) and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this class of cultural places through its:
\nThe later complementary modifications and additions (1939) to Block A are important in demonstrating the evolution of state school design with its subsequent standard provision of smaller, single-class classrooms, and increase in classroom light and ventilation, particularly in providing ‘correct’ left hand light. This is demonstrated through Block A’s:
\nEast Brisbane State School is important for its aesthetic significance as it possesses beautiful attributes and landmark qualities, and for its streetscape contribution. These attributes are embodied in Block A’s outstanding quality of design and construction, open space on all its sides, mature boundary trees, and its Former Parade Ground forecourt.
\nHighly intact, Block A’s beautiful attributes are embodied in: the formal composition of its substantial, symmetrical, U-shaped form around an open forecourt; its rectangular wings of classrooms flanked by long, broad verandahs with projecting teacher’s rooms; its central, picturesque belltower; its use of superior quality materials and craftsmanship with decorative treatments such as polychromatic face brickwork, moulded timberwork, and exposed fretwork iron roof structure; and its lofty spacious interiors with abundant natural light and ventilation.
\nThe attractive form of Block A, set back from the street behind its large open forecourt, is conspicuous in its location with significant views of the place obtained from along Wellington Road and Stanley Street.
|East Brisbane State School has a strong and special association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community since its establishment in 1899. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Brisbane for almost 125 years, with generations of children taught at the school, and it has served as a venue for social interaction and community focus. Substantial contributions to its operations have been made by its local community, parents, and students through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and the school’s Parents and Citizens Association. This is evocatively demonstrated through the school’s collection of school community objects and memorabilia including: the donated school bell (1910); early framed photographs of teachers; honour boards (1905, 1914 extended 1939, 2000); Roll of Honour (1915); and timber cabinets and their historical contents including trophies, books, and certificates.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16240,"place_ref":601477,"name":"Kinkabool","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"32-34 Hanlan Street","suburb":"SURFERS PARADISE","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"Kinkabool is a high-rise unit building located in the heart of Surfers Paradise a block to the south of Cavill Avenue and about 200m from the ocean beach to the east. It presents ten storeys to the street and nine to the rear. On the ground floor, the two shop spaces retain the timber-framed and glass partitioning. On the eight storeys above the original layout of the 34 units has been maintained. The two 'penthouse' units on the tenth storey have been joined by a large opening in the shared wall between the original living areas and by enclosing part of the original vestibule space as a private lobby.
Founded on reinforced concrete footings, the frame of Kinkabool is constructed of reinforced concrete floors, columns and walls. The exterior is partly finished with alternating panels of painted render on concrete or face brick. The building has two areas of flat roof, access to which is gained first through double doors opposite the entry to the top level apartment, and then via a set of stairs to the upper roof space. A parapet encloses these roof areas.
More than half of the balconies have been enclosed with glass and aluminium framing, a process which began in the late 1960s, but has been kept within the line of the balustrading and completed in general keeping with the fenestration pattern employed elsewhere on the facade. Also, a number of the original timber-framed windows and exterior sliding doors have been replaced with aluminium alternatives, as has some of the balcony balustrading. The terrazzo flooring in the ground floor arcade has been covered with terracotta tiles; however it remains on the stairs to the first level. Vinyl lines the remainder of the stair floors and the floors of the vestibules, being differently patterned on each level.
","history":"Prior to the 1950s Surfers Paradise was just one of a number of popular but modestly equipped beach holiday resorts that dotted the coast from Southport to the State border with New South Wales. During that decade it became the epicentre of the Gold Coast and what would become an internationally renowned holiday destination, instantly recognisable for its high-rise towers lining a long strip of sandy beach. This iconic image of Gold Coast high-rise development began with the construction of Kinkabool in 1959-1960.
Kinkabool is a ten-storey home-unit building located on Hanlan Street in the centre of Surfers Paradise, constructed by JD Booker Constructions Pty Ltd to the design of architect John M Morton working for the Brisbane office of the firm Lund Hutton Newell Black & Paulson Pty Ltd. Kinkabool was the brainchild of Stanley Korman, a Victorian entrepreneur whose other Gold Coast development projects, including Lennon's Hotel at Broadbeach (opened 1956, demolished 1987), the Chevron Hotel at Surfers Paradise (opened 1958, demolished 1987) and Paradise Island (opened 1958), embodied a vision of the place as a modern, international-standard holiday resort. The Gold Coast remains Queensland's premier beach tourism destination.
The coastal areas south of Brisbane - or what became known as the South Coast - had long been a destination for beach holidaymakers. From the 1860s holiday houses for the Brisbane elite and Darling Downs pastoralists were being constructed at Southport on the northern shore of the mouth of the Nerang River. Daily steamboat connections to Brisbane brought day-trippers. The construction of a rail link between Beenleigh and Southport in 1889 opened the area to nascent mass tourism.
The corridor of land now known as Surfers Paradise, between the Nerang River and the ocean beach, was attracting recreational visitors by the 1870s. The land on which Kinkabool stands was part of a selection taken up by James Beattie in 1869 and sold in 1877 to Johann Meyer, who established a vehicular ferry across the Nerang River in 1881, connecting the area with Southport. In clearing the road - later to become Cavill Avenue - that formed the northern boundary of his property he opened up public access to the ocean beach. At opposite ends of this road, Meyer established the first two hotels serving the area: Meyer's Ferry Hotel and the Main Beach Hotel. In 1885 he sold part of his land, which included the site Kinkabool now occupies, to James Stodart, who developed it as the area's first subdivision, Main Beach Estate, with streets named after world champion Australian scullers: Hanlan, Trickett, Laycock and Clifford. The Elston postal receiving office was established in Meyer's Ferry Hotel before the turn of the century, and gave its name to the area.
During the 1920s and 1930s a rapid rise in private motor vehicle ownership, the construction of a new coastal road between Brisbane and Southport, and the crossing of the Nerang River by the Jubilee Bridge led to the subdivision and sale of many estates between Southport and the NSW border. The intensity and complexion of this development was further evidenced by the first of Jim Cavill's famous hotels being built on the main road south through Elston in 1925, which was renamed Surfers Paradise in 1933 after successful lobbying by Jim Cavill and other local residents. This reflected the influence of American beach culture and a shift in preference from still-water bathing sites (as at Southport) to surf beaches. Further marketing in southern states of the 'winter holiday' attractions of the South Coast was conducted in the years leading up to the commencement of World War II in 1939.
During World War II the South Coast proved a popular rest and recreation destination for combat troops, with many American, New Zealand and English servicemen and women enjoying the place and advertising its merits once home. Many of these international and interstate visitors were impressed by the beaches and climate and returned after the war to visit, reside or invest.
After building restrictions imposed during World War II were lifted in 1952, the South Coast changed rapidly. An intense period of building development and property speculation was ushered in, attracting a number of entrepreneurs focussed largely on the tourism potential of the place. The term 'Gold Coast' was coined in response to this promise of prosperity and wealth, and despite beginning as a derisive term used by the Brisbane press, was embraced by locals and then officially adopted as the name of the Town Council in 1958. In the following year the municipality was declared a city. It is the spirit of this era that Kinkabool embodies. The dramatic changes to the built fabric of Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast in general were succinctly described by Forbes and Spearritt in 2006: 'Fibro holiday shacks, two-storey guesthouses and weatherboard boarding lodges were torn down and swept aside, first for three, four and five storey walk ups and later 10, 20, 30 and now 80 storey structures.'
In the 1950s a greater capacity to pursue leisure (particularly among women, for whom a beach holiday had previously involved a continuation of everyday domestic tasks), the rise in private car ownership, and the growing preference among holidaymakers for American-style resorts, resulted in changed accommodation styles on the Gold Coast. Chief among these were motels (providing car parking outside each room), hotel resorts, and serviced apartments for visitors who had arrived not by car but by plane or coach. The hotel resorts, which were larger-scale tourist developments accommodating many more guests than the average public house, hotel or guest house, the forms relied upon in the past, included: the five-storey Lennon's Hotel in Broadbeach, designed by Dr Karl Langer in 1956, which included bars and beer garden, pool, tennis courts, dance floor and bandstand; and the three-storey Chevron Hotel in Surfers Paradise designed by David Bell and built for one of Stanley Korman's companies in 1958. The Carapark Motel at Mermaid Beach, designed by the Brisbane architectural firm Hayes and Scott in the mid-1950s was an example of a motel (with facilities for caravans). Others included the El Dorado and the Seabreeze. Serviced apartments were advertised as 'luxurious', providing modern conveniences such as refrigerators, clothes washers and dryers, and stainless steel sinks. The kitchens of these apartments were comparatively small, suggesting that a holiday would also involve frequent dining out. Early examples included the South Pacific in Orchid Avenue and the Palm Grove in Clifford Street. All these places were low-rise buildings; all have been demolished.
The iconic Gold Coast skyline of high-rises overlooking long sandy beaches commenced with the construction of ten-storey Kinkabool on Hanlan Street in the heart of Surfers Paradise in 1959-1960; described at the time by the local press as a 'giant'. A number of high-rise, home-unit developments had been planned for the Gold Coast in the 1950s, but Kinkabool was the only scheme to come to fruition. For example: two 25-storey home-unit 'skyscrapers', one at Surfers Paradise on Orchid Avenue and another at Burleigh Heads, were planned by Torbreck Pty Ltd following the success of its high-rise blocks in Highgate Hill, Brisbane (QHR 601256); a 20-storey accommodation tower was to be added to the Chevron Hotel, its foundations being laid with 350 guests in attendance; and a 17-storey tower called Taj was to be built on Beach Road in Surfers, foundation drilling having commenced in 1959.
The development and finance for Kinkabool were formally arranged by Booker Felton Pty Ltd however a number of companies contributed to its marketing and construction finance. One of the key figures in this matrix was Victorian entrepreneur, Stanley Korman, whose other major ventures on the Gold Coast were the nearby Chevron Hotel and Paradise Island, as well as Lennon's Hotel at Broadbeach and the remodelling of the Surfers Paradise Hotel - the area's leisure and civic hub - which he had purchased from Jim Cavill's widow in 1957. Polish-born Korman had emigrated to Australia in the late 1920s and established the Holeproof clothing company. His business ventures and the charisma he applied to them had established his popular profile as a successful entrepreneur in Victoria. He had a powerful vision of the Gold Coast, and in particular Surfers Paradise, as a modern holiday resort; his inspirations being resorts he visited in Hawaii and Florida. As historian Michael Jones reported in 1986, Korman made the startling suggestion at the time that 'southern' businessmen should be able to fly to their Gold Coast holiday unit or home on Friday evening after work, enjoy the beach and warm climate over the weekend, and then fly back to work on Monday morning. And as Alexander McRobbie suggested in The Real Surfers Paradise (1988), Korman also foresaw that many average Australians would come to thrill at the prospect of spending their holidays in a high-rise apartment with a view of the beach, in contrast to their everyday lives and the low-set suburbs that formed its backdrop.
The 'skyscraper' Kinkabool was designed for a small, 16 perch (approximately 405m²) site occupied by the Flamingo, a pioneer nightclub started in the early 1950s; and in close proximity to the key entertainment venues of Surfers Paradise. Next door was Margot Kelly's Hibiscus Restaurant, another popular and pioneering Surfers Paradise nightclub and one of the first Queensland restaurants to gain a liquor license. At the end of Hanlan Street was Surfers Paradise Beach. Between Kinkabool and the beach were the Coral Court holiday units, described as a leading holiday establishment and a more typical style of Gold Coast accommodation in the 1950s and 1960s. Other significant Surfers Paradise tourist businesses were only a block in each direction. To the north were Cavill Avenue and the Surfers Paradise Hotel complex, Bernie Elsie's Beachcomber Hotel (along with the Seabreeze Motel, home of the infamous Pyjama Parties), and many popular restaurants. Beyond these were The Walk and the Black Dolphin shopping arcades. Nearby was Korman's Chevron Hotel with 83 rooms, pools, bars and cabaret.
The first sketch drawings for Kinkabool, originally known as Poinciana Place, were prepared by John M Morton of the Brisbane architectural firm Lund Hutton Newell Black and Paulson Pty Ltd, in March 1959. The client was variously listed as Home Units Pty Ltd and Multi Units Pty Ltd. Its original concept designs featured between three and six storeys above a ground floor of shops, but within a month the height had increased to nine storeys, and by construction time the name had changed to Kinkabool, reputedly derived from an Aboriginal word meaning 'laughing water'. The Gold Coast Town Council approved the nine storey home-unit building being designed to the Hanlan Street boundary and partially to the other boundaries. Morton explains that this was possible because the building regulations, introduced in 1954, were not conceived with this kind of high-rise building in mind. Kinkabool's financiers were eager to take advantage of the 1950s Gold Coast building boom before tighter building controls were introduced.
Construction began some time after July 1959 when the building agreement between Kinkabool Pty Ltd and Multi Units Pty Ltd (the latter appears to have encompassed JD Booker Constructions Pty Ltd), was signed. The cost of construction, including architect's and engineer's fees, was estimated at this point at £272,000. The first stage, comprising two rear car parking areas, two commercial tenancies to the ground floor and eight storeys of four units each was completed soon after May 1960. After this, but before October, twin two-bedroom units had been added over part of the ninth floor and facing the street, mirroring the layout below and designated as penthouses. Such a feature had formed part of the building's design from its inception; however, more lavish ideas for double-storey units with observation decks had been abandoned.
Architecturally, Kinkabool is a characteristic example of 1950s architecture in Queensland, being a competent essay in mid-twentieth century modernism with straight lines dominating the façade, flat rooves and an absence of ornament. Influences on the design included English modernism as derived from that country's extensive post-war reconstruction efforts and the work of internationally renowned modern architects like Mies van der Rohe. The chief architect, John M Morton, was born and trained in England, having been in Australia only two years before starting work on Kinkabool. Lund Hutton Newell Black & Paulsen Pty Ltd was an established Queensland architectural firm with offices in Brisbane and Townsville, and busy completing a range of larger-scale commercial, ecclesiastical and multi-residential projects throughout the State. Morton was to become a partner and the firm, which had started as Ford & Chambers, would eventually came under his sole charge. He was later responsible for the Central Library Building at the Queensland Institute of Technology and the master plan for the State Government precinct near Old Parliament House (QHR 600069) and the Botanic Gardens (QHR 600067) in Brisbane. Soon after completing Kinkabool the same design, building and finance team completed Glenfalloch, another high-rise residential tower, this time in Brisbane's New Farm.
Kinkabool was laid out on a symmetrical plan, the centreline of which ran north to south from the street to the rear of the lot. Entrance was gained through large, central doors on the street into an arcade, which divided the two shops and provided access to a vestibule connecting the stairwell on the eastern side and the lift core on the west. Beyond this, to the rear of the building, and partly underground, were the car parking levels, accessed via external ramps on either side. Above the ground floor and service levels, the units were laid out identically on each of the proceeding eight levels: the stairwell and lift, joined by a small lobby provided access to two 1-bedroom units at the rear and two 2-bedroom units on the street. The 1-bedroom units featured an open-plan living, dining and kitchen area opening onto a small, squarish balcony, facing either east or west. Access to the bedroom with built-in cupboards was from the living area. Its combined bathroom and toilet fitted in behind the kitchen, which also included the laundry facilities. The rooms of the 2-bedroom units opened off a central hall with the front door at one end and the living/dining/kitchen space, combined as in the 1-bedroom units, at the other. A thin, rectangular balcony opened off the open-plan living space on the north-east or north-west corners. A bathroom was inserted between the kitchen and the master bedroom and incorporated laundry facilities. On the tenth level there were two 2-bedroom units at the front next to the lift tower, and a roof garden and drying court to the rear.
The techniques used to erect Kinkabool were not new to Queensland, although they were new to the Gold Coast. The structural frame of the building was made up of reinforced concrete raft foundations, columns and slabs, with similarly made reinforced concrete party walls separating individual dwelling units. The roof areas were flat and sealed with bituminous felt. Exterior in-fill walls were made with a carefully orchestrated pattern of rendered concrete and columns of red face-brick panels. A range of timber-framed window types were used throughout the building, including sliding doors to the balconies. The façade to Hanlan Street was formed using a formal patterning of timber mullions, sashless glass sliders and glass panels painted black before a sill-height wall was installed behind. The balcony balustrading consisted of painted steel verticals with a steel top-rail. A full-height section comprising painted Oregon timber blades set on an angle shielded part of the balcony. A septic tank with associated pump and filter services was installed beneath the building. Water tanks on the roof provided the necessary water pressure for the building's plumbing system.
The detailing employed on the interior of Kinkabool was advertised as 'luxurious' in 1960 and demonstrated the ideals of modernity that were to attract holidaymakers to this style of self-contained accommodation. The walls to the shops on the internal arcade were made with glass and Maple framing, and its floors were finished with terrazzo. The stairs were formed in reinforced concrete and lined with pre-cast terrazzo to the first level. The balusters and handrail were milled steel and Maple respectively. Ceilings throughout were sprayed with vermiculite plaster. Inside each unit, and demonstrating very clearly the preferences of the time for modern convenience, the kitchens featured laminated stainless steel sinks, plastic bench-tops, tiled splashbacks and floors, built-in cupboards with plywood doors, and sliding glass facing upper cupboards. They opened into the living area with bar units. The bathrooms were tiled in bright patterns.
The concept of strata title was not introduced into Australia until 1961 (and not into Queensland until 1965) so Kinkabool was developed and sold under company title wherein potential buyers became shareholders and leased their units and garage spaces from the company, depending on the number and class of shares they purchased. Kinkabool Pty Ltd was incorporated on 15 May 1959. Purchasers were required to submit personal references for approval by the company's Board of Directors, and its inaugural Board included Messrs Walter Oswald Burt, John Desmond Booker, Frank Maurice Felton, Roderick Consett Proctor, Ian Kenneth Redpath and Charles Hartley Wilson, who were largely the only shareholders prior to 1964. The 'credit squeeze' imposed by the federal government in November 1960, which contributed to the collapse of the Korman empire, initially may have deterred investor demand for the units. Morton and others suggest that, as with Glenfalloch, buyers were cautious about this new style of living in the sky. The mode of ownership of Kinkabool would not be converted to strata title until 1999.
In late 1960 an adjoining land parcel of 14.8 perches (approximately 374m²) to the east was acquired and an easement was created, granting a right to light and air that would protect the views to the beach from Kinkabool's units. This block was subsumed into the Kinkabool holding in 1964, but a single-storeyed twelve-car garage was not built there until 1976, the parking spaces being offered for sale to Kinkabool owners.
Kinkabool was first marketed by LJ Hooker Ltd who produced a coloured brochure emphasising its appeal as a modern accommodation option for owner/occupiers as well as a valuable investment acquisition. By July 1961, Dolby and Rankine (Accommodation) Pty Ltd had been appointed sole managing agents for Kinkabool and reported to The South Coast Bulletin that some units had been let for the Christmas period, while others were being readied for such use. It was also reported that some units had been let for periods of three to five months to New Zealand residents; and the penthouse had been let for Christmas at 40 guineas a week. Laurie Wall, a well-known Gold Coast real estate agent and identity would eventually sell the majority of unit shares in 1964.
From the beginning, Kinkabool was used as holiday accommodation, both by unit owners and short-term tenants, who visited during the annual holiday seasons of Easter and Christmas. A resident building manager or caretaker was employed from the mid-1960s; his duties included assisting owners and tenants with such services as providing televisions, linen and cutlery, moving luggage, and cleaning units after short-term holiday tenants had departed.
The LJ Hooker marketing brochure boasted that Kinkabool was 'changing the skyline'. As the tallest building on the coast it towered above the rapidly expanding set of hotels and motels at its feet, being a Gold Coast landmark and prominent in photographs and postcards from the 1960s. In the decade after its construction other coastal high-rises followed, such as: The Sands in 1964-1966 (11 storeys) and Paradise Towers (14 storeys) next door in 1965-1966, both designed by Sydney architect EG Nemes for the developer Alexander Armstrong; Garfield Towers, designed by FB Oswell, in 1966-1967; and Suntower on the Esplanade in 1968. The two River Park Towers were built on Watson Esplanade facing the Nerang River in 1969.
Development of ever taller high-rise unit towers continued during the 1970s, booming between 1979 and 1982, and giving the Gold Coast a key component of its national and international identity. Approval had been granted for the construction of more than 5,000 units in the six months before the crash that brought this period of fevered property speculation to an end in mid-1982.
Favourable development conditions returned during a number of later building phases, and high-rise developments continued. As Richard Allom, lead author of the 1997 Character Study of the Gold Coast, said in a Weekend Bulletin article from that year: "Dating from the 1960s, the Gold Coast had a form generated by a stretch of beach and a culture dependent on climate and tourism. ... It was a fantasy city like Las Vegas and its 'wonderful Great Divide of high-rise buildings' was its most important icon."
Suburban and semi-industrial development has rapidly overtaken much of the Gold Coast and its immediate hinterland, as its permanent population has expanded and its economic base diversified. But its tourism industry has also grown, making it internationally recognisable. Many of Kinkabool's lower-rise contemporaries of the 1950s and 1960s have been lost to this latter kind of expansion.
","criteria":"Kinkabool demonstrates the principal characteristics of a class of cultural place - high-rise beach holiday accommodation - that was rare in Queensland in the 1950s but is now common, particularly at the Gold Coast.
A number of components of Kinkabool have been maintained to the present day and reflect the standards marketed in the 1950s and 1960s as 'luxurious', but which also exemplify the character of this type of building. These include: the overall disposition of units; their relationship to private balconies, some of which have been enclosed with framed glass, all of which retain the original timber blade screens; the two ground floor shop spaces either side of an arcade leading to the lift and stair lobby and enclosed with the original timber framing and fixed glass; and the scale and location of the penthouse apartments. Despite the scale of the building being diminished by later high-rise accommodation developments all along the coast from Southport to Coolangatta, the Kinkabool units maintain their views to the beach and the hinterland, which were also important components of the building's attraction to early buyers and holidaymakers.
Rather than detracting from its significance, the great disparity in scale and appointment between Kinkabool and buildings like the 80-storey Q1 tower, demonstrates dramatically how tourist preferences, architectural design and construction technologies have evolved on the Gold Coast since the 1950s.
|Built in 1959-1960 at Surfers Paradise, the home-unit building known as Kinkabool was the Gold Coast's first high-rise and one of Queensland's earliest, built shortly after Torbreck (QHR 601256) was completed in Brisbane in 1960. It is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's beach tourism development as it is the starting point for a style and scale of multiple-dwelling and multi-title building that appeared in the late 1950s/1960s and from which the Gold Coast, Queensland's premier tourist destination in terms of visitor numbers, gained its international reputation.
Kinkabool also illustrates a significant aspect of the evolving character of the quintessential Australian beach holiday, which was highly influenced by American standards of accommodation and entertainment, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s. It reflects a shift in the preferences of many post-World War II Australian tourists away from traditional holiday accommodation options like camping or caravanning, guest or boarding houses toward high-rise, self-contained apartments with a view of the beach and equipped with modern conveniences like time-saving kitchen appliances and on-site pools. This shift reflects major changes that have occurred in Australian society, including increased prosperity, the changing role of women, and the embrace of the private car.
Situated one block to the south of Cavill Avenue, near the intersection with the Gold Coast Highway, Kinkabool is one of the few buildings remaining that delineates what was the heart of burgeoning Surfers Paradise in the 1950s, with its modern accommodation, entertainment and shopping venues.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16242,"place_ref":601479,"name":"Southport Drill Hall","alternate_name":"Southport Drill Shed","street_address":"210 Queen Street","suburb":"SOUTHPORT","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The Southport Drill Hall is a timber building situated on the southern side of Owen Park, Southport, among a number of other timber buildings. The building is of single skinned construction, timber framed and clad externally with chamfered boards and elevated on concrete stumps. The corrugated iron clad roof comprises a curved section over the main hall abutting a skillion roof over a row of offices. The curved section is supported on curved wrought iron trusses and the curved sections of the end walls have high level fixed louvre ventilation panels (now clad internally with sheeting) above with is vertical boarding. The northern face of the building houses the principal entrance through a large double timber boarded door. Flanking the door are two large double unglazed window openings which are protected with timber boarded shutters. Centrally located on the two ends of the building is a similar double window opening protected with timber shutters. The southern face of the building, where the offices are located, has four small vertical sash windows regularly spaced along the face of the building.
Internally, the building comprises a large open space from which access is provided to four small rooms in a row on the southern side of the building. Separating the smaller rooms from the large central room is a single skinned timber boarded partition. External access is provided to the eastern most office via an external open tread timber stair of four steps shades by an ornate awning supported on fretwork brackets. The large internal room is open to the wrought iron roof trusses. This room houses ephemera and fittings from the Queensland Naval Brigade Southport Volunteer Company who now use the building and retains a strong sense of its military history.
","history":"The Southport Drill Hall was constructed in 1890 as the Southport Drill Shed to the specifications of George Connolly of the Colonial Architect's office. Although moved from its original site in Lawson Street, Southport, the building has retained a strong association with various defence related agencies.
On 10 December 1859 Queensland separated from New South Wales and became responsible for the defence of its territory. At the time, the population of the state was about 25 000 and the Colony was without any type of defence, and initially the services of the Brisbane and Ipswich Troops of the Queensland Mounted Rifles were utilised. By 1862, Volunteer Defence Forces had been instigated in several areas of the state and in 1867 Governor Sir George Bowen agreed to the formation of a Volunteer Rifle Corps on the condition that the group would finance themselves. The Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley Volunteer Rifle Corps (No. 3 Company) were amongst the first to come into being with Charles Lilley as the commanding officer. In 1876, as the fear of invasion from mounting European tensions was felt, the New South Wales Colonial Secretary, in association with several other mainland colonies including Queensland sought military advice from Britain. Lieutenant General Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois furnished the colonies with advice for each colony on fortifications, artillery, naval defence and manpower. One of the specific recommendations was that
He expressed his pleasure at having held a review which considering the disadvantages under which the Volunteer force had laboured had been fairly conducted. The force however had a good deal to learn before they could expect to meet an enemy on anything like equal terms...with regard to artillery they would have to learn to use heavier ordnance than that with which they were now practising and would consequently, like the rifle corps, require more instruction in drill.
Despite the recommendations, financial provision for the voluntary defence force remained inadequate until new Volunteer Regulations were passed in October 1882. Funding and support for the defence forces ensued. To accommodate the revitalised forces thus formed, drill halls were to be constructed and used as training facilities. These halls were designed to a standard planned and erected at strategic focal points of military strategy. The focal points recommended included those at local harbours and rivers, particularly where enemy warships may find entry. A good example of such a place was found at the South Passage at Southport, where river traffic between Brisbane and Southport also required protection. The passing of the Defence Act in 1884 saw the establishment of a permanent military force and a militia along with the already established volunteer corps.
A Southport Corps was formed from the Southport branch of the Queensland Volunteer Rifle Infantry and this was converted to a militia in 1887. In April 1885 a Southport Cadet Corps had been established. In the 1880s the popularity of Southport as a seaside holiday destination surged. Southport developed as an alternate resort when Sandgate became more accessible with the introduction of the rail line in 1882. Logging in the Southport area had commenced in the late 1850s, and by 1875 the first sales of land opened the area for settlement. By the 1880s Southport become the principal sea-side resort in Queensland. The construction of major schools, banks and hotels stimulated Southport's growth as a fashionable nineteenth century resort as did the presence of the Governor's residence in the 1890s. A rail extension from Beenleigh to Southport was opened in 1889 making Southport more accessible from Brisbane.
With increasing popularity of the area, and organisation of the military strategy a drill hall was constructed at Southport in 1890 on a military reserve in Lawson Street. This was a simple rectangular planned timber building housing a large open hall and abutting this a row of small rooms one an office and the other armouries for the three companies who trained in the building. The Drill Shed was completed in about November 1890 for a cost of £335/2/- by Coomera builder, John Fortune. The building was designed and construction administered by the Colonial Architect's Office of the Department of Works. Apparently George Connolly was the architect for the project. It is unclear whether the design was in fact a standard plan used for other drill halls although others constructed at this time, including that planned for Warwick (1888) were very similar. The design of the new Southport Drill Shed was in line with the maxim that military architecture was, above all else, functional, designed to maximise the safety and efficiency of personnel and their work. The timber used for the building was cypress pine and the curved, corrugated iron clad roof, was supported on wrought iron trusses. The windows were shaded with central pivoted timber shutters and a series of galvanised iron fixed louvre panels ensured cross ventilation. When finished the timberwork was painted white and included a detached toilet and fencing. Repairs and restoration were carried out in 1899, prior to the building reverting to Commonwealth ownership following Federation.
Although the Southport Drill Hall has sustained a long association with various Australian defence forces, it has been used for other community purposes. The first such use occurred in 1910 when permission was given to the Southport Agricultural and Horticultural Society to use the building during Carnival Week. Prior to 1910 the hall was only to be used for military purposes. Following WWI the Commonwealth military forces were reduced and the drill hall was leased firstly to a Boy Scout Group and then, from 1931 to the Southport Surf Lifesaving Club. The outbreak of WWII saw the Commonwealth reclaiming exclusive use of the Drill Hall and it remained in military use until 1988. The building was then left vacant until 1990 when it was used for the Queensland Naval Brigade Southport Volunteer Company.
In about 1995 the Southport Drill Hall was moved from its original site in Lawson Street to site in Owen Park, Queen Street, Southport. Owen Park, formerly a showgrounds, houses a number of other timber buildings moved from various parts of Southport. The Drill Shed remains substantially intact both internally and externally.
","criteria":"The building demonstrates the strategic military importance of costal areas, like Southport in the late nineteenth century and has a strong association with the Volunteer Defence Force.
|The building, contracted in 1890 to a standard design furnished by the State Department of Works, is a good and intact example of a standard nineteenth century drill hall of which many were constructed and very few are known to survive in their original form.
|The building, contracted in 1890 to a standard design furnished by the State Department of Works, is a good and intact example of a standard nineteenth century drill hall of which many were constructed and very few are known to survive in their original form.
|The building demonstrates the strategic military importance of costal areas, like Southport in the late nineteenth century and has a strong association with the Volunteer Defence Force.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16243,"place_ref":601480,"name":"Main Range Railway","alternate_name":"Spring Bluff Railway Station | Ballard Railway Station | Rangeview Railway Station | Holmes Railway Station | Harlaxton Railway Station","street_address":null,"suburb":"MURPHYS CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"Main Range Railway Overview
\nFrom Murphy's Creek Station, the railway begins its winding ascent up the Main Range, reaching the summit at Harlaxton before descending gently to Toowoomba Station. The line follows the contours of spurs and ridges, with the railway typically set in along ascending hillsides and banks that sit to the north of the track. Responding to the terrain, numerous built features including tunnels, cuttings, culverts, bridges, embankments and stabilizing works occur along the extent of the railway. Constantly changing and frequently spectacular vistas of steep timbered hills, gullies and distant ranges extend south east to the coastal plain.
\nThe heritage boundary begins from the western side of the Murphy's Creek railway crossing, continuing within the boundary of the railway corridor as it ascends the Range, terminating on the summit at the Ruthven Street overbridge at Harlaxton.
\nThe following descriptions relate to features inspected on two site visits. Other features not inspected are likely to exist along the railway. All descriptions are arranged according to type and in order of occurrence as the line ascends from Murphy's Creek. Locations included refer to the distance from Roma Street Station, as used by Queensland Rail. The extent of the 1860s railway campsites has not been determined.
\nTunnels
\nNine tunnels occur along the Main Range Railway, bore through hillsides of varying height. Each tunnel differs in length and all feature elliptical portals and interiors lined with stone and brick. Directly outside the portals are steep cuttings that include retaining features of regular and rubble coursed stone walls.
\nTunnel 1 is located at 142.07km. The tunnel is straight with a length close to 65 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry faced sandstone, crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. The segments forming the arch on the entry portal are of rendered stone. Set into the hill above the cornice is a section of stone retaining wall. The exit portal arch segments are of quarry-faced stone. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks, meeting with a lining of smooth-faced stone. A coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 2 is located at 142.4km. The tunnel is straight with a length close to 80 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone, crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance and small rendered side walls face the entrance. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks, meeting with a wall lining of smooth-faced stone. A coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel. Concrete retaining walls supported by steel posts are located outside both portal entrances.
\nTunnel 3 is located at 144.5km. The tunnel is curved with a length close to 62 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone, crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks, meeting with a lining of smooth-faced stone. Exposed sections of the ceiling reveal a second lining of brick. A coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel. The entrances to Tunnel 3 are marked by steep rock cuttings with extensive pick-facing and sections of stone retaining wall.
\nTunnel 4 is located at 147.25km. The tunnel contains straight and curved line with a length close to 161 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel immediately inside the entrance is lined with smooth-faced stone. Brick lining may occur further inside the tunnel. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 5 is located at 151.05km. The tunnel is curved with a length close to 92 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 6 is located at 151.89km. The tunnel is curved with a length close to 87 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with bricks. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 7 is located at 152.64km. The tunnel contains straight and curved line with a length close to 59 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. The exit portal deck and cornice is stepped. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with smooth-faced stone. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nTunnel 8 is located at 152.8km. The tunnel contains straight and curved line with a length close to 153 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. The entrance portal is crowned by a stepped deck with missing sections of cornicing. The exit portal has a straight deck and cornice. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined in different sections with brick and smooth-faced stone. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel. A side gallery, approximately presently obscured by vegetation, is set high into the hillside above the access road that skirts the hill containing the tunnel. The tunnel is approximately 10 metres in length, 2.5 metres wide and 2.6 metres high. The tunnel is unlined but its connection with the railway tunnel is arched.
\nTunnel 9 is located at 153.85km. The tunnel is straight with a length close to 127 metres. The spandrels of the tunnel portals are infilled with regular coursed quarry-faced sandstone crowned by a deck and projecting cornice. Sandstone segments form the arched entrance of the tunnel. Internally, the arched ceiling of the tunnel is lined with smooth-faced stone. From mid-height a coarsely finished stone wall extends to the base of the tunnel.
\nCulverts
\nCulverts and drains occur frequently along the Main Range Railway. At varying depths beneath the rail, they direct water from the north side of the track, passing under the length of the railway and parallel access road and drain to the south east. The culverts and drains vary greatly in size shape and composition. Materials for culverts and drains include cut stone, mortared rocks, brick, concrete and corrugated iron piping. The following descriptions are of entrances situated on the north side of the track.
\nLocated at 135.28km is a brick culvert. The culvert is arched, with brick wing walls and stone decking and abutments. Internally the arch of the culvert is lined with bricks of varying colour, coated in scale.
\nLocated at 137.32km is a brick culvert. The culvert is arched, with brick wing walls and stone deck and abutments. Internally the arch and floor of the causeway are lined with bricks, coated in scale.
\nLocated between culverts at 137.32km and 137.8km is a brick culvert. The culvert is arched, with brick wing walls and stone deck and abutments. Internally, the arch and floor of the causeway are lined with bricks, coated in scale.
\nLocated at 137.8km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments. The left half of the deck is missing. Internally, the culvert has a projecting base and the arch and floor of the causeway are lined with cut and dressed stone, coated in scale.
\nLocated at 140.8km is a drainway and culvert. From a small culvert with a stone deck and mortared walls, a drain cut out of rock extends vertically over the top of the rock face.
\nLocated at 143.39km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments.
\nLocated at 143.69km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched with picked stone wing walls and stone deck and abutments. Internally the culvert has a projecting base and the arch and floor of the causeway is lined with cut and dressed stone, coated in scale. Outside the entrance to the culvert are stone retaining walls.
\nLocated at 144.99km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is largely obscured by vegetation and is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments.
\nLocated at 145.33km is a sandstone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls deck and abutments. Internally arch and floor of the causeway is lined with cut and dressed stone.
\nLocated between the trolley shed and the platform of Spring Bluff, a wide drain with rendered stone walls passes underneath the track. Sitting above the drain is a rough timber beam and a small leaning timber guardrail.
\nLocated underneath the platform at Spring Bluff between the station building and a large clump of bamboo is a stone culvert. The culvert is arched, with stone wing walls, deck and abutments. Internally the arch and floor of the causeway is lined with cut and dressed stone. At the entrance of the culvert are stone retaining walls. There is stonework above the abutments and timber beams attached to the platform sit above the entrance. A circular pipe draining from the station building is placed in a retaining wall of stone to the right of the culvert. Located among the gardens below the residences, a wide winding waterway, lined with sections of large rock and stone retaining walls, empties to a large circular concrete pipe, continuing underneath the track. Located below the Fettler's quarters is the entrance to a small drain, with stone walls and rough timber decking.
\nCuttings
\nA number of double sided cuttings course through rocky spurs along the Main Range Railway. Each of these cuttings is short in length, accommodating a curving section of rail. Stabilising features occur on the cutting faces.
\nA cutting is located approximately 100 metres after the 137km peg. The cutting curves to the left, is high and steeply sloping, with sides of roughly equal height. Sections of concrete rendering occur on the right side of the cutting.
\nA cutting is located less than 250 metres past the 138km peg. The cutting curves to the right, is high and steeply sloping. The right side of the cutting is higher than the left, with vegetation growing out of the face. Sections of concrete rendering occur on both faces of the cutting.
\nA cutting is located between the 147km peg and the entrance to Tunnel 4 (147.25km). The cutting curves to the right and is short and low, with sides of roughly equal height. The right hand side is more steeply sloped than the left. Curving parallel to the cutting, at the base of the left side is a low guard of steel piping. A railway signal is located at the exit of the cutting
\nA cutting is located between Tunnel 8 152.8km and Tunnel 9 153.85km. The cutting is high and curves to the right, with vegetation growing out of both faces. The right side of the cutting is higher while the left face is slightly steeper. Two sections of vertical stone or concrete walling are set into the left side of the cutting, roughly 1.5 metres apart.
\nA cutting is located between Swanson's Bridge (154.675km) and Tunnel 9 (153.85km). The cutting curves to the right and has a higher right side with vegetation growing on both faces from mid-height. Both faces pitch steeply near the base, sloping unevenly toward the top of the cutting. Curving parallel to the cutting, at the base of left side is a low concrete border.
\nRetaining and Stabilizing features
\nAs the Main Range Railway ascends, numerous retaining and stabilising features occur on hillsides and banks to the right of the track. A wide range of materials and construction techniques are evident and features are set in at different heights.
\nExtending adjacent to the railway for approximately 50 metres, terminating at QR cant sign 138.22km is a stone retaining wall. The wall is of cut and dressed stone with a quarry-face finish and is evenly coursed. The wall is set in from the base on a steeply sloping hillside with a height close to four metres. Two small rectangular metal QR signs are attached along the wall and tufts of grass grow from mid-level upwards.
\nBetween the 140km post and a culvert at 140.8km, steep high sections of rock face along the railway incorporate a number of stabilising features. Situated next to a railway signal marked 'HS 27', a drain has been cut out of the rock extending vertically from a concrete culvert upwards over the top of the rock face. Immediately to the right of the drain, close to the top of the rock face is a set in, oblong section of lightly coloured brickwork. Extending from the edge of the culvert, a sloped retaining wall begins with a short section of rubble coursed stone. The wall continues with a section of quarry-faced stonework of about two metres in height. Parts of this wall have been rendered in concrete, and a section is collapsed with exposed earth. From the termination of the stone wall, the rock face projects closer to the rail track. A low vertical retainer of brickwork less than a metre in height is set in to the rock from the base section, extending for approximately 25 metres. Some distance on, set in to an eroded face of sandstone, are sections of brickwork. The bricks are of varying size and colour. The largest section of brickwork extends vertically and then horizontally in the 'up' direction, and is surrounded by other smaller sections.
\nBetween 143.17km and 143.39km is a section of stone retaining wall. The wall is rubble coursed, less than one metre high and is set into the base of a grassed, sloping bank approximately 2.5m high. A small rectangular metal QR sign has been attached to a stone along the wall.
\nBetween a large, tiered modern cutting of shotcrete (known as Moggill's Wall and not of cultural heritage significance) and the entrance to Tunnel 3 (144.5km), a steep, high and long rock face incorporates a number of features. The rock face runs parallel to a large section of check railed curving track. The face begins with a wall of pick-faced, cut and dressed stone extending approximately seven metres high and wide. As the face increases in height, large sections of concrete rendering surround numerous areas of pick-faced exposed rock. Set in among eroded sandstone at various heights are sections of cut and dressed and mortared stone work. Small tufts of vegetation are scattered along the face. Directly outside the entrance to Tunnel 3, a high cutting of steep rock has extensive pick facing and a section of stone walling along its base.
\nBetween the 148km and 149km posts a number of stabilising features are set in to the base of low sections of bank opposite the railway. Running parallel to a section of check railed curving track is a stone retaining wall. The wall is rubble coursed, and is set into the base of a steep low bank. Much of the higher portion of the wall is rendered and there is evidence of collapse. The wall continues for approximately 15 metres, adjoining a low squared section of rock face close to the base, marked by a painted 7 within a white square. After passing a high tiered face of lightly coloured and loosely packed rock, a small low bank running parallel to a short, straight section of rail between two curves incorporates a number of features. Parallel to where the rail straightens is a steeply sloping retaining wall of brick. The bricks range in colour from orange to brown and are labelled: Campbells Redbank. The brickwork adjoins a low vertical section of pick-faced rock that extends until the next curve. The face contains a small section of cut and dressed stone and brickwork set in underneath the rock face to the base. Above the bank set into the hillside a section of stone walling is largely obscured by vegetation.
\nA large, high steeply sloping rock face between the 152km and 153km posts is attached with sections of concrete. Most of the concrete occurs along the base, with steel rods inserted in some higher sections.
\nBetween the 154km and 155km posts, set into a steeply sloping face are two sections of high retaining wall. The cut and dressed stone blocks are long and rectangular with a mixture of pick and quarry facing. A small section of rubble coursed stone work divides the two sections. Tufts of grass grow through the top half of the wall. The hillside shows evidence of subsidence above and adjacent to the walled section.
\nBetween Swanson's Bridge (154.675km) and the Rangeview Station site (155km) is a section of stone retaining wall. The wall is located on a steeply sloping face and is high set, close to the treeline. Much of the wall is obscured by vegetation.
\nBetween the 157km and 158km posts, close to the summit of the range and running parallel to a section of check-railed curving track is a retaining wall. The wall is set into the base of a steep rocky hillside and is of cut and dressed stone with quarry-faced stone. The wall extends for approximately twenty metres.
\nBridges
\nA small number of bridges exist on the Main Range Railway, each differing in length, height and materials.
\nLocated at 132.34km is a large concrete bridge that crosses Murphy's Creek. The bridge is supported by high concrete piers that widen towards their base. On top of the piers a steel girder spans the bridge. The bridge has an open deck, with the railway set into timber sleepers. A timber walkway with guardrail runs parallel to the bridge on its left hand side.
\nLocated at 135.5km is King's Bridge, a 2011 concrete bridge which replaced a timber bridge that was destroyed during the extreme weather event of that year. The concrete bridge is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nLocated at 154.960km, over an unnamed gully near the top of the Toowoomba Range, is Swanson's Bridge [QHR 600871]. It is an unreinforced concrete arch construction, 99 feet in length, built on a steep slope. It is curved in plan and consists of three 10.1 metre circular concrete arches, two concrete piers and two abutments. It carries a single 1.07 metre gauge railway and is built to a 12 ton axle load. The structure is detailed with prominent cornices at the bases of the arches and incised lines on the spandrel walls of a form similar to the joints that would occur in a stone bridge. The bridge is in a remote location accessible only by rail staff. It commands a vast view over the Toowoomba Range.
\nLocated at 157.76km, marking the end of the Main Range ascent is the Ruthven Street overbridge (Picnic Bridge). The bridge sits high above the railway, situated close to the site of the former Harlaxton Station and carries northbound traffic on Ruthven Street. The bridge is a riveted plate girder bridge, decked in concrete and supported on brick abutments with stone quoins. The features of the bridge are largely obscured by a pipework pedestrian bridge on its east face and a duplicate concrete bridge on its west face. These are later bridges and are not considered of cultural heritage significance.
\nCliffdale Quarry
\nLocated between Tunnel 3 (144.5km) and Spring Bluff Station (146.17km) is Cliffdale Quarry. Set in some distance on the north side of the railway, the rock face of the quarry is high, steep and uneven. A number of trees grow out of the face and large amounts of rubble stone sit at its base. The formation of a siding sits adjacent to the railway within a wide grassed area. A thick wall of concrete is set into a sloping vegetated bank above the siding, flanked by walls of concrete and rubble coursed stone. A large concrete block sits in front of the wall, mounted by a short timber beam attached by steel rods. A timber Queensland Rail sign above the cement work prohibits fossicking. Above the bank a large level grassed area extends to the base of the quarry face.
\nSpring Bluff Station
\nThe Spring Bluff Station complex is located 146.17km from Roma Street Station along a large level curve of the Main Range Railway. The key features of the site are located on a series of terraces cut into the escarpment of the main range, on the north side of the railway, surrounded by native vegetation composed predominantly of open eucalypt forest. A station building and platform, railway residences, timber pavilion and other built structures are placed among expansive landscaped gardens and open grassed areas.
\nGarden beds with stone terracing and beds with retaining walls of stone, timber or concrete occur on both sides of the railway. In a garden bed below the Fettler's Quarters, large white stones set into concrete form the words: Spring Bluff. A mixture of exotic and native trees and shrubs are scattered among the site. Prominent plantings include a large clump of bamboo next to the station building and a nearby London Plane tree (platanus acerifolia) (1870) with a commemorative plaque at its base.
\nFacilities for recreation on the grounds include picnic tables, a cricket pitch and a railway carriage used for refreshments. Left of the railway, adjacent to a fenced bitumen carpark, is a modern Queensland Rail residence. A crossing loop runs along the extent of the station.
\nStation Building and Signal Cabin
\nThe Spring Bluff Station building is a single storeyed rectangular timber structure, centrally positioned on the south-east facing station platform. The building is timber-framed and clad with chamferboards, except for the rear elevation, which has exposed stud framing to the shelter shed and ladies waiting room (which appear to be the earliest sections of the building). The whole is set on low set concrete stumping. A gabled roof of corrugated iron projects towards the platform, supported by curved and chamfered timber brackets with single-faced bosses.
\nThe building comprises four sections: ladies waiting room, shelter shed, office and an electric staff instruments room.
\nAt the north-east end of the building is the ladies waiting room. This has a four-panel timber door with fanlight and a sash window to the platform. At the rear corner of the waiting room, horizontal timber louvres form a window and a small door provides access at the base. There is a double-hung sash window in the rear wall.
\nAdjoining is the shelter shed with timber bench seats around the walls, two sets of pivoting timber shutters on the rear wall and a floor lined with timber boards. The rear wall is lined with horizontal beaded tongue and groove joinery. The north-east internal wall has vertical tongue and groove lining, with a high small hinged door opening from the waiting room. The south-west internal wall is lined with chamferboards. Interpretative and other panels are mounted on the walls.
\nAdjoining the waiting area is the office. The elevation to the platform has a sash window and a four-panel timber door with fanlight. A mail slot is inserted into the chamferboard cladding. There is a double-hung sash window in the rear wall.
\nAt the south-west end of the building is the electric staff instruments room, which is accessed from the platform via a four panel timber door. Internally, two red electric staff instruments sit on timber pedestals. A switch board is mounted on the wall to the right and the rear wall has a sash window. There is a double-hung sash window in the rear wall.
\nA World War II commemorative stone with plaque is located on the platform near the shelter shed. Above this, mounted on the station building wall, is a panel commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
\nAt the north-east end of the platform is a two-lever ground frame. At either end of the platform are timber signs displaying the name of the station: Spring Bluff.
\nSet in against the hillside at the rear of the building, is a coursed stone wall incorporating the remnants of an arched brick fireplace.
\nImmediately adjacent to the station building, at its south-west end, is a detached signal cabin. This is a small square structure with a skillion roof, clad with metal sheeting, and has aluminium-framed windows. A modern water tank collects rainwater from gutters of the signal cabin. The signal cabin building and the rain water tank are not of cultural heritage significance, but the cabin houses two culturally significant elements: a steel, 15 lever frame, set into timber floorboards, and a timber-framed cabin diagram mounted on the rear wall.
\nNext to the water tank a long flight of exterior timber stairs leads to the gardens and the Station Masters House.
\nSet high into the hillside above the railway at the rear of a large landscaped area, three timber buildings, all former railway residences, extend to the west.
\nStation Master's House
\nThe Station Master's house is a timber building, sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting. The building faces south-east, is clad with weatherboards and chamferboards, and stands on timber stumps, on a slightly sloping site. At the rear of the residence is an attached kitchen, with a broken gable roof. The kitchen is clad with chamferboards of varying widths, some up to 30cm.
\nThe main elevation has a central four panel timber door with multi-pane sash windows on either side. A separate corrugated iron roof shelters a lean-to verandah. The verandah is enclosed by post and rails extending from either side of the central staircase. The side balustrading of the verandah is filled with weatherboards.
\nThe south-west elevation has a multipane sash window covered by a metal hood. A second, unhooded window of glass louvres is partially obscured by a corrugated iron water tank, set on high timber stumps and base. A small set of timber stairs lead to a screened side door. The detached kitchen section of the elevation contains a corrugated iron stove recess with a projecting vent pipe. The rear elevation includes a hooded sash window and timber door, both with security grills. Along the north-east elevation are three hooded sash windows, smaller meshed window, a side door and a small paved courtyard.
\nThe front garden beds are bordered by timber posts.
\nNight Officer's House
\nThe Night Officer's House is a long rectangular timber building, sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building faces south-east, is clad with weatherboards and stands on timber stumps, on a slightly sloping site. An attached rectangular structure sits at the rear of the building. The main elevation has a projecting front gable bay on the south-west corner with decorative timber infill. Beneath the gable is a large window shaded by a timber awning, covered by a small pitched iron roof. The south-west half of a former front verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards, incorporating two sets of aluminium framed sliding windows. A small set of timber steps leads to the section of open verandah and entrance, enclosed by a timber post and rail with circular timber balustrading. The rear wall of the verandah is clad in chamferboard and has two sash windows.
\nA modern timber picket fence, bordered by an external garden bed marks the entrance to the house.
\nFettler's Quarters
\nThe Fettler's Quarters is a small rectangular timber structure sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building faces south-east, is clad with a mixture of weatherboards and chamferboards and stands on timber stumps, on a slightly sloping site. The main and rear elevations have centrally placed sash windows. Attached to the north-east of the earlier quarters is a more recent rectangular structure clad in corrugated iron, sheltered by a skillion roof. The main elevation has a timber door and a window with two sets of glass louvres. A similar window exists on the rear elevation of the building. A venting pipe projects from the roof.
\nAt the front of the building is a set of tiered garden beds divided by timber retainers and posts.
\nPavilion
\nLocated high above the grassed area with the cricket pitch, a winding bitumen path leads to a grassed clearing containing a timber pavilion. The pavilion is a large rectangular timber structure, open-sided and sheltered by a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building faces south-east, and stands on timber stumps on a slightly sloping site. Internally, an exposed timber frame decorated in graffiti supports the length of the roof. Bench seats are built into the perimeter on all sides of the pavilion and the floor is lined with timber boards. The perimeter posts are fitted with diagonal braces attached to horizontal beams on the roof frame. On the south-west and north-east elevations, the posts support gabled infills of unpainted corrugated iron.
\nTo the rear of the pavilion, a timber-framed structure with three sides of corrugated iron shelter a fireplace. Nearby is a timber ablutions block, containing male and female rest rooms.
\nTrolley Sheds
\nLocated approximately 100 metres east of the platform along the railway is the trolley shed. The trolley shed is rectangular, clad in unpainted corrugated iron and sheltered by a skillion roof. The main elevation is filled by three bays, each with hinged double doors with vertical timber slats and internal diagonal braces.
\nTwo smaller storage spaces sit on either side of the trolley shed. To the north-east is a storage shed of similar design to the trolley shed, with a single door. To the south-west is a timber structure. The building is clad with weatherboards and sheltered by a gabled corrugated iron roof. On the main and south-west elevation are entrance doors.
","history":"The Main Range Railway, between Murphy's Creek and Harlaxton on the outskirts of Toowoomba, was built in 1865-1867 by railway builders Peto, Brassey and Betts, for the colonial government of Queensland.
\nThe Main Range, part of Australia's Great Dividing Range, was a formidable geological barrier to trade following pastoral settlement on the Darling Downs in the 1840s. An adequate transport link between sheep stations and the ports of Brisbane and Ipswich became increasingly important to enable the export of wool and the import of station supplies. A number of dray routes were used, with varying degrees of difficulty, to move goods and people across the Main Range during the 1840s. From 1847 Spicer's Gap replaced Cunningham's Gap (1828) as the preferred route in the southern Downs region. On the northern end of the Downs, Gorman's Gap was used from 1840, followed by Hodgson's Gap in 1842.
\nIn 1855 the Toll Bar Road was opened and the traffic that soon came to use this route facilitated the expansion of the settlement of 'The Swamp', from 1857 officially known as Toowoomba. By the early 1860s Toowoomba was the principal settlement on the Darling Downs, supplanting nearby Drayton as the service centre for the surrounding district. In this period, the pastoralists of the Darling Downs wielded significant political and economic power in the young colony of Queensland. This influenced the decision to initiate Queensland's railway network from Ipswich, considered the port for the Darling Downs, rather than Brisbane.
\nQueensland's earliest endeavours toward constructing a railway were through the activities of the Moreton Bay Tramway Company. The company intended to construct a tramway with horses hauling vehicles on timber rails, surveying a route between Ipswich and Toowoomba in 1861. The company failed to raise sufficient capital for the project to succeed and by the end of 1862 was insolvent.
\nThereafter, the Queensland Government took responsibility for building the colony's railways. The first Railway Bill, authorising the government to construct and borrow funds for this purpose was passed on 3 September 1863. In the lead up to the Bill, Irish civil engineer Abraham Fitzgibbon, estimating comparative construction costs of rail gauges between Ipswich and Toowoomba, recommended to the government the adoption of a light railway with a 3 foot 6 inch narrow gauge (1067 mm). The ascent of the Main Range was the principal engineering and expense obstacle for the railway to Toowoomba and a narrow gauge allowed for tighter rail curves on the Range incline. A lighter railway with extensive use of curved track meant cheaper construction costs, lessening capital outlay. After much debate, the Queensland government adopted Fitzgibbon's proposal. While contemporary examples of shorter narrow gauge railways existed in other parts of the world, none were of the length or scale proposed for Queensland. The railway between Ipswich and Toowoomba was the first use of a narrow gauge for a main line.
\nShortly after the bill was passed, Fitzgibbon was contracted as Chief Engineer, responsible for surveying the line, providing specifications and construction supervision. On 23 December 1863 he was appointed as Queensland's first Commissioner of Railways, a post held until October 1864. Sir Charles Fox was appointed consulting engineer, responsible for selecting the various components such as trains, rails and bridges to facilitate the railway. Samuel Willcox was responsible for the workforce involved in constructing the line.
\nThe construction of the line between Ipswich and Toowoomba was divided into five sections. Section 1 was from Ipswich to Grandchester and opened on 31 July 1865. Tenders were called for Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 on 24 August 1864 to extend the line from Grandchester to Toowoomba. Messrs Peto, Brassey and Betts, contractors with extensive world-wide experience in railway construction and builders of Section 1, were awarded the contract on 27 February 1865 for a sum of £515,000.
\nSection 5, the ascent of the Main Range from Murphy's Creek to Toowoomba was the most difficult section to engineer, involving steep gradients of 1 in 50, nine tunnels, 47 bridges, 126 curves, numerous cuttings, embankments, culverts and nearly 18 miles (32km) of track work. Extensive use of five chain (100m) radius rail was necessary to negotiate the ascent. Nearly two thirds of the line required cutting, approximately one quarter embankments and the remainder tunnelling and bridging, over a rise close to 1200 feet (365.76 metres). Section 5 was engineered in two separate stages, delineated by the current site of Spring Bluff Station. The incline from this point towards Toowoomba provided the most engineering challenges within Section 5, with work including five tunnels and three major bridges.
\nThe immense scale of the Main Range Railway demanded large numbers of skilled and unskilled workers to complete the project. The Queensland Government's immigration agent advertised in Great Britain and Germany for railway workers, offering free passage on the Black Ball shipping line to artisans such as excavators, bridge carpenters, masons and bricklayers. During April 1866 a total of 1009 workmen were employed along Section 5.
\nPeto, Brassey and Betts contracted work for specified lengths of line or engineering features to agents, who were responsible for ensuring contracts were adhered to and who in turn employed gangs of workers. Peto, Brassey and Betts also appointed an Engineer-In-Charge, Robert Ballard, to oversee construction on the Main Range. Prior to working on the Main Range, Ballard had gained experience in tunnel construction in New South Wales and his expertise in challenging engineering work, especially tunnelling, determined his appointment. Ballard's high standard of work on Section 5 (the Main Range Railway), in comparison with other sections of the Ipswich to Toowoomba line, was noted in reports soon after its completion and was considered the least expensive section of the Ipswich-Toowoomba railway to maintain. The high standard of his work on the Main Range Railway later earned him appointments as Superintending Engineer on Queensland's Great Northern (later known as Central) Railway in 1872 and as Chief Engineer for the Central and Northern railways (1882). He was granted £5,000 in the 1880s by the Queensland government for his achievements in cost-effective railway construction.
\nWith the large amount of cutting and tunnelling required, much of the labour force was engaged in heavy manual labour to remove earth. While explosives were used to blast through rock, the work relied on large teams of men excavating with pick and shovel, assisted by horse and bullock teams to move earth, which was then used to create embankments. Such work in difficult terrain carried with it a high degree of risk and a number of work-related injuries and deaths occurred along the line during construction.
\nTunnels were constructed where the terrain was too difficult to create cuttings. Two were ready for brick lining on 1 November 1865, one on 1 January 1866 and another on 13 Feb 1866. By April 1866 three quarters of the tunnelling had been excavated and work had begun on lining the tunnels. Within the tunnels, curved and straight rail, or a combination of both were laid. In addition to its two portals, tunnel 8 was constructed with the aid of a side gallery to allow boring to proceed on four faces. The side gallery is the only example of a side gallery on a railway tunnel thought to exist in Australia.
\nThe tunnels built for the Main Range Railway are among Australia's earliest. In Queensland the only tunnels predating those of the Main Range are the two built through the Little Liverpool range in Section 2 of the main line, opening 1 June 1866 (still in use). The first railway tunnels were built in Victoria on the double line between Melbourne and Bendigo, opening in 1862 (still in use). New South Wales' first tunnel, initially supervised by Ballard, was the Redbank Range Tunnel at Picton which opened in early 1867 (since closed).
\nA large quarry now known as Cliffdale was established roughly halfway up the Main Range during construction, to supply ballast for the line. In later years the quarry was furnished with its own siding (since removed) and loading area, with stone extracted from the site into the 1950s.
\nThe navvies (construction workers) and contractors resided in a number of camps along the course of the railway. From the base of the range upwards, camps included Gibbon's, Fountain's, Holmes', Main Range, Ballard's and Cameron's, generally named after the person responsible for the section of line in a particular area. The camps operated as temporary townships and bases for specific engineering projects. Bricks were being manufactured at Ballard's camp by August 1865. Peto, Brassey and Betts supplied a prefabricated church at Ballard's and buildings were supplied for community use at other camps. Fountain's, Holmes' and Ballard's camps were the most substantial, with Ballard's working population reported at about 500 in mid-1865.
\nStores such as butchers and bakers were established and fresh produce was sourced from Toowoomba and Ipswich. Numerous drinking houses, legal and otherwise, provided workers with alcohol, meals and entertainment. Although many workers were single men, around one third were accompanied by their families. The makeshift nature of the camps led to inadequate sanitation with typhoid and diphtheria causing the death of a number of infants and young children in 1866 and 1867. One murder at Holmes camp and a small number of accidental deaths at campsites also occurred. Some 22 deaths (mainly infants) were recorded at Main Range camp.
\nThe construction of the Main Range Railway took just over two years to complete. It was one of the most important early public works undertaken in Queensland and a major government investment in infrastructure. The first train to cross the Range made its entry into Toowoomba on 12 April 1867 and the official opening of the line took place on 30 April 1867.
\nThe railway soon became the dominant transport artery for the movement of goods and people between Toowoomba and Ipswich. From Toowoomba the Western Line extended to Dalby in 1868 while the Southern Line reached Warwick by 1871. Numerous visitors to the Darling Downs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marvelled at the engineering and scenic qualities of the Main Range Railway. Until road transportation began to dominate in the twentieth century, the railway was intrinsically associated with the development of pastoral, agricultural and mining industries, closer settlement and the growth of townships on the Darling Downs and south western Queensland.
\nThe Main Range Railway was one of the most challenging sections of line for enginemen during the steam era on the Queensland Railways. Despite the advent of more powerful locomotives during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the combination of sharp curves, steep grades and tunnels created difficult conditions for crews. Railway workers needed to ensure adequate supplies of coal and water to negotiate the crossing and banking engines were employed between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba to assist ascending trains. On curved sections of track inner check rails were laid to minimise the possibility of derailment after 1897. Sandboxes were placed along the line to assist wheel traction. Despite being a difficult stretch of railway to work, the Main Range line has been relatively free of major disasters. Of the fatal incidents that have occurred, the worst was the Murphy's Creek collision (1913) when six men were killed.
\nSince its opening in 1867 the Main Range line has sustained a high level of usage with various maintenance and upgrading works ensuring its continuity as a vital transport link. By 1868 excessive wear from steep grades and sharp curves was reported and some sections of iron rail were replaced with steel. From 1875 all curves sharper than 10 chain radius were re-laid with steel. In 1879 a proposal by Chief Engineer Stanley to re-lay track on the Main Range, to enable the use of heavier engines and to reduce maintenance was approved, with the work completed by 1883.
\nIn 1882 plans for a plate girder overbridge were drawn up for the Ruthven Street overbridge, at the range summit near Harlaxton. The plate girder replaced an earlier timber structure but the existing brick abutments were retained. Only a small number of railway bridges with brick abutments were ever built in Queensland. A report of the Main Range Railway line in March 1867 included a description of the brick abutments and stone facings of the overbridge on the road to Highfields. As other surviving examples post-date the construction of the Main Range Railway, the brick abutments are thought to be the oldest in Queensland.
\nBetween 1899 and 1902 the track was strengthened to support 12 ton axle loads and realigned to eliminate curves below a five chain radius, while the inadequate original iron girder bridges on timber piers were replaced with embankments and culverts. During this period Swanson's Bridge [QHR 600871], close to the summit of the range was constructed, notable as the first concrete arched rail bridge constructed in Australia. From the latter half of the 1990s to 2006, eleven timber bridges were replaced with steel or concrete drains. During the extreme weather event of January 2011, King's Bridge (timber) was destroyed and was replaced with a concrete bridge. Other than the Swanson and Harlaxton bridges, only one remains: Murphy's Creek Bridge (steel and concrete).
\nOver time, different materials including brick, stone and concrete have been used to stabilise cuttings, embankments and entrances to tunnels. Many of the culvert portals were replaced and sides of shallow cuttings removed on the south side of the track when an access road running parallel to the line was built between 1993 and 1996. More recently timber sleepers have been progressively replaced by concrete sleepers.
\nAfter the opening of the line, a number of stations and sidings were established along the route between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba stations. Stations were located at Murphy's Creek (1867), Holmes, known as 87 Mile siding until 1912, Ballard, in use by 1876, Rangeview, a public station by 1949, and Harlaxton (1884). Sidings included Cliffdale (by 1912), 88 and 95 Mile (1916) and Calobra, Commonwealth and Magoon (1942). While most of the components of these places are gone, Spring Bluff Station (known as Highfields until 1890) survives as an example of the small railway settlements that used to exist on the range. Situated approximately halfway up the Main Range, equipped with a natural spring for watering and a level section of track, Spring Bluff has always been the principal halt between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba and the only station equipped with a resident station master. Spring Bluff was utilised locally by nearby settlers and the Highfields sawmill.
\nBy 1879, Spring Bluff station included a 7000 gallon gravity-fed supply of water, passenger station and office, porter's cottage and station master's residence. The existing station and night officer's quarters are thought to date from the 1880s. The crossing loop was extended in 1911 and 1959, with its current configuration dating from 1968. By 1963 the complex also included a signal cabin, single men's quarters (now removed), fettler's quarters, and loading bank. The station building contains two electric staff machines that demonstrate the safe management of multiple trains using the main range. No train driver was able to proceed between stations up or down the range without the issue of a staff. In 1992, Spring Bluff Station was decommissioned and Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) was installed.
\nFrom the early 1900s the picturesque surrounds of Spring Bluff became a popular local destination for recreation and leisure, with an entertainment shed provided on a rise behind the station between 1907 and 1911. In addition to recreation and leisure, Spring Bluff was and remains well-known for its floral displays and gardens. Early evidence of efforts to beautify the surrounds exist in the sole remaining London Plane tree (platanus acerifolia), one of five planted in 1870. From the 1910s, Queensland Railways began promoting the beautification of stations and growing of vegetables by station staff, with competitions held for the best displays. During the 1930s and 1940s Station Master Ralph Kirsop, his wife Lillian and night officers undertook extensive improvements to the gardens, creating flower beds terraced with blue metal stone. Spring Bluff Station was awarded prizes numerous times for its floral displays and produce.
\nAfter a period of post-war neglect, resident railway workers from the 1960s were required to assist in the upkeep of the gardens. Since this time the gardens have continued to be cultivated, offering alternating floral displays in summer and spring. In the 1970s Queensland Rail began excursions from Toowoomba to Spring Bluff and these trips continue to operate during Toowoomba's Carnival of Flowers in September. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, Queensland Railways continued to improve visitor amenities at Spring Bluff. Work included extending the grassed area below the pavilion, addition of a cricket pitch, planting of native and exotic vegetation and lawn grasses, construction of bitumen pathways and installation of an ex-Guard's Van to serve refreshments. Since 1995 the Spring Bluff Railway Station Trust Management Committee, composed of representatives from local councils and Queensland Rail, has been responsible for the management of the site. Lion's Club members have also contributed to the upkeep of the grounds and gardens. The Spring Bluff railway complex remains a well patronised tourist attraction.
\nIn the 1860s, the ambitious construction of the Main Range Railway provided the colony of Queensland a critical transport link for the export of goods from its interior. This role currently continues, with most of the traffic on the Main Range Railway laden with coal for overseas markets.
","criteria":"The Main Range Railway is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in 1860s Queensland. As part of the main line between Ipswich and Toowoomba, the Main Range Railway ascent, Queensland's first range rail crossing, utilised the medium of narrow gauge on a size and scale previously unknown, either in the Australian colonies or in other countries. Over challenging and variable terrain and an incline close to 365 metres, the Main Range Railway demonstrates the extent of engineering necessary to construct the route, as evidenced in the substantial use of tightly curved track, tunnels, culverts, cuttings, embankments and bridges.
|The Main Range Railway is important in demonstrating the pattern of development in Queensland, as a major government investment in infrastructure to facilitate the economic development of Queensland. An immense undertaking for its time (1865-1867), involving a large workforce and a dramatic alteration of the landscape, the Main Range Railway is one of Queensland's most significant early public works.
The Main Range Railway is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's railway network and the objective behind its establishment. The Main Range Railway inaugurated the pattern of extending Queensland railways westwards from ports across the Dividing Range to assist the development of inland Queensland.
The Main Range Railway (constructed 1865-1867) was the earliest railway crossing of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland and in Australia, opening earlier than the Zig Zag Railway in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, under construction from 1863-1869. It is also believed to be the world's first main line narrow gauge railway.
|The substantially intact tunnels of the Main Range Railway demonstrate a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being among Australia's earliest railway tunnels built in the 1860s.
Tunnel 8 demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as the only example of a side gallery on a railway tunnel thought to exist in Australia.
The gardens of Spring Bluff Station demonstrate a practice once common but now rare: beautifying railway station grounds for the aesthetic appreciation of train passengers and visitors.
The Ruthven Street overbridge is Queensland's oldest extant metal rail overbridge with a length of approximately 40 feet (12.2m). The overbridge features a now rare use of brick abutments for a railway bridge. They are thought to be the oldest surviving examples of this type in Queensland.
|The Main Range Railway is important because of its aesthetic significance. The railway offers an array of different built and natural landscapes to experience. Cuttings, tunnels and other built features are a tangible illustration of the extraordinary human endeavour required to make the railway a reality. Sections of the winding railway can be seen making its way up the range. Constantly changing and frequently spectacular vistas of steep timbered hills, gullies and distant ranges extend south-east to the coastal plain.
The assemblage of landscaped gardens, railway buildings and natural setting at Spring Bluff station are a distinctive and highly picturesque feature of the Main Range Railway.
|The Main Range rail ascent is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a railway range crossing. The railway climbs from Murphy's Creek at the base of the Great Dividing Range to the summit at Harlaxton. Along the route engineering features responded to challenging and variable terrain, as demonstrated in the provision of nine tunnels, numerous culverts, cuttings and embankments, and extensive use of curved track. The line originally included the construction of 47 bridges (mostly timber), but these have been gradually replaced by culverts and embankments.
In particular, the tunnels of the Main Range Railway demonstrate the high quality of work of Engineer-In-Chief Robert Ballard, who was appointed specifically for his expertise in this field of railway engineering.
|Where locations of former campsites still exist within the railway reserve on the Main Range, there is potential to reveal information on the organisation and domestic life of 1860s railway camps in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion F | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16248,"place_ref":601485,"name":"Coen Carrier Station (former)","alternate_name":"Coen Carrier Repeater Station | Coen Telegraph Station","street_address":"Coleman Close","suburb":"COEN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-05-27","description":"Coen Carrier Station is located on a gently sloping site, approximately 45 x 50 m, to the north side of Coen at the junction of the Coen River and Lankelly Creek. It is adjacent to the site of the original Telegraph Station. The Carrier Station building is essentially rectangular in form, set on a concrete slab. The framing of the building is a combination of timber and steel. The base plates are timber while all the vertical members are steel. Timber frames house the windows and doors. The timber is generally in sound condition throughout the building, although termite damage is evident in some locations. The exterior walls are 1-inch ripple iron that is screwed to the steel frame. The interior fibrous cement sheet walls are also screwed to the steel frame. The joints are covered with wide timber cover-strips which are nailed to the base plates and the occasional timber members. The original windows are timber framed, and located on the west elevation. Louvres have been installed on the southern elevation.
\nThe original part of the building consists of three rooms; an equipment room, power room and battery room. Two rooms of equal size and shape are located at the southern end of the building with the third across the whole of the northern end. No original telegraph equipment remains in the building. Attached to the eastern side is a glazed verandah running the full length of the building that is clad in ripple iron up to the height of the sill. The internal rear wall of the verandah is clad in 1-inch ripple iron. At the southern end of the verandah there is a kitchen annexe. This projects slightly and is clad in standard 3-inch corrugated iron.
\nA laundry and bathroom are attached at the northern end of the building and have been constructed on a concrete slab, higher than the level of the main floor. The structure is timber framed, clad both internally and externally in fibrous cement sheeting. It has a skillion roof and louvred windows. There is a path leading north-west out from the laundry. At the north and south ends of the building, the original fixtures for the telegraph and electric wires are still visible.
\nThe ceiling framing, like the walls, is a mixture of timber and iron. The rafters and king-posts are iron, while the battens are timber. The gable roof is clad with 3-inch corrugated fibrous cement nailed to battens. The roof eaves are supported on timber and steel brackets. A corrugated iron awning over the eastern verandah is attached to the main roof and is supported on timber brackets. A large ventilator runs along the ridge of the roof and small circular one set into the roof is located near the north-west corner.
\nThe remains of three water tanks are located at the north-east, south-east and sout-west corners of the building. A colourbond steel shed with a flat roof has recently been erected at the north-west corner of the site.
","history":"Coen Carrier Station, a prefabricated steel and corrugated iron building, was erected in 1942 as part of an urgent upgrading of the Cape York Peninsula overland telegraph line [established in the 1880s], undertaken in response to Japanese aggression in the Pacific and South East Asia. It was one of four identical carrier stations.
Far North Queensland had emerged as the new 'frontier' following the discovery of gold on the Palmer River in the early 1870s, and the resultant impetus to prospect further north. Various smaller goldfields were opened at this period. An abortive gold rush at Coen in 1878-80 was re-kindled in 1886, and by 1889 Coen comprised a one-street township of tents and bark huts. The Coen Goldfield was proclaimed in 1892.
A telegraph station had been erected at Coen in 1886, when the overland telegraph line from Laura, at the southern end of Cape York Peninsula, to Thursday Island at the northern end, was being constructed. The line, which opened to Thursday Island on 25 August 1887, provided contact between the isolated communities of the peninsula, as well as a link to southern capitals via Cooktown, and played an important role in the development of the region. The expansion of telegraphic communication on the peninsula was also an integral element of Brisbane's administrative control of far north Queensland and of communication with British-annexed New Guinea and the Torres Straits from 1885, and was considered important for the defence of Queensland in the late 19th century.
From the late 1930s, with the impending threat of war with Japan in the Pacific, telecommunications once again were identified as an important element of national defence. Even before Australia's declaration of war on Japan on 9 December 1941, [following simultaneous attacks by the Japanese on Hawaii, Hong Kong and Malaya], there was urgent interest in upgrading defence facilities on Cape York Peninsula. The two priorities were serviceable airfields and adequate communications. By July 1941 a new airfield about 35 km north of Coen, and a new runway at Iron Range (near Lockhart River), had been completed, yet at this period the Coen Telegraph Station had only morse facilities and a 6-line pyramid switchboard [local telephone only].
The bombing of Darwin and Townsville by the Japanese in March and July 1942 respectively, and the arrival of American troops in north Queensland from March 1942, hastened the plans to deliver improved telecommunications to the Peninsula. Australia became the centre of communications in the South Pacific. Following the Coral Sea and Midway campaigns in May 1942, and the shifting of the war north to New Guinea, it was clear that north Queensland and Cape York Peninsula would play a crucial role in the offensive against Japan. Adequate telecommunications were essential to link the airfields of far north Queensland and the fighting fronts in New Guinea and beyond, with the command centres in Townsville, Brisbane and the southern capitals.
The wartime upgrading of telecommunications from Townsville to Thursday Island was a dedicated defence facility, but was linked directly to the 1880s overland telegraph. An R Type Carrier System, developed in Australia during World War II to cater for pockets of telecommunications traffic congestion, particularly in places where a telephone carrier was not available to supply a channel for a voice frequency system, was installed along the old overland telegraph route from Mt Surprise to Cape York. The R Type system was limited to four duo-directional channels using a frequency between 3300 and 5220 cycles per second, which was above normal voice frequency but below the range of other established carrier systems, which used high frequency bands. There was no interference when both normal speech frequency and the carrier frequency operated over the same pair of copper wires. In effect, one pair of copper wires from Townsville to Thursday Island was to carry 3 facilities: normal voice frequency telephone, upgraded telegraph carrier, and a telephone carrier.
Cape York Peninsula's R Type Carrier System necessitated the installation of:
* a pair of copper wires strung on the existing pole route between Townsville and Cape York, with loops into Cooktown and Iron Range [total 1036 miles]
* a three channel carrier system [telephone] with terminals at Townsville and Cape York and repeaters at Charters Towers, Mt Surprise, Fairview and Coen
* a four channel telegraph system with terminals at Townsville and Cape York
* voice frequency repeaters at Charters Towers, Mt Surprise, Fairview, Coen and Cape York
* submarine cable from Cape York to Horn Island and from Horn Island to Thursday Island
* power equipment, including diesel generators and batteries, at Mt Surprise, Fairview, Coen and Cape York
* buildings [carrier stations] at Mt Surprise, Fairview, Coen and Cape York to accommodate equipment.
The work of upgrading telecommunications on Cape York Peninsula commenced in August 1942, and was a major undertaking. The US Army Signal Corps provided 1200 men, the Australian Army Signals made 600 men available, and the Postmaster-General's Department [PMG] provided 60 supervisors. Australian Army Engineers under the supervision of the PMG were responsible for that part of the line northwards from the Hann River, including the upgrading of facilities at Coen and the construction of the new loop line from Coen to Iron Range, a massive job. Progress was rapid, and the whole of the line work was completed by 23 November 1942.
At Coen, a carrier station was erected adjacent to the 1886 telegraph station and connected to it. Like the buildings erected at Mt Surprise, Fairview and Cape York, the Coen Carrier Station was of pre-fabricated steel frame construction, with outer walls of corrugated iron, concrete floors, and fibrous cement roofing. They were partitioned internally with fibrous-cement sheeting to provide equipment, power and battery rooms, and living accommodation for two or three maintenance staff. It is thought that these buildings were designed and pre-fabricated in one of the PMG's workshops in Melbourne, Adelaide or Sydney.
Due to the impossibility of obtaining carrier telegraph equipment from overseas during the war years, the PMG's Melbourne workshops manufactured and assembled a prototype four-channel VF telegraph [Type R], which was in design early in 1942, and intended principally for use by the Army Signals Corps in forward areas and for combat use in New Guinea and the Pacific. This was the equipment installed between October and December 1942 at the Cape York Peninsula carrier stations. The buildings were far from complete during installation. All telecommunications channels between Townsville and Cape York were in service on 9 December 1942, but the Coen Carrier Station was not completed until Boxing Day. A PMG officer and two Army signals personnel staffed each of the carrier stations, with the PMG officers in charge.
The improved telecommunications on Cape York Peninsula played a vital role in defeating Japanese aggression. In 1945, following the cessation of hostilities, control of the telecommunications facilities reverted to the Postmaster-General's Department. The circuits were now available for public use, permitting for the first time telephone trunk calls from Cape York Peninsula to the rest of Australia. In the mid-1950s, improvements in the system enabled the telephone exchange in Coen to be removed to a building in the main street of the town, although working equipment remained in the 1886 Telegraph Station and in the Carrier Station. By the second half of the 1960s, the 1886 Telegraph Station in Coen had become redundant and it was removed to Rokeby Pastoral Station and re-used as a house. It has since been destroyed.
In 1982 a broadband radio system was in service as far as Coen, at which time the open-wire route to the south was abandoned as a trunk route, and the installation of an automatic exchange at Coen was made possible. Broadband was extended to Thursday Island in 1987, at which time the open-wire line north of Coen was abandoned.
Throughout this era of improvement, Coen Carrier Station was used chiefly to house telephone equipment. During the installation of the broadband system, it served as living quarters for PMG workers. Following completion of the broadband system, the building was used to accommodate Telecom service personnel working in the region; but has been unoccupied since 1990. The site is now located within a Ranger Station operated by the Department of Environment.
Of the four carrier stations erected on Cape York Peninsula in 1942, the Coen Carrier Station is the most intact. Fairview Carrier Station was closed in 1949 and, although still in situ, is now an outstation of Olive Vale Station. In 1958 the Mt Surprise to Coen system was re-routed from Cooktown to Coen and the original line from Mt Surprise to Fairview via Palmerville was abandoned as a trunk route in 1963. The Cape York Carrier Station was closed in 1960.
","criteria":"The Coen Carrier Station is significant for the important role it played as part of the defence and communications network of Cape York Peninsula, which was crucial to Australia during World War II. The place includes the site of the adjacent 1886 Telegraph Office [demolished], and illustrates the continued association of Coen with telecommunications on Cape York Peninsula for well over a century, providing contact between isolated communities on the peninsula and with southern capitals and beyond.
|The building, constructed in 1942, is rare as one of Queensland's few remaining carrier station buildings designed and prefabricated in Australia by the Postmaster-General's workshops during World War II, and installed under difficult circumstances.
|The station has a special association with the work of the Postmaster-General's Department in developing new technology in Australia during World War II, and with the important work of the Australian Army Signals Corps, who installed the Cape York Peninsula line and carrier equipment in 1942 and staffed the building during the war.
|The former Coen Carrier Station is significant in relation to criterion f.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16250,"place_ref":601487,"name":"Flemington Road Cemetery","alternate_name":"Bowen Cemetery","street_address":"Flemington Road","suburb":"BOWEN","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"Officially, the Flemington Road Cemetery is located on a roughly rectangular block of level, alluvial river flat, encompassing 8094 square-meters, defined as Portion number 95, Reserve 54. The reserve is located completely within, and can only be accessed by dirt road through Portion Number 96, currently used for agricultural purposes. On site the dimensions of the cemetery are unmarked.
The entire area is covered in several species of grass, and thinly scattered throughout the area are well established eucalypts, wattles, and Burdekin plum trees.
The cemetery is currently unfenced, although physical evidence on site suggests that several fencing efforts have been previously undertaken to protect particular family plots. The practice of inscribing the names of several deceased family members on a single headstone has resulted in the twenty-two observable headstones actually representing 39 burials. The inscriptions on all but one of the headstones are observable. The twenty-two observable gravesites are spread over a wide area, suggesting the presence of unobservable graves, further evidenced by the lack of observable gravesites of deceased known to be located there. The oldest inscription, referring to the death of Jessie B. Scott on 10th May 1863, presents something of a mystery, considering the site began operating as a cemetery only after 1878. It seems likely that the deceased lies elsewhere, with the name being inscribed on the headstone at a later date out of respect. The most recent observable headstone inscription refers to the death of one C. M. Brecht in 1947.
Given the small number of observable graves, a broad range of grave styles is represented. Headstones are predominantly of limestone, with sandstone and concrete also present. Many of the headstones do not record the stonemason responsible for their manufacture, those that do, include the names of Melrose and Fenwick, A.L.Petrie, and W. Batson & Sons S.B. Several cast-iron fence designs are also present.
The cemetery is in very poor condition. All headstones are damaged to varying extents. Of the sites that have gravestones, few are intact. Fencing lies in disarray among the graves. All but a few of the originally fenced graves have had fencing removed. All fences are damaged. Several of the graves are heavily overgrown. Evidence of previous attempts to maintain the physical condition of the cemetery can be seen in the form of scrubbed headstones, poisoned grave perimeters and damage to grace perimeters from the employment of mechanical equipment such as whipper-snipers.
","history":"The Flemington Road Cemetery is Bowen's second cemetery and operated for 76 years between 1878 and 1954.
During the second half of the nineteenth century the expansion of settlement in North Queensland caused increasing problems with the carriage of freight to and from southern supply centres. In response to this problem, in 1859 the New South Wales Government offered a reward for the discovery of a suitable harbour north of Port Curtis (Gladstone) that could be more easily accessed by northern settlers. This mission was undertaken by Captain Henry Daniel Sinclair, owner of the Santa Barbara, who in August 1859 departed Sydney in order to locate such a suitable harbour. On the 15th October 1859 Sinclair's party found such a site, and subsequently named it Port Denison. The settlement was officially proclaimed on the 11th April 1861, and named Bowen after the Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. Bowen quickly grew to monopolise the northern station trade as a strategically placed supply centre and remains a centre for northern agricultural production.
As with other towns in Queensland, a cemetery reserve was created when the town was surveyed. Much confusion currently exists concerning the history of Bowen's cemeteries due to the limited nature of relevant historic literature. The town's present cemetery is located on John Street, and although often referred to as the new cemetery, this is actually the site of Bowen's first cemetery. As such, this is the site alluded to when historic literature discusses the first, or the old cemetery, despite local opinion to the contrary. The second cemetery, located off Flemington Road, was used alternatively with that on John Street between 1878 and 1954. This was Bowen's second cemetery, or what should be correctly referred to as the new cemetery. The fact that all burials returned to the John Street Cemetery after this period, and the condition of the Flemington Road Cemetery, has led to the misconception that the Flemington Road Cemetery is the older cemetery.
Early evidence in the form of newspaper articles from the Port Denison Times indicate that the first cemetery on John Street had a history of neglect that was much lamented by the locals of the time. In response to this problem, a board of Trustees was appointed, and on 13th July 1867 the Port Denison Times printed rules and regulations of the cemetery in the hope of improving its condition. By the 22nd February 1868, these rules had been found ineffective in improving the condition of the site. Shortly after this period, public and governmental dissatisfaction arose not only in response to the poor state of the existing graves, but also for the cemetery's inappropriate location for future burials. It had been found that graves were filling with water at a shallow depth, and grave diggers were finding it increasingly difficult to keep coffins out of the water.
First mention of the need to provide a new cemetery is found in the Port Denison Times of 18th March 1871. This paper reports the government willing to grant a new site for the cemetery, given the old site was generally recognised to be as unfit for the purpose. Several locations were considered, including Stone Island, that while publicly considered ideal, would entail the inconvenience of transporting the deceased by boat rather than the traditional horse and carriage. It was decided that a block of 80 to 90 acres, on the banks of the Don, lying between the pumps and the racecourse, would be most suitable. The site and dimensions of the reserve for the second cemetery, on Portion Numbers 95 and 96, were published in the Government Gazette on 21st December 1878.
Current evidence suggests this is the site of the Flemington Road Cemetery, identified in early maps of the area as Portion Numbers 95 and 96. Initial application by the Trustees proposed that a new site should be used alternatively with the old, depending on the preference of the deceased's family or representatives. The first registered burial in the new cemetery was of Henrietta Mary, aged 15 weeks; burial number 369 on the 10th May 1879. No observable physical remains of this gravesite exist. Five other registered burials are recorded for 1879.
Throughout the early life of the cemetery, funding problems are evident in several petitions made to the public and government in order to facilitate the upkeep of the cemetery. Most often these took the form of projects aimed at fencing the area against livestock that were in the habit of knocking over and trampling headstones. Unfortunately, as both cemeteries were used during the life of the Flemington Road Cemetery, and given the lack of differentiation between cemeteries in Bowen's historic literature, it is difficult to match surviving information with a particular cemetery. Information that can be identified specifically to the Flemington Road Cemetery indicates that the legacy of disrepair to the old cemetery was passed to the new, as the Port Denison Times of 1881 contains several articles of public complaint concerning the physical condition of the new cemetery.
In November 1944, control of the cemetery passed from the Board of Trustees to the Town of Bowen Council.
In 1949, Mr WHL Nicol, who lived on the reserve and had cleared approximately fifteen acres for farming, applied to acquire the reserve. In response to the application by Mr Nicol, whose father had allegedly leased the land since 1917, it was suggested by the land commissioner that 31 acres 2 roods 32 perches be excised from the reserve and offered to Mr Nicol as a priority Special Lease. An area of two acres was to be retained for cemetery purposes, and additional land for a right of way to the cemetery through part of the Special Lease.
In 1952 an area of approximately two acres was surveyed around the existing graves and classed as Portion Number 95, Reserve 54, with the remainder of the original reserve becoming Portion Number 96.
More recent inclusions to the site's history occurred in 1993, when public concern was raised regarding the issue of encroachment on to the reserve by the bordering landowners. This issue seems as yet unresolved.
The issue of neglect of Bowen's cemeteries has persisted into the recent history of the site. In March 1993 the Bowen Shire Council publicly noted that while the Flemington Road Cemetery contained a number of headstones, it was poorly maintained due the expense and isolation of the cemetery. Furthermore, the council suggested relocating the headstones in the Flemington Road Cemetery to the John Street Cemetery in order to facilitate mechanical clearance at the site. Descendants and relatives of those buried in the Flemington Road Cemetery met this notice with severe disapproval, and no council action would appear to have been taken. Other developments from this period include a proposition to erect an interpretive sign at the site.
","criteria":"The settlement of Port Denison (Bowen) being the first town in North Queensland, is of special significance as it represents the earliest period of the settlement of the Kennedy Region. As such, the Flemington Road Cemetery is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history in being tangible evidence of the settlement.
|The cemetery is also important as it provides evidence of the history and demography of the Bowen area, and demonstrates architectural trends in monument design during the latter half of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century.
|Existing headstones on site clearly indicate the family names of many notable figures from Bowen's early history, such as Betzel, Darwen, Sinclair, Bull, Jensen and Brecht. Being the resting-place of the physical remains of early settlers and relations to current Bowen residents, the Flemington Road Cemetery has both a strong and special association with the Bowen community for social, cultural and spiritual reasons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16251,"place_ref":601488,"name":"Masonic Hall, Kent Street, Rockhampton","alternate_name":"Masonic Temple | Masonic Lodge","street_address":"112-114 Kent Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"The Masonic Hall, Rockhampton, is a two-storey masonry building addressing Kent Street. It is an imposing building within the streetscape, on a level grassed site which runs through to the street at the rear.
The front north-eastern façade, addressing Kent Street, is articulated with decoration and classical ornamentation. It features strong indented horizontal coursing, string courses dividing the upper and lower levels, a cornice with dentils and a balustraded parapet. It has triangular pediments to the upper windows and entrance door, and arched heads to the windows of the lower level.
The projecting central bay of this façade has an arched opening and masonry balustrade to the upper level balcony, Ionic pilasters topped with domed turrets and ball finials at the corners, and a pedimented parapet.
Perpendicular to the front section of the building is the two-storey wing of the Lodge Room and meeting halls. It has arched headed windows and a gable roof, but little decoration in comparison to the front facade. Abutting both sides of this wing on the lower level are skillion-roofed extensions.
","history":"Freemasonry was first established in Queensland in 1859 when dispensation was granted by the Provisional Grand Lodge of New South Wales (English Constitution) ["English Constitution" hereafter abbreviated as E.C.], authorising what was then the most northerly lodge in Australia, the "North Australian Lodge" of Brisbane. Masonry continued its northward progress, when in 1862 the first lodge in Rockhampton, named Leichhardt No.932 E.C. in honour of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, was consecrated:
The Leichhardt Masonic Lodge (English Constitution) was opened in Rockhampton on Tuesday, the 23rd September, 1862, at high noon, in the new Masonic Hall. There were upwards of forty brethren present. Sixteen new members joined, and twenty-two were proposed for initiation. Mr. W.J. Brown was duly installed as Worshipful Master by Past Master Marks and Past Master Charet. The complete list of officers was as follows :- Brother W.J. Brown, W.M.; Brother J. Bennett, S.W.; Brother A.F. Wood, J.W.; Brother J.A. Watts, S.D.; Brother J.E. Rutherford, J.D.; Brother J. Hunter, I.G.; Brother E. Kilner, Hon. Secretary and Treasurer.
Rockhampton township was initially laid out by survey in 1857 and the first town allotments were sold by auction in 1858. The Canoona goldrush of 1858 gave impetus to the early development of the township of Rockhampton as both a river port and trading centre, resulting in Rockhampton becoming the administrative centre for Central Queensland.
The first Masonic Hall in Rockhampton was built circa 1862 and was situated on Quay Lane (adjoined Skardon's Hotel), between Denham and Fitzroy Streets. This building was later destroyed by fire in 1866.
In 1869 a second Masonic Hall was built, situated on East Street (approximately No.31 East Street), between Fitzroy and Archer Streets, Rockhampton. The First Masonic Lodge meeting at these East Street premises was held in January 1870. An 1878 reference to this East Street premises, stated: "The Masonic fraternity own a brick building in East-street, dreary looking from the outside; but the initiated know best its internal excellencies."
Rockhampton experienced a period of steady growth during 1858 through to 1882. With the discovery of the vast mining potential at Mount Morgan in 1882, Rockhampton benefited from the generated wealth and rapidly expanded. This led to a period of major building in the heart of the city particularly evident along Quay Street besides the wharves, as well as amongst the array of affluent residences erected on 'The Range'.
At a Masonic meeting in Rockhampton on 14 April 1882, various resolutions were passed including that a "Masonic Lodge be formed under the Scottish Constitution" and that this Lodge "be called 'Douglas' in honour of the District Grand Master of Queensland, Scottish Constitution, The Hon. John Douglas." The Douglas No.677 Scottish Constitution ["Scottish Constitution" hereafter abbreviated as S.C.] was subsequently consecrated on 23 May 1882 at the East Street Masonic Hall.
John Douglas (1824-1904) was a New South Wales and Queensland politician and administrator, who during 1885-1904 was Government Resident at Thursday Island, Torres Strait. Douglas was also noted as a Freemason and grand master, who represented Rockhampton in the Queensland Legislative Assembly during 1863-65.
In 1889 certain members of the Douglas Lodge No.677 S.C. expressed their dissatisfaction at the communication delays with the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Spirited discussions arose as to whether Douglas Lodge should remain with the Grand Lodge of Scotland, or join the proposed Grand Lodge of Queensland. On 1 October 1889 a motion was passed that Douglas Lodge "gives its hearty support and assistance in the formation of a Grand Lodge of Queensland. This caused quite an upheaval in the Lodge but the motion remained on the minute book and when the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Queensland was formed on the 25th June, 1904, Douglas 677 affiliated with it and became No.13 Queensland Constitution."
During this period the premises at East Street were not considered suitable for lodge meetings because of the proximity of the public and the horse stables situated next door. In 1889 as a result, the Masonic Hall Company was formed by the Leichhardt and Douglas Lodges and the Rockhampton Chapter. This was a Public Company in which many Rockhampton citizens who were not masons are said to have bought shares.
The Masonic Hall Company was later able to purchase land at 110 Kent Street, Rockhampton. Construction of a new Masonic Hall, Rockhampton's third, at this new site was commenced in 1900. The consecration ceremony for these premises took place on 27 February 1901. Rockhampton's Morning Bulletin reported:
\tThe ceremony of the consecration of the new Masonic Hall in Kent-street, near Archer-street, took place yesterday. For some time past the old Masonic Hall in East-street has proved to be inadequate, and this led to the erection of a more suitable building. Messrs. Eaton and Bates were the architects... and the contractors were Messrs. Bradshaw and Ricketts. The hall cost £2500, and it was constructed with credit to both the architects and contractors. The visitors from Brisbane and other parts of Queensland who took part in the consecration ceremony... speak in the highest terms of the new hall and pronounce it the finest Masonic Hall in Queensland. The conveniences are all that could be desired, while the acoustic properties are simply perfect...
\tThe hall was consecrated in the afternoon, and the ceremony was followed by a dinner in the evening... [attended by some 200 quests].
Shortly after the consecration the first Masonic meeting at the Kent Street premises took place on 6 March 1901.
The architectural partnership of G.T. Eaton and A.E. Bates, which first opened an office in Rockhampton circa 1894, were responsible for the design of an array of prominent residences and other public and private buildings in Rockhampton, Mount Morgan, and other Central Queensland locations. In 1901, A.B. Polin joined the partnership, and in 1902 the firm's main office moved to Brisbane, though branch offices were retained in Rockhampton and Townsville.
The Kent Street Masonic Lodge is a purpose built extant stone and brick, two storey building, consisting of an upper storey (lodge room, refreshment hall, and dressing rooms), and a lower level which has been utilised for banquets, balls and other public purposes. A history of Douglas Lodge No.677 S.C. states: "The ground floor was used for many years as a dance hall, and in the 1950's an extension was made to the building. Later the Hall Board turned the ground floor into a second lodge room, air-conditioned the building, and today we have a Temple of which all masons may be justly proud."
With the formation of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Queensland in 1904, Rockhampton's Douglas Lodge No.677 S.C. became affiliated and thereafter became known as Douglas No.13 Queensland Constitution ["Queensland Constitution" hereafter abbreviated as Q.C.]. The first meeting of Douglas No.13 Q.C. was held on 17 August 1904, during which the oath of allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Queensland was administered. In 1904 this Lodge was stated as having "69 Brethren" on its roll, but dwindled to forty by 1906. In 1908 the original Scottish Charter was returned to those members who had withdrawn from the Lodge in 1904. This situation saw the revival of Douglas Lodge No.677 S.C., which in a history of the Athelstane Masonic Lodge recounted as a unique situation of twin lodges (Douglas No.13 Q.C., and Douglas 677 S.C.), both of which are "direct descendants of the one parent lodge - Douglas 677 S.C. of 1882."
Masonic activity also took place outside of Rockhampton in surrounding areas. At Mount Chalmers township a new Lodge (Mount Chalmers Lodge) commenced regular meetings on 29 September 1908. At a meeting of this Lodge on 29 February 1916, "the matter of removing the Charter to some more populous centre" was brought up for discussion though no decision was made at this time. It wasn't till 23 May 1916 before the decision was finally made to move to North Rockhampton. The final meeting at Mount Chalmers took place on 12 September 1916, after which "Dispensation to hold the Installation Meeting in the North Rockhampton Council Chambers" was approved and took place on 7 October 1916, thus severing this Lodge's ties with the community of Mount Chalmers.
In late January 1918 a record flood of the Fitzroy River flooded the Lodge Room of the North Rockhampton Lodge (formally Mount Chalmers Lodge). Permission was sought to hold meetings at the Kent Street Temple until the end of May 1918 when this Lodge was able to return to its North Rockhampton premises. On 14 August 1918 the North Rockhampton Lodge agreed to purchase a building site in Musgrave Street, North Rockhampton. This site was held by this Lodge for many years until the building project was finally shelved. On 15 December 1921 the North Rockhampton Lodge decided that the inadequacies of the Council Chambers as a suitable Masonic venue necessitated the permanent change of venue to the Kent Street premises. The final meeting of the North Rockhampton Lodge at the Council Chambers took place on 7 January 1922.
The formation of the United Grand Lodge of Queensland in 1921 saw Douglas Lodge No.677 S.C. change to the Constitution of the Queensland Grand Lodge, as well as renumbered and becoming Douglas Lodge No.23 Q.C. As both Lodges (Douglas Lodge No.13 Q.C. and Douglas Lodge No.23 Q.C.) had now joined the United Grand Lodge of Queensland, Douglas Lodge No.13 Q.C. changed its name to "Athelstane", taking its name from the Athelstane Range on which much of Rockhampton is situated.
At this time Athelstane Lodge was stated as having eighty members on its roll. With these changes Athelstane Lodge was also given a new charter and by-laws and then renumbered, becoming 35 U.G.L.Q.. Douglas Lodge No.23 Q.C. retained its name "Douglas" and its strong Scottish influence, but was similarly renumbered, becoming No.36 U.G.L.Q.. A history of the Athelstane Lodge noted that the change over to the United Grand Lodge of Queensland was carried out smoothly, with each Lodge taking the oath of allegiance and thereafter simply carrying on under their respective Constitutions. The Kent Street premises are currently still utilised by Rockhampton's Masons.
","criteria":"The Kent Street Masonic Hall is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history having been purpose built for the needs and use of freemasonry in and around Rockhampton. This place is the third and only extant Masonic premises in Rockhampton, constructed during the boom building period of the late 19th century that followed the discovery of the mineral wealth at Mount Morgan.
|This Masonic Hall is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, being a prominent feature in the local streetscape and a grand example of regional design for the requirements and symbolism associated with freemasonry.
This place is also a significant example of architectural design undertaken by the partnership of Eaton and Bates who were particularly prominent in Rockhampton from 1894-1900s.
|This Masonic Hall is important in exhibiting aesthetic characteristics valued by the community, being a prominent feature in the local streetscape and a grand example of regional design for the requirements and symbolism associated with freemasonry.
|The Kent Street Masonic Hall also has a strong association with the Rockhampton community, particularly for local Freemasons and their families, as the principal and symbolic place for the practice of freemasonry in the City. These premises have been an important centre for cultural and social activities at this site since 1901, and are integral to the history of several Masonic lodges in and around Rockhampton whose origins stem back to the lodge established in 1862.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16252,"place_ref":601489,"name":"Goldsbrough Mort Building (Former), Quay Street, Rockhampton","alternate_name":"Taylors Elliots & Australian Drug Ltd | Queensland Druggists Building | Drug Houses of Australia Ltd","street_address":"238 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-01-30","description":"The former Goldsbrough Mort Building is a single storey rendered masonry building addressing Quay Street, Rockhampton.
The main façade, facing north-west towards the Fitzroy River, has a central entry and two arch-headed windows to either side. The facade is articulated with pilasters and triangular pediments and has a parapet with ball finials above.
The rear elevation, facing the laneway, has a double gabled parapet.
The interior of the building has been modified to accommodate subsequent tenants.
The front section of the building (the former office area) appears quite intact, and retains large amounts of original fabric, including joinery, fenestration and other detailing, and much of the original room layout. The original ceiling may survive above the later suspended ceiling.
The rear area of the building has been substantially altered with a new suspended ceiling and mezzanine level supported by new timber columns.
","history":"During the 1890s, Rockhampton's business community underwent many changes, including the toppling of many local stock and station agencies and wool and produce brokers. At the same time was witnessed the arrival of branches of large southern firms such as Dalgetys which opened a branch office in 1891, and then Goldsbrough, Mort & Co. Ltd in 1896.
\nThe prosperous southern based pastoral house of Goldsbrough, Mort & Co. Ltd was established in Melbourne circa 1888, with branch offices thereafter opened at Sydney and London. The Goldsbrough Mort Building situated at 514-526 Bourke Street (corner William St.) Melbourne, \"is all that survives of a complex of distinctive stone woolstores and offices located in this area which comprised the Goldsbrough empire and were the nucleus of one of the world's greatest wool broking firms.\"
\nThe expansion of Goldsbrough Mort activities into Queensland took place with the establishment of a branch office in Rockhampton circa 1896. This branch office was initially located in East Street, Rockhampton, managed by Mr J.M. Niall. This was followed later by branch activities in Brisbane in the early 1910s, for which the Goldsbrough Mort Woolstore at Teneriffe stands testament.
\nIn 1899, Walter and Eliza Hall had the extant building at 238 Quay Street, a late Victorian, classical-style single storey cement render and brick building, constructed. It was into these Quay Street premises that Goldsbrough Mort moved its office and store from East Street, to this more suitable commercial centre of Rockhampton conveniently placed opposite the important port and wharf facilities. An advertisement for Goldsbrough, Mort & Co., Ltd in 1900 directed commercial cliental attention to the firm as \"The Oldest and Largest Wool Sellers in Australia.\" The firm's Quay Street branch office at this time was managed by Acting Manager Mr J. Fairweather.
\nEliza Hall's father, George Kirk, had pastoral interests with Goldsbrough Mort founder, Richard Goldsbrough. Eliza's husband, Walter Russell Hall (1831-1911), was a successful businessman and philanthropist, who married Eliza Rowden Hall (1847-1916) in 1875. Hall made his business fortune through interests in Cobb & Co. in Victoria and Queensland, and later in Queensland with the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. Ltd. As a philanthropist, Walter gave generously, often anonymously, to various public institutions and charities. After his death in 1911, Eliza set up a trust to commemorate her husband's memory, which was to become known as the Walter and Eliza Hall Trust. This Trust continued to be used for the relief of poverty and the advancement of education and research, including the establishment of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research in Pathology and Medicine in Melbourne in 1916.
\nThe building situated at 238 Quay Street, though tenanted by Goldsbrough Mort, was owned by Walter and Eliza Hall, or their Trustees, till November 1917 when the building was purchased by Goldsbrough Mort. This location was to remain the branch wool and produce brokerage office and store for Goldsbrough Mort activities until 1932. In these final years at this location this branch office was managed by Mr J. Rankin.
\nIn January 1932 the building at 238 Quay Street was purchased by Taylors Elliots & Australian Drug Ltd. who maintained interests at this location until December 1955, when ownership transferred to firstly DHA (Qld) Pty Ltd (till July 1964), and then Drug Houses of Australia Ltd from August 1964. This latter firm utilised these premises until September 1974, when it was taken over by Slater Walker Finance Corp Ltd, to be followed by various ownership to the present.
\nIn the 1980s and 1990s, the former Goldsbrough Mort Building at Quay Street was leased and utilised by Radio 4RK and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2022, the building is in use as professional offices.
","criteria":"The Goldsbrough Mort Building built in 1899 is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in this case the expansion of commercial enterprise and activity in the important regional centre of Rockhampton. This commercial activity is similarly representative of the role of the Port of Rockhampton throughout this process.
In this respect this building is also important in understanding the business expansion of the major southern wool and produce brokers, and stock and station agents firm of Goldsbrough, Mort & Co. Ltd. in the 1890s.
|This former Goldsbrough Mort Building also exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the Rockhampton and broader community. This is especially so as it compliments, in conjunction with many other similarly valued buildings, the streetscape of Rockhampton's historic Quay Street.
|As an early surviving office building of the pastoral company Goldsbrough Mort the place has a special association with Goldsbrough Mort, an important organization in Queensland's economic history and the pastoral expansion in central Queensland at the turn of the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16254,"place_ref":601491,"name":"St Pauls Cathedral Hall & Offices","alternate_name":"St Paul's Day School (1902-1912) | St Paul's Anglican Cathedral Parish Hall | St Paul's Anglican Cathedral Offices | St Paul's Day School (1902-1912) | St Pauls Anglican Cathedral Parish Hall","street_address":"89 William Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"St Paul's Cathedral Hall and Offices is a single storey red brick building, consisting of a hall and a wing of offices to the west. It is situated on the corner of William and Denison Streets, Rockhampton, addressing William Street to the north-west. To the north-east, across Alma Lane, is St Paul's Cathedral. The Hall is also near the Deanery and the Lodge.
The parish hall has a simple gabled roof, with timber brackets supporting the front overhang. Above the entry is a projecting bay with a window, pilasters, arched head and rendered cornice. Along the street façade is a verandah with turned timber posts, and a gabled entry portico.
This building is an example of an unorthodox use of classical elements, such as the arch at the central gable. The detailing and massing is influenced by Arts and Crafts movement and Queen Anne style.
This building has a conspicuous roof with prominent gable verge held by brackets at the gable. The tuck pointed face brickwork, turned timber posts, roof vent, terracotta details including plaque with a date, the large semicircular arch, and the roof form differentiates the hall from the offices.
","history":"The first Anglican cleric to reach Rockhampton was Queensland's first Anglican Bishop, Bishop Tuffnell, in November 1860, though lay ministers held Anglican services in Rockhampton during the late 1850s. Following shortly after Tuffnell's visit, Reverend Thomas Jones arrived at Rockhampton, becoming the popular pioneer Anglican Rector. Jones encouraged his congregation to raise sufficient funds in 1862 to allow construction of a small timber church to be built on what later became the site of the present Cathedral Hall.
Later more funds were raised for a new and larger church with plans drawn up and construction beginning on St Paul's Church in 1872, though this building was not completed and consecrated until 1883. In 1892 the Church of England Diocese of Rockhampton was formed and the St Paul's Church was upgraded becoming the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul the Apostle. The foundation bishop, the Right Reverend Nathanial Dawes, was formally emplaced on 30 November 1892. In 1899, Louis Spier Robertson who designed the Cathedral Hall building, also designed the entrance gates constructed at Rockhampton's St Paul's Cathedral.
The St Paul's Cathedral Hall, a superb extant Federation style red brick building with wide verandas supported by turned wooden posts, was completed circa 1900. This new brick building was initially utilised by the Anglican Church at Rockhampton in the establishment of the Saint Paul's Day School which opened in 1901, and continued at this location until the end of 1912, after which these premises became known as the Parish Hall.
This building was designed in 1899 by Louis Spier Robertson (b. c.1869; d. 1932). Robertson was a Sydney architect and surveyor (c.1890-96), who moved to Rockhampton where he married Elizabeth Frances Leighton on 26 April 1896. Robertson began a successful architectural practice in Rockhampton at East Street from January 1897 until 1905 when he returned to Sydney. Despite this move, Robertson continued to undertake Queensland work, including later in partnership with his son (Louis S. Robertson and Son Architects). Another noted work by Robertson includes Nelson House (1910) in Sydney, which was the first self supporting steel framed building erected in Australia.
","criteria":"The St Paul's Cathedral Hall and Offices demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's History, in this case the spread and development of the Anglican Church in regional Queensland at this important regional community of Rockhampton.
|The St Paul's Cathedral Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and Queen Anne style, with elements of unorthodox Classical style incorporated.
|This building accordingly exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics associated with this style, as well as complimenting the William Street streetscape and associated Anglican Church precinct, that includes the adjacent St Paul's Cathedral [Queensland Heritage Register 600821].
|This place has a strong association for social, cultural and spiritual reasons with the Church of England community of Rockhampton.
|It has a special association with the work and history of the Anglican Church in regional Queensland, particularly from the establishment of the Diocese of Rockhampton in 1892 when this precinct became the seat of the Bishop of Rockhampton.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16255,"place_ref":601492,"name":"Shandon","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"166 Alma Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":""Shandon" is a two storey rendered masonry residence addressing Alma Street, Rockhampton.
The main façade, facing north-west, is symmetrical with a two-storied verandah, twin gables and, below the gables, bay windows to both levels.
The verandah, which returns at each end, has at the lower level an arched arcade of rendered masonry with pilasters and cast iron balustrading. The upper level of the verandah has double timber posts, cast iron balustrades and timber louvred panels above. Between the levels is a moulded string course.
"Shandon" is located in a precinct which includes St Paul's Cathedral (QLD Heritage Register 600821), St Paul's Cathedral Hall and Offices, and other church buildings.
(Note - This place has not been inspected internally by an officer of the Department.)
","history":"One of Rockhampton's grander residences, "Shandon", was erected on Alma Street in 1892 by local builder and contractor William Adam Lawson, for resident Surgeon and Medical Practitioner, Dr Henry E. Brown.
"Shandon" is an extant example of Classic-style architecture adapted to Rockhampton's climatic needs by providing deep shading and a ventilating corridor to the interior of the premises.
Queensland Post Office records provide the first mention of Dr Henry Brown residing and working in Rockhampton as part of the community's "Medical Profession" in the period 1885-86, though no place of address is evident until 1888.
From 1888 through to 1893, Dr Brown who is variously listed as Medical Practitioner and Surgeon, resided at Campbell Street, Rockhampton. Records show that Dr Brown was then able to take up residence in his new purpose-built town house, "Shandon", on Alma Street by 1894-95.
During the period 1892 through to 1897-99, Dr Brown was engaged as the Visiting Surgeon to the 32-bed Children's Hospital in Rockhampton. Dr Brown also appears briefly on the Medical Staff of the 114-bed Port Curtis and Leichhardt Hospital (on Canning Street) approximately 1892-93.
The well-known local builder and contractor of "Shandon" was Walter Adam Lawson. One history of Rockhampton acknowledges Lawson's local talents and contribution to the City's various buildings:
The fine handcrafted doors and window sashes in many older Rockhampton homes were possibly made in Lawson's Joinery Works. ...Its founder, Walter Adam Lawson, was born in Scotland in 1847 and there he learned his trade as carpenter and joiner. On arrival in Rockhampton in 1875 he obtained work with John Ferguson who was then the town's leading contractor, but several years later he and a partner trading as Holyoake & Lawson started joinery works in William Street. Lawson bought his partner's share in 1884, and about 1896 moved into his own newly erected premises in Bolsover Street. Major buildings constructed by Lawson during his pre-1900 contracting days include Saint Andrew's Church, the School of Arts, and private homes for Doctor F.H.V. Voss and Doctor H.E. Brown (Shandon).
Lawson's building contracting business (as was another builder and contractor P. Egan) was situated at William Street, Rockhampton. Lawson remained at this site until circa 1892, after which he moved to new premises at Bolsover Street by 1893.
Dr Brown's residential vision, combined with Lawson's contracting talents, resulted in a place of considerable "architectural merit and interest", which has already warranted the classification of "Shandon" by the National Trust of Queensland (in 1978).
","criteria":""Shandon" is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by both the Rockhampton and broader community. This place is an important component in the local streetscape of Alma and William Streets, Rockhampton, and compliments (on the same block) the heritage listed St Paul's Cathedral (QLD Heritage Register 600821), and the associated Anglican church precinct that includes St Paul's Cathedral Hall and Offices.
"Shandon" is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place, in this case a prominent and substantial town residence erected for Rockhampton Surgeon, Dr Henry E. Brown in 1892.
|Shandon is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place, in this case a prominent and substantial town residence erected for Rockhampton Surgeon, Dr Henry E. Brown in 1892.
|Shandon is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by both the Rockhampton and broader community. This place is an important component in the local streetscape of Alma and William Streets, Rockhampton, and compliments (on the same block) the heritage listed St Paul's Cathedral (QLD Heritage Register 600821), and the associated Anglican church precinct that includes St Paul's Cathedral Hall and Offices.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16256,"place_ref":601493,"name":"Lamb Island Pioneer Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lucas Drive","suburb":"LAMB ISLAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-04-03","description":"The Lamb Island Pioneer Hall is a modest timber cottage located at the end of Lucas Drive on the easterly side of Lamb Island. It is sited on the edge of a hill that slopes down towards Moreton Bay, overlooking treed recreation grounds. The building has a gabled corrugated iron roof over a simple rectangular structure resting on timber stumps, and has verandahs with skillion roofs to the west and east (the latter is now enclosed). The building is entered via central stairs to the western verandah, and the eastern verandah commands views of the Bay.
The building is clad for the most part in weatherboard, excepting a chamferboard section to the western (front) verandah. It has a corrugated iron watertank and former stove recess to the north-west corner, and timber stairs at each end of the eastern verandah.
Internally, the Lamb Island Pioneer Hall comprises four rooms: a kitchen and library to the eastern side and a larger meeting/recreation room (formerly two rooms) adjoining an enclosed verandah to the western side. The walls and ceilings are lined with vertically jointed timber boards, and some rooms have exposed internal framing.
The hall contains pictures and artefacts that relate to its history, including: a painted timber sign that reads FARM HOME of Mr & Mrs C.A. HINE BUILT in 1924, photographs of the building and its users, and paintings of the building by local residents.
","history":"Pioneer Hall was erected reputedly in 1924, as a farmhouse for Cecil Hine of Lamb Island.
Ngudooroo, or Lamb Island as it was later known, was one of a group of islands in Moreton Bay which included Macleay, Russell and Karragarra Islands, located southeast of Cleveland and east of Redland Bay. The four islands appear to have been surveyed during the late 1860s and early 1870s, and portions of land on the islands were auctioned from this time.
The whole of Ngudooroo was acquired by John Harris in 1871. John and his brother George had a shipping and importing business in Brisbane from the late 1850s to the 1870s. J & G Harris also acquired land on the southern end of Macleay Island which they subsequently advertised for sale in 1871 as a Valuable Freehold Sugar Estate. The Harris brothers' firm was declared insolvent in 1878, and John's land on Lamb Island was transferred to Arthur Biddle, then to Joseph Darragh, and John Cameron, the Brisbane auctioneer. Cameron sold the land in 1886, and subdivision of the island commenced the following year. The land changed hands a number of times before it was acquired by Hine in 1919.
Locally, it is understood that Hine arrived at Lamb Island in the mid 1910s, and married Amelia Cox in 1923. By the mid 1920s, Hine's farm was one of approximately five farms on the island. Lamb and the neighbouring islands are recorded as producing fruit crops such as pineapples and bananas by the twentieth century. Oyster gathering was also carried out on the islands.
Hine extended his farmhouse reputedly in the mid 1930s, and sold the property in 1956. The property came under the control of the Redland Shire Council in 1974. In 1976 a meeting was held in the "old farmhouse" to re-form the Lamb Island Progress Association. The farmhouse, by then in a deteriorated condition, was repaired by the community in 1977 and became known as Pioneer Hall. The official opening of Pioneer Hall was held in May 1978. The Hall continues to be used extensively as a venue for community functions and groups, and is understood to be one of few extant early twentieth century farmhouse buildings on the island.
","criteria":"As one of few surviving farmhouses on Lamb Island, Pioneer Hall also maintains an association with the development of farming on the island [originally Ngudooroo] from the 1870s.
|Lamb Island Pioneer Hall, erected c1924 as a farmhouse, represents a focal point for communal activities on the Island, and maintains a special association with the Lamb Island community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16258,"place_ref":601495,"name":"Kingston Pioneer Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bega Road","suburb":"KINGSTON","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-05-26","description":"The Kingston Pioneer Cemetery is on two blocks of land either side of the driveway entering Kingston College, off Bega Road. The main, or larger, cemetery can be seen from Bega Road, the second, smaller cemetery, is located off Pioneer Road, in a south-easterly direction, approximately 50 metres from the main cemetery.
In the larger cemetery, which measures approximately 18 metres by 30 metres, there are eleven graves, five of which are multiple burials. Of the eleven graves, seven are identified and four are unmarked. It is possible that there are more unmarked graves indicated by the spacing between some of the visible plots. The cemetery is on a grassed area surrounded by a timber slip rail fence with an entrance gate along the eastern boundary. Along the western boundary of the fence there is a half metre gap between the cemetery and a small area of bushland.
A number of the graves are marked by large concrete headstones with decorative motifs. The grave of Charles Kingston is marked by an obelisk on a three tier plinth. The top of the obelisk has been broken off. Another grave, with two burials, is marked out by a low concrete enclosure with a concrete headstone with a marble plaque. Other graves are surrounded by metal fencing, some of which have decorative finials.
The smaller cemetery, which measures approximately 5 metres by 15 metres, is located off Pioneer Lane adjacent to Kingston College, and is thought to have been the Catholic section of the cemetery. In this cemetery there are 7 graves, one of which holds four burials. Two graves are unmarked, however the size of the graves suggests the deceased may be children.
The grave with the four burials is identified with a large concrete cross with decorative motifs and a plaque with the names of the deceased, another grave is marked out by a simple white, timber cross. All the graves, including the two small, unmarked graves, are surrounded by a metal fence with decorative elements such as finials.
Logan City Council has placed interpretive signage at both cemeteries and both are currently maintained by the Council, which has also undertaken conservation work on some of the headstones.
","history":"The Kingston Pioneer Cemetery, on 2 small blocks of land in Kingston, was used as burial ground at least between 1896 and 1941. It is not known exactly when the land first came into use as a cemetery, however the first known burial was in 1896 and the last in 1941. The graves of early pioneers, Charles and Harriett Kingston and John and Emily Mayes are located in the cemetery.
Captain Patrick Logan led the first expedition to explore the area south of Brisbane in 1827, and travelled through the area now known as Logan City. He described the area as having very fine timber and quite a few swamps. In 1849, ten years after the closure of the Morton Bay convict settlement, the 50 mile [80 kilometre] ban around the settlement was lifted, and the first leases of land around the Logan River took place. When Queensland was separated from New South Wales in 1859, the new government realised there was a problem, having too much land and not enough residents. Consequently, the government embarked on a program to encourage new immigrants to settle in Queensland from overseas, by giving them a land order when they arrived.
Europeans began to settle around Loganholme in 1863, growing crops such as cotton and sugar cane. Already by this time, a cotton mill and sugar mill had been established. In 1868 James Trahey purchased a block of land where the Kingston railway station would eventually be located. At the time the area was known as Scrubby Creek. Trahey was the first settler to buy land in the area, however he moved away after only a very brief time.
Charles Kingston and his family [after whom the suburb was named] arrived in Australia in 1857. The family moved around the Brisbane area several times, including to Redbank, Oxley and Eight Mile Plains before settling on land near Scrubby Creek which Kingston had purchased in 1872. The Kingston's property was known as Oakwood. John Mayes and his family also moved to the Scrubby Creek area from England around the same time as the Kingstons. Other settlers, such as James Laughlin and the Armstrongs also selected land in the vicinity.
Early industries that thrived in the area were timber getting, cotton growing and sugar growing. But it was soon realised that the area was very suitable for dairying and fruit growing due to the Logan River, and small swamps and creeks in the area. Both the Kingston and the Mayes families were involved in fruit growing, particularly grapes, and the area became known to produce excellent wines before the 1900's. There was also a coal mine and a metal and gravel quarry in the area.
In 1877 the first post office for the immediate area was established, on the same site as Oakwood [the Kingston's home]. Eight years later, in 1885 a rail service from Loganlea to Stanley Street in Brisbane was opened, the tracks passed through Charles Kingston's property.
In 1888, Charles and his wife Harriett returned to visit England, and on their return made plans to build a new house, much grander than the first. The new home was built in 1890, on a hill which overlooked the railway station. This house [named Kingston House] became a landmark for the district. Their home could be seen from many points around Kingston, and the large ballroom in Kingston House was the centre of social life in the district. Charles Kingston died in 1904, three months after he and Harriett celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Harriett Kingston died in 1911. Both are buried at the Kingston Pioneer cemetery.
Although the area in which the Kingston Pioneer Cemetery is situated is marked on an 1875 map as a reserve, it is not specifically labelled as a cemetery reserve and the date of the first burial is unknown. The earliest known grave is the cemetery is that of Frances Armstrong who was buried there in 1896.
The graves of John and Emily Mayes are also found in the Kingston Pioneer Cemetery. John, Emily and their two small children arrived in Australia as free settlers on July 9, 1871 from England aboard the Indus. The family moved from Brisbane to Waterford, where they selected a property of 321 acres soon after their arrival. The Mayes' lease was subject to conditions requiring improvements under the provisions of the Crown Lands Alienation Act (1868). The Kingston family were also subject to the same leasing requirements.
When they arrived at what was to become Kingston, the Mayes family lived in a tent on the property, but in 1872 a small timber slab hut was constructed, now known as Mayes Cottage [600662]. The Mayes family were supported principally by timber getting on the property. Later, the Mayes family were involved in dairying and, in 1906, purchased shares in the newly formed Kingston Cooperative Dairy Company.
John Mayes died on June 10, 1908 and was buried in the Kingston Pioneer Cemetery. Emily married John's brother Richard and moved to Mooloolah, however, following her death in 1933, she was buried in the Kingston Pioneer Cemetery.
","criteria":"The graves of Charles and Harriett Kingston and John and Emily Mayes are found in the cemetery. The Kingston and Mayes families were two of the first pioneer settlers in the area, which was then known as Scrubby Creek. The cemetery is significant not only as the final resting place of some of the earliest non-Indigenous settlers in the area, but is also significant for its association with the descendants of those buried in the cemetery many of whom remain in the Kingston/Logan area.
|It is significant for its association with the Kingston, Mayes and Armstrong families who contributed to the settlement and growth of the Logan area, particularly from the 1870s through to the mid-1940s.
|The cemetery has a strong association with the people of Logan City, and the suburb of Kingston in particular.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16262,"place_ref":601499,"name":"Musgrave House","alternate_name":"Lady Musgrave Sanitorium for Sick Children","street_address":"8 Allpass Parade","suburb":"SHORNCLIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-10-22","description":"Musgrave House is a low set timber building with a hipped, painted corrugated iron roof located on a corner block overlooking Cabbage Tree Creek and the foreshore reserve. The building faces south-east and the large block backs on to the Sandgate Golf Course. The building has a strong symmetry with a centrally located front verandah, central steps and extensions at each end.
Wide eaves overhang the verandah which has a delicately detailed timber valance, dowel balustrades and chamfered timber posts with moulded timber capitals. The verandah has three wide bays with steps centrally located in the middle bay. The wall areas either side of the verandah are clad with vertical tongue-and-groove timber boards and have small sections of exposed timber cross bracing tucked under the eaves. Each contains a double hung timber sash window. The extensions at each end have skillion roofs, are clad with horizontal weatherboards and each has a timber door and set of steps. At the southern corner, the building has sliding, timber framed, multi-paned windows with coloured glass that return around the corner and continue along the western wall. The eastern corner has a timber sill at the same level as the windows but the windows are along the eastern elevation only. The building is set on concrete stumps with timber batten infill.
The verandah is deep, with a tongue-and-groove ceiling and timber cornice. The walls are single skin timber with exposed cross bracing used to decorative purpose, painted in shades of aqua. The floor is covered with a black, bituminous sheet material. Four doorways lead off the verandah, including the entrance door into the central hall. Panelled timber doors with operable glass fanlights are located at each end of the verandah and lead to the former nurses' rooms. These rooms are lined with tongue-and-groove, have remnants of original ventilators and fretwork fanlights over blocked-in doorways that formerly led into the wards. The main entrance of the building is comprised of two timber doors with four upper panels of glass and a long glass fanlight.
The hallway is wide, has a high ceiling with pale yellow painted tongue-and-groove lining. A rendered brick chimney with a decorative cedar mantelpiece is located on the western wall. The large mirror panel of the mantel is decorated with a painting of birds and flowers. Basic timber bookshelves are mounted on the eastern wall in the space formerly occupied by another chimney. Timber, wall-mounted lockers are to be found either side of the wide doorway that leads into the back section of the building.
Panelled timber doors with fretwork fanlights are opposite each other at the back of the hall. They each lead into large rooms, formerly the wards of the sanatorium, now subdivided into four small rooms. These rooms do not have full height partitions and the space of the wards is discernible. The raked ceiling is lined with tongue-and-groove with two horizontal bracing members running across the room at the same level as the top of the walls. Light fittings and switches are suspended from these members. The northern face of the ceiling has a centrally located, timber framed, fixed glass skylight whilst on the western and eastern walls respectively, there are small corrugated fibreglass panels that also let in light. A section of rendered brick provides evidence of the chimney once located in the eastern ward. The chimney remains in the western ward, however, it has been blocked up and there is no fireplace. Evidence of windows is visible along the northern walls of both wards.
The side extensions are accessed via partially enclosed passageways at the back of the building. Between the wards and these passageways are lean-to additions with skillion roofs that each contain a further two rooms. At the western end of the building there is also a timber toilet block with terrazzo floors attached at the northern side of the passageway. The western extension contains four equal sized rooms, with three-quarter height, fibrous-cement partitions and lino floors, the eastern extension is divided into five small rooms. The perimeter walls have multi-paned, coloured glass sliding windows and timber sills with tongue and groove lining below. Many of the rooms are furnished with cast iron beds from the sanatorium. Original doors are located in the wall between the former ward and the eastern extension.
The kitchen and former maids' quarters are located at the end of the hallway in a small building semi-detached from the main building. There is a small north-facing verandah at the back of the kitchen with stairs to the garden that together with an adjacent bedroom forms an extension to the original kitchen. The kitchen building is single skin timber with exposed cross bracing, a hipped corrugated iron roof and a brick chimney on the western wall. The extension is clad with horizontal weatherboards and the verandah has a dowel balustrade and simple valance. The two sash windows have metal window hoods. The kitchen contains an operable, wood burning stove, sink and a large, old, compartmentalised fridge. There is an outdoor laundry located between the kitchen and toilet areas, adjacent to a septic tank.
A corrugated iron shed with lean-to garage and wood-chop area are to be found in the back section of the block. The garden has no mature vegetation.
","history":"Located on a spacious corner block facing Cabbage Tree Creek, Musgrave House is a low set timber building with a high pitched, hipped roof designed by renowned Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. Built in 1884 as a convalescent home for children from the Hospital for Sick Children, Musgrave House dates from the time when Sandgate and Shorncliffe were crowded with boarding houses and convalescent homes. Since 1939, Musgrave House has continuously operated as a boarding house for men.
In it's inception, the Lady Musgrave Sanatorium for Sick Children reflects prominent nineteenth century ideas about health and childhood. Providing health facilities was not a main concern for the colonial government of Queensland, caring for the sick was considered a task for voluntary groups and charitable organisations. The idea of hospitals specifically for children was itself a new idea and had evolved steadily throughout the nineteenth century. Children's hospitals were increasingly established throughout the world in the latter half of the century. The vivid impressions left by a visit to children accommodated in adult wards in Brisbane led Mrs David McConnel to launch the idea of a children's hospital for the colony. Indeed, at this time children under five years of age were denied treatment at the General Hospital. Thus, the Hospital for Sick Children in Brisbane was founded in 1878 and was the second in Australia.
Statistics from the 1860s and 70s show how perilous life was for the children of colonial Queensland. In 1866, the Queensland Registrar-General announced that the infant mortality rate was "out of all proportion great", 49.25% of all deaths in 1863 were of children under the age of five. Half the children born in 1877 died before reaching the age of five. Dysentery, diarrhoea and typhoid were rife, along with many other illnesses unknown to medical practitioners of the time. At the same time, there was growing recognition of childhood as a distinct stage of life and less acceptance of the moralistic view that providing facilities for children encouraged mothers to abdicate their maternal responsibilities.
Such was the prevailing attitude towards children when Lady Lucinda Musgrave became the first patroness of the Hospital for Sick Children. Lady Musgrave was an enthusiastic Patroness, attending monthly Hospital Committee meetings and "doing much by her loving example to interest others". The idea of a sanatorium was proposed in 1883 and she took up the scheme with energy, personally securing the land at Shorncliffe which was given in trust by the government. The choice of the Shorncliffe site for the sanatorium was in keeping with prevailing ideas about health. The widespread acceptance of the miasmic theory of disease meant that fresh air and well ventilated, well lit buildings were considered essential for recuperation and recovery from illness. Bayside suburbs which offered sea bathing and outdoor enjoyment in addition to fresh air, were considered ideal for therapeutic purposes.
The building was completed in 1884 at a cost of £400. The architect was Richard Gailey, the official architect for the Hospital for Sick Children. Gailey designed the original Children's hospital at Bowen Bridge in 1883, charging only half of his commission to support the establishment of the hospital. He went on to design the fever ward in 1884, the morgue in 1885, the Resident Surgeon's quarters in 1889 and the nurse's quarters in 1891. Other buildings in Sandgate designed by Gailey were the original Sandgate Municipal Chambers and Town Hall in Kate St in 1882 (destroyed by fire May 1910) and the second Baptist Church on Flinders Parade in 1887.
It is clear that Gailey had accepted current thinking about hospital design and had adopted the pavilion plan in his design for the main block of the Hospital for Sick Children. Elements of the pavilion plan as it was adapted for the Queensland context are plainly evident in the design of the Lady Musgrave Sanatorium. With it's centrally located entrance hall and wards to either side shaded by a deep verandah, the planning of the sanatorium has strong similarities to timber hospitals constructed throughout Queensland, albeit on a smaller scale. Kitchen and other service areas are located in a separate wing at the back of the building, enabling the wards to be ventilated with windows along two sides.
Although the building was completed in 1884 and the permanent reserve announced in 1885, it did not formally open until 1888. Committee meeting minutes indicate that the sanatorium was in operation by 1887 and that it was the committee's unwillingness to enter into debt that caused the delay in opening. The three years 1884-87 were spent fund raising and organising equipment and furniture for the sanatorium. Lady Musgrave furnished one ward herself and several other ladies "gave most timely gifts of the same kind", personally furnishing and equipping the other ward. Each ward initially accommodated six children in cots and beds.
An article in the Queenslander in May 1888 reporting on the formal opening of the building described it thus:
The building is a handsome and substantial wooden structure ...the entrance to the main portion of the home is from the shore. The centre is appropriated to the reception room, and on either side is a large ward; while the nurses' rooms occupy the ends of the verandah. The verandah, which has wide projecting eaves, formed to give the greatest possible protection from wind and rain, while at the same time affording splendid ventilation, will be used in the summertime as a residence and recreation ground for the children. From the reception-room a corridor runs to the kitchen and servants' rooms and on either side are the pantry, store and bathrooms and wc. There are fireplaces in the wards and the whole establishment is so arranged to afford the utmost comfort and convenience to the little patients and those attached to the institution.
The 1888 Annual Report of the Children's Hospital stated "The rapid improvement of the patients sent down is very marked, showing the institution to be salubrious; and the work being put in hand by the Sandgate Council - viz., forming the Esplanade (now Allpass Parade) in front and perfecting the drainage and levelling the sports ground at the back - will, when completed - make the sanatorium all that can be desired."
The sanatorium was also used as a place of rest and training for nurses from the Children's Hospital and respite for families who had "sickly" children. The yearly report of 1896-97 states that 87 children passed through the sanatorium. In 1923 the Brisbane Courier reports that the sanatorium committee met to discuss the disposal of the Agnes Thorn legacy. "The committee intends to lay out the legacy, which with the Government subsidy totals 450 pounds, in something of a permanent character, such as a memorial to the donor, who was well known to old Sandgate residents." It is unclear whether the plan for a memorial ever eventuated. We can assume, however, that some of the funds went towards extending the building. The Courier reported on a "novelty coin and jazz evening" held in aid of funds for the sanatorium later in 1923. In describing the evening, reference is made to the new wing "beautifully decorated with mauve and biscuit".
In 1920, the number of children passing through had increased to162 over the year. Matron Maude Flewell-Smith became Sister-in-charge of the children's sanatorium in 1921, a role she held until 1927 when she was transferred to Brisbane Hospital's Sandgate convalescent home and became Matron of both institutions. Her daughter, Mrs Win Jackman remembers that during this time there was an enclosed bathing area and shed across the road where her mother took children to swim on a daily basis during the summer months.
There was an on-going relationship between the people of the Sandgate district and the sanatorium. From as early as 1893, local fund raising events took place. Over the years these events included concerts, fish luncheons, dances and euchre parties and several of these were organised by local children. The children's sanatorium enjoyed a special relationship with members of the Toowong branch of the Ministering Children's League who organised a Christmas party at the sanatorium for over twenty years providing toys, Santa Claus and decorations which included the tradition of transforming one of the trees in the garden into a gift-laden Christmas tree.
In 1924, the Brisbane Hospital Board had taken over control of the Children's Hospital and in 1927, the training schools of both hospitals were amalgamated. This signalled the beginnings of changes in hospital administration and practices that would lead to the closure of the sanatorium by the Hospital Board in 1931. Children were then transferred to Brisbane Hospital's convalescent home located nearby in Flinders Parade which by this stage accommodated women only.
It appears the building remained vacant for several years, although local residents recall "state children" living there. Notification of land for sale by auction as a Perpetual Town Lease appeared on the 16 November 1939. James Brown took up the lease in perpetuity from the first of April 1940 at a yearly rent of five pounds, five shillings. The area of one rood ten perches was considerably smaller than the 2 roods 16 perches of the original Government reserve.
Sandgate District Historical Society's journal By the Seaside tells that James Brown started an old men's home and rental was five shillings per week, meals not included. In order to accommodate the tenants, Mr Brown carried out work subdividing the rooms. In 1946 the lease was transferred to William Austin Fitzgerald and Mary Violet Fitzgerald on 28 March. Fitzgerald was the local stationmaster and used Musgrave House as accommodation for railway workers. Mrs Norma Turbet took over the lease in September 1960, eventually purchased the land at a cost of $3000 in 1980 and then sold the property in August 1999.
","criteria":"Musgrave House is important in demonstrating the development of health services, specifically children's health services, in Queensland. The building demonstrates the growth of the Sandgate-Shorncliffe area as a popular nineteenth century watering place and the custom of going to the seaside for recuperation following illness. As a convalescent home for the children's hospital, Musgrave House is significant in demonstrating the establishment and development of health services by volunteer effort in early Queensland. It's subsequent use as a boarding house demonstrates the continuing appeal of Sandgate as a location for boarding houses and convalescent homes.
|Musgrave House has architectural and aesthetic significance as an example of the small scale work of architect Richard Gailey and in demonstrating the acceptance of the pavilion plan in hospital design in the 1870s and 80s, evident in the internal volumes and planning.
|The building's aesthetic qualities are exemplified by the high pitched roof, exposed cross bracing and carefully detailed verandah.
|Musgrave House has special associations with the Sandgate and Shorncliffe communities. For fifty years local people undertook fund-raising activities in aid of the sanatorium and visiting children and their families were welcomed as part of the wider community of the district.
|Musgrave House has a special association with the activities of prominent women of colonial Queensland. The Sanatorium was named for Lady Lucinda Musgrave, wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave, Governor of Queensland 1883-88 and first Patroness of the Hospital for Sick Children. There is also a close association with Mrs David McConnel, founder and Chair of the Committee of the Hospital Sick Children who was prominent in many aspects of life in early Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16264,"place_ref":601501,"name":"Normanton Gaol","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"27 Haigh Street","suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"Normanton Gaol is located on a rectangular block bounded by Haig Street, and three residential blocks. It is a single-storeyed concrete and corrugated iron building with multiple entrance points, each indicating a cell or group of cells. The smaller tracker's quarters, a single storeyed timber and corrugated iron building is located in the north eastern corner of the block behind the gaol building.
The 1892 core of the building incorporates two large cells, each with an exercise yard and two smaller cells with a single L shaped yard. Exercise yards are enclosed by concrete walls, three and a half metres in height. Each of the yards is separately entranced by iron doors with peep holes and large draw bolt locks. In each of the four 1892 cells, railway iron rails are imbedded horizontally in concrete piers between the top of the external walls and the ceiling, providing ventilation. The remand cell has railway iron rails spanning the room at the top of the walls spaced 25 centimetres apart, the ends being imbedded into the walls. The ceilings are lined with tongue and groove hardwood boards.
The 1895 extension, consisting of three cells adjoins the original exercise yard wall. A fourth cell was added to the 1895 range in 1899 and is of congruous design and form. Three of the cells are four metres by two metres, and are unadorned and without windows. The north eastern cell has a second doorway leading to the L shaped exercise yard. The south western cell is larger and has a set of louvred windows facing Haig Street. A shower block extension, including two bathrooms and open plan thoroughfare, was added to the western elevation of the building and is made of besser brick and open iron bars covered with security mesh.
The 1892 core has a hipped skillion roof, clad with galvanised iron. Small bull nose rooves extend from the main roof along the exercise yard walls. Earth closets, once located under these extensions, have been removed. Two ornate finials ventilate the roof and indicate the cell spaces. The 1895/99 addition has a pitched roof which was extended over the modern addition. Three smaller finials are located on the ridge of this roof.
The trackers' quarters, located at the north eastern corner of the block, at the rear of the main building, is a simple single-storeyed weatherboard and corrugated iron structure. It has two single rooms, each with an entrance and exit door and a double hung sash window in each room. The hipped roof provides an awning for a covered porch area. A toilet and shower facility are located in this area.
","history":"The Normanton Gaol is a complex of two buildings, consisting of a single-storeyed cement and corrugated iron cell block constructed between 1892 and 1899, and a smaller timber and corrugated iron building formerly used as the trackers quarters.
Normanton, gazetted as a town in 1868, was originally settled to provide port facilities as an alternative to the Burketown port. The port facilities, situated sixty kilometres upstream from the gulf provided access for incoming goods as well as allowing for a more efficient trade route to Brisbane from the Carpentaria region. The site for Normanton is located on an ironstone ridge, protecting it from the topographic changes that occur during the wet season. Although the region had been opened up as a pastoral district during the 1860s for cattle, it was the discovery of gold at Croydon in 1885, that saw the township boom. The Normanton-Croydon railway opened in 1891 and road links to the Cloncurry copper fields saw Normanton port become a gateway for the north-western region of Queensland.
From the earliest days of the township, an important element in the Normanton community was the variety of cultures that were evident. As well as the pioneering European settlers, in themselves a diverse cultural group, a significant minority of Chinese immigrants were attracted to the area through the Croydon goldfields. Fringe camps of Aboriginal peoples, originally located on the northern side of the Norman river, developed into large groups by the turn of the century. Some of these peoples were removed to reserves on Mornington Island, 1914 and Doomadgee, 1936. Fringe camps endured and were similar in character to those found in other townships of the Gulf region.
In 1888 Normanton became the central town of the police district and therefore the court district. On 25 November 1890 The Prisons Act assented with the aim to consolidate and amend the law relating to gaols, prisons, houses of correction and penal establishments. This Act created a prisons department under the control of the Comptroller General and clarified the distinction between a Police Gaol, being a specially proclaimed lock up or watch house, and a prison. As a result of this Act Normanton was initially proclaimed a Police Goal in 1891, possibly as an interim measure until the construction on the larger site could be undertaken. In 1890 a gaol reserve of nine acres was proclaimed on the outskirts of town adjacent to the hospital reserve. Plans were drawn up for the Gaol reserve by William Taylor Jack who was working in Normanton as the Foreman of Works for the department of Public Works at the time. These plans incorporated warder's residence and a total of twenty four cells.
The gaol was eventually built on an unproclaimed reserve in Borck street (now Haig street) and was a far more modest four cells. The Police Gaol proclamation was rescinded in 1893 when it was proclaimed a prison. The deferment of the status of prison is an indication of the stature of Normanton amongst townships in the Carpentaria Gulf region. Locating the gaol in the centre of town maintained a close proximity between the gaol, police reserve and the Court House. The location allowed Normanton Gaol to be used as both a police lockup and a district gaol. This meant that prisoners on both short and long term sentences were held together with those awaiting trail. It was part of a larger police reserve that encompassed barracks, conjoining the Gaol, stables and horse yards with offices and inspectors residence on the opposite side of Haig Street.
In a township dominated by timber and corrugated iron built form, the gaol is distinct as an early concrete structure. The gaol incorporates the distinctive use of iron railway rails in the construction of the walls and frames for the ceilings. This was incorporated as reinforcing device as well as using materials available due to the recent construction of the Normanton-Croydon railway. Praised by the Sheriff for accommodating the harsh climate of the Gulf, the concrete structure also deterred white ants that plagued timber buildings at this time. The ground floor construction of the building impeded potential breakout from the gaol experienced in the previous timber building where an inmate broke through the floor and escaped. The configuration of yards and cells isolated prisoners and separated those remanded from those carrying out longer sentencing.
As a district gaol, Normanton serviced Croydon, Georgetown, Cloncurry, and Burketown, encompassing the large district of Cook and Burke. The gaol was extended in 1895, as a result of overcrowding with as many as twenty four prisoners held in the original four cells. A further two cells were added, along with a new kitchen and a stockade fence around the perimeter. A seventh cell was added into the 1895 range in 1899. The superintendent of the prison was drawn from the resident police officers, and paid a supplementary stipend of £20 per annum. Similarly the local Protector of Aborigines, appointed after the enactment of the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, was drawn from Normanton's senior police ranks.
Trackers' quarters are located in the eastern corner of the block and are a small two room weatherboard hut. Aboriginal trackers were retained by the police force to assist with the capture of errant prisoners and recalcitrants. They were also used to find lost children and were highly prized for their bushcraft skills. In addition to such duties, aboriginal trackers also acted as subordinate staff, attending to such jobs as stable hand, cleaner and handy man. The location and size of the hut are indicative of the hierarchy in police accommodation, with aboriginal peoples on the lowest position, in the smallest building with the least amenities. The trackers' quarters is more akin to the cell blocks than to the accommodation for constables and inspectors.
After its closure as a gaol in 1945, it reverted to the police service and continued to be used as a watch house until the late 1992. Recommendations arising from the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody saw the watch house fail to comply to Queensland Police Service operational requirements and it was subsequently closed.
","criteria":"The Normanton Gaol is a complex of two buildings, consisting of a single-storeyed concrete and corrugated iron cell block constructed between 1892 and 1899, and a small timber and corrugated iron building formerly used as the trackers' quarters. The placement of the gaol in Normanton is indicative of governmental confidence in the growth in this area, in both mining and pastoral sectors and the need to provide for law and order in conjunction with the other services, such as port and Post and Telegraph facilities. The gaol building demonstrates the importance of Normanton as a central administrative hub for the Carpentaria region at a time of rapid economic growth.
|It is a rare and intact example of a nineteenth century gaol used to service a remote regional area, once part of a broader network of prisons throughout Queensland administered under the Prisons Act 1890. As such it demonstrates the range of penal institutions developed within the network that included small cell blocks through to large complexes as can be seen at Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane [601033]. Gaols once featured in the urban landscapes of regional centres such as Roma, Toowoomba, Cooktown and Thursday Island, most of which no longer survive. The substantial concrete form of the gaol building demonstrates the distinction made between a lock up and a prison, illustrating attitude to prison construction.
|The small two room trackers' quarters, the only remaining building of a larger police reserve, demonstrates the hierarchal social structure attached to accommodation in the Queensland Police Service. It also demonstrates the use of indigenous peoples in the Queensland Police Service.
|Normanton Gaol has association with the peoples of the Gulf region as a place of incarceration and punishment from the late nineteenth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16266,"place_ref":601503,"name":"St Patricks Church","alternate_name":"St Patrick's Church | St Patricks Catholic Church | St Patrick's Catholic Church","street_address":"Church Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-02-20","description":"St Patrick's Church is a substantial sandstone building on Calton Hill, a prominent site in Gympie. It is surrounded by concrete paving, and established lawns and gardens. There is a timber framed bell tower on the lawns to the east of the church.
The church has a rectangular plan, featuring a clerestoried five bay nave and side aisles, with an additional unextended transept bay. The church features a polygonal chancel and two smaller polygonal rooms on the southern end used as a vestry and a sanctuary.
The building is constructed of rock-faced sandstone laid in courses of random sized blocks, with elements such as quoining, continuous moulding beneath the gutter, plinth course and string courses chiselled smooth. The building has a plinth of larger rock-faced sandstone blocks. The angle buttressing is sandstone with wide chiselled edges. The southern end of the church, including the transept gables, diagonal buttressing, chancel, vestry and sanctuary is constructed of bricks with an inscribed render, imitating ashlar stonework. Generally the church has pointed arch windows with geometric stone tracery.
The steeply pitched gabled roof has Marseilles pattern interlocking terracotta tiles, with matching ridge capping. Gables are found on the southern end of the east and west walls, where transepts were to begin. Featured on each of the gables is a large pointed arch stained glass window, integrating many smaller lights with geometric tracery.
The western wall features a portal entrance framed by a ribbed pointed archway. Pointed arch windows flank the portal and feature hood mouldings, which are integrated with a string course. Above the entrance is a large three arched window, incorporating four lancet lights and geometric tracery. At the highest point of the gable is a small inverted eyelet window. Pointed arch windows are found on the southern and northern walls, defining the internal bays. The clerestory windows use the quatrefoil motif, to frame brightly coloured stained glass in simple geometric patterns.
Internally, round sandstone piers supporting pointed arches, form arcades which define the nave and aisles of the church. Slender engaged columns extend upward from the piers to support a variation of hammer-beam timber roof trusses, strengthened with brackets of decorative joinery. The ceiling is diagonally boarded, tongue and groove, v-jointed timber.
A pointed chancel arch, opens onto the chancel which has a faceted dome ceiling, which is painted with religious scenes. The chancel features a marble altar, accessed via two marble stairs, and a small stained glass rose window of the holy family.
The organ gallery at the west end of the church is supported on slender round columns with prominent stylised doric capitals. The organ is inscribed with Richard Heslop 16 Burma Rd London. Timber framed stations of the cross line the walls of the side aisles. Many of the stained glass windows bear plaques with details of the person who donated them.
","history":"St Patrick's Church was constructed on Calton Hill in Gympie from 1883 to 1887, by the Roman Catholic Church. It was the third permanent church constructed in the town for the catholic community on or near this site. The building was designed by the prominent Brisbane architect, FDG Stanley.
\nThe first catholic mass was celebrated in Gympie in February 1868, in the Brisbane Hotel, by Father Tissot. The following month, Father Matthew Horan arrived on the newly established goldfields and assumed his position as parish priest, which he held until his death in 1923. Upon his arrival, Father Horan pitched a tent on Calton Hill to celebrate mass, beginning the long catholic domination of the site. Tenders appeared in the Nashville Times on March 18, 1868, for the construction of a permanent church building. This timber building was ready for use by the end of 1868, but lasted only four years due to the damaging effects of weathering and white ants. Some of the land at Calton Hill was donated to the church by local residents including Patrick Lillis, and other land was bought at auction.
\nIn 1872 a second church was constructed of hardwood, and opened by Rev Dr James O'Quinn, Bishop of Queensland. Despite the later addition of side aisles, the hardwood church was regarded as inadequate for the growing catholic congregation and another building was planned reflecting the importance of the church in the community. In 1879 a catholic school was established on land nearby, when the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Gympie. Plans for the new church were prepared by well known Brisbane architect, FDG Stanley, and a local builder William Streeton and presented to the newly appointed Bishop Dunne in 1881. Plans shown to the bishop were prepared for both a stone and brick church costing £3800 and £3000 respectively, and from these Dunne decided to proceed with a stone church.
\nBishop Dunne officiated at a ceremony on January 28, 1883, to lay the foundation stone at St Patrick's. Subscription lists were opened for the funding of the construction and donations by the end of the day totalled £1200. On September 19, 1883, the tender of J Smith and Co was accepted to supply the material and build the church for a sum of £3591. Construction of St Patrick's took place over the next four years, firstly by the original contractors, then by Messrs Peter and George Duckworth. At about the time of this changeover the southern wall of the church collapsed in a strong wind. The joinery and seating was undertaken by local carpenter, William Condon. An organ worth £500 and a marble altar also worth £500 which was donated by Mr James Fitzpatrick, a successful mining pioneer in the area, were features of the new building.
\nOn July 17, 1887, St Patrick's Church was opened by Rev. Robert Dunne who had become the first Archbishop of Queensland. The church was built at a final cost of around £10,000. At the opening, St Patrick's Church, which was built to accommodate 950, was crowded with 1400 people who paid to attend the service. The church was described as a landmark for many miles around due to its elevated position, its great height, its pure white stone walls and its well-cut lines. St Patrick's was rectangular in plan, though was designed to accommodate the later addition of transepts. It was originally built with corrugated iron roof sheeting with small ventilation gablets lining the roof.
\nWhen St Patrick's opened other churches in Gympie included a timber Presbyterian church on Red Hill, a timber Weslyan Methodist Church on Surface Hill which was replaced in the 1890s by a large brick church, and a small Church of England on Palatine Hill, also replaced by a large brick church in 1888.
\nSt Patrick's Church continued to grow under the care of Father Horan; an organ gallery, designed by Hugo Durietz was added in 1896. Upon Horan's death on July 6, 1923, Dean Michael O'Flynn became the new parish priest. O'Flynn immediately began arrangements for the completion of the east end of the church. Brisbane architects, Cavanagh and Cavanagh, were commissioned to design the completion of the southern end, parts of which had been stopped with metal sheeting until this time. The extension included a polygonal chancel and flanking this, two smaller polygonal rooms used as the vestry and the sanctuary. The tender of Mr Brittam, for an amount of £1790 was accepted by September 8, 1924 and the work was finished in 1925. The following year work was completed on the adjacent brick presbytery, which replaced an earlier timber building.
\nOn April 14, 1929 Archbishop Duhig dedicated newly installed stained glass windows placed in the gables where the transepts were to have been extended. These windows were dedicated to the remembrance of the Catholic Emancipation and in particular to a key figure in the struggle, Daniel O'Connell. Duhig also laid the foundation stone for the new convent, commemorating the centenary of the Sisters of Mercy and the Jubilee of their arrival in Gympie.
\nFather O'Flynn remained at St Patrick's until his death in 1935, when he was replaced by Monsignor Timothy Malony. Malony undertook vast improvements to the grounds, including paving and lawns around the church, and the construction of broad steps to the church. In 1951, the new parish priest Monsignor David Dee, concerned with the lack of accommodation at St Patrick's, established a new catholic church in northern Gympie, diminishing the large congregation.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Church, erected 1883-87, is a substantial sandstone building which is important in demonstrating the rapid growth of Gympie in the 1880s, as a result of the prosperity of the gold fields.
|St Patricks is a good example of church architecture practiced in the 1880s, influenced by Gothic revival styles and of the ecclesiastical work of the prominent Queensland architect, FDG Stanley. It has a number of elements demonstrating high quality craftsmanship including the marble altar, the organ, joinery, stone masonry and stained glass windows.
|St Patricks is a good example of church architecture practiced in the 1880s, influenced by Gothic revival styles and of the ecclesiastical work of the prominent Queensland architect, FDG Stanley. It has a number of elements demonstrating high quality craftsmanship including the marble altar, the organ, joinery, stone masonry and stained glass windows.
The church has been an outstanding landmark in Gympie since its opening in 1887, as a large imposing building constructed on a prominent site. It was the first substantial masonry church in Gympie and served as the model for subsequent churches in the town.
|The church demonstrates the spread of the Catholic Church in regional Queensland. It has a long association with the catholic community in Gympie and reflects the development of Catholicism in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16268,"place_ref":601505,"name":"Glennie Hall","alternate_name":"Odd Fellows Hall","street_address":"66 Albion Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-07-05","description":"Glennie Hall is a single-storey symmetrical masonry building. It is set close to Albion Street, which is a section of the busy Cunningham Highway linking Brisbane to Sydney and Melbourne.
Glennie Hall appears to have an inverted T-shape plan, with a rectangular front and the rectangular stem of the hall has a corrugated iron gable roof. The 1891 front wing is designed in a symmetrical neoclassical style.
The 1891 section has an ornate parapet broken by a central gable and small gable roof entry lobby. This gable has an open-bed pediment above the central front opening. The openings on either side of the entrance have rectangular windows surmounted by an arched concrete moulding descending to a dripstone and broken by a keystone. The pair of windows either side of the entrance and side windows are casement windows and are delineated by concrete moulding that is horizontal beneath the sill and outlines the arch of the window shape. All windows are recessed into the wall.
The architects employed geometric shapes to enhance this hall. The base has a strong horizontal emphasis that is reinforced by the horizontal window moulding and entablature beneath the parapet. Roundness is emphasised by the semi-circle window heads and mouldings and the circular decorations in the parapet. Supporting vertical brackets and gable like moulding infill enforces the oblique line of the parapets central gable.
The northern elevation of the 1881 hall is not ornate and appears to have two windows and a door near where it adjoins the 1891 section.
","history":"A single-storey masonry hall designed by architects William Wallace and Richard Gibson was built 1880-81 on the southern end of Albion Street for the Royal Rose of Warwick Manchester Unity Independent Order of Odd Fellows (MUIOOF) Lodge. Wallace and Gibson were responsible for the entrance lobby and parapeted front rooms added in 1891.
Alan Cunningham's exploration of the southern Darling Downs in 1827 revealed the potential of the area for pastoral and agricultural usage. However, it was not until the 1840s that pastoralists moved into the district. It was at the end of the decade that Warwick started emerging as an administrative centre and a town serving the local pastoralists. The northern end of Albion Street, near the Condamine River ford, developed as the main administrative and business area, but flooding resulted in movement away from this area by the 1870s.
While the first Oddfellows Lodge in Queensland opened in Brisbane in 1847 it was not until 1871 that the Rose of Warwick MUIOFF was founded. Friendly societies believed in self-help, and by making regular set contributions members and their families secured benefits when ill, unable to work, for funeral service and clothes for the widow and family. Lodges were meant to practice universal brotherhood and be open to all religious persuasions. Each lodge was an individual financial entity run on democratic lines and the aim was for good fellowship, benevolence, charity and improving of morals. Lodges met fortnightly and often concluded with a paper or talk. They ran social events and raised funds to ensure profitability of the lodges. Oddfellowship did practice secrecy, wore regalia and had specified ceremonies. Acceptance into an Oddfellows lodge was after being medically checked, approval by members, payment of an initiation fee and the actual ceremony. Lodges employed a local doctor to look after members and paid for approved medicines from the selected pharmacist/chemist.
By 1878 there were two MUIOOF lodges in Warwick with the Loyal Rose Lodge meeting fortnightly in their Town Hall lodge room. Lodge members were actively involved in the community and raised funds by organising balls and athletic events. It was on 30 August 1880 that the local state parliamentarian, Jacob Horwitz, laid the foundation stone for the Oddfellows Hall at the southern end of Albion Street. It was designed by prominent Warwick architects Wallace and Gisbon with brickwork by Brother EB Budgen and cost £268. The hall was formally opened at the January 1881 meeting of the Loyal Rose Lodge.
In 1891 the Oddfellows decided to enlarge their hall and again employed architects Wallace and Gibson. The tender for these additions that included an imposing front facade, front rooms and side verandahs was for £413/10/- and the total cost was over £600. The Warwick Argus of 25 July 1891 commented that builder John Longwill was making rapid progress with the Oddfellows Hall and 'The new front, which will be very imposing when complete, is now nearly high enough to obscure the main portion of the hall. When complete, the building will present a very neat and roomy appearance'.
The Oddfellows Hall was used for fortnightly MUIOOF lodge meetings, WPO meetings and dancing classes. It was also a venue for Oddfellows social evenings and rented as a hall to many other local organisations, for example football clubs. Over 100 couples attended a fancy dress ball in the Hall when the first anniversary of the formation of Female Oddfellows was celebrated in August 1907. About 1908 a new floor costing £80 was laid in the Lodge Hall.
Old-age pensions of £26 per year were introduced by the Queensland government on 1 July 1908 and in September delegates from the various Warwick friendly societies met to discus the benefits of forming an association. By 31 October 1908 the Warwick and District Friendly Societies Association was founded and office bearers elected. The Commonwealth Government's introduction of the old age pension in 1909 which was soon supplemented by an invalid pension and introduction of the maternity bonus in 1912, was the onset of the welfare state and a death knoll for friendly societies.
Throughout 1909, 1910 and 1911 the three Warwick MUIOOF lodges continued to meet in the Oddfellows Hall and rent it out for social events and as a meeting place for other organisations. Perhaps the government social welfare legislation had reduced the number of members, or the need for a hall was no longer felt to be a necessity, or for some other reason, but by early 1912 the Royal Rose of Warwick MUIOOF was sold to John Lamb for a four figure price. Lamb used the hall as a wine and spirit store in connection with his already established business. In 1915 Lamb leased the business to William Reuben McEwin. The hall ceased being used as a wine and spirit store about 1916.
The Church of England purchased the Oddfellows Hall in 1921 for £800. After spending over £400 on refurbishment including adding modern conveniences the hall was official opened by the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane on 21 August 1921 as the home of the St Marks Young Men's Club. It was renamed the Glennie Hall in honour of Archdeacon Glennie who conducted the first Warwick Anglican Church services in September 1848. In 1860 Archdeacon Glennie moved to Warwick to serve as the parish priest until 1872. He was responsible for the erection of St Mark's Warwick [600943] and encouraging regular church attendance.
St Mark's Young Men's Club was formed on 10 August 1920 with 21 members, one year later membership had increased to 129. The Club aimed for the development of mental and social culture amongst its members. The Club's fortnightly meetings included public debating, mock banquets, preparing articles for the magazine, giving of papers, addresses from visiting speakers. Another important activity was social fund raising evenings such as dances.
While the Warwick MUIOOF lodges held their fortnightly meetings in the Masonic Lodge they continued to use Glennie Hall for social events as did other local organisations.
A dramatic change of use occurred in 1935 when radio station 4WK inaugurated broadcasting to the district within 50 miles of Warwick from Glennie Hall on 6 May 1935. One of the 1920s innovations was radio communication. Radio broadcasting was used for not only news broadcasting but for the spread of information and education and 4WK presented poetry in Children's programs, provided intelligence on local happenings and helped raise funds for organisations such as the Lord Kitchener's Cheapside Mission.
Rosenthal Shire Council purchased the land from the Church by 20 December 1957 with the hall becoming the shires administration centre. The shire used the hall for functions including Health Department inoculations. While this long block of land had space for the Shire's heavy equipment and a workshop the increasing heavy highway traffic was to prove problematic for the moving of machinery in and out. While Rosenthal Shire adjoined Warwick Town Council and there were various boundary changes, the Shire offices were always in the Warwick CBD. It is probable that the Shire installed a fireproof safe for secure storage of council records.
Vacated by the Shire in 1970, by 1974 Glennie Hall had new owners and became a gymnasium. Subdivided in 1991, with the larger rear area used as a bus depot, the hall was sold and became an antique shop. Put up for auction on 26 March 1994, when it was described as including kitchen, toilets, offices and display areas, it had been recently painted inside and outside. Internally there was a central hall with rooms of various sizes opening off it including a strongroom. Since 1994 it has been used as a restaurant and more recently it is a vacant premises.
In January 2001 Glennie Hall was again for sale. A sign informed those interested that the building contained a fully renovated gourmet kitchen, a cold room and bar, sealed rear carpark, two-room accommodation fully furnished and fitted out to down to crockery, and the place was suitable for nightclub, bar, showroom, restaurant, office or other use.
A 1921 photograph shows that there was a convex verandah on the actual hall's northern elevation. This photograph and another when Glennie Hall was a radio station show that urns surmounted the pilasters. A low picket fence and shrubs have replaced the front picket fence, the verandah has disappeared and an awning added to the front entrance. As the place has not been inspected internal changes are not known.
","criteria":"While Albion Street was once the Warwick administrative and business area, this place is the only remaining colonial structure.
This place demonstrates a way of life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when friendly societies were a prominent and expanding part of Queensland society. The Oddfellows like other Friendly Societies was a voluntary association where members paid periodic payments and received sickness and funeral benefits.
That Glennie Hall has been used as a hall for specific groups and the community, a wine and spirits store, radio station, shire office, gymnasium, shop and restaurant demonstrates the growth of Warwick and changing social needs of the community.
|The Oddfellows hall, designed by prominent Warwick architects Wallace and Gibson, opened in 1881. The front wing, also designed by Wallace and Gibson, was added in 1891. This single-storey hall's front facade with its articulated geometry is important in illustrating the design, materials and construction techniques of late-19th century masonry building in Queensland.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Oddfellows played an important community role in pre social welfare days. The hall was the venue for their meetings and social events and other community activities. As Glennie Hall, and home to St Mark's Young Men's Club, it social usage continued as it was rented out for community activities to various organisations including the Oddfellows.
|That this place has retained the name Glennie Hall since 1921 reveals the strong association of Warwick with Archdeacon Glennie even though the place has been employed for broadcasting and local government administration.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16269,"place_ref":601506,"name":"St John's Wood and Service Wing","alternate_name":"Granite House | St Johns Wood","street_address":"31-33 Piddington Street","suburb":"ASHGROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"St John’s Wood and Service Wing comprises a lowset, single storey, masonry main house (c1865) and a lowset, single storey, brick and timber-framed service wing (c1870s, with pre-1895 addition) located in the residential pocket of St John’s Wood, a locality in the Brisbane suburb of Ashgrove. The service wing is free-standing from the main house through the demolition of the former linking rooms, and both structures function as separate residences.
\nThe main house, St John’s Wood (31 Piddington Street), faces east and stands on a 1432m2 lot at the highest point in the centre of a bend in Enoggera Creek. Access to the house is via Piddington Street to the south, and it is surrounded by residential properties to the east, north and west.
\nThe Service Wing (33 Piddington Street) stands to the west of St John’s Wood on an adjacent 933m2 lot. It now forms part of a larger house, due to extensions constructed in 1976-77.
\nBoth St John’s Wood and the Service Wing are set back from Piddington Street and fronted by gardens.
\nSt John’s Wood (c1865)
\nSt John's Wood comprises a symmetrical, U-shaped plan of seven rooms around a large ballroom. The house is encircled by verandahs, with doors opening onto the verandahs from all major rooms. From the main entrance door in the centre of the east facade, an entrance hall leads through an arched opening into the ballroom. On either side of the entrance hall are a living room (south) and a bedroom (north). Along the south side of the house are the dining room and the kitchen. Along the north side of the house are two more rooms, with a bathroom addition inserted into the large central room.
\nThe house features high-quality and finely-detailed materials and joinery.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: concrete verandah floors; lattice screens fixed to verandah posts; swimming pool between the north verandah space and northern boundary; ensuite addition between the northeastern verandah space and northeastern boundary; modern guttering and downpipes; kitchen and bathroom interiors; cork flooring; cellar below the ballroom; and all other buildings and structures.
\nSt John’s Wood garden
\nWithin the gardens of St John’s Wood are mature plantings, including a rare and very old specimen of camellia tree (Camellia japonica Anemonifloria), located near the southeast corner of the house.
\nService Wing (c1870s, with pre-1895 extension)
\nThe Service Wing forms the east end of the residence at 33 Piddington Street. It comprises two main rooms linked by enclosed verandahs on the north and south sides. It is timber-framed, with a thick brick wall and chimney forming the east end wall. The broken-back gable roof is clad in corrugated metal sheeting.
\nThe south verandah contains the main entrance to the residence and a store room at its east end. The east room (c1870s, former laundry) is used as a living room and features a fireplace in the brick east wall. The west room (pre-1895, former servants’ bedroom) is used as a dining room. The north verandah is divided by a timber partition aligned with the wall separating the living and dining rooms.
\nThe Service Wing bears evidence of changes over time, due to the variety of materials and traces of additions and alterations. It is likely that original or early fabric is concealed beneath later wall and ceiling linings. It is possible that some fabric and/or joinery has been recycled from the demolition of other rooms of the wing.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: concrete floor stumps; modern guttering and downpipes; louvres and external cladding to the north verandah; plaster walls and ceilings; timber mantelpiece and hearth floor tiles in the living room; flat internal wall linings with cover strips; modern plasterboard wall and ceiling linings; and modern doors.
","history":"St John's Wood, is a single storey villa residence, primarily built of local granite. It was constructed in the mid-1860s for Daniel Rowntree Somerset in the locality of St John’s Wood; part of the Brisbane suburb of Ashgrove, located approximately 6km northwest of the Brisbane CBD. In the 1870s, it was owned by Justice George Rogers (GR) Harding, who extended the house and grounds. Since the early 20th century, it has changed ownership a number of times and in 2018 remains a private residence in a garden setting.
\nOn a separate adjacent land parcel to the west of St John’s Wood, stands a surviving portion of its Service Wing (c 1870s, built in two stages) which now forms part of a 1970s residence.
\nBrisbane, the traditional country of the Yuggera and Turrbal people, was progressively surveyed and offered for private sale from 1842. Early occupation was largely focussed on town land on opposite sides of the river at North Brisbane and South Brisbane, while suburban areas developed more slowly. [1]
\nFrom at least the 1850s, the land on which St John’s Wood is built was part of a large pastoral lease holding: The Gap Station. In August 1865, part of the land, Portions 164 and 165 comprising just under 82 acres (33ha), was purchased by Daniel Rowntree Somerset, Chief Clerk of Customs and Shipping Master of the Port of Brisbane.[2] In September 1867, he acquired the adjoining property to the west, Portion 381, comprising 15 acres (6ha). These three land parcels formed the core of his St John’s Wood estate. [3]
\nThe first half of the 1860s was a period of strong growth for Brisbane in the newly established colony of Queensland. Immigration boosted the population dramatically (more than doubling between 1861 and 1864 to over 12,000) and many substantial public and private buildings were constructed during this time. Brisbane’s residential dwellings co-existed with industrial activity; characterised by congestion, noise, and poor sanitation.[4] During this period ‘villa estates’, located in the suburban periphery in then semi-rural settings, on elevated locations such as along ridgelines, some with river frontages, became an increasingly popular type of dwelling for Brisbane’s more affluent residents. This demographic included high ranking public servants, professionals and successful business people. The preference for residential villa estates by the well-to-do was an international development pattern during the Victorian-era. Key elements of villa estates included large and comfortable houses, associated outbuildings such as servant’s quarters and stabling, expansive garden settings, and a good road to town. [5]
\nIn March 1865, the Brisbane Courier noted, ‘substantial brick villas, instead of wooden houses are on the increase’. A later article in September stated, ‘numerous villa residences have been erected during the past 12 months in the suburbs of the town…No greater proof of the prosperity of a city as a whole can be afforded than that derived from the disposition of its citizens to plant and build on its' environs, and to make it their home socially as well as professionally…Scarcely a day passes but our advertising columns invite tenders for the erection of villa residences…’. In 2018, villas from this era are rare, and of the nine identified 1860s stone residences on state and local heritage registers in Brisbane, only four have retained their service wings. [6]
\nDaniel Somerset initiated the construction of a residence in 1865, in the centre of a pocket of land within a loop of Enoggera Creek. No designer or builder of the residence have been conclusively identified.[7] St John’s Wood, a single storey building with a formal ‘u-shaped’ symmetrical plan of seven rooms on an east-west axis with surrounding verandahs, features substantial walls constructed of Enoggera granite, quarried locally, with internal non-loadbearing walls of rendered brick. The house was located on the highest point of the land, affording views to and from the residence. Daniel Somerset and his wife Dora, occupied the house for only a short time. Dora Somerset died in February 1867. Her death notice indicated that the residence was known by this time as ‘St. John’s Wood’. The following month Daniel Somerset advertised the property for sale or let, describing the residence as ‘a substantial and well-finished Stone Dwelling House of eight rooms, and the necessary outbuildings, all in a state of thorough repair, and suitable for a respectable family’. The house had seven rooms and presumably the eighth was a kitchen. [8] Somerset remained at St John’s Wood until May 1868 when his eldest daughter Anna was married there. Shortly after, in June 1868, the house was leased to Justice George Rogers Harding. The lease agreement stipulated that no building work was to be done to the property. A photograph, possibly dating to 1868, shows a structure to the west of the house; the extent and function of which is not visible. [9]
\nGeorge Rogers Harding was born in 1838 at Ash Priors near Taunton, Somerset, England and undertook his legal training prior to immigrating to Australia. Harding and his wife Emily (nee Morris) arrived in Brisbane in 1866 with their three daughters and servant. Harding was admitted to the Bar shortly after arrival, as the first equity counsel in the colony. In July 1879 he became Senior Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. Over the course of his career, Harding was respected for his ‘scrupulously fair’ judgements, except when his harsh sentences for unionists convicted during the conspiracy trial after the 1891 shearer’s strike made him unpopular. Author of six legal books and a noted bibliophile, Harding played a large part in the development of the Supreme Court’s library. [10]
\nIn January 1874, Harding became the owner of the property; his wife had delivered their ninth child in December 1873. This was six months prior to the expiration of his lease. The Harding family resided at St John’s Wood for another two decades. It was in 1874 that Ash-grove, the name of the future suburb, first appears as Harding’s address in the Post Office Directory. A keen property speculator, over time Harding acquired land from Glenquarie Place to Ashgrove Avenue on both sides of Waterworks Road. Harding donated two acres (0.81 hectares) of land on Waterworks Rd in 1876 to establish the Ashgrove State School [QHR 650058]. [11]
\nIn June 1877 architect Richard Gailey called tenders for alterations and additions to Harding’s residence. Part of the additions are thought to have included a ballroom, created by infilling the space between the two wings of the house, including the installation of a roof lantern, and the replacement of the verandah roof and the pediment over the front entrance. The need for extra space at St John’s Wood was influenced by the size of the Harding family; they had five children when their lease began, and 11 by mid-1877 when extensions were undertaken. To the north of the main house, another large 10 room cedar house was constructed, with a shingled roof. The designer and date of construction of this building is unknown; the first evidence of its existence is a 1880s photograph of St John’s Wood. [12]
\nIt is likely that the first phase of the service wing comprising two rooms (kitchen and laundry) either side of a brick chimney, was built in the 1870s, to the west of St John’s Wood. This wing was later extended to provide two servant’s bedrooms; referred to in the 1895 sale of the property. [13]
\nOver the course of the Harding family’s occupancy other improvements were made including an access road to the property and stabling. Part of the estate, on the other side of Waterworks Road, near the present Orchard Avenue, was the site of a citrus orchard. In 1877 Harding advertised for sale by auction the ‘Ashgrove Orangery’, a 37 ½ acre (15.18 ha) orchard featuring 900 citrus trees ‘just coming into fruit’. [14]
\nSt John’s Wood became renowned for its gatherings, with Harding ‘having taken a leading part in the social life of Brisbane’. [15] Events were often reported in the social columns of Brisbane’s newspapers and according to Sir Charles Lilley, the house was ‘always a popular place with the younger folk in the ordinary rounds of social entertainment’. The marriages of daughter Flora to Ronald McDougall, (son of the original owner of the land at St John’s Wood), in January 1866 and her sister Ada to Barrister W F Wilson (son of The Hon Walter Horatio Wilson MLC) in December 1886, were both celebrated with wedding receptions at home, with the ballroom used as a formal dining area; attended by the social elite of Brisbane including the Premier and Mrs SW Griffith. [16]
\nMrs Emily Harding died in May 1889, and Justice Harding remarried in December that year. Social events continued to be held at St John’s Wood, including an ‘At Home’ in 1892, when the ‘superb camellias’ growing in the garden were mentioned in a news article. [17]
\nGeorge Harding died in August 1895 in his chambers at the Supreme Court in Brisbane. He died intestate and had amassed considerable debt through his property speculation. It appears the Harding family were forced to leave St John’s Wood. In the months after his death, the household furniture and effects of St John’s Wood were sold off, ‘the result of good taste and the accumulation of a lifetime’. An auction catalogue of Harding’s effects described St John’s Wood as containing a drawing room, dining room, large hall, smaller hall, library, ‘best’ bedroom, dressing room, bachelor’s room, seven other bedrooms, pantry, lumber room, two servants rooms, kitchen, laundry and stables. This extensive list suggests the adjacent cedar house and service wing were included in this description. Much of Harding’s extensive personal library was acquired by the Public Library (State Library of Queensland) including his handwritten catalogue. [18]
\nSubsequent to Harding’s death, St John’s Wood was advertised to let in June 1896, promoted as ‘one of the most complete and best appointed properties in the colony’. In 1898 ownership of the land passed from administrators of Harding’s estate, the Union Trustee Company of Australia, to the Queensland National Bank. [19]
\nLittle is known about the occupancy of the place during the early 20th Century. Post Office Directories record James Pitkeathly at St John’s Wood from 1906 to 1910-11; operating a dairy. Francis Michael Anglim, who became owner of the property in 1917, was a thoroughbred horse breeder. [20]
\nIn the 1920s, Ashgrove underwent rapid development. Until this time, the area was still sparsely developed but the extension of the tramline in 1924 led to subdivisions of large landholdings for housing. This included Glen Lyon Gardens, Oakleigh and Graham estates, and St John’s Wood. St John’s Wood was advertised by Anglim as a housing estate from 1924, ‘good enough for His Majesty the King’, and was promoted as the Switzerland of Queensland. With 244 lots subdivided by 1926, the area surrounding St John’s Wood was reduced to just over 1.25 acres (0.51 ha). The cedar house adjacent to the main house was relocated to a new site in nearby Buckingham Street in 1926 and was destroyed by fire before it was fully established on the new site. A tennis court was then built on its site adjacent to St John’s Wood. [21]
\nFrom August 1927, Anglim promoted a further subdivision sale which he named Royal Park Estate and St John’s Wood Extension. It was during this time that Anglim leased St John’s Wood to the Kennedy family. Local girl Nancy Winn worked as a servant (1929-1931) and later recalled preparing meals in the kitchen, and serving them in the dining area at the western end of the ballroom. Washing-up was done in the scullery to the side of the kitchen. The weekly laundry was done in the large boiler and rinsed in tubs, with water on tap from tanks on the south side of the laundry. The yardman cut wood for the kitchen and the laundry. Washing was hung out to dry on lines on the north side of the service wing and ironed in the kitchen. Anglim died in mid-1931 and the Kennedys left. His estate, including the contents of St John’s Wood was offered for sale in April 1932, followed by the sale of 43 allotments in the St John’s Wood estate. [22]
\nIn 1934, the property was transferred to grazier Edward Albert Hawkins, who leased the house and the service wing separately. Hawkins built a new kitchen, bathroom and laundry onto the side verandah of St John’s Wood and a new kitchen and laundry on the southwest corner of the service wing in 1935 - leaving the old kitchen untouched. The service wing had been allowed to decay and by 1937 was described as being old and derelict by tenant Betty Daniell. In October 1936, Hawkins relocated the old timber West End State School building onto the property, standing to the north of the St John’s Wood for use as a community hall (a private home in 2018). In the late 1930s, St John’s Wood was converted into two flats, both accessible from the central ‘ballroom’. [23]
\nAlterations to the service wing during the 1940s included upgrading the interior and constructing a lean-to garage on the western corner. The laundry was converted to a living room. Around 1949, the original kitchen was demolished, separating the service wing from the main house by removing the structure beyond the kitchen brick chimney wall face. [24]
\nEdward Hawkins died in 1956 and the property was transferred to his nephew Mervyn Hawkins. In 1958 the lot was further subdivided, which reoriented St John’s Wood frontage and access from Laird St to Piddington St (previously King Street – renamed in 1939). The subdivision led to the removal of all existing vegetation along Laird Street and the removal of the driveway. It created separate allotments for the service wing and the old school building. When Jules Guerassimoff purchased St John’s Wood in 1968, the verandah had been partially enclosed and the former ballroom was in use as a workshop. During his ownership some restoration work occurred at the house, which included returning the place to a single residence. He installed a small cellar in the southwestern corner of the ballroom. Eric and Katherine Victor purchased St John’s Wood in 1987 and have maintained and conserved the property as responsible custodians; including a new iron roof, internal repairs to the ballroom ceilings, and sympathetic additions to the site. [25]
\nThe service wing was sold to George and Gertrude Smith in 1958, who leased the property until 1968, when Morris and Julia Moorhouse purchased it. After considering its poor condition, the service wing was converted into a house. This included: the retention of two original rooms as a living room (c1870s laundry, with a brick chimney and wall) and a dining room (pre-1895 servant’s bedroom); retention of the enclosed verandahs on the north and south sides; demolition of the western servant’s bedroom; and the construction of a two storey, brick and timber extension to the south and west sides. [27]
\nIn 2018, a mature camellia in the garden on the south eastern side of St John’s Wood, was identified by expert Dr Stephen Utick as a Camellia japonica of an estimated age in excess of 140 years. Dr Utick indicated that it is a cultivar ‘Anemoniflora’, thought to have been propagated at Macarthur’s Nursery, Camden Park, and available from the Darling Nursery, later Shepherd’s, in colonial NSW as early as 1851. [26]
\nIn 2018, St John’s Wood and its Service Wing remain private homes under separate ownership. [28]
","criteria":"St John’s Wood (c.1865) and its Service Wing (c.1870s, built in two stages) are important in demonstrating the pattern of residential development in mid-19th century Queensland where substantial villa residences were built on elevated sites in the semi-rural fringes of urban centres. Built in the 1860s and 1870s, St John’s Wood and Service Wing is an early, rare, and representative example of this pattern.
|St John's Wood and its Service Wing is a rare surviving intact example of a 1860s stone villa residence in Brisbane.
|An early and rare example of its type, St John’s Wood and Service Wing is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a mid-19th century villa residence in Queensland.
\nThe principal characteristics of this type include; a substantial villa in a prominent and elevated location; landscaped grounds of mature trees, lawns, and gardens; a formal floor plan layout with generous principal rooms, secondary rooms, with decorative detailing and finishes of high-quality design and execution. Its associated utilitarian Service Wing is comparatively modest.
|St John’s Wood has beautiful attributes due to its elegant symmetrical composition and high quality materials, details and finishes. Highly intact, it features Enoggera granite walls, cedar joinery, beech floors, pressed metal ceilings, a large roof lantern over the ballroom, and ornate marble fireplaces to its principal rooms.
\nThe established grounds provide an attractive garden setting which includes an early camellia cultivar.
|St John’s Wood has a special association with Justice George Rogers Harding, Senior Puisne Judge of the Queensland Supreme Court (1879 – 1895), as his place of residence for 27 years from 1868 until his death in 1895.
\nJudge Harding, a noted bibliophile, contributed to the development of Queensland’s Supreme Court Library. His substantial personal library, collected at St John’s Wood, augments the State Library of Queensland’s collection. Harding authored six books relating to aspects of Queensland law, and is a person of importance to Queensland history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16270,"place_ref":601507,"name":"Isis District War Memorial and Shire Council Chambers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"45 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-05-26","description":"The Isis District War Memorial and Council Chambers is a one story masonry building located at the southern end of Churchill Street, Childers. The town's water tower provides a backdrop to the building which is set amid wide lawns with several large shade trees. The building is centrally planned, taking the form of a Greek cross in plan and exhibiting a style most aptly described as abstract Classicism. This is emphasised in elevation by the use of elements such as pediments, acroteria and an austere, modulated façade that suggests an abstracted temple front.
The building sits low to the ground on a concrete slab and is constructed of painted, load-bearing concrete blocks with the appearance of vermiculated ashlar. A low masonry wall and cast iron fence runs along the front boundary of the site, attaching to the corners of the front elevation. Two sets of gates defined by pairs of masonry piers lead to the entrances of the War Memorial and Soldier's Room. Each wall of the building has a centrally located, moulded pediment whose shape is reflected in a parapet wall above. Acroteria are located at the apex and ends of the pediments. Moulded string courses separate the pediments from the walls and sections of the lower façade are recessed around window openings. These recessed sections are further divided by an enlarged concrete sill that stretch the full width of the recess. Windows and doors are generally timber framed surmounted by large, painted iron hoods.
The central section of the building accommodates the Shire Council offices which are accessed via a recent, steel and glass entry door. A hallway runs the length of the building from the front entrance to an exit door at the back. An entry vestibule has been formed from a section of the hallway partitioned with a plasterboard wall and recent timber and glass door. To the right of the vestibule is a large open plan office with a long service counter and small waiting area. Other Council offices and a strong room are located either side of the hallway. All of these rooms have recent suspended ceilings which have been inserted to conceal air conditioning ducts. Many of the internal walls are painted, load-bearing masonry with timber skirting boards with other recent plasterboard partitions dividing some of the offices into two smaller offices. A second service counter area is located in the rear section of the hallway on the left-hand side, this is now unused.
The western wing of the building accommodates the War Memorial room and the eastern wing, formerly the Soldier's Room, now contains the Council meeting room, staff room and photocopy room. The Council meeting room has a recent plasterboard ceiling with recessed down-lighting, a dark brown upholstered dado and a large, horseshoe-shaped meeting table that was purpose built for the space. The tall, panelled, timber entrance doors in the southern wall are no longer used and a small exit door is situated on the eastern wall. On the exterior of the western and eastern wings, a bay of three windows comprising of a central pair flanked by single windows with fanlights above, is arranged directly below the pediment.
The War Memorial is entered via a gently sloping ramp and through a pair of tall, timber panelled doors. Dark timber honour boards stretch across all four walls of the room. There are two boards on the eastern wall, the upper one is in memory of the men who died in action in World War Two and is surmounted by an ornate timber pediment. The lower boards are in memory of the men who died in World War One. The boards are inscribed with gilt lettering and have a row of copper plaques mounted upon them. Alongside the names of battlefields, is a quote from Wilfred Owen's deeply ironic poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" - "how wonderful it is to die for the fatherland". Each plaque is dedicated to the memory of an individual soldier and is embossed with the years of the war, the badge of the Australian Imperial Force and an oval-shaped photograph of the soldier framed by a pair of weeping women and the words "in memory of". The soldiers' names are engraved on small plaques below. The plaques for the First World War are brass and for the Second, chrome. A timber shelf runs below the copper plaques and a small vase with artificial red poppies is placed in front of each plaque. Above one of the plaques is a framed black and white photo of the foreign grave of the soldier to whom the plaque is dedicated.
Flags are mounted on the walls above the honour boards and chairs are located in each corner of the room. Wreaths, framed photographs of the reigning monarch and a visitor's book are to be found on a table in the centre of the room. The room is carpeted, the windows are shaded with venetian blinds and the plaster ceiling is decorated with a grid-like pattern.
Toilets are located in a small separate building at the back, north-eastern corner of the building. The toilet block is constructed of face brick with a skillion roof. Also situated at the back of the building are two areas of air conditioning plant enclosed by timber paling fences.
A German 21cm Morser or Short Howitzer cannon is usually located on the Western side of the building, however, a community project to restore the cannon is currently underway and the cannon will be re-installed when restoration is complete.
","history":"The Isis District War Memorial and Shire Council Chambers was constructed in 1926 and is the second administration building for the Isis Shire Council located in the town of Childers. In the 1870s timber cutters were the first European settlers to come to the area surrounding Childers, attracted by large quantities of hoop pine, red cedar and other timbers. The town was established during the 1880s after the land in the nearby area was surveyed into 50 acre farm blocks in 1882. There was no official town survey and Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction.
Childers and other towns in the present Isis Shire were originally part of the Burrum Divisional Board which was based in Maryborough. There was considerable discontent during the 1880s amongst the ratepayers of the fledgling town who felt disadvantaged and neglected. The Burrum Divisional Board covered a very extensive area and the 36 mile journey to Maryborough coupled with the poor condition of the roads meant that representatives from the Isis district often failed to attend meetings. The Isis ratepayers and Isis Progress Association presented a petition for separation to the then Governor-in-Chief, Sir Anthony Musgrave and the members of the Executive Council of Queensland. They requested that Sub-division 3 be severed from the Division of Burrum and be constituted as a separate division, the Division of Isis.
The Governor and Executive Council agreed to the petitioners' request and on 31 December 1886 the Isis Divisional Board was proclaimed. Meetings and elections were held in Howard at the Court House and board members from Childers rode on horseback to attend meetings once a month. The location of the Board's office was an issue of contention for a number of years and various propositions were presented for re-locating to Childers, Isistown or to a new building in Howard. In 1891, an offer of land in Childers was made to the Board and they subsequently made an application to the government for a loan of £250 to erect a new building. From 1891, the Isis Divisional Board met in the Land's Office, two rooms adjoining the Post and Telegraph Office in Childers. In 1903, the Isis Divisional Board was abolished by the Governor-in-Council and the Isis Shire Council was created. That same year, the Council moved to the Isis Shire Council Hall, a low-set timber building which had been constructed in Churchill Street on the site of the present swimming pool.
World War One had a profound impact on the small town. Large numbers of young men from the district enlisted and the town experienced a loss of 60 from a population of 1500. A deputation of men and women from the Isis District War Memorial Committee approached the Isis Shire Council at its General Meeting on 20th October 1924 to discuss the possibility of jointly constructing the "Isis District War Memorial Shire Council Chambers". The proposed building would house a Soldiers' Memorial and a room for returned soldiers as well as new Council Chambers. A joint committee was formed. A driving force behind the war memorial project was the then Shire Clerk, Mr Herbert Epps. Epps was a former councillor who had relinquished his position on Council to take up the job of Shire Clerk, a responsibility he maintained until his death in 1932. One of his three sons was killed in action in France in 1917 and he was passionate in his determination to have the War Memorial Council Chambers erected.
The Joint Committee had decided to invite competitive designs for the building and received entries in early February 1925. The submissions were judged without knowledge of the authors and "design number two" was chosen. The winner was Brisbane architect Francis Jones. Jones had undertaken his architectural education in England and was the first Queensland-born architect to achieve the distinction of being admitted as an Associate of the RIBA. He was an architect for both Queensland Railways and the Department of Public Works and lectured at the Brisbane Central Technical College and the University of Queensland. Jones was also a returned soldier having fought in both the Boer War and World War One. He received £26/5/- as prize money for his winning entry of a masonry building in the shape of a cross in plan, that was uncluttered and formal in appearance.
Tenders were considered at a special meeting of Council in August 1925 and Mr R.V Brady's tender of £3449/19/-, which included furnishings, was accepted. The Council borrowed £2000 from the AMP Society to pay for their share of the construction costs. The building is said to have been constructed of hand-formed blocks and it is believed that Thomas Pye was the architect who supervised the construction, however, the nature of the relationship between Pye and Jones' design is not clear. Pye was in private practice at this time having left the Department of Public Works. Pye had experienced a tumultuous working life in the Department despite his significant contribution to the design of many of Queensland's most important public buildings. Pye was a keen rifleman and also served with the army, rising to the rank of colonel, and it may have been through these connections that Pye became involved with the Isis project.
Construction was completed and the building opened on Anzac Day (April 25), 1926. The official opening and dedication of the Isis War Memorial was a significant event in the life of the Childers community. The Maryborough Chronicle reported that "the memorial was planned, supervised and built by returned soldiers and it is understood it is the first of its kind in the Commonwealth." The ceremony included an Anzac Day service, conducted by local priests, one of whom was also a returned soldier. The opening ceremony was performed by Mr W.A. Brand, MLA for Burrum, the memorial was opened by Miss Adie, daughter of long-term Isis councillor and chairman of the Directors of the Isis Central Sugar Mill Company, Alex Adie and the soldier's room was opened by Mrs H Epps, wife of the Shire Clerk and mother of James Epps who features in the memorial. The Childers Town Band provided extensive musical accompaniment and the Union Jack was unfurled at the top of the building.
A visitor to the memorial in 1927 provides an evocative description in The Queensland Digger, capturing the powerful emotional impact of the War Memorial room:
"Many and varied are the types of memorial to be seen throughout this vast land of ours... but of the many which I have seen I was never more impressed than with the abovenamed memorial, which is situated in the little township of Childers; one of Queensland's sugar producing districts.
...in keeping with the sacrifice of which it reminds us, it takes the form of a Maltese Cross (sic.), which is decidedly emblematical... The centre of the building is occupied by the Local Authorities and takes the form of offices, strong room and board meeting room. The right portion is a recreation room for the use of returned soldiers, while the left hand side of the building presents a picture which I shall never forget; for this is the sanctuary where relatives of the fallen temporarily shut themselves in with the memory of their dear ones. The beautiful honour board extends nearly around the four walls. Mounted upon this board are many individual bronzed metal frames appropriate in design and where it has been possible to secure same, the photograph of the dead soldier appears. The effect is splendid and to complete the unique work a shelf has been arranged so that there is ample room for the relatives to place flowers in remembrance. What impressed me mostly was the fact that a number of the vases contained fresh flowers: showing that someone had gratefully made use of the facilities provided by this wonderful memorial."
","criteria":"The Isis District War Memorial and Shire Council Chambers, constructed in 1926, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, reflecting the growth and development of the town of Childers and its importance as the administrative centre of the Isis district. The War Memorial provides evidence of a widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and nationalism of the interwar period, and belongs to a class of commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event and intended to endure. The War Memorial is also important as a source of historical information.
|As a combined Council Chambers and War Memorial, the place demonstrates uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage. The War Memorial is an unusual and rare type of memorial. In the form of a room and incorporating photographs, copper plaques, decorative joinery, flags, flowers and furniture, the Isis District War Memorial is unique in Queensland.
|The Isis District War Memorial and Council Chambers is important for its aesthetic significance. The unusual and stark design of the building and the powerful emotional impact and distinctive aesthetic qualities of the war memorial room combine to create a place that makes a strong and lasting impression on the senses. The building together with the town's water tower which is adjacent, make a significant contribution to the exceptional streetscape of Churchill Street.
|The Isis District War Memorial and Council Chambers has a strong and special association for the Isis community. The place is an extraordinary and symbolic achievement of that community, layered with powerful meanings and memories.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16274,"place_ref":601511,"name":"Brisbane City Council Carpark","alternate_name":"Wickham Terrace Carpark","street_address":"136 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The Brisbane City Council Carpark is a multi-storeyed reinforced concrete structure located on a steeply sloping site at the edge of the Central Business District. Occupying an elevated position between Wickham Terrace and Turbot Streets the building overlooks the Central Railway Station [600073] to which it is connected by a tunnel.
The entire structure , which has gently sloping floors, is a ramp which facilitates movement by cars upwards through the building. It originally consisted of seven levels at the Edward Street end and eight levels at the opposite end. Two more floors have been added to the top of the building. Due to the sloping site three floors are below the level of Wickham Terrace. Entry to the building is at the lowest level from Turbot Street. The main exit ramp, an addition, is roofed and leads to either Turbot Street or Wickham Terrace. The original entrance and exit ramps from Wickham Terrace remain but appear to be infrequently used.
An open structure, the carpark consists primarily of a grid of rectangular concrete columns with flared tops supporting waffle slabs which form the floors. Precast concrete panels with an exposed aggregate finish form the balustrades on the Turbot Street and Wickham Terrace elevations. Balustrading elsewhere consists of painted square sectioned steel posts attached to the outside face of the building which support steel pipe handrails. Horizontal steel rods secured with steel springs have been added as supplementary balustrading. The original security screen on the Wickham Terrace elevation is a series of vertical steel rods fixed to the floor slabs with springs.
Attached to the main structure near the Edward Street and Wickham Terrace corner is a lift tower and staircase. This vertical service structure incorporates rooms on a number of levels which were originally used for such purposes as kiosk, office and public toilets. It is connected at the lowest level to the tunnel, now lined with ceramic tiles, which links the carpark to the Central Railway Station [600073] and Anzac Square [600062]. The lift tower is clad with a concrete curtain wall decorated by a relief pattern. This concrete relief pattern consists of recessed abstract shapes laid out in a repetitive grid. The staircase, which juts out beyond the lift tower, is a prominent feature with sculptural supports and cantilevered semicircular landings. The staircase has a steel rod and pipe balustrade. The floor of the lift foyer and the staircase is tiled in green and white mosaic tiles.
Dominating the eastern end of the building is a dramatic semicircular ramp which is used by cars exiting the building. A concrete staircase, similar in style to the original stair on the western end now protrudes from the north east corner. A freestanding circular room, which originally acted as the main control point, is located between the two ramps from Wickham Street.
Concrete finishes throughout the building were originally off-form, an unrendered surface where the impressions left by the formwork provide decorative effect. Parts of the building have subsequently been painted. New galvanised steel balustrading and security grilles have been installed.
","history":"A multi-storeyed concrete structure , the Brisbane City Council Carpark was designed by James Birrell, the City Architect for the Brisbane City Council, and constructed during 1959 and 1960 by Theiss Brothers. The erection time for the complex was 14 months, at a cost of £535 000. It was the first parking station to be constructed by the Brisbane City Council and one of the first within the city area. The carpark was built on a site which formerly housed a Red Cross workshop and garages.
Car ownership in Australia increased dramatically in the 1950s. In the ten years to 1962, statistics show an increase of from one car per nine people to one car per three and a half, or per family. Prior to 1960, carpark requirements had mostly been met by metered parking in the streets. Funds from parking meters were directed towards the construction costs of the new carpark.
James Birrell was appointed Architect in charge of the Brisbane City Council Architectural Department at the age of 27 years and in this capacity oversaw more than 150 projects between 1955 and 1961. Preliminary sketches of the carpark project were published in the journal Architecture and Arts in January 1958 and revised versions of the design subsequently appeared in other architectural journals. The carpark was Birrell's largest, and one of his last, projects for the Brisbane City Council. It was one of the first major off-form concrete structures in Brisbane. Other buildings designed by Birrell for the Brisbane City Council included libraries at Annerley (1956-57), Chermside (1957-58) and Toowong (1959-60), and swimming pools including Toowong Swimming Pool (1957-59) and the Centenary Swimming Pool (1959) [601240] in Spring Hill. Birrell was appointed Architect to the University of Queensland from 1961-66, overseeing the university's second major phase of construction development. His most notable buildings from this period include Union College, the JD Story Administration Building, Staff House and the Agriculture and Entomology Building. In 1966 he entered private practice.
Theiss Brothers, the builders for the project, were a construction firm which had previously been known for building tunnels in the Snowy Mountains. A vitrolite lined concrete tunnel connected the carpark with the Central Railway Station [600073]. Structural design was carried out by the engineers Macdonald Wagner and Priddle. The concrete relief which decorates the lift tower at the southern end of the carpark was designed by Jim Meldrum.
Two more floors were later added to the top of the building to increase the capacity of the carpark. The height of the semicircular ramp was also increased to provide access to the additional floors. The original entry arrangements were altered to provide access from Turbot Street, with detail drawings of this dated 1975, and a new staircase was added to the north east corner of the building in 1992. Sections of the off-form concrete have been painted.
","criteria":"The Brisbane City Council Carpark, Wickham Terrace, is an important example of a late 1950s interpretation of the functionalist idiom in a carpark design.
The carpark is a powerful symbol of modernity and change. The prominence of the building and its assertive architectural style demonstrate the increased visibility and importance of the car in Australian culture during the 1950s.
|Under the direction of City Architect James Birrell, the carpark contributed to the tradition of high quality civic architecture established by the Brisbane City Council. Birrell, a leading modernist architect of the 1950s and 1960s, was responsible for many designs during his term of employment with the council. The carpark, his last major work for the council, is a significant example of his work.
|The building, through its dramatic sculptural forms and textured surfaces, introduced the aesthetic possibilities of off-form concrete construction to Brisbane.
|The building, through its dramatic sculptural forms and textured surfaces, introduced the aesthetic possibilities of off-form concrete construction to Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16276,"place_ref":601513,"name":"Kings Beach Bathing Pavilion","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ormonde Terrace","suburb":"KINGS BEACH","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"The pavilion is a one storey brick and concrete building, roofed with large gauge corrugated fibrous cement tiles and surrounded on two sides by retaining walls. A simple timber fence encircles sections of the pavilion and grounds. The foreshore area features natural rock pools
The pavilion has a principal core containing a large room with adjoining smaller rooms. A projecting decorative parapeted gable on the east facade forms the entrance to these areas. Another entrance opens onto a vestibule through which the toilet wing is accessed.. The toilet wings have open air central walkways with skillion awnings over the toilets and change rooms on either side of the walkway. The external walls are generally cavity brick rendered with roughcast stucco and internal walls are of painted single and double brickwork.
The asymmetrically arranged east facade features a decorative parapeted gable with loggia of round head arches with edge detailing supported on glazed brick columns which sit on a concrete slab. The gable has edge detailing which integrates a central cartouche-like element. An arched opening adjacent to the loggia on this face opens onto the entrance vestibule. The openings house double timber doors which are framed and braced. The side wing is a simple structure with external parapet walls which step up the ends of the east and west faces. These walls are decorated with a high level band of smooth render, upon which are inscribed hexagonal shapes at regular intervals. The southern facade features a projecting decorative parapeted gable, similarly detailed to that found on the eastern face. The gable houses two round head arched window openings. The windows throughout the pavilion have glazed brick sills and heads, some of which have been painted over.
The interior of the pavilion has a concrete slab floor throughout, which is gently sloped in the toilet areas. The ceiling is timber braced fibrous cement sheeting in the principal areas and exposed to the roof sheeting in the toilet space. The entrance vestibule has evidence of the layout of early ticket boxes in the concrete floor and early signs near the two openings to the toilets. The toilet, shower and changing cubicles sit on a concrete plinth on either side of a central walkway which is open air. A rendered masonry wall which project above the level of the external walls divide the original toilet areas from the general change rooms and locker areas. The cubicles are roofed with thin gauge fibrous cement and corrugated iron sheeting. The toilet cubicles have been extended into the corridor increasing their overall length.
","history":"This one storey masonry building was constructed in 1937 by the Landsborough Shire Council to provide public bathing and kiosk facilities for those using Kings Beach. The architect of the pavilion was Clifford E. Plant and the contractor was RA Lind. It was built at a cost of £3,030.
The Landsborough Shire Council built the pavilion in 1937 as part of a large development scheme designed to make Kings Beach, the principal beach in Caloundra, a premier holiday attraction. During the 1930s several local councils in south east Queensland, including the councils at the South Coast and Redcliffe, were developing their foreshore areas to encourage holiday makers, thereby increasing trade and land value. Resources were made available by the state government for these schemes through the unemployment relief initiatives. Unlike the councils at the South Coast who were developing already popular and long established beaches, the development at Kings Beach was the first major effort by the local council to establish Caloundra as a sea-side resort.
Queensland has a long tradition of establishing sea-side resorts. Sandgate, and, to a lesser extent Cleveland, were popular destinations in the 1860s for beach-goers. The south coast regions, particularly Southport, developed during the 1880s when transport and roads improved. During the 1920s when public bathing in sea water became widely accepted, various councils became competitive in their quest for holiday makers. The north coast regions, including Caloundra and Redcliffe, developed as holiday destinations during this period.
Caloundra was opened for selection in 1860, by 1875 a large parcel of land within Caloundra was purchased by Robert Bulcock a prominent Brisbane politician and temperance advocate. Bulcock and his family retained this land for many years prohibiting further development of part of Caloundra, including what was to become Kings Beach. The first subdivision in 1917 saw the development of land to the south the Kings Beach area. It was not until 1926, with the second subdivision that the land adjacent to Kings Beach was opened for settlement and commercial interests.
Interest in Caloundra as a seaside resort was well established by the 1930s. From 1888 guest houses were operating with guests including the governor, Thomas McIlwraith. The rail line was extended to Landsborough, eight miles west of Caloundra, in 1889. However lack of roads between the towns hindered further development of Caloundra for many years. Mr Allan King, a local resident, constructed a guest house near Bulcock's land in 1899, which was to lend its name to the popular beach where the house guests bathed, Kings Beach. The guesthouse was extended in 1930 after the second subdivision of Bulcock's land allowed further settlement and the opening of shops and kiosks further increased holiday trade.
With the improvement of roads Caloundra became more popular and the Landsborough Shire Council implemented a scheme for the development of the Kings Beach area, which was the premier beach in the district by this stage. In 1928 the Council enhanced the natural rock pools on the foreshore increasing their popularity with families. The Metropolitan Surf Life Saving Club started patrolling the beach in 1933, after moving from Bribie Island. By 1937 a large development scheme was undertaken which involved the expenditure of £12,290, for dressing sheds and kiosk, extensive car-parking facilities and landscaping of the Kings Beach area. The scheme also involved the beautification of other less popular beaches in the area, including Golden Beach, Dickeys Beach, Bulcock's Beach and Shelley Beach, but the combined sum of this expenditure was £610. The money for the scheme was subsidised by the State Government, £9,251 being loan and £3,039 being subsidy.
The council commissioned Clifford E. Plant as the architect for the pavilion, and the tender was accepted for RA Lind in February 1937. The Redcliffe City Council employed a similar scheme to attract visitors in 1937 which involved the construction of five pavilions designed by Clifford E. Plant. The design of these pavilions is influenced by a Mediterranean style of architecture, dissimilar in layout and form to the pavilion at Kings Beach, although some detailing such as the glazed brick columns and windows sills and heads are similar . At least four of these pavilions exist in 1994.
According to the local press of the day, the dressing sheds were designed as to be an adornment to the beach. They were built of brick and plaster with a red roof, adding a touch of vivid colour to the already picturesque scene. It was designed to be an L-shaped building but this initial scheme was not realised due to financial constraints and the pavilion was built with the toilet wings lying adjacent to one another extending north from the principal core. The building contained a small kiosk, a small spare room to the rear of the kiosk, an entrance vestibule with ticket box and the open air toilet wings.
When opened, the pavilion was leased by a Mr T. Fiege, who ran the kiosk and maintained the toilet areas. Various alterations were made to the building during the time of Mr Fiege's lease including the replacement of the grille doors into the hall with timber doors and the addition of a small timber room to the rear of the pavilion. During the 1940s the tenants struggled to meet the lease payments required by the council, due to constraints on quantity and type of merchandise able to be sold in the kiosk. This by-law was imposed by the council at the behest of surrounding businesses. For several years during the 1950s the Surf Life Saving Club were stationed in the pavilion while a new club house was built adjacent to the pavilion. The Surf Life Saving Nippers were housed in the building from 1971 until 1980 when the kiosk was re-opened. In 1977 a public pool was opened on the east side of the building on the beach front. During the 1980s the kiosk tenants again struggled to meet lease requirements and it was closed by 1992 when the space was leased by the surf life saving club for use as a gymnasium. The public toilets and change rooms have remained in use since 1937. Alterations were carried out in 1966, replacing existing sanitary and shower fittings, seating and cubicle doors.
","criteria":"The bathing pavilion is evidence of the development of Caloundra as a holiday resort, and provides one of the first examples of the local council's provision of public facilities to enhance the growth of the region as a holiday destination.
It has a strong association with the Caloundra Surf Life Saving Club.
|The building is a rare example of the built environment at Caloundra of the 1930s.
|The pavilion has evidence of the layout of a 1930s changing and open air toilet facility. The building is an example of the work of Brisbane architect Clifford E. Plant, and of Spanish Mission architectural influence.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16277,"place_ref":601514,"name":"Southport Bathing Pavilion","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Marine Parade","suburb":"SOUTHPORT","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The Southport Bathing Pavilion is a single storeyed masonry building rendered with roughcast stucco, that is prominently located on Marine Parade at Southport. A brick and concrete structure with corrugated asbestos cement roof, it is flanked by two large established trees.
The Southport Bathing Pavilion demonstrates the influence of a Spanish Mission style of architecture particularly with the decorative parapeted gables, roughcast stucco render, entrance loggia, prominent roof with corrugated sheeting reminiscent of the cordova tile and arched openings.
Symmetrically arranged the building is rectangular in plan with central projecting bays on the west and east elevation. Decorative parapeted gables form the facade of the projecting bays. The parapets conceal the gabled roof which abuts them.
On the west elevation, which faces Marine Parade, the decorative gable element features a loggia, comprised of an open porch with three round headed arches supported on two 'barley sugar' twisted columns. The arches feature prominent keystone and raised edge detailing. Directly above the porch on the gable lettering spells 'BATHING PAVILION', with a cartouche with the date of construction, 1934. The edge of the stylised Baroque parapet has raised edge detailing which culminate in spiralled curves on the face of the gable. There are three doorways from the loggia, one of which has an overhead window opening, now boarded.
The eastern elevation has a similar decorative parapeted gable housing six boarded window openings. The surrounds of these windows are round headed arched recesses. The skillion roofed wings on either side of the parapet element, previously fin walls forming entrances, are now infilled with weatherboard.
There are high level window openings with face brick sills on all sides of the wings. Most of these windows are boarded or battened. The north elevation has a large metal door allowing vehicular access to the building.
The interior of the pavilion has two large spaces, a small room, accessible only from the loggia and two small enclosures on the eastern wall facing the arched window openings. The wall separating the original halves has been partially dismantled, as have sections of other walls around the entrances. The entire space is open to the timber roof trusses and the underside of the roof sheeting. The smaller rooms have individual ceilings immediately overhead, the space above which is open. The floor is concrete and the internal walls are rendered brick.
There is evidence in the two small rooms on the eastern wall of plumbing fixtures. The concrete floor in these spaces slopes toward an outside corner. There are sections of an early towel peg rail and early timber bench seating around the external walls in both halves of the building. Evidence in the concrete floor indicates the position of previous fittings.
","history":"This single storeyed building was built in 1934 by the Southport Town Council, as a dressing and showering facility for bathers using the Broadwater. The architects were Hall and Phillips and the contractor A. Ledbury, who built the pavilion at a cost of £1195.
The pavilion was erected at an important stage of the development of the coastal regions of south east Queensland. There was unprecedented growth in these areas as swimming and sun bathing became increasingly popular. The majority of the population, by the late 1930s benefited from paid holiday leave, increasing their leisure time. The councils of the various coastal regions were competing for holiday trade, beautification schemes and the provision of public facilities on the beach fronts were part of this attempt to attract the seasonal beach-goer.
Queensland has a long history of sea-side resorts. In the 1860s Sandgate and to a lesser extent Cleveland were popular destinations for beach-goers. With the introduction of the railway 1882 Sandgate's beaches became more accessible and Southport developed as an alternate coastal resort. Logging began in the area in the late 1850s and settlement was opened in the mid 1870s with the first sales of land. By the 1880s major Brisbane families favoured Southport as the premier seaside resort in south east Queensland. Major schools, branches of banks and hotels were constructed, as Southport assumed the appearance of a fashionable nineteenth century resort. Southport's distinction as a seaside resort is indicated by the Governor's maintaining a residence here from the 1890s. A rail extension from Beenleigh to Southport was opened in 1889 making Southport more accessible from Brisbane.
With increased accessibility and popularity at beaches, the necessity for bathing controls was realised. Bathing at the beach became increasingly prevalent in the late 19th century. By 1906 Section 109 of the Local Government Act allowed individual Local Councils to control swimming and swim-wear, nominating standards for bathing costumes, segregating bathing and defining bathing areas.
In the first decades of the century councils permitted privately owned bathing sheds on the beaches, which provided immediate access to the water after changing. In the 1920s custom became more relaxed toward bathing in public. Councils, realising the possible financial benefits from holiday makers provided firstly public dressing sheds and, later, bathing pavilions.
During the thirties various councils of the coastal regions of south east Queensland such as Southport and Coolangatta Town Councils and Nerang Shire Council on the south coast as well as Redcliffe and north coast councils, competed for holiday visitors. Chambers of Commerce and Progress Committees urged the councils to develop and beautify foreshore areas, in an attempt to attract visitors. As part of this process the Southport Town Council began a scheme to develop the Esplanade area, on which the Bathing Pavilion was to stand, as an recreational and entertainment area. This scheme was similar to those introduced in New South Wales at Manly, Bondi and Newcastle beaches in the late twenties and early thirties. The development of the Esplanade included tree-planting schemes, the addition of various side-show amusements and the construction of a picture theatre on the Southport Pier.
It was as part of the scheme of beautification at Southport that two bathing pavilions were erected, one on Main Beach and the other smaller building, the Southport Bathing Pavilion on the Esplanade close to the railway station. The two buildings were opened on the 20th December, 1934 by the Minister for Works, Mr H.A. Bruce. During a speech at the ceremony, mention was made of Southport being primarily dependant on visitors, and if something was not done for their comfort and convenience (Southport) would lose them. A newspaper report described the design of the buildings as Spanish.
Both of the bathing pavilions were designed by the Brisbane architectural partnership, Hall and Phillips who were responsible for the design of many of Southport's public buildings including the Southport Council Chambers (1934), the Pier Theatre (1921), accommodation units (1928), service station (1929) and various business premises as well as the bathing pavilions and clubhouse for the Southport Surf Life Saving Club (1936).
Southport gradually lost its prestige as the premier resort of the South Coast when the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River built in 1925 and new roads and improved transport made the southern beaches more accessible. In the 1930s and 1940s development of holiday apartments and hotels at Surfers Paradise increased the area's popularity, as did widescale promotion of the area. The surfing revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, resulted in rapid development of the south coast particularly Surfers Paradise. The three south coast councils amalgamated in 1949 to form the South Coast Council, later renamed the Gold Coast Council. From the mid 1960s the region has experienced rapid commercial growth which has greatly altered the environment. Five chains of land was resumed on the beach side of the Esplanade in 1965. As a result the Southport Bathing Pavilion is marooned in a large park. The resumption of land at the Esplanade, on Stradbroke Island and the Spit has caused silt deposits in the Broadwater, making it unsuitable for bathing.
As the pavilion was no longer used as public dressing and showering sheds the Council closed it to the public and use it for gardening and maintenance storage.
","criteria":"The Southport Bathing Pavilion, erected in 1934, is one of a group of buildings pivotal in understanding the development of the Gold Coast as a beach resort and in reflecting a new culture associated with beach going.
It provides evidence of the former use and scope of the area known as the Esplanade and the surrounding beach.
|It is a now rare example of the built environment at the south coast from the 1930s.
|The building is a good example of a Spanish Mission architectural influence and of the public work at Southport of the prominent architectural firm, Hall and Phillips.
|The building is a good example of a Spanish Mission architectural influence and of the public work at Southport of the prominent architectural firm, Hall and Phillips.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16278,"place_ref":601515,"name":"138 Flinders Parade, Sandgate","alternate_name":"Sandgate Home-Maternal and Child Welfare Service | Convalescent Home | Broadhurst","street_address":"138 Flinders Parade","suburb":"SANDGATE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-09-29","description":"138 Flinders Parade, located fronting Bramble Bay and a foreshore reserve to the northeast, is a single-storeyed timber building with a hipped corrugated iron roof. The building has timber and concrete stumps with timber batten infill and steel posts. Wide verandahs on three sides have been enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and casement windows, and a projecting bay section is located on the northwest. Sections of original cast iron balustrade and chamfered timber posts are visible on the northwest.
The central northeast entry is surmounted by a small gable with a fretwork panel and is accessed via a twin stair to a landing. The rear of the building has an enclosed verandah on the southeast, which is narrower than the others, and a weatherboard enclosed landing, which is a later addition, at the rear of a brick chimney stack. The sub-floor space is mostly concreted, with a masonry room at the rear which is used as a workshop.
Internally, the building has a wider front section containing major rooms, with a narrower rear section containing service rooms with lower ceilings. A wide central hallway from the main entry to the rear has rooms opening to either side, with the rear section being slightly narrower and with lower ceilings and less detailing.
The main entry has a timber panelled door with sidelights and fanlight, some of which retain leadlight panels. The front hallway has vertical timber boarding with exposed framing which has shaped edge detailing, deep timber skirtings and boarded ceilings with timber frame patterning. A timber arch is located mid-way in the front section, and consists of two ionic timber columns on timber bases supporting an entablature with a deep cornice, above which springs an arch with timber batten infill with turned details. A second arch is located separating the front section of the hallway from the rear, and has pronounced timber imposts, extrados and keystone. The rear of the hallway has a panelled timber door with sidelights and fanlight with leadlight panels, leading to the rear landing.
In the front section, panelled timber doors with fanlights open off the hallway. The two main rooms on the northwest have bays with sash windows and are separated by a double sided fireplace with timber surrounds. Partition walls either side of the fireplace have been removed. These rooms have boarded ceilings with timber frame patterning, vertically boarded walls and timber skirtings. Step-out sash windows open to the northeast and french doors open to the southeast. The southeast side of the front section consists of one long room, the original dividing walls having been removed. A head height partition screen with fixed glazing and central doors divides the space, and a kitchenette is located in the southern corner. The verandah space has single-skin vertically boarded walls, and is lined with fibrous cement sheeting.
The rear section of the building has french doors and deep chamferboards to the southeast enclosed verandah. A former kitchen with masonry fireplace is located at the rear, and a room with built-in timber cupboards is adjacent. Store rooms and a kitchen are located across the hallway on the northwest.
The grounds contain a number of mature trees, including a group of three camphor laurels to the southwest, and an adjacent poinciana to the west.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber building was erected by the turn of the century, at which time it was known as "Broadhurst", and was the residence of Hugh McCall Hicks, and his wife Florence. Hicks was the General Manager of Perkins and Co. Ltd in Brisbane, and is recorded as living at Sandgate from the mid 1890s.
Sandgate began development in the 1860s, particularly for those who could afford private transport and holiday residences. With the extension of the railway from Brisbane to Sandgate in 1882, the permanent population grew, and weekend holiday-makers turned the township into a bustling seaside resort. The town of Sandgate was geographically divided into two areas, comprising the Upper Esplanade which included the area around Shorncliffe and Moora Park, and the Lower Esplanade which included Flinders Parade and Brighton. By the early twentieth century substantial buildings had been erected along the western (land) side of Flinders Parade, including Cremorne, built by the McCallum family, Meridian with its private bowling green, Broadhurst, and other substantial houses which overlooked the Bay.
The allotments on Section 5A in the town of Sandgate were auctioned in October 1882. Allotments 4 and 5, on which the building appears to have been erected, were acquired by William Stevens and Joseph Baynes respectively. In 1890, the two allotments were acquired by Brisbane builder and contractor, John Irwen Balls. As this was the first time that allotments 4 and 5 were jointly owned, it is likely that the building was erected after 1890.
Balls was declared insolvent in 1892, and his estate, which included the land at Sandgate as well as land at South Brisbane and Indooroopilly, was transferred to the Royal Bank of Queensland.
In early 1900, Hicks and his wife acquired half of allotment 4 adjacent to allotment 5, allotment 5, and land at the rear of the two allotments. A photograph of Broadhurst, the residence of Mr HM Hicks appeared in the Queenslander in May 1901.
In July 1901, members of the Brisbane Hospital Committee visited Hicks' residence, which was adjacent to the premises being rented for use as a convalescent home at that time. The Committee had maintained a convalescent home in rented premises at Sandgate from 1885. By 1901, the Committee were looking to acquire its own property, and in late 1901, Hicks' formal offer of the property for £1250 was accepted by the Committee. Alterations were undertaken to make the building suitable for use as a convalescent home, and the first transfer of convalescent patients to the home took place in December 1901. The alterations were designed by DF Brown, House Steward. James Stodart, a Brisbane businessman and politician, was chairman and treasurer of the Committee at this time.
An inspection of the new convalescent home by members of the Hospital Committee, politicians, the Mayor of Sandgate, the Medical Superintendent of the Brisbane General Hospital, Hicks and others, took place in March 1902. Speeches given as part of the inspection referred to the benefits, both medical and economic, of the Sandgate home, and unbounded satisfaction with the home was expressed by the Committee. In the Annual Report of the Brisbane Hospital for 1910, the home was described as a valuable outwork of the Hospital...providing rest, nourishment and comfort during the days of convalescence of many of the patients. Nurses worked at the convalescent home as part of their general hospital training, and the recollections of a former nurse record that as a first year trainee, she was the only nurse at the home together with the Matron, and that she was shown how to do dressings and other work which was not normally done until the second year of training.
The title for the land which had been transferred to Stodart, JD Campbell and SW Brooks in 1902, was subsequently transferred to the Brisbane and South Coast Hospitals Board in 1924.
The convalescent home was closed in 1942, and in 1943 the property was transferred to the Crown for Maternal and Child Welfare purposes. Allotment 6, immediately to the north west of the convalescent home had remained in private ownership until 1918, at which time it was transferred to the Crown, and was later included in the Maternal and Child Welfare reserve. On subsequent plans, the building located on allotment 6 is indicated as a Nurses home.
In March 1944, the "Sandgate Home" was opened by the Maternal and Child Welfare Section of the Department of Health, as a home for the admission of children whose mothers have been taken seriously ill and for whose care no other suitable arrangements can be made. The opening of the Home represented an expansion of the work of the Section. It is also possible that the buildings were utilised for children as part of the scheme developed to assist "Bush Children".
Quarters for the nursing staff were altered and enlarged during the late 1940s, and new buildings added to the site during the mid 1950s included dining and recreation rooms, these buildings were demolished in June 1997.
From 1983 the property was used by the Intellectual Disability Services section, initially located within the Department of Health and later within the Department of Family Services. The Sandgate Centre provided both long and short term residential care for intellectually challenged children, and a family respite centre. By the early 1990s, the Centre was considered to be outdated in terms of its use as a residential facility, and was closed in April 1994.
The property was acquired by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Planning in July 1994.
","criteria":"Erected in the late nineteenth century for a Brisbane businessman, and as one of a number of substantial residences located at Sandgate overlooking Bramble Bay, the former residence demonstrates the desirability of Sandgate, in particular Flinders Parade, as a residential location from this time.
From its opening in 1901 as a convalescent home for the Brisbane Hospital, until its closure as a centre for intellectually challenged persons in 1994, by which time the centre was considered to provide an outdated form of institutional accommodation, the building is associated with the development of institutional residential care during the twentieth century.
|This substantial former residence contains large and highly decorative interior spaces which exhibit high quality of workmanship, materials and climatic design.
|This substantial former residence contains large and highly decorative interior spaces which exhibit high quality of workmanship, materials and climatic design. Although the verandahs have been enclosed, evidence of original detailing and materials exists which suggest the visual contribution this building once made to the Sandgate foreshore.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16279,"place_ref":601516,"name":"Boolboonda Railway Tunnel","alternate_name":"SEQ-6Q 1","street_address":"Tunnel Road","suburb":"GIN GIN","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"The Boolboonda Railway Tunnel, 192 metres in length, is located on Tunnel Road, approximately 11 kilometres in a north-easterly direction from the town of Mount Perry. Constructed through granite rock, the tunnel is unlined and unsupported. The tunnel is presently used by vehicular traffic.
","history":"The Boolboonda Railway Tunnel opened 12 November 1883 following a construction period of two years. It was built by Queensland Government Railways as part of the Bundaberg - Mount Perry railway line, constructed to service the Mount Perry copper mines. The section of the line between Tirroan and Mount Perry closed in 1960 and was removed in 1961.
Copper was discovered in the Mount Perry area in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mining activities led to agitation for a link between the mines of the Mount Perry region and a port. In 1872 proposals of a private railway line were considered, and both Maryborough and Bundaberg vied to secure the line. These plans were never executed however. Rather, it was decided a state-owned line would be constructed. Thornloe Smith, Engineer in charge of Railway Surveys, conducted a survey from North Bundaberg to Mount Perry in 1875. Thornloe's survey noted the country was rugged, and eventual surveying plans called for a tunnel to pierce part of the Boolboonda Range. The Bundaberg Railway, as it was called, was constructed in two sections. The first section, North Bundaberg to Moolboolaman, was constructed by Overend and Co. and opened on 19 July 1881, although timber specials had run for some months previously. The second section, including the tunnel works, was approved in November 1880.
The original tenderers for this second contract declined the offer and a second round was called. O'Rourke and McSharry submitted costings of £112 502. Previous to this another series of surveys had been conducted to avoid the expense of constructing a tunnel through the Boolboonda Range, however it was decided to continue with the original plans.
Work on the approaches to the tunnel had commenced by the end of 1881, progressing steadily throughout 1882. The Boolboonda Railway Tunnel was driven through the hard granite of the range, and as noted by the Acting Chief Engineer 'this tunnel will not require to be lined being excavated through hard granite and that thus a saving of £5 000 will be effected'. This was the first time in the colony where it had not been necessary to line a tunnel, due to the nature of the rock it was driven through. The hard granite rock also meant the tunnel did not require additional support, and it is the longest unsupported (railway) tunnel constructed in Queensland. Mechanical means, including boilers and air compressors for drills were used to advance the drilling of the two tunnel headings.
The section of line to Boolboonda opened on 12 November 1883. As noted in the Commissioner's Report for 1882-83, the tunnel being driven from east and west ends was about half complete at this time (a total drive of about 300 feet). The headings of the tunnel broke through at noon on 19 June 1883. The line to Mount Perry was officially opened to rail traffic on 19 May 1884. It included the tunnel and a succession of curves of 100 and 120 metre radius. Although the contract for the second section had expired on 10 February, the delay in completion was attributed to station works at Mount Perry and the difficulty the contractors met with in piercing the tunnel at Boolboonda, this not being completed until 1884. The tunnel when completed measured 584 feet in length (192 metres).
At the completion of the line the Mount Perry copper mines closed due to the financial failure of the mines. The copper mines reopened around the turn of the century and with the construction of a smelter, operated until the period of the First World War. The unlined tunnel and the Splitters Creek trestle bridge at Sharon were the two major engineering works undertaken on the Mount Perry line. For the next 50 years the main traffic generated on the Mount Perry line was mainly from dairying, livestock and timber traffic, with sugar traffic from Gin Gin east to the Gibson and Howes mill.
The section of line from Tirroan to Mount Perry was closed in 1960 and removed in 1961, due to declining traffic revenues. The final section of the Bundaberg Railway, Bundaberg to Gin Gin, closed in 1992. Since cessation of rail traffic the tunnel has become a habitat for a colony of Bentwinged bats. Built as a low cost, development railway, the only evidence remaining of the Tirroan-Mount Perry line are embankments and the Boolboonda tunnel (now open to road traffic).
","criteria":"The Boolboonda Railway Tunnel is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as evidence of the rail line from Bundaberg to Mount Perry built in the 1880s.
|The place demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as an early example of one of the few railway tunnels built in Queensland not requiring lining or support. The tunnel is also made unusual by the absence of portals to the entries of the tunnel.
|The Boolboonda Railway Tunnel is of aesthetic significance as a picturesque element in the landscape.
|The tunnel is of social significance to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16280,"place_ref":601517,"name":"Cherry Gully Tunnel","alternate_name":"Gorge Tunnel | Cherry Gully Railway Tunnel","street_address":"Warwick - Stanthorpe Line","suburb":"SILVERWOOD","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Cherry Gully tunnel is situated on the Southern railway line between Warwick and Wallangarra. The Tunnel’s centre is situated 281 kilometres from Roma Street Station, surrounded by sparsely wooded hills and penetrates a low ridge. The straight tunnel is aligned northeast–southwest, it is approximately 272 metres long and semi-elliptical in section, wide enough for a single railway line.
\nBoth ends of the tunnel are approached by a cutting with steep earth and stone embankments either side of the rail line. The tunnel’s portals are faced with concrete walls with a square cornice to their tops. Internally, the tunnel is concrete lined at its base and brick lined to the top half. The floor is gravel ballast with a single line of railway tracks on sleepers.
\nFeatures of Cherry Gully Tunnel of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n· tunnel alignment, northeast-southwest
\n· semi-elliptical form, wide enough for a single railway line
\n· face brick and cement internal linings
\n· concrete walls and portals to each tunnel end with square cornice to tops
\n· cuttings for railway corridor leading to tunnel portals.
\nFeatures of the Cherry Gully Tunnel not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n· modern markers and signs painted at each portal and inside tunnel
\n· modern railway tracks and sleepers.
","history":"Completed in 1880, Cherry Gully Tunnel is a concrete- and brick-lined railway tunnel located about 20km south of Warwick and 281km from Roma Street on the Warwick to Wallangarra section of the Southern Railway Line, the only rail connection between Brisbane and Sydney from 1887 to 1930. This section of the Southern Line was constructed to Stanthorpe (originally named Quart Pot) to service the nearby tin-mining field that arose after discovery of alluvial tin in Quart Pot Creek in February 1872.[1] Cherry Gully Tunnel is located on the traditional lands of the Githabul People.[2]
\nThe establishment of railway lines in Queensland by the Queensland Government dates from the 1860s. The government’s primary objective was to use its limited resources to develop regional industries (wool, agriculture, mining) by moving products by rail from their source to a port. The first rail line between Ipswich (a port on the Bremer River) and Bigge's Camp (later Grandchester) opened in 1865, with the intention that it would be extended west to the Darling Downs, the principal pastoral area of the colony at that time. Connection to Toowoomba was achieved in 1867. The rail line extension south to Warwick from the rail terminus at Toowoomba was contracted in February 1866 and opened on 9 January 1871.[3]
\nExploitation of the colony’s mineral resources through railway development commenced in the 1860s. The construction of the first of these lines from Rockhampton towards the Peak Downs copper field began in 1864, with its initial western terminus at Westwood opening on 19 September 1867.[4] This nexus continued when the Queensland Parliament approved construction of four mineral railways in August 1877: from Townsville to Charters Towers, Bundaberg to Mount Perry, Maryborough to Gympie, and the extension of the Southern and Western Railway from Warwick to Stanthorpe.[5] However, the decision to construct these rail lines with no connection to other parts of the Queensland Railways system resulted in a proliferation of separate railways from the interior to ports (the main railways linking to Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns), which were not unified until 1924, with the opening of the North Coast Line between Brisbane and Cairns.[6]
\nAgitation for the construction of a railway from the town of Warwick[7] to the mining centre of Stanthorpe was a major political and social rallying point for the population of the southern tablelands. The booming tin mining area around Stanthorpe provided the impetus for the extension of the railway south from Warwick.[8] In 1873 a survey from Warwick to Stanthorpe began and the 41½ miles (66.8km) to Stanthorpe was mapped. However, this survey included two costly tunnels ‒ one 29 chains (583.4m) in length to save a 1¾ mile-long (2.82km) detour and a 13-chain (261.5m) long tunnel to save 2½ miles (4km).
\nA permanent survey in 1876 was completed to the 85-mile (136.8-km) mark, which was 27 miles (43.45km) from Warwick. The line surveyed passed through the centre of Warwick, and included a new railway station for the town.[9] On this survey, several deviations shortened the overall distance of the line.
\nIn 1878, the working plans for the section from Warwick to Stanthorpe were finally prepared. Tenders were called at the beginning of February 1878 for two sections from Warwick to Stanthorpe. Section One ran to a point 20 miles 28 chains 19 links (32.75km) south of Warwick, whilst Section Two ran 20 miles 41 chains 60 links (33.03km) to Stanthorpe.[10]
\nSection One was awarded to J & A Overend and Co. on 31 May 1878 for £178,784, to be completed in two and a half years. This section included a long tunnel later named Cherry Gully Tunnel. Construction was described in the Engineer’s Report (Southern and Western Line) as follows: ‘Section One ‒ operations were begun May 1878 vigorously – all stone culverts and many of the concrete ones completed. Open cuttings near the tunnel were well advanced but delayed due to the very hard rock encountered. Spring and Mineral Creek bridges were delayed...an average of 784 men were employed.’[11]
\nOverend & Co established a major construction camp for the Cherry Gully tunnel at the works location, in accordance with railway construction practices of the time. Construction camps were temporary townships, supplied with drinking establishments, sometimes a school, contractor stores, and even places of worship. A school was established at Cherry Gully. In common with many railway communities, much of the construction workforce was drawn from Irish ancestry.[12]
\nThe contract for Section Two, which included a short tunnel, situated at 84 mile 20 chains, later named Dalveen Tunnel [QHR601519], was awarded to J Garget for £105,983, after the tender was readvertised in July 1878.[13] A camp would also have been situated near No.2 [Dalveen] tunnel to act as labour base for its workings. Approximately 325 men were employed at this time on Section Two.[14]
\nWork started on Section One in May 1878[15] and by 1879 it was reported that good progress had been made. However, delays were experienced due to the difficult nature of the rock at the tunnel site. The major engineering work on Section One was the tunnel at Cherry Gully, known locally as the big tunnel. The hard basaltic rock encountered caused great problems for the engineers and ‘navvies’ on the line, delaying excavation.[16]
\nIn a new innovation for Queensland, the contractor experimented with several kinds of drilling machines, but all failed. As a result, hand drilling operations were resorted to. The use of rock drills in driving this tunnel may have been unsuccessful, however there is evidence of the use of rock drills in cuttings to the south of this tunnel as far as the head of Rosenthal Creek.[17] This use of rock drills was subsequent to the introduction of the Low patent rock drill into Australia, where it was used by the Mount Tarrengower Tunnelling Company at Maldon, Victoria in 1865.[18] Earthworks were also greater than expected due to the unstable nature of the rock encountered.
\nAs a cost-saving measure, according to the Engineer’s Report on the Southern and Western Line for 1878: ‘All the stone culverts, and a large proportion of the culverts and drains in concrete have been completed. A considerable saving has been effected by the substitution of cement concrete for brickwork and masonry, both in culverts and bridges.’[19] The Engineer reported in 1879 ‘that the adoption of concrete in these works has proved an undoubted success, and I should not hesitate to use it for similar ones, in future, in preference to brickwork, not only on account of its being under most circumstances less costly, but stronger and much more reliable’.[20] By the end of 1879, the main works remaining on Section One were the bridges over the Condamine River, Spring Creek and the Cherry Gully Tunnel.[21]
\nIn another innovation implemented in an effort to effect savings during construction, concrete was substituted as a building and lining material for the Cherry Gully Tunnel, instead of the more conventional brick. This was the first use of concrete on a railway tunnel by Queensland Railways and the contractor reported it as successful.[22] Subsequently, concrete became the standard lining material for rail tunnels in Queensland. Since 1880, at least 27 railway tunnels across Queensland have been constructed using concrete.[23]
\nIn April 1880 the Stanthorpe Border Post reported that good progress had been made at the south end of the tunnel, despite the ‘formidable nature of…the granite bars to be displaced’.[24] Garget & Co apparently were proceeding well with their construction effort despite the dangers during blasting operations. By mid-May 1880, the Cherry Gully Tunnel had been fully excavated and rail laid, allowing a locomotive to pass through. However, the tunnel’s brick and concrete lining had not been completed.[25]
\nThe Queensland Times reported in October 1880 that the line was expected to open to Cherry Gully on 1 December. At this time, the first ballast train made its way over the Mineral Creek bridge and all the way up to the tunnel. It was anticipated ‘that within three weeks contractors will have finished one of the most difficult railways constructed in the colony’.[26]
\nThe opening of the line through to Cherry Gully was achieved about five weeks late – on 8 December, but considering the difficulties experienced was an excellent effort for all concerned.[27] The difficulties of driving and lining the tunnel had meant that three shifts of workers were eventually required on the work. However, using concrete to line the tunnel, apart from the brick crown, a first in Queensland, reduced the tunnel’s construction time.[28]
\nTo provide water for steam locomotives on the line between Warwick and Stanthorpe a concrete arch dam (Gorge Tank and Dam) had been built in 1879 across a large gully approximately two km north of Cherry Gully Tunnel and 279 kms from Roma Street station. It is the earliest example in Queensland of a concrete dam wall constructed for storage purposes.[29] The dam had a storage capacity of 400,000 gallons (1,818.44 kilolitres). The water tank and pipe from the dam were gravity fed, as the dam was situated in an elevated position. The construction of a new water supply at Glen Niven in 1914 meant that the tank was no longer needed as a major watering location for locomotives. From 1950 it was only in use for emergency purposes.
\nThe remainder of the line – from Cherry Gully through to Stanthorpe – was officially opened on 3 May 1881[30] and was taken over by Queensland Railways on 1 November 1881.
\nThe Southern Line extension from Stanthorpe to Wallangarra opened on 4 February 1887. With the completion of the New South Wales Government Railways line from Tenterfield to Wallangarra the first inter-colonial rail link between Brisbane and Sydney opened on 16 January 1888.[31] However, it was not until the Hawkesbury Bridge opened on 1 May 1889, completing the Sydney-Newcastle Link that the Brisbane to Sydney railway was completed.[32] This line served as the rail link between Brisbane and Sydney for the next four decades.
\nFrom the late 19th century, agriculture, particularly deciduous fruit growing, replaced mining in the Stanthorpe district. Deciduous fruit, comprising pome fruit (apples and pears)[33] and stone fruits (peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries),[34] proved viable, with growers utilising the Southern Line to transport produce to market.[35] Fruit growing around Stanthorpe expanded into an important industry in the state[36] after a soldier settlement scheme was established to the town’s north and northwest after World War I. A branch rail line from Cotton Vale to Amiens opened in 1920 to serve the Soldier Settlement.[37] The importance of the rail transport in growers’ success was noted by The Queenslander newspaper in 1922: ‘The principal centres of fruit production in the Stanthorpe country, with few exceptions, are situated on or near the railway…. Easy accessibility to a railway siding or station is…a great convenience in the height of the fruit season, when growers have to cart their produce…almost every day in the week.’[38]
\nIn 1924, the Queensland Government passed the South Brisbane Kyogle Grafton Act, committing itself to the construction of a new standard gauge railway from South Brisbane to the border with New South Wales.[39] This arose from a federal royal commission in 1921 regarding a uniform railway gauge for Australia that recommended the states and commonwealth commit to linking the capital cities of Australia with common gauge railway tracks. As part of the standardisation of the disparate gauges, a new link between Sydney and Brisbane via Kyogle was identified as being a central element. At a conference between the Prime Minister and Premiers in November 1921, it was agreed that standard gauge (4 feet 8.5inches: 1435mm) be adopted.[40] This proposed railway line between Kyogle and South Brisbane, which opened in 1930 as the new link via northern New South Wales and the Richmond Gap into Queensland, did not require a change of trains at a border station.[41]
\nThereafter, the importance of the Southern line between Toowoomba and Wallangarra diminished. However, during the World War II, the strategic importance of the rail line through Wallangarra was vital in providing an inland transhipment and staging point during the defence of Australia, with a large ordnance depot established at Wallangarra.[42]
\nFrom the 1960s, the importance of the Warwick Railway Station and the Southern rail line diminished due to increased road competition and the consequent reduction of railway traffic. The rail passenger service to Wallangarra was withdrawn in 1972.[43] ‘The last Sydney Mail (26 Up) ran on 29 January 1972, and the Brisbane-Wallangarra service was withdrawn as of 1 February 1972…. With the cessation of passenger services on the Queensland side of the border, the line reverted to a goods only basis.’[44] The line between Tenterfield and Wallangarra on the New South Wales side of the border closed to traffic in 1989.[45]
\nThe Southern Line south of Warwick was threatened with closure in 1993-4, but the link was retained due to community protest, and a twice weekly goods service continued. By 2003, trains only ran on an ‘as-required’ basis, and all station staff were withdrawn, leaving Wallangarra as an unattended station.[46] Since 2009, Southern Downs Steam Railway Association has regularly operated tourist trains between Toowoomba and Wallangarra.[47]
\nIn 2024, the Warwick to Stanthorpe Section of the Southern Line is used for regular steam train journeys for tourists and rail enthusiasts.[48] Cherry Gully Tunnel remains an intact, major engineering work on the Southern Line.
","criteria":"Cherry Gully Tunnel (1880), an intact major engineering work on the Southern Line extension from Warwick to Stanthorpe, is important as a demonstration of the Queensland Government’s policy of constructing railway lines to access mineral fields throughout Queensland, having been built as part of the first rail line completed (1881) due to this policy. Following extension of the rail line to Wallangarra, the Southern Line became the colony’s first and only inter-colonial railway connection with New South Wales and Queensland’s between 1889 and 1930, ensuring the Southern Line’s importance to Queensland.
|Cherry Gully Tunnel is important for demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 19th Century Railway Tunnel in Queensland constructed for Queensland Railways. It is exceptional as the earliest example of a concrete-lined railway tunnel in Queensland.
\nThe highly intact tunnel demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type through its semi-elliptical cross-section wide enough for a single rail corridor, lined with concrete and face brick; gravel ballast floor; and concrete entrance portals, with steep cuttings on approach to each entrance.
|Cherry Gully Tunnel represents a breakthrough in construction technique as the earliest use of concrete construction in a railway tunnel in Queensland. Its success led to concrete becoming a standard construction type used throughout Queensland’s narrow-gauge railway network from the 1880s. The tunnel and its experimental concrete linings are highly intact.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16282,"place_ref":601519,"name":"Dalveen Tunnel","alternate_name":"Dalveen Railway Tunnel","street_address":"Warwick to Wallangarra line","suburb":"DALVEEN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Dalveen tunnel is situated on the Southern railway line, 295km from Roma Street Station on the eastern outskirts of Dalveen, a town approximately halfway between Warwick and Stanthorpe. The tunnel is surrounded by sparsely wooded hills and penetrates a low ridge, a private unsealed road runs across the top of the ridge. The straight tunnel is aligned northwest–southeast, it is approximately 150m long and wide enough for a single railway corridor.
\nBoth ends of the tunnel are approached by a cutting with steep earth embankments either side of the rail line. The tunnel’s portals are faced with brick walls with sandstone capping to the tops, sandstone voussoirs at the north-western portal and concrete around the south-eastern portal. A painted sign above the south-eastern portal displays the date “AD 1880”. The tunnel is semi-elliptical in section, brick lined and has a gravel ballast floor with railway tracks.
\nFeatures of the Dalveen tunnel of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n· tunnel alignment, running northwest-southeast
\n· semi-elliptical form, wide enough for a single railway corridor
\n· face brick linings
\n· face brick retaining walls to each tunnel end with sandstone capping to tops
\n· sandstone voussoirs around tunnel’s north portal
\n· concrete surround around tunnel’s south portal
\n· cutting for railway corridor leading to tunnel ends
\n· concrete spoon drains to top and bottom of retaining walls.
\nFeatures of the Dalveen tunnel not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n· unsealed road above tunnel
\n· markers painted at each tunnel end and inside tunnel
\n· modern railway tracks, sleepers, and gravel ballast.
","history":"Completed in 1880, Dalveen Tunnel is a brick-lined railway tunnel located about 34km south of Warwick and 295km from Roma Street on the Warwick to Wallangarra section of the Southern Railway Line, the only rail connection between Brisbane and Sydney from 1887 to 1930. This section of the Southern Line was constructed to Stanthorpe (originally named Quart Pot) to service the nearby tin-mining field that arose after discovery of alluvial tin in Quart Pot Creek in February 1872.[1] Dalveen Tunnel is located on the traditional lands of the Githabul People.[2]
\nThe establishment of railway lines in Queensland by the Queensland Government dates from the 1860s. The government’s primary objective was to use its limited resources to develop regional industries (wool, agriculture, mining) by moving products by rail from their source to a port. The first rail line between Ipswich (a port on the Bremer River) and Bigge's Camp (later Grandchester) opened in 1865, with the intention that it would be extended west to the Darling Downs, the principal pastoral area of the colony at that time. Connection to Toowoomba was achieved in 1867. The rail line extension south to Warwick from the rail terminus at Toowoomba was contracted in February 1866 and opened on 9 January 1871.[3]
\nExploitation of the colony’s mineral resources through railway development commenced in the 1860s. The construction of the first of these lines from Rockhampton towards the Peak Downs copper field began in 1864, with its initial western terminus at Westwood opening on 19 September 1867.[4] This nexus continued when the Queensland Parliament approved construction of four mineral railways in August 1877: from Townsville to Charters Towers, Bundaberg to Mount Perry, Maryborough to Gympie, and the extension of the Southern and Western Railway from Warwick to Stanthorpe.[5] However, the decision to construct these rail lines with no connection to other parts of the Queensland Railways system resulted in a proliferation of separate railways from the interior to ports (the main railways linking to Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns), which were not unified until 1924 with the opening of the North Coast Line between Brisbane and Cairns.[6]
\nAgitation for the construction of a railway from the town of Warwick[7] to the mining centre of Stanthorpe was a major political and social rallying point for the population of the southern tablelands. The booming tin mining area around Stanthorpe provided the impetus for the extension of the railway south from Warwick.[8] In 1873 a survey from Warwick to Stanthorpe began and the 41½ miles (66.8km) to Stanthorpe was mapped. However, this survey included two costly tunnels ‒ one 29 chains (583.4m) in length to save a 1¾ mile-long (2.82km) detour and a 13-chain (261.5m) long tunnel to save 2½ miles (4km).
\nA permanent survey in 1876 was completed to the 85-mile (136.8-km) mark, which was 27 miles (43.45km) from Warwick. The line surveyed passed through the centre of Warwick, and included a new railway station for the town.[9] On this survey, several deviations shortened the overall distance of the line.
\nIn 1878, the working plans for the section from Warwick to Stanthorpe were finally prepared. Tenders were called at the beginning of February 1878 for two sections from Warwick to Stanthorpe. Section One ran to a point 20 miles 28 chains 19 links (32.75km) south of Warwick, whilst Section Two ran 20 miles 41 chains 60 links (33.03km) to Stanthorpe.[10]
\nSection One was awarded to J & A Overend and Co. on 31 May 1878 for £178,784, to be completed in two and a half years.[11] This section included Cherry Gully Tunnel [QHR601517].
\nInitial tenders for Section Two were too high. The contract, which included a short tunnel, later named Dalveen Tunnel, was awarded to J Garget £105,983 after the tender was readvertised in July 1878.[12] The Engineer’s Report stated: ‘Clearing of the right of way began in November 1878, as well as some cuttings were begun.’[13]
\nIn common with railway construction of the time, a camp would have been situated nearby to act as labour base for its workings. On Section Two, some 325 men were employed at this time. [14] Construction camps were temporary townships, and were supplied with drinking establishments, sometimes a school, contractor stores and even places of worship. Edmund Power operated a drinking establishment on the Second Section at Telegraph Road crossing, while John Commerford opened the North Australian Hotel, Main Camp, at the new Tunnel on the 2nd section. Life in the camps could be a perilous affair at times, especially where hot tempers were concerned.[15]
\nDalveen Tunnel, situated at 84 miles 20 chains (135.23km), was constructed to pierce a spur of the Silverwood Range. It was one of the major works on the Second Contract of the line to Stanthorpe. Section Two did not experience the construction difficulties encountered on the works around the Cherry Gully Tunnel. By the end of 1879 it was noted that:
\nThe heading of No. 2 tunnel at 84 miles 20 chains was excavated to about one-third of the total length, and a large number of bricks had been prepared in readiness for the lining.
\nThe Commissioner's Report for 1880 noted that the excavation and lining of No.2 tunnel had been completed and that only track laying remained to be done. The Commissioners Report noted that only plate laying and ballasting required completion.
\nThe remainder of the line – from Cherry Gully through to Stanthorpe – was officially opened on 3 May 1881[16] and was taken over by Queensland Railways on 1 November 1881.
\nTo provide water for steam locomotives on the line between Warwick and Stanthorpe a concrete arch dam (Gorge Tank and Dam) had been built across a large gully approximately two km north of Cherry Gully Tunnel and 279 kms from Roma Street station. It is the earliest example in Queensland of a concrete dam wall constructed for storage purposes.[17] The dam had a storage capacity of 400,000 gallons (1,818.44 kilolitres). The water tank and pipe from the dam were gravity fed, as the dam was situated in an elevated position. The construction of a new water supply at Glen Niven in 1914 meant that the tank was no longer needed as a major watering location for locomotives. From 1950 it was only in use for emergency purposes.
\nThe Southern Line extension from Stanthorpe to Wallangarra opened on 4 February 1887. With the completion of the NSWGR line from Tenterfield to Wallangarra the first inter-colonial rail link between Brisbane and Sydney opened on 16 January 1888.[18] However, it was not until the Hawkesbury Bridge opened on 1 May 1889, completing the Sydney-Newcastle Link that the Brisbane to Sydney railway was completed.[19] This line served as the rail link between Brisbane and Sydney for the next four decades.
\nFrom the late nineteenth century, agriculture, particularly deciduous fruit growing, replaced mining in the Stanthorpe district. Deciduous fruit, comprising pome fruit (apples and pears)[20] and stone fruits (peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries),[21] proved viable, with growers utilising the Southern Line to transport produce to market.[22] Fruit growing around Stanthorpe expanded into an important industry in the state[23] after a soldier settlement scheme was established to the town’s north and northwest after World War I. A branch rail line from Cotton Vale to Amiens opened in 1920 to serve the Soldier Settlement.[24] The importance of the rail transport in growers’ success was noted by The Queenslander newspaper in 1922: ‘The principal centres of fruit production in the Stanthorpe country, with few exceptions, are situated on or near the railway…. Easy accessibility to a railway siding or station is…a great convenience in the height of the fruit season, when growers have to cart their produce…almost every day in the week.’[25]
\nIn 1924, the Queensland Government passed the South Brisbane Kyogle Grafton Act, committing itself to the construction of a new standard gauge railway from South Brisbane to the border with New South Wales.[26] This arose from a federal royal commission in 1921 regarding a uniform railway gauge for Australia that recommended the states and commonwealth commit to linking the capital cities of Australia with common gauge railway tracks. As part of the standardisation of the disparate gauges, a new link between Sydney and Brisbane via Kyogle was identified as being a central element. At a conference between the Prime Minister and Premiers in November 1921, it was agreed that standard gauge (4 feet 8.5inches: 1435mm) be adopted.[27] This proposed railway line between Kyogle and South Brisbane, which opened in 1930 as the new link via northern New South Wales and the Richmond Gap into Queensland, did not require a change of trains at a border station.[28]
\nThereafter, the importance of the Southern line between Toowoomba and Wallangarra diminished. However, during the World War II, the strategic importance of the rail line through Wallangarra was vital in providing an inland transhipment and staging point during the defence of Australia, with a large ordnance depot established at Wallangarra.[29]
\nFrom the 1960s, the importance of the Warwick Railway Station and the Southern rail line diminished due to increased road competition and the consequent reduction of railway traffic. The rail passenger service to Wallangarra was withdrawn in 1972.[30] ‘The last Sydney Mail (26 Up) ran on 29 January 1972, and the Brisbane-Wallangarra service was withdrawn as of 1 February 1972…. With the cessation of passenger services on the Queensland side of the border, the line reverted to a goods only basis.’[31] The line between Tenterfield and Wallangarra on the New South Wales side of the border closed to traffic in 1989.[32]
\nThe Southern Line south of Warwick was threatened with closure in 1993-4, but the link was retained due to community protest, and a twice weekly goods service continued. By 2003, trains only ran on an as-required basis, and all station staff were withdrawn, leaving Wallangarra as an unattended station.[33] Since 2009, Southern Downs Steam Railway Association has regularly operated tourist trains between Toowoomba and Wallangarra.[34]
\nIn 2024, the Warwick to Stanthorpe Section of the Southern Line is used for regular steam train journeys for tourists and rail enthusiasts.[35] Dalveen Tunnel remains an intact, major engineering work on the Southern Line.
\n","criteria":"
The Dalveen Tunnel (1880), an intact major engineering work on the Southern Line extension from Warwick to Stanthorpe, is important as a demonstration of the Queensland Government’s policy of constructing railway lines to access mineral fields throughout Queensland, having been built as part of the first rail line completed (1881) due to this policy. Following extension of the rail line to Wallangarra, the Southern Line became the colony’s first and only inter-colonial railway connection with New South Wales and Queensland’s between 1889 and 1930, ensuring the Southern Line’s importance to Queensland.
|The Dalveen Tunnel is an intact example of a late 19th century railway tunnel as constructed by Queensland Railways. The tunnel is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places in its: Semi-elliptical cross-section wide enough for a single rail corridor, face brick linings and portals with sandstone quoins, gravel ballast floor with metal railway tracks, and earth embankments on approach to both ends. With very little alteration, the Dalveen Tunnel is intact and retains a high degree of integrity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16285,"place_ref":601522,"name":"Dularcha Railway Tunnel","alternate_name":"North Coast Line No 1 : Mooloolah tunnel","street_address":"1.5 km south of Mooloolah township","suburb":"MOOLOOLAH","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"Built through a sandstone ridge, Dularcha railway tunnel is located within Dularcha National Park, c5 kms north of Landsborough. Dominant vegetation in the area is brush box, flooded gums and ironbarks and stringybarks along the ridge. Part of the southern approach of the tunnel runs parallel to the current North Coast Line rail track.
The tunnel runs on a north south axis. Two semi-elliptical concrete portals are located at the north and south openings of the tunnel. The tunnel is concrete-lined throughout with cuttings at either end. A vehicular dirt track in the National Park in part following the original rail line now removed, passes through the Dularcha Railway Tunnel joining the two towns.
The tunnel is approximately 100 metres long and curves slightly towards the northern portal. The northern and southern portals are both similar in structure and design. They are curved and are approximately 4 metres high and 4.2 metres wide. A horizontal concrete ridge is located at the top of each façade, delineating the completion of the tunnel and the commencement of the natural sandstone and vegetation. Protruding from the cement façade of each portal, under the horizontal ridges and near to the natural rock wall, is a terracotta drainage pipe with a diameter of 20 centimetres.
Internally, the tunnel is surfaced with undecorated cement. Two safety bays are recessed into the tunnel and wall are also concrete faced. They are located approximately one third of the way in from each portal on its left and are wide enough for two people. Weep holes are located throughout the tunnel and are colonised by small bats. The interior is cool and moist.
The interior walls near the portal openings have been subject to graffiti. Recent spray painting is evident, however, etched into the cement are letters, numbers and other unidentifiable marks, some appearing to be names and dates dating back to as early as 1910. Remains of a wall that once closed off the tunnel about half a metre inside the southern portal are still visible. A little further inside the tunnel, fixed to each wall, are several metal brackets, thought to be the remains of a gate hinge. Directly outside the southern portal, on the eastern side, lies the remains of a corroded rail line. Above the northern portal, on the western side, are the remains of telegraph poles.
Across the top of the tunnel giving access to the State forest, is Rose's Road. Remains of two wood post and wire fences are located above the north and south portal and run parallel with Rose's Road. The fences may have been designed to restrict access to the tunnel portals from the ridge. They do not appear to restrict the use of or deny access to Rose's Road.
","history":"Dularcha Railway Tunnel, constructed in 1890-91, forms part of the section of railway from Landsborough to Yandina, which in turn was part of the North Coast Railway Line from Brisbane to Gympie.
The building of Queensland railways began in 1864, however, unlike other states, routes were constructed independently of each other. Consequently, while a rail line had extended north from Gympie to Maryborough since 1881, it was not until 1888 that a line was opened from Brisbane to create a link with Gympie. Surveys for the section of line between Caboolture and Gympie had begun as early as 1884, however, the terrain had created difficulties which was eventually resolved by the construction of four major bridges and two tunnels. The North Coast Line was opened at Gympie in 1891. At the time, the North Coast Line was a direct link between Brisbane and Maryborough and brought Gympie within easy reach of Brisbane. So convenient was the line that a return journey from Brisbane to Gympie could be made in one day. Troops sent to quell the 1891 Shearer's Strike in Central Queensland were transported on this line.
The North Coast Line soon became a dominant method of freight transportation with passenger traffic increasing dramatically as each new link further north created an integrated rail system. It was popularity of train travel that promoted the gazetting of Dularcha National Park on 21 May 1924 under the State Forests and National Parks Act 1906. The area covered 336 acres. This area included that part of the Landsborough to Yandina line which incorporated the Dularcha Railway Tunnel. Between 1900-1920, the North Coast Line was gradually increasing in importance. It was constructed over a period of forty years and coastal rail freight grew slowly as coastal shipping offered cheaper rates for heavy freight.
The first section of the railway specifically built as part of the North Coast Line was the line from Caboolture to Gympie. Surveying began in 1882 and took six years. There were so many new lines being planned that surveying resources were thinly spread. It was October 1886 before Section 5 from Gympie South to Martin's Halfway House (Cooran) on the road to Noosa was completed. The contract was awarded to Willocks & Company.
The North Coast Line from Brisbane Roma Street to Sandgate opened on 11 May 1882. Later from Nundah to Petrie on 1 March 1888 and Caboolture on 11 June 1888. Plans of section 2 and 3 from Caboolture to Yandina were approved in November 1887 and was awarded to T Jesser and Company on 14 December 1888. The Jesser and Company had also been given the contract for the Bowen Railway in April 1890. Besides the major bridges over the Mooloolah River, Eudlo and Petrie's Creeks and the South Maroochy River, the line included the only two tunnels on the entire North Coast Line, one of which was the Dularcha Railway Tunnel. Sections were opened as they were completed, from Caboolture to Landsborough on 1 February 1890, and to Yandina from 1 January 1891. For the first time the trip from Gympie to Brisbane could be accomplished in a day, a twelve hour trip. Some of the first passengers to make the one day journey were the troops sent to Central Queensland to quell the Shearers' strike.
The Brisbane-Gympie link put the Queensland Railways into competition with coastal shipping for the first time. Work began on regrading the North Coast line between Caboolture and Gympie in 1928 and continued until 1932. The northern section of the railway line including the tunnel was abandoned in 1932. At this time, the line was deviated east (about 600 metres south of the south portal) to its current location. As a result of the line deviation, the area of Dularcha National Park increased to 342 acres.
Following the closure of the tunnel for railway purposes area was closed off inside the opening of the south portal when it was leased for mushroom growing c1942. An unsealed vehicular track, in part following the original rail route, passes through the National Park and the tunnel. The road connects the two communities of Landsborough and Mooloola.
The Dularcha Railway Tunnel was identified in the Queensland Railway Heritage Places Study: Stage 2. Volume 4.
","criteria":"The Dularcha Railway Tunnel is significant as part of the original formation of the track between Brisbane and Maryborough. The Tunnel provides evidence of the importance of the railway as a means of transportation, and its expansion north, in the late 1880s.
Dularcha Railway Tunnel is significant for its association with the gazettal of the Dularcha National Park in 1922. The boundaries of the Park were created around the railway line enabling steam train travelling passengers to view a part of Queensland's forests.
|The Dularcha Railway Tunnel is significant as one of only two tunnels constructed along the entire North Coast Line and is good example of a concrete lined tunnel constructed for Queensland's narrow-gauge railway lines.
|The Dularcha Railway Tunnel is significant as one of only two tunnels constructed along the entire North Coast Line and is good example of a concrete lined tunnel constructed for Queensland's narrow-gauge railway lines.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16286,"place_ref":601523,"name":"Bowen Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"3 Bowen Bridge Road","suburb":"BOWEN HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-02-26","description":"Located on a major arterial road linking Brisbane City with the northern suburbs and the Bruce Highway, Bowen Park occupies a prominent position on the northern edge of Brisbane's commercial centre. The Park is bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, O'Connell Terrace and the Royal National Association (RNA) showgrounds with pedestrian access from Bowen Bridge Road between the Park and the RNA Bowen Bridge Road entry gate.
\nA peaceful retreat in stark contrast to its surrounds and neighbours, it has undergone three distinct phases of development with evidence of each phase surviving. The Park retains trees considered to be part of the QAS major plantings from the 1860s to the 1890s, evidence of the extensive design work and extensive planting undertaken in 1914 to 1917 by Henry Moore for the Brisbane Municipal Council and work undertaken during the third phase of development by Harry Oakman for the Brisbane City Council from 1950 to 1959.
\nThe Bowen Bridge Road edge has survived over the history of the landholding and formed the boundary of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's Gardens from 1863. The principal Park entries lie along this edge: to the south, marked by a mature Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), a concrete and tuff stairway descends through beds edged with tuff; the arched entry; the entry at the circular annuals bed; and to the north, the tree canopy path between tuff garden walls. This edge of Bowen Park also contains simple, medium height planting of hedges and borders, beds of annuals, strips of lawn, the secondary paths installed by Oakman and the toilet block. The adjacent footpath has a clutter of tram/bus shelters. The openness of this edge affords passersby a view across the Park.
\nA decorative iron arch containing the words BOWEN PARK springs from freestanding painted concrete piers to form the main entrance to the Park. A freestanding pier to the north and south form narrower entrance ways.
\nThe toilet block on the Bowen Bridge Road boundary is a small single-storey loadbearing brick structure with a tiled roof with a timber battened soffit. It sits on a base of face brick finishing at a header course of dark bricks. The upper portion of the external walls is finished in a roughcast cement render. The entrance to the male section is to the north and to the female side is entered from the south.
\nThe tram/bus shelters are on the footpath adjacent to the Park and do not form part of the Park but do impact on the integrity of the garden edge and views across and into the Park. An early timer-framed tram shelter has been truncated to accommodate the widening of Bowen Bridge Road and recent steel framed bus shelters clutter along the Park edge.
\nO'Connell Terrace forms the northern edge of the Park and was part of the boundary of the QAS grounds. Two Bauhinias (Bauhinia sp) survive from an earlier row of street trees on the footpath. The Park edge is defined by low stone wall and hedges (Acalypha sp. and Spiraea sp.). Clumped palms (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens and Syagarus romanzoffiana) mark two pedestrian entries onto pathways through the Park.
\nThe Northern Lawns segment extends from the O'Connell Terrace edge across the Park to the impressive edge formed by the fig trees (Ficus benjamina) and associated exuberant planting and from Bowen Bridge Road to the eastern pedestrian entry. A set of Brisbane tuff stairs ascends from O'Connell Terrace at the north-west corner to a now open level lawn area which was the site of the Superintendent's cottage from 1914 to 1949. It was later established as a series of circular ornamental beds planted with annuals and surrounded by hedging under Oakman's management. The lawn area is edged by the early plantings of leopard (Caesalpinja ferrea), buahinia (Bauhinia hookeri), flame (Brachychiton acerifolium) and fig (Ficus microcarpa var. Hillii) trees with their associated underplanting that frame the north entrance off Bowen Bridge Road. The central sloping lawn is bisected by a path and planted randomly with a variety of palms. Many of the palms are plantings from the early twentieth century. This portion of the Park, formerly containing the glasshouse, cottage and associated nursery activities, served as a separate area to the primary display and recreation areas of the QAS Gardens and the Brisbane Municipal Council's 1914 redevelopment. The Figs (Ficus benjamina) and associated understorey planting may have served as a separation between the areas.
\nIn the Figs/Rockery central garden area the large fig trees (Ficus benjamina) form a massive canopy shading the pathway and tuff edged gardens planted with an understorey of subtropical foliage plants. These fig trees (Ficus benjamina) were in the Park prior to the Council's substantial works in 1914 and 1915 and may have been planted for the QAS Gardens.
\nA line of Chinese Celtis (Celtis sinensis) and trees and shrubs line the RNA/Bowen Park Boundary. The Cook pine (Araucaria columnaris) and coral tree (Erythrina hendersonii) are possibly remnants from QAS plantings.
\nThe trees and shrubs on the RNA northern boundary form a screen and edge to the eastern spaces of the Park. A gravel vehicle path from O'Connell Terrace to the Brisbane City Council depot runs beside the curved edge boundary bed which contains a mature rubber tree (Ficus elastica). The depot is housed in the space beneath the RNA grandstand built to this boundary. The curved bed and the kidney shaped beds in the area are planted with hedges (Acalypha sp.) and shrubs. Prominent trees include the English oak tree (Quercus robus), Phoenix palm (Phoenix sp.) and English elm (Ulmus sp.). A pair of ornamental beds planted with colourful cannas (Canna sp.) edges the lower path into the Park.
\nThe Rotunda lawns and beds, in association with the fig tree/rockery backdrop, are the primary focus and identity of the Park. The lawns slope down from the Bowen Bridge Road edge to the shrubbery border along the RNA showgrounds. The main path curves through the lower half from the southern corner at Bowen Bridge Road to the eastern corner at O'Connell Terrace. The bandstand rotunda and colourful central flower beds are the focal points of this area. This area contains evidence of the three major phases of garden development for the Park. The bunya (Araucaria bidwillii), hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii) and Cook (Araucaria columnaris) pines remain from the time of the QAS Gardens. The semi-circle of poinciana (Delonix regia) was established during the 1914 Council refurbishment and sits around an ornamental circular flower bed redesigned by Harry Oakman in the late 1950s.
\nThe free standing, octagonal, timber-framed rotunda stands on face brick piers with brick infill panels. Eight hardwood posts support a bell shaped roof clad with fibre cement shingles. The timber lined ceiling of eight triangular panels falls towards the centre of the rotunda. A decorative timber valance with a harp motif fringes the roof and the rotunda has a timber balustrade containing a tulip motif. The rotunda provides a shady retreat for garden visitors and an elegant platform for band concerts or other performances. The structure was erected in 1914 to a design by Alfred Foster, architectural assistant to the City Engineer. It is similar to the rotunda in New Farm Park also designed by Foster and constructed in 1915.
","history":"Bowen Park is a 1.774 hectare remnant of a parcel of land of almost forty acres bordered by O'Connell Terrace, Bowen Bridge Road, Gregory Terrace and Brooke Street. The Park is important for its survival and continued use since 1863 as a park for public pleasure in inner-city Brisbane, an area under pressure to accommodate increased urban development and consolidation. Granted to the Queensland Acclimatisation Society (QAS) in two parcels in 1863 and 1866, this site was then well out of town on the edge of development and had been worked as a brickfield. Part of this land lay along the watercourse of York's Hollow and the remainder was remnant bushland and brickworks. The site was not ideal for establishing a garden, the soil being of poor quality and rocky in parts, and required substantial reclamation work to form the gardens.
\nThe Bowen Park of 1862 consisted of a series of clay holes and rough bush with a wretched bush track leading from the city across the Fortitude Valley.The area became an attractive and popular recreational venue from 1863 when the QAS established its gardens which extended from the creek to Bowen Bridge Road. The gardens were named Bowen Park, Acclimatisation Society Gardens in honour of the first governor of Queensland and initial patron of the QAS, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, who was active in the establishment of the QAS.
\nThe QAS was formed in 1862 and was most active during its first thirty years introducing, testing, propagating and distributing new plant materials. From its gardens in Bowen Park, it played an important role in commercial agriculture in Queensland and introduced or trialed many crops including mango trees, ginger plants, sugar cane, olive trees and choko vines. There was also some experimental work with specialty crops including cocaine. The Society played an important role in the development of civic and domestic landscapes in Queensland through its concern with ornamental and garden trees and shrubs. From Bowen Park, the Society provided plants to towns, churches and cemeteries. The society also organised educational meetings on botanical subjects. Whereas the Acclimatisation Societies in New South Wales and Victoria placed a considerable emphasis on animals, the QAS focussed on plants though at various times deer, llamas, rabbits, Chinese sheep, Angora goats, pheasants, partridges and a variety of songbirds were on show at Bowen Park.
\nIt is not clear how the QAS used all parts of their land holding but it appears that the main display gardens visited by the public were on the northern and lower parts of their land. The northern portion is within the surviving remnant. The QAS used the site to grow and propagate plants and seeds obtained from other parts of the colony and around the world. They built an office and boardroom, bush-house and glasshouse and established an orchard and formed gardens with ornamental plants. Their plantings were extensive and by 1871 the gardens were recognised as a place of public instruction and recreation. William Soutter was overseer at Bowen Park from 1885 it 1898. Known for his scientific experimentation, horticultural skill and design sense, he was instrumental in Bowen Park achieving a reputation as both an experimental and a recreational/display garden.
\nThe other major botanical garden in Brisbane was the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens (BCBG) established in 1855. Both gardens shared common botanical interests but differed considerably in arrangement and visual character. Both were places for public use and enjoyment. The QAS Gardens were considered to eclipse the BCBG and English nurseryman, James Veitch, in 1880 claimed that the QAS Gardens contained the best collection of tropical trees outside the tropics.
\nAn early catalogue indicates an equal diversity of plants in the two gardens. At BCBG the design incorporated simple straight pathways, uninterrupted lines of single species of plants and elements of a gardenesque design approach which featured individual plants. In contrast, the character of the QAS Gardens was that of a picturesque and exuberant tropical garden. The many decorative features in the QAS Gardens vied with the special plantings for attention.
\nThese decorative elements included a four-metre high coral-stone grotto-like ornamental fountain encrusted with shells, ferns and lichen. ; four pieces of neo-classical statuary (the four seasons), urns and various planting pots; a whale jaw-bone archway; several giant clam shells; all complemented by complex carpet bedding displays on and around a quatrefoil-shaped island within a lagoon with a bamboo grove backdrop. The dense, exuberant Victorian planting was massed in shrubberies and borders interspersed with winding paths creating a wild woodland cum exotic jungle ambience.
\nThe Queensland National Agricultural an Industrial Association was formed in 1875 and seventeen acres of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's land was leased to the National Association as a venue for exhibitions. In 1876 this exhibition area was fenced off, the first exhibition building erected and the first exhibition staged. In 1881, twelve acres were resumed from the Society's holding to construct the railway line from Brisbane to Sandgate. From 1879 twenty-three acres of land from the QAS holding was leased to the National Association for fifty years for use as a exhibition ground.
\nAs the National Association grew the QAS diminished. The former continued to acquire land until the QAS held only four acres. During its most vigorous period many prominent Queensland pastoralists, professional and business people were members of the QAS. As commercial plant nurseries grew and as a range of other public enterprises in horticulture and agriculture were established support for the QAS declined. The 1890s depression affected the maintenance of the QAS Gardens and many plants were sold or transferred to the BCBG.
\nRelations between the National Association and the QAS were not harmonious and their dealings were hampered by distrust and jealousy. The National Association had become the more important organisation with a considerable annual turnover and reluctantly remained a tenant of the QAS. These difficulties were resolved by the passage of the National Association and Acclimatisation Society Act of 1890 under which the Queensland Government resumed the land occupied by the National Association from the QAS and granted it to the Association. By 1906, the QAS was relocating its operations to Lawnton on the North Pine River and the Brisbane Municipal Council held the former Acclimatisation Gardens as a reserve for a public park under the Acclimatisation Act of 1907.
\nBy 1914 the QAS had removed its diminished operations to depots at Lawnton and Wellington Point. The Brisbane Municipal Council purchased the Society's remaining holding in Bowen Park and officially opened the gardens as a public recreational reserve on 11 June 1914. The Council regarded Bowen Park as both a public park for pleasure and recreation and as a nursery for their parks and reserves. Under the supervision of the Council's first Parks Superintendent, Henry Moore, substantial works and improvements were undertaken, including the erection of a bandstand rotunda, introduction of a water service, repair of the glass house and bush house, filling in of the lagoon and construction of new entrance gates. Landscaping work was undertaken including the establishment of eighteen flower beds, five of which formed a rondel around a palm tree on the southern sloping. A number of rose beds were planted out and four statues that had been part of the Acclimatisation Society gardens' fountain were relocated in open lawns. A cottage was erected on O'Connell Terrace for the Council's chauffer and in 1915 the public toilets on the Bowen Bridge Road boundary were constructed. The path configuration was consolidated during this period of work with secondary paths to the Bowen Bridge Road edge added later under Oakman.
\nFrom 1930 to 1950 further parcels of land were sold to the now Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association (RNA) and in 1940 the widening of Bowen Bridge Road reclaimed a further 13.3 perches. There was considerable opposition to attempts by the RNA to claim more land from Bowen Park during the 1950s but 8.9 perches was reclaimed for the wood chopping stadium in 1955.
\nDuring 1950 to 1959, Harry Oakman, Parks Superintendent for Brisbane City Council, prepared a plan for additional works in Bowen Park. His intention was to present colourful patterned displays on the lawns to passing traffic and tram passengers and to patients and staff in the Royal Brisbane Hospital (across Bowen Bridge Road). He retained most of the major trees planted during 1914-1917 and those remaining from the QAS period including fig trees (Ficus benjamina) in the centre, bunya (Araucaria bidwillii), hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii) and Cook (Araucaria columnaris) pines, phoenix palm (Phoenix sp.), an English oak (Quercus robus), a rubber tree (Ficus elastica), frangipanis (Plumeria obtusa) and poincianas (Delonix regia). He replaced the circular flower beds on the southern sloping lawn with decorative shaped colourful beds. On the cleared northern terrace he planted a large circular arrangement of flower beds surrounded by a hedge. He added paths and modified the Bowen Bridge Road edge to include extensive flower beds. A drinking fountain was included at the south entrance off Bowen Bridge Road. His plant vocabulary included Acalyhpas, Crotons, Plumbago, Belerperone and Ginger - plants used in many of his Brisbane park designs.
\nSince 1960 the Brisbane City Council park management has maintained the park structure and layout of paths and retained the trees. Many display beds for annuals have been removed. The large round bedding display in the north section has been removed and perennials planted in the central beds. The edge of the Park to Bowen Bridge Road has been altered with road widenings and the addition of a tram shelter (c.1920s) and bus shelters (c.1990s). The lower stone walls, Acalypha hedging and some flower displays remain.
","criteria":"Bowen Park survives as part of the site of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's (QAS) grounds and gardens from 1863 to 1914. Remnant planting from this time is important in demonstrating the operations of the QAS and its contribution to the development of commercial agriculture and civic and domestic landscapes in Queensland.
As one of the first parks established by the Brisbane Municipal Council, Bowen Park demonstrates the importance the Council placed on the provision of recreational parks and gardens. The Park is important for its association with the Council nursery activities associated with the gardens and the contribution these activities made to the maintenance and improvement of Bowen Park and other parks and reserves under Council jurisdiction.
Bowen Park is an integral element within an historic precinct situated around York's Hollow and along Bowen Bridge Road between Gregory Terrace and Breakfast Creek, which has been important in the evolution of Brisbane's and Queensland's history. This area includes the residential, ecclesiastic and educational structures along Gregory Terrace overlooking Victoria Park, Bowen Park, an early tram shelter shed adjacent to Bowen Park along Bowen Bridge Road, the RNA Grounds, the former Exhibition Building at the northeast corner of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road, the Exhibition Railway, Victoria Park, Centenary Pool, the Electricity Sub-station at the northwest corner of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace, Victoria Park Golf Course, the former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse, Royal Brisbane Hospital, and the Herston Medial School.
|Bowen Park is important for its various historical layers of design, demonstrating the development of garden design and the changes in focus and priorities of the garden activities. The Park is important for its design and aesthetic expression of the gardenesque, Edwardian and Modern park styles. The ornamental flower beds remaining from the 1914-1917 period designed by Henry Moore and the 1950s work by Harry Oakman are substantially intact and demonstrate the decorative features popular in garden and park development of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The location, style and planting of garden beds associated with shrubberies and hedges demonstrate the decorative Edwardian style and the Modern subtropical planting style of garden design.
|Bowen Park occupies a prominent gateway location to the inner-city. Its ornamental planting beds, stone walls and attractive entrance gates contribute a bold and colourful presence to the streetscape. Other elements contributing to the historical and aesthetic qualities of the place include a 1914 bandstand rotunda, 1915 toilet block [one of the earliest municipal toilet blocks surviving in Brisbane], stone stairs and the northern and southern ends of the park, and drinking fountains thought to date to the 1950s.
|Bowen Park is important as one of Brisbane's first public gardens and has been in continuous use as a cultural and recreational destination since 1863.
|Bowen Park is important for its association with Sir George Ferguson Bowen, the first governor of Queensland and first patron of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society.
Bowen Park is important for its association with William Soutter, overseer of the QAS gardens at Bowen Park from 1885 to 1898. Soutter influenced the development of horticulture in Queensland through his experimental work for the QAS, his contributions to shows and international exhibitions and his publications.
Bowen Park is important for its association with the professional landscape gardener and horticulturist, Henry Moore. His design work in Brisbane includes areas of New Farm Park and Newstead Park.
Bowen Park is important for its association with Harry Oakman, Parks Superintendent for the Brisbane City Council 1948-63. Oakman was the first purpose-trained landscape architect to be employed by a government in Queensland. His contribution to the form and character of tropical landscape has influenced the design of most of the established public parks in Brisbane as well as Queen's Park, Townsville. His design work is typified in Bowen Park.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16288,"place_ref":601525,"name":"Albert State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"210-220 Albert Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-11-28","description":"Albert State School comprises a substantial teaching building and war memorial standing on spacious grounds with mature trees on a corner site in Maryborough. The school is in a low-density residential neighbourhood near the main centre of town and is prominent within its context.
Facing northeast and overlooking the main entrance on Albert Street is a large, symmetrical building (Ferguson teaching building) set back from the front boundary behind an expansive lawn, garden beds and mature trees. A formally-arranged memorial garden is situated at the entrance comprising timber flagstaff, concrete paths and low hedges in symmetrically arranged brick garden beds. Within the garden, a sandstone obelisk bears four leaded marble tablets listing 43 past pupils who died in World War I. Behind the memorial, mounted to the front of the school building, is a marble tablet memorial to George James, a past head teacher of the school.
The Ferguson teaching building is highly intact. It is a large, timber-framed building clad in chamferboards and highset on steel posts with perimeter brick walls and square brick piers around an open understorey play area with concrete floor and small, brick store rooms. The bricks are visibly of two different ages indicating the original lowset form of the building. Each of the three wings of the U-shaped building, formed around a parade ground, has wide verandahs running lengthways on both sides with attached teachers' rooms. The prominent corrugated metal-clad roof has multiple, intersecting and projecting gables. Its gable ends feature a variety of elaborate timberwork, including: moulded barge boards; scrolled, paired eaves brackets; fretwork; mouldings; stop-chamfering; lattice; finials; and pendants. Metal louvres in the apex of the gables vent the roof space.
The building retains hood mouldings and windows that rarely survive at other, similar schools and are distinguishing features. The gable ends of the side wings retain sheet-metal hood mouldings, over banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights and sunhoods, which indicate the location and size of the original narrow windows. In other locations above high level sills are original tall, narrow windows with vertically centre-pivoting sashes and later casement windows.
Accessed by timber stairs, the verandahs feature a variety of high-quality, decorative treatments, including diagonally-laid timber board ceilings, brackets, stop chamfered posts with mouldings, and an elaborate, cross-braced balustrade. The verandahs also retain original tall, high-level windows into the classrooms, as well as banks of later timber-framed, double hung sashes with fanlights. Mounted on the front verandah wall facing the street are large, timber honour boards that list high-achieving pupils and more of these boards are in storage on site. The building retains rows of metal hat hooks as well as an early sink. Original timber French doors with tall fanlights provide access into the interior.
Internally, the original large classrooms are divided by more recent light-weight partitions into smaller rooms, however, the northwest wing retains one classroom of original size. The interior walls of the classrooms and teacher's rooms are lined with more recent sheet material and a suspended ceiling has been installed throughout. The partitions and linings are reversible. Short lengths of the verandahs have been enclosed and the verandah wall removed to incorporate this space into the classroom. The building retains original doors including large, braced board doors and panelled doors with bolection moulding and original door and window hardware.
An early school bell is mounted to a timber post near the verandah of the northwest wing and the school retains a collection of early school-related paraphernalia including desks, cabinets, chairs, administration books, a bell, photographs, trophies, shields, sewing, an ink well, cane, and piano with stool.
Other structures within the heritage boundary are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Albert State School in Maryborough opened in 1883 in a substantial new building designed by architect, Robert Ferguson, in a period when the town was undergoing major expansion and during the establishment of important institutions. As Maryborough grew, the school expanded to include other structures and landscape elements. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has long been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nOn the traditional land of the Badtjala (Butchulla) people, the small town of Maryborough grew quickly from its establishment in 1847. After relocating downstream from its original position between 1852 and 1856, Maryborough was proclaimed a Port of Entry in 1859 and a municipality in 1861. Early exports from the port included wool, timber, tallow, sugar, and coal. Maryborough became the port for Gympie after gold was discovered there in 1867.[1]
\nThe 1880s were a prosperous time for the colony of Queensland generally. The population of Maryborough and district grew dramatically between 1876 and 1881, and this continued into the late 1880s.[2] Maryborough's dominance as a regional centre was strengthened when a railway line connecting Gympie to Maryborough's port was completed in 1881.[3] The years 1870 to 1890 were extremely profitable for Maryborough and new commercial establishments, industries and financial and other institutions were established in the town.
\nAlthough the first government school opened in the town in 1862, Maryborough experienced a dramatic growth in schools beginning in 1875, with nine schools opening in 16 years. Granville State School and Tinana State School opened in 1875, the Sisters of Mercy Convent School in 1880, Maryborough Grammar School in 1881, St Helens State School in 1882, Albert State School in 1883, Maryborough West State School in 1886, a Christian Brothers School in 1888, and Sunbury State School in 1891.[4]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools were established in 1848 in New South Wales and continued in Queensland following the colony's creation in 1859. After the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland's public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[6]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[7]
\nPlanning for Albert State School occurred during 1881 beginning with choosing a two acre (0.8ha) in January. Fundraising began in March and tenders were called in August for construction of a ‘spacious and well-designed school house, and a master's residence'. This was won by local contractor, Messrs G and E Negus.[8] The final construction cost was £2500.[9]
\nMany significant buildings were constructed in Maryborough in the late 1870s and 1880s, reflecting the prosperity of the times, including Maryborough Court House (1877), the Bank of New South Wales (1877), St Paul's Church of England (1879), Maryborough Railway Station (1880), Maryborough Grammar School buildings (boys' in 1881 and girls' in 1883), the Criterion Hotel (1883), Maryborough Mortuary Chapel (1884), Maryborough Hospital (1888), and the Maryborough School of Arts (1888) - as well as fine, architect-designed suburban villas for wealthy residents. The substantial building for Albert State School was constructed in the midst of this boom.
\nAlbert State School was built to a standard plan supplied by the Queensland Government. The government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help ensure consistency and economy. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[10]
\nThe teaching building for Albert State School was built facing northeast to Albert Street and was a standard design by architect, Robert Ferguson. Ferguson was appointed in 1879 by the Department of Public Instruction as its first Superintendent of Buildings. Ferguson immediately revised the design of schools to address deficiencies in ventilation and lighting and this period of school design was pivotal in this regard. Ferguson introduced tall and decorative ventilation spires to the roof and louvred panels to the gable apex to vent the classrooms. Additional and larger windows were incorporated with high sill heights that did not allow draughts and sunlight to enter the room. The overall form was lowset on brick piers and in larger schools multiple classrooms were arranged symmetrically around a parade ground. The designs remained single-skin to eliminate 'receptacles for germs and vermin' but were lined externally rather than internally to address the previous weathering problem. Notably, Ferguson's buildings were decoratively-treated with a variety of elaborate timber work and were heralded by educationalists as 'far superior in design, material and workmanship to any we have before built'.[11]
\nIn 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother's designs until his death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[12] The Ferguson period (1879-1893) is distinct and marked by extensive redesign of school buildings including associated structures and furniture. The Ferguson brothers' designs were reflective of educational requirements of the time, responsive to criticism of previous designs, revolutionary in terms of internal environmental quality, technically innovative, popular and successful and provided a long-lasting legacy of good school design.[13]
\nThe teaching building at Albert State School was typical of Ferguson's designs. It was a large, lowset timber-framed building with a multi-gabled roof and prominent ventilation roof spire. It accommodated students in three large classrooms with verandahs on all sides. The building was attractively decorated with carpenter gothic timber work. The central wing accommodated rooms for hats, cloaks and lavatories at either end, and was separated by passageways from the classrooms in each side wing.[14]
\nThe school opened on 9 July 1883 with 220 children and 80 visitors present. Although the building was designed to accommodate up to 250 students, by September there was an average attendance of 320 students, and by the end of the school year attendance reached 450.[15] The unusually rapid increase of students was remarkable, demanding more classroom space urgently.[16] Extensions to the building, also by Robert Ferguson, were designed in late 1884. A large classroom was added to the rear of each side wing, and two hat and cloak rooms were added to both the northwest and southeast outer verandahs.[17] In form and detail, the new work was identical to the existing. Construction began immediately and was completed in 1885 by contractor John Jones. A newspaper reported that year that Albert State School was 'said to be the second best in the colony'.[18]
\nIn 1891 the average daily attendance was 611, making it the largest coeducational school in Queensland.[19] A newspaper report of 1896 said it was the largest and best equipped school in Maryborough, the district, and (in some respects) Queensland. It emphasised the high academic achievement of its graduates and its superior and extensive educational equipment, the excellent sanitary facilities, and the beautiful grounds with camphor laurel and fig trees.[20]
\nThe grounds of Albert State School were extensively planted and accommodated large open play areas, typical of Queensland schools. The provision of outdoor play space was a result of an early and continued commitment to play-based education and schools were built on spacious grounds to facilitate this. The grounds were planted with trees and gardens for beautification and shade, critical in Queensland.[21] A 1915 report of Albert State School stated that the trees were tended with 'solicitous care' and the school grounds were densely shaded, with classes held under the trees, benefitting the health of the pupils. The school was described as one of the 'beauty spots' of the town and the Education Department should ‘justly be proud of its educative work in this direction'.[22]
\nA tall sandstone obelisk was built at the front of Albert State School and was unveiled by the Mayor of Maryborough, George Holbut, on 14 December 1917. It was a memorial to past pupils killed during World War I, which was still ongoing, and was built from donations by relatives and friends of the dead servicemen.[23] It had 25 names on two of its four marble panels - another 18 names would later be added as the war continued. Over time, the obelisk became the site for remembrance ceremonies for the school and local community.
\nOver time, the Ferguson teaching building at Albert State School was altered to meet contemporary educational demands, particularly for improved lighting and ventilation. The Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educationalists and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. Existing lowset buildings were raised for increased ventilation with the added benefit of providing a covered play space in the understorey. In 1926 the Ferguson teaching building at Albert State School was raised on tall brick piers and the ground underneath was concreted to create a large, understorey play space.[24]
\nAnother standard alteration was to the fenestration and classroom size of existing buildings. At schools across the state, windows were enlarged and sills lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms provided a greater amount of natural light so large classrooms were subdivided. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[25] During the 1920s and 1930s alterations were made to the vast majority of older school buildings to upgrade their lighting and ventilation and although this occurred at Albert State School it was to a lesser extent than most schools, with the Ferguson teaching building retaining most of its high-level windows. However, the existing windows in the gable walls facing the street were enlarged using banks of casements to brighten and better ventilate the rooms. In addition, all but one of the classrooms were divided with new partitions to create smaller rooms.
\nIn 1930 a marble tablet was unveiled by Director of Education, BJ McKenna in front of a very large gathering at the school. The tablet was prominently mounted centrally at the front of the Ferguson teaching building and was a memorial to the late George James, head teacher of the school for 24 years.[26]
\nIn 1932 a new highset teaching building was constructed at Albert State School to a standard design by the Department of Public Works. Accommodating infants, this building was attached to the rear of the eastern wing of the Ferguson building and was extended and altered over time.
\nThe accommodation at the school remained relatively static between 1932 and the 1980s; however, the grounds were expanded to provide more room for recreation.[27] An additional half-acre (0.2ha) of land was obtained on the southeast side of the school between 1951 and 1961, while land across Zante Street to the northwest was acquired from 1960.[28] Land was also obtained c1977 on the other side of Albert Street from the school, for a pre-school building, and later sold.[29]
\nOver time, some alteration of the Ferguson teaching building occurred, however, as this work was minor, the bulk of the building remained largely unchanged. To modernise and brighten the classrooms, in 1954 the interior walls were lined with sheet material and a flat ceiling was installed concealing the roof trusses. Between 1973 and 1977 the hat and cloak rooms on the verandahs were extended, providing small rooms for storage and staff. The large classroom in the centre wing was altered to accommodate administration in 1978 and in 1981 part of a verandah was enclosed for a staff room.[30] In 1988 a further part of a verandah was enclosed and more partitions were inserted. At some time, the roof fleches were removed.
\nBetween the 1960s and 1980s Queensland education was reformed. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education began and required new architectural responses. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of school design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. New materials, technologies, educational philosophies, government policies, architectural styles, and functional requirements influenced the evolution of standard designs and the predominance of highset, timber-framed buildings decreased.[31]
\nAfter a long period of relative inactivity, changes began to occur at Albert State School that reflected the push to modernise. The original teacher's residence, on the corner of Albert and Zante streets, was removed c1979-1988. In 1985 a tuckshop and toilet block was built behind the main building; a janitor's and sports equipment store was added to the northwest in 1986, and in 1987 a new two-storey teaching building was constructed on the site of the original tennis courts, later extended in 1989 and 1992. Shade structures were added in the 1990s and in 2010 two new buildings were added to the school grounds - a multipurpose hall and a teaching building. Through a gradual acquisition of land across Zante Street (including a closed section of the road itself), the school grounds totalled 2.9 hectares by 2014.
\nIn 2014, the school continues to operate from the site and the Ferguson teaching building remains highly intact. The school is important to the city having operated since 1883 and having taught generations of Maryborough students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Maryborough community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time.
","criteria":"Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. Albert State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Maryborough community. It was established in 1883 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and has educated generations of Maryborough children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Maryborough and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
|Albert State School is important for its aesthetic significance and generates a strong sense of place. The school is a landmark with the substantial Ferguson teaching building prominently sited in generous, landscaped grounds with large shade trees. The war memorial at the front entrance of the school, comprising a large sandstone obelisk, paths, garden beds and a tall flagstaff, has symbolic meaning and remains the focal point for annual remembrance ceremonies. Highly-intact, the Ferguson teaching building has considerable architectural value as a building of high-quality materials and construction with well-composed symmetrical elevations and layout, and decorative, finely-crafted timber work.
|Albert State School (established in 1883) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent, representative example of a standard government-designed school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
Constructed during a major boom period, Albert State School is also important in demonstrating the expansion of Maryborough in the 1870s and 1880s. Maryborough was a prominent and prosperous centre in colonial Queensland, which is reflected by the high-quality and size of the Ferguson teaching building.
|Albert State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees and assembly/play areas; and highset timber-framed teaching buildings of standard designs that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation.
The substantial, timber-framed teaching building designed by architect, Robert Ferguson is highly-intact, which is rare, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type. It retains: a symmetrical, U-shaped plan form of large classrooms surrounded by generous verandahs with projecting teacher's rooms; high-quality timber decorative detailing; and effective natural lighting and ventilation features.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16289,"place_ref":601526,"name":"North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"North Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-21","description":"The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex occupies a large site on the northeast bank of the Bremer River in North Ipswich, approximately 1.5km north of the Ipswich central business district (CBD). Its main entrance is from North Street at the east. At the western end of the complex, the heritage boundary runs to the northeast and the south to meet the Bremer River at either end, reflecting the 1863 alignment of the former Mihi railway line.
\nThe complex comprises an extensive collection of workshop, warehouse, technical facility, administration and workers’ amenity buildings, as well as a water tower, railway sidings, and landscaped outdoor areas. Generally, the workshop buildings are located at the western side of the site and flank a central east-west axis, which is shaped by the strong linear alignment of a Traverser. The main entrance, water tower, administration, amenity and technical facility buildings are generally at the east side of the site; and a large railway yard is located at the south end of the complex.
\nThe main entrance to the complex is marked by a Timekeepers’ Office (accessed from North Street), and opens into a large, open and partly-landscaped square, which features the Ipswich Railway Workshops War Memorial (QHR 600605), dedicated to the enlisted workers of the railway workshops. Various other open spaces within the site provide a setting for and views to and from significant buildings, and facilitate the understanding of the historical functional relationships between buildings.
\nFeatures of North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex of state-level cultural heritage significance include:[i]
\nMihi Line Alignment (1863)
\nThe heritage boundary running along the western side of the site reflects the 1863 alignment of the Mihi Line (the original line from Ipswich to Grandchester). Northwest of the complex, this alignment connects to the location of a former rail bridge (located within Mihi Creek Complex, QHR 645610) via a Sandstone Railway Culvert (QHR 602562), and to the south, it curves past the Riverlink Shopping Centre to meet the Bremer River Rail Bridge (QHR 602568). While the railway tracks have been removed, the alignment at the south connects with the current rail corridor.
\nFeatures of the Mihi Line Alignment also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Mihi Line Alignment not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n1880s Buildings:
\nThe 1880s Buildings comprise five propose-built railway workshops. The buildings are arranged in a parallel alignment to the north of the Traverser axis and west of the Blacksmith Shop, and include:
\nThe five 1880s Buildings share a similar scale, form, material treatment and ornamental detail. They are all single storey, long and narrow structures with short sides (gable ends) that face south/north and are separated by laneways. Constructed of simple and robust materials, the buildings are articulated and detailed in a style typical of the late Victorian era, with a bold use of brickwork in projecting plinths, pilasters, corbels, dentil courses and string courses.
\nThe large main entrance doorways to the gable ends are generally round arch openings, symmetrically placed in the elevation and often flanking a smaller central window. These large openings enable the movement and transportation of rolling stock, materials and machinery into the buildings, via railway tracks leading from the Traverser axis and/or other buildings (some tracks have later been removed or concreted over). To the long elevations, window and door openings generally have arched headers. Door and window dressings are a combination of Helidon freestone, bricks or cement render, and feature a restrained use of coloured brick or stone voussoirs and keystones, raking arches and moulded projections.
\nA range of early machinery associated with the functioning of the workshops is retained within the buildings.
\nFeatures of the 1880s Buildings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the 1880s Buildings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n1903-04 Buildings and Structures:
\nThe ten 1903-1904 buildings and structures accommodate railway workshops, storage, power generation, and water storage and supply. The workshop and storage buildings are generally dispersed along the Traverser, with the power generation and water storage and structures concentrated in the northwest corner of the complex. The Pump House stands on the bank of the Bremer River at the west of the complex. These buildings and structures include:
\nWater Tower (1904)[ii]
\nThe water tower is a rendered masonry tower with a metal water tank at its top, located at the highest point at the north end of the site. The water tower is a prominent feature of the complex and is visible from North and WM Hughes streets as well as from the complex’s yards and Traverser.
\nFeatures of the Water Tower also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Water Tower not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPump House (1903)
\nThe Pump House is located on the east bank of the Bremer River, west of the fenced railway workshops complex site. It comprises a metal (cast iron)-framed structure that protects a pump (now decommissioned) used to reticulate water up to the Water Tower at the highest point of the site.
\nFeatures of the Pump House also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPower House (1903)[iii]
\nThe Power House is a large, purpose-built, single storey building with two prominent towers located on the rise of a hill at the northern end of the complex. The building and its two towers are visible from around the workshop's yards and traverser as well as from North and WM Hughes streets. From its raised position, the Power House also has views over the workshops, and to, from and between the Traverser.
\nFeatures of the Power House also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Power House not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBogie and Brake Shop (1904), Blacksmith Shop (1903, extended 1922 and by 1946), Supply Warehouse (1904, extended 1914 and 1925), and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop (1903, extended 1927)
\nThe Bogie and Brake Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Supply Warehouse and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop are four purpose-built workshop and warehouse buildings of similar design, located along the north side of the Traverser.
\nFeatures of the Bogie and Brake Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Supply Warehouse, and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Bogie and Brake Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Supply Warehouse and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBoiler Shop (1903, extended 1918, 1936 and 1944), Erecting and Machine Shop (1903, extended 1928 and 1938), and Carriage and Wagon Shop (1903)
\nThe Boiler Shop[iv], Erecting and Machine Shop and Carriage and Wagon Shop are three purpose-built workshop buildings of similar design, located along the south side of the Traverser. The workshops front the Traverser to the north, with laneways between, and railway tracks access the buildings from the southern rail yards.
\nFeatures of the Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n1906-12 Buildings:
\nThe 1906-12 Buildings comprise timber and metal-framed, lightweight structures of varying styles, functions and details. They include:
\nThe Timekeepers’ Office is a distinctive, two-storey building that is located at the eastern end of the site (fronting North Street). Marking the front entrance to the workshops complex and formerly used as the official employee entry / exit point to clock in and out of work, the ground floor’s long (east and west) elevations feature wide doors connected to internal thoroughfares (interior partitions defining thoroughfares have been removed; locations identifiable by nibs in walls). The thoroughfares ran through the building and led to a large square to its western side. Its first floor features offices, with a verandah along its west side overlooking the workshops and square.
\nAt the north end of the square is the highset, single-storey, timber-framed Dining Hall. The building comprises a large central dining room (partitioned off at its eastern side for offices and classrooms (1935)), with a projecting meeting room (former kitchen) to the west and offices (former dining room) to the east, and a kitchen, retail shop and toilets (former rear verandah, now enclosed) to the north. It has a verandah wrapping its front (south) elevation, which forms the main entrance into the dining room. To the understorey of the building are bicycle racks that were formerly used by the workshops employees, separated into bays for employees of different trade shops.
\nThe Loco Store stands within the railway yards at the south end of the complex. It is a long and narrow, timber and metal-framed building, constructed in two stages – with its southern section featuring materials (including the roof trusses and roof lantern) recycled from earlier workshops buildings. It comprises a singular internal space.
\nThe Paint Shop and Fibreglass Shed are located at the western edge of the complex. The Paint Shop is aligned along the south side of the Traverser, adjacent the Carriage and Wagon Shop, and the Fibreglass Shed is northwest of the 1880s Buildings. These two buildings are constructed of simple and robust materials, and comprise singular internal spaces for use as workshops.
\nFeatures of the 1906-1912 Buildings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTimekeepers’ Office (1911)
\nDining Hall (1912, extended 1935)
\nLoco Store (1906, extended 1909)
\nFibreglass Shed (1911)
\nPaint Shop (1912)
\nFeatures of the 1906-1912 Buildings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n1930s-40s Buildings
\nThe 1930s-40s Buildings comprise two face brick structures, immediately fronting North Street at the eastern edge of the complex, and a timber-framed structure within the railway yards at the south end of the complex. These structures include:
\nFeatures of the 1930s-40s Buildings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTool and Gauge Shop (1941)[v]
\nLaboratory (1939 & 1941)
\nLighting Up Shed (c1940)
\nFeatures of the 1930s-40s Buildings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTraverser (1982) and Traverser Track (1903), including views along ‘Streetscape’
\nThe Traverser forms a strong east-west axis through the centre of the complex: from the Boiler Shop at the east, to the boundary fence at the west. It comprises a platform (the Traverser, 1982) that runs horizontally along metal railway tracks (1903), and facilitates the efficient movement and distribution of rolling stock and materials to, from and between workshop buildings.
\nThe Traverser axis provides a visual and physical connection between most of the 1880s and 1903-04 workshops, and forms a manufactured streetscape of robust industrial buildings. Buildings along this streetscape share a cohesive and consistent scale (tall single-storey buildings), material treatment (face brick walls, corrugated roofs, render and stone quoins, and timber doors) and ornamental detail (arched doors; polychromatic brick dentils and courses). The streetscape enables east-west views from one side of the workshops complex to the other, as well as views to, from and between the workshops, which contributes to an understanding of the historical functioning of the complex as a whole. The Traverser streetscape is a distinctive feature of the workshops, demonstrating functional and visual relationships within the site.
\nFeatures of the Traverser and Traverser Track also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Traverser and Traverser Track not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRailway Sidings and Alignments
\nVarious railway tracks and sidings are retained throughout the site, running between, through and across workshop buildings; through the southern yard; and through the north end of the site. The yard at the southern end of the site features an extensive network of railway tracks that fan out toward the workshops at the north from the corridor of the Main Line at the south. Remnants of sidings remain at the northwest end of the site, indicating a network of railway tracks that fanned out from the northwest toward the workshop buildings to the south.
\nFeatures of the Railway Sidings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape and Setting
\nThroughout the complex, there is a range of landscape features, such as mature trees, gardens, open spaces, footpath alignments and embankments that contribute to the setting of the place and planning geometry of the site, and / or were planted as a part of the social projects to beautify the workshops.
\nFeatures of the Landscape and Setting also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Landscape and Setting not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n\n
\n
___________________________________________________________________
\n
[i] Reference numbers refer to a composite building labelling system derived from Buchannan Architect’s 1996 Conservation Management Plan ([R] labels), and Queensland Rail ([IS] labels). Most buildings are painted with their applicable reference number.
[ii] The interior of the Water Tower was not inspected in 2020.
[iii] The interior of the Power House was not inspected in 2020.
[iv] The interior of the Boiler Shop was not inspected in 2020.
[v] The interior of the Tool and Gauge Shop was not inspected in 2020.
The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex, established in 1864 and moved to this site from 1885, was Queensland’s premier railway maintenance facility. Constructed in two main stages, the workshops provided a comprehensive, large-scale facility for constructing, assembling and repairing rolling stock to supply the railway network across Queensland. Six large brick workshop buildings (one later demolished) were constructed in the 1880s, followed in the 1900s by seven additional large workshop buildings designed around a Traverser; a Power House and water facilities to supply electricity to the complex; and a network of railway lines connecting the workshops. Additional buildings, including administrative and staff facilities (Timekeepers’ Office, and Dining Hall) were built in the 1910s, and technological facilities (Tool and Gauge Shop, and Laboratory) during World War II. The workshops, one of the largest employers in Ipswich and one of the largest industrial undertakings in Queensland, operated on the site until the 1960s, when its functions were gradually transferred to new railway workshops at Redbank. The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex continues to function with a small number of staff, and a railway museum opened in the complex in 2002. The complex also includes a section of the alignment of Queensland’s first railway, the Mihi Line, surveyed in 1863.
\nEstablishment of the workshops
\nIn the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856, and following separation, Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres.[1]
\nThe construction of Queensland’s first railway line started in early 1864. Unusually, the line did not start from the capital: the colony’s most urgent need was to improve transport to the productive Darling Downs region, while transport between Brisbane and Ipswich could be serviced by river.[2] The first section of line, running from Ipswich 34km west to Bigge’s Camp (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in July 1865, gradually extending to the Darling Downs and further west. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. The link between Ipswich and Brisbane was completed in 1875.
\nAn essential feature of the railway network was a workshop where the Queensland Railway Department could assemble and maintain its rolling stock. Queensland’s first workshops were built in North Ipswich, about 1km south of the present site (Lot 382 SP275337 in 2021). The site, situated on the northern banks of the Bremer River opposite the Ipswich town centre, was chosen for its proximity to shipping facilities and the railway terminus.[3] From 1864, an array of general purpose of workshop buildings were constructed,[4] including two pre-fabricated ‘erecting shops’ shipped from England.[5]
\nInitially the workshops undertook assembly and maintenance work only, as locomotives were imported pre-fabricated from Britain. In 1865, however, the workshops began building rolling stock in-house, commencing with an engine truck and progressing to ten wagons in 1866. In 1877, the workshop staff constructed its first locomotive, an A10 class constructed mainly from existing spare parts. The workshops also maintained a fleet of vehicles, some of which experienced significant wear on the Main Range line; assembled locomotives, which were still imported into Queensland; and built castings and fittings for the Brisbane railway extension.[6]
\nAdditional railway workshops were opened at Rockhampton, Mackay, Cairns and Townsville, serving the central and northern divisions of Queensland’s divided railway system. Supplementary workshops for the southern division were opened at Toowoomba, but the North Ipswich workshops was the only one which built new locomotives.[7] The workshops became one the largest employers in Ipswich, with skilled workers arriving from England and southern colonies.[8] Between 200 and 400 men were employed at the workshops in the 1870s and early 1880s.
\nMihi Line Alignment (1863)
\nThe workshops were reached via a section of railway line known as the ‘Mihi Line’. This line – the first section of the Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp railway – was Queensland’s first section of railway, surveyed in 1863 and built in 1864. The line followed the north bank of the Bremer River, passing through the workshop site and crossing three iron bridges at Wide Gully, the Mihi Creek junction and Iron Pot Gully, before extending southwest to Wulkuraka. A bridge was constructed across the Bremer River to connect the line to the terminus at Ipswich. The first test locomotive (Faugh-a-Ballagh) was run along the Mihi Line, between the workshops and Wide Gully, in January 1865.[9] The line was officially opened in July 1865.
\nAfter flooding and embankment collapses, a section of the Mihi Line near Mihi Creek (1 mile 5 ½ chains from Ipswich) was realigned in 1868.[10] The Mihi Line was bypassed in 1875 in favour of a shorter route between Ipswich and Wulkuraka across Sadlier’s Crossing,[11] but a small section of the Mihi Line was left operational for the workshops and surrounding coal mines.[12]
\n1880s buildings
\nBy the 1880s, the North Ipswich Railway Workshops had reached capacity. Its buildings were cramped and unable to produce sufficient rolling stock to equip the new railway lines opening across the colony.[13] From 1879, private manufacturing firms were engaged to construct locomotives and other rolling stock,[14] but these were also inadequate for the growing volume of work. In January 1884, funding was set aside for new railway workshops at North Ipswich.[15] The original site was unable to expand further, so additional land was obtained directly north of the railway workshops.[16] The new site, a large flat area between the Bremer River and the main road to the Ipswich waterworks (later North Street), was accessed from the old workshops via a recommissioned section of the Mihi Line, with branch lines constructed into the buildings.[17]
\nSix new workshops buildings were constructed on the new site between 1884 and 1889: the Carriage Erection Shop (later Trimmers’ and Electroplating Shop); Wagon Shop (later Wheel Shop); Paint Shop (later K-Mill) and Machine Shop (later Tarpaulin Shop); Fitting Shop (also used as a Wagon Shop; not extant)[18]; and the Blacksmith or Smithy (later Spring Shop). Most of these were arranged in a formal east-west row, with parallel buildings aligned north-south, establishing the basic layout of the workshops.
\nThe six buildings, designed by staff within the Queensland Railway Department under the direction of Chief Engineer Henry Stanley, were both functional and attractive. Though simple and robust industrial buildings – each building comprising a large open space in which relevant machinery was installed[19] – they were carefully articulated and detailed with contrasting coloured brickwork, giving them a ‘very attractive appearance’.[20] The buildings applied similar form and materials to create a cohesive but imposing ‘colony’ on the site.[21] The impressive scale and design drew public attention, with journalists and officials visiting the workshops.[22] The two sets of purpose-built large beech timber doors of the Carriage Erection Shop (6ft 9in x 10ft 6in) were displayed at the Brisbane Exhibition in 1885, a month before they were installed at both ends of the building. [23]
\nCarriage builders, fitters, blacksmiths and carpenters were transferred to the new workshops as the buildings were completed. The 102 acre workshop site was formally gazetted in 1892.[24]
\n1903-4 buildings
\nTwelve buildings had been planned for the 1880s expansion,[25] but financial restrictions, political considerations and flooding postponed further construction.[26] Workshop functions over the next decade were undertaken at the old and new buildings, though this situation was less than ideal. The rail connection between the two workshops was cut by floods on multiple occasions, and the 1880s buildings were ‘never properly used’.[27] Engines were left in the yards awaiting repair for long periods of time,[28] and boiler repairs were undertaken in the open air as there was insufficient room undercover.[29] As Queensland’s railway system expanded further through the 1890s, the North Ipswich workshops again became inadequate to carry out the necessary volume of work.[30] Plans were prepared for a new set of workshops to be built alongside the 1880s buildings.
\nIn 1898, two boilers which had been repaired in the North Ipswich workshops exploded at Roma Street station. A Court of Inquiry was held and recommended that the workshops should be ‘enlarged, extended and equipped with most modern tools and appliances.’[31] As plans had already been prepared and funding set aside, a contractor began work on the new buildings in March 1899. At the same time, a new Chief Mechanical Engineer, William Nisbet, was appointed and began a tour of inspection of workshops in America. On his arrival in Queensland in August, he redesigned the layout of the building and site plans.[32]
\nConstruction recommenced in September 1899. Eight new workshop buildings were constructed over the following four years: a Boiler Shop; Erecting and Machine Shop; Carriage and Wagon Shop; Power House (1903); Blacksmith or Smithy (1903); Pattern Shop (1904); Foundry (1904); and Stores (1903, later Supply Warehouse); as well as a cast-iron Pump House (1903) and Water Tower (1904), both associated with the Power House. Timber sheds were also constructed for the woodwork section, but are no longer extant.[33]
\nThe buildings in the complex were again designed within the Queensland Railway Department. The department employed a number of well-regarded engineers, draftsmen and architects in the late 19th and early 20th century. Those who signed plans for the North Ipswich Railway Workshop Complex buildings included: Henrick Hansen (also responsible for the design of station buildings at Emerald (QHR 600490), Mount Morgan (QHR 600752), Archer Park in Rockhampton (QHR 600777) and Longreach (QHR 601970)); Vincent Price (who also designed the railway stations at the Townsville Railway Station and North Yards Railway Workshops (QHR 600906), Gympie Railway Station (QHR 602036) and Cairns Railway (QHR 600755)); Henry Stanley (Chief Engineer of Railways 1872-1901, and responsible for the design of railway bridges including the Burdekin River Bridge (QHR 600442) and Albert Bridge (QHR 600232)); William Pagan (Chief Engineer 1902-1911, and responsible for the design of railway bridges on the Mungar to Monto line, the Toowoomba to Helidon line, and Swansons Rail Bridge (QHR 600871));[34] and Francis Jones (who later designed the Isis District War Memorial and Shire Council Chambers (QHR 601507)).[35]
\nThe new buildings revealed the range of activities that were performed at the workshops. Boilers were repaired and manufactured in the Boiler Shop. Rough castings, fittings and forgings were machined in the Machine Shop, and locomotives were built or overhauled in the Erecting Shop (dismantled, parts replaced, new boilers fitted and reassembled). New wagons and passenger cars were built in the Carriage and Wagon Shop, and old ones were repaired. The Pattern Shop created and stored timber patterns, which were used to produce castings. The Foundry cast the moulds from scrap metal fed into a furnace. It featured separate iron, brass, copper and tinsmith sections, multiple cranes and moulding beds.[36] Materials were kept in the Stores, ‘from the proverbial needle to beyond, even the proverbial anchor.’[37]
\nThe 1880s buildings were converted for new purposes: the Carriage Erection Shop became a Trimmers’ shop (for manufacturing upholstery for carriage fittings) and later also performed electroplating; the Paint Shop, which had been used as a sawmill since its completion, became the K-mill; the Wagon Shop became a Wheel Shop (preparing new wheel-sets and axles, and repairing old ones); the Erecting and Machine Shop held woodworking machinery, linked to the K-mill by a new corrugated iron structure; and the old smithy, after a brief stint as a training centre, became a Spring Shop, manufacturing and repairing laminated and spiral springs.[38]
\nThe layout of the new buildings followed the ‘distinctive planning geometry’ adopted in late 19th century railway workshops around Australia (including Sydney and Launceston) and the world (including Crewe and Swindon in England).[39] The plan centred on rows of workshop buildings, accessed by parallel railway tracks and a traverser (a transverse distribution track which carried locomotives and equipment between the workshop buildings).[40] Ipswich’s buildings were positioned in two rows, aligned with the 1880s buildings; the rows were separated by an east-west aligned Traverser Track. The buildings were grouped by function: those associated with assembly, repair and maintenance (the Boiler Shop, Machine and Erecting Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop) were positioned south of the track; those involved with supply, manufacture and storage of components (the Smithy, Store, Foundry, Forge, and Pattern Shop, as well as the timber mills and sheds) were laid north of the track, adjacent to the 1880s buildings.[41] Ancillary buildings were positioned to the northeast ‘overseeing’ the workshops.[42]
\nThe layout aimed to maximise the efficient transport of material across the site. As the shops each operated separately by task, they were positioned so that components could be passed easily from one building to another, from manufacture (the Pattern Shop, Blacksmith and Foundry; the Stores, timber storage and sawmills), then across the Traverser for assembly (in the Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop). An array of rails was laid from the Mihi Line to the southern end of the Boiler Shop (which had 2 bays or ‘roads’ running through the shop), Erecting and Machine Shop (13 bays[43]), and Carriage and Wagon Shop (14 bays). Rolling stock that required repairs and maintenance, was railed along the Mihi Line to the bays at the southern ends of the Erecting and Machine Shop or Carriage and Wagon Shop. Obsolete machinery, or that awaiting service, could be parked in this southern yard. A further fan of lines ran from the Mihi Line to the northern end of the Blacksmith, Foundry, Forge and Pattern Shop. A coal line ran to the Power House.[44]
\nThe use of electricity to power the machinery was a major feature of the modernisation. Ipswich lacked an electricity supply, so a Power House was an essential new building. It was positioned on the elevated ground to the northeast of the workshops. Underground cables and overhead circuits connected the workshop buildings to the Power House, and powered around 200 machines across the site. The provision of electricity also allowed the installation of improved machinery, such as travelling cranes, added to most of the buildings to carry heavy equipment. Details of its functions were published in contemporary electrical journals in London and New York.[45]
\nIn order to provide a water supply, a cast-iron Pump House was constructed on the banks of the Bremer River, and a 50,000 gallon water storage tower was built on the high northeast ground near the Power House. Water was pumped from the Bremer River by machinery in the Pump House, into the Water Tower for storage, and distributed to the Power House.[46]
\nThe construction site became a popular outing. Visitors included the new ‘Federal Premier’ EJ Barton, who ‘manifested the keenest interest in this growing branch of the Railway Department’.[47] Contemporary visitors commented on the visual appeal of the facility. Like the 1880s buildings, all of the new buildings were constructed in red brick.[48] They featured saw-tooth roofs with glass on the upward angle and galvanised iron on the slopes; arched entrances and rounded windows; and restrained ornamental dressings; as a contemporary newspaper reported:
\nThere has been nothing attempted in the way of external elaboration beyond the white brick segmental arches over the whole of the windows on the side faces; the cement arches, bands, quoins, and base course on the end elevations; and the string and dental courses which relieve the walls.[49]
\nThe Foundry and Blacksmith Shop also featured restrained use of coloured brickwork. The buildings lined the sides of the traverser track, which provided ‘an avenue as wide as an ordinary street’,[50] giving the workshops a village-like appearance. Contemporary reports emphasised the use of ‘nothing but the best workmanship and material… as it is apparently the desire that nothing faulty or inferior shall find a place on the ground.’[51]
\nThe size of the shops – particularly those south of the Traverser, which were up to 300ft (91.44m) square – also impressed visitors.[52] Buildings such as the Blacksmith Shop and the Foundry were about three times bigger than their predecessors. Photographs of the new workshop buildings were featured in newspapers in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.[53]
\nStaff were transferred to the new buildings from February 1903, and an official opening ceremony was held in July 1903, when the Power House was switched on.[54] The final employees to leave the old workshops – the moulders – were transferred to their new premises in June 1904.[55] The entire workshop yard was also fenced with an 8ft (2.44m) high galvanised iron fence.[56] The building programme had cost £450,000.[57]
\nThe old buildings on the original workshop site were demolished,[58] except for the 1879 Railway Store Building (later the Railway Historical Centre, QHR 600604), which was put to use as a tarpaulin shop.
\n1906 – World War I
\nOn completion of the building programme, the workshops were considered ‘extensive enough to build all the engines required for Australia, and most of the rolling stock too’.[59] While not the largest in the country, the Ipswich workshops had experienced the most comprehensive overhaul of the Australian railway workshops. The Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Adelaide workshops, visiting in 1905, declared the workshops ‘excellently built, planned and equipped’, with the electric plant and tools ‘of the most modern type’.[60] The Chief Mechanical Engineer, however, had predicted that extensions would be necessary within ten years of the workshops’ completion.[61] By December 1907 ‘… the premises, large though they were thought to be six or seven years ago, are in a rather congested state in some departments’.[62]
\nRequirements for additional buildings, largely for ancillary or administrative functions, were considered from 1904. Post 1903-4 buildings were constructed on a less expensive scale than the earlier buildings. A Spray Paint Shop (later Loco (Locomotive) Store), erected in 1906 and extended in 1909 to include a brake shop, was built using material from the old workshop buildings.[63] A new Paint Shop was constructed west of the Carriage and Wagon Shop in 1912; the large building was built in galvanised iron sheeting on timber posts, supported by bed logs.[64] Timber drafting and administrative offices were built in the ancillary section of the workshops (giving rise to the name ‘administrative hill’[65]), but were later demolished. A roundhouse, accommodating 50 engines, was built to the south of the workshops in 1910, but is no longer extant.[66]
\nImprovements to the 1903-4 buildings were also made. The Smithy was altered in 1908, as it was prone to overheating. The output of the woodworking section was increased with the construction of a band sawmill (also known as the Waterhouse mill, or the ‘breaking down mill’; later the Fibreglass Shop), at the northwest end of the site circa 1911.[67]
\nIn 1910, attention turned to the section of the workshops fronting North Street. A two-storey timber Timekeepers’ Office was constructed at the front gates in 1911, providing office accommodation for the timekeepers and gatekeeper, and a focal point for the entrance to the workshops.[68] A single-storey timber Dining Hall was constructed near the Timekeepers’ Office in 1912 to provide the workers with a low-cost daily lunch. Funded by the Railway Department but operated by the employees, the Dining Hall included a main dining room, kitchen, pantry, office, reading, smoking-room and wide verandahs.[69]
\nWith its new facilities operational, rolling stock production boomed at the workshops in the 1910s.[70] Over 4,500 items of rolling stock were produced in the decade, including C18 locomotives from 1913, and the first petrol-powered rail motor in 1916, to serve small country lines.[71] Between 1900 and 1910, 2,000km of new railway lines were laid across Queensland,[72] and the workshops workforce expanded fivefold between 1900 and 1912.[73]
\nDuring and immediately after World War I, events undertaken at the workshops gave it particular prominence in the public eye. About 300 of the 1600 employees were engaged in production of munitions during the war, particularly shell casings made using BHP steel.[74] The work was undertaken in a purpose-built structure, which was later removed. In April 1918, an experimental smelting of iron ore from Biggenden was carried out in the moulders’ furnaces.[75] In December 1919, the Vickers Vimy aircraft of Ross and Keith Smith broke down near Charleville after completing the first flight from England to Australia by an Australian crew. North Ipswich Railway Workshops repaired the engine and built a new propeller blade. They were proudly displayed outside the workshops before being railed to Charleville.[76]
\nInterwar and WWII expansion
\nThe workshops remained busy in the 1920s, constructing engines and locomotives and repairing rolling stock from across the state. In 1923 the workshops produced its one hundredth locomotive, a C19 class nicknamed ‘Centenary’. [77] The shops were also kept busy with demands for suburban and passenger carriages, sleeping carriages, lavatory cars, coal wagons, cattle wagons for meatworks and drought-affected sheep, fruit wagons, open wagons for carrying concentrates from Mount Isa, training cars, luggage and mail brake vans.[78] Extensions were added to the Erecting and Machine Shop, Wheel Shop, Pattern Shop, and Stores to try to keep pace with requirements, and some of the new contracts were outsourced to private enterprises.[79] By 1925, 2,047 workers were engaged at the workshops,[80] though employment numbers fluctuated as staff were put on reduced time or retrenched in quiet periods.
\nInquiries into the administration and function of the workshops were held in 1923 and 1929. The former proposed few changes, but the latter, undertaken by railway experts from Victoria, recommended extensive improvements at Ipswich, including the creation of a testing laboratory. The 1929 inquiry also criticised Queensland’s numerous but underfunded railway workshops, and recommended that railway design, research and manufacture be centralised at Ipswich.[81]
\nThe Great Depression put improvement works on hold,[82] though contracts for rolling stock continued in the 1930s. The workshops’ first diesel locomotive was built and dispatched to Etheridge in 1939. Some building extensions were made in the late 1930s, including an extension to the Boiler Shop in 1936 and a second extension to the Erecting and Machine Shop in 1938.[83]
\nBy 1937, the Railway Workshops comprised ‘the largest of all engineering works in the State’, employing 2,000 men across the 50 acre site.[84] It was also the largest and most extensive of the railway workshops in Queensland. Over the course of the 19th and 20th century railway workshops had been opened at Toowoomba, Willowburn, Rockhampton (QHR 600783), and Townsville (QHR 600906); with repair depots at Roma, Mayne, Maryborough, and Normanton; and small repair facilities at Bundaberg, Gympie, Mackay, Cairns, Emerald, Woolloongabba, Alpha, Innisfail, Wacol, Charters Towers, Cloncurry, Hughenden, Wallangarra and Warwick. These workshops and repair facilities focused on repairing and maintaining rolling stock in their local districts, and lacked the extensive facilities and manufacturing departments of North Ipswich.
\nThe testing Laboratory, recommended in 1929, was finally constructed 1939 to provide facilities for testing materials used in the workshops. Initially a single storey building of brick and concrete,[85] the Laboratory featured a central work room, a special lab, dark room and space for micro photography, an office, store and balance room.[86] It was constructed on the ‘administrative hill’ at the northeast of the workshops site, and was accessed from within the workshops via a path behind the Dining Hall.[87] The ‘attractive red brick building’ was the first brick building in the precinct.[88]
\nWhen World War II began in 1939, the workshops again became involved in wartime production. In 1941, the Commonwealth and State governments entered a joint arrangement to build a new Tool and Gauge Shop at the Railway Workshops, to supply tools for accurate mass-production at a munitions factory opened at Rocklea.[89] The Tool Shop was anticipated to catalyse a post-war mass-production industry, bringing long-term benefits to Queensland.[90] Charles Da Costa, employed by the Queensland Railway Department in the mid-20th century and designer of the Landsborough Station Public Air Raid Shelter (QHR 602709) and Charleville Railway Station (QHR 602368), prepared the designs of the Tool and Gauge Shop.[91] The shop was erected south of the Laboratory, the second brick building on administrative hill.
\nThe munitions work also necessitated the addition of a second floor to the Laboratory in 1941.[92] Two open timber-framed buildings – a Lighting-up Shed and a Wagon Repair Shed – were built in the southern yards. A timber tank stand was also built next to the Water Tower, to supplement the workshops’ water supply.[93]
\nA 30-ton casting, the largest ever made at the workshops, was produced in 1942.[94] In 1944, an x-ray plant was commissioned for the Boiler Shop to detect flaws in casting and welding.[95] In 1946, a ‘modern apparatus for determining copper content by electro-deposition on rotating platinum electrodes’ was approved for installation at the Laboratory.[96]
\nPostwar to 21st century
\nIn the immediate post-war period, Queensland was faced with ageing stock and little immediate capacity for new production. Reports began circulating in 1946 that the railway workshops would be moved from Ipswich: the workshops were again cramped, and the site, once believed to be large enough for future development, lacked room for expansion. An inquiry held in 1947 recommended that a new workshop should be built in southeast Queensland for locomotive construction and repair, as well as new workshops in the Rockhampton and Townsville areas.[97] It was also decided that future rolling stock would be steel where possible, reducing the need for large sawmills at the Workshops.[98]
\nNew railway workshops were opened in 1958 in the Ipswich suburb of Redbank, on the site of a decommissioned army camp. Although it was originally intended for steam locomotive production and repair, its construction coincided with the change to diesel electric and it became the centre for diesel locomotives.[99]
\nThe Ipswich workshops, set up to build and maintain steam-powered rolling stock, became increasingly obsolete with the conversion to diesel. The last of its 216 steam locomotives had been constructed in 1952, before diesel electric locomotives replaced steam across the railway network.[100] In 1965, the Foundry and Pattern Shops were transferred from Ipswich to Redbank, and the buildings were repurposed as the Bogie and Brake Shop, and the Maintenance Carpenters Shop, respectively.[101] Attempts were made to modernise the Ipswich Railway Workshops, with new functions introduced to the foundry, Erecting and Machine Shop and Boiler Shop. New buildings were constructed at the northern end of the North Ipswich Railway Workshops site, including training centres and plan printing buildings (not extant). The rest of the workshops focused operations on maintaining steam locomotives and wooden carriages, but by the 1990s this rolling stock had been almost completely removed from service.[102] In 1995, the relocation of remaining activity from North Ipswich to Redbank was commenced.[103]
\nBuildings on the workshops site were removed in the late 20th and early 21st century, including the roundhouse;[104] part of the Forging Shop; the Prescott sawmill at the southern end of the site; the timber tank stand; and part of the sawmill at the northern end.[105] The Traverser was replaced in 1982.[106] Most buildings added to the site after WWII were also removed in the 2010s.[107]
\nIn 2001 the Queensland Museum acquired part of the site for use as a railway museum.[108] The Railway Workshops Museum opened in the Boiler Shop, and Erecting and Machine Shop in 2002, with museum storage included in the latter building.[109] The Dining Hall was converted for patron use as a café. In 2005, other parts of the site including the northern end, a section of the southwestern corner, and the site of the former roundhouse were transferred to private ownership.[110]
\nIn 2015, the Railway Signal Cabin and semaphore signal (QHR 602464) from nearby Ellenborough Street was dismantled and removed to the Fibreglass Shed. In 2021, the Signal Cabin remains in the Fibreglass Shed.[111]
\nIn 2021, railway workshop operations continue to be carried on in some of the buildings on the workshop site, employing a small number of staff. [112] The Boiler Shop and Erecting and Machine Shop continue to function as the Workshops Museum.
\nMachinery and infrastructure
\nThe technical work carried on at the workshops required specific machinery, largely imported either from overseas or other colonies or states. The unique nature of this work required machinery not found elsewhere in Queensland. Much of the historic machinery has been retained at the Workshops, providing a source of information about railway manufacturing in the 19th and 20th centuries. This includes wood machining equipment (originally held in the sawmill building (K-Mill)); drop hammers, forges and tools (originally held at the Blacksmith Shop); smithy equipment (originally held in the Spring Shop); electrical equipment (first held in the Power House); and specialised measuring equipment (originally held in the Tool and Gauge Shop), including a steel tensile testing machine (J Brabant, 1 ton). Machinery associated with the Power House remains on site, including parts of the 1903 white marble switchboard, the fire alarm and time whistle.[113] Ceramic electrical conduits remain in place in a number of workshops, reflecting the original power supply. Travelling cranes erected in most of the workshops from 1903 remain in situ. Inspection pits and rail tracks also remain in the Carriage and Wagon Shop, and Erecting and Machine Shop.[114]
\nLandscaping
\nLandscaping features were added to beautify the ‘drab’ industrial site.[115] Formal gardens were designed in 1911 for the Power House forecourt, and two fig trees were planted in the social space between the Traverser Track, the Power House and the Dining Hall.[116] In 1939 Governor Sir Leslie Wilson addressed the employees from a dais erected beneath one of the ‘giant Moreton Bay figs’ at the workshops.[117] A pair of fig trees were also planted in the central gathering area, flanking the war memorial.[118]
\nPalm and pine trees were planted in the administrative section from the mid-1910s. Some were removed in the 1940s for the Tool and Gauge Shop, with one pine tree reported to be replanted elsewhere on the site.[119]
\nWorkers were also encouraged to beautify the site with gardens, tended to during lunch breaks and awarded at an occasional garden competition. Features included a fish pond, flower beds, vegetables, avocado and mango trees; a bowling green.[120] Though some of these were later removed, visible remnants remain throughout the site.
\nSocial
\nOver the course of its operation, the workshops employed on average more than 1,500 people at a time, reaching up to 3,000 just after WWII.[121] As one of the largest places of employment in Ipswich, the workshops had a continuing and major impact on the lifestyles of thousands of families who resided in the city. The workshops provided direct employment to generations of families, indirect employment to shopkeepers and other local businesses, and supported the growth of industrial firms in the district.[122] Workshop employees also took part in social, cultural and other institutions of the town; in 1902, for example, the supervisor of the electrical machinery at the workshop Power House began conducting classes at the Ipswich Technical College, which included guided tours of the workshops.[123] The workshops formed such a fundamental aspect of Ipswich that in 1946, when they were proposed for removal to Wacol, the President of the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce declared, ‘We might as well pack our bags and get out.’[124]
\nThe workshops also created its own community with its own culture, particularly after its unification on a single site in 1903-4.[125] Sports teams, a band and choir formed within the workshops, performing at lunch breaks, weekends, and even at national competitions. Social welfare groups, including ambulance and fire brigades, were created. Volunteer committees ran the dining hall lunch service and lunchtime entertainments at and near the traverser track, drawing a broad range of speakers and performers from politicians to religious leaders to singer Harold Blair. Political meetings, industrial action and strikes were held outside the Timekeepers’ Office. Friendly rivalries between the different workshops were demonstrated through sporting fixtures and garden competitions. During WWI, the workforce raised funds for the onsite War Memorial (QHR 600605), and raised almost £14,000 for war savings certificates during WWII.[126] A dinner was held in 1928 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the new workshops.[127]
\nWorkshop employees expressed their sense of pride in their work and identity in the workshops.[128] In 1904, a visitor to the recently-completed workshops reported:
\n‘“They are the finest shops south of the Equator” we were informed by our guide, in quite the approved ‘Murcan fashion, and certainly after the shops had been inspected we did not feel inclined to dispute the assertion.’[129]
\nEmployees had affiliations with their particular work department, and remnants in each building reflect those associations, such as old timber lockers with messages and chalked notices within the Bogie and Brake Shop. Workshop employees also took great pride in the Power House because of its technical achievements.[130] Other buildings had connections across the entire workforce. The Timekeepers’ Office, as the official entry and exit point for the workshops, was purpose-designed to control the large numbers of employees changing their shift at any one time. It became the site associated with industrial action and lockouts, particularly in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The Traverser Track and Dining Hall, as central social gathering places, engendered a shared sense of pride. Bicycle racks remain in-situ under the Dining Hall, labelled and positioned to reflect the hierarchy in place at the workshops. The work day was regulated by the time whistle, which was erected on the Power House, and was audible as far away as Haigslea, 18km west.[131]
\nPhotographs of the workshops were published from the 1880s, and detailed explanations of each workshop department with illustrations was republished over the following decades.[132] Films of the workshops were recorded in the 1920s for entertainment and educational purposes. In the 21st century, the workshops served as a backdrop for film and television series including The Railway Man (2012) and We Were Tomorrow (2016).[133]
\nWorkers’ reunions were held at the workshops in the 21st century, following the opening of the Workshops Railway Museum.[134]
","criteria":"The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex, established in 1864 and relocated to this site from 1885, are important in demonstrating the development of Queensland’s railway network. The workshops were the first railway workshops constructed in Queensland, assembling and maintaining rolling stock for the railway system, and later expanded into constructing locomotives. As the main railway workshops for Queensland until the 1960s, the scale and complexity of the site illustrates the importance of the rail system to Queensland. The major investment by successive governments in the workshops reflects its importance to the operation of the rail network and demonstrates the increasing self-sufficiency and sophistication of Queensland industry and technology.
\nThe Trimmers’ and Electroplaters Shop, Tarpaulin store, K Mill, Wheel Shop, and Spring Shop are significant as some of the first buildings constructed as part of the workshops expansion in the 1880s. The Wagon and Carriage Shop, the Erecting and Machine Shop, the Boiler Shop, Supply Store, the Blacksmith Shop, the Bogie and Brake Shop, and the Pattern Shop were constructed in the early years of the 20th century as part of a new phase of larger purpose-built structures intended to improve, modernise and expand the functions of the workshops.
\nThe Power House, completed in 1903, is a demonstration of the increased use of electricity at heavy industrial sites in Queensland from the early 20th century. Constructed to support 2-phase, 60 cycle AC power, it is an early surviving powerhouse containing rare early 20th century electrical machinery, and is supported by the cast iron Pump House and Water Tower.
\nAdditional buildings constructed after 1904 (the Loco Store (built as the Spray Paint Shop and Westinghouse Brake Shop), Paint Shop, Fibreglass Shed (built as a sawmill) and Lighting up Shed) demonstrate the ongoing use and growth of the workshops.
\nThe North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex illustrates the distinctive planning geometry which formed the model for late 19th century railway designers and engineers worldwide. This includes parallel rail tracks leading into rows of fairly equally-spaced workshop buildings, intersected by a transverse distribution axis (Traverser and Traverser Track). The railway tracks laid across the site, including within the buildings and the southern yard, are significant in providing essential connections between the workshop buildings.
\nTechnological facilities constructed in the 1930s and 1940s (the Laboratory and Tool and Gauge Shop), demonstrate the evolution of the railway rolling-stock production process. The Tool and Gauge Shop is significant for the production of necessary tools used in the manufacture of munitions during World War II. It is one of only two known purpose-built tool munitions buildings constructed in Australia at that time.
\nThe Mihi Line Alignment (1863) is significant as part of the first railway line in Queensland, a major step in the development of Queensland’s transportation network. The alignment continued to serve the workshops after the main line was diverted in 1875, playing a vital part in the operation of the workshops.
|North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex is uncommon as one of only four large-scale railway workshops established in the 19th century in Queensland (including Rockhampton, Townsville and Toowoomba). Retaining a high degree of intactness and integrity, the place is distinctive as it featured the most extensive facilities and manufacturing departments in Queensland, and was the only railway workshop in the state in to build new locomotives.
|The place has the potential to contribute information that may lead to a greater understanding of the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock in late 19th and early 20th century, and the associated activities and infrastructure in Queensland. Substantial evidence of industrial work practices from this time survives, including an extensive range of machinery and plant.
\nThe buildings illustrate the changes to technology and workplace amenity over more than a century. In association with documentary evidence, detailed analysis of site planning, interior layouts, fabric, and associated machinery and plant may provide further information on the nature of historical operational activities, staff working conditions and amenities, and the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock (including blacksmithing, heavy steel fabrication, boiler making, fabrication, and laboratory material testing) used in 20th century industrial practices and on this site.
|North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex, a purpose-designed facility for the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock, is an excellent and intact example of a railway workshops complex constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through its spatial arrangement, form, fabric, materials, circulation patterns and open spaces, the place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with its large site comprising an interconnected network of buildings and railway tracks organised for the efficient movement of personnel, materials, machinery and rolling stock to, from and between workshops buildings and the main railway line. Other principal characteristics demonstrated include: features for the generation and supply of power and water; staff office, amenity and recreation buildings; a main site entrance; facilities for the research and testing of railway equipment; railway yards; and machinery, boilers, gantries and furnaces associated with the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock.
\nThe place retains excellent, intact examples of railway workshop buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings (including the Trimmers’ and Electroplaters Shop, Tarpaulin Store, K Mill, Wheel Shop, Spring Shop, Supply Warehouse, Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop, Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, Carriage and Wagon Shop, and Paint Shop) are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of their type, which include: a long, large-scale building form; large door and window openings; large-span roof trusses allowing for sheltered and unimpeded workspaces (or bays of work spaces); high ceilings; well-lit and ventilated interiors; construction of simple and robust materials; provision of electrical, compressed air, hydraulic and water services; connection to railway tracks (running through, near and/or adjacent to buildings); features facilitating the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock (including machinery, boilers, gantries, furnaces and inspection pits).
|Highly intact, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex has aesthetic importance for its expressive and beautiful attributes. The place is also a landmark of Ipswich and is central to the area’s identity, with the industrial aesthetic of its extensive collection of buildings and associated structures juxtaposed against its surrounding residential setting.
\nAs Queensland’s principal facility for the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock between 1865 and 1965, the place expresses a prevailing spirit of progress, prosperity, confidence and optimism of the railway industry in Queensland in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is embodied in the complex’s: substantial size; cohesive set of structures that feature a balanced uniformity of scale and a common material palette (of face brick, corrugated metal, timber, and polychromatic brick ornamentation); provision of extensive staff facilities; high-quality workshop buildings that feature simple, strong and functional forms, durable materials, and detailed face brick exteriors; ornamentation and high level of detail to otherwise utilitarian structures (including the Power House, Water Tower and workshops, which feature articulated decorative treatments, and Romanesque and Classical-style details); and its open setting (allowing for set-back views of buildings including the Power House, Dining Hall, Boiler House, Timekeepers’ Office, Laboratory and workshops along the Traverser) with mature trees. Photographs of the complex featured heavily in contemporary Queensland newspapers, railway promotional material and in postcards.
\nThe place is also important for its well-composed attributes as a cohesive set of structures laid out in an ordered manner in an open setting with strong axes and view corridors. The workshops buildings display a high degree of architectural uniformity of design, scale, and materials (face brick, corrugated metal, timber, and polychromatic brick ornamentation). The strong axes and open nature of the Traverser frames views of the manufactured ‘streetscape’ of workshop buildings fronting the north and south sides of the Traverser; and to, from and between the east and west sides of the complex. The complex, in particular the visually distinctive Traverser ‘streetscape’, has featured in photographs and been used as a backdrop in various films.
\nStanding on a rise with a commanding presence over the complex, the Power House (1903) has particular aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes, which are embodied in its: composition; grand scale; use of a complementary material palatte of polychromatic face brick, render and stone; and restrained use of Romanesque Revival style details (including heavy masonry walls, small openings, round arches to openings, prominent towers, vigorous gable roofs, robustly textured and polychromatic brick ornamentation, and stone voussoirs). Its imposing design and the high level of careful detailing also express the importance placed on the new form of power at this period of history, and the pride of the Workshops in its adoption of the new technology. Important views include those to, from and between the Power House and Traverser, facilitated by an open, landscaped space that slopes down from the south of the building.
|North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex contains evidence of a high degree of technological achievement, demonstrated by its intact surviving fabric and machinery. Forming a self-sufficient, extensive complex of interconnected buildings and railway tracks with its own electrical, compressed air, hydraulic and water services, the place’s site planning facilitated complex functional patterns that maximised the efficient transport of material and rolling stock across the site (ensuring components passed easily from one building to another, from stages of manufacture across the Traverser for assembly). The complex’s scale and design drew considerable public attention, with details of the its buildings featuring in Queensland newspapers and journals, and its advanced machinery contributing to early 20th century heavy engineering practice.
\nThe Power House was a major technological achievement of its time and supplied electricity to the complex 16 years before power was supplied to Ipswich by the Ipswich Electric Light Co. Details of the Power House’s equipment and functioning were detailed in international electrical engineering journals shortly after its opening. Considerable evidence survives that enables an understanding of how it functioned; in particular, it retains historic machinery and equipment, including a 1901 overhead travelling gantry crane, hydraulic accumulator (that supplied water under pressure to the riveters and flanging presses of the Boiler House), coal fuel bunkers, ash removal system, electrical equipment, part of an early switchboard, and a steam-driven hydraulic pump.
|North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex has a strong association with its current and former employees. For most of its history, the workshops employed more than 1,500 people at any one time, peaking at more than 3,000 just after World War II. The Workshops created a community within itself, demonstrated through the establishment of sporting and music clubs, together with its own workplace culture. Workmen took pride in their workplace, including its technical achievements, and personalised the industrial environment through landscaping and other impacts still visible in some of the buildings. Communal buildings and spaces, including the Dining Hall, Timekeepers’ Office and the Traverser Track, served as popular social places for workers to hold lunchtime concerts, debates, lectures, political meetings and strikes.
\nNorth Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex also has a strong association for the people of Ipswich with the development of their community. As one of the largest places of employment in Ipswich, the workshops had a major ongoing impact on the lifestyles of thousands of individuals and families who resided in the city. At various times the workshops community interacted with the outside community through its own sporting and service clubs. As a result of its central location, the daily routine of Workshops life was noticeable to people in other walks of life. Ipswich people took pride in the achievements of the Workshops, as evidenced by numerous newspaper articles and features in commemorative magazines over a very long period of time. The use of some of the Workshops buildings as a railway museum since 2002 has rejuvenated the community connection to the Workshops, allowing public access to a space long regarded as a significant part of the North Ipswich landscape.
|North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex has a strong association with the Queensland Railway Department, as its main maintenance facility serving all of Queensland for over 100 years. It continues to have a strong association with Queensland Rail, successor to the Queensland Railway Department, as a maintenance facility that has been operating since 1865. The buildings on the site are part of a tradition of railway architecture and design in Queensland, and are significant for their association with the work of several important architects, engineers and railway planners employed by the Department, including Henry Stanley, William Pagan, Henrick Hansen, William Nisbet, Francis Jones, Vincent Price and Charles Da Costa.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16290,"place_ref":601527,"name":"Thursday Island Customs House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Victoria Parade","suburb":"THURSDAY ISLAND","lga":"TORRES SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"Thursday Island is one of the many tropical islands in the region known as Torres Straight, lying between the northern tip of Cape York and the New Guinea coast. The Thursday Island Customs House occupies a prominent site in the township of Thursday Island, located on the southern coastline of the island. The Customs House is a two stored masonry building, located fronting Victoria Parade, and bordered by Hastings and Jetty streets. The Government Jetty and Engineers Jetty lie nearby. The building remains a landmark on the island, being one of the few non timber buildings constructed there.
The former Thursday Island Customs House follows the Neo-Georgian style of the 1930s. The double-storey rendered masonry building has projecting balconies at the front and back and a hipped terracotta tile roof, executed on a domestic scale. The windows have timber shutters, a common tropical motif.
The plan form of this building is typical of the customs houses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century period in Queensland. The focus of the building was the long room where business was transacted. This is located in the centre of the ground floor which is entered through the front of the building. Smaller offices are located around this room, including an office for the sub-collector, the person in charge of the operations at the port. On the first floor was the sub-collector's residence, with bedrooms, living areas, and other rooms.
The arcades and balconies fulfilled further purposes apart from satisfying the symmetry and formality desired. Upstairs, the balcony provided a protected yet airy living space, necessary in the tropical climate. Double doorways from the internal rooms often opened onto the balcony, admitting cool breezes. Timber shutters to the openings of the balcony have been installed in the Thursday Island Customs House.
Stripped Classical was a style that retained the important classical elements such as symmetry of massing and elevations, while acknowledging the effect of modernism in design. The buildings of this style were recognisably classical buildings which were however stripped of much of the ornament usually associated with this type of building. Where ornament was applied it was often in the form of Art Deco.
The extent of grounds around the three street frontages of the Customs House allows uninterrupted views of the substantial building, enhancing the status and presentation of the building in the streetscape. The grounds are predominantly flat, comprising open lawns with a few mature trees and a line of tall palms giving added distinction to the substantial building. A concrete path extends from the front entry porch steps straight to a gate in the boundary fence. There is a path along the front of the building. Garden beds fill the space from the base of the walls to this path. The path extends to a small square of concrete paving in the eastern lawn in which a flag pole and small cannon have been placed. Paths extend from the two side entrances to gates at the boundaries.
In massing and proportion, the Thursday Island Customs House is similar to the Cairns Customs House.
","history":"This two stored masonry and stucco building was constructed on Thursday Island for the federal government's Customs Department in 1938. It was designed by the head architect of the Commonwealth Department of Works, Harold Barker, and replaced an earlier Customs House built in 1885.
Thursday Island can lay claim to unique long-term historical, cultural and strategic links with the nation's heritage. The island was first known as "Waiben Island" to the indigenous people of the region, who did not permanently inhabit the island to any great extent. Europeans first visited the area in March 1606, in the Dutch ship "Duyfken". A Spanish voyage visited soon after, followed by Captain Cook, Bligh and Flinders in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
The islands in the Torres Strait were annexed by the colonial government of Queensland in 1872. The northern-most town on the mainland at the time was Somerset, established in 1861. This settlement was abandoned in 1877 in favour of a settlement on Thursday Island. There was great hope for growth of this settlement as it was a vital link in the shipping routes between Australia and Asia and England, and served the pearl-luggers and the beche-de-mere harvesters which thrived in the area. There is also evidence that the settlement was established to provide a government presence in the region to stall imperialist tendencies of the Germans and the French in the late nineteenth century.
It was of strategic importance at this time, for the colonial government (and later the Federated colonies) to establish a chain of customs control points at all the main harbours along the coastline. The customs service was responsible for the collection of duties in Australia, which provided funds for the necessary infrastructure in the early settlements. Each of the colonies were furnished with a Customs service upon responsible government from the 1850s and onwards, which provided an important source of revenue, including the imposition of duties on goods traded between colonies. The collection of Customs was consequently central to the development of the colonial governments, and was an important mechanism by which the colonies conducted their affairs. Upon Federation the collection of Customs became a Commonwealth responsibility.
Customs service records indicate that in 1877 a 'Port of Entry and Clearance' was gazetted at Thursday Island on 24 November. Mr H.M. Chester was appointed Customs Sub-Collector and Harbour Master in 1877 and by 1884 the port was gazetted as a warehouse facility. "The port flourished in its early years and a staff of up to six officers was necessary. In 1885 the first Customs House was erected at a cost of £797. In 1890 the Sub-Collectors residence was built at a cost of £1,076." The building was constructed of timber on a platform on short stumps. It was single storeyed, with a verandah on all sides and contained a public counter and 'long room' office, a private Sub-Collectors office and a public office with cashiers window. This Customs House was located on the corner of Douglas and Hastings streets. Accommodation for a growing staff was provided by removing four cottages from Sea Hill near Rockhampton to Thursday Island in 1895. A Tidewaiters cottage was built in 1897.
The main activity in the port was pearl handling. There were numerous Asian and Japanese pearl luggers active in the waters of Torres Strait and it was the customs officers' duty to track and control these and the many trading vessels which stopped at Port Kennedy to refuel with coal, trade and bring immigrants. The ports activities can be gauged from the fact that revenue for the financial year 1879/80 was £2,493 while twenty years later in 1899/1900 it had grown to £19,411. After World War I, the pearling industry quickly returned to its former activity level with sixty luggers active in the Strait. Customs records show reference to "... the important port of Thursday Island, with its timber Customs House, provided a major gateway to Australia, often being the first port of call for ships from Asia."
In 1938 the importance of the port was confirmed once again when a new two storey Customs House was erected. Built of brick and concrete, its ground floor served as the customs office while the second storey served as the Sub-collectors residence. The building cost £9,860 and was one of the most prominent landmarks on the island. It was located on the land directly beside the original timber customs house which was then removed.
Shortly after construction of the new customs house in 1939, war was declared. At the end of January 1942, Thursday Island was evacuated of its non-essential inhabitants. Stores were closing and the Customs officers now had to "do our own cooking, housework, washing, messages if we require anything, nothing is delivered." Gauld reported that "the office work has fallen to practically nil and will probably remain at that from now on." Late in 1942 the military, now in command of the Torres Straight, took control of the Customs House and used it as the residence for the Commander of the Torres Force for the remainder of World War II.
The Customs House returned to the Customs Service in 1946 when military control of Thursday Island was relinquished. The building had stood empty for some months since the Torres Force Commander left it in 1945. Early in 1946, the Sub-Collector for Cairns, M.J. Ryan, visited Thursday Island to inspect the buildings and general situation. He noted, "[a] number of indentured Malay people continue to live in Thursday Island and the place is often an open door to the East." He was also of the opinion that an officer should be detailed for duty at Thursday Island to look after the Customs interests, perform immigration duties and provide facilities under the Navigation Act and Merchant Shipping Act.
Over the years the Customs Service on Thursday Island has been involved in the various Customs duties as determined by the Governments of the day. During the years since the military's occupation of the building in World War II, the Customs House was used continuously by the Australian Customs Service until it passed out of Commonwealth ownership. The building remains a landmark on the island, being one of the few non-timber buildings constructed there.
","criteria":"The former Thursday Island Customs House is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history as it is evidence of an official government activity in a remote location such as Thursday Island. It has further significance as a site of strategic importance to colonial and national governments. The Customs House is also a reflection of the importance of the island as a "gateway" to the colony of Queensland, and later the Commonwealth of Australia.
|The place is a good example of the stripped Classical style of institutional architecture pursued by the Commonwealth Department of Works in the interwar period.
|The Thursday Island Customs House has aesthetic significance for the quality of its design, in particular the way it accommodates the climate of North Queensland; and for its contribution to the Thursday Island environment as one of the largest buildings, and as one of the few non-timber buildings on the island. The aesthetics of the Thursday Island Customs House is strengthened by its settings, including tropical plantings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16292,"place_ref":601529,"name":"Surface Hill Uniting Church","alternate_name":"Wesleyan/Wesley Church | Surface Hill Methodist Church | City Church","street_address":"14-18 Channon Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-05-30","description":"The Surface Hill Uniting Church is a load-bearing masonry, cement rendered building that sits with a group of other buildings within the Uniting Church precinct on Surface Hill in Gympie. The site also contains a timber hall (the former church, built in 1869), a masonry and fibro hall (1962) and a brick parsonage (1975). The building is an unpretentious interpretation of Gothic style, using Gothic motifs yet simple and restrained in it's overall design and composition. The street façade (southern elevation) is the most ornate with towers at each corner, lancet and rose windows and other moulded decorations. The church is rectilinear in form, divided into six bays by stepped buttresses, each bay containing a lancet window. The roof is steeply pitched and clad in colourbonded corrugated steel with lightning conductors at each gable end.
The interior of the church is also cement-rendered with a decorative cornice and mouldings around the windows and at dado and picture rail height. Engaged columns with decorative capitals mark each of the bays internally. The lofty space of the interior has a vaulted ceiling lined in timber VJ boarding braced with timber ribs and punctuated with ceiling roses with timber fretwork. Light fittings and ceiling fans are suspended from the ceiling on stiff rods. Lancet windows infilled with diamond-patterned leadlight with glass in pale tones are located along the side walls and the southern elevation has an arrangement of four similar windows highset in the wall, flanked by two stained glass rose windows. Most of the windows are now framed in aluminium.
The church is entered via two doors which lead into a small, internal porch-like space enclosed with dark stained timber. An Honour Roll is located within this space, alongside a noticeboard and a set of wall-mounted timber cabinets with leadlight doors. Lancet doors are located on both sides of this space. The main part of the church has a raked timber floor and timber pews which have recently been restored. The side aisles are carpeted. A raised platform enclosed with low timber rails at the front of the church is also carpeted, containing a simple timber altar and elders' chairs. A hexagonal timer pulpit is located to the left of the altar area and is decorated with a timber veneered depiction of the Uniting Church symbol. A recent timber screen separates the raised choir platform and organ loft. Doors are located at either end of this divider and provide access to the choir area and through to the two exit doors at the back of the church. A small library and sink is located on the eastern side of the choir and a vestry area on the west.
The fine organ is an outstanding feature of the interior. The pipes of the organ are hand-painted in tones of blue with cream and gold. The organ is framed by a section of wall with a moulded edge and a lancet arch at the top that has been painted tan against the otherwise cream walls and flanked by columns either side.
The former church is located at the north west corner of the site and is used as a hall for a range of church and community activities as well as accommodating the parish office. It a small timber building with a steeply pitched roof and a small porch, separately roofed, on the eastern side. The building is set on short concrete stumps and clad in weatherboards that are narrow up to sill height and then standard width above that. Windows are multi-paned casements with lancet arched tops. Gable ends are finished in sheet material decorated with vertical timber strips. The interior is lined with horizontal tongue-in-groove boarding and has an open ceiling with exposed scissor trusses. Some of these have been stiffened with steel rods. A raised stage is to be found at the back of the hall and is framed with a wide moulded timber architrave surmounted by a timber hymnboard. Timber floors are throughout. The office is housed in a hipped roof annexe at the western end of the building, facing Barter street.
The site boundary for part of Barter Street and all of Channon and Reef Streets is finished with a squared uncoursed rubble retaining wall. A concrete stair and landing is cut into the wall to provide access to the church.
","history":"The Surface Hill Uniting Church, constructed in 1890 and designed by architect Hugo Durietz, is the third church building to be built on the prominent site on Channon Street at the crest of Surface Hill in Gympie. In August 1868, Wesleyan Methodists erected a bark hut of pole construction on Surface Hill to use as a basic chapel. The Methodists were early in their efforts in establishing a place of worship on the goldfields, the Primitive Methodists had opened the "Digger's Bethel" only months after James Nash had made his momentous discovery of gold in 1867. Concurrent with building the bark hut, the Wesleyan Methodists were planning the construction of a new and more substantial church, under the auspice of the Maryborough circuit.
An early committee resolved to build a new church on the same site and local architect Charles G Smith was commissioned to prepare drawings for a timber church. The tender was let to a Mr John Nesbit and it appears that there was some sort of disagreement between this builder and the architect and the architect's name was removed from the drawings. Despite this, on Sunday 4th July the new church was opened. The building faced on to Reef Street. By October, a small three-roomed parsonage was built on the site.
The Wesleyans were consolidating their presence in the town, however, uncertainty persisted about the land tenure as the church had been built on land that was held without a proper title. Although the land had been purchased by members of the church committee at a land sale in 1869 and set aside as a church reserve in the first town survey in 1874, it was not officially secured until 1876. It appears that these difficulties were due to the land being under Miner's Right. Indeed mining was still taking place all over Surface Hill at this time, a whim is visible in a photo of the opening ceremony of the brick church in 1890 and at several points in time the church had to pay for shafts to be filled in for safety reasons.
In 1870, a full-time minister was appointed and two rooms and a verandah were added to the parsonage. By 1879, the parsonage was in a dilapidated condition and fund-raising began for the construction of a new one, which was completed in 1880. In 1889, Matthew Mellor, a prominent member of the congregation and church trustee moved that a new brick church to accommodate 250 people, be erected. Minutes of church meetings indicate that the construction of a more solid church had been in the minds of many members of the congregation for a number of years and suggests "that Gympie was a stable prosperous town, with a stable, committed population, who had enough faith and vision to build for the future." Both the Catholic and Anglican churches also built masonry churches in the town around this time.
Local Gympie architect Hugo Durietz was commissioned to design the new church and plans were presented to the church Trust in July 1889. Durietz was born in Sweden and came to Australia in 1852, taking up residence in Gympie around 1867 and staying there until his death in 1908. He was a prolific designer of buildings for the town and "was probably responsible for a number of distinctive local building features, such as ogee-profiled verandah roofs, close-spaced studs with cut-in angle braces and a distinctive colour scheme of cream walls and red roofs."
The church was substantial but simple in design. It was to be constructed of brick and rendered in concrete with Gothic detailing. Tenders were called and the lowest tender of Mr J McMorrine of £1905 was accepted.
A whole series of elaborate celebrations were held to mark the construction of the new church. A stone-laying ceremony was held on 30th January 1890. Eight large foundation stones were laid by prominent members of the congregation, a representative of the local preachers and one of the Sunday School scholars. An earthernware jar was placed under the first stone that was laid and it contained a copy of that day's Gympie Times, the previous day's Gympie Miner, The Weekly Advocate, The Christian Witness, the circuit plan, a programme of the proposed proceedings of the ceremony, the Society ticket for the last quarter (a Methodist membership ticket), a list of the Trustees and officers of the church, a list of the names of the teachers and officers of the Sunday School, the names of the architect, the contractor and an estimate of the cost and fittings of the building. Each stone-layer was presented with a "polished cedar mallet bearing a chaste silver plate beautifully inscribed." One of these is held in the Gympie Historical Museum.
On 7th August, the church was officially opened and a dedication service was held. A fine organ was purchased by the church from Mr James Lord, the organist from the Albert Street Methodist Church. The organ, along with the one in the Albert Street church, had been made by George Benson of Manchester, UK in 1888 and assembled by Benson in Brisbane. The final cost of the building, including seating, architect's commission, fittings, gas lights, pipe organ, retaining wall, lightning conductors and opening ceremonies was £3137/16/5-.
The timber church was renovated and used as the Sunday School. The Methodist Church continued to have a solid presence in the town, church news was regularly reported in the Gympie Times and frequently the full text of a sermon would be published. In 1904, the Reverend Harry Youngman addressed the Chinese members of the congregation in their own language, an event which attracted hundreds of people, non-Chinese and non-Methodists alike. Small repairs were carried out on the church, hall and parsonage and it was not until the 1930s that any more substantial work was carried out on the site.
In 1937 a representation was made to the State Government for the use of relief labour to construct a stone retaining wall along the frontage to Reef and Channon Streets. The church provided materials - a member of the congregation donated the stone, and the Government paid wages. The job took over eighteen months to complete and was opened by Mr F Cooper, the State Treasurer to co-incide with the church's seventieth anniversary. He said at the time that "I believe this wall will speak to you every time you come past it as of honest work earnestly done, it will also look at you (for walls have eyes) and will judge you whether you are doing your part in upholding the ideal for which it stands...it stands in perpetual reminder that work and worship go hand in hand." The relief labour went on to also construct a tennis court, lay paths and grade the church grounds. In the same year, the hall (the old church) was moved across the property and re-located to face Barter Street.
A new, two storey hall was erected at the eastern end of the site in 1962. The timber parsonage was demolished in 1975 and replaced with a low-set brick building. Restoration work was undertaken on the church from 1977-84 and included work on the stained glass windows, organ and exterior render and ramps were added to the church and hall.
","criteria":"The Surface Hill Uniting Church, constructed in 1890, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, representing the rapid growth of the town of Gympie and the establishment and development of religious, social and cultural institutions in the town during the 1880s and 90s as a result of the prosperity of the goldfields. In addition, the church demonstrates the growth and consolidation of the Methodist Church in regional Queensland and local community efforts in meeting their spiritual needs.
|The Benson organ of Surface Hill Uniting Church demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland cultural heritage. One of only two such organs in Queensland, it is a rare example of its age and make and has been kept in its original design and sound.
|The stone retaining wall along Reef and Channon Streets is important as an example of work undertaken by relief labour as part of a co-operative scheme between the church and state during the Depression.
Surface Hill Uniting Church is a good example of church architecture practiced at the end of the nineteenth century and as an example of the work of Hugo Durietz.
|The church has aesthetic significance and has been an important landmark in the Gympie townscape since its construction. It is an imposing building on a prominent site, one of a family of churches located on top of the hills of Gympie. The simple and attractive interior has a number of noteworthy features, in particular the beautiful organ with hand-painted pipes.
|Surface Hill Uniting Church has a strong spiritual and social association with the Wesleyan Methodist Circuit and Surface Hill congregation in Gympie as the principal place of worship in Gympie for over 130 years.
|It has special association with Durietz, a local Gympie architect who made a significant contribution to the architectural character of the town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16293,"place_ref":601530,"name":"Balmoral Fire Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"105 Pashen Street","suburb":"MORNINGSIDE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"The Balmoral Fire station is located at Pashen Street, Balmoral. The site is comprised of the main fire station building, a grassed hose drying area, an old bomb shelter and clay base tennis court.
The station building is a single storey timber framed building approximately 12 metres long x 11metres wide. Constructed on concrete foundations and brick piers, the structure has a symmetrical appearance from the street with a simple gable roof extending the length of the building. The exterior walls are clad with timber weatherboards while the roof is sheeted with galvanised iron. Aluminium louvre shades have more recently been fitted to western windows.
The interior space is structured around a central engine room which basically gives rise to the building's form. This space creates the spine of the building and has direct access to Pashen street via a large automated, panel lift door. Set either side of the engine room are ancillary spaces including a watch room, dormitory, officer's room (formerly a workshop), kitchen, recreation room and toilet and shower facilities. These ancillary spaces are lined with tongue and groove boarding. Similarly, the floors are also said to be tongue and groove, pine floor boards however, more recent floor coverings now conceal the nature of the original floor. The central engine room is set approximately 200mm below the floor level of side ancillary spaces, and access into these spaces is via small concrete steps located outside each doorway. Built into the steps are a series of drainage pipes which allow the central area to drain freely. At the rear of the central engine room a small locker room has been constructed.
The area between the station and the front boundary is fully concreted. This hard stand area serves not only as the engine driveway into the station but also as a space for a couple of cars to park. Running around the perimeter of the station are a series of concrete paths and stormwater drains. Located to the west of the station building is a grassed area which is used for hose drying. This space is bounded by a simple concrete and steel fence to the Pashen Street boundary.
Constructed to the rear of the station building on the eastern side of the site is a brick walled and concrete roofed air raid shelter of the 'pill box' type. Apart from a more recent window which has been cut into one of the walls the structure is very intact and is now used as a storage space. Also located at the rear of the site on a higher level than the station building is a clay base tennis court. The original retaining walls to the court have been replaced by a system of interlocking landscape blocks which have been planted out with strawberry creepers. The court is surrounded by a combination of chain wire fencing and timber battens both set on a main timber frame. Located on the eastern side of the tennis court is a small timber framed and battened shelter shed. Generally the grounds are very well maintained.
","history":"The timber Balmoral Fire Station was opened on 15 March 1927 to the design of Atkinson and Conrad.
Between 1860 and 1868 there were five attempts to form a fire fighting service for Brisbane. Each brigade struggled to survive unable to attract a viable subscription base and hampered by inadequate equipment and an unreliable water supply. The establishment of an effective fire service did not enjoy a high priority among civic and government leaders.
A fifth brigade, the City Volunteer Fire Brigade, was established in 1868 under rules which provided for better financial control and management through the Fire Brigade Board. These arrangements were consolidated by the Fire Brigades Act of 1881 under which it was established that the Brigade was to be funded for fire services from contributions by the Queensland State Government, Brisbane Municipal Council, insurance companies and subscriptions. In 1889 the first full-time firemen were employed and a permanent fire brigade was established. A new headquarters, designed by H.W. Atkinson, was completed on the corner of Ann and Edwards Streets (on a corner of the Normal School site) in 1890. This began a long association between the Fire Brigade and the various architectural firms with whom he was associated.
The fire fighting needs of the city increased as Brisbane continued to develop. A number of fire brigades were formed early after The Fire Brigades Act Amendment Act of 1902 allowed local authorities to establish boards and brigades. Those formed were voluntary bodies with only the superintendent and immediate assistants receiving a salary. The Fire Brigades Act of 1920 rationalised the network of fire brigades in Brisbane and suburbs, centralising control under the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board in 1921.
The idea of constructing a fire station in Balmoral was first mooted in the early 1920s when a residents group approached the Chief Officer of the Fire Brigade, Hinton, to inquire about the cost of erecting and fitting a station. The proposal was initially rejected as being too expensive, however the growth of the suburb eventually made it a necessity. A block of land extending from Pashen Street to Stephens Street was acquired for the use of the fire station, where the existing house and outbuildings were utilised as a temporary station from 30 June 1925 until March 1927 when the purpose-built station was opened.
Plans and specifications for the new timber fire station were completed on 12 November 1926 by Atkinson and Conrad. Tenders were called on 10 November 1926, and the tender of W.B. Linsay of £850 was accepted. The design of the building incorporated a central engine room with a three feet, six inch deep pit and a ramp leading to it from the street. A watch room, dormitory, work shop. kitchen, recreation room and bathroom were provided. The building had concrete foundations up to the brick piers. The specification called for called for a six inch thick concrete foundation wall in the engine room and a five inch thick floor. The external walls and gables were to be sheeted with hardwood weather boards and all floors, except the engine room, were wrought and tongue and groove pine (T and G). The roof was galvanised iron. A timber earth closet building, with a galvanised iron roof was erected at the rear of the station.
The official opening of the Balmoral Fire Station was conducted by Mr A.H. Wright, MLA and member of the Fire Brigade Board on 15 March 1927. A number of local residents and members of the Fire Brigade attended the opening. The description of the building at this time was 'neat, built of wood with a concrete base, 42 feet long and 37 feet wide'. The final cost of construction was £900. Two permanent and four auxiliary staff were attached to the station.
Additions were made to the fire station in 1929 to the design of architect S.W. Prior. The tender of C. King was accepted.
A brick air raid shelter was constructed to the rear of the fire station during World War II. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 stunned the Australian populous, and in the weeks and months which followed fear of air raids and invasion dominated Australian society. On Christmas Eve, 1941, instructions were issued in each State by the State Emergency Committee for government, private employers and private households to immediately commence with the building of shelters. In Brisbane, three distinct categories of surface shelters were constructed: pill box, cantilever and special/site specific. Most of the shelters surviving today are of cantilever construction as these were purposely designed and located for conversion to public waiting sheds and shade structures after the war. The air raid shelter at the Balmoral Fire Station is of the pill box form, constructed by the State Government for the use of the firemen manning the Station. It was built to shelter approximately six adults.
A tennis court was constructed on the property, and was the site of some of the local Fireman's Recreation Club activities.
","criteria":"The Balmoral Fire Station is important in demonstrating the growth and development of the Balmoral area during the 1920s. The air raid shelter constructed to the rear of the station during World War II demonstrates Australia's involvement in that conflict, and is testimony to the fear of attack and invasion by enemy forces following the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and the subsequent sweep of Japanese forces through Asia and into south-east Asia and the Pacific.
|The Balmoral Fire Station demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as one of the only 1920s fire stations still in operation in Brisbane. Both the exterior and interior of the building are substantially intact. The air raid shelter to the rear of the station is rare as one of few surviving structures built in Brisbane during the war for war-time purposes. War memorials and commemorated public facilities, such as community halls and swimming pools, are dedicated after the event of war - air raid shelters are one of the few types of contemporary war-era structures surviving in Brisbane.
While war memorials and commemorated public facilities such as community halls and swimming pools were constructed in the years following the war, air raid shelters are one of the few remaining structures built during the war for war-time purposes. The air raid shelter is also a rare example of a Queensland Government-built air raid shelter.
|The Balmoral Fire Station demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early twentieth century suburban fire station.
|The Balmoral Fire Station has aesthetic and architectural significance as a modest, functional civic building, sympathetic to its residential surroundings.
|The Balmoral Fire Station is important for its association with the work of the architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad. Atkinson, through the firms he was associated with, sustained a long association with the Fire Services in Brisbane commencing in 1890 with his design for the new headquarters for the Brisbane Fire Brigade. His architectural practices were responsible for many of the fire stations throughout Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16295,"place_ref":601532,"name":"Murphys Creek Railway Complex","alternate_name":"Murphys Creek Locomotive Water Tank and Tower","street_address":"Odin Street","suburb":"MURPHYS CREEK","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"Murphy's Creek Railway Complex, which includes a station building, signal cabin, water tank, trolley shed and forkline, is located in the rural hamlet of Murphy's Creek at the base of the Main Range. Most of the complex is contained within the railway corridor, with the forkline situated north-west of the corridor, on the opposite side of Odin Street. A crossing loop runs along the extent of the station.
Station Building
The Murphy's Creek Station building is a single-storeyed rectangular timber structure, centrally positioned on a north-east facing station platform. The building is timber-framed and clad with chamferboards, set on stumps. A gabled roof of corrugated iron projects towards the platform, supported by timber brackets.
The building consists of two sections, divided by a central open shelter shed. The main elevations of both sections have a multi-paned sash window and two timber doors that provide access to rooms from the platform. The two doors closest to the waiting area on each section are four-panelled timber doors.
The south-east end of the building (which appears to be the earlier section) has wide chamferboards of 270 mm. Mounted on the chamferboards facing the platform is a timber cabinet and two small metal 'staff' boxes. The chamferboards on the north-west end of the building are of a shorter width.
The interior of the shelter shed has a ticket window on its south-east wall. Chamferboards of a shorter width line the wall beneath window height. The rear wall is lined with vertical tongue and groove boards and an entrance provides access from the rear of the building. The floor is lined with timber boards.
The rear elevation has a multi-paned sash window in the south-east section with the wider chamferboards. A small flight of timber stairs lead to the shelter shed entrance. On the north-west end, access to a room is provided via a timber door.
The east elevation of the building has a hooded multi-paned sash window. A modern timber picket fence stands between the station building and the railway line.
Signal Cabin
The signal cabin is a free-standing small timber building sheltered by a skillion roof, located close to the station building at its south-east end. The cabin is clad in weatherboards and sits on a concrete base. The cabin has glass louvre windows on its main elevation and a set of timber casement windows on its east elevation. Access is provided by a door on its west elevation. A small corrugated iron watertank on timber stumps sits at the rear of the building.
Trolley Shed
Located approximately 25 metres east of the platform is the trolley shed. The trolley shed is rectangular, clad in unpainted corrugated iron and sheltered by a skillion roof. The main elevation is filled by three bays, each with hinged double doors with timber battens and internal diagonal braces.
Water Tank
Murphy's Creek water tank is situated 120 metres north-west of the Murphy's Creek railway station. The water tank is constructed of cast iron, with the 1921 8,000 gallon capacity tank forming the lower element of the water storage, and a second, later tier doubling the overall storage capacity. The lower tier features decorative castings on the iron facings. The tank is elevated above the height of the locomotive tender for a steam locomotive being supported on a timber frame approximately 6 metres in height, consisting of 10 hardwood cross braced piles. The piles are marked with inspection dates, detailing maintenance work, and timber treatment carried out until 1994.
The tank is internally braced, and also wind braced externally. Unlike the water tank retained at Grandchester station, the Murphy's Creek tank features a high flow water delivery system utilising a water jib or crane. An electric pump is used to reticulate water into the tank being supplied from mains power. A swing jib is situated on the north tank face adjacent to the mainline, and is used to deliver water through a gravity-fed pipe-work system into a corresponding filling hole on the tender water tank of a steam locomotive. A canvas hose is used to direct the flow of water into the tender tank. The jib is operated manually by a locomotive fireman standing on the tender tank, swinging the jib to a position 90 degrees from the face of the tank and controlling the flow of water from the jib via a valve and float system actuated on the filling pipe. An inspection ladder is situated on the east face of the tank enabling access to the tank for maintenance purposes. A fluorescent light is also affixed to the tank headstocks to illuminate the area at night.
Approximately four metres to the east of the tank base are three concrete foundation blocks used to support the former water softening plant (now removed). A wooden sandbox used to replenish sandboxes on diesel-electric locomotives with traction on the Main Range is also located adjacent to the base of the tank. A safety fence (1996), between the rear of the tank and a large drainage ditch, is situated at the Odin Street aspect of the tank base.
Forkline
Veering from the main line between the station building and the watertank, forming a turning triangle on a large grassed area south of the railway corridor, is the forkline. A groundframe and electric release are positioned at the beginning of the forkline, which passes through a gate of timber post-and-rail over a small culvert. From the gate the railway crosses Odin Street extending in a large curve to the south, terminating at an earth stop block; and to the west, terminating at a raised concrete loading bank. A triangle is formed by a section of track that links the southern and western extensions before their termination. Trailing points are positioned on the southern and western corners of the turning triangle. The forkline sits on a raised formation.
","history":"Murphy's Creek Railway Station opened in 1867 on completion of the Main Range segment of the Ipswich-Toowoomba stage of the Southern and Western Railway. The station closed in 1992. The township of Murphy's Creek developed as a direct result of the construction of the railway station. The name Murphy's Creek was a reference to a creek named after a shepherd who had a hut in the area of the time of the 1864 survey for the Main Range Railway.
Tenders were invited in January 1867 for the construction of station buildings at Murphy's Creek.
Locomotives in the early years of operation on the Main Range had a limited water carrying capacity, and as a result water halts were required at Helidon, Murphy's Creek, and Highfields (later Spring Bluff). At Spring Bluff a 7,000 gallon (35 000 litre) water supply was created by damming a spring then gravity feeding the water to a water column situated in the station yard. Prior to the completion of the rail link, the Murphy's Creek area was referred to as a "feeding place for the engines" on the 30 kilometre range climb to Toowoomba, by a correspondent for the Brisbane Courier. Similarly, a journalist for the Darling Downs Gazette who had made the trip on a special picnic train from Murphy's Creek to Toowoomba prior to the opening of the Main Range Railway, described a water tank at Murphy's Creek for the use of locomotives.
In 1871 a goods shed was provided at Murphy's Creek for increasing goods traffic. Ten years after completion of the Southern and Western Railway, traffic on the line had increased to the extent that the station yard, track layout and buildings were considered cramped and additional room was required to pass trains, on the single line track. In May 1877 tenders were called for a booking office and platform; the accepted tenders were priced at £1,287 and £1,640 respectively. This work was completed in 1878, along with an extra siding. At the completion of the work in 1879 the water supply for locomotives was expanded with the installation of an 11,000 gallon water tank.
The station yard was resignalled in 1884. At this time according to the Working Timetable, Murphy's Creek consisted of a station building, with telegraph connection and a watering point.
In November 1884 a reserve for railway purposes was set aside opposite the railway station. A forkline, or turning triangle, for locomotives was constructed on this site in 1885. Prior to construction of the forkline, the Working Timetable made mention of a turntable being situated at Murphy's Creek. The forkline was established in response to the inability of early steam locomotives to ascend the Main Range without reducing their load at Murphy's Creek. Trains would descend from Toowoomba to assist in hauling loads and from the early 1900s banking engines were used to help push trains up the Range from Murphy's Creek. At the same time that the forkline was constructed, a timber loading bank and gantry also were built, for loading stone from nearby quarries.
The ladies waiting room and the station lamp room were both destroyed by fire in February 1887. A new signal cabin and interlocked signalling was installed in 1913, as part of the duplication work being completed between Laidley and Helidon to speed up workings on the western main line, and increase train movements.
In 1917 Murphy's Creek was closed as a watering station for trains working on the Main Range and watering stops were provided elsewhere on the line. However, in August 1921 an 8,000 gallon (40 000 litre) single tier water tank for use in emergencies was erected at Murphy's Creek, which was used by crews requiring additional water supplies running on to the Main Range section. Helidon was also supplied with watering facilities.
Water softening plants were installed at Helidon and Murphy's Creek, to soften water using lime. This was to prevent a build up of scale in locomotive boilers that would shorten the life of boilers. A sand box (shed) was also provided to store sand which had been previously dried in a furnace, as an aid for traction on slippery rails on steep grades and sharp curves of the Main Range section. The sand shed was to replenish a reservoir situated atop the boiler barrel of locomotives (sand dome), and was activated by a lever in the engine cab. Water was pumped from the nearby creek into the storage tank by a steam pump, operated from a stationary boiler.
By 1949 the capacity of the 1921 water tank at Murphy's Creek had been doubled with the addition of a second tier to the tank. The largest tender capacity carried by a Queensland steam locomotive was 3,500 gallons, and the Murphy's Creek tank held approximately three times this amount.
The use of Murphy's Creek as a station diminished with the introduction of diesel-electric motive power in 1952, and complete dieselisation of Brisbane to Toowoomba services in June 1956. Prior to the introduction of the new motive power, on goods trains up to 12 hours could be spent working between Brisbane and Toowoomba. Prior to dieselisation in 1956, over 49 light engine movements alone were timetabled on the Toowoomba-Murphy's Creek section. 83 working hours a day was taken up in light engine running and banking time on the range from the Willowburn depot. Engines would also attach to trains at Helidon or Lockyer stations depending on how locomotives were performing. The new motive power eliminated the need to run attached locomotives on the range section.
In 1963 the raised timber platform at Murphy's Creek station (similar to that at Grandchester) was removed and replaced by a ground level gravel platform and a new 14-lever interlocked signal cabin was provided with the rearrangement of signalling of the Murphy's Creek shunting yard. Steam operations on the Main Range had ceased by the mid 1960s.
Murphy's Creek railway station was closed in 1992, with the introduction of Centralised Traffic Control (CTC) along the Main Range line. This form of computerised and radio safeworking rendered the former mechanical form of signalling, interlocking and staff working obsolete. The station and associated buildings were sold to the local Murphy's Creek Progress Association in 1993. The water tank was in use prior to and post closure as a water supply for the local township, and also as an emergency water storage facility during bush fires. The water tank was retained by Queensland Railways for the use of special steam-hauled excursion trains operating between Brisbane and Toowoomba, but was placed out of use in 1994.
","criteria":"The Murphy's Creek Railway Complex is important in demonstrating the evolution of transport patterns in Queensland, in particular the establishment and development of Queensland's Railways during the steam locomotive era 1865-1969.
The provision of water to locomotives on the Main Range Railway was a critical part of the journey and the introduction of the Murphy's Creek Railway Station was directly related to its use as a watering stop.
|Murphy's Creek Water Tank is a rare and still operable water tank used for the replenishing of steam locomotives operating on the Main Range railway. Water tanks were a common and important feature of railway infrastructure in Queensland, but the majority have been demolished, sold or removed from railway property. The tank was maintained by Queensland Rail as a water supply for steam locomotives on special excursion trips between Brisbane and Toowoomba until 1994.
|In its provision of water tank, forkline, station building, signal cabin and trolley shed, the Murphy's Creek Railway Complex contributes to an understanding of steam locomotive and train operations on the Main Range Railway between Helidon and Toowoomba for a period of nearly a century, and serves as a reminder of the operation and maintenance of this form of locomotive technology.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16296,"place_ref":601533,"name":"Bundaberg Central State School","alternate_name":"Bundaberg South State School","street_address":"13 Crofton Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-11-28","description":"Bundaberg Central State School occupies almost a whole city block just south of the Bundaberg CBD in a predominantly commercial area. It is bounded by Woondooma Street to the north, Barolin Street to the east, Crofton Street to the south and Maryborough Street to the west. The school addresses Crofton Street and all school buildings are located at the western end of the site. Playing fields, a forestry plot of mature hoop pines and other mature trees occupy the remainder of the school property, with a gully (formerly a creek) running diagonally across the northeast corner. The significant buildings are an 1890 Ferguson designed teaching building and two playsheds, built in 1900 and 1907. No other buildings or structures are of cultural heritage significance. The former school residence, located in the northeast corner of the block, is in private ownership and no longer forms part of the school grounds.
The Ferguson building is set back from Crofton Street with gardens and other school buildings between it and the street so that only the centre portion is visible. The building is composed of three blocks arranged symmetrically in a U-shape around a former parade ground, linked by a continuous verandah on the parade ground side. The east and west blocks are a mirror image of each other and contain two classrooms each, while the central block is slightly longer in size and contains a library and offices. Four former teachers' rooms are attached to the verandahs - one each on the outer verandah of the east and west blocks, and on both sides of the central block. The inner verandahs of the east and west blocks have been enclosed. The building retains much of its original, high-quality, finely crafted timber ornamentation.
Each block is timber-framed, lowset on brick piers with timber chamferboard wall cladding. The steeply pitched gable roofs are clad in modern rib-and-pan metal roof sheeting. The roof of the central block has four dormer windows and a large ventilation spire with weather vane finial. The gable end walls feature decorative brackets and timberwork, and have triangular ventilation panels of fixed timber louvres at the gable peak. Decorative timber brackets also support the eaves and window hoods of the former teachers' rooms.
The verandahs are timber framed with a skillion roof separate to the main roof. Their raked ceilings are lined with timber v-jointed, tongue-and-groove boards and the exposed rafters are stop-chamfered. Triangular panels of fixed timber louvres are located at the end of each verandah section. Timber verandah posts feature decorative cornices and brackets and most are stop-chamfered. Where verandahs have been enclosed the verandah posts have been incorporated into the structure and remain visible. Sections of high-quality cast iron balustrade, supported by timber top and bottom rails, are located on the western verandah of the western block and the southern verandah of the central block. Most other balustrades have been replaced by bag racks. Small sections of early timber verandah enclosures survive at the northern ends of the eastern and western blocks. Access to the verandahs is via short flights of timber steps, most of which remain in their early locations on either side of attached teachers' rooms or in the centre of the inner verandahs.
Most early windows have been in-filled or replaced by banks of glass adjustable louvres, however some survive in the former teachers' rooms. These consist of tall, narrow, double hung sashes or casement windows. Early doors are timber, low-waisted double doors, some of which retain tall fanlights above. The eastern former teacher's room has a low-waisted, single leaf door with evidence of early door hardware.
Internally, all blocks have timber floors (lined with modern vinyl and carpet), walls lined with vertical v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards, and raked ceilings lined with diagonal v-jointed boards. The Queen post roof trusses are exposed within the rooms, revealing decorative features such as stop-chamfered edges and turned timber pendants. Early internal partition walls are single-skin with exposed timber framing and are lined with vertical, beaded tongue-and-groove boards. Large openings have been created in the classroom partition walls and in some verandah walls where the verandah has been enclosed. Some early school furniture and artefacts remain within the building, including a brass school bell with mount and swinger attachment.
The former teachers' rooms have coved ceilings and are lined internally with timber v-jointed boards or beaded tongue and groove boards. The ceilings are coved and have a ventilation panel. Walls have timber picture rails and skirtings.
An attached room (built 1965, currently used as an office) and modern partitions and suspended ceilings in the western end of the central block, forming offices and a staff room, are not of cultural heritage significance.
To the north of the Ferguson building are the two playsheds. Both are timber framed with a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and a modern concrete slab floor. The 10-post western playshed (1900) is aligned north-south with a perimeter partition of vertical timber boards at the southern end. The 12-post eastern shed (1907) is aligned east-west and has a perimeter partition at the western end. The posts are braced to the roof framing by brackets and the roof framing is exposed.
The school oval occupies lower ground than the school, separated by a low, battered, concrete and stone wall. Along the northern edge of the oval, the forestry plot consists of two groups of hoop pine trees, planted in rows, along the sloping northern edge of the gully. Other trees, such as a row of mature gum trees, have also been planted in the area. A large mature fig tree stands to the west of the former teacher's residence. Other mature trees are found in various locations in the school grounds.
","history":"The school now known as Bundaberg Central State School was established, as Bundaberg South State School in January 1875, on a site in Bourbong Street, transferring to its current site at Crofton Street in July 1890. The original school building on the Crofton Street site was completed in 1890 to a standard design by architects Robert and John Ferguson. As the town and pupil numbers grew, the school expanded, with two playsheds (1900, 1907) and landscape elements such as mature trees and a forestry plot of hoop pine trees (ca.1955). The school has been a focus for the local community as a place of important social and cultural activity for more than a century.
\nTraditionally the land of the Kalki people, European settlement of the Burnett area began with pastoral settlement in the 1840s and 1850s. Timber cutters arrived in the mid-1860s. Selection of land around Bundaberg started in 1867 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement. The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed in 1869. The town's development as a port and service centre was boosted by growing coastal traffic and by its designation as the port for Mt Perry's copper mining from 1881. Surrounded by sugar plantations and the site of two sugar refineries, Bundaberg became an important sugar town as the sugar industry boomed from the 1880s.[1]
\nIn 1871 a school reserve was created on the site of Bundaberg's present day Buss Park, Christ Church Anglican Church and the Civic Centre in the centre of town.[2] The local community raised the required finance for the first buildings of Bundaberg South State School, which were completed by January 1875. The average attendance was 123 pupils in July 1875.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools were established in 1848 in New South Wales and continued in Queensland following the colony's creation in 1859. After the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland's public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[3] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[4]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a focus/venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[5]
\nIn September 1883, separation of the school into a boys' school and a girls' and infants' school was approved by the Department of Public Instruction. Bundaberg South Boys' School opened in a new building on the site, while the Bundaberg South Girls' and Infants' School opened as a separate school in the existing school building.[6]
\nBy the 1880s the school site had become valuable real estate, prompting the town council to repeatedly attempt to have the school moved.[7] Finally, in 1889, the Minister for Public Instruction directed that the school transfer to a new site, two blocks to the south of the existing school, as it was in the interest of the public to have the old site for business purposes.[8]
\nConsequently, a new building for the Girls' and Infants' School was built by William Calvert for £2600 on the new site, which occupied a whole block bounded by Woondooma, Barolin, Crofton and Maryborough streets. The Boys' School and its building were moved to the new site and the new Girls' and Infants' School was completed by July 1890.[9]
\nBundaberg South Girls' and Infants' State School was built to a standard plan supplied by the Queensland Government. The government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help ensure consistency and economy. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[10]
\nIn 1879 the Department of Public Instruction appointed architect Robert Ferguson as its first superintendent of school building design. He immediately revised the design of schools to address deficiencies in ventilation and lighting and this period of school design was pivotal in this regard. Ferguson introduced tall and decorative ventilation spires to the roof and louvred panels to the gable apex to vent the classrooms. Additional and larger windows were introduced with high sill heights that did not allow draughts and sunlight to enter the room. The overall form was lowset on brick piers and in larger schools, multiple classrooms were arranged symmetrically around a parade ground. The designs remained single-skin to eliminate 'receptacles for germs and vermin' but were lined externally rather than internally to address the previous weathering problem. Importantly, Ferguson's buildings were decoratively-treated with a variety of elaborate timber work and were heralded by educationalists as 'far superior in design, material and workmanship to any we have before built'.[11]
\nIn 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced as Superintendent of Buildings by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother's designs until John's death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[12] The Ferguson period (1879-1893) is distinct and marked by extensive redesign of school buildings including associated structures and furniture. The Ferguson brothers' designs were reflective of education requirements of the time, responsive to criticism of previous designs, revolutionary in terms of internal environmental quality, technically innovative, popular and successful and provided a long-lasting legacy of good educational design.[13]
\nThe new teaching building for the Bundaberg South Girls' and Infants' State School was constructed to a standard Ferguson design. It comprised three blocks (two identical, one slightly longer) arranged in a symmetrical, U-shaped configuration around a parade ground. Each block was lowset with chamferboard-clad walls, a high-pitched gable roof, verandahs on two sides, and attached teachers' rooms. The buildings were ornamented with timber finials and brackets attached to end gables, typical of the ‘carpenter gothic' style of Ferguson schools. The ceiling structure was exposed on the interior, with the raked ceilings lined with diagonal timber boards. Verandah enclosures for hand basins and hat storage were provided on the parade ground-facing verandahs, which linked the three blocks together. Roof fleches, ventilation panels and window hoods also provided climate control and ventilation to the interiors. Also, a new teacher's residence was constructed in the northeast corner of the site in 1890.[14]
\nOn 3 October 1894 the names of the two schools were changed to ‘State School for Boys, Bundaberg Central' and ‘State School for Girls and Infants, Bundaberg Central'.[15] The occupation of a school site by a succession of different state primary education institutions is characteristic of many of the larger urban settlements in Queensland where a number of schools were established as the settlement grew and buildings and schools were moved between sites to meet the growing demands of the local populations.
\nAt the turn of the century, two playsheds were constructed to the north of the teaching building- a 10-post playshed in 1900 and a 12-post playshed for boys in 1907. Both were constructed of exposed timber framing and the 1907 playshed had a metal sheet roof with ventilated ridge cap.[16] The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as well as classrooms, they provided plans for playsheds, free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and were often used for unofficial teaching space when needed. They were timber-framed structures, generally open on all sides although were sometimes partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[17] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron and they had an earth or decomposed granite floor. Fixed timber seating ran between the perimeter posts. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s. They were built to standard designs that ranged in size relative to student numbers. School sites were typically cleared of all vegetation and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. After c1909 school buildings were high-set, allowing students to play in the understorey and playsheds were not frequently constructed.[18]
\nBundaberg continued to grow steadily in the early decades of the 20th century.[19] On 26 January 1926 the two Bundaberg South schools were amalgamated as the Bundaberg Central State School. Around this time, the Boys' School building, which had been moved onto the site in 1890, was relocated to Bundaberg West State School.[20]
\nOver time, the Ferguson teaching building at Bundaberg Central State School was altered to meet contemporary educational demands, particularly for improved lighting and ventilation. The Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design of all school buildings. Windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings and during the 1920s and 1930s alterations were made to the vast majority of older school buildings.[21]. In 1933, alterations to Bundaberg Central State School included new windows added to the gable end walls of the east and west blocks to make them wider and lower than the previous tall windows. New dormer windows were also added to the roof of the central block.
\nBundaberg's growth continued after World War II (WWII) with the city council promoting major revitalisation of the city. Many large building programs were completed, including new hospitals, schools, court house, customs house, civic centre, and port, transforming Bundaberg. The population of the town rose from 18,000 in 1952 to 27,000 in 1967.[22]
\nBundaberg Central State School grew substantially in the 1950s and 1960s and a number of new buildings were constructed to standard designs by the Department of Public Works and reflected the current education philosophy. Post-WWII, educationalists rejected the previous designs of school buildings, considering them outdated and favoured ‘lighter, loosely grouped, flexible' buildings.[23] In existing older buildings, verandahs were enclosed for weather protection and verandah balustrades were replaced with bag racks for improved storage. Many buildings had their fenestration altered to increase the amount of light into the classrooms, and many older windows were replaced with modern awning style windows. Alterations to the Ferguson Building occurred between 1963 and 1966 when bag and hat racks replaced most verandah balustrades, glass louvres were installed, casement windows were replaced with awning windows and windows were boarded over in some places.[24]
\nThe school grounds retain remnants of a forestry plot in the northeast quadrant of the site. The creation of forestry plots resulted from after-school agricultural clubs, which were introduced in 1923 at primary schools, under the ‘home project' scheme. Curriculum driven, these clubs had a secondary commercial value as well as disseminating information and helping to develop a range of skills. The Department of Primary Industry provided suitable plants and offered horticultural advice.[25] School forestry plots were seen by the government as a way of educating the next generation about the economic and environmental importance of trees, as well as providing testing grounds for new species. Located throughout the state, the plots were a means of experimenting with a variety of tree species in different soil and climatic conditions. The sale of timber grown in school plots provided an additional source of income for the school, and the plots themselves were an attractive feature of school grounds. The first school forestry plot was established at Marburg State Rural School in 1928, where 275 exotic and indigenous trees were planted. Encouraged by the Education and Forestry Departments, by 1953 about 380 Queensland schools were undertaking forestry projects, with students responsible for planting, maintaining and studying the plots.[26] The forestry plot at Bundaberg Central State School was established by 1955, with two sections of Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) planted on the sloping ground between the school residence and the gully (formerly a creek) which runs diagonally across the northeast corner of the school grounds.[27]
\nAlteration of the central block of the Ferguson Building occurred in 1973 to convert it into a library and included the removal of internal partitions and the relocation of some doors. Further changes to this block occurred in 1981 with insertion of partitions to form a staff room, a health services room and a waiting room.[28] In 1978, the western (1900) playshed was rotated 90 degrees and relocated slightly to the west, providing more space for buildings constructed between the two playsheds.[29]
\nChanges to the Ferguson building since the 1980s have included the removal of windows in all gable end walls, the enclosure of the parade ground-facing verandahs of the east and west blocks, and the creation of large openings between the classrooms and enclosed verandahs. Beginning around the 1970s and resulting from expansions in Queensland education provision, the partial demolition of the wall between a classroom and its enclosed verandah was a typical alteration to provide an extension of the classroom. This was a very widespread solution for older buildings to meet the increased spatial needs advocated by educationalists.
\nCentenary celebrations held in 1975 included the publication of a centenary history of the school and the unveiling by the Hon. Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Premier of Queensland, of a centenary plaque. A similar plaque commemorating the school's 125th anniversary, in 2000, was unveiled by local member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, Nita Cunningham.
\nIn 2014, Bundaberg Central State School continues to operate from its 1890 site. The school retains the 1880s Ferguson building, the 1900 and 1907 playsheds and remnants of its forestry plot. It is important to the city having operated from the site since 1890 and having educated generations of Bundaberg students. Since establishment the school has been a key social focus for the Bundaberg community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Bundaberg Central State School (established 1875) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains a complex of excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government education philosophies.
The Ferguson teaching building (1890) is an early standardised design; the two playsheds (1900, 1907) demonstrate the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum; and the forestry plot is evidence of a popular educational initiative that conveyed the economic and environmental importance of forestry to students while creating an attractive landscape feature and income for schools.
Bundaberg Central State School is important in demonstrating, through its size and high quality decorative features, the expansion of Bundaberg as a centre of the sugar industry from the 1880s, an industry important in the development of Queensland.
|Bundaberg Central State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools, comprising a complex of buildings constructed to standard designs by the Department of Public Works.
The Ferguson school building (1890) retains its lowset, symmetrical, U-shaped plan form of large classrooms surrounded by generous verandahs with projecting teachers' rooms; high-quality decorative features such as timberwork, cast iron balustrades and a tall ventilation spire; and internal features such as raked ceilings with exposed queen post roof trusses and some original partitions and doors.
The playsheds (1900, 1907) each have open sides and a hipped, timber-framed roof supported on braced timber posts.
|Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. Bundaberg Central State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Bundaberg community. Operating since 1885 it has taught generations of Bundaberg children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Bundaberg and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
|Highly-intact, the Ferguson teaching building has aesthetic significance as an attractive building of high-quality materials and construction with a well-composed, symmetrical plan and elevations, and decorative, finely-crafted timber work, including a ventilation spire.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16297,"place_ref":601534,"name":"Nettle Creek Tin Dredge","alternate_name":"Battle Creek Tin Dredge | Barrytown Gold Dredge | Barrytown 2 Dredge","street_address":"Nettle Creek","suburb":"MOUNT GARNET","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-09-22","description":"The Nettle Creek Tin Dredge is located in Nettle Creek, 14 km east of Mount Garnet and 6 km south of Innot Hot Springs. Access is by track, south from the Kennedy Highway along the west bank of Nettle Creek.
The dredge is 47 metres long, 23 metres wide and 20 metres high above the pontoon deck., which in 1.9 metres deep. The dredge consists of a steel structure with three main levels supported by a pontoon located beached within the dredge pond. Most of the corrugated iron cladding has been removed, except for half a wall on the upper level.
All of the electrics have been removed, and only four jigs of the original eleven remain. A Vaughan gantry crane is located on the top level and two Richardson engines are on the base level. All of the buckets have been removed.
The dredge is located at its final point of operation in a pond contained by a partly breached earth dam. The course of Nettle Creek to the north is evidence of the dredge's operation and comprises a wide swathe of sandy, unrehabilitated watercourse largely devoid of trees or scrub.
","history":"The Alluvial Gold Co Ltd purchased the Battle Creek and Nettle Creek alluvial dredging leases from The Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ltd in August 1949. The leases were situated between Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet, North Queensland, and comprised tin bearing deposits which followed the courses of Battle and Nettle Creeks with both areas crossing the Kennedy Highway between Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet. The Nettle Creek area was divided into two sections, the upper section was shallow and crossed by several granite bars, but was rich in tin.
Alluvial cassiterite (SnO2 tin oxide) has been mined in the Mt Garnet area since 1881. In the area, the four creeks (Smiths, Return, Battle and Nettle Creeks) have provided the majority of the concentrates. Bucket line dredging was begun on Return Creek by Tableland Tin Dredging Co Ltd in the early to mid 1930s, and on Battle Creek by Ravenshoe Tin Dredging Co Ltd in 1957.
The Nettle Creek Tin Dredge was originally designed by FW Payne & Sons, England, and built c.1937 (according to photographs of the dredge under construction) in New Zealand by the Oak Ridge Co Ltd for Gold Mines Of New Zealand Co Ltd. The dredge was named the FW Payne and was operated as a gold dredge for Barrytown Gold Dredging Co Ltd in Barrytown, located on the west coast of the South Island. All the original equipment was British, including the two surviving Richardson electric motors and bucket drive cog wheels, and a Vaughan 15 ton gantry crane. The dredge originally had approximately 60 12 cubic feet buckets, and the Richardson RGP motors were supplied by cable with power from a land-based generator plant.
Alluvial Gold Co Ltd had the FW Payne dismantled in New Zealand, and the Ravenshoe Tin Dredging Co Ltd, which was established in 1953, purchased the dredge which arrived in Queensland in 1954. The dredge was landed in Cairns and railed to Battle Creek where a new pontoon was constructed and it was rebuilt. The dredge was considerably modified by the Alluvial Mining Equipment Co Ltd to make it suitable to dredge the above leases, as conditions of the lease to rehabilitate the tailings required a by-pass conveyor to be installed. The dredge was required to excavate a 20 feet (6.096 metres) depth of overburden which by-passed the treatment plant and was deposited over the tailings at the stern, and to dig 40 feet (12.192 metres) below water level into the ore bearing sand and gravel.
The re-erection of the dredge was completed on the Battle Creek area in November 1957 and commenced working upstream, until 1962 when it worked south across the highway. The dredge as modified was considered a most successful unit, having given good running time with reasonable maintenance, considering the most difficult and hard dredging conditions it has passed through. The dredge operated 7 days per week, 24 hours per day with a staff of 70 working 4 shifts.
The dredging of Battle Creek finished in February 1965, and the dredge was dismantled and a new pontoon was constructed on Nettle Creek north of the highway. From 1965 to 1992 the dredge worked down Nettle Creek, across the highway, to its present location. It had completed the original area by 1976, after which time the dredge worked the lower reaches of Nettle Creek.
The development of the bucket line dredge began in 1877 in the gold fields along the Clutha River in Otago, New Zealand. The second stage of dredge development is credited to the Californian gold fields, and higher capacity units were engineered. From gold the use of bucket line dredges spread to tin mining in Malaysia and Indonesia. The first reported unit in this area was off Phuket, Thailand in 1907.
Bucket line dredges are more capable of handling boulders and timber than other forms of dredges such as suction cutters. A dredge may be designed to handle the particular conditions of the area to be mined, including the presence of boulders, timber, gravel, sands, hard bands and clays.
Occurrence of Tin Ore
Tin ore occurs naturally as brown or black grains of free cassiterite (SnO2) and it is frequently found with the gravel in ancient or present creek beds where it was deposited by the alluvial action of running water after weathering from the original lode. Cassiterite contains almost 80% tin and after concentration is dried, bagged and shipped to smelters where it is cast into metal ingots. Its main use is for coating metal cans, but it is also an important constituent of alloys and solder.
Because of the low concentration of cassiterite in an alluvial deposit, large quantities of material must be handled in recovering it. The alluvial deposits generally occur at relatively shallow depths and it is possible, by test boring, to ascertain fairly accurately the extent of the area to be mined and the amount of tin ore likely to be recovered. Where sufficient water is available the most economical method of mining the deposit is by dredging.
Operation of a Bucket Line Dredge
A mining dredge comprises a mechanical excavator and a screening, washing and concentrating plant, all mounted on a pontoon. The dredge performs four functions:
1. Excavates the alluvial material
2. Screens the material into two or more sizes, usually with a revolving screen
3. Treats the fines to recover their metallic or heavy components, usually on tables or jigs
4. Deposits the fines from the treatment plant and the coarse rejects from the screen to the rear of the dredge.
The dredge floats in an artificial pond often supplied with water from an outside source. It digs at the bow and deposits washed tailings at the stern, thus carrying the pond with it as it advances. The digging end comprises an endless chain of cast manganese steel buckets carried on a fabricated steel ladder at an angle of approximately 45 degrees when operating at maximum depth. The ladder carries a circular tumbler at its lower end and a series of rollers on its upper side to support the loaded buckets. The top, or driving, tumbler is normally hexagonal in shape and is driven by electric motors mounted on either side of the ladder. The size of a dredge is designated by the capacity of its individual bucket which can be up to 20 cubic feet but, in the case of the Nettle Creek dredge is 12 cubic feet.
As the buckets pass over the top tumbler they discharge into a hopper from where a chute directs the dredged material into a revolving (or trommel) screen. Here it is washed by high pressure water jets, the fine ore-bearing material passing through the perforations (normally about 10 mm in size) and proceeding to the treatment plant and the oversize material continuing over the screen. The undersize from the screen is passed to ore concentrating and recovery equipment, consisting at Nettle Creek of a series of pulsating jigs. The concentrate is removed for further treatment while the tailings are discharged down a sluice at the stern of the dredge.
The oversize from the trommel screen is passed to a conveyor mounted on a moveable arm at the stern of the dredge (normally called a stacker) and deposited behind the dredge. Traditionally, it is not rehabilitated but at Nettle Creek it is a requirement that the tailings be levelled and covered with topsoil, thereby restoring the dredged area to near its original state. This is accomplished by digging the topsoil ahead of the normal cut and passing it direct to the stacker on a by-pass conveyor for deposition on top of the tailings. The area is subsequently levelled by a bulldozer ready for normal agricultural use.
","criteria":"The Mt Garnet area is one of the earliest locations associated with tin mining in Far North Queensland, which gave significant impetus to the economic development of the region.
|As a relic, the Nettle Creek Tin Dredge still demonstrates bucket line dredging, a once common mining process, which was employed to extract tin ore from alluvial deposits. The Nettle Creek Tin Dredge and dredge pond are the most complete evidence of this form of tin mining in Queensland.
The dredge is a good example of the adaptability of some items of mining equipment, in this case from dredging gold in New Zealand to tin in Far North Queensland. The site provides tangible evidence of the often mercurial nature of an industry susceptible to fluctuations in base metal prices.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16298,"place_ref":601535,"name":"Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former)","alternate_name":"Cook Shire Council Chambers","street_address":"121 Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-08","description":"Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) (1877) is located in the centre of Cooktown’s central business district. The building stands at the front of the site, facing east to Charlotte Street, the town’s principal street. The open rear yard slopes down to the west to the Endeavour River, which runs along the rear boundary.
\nThrough its form, materials and siting, the place contributes to an attractive streetscape of nearby, related 19th and early 20th century buildings and civic infrastructure, including: Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (1887); Mary Watson's Monument (1886) [QHR600421]; former Seagren's Building (1880s) [QHR600420]; former Bank of North Queensland (1892) [QHR600422]; former Queensland National Bank (1892) [QHR600419] and Early Granite Kerbing and Channelling (1880s) [QHR601731].
\nIt is a timber-framed, low-set, single-storey building clad with chamferboards and with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal clad sheets. The long narrow building stretches along Charlotte Street. A wide rear block projects from the rear to form a T-shape in plan. This projection is the truncated remnant of a longer residential wing with semi-detached kitchen wing that has been demolished/removed off site. A verandah wraps the building on all sides except the rear side of the rear block; its roof is continuous with the main roof. Topping the centre of the main roof is a broad, hipped lantern roof, ventilated by fixed louvres on all sides.
\nThe subfloor stumps have been replaced with short steel posts and a small, semi-detached masonry extension has been made to the north side toward the rear.
\nThe front verandah remains open and has stop-chamfered timber posts and features a central gable roof over the main entrance to the building. The gable is infilled with v-jointed timber boards and features a non-original stop-chamfered finial. The verandah balustrade of battens is a later replacement not to the original cross-braced design. All other verandahs, which were originally open, have been enclosed.
\nThe windows and doors of the building provide evidence of the building’s original public post and telegraph office and residential use and its 1888 conversion for residential use only. The two central double doors (originally the main entrance doors into the two separate offices) are timber-framed, glazed double doors with moulded panels and fanlights. One of them (the telegraph office’s double doors) has been converted to be outward opening c1888 for the residence conversion. Either side of the main entrance doors are double-hung windows with fine, moulded glazing bars. The windows also retain their sash flaps – hinged timber pieces on the window jamb supporting or releasing the upper sash. The building has other windows which have been converted to French doors in c1888.
\nThe interior layout, originally divided in half into the two separate offices by a party wall, has been adapted for use as council offices with open plan areas and individual offices and rooms. The party wall has had some openings made in it to connect the two sides of the building and some partitions have been removed and new ones added in new locations. The original ceilings and walls are lined with timber boards. Some original partitions have been lined over with flat sheet material.
\nFeatures of Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) was constructed in 1877, on the west side of Charlotte Street, Cooktown, by the Queensland Government. It is a rare surviving example of a large timber Combined Post Office, Telegraph Office & Quarters building, which was designed with separate offices for a post office and a telegraph office at the front, and separate symmetrical quarters for the Post Master and Telegraph Manager to the rear. It is also a rare and early surviving government building from the first decade of Cooktown’s existence. It was converted to residential use only in 1888, after a new post and telegraph office (extant) was built to its immediate north the previous year, and it was later used as the offices of the Cooktown Municipal Council (later Cook Shire Council) from late 1892 until 2007.
\nBuilt on part of the traditional land of the Guugu Yimithirr people, the Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) is one of the earliest surviving in Cooktown. In 1770, HM Bark Endeavour, captained by Lieutenant James Cook, struck a coral reef before being beached for repairs for seven weeks on the south bank of the mouth of what Cook named the Endeavour River. Although relations between the visitors and the Guugu Yimithirr people were initially cordial, a cultural misunderstanding led to a confrontation, which was soon followed an act of reconciliation.[1] The Endeavour River was not visited by Europeans again until 1819, by Lieutenant Phillip King in HM Cutter Mermaid, while the next recorded visit was made by John Jardine in 1865.[2]
\nGold was discovered on the Palmer River, over 100km southwest of Cooktown, by surveyor Frederick Warner in August 1872, although explorer William Hann’s report to this effect was not tabled in Parliament until May 1873. Between June and September 1873, James Venture Mulligan led a prospecting party from the Etheridge River to the Palmer River, and a rush to the Palmer from the Etheridge ensued after his return. Cooktown (initially called Cook’s Town) was established when a party of police, government officials and miners landed on the south bank of the Endeavour River on 25 October 1873, with the aim of establishing a port and supply line for miners already on the Palmer. A party of miners soon left the Endeavour River for the Palmer.[3] The Palmer goldfield was declared on 27 November 1873.[4]
\nCooktown developed almost overnight as a port and supply and administrative centre, initially as a disorganised tent city, until the Government surveyor James Read arrived in February 1874. The first land sale occurred in May 1874, and a government reserve was located east of Charlotte Street, to the north of Hill Street.[5] Within six months of its establishment, the town had 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, 6 butchers, 5 bakers, 3 tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers; 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. There was an estimated floating population of 3,000 in the town itself, and thousands of men en route to the goldfields. Large numbers of Chinese miners made their way to the Palmer goldfield via Cooktown, and Chinese storekeepers were amongst the earliest to establish businesses in Cooktown. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874, a state school, customs house, courthouse, and several churches were erected by 1875, and the town was declared a municipality on 5 April 1876. The 1876 census revealed a population of over 9,200 persons on the Palmer goldfield, and Cooktown had a population of just under 2,200.[6]
\nRudimentary government buildings were soon erected. By February 1874 they consisted of two small timber and iron buildings for the police, and one small hut for the acting sub-collector of customs. In April, a prefabricated customs house and a bonded store arrived. These were located in the government reserve north of Hill Street, although the western side of Charlotte Street was also reserved for government purposes.[7]
\nAn unofficial post office was established in Cooktown from 1 January 1874, and became official later in the year. It was originally based in one of two timber and iron huts erected for the police, on the government reserve, but in July 1874 it relocated into its own building on this reserve, north of the police. In 1875 this was described as a two-room building, with an office and a bedroom for one of its two staff. A line for the telegraph from Cooktown to Maytown, on the Palmer goldfield, was opened on 25 April 1876.[8]
\nTenders for a new purpose-built post and telegraph office were called in 1875, and again in 1876. The contract was let in July 1876 to Cooktown contractor HJ Meldrum, with a price of £1,940. Meldrum disappeared later in the year, believed drowned, and the work was completed by Cooktown builder John Sullivan by February 1877. At this time it was reported ‘the erection of the Post and Telegraph offices at Cooktown has been completed. They are in one building, the walls of which are of timber, and roof covered with galvanised iron. It provides large offices for each department, also quarters for officers…’[9]
\nThe new post and telegraph office was located on the west side of Charlotte Street, north of Adelaide Street, on a post office reserve of 1 rood 16p (1,416m2) gazetted by 1879. A town hall was later erected c1880 between the post office reserve and Adelaide Street, on a small town hall reserve gazetted in 1879, and extended to the west in 1887.[10]
\nPost and telegraph offices were designed in the office of the Colonial Architect. In the late 1870s the Colonial Architect was Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, who also designed the Cooktown Powder Magazine (1875-6) [QHR 600425], and the first wing of the Cooktown Hospital (1879) [QHR 600424]. Later, in private practice, he prepared plans for St Mary's Convent at Cooktown (1888-89) [QHR 600423], and the former Cooktown Queensland National Bank (1890-92) [QHR 600419].
\nThe provision of post and telegraph services was an important responsibility of the Queensland (then colonial) Government, as communication was vital in such a large colony, with a dispersed regional population. Before post and telegraph services were taken over by the Commonwealth Government in 1901, the Queensland Government constructed 200 post offices, with the most active decades being the 1870s-80s. Telegraph offices had their own buildings until the early 1870s, when dual-use buildings, with both post and telegraph offices, were designed. When plans were prepared for the Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office, Queensland post and telegraph services were still operating independently, and the two departments did not amalgamate until 1879. Post and telegraph offices were often grouped near other government buildings, were usually timber, and often resembled houses in scale and form, although they were generally built closer to the street. Compared with earlier designs, which were little more than cottages with one room or an enclosed verandah serving as a post or telegraph office, mid-1870s designs provided more generous space for post and telegraph functions. [11]
\nThere was little standardisation in design, but the post and telegraph office at Cooktown has been classified as a ‘Combined Post Office, Telegraph Office & Quarters’– a large, single-storey timber design with a symmetrical layout of separate offices and quarters, and a centrally placed pediment marking the entrance. Only three of this type were built, in the 1870s, at Roma, Cooktown and Gladstone, and in 2020 only Cooktown’s remains.[12]
\nThe Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office was constructed with two offices at the front (east end): one for the post office (south), and one for the telegraph office (north). The southern end of the telegraph office also contained two smaller rooms; a lobby on the east side, and a battery room on the west side. Each office had symmetrical quarters to the rear (west), for the Post Master and the Telegraph Manager, separated from each other by a party wall down the centre of the building. Each quarters consisted of a sitting room west of their respective office, then three bedrooms in a row, off a central hall. Verandahs were included along the east, north and south sides of the building. At the rear, both quarters were joined to a semi-detached kitchen wing; which had two mirrored halves, each including a kitchen and a servant’s room, with a washing shed on the west side.[13] In December 1876 The Cooktown Courier described the building as ‘nice looking and commodious… with both the public offices and private apartments being spacious and lofty [while] the roof is admirably arranged to allow the free circulation of air’.[14]
\nWhen the new Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office opened in 1877, the Palmer goldfield was at its peak of production. Customs duties collected at Cooktown were second only to Brisbane, during 1875-1877; and in 1877 the Palmer goldfield produced 45% of the Queensland’s gold. However, as alluvial yields dropped, the flow of Chinese miners bound for the Palmer through Cooktown decreased, and reef mining proved uneconomical, the town’s fortunes began to decline, and Cooktown’s gold boom was over by 1885.[15]
\nDespite the decline of the Palmer goldfield’s yields, Cooktown’s economy was kept afloat by the discovery of tin along the Annan River in 1887, the pearling, bêche-de-mer, and pastoral industries, and the use of Cooktown as the main port for Queensland’s trade with New Guinea from 1885. Public improvements continued in Cooktown during the 1880s, including granite kerbing and channelling from 1884 [QHR 601731], and the building of a monument to Mary Watson, a victim of frontier conflict, [QHR 600421] in 1886, and a monument to Captain Cook [QHR 601044] in 1887. A boarding school and convent was also built at Cooktown for the Sisters of Mercy [QHR 600423] in 1888-9.[16] Another source of economic stimulus during the 1880s was the construction, from 1884, of a railway. This officially opened to Laura in October 1888, but the line never paid and was never extended to Maytown (established 1874) on the Palmer River.[17]
\nThe Post and Telegraph Office proved inadequate for the volume of mail and telegraph services being demanded. In 1887, a new post and telegraph office (without quarters) was constructed adjacent to the north, by CFA Sparkes for £975, and was ready for occupation by October 1887. A new post and telegraph reserve, incorporating the 1877 post and telegraph office, and a closed section of Green Street to its north, had been gazetted in 1886.[18]
\nThe offices of the old post and telegraph office were modified during 1888, as additions to the existing quarters. At this time some of the windows in the front rooms of the building were replaced with French doors, and a lattice screen was erected along the front verandah. However, the building remained in residential use for only four years. Constructed on a former mangrove swamp at the base of the ridge running south from Grassy Hill, the site was inundated with water during the wet season and lacked proper drainage. The place was considered unhealthy, and was vacated in 1892.[19]
\nAfter a fire destroyed the adjacent town hall on 13 December 1892, the former post and telegraph building was occupied as the temporary Chambers of the Cooktown Municipal Council. It was permanently taken over by the Municipal Council in March 1893.[20]
\nAs a result of the change in the building’s use, there were also changes made to the relevant government reserves. In 1900, the southern part of the 1886 post and telegraph reserve, containing the 1877 building, was added to the existing, vacant, town hall reserve to the south, creating a Reserve for Municipal Purposes of 2 roods and 29 perches (2,757m2).[21] In 1903 the Cooktown Municipal Council became Cooktown Town Council, and remained so until 1932, when it became part of the Cook Shire (established 1919).
\nBy 1900 the Cook and Palmer census districts still had a population of just under 6,000, despite less than 1,300 persons on the Palmer, Coen and Hamilton goldfields, and the municipality of Cooktown retained a population of nearly 2,000. However, a cyclone in 1907 destroyed or unroofed many buildings, including the Masonic Temple, the Presbyterian and Catholic churches and ten hotels. Many commercial buildings were rebuilt, but houses were abandoned as the population drifted to Cairns.[22] The population of Cooktown dropped as low as 429 in 1961, but had recovered to 2339 by 2011.[23]
\nSome changes have been made to the 1877 post and telegraph building over the years. The building was truncated when the kitchen wing and two rearmost bedrooms on each side were removed by 1957. The former site of the town hall, to the south, was still vacant at this time, and remained so until a modular building was moved onto the site between 1987 and 1989.[24] Alterations were also undertaken in the 1970s, when a number of internal partitions were removed and the north and south verandahs enclosed; and a masonry strong room/vault was added to the north side of the north verandah in 1982.
\nThe building functioned as the administrative offices of Cook Shire Council until c2007, after which it became a history centre, operated by the Cooktown Historical Society, with a small museum, as well as providing storage for historic Shire Council documents. In 2020, the Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) survives, next to its 1887 replacement, on Charlotte Street.[25] The only other known surviving government buildings of Cooktown's establishment phase are the Cooktown Powder Magazine (1875-6) and the former Cooktown Hospital (1879-81, QHR 600424).
","criteria":"Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former), constructed in 1877 as Cooktown's first purpose-built post and telegraph office, is a result of the establishment of Cooktown as the port for the Palmer River goldfields. It is important in demonstrating the provision of post and telegraph facilities in new settlements by the Queensland Government, and the development of Cooktown as a regional centre in the 1870s.
|Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) is significant for its rarity value as one of only five known 1870s government buildings to survive in Far North Queensland.
|Cooktown Post and Telegraph Office (former) is important for its aesthetic contribution to the Charlotte Street streetscape, which is characterised by prominent and attractive 19th and early 20th century buildings and civic works in the centre of Cooktown. With views from Charlotte Street to its front elevation, open verandah, and the building’s large ventilated roof, the place makes a notable contribution through its form, scale, materials, and siting.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16299,"place_ref":601536,"name":"Roma Government Complex","alternate_name":"Roma State School","street_address":"42 Bungil Street","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-09-04","description":"Roma Government Complex is located on a rectangular block bounded by Wyndham, Bungil and Arthur Streets and two vacant allotments. It is a substantial stuccoed brickwork building, influenced by Interwar Mediterranean style. It faces north toward Bungil Street and is aligned with that street.
Roma Government Complex is a three storeyed building with a centrally located main entrance in a range that breaks forward one bay. The main entrance door is recessed into an arched opening, enriched with an archivolt and keystone, and flanked by two wrought iron bracketed lanterns. The contrasting colour of the basement level accentuates openings and entrance features on the ground and first floor. The split symmetrical stairwell finished with an open porch at main entrance level has simple wrought iron balaustrading. A large square opening provides the central entrance to the basement level and is located beneath the entrance porch. It has archivolt and keystone patterns to match the main entrance.
All three storeys have simple openings along the verandahs, facing the street. The ground floor, carries semi circular arches in contrast to the squared openings on the basement and first floor levels Stair halls at each end of the building maximise the size of the major elevation to Bungil Street. On the basement level, symmetrical projecting door cases crowned with plain shields provide entrance to the stair halls.
The roof, clad with asbestos cement tiles, is pitched and hipped except for the central range which terminates in a gable/pediment at both south and north elevations. The front gable is marked ROMA STATE SCHOOL with the date of construction, 1937, in the gable of the rear of the building.
The building has relatively understated decorative features and fenestration patterns The main entrance is flanked by two grouped banks of casement windows crowned with a semi circular fanlight window. The light gently textured surface contrasts with the dark coloured timber windows located in the central range, the stair halls and the southern elevation. At the rear of the building eleven banks of four casements with fanlights are symmetrically placed on the ground and first floor. Identical grouped casement windows are located on the east and western face of the building.
The verandahs are floored with polished concrete and double hung sash windows line this space. Each floor has three entrance doors to the office spaces. The offices are open plan, with fluorescent lights and a centrally located air conditioning duct. At the western end of the ground floor office area, are two offices which these located on a raised platform, separating them from the main office area.
Bottle trees with small cairns and plaques, part of the Roma Avenue of Heroes, are located on the Bungil and Wyndham Streets footpaths. The front lawn area has six mature palm trees which are sympathetic with the architectural style of the building.
","history":"Roma Government Complex is a three storey rendered brick building, influenced by Inter War Mediterranean style, facing Bungil Street. It was constructed in 1937 as the main building of Roma State School, providing primary education to children of Roma and district.
Roma was the principal town of the Mount Abundance district, which was established as a pastoral and agricultural region after exploration by Thomas Mitchell, New South Wales Surveyor General in 1846. It was originally settled by squatters, who established it as primarily a sheep grazing area. The township of Roma was proclaimed in September 1862, the first town formed in Queensland after separation. Roma was named after Lady Bowen, wife of the first Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. She was the daughter of a Governor of the Ionian Islands and her maiden name was Countess Diamantina Georgina Roma. Surveyor McDowall laid out the town reserving a section for public buildings bounded by Bungil, Charles, McDowall and Gregory streets. The first land sales were held in September 1863. The town of Roma was declared a municipality in 1867. Roma flourished with the advent of the railway in the 1880s, ensuring the efficient transportation of stock and produce to the coastal ports. The vast artesian basin was tapped in Queensland in the late 1880s and early 1890s, securing an alternative water supply for cattle and sheep.
In 1870 Roma State School, comprising simple timber school building and teachers residence, opened with an enrolment of 133 pupils. The Reserve for a National School, a two acre site bounded by Bungil, Wyndham and Arthur Streets and two residential allotments, was proclaimed in 1871. A second school building, facing Wyndham Street, was constructed in 1899, allowing the separation of male and female instruction. This school building was enlarged through addition and verandah enclosure, thereby creating a series of new classrooms. In 1912 a verandah was enclosed to create space for a high school, with a separate site established and opened on 2 August 1920. In 1939 the original school building was sold to the RSL and relocated to Queen Street.
In 1934, the Health Inspector Chas Clark, began to agitate for a new school builidng. He referred to the existing building environment as problematic in respect to the physical and educational development of the children. The Roma School Committee pressed for a new building, alluding to the established use of the Unemployment Relief Scheme for the construction of school buildings and departmental preference for provision of buildings for coastal urban centres. The plans were prepared by Maurice Guthrie, of the Architectural Branch of the Department of Public Works, in January 1935, however it took the School Committee a further two years to obtain an undertaking from the government on the construction of a new building. Brick was used as it was thought to be more substantial and cost effective, but perhaps more importantly, it provided employment for greater numbers of tradesmen, during the years of economic depression.
The building was occupied in July 1938 and officially opened on 25 February 1939, providing accommodation for 432 children. It comprised eleven classrooms; a head teacher, male and female teachers rooms; cloakrooms and play area facilities underneath at the basement level. Conforming to sectional design, covered verandahs were incorporated on both the ground and first floor, along all but the southern side of the building. Ten of the classrooms, five on each floor, were interconnected by the use of sliding partitions. A stage was created by the incorporation of a raised floor beneath the western class room on the ground floor, providing multi functional use of class room space. The design was comparable to other brick school buildings built during this period of economic depression and reflects educational methodology of the time. (Explain educational methodology)
A combination of inadequate size of the site for outdoor facilities, burgeoning attendance and movement to open plan teaching methods in the late 1960s and early 1970s saw major changes to Roma State School. The addition of a new library behind the main school building, in 1972, prevented the early suggested relocation of the school. However, in 1974, the school was divided into Roma Infants School for years 1-3, on a separate site in Quinton Street, and Roma Junior School for years 4-7, at the Bungil Street site. In 1986 the Education Department piloted a new prototype of school in the Roma Middle School incorporating grades 4-10 on the one larger 14 acre site at Cottel Street.
In 1987, the Bungil Street school buildings were remodelled as Roma Government Complex accommodating the regional offices of the Education Department, Water Resources, Boating and Fishing and Forestry. In 1997, the reserve was subdivided into three lots with builings on the front section. The rear section of the land, comprising two lots, was sold to the Bungil Shire Council and the Uniting Church in 1997.
","criteria":"Roma Government Complex, formerly Roma State School is significant as a substantial stuccoed brick building that reflects regional prosperity of Roma as a pastoral service town. The impressive form of the Roma Government Complex is indicative of the relevant importance of Roma in relation to other towns in south western Queensland.
|The Roma Government Complex is an excellent regional example of a late Interwar school building, built as a part of the state government's depression initiatives under the Unemployment Relief Scheme. It is a good example of Queensland Public Works school building design and as such demonstrates the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place.
|The influence of Interwar Mediterranean style architecture and detailing creates an important aesthetic landmark in the town of Roma.
|As the former Roma State School, the building has a significant association with almost 50 years of primary school education for the Roma community since 1937.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16302,"place_ref":601539,"name":"Cairns Masonic Temple","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"8 Minnie Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-28","description":"The Masonic temple, a two-storeyed concrete structure with a gable roof concealed behind a parapet wall, is located on the northern corner of Grafton Street with the main entry to Minnie Street to the southeast. The building is T-shaped in plan, with the main body of the building consisting of a minimally adorned box with high set steel framed windows. The gable entrance sits proud of the main section, and features a symmetrical facade composed of classical elements.
The entry consists of a flight of stairs to a recessed door with a cantilevered awning. The doorway is surmounted by a tall rendered arch flanked by a corinthian column, supporting a large globe, to either side. Each column sits on a pedestal with a marble plaque. The rendered arch mouldings contain a large keystone and surround a circular window above a row of four small square windows. The parapet has a deep cornice above the words AD GLORIAM DEI, and is crowned with the masonic emblem of the carpenter's square and divider.
The building has high-level steel framed, multi-paned windows to each side and rear. Entrance doors area also located on either side and at the rear.
Internally, the building appears to consist of a large hall with a gallery, with staircases to the first floor at the front and rear.
The Minnie Street facade has an iron fence with concrete posts.
","history":"Completed in 1935, this two-storeyed concrete structure was the third building to be used as a Masonic Temple in Cairns.
The first recorded gathering of Freemasons in Cairns was held in December 1885, at Hides' Hotel [600382]. The first Masonic Lodge in Cairns, Gregory Lodge No. 50 was constituted in April 1886. By the mid 1920s, there were six Lodges that met in Cairns, in a building in Lake Street. Prior to the destruction of this building by a cyclone in 1927, the Lodges moved to a building adjoining the site of the present Temple.
In 1921, at a meeting held in the Cairns Masonic Hall, it was resolved that the representatives of the Gregory Lodge would communicate with the Grand Lodge regarding the establishment of a District Grand Lodge (DGL) of Carpentaria, with headquarters at Cairns. The creation of the DGL of Carpentaria was approved by the Grand Lodge in December 1923, and was subsequently formed in 1924; the Carpentaria district spread from Cardwell to Cape York, and west to Normanton.
In 1928, it was recommended that the DGL erect a suitable memorial to the craftsman who sacrificed so much in the Great War, and to the peace which followed.... . The following year, the DGL organised an appeal for individual donations towards the erection of the Memorial Temple. In 1934 it was decided to proceed with the erection of a Memorial Temple adjoining the present Hall at a cost not exceeding £12 000.
Tenders for the new Masonic Temple were called in August 1934. The architects for the buildings were the north Queensland firm of Hill and Taylor, who had offices in Townsville and Cairns. Richard Hill and Arthur Taylor established the firm of Hill and Taylor in Cairns in 1927, and in 1931, the firm took over the practice of CV Rees in Townsville. Both Hill and Taylor appear to have been masons.
The contractor for the building was CE Steadman, also a mason. The foundation stone of the building was laid on Armistice Day in 1934. Reports from the laying of the stone refer to the building as the Masonic Peace Memorial Temple, and the following description was given of the building; it would [upon its completion] be a worthy and fitting monument of the union of Freemasonry and a fitting memorial and tribute to those who sacrificed so much in the Great War. When it was decided to have the foundation stone laid on Armistice Day, he believed that no more fitting day could have been chosen as it was a day symbolising peace and harmony which was an attribute of the Craft... .
The Temple was constructed during the large-scale interwar redevelopment of Cairns, in which the city centre was virtually rebuilt. The redevelopment was partly a consequence of severe cyclone damage suffered by the city in 1920 and 1927, and also of the developing role of Cairns as an important regional centre in far north Queensland.
The dedication ceremony for the completed Temple was held in October 1935, and was performed by Sir Leslie Wilson, Governor of Queensland and Masonic Grand Master. The ceremony was a large occasion; attended by about 700 representatives of Lodges in Queensland.
A description of the building shortly before the dedication, referred to the imposing facade facing Minnie Street, and the North Queensland walnut and maple joinery. The attention given to the ventilation of the building was also important, and ducts from the external walls [were] brought through under a raised platform around the lodge room and the air ... exhausted by two big fans ensuring a continuous flow of fresh, cool air on even the most humid evenings.
A tablet to the memory of WHJ Mayers, the Foundation District Grand Master, was set into the base of the pillar at the left entrance to the temple and unveiled in March 1954.
The two large pillars at the entrance to the temple were destroyed/damaged by a cyclone in March 1956. There was considerable damage also to the windows and outbuildings of the temple. New columns are recorded as being completed in 1957, and in accordance with Masonic tradition, were formed hollow and a copy of all records subsequent to the laying of the foundation stone was placed inside one of the pillars.
","criteria":"The Masonic Temple was completed in 1935, since which time it has served as the headquarters for Freemasonry in far north Queensland. The Temple survives as an illustration of the development of Cairns as an important regional centre during the early twentieth century.
|The Masonic Temple has an imposing idiosyncratic facade which makes a strong contribution to the Cairns townscape. The building's facade, scale and form ensures its status as a Cairns landmark.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16304,"place_ref":601541,"name":"Longreach Powerhouse (former)","alternate_name":"Longreach Powerhouse Museum","street_address":"12 Swan Street","suburb":"LONGREACH","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"The buildings which form the former powerhouse (the generating complex, engine annexe and the gas production shed) and the CAPELEC office and store today form the nucleus of the Longreach Powerhouse Museum.
The powerhouse comprises a series of large, interconnected, corrugated galvanised iron sheds of a sawn timber frame construction. Included within this structure are the engine room (1921, with extensions in 1947, 1966, 1973), gas producer room (1921, with extensions in 1938, 1950, 1954, 1962), workshop (1934) and amenities area (1938). The office and store were built in the mid 1960s.
Of the earlier buildings, the engine room and its annexe and the gas producer room are of two distinct types of construction. The engine room is constructed of a sawn timber frame with a trussed roof structure. Both walls and roof sheeting have been replaced at least in parts. The amenities wing east of the engine room is similarly of sawn timber frame construction. The amenity rooms are clad in corrugated galvanised iron externally and lined internally with composition board. The workshop, constructed in 1934 is a sawn timber framed with trussed roof clad in corrugated iron without internal lining. By contrast, the gas producer rooms are constructed of large timber posts set directly into the ground and to which a sawn timber frame is attached. The building is clad with corrugated iron sheeting. Roof trusses, supporting corrugated roof sheeting, are themselves supported at mid span by hardwood poles.
Ten engine sets and gas producers are located within the engine and gas producer rooms. The galvanised iron cladding is attached to a timber framework on massive timber uprights. The full width and half-width suspended roof trusses are large scale with king and queen post construction.
The separate office and store was built in the mid 1960s. To the east of this building is evidence of the cooling pond which was formerly the swimming baths.
","history":"The Longreach Powerhouse began operating in 1921 under the Longreach Shire Council until 1966 when it came under the control of the Central West Regional Electricity Board and later the Capricornia Regional Electricity Board. The former Longreach Powerhouse was built by Edward and Martin, under the supervision of consultant engineer Norman White, and was completed by September 1921.
Electricity was generated in Longreach by at least 1908 when it was installed in the Longreach Hotel by the City Electric Light Company. The first documented moves to provide Longreach with an electric light scheme began in early 1916 when the Longreach Shire Council made enquiries about the costs of a scheme for the town. The Council appointed a consulting engineer, Norman White, to investigate the possibilities and he estimated a cost of £10,000.
After much debate, Council applied to the Queensland Treasury for a loan, but was refused as the Government of the day was undergoing a financial crisis. Undeterred, the Council and townspeople, through local member, John Payne, lobbied the Treasury and finally, in October 1919, money was made available - a sum £16,000 as the estimates had risen considerably. Ratepayers questioned the desirability of borrowing such a large sum of money for electricity generation, citing the facts that the town still didn't have an adequate drainage system and that a proper water reticulation or sanitary scheme would be more practical. One group even lobbied vigorously for a swimming pool to be built. Council, however, went ahead and applied for an Order in Council to permit it to generate electricity as the Longreach Electric Authority. This was granted on 15 July 1920 and the Council appointed Norman White as consulting engineer and supervisor of construction.
A site was selected on the town's recreation reserve, opposite the school and behind the artesian bore. The choice was made for two reasons. Firstly, the engines would need a plentiful supply of water for cooling purposes and secondly, the electricity generated would be Direct Current (as opposed to today's Alternating Current) which does not transmit over great distances, thus, the generating station needed to be close to its potential customers. By 12 December 1920, tenders were called for the supply of machinery, poles, insulators and wire. There tenders were not met and fresh plans were drawn up and tendered in March 1921.
By 30 April 1921, the foundations for the building had been poured and the engines - Ruston and Hornsby charcoal gas units - were expected to arrive imminently. A supply of 200 poles had been obtained from the Clermont district. Work by the contractor, Edward Morton Limited, proceeded steadily and on 17 September, Council passed for payment £695 asked for the construction of the building and concreting work. The same Council meeting also noted that the installation work was over budge and now looked like costing £19,000.
At the next meeting in November, Council heard that there were problems with the engine installation and that a start-up date was uncertain. This meeting resolved to ask State Treasury for a further £5,000, but a later meeting amended this figure to £6,000 undefined expenses to be paid directly by Treasury. On 12 December 1921, John Edward Lloyd Jones signed a tender to supply cord wood and charcoal to the powerhouse at the rate of 10 tonnes per month at £5 per ton.
Nothing is recorded in minutes from Council meetings between 12 December 1921 and 9 January 1922. The minutes from the meeting of 9 January indicate that the powerhouse had begun operating. In the minutes the Council called for a powerhouse manager to be appointed at £9 per week; the meeting requested Edward Martin to repair unsatisfactory concrete work at the powerhouse, indicating that engine vibration had damaged some of the concrete bedding; tenders were called to wire the Shire Office. A previous decision had been made not to have this work done until the electricity scheme was up and running and, finally, three people were to be prosecuted for illegally connecting their premises to the electricity supply.
Initially, the local government reserve contained the powerhouse, swimming baths and town bore. Subsequently, the boundaries of this reserve were altered as the power station expanded. The 1938 extension to the main building necessitated the alteration of the boundaries between the recreation reserve and the local government reserve. The boundary was altered again in 1943 when the producer annex was extended. In 1958, all of the recreation reserve was regazetted to enable further expansion of the powerhouse buildings. The recreation reserve had contained four tennis courts which were relocated to the showgrounds. When the Central West Regional Electricity Board took responsibility for the power station in 1966, the boundaries of the reserve were altered again. Most of the local government reserve was regazetted a reserve for electricity purposes while a portion containing the bore was retained by the Council.
The evolution of the powerhouse reflects the growth in demand for electricity. When the powerhouse opened it primarily supplied electricity for lighting. During the 1940s, demand increased significantly as a result of two major developments, the new hospital and the upgrading of the aerodrome. The US airforce is credited with upgrading the landing facilities at the aerodrome. The American base in Longreach was established in May 1942, where it remained until 24 July 1942. The -93rd and a portion of the 28th Bombardment Squadron were stationed there and it was from their Longreach base that they flew to engage in the battle of the Coral Sea in early May.
By the 1960s the powerhouse supplied other towns and rural areas under the Central West Regional Electricity Board. In 1977 the electricity supply in Queensland underwent reorganisation resulting in the powerhouse's operations being taken over by the Capricornia Regional Electricity Board. The power station continued to generate electricity until 1985 when the town and district were linked to the state wide grid.
Since the first building was erected in 1921, substantial changes have occurred on the site in response to the growth in the capacity and function of the power station. The original powerhouse was of timber frame construction and clad in corrugated galvanised iron. This latter material was to be the standard cladding and roofing, with one exception, for all subsequent buildings and extensions on the site. The first major extension to the powerhouse occurred in 1934 when a workshop was added adjacent to the producer annexe. Four years later a bathroom was built and the producer annexe extended when an additional gas producer was installed.
Until 1947, there was sufficient space within the main building to accommodate the additional engines that were installed in 1938 and 1943. When the National FA7 was purchase however, it was positioned on the western side of the main building and covered by a skillion roof.
The installation of the coal fired gas producers necessitated the construction of a separate building in 1951. In 1954, the gas producer building was extended to accommodate the second unit. At the same time as this extension was undertaken, major alterations were made to the main building. The roof was realigned in order to accommodate an internal mobile crane. Also, the building was extended 7 metres on the western side to provide full protection for the FA7 engine.
During the 1960s and 70s, the additions and alterations to the buildings continued as more equipment was installed. The main building was extended twice on the western side to accommodate the Mirrlees engines when they were installed in 1966 and 1973. In 1962, the producer building was doubled in size to provide room for the fourth gas producer. This extension was almost identical to the existing building. Other buildings constructed on the site included a garage and heavy equipment store. A new office was built soon after the Central West Regional Electricity Board took control of the power station in 1966.
The site of the Longreach Powerhouse is considerably reduced from that utilised at the peak of the power station's capacity. From 1958 the total area that had been formally gazetted as a recreation area was needed for the storage of fuel - both oil and coal - and for cooling ponds and tanks.
The powerhouse was decommissioned in 1985 when the central west became part of the state grid. Since this time, the site has been subdivided and reduced in area. In 1989, the Longreach Shire Council purchased the powerhouse and a portion of the land with the intention of converting it into a museum. The Longreach Powerhouse Museum Association commenced operations in February 1994. The powerhouse was opened as the Longreach Powerhouse Museum in September 1994.
","criteria":"The former Longreach Powerhouse is significant providing evidence in the remaining buildings and machinery of the earliest generation of electricity in Longreach and the development of the industry within the district. The former Longreach Powerhouse is significant for the evidence contained within the surviving fabric that the generation of electricity was formerly a local undertaking. The size and scale of the powerhouse operation on this site from 1921-1985 signifies the role played by the local shire council in electrical generation as one of a number of services to the community of the town and district.
|The surviving engines and equipment are significant as evidence of the first application of coal-fired gas producers in the electricity industry within Australia. This equipment was built specifically for the Longreach Powerhouse by Major Furnace and Combustions Pty Ltd in Melbourne.
|The former Powerhouse demonstrates the importance of the site to the town and provides landmark value to the area.
|With an area initially gazetted for recreation purposes, including tennis courts, and also containing the local swimming pool, the site of the former Longreach Powerhouse is significant for its association with the people of Longreach both as a recreational reserve and later as the source of the town's electricity supply, ushering in a new era in the town's history and changing forever the lives of the people.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16305,"place_ref":601542,"name":"National Bank of Australasia Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"11 Mill Street","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"The former National Bank of Australasia at Mossman is one of several historic buildings located in Mill Street, along which a tramline runs linking the Mossman Central Mill to cane farms west of the town. Other buildings along Mill Street include the Mossman Shire Hall and former Douglas Shire Council Building, Jack and Newell's General Store, the former Exchange Hotel and a refurbished picture theatre. The surrounding landscape is generally flat, sloping slightly towards the Mossman River and its tributaries. The distant views from the steps at the front of the bank are to Mount Demi and the Great Dividing Range to the west and to Mount Beaufort to the east.
The former bank building is sited facing north on a long, narrow allotment and is a simple timber-framed building with gabled roof, given a prominent street presence through the use of a masonry façade and portico. The façade is temple-like in its symmetrical composition comprising a number of elements of classical origin including widely spaced Doric columns between plain pilasters supporting a simplified entablature and cornice. The columns and surrounding architrave have a terrazzo finish as does the exterior and portico walls to approximately one metre above ground floor level.
From the street level, four steps finished in terrazzo lead up between the columns to a small portico with the riser of the third step engraved with the words "Douglas Shire Council" in uppercase lettering. The floor to the portico, inlaid with the words "National Bank", and the architrave, corbels and lintel surrounding the main entrance are also finished in terrazzo. The original front door has been replaced with an aluminium framed door with a side light. The tall windows either side of the front door comprise two pairs of six-pane steel framed casement windows vertically aligned and separated by a fixed light between the upper and lower sashes. Above the door, the fixed window has 12 panes and decorative wrought iron grilles are fixed to all windows on this elevation.
Behind the portico, the remainder of the main building is long and narrow, timber-framed and clad in weatherboards with a gabled roof. The northern gable end is hidden behind the façade which forms a parapet and the southern end of the roof is hipped. The roof of the main building is clad with ribbed-profile metal sheeting and the low pitched skillion roofs to the rear additions are clad in corrugated metal sheeting.
On the eastern elevation are four tall hooded windows each comprising two pairs of vertically aligned, six-pane timber framed casements. The west elevation is similar except the bottom pair of casements of the southern-most window have been replaced by a door which is accessed by a ramp.
Beyond the portico is the banking chamber, a large room approximately 11 metres long and seven metres wide with four metre high ceilings. It occupies the entire enclosed space of the building for most of its length. The walls are lined with vertically jointed pine boards and there is a profiled picture rail in line with the head of the windows. Ceilings are of plaster with cornices and decorative ceiling roses that remain. Skirtings, architraves and cornices in the chamber have multiple stepped profiles. To the rear of the chamber a full height wall of perforated fibreboard, is a later addition, built in line with the front of the strong room, which remains with its original door in place. While the walls and ceiling of the banking chamber are relatively intact, the fittings belonging to the bank have been otherwise removed and the floor covered with carpet. The original lighting has been replaced by hanging fluorescent fittings.
There are two weatherboard-clad additions built against the southern wall of the main bank building. A passage way leads past the strong room to these additions which include toilets and a kitchen and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The toilets are accessed by doors in the southern wall. Adjacent to this is the kitchen which appears to have been constructed after the toilets.
There is a garden bed along the western side of the allotment and behind the building is a long garage building clad in steel sheeting. This is recently built and is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former National Bank of Australasia at Mossman is a single storey masonry and timber building designed by notable Queensland architect, Lange Leopold Powell (1884-1938). Constructed from 1935 to 1936, this prominent building illustrates the economic growth experienced by regional towns in Queensland sugar producing districts during the 1920s and 1930s.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70km north of Cairns. George Elphinstone Dalrymple's North-East Coast Exploring Expedition of late 1873 brought attention to the resources around the Johnstone, Mulgrave, Russell, Daintree and Mossman rivers and from 1874 cedar stands on the latter were being logged extensively. Behind the coastal river plain the Hodgkinson goldfield was proclaimed on 15 June 1876. Initially accessed via Cairns, in 1877 a new route between the coast and the goldfields was found and Port Douglas was established as the new service port about four miles south of the mouth of the Mossman River. With the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line between 1882 and 1891, however, the importance of Port Douglas as a town and port declined, while the town of Mossman emerged in the early twentieth century as the administrative centre of a thriving sugar-growing district.
By 1878 the most readily accessible cedar stands in the Mossman River district had been exhausted, although logging in more difficult to reach areas continued into the 1880s. Agricultural settlers followed the timber getters from the late 1870s. Initially they supplied fodder, maize, rice and tropical fruits to the goldfields. Excessive rain and poor soil productivity, however, resulted in much of this land being converted to sugar-growing, with Brie Brie Sugar Plantation and mill being established in Mossman in 1883 (although the mill soon became inoperative). The impetus for more extensive sugar cropping in the district came with the establishment of the Mossman Central Co-operative Mill in the mid-1890s under the provisions of the 1893 Sugar Works Guarantee Act.
The township of Mossman was created from private subdivisions made in 1885 and following the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill. Despite the rapid expansion of sugar growing in the district from the mid-1890s, in 1910 the township of Mossman comprised little more than the Exchange Hotel, a store, butcher's shop, hall and timber church, clustered along Mill Street leading to the sugar mill. These buildings and most of nearby Port Douglas were severely damaged by a cyclone on 16 March 1911. In the aftermath, and with the continued rise in transient and permanent workers in the sugar industry, businesses at Port Douglas gradually gravitated to Mossman. In the 1920s the Court House and banking facilities moved from Port Douglas to Mossman, and by the end of the decade many of the district's services, including the Post Office, were located in Mill Street. In the 1930s town activity was further increased with the opening of a new hospital in 1930, the completion of the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in 1933, and the opening of the new Shire Hall and Offices in 1937. Mossman was now the administrative centre of the shire. During this period of exceptional growth in north Queensland's sugar towns, the National Bank of Australasia Ltd built its branch in Mill Street, Mossman.
The National Bank of Australasia began business in Melbourne in 1858. The bank expanded into rural and regional Victoria, South Australia and later into Western Australia. Branches were opened in New South Wales and Tasmania in the mid-1880s. The bank was restructured in 1893 after the economic crisis of the early 1890s and it became a public listed company as the National Bank of Australasia Limited (NBA).
In 1920 the NBA opened a branch in Brisbane - its first in Queensland. In 1922 the NBA absorbed the Bank of Queensland, which had been formed in 1917 following the merger of the Royal Bank of Queensland (formed in 1886) and the Bank of North Queensland (established in 1888), providing the NBA with branches throughout Queensland.
The NBA's principal competition in Mossman was the Queensland National Bank (QNB), established in Brisbane in 1872. From 1895 the Port Douglas branch of the QNB had served as the bank to the Mossman Central Mill Company and on 28 December 1900 a QNB agency opened in Mossman. In the 1920s a Mossman branch of the QNB, with attached residence, was constructed in Mill Street. This building survives, but has been altered.
The NBA first opened a branch in Mossman on 28 June 1929 in premises rented from the Exchange Hotel. Banks often rented premises prior to committing themselves to a region to test its viability. The bank's decision to acquire land in Mill Street in 1934 is a strong indication that the Mossman district, buoyed by the expansion of the sugar industry, was economically stable during this period. On 21 March 1935 builders Arthur E Zillfleisch and Tom Booth signed a contract for the construction of purpose-built banking premises, which were completed in 1936 for the contract price of ¿320.5.3.
The new building was designed by Brisbane-based architect Lange Leopold Powell, who undertook a variety of commissions for the NBA between 1922 and 1938. Powell was articled to architects Addison and Corrie from 1900 to 1905, and later worked as a draftsman in the Queensland Public Works Department. In 1908 he went to London, returning to Brisbane in 1911. From this time until his death in October 1938, Powell worked in private practice either on his own or in partnerships with other architects. He designed, remodelled or altered 26 other branch buildings for the NBA; was involved in the design for the NBA's Brisbane headquarters; and designed business premises for the Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd. Apart from his work in Mossman, his work on NBA buildings in regional Queensland included the branches in Ayr (which has a grand, classically-styled front facade), Bundaberg, Innisfail, Cairns, Wynnum, Mareeba, Tully, Atherton.
Powell designed other notable buildings in Brisbane that are entered in the Queensland heritage register, including: St Martin's War Memorial Hospital (1922, QHR 600075), Ballow Chambers (1924 and 1926, QHR 600164) and the Brisbane Masonic Temple (1930, QHR 600074). In addition to this portfolio of work, Powell was a key figure in the development of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, co-drafting the constitution in 1930 and serving as the institute's fourth president between 1932 and 1933. The architectural firm he started continues today as Powell, Dods and Thorpe Architects, with offices in Brisbane and Townsville.
One of the most distinctive qualities of the building was the impressive temple-like street facade. The use of classically-derived stylistic elements was a recurring theme in banking architecture in Queensland, and Australia generally, from the nineteenth century well into the middle of the twentieth century and was very popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Imposing, well-balanced designs symbolised all that banking institutions hoped to convey about the reliability and dependability of their businesses.
Mill Street was still unsealed when the bank was built in the middle of the decade, however, by its close the Douglas Shire Council Offices as well as the Town Hall, Post Office, School of Arts, Queensland National Bank, Post Office Hotel, Jack and Newell's General Store, Exchange Hotel and the National Bank of Australasia all occupied a place on Mill Street and were part of a regional commercial precinct.
From 1943 to 1948 the Mossman branch of the NBA closed its business due to the war time rationalisation of manpower. During this period the building was used as a residence. In 1948 the NBA absorbed the QNB, closing the former QNB branch at Mossman.
In 1981 the National Bank of Australasia Limited merged with The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Limited to form the National Commercial Banking Corporation of Australia Limited and subsequently changed its name to National Australia Bank Limited (NAB). On 7 April 1986, the Mossman branch of the NAB moved into new, larger premises in Front Street, which had become the main street of the town, being the thoroughfare from Cairns and Port Douglas in the south through Mossman and north towards the Daintree. Mill Street, by comparison, became less important as the town's commercial activities were no longer centred solely on the mill.
The former NAB building was purchased by Douglas Shire Council in 1987 to house its Engineering Department. The following year the roof was replaced with profiled metal decking. In 1997 the Council, including its Engineering Department, occupied new purpose-built premises in Front Street, and the former bank building was then leased by Centrelink until 2001. It stood vacant until 2002 when it was leased by Douglas Arts Inc., a community arts group. It continues to be used as a community arts centre in 2010.
In June 2008 the entire former Douglas Shire, which had become part of the Cairns Regional Council earlier that year during a state-wide local government reform program, was declared an iconic place under the Iconic Queensland Places Act 2008. In the gazetted declaration (No. 52, 20 June 2008) of this iconic place, the built environment values listed as being notable and worthy of preservation include those related to Mossman being the administrative centre of the Shire.
","criteria":"The former National Bank of Australasia building at Mossman was constructed in 1935-1936 and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the era of prosperity experienced by many north Queensland towns during the expansion of the sugar industry in the 1920s and 1930s. It is a small but prominent building in the main commercial precinct of Mossman, with a façade designed to impress and reassure patrons of the banking institution's financial stability and probity. The building was constructed at a time when Mossman was emerging as the administrative heart of the Douglas Shire, a successful sugar-growing and -milling district of Queensland. Mossman's identity in this Shire was confirmed in the Iconic Queensland Place of Douglas declaration made in June 2008 regarding the Shire.
|The former National Bank of Australasia building at Mossman is an excellent example of a small bank building designed to meet the needs of a small rural town and the agricultural district it serviced, while at the same time reaffirming the banking institution's financial credentials by incorporating a conspicuous and substantial masonry façade to the building. Displaying a hierarchy of functions and materials - an impressive, classically-styled masonry façade with entrance portico and columns masking a utilitarian, weatherboard-clad building behind - and retaining its early banking chamber, strong room and fenestration, the building has a high degree of integrity and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type.
The building also contributes to our understanding of the work of notable architect Lange Leopold Powell who made an important contribution to Queensland's built environment, and was a key figure in the development of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Powell designed or modified numerous buildings for the National Bank of Australasia in Queensland, of which this is a fine example of those he completed in regional towns - characteristically a strong classically-influenced street façade to an otherwise simple building. He also designed many other significant buildings, such as the Ann Street Masonic Temple (QHR 600074) in Brisbane, arguably one of his finest works.
|The former National Bank of Australasia building at Mossman is of aesthetic significance for the valuable and prominent contribution it makes - through scale, form, materials and design - to the distinctive visual character of the town. This is characterised by a patterning of spaces and buildings comprising one to two storeys, built to the footpath with a formal street façade in contrast to a simpler structure behind. The impressive, classically-designed façade of this building is of particular aesthetic merit. The use of classical architectural elements in the façades of banks and other commercial buildings, town halls and institutional buildings was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and has made a noticeable contribution to Queensland's built environment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16307,"place_ref":602208,"name":"Fulton Residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"209 Indooroopilly Road","suburb":"TARINGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The Fulton House is a modified example of the international style in the materials, detailing and asymmetrical massing. It is a two storey buff coloured brick house with contrasting red brick to the lower levels and a terra cotta tiled roof. A large box gutter is concealed behind a deep fascia board and this combined with the horizontal raked joints and the concrete balcony and steel balustrade serves to emphasise the horizontal lines. The chimney is built in a red brick emphasising the vertical line.
Internally the house is designed on three levels with an entrance stair hall leading down to an open planned living dining room opening onto a small kitchen. The open stair well leads to the upper level which contains two bedrooms, a study and a bathroom The main bedroom and study open onto the balcony. Internally the house is without decoration and is flooded with light from the large windows. The house is very intact and has many of the original light fittings and 'modern' features such as built in cupboards in the kitchen and bedrooms. Bookshelves in the living room and bed head units in the bedrooms were designed and built by Charles Fulton.
The house is set back on the site overlooking Indooroopilly Road with a large mature garden in front of the house. The garden has a stone flagged terrace, stone retaining walls and stepped garden terraces all of which were constructed by Charles Fulton and his family.
","history":"The Fulton Residence was designed in 1940 by Charles Fulton as his own home. The house was designed in a modified international style and won the 1948 Queensland Royal Australian Institute of Architects award for meritorious architecture.
\nCharles Fulton chose to build his home at a time when the inner western suburbs of St Lucia and Taringa were being opened up for development. This development was stimulated by the move of the University of Queensland to St Lucia. Architects were particularly attracted to these suburbs because of the topography and vegetation and the area developed a reputation for innovative and experimental domestic design. In the post-war period a number of architects settled in the St Lucia area, including of Karl Langer, EJ Hayes, CR Scott and V Gzell.
\nCharles Fulton was born in Sydney 1906 and received his architectural training as an articled pupil of FE Stowe, architect and civil engineer. He worked for Sydney architects, Rudder & Grout, before travelling to London, where he was employed by B George (1931-32).[1] During this period he travelled in Europe and made pilgrimages looking at buildings. He was particularly interested in the work of Dutch architect Willem Dudok, whose Hilverusm Town Hall was influential in Britain in the early thirties. In 1933 he returned to Australia and settled in Brisbane where he was employed by Hall and Cook (1933-34). In 1937 he entered into partnership as JP Donoghue and CWT Fulton. In the same year he also became lecturer in Charge of Architecture at the Brisbane Central Technical College and he taught in the architecture school for 33 years. He made a large contribution to architectural education throughout his whole career and the Queensland University of Technology named its architecture faculty the 'Charles Fulton School of Architecture' in his honour.
\nCharles Fulton was a key practitioner and teacher of the modern trends in architectural design in Queensland during the late thirties and forties. The Masel residence at Stanthorpe (1938), Nudgee Junior College Indooroopilly (1938) and his own residence all received meritorious architecture awards in the early Royal Australian Institute of Architects Queensland Awards Programs. Aside from their domestic work, the practice of Donoghue and Fulton were renowned as hospital architects who combined the latest ideas in hospital planning with recent developments in architectural design. The Townsville Hospital [601388] designed between 1935-39 (built 1951), the Kingaroy General Hospital and Nurses' Quarters 1936-38, Goondiwindi Hospital 1939, Roma Hospital 1940, Nurses' Quarters Nambour (601568) 1941-42 (demolished 1999) were all buildings designed in this period. After the Second World War the partnership of Donoghue and Fulton was dissolved and Fulton took a new partner JM Collin. During this period Charles Fulton designed a number of notable hospital buildings including, Barcaldine Hospital main block and Staff Quarters (1953), Clermont Hospital main block (1955), Aramac nurses quarters (1957). All these later buildings were characterised by low pitched roofs, linear planning, cross ventilation, wide eaves or awnings and the use of modern materials. The firm that he founded continues as Fulton Trotter.
\nThe Fulton family occupied the Fulton Residence for nearly 60 years with Charles Fulton dying in 1988 and his wife in 1999. Both Mr and Mrs Fulton were very attached to the house and garden and it remained virtually unaltered from when it was completed in 1940.
","criteria":"The house demonstrates how, in the interwar period, European architectural ideas were transferred to Australia and modified to local conditions. The Fulton Residence is an important building in the evolution of domestic architecture in Queensland. In the immediate post war period the western Brisbane suburbs of St Lucia, Taringa and Indooroopilly were the location of many experiments with modern domestic architecture and the Fulton Residence is part of this tradition.
|The Fulton Residence is an excellent intact Queensland example of the international style of architecture, with its use of modern materials, and the asymmetrical balance of horizontal and vertical elements.
|The design of the building with its interplay of horizontal and vertical elements and curved balcony has aesthetic value. Sited on a slope the house is enhanced by a large mature garden which contributes to the ambience of the surrounding suburb.
|The Fulton Residence is intimately associated with the esteemed architect Charles Fulton as the house he designed for his family. It displays many of the characteristics of his work including the use of face brickwork, the use of modern materials such as steel windows and stainless, corner windows, the eschewing of internal decoration and an interest in designing for a sub tropical climate.
Charles Fulton is an important figure in the development of architecture in Queensland both as an educator and a practitioner. He played an important role at the Brisbane Central Technical College (now the Queensland University of Technology) for over thirty years. He was one of the main architects responsible for introducing the international style to Queensland. He experimented with this style combining it with an interest in climatic design. Aside from his own home his key buildings include the Masel residence at Stanthorpe, Nudgee Junior College Indooroopilly, Kingaroy General Hospital, Barcaldine Hospital and Townsville Hospital.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16309,"place_ref":601547,"name":"Santa Barbara","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"209 Moray Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-01-28","description":"Santa Barbara, a low set, rendered masonry residence is located on the corner of Moray and Sydney Streets, New Farm. It has an expansive ground floor with a centrally-placed attic room above. The house is an unusual, asymmetrical composition of intersecting forms that together create a distinctive design. It is a substantial dwelling constructed in the Spanish Mission style and employs many of the features associated with this style, including suggestions of hand-crafted techniques reminiscent of adobe buildings.
The heavy, half-round terracotta tiled roof, together with the curvaceous, bell-like chimney that sits upon a large square base are dominant features of the exterior. The principal elevation has a projecting porch with a short arcade of three arched openings, decorative metalwork and twisted, "barley sugar" columns. Bay windows are located to either side of the porch, each has a tiled roof, planter boxes supported on corbels that sit at sill level and ornamental leadlight windows in an octagonal honeycomb pattern. A loggia with twisted columns and tile capping links the house and garage and has been enclosed by decorative screens with an arch motif. The garage has been extended with an open-sided canopy with a gently pitched roof and has been paved with brick pavers. The main door is located within a wall with a stepped, asymmetric parapet and has delicate concrete moulding around the opening. Circular moulded cartouches adorn the exterior in a number of places.
Reports of the interior highlight the use of hand-made flooring tiles, panelled ceilings and walls, gently arched openings and timber-framed glass doors with decorative tracery. The central fireplace is reputedly highly decorative with twisted columns and moulded plaster surrounds.
The house is painted in a pale tone of terracotta with details such as metalwork painted in blue. The exterior of the house appears to be very intact. The setting contributes to the overall design of the house and includes a low, rendered masonry perimeter wall with brick capping, "crazy" paved paths and mature, graceful poinciana trees on the street. The name Santa Barbara is inscribed on the wall close to the entrance to the property at the corner of Sydney and Moray Streets.
","history":"Santa Barbara, a rendered brick residence in the Spanish Mission style was erected in 1929-30 for Brisbane businesswoman Mrs Sarah Balls. The house was designed by Brisbane architect EP Trewern, and was constructed by builder DF Roberts.
The site was part of a much larger parcel of land - part of the New Farm of convict days - surveyed in 1843 as Eastern Suburban Allotment 19 [nearly 22 acres] and purchased in 1844 by John McConnel of Brisbane and Cressbrook. In 1863 it was transferred to, and immediately subdivided by, pastoralist and politician Robert Ramsay MacKenzie. In the 1870s Samuel Griffith acquired much of this land, including the site of Santa Barbara, on which he erected his home Merthyr.
The southwest corner of Moray and Sydney Streets remained part of the grounds of Merthyr until after the death of Sir Samuel Griffith in 1920. Early in 1929, resubdivision 37 of subdivision 17 of ESA 19, parish of North Brisbane [32 perches] was transferred from Edward Percival Thomson Griffith and George Frederick Doyle, trustees of Sir Samuel's estate, to Nola Eulis Wilkinson, the transfer being recorded in early May. In the same month, the property was transferred from Nola Wilkinson to Sarah Balls, widow.
Sarah Balls [neé Sarah Beatrix Meats Blasdale] was the widow of builder and later publican John Irwin Balls, who had immigrated from Scotland to Queensland in 1881. They were married in Brisbane in August 1881. In 1887 JI Balls went into partnership with Henry Smith as Smith and Balls, builders and contractors, Brisbane, and by 1889 had worked on warehouses for Finney, Isles & Co. and Watson Bros. (QHR 600126), and the Union and Empire Hotels. It appears that the partnership did not survive the economic depression of the early 1890s, and from 1892-1896 John and Sarah Balls ran the Queensland Hotel in Terrace Street, Ipswich. In 1896 the license to the Queensland Hotel was transferred from John Irwin Balls to Sarah Balls, and she held this until 1898. John died in Western Australia in mid-1898 and the following year his widow moved to Maryborough, where she held the license to the Queen's Hotel at the corner of Adelaide and Kent Streets. However, by 1902 Sarah Balls had returned to Brisbane, where she ran the Prince of Wales Hotel in Edward St, then the Stock Exchange Hotel in Queen Street from c1905-c1915.
In the early 1900s Sarah Balls appears to have diversified her business interests, as proprietor of refreshment rooms at Isis Junction from c1908, and Helidon from c1911. In the mid-1910s she also operated refreshment rooms in Edward Street, Brisbane. In 1912-13 she erected modest brick premises in Margaret Street for Smith & Balls' Acme Engineering Works (QHR 600125), and c1915 acquired an interest in the Commercial Hotel in Rockhampton. By 1917 Mrs Balls had retired from hotel work and moved to Hamilton, but appears to have maintained her business interests until her death in 1932.
In July 1929 Sarah Balls made application to the Brisbane City Council to erect a brick residence, to cost £4,000, at the corner of Moray and Sydney Streets, New Farm. Brisbane architect Eric Percival Trewern had called tenders through May and June 1929, and the contract had been let to Douglas F Roberts & Sons of Toorak Road, Hamilton.
EP Trewern's Brisbane architectural practice, established in 1920 and maintained until his death in 1959, proved highly successful. During the interwar years he was influential in popularising Georgian revival style in Brisbane commercial building and Spanish Mission and Old English/Tudor Revival style in Brisbane residential architecture. He designed residences throughout Brisbane with Santa Barbara at New Farm ranking amongst his best, and considered the finest example of Spanish Mission style in Brisbane. It was also one of the most expensive homes erected in Brisbane at this period. Trewern also designed the Spanish mission style residence at nearby 17 Griffith Street, New Farm, similar in materials and style to Santa Barbara, but on a smaller scale. Trewern's other interwar work included business premises, flats and office renovations, with some of his larger commissions including the Country Press Association Building at the corner of Elizabeth and Edward Streets [1924-25 - demolished]; Heindorff's Building in Queen Street [1926-28 - demolished]; Inchcolm Professional Chambers on Wickham Terrace [1929-30 - (QHR 600170); Turrawan Private Hospital at Clayfield [1932 with 1935 additions]; and the new Surfers Paradise Hotel [1936-37 - demolished].
Trewern was actively involved in furthering professional architectural standards in Queensland. He served as Vice-President of the Queensland Institute of Architects 1929-30, Member Board of Architects of Queensland 1929-35, Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 1930, President Queensland Institute of Architects 1931-35, Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1931; Vice-President of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 1932-33, and Federal Councillor 1932-35.
Santa Barbara, completed by May 1930, was much admired. Described in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland as a handsome Brisbane residence, it was noted for its unique mission style. The Cordova tile roof, manufactured, supplied and fixed by the Brisbane branch of Wunderlich Limited, was considered impressive. The Brisbane social magazine Steering Wheel and Society & Home devoted a whole-page pictorial spread to the building in August 1933, emphasising the Mediterranean elements in the design and the sub-tropical garden setting. In 1936, a photograph of Santa Barbara was included in a newspaper article on New Farm, captioned: This, one of the most admired homes of New Farm, combines with its settings to produce a romantic atmosphere. Here the Spanish influence in architecture has been happily employed.
Sarah Balls died on 13 June 1932, and in 1933 Santa Barbara was transferred to her daughter Eva Muriel Lissner of New Farm. Eva had married Ernest Henry Lissner, son of former Queensland MLA Isidore Siegfried Lissner, in Brisbane in 1904, and was widowed in 1927. She resided at Santa Barbara through the 1930s, but whether she continued to live at Santa Barbara after her marriage to Francis James Wilson in 1939, is not known. Following Mrs Wilson's death in 1954, Santa Barbara passed to her son, Jack Ernest Lissner, who transferred the property to Francis Louis John Stellmack in 1956. It remained in the Stellmack family until purchased by the Wigan family in 1969.
","criteria":"Santa Barbara is significant historically for its association with the interwar redevelopment of New Farm, in which, despite the subdivision of surviving 1880s estates and the construction of many purpose-designed blocks of flats, that part of New Farm south of Brunswick Street remained as middle-class as it had been when first subdivided in the 1860s.
|Santa Barbara is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type: a substantial masonry residence in the Spanish Mission style and is a key example of this genre in Brisbane.
|The place exhibits aesthetic qualities which are derived from a combination of its design, form, materials, setting and intactness. It makes an important contribution to the streetscapes of Sydney and Moray streets and to the New Farm townscape.
|The place has a special association with the work of influential Brisbane architect EP Trewern, and has been recognised as his best known residential work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16313,"place_ref":602211,"name":"Bulimba Ferry Terminal","alternate_name":"Bulimba Waiting shed and landing | Bulimba Ferry House","street_address":"Oxford Street","suburb":"BULIMBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-12","description":"The Bulimba Ferry House is a small picturesque structure on the bank of the Brisbane River at the end of Oxford Street, Bulimba. It is approached from the riverside by a pontoon and from the landward side by a pathway and entrance leading into a covered waiting area.
The ferry house is an open timber framed structure set on stumps and clad with weatherboards. It is rectangular in plan with a verandah running along the southern side. The roof is gabled and has an intersecting gable to the south, which forms a raised central feature dividing the verandah roof into three bays. These have shallow arched openings and timber balustrades. The roof is clad in terracotta tiles and the gable ends have decorative timberwork and paired brackets. At the crossing of the roof gables is a low octagonal tower with four clock faces topped by a metal cupola.
The interior has a timber floor and ceiling and there are timber bench seats against the walls and a storage locker.
","history":"The Bulimba ferry terminal was built in 1922 for the Balmoral Shire Council, then responsible for the efficient servicing of several ferry routes across the Brisbane River.
\nSince the days of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, when a punt was poled between the main settlement and the south bank of the Brisbane river, ferries have been a vital transport facility for Brisbane. The river twists and loops through the city and cross-river access is important in linking city and suburbs and greatly reducing travel time between them. Although the first bridge linked the city and South Brisbane in 1862, no other bridges were built for many years, public transport was limited and few people had private transport until after World War Two. People who needed to commute to work and to access shopping and entertainment facilities used cross-river ferries on a daily basis. Ferries were the only major transport service provided by metropolitan local authorities, as responsibility for care and management had been placed in their hands by the Municipalities Act of 1858.
\nIn November 1844 the first ferry service commenced between Customs House and Kangaroo Point and in 1850 Samuel and Matthew Buckley operated a rowing boat ferry service at Bulimba. In 1864, John Watson began a vehicular ferry at Bulimba under lease. He purchased the allotment at the terminal to build his house. The route was then serviced by the steam paddleboat 'Advance' until transferred to the city route in 1893 when floods destroyed the Victoria Bridge. It was replaced at Bulimba by a punt operated by winch and cable until a new ferry was obtained.
\nIn 1888 Bulimba and Hawthorne were included in the area for which the Balmoral Divisional Board was responsible. Balmoral Shire was created in 1901 and was responsible for Apollo, Bulimba, Norman Park and Hawthorne ferries. A special sub-committee was responsible for the provision of boats, buildings and landings and fixed fares. In 1921 the Balmoral council decided to replace the existing waiting sheds and landing at Bulimba with a substantial ferry house to shelter waiting passengers. In 1922 they commissioned a ferry house design from the prominent architectural firm of GMH Addison and Son. The tender of E Taylor was accepted for the construction in July 1922. By August the building was under construction and tenders for the construction of a pontoon were called in September 1922.
\nThe design for the proposed building appeared in the December 1922 edition of the Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland, however, as GHM Addison died in February 1922 following a protracted illness, the design is most likely by his son George Frederick Addison. The quality of the building and the choice of a noted firm of architects for the design attest to the importance of the ferry service in the life of the community.
\nGeorge Henry Male Addison was Welsh born and trained in England. He immigrated to Adelaide in 1883 and then moved Melbourne. He was an artist as well as an architect and was one of the founders of Melbourne Art Society. He moved to Brisbane in 1886 as local partner of Terry, Oakden and Addison. Addison won prizes for both architectural design and fine arts and served on a number of important committees and advisory panels connected with both. In late 1892 he set up in practice on his own, forming a partnership with LG Corrie in 1898. The firm designed many major buildings including churches, banks and commercial buildings. From 1919 he was in practice with his son, George Frederick Addison as G Addison and Son. GF Addison studied at Brisbane Central Technical College and was articled to his father. Apart from his military service in World War One, he practiced as an architect until 1940.
\nIn 1924 the Balmoral Council called tenders for a second ferry house, to a slightly modified version of the Bulimba design, to be erected at the Hawthorne ferry terminal. Both terminals can be seen at one time from the river. The steam ferry 'Hetherington' served the Bulimba route for many years, being estimated to have been responsible for over 10 million passenger and 2 million vehicle trips between 1928 and it's decommissioning in 1952. There was also a motor ferry on the route.
\nThe ferry connected Bulimba with Teneriffe, which was the site of many industrial and commercial enterprises, so that the ferry carried many people to and from work. It was also put to an unexpected community use as illustrated by the comment of the Sunday Mail of 3 March 1929 that the ferry house was being used informally as a dressing shed for local youths who were swimming in the river.
\nIn 1925 the various Brisbane district councils amalgamated into a single local government authority, the Brisbane City Council, and construction of ferry terminals became their responsibility. In October 1925 the contract for the new waiting shed at Hawthorne was let for the original design, though other Brisbane City Council terminal buildings were less ornamental. Of the other ferry terminal buildings on the Brisbane River, most were built much later and none are as ornate as the Bulimba and Hawthorne ferry houses.
\nIn 1985 extensive repairs and renovations were carried out to the Bulimba ferry house, which included replacing the clocks in the tower. It is still in use as a ferry terminal.
","criteria":"The Bulimba Ferry terminal is important as one of a pair of intact purpose-built ferry terminals from the first part of the 20th century. As with the Hawthorne Ferry Terminal, its quality of design and detail demonstrates the importance of ferries in the development of Brisbane before a network of bridges and public transport was fully developed and before many people owned cars. The ferry terminals are also evidence for the workings of the Balmoral Shire Council before the Brisbane suburban councils were amalgamated in 1925.
|The Hawthorne and Bulimba Ferry terminals were the largest ever built to service Brisbane ferries and are now rare as early examples of their type, as most Brisbane River ferry terminals are now served by modern buildings.
|The Bulimba Ferry terminal not only illustrates the architectural details of the Federation Queen Anne style as applied to a small scale building, but also those features typical of ferry terminals comprising a pontoon for river access, a landing area and covered waiting area for passengers. The clock faces placed in the tower helped people to be on time for ferries that ran to an accurate timetable.
The Bulimba Ferry terminal is significant as a creative example of the later work of the prominent Queensland architectural firm of GMH Addison and Son who are generally known for larger buildings.
|The Bulimba ferry house has considerable aesthetic significance as a small public building that exhibits a high standard of design. Domestic scale and details have been imaginatively applied to a wharf building of mundane function. The building is a landmark both from the water and from the landward side.
|The Bulimba Ferry terminal has a long association with the residents of the area as a building often used on a daily basis and as a local landmark that makes an important contribution to the character of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16314,"place_ref":601552,"name":"Masel Residence (former)","alternate_name":"Diamond Residence","street_address":"98 High Street","suburb":"STANTHORPE","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"Situated on the main street into Stanthorpe from the northeast, the former Masel Residence and consulting rooms is a brick and reinforced concrete building set in an established garden. Suburban houses extend along High Street to the east of the residence while institutional and commercial buildings predominate to the west. A school now adjoins the property on two sides. Other heritage buildings in High Street include the Stanthorpe Post Office [600831] an imposing Arts and Crafts building which terminates the vista at the western end of High Street and the Central Hotel [600830].
Solid, cubic and monumental, the house is a two-storey structure with some single storey projections. These single storey sections include the former consulting rooms on the southern corner, a laundry and bathroom on the western corner, a garage at the rear and the eastern end of the living room, which supports a balcony above. Dominating the front façade is a centrally located curved stairwell with strip windows intersected by a continuous horizontal awning.
Exterior walls are finished in a face brick ranging in colour but predominantly red-brown. Brickwork is generally stretcher bond but incorporates header bricks where required to make sections of curved wall. English garden wall bond has been used to make the portion of parapet wall above the line of the roof and a soldier course terminates the top of the parapet. Windows are steel framed strip or corner windows. A dynamic asymmetric composition is created by the contrast between different building elements; curved corners are juxtaposed against right angles, horizontal proportions against the verticality of the staircase and carefully composed windows, emphasized by the fine horizontal planes of projecting concrete awnings, highlight the planar qualities of walls.
Low-pitched corrugated iron roofs are hidden from view behind brick parapet walls. Rainwater, collected in concealed box gutters, is discharged through the parapet walls into painted metal rainwater heads and downpipes. Metal ladders bolted to external walls provide access to the roofs.
Set behind the original low brick fence, the house faces southeast across High Street. An original metal gate in a simple geometric design opens onto a stone path that leads to the main entrance. Metal gates on the driveway match the design of the pedestrian gate but were constructed later by the Diamond family. Situated at the base of the stairwell, the main entrance opens into the residential quarters. A more modest entry further to the west, which originally provided access to the consulting rooms, has since been blocked by the construction of low brick walls. This former public entrance, now converted to a balcony, is closer to the street and is screened from the residential entry by a brick fin wall with a porthole opening. Cantilevered concrete awnings protect the entries as well as most of the doors and windows.
Located on the lower floor of the house are the former consulting rooms and the communal and utility rooms of the private residence. Bedrooms and a bathroom are located on the upper level. A double garage, with an extension used as a storeroom, is located at the rear of the house. Underground power and phone lines, the original arrangement, are connected to the house.
On entering the residence one passes under the mid-landing of a dogleg staircase with a solid timber balustrade that fills the entrance hall. A passage, which continues the entrance hall, bisects the house and leads to the rear garage. On the northeast side of the entrance hall is an L-shaped living and dining area arranged around a north-facing terrace. The living room has a brick fireplace and curved east-facing window. Steel framed French doors open from the dining and living area onto the raised terrace, which is connected to the garden by an elegant curved brick stair. The kitchen, which connects to the dining room via a pivot-hinged door, was renovated in the 1970s but retains some original cupboards. On the southwest side of the passage are a former maid's room and a small room originally designed as a bathroom but never fitted out. The laundry and a small shower and toilet are accessed externally.
A discreetly positioned door off the entrance hall connects the former consulting rooms, now used as an informal living area, with the residence. The internal walls have been removed between the waiting area, consulting and x-ray rooms. But the former laboratory remains intact.
The upper level contains three bedrooms, a nursery and a bathroom. The main bedroom, located on the eastern corner of the house, opens onto a private balcony. Positioned over the curved corner of the ground floor living room, the balcony overlooks the side garden and street. All the bedrooms have built-in wardrobes with timber veneer doors. A third level, located over the upper level bathroom and accessed via an external ladder, originally housed a header tank and hot water system.
The finish of the interior walls and ceilings is generally painted plaster but walls were originally finished with wallpaper. With the exception of wet areas, the floors are carpet over timber. The rich dark finish of the internal joinery, including timber veneered doors and timber architraves and skirtings, contrasts with the white walls. A recess in the reveals of the windows accommodates curtain tracks. A similar recess is located in the opening between the dining and living area and originally was fitted with brown velvet curtains. The original built-in heating system is no longer used but electric radiators remain in the walls of the former surgery and main bedroom. A system of electric bells located in the downstairs hallway, operates doorbells at the house and consulting room entries and connects the main bedroom to the former maids quarters. The house retains some original light fittings in the entry hall and dining room.
The planning of the house is typical of modernist designs of the period. There is an emphasis on open planning in the living and dining spaces, which flow out to the garden and occupy the most favourable orientation. Private and utility rooms are enclosed cubicles, separated from open plan areas. Corridors and vestibules are used to enhance privacy. Published plans of the house show how rooms were designed to accommodate particular furniture arrangements and indicate extensive use of built in furniture, for instance the fireplace area has a built-in sofa and bookshelves. The bookshelves remain but the sofa was never built.
The house is set in a large established garden of lawn, clipped hedges, shrubs and mature trees. Brick planter boxes associated with the terrace and entrance areas help to integrate the house into the garden. The land slopes gently towards the rear of the block. Partly terraced, it is divided by stone garden and retaining walls. The main lawn is located on the north eastern side of the house while the service yard and driveway occupy the south western part of the block. The driveway, originally gravel, is now paved. Access around the garden is via stone paths. The path to the front door has been rebuilt, using the original stones where possible. The circular path on the northern lawn was built by the current owner. Apart from the low front brick fence, the property is enclosed by a variety of non-original fences creating a secluded rear garden. The backyard originally contained a badminton court and remains of a concrete wading pool are visible near the northeast corner of the garage. Trees include a mature gum, English oak and white cedar.
","history":"A substantial two-storeyed brick building, the former Masel Residence was erected in Stanthorpe in 1937-1938 for Dr Harry Masel and Una Masel and their family. Designed in 1936 by Charles William Thomas Fulton of Donoghue and Fulton Architects and constructed by Sydney builders Kell and Rigby, the building with its functionally zoned planning and abstract monumental facades was strongly influenced by European modernist architecture. One of the first examples of these trends in architecture in Queensland, it was the joint winner of Queensland's inaugural awards for meritorious architecture in 1938.
Settlement at Stanthorpe began around 1872 with the commencement of alluvial tin mining in the area. Originally two townships, it grew into a centre for that part of the Darling Downs. Dr Harry Masel, a general practitioner in Stanthorpe, acquired the title to a half-acre lot on High Street in 1936. Una Masel, Harry's wife, had an interest in contemporary architecture and commissioned Brisbane Architect JP Donoghue to design a home for her family. The house was also to incorporate rooms for Dr Masel's general practice, including waiting area, consulting and x-ray rooms and a laboratory. It was not uncommon during the first half of the 20th century for doctors to practice from their homes. In new homes, for example at La Scala [600207] built in Brisbane in 1914, purpose designed facilities were sometimes incorporated. Dr Masel was particularly interested in radiology and his surgery was subsequently fitted with a large X-ray machine, more commonly found in a hospital.
JP Donoghue already had a commission in Stanthorpe that may have brought him into contact with Dr Masel. He was the architect for the main block of Stanthorpe hospital, erected in 1936. The Masel residence was designed by Charles Fulton, then an employee of JP Donoghue. The architectural practice Donoghue and Fulton was subsequently established and the Masel Residence, completed in 1938, was one of its first commissions. Kell and Rigby, builders from Sydney who were also working in Stanthorpe on the hospital, most likely built the house. Kell and Rigby, now a prominent construction firm, are still operating in Sydney.
During the 1930s the detached residence in a garden setting continued to be the most common form of housing in Australia. Houses were built in a range of styles such as Spanish Mission, Tudor Revival, Georgian Revival and various bungalow styles. A small number of houses were also built in styles inspired by European modernism. Modern architecture was the outcome of an attempt by European architects to invent new ways of building guided by rational principals of construction and associated aesthetic ideals rather than tradition. Typical features of interwar Modernist styles in Australia included parapet walls concealing low pitched or flat roofs, steel framed corner and strip windows, masonry walls devoid of decoration, rounded external corners, cantilevered concrete awnings and balconies, asymmetric composition and stairwells expressed as vertical elements contrasting with dominant horizontality. Low brick walls, hedges and extensive lawns were common in gardens.
The former Masel Residence introduced many features of this new and influential architectural vocabulary to Queensland. Unlike most Queensland houses, the Stanthorpe house was designed to suit the cold climate of the granite belt. Later buildings designed by Charles Fulton show more adaptations to the generally hot Queensland climate. The house for Dr Masel was published in national architecture journals, prior to construction in Building (1937) and after completion in Architecture (1940). Recognised as an important work of architecture at the time of its construction, the house was the winner of one of two medals awarded at the inaugural annual meritorious architecture awards of the Queensland chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1939. The awards were for outstanding examples of domestic architecture constructed in the previous five years. The home of Dr H Masel, Stanthorpe won the Country Division.
Charles Fulton was born in Sydney in 1906. He received his architectural training at the Sydney Technical College, was an articled pupil of FE Stowe, architect and civil engineer and subsequently worked as a draftsman for Rudder and Grout. In 1931-32 he travelled overseas working in London for B George Architects. During this period he made trips to Europe to look at buildings. He was particularly interested in the work of Dutch architect Willem Dudok, whose Hilversum Town Hall was influential in Britain and Australia in the early thirties. In 1933 he returned to Australia and settled in Brisbane where he was employed, initially by Hall and Cook and later by JP Donoghue. In 1937 he entered into partnership with JP Donoghue, an older and more established architect and became Lecturer in Charge of Architecture at the Brisbane Central Technical College. Fulton taught at the architecture school for 33 years and the Queensland University of Technology, in recognition of his contribution to architectural education, named its architecture facility the 'Charles Fulton School of Architecture'.
Charles Fulton was a key practitioner and teacher of modern trends in architectural design in Queensland during the late thirties and forties. The Masel residence, Nudgee Junior College Indooroopilly (1938) and his own residence (1940) all received meritorious architecture awards in the early Royal Australian Institute of Architects Queensland Awards Programs. The practice of Donoghue and Fulton was also renowned for innovative hospital design and they were architects for the Townsville Hospital designed between 1935-39 (built 1951), the Kingaroy General Hospital and Nurses' Quarters 1936-38, Goondiwindi Hospital 1939, Roma Hospital 1940, Nurses' Quarters Nambour (601568) 1941-42 (demolished 1999). After the Second World War the partnership of Donoghue and Fulton was dissolved and Fulton took a new partner JM Collin. During this period Charles Fulton designed a number of notable hospital buildings including, Barcaldine Hospital main block and Staff Quarters (1953), Clermont Hospital main block (1955), Aramac nurses quarters (1957). These later buildings were characterised by low-pitched roofs, linear planning, cross ventilation, wide eaves or awnings and the use of modern materials. The firm that he founded continues as Fulton Trotter.
The Masel family owned the house for less than 10 years. Dr Masel moved to Brisbane at the end of the Second World War to further his specialization in radiology. After moving to Brisbane they became friends with the Fultons, their neighbours in Taringa and Charles Fulton later designed another house for the Masel family at Russell Terrace, Indooroopilly. The Masels sold their Stanthorpe house to Dr DT Rushton Smith. In 1949 the property was acquired by Laurence Diamond and remains in the Diamond family.
","criteria":"One of the first examples in Queensland of a house in a modernist style, the former Masel Residence is an important building in the evolution of architecture in Queensland. During the 1930s most houses in Queensland were being designed in traditional or historically derived styles. The former Masel Residence demonstrates the influence of modernist architectural ideas and practices that developed initially in Europe and became the dominant trend in architecture after World War 2.
|The former Masel Residence was designed in a style which although influential was not widely used and is uncommon outside of Brisbane. It is unusually intact for an interwar house, preserving in original condition both its architecture and its garden setting.
|The house demonstrates, through the inclusion of a purpose-built surgery with separate entry, ways in which work and domestic environments were combined in the homes of medical practitioners during the first half of the 20th century.
The former Masel Residence is a striking example of a building in what is known as the interwar functionalist style and incorporates typical features of the style such as asymmetrical cubic massing, expanses of undecorated brick walls, steel corner and strip windows, curved brickwork corners, flat cantilevered awnings and a concealed roof.
|The aesthetic qualities of the place are heightened by contrast with the otherwise traditional character of the surrounding Queensland country town. The house in its garden setting contributes to the distinctive character of the main street into Stanthorpe.
|The former Masel Residence is a highly accomplished design and received an inaugural award for meritorious architecture in Queensland.
|An early example of the work of one of Queensland's outstanding architects Charles Fulton, the house displays many of the characteristics of his work including an abstract sculptural form and the eschewing of internal decoration.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16315,"place_ref":601553,"name":"Mareeba Shire Hall (former)","alternate_name":"Former Mareeba Shire Hall","street_address":"136 Walsh Street","suburb":"MAREEBA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-10-11","description":"The former Mareeba Shire Hall in the Atherton Tablelands town of Mareeba stands on the western side of Walsh Street, which runs parallel to Byrnes Street, the town's main thoroughfare. Located towards the centre of a town block bounded by Middlemiss Street to the north and Atherton Street to the south, the hall with its high curved roof is a prominent building along Walsh Street, which has low-rise residential, commercial and semi-industrial buildings generously spread out along its length. The block is flat and rectangular with an additional small rectangular area to the rear on the southern side, used as a car park. The hall addresses the street with the main entrance approached by a set of steps.
\nThe layout of the hall is designed to a square grid with a circle motif used for ornamentation. Natural finishes are used, with brickwork generally unpainted and timberwork stained. The main structure is cavity brick with a timber and steel roof structure supported by eight semi-circular, laminated timber, three pin arch[47] frames. Concrete piers support the timber auditorium floor and the laminated timber arches are bolted to concrete footings.
\nAlong the ridgeline, natural light enters the hall through sections of translucent roof sheeting. A suspended, arched light cove partially shields views of the roof structure and five large metal ventilators along the ridgeline. The arched roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
\nThe main elevation is composed of overlapping, geometric elements. The dominant semi-circular arch of the auditorium is broken up by a tall brick tower on the northern side of the main entrance. The exaggerated inclined soffit of the single-storey side walls of the hall cuts across the main elevation and around the projecting box of the former library on the southern side of the entrance. A smaller, secondary entrance on the far northern side is set back, and long brick planter boxes project towards the street. The pavement and stairs in front of the main entrances are of green concrete inscribed with a pattern of squares.
\nThe upper end wall of the auditorium is of frosted glass set in metal frames in wide vertical strips divided by aluminium-clad fins. The glazed main entrance doors are four sets of timber-framed double doors ornamented with semi-circle and quarter-circle timber pieces. The doors swing from round poles and the circle motif is carried through to the pattern of vinyl tiles on the foyer floor.
\nTo the left of the main entrance a corridor leads to the former library entrance, which has a glazed wall along one side. The former library has plain brick walls and banks of frosted glass windows running below soffit level, turning the corner at the southern end. Attached to the northern wall is a plaque commemorating the hall's opening.
\nThe tower is ornamented with a pattern of lines formed by raised brickwork. Two semi-circular elements protrude through the tower continuing the curve of the auditorium roof, a single aluminum-clad truss towards the front and a section of curved roofing at the rear, sheltering a garden bed which was originally a small pool.
\nThe side walls are divided by brick piers into bays, with ventilation openings incorporated within raised brickwork patterns. Banks of rectangular awning windows connect the top of each bay with the roof soffit. Clerestory windows above this roof level run the length of the auditorium.
\nThe inclined face of the roof soffits are clad in flat fibrous plaster sheeting ornamented with regularly spaced cover strips painted a contrasting colour. The top fascia is made from horizontal tongue-and-groove v-jointed boards.
\nThe rear wall of the hall is flat brickwork with no ornamentation. Concrete steps lead from the south-west corner down to a sunken area behind the building, overlooked by louvred windows and three doors from the former supper room below the stage. Timber staircases at either end of this area lead to the rear of the stage and to a small toilet block at the northern end.
\nThe interior layout consists of the entrance foyer at the front with a concrete staircase on the northern side leading to the gallery level. On the southern side of the foyer are the former cloak room, ticket box and soft drink bar. The auditorium occupies the full width of the main portion of the hall with the stage and dressing rooms at the far end. The toilets are located in the north-west corner of the hall and a sunken area along the northern wall provides access to side doors. Along the southern wall, ramps lead down to the side doors and a former store room at the western end is now a kitchen. Between this kitchen and the stage a staircase leads down to the former supper room. The former library in the south-east corner of the building has been divided into an office at the front and store rooms at the rear.
\nPassing through all ground-level rooms and on both sides of the auditorium are continuous flat lighting coves. Clad in stained plywood with an angled timber fascia, the undersides of the lighting coves are pierced by regularly spaced square lights. The ceiling above these coves is clad in perforated plywood. Other light fittings are generally circular. Throughout the building the footings of the laminated timber arches are exposed.
\nThe front portion of the former library has been converted into an office with no early joinery remaining. The floor is carpeted and the brick walls have been lined and painted. The rear portion, accessed from inside the hall, has had modern partition walls inserted to form two store rooms. Remnant cork flooring remains attached to the concrete slab, revealing the location of original walls which enclosed a workroom and children's outdoor reading room. The original ceiling and lighting coves remain throughout.
\nThe entrance foyer has vinyl floor tiles and a low ceiling clad in perforated panels with decorative cover strips. Round columns support the gallery above. One panel of a sliding decorative metal screen remains in its track under the lighting cove.
\nThe cantilevered concrete staircase to the gallery has a metal balustrade with circle ornamentation. The gallery is a stepped concrete slab surrounded by a solid balustrade, which is ornamented with cover strips in a pattern of lines and rectangles on the auditorium side.
\nThe former cloak room, ticket box and soft drink bar are partially surrounded by timber counters with sliding windows above. Inside, an opening has been created between the rooms and the ticket box and cloak room counters removed.
\nThe main arched ceiling of the auditorium is clad in perforated ceiling panels and the ceiling cove is clad in fibrous plaster sheeting. The cove is supported by curved timber hangers and has circular lights in two rows in the underside. The auditorium floor is polished timber.
\nThe southern side of the auditorium has bench seating along the exterior wall.[48] The kitchen, accessed by a sliding timber door, has laminated timber benches and a tiled floor. A recent store room adjacent to the former library, constructed from timber stud walls, is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nAlong the northern side of the hall, low brick walls define the edges of the sunken area, which has the same green concrete steps and floor as used for the exterior entrance areas. Double doors are aligned with the steps. The middle section of this area has been raised to the same level as the auditorium floor, with alterations made to the light cove and brick walls to accommodate a kitchenette.[49] The male and female toilets have tiled floors and rendered and painted walls. A store room adjacent to the male toilets contains solid timber shelving.
\nThe stage is accessed from the hall by a set of movable steps. On either side are curving walls ornamented with battens that conceal the side wings. The sounding board above the stage is clad in stained plywood. The stage floor is raked and curves outwards, clad in polished timber boards with footlights concealed beneath a removable timber board. Curtains line the wings and rear wall of the stage and the ceiling structure is exposed.
\nThe former supper room is a long, low space with exposed steel beams supporting the stage above. The ceiling is clad in perforated panels, the walls are rendered and painted and the concrete floor has a recent epoxy coating. Exit doors in the western wall are accessed by concrete steps. The raised kitchen area at the northern end has been refurbished.
\nThe hall is a striking building that stands out from surrounding low-set commercial buildings on Walsh Street.
","history":"The Mareeba Shire Hall (former) in Walsh Street was constructed in 1960-61 for the Mareeba Shire Council. It was designed by Cairns based architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin in 1956, and was his first major solo project.[1] It was constructed by local builder E Lepineth, with engineering details provided by R McLean.[2] The hall's structure is a combination of timber framing, concrete and brick, and features a striking semi-circular roof of laminated timber arches, an early use of this structural system in Queensland.
\nThe Atherton Tableland, west of Cairns in Far North Queensland, was named after squatter John Atherton, who was the first person to establish a cattle run in the area in the late 1870s.[3] In the 1880s the Atherton family established a wayside inn and store at the crossing of Granite Creek, supplying goods to traffic passing between Port Douglas to the north and the new tin mining township of Herberton to the south.[4] A settlement grew on the southern side of Granite Creek and a town, named Mareeba, was surveyed by EB Rankin in 1891.[5] In 1893 it became a railhead when the Cairns to Kuranda line was extended, and by 1919 Mareeba was the district's most important town.[6]
\nIn 1919 Mareeba became the administrative centre for what was then Woothakata Shire,[7] and a Shire Council Chambers building was constructed on the corner of Rankin and Walsh streets in 1924.[8] The shire changed its name to Mareeba in 1947.[9] Owing its prosperity to a diverse agricultural economy, post-World War II Mareeba grew to become the largest tobacco-growing centre in Australia, and in 1954 the town's population reached 3369.[10]
\nMareeba Shire Hall (former) was constructed on the site of the council-owned Mareeba School of Arts (1907) which was destroyed by fire on 28 March 1954.[11] The loss of the largest hall in Mareeba was keenly felt by the community, however disagreements between local councillors about the possible relocation of the hall to another site, and the burden of reconstruction costs to ratepayers, delayed the decision to rebuild. During this process, Cairns architects Barnes and Oribin, who were designing a hall in Ravenshoe at the time, were consulted about cost estimates.[12]
\nIn July 1955 it was announced that a new Shire Hall would be built on the existing Walsh Street site at an estimated cost of £37,000. Plans prepared by Barnes and Oribin were accepted, with the new design incorporating all the functions of the previous School of Arts. The proposed building was described as ‘an igloo building, with brick front and timber structure and with a hall said to be larger than that of Innisfail's famous civic headquarters.'[13] To accommodate the width of the new hall and provide sufficient access to side and rear entrances, the Council purchased additional land along the northern boundary of the site in 1955 and 1957.[14]
\nEdwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin was born in Cairns in 1927. As a teenager during World War II, he spent time in Brisbane working with the Allison Aircraft Division of General Motors rebuilding aircraft engines. Returning to Cairns in 1944, Oribin commenced architectural training with Sid G Barnes, Chief Architect of the Allied Works Council for North Queensland, whose training gave Oribin a solid grounding in structural design and construction. In 1950 Oribin moved to Brisbane to work and study, and on 10 February 1953 he obtained his registration as an architect in Queensland, returning to Cairns the following month to begin a partnership with Barnes. This partnership lasted until Barnes' death in 1959, after which Oribin continued practicing on his own.[15]
\nOribin undertook a wide range of work in North Queensland between 1953 and 1973.[16] Throughout his career, he was devoted to experimenting with different structural and aesthetic ideas, drawing inspiration from a wide variety of Australian and international publications. Characteristics of Oribin's work included meticulous detailing, structural creativity and concern for the modulation of light.[17] He was also known for his model- making skills and superb craftsmanship, often creating objects himself.[18]
\nDuring the 1950s Barnes, and later Barnes and Oribin, were well known architects in Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands, receiving numerous commissions for a range of small- and medium-scale projects, such as fire stations, shops and hospital facilities.[19] Prior to working on the Mareeba Shire Hall, Barnes and Oribin had designed at least two other halls in the region: the RSL Memorial Hall at Babinda (completed 1954, destroyed by Cyclone Larry in 2006)[20] and Ravenshoe Divisional Hall (designed 1954, completed early 1960).[21]
\nPublic halls of varying design and dimension are landmarks of Australia's cities and suburbs, shires and towns, important as social venues and focal points for their communities.[22] In the mid to late 20th century, hall designs were evolving away from the traditional concept of a central auditorium with council chambers and municipal offices attached, towards more multi-purpose halls and civic centres.[23] Many new halls constructed throughout Queensland during this period replaced earlier halls that had been destroyed or become inadequate for communities' needs. While each contained a different combination of features and facilities, such as clock towers, libraries, supper rooms, public toilets, memorials, shops or offices, common to all public halls was a large multi-purpose auditorium with stage and dressing rooms.[24]
\nConstruction of the Mareeba hall began in 1960.[25] The laminated timber arches were constructed by the builder E Lepineth in a nearby warehouse before being transported to the site and erected. These arches were able to span the 60ft (18m) wide floor, allowing for an unobstructed ceiling height of 20ft (6m).[26]
\nLaminated timber arches, constructed by overlapping and bolting together small pieces of timber to make a single, large member, have been in use in Australia since the mid-19th century.[27] Cost-effective and able to span large distances without intermediate posts, laminated timber arches also became an alternative system for roof structures of large buildings such as markets, factories and, from the early 20th century, large auditoria and picture theatres.[28] The process of glue lamination, using casein glue to bond the layers of timber rather than bolts, originated in Germany before being introduced to the United States in the 1920s. Several publications in the 1930s and early 1940s provided the necessary data for constructing glued laminated timber arches, and became a source of inspiration for Australian designers.[29] The earliest experiments in Australia took place in the early 1940s[30] and the arrival of powerful synthetic resin adhesives in the post-World War II period increased the reliability and range of applications of glue lamination.[31] The former Burge Bros Factory in Melbourne (1945-46) is considered to be the oldest known surviving example of this technology in Australia, with semi-circular arches spanning 30 metres, manufactured by Sydney-based company Ralph Symonds Ltd.[32]
\nDespite the technology being available, it wasn't until the 1950s, when curved shapes such as conoids and hyperbolic parabolas became fashionable,[33] that glue laminated arches were more commonly used in Australia, particularly for church structures.[34] Recognising the structural and aesthetic potential of this new technology, Oribin specified glue laminated timber arches for two of his earliest buildings, St Paul's Anglican Memorial Church in Proserpine and the Mareeba Shire Hall; both were designed in 1956 and completed within 5 years, making them an early use of the technology in Queensland. The Proserpine church was completed first, in 1959, with engineering details for both buildings provided by Cairns engineer R McLean.[35]
\nThe ‘igloo type of construction' of the hall's design, made possible by the glue laminated arches, was viewed favourably by the local councillors, as it was seen as a cheaper method of covering large areas than more conventional structures.[36] World War II igloos, with their large curved trusses made from small pieces of timber, were a familiar building type in the region[37] and to Oribin, who had worked in the Allison Overhaul Assembly Plant igloos at Albion during World War II.[38]
\nThe hall was officially opened on 15 March 1961 by the chairman of the Mareeba Shire Council, CL Davies, having cost a total of £74,000. The main auditorium provided seating accommodation for 800 people and a dance floor of approximately 6000 square feet (557.42m2).[39] The area under the stage and dressing rooms contained a kitchen and supper room. The main entrance foyer provided cloak room facilities, a ticket box and soft drink bar, as well as stairs to a gallery level above. Sliding metal and coloured glass screens separated the foyer from the auditorium. The library was located in front of the auditorium with a separate entrance, and contained ‘outdoor reading rooms' and a workroom enclosed with vertical wooden louvres.[40] A newspaper article described the hall as having been ‘constructed on very modern lines and featured flood and spot lighting designed to give the best effects for stage production.'[41] Considerable attention was given to natural ventilation, through the ridgeline and high side windows and through the perforated brick panels in the side window bays. Oribin's characteristic innovation and attention to detail was evident throughout the design, from the carefully planned layout and circulation routes, the complex intersection of horizontal and curved elements in the roof structure, to the use of the circle motif in ornamentation.
\nThe new hall soon became the heart of social and cultural life in Mareeba, hosting numerous events including dances, plays, musical performances and film screenings.[42] The integrity of Oribin's design led to the hall's survival through many cyclones and its use as a community evacuation centre during severe tropical cyclone Yasi in February 2011.[43] The hall has been occupied by the Mareeba Police-Citizens Youth Club (PCYC) since 1999[44] and in 2013 is still used for a variety of community purposes.
\nVarious alterations have been made to the hall over time. Partitions within the former library were changed to create office and storage areas, and no library shelving or joinery remains. The former cloak room, ticket office and soft drink bar have also become office space. A recent store room has been constructed along the southern wall of the auditorium, an original store room converted into a kitchen, and the original tiered floor has been removed. Additions to the northern side include a timber partition wall, concealing the entrances to the toilets, and a kitchenette. The renovated former supper room retains its early layout, with a modernised kitchen at the northern end.
\nOribin's significant contribution to Queensland architecture was recognised by the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2000, when the new ‘Building of the Year' award for the Far North Region was named in his honour.[45] In 2013, two of Oribin's other works, the first Oribin House and the Oribin Studio, received the ‘Enduring Architecture Award' at the Australian Institute of Architects' Queensland Architecture Awards.[46]
","criteria":"The Mareeba Shire Hall (former), completed in 1961, is important in demonstrating the Queensland pattern of local governments expressing civic pride through building public halls. With its bold design, the hall is an outstanding example of the type of public halls constructed in the mid to late 20th century to replace older halls that had been destroyed or become inadequate for the community's needs.
As his first large solo project, the Mareeba Shire Hall (former) is an outstanding example of the work of Cairns architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin, who produced a range of innovative and unique buildings in north Queensland between 1953 and 1973. Oribin's contribution to Queensland architecture is recognised by the Australian Institute of Architects' establishment of the Eddie Oribin Building of the Year Award for the Far North Queensland region.
|The Mareeba Shire Hall (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a public hall, with an impressive exterior, a large multi-purpose auditorium, stage and dressing rooms, entrance foyer, gallery, kitchen, supper room, and former cloakroom, ticket box, bar and library.
The creativity, craftsmanship and attention to detail evident in the hall's design are characteristic of the works of architect Eddie Oribin, whose buildings are remarkable for their complex geometries, unconventional roof forms, innovative use of materials and structural systems, and manipulation of natural light and ventilation.
|The Mareeba Shire Hall (former) demonstrates a high degree of creative and technical achievement for the period in Queensland. It was the first major building solely designed by Oribin, displaying his enthusiasm for experimentation and his ability to adapt international architectural influences to suit local site and climatic conditions.
The main structural feature of the hall, semi-circular arches made from glue laminated timber, was an early use of this technology in Queensland.
|The Mareeba Shire Hall (former) has aesthetic significance as a distinctive building of exceptional architectural quality. The striking asymmetrical composition of strong, dynamic forms, including the semi-circular hall, deeply inclined soffits and tall brick tower, reflects the world-wide influence of expressive modern architecture.
These qualities are evident in the interior of the hall, where the architect has created a daring and complex composition of horizontal and curving forms, utilising natural materials and finishes and carefully manipulating natural light.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16325,"place_ref":601564,"name":"Mount Coot-tha Lookout & Kiosk","alternate_name":"One-Tree-Hill | Mt Coot-tha | Mt Cootha | Brisbane Lookout","street_address":"Sir Samuel Griffith Drive","suburb":"MOUNT COOT-THA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The Mt Coot-tha Lookout and Kiosk are located at the summit of Mt Coot-tha fronting Sir Samuel Griffith Drive to the southeast.
The Kiosk
The kiosk, located to the north of the lookout, is a single-storeyed timber building on a stone base with a terra-cotta tiled gable and half-gable roof. The roof has a prominent central fleche ventilator, terra-cotta finials and chimney pots, and half-timbered gables.
The building has evolved from an open sided kiosk, and the main section is formed by two adjoining similar kiosk structures, with a two-storeyed service wing to the rear and an addition to the northeast. The kiosk section has sliding multi-paned sash windows which can be concealed within the solid balustrade below, and multi-paned fanlight glazing above. The balustrade has fibrous cement panels with timber mouldings. The service wing and northeast addition have weatherboard cladding, with a brick base to the northeast.
A tall timber framed tankstand is located to the north of the building.
The Lookout
The lookout is located at southern and highest end of the site, with views from the south to the northeast. It consists of a large radiating lookout platform above a porphyry stone retaining wall, surrounded by metal balustrading with a raised viewing platform at the southern end.
The octagonal raised viewing platform is located on a stepped base of concentric paths and garden beds with porphyry stone retaining walls. The platform has a terrazzo floor with an inlaid brass star pattern and a concrete canopy supported on steel posts. A carpark is located to the west of the lookout.
","history":"Mt Coot-tha is part of the Taylor Range which forms a backdrop of hills to the City of Brisbane, and is the best known vantage point from which to view the city and surrounds. Mt Coot-tha was previously known as One-Tree-Hill, a reference to when the hill terminated in a bare knoll with a solitary large tree at the summit.
The Taylor Range was originally named Glenmorrison Range by the explorer John Oxley in 1823. In July 1828, this range was referred to as Glenmoriston's Range and Sir Herbert Taylor's Range by the colonial botanist Charles Fraser, and as Glenmorriston's Range by Captain Patrick Logan, Commandant of the penal settlement at Brisbane.
The first recorded ascent by European explorers was on 6 July 1828, with Fraser, Captain Logan and explorer Alan Cunningham. Fraser's journal describes in detail the species of trees found there, and that the view from the south-east to north-west was extensive and very grand, presenting an immense thinly wooded plain, whose surface was gently undulated, and clothed with luxuriant grass.
A request to purchase One-Tree-Hill in 1865 was refused, and the Surveyor-General replied that it will be required for trigonometrical purposes, and is moreover a point to which inhabitants of this city frequently repair for recreation on account of the extensive view and fresh air.
The Taylor Range provided a source of good timber and One-Tree-Hill was first proclaimed a reserve for railway purposes on 21 February 1873 in order that the source of timber could be secured for development of the railway from Ipswich to Brisbane. In 1880, One-Tree-Hill, together with the surrounding area of 1500 acres, was placed in charge of a body of Trustees as a reserve for public recreation. It was at this time that the name was changed to Mt Coot-tha. Mr HW Radford, Clerk of the Parliament, and Honorary Secretary to the Trustees of the Public Recreation Reserve, questioned a descendant of earlier members of the aboriginal tribe that frequented that area and discovered that the aboriginal name for the area was Coot-tha or Kuta, the aboriginal name for honey or the place of honey. Hence the name change to its official title of Mt Coot-tha.
The summit was accessed by walking tracks, and by the 1870s some visitors were driving up with horse and carriages. When Mt Coot-tha became a reserve for public recreation, the track was improved to become a steep and windy road. The surviving one-tree was surrounded by a protective fence and in 1886 a shelter shed and water tank was built. Mt Coot-tha was proclaimed a reserve for native birds on 20 December 1890.
The Saturday half-holiday was legislated for in Queensland as part of the 1900 Factory Act. The half-holiday was the beginning of the weekend as an institution, and together with public holidays the popularity of recreation areas and activities increased. With the advent of the motor car, motoring itself became a recreation activity. By 1918 it could be asserted that the steep rough bridle tracks of years ago were replaced with well-made roads and paths so that pedestrians and motorists could attain the highest points of Mt Coot-tha with the utmost ease. This road later became Sir Samuel Griffith Drive.
In 1918 the Trustees of the Reserve requested that the Greater Brisbane Council take over the administration of the area and at this time it is believed that a new kiosk was built next to the existing shelter shed.
The Kiosk
The first recorded shelter shed at Mt Coot-tha appears to have been an open sided timber structure and water tank. In May 1886, the Courier reported the completion of the shed, stating the site selected not being unduly exposed, whilst commanding the favourite outlook. Tables, forms, and tanks are all fixed up and the fireplaces are in progress, and as soon as a rainfall gives a supply of water, picnicking parties can avail themselves of all the conveniences provided. The wife of the caretaker of the reserve, who lived in a house about a quarter of a mile below the summit, operated a small kiosk where teas were served to visitors.
A small timber kitchen had been built adjacent to the shelter shed by c.1912. A larger open sided kiosk was constructed on the northeast side of the shelter shed c.1918, and this kiosk forms the basis of the present structure. A 1928 plan by AH Foster, Brisbane City Architect 1925-32, shows the position of the shelter shed and adjacent open sided kiosk, and indicates that the small kitchen may have been relocated to form a detached kitchen wing serving the kiosk.
A 1928 design signed by R Jameson, Brisbane City Assistant Architect 1926-29, repeated the plan form of the existing kiosk to double its size and provide for a two-storeyed timber extension to the northwest to accommodate living quarters. The shelter shed and small kitchen were demolished, the prominent fleche and chimney were added, and the roof resheeted with red fibro cement tiles. The open balustrade nature of the kiosk changed at this time, with the inclusion of sliding multi-paned timber sashes above hand rail level and a fibro cement balustrade below. The enlarged kiosk reflected the increasing popularity and visitor numbers to Mt Coot-tha, and the proliferation of motor transport.
A 1949 design by Brisbane City Architect FG Costello shows extensions and alterations to the kitchen and caretakers wing with the annotation town water supply to be extended to high level tank located in a suitable position having in mind the future development of this site. Further work was carried out in 1950, with a design by Costello in May showing a circular drive, new entrance, lounge and lavatories, and later that year extensions to the living quarters and the construction of a high-level timber tankstand. The present terra-cotta roof tiles date from post 1950. As City Architect, Costello also designed the adjoining lookout and raised viewing platform which are typical of the quality of his work for the council, which included the sub-stations at Hamilton, Ashgrove and Newmarket, and the Eagle Farm Pumping Station.
More recently, some internal partitioning has occurred and an entrance pergola and signage have been constructed.
The Lookout
Looking at the view has been the most popular and continuing form of recreation on Mt Coot-tha, and in 1882 the Duke of Clarence and Prince George (later King George V) commemorated their visit to Mt Coot-tha by planting two Moreton Bay figs on the summit. By 1902 the viewing spot had been formalised by the erection of a stone pillar topped with a metal plate engraved with directional lines pointing to distant landmarks and views. There were also protective railings and a pay-as-you-look telescope.
A small viewing gazebo with an ogee shaped roof, stone base, open balustrades, pergola entrance, and housing a telescope was constructed c.1918. In 1927 the Duke and Duchess of York were photographed visiting Mt Coot-tha standing at the direction finder.
A 1950 design by City Architect F Costello shows a raised viewing platform with a concrete canopy on a stone base, with a large radiating lookout platform above a stone retaining wall. The stand of trees at the summit were cleared for the construction of the lookout platform. The 1950 scheme showed a drinking fountain in place of the current direction finder, and a direction finder located on the raised viewing platform.
","criteria":"The Mt Coot-tha Lookout and Kiosk site has been recognised as the best vantage point from which to view the surrounding area since the first recorded European ascent in 1828. Since this time, the growing popularity of visiting the summit has reflected the emergence of leisure and recreation time for the general populace, and the advent and popularity of the motor car.
|The Kiosk is important as a building which has evolved to meet the changing requirements of use, but has retained the integrity and character of the original structure. The evolution of the Kiosk is displayed in its cohesive and legible form, with the c.1918 structure forming the basis of the present building.
The Lookout is representative of a 1950s interpretation of the functionalist idiom.
|Both structures are representative of the high quality of civic architecture produced by the Brisbane City Council Works Department and of the City Architect.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16326,"place_ref":601565,"name":"Wooloowin State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"663 Lutwyche Road","suburb":"LUTWYCHE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Wooloowin State School's 1914. 1918 and 1925 buildings form a coherent group of one and two-storeyed classroom blocks linked together by verandahs. The buildings are masonry constructed on brick piers, which form an undercroft play area. Most of the exterior of the buildings are roughcast render. Originally the roof was covered with red asbestos slates, which has been replaced with corrugated iron. Each of the individual pavilions has a separate roof, with ventilators and projecting gabled skylights.
The 1934 addition is a three-storeyed masonry building with face brick and roughcast render which complements the earlier blocks. The original red asbestos slate roof has been replaced with corrugated iron.
Apart from the re-roofing, the exterior of the complex is very intact.
","history":"Wooloowin State School was built in four stages. The first section was constructed in 1914, with additions in 1918, 1925 and 1934. In 1914, Wooloowin was considered a model school at the forefront of progressive education in Queensland, and this was reflected in the building, grounds, furniture, equipment, facilities, curriculum, and staff. It was a model school for a modern, rapidly expanding suburb.
Originally part of Lutwyche, Wooloowin was named after the railway station (on the line to Northgate Junction) which was opened in November 1889. The area had developed a suburban identity in the 1880s, when the larger estates were subdivided, but in the first half of the 20th century, particularly following the extension of the tramline along Lutwyche Road to Kedron in 1913-14, Wooloowin really boomed as a residential working class suburb.
In 1911, the Wooloowin Progress Association was formed. Its first secretary was Mr William Alfred Jolly, later Mayor of Windsor, and in 1925, first Lord Mayor of Greater Brisbane. It was largely due to the work of the Wooloowin Progress Association, who formed a school building committee in October 1911, that the Wooloowin State School was established. Prior to 1914, Wooloowin children attended the overcrowded state schools at Eagle Junction and Bowen Bridge Road.
The Department of Public Instruction purchased Nolan's Paddock, a three acre site on Lutwyche Road, for £1,200, and the design for a new school for this site was prepared in the Government Architect's Office of the Department of Public Works in 1913.
Alfred Barton Brady was employed with the Queensland Government as Government Architect from 1892-1922. Brady claimed that he always advised on arrangement, style and materials, but it appears that his senior assistant, Thomas Pye supervised much of the detailed design. During the 30 years they worked together in the Department, Brady and Pye assembled a talented group of architects and draftsmen who were considered the equal of any in Australia, including from 1893 to 1903 John Smith Murdoch, who was to become Commonwealth Director-General of Works in 1927. From the office of the Government Architect there developed a tradition of fine government buildings, including many post offices, customs houses and court houses throughout the State. The Department of Public Instruction had handled school design and construction between 1879 and 1893, following which responsibility was returned to the Government Architect's office. Some of the more significant early 20th century schools designed by the Government Architect's office include East Brisbane State School (1899-1900) [601476] and Windsor State School (1915-16) [600991], the latter, like Wooloowin State School, erected as a model schools.
At a cost of £3,901, Wooloowin State School was the sixth most expensive Queensland Public Works contract let during the 1913-14 financial year, and was intended as a model or 'show' school. The foundation stone was laid early in 1914 by the Secretary for Public Instruction, the Hon. J Blair (later Chief Justice Sir James Blair), and the school was opened on 15 September 1914 with 266 pupils. It comprised four large classrooms in two single-storeyed brick wings, with 10 feet wide verandahs front and back and head teachers' room and staff room attached to the front wing. The new classrooms were furnished with the most modern two-student desks with tip-up seats, providing considerably more elbow room than the old forms and desks, and with large green 'blackboards' rather than the old board and easel. The staff for this model school was specially chosen from amongst Queensland's finest state school teachers.
Wooloowin State School was constructed at a time of educational experimentation in Queensland. 1914 saw the establishment of the first teacher training college in Brisbane, and a reworking of the curriculum which had been experimented with since 1905. In 1915, a new syllabus was introduced to Brisbane state schools. Continuing the emphasis of the previous decade on correlation of subjects, practical application, self-activity of pupils and character development, the new syllabus now provided for 'kindergarten occupations' in infant grades; formally included school gardening in the curriculum - this could become a compulsory subject in schools where the teacher adopted it as a form of nature study; encouraged the extension of manual training and domestic science in primary schools - usually where teaching staff from technical colleges were available; and made needlework compulsory for girls. School inspectors continued to emphasise the importance of formal academic studies, but schools were broadening their outlook on what constituted useful, practical knowledge and character building activities, concentrating on the development of the whole child rather than on rote learning.
One aspect of modern progressive education was the encouragement of sports, particularly swimming. In 1908, a number of metropolitan teachers who were keen to encourage swimming amongst school children formed the State Schools Amateur Swimming Association. By 1914, 34 clubs had been formed. These clubs apparently catered only for boys, and in 1911 a State Schools Girls' Amateur Swimming Association was formed, with 28 schools affiliated by 1914. As well as swimming instruction, life-saving was taught in many schools. Keen to promote their school as one of the most modern in the state, the Wooloowin State School building committee financed construction of a swimming pool, 42 feet long, 16 feet wide and 5 feet deep at the deepest end, in 1916. This pool was enlarged to its present size in 1925.
In 1918, woodwork and domestic science were added to the school curriculum, although no classrooms appear to have been designated specifically for these subjects. It is understood that Wooloowin was the first primary school to introduce these subjects, as provided for under the new syllabus provisions of 1915.
The first addition to the school was constructed in 1918. It was a brick building, with 10ft wide verandahs; roughcast externally and roofed with asbestos slate, which mirrored the 1914 side wing. This brought the number of classrooms to six, and was opened in September 1918. By 1921, school enrolment had grown to over 800, and in 1923 plans were prepared for a second addition, a two-storeyed stuccoed brick building with an asbestos slate roof, containing four classrooms on each floor with hatrooms and a verandah and a balcony on the north side. This building was erected in 1925 at a cost of £6,233, and opened in July that year.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Wooloowin continued to expand as a working class residential suburb. By the early 1930s, population pressure again necessitated additions to the Wooloowin State School, and in 1934 a three-storeyed brick wing was constructed on the northern side of the site. It had a face brick and roughcast exterior, fibro cement slates to match existing buildings, and 10ft wide balconies on each floor. Each of the upper floors had four classrooms, and the lower storey contained purpose-equipped domestic science and manual training rooms. In the 1930s and 1940s, students from Windsor State School, further south along Lutwyche Road, attended woodwork and domestic science classes at Wooloowin State School's new facilities.
The 1934 building was the last of the additions. In the second half of the 20th century, Wooloowin State School enrolments steadily declined as the surrounding area changed demographically toward an older population.
","criteria":"Wooloowin State School is important for its association with progressive, early 20th century education in Queensland, being constructed in 1914 as a 'show' suburban primary school, the quality of the building, furnishings, equipment, facilities, curriculum and staff serving as a model for future state schools.
Wooloowin State School is evidence of the rapid growth of Wooloowin and adjacent areas which accompanied both the expansion of public transport in the area in the early 20th century, (especially the extension of the tramline to Kedron in 1913-14), and the success of the Workers' Dwelling Scheme (1909) which made home ownership accessible to the working class.
|Wooloowin State School is significant as an excellent example of a school building designed for the Queensland climate with wide verandahs and a ventilated roof, and follows a tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department. The use of brick and restrained detailing is typical for government buildings of the period.
|Wooloowin State School is significant also as an outstanding example of a school building designed by the office of the Queensland Government Architect, which at the time was the equal of any architectural office in Australia. It is exceptional in its quality and form and displays characteristics typical of its style through its simple massing, roughcast render and broad roof planes extending over verandahs with projecting gables and ventilators.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16327,"place_ref":601566,"name":"Sandgate Town Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"5 Brighton Road","suburb":"SANDGATE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Sandgate Town Hall is a single storeyed masonry building with a partial basement floor. The building has a gabled corrugated-iron roof and features a face brick plinth and rough cast stuccoed facade. It is L-shaped in plan with a prominent clock tower near the intersection of the two wings. The stuccoed tower has face brick corner pilasters and decorative mouldings. A bellcast roof sheeted with decorative pressed metal conceals the three bells and is surmounted by a weathervane.
The town hall has square-arched openings to the Brighton Street wing and round arched openings to the other. The principal entrance, at the corner of the site is defined by two massive ionic columns, behind which a recessed entrance porch is located. The entrance to the current library, on Seymour Street, is emphasised by a decorative parapeted section featuring art nouveau signage 'SANDGATE TOWN COUNCIL AD 1911' and a large round arched opening with floral leadlight window. Other decorative elements include face brick quoining, art nouveau signage, roughcast stucco render in some sections, and dormer windows.
Internally the building features a large hall and stage, a library chamber and various administrative offices. The hall has a mezzanine dress circle level, with early timber and iron row seating. The ceiling of the hall and the proscenium arch are sheeted with decorative pressed metal. The clock tower is accessed in the vestibule at the rear of the dress circle by a fixed timber ladder leading to three levels containing various clock workings, weights and bells.
The library features four different patterns of pressed metal on the ceiling, which indicate the original layout of the space. An early half glazed door in the library has an embossed pattern, featuring lettering 'THE MAYOR' in stylised art nouveau lettering.
","history":"The Sandgate Town Hall was constructed in 1911-12 when the previous chambers were destroyed by fire. The architect of the hall, which cost £5000, was Thomas Ramsay Hall, and the contractor J Gemmell.
Europeans first settled in Sandgate in the 1850s, and the area prospered into the following century as the principal sea-side resort in south east Queensland, encouraged by the introduction of the railway in May 1882. The Town of Sandgate was established in 1902, previously included as part of the Nundah Division from 1879, then established as a separate borough in April 1880.
The first Municipal Council meetings from 1880 until 1882 were held in a large room rented in a masonry building, thought to be the oldest building in Sandgate. The first official Sandgate Municipal Chambers and Town Hall was designed by Richard Gailey in 1882, and built in Kate Street near the popular pier and bathing area in what is now Shorncliffe. However as Sandgate progresses, the centre of development was nearer the railway station in Rainbow Street. Therefore when a fire in 1910 destroyed the chambers a site for the new Town Hall was chosen closer to the railway station and the 1887 post-office.
The foundation stone for the Sandgate Town Hall was laid by Sir William McGregor, Governor of Queensland, in October 1911. The building was constructed by J Gemmell, in eleven months, at a cost of £5000 including £300 for furnishing. Thomas Ramsay Hall, the architect, was then the Town Clerk of Sandgate. Later in his career, Hall went into partnership with GG Prentice (1919-29) and designed such buildings as the Brisbane City Hall and from 1929-48, he was in partnership with LB Phillips with whom he designed many buildings, including Ascot Chambers and the McWhirters corner block.
The Sandgate Town Hall was designed to sit on a prominent corner, and was therefore an L-shaped building with wings extending along both streets; the hall in the Brighton Road wing was accessed from the principal corner entrance and Council Chambers and various offices were accessed from a centrally located entrance on Seymour Street. The rear elevation featured a balcony opening from both the hall and the offices. The clock tower climbed three levels from the cloak room near the principal corner entrance, with room allocated for the clock on the second level and a bell on the third.
The Town Hall was opened in September 1912 by the Governor, at a ceremony attended by 500 people. A four dial clock, acquired from the Ipswich Town Hall by a Brisbane watchmaker, Mr Bright, was installed in the clocktower in 1923. The clock is reputedly one of the oldest working clocks in Brisbane, built by Gillet and Johnstone of Croydon, England in 1877.
Sandgate merged with 19 other local authorities to form the Brisbane City Council, under the requirements of the City of Brisbane Act of 1924, and the Sandgate Town Hall was retained by the new City Council for use as a community hall, variously acting as the library for the school of arts and a health clinic. The Main Hall is currently used for public meetings and other community gatherings the council library operates from the former Council Chambers and offices which were altered for this purpose.
","criteria":"The Sandgate Town Hall provides evidence of the Town of Sandgate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|Sandgate Town Hall, erected in 1911-12, is significant as an excellent example of a Federation style civic building in Queensland.
It is an intact example of the civic work of renowned Brisbane architect, Thomas Ramsay Hall.
|The building is a landmark on a prominent site in Sandgate, of particular note for its unusual clocktower, and as an integral element of the precinct including the Post Office and War Memorial Park.
|The building has a long association with the local community as a focal point for social and community functions.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16328,"place_ref":601567,"name":"Redcliffe Town Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":"Redcliffe Community Health Centre","street_address":"185 Redcliffe Parade","suburb":"REDCLIFFE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Redcliffe Community Health Centre is a symmetrical single-storeyed white rendered masonry building with a two-storeyed entrance section. The main facade is curved with stepped parapets which conceal flat roofs. The building incorporates decorative relief shields, glass bricks and stained glass.
The exterior of the building is reasonably intact. Alterations have been made to the interior of the building to adapt it for its present use. The building has been extended at the rear.
","history":"The Redcliffe Community Health Centre was built as the Redcliffe Shire Hall in 1940-1. The building was designed by Sidney William Prior and constructed by CG Thiedeke for a cost of £5200. It was built during a key period of development in Redcliffe which followed the construction of the Hornibrook Highway, which linked the Redcliffe peninsula to Brisbane.
The first permanent settlement on the peninsula occurred after land sales in 1862. By the 1870s Humpybong, Redcliffe's popular name, began to make progress as a seaside resort, although lack of transportation and access limited its development as a resort. In the 1880s many blocks were sub-divided into smaller building allotments, leading to increased population in the area. Redcliffe was proclaimed a Division in April 1887, and by this stage the official name Redcliffe was in more common usage.
The Divisional Board planned an office in 1892 and a design by Brisbane architect CW Brooke was prepared. However due to lack of funding the Board moved to the North Pine (Petrie) School of Arts in 1893, and then briefly to the Masonic Hall at Redcliffe in May 1901 and a cottage belonging to Thomas Snook. In 1902 an official Board Office was constructed, designed by Brisbane architect WC Voller. By April 1903 the Divisional Board had become the Redcliffe Shire Council, and then Redcliffe Town Council in May 1921.
During the 1930s the Town Council instigated many improvements in Redcliffe, developing the area as an attractive sea-side resort. The opening of the Hornibrook Highway from Brighton to Redcliffe on October 4, 1935 was a major impetus for development. The Council proceeded with major redevelopment of seaside areas, providing public facilities and undertaking improvement work.
Mention of the new council chambers was made at the council meeting on February 13, 1939, when comments were passed on the dilapidated condition of the existing building. The Council resolved to erect a new building in July 1939, the Mayor at the time being AH Langdon. The old chambers were removed from the site and altered into residential flats, named 'Granton'.
The new chambers were designed by Sidney William Prior who arrived in Australia from England in 1911 and studied construction and drawing at the Brisbane Central Technical College in 1913 before serving in the First World War. He established his architectural practice in Brisbane in 1923 after having worked for a short period with the Commonwealth Government as a draftsman. A large proportion of Prior's work was domestic though he designed Hesketh House in Elizabeth Street, additions to the Jennings Rubber Company Building in Fortitude Valley and the Bowen Hills Davies Park Speedway.
The chambers were constructed at a cost of £5200, including furnishings, funded by the Council's sale of their electrical undertaking to the City Electric Light Co. Ltd.. The contractor for the building work was CG Thiedeke, whose tender was accepted in August 1940. The building was used to house the chambers of councils along with dental and medical clinics.
The new building was opened on December 3, 1941 by the Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon EM Hanlon. On this same day the minister officially switched on the new Redcliffe water supply.
Redcliffe was proclaimed a city on June 11, 1959, and the Shire Hall, which was inadequate for the expanding council, was given to the control of the State Government Health Department in 1972, for use as a community health centre, when the Council moved to new premises.
","criteria":"The Shire Hall was constructed during a time of development at Redcliffe and provides evidence of this key period of growth.
|The Former Redcliffe Town Council Chambers, erected in 1940-1, is significant as an example of a civic building designed in an international modern style which shows the influence of European architectural influence in the late 1930s. The building is an example of the work of Sidney William Prior.
|It has a long association with the local community as the civic centre and health care facility.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16332,"place_ref":601571,"name":"Nanango Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"30 Henry Street","suburb":"NANANGO","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Nanango Court House is a symmetrically-planned timber building with a corrugated-iron roof and a wide verandah on three sides. The roof is low-pitched, with prominant gables and wide overhanging eaves. The verandah roofs are supported by grouped timber posts. The projecting entrance is distinguished by a small gable on paired timber posts. Behind it is a half-gabled roof. The main ridge of the roof is surmounted by a large ventilator, with a flagpole, which forms the dominant decorative element of the building.
","history":"Completed by late 1937, this single-storeyed timber building replaced a court house erected in 1912. The court house was designed in the office of the Department of Public Works; AB Leven was Chief Architect at the time.
The pastoral stations of Taromeo, Nanango and Tarong in the South Burnett district of Queensland, were taken up by selectors during the 1840s. In 1847, a prospector named Jacob Goode set up his camp near a waterhole on Nanango station, and reputedly established an inn. Goode proceeded to build stockyards and open a general store, and it is understood that a post office was opened at the small settlement in 1850. Gold was discovered in the Nanango district during the 1860s, and although the gold mining activity never lived up to the high expectations of the miners, it succeeded in attracting people to the area. A school was established in 1866, and it is noted that the first sale of town lots took place in October 1870. Records indicate that the area was opened up for closer settlement from the mid 1870s, and by the mid 1880s, the residential and business areas of the town was established. By the late 1880s, Directories described the main features of the area as sheep and cattle grazing; mining reefs and splendid timber.
Tenders were called in 1862 for additions to the court house and lock-up at Nanango, and it is possible that it had been built during the late 1850s. Additions to the court house for a Lands Office were completed in 1889. By the early 1910s, there was antagonism between the towns of Kingaroy and Nanango as they vied for supremacy in the district. Nanango provided the headquarters of the official staff of Government Departments such as Justice and Lands which controlled extensive districts, and the town was given a boost in 1912, when the District Court of Nanango was established to serve the Petty Sessions Districts of Nanango, Weinholt and Kilkivan. With the anticipated expansion of official work to be carried out, plans were prepared and a new court house erected at Nanango in 1912.
By 1936, a new court house was again required, and plans were prepared. The new building was completed in August 1937, and included offices for the Dairy Inspector, Stock Inspector, Clerk of Petty Sessions and Land Ranger. The site of the building was east of the former building, fronting Henry Street. The former court house was sold for removal.
Additions to the court house were undertaken during the mid 1960s, and included the provision of a tea room, storage facility and toilets.
","criteria":"Erected in 1937, the Nanango Court House survives as an important illustration of the pattern of Nanango's development as an official centre for the South Burnett district of Queensland.
|Nanango Court House is a good example of a timber court house in a provincial centre. It reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland, designed by the Department of Public Works during the early-mid 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16333,"place_ref":601572,"name":"Rockhampton Town Hall","alternate_name":"Rockhampton Council Chambers | Rockhampton City Hall","street_address":"232 Bolsover Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"Rockhampton's Town Hall, addressing Bolsover Street in the city centre, is an imposing two storey brick building on a granite plinth. The freestanding building stands within expansive grounds known as the Town Hall Reserve. These grounds, being mostly level, feature a simple arrangement of lawns and mature trees including plantings of Cuban Royal Palms (Roystonea regia), Traveller's Palms (Ravenala madagascariensis) and other species.
\nTown Hall Exterior
\nAll four of the building's facades are similar symmetrical, articulated planes of face brickwork with projecting bays, stepped parapets and verandahs to both levels for most of the perimeter (although many of the verandah areas have been in-filled). Whilst the principal façade addresses Bolsover Street, the building's other three facades can be viewed from Derby, Alma and William Streets, although other buildings sit within the block at its north-eastern end (including the 2009 library building).
\nThe articulation of the brickwork and set out of openings reflects classical proportions of columns, spandrels, balustrades and entablatures. The facades are stepped, both horizontally in the projecting and recessing of façade bays, as well as vertically in the parapet. The brickwork is laid in a version of Flemish bond, with two stretchers and one header alternating in each course. Darker bricks emphasise string courses, opening lintels and sills, and the parapet capping.
\nThe main entrance, centred on the north-eastern Bolsover Street façade, is approached by a broad flight of granite steps, returned at each end. Over this entrance is a cantilevered awning clad in bronze which carries the City's coat of arms. Above the awning is a small balcony opening from the Council Chamber and over that is a clock faced with ceramic tiles.
\nTown Hall Interior
\nOn the interior, a central entrance foyer leads to the hall’s main staircase. The reception hall sits at the back of the building, accessed via corridors to the left and right of the staircase. The hall, originally open to roof height with light wells on both sides, now features a mezzanine floor. Offices and facilities for council staff occupy the rest of the ground floor. The mayor’s office, council chambers and first floor entrance foyer are directly above the ground floor entrance foyer, with the offices of the Chief Executive Officer (formerly Town Clerk) on the School of Arts side of the building, and the former offices of the City Engineer on the Derby street side. Walls have been added in some of the larger offices to create additional rooms. Verandahs and balconies wrap around three sides of the building on both floors; there are balconies on either side of the reception hall on the Alma street frontage.
\nInside the glazed entrance doors, the entrance foyer has a marble dado to doorhead height and a high plaster ceiling with broad cornice. From the entrance foyer, the main stair of polished timber has a broad lower flight to a mid-level landing, then quarter-turn upper flights on both sides. Above the upper flights is a clerestory window lighting the stair and the upper foyer.
\nThe Council Chamber, reached from the upper foyer, has high dadoes of timber panelling, parquetry flooring and a high plaster ceiling with cornices between exposed beams.
\nThe air raid shelter sits directly underneath the ground floor corridor on the Derby Street side of the building. It is accessible via steps on the southern verandah and steps and a hatch ladder on the rear balcony.
\nLandscape elements, settings and views
\nThe most intact elements of the reserve’s original landscaping remain on its areas facing Bolsover and Derby streets. This scheme included curved driveways separated by large areas of lawn edged with concrete and dotted with tall palms.[30] The original 1897 foundation stone is laid in the front (Bolsover Street) lawn.
\nThe Town Hall standing in the middle of its generous landscaped reserve is a landmark in this part of Rockhampton.
\nNon-significant elements within the heritage boundary include extensive bitumen areas for car parking on the Alma street side of the reserve and the parts of the 2009 library building on the northeast.
","history":"Rockhampton developed as an important Queensland regional centre during the 1850s and 1860s. The settlement emerged to serve pastoralists and grew quickly following a gold rush at nearby Canoona. It was surveyed in 1858 and a site was reserved for a town hall.[1] Rockhampton was proclaimed a town on 15 December 1860, and by 1861 had a population of nearly 700 people. Six aldermen were elected in February 1861 and the Town Council held its inaugural meeting in March.[2] In 1862 the Rockhampton Town Plan set aside a new town hall reserve. This reserve, which had been designated a public square in the 1858 survey, was part of Section 59A, a block of more than four acres bounded by Bolsover, William, Alma, and Derby Streets.[3] A timber building was erected on the Bolsover Street frontage to serve as the Council Chambers and town hall.
\nBy 1871 Rockhampton’s population had grown to over 5,000 people, thanks in part to the introduction of beef cattle.[4] A replacement Council building was built in 1878, so modest that Hopkins’s Rockhampton Almanac declared, ‘OUR MUNICIPAL EDIFICES [sic] are more useful than ornamental.’[5]
\nRockhampton’s growth accelerated after the discovery of gold at Mount Morgan in 1882. Wealth flowed into Rockhampton, fuelling a building boom in the town and its surrounds. The town became the main port and commercial hub of central Queensland, serving a vast swathe of pastoral, agricultural and mining lands. By 1891, with a population of around 11,600 people, Rockhampton was the second largest town in Queensland, and was increasingly recognised as the ‘capital of central Queensland’.[6] A separation movement which gained traction in the 1890s proposed that Rockhampton should become the capital of a new central Queensland colony.[7]
\nIn light of Rockhampton’s growing prominence, the town’s main civic building was underwhelming. In 1890 the Daily Northern Argus insisted that Rockhampton was vastly underserved by its council building, ‘an edifice as indifferently representative of its civic dignity as a bush cabin’.[8] Aside from its aesthetic shortcomings, the town hall was too small to host public meetings, but aldermen were conscious of the financial burden ratepayers would have to bear if a new building were constructed. A foundation stone for a future town hall was laid by Rockhampton Mayor Wilson Weaver Littler on 22 June 1897, part of Empire-wide celebrations to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.[9] The ceremony was largely symbolic, as the town could not afford to proceed with construction. Nevertheless, Mayor Littler believed that a town hall would be built within the ensuing decade. Plans for a new building were prepared, but not developed.[10]
\nAlthough no building was forthcoming, improvements were made to the Town Hall reserve in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Council chambers occupied only a small part of the site, allowing Council to open the rest of the site as a public square, with gardens, a band pavilion and tennis courts. The reserve’s central position made it more appealing for public meetings, concerts and gatherings than the comparatively out-of-the-way Victoria Park and Botanic Gardens.[11]
\nProposals to build a new town hall were raised in the 1910s and 1920s but the Council had more urgent priorities. Rockhampton had been declared a city in 1902, with a population of over 15,500 people. The population continued to climb steadily, reaching 18,239 in 1911 and 29,269 in 1933. The growth spurred the Council to construct substantial new infrastructure. Electric street lighting was installed in 1924, and the Mount Charlton pumping station opened in 1926, improving water supply. Sewering began in the 1930s. Transport improvements came with an airport established in 1930 and Council-operated bus services from 1939. The Council itself grew, employing eleven aldermen and approximately 600 staff by 1939.[12]
\nIn 1936 the Council resurrected the idea of a purpose-built town hall. Loans and subsidies were being offered to local councils for construction projects with the aim of reducing mass unemployment brought on by the Depression. Across Queensland, town and shire councils took advantage of the economic assistance to construct new civic buildings. Many were designed in the modern Art Deco style, including Southport Town Hall (1935) (QHR 601649), Gayndah Shire Hall (1935) (QHR 602124), the Johnstone Shire Hall (1935-8) (QHR 601579), Goondiwindi Civic Centre (1937-8) (QHR 600531) and Murgon Civic Centre (1938) (QHR 602812). The style had been imported from Europe by way of the United States, where it was associated with the growth and modernism of the 1920s. By the time it reached Australia, it was more closely connected with post-Depression recovery and optimism.[13]
\nThe Rockhampton City Council successfully applied for a £50,000 loan from the Queensland Government in August 1936.[14] Three Brisbane architectural practices and one Rockhampton firm were invited to submit designs for a new administrative and auditorium building, at a maximum cost of £50,000. The firms submitted seven designs between them, none below the budget. After some redrafting, the modern, Art Deco design of Rockhampton architects Hockings and Palmer was selected in June 1937.
\nEdwin Morton Hockings (1870-1942) commenced his architectural career under the tutelage of Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. In 1890 Hockings won a design competition for the new Rockhampton Girls' Grammar School (QHR 600780), and departed to Rockhampton as the project's clerk of works. In 1895 he was elected an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects and commenced his own practice in Rockhampton, designing amongst others, the CJ Edwards Chambers (1914) (QHR 600803). In 1915 he formed a productive partnership with Leslie Tarween Palmer. Hockings and Palmer designed a number of structures around Rockhampton, including the 1922 Rockhampton War Memorial (QHR 600819) and the Therapies Block and Medical Superintendent’s Residence at the Rockhampton Hospital (QHR 601967). In the 1920s and 1930s the firm prepared plans for numerous town halls around central Queensland, including the Longreach Town Hall (c1927), and the Peak Downs Shire Hall in Capella (1936). The Rockhampton Town Hall, Hockings’ last major work, was completed before his death in December 1942.[15]
\nConstruction of the new Rockhampton Town Hall was delayed by discussions which took place over the twenty months after July 1937. Though Hockings and Palmer’s design was the cheapest submitted, the cost of constructing the entire building was still over the Council’s budget. State Treasurer William Forgan Smith approved an additional £10,000 loan, acknowledging that ‘a place like Rockhampton should have a town hall befitting the dignity and standard of the people of a place of such importance’.[16] Ultimately, however, the Council decided to omit the auditorium. The merits of day labour were debated but the contract was let to Brisbane firm John Hutchinson and Sons. As debates pushed back construction, architect Leslie Palmer left the firm for a job in Brisbane in 1938. Hockings’ son Thomas, an architect with the Department of Public Works, was brought in as a replacement partner. [17]
\nOn 25 February 1939 Rockhampton Mayor RW Evans turned the first sod for the start of work on the new town hall. The foundation stone was laid a month later, and construction began. The work took over two years to complete, as progress was delayed by wet weather, and by labour and material shortages after the commencement of World War II.[18]
\nThe new Town Hall was opened by Premier William Forgan Smith on Empire Day, 26 May 1941. The Premier expressed his approval of the building:
\nIts design is one of simple dignity. It has been built with due economy to secure the maximum of every square foot of space, and in time to come this building will be recognised as one of the civic centres of the State of which you can be justly proud.[19]
\nFormer Mayor Littler, who had laid the first foundation stone, sent a congratulatory telegram: ‘Although the egg laid 44 years ago has had a long hatching, I trust the result will give pleasure and service to many generations of Rockhamptonites.’[20] Newspapers described the new building as a ‘massive block, which in size, design and appointments surpasses any civic centre in Queensland outside of Brisbane.’[21]
\nHockings and Palmer had published a descriptive resume of the building in 1937, emphasising their focus on providing ventilation and natural light. As well as being prominent considerations in the design of commercial Art Deco buildings, the architects had taken into account the site’s exposed position, and their own experience of ‘local climatic conditions’. Doors and windows with decorative features were spaced throughout the building to provide filtered light and air. Balconies and verandahs wrapped around the building to allow ventilation and protecting offices from direct sunlight.[22]
\nLocal material had also been a focus of the construction, with Stanwell bricks in contrasting colours and Flemish bond patterns comprising the structure and Gracemere granite used for the building’s plinth and entrance stairway. A suspended steel awning with the Rockhampton coat of arms was made by building firm Wunderlich. Ulam marble from FJ Lowther and Co’s nearby quarry was used to panel the main entrance foyer to 6ft (1.8m). Queensland maple was used for the central stairway, with rubber installed on the stairs. Glass in the plate glass entrance doors was supplied by RS Exton and Co, and terrazzo finishes were used in the facilities.[23]
\nOffices and rooms for the mayor, aldermen, town clerk, city’s accountant, auditor, city engineer’s department, Medical Officer, City Inspector, poundkeeper, caretaker, facilities (including lavatories, cloak room and bicycle room), and a reception room for the mayoress, were spread across the two floors. In the council chambers, a high ceiling, decorative timber panelling and indirect lighting made it ‘probably the most striking room in the building’. A balconette was constructed above the Bolsover Street awning to provide the chambers with the desired supply of light and air. In lieu of the auditorium, a reception hall was built in the centre of the building, behind the stairway, with a 30ft high, two-storey ceiling and stairs on either side. Light and ventilation was ensured with balconies on three sides and light wells.[24] Wall and floor tiles throughout the building were installed by the Australian Tesselated Tile Co, a Victorian company. Rendered cement balcony floors contrasted with internal parquetry floors, patterned in local timber.
\nReflecting wartime considerations, the architects had also left openings in the foundation walls to allow access to the basement, with the suggestion that the space could be used for a bombproof shelter. On 7 December 1941, bombs were dropped on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese Navy, prompting a hasty defence reaction in the Allied countries. In Queensland, the State government requested the implementation of air raid protection measures. At a meeting of the Rockhampton Town Council on 17 December 1941, the city Engineer was authorised to make the openings in the Town Hall ground floor for the provision of the air raid shelter. Work on the shelter was underway in April 1942, when a labour organiser visited the worksite, and seems to have been completed by June, when the Council informed the Inspector of Police was informed that no objection would be raised to the installation of a telephone in the Town Hall air raid shelter. The seats, railings and sandbags of the shelter are still extant.[25]
\nIn August 1942, the Rockhampton City Council placed the city at the disposal of Australian and American army authorities, contributing to Australia's defence during the Pacific Campaign (1941-45) of World War II. Rockhampton’s new Town Hall became the headquarters for General Eichelberger and the 41st Division of the United States Army. The building was returned to the city in 1944, after minor restorative works. During a city-wide beautification scheme that followed, the grounds of the Town Hall were laid out in line with plans prepared by the H George Simmons (Curator of the Botanic Gardens) in 1939, with flowerbeds including roses, canna lilies and lantana, lawns, shade trees, pathways and an official reception driveway.[26]
\nThrough the second half of the 20th century, the Town Hall hosted meetings of the Council, local organisations and committees, public talks, radio services, concerts and community health services, and was a stopover on the 1956 Olympic Flame relay. The Rockhampton Art Gallery was run from the reception hall between 1967 and 1979. A reception was held at the Town Hall for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh during the 1954 Royal Visit. Hand-carved chairs made for the Queen and Duke by local furniture makers are now displayed in the building.[27]
\nMinor alterations were made inside the building, including the addition of a partial mezzanine floor for the art gallery (extended to full length in the 1990s) and walls between the main foyer and general office were relocated. Verandahs and colonnades were enclosed on the Derby Street and School of Arts sides of the building.[28]
\nIn the 21st century the building was opened for additional civic events, citizenship ceremonies and Australia Day awards. Minor works have been undertaken, including replacing water-damaged parquetry, refurbishing the mayor’s office and Council Chambers, and installing new offices. Canna lilies were planted in the flower beds in 2015, in accordance with the 1939 planting scheme.[29] In 2017 Rockhampton Town Hall continues to function as the centre of the city's local government authority and its operations.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Town Hall is important in demonstrating the development of Rockhampton as Central Queensland’s primary regional centre. The size, design and quality of materials demonstrates the important role of the Rockhampton local authority.
\nThe construction of the place, which took place between 1939 and 1941, is the result of a 1930s governmental unemployment relief project that saw the construction of modernised local government buildings across Queensland.
|The Rockhampton Town Hall contains an extremely rare example of an intact World War II air raid shelter. Hundreds of shelters were built in 1941-2, and a small group of these structures survive throughout Queensland. This shelter is the only known example where the internal fabric including seats, railings and sandbags survive.
|The Rockhampton Town Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional town hall. Located in a prominent position near the centre of the town, the Town Hall is a dignified and substantial two-storey masonry building with a dominant clock tower. Its impressive front façade with sweeping entrance stairway was designed to exude civic dignity. Its interior includes council chambers and administrative offices that accommodate the staff of a major City Council. High ceilings, wide balconies and light wells allow maximum natural light while minimising the ingress of direct sunlight. The building contains finishes and fabrics of the highest quality including the Gracemere granite floor in the main entrance and front stairs, Ulam marble dado in the main foyer, silky oak joinery, window and doors, and terrazzo finishes in various rooms. The parquetry floors throughout add to the quality of the building. It is a particularly fine example of a building combining Art Deco and Stripped Classical motifs.
\nThe place is a confident and accomplished design by notable Rockhampton architectural firm Hockings and Palmer, is of excellent quality construction and locally sourced materials, and is highly intact.
|The striking and handsome Rockhampton Town Hall stands prominently in a precinct of civic buildings in Rockhampton near the main business district. Substantial and imposing, the building makes a dramatic contribution to the townscape, being a landmark within the town centre. Situated prominently on a large landscaped site, it is designed to be viewed from all sides as a finished piece. The aesthetic qualities of the exterior are enhanced by the variations in the Flemish bond patterns, and the use of darker-coloured bricks for emphasis. Its interior features (reflecting the art deco design) include marbled and timber dadoes, parquetry floors and decorative panelling throughout the building. The Rockhampton Town Hall has aesthetic significance for the high standard with which it was designed and realised, its landscaped grounds, and exceptionally fine interiors.
|The Rockhampton Town Hall has a strong association with the Rockhampton community as a focal point for community, recreation and social functions. This site, which was reserved as public land from the first survey of the town, has special historical and social importance as the long-time and continuing municipal focal point of the city. Rockhampton's Town Hall also possesses a special association with the life, work and families of the City's council staff, mayors and aldermen.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16334,"place_ref":601573,"name":"Proserpine Hospital","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Herbert Street","suburb":"PROSERPINE","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"The Proserpine Hospital is a group of three single storeyed brick pavilions located on a large block at the corner of Herbert and Taylor Streets, Proserpine. They are adjacent to new hospital buildings constructed in 1998-99. The new buildings all front Taylor Street.
The three brick pavilions which all face Herbert Street, the original front entrance of the hospital, include:
the former Maternity Ward
the former Men's Ward
the former Outpatients Department
The former Maternity Ward was refurbished as part of the 1999 hospital redevelopment. The interior of the building has been altered and currently houses Allied Health (ie. dental health/mental health/physiotheraphy/speech therapy and child health etc).
The ward is linked to the former Men's Ward by a covered way. The walkway has been partitioned into small rooms, which are currently used for storage. The Men's Ward is also used for storage. The building is comprised of two (2) wards and an operating theatre.
The former Outpatients Department was inspected internally and found to be intact. The building, now vacant, had an area for administration, an examination room, a consulting room, a laboratory, a X-Ray facility, and an outpatients treatment area. There were no changes made to the building as part of the 1999 hospital redevelopment. The building is currently closed to the public.
Elements of the original landscaping around the buildings has been retained, including open grass areas and specimen trees of Moreton Bay Fig, Mango, Norfolk Island Pine, and Queen Palms.
","history":"The Proserpine Hospital on the corner of Herbert and Taylor Streets, Proserpine was constructed in 1939-40 to the design of prominent north Queensland architects, Hill and Taylor. The pavilions were built by W C Kynaston. It contains a group of three single storeyed brick pavilions located on a large block originally surrounded by formal gardens of manicured lawns and specimen trees.
The architectural firm of Hill and Taylor commenced in Cairns in 1925, although Richard Hill had been working in Cairns prior to this. A J Taylor was born in New South Wales and received his general and architectural education in Brisbane. Hill and Taylor continued in Cairns until 1941, with a Townsville office running from 1933-39. The practice resumed in 1945 but was abandoned in 1952 mainly due to Taylor's ill-health.
The partnership of Hill and Taylor dominated north Queensland architecture between the first and second World Wars. The firm was responsible for a number of prominent buildings in north Queensland including the Cairns City Council Building (1938), the Cairns Post Office (1930), the Johnstone Shire Hall in Innisfail (1938), the Barron Valley Hotel in Atherton (1940) and a number of country hospitals, including Mossman Hospital.
The Proserpine Hospital replaced an earlier timber hospital, which was built in 1911 on the old Bowen Road approximately 3 km from the centre of town. The first hospital was constructed using funds raised by the local community. They continued to fund the running of the hospital, assisted by regular donations from the local Shire Council, until June 1930 when it was forced to close as it seemed that the Proserpine community were unable to support it any longer. However, a year later the hospital re-opened when the community rallied together to raise the necessary funds.
Then in 1936 a decision was made by the Bowen Hospital Board, which had taken over the running of the hospital, to shift the hospital to its present site so that it would be closer to the town. A new hospital was designed in late 1936 to supplement the buildings shifted from the original site. A foundation stone was laid on 4 February 1939 by the Hon. E M Hanlon. The new buildings, which were completed by 1940, comprised a maternity ward, nursers quarters, male ward and an outpatients department.
These buildings consisted of a series of pavilions joined by covered walkways. They were all in the same style and constructed in red brick with high pitched bungalow roofs, which incorporated louvered ventilators in their gables. A feature of all the buildings were arcades with distinctive brick arches and concrete columns, and projecting front parapets that gave emphasis to the entrances.
In the early 1960s the front entrance parapets of the buildings were altered. This work varied slightly on each building but involved the removal of the ornate brickwork parapets and their replacement with plain triangular pediments or small hipped roofs. In addition the roofs which had been constructed in corrugated asbestos cement was replaced with galvanised iron.
The hospital was redeveloped in the late 1990s. When works were completed in 1999 much of the original hospital had been retained including the former maternity ward, male ward, and outpatients department. However, the Nursers's Quarters which fronted Herbert Street was demolished. The original 1923 Maternity Hospital, later Wardsman's House, was renovated to provide accommodation to medical staff.
","criteria":"The Proserpine Hospital is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place. The Proserpine Hospital is significant as a group of hospital buildings, designed in the tradition of separate pavilions which was part of a philosophy of hospital design.
The Proserpine Hospital has a special association with the Proserpine community. The community was responsible for funding the construction and operation of an earlier timber hospital in the town. Today, the community continues to support its local hospital and, when the hospital was redeveloped in the late 1990s, the Proserpine community were adamant that the original buildings be retained on the site.
The Proserpine Hospital has a special association with the work of the prominent architects Hill & Taylor, who worked in north Queensland in the period between World Wars and designed a number of country hospitals.
|The Proserpine Hospital is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place. The Proserpine Hospital is significant as a group of hospital buildings, designed in the tradition of separate pavilions which was part of a philosophy of hospital design.
|The Proserpine Hospital has a special association with the Proserpine community. The community was responsible for funding the construction and operation of an earlier timber hospital in the town. Today, the community continues to support its local hospital and, when the hospital was redeveloped in the late 1990s, the Proserpine community were adamant that the original buildings be retained on the site.
|The Proserpine Hospital has a special association with the work of the prominent architects Hill & Taylor, who worked in north Queensland in the period between World Wars and designed a number of country hospitals.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16335,"place_ref":601574,"name":"Ayr State High School","alternate_name":"Ayr State High and Intermediate School","street_address":"82-90 Wickham Street","suburb":"AYR","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Ayr State High School is an elevated brick school building with a corrugated iron roof which is topped with a ventilator and flagpole. The central entrance projects forward and on either side the classroom wings are connected by verandahs. The wings are one classroom wide so as to provide cross ventilation. The verandahs have arched arcading, which forms open play areas underneath. The detailing around arches is highlighted with stucco.
The grounds include large expanses of lawn and substantial shade trees.
","history":"The earliest building at Ayr State High School was erected in 1934-36 as the Ayr State High and Intermediate School, with an enrolment drawn from the wider Burdekin region. It was constructed during a period of unprecedented economic growth in Ayr, and ranks with the 1935 Court House, 1935 Masonic Hall and 1939 Tropix Theatre, as one of the more important interwar buildings in the town.
The Burdekin was first settled in the 1860s, and the town of Ayr was surveyed in 1882. The town grew in support of the increasing number of sugar plantations and small sugar growers establishing themselves in the Burdekin River region, and by the 1920s was the principal town in the district.
A primary school was established at Ayr in 1886, but until the late 1920s Burdekin children had no local access to secondary education. In 1913 the Ayr State School committee requested the provision of high school courses at the primary school, and in 1920 promoted the idea of a separate high school for Ayr. A secondary department, offering academic, commercial, domestic science and manual training subjects, was finally attached to Ayr State School in 1928.
In the early 1930s the local state school committee, encouraged by Ayr's unprecedented interwar growth and prosperity as a result of the expansion of the sugar industry, continued to put pressure on the Department of Public Instruction for the establishment of a high school. When the Department finally acquiesced, however, it was for a combined high and intermediate school, and there is some indication that an intermediate school only was considered at first. In fact, from 1925 until the late 1930s, Ayr State High School was the only new high school in the state, although several new secondary departments were established.
Intermediate schools, equipped with workshops, laboratories, and domestic science rooms, were established in principal Queensland towns after 1928. They reflected a fundamental change in Queensland education policy in the late 1920s, focussing on syllabus revision and the education of children over 11 years of age. In Brisbane, intermediate schools were established as separate institutions, but in country areas, they generally formed part of existing high schools. Intermediate schools catered for children 12-13 years of age, offering a two-year course as a link between primary and secondary education. Setting up new schools for a two-year course proved expensive, and the intermediate school concept was replaced in the 1940s and 1950s by multilateral high schools offering a variety of courses.
Plans for the Ayr Intermediate School (which opened as the Ayr State High and Intermediate School) were prepared in the Queensland Government Architect's office of the Department of Public Works in late 1934. The Chief Architect at this time was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966). Leven was born, educated and worked as an Inspector of Works in Scotland before migrating to Australia. From 1910 to 1951 he was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951. Other members of the office involved in the design were FJ Jellett and HJ Parr.
During the 1930's Depression a government initiated works scheme was established to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen and day labourers, and the use of local materials in the design and construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices and state schools. This scheme, under which the Ayr State High and Intermediate School was constructed, was instigated by Labour Premier Forgan-Smith.
A site on the southern side of the town, a former Showground Reserve which was set aside as a high school reserve in 1921, was selected for the new high and intermediate school. The two-storeyed brick building was in progress by mid-1935, and was opened on 1 March 1937 with an enrolment of 77 students in the high school and 203 in the intermediate section. Construction had cost approximately £16,000, and when completed provided for a manual training section, store rooms, and a large concreted play area on the ground floor, and 8 classrooms, head teacher's office, staffrooms, entrance hall, cloakrooms, and domestic science section on the first floor.
The intermediate section ceased as such at the end of 1963, and since 1964 the school has functioned as the Ayr State High School.
","criteria":"Ayr State High School, erected in 1934-36, is significant as one of a group of substantial interwar buildings in Ayr, which illustrate the unprecedented era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the sugar industry in the Burdekin region. The building also reflects the State Government's commitment to Ayr as a major regional centre in the interwar years.
Ayr State High School is evidence of the implementation of the Intermediate School system, experimented with by the Queensland Department of Public Instruction during the interwar years.
|Ayr State High School is significant as an excellent regional example of a school building following the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department. The use of brick and restrained classical detailing is typical for government buildings of the period.
It is also a good example of a building designed to accommodate the tropical North Queensland climate, being raised above an open undercroft; with wide verandahs and ventilators.
|Ayr State High School is significant for its aesthetic quality in design and classical-inspired detailing, including the arched entrance and symmetrical layout with projecting central bay.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16336,"place_ref":601575,"name":"Tobruk Memorial Baths","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"The Strand","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Tobruk Memorial Baths has a rendered masonry pavilion containing an entrance and changing rooms, with an open air Olympic size pool behind. A toddlers pool is between the entrance and the Olympic pool. There is a pitched corrugated iron roof hidden behind a parapet and the central entrance section is two-storeyed. The pavilion has three entrance doors containing etched glass panels with fish and sea horse motifs.
The Tobruk Memorial Baths have an attractive landscape setting, comprising grassed surrounds, linear perimeter plantings of Royal Palms (Roystonia regia) and other tropical vegetation including frangipani (Plumeria rubra).
","history":"Tobruk Memorial Baths were commenced in 1941 and completed in 1950. An initiative of the Townsville City Council, the baths were intended initially simply as a civic amenity, to replace older city baths. In December 1941, however, the Council decided to name the baths in honour of the Australian servicemen who had taken part in the Siege of Tobruk [Tubruq].
Tobruk Memorial Baths were erected on a site associated with sea bathing since at least the 1870s. The first European settlement at Townsville was concentrated in the area of Flinders Street East and The Strand, and The Strand and Cleveland Bay foreshore developed as one of the earliest recreation venues in Townsville. As early as 1866, Townsville's more affluent residents were constructing homes along the beachfront, and by 1872, three hotels had been erected opposite the present Anzac Memorial Park. The Strand was unformed at this time, being little more than a track along the foreshore, and there were no shade trees, but the beach was popular with bathers (mainly male) from at least the late 1870s.
In 1881 the town council planted 30 cedar trees along the foreshore, and added cocoa and betel nut trees in early 1882. In 1883, following strong public demand, a road was made along the beach front to Kissing Point. By 1889, The Strand, between King Street and Kissing Point, made a glorious promenade on a moonlight night when the breeze blows straight and cool from Magnetic Island, and a temporary reserve for public baths [R.182 ] (adjacent to the present Anzac Memorial Park and opposite a quarry) was gazetted in February that year. This reserve comprised an area of nearly 7 acres, extending from low water mark to a little above high water mark, on which the Townsville Municipal Council spent approximately £1,000 in erecting sea baths. Part of this reserve was occupied later by the Tobruk Memorial Baths.
The whole of the foreshore between King and Howitt Streets was gazetted a temporary reserve for public purposes in February 1901. A section of this, between the Cleveland and King Streets, was proclaimed a permanent reserve for park purposes in June 1912, and extended as far as the sea baths in 1926. From at least the 1920s, The Strand Park was a focus for Anzac Day activities. A memorial clocktower was erected in the park in 1923-24, and in 1934 the name of the park was changed to Anzac Memorial Park. When the Tobruk Memorial Baths were constructed 1941-50, their location along The Strand reflected not only the long association of the area with public swimming, but also with commemorative activity, iconography and place.
Work on the baths commenced in late 1941, as a City Council initiative to provide Townsville with an Olympic standard pool. At the time there was considerable public opposition to the use of Council finance for such an amenity during a war, and a petition was raised to the State Government to have the project stopped. Cabinet found that the Townsville City Council had complied with the necessary formalities in relation to war-time building restrictions, the petition was rejected, and work went ahead until headquarters for the allied offensive in the Pacific War shifted to Townsville in the first half of 1942.
In December 1941, at the height of the controversy, the Townsville City Council decided to name the baths as a memorial to the Australians who had fought and died during the Seige of Tobruk [Tubruq], in the Libyan desert campaign against Germany's 'invincible' General Rommel. In one of the most famous sieges in Australian military history, Australia's Ninth Division joined British forces in holding Tobruk against the German advance for 8 months. The Australian infantry, raiding and patrolling by day and night, dominated the no-man's land surrounding the Tobruk perimeter and took many prisoners.
After the war, work on the baths re-commenced, but was hampered by labour and materials shortages. Tobruk Memorial Baths finally opened to the public on 14 October 1950, and were opened officially on 26 November 1951 by Major-General WJ Windeyer, who was a senior officer at Tobruk. At the time, it was the only public memorial in Australia dedicated specifically to those who had participated in the Tobruk campaign. Inside the main entrance, the Townsville Sub-Branch of the Rats of Tobruk Association erected a marble plaque with the inscription:
This memorial stone is dedicated to the sacred memory of fallen comrades who served with the Navy, Army, and Air Force during the memorial siege of Tobruk, Western Desert, Great War II, from April 9, 1941 to December 13, 1941. We shall remember them.
Tobruk Memorial Baths were designed and constructed by the Townsville City Council's engineering and works departments, at a cost of approximately £60,000. When completed, the baths comprised a standard 8 lane, 50 metres long Olympic pool, graduating in depth from 3 feet 6 inches to 10 feet, with the depths marked on the side, and a diving platform at the deep end; a toddlers' pool with depths ranging from a few inches to 2 feet 6 inches; dressing sheds with central courtyards to permit natural light and ventilation; a café; manager's accommodation; tubular metal grandstands with seating for 250 spectators, along the ocean side of the pool and above the service rooms at the northwestern end of the pool; concrete paving to three sides of the enclosure - the fourth, facing The Strand, was grassed; fencing; and gardens in front of the entrance pavilion, facing Anzac Memorial Park. Particular attention had been paid to lighting, with underwater lamps along the side of the pool, floodlights at either end of the pool which illuminated the length, and enclosure lighting. The main pool was tiled in blue and white, with the lanes demarked by black tiling, at a cost of £6,000. Externally, the entrance pavilion was painted 'mist green', and internal walls were in 'harvest buff'.
The opening of the Tobruk Memorial Baths in 1950 re-introduced competitive swimming to Townsville, swimming carnivals having been discouraged during the war with the closure of the old city pool.
In 1953, the Reserve for Public Baths was amended as a 3 roods 17 perches site between the high water mark and the road reserve, containing the Tobruk Memorial Baths only. The sea baths, although no longer part of the Reserve, were maintained by the Townsville City Council until collapsing in 1981, at which time the Council decided not to replace them.
In the second half of the 1950s, the baths were associated with Dawn Fraser, John and Ilsa Konrads, and other members of the 1956 and 1960 Australian Olympic Teams. With the absence of indoor Olympic pools in Australia at that time, the Tobruk Memorial Baths in Townsville was chosen as the best warm climate pool in Australia for Olympic standard winter training. The 1956 and 1960 teams were the most successful at world level of any Australian swimming teams. The manager of the Tobruk Memorial Baths at that time was Allan "Stumpy" Lawrence. His son, Laurie Lawrence is also well known as one of Australia's leading swimming coaches.
Since 1987 the Townsville City Council, which previously operated the pool under a manager, now leases the complex to private enterprise. It remains a popular recreational venue in Townsville.
","criteria":"Tobruk Memorial Baths, constructed over the period 1941-50, are significant as Australia's most substantial public memorial to the Australians who fought and died during the Siege of Tobruk [Tubruq], a coastal town on the edge of the Libyan desert, from 9 April to 13 December 1941.
|Tobruk Memorial Baths is an example of a number of swimming pool complexes built in Queensland in the late 1940s and 1950s to commemorate the sacrifices made by those who served in the Second World War.
|Tobruk Memorial Baths are a fine example of civic design, and incorporate motifs relating to swimming and the sea in the etched glass of the entrance doors.
Tobruk Memorial Baths are situated adjacent to Anzac Memorial Park and The Strand. The baths and grounds contribute strongly to the aesthetic quality of the area through the distinctive architectural style of the entrance pavilion and the attractive landscaped setting.
|(Criterion under review)
|Tobruk Memorial Baths are significant for their close association with Australia's preparation for the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games, being the winter training venue for some of our most successful gold medallists, including Dawn Fraser and John and Ilsa Konrads, who raised the status and popularity of swimming as a competitive sport in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16337,"place_ref":601576,"name":"Cairns City Council Chambers","alternate_name":"Cairns Library","street_address":"151 Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The Cairns City Council Chambers, located on a large site bounded by Abbott, Aplin and Lake Streets, is surrounded by parkland with mature trees including Figs, Queen Palms and Traveller's Palms. The single-storeyed reinforced concrete structure, designed with classical detailing, has separate hipped roofs clad in ribbed metal sheeting and partly concealed behind a parapet.
The symmetrical main entrance faces Abbott Street to the northeast, with a forecourt area fronting a stylised pronaos. The pronaos consists of eight Ionic columns in antis, with fluting to the base of the shaft of each column, and the pilasters at either end have stylised detailing with a coat of arms towards the top. The entablature has a wide cornice formed by a projecting eave which aligns with the remainder of the building, and the pediment has the name CAIRNS CITY COUNCIL and is surmounted by an acroteria at the apex.
The pronaos has three doorways opening to the foyer. Each doorway has expressed architraves, the lintel of which projects from the wall face and is supported by scrolled brackets. The original doors have been replaced with aluminium framed glazed doors, however the leadlight fanlights survive intact. A row of high level windows located above the doorhead have been closed over, but the window surrounds remain. A marble foundation plaque is fixed to the base of the wall.
The pronaos is flanked on either side by enclosed verandahs. Each verandah comprises six bays (the original section being only three bays) which consist of rectangular openings with expressed sill and architraves, and which have been infilled with glazing. The enclosed verandah is surmounted by a parapet with a stylised frieze, and flanked by stylised pilasters at either end.
The building has been extended to either side and at the rear corners, and the central roof section is higher than the flanking roof sections. The architectural detailing of the enclosed verandahs fronting Abbott Street is continued to both side elevations, with the parapet wrapping around to the rear of the building. The rear of the building has hipped roof sections forming deep eaves, with stylised corner pilasters projecting through to form corner parapets.
The rear of the central section has a skillion roofed verandah, enclosed with multi-paned timber windows above sill height, either side of a central portico. The portico has a parapet with corner pilasters, and an entablature with a wide cornice formed by a projecting eave which aligns with the adjoining verandahs. The pilasters frame a rectangular opening which is flanked by small Tuscan columns. The main roof has bracketed eaves, and narrow leadlight windows are located above the verandah roof, lighting the interior of the Council Chamber behind. The original toilet blocks are extant (with a plant being added to the roof of the northern toilet block) and flank the enclosed side verandahs of the rear central section.
Internally, the building has a large central office and public enquiries area with non-original partitions fronting the pronaos entry to Abbott Street, with the former strong room behind, and the Council Chamber at the rear. The original verandahs returning along either side of the Council Chamber are extant, however they have been enclosed and additions constructed to infill the rear corners of the structure. The side wings retain some of the original planning and room layout, but have also been extended to either side. Some of the original french doors and fanlights, which opened onto verandahs from these rooms, survive intact. Suspended ceilings have been installed throughout most of the building, however a mezzanine level has been created above the strong room area and the original coffered plaster ceiling is visible.
The Council Chamber has cedar wall panelling to plate rail height, with painted wall surface above. The room also has paired cedar panelled doors and architraves, and leadlight windows. The southern wall of the Council Chamber has been altered with non-original timber joinery, and the room has a suspended ceiling which blocks the high level windows and obscures the overall proportions of the room.
The building is surrounded by extensive grounds, including mature trees and several flower beds. Driveway access and carparking is along the southern boundary of the site, and a second driveway enters off Aplin Street and accesses the rear portico. A large forecourt forms the entrance to the building from Abbott Street, and a low concrete upstand which runs along the Abbott Street boundary may be the base of the original concrete fence.
","history":"The Cairns City Council Chambers was constructed in 1929-30 and is a substantial reinforced concrete structure located on a large corner site surrounded by parkland. The building was erected during the third major phase of Cairns' development, between the First and Second World Wars, at which time the city's status as the principal port of Far North Queensland was consolidated and the city centre virtually re-built.
Cairns was established officially in October 1876 as a port to service the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields. In this first phase of Cairns' development there was a small flurry of building activity (mostly shanties and tent houses), but the town competed with both Cooktown and Port Douglas for the Hodgkinson trade, and made little progress until the establishment of a local sugar industry and the opening up of the Atherton Tablelands' mineral fields, in the early 1880s. The 1885 announcement that Cairns was to be the terminus for the Herberton railway established the town as the principal port in the region. These boosts to the local economy in the 1880s generated a second building and development phase, during which the early temporary structures were replaced by more substantial timber buildings.
Whilst a number of masonry and reinforced concrete commercial buildings were erected in Cairns in the years immediately preceding the First World War, the third major phase of Cairns' development was during the 1920s and 1930s. The Cairns hinterland Soldier Settlement Schemes of the 1920s, the completion of the rail link to Brisbane in 1924, the opening of the Gillies Highway and the Captain Cook Highway, the continued success of the local sugar industry, the expansion of wharf facilities, the extensive re-building necessitated by cyclones in the 1920s, and the poor condition of earlier timber structures, combined to produce unprecedented building activity in Cairns. The city centre in particular was dominated until the 1980s by masonry and reinforced concrete structures of the interwar period, and in this respect was markedly different from other 19th century-established Queensland towns and cites.
Important civic buildings of this time, most of which were designed with classical detailing intended to re-affirm the power and presence of government in the community, include the Cairns City Council Chambers, former Court House [600376], former Public Offices (present Art Gallery) [600376], former Customs House [600377], former Cairns Post Office, former Cairns Telegraph Office and Cairns State High School. Other prominent buildings of the period also designed with classical detailing include the Masonic Temple [601539] and the Cairns Post building. The construction of these buildings reflected the State Government and the local community's confidence in the growth of Cairns as an important regional centre during the interwar period.
The Cairns Divisional Board was established in 1879 by the Divisional Boards Act of that year, later becoming the Cairns Shire Council and then the Mulgrave Shire Council. In 1885 the Cairns Municipal Council was set up to administer the town area, and an allotment of land was set aside as a municipal reserve some blocks away from the main settlement of lower Abbott Street, on the corner of Aplin Street. The Cairns Municipal Council Chambers, a timber building, was constructed on the site, and in 1886 the Council applied for a public market reserve on land adjoining the municipal reserve fronting Lake Street, with a roadway entrance from Abbott Street. This was established in 1886, and in 1893 one allotment of the public market reserve fronting Lake Street was surrendered for a fire brigade station use, and two smaller allotments fronting Abbott Street were included as part of the public market reserve, resulting in the current site configuration. In June 1940 the previous reserves were cancelled and the site was gazetted as a reserve for local government purposes. In July of that year, a deed of grant upon trust for local government purposes was issued to the Cairns City Council for the site.
The Cairns Municipal Council became the Cairns Town Council on 31 March 1903, which in turn became the Cairns City Council on 13 October 1923. In 1926, Cairns celebrated its 50th anniversary.
The Cairns City Council Chambers were constructed in 1929-30, replacing the timber council chambers. The Cairns City Council Chambers was designed by the architectural partnership of Hill and Taylor, who were prominent local architects working in North Queensland during the interwar period. Hill and Taylor practiced in Cairns from 1927-33, and in Townsville from 1933-c.40, however Richard Hill had been practicing as an architect in Cairns from 1919. Prior to his partnership, Arthur John Taylor had worked for Richard Hill from 1925-27 after having been employed by the Queensland Government.
The builder of the Cairns City Council Chambers was Mr Alex McKenzie, and the foundation stone was laid by Mayor Alderman WA Collinson on 20 November 1929. In December 1929 the building was estimated to cost approximately £15,000. The Cairns City Council Chambers originally comprised a T-shaped plan with a central columned vestibule (pronaos) to Abbott Street, flanked on either side by three bays of verandah (now enclosed) with each section having a separate hipped roof. The building was extended c.1961 by a further three bays to either side with matching facade detailing. The rear verandahs were also enclosed, and the original timber floors were replaced with concrete slabs. The building was extended with infill at the rear corners, with the northern extension completed in 1969 and the southern in 1975. Major refurbishment was carried out in 1979-80, with the mezzanine floor added, and suspended ceilings installed.
The building appears to have originally had a picket fence to the Abbott Street frontage, which was replaced during the 1930s by a fence with concrete piers and metal gates which was in keeping with the original design proposal for the building. This fence is no longer extant, but its base may survive in the form of an existing concrete upstand along the Abbott Street boundary. The building is now fronted by the Centenary Forecourt, which was opened in 1885 to celebrate 100 years of local government in Cairns.
","criteria":"The Cairns City Council Chambers survives as an important illustration of the growth and rebuilding of Cairns in the interwar years, when Cairns was transformed from a late 19th century town to a progressive, post-war city. In particular, the place illustrates the local community's confidence in Cairns as an important regional centre after the First World War, and the elevation of Cairns from town to city status. The site has sustained a continued local government presence in Cairns since 1885, when the Cairns Municipal Council was established and the first chambers constructed.
|It is an important example of the work of prominent North Queensland architectural partnership of Hill and Taylor.
|The Cairns City Council Chambers has considerable aesthetic and architectural significance, and together with its surrounding grounds and mature plantings, imbue a formal expression of classical interwar public architecture adapted to suit a tropical climate. The building makes a considerable contribution to the Cairns streetscape, and is an important member of a group of classically detailed interwar civic buildings designed to re-affirm the power and presence of government in the community.
As an integral member of a group of interwar civic buildings designed with classical detailing, the Cairns City Council Chambers contributes markedly to the city's sense of identity and history.
|The building has a strong association with the Cairns City Council and the Cairns community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16338,"place_ref":601577,"name":"Tully State School","alternate_name":"Tully Rural School","street_address":"17 Mars Street","suburb":"TULLY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Tully State Rural School is a single-storeyed brick building with a corrugated iron roof, which is capped with a cupola. The building is elevated on brick piers which forms an undercroft playing area. The building has a central entrance gable and two end gables, which are decorated with a machicolation motif. The gables are connected by arcaded verandahs which have been enclosed.
The grounds are well tended and include substantial plantings of trees, palms and shrubs.
","history":"Tully State School was constructed in 1936-37 on the site of the original school, which was destroyed by fire.
The town of Tully (initially known as Banyan) was established in the early 1920s, following the state government's decision in 1922 to erect a sugar mill in the Tully River Valley. The mill buildings were erected 1924-25, and with the mill came the roads, railway, bridges and the township of Tully. The latter originated as a shanty town near Banyan Creek, but was surveyed as the town of Tully in April 1924.
A temporary state school was opened in a galvanised iron shed on the mill site on 30 June 1924, and a purpose-designed timber state school building was erected on the present school reserve in 1925-26.
In late 1932/early 1933, the Tully State School committee, encouraged by the district's rapid progress and the town's function as a regional centre, had agitated for the conversion of the school to a rural school. The rural school system had been introduced at Nambour State School in 1917. In this new form of vocational school, the younger grades followed the usual primary school curriculum, but in the upper grades, boys were taught manual arts, elementary agriculture and farm management, while girls were taught home management and needlework skills, in addition to the more usual academic studies. Rural school status was conferred on schools which drew on a wide regional population for enrolment, and for a town to aquire a rural school was something of a status symbol. Rural schools remained an important part of the education system until phased out in the 1960s, when state secondary education was being expanded.
By March 1934, the school committee had raised £200 toward the construction of manual training and domestic science facilities, and a new block was opened to students on 5 November 1934, at which time the school became Tully Rural School.
On 22 November 1935, Tully Rural School was destroyed by arson. The school was housed in temporary accommodation, firstly at the showgrounds, and then in the local Irish Club and CWA halls, until the present brick building was completed.
Plans for a new, substantial brick primary and rural school were prepared in the office of the Queensland Government Architect, Public Works Department. The Chief Architect at this time was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966). Leven was born, educated and worked as an Inspector of Works in Scotland before migrating to Australia. From 1910 to 1951 he was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951. Other members of the office involved in the design of the Tully Rural School were WJ Moulds and HJ Parr.
During the 1930's Depression a government initiated works scheme was established to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen, day labourers and the use of local materials in the design and construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices and state schools. This scheme, under which the replacement Tully Rural School was constructed, was instigated by Labour Premier Forgan Smith.
The new school cost approximately £13,000, and contained 8 classrooms, head teacher's room, cloakrooms, and male and female staffrooms. The area underneath was concreted to form a large sheltered play area.
The new building was occupied from the beginning of the 1938 school year, and was opened officially by Hon. Percy Pease, MLA for Herbert and Deputy Premier, on 1 February that year. A new head teacher, Mr C Irish, was appointed, with instructions to turn Tully school into a real rural school. Some of the projects he initiated included: a forestry plot planted with Kauri and Hoop pines and Indian Teak; annual plantings in the school grounds, including a grove of maple [the gardens are now considered amongst the finest in Queensland state schools]; poultry raising; a bushhouse of ferns; garden rock walling; and manual training programmes which supplied the school with blackboard frames, library cupboards, and other joinery. A theatre was built under the school, and a sports oval was developed adjacent to the forestry plot.
During the Second World War, student project clubs raised funds for the local Red Cross and Comfort Funds, with boys growing and selling vegetables, and girls cutting and sellling flowers from the school gardens they tended. At this period the garden included over 300 rose bushes. Domestic Science students made clothing for the children of Britain, and large fetes were conducted annually, the proceeds of which were shared between the school and the patriotic societies.
After the war, Memorial Gates were erected; these list the past pupils and teachers who served with the armed forces during the Second World War.
A secondary department was established at Tully Rural School in 1951, in a temporary timber building, and this functioned until a high school was erected at Tully in 1964. About this time, Tully Rural School reverted to Tully State School, but high school students continued to use the domestic science and manual arts facilities at the primary school for some years.
There have been a number of additional buildings erected at Tully State School since 1937, but these are not included in the heritage listing.
","criteria":"Tully State School, erected in 1936-37, is significant as a substantial interwar building which reflects Tully's growth and prosperity accompanying the expansion of the sugar industry in the 1930s. It also illustrates the State Government's commitment to Tully as a district service centre during the interwar period.
|Tully State School is significant as an excellent regional example of a school building designed for the North Queensland climate, being raised above an open undercroft; with wide verandahs and ventilators. The use of brick and restrained detailing is typical for government buildings of the period, and Tully State School follows in the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department..
|Tully State School follows in the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department. It is an outstanding example of a school building designed by the office of the Queensland Government Architect, which at the time was the equal of any architectural office in Australia.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16339,"place_ref":601578,"name":"Innisfail Court House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"10 Edith Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"Innisfail Court House, designed in the inter-war classical style, is a two-storeyed brick building with a corrugated-iron roof and rendered details to the gables and verandahs. A curved portico forms the entrance to the building and addresses the corner through two columns with ionic capitals. A double-height verandah runs down each street facade. The gables are embellished with broken pediments and Venetian windows.
","history":"Opened in March 1940, this was the third court house to be built in Innisfail, replacing a timber building erected in 1888. The building was designed in the office of the Department of Public Works; AB Leven was the Chief Architect at the time.
The Johnstone River area was settled by cedar-cutters, with the first major planting of sugar cane by occurring in 1880. TH Fitzgerald is generally credited with planting the first sugar cane, and was responsible for the erection of the first mill in the area, late in 1881. Also in 1881, a town was laid out at the junction of the South Johnstone and North Johnstone Rivers, known reputedly as the Junction. The name Geraldton was given to the town in 1883.
Geraldton's first official building was erected c1881, probably on the police reserve, accommodated a Police Station, Court House, Unofficial Post Office, Lands Office, Customs Office, an office for the Clerk of Petty Sessions and a gaol. Tenders for a new court house was called in late 1887, and plans for the building indicate the location of the building as on the corner of the police reserve bounded by Edith and Rankin Streets.
The name of the town was changed to Innisfail in 1910. By the late 1900s-early 1910s, the Innisfail district was attracting attention from both land speculators and settlers. The Queensland Government had expressed its intention of opening up the Mourilyan Harbour, and of resuming and extending the local tramline inland from the coast, giving further impetus to the development of the district.
Innisfail was devastated by a record flood in 1913, then by a cyclone in 1918, which destroyed many of the town's timber buildings. Despite these setbacks, the town prospered and opened its third sugar mill in 1916. Soldier settlement was established in Johnstone Shire around 1918, and in 1922, a number of blocks were made available to returned soldiers for growing sugar cane. Completion of the railway from Brisbane to Cairns in 1924, gave further impetus to the development of the district. By the 1920s, the Innisfail sugar industry was producing vast quantities of sugar cane and record yields of sugar, and the prosperity thisbought to the town was reflected in the many substantial buildings erected in the twenties and thirties. These include important civic buildings such as the first wing of the hospital, the Roman Catholic Church, the Commonwealth Bank and other commercial premises. Also important in the town's development were the opening of the Jubilee Bridge in 1923, linking the town with East Innisfail and Mourilyan, and the Dardgee Railway Bridge in 1924.
Although consideration was given to the likely need for expanded court house facilities to cope with an increasing amount of official and legal business, it was not until 1937 that plans for the erection of a new court house were drawn up, including the erection of a new two-storeyed brick court house on the site of the timber court house, and relocation of the timber court house to the east of the new court house, for use as the Police office and barracks.
During the 1930s Depression, Labor Premier William Forgan Smith established a government initiated works scheme under the Income (Unemployment Relief) Act (1930) to create employment. This involved the employment of architects, foremen, labourers and the use of local materials in the design and construction of government buildings such as court houses, government offices and state schools. The Innisfail and Mackay court houses are two fine examples of the substantial brick buildings erected through this work scheme.
The new building was completed in late 1939. Offices for a number of Government Departments were provided on the ground floor, with the court room and court facilities located on the first floor of the building. Minor alterations have been undertaken to the building in recent years, including the addition of a small air conditioning enclosure at the south east end of the court house.
","criteria":"Completed in 1939 as the third court house in Innisfail, this building survives as an example of the development of Innisfail as a commercial and official centre for the surrounding district from the late nineteenth century, and of the prosperity accompanying the expansion of settlement and the sugar industry in the Johnstone area during the early twentieth century.
|The Innisfail Court House is a good example of a substantial brick court house which reflects the high standard of Government buildings in Queensland designed by the Department of Public Works during the early-mid 20th century.
|The form of the building in relation to its prominent corner location, scale and materials, contribute to the Edith and Rankin Street streetscapes and Innisfail townscape.
|Designed and constructed as part of a Government initiated Works scheme created to generate employment throughout Queensland during the 1930s, the Innisfail Court House is also a fine example of the work completed under this scheme.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16340,"place_ref":601579,"name":"Johnstone Shire Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"70 Rankin Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-01-13","description":"The Johnstone Shire Hall is a two storeyed re-inforced concrete building with semi-basement containing shire offices, a hall and two shops. The main facade has a stepped parapet with four banded pilasters defining bays featuring moulded decorative panels representing sugar cane. There is a cantilevered awning over the street with a balcony above, access to the balcony is via French doors. The balcony has a wrought-iron balustrade. The main entrance has three arched doorways through which is the ceramic tiled entrance foyer.
The upper storey features a panelled foyer and auditorium, with a stage and fly tower. The hall has an elliptical arched fibrous cement ceiling, supported on piers panelled with walnut and decorated with plaster fluting and volutes. The lighting system is a combination of many copper framed pendant fixtures with opal glass, and a system of concealed trough lighting providing indirect illumination.
","history":"The Johnstone Shire Hall was constructed in Innisfail from 1935-8, by the Van Leeuwen brothers to the design of Messrs Hill and Taylor at a cost of about £53,000.
The Innisfail area was settled by cedar-cutters, with the first major planting of sugar cane occurring in 1880. The town was laid out at the junction of the South Johnstone and North Johnstone Rivers in 1881, and was known as Junction Point. The name of the town was changed to Geraldton in 1883, and to Innisfail in 1910.
Innisfail was devastated first by a record flood in 1913, then by a cyclone in 1918, which destroyed many of the town's timber buildings. Despite these setbacks, the town prospered and opened its third sugar mill in 1916. By the 1920s, the Innisfail sugar industry was producing vast quantities of sugar cane and record yields of sugar. The prosperity of the town was reflected in the many buildings erected in the twenties and thirties, including many concrete buildings such as the first wing of the hospital, the Roman Catholic Church, the Commonwealth Bank and many other commercial premises. Also important in the town's development was the opening of the Jubilee Bridge in 1923, linking the town with East Innisfail and Mourilyan, and the Dardgee Railway Bridge in 1924.
The Shire Hall was constructed when the previous building was destroyed by fire in December 1932. This previous building had been used for theatrical productions and therefore the community were anxious to see a replacement constructed promptly. However council disagreements, state government interference and a change of shire council mean that it was many years before plans for the new Hall were presented and accepted. Messrs Hill and Taylor were commissioned for the design of the building in 1935. They were prominent local architects working in North Queensland between the first and second World Wars. Other public buildings by this firm include the Cairns City Council (1929), Cairns Post Office (c1930) and Proserpine Hospital (1939-40) and the Barron Valley Hotel (1940)
The supervising contractors were the Van Leeuwen brothers, who had arrived in Innisfail from Holland in 1918, they were responsible for most of the major construction work in the town from this date, including the Water Tower, the National Bank, Hotel Grand Central, Queens Hotel, Bank of New South Wales and the Commonwealth Bank.
Hill and Taylor and the Van Leeuwen brothers proposed the cost of the building was to be £36,830. However, over the next few years the cost of the building was to rise to over £50,000, to the considerable alarm of the community and the Treasury Department who were partially funding the venture. A provision of the Treasury's involvement was the use of the unemployed on either day or contract labour, therefore none of the contractors' own staff were employed on the project. The building was ready for occupation in 1938, and after five years in temporary accommodation the Johnstone Shire Council were able to operate from their own offices.
","criteria":"The Johnstone Shire Hall is a substantial inter-war building which illustrates the unprecedented era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the sugar industry in the Burdekin region.
|The Johnstone Shire Hall, constructed 1935-38, is significant as a good and intact example of regional public buildings with Art Deco detailing, featuring locally inspired motifs. The Shire Hall is significant as a building designed by the architectural partnership of Hill and Taylor, prominent local architects in North Queensland between the first and second World Wars.
|The building is an important element of the Rankin Street streetscape.
|It has significance to the local community as the civic centre of Innisfail.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16343,"place_ref":601582,"name":"Bulletin Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"162-164 Quay Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-12-05","description":"The Bulletin Building is a three storey, rendered concrete building; the design of the building is classical with symmetrical façade, classical detailing and features which are stripped of ornamentation. The principal façade of the building is divided into bays by pilasters rising up through the three storeys dividing the face into five evenly spaced window bays. Large window openings line the façade; these are filled with non-original glazing in modern aluminium frames.
The entrance to the building is centrally located and emphasised with a concrete hood supported on shallow scrolled corbels and featuring relief lettering, BULLETIN BUILDING. The parapet of the building is curved along its length rising in the centre with a small semi-circular projection on which is relief lettering, EST 1861.
The main walls are reinforced concrete with breeze brick in fills. The entrance lobby is concrete floor with marble foyer. All other floors are constructed from concrete. The internal walls are reinforced concrete with breeze brick in fills.
Internally, the first floor has a later suspended ceiling throughout. This floor consists of office space, including the addition of new walls to create further office spaces. Early remaining internal elements include four sets of steel-framed windows along the eastern side of the building and timber doors leading to the press room at the southern end of the first floor. The Harris Web Press takes up a substantial portion of the press room.
The second floor has a later suspended ceiling throughout with a generally open office plan. Early remaining internal elements on this floor include timber doors on the northern side of the floor.
The third floor space is used for conference room facilities, similar to the other floors; there is a later suspended ceiling throughout.
","history":"Constructed in 1926, the Bulletin Building was built by R Cousins & Company, to a design by prominent Rockhampton architect, Roy Chipps. A purpose-built newspaper office, the Bulletin Building was constructed when an earlier building on site was demolished. Established in 1861, the Morning Bulletin remains as Rockhampton's oldest newspaper.
The Morning Bulletin's dominating position among the city's press is largely due to a long line of distinguished editors beginning with its founder William Hitchcock [WH] Buzacott and his brother, Charles Hardie [CH] Buzacott between 1861-1880. From 1880 and 1911, William McIlwraith and John Blair were the proprietors of the newspaper. In 1911, McIlwraith and Blair were followed by three generations of the Dunn family company, who carried the Bulletin into the modern age and the subsequent competition of electronic media.
Since 1861 the Bulletin's only name changes has been the dropping of Northern Queensland Advertiser from the title and in 1873 its emergence as the Morning Bulletin.
The original home of the Morning Bulletin was in Quay Street near the Customs House in a timber building owned by John Ward. On 14 August 1862 the Bulletin office burnt down and the presses destroyed. Following the destruction of the first building by fire, the office of the Bulletin was moved to a two-storeyed masonry building in Denham Street.
The popularity of the Morning Bulletin was such that, from 1873, it began the new year as a daily newspaper. It was the first daily paper, outside of Brisbane, issued in Queensland.
Following the death of WH Buzacott in 1880, William McIlwraith became the owner of the Morning Bulletin. In 1883, McIlwraith was joined in partnership by John Blair.
It was during McIlwraith's ownership, in the early 1880s when, with increases in the local population and the circulation of the paper, the Denham Street building became too small to house the growing staff. At this time, the office was moved to a building in East Street. It was from this office in East Street that a larger office in Quay Street was planned in the mid-1920s.
On 20 December 1910, John Blair died suddenly in Rockhampton. By 11 March 1911, a new era had begun for the Morning Bulletin, following Andrew Dunn Snr's purchase of the newspaper form William McIlwraith. Dunn's son, also Andrew, had joined the Morning Bulletin in 1905. Dunn's employment with the newspaper began a long association which was to last 43 years. Dunn Jnr took over as Managing-Editor of the Morning Bulletin following his father's purchase of the newspaper in 1911.
Dunn is credited with making the Morning Bulletin and Capricornian more modern in the sense that there was provided to the reader more popular articles and after several years, a series of articles by staff members using pseudonyms.
It was during the Dunn family's ownership of the Morning Bulletin that new offices were constructed along Quay Street. The Morning Bulletin was located at its address at 162-164 Quay Street from 1927.
The architect commissioned to design the new building for the Morning Bulletin was Roy Chipps. Chipps trained as an architect in New South Wales, moving to Brisbane in 1917 to commence an architectural practice, forming a partnership with CH Griffin from 1919-22. In 1923, following a move to Rockhampton, Chipps established a thriving practice which operated until 1936, when he was joined in partnership by WC Nichols. Chipps became a non-resident partner in the practice until it dissolved in 1939. The Chipps designed building remains as the office of the Morning Bulletin.
Capricornia Newspapers Pty Ltd, an Australian Provincial Newspapers subsidiary purchased the property in December 1976.
Australian Provincial Newspapers is a media company that consists of three divisions - Newspaper, Outdoor Advertising and Radio. The Newspaper division publishes more than 65 titles in northern New South Wales and south and central Queensland. Australian Provincial Newspapers owns a number of newspapers from Mackay to Coffs Harbour along the eastern coastline, and inland to Emerald, Biloela, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Warwick, Lismore, Grafton and Chinchilla. The Capricornia Newspapers subsidiary owns the Capricorn Local News, Gladstone Observer, Capricorn Coast Mirror, The Blackwater Herald, CQ News, and Central Telegraph.
In May 1992, Australian Provincial Newspapers offered shares to the public through the Stock Exchange, believing that the public should own their local newspaper. It was expected that this would raise and additional $80 million in revenue - this figure was well exceeded due to public demand. The funds have been earmarked for payment of existing debts and to allow for expansion of operations in their various plants, updating of computers and other facilities.
The Morning Bulletin currently employs about 165 staff, including casual staff. The composing areas, production and editorial staff rotate between day and night shifts. Currently, the Morning Bulletin has a circulation of approximately 20,000 on weekdays and 26,500 on Saturdays.
The Harris Web press, installed approximately 25 years ago, is the press utilised by Australian Provincial Newspapers and produces approximately 420 papers per minute.
The Morning Bulletin continues to be one of the most well-read newspapers within the Rockhampton and surrounding areas.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1926 as a purpose-built newspaper office, the Bulletin Building is significant for its association with Morning Bulletin which, established in 1861, is the earliest surviving newspaper in Rockhampton, and is an integral part of the history of Rockhampton and district.
|The Bulletin Building is a good example of Stripped Classical architectural treatment, designed to be congruous with neighbouring 19th century buildings.
|In its scale, massing and façade articulation, the Bulletin Building complements other Quay Street buildings most of which date from the 19th century, and is an integral part of a premier Queensland streetscape.
|The Bulletin Building is significant for its association with the community of Rockhampton and surrounding area and those who have been, and continue to be, part of the Morning Bulletin story, including the editors, reporters and administration staff, past and present.
|The Bulletin Building is significant as an example of the work of the architect Roy Chipps in this architectural style during his long practice in Rockhampton. It is also especially significant for its association with the Dunn family who owned the newspaper for over seventy years and had the Bulletin Building designed and constructed.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16345,"place_ref":601584,"name":"Graceville Uniting Church Complex","alternate_name":"Graceville Methodist Church","street_address":"215 Oxley Road","suburb":"GRACEVILLE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"The Graceville Uniting Church and Memorial Hall are sited on a block bounded by Oxley Road, Verney Road East and Addison Road. In addition to the church and hall, the site also contains the original timber church hall and tennis courts. Plantings exist along the Oxley Road elevation of the church.
THE CHURCH
The rendered concrete building is a modestly-sized church (nave approximately 15 metres by 10 metres) laid out with a T-shaped plan (St Anthony's cross) comprising a central nave, transepts and choir. The design of the building, like the adjacent hall, is influenced by an Inter-War Gothic style of architecture.
The front elevation of the church faces Verney Road East and comprises the gabled end of the church, flanked by a projecting octagonal vestry to the west and a projecting tower to the east. The elevation is asymmetrical with the tower dominating. The centre of the gabled end houses a large pointed arched window opening. Located above this is a lancet opening infilled with fixed louvred panels.
The octagonal vestry abuts the western side of the front façade. Supporting the vestry walls are six buttresses, each capped with a pinnacle. Between the buttresses are precast concrete panels with foiled heads. The central panel is infilled with leaded glass. The vestry roof has a central, raised pinnacle which also forms one end of the gable of the nave.
The bell tower, located on the Oxley Road side of the front elevation, is square in plan and capped with an eight-sided spire. The structure is supported by buttresses on the three external corners. The main doors to the church are located in the base of the bell tower. These are accessed via an arched opening on the southern side of the bell tower. This opening is surmounted by a decorative gable supported by paired columns on either side of the door. A ramp leads up to this opening where it is met by decorative timber gates. Tesselated tiles cover the floor of the bell tower. The doors to the church lie at right-angles to the arched opening and gates. Above the doorway on the ground floor are precast concrete panels with foiled heads, surmounted by a horizontal panel with recessed quatrefoil motif. Above this panel are chamfered columns supporting a foiled arcade. Above this is an area of pre-cast concrete tiled, centrally located on which is a lancet window. Surmounting the tower is an eight-side concrete spire.
The side walls of the church consist of a series of reinforced concrete buttresses surmounted by pinnacles. Between these buttresses are infill panels of pre-cast concrete which typically contain three leaded glass lancet windows per panel. These panels are surmounted by pre-cast concrete spandrels featuring a quatrefoil motif.
The transepts lie on the northern end of the building. External access to this portion of the church is via double doors on the truncated corners of both transepts. A six-panelled leaded window is located above each double door. All entrances to the church are flanked by columns either side which support a decorative gable.
The steeply-pitched roof of the church is clad with Wunderlich terracotta tiles. Along the ridge of the roof is a concrete crenellated ridge capping.
Internally, the nave is divided by a central aisle with original timber pews either side. Various memorials are located on the walls and in the leaded windows of the nave, including the windows on the southern wall of the church dedicated to Louisa and Walter Taylor.
The transepts are divided internally to form vestries. The southern portions of both transepts are integrated with the body of the church and contain pews, and a pipe organ is located in the eastern transept. The vestries contain stair access to the choir stalls.
The vestry located on the south-western corner of the church contains a ladder and doorway which provide access to the bell tower and spire.
The pulpit area is surrounded by a communion rail. Access to the pulpit is gained via a set of stairs which continue behind the pulpit to the tiered choir stalls.
The rendered concrete ceiling is suspended below timber roofing members and incorporates simplified Gothic-style tracery and V-shaped coffers.
The main church floor is now a raked concrete slab on ground, however timber flooring survives to the elevated choir.
Internal joinery is generally silky oak including an altered choir front and pulpit.
THE MEMORIAL HALL
The memorial hall is related in style and detailing to the church but is more restrained in its use of the Gothic style. It is also similar in construction to the church, although the hall employs slightly different pre-cast concrete units for the walls.
The main roof is a steeply-pitched timber-framed roof clad in Wunderlich terracotta tiles. A small gable roofed porch abuts the Oxley Road elevation of the building.
The hall is essentially a single large space with a mezzanine at the Oxley Road end. At the opposite end is a stage. Located to either side of the stage is a set of stairs and a doorway providing access to the stage. A kitchen and large kindergarten room forming the L-shaped plan are also located at his end of the hall. The kindergarten lies on the northern side of the stage area. Access to this room is via the stage and an external door in the south-eastern corner of the room. The floor of the kindergarten room is at the same height as the stage.
The front porch area contains World War II memorial elements, including memorial plaques and recent memorial stained glass windows. The windows lie either side of the main entry doors. A door in the southern wall of the hall provides access from the rear of the church directly into the main room of the hall. Windows are typically paired tracery windows with timber sashes. The main floor is timber-framed with a part-basement space underneath.
New brick toilets infill between the rear of the hall and tennis shelter shed.
THE ORIGINAL HALL
The original hall is sited west of the Memorial Hall. It is a timber construction with sash windows, a central gabled projection and a corrugated iron hipped roof. The hall is currently used as part of the tennis court complex.
","history":"The Graceville Uniting Church Complex site consists of the original church hall, erected in 1917; the church, opened in 1930; and the memorial hall, opened in 1951, all to the design of Walter Taylor. Repairs were made to the buildings from the mid-1950s onwards, with a jubilee restoration project to restore the church and memorial hall completed in 1965.
The Graceville Uniting Church (formerly Graceville Methodist Church) was originally part of the Sherwood circuit. In August 1914, it was deemed advisable to start a Sunday School in Graceville. The Sunday School was given the use of sheds on the Graceville recreation grounds, however, by 1917 the Sunday School had outgrown this accommodation. In January 1917, Messrs Taylor, Draper and Hedges were appointed to a committee to investigate a possible site for additional accommodation. Verney Road, east of Graceville Railway Station, was selected as the most central and appropriate site. Within a few days, Mr Taylor was approached by Mr Keid regarding eight allotments in Addison, Verney and Oxley Roads which were for sale for £135. Taylor paid a deposit of £10 to secure the property. In February 1917, the church decided to purchase three blocks - Allotments 299, 300 and 301 for £60, purchasing the other five allotments two years later for £75. The land was registered on 22 August 1917 as the property of the Methodist Church, with four nominated trustees. The new trustees agreed to secure a loan of £125 to build a new hall on the site. Taylor was appointed Honorary Architect and supervisor of the project and it was agreed that the hall was to be built by voluntary labour.
The new hall was opened on 3 November 1917 by the President of the Methodist Conference, Rev. W. Brown. Its construction was the result of community effort, built with the donation of various materials and voluntary labour. Taylor was heavily involved in the project - he drew the plans, prepared the specifications and supervised the work. The hall had the seating capacity of 120 people. While built for the Sunday School, the hall was also used for Sunday evening services, and for community events, such as community meetings, debating and concerts. At the end of 1917, the Graceville congregation became a separate entity from the Sherwood congregation. The Sunday School continued to grow, prompting a request for Taylor to prepare plans of an extension to the hall. Taylor volunteered to supervise the construction of the extensions and they were completed by his staff by 4 February 1924.
In 1928, the Church Trustees empowered Walter Taylor to devise plans for a new church on the corner of Verney and Oxley Roads. The foundation stone was laid on Saturday 2 March 1929 at a ceremony presided over by the President of the Queensland Methodist Conference. Like the hall, the construction of the church was a community effort, with the donation of labour, cash and much of the construction material including filling, fencing, concrete foundations, reinforcing steel, bearers, floor joists, timber for roof construction and cathedral glass for windows. The congregation had intended to complete the superstructure of the church without borrowing any money, however the economics of the time were against them. Being the time of the Depression, many of the men of the parish were unemployed, on relief work, and so were unable to give money as generously as they had done in the past. £500 was borrowed from the Methodist Loan Fund.
The church was opened by His Excellency the Governor, Sir John Goodwin, on 29 November 1930. Tribute was paid to the architect and builder of the church, Walter Taylor, with the congregation's appreciation expressed in the erection of a marble slab and framed photographs of Walter and Louisa Taylor in the church.
According to The Queensland Methodist Times, the use of the Perpendicular Gothic style was an innovation in Methodist architecture. The precast concrete parts were made in Walter Taylor's workshop, moved to the site and "placed in position like masonry". "They were laced together with steel and concrete providing a building of extra-ordinary strength, without in any way detracting from the gracefulness of design"... After the buttresses were erected, walls, panels and window jambs at the top and filled in with concrete slabs, formed a broken surface, "with a very pleasing effect". A parapet with a counterfoil design was mounted on top of the walls between the buttresses, and was broken by a pointed turret over each buttress. "Rapid hardening cement and reinforced concrete have made it possible to construct on a very modest scale a building containing all the essential features".
Cruciform in plan, the church was symbolic in its representation of part of the Scriptures - a parable in stone. The exterior walls were to be constructed from 34 buttresses which represent the 34 years of Christ's life on earth. Curiously, the building only has 33 buttresses. The walls between the buttresses were divided into seven - the perfect number in the Bible. There are three windows in each bay - a trinity of light. The building featured 1450 Gothic arches and 8000 panes of tinted Cathedral glass.
In November 1937, two trees were given to the church by Mrs Taylor and planted in the church grounds. Various other additions were made to the church, including a photograph frame containing pictures of past ministers, a baptismal font, a pulpit, and a memorial plaque to commemorate Brother James William Roberts.
At a Trustees Meeting on 15 November 1944, a letter from Taylor was read which stated that the time was opportune to launch a scheme to build a memorial hall and to simultaneously pay off the church debt. Plans proposed by Taylor were presented to the meeting and the committee agreed to go ahead with the construction of the hall which would be a memorial to those who served in World War Two and would be used by the Sunday School and church societies.
The foundation stone of the memorial hall was laid on 20 September 1947 by Mr W.H. Green. Taylor recommended that the front and side fence of the church be removed. The good portions were re-erected at the side of the hall and the broken pieces were used in the foundations. After delays caused by shortages of materials and Bureau of Industry concerns, the memorial hall was officially opened on 1 December 1951. Apart from the honour board remembering those who feel in World War Two, the memorial also contained many tributes to former church members.
From the 1950s, various renovations and modifications were carried out on the Graceville Uniting Church. In 1955 repairs were needed to the church floor and to the roof, and in November 1956 the vestry roof and floor of the tower were resurfaced. A new concrete sump was placed under the church and an automatic electric pump to remove water from the sump was installed. A 1957 report by architects Cook and Kerrison, found the church in serious need of repair. It was agreed to allow Cook and Kerrison to proceed with preparing specifications for renewing the floor and box guttering. The trustees approved that the new church floor should be concrete with a suitable covering. The £1972 tender of A.L. Paice was accepted. To complete the work, the existing pulpit and communion rail were removed and later re-installed to one side. In 1958 a new septic toilet block was constructed and a new memorial window was unveiled in the church. A new organ was donated in 1959. The interior of the church was also repainted by Ash and Nephew, and Brisbane Lead Light Service repaired and installed various windows. In 1960 new stairs from the Minister's Vestry to the choir stalls were constructed, and in 1962 a new pulpit chair was installed.
In about March 1962 Louisa Taylor died and in accordance with the will of Walter Taylor the overdraft and the balance owed to the Methodist Loan Fund were liquidated. The two large windows at the Verney Road end of the church were dedicated as memorial windows to Mr and Mrs Taylor.
In 1963 the original Trustee committee was replaced by the Property Board of Graceville Methodist Church who selected the restoration of the church and memorial hall as its jubilee project. The most important issues were the spalling of the concrete in the hall and church owing to the penetration of moisture which caused the steel reinforcing to rust, and damage and disfigurement caused by pigeon droppings. The restoration work was completed in 1965 by Building Plastics. The project involved cutting out loose concrete where spalling was evident, cleaning, treating the steel reinforcement and repairing the concrete. All loose paint and moss was removed, anti-mould solution was applied, a sealer coat was added as well as a coat of bitumen and woven fibreglass cloth was used to cover all the cracks and repairs. Finally two more coats of bitumen, two colour coats and two coats of clear plastic were applied. The new colour chosen was beige. In 1965 the tennis courts were also improved and the retired men of the parish gave up their Friday afternoons to improved the church grounds.
Throughout the late 1960s, several other additions and improvements were made. New carpet and linoleum was laid, three of the church windows were replaced, the church was rewired, lighting in the choir lofts was added and a beam under the Vestry floor was strengthened. A new organ was purchased, a memorial side pulpit was built, and three memorial chairs and a carved timber flower stand was installed. In the 1970s the hall was renovated as were the two tennis courts. In 1980 the choir vestry floor was repaired and tiled, and the tiles in the church were also cleaned. A concrete ramp to facilitate wheelchair access was installed, new stainless steel guttering was added to the church roof, and the old hall was renovated.
After the formation of the Uniting Church in 1977, the Graceville Parish remained a part of the Sherwood Parish until 1988. Since then Graceville has been a separate Uniting Church parish.
","criteria":"The church and hall are significant as good representative examples of the Inter-War Gothic Style of architecture. The church and hall are important for their aesthetic and architectural significance as well composed, unusual buildings and as important landmark elements of the streetscape. In particular, the church tower and spire is dominant in the streetscape and provides a local landmark.
The method of construction used on both the church and the hall was radically different to conventional construction techniques of the time, and as such demonstrate a high degree of technical achievement in the early use of pre-cast concrete in Queensland.
Since opening, the church and the hall have been in continuous use providing for the spiritual, recreational and social needs of the Graceville Community, creating a strong and special association with the site. The church and hall are significant for their strong association with prominent builder, Walter Taylor, who designed the buildings, devised their unusual construction method and supervised their construction. Taylor was also a major financial contributor to the construction of the complex, and included expressions of his faith in the design and layout of the church in which he worshipped for many years. Taylor was a major building contractor in Brisbane, known particularly for his reinforced concrete buildings and structures. His most famous work was the Walter Taylor bridge, constructed in 1935 as a toll bridge over the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly.
|The church and hall are significant as good representative examples of the Inter-War Gothic Style of architecture.
|The church and hall are important for their aesthetic and architectural significance as well composed, unusual buildings and as important landmark elements of the streetscape. In particular, the church tower and spire is dominant in the streetscape and provides a local landmark.
|The method of construction used on both the church and the hall was radically different to conventional construction techniques of the time, and as such demonstrate a high degree of technical achievement in the early use of pre-cast concrete in Queensland.
|Since opening, the church and the hall have been in continuous use providing for the spiritual, recreational and social needs of the Graceville Community, creating a strong and special association with the site.
|The church and hall are significant for their strong association with prominent builder, Walter Taylor, who designed the buildings, devised their unusual construction method and supervised their construction. Taylor was also a major financial contributor to the construction of the complex, and included expressions of his faith in the design and layout of the church in which he worshipped for many years. Taylor was a major building contractor in Brisbane, known particularly for his reinforced concrete buildings and structures. His most famous work was the Walter Taylor bridge, constructed in 1935 as a toll bridge over the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16346,"place_ref":601585,"name":"Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church","alternate_name":"White Temple of Peace | Our Lady of Victories Church","street_address":"29 Cintra Road","suburb":"BOWEN HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-11-11","description":"Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church is sited near the apex of Bowen Hill, overlooking the Brisbane River. It is on a large site incorporating a presbytery to the east and a school and scout hall to the west. The church addresses both Roche and Boyd Streets.
The building is essentially rectangular in plan, running east west, with shallow transepts toward the western end of the north and south facades. Semi-octagonal recesses are found as small entrance vestibules on the transept ends, as the sanctuary and vestry of the church, as altar recesses in the side chapels flanking the principal altar and in a Baptistry toward the eastern end of the southern façade. The burnt orange terracotta tiled roof is generally gabled with hips to the polygonal projections. The building is constructed from re-inforced concrete the exterior is rendered with textured stucco, except to mouldings which are smoothly rendered.
Dominating the building visually is a large square planned tower abutting the eastern end of the northern facade. The tower, which extends for 90 feet has long narrow rectangular openings on its shaft and shallow balcony-like sections of concreted balustrading supported on decorative moulded corbels. These balconies are found on each of the four sides and are accessible by door openings on the top level of the tower. Heavy mouldings define the upper limits of the tower above which is a bell shaped cupola roof clad with copper sheeting and surmounted by an illuminated Latin cross.
The principal eastern façade faces the Brisbane River, looking toward the bend where the Bulimba and Hamilton Reaches converge. The elevation is symmetrically composed and defined by a decorative parapeted gabled, where a moulded capping follows the curves and notches of a Cape Dutch gable outline. Featured on the elevation are several groups of round headed arched openings; a porch/loggia is formed by a recess separated from a wide concrete stairway by an arcade of three arched openings supported on large cast iron columns; centrally located on the façade above this is a doubled arched opening with a lightly framed Juliet balcony flanked by groups of three arched window openings. Centrally placed near the apex of the parapet is a large diamond mullioned 'rose' window. Surmounting the apex of the gable is a masonry Latin cross.
The north and south facades have five evenly spaced round headed arched openings separated by shallow smoothly rendered pilasters. The windows are composed from two strips of four top-hinged hoppers filled with diamond mullioned glass, above which is placed a semi circular window glazed with a leadlight panel depicting a rising sun. The transepts of the church, on the north and south façades feature similar, but smaller, versions of the eastern parapeted gable. Doorways are formed in the semi-octagonal recesses centrally located on the transepts. Long round-headed arched openings are found on the octagonal projection and flanking this, on the face of the transept end.
The western facade has two parapeted gable walls, one slightly smaller in front of a larger version, defining the chancel space. The smaller gabled wall is abutted by a single storeyed semi-octagonal projection housing the vestry.
The porch on the eastern façade houses a recessed porch and the walls of the porch have been smooth rendered and scribed with ashlar stonework joints. The double entrance door of timber is surmounted by a semi-circular fan light of leadlight depicting the rising sun and cross.
Internally, the church does not reflect the Spanish mission dictum influencing the design of the exterior. The interior has a concrete floor with sections of ceramic tile and carpeting added more recently, the internal walls are plaster rendered. The ceiling, which is diagonally timber boarded in alternating sections, rakes downward on the long sides of the building. The internal layout is very simple, with timber pews facing toward an altar area comprising a low marble platform on which a marble altar table. Behind this in the chancel with a marble high altar. The shallow chancel is side lit by long round-headed arched windows, and separated from the body of the church by a large round headed arched opening and smaller double arched openings separating the transepts.
To the north and south of the entrance doors are two small rooms, the southern one a former baptistery and to the north the base of the tower. Inside the tower is a steep open tread timber stair which leads to a top floor where four door openings give access to shallow balconies. The timber stair also gives access to a gallery, supported on cast iron columns, which lines the eastern, rear face of the interior of the Church. Provision is given off the gallery for access to the small Juliet balcony on the eastern façade of the building.
The arched window openings which line the north and south walls of the church are housed in arched recesses, in the spandrels of which sit the corbelled supports of the timber ceiling joists. The windows are glazed with diamond mullioned glass in varying shades of blue and green forming geometric patterns.
Notable fittings in the church include the marble high altar, confessional boxes, stations of the cross, a shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa and statues in the side altar recesses. The high altar is of white marble with green marble detailing and is centrally placed within the chancel below a 'rose' window glazed with coloured glass depicting a crown and cross within a circle surmounted by a fleur-di-lis. Two timber confessional boxes are found at the rear of the church. These are separated into three small rooms with a small perforated timber panel with sliding closing panel in the two internal connecting walls. The timber framed stations of the cross are surmounted by a broken pedimented entablature similar to those which surmount the two confessional boxes.
","history":"Our Lady of Victories Church was constructed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane in 1924-5 as a Memorial to Roman Catholic soldiers and sailors who fell during World War I. The church was designed by prolific Brisbane architects Messrs TR Hall and GG Prentice.
\nOur Lady of Victories was the first Church built for the newly created Bowen Hills parish during a period of unprecedented growth in building stock of the Roman Catholic Church in Queensland after James Duhig was appointed as Archbishop in 1917. Duhig had served as Co-adjator Archbishop to his aging predecessor, Archbishop Dunne since 1912 and it was from this time that Duhig planned immense growth within the Church. This growth was manifest by the large number of churches, schools, convents and presbyteries built increasing the church's presence in Queensland. In the 16 years between 1912 and 1928 over 100 Roman Catholic churches were constructed in the Brisbane Archdiocese.
\nIn November 1917 Duhig purchased part of an old estate known as Folkstone belonging to William Perry. In 1866 Perry bought the property which contained an early 1860s timber bungalow thought to have been built for a Mr Keand. The property initially belonged to James Gibbon who acquired a deed of grant from the New South Wales Government over the land in 1857. After acquisition by the Perry family numerous changes were made to the bungalow and it was given the name Folkstone. The Perry family were well known in Brisbane as ironmongers since 1860 and a building, Perry House, at the corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets in Brisbane still bears the family name. In about 1912 the bungalow was destroyed by fire and subsequently the block was sub-divided allowing the Archbishop to purchase the land and propose the construction of a church in the newly created parish.
\nThe foundation stone for the memorial church was laid on 24 August 1919 by the Apostolic Delegate, Bishop Cattaneo \"to the Glory of God and in memory of the Catholic Sailors and Soldiers of Queensland who fought and died in the Great European War 1914-1919\". A publication detailing the development of the Catholic Church in Queensland, Catholic Progress 1912-1919, contained a lengthy article on the Soldiers Memorial Church at Bowen Hills then in planning stages. The article was illustrated with plans and elevations of a large brick and cement Gothic church featuring an enormous tower and spire extending some 124 feet. The plans were drawn by Messrs Hall and Prentice. The reason for the alteration in building design is unknown; though obviously the Spanish mission building constructed was much less expensive than the elaborate and massive building initially intended for the site.
\nThe church which was eventually blessed and opened on 26 April of 1925 by Archbishop Duhig was constructed by H. Cheetham costing £9435, which included £400 for the architects, Messrs Hall and Prentice. The church, called Our Lady of Victories Church, was designed in a manner incorporating many Spanish mission elements, a style of influence and popularity in Australia during the inter-war period. Popularised by movies from Hollywood during the 1920s and 1930s, the Spanish mission style was inspired by picturesque Californian Spanish missions. Many of the external details on the Bowen Hills church suggest a strong influence of this style, most obviously in the baroque parapeted gables, groups of round-headed arched openings, textured stucco render and several semi-octagonal projections. The interior of the church does not exhibit the strong stylistic intention apparent externally.
\nHall and Prentice formed when TR Hall formed a partnership with GG Prentice in 1919. The partnership was responsible for several notable examples of Spanish mission inspired architecture in south-east Queensland. Examples include two bathing pavilions (1934) and a surf life saving club (1936) at Southport and Breffney, a large house in Clayfield (1929). The Spanish mission style was used for other Queensland churches, thought to be an appropriate style for sub-tropical weather and an appropriate use of what was an ecclesiastical inspired style. Churches with Spanish Mission features include St Peters Roman Catholic Church in Rockhampton (c1937); Our Lady of the Chain Roman Catholic Church, Mareeba (1936) designed by VM Brown; Holy Trinity Church at Woolloongabba (1930) designed by Chambers and Ford and St Anne's at Kalinga, designed in 1934 by Hennessey and Hennessey.
\nWhen the church was opened, Our Lady of Victories was regarded as quite unique. The report in a local Catholic newspaper, The Age, regarded \"its mission type of architecture...the first of its kind in Australia\". The report continued on to describe the large electrically illuminated cross which surmounted the tower, as a perpetual light commemorating the armed forces of World War I. Many other details in the church manifested its intention as the principal Roman Catholic war memorial in Brisbane; the coloured glass panels depicting the AIF symbol of the rising sun; and an honour roll at the base of the tower (since removed).
\nThe first parish priest appointed to Bowen Hills was Reverend Father ES Barry, a former Armed Forces chaplain. In 1920 land, also part of the Perry Estate, was purchased adjacent to the church block by James Duhig for the construction of a presbytery. A school was constructed to the north west of the church, the foundations stone for which was laid on 18 September 1921 by Duhig.
\nIt is suggested that the Bowen Hills parish was never particularly large and this was a principal reason explaining why Archbishop Duhig handed the church and parish over to the Polish Community in Brisbane in 1955. In October of that year Franciscan Brothers of the Capuchin Order in Australia were appointed to the parish of Bowen Hills and undertook to provide services in both English and Polish, a tradition which continues in 1996.
\nThe Polish community remain at the church and have made very little changes to the building fabric. A shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa was erected near the altar in 1962 to commemorate 1000 years of Christianity in Poland (966-1966). A memorial plaque was attached to the eastern facade of the building in 1980 to honour the \"memory of 14 000 Polish Prisoners of War massacred by Soviet Forces at Katyn and elsewhere in USSR in 1940.\" Another cairn memorial was moved from the Polish Community Centre in Capalaba to the southern side of the building, commemorating Polish soldiers who fought during World War II.
","criteria":"Our Lady of Victories Church demonstrates the Catholic ethos of utilising prominent Brisbane sites with landmark buildings in a time of Church expansion during the early tenure of Archbishop Duhig who sought to increase the presence of the Catholic Church in Brisbane. The church is a memorial to Catholic soldiers and sailors and demonstrates the widespread construction of memorials after World War I. The building, which has been managed by the Polish community in Brisbane for many years, also demonstrates the influx of European migrants after the Second World War.
|The building is a rare example of a Catholic Church built as a war memorial to World War I. Many features of the church reflect this initial purpose including glazing, memorial plaques and an illuminated cross surmounting the tower.
|The building is a good example of a Catholic church built during the 'golden years' of the church in Brisbane as a prominent landmark. The church is a good and early Brisbane example of a Catholic Church designed within the stylistic canon of Spanish Mission architecture.
|Our Lady of Victories Church has aesthetic value; it is a well composed building with Spanish mission elements which contribute to its picturesqueness. It is a prominently sited landmark in Brisbane.
|The building, which has been managed by the Polish community in Brisbane for many years, also demonstrates the influx of European migrants after the Second World War.
The Church has strong associations with the Catholic Church community in Brisbane, particularly Polish Catholics who have managed the building for about 40 years.
|Our Lady of Victories Church demonstrates the Catholic ethos of utilising prominent Brisbane sites with landmark buildings in a time of Church expansion during the early tenure of Archbishop Duhig who sought to increase the presence of the Catholic Church in Brisbane. The church is a memorial to Catholic soldiers and sailors and demonstrates the widespread construction of memorials after World War I.
The church is strongly associated with Archbishop Duhig, who bought the site initially and planned the construction of a church in the newly created Bowen Hills parish.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16350,"place_ref":601589,"name":"St Paul's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"Proserpine Church of England | St Paul's Anglican Memorial Church | St Pauls Anglican Church | St Pauls Anglican Memorial Church | Proserpine Anglican Church","street_address":"8 Main Street","suburb":"PROSERPINE","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-10-11","description":"St Paul's Anglican Church, a striking, parabolic arched structure of concrete, brick, timber and glass, is located in Proserpine in the Whitsunday region of northern Queensland. Orientated with its longitudinal axis north-south, the church is positioned at the front of a long rectangular block on the southern side of Main Street. The church is largely intact, retaining its original furniture and fittings. The most notable alterations have been to the roof, where original translucent sections have been replaced with opaque sheeting.
The dominant element of the church's design is the parabolic arched roof over the nave and sanctuary. Clad in metal roof sheeting, the parabolic form is created by a reinforced concrete arch at the front, regularly spaced laminated timber arches throughout the interior and a brick end wall at the rear. A raised strip of roofing along the apex is clad in opaque sheeting.
Single-storey brick side wings run along either side of the nave, featuring large windows and flat roofs clad in metal sheeting. Straddling the walls are reinforced concrete dished slabs, curving up and away from the top of the walls and overhanging by approximately one metre, acting as both guttering and eaves. The height of this slab indicates a datum level that extends within the church in the form of a flat ceiling over the aisles.
The church is rectangular in plan with an entrance foyer in the north-west corner, linked to a brick and concrete bell tower by a covered walkway. The main elevation of the church is asymmetrical, with the end walls of the wings flanking the central arch being constructed of different materials. The concrete parabolic arch is in-filled with a timber framed glazed wall, with a reinforced concrete cross forming the central spine and a raised brick garden bed running along the base. A series of horizontal ridges on the outer edge of the parabolic arch are remnants of the original roof cladding system. To the side of the arch is the end wall of the eastern aisle, which features small, cross-shaped openings in the brickwork, in-filled with glass. A plaque commemorating the laying of the foundation stone is located here. The entrance foyer on the western side is fully glazed with timber framing and a low brick garden bed along the north side.
The eastern elevation is straight, while along the western elevation the vestry and entry foyer project out beyond the aisle wall. Both elevations are divided into bays by regularly spaced brick piers, with brick infill up to waist height and windows above. The timber framed windows are made up of four awning casements separated by strips of frosted glass in the shape of a cross.
The solid brick wall of the rear elevation is pierced by a high window in the form of a narrow cross. It has two layers of glazing, consisting of an inner layer of coloured glass segments and an outer layer of clear glass. Glazed doors provide access to the vestries. Adjacent to the western vestry door is a toilet block built up against the rear wall (this structure is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance).
The bell tower is approximately 11 metres high, surmounted by an aluminium cross. The tower is constructed from two parallel reinforced concrete walls with decorative brickwork on the outer faces. The two walls are linked by horizontal concrete beams and a bell is hung near the top. A rough render has been applied to the concrete surfaces, with a raised cross ornamenting to the top of each side. A low, rectangular, brick garden bed, originally a reflection pool, projects from the front of the tower.
Entrance to the church is through the foyer at the north-west corner, through glazed doors on the western side. Aisles run along the eastern and western sides and through the centre of the nave. The sanctuary at the southern end is raised one step above the nave with vestries on either side. The timber pews, like most furniture in the church, have chambered corners painted an off-white colour. The collection plates are made from seven interlocking triangular pieces of timber.
In the centre of the northern glazed wall is the baptismal font, standing on a small raised platform. It consists of a spun copper bowl set on a concrete column. The timber cover is a shallow, seven-sided pyramid, with an etched copper symbol of one of the seven sacraments attached to each face.
An ANZAC shrine in the north-east corner has a bronze plaque attached to the centre of the wall, listing the names of fallen servicemen from the Proserpine district. Above this is a wooden sign bearing the words ‘Lest We Forget' and a small crucifix. A wooden rack supports flags attached to wooden poles.
The rear sanctuary wall contains the glazed cross-shaped window, which has protruding metal fins attached on the interior. Below, the altar is located in the centre of a raised platform of three steps. The altar has a thick central base that inclines towards the top, clad in dark grey stones. A concrete cantilever angles out from the base to support the altar top, which is made from a terrazzo-like material incorporating pearl shell. Other items of furniture in the sanctuary include candlesticks, pulpit, lectern, and small stools and tables. The candlesticks are free-standing posts with a conical-shaped copper drip ring at the top. The timber pulpit has a protruding timber cross against a white background on the front face and sides that angle out towards the top, which has an angled book holder elevated on a tubular metal stand. The lectern is a simplified version of the pulpit but without the angled sides, and has an overhanging v-shaped top. A cupboard in the western wall of the sanctuary, the aumbry, has images of two saints on the inner face of the door leafs, made visible when opened.
Walls of fixed vertical timber fins divide the sanctuary from the vestries on either side. The eastern vestry contains a small kitchenette and timber pantry cupboard. The western vestry contains built-in timber storage cupboards, a small safe and a corner sink.
The lowered ceilings on either side of the nave give the appearance of floating, horizontal planes, the sides of which are lined with a timber fascia. These converge along the length of the church, towards the sanctuary wall. The undersides are clad in recent plasterboard sheeting, with regularly spaced, rectilinear openings along the inner edge, increasing in width as they approach the sanctuary. Along the top of both side walls the concrete dished slab extends into the church. Smaller in scale than on the exterior, the edges of the slab also curve upwards, pierced with regularly spaced square holes.
The length of the church is divided into bays by the exposed parabolic arches. A scaled-down arch within the arch closest to the sanctuary provides the framework for a lower arched ceiling, lined with plasterboard. The gap between the inner and outer arches is glazed with frosted glass. The lower ceiling stops short of touching the southern sanctuary wall, allowing views of the main roof structure. Throughout the nave, the underside of the parabolic roof is lined with timber, while the tops of the parabolic arches are concealed from view by a high, plasterboard-clad cove.
The church is fronted by a lawn area with recent garden beds along the footpath. A gravel driveway runs along the eastern side of the church and a concrete drive leads past the bell tower to the entrance. Behind the church is a recent steel building, while the remainder of the property is open lawn in 2013.
","history":"St Paul's Anglican Church in Proserpine, completed in 1959, is one of a series of innovative churches designed by Cairns-based architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin. It was constructed by local builder Les Tinsley and Co.; with engineering details provided by R McLean.[1] The church is made from a variety of materials including brick, timber and concrete, and features a striking parabolic roof of laminated timber arches, an early use of this structural system in Queensland.
\nThe Proserpine area was first settled from the 1860s and agriculture became the main industry.[2] An initial attempt at sugar cane production in the early 1880s at Glen Isla plantation failed and the estate was subsequently sold and subdivided into small farms. Much of the present-day Proserpine town area occupies land formerly part of the plantation site. A stable sugar-growing industry was eventually established in Proserpine in 1897 with the opening of the Proserpine Central Mill.[3] By 1900, there were 200 settlers and 70 suppliers to the mill.[4]
\nAnglican services in Proserpine, which was then part of Bowen Parish, had been established by 1896 when church services were conducted by a visiting clergyman from Bowen.[5] In 1904 a building committee was formed to oversee the establishment of a Church of England in Proserpine, so that regular services could be held and a Sunday School set up. Fundraising was undertaken, and by early 1905 the committee had secured a site in Main Street, opposite the mill. The first St Paul's Church of England, a small timber building, was completed in 1906.[6]
\nProserpine continued to grow throughout the early 20th century, with the population nearly doubling in the 1920s and a rail link to Mackay, completing the line from Brisbane to Townsville, opening in 1923.[7] However, until the 1950s Proserpine remained a country sugar town, a stopover place rather than a destination in itself, with little appeal to visitors.[8] Proserpine airport opened in late 1951, boosting tourism to the local area and Whitsunday Islands.[9]
\nThe 1950s were a significant period of change and reform within Anglican and other Christian denominations throughout Australia, as they sought to become more relevant to contemporary society. Developments in religious theology and liturgy, coupled with an expansionary building program, led to a radical departure from established architectural traditions. Reflecting international trends, church designs moved away from historical revival styles and became increasingly influenced by Modernism.[10] However, it was expected that a church would still be recognisable as such, resulting in a wide range of variations combining traditional church elements, symbols and functions with new construction techniques, materials and forms.[11]
\nA particular advocate of constructing churches in a modern idiom was Bishop Ian Shevill, the sixth Anglican Bishop of North Queensland (enthroned in 1953), who began a crusade to provide a permanent church in every parish.[12] Having travelled to the United States of America to learn new methods of fundraising, Shevill implemented the Anglican Building Crusade, which raised £145,000 for buildings. Of the amount raised by each parish, half was retained and half went to the diocese.[13]
\nIn order to encourage construction of modern rather than pseudo-Gothic style churches, the Bishop compiled a set of canonical principles of church architecture, which were a set of rules ensuring certain aspects of Anglican church designs remained constant while allowing architects to exercise their creativity. These principles prescribed such things as setting aside a third of the church for the sanctuary and two thirds for the nave, the proportions of steps leading up to the altar, and that furnishings be designed by the architect. All new Anglican churches were to be individual and contemporary in design, for, as Shevill himself put it, ‘God is no museum piece and He should be worshipped by modern people in modern buildings which are aesthetically pleasing and cool.'[14] By 1958, six new permanent Anglican churches and a chapel had been completed according to these principles.[15]
\nSteps towards constructing a new church at Proserpine began in 1956 when architects Barnes and Oribin of Cairns were engaged.[16] Designed by Oribin, the proposed church was highly unusual, with a parabolic roofed nave, glazed end wall with a central concrete cross, flat side roofs and separate brick tower.[17]
\nEdwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin was born in Cairns in 1927. As a teenager during World War II, he spent time in Brisbane where he obtained work with the Allison Aircraft Division of General Motors rebuilding aircraft engines. Returning to Cairns in 1944, Oribin commenced architectural training with Sid G Barnes, Chief Architect of the Allied Works Council for North Queensland, whose training gave Oribin a solid grounding in structural design and construction. In 1950 Oribin moved to Brisbane to work and study, and on 10 February 1953 he obtained his registration as an architect in Queensland, returning to Cairns the following month to begin a partnership with Barnes. This partnership lasted until Barnes' death in 1959, after which Oribin continued practicing on his own.[18]
\nOribin undertook a wide range of work in north Queensland between 1953 and 1973.[19] Throughout his career, he was devoted to experimenting with different structural and aesthetic ideas, drawing inspiration from a wide variety of Australian and international publications. Characteristics of Oribin's work included meticulous detailing, structural creativity and concern for the modulation of light.[20] He was also known for his model-making skills and superb craftsmanship, often creating objects himself.[21]
\nSt Paul's Anglican Church at Proserpine was one of three churches designed by Oribin between 1956 and 1960, the others being Mareeba Uniting (formerly Methodist) Church (completed 1960) and St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church, Innisfail (completed 1960, QHR 602332). Each of these churches is distinctive in design, having directly responded to the needs of the clients, while still allowing experimentation with construction and design ideas.[22]
\nBy mid-1958 Proserpine parish's participation in the Anglican Building Crusade had raised over £3000 and their own fundraising campaign was supported and encouraged by Bishop Shevill, who stated ‘...I should like to congratulate the wardens and council upon their adoption of a design which is so revolutionary and so progressive, for it will provide the parish with a contemporary building of great beauty and one which will make religion relevant to the 20th Century people who believe in progress...'[23] The original timber church was relocated to the rear of the property and Cairns contractors Les Tinsley and Co. began construction of the new St Paul's in June 1958. The Governor of Queensland, Col. Sir Henry Abel Smith, laid the foundation stone in a ceremony on 9 July, during which he inspected a model of the proposed new church and discussed the building with the architect.[24]
\nConstructed on site, the main parabolic frames of St Paul's Church were of laminated timber, with the exception of the front frame which was made of pre-cast concrete. The first two laminated arches constructed were used as the basis for the formwork of the front concrete arch.[25] The unusual form of the nave with its exposed internal structure led to it being compared to World War II igloos.[26] With their large curved trusses made from small pieces of timber, igloos were a familiar building type to Oribin who had worked in the Allison Overhaul Assembly Plant igloos at Albion during World War II.[27]
\nThe parabolic arch has been associated with church architecture since at least the 1880s.[28] German architect Dominikus Bohm (1880-1955) exploited the possibilities of the parabolic arch in several 1920s church designs, demonstrating that the kind of atmosphere commonly associated with Gothic architecture could be obtained with a minimum of historical allusion.[29] Though it remained an uncommon architectural form in the early 20th century, it featured in several Modernist churches, most notably the Church of St Francis of Assisi (completed 1943) in Pampulha, Brazil, designed by Brazillian architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). Constructed from cast in-situ concrete, the nave of the church was a free-standing parabolic vault. Highly controversial at the time, Niemeyer's bold design was extremely influential among architects around the world (including Australia[30]), with photographs and plans of the church published in architectural journals.[31]
\nThe parabolic form of St Paul's was made possible by the use of glued laminated timber for the internal arches. Laminated timber arches, constructed by overlapping and bolting together small pieces of timber to make a single, large member, have been in use in Australia since the mid-19th century.[32] Cost-effective and able to span large distances without intermediate posts, laminated timber arches also became an alternative system for roof structures of large buildings such as markets, factories and, from the early 20th century, large auditoria and picture theatres.[33] The process of glue lamination, using casein glue to bond the layers of timber rather than bolts, originated in Germany before being introduced to the United States in the 1920s. Several publications in the 1930s and early 1940s provided the necessary data for constructing glued laminated timber arches, and became a source of inspiration for Australian designers.[34] The earliest experiments in Australia took place in the early 1940s[35] and the arrival of powerful synthetic resin adhesives in the post-World War II period increased the reliability and range of applications of glue lamination.[36] The former Burge Bros Factory in Melbourne (1945-46) is considered to be the oldest known surviving example of this technology in Australia, with semi-circular arches spanning 30 metres, manufactured by Sydney-based company Ralph Symonds Ltd.[37]
\nDespite the technology being available, it wasn't until the 1950s, when curved shapes such as conoids and hyperbolic parabolas became fashionable,[38] that glue laminated arches were more commonly used in Australia, particularly for church structures.[39] Recognising the structural and aesthetic potential of this new technology, Oribin specified glue laminated timber arches for two of his earliest buildings, the Mareeba Shire Hall and Proserpine's St Paul's Church; both were designed in 1956 and completed within 5 years, making them an early use of the technology in Queensland. St Paul's was completed first, with engineering details for both buildings provided by Cairns engineer R McLean.[40]
\nOribin designed all aspects of the church, including internal fixtures and furnishings, and his attention to detail led him to personally craft some items. Timber furniture included the baptismal font, lectern, pulpit, candle holders, stools and pews. A pair of aumbry[41] cupboard doors, depicting stylised interpretations of Saints Peter and Paul, were designed and routed by Oribin himself. Oribin also personally produced seven acid-etched copper panels, each depicting one of the sacraments, to ornament the baptismal font lid. Other copper work for the sanctuary lights, candle holders and spun copper font were designed by Oribin and produced in Sydney. His work was so valued by the Proserpine congregation that, years after the church was completed, Oribin was contacted by them to design and detail a simple noticeboard.[42]
\nThe total cost of the finished church came to £22,000.[43] It was dedicated by Bishop Shevill on 4 July 1959, coinciding with American Independence Day.[44] During the ceremony a memorial plaque was unveiled by ET Bourne, the second secretary of the US Embassy in Canberra.[45] The design of the church attracted a great deal of attention from locals and visitors, as well as the wider Anglican community. In the September 1960 edition of ‘The Northern Churchman,' the church is praised both for its beauty and iconic status: ‘The Proserpine building is judged by competent critics to be one of the most imaginative and beautiful conceptions amongst our Parish Churches in which every detail of colour and form has been true to the Canons of Liturgy and Art. It is without doubt the finest building in this town and a tribute to the parish.'[46] Local newspaper ‘The Proserpine Guardian' speculated that Proserpine ‘may be known increasingly not just as a sugar town, or even as the jumping off ground for the famed Whitsunday Islands, but as the town with THAT CHURCH.'[47]
\nWhen completed, the parabolic roof was clad in flat aluminium sheeting, folded over angled timber fillets which ran horizontally along the length of the roof. Panels of translucent corrugated fibreglass sheeting ran along the apex and in six vertical strips at the southern end.[48] By 1968, problems with leaking led to the roof sheeting being replaced with corrugated aluminium.[49] Repairs and changes have been made since and all of the original translucent sections of the parabolic roof have been replaced with opaque sheeting. Thus, internal features such as the side-lighting of the sanctuary wall and indirect light along the apex of the parabolic ceiling have been lost.
\nThe church has been damaged by cyclones over the years. In January 1970 Tropical Cyclone Ada struck, causing flooding and damage to buildings in the Proserpine area. While carpets and cork tiles were badly damaged, there was no structural damage to the church, which was used as a temporary place of shelter for affected people. In 1977 St Paul's Church was consecrated when it became debt free.[50]
\nLater additions to the church include toilets, built against the back wall of the church, and a brick columbarium wall near the entrance, both added in 1995.[51] A rectory, which stood behind the church, was sold and removed in early 2004,[52] and a recent steel building has been constructed in its place. The original timber church has also been demolished. St Paul's continues to function as the main church for the Parish of Proserpine.
\nOribin's significant contribution to Queensland architecture was recognised by the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2000, when the new ‘Building of the Year' award for the Far North Region was named in his honour.[53] In 2013, two of Oribin's other works, the first Oribin House and the Oribin Studio received the ‘Enduring Architecture Award' at the Australian Institute of Architects' Queensland Architecture Awards.[54]
","criteria":"St Paul's Anglican Church, Proserpine (1959) is important in demonstrating the evolution of church architecture in Queensland as a result of liturgical reform in the post-World War II period. Its design reflects the civic and spiritual ambitions of the Anglican community during a significant phase of constructing modern churches throughout the Diocese of North Queensland.
The church is an outstanding example of the work of Cairns architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin, who produced a range of innovative and unique buildings in north Queensland between 1953 and 1973. Oribin's contribution to Queensland architecture is recognised by the Australian Institute of Architects' establishment of the Eddie Oribin Building of the Year Award for the Far North Queensland region.
|St Paul's Anglican Church demonstrates a high degree of creative and technical achievement in Queensland for the period. A carefully crafted use of an unusual form, the parabolic arch, it was the first of Oribin's buildings to be constructed from arched glue laminated timber beams, an early use of the technology in Queensland.
|St Paul's Anglican Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of post-World War II church architecture, when architects experimented with a wide variety of church designs combining traditional elements, symbols and functions with new construction techniques, materials and forms. St Paul's possesses a traditional church plan expressed in a highly creative and non-traditional way.
The creativity, craftsmanship and attention to detail evident in the church's design are characteristic of the works of architect Eddie Oribin, whose buildings are remarkable for their complex geometries, unconventional roof forms, innovative use of materials and structural systems, manipulation of natural light and ventilation, and custom designed, hand-crafted furniture.
|St Paul's Anglican Church is of aesthetic significance as a distinctive building of exceptional architectural quality, with its striking composition of strong, dynamic forms, including parabolic nave, horizontal entrance canopy and tall bell tower.
The highly intact interior evokes the contemplative quality of traditional ecclesiastical volumes, elevating mind and spirit through symmetrically arranged contemporary forms, the manipulation of natural light and the skilful juxtaposition of contrasting shapes, materials, volumes and textures.
The quality of the craftsmanship of complementary purpose-designed and built furniture, fittings and objects throughout the church is exceptional.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16353,"place_ref":601592,"name":"Clancholla","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"25 Ward Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-12","description":"Clancholla is a single storey timber residence with a terracotta tiled roof, set on timber stumps surrounded by timber lattice work. Set amongst mature gardens, including pines, figs and jacarandas along the Ward Street side and to the rear of the house, with other plantings along western boundary, Clancholla addresses a circular driveway with large, centrally featured palms. The driveway sweeps around to the large timber garage at the rear of the property. Mature figs and mango trees are located at the rear of the property.
Clancholla is roughly L-shaped in plan with a projecting entrance porch perpendicular to the street and wide verandahs. The roof gables have decorative timber bargeboards and terracotta finial details.
A panelled, timber entrance door, with stained glass and leadlight fanlight and breezeway assembly, leads to the entrance foyer. The foyer opens to the large open living area. In this area the vertically joined timber walls are stained up to picture rail height and above this, the timber panelled ceiling is painted white. Windows, both casement and sash, with stained glass and leadlight details are located throughout the length of the space. A open, squared archway leads to the dining room. The archway comprises paired, timber columns with moulded capitals supporting a moulded architrave.
On the southern and eastern sides of the house, several paired timber doors with stained glass and leadlight details open to the verandah. On the southern side, the verandah is enclosed with timber framed casement windows, while the eastern side is enclosed with timber louvres. The sloping verandah ceiling is lined with horizontally joined timber.
Three rooms with timber panelled ceilings are located on the western side of the house. In each room, french doors open out to the verandah on both the southern and northern sides, which, like the eastern side, are enclosed with timber louvres, while the ceiling is lined with horizontally joined timber.
At the western end of the verandah, french doors open to a large bedroom with a timber framed bay window [casements]. The room, similarly to the open living and dining room, has a timber panelled ceiling.
The kitchen, located in the north-eastern section of the house, has vertically joined timber walls with a horizontally joined timber ceiling. The kitchen opens to the open, north-eastern end of the verandah. The eastern end of this section of the verandah is enclosed, with remnant ripple iron lining the walls, to accommodate bathroom facilities.
A laundry, with extant copper enclosed in brick with a brick chimney, is located in the eastern side of the house
A tennis court is located to the west of the house and a double timber garage with gabled roof is located in the south-west corner of the property.
","history":"Clancholla is a single storey, timber house constructed by 1922 in Ward Street, The Range, for SR [Stuart] MacDonald and family. The Athelstane Range area, overlooking Rockhampton, was much sought after by many of Rockhampton's affluent families as a location in which to construct their prominent residences.
Clancholla is owned by descendents of Peter Fitzallan [PF] MacDonald [1830-1919]. PF MacDonald arrived in Rockhampton 1858 after being attracted by the Canoona gold rush. He found riches in pastoral land instead and established important social and economic connections in the surrounding districts. After his initial exploration and pastoral pioneering phase, MacDonald and his wife came to Yaamba in 1861, which became his headquarters and the family home on the Fitzroy River. MacDonald used pastoral exploration and speculation in runs to assist in financing his permanent stations, Fernlees at Springsure, and Columbra on the Mackenzie River. These two stations were to remain in the MacDonald family well into the 20th century. Like his father, [PF MacDonald], Stuart MacDonald was also a pastoralist, running 'Highland Plains', at Capella.
By the 1890s the majority of Rockhampton's houses, from gentlemen's residences to the more humble workers cottages, were built of timber on high wooden stumps. This evolution in local housing to accommodate the region's tropical climatic conditions included verandahs as an integral part of all older Rockhampton houses. Many of these houses also had wooden lattice panels to filter the bright sunlight, as well as to ensure a degree of privacy.
From the 1890s to the time of World War Two, most Rockhampton houses also possessed spacious living areas with dining and sitting rooms, separated by open archways that were often bordered with intricate fretwork designs produced by local skilled craftsmen. In this period very few houses built had open fireplaces and chimneys, although Clancholla exhibits a centrally placed chimney.
The construction of prominent residences, particularly in the Athelstane Range area, reflected the wealth and status of prominent pastoral families, reflected in the construction of prominent residences highlighting elevated social status and economic success. Prominent pastoral families often maintained a town residence, and this is the case with the MacDonald family. Many South Sea Islanders, predominantly from Joskeleigh [Sand Hills] worked for the MacDonald's as domestics, both in town and at 'Highland Plains'. South Sea Islanders, Doris Leo, Mabel Yow Yeh, Rose Warcon, Ruth Parter, Laurel Parter and Sibble Youse were all employed at some time from the 1940s. When the family came to Rockhampton to Clancholla the South Sea Islander domestics were usually asked to return with them to town.
In 1906, Stuart MacDonald purchased Kenmore, in Ward Street, following the death of owner, John Ferguson. Built for Ferguson in c1894, Kenmore has been described as the grandest mansion ever to be built in Rockhampton. The MacDonald's owned Kenmore for some years but considered it to be too large for use as a private home and sold it in 1915 to the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters of Mercy later established the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in the building.
The sale of Kenmore to the Sisters of Mercy comprised three and a half acres in which the residence stood, including the whole of the gardens and the tennis court. A lower paddock was retained by the MacDonald family on which Clancholla was constructed by c1922.
Integral to the significance of Clancholla is its remnant garden elements. Characteristic of the Queen Anne Style architectural style are picturesque gardens, reflecting the garden suburb concept. The garden at Clancholla was a significant aesthetic feature of the property.
A description of it was included in an article, 'Rockhampton's Attractive Gardens No.13', in the Evening News on 16 March1939. In the article the MacDonald's garden was described as being 'planted for permanency', with beds composed of trees, shrubs, and climbers, and perennial varieties of flowers including geraniums, gerberas, and salvias. The choice of vegetation was described as a wise one as the MacDonald's permanent home was at 'Highland Plains' at Capella. The MacDonald's visited Rockhampton periodically and the garden was not always under their 'immediate supervision'.
The lay out of the garden was described as formal, with symmetrical round or square beds and broad drives between. Also described was the [still extant] centre piece of oval lawn directly opposite the front entrance, around which on one side swept a wide path back to the entrance gate, and on the other through an archway of Thomasi and Lateritia Bougainvilleas. Fruit trees at the rear of the grounds included mangoes, custard apples, and persimmons.
Clancholla remains in the ownership of the MacDonald family.
","criteria":"The wealth and status of pastoral families was often highlighted in the construction of prominent residences in sought after areas in town, highlighting elevated social status and economic success.
|Clancholla is significant in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of place in its adaptation in the Queensland timber house. With its asymmetrical massing and ensemble of various roof shapes; Marseilles pattern terracotta roof tiles; prominent gable facing Ward Street; prominent timber gable screen and terracotta gable accessories and wide veranda with timber posts and brackets; as well as its remnant formal garden elements, including circular driveway with a formal garden arrangement, Clancholla is a fine example of a domestic building constructed with elements of the Queen Anne architectural style. In its extant form Clancholla exhibits a sophisticated refinement to Queensland's timber housing tradition and remains one of Rockhampton's distinctive homes.
Internally, Clancholla is highly intact with stained timber interiors with decorative mouldings; stained glass and leadlight windows and marble fireplace.
|Clancholla is significant for its strong aesthetic characteristics, particularly for its contribution to the residential streetscape of the Athelstane Range, an area noted for its many prominent residences including Killin in Ward Street, known as the Yungaba Migrant Hostel [601939]; Kenmore House, now the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Ward Street [600820]; Killowen in Ward Street [600819] and Rudd Residence in Agnes Street [601923].
|Clancholla is significant for its association with the MacDonald family, a prominent Central Queensland pastoral family, descended from PF MacDonald who first arrived in the Rockhampton area in 1858. Clancholla is still in the ownership of the MacDonald family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16354,"place_ref":601593,"name":"Amla","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"49 Jessie Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Amla is a two storey cubiform residence with a timber structure faced externally with textured cement render. It has a skillion roof concealed behind parapets and drained by large rain water heads. The exterior of the house is designed as a composition of horizontals and verticals. The main entrance and stairway is expressed as a projecting vertical wing, while the body of the building has windows with continuous hoods for sunshading, which form contrasting horizontal elements.
The architectural style is forthrightly Interwar Functionalist, even though the house was not built until after World War Two. Amla is a good example, of a residence in this idiom. It displays many of the characteristics typical of the Interwar Functionalist style. The house has plain surfaces and is an asymmetrical composition of simple horizontal and vertical elements. The predominant horizontality of the design is broken by a slightly projecting stair hall of vertical proportions in the external wall of which a pair of vertical windows glazed in green obscure glass, rise from the level of the lower internal stair landing. The parapets above the flat roof define the horizontal lines if the building, along with the continuous cantilevered suncreen hoods at both levels, which wrap around the rounded corners.
The garden surrounding the house is pleasant and unassuming, in harmony with its neighbours.
Internally the planning of the house is compact. The scale is successful giving the interiors a quality of amplitude despite their tight planning. The functionalist character is continued inside with elements and detailing such as the open stair well with solid balustrading and polished timber capping surmounted by decorative curved chrome plated railings.
","history":"Amla is a two storeyed Functionalist style residence designed by Rockhampton architect AE Hegvold.
The land on which the house is situated was purchased in 1951 by Norman and Victoria Nell Ellemor. Norman Ellemor was the Rockhampton manager of Thos Brown, a firm of Queensland merchants. The house was built in 1952 with the builder being RL Schofield. By this time post war building restrictions had been eased in Rockhampton. In 1953 with the transfer of the Ellemor's to the south the house was purchased by the present owners as a city residence. The original address for the house was Brecknell Street and the block of land in the adjacent Jessie Street was added to the site in 1969.
Arthur Edward Hegvold was born in Rockhampton 1909. He commenced his architectural training in Rockhampton in 1924 as an articled pupil to Roy Chipps and continued in Chipps employ until 1935. During the depression Hegvold and Chipps started Art Adds, a business designing advertisements and labels, along with lantern slide advertisements for local cinemas. From 1935-38 Hegvold was employed as the manager of Tucker and Hall, Plasters and Tilers, Rockhampton. He opened his own architectural practice in 1938. In 1942 when he was employed as an architect at the US Army Base Section 3 Rockhampton. He worked in the Engineering section designing many new buildings including aircraft hangers, warehouses and refitting many existing buildings for use by the army. During this time Hegvold developed a keen interest in structural engineering an interest that he would later be exhibit in his private practice. For many years after the war, Hegvold would regularly correspond with the U.S Engineers and would receive structural engineering textbooks. He reopened his practice after the War. From 1976-78 the firm became Hegvold Finlayson & Associates. The practice closed in 1980, but Hegvold came out of retirement in 1984 to design the new fire station and residence at Emu park. Hegvold died in Rockhampton in 1991.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s Hegvold was a leading architect in Rockhampton with a large practice that undertook civic, commercial and domestic work, not only in Rockhampton but throughout central Queensland. Buildings in Rockhampton include the Rockhampton Electricity Board, RACQ Building, Tobruk House, United Dominions House, YMCA/RCYA, World War 2 Memorial Pool and Riverside Caravan Park Amenities Block. In central Queensland he designed the North Gregory Hotel Winton (with Engineer Jack Mulholland), Longreach Fire Station, Emerald Fire Station, Alpha Town Hall and Jericho Town Hall. Hegvold was a prominent citizen and a life member of many Rockhampton clubs including the RSL, Masonic Club, Bowls Club and Basket Bowls Club. He did a great deal of honorary work for charities and the Rockhampton Basketball Stadium is named in his honour.
","criteria":"Amla is part of the pattern of the post war development of Rockhampton.
|Amla is a very good example of a residence designed in the Interwar Functionalist style, a style comparatively rare in Rockhampton.
|Amla is a very good example of a residence designed in the Interwar Functionalist style, a style comparatively rare in Rockhampton. The building displays many of the characteristics of this style including its cubiform, parapeted asymmetrical shape with smooth rendered and painted exterior wall finish. The fenestration is a composition of vertical and horizontals with strip windows including vertical openings in a projecting stair hall as well as curvilinear ranges of window lights, and cantilevered hoods and strips with edges painted in a contrasting colour.
It is a good example of the work of the architect AE Hegvold who was instrumental in defining the post World War Two architectural character of Rockhampton and central Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16355,"place_ref":601594,"name":"Newstead Gasworks No.2 gasholder (remnants) and guide framing","alternate_name":"Brisbane Gas Company Gasworks","street_address":"70 Longland Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-06-24","description":"All items of gas manufacture, such as retort houses, exhausters, condensers, gasification plants, scrubbers, washers, purifiers, have been demolished. Most of these lay on the eastern side of the site. The weighbridge and the compressor house have also been demolished.
\nThe only remaining items of historical engineering interest remaining on site include the Newstead Gasworks No.2 gasholder (remnants) and guide framing. The facility originally had a double-lift 500,000 cu. ft. capacity and was re-crowned in 1937.
","history":"The Newstead Gasworks was established in 1887, as the second Brisbane gasworks. The surviving Newstead Gasworks No.2 gasholder (remnants) and guide framing was erected at that time and was probably moved from the original gas works site at Petrie Bight where it was erected in 1873.
\nFrom 1861 to 1864, Brisbane's population more than doubled, to 12,551. In the mid-1860s, Brisbane's infrastructure blossomed, with construction of the first cross-river bridge, a new Town Hall, a vastly improved water supply and its first gasworks. Commercial gas supply originated in London in 1812, Sydney in 1841 and Melbourne in 1856.
\nThe Brisbane Municipal Council was anxious to provide street lighting, for which gas was seen as the only feasible system. Earlier in the decade, the Colonial Government, supposedly for health reasons, refused permission for the Council to establish a gasworks on a site at Petrie's Bight. On the same site, however, in 1864, the Government authorised private enterprise to establish this new public utility. Central to these decisions was the Minister for Lands and Works, Arthur Macalister, then at the epicentre of friction between the Government and the Brisbane Council, friction which has erupted on several occasions ever since.
\nOne of the founding directors of the Company in 1864 was Lewis Adolphus Bernays, secretary for the first 37 years, and eventually a board member, of the (Brisbane) Board of Waterworks. Bernays, also listed in Who's Who from 1851-1905, was prominent in a number of Queensland organisations including the Acclimatisation Society, and held the position of clerk of the Legislative Assembly.
\nBrisbane Gas Company production started at Petrie Bight in November 1865. The streets of Brisbane were lit. Soon after, however, Council's arrears of payment resulted in its gas being turned off, with the streets plunged back into darkness. The streets remained unlit until the Council's (and the Colony's) financial situation had recovered sufficiently, in 1870. By 1873, the boot was on the other foot. The Council's cash flow had recovered, but gas flow could not satisfy demand. The Company duly solved the problem by installing another, larger (No.2) gasholder (probably known then as a gasometer).
\nThe 81 year long association of the Cowlishaw family with the board of the Company started in this same year of 1873. James Cowlishaw, later the Hon. James Cowlishaw, MLC, an architect, was Chairman for 41years. He served on the board for a total of 45 years. His brother George also served on the board for 28 years from 1884. James Cowlishaw was succeeded in the chair by his son Thomas O Cowlishaw, who served for 34 years until 1954. A fourth Cowlishaw, George O Cowlishaw, was involved with the Company in 1939.
\nThe main demand for gas during the 1870s was probably for lighting, and the Municipal Council was almost certainly the Brisbane Gas Company's biggest customer. After the financial woes of the later 1860s there followed two decades of steady growth in Brisbane, reflected in an increase of demand for gas, for both lighting and for domestic and industrial fuel. Supply was expanded to, among other places, South Brisbane. The Company had outgrown the Petrie's Bight site, and acquired 22 acres of suitable land at Newstead, in 1883. Further adjoining land was bought in 1885 to facilitate the Company's first major expansion.
\nThe Company's engineer for the shift from Petrie Bight to Newstead was JH Tomlinson, arriving in 1880 from a previous appointment in Birmingham. He presumably managed the design, supply and erection of the new gasworks. The equipment, much of it imported from England, was landed at the Company's wharf at the river frontage of the site. The Company first manufactured and stored town gas at Newstead in 1887 after a period of 22 years manufacture at Petrie Bight.
\nAs part of the shift to Newstead, the Petrie's Bight gasholder No.2, constructed in 1873 from puddled iron, was re-erected on the recently acquired land at Longland Street. No.1 gasholder remained at Petrie Bight. At this time, the first weight-controlled governor would have been installed in its governor house.
\nJust as had occurred in the early 1860s, the land boom of the 1880s was reflected in booming demand for gas. Events proved that there was room for a second gasworks. The South Brisbane Gas and Light Company Limited was formed in 1885, entered the market very aggressively, and produced its first gas at the end of 1886. By this time, gas was increasingly in use for domestic fuel as well as for lighting. A price-cutting war lasted until 1889 when the companies, without any concerns about restrictive trade practices, carved Brisbane up into north and south of the river as their respective marketing territories. It was not until the Gas Act of 1916 that the Government saw fit to look more closely at the cosy arrangements between gas companies, which by that stage included the Wynnum and Manly Gas and Lighting Company Limited, formed in 1912. The Act dealt with product quality and pressure, and provided for gas examiners. Price was also dealt with. (A later piece of legislation, the Profiteering Prevention Act, also encompassed gas).
\nA further consideration in the 1880s was the emergence in Brisbane of electricity generation for power and lighting. Eventually, as electricity technology advanced, gas lighting would literally fade into the background, the demand for gas as fuel outstripping the demand for use for lighting. Active defence was mounted to protect the gas companies' interests in lighting, and it was not until 1917 that the first permanent electric lighting took to the streets of Brisbane.
\nThe demise of gas lighting would not have been immediate, and the demand for gas continued to grow. In 1929, No.3 gasholder at Doggett Street was commissioned, a four-lift frame-guided steel tank gasholder, again made from puddled iron, with a capacity of 2,500,000 cu. ft. (70,800 m3), by far the largest in Brisbane.
\nIn 1937, gasholder No.2 was fitted with a new crown of riveted steel plate.
\nIn the post-W.W.II period, demand for gas again boomed, to such an extent that at one stage some 5000 newly constructed northside dwellings were completed without their gas having been connected. The core of the problem lay in English gasworks manufacturers' inability to deliver. A major retort augmentation planned for completion in 1950 finally came on stream in 1954, but not until an emergency measure had been taken to erect a Humphreys and Glasgow water-gas plant, for which coke was the feedstock. This came on stream just in time for the winter of 1953.
\nWhen dieselisation of the Queensland Railways took place in the 1960s, it was judged that there would be a risk of serious damage if a locomotive were to derail near No.2 gasholder. Accordingly, a reinforced concrete wall was built as a shield between the railway spur line and the gasholder. Diesel locomotives were seen as a greater risk than their apparently cuddly coal-fired steam counterparts that had used the same track, in the same proximity, for the previous half-century.
\nBy 1965, No.1 gasholder in Ann Street had been dismantled. In 1999, so had No.3, and No.2 has been disabled by splitting a hole in the crown plating, leaving the inside of the gasholder exposed to a moist oxidising atmosphere, ideal conditions for rapid rust.
\nGas manufacture
\nThe foregoing history has been compiled in the context of gas storage, with the emphasis on the remaining No.2 gasholder (remnants) and guide framing, which has stored and delivered both town gas and natural gas.
\nThe sources of gasholder feed have been a series of gas manufacturing plants on the site, of which there are none left. The size and programming of the manufacturing plants have been determined by several factors:
\n(i) Current technology, both of outlet appliances and gas manufacture technology;
\n(ii) Demand, always closely related to population growth and economic conditions;
\n(iii) Feedstock
\n(iv) Working conditions at the gasworks.
\nThe following is a brief history of the major manufacturing installations at Newstead since 1887.
\nThe first manufacture at Newstead in 1887 was in a retort house containing ten benches of manually operated horizontal retorts. Feedstock was Ipswich coking coal. Output was \"town\" gas.
\nA new 1,500,000 cu. ft. per day West's vertical retort house, embarked upon during World War I, was eventually completed in 1920, with six settings of eight 33\" (825mm) vertical retorts 20 ft long.
\nIn 1926, a Whessoe washer was imported, used to remove ammonia and naphthalene after completion of all other purification.
\nA further ten benches were added to the horizontal retort house in 1927 when the horizontal retort house was revamped to mechanical operation.
\nSeveral additions were made in 1947, in preparation for a major increase in plant capacity planned to be on stream by 1950. A Woodhall-Duckham electrostatic de-tarrer was imported from England, and a Livesay washer was constructed locally. These were of 4,000,000 cu. ft. per day capacity, matching the capacity of the proposed new Glover-West plant on order from England. Also, constructed locally to (English) Holmes design, multi-film washers. Additional Connersville meters were also installed.
\nThe new Glover-West vertical retort carbonising plant, with a capacity of 4,000,000 cu. ft. per day, was eventually opened in 1954. In view of delays in supply of specialised plant from post-war England, a Humphreys-Glasgow carburetted water-gas plant was installed as an emergency measure by MR Hornibrook Pty Ltd, prior to the winter of 1953. While less efficient than the carbonisation process, this process, one of several known as gasification, used coke as its feedstock and was more easily automated. It is probable that the Bryan-Donkin diaphragm-operated governors, housed immediately to the north of and in series with the original governor, were installed as part of the 1954 revamp.
\nWith the arrival of natural gas, the retort houses and the water-gas plant were duly retired from service, to be replaced, in 1968 with a Vickers-Zimmer plant, supplemented in 1973 by an Onia-Geigy plant ex Adelaide. These gasification plants synthesised town gas from oil refinery material and natural gas, until the eventual 1996 conversion of the older suburbs to natural gas.
\nThe older carbonisation plants were demolished in 1994, and the gasification plants in 1999, along with gasholder No.3 in Doggett Street. In 2002, approval was given to demolish the brick governor houses and to remove associated machinery and pipe work, to demolish the storage shed and concrete safety wall, and to construct new commercial buildings and an adjacent road surrounding the gasometer. Approval was also given to excavate the site and remove its crown and inner gaslifts.
","criteria":"The Newstead Gasworks No.2 gasholder (remnants) and guide framing demonstrates the growth and development pattern of the reticulation of a major public utility, the gas supply and its infrastructure, in Brisbane and northern Brisbane suburbs from the 1860s through to the 1990s. Town gas was among the earliest of innovations that significantly improved the quality of life in the burgeoning city of Brisbane, particularly in the boom periods of the 1860s and 1880s.
\n\n
|
The remnants of the gasholder and guide framing represents the last of the frame-guided type remaining in Brisbane, and possibly in Queensland. The Newstead No.2 gasholder (remnants) and guide framing, constructed in 1873 from puddled iron and part of the former Petrie Bight gasworks (1865-1887), is significant for its rarity, its robustness and its association with Queensland's first gasworks and a major public utility for 125 years.
|The place has the potential to yield information about the evolving technology of manufacture and distribution of town and natural gas in Brisbane and northern Brisbane suburbs over a period of 125 years.
|One of the principal characteristics of a gasworks was its gasholder storage and other necessarily robust but sensitive and reliable machinery and apparatus required for drawing from the storage. At the Newstead site, the remaining gasholder (remnants) and guide framing demonstrates some of these characteristics of the gasworks.
|Large round structures are unusual and attractive, particularly in areas of predominantly angular commercial and industrial construction such as Newstead. Aesthetically, the cylindrical gasholder with its spherical crown, even when empty, was both interesting and elegant. The aesthetic is further enhanced by the slightly ornate frame-guide structure.
|For over 100 years, passers-by along Breakfast Creek Road, Longland and Ann Streets, as well as residents of and workers in the area, would have seen No.2 gasholder in various states of filling, silently performing its important function of storing and feeding out the gas supply. For these communities, the gasholder (remnants) and guide framing was and is an important landmark. The material remaining on the site carries with it a strong association with these communities.
|The gasworks site has a special association with a vital public utility, Brisbane's gas supply, for over a century. Prominent figures with long and close associations with the gasworks included Lewis Adolphus Bernays (associated between 1864-1908) and the Hon James Cowlishaw (associated between 1873-1920).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16356,"place_ref":601595,"name":"West End Gasworks Distribution Centre","alternate_name":"West End Gasworks | South Brisbane Gas and Light Company Works","street_address":"321 Montague Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"All items of gas manufacture, such as retort houses, exhausters, condensers, scrubbers, washers, purifiers have been demolished. Most of these lay on the western side of the original site, which has now been redeveloped and is a separate parcel of land.
The following items of historic engineering interest remained at the place in September 1999; however were later demolished or removed and retained for use in redevelopment of the allotment.
No.1 four-lift spiral-guided riveted construction gasholder, built probably in the 1940s, empty and open to the atmosphere, sitting in a brick tank of approximately 38 metres diameter and approximately 6 metres deep, probably constructed as part of the 1930 revamp. Capacity 908,000 cu ft. Height when full: approximately 24 metres. The spherical crown of the bell is approximately 2 metres high.
No.2 gasholder brick tank, approximately 24 metres diameter, fenced off and containing contaminated water.
No.3 gasholder brick tank, approximately 24 metres diameter, filled with earth.
A dismantled weighbridge stowed remote from its original well, which remains beside the Beesley Street fence.
A governor, by W Parkinson of London, housed in a small brick stuccoed building, adjacent to No.1 gasholder. Date of manufacture and original installation estimated to be 1880s.
The laboratory and its apparatus contents, housed in a brick stuccoed building located on the northern boundary of the site.
The compressor house, a single storey gabled brick building measuring approximately 15m x 7m in plan, housing compressors in the compressor room as follows:
* No.1, Holmes (Huddersfield) Connersville Booster size 14" x 21" SHS, capacity 4250 m3 per hour at 520 rpm, date of manufacture 1949; driven by a Lancashire Dynamo and Crypto Ltd electric motor, 3 phase 440 volt, 103 amp 85 BHP at 1460 rpm, date of manufacture 1952.
* Nos. 2a and 2b, each 850 m3 per hour, Bryan Donkin Co Ltd, Chesterfield; driven by a Crompton Parkinson (Australia) Proprietary Limited electric motor, 3 phase continuous rating 400/440 volt, 36 amp 38 BHP at 1400 rpm, date of manufacture unknown. Reducing gears Radicon Redman by The Richardson Gears Pty Ltd, Victoria
* No.3, Holmes (Huddersfield) Connersville Booster size 12" x 18" SHS, capacity 2800 m3 per hour at 575 rpm, date of manufacture 1950; driven by a Vaskawa Electric (Japan) 67 kW 3-phase variable speed induction motor through a variable speed coupling, date of manufacture 1974.
The southern half of the building features a sunken area in which pipes are run to and from the compressors. Steel grating is laid over the pipe space, which is currently partly flooded.
The Engine Drivers Room, formerly a meter room, in a single storey gabled brick building, of proportions similar to but slightly larger than those of the compressor house.
The Standby Alternator House, containing
* Standby Brush alternator/generator, the DC element of 96 kW output, date of manufacture 1951, powered by a Type M4A5 gas engine of 137.5 maximum BHP at 1000 rpm.
* The switchboard, probably dating from about 1930. (Energised as at 22.9.99).
The cylindrical riveted receiver vessel, mounted on two concrete piers and located against the north fence near No.3 gasholder. This vessel would receive and store compressed material required to service the medium pressure mains, from about 1930. The receiver has inlet and outlet pipes of 12" (300mm) diameter at either end.
An Art Deco-inspired rendered masonry fence with gate posts, metal balustrade inserts and gates runs the length of the allotment boundary with Montague Road.
","history":"The West End Gasworks Distribution Centre was established in June 1885 to supplement the Brisbane supply of gas.
Commercial gas supply originated in London in 1812, Sydney in 1841, Melbourne in 1856 and Brisbane in 1865, at Petrie Bight. The Brisbane Gas Company's main market was north of the Brisbane River, but supply had extended across the river to South Brisbane by 30th June 1885 when The South Brisbane Gas and Light Company Limited was registered.
From 1861 to 1864, Brisbane's population more than doubled, to 12,551. In the mid-1860s, Brisbane's infrastructure blossomed, with construction of the first cross-river bridge, a new Town Hall, a vastly improved water supply and its first gasworks. Commercial gas supply originated in London in 1812, Sydney in 1841 and Melbourne in 1856.
The Brisbane Municipal Council was anxious to provide street lighting, for which gas was seen as the only feasible system. Earlier in the decade, the Colonial Government, supposedly for health reasons, refused permission for the Council to establish a gasworks on a site at Petrie's Bight. On the same site, however, in 1864, the Government authorised private enterprise to establish this new public utility. Central to these decisions was the Minister for Lands and Works, Arthur Macalister, then at the epicentre of friction between the Government and the Brisbane Council, friction which has erupted on several occasions ever since.
The main demand for gas during the 1870s was probably for lighting, and the Municipal Council was almost certainly the Brisbane Gas Company's biggest customer. After the financial woes of the later 1860s there followed two decades of steady growth in Brisbane, reflected in an increase of demand for gas, for both lighting and for domestic and industrial fuel. Supply was expanded to, among other places, South Brisbane.
Just as the Brisbane Gas Company entered the market on a boom in the 1860s, so did its southside competitor on the 1880s boom. At this stage, heedless of floods that had been recorded in the past, the vigorous south side 1880s development included the Orleigh Estate, the West End Estate, the Montague Estate, the Whynot Estate and the Dornoch Terrace Estate. The South Brisbane Gas and Light Company works was close to the centre of development of residences that would need gas, gas stoves and coke for their bed and sitting room fireplaces. The new Gas Company would supply all these necessities.
A remote parcel of land was acquired later that year at Hockings paddock adjacent to the Brisbane River, to be supplemented by a further acquisition in 1891.
The original gasworks was designed by John Davies, the Company's first Engineer and Manager, appointed on 16th June 1885. Construction was complete and mains were laid by 22nd December 1886, when the first gas was supplied. Reticulation materials were bought for use in crossing the Brisbane River and supplying outlets in Queen Street, already supplied by the Brisbane Gas Company from its Petrie Bight works. A price-cutting war lasted until 1889 when the companies, without any concerns about restrictive trade practices, carved Brisbane up into north and south of the river as their respective marketing territories. It was not until the Gas Act of 1916 that the Government saw fit to look more closely at the cosy arrangements between gas companies, which by that stage included the Wynnum and Manly Gas and Lighting Company Limited, formed in 1912. The Act dealt with product quality and pressure, and provided for gas inspectors. Price was also dealt with. (A later piece of legislation, the Profiteering Prevention Act, also encompassed gas).
An early map of the site shows two wharves in the river, one opposite the downstream end of the site and one a further short distance downstream of the site, apparently serving a neighbouring foundry. Early supplies of feedstock coal may have arrived by river. Later, coal was carted by lorries loaded from coal hoppers at the foot of the bank at the Albert Park side of Roma Street goods yards, c 1912. A weighbridge was constructed at the Beesley Street side of the site, presumably to measure incoming supplies of coal and outgoing sales of coke.
The gasworks was flooded but not seriously damaged by a river flood in 1890. At that time the gasholders were of the frame-guided type, one controlled by counterbalances. The 1893 floods wrought severe damage, including destruction of the counterbalance gasholder. Importantly, much documentation, including engineering drawings on linen, was also lost. Following the flood, the City Engineer for South Brisbane, JS Louttit, recommended to his Council that, in view of the proneness to flooding of the gasworks, the Council should use electricity to light its streets. The flood not only severely damaged the works, but also reduced the size of the Company's market base. Many houses on the river flood plain, particularly on the Orleigh Estate, were destroyed, most of them less than 15 years old.
By 1914, the Company's engineer was WS Moore. From 1903 until at least 1907, Moore was prominent in the Queensland Institute of Engineers, of which he was elected auditor in November 1905. Earlier that year, he presented a paper "An elevated inclined tramway" noted as a cheap method of handling coal. In October 1907, Moore presented a further paper, "Gas or internal combustion engines" in which he forecast the replacement by internal combustion of steam as a power source.
Following a visit by Moore to England to keep abreast of the latest developments in the gas industry, there was by 1914 a major revamp of the gasworks, of which there appear to be no technical details. However, there was a substantial increase in efficiency, the amount of gas per ton of coal increasing significantly during 1916-1918, and again in the years 1922-1924, with an overall improvement of 60%.
Moore's successor as Engineer and Manager, WH Shedden, designed the next revamp, brought on stream in June 1930. (Shedden was still employed by the Company in the 1950s). Work included a new Glover-West vertical retort house, the contractor being West's Gas Improvement Co. Ltd. of George Street, Sydney. There was again an improvement in efficiency, of about 13%.
As from 1930, the Company introduced high-pressure reticulation for all extensions in new areas. (With the introduction in the 1960s of natural gas, this 1930s innovation was assigned the name of Medium Pressure). This was effected by compressors, one of which, probably the first electric powered compressor used in the works, survives today as No.2 compressor.
In 1935, there were three gasholders on site, No.1 a triple or quadruple lift of the spiral guide type, No.2 a single lift frame-guided type and No.3 a double lift frame-guided type, all of which have since been retired or replaced. However, site inspection suggests that the same (brick) water tanks have been adapted and/or re-used for the later gasholders. Capacity in 1935 seems to have been 922,000 cu.ft., one of the holders probably being the same or of the same configuration (non-telescopic) as the one that survived the 1893 flood.
By 1948, capacities in the central and eastern gasholders had been significantly increased, to provide a total capacity of 1,517,000 cu.ft., and gasholders 1 and 3 had been re-numbered to 3 and 1 respectively. The 1912 cast iron scrubber, also known as the Stripping Tower, obsolete by 1948, was taken out of service at around this time, later to be re-located in nearby parkland.
The Company completed a further revamp during Shedden's management, in 1950, probably again to a Glover West design. At about this time, two new Holmes/Connersville compressors, No.1 and No.3, were installed in the compressor room on either side of a refurbished (No.2) Bryan Donkin compressor of about 1920s manufacture. All are still in the compressor room. No.3 is a variable speed unit, enabling accurate control of the pressurising function.
Also at about this time, a standby gas-engine powered alternator/generator was installed, along with a main switchboard of significant proportions. These are housed in a compartment attached to what was described in 1994 as the Engine Drivers Room. In 1948, meters and valves occupied this space, the building probably being known as the Meter House. Both the meters and the compressors were housed in gabled brick buildings with arched sash windows. The east fronts of these two buildings are aligned and form an elegant pair when viewed from the east.
With the advent in the late 1960s of natural gas, the South Brisbane Gas Company decided to move as soon as possible to the new feedstock. In December 1969, the old town gas plant was retired, and the retort house stood idle until it was demolished in 1974. In 1971, the Company name was changed to Allgas Energy Ltd.
The 1974 flood wrought further havoc with Company documentation, the rescue of which understandably held low priority in the flood aftermath. Both Stanley Street office and Montague Road works were flooded. Demolition of most of the manufacturing and purification plant proceeded in 1974 and 1975. There remains no evidence on the site of any part of the carbonisation process, nor of tar or ammonia production or storage.
In due course, the vacant part of the old site was disposed of and redeveloped as lot 1 on RP 141824. The remaining lot 2 was retained and part of the site was redeveloped as an outlet for natural gas for vehicles (NGV). However, all three of the gasholders were retained in service, along with the off-site 739,600 cu. ft. gasholder at Ekibin (Stephens Mountain). In 1992, all three at West End were of the spiral guide type and still in service.
By 1994, the site was described as the West End Distribution Centre. No.1 and Ekibin gasholders were both serviceable, the other two being out of service. No.1 is a 4-lift gasholder, Ekibin was a 3-lift. At that stage, No.1 was linked to the compressors to provide emergency service if required, such as during load shedding or maintenance work on the high-pressure natural gas feed to the site. The contents of the gasholder could only be fed into the medium pressure system with compressor assistance or directly to the low-pressure system if the holder were at least two lifts full. That facility is no longer available, the compressors and No.1 gasholder being more or less intact but out of service by September 1999. The Ekibin gasholder was dismantled earlier in 1999 allegedly to facilitate upgrading of the SE freeway.
The place was entered in the Queensland Heritage Register on 24 March 2000. In 2003 the Queensland Heritage Council approved demolition of what remained of the gasworks on condition that the place be photographically recorded prior to demolition; an interpretation plan be implemented; the gate, gateposts, fence and the governor be retained off-site; the gate, gateposts and fence be reinstated; and the governor be incorporated into the new development.
","criteria":"The place and the equipment installed on and in the West End Gasworks Distribution Centre demonstrate the growth and development pattern of the reticulation of a vital public utility, the gas supply and its infrastructure, in South Brisbane and southern Brisbane suburbs from the 1880s boom through to the 1990s. They reflect the economic and social development of South Brisbane and the southern suburbs of Brisbane.
|Large round structures are unusual and have aesthetic value, particularly in areas of predominantly angular commercial and industrial construction such as West End. Aesthetically, the cylindrical gasholder with its spherical crown, even when empty, is both interesting and elegant. Also, the adjoining circular brick tanks contribute positively to the aesthetics of the site. The two largest remaining brick buildings on the site, one housing the compressors (themselves visually interesting), are attractive, aesthetically pleasing, early industrial structures.
|As long ago as 1930, Engineer and Manager JH Shedden recommended introduction of high-pressure gas distribution. His recommendation was accepted, paving the way for future expansion of the area of supply from the gasworks. The receiver vessel at the northern boundary of the site was constructed to receive compressed gas from the compressor room, and remains as evidence of this development.
|One of the principal characteristics of early gasworks is the gasholder storage and compressor and other necessarily robust but sensitive and reliable machinery and apparatus required for filling and drawing from the storage. At the West End site, the remaining gasholder, the three brick gasholder tanks, the compressors, the compressor room/house, the receiver vessel and the governor clearly demonstrate these characteristics of the gasworks.
The gasholder brick tanks illustrate major industrial use of brickwork from the 1880s up to the 1930s; and the compressors are exemplary of the change from steam powered to electric motor powered gas pumps.
|The remaining gasholder is the last of the spiral guide type remaining in Brisbane, and probably in Queensland. Three of five remaining low-pressure gasholders used to store and deliver town gas in Brisbane have been dismantled within the last year. Since 1992, two gasholders at the site have been removed. The West End gasholder is now one of only two remaining in Brisbane, possibly in Queensland, and is unfortunately but unquestionably rare. The station governor is unique of its type in Brisbane, and probably in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16362,"place_ref":601601,"name":"Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott]","alternate_name":"Goldicott | Mount St Marys Catholic Convent","street_address":"65 Grove Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-11-26","description":"Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott] is a substantial one-storeyed concrete house situated on a prominent site in Grove Crescent, Toowong, overlooking the adjacent St Ignatius Catholic Church and with expansive views of Toowong and the Brisbane central business district.
\nThe house is sited on a ridge and the property is terraced and has established vegetation including a Hoop Pine, jacarandas, frangipannis, mango trees and assorted eucalyptus. Original concrete steps lead to the house on the eastern side.
\nThe house consists of the 1885 concrete section and a two-storey timber extension at the rear. The concrete section has a simple rectangular plan surrounded on three sides by a wide timber verandah, the soffit of which is clad with beaded boards and supported on pairs of square timber columns featuring large decorative timber sweeps. The high pitched double hipped roof of the early house, is clad with corrugated iron sheeting and abuts a smaller hipped section over the dining room. This principal roof is distinct from the hipped roof over the kitchen wing and later extensions.
\nThe early section of the house is constructed of mass concrete prepared in situ and cast with the specially devised movable formwork. The early concrete foundations have recently been underpinned. The external faces of the concrete walls on the verandah are rendered and scoured in imitation of ashlar stonework, whilst other external faces are plain rendered.
\nThe main entrance is on the north facade of the house, accessed by two tiers of recent concrete stairs. A large entrance door with side lights and a transom, is emphasised by a gable featuring a decorative timber fretwork panel. The doorway is flanked by two full length bay windows, of concrete construction, with full length sash walk through windows. A cavity above the window conceals the opened lower sash. The building features many timber framed vertical sash windows, with concrete sills. Several former walk-through windows have been shortened to form conventional sash windows, by introducing timber panels in the lower section of the original doorway.
\nThe interior is planned around a central entrance hall and adjoining L-shaped corridor, off which the major rooms are accessed. Though the wall finishes in the entrance hall are recent, beneath the wall-paper is a full length mural depicting flora and bird-life. The hall is fitted with an original gas light fitting. To the right of the entrance hall is the former parlour and community room which are separated by two full-height three-leaf timber folding doors, extending the width of the room. A white marble fireplace with early ceramic tiles is featured in the parlour, and an ebonised timber fireplace, featuring etched relief patterns, is in the rear community room. To the left of the entrance hall is the room formerly used as a prayer room, but originally likely to have been the main bedroom. A number of bedrooms open from the corridor beyond the entrance hall. These bedrooms also open onto a rear or side verandah, allowing access to the bathroom in the south-eastern corner. Early beaded board timber partitioning occurs in one of the bedrooms.
\nThe dining room adjoins the single storeyed early timber kitchen wing, onto which the double storeyed timber extension was constructed. The kitchen is partitioned, and an early external brick chimney shows the extent of the original room. This wing is connected to the main house by an open timber verandah walkway extending to the later timber addition.
\nThe interior walls of the house are generally of concrete, finished with wall-paper and featuring a reproduction cornice. The floor has been raised which has caused shallow skirting boards.
","history":"Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott], a substantial, single-storeyed concrete residence was erected in 1885 for engineer Charles Lambert Depree and his family, using a construction method patented by Depree in Queensland in November 1871.
\nDepree was born in London c1845, studied engineering at King's College 1861-63, and while articled (1864-67) worked on several railway engineering contracts in Britain. In 1868 he was working in France, and there acquired an interest in concrete construction. The following year, Depree and his wife emigrated to Queensland, settling in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane. In June 1870, Depree erected a small concrete building at Fortitude Valley to demonstrate the potential of this material for Queensland construction, as a result of which he acquired several Government contracts. In November 1871 he patented an improved method of building in concrete, a system of moveable formwork. From 1872 until 1890 he was employed by the Queensland Railways Department, and as resident engineer in charge of the Stanthorpe section of the Southern and Western Railway, 1875-77, initiated the first Queensland use of concrete for culverts and a tunnel. In 1878 Depree was appointed District Engineer for Railways Maryborough, returning to Brisbane in the mid-1880s, where he took up the position of Assistant Engineer-in-Charge of Surveys from September 1886.
\nIn mid-1885, following his return to Brisbane, Depree erected his family home, Goldicott, on land at Toowong to which he had acquired title in 1874. Depree's purchase extended from the southern side of the hill above Kensington Terrace down to Sherwood Road, and from the crest above Kensington Terrace, the site offered extensive views over Toowong, Auchenflower and Milton. It had been part of several larger parcels of land alienated separately by EJ Bennett and John Collings in the late 1850s. Toowong, a 'fashionable' suburb since the 1860s, developed rapidly after the opening of Toowong Railway Station (on the Brisbane to Ipswich line) in 1875. In the mid-1880s, Goldicott was in close proximity to bus and railway transport, School of Arts, state primary school and two private schools, and gas and water were laid along Sherwood Road.
\nGoldicott was Brisbane's first poured concrete house, constructed in the monolithic, or one stone, process, using Depree's patented system of movable formwork and apparently built to his design. Contractors Rose and James were employing the technique for the first time.
\nIn July 1885, this unique method of housing construction warranted an article in the Brisbane Courier. The house was described as a substantial residence, measuring 50 feet by 50 feet with 10 feet wide verandahs all around, and walls 15 feet high. All the walls and footings were constructed of concrete, the outer walls being 9 inches thick, and the inner walls 6 inches. The floors and roof were of timber, the latter being clad in slates. The stone used in the concrete mix came from the site, and was described as a kind of greenstone, strongly impregnated with quartz. The article listed several advantages of building in concrete (presumably supplied by Depree): construction was marginally cheaper than brick; concrete was superior to brick in imperviousness to heat, damp and sound; little skilled labour was required for the construction; stone or gravel for the concrete mix could be obtained on site; and concrete was white-ant resistant.
\nDespite the press coverage, concrete housing did not capture popular imagination in the 1880s. Goldicott was erected just as Queensland was entering the most significant economic boom of the 19th century, when the new middle class could afford housing built of brick and stone, the traditional symbols of wealth and prestige. No other concrete houses of this period have been recorded in this State, and Goldicott remains important as an early Queensland experiment in concrete housing. The place may also be significant on a national level.
\nThe Depree family resided at Goldicott from 1885 until 1890, when Charles Depree's failing health precipitated their return to England. He died there in August 1893, and although the family did not return to Queensland, Goldicott remained their property until 1902.
\nFollowing the Deprees' departure, Goldicott was let to Surveyor-General A McDowall, and then to William Lees. It remained vacant for some years in the mid-1890s, but by 1897 was occupied by contractor John McCormick, whose firm John McCormick & Son had erected the second Albert (Railway) Bridge at Indooroopilly in 1893-94, and won the contract for the ironwork on the second permanent Victoria Bridge, erected 1896-97.
\nIn May 1902, the Goldicott Estate was subdivided and offered for auction, at which time the whole of the property, including the unfurnished house, was purchased by the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters were to staff a new parish school to be established in nearby Holland Street, Toowong, and were seeking conveniently located accommodation. They took up residence in Goldicott, which was renamed Mount St Mary's Convent, in 1903. At this time the front room at the northeast corner of the house (probably formerly a bedroom), was converted into a chapel.
\nIn 1916, Archbishop Duhig created the parish of Toowong by separating Toowong and Indooroopilly from Rosalie, and placed it under the charge of a group of newly arrived Jesuit Fathers. At Toowong, these fathers established the first permanent Jesuit presence in Queensland. However, the Sisters of Mercy continued to staff the parish school in Holland Street, and in the late 1920s gave to the parish just under 3/4 of an acre of land at the corner of Kensington Terrace and Grove Street, part of Mount St Mary's grounds, for the construction of a new church and school. St Ignatius Church, with the new school established in the undercroft, was opened and blessed on 18 May 1930. The Sisters continued to staff the parish school until the early 1980s.
\nA 1902 photograph of Goldicott reveals that the front terraces had been formed by this date, but many of the stone walls in the grounds of the convent may date to c1930, when the site for St Ignatius Church was being levelled and substantial quantities of stone would have become available. The eastern terrace, which contained an early tennis court, was most likely formed by 1902.
\nThe timber wing at the rear of the convent was erected c1918, as a dormitory for children who were accepted as boarders at St Michael's (later St Ignatius) School. From the early 1900s, the Sisters had accommodated a few boarders at Mount St Mary's, but in 1919, this number increased to 19, and it is likely the dormitory wing was completed about this time. It is understood that the Sisters ceased taking in student boarders in the 1940s.
\nDuring the Second World War, a new classroom block was erected behind St Ignatius Church and fronting Grove Street, at which time the Sisters of Mercy agreed that students could use part of the convent grounds (the terrace on the northern side of the house) as a playground. Later the eastern terrace was developed as a playing field with tennis and basketball courts. Sloping land at the rear of the convent was filled gradually, and levelled for a playing field in the 1980s.
\nAs well as teaching general subjects, the Sisters encouraged cultural pursuits such as music and speech lessons. Aerial images indicate that by 1936 a small weatherboard building was on the convent grounds on the entrance from Grove Crescent, which was used as a music room. This building was removed in 2021.
\nGoldicott remained in the ownership of the Sisters of Mercy and functioned as a convent. The building was refurbished in 1992, at which time a hand painted, full-length mural on the walls of the entrance hall was revealed and subsequently covered again with wallpaper. In 2018 the property was transferred to Goldicott Pty Ltd in trust.
","criteria":"Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott] was erected during the second phase of Toowong's development, following the opening of Toowong railway station in 1875, and is important in illustrating: 1. the retention of the ridge above Kensington Terrace and Sherwood Road as an area of substantial homes situated within extensive grounds, this pattern having been established in the early 1860s; 2. the emergence of ribbon development along Brisbane's late 19th century railways.
|Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott], erected in 1885, was the first poured concrete house in Brisbane, and probably in Queensland. It is significant as an early and very rare Queensland experiment in concrete housing, and is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement. The concrete construction was innovative and remarkable for its time. The place is significant for its association with engineer Charles Lambert Depree, and his contribution to concrete construction implementation and technology in 19th century Queensland.
Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott] has retained a considerable proportion of its original grounds which allow the house to remain remote in the midst of extensive development. This is a rare example of an 1880s house in Toowong which has retained substantial grounds and outlook.
|It is significant as an early and very rare Queensland experiment in concrete housing, and is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement. The concrete construction was innovative and remarkable for its time.
|Established trees and terraces contribute to its aesthetic significance by contributing to the building's picturesque qualities. The house has a number of early fittings, including the entrance hall light fitting and various joinery items.
|Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott], erected in 1885, was the first poured concrete house in Brisbane, and probably in Queensland. It is significant as an early and very rare Queensland experiment in concrete housing, and is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement. The concrete construction was innovative and remarkable for its time. The place is significant for its association with engineer Charles Lambert Depree, and his contribution to concrete construction implementation and technology in 19th century Queensland.
|Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott] is significant also for its special association with the Sisters of Mercy and their important educational, cultural and pastoral work in Toowong parish for well over 90 years.
|Mount St Mary's Convent [Goldicott] is significant also for its special association with the Sisters of Mercy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16368,"place_ref":601607,"name":"Toowoomba Queens Park and Botanic Gardens","alternate_name":"Toowoomba Queen's Park","street_address":"43-79 Lindsay Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"The Toowoomba Queens Park and adjacent Botanic Gardens are located on a large open L- shaped site bounded by Margaret Street to the south, Hume Street to the west, Godsall and Campbell Streets to the north and Lindsay Street to the east. The part occupied by the Botanic Gardens is a small rectangular section of the L-shape, extending north to Campbell Street from Godsall Street.
\nSubstantial remnants of early planting remain within both the Gardens and the Park, most prominently the Camphor laurel avenue traversing north south, from Margaret to Campbell Street and comprising a walkway bounded by mature Camphor laurels. Many early single individual trees also remain, among them Bottle trees, Bunya pines, Chinese elm, Cricket Bat willow, English oak, Himalayan pine, Jacaranda, Norfolk Island pine, Plane trees, Kauri pine, Silky oak, Silver maple and Swamp cypress.
\nThe Botanic Gardens is characterised by a more formal layout and planting, with large trees surrounded by garden beds in geometrical patterns, hedges and avenues. The focal point of the Gardens is the Thomas Memorial which sits in the middle of a large circular bedded area, more open than other areas of the Gardens. Adjacent to the Thomas Memorial in this area is a small cannon. Walks in the garden are gravelled and usually bordered by narrow flower beds.
\nThe gardens are surrounded by a low masonry fence which is broken to form entrances. A large, recent entrance gate is found on the Lindsay Street boundary of the Gardens. This large structure is made from rubble sandstone and has four circular sandstone motifs, and an entablature with Toowoomba Botanic Gardens Est'd 1875. Just inside this gate is another recent addition, a doorway feature from a local demolished building, comprising two granite columns with ionic caps joined by a sandstone entablature. A new toilet block has been constructed within the grounds of the gardens.
\nQueens Park is a more open, less formally arranged space. The most apparent plantings are those forming the Camphor laurel avenue from the Botanic Gardens and aligned with the Thomas Memorial and large established trees surrounding the eastern end and northern border of the Park. Several large playing fields are dotted over the Park and these are serviced by small one storeyed facilities buildings. In the southwest corner of the park is a more formal area, known as the Vera Lacaze Gardens containing a bridge between lawned mounds and toilet block. The park is more sparsely planted at this western end, which is closer to the Toowoomba CBD.
","history":"The Queens Park and Botanic Gardens, Toowoomba was gazetted as a public reserve in 1869. It was not until the mid 1870s that the Queens Park and Botanic Gardens were established as separate, but related, entities on this land. Queens Park was intended as a place of public recreation and the Botanic Gardens as a place for botanic research.
\nUrban public parks became a popular vehicle for 19th century movements concerned with public health - the park provided a place for the outdoor recreation of those unable to afford private gardens and improved the environment of crowded central city and town areas. Botanic Gardens were started as part of an increasing interest in scientific understanding of the natural world. A botanic gardens was established in Brisbane in 1855 in response to 19th century interest in botany which saw botanic gardens established around the world, particularly in those colonized areas of the world where little formal knowledge of the interaction between geography and botany existed. An integral part of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens was a series of branch gardens in provincial areas throughout Queensland which provided botanic data across the wide spectrum of Queensland ecosystems.
\nSoon after Toowoomba was proclaimed a municipality on 19 November 1860, William Groom, an early Toowoomba mayor and later Member of Parliament, lobbied the colonial government for an area of land for public recreation. A constant theme over Groom's long political career was his interest in the development of Toowoomba as a major centre and of the associated rural interests of the surrounding fertile farming area. In 1861 land was reserved for a Toowoomba recreation park but this was not the eventual site. By September 1869 the present site was surveyed and reserved for public reserve but many years were to elapse before any further progress was made of the layout or even rudimentary planting. The land chosen for the reserve was an L shaped block bounded by streets that were to become Margaret, Lindsay, Hume, Godsall and Campbell Streets very near the centre of the growing town. Until further development of the site it was variously used to graze cattle and horses, and as a source of clay for bricks for use in government buildings. These uses left the park in poor condition with holes pitted throughout and in no way like the public parks on which it was modelled. Although initially the reserve was under the control of the Colonial Queensland Government, by the end of the 1860s the Toowoomba Council was vested with the control of all parks in the municipality. However it was not until 1892 that the Council was formally vested with the title to the land, on the condition that the whole area remain a recreation ground and be used for no other purpose.
\nThe development of the site, by now known as Queens Park began with modest efforts - in 1873 the Council was granted £200 for the development of Queens Park which was used for the construction of timber rail fencing. Fencing was a significant stage in the development of the park because it prohibited itinerant and destructive cattle and also allowed regulation of hours of opening. The Council was also concerned with the draining of swamps throughout Toowoomba including swampy land on the western side of Queens Park.
\nAlthough it was not the stated intention of the Council at the establishment of Queens Park to develop a Botanic Gardens in conjunction with the public recreation park, Groom successfully lobbied the colonial government for £500 in 1874 for this purpose. Under the direction of Brisbane Botanic Gardens curator, Walter Hill, the Brisbane Botanic Gardens was establishing branch gardens throughout Queensland. After Ipswich, the Toowoomba Botanic Gardens was the second of eight branch gardens established in Queensland during the 1870s. Very early correspondence on the establishment of the Gardens suggests that Walter Hill was instrumental in deciding on appropriate locations for these branch gardens and lobbying on behalf of the various councils to the Colonial Government for their establishment. Certainly, in making his case to the Government for funding, Walter Groom mentions that Walter Hill would 'lay out our Queens Park - and he would like a portion to be allotted to him for testing the climate of the Downs for the growth (of plants) 'of commercial value'. That part allotted to the Botanic Gardens was at the northern end of the site, in the small rectangular section forming one of the arms of the L shaped block.
\nWith the establishment of the Toowoomba Botanic Gardens, a curator, Edward Way, was appointed and the gardens were well established in late 1875. The curator was essential to the success of the Botanic Gardens as a scientific research tool - Way was responsible for liaising with Walter Hill about the layout, planting projects and overseeing the construction of appropriate structures therein. The two local newspapers reported in October and November of 1875 that the Queens Park and the Botanic Gardens had been lately improved with walks, borders, flower beds, nurseries of exotic trees, specimen grass plantings from the Acclimatization Society, and a bush house. The latter part of the 1870s saw the planting and testing of structure trees and fruit trees and in 1880 climatic experiments were carried out on the extant garden. Periodically trees were removed and replaced from the gardens to allow continual testing of various species and types, the results from these tests were published in local papers and forwarded to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, thereby contributing to a rich volume of knowledge about Queensland botany.
\nWith the Botanical Gardens well underway, it was time for the Council to concentrate on the development of Queens Park which was still pitted with holes and without vegetation. By 1881 the site was used by the Caledonian Sports Association as a sports field with the erection of a small grandstand, sports ring and running track. Many societies and clubs established sports fields on Queens Park throughout its life and to this day there are many sports fields associated with the park, particularly on that more open area at the western end. The levelling of the park in the 1930s as part of the relief scheme aided its more extensive use by sporting associations.
\nAs well as sports fields, Queens Park was the home of municipal swimming baths from 1894 until 1964. The baths were first established on the southwest corner of the park, near the corner of Margaret and Hume Streets. As much as for public recreation, the establishment of the baths located in this position seems to have been part of a strategy to drain this area of what was known as the East Swamp of Toowoomba. In 1937, with the popular national swimming movement the baths were enlarged and upgraded. The baths were removed in 1964 and replaced with the Vera Lacaze Memorial Park, an interesting example of modernist landscape architecture in Queensland.
\nThe development of the Botanic Gardens continued in the 1890s with the construction of several buildings, including a curator's cottage, kiosk, bandstand and, in 1900, a zoo on the southern boundary of the park. None of these buildings are extant. One of the more prominent avenues associated with the Park and Gardens is the Camphor laurel avenue from Margaret Street to northwards to the Gardens. Although only parts of the avenue remain within the Gardens in 2000, it remains extant within the Park. This avenue was established by 1891. At about this time, the Alfred Thomas Memorial was relocated from the corner of Ruthven and Margaret Streets, to the centre of the circular part of the avenue, just inside the northern entrance to the Gardens off Campbell Street. Alfred Thomas supervised construction of the railway from Ipswich to Toowoomba, a major engineering feat. A cannon was sited near the memorial in 1900.
\nIn the 1920s Toowoomba become known as the garden city of Queensland, in recognition of the extensive network of well established gardens which dotted the city. Of these, the Queens Park and adjacent Botanic Gardens were the premier examples. By now a large iron framed glasshouse was featured in the gardens and the paths were gravelled. However Queens Park continued to be used as a garbage disposal until 1931 and leases for grazing horses were granted until the 1920s.
\nBy the 1940s a children's playground had been erected in Queens Park, following the tradition of children's playgrounds set up around the state from the 1920s and developed to allow the proper recreation and exercise of children.
\nDevelopment during the 1950s to the 1970s saw dramatic overhaul of the existing facilities within the park and the replacement of many of the earlier buildings. An amenities block was constructed in the gardens, the municipal baths were removed and replaced with a garden and toilet facilities. One of the most prominent changes that occurred during the 1970s was the replacement of the existing fence on the Lindsay and Campbell Street sides of the Botanic Gardens with a low sandstone footwall. As well the 19th century kiosk, conservatory/greenhouse, bush-house and bandstand were removed from the park.
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Queens Park and adjacent Botanic Gardens is significant as a substantially intact 19th century public recreation reserve. The Botanic Gardens is important in demonstrating the introduction of scientific centres associated with the development of economic and ornamental botany, the knowledge of which benefited the colony.
|The Park and Garden demonstrate the principal characteristics of 19th century public parks and botanic gardens, with early planting, avenues, memorials and remnants of the early layout.
|The Park and Gardens is significant for its considerable aesthetic value as a large urban park with both formal and informal sections all planted with early and substantial trees. The Park and Gardens have individual items of particular aesthetic merit, including a Camphor laurel avenue, other avenues and individual trees.
|The place has social significance as a long used and popular reserve for public recreation and as an early example of the history of the state government vesting local authorities with the maintenance and control of public reserves.
|The park and garden feature a number of memorials and gardens, commemorating well known local citizens, these including the Thomas Memorial and Vera Lacaze memorial. The place has significance for its association with Walter Hill, on whose advice the Botanic Gardens was instigated and laid out, and who was instrumental in the development of the regional network of botanic gardens and thereby contributing to early knowledge of the intersection between botany and Queensland geography. The place has significance for its association with William Groom who as Mayor of Toowoomba for six years was closely associated with the establishment and ongoing development of Queen's Park and Gardens.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16369,"place_ref":601608,"name":"Barrier Reef Hotel","alternate_name":"Empire Hotel","street_address":"3 Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-07-29","description":"The Barrier Reef Hotel is situated on the corner of Wharf and Abbott Streets, Cairns. The floor plan of the building responds to the trapezoidal shape of the site where the grid layout of the city meets Trinity Inlet. The building is constructed in reinforced concrete, with timber floors and corrugated iron roofing. Windows and doors are of timber.
\nThe building is two-storeyed with a wide verandah attached to parapet walls running along Wharf and Abbott Streets. The verandah is supported on heavy timber posts evenly spaced with the posts each side of the corner at the street intersection missing, which is an original feature. The verandah has a plain slatted balustrade at first floor level and below this a later skirt with segmental profile of slatted boards between the supporting posts. The verandah has been enclosed at first floor level along Abbott Street.
\nThe parapet wall is finished at the top with a heavy cornice with wide dentil course supported on fluted pilasters beneath. The rear elevations are without decoration and run as a parapet wall along the west elevation and slope back from the Abbott Street elevation forming a parapet to a skillion roof. The skillion roof runs back from the west , Wharf and Abbott Street elevations. The north and west walls are punctuated by evenly spaced windows of double hung proportion indicating the position of single rooms at ground and first floor levels. Some of the windows have been replaced with louvres. The fenestration at ground floor level along Wharf and Abbott Streets appears to be original except the main entry door at Wharf Street, which has been replaced with an aluminium framed door. The northwestern rear sections of the hotel appear to represent a conglomeration of a number of periods of alterations.
\nTypically the interior of the ground floor has been altered to suit changing retail hotel requirements. It is now divided into kitchen, restaurant, public bar and toilet facilities, and the main stair has been removed.
\nThe first floor has retained its original configuration being divided into a series of single rooms off narrow corridors which run parallel to the west and north elevations. The detailing is plain with battened ceilings.
\nThe building is a strong contributor to the streetscape along both Abbott and Wharf Streets.
\nA single-storeyed gable roofed building of contemporary design runs down the northwest side of the hotel and serves as a TAB. It is not considered to be of heritage significance.
","history":"The Barrier Reef (formerly Empire) Hotel, a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building, was erected in 1926 for PJ Doyle Ltd, wine and spirit merchants of Cairns and Thursday Island. The architects were Lawrence and Lordan in conjunction with Richard Hill, both Cairns-based firms. The building replaced an earlier Empire Hotel on the site, opened in 1898.
\nThe Barrier Reef Hotel is situated at the corner of Abbott and Wharf Streets on what was formerly Section II of the 1876 Cairns Town Plan - the survey point from which the town of Cairns was laid out was fixed at this corner just 0.5 metre from the present building. On the opposite side of Abbott Street the Government Reserve was established. Close to the earliest wharves, this end of Abbott Street developed during the last quarter of the 19th century as the principal business and administrative district of Cairns, comprised principally of government offices, warehouses, shipping agents' offices and hotels. The latter catered for local office and wharf workers, as well as for travellers arriving by the coastal steamers. Little of this district's 19th century structures survive, the area being largely re-built in the first four decades of the 20th century as wharf facilities expanded to cater for the emergence of Cairns as a major sugar port. And of the buildings extant in this district by the late 1930s - Burns Philp Building, Joseph Pease Building, Jack and Newell Building, Consolidated Fertilizers Building and a string of working-class hotels: the Australian, Criterion, Mining Exchange, Oceanic, Royal and Empire (later the Barrier Reef) - only the Barrier Reef Hotel and the former Jack and Newell Building remain to perpetuate the association of this part of the city with its waterfront origins.
\nPatrick J Doyle, for whom the second Empire Hotel was built, had established business as an accountant, commission agent and general agent at Thursday Island in 1889, and was clerk of the Torres Divisional Board from at least 1890 until c1899. By 1894, Doyle had entered into wine and spirit wholesaling, moving his main office to Cairns c1899, and maintaining a branch office at Thursday Island. About 1921 he formed a limited liability company, and in the same year acquired title to the first Empire Hotel site and to the land between the hotel and the corner of Wharf and Abbot Streets. PJ Doyle Ltd appears to have been successful, with new Cairns offices and bulk store being constructed for the firm, 1925-26.
\nPJ Doyle Ltd's construction in 1926 of the second, more substantial Empire Hotel reflected local confidence in the growth of Cairns as an important regional centre. Revenue generated through the Port of Cairns had risen from £12,000 in 1906 to £55,456 in 1926, outstripping both Townsville and Rockhampton. In the mid-1920s the Cairns Harbour Board announced plans to erect additional wharf facilities - a new reinforced concrete wharf, 400ft long, with rail approach and large shed - which was constructed 1928-29. With its status as the principal port of Far North Queensland being consolidated during the interwar period, Cairns underwent rapid development, and the city centre was largely re-built.
\nIn April 1925 the Cairns licensing court condemned the first Empire Hotel building, refusing to renew the license unless the place was demolished and replaced with a brick or concrete structure by 30 September 1925. PJ Doyle Ltd could well have erected offices or warehouses instead, but the company chose to retain the hotel business, indicating their confidence in the ability of the wharf district to support yet another expensive new hotel. Their decision to invest in building a new Empire Hotel appears to have been linked with the development of Cairns at this period.
\nWork on the new Empire (to cost £10,000) had started by April 1926, the contractor being CP Jorgensen of Cairns. The building was well underway by September that year, and the hotel was open for business by February 1927. The ground floor contained a public bar, dining room, kitchen and one shop fronting Abbott Street; the first floor was taken up with bedrooms and bathrooms. It was a plain and modest hotel, catering mainly for business and working people. During the 1930s the hotel was used extensively by the travelling public, averaging 105 guests per week in 1936. During the Second World War the Royal Australian Air Force occupied part of the hotel, from early 1943 until mid-1945.
\nIn late 1938 the Empire Hotel site was transferred to Northern Australian Breweries Ltd, who held the title until 1960. PJ Doyle Wines & Spirits Pty Ltd maintained a close connection with the Empire after 1938, firstly as a mortgagor, and from 1 December 1959 until c1977 as the lessee. A variety of sub-lessees, (often the owners of the property), operated the hotel during this latter period.
\nBoth the first and second Empire hotels maintained a strong association with the workers on the wharves across the road. Reputedly, during the 1950s, when Cairns' sugar handlers were working round-the-clock in three eight hour shifts, the Empire Hotel remained open 24 hours a day. The name was changed to the Barrier Reef Hotel in May 1960, possibly reflecting the burgeoning prawning and fishing industry based in Cairns from the late 1950s. During the 1960s and early 1970s the hotel fell into disrepair, with the license suspended briefly in 1974. Since the mid-1970s the hotel and adjacent sites, including the former Jack & Newell Building, have been amalgamated as a re-development site. The interior of the ground floor has been altered to include modern kitchen, restaurant, bar, and toilet facilities and the main stair has been removed. The building still functions as a hotel.
","criteria":"The Barrier Reef Hotel survives as an important illustration of the growth and rebuilding of Cairns in the interwar years, when Cairns was transformed from a late 19th century backwater into a progressive, 20th century city.
The building is important also as an illustration of the emphasis placed by Cairns architects and builders of the interwar period on reinforced concrete as a suitable building material for a tropical, cyclone-prone environment.
|It is one of only two surviving buildings which illustrate the early-established and important connection between the businesses in the Wharf-Abbott-Lake Street area and the adjacent wharves, and remains a good example of a substantial, inter-war Cairns hotel which catered principally for local workers.
|It is one of only two surviving buildings which illustrate the early-established and important connection between the businesses in the Wharf-Abbott-Lake Street area and the adjacent wharves, and remains a good example of a substantial, inter-war Cairns hotel which catered principally for local workers.
|The building makes a strong contribution to the streetscape along both Abbott and Wharf Streets.
|The Barrier Reef Hotel has a strong association for the Cairns community with the development of an early, vibrant commercial district based on wharf activities, and of Cairns as an important Queensland port.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16371,"place_ref":601610,"name":"Jack and Newell Building (former)","alternate_name":"Nosworthy's Stores | Fearnley & Co. Ltd | Bartlam's Ltd","street_address":"29 Wharf Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-11-22","description":"The former Jack and Newell Building is situated in Wharf Street, half-way along the block between Abbott and Lake Streets, and directly opposite the principal wharves of Cairns.
The plan form of the building is rectangular, with the Wharf Street boundary responding to the subdivision of land in this area where the grid pattern of the city meets Trinity Inlet at an angle. The building is constructed in brick and is two-storeyed where it faces Wharf Street and single-storeyed at the rear.
The elevation to Wharf Street is symmetrical about a ground floor entry door and first floor french doors that open onto a segmental balcony which has a simple slotted balustrade. Each side of these elements are pairs of timber double hung windows at ground and first floor level between capped pilasters. The whole of the façade has been rendered, covering the original brickwork which had rendered bands over the windows at each level, below the first floor windows and across the façade at the sill and head of the ground floor windows. The façade is finished at the top with a stepped parapet slotted at each side and with a semicircular decorative honeycomb brick element centrally positioned over a cornice that extends across the width of the building. Below this is the sign JACK & NEWELL & Co. in relief and below this, centrally located, the date 1893, also in relief.
The side walls step down from the Wharf Street elevation forming a parapet to the skillion roof over the upper storey. The rear wall to the upper storey contains three symmetrically aligned double hung windows. The east elevation contains two rectangular windows located towards the rear of the two-storeyed section at ground and first floor levels. The corrugated iron clad roof to the single-storeyed section, which is supported on timber trusses, is gabled with internal gutter to the side wall parapets and extends back to a stepped gable rear wall. This wall has a single loading bay entrance.
The walls to the interior of the ground floor of the building are finished in plaster. The interior of the side walls have a blind arch configuration. The ceiling is narrow tongue and groove boarding with a timber cornice. The remains of a timber stair with a geometric pattern balustrade survive in the northeast corner of the ground floor of the front section. The stair flight up to the intermediate landing has been removed. The timber floors to the ground floor of the front and rear sections of the building have been replaced in concrete; there is evidence of these original floors surviving on the walls. A wide opening has been made in the adjoining wall between the front and rear sections and an original door opening exists under the stair. A strong room exists that opens into the front section of the ground floor but is situated in the rear section.
The upper floor of the building is divided into rooms off a central hall by three quarter height tongue and groove panelled partitions with glazing over. The ceiling is tongue and groove similar to the ground floor. A trap door is centrally positioned in the floor at the top of the stair.
","history":"The former Jack & Newell Building appears to have been erected in 1911 as new premises for Fearnley & Co. Ltd, shipping and commission agents, on land held in the name of the Company's managing director, Dr John Hastings Reed of Cairns.
John Gillett Fearnley had arrived in Cairns c1888 as manager for commission and shipping agents Thomas & Maddon. In 1889 he went into partnership with WC Smith (previously manager of the Queensland National Bank in Cairns), as Smith & Fearnley, storekeepers, merchants, and commercial, forwarding, shipping and insurance agents, Cairns. In 1893 (the year which appears on the front of the present building) the partnership was dissolved, and JG Fearnley, commission, forwarding and shipping agent was established.
About 1895 Fearnley secured the Adelaide Steamship Company's new Cairns agency. Initially he rented wharf facilities, but c1898 erected a substantial new wharf and offices past the terminus of Wharf Street at Lake Street, on Special Lease No.546. By 1905, JG Fearnley was one of the four principal wharf owners in Cairns, the others being Burns, Philp & Co., Walsh & Co., and Howard Smith Co. Ltd. He was a justice of the peace and a prominent member of the community, having served for many years on the local council and on a variety of local community committees. A street in Cairns is named in his honour.
The firm of JG Fearnley was re-structured in 1905-06. In May 1905 Fearnley relinquished the agency for the Adelaide Steamship Company, selling his wharf, sheds and associated offices to the Company, but retaining his shipping, forwarding and general agency business. By August 1905 new offices [not the present building] were being erected for his firm near the Adelaide Steamship Company's offices and close to his former wharf. In October the same year Fearnley announced his intention of moving his family to the south, and left his business under the management of accountant Lionel Draper of Cairns from 9 December 1905. In January 1906, he entered into an agreement with a group of Brisbane businessmen to convert his firm into a limited liability company, Fearnley & Co. Ltd, with Fearnley remaining the managing director of the company for life, but with power to delegate that function. The new company was registered in July 1906 with Dr John Hastings Reed, manager of the Hambledon Sugar Mills outside Cairns, delegated Managing Director.
Impacting on the activities of Cairns shipping agencies and wharf owners at this time was the establishment of the Cairns Harbour Board, incorporated by Act of Parliament on 20 December 1905, and in operation from 1 January 1906. In 1906 the new Board announced that it had formed a scheme for the development of the harbour and intended to acquire and develop the existing wharves, which it did in 1907-08. In 1907 the Harbour Board also moved the offices of the Adelaide Steamship Company further back from their former wharf. Similar action could well have been taken with other shipping agency offices, and may have provided the catalyst for Fearnley & Co. Ltd moving to new offices in Wharf Street, opposite the Harbour Board's No.2 wharf (formerly Walsh & Co.'s wharf), in December 1907. This equates very much with the location of the present building.
The 1907 move may well have been to the present site, but it is not clear whether to the present building. The site was alienated in 1876 as allotment 20 of Section 2, parish of Cairns, county of Nares. Whether any building was extant on the site prior to 1907 is not known. Title was transferred to John Hastings Reed in September 1907, at which time he also took out a mortgage of £1500 on the property. This may have enabled the construction of the present building. However, early in 1911 Cairns contractors Hanson and Sons were reported to have won the contract to erect new brick premises for Fearnley & Co. Ltd, time 4 months and price around £2,300. This is more likely to refer to the present building.
Late 1922-early 1923, Fearnley & Co. Ltd was taken over by Bartlams Ltd, merchants, carriers, shipping and forwarding agents of Townsville and Charters Towers, and title to the site of the Fearnley & Co. Ltd Building was transferred to them in January 1926. By April 1931, Bartlams had relinquished business in Cairns, but retained title to the Wharf Street property. From 1 December 1930, Ralph Collins Nosworthy took out a five year lease on part of the building from Bartlams, and the Queensland Post Office Directory records Nosworthy's Stores at 29 Wharf Street in 1934.
In 1939 the property was transferred to John Newell of the North Queensland firm of Jack & Newell, who had held title to the adjoining property [allotment 23 of section 2] since 1899. Jack & Newell had established as general storekeepers in Herberton in 1880, and by the turn of the century had stores at Herberton, Irvinebank, Montalbion, Muldiva, Mareeba, Cairns and Port Douglas and were operating as commission, forwarding and shipping agents as well. Their Cairns shipping and forwarding agency was established c1897, possibly in the single-storeyed building on allotment 23.
Jack & Newell's acquisition of the former Fearnley & Co. Ltd premises in the late 1930s continued the association of the building with the shipping and forwarding business. It seems that the building was rendered only after the sale to Jack & Newell, obliterating the names Fearnley & Co. Ltd and Bartlams Ltd on the front façade and replacing them with Jack & Newell & Co. The building and site remained the property of Jack & Newell Pty Ltd until acquired in the mid-1970s as part of the Barrier Reef Hotel re-development site. Through the second half of the 1970s and during the 1980s, the building was used as a wine and spirits bulk store associated with the nearby Barrier Reef Hotel. It is unoccupied at present.
","criteria":"The former Jack & Newell Building is important in illustrating the early 20th century establishment of Cairns as the principal port of Far North Queensland. In particular, it illustrates the development of port facilities and improved warehousing in the Wharf St district following establishment of the Cairns Harbour Board in 1906. For over 6 decades the building was associated with 3 firms of important North Queensland shipping and forwarding agents, and is rare surviving evidence of the role of such firms in the development of Cairns as a major regional port.
|The building is the last remaining early 20th century warehouse in what was formerly a vibrant commercial district based on wharf activities. Along with the nearby Barrier Reef Hotel, it is one of only two buildings which survive to illustrate the early-established and important connection between the businesses in the Wharf-Abbott-Lake Street area and the adjacent wharves.
|The former Jack & Newell Building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a masonry warehouse associated with shipping and commission agency work, illustrated in particular by the survival of office partitioning on the upper floor, display space on the lower floor of the front section, and warehousing facilities in the rear single-storeyed section. The relationship between the double and single storeyed sections of the building remains clear, and adds to our understanding of the functioning of an early 20th century Queensland shipping agency business. The inclusion of a small upper-storey front balcony is indicative of the physical and functional relationship of the building to the wharves opposite.
|The building retains a characteristic local streetscape pattern of building dimension and scale, particularly in its local variance of classical façade decoration, and survives as a marker of the earlier streetscape.
|The building has a strong association for the Cairns community with the growth of the commercial district associated with the wharves, and remains a symbol of early 20th century shipping activity in Cairns, when the town was developing into the principal port of far North Queensland.
|It has had a strong association with 3 important North Queensland-based shipping agencies: Fearnley & Co. Ltd, Bartlams Ltd, and Jack & Newell & Co. Although erected for Fearnley & Co., the building has been associated mostly (1939-76) with Jack & Newell & Co., who had traded from Wharf Street since the late 1890s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16374,"place_ref":601613,"name":"Koongalba","alternate_name":"John Low's House","street_address":"12 Wharf Street","suburb":"YANDINA","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-07-04","description":"Koongalba, a single-storeyed timber and iron residence, is located on a level site at the crest of a hill fronting Wharf Street to the north. The residence, consisting of the original building at the front with a later wing added to the rear, has views to the northeast towards the Maroochy River and is surrounded by landscaped grounds with substantial plantings of mature trees.
The original building, of four rooms with a central corridor, has a corrugated iron gable roof with skillion roof verandahs to all sides, and timber perimeter stumps with concrete stumps internally. Verandahs have unlined ceilings, chamfered timber posts, timber brackets and capitals, a timber handrail with central support, and retains some of the original beech timber floor boards. Walls have single-skin vertical boarding with external cross-bracing, and gable ends have weatherboard cladding and timber finials. The building is entered via central front steps and a panelled cedar front door with glass sidelights and fanlight. The rear verandah has been enclosed and provides access to the rear wing, but retains verandah fittings and features a similar central door, sidelight and fanlight assembly to the front. Each room has a two cedar sash windows to the verandahs.
Internally, the building has beech timber framing with beaded pine vertically jointed boarding, pine internal doors and boarded ceilings. The building has timber skirtings, architraves, cornices and ceiling roses, and the corridor wall to the northwest room has been removed.
The rear wing has a corrugated iron hipped roof, weatherboard cladding, concrete stumps and timber sash and casement windows. This structure is long and narrow in plan, and was originally freestanding with a covered walkway linking it to the original building. The space between the two structures was enclosed to create the living room for the rear wing, which also contains the kitchen, bathroom, laundry and garage.
The landscaped grounds contain a number of mature trees, including an avenue of seven large Camphor Laurels along the western side of the property forming the driveway, and two Camphor Laurels to the southwest of the house near a recent metal shed. Bunya Pines are located along the southern boundary, and two Mango trees, a Silky Oak, and two Illawarra Flame trees are located around the northeast side of the property.
","history":"This single-storeyed timber house was erected in 1894 for John Anthony Low, a prominent member of the Maroochy community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Low was the eldest son of James Low who was actively involved in the development of the timber industry in the Mooloolah - Maroochy area and the development of Yandina from the 1860s.
Following investigation of the timber resources of the Mooloolah - Maroochy region by Tom Petrie c1862, timber-getters commenced work in the area. James Low and William Grigor are recorded as having moved to the Mooloolah area in 1863 where, in partnership with William Pettigrew, they sent timber from the Mooloolah area to Pettigrew's sawmill in Brisbane. In 1867 James and his family moved north to a site on the Maroochy River opposite Dunethin Rock, where he established a depot located on the then route to the Gympie gold diggings; gold having been discovered at Gympie in 1867. James is recorded as one of the first selectors of land in the district under the Crown Lands Act of 1868. A post office, with James as Post Master, opened in July 1868 and took its name from the Yandina run on which it was situated.
A new road was constructed between Brisbane and Gympie in 1868. The new road was approximately 4 miles west of the previous route, and James moved his family to the point where the new road crossed the Maroochy River, and where he re-established his store and the Post Office, and opened a butcher shop and Maroochie House which was licensed in 1869. The store and hotel were located on the south bank of the Maroochy River, east of the Brisbane-Gympie road. The Low family lived in the rear of the Hotel, which was used by travellers on Cobb and Co's passenger service.
The Maroochy River provided an important means of transportation of goods and timber. The position of James' store and hotel along the Gympie Road, and adjacent to the Maroochy River provided a focus for trade in the Maroochy area, with customers being drawn from a wide area. The town of Yandina was surveyed in 1871, and a telegraph office was built approximately half a mile south of James' store in 1873. James was active in the development of community facilities in the Yandina district, convening a meeting in 1879 which resolved to approach the government to establish a school in the area.
James acquired a large area of land around the Maroochy River, on which he grazed cattle and cut timber, in addition to his business enterprises.
Following James' death in 1883, his widow Christina continued to run the store and post office. Christina also ran a boarding house in the hotel; the liquor license having lapsed on James' death. The railway from Brisbane to Gympie opened in 1891, at which time the post office was removed to the railway station. The area around the south bank of the Maroochy River declined in importance as a commercial centre, and the hotel was eventually demolished.
John took over James' timber and grazing businesses upon his father's death, continuing to cut, haul and raft timber. In 1893 John became engaged to Louisa Ann Bury, and prepared to erect a new house. John acquired two half acre allotments on opposite sides of Wharf Street from James' estate, and planned to use the allotment on the southern side for the house, and the land on the northern side for the garden.
John kept very detailed books, and his arrangements for the house are recorded in these books, including copies of orders for timber, joinery and hardware to complete the house which was built by Willie Grigor. Willie was the son of William Grigor, a longstanding family friend of the Lows, and James' former partner in the Mooloolah area. Family records note that John planned his house to be similar to Christina's home Coondalbour, built in 1889 a short distance from the site of John's house. John and Louisa were married in January 1894, and the house was completed the following May.
Like James, John was actively involved in the development of the Yandina and Maroochy areas, and held various positions including a member of the Maroochy Divisional Board, electoral presiding officer for Yandina, an auditor for the Moreton Sugar Mill in Nambour, Justice of the Peace, Secretary of the Maroochy Cemetery Committee in Yandina, and a member of the committees of the Maroochy Provisional School and the Yandina State School. John also worked as a valuer in the district.
John died in 1914 following an accident whilst timber-getting. Louisa continued to live at the house, where she established a large garden. Louisa died in 1957, and the house remained vacant until 1970, at which time it was purchased by Jim and Audienne Blyth, grand-daughter of John and Louisa Low.
The shingles on the roof of the house were replaced with corrugated iron c1914. The rear verandah was enclosed at around this time, and eventually became the new kitchen area when the original detached kitchen was dismantled. Further work undertaken to the house during the 1920s included restumping the house with concrete stumps, building a tennis court and front path, and further tree planting. By 1970 the house was in a deteriorated condition. Renovations undertaken included removal of the outside wall of the rear verandah, replacement of most of the verandah flooring, and the erection of a new detached kitchen/bathroom/laundry wing connected to the main house by an open walkway. The rear verandah has since been enclosed and a family room added in place of the open walkway.
The house was named Koongalba in 1994, to mark the 100th anniversary of the erection of the house. Koongalba, meaning "place of clean water" is the Aboriginal name for the area around the Maroochy River at Yandina.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|The residence, with its landscaped grounds and plantings of mature trees, makes a considerable contribution to the amenity of the Wharf Street streetscape and the Yandina townscape.
|As a building erected on land which has been continuously owned by members of the Low family from the late 1860s, Koongalba is important for its association with the family which was influential in the development of the timber industry in the Mooloolah-Maroochy area, and in the development of Yandina as a commercial centre from the late 1860s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16375,"place_ref":601614,"name":"Cook's Landing Place, Town of Seventeen Seventy","alternate_name":"Cooks Landing Place","street_address":"Round Hill Creek and Round Hill Head","suburb":"SEVENTEEN SEVENTY","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-03-27","description":"Round Hill Head is a distinctive granite landform at 54m above sea level, a landmark for mariners as the north west extreme of Hervey Bay and the bluff termination of hills, well covered with wood and grass, sloping down around Round Hill, which is 289m high 12kms due south. The headland has naturally grassy areas running from the ocean on the east to the sheltered creek on the west and this swathe has been referred to as "Mrs Cook's Drive" since the turn of the century.
Round Hill Creek on the western side of the headland has a very narrow channel, which has maintained its depth at soundings taken since 1770, but is encumbered with shifting sandbanks. The sandy beach is fringed by mangroves and backed by cotton woods, paperbark and palms in the wetter gullies, with ironbark on the drier slopes.
From Monument Point extensive views may be obtained of the picturesque inlet with boats at anchor, wisps of smoke from the cottages screened in the bush, distant blue mountains and across the sand spits to the west the dense lowland vegetation of Eurimbula National Park with the jagged Munro Range towering in the distance. At night the Bustard Head lighthouse flashes its warning presence across Bustard Bay.
When viewed extensively, European occupation of the land has not altered the landscape irretrievably. Very few of the recent houses intrude into the landscape, mature trees have been retained, and the bush has regenerated on the lower slopes.
Very few clumps of mangroves remain in the lower reaches of Round Hill Creek along the western margin but the caravan park developed in 1978 has a cover of mature native trees while the unreserved Crown land along the foreshore adjacent to Captain Cook Drive has an impressive covering of mature tall Cabbage palms, probably predating Cook's landing.
The spring which fed a streamlet rising on the slope above Captain Cook Drive and running out on the beach only stopped flowing in 1992. It had yielded a bucket of water every 25 seconds at peak flow in 1989. This was probably the stream mentioned by Cook. The nearby area of houses and the 95 site caravan park is now sewered to prevent ground water contamination.
The road reserve retains its vegetation and the picnic area opposite the shop is shaded and attractive. Murgard's marina and the public boat ramp in the "lagoon" of the upper reaches of the creek are not intrusive but the approach to the township is messy, despite driving through tall forest along the base of the ridge immediately before entering Seventeen Seventy. The upper reaches of Round Hill Creek are meandering, shallow, mangrove fringed, and backed by tall paperbark forest.
","history":"The town of Seventeen Seventy is so named because on 24 May in that year, Lieutenant James Cook, captain of His Majesty's barque Endeavour, came ashore and landed on the beach of Round Hill Creek in the vicinity of the present village.
In the morning of Thursday May 1770, the Lieutenant in his pinnace (with Mr Joseph Banks and Dr Solander) and Second Lieutenant Gore in the yawl left the ship for the shore and made their first landing in what is now Queensland and their second landing in Australia. Cook made eleven landings on the eastern seaboard and ten of these were in Queensland. Cook's landing spot at Bustard Bay was in the vicinity of the present caravan park (developed in 1978), where a stream at the southern end enters the beach just north of the remaining mangroves.
Cook described the countryside as "visibly worse" than at Botany Bay, with dry and sandy soils, woods free of undergrowth, the same sort of numerous 'birch' tree (coastal ironbark), mangroves skirting the lagoon and palm trees on low, barren, sandy places. He also noted bustards, black and white ducks, small oysters and other shell fish - mussels, pearl oysters and cockles.
Botanist Joseph Banks, who accompanied Cook on his "little excursion in to the woods", noted the great variety of plants even though the plant cover was not thick. He recognised plants already seen in the Tropics, and described many birds on shore including one species of Bustard. Some of the 55 specimens collected in the general area were illustrated and described in Banks' Florilegium, which was printed from copperplates under Banks' direction from Parkinson's unfinished sketches. (Parkinson died of dysentery on the voyage home.) As the woods behind Round Hill Head and adjacent to Round Hill Creek are the locality of the first botanical type-specimens collected in
Queensland, they are of great scientific value. This was recognised in 1989 with the gazettal of Joseph Banks Environmental Park [R.663].
In August 1802 Matthew Flinders in HM sloop Investigator, accompanied by the Lady Nelson under the command of Lt John Murray, resurveyed Hervey's Bay. They reached the south head of Bustard Bay (Round Hill Head) on 2 August and anchored in nearly the same spot where the Endeavour had lain in 1770.
Subsequent early mariners visited Bustard Bay and noted the prominent landmark of Round Hill from Round Hill Head: Captain Phillip King in the Mermaid 1819, Captain Stokes in HMS Beagle in 1839 and 1841, and Colonel Barney in the steamer Cornubia in 1846, when he was looking for a site for northern settlement.
Port Curtis was proclaimed a district in January 1854. Most European settlement by-passed Bustard Bay and Round Hill Head, but pastoral runs were taken up in the hinterland. In 1867 a lighthouse was erected at Bustard Head because of increased coastal shipping, and a sawmill was established at Eurimbula Creek. By 1894, Agnes Waters beach was a popular weekend resort for sawmill employees. There was a timber shoot down Round Hill and pine logs were hauled by teamsters to the rafting grounds on Oyster Creek and Round Hill Creek. The first cottage at Round Hill was erected in 1915.
In July 1925, the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland resolved to erect a monument at Bustard Bay to commemorate the first landing of the British on the Queensland coast. With the support of the Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan, a public appeal for funds was launched on 1 September 1925, and proved so popular that a cairn was ordered the following month. This was erected early in 1926, on the point of land overlooking Bustard Bay to the north. In response to a request from the RGSQ for the reservation of an area of land surrounding the Cook Memorial, the Department of Public Lands set aside an area of 1,790 acres as a Recreation Reserve [R.207] under the control of the Miriam Vale Shire as trustee, February 1927. This did not include the site of the actual landing in Bustard Bay.
An area was surveyed adjacent to Round Hill Creek for the site of a township in the mid-1930s. It was named Seventeen Seventy, re-emphasising that this was Cook's first landing place in Queensland in May 1770.
The significance of Round Hill Head, at the time considered the birthplace of Queensland, drew the attention of those planning the 1970 Bi-Centenary Celebrations. The Queensland Government made available $2,000 for a monument additional to the cairn, to be erected and maintained by the Department of Local Government. The site selected for the new monument was about a mile nearer the tip of Round Hill Head on the western or inshore side, overlooking the spot where the Endeavour had lain.
The new monument was not to imitate the existing cairn as simply a marker for the site of Cook's landing, but was intended to symbolise that in landing at this place, the British first opened the door of opportunity in Queensland. A four-sided concrete portico in classical style was erected, with the words Doorway to Destiny on the top-piece. In 1975, the area surrounding the monument was gazetted as the Captain Cook Memorial and Park Reserve [R.271]. The monument later developed concrete cancer, and was demolished in August 1994.
In 1989 the Joseph Banks Environmental Park [R.663] was gazetted. It covered about 114 hectares and incorporated part of R.207 and R.271, but did not include Cook's actual landing site.
","criteria":"Cook's Landing Place is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history and is a place of national significance. It is the first place where Cook and Banks landed, in what later became Queensland, during the Endeavour voyage which charted the east coast of the Australian continent and led to the beginnings of European settlement in Australia. The natural history collections and observations made on 24 May 1770 at Round Hill Creek excited world interest.
|The place has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history, offering a rich source for interpretation and study, including landscapes, terrain, historic coastal navigation, vegetation types and habitats, fauna and their habitats, the Aboriginal people's use of and values in the landscape. The place was the only central Queensland site at which Banks collected botanical specimens and the landscape still holds the detail and scope of the natural landscape of that time to enable comparative study and educational interpretation.
The place also has potential to reveal information on the establishment and evolution of small coastal holiday settlements in Queensland.
|The Town of Seventeen Seventy and its landscape setting and approaches is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small, coastal, Queensland camping and holiday village, which began as a camping site for fishing and boating holidays, and continues this function to this day. With increasing development pressure being placed on Queensland's small, coastal camping and holiday settlements, the Town of Seventeen Seventy remains an uncommon and beautiful example of its type in Queensland and eastern Australia.
|The place is significant for its very high aesthetic values of both State and National significance.
|In terms of strong or special association, it should be noted that Aboriginal people of the area have, within their oral tradition, stories of witnessing the landing of Lieutenant Cook, Joseph Banks and others of the Endeavour. The place also has a strong and continued association since it was first regularly visited in the early 1890s by the local and district community as a quiet holiday destination.
|Cook's Landing Place has a special association with the work of Lieutenant James Cook, Joseph Banks, and fellow scientists of the Endeavour, whose voyage of exploration along the eastern coast of Australia in 1770 transformed the future of the Australian continent and its indigenous peoples.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16377,"place_ref":601616,"name":"Purga United Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"68 Purga School Road","suburb":"PURGA","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-06","description":"The Church is a small building set about 13 metres back from the front of an open grassy block, comprising 1746 square metres, facing Purga School Road. It is positioned about five metres from the western boundary. A second building, the Purga Federation Community Cultural Centre (opened in 2001) is located at the rear eastern corner. Access to the block is gained through a gate facing Purga School Road or from a gate into the adjoining school property.
The form of the church is very simple. It is a small building, rectangular in plan, about eight metres long and five and a half metres wide. The design is functional; there is an absence of external decorative features. The lack of any obvious Christian iconography is notable. Concrete stumps have been used to replace the original timber and elevate the building to a height of approximately one metre. The space between the floor of the church and the ground is in filled with horizontal planks. The structure is timber framed and clad with weatherboard. All of the windows are tall pivoted sash windows. Each of these is divided into two frames, one on top of the other. Each frame is divided into four lights made of clear glass. The bottom frame of each window pivots about a horizontal axis in the middle of the frame. Access at the front of the building is via a porch and a set of double, ledge and brace timber doors. At the rear access is via a simple wooden door. It has an unpainted, corrugated iron, gabled roof pitched at about 45 degrees. The church is finished in white paint.
One of the narrow sides of the building faces the street. The entrance porch is located on this side. It is raised to the same height as the rest of the building and projects from the center of the elevation. Access to the porch is gained through two openings on either side, each with a set of steps. It has a gabled roof pitched at about 45 degrees. A window opens on each side of the porch. It is unlined and has a fibro floor.
The two side elevations are identical. Each has windows spaced equally along its length. Rear access is via a wooden ledge and brace door at the left end of the rear elevation. A set of steps lead to the door. The only window in the rear wall opens slightly to the right of center. Unlike the others, this window has a red corrugated iron awning. A green corrugated iron water tank and tank stand is positioned at the right end of the rear elevation.
The interior of the church comprises a single room that is unlined and unpainted with the exception of the window frames, which are finished in coloured varnish. The timber floor is bare, except for a long narrow carpet extending the length of the room along the center. A small wooden platform and pulpit are against the wall opposite the main entrance. The central part of the pulpit is about one and a half metres high. It consists of two square section posts joined with timber paneling. The bottom section of paneling comprises two vertical recessed panels. The top half consists of a single panel extending the full width of the central part of the pulpit. This panel is decorated with fretwork depicting an elliptical radiant sun motif surrounded by a floral pattern. Blue felt fabric is fixed to the rear of the panel and shows through the openings in the fretwork. On top of this is a book rest inclined at approximately twenty degrees and finished in blue felt fabric. Two shorter square section posts are set back from the front of the platform about one metre from each side of the central section of the pulpit. Each of them is joined to the central section by two wooden rails.
The church is furnished with rows of plain wooden pews. The old wooden organ reputedly dates from the opening of the church. The white glass light fittings are also reputedly original. A more recent fluorescent light is fitted along a beam above the pulpit. Framed historic photographs and a clock of recent manufacture are hung on the walls.
There are three gardens in the grounds. At the front western corner of the block, there is a memorial garden dedicated to Helen Kay Aquilina. There is a small landscaped garden, edged with concrete, in front of the church porch and another garden near the entrance to the Purga Federation Community Cultural Centre at the rear of the block. Two benches are positioned along the western side of the church and another next to the memorial gardens. A chain wire fence surrounds the grounds.
","history":"The Purga United Church has played an important and valued role in the community at Purga, a rural district south of Ipswich, for over eighty years. Designed to serve people of all religions in the district, it was erected in late 1922 on a site facing Ipswich-Boonah Road. In 1995 it was moved to its current location on Purga School Road where the building continues to function as a multi-denominational place of worship. A long-standing member of the Purga community has described the church and nearby school (1871) as local 'landmarks'.
\nThe first recorded non-indigenous settlement of the area occurred in the 1840s when William Wilson took up a pastoral run in the Mount Flinders area. Following the declaration of the Ipswich Agricultural Reserve in 1860, the Purga area was opened to closer agricultural settlement. During the American civil war (1861 — 1865) a shortage of cotton on the world market created opportunities for cotton farming in Australia. Cotton growing provided an impetus for development in the Purga area and by 1868 virtually all farmers in the district were cultivating this crop.
\nFrom the 1860s, a small community developed at Purga. In 1871, a State School opened and by 1894, the community had a post-mistress. Roman Catholic services reputedly were held in the home of John Dwyer a settler who had arrived from Ireland in 1862 or 1863. It seems likely that church services for other denominations also were held in homes or in the school building. The Methodist church had traveling ministries in the Ipswich area before and after the turn of the century.
\nIn 1922, the community decided to build a church that served all religions. As a descendant of one of the original church trustees noted: 'it was built for the people of Purga, it wasn't built for a separate religion'. This practice was a common response in early Queensland rural communities to the challenges of a scattered population and a shortage of clergy. What is unusual about the Purga Church is that it was erected comparatively late in the pattern of settlement of southeast Queensland.
\nThe reason for this decision at such a late stage of the development of the community is unclear. When reporting on the stump capping ceremony for the new church, the Queensland Times (12 December 1922) noted only that the need for a church had 'long been recognised' by the community. A range of denominations were represented in the small community. Six religious denominations were distributed between 23 families at the Purga State School in 1922. It is probable that there were insufficient members of any single denomination to justify the construction of a church building dedicated to one of these churches. In addition, at a national level, a spirit of cooperation had developed between three of the denominations represented in the district: the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches. The Ipswich newspaper, the Queensland Times had been reporting the efforts of these churches to form a union during 1922 and 1923. One of the points in favour of such a union was stated to be the more efficient use of church resources.
\nConstruction of the Purga church commenced in late 1922 on portion 58 on C155913, fronting the Ipswich-Boonah Road. On 9 December a stump capping ceremony was held. The gathering included ET Bell, MLA and Rev. GK Kirke (Moderator of the Presbyterian Church). When welcoming the guests, Cr TR Morgan, the chairman of the union church building committee, noted that it was intended to build the church by voluntary labour. The building committee secretary, M Dick, gave the projected cost of the building as about f170. It is believed that the labour, money and building materials were donated by the local community. The church was built on land owned by the Harding family. In late December 1922, a fifty year lease was formalised between the Harding family and the trustees of the church. The Hardings received a nominal rent of one shilling per annum which a descendant of the family believes was returned to the collection plate.
\nThe church continued to function as a cooperative venture supported by members of all religions represented in the community. All denominations contributed to maintaining the building. According to a local resident, in the mid-1950s when the church was painted for the first time, members of different churches represented in the district volunteered to work on the project. Visiting ministers from a range of religions led the weekly combined services. A photograph in the church, dated 1924, shows a small multi-denominational Sunday School. The marriage of Thomas Forsyth to Hannah Hodgson in 1925 was reputedly the first to be held in the church.
\nThe increasing secularization of Australian society in the late 20th century led to falling church attendances everywhere and from about the late 1960s, weekly religious services at the Purga church ceased due to lack of attendance. The Sunday School probably ceased soon after 1971. Despite this, the church continued to be valued by the community. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, the roof was replaced. Religious services continued to be held in the church for all denominations in the district but not as frequently as before.
\nIn 1989 the Purga Friends Association was formed to foster community spirit and local awareness of the district's history. The Association's first project was to move the church to its present location. After the lease of the land occupied by the church expired in the 1970s, the community's ownership of the church had become less secure. The Association successfully negotiated for the use of Crown land adjoining the former Purga State School and in 1995, the church was moved to its present site. The following year, the land was gazetted as a Reserve for Historical purposes under the control of the Purga Friends Association as trustees.
\nIn 2005, weddings, funerals and multi-denominational church services at Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day continued to be held in the church at its new location. Most of the church fittings reputedly are original. This includes the church organ, which was recently refurbished and continued to be used at services.
\n\n
","criteria":"
The Purga United Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. The community at Purga developed during the 1860s, opening its first school in 1871. The church was built as a non-denominational church in late 1922. Union churches were more typical in earlier Queensland rural communities. They were built as a means of dealing with the challenges of a small population of mixed religion and a shortage of clergy. The construction of a union church at Purga at such a late stage in the development of Queensland is unusual.
|The church demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage. It is a rare, intact example of a purpose built union church that continues to function as such. The church was built and maintained by voluntary contributions from members of several denominations in the district and clergy from different religions led combined services. Though no longer held weekly, multi-denominational religious services continue to be held on special occasions.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a multi-denominational church. It has many design features that are typical of simple rural churches including a steeply pitched roof and a pulpit. There is a notable absence of religious symbols or icons that would link it to a particular denomination. Most of the existing features of the building, including the church organ are reputedly original.
|The building has a strong association with the community at Purga for social and spiritual reasons. It has been valued by the Purga community and has functioned as its spiritual centre for over eighty years. Multiple generations of families still living in the district have worshipped at the church. After changed circumstances rendered its tenure less secure, the Friends of Purga Association moved the church to its present location in 1995 because they feared its loss.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16379,"place_ref":601618,"name":"Paragon Theatre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"75 Churchill Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The Paragon Theatre is a large timber building with a masonry façade prominently located on Churchill Street in Childers. The rear section of the building is a large shed-like form clad in unpainted timber weatherboards with a pitched, galvanised iron roof. The side walls have high level louvred openings under the eaves and timber framed windows in the lower section of the wall.
The parapeted façade is composed of face brick pilasters which divide the surface into three bays rendered with roughcast stucco. The parapet edge features a rectangular signage block flanked by a masonry balustrade. Three sets of timber casement windows are located in the upper sections of each of the bays. The glass of the windows has been painted and each set of windows is surmounted by horizontal awnings with small hipped roofs and supported by timber brackets. The upper section of the façade is painted in a dark chocolate brown.
A large awning projects from the surface of the façade, supported by iron tie-backs. The horizontal awning features a centrally located shallow arch which defines the entrance. Raised lettering on the front of the awning spelling 'PARAGON' is located on the arch. The entrance is via concrete steps to four pairs of folding glass and timber doors. Tapered pylons abutting the wall surface flank the entrance doors and support another arch over the doorway. The pylons, archway and trim on the awning are all painted in bright red with the remainder of the lower façade painted in dark green. Two shop fronts are situated at the corners of the front façade. The entry area has also been sub-divided with a lightweight partition in order to create a sub-tenancy. These three shopfront areas are currently unoccupied. The original ticket office and small foyer area are located to the eastern side of the entry.
Internally the theatre retains many of its early features, including seating, timber fretwork and lattice, light fittings and some balustrading. The ceiling and most of the side walls are covered with timber lattice mounted on timber posts, that stops just above the level of the exit doors in the side walls. The bottom edge of the lattice is finished with shallow arches trimmed with a double stripe painted in black. At the top of the side walls is a broad band of decoration achieved by picking out a pattern within the lattice with black paint.
The screen is covered with long curtains and is surrounded with fibro-cement panelling that frames the screen, now covering the proscenium. The orchestra pit has also been boarded over. Most of the ground floor seating is comprised of canvas, deckchair-type seating with one row of tip-up seating located against the back wall. The balcony upstairs has a raked, stepped timber floor, with each row of seats occupying a different level. The seating in the front three rows is timber and upholstered fixed seating, there are then two rows of canvas seats and a final row of "dress circle" seating at the back. The projection box if located at the rear of the balcony in a space enclosed with fibro-cement panelling.
A small timber residence is connected to the rear of the building and appears to be unoccupied. There is also a galvanised iron shed and timber tankstand and tank adjacent to this small house.
","history":"The Paragon Theatre in Childers was constructed in 1927 for local film exhibitors Gee, Philpott and Gee. It was designed by Brisbane architect Arthur Robson and replaced a smaller refreshment rooms and entertainment hall/picture show on the site.
Childers in 1927 was a prosperous sugar town established in the late 1880s at the head of the rail extension from Isis Junction into the surrounding scrub. The line, which opened on 31 October 1887, was intended to facilitate the transport of timber from the Isis Scrub, but also proved to be the catalyst for the establishment of a sugar industry in the district. By 1895, Childers had emerged as the flourishing centre of a substantial sugar-growing and sugar-milling district, and in the years between 1891 and 1900 the population grew from 91 to 4000. In 1903 the old Isis Divisional Board (1886) was abolished and Isis Shire proclaimed, with the new seat of municipal government moving from Howard to Childers.
Mr William Gee, a confectioner from Bundaberg, moved to Childers with his wife Minette and their two children about 1906. The Gees bought a single-storeyed shop where the Paragon Theatre now stands, in the main street of Childers, and opened it as a refreshment rooms (fruit shop, tea rooms and catering business). By 1908 they had added a ballroom in the form of a second floor to the building, and this was used for various functions, including Friday and Saturday night dances before the floor was ruined by roller skating. In 1912, the Gees installed a lighting plant run by an oil fuelled engine, and Gee's Hall became the venue for the first silent movies screened in the district. The first film shown was The Iron Claw, starring Pearl White. The Gees also introduced a travelling picture show service to other towns in the Isis district, including Dallarnil and Booyal.
By 1923 a second picture show, the Palace Theatre, had been opened in Childers. It was run by Harold Philpott in partnership with Mr A Archer, and was located in a hall behind the Palace Hotel in Churchill Street. Also by 1923, William Gee had disposed of his interest in Gee's Hall to his son Dudley and to Harold Philpott. He later retired with his wife and daughter to Sydney, where he died in 1926. By 1927, film-going had proved so popular that Philpott & Gee had determined to erect a modern, purpose-designed cinema in Childers. The scheme interested William Gee's daughter Margery, and a new firm, Gee, Philpott and Gee was established to facilitate the construction of the Paragon Theatre where Gee's Hall once stood. Some of the material from the original hall was used in the construction of the new theatre.
Plans were prepared by architect Arthur Robson of Brisbane, who was reported in the local press of 1927 as having been responsible for the construction of over twenty cinemas in Queensland, including theatres at East Brisbane, Gladstone and Ayr. Robson designed the Paragon Theatre as a tropical theatre. This may refer to the use of timber lattice and fretwork throughout the interior, on the ceiling and the proscenium, concealing high level windows providing ventilation not used in standard cinema design. The tropical theatre style was popular for Queensland theatres of the 1920s and 1930s, including the Alhambra Theatre at Stones Corner and the Paddington Theatre on Given Terrace, Brisbane. The writer of an article on the Paragon Theatre in the Bundaberg Times Isis District Souvenir of 1927, commented:
In all centres it has been recognised that the old style theatres are not suitable, hence modern ideas have been brought to bear in the planning of structures suitable for the climatic conditions, and a new type of theatre evolved, one of which will rise on the site of the present Gee's Hall. (p19)
The theatre was intended to accommodate 1200 people, in a hall measuring 60 by 120 feet, but this may have been optimistic - the Film Weekly Directory of 1938-39 lists the Paragon Theatre at Childers with a seating capacity of 600. A large stage for both traditional drama and musical shows as well as the cinema screen, with adjoining dressing rooms, was provided, with an orchestra pit below the stage. The proscenium was decorated with timber fretwork incorporating transparent lining which concealed electric lighting. The ceiling and walls were lined with timber lattice. The theatre contained a dress circle and several private boxes with upholstered seating, and canvas seats and forms, or long benches, were provided in the stalls. The auditorium was constructed of timber with a galvanised iron roof, but the Mediterranean-styled decorative façade was of brick and stucco. The entrance was flagged by brick columns clad with glazed tiles and opened to a lobby 18 feet wide by 15 feet deep (5.49 x 4.57 metres respectively). The design also incorporated two small shops fronting the street, either side of the entrance, and employed the first cantilevered awning in the district. The contractor on the project was P Mellefont, junr.
During construction, Gee, Philpott & Gee screened films at the Palace Theatre and at the Band Hall at Childers until a temporary screen could be erected in the semi-completed Paragon Theatre. Reputedly, when the new picture theatre formally opened in 1928, the first film screened was Warner Brothers' 1927 classic The Jazz Singer, which pioneered synchronised-sound film production. If this were so, then the Paragon opened as a 'talkie' theatre.
Soon after the opening of the new theatre Harold Philpott sold his share of the business to Dudley and Margery Gee, who exhibited under the name Paragon Pictures Company. The Paragon Theatre was now the only picture theatre in the Isis and regularly screened films and cartoons on Wednesday and Saturday nights, from 8 pm, for which seats could be reserved. The theatre was sold in 1949 to Peter and Mary Sourris of Gayndah, who changed the sound system, replaced the entrance gates with glass doors, closed one of the internal staircases to the dress circle, and replaced the forms with canvas seats. At this period the store run by Paul Cominos at the front of the theatre was closed. By 1960 the Sourris family had sold the theatre to Granville and Iris Knowles who constructed a ticket box and fitted a cinemascope screen, which closed the stage for concert use. The theatre was later sold to the Ricciardi family.
In 2007 Thomas Griffiths and Merissa Ricciardi purchased the theatre and have worked to repair and restore its failing elements with the aim of accommodating a range of community uses there. The business name Paragon Theatre (1962) is still registered. As of October 2011, Ms Ricciardi and new co-owner Nigel Craft intend over the coming years to continue the restoration of the building and eventually reopen it to the public as an entertainment venue.
Approximately 130 rural picture theatres/shows were listed in the Queensland Post Office Directory for 1930-31, and this list was not exhaustive. A recent survey of rural theatres conducted by Griffith University revealed that few 1920s cinemas were still operating in regional Queensland. Surviving theatres included the Majestic at Pomona (QHR 602696, erected 1921 - seats 300); the Astor at Surat (QHR 602352, 1925 - seats 150); the Majestic at Malanda (QHR 601743, 1926 -seats 300); the Radio at Barcaldine (1926 - seats 550) and the Airdome at Innisfail (1928 - seats 760).
","criteria":"The Paragon Theatre, constructed in 1927, is one of the oldest picture theatres still operating in Queensland and is important an illustrating a significant aspect of the pattern of this state's history, namely, the expansion of popular entertainment in Queensland in the interwar period. In particular, the construction and continued operation of the Paragon Theatre illustrates the vital and substantive role of independent film exhibition in rural Queensland.
|The Paragon Theatre is a rare surviving 1920s Queensland regional theatre which still functions as a cinema, and is important in demonstrating an aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage which is no longer common.
|The building is a good example of 1920s regional picture theatre architecture adapted to the Queensland climate, and is important in illustrating its type. It is a highly intact 1920s cinema which reveals important information about picture theatre design in Queensland during a formative period. The intactness of the interior in particular offers present and future generations an understanding of the experience of cinema viewing in a rural Queensland picture theatre of the interwar era.
|The Paragon Theatre, located prominently fronting the main street of Childers, has a distinctive façade which makes a major contribution to an exceptional streetscape of buildings in Churchill Street (Bruce Highway), Childers. In this it has aesthetic significance.
|The theatre was a focal point of social life in the Childers/Isis district from the late 1920s until well into the 1969s, and has a strong association for the local community with popular entertainment and movie-going in the period before the ready availability of television and videotape players.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16380,"place_ref":601619,"name":"Irvinebank School of Arts Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"McDonald Street","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-05-29","description":"The Irvinebank School of Arts Hall is a one storeyed timber building, located on a prominent intersection in the Northern Queensland town of Irvinebank. Close to the School of Arts Hall are the Queensland National Bank and John Moffat's House, both of which are culturally significant elements of the townscape. The Hall is surrounded by established trees including several figs.
The building which is raised from the ground on round timber stumps, has a rectangular plan and a corrugated iron gabled roof. The timber framed building has exposed timber studwork, with horizontal timber lining in some sections which are protected by verandahs. The symmetrically composed north eastern facade features three projecting gabled bays, enclosed with weatherboards, with simple decorative barge boards, finials and vertical sash windows. These bays emphasise the central entrance and two end corners of this facade. Between the projecting elements is a bull-nosed verandah with diagonally crossed balustrading. The principal entrance, through the projecting central bay, is accessed via a straight timber stair from the east. High level openings, above the verandah awning, provide light and ventilation to the internal hall as do round openings on the gables of the north eastern and south western facades.
Internally, the building features a large hall with stage and semi-enclosed verandah spaces running along the two long sides. The hall is fully lined with unpainted red cedar timber boards, on the floor, walls and partially raked ceiling. A timber arch, featuring moulded and reeded sections, forms the proscenium over the elevated stage, which is lined with diagonal timber boarding as are some of the doors.
","history":"The Irvinebank School of Arts Hall was constructed in about 1900, as the third building of the Irvinebank School of Arts Committee. The building reflects the growth of Irvinebank during a period of its prosperity as a base metal mining district.
In 1880 the Great Northern tin lode was discovered in the Herberton area and prominent businessman, John Moffat, and his company, the Glen Smelting Company, soon secured a monopoly over mining and reduction works in the area. Moffat arrived in Queensland from Scotland in 1862, where he soon opened his own business, from which grew his empire. Whilst Moffat was overseas in 1883, his partner, George Young, bought mines in what was then Gibb's Camp, in the Herberton district. Gibb's Camp was renamed Irvinebank after Moffat's birthplace in Scotland, and the Loudoun Mill, comprising a five headed crushing battery and tin smelter, was opened there on December 10, 1884. Moffat envisaged Irvinebank as a major industrial region of the Atherton Tablelands, and established both his business interests and home in the town.
A School of Arts Committee was established in Irvinebank by March 1885, at which time a subscribed sum of £100, along with a subsidy, was used to construct a building. This first building, which no longer stands, was opened by July 1885.
Schools of Arts were popular institutions in many Queensland towns, the first was established in 1849 in Brisbane. They were based on an English model, which provided opportunities for the education of wider sections of the community; this being a popular nineteenth century social concern. Typically, in Queensland, the schools were set up by the local community who received a government subsidy. The building usually provided a reading room, subscription library and a public hall for lectures and debating. Upon its opening in 1885, the Irvinebank School of Arts was well patronised...(with) sound judgement...been displayed...in expending a good portion of the funds on books, papers and leading weekly journals...instead of putting too much into the building.
Irvinebank experienced rapid development during the late 1880s and 1890s, when tin mining was successful, particularly after the opening of the Vulcan tin mine in 1889, subsequently purchased by Moffat, which became one of the most successful tin mines in the district. Irvinebank was further boosted after 1894 when low silver prices lead to adjacent towns, such as Montalbion, experiencing severe downturns.
This prosperity at Irvinebank is reflected in the various Schools of Arts buildings that were built as previous buildings became inadequate. In 1890 there is evidence of the renovation of the first building that was vacated for a larger and more substantial second School of Arts building. This may have been constructed adjacent to where the Queensland National Bank would be built and across the street from where the third School of Arts building would stand. This second building was a simple rectangular timber building, with exposed stud framing and gabled roof.
In 1900 a third building was required, and a School of Arts Hall was planned, with a proposal drawn in September 1900 by an unknown author with initials H.H.P., possibly Henry Pope, an architect who was doing work in North Queensland at the time. The new building was planned with a large hall that the previous buildings lacked. Visiting vaudeville and dramatic companies were now able to frequent the town, as provision was made in the new building for stage accommodation. Alterations were carried out to the School of Arts Hall in 1912, enclosing the projecting entrance bay and altering the stage which was to be one of the largest in the north...(to) suit the largest company which comes around.
However, Irvinebank continued in prosperity only until the First World War, when the metal markets fell. John Moffat had retired to Sydney in 1912, and the Irvinebank smelters were sold to the Queensland Government in 1918, since when the town has steadily declined. The School of Arts Hall continues as a community hall and focal point of Irvinebank activities, to this day.
","criteria":"The Irvinebank School of Arts Hall provides evidence of the growth and prosperity of Irvinebank, as a result of the successful base metal mining industry, encouraged by the prominent Queensland businessman, John Moffat.
|The building is on a prominent site in Irvinebank, and is an integral part of a precinct including the QN Bank and Moffat's house. The Irvinebank School of Arts is a landmark in the town.
|The Irvinebank School of Arts Hall has been continuously used as a school of arts hall since its construction in about 1900. As the only public hall in Irvinebank, the building has been the focal point of social life in the town.
|The building has associations with Moffat who reputedly financed its construction.
The School of Arts Hall provides intact evidence of the workings of a school of arts, a common institution of many Queensland towns in the nineteenth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16387,"place_ref":601626,"name":"Stonehouse","alternate_name":"Moore Stone Houses","street_address":"8777 D'Aguilar Highway","suburb":"MOORE","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-10-25","description":"'Stonehouse' currently comprises three stone structures on the southern side of the highway between Moore and Nanango. They are on a spur that drops away sharply to the west to a creek and river flat. The ridge rising behind the buildings is thought to have been the source for the stone used in construction.
Closest to the highway, which was the former coach road, are the remains of the main building. These ruins comprise one single storey wing of rubble laid with a lime mortar. The timber window and doorframes remain, though the windows and door they held have gone. Sections of a pole roof frame also survive. The rest of this building has collapsed and though sections of wall can be discerned, much of the stone has been removed over time.
Directly behind to one side of this building is a detached kitchen and pantry. This building is intact. It is rectangular in plan and is also constructed of rubble. It has a verandah roof supported on timber posts along one side over an earth floor. The gabled roof is clad with corrugated iron over a frame of poles and pit-sawn beams although the battens have been renewed. The walls are higher inside than outside and are formed around the roof beams and door lintels. The end wall to the rear contains a chimney that has been repaired with brick at the top. The interior of the structure has been limewashed and has a timber floor. There is a wide fireplace and working bench for cooking at one end with a brick floor around the hearth. At the other end of the building is a room with a lean to roof and a brick floor, which is thought to have been used as a pantry.
The store and butcher's shop is of similar construction and is set further back on the site and about 25 metres away from the kitchen, which was once separated from it by an internal laneway. The store has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron with battens for shingles underneath. It comprises three rooms: a large room with a timber floor and two small rooms at the end of the building. These are connected with each other, but not with the timber floored section. The room at the rear has stone paving visible under a concrete topping. The wall at this end of the building has been clad in corrugated iron and a section at the front in recycled timber slabs.
One metre behind the store is a large modern metal shed in the position once occupied by the smithy and fowl yards. There is no visible trace of the outbuildings once located at the rear of the property.
A mid twentieth century timber building on low stumps is located at the front of the property and is the current residence.
","history":"'Stonehouse' is a group of related stone buildings on the D'Aguilar Highway, formerly part of the old coach road between Esk and Nanango, which were built in the 1870s and 1880s as part of a homestead and wayside inn complex.
The land on which the complex was built had been part of a pastoral run called 'Colinton', which was taken up by John and Robert Balfour in 1841. The early 1840s were a period of pastoral expansion in the Moreton Bay, Darling Downs and Brisbane Valley Regions following the winding down and closure of the penal colony at Moreton Bay. Although the Darling Downs had been visited in 1827 by explorer Alan Cunningham, who had reported favourably on the suitability of the district for pastoralism, the presence of the fifty-mile exclusion zone around the penal colony and consequent lack of port access had discouraged early settlement. In 1840, the Leslie brothers arrived from the Clarence River district and took up Canning Downs, the first pastoral run on the Downs. In 1841 the runs in the Brisbane Valley were Cressbrook, Colinton and Farney Lawn taken up under licences to occupy Crown Land beyond the limit of settlement. By 1842, when Moreton Bay was thrown open for free settlement, a cluster of huge runs had claimed most of the productive land on the Darling Downs and searches for grazing country were extending north. The area around 'Stonehouse' was declared as pastoral district in May 1842 and the runs of Kilcoy, Taromeo, Taabinga and Burrandowan were taken up in that year.
In 1859 the new colony of Queensland was created and in the 1868 the Crown Lands Alienation Act was passed to make land available for closer settlement by drastically reducing the size of existing pastoral runs. This brought more settlers into the Brisbane Valley. In 1873 and 1874 around 30 members of the Williams family of Gloucestershire in England arrived in Queensland as immigrants. They settled in Brisbane, Ipswich and the Brisbane Valley. Robert Williams, a widower, had previously lived in Ipswich in the 1860s and in 1874 he selected two blocks of land totalling 2442 acres from the Colinton lease as a grazing property. His brother Charles with his wife Emma joined him. Charles, who was a stonemason, began work on a five-roomed stone house at the selection, which Robert had named 'Stonehouse' after the village in Gloucestershire where he had lived. The new building was close to a two-room slab house that the family presumably lived in during construction. Building in stone was an unusual choice in this area, but a natural one for a family of stonemasons, given the ready availability of the materia on site. Because the house was built of stone, the name later became corrupted to 'Stone House' or 'Stone Houses'.
In the 1870s, Edward (Ned) MacDonald started a coach and mail service between his hotel at Esk and Goode's Inn at Nanango along the old dray route. Several stops for changes of horses punctuated the trip. 'Stonehouse' was one of these and the Williams built stables on the river flats across the road from the inn. Robert Williams applied for and gained a hotel licence for the property in 1880 as the Stonehouse Hotel, Wallaby Creek, Colinton.
The places where major routes crossed watercourses were often used as camps by drovers and carriers and were excellent locations for inns that catered to travellers. These were places where one could obtain food and accommodation for people and horses, where it was usually possible to obtain the services of a blacksmith, leave or collect mail and gain information on the condition of the road ahead. The inns were also a social amenity as a source of company and conviviality on the road. Their services made the development of regular supply routes possible, which in turn made a major contribution to the way in which areas were opened up for European settlement.
In 1884 the 'Stonehouse' license was forfeited following an incident where Robert Williams was threatened with an axe following his attempt to intervene in a drink-fuelled argument between members of group of Aborigines camped near the hotel. continued to provide food and accommodation for travellers, however, and is mentioned in the popular 19th century ballad 'Brisbane Ladies' as being a stop on the road.
In 1882, Emma Williams died and was buried near the creek. This grave was washed away by a flood surge in the 1940s. Robert Williams remarried and a kitchen and pantry were constructed as apprentice work by his nephew Frank Williams. Charles Williams died in 1887 as the result of an accident near 'Taromeo' where he had been carrying out stonework. The last masonry work carried out at 'Stonehouse' was in 1888 when Frank Williams completed the store and butcher's shop.
In 1893, Alex MacCallum, who thereafter ran a coach service that used the facilities at 'Stonehouse', gained the mail contract. It ran until 1910, at first three times a week, then from 1902, twice a week. Times were changing and in 1900 a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the possible route for a railway in the area, taking evidence at Esk, 'Cressbrook', 'Colinton' and 'Stonehouse', which were the coach stops. 'Colinton' was cut up and sold around this time, bringing in many new settlers and 'Stonehouse' acted as a provision store and butcher's shop for them.
A small township was surveyed at Moore, named for the then owners of 'Colinton', gaining a postal receiving office in 1903 and a post office in 1905. In 1910 a railway station opened at Moore.
Robert Williams had died in 1907 and was buried near Moore. A memorial made by Frank Williams, who had established a monumental masonry firm at Ipswich in 1901, marks his grave. Frank was later to construct many war memorials, including those at Esk, Gatton, Warwick and Ipswich. 'Stonehouse' was left in trust to a nephew, Thomas (TJC) Williams, who moved to the property with his family in 1908. A sale was then held of cattle, pigs and the post horses. At the time it was found that the buildings needed maintenance and by 1910 repairs and refurbishment had been carried out. By this time iron had already been laid over the original shingles. Between 1914 and 1918 the first house was demolished and the stables collapsed. A tennis court was erected in the vicinity of the stables.
In 1923 Jane Williams became ill and the family moved to Brisbane, leasing 'Stonehouse' to Allan Patterson who arranged for Arthur Ollenburg, a Williams family member, to manage the property. TJC Williams died in 1932 and Jane in 1933. The 'Stonehouse' land was subdivided and sold by auction. J J Tilley purchased the land containing Stonehouse and in 1939 it was bought by Barney Grant who continued to employ Arthur Ollenburg as manager. Grant died in 1945 and in 1946 his son took over the management of 'Stonehouse' and built a house for himself and his family. I
In 1950 a plaque recognising the historical significance of 'Stonehouse' to the area was affixed to the house, but between 1948 and 1960 the buggy shed, workshop, hayshed, poultry run, slaughterhouse and barn were demolished. In 1967 a storm removed the front verandah roof of the main building. A large crack in the wall had developed and a section of the house was then demolished. The Esk Shire Council used stone blocks from this section to construct a picnic shelter at Moore.
The house was inspected and drawn by Karl Langer for the National Trust of Queensland in 1969. Since then the buildings have continued to deteriorate and the proportion of the main building still standing has diminished. The current owners purchased the property in order to preserve it in January 2001.
","criteria":"'Stonehouse' is a group of stone buildings surviving from an early wayside inn and as such illustrates the pattern of European settlement in Queensland. Inns serviced early supply routes by providing food and accommodation, fresh horses and a mail exchange and greatly facilitated the spread of European settlement. In particular the 'Stonehouse' complex illustrates the transition of the surrounding area from pastoral settlement in the early 1840s to closer settlement from the 1870s when the first structures at 'Stonehouse' were built.
|The inn complex is rare in Queensland both as a surviving example of a travellers' inn and as a group of early stone buildings that utilise material found on site.
|The 'Stonehouse' inn, its subsidiary structures and the area around them, which formed part of the inn yards, have the potential to reveal information about the operation of wayside inns in Queensland.
|'Stonehouse' is a good example of its kind and preserves examples of early building techniques in both stone and timber.
|The 'Stonehouse' complex has strong aesthetic appeal as a group of well made traditional buildings that are pleasing in form, materials and detail. The use of local stone makes them visually harmonious with the landscape and their prominent position above the highway has made them a well-liked landmark.
|'Stonehouse' has associations with several generations of the Williams family, who emigrated from Gloucestershire to Queensland as an extended family group in the early 1870s. It has particular associations with Charles and Frank Williams who constructed the building, Frank Williams later becoming a notable monumental mason.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16388,"place_ref":601627,"name":"Garners Beach Burial Ground","alternate_name":"Wilford Hill | Garners Beach Cemetery | Clump Point Private Cemetery","street_address":"142 Garners Beach Road","suburb":"BINGIL BAY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"Garner's Beach, lying southeast-northwest, is situated in a large bay between Ninney and Murdering Points, a couple of kilometres north of Bingil Bay. Middle Beach separates Garner's Beach from Bingil Bay.
The southeastern end of Garner's Beach forms a small bay, where the Garner family established their settlement. The beach is about a kilometre in length with a rocky outcrop at the northwest end. Past these rocks is another small beach [Carstairs], also terminated by a rocky outcrop, and north of this is Figtree Beach, bounded by Muff Creek to the south and Maria Creek to the north. Kurrimine Beach lies on the north side of Maria Creek.
The burial ground is located on private property about halfway up a promontory [Wilford Hill] at the southeastern end of Garner's Beach, and is accessed from Garner's Beach Road. The site is approximately 200 metres from the flat where most of the early 20th century settlement occurred, and occupies a small area 12 metres by 13 metres, defined by, and partly including, vehicular tracks in use on the property.
The burial ground contains the graves of five members of the Garner family: Edith Fay Garner [buried 25 August 1935], Catherine Mary Garner [buried 2 January 1937], Thomas Edward Garner [buried 5 July 1945], Edward Henry Garner [buried 29 March 1965], and Edward Christian Garner [buried 20 August 1968]. The graves are located in close proximity to each other, and face west. Four of the graves share a common concrete grave kerbing, 250mm high by 150mm wide, which has remnant evidence of a simple worked metal surround. The grave of Edward Christian Garner lies immediately east of the other graves, and has a separate concrete surround with concrete corner posts with chain metal strung between them. Each of the graves has a concrete headstone, with a marble plaque attached. The headstones of the three men buried here each displays a sequence of three symbols, in bas-relief and painted black, at the top of the headstone: a ship's wheel, a Christian cross, and a ship's anchor.
","history":"Garner's Beach Burial Ground is associated with the settlement of the Muff Creek area, just north of Clump Point and Bingil Bay, by the Garner family, who held the land around Muff Creek from 1911 to the early 1970s.
The first of the Garner family to be associated with the beach were Edward Thomas Garner, his wife Edith Fay Johnson, and their 3 children. Edward and Edith and their first child, Edward Henry, emigrated to New South Wales c1889. ET Garner was a seaman, and had spent most of his life working on boats, or building them. It is thought that he came to Queensland in 1889 from Sydney, when he brought up to Townsville for the Hayles brothers, the boat with which they commenced their ferry service to Magnetic Island. Garner stayed in North Queensland and took up timber-getting. This occupation brought him to the Clump Point district, where he cut logs from the hills behind Mission Beach.
By c1900 the Garner family had settled in Cardwell, and in the early 1900s were engaged in ferrying stores, plants and equipment for the Chinese who were establishing banana plantations along the Hull River, and lightering plantation produce to the coastal steamers offshore, for transport to southern markets. In 1905 they took up a selection on the Murray River and established a sawmill there, producing packing cases for the banana trade. In 1909 they moved to Bingil Bay, where ET Garner, his son EH Garner, his nephew Arthur Garner of Mundoo, and his son-in-law Adolph [Lou] Wildsoet, erected and managed a sawmill for the Cutten family on their Bicton Plantation near Clump Point. The sawmill did not prove profitable for the Cuttens. They soon sold it, and the Garner family looked around for a selection of their own in the district.
Late in 1910, ET Garner made application to select portion 10v, parish of Hull, a block of just under 160 acres along Muff Creek, with a coastal frontage [now known as Garner's Beach], extending from a promontory on the coast just north of Middle Beach, northwest to Cedar Creek. Much of this block was covered by dense tropical jungle or bloodwood, tea tree and mahogany forest. It had been surveyed and thrown open to selection in 1905, when the Maria Creek district was opened up for the banana trade. Selected by F Dillon in 1905, it was forfeited by 1906, and offered for selection again in 1910 as an Agricultural Farm. In December 1910, ET Garner was granted a 20 year lease on the block from 1 January 1911, and was issued with a license to occupy it as an Agricultural Farm [AF 755].
On the Muff Creek selection, the ET Garners were joined by the families of their son Edward Henry and daughter Elizabeth Ann Wildsoet, and by Arthur Garner. The Garner-Wildsoet families cleared the land and grew bananas for export by sea. Several shipping companies - Adelaide Steamship, Howard Smith and AUSN lines - regularly picked up plantation produce off the various beaches or stream-mouths. The Garners built several boats on their Muff Creek selection - some as long as 60 feet long, with steam or oil engines - and were heavily involved with lightering activity on Muff, Maria and Liverpool Creeks. They transported intending settlers, goods and supplies upstream, and farm produce downstream and out to the shipping company boats offshore. The family also attended to some of the navigation lights in the area. When sugar farms were established in the hinterland in the early 1910s, the Garners commenced lime production, blasting coral from King's Reef with gelignite. This was burnt at Garner's Beach, and transported by boat to South Johnstone, for sale to sugar cane farmers.
By late 1915, over 40 acres of the Garner selection had been felled and was under cultivation: 30 acres under bananas, 8 acres under citrus fruits, and 3 acres under pineapples; with a further 5 acres felled, burnt and partly cleared. Much of the unskilled work was done by local Aborigines, who were paid in food and tools, apparently to everyone's mutual satisfaction. Four 4-roomed houses of silky oak with galvanised iron roofs [prefabricated buildings shipped from Townsville] had been constructed, and improvements included outbuildings and a lime kiln. The property was known as Wilford Hill - presumably named after Wilford Hill, Nottingham, England where Edward Thomas and Edith Fay were married in 1886.
During the First World War [1914-1918], only ET Garner, his wife and youngest daughter [Nellie] remained at the beach. Arthur Garner joined the AIF and served at Gallipoli, and EH Garner and his family left the beach to take up timber-hauling work near Silkwood. The principal shipping companies, with many of their vessels commandeered for war purposes, curtailed their coastal trade, and Clump Point settlers like the Garners lost access to southern markets. However, until the completion of the Brisbane to Cairns railway in 1924, ET Garner still found work for his boats, which his daughter helped him to run. For a while the coastal steamers continued to call at the wharf in Maria Creek established by the Adelaide Steamship Company c1904, and the Garner boats ferried the cargoes of most of the Clump Point growers from their beaches to the wharf. The loss of markets was compounded by a severe cyclone in 1918, which devastated the district, destroying houses, plantations, boats and a newly completed government wharf near Clump Point. The ET Garner's house, built halfway up Wilford Hill, was swept away.
By the early 1920s, ET Garner had acquired adjoining selection no.1174, and was resident there from at least 1921 to 1924. By late 1925, the Garners had returned to portion 10v, where they had about 800 citrus trees and 12 acres under bananas. There was a 5-roomed house on the property, 5 small accommodation huts, and a cow bail and yards. It is understood that the galvanised iron huts were erected in the 1920s as fishing/holiday accommodation for use by the Garner family, their visitors and paying holiday-makers, but served a more charitable purpose during the 1930s. JG Tierney, who married into the Garner family, later recalled:
Many years later as I moved to different areas in the North with my wife and family I would work with men who, when told that my wife was a Garner from Garners Beach, would tell me of the fond memories of good times they had spent at Garners Beach and I started to realise that there was a story to the family that I didn't know and was never mentioned by them. As I understand it, during the 1930s depression some people who came on hard times were welcome to stay at the beach and as the area was nearly self-supporting nobody went hungry and after a period of time as they sorted themselves out would move on and continue with their lives.
In 1931, ET Garner applied for an extension of his lease on Agricultural Farm no.755 [portion 10v]. This was approved and extended to 30 years from 1 January 1911. A January 1931 inspection of the property concluded that it was a Very well improved farm, recently extra good improvements effected for Dairying.
By mid-1935, the property was being managed by Lou Wildsoet and his sons. On 24 August 1935, Edith Garner, aged 67 years, died at Wilford Hill. She was buried the following day near her home, in what is now known as Garner's Beach Burial Ground, the first interment there. ET Garner retired to Tully, and in 1937 his lease on AF755 was transferred to his son, who in 1941 obtained title to the land as freehold.
The second interment at Garner's Beach was that of Catherine Mary Garner [neé Wildsoet], wife of EH Garner, who died on 1 January 1937 at Tully District Hospital following a car accident, and was buried at Wilford Hill the next day. A late 1930s photograph indicates that a barbed wire fence once delineated the boundary of the burial ground.
By October 1939, EH Garner was making little use of Wilford Hill other than to run a few dairy cattle, devoting most of his time to operating a hire boat, taking fishing parties to the Barrier Reef. He was also rafting logs to Dunk Island for trans-shipping. During the Second World War [1939-45] several of EH Garner's children served with the armed forces. After the war his sons returned to Garner's Beach, built a 45 foot boat they called the Day Spring, and into the 1950s continued taking boating parties around the Reef.
ET Garner died at Tully District Hospital on 4 July 1945, aged 86 years, and was buried the next day at the Clump Point Private Cemetery. This was the third burial at Garner's Beach.
From 1951, the Garner family began to subdivide portion 10v, and in the late 1950s/early 1960s several holiday homes were constructed near Garner's Beach, including the retreat of Australian Treasurer and later Prime Minister, Harold Holt. The Holt residence was located near the Garner graves.
In the 1960s two more members of the Garner family were laid to rest at Garner's Beach: Edward Henry Garner, who died at the Innisfail District Hospital on 27 March 1965, aged almost 77 years; and Edward Christian Garner, son of Edward Henry Garner and Catherine Mary Wildsoet, who died at the Innisfail District Hospital on 18 August 1968, aged 59 years.
Following EH Garner's death, title to nearly 26 acres at Garner's Beach, which included the burial ground, was transferred in 1965 to his son and daughter-in-law, Stanley Douglas Garner and Elsie Norma Garner. They in turn sold the property, including the burial ground, to the Kenny family in 1972.
","criteria":"Garner's Beach Burial Ground has a close association with the work of the Garner family - farmers, boat builders and boat operators - in developing the Clump Point district as a fruit producing region in the early 20th century.
|The family was well-known and highly regarded in the local community, and in their boat building and boat operating activities in particular, made a significant contribution to the development of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16389,"place_ref":601628,"name":"Antbed House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"South Street","suburb":"GEORGETOWN","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"The Antbed House is rectangular in plan and approximately 8 metres by 9 metres with a steeply pitched pyramidal corrugated iron clad roof with a convex unframed corrugated iron verandah which sits about 0.4 metre below the roof eaves and is supported on timber posts.
The walls of the house are about 3.5 metres high and are made from earth bricks which have standard dimensions 0.2 metre long X 0.09 metre high X 0.11 metre wide. The external walls are two standard brick lengths thick and the internal walls are one brick thick. The bricks are laid in the English bond pattern with alternate layers of headers and stretchers. Longer bricks are used at the corners and openings of the building. The bricks are rendered with a lime coating, which is scored externally to resemble ashlar stonework and has black tuck pointing added. The bricks appear to have been constructed locally from a termite mound known as 'Ant Bed'.
The timber verandah floor has been replaced with concrete and concrete is used for flooring throughout the house except in one room which retains a timber boarded floor. Several layers of early linoleum survive on this floor. The interior is open to the underside of the roof and it is unclear whether a ceiling was removed although this seems unlikely.
","history":"The Antbed House was erected in c1890, probably as a mine manager's residence. It is the only surviving adobe house identified in North Queensland towns, and is constructed of bricks made of antbed from termite mounds. Antbed was used more commonly for floors, tennis courts, and mortar or to seal slab buildings, but rarely for bricks.
Georgetown was established as the township of Etheridge, following the discovery of the Overland Telegraph reef near the Etheridge River in 1870, and was renamed by the Mines Department in honour of the Etheridge goldfields first Gold Commissioner, Howard St George, who was appointed in 1872. Initially it was just one of several shanty town which mushroomed on the huge Etheridge goldfield following publication early in 1869 of geologist Richard Daintree's discoveries of gold on the Gilbert River. A rush began immediately, and by July 1869 there were 3000 men on the field. By late 1871, the township of Etheridge (Georgetown) had a population of 600, and emerged as the field's administrative centre. From the early 1870s, both the police and the mining warden (who usually was the police magistrate as well) were located at Georgetown; the town was serviced by the Bank of New South Wales and the overland telegraph from Normanton to Cardwell from 1872; and a state school opened at Georgetown in July 1874. Timber was scarce, and most of the buildings were constructed of timber frames clad with corrugated galvanised iron.
Georgetown was a mining township, subject to the Gold Fields Act of 1874, and sections 1 to 20 of the township of Georgetown were surveyed in mid-1874 by mining surveyor EA Kayser. His survey plan, dated 25 July 1874, indicates buildings already erected in the township, including structures outside of the surveyed sections. The Antbed House is not indicated on this plan.
The population and fortunes of Georgetown fluctuated in the 1870s, following the discovery in 1873 of the rich Palmer River Goldfield to the east of the Etheridge, and the Hodgkinson rush of 1876. However, by mid 1878 miners were returning to the Etheridge, and Georgetown settled into an administrative and commercial role, serving Etheridge pastoralists and a number of London based mining companies. Between 1880 and 1900 Georgetown, with an average population of around 300, experienced something of a building boom, with a new court house, school, post office, and bank, and the hotels re-built as more substantial structures. These buildings were of timber and iron.
Increasing demand for Gold Field Homestead Leases at Georgetown resulted in a Mines Department survey of Sections 21 to 26 of the town of Georgetown, late 1888 early 1889, as residential allotments. The site of the Antbed House (allotments 1 and 2 of Section 22, parish of Georgetown, county of Gilbert) was included in this survey, and there is no indication on the plan, dated 1 February 1889, that there was any structure on the site at the time of survey.
In July 1889 application was made by the British mining company, the Goldfields of North Queensland Limited, for a Gold Fields Homestead Lease on allotments 1 and 2 of Section 22, at the corner of South and Haldane Streets, Georgetown. The area comprised 2 roods, and at the time of the application, there were no prior claims to this ground. Lease No.257 was prepared by the Mines Department and forwarded to the mining warden at Georgetown in September 1890. It was delivered the same month to the applicant company but appears to have been returned to the mining warden in December 1890 by William Kirby, the new manager for The Goldfields of North Queensland Limited mining company.
The Goldfields of North Queensland Limited mining company had been incorporated in London in March 1888 and was registered in Queensland on 25 July 1888, with the company office registered at Georgetown. On that same date the company purchased the leases, plant, buildings etc of The Mining and Prospectus Company Ltd (also London based), which incorporated the following Etheridge claims and leases: Melbourne Exhibition, Spiro (or Spero) Meliora, Caledonia (Lanes Creek), International (Donneybrook), Rocky, Stonewall Jackson, Ann Day, Havelock Block and Reef, Captain Townley, and King William. On paper the company was a substantial enterprise, with capital of £100 000, but it appears to have became defunct in the early 1890s. The only crushings recorded under the name of The Goldfields of North Queensland Limited were made in July 1889, but output records of individual crushing mills within the consortium, particularly Lanes Creek and Donneybrook, were recorded through the 1890s.
It is likely that the Antbed House in Georgetown was erected in 1889 or 1890 for the Georgetown manager of The Goldfields of North Queensland Limited mining company, prior to the lease instrument having been issued. The adobe brick building was rendered externally to resemble stonework, and was a substantial residence comprising a large parlour, wide hallway and two bedrooms in the main house, with wide verandahs on all sides and a detached antbed kitchen house at the rear. Of more imposing appearance than the usual timber and iron Georgetown dwelling, this house could well have been erected for the manager of what started out as a substantial mining enterprise.
In April 1896, the Georgetown mining warden reported that Gold Fields Homestead Lease No.257, Georgetown, had been forfeited and written off, and that Etheridge grazier Marmaduke Curr of Abingdon Downs had applied that month for a new lease (No.545) of the site. The warden, reporting on the application on 19 May 1896, recorded that improvements consisted of a dwelling house valued at £200, and this is likely to be the Antbed House.
The new lease instrument was received by the Georgetown mining warden in September 1896 and forwarded to Mr Curr's agent in early November that year. However, the lease was transferred on 7 November 1896 to Louisa Boyle, wife of Vicars William Boyle, manager of the Queensland National Bank at Georgetown until its closure in July 1894, and a mining manager at Georgetown by 1896. It is not known whether Curr ever used the Antbed House as his town residence, nor for how long the Boyles occupied the residence (if at all) until the lease was transferred to newspaper proprietor Thomas Everett in February 1902.
By 1901, Everett had joined John Phair as co-proprietor of Georgetown's local newspaper, The Mundic Miner (first issued 1889), and by 1904 was the sole proprietor. A photograph of the Everett family in front of their Georgetown residence, the present Antbed House, appeared in The North Queensland Register of 16 September 1907, and the lease was transferred into Mrs Everett's name in 1914. The Everetts left Georgetown c1917, when the newspaper was taken over by Arthur Gard, and it is understood the Antbed House changed hands a number of times in the next three decades, although no transfer of the lease was recorded at Georgetown. Under the provisions of the Gold Fields Leases Act of 1886, rents could be paid up to 30 years in advance. It would seem that this was the case with lease No.545, with the final payment made up to 1927.
In 1946 the Aylett family, occupants of the house since c1944, enquired about obtaining a lease on the property, in consequence of which in 1947 the lease, then still in the name of Eleonore Claudine Helene Everett, was declared forfeited by non-payment of rent, and was re-issued to Hedley Raymond Aylett and Isabell Glenalbion Maud Aylett on 5 January 1950, as Miner's Homestead Perpetual Lease No.1441. In 1948 the warden's report on the Aylett's application listed improvements comprising a four-roomed house and fencing to the value of £150.
The Aylett's maintained the lease until 1978, when it was transferred to John Henry Butler and Christine Joy Butler. In 1987 the lease passed to Gordon Charles Bunch and Leanne Marie Bunch, then to Georgetown grazier Ian Benjamin Pedracini in November 1993. On the 1 December 1994, Mr Pedracini freeholded Miner's Homestead Perpetual Lease No.1441 as Lot 13 on MPH14038, parish of Georgetown.
","criteria":"The Antbed House at Georgetown was erected as mine manager's residence c1890 and survives as important evidence of Georgetown's role as the administrative centre of one of Queensland's earliest goldfields. In this, the Antbed House is important in demonstrating in part the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history.
|The Antbed House is a rare adobe residence which survives as an important illustration of 19th century difficulties experienced in Queensland's far northern goldmining towns in obtaining available, affordable and appropriate building materials. It is the only substantially intact 19th century adobe house identified in north Queensland towns, and is even more rare for its use of antbed (from termite mounds) rather than mud. Adobe houses were rare for both the place and the period, most remote Queensland goldfields buildings being constructed of less substantial and more transportable timber and/or galvanised iron.
|The Antbed House is significant for its potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history particularly in the area of early adobe construction.
|The Antbed House has aesthetic significance as an unusual north Queensland building, the design of which has been well considered.
|The Antbed House has a special association with the Georgetown community, which considers the place to be an unusual and historical feature of the town to which visitors are directed.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16390,"place_ref":601629,"name":"Mount Cuthbert Township and Smelter","alternate_name":"Mount Cuthbert Township and Railway Formation | Mount Cuthbert Mine and Smelter | Kalkadoon Mine and Winding Plant","street_address":"North-West of Kajabbi Township","suburb":"KAJABBI","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-25","description":"Mount Cuthbert Smelter
The place covers an extensive area of the Six Mile Creek valley with the main concentrations of features exceeding an area of 1km (east-west) by 2km (north-south). The smelter structure and a tranship stage form a closely integrated group of components. A large, well formed slag dump extends to the base of the smelter. The smelter remains are impressive, comprising three standing steel chimneys, blast furnace frame, elevated iron flues, flue dust bins, and two copper converters. The smelter floor is a raised earth platform with high concrete retaining walls each side. The blast furnace has been removed leaving the steel frame and furnace hood. Extending north-east of the smelter floor are the concrete foundations and earth bench surfaces of the power house. Storage hopper footings of a tranship stage are located along a rail spur line which terminates near the smelter floor. The tranship stage accommodates two rail alignments separated by a raised concrete platform. A line of reinforced concrete piers and headstocks remain standing as evidence of an elevated rail alignment.
Mount Cuthbert Township and Railway Formation
The railway spur line formation to Mount Cuthbert from Oona siding on the Kajabbi to Dobbyn line, generally follows the course of Six Mile Creek. Embankments, cuttings and bridgeworks occur through the range east of Mount Cuthbert. Sections of the railway formation now serve as the main access track. Timber sleepers survive on some sections where the formation has been bypassed. No bridges remain intact and all rails have been removed. Timber piers and stone pitched abutments of several bridges including the Six Mile Creek bridge east of Mount Cuthbert have survived. The formation passes through a series of curved cuttings and embankments on its final approach to the town. From a spur loop north of the smelter three rail formations are discernible to the smelter, tranship stage, and the Mount Cuthbert mine. The main formation turns north to Mount Cuthbert railway station by the Kalkadoon mine. The rail formation terminates about 400m north beyond the Kalkadoon. Surface evidence of the locations of the railway station building, platform and goods shed is still apparent on the east side of the formation.
On its final approach to Mount Cuthbert, the rail formation curves around the site of the township which is situated on a low rise east of the smelter. Surviving evidence of the main concentration of dwellings and commercial premises covers an area of 500m (east-west) by 400m (north-south). This area contains about 60 identifiable structural sites including stone fireplaces, stone-lined floor surfaces, retaining walls, and tank stands. The commercial precinct is clearly discernible by a grouping of cement rendered surfaces close to the railway on the eastern side of the settlement. A cellar, cement floor and ships tank bake-oven mark the site of a hotel. A smithy and stone yards are evident together with over six stores. Many smaller dwelling sites, some with stone fireplaces, are located on the western side of the township hill overlooking the mine and smelter. The company officer's housing precinct site is located away from the township to the north, in a small gully of Six Mile Creek between the smelter and the Kalkadoon mine.
Kalkadoon Mine and Winding Plant
The Kalkadoon is located on a hillside north of Mount Cuthbert smelter, overlooking Dollubeet railway siding and the railway terminus. The mine workings contain evidence of several periods of development. No surface evidence remains of the early main shaft that was serviced by the surviving winding plant. Two open cut workings are located either side of a recent open adit and shaft. Plant includes a winding engine on a concrete mount alongside a Cornish boiler. The winding engine retains asbestos lagged steam pipes. A second Cornish boiler is located (not in situ) in front of the winding plant. An egg-end air receiver tank is located between the winding plant and the early main shaft site.
The area immediately south of the plant has been extensively disturbed by bulldozing in recent months for use as a drilling pad. Likewise an area north of the winding plant. The remains of mullock dumps extend east from the early main shaft site and adjacent open cut workings. A stone fireplace and cement surface are located between the mullock and railway formation. A stone magazine is situated north of the mine close to a former siding area near the railway terminus.
Plant:
·\tCornish boiler - no brand.
·\tCornish boiler (not in situ) - no brand.
·\tTwo-cylinder twin drum steam winding engine - no brand.
·\tAir receiver tank (egg-ended) - no brand.
·\t3 Safety cages (not in situ).
","history":"Ernest Henry discovered copper in the general vicinity of Mount Cuthbert in 1867, but it was not developed further at that time. John Chapman investigated Mount Cuthbert, Excelsior and Mighty Atom copper claims in 1900 on behalf of Melbourne investors. Mount Cuthbert assayed the best at 6.5%.
The decision by the Government to extend the Townsville railway beyond Richmond stimulated further exploration in 1905-06. In 1907 the Mount Cuthbert Company had capital of £240,000 and its mines included Mount Cuthbert, Kalkadoon, Mighty Atom, Orphan (near Dobbyn) and Little Wonder. The company had major financial problems from 1909 because of the lack of rail freight and had to reconstruct its capital holdings in 1912.
In 1915, with the price of copper soaring, the company spent £120,000 constructing smelters and had already sent away copper matte by horse teams before the railway reached the mine in September 1916. William H. Corbould, who was appointed Mount Elliott mine manager in 1909 had a grand vision for rationalising the copper industry in the Cloncurry district but, while war delayed its implementation an arrangement was worked out with Mount Cuthbert whereby up to 150 tons of ore per day were to be treated at the Mount Elliott smelter at Selwyn until the Mount Cuthbert plant was completed. Then the situation would be reversed while Mount Elliott increased the capacity of its smelter. Accordingly, the Selwyn smelter ran for five months at the end of 1915 and into 1916 treating both companies' ore, including 13,000 tons railed from Mount Cuthbert.
The Mount Cuthbert smelter was designed by W.H. Corbould, who was also a noted metallurgist and its completion was delayed because of the war. The blast furnaces were eventually fired early in 1917 and the initial operation treated over 25,000 tons of ore which produced 1,804 tons of copper worth £202,350. The Mount Cuthbert Company also invested in a new winding engine and headframe, 200 ton capacity ore bins, extensions to the blacksmith's shop and electricity connected to all the surface buildings. The old equipment was removed and reassembled at the Orphan mine.
Mount Cuthbert township was surveyed by the Mines Department in 1916, but the nearby mines had been worked from 1908 which might explain the close proximity of the settlement to the mines and therefore the smelter.
At its peak Mount Cuthbert township had two hotels, a cordial factory, two stores, three fruiterers, a photographer, butcher, baker, fancy goods/barber, hospital, police station, boarding house and two railway stations (Mount Cuthbert and Dollubeet). A post office operated from 1908 to 1927. The mining company officers were housed in timber cottages and a barracks, while the majority of residents lived in tents or small corrugated iron shacks with earth floors and stone hearths.
Teamsters supplied logs to the sawmill operating to supply mine timbers from 1913. A school opened in 1917 with 30 pupils taught by Miss E Stapleton. At one point in 1917 the town was reported on the verge of starvation due to problems with railway freight operations.
Today the township area contains about 60 discernible building remains and stone footings, and a commercial area near the railway on the eastern side of the settlement. A cellar, cement floor and ships tank baking oven indicate the site of the hotel, which reputedly was moved to Kajabbi where it still serves as the Kalkadoon Hotel.
The railway arrived at Mount Cuthbert in October 1915 after taking two years to construct the section north-east from Dugald River. The curving alignment passes through narrow gaps in ridge spurs and follows the Six Mile Creek. Its formation features embankments, cuttings and bridgeworks. Without the railway, production from the smelters was hampered due to exorbitant freight costs. There were two wayside sidings, Mount Cuthbert and the terminus, Dollubeet, at Kalkadoon.
The Kalkadoon mine is part of the Mount Cuthbert mine group, situated about 2km north along the same geological formation. The earliest mineral lease to be granted in the Mount Cuthbert area was that of the Kalkadoon to Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh of Cloncurry who took up 4.05 ha from 1 August 1899. This mine was mentioned by William Lees in 1906 as the "old mine" and it had already produced 300 tons of high grade ore.
It was further developed by the Mount Cuthbert Company from about 1907. By 1912 temporary pithead gear was in place: a winch and boiler and a headframe from Charters Towers was installed the next year. By 1916 the main shaft was down 107m. Ore mined at the Kalkadoon was smelted at Mount Cuthbert from 1917 and sent to Britain as prime blister copper. It is presumed that the mine closed in 1920 when smelting ceased at Mount Cuthbert. Its manager, J. Delaney, was a well known football player in the district.
In 1918 there was a fatal accident in the Mount Cuthbert mine at the 107m level. By 1919 the main shaft was down to 148m. In 1918 the Mount Cuthbert smelters treated 36,500 tons of ore until November when the crankshaft broke on the blower engine and closed the smelters after a record run. They were not refired until August 1919 and continued smelting copper until the price fell in 1920. The smelters shut down on 19 June 1920 after a final run of only 63 days.
The company was forced into raising capital in 1919 and attempted a further financial reconstruction in 1922. However, continued annual losses, low metal prices and pressing debenture commitments forced its liquidation in 1923. In 1925 the Mount Elliott Company purchased the Mount Cuthbert properties and plant for an undisclosed sum, certainly much less than the £500,000 valuation.
The population rose from 50 in 1908, to a peak of 1,000 in 1918, then dropped to 750 in 1920 and to 400 in 1924, but Mount Cuthbert became a ghost town after the Mount Elliott Company bought the mine and plant in 1925.
In 1942 Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Cuthbert smelters for £900 and plant and other machinery was railed through Cloncurry to Mount Isa's new copper smelter. The Kalkadoon was worked on tribute again in the 1960s before being abandoned.
","criteria":"The town typifies the short-lived (1915-25), capital intensive, copper mining towns that developed rapidly and then ceased almost overnight.
The Kalkadoon mine is significant as the earliest and one of the most productive components of the Mount Cuthbert mining operation. It was functionally and physically linked by the railway to the Mount Cuthbert smelter. The place is located above the valley floor with views south over the smelter.
|The Corbould design of the blast furnace, flue and dust retainers at the Mount Cuthbert Smelter appears to be unique among similar smelters in North Queensland.
The Kalkadoon Mine's winding plant, which is largely intact, is an atypical and now rare example of its type.
|In this case, the town's remote location and isolation have kept it relatively intact and preserved its archaeological values.
|Mount Cuthbert township and railway is significant as it provides a tangible demonstration of the close physical relationships and linkages between the mine and smelter, with the railway and township. Although this pattern can be observed in other mining settlements such as Mount Mulligan or Kuridala, the location of the elements here is physically close and aesthetically pleasing.
Mount Cuthbert Smelter is significant as the largest and most impressive early smelter remains in North Queensland. It is the last early phase smelter (1916-20) built in the Cloncurry district and - although among the least successful of the larger works - it has left the most structural evidence despite the stripping of its furnaces and parts to equip the new Mount Isa smelter in the 1940s. The works clearly demonstrate physical links with the company's mines - Mount Cuthbert, Kalkadoon, Mighty Atom and Orphan - and also with the adjacent township area and the rail route from Kajabbi.
The extent, diversity and concentration of associated features are unrivalled.
|The physical grouping of the smelter, slag dump, railway and township is unique. The natural environment of the Six Mile Creek valley is a most significant and distinguishing feature of the place giving it a picturesque setting. The place provides sweeping panoramas of the archaeology of early industry and settlement. The appearance of the smelter during the final approach along the railway cutting presents a reminder of the isolation of early mining settlements in remote regions of Australia.
The current access to the town via the picturesque railway alignment further heightens the visitor's appreciation of the large-scale early mining venture in the wilderness.
|The Corbould design of the blast furnace, flue and dust retainers at the Mount Cuthbert Smelter appears to be unique among similar smelters in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16393,"place_ref":601632,"name":"Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial","alternate_name":"Stanthorpe War Memorial | Stanthorpe Soldiers' Memorial","street_address":"Lock Street","suburb":"STANTHORPE","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-08-03","description":"Located on Foxtons Hill a short distance from the Stanthorpe town centre the Stanthorpe Soldiers' Memorial is a rugged parkland of some one and a half hectares crossed by walking paths leading to a rest house at the top of the hill. The site is bounded to the north by Lock Street and on the remaining sides by residential allotments including "El Arish" along part of the western boundary. The main entrance is from Lock Street; access can also be obtained from White Street via lots 16 and 17 and from Scholz Street to the south, the entry of which is marked by two large eucalypts which frame the view of the rest house up a long slope.
The site is rugged and rocky with exposed granite boulders and mixed vegetation. Landscaping is in a naturalistic manner with bush pathways (and some sets of concrete stairs), seats cut out of the rock along some paths, and stone walling and terracing. There is evidence of some formal planting along the pathways including yellow jasmine hedges. The site also contains a number of memorial trees including what are believed to be several Lone Pines which surround the rest house and stands of pines on the western edge of the site.
From Lock Street, the rest house is approached by several sets of concrete stairs on a path leading up the hill from the road. The rest house is set amongst exposed granite boulders on a flat site at the summit of the hill. There is a flagpole to the south and retaining walls and stairs to the south and west. Set on an east west axis with views through arched openings including to the west, a panorama of Stanthorpe and the surrounding district, the rest house is a white painted concrete pavilion with a painted corrugated roof gabled in four directions. On the east and west gables in concrete raised lettering is the inscription "SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL"; on the north and south gables "1914-19".
The rest house is entered via arched openings to the north and south elevations. Inside the ceiling is pressed metal painted powder blue with gold plastic stars affixed; the floor has been painted red. Along the east and west walls are two long timber slatted seats. On the walls are five World War I honour boards of metal set into concrete mouldings, one of which is reserved for the names of the dead. In raised letters it reads: "TO THE MEMORY OF OUR GALLANT BOYS WHO FELL IN THE WORLD'S WAR 1914-1919". The boards record the names in alphabetical order with no military ranks or honours indicated. There is also an honour board for World War II and a plaque for Korea.
","history":"Built in honour of the soldiers of the district who participated in the Great War, the Stanthorpe Soldiers' Memorial was funded, as with many other such memorials across the state, by public subscription. Stanthorpe's memorial took the form of a park and rest house located on Foxton's Hill described at the time by the Queenslander as one of the lonely hills overlooking Stanthorpe. The rest house was designed by Warwick architects Dornbush and Connolly and built by local contractors NJ Thompson and Sons; inside were seats and on the walls, five rolls of honour, one of which was reserved for the fallen. The Soldiers' Memorial was officially opened on 6 February 1926 by Major General Sir William Glasgow, a commander of campaigns in Gallipoli and also in France, whose battlefields were to be memorialised in Australia by the naming of the towns of the soldier settlement area (Amiens, Pozieres, Bullecourt, and Fleurbaix) established near Stanthorpe soon after the War.
The first meeting to consider the erection of an honour board or soldiers memorial in Stanthorpe was held on 1 December 1918; a committee was formed to raise funds. The committee considered a possible site at Mt Marlay, the major lookout point for the town, however this was later rejected and by 1921, suggestions were being sought for other suitable schemes. Mr Fletcher favoured erecting a memorial on the proposed new cricket grounds; Mr Corden favoured a block of land owned by ER Hopper situated close to town and on a high position on Foxton's Hill which could be bought at a reasonable price; CF White suggested a rest house on the Hopper land and also using the land as a memorial park by erecting seats in convenient spots for the public. A public meeting was called resulting in the memorial committee agreeing on 21 May 1921 to pay a deposit on the Foxton Hill site and a committee was formed to draw up a development scheme for the park. It was proposed that Dornbusch and Connolly be asked to prepare plans of a rest house and submit estimates.
The site chosen was rough and rocky: the main park area (sub 22 now lot 33) fronted Lock Street with two smaller allotments (subs 5 and 6 now lots 16 and 17) fronting White Street. In 1923, the memorial site was formally acquired by the Committee, being held in the names of Charles Frederick White, James Vincent Scully, and Harry Wright. In September of that year, Dornbusch and Connolly were asked to prepare specifications in both local stone and concrete and tenders were to be called. Apparently due to lack of funds work on the rest house did not in fact commence until 1925. The memorial site was however already marked as such: a Turkish gun believed to have been brought to Australia as a war trophy by the commander of the Light Horse, Sir Harry Chauvel and his brother, Major Alan Chauvel (whose family summer house, "El Arish", adjoined the memorial site) was placed at what became the Lock Street entrance to the memorial. This entrance was also to be marked by a sign, a fence, and a stile.
It is not known if landscaping and planting was undertaken at the site prior to the erection of the rest house. Certainly by the 1930s photographs show that pines (believed to be Lone Pines) had been planted around the rest house; pines had also been planted on the western slopes of the site (adjoining "El Arish"). Wooden pegs (now lost) which recorded the names of fallen servicemen were placed below the memorial trees. By 1933, a blue light shone at night from the memorial making it visible from the town centre. Two memorial eucalypts were planted at the Scholz Street entrance which was also fenced. More recently, in the 1980s, the floor of the rest house was painted over to cover a "flag" and the pressed metal ceiling painted blue and stars affixed. The Turkish Gun has also been removed and now stands in front of the RSL building. In 1995 a timber fence and stile were removed from the White Street frontage.
For many years, Anzac Day was commemorated in Stanthorpe by a number of events commencing with a Dawn Service at the Soldiers Memorial, morning services at the various churches, and in the afternoon, a public service held at the Arcadia Theatre preceded by a march through the streets by returned soldiers. Afternoon tea was provided by the CWA for the families of returned service personnel. In more recent times the Dawn Service has been held at Weeroona Park.
Until 1963, when the memorial was transferred to the Stanthorpe Shire Council, it was maintained by public donations, including those collected for its upkeep at the annual Anzac Day Service. There also exists a long tradition of service to the memorial by local people (often returned servicemen) who were responsible for not only maintaining the memorial but also for the landscaping and planting of its grounds. These included Mr AH Hocking (who conducted working bees during the 1930s), Mr and Mrs AE Bateman, Mr Barton, Mr Ted Knight, Mr Jim Robertson, and during the 1980s, Mr Robert Dekeersgieter; more recently a local group, the Friends of the War Memorial and Local Residents Association has been formed.
Stanthorpe Shire Cultural Heritage Study report - The Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial was built in 1926 to a design concept by architects Dornbusch and Connolly. The 6.15m x 4.6m building housed five Honour Rolls and after WWII the sixth was placed in the building. Further honour boards have been added to mark conflicts in which Australians have participated. The ground around the building has been landscaped.
","criteria":"Located on Foxton's Hill overlooking the town and surrounding district of Stanthorpe, the Soldiers' Memorial comprising a rest house set within a rugged park is a remarkable memorial having no apparent parallel in the state. In common with many other memorials erected across the country, the Stanthorpe Soldiers' Memorial was a prominent focal point for the town, however it is highly unusual in that it was not set within the town's centre, but rather on its outskirts: the memorial was thus a place of public memory and also of private pilgrimage.
|Located on Foxton's Hill overlooking the town and surrounding district of Stanthorpe, the Soldiers' Memorial comprising a rest house set within a rugged park is a remarkable memorial having no apparent parallel in the state. In common with many other memorials erected across the country, the Stanthorpe Soldiers' Memorial was a prominent focal point for the town, however it is highly unusual in that it was not set within the town's centre, but rather on its outskirts: the memorial was thus a place of public memory and also of private pilgrimage.
|With its memorial plantings and naturalistic landscaping including rock seats and walls and bush paths leading up the hill to the rest house, positioned so as to view the rising and the setting of the sun through its archways, the memorial is clearly intended as a place of both commemoration and contemplation.
|The site, with its rough terrain and exposed granite boulders common to the region retains its wilderness quality as a stark landscape which is both peculiarly local, but also on a grander scale, making apparent symbolic reference to Gallipoli and the Turkish coast.
|The Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial is a memorial to those who served in the Great (and other later) wars but is also a testament to the community who built the memorial and remain as its custodians.
|The Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial is a memorial to those who served in the Great (and other later) wars but is also a testament to the community who built the memorial and remain as its custodians.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16394,"place_ref":601633,"name":"El Arish","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"94 Greenup Street","suburb":"STANTHORPE","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-10-04","description":"El Arish consists of a single-storeyed chamferboard residence, with a corrugated iron roof, set amidst a structured garden comprising distinct formal, informal and service areas. El Arish is located on the western slope of Foxton's Hill, adjoining the rugged landscape of the Stanthorpe Soldier's Memorial [601632] reserve at the rear, with the highest section of the property affording views over Stanthorpe a short distance to the west.
The residence is located towards the southern section of the site facing Greenup Street to the northwest. The formal garden compartment is located to the west and northwest, the informal stroll garden is located to the north and along the eastern boundary, and the service garden is located to the south of the residence.
The formal garden compartment is screened by a very large Cypress hedge along the western boundary to Greenup Street, and contains a geometric layout of gardens, hedges and shrubs with defined boundaries and a distinct pink and white theme. This garden was originally used to formally greet guests and create an impressions of the family's status, and the front verandah formed an adjunct to this garden for entertaining. Entry to El Arish is via a narrow arched opening in the hedge, facing northwest along the axis of Lock Street opposite, with a rustic timber gate with metal fittings. The northwest section of the formal garden contains a lawn, bisected by a concrete path leading to the residence, bordered by garden beds. The northern boundary of this section of the garden has a low stone wall, screen planting and a hedge, with a central gateway providing access to the informal stroll garden beyond. The gateway has a rustic timber gate with metal fittings, an arched metal lamp post with lantern, and a section of stone flagging with stone steps.
The western section of the formal garden is bordered by the driveway along the southern boundary and contains a reconstructed timber pergola supporting an Isabella grape vine at the southern end. The garden also contains a grafted William's pear tree, which shades a stone bench seat, and the stump of a Walnut tree from the original Walnut grove, both of which are remnants of Scholz's market garden. The remains of a fish pond is located amidst remnant rose bushes, and hedges and shrubs divide the garden spatially with an accent on content and form. A large Black Bamboo, enclosing secluded pathways with stone edgings, screens the adjacent service garden compartment to the south of the residence. A non-original cricket practice net is located in the western corner.
The informal garden was designed to be more private, and intimate spaces were created for the family's enjoyment and relaxation. The garden has an overall rustic character which was intended to invite exploration in the manner of an English stroll garden. There are controlled entry points within the garden, with several route options and focal points. Mass plantings in scale with the garden spaces has been employed, rather than the emphasis being given to individual plants and diversity as in the formal garden. Tall specimen planting and obscured views of boundaries have been utilised to give the impression of increased space, with the garden seemingly extending over boundaries to the rugged landscape of the adjoining public space.
The eastern side of the informal garden rises steeply towards the adjoining Stanthorpe Soldier's Memorial [601632] reserve, and consists of natural rock surfaces and stone terracing, some of which dates from Scholz's market garden and has been built up to form a maze of planting and paths. Planting includes agaves and Century plants, and a path leads to a stone lookout on the eastern boundary which affords expansive views over El Arish and Stanthorpe to the west. The stroll garden contains narrow paths with several arched trellises, and a non-original concrete water tank has been constructed in the southeast corner.
The northern section of the informal garden is relatively level, and has a timber post and rail fence along the Greenup Street boundary. This section of the garden contains tall Oak and Cedar trees, with low stone walls and areas planted with bulbs and containing remnant rose bushes. A large wisteria and the remains of a rustic pergola are located to the northeast of the residence, and garden beds and areas of lawn with a clothes line and fruit trees are located to the east of the house. The remains of the original woodland area of the garden, which is outside of the current garden boundary, can be seen to the south on the adjoining property.
The service garden was designed as a work and service area, and includes a driveway, guest parking, rear entry, garage and small kitchen garden. The service garden also contains the foundation remains of the maintenance shed, and has obscured views towards the formal and informal gardens. The rear entry to the residence has non-original timber pergola, stone flagged path, a lamp post with a stone base and a small hedge.
The single-storeyed chamferboard residence has a hipped corrugated iron roof with projecting gables, stumps with timber batten infill, and a verandah on the northwest with timber posts, brackets, balustrade and lattice-screened entry. A gabled projecting bay on the northern side of the entry has casement windows, and the verandah wall has single-skin exposed framing and french doors. The northeast verandah has been enclosed with chamferboard, and a stone flagged terrace has been added. The southwest section of the front verandah has also been enclosed. The rear of the building has been altered, with an original rear wing having been removed and verandahs enclosed and extended. Windows are mainly casements, some with corrugated iron and timber batten sunhoods, and a corrugated iron garage has been built adjacent to the southeast corner of the residence.
Internally, the residence has been redesigned several times.
","history":"The garden and house which comprise El Arish were established in the early 1920s by Major Allan and Isabella Chauvel on the site of a former market garden in Stanthorpe.
The major impetus to development in Stanthorpe occurred in 1872 with the start of the practice of alluvial tin mining after discoveries of the valuable metal in the area earlier in the mid 1850s. Stanthorpe become the collective name for two townships which grew as a result of the mining boom and became the only centre on the pastoral Darling Downs to develop with a mining based revenue.
Stanthorpe was situated on part of the early Folkestone Run, which was occupied from November 1846 by Matthew Henry Marsh, who acquired 160 acres of the run on pre-emptive purchase in October 1852. Alford Greenup assumed the management of the run in 1868, and by 1878 as a result of the tin mining boom Marsh converted his run into the private township of Stannum, which is a Latin word meaning tin. The Government surveyed land on each side of Stannum and formed a township known as Stanthorpe, and the towns were incorporated. Public sales were held soon after the subdivision of the town into building allotments.
Portions 166 and 167 of what was the Folkestone Run, later the site of El Arish, were sold to Karl Wilhelm Scholz in 1878. Scholz had arrived on the Darling Downs from Germany in 1872. As the tin mines of Stanthorpe became depleted the town became more reliant on market gardening as a source of revenue and Scholz established a market garden on his selection soon after its purchase. He cleared all natural vegetation from the site by 1890, and planted vegetable crops for short-term income whilst the orchards and vineyards matured. At this time wide paling fences were built as boundaries and the rear of the site was terraced. The garden was very successful though part of it was established on seemingly inhospitable land with massive granite outcrops on the side of a hill. Scholz's produce was often awarded prizes at local agricultural exhibitions.
In 1915 Scholz sold his property to Walter Hall and Ephriam Albert Maddock, who sold it soon after in June 1919 to Charles Frederick White, a member of a prominent Armidale family. White owned the property for only 12 months before he sold it to Susan Isabella Chauvel (nee Barnes), who was commonly known as Isabella. She borrowed £1150 from White for the purchase of the property. Isabella was married to Allan Chauvel and they owned and managed a pastoral property, Summerlands, in the Fassifern Valley. The purchase of the property in Stanthorpe was to provide the Chauvel family with a summer residence.
It was during the Chauvel's ownership that the property in Stanthorpe was named El Arish recalling Allan Chauvel's involvement in the First World War. Allan and his brother, Henry George Chauvel, later knighted, were born in Tabulum, New South Wales and grew up on a cattle station on the Clarence River. Family tradition dictated Henry and Allan's military involvement, firstly with the local Upper Clarence Light Horse established by their father, Charles Henry Edward Chauvel. When Allan and Henry moved with their family to a station in southern Queensland, Canning Downs South on the Darling Downs, the men continued their involvement with local volunteer light horse brigades. By the First World War Henry Chauvel who had also served in the Boer War, was chosen to command the 1st Light Horse Brigade. Allan Chauvel served in World War One, alongside his brother, as a major.
Henry, as one of the commanding officers, and Allan were involved in the 1916-17 Desert Column appeal which saw the advancement of the British troops across the desert into Palestine, driving the Turkish army from Aleppo on the northern borders of Syria. The Light Horse Brigade was the spearhead of the advancing forces. Under Henry Chauvel's command the forces destroyed Turkish garrisons at Rafa in December of 1916 and then, Maghaba in January 1917. This opened access for an assault on the principal Turkish positions near Gaza and Beersheba. After the attack on Maghaba the Light Horse Brigade found themselves without water and returned to a small village, El Arish where they re-stocked and celebrated their victory. El Arish is an Arabic word meaning 'place of rest' and it is therefore appropriate that this name should be given to the Chauvel family's summer residence.
Allan and Isabella Chauvel had five children, of these the eldest son John become an Anglican church minister and Charles the second son was a renowned Australian filmmaker. Charles Chauvel and his wife, Elsa, were among the instigators of the Australian film industry in the 1920s and 1930s. Charles was born in 1897 in Warwick and was educated at Ipswich Grammar School and, from family reminiscences, it appears that his father, Allan, planned that Charles would remain on the land, continuing the Chauvel pastoral tradition. However Charles studied commercial art and took drama classes, and from 1920 worked for many early film-makers in both Australia and Hollywood. Late in 1923 he returned to Australia to begin his career making his own films. He returned to Hollywood many times over the next few years, seeking funding from large studios for his own locally made projects. Charles and Elsa Chauvel were given land in Stanthorpe by Isabella Chauvel on which they built a house, so that they could be nearer to his mother and continue assistance with Isabella's project which was the garden at El Arish.
According to family history, Allan and Isabella Chauvel had a cottage moved to its present location at El Arish soon after they acquired the property. Stanthorpe at this time was experiencing a transitional period when it became well known as a 'sanatorium' and the destination of many summer holiday makers seeking retreat from city life. A general concern with one's health, after the influenza epidemic and the war, was manifest in the advertising of developing holiday destinations who claimed that fresh air, either by the sea or in the mountains was beneficial to one's well-being. Sea side resorts, like Southport, Burleigh Heads, and Redcliffe became very popular along with mountain resorts like Stanthorpe.
Supporting this new focus of the Stanthorpe economy, the rail line which had been introduced in 1881 had been extended through to Wallangarra on the New South Wales/Queensland border in 1887, though was only finished in 1920 making Stanthorpe more accessible to a large population base. The town's location on the Granite Belt, produced an unusual landscape of granite outcrops amid lush vegetation which was attractive to prospective holiday makers. Stanthorpe, like the other towns developing at this time in the southeastern region of Queensland became serviced with an infrastructure vital for its role as holiday destination. Such services included private boarding houses and hotels, as well as facilities for a wide range of leisure activities such as golf, tennis, bowling, swimming, bush walking, horse racing and picnicking.
The Chauvels used El Arish as a summer residence where they could take advantage of, not only a more temperate climate, but increased social activity which was developing in Stanthorpe at the time. They would come from their pastoral property, Summerlands, in the Fassifern Valley, where Allan was involved in local politics. Upon their arrival in Stanthorpe work began on the creation of the marvellous garden upon the remnants of the market garden which, since the Scholzes departure had not been commercially used.
The garden which the Chauvels created was carefully planned to include some remnants of Scholz's garden including an early Williams pear tree and several Isabella grape vines. It is reputed that these vines were brought by Scholz to Australia from the south of France when he emigrated and were arranged in the garden on trellised arbours. The Chauvels' garden in Stanthorpe took great advantage of many of the site's intrinsic qualities; making a feature of the aspect and incline of the land and the natural granite outcrops.
According to family history, the garden at El Arish was designed by Isabella and her son, Charles. They worked to create a garden which allowed a variety of experiences and views as one walked through the varying garden sections. A sense of enclosure is achieved in several of the smaller sections of the gardens, most importantly in the formal garden where the house, hedge and screening devices create smaller areas. This sense of enclosure is created also in other areas; in the bamboo grove and within screened and hedged sections of the formal garden. The paths built upon the terraces established by Scholz allow one to stroll through a created 'natural' (but not native) environment. These paths terminate at a natural lookout on the highest point in the garden, from which one can orient oneself not only within the confines of the El Arish property but within Stanthorpe. The manner in which the garden affords these changing experiences, allowing both action and contemplation from one section to another is a characteristic feature of many famous gardens of the time.
In fact, El Arish has many characteristics of English Arts and Crafts gardens of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which did inspire and influence many Australian garden designers. Notable British gardens of this type were the work of many acclaimed designers most significantly William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, who wrote widely in journals about their design philosophy as did others like British novelist Vita Sackville-West, a serious and dedicated garden enthusiast. These writings are thought to have influenced garden design in Australia, most evident in the work of acclaimed landscape architect, Edna Walling.
Many gardening ideas of the time are apparent at El Arish; contrived 'wild' sections of plantings; emphasis on contrasting foliage, particularly involving sub-tropical plants and the use of rock-gardening, along with planning and layout ideas including the use of local quarried stone walling, a sense of enclosure, a myriad of paths and terraces and a consciousness of the local environment. The Chauvel family had many close family ties in Britain and during the involvement of the brothers Henry and Allan in the wars, their families spent time in England. Charles Chauvel was involved with the design of many of the gates and walls at El Arish, bringing hinges and gate fittings from a Spanish Mission in California from one of his trips to America. He is also thought to have constructed many of the dry-stone walls in the garden.
The El Arish garden was divided into several distinct compartments, a feature of many renowned gardens both in Britain and Australia of the time. These included a formal compartment to the west of the house; a large informal or stroll garden to the north and east of the house; a service compartment to the immediate south of the home and around the caretakers' house on the south boundary of the property and an open park and woodland to the south of the house incorporating a wood and orchard; with another informal compartment containing the horse paddock to the south of this.
The formal compartment was created between the house and a hedge along the Greenup Street boundary of the property providing a conventionally formal entrance and view to the house; a place where guests could be greeted and entertained. This area was screened on the north by a rose arbour and gateway, and on the south by a bamboo grove. The plantings in this area were carefully planned in symmetrically composed beds with the manicured cypress hedge contributing to the general geometric nature of this section. A decomposed gravel path flanked by planted borders extended from the front gate on Greenup Street, in the hedge, to the front door of the house.
The informal compartments of the garden, including the stroll garden and the garden on the southern boundary of the property, were places for family and friends' relaxation and recreation. The stroll garden incorporates that area developed on the northern side of the property by Scholz, where he produced several terraced areas conforming with the contours of the site. The Chauvels planned pathways through this area with several visual focal points, like specimen planting and small garden structures constructed from natural timbers and covered with wisteria and grape vines.
The open park and woodland to the south of the house at El Arish was identified in a recent study of the garden as an areas which "provided the visual setting for the buildings and garden areas while buffering the site from encroachment". In this area found to the south of the house was an orchard containing fruit and nut trees, a large lawn and a pine grove which obscured the tennis court and boundary fences from the house and the rest of the garden. The service compartments of the garden included the kitchen garden adjacent to the south of the house and the area around the caretakers' cottage on the southern boundary.
The garden is almost entirely composed of exotic species. Three major specimen trees are found along the Greenup Street boundary, include a ?Lebanon cedar (Cedrus libani), several Walnut trees (Juglans regia) and a grafted Williams pear tree (Pyrus communis). Several hedges were planted, the most noticeable along Greenup Street a Cypress (X Cupressocyparis leylandii), and several smaller sections scattered throughout the garden Pink may (Crateagus laevigata), Yellow jasmine (Jasminum fruticans) and Pink may bush (Spiraea x bumalda). Some of the other, more notable plantings from the Chauvel era include the Century plants (Agave americana), Black bamboo grove (Bambusa nigra); the grafted English hawthorn (Crateagus monogyna); Red pyracantha (Pyracantha rogersiaria) and Orange pyracantha (Pyracantha angustitolia); English lavender (Lavandula augustifolia); many rose species including the Dorothy Perkins rose, Gallipoli or Rock rose, Red letter rose and Polsen Bedda rose; Banksia rose; Black boy rose; Mermaid rose; as well as a proliferation of Wisteria (Wisteria floribunda), Isabella grape vines (Vitis vinifera); honey suckles, a large number of flowering annuals including Hollyhock, Wallflower, Cosmos, Dahlia, Delphinium, Foxglove, Baby's breath, Jonquil, Alyssum, Stock, Forget-me-not and Zinnia. The many other notable trees include Japanese maple (Acer palmatum); Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida); Flowering plum (Prunus x blirelana); English elm (Ulmus procera); English oak (Quercus robur), Deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) and Crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica).
The garden at El Arish has survived in a form retaining many of the characteristics of the early garden; the zoning system is still evident with surviving plantings and layout. Though the garden has diminished in size with the sub-division of the land, the formal garden remains largely intact as do large sections of the informal stroll garden and smaller sections of that section used as a service garden. Most of open park and woodland to the south of the house and the tennis court beyond this have been sub-divided from the garden.
The house was an integral part of the landscape produced at El Arish, providing a focus for the formal part of the garden and a buffer between the other sections. The house in which the Chauvel's lived was moved to its present site, though accounts vary as to the origin of the building with family reminiscences recalling the building used as both the earlier Scholz residence which was altered and extended, and also a cottage purchased from Killarney and moved to Stanthorpe. There are similarities between the extant house at El Arish and an early photograph of the Scholz residence, both are single skinned buildings with external framing and bracing, though many other details have been altered.
The house was intended as a summer residence, hence its light weight timber construction and verandahs, which may seem an inappropriate choice for a Stanthorpe residence where winter temperatures dictate a more insulated dwelling. Early photographs of the house from the Chauvel family, show a simple assymetrical timber dwelling with low pitched hipped roof extending over a verandah on the principal entrance facade. The house has simple details; a traditional verandah balustrade with dowel balusters and square planned columns. Photographs of the house often feature a verandah screening device, either striped fabric awnings or timber blinds.
By the early 1930s it seems that Isabella was living at El Arish permanently, preferring the climate of Stanthorpe and the social opportunities the town presented, to that in the Fassifern Valley, where Allan still maintained the family property. Prior to the deaths of Allan and Isabella within nine months of one another in 1939, El Arish was their permanent home. On the death of Isabella, in whose name the title to the property was held, on 20 November 1939 El Arish was passed to her son, Charles Chauvel but by September 1940 the property was transferred to his sister, Jean Chauvel.
The task of maintaining the large garden and house at El Arish was an onerous one and Jean Chauvel subdivided the property a number of times, to reduce the scope of maintenance and to offset the financial burdens caused by death duties. Several houses now sit on the what were sections of the service and informal garden to the south and southwest of the house. Jean also undertook many renovations to the house, demolishing the rear wing and making the home more habitable for the winter months.
During World War II El Arish was used to house a number of families and Jean was billeted to share another house in the town before leaving to serve in the war herself. Jean returned to El Arish and, in 1957 after appropriate training, opened the first kindergarten in the district which she operated until her retirement in 1975. The house was then renovated for use as two flats and passed through a number of hands before its purchase by the current owners, David and Carey-Lee Downs. Though the garden suffered from neglect during the years after the Chauvel's residence there, the Downs have made a significant contribution to its conservation.
","criteria":"The development of Stanthorpe is unique within the pastoral and agricultural Darling Downs region, initially owing its growth and prosperity to tin mining, and in the early twentieth century to market gardening and summer holiday making. El Arish, which was originally a market garden and then a summer residence from the early 1920s, is one of the few surviving properties which reflects the contribution of both market gardening and tourism to the development of the town.
|Characteristic elements of the early market garden survive at El Arish including a rare and early Williams pear tree, Isabella grape vines, sections of dry stone walling and terraced sections of the garden which were incorporated into the later Chauvel garden. These elements are illustrative of the establishment of market gardens in and around Stanthorpe from the 1880s.
El Arish is a characteristic and rare example of a summer residence established in Stanthorpe in the 1920s during a period of intense tourist activity which saw many buildings constructed to support this new industry.
The garden at El Arish is an important and rare surviving example of a 1920s Queensland garden influenced by Arts and Crafts gardening ideals. It was designed by Isabella and her son, Charles, to allow a variety of experiences and functions within different areas. Many of the early features remain extant. The cypress hedge along Greenup Street is a marvellous feature of the garden and a rare example of a hedge of this size and extent in Queensland.
|El Arish is a characteristic and rare example of a summer residence established in Stanthorpe in the 1920s during a period of intense tourist activity which saw many buildings constructed to support this new industry. The timber residence was initially intended for use during the summer months. The name chosen for the property by the Chauvels was El Arish, meaning 'place of rest', and this commemorates a town in the Sinai and recalled Allan Chauvel's involvement in the Middle East during World War I.
|El Arish makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the Stanthorpe streetscape, and with its location at the base of the Stanthorpe Soldier's Memorial [601632] reserve, is a recognised local landmark. The separation of the garden into distinct areas provides a range of aesthetic experiences including formal plantings emphasising individual plants and diversity; geometric layouts of gardens, hedges and shrubs with defined boundaries; themed flowering displays; rustic stroll gardens inviting exploration; private and intimate spaces; tall specimen planting and obscured boundaries which give the impression of increased space with the garden seemingly extending over boundaries to the rugged landscape of the adjoining public space; natural rock surfaces; stone faced terracing; distant views; mass plantings in scale with garden spaces; and various garden structures.
|The garden displays significant creative achievement in its design, choice of plantings and utilisation of the site.
|The first kindergarten in the Stanthorpe district was operated at El Arish from 1957 until 1975. Many residents of Stanthorpe attended the kindergarten and the property has a special association with the community for this reason.
|El Arish is associated with several people of importance to Queensland history. The Chauvel family who developed the property as their summer residence have a long and acclaimed history in the Armed Forces in Australia. Allan Chauvel's brother, Henry, was knighted for his service in World War I, where Allan served as a Major. Allan and Isabella Chauvel's son Charles, who helped to plan the garden, was a renowned Australian film maker who, with his wife Elsa, made many early important films.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16396,"place_ref":601635,"name":"Saints Theodores Greek Orthodox Church","alternate_name":"Saints Theodores' Greek Orthodox Church","street_address":"799 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"Saints Theodores Greek Orthodox Church fronts onto 654 Sturt Street, Townsville.
This Church is a red brick building with a centrally located tower above the main entrance to Sturt Street.
The roof of the tower and the dome above the altar are painted white, as are the window frames on the upper section of the tower.
The Church's interior comprises the congregation's section, with a choir gallery above.
The altar and side walls comprise a series of Greek Orthodox religious paintings and icons. Above the altar is a dome which depicts Christ with outstretched hands, as well as containing representations of the Apostles.
","history":"The foundation stone of Townsville's Saints Theodores Greek Orthodox Church was laid on 16 March 1947. In June 1950 this Church was officially opened and dedicated, though religious practice had commenced from 1948 while the building was still being completed.
Some of the earliest Greek migrants to Australia arrived in the 1850s. Many of these were sailors or deckhands who jumped ship after arriving aboard sailing vessels at the various Australian port cities. In the Australian Colonies these early Greeks found employment generally in mining, seamen aboard coastal shipping, or as wharf labourers.
In Queensland little evidence exists to a Greek presence during the greater part of the 19th century, but the first Greek to this Colony to be naturalised was Christopher Arsenios in 1868. Arsenios was a Greek Orthodox Priest who heralded from Corfu, who settled in Clermont.
The first real wave of Greek migration to Australia did not take place until the early part of the 20th century, in the years leading up to the commencement of World War One. By the turn of the 20th century the numbers of Greeks in Australia was insignificant. Even in the major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, Greeks only composed a very small group. By 1915 though, some 1000 Greeks were estimated as residing in Sydney alone, and in Queensland 400, with fifty in Brisbane. "Altogether there were about four thousand Greeks... living throughout Australia, in 1915, in contrast to the scattered remnants who were here in 1900". And in Queensland evidence suggests that the major place of origin of these Greek migrants by 1915 was from Kythera.
One of the main reasons for these Greek arrivals in Australia was the political unrest at home in the period prior to World War One, as it was to occur again in the 1920s. The Balkan Wars took place during 1912 and 1913, involving Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Turkey. In order to escape the effects of this conflict many Greeks left Macedonia and other northern regions and came to places such as Australia:
The first decade of [20th century]... was a turbulent period in Greek politics, Greece being constantly in conflict with Bulgaria and Turkey over Macedonia and Crete. This factor gave a spur to Greek migration overseas. Most of the migrants went to North America but some came to Australia. The small number who had come to these shores in the nineteenth century had no doubt sent word back of possibilities in this country and their compatriots were now following them.
After the end of World War One, another spur to Greek migration was a subsequent war between Greece and Turkey over Smyrna that broke out during 1921-22. As a destination for Greek migrants, Australia was to became an even more obvious choice from 1924, due to the United States of America instituted a severe quota limit on migration into that country. The subsequent Greek arrivals in places such as Queensland "accelerated the proliferation of Greek cafes and other eating places in Brisbane and the country. The new arrivals found that the path to success had already been carved out by the pioneers of the first two decades."
One history of Greek migration to Queensland surmised:
\tThe period from 1915 to the Second World War marks the expansion of the Greek Community throughout [Queensland] ... and its growing organisation. Not only does the Greek population in Brisbane undergo a sharp increase but there is a building up of significant Greek settlements in all the provincial cities and the appearance of al least one Greek family in almost every small town in the State.
\tThis is the period when the Greek cafe, with its aproned proprietor and culinary aromas, became one of the focal points of town life. If the town could not support a Greek cafe, it was still in its infancy! Everywhere, there sprang up Busy Bee Cafes, and Blue Bird Cafes, and Paragon Cafes, and Majestic Cafes and Bellevue Cafes!
In Queensland prior to World War One, one of the few significant regional Greek communities that came into existence was at Innisfail. This community commenced in about 1910, with its Greek residents becoming either shopkeepers or labourers. Other canefield communities with a Greek presence at this time were also Gordonvale and Ingham.
In Townsville, Greeks began to arrive and settle in this locale in approximately 1916. Amongst the first arrivals recorded were "Spyros and Vasilios Makris, Raftopoulos, Maltepes, John and Dimitrios Hondros and Nicholas and George Voyatzis." Though these early Townsville Greeks did not establish a formal Greek Community until the 1940s, they nonetheless periodically organised social, cultural and religious activities in celebration of their Greek origins. To meet the interim religious needs of this developing Townsville Greek community, a visiting priest from Innisfail conducted services in St James'Cathedral, as did Archbishop Timothios of Australia when visiting this community. Archbishop Timothios was also to be instrumental in establishing the Greek Community in Townsville.
In Brisbane the growing Greek community in the years prior to World War One made the first attempt to organise a community organisation with the formation of the "Greek Association of Queensland" in 1913. This Association had its headquarters in Adelaide Street, where members ran a coffee shop and discussion group, though little other information is known about it. As the Greek population grew further, so did the need for a Greek community centre to be instituted to cater for the community's social, religious and cultural needs. At a general meeting of the Association of Greeks in Queensland in 1921, the creation of a community centre was realised and the Greek Community of Queensland was formed. This meeting resolved that a proprietary company be established so that the purchase and management of a suitable property could be undertaken. Shortly after this company was able to purchase a building in Charlotte Street, Brisbane, which was to served as the Greek Community Centre until the 1970s. "Before long, Hellenic House, as the building was named, became a household word throughout the Greek Community of Queensland, a Greek oasis, a place where a Greek could freely speak his language and not offend anyone."
The newly established Greek Community of Queensland in 1922 soon had their own permanent priest, Father Maravelis, and a Greek School was also instituted. Regular Greek Orthodox services were held in the Church of England Churches of St Thomas' in South Brisbane, and St Luke's in Charlotte Street, Brisbane. The first Greek priest ordained in Brisbane was Elias Kotiathis in 1927, who succeeded Father Maravelis. The Brisbane Greek community was to truly come of age in 1929 with the opening of the first Greek Orthodox Church in Queensland - St Georges in Charlotte Street. "The building set the seal on the work of the early pioneers and for a generation remained a centre of religious life for Queensland's Greeks."
By the 1930s the Greek community in Brisbane developed further with the formation of the Kytherian Association in 1935, and a Greek newspaper, The Queensland Messenger, albeit short-lived, was launched in 1931. Outside of Brisbane in Biloela, where a large settlement of Rhodian cotton workers had established themselves, a Rhodian Fellowship was set up in 1931. While the second Greek Orthodox Church in Queensland was erected in Innisfail in 1935. This Church came as a result of the efforts of the local community who had already formed a Greek Brotherhood, which was renamed The Greek Orthodox Community of Innisfail and North Queensland in 1934. The Greek community of Queensland was also fortunate to have the services of a very active honorary consul residing in Brisbane, Christy Freeleagus. Freeleagus was appointed in 1919 and was to exert a major influence in the affairs of the Greek community of Queensland until his death in 1957.
During one of the visits of Archbishop Timothios to Townsville in April 1944, one Greek resident, Thedoros Calagatis, "offered His Grace £1000 for the purpose of building a Greek Church in Townsville". As a result Archbishop Timothios called a general meeting of all Townsville Greeks on Sunday 4 May 1944 to be held at the Cafe Beautiful. Approximately 65 people attended this meeting in which Archbishop Timothios was president, the chairman was Mr S. Nennas, and Mr George Keyatta, M.L.A., also presided:
\tThe meeting ended at 1.30 a.m. and nearly £3,000 was collected. The object of the collection was to establish and maintain faithfully and irrevocably the Dogma, the Holy Canons and conform to the immemorial usage of the Greek Orthodox church; to build and maintain a sacred church for public worship in the name of Saint Theodores; to establish a Greek school for the teaching of the Greek language and promote religious and moral education; to promote good-will and co-operation between members of the community and to ensure loyalty to the laws of this country and to promote good fellowship between our Australian citizens.
\tThe trustees of this fund being His Grace Archbishop Timothios of Australia and New Zealand, The Consul General for Greece, Mr. Freelexgas [sic.] . George Keyatta, M.L.A. The money collected was deposited in the Bank of Australasia on account of the Greek Orthodox Church and School Building Fund.
In approximately March 1945, a committee was elected at a general meeting with the power to acquire property and maintain the objects of the Greek Community of Townsville. This also included the commitment to build a church, priest's residence, and a community hall.
Shortly afterwards a start was made to build a Greek Orthodox Church in Townsville when the granite foundation stone was laid in a ceremony performed by Archbishop Timothios, and attended by the Honorary Greek Consul Mr C. Freeleagus, on 16 March 1947:
Also present was Mr A Stratigos, special envoy from Greece and Vice-President for the Greek-Australian Soldiers' League who six months earlier brought to Australia an urn containing earth from Australian Soldiers' graves in Greece. By doing this, a 2600-year tradition was broken by which it was forbidden to send Greek Soil to another country. This tradition was broken as a mark of admiration and esteem which the Greek Government holds towards Australia in sending men to help in the defence of Greek territory. The soil was presented to the then Prime Minister of Australia Mr Ben Chifley.
The foundation Committee members responsible for the commencement of this church and the laying of the foundation stone were: "Mr Theodoros Kalafatis, Great Benefactor and Honorary Chairman; Mr Michael Leondarakis, President; Mr Emmanuel Atherinos, Vice President; Mr John Manikaros, Secretary; Mr Spyridon Theo Nennas, Treasurer; Mr Charlie Marendy; Mr George Kyriakakis; Mr Emmanuel Barboutis; Mr Michael N. Bogiatzis, Members."
Townsville's Saints Theodores Church, the third Greek Orthodox Church built in Queensland, was designed by M. Vogiatzoglou. The Architect for the project was J.G. Rooney, and the builders were Vause and Hayne. The local Townsville firm of Gelling & Haig, a business which operated in Flinders Street (1931-1974), made the steelwork used in the construction of this Church.
One history of Townsville produced several years after the official opening and dedication of Saints Theodores, describes the internal religious decoration and splendour that is visible within this Church:
The interior of the church follows the Byzantine style of architecture; in the congregation's section, graceful rounded columns merge into picturesque arches to support a choir gallery; from this again rise columns and arches which combine to produce a quintessence of reverend and artistic atmosphere.
\tThe portion of the church allotted to the altar rises straight to the domed roof in most effective fashion.
\tThe stranger, walking towards the altar, automatically sweeps the eyes upwards to the dome, and the effect there is startling and a trifle awe-inspiring-on the ceiling looms a painting of the Christ, hands raised in benediction and gazing straight downwards.
The religious icons painted on the plaster of the dome were undertaken by artist Angelo Manolios, who was specially brought from Greece (from the Island of Lesvos) for the purpose. Manolios carried out this task over twelve months, lying on his back on scaffolding specially raised for the purpose. "His outstanding work all across and around the altar depicts the teachings of the Orthodox Church."
The first services held in Saints Theodores Church took place eleven months after the foundation stone ceremony (February 1948) while the Church was still under construction. The first parish priest was Father George Kateris who served Townsville's Greek community during 1946 to 1953. The first wedding to take place in this Church occurred on 19 September 1948 between Luke and Despo Lucas.
Saints Theodores Church was officially opened and dedicated by Archbishop Theophylactos in June 1950. Four decades later, on Sunday 17 June 1990, Townsville's Greek Community celebrated the 40th anniversary of the official opening and dedication of their Church.
On Sunday 30 March 1997, parishioners and guests of the Greek Orthodox Parish and Community of Saints Theodores Townsville celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Laying of the Foundation Stone of the Church. A service, followed by a Anniversary Dinner Dance was celebrated by parishioners in the presence of His Eminence Archbishop Stylianos, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in Australia, the Consul General of Greece, the Consul General of Cyprus, as well as local, state and federal government representatives. One of the numerous congratulatory messages received at this time was from Mary Kalantzis, Professor of Education at the James Cook University, who summed up the importance of this Church to the local Greek Community:
The Church is a testimony to the important role the Greek Community has played in this region. It has now stood for half a century, an impressive reminder to all that the Greek Community is a part of the history of economic and social development in Northern Australia. It is also living evidence that loyal, contributing Australians can express faith in many different ways and can hold dear different cultural traditions.
Throughout its existence, Townsville's Saints Theodores Church has also been (and still continues to be) the central focus of activities contributing to the social and cultural aspects and well-being of Townsville's Greek Community. This includes the provision and fostering of a Ethnic Greek School, Greek Dancing School, Hellenic Youth Association, Greek Ladies' Auxiliary, Hellenic Senior Citizens, a Greek Orthodox Church Playgroup, and Debutante Balls through the Saints Theodores Parish of Townsville.
The local Greek Community, as do many visitors, maintain that Townsville's Saints Theodores Church is the most beautiful Greek Orthodox Church in Australia.
","criteria":"Saints Theodores Greek Orthodox Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of Greek migration and settlement in Queensland, and the role of the Townsville Greek Community in meeting the needs of their Orthodox parishioners.
|Saints Theodores Church demonstrates rare external and internal architecture and decoration associated with Greek Orthodox religious practice and traditions in a Queensland (or Australian) context.
|This Church also exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics contributing to the streetscape of Sturt Street, Townsville, valued not only by the local Greek Orthodox parishioners, but also the Townsville and broader Queensland community.
|This place has a special association with the important Greek migrant community to Queensland that developed during the 19th and 20th centuries, and now continues into the present 21st century.
|In particular this Church stands testament to the strong sense of identity and cooperation exhibited by the Greek Community of Townsville from its formation in the 1940s to the present.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16398,"place_ref":601637,"name":"Etheridge Railway","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":null,"lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-16","description":"The Etheridge Railway line runs for about 230km from Almaden to Forsayth, and the section from Mount Surprise to Forsayth (included in the heritage boundary) is about 121km long. Built cheaply, the line rarely uses metal ballasting under the railway sleepers, and most sleepers are set directly onto the soil. Half of the sleepers are timber, and half are steel, due to a recent replacement project. Soon after heading south from Almaden, the rails change from 60 pounds per yard to 41¼ pounds per yard, with a noticeable increase in noise and vibration. The line tends to follow the lie of the land, with small cuttings and embankments, although there are larger earth embankments and cuttings on the Newcastle Range section of the line, between Einasleigh and Forsayth. The formation of the line between Almaden and Mount Surprise (not included within the heritage boundary) does not follow its original gradient, due to its reconditioning between 1949 and 1951.
The surviving railway buildings, rails, sidings, turning forks, cattle yards, loading banks, stone pitched bridges and culverts, stone cuttings, sandboxes (for refilling the sand-dispensing units in front of train wheels), water tank, signage, and signals and points infrastructure at the Mount Surprise, Einasleigh and Forsayth railway stations and along the Etheridge Railway between Mount Surprise and Forsayth are significant.
Mount Surprise Station:
The significant elements of this station include: a steel semaphore signal frame and signal arm at the northeast end of the yards, west of the line; a turning fork southwest of the signal and to the north of the line (and associated points levers); a trolley shed south of the fork; two railway houses southwest of the fork and north of the line on Lot 73 SP127336; a metal sandbox, large water tank, tank stand and shower to the north of the modern carriage shelter built over the main line southwest of the fork; a siding south of the main line (and associated points levers); a goods shed on the south side of the siding; a station building southwest of the goods shed and north of the main line; and a timber shed southwest of the station building, on the north side of the main line. Non significant elements include: modern demountable buildings and a shelter shed at the apex of the fork; a modern highset house north of the main line on Lot 73 SP127336; the steel framed, gable roofed, corrugated zincalume-clad carriage shade over the main line, and the skillion roofed, steel framed and corrugated zincalume-clad interpretation shed northeast of the station building; a small timber shed just southwest of the water tank; and a QR telephone box southwest of the station building.
The passenger station is a lowset timber-framed building, with chamferboard-clad walls and a skillion corrugated iron roof that has been extended to form an awning supported by straight timber brackets. The central waiting area has a picket fence and gate, toilets are on the left hand side of the building, and an office with a stable style door is on the right. Some original sash windows survive. There is a modern plastic water tank to the rear of the station building (not significant). The goods shed is a lowset, timber-framed building clad in corrugated iron. Its gabled corrugated iron roof has an awning over a loading platform on the north-west elevation which is supported by curved timber brackets. The goods shed has timber doors on its north-west, south-west and south-east elevations, and narrow windows on the north-east and south-west elevations. A plastic water tank on the north-east elevation is not significant. The small, gable-roofed timber shed south-west of the station building is clad in chamferboard, with an exposed stud to the exterior. It stands on a recent timber and steel platform, has a single timber door on its south-east elevation, a double timber door on its north-west elevation, and fixed timber louvers at each end. The area between the above three buildings has been turfed, up to and between the rails, which gives the appearance that the train is running on grass.
The large riveted iron water tank on a timber stand provided water for engines and the station complex. There is an unused corrugated iron-clad shower room underneath the tank stand, which contains the remains of plumbing fittings. The five-bay trolley shed is clad in corrugated iron, with a skillion roof, and gates of timber battens. The two lowset, gable-roofed houses north of the line are timber-framed, and clad in timber and fibrous cement sheeting. Their yards have gates opening into the railway station area.
Einasleigh Station.
The significant elements of this station include semaphore signal frames (no signal arms) and sand boxes at the approaches to each end of the station; a siding north of the main line and a small siding south of the main line (and any associated points levers); the station building to the south of the main line; a small shed to the north-east of the station building; a loading bank south-west of the station building; and a loading bank on the north side of the northern siding (site of the removed goods shed), to the south-west of the station building. The fork line north of the station, and the cattle yards at the apex of the fork, are also significant, although they are outside the railway reserve. The nearby station master's residence is already on the Queensland Heritage Register [600505]. Non-significant elements of the station include: a modern metal-clad storage shed to the north of the northern siding, to the northeast of the station building; a QR telephone box and a communications tower behind the station building; two concrete water tanks southwest of the station building; and a recent metal clad three-bay trolley shed at the southwest end of the station, south of the main line.
The skillion-roofed passenger station is lowset, and is clad with weatherboards over a timber frame. Straight timber brackets support the awning, and there is a picket fence to the waiting shed section at the south-west end of the building. An office is at the centre of the building, with toilets at the north-east end. The small gable-roofed shed is clad in corrugated iron, and is set on concrete stumps. It has double timber doors and a small timber loading platform on its north-west elevation, which is reached by modern steel steps with a steel balustrade. The loading banks are made of earth, with retaining walls made with a combination of concrete, steel and timber.
Forsayth Station:
The significant elements of Forsayth Station include: a semaphore signal frame with signal arm at the east end of the yards, south of the main line; a trolley shed south of the line at the east end of the station; a siding north of the main line, and a turning fork north of the main line; another trolley shed south of the main line near the start of the east arm of the fork; a sandbox and a points lever to the east of the second trolley shed; loading bank and a signal lever south of the main line; a station building to the south of the main line and west of the loading bank; a goods shed north of the siding and west of the station building; cattle yards west of the fork; a loading bank east of the apex of the fork; and a framed tent quarters east of the apex of the fork. The nearby station master's residence is already on the Queensland Heritage Register [600507]. Non-significant elements include: modern demountable buildings east of the station; modern toilets east of the fork line; a shelter shed for a DR2 diesel locomotive (one of a number which hauled stock on the Etheridge line) south of the main line; and a large modern steel shed on the west side of the cattle yards.
The station building is a lowset, chamferboard-clad, timber-framed building standing on concrete stumps. It has a skillion roof clad in corrugated steel with modern gutters and downpipes, and the building has been partly reclad in Hardiplank. The original windows have been replaced. The building has been modified internally, and now consists of a women's toilet and an office, the shelter section having been enclosed. Two plastic water tanks to the south of the building are not significant. The gable-roofed goods shed is clad with corrugated iron, and the awning over the small timber loading dock on the southern elevation is supported on curved timber brackets. There is a concrete loading dock on the east elevation of the goods shed, which has timber doors on its north, south and east elevations. The two skillion roofed, two-bay trolley sheds are clad in corrugated iron, with corrugated iron sliding doors. The loading bank near the station building is made of earth, with concrete retaining walls, as is the loading bank near the tent quarters.
The framed tent quarters consist of two gable-roofed structures and a skillion-roofed bathroom. The northern structure is clad with corrugated iron and has a skillion-roofed stove recess to the north, and the southern structure is clad with chamferboard with timber studs exposed internally. Just to the east of the northern structure is a small bathroom clad with fibrous cement sheeting. All three elements of the quarters are linked by an open timber deck. The two main structures stand on concrete stumps, while the bathroom stands on metal stumps. The roof of the southern structure used to be supported independently on freestanding timber posts and over-sailed the ceiling line in the form of a tent. This has collapsed to the ground, although the roof of the southern structure is still clad with timber boards. There are two tank stands, to the east and west of the quarters, although only the east stand still has a corrugated iron tank. A corrugated iron-clad earth closet is located to the north of the quarters. The cattle yards are steel; with a loading ramp to the fork, and the northern section of the yards is made of timber.
The Newcastle Range and Delaney Gorge section of line.
The section of the Etheridge Railway over the Newcastle range and through the Delaney Gorge has more earthworks than the rest of the railway. The railway track runs along the north face of the Delaney Gorge and along the bed of the Delaney River for a short distance. The significant elements within this section of the railway include any stone pitched bridge piers and abutments, stone pitched culverts, and stone cuttings. A large stone pitched culvert is located near Native Well, east of Wirra Wirra. A bridge over Starlight Creek, just east of Delaney Gorge, has stone piers and abutments, and a small bridge just east of Wirra Wirra has stone abutments. Bridges constructed with stonework are significant due to their rarity on the Etheridge line.
There is a siding at Wirra Wirra (208.5km from Almaden), on the tableland of the Newcastle Range. Within the rail reserve there is a remnant of the east branch of the fork; and concrete slabs and concrete water tank footings south of the main line. Outside the railway reserve, near the location of the removed western arm of the fork, there is an earth and steel loading bank and some timber cattle yard posts. The modern QR telephone box and its supporting infrastructure are not significant.
Non-significant elements
The line has a large number of short timber trestle bridges with concrete abutments, along with a smaller number of medium-size timber trestle bridges, such as the High Bridge in the Delaney Gorge. Longer bridges on the line include those at Junction Creek, Lighthouse Creek, the Einasleigh River and the Copperfield River. Some bridges have one or more concrete piers, and some timbers have been replaced with steel. The bridges without stonework are not of cultural heritage significance, as they were designed to be cheaply replaced if damaged during floods, and the larger bridges have been replaced at various times; for example the Copperfield Bridge was destroyed in 1927, 1980 and 2002.
There are a number of small concrete culverts and open drains, concrete retaining walls in the Delaney Gorge, and modern QR communications installations at the stations and Wirra Wirra siding which are not significant. The sleepers of the main line within the railway reserve are not significant.
","history":"The Etheridge Railway line, which branches off the Mareeba-Chillagoe line at Almaden and heads south for 142 miles (229.5km) to Forsayth via Mount Surprise and Einasleigh, was built between 1907 and 1910 by the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company as a private railway line. The same company constructed the railway line from Mareeba to Chillagoe and Mungana between 1898 and 1901. The Etheridge line was built cheaply, with lighter rails and fewer earthworks than the Chillagoe line, to supply ore to the Chillagoe Company's under-utilised smelters at Chillagoe. The Chillagoe Company was part of the business empire of John Moffat, and between 1880 and 1914 much of the economic activity of North Queensland was driven by the railways and mining towns created by Moffat's enterprises. The remaining built infrastructure at stations along the Etheridge Railway provides examples of the type of buildings erected by the Chillagoe Company for its railway network.
John Moffat arrived in Brisbane from Scotland in 1862, and in 1872 he opened a general store in Stanthorpe with Robert Love, to take advantage of tin mining in the area. By 1880 Moffat decided to expand his tin-buying business to North Queensland, and that year his prospectors marked out a mineral freehold at the head of the Wild River, near Herberton. Battery machinery was erected in 1881 at "The Great Northern" mine, and the Herberton Tin Company was formed. In 1884 the Loudoun battery was established at Gibbs Creek and "Irvinebank" became Moffat's permanent headquarters. A tin smelter was also erected at Irvinebank in 1884, next to Moffat's residence Loudoun House. The Loudoun mill held a pivotal position in the North Queensland economy when Irvinebank was booming in 1899, and at its peak was the largest tin battery and smelter in Australia.
As well as mining and smelting tin, Moffat was also interested in silver and copper. He opened a silver smelter at Montalbion in 1886, and silver deposits were located at Muldiva in late 1889. In 1888 Moffat sent his prospectors to William Atherton's property at Chillagoe to look for copper, and Moffat soon monopolised the new field. The first copper smelter on the Chillagoe field was erected near the Boomerang mine at Calcifer in 1894, and by 1897 there was also a copper smelter at Girofla (Mungana). However, Moffat had plans for a central ore smelter which would replace the Loudoun smelter and the small primitive mills located near individual mine groups.
To supply a central smelter, Moffat needed a network of railways to his mines. He had commissioned the survey of a railway route to Chillagoe in 1892, hoping for a land-grant railway, but the depression had stifled the proposal. The Queensland Government's railway from Cairns reached Mareeba in the early 1890s and Moffat hoped to build a railway inland from this point. However, he needed capital for such a venture, and in 1897 he went to Melbourne to find investors, where he gained the attention of Charles William Chapman and James Smith Reid. In 1897 the Chillagoe Proprietary Company was formed. Reid and Chapman accompanied Moffat to Brisbane in November 1897 to present their railway proposal to the government. The resultant Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act of 1897 empowered the Chillagoe Proprietary Company to build a 95 mile railway for £431,000, subject only to a government right of purchase after 50 years. In 1898 a new company, Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited, was formed to take over the assets of the Chillagoe Proprietary Company.
The 1897 Act also approved a central smelter site at Barron Falls, but a short-lived Labor Government quashed the project in December 1899. The Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company was forced to develop its central smelter inland, accruing high transport costs. A central smelter site was selected at Chillagoe Creek, and smelters were constructed during 1900 and 1901. From 1902 the smelters extracted gold, silver and copper from ore which was supplied from Redcap and Calcifer, and they also treated lead ore from the Girofla mine and Torpy's Crooked Creek silver lead mine. In 1901 a copper smelter was also built at Mt Garnet, where copper had been discovered in 1882, but this was not linked to the Company's rail network (at Lappa) until 1902.
Construction of a 3'6" (1.06m) gauge railway with 60 pound per yard steel rails was supervised by AS Frew, the Chillagoe Company's Engineer-in-Charge, who had worked as an assistant to George Phillips on the Normanton-Croydon Railway, built between 1888 and 1891. Construction of the Chillagoe line began in August 1898, and it opened to Lappa on 1 October 1900 and to Chillagoe and Mungana in 1901. Labourers were hired on piece-work, and substantial work was sub-contracted. Stone and concrete culverts and drains were inserted in all embankments over 3 feet high, and steel and masonry bridges were constructed.
In an attempt to obtain more copper ore for the Chillagoe smelters, since ore reserves around Chillagoe had been overestimated, the Chillagoe Company sought to build a branch line from the Chillagoe Railway, south to the Etheridge goldfield and the Einasleigh copper mine. There had been a proposal by John Robb for a private railway to Georgetown in 1890 and in 1902 the Einasleigh Freehold Mining Company proposed a tramway from Almaden to Einasleigh, but nothing eventuated. Negotiations between the Chillagoe Company and the government occurred from 1904, and approval was finally given to build the railway subject to the provisions of the Etheridge Railway Act 1906. The Chillagoe Company agreed to build a railway to a point near Georgetown, for a cost not exceeding £450,000. The government would operate and maintain this private line for 15 years, guaranteeing the company a profit of 2.5% on its outlay, and then purchase the line. It was the first step towards the present system under which mineral railways are government owned and operated but built with private capital repaid out of profits.
The railway construction project was again overseen by AS Frew, and began in 1907, branching off south from Almaden. The station at Almaden (not included within the heritage boundary of the Etheridge line) was opened in 1901. It became a busy centre for trucking cattle and servicing locomotives.
The Etheridge Railway was constructed in the most economical way possible using timber for the bridges, sharp curves, steep grades and light (41¼ pound per yard) rails. There were fewer earthworks than on the Mareeba to Chillagoe line, and minimal ballast was used under the sleepers. Despite controversy, the Chillagoe Company changed the line terminus from Georgetown to Charleston (Forsayth) because it was thought that the mines near Charleston were more promising than those near Georgetown.
By 31 August 1907 the railhead was at 12 miles (19.3km). The line was opened to Mount Surprise in May 1908, and the railway station at Mount Surprise (108.5km from Almaden) was named in December 1909. In 1916 Mount Surprise station had a gate, siding, telephone, scales, fork, cattle yards, and a horse and carriage loading bank. By 1932 it had a station building, closet, goods shed, loading bank, motor shed, camping quarters, two fettler's quarters, enginemen's quarters, coal stage, and cattle yards. Mount Surprise became an important cattle trucking centre after 1951, with the reconditioning of the line from Almaden for steam locomotives. In 1970 approval was given to erect the railway station building from Tumoulin at Mount Surprise as a cottage (removed 2008). A repair shed for the Savannahlander tourist railmotor and an interpretation centre were built in the mid-1990s.
Although construction was delayed by strikes in mid-1908 over the pay rate for railway workers, the line was opened to Einasleigh (165.5km from Almaden) by February 1909. The Einasleigh copper mine was originally discovered by Richard Daintree in the mid 1860s, but the cost of transporting ore from the site made it uneconomic and it soon closed. The location was lost until the 1890s and a renewed interest in copper on the Etheridge field. A township known as Copperfield was established on the banks of the Copperfield River to service 12 copper mining leases extant by 1899, and this was surveyed as Einasleigh in 1900. The mine was reopened that year by the Einasleigh Freehold Mining Company, in which John Moffat had acquired an interest. By 1901 copper matte from a smelter at Einasleigh was being transported to Almaden by camel. The coming of the Etheridge Railway in 1909 allowed Einasleigh to boom, and it was the largest centre on the Etheridge between 1907 and 1910. By 1910 six ore trains a week were running from Einasleigh to the Chillagoe smelters, and in 1911 the mine was purchased by the Chillagoe Company. It closed in 1914, and was reopened by the government between 1920 and 1922.
By 1916 Einasleigh station consisted of a station building, siding, telephone, scales, fork, cattle yards, and a horse and cart loading bank. By 1935 it also had a goods shed (not extant). As both Einasleigh and Forsayth were expected to provide substantial amounts of copper ore, the importance of the towns' railway terminals meant that station master's houses, designed by Frew, were built at both towns (QHR 600505, 600507). A branch line to the Einasleigh copper mine forked off to the north of the station, and today the remaining section off this line leads to cattle yards.
By July 1909 a train was running from Almaden to Reedy Springs (Wirra Wirra), and by the end of August 1909 cuttings and embankments had been made to within 7 miles (11.2km) of Charleston, with stone culverts and drains complete to 2 miles (3.2km) from Charleston. More earthworks were required on the Newcastle Range and Delaney Gorge sections than elsewhere on the line. Ore trains were running to Chillagoe from a terminus just short of Charleston by January 1910, and the terminus (229.5km from Almaden) was renamed "Forsayth" in December 1910. The regular mixed train ran from Forsayth to Almaden three times a week, returning the next day, although there was only one train a week during World War I. By 1916 Forsayth station had a station building, siding, phone, scales, turning fork, cattle yards, and horse and cart loading bank. By 1935 it also had a gate and a goods shed. The cattle yards were rebuilt in 1970, but no cattle have been handled from the station since January 1993. The framed tent quarters date from about 1914, with 1930s additions.
The working and maintenance of the Etheridge railway was taken over by the government from 5 February 1911. From the beginning, cattle were transported from the various stations and sidings along the line, but this traffic increased in importance with the decline of mining. Apart from the main stations on the line there were a number of sidings, the majority situated between Almaden and Mount Surprise. Little survives at these sidings today, other than siding tracks, concrete slabs, some signals and points' equipment, loading banks and cattle yard remnants.
Around 1917 a lime burning business started at Ootann (13 km south of Almaden), using old kilns used during the construction of the railway, and a siding was installed about 1918. Ootann was the limit of steam operation from 1927 to 1951. It had a shelter shed by 1935, and an overhead gantry for loading lime. The present main line was originally the siding, as the main line was moved to install the gantry. Gelaro (30km) had a crossing loop, levers and a shelter shed by 1969. Bullock Creek (52km) had a siding and railway phone by 1916, and was the site of a permanent fettler's (rail line maintenance worker's) camp by 1932. There was a side loading bank and shelter by 1935, and private cattle yards by 1951. A 30,000 gallon (136,383 litre) water tank was present, although this no longer exists. The loading of cattle at Bullock Creek ceased in late 1991.
In 1908 Lyndbrook (69km) had a goods shed, engine shed, station house and forkline. It was named Lyndbrook in December 1909, and by 1935 it consisted of a siding, telephone, fork, side loading bank, shelter, and goods shed (the latter was removed that year). Private cattle yards existed by 1954, but no cattle have been loaded since January 1993. Fossilbrook Creek (77km) consisted of a telephone in 1950. Nearby Fossilbrook was a busy tin-mining town in 1905, with two hotels, but nothing remains of the town. Frewhurst (88km) had a sawmill about 1908, and was named in 1909. By 1916 it had a gate, siding, telephone and loading bank. It had a shelter by 1935, and a private cattle yard by 1951, which was enlarged in the mid 1970s. Livestock has not been handled from Frewhurst since late 1991.
South of Einasleigh, there was a siding (178.6km) at Teasdale (Teesdale) adjacent to the Teasdale Mine. There was a hotel here in 1909, but nothing remains of this siding today, or of a sawmill siding (198km). A siding at Reedy Springs (208.5km) was renamed Wirra Wirra in December 1910. In 1916 it consisted of a gate, siding, telephone, and fork. By 1935 it also had a side loading bank and a shelter. A new stock yard was built in 1960.
The railway extension did not make a great deal of difference to the financial stability of the Chillagoe Company. The high cost of fuel for the smelters, a lack of ore, increasing wages, low metal prices and over-capitalisation on railways and smelters all contributed to the closure of the Chillagoe smelters. The Company asked for a government loan in February 1914 and when this was refused the company shut down its smelting and ore-buying operations. Ironically, the price of metal rose during the course of World War I, while the smelters were idle.
Protracted negotiations between the government and the Chillagoe Company led to the passing of The Chillagoe and Etheridge Railways Act 1918 and the resumption of the company assets, including the Etheridge Railway, on 20 June 1919. The Almaden to Forsayth line was purchased for £225,000 pounds. The Chillagoe smelters were reopened in January 1920, and were operated by the government until 1943.
John Moffat retired in 1912, and died in June 1918. He helped develop North Queensland by bringing both public and private capital into the region, and from 1880 he had built up mining as the key foundation of the region's economy. His railway lines also assisted pastoralists, as railways resulted in cheaper rates for transporting supplies, and cattle could be sent to meatworks in better condition. Although gold mining briefly revived mining traffic on the Etheridge line in the 1930s, it was pastoralism that kept the towns of the Etheridge alive.
In January 1927 six bridges along the Etheridge line were destroyed by floods and the government sought to close the line beyond the lime works at Ootann, just south of Almaden. Due to public pressure the line was reopened in 1928, after the building of low-level bridges, but it was only maintained to standard suitable for use by railmotors. Steam trains did not operate on the line again until after the section from Almaden to Mount Surprise was reconditioned between 1949 and 1951 to allow the transport of heavier loads of cattle than could be pulled by diesel engines. This included adding 60 pound per yard rails on corners, regrading in six places, and one deviation. From the 1950s diesel-mechanical locomotives operated in multiple south of Mount Surprise to allow larger loads of cattle to be moved on the section of line to Forsayth. They were followed by diesel electric locomotives. This work assisted the cattle industry but the building of a bituminized "Beef Road" from Georgetown to Cairns reduced the use of the Etheridge line for cattle from the late 1960s. The use of steam locomotives to Mount Surprise ended in 1969.
The Etheridge line was closed again after floods in 1974, but reopened in December that year. In late 1994 and early 1995 the local community protested against the proposed ending of the Cairns to Forsayth freight and passenger rail service, which would leave only the Mount Surprise to Forsayth section of the Etheridge line operating as a tourist railway. Einasleigh's population blockaded the railway for four days in late December 1994, holding the "Last Great Train Ride" hostage. During this period the locals fed and housed the train passengers and crew until the blockade was lifted after negotiation with the police. The line from Mareeba to Mount Surprise was closed and the Savannahlander tourist railmotor started operation from Mt Surprise to Forsayth in April 1995. However, after an upgrade of the line for sugar syrup trains from Cairns to Arriga, and limited restoration of the rest of the line, the Savannahlander started travelling from Cairns to Forsayth in September 1998. Over four days the Savannahlander, operated by Cairns Kuranda Steam, travels to Mareeba, then west on the Chillagoe line as far as Almaden, before heading south to Forsayth on the Etheridge line and then returning to Cairns. It uses three railmotor units, including two 2000 Class PD cars (1963) and one 2051 class PLDT car (1971). The Etheridge line is currently maintained by Queensland Rail, on a contract basis for Queensland Transport. During 2007 and 2008 many of the Etheridge line's timber sleepers have been replaced with steel sleepers, leaving a 1:1 ratio of timber to steel.
","criteria":"The Etheridge Railway was an essential element of the business empire of John Moffat and the Chillagoe Company. Between 1880 and 1914 much of the economic activity of North Queensland was driven by the railways and mining towns created by Moffat's enterprises.
|The tent quarters at Forsayth is a rare surviving Queensland example of its type, and provides evidence of the amenities considered appropriate for railway workers in the early twentieth century.
The large iron water tank at Mount Surprise is a good example of a type now becoming rare.
|The surviving railway buildings, rails, sidings, turning forks, cattle yards, loading banks, stone pitched bridges and culverts, stone cuttings, sandboxes, water tank, signage, and signals and points infrastructure at the Mount Surprise, Einasleigh and Forsayth railway stations and along the Etheridge Railway between Mount Surprise and Forsayth all demonstrate the principal characteristics of a railway line that was used for mining and pastoral purposes.
The route and formation of the line between Mount Surprise and Forsayth, with its steep gradients and sharp curves and accompanying lack of earthworks, along with the relative lack of steel, stone or brick bridge piers and abutments, demonstrates the nature of a railway line that was built as economically as possible. The section of the railway over the Newcastle Range and through the Delaney Gorge, although it has more earthworks and stone cuttings than any other section of the railway, also demonstrates a cheap form of railway construction, due to its sharp curves and steep gradients.
The Mount Surprise station complex has the most intact group of railway buildings, and its station building, goods shed, small timber shed and water tank are all good examples of their type. Other elements, such as two railway houses, a trolley shed, sandbox, sidings, turning fork and signals and points levers all contribute to an understanding of how a rural railway station functioned. The shower under the water tank illustrates the past lifestyle of railway workers.
|The Etheridge Railway, constructed by John Moffat's Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company between 1907 and 1910, was a significant component of an important, large-scale, privately built mining railway network in North Queensland and is important in demonstrating the wide-spread development of mining and transport infrastructure in this part of the State.
The railway stations at Mount Surprise, Einasleigh and Forsayth and the route of the Etheridge Railway between Mount Surprise and Forsayth, including surviving railway buildings, rails, sidings, turning forks, loading banks, stone pitched bridges and culverts, stone cuttings, sandboxes, water tank, signage, and signals and points infrastructure, are important surviving evidence of the efforts of the Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company to supply copper ore to its smelters at Chillagoe.
The arrangement under which the State government maintained and operated the Etheridge Railway initially as a private line - with an option to purchase after 15 years - was the first step towards the present system under which mineral railways are government owned and operated but built with private capital repaid out of profits.
The station complexes at the mining towns of Einasleigh and Forsayth demonstrate the economic importance of these locations to the Chillagoe Company. Both stations have impressive triple-gabled station master's residences (QHR 600505, 600507) designed by AS Frew.
The Mount Surprise railway station complex and other remaining evidence of cattle transportation at the main stations along the Etheridge Railway, such as cattle yards and loading banks, are important in demonstrating the role that the railway played in maintaining pastoral activity in the area before the construction of the bitumen "Beef Road" in the 1960s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16408,"place_ref":601647,"name":"Fachwerk Farmhouse","alternate_name":"Krugers Farm","street_address":"445 - 469 Beenleigh Redland Bay Rd","suburb":"CARBROOK","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"A 12 hectare property on the northern bank of the Logan River at Carbrook, the former Kruger's Farm is situated in a rural residential area at the intersection of the Beenleigh-Redland Bay Road and Skinners Road. Skinners Road, a continuation of the Mount Cotton Road, joins Skinners Park, a former wharf reserve on the Logan River, to form the western boundary of the farm. Other rural residential properties adjoin the eastern boundary of the farm.
The entrance to the property is via the northern frontage that faces the Beenleigh-Redland Bay Road. An extended driveway leads from the northeast corner, through grazing paddocks, past a cluster of timber sheds, to the original brick and timber farmhouse. Other structures on the property include a substantial extension to the farmhouse, a modern garage, stockyards and a dam. The extension and the garage are not significant.
The Fachwerk Farmhouse is located adjacent to the dam, towards the eastern side of the property and somewhat closer to the river frontage than the road frontage. An elevated timber framed brick cottage with a corrugated iron gable roof, it is a simple rectangular planned building with skillion-roofed verandahs on the longer north and south elevations. Consisting of a main level and an attic built under the steeply pitched roof, the house has been constructed using the traditional German building method known as fachwerk.
Fachwerk is a type of half-timbering consisting of the erection of a timber structural frame, the walls of which are then infilled with non-structural masonry panels. In this case the infill is face brickwork. The framing, reputed to be grey ironbark, is generally square in section, hand cut and assembled off site prior to the final erection. Roman numerals and runes are inscribed in the timber to identify the position of each structural member. Joints, including cross-halved, checked and mortise and tenon, interlock the timber members giving the frame greater structural rigidity. Each member must be placed into position in the correct sequence during erection due to the complexity of the jointing system. Round timber pegs are used to position and hold joints, instead of nails. Some of these timber pegs are visible, cut flush with the face of the posts.
The timber frame is clearly visible on the exterior of the building and throughout most of the interior. Short timber stumps support sturdy horizontal bottom plates positioned in line with the floor joists. The bottom plates on the eastern and western ends extend to form the framing for the verandah floors. Timber posts mounted on the bottom plate, are positioned at regular intervals dividing the wall into panels. Horizontal top plates, positioned in line with the floor joists of the attic on the east and west walls and directly under the floor joists on the north and south walls, rest on the top of the posts. Between each post are two rows of timber nogging, dividing the panels equally except where windows, mostly timber casements, are incorporated. Diagonal cross bracing, half-checked where it meets the horizontal nogging, is used externally in the wall panels adjacent to the corners of the building. Panels of interior wall that meet the perimeter walls are also cross-braced. In the gable end walls, shorter posts of various heights are positioned between the top plate and the rafters. The timber frame was originally finished with a stain, possibly of ox blood, but has since been painted.
Brick infill panels in stretcher bond fit snugly into the spaces between the timber wall members. This kind of brickwork is known as backfilling or brick nogging. The heights between the horizontal timber members are sized to suit brick dimensions. The original bricks are soft handmade bricks, reddish brown in colour and laid with a lime mortar.
The farmhouse has a simple gable roof, clad in corrugated iron. The roof structure is comprised of a series of timber rafters supported on a central ridge beam and the perimeter walls. Timber posts, positioned over the lower level internal walls, break the span of the ridge beam. A timber bracket on one side of the post further reduces the central span. Roofs over the verandahs are a continuation of the gable roof of the house but with a shallower pitch.
The north verandah has a timber floor, timber stairs and exposed timber framing including, timber posts with decorative brackets supporting the verandah beam. Brick stairs of recent construction have been built on the eastern end of the verandah. A panelled timber door in the centre of the north elevation opens into the living room of the farmhouse. The north verandah overlooks a lawn and garden which are fenced off from the surrounding paddocks. The remains of a once large fig tree, which has resprouted, is located just in front of this verandah.
The south verandah has been built in and a skillion-roofed patio with a concrete floor has been added. The south west corner of the verandah, enclosed with a similar type of construction to the main house, now houses a bathroom. The remainder of the verandah is enclosed by aluminium sliding doors. The eastern end of the south verandah opens into the recent extension to the original farmhouse.
The Fachwerk Farmhouse contains three rooms on the ground level, a central living room and two side rooms accessed from the central room. The floors are timber, covered with carpet and interior walls are rendered and painted. The timber frame is visible in the north and south walls and the internal dividing walls but the east and west walls have been re-plastered, concealing the timber framing. The original ceiling has been removed and a new timber attic floor now forms the ceiling over the ground level rooms, exposing the original timber ceiling joists.
A steep stair provides access from the south verandah to the attic. This stair has been added and the attic was probably originally reached via an external ladder. The attic ceiling has been lined with sheeting and the rafters are only partly visible. No original furniture remains in the farmhouse.
Some of the original fabric of the house was altered when renovations were carried out in the 1980s. The brickwork on the eastern and western walls, damaged in an earlier storm, was replaced with modern bricks and cement mortar. The brickwork in the gable at the western end of the building was replaced with glass installed between the original timber members. Windows in the eastern and western walls have been replaced with aluminium-framed windows and new awnings have been constructed over these windows.
Other structures that remain on the farm include three timber sheds located on either side of the entry driveway and timber cattle yards positioned to the east of the driveway. The sheds are all in very poor condition due to the effects of termites and weathering. Further investigation of the site might reveal remnants of earlier buildings such as a smoke house and kitchen, thought to have been built on the site of the new extension, a brick making facility in or near the dam and the remains of a pit saw and wharf in the adjoining park.
The site has only a few large trees, except for the riverbank which is thickly vegetated with established mangroves.
","history":"The brick and timber farmhouse was erected beside the Logan River in the early 1870s for immigrant German farmer Christian Krüger and his family. It was built using construction methods and materials traditional to rural northern Germany, from where the majority of settlers along the Logan River in the middle of the 19th century emigrated.
The farm is located on the former Logan River Agricultural Reserve. The creation of agricultural reserves was one of the Queensland government's earliest initiatives following separation from New South Wales in December 1859. Expanding agricultural production within Queensland's pastoral-based economy was necessary to reduce the colony's dependence on imported foodstuffs, and to encourage cash cropping of export commodities such as cotton and sugar. The Alienation of Crown Lands Act of 1860 incorporated provision for the government to create agricultural reserves on which good arable land was to be sold cheaply at the fixed price of £1 per acre. In the same year, an area of approximately 20,000 acres along the lower reaches of the Logan River 17 miles (30 kilometres) southeast of Brisbane was surveyed into farm portions. On 2 January 1861 this area was proclaimed the Logan River Agricultural Reserve, with the first sale of land on the reserve held in Brisbane on 2 April 1862. Extensions to the reserve totalling 33,000 acres were proclaimed in 1863 and 1864. The land that Christian Krüger later acquired was part of the second extension to the Logan River Agricultural Reserve. It was surveyed in 1865 and first offered for sale on 19 April 1866, but was not alienated at the time.
Another priority closely linked to the expansion of agriculture was the promotion of immigration to Queensland, to alleviate severe labour and skills shortages, expand the amount of land under cultivation, and create a local market for Queensland produce. To encourage the expansion of agriculture, amendments were made in 1861 to the Alienation of Crown Lands Act of 1860, whereby a system of land orders was introduced as an incentive to immigrants. This system was incorporated into the Immigration Act of 1864, and entitled immigrants from steerage or intermediate class who had paid their full passage to the receipt of non-transferable land orders. These land orders could be exchanged for any country or suburban land offered for sale by auction or selection to the value of the land orders issued. Assisted passages were offered to labourers and mechanics, but these persons usually did not receive land orders from 1864. Immigrants from England, Ireland and Scotland were the targeted group, but the Act also provided for emigration from Germany at the rate of no more than 2,000 adults per annum. In the 20 years (1861-81) that the land order system operated in Queensland, 9,514 German immigrants arrived on 45 voyages.
The first wave of German immigrants brought to Queensland under the auspices of immigration agent Johann Christian Heussler (appointed in 1861) and the Godeffroy & Son shipping company arrived in 1864 and settled at Bethania on the Logan River, where they were among the first to take up agricultural land. Large numbers of German immigrants followed them to the area, settling around Bethania, Beenleigh, Yatala, Eagleby (Philadelphia), Alberton, Carbrook (Gramzow), Stapylton (Yellow Wood) and Pimpama. In the 1871 census, 20% of the Logan-Albert district population was German born (compared with 7% for the whole of Queensland), and the percentage was much higher on the Logan River Agricultural Reserve, which was populated predominately by German immigrant families. As late as 1898, the Logan River area with its German population was referred to by the English community as 'Germany', with Australian-born children of immigrant parents still speaking low German, or deusch plat, possibly as their principal language. By 1898 the district had 7 Lutheran churches which nurtured and facilitated German culture on the Logan reserve. Until well into the 20th century, church services were conducted in German and German language schools operated at several of the Logan churches.
Christian Krüger and his wife Wilhelmine and two children arrived at Moreton Bay on the Suzanne Goddefroy on 6 September 1865. This was the peak year for German immigration to Queensland, with 2,830 immigrants arriving in 12 ships. Most of these immigrants were attracted by the opportunity to acquire cheap farmland in Queensland - very few appear to have emigrated for religious or political reasons at this period. For the first two years the Krüger family resided at Bethania, where Christian worked as a farm labourer in the closely knit German community. In 1867 he selected portion 203, parish of Mackenzie, a parcel of 31 acres on the north side of the Logan River at Gramzow, some miles downstream from Bethania. Gramzow was named after a small town in the Uckermark region of Prussia (north Germany), from where large numbers of the early Logan settlers had emigrated in 1864-65. It was re-named Carbrook in 1916 during World War 1, when anti-German feeling was high.
The Krüger family may have been assisted immigrants not eligible for land orders, because there is no record of them having received government land orders, and Christian made application for the Gramzow selection on 23 August 1867 under the conditions of the Leasing Act of 1866. This Act enabled any Crown land offered for sale by auction or selection and not sold within 30 days, to be opened for lease. The term of the lease was eight years, and the land would be granted to the lessee as freehold following the final year's payment. Christian Krüger was able to pay off his lease some years in advance, and acquired the freehold to portion 203 on 31 December 1872.
Like most of the German settlers on the Logan River reserve, the Krügers erected a slab and bark hut as their first dwelling, and concentrated on clearing the scrub, fencing the land and planting their first crop, which probably was maize. Within a few years the farm had proved viable, and the family was able to erect a larger and more substantial residence. According to a local tradition, the present farmhouse was built in 1871, the year Mrs Auguste Ernestine Krüger (neé Raedel), Christian's daughter-in-law, was born. However, it is also possible the house was built c1873, after Christian Krüger acquired title to the land.
The Krügers constructed their farmhouse in the half-timbering or fachwerk method similar to the mid-19th century German farmhouses erected in South Australia (at Hahndorf, Paechtown, Lobethal, the Barossa Valley, etc), and traditional to north German rural communities. Fachwerk, meaning shelf-work, involved the raising of an interlocking timber frame that was then infilled with masonry such as brick-nogging or wattle and daub. The latter was often rendered. Similarly constructed buildings identified in the Logan River district include: the first St Paul's Lutheran Church at Gramzow erected in 1875 under the supervision of August von Senden, a Gramzow-Mt Cotton resident; the first Lutheran manse at Bethania erected by 1884; the Holzheimer farmhouse at Bethania, erected by c1872; the Schneider home at Waterford, which also operated as the Waterford Post Office; and M Schneider's blacksmith shop at Waterford. Apart from the farmhouse at the former Krüger's farm, none of these buildings survive. The Lutheran churches at Bethania and at Eagleby were constructed of brick, but not in the half-timbered fashion.
Fachwerk buildings were not unusual on the Logan River Agricultural Reserve, but neither were they common. If an early farmhouse of slab construction was replaced by a more substantial house during the 1860s or 1870s, half-timbering was an option. By the 1880s, however, it would appear that the early homes were being replaced with standard Queensland timber and corrugated galvanised iron residences. The reason as to why fachwerk was no longer practised has yet to be established. The construction of fachwerkbau required the services of a highly skilled craftsman due to the complexity of the jointing and assembly of the structural timber frame.
August von Senden may have been the master carpenter who constructed the frame for the Krüger's and supervised its erection. Von Senden was a neighbour of Christian Krüger, and was resident on the Logan River Agricultural Reserve from at least September 1869, when he made application to select portion 208, parish of Mackenzie. In partnership with E Schroeder he later held portions 200 and 201, and from 1873 leased a substantial land holding at Mt Cotton as well as his Gramzow farms. Von Senden supervised the erection of the frame for St Paul's at Gramzow, and although clearly a farmer - with interests in a sugar mill at Mt Cotton as well - is listed in the 1889 Queensland Post Office Directory as a carpenter.
The timber frame (walls, floor and roof) of the Fachwerk Farmhouse appears to have been cut and dressed off site, with each section clearly marked with Roman numerals or other identifying marks. The Krüger family believes the frame, with the exception of the verandahs, was then assembled and raised by 14 men in one day. It was then infilled with hand-made bricks which reputedly came from Eagleby, on the other side of the Logan River. The roof was shingled originally, unlike the thatched roofs of the South Australian fachwerk buildings. Also unlike the South Australian buildings, which usually rested on a stone plinth, the Gramzow house is elevated on timber stumps. This standard method utilized in most Queensland timber buildings is also a feature of some German fachwerkbau, especially those located on flood plains. Von Senden was a native of Holstein where it was common practice for buildings erected in swampy areas and on low lying islands to be raised on piers.
The farmhouse originally had a separate kitchen and smokehouse. A kitchen alcove was added to the original building around the end of the 19th century. The farmhouse survived the great flood of January 1887, despite water rising several feet inside. By 1888, Krüger's farm was concentrating on sugar production, one of the staple crops in the Logan-Albert district until the collapse of the sugar industry after the turn of the century, and the family had an interest in a sugar mill on an adjacent property.
Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, who in 1865 at the age of 10 had emigrated to the Logan with his parents Christian and Wilhelmine, married in 1891 and raised 13 children on the farm. Title to the farm had passed to him in 1886, although his parents continued to reside there until their deaths in 1905, within 5 months of each other. CFW Krüger died in 1928, but his widow Auguste Ernestine Raedel remained at Krüger's farm until her death at the age of nearly 100 in 1970. Title to the farm passed out of the Krüger family in 1978.
","criteria":"Influenced by the prevailing land order system and the appointment of German-born immigration agents, 1861 to 1881 was the period of large scale German immigration to Queensland. Little physical evidence survives of the close-knit communities these immigrants established along the Logan River and the farmhouse is a visible reminder of an important pattern of migration to Queensland during the second half of the 19th century. One of the oldest buildings remaining in the Logan district, the farmhouse also provides evidence of the early settlement of the Logan River Agricultural Reserve.
|The farmhouse is extremely rare as the only known surviving example of fachwerk in Queensland.
Constructed in the early 1870s by immigrant German farmers using a traditional building technique, the Fachwerk Farmhouse at Carbrook is significant as rare surviving evidence of the transplantation of north German culture, language and tradition to Queensland during the formative post-Separation years.
|The Fachwerk Farmhouse is significant for its potential to reveal information about traditional north German construction techniques, especially from the Uckermark area of Germany, brought to Queensland in the mid-19th century. Further study of the place may also reveal other structures and archaeological remains that could contribute to our understanding of a way of life no longer practiced in Queensland.
|A distinctive timber and masonry building method, fackwerk requires a master craftsman to fashion and erect a jointed timber frame. The farmhouse is substantially intact and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a fachwerkbau, or traditional north German half-timbered building.
|Due to its unique appearance and the loss of other similar buildings, the place has a special association with early German immigrants who played an important role in the settlement of Queensland and whose descendants still live in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16410,"place_ref":601649,"name":"Southport Town Hall (former)","alternate_name":"South Coast Town Hall | Gold Coast Town Hall | Gold Coast City Hall","street_address":"Nerang Street","suburb":"SOUTHPORT","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The former Southport Town Hall is a two storeyed rendered brick and concrete building situated on the corner of Nerang and Davenport Streets, Southport. The front façade of the building is set back from the Nerang Street footpath, allowing for a small lawned entrance court.
The symmetrically composed building comprises a central entrance bay on the Nerang Street façade, flanked by side wings. The Davenport Street façade of the building is three bays deep, each of these bays similar in form, although narrower, than those flanking the central entrance bay. The corrugated fibrous cement clad roof is concealed by a parapet on the principal façades of the building. The building is constructed with cavity brick load bearing external walls, rendered with cement externally and with plaster internally. A concrete slab forms the ground floor and the first floor is timber framed and boarded.
The principal façades of the building are divided into bays by flat vertical moulded fins which extend beyond the parapet line, terminating with leaf shaped silhouettes. These fins define the bays of the building and separate banks of windows surrounded by decorative moulding and moulded panels. A vertical fin moulded panel forms a base to the building and surmounting this are sills for the ground floor window openings. The windows throughout the building are timber framed vertical sashes. Between the windows of the ground floor and the first floor are vertical fin moulded panels with central disc and diamond shaped ornaments which also act as ventilators, alternating on each of the panels. Above the first floor windows openings is a strip moulding with chevron and diamond pattern. The parapet is lined on its upper edge with a strip moulding with a vertical lined pattern which creates a miniature crenellated silhouette between the leaf shaped fins. Separating the windows are vertical moulded pilaster-like elements with vertical mouldings. The other faces of the building are of unrendered brickwork.
At the base of the central entrance bay, which projects both forward from the footprint of the building and substantially above the parapet, is a double timber entrance door. Providing access to this is concrete steps, recessed into and flanked by the lawned court. The doors, which have carved timber Art Deco motif, slide into cavities flanking the doorway. Above the door is a signage panel with 'PRO BONO PUBLICO', above which is a fanlight with letting 'CHAMBERS'. Inside the entrance is a small vestibule from which further terrazzo clad stairs provide entrance to a large public space. Access is provided to the various ground floor offices, the stair hall and a c1950s public enquiries counter. The timber, three quarter turn stair is at the southern end of the building and fills the recess created with the projecting entrance bay. The stair has a metal balustrades comprising a simple geometric pattern wrought in steel. The stair hall is lined with square ceramic tiles which have been painted.
The upper floor of the former Council Chambers is arranged with a central space from which the offices and former council chamber is accessed. The former council chamber, on the western Davenport Street side of the building features an elaborate moulded plaster ceiling, which is stepped around the edges. The reveals of the steps formed have alternate bands of mouldings featuring strong geometric designs. Surrounding the uppermost step is a flat moulding spreading into the ceiling and incorporating octagonal shaped ventilators with stylised floral designed covers. The cornice also features a stylised floral moulded pattern. Generally the interior has plaster rendered walls and ceiling, with Art Deco inspired mouldings. The terrazzo floors on the ground floor have been uncovered and the timber floors on the first floor have been clad with vinyl floor sheeting and carpet. A strong room survives on the first floor.
To the rear of the 1935 building is a two storeyed reinforced concrete and glass wing, approximately the same size as the early building and linked to it with a recessed two storeyed wing. The recessed link creates a court on the Davenport Street side of the place, between the two main components of the council chambers, visually separating the buildings.
","history":"The Southport Town Hall was constructed in 1935 on the corner of Davenport and Nerang Streets, by the Southport Town Council replacing an earlier timber structure built in the nineteenth century. The building was designed by prominent Brisbane architects, Hall and Phillips, and is one of a number of buildings designed by the partnership which demonstrate a strong Art Deco influence.
The Nerang Division was formed in the nineteenth century to provide local government for the emerging community at the southern end of coastal Queensland. In 1883 Southport received separate local government representation when the Southport Divisional Board was formed. In the 1880s the popularity of Southport as a seaside holiday destination surged. Southport developed as an alternate resort when Sandgate became more accessible with the introduction of the rail line in 1882. Logging in the Southport area had commenced in the late 1850s, and by 1875 the first sales of land opened the area for settlement. By the 1880s major Brisbane families favoured Southport as the principal sea-side area. The construction of major schools, banks and hotels stimulated Southport's growth the premier nineteenth century resort as did the presence of the Governor's residence in the 1890s. A rail extension from Beenleigh to Southport was opened in 1889 making Southport more accessible from Brisbane.
A Town Council Chamber was constructed for the Southport Divisional Board at the corner of Nerang and Davenport Streets in 1899, prior to which the Board met at the court house. The Divisional Board continued to meet in this building until the 1930s when it was decided that a new chambers would reflect the increased size and popularity of Southport. The 1930s were a time of considerable growth and an important time in the development of Southport. In fact, there was rapid growth in coastal regions throughout Queensland during this period as bathing in sea water became increasingly popular as a recreational pursuit. As well, by this time the majority of the general population benefited from paid holiday leave, increasing leisure time and the opportunities for extended holidays. Councils of various coastal regions were competing for holiday trade by instigating beautification schemes and programmes for the provision of public facilities on the beaches.
The Southport Town Council, formed in 1915 from the Southport Divisional Board, undertook such an improvement scheme, taking advantage of the State Government's employment relief programme, which saw low interest loans provided to local councils for capital works. As part of this bathing pavilions, a surf lifesaving clubhouse, beach reclamation and the construction of the council chambers were planned. Included in the money borrowed by the Southport Council was £3000 for the construction of a new council chambers, to reflect the prosperity and progressiveness of the Council.
To design the council chambers the Town Council acquired the services of Brisbane architectural partnership, Hall and Phillips. Hall and Phillips were a Brisbane architectural partnership, formed in 1929, when Lionel Blythewood Phillips was admitted into partnership with Thomas Ramsay Hall, formerly of Hall and Prentice, who designed the City Hall and Ascot Chambers. Hall and Phillips continued in practice until 1948. TR Hall lived at Southport during this period and the firm was commissioned by the Southport Town Council for a number of projects in the 1920s and 1930s, including the Main Beach and Southport Bathing Pavilions (1934); and the Southport Surf Lifesaving Club (1936). Other work by Hall and Phillips at the south coast include the Pier Theatre (1926); Pacific Hotel, Southport (1926); and seaside homes for J Cavill, JB Charlton, TJ Barry and RG Clarke along with various business premises and accommodation units.
The design prepared by TR Hall, on behalf of Hall and Phillips, for the new Southport Town Hall was clearly inspired by the fashionable artistic and architectural style, Art Deco. Named as a style following a 1925 exhibition in Paris, Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Art Deco refers more to pastiche qualities rather than a more integral architectural style. Hall and Phillips were the main proponents of Art Deco inspired architecture in Brisbane although this was certainly not the only influence on their vast work. Many of their prominent works displaying this influence include the dining room extension to the Tattersall's Club, Queen Street; McWhirters' corner, Fortitude Valley; Shell House (now CPS Credit Union), Ann Street; Stewarts and Lloyds Factory (now Australian Consolidated Industries), Montague Road, West End as well as the Southport Town Hall. Art Deco diverged from the aesthetic purity of modernism, reintroducing surface ornamentation and polychromy and with a theatricality which served as a 'middle-brow bridge between modernism and consumerism'. Art Deco was little used as a three dimension architectural style, more often applied as a two dimension ornament to the façades and interiors of mostly, commercial buildings and apartment buildings. Elements of the style include polychrome ornamentation commonly combining geometrical shapes particularly chevrons and repeated lines, and stylised floral patterns. Usually such ornamentation was concentrated around entrances and at the parapet line and is juxtaposed with more general ornamentation, like faceting, fins and chevron mouldings creating three dimensional crystalline surfaces.
The Southport Town Council were influenced by the architects to adopt a popular inter war style reflecting the anticipated prosperity and development of the south coast and specifically, Southport. Originally the building was designed to incorporate a central tower, but this was omitted from the final work for financial reasons. Tenders were called for the building in late 1934 and by January, 1935 the tender of Brisbane builder, H Cheetham was accepted as noted in the Architects' and Builders' Journal of Queensland. Construction began on the building on 11 January 1935 and the new Town Hall was expected to be completed at a cost of £5970. The first part of the construction process involved removing the original council chambers and transferring this to another part of Southport where it remained in use as the council chambers until construction was completed on the new Town Hall.
The building was finished by August 1935 and on 2 August 1935 the Southport Town Hall was officially opened by the Queensland Premier, William Forgan-Smith in commemoration of the employment relief loan the Southport Town Council received from the State Government in order to construct the building. When opened, the building provided four offices on the ground floor, three of which were to be let and one of which would house a state funded baby clinic. The upper floor provided office accommodation for the Mayor and Town Clerk of Southport and a council chamber. The painting on the project was done by Dyne and Co. under the supervision of Messrs James and Frank Holden. The plumber involved with construction was JW Parker and the electrician was JR Ritchie.
Both the local press in the form of the South Coast Bulletin, and the Architects' and Builders' Journal of Queensland reported on the completed building, which was described as 'an interesting study in modern architectural design' and a building which 'add(ed) a new type of architecture to the town.' More specifically one of the reports detailed the building:
The centre which has the main entrance is bold in treatment and is supported by symmetrical wings. The main motif is of vertical line, with horizontal treatment between the main piers...It is constructed of brickwork walls, concrete ground floor, wood first floor and fibrolite roof. All external walls are cavity brickwork preserving the coolness of the building and preventing dampness and as a further precaution the walls have been cement rendered. The ground floor has an entrance vestibule and hall stair lobby giving access to four large well lighted offices, which at present are to be rented but will provide extra space if required by the council...The council's offices are on the first floor where a generous public space provides approach to a general office and water authority business being conducted across a silky oak counter. Access to the mayor's room, health office and town clerk's office is direct from the public space. A staircase at the back leads to the yard. The council chamber (31 feet by 19 feet) is an imposing room with textured walls, silky oak furniture and honour board. The (un)usual splay steeped ceiling of fibrous plaster is a distinctive feature. Provision is made for a small public gallery to the chamber and adjoining the chamber is a committee room.
The Southport Town Council moved into their new Town Hall and remained in the building until the Southport Town Council was amalgamated with other south coast councils to form the South Coast Town Council in 1949. The new amalgamated council used the former Southport Town Hall as their council chambers and a large addition to the rear of the building was made in 1952 to house additional offices. The extension was well designed to allow the 1936 building to retain its form and scale. In 1955 a metal framed and glazed porch was added to the Nerang Street entrance to the 1935 building. As well windows were removed from the front façade and a ground floor men's toilet was relocated. The South Coast Town Council was renamed the Gold Coast Town Council in 1958 and, having reached the level of municipality, the council was renamed the Gold Coast City Council in 1959. The Gold Coast City Council remained at the former Southport Town Hall until 1976 when new offices at Evandale were constructed. From that time the building has been used as the Southport branch of the Council.
In 1997 a large scale conservation project was undertaken by the Southport branch of the City Council designed by Inarc Architects with Arnold Wolthers Architect providing heritage advice. The project involved the removal of the 1955 front porch; the reinstatement of ground floor windows and doors, internal reconstruction and the reconstruction of external decoration. During this work many of the original features, including the front doors, lettering over the front entrance and internal features were revealed.
","criteria":"The former Southport Town Hall, constructed in 1935 as the second town hall on the site, demonstrates the development of Southport during the 1930s when a developing permanent community and rapidly increasing transient, holiday making population were provided with a large progressively designed Town Hall, reflecting the anticipated prosperity and development of the shire.
|The former Southport Town Hall is an important example of an Art Deco influenced building, designed by Brisbane architectural partnership, Hall and Phillips.
The building has strong associations with its designers, Hall and Phillips, who designed many fine buildings in south east Queensland influenced by Art Deco.
|The building has aesthetic significance as a well composed public building on a prominent site, clearly designed to illustrate the progressive nature of the Town Council who built it in a popular inter-war architectural style. The ornamentation and decoration on and within the building contributes to its aesthetic value and the survival of internal Art Deco decoration is rare.
|The building has social significance as a centrally located civic building which has been open for public purposes for over sixty years.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16411,"place_ref":601650,"name":"Cliffside Apartments","alternate_name":"Cliffiside Flats","street_address":"76 Lower River Terrace","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-02-27","description":"Cliffside Apartments is a five story, masonry building located on the cliff at Kangaroo Point overlooking Garden's Point and the Botanic Gardens. The building is of load-bearing cavity brick construction finished alternately in face brickwork and cement render. Concrete construction is used in retaining walls and carparking structures on the southern side of the building. The northern elevation facing the river is dominated by large hexagonal bay windows projecting from the corners of the building. This elevation also has a number of smaller, faceted bay windows and a central, decorated bay window spanning two floors and housing a large sign inscribed "Cliffside".
The large hipped roof is clad in terracotta tiles with a small brick chimney from the former incinerator. Timber casement windows with concrete sills are to be found throughout the building and many have concrete shades supported by concrete corbels projecting from the lintel. The main entrance to the building is from Lower River Terrace and is marked with an iron entry gate. Steps and paths edged with porphyry drawn from the site encircle the building and lead to the various front doors of individual flats. There are a number of types of stonework in the garden including low, coursed walls of squared rubble construction and random rubble walls as well as garden beds edged with shards of vertical stone. An expanse of lawn overlooks the river on the level of the first floor flats and laundry area and is retained with a large concrete and porphyry sloping wall. The lawn is fenced and has a flagpole, planting includes a jacaranda and mature frangipani.
The building contains seven flats, six of which were designed with two bedrooms and one single bedroom flat. The former caretaker's quarters is located under the garages, within a concrete framed building with tall concrete posts. Each of the flats have their own front doors. Entry doors are high mid-rail timber with decorative leadlight upper panels, some having complimentary windows located close by. Back doors are located on the southern elevation, accessed by landings off a central dogleg stair housed within a timber, fibro and lattice stairwell.
The interiors of the flats are characterised by dark, stained timber panelling, plate rails and joinery with white decorative plaster ceilings, ornate cornices and dark, polished hardwood floors. Features include a number of built-in storage units and a kitchen-dining room servery with leadlight windows. The kitchens have basic timber joinery and dining nooks of two bench seats and a table. Bathrooms have terrazzo floors and original tiling around the combined shower and bath.
A shared laundry area is situated on the ground floor towards the eastern end of the building. On the southern side of the building are two carparking structures. A timber and fibrous-cement shed is located above the caretakers flat on the western end of the site. On the eastern side, a concrete structure accommodates two carpark spaces with carparking above.
","history":"Cliffside Apartments, a five storey masonry building prominently located on the cliffs at Kangaroo Point, was built in 1936-37 to the design of architect and engineer R. Martin Wilson. The building is sited on two blocks originally part of an early land purchase by John and George Harris in 1855. The land passed through the hands of several owners until it was purchased by Mrs Doris R. Booth at the beginning of 1930. At the time that Mrs Booth bought the site it was a sheer cliff of solid porphyry with a railway and wharves at its base.
Mrs Booth was born in 1895 in a house named Cliffside next to the railway gates on the cliff at Kangaroo Point. She married Captain Charles Booth in 1919 and together they travelled to New Guinea in 1920. Mrs Booth distinguished herself by breaking convention and securing her own miner's right and then becoming a licensed recruiter of labour. She was the only resident white woman in the Bulolo Valley and stayed there alone (in her house, also named Cliffside) while her husband prospected at Edie Creek. From September 1926 to January 1927 she organized and managed a racially segregated bush hospital to control a dysentery epidemic. She received an O.B.E for this work in 1928. Later that year in London, she recorded these and other adventures in Mountains, Gold and Cannibals which was written with the assistance of M. O'Dwyer.
Mrs Booth returned to New Guinea in 1929 and gradually wrested control over the family business affairs from her husband, whom she left in 1932. The Booths became embroiled in an acrimonious court case when in 1933 Charles Booth sued in the Central Court of the Territory of New Guinea for restitution of property. The case was a test case as no Mandated Territory law explicitly safeguarded married women's property rights. Judge F. B Phillips held that British and Australian Acts passed before 1921 superseded the common law notion of male control of joint property and gave Mrs Booth the verdict. The judgement was upheld in a subsequent appeal in the High Court and territorial law was amended by the Status of Married Women Ordinance 1935-36. Booth returned to prospecting and Mrs Booth went on to become a successful mine manager and company director and amongst other achievements was appointed as the sole woman member of the first and second Legislative Councils of Papua New Guinea in 1951-57.
The construction of Cliffside in 1936-37 attested to Doris Booth's extraordinary independent effort and acumen. After securing the land adjacent to her childhood home, Mrs Booth granted power of attorney to her sister Mrs Selma Dore who took responsibility for supervising the design and construction of the building. Work on the ambitious project began in late 1935 when R. Martin Wilson began his first drawings. Wilson was both an architect and engineer and it is possible that he was commissioned on the basis of his engineering expertise, a skill that would obviously be required on this job. However, both Wilson and Doris Booth had close connections with the Burns Philp Company and it is possible that this connection brought them together. Burns Philp Ltd. had financed the Booths' first foray into the goldfields of New Guinea and Wilson and his father had provided extensive architectural services to the company.
A tender notice appeared in the Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland in June 1936, and George Mitchell's tender was accepted in July. A Special Note in the Bill of Quantities stated that "Contractors are advised to visit and inspect the site and satisfy themselves as to the nature of excavations to be carried out, as it is anticipated rock will be met with. No blasting will be allowed. All excavations in rock to be done by the use of an air compressor." Wilson went on to specify that all rock and fill from the excavations was to be re-used to form terraces, steps and paving.
Cliffside was considered the height of modernity when it was opened in June 1937. The Telegraph reported on June 7 that "Cliffside Flats at River Terrace, Kangaroo Point, have given Brisbane an example of the most advanced flat design in Australia." Although the practice of converting houses to flats was well established in Brisbane, the development of the purpose-designed flat was slower in Brisbane than in other parts of the country. The Telegraph described that "Until quite recently the flat-habit was looked on by Brisbane with mixed feelings of disfavour and doubt, but now the general desire for easier living, coupled with the acute problem of obtaining competent domestics, is spreading the flat-habit over a wider field." The article went on to expound the virtues of properly designed and planned flats, of which Cliffside was the foremost example.
Cliffside was equipped with all modern conveniences including built-in furniture, dining nooks and serverys, electric refrigerators, electric hot water, water softening and incinerator and laundry chutes. The design of the building maximised privacy, views, light and the flow of air. Each of the eight flats had their own private entrance and floors were sound-proofed. The slope of the site was used to advantage so that no more than one and a half flights of stairs had to be scaled to gain access to any one of them. Plumbing connections were housed in a special duct with access from outside the building so that maintenance and repairs could take place without bothering the tenants. A caretaker's quarters was part of the original design, as was the provision of lock-up garages. The building was designed in the popular interwar style of English Revival or Tudor Revival with elements such as eaves and bay windows having a half-timbered appearance. As the promotional literature stated, Cliffside was "the newest, the best and the most attractive offering in Brisbane".
At the opening of Cliffside on June 10, Alderman L.W Luckins announced that the Brisbane City Council was introducing new bylaws to regulate the standards of construction and design of flat buildings, emphasising, however, that not everyone would be able to achieve the "heights of quality embodied in Cliffside". These ordinances were ratified by the Executive Council of Brisbane City Council in August 1937 and dealt with issues such as plot ratios, sanitation and fire rating. 1936-37 was the peak time for interwar flat construction in Queensland. In the following years, construction decreased due to the uncertain investment climate created by the threat of war in Europe as well as the refusal of banking institutions to lend on flat constructions.
Cliffside is a fine example of the work of R. Martin Wilson and demonstrates his skill in the fields of both architecture and engineering. Born in Brisbane in 1886, he was the son of architect Alex B Wilson and studied and worked with his father from 1902-8. He received a Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Queensland in 1915 and won the Walter and Eliza Hill Travelling Fellowship allowing him to study architectural engineering in the United States from 1915 to 1917. He went on to London and studied at the Architectural Association as well as completing a town planning course at London University. From 1919, he lectured in engineering at University of Queensland and was the first person to gain a Masters in Engineering at that institution.
He practised with his father as Alex B. and R. Martin Wilson, Architects and Architectural Engineers, Brisbane from 1920, becoming a registered architect in 1929. He was active in professional bodies such as the Institute of Architects and the Town Planning Association. Alex Wilson retired in 1928 and R.M Wilson was later joined by his son, Blair in the firm of R.M Wilson and Son.
Mrs Booth retired to Brisbane in 1960. She sold Cliffside in 1966 to Guiseppe and Angelo Angelino, whose family company retain ownership of the building.
","criteria":"Cliffside Apartments is important for demonstrating the pattern of residential development in Brisbane during the interwar period when large numbers of flat buildings were constructed. The increase in the number of flats in the mid 1930s demonstrates the rapid growth of Brisbane's population and the subsequent high demand for accommodation due to a shortage of housing. It also reflects changing community attitudes towards new forms of housing. The principal investor in Cliffside was a woman, illustrative of the growing connection between women and property investment and flats in the interwar period.
|Cliffside Apartments demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial, architect-designed, interwar apartment building including features such as built-in storage, dining nooks, caretaker's quarters and lock-up garages that are particularly characteristic of early purpose-designed flats. Cliffside is a prominent and highly intact example of the domestic work of Brisbane architect RM Wilson.
|Cliffside has aesthetic and architectural significance. Occupying a dramatic and difficult site, Cliffside's superior standards of design and finish represent a highpoint in the quality and resolution of flat design in Brisbane. The building has strong landmark qualities deriving from its prominent siting at Kangaroo Point between the South Brisbane and Town Reaches of the Brisbane River overlooking the city and Botanic Gardens.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16412,"place_ref":601651,"name":"Gin Gin Railway Station and Complex","alternate_name":"Gin Gin Railway Station, Goods Shed & Refreshment Rooms","street_address":"Mulgrave Street","suburb":"GIN GIN","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Gin Gin complex consists of the station building which is a representative late Victorian building with curved and chamfered brackets to the shade and distinguishing porch with fretted gable. It is of comparable appearance to Esk, Bundamba and North Bundaberg railway stations. Accommodation is provided with ladies water closet, waiting room, lamp store, shelter shed and office. Booking windows face the shelter area and the platform and central shelter area post has curved decorative brackets facing three directions. Station nameboards are extant on the platform .
The goods shed is a 10 metre x 6 metre timber framed weatherboard clad building with out shade and with windows sealed through boarding. It has one sliding door mounted on opposite sides of the shed, and the loading platform has been partly demolished. Goods crane is a one ton whip crane bearing a manufacturing plate of Sargeant engineers, Brisbane.
The former Station Masters house is a simply detailed building elevated with a corrugated iron hipped roof and verandah post brackets. The building at present is occupied by the Gin Gin and District Historical Society.
","history":"The township of Gin Gin was gazetted in 1877, consisting of an area of some three thousand acres on the Gin Gin run. Gin Gin was an original station of the first section of the Mount Perry railway which opened from North Bundaberg to Moolbolaman on 19 July 1881.
The exploitation of the mineral resources of Queensland was recognised by political interests in Queensland as being closely linked with the development of a railway system from the period of the late 1860's and early 1870's. This connection between political decisions and economic development was further linked and with the decision taken in 1877 to construct mineral railways running from Townsville to Charters Towers, Bundaberg to Mount Perry and Maryborough to Gympie. As well extension of the Southern & Western Railway from Warwick to Stanthorpe was approved along with extensions to Roma and Emerald on the same day in Parliament, 30 August 1877. The decision to construct separate railway systems with no connection to other parts of the Queensland Railway system was to result in a proliferation of separate railways throughout Queensland, (up to eleven by 1891). The system would not be unified until 1924 with the opening of the North Coast Line between Brisbane and Cairns.
The Mount Perry railway ( originally known as the Bundaberg Railway) was built by the Queensland Government. The line was built to service the Mount Perry copper mines. Copper was discovered in the Mount Perry area in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mining activities led to agitation for a link between the mines of the Mount Perry region and a port. In 1872 proposals of a private railway line were considered, and both Maryborough and Bundaberg vied to secure the line. These plans were never executed however. Rather, it was decided a state-owned line would be constructed. Thornloe Smith, Engineer in charge of Railway Surveys, conducted a survey from North Bundaberg to Mount Perry in 1875. Thornloe's survey noted the country was rugged, and eventual surveying plans called for a tunnel to pierce part of the Boolboonda Range. The first section, North Bundaberg to Moolboolaman, was constructed by Overend and Co. and opened on 19 July 1881, although timber specials had run for some months previously. The second section, including the Boolboonda tunnel works, was approved in November 1880.
Gin Gin Railway Station 1909 JOL Neg: 8292
Gin Gin Railway Station circa 1905 JOL Neg: 185594
Tenders had been called for the construction of a goods shed in 1880. A loading bank was provided in 1882, and in 1883 timber loading facilities were constructed indicating the importance of timber and sawmilling operations for the railway line. A new goods shed, and combined shelter shed and station office were built in 1888/89. A refreshment room was provided from the period of 1891 until 1960. The shed was destroyed by fire on 7 November 1917. In 1928 the complex consisted of a station building, lamp room, trucking (cattle handling ) yards, goods shed with 1 ton crane, trike sheds and the Station Master's residence. Gin Gin was to become the major regional transport centre within the central part of the Burnett area, and a major transport centre within the region. Given that Gin Gin was also situated on the main highway link between Brisbane and Cairns (The Bruce Highway), the growth of road competition was to contribute to the eventual dwindling of revenue freight carried on the line.
At the completion of the line to Mount Perry in 1884, the copper mines which had lead to the construction of the railway line had closed due to the financial failure of the mines. The copper mines reopened around the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries and with the construction of a smelter, operated until the period of the First World War. For the next 50 years the main traffic generated on the Mount Perry line was mainly from dairying, livestock and timber traffic, with sugar traffic from Gin Gin east to the Gibson and Howes mill.
From 1 November 1960 the Mount Perry railway was closed beyond Tirroan, due to declining revenue. The railway beyond Tirroan was dismantled in 1961. After the transfer of sugar cane traffic from the Watawa plantation area in 1964, to the Gin Gin Central Sugar Mill at Wallaville there was little traffic beyond Gin Gin other than stock specials to the cattle loading railhead at Tirroan. The section of line from Tirroan to Mount Perry was closed in 1960 and removed in 1961, due to declining traffic revenues. The Gin Gin to Tirroan section was closed in 1989. The final section of the Bundaberg Railway, beyond the Versatile Toft siding (North Bundaberg- to Gin Gin), closed officially to traffic on 25 January 1993, although services had bee nsuspended in 1991. The line was sold for removal, with rail being sold off to local sugar mills for use on their tram networks. Part of the former right-of-way has been adapted for use by the Bingera Mill for its sugar tramway. The Gin Gin station complex was leased to the Gin Gin and District Historical Society in 1993, following closure of the railway. The complex was purchased by the Kolan Shire Council in 1995 for the use of the Historical Society. Other buildings have been transported on to the site by the Gin Gin and District Historical Society including a school house, and police residence, barn and indigenous museum (housed within the former goods shed). The additional buildings have not been relocated to the immediate vicinity of the former railway yard, and as a result do not detract from the visual appeal of the railway complex Within the former station yard the trackwork, turnouts and roads have been retained extant. Donated items from Queensland Railways including a BBV guards van, camp wagon, and a flat wagon and water gin, which have been placed on the platform road at the station building, and other roads within the complex. At the Tirroan end of the complex a former Gin Gin Central Sugar Mill tramway 0-6-0 steam locomotive has bee nplaced on display on a dual gauge (1067 mm & 670mm) track.
Built as a low cost, development railway, the Mount Perry railway features two major surviving structures entered permanently in the Queensland Heritage Register, these being the Boolboonda tunnel [601516] (now open to road traffic), & Splitters Creek bridge (Sharon) [600529].
","criteria":"The Mount Perry railway was one of several major railway lines approved by the Queensland Parliament in 1877, to access the gold and copper fields of Queensland from the ports of Maryborough, Townsville and Bundaberg. The complex, by its retention by the local Shire Council, allows for an interpretation of the construction, and development of the former North Bundaberg-Mount Perry railway line, as well as the network of branch lines centred on Bundaberg.
|The Gin Gin Railway Station and Complex is important as a substantially intact example of a country branchline station and its associated buildings and infrastructure.
|The Gin Gin Railway Station and Complex is important as a substantially intact example of a country branchline station and its associated buildings and infrastructure.
Its survival as a relatively intact group of railway buildings dating from various periods allows for the interpretation of the importance of the Queensland Railway network in the economic development of rural Queensland.
|Its use as a museum also is important in the interpretation of the complex and its significance to the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16414,"place_ref":601653,"name":"Croydon Shire Hall","alternate_name":"Croydon Town Hall | Croydon Shire Office","street_address":"Samwell Street","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-06-11","description":"The Croydon Shire Hall is a large, single-storeyed timber and galvanised iron building situated in Samwell Street, Croydon. It is one of a group of civic buildings that date to c1890.
The hall is rectangular, with a square tower centrally located at the street frontage and a later rectangular addition on the western side. An imposing sense of grandeur is achieved by the bell capped tower with its tall flagpole, clockface and ornate cast iron balustrading.
Although the main body of the hall is of light hardwood construction with corrugated galvanised iron external sheeting, the tower and the front verandah are lined timber, as is the floor and stage at the rear of the interior.
A corrugated galvanised iron sheeted roof is supported on timber trusses and is hipped at the tower end and gabled at the rear; with a separate awning roof over the front verandah.
The ceiling of the hall is unlined, although the later additions are fully lined internally with hardboard sheeting.
The front verandah has been enlarged by removing part of the original wall lining along the east and west sides of the building, infilled with hardboard internally and metal ribbed sheeting externally and provided with a wrap around band of glass louvred windows. The western extension is constructed similarly, though without the narrow metal awning that shades the louvred windows at the front of the building.
At the front entry of the building, doors open either side to the office area within the enclosed verandah and a short passage leads through into the main body of the hall.
Above the passage is a projection booth, with an intact movie projector mounted on an open platform, which is situated directly beneath the tower. Access to the booth is through the office in the eastern verandah.
Externally, the building is shaded by trees to the east and west and has two detached privies at the rear.
Two, apparently early, street lamps are located on the footpath in front of the shire hall. The footpath is finished with early stone pitched gutters.
","history":"The Croydon Shire Hall, probably constructed c1892, was purpose built as a municipal town hall.
In the early 1880s Croydon Downs Station was established on Belmore Creek by partners, William Chalmers Browne and James and Walter Aldridge. Evidence of gold was discovered on the property soon after it was established. In 1885 the Aldridge Brothers and Browne located twenty payable lines of gold reef. When the partners reported the discovery in October 1885 a rush to the area began.
On 18 January 1886 Croydon was proclaimed a goldfield under the administration of the Queensland Mines Department. The town of Croydon was surveyed in 1886 and the survey plan shows an earlier building located on the Shire Hall block. Croydon Divisional Board was proclaimed in 1887, and in 1903 this became Croydon Shire Council, under the provisions of the 1902 Local Government Act. The arrival of the railway in 1891 and the discovery of gold in the district meant that by 1897 the area, including the town of Croydon, had the third highest population in North Queensland, after Townsville and Charters Towers. In 1892 a separate Croydon Municipal Council was established to administer the town of Croydon, and this became the Croydon Town Council in 1903. However, with the decline in the price of gold by 1900 and the resultant loss of population, the municipality of Croydon became part of Croydon Shire again in 1908. Mining came to a virtual stop by 1925 and from that time the town became the centre of a pastoral district.
It is likely that the Croydon Shire Hall dates from after the establishment of the municipality in 1892, rather than from the establishment of the divisional board, and photographic evidence reveals that the building was extant by 1897. Local tradition records that the rear of the Shire Hall was extended in 1929 or 1930 when the back 'hall like' back portion of Edgerton's Jewellery Shop, Croydon was added to the Shire Hall after the shop front was damaged during a cyclone.
The hall has been the social centre of the town and district from the early days of settlement. Early photographs indicate that the hall was the location of community celebrations such as Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897 and the celebration which took place after the relief of Mafeking during the Boer War in 1900.
In the 1960s the building became the official administration centre for Croydon Shire Council. It remained as the shire offices until 1991 when new offices were constructed across Samwell Street. Since that time the hall has again become a social centre for dances, concerts, hoy and pioneer morning teas. Long term plans for the building are to turn it into a museum of mining and community history.
","criteria":"Croydon Shire Hall is significant as one of a group of late 19th century regional government buildings that illustrate the unprecedented era of prosperity that followed the discovery of gold in the Croydon region. The building also illustrates the establishment of Croydon as a major regional centre during the latter part of the 19th century.
The building demonstrates a continuous association of local government administration with this site for over a century.
|In its relatively unchanged state the hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional shire hall in North West Queensland.
|The Croydon Shire Hall, through its distinctive design and its location in a street of late 19th century timber government buildings, is an aesthetically pleasing building valued by the Croydon community.
|In its role as a shire hall the building has been a focal point for civic and social events since its construction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16415,"place_ref":601654,"name":"Paddington Antiques Centre","alternate_name":"Plaza Theatre","street_address":"163-169 Latrobe Terrace","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-03-28","description":"The former Plaza Theatre is a large and imposing shed-like building prominently located at a bend in the road on Latrobe Terrace in Paddington. Its end walls are constructed of load-bearing masonry that have been rendered in roughcast stucco and the gable roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron. The gable ends and upper sections of the north wall are finished in fibro-cement sheeting with the lower north wall constructed of concrete with buttresses.
The street façade of the building is comprised of a series of shops with a deep awning supported by iron tie-back rods. This shopfront area incorporates the entry and foyer of the former theatre, now the entrance to the antique centre as well as six shops, including a jewellers, café, second-hand shop and clothing shop. The shopfronts are generally large glass windows framed in silky oak, pairs of recessed entry doors and lower wall sections tiled in glossy black tiles. The awning is lined with fibro-cement sheeting with a geometric pattern of timber strips that are painted black against the cream sheeting.
A parapet runs above the awning with an arched feature located above the theatre entry doors decorated with urns and displaying the words "Paddington Antique Centre". The former theatre entry has four pairs of unpainted, silky oak framed glass doors with decorative brass hardware. The foyer area has a floor of "chequerboard" grey and white concrete flagstones and an ornate plaster ceiling decorated with scrolls and deep, moulded cornices. Brass lettering, reading "Paddington Plaza 1929" has been recently inlaid in the floor in an area formerly occupied by the ticket office. An office has been inserted into the south-west corner of the foyer space and a large counter area is in line with this. The foyer is divided from the auditorium space by large glass display cases located between two columns.
The former auditorium is a large rectangular space with a vaulted plaster ceiling painted a vivid and intense blue, known as "Reckitt's Blue". The ceiling paint is patchy and deteriorating, although remnants of painted clouds are discernible. Five lattice ventilation panels are located on both the northern and southern sides of the ceiling and a number of surface-mounted vents are also located on the ceiling. Flourescent lights are suspended on chains from the ceiling and hang throughout the space, just above the level of the various wall dividers of the antique stalls.
The proscenium is located at the eastern end of the auditorium and has a sunken backstage area behind. The proscenium is ornately decorated, styled to give the appearance that it is part of the exterior of a building and is constructed of fibrous plaster. It has faceted columns to either side and is topped with a Spanish-style terracotta tiled roof supported on carved "corbels" with rosettes in between. The columns are painted in vibrant tones of orange, blue, red and yellow and decorated with moulded scrolls of foliage, flowers and urns. A multi-coloured cartouche is located in the centre of the proscenium arch and a velvet valance with gold fringing with the word "Plaza" in gold lettering in the centre hangs within the arch.
Angled, ornamental balconies are located either side of the proscenium. On the upper level these feature a balustrade, arches and "barley sugar" columns, at lower level there are arched niches alternating with more columns. All of these areas are decorated with moulded fibrous plaster decoration including egg and dart moulding and scrolls of leaves. These balcony areas have a colour scheme of pale green, white and a pale sandstone colour with touches of metallic bronze which is also incorporated into parts of the proscenium.
The rear wall of the auditorium has an upper section of timber lattice, also painted in "Reckitt's" blue and there is evidence of where the projection room was originally located, provided by the outline of the room painted in white. A recent exit and stair enclosed in fibro-cement sheeting is located on the north wall to the rear of the building, within the buttresses of the wall. The current timber floor is constructed above the original, raked floor and is supported on timber posts. The floor is at three levels. The rear of the auditorium is at the highest level, the largest middle section is three steps below this and then the backstage section is four steps below this. Toilets are located at a lower level in the backstage area and there is also a wings area on the southern side. A pair of twisted columns with moulded, fibrous plaster decoration is to be found in this area and the room is also painted in "Reckitt's" blue. A similar area that was located on the northern side of the proscenium and accommodated a public staircase has now been enclosed with fibro-cement sheeting. The staircase that formerly lead to the downstairs toilets has now been blocked off and the stairway is incomplete. The original toilets are located at the eastern end of the undercroft area but are no longer used.
The roof is carried by curved, laminated timber (possibly oregon) trusses. One of these has been supplemented with a steel truss due to extensive white ant and borer damage. The building is supported on large timber posts of varying heights reflecting the raked floor and the undercroft area has an earth floor. A galvanised iron duct system is located under the floor at the eastern end of the building. A small alleyway from Latrobe Terrace is to be found at the eastern end of the block and a small detached toilet block is located off this alleyway, connected to the building via a small area that has been enclosed with timber battens and fibro-cement sheeting.
","history":"The former Plaza Theatre at Paddington was erected c1929 by Brisbane contractor John Hutchinson [later J Hutchinson & Sons]. Originally commissioned for Greater Brisbane Motion Pictures Ltd and probably designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey jnr, the Plaza is a rare early 20th century 'atmospheric' theatre in Queensland. Shortly after construction commenced, the Hutchinson family acquired both the building and the land, commencing a long association with the theatre.
In 1929 application to Brisbane City Council was made by Greater Brisbane Motion Pictures Ltd of Brisbane for the construction of a new picture theatre at the corner of Collingwood Street and Latrobe Terrace, Paddington [allotments 9-13 of portion 757, parish of Enoggera], to cost £8,000. The architect was recorded as Richard Gailey jnr and the contractor was John Hutchinson. Plans were approved by 22 June 1929.
At the time of application, title to the land was still in the names of William Drynan [allots 9-10] and Georgina Blackwell [allots 11-13]. Drynan's land was transferred to Queensland Talkie Pictures Ltd in December 1931, and following Mrs Blackwell's death in August 1931, allots 11-13 passed to the same company in November 1932. Also in November 1932, Queensland Talkie Pictures Ltd took out mortgages on all four allotments from John Hutchinson, who ultimately gained title to allotments 11-13 in 1941, and to allotments 9-10 in 1955. The Hutchinson family understand that before construction was completed, the exhibition company [which they refer to as Associated Pictures] became insolvent and ownership of the building also passed to the contractors.
In 1929 the Plaza Theatre faced strong competition from at least two rival picture shows in the Paddington-Red Hill district: Stephens New Paddington Theatre on Given Terrace [c1924] and Red Hill Picture Pops on Enoggera Terrace [c1920]. Although the Plaza was by no means the first picture theatre in the Paddington district, it was the most ornate, erected in a third wave of picture theatre construction which swept Brisbane suburbs in the late 1920s and 1930s. The proliferation of small suburban picture shows through the 1920s, the introduction of the 'talkies' (which necessitated considerable capital investment to acquire sound projection equipment), and the effects of the depression, combined to produce keen competition in suburban film exhibition. Suburban theatres of this period could no longer survive as the open-air venues of the 1910s or the tin sheds of the early 1920s - they had to offer the public something more than just the films. Theatres all over Brisbane either closed, or were remodelled or rebuilt along more substantial, more comfortable and more decorative lines, with the object of capturing local imagination and loyal attendance. Few suburban picture exhibitors, however, could afford to match the opulence of the central city theatres, such as Birch, Carroll and Coyle's Wintergarden Theatre [1923-24], or Hoyt's Regent Theatre [1929]. Interestingly, at the time that Gailey is recorded in mid-1929 as the architect for the Plaza Theatre, he was also the Brisbane supervising architect for the opulent Regent Theatre in Queen Street, designed by Melbourne architect Charles N Hollinshed.
The Plaza at Paddington, with its painted blue ceiling resembling the night sky and side niches and painted barley-twist columns suggesting a Spanish courtyard, is the only Brisbane suburban picture theatre identified to date, which can be described as 'atmospheric'. The term denotes a picture theatre with an interior décor that simulated an exotic outdoor setting. Atmospheric cinemas were popularised in Australia in the late 1920s and early 1930s after the architect for Sydney-based Union Theatres, Henry White, travelled to the United States to study picture theatre design. He looked in particular at the work of American architect John Eberson, who specialised in atmospheric cinemas themed and appropriated from Byzantine, Persian, Spanish, Moorish and Egyptian architecture, which extended theatrical illusion from screen to venue. While the Paddington Plaza was not of the same scale and opulence as the great Australian atmospheric theatres such as Sydney's Capitol [1928 - seating capacity 2900], Perth's Ambassadors [1928 - seating 2000] and Melbourne's State [1929 - seating 3300], the design incorporated the essential elements of the 'atmospheric', in that the interior decoration simulated an outdoor venue.
It is understood that the Plaza Theatre was designed initially to screen only silent film, but in 1929 synchronised sound and film was introduced to Australia and the Plaza opened as a 'talkies' theatre. The seats [capacity 1250 in 1938] were arranged on a single-level raked floor. The Plaza Theatre came to be a popular meeting place for Paddington residents. It was open seven days a week, with serials shown on Monday and Tuesday nights, films and newsreels on other nights, and a matinee programme on Sunday afternoons. On Saturdays, trams reputedly would stop outside the theatre at opening time and wait until the film finished to take patrons home again. Popular films attracted audiences of around 1200, for the movies appealed to all ages. A special soundproofed glass room, called the 'cry room', was provided for young mothers and their babies.
The Plaza Theatre complex included a group of eight shops/offices fronting Latrobe Terrace either side of the entrance foyer. These premises were occupied soon after completion, and for many years lessees included Harold Louitt's chemist shop (1930-69), a dressmaker, a grocer and a milkbar. After the movies patrons congregated at the milkbar, which retained its original fittings until refurbished in 1994.
The theatre operated successfully until television was introduced to Brisbane in the late 1950s, by which time Plaza audiences were reduced to 20-30 patrons per screening, in an auditorium which by 1960 contained seating for 932 persons. In 1961 the Plaza Theatre ceased to operate as a cinema. A level floor was installed and the building was used for indoor basketball. In 1968 this activity ceased following a court case instigated by a neighbour who complained of the noise. The Plaza remained mostly vacant until 1974 when Hutchinsons moved their offices from West End into the foyer. In 1975 the company underwent a major restructure and moved to new premises. Hutchinsons sold the theatre in 1977 and it currently houses an antiques retailing centre. The shops fronting Latrobe Terrace are still occupied by a variety of tenants, and the complex is still the focus of a small nodal shopping centre.
","criteria":"The former Plaza Theatre at Paddington is important in illustrating the pattern of development of suburban cinemas in Brisbane, and in illustrating the evolution of cinemas in Queensland, during the interwar years of the 20th century. It is important also in illustrating the pattern of development of the Paddington district.
|It is a rare suburban 'atmospheric' cinema, and understood to be one of few such theatres constructed in Queensland.
|The theatre and associated shops, the shopfronts in particular, remain substantially intact in form, design, materials and in much of the detailing, from which can be gained an understanding of the expectations brought by interwar film audiences to the experience of cinema viewing.
|The former Plaza Theatre, located prominently on the high ridge of Latrobe Terrace, makes a major contribution to the local streetscape and to the Paddington townscape.
|The former Plaza Theatre has strong social significance in its association with the expansion of popular entertainment in the interwar period; in its association with the Paddington community; more recently in its association with the antiques industry in Brisbane; and as a landmark building in Brisbane's inner western suburbs.
|The place is important for its association with independent film exhibition in Brisbane, and for its long association with the Hutchinson family, who are more usually recognised for their contribution to the building industry in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16416,"place_ref":601655,"name":"Pindi Pindi Brickworks (former)","alternate_name":"Pindi Pindi Firebricks Company | Evans Firebricks Ltd","street_address":"Off Bruce Highway","suburb":"PINDI PINDI","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The former Pindi Pindi Brickworks site is bounded by Blackrock Creek to the south and the Bruce Highway and railway line to the west. At present, the former Pindi Pindi Bricworks site includes the remnants of the kilns, the brick chimney stacks and the brick-floored 'storage area'.
Evidence of the clay and shale pit quarrying operation is still present, and now shares the boundary with another property on the eastern side of the allotment. The original processing area is still visible, with the floor being constructed of bricks produced at the works. Original wooden supports, roof beams and trusses also remain, along with corrugated iron roofing. The majority of the walls are open and the roofed area has dirt floors.
Two brick kilns, with chimneys, remain. Located at the base of the kilns are a number of openings with arched brick lintels. The original clay conveyor belt and pan are also present under the covered works area. Two small, brick offices remain in the western corner of the site as does a single storey brick house. The house is located near the river at the southern end of the property.
","history":"The former Pindi Pindi Brickworks were established in 1933 for Edmund Evans.
The production of bricks on the site was related to the presence of coal at the Fleetwood Colliery, in the Whiptail Ranges, a source that was first commercially exploited in 1927-28. This colliery supplied the brickworks with coal following the opening of the Pindi Pindi site. Production of bricks was possible due to the high quality of clay in the area.
The brickworks were established by Edmund Evans, a resident of Dinmore, a bricklayer by trade with experience in brick manufacture. A local resident, W Adams, assisted him in investigating the site. Construction on the brickworks site, established to supply the North Queensland market, began in May 1933. The first production of bricks took place at the end of 1933.
Local shareholders in the Mackay area invested in the establishment of the works, with the brickworks trading under the name of Evans Firebricks Ltd. In 1934, the works employed 18 local workers, three of whom quarried the material at the clay pit and fifteen employed in the works environment. 78 000 bricks were produced during this time. Increasing demand for building bricks, as well as for firebricks, necessary for the sugar industry in North Queensland, saw the continued expansion of the brickworks.
In 1937 the company won a lucrative contract to supply refractory firebricks used in the construction of brick arches in locomotive firebricks for the Northern Division of Queensland Railways. It was the only local company capable of producing this material.
Following the replacement of Evans in 1938, Newbold Industries purchased the works, and Bill Gunthorpe was appointed as manager. Gunthorpe took up residence on site, living in a brick veneer dwelling, thought to be the first constructed in the area. This dwelling is currently separated from the brickworks site, situated on the Bruce Highway, across from the sheds. At this time, the works were renamed the Pindi Pindi Firebricks Company and continued to supply materials for the construction industry in North Queensland.
With the outbreak of World War II the works were forced to close, as a result of labour shortages and the loss of construction contracts in North Queensland. At the time, the threat to Australia from invasion was considered so real that machinery on site was buried to prevent it falling into the hands of the Japanese. At the end of 1947, the company closed, only to be reopened in 1949 by a local resident, Tony Giaiotti. Edmund Evans returned on site to act as an advisor to Giaiotti.
The bricks at Pindi Pindi were made by the semi-plastic method. A tramline ran from the clay and shale pit to the works. The clay was ground in the pan and then dropped into the brick press. The building bricks and fire bricks used the dry press method, however, bricks for fire arches in locomotive fireboxes had to be fashioned by hand.
Early bricks produced on site were stamped with EFB (Evans Fire Bricks). The original brick pan and press were from Fowlers in Sydney. The pug-mill (mud mixer) was designed by Evans. The single cylinder engine remaining on site was imported from England, and is thought to be still capable of operating.
Products from the works also found markets in other parts of Queensland, firebricks being used at the Mt Isa smelters as well as at Ipswich. Labour shortages continued to afflict the works at this time, and during the sugar crushing season, the works closed entirely.
During the 1950s, the brickworks changed hands three times, being sold in 1951 to George Fattseas of Mackay. In 1955, Bitkin and Machen purchased the site, but closed the works in 1958. A local Mackay builder, Alan Porter, purchased the works in 1961, reopening them and continued in ownership until 1977. The Pindi Pindi works closed in 1977 with the brickworks being relocated to a new site at Glenalla Road, Mackay. At the time of closure, most of the machinery was moved to the new works, however, the kilns, brick pan and press and single cylinder engine (Ruston Hornsby) remain on site.
Bricks from the former Pindi Pindi Brickworks were used to construct the Mackay Central State School (formerly the Mackay Intermediate School), Mackay Court House and Mackay Technical College. The brickworks are no longer in operation.
","criteria":"The former Pindi Pindi Brickworks, established in 1933, is important as an industrial in North Queensland, demonstrating industrial processes of the inter-war period. The establishment of the Brickworks resulted from the demand for the supply of building materials in North Queensland, as well as being the source of production for the supply of firebricks for the local sugar milling industry. It was the first brickworks to be established outside Brisbane capable of producing refactory firebricks, supplying these by contract to Queensland Railways.
|The site demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's history as the brickworks chimney stacks at the Pindi Pindi site are among the last remaining stacks in the district.
|As an industrial archaeological site, the former Pindi Pindi Brickworks has the potential to reveal information which could contribute to an understanding of Queensland's heritage, providing more information on the manufacture of bricks in North Queensland.
|The former Pindi Pindi Brickworks is significant for the landmark qualities of the chimney stacks.
|The bricks produced at the former Pindi Pindi Brickworks are associated with the development of the character and fabric of North Queensland, particularly in the Mackay area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16419,"place_ref":601658,"name":"Eumundi School of Arts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Memorial Drive","suburb":"EUMUNDI","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"Eumundi School of Arts is situated on a treed ridge on the lower side of Memorial Drive. The single-storey, timber building with gabled, corrugated iron roof, sits on concrete stumps. Externally, the building is clad with chamferboard, with the exception of weatherboards at the rear of the building. Also at the rear of the hall is a pair of double doors and smaller door at the back of the stage, covered by tin The front, or eastern façade, has an assymmetrical veranda with timber posts and brackets. The decorative bargeboard and finial have been removed and covered with chamferboards, however, the circular, ventilated opening remains. The porch ceiling is of tongue and groove boards, the remainder is unlined. Leading onto the veranda are two doors either side, which lead to storage areas, and a central, panelled timber door.
Internally, in the storage room located at the southern end of the building is a set of stairs which lead to the projection room. From this room, a door leads to the 1968 addition. This area now houses a kitchen. Both two storage rooms located at the front of the hall still have extant viewing slots. In the 1960s, these slots were used by the ticket collectors to watch the movies.
The main hall is rectangular with crows ash flooring. It is divided by the support beams of the addition to its southern side. The main hall has two raked timber ceilings with latticed air vents (one partially obscured) and six large, sashed windows which open top and bottom, on its northern wall. Four louvered airvents (windows) have been recently installed at floor level below the original windows. A trapdoor to the right hand side of the stage was used to access the lower floor pre-1968. A single door, located near the stage, allows southern external access.
On the eastern side, the main hall area has a half-timbered VJ wall and a fibro upper to the ceiling. The remainder of the hall is VJ lined. Two inside doors were sealed c1968, one near the old RSL door located at the front of the building and another on the other side of the main entrance door. The stage is accessed by two wooden steps. Vertical timberwork now fronts the top of the stage, partly concealing one of the latticed air vents in the roof. A small, heavily latticed bar (formed by enclosing the rear of the addition) with a pulldown hatch and lockable door is accessed on the left prior to ascending the steps to toilet facilities at the southern end of the building. The southern wall of the hall's addition has six window openings.
Emergency exit doors, and sidesteps leading down from the kitchen door's southern landing, access the carpark in Pacey Street. Part of the slope at the hall's rear was excavated to provide building access and space. Several macadamised parking spaces abut its southern side, extending to a secondary side road.
","history":"The Eumundi School of Arts, the second to be built on the site, was constructed in 1912 by W Bytheway, a builder from Gympie. At the time, Eumundi was one of a number of small but prosperous Sunshine Coast hinterland towns servicing a timber, dairy and pastoral industry.
The first selector in the North Maroochy River district, Joseph Gridley, arrived at Moreton Bay in 1856 on the James Fernie with his wife Ellen and five children. In 1877, Gridley selected Portion 70, where the Hall now stands, for timber getting.
In 1886 the Colonial Government proposed a township at Eumundi as a station on the railway line between Brisbane and Maryborough. Residential land was auctioned in 1890 and the rail line was opened in 1891. The rail stop serviced the Eumundi timber getting area where selectors, including the Gridleys, had selected land during the 1870s. By 1893 a local provisional school was operating. Dairy farmers started arriving in the area during the 1900s, either by overlanding their stock or accompanying them north on the railway.
In May 1905, the County of Canning, Parish of Maroochy, Town of Eumundi allocated Reserve Land Allotment 5, Section 2 for the hall by Proclamation. The allotment to be set apart was 'situated opposite the most southerly gate of the Eumundi railway station yards upon a ridge...The site is a fine one for building purposes, and in every way suitable for a public building. The Association propose to build a Hall by subscription to be used for public meetings and associations'. A single-storey timber hall was constructed by Peter Denholm on the site in 1908.
After only four years however, the burgeoning community needed more space and Gympie builder, W Bytheway, built a second hall in beech timber and iron roof on the same site, replacing the first Hall. It can 'best be described as a big Hall with stage at back, and a couple of anterooms at the front, having a library, wide passage, and reading room under the front, and supper room under the centre'. The Hall was officially opened on 15 November 1912. 'The programme included a two days bazaar... the whole to be started by the official opening of the splendid new building... A first glance was permitted... to the party accompanying the Honourable JW Blair, Minister of Education. The building was planned by Mr W Fenwick of Cooroy'. The hall was constructed at a cost of £1000.
According to social commentator, AH Corrie, writing in the Nambour Chronicle in January 1919, Eumundi was quite prosperous with two hotels, two stores, three churches, a large public hall, library and billiard table. He believed Eumundi's School of Arts was one of the 'largest and best appointed buildings of its kind on the North Coast Line between Brisbane suburbs and Gympie'.
Reconstruction was considered essential when the School of Arts was damaged by termites, worsening by 1931. By 1950, the Hall was condemned and a ball was cancelled. In 1953, the building was restumped with cement blocks, however, more termite damage occurred during 1964 at the rear of the building. Tenders were called in 1964 for the lowering of the Hall which was 'in bad repair and is so high is costly to renovate'. The damage was so advanced that in 1968 the lower level was removed to save the rest of the building and the twin-spitter front steps were replaced by single steps. At this time, the Eerwah Vale Hall and stumps were incorporated into Eumundi's hall.
The Government increased the School of Arts Reserve to include Allotments 6 and 7 in 1967 to allow for parking spaces. The Eumundi & District Historical Association (E&DHA) was appointed as School of Arts Trustees in 1989. The School of Arts is still the focus for many of Eumundi's social and cultural activities.
","criteria":"The Eumundi School of Arts is important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, being an important component of the cultural life of the Eumundi community as a school of arts and public library. Constructed in 1912, the second hall to be built on the site, the Eumundi School of Arts demonstrates the growth of the town following the opening up of the area through timber getting and dairying and through the construction of the railway in 1891.
|Significant for Criterion D.
|The Eumundi School of Arts is of aesthetic significance as a single-storey, timber, vernacular public building forming an integral part of the historical main street of Eumundi and is distinguished by its visual cohesion with other historical buildings along Memorial Drive, which incorporates the Eumundi War Memorial [601122].
|As the centre of Eumundi's social and cultural activities for almost ninety years, the School of Arts has strong social significance for the people of Eumundi and surrounding areas. Internally, the Hall houses the District's memorial plaque listing the names of 87 Eumundi men who fought in World War I.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16421,"place_ref":601660,"name":"Carbrook Lutheran Cemetery","alternate_name":"St Paul's Lutheran Church | St Pauls Lutheran Church Cemetery","street_address":"Mt Cotton Road","suburb":"CARBROOK","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-08-04","description":"The cemetery is situated at the corner of Mt Cotton Road and Wuduru Road. A perimeter plantation consisting of a double row of regularly spaced mature pine trees planted in the 1960's borders the whole block. There are no other cemetery plantings.
As the church originally fronted Mt Cotton Road the graves are arranged in an area on the western side of the block that was originally behind the church. There are at present over one hundred burials with memorials, although many of the earliest graves are no longer marked. The earliest grave still identified is that of Detlef Holtorf, buried in 1881.
The majority of the graves are those of the pioneers of the Gramzow and Mt Cotton areas and those of their descendants. Many of the earlier monuments are inscribed in German, which was the language in which services were conducted at St Pauls church until 1924. This is standard or 'high' German, although the Scheer grave carries an inscription De Heer is myn Herder (The Lord is my shepherd) in Platt Deutsch, the dialect that was spoken at home although seldom written.
The graves are arranged in clearly definable family plots. Until comparatively recently these were each bordered by a neat fence. This may reflect the rural nature of the site and the desire to keep grazing animals away from burials, thus preserving the dignity of the graveyard. However, possibly in the 1980's, fences and the metal rails and markers were removed in order to facilitate mechanical mowing. Holes indicating the position of these can still be seen in the hard earth. One grave, that of Lizzie Benfer, is topped by an ornate carving of an angel, but the majority of the monuments are of the upright slab type, most favouring an austere simplicity of style. Several are inscribed with lengthy texts or poems. Recent burials are marked only by small, uniform metal plates.
There is a lone grave on the extreme southern edge of the cemetery outside the line of trees. It is that of Walter Costin, stated in the coroner's report to have died by his own hand. Burial of suicides outside consecrated ground was formerly a common practice.
","history":"The history of closer settlement in the Logan district began with the proclamation of the Logan Agricultural Reserve in 1861, following the Crown Lands Act of 1860. This made land in the area available for purchase or selection at £1 an acre. British, Irish and Germans began to take up land, but the first concentrated group of settlers were the 22 families from north-eastern Germany who arrived in four ships between 1863 and 1864 and established themselves in the area now called Bethania. These people were mainly farmers and had been brought out as a result of co-operation between the Lutheran Church in Germany and JC Heussler, at the time Emigration Agent for Queensland in Germany.
The cohesiveness and self sufficiency of this group did much to ensure the success of the settlement. The Brisbane Courier of March 1, 1866, commented that their progress was being followed with great interest in their home towns and expressed the hope that this would encourage the immigration of similar groups. In most parts of Europe, at the time, it was almost impossible for a tenant farmer to aspire to owning his own farm. The offer by the young colony of land orders to those who paid their own passage to Queensland combined with economic and political pressures in Prussia provided a great incentive to make the move. Many families from this part of Germany took up the challenge, including that of Hermann Meisenner whose application for a selection on the Logan was accepted on 20.04.1868. His application was rapidly followed by those of other families and their settlement was named Gramzow after a small village in the Uckermark area near Prenzlau from which a number of them came.
These people had transplanted their culture and customs to Queensland including their Lutheran faith. At first, the Gramzow families and a similar group who had settled nearby at Mt Cotton, attended Pastor Haussmann's Bethesda Mission near Beenleigh, but the distance was too great for many to travel. The two communities therefore agreed to join forces to found a church of their own and in 1875 Pastor Haussmann purchased ten acres from the Government mid way between Gramzow and Mt Cotton. Three acres of this were cleared for a church and cemetery.
A building committee consisting of August von Senden, Detlef Holtorf, Philipp and Joh Benfer, Hermann Holzapfel, Friedrich Stern, Paul Schroeder and Johannes Sommer was set up and by the following year the Church of St Paul was completed at a cost of £130. Of which £100 had been raised by subscription. Within twelve months the remaining debt of £30 was repaid. The church was built by members of the community in a traditional north German style with hand made brick nogging in a timber frame that had been axe dressed and fixed with wooden pegs. This church was demolished in 1951 and a new church built on land at Mt Cotton.
The cemetery that was formerly attached to this church and which contains the graves of most members of the foundation committee and other pioneers of the Gramzow and Mt Cotton areas continue in use.
In 1916, due to ill feeling towards those of German descent that developed during the First World War, the Gramzow area was renamed Carbrook. Besides the cemetery, The Carbrook State School and Kruger's farmhouse remain from the settlement period.
","criteria":"Carbrook Lutheran Cemetery, developed in 1875, is significant for providing evidence of the history and demography of Carbrook, formerly known as Gramzow, and the surrounding districts.
|The site has potential to yield information that contributes to the understanding of a small and extremely cohesive group of German settlers who were played a vital role in the original settlement of the Logan district.
|The cemetery is significant aesthetically for the cohesive nature of the cemetery set in a rural setting with clearly definable family plots. The use of "Platt Deutsch", a German dialect that was spoken but seldom written, for inscriptions is considered unusual.
|The cemetery has a strong association with the Carbrook district's community and in particular the German Lutheran Church who, in co-operation with JC Heussler, the Emigration Agent for Queensland, was responsible for the emigration of the original group of German pioneers. The strong and continuous presence of a German community in the district since the 1860's is also considered significant.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16422,"place_ref":601662,"name":"Foresters' Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16 Latrobe Terrace","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-18","description":"Foresters' Hall is located on the southern side of Latrobe Terrace near the intersection of Given Terrace. The single storeyed timber building abuts the street frontage and has an awning that extends over the footpath to the roadside kerbing. The land slopes steeply down towards the rear of the property allowing for a small residence to be constructed at basement level, beneath the main hall.
Foresters' Hall is basically a rectangular form building set on concrete stumps and clad mainly with chamfer boards, except at the rear where they have been replaced with weatherboards. The corrugated iron hipped roof is hidden from the street a pedimented parapet that extends across the building's front and partially to each side. The rear rooms of the building are roofed with a simple corrugated iron skillion. The front awning is constructed of timber with plain posts and a convex profiled corrugated iron roof. In contrast, the front entry to the building is embellished by a pair of ornamented timber pilasters and wide solid panelled door. At both sides of the door are small double-hung arched windows that are fitted with opaque wired glass. Above the awning but immediately below the parapet cornice there are also three small fixed paned windows. Large windows to both sides of the central hall consist of fixed and pivoting panes. These panes have recently been fitted with textured and coloured glass. External timber stairs and landings provide access to the building from the west side of the hall and to the basement level rooms.
At ground level Foresters' Hall internally consists of one large central hall with two rooms at the front and three rooms at the rear. The main entrance to the building is via a central vestibule that leads to a pair of original cedar panelled doors. Behind these doors is a second vestibule, formed by the recent installation of a pair of similar but partly glazed timber doors. On the west side of the original vestibule is a small room, currently accessible only from the hall. Evidence of a former doorway between this room and the vestibule still remains, however the entire wall has recently been glazed. On the east side of the vestibule, a slightly larger room has recently been created by the erection of a timber lined wall separating the area from the main hall. In this room is a small store and the original set of narrow timber stairs that lead up to a small two tiered gallery located above the front two rooms. Recently installed timber balustrading replaces the original simple balustrade at the front of the gallery.
The central hall is a large space with a stage area at the rear end. Full width timber arches separate the stage and gallery areas from the hall. Narrow timber steps lead up to the stage at both sides of the hall. Behind the stage are three rooms; a kitchen and two toilets. The wall dividing the stage area from the rear rooms is a single skinned timber lined wall with exposed cross bracing partially exposed in the kitchen area only. The toilet areas have been created by
the installation of partition walls lined with fibrous cement sheeting. Ceramic tiling has been used to cover the timber floors in the toilet areas. Fretted fanlights above the toilet and kitchen doors are recent installations.
The coved ceilings and walls throughout the building are internally lined with 4" pine boards fixed horizontally. Decorative fretwork ventilators are fitted into the central hall ceiling. Partition walls are constructed of timber frames, lined on one side only with vertically orientated lining boards. Floors throughout the central hall and the front rooms are 4" wide timber boards. Below these is the original floorboards which are 6" wide.
At the basement level there are four rooms forming a small residence. Access to the rooms is via a set of recently constructed timber stairs approached from the narrow footpath on the building's western boundary. Each room is lined in vertically fixed timber boards. One room is fitted as a bathroom and another as a kitchen. Exposed diagonal bracing is evident in the kitchen area.
","history":"This timber hall was built between June and September in 1888 for the Trustees of Court Foresters' Hope, number 6535 of the Ancient Order of Foresters' Friendly Society, United Brisbane District. The Paddington Foresters' Hall was designed by the Brisbane architect , Alexander Brown Wilson, and was built by W Taylor after his tender for £585 was accepted in May 1888. The hall was built on a subdivision of an estate originally purchased by Bennett Clay at a sale of crown land in 1861. The title deed was then transferred to John Robertson of Sydney in 1864. In 1885 Robertson subdivided his seventeen acre (6.9 hectare) estate when the trustees of Court Foresters' Hope purchased subdivision 22, apparently for £78 pounds.
Court Foresters' Hope was founded in Paddington in 1878 marking the beginning of expansion for the Ancient Order of Foresters in Queensland. Prior to the building of the Foresters' Hall in 1888, the court met at the former Methodist Church (no longer extant) at the corner of Given Terrace and Ranley Grove, Paddington.
The establishment of the Ancient Order of Foresters in Queensland dates from 1859 with the opening of Court Fortitude at Fortitude Valley. The Foresters' presence in Queensland was part of a social phenomenon which saw friendly societies become significant to the functioning of Australian society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The friendly societies came to Australia as part of the British philosophy of self-help and mutual aid which became prevalent during the industrial revolution.
Friendly societies were voluntary associations that traditionally provided financial benefits to their members, usually working men and their families, in case of sickness, injury or death, by drawing on funds to which each member contributed. They were a response to the lack of social welfare in western societies during this period. The idea of fraternity and ritual formed an important element of the friendly societies as did the social activities that the individual branches provided for their members.
The Ancient Order of Foresters' was one of the largest affiliated orders of friendly societies which was governed by a district body and made up of local branches or 'courts'. It was established in Britain in 1834 as a splinter group of the Royal Foresters which dated from 1790. Its tradition is linked with the mythology of Robin Hood and this is reflected in the ritual, regalia, hierarchy and names of the individual courts.
The first Australian court of the Ancient Order of Foresters was established in New South Wales in 1843. By 1878 there were three successfully functioning courts in Queensland: Court Fortitude (1859), Court South Brisbane Hope (1878) and Court Foresters' Hope in Paddington (1878). In April 1881 the three pioneering courts of Brisbane took steps to form the United Brisbane District as the governing body for courts in Brisbane, Ipswich and Gympie. From 1878 to 1902, 57 new Foresters' courts were established throughout Queensland.
Foresters' Hall, which was established close to the junction of Given and Latrobe Terraces, commanded a prominent position within the growing township of Paddington. In the 1880s, land in Paddington was beginning to be subdivided and an increase in development was occurring at the time hall was built. Land sales were peaking and the foundations were being laid for Paddington to become a commuter suburb, transforming it from the sparsely populated semi-rural district of the 1860s and 70s. Foresters' Hall is a legacy of this development boom and its long established position has made it a feature of the Paddington townscape.
Court Foresters' Hope was one of the few courts in Queensland to possess its own hall. There are a number of examples of purpose built friendly society halls from this period, including the first Foresters' Hall in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, but many local friendly society branches leased other societies' halls for their meeting places.
The Paddington Foresters' Hall had a seating capacity of 320 people and provided a thriving community service to the growing population of Paddington. The hall was designed with the intention of creating revenue with two rooms at the front to be used by rent-paying shopkeepers and another three rooms at the front to accommodate a rent-paying caretaker. Two private rooms at the back were also let to the public and the hall was leased on a regular basis to many local groups. In 1906 these included the local Rechabites, the Salvation Army, the Ithaca Ratepayers Association, the Women's Christian Charity and the Theodore Unmack Society of Masons.
The original building specifications make reference to a verandah at the back of the hall with a staircase which led to rooms underneath the stage. The hall was lit by kerosene pendant lamps which were replaced with gas lighting in late 1892 or early 1893, for which task the hall's architect AB Wilson was consulted. In about November 1894, alterations were made to the front of the hall, again to Wilson's specifications. The shop-front windows were removed and replaced with the present sash windows, the gallery floor was altered, a girder was placed at the front of the gallery platform and a new stairway to the gallery was constructed in the north-western corner of the hall of material from the previous gallery stairs. The internal walls under the gallery were altered suggesting a change in the configuration of the rooms at the front of the hall. The front and vestibule doors were rehung closer to the front wall. The caretakers' residence was eventually moved underneath the hall to a four-roomed basement apartment which still exists.
Throughout the twentieth century Foresters' Hall continued to serve the local community and was registered as a public hall in 1927. It continued to operate as Court Foresters' Hope meeting place and was also used for local Labour Party meetings, among other organisations. The shops functioned in the front of the hall until about the late 1940s or 50s and the hall was also used as an electoral polling booth.
In 1976, after 88 years of ownership, Court Foresters' Hope sold the hall to the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, a friendly society which had previously rented the hall from the Foresters. Court Foresters' Hope continues to meet at St Barnabas' Church, Red Hill. In 1996, the hall was purchased by the present owners.
","criteria":"Foresters' Hall, erected in 1888, demonstrates a way of life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when friendly societies were a prominent and expanding part of Queensland society. The societies provided a welfare service by means of mutual aid and this hall provided a headquarters for Court Foresters' Hope of the Ancient Order of Foresters' Friendly Society. The building is also of interest for its role as part of the 1880's development boom which transformed Paddington from a semi-rural area into a commuter suburb of Brisbane.
|The building is a typical and substantially intact example of a small 19th century Queensland hall.
|The hall with its interesting architectural details, offers a strong aesthetic contribution to Latrobe Terrace and the suburb of Paddington as a dominant feature of the streetscape and townscape.
|Foresters' Hall possesses special association for the Paddington community as a local landmark which has provided a range of community services for the local people for over 100 years.
The hall has a strong and long association with the activities of Court Foresters' Hope established over an 88 year period. Despite a change of ownership to the Hamilton Lodge of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes in 1976, the hall had continuous use as a friendly society meeting place until 1996.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16427,"place_ref":601667,"name":"Stafford State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"314 Stafford Road","suburb":"STAFFORD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-02-26","description":"Stafford State School is a substantial three storey brick building located on a 5.138 hectare site on the corner of Stafford and Webster Roads, facing Stafford Road. The site also includes substantial open spaces principally used as playing fields and located behind the complex of school buildings.
Stafford State School is a symmetrical U shaped building, with a linear plan on an east-west access. At the centre of the northern facade is the projecting bay of the main entry and near either end are two smaller breakfronts with secondary entries. The roof is hipped and clad in red ceramic tiles. The front or northern elevation also has two breakfronts near either end which mark the linear plan. The external walls of the two upper levels of the building are face brick with the classrooms indicated by grouped casement windows with awning lights above. The two upper levels sit on the rendered base of the Ground Floor which has arcades and smaller window openings. The three-storey height, and Georgian-style symmetry, proportion and massing make the building prominent from both Stafford and Webster Roads.
The central bay of the northern facade is emphasised as the main entry to the building by the triangular pedimented gable, the rendered entry door surround, the double stairway and projecting further than the end bays. Also mounted over the main entrance is a large arched window with 16 panes. The first and second floors contain a series of classrooms opening onto a corridor running the length of the building on the northern side. There are panelled doors with toplights and double-hung windows between the classrooms and the corridor. The east and west wings each house two classrooms and former cloakrooms. The high ceilings, regular external windows and internal windows and doors provide substantial natural light and cross ventilation. The two stairways, near either end of the building, have steel balustrades, cast newels and timber handrails. A third stairway is located in the centre of the building. The central projecting bay houses a number of smaller rooms that are used as administrative offices and staff facilities. The tuckshop, girls and boys toilets and maintenance storage areas are located in the undercroft of the building.
The foreground of Stafford State School building is lawn, pathways and established plantings. To the west of the main building is the tennis courts. A second school building is located behind the main building and is a two-storeyed timber and corrugated iron construction. Between the two buildings is bitumened parade ground that is marked for ball games and parade positions. Simple timber and iron covered walkways run between the two buildings and a covered eating area is located to the east of the two buildings.
Behind the building complex is a vegetated lot which includes a number of native plants enclosing smaller lawned areas with timber benches. A sign marks the area as Centenary Grove. The playing fields are located behind the Centenary Grove and consist of large levelled and lawned area, incorporating two cricket pitches and marked at the southern boundary of the school by a row of Radiata pine trees. The western boundary of the playing fields has a carpark and bitumened pick up area, constructed in 1998. The 25 metre pool and grandstand complex is located on the eastern boundary of the playing fields along with a small grove of plantings in the south eastern corner of the site.
","history":"Stafford State School is a substantial three storey brick building located on a 5.138 hectare site on the corner of Stafford and Webster Roads, facing Stafford Road. It was constructed in 1948-49 as the principal building of Stafford State School, providing primary education to children of the Stafford district. Stafford State School also incorporates formal gardens in the foreground of the school and large open playing feilds to the rear of the building, established at the same time as the principal school building.
Stafford's original name was Happy Valley until 1886, when a government administrator questioned whether such a name was dignified enough to grace a new school. It is one of the few places in Queensland which takes its suburban name from the school. Happy Valley incorporated the suburbs now known as Everton Park and Stafford, and remained a semi-rural area well into the twentieth century. Local industry included tanneries, fellmongers and dairy farms. In 1886, simple timber school building and teachers residence were constructed on the original Collier Street site, where the Stafford State Pre-school is now located.
In 1940 the tramline from Red Hill was extended to Stafford Road. Closer settlement was encouraged with the establishment of a housing commission estate during World War Two on the eastern side of Webster Road and the Somerset Hill subdivision was established after the war. The general changes in post war Australian society felt through the return of service personal, a baby boom and an influx of immigrants from Europe coincides with these infrastructural planning changes for the area.
In 1947, a 12 acre site was purchased for the new school from John Smith. During the second world war, substantial changes were made to the incorporation of physical education into the primary cirriculum. Specialised physical education teacher training had commenced in Queensland in 1941 with the first batch of graduates employed under the Organiser of Physical Education in 1944. In 1944, the Director General of Education called for the 'enlarging of existing school grounds or aquisition of new sites' to accomadate facilities for feild games. At this time organised games revolving around fair play and emphasising team work were included as part of the broader themes of educational philosophy. In order to accommodate such changes, the Department of Public Instruction began to purchase sites which allowed adequate space to be dedicated to physical education. Stafford State School had two full playing ovals accommodating, football, cricket, basketball, vigaro, hockey, and athletics with a swimming pool and grandstand complex added later.
The building was designed by Frederick Thomas Wylie Warren of the Architectural Branch of the Queensland Department of Public Works and construction of the first stage was completed in 1948. A second stage was completed in 1955 from the original design. The form and architectural style of building is more typical of interwar brick school buildings, particularly those constructed under the Unemployment Relief Scheme. As such it was criticised in the contemporary press, by teachers and architects, as severe and barrack like, and representing an outmoded style of school building. From the 1950s a change in architectural direction for the Departments of Public Works and Public Instruction can be seen in the introduction of organic planning for state schools.
The school was constructed of brick and concrete. It contained 16 classrooms situated on the first and second floors. A head teachers room; male and female teachers rooms; library; reading room; store and medical inspection room; and hat and cloak rooms were also provided. Some of the classrooms on the first and second floor had folding partitions and a kindergarten room was included on the first floor. Toilets were located on the ground floor, with the remainder of ground floor space dedicated to play areas.
An infants school consisting of three buildings was excised from the original site in 1953, this set of buildings is now redundant and unoccupied. The infants school was reincorporated into the main school after the demand on school facilities decreased. The school buildings continues to house the primary school for this area, although students enrolled in the school has decreased in recent years.
","criteria":"Stafford State School is a substantial 1948 three storey brick and tile building, associated playing fields and gardens which demonstrates the importance of the post war development of suburban Stafford. The impressive form and scale of Stafford State School is indicative of the governmental confidence in post war stability and economic growth in Queensland.
|The main building of Stafford State School is one of the final buildings of the design series which is represented by works under the Unemployment Relief Scheme of the interwar period and as such it demonstrates the characteristics of a particular type of Queensland school. The main school building is a well composed institutional building and is complemented by surrounding gardens and established plantings. The associated grounds and gardens of the school demonstrate the emphasis placed on physical education as a part of a holistic pedogological philosophy. Stafford State School's open playing fields, swimming pool and gardens demonstrate the importance of the introduction of specialist physical education into the primary school curriculum.
|The combination of imposing building and plentiful open spaces is a landmark in the suburban streetscape of the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16428,"place_ref":601668,"name":"Grangehill","alternate_name":"St Teresa's Church Discalced Carmelite Priory and Retreat Centre | Grange Hill | St Teresas Church Discalced Carmelite Priory","street_address":"449 and 451 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1995-09-06","description":"Grangehill, a two-storeyed Brisbane tuff and sandstone residence with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located on an elevated position above Gregory Terrace to the northwest and has views over the surrounding suburbs of Fortitude Valley, Bowen Hills and Herston.
The roof, consisting of U-shaped hips with a central box gutter, has a raised central skylight and two rendered chimney stacks with cornice detailing. The building has verandahs to the northeast and southeast, with the ground floor of the southeast verandah having been removed during 1960s extensions (retreat centre), and northwest verandah having been removed for the 1950s extensions. The verandahs have cast iron balustrade panels with timber rails, chamfered timber verandah posts, and a rendered masonry base. The ground floor has an arched boarded timber valance with timber lattice panels above, which have been covered over with weatherboard, and the second floor has a raked ceiling lined with hardboard sheets with timber cover strips. The first floor of the southeast verandah has been enclosed with glass louvres.
The central entry projects slightly from the verandah and has paired corner posts, a timber arch to the ground floor, and sandstone steps, and was originally surmounted by a pediment which is no longer extant. The ground floor verandah walls are of coursed Brisbane tuff with dressed hammer-faced sandstone quoining to the main entry. The central entry, which has a panelled timber door with glass sidelights and fanlight assembly with the name GRANGEHILL in the fanlight, is surrounded by vermiculated sandstone quoining and is flanked by bay windows to either side which projects from the face of the wall. These bays have tall sash windows, with the southern bay incorporating a multi-paned glass door. The first floor verandah walls are finished in scribed render, and had similar early bays which have been removed, but evidence of their form can be seen in the verandah floor boards and ceiling sheeting The southern bay has been replaced with a sliding aluminium framed glass door, and the northern bay has been replaced with a pair of timber framed french doors.
The rear of the building has mostly coursed hammer-faced sandstone with quoining to the corners and an expressed band at first floor level. Windows are multi-paned sashes, with a tall arched sash window at mid-floor level to the stair landing. Striped metal awnings and a brick rear entry lean-to have been added recently.
The two-storeyed northwest extension replaced the original two-storeyed verandah and attached kitchen, and consists of a rendered masonry structure with a corrugated iron gable roof and a large crucifix in relief on the northwest wall. Windows are metal framed casements, and a crucifix is affixed to the gable apex.
The southeast extension (retreat centre) consists of a two-storeyed U-shaped brick structure with a flat ribbed sheet metal roof. One side of the U-shaped structure replaced the southeast ground floor verandah, with the central section spanning over a driveway, and the southern side incorporating a sub-floor level.
Internally, the building has plastered masonry walls, ceilings, cornices and picture rails, and cedar joinery (some of which is painted) including panelled doors, architraves, corniced panels above doorheads, skirtings and staircase. The ground floor of the building has a central entrance hall with a large room to either side. The entrance hall has an arch, leading to a wider rear hall, with plastered extrados and imposts and a glass panel with the word CLOISTER. The northern room has an ornate plaster ceiling pendant and pendant light fitting, and a marble fireplace surround with tile inserts and cast iron screen. The southern room has a plaster ceiling pendant and a wide arch dividing the room in two, with two side doorways (originally with french doors opening to a verandah) which have painted glass fanlights each consisting of landscape scenes in sepia tones. The room originally had a white marble fireplace surround which has been removed.
The rear hall has two rooms opening to either side, with the northwest room having undergone a number of changes and now has timber framed glass doors within an original archway, and a partition wall of arches forming a central hallway. The rear hall has a painted half-turn with landings staircase with turned balustrade and square newel posts.
The first floor has a central hall with an arch, which has plastered extrados and imposts, opening to three front rooms. The northern room has been partitioned to create two rooms with a corridor at the rear accessing the northwest extension. A bathroom, which has been recently refitted, is located centrally and is lit by a skylight. An early storage cupboard adjacent to the bathroom retains the only section of pressed metal ceiling to the first floor.
The northwest extension has a kitchen, laundry and bathroom to the ground floor, with a staircase accessing the first floor which houses bathrooms and bedrooms. The southeast extension (retreat centre) has a chapel, confessionals, seminar room and bedrooms to the first floor, bedrooms and garages to the ground floor, and bedrooms to the sub-floor level.
The building is accessed off Gregory Terrace via a curved driveway with turning circle. The grounds include two large Fig trees to the east of the driveway, and several substantial Umbrella and Camphor Laurel trees. A stone embankment wall is located along the Gregory Terrace alignment.
","history":"Grangehill is a substantial stone house which was constructed in the early 1860s, as the family home of Alexander Raff, a prominent member of Brisbane society and a later Member of the Legislative Council.
Alexander Raff was born in Forres, Elginshire, Scotland in July 1820, as the third son of James and Margaret Raff. Alexander arrived in New South Wales in 1845, following his eldest brother, George who had arrived in 1841. After first settling in Victoria pursuing pastoral interests, Alexander arrived in Brisbane, aboard the Souvenir schooner on April 9, 1851.
Alexander was an active member of various organisations and societies, including the School of Arts, where he was elected Treasurer in January 1854; the Pilot's Board; the Queensland Horticultural and Agricultural Society and the Queensland Philosophical Society, in both of which he acted as Treasurer during the 1860s. Raff was the first president of the Young Men's Christian Association in Queensland. Other organisations of which he was a member include the Queensland Steam Navigation Company; the Board of National Education pending the passing of the Education Act in 1860; and, later, the men's steering committee for the Children's Hospital established in 1878. Alexander was a director of the Scottish Mutual Land and Mortgage Company; the Agricultural Company; the Brisbane Gas Company and National Mutual Life Association. Alexander continued his pastoral interests in Queensland, on his property, Logie Plains on the Darling Downs.
For many years from the 1880s Alexander Raff was a partner of Smellie and Co, looking after the financial interests of the company. Raff was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
In 1865 Alexander was appointed to the position of Official Assignee of Insolvent Estates and in 1868 he was promoted to the position of Curator of Intestate Estates. The Official Assignee was responsible for collecting the assets of an insolvent debtor and distributing them among the creditors; the Curator of Intestate Estates administered the estate of deceased persons, thought to have passed away intestate. In August 1884 Alexander Raff was appointed as a Member of the Legislative Council, a position he held until his resignation in June, 1910.
Raff married Elizabeth Millar Patterson, the elder daughter of a prominent Scottish medical family, in Sydney on June 5, 1862. The newly weds arrived in Brisbane aboard the Balclutha on June 13, 1862.
Alexander purchased two blocks of land on what was to become Gregory Terrace on May 14, 1860 for £312.4.3. A third adjacent block was subsequently bought by Raff in 1864 from the original 1860 purchaser, John Frederick McDougall.
The first reference found regarding the Raffs occupation of Grangehill, is upon the birth of their first child, Jessie Watson, on the 18th of April, 1863, where Grangehill is nominated as the family home. It is presumed that Alexander built the house after the purchase of land in 1860. Although the architect is unknown, a possible candidate would be James Cowlishaw, who designed a store for Alexander's brother's company, George Raff and Co in 1862 and later, in 1864, additions to Raff's Wharf in Brisbane. Cowlishaw is also thought to have been a personal friend of the Raffs.
During the late 1860s and early 1870s, Raff sold land on the Warry Street side of the block, and re-purchased it by 1874. In 1879 both John Petrie and Augustus Gregory built substantial family homes on property on Gregory Terrace previously purchased by them in the sale of 1860. By 1883 Warry Street had been extended north to Gregory Terrace, onto Raff's allotment 258.
Alexander and Elizabeth Raff had seven children, six of whom survived to adulthood. In August 1893, one of the daughters, Margaret Cumming Raff, married Mr T.C. Woolnough, in a ceremony held at Grangehill. It is thought that during the 1880s or 1890s a verandah was added to both stories of three sides of the house, and that bay windows were added to four of the principal entrance elevation.
On Alexander's death on January 26, 1914, the house was left in trust to his eldest son, James, who enabled the Red Cross to use it after the First World War as a convalescent home.
In 1924 Brisbane architects, Chambers and Ford, designed additions to Grangehill, converting the house into two flats, one of which James Raff moved into for a short time. These additions included a wing on the north west which housed a kitchen and laundry, and the closing of sections of the verandah for use as bathrooms. A new entrance to Grangehill was planned from Gregory Terrace, through the new wing.
By 1929, the Grangehill property was subdivided, when a Dr Henry J. Windsor is listed as living on the Warry Street corner of the property, in a timber house also designed by Chambers and Ford. On the Brunswick Street side of the property is a block of six flats which survive in 1995. From 1929, the two flats at Grangehill were let to a Mr Edward K Tully and a PJ Teeley, who remained there until Mrs Adele Magnum is listed as running a boarding house from Grangehill for about two years from 1939. According to family history, Grangehill was then used by American Soldiers in the Second World War. James Raff died in 1939, leaving the house in trust to his nephew, James Cluny Raff.
In 1949 the property was offered for sale by James Cluny Raff, and passed out of the family who had owned it since 1860. The auction notice for this sale notes a substantial wooden cottage on the block, no longer extant. The Disclaced Carmelite Fathers purchased Grangehill, and it has remained their headquarters and retreat centre until 1995. The Fathers made alterations to the house between 1965 and 1970. These included the demolition of the 1924 kitchen wing, and its replacement with another wing, the removal of the first floor bay windows, and the addition of some interior arch screens. A later addition saw the erection of a retreat centre abutting the south east side of the house.
","criteria":"Grangehill is illustrative of the residential development of Spring Hill during the nineteenth century.
|The house is one of the earliest surviving in Brisbane and as such a rare extant example of a substantial 1860s stone residence.
Internal fittings which are early and rare include the lower floor ceiling roses, the lower floor ceiling with associated cornice, the painted glass transom windows and timber joinery.
|Though it was extended at various times, the building retains a substantial amount of original fabric and is representative of a large early Victorian era residence.
|Located on an elevated position, the building and grounds, including the driveway, landscaped grounds and stone embankment wall, make a substantial contribution to the amenity of the Gregory Terrace streetscape and Spring Hill townscape.
|(Criteria under review)
|Grangehill, a two storied stone residence constructed in Spring Hill in the early 1860s by prominent Brisbane businessman and pastoralist, Alexander Raff, has associations with the Raff family, who were instrumental in establishing various Brisbane businesses and institutions.
Grangehill was purchased by the Discalced Carmelite Fathers in 1950, and retains important associations with the order as their Queensland headquarters and Retreat Centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16432,"place_ref":601672,"name":"University of Queensland Gatton Campus (Queensland University)","alternate_name":"Lawes Campus | Foundation Precinct Gatton College | UQ Gatton","street_address":"Warrego Highway","suburb":"LAWES","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-01-06","description":"The University of Queensland Gatton Campus is located on the Warrego Highway, just east of the town of Gatton. It comprises two distinct areas: the main campus at Lawes, approximately 6 kilometres east of Gatton; and the Darbalara Farms, located approximately 5 kilometres to the south east of the main campus. The focus of interest for the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register is the main campus at Lawes; the Darbalara Farms are not included in the heritage register boundary.
The principal built portion of the main campus sits on an elevated sandstone ridge accessed via a ring road from the Warrego Highway; the remainder of the site is divided into paddocks with frontages to Laidley Creek to the east and Lockyer Creek to the north. The site has features of both a university campus and a working farm, with a mixture of teaching buildings, administration and research centres, residential halls and staff houses, recreational facilities, laboratories, buildings and structures associated with the working farms, and infrastructure such as the water tower and an early sewerage treatment plant. The earliest elements date from the establishment of the Queensland Agricultural College in 1897.
For the purposes of the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register, a number of key buildings, structures, plantings, spaces and landscape features of cultural heritage significance within the Gatton Campus have been identified. This does not negate the need for a thorough cultural heritage survey of the whole of the campus, which may reveal other elements of particular cultural heritage significance.
The buildings, structures, plantings, spaces and landscape features of cultural heritage significance within the Gatton Campus which have been identified to date are scattered across the site. For the purposes of this entry in the Queensland Heritage Register and for consistency with University site planning, these have been grouped within the areas and precincts identified in the Gatton Campus Site Development Plan 2003. In addition, the University's building numbering system has been employed for consistency of identification.
Site Layout
For site planning purposes, the University has divided the main campus at Lawes into four areas, some of which have been further divided into precincts:
1. The Core, located on the sandstone ridge above the Lockyer Creek floodplain, contains the academic, social, and cultural heart of Gatton Campus. This area includes the Main Entry precinct, Central Precinct and the historic Foundation Precinct.
2. The Core Environs, a large area on the fringe of the Core where teaching, demonstration and research is conducted in a farm environment, includes the historic Farm Square Precinct and the CSIRO Cooper Laboratories.
3. The Residential Area, consisting of student accommodation in halls of residence, single dwellings for staff and students, and recreational facilities, is also identified as the Sport and Residential Precinct.
4. The Farms, broad acre fields with some outlying teaching, research, recreational and infrastrucutre facilities, surround the Core Environs and Residential Area.
The above divisions reflect more than a planning pragmatism; they are important historically in illustrating the arrangement of administrative, teaching, training, farming, research, residential and recreational spaces within what has served for over a century as Queensland's most significant rural educational institution. Despite a massive building program from the 1960s onwards, and the re-orientation of the principal access road from the Lawes Railway Siding to the Warrego Highway, the Gatton Campus continues to demonstrate the principal site relationships established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: a core teaching/administrative/residential centre located on the sandstone ridge; farm training, workshop and service areas to the north of this; recreational facilities to the south; and the whole surrounded by farm paddocks.
Central Precinct
This precinct encompasses the bulk of the academic teaching facilities, most of which have been constructed since the 1960s, and is centred around the walkway linking the northern and southern ends of the Core area. This walkway is of significance as evidence of the former central access road through the site, and is marked by an avenue of Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensis] planted in 1927. Also located in this precinct is a 1968 cairn and plaque commemorating the use of the College as an American army hospital during the Second World War.
Foundation Precinct
The Foundation Precinct, at the southern end of the Core area, contains elements of high cultural heritage value, including: the Foundation Building (1897) [Bldg 8118], The Homestead (1897) [Bldg 8124], the Water Tower (1928-29) [Bldg 8149], Morrison Hall (1936) [Bldg 8123], and paved and landscaped areas including plantings of Canary Island Date Palms (1915), a memorial flagpole (1935), and a recent sandstone war memorial. To the southwest of Morrison Hall is a Chapel (1943) [Bldg 8127], and to the west of the main Foundation Precinct is the former Gymnasium, now known as Sir Leslie Wilson Hall (1899) [Bldg 8129], which has been moved to this site from the ridge above. Sited just west of the Sir Leslie Wilson Hall are two small timber buildings [Bldgs 8128, 8130] which also have been moved to this location.
The Foundation Building (1897) [Bldg 8118] is a large timber building, purpose-designed as an administration and teaching facility, in the lightweight timber vernacular of the Federation era. It is single storey and high-set on substantial timber stumps which have been roughly finished by hand. The building has expansive verandahs (12 foot) on the southern and eastern sides with those on the west and north remaining enclosed with timber chamferboards, timber casement windows and aluminium-framed windows respectively. The building has prominent gabled and vented hip roofs clad in corrugated, colorbond steel and has two brick chimneys. There are four external timber stairways with dowel balusters and timber handrails. A projecting entrance porch and entry stair are centrally located on the southern elevation of the building, aligned with what was formerly the southern [main] approach to the Agricultural College from Lawes Railway Siding. The porch is decorated with a timber arch and other ornate timber detailing. The external walls are horizontal pine chamferboards and the verandah roofs are lined with tongue-in-groove beaded boards.
The building has been partially restored. It has a central hallway. The front entrance hall and reception rooms on either side have been newly painted and have linoleum floors. Each of these rooms has a fireplace with timber mantel, and bay windows to the verandah. All internal walls are lined with tongue-in-groove beaded boards with timber joinery including ceiling vent panels and fanlights. A large reception room is located on the eastern side of the building. It has carpeted floors and groups of folding timber doors with multi-paned glass to the verandah. The north and western portions of the building remain un-restored and are currently occupied by a small kitchen area, a dining room, toilets and various unused rooms. Original fabric is evident throughout.
The sub-floor has been partially enclosed with a variety of building materials including chamferboards, fibrous-cement sheeting and timber casement windows. A large cleaners' room is located on the southern side with an entry door and several windows in the southern wall. A staff recreation club is located on the western and northern side with an adjacent paved area enclosed with timber screens and pergola roof.
The Homestead (1897) [Bldg 8124] is a low-set timber building, also Federation style, constructed as a residence for the principal of the college. It is single storey, high-set on timber stumps, and has wide verandahs with dowel balusters on the southern, eastern and western sides of the building, and a service wing to the north. The verandah to the west has been semi-enclosed with fixed vertical timber shutters. Some of the external walls are painted, horizontal pine chamferboards, whilst others are single-skin with exposed bracing and studs. The building has a multi-gabled, hipped roof, three brick chimneys and a decorative finial. Wide timber entry stairs, surmounted by a decorative gable roof, mark the entry to the building. It has substantial timber front and rear doors linked by a central hallway. A large reception room on the western side of the hall is divided by a decorative timber arch and has a skylight and a brick fireplace. The interior is lined in pine tongue-in-groove boards, the floors are carpeted and a number of the rooms are air-conditioned by window-mounted units. Multi-paned timber sliding sash windows and timber French doors are found throughout the building.
Morrison Hall (1936) [Bldg 8123] is a substantial, two-level timber, brick and stucco building located to the south of the Foundation Building. Paving and a formal arrangement of Canary Island Date Palms create a strong visual link between the two buildings. The front of the building is landscaped with raised lawn areas, low masonry retaining walls and mature Poinciana trees. The front (north) elevation of the building is dominated by a central projecting gable roof with decorative infill to the gable end, an impressive timber entry stair and substantial stucco pillars. Morrison Hall is a U-shaped building in plan. Each wing has a strip of central rooms (originally dormitories) with long verandahs to both sides. The front part of the building has a large central room, flanked by expansive internal verandah spaces to either side. This central room has a large arched brick fireplace and a series of French Doors onto the verandah spaces. All rooms on the first floor have timber floors and single-skin, timber walls. The ceilings of the verandahs are lined with horizontal, tongue-in-groove boards. The first floor has multi-paned timber casement and sliding sash windows, French doors and single leaf timber doors throughout. Offices and meeting rooms occupy the first floor.
The ground floor has concrete and tiled floors. External walls are generally rendered brick with some concrete columns and multi-paned, timber in-fill doors and windows. Most of the ground floor is occupied by the Student Union with facilities including a cafeteria area, recreation room and some meeting rooms and offices which are enclosed with aluminium framed, glass partitions. The eastern wing of the ground floor is occupied by the bookshop which is also enclosed with aluminium framed, glass partitions. A large grassed courtyard area is located at the rear of the building.
Sir Leslie Wilson Hall (1899 with 1935 extension) [Bldg 8129] is a large timber weatherboard building with a hipped, steel-trussed roof and a number of small, lean-to annexes. It has timber sash windows and is raised on concrete stumps. It is lined internally with fibrous-cement sheeting. The building was re-located in 1978 to a site between the inner and outer ring roads, a little to the northwest of the Core area's Foundation Precinct.
The two small buildings to the west of Sir Leslie Wilson Hall [Bldgs 8128, 8130] are both timber framed, weatherboard clad, and high-set on concrete stumps. They are aligned in a north-south direction. The building to the north has a hipped roof; the building to the south a gable roofed. Both roofs are clad in corrugated steel sheeting. The building to the south has early double-hung sash windows, each sash being divided vertically into two panes. The northern building has later aluminium framed windows.
To the southwest of Morrison Hall and situated beneath a tall Bunya Pine, is the Chapel (1943/1959) [Bldg 8127]. It is a small, timber-framed building with a corrugated steel sheeted gable roof, and is the remaining portion of a building erected as a morgue for the United States Army in 1943, and converted into a chapel in 1959. Externally the walls have weatherboards to sill height, with fibrous-cement sheeting above, and timber casement windows. Internally it has a concrete floor which is carpeted, and the walls are lined with fibrous cement sheeting.
The Water Tower (1928-29) [Bldg 8149] is located to the west of the Foundation Building. It has a hollow cylindrical concrete base with internal access ladders, supporting a 136,000 litre capacity main water supply tank, also concrete and cylindrical but of wider diameter than the base. The whole is approximately 20 metres in height, and being located on the highest ground on the campus amidst low-scale buildings, is a landmark, visible from the Warrego Highway approaches and from the Main Range at Toowoomba, 50 kilometres distant.
Farm Square Precinct [including Agricultural Place]
The Farm Square Precinct is situated to the northeast of the central precinct, within the Core Environs area. Elements of cultural heritage significance within this precinct include: Farm Square (begun 1899) [Bldg 8216], Crow's Silo (1941) [Bldg 8217], the Weighbridge [Bldg 8215], the Merv Young Field Facilities Building (former Woolshed, 1913-15) [Bldg 8134], former Dairy Factory [now a Printery] (1912) [Bldg 8131], the Hayshed (1923) [Bldg 8213], a Blacksmith's Shed (1933) [Bldg 8208], a c1900 residence [Bldg 8258]; Shearing Shed (1941) [Bldg 8230], Wool Classing Shed (c1940s) [Bldg 8231], and 6 other c1940s buildings associated with the move of the College teaching and farm facilities to the northeast of the campus during the Second World War [Bldgs 8260, 8233-8237]. Of contributory significance is the former Crowley Vale School (1916) [Bldg 8158], which has been moved to a location on Services Road. Farm Square Precinct also contains a number of mature trees which contribute significantly to the aesthetic value of the campus, including a row of tall Bangalow Palms at the southern end of Services Road.
Farm Square (1899-) [Bldg 8216] is a collection of structures containing stables, stalls, lofts and storage areas arranged around a large internal space - the square. The square has a bitumen floor and contains a horse-breaking ring and washing area. The buildings on the southern, eastern and western sides of the square contain stables, stalls, harness shed, and tool room. They are timber framed and clad in weatherboards with broad gabled roofs clad in corrugated, colorbond steel. The walls facing the square are generally half-height with a regular pattern of timber stable doors. The building on the northern side of Farm Square (1986) is constructed of concrete block and contains classrooms and office facilities. Vehicle access is provided via a gap between the buildings at the north-east corner. A second driveway is located at southern end, adjacent to a concrete silo known as Crow's Silo (1941) [Bldg 8217]. The silo is the oldest remaining silo on the campus and has a gabled steel roof.
The Hayshed (1923) [Bldg 8213] is located to the north of Farm Square. It is a substantial timber weatherboard building built in the style of an American barn with a mansard roof which allows for the more efficient use of the upper roof space.
The Weighbridge (c1940s) [Bldg 8215] is located west of Farm Square. It consists of a cast iron weighbridge set into the road and an adjacent small, timber-framed shed clad externally in fibrous cement sheeting.
The Merv Young Field Facilities Building [former Woolshed] (1913-15) [Bldg 8134] is located across Farm Lane, to the southwest of Farm Square. It has an unorthodox two-storey design that accommodated sheep-shearing downstairs and pressing and classing wool upstairs. It is a tall timber building clad in weatherboards with a gabled corrugated steel roof. It has been renovated with a steel inner staircase and steel balcony located on the upper level. It now contains offices.
The Printery [former Dairy Factory] (1912 with extensions in 1932 & 1934) [Bldg 8131] is located on the corner of Printery Lane and Nursery Lane. It comprises a collection of timber buildings with corrugated steel gabled roofs. From the 1980s it has been occupied by the campus printery. Internal walls have been re-located and new ceiling and wall linings and internal toilets added.
The Blacksmith's Shed (1933) [Bldg 8208] is located to the east of Farm Square in the Maintenance and Services section. It is a timber weatherboard shed with a hipped roof clad in corrugated steel. It is now sandwiched between recent large steel sheds.
An Early Residence (c1900) [Bldg 8258] is located along Services Road in the northeast sector of the Farm Square precinct, near the Shearing Shed and Wool Classing Shed. Is is timber-framed and clad, and is high-set on concrete stumps. It has a half-gabled bungalow-style roof, with the roof of the core extending down over verandahs on the front and rear elevations and wrapping around the sides. The gable ends have weatherboard in-fill beneath wide eaves, decorative timber slats in front of the weatherboards, and tapered and shaped timber bargeboards. The verandahs are enclosed with weatherboards to sill height and a mix of multi-paned timber casement windows [on the western side and part of the front (north) elevation] and later metal-framed windows. There is an early, one-roomed wing with a hipped roof, on the eastern side of the rear (south) elevation. There is also a later (c1940s) gable-roofed extension attached to the western side of the rear elevation. This is clad externally in chamferboards and has a corrugated metal roof. The house sits within an open, grassed and fenced yard. A number of mature trees just outside the front and eastern fences contribute significantly to its aesthetic setting.
The Shearing Shed (1941) [Bldg 8230] is located on the northeastern edge of the Farm Square Precinct. It contains a shearing shed, a lecture room for up to 60 students, wool room, a scour room, experting room and office. It is a large, low-set timber building with a broad gabled roof. It is clad with weatherboards, has timber sash windows and a corrugated steel roof.
The Wool Classing Shed (c1940s) [Bldg 8231] is also located on the northeastern edge of the Farm Square Precinct, just south of the Shearing Shed, facing north/northwest. It is a large, low-set timber-framed building of three bays, with a complex roof clad in corrugated iron: hipped along each side bay, with a central high saw-tooth roof structure above the central bay. Externally the building is clad with weatherboards to sill height, with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips above.
A Temporary Dining Hall and Kitchen (1942) [Bldg 8260], now staff quarters, is situated on Services Road almost opposite the Shearing Shed. It is a small, rectangular, hipped-roof building, timber-framed, and clad externally with weatherboards to sill height, with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips above. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Verandahs on the north and south elevations have separate roofs to the core and are enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting to sill height and glass louvres above.
Buildings 8233-8237 (c1940s) are located near the Poultry Unit area in the eastern sector of the Farm Square Precinct. The five buildings are all timber-framed and set on low stumps, with roofs clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Building 8234 is the largest of the five. Rectangular in form, it has a hipped roof and is clad externally with weatherboards. On the north elevation the roof extends bungalow-fashion over an open verandah. Adjacent to the south elevation of this building are two small hip-roofed ancillary buildings [Bldgs 8235, 8236]. Building 8235 appears to be an ablutions block, and is set low on the ground. Building 8236 is set on stumps and is clad in weatherboards. The second largest building in ithis group is Building 8233, which is sited just west of Building 8234. It is rectangular in form with a hipped roof, and is clad mostly with weatherboards, with fibrous cement sheeting at the southern end. It has an open verandah along the west elevation. The fifth structure [Builidng 8237] is located to the northwest of Building 8234, across a gravel road. Is is a smaller building, square in form, set low on the ground and clad in fibrous-cement sheeting. It has a hipped roof which extends down over an enclosed verandah on the north elevation. A brick chimney rises above the roof on the western side.
The Former Crowley Vale School (1916) [Bldg 8158] is a re-located building currently situated at the far northern end of the Farm Square Precinct, to the west of Services Road. It is a small, timber-framed building, square in form, which rests on low stumps. It has a hipped roof with a short ridge roof clad with corrugated steel sheeting, and has wide, overhanging eaves. It is a standard Queensland Works Department design, a modification of the earlier open-air school concept. Externally the building is clad with fibrous-cement sheeting to half wall height, with banks of windows above.
CSIRO Cooper Laboratory
The CSIRO Cooper Laboratory (1941) is located to the north of the Central Precinct, within the Core Environs and east of Main Drive. It comprises a complex of structures: four laboratories, eight offices, seed barns, sterile seed store, seed storage rooms and a glasshouse. The collection of low-set buildings are predominately constructed of orange-red brick with one or two timber sheds. All have hipped roofs with wide eaves, and are clad in corrugated steel.
Sport and Residential Precinct
This precinct is located to the south of the Foundation Precinct, within the Core Environs area. Of cultural heritage significance within this precinct are three sporting ovals constructed largely by staff and students, a grandstand (1927), the War Memorial Swimming Pool complex (1950s) and the War Memorial Gymnasium (1968). The Tom Graham Cricket Oval (1931) is located in the eastern third of this precinct. The Grandstand [Bldg 8336] is located on the western edge of the Tom Graham Cricket Oval. It is a small timber framed and weatherboard structure with tiered timber bench seating and a corrugated steel, timber-framed roof with a small projecting, decorative gable roof over the access staircase. The Hugh Courtney Rugby Oval (1959-60) is located in the western third of the precinct, and the Ray McNamara Sports Oval (1965) is situated in the centre. Northwest of the ovals are the swimming pool and gymnasium. The War Memorial Swimming Pool Complex [Bldg 8145] comprises an Olympic-size swimming pool, spectator stand, and dressing rooms.
To the south and west of the main sporting facilities are a number of pre-1950 staff houses along South Ridge Road. Of particular interest are nos.8 & 15, which are likely c1920s.
At the northeastern end of the Sport and Residential Precinct is a small reserve on a separate lot on plan, occupied by Australian Defence Force Reservists.
Farms Area
There are a number of elements of cultural heritage significance located within the Farms Area. These are important in illustrating the evolution of the development of Gatton Campus.
Elements identified to the south of the core area include:
·\tLawes Siding Road (1897), the original principal access road to the Agricultural College, at the southern end of the campus. This road leads in a straight line in a northeasterly direction from the Lawes Railway Siding on the Southern and Western Railway, across the Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road, to the Core Area of Gatton Campus. It is lined by an avenue of Eucalypts (planted in the 1910s) and other mature trees such as palm trees.
·\tAvenue of Trees [bean?], located south of the core area to the west of Lawes Siding Road, just north of, and at right angles to, the present Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road. Between the trees is remnant asphalted roadway associated with the earlier alignment of the Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road. Between the avenue and the present Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road is a grove of less mature trees of the same species.
·\tThe CH Francis Airstrip (1966), located to the south of the Sport and Recreational Precinct, east of Lawes Siding Road. The strip is aligned in an east-west direction, and has a grassed surface.
Elements identified to the east of the core area include:
·\tLake Galletly (1950s), an ornamental lake and wildlife refuge located to the east of the Core Environs.
Elements identified to the immediate north of the core area include:
·\tThe original Warrego Highway entrance road to the Agricultural College, leading in a straight line south/southeast from the highway to the northern end of the Core, and marked by an avenue of mature trees, including Leopard Trees (Caesalpinia ferrea), Poinciana (Delonix regia), Leptospermum spp. and Eucalyptus spp.
Elements identified to the north of the Warrego Highway include:
·\tThe Former College View State School and adjacent Residence [Bldgs 8411, 8412 & 8413], situated to the north of the Warrego Highway, east of the overpass. The school building is of contributory significance, having been moved to this site from the Tarampa Road. It is a small, timber framed, weatherboard clad building on low stumps, with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The residence is a high-set timber 'Queenslander' c1910s which is also understood to have been moved to this location.
·\tA Barn [Bldg 8431], located just east of the overpass road on the north side of Warrego Highway. The barn is a rectangular, timber-framed structure with a high gabled roof clad in corrugated iron, the whole high-set on timber stumps. There are double timber swing doors at each end of the building, the doors at the eastern end opening onto a small timber-framed loading dock
·\tThe Sewerage Treatment Works (c1942) [Bldgs 8422-8426 & 8428-8429 & 8428], located along the ring road which follows Lockyer Creek around the northern farms. This complex remains remarkably intact, and comprises a number of sheds and water treatment facilities, including early circular concrete ponds.
·\tThe Pump House (c1942) [Bldg 8427], located north of the Treatment Works, on the western bank of Lockyer Creek. It is a small, octagonal-shaped, one-roomed, concrete building with an octagonal-pitched roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
·\tThe Potato Shed [no UQ number], located further north on the east side of the northern ring road. It is a timber-framed bunker with the above-ground structure clad in corrugated galvanized iron.
·\tc1930s Staff Houses and Gardens, and in some instances, just the gardens where houses have been removed, along the Lockyer Creek ring road. The mature trees in these gardens contribute significantly to the aesthetic values of the campus. The houses are all high-set weatherboard 'Queenslanders'.
·\tThe main building in the Crop Research Unit (c1940s) [Bldg 8419], located at the northern end of the campus, on the southeast bank of Lockyer Creek. It is a long, narrow, low-set building with a concrete block base to sill height and timber-framing and weatherboards above. It has a hipped roof clad with corrugated sheeting. There is a brick chimney rising above the roof near the northeast end of the building. The whole rests on a concrete plinth.
·\tThe Dressing Shed [Bldg 8441], located adjacent to Lockyer Creek at the northwest end of the campus, above a former popular swimming hole. It is a long, narrow, low-set, timber-framed structure comprised of three sections. The middle section has a gable roof and exposed external timber framing on three sides and weatherboard cladding on the fourth wall overlooking Lockyer Creek. The walls are lined with corrugated iron sheeting. Either side of this central section is a long, narrow dressing room with a skillion roof of corrugated iron and all walls clad externally with weatherboards and unlined internally. Floors throughout are concrete. Entrance doors to each section are in the northwest elevation overlooking the creek
·\tTwo concrete water storage tanks and generator/pump shed [no UQ number], located adjacent to the Dressing Shed above Lockyer Creek. These are associated with the early water supply to the campus established in the late 1920s. The tanks are circular, of moulded concrete construction, and highly intact. They stand approximately 2.5 to 3 metres above ground. The generator/pump shed adjacent to the tanks is a small, timber-framed, skillion-roofed structure clad externally with corrugated metal sheeting. The generator/pump has been removed but the concrete plinth on which it rested remains.
·\tA row of mature exotic trees along the ridge above Lockyer Creek, located just northeast of the dressing shed. These contribute significantly to the aesthetic values of the campus.
·\tA row of Eucalypt spp. trees on east side of the road which formerly led from the Warrego Highway opposite the earlier main College entrance, directly north to Lockyer Creek and the Dressing Shed.
","history":"The University of Queensland Gatton Campus was established in 1897 as the Queensland Agricultural College. The College initially operated as a tertiary agricultural institution offering a basic practical and theoretical agricultural education for young men and short courses for farmers on specific topics, but from its inception, there was also an expectation that the College would be involved in agricultural research and experimentation. In 1922, it was re-structured as the Gatton Agricultural High School and College. From 1927, the College also took students from the University of Queensland for a year of practical experience. During the Second World War, the College was used as a field hospital by the United States Army from 1942 to 1944. After the war, it continued to operate as both a secondary and tertiary institution until the high school section was closed in 1962. In the 1960s the college began to diversify the courses on offer and the first women students enrolled in 1969. In 1990, the College merged with the University of Queensland.
The need to establish an agricultural college was first raised in Queensland Parliament in 1874 by EW Pechey, MLA for the Darling Downs. The development of scientific methods of agricultural production appropriate to Queensland was of both public and political concern and calls for a college and experimental farm continued to be made in Parliament for the next two decades. Unlike the debate over the establishment of a university which divided those in favour of practical, applied education from those supporting humanist education for its own sake, agricultural education was widely supported in recognition of the essential role of primary production in the colony. It was also seen as a means to attract more people to settle and cultivate the land and it was proposed that several colleges were required to investigate agricultural methods for the various regions and climatic conditions in Queensland.
The Queensland Department of Agriculture was established in 1887 and teaching and research into agriculture was part of its early agenda. Following a request from the Queensland Government to the United States Government in 1889, Professor Edward Shelton of Kansas State Agricultural College was appointed as agricultural instructor for Queensland in 1890. After touring agricultural education institutions in other Australian colonies, Professor Shelton advocated the establishment of a local college in his first annual report.
The Australian-wide economic depression of the early 1890s frustrated attempts to utilise the £5000 allocated by the Queensland Parliament in 1891 to the founding of a college, and it was not until 1895 that the first 600 acres of land were purchased by Peter McLean, Under-Secretary of Agriculture. The land was part of the Rosewood Estate near Gatton, which the Government re-purchased under the provisions of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act of 1894. A further 1092 acres were acquired in 1896 when the new Minister for Agriculture, Colonel Andrew Thynne, was determined to make the college a reality. The site was chosen both for its proximity by rail to Brisbane (and to the Department of Agriculture and Stock and its experts) and for its diversity of soil types. Three soil types were present on the site, providing scope for experimentation and wide cultivation experience for students. The Gatton site was also close to the greatest concentration of farmers in the colony. As the land was virgin forest, a contract was let in 1896 for the clearing and grubbing of 233 acres.
Sketch plans for the college were prepared by architect John Smith Murdoch of the Queensland Department of Public Works in 1896. The scheme comprised seven buildings linked by elevated covered walkways, in design reflecting Queensland's timber rural vernacular architecture. JS Murdoch was a talented designer, whose body of work includes such notable works as the Maryborough Customs House, the Commonwealth Bank in Queen Street (now demolished), Commonwealth Government Offices at Anzac Square, Brisbane (600932), Stanthorpe Post Office (600831) and the provisional Parliament House in Canberra. The tender of £5079 by RW Roe was accepted in July 1896 and a Foundation Day ceremony, which attracted many notable public figures, was held on 22 August. Changes driven by budgetary considerations were made during construction, including the deletion of the network of covered walkways.
Professor Shelton was appointed as the first principal and the Queensland Agricultural College was officially opened by the Governor, Lord Lamington, on 9 July 1897. The College had an initial intake of twenty-three students and a staff of six men. The buildings comprised an administration and teaching block, two dormitories, a teacher's block, a dining room and kitchen, the Principal's residence and the Overseer's residence. The buildings were timber framed and clad, with cedar joinery and galvanised iron roofs. They were orientated to face south, in the direction of the Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road and beyond this the Southern and Western Railway, where College Siding was established. The road to the siding was made all-weather proof in the early 1900s and served as the main entrance to the College until the mid-1920s, when the principal entrance was re-oriented to the north and the road from the Warrego Highway. In the first six months of operation a number of sheds, stables and a silo were constructed and machinery and livestock was purchased. Of the original buildings only the Foundation Building [the administrative and teaching block] and the Homestead [former Principal's residence] remain on the site.
The establishment and operation of Queensland Agricultural College was an important commitment by the Queensland Government to agricultural advancement. The development of the dairying industry was an early priority as was the introduction of new agricultural methods and technologies. For instance, in 1897, the first cutting of a crop with a 'Scientific Harvester' to produce ensilage was watched by a 200 strong crowd of farmers from as far away as Nanango. As well as providing a basic practical and theoretical agricultural education for young men, the college also offered short courses for farmers on specific topics such as cheese making, milk testing, bee-keeping and sugar farming. The college also held short courses for teachers who were then able to offer basic agricultural education in schools across the state. The college continued to expand, with a gymnasium constructed in 1899 (now Sir Leslie Wilson Hall) and a third residential hall erected in 1908. The first two Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensis], now a signature feature of the campus, were planted outside the Foundation Building in 1915. Also planted in the 1910s, during the First World War, was a double row of Eucalyptus sp.? trees along College Siding Road.
For the first 25 years of its existence the Queensland Agricultural College was the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, and functioned in isolation from the mainstream Queensland public education system. The gap between leaving school at 12 to 14 years and entering college at age 16 meant that there were no 'feeder schools' to sustain the College, and the First World War [1914-1918] further reduced student and staff numbers. By the early 1920s, the College was threatened with closure, a 1921 report recommending that the property be sold as farms and the buildings removed and utilised elsewhere.
A special committee appointed by the Governor-in-Council advised that rather than closure, the Queensland Agricultural College be reconfigured as an Agricultural High School and College under the control of the Department of Public Instruction. This was the first major change to the structure and purpose of the college, and was made possible with the passing of the Agricultural Education Act 1922 and the establishment of a Board of Agricultural Education. Agricultural subjects were incorporated into the state secondary education curriculum and the Queensland Agricultural College was re-structured as the Gatton Agricultural High School and College. Boys were accepted from age 14 for high school training and encouraged to continue at Gatton at diploma level in their third and fourth years. At this time, 629 acres of college land was under cultivation including 5 acres for research, 38 for field trials and 20 acres of orchard. Site improvements by this time included a substantial hay shed erected in 1922.
The establishment of a Department of Agriculture at the University of Queensland at St. Lucia in 1927 also had an impact on the college at Gatton, as university students were required to complete a compulsory year of practical training at Gatton. Gatton College Principal, JK Murray, had been a representative on the Faculty of Science at the University since 1917, however, closer links were formed with the establishment of the new faculty. Murray, a trained agricultural scientist, was appointed as the University's first Professor of Agriculture whilst continuing as College principal. Murray strongly supported research, and collaboration between institutions continued with the establishment of a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research or CSIR (later the CSIRO) laboratory and field station at Gatton in 1930. [The CSIR was established in 1926 by the Commonwealth Government and in the 1930s established research laboratories throughout Australia to help develop Australian primary industry, including forest products, fisheries and food production.] In 1928 the College paddocks were re-named in honour of famous agricultural scientists.
In the 1920s the main Brisbane-Toowoomba Road through Tarampa [later Gatton] Shire was upgraded as one of Queensland's first Main Roads, and the farm road leading from the Brisbane-Toowoomba Road [later the Warrego Highway] to the College was upgraded as the principal entrance to the Gatton Agricultural High School and College, thus re-orienting the main entrance to the north. The avenue of Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensis] which extends along each side of the original roadway from the Warrego Highway and through the heart of the campus to the Foundation Building was planted in 1927. A 1936 military map, compiled from earlier aerial photographs and a 1934 ground survey, indicates that an avenue of trees extended along the road opposite the main entrance to the College, north of the Brisbane-Toowoomba Road to Lockyer Creek and a popular swimming hole. At an early period a timber changing rooms was constructed beside the swimming hole.
A spate of building activity and infrastructure improvements barely kept pace with the growth of the College following its conversion to an agricultural high school and college.
Along with their farm neighbours, one of the principal difficulties experienced by the College since its establishment had been the provision of an adequate water supply during periods of drought. After lobbying by successive Principals, a low-level weir was constructed in 1928-29 on Lockyer Creek, along with two 30,000 gallon (136,000 litres) reinforced concrete tanks on the creek bank, and a pump to force water to another 30,000 gallon (136,000 litres) capacity reinforced concrete main supply tank, or water tower, located in the campus core. The water tower has become a College landmark, visible from the Main Range at Toowoomba, 50 kilometres to the west. A substantial overhaul was made in 1997.
Staff and students often worked together to build or improve college facilities during this period. Their work included formation of the Tom Graham Cricket Oval in 1931, and the 1930 relocation by students using horses and tractors, of a timber grandstand, erected in 1927 on a sports ground near the site of the present War Memorial Swimming Pool, to a more appropriate location overlooking the planned new oval. In the early 1930s the Gymnasium was lined with silky-oak and walnut milled and installed by students. In 1935 this building was extended in length, new dressing rooms were constructed either side of the re-erected stage, and the interior was lined to match the existing hall. Used variously as a gymnasium, theatre, cinema (a cinematograph projector was installed in 1927, and replaced by a Movietown Sound Projector in 1931), assembly hall, recreation hall, chapel, and currently as a lecture room, the building was re-located in 1978 to a site between the inner and outer ring roads on the western edge of the campus.
In 1935 College Siding was re-named Lawes Siding in honour of Sir John Bennett Lawes, who had endowed the world's first agricultural research station in England. Also in 1935 a flagpole, presented by the Bundaberg Branch of the 'Old Boys' Association, was erected in front of the Foundation Building, between the two Canary Island Date Palms planted in 1915. After the central road through the campus was closed, the flagpole was re-located in 1985 to the southern end of what is now the central walkway.
Three more halls of residence were built in the 1930s. Thynne Hall was constructed in 1933 (sold for removal in 1973) and Morrison Hall, originally Shelton Hall, in 1936. Enrolments continued to grow, with 323 full-time students attending in 1938 when a third dormitory, Riddell Hall, was constructed. Residential facilities were stretched in the late 1930s when 106 unemployed young men took part in a year's training course conducted under the Unemployed Youths Training Scheme.
With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 student enrolments declined, but the war initially impacted little on the functioning of the College. In 1941 a shearing shed, with drafting yards and dip, and Crow's Silo, were erected. Also constructed in 1941was a new seed research unit, including offices, four laboratories and a glasshouse, barn and seed store, which were handed over to the CSIR. This facility was named the Cooper Laboratory.
The entry of the United States into the war in late 1941, however, brought a significant period of change to the College, with eighty-five acres of its land and the majority of its buildings being transferred in March 1942 to the United States Army for hospital purposes. The 153rd Station Hospital occupied the site briefly until July 1942, when replaced by the 105th General Hospital Unit. Only twenty-four students and a drastically reduced staff remained on campus. The College administration moved to the newly completed Cooper Laboratory and Riddell Dormitory was retained until September 1942 by which time temporary buildings had been constructed for the College by the Department of Public Works, in the northeast corner of the campus. The College also occupied the nearby College View State School as a laboratory from March 1942 to April 1943. In January 1943 more temporary buildings were erected for the College, which re-opened for enrolments in February 1943. College wartime work included the testing of alternative fuels and growing crops of opium poppy, urgently needed during war for the production of morphine.
Extensive temporary facilities were erected by the Civil Construction Corps for the military hospital, including nearly two dozen large timber hospital wards, interconnected by covered walkways, on the eastern side of the campus core. A large 'tent city' was established to the south of the core, serving as living quarters for soldiers undergoing rehabilitation. Existing buildings were altered to serve a variety of wartime purposes. The Foundation Building was used as both the administrative headquarters for the US Army and as a laboratory and pharmacy, its verandahs enclosed to provide more space. Shelton Hall (now Morrison Hall) was used as the hospital, its dormitories well suited for use as hospital wards, with dental services, X-Ray facilities and operating theatres located on the ground floor. In 1943 a 'U'-shaped morgue was constructed, used for the examination and preparation of deceased soldiers for transportation back to their families in the United States. In 1944 the two most northerly wings of the building were removed prior to the Americans leaving the College, and from 1945 the remaining section was utilised as a residence and later a girls' change room before being converted into a small chapel in 1959. 19,000 patients from the battlefields of the Pacific and New Guinea were treated at Gatton during the period of occupation by the US Army.
A number of more permanent facilities were also constructed during the period of military occupation, including a Sewerage Treatment Works and a Pump House on the northern side of the Warrego Highway. These are still in use.
In 1944-45 the College repossessed the site for educational purposes. Many of the buildings needed to be re-adapted for college requirements, and this was paid for by the Commonwealth Government. Twenty buildings erected on campus during the war were acquired form the Commonwealth Disposals Commission including 8 former military hospital wards, which remained in use as dormitories to accommodate a postwar influx of students and staff. These dormitories, commonly known as the 'warrens', were destroyed by fire in August 1963. The morgue and the remnants of a rubbish dump established by the US Army about 50 metres southeast of the present piggery are the only surviving features associated with the American occupation of the campus. A cairn and plaque commemorating the use of the College by the United States Army 105th General Base Hospital between 1942 and 1944 was erected opposite the main dining hall and unveiled in 1968.
The late 1940s and 1950s was a period of recovery and consolidation for the College. Few new buildings were erected, but student enrolments increased significantly and College land holdings expanded with the purchase of a small farm in the Laidley area in 1945, an adjacent farm of 95 acres in 1948 and an additional 85 acres to the west, fronting the Brisbane-Toowoomba highway, in 1950. Teaching innovations introduced during this period included training of returned servicemen, Summer Agricultural Schools for primary school boys, Rotary-sponsored short farming courses for migrants and a course in butchering for indigenous students.
In 1950 the former Crowley Vale State School, erected c1916 to a standard Queensland Works Department 'open-air' school plan, was moved onto the College grounds as a lunchroom for farm hands. and was re-located to its present position in 1995.
In honour of students and staff from the College who had fought in the two world wars, an Olympic-sized War Memorial Swimming Pool was constructed in the early 1950s. Site excavation was carried out in 1950-52, largely by student labour using farm machinery such as tractors and ploughs, but the post-war shortage of materials delayed construction until 1953-54. The pool was funded by a War Memorial Fund established by College staff and students. In 1958-59 dressing rooms and a spectator pavilion were constructed beside the pool, partly funded by State Government subsidy.
In 1959 the main entrance from the Warrego Highway was improved with the construction of curved brick fences with ornamental steel work flanking the entrance, and a steel sign replacing the old wooden sign. The Hugh Courtney Oval was established in 1959-60, 1000 tons of ashes from the Bulimba Powerhouse were spread for drainage and the grass was cultivated by Gatton students.
A dam was constructed to the east of the Foundation Precinct in the 1950s. In 1980, during a particularly dry season, it was re-designed as a wildlife sanctuary and named Lake Galletly after past student, long-serving staff member and nature conservationist, Jim Galletly.
In contrast to the restricted building program of the 1950s, the 1960s and 1970s was a boom construction period for the college, reflecting in part the dominance of the Country/National Party in Queensland politics. The State Government made a commitment to upgrade facilities at the College and to replace the early timber buildings and Second World War timber and fibrous cement structures, with more substantial brick buildings. In 1962 the high school section was closed and the college reverted to a tertiary institution with around 900 students enrolled. Thirty overseas students enrolled in 1960 under the Colombo Plan. In 1966 a wide diversification of courses was initiated under the guidance of the newly-formed Queensland Agricultural Education Advisory Board, including rural-related subjects such as food technology, hospitality, tourism, real estate valuation and wildlife services. The College gained autonomy from the Department of Education in 1967 and commenced a major building program. Brisbane firm Bligh Jessup Brentnall was retained as architects and developed a site plan for the college, heralding the 'red brick' era of its development. Construction included halls of residence, lecture theatres and schools, a new administration block, and new animal facilities. A new gymnasium was erected in 1968, funded by the College Welfare Fund and State Government subsidy, and was dedicated in 1969 as the War Memorial Gymnasium.
An airstrip was established in 1966 as a training ground for students interested in obtaining a private pilot's licence and has developed as a facility for the Air Training Corps and Army Cadets on campus, as well as for sports such as gliding, hot air ballooning and parachuting. In 1973 it was officially named the CH Francis Airstrip in honour of long-serving staff member Charles Francis who was instrumental its development.
In 1971 Gatton became a College of Advanced Education and control passed to a College Council. The then Director, Neil Briton, quoted Prime Minister John Gorton in declaring the aim of the College to be to produce a new end-product - a liberally-educated technologist. The first women students enrolled in 1969 on a non-residential basis, and residential women students were accepted in 1971. The College began to confer its own degrees in 1973 and continued to diversify the courses on offer. The next major change came as a result of new Commonwealth government education policy in 1988, which required tertiary institutions to have a minimum student population of 2000 full-time enrolments. Gatton did not meet the size criteria and like many other smaller colleges, consolidated with a larger institution. On 1 January 1990, it became part of the University of Queensland and is now known as The University of Queensland, Gatton Campus. There are currently around 1000 students enrolled.
","criteria":"The University of Queensland Gatton Campus was established in 1897 by the Queensland Government as the Queensland Agricultural College. It is significant as Queensland's first agricultural vocational institution and demonstrates the Queensland government's commitment to agricultural education, reflecting the vital importance of primary production in the history of the State. It has significance as Queensland's principal agricultural training educational institution for over a century, contributing to generations of best-practice farming in this State. The University of Queensland Gatton Campus also has historical significance for its role in the development of agriculture and agricultural research in Queensland through its historical and continuing links with the Queensland Department of Agriculture (now Department of Primary Industries) and the CSIR (now CSIRO). In addition, the University of Queensland Gatton Campus is significant for its wartime use as a military hospital, and a number of buildings and structures survive associated with this period.
|The University of Queensland Gatton Campus is significant for its wartime use as a military hospital, and a number of buildings and structures survive associated with this period. The dump associated with this use has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's wartime history.
|The University of Queensland Gatton Campus demonstrates the principal characteristics of a rural public educational institution, with the attributes of both a university campus and a working farm. The early-established spatial relationships between the administrative, teaching, workshop, residential, recreational, and farming elements of the site survives, as does early infrastructure including Lawes Siding Road, the original Warrego Highway entrance road, and the 1928-29 water tower and water storage tanks near Lockyer Creek.
The Foundation Building and the Homestead are evidence of the original collection of College buildings erected in 1897. Sir Leslie Wilson Hall, constructed as a gymnasium in 1899, demonstrates the recreational facilities that have been part of the campus from its establishment, and which include also a swimming hole in Lockyer Creek and an associated changing rooms building; a fine 1927 timber grandstand; ovals constructed in 1931, 1959-60 and 1965; a War Memorial Swimming Pool (1954); and an airfield (1966). Morrison Hall, constructed in 1936, is a fine example of an interwar Hall of Residence and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a timber dormitory building designed for the Queensland climate. The Farm Square precinct (which includes Farm Square (commenced 1899), the Hayshed (1923), the Merv Young Field Facilities Building [former Woolshed] (1913-15), the Weighbridge, the Blacksmith's Shop (1933), the former Dairy Factory [now the printery] (1912), Crow's Silo (1941); the Shearing Shed (1941); the Wool Classing Shed (c1940s); a number of other c1940s buildings; and an early residence (c1900) are important in illustrating the way in which a working farm is combined with facilities for the practical instruction of students.
The Cooper Laboratories, a complex of brick and timber buildings purpose-constructed from 1941 for the CSIR seed research program, is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a substantially intact, 1940s agricultural research facility.
On the northern side of the Warrego Highway, the Sewerage Treatment Works and the nearby Pump House on Lockyer Creek are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of early 1940s facilities of this type, and important historically for their association with the presence of an American military hospital at the College during the Second World War. The timber Dressing Shed beside Lockyer Creek at the northwest end of the campus is a rare known surviving example of this type of recreational structure.
|The Foundation Precinct, which includes the Foundation Building, the Homestead, Morrison Hall, Sir Walter Leslie Hall, the water tower, a flagpole, a sandstone memorial, and plantings of Canary Island Date Palms [Phoenix canariensus], has aesthetic significance derived from the combination of impressive timber vernacular architecture, intact in both form and material, and striking formal landscape qualities. The campus generally has aesthetic value generated by its landscape qualities, which include: the treed sandstone ridge on which the core of the campus sits surrounded by farm paddocks; frontages to Lockyer and Laidley Creeks; planted avenues of trees along the central spine of the College core [Phoenix canariensus], along the original entrance road off the Warrego Highway, along Lawes Siding Road; and along the former Gatton-Forest Hill/Laidley Road alignment at the southern end of the campus; and water features such as the man-made Lake Galletly. There are mature exotic trees planted throughout the campus, including those in the house gardens to the north of the Warrego Highway and along Lockyer Creek near the Dressing Shed, which contribute significantly to the aesthetic values of the campus. Views to and from the central core are valued, and the water tower is a landmark, visible from the Warrego Highway and from the Main Range at Toowoomba, 50 kilometres to the west.
|The University of Queensland Gatton Campus has a strong and special association for the University/College community both past and present for its social and educational values. The place is well-known in the Queensland community for its contribution to the development of agriculture in this State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16441,"place_ref":601681,"name":"Dr EA Koch Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Abbot Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-05-27","description":"The Dr EA Koch Memorial is located in Anzac Memorial Park, in the west corner of the park close to the intersection of Abbott and Spence Streets. It is set against the backdrop formed by The Reef Hotel Casino complex.
The memorial comprises a square, rough-finished granite plinth, on which rests a square polished granite base approximately 1 metre high, supporting four worked marble columns which in turn support a dome. On two sides of the dome are sculptured likenesses in Carrara marble of Dr Koch. On two faces of the polished granite base is the inscription: Erected by citizens of Cairns and District to the memory of Dr Koch 1901. Above the dome is a recent lamp fitting and lamp approximating the original.
The whole is surrounded by red concrete-block paving.
","history":"The memorial to Dr Edward Albert Koch was erected in 1903 by the citizens of Cairns, to honour his work in tropical medicine in Cairns and district in the late 19th century. Dr Koch was for many years in charge of Cairns hospital and had his own practice in the town. Skill and kindness made him a revered figure in the local community.
EA Koch was born in Altona, Holstein in Germany in 1843. He studied medicine at Kiel University and received his degree in Berlin in 1870, the year of the German invasion of France. Koch was obliged to join the army, where he worked as a medical officer. Subsequent to the Franco-Prussian war he appears to have worked in German surgical departments prior to taking a position as Surgeon Superintendent on a German emigrant ship to Queensland in mid-1877. Koch accepted at least two similar positions on German and British immigrant ships to Queensland and New South Wales 1877-79. In January 1879 he was granted a first-class certificate to practice medicine by the Queensland Government, and in April 1882 he took the Oath of Allegiance in Cairns, where it appears he was in private practice. He was appointed as a medical officer at Cairns Hospital in July 1882, and in April 1884 he also was appointed Health Officer at Cairns, taking over the running of the hospital.
As well as his job as a medical and health officer, from September 1896 Dr Koch was appointed surgeon to the Queensland Military Defence Force's Naval Brigade at Cairns, and in September 1897 accepted the position of visiting surgeon to Cairn's prison. Both these positions were unpaid. He appears to have remained in these positions until his death on 28 June 1901.
Dr Koch gained prominence locally for his medical skills, kindly disposition, and humanitarian work amongst Cairns families. Of particular importance for far north Queensland was his understanding and successful treatment of tropical fevers, notably malaria. 'Fever' - usually malaria or typhoid - became endemic in far north Queensland during the 1880s, especially on the mining fields, in the railway construction camps, and on the sugar plantations. Diagnosis was largely the result of observation and deduction, and treatment was empirical. When the fever was malaria, quinine was used to good effect. When typhoid, and quinine did not prove as effective, the diagnosis was often 'prolonged or continued climatic fever'. More complicated fevers were sometimes described as typho-malaria.
In the 1880s Dr Koch was among the first to understand the role of the mosquito as the carrier of the malaria parasite. Not until 1897 did Major Surgeon Ronald Ross prove by scientific experiment the role of the mosquito anopheles farauti [indigenous to Cairns and all of north Queensland from Townsville northwards] in the transmission of malaria, and it was not until 1904 that RA O'Brien, who practised medicine in Cairns 1904-08, for the first time demonstrated malaria parasites microscopically in North Queensland. Koch patented a fever mixture consisting of quinine dissolved in diluted sulphuric acid, designed both to treat malaria and to be used as a suppressive. 'Dr Koch's Celebrated Fever Mixture for Malaria', prepared by a Cairns chemist, proved highly effective. It was marketed throughout the far north of Queensland and in Papua New Guinea, and is credited with containing the endemic malaria existing in Cairns prior to the Second World War.
Besides formulating the fever mixture, he urged preventative measures, and regularly visited the gangs of workmen engaged in filling the swamps around Cairns, to urge them to roll down their shirt sleeves from 4pm onwards each day. He also visited fortnightly the Hambledon and Pyramid sugar plantations outside Cairns, which were run with South Sea Islands labour.
Dr Koch died on 28 June 1901, aged 57 years, at his residence on the Esplanade at Cairns, and was interred in the McLeod Street cemetery the following day.
To honour the memory of an esteemed physician, a public subscription was raised in Cairns to fund a memorial which would be not only aesthetically pleasing, but functional, and Messrs Melrose and Fenwick of Townsville were commissioned to design a memorial in the form of a drinking fountain. As it was to be located in the centre of the intersection of Abbott and Spence Streets in the heart of the town, a gas lamp was placed on its top.
When completed, the memorial stood 14 feet high, with a dome supported by four worked marble columns, supported by a polished granite die. On two sides of the dome were sculptured likenesses of Dr Koch. The marble columns and sculptured work were imported from Carrara in Italy. The granite for the die and plinth came from Mount Elliott, near Townsville - that used for the die was polished to a mirror-like finish, while that of the plinth was 'fine-axed'.
The memorial was still in the Townsville workshops in late May 1903 but was in place at the intersection of Abbott and Spence Streets by 13 June 1903, when it was unveiled by Major-General Sir Herbert Chermside, the Governor of Queensland. By c1920, the memorial also carried two street signs. By the late 1920s the single lamp and lamp base at the top of the dome had been replaced with a pair of gas street lamps suspended from a tall metal column. By the late 1940s, the lamps and lamp fitting at the top of the dome had been removed entirely. Photographic evidence suggests that the memorial remained in the centre of the intersection until at least the mid-1960s, but had been removed to nearby Anzac Memorial Park [bounded by Abbott and Spence Streets and the Esplanade], by the mid-1970s. It was relocated within this park following redevelopment of the reserve in the mid-1990s.
","criteria":"This memorial immortalises the work of pioneering Cairns doctor Edward Albert Koch, in particular his treatment of malaria and early recognition of the role played by mosquitoes in transmitting the disease. Dr Koch's fever remedy and preventative measures played a significant role in controlling endemic malaria in far North Queensland in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century.
|The memorial also makes an aesthetic contribution to Anzac Memorial Park and to the streetscape at the intersection of Abbott and Spence Streets.
|It has a special association for the people of Cairns as physical evidence of the city's history and sense of identity.
|Dr Koch was admired and respected by past generations, and the memorial survives as evidence of this.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16443,"place_ref":601683,"name":"Bullamon Homestead","alternate_name":"Gerar","street_address":"Moonie River","suburb":"THALLON","lga":"BALONNE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-06-02","description":"The Bullamon Homestead site extends about 150 metres along the east bank of the Moonie River, and encompasses a residence, associated buildings and foundations, and an extensive garden. The outbuildings include a bath house, tank stand, and out house. There are the remains of a brick drain water reticulation system for the gardens.
The house originally consisted of a two-roomed building of dropped-log construction (probably Cypress pine), with a hipped, shingled roof and verandahs on all sides. This core, with its massive timber uprights, horizontal dropped logs, and shingled roof, survives, and sits on the original bedlogs. Other evidence of early construction includes treenails, adzed timber and an early system for barring the doors with internal metal fittings.
A c1890s corrugated iron roof has been placed over the shingle roof, and there are two false dormer vents in the corrugated iron roof near the chimneys of the kitchen and living room.
The interior and some of the exterior walls are lined with wide, horizontal tongue and groove boards, at a later date to the original construction, probably 1870s or 1880s. The living room ceiling is angled above door height matching the angle of the original roofline. Several early doorways are boarded over with the tongue and groove lining and the kitchen has a later flat, boarded ceiling.
A later partition in the northern room, now the lounge room, forms a central hallway. The southern room is a kitchen. There is a brick fireplace and chimney in the north wall of the lounge room and in the south wall of the kitchen. The kitchen fireplace has been replaced with a stove recess containing a Crown wood stove, in the western wall of the kitchen.
Sections of the verandahs have been enclosed variously with corrugated iron, timber and gauze as bedrooms: two rooms on the north verandah, each with a hessian ceiling and one with canvas lining to the walls; an adjacent bedroom on the northern end of the west verandah; a room on the south verandah; and another at the southern end of the east verandah.
There are a number of outbuildings associated with the residence. The bath house, of timber-framed weatherboards with a corrugated iron roof, is a later structure to the residence. There is an early square tank stand nearby. A two-seater weatherboard out house has a square pyramid roof of corrugated iron with a wood finial. To the south of the out house is a small burial ground containing the graves of two children buried in 1877 and 1882. Further south are the remains of a gardener's hut. The remains of an extensive garden are visible. Ornamental gardens to the east and north of the house remain along with remnants of the brick irrigation drains which supported a large vegetable garden. North of the house are the possible footings and brick hearth of another early building.
","history":"Bullamon Homestead, on the Moonie River 1km southwest of Thallon, was established by the early 1860s, being marked on Surveyor FT Gregory's map of the district drawn in April 1864. In the 1880s Bullamon was head station for the largest aggregation of leases ever recorded in Balonne Shire. The name is understood to mean 'biggest waterhole', and the homestead is located on a large sandy ridge above the Moonie River.
Scattered settlement had spread north from the Liverpool Plains to the Moonie River area as early as the mid-1840s. The Maranoa, a vast area of first-class grazing land watered by the Moonie, Balonne, Narran and Culgoa rivers, was gazetted a pastoral district in 1848, following Sir Thomas Mitchell's exploration of the area in 1845-46. A grab for land ensued and by 1862, the whole of the Maranoa had been taken up as pastoral runs.
Bullamon Homestead was erected on Gerar, a small sheep run of just over 20 square miles, first leased to Richard Bligh in 1857, but transferred in 1859 and again in 1860, before taken up by Leonard McKay in 1864. In 1866 the lease was transferred to John McKay & James McCormick. Duncan Forbes McKay, grazier, and his young family were resident at Bullamon by at least October 1866, and it is likely the log house had been constructed by this time. By 1868 Bullamon Homestead supported the McKay family, an overseer, 4 drovers, 2 contractors [probably ringbarking or fencing], a storekeeper and a blacksmith. The lease was transferred to DF McKay in 1873, by which time he also owned Nindi-gully homestead on the Ana Ninghan East run on the Moonie River, north of Gerar, and held the leases to several other runs in the area and along the Culgoa River. By 1874 McKay was based at Nindi-gully, and his general manager, William Turnbull, occupied Bullamon Homestead. About 1876 James Hill replaced Turnbull as manager at Bullamon, and two of his infant sons who died in 1877 and 1882 lie buried near the house.
In 1880 McKay sold the Gerar lease and Bullamon Homestead to Hurtle Fisher of Melbourne. In the early 1880s, Melbourne brothers Charles Brown and Hurtle Fisher, who already held extensive pastoral leases in South Australia, Victoria, and the Darling Downs, purchased the leases of various small Maranoa runs totalling over 2 million acres, known locally as 'Fisher Country'. Although not in partnership - Charles operated his Queensland interests as CB Fisher & Co. and Hurtle was in partnership with James Hill of Adelaide as Fisher & Hill - Charles backed Fisher & Hill financially.
The largest of their aggregations in what later became Balonne Shire was Fisher & Hill's Bullamon. When consolidated in July 1888 under the provisions of the 1884 Crown Lands Act, Bullamon comprised 42 runs in the Moonie River area and totalled approximately 878,720 acres. Bullamon Homestead was the head station for this group, with buildings valued at £2,000 in September 1887. There were two outstations: Nindi-gully on Ana Ninghan East run and Bandy Andy on Minimi. Following consolidation the property was divided, with nearly 780 square miles resumed for grazing farms and 593 square miles, including Bullamon Homestead, retained by Fisher & Hill as leasehold.
The Fishers had bought into the Maranoa in the early 1880s during good seasons. However, severe drought in 1883-84 followed by widespread depression in the pastoral industry post-1885, forced CB Fisher to float the Fisher brothers' Queensland properties as the Australian Pastoral Company Limited in England in 1888. By 1890 the Company controlled all the Fishers' vast Maranoa holdings: Noondoo [over 790,000 acres]; Cubbie [over 413,000 acres]; Gnoolooma [over 218,000]; Doondi [over 635,000 acres]; and largest of all, Bullamon, acquired in January 1889, to which was added Hollymount, Burgorah, Weeyan and Wagoo [totalling 1,044,000 acres]. During the 1890s, the Company ran up to 1,000,000 sheep and operated 7 big shearing sheds and 3 wool-scours on 'The Group'. The general manager resided at Noondoo Homestead, which was more central to the Company's holdings than Bullamon. In the early 1890s the Company made substantial improvements, including re-roofing a number of Bullamon buildings with corrugated iron.
Of all the Australian Pastoral Company's holdings, the Bullamon aggregation was most prone to flood, drought and prickly pear, and made constant losses through the 1890s and early 1900s. Floods in 1890 sent 1.3 metres of water through the Bullamon Homestead residence and drowned 60,000 of the leasehold's 125,000 sheep. After the 1902 drought Bullamon was shut down and remained unstocked until seasonal conditions improved.
Small resumptions were made in the 1890s and in 1904 a further 133 square miles was taken. In 1910 the St George Progress Association requested that the government resume all of Bullamon, much of which was thickly infested with prickly pear, for closer settlement. In 1914, 200 square miles was surrendered to the government, leaving the Australian Pastoral Co. with 240 square miles, most of which had been ringbarked and kept free of prickly pear. By the 1960s all of the Bullamon leasehold had been converted to grazing farms. Bullamon Homestead was acquired in the late 1960s by the present owner, who occupied the c1860s residence until 1985.
Before 1911, when the rail line was extended to Thallon, Bullamon was a Cobb & Co. stop and stabled horses for them from at least 1898 through to 1912. The homestead was also on the mail service from St George to Mungindi in the early years of the 20th century. Today, the homestead is located on a principal highway from New South Wales to St George and western Queensland.
","criteria":"Bullamon Homestead is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history, being closely associated with the establishment of pastoralism in the Moonie River district in the mid-19th century.
|The residence at Bullamon Homestead offers rare evidence in Queensland of early bush construction technology employing dropped-logs, treenails, adzed timber uprights, bedlogs and shingle roofing.
|Bullamon Homestead has the potential to yield information on other aspects of early settler life and building construction on the Queensland frontier.
|Bullamon Homestead retains a substantially intact mid-19th century timber residence and evidence of its associated gardens, including a brick irrigation system, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a remote early head station in southwest Queensland. The small, unpretentious, two-roomed timber house, constructed and adapted in the mid-19th century, illustrates its role as a manager's residence as well as the remoteness of the location at the time of construction.
|Bullamon Homestead has a special association for the local community with the early establishment of pastoralism as the dominant economic activity in the Moonie River district, and features prominently in local histories.
|In particular, the place has a strong association with the important pastoral pursuits of the Fisher brothers and their Australian Pastoral Co. Ltd from the early 1880s to the middle of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16447,"place_ref":601687,"name":"Tallegalla State School (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2-6 Tallegalla Two Tree Hill Road","suburb":"TALLEGALLA","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-02-02","description":"The Tallegalla School is sited on a ridge on the highest point of the surrounding landscape. The school is bordered by Minden-Rosewood Road and Twotree Hill Road. The site comprises a number of buildings, including the original school room, a teacher's residence from 1932, an early playshed and a latter playshed, several corrugated tanks on stands, two concrete septic tanks, and a number of large established trees and gardens.
Access is provided to the school via a driveway from Minden-Rosewood Road. The driveway curves eastward toward the school building and terminates in a small round driveway. Flanking the driveway are a number of established trees including several jacarandas, a Moreton Bay fig and a Bunya pine. The principal buildings are aligned parallel with Minden Rosewood Road, with the residence closest to the corner of the two roads and separated from the school site with a fence.
The school building is a one storeyed gable roofed structure, elevated on low timber stumps. The timber framed building is clad externally with horizontal weatherboards and internally with VJ boarding. The roof is clad with corrugated iron and this is also used for window awnings on the eastern and western elevations. The building has a rectangular plan with partially enclosed verandahs on the northern and southern elevations, over which the pitch of the roof becomes more gradual. A small, centrally located, open tread timber stair provides access to the northern elevation of the building which is lined with a semi open verandah, only enclosed near the two ends to form small enclosures which were an original feature of the design. Flanking the stair are timber posts, through which a simple two rail timber balustrade runs, and forms the stair balustrade. Centrally located on this and on the southern face of the building are simple entrance doors. The entrance door on the northern elevation is flanked by two casement windows made from the original sash windows. The interior if the building is lined with VJ boarding on the walls and ceilings and the timber boarded floor is covered with carpet.
The elevated residence is an asymmetrical building with hipped and gabled corrugated iron clad roof. The timber framed building is clad externally with horizontal weatherboards and internally with VJ boards. The building comprises five principal room including a large kitchen with early stove recess, a bathroom and separate toilet and an enclosed verandah on the south eastern corner. Open tread timber stairs access the front, southern side of the house and the rear, northern elevation. The building has a number of casement windows in groups of four on the front elevation, groups of three lining the enclosed verandah, and, elsewhere, groups of two. Corrugated iron clad window hoods, with sides of timber battening, provide sun shading to many of the pairs of casements. Internally the building is clad with VJ boarding on the walls and ceilings and has a timber boarded floor. The internal doors are generally four panelled with high mid (or lock) rails.
The early play shed is a lowset, fully enclosed, timber framed and weatherboard clad building, with a gabled corrugated iron roof. The building has two timber doors on the northern façade both surmounted by operable transom windows. The doors are timber boarded and internally braced. The building has a number of early six paned vertical sash windows. Internally the space is undivided and has VJ timber boarded walls, timber floor and timber boarded ceiling. Early fittings, including shelving and cupboards are found inside.
The more recent playshed is a steel framed, open structure comprising corner posts supporting a shallow pitched iron clad gabled roof awning and a concrete slab floor. It is built into sloping ground and has two low concrete block lined, retaining walls. There are a number of corrugated iron water tanks on the site, all elevated on timber or iron frames. Two concrete septic tanks indicate where toilets once existed, to the north of the school building.
","history":"The Tallegalla School was opened on 10 June 1879 as a state school for the local area known as the Rosewood Scrub. A timber school building and timber residence were erected at that time and the residence was replaced in 1931 by the present building.
The Rosewood Scrub, an area comprising what is now Tallegalla, developed in the late 1870s as settlers followed timber getters who cleared some of the dense vine scrub previously thought to be impenetrable. By 1880 fifty selections were taken up in the area, mostly by German migrants who were arriving in Queensland under migration schemes run by the Queensland Government aimed at encouraging closer settlement of rural areas. After the Land Act of 1868 land in the Rosewood Scrub, to the west of Brisbane, was opened for clearing and settlement. The area became known as Tallegalla and an official survey was completed in July 1872. A small township developed which comprised school, rail station, post office, two churches, hotel and cemetery. In 1997 very little remains of the Tallegalla township, with only the school and cemetery apparent.
Requests were made to the state government for the provision of a state school in the Tallegalla area in January 1876 by a school committee formed for the purpose of lobbying the government. The secretary of the School Committee, Mr John Dart, wrote a number of letters to the government in 1876 suggesting possible sites and seeking a formal survey of the area. A formal application for the establishment of a state school was lodged after a public meeting on 14 October 1876. The application suggested a two acre site on a prominent corner of Portion 513, parish Walloon, owned by a local farmer, Wilhelm Arndt who was willing to donate the land from his 100 acre selection. The land offered by Mr Arndt was centrally located, near a local post office and on an elevated site visible from a great distance. According to the application form about fifty local children between the ages of 5 and 14 were expected to attend the school and a local subscription of about £50 toward building costs was expected. The two acres of land was officially surveyed on 6 November 1876 and the site was gazetted as a reserve for a school on 15 August 1878. This significant time delay in the registering of the school reserve resulted in the land not being excluded from Portion 513 when an survey was drawn of the larger block for the Certificate of Title. This situation was rectified in June 1938 when the land was officially excluded from the Title.
Construction at the school began, with local subscriptions totalling £56. The first structure on the site was a one roomed timber school building, apparently designed by Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville Stanley, before the design of schools in Queensland became the domain of the Department of Education in about 1880. Stanley instigated in Queensland a system of standardised school designs which could be used in a number of locations, a system which occurred previously through default. The gabled roof building designed for use at Tallegalla was elevated on low timber stumps and was flanked on the north and south by full length verandahs which were partially enclosed at the two ends of the northern side and housed hand basins. The school remains much in the same form as its original design and was lined internally in 1926 and the southern verandah was enclosed gradually from 1955. A more significant change to the building occurred in 1938 when several openings were altered to allow for better natural lighting. Whereas the openings previously were designed to allow for uniform light from all directions, new thinking in the mid 1930s indicated that lighting from some directions was more conducive to studying. Associated with this work was the internal painting of the school.
Another important element of the school site was the teachers residence which was not completed with the original school building, though by 1880 plans had been made for its erection. Residences were an important element of school sites as it was thought they attracted better quality teaching staff. By 1880 the students at Tallegalla School were taught by Mr John Marquis, who replaced Mr Edward Henry Vivian Dunbar, the first head teacher at the school. In 1880 the School Committee raised sufficient funds to enable the Education Department to finance construction of a residence which was a simple four roomed cottage surrounded by verandahs. Many changes were made to this residence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century before it was replaced in 1931. Alterations included adding a rear verandah in 1892, internal lining in 1895; the addition of a detached kitchen and bathroom in 1898 and the addition of two detached bedrooms in 1911 to house the large family of the then Head Teacher, Daniel Courtney.
By 1932 a new timber residence was constructed replacing the early residence. The tender of EJ Wilton from East Ipswich was accepted for the construction of the building for £514 and for construction to be complete within 8 weeks from the acceptance date which was 1 December 1932. The building was a standard Type 3 School Residence designed by the Works Department with examples of that type built throughout Queensland between 1929 and 1950. Construction of the building was completed in February 1933 and by 1937 the verandah of the building which was located on the south eastern corner was enclosed. Since then, a toilet has been added to the verandah space of the building.
Associated with this work was the removal of a detached bedroom wing from the original residence and its reconstruction as a play shed. An earlier play shed was constructed on the grounds by the School Committee in about 1906 but by 1932 this octagonal timber shade structure was deteriorating and thought to be a health hazard. The Department of Education were supportive of the removal of the detached wing for use as a replacement playshed if the work was done at no cost to the Department. By 1972 another steel framed playshed was constructed and the former building became used as a store.
The school grounds have seen significant changes during the life of the school. From the late 1880s, head teacher, John William Watkins, instigated a tree planting programme at the school which saw many of the trees which exist on the site today, including the avenue of jacarandas and figs lining the driveway.
","criteria":"The Tallegalla State School is a remnant of a formerly larger settlement, Tallegalla, of which there are few remnants. The school was established in 1879 and reflects the closer settlement of the Rosewood Scrub area and reflects the development of rural country schools in Queensland
|The school building is a rare surviving example of a small timber school designed by colonial architect, FDG Stanley.
|The site, with intact school building, 1931 residence and former playshed is a good and characteristic example of a small rural state school.
|The school grounds have considerable aesthetic significance as a local landmark, with large established trees and situated on an elevated site comprising well composed and prominent buildings within a picturesque garden setting.
|The school has important associations with the local community as a school as well as a local meeting place for about 115 years.
|The school building has associations with FDG Stanley as one of his few surviving timber school buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16450,"place_ref":601694,"name":"William Jolly Bridge","alternate_name":"Grey Street Bridge","street_address":"Skew Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-08-06","description":"The William Jolly Bridge crosses the Brisbane River at the tip of the South Brisbane peninsula between Grey Street, South Brisbane, and the intersection of Skew and Saul Streets on the northern bank. The bridge carries four lanes of traffic with pedestrian paths to either side, and retaining walls return at right angles to the bridge at the northern end supporting North Quay above.
The bridge spans between ground level on the higher northern bank, ramping down to Grey Street inland from the southern bank. To achieve this, the bridge was constructed with three major spans of arched ribs across the river, with two smaller arches at the northern embankment and a single arch at the southern embankment, and a viaduct consisting of 16 spans ramping down to Grey Street to the south. The southern ramping section curves towards the southeast in plan, crossing Montague Road to align with Grey Street. The two smaller arches at the northern embankment are no longer extant, and have been replaced by precast, prestressed concrete deck units above Coronation Drive, which links onto the riverside expressway.
The bridge is constructed of concrete encased steel, with the three major spans of arched ribs rising through the deck. The roadway is partly supported by hangers from the arches which project above, and cross girders and stringers below. The ramping southern section roadway is supported by longitudinal broad flange beams supported by rows of piers, with the southern end abutment being earth filled between reinforced concrete retaining walls.
A misconception at the time of construction was that the concrete encasing was decorative and was only used to hide the structural steelwork of the bridge. This was incorrect as the bridge was designed as a reinforced concrete structure, with the steelwork acting as reinforcing and the concrete carrying a major part of the load. However, the concrete is also used in a decorative manner to represent oversized coursing on the main piers and voussoirs on the arched ribs.
Other decorative features include grotesques to the outer face of some balustrades, and a floral-like motif at either side of the top of the four ornamental tower-like elements. These four tower-like elements frame both entrances to the bridge, surmounting the end piers of the cross-river section, and each consists of an arched opening to a projecting balcony with a stepped crown surmounted by a metal spire. These were originally intended to have the functional purpose of supporting the overhead cables for the proposed electric tramway.
The bridge has cast concrete balustrades, and carefully detailed elements such as the curved ends to the concrete encased cross girders beneath the roadway, and the termination blocks for the upper portions of the arched ribs. Openings in the cross girders below the roadway, intended for a major water pipe which was not installed, are evident.
A pedestrian stair with iron balustrade is located on the southern side of Montague Road and rises through the southwestern footpath. A stair is also located within the North Quay retaining wall on the northeastern side of the bridge connecting North Quay and Coronation Drive. This stair has a solid concrete balustrade, and is no longer accessible from below.
Street lighting has been installed along the length of the bridge, and traffic lights are located at the northern end.
","history":"The William Jolly Bridge was constructed between 1928 and 1932 following the formation of Greater Brisbane in 1925, and was one of the first major capital works of the new city Council and bears the name of its first Mayor. At the time of construction, the only traffic bridge linking North and South Brisbane was the second Victoria Bridge, built in 1897 to replace an earlier bridge washed away in the flood of 1893. The William Jolly Bridge crosses the Brisbane River at the tip of the South Brisbane peninsula between Grey Street, South Brisbane, and the intersection of Skew and Saul Streets on the northern bank.
The tip of the South Brisbane peninsula is traditionally a point of crossing. A sandy beach marked the point of crossing for aboriginal tribes from the Moreton region, then later for Europeans who crossed the river near this point on the North Quay ferry, and then from the 1930s via the William Jolly Bridge. On the south bank, aboriginal and later European pathways and land use patterns formed the basis for subsequent traffic networks.
Prior to European settlement, the whole of the South Brisbane peninsula was known as Kurilpa, meaning the place of rats, due to the large number of bush rats to be found in the lush vegetation of the area. (The recently developed riverfront park adjacent to the bridge at South Brisbane is now called Kurilpa Point.). The first European use of the south bank occurred soon after the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal settlement in 1825 when convicts cleared the flats across the river in order to grow grain to feed the settlement. In 1830 the cultivation of the flats on the south bank was ordered to cease by the Commandant, however throughout the 1830s timber was being exported to Sydney from the south bank. Those enroute to the outstations at Cowper's (Coopers) Plains, Limestone Hill and Cleveland crossed the area.
On 10 February 1842, Moreton Bay was declared open for free settlement. As the point of entry and exit, South Brisbane prospered in the 1840s. In 1846 Brisbane was brought within the provisions of the Police Towns Act of 1839, and boundaries to the town were set.
The first ferry to convey passengers, horses and carriages began operation from Russell Street c.1842. For over 30 years this was the only vehicular ferry crossing to North Brisbane in this area, except for a brief period from June 1865-November 1867 when a temporary timber bridge, which was rapidly destroyed by marine borer, spanned the river.
A burial ground had been established on the northern bank where Skew Street is now located, (later moved to Hale Street), and to the rear of the burial ground a new gaol was established by 1860 and military barracks in 1864. Farming was established along the banks of the river, and development concentrated on Petrie Terrace. Land between the new burial ground and barracks was put up for auction in 1861, and from 1863 the auctioning of suburban allotments (now Paddington) encouraged the spread of the settlement along the ridges.
The North Quay Ferry, a row boat, crossed the river where the bridge now stands, and the River Road (now Coronation Drive) was established as a track which serviced properties towards Toowong. The opening of the Brisbane-Ipswich railway in 1875 isolated the strip of riverfront residences from the working class houses in Milton and Paddington, and this contributed to the relative lack of development along the northern bank of the Milton Reach of the river in subsequent years.
The opening of the Victoria Bridge on 15 June 1874 provided an important transport and communications link between the north and south banks of the river, and provided further impetus to the development of the south bank. The Victoria Bridge was funded by the Brisbane Municipal Council and a toll was imposed to recover costs. Eventually, responsibility for the bridge was taken over by the Queensland Government.
In the 1880s, the south bank experienced a development boom. A dry dock was opened in 1881, coal wharves at Woolloongabba and associated rail links were established c.1885, and South Brisbane was established as the passenger terminus for suburban and country lines built during the 1880s. Industry and commerce was attracted to the area, and Stanley Street developed into a major retail centre and thoroughfare. The spread of housing included the development of large residences located along the ridges with views of the river, and industry developed along the southern bank of the Milton reach.
The establishment of the South Brisbane municipality occurred on 7 January 1888. The development of the civic centre focused on the Stanley and Vulture Street intersection, with the construction of the Town Hall, Fire Station, Post Office and Railway Station. The boom of the 1880s collapsed, followed by maritime and pastoral strikes in the early 1890s, and the collapse of banks in 1893. Land and rent values plummeted to their lowest levels and hundreds of home owners applied to the Council to work out their rates. A series of floods in 1893 resulted in the collapse of the Indooroopilly rail bridge in 1893, which diverted all rail traffic to South Brisbane, and the collapse of Victoria Bridge on 6 February 1893 which cut vital transport and communications links with the central city. A report in the Telegraph on 8 February 1893 described the event as What a terrible hiatus in the course of business alone has been caused by the collapse of Victoria Bridge. Once again, for practical purposes, the metropolis is divided into two separate towns. No bridge, no telephone, no telegraph, and vastly inadequate ferry accommodation.
Urban expansion on both sides of the river continued with the opening of the new Victoria Bridge in 1897 and the advent of electric trams. The first encroachment of industry into the residential enclave along the high northern embankment occurred above the North Quay ferry terminal in 1897 with the construction of the Helidon Spa Company's extensive works from the North Quay-River Road intersection. The residential enclave was further reduced when the Morrow-Rankin biscuit factory was established upstream from the Helidon Spa works in 1913.
On 3 October 1903, the Government gazetted the proclamation which constituted the City of South Brisbane. From 1908 the South Brisbane City Council tried to bring all the wharves in the South Brisbane Reach under its control and encouraged further commercial and industrial development along the river front. As finance permitted, provision of services such as gas, electricity, road sealing, water supply and an adequate system of drainage and sanitation improved the living and working conditions in the area and generated a demand for residential accommodation and improved cross river communication.
In the immediate post-war period, residential growth created continued demand for public transport, particularly through and from the South Brisbane peninsula. Land resumption for road widening was enacted in both Stanley and Melbourne Streets, and in September 1925, South Brisbane City Council is noted as having a population of 40,000 persons. The completion of the Sydney-Kyogle-South Brisbane interstate railway benefited the local economy with a demand for factory and manufacturing sites. Health factors, noise and nuisance associated with industry and proximity to wharves and docks all contributed to the changing perception of the area bounded by Grey and Boundary Streets, Montague Road and the river. As a result, when the time came to resume land in connection with the construction of the William Jolly Bridge, there was scant opposition.
By the time Greater Brisbane was formed in 1925, the need for further cross river links had been established. Traffic across the Victoria Bridge had increased 76% from 1912-1925, and in 1923 it was noted that traffic tonnage had increased 49.5% in 15 months. The 1897 Victoria Bridge had a paved deck with bituminous surfacing on wrought iron troughing. Between 1920-1922 this paving was replaced by concrete, causing traffic congestion. In 1922, the need for additional traffic on Victoria Bridge was identified, and the Mayor of Brisbane noted the need for cross river traffic as pressing and urgent. The Victoria Bridge structure was investigated in 1923 to determine its strength for further loading, and WJ Doak, Bridge Engineer of the Queensland Railways, noted that the bridge is now loaded to rather more than its orthodox capacity under live load, but it was considered that there was no immediate danger of collapse. His recommendations included various repairs, and that a second bridge should be built.
The first meeting of the Greater Brisbane Council in March 1925 passed a motion concerning the employment of experts to investigate what cross river facilities were required and their best locations. Mayor William Alfred Jolly was Chairman of the Bridges and Ferries Committee, and recommended that three experts be employed. A motion was passed on 20 May 1925 to appoint a Cross River Commission, which reported on 11 January 1926 (chairman RWH Hawken, Professor of Engineering at the University of Queensland, WN Nelson and R Martin Wilson). The report showed 11 proposed river crossings, and considered costs and savings made due to the reduction in haulage costs etc, and the need for a railway bridge was also discussed. A crossing at Kangaroo Point was estimated to cost 6 times the Grey Street crossing, and further reports were commissioned from WJ Earle, the City Planner, and EF Gilchrist, the City Engineer. These reports proposed the Grey Street bridge be two level for road and rail traffic, and a second bridge from Wellington Road to Sydney Street, New Farm, with a major ring road called the Main Parkway Boulevard, be constructed.
On 7 June 1926 Council decided to build a bridge from Grey Street, South Brisbane. However, it is interesting to note that Gilchrist Avenue (named after EF Gilchrist City Engineer), which is on the other side of the rail line to the proposed Main Parkway Boulevard, is in essence part of the proposed traffic system for the William Jolly Bridge as per Earle's recommended ring road system. The existing Gilchrist Avenue's original drawings are dated 25 June 1930.
The Council called applications for a bridge engineer to design a steel or reinforced concrete bridge on 10 July 1926. Alison Eavis Harding Frew (1883-1952) was appointed Engineer on 12 November 1926.
Problems were encountered with the design of the bridge due to the depth of rock below the river bed increasing from approximately 14m to 23m on the southern bank. Due to the costly foundation work, a bridge type with long spans was chosen. Harding Frew considered five bridge types, each a variation on a theme, stating in his report that it is frankly admitted that the purely economical aspect alone has not been given as much weight... as the consideration of utility, with good taste, combined with minimum maintenance cost....The maintenance requirements for, and performance of, steel bridges was also noted as a concern.
Harding Frew recommended bridge type A and the Council adopted his recommendation, of which some of the details of approaches etc changed from design to construction. The chosen bridge design was to be of concrete encased steel with arched ribs which rise through the deck. The final decision of the type of bridge, from the five under consideration, was essentially aesthetic, and was influenced by the so-called Rainbow Arch Bridge, carrying Robert Street, St Paul Minnesota across the Mississippi River. Harding Frew acknowledged this in his report, including photographs of the bridge, and stated that the time has come when some improvement in the appearance of our city bridges should be looked for in Queensland....The questions of utility and aesthetics should also be weighed carefully, especially in relation to a city's importance, its civic pride, and its future. The selected bridge design differed from the St Paul bridge in that it has three major spans whereas the St Paul bridge only has one, and this has been suggested as possibly making the William Jolly Bridge unique.
The Council resumed large areas of land bounded by Roma, Saul and Skew Streets, and between Skew Street, Eagle Terrace and North Quay on the northern side, and on the southern side, east of Grey Street between Montague Road and Melbourne Street. The final position of the bridge was determined by Harding Frew's recommendations (Earle and Gilchrist's were slightly upstream from the present site) and was accepted by Council in late 1926. The bridge was to have a North Quay underpass, and the estimated total cost was £700,000 including viaducts, resumptions, roadways, approaches and contingencies. This caused dismay, and the Commissioner for Main Roads considered that the cost should be contained to £500,000 by reducing the North Quay roadworks, minimising resumptions and building a different type of bridge.
Nevertheless, Council called tenders and MR Hornibrook Ltd submitted the lowest of £384,850 and this was accepted on 8 May 1928. Work commenced in August 1928 and was completed in March 1932.
An artist's impression at the time of construction shows trams crossing the bridge with overhead cables, a monument of some kind at the intersection of Skew and Saul Streets, and a different number of viaducts on southern side to those actually built.
An incident occurred on 17 February 1927 which highlighted the potentially disastrous situation of having only one bridge across the Brisbane River. The cargo steamer Chronos was taken upstream by a rising tide and the bow was wedged under the Victoria Bridge. Tugs managed to pull it out eventually, but the rising tide could have dislodged a span of the bridge and dumped it in the river, and this was highlighted in the Press at the time.
As mentioned, the depth to rock over much of the length of the William Jolly Bridge posed a major problem in the design of the foundations. The original design had the piers supported on timber piles, with inclined piles to resist the thrust from the small arch. Piles were driven immediately to the south of the pier, but it became impossible to drive them to rock and the design was changed to utilise reinforced concrete caissons (heavy, hollow, vertical reinforced concrete cylinders), and the contractor was noted as being completely in accord with this decision. The southern approach spans piers founded on timber piles all driven to rock, or to such depths as it was possible to drive them without damage, and the river piers are founded on reinforced concrete caissons. To achieve this the Sand Island method was invented by Manuel Hornibrook (1893-1970).
The Sand Island is an artificial island constructed by placing sand within a closed ring of sheet piles driven into the bed of the river. Two islands were constructed for each pier (one for each of the cylindrical caissons) with the caissons being 28 ft in diameter at the base. The pier on the sloping mud bank also used this method with rectangular caissons. Hornibrook is quoted as stating...as far as I am concerned the idea is an original one....The idea came to me one morning about 3 o'clock. I was so much taken up with it that I got out of bed and commenced to design a scheme to carry out the piers for the Grey Street Bridge. The use of Sand Islands was highly successful and very accurate, and overcame the problem of requiring the cutting edge to be placed directly on dry ground. The material was dredged out of the centre of the caisson and the cylinder progressively sank, however it was necessary to ensure that the caisson was fixed securely to rock and it was therefore essential to ensure man-access into the cylinder. This was achieved by using an air-lock system, but as the men worked under high pressure they could possibly suffer from the bends and an hospital air-lock was located at the surface for repressurisation if required. The foundations for the bridge were very deep, and the experience gained in the construction of this bridge, and later the Story Bridge, was considered of great value and to be a major achievement.
The steelwork was fabricated at the Evans Deakin and Co plant at Rocklea, and the arches had just been fixed in place when, on 5 February 1931 a major flood swept timber falsework away but fortunately the steelwork remained in place.
The steelwork was encased in Gunite, a sprayed dry mix concrete, the process of which was based on an invention in the United States at turn of century to spray plaster of paris in the reconstruction of skeletons of prehistoric animals. Between 1904-1909 this method was modified to spray sand and cement using a machine known as a Cement-Gun. Gunite was copyrighted in 1912 and continued as a proprietary trademark until 1967, when it became a generic term. The process involves a mixture of sand and cement which is loaded into one chamber, a stream of the dry mixture is forced along a delivery pipe to the gun, and on discharge is mixed with an annular jet of water. It was only in the 1920s that the process spread internationally, and it is difficult to ascertain whether other examples of bridges using the Gunite process, beside the St Paul Minnesota bridge, exist. It would appear that the use of Gunite in the arches, beams, deck members and hangers of the main spans, is a major early use of the process in Australia. The Opening Booklet for the bridge states The encasing of broad flange beams with concrete applied under pressure introduces new methods to Brisbane.
The southern approach of the bridge, to the south of Montague Road, was designed to have wider footpaths and roadway than the remainder of the bridge to conform with the decision of the Council to utilise this portion of the Approach, so that access might be had to abutting buildings (directly) from the bridge roadway.
The concrete balustrades were made by the Hume Pipe Co Ltd, and were centrifugally cast in their factory at West End. The Hume brothers invented the centrifugal casting method, for the casting of concrete pipes etc, and their firm was established in Adelaide in 1910. The mould for the grotesques, which decorate the bridge, was made by Karma Eklund, daughter of the State Manager, Hugo Eklund.
The structural steelwork including angles, plates, channels etc was almost wholly imported from Great Britain. Broad flange beams were supplied from Belgium, the largest being 30 x 12 inches which were larger than Australian rolled beams at the time. The use of large sections in the southern approaches allowed longer spans thereby reducing the number of piers. The cement and aggregate was supplied by the Queensland Cement and Lime Co.
Provision for a major water pipe never eventuated, and the closer spacing of stringers in the centre to support a tramway was not utilised. The decorative towers were intended to support overhead cables for the proposed tramway. The bridge originally crossed the North Quay underpass on two continuous, reinforced-concrete girder spans, each 33 ft with girders of variable depth. These have since been replaced by precast, prestressed concrete deck units above Coronation Drive, which links onto the riverside expressway, and in the process the footpath widths have been reduced.
The extent of work included in the bridge contract excluded some retaining walls, roadways etc on the northern side which were designed by the council. A statement was presented to the council on 14 November 1933 showing the official final cost as £688,387/12/5.
The bridge was officially opened on 30 March 1932, just eleven days after the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. A large crowd gathered on both sides of the river and 600 invited guests were in attendance. The bridge was named the Grey Street Bridge.
There was great community interest in the massive public works under construction at the time. It was the era of the Great Depression and massive public works, and Vida Lahey, a distinguished Queensland artist, painted the bridge at least three times during its construction. She also painted other public works including Anzac Square [600062], the State Government Offices [600059], and the Central Railway Station [600073]. Although there was widespread public interest in the bridge, it was eclipsed within ten years by the much larger and more prominent Story Bridge [600240].
An unusual feature of the Bridge is that the arches rise through the deck. It is noted that those living in Brisbane tend to regard this as normal for a bridge of this type, however this is in fact most unusual and few bridges around the world, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge, have this feature. The problem confronting Harding Frew was not the span to rise ratio of the arch itself, but rather its effect on the design of the deep foundations required at the site.
The bridge was designed to alleviate the traffic on the Victoria Bridge, but by as early as 1939 it was carrying 45% of the cross river traffic and was effectively doing more than it was designed to achieve.
On 5 July 1955, the Council decided to rename the bridge the William Jolly Bridge, in honour of William Alfred Jolly (1881-1955). Jolly was Alderman of Windsor Town Council from 1912 to 1925, including 5 years as Mayor. On 21 February 1925 he was elected first Mayor (later Lord Mayor) of the Greater Brisbane Council for six years until his retirement in 1931. JW Greene was in office when the bridge was opened. Jolly had moved the motions which led to the construction of the bridge. The Greater Brisbane Act gave the Council a charter which vested in the Council the power to frame its own legislation and the Council proceeded with a bold policy of civic improvements, including the Grey Street (William Jolly) Bridge, the new City Hall [600065], Anzac Square [600062], the tramways, water supply and sewerage.
Originally the bridge, roadways and footpaths were illuminated by spherical glass light fittings on cast metal mountings on both sides of the arches and the decorative arches of the tower-like elements. These fittings were replaced by the present lighting in 1964.
Many of the balustrades have been replaced, and prior to 1972 the complete roadway was resurfaced with asphalt. The bridge was first painted in 1974. A cream colour was chosen to reflect the approximate colour of newly poured concrete. Floodlighting was also introduced in 1974.
The original two-span overpass over North Quay, later over Coronation Drive, was replaced by the present single-span structure using precast, prestressed concrete deck units in 1988.
","criteria":"The William Jolly Bridge was constructed between 1928 and 1932 following the formation of Greater Brisbane in 1925, and was one of the first major capital works of the new city Council being part of a bold policy of civic improvements under the provisions of the Greater Brisbane Act. The construction of the bridge was seen as a symbol of the unification of Greater Brisbane, and the bridge bears the name of the new city Council's first Mayor, and later Lord Mayor, William Alfred Jolly, who was Chairman of the Bridges and Ferries Committee and who had moved the motions which led to the construction of the bridge.
The William Jolly Bridge is located at the tip of the South Brisbane peninsula, a location which traditionally has been a point of crossing of the Brisbane River from pre-European settlement. Aboriginal and later European pathways and land use patterns formed the basis for subsequent traffic networks which are reflected in the location of the bridge and associated traffic systems. It was Brisbane's second traffic bridge and provided an important transport and communications link between both sides of the river, as well as further impetus for the development of the South Brisbane peninsula.
|The design of the bridge is unusual in its use of three major spans of arched ribs which rise through the deck, which give the bridge a distinctive appearance and a landmark quality.
|The design of the William Jolly Bridge was intended to reflect the city's importance and its civic pride. Constructed of concrete encased steel, the bridge has a monument-like quality, with grotesques and representations of oversized coursing on the main piers and voussoirs on the arched ribs.
The design of the bridge is unusual in its use of three major spans of arched ribs which rise through the deck, which give the bridge a distinctive appearance and a landmark quality.
|The William Jolly Bridge demonstrates a high degree of technical achievement in its design, its use of Gunite (sprayed dry mix concrete), and in the development of the Sand Island method used for the construction of its river piers.
|The William Jolly Bridge was designed by AE Harding Frew, a distinguished Brisbane engineer, and was a major work by Queensland contractors Evans Deakin and Co and MR Hornibrook Ltd.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16451,"place_ref":601695,"name":"Wesley Uniting Church","alternate_name":"Wesleyan Methodist Church","street_address":"54 Neil Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-05-10","description":"The Wesley Uniting Church faces Neil Street to the west, directly opposite St Stephens Uniting Church. The building is located adjoining the former Empire Theatre [600978] to the south.
The church is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork with expressed coursing and rendered stone window surrounds and buttress caps, and has a rib and pan gable roof with ventilation gablets.
The west elevation is framed by rendered turrets surmounting a buttresses at each corner, and contains a large pointed arch stained glass window consisting of three lights surmounted by a large quatrefoil. Entry porches are located on the north and south at the western end, and consist of low rib and pan gable roofs supported by short columns on large square bases, with pointed arch paired timber doors. Windows to the nave are lancet shaped, and the north and south transepts have a large intersecting tracery window surmounting a gabled pointed arch doorway which is flanked by lancet windows.
The interior of the church has rendered walls scribed to imitate ashlar stonework, and the roof construction consists of arched brace timber trusses supported by stone corbels. These trusses have original metal ties, which were incorporated to overcome the need for heavy king-posts, and diagonal timber lining boards with quatrefoil fretwork panels at the cornice line. The east wall has a pointed arch recess behind a large pipe organ, which has a curved timber screen at the front of the organist's seat, which is flanked by pointed arch doorways to the vestry. A low timber and glass narthex has been constructed under the west window between the north and south entry doors, and supports the relocated pulpit rostrum rail. The seating has been rearranged to form a semi-circle facing the south wall of the transept.
A single-storeyed face brick addition is connected to the north transept via an open walkway and adjoins a timber hall located to the northeast of the church. This structure has brick buttresses, a parapet wall concealing the roof, lancet windows with sandstone surrounds and a foundation stone dated 1961. The timber hall has a corrugated iron gable roof, weatherboard cladding, and a single-storeyed brick addition along its southern elevation.
The northern brick addition houses a kindergarten with a kitchen connected to the western end of the timber hall. The hall is entered from the southwest corner, and has a hardboard panelled ceiling with a stage at the eastern end with a stylised proscenium arch. Backstage contains storage areas, and the southern addition to the hall contains various rooms.
The Neil Street frontage has a metal fence with driveway entrances at the north and south end, and central metal gates with English bond brick gate posts with rendered details and commemorative plaques. The church grounds contain a semi-circular drive to the west front, with various commemorative plantings, and a driveway along the southern side to the rear.
","history":"The Wesley Uniting Church was constructed in 1877 to the design of Willoughby Powell. In 1901 extensions designed by William Hodgen Jnr were made to the church which completed the building's cruciform plan. The building was the second Wesleyan Methodist Church in Toowoomba and, later, the head church of the Methodist church of the Toowoomba circuit.
Settlement of what was to become the Toowoomba area commenced at Drayton, now a suburb of Toowoomba, in the early 1840s. Thomas Alford opened a general store in the area in 1843. In the same year, residents of Drayton petitioned the Governor to form a township. A survey of the town was prepared in 1849. In laying out Drayton, Government Surveyor JC Burnett was instructed to mark out "suburban allotments for Garden and Agricultural purposes". The ideal site for what was known as the "Drayton Swamp Agricultural Reserve", later to become Toowoomba, was an area approximately three to four miles northeast of Drayton where two swampy creeks joined to form the headwaters of Gowrie Creek. The Agricultural Reserve included 12 allotments bounded by the left bank of the west swamp, and the present Bridge, West and Stephen streets.
Six of the 12 "Swamp Allotments" were first offered at auction in November 1849, however some were not sold until 1853. By late 1857, the name "Toowoomba" had gradually taken over from "The Swamp", as the town continued to expand. At the time of its incorporation into a municipality in November 1860, Toowoomba had well outgrown Drayton.
According to Maurice French, Toowoomba expanded rapidly in the 1870s as a result of the Selection Act of 1868 after which provisions and services for the new selectors were required. Many public buildings were erected or updated and a railway station, the "most-imposing in Queensland" was constructed.
By the 1870s the first Wesleyan Methodist Church in Toowoomba was too small for the growing congregation which was established in the early 1860s. The first Wesleyan Methodist services were held in Toowoomba in 1858 when Rev. Samuel Wilkinson visited the Darling Downs on a preaching tour. It was not until 1863 that a permanent minister was appointed to Toowoomba. In 1865 the Ipswich Wesleyan Methodist Circuit was divided forming the Toowoomba Circuit which comprised Toowoomba, Drayton, Ware's Farm, Jondaryan and Gatton.
To service the Wesleyan Methodist congregation in Toowoomba a stone church in Neil Street was constructed in 1864-65, prior to which services were held in a large building owned by the Presbyterian Church. A foundation stone for the first Wesleyan Methodist church, designed by James Cowlishaw, was laid by Mrs Groom on 19 October 1864. The church, a rectangular planned masonry building, was opened on 2 April 1865. This building was rendered inadequate for the growing congregation and temporary use was made of the School of Arts hall, but more permanent accommodation was sought.
The 1865 church and land was sold and another block, Suburban Allotment Thirteen of Section Seven, in Neil Street near the previous site was purchased on 13 April 1876 by trustees of the church for the sum of £550. Willoughby Powell was then commissioned to design a church for the site. Powell was in Toowoomba supervising the construction of the Toowoomba Grammar School. Earlier, Powell worked for Richard Gailey before joining the Queensland Public Works Department as a draftsman in 1874, when he won a competition for the design of the Grammar School. He maintained a practice in Toowoomba from 1875-77 designing many buildings including the Jewish Synagogue and several large houses.
The foundation stone of the Neil Street Wesleyan Methodist Church was laid by the Governor on 14 August 1877. As well, several smaller memorial stones were laid by ladies of the congregation and town. The contractor for the job was R Godsall, with a Mr Hudson responsible for internal fittings. The construction cost was about £2300.
The church was constructed of face brick with rendered masonry and freestone detailing and a high pitched gabled roof clad with timber shingles. The plan of the church was rectangular with entrance provided from two porches on either side of the western gable facing Neil Street and a small vestry extending from the eastern elevation. A tall broach spire surmounted the apex of the western facade. Internally, a semi-circular preaching rostrum, defined by curved timber balustrading was centrally situated adjacent to the eastern wall of the church. Evidence of this early arrangement survives in the church today.
The church was opened on 4 August 1878 and a report in a local newspaper, The Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Advertiser, provides a description of the ceremony and the building, which is described as "domestic Gothic very freely treated". This alludes to the simple design of the building in a Gothic revival style; a style widely employed on the churches of many Christian religious denominations during the second half of the nineteenth century. Among the elements which contributed to the style and which are found on the Neil Street Wesleyan Methodist Church is the steeply pitched roof, lancet window openings, stained glass panels, broach spire and internal fittings such as carved joinery, heavy timber trusses and, when constructed, a richly painted and gilded roof lining and internal decoration.
One of the particularly noteworthy features of the 1877 building was a large stained glass filled window opening in the western wall. This tracery window comprising three foiled lancets and a quatrefoil centred above them, was fitted with stained glass panels by Ashwin and Falconer of Pitt Street, Sydney.
Ashwin and Falconer were a Sydney partnership of Frederick Ashwin and John Falconer who formed by 1877 under the name Falconer and Ashwin, reversing the order of the names only later. Falconer was one of the earliest Sydney stained glaziers establishing his business in 1863 after his arrival in Australia from Britain in 1856. He continued in practice until 1892 when Ashwin and Falconer became known as Ashwin and Co. The company produced many outstanding windows including the glazed dome in the Sydney Town Hall.
At least three known commissions were undertaken in Queensland including two figured panels at Farrington House in Alderley (since removed from this house and in an unknown private collection); panels for St James' Church of England in Toowoomba which were designed by Edmund Blacket & Son as well as the window in the Neil Street Wesley Uniting Church.
In 1882 the Neil Street Church acquired a timber school room, designed by local architect James Marks. Early photographs of this building show a timber boarded structure with simple gabled roof to the north of the church. This building was extended in 1961 when a brick envelope was added, earlier alterations to this building include the addition of a stage proscenium in the first half of this century.
During the 1880s and early 1890s in Toowoomba many of the other religious denomination built permanent masonry churches, including the Primitive Methodist Church (1881); the Presbyterian Church built opposite and facing the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Neil Street (1882); the Roman Catholic Church (1883-9); and the Lutheran Church (c1887).
The local architect, William Hodgen Jnr, was commissioned in 1901 to extend the eastern end of the church with transepts and a vestry. This was four years after the unification of the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Churches. Primitive Methodism was established in the town in 1877 and was run from a church in Raff Street constructed in 1881. With the amalgamation, the Neil Street Wesleyan Church became the centre of Methodism in Toowoomba and the extension of 1901 may have been prompted by this reason.
In about 1924 a masonry fence and an iron gateway and gate were erected, replacing an earlier timber paling fence, to the memory of George Pitlow Merry who died on 30 October 1924.
Architecture, Engineering and Building Journal indicates that Cook and Kerrison, architects to the Methodist church, called tenders for the additions of a wall and porch to the church, however it is thought that this work was actually to be carried out on the adjacent school hall.
In 1977 when the Uniting Church was officially formed by the amalgamation of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches, the Neil Street Wesleyan Methodist Church became a Uniting Church known as the Wesley Uniting Church. At that time the land was divested from the, then defunct, Methodist Church to become the property of the Uniting Church who retain it to this day.
","criteria":"The Wesley Uniting Church demonstrates the growth of Toowoomba during the 1870s. The Church demonstrates the spread of Wesleyan Methodism throughout Queensland
|The Church houses a rare and fine example in Queensland of the stained glass work of the prolific Sydney stained glass manufacturers, Ashwin and Falconer.
|The Church with its early Gothic inspiration, simple form and internal arrangement demonstrates the principal characteristics of a Wesleyan Methodist Church of the 1870s in regional Queensland.
|Through its form, materials and siting, the Wesley Uniting Church makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the Neil Street streetscape and Toowoomba townscape. Together with St Stephen's Uniting Church, directly opposite to the west, the church is part of an important ecclesiastic group.
|The building has been the centre of firstly, the Wesleyan Methodist, then the Methodist religion in Toowoomba since its construction in 1877. Since 1977 it has been a Uniting Church. The building has special associations for the Uniting Church.
|The Church is associated with the architect Willoughby Powell, and is one of his few Toowoomba buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16452,"place_ref":601696,"name":"Gallop Botanic Reserve, incorporating Cooktown Botanic Gardens","alternate_name":"Queens' Park Gardens and Recreation Reserve | Cooktown Botanical Gardens and Recreation Reserve","street_address":"Finch Bay Road","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-10-13","description":"Gallop Botanic Reserve contains 62.3216 hectares and lies approximately 1.5kms from the centre of Cooktown. The reserve is bordered by the South Pacific Ocean on the east, Alligator Creek to the east and south, Garden Street on the west, and vacant land designated Special Purpose - Community Facilities to the north.
The reserve incorporates: Cooktown Botanic Gardens; an early sports field and concrete cricket pitch; two granite quarries with evidence of hand-quarrying technology; walking tracks; and Finch's Bay Road.
Geographically, most of the reserve comprises high spurs of large granite boulders, bounded to the east by a granite headland with indigenous vegetation extending to the ocean and beaches at Finch's Bay and Cherry Tree Bay. A small creek on the reserve flows into Cherry Tree Bay.
Most of Gallop Botanical Reserve has open sclerophyll vegetation consisting of Melaleuca spp, Eucalypts spp [Bloodwood], Cooktown Ironwood and various grasses. The Cooktown Botanic Gardens, consisting of 3.5 hectares within the Gallop Botanic Reserve, is vegetated with similar species of native trees, but interspersed with the indigenous vegetation are formal lawned areas, stone pitched waterways and planted exotic species.
The gardens retain a number of elements of their late 19th century design, including garden terraces, dry-pitched granite rockpools, subsidiary covered stone-pitched drains, stone steps, wells, rock garden survivals and diverse archaeological elements. Some original plantings survived the period of neglect from 1917 to 1979, and at least 90 species originating from the early plantings as a botanical gardens have been identified.
Although adaptations to the formal gardens occurred in the 1980s, there is substantial physical evidence to suggest that the layout is broadly similar to that developed in the period 1878-1917. Large sections of the original, extensive, underground drainage system of stone-pitched channelling have yet to be investigated, and possibly further original stone-pitched waterways and garden beds may exist which have yet to be identified.
","history":"Cooktown Botanical Gardens and Recreation Reserve, an area of 154 acres southeast of Cooktown between the town and Finch's Bay, was surveyed and proclaimed in 1878, less than 5 years after the establishment of Cooktown in October 1873 as the Endeavour River port to the Palmer Goldfields. In the period 1878-1917 the Cooktown Municipal Council established a formal botanical garden and recreational playing fields on a small part of the reserve closest to town. Apart from improving an existing dray road to the ocean and establishing walking tracks, the bulk of the reserve remained largely undeveloped. From the mid-1880s to the early 1900s, when Cooktown boomed as a goldrush town, the formal botanical gardens flourished; as output from the Palmer declined and Cooktown's fortunes fell in the early 20th century, funding to maintain the botanical gardens diminished, and they were closed to the public in 1917. With the late 20th century emergence of Cooktown tourism, the gardens are being re-established as an important historical attraction.
The movement to establish botanical and recreational reserves in Queensland's larger 19th century towns and cities reflected contemporary thinking about the importance of providing adequate public recreational facilities. The working and middle classes controlling local government in Queensland's urban centres regularly petitioned the colonial government for the provision of public open spaces in the form of recreational reserves and botanical gardens. The establishment of these reserves also reflected an enormous public interest, formerly the preserve of governments and wealthy private individuals [such as English botanist Joseph Banks], in experimenting with the commercial and scientific values of exotic trees and plants and indigenous Australian flora.
Queensland's botanic gardens initially were the responsibility of the Lands Department, which allocated annual grants to trustees but did little to encourage botanical experimentation. In 1889 responsibility was transferred to the newly created Department of Agriculture and Stock, which through a subsidy system allocated in proportion to local subscription, encouraged greater experimentation with exotic plant species for commercial and scientific purposes. The new Department worked closely with the privately-supported Queensland Acclimatisation Society [based in Brisbane], and established the Kamerunga State Nursery near Cairns in the late 1880s.
Moves within Cooktown to establish a botanical gardens were underway from at least October 1876, when the Cooktown Municipal Council resolved to apply to the Queensland colonial government for land between the town and Finch's Bay [already a popular recreational venue] for the purpose of a water reserve, recreation ground and botanical garden. Sections of this were already occupied by Chinese market gardeners, who were also logging the area for timber to produce charcoal. The area also had historical connections with the work of naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, members of the 1770 exploratory voyage of the Endeavour, under the command of Lieutenant James Cook, along the east coast of Australia. During a 7-week stay in the vicinity of Cooktown in 1770, while repairs were made to the Endeavour, Banks and Solander collected the most comprehensive natural history collection of the entire east coast voyage.
In June 1877 Cooktown Municipal Council received a government grant of £200 to assist in establishing the reserve [this became an annual grant], and appointed a Gardens Committee, but little was achieved until after the reserve was surveyed in May 1878. By July 1878 some fencing had been erected and in August-September 1878 the Council appointed a caretaker/gardener and offered £10 for a suitable plan of laying out a botanical gardens on a small section of the best land in the reserve [nearest the town]. Surveyor Brittian's plan, which included areas marked out for walks, was adopted. The existing dray road through the reserve to Finch's Bay was improved, and the Council appointed Trustees for the reserve in December 1878. During 1879 structural development was undertaken, including roadworks, fencing, drains, and the establishment of a nursery on the eastern side of the hill facing Finch's Bay, stocked with plants from the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. The Chinese still had a presence on the reserve at this stage, having agreed to pay rent to the Council.
Interest in the reserve appears to have waned in the early 1880s, and by 1886 there does not seem to have been a gardener or caretaker permanently employed. However, in the mid-1880s the Council recommenced development of the formal botanical gardens. In 1885-86 a botanist was employed to lay out a new nursery, an undated Council map indicating that this was established within the present border of the gardens. Early in 1886, trees and shrubs were ordered from the Queensland Acclimatisation Society in Brisbane, and a contractor was employed to dig over the gardens. A full-time gardener was employed from September 1888. Along with the renewed interest in the formal gardens, development of the recreation reserve as a sporting facility was resumed, the playing field being upgraded and a concrete cricket pitch laid in 1888.
Activity in the formal botanical gardens peaked in the first half of the 1890s. A well was sunk in 1890 and a pump, tank and pipe reticulation installed. A second well was sunk at some later stage. In 1892 a gardener's cottage [removed in 1917] was erected on the reserve and occupied by Charles Watson, who held the position of caretaker/gardener from 1890 to 1902. By this period the formal botanical gardens had been enclosed with a paling fence and intensively developed with lawns, shrubs and garden beds. By early 1893, they were being referred to officially as Queen's Park and Gardens - later the name came to represent the whole of the reserve. In the 1890s, stone-lined paths, stone-pitched pools and stone-work foot bridges were built along a creek descending from the hills behind Cherry Tree Bay, flower gardens flourished, a bush house was erected [1893] and a wide range of trees and shrubs of both decorative and economic value were planted in the gardens. Shade and street trees in the Cook Monument Park [601044], and in Cooktown's main street, Charlotte Street, were supplied from the botanic gardens.
In the late 1890s, as Cooktown's population and wealth declined along with the decline in gold output from the Palmer River, the Trustees of the Queen's Park Gardens and Recreation Reserve began to experience serious financial difficulties. Funding came partly from local subscription and donation, partly from annual government grants [paid in proportion to local subscription and donation], partly from an annual grant from the local Council, and partly from the sale of plants, fruit and flowers. Through the early years of the 20th century, the Trustees managed to maintain the gardens and recreation grounds to a reasonable standard, but little new work was undertaken. Vandalism and theft of trees from the larger reserve became increasingly problematic, and the cyclone of 19 January 1907 caused considerable damage to the botanical gardens, bushhouse and gardener's house. Several government subsidies enabled repairs to be undertaken 1907-08. Despite continuing financial difficulties there was some renewal of activity in the gardens 1910-12. A windmill was erected in the gardens in 1910, planting of specimen and shade trees continued, and a decorative fountain may have been installed.
In 1912, the Queensland government ceased giving subsidies to reserves for special improvements, although they still received the usual endowment of 7/6 in the pound on subscriptions and donations. This became a major concern to the Trustees of the Queen's Park Gardens and Recreation Reserve. During 1915, the Cooktown Town Council began to pay its grant to Queen's Park in small sums at irregular intervals - perhaps a response to the contingencies of the First World War, but more likely reflecting the general decline of Cooktown as a service and administrative centre and port. By January 1917, closure of the reserve was seen as unavoidable. Tenders were called for the lease of the cottage and gardens, or recreation reserve, or both, but none being received, action was taken to wind up the affairs of the Trustees. The gardener's cottage, bushhouse, windmill, garden stock and various implements were sold at auction and the Trustees accounts closed in June 1917. Cooktown Town Council retained trusteeship of the whole of the reserve, but the formal gardens and recreation grounds were not used again for public recreation until 1979. The quarrying of granite for street kerbing, from outcrops on the hill near Finch's Bay, probably dates to after 1917.
In December 1980 the Cook Shire Council resolved to restore the reserve, particularly the formal gardens. A 1982 report prepared by consultant Vince Winkel, emphasised the preservation of original plantings and indigenous flora, including: a mangrove forest, the strand plants on the beach front facing the sea, the strand plants of the land side of the sand dune, the swamp area immediately behind, the open forest on the hillsides, the heavier wooded open forest, and on the sporting field side where the old botanical gardens were, the riverine forest of tea trees along the creek.
In 1984 Cook Shire Council commenced reconstruction of the formal botanical gardens, comprising approximately 3.5 hectares, with the assistance of Commonwealth Employment Funding. The original gardens area was cleared and lawns established, stonework re-built and trees removed. A walking track was cleared to Finch's Bay along the old dray track, and another walking track continues from this track to Cherry Tree Bay. Playground equipment was placed in the southeastern corner of the recreation oval. On 19 December 1984, the whole of the reserve was officially re-opened as the Gallop Botanic Reserve, commemorating the contributions of Mr Rollo Darcy Gallop and his son, Mr Graham Darcy Gallop, Administrators of Cook Shire from July 1961 to March 1969 and April 1969 to June 1979 respectively. The Gallops were also civil engineers, practising as Gallop and Associates.
In 1986 Cook Shire Council commissioned a conservation report on the reserve, and in the early 1990s undertook a programme of reconstruction and conservation of the original layout of the botanical gardens. This included the re-instatement of above ground stone drains - mostly with the original stone but some realignment; repairs to the stonework of the crossings over the drainage system; and conversion of an early well to a pump house [with recent stonework].
The botanical gardens, now known as the Cooktown Botanic Gardens, are contained within the Gallop Botanic Reserve. These gardens have been expanded in the last 10 years with the establishment of an exotic plant section, a palmetum, a section of native plants, and a "Solander's Gardens", and are used extensively by tourists and locals for recreational and educational purposes.
","criteria":"Gallop Botanic Reserve, established in 1878 as the Cooktown Botanical Gardens and Recreation Reserve, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history. Its establishment reflected Cooktown's sudden emergence in the mid-1870s as the principal port of far north Queensland, and improvements made to the reserve in the last two decades of the 19th century illustrate sustained local and government confidence in Cooktown during this period. Through the early establishment of the Cooktown Botanical Gardens and Recreation Reserve, a substantial area of natural vegetation close to Cooktown has been preserved. This is particularly significant because of the association of Cooktown and its environs with the important work of naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, who collected extensive plant specimens from the district in 1770.
|Gallop Botanic Reserve is unique in Queensland, comprising not only a formal botanical garden, but also substantial natural forest and ocean frontage. Cooktown Botanic Gardens within Gallop Botanic Reserve are unique for the extent of covered and uncovered early stone-pitching surviving in the grounds, and their 19th layout is one of the most intact in Queensland.
|Cooktown Botanic Gardens within Gallop Botanic Reserve are significant for their potential to reveal further information about late 19th century public gardens location and design, and the social, economic and cultural function of such gardens in a pioneering community.
|The formal botanical gardens within Gallop Botanic Reserve survive as important evidence of late 19th century public gardens design and planting. Although adaptations occurred in the 1980s, physical evidence suggests that the present layout is broadly similar to that developed in the period 1878-1917. The gardens retain a number of elements of their late 19th century design, including garden terraces, dry-pitched granite rockpools, subsidiary covered stone-pitched drains, stone steps, wells, rock garden survivals and diverse archaeological elements. Some original plantings survived the period of neglect from 1917 to 1979, and at least 90 species originating from the early plantings as a botanical gardens have been identified. Other surviving early elements of the wider reserve include the recreational oval, cricket pitch, and the route of the early dray track through the reserve to Finch's Bay, illustrating the important role of the reserve as a recreational facility since the earliest days of the establishment of Cooktown.
|The Gallop Botanic Reserve has considerable aesthetic value associated not only with the restored formal botanical gardens, but also with the geography of the place, including granite outcrops and a spectacular, unspoilt coastline.
|Finch's Bay, part of which is contained within the Gallop Botanic Reserve, has had an important association with Cooktown residents for over 120 years as a place of recreation. The Cooktown Botanical Gardens has a special association for the local community with the establishment and development of their town in the last quarter of the 19th century. Since 1980, Cook Shire Council has invested in the restoration and re-development of the formal gardens and recreation grounds as an historical tourist attraction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16455,"place_ref":601700,"name":"Sunnyside Sugar Plantation (former) Remains","alternate_name":"Dry-rubble Boundary Wall, Sunnyside Sugar Plantation","street_address":"94 Windermere Road","suburb":"WINDERMERE","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-05-13","description":"The former Sunnyside Sugar Plantation, now known simply as Sunnyside, comprises about 40.4 hectares of arable land, with some fenced areas for horses and cattle and an area comprising a house, gardens and various sheds. The dry-rubble wall runs along the northern boundary with Windermere Road, while the two mature fig trees stand about 110 metres to the southwest of the wall, and the burials site about 50 metres to the southeast of them.
\nThe dry-rubble wall extends for approximately 205 metres along the frontage of the former Sunnyside Sugar Plantation along Windermere Road. It is constructed of local surface volcanic rock, colloquially known as blue metal, collected when the land was being cleared for sugar cultivation in the 1880s. Some of the rocks show signs of spalling prior to removal from the fields. The wall is comprised of larger rocks on the outside with smaller rocks piled into the cavity and used to fill the gaps between the larger ones. This process has been repeated upwards in the layers. There is no mortar used in the construction.
\nTwo mature weeping fig trees (Ficus benjamina) stand approximately 22 metres apart, they have trunks of about 1.5 metres in diameter and their height is estimated at 17 metres in 2012. They were planted in front of the early house on the property (removed in 1957). The heritage boundary part taking in these trees is set off from the outermost edge of the tree canopies of the trees by two metres. All other features and structures within this area are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance, including fencing, the house (a nineteenth century house relocated to the property in 1957) and its garden, the grave of Sidney Thomas Courtice and its marker, and a recent metal shed to the west of the house.
\nThe site of 29 South Sea Islander labourer burials was mapped by Bundaberg Regional Council in 2012. The burials were mapped in three rows aligned approximately parallel to the lot boundaries. The northernmost row comprised 13 ground anomalies interpreted as burials. That to the south comprised 10 burials while that south again, 6 burials. A number of trees and post-and-rail fences stand within the area of the heritage boundary part that takes in these burials. These features are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Also identified in this area was a raised, linear ground feature believed to be part of a roadway - also known as a headland - dating from the sugar plantation era.[84]
","history":"The former Sunnyside sugar plantation, which initially comprised 100 acres (40.5ha), is situated on Windermere Road, to the east of Bundaberg. The property was established by Edward Turner in 1875, and used to grow sugar from the early 1880s, in which work South Sea Islanders were employed until the turn of the century. In 1884 Turner established a juice mill on the property, piping his cane juice to the Millaquin refinery. Remnants of the sugar plantation era include two weeping fig trees (Ficus benjamina), an area of 29 burials in three rows, as well as a dry-rubble wall along Windermere Road. Initially the wall extended almost the full road frontage of Portion 85, but it has been reduced to about half this length (approximately 205 metres).
\nThe economy of Bundaberg was underpinned by the sugar industry from the early 1880s. During the late 19th century when South Sea Islanders were employed, it progressed from being the second largest sugar producing region in Queensland to the largest by 1900. The employment of Islanders was always controversial; a raft of legislation being introduced to protect their welfare in response to incidents of exploitation, and then to phase out their employment in favour of the use of white labour.
\nThe township of Bundaberg was established on the banks of the Burnett River. Timbergetters came through the area in the 1860s and were later followed by sugar planters taking advantage of the lands made available under the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860 and the 1865 Coffee and Sugar Regulations.[1] By 1868 the district surveyor John Thompson was instructed to mark out a town on the south bank of the river. This was completed by 1869[2] and the town was declared a port of entry in June 1871.[3] The port serviced the copper mines of Mount Perry, although in competition with the nearby port of Maryborough.[4] Sugar became the industry which underpinned the prosperity of Bundaberg, with the first of many sugar mills there established by Richard Palmer in 1872.[5]
\nEdward Turner, his wife Janet and daughter Pauline arrived in Hervey Bay aboard the 'Sultana' in 1866.[6] A native of Oswestry, Shropshire, England and a stonemason/bricklayer by trade,[7] Turner reputedly first went prospecting on the Palmer River goldfields.[8] He then worked as a stonemason for Robert Cran at his plantation Yengarie, west of Maryborough.[9] Turner purchased a town allotment in Churchill Street, Maryborough, in 1867 which he sold in mid 1874.[10] He then selected 100 acres (40.5 ha) in the Woongarra Scrub to the east of Bundaberg in June 1874.[11] His selection, Portion 85, comprised 60 acres (24ha) of agricultural land and 40 (16ha) of second class pastoral. He lived on the property which he named 'Sunnyside' from January 1875. By the following year Turner had cleared and cultivated 18 acres. He built a slab house with three rooms and a kitchen with a brick oven and a number of outbuildings; established a waterhole and a well; built a pigsty and a calf paddock and was growing maize at this time. By 1880 he had 20 acres under cultivation, with an unknown crop. Turner fulfilled the conditions of his selection under the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868 and in 1881 he applied to purchase the property, and a deed of grant was issued.[12]
\nTurner used South Sea Islander labour, as did most farmers in the district. The use of South Sea Islander labour had been pioneered in Australia in the 1840s by Benjamin Boyd in the New South Wales (NSW) Riverina District, employing them as shepherds in lieu of convict labour.[13] The procurement of South Sea Islander labour to Queensland was initiated by Captain Robert Towns. He had been involved in the importation of Asiatic labourers during the 1840s and 1850s in NSW,[14] and was also part of a push for the use of Indian coolie labour in the early 1860s in Queensland. At the time the concept that labouring in the tropics was unhealthy for Europeans had widespread currency.[15] The Queensland Government removed restrictions on the introduction of Asiatic labour in May 1861,[16] which led to the introduction of South Sea Island labourers to Queensland.
\nRobert Towns' first group of 67 South Sea Islanders arrived in Brisbane on the 'Don Juan' on 14 August 1863.[17] They went to work on his cotton plantation Townsvale (later Veresdale) on the Logan River, where Towns hoped to capitalise on declining cotton production in America during the Civil War. Captain Claudius Whish used Islanders on his property near Caboolture (QHR 700007, Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants) as did Captain Louis Hope on his sugar plantation at Ormiston, near Cleveland (QHR 600755, Ormiston House Estate).[18] In 1865 a group of Islanders was landed at Bowen, to be employed by pastoralists. By March 1868, 2107 Islanders had been brought to Queensland, employed in various capacities including agricultural and pastoral work, and as servants in the towns. They lived and worked anywhere from Mackay and Bowen, to the Wide Bay district and west to Roma.[19] South Sea Islanders were generally employed on three-year contracts bound by the Masters and Servants Act 1861.[20]
\nBy 1868, there were reports that the recruitment of South Sea Islanders had devolved into kidnapping. In response the Polynesian Labourers Act 1868[21] was enacted to regulate recruitment. Under the Act, the Islanders were required to sign a contract for up to three years, on a minimum wage of £6 per year plus rations and a trip home after three years.[22] Deaths and desertions were to be reported to the nearest magistrate.[23] In 1870 government agents were appointed to sail with the recruiting vessels to supervise the conditions of appointment. During the 1870s and 80s there was ongoing public criticism and political debate about the use of Islander labour. The number of recruitments increased from 1539 in 1868 to 10,057 by 30 June 1884.[24]
\nA number of Acts of Parliament were introduced to protect the Islanders from unscrupulous recruiters and employers including the Kidnapping Act of 1872 and the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act 1875. Following a Select Committee enquiry into Polynesian Labour, further amendments were initiated in 1877 and 1878 but not legislated. Then in December 1880 new Premier Thomas McIlwraith rescinded the 1868 Act, introducing a new Pacific Islander Labourers Act 1880 which set limitations on the age of recruits, their living conditions, medical service and ration provisions. Islanders could only be employed in tropical or semi-tropical agriculture, including the cultivation of sugar cane, cotton, tea, coffee, rice and spices. [25]
\nSouth Sea Islanders working in Bundaberg had initially arrived through Maryborough. The first direct shipment into the Port of Bundaberg occurred in May 1879, by the schooner 'Lucy and Adelaide'. The Islanders numbered 81 males and seven females.[26] The number contracted to each farm or plantation is unknown. Labourers were recruited from a number of locations including the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, and Loyalty Islands, all with different languages and customs. This region is now known as Melanesia, and includes the Bismark Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. Despite claims that Edward Turner was personally involved in the recruitment trade, no evidence has been found indicating his ownership of any boat engaged in recruiting Islanders.
\nTurner continued to plan the development of his farm. In December 1883 he subdivided a two and a half acre lot (Sub 1, Portion 185) (1ha) from the north-western corner of his allotment along Windermere Road.[27] A juice mill was established on this site, in partnership with Frederic and Charles Buss. They had a number of sugar plantations and numerous business interests in the region, including a store in town that became Buss and Turner in 1886 after James Edwin Turner (no relation to Edward Turner) from Sydney joined the firm.[28] Edward Turner's juice mill was operational by 1884, when cane was crushed and the juice piped three miles (4.8 km) to the Millaquin Refinery (established 1881) for treatment.[29] Juice mills were commonplace in the area with 24 established between 1882 and 1884,[30] including at Ashgrove, Avoca, Fairymead, Glenmorris, Grange, Kepnock, Mabbro, Summerville, Windermere, and Woodbine by October 1883. Hummock, Oakwood, and Spring Hill mills were established in 1883 and Seaview, Mon Repos, and Sunnyside and Woodlands in 1884.
\nSunnyside's juice mill site (Sub 1), was transferred to Edward Turner's sole ownership in March 1888. In order to ensure the viability of the juice mill,[31] Turner acquired another parcel of land on the southern slopes of The Hummock (Portion 87) in October 1888. This expanded his property to 190 acres (76ha), [32] financed by a £2000 mortgage from the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney against the Sunnyside property.[33] Sunnyside was typical of the smaller family-run sugar plantations in Bundaberg, which were generally between 150 and 200 acres (60 and 80ha). Many had their own juice mills, piping juice to Millaquin refinery - as opposed to the large plantations such as Fairymead, of 1252 acres (506ha) and Bingera of 1150 acres (465ha) which had large mills.[34]
\nThe type of work undertaken by the South Sea Islanders on the property and their conditions were summarised by the eldest son Herbert Turner in his 1955 publication: 'Rural Life in Sunny Queensland'. He indicated that a property of approximately 150 acres with a juice mill required about 45 Islanders. The first duty of an owner was to supply each Islander with a new blanket, clothing, and a hat, a plug of tobacco, which was subsequently supplied weekly, and the clothing half-yearly. His pay was between £20 and £25 which was paid half yearly at the Immigration Depot in the presence of the Inspector of Polynesians. Three meals were supplied daily, as specified by Government regulations.
\nWhile some of the properties had been cleared initially by the selectors, the role of the Islanders was to clear the remaining virgin scrub: felling, burning and clearing the large volcanic stones, which were collected and sometimes drilled and blasted. Rocks unearthed during this process were placed on wooden sleds, pulled by draught horses. Big rocks which would not fit on the sled would be broken up with spalling hammers. These pieces would then be placed on corn bags; an Islander on each corner, it would then be carried to the sled. When full, the sleds were taken to the end of the paddock where they were unloaded. Dry-rubble walls were constructed in layers, with larger stones placed around the outside and smaller stones used for infill. This seems to have been a common construction method in the Woongarra and was employed at Sunnyside to make a wall along the northern boundary of the property. About 6 examples of it remain in the Bundaberg district, including one associated with the former Mon Repos sugar plantation and entered in the Queensland Heritage Register (QHR 602230).[35] Edward Turner was a stonemason and it is probable that he directed construction of the wall at Sunnyside. The creation of dry-stone boundary walls was commonplace in Great Britain where many of Queensland's settlers originated.
\nIslanders were also employed in planting cane, by following behind a horse-drawn plough driven by a European, and dropping cane plants into the furrows. Similarly at harvest time, the Islanders would be involved in cutting and loading cane into horse-drawn drays driven by Europeans.[36]
\nInspectors of Polynesians monitored the health and welfare of the Islanders. The first appointed to oversee Bundaberg and Maryborough in 1875 was also the sub-collector of customs.[37] His 1877 replacement Charles Horrocks[38] regularly inspected accommodation, clothing and weighed the food rations for the Islanders. Instances of large numbers of Islanders dying on individual farms were investigated, with one of the worst examples being those employed by Robert Cran at his Maryborough plantations of Yerra Yerra, Yengari and Ilawarra. Seven deaths occurred at Yerra Yerra in 1878 due to dysentery from contaminated water. Again in 1880 a high mortality rate led to a medical investigation which blamed poor food, long working hours, bad water, and a lack of proper care for the sick.[39]
\nThe first inspector to be specifically allocated to Bundaberg was William O'Connell in 1882.[40] The death rate remained high amongst the Islander population. Statistics provided to Parliament in 1888 indicated there had been 40,861 Islanders bought to Queensland since 1868, with 23,700 returned to their islands and 7635 deaths, although it was noted that not all deaths had been reported. While the statistics provided annually were broken down by district, they were not provided in relation to specific plantations. For example, in 1892, there were 186 deaths in Bundaberg, which was 66 more than the previous year, with dysentery a common cause. The rates remained high in subsequent years also, with 181 Islanders dead in 1893 and 175 in 1894.[41] Economic historian Ralph Schlomowitz suggests that a general lack of immunity to a range of diseases to which Europeans had developed a partial immunity, such as measles, smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis, pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery and meningitis, proved fatal to both indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders. He argued that the overall death rate of Pacific Islanders decreased from an average of 80 per 1000 (1879-87) to 35 per 1000 by 1893, suggesting that immunity built up over time.[42] However, Islander deaths in Bundaberg appeared to be increasing. This was evidenced in statistics provided for the large plantations between December 1895 and December 1900, where Bingera experienced 135 deaths and Fairymead 58, both with increasing annual rates during this timeframe.[43]
\nDeaths on Sunnyside occurred in both the Turner family and amongst the Islander labourers in the late 1880s to early 1890s. The Bundaberg Genealogical Association, using newspaper sources, identified seven reported deaths of Islanders on Sunnyside plantation; these being Coora, 9/09/1887; Tartal 24/04/1888; Yantircca 12/03/1888; Byeena 21/08/1888; Beeteah 12/01/1889; Charlie 18/02/1889 and Neeoo 17/02/1889. The causes of these people's deaths are unknown, and the location of their burials is not known. It was commonplace to bury Islanders on the sugar plantations on which they worked. Over 600 Islanders were also buried in the Bundaberg general cemetery, the earliest recorded in 1879.[44]
\nOral tradition states that a number of Islanders who worked on Sunnyside were buried on the property. Investigations undertaken by the Bundaberg Regional Council in 2012-13 indicated the location of 29 possible graves to the south-east of the two mature fig trees.
\nDeaths in the Turner family over this period have been attributed to typhoid, reputedly from drinking contaminated water from the well. Eldest daughter Pauline Fielding died in November 1889, followed by fourteen year old Isabella in December. Then their mother Janet Turner died in January 1890.[45] It is likely that some Islanders on Sunnyside may also have succumbed to typhoid at this time. A further family death occurred in October 1894, when Edward's 19 year old son Clarence drowned in the waterhole after suffering an epileptic fit.[46] His body was found by his brother-in-law, Henry Albert Cattermull.[47]
\nIn the meantime, a change in government in 1883 led to new laws aimed at excluding Islander labour. The preference for white labour was implicit in the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act 1884 which was much more specific than the 1880 Act in relation to the type of work an Islander could be employed in, specifically restricting them to field work. The Pacific Island Labourers' Amendment Act 1885 legislated against the issue of recruitment licences for Islanders after 31 December 1890. The Crown Lands Act 1884 in tandem with the Sugar Works Guarantee Act 1884 moved to establish small family-run farms underpinned by the opening up of former crown land and leases. Interim measures to compensate for the loss of cheaper Islander labour included the commencement of the government-supported, co-operatively-owned central mill system and some government-owned mills. The first of these was established in Mackay in 1886, to only crush cane cut by white labour.[48]
\nIn early 1889, a Royal Commission inquired into the viability of the sugar industry which was in decline at that time. From its 1865 initiation by Louis Hope, the industry had expanded rapidly over the subsequent twenty years. However, there was a marked decline between 1885 and 1893, attributed to drought and a slump in world sugar prices.[49] Bundaberg farmers formed a small company which set up a rum distillery in 1888 which helped the industry through these hard times.[50] Edward Turner's evidence to the commission indicated that he owned 250 acres (101ha) in total, 110 (44.5ha) of which were under sugar cultivation, and a further 20 (8ha) cultivated for other purposes. He employed seven Europeans and 45 Islanders. His total wage bill for 1888 was £588 to Europeans and £1420 to the Islanders, which indicates an annual income of £84 for a European and £31.10/- for an Islander. At that time he considered he could not successfully run the plantation without South Sea Islander labour.[51]
\nBy the end of 1891 it was evident that the prohibition of Islander labour would lead to the collapse of the sugar industry. New legislation was enacted in April 1892, stipulating conditions of employment for Islanders.[52] It has been argued in Raymond Evans' 'History of Queensland' (2007) that following the rewriting of the legislation the recruitment of Islanders was a reformed business, with so many pieces of protective legislation, regulation and inspection schedules in place that the prospects of exploitation and ill-treatment of workers were substantially reduced. Islanders became more skilled in negotiations and bargained for higher wages and more liberal contracts.[53] This occurred on Sunnyside in 1893.
\nA new Inspector of Polynesians in Bundaberg, Henry St George Caulfield was appointed in April 1887.[54] Caulfield had 13 years experience overseeing immigrant labour in Ceylon, and was thought to be 'zealous in his duties as an inspector of plantations, and investigator of islanders’ complaints against their employers'.[55] In July 1893, seven Islanders from Sunnyside Plantation complained to Caulfield that they were not being given enough food. Earlier that week they had burnt down one of their huts and set fire to the cane in protest. The Capricornian newspaper described the events as a 'Kanaka strike'.
\nThe Inspector came to Sunnyside and after interviewing others on the farm agreed they had not been given enough food.[56] Caulfield referred to an earlier case dating from 1890 where it was proved Edward Turner supplied insufficient food. Turner was charged with breaching the Masters and Servants Act, and was fined. The agreement with the Islander named Tong, who brought the charge to the court, was cancelled. Tong said he had never received good food from Turner in the five years he had worked there, but that this was the first time he had complained to Caulfield.[57] Turner had remarried a widow, Sarah Barney, who brought five children to the marriage. It was Sarah's responsibility to provide food, although Edward was held accountable. Turner was also charged with assaulting an Islander named Raincombe.[58] This occurred during the July banking crisis, where eight of Queensland’s banks closed, including the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney[59] with which Turner had his £2000 mortgage. While this would not justify the insufficient supply of food to Islander labourers on Sunnyside, it does suggest one reason for it to have happened. Most banks reopened by August. [60]
\nInitiatives to improve the general health and welfare of South Sea Islanders in Bundaberg included an Islanders' hospital, designed by the Government Architect and built at a cost of £512 in 1893.[61] [62] The provision of a hospital had been referred to in the Pacific Islanders Immigration Act 1892, although it was not mandatory.[63] Christian guidance was provided by Florence Young of Fairymead Plantation who started the Queensland Kanaka Mission in 1886, as an evangelical and non-denominational church (QHR 602052). The Anglican Church was active in converting the Islanders who attended Sunday Service, while also providing evening classes teaching them to read.[64]
\nThe process of sugar growing, crushing and refining changed dramatically in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, initiated in part by the Sugar Works Guarantee Act 1893 which provided for construction of government-supported central mills, employing white labour. Sixty farmers from Gin Gin were the first in the region to successfully establish a co-operative mill in 1896.
\nBundaberg was the second largest sugar producing region in Queensland between 1880 and 1900 when Islanders were employed. It produced 5797 tons (5890 tonnes) to Mackay's 12,023 tons (12,215 tonnes) in 1884. While all centres continually improved their output during the late 19th century, Bundaberg's output gradually closed the gap with Mackay. In 1893 Bundaberg produced 23,423 tons (23,798 tonnes) to Mackay's 24,872 (25,271 tonnes). By 1900, some sugar produced in Childers, Maryborough and Tiaro was processed in Bundaberg, and their production statistics were then included with Bundaberg, skewing the statistics in Bundaberg’s favour. In 1900, 59,076 tons (60,023 tonnes) were produced, compared with 17,521 (17,802 tonnes) in Mackay. By that time Ingham had out-produced Mackay with 20,222 tons (20,546 tonnes).[65]
\nDuring 1901-02 the Sunnyside property, including the juice mill site was transferred into the ownership of Edward Turner's eldest son Herbert Turner and son-in-law Henry Cattermull.[66] They had phased-out Islander labour on the property by then.[67] In February 1902, Herbert married Annie Thomas, the daughter of William Thomas, the engineer who designed and managed the Millaquin Mill. They built a house on The Hummock property, Portion 107, which was known in the family as 'Top Farm'. Edward Turner moved to a new property at Maroondan near Gin Gin. Sunnyside was reputedly one of the few plantations in the Bundaberg district able to produce and crush during the drought of 1900-1903.
\nFollowing Federation, the White Australia Policy predicated the end of Islander labour. New acts were introduced by the Commonwealth Government, requiring the end of South Sea Islander recruitment from 31 March 1904 and deportation of all Islanders by 31 December 1906. However there were exemptions for those who had arrived prior to 1879; who had married women not of their race; whose children were being educated in state schools; and those who possessed freehold land or who were fearful of their lives if returned to their former homes.[68] [69]
\nThe Sugar Labour Commission, established to report on the repatriation of Pacific Islanders, took evidence in Bundaberg in April 1906. Frank Courtice, city organiser of the Bundaberg District Workers Union, said he supported the development of the State refinery system and the cutting up of plantations into smaller farms run by individual farmers. This concept was supported by Henry Albert Cattermull, overseer on Sunnyside, who said he had used white labourers since 1902, who were mostly local farmers' sons, and he found them more reliable than itinerant workers. Henry St George Caulfield also gave evidence in relation to the number of Islanders still in the district, which he estimated to be 1100. There had been some problems returning South Sea Islanders to their homes and others were keen to remain in Queensland.[70]
\nDuring the 1893 economic crisis, the Queensland National Bank formed a company known as Qunaba which took over the financially struggling Millaquin refinery. It erected a new juice mill on site in 1906, making the small private juice mills obsolete. Millaquin then acquired numerous other plantations in the early 1900s. Sunnyside sold its cane to Windermere in 1911, and then Millaquin acquired both Windermere and The Hummock by 1912.[71]
\nChanges in Sunnyside's ownership occurred in the early 20th century. Edward Turner died in April 1910, having been thrown from his horse at Maroondan.[72] His property was divided between his son Herbert and son-in-law Henry Albert Cuttermull and his unmarried daughter Gertrude.[73] His second wife Sarah had committed suicide in April 1907.[74] The Sunnyside juice mill was closed down in 1911.[75] In 1922 the Sunnyside Plantation was transferred to Benjamin and Sydney Herbert Courtice.[76] They took out a £6000 mortgage with Cattermull.[77] By that time Cattermull was a local councillor,[78] having been president of the Cane Growers Union formed in 1908.[79]
\nBen Courtice was later Chairman of the Cane Growers Association. Cattermull died in 1935 and the mortgage over the plantation was transferred to his executors. Another of the Courtice brothers, Fred, was an Australian Labor Party member of the Queensland Legislative Council and became Chairman of the Woongarra Shire in the 1940s.[80] Ben Courtice became a Senator in 1937 and was Minister for Trade and Customs from 1946 until 1949.[81] The former Sunnyside plantation remains in the ownership of the Courtice family. The grave of former owner Sidney Thomas Courtice 1/04/1922-13/08/2007) is located under the westernmost of the two mature fig trees on the northern part of the property and is not considered to be of state heritage significance. Some subdivision has occurred on Sunnyside, with a number of large house sites excised along Windermere Road including Lot 5 on RP 179915 in 1981; Lot 7 on RP 893076 in 1995; and Lot 8 on RP 825941 in 1997.
\nThe two mature fig trees on the property were likely to have been planted toward the end of the period that Islanders worked there and were used to mark the entrance to the house (original house no longer extant).
\nWeeping fig trees (Ficus Benjamina) are not native to the Bundaberg region and were known to have been introduced as street trees in Bourbong Street in 1891 (QHR 602065). It is also know that local bank manager, member of the Acclimatisation Society and trustee of the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens, William Fullerton, was cultivating them for distribution around the town in 1897.[82] It is likely the two fig trees growing at Sunnyside today were planted after this time.
\nThe Bundaberg and District South Sea Islanders Action Group was formed in the 1980s to improve understanding of the history of South Sea Islander peoples in the area and their important contribution to the sugar industry, and to locate sites significant to this history. The group has indicated it has a strong association with the fig trees, burials and dry-rubble wall on Sunnyside.[83]
","criteria":"The dry-rubble boundary wall and burial site on the former Sunnyside Sugar Plantation survive as important evidence of the enormous contribution made by South Sea Islanders to the establishment of a viable sugar industry in Queensland. In particular, they remain as testament to their contribution to the development of the sugar industry in the Bundaberg region, one of the major sugar districts in the state. The wall is also important physical evidence of the manual nature of this contribution, for without the availability of indentured labour, Woongarra Scrub farmers could not have converted their lands to an activity as initially labour-intensive as sugar growing.
|The boundary wall, which is approximately 200 metres in length, survives as one of the more intact examples of its type in the Bundaberg district, which around the turn of the century was chequered with such structures. In this sense it is rare.
|The dry-rubble wall and burial site on the former Sunnyside Sugar Plantation are significant for their potential to contribute to further study and better understanding of the role of South Sea Islanders in the sugar industry and Queensland's history; and their burial practices, working conditions and health.
|Although diminished in length, what survives of the dry-rubble wall is substantially intact, and provides a good example of this type of construction employed in the Bundaberg district in the late 19th century.
|The South Sea Islander community of Bundaberg has indicated that this place facilitates a strong and special spiritual association with their ancestors who lived and worked on Sunnyside plantation.
The dry-rubble wall, two fig trees and burial site on the former Sunnyside represent a distinctive phase of Queensland's history and may potentially be used to illustrate events which have had a profound effect on the lives of descendants of the South Sea Islanders and of their communities.
|The dry-rubble wall, fig trees and burial site at Sunnyside have an important association with the exploitation of the large South Sea Islander workforce employed in the Bundaberg district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16458,"place_ref":601703,"name":"Tully Court House","alternate_name":"Tully Courthouse","street_address":"46 Bryant Street","suburb":"TULLY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"A facebrick, T-shaped building on a low rendered brick base, the Tully Courthouse is symmetrical about a gabled front entry porch projecting from an open verandah. The gabled entry front has a central bullseye vent and crisscross balustrading to each side of entrance. The verandah is divided into bays by paired timber posts with decorative capitals and has vertical timber slat balustrading. On line with the entry stairs, two sets of french doors open from the general office and to each side there are two sets of french doors and six-pane sash windows opening from other offices. Horizontal bands of rendered brick extend around the building at window head and sill levels.
Two sets of French doors and three timber sash windows open from the courtroom onto each of the north and south verandahs which are both symmetrical about a set of plain timber stairs. The east verandah is symmetrical about a set of timber stairs onto a verandah with enclosed corner rooms which are accessed from the north and south verandahs. The posts and balustrading are similar on all verandahs. Externally the building is substantially intact.
Fence posts, consistent with the character and age of the building, survive marking the entrance to the site and a recent chain link fence borders that boundary of the site. A palm tree sits within the grounds of the building adjacent to the principal entrance and several other large trees surround the other three sides of the building.
","history":"A low-set, masonry building with timber verandahs, the Tully Courthouse was designed in 1941 during a period when Tully, and other sugar towns in Queensland were experiencing a development boom.
Chinese banana farmers had been clearing and farming along the Tully River from the early twentieth century but settlement in the vicinity of the township of Tully began in 1906 when James Savage selected land on Banyan Creek. The upper Banyan lands were opened for selection in 1912 and the area expanded rapidly after 1924 when the Tully Sugar Mill was erected and the railway extended to the area.
The survey of the town site of Tully, named after the Surveyor General William Alcock Tully in 1870, was completed in 1924. A provisional school was opened in a shed on the Mill site in 1924; the National Bank, the first bank in the town, opened in 1925; the Sugar Mill provided electricity for the town from 1927; Cardwell Shire offices opened in Tully in 1930; the town water supply was completed in 1933; and the Fire Brigade established in the 1940s.
Tully was gazetted under the Police Act as a Police District in January 1925 and the first police station was established in a one-room shack with a post to which prisoners were shackled. Tully was gazetted as a place for holding Courts of Petty Session in 1926 and a former post office building was removed from Banyan to Tully and functioned as a court building until the present Courthouse was completed in 1945.
A modest, low-set, T-shaped, masonry building with timber verandahs to each side, the Tully Courthouse was designed in 1941 as part of the extensive public works building program instigated by the Forgan Smith Government to counter the effects of the Depression. Construction was delayed by the outbreak of World War II and the building was finally erected in 1945.
The Tully Courthouse was designed by Nigel Laman Thomas, an architect in the Department of Public Works whose most notable work includes the former University of Queensland Library at Gardens Point, Brisbane. Tully Courthouse displays formal architectural influences adapted to the tropical Tully climate. The layout and form of the building are characteristic of courthouse design of early twentieth century with a general office and associated offices off the front verandah and a single courtroom space surrounded by verandahs in the main body of the building. A well-composed building with formal qualities, symmetrical massing and repetitive rhythmic detailing give a sober, civic presence to the township.
The building has been in continuous use as a courthouse and public offices since 1945.
","criteria":"A modest, masonry building with discrete timber verandahs, the Tully Courthouse contributes a civic presence to the streetscape.
The Tully Courthouse is important for its association with law and order and the dispensing of justice in Tully since its construction in 1945. Part of a reserve of police and law enforcement buildings, the building demonstrates the early civic history of Tully.
The Tully Courthouse is important for its association with the development of Tully as a commercial and official centre for the surrounding farming district.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a courthouse building of the first half of the twentieth century and the design and plan illustrate the way in which an interwar courthouse operated.
|has special social value for the community for its continued use as a public building.
|The Tully Courthouse is important for its association with the work of Department of Public Works architect NL Thomas and is a fine example of interwar Queensland public works design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16459,"place_ref":601704,"name":"Cook Shire Hall","alternate_name":"Standen's Hall | Standens Hall | Oddfellows Hall | Cooktown Presbyterian Church","street_address":"42 Helen Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-08","description":"Cook Shire Hall is located in Helen Street on the crest of the ridge running south from Grassy Hill, above the main street of Cooktown. The hall, which has a simple rectangular floor plan, runs on an east-west axis on the site which slopes moderately down to Helen Street from the east. It is constructed entirely of timber and sits on timber stumps, with the western end approximately 1m above the ground. It has verandahs on three sides. A medium pitched gable roof sits above the line of the verandahs and is clad in corrugated iron. The gable ends and side walls above the verandah are clad in rusticated weatherboard [chamferboards].
The verandahs are infilled on the north and west sides with timber lattice above a close-boarded balustrade and with weatherboard on the east side. The western verandah is accessed by timber steps located in its centre, and northwest and southwest corners. Over the central stair is a small gable roof that accentuates the main entrance to the hall.
The walls are clad in timber that have a tongue and grove beaded profile inside and a rusticated profile [chamferboard] outside. They are fixed to exposed frames facing onto the verandahs.
A suspended ceiling has been installed which covers the original tongue and groove beaded ceiling. The original ceiling has a flat centre and follows the line of the roof frame at its edges.
","history":"This building was erected in 1907 for the Loyal Captain Cook Lodge of the North Queensland Branch of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society, and served as the Lodge's hall and meeting venue until at least 1936. It is understood to have been hired out for public entertainments during this period also. It replaced an earlier building constructed in 1890 as the Cooktown Presbyterian Church, which was destroyed in the January 1907 cyclone which devastated much of Cooktown.
Title to the site [Lot 122 on plan C1793], a 40 perch allotment in Helen Street on the ridge overlooking the Endeavour River estuary, was transferred in October 1889 to the trustees of the Cooktown Presbyterian Church, whose parish was established that year. Although alienated since 1875, the site appears to have been vacant at the time of transfer to the church trustees, who awarded a contract for the construction of Cooktown's first Presbyterian Church the following March. The building was completed within 5 months and dedicated on 3 August 1890. At this time, output from the Palmer goldfields was declining, and Cooktown's importance as the principal supply port to the interior diminished subsequently. The number of Presbyterian parishioners declined almost as soon as their church was completed, and on 2 October 1892 the charge was declared vacant. The building was used for occasional Presbyterian and Anglican services and by community groups such as the Liedertafel [choir singers] until title was transferred in June 1906 to The Trustees of the Loyal Captain Cook Lodge of the North Queensland Branch of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society.
The Loyal Captain Cook Lodge was established in Cooktown in 1884, meeting in the Town Hall. The Lodge acquired land in Charlotte Street in 1891, but never built on it, instead purchasing the former Presbyterian Church in 1906. Less than a year later the building was destroyed by a severe cyclone in January 1907, but was rebuilt immediately in its present form, apparently to much the same footprint as the original building. Physical evidence suggests some of the timbers from the first building, particularly uprights and verandah posts, were utilised in the second structure. Whether the 8" deep chamferboards date to 1890 or to 1907 has not been determined.
The Loyal Captain Cook Lodge continued to meet in the hall until at least 1936, when the property was sold to Charles Victor Standen, accountant and secretary of the Lodge from c1927 until his death in December 1938. The Standen family were very early residents of Cooktown and had a hardware and timber business in the town. It is likely the Lodge continued to meet in the hall after the sale to Standen, but this has not been verified. Title was transferred to CV Standen in February 1937, and following his death passed to his widow, who made Standen's Hall available for public hire until it was acquired by Cook Shire Council in mid-1951, since which time the building has served as Cooktown's only Shire Hall. It is still used for public entertainment, including film screenings, and in effect is Cooktown's only cinema.
The adjacent allotment [Lot 123 on plan C1793] was never owned by the Presbyterian Church or by the Oddfellows. It was acquired by the Cook Shire Council in 1941, and although now part of the Shire Hall grounds, has not been included in the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register for Cook Shire Hall.
","criteria":"Cook Shire Hall is significant historically for its close association with public entertainment in Cooktown since the first decade of the 20th century. It is Cooktown's only surviving public hall, and has been the venue for most of Cooktown's public entertainments and functions since its construction in 1907, nearly 90 years ago.
|As such, the place has a special association for the residents of Cooktown and the surrounding district as the venue for many memorable local public events, wedding celebrations and general entertainment.
|The place is also significant for its strong association with the work of the North Queensland Branch of the Manchester Unity International Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society in Cooktown, being the property and meeting place of the Loyal Captain Cook Lodge for at least three decades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16460,"place_ref":601705,"name":"Homebush Mission Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Homebush Road","suburb":"HOMEBUSH","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-01-06","description":"The Homebush Mission Hall is a single-storey building of timber and corrugated iron, located a few kilometres to the east of the village of Homebush, about 20kms. south of Mackay. It is situated on the western fringe of a small cluster of cottages and surrounded by canefields. Triangular in shape, the site fronts the Homebush-Eton Road along its northern boundary, and has a cane tram line running parallel to its diagonal boundary to the south-east.
The hall is nestled towards the rear corner of the site, and faces north-east. The site is flat and grassed, with a scattering of mature eucalypts and new plantings, and marked by a fence of bush timber posts.
The building is a simple rectangular form (about 9.3 x 6.1m), with a projecting entry porch. The gabled roof is corrugated iron, with a lean-to roof over the porch. The walls to the body of the hall are also clad in corrugated iron, and punctuated by four tall, narrow windows to each side. These four-pane windows are horizontally pivoting, and retain some of their early hardware. Centred within the gable at each end is a panel of timber louvres to vent the roof space.
The hall is low-set, with timber stumps to the perimeter, and steel posts to the remainder. There are timber steps to the porch and the rear door. The entry porch is open, and clad in weatherboards and timber lattice. In the wall sheeting behind the porch is a V-shaped cut, being evidence an earlier porch had a gabled form.
There are also two windows, matching those of the sides, to the front wall, one each side of the double entry doors. The interior is a single room, with the timber wall and roof framing exposed. The floor is of narrow (about 50mm) hardwood boards. The rear door is boarded and braced, and retains some original hardware. To the far end is a raised timber platform, used as the sanctuary for the church services.
Beside the building is a corrugated steel water tank and timber stand. Also on the site is a empty outside 'thunderbox' toilet (reputedly from the Sarina Mission), some log seats and a corrugated steel toilet block.
","history":"The association of the South Sea Island community with this site began in 1892 when the Colonial Sugar Refining Company donated land from their Homebush holding for a community meeting house.
The Pioneer Valley lay within the southern section of the Kennedy land district. While pastoral land in the Leichhdart and Port Curtis districts was opened for settlement in the early 1850s, the Kennedy was not opened for selection until November, 1859. The first settlers established large runs across the entire Pioneer Valley. By the late 1860s pastoral holdings dominated the district although some land was utilised for agriculture around the township of Mackay.
Twenty years later agriculture, particularly sugar growing, had superseded pastoralism in the valley. Pastoralism declined because sheep were affected by footrot and spear grass and there were no local markets for cattle. Several of the early settlers, struggling to maintain their pastoral holdings, experimented with sugar cane on the rich soil of the valley.
The burgeoning sugar cane industry was greatly assisted by the opening of markets in Europe after sugar supplies were cut during the American Civil War. A further impetus was the establishment of steam powered mills in the district in 1868. By 1878 4,844 acres was under cane in the valley.
Indentured Melanesian labour was used to run the plantations and mills. Over 62,000 Pacific Islanders were contracted as indentured labourers in Queensland between 1863 and 1904. The everyday lives of these indentured labourers was controlled by Europeans, particularly in the area of education. South Sea Islanders mostly received their education through the Mission School System, developed by christian churches throughout the district. These mission schools, established away from the parent church, taught Christianity using full time missionary and Melanesian lay teachers. The school combined religious education with general education. Older people attended Sunday services, baptisms and other church services and were taught to read and write at night classes.
The Homebush Mission Hall was established by the Presbyterian Church on land donated by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company at Homebush. The building, which had been constructed of corrugated iron and timber stumps, supplied by the trustees, looked on to the mill road, which ran along the tramline to the combined road and tramline bridge over Sandy Creek.
The Mission Hall officially came under the trusteeship of Frederick Culverhouse, a butcher of Sandy Creek near Homebush, of Neil Petersen, a farmer of "Marseille" (sic), Homebush and Frank James Stevens, a farmer of "Colston Vale," Homebush on 28 June, 1892. Trusteeship of the hall did not pass to the South Sea Islander community until 1992.
An anti Asian/Islander immigration movement, which had its foundations in the mining fields of southern Australia in the 1850s, had grown in strength and general acceptance by the late nineteenth century. The introduction of various pieces of legislation made the White Australia Policy a fact in law by the beginning of the twentieth century. Specific legislation in 1901 and 1903 restricted the immigration of labourers from the Pacific Islands. A Queensland royal commission in April, 1906 reported on the number of South Sea Islanders to be deported by the end of 1906, while, at the same time, amendments were made to the Federal Pacific Islander Labourers Act to discontinue further immigration from the islands of the Pacific.
North Queensland, South Sea Islander political activists formed the Pacific Islanders Association in May 1901 to protest against the deportation of members of the community. Deportation meant that people who had lived in Australia for many years would be sent back to their country of birth leaving family behind. The Pacific Islanders Association was active for several years with meetings and protest gatherings held in locations such as the Homebush Mission Hall.
In the 1918 cyclone the Mission Hall was severely damaged, almost to the point of total demolition, and was later rebuilt, to face the Homebush Road, with mostly original material and with donations from trustees, Stevens and Petersen, and with a small sum from the Homebush Mill. For the next five decades the Mission Hall served the local community as a place of worship, social gatherings, weddings, Sunday school, picnics, meetings and other entertainment. The regularity of church, Sunday school and social gatherings decreased over the years, as the local population changed.
By the 1970s the hall was no longer in use, and had become dilapidated. In recent years the hall has again become a focus for the local South Sea Island community and is a part of their cultural revival. Many of these people received Sunday schooling there, looking upon the building with great affection and pride.
On 13 January, 1992, the hall came under the trusteeship of the Australian South Sea Islander United Council. A current trustee, Cristine Andrew, has been instrumental in having the building conserved.
","criteria":"The Homebush Mission Hall is an important historical feature in the development, both socially and economically, of the North Queensland region through its strong association with the South Sea Islander labour force which was instrumental in the establishment of the sugar cane industry, particularly in the Mackay District.
|Although similar examples were once common through the region, it is now a rare example of community meeting place of simple vernacular construction methods using timber and corrugated iron.
|It is also recognised by the broader community for its landmark and rude picturesque qualities.
|The Mission Hall is strongly associated with the Islander community as a meeting place for religious, social, cultural, educational and community activities for over a century and particularly as a centre for protest meetings against deportation in the first decade of this century.
|The hall continues to be an important part of Islander community life and the recent major conservation works on the hall is evidence of the continuing significance of this building to the South Sea Islander community of the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16461,"place_ref":601708,"name":"Operations and Signals Bunker (former)","alternate_name":"Temporary Halls of Residence, James Cook University | Stuart Immigration Hostel | RAAF No.3 Fighter Sector Headquarters (3FSHQ)","street_address":"Off Stuart Drive","suburb":"WULGURU","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-28","description":"The Former Operations and Signals Bunker is a rectangular two-storeyed concrete bunker set into the hillside at the base of Mt Stuart. The site is set back from Stuart Drive, which becomes the highway west to Charters Towers, and is about ten kilometres south-west of Townsville's city centre.
The bunker, measuring about 18 x 13 metres, has a flat concrete roof, engaged piers to the side walls and a boarded formwork finish. Remnants of its external camouflage colour scheme, chosen to blend with the pink granite of the hill, are still evident.
The bunker consists of a main room which is two-stories in height, with smaller separate rooms attached to the front. The main room retains evidence of the mezzanine floor, air-conditioning ducts and wc's.
The front section contains some six separate smaller rooms of two levels. Access to the four rooms at the centre is from the exterior and access to the two rooms at the western end is from the main room. The lower of the two western rooms contains the large metal frame of the fuse and telephone cable board with some fuses still visible, which is the only surviving piece of equipment in the structure. Part of the floor of this room appears to be rubble, filling a small tunnel for cables.
To either side of the bunker are two circular structures, possibly bases for communication aerials or anchors for the camouflage net for the bunker. They are some four metre wide and constructed of low stone walls with a conical concrete cap.
Between the bunker, the creek to the north-west and the road to the north-east are several concrete slabs, concrete steps and scatters of building material and other artefacts. These are remnants of other structures of the complex, possibly ablutions blocks and hot water boiler stands.
","history":"The Former Operations and Signals Bunker(3FSHQ) was constructed between 1942 and 1944 for No 3 Fighter Sector Headquarters. Soon after moving to the site in late 1944 the operations of No 3 Fighter Sector Headquarters was subsumed into Air Defence Headquarters operations.
The increase in Japanese military activity in Asia in the late 1930s led the Australian Government to establish air bases in the north of Australia. The Department of Defence began negotiations with the Townsville City Council to transfer the Garbutt aerodrome to the Commonwealth in early 1939. The acquisition was completed on 12 December 1940 and construction of three, 5000 ft, sealed runways began in 1941.
Japanese military activity in the Pacific region increased after the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 7 December, 1941. Faced with the threat of invasion the Australian and American Governments began to develop a major military base in the Townsville Region.
The Garbutt runways, designed for B17 bombers, were completed in February 1942, just prior to the arrival of units of the 5th Air Force, United States Army Air Force. Additional bomber bases were established at Charters Towers and Cloncurry and a number of airstrips for fighter aircraft were constructed between Townsville and Charters Towers.
3FSHQ was first established in temporary accommodation at Townsville Grammar School on 25 February 1942. 3FSHQ Townsville was formed to support airborne units located in the North Queensland area. As the war extended to the islands north of New Guinea, its operational area enlarged to cover the area stretching from Rockhampton in the south to Mount Isa in the west and New Guinea in the north. 3FSHQ controlled fighter squadron operations and coordinated anti-aircraft defences. Radio watches for bomber and reconnaissance aircraft were also maintained from the Operations Centre.
3FSHQ was also connected by telephone and radio to anti-aircraft guns and searchlights, and with RDF stations and high frequency direction finding (HF/DF) stations in the Townsville and Charters Towers area. The role of high frequency directional radio stations was to assist fighter pilots to get their bearings during airborne patrols. The station was linked by telephone to RAAF Headquarters in Melbourne and was responsible for keeping the RAAF Command informed of all developments. The Operations Centre was also responsible for activating air raid warnings. It also provided position plots for courier and civil aircraft operating between Brisbane and New Guinea.
While 3FSHQ was located at the Grammar School from 1942 to 1944 the location was not ideal because it was vulnerable to air attack. Planning for the construction of a new Fighter Sector Headquarters began in 1942. The new complex was constructed on the lower, eastern slopes of Mt Stuart on 68 acres of land requisitioned by the Commonwealth in August 1942. The site was regarded as ideal as it was some distance from the main airfields and the public eye, but still close enough to the various other installations it liaised with. In the event of an enemy raid, its position was such that it would have been difficult to attack, and the area's natural camouflage would have made it difficult to locate.
Construction of the complex began in late 1942 with the Operations and Signals Bunker ready by early 1943. However, by November 1943 the bunker, identified as a semi-underground building because all cabling was laid underground, was not yet occupied because associated accommodation facilities had not been completed. The delay related to the fact that the complex was located some distance from the airfield and there was some question as to whether the facility could provide briefing to air crews in an adequate time frame. Eventually the site become operational in late 1944.
The bunker itself was fully airconditioned and housed its own power plant. The interior had a steel mezzanine floor splitting it into two levels and was divided into 32 rooms and passage ways by caneite partitions. Located within the building was the Operations Room, Engine Room, RDF Filter Room, Voluntary Air Observer Corp (VAOC) Liaison Room, Main Operations Room Dais, Aircraft Movements Section, RDF Supervisors Room, Signal Officers Room, W/T Workshop and PMG Switch Room.
The Administration Section was also moved to the Stuart site and commenced functioning on 29 December 1944. On 25 January 1945 the Royal Australian Airforce established their Air Defence Headquarters in the Stuart complex; from where they operated until 1947.
The complex, except for the bunker, was utilised after the war as an immigration depot and migrant hostel. Additional huts were placed on the site to provide more accommodation for migrants who arrived in large numbers after the war. Many of these migrants have made their homes in North Queensland.
In 1961 James Cook University of North Queensland purchased the site for student accommodation while the residential halls at Douglas were under construction. The bunker was still partially furnished at the time the property was purchased by the university. There was a large mapping table in the main room complete with maps and maps on the wall still had marker pins in them. The switchboards and other communication equipment were still largely intact. Photographs, taken at the time, were deposited with the university.
Soon after, in 1962 or 1963, the interior of the bunker was destroyed by fire. In the early 1970s the site was vacated and the barracks either demolished or removed. By 2003 the university had transferred ownership of the site back to the Queensland Government. The bunker is the only remaining structure on the site.
","criteria":"The Former Operations and Signals Bunker at Stuart, constructed in 1942-3, is significant as the former Headquarters of the Operations Section of No 3 Fighter Sector Headquarters (3FSHQ), who controlled fighter operations and anti-aircraft defences through North Queensland and New Guinea. Occupied by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in January 1945, the Former Operations and Signals Bunker played a pivotal role as the key communications centre for Allied Air Forces, operating out of Townsville during the final months of the Pacific War.
The Former Operations and Signals Bunker is one of a number of WWII structures and complexes which survive in the Townsville area, demonstrating the substantial role the region, and particularly Townsville, played in the war in the Pacific.
|Surrounding the bunker are remnants and material scatter from other structures of the complex, which have the potential to yield further information which will contribute to the understanding of the site.
|The exterior of the concrete bunker is a substantially intact example of its type and retains evidence of the camouflage paint scheme. Part of the fuse and telephone cable board is the only internal equipment to survive.
|The Former Operations and Signals Bunker has special association for the numbers of European migrants who were accommodated in the complex after WWII, many of whom have remained in North Queensland. The Former Operations and Signals Bunker is also associated with James Cook University, when, during the 1960s, in the foundation years of University, the complex was used as temporary halls of residence for students.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16462,"place_ref":601710,"name":"Toowoomba Police Station Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50-52 Neil Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The Toowoomba Police Station is a complex on a large block situated between Neil and Hume Streets, Toowoomba. To the north of the complex is the Toowoomba Post Office (600847) and the former Toowoomba Court House (600848). The Wesley Uniting Church (601695) and, beyond this, the Empire Theatre (600978) are on sites to the south of the building.
The Toowoomba Police Station complex comprises four buildings: a substantial two storeyed face brick Police Station addressing Neil Street; a one storeyed face brick Radio Maintenance building on the northern boundary of the site and, to the rear of this a watch house, comprising a former residence and purpose built watch house. At the rear of the site, addressing Hume Street is a c1980 Court House. Surrounding the buildings on the site are trees and remnants of early gardens.
The principal building on the site is a two storeyed Police Station located centrally on the Neil Street boundary of the site. The symmetrically arranged building comprises a two storeyed front section with a one storeyed wing running eastward from the centre of the rear of the building. To the south of this wing in the open space between the two wings is a recent one storeyed extension. The Police Station is flanked on the Neil Street elevation by face brick fences and gate posts, sections of which have been removed. The complex hipped and gabled roof of the police station is clad with terracotta coloured ceramic tiles. Projecting through the main roof of the building are four substantial face brick chimney shafts with concrete caps and overhanging shallow gabled concrete awnings. As well, a similar chimney shaft penetrates the roof of the rear wing. Generally the building is constructed from loadbearing brickwork and has rendered concrete detailing. The facades of the building are lined on both storeys with verandah loggias formed by large round arched openings. Most of these openings, although originally open have been infilled with glazing.
The principal elevation of the Police Station, addressing Neil Street, is symmetrically composed with a central entrance bay projecting from the face of the building and projecting above the roof line, terminating in a stepped parapet with a concrete fascia. This central bay has a large round arched opening on the ground floor, providing access to a small porch housing the entrance door. The arched opening is surrounded with rusticated concrete voussoirs and has a large corbelled keystone. This concept of an oversized keystone is repeated in a more simple concrete render on the moulded archway above on the first floor. Flanking the entrance bay are loggias on both the ground and first floor. These comprise round arched openings, heavily moulded with moulded keystones on the ground floor and more simply rendered on the floor above. The openings adjacent to the entrance bay on the ground floor have not been infilled and retain a simple painted iron balustrade comprising simple balusters and a central panel of cross braced rails. Flanking this section of the building are recessed end bays which house side entrance doors under a shallow round arched vaulted awning supported on moulded corbels. These openings which are accessed via a small concrete stair with simple iron balustrade, house single six panelled doors with round arched fanlight above. Across the face of the front façade, and the other façades of the building are concrete bands, coincident with the springing point of the arched openings on the ground floor and with the base of the arched openings on the first floor.
The side ends of the building, facing north and south, have many, variously sized round arched openings lining both storeys of the building. Like the arched openings elsewhere on the building, these have concrete rendered surrounds. The rear of the two storeyed section of the building continues the theme of arched openings with concrete surrounds forming loggias, now infilled, and also the concrete banding lining the building.
Extending from the rear of the building is a one storeyed wing with gabled roof. This is constructed from brick and is lined on the northern side with a verandah. The verandah, which would originally have been repeated on the southern side of the wing prior to the construction of a one storeyed extension on that side, is housed under the main roof of the wing. Supporting the roof along the verandah are face brick columns with concrete caps each surmounted by two squat timber posts which extend upward to the eaves line. Integrated with the timber posts is a shallow arched timber valance. A timber battened balustrade lines the verandah.
The principal entrance to the Police Station which is on the Neil Street elevation, is through a double multi-paned glazed door surmounted by a segmented arctic glass fanlight and all surrounded with tinted arctic glass side lights and arch surround. From the entrance access is provided to a small entrance vestibule with a public counter faced with timber panelling and housed in the northern wall. Separating this room from the hallway beyond is a shallow arched opening, recently infilled with painted timber panelling and a security door. The archway is lined with mouldings and features a large corbelled keystone. In the spandrels of the archway on the face of the eastern wall of this room are two plaster rondels. The hallway beyond the entrance hall runs from the northern end of the building to the southern end on both floors of the building. The various areas of the building are demarcated on each of the floors with concrete archways along the length of the halls. The stair hall is centrally located to the east of the entrance hall, on the other side of the central hall and separated by a moulded bulkhead resting on corbels. The concrete stair is a three quarter turn stair with iron balustrade.
Generally the interior of the police station has painted plaster walls, concrete floors lined with carpet, linoleum, and terrazzo in various sections and a ceiling of fibrous cement sheeting housed in a heavy exposed timber frame. The offices on the ground floor are accessed from the central hall way and are generally intact with corner fireplaces of glazed face brick. Lavatories and service areas are located at each end of both floors. The upper floor originally housing a number of larger room has been more altered with recent partitioning and ceilings inserted. The loggias on both floors of the building have been integrated as office space.
A now enclosed verandah and passage lines the rear of the two storeyed section of the Police Station and separates it from the one storeyed wings. The one storeyed original central wing houses a number of small rooms and a large open room toward the eastern end. Although linked at this end to the more recent extension an internal courtyard separates this from the recent extension which houses recreational space.
To the west of the Police Station and on the northern boundary of the site is a simple rectangular planned face brick building, originally constructed as stables but now used as a Radio Maintenance Building. The two ends of the building have pyramidal roofs and a hipped roof extends between these two end bays. The roof is clad with coated metal, clip lock profile, roof sheeting. The ends of the building project from the face of the principal southern façade and the corners of these ends on this face project upward through the roof and terminate in flat parapets. Between the end bays this façade is lined with three metal roller doors with another metal roller door in a concrete extension on the eastern end of the building.
To the east of this structure is a watch house comprising an early residence adjoining a watch house. Both structures are face brick and surrounded by a high face brick fence surmounted by barbed wire security railing. The residence faces westward toward the police station and is an assymterical building with a hipped and projecting gabled roof clad with metal sheeting. The gables features three panel window openings with multi-paned casement windows under an awning supported on moulded corbels. Timber battened bargeboards infill the gables. To the rear of the former residence is a square planned face brick watch house with a number of small high level openings.
A concrete pad to the south of the watch house provides evidence of an early garage recently removed from the site. Remnants of a garden to the south of this provide evidence of another recently removed residence on the site for which this was the garden. Centrally located on the site is an early steel framed awning with pyramidal roof, protecting petrol bowsers. At the eastern end of the site is a concrete and glass Court House dating from c1980. This building faces Hume Street and is separated from buildings at the Police Station complex by a fence and a carpark.
","history":"The Toowoomba Police Station Complex is located on a large site with frontages to both Neil and Hume Streets. It addresses Neil Street and consists of four brick buildings constructed in 1935: the police station, garage, a watch house and watch house keeper's residence.
Toowoomba is the principal town on the Darling Downs which was first discovered by explorer Allan Cunningham in 1827. It was settled by New South Wales pastoralists in search of rich grazing land and by 1844 over twenty stations had been established. The site now known as Toowoomba was eventually considered to be the most suitable location for access down the range and in 1852, a town survey was secured. The establishment of the new town was strongly supported by the squatters and Toowoomba challenged Brisbane as the new capital of Queensland. Although this status was not achieved, the town rapidly developed and by the 1860s had become the centre of pastoral development on the Downs.
A police presence in the form of a lock up and barracks for constables and officers existed from the early formation of the town. The 1880s, a time of economic boom in Queensland, saw an increase in the number of grand public buildings constructed by the Department of Public Works. The construction of the Toowoomba Court House [600848] at the intersection of Margaret and Neil street in the 1876-78 and the Post Office [600847] facing Margaret Street in 1880, were followed by a substantial two-storeyed U shaped brick Police Station, incorporating barracks, lock up and lock up keeper's quarters. It was completed in 1881 on the Neil Street site. Later, two stable buildings, paddocks, a separate lock up keeper's quarters and inspector's residence were added to the site.
In 1915, a simple single-storeyed timber building with an iron roof was constructed at the rear of the main building as quarters for the Senior Sergeant. It originally had an open front verandah, a small front hall, three bedrooms, a sitting room, a dining room across the width of the house, and a kitchen and bathroom at the rear. This modest building is a typical Public Works Department design for a residence within a provincial location, and reflecting the hierarchal importance of the Senior Sergeant in relation to other police personnel. The building was removed during 1997.
In 1935, the buildings on the Police Station site were demolished with the exception of the 1915 Senior Sergeants quarters which was retained in situ, and was used as the police station during the construction of the new building. The project was part of a substantial program of public work being carried out in Toowoomba and district at that time. From January until August in 1935, £15,000 had been spent in public works wages in the area. Prominent work included the new Police Station, improvements at Willowburn Mental Hospital and construction of Toowoomba East State School. Building was not confined to Public sector construction activity. The private sector followed the government's lead, with new construction, extensive remodelling and modernisation of many of Toowoomba's commercial properties.
The new complex of Police buildings was designed by Raymond Clare Nowland, Senior Architect of the Department of Public Works. Nowland studied at Sydney Technical College and the Architectural Association in London after which he was employed by the Commonwealth Government, 1920-26. Nowland then moved to Queensland, practicing as an Architect and Town planner in Brisbane, before commencing work in the Queensland Department of Public Works in 1933 remaining there until 1938. He designed a number of buildings for the Queensland Police including Fortitude Valley Police Station and the Police Barracks in Upper Roma Street. The Toowoomba Police Station Complex was designed as an integrated range of buildings and Nowland incorporated advice from the local constabulary. Suggestions and input were considered from all levels of the service, from the night watch house constable to the Senior sergeant and District Police Inspector. A number of the original designs were amended to accommodate the very specific requirements of the local police including the garage, the watch house and the recreation area of the main Police Station.
The Police Station, a two storeyed brick building with a single storey rear section, incorporated offices for police duties on the ground floor and police barracks on the upper floor. The design allowed for the various police specialty divisions that had begun to evolve in larger urban centres. Offices were provided for the criminal investigation branch, the traffic branch, uniform inquiry men's room, constables' day room, as well as office space for senior staff. A public counter and room for police enquiries incorporated into the design, provided special space for the public to access the police and the many extraneous services located within police jurisdiction.
The single-storeyed watch house and watch house keeper's residence were constructed as separate buildings of coherent design to the main police station. The watch house consisted of cells, charge rooms, laundry, toilet and shower and had an internal exercise yard, creating a compact and spatially introspective building precluding the need for fencing. The watch house keeper's residence was a single-storeyed brick and tile building with a verandah. In 1988 the two buildings were joined and the watch house extended to accommodate more cell space. These alterations allowed the residence to be used as office space and the capacity of the watch house to be increased. A brick fence with barbed wire top was added for further security at this time.
A combination garage/stables with a tile roof was built on the northern boundary to replace the old stables. It contained a garage, stalls, fodder and harness rooms. Cecil Carroll became commissioner of the Queensland Police Force in 1934 and then embarked on the motorisation of the police force. A central motor garage, with trained motor mechanics was established in Brisbane in 1938, making the Toowoomba building an early example of the incorporation of the motor car into the operations of the police force. The original design for the stables incorporated 5 small stables. On the advice from Senior Sergeant J. A. D. Bookless, they were condensed to three 9ft boxes with open fronts that could be used for motor cars and with the introduction of a rail, converted to stable. The placement of the roller doors in this elevation, created space for the secure housing of stolen vehicles after hours. The garage/stable, incorporating both old and new modes of transportation, provides evidence of this transitional period of transport for the police force and the pragmatism that forced the design to incorporate both forms of transport at this time.
Since the inception of the Police Force in the nineteenth century, the police lived and worked within the boundary of the Police reserve. The Toowoomba Police Station Complex reflected the arrangement of the living and working conditions that still prevailed in the 1930s. The location of barracks and other quarters on the same site as the police station provided an obvious law and order presence within the Toowoomba community at all times. This arrangement provided public access to the police force both day and night. The barracks and dormitories indicate the preference for single men in the position of constable
The close proximity of the Court House is indicative of the close relationship in the dual arms of law enforcement, and facilitating transportation of prisoners between the two arenas. The various buildings represent the complexity of services and facilities provided by this station since its establishment last century.
A building of the Justice department, the Toowoomba Court House, is located at the rear of the police reserve facing Hume Street.
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Police Station Complex consists of four brick buildings constructed in 1935; the police station, garage, a watch house and former watch house keeper's residence. The impressive form of the Toowoomba Police Station Complex is indicative of the importance of Toowoomba as Queensland's second city in the urban hierarchy of the state.
|The Toowoomba Police Station Complex demonstrates the multi-functional use of the police reserve to accommodate residences, official duties, remand facilities and transport requirements. It demonstrates the development of services and technologies related to the implementation of law and order in a large regional centre. The complex is an integral part of an important justice and government administration precinct which includes the former Post Office and Court House.
|The Toowoomba Police Station Complex has aesthetic significance and is dominated by a large Police Station, designed to promote the presence of the police in Toowoomba. The other buildings, including the one storeyed Police Station extension are designed to a domestic scale and influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. The site is a precinct of well designed and congruous brick buildings with concrete detailing. The Police Station is a particularly well composed institutional building, with fine detailing.
|The Toowoomba Police Station Complex has a special association with Architect, Raymond Clare Nowland of the Queensland Department of Public Works, as an excellent example of his work during the 1930s.
The Toowoomba Police Station Complex has a special association with Queensland police, demonstrating the evolution of work practices and the changing nature of the lifestyle specifically associated with police force employment in a major regional centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16463,"place_ref":601712,"name":"Sandy Cape Lightstation","alternate_name":"Fraser Island Lighthouse","street_address":"North end of island","suburb":"FRASER ISLAND","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-09-23","description":"The Sandy Cape Lightstation is located in a relatively remote area at the northern end of Fraser Island, surrounded by the natural vegetation of the national park. Fraser Island lies 30 kilometres east of Maryborough and 55 nautical miles east of Bundaberg. The lightstation is situated on a 259 hectare reserve. Sandy Cape is a prominent headland running down to a low sandy point with irregular sandhills covered with vegetation. The northwestern boundary of the lighthouse reserve is marked by the sea, with the track leading up from the beach to the lightstation.
The lightstation contains the following two precincts. The non-residential precinct includes the lighthouse, workshop, office, shed powerhouse, garage inflammable liquid store and bulk store. The residential precinct includes the Head Keeper's Cottage, Assistant Keeper's Cottage, fowl yard and shelter. An item of importance in the vicinity of the lightstation, but which does not fall within a precinct is a small grave site to the south of the lightstation, consisting of several stone headstones surrounded by a low picket or paling fence. The remains of a World War Two bunker are located in a gully some distance from the lightstation. The lightstation is generally linear in layout, but with buildings located along a sandy ridge running approximately northwest to southeast.
The 33 metre high lighthouse is circular in plan constructed of cast ironplates with splayed flanges at the base. The tower is conical in elevation, approximately seven metres diameter at the base, reducing to a diameter of approximately four metres at the lantern room. The structural cast iron plates pare painted white. The lantern room is constructed of cast iron. The domed roof is clad with copper sheeting and painted red.
The two keepers' quarters are timber framed buildings clad with fibro cement sheeting with timber cover battens. The door and window frames are timber. The buildings have fixed upper pane windows with sliding sash below and louvre windows. Modifications to exteriors include ramp access to rear entries.
There are a number of minor buildings on the site. The workshop, office and garage are timber framed buildings, lined with painted fibro cement sheets with cover battens. One of the more recent structures on the site is the power house. This building has brick walls on a concrete foundation. The roof is hipped stainless steel with central vent and metal door and window frames. The inflammable liquid store is also a recent structure. It is very similar in construction to the power house and has brick walls on concrete foundation and a hipped stainless steel roof with central vent and metal door and window frames.
","history":"Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
By 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander George Poynter Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. In the two years following, due to a lack of funds to spend on marine safety, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights, The issue of coastal lights was not taken up until 25 May 1864, when Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to enquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include..the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
A Select Committee was also appointed by the Legislative Council with the more specific field of reference to enquire into and report upon the requirements of this Colony, under its increasing trade and commerce, as to the provision of additional lighthouses for its coasts and harbors.
The reports of both Select Committees were in agreement regarding the necessity of a light at Sandy Cape. Other points where it was considered that lighthouses were required were at Cape Capricorn on Curtis Island, Point Danger or Cape Byron and Bustard Head [601260]. Double Island Point [601722] and Lady Elliot Island [601580] were also mentioned by the Committee as possible suitable sites.
The Sandy Cape Lighthouse, designed by William Pole of Kitson and Company, of England and built by a local firm J & J Rooney, was completed in 1870. A report to the Marine Department's Treasure dated 30th June, 1895, states the initial cost of constructing the Sandy Cape Lighthouse was £4524 with annual maintenance costs of £630.
The contractors for the construction of the tower were J & J Rooney of Maryborough, whose tender of £4524 was accepted. J & J Rooney was a partnership of the brothers John and Jacob Rooney who had established themselves in the timber trade in Maryborough as builders and contractors in the 1860s. Sandy Cape was the first of several lighthouses which J & J Rooney constructed for the Colonial Architect's office over the next decade. Other towers were constructed at Cape Bowling Green, Cowan Cowan, Cape Capricorn and Lady Elliot Island.
Early records indicate that a First Order light was placed in the Sandy Cape lighthouse, although it currently contains a Fourth Order Light, probably installed in 1936. The power of the Sandy Cape light was increased in 1917 and six years later the power of both Sandy Cape and Bustard Head lights was increased and then converted to electric operation in the 1930s. The keepers' cottages at Sandy Cape were replaced in 1935 with the two existing timber framed, fibro clad residences.
Sandy Cape Lightstation was automated in April 1991 and destaffed in June 1994.
","criteria":"Completed by 1870, the second lighthouse built by the Queensland government, Sandy Cape Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast and reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
Sandy Cape Lightstation is associated with Commander George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland (1862-1890), a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. During Heath's time twelve major lighthouses were built along the Queensland coast.
|Sandy Cape Lighthouse is one of only two prefabricated cast lighthouses built in Queensland and is significant for its rarity. The other prefabricated tower being Bustard Head Lighthouse [601260].
|The lighthouse is substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a construction technique using bolted prefabricated segments of cast iron imported from England.
|At 33 metres and the tallest lighthouse in Queensland, Sandy Cape lighthouse is significant as a well-known landmark. With its white tower, capped with a bright red dome and surrounded by the Fraser Island National Park, Sandy Cape lighthouse makes a dramatic visual statement in the natural landscape.
|The place has a strong association with the life of the lightkeepers, their families and maintenance and stores people, who contributed to the continuum of a system dedicated to the single aim of maintaining the navigational aid.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16464,"place_ref":601722,"name":"Double Island Point Lightstation","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Double Island Point","suburb":"DOUBLE ISLAND POINT","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-09-23","description":"Double Island Point Lightstation is located on the highest point of Double Island Point, 70 kilometres north of Noosa Heads. The lightstation reserve is 57 hectares and includes all of the high rocky land at the point.
The site of the Double Island Point Lightstation can be divided into three areas: the Tower Area, the Cottage Area and the Remaining Area.
The tower is framed with hardwood and sheeted with iron plates about 2 mm thick. The footing and ground floor is mass concrete and the lantern floor and balcony are reinforced concrete. The height of the tower to the lantern floor is about seven metres and it supports a standard Chance Brothers lantern of cast and wrought iron with a copper cupola.
The Tower Area includes the tower, watch hut, power house and tank farm. Low dry stone retaining walls have been formed to the east of the tower. This has allowed the creation of a level area around the tower.
The existing track which provides access to the tower area is apparently the position of the 1884 track. It now has concrete wheel tracks to suit the LARCs which were used to supply the station until the mid 1980s.
The tower area contains few trees, and the grass is kept mown. Some introduced flowering plants probably indicate naturalised species from the cottage gardens. Two hoop pines near the first bend of the access track indicate an interest in landmark planting by some past keepers. The tower area is also the site for an anemometer and various radio aerials.
The Watch Hut is framed in hardwood and sheeted with asbestos cement. It has a concrete footing and floor and a corrugated asbestos cement roof.
The Cottage Area includes the two 1933 cottages, the weather shack, the garage and car ports, the workshop and store, the service pits, the flag pole, the stevensons screen and the tow barbecue areas. It is defined by surrounding fire breaks. The cottages are hardwood framed and are sheeted and lined with asbestos cement. Floors are hardwood, raised concrete stumps. The roofs were corrugated asbestos cement, but have been resheeted in colorbond corrugated steel.
The weather shack is timber framed, sheeted with asbestos cement, with a corrugated asbestos cement roof. It has a concrete slab-on-ground floor. It now functions as an office for the keepers, particualry in regard to recording weather observations. The flag pole is made from 75 mm diameter glavanised steel tube, with hardwood gallows set in concrete. It has stainless steel stays. The garage is a brick building with a concrete slab floor and timber framed aluminium sheet roof. At attached carport with galvanised steel tube columns and a hardwood framed roof with corrugated asbestos cement sheleters the keepers private vehicles. It has a concrete floor.
The workshop has a prefabricated galvanised steel frame clad with aluminium sheeting and a concrete floor. It has 240 volt electricity connected. It has a stainless steel bonding strip.
At least one person is buried at Double Island Point. The grave of Fanny Byrne is located at the foot of a depression to the south of the cottages. The grave is marked with a marble headstone and protected by a picket fence.
","history":"Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
By 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander George Poynter Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. In the two years following, due to a lack of funds to spend on marine safety, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights, The issue of coastal lights was not taken up until 25 May 1864, when Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to enquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include..the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
A Select Committee was also appointed by the Legislative Council with the more specific field of reference to enquire into and report upon the requirements of this Colony, under its increasing trade and commerce, as to the provision of additional lighthouses for its coasts and harbors.
The reports of both Select Committees were in agreement regarding the necessity of a light at Sandy Cape. Other points where it was considered that lighthouses were required were at Cape Capricorn on Curtis Island, Point Danger or Cape Byron and Bustard Head [601260]. Lady Elliot Island [601580] and Double Island Point were also among the sites which the Committee indicated as possible suitable sites, however, it was not until the 1880s that the construction of a lighthouse on Double Island Point was seriously considered.
One of the earliest references to Double Island Point by Europeans was in 18 May 1770, when Captain James Cook, on his voyage of discovery in the Endeavour, named the island 'Double Island Point'.
In Heath's 1882 report to Parliament, he states...at Double Island Point a light is required for vessels entering Wide Bay. In January 1883, Heath visited Double Island Point and recommended that the site initially suggested would not have a sufficiently wide outlook. He recommended a light at the top of the headland with the installation of a 3rd Order light. This advice resulted in plans and specifications being prepared, by the Colonial Architect's Office, for a lighthouse and cottages at Double Island Point. Tenders were called, at the end of June 1883, for both Double Island Point and Pine Islet lighthouses.
The contract for the construction of the lighthouses was awarded to WP Clark at a cost of £6900. The figure included costs for constructing the lighthouse at Pine Islet [601268]. The Double Island Point light was first exhibited on 11 September 1884. A report to the Marine Department's Treasure dated 30th June, 1895, states the initial cost of constructing the Double Island Point Lighthouse was £5199, with annual maintenance costs of £484. With the completion of the Double Island Point and Pine Islet lighthouses, Clark had been responsible for five of the nine towers built in Queensland since separation in 1859.
The establishment of the lightstation of Double Island Point is the first, and apart from grazing and recreational fishing, the only use of the site following European settlement of Australia. This use has been uninterrupted from 1884 until the present.
The tower is the only component of the lightstation constructed in 1884 still extant. The light was originally fitted with a Third Order Lens and an oil wick burner. In 1923 the illuminant was altered to a kerosene burner. Ten years later the light was converted to electric operation. The light was automated in 1991, reducing the work of the lightkeeper to that of caretaker, and facilitated the subsequent destaffing of the lightstation.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1884, the 18th lighthouse built by the Queensland government, Double Island Point Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast and reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
Double Island Point Lightstation is associated with Commander George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland (1862-1890), a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. During Heath's time twelve major lighthouses were built along the Queensland coast.
|The area also has the potential to reveal further information about infrastructure associated with the lightstation.
|The lighthouse is substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction, a round timber-framed tower clad with glavanised iron sheets, unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland resources. The use of a timber framed building clad in iron was continued throughout the Colonial Period, following the construction of the timber-framed lighthouse on Lady Elliott Island in 1873.
|Double Island Point Lightstation is significant as a well-known landmark, visible from sea and air approaches. Although a comparatively small structure, the lighthouse has aesthetic value, with the white tower, capped by a bright red dome, isolated against the green foliage of the headland. It makes a dramatic visual statement in the natural landscape.
|The lighthouse is substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction, a round timber-framed tower clad with glavanised iron sheets, unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland resources. The use of a timber framed building clad in iron was continued throughout the Colonial Period, following the construction of the timber-framed lighthouse on Lady Elliott Island in 1873.
|The place has a strong association with the life of the lightkeepers, their families and maintenance and stores people, who contributed to the continuum of a system dedicated to the single aim of maintaining the navigational aid.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16465,"place_ref":601723,"name":"Cape Capricorn Lightstation","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"North eastern tip of Curtis Island","suburb":"CAPE CAPRICORN","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-08-31","description":"The Cape Capricorn Lightstation is situated on the north-east side of Curtis Island, located approximately 40 kilometres north of Gladstone. Cape Capricorn is regarded as the gateway to Keppel Bay.
The Lighthouse
The 6.4 metre lighthouse [1964] has a square plan with chamfered corners. It is constructed on concrete blocks, with a small enclosed porch at the base. The lantern which was originally at the top of the tower has been removed and now a self-contained beacon is mounted on the gallery platform.
Keeper's Quarters
The two keeper's quarters replaced earlier timber framed weatherboard buildings in the late 1930s.
Timber-framed, clad with asbestos cement sheeting with timber cover battens, with hipped roofs clad with corrugated iron, the buildings are of a similar style to the quarters at Lady Elliot Island [1927], Sandy Cape [1935] and Bustard Head [1939]. The buildings retain much of their original form.
Other Buildings
Most of the service buildings are of the same age as the residences, constructed in the late 1930s. The exception is the new powerhouse which is contemporary with the 1964 lighthouse.
The Store is a timber framed building, lined, with painted asbestos cement sheet with cover battens, resting on a high concrete foundation. The structure has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron.
The Old Powerhouse is a timber framed building, lined, with painted asbestos cement sheet with cover battens, resting on a high concrete foundation. The structure has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron.
The New Powerhouse is constructed of concrete block walls on a projecting concrete foundation which forms a plinth. The structure has a projecting flat concrete roof to the main room with a similar lower roof to a small attached porch.
The Winch House is a timber framed building lined with painted asbestos cement sheet with cover battens, resting on a concrete foundation. The building has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. Associated equipment and landscape features include a motor, winch and coiled metal rope, an attached trolley [timber on a metal base] and cement pathway carrying steel rails down the hill to the beach.
There are a large variety of sheds, from medium to small in size, on the site. These are mostly timber framed utility buildings with corrugated iron walls and roof. A concrete helipad is located approximately 120 metres to the south-east of the lightstation. Two auxiliary [lead] lights are located to the west and east of the lightstation complex. One, to the west, is timber framed clad with fibrous cement. The eastern lead light is concrete. The lead lights are not in working order. The remains of the previous lighthouses are located in a gully to the north of the lightstation.
","history":"Constructed to a design by the Office of the Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, the original Cape Capricorn Lightstation was operational by July 1875. The extant lighthouse is the third to be built on the site. Later developments in the 1930s and 1960s included the replacement and refurbishment of the lightkeepers' residences, stores buildings and sheds.
Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
In 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander GP [George Poynter] Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. GP Heath [1830-1921] was born at Hanworth, in Norfolk, England. Late in 1859 as a lieutenant, he applied for the government post of marine surveyor in the new colony of Queensland and was appointed. In his thirty-three tenure of office in what became the sub-department of harbours, lighthouses and pilots, Heath was responsible for supervising the opening of 13 new ports, establishing 33 lighthouses, 6 lightships and 150 small lights and marking the inner route of the barrier reef. In November 1887 he retired from public service because of ill health and later returned to England.
In the two years following the establishment of the Marine Board Act 1862, due to a lack of funds to spend on marine safety, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights, The issue of coastal lights was not taken up until 25 May 1864, when Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to inquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
Due to the significant relationship of Curtis Island to the mouth of the Fitzroy River and the Port of Rockhampton, it was necessary to provide a pilot service for shipping from an early date. Therefore, in 1861, Rockhampton's first permanent pilot station was erected at Cape Capricorn. Three years later, however, it was moved to Grassy Hill, as this was considered to be a more convenient location for the pilots, with its ready access to fresh water and position overlooking the mainland. Despite the establishment of the local pilot station on Curtis Island, the need for a lighthouse at the outer point of Curtis Island was still considered a priority by the colonial authorities.
Early in 1874, FDG Stanley, who had by then been appointed to the vacant position of Colonial Architect wrote that plans for the Cape Capricorn lighthouse had been prepared and that the building would be constructed of hardwood cased with sheet iron. He estimated the cost of the building with cottages to amount to £1460. Tenders were called, but by the closing date [20 February 1874] none had been received in Brisbane and only one in Rockhampton, this was from John Ferguson for £2850, with the work to be completed in twelve months. Stanley commented that his carefully estimated cost was £1600 for the tower and £600 for the two cottages and Ferguson's was greatly in excess of a reasonable sum of work. His recommendation was for fresh tenders to be called for the construction of the tower only and leaving the remainder of the work to be carried out by the government. Two tenders were received in the second attempt.
James Midson of Charlotte Street, with a tender for a total amount of £1046/10/- was successful on this occasion in acquiring the contract. The lighthouse was to cost £549/10/- and the two cottages £497 and were to be completed in fourteen and ten weeks respectively. Midson must have completed the construction some time in October 1874, for on 2 November, Stanley wrote to the Under Secretary, Public Works advising him that the lighthouses and cottages had been framed together in Brisbane and were ready for shipment to the site. He submitted a 'tender' from Midson and Son for the construction of the buildings complete on the site for the sum of £753. It would appear that tenders were not called from the general public by means of the Government Gazette so that Midson and Son likely made a private offer or quotation to erect the buildings on the site at Cape Capricorn.
The Executive Council approved of Midson and Son's offer whereby as stated in the Memorandum of Agreement they agreed
'to provide the materials for and perform the various works required in the construction and erection of a lighthouse and cottages at Cape Capricorn at or for the sum of seven hundred and fifty three pounds, and has agreed to complete the same within three months from the date of the acceptance of the tender.'
The May Queen [Quinlan & Co] was chartered to convey the prefabricated buildings and the various ancillary effects from Brisbane to Cape Capricorn. The tender for this service was £40/- ton and Stanley estimated that 150 tons of materials would have to be transported. Incredibly, the construction of the lighthouse did not take into account the inclusion of the fitting up of a lamp room, lantern and associated apparatus. As a result, Stanley on reporting the estimated completion by 19 June 1875, requested authority for the expenditure of £180 to rectify the omission. Initially, it had been intended by the Portmaster that the lamp room was to have been made of cast iron and sent from England with the lantern. This arrangement, however, was altered at the last minute, resulting in the tower having no lamp room. Stanley, describing the work as urgent, stated that it would be necessary to provide for the construction of a lamp room with iron galleries in timber framing with iron plating.
Midson having completed his contract to the 'full satisfaction' of the Colonial Architect's Office, had the 'detention money' on the contract returned to him on August 1875. It may be estimated that the lighthouse was complete and the light operating in late July 1875. Besides the lighthouse itself, two other lights were operating at Cape Capricorn. In 1895, a survey of Queensland's existing marine safety measures included entries for two small auxiliary lights, both fixed, located to the north and south-east of the main lighthouse.
Throughout the rest of the 19th century, the Cape Capricorn lightstation was serviced from Rockhampton. A steamer, the Fitzroy, was constructed in Maryborough in 1879, and then acted as a regular link between Rockhampton's port and the lighthouses and beacons at Cape Capricorn, North Reef, Pine Islet and Broad Sound. The delivery of supplies to lightstations was often a precarious and difficult business, with Cape Capricorn being no exception. There, supplies which were brought to the base of the hill by steamer, had to be winched up over 91 metres of jagged rocks.
In 1912, a major assessment of all the lightstations and beacons along Australia's north-east coast was made by Commander Brewis. The report contained not only an assessment of the existing marine safety network, but also provided recommendations to facilitate the standardisation and rejuvenation of the whole system which was brought under the control of the Federal government from July 1915. A summary of Brewis' recommendations was that the power of the light be increased, the auxiliary light on the eastern side to be moved and adjusted, renovation of the lightkeepers dwellings and 'extensive tramway repaired and the steam winches supplied.
It took some time for Brewis' recommendations to be implemented at the many surveyed sites along the coast-line, and it was not until 1923 that the first alterations were made to the light. At this time, the original oil wick burner was replaced by a 55mm incandescent kerosene mantle. Thirteen years later, plans dated 3 January 1936 were prepared for the conversion of the light to electric operation. In the same year, the Commonwealth government decided to replace the whole of the tower at Cape Capricorn with a new concrete block lighthouse six metres in height. Plans for this new building were prepared on 21 September 1937. It appears that an engine house was included at the base of the tower. Part of the base of this tower survives adjacent to the new powerhouse.
The new lighthouse had a square plan, with a circular cantilevered balcony and a small circular lantern above. This lantern had a different fenestration from the original, and a squatter, less round, roof. Other buildings at the lightstation also underwent changes in the late 1930s. The residences and service buildings were also replaced then. The two new residences were timber framed with asbestos cladding, and the service buildings (including the old powerhouse, store and winch house) had a similar construction.
Plans for a new lighthouse to be erected at Cape Capricorn were prepared in July 1963. A concrete engine had already been designed in the previous year, on 9 January 1962. These two buildings appear to have been completed by 1964. It is not clear why the relatively recent lighthouse and powerhouse of 1937 needed to be replaced so soon. Four years later, in 1968, the optical apparatus was converted to 240V AC operation.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Cape Capricorn served as the base radio station of the lightstation network which included North Reef, Lady Elliot, Pine Islet and Dent Island. In effect, this meant that the personnel at Cape Capricorn were responsible for the well being and continued operation of these lightstations and the provisions or organisation of assistance should any accidents or problems have arisen at these stations. On 18 December 1978, the role of base station was transferred from Cape Capricorn to Bustard Head. The latter lightstation had already been provided with computer equipment for monitoring the newly decommissioned North Reef lightstation, and was subsequently allocated the role of key monitoring and communications station for the area. Also, at this time, Cape Capricorn's experienced head keeper Harold Simpson was moved to Bustard Head to continue his role as communications officer. In August 1988, the power of the station was again converted, this time to solar energy.
In 1983, the Commonwealth government prepared a report, Lighthouses: do we keep the keepers, making as assessment of the relative significance of the buildings at the site , with a view to putting the consequences of de-staffing into perspective. The Cape Capricorn lightstation was included in a group of 24 lightstations, were it was found that that economic benefits of de-staffing outweighed the social and other benefits, therefore, the removal of a presence at the lightstation was thought to be justified.
During the early 1990s, the property was transferred to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for four years, but in 1995 reverted to the ownership of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The property passed into the ownership of the State government in July 1997. A caretaker is currently occupier one of the lightkeepers residences.
","criteria":"Established by 1875, with further development in the 1930s and 1960s, the Cape Capricorn Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast and reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
The Cape Capricorn Lightstation is significant for its association with Commander George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland [1862-1890], a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. Heath was responsible for supervising the opening of 13 new ports, establishing 33 lighthouses, 6 lightships and 150 small lights and marking the inner route through the Barrier Reef.
|Established by 1875, with further development in the 1930s and 1960s, the Cape Capricorn Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast and reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
|Located on a commanding position high on a promontory with a panoramic view of the surrounding ocean, the Cape Capricorn Lightstation is important for its strong aesthetic significance.
|The Cape Capricorn Lightstation is especially significant for its strong association with the life of the lightkeepers, their families and maintenance and stores people, who, for more than a century, contributed to the continuum of a system dedicated to the single aim of maintaining the navigational aids.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16466,"place_ref":601724,"name":"Booby Island Lightstation","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Booby Island","suburb":"BOOBY ISLAND","lga":"TORRES SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-11-09","description":"Booby Island Lightstation is located on Booby Island. The island is part of the Prince of Wales Group off the tip of Cape York, 34 kilometres west of Thursday Island. The lightstation complex comprises the whole island (6.07 hectares).
The red-domed, white conical tower is timber-framed and clad in galvanised iron sheeting and stands 16 metres high. The domed roof is sheet copper fixed to cast iron open web joists. The roof is topped by a rounded knob and weather vane.
The three keeper's quarters are timber framed buildings clad with weatherboards and asbestos cement sheets. Other buildings in the precinct include a glasshouse, associated with keepers quarters 3. The timber framed building has external walls constructed of concrete block and the roof of corrugated asbestos cement. The workshop is timber framed with asbestos cement sheet walls and corrugated asbestos cement roof.
Other buildings include office and radio equipment building, with hardwood timber frames, external walls of painted concrete blocks and a corrugated asbestos cement roof.; the relief quarters, with a timber frame, asbestos sheeting on external walls and a corrugated asbestos cement roof; the radio beacon transmitter building, constructed from concrete blocks with timber framed doors and aluminium hopper windows; the power house, concrete block construction with corrugated zinc sheeted roof; the fuel store, built from concrete blocks with corrugated zinc sheeted roof and the tide gauge enclosure, built from fibre cement sheeting with a galvanised metal deck. It is timber framed with aluminium louvre mechanism.
","history":"Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
By 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander George Poynter Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. In the two years following, due to a lack of funds to spend on marine safety, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights, The issue of coastal lights was not taken up until 25 May 1864, when Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to enquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include..the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
A Select Committee was also appointed by the Legislative Council with the more specific field of reference to enquire into and report upon the requirements of this Colony, under its increasing trade and commerce, as to the provision of additional lighthouses for its coasts and harbors.
The reports of both Select Committees were in agreement regarding the necessity of a light at Sandy Cape. Other points where it was considered that lighthouses were required were at Cape Capricorn on Curtis Island, Point Danger or Cape Byron and Bustard Head [601260]. Double Island Point [601722] and Lady Elliot Island were also mentioned by the Committee as possible suitable sites.
It was readily agreed that there was a need for a shipping service in the Torres Strait. The colony's first parliament had passed a resolution in 1860 favouring direct connection with England via the Straits, however, a ship was not chartered to perform the service until 1865. Financial recession a year later ended regular navigation through the Straits and it was not recommenced until 1873. After 1880, the British India Company's Northern trade rapidly expanded and as a cargo service the Company's success was unqualified. It was described as ushering in a new era of progress for the colony.
Heath recommended that a lightstation be constructed on Booby Island at the Inter-Colonial Conference in 1873. Despite the recommendation, the light on Booby Island was the last of the major lights to be constructed along the Queensland coast. It was not until August 1885 that Heath, again referred to Booby Island. Heath considered that due to increased trade through the strait and the establishment of new traffic channel westward of the Prince of Wales Islands, a light was now urgently needed.
Following a series of delays, formal approval for a lighthouse on Booby Island was granted in 1889, when, in April of that year, tenders were called. The contractors for the construction of the tower were J & J Rooney of Maryborough, whose tender of £3329 was accepted. J & J Rooney was a partnership of the brothers John and Jacob Rooney as builders and contractors in Maryborough. The Company had established itself in the timber trade of Maryborough in the 1860s and by 1868 had successfully tendered for the Sandy Cape lighthouse on Fraser Island. Sandy Cape was the first of several lighthouses which the Rooneys constructed for the Colonial Architect's office. Other towers were constructed at Cape Bowling Green, Cowan Cowan, Cape Capricorn and Lady Elliot Island.
A report to the Marine Department's Treasure dated 30th June, 1895, states the initial cost of constructing the Booby Island Lighthouse was £6500, with annual maintenance costs being £528. The light was first exhibited on 24 June 1890.
The residences built in 1890 for the lightkeepers and their families underwent renovations in the 1920s and the 1960s, and remain on site. The light was upgraded in 1917 and converted to electric operation in 1963. A radiobeacon was established on the island in 1961 and a tide gauge installed in 1970. Conversion to solar power was undertaken in November 1991 and the light was automated in 1992. As a result the Chance Brothers lens and cast iron pedestal were removed to the Thursday Island Museum.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1890, the 23rd lighthouse built by the Queensland government, and still in use as part of the coastal navigation system, Booby Island Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast. The establishment of the Booby Island Lightstation reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
Booby Island Lightstation is associated with Commander George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland (1862-1890), a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. During Heath's time twelve major lighthouses were built along the Queensland coast.
|Intact lightkeepers' houses from the nineteenth are a rare occurrence and add to the significance of Booby Island Lightstation.
|The lighthouse is substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction, a round timber-framed tower clad with galvanised iron sheets, unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland resources. The use of a timber framed building clad in iron was continued throughout the Colonial Period, following the construction of the timber-framed lighthouse on Lady Elliott Island in 1873.
|Located on Booby Island in the Torres Strait, and visible from sea and air approaches Booby Island Lightstation is significant as a well-known landmark. Although a comparatively small structure, the lighthouse has aesthetic value, with the white tower, capped by a bright red dome, the lighthouse makes a dramatic visual statement in the natural landscape and is significant for its evocative attributes.
|The place has a strong association with the life of the lightkeepers, their families and maintenance and stores people, who contributed to the continuum of a system dedicated to the single aim of maintaining the navigational aid. The accumulated equipment and buildings are representative of more than 100 years of occupation, including, three surviving timber-framed, nineteenth century lightkeepers' houses. Intact lightkeepers' houses from the nineteenth are a rare occurrence and add to the significance of Booby Island Lightstation.
|Booby Island is also associated with Captain James Cook and William Bligh. Booby Island was so named, due to the presence of the bird population, by Cook in 1770 and again by Bligh in 1789 during his boat journey following the mutiny on the Bounty.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16467,"place_ref":601725,"name":"Plumb's Chambers","alternate_name":"Medical Hall | Plumbs Chambers","street_address":"84 Fitzroy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-11-03","description":"Plumb's Chambers is a two-storey sandstone building fronting north onto Fitzroy Street near its intersection with Palmerin Street, the main street of Warwick. It complements other adjacent sandstone buildings including Warwick Police Station and Court House [QHR 600948] and Warwick Uniting Church [QHR 601757], and overlooks Leslie Park [QHR 600946] across Fitzroy Street.
\nThe front part of the building is a rectangular two-storey core with a hipped roof. Spanning the front is a wide two-storey timber framed verandah that shelters the footpath. Across the back of the core is a wide one-storey sandstone lean-to portion. Projecting from the rear of this is a one-storey rendered masonry and timber-framed and -clad former service wing with a gable roof. Beneath this extension is the remains of a brick beehive water tank concealed under a concrete slab. All roofs are clad with corrugated metal sheets while ogee gutters with acroteria surround the core and verandah. A tall sandstone chimney projects from the main roof and has moulded cornice and three arched cowls. The sandstone is in ashlar courses and has a tooled face. Haig Avenue, a short narrow lane, runs directly beside the building on its western edge and on the eastern side is a shared easement that provides access to the rear yard and to the adjacent shopping centre.
\nThe front verandah is an accurate reconstruction performed in c2015-7 and has stop-chamfered timber posts and a skillion roof. The posts of the ground floor have mouldings and a slatted timber board valance. The footpath ceiling is ripple iron. The upper level of the verandah has a dowel balustrade and scrolled timber post brackets.
\nThe front elevation has three separate entries from the footpath: one for the large former grocer’s shop at the eastern end, comprising a recessed set of panelled timber French doors with bolection moulding and a fanlight, flanked either side by large multi-paned timber-framed show windows; one for the former chemist shop in the centre comprising a panelled timber door with bolection moulding and a fanlight with ‘Plumb’s Chambers’ applied to the glass and a large timber framed show window; and the former residence entrance at the western end, comprising a panelled timber door with bolection moulding and a small fanlight beside a domestically-scaled timber-framed double-hung window. The entrances are one step up from the footpath and above them runs a frieze of moulded timber panels across the width of the facade. The first floor has four sets of panelled timber French doors, with bolection moulding and glazing that lead out from the front rooms of the first floor onto the verandah.
\nThe eastern side elevation includes two small, high fixed, timber-framed windows with iron bars on the ground floor and two doors into the building. There is a door-sized opening on the first floor that has modern timber-framed and glazed infill. The western side elevation has a series of domestic-sized timber-framed double hung sash windows on the ground and first floor. Within a wide central recess of the lean-to structure is a rear entrance from the yard into the building, via a set of French doors. Beside this entrance is a modern entry with glazing.
\nThe gable roofed extension has been more heavily modified on its eastern side and comprises a narrow verandah with a concrete floor and timber posts sheltering a verandah wall clad with chamferboards that has modern aluminium louvered doors and a row of high-set, timber-framed, fixed windows.
\nThe layout of the ground floor retains original dividing walls between the three tenancies. These have had large openings made in them to connect the spaces. The ceilings are lined with beaded timber boards and a double-sided fireplace with timber mantle and surround survives in the western rooms. The interior partitions have been relined with flat sheet and new partitions and doors have been added. The rear extension does not retain original partitions and has been altered to accommodate toilets and store rooms.
\nA recent L-shaped stair leads to the first floor. This level has a more intact layout comprising a central transverse corridor with rooms opening off on either side. The ceilings are beaded timber boards with central vented cast metal rosettes. The doors have glazed fanlights but the leaves have been replaced with replica panelled timber doors.
\nAn early narrow steep timber stair with turned timber balusters and simple timber handrail leads to the attic. This space is used as a store for early fabric removed from elsewhere in the building, including a timber fire surround, glazed fanlight with painted ‘Plumb’s Chambers’, verandah valance board and section of verandah balustrade, metal rosette, doors, and other items.
\n","history":"
Plumb's Chambers is a substantial, two-storeyed stone building at 84 Fitzroy Street, constructed in 1875 for Warwick chemist and seedsman David Clarke. Known as Clarke’s Medical Hall, this building functioned as shops and residential space on the ground floor with further residential accommodation above. The rear service wings were a later addition. From 1910, an adjacent brick and timber two-storey shop of a similar age, was jointly owned and also functioned as a shop house. The two buildings became known as Plumb’s Chambers during the second half of the 20th century. The brick and timber building was demolished in 2014 and the stone building subsequently restored.
\nWarwick was established as the business centre for the southern Darling Downs, an important pastoral district discovered and named by Allan Cunningham in 1827. It was first settled by the Leslie Brothers in 1840 who were closely followed by other graziers. The town of Warwick was surveyed by James Burnett in 1849, with the first sale of crown land in July 1850. Warwick was declared a municipality in 1861, and was subsequently transformed from a squatters' town into the principal urban centre of this prosperous pastoral and agricultural district. The construction of the railway linking Brisbane, Toowoomba, Warwick and the tin mines of Stanthorpe, reached Warwick in January 1871, and fuelled further growth.[1] Albion Street was initially the main centre of public and commercial activity. These activities were gradually relocated to Palmerin, Fitzroy and Guy Streets during the 1880s because Albion Street was often subject to flooding. The 1887 flood led to Palmerin Street becoming the main street.[2]
\nThe building at 84 Fitzroy Street was erected in 1875, during the town's first building boom. From the late 1860s through the 1870s, early timber slab structures were replaced by brick and stone buildings. Warwick had access to quality building stone from a number of nearby locations. As early as 1861, when the first Queensland census was taken, Warwick boasted 16 stone houses. John McCulloch and J McMahon established stone masonry businesses in 1863 and by 1864 two local quarries were supplying 28% of Queensland’s sandstone. Ten years later, facilitated by rail transport, 87% of Queensland’s sandstone was taken from four quarries in the Warwick district.[3]
\nA number of early timber public buildings in Warwick were replaced in stone from the late 1860s; some do not survive, including the hospital (built as a private home in 1862); the Post Office (1869) and the Lands Office (early 1870s), both in Albion Street. Existing stone buildings from this era include: Pringle Cottage (McCulloch’s home dating to circa 1860-70) [QHR 600945]; a small shop and residence known as The Commonage (late 1860s or early 1870s) [QHR 600944]; St Mary’s first Catholic church (1863-65) [QHR 600958]; St Mark’s Anglican Church (1868) [QHR 600943]; Warwick Uniting Church (built as St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in 1869-70) [QHR 601757]; Warwick Central State School (1875) [QHR 602497]; and Olsen’s Hardware (built as Tulloch’s Central General Store (1876) [QHR 601756]. By 1886, there were 14 stone masons working in Warwick as opposed to four bricklayers; and the proportion of masons employed was higher than those in Toowoomba. Warwick’s sandstone buildings indicated prosperity and importance, which reinforced its position as the major town on the southern Darling Downs.[4]
\nThe site on which Plumb’s Chambers stands, was initially part of allotment 12 of section 21 in the Town of Warwick (comprising 2 roods), which first sold at auction in September 1857 for £4. In 1866, title to the whole of the allotment passed to Frederick Hudson, publican of Warwick, who purchased the land for £40. It is not known whether improvements had been made to the property by this date. Hudson transferred the property to his wife Margaret, who subdivided the block into three parts, selling off the western and eastern subdivisions in 1868. The western part of the allotment, about 29 perches, (later subdivision 1) was sold for £60 to David Clarke, chemist and druggist of Warwick, and title was transferred to him in May 1868.
\nClarke, an Irish Protestant emigrant and dispensing chemist since c1856, arrived in Warwick in 1867. During the next 15 years he played an important role in the development of agriculture in the Warwick district, at a period when powerful local pastoralists were still strongly opposed to opening the land to selection. Clarke actively promoted the expansion of agriculture on the southern Darling Downs, specialising in the importation of seeds (including cotton and Indian wheat) and fruit trees likely to succeed in the district. In late 1867 he instigated the formation of the highly successful Eastern Downs Horticultural and Agricultural Association, established in October that year. This was the fourth agricultural association established in the Colony of Queensland.[5] Clarke was the Association's first secretary, and retained that position for well over a decade. In the early 1880s Walter Hill, curator of the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane, said of David Clarke that he had ‘done as much to foster and encourage agriculture as any man he knew of in the colony, and who had placed the district under considerable obligation to him.’ Clarke also took an active role in establishing the Wesleyan Church and was nominated for the 1880 Warwick town council elections.[6]
\nIn May 1867, Clarke had established a wholesale and retail drug, grocery and seed warehouse in Warwick in rented premises at the corner of Fitzroy and Albion Streets, opposite the first Bank of New South Wales. By October 1869, Clarke's business had proved so successful that he was able to separate the drug and seed departments from his grocery business, moving the former into a purpose-built addition which opened on 15 November 1869 as the Medical Hall. In the early 1870s, business expanded, with a branch opened at Quartpot Creek (Stanthorpe), following the discovery of tin early in 1872. This branch seems to have been short-lived as his shop was reportedly taken over by the Lands Office in July 1872. In the meantime he relocated his entire Warwick building across Fitzroy Street in May 1872.[7]
\nClarke's success in Warwick as a dispensing and manufacturing chemist and seedsman culminated in 1874 with the selling of his grocery business to George P Barnes (formerly Clarke's assistant) and William Lavers in October, and the construction of substantial new stone premises[8] on the Fitzroy Street land he had acquired in 1868 from Margaret Hudson. The site overlooked the Reserve Square; now Leslie Park [QHR 600946].
\nThe new Medical Hall must have been well under construction when Clarke called tenders for the carpenter's work in October 1874 and the plasterer's work in January 1875. In late February 1875, Clarke advertised for sale the portable building then occupied by his chemist shop in Fitzroy Street, the location of which is not clear.
\nClarke’s new two-storeyed stone building was substantial and made a prominent contribution to the streetscape. It was reported as complete in May 1875 and described as the largest stone structure in town at the time. It had a 50 foot (15.2m) frontage to Fitzroy Street, a depth of 48.5 feet (14.8m) and a height from floor to roof of 23 feet (7m). The dressed stone walls were 18 inches (0.45m) thick and the roof was of galvanised iron. The ground floor comprised two shops. Clarke’s chemist shop, 30 feet (9m) by 13 feet (4m), with a laboratory and dispensing room behind, and Messrs Barnes and Laver’s grocery store, which was 30 feet (9m) by 20 feet (6m). There was a sitting room, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor. A wide staircase led to the upper floor, comprising four bedrooms, two sitting rooms and a large library or study, 30 feet (9m) by 20 feet (6m). Most rooms had fireplaces. The large balcony offered extensive views. An underground tank supplied water to the bathroom and kitchen by a force pump; and may have supplied the dispensary on the ground floor of the building.[9] (This tank was discovered and documented during construction of a new sewer main as part of restoration work that occurred in 2015.)
\nBy August 1877, Barnes and Lavers had moved out, but two grocery shops as well as the Medical Hall were operating on the ground floor from August 1877 to March-April 1878. Retailers in nearby premises frequently advertised themselves as 'adjoining' or 'adjacent' to David Clarke's chemist shop, including Chinese oysterman John Kee Chow.[10]
\nIn July 1881 David Clarke passed the running of his business to his son, Charles De Lacy Clarke, also a licensed chemist, and moved to Maryborough.[11] Charles Clarke then took over the Medical Hall in his own name, but by September/October 1882 had purchased a business in St George, advertising the Warwick building for rent. At that period the main building comprised 15 rooms, with a large shop and storeroom on the ground floor, residential accommodation on the first floor, bathroom, kitchen, stables, coach-house and a large underground water tank with pump.
\nDespite an attempt in June 1893 by David Clarke's mortgagor, the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Co. Ltd, to sell the property, the title remained in Clarke's name; presumably due to the economic downturn of the early 1890s. The building continued to be leased, with S Benjamin and Co, wholesale wine and spirit merchants, occupying one of the shops from 1898.[12] In 1902-3, H D Stenz operated the premises as a ‘Coffee Palace’, as well as offering accommodation and meals.[13]
\nDuring the period 1883-1909, the property was let either as a house, store or both. Tenants included Dr William Tilley, surgeon at the Warwick hospital, from 1887-89; Mrs WD Wilson, storekeeper and widow of a former Warwick businessman and Mayor, 1891-94; and S Benjamin, wine and spirit merchant, stayed on until at least 1904, and possibly later. The property was offered for sale in 1907 and was described as a substantial stone building of 18 rooms, with access from the lane on the western side.[14]
\nBy this time, Fitzroy Street featured a number of stone buildings: St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church built in 1869-70 [Warwick Uniting Church QHR 602479]; the Courthouse (1885) and Police Complex (1899-1901) [QHR 600948]; and a two-storey Bank of New South Wales once on the corner of Fitzroy and Palmerin Streets (1887, demolished).[15]
\nIn November 1909, the stone building was transferred to retired Freestone farmer and grazier, James Wilson. Wilson occupied the property as his town residence for less than a year before his death in September 1910. He also owned the smaller brick and timber building dating to at least 1878, adjacent at No 82 Fitzroy Street. In mid-1910, Wilson received building permission from the Warwick Town Council to erect a balcony over the footpath in front of his stone building,[16] and was in the process of carrying out what were described in the local press as extensive alterations to his home, when he collapsed. It is thought that the front balcony and some renovations to the rear service wing date to this period.
\nIn 1914, title to both buildings passed to Warwick bootmaker James Plumb and his wife Jamesina. Plumb was active in the masonic movement, and served as Worshipful Grand Master of St George's Lodge in Warwick. He operated his bootmaker’s business from one of the shops. A grocery shop was reported operating in 1919 adjacent to Plumb’s bootmaker, but it is unknown if this referred to the stone building or the brick and timber building. Plumb resided and worked at the Fitzroy Street premises until his death in February 1933, and his widow continued to occupy one of the buildings. Towards the end of 1933, she was offering the shops for rent and unfurnished rooms in Parkview Residential. Later both buildings were simply known as Plumb’s Flats.
\nMrs Plumb died in 1948 and the properties were transferred to her nephew and niece; Joseph and Margaret Bryant. Margaret (known as May) married John (Jack) Hill, a lodger at Plumb’s Flats, in 1952.[17] In 1955 the properties were transferred to Mrs Hill.[18] May and Jack lived with their son in No 82, Fitzroy Street (demolished 2014). Jack died around 1960 and May carried on alone.[19] During May Hill’s occupation, both No 82 and No 84 became known as Plumb's Chambers, honouring her aunt and uncle. She lived at No 82 well into her old age. The building has been home to an array of businesses over time including Theo Cantor’s drapery store, law firms, stationers, real estate agents, furniture retailers and the State Government Insurance Office.[20]
\nThe properties were transferred to Rose City Centre Pty Ltd in 2009. Demolition of No 82 (due to its poor structural condition) occurred during October 2014, and subsequently work began on the restoration of No 84. This work involved rebuilding the deteriorated front verandah to recreate its c1910 condition, refurbishment of the interior to accommodate commercial office use on both levels, and conservation and structural stabilisation of the exterior stonework. During this process in 2015, the original beehive-shaped underground brick water tank was revealed, documented and re-buried under the central cubicle of the men’s toilet.
","criteria":"Plumb’s Chambers, an 1875 two-storey stone building, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Warwick from a squatters’ town to the principal urban centre of Queensland’s southern Darling Downs. The area was established as a prosperous pastoral and agricultural district during the late 1860s and 1870s. The building is indicative of Warwick’s first major building boom, as local quarried sandstone structures became a feature of the town. Plumb’s Chambers is a rare example of a 1870s stone shop house in Queensland.
|Plumb’s Chambers is an important example of an early two-storey stone shop house built in Queensland in the 1870s. It retains the principal characteristics of the type including: an arrangement of retail, store, and residential spaces integrated into one building; separate entrances and circulation for its different uses; and retail shop windows facing the footpath.
|Plumb’s Chambers’ has aesthetic significance as a well composed two-storey stone building and expresses the prosperity and confidence of Warwick at the time of its construction. In its form, scale and materials, it makes an important streetscape contribution, complementing other 19th century stone buildings in Fitzroy Street and the adjacent Leslie Park.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16468,"place_ref":601728,"name":"Brisbane Central Technical College (former)","alternate_name":"Queensland University of Technology (QUT 1987 to present) | Queensland Institute of Technology (1965-1987) | Gardens Point campus - QUT","street_address":"2 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-27","description":"Overlooking the City Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067], the former Brisbane Central Technical College sits between Parliament House [QHR 600069] and Old Government House [QHR 600118] at the southeast end of George Street. From a group of nine purpose-built buildings designed and constructed for technical education classes between 1909 and 1956, six, bold, red face brick buildings remain from the 1909 master plan along with three extensions to the original Workshops block. A later addition, the imposing, two-storey, red face brick neo-Georgian former Library building faces the Main Drive adjacent to the kidney lawn of Old Government House.
\nBlocks A, E, F, G, H and J with its extensions Blocks K, R and W, are buildings of two to four storeys of an industrial character in a confident, restrained, simplified classicism characteristic of the Arts and Crafts idiom. The buildings are grouped around the original central courtyard now paved and landscaped with planted beds. A Block faces the Main Drive and is a landmark building at the main entrance gate to the campus. E, F, G and H blocks are grouped around the courtyard. J Block and extensions form a visual and physical close to the courtyard and are on the alignment of the roadway to the rear of the campus. U Block extends down the Main Drive preserving the alignment of the original master plan along this roadway.
\nBlocks A, E, F, G, H and J are unified in their general elevational treatment, materials and detailing. All are red face brick with contrasting features in dark red brick including relieved quoining, arched entrance porches, flat arched window heads and banding to floor levels. The original building department name appeared in metal lettering in an Art Nouveau style within a carved stone tablet above the entrance porch to each building. Only \"Chemistry\" on the east entrance to E Block survives.
\nThe central courtyard formed by the building group is a compact light, airy space. The pathways between the buildings provide visual and physical links with the courtyard and with the other buildings. The position of building entrances and corridors indicate the proposed circulation patterns that connect the buildings as a group.
\nThe buildings, courtyard and surviving paths between the buildings of the former Brisbane Central Technical College precinct are of cultural heritage significance. Building descriptions for Blocks A, E, F, G, H, J, K, R, W and U follow.
\nCommercial and Day School (Block A)
\nAdjacent to the Main Gate at the southeast end of George Street and on alignment with the Main Drive, the three-storey, face brick, hip-roofed former Commercial and Day School overlooks the City Botanic Gardens. Each elevation is composed of light red face brick with contrasting dark red face brick relieved quoining, flat window arches and banding marking the floor levels. Prominent metal rainwater heads and downpipes divide the elevations into bays. The main elevation to the city Botanic Gardens is symmetrical about a narrow pedimented breakfront of dressed stone enriched with stone carving. The flat arched, central entrance porch with a prominent keystone in stone is flanked by posts with decorative carved shields to the capitals beneath an open-bed segmental pediment with decorative carving to the tympanum. A decorative metal grille fanlight sits over the porch entranceway. An arched porch entrance to the south opens onto the central courtyard and the arched entrance to the west connects with the new D Block undercroft link to F Block. There is a new metal bridge link across to B Block from the second floor. There are double hung windows to the ground floor of the front elevation with multi-pane casements to the upper floors. The other elevations have both double hung and multi-pane casement windows to each level.
\nOriginally each floor accommodated classrooms and staff offices off a central corridor from east to west meeting a transverse corridor running along the rear wing from north to south connecting with the walkways which in the original master plan were to link with adjacent buildings. The internal spaces have been altered and are now organised off the original corridors as large studio spaces and smaller office spaces. Some original joinery remains, including six-pane glazed doors to the ground floor and nine-pane glazed doors to the first and second floors, skirtings to the corridors, high timber rails to A208, timber rails at two levels in A204. The original stair to the ground and first floors of polished concrete with exposed aggregate remains and continues in plain concrete to the c1924 extension second floor. A decorative steel balustrade with timber handrail runs along the whole stair.
\nChemistry and Geology Block E
\nBlock E is located to the south of the courtyard between Blocks B and G/H. Designed as a two-storey L-shaped building with a rectangular pavilion across a walkway to the south. Now four storeys, it has grown out of the former Chemistry and Geology building and is unified with the other buildings in the group in general elevational composition, detailing and materials. It is a plain building in light red face brick with contrasting dark red face brick to the relieved quoins, flat window arches and banding marking the interior floor levels. The only decoration is the Art Nouveau metal lettering \"Chemistry\" above the arched entrance porch to the east. The 1937 infill to the northeast continues the original elevational treatments and is well matched to the original while the 1960s addition to the southwest corner in light brick with no texturing or banding and smaller vertical fenestration is less sympathetic. The solid balustraded, setback upper-storey (1990) contrasts with the rest of the building and disturbs the building's cohesion with the group. A barrel-shaped, corrugated metal hood has been added over the steps to the east entrance porch.
\nThe interior has been altered and is now a range of laboratories, lecture theatres, staff offices and ancillary service/storage/work areas arranged off the main east-west corridor of the original master plan. There are concrete stairs at each end. Some early fabric survives including the concrete stair with plain metal balustrading to the east, some joinery and stop chamfered concrete beams and posts to the ground floor. The interior walls are painted or plastered brick, with plain plastered ceilings and concrete floors (some with vinyl and carpet floor coverings). Suspended ceilings conceal plaster ceilings.
\nWool-classing and Building Construction (Block F)
\nThe distinctive form of this building expresses the saw-toothed roof line in the north and south elevations. This two-storey building has a tough and distinctive industrial character. Unified with the other buildings in the group in scale, materials and detailing the elevational infill is in light red face brick contrasting with the dark red face brick of the flat arch window openings and the relieved quoining to the corners and pilasters which define the bays in the elevations. Prominent rainwater heads and downpipes contribute to the vertical rhythm. The arched entrance, now without the identifying building title within the tablet above, remains to the east and opens onto the undercroft of the new D Block which reinstates the link of the original master plan across to A Block. The timber entrance doors have been replaced with glass doors.
\nThe plan is organised about an L-shaped corridor off which studios, workshops, staff offices and storage/service areas open. Some internal spaces have been partitioned but the original internal spatial relations have been maintained though service ducts and lighting fixtures now intrude. Original fabric survives including the roof lights and pressed metal ceilings to the level two former woolclassing area now partitioned as F204 and F201; decorative pressed metal ceilings, concrete columns in a Tuscan order and dentilled plaster cornices with egg and dart mouldings to the ceilings and exposed beams in F101; decorative pressed metal ceilings with moulded \"acanthus\" pattern cornices to the corridors of level two; decorative pressed metal ceilings to the vestibule to the link across to J Block from level 2; decorative plaster cornice to the ceiling of the stairwell; doors and skirting boards to each floor; tiles to floor and walls of locker rooms on each level; and a polished concrete stair with plain metal balustrading.
\nPhysics and Electrical Engineering (Block G)
\nLying to the south of the courtyard, this is the smallest building in the group and is timber framed. A three-storey, hip-roofed, face brick pavilion with a service wing to the east expressed as two towers, this building is unified with the other buildings in scale, detail and materials. The regular rhythm of flat arched windows around the building and the relieved quoining in dark red brick contrast to the light red infill panels of the building. Now removed, the former single-storey toilet block is evident in the rendered and painted lower portion of the external east wall. The building title has been removed from stone tablet above the dark red brick, arched entrance porch to the west.
\nClassrooms and staff offices open off a central corridor within the pavilion section of the building. Early fabric survives including timber lined ceilings and the cedar main stair case. An infill link of glass and concrete to H Block has diminished the reading of these buildings as separate structures.
\nCivil and Mechanical Engineering (Block H)
\nA two-storey, hip-roofed, face brick square pavilion with a rectangular workshop wing stepping downhill to the west, this building is distinguished by its four-storey, rectangular tower. Elevational treatments and detailing are similar to those used in the other buildings in the group, including the relieved quoining, flat arched window openings and arched entrance porch in contrasting dark red brick. The machine room basement is distinguished by the semi-circular arched window openings in dark red brick to this level. A distinctive oriel window to the south contains the stair landing and links the pavilion wing to the rectangular west wing at first floor level. Hooks and other marks in the west exterior wall are evidence of the demolished Boiler Room and associated brick stack. Corrugated metal sheeting to the south wall covers the wall to the demolished south wing. Shadowing on the carved stone tablet above the arched entrance porch to the east indicates the original Art Nouveau style lettering \"Engineering\".
\nThe interior has been altered but original fabric remains. The plan is organised about a central corridor with a polished plain concrete stair with metal balustrade in the south corner. The basement machine room is intact, retains a workshop use and is notable for the exposed timber structure of the floor above, arched brickwork and steel lifting beams (plated \"Manchester 1912\"). The room may be viewed from the ground floor corridor above through arched brick windows. The ceiling to this corridor and through to 209A is sheeted with decorative pressed metal with stylised acanthus moulded cornices. Decorative pressed metal ceilings remain in several rooms and corridors. Room 306 retains exposed timber trusses and decorative pressed metal ceilings; room 405 remains as a galleried lecture theatre with decorative pressed metal ceilings; glazed timber partitions remain in room 202.
\nWorkshops (also known as Trades Building) (Block J)
\nDistinguished in plan form and massing from the other buildings in the group, J Block is a long, rectangular, two-storey, face brick building with a hip-roof drawn down over latticed lateral verandahs. The former Workshops building is sited west of F, G and H blocks and closes the courtyard visually to the west. The planning and siting of the building reflect the consideration given to massing and ventilation suitable for accommodating noisy and often hot workshops.
\nThough different in form, the building is unified with the other buildings in the group in scale, detailing and materials. It is distinguished by dark red face brick rusticated verandah columns which split to two thinner paired columns in the centre bay at first floor level. There also is contrasting dark red brick banding to sill levels, the flat arched double hung windows to the ground floor and segmental arched double hung windows with fanlights to the first floor. The building retains its general planning arrangement. Symmetrical about a central service/circulation core, there are four workshops opening to both verandahs on each level. A timber and steel mezzanine structure is inserted in the first floor workshop spaces while retaining the original planning arrangement. Original fabric survives including window and door joinery; exposed timber trusses to the first floor workshops; and decorative pressed metal ceilings to the west verandah, rooms J205, J210, J211, J215, J110 and the stairwell. The central plain polished concrete stair with plain metal balustrading and timber handrail remains from the ground floor to the intermediate landing.
\nExtensions to J Block
\nBlocks K, R and W have been erected to the west of J Block, all similar in style to the original group of buildings. A later infill link has been inserted between Blocks K and R.
\nK Block is a simple rectangular, hip-roofed, three-storey, face brick pavilion adjoining J block. Completed in 1920 it was designed to match and align with existing work. It features the regular fenestration rhythm of flat arched double hung windows of the earlier buildings in the group. The workshop spaces on each floor are now partitioned into smaller units.
\nErected in 1929 to house the Industrial High School, Block R is a simple rectangular, hip-roofed, three-storey, face brick pavilion linked to J Block by a gangway at the ground and first floor levels. Constructed on reinforced concrete piers and beam foundations, the basement floors are of concrete and the upper floors of timber. The planning of the building is altered from the original with workshops and classrooms now partitioned into smaller units. The stair to the west has been removed and vertical circulation for both K and R is now within the inserted link wing.
\nCompleted in 1956, W Block is a four-storey, hip-roofed, face brick building to the northwest of J Block. Of a similar character to the earlier building but only using light red brick, the W Block has a regular rhythm of paired double hung windows to the long elevations and incised brickwork to the corners. There have been alterations to the interiors but the general planning of workshops and teaching spaces remains. The concrete stair with metal balustrade to the west is intact.
\nUniversity of Queensland Library (Block U)
\nU Block, adjacent to Old Government House, is a long, imposing, three-storey, face brick building resting on a rusticated freestone base facing the Main Drive and overlooking the City Botanic Gardens. Symmetrical about a giant order Ionic portico entrance, the building is approached by a wide sweep of concrete stairs from the Main Drive. The main wing terminates in rectangular pavilions which extend to the west forming a courtyard to the rear of the building. Two sets of stairs parallel to the front elevation arrive at minor entrances to the front of each end pavilion. Giant order, rendered pilasters divide the front elevation into ten bays of flat arched, four-pane casement windows with fanlights. The other elevations have a similar rhythm of pilasters and fenestration and the blind west elevations of the pavilions are defined by paired rendered pilasters. The west elevation is symmetrical about a flat arched, freestone entrance porch below a double height vertical stairwell window.
\nA U-shape plan organised about a single-loaded corridor to the west of the main wing, the interior is now altered. The large open spaces in the pavilions have been partitioned and organised off a single loaded corridor to the courtyard side. Vertical circulation and services remain to the west of these pavilions. The gallery to the level two south pavilion has been removed. This area was refurbished into partitioned offices and meeting spaces for the QUT Chancellery in 1995/96. Internal fabric has been lost but early fabric remains including the casement windows to the perimeter of the building, front and rear entrance doors, doors to former seminar and storage rooms off the central circulation core, the columns in the entry vestibule and the sets of concrete stairs to the west of the main wing and to the pavilions. Decorative plaster flat arches remain to the central stairwell.
","history":"Originally a group of nine, free-standing, bold, red face brick buildings grouped around a central courtyard, the former Brisbane Central Technical College was designed in 1909 and opened for classes in 1915. Located at the southeast end of George Street, the former Brisbane Central Technical College occupies the northwest portion of the Gardens Point Campus of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), adjacent to Parliament House. The QUT Campus is located on a former government reserve which was worked as the government garden from 1825 and became the Government House Domain in 1860. In 1909 the Governor removed to Fernberg, Bardon (QHR 600275) and the Domain then accommodated the newly established institutions of the University of Queensland and the Brisbane Central Technical College. Old Government House (QHR 600118) became the main building of the University of Queensland and a group of nine purpose-built buildings was constructed to the northwest for the Brisbane Central Technical College.
\nIn nineteenth century Australia, technical colleges were established by Schools of Arts or Mechanics Institutes. Technical education classes commenced in Brisbane in the 1870s, administered by the Brisbane School of Arts which established the Brisbane Technical College in 1882. Classes were conducted in a purpose-built extension to Brisbane School of Arts (QHR 600072) in Ann Street and in various other rented premises throughout the city. From 1900 there was insufficient suitable accommodation available to cater for increasing student numbers. Though nominally private institutions, technical institutes received funding from the State Government and, as Government involvement in technical education increased in the early twentieth century, technical education was absorbed into the Department of Public Instruction. During 1907 the Department investigated the establishment of a central technical college, reviewing models for similar enterprises in America and Britain. Under the Technical Instruction Act 1908 the Brisbane Technical College, South Brisbane Technical College and West End Technical College were amalgamated to form the Brisbane Central Technical College.
\nThere was strong support for technical education in Queensland and this was the only Australian state to plan and construct a complex of buildings for a technical college. Sketch plans for nine two-storey buildings grouped around a central courtyard, linked with covered ways were prepared by the Department of Public Works in 1909. Designed as a cohesive group of similar scale and materials, eight buildings are arranged in a square with three facing the main drive to Old Government House. The ninth building, the Workshops block, is set back towards the river closing off the courtyard. Following an American model for technical education, the main departments of the college were assigned a dedicated building.
\nThe construction was undertaken in two sections. A tender for £64,060/16/3 from contractor James Mason was accepted in March 1911 for the six buildings included in Section One:
\nIn July 1912, James Mason successfully tendered £37,630/16/3 for Section Two which included the remaining three buildings of the campus:
\nA, B and C Blocks were designed as sentinel buildings to align with the Main Drive and to form the formal entrance to the Brisbane Central Technical College. A and C Blocks were almost mirror images and flanked the main building of the College, B Block. Block F, with the dedication of purpose-built wool classing facilities for the training of wool classers demonstrated the importance of the wool industry in Queensland.
\nAmendments were made to the original scheme during construction, including the addition of an extra storey to the Physics and Electrical Engineering building to accommodate the teaching of Biology; a toilet block to the north east of Block F which was demolished in the 1960s. There were also alterations to the plan of Block H to relocate the entrance to the southeast wing with changes to the elevations including an oriel window added to the south. The covered ways to the ground and first floor levels were not built. The corridors within the buildings and the location of the building entrances reflect the circulation and physical relationships proposed in the original master plan. Building progress was hampered by strikes and materials shortages but the Brisbane Central Technical College was finally opened for classes in February 1915.
\nIn response to increased demand for technical education following both World Wars, extensions to J Block Workshops were constructed. K Block, a three-storey extension to J Block Workshops was designed by A Irving and constructed in 1919 to accommodate returned soldier retraining classes. Responding to increasing apprenticeship enrolments a further three-storey extension, R Block designed by WH Gillies, was constructed in 1928 accommodating the Industrial High School. Later infill linked R and K Blocks. W Block, a four-storey addition to the J Block Workshops designed by MD Hamilton was completed in 1956, though planned forty years after the original Brisbane Central Technical College buildings is similar in materials and expression.
\nIn addition to the Workshop extensions other additions and alterations have occurred to the Brisbane Central Technical College. S Block, erected adjacent to F Block in 1921 as a College store and later incorporated into F Block, is now demolished. An additional storey was added to A Block to accommodate Art, Architecture and Building in about 1924. Throughout the 1920s enrolments at both the University of Queensland and the Brisbane Central Technical College steadily increased.
\nBlock E underwent alterations in 1932 for the commercial high school, which was also accommodated in Block A from 1933. Further alterations to Block E in 1937 added the northeast corner.
\nAlthough plans were underway to transfer the University of Queensland to the St Lucia campus, a building was constructed in 1935 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the University and was shared by both institutions. An imposing three-storey face brick building designed by NL Thomas in a restrained neo-Georgian idiom, the Library (U Block) faced the Main Drive between Old Government House and the Art School (C Block, demolished 1978-79). The building accommodated the Library of the University and various facilities for the Technical College including part of the Commercial High School after 1938. Classes for architecture and buildings construction were also conducted in the building.
\nAlthough altered and extended over the years, the Brisbane Central Technical College represents an important era in education in Queensland and is the most extensive group of technical college buildings of the period. A major undertaking for the Queensland Government, the construction of the Brisbane Central Technical College was the largest building project for the Department of Public Works (DPW) immediately prior to World War I. The architectural work of the DPW in the first decades of the twentieth century was of a high quality with many talented architects working in the office including Thomas Pye, Charles McLay, John Smith Murdoch, George Payne and Andrew Irving. Alfred Barton Brady was Government Architect and Thomas Pye, Deputy Government Architect. Brady administered the office and supervision of design was carried out by Pye. Pye was the driving force in developing and maintaining the office style after 1906 following the departure of Murdoch. Responsibility for individual projects within the DPW is seldom clear-cut but evidence in DPW files suggests that Pye had a major influence on the design of the Brisbane Central Technical College. The DPW was responsible for the plans, specifications and construction of other contemporary technical colleges including Rockhampton Blocks A and E (QHR 600789), Warwick, Mackay, Toowoomba (QHR 600851), Ipswich (QHR 600586) and Mount Morgan (QHR 650005) which were single buildings accommodating the whole college under one roof. All the technical colleges share stylistic details, construction and general architectural expression.
\nThe former Brisbane Central Technical College was absorbed into the Queensland Institute of Technology in 1965 which was reconstituted as the Queensland University of Technology in 1987.
\nIn 1966 the administration of the newly formed QIT occupied Block U. During the 1960s and 1970s classrooms, the optometry clinic and the printery also operated out of this building. Alterations to E block also occurred during the 1960s, which added a third storey and an additional corner to the southwest to accommodate classes for art and pharmacy. Block G accommodated the QIT library from the 1960s to 1977 and then housed the School of Nursing during the 1980s.
\nBlock H Boiler Room and associated stack were demolished in the early 1970s and lecture rooms and storage rooms in the south wing were demolished in the late 1970s.
\nBlocks B and C were demolished in 1978/79 and Block D was demolished in 1998. Replacement buildings have been inserted for the demolished B, C and D Blocks. A new B Block, a rectangular, four-storey concrete and brick building, was erected in 1981. Completed in 1998, a steel and concrete structure projects into the courtyard from the former D Block site. A rectangular concrete, steel and glass cafe kiosk has been inserted into the courtyard to the east of G Block in 1999. The 1981 B Block, the 1999 D Block and cafe kiosk are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nIn 1999 six buildings of the original group remain (A, E, F, G, H and J Blocks), along with the three extensions to the Workshops J Block (K, R, and W Blocks) and the later addition to the technical college campus, U Block. In 1990, a fourth storey was added to E Block and a glass and concrete infill between Blocks G and H was inserted.
\nIn the period 1995-1999 there has been extensive refurbishment undertaken to Blocks A, F, J and U. Alterations to J Block have added a mezzanine level and accommodation for architecture and interior design studios. The south wing of U Block was refurbished in 1995 and 1996 for the QUT Chancellery office. Walkway links envisaged in the original master plan were also established during this period. A Block now links with F Block at ground and first floor levels through the connecting gangways and passageways of the 1999 D Block.
","criteria":"The former Brisbane Central Technical College, erected 1911-1915, is important for its association with the development of education in Queensland. As the centre of technical education in Queensland, the place is important in demonstrating the development of technical education in the State. The place is important for demonstrating on one site, major changes to technical education from 1900. In particular, the place is important for demonstrating the expansion of technical education in response to retraining requirements for returned soldiers from both World Wars and in response to increases in trade apprenticeships from the 1920s.
The Main Drive, which runs from the George Street entrance of the campus and terminates at Old Government House, is a significant element of the site. The driveway maintains a strong association with Old Government House as the traditional link between it and Parliament House and the government precinct and the city beyond. The Driveway is significant as an element of the Central Technical College and later, Gardens Point Campus with the buildings of the campus designed to address the driveway.
|The former Brisbane Central Technical College is important for demonstrating changes in Government involvement in financing and controlling technical education from 1900. The former Brisbane Central Technical College is important as the only technical college in Queensland designed and constructed as a complex of buildings.
|The buildings are fine examples of technical college structures of the early twentieth century constructed in response to progressive thinking in the design and planning of educational institutions.
|The former Brisbane Central Technical College has aesthetic significance as a cohesive group of buildings unified by scale, design and materials. Landmark buildings at the southeast end of George Street, the group overlooks the City Botanic Gardens to the east and the Brisbane River to the west. Bold, facebrick structures with a tough industrial character enriched by discrete decorative stone carving, the buildings are characteristic of the Arts and Crafts idiom in form and detailing. The buildings are of considerable architectural merit and their form and fabric illustrate a skilled design approach. The buildings demonstrate a fine quality of workmanship in the detailing of materials and finishes.
The group is important for original fabric which survives, particularly F Block for its overall intactness and the machine room in H block for its intactness. A Block and U Block are important in preserving the campus alignment to the Main Drive. Both are important as landmark buildings defining the principle entry to the former Brisbane Technical College precinct. The courtyard and surviving pathways between the buildings are important in maintaining the integrity of the group of buildings. Further Block U provides evidence of the changing nature of the educational facility on the site.
|The former Brisbane Central Technical College is important for its association with students and teachers of the former Brisbane Central Technical College, the Industrial High School, the Commercial High School, the Queensland Institute of Technology and the Queensland University of Technology.
|The former Brisbane Central Technical College is important for its association with the Department of Public Works. In particular, with the work of architect Thomas Pye who was responsible for the design of the original complex of nine buildings. The former Brisbane Central Technical College is important for the ability to demonstrate the work of the Government Architect's Office in relation to the design of substantial educational buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16469,"place_ref":601729,"name":"Waterloo Bay Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"75 Berrima Street","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Waterloo Bay Hotel is located on a triangular piece of land at Wynnum, bounded by Berrima Street and Bay and Byrnside Terraces. A mature Moreton Bay Fig Tree is located in the eastern corner of the property.
The original section [1889] of the hotel is a two-storeyed masonry building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. Two rendered chimneys with moulded detailing are located in the roof. The building has a ground floor verandah and first floor balcony with iron balustrading and chamfered timber posts and brackets. The timber posts on the ground floor have a recent concrete base. Paired timber doors with breezeway and fanlight assembly with leadlight detail are located in the entrance to the lounge bar area.
Internally, on the ground floor, the ceiling in the lounge bar area has plaster cornices with egg and dart motif decorative detail. An entrance in the eastern side of the original section leads to the beer garden area, which was added to the building in the 1980s. A doorway in what was the eastern wall of the original section leads to a passageway and an original turning timber staircase with decorative motifs on the newel. Four rooms open to the first floor balcony on the western side of the building. The rooms have double hung sash windows with timber architraves. The ceilings are pressed metal. Each room also has timber french doors opening to the balcony. Two austere rooms with timber french doors opening to the balcony are located in the centre of the floor. On the southern side of the timber staircase, more accommodation space is located and is currently occupied. Three sets of timber french doors open to the balcony from this area. A passage runs north south along the first floor, turning and leading to the 1918 extension. An entrance to the later extension has been closed over. A large window with timber architraves and frosted, decorative glass is located at the end of the southern wall. Toilet facilities with fittings c1950s, are located on the western side of the first floor.
The later extension (1918) is two-storeyed rendered brick with a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. Internally, the bar is located along the eastern wall. A large window with timber architraves, and frosted glass featuring a lighthouse design, is located along the northern wall. The bar area is open plan with original plaster ceilings with decorative cornices. Toilet facilities are located in the western corner. The bar area opens to the gaming room, a 1960s addition to the hotel. The first floor of the 1918 extension is currently used for accommodation.
","history":"The original section of the Waterloo Bay Hotel was constructed in 1889 by George Gibbs. The hotel was extended in 1918, when work was undertaken by Brisbane architect, GHM Addison. Major refurbishments were also undertaken in the 1980s and in the late 1990s.
The bayside suburbs of Wynnum and Manly were known as Oyster Point and Wyvernleigh, after the first house in the area. The first land sales in the area took place in 1860 at Lytton and around the Waterloo Bay. In 1882, Manly Beach Estate was auctioned. Wynnum and Manly were the only bayside stations opened with the Cleveland branch on 1 November 1889. The completion of the railway led to a surge of growth in the district, and by the early years of the 20th century, it had become a popular seaside resort town, with many people travelling from Brisbane by train on the weekend. Wynnum had a siding, loading bank and goods shed by 1891 and it was the terminus for extra Sunday trains from 1889 and weekday services from 1 March 1892.
The Waterloo Bay Hotel was constructed by George Gibbs, a local stonemason, in 1889. Gibbs was born in Cornwall and sailed for Australia on board the Firey Star in 1863 with his wife and infant. After the birth of his second child and the death of his first, the Gibbs' returned to Cornwall. Two more children were born then his first wife died. In 1875, with a new wife and four children, Gibbs again left Cornwall for Australia on board the Great Queensland, landing at Maryborough and later residing in Gibbs Street, Kelvin Grove. Gibbs purchased land in Mary (later Berrima) Street in May 1889, and commenced construction of a hotel. He applied for, and was granted, a licence through the South Brisbane Licensing Courts. The Brisbane Courier reported on 7 November that '...the house was complete and ready for occupation.' The Waterloo Bay Hotel opened for business in 6 November 1889 - just five days after the opening of the Cleveland railway branch.
Gibbs owned the hotel until 1892 when, due to ill health, it was sold and the family moved to Gibbs Street, Wynnum. The hotel was sold to Sarah Jane King in March 1892. Title passed to William Morris in 1895 and later to Helen Rankin Turner from August 1896. The hotel was purchased by William Denis O'Connor in August 1898. He remained the owner until he died on 14 January 1950. O'Connor was the licensee from the date of purchase until October 1901 when he leased the building to Bernard Kennedy for ten years. In August 1907, Kennedy transferred the balance of the lease to Augustus Marshall who held it til May 1908.
Sarah Baird took up the lease of the hotel in May 1908. Initially, her husband, Robert, was the licensee, however, following his death in June 1910, Sarah took over as licensee. In January 1911, Baird made an application to the Licensing Court to have music at the hotel every Saturday. A new application had to be made every week. The South Brisbane Licence Register indicates that the Waterloo Bay Hotel was one of the first hotels on the south side of the river to have music each week. In October 1911, Amelia Connell took out a new lease, with her husband Robert as the licensee. By the end of that year music had ceased playing at the hotel. On 7 March 1918, the ten year lease was surrendered subsequent to the death of Amelia Connell on 19 October 1917. In February 1918, the Government Gazette advertised a Transmission by Death of Interest in Lease from Amelia Connell to Patrick Joseph O'Shea, and a Surrender of Lease from Patrick O'Shea to William Denis O'Connor. By February, 1918, O'Connor had commissioned architect, GHM Addison to undertake alterations to the hotel. The alterations included the construction of a new public bar on the ground floor and private accommodation on the first floor.
O'Connor's death was registered on 14 January 1950, at this time, the entire property passed to Douglas Wadley and Graham O'Connor as Trustees. In September 1956, the lease for hotel passed to Queensland Brewery Ltd. This lease was held until 1985 when it was transferred to Ashwick (Qld). The property passed to Moreton Bay Holdings in early 1987.
In November 1989, a week long celebration to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the hotel was organised by the then lessees. An article in the Bayside Bulletin dated 14 November 1989 states that '...the Waterloo Bay Hotel is serving the community as never before and looks set to take on its second hundred years with ease and equanimity.' Renovations undertaken in the 1980s, included the addition of a beer garden and restaurant. Towards the end of 1999, further renovation work was undertaken.
Still a focal point for the local and surrounding community, the Waterloo Bay Hotel has been identified as a Heritage Place within the Wynnum-Manly Local Area Plan.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1889, with a number of later extensions, the Waterloo Bay Hotel is most significant in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being closely associated with the establishment of the railway to Wynnum and the subsequent evolution of Wynnum as a popular seaside resort in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Cleveland-Wynnum line was one of the railway lines constructed specifically for recreational purposes and is important in understanding the development of the railway in Queensland. With the opening up of the Cleveland-Wynnum area, an increase in the number of day trippers and holiday makers was possible, thus enabling the Waterloo Bay Hotel to capitalise on such a population increase. Further, the Waterloo Bay Hotel is significant as an example of a hotel that has functioned as such for over a century and is one of the few remaining buildings in Wynnum associated with the opening of the railway line.
|Built in a similar style to the Grandview [600771] at Cleveland, the Waterloo Bay Hotel is significant as a good example of a prominent, two-storeyed masonry hotel with substantial ground floor verandah and first floor balcony with timber posts and cast iron balusters and brackets.
|Forming a integral part of the Wynnum townscape for over 110 years, the Waterloo Bay Hotel is a well-known landmark in the area.
|It has played a major role in social activities of the Wynnum community throughout this period of time.
|The Waterloo Bay Hotel is significant for its association with George Gibbs, a local stonemason who constructed the hotel, later retiring and remaining in the Wynnum area. Gibbs Street, Wynnum is named for George Gibbs. The 1918 extension is associated with the work of well known Brisbane architect GHM Addison. Addison is known for such work as the Old Museum Building [600209], Somerville House [600305] and The Mansions [600119].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16470,"place_ref":601730,"name":"Mount Carmel Convent","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"199 Bay Terrace","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-27","description":"Mount Carmel Convent, a two storeyed brick building with a corrugated iron roof, is located in a prominent position in Bay Terrace, Wynnum. It is surrounded by minimal gardens and lawned areas which are enclosed by a recent metal fence incorporating an earlier wrought iron gate.
The building itself is asymmetrical in plan and is constructed of glazed face brick laid in English bond. The building comprises a main wing running parallel to Bay Terrace, with a transverse wing at the southeastern end. Verandahs encircle the entire building on both levels, with a combination of cast iron and timber balustrading and ripple iron sheeted ceilings. Windows are double hung with clear glass, apart from those in the chapel which feature leadlighting. French doors provide access to the verandahs from most rooms. A single storeyed building containing the kitchen and laundry is located at the rear of the main building, attached to it by breezeways which have been enclosed with aluminium framed windows.
The entry is centrally located within the main wing and is defined by a rendered archway rising through the two storeys. The entry door is located within a timber framed arch and leadlighting is featured in the side panels. A second rendered archway is located on the front elevation of the transverse wing, with a statue of Mary and Jesus featured in the gable above.
Internally the layout remains relatively intact, apart from the main dormitory for boarders on the upper level, which has been divided into smaller rooms. Two parlours (one now an office) open from the entry, and leadlight doors open onto a hallway which runs parallel to Bay Terrace. The dining room is located behind this and the hall terminates at the chapel which is located in the transverse wing.
The main stair is located between the dining room and the chapel. It comprises a half turn with two landings and features a simply designed dark stained timber balustrade. A secondary stair is located at the northwestern end of the building.
The upper level is also divided by a central hall, with cells opening from both sides. Two large rooms, now used as recreational rooms are located in the transverse wing. Bathrooms and toilets are located on the enclosed rear verandah and an external stair, enclosed by lattice is located on the southeastern verandah.
","history":"Mt Carmel Convent, a substantial two storey brick building with surrounding verandahs, was constructed in 1915 as a convent for the Sisters of Mercy. It was designed by the architectural partnership of Hall and Dods and constructed by Mr W R Juster at a cost of £8000.
A Catholic presence in Wynnum was prompted by the establishment of the area as a popular seaside resort. The opening of the Wynnum South Station in 1898 encouraged further development, and the demand for a religious presence in the area grew. In 1903, the first Catholic masses were held in the Shire Hall, and the Sisters of Mercy began visiting Wynnum to teach the children residing in the area.
Established primarily as a teaching order in 1831 in Ireland by Catherine McAuley, the first Sisters of Mercy arrived in Brisbane in 1861. Various orders were later established throughout Queensland to ensure children gained adequate education and religious instruction.
The first Catholic church in Wynnum, known as the Catholic Church of Guardian Angels was erected in 1905. Designed by architect Richard Gailey it was constructed on Bay Terrace on land donated by Archbishop Dunne. Following the formal establishment of the parish of Wynnum in 1913, a new school also designed by Gailey and located in Bay Terrace, was opened.
On the 8 August 1915 'the Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was solemnly blessed and dedicated by His Grace, Archbishop Duhig.' A collection which realised £110 for the furnishing fund was taken up during the opening ceremony.
Designed by architects F R Hall and R S Dods, the convent was described in The Age as a 'handsome 2 storey brick building situated on a commanding eminence on the west side of Bay Terrace.' The article continues:
'The building is built of brick; wide verandahs and balconies extend round the main block. On the ground floor on both sides of the main entrance are parlours, the one on the right giving access to the music room, and the one on the left to the chapel through the sacristy. The children's study and refectory are entered from a corridor running at right angles on either side of the entrance hall. This corridor also gives direct access to the chapel, sister's dormitory, main staircase, music room and service passage and stairs. The sister's dormitory is connected with the chapel by sliding doors. The first floor is occupied with two large and five smaller cells, community room and children's dormitory. Spacious lavatory and bathroom accommodation on this floor completes the main block. A separate block comprises the kitchen, offices and laundry on the ground floor and a large dormitory and servants quarters on the first floor. This block is connected with the verandah and balcony of the main block by a covered way.'
The partnership of Hall and Dods was established in 1896 and continued until 1916. Dods was appointed architect to the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane and the firm oversaw the construction of St John's Cathedral [600076] in this capacity. They also designed many buildings for the Catholic Diocese, including St Brigids Catholic Church, Red Hill [600284] and the Mater Misericordiae Hospital.
In 1940, additions were made to the church by F C Cullen. Alterations and additions were also made to the convent, school and presbytery at this time, possibly by Cullen also.
In 1957, a secondary girls school was established at Mount Carmel and continued to operate until 1992 when it was closed due to the falling numbers of school aged children in the area. The Guardian Angels primary school remains operational.
The convent now houses only four Sisters permanently and is mainly used as a holiday centre for Sisters of Mercy in the Southern Qld Region.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1915, Mount Carmel Convent demonstrates the evolution of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy and the educational, religious and social practices they implemented throughout Queensland.
|The place demonstrates the principal characteristics of a convent building, including a two storeyed plan featuring a chapel, dining area, reception rooms and cells. Finishes are typical of the period and include pressed metal ceilings, dark stained timber detailing simple decorative features and cast iron balustrades to the exterior verandahs. Its prominent location on the rise of a hill overlooking Moreton Bay is also typical of convent buildings.
|Mount Carmel Convent is of aesthetic significance due to its well-composed design which, externally features a combination of decorative elements including cast iron and timber balustrades, glazed face brick walls with rendered sections, timber latticework and a statue of Mary and Jesus in the south eastern gable. Interior features including pressed metal ceilings, stained glass and leadlight windows, and arts and crafts style timber balustrades and joinery contribute to the aesthetic value of the place.
|The Convent has strong associations with the local community, and with the Sisters of Mercy, who use it as a holiday retreat during the summer months.
|It also has strong associations with the architectural partnership of Hall and Dods, who are highly regarded for their early 20th century ecclesiastical work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16471,"place_ref":601731,"name":"Early Granite Kerb and Channel System, Cooktown","alternate_name":"Stone Kerbing and Channelling | Early Granite Kerbing and Channelling, Cooktown","street_address":"Adelaide, Charlotte, Furneaux, Green, Helen, Hogg, Hope and Walker Streets and Webber Esplanade","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-08","description":"The Early Granite Kerb and Channel System, Cooktown, is located along Adelaide, Charlotte, Helen, Hope, Hogg, Walker, Furneaux, Green, and Hill Streets throughout the town of Cooktown in Far North Queensland. It is constructed of granite – a granular igneous rock composed mainly of felspar (orthochase) and quartz. The kerb blocks are typically 200mm thick and 600mm long and the channel is formed from various sized slabs. The early kerb has shallow drill holes, indicating that the stone was probably drilled by hand.
\nThe kerbs have been constructed to several different depths, possibly dependent on the extent of stormwater runoff in specific area. On the western side of Charlotte Street adjacent to Endeavour Park [QHR 601044], there is 300mm high kerb with an 800mm wide channel (constructed in 1884-85). Directly opposite, along the eastern side of Charlotte Street, which is slightly higher, the kerb is 300mm high and the channel is 600mm wide. In the main town area in Charlotte Street the kerb heights vary from 300mm to 200mm, but the channel remains constant at 600mm wide.
\nLower Furneaux Street receives large quantities of stormwater from the elevated areas of the town, and accordingly, there is a 350mm high kerb with a 1400mm wide channel.
\nIn Hogg Street adjacent to Town Section 15 the normal kerb and channel becomes a drainage channel formed on both sides of the channel with granite and measures 400mm deep by 1100mm wide. At the intersection of Hogg and Charlotte Streets is a particularly fine granite boxed culvert, and at the intersection of Adelaide and Hogg Streets, an early stone-pitched dish drain.
\nThe channel to the streets along the crest and upper slopes of the ridge running south from Grassy Hill direct stormwater run-off toward Charlotte Street, and just south of the junction of Charlotte Street with Hill Street, a large stone-pitched underground drain carries the run-off underneath Charlotte Street and the foreshore to the Endeavour River estuary (under Endeavour Park). Along Charlotte Street there are a number of vertical and side entry stormwater gully pits which appear to connect to early underground stormwater drains.
\nFeatures of Early Granite Kerb and Channel System, Cooktown of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of Early Granite Kerb and Channel System, Cooktown not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMost of the Early Granite Kerb and Channel System at Cooktown, located on the south bank of the Endeavour River in Far North Queensland, within the traditional land of the Guugu Yimithirr people, was constructed between 1882 and 1905. Particularly fine examples of this work are evident in Charlotte, Hogg, Furneaux, and Green Streets, but the full extent of the work is much wider, and early kerb and channel which is now below present street levels, continues to be uncovered as new roadworks are undertaken.
\nCooktown (also known as Gungardie or Gangaar) is located within Guugu Yimithirr (or Yimidhirr) country, occupied continuously since at least 37,000BP.[1] After HM Bark Endeavour, captained by Lieutenant James Cook, struck a coral reef in 1770, it was beached for repairs for seven weeks on the south bank of the mouth of the river Cook named the Endeavour. Although relations between the visitors and the Guugu Yimithirr people were initially cordial, a cultural misunderstanding led to a confrontation, which was soon followed by an act of reconciliation.[2] The Endeavour River was not visited by Europeans again until 1819, when Lieutenant Phillip King visited in HM Cutter Mermaid while conducting a hydrographic survey of northern coastal waters. The next recorded visit following this was made by John Jardine in 1865.[3]
\nGold was discovered on the Palmer River, over 100km southwest of Cooktown, by surveyor Frederick Warner in August 1872, and reported to Parliament in May 1873. Between June and September 1873, James Venture Mulligan led a prospecting party from the Etheridge River to the Palmer River, and a rush to the Palmer from the Etheridge ensued after his return. Cooktown (initially called Cook’s Town) was established when a party of police, government officials and miners landed on the south bank of the Endeavour River on 25 October 1873, with the aim of establishing a port and supply line for miners already on the Palmer. A party of miners soon left the Endeavour River for the Palmer, and the Palmer Goldfield was declared on 27 November 1873.[4]
\nCooktown developed rapidly as a port and a supply and administrative centre. Initially it was a disorganised tent city, until the Government Surveyor James Read arrived in February 1874. The first land sale occurred in May the same year, while a government reserve was established east of Charlotte Street and north of Hill Street.[5]
\nWithin six months of its establishment, the town had 20 restaurants, 12 large and 20 smaller stores, six butchers, five bakers, three tinsmiths, and chemists, fancygoods shops, watchmakers, bootmakers and saddlers; while 65 publican's licenses had been issued for the Cooktown-Palmer River district, with 30 more applied for by April 1874. There was an estimated non-resident population of 3,000 in the town itself, and thousands of men en route to the goldfields. Large numbers of Chinese miners made their way to the Palmer Goldfield via Cooktown, and Chinese storekeepers were amongst the earliest to establish businesses in Cooktown. Two Cooktown newspapers were established in 1874; a state school, customs house, courthouse, and several churches were erected by 1875, and the town was declared a municipality in April 1876. The 1876 census revealed a population of over 9,200 persons on the Palmer Goldfield, and Cooktown had a population of just under 2,200.[6]
\nCooktown Municipal Council was established in 1876, but the earliest recorded stone kerb and channel work dates to 1882, during a period in which the Cooktown Municipal Council commenced a number of civic improvements, including stormwater kerb, channel and drains; footpaths; street lighting; and wharf extensions. A report in April 1882 noted that ‘at present the work of stone-pitching the gutters of the main street is being carried out, and this will be a great improvement’. [7] It is not known if this project used granite.
\nThe improvement to the town’s stormwater management system had begun near the end of the gold boom on the Palmer River. The population of Maytown, established in 1874 on the Palmer River, peaked at 1500 in 1876. The Palmer Goldfield, the highest producing alluvial goldfield in Queensland, produced 45% of Queensland’s gold in 1877, while customs duties collected at Cooktown were second only to Brisbane, during 1875-1877. However, as alluvial yields dropped, the flow of Chinese miners bound for the Palmer through Cooktown decreased. Gold warden WO Hodgkinson proclaimed the field’s alluvial deposits ‘exhausted’ in 1883. Reef mining also proved to be uneconomical. Maytown’s population fell to 604 by 1886. Cooktown’s fortunes also declined, and the gold boom was over by 1885.[8]
\nDespite the decline of the Palmer Goldfield, Cooktown’s economy was sustained by the pearling, bêche-de-mer, and pastoral industries, the use of Cooktown as the main port for Queensland’s trade with New Guinea from 1885, and by the discovery of tin along the Annan River in 1886. Another source of economic stimulus during the 1880s was the construction, from 1884, of a railway. This officially opened to Laura in October 1888, but the line was never viable so was not extended to Maytown on the Palmer Goldfield. Public improvements continued in Cooktown during the 1880s, including the building of a monument [QHR 600421] in 1886 to Mary Watson, a victim of frontier conflict; and a monument to Captain Cook [QHR 601044] in 1887. A combined boarding school and convent for the Sisters of Mercy [QHR 600423] was constructed at Cooktown in 1888-9.[9]
\nThe improvements to Cooktown’s stormwater system also continued. In mid-1884 the Council called tenders for 240 yards of kerb in Charlotte Street. The contract was let to Cornishman Tom Pascoe, a Cooktown resident, who tendered with a price of 6/- per yard. He used slabs cut locally from granite boulders along the slopes and spurs of Grassy Hill. In addition to the kerb constructed by Pascoe, culverts at the junction of Banks and Charlotte Streets were constructed by day labour over a two week period in the latter months of 1884, using stone cut from near the Seaview Hotel (no longer in existence) in about September 1884.[10]
\nEarly in 1887 Tom Pascoe again successfully tendered with the municipal council, winning the contract to construct the Hill Street culverts. It is possible the large underground stone-pitched drain leading from Hill Street underneath Charlotte Street and the foreshore to the Endeavour River estuary, was constructed at this time also. At the same period, further watertable works and kerb in Walker Street was carried out by day labour.[11] In the second half of 1888 the Cooktown Municipal Council employed an engineering surveyor to draw up plans and specifications for new culverts at the intersection of Walker and Charlotte Streets, but these plans proved too expensive. The work was instead contracted in 1889 to Cross and Duffiey for £125. Taylor & Brown constructed a culvert in Hill Street for £21 in 1889.
\nDuring the 1890s the Cooktown Municipal Council continued the work of installing kerb and channel along the town's principal streets. In the second half of 1890 Thomas Pascoe was contracted to cut 500 yards (457m) of stone kerb at 2/8 per yard, a standard price for this work, and in the same period he constructed a culvert in Hill street for £45. A council quarry in Hope Street was operating at this period. In the second half of 1891 Cleary, Brown & Smith were contracted to split and stack 500 yards of kerb at 2/8 per yard. In October 1892 the Council voted a sum of £50 for work in Hope Street and 50 feet (15.2m) of kerb was constructed along the southern side of Hogg Street from the corner of Hope Street. Early in 1893 two men were employed by the council to cut kerb for future road works. By early April that year they had cut 159 yards (145.4m) of kerb and 54 yards (49.4m) of pitching. Between mid-1894 and mid-1895, 271 yards (248m) of kerb was constructed in upper Charlotte Street, and in November 1895 kerb was constructed along the southern side of Green Street from Charlotte Street. Further kerb along the eastern side of Charlotte Street, between Green and Furneaux Streets, was undertaken August-September 1896.[12]
\nLocal government member Pher Erick Seagren continued to improve Cooktown’s streets in the late 1890s and early 1900s. A Cooktown resident for 60 years, Seagren was one of the town's earliest settlers, a substantial landholder in the district, and a prominent and highly respected member of his community. He was keen to encourage Cooktown's progress, and was actively involved in municipal work for many years, beginning with three years on the Daintree Divisional Board [1892-95] prior to being elected to the Cooktown Municipal Council in 1895. He was Cooktown’s mayor from 1898-1901 and 1905-08. M J Fox, in his History of Queensland, wrote of Seagren's contribution to his community: ‘He has laboured for the improvement of the town with unsparing energy, and the excellent condition of the streets, footpaths, and other public works is due to his progressive methods when mayor’.[13]
\nEarly in 1898 the municipal council called tenders for 450 yards (411.5m) of kerb and 600 yards (548.6m) of pitching for kerb in Hope Street from Walker to Hogg Streets. It appears that the kerb and channel to lower Charlotte Street was undertaken in 1898 as well, and that similar work to upper Charlotte Street commenced in May 1899. By mid-July 1899, the kerb on the northern side of Furneaux Street as far as the hill above Helen Street was completed.[14]
\nKerb in Green Street between Charlotte and Helen Streets was commenced in December 1900 and completed in August 1901. Kerb along Walker Street from the Commercial [now Cooktown] Hotel to the junction of Helen Street was constructed between November 1901 and March 1902. Kerb along Hope Street commenced in June 1902. In January 1903 it was reported that kerb and undertables were constructed in Helen Street between Walker and Hogg Streets and in November the same year the kerb was continued in Hope Street to the corner of Pryde Street. In 1904 a culvert and kerb was constructed in Adelaide Street and the Furneaux Street kerb was constructed in 1905.[15]
\nDespite these civic improvements, Cooktown’s fortunes declined in the early 20th century. In 1900 the Cook and Palmer census districts still had a population of just under 6,000, despite less than 1,300 persons being on the Palmer, Coen and Hamilton goldfields, with the municipality of Cooktown retaining a population of nearly 2,000. However, a cyclone in 1907 destroyed or unroofed many buildings, including the Masonic Temple, the Presbyterian and Catholic churches, and ten hotels. Many commercial buildings were rebuilt, but houses were abandoned as the population drifted to Cairns.[16] The later halt to overseas shipping calling in at Cooktown during World War I, a fire in the business centre in Charlotte Street in 1919, the evacuation of civilians during World War II, and a cyclone in 1949, accelerated Cooktown’s decline. By 1951 the town’s population was 300.[17] The population of Cooktown was still only 429 in 1961, but had recovered to 2,339 by 2011.[18]
\nThe early and extensive granite stormwater system in Cooktown is one of only two such examples extant in North Queensland; the other example (c1884-1905) being in Charters Towers [‘Stone kerbing, channels and footbridges of Charters Towers’, QHR 602512]. Some sandstone kerb and channel also exists at Croydon, while red stone-like bricks were used in Normanton. There is also stone kerb and channel on Leslie Street in the remnants of Maytown [‘Maytown’, QHR 602255].[19]
\nThe importance of Cooktown’s granite kerb and channel system to the aesthetics of the town is evidenced by it being a notable feature in photographs, from the 1880s to the present day. This aesthetic and streetscape importance is also acknowledged by the local community – from the 1970s to the 1990s, additional sections of granite kerb and channel were laid by the Cook Shire Council, in parts of Helen Street, John Street, Hogg Street, Walker Street, Charlotte Street and Howard Street.[20]
\nIn 2021, the original kerb, channel and culverts from the 1880s-1900s continue to perform their original functions, with concrete slabs laid above them when necessary for pedestrian or vehicle crossovers. As some street levels in Cooktown have been raised since the Early Granite Kerb and Channel System was constructed, there is the possibility that some sections of kerb and channel may have been buried.
","criteria":"Cooktown’s Early Granite Kerb and Channel System is important in illustrating its important role as a prosperous regional centre and port, in the development of Far North Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cooktown was established in 1873 as the port for the Palmer Goldfield – Queensland’s premier alluvial goldfield during the late 19th century. The kerb and channel work was initiated in the early 1880s when the Cooktown Municipal Council commenced a number of civic improvements.
|Such extensive and early use of granite kerb and channel, illustrating the confidence and optimism of local business and civic leaders in the future of Cooktown in the late 19th century, is one of only two examples in North Queensland, including Charters Towers, and therefore is significant for being a rare aspect of Queensland’s cultural heritage.
|The place is an intact, extensive and rare example in Queensland of a late 19th century and early 20th century civic storm-water management system, using locally accessible material. It retains its kerb, channel, dish drains (shallow paved drain across a road), box culverts, gully pits (entrances to underwater drains), and underground drains, all constructed from a hardwearing material (granite).
|The Early Granite Kerb and Channel System, Cooktown has aesthetic significance, contributing to the overall aesthetic and amenity of the historic streetscapes of Cooktown and providing a high degree of unity to the townscape in its material and design.
|The Early Granite Kerb and Channel System, Cooktown contributes to the uniqueness of Cooktown and is valued by the local community as an important feature of Cooktown's history and identity. The community’s strong association with the early kerb and channel is evident in the actions of the Cook Shire Council, which since the 1970s has been constructing new granite kerb and channel to complement the earlier work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16472,"place_ref":601732,"name":"Spicers Gap Road Conservation Park","alternate_name":"Spicers Peak Road | Spicers Gap Road","street_address":"Spicers Gap Road","suburb":"MAIN RANGE NATIONAL PARK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"Located partly within Main Range National Park, Spicers Gap Road passes through the Great Dividing Range about four kilometres south of Cunninghams Gap. The length of road contained with Main Range National Park measures approximately 4500 metres long. Approximately 1600 metres of Spicers Gap Road has been declared as a conservation park. The section of road within the conservation park is forty metres wide the entire length of the park, and is located between Governor's Chair (Devil's Elbow) and the western boundary of the park.
Technological features exist in the form of different road surfaces used to solve various problems encountered during construction. Surfaces include macadamised surfacing; corduroy surfacing exists in two areas, 560 metres and 765 metres west of Devil's Elbow; stone pitching exists in a number of places, many in excellent condition.
Engineering features exist in the form of inverts, whoaboys and a diversionary drainage system. The remains of a whoaboy is located 868 metres west of Devil's Elbow. Over one kilometre of the road is benched as it runs across the slope of the mountain. Some of the original pick and chisel marks occur on a section of basement rock on the road 65 metres west of Devil's Elbow.
There are a number of other features associated with the road, including stone extraction quarries, side cuttings, a system of catch drains and culverts occurring along the entire length of the roadway. Catch drains average about 50-75 centimetres in width and 20-25 centimetres in depth. Some of the drains are stone pitched.
The road has suffered from the activities of four-wheel driving with damage to some of the culverts and to the adjacent metalled and stone road surfaces. Approximately 1100 metres of the road are in fair to excellent condition. Many of the associated features are in good to excellent condition. The remains of telegraph poles, insulators and wire can be found following the route of Spicers Gap Road.
","history":"During his exploration of the Brisbane River with surveyor John Oxley in 1824, explorer Allan Cunningham had observed the Dividing Range to the south-west. In 1827, Cunningham led a party to explore the land beyond this range, approaching from the south and inland, from New England. Leaving the Hunter River in April 1827, Cunningham made the first recorded European discovery of the Darling Downs, along Glengallen Creek, on 5 June 1827.
On 11 June 1827, Cunningham identified a possible dray route (later known as Spicers Gap) through the Dividing Range to the coast. Cunningham returned to Sydney where he reported to Governor Darling on the quality of the country, the timber and the potential for an access route to Moreton Bay. In 1828, Cunningham returned to Moreton Bay to search for the pass through the Dividing Range, he travelled south-west from Ipswich and discovered Cunningham's Gap in the Dividing Range on 21 August 1828. Although Cunningham suspected that the newly identified pass was not the same one which he had discovered in 1827 [Spicers Gap], a search further north failed to find the other pass and he returned to Cunningham's Gap, which he then incorrectly assumed must have been the pass he identified in 1827.
Cunningham reported to the New South Wales government on the economic significance of the pass which connected the coast lands with the extensive pastoral country to the west, however, it was not until the late 1830s and early 1840s that pastoralists began to explore the potential of the Darling Downs.
The Leslie Brothers settled the grazing lands of the southern Downs in 1840. Other squatters soon followed. Darling Downs pastoralists were faced with an expensive 800 kilometre trip to Maitland to carry wool to port and return with suppliers to the stations. A direct route to the Moreton Bay settlement was needed. Leslie and Hodgson were able to obtain permits from Sir George Gipps, the Governor, in 1840 to have supplies sent to Brisbane, however, they still had problems with getting their stores from Brisbane over the Dividing Range to the Darling Downs. Cunningham's Gap proved almost impassable to heavy vehicles and other dray routes to the coast were sought. Alternative routes over the range included Gorman's Gap near the headwaters of Hodgson's Creek, and Hodgson's Gap via Drayton.
Squatters in the Warwick district continued to search for a southern pass through the range, and in April 1847, Henry Alphen rediscovered the pass identified by Cunningham in 1827, between Mount Mitchell and Spicer's Peak. Spicer's Peak was named by Cunningham after Peter Beaucierk Spicer, a superintendent of convicts at Moreton Bay, who discovered the mountain while looking for convicts who had escaped from the Moreton Bay penal settlement. Mount Mitchell was named after the explorer, Thomas Mitchell. The pass, subsequently known as Spicers Gap, was about 4 kilometres south of Cunningham's Gap.
The discovery was announced in the Moreton Bay Courier, through which an appeal for construction of a road through Spicers Gap was launched. Little public support was forthcoming and squatters Patrick Leslie and Fred Bracker put up most of the money to clear the road and lay a 'corduroy' or pine log surface. By early August, two drays had travelled to Ipswich using the new road, saving three days and approximately 100 kilometres.
Around this time, licensed inns began catering for travellers and two inns were constructed along the new road, Balbi's at Clumber and the Main Range Hotel near the pioneer cemetery in the Main Range National Park. Alphen was rewarded for his discovery of the route through Spicers Gap by the New South Wales authorities and he built a public house. The building was weatherboard with a shingle roof, including kitchen, stables, stockyards and paddocks. Known as Alphen's Inn or the Woolpack Inn, the licence was taken over by William Jubb in 1851. After 12 years of occupation however, the inn was dismantled in 1858, owing to disputes over land ownership.
In the 1850s, further attempts were made to upgrade the road. Edward Moss was contracted to upgrade a section of the road to the east of Governor's Chair using logs as foundation. The corduroy road soon collapsed making the road even more difficult to use. Although Moss did not complete his contract, the fresh water spring, known as Moss's Well, is named after him. By 1857, a team of up to 60 bullocks were need to haul a wool-laden dray through difficult sections of scrub. The New South Wales Legislative Assembly considered internal communications in the Moreton Bay District in 1856-57. In 1856, the District was granted £3500 for road works.
By January 1859, the New South Wales government was considering further work to Spicers Peak Road. The Minister for Public Works (NSW) authorised expenditure of £1200 for construction work on the road. The work was unfinished at December 1859 and from this point on, the road became the responsibility of the new Government of Queensland.
An early action of the Queensland parliament was to appoint a Select Committee, consisting of Messrs Buckley (Chairman), Moffatt, Watts, Haly, Broughton, Raff, Taylor and Thorn, to inquire into the internal communications of the colony. Also called to give evidence at the committee were FE Roberts, the Surveyor of Roads and AC Gregory, the Surveyor-General. Roberts favoured the use of Cunningham's Gap for the Ipswich to Warwick Road, and considered that sufficient money should be spent on Spicers Peak Road only to render it passable until a decision about a new line of road was made.
The government decided to have both passes more closely examined. On 25 August 1860, Surveyor Austin reported to Gregory upon the eligibility of Spicers Peak pass and the ineligibility of Cunningham's Gap. Austin stated that ...the surveying and levelling of the line I have selected will occupy me about a month, so that at the close of the period or about the end of September, I shall be open for another duty. On 6 October 1860, Austin informed Gregory, from the Survey Camp at Spicer's Peak that I have surveyed and levelled the...new line proposed through Spicers Peak Pass.
Between 1860 and 1865 a properly designed and engineered road was completed. Much of the road which remains was built under the direction of Robert Austin, surveyor and later Engineer of Works. Henry Clinton, Clerk of Works, supervised a construction of up to 90 labourers.
Stone pitching was used in steeper sections of the road. Large stones were packed carefully by hand, smaller stones were then wedged between to form a heavy-duty road surface. In other sections, consolidated broken stone or 'road metal' was used as foundation and surface. This design, sometimes known as 'macadamising', was developed by John MacAdam, a British engineer. 'Corduroy roads' were also utilised in places, possibly the result of repairs to boggy sections of the road by bullock drivers. With corduroy roads, logs were laid side by side to form a solid foundation. In 1854, Nehemiah Bartley describing the Spicers Peak corduroy road wrote:
\t...the place was naturally a bottomless morass, full of springs; the logs had rotted in the middle...It was an awful place for a horse, bullock or vehicle of any kind to face...A dense wall of scrub on each hand prevented escape...A man, on foot, could, by treading on the roots of the tree, get along, but a saddle horse or bullock team, could not do this.
Drainage was a vital aspect of Austin's design, consequently, drains up to one metre in depth occur on both sides of the road. On steep slopes, the roadway was cut into the side of the hill to form a 'benched' road, however, benched roads cut into hillsides sometimes posed drainage problems. Water from the side drain on the high side was directed across the road by diversionary embankments known as 'whoaboys'. Inverted sections or shallow drains directed water across the road and slowed the flow to stop erosion. The name 'whoaboy' is said to be derived from the driver's command to the horses approaching the banks.
Austin's improvements allowed a change from bullock teams to horse teams. Heavy traffic used the Gap briefly in the 1860s but this was to be shortlived. With the coming of the railway to Warwick from Brisbane via Toowoomba in 1871, Spicers Gap Road was virtually abandoned. Heavy haulage by railways proved to be much more efficient than the slow haulage undertaken by drays and teamsters.
Following the establishment of local government in 1879, responsibility for roadworks was transferred to the Boonah and Glengallen Shire Divisional Boards. The turn of the century period brought depression, drought and floods. The road did not produce rate revenues for the shires and, consequently, little was spent on maintenance. Interest was revived after 1910 with the development of the motor car and recreational driving. Shire Councils were lobbied to repair the road, but it was not always passable.
In 1925-27, communities from the Darling Downs and Fassifern Valley combined to build a road through Cunningham's Gap. Debate followed regarding whether the alternative route would go through Cunningham or Spicers Gaps. In 1935, the Cunningham's Gap route was upgraded by the Main Roads Commission to a highway.
Until 1973, Spicers Gap Road carried the main telegraph link between Brisbane and New South Wales. In 1861 the single iron wire telegraph line was built establishing the first telegraph link between New South Wales and Queensland. The section over Spicers Gap Road linked up the first telegraph station at Fassifern Reserve with the station at Treganny, on the Darling Downs side. An additional line was added in 1866 between Brisbane and Stanthorpe via Ipswich, Fassifern, Spicers Gap and Warwick. In 1905, five telegraph wires formed the line. During the 1920s the iron wires were replaced with copper. The telegraph line ceased operations in 1973 and was removed in 1975.
Spicers Gap Road was maintained until the Cunningham Highway was completed. Governor's Chair became a popular spot for picnickers in the 1930s and 1940s and this continues today. Spicers Gap Road was officially opened, as an historic road, by the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Environment on 23 August 1992. The historic road was declared a Conservation Park in 1998.
","criteria":"Built in 1847, with major work dating from the 1860s, Spicers Gap Road demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's transport system, and is significant as one of the first major public works of the new Queensland colony following Separation from New South Wales. From the 1850s to the 1870s, Spicers Gap Road was important as the major transport route from the Southern Darling Downs to Ipswich.
Spicers Gap Road is also significant as the site of the telegraph line that carried the interstate and telephonic traffic for 112 years from 1861 to 1973. The line was the first telegraph line to run from Brisbane to Sydney and determined the direction of southerly traffic.
Spicers Gap Road is significant for its association with surveyor and engineer, Robert Austin, who oversaw the major construction of the road during the 1860s.
|Designed with gently sweeping curves and low gradients to cater for the heavy transport of the day, Spicers Gap Road is a rare extant example of the application of engineering from the 1860s. Engineering features, including a system of catch drains and culverts occurring along the entire length of the roadway, demonstrate technological achievement.
|Spicers Gap Road is significant as it has potential to reveal more information about nineteenth century engineering techniques.
|Located within the Main Range National Park, Spicers Gap Road is important for its aesthetic significance and in some areas it retains the ability to promote a sense of remoteness and ruggedness.
|Designed with gently sweeping curves and low gradients to cater for the heavy transport of the day, Spicers Gap Road is a rare extant example of the application of engineering from the 1860s. Engineering features, including a system of catch drains and culverts occurring along the entire length of the roadway, demonstrate technological achievement.
|Spicers Gap Road is significant for its association with the community of the surrounding area. Spicers Gap Road is well-known to all residents and is a popular tourist destination.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16476,"place_ref":601739,"name":"Xavier and Sadie Herbert's Cottage (former)","alternate_name":"Sadie's House | Xavier and Sadie Herberts Cottage","street_address":"399 Kamerunga Road","suburb":"REDLYNCH","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-01-24","description":"Xavier and Sadie Herbert's Cottage [former] is located in the heart of the village of Redlynch, about 13 kilometres northwest of Cairns. The house is positioned quite close to the front of a level, 25 perch block abutting busy Kamerunga Road, one of the principal roads out of Cairns. It sits directly opposite the Redlynch Railway Station and adjacent to the Red Beret [formerly Redlynch] Hotel, the focal point of the village, and overlooks cane fields to the ranges beyond. The setting is picturesque.
The cottage is a small, single-storeyed, timber-framed building with enclosed front and back verandahs, and a concrete block extension at the rear. It rests on low stumps, mostly timber, although a few of these have been replaced with round concrete stumps or galvanised steel. The exterior has been re-clad with aluminium which resembles weatherboards. The hipped roof is clad with corrugated sheet metal. All the windows appear to have been replaced at some period, and those along the west wall have new decorative metal window hoods. The front facade has recent decorative timber lattice. Attached to the house on the east side is a single carport with a skillion roof and front roller-door. A high concrete block wall defines the eastern boundary of the property; fences to the other boundaries and along the west side of the front driveway are of pickets.
The internal layout of the cottage, originally two rooms opening onto front and back verandahs, has been altered. The centre wall has been removed and two new internal partitions now divide the core of the house into three rooms: a bedroom each side and in the centre a living area with an archway opening onto the enclosed front verandah. The bedrooms retain their original french doors to the enclosed front verandah, but all the other doors in the house are modern. The interior walls and ceilings are lined with fibrous plasterboard. It is not clear whether any of the Herbert's mock timber-panelling of the 1970s remains beneath the present wall finishes.
The back verandah may have been partly enclosed from an early period, but was fully enclosed in the Herberts' time and has been refurbished recently with a new kitchen at the west end and bathroom at the east end. A centrally-positioned door leads from the back verandah to an attached extension. This comprises a 1.9 metre wide concrete slab running the width of the house, with concrete block laundry at the east end and toilet at the west end. The middle section of this extension is enclosed with timber lattice.
In the backyard, at a short distance from the house, a garage has been constructed on the eastern half of the block. This structure is clad in aluminium and rests on a concrete block. It has a skillion roof and is divided into two sections. The eastern half is garage, and the western half, with windows on three sides and doors front and back, is used as a workout area.
The Herberts' garden is almost non-existent. The only substantial surviving planting is a stand of palms in the backyard. The Alexandra Palms across the front alignment of the property appear to be comparatively recent, and may not have been associated with the Herberts.
","history":"This modest timber-framed cottage was purchased in 1951 by Xavier Herbert, an Australian writer whose work has achieved international recognition. It was intended as a home for his wife, Sadie Norden, but was also to remain Herbert's principal place of residence for over 30 years. At the Redlynch cottage, Herbert worked on all of his major works except Capricornia.
The cottage is situated in the village of Redlynch at the base of the coastal ranges northwest of Cairns. The area was logged for its cedar from the mid-late 1870s. Selections were taken up in the mid-1880s following the 1886 decision to construct a railway from Cairns to the Atherton Tableland through the area, and the Eight-mile Railway Station was opened in October 1887 as the terminus for the first stage of the Cairns-Mareeba railway. Eight-mile was renamed Redlynch almost immediately, and a small village grew around the station. In the 1920s and 1930s Redlynch developed as the centre of an important sugar-growing district. The cottage which the Herberts later acquired, along with several adjacent similar cottages, may have been constructed in the 1920s, although the present land subdivision was not surveyed until 1938.
Alfred [Francis Xavier] Herbert (1901-1984) was born in Western Australia and educated at Fremantle, where he trained as a pharmacist. In 1925 he moved to Melbourne where he studied medicine for a year. His first published short story appeared in the Australian Journal [Melbourne] at this time and Herbert decided to quit university studies to pursue a writing career. In 1926 he moved to Sydney and joined the staff of Smith's Weekly. In the late 1920s he travelled (mostly walking) around northern Australia and the South Pacific doing various odd jobs, and spent two years in England 1930-32. While in England he completed the initial draft of Capricornia, with the support of Sadie Norden, whom he later married. Late in 1932 he returned to Australia and wrote short stories for journals and newspapers to help bring Sadie to Australia in 1933. After some difficulty, Capricornia was published in Australia in 1938. It won Australia's sesquicentenary novel competition that year and became a best seller.
Herbert served in the Second World War and after demobilisation he and Sadie travelled north from Sydney and took up the lease on a dairy farm in the Daintree River area for a few years. In June 1951 they bought the cottage at Redlynch, Xavier accepting a fellowship with the Australian Literary Fund and applying for a War Service Loan in order to make the purchase. The house was intended for Sadie's benefit, Xavier not believing in 'comforts', but it is possible neither of them anticipated the length of time they were to own the property. In August 1951, Xavier wrote of Sadie: . . . she's not settling down, just getting a little house in [which?] to put all those things of hers . . However, the house was to remain their principal place of residence for the remainder of their lives.
After the move to Redlynch, Herbert alternated casual occupations with writing, and published irregularly. Through his short stories and novels, he explored the search for security and an Australian identity, the mistreatment of Aborigines and the destruction of the environment. Most of his work is set in the Australian bush and in small country towns. Seven Emus appeared in 1959; Soldiers' Women in 1961; Larger than Life and Disturbing Element in 1963. After nearly a decade of preparation, Poor Fellow My Country was published in 1975, winning the Miles Franklin Award that year. A work of about 850,000 words, it is the longest novel ever published in Australia.
It is clear from interviews given by Herbert that Sadie Norden provided the emotional centre to his life, and the house at Redlynch, which he always called 'Sadie's house', became equally important. Xavier continued to write his first drafts away from home, establishing camps in the ranges between Cairns and Cooktown for weeks or months at a time, and often taking jobs away from Redlynch, but always returned to Sadie and Redlynch to develop the drafts. He once acknowledged, I'd never go on writing anything if Sadie didn't like it. Sadie and the cottage at Redlynch provided a base for his work and to his existence. Herbert later said of Redlynch that it was the most beautiful little town I ever set eyes on. Like many of the characters and places in Xavier Herbert's novels and stories, however, the village of Redlynch inhabits two worlds. Not quite town and not quite country, Redlynch is almost a suburb of Cairns - where Sadie lodged Xavier's first drafts with their bank - but lies amid cane fields at the base of the coastal ranges where Xavier established his writer's camps.
The Herberts became well-known to the Redlynch community, with Xavier acting as relieving pharmacist in the village during the 1950s and 1960s. A fitness fanatic, he regularly jogged through the canefields, along the railway and into the hills, before jogging became fashionable, and claimed he gained the inspiration to write Poor Fellow My Country while running. Xavier was also known for his attempts at self-sufficiency. He experimented with battery-powered DC electricity, and the wiring in the cottage may contain remnants of this system. In the backyard he constructed a small 'writer's shed', which local residents believe was made of two small sheds taken from the Kuranda railway and moved by railcar to Redlynch. Poor Fellow My Country was partly written and revised here 1969-74, but this structure was demolished late in 1995.
With the prize money received for Poor Fellow My Country, the Herberts carried out a number of alterations to the Redlynch cottage. A septic system was installed and a new bathroom and toilet were built at the rear of the house. The interior was modernised with plasterboard ceilings and imitation timber-grain wall panelling. The exterior was re-clad with aluminium, enclosing the front verandah in the process, and a garage and guest room for the use of visiting friends and academics was built in the backyard. A new carport was constructed at the side of the cottage.
Following Sadie's death in 1979, Xavier remained in the cottage until a few months before his own death at Alice Springs in April 1984. Toward the end of his life, Herbert in 1983 gave the Redlynch cottage to his friend and bank agent Robyn Pill, asking her to look after the house when he left. She retained the place until 1989.
There have been substantial renovations to the Redlynch cottage since the Herberts' time, with the interior reconstructed and refurbished in mid-1996, and most of the trees and shrubs in the garden removed, except for a number of palm trees. A great loss was the writer's shed in the backyard, Xavier's million dollar dog house, demolished in the summer of 1995-96.
","criteria":"Xavier and Sadie Herbert's Cottage [former] is significant as the only house in Australia with strong associations with important Australian author Xavier Herbert and his work. The place is significant also for its potential to contribute to biographical work on Xavier and Sadie Herbert. The place has a strong association for both the local Redlynch community and the Australian literary and academic community as the home and place of work of Australian writer Xavier Herbert for over 30 years.
The place has a special association with the life and work of internationally-respected Australian author Xavier Herbert. At the Redlynch cottage, he worked on all his major works except Capricornia. Although much of this work was undertaken in the now demolished writer's shed in the backyard, the association of the place with Herbert and his work remains. The cottage survives in its Redlynch setting and some of the Herberts' 1970s renovations, paid for with prize money received for Poor Fellow My Country, remain. These were undertaken with inexpensive mass-produced materials and for convenience and ease of maintenance rather than aesthetic concerns, and illustrate Herbert's lack of social pretension. The Redlynch cottage also represents an important compromise in Herbert's life, and is significant as much for what it reveals of the person as of the writer.
|Xavier and Sadie Herbert's Cottage (former) is significant as the only house in Australia with strong associations with important Australian author Xavier Herbert and his work. The place is significant also for its potential to contribute to biographical work on Xavier and Sadie Herbert.
|The place has a strong association for both the local Redlynch community and the Australian literary and academic community as the home and place of work of Australian writer Xavier Herbert for over 30 years.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of internationally-respected Australian author Xavier Herbert. At the Redlynch cottage, he worked on all his major works except Capricornia. Although much of this work was undertaken in the now demolished writer's shed in the backyard, the association of the place with Herbert and his work remains. The cottage survives in its Redlynch setting and some of the Herberts' 1970s renovations, paid for with prize money received for Poor Fellow My Country, remain. These were undertaken with inexpensive mass-produced materials and for convenience and ease of maintenance rather than aesthetic concerns, and illustrate Herbert's lack of social pretension. The Redlynch cottage also represents an important compromise in Herbert's life, and is significant as much for what it reveals of the person as of the writer.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16478,"place_ref":601741,"name":"Musket Villa","alternate_name":"Lancaster Gables","street_address":"251 Lancaster Road","suburb":"ASCOT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Musket Villa, a substantial, multi-gabled residence constructed of timber and rendered masonry in the interwar bungalow style, is located opposite the Eagle Farm Racecourse. It is surrounded by houses and flats of varying ages and styles.
The house is surrounded by a high, rough-rendered and brick wall and is accessed by a timber gate located on the corner of the property. A newly paved path follows the line of the original concrete path and new plantings surround the residence.
The residence is primarily constructed of timber with a terracotta tiled roof of Marseilles tiles. A wide verandah with Crow's Ash flooring and a substantial rendered brick and timber balustrade is located across the front elevation and returns halfway around both side elevations. Pairs of rectangular rendered brick piers with red brick detailing are located on either side of the central entrance and at each corner of the verandah. The structure is slightly raised on rendered brick posts and is accessed vis two steps which lead on to the verandah.
The front and side elevations have multiple gables with strapwork detail to the gable ends. Windows throughout are timber casements, each of which have three bands of coloured glass in the uppermost section.
Internally, the house has a centrally located entry hall with panelled walls that opens onto a large combined living and dining room. Bedrooms open from either side of the entry, the one on the western side features an ensuite and a five-sided corner bay. A secondary hall runs at the rear of the living/dining room, with additional bedrooms opening from it. The main bedroom and kitchen are located on the eastern side of the house.
Many original features survive throughout the residence, including ebonised timber detailing, leadlight doors, built-in leadlight display cabinets in the living/dining room and entry hall and timber panelling in the entry. Some tongue-and-groove ceilings have been replaced with decorative plaster ceilings and new fittings and fixtures have been installed in the bathrooms and kitchen. The guest rooms are air-conditioned.
","history":"Musket Villa, a single storey, stucco interwar bungalow and the adjoining stables were constructed in 1923 for well-known horse trainer and rider, William "Billy" Booth. Located opposite Eagle Farm Racecourse in Lancaster Road, Musket Villa was designed by prominent Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice and built by contractors Lee and Brickwood.
William Booth entered the horse training and racing industry in 1885 when he became an apprentice to john Stone, an early Brisbane horse trainer. During his nine years with Stone, Booth trained and rode many famous horses. His work included breaking-in Grey Gown and training Dundonald who went on to win the treble of St. Ledger, the Brisbane Cup and the Moreton Handicap in 1899.
Booth established his own training stables in 1893 and trained and rode horses for several prominent racing identities. He had up to twenty-one horses training at a time and among his successes was Bright Laddie who won the Brisbane 2000 and the Stradbroke Handicap. Booth was also known for his grey pony named Billy who won over 385 ribbons at the Brisbane Show.
In 1899 Booth trained and rode the winning horse, Musket, in the Queensland turf Club Derby. Shortly after, he married Lucy Adelaide and named their newly constructed home on Racecourse Road Musket, in honour of the winning horse. Booth retired from riding following his marriage but continued to train horses.
The Booths purchased the land on which the existing Musket stands in 1922. They commissioned architects Hall and Prentice to design a house, stables, garage and sand shed in a similar architectural style. The complex, also named Musket, was completed in 1923 and received high praise in the 1924 publication "Harking Back - the Turf, Its Men and Memories". Through this publication, Booth credited his wife "not only for the idea of it's architecture, but also for the tastefulness of its general furnishing". The article described the house as a "red tiled home with its beautiful gardens and lawns [and] every modern appointment and equipment."
The stables were designed to accommodate twelve horses and also included rooms, a shower, wash basin and ding room for employees. They were regarded as being amongst the most "up-to-date stables...to be found in Australia", with Booth paying the "fullest attention to the comfort of his employees and his equine charges".
The architectural firm of Hall and Prentice was established in 1919 with the partnership of Thomas Ramsay Hall and George Gray Prentice. Hall was one of Brisbane's "most successful architects of the early twentieth century" and the firm designed many prestigious buildings in Brisbane, including Brisbane City Hall [600065], Sandgate Town Hall [601566] and the Tattersall's Club [600093]. He was involved in racing through Tattersall's and the Queensland Turf clubs, his name is commemorated in the T.R Hall Handicap.
In 1927, William Booth died at the age of 54, leaving Musket to his wife. His death was mourned by the Queensland racing fraternity, members of the Queensland Turf Club, the Tattersall's Club and the Queensland Breeders, Owners and Traders Association. Following Booth's death, the stables were leased to WJ Shean until c1941 when they were converted into four two bedroom flats by Lucy Booth who continued to live in the villa. Lucy Booth died in 1958, leaving Musket to her surviving son, Norman, who lived in the house until his death in 1955. The house now operates as a Bed and Breakfast establishment called Lancaster Gables and the stables continue to function as flats. The garage has been demolished and the site on which it was located (between the house and the stables), has been subdivided with a new residence constructed upon it.
","criteria":"Musket Villa is important because of its aesthetic and architectural significance. Designed by prominent Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice in 1923, Musket is an important example of a well composed and skilfully detailed interwar bungalow. The residence retains many original features such as interior timber panelling, leadlight doors and built-in display cabinets, timber windows, light fittings and ebonised timber detailing. These and other features, such as the use of materials like terracotta roof tiles and rendered masonry, demonstrate the key features and principal characteristics of substantial interwar bungalows.
Musket Villa has social significance to the Queensland racing industry, being an example of a purpose-built stables, training establishment and residence, located in the hub of the racing district of Brisbane. Musket Villa has a special association with racing identity, trainer and jockey, William "Billy" Booth, for whom it was constructed, and with Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice as an example of their domestic work.
|Designed by prominent Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice in 1923, Musket is an important example of a well composed and skilfully detailed interwar bungalow. The residence retains many original features such as interior timber panelling, leadlight doors and built-in display cabinets, timber windows, light fittings and ebonised timber detailing. These and other features, such as the use of materials like terracotta roof tiles and rendered masonry, demonstrate the key features and principal characteristics of substantial interwar bungalows.
|Musket Villa is important because of its aesthetic and architectural significance.
|Musket Villa has social significance to the Queensland racing industry, being an example of a horse trainer's residence which had associated stables and ancillary facilities located in the hub of the racing district of Brisbane.
|Musket Villa has a special association with racing identity, trainer and jockey, William "Billy" Booth, for whom it was constructed, and with Brisbane architects Hall and Prentice as an example of their domestic work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16480,"place_ref":601743,"name":"Majestic Picture Theatre","alternate_name":"Majestic Theatre","street_address":"1 Eacham Place","suburb":"MALANDA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The Majestic Picture Theatre is located on the corner of Eacham Place and Catherine Street in Malanda on the Atherton Tableland opposite the Malanda Post Office. The theatre is a prominent building in the township and is located in close proximity to the Malanda Hotel, which is still owned by the English family, the original proprietors of the theatre.
The theatre is a large timber framed building with a decorative curved and stepped parapet concealing the gabled roof auditorium and skillion roofed aisles of the theatre behind. The building is supported on concrete stumps and local rainforest hardwood is used throughout the building for framing, cladding and flooring.
The building's façade facing Eacham Place to the north-west is lined horizontally with painted chamferboards. Accessed from the footpath by three concrete stairs, the entrance to the theatre is recessed and comprises a pair of single light three panel doors with single panel sidelights. A poster bill frame hangs on the wall between the entrance and a double-hung two light sash window to the north and a mosaic mural (created as part of the Centenary of Federation celebrations) hangs on the south side of the entrance.
Six timber posts fixed to raised concrete footings support a later metal sheeted timber framed awning over the footpath. Centred in the wall above the awning, four pairs of two light casement windows provide natural light and ventilation to the projection room. Fixed above the windows is an awning and above that is signage bearing the name: 'Majestic Theatre'.
The north-eastern elevation facing Catherine Street is lined with metal sheeting and contains seven double-hung two light sash windows and three pairs of exit doors with steps to street. Above the skillion roof and along the full length of the building, two light top-hung sash windows provide ventilation to the auditorium.
On the opposite side of the building the south-west elevation is similarly detailed with three exit doors and five windows as well as a door to the kitchen at its western end. A later concrete block addition that contains toilets is attached to the exterior of the original building.
The rear elevation facing a service lane is lined with ripple iron.
Internally the theatre retains many of its early features, including entrance foyer, auditorium, projection-room above the entrance foyer, mezzanine 'dress circle', stage, seating and dressing rooms.
The entrance foyer has clear finished hardwood floors, the joinery is painted and walls and ceiling are lined with flat sheeting and cover strips. The northern side of the foyer contains a ticket box and the 1930s Simplex projector is on display. A kitchen is located on the southern side of the foyer together with a door leading to the southern aisle and to the mezzanine stairs in the auditorium.
A pair of doors from the foyer open into the auditorium, the main volume of which is separated from the aisles by timber arcades with slatted timber valances. At the south-eastern end of the auditorium furthest from the entrance doors is a hardwood stage, with a later stage area in front. The walls, balcony balustrade and ceiling of the auditorium are lined with v-jointed tongue and groove boarding and the external walls of the aisles are clad with flat sheeting. In the centre of the ceiling, a ventilation panel of timber lattice runs the length of the auditorium.
The projection room, with walls and ceilings lined with flat sheeting and timber battens is located over the entrance foyer with the mezzanine 'dress circle' either side accessed via timber steps from the aisles. The dress circle extends several metres along the walls of the auditorium and its solid balustrade is surmounted by a timber railing.
The auditorium has early oak-framed canvas seats. Originally these contained groups of one, two and four seats, but these have been replaced as groups of three and four seats, providing seating for approximately 100 patrons. There is additional seating for approximately 63 on later steel-framed canvas seats.
The dressing rooms on either side of the stage are accessed by timber doors from each aisle. Each dressing room has a double hung two-light sash window, a pair of exit doors and access to the stage via timber stairs and stage doors. Both dressing rooms have unpainted timber walls covered with chalk graffiti, particularly in the male dressing room.
","history":"The Majestic Picture Theatre was built in 1928 and is associated with one of Malanda's prominent settler families, the English family.
James English, widely acknowledged as the 'founder of Malanda', migrated to North Queensland from the Lismore district of New South Wales in 1907 in search of cedar. Although the abundance of timber on the Atherton Tablelands made the move profitable, it was the Queensland Government's 1907 Group Settlement Act that enabled English to take full advantage of the surrounding resources and establish himself and his family in the region. This Act permitted groups of selectors (including family groups or acquaintances) to apply for adjoining blocks prior to an area being opened for selection. The rainforest around Malanda was opened up under this scheme, and the English family was one of the first groups to take up land. James English established the Princes Sawmill near Malanda Falls to process timber cut in the area as farms were cleared. This mill supplied timber for many buildings in the Malanda township such as commercial shops in English Street, the Malanda Hotel and, in 1928, the Majestic Picture Theatre. English also established 'The Jungle' an important tourist attraction in Malanda during the 1920s.
Malanda expanded rapidly during the interwar period. Local dairy farmers successfully agitated for their own branch of the Atherton Tablelands Cooperative Butter and Bacon Company in 1919. The Gillies Highway opened in 1926 and brought more tourists to the town. In addition, alluvial gold was found at the nearby Boonjie Goldfields in 1928, bringing more wealth into the town. These developments prompted English's son, Patrick 'Paddy' English, to look beyond the family's sawmilling, dairying, farming and hotel activities and pursue an emerging sensation in public entertainment: the "Cinematographe" (moving pictures).
The Majestic Picture Theatre was designed as a 'tropical' theatre by local North Queensland architect Bob Hassell and constructed by builder Albie Halfpapp. A hard top theatre, with an auditorium designed to enhance air circulation, the place reflected a popular type of purpose-built picture theatre in interwar Queensland. Completed in December 1928, it was a timber-framed structure clad in weatherboards with a gabled roof and timber clad parapet, and was constructed entirely of rainforest hardwoods. The theatre was dedicated and opened on 14 December 1928 by Fred Browning, superintendent of Atherton Ambulance Centre. All proceeds from a concert held on opening night were donated to the Atherton Ambulance. Screening of the first films took place on 21 December 1928 and featured Charles Chauvel's first film, "The Moth of Moombi".
Large, purpose-built, single auditorium picture theatres, both open-air and hard-top, were constructed throughout Queensland during the interwar period. Almost every town and suburb in the State had its local picture theatre by the late 1930s. Many of these structures, including the Majestic Picture Theatre at Malanda, employed recognised façade 'styles' which the public came to associate with film exhibition venues. Like many of the fanciful names given to Queensland picture theatres, the name 'Majestic' was derivative of much grander overseas theatres and cinemas.
Initially, silent films were accompanied by an in-house pianist. The casework for the Beale piano at the Majestic was made to order by the Beale Company in New South Wales from figured maple, cut on Patrick English's property and specially selected and sawn by him. When "talking pictures" were introduced, English purchased a Raycophone voice machine, designed by NSW radio engineer Ray Allsop. Raycophones were widely adopted by Australian cinemas - by mid-1937, when the sound wiring of all 1,420 Australian cinemas was complete, 345 Raycophone systems had been installed.
The Majestic Picture Theatre has been owned and operated independently since it opened in 1928. In 1933, English sold the theatre to Pollard Bros who also owned and ran the Roxy Theatre in Atherton. Jack Henson purchased the theatre in 1939 and ran it with his wife, Lil Henson, during World War II until 1969. Thousands of war-time U.S. servicemen were based on the Atherton Tablelands and the theatre was an important social venue and meeting place for troops and locals during the war. Picture nights were held on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and the American troops often used the hall to hold dances. Newsreels were an important communication tool during this era, and screenings at the Majestic kept troops and locals up-to-date with the latest war news.
Following the war, picture theatres remained popular entertainment venues for Australian families. The newsreel connected country audiences with news of the day, including their first close-up view of a newly elected national leader or Australia's latest sporting hero. However, the advent of television during the mid-1950s began to erode attendance at cinemas - although this change was not as immediate in country areas as in the larger towns and cities.
For almost three generations, a pair of Simplex 35mm projectors, manufactured in the early 1930s, coupled with Western Electric sound units, provided Majestic Picture Theatre patrons with high quality and reliable exhibition until 1984. The Simplex machines, one of which is on permanent display in the theatre foyer, were replaced 'piecemeal' from 1984 by Westrex Simplex RCA and Starscope 14 lamp-houses that continue the tradition of carbon arc illumination. In 2000, the theatre's sound system was upgraded with the installation of a Dolby Digital Cinema Processor along with three 15" front-of-house Altec speakers and horns (left, centre and right of screen), and with 24 (12 left and 12 right) surround speakers.
Like many other picture theatres in north Queensland, the Majestic has also been used for community meetings. Shareholders of the Atherton Tablelands Cooperative Butter Association, for example, used the premises as a meeting place for 47 years. Significantly, it was the venue where Tableland dairy farmers resolved to go on strike on 1 March 1947 when the government decided not to subsidise northern dairy farmers after the 1946 drought after subsidising farmers in the south.
With the introduciton of television services to the Tablelands in the 1960s patronage of the Majestic Picture Theatre at Malanda declined. As a business the Majestic became unviable and the Henson's put the place on the market. Rather than see it close, Eacham Shire Council negotiated to purchase the building for $8,000. They have since been responsible for its maintenance. The Council continued screening films for a time and then leased it to series of film exhibitors in the 1970s.
The availability of affordable video players and the convenience of cassette hire further reduced attendance at picture theatres during the 1980s. Malanda Little Theatre Company, which later became the Malanda Theatre Company, leased the Majestic Picture Theatre for 15 years in 1981. They staged theatrical plays and in turn sub-let the building for film screenings. One day a month, the building was sub-let to stall holders for a market before this was transferred to the Malanda Showgrounds. The Majestic was leased to Stewart Cardwell in 1990, who operated it in a share arrangement with the Malanda Theatre Company until 2004.
At the time of entry of the place in the Queensland heritage register in February 2010, films were still being screened regularly at the Majestic Picture Theatre by an independent exhibitor (every Friday and Saturday and some Sundays). The Malanda Theatre Company was still staging productions at this venue, alternating performances with film exhibition.
","criteria":"The Majestic Picture Theatre, built in 1928 by one of Malanda's prominent settler families, the English family, is one of the oldest continually operating country picture theatres in Queensland. It contributes significantly to our understanding of how Queensland's leisure and entertainment history has evolved and is tangible evidence of this development in the tropical Far North. Before the introduction of television, picture theatres in Queensland enjoyed widespread popularity, particularly in rural areas providing not only entertainment but also a venue for social interaction. The Majestic Theatre is one of the few interwar picture theatres still screening regularly in Queensland.
|The Majestic Picture Theatre is a good example of a 1920s regional picture theatre adapted to Queensland's tropical climate. Constructed using local rainforest timbers, the building's interior and exterior intactness is notable, and the place is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, including: the distinctive form and curved and stepped front parapet; the entrance foyer with early ticket box and display of early film projection equipment; the projection box located above the entrance foyer; the large auditorium with its ceiling ventilation panels, mezzanine 'dress circle', and early seating; and the early stage and associated dressing rooms.
|The Majestic Picture Theatre retains a high level of integrity and intactness and remains a rare surviving example of an interwar, single auditorium, 'tropical' picture theatre. This once popular form of picture theatre construction and design in Queensland is no longer common.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16483,"place_ref":601746,"name":"Old Byfield Road and Stone-Pitched Crossing","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Old Byfield Road","suburb":"BYFIELD CREEK","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-07-09","description":"The portion of the old Byfield Road under consideration lies between the Yeppoon-Byfield Road and Richters Road, and is just under 450 metres in length. The road incorporates a stone-pitched crossing over Byfield Creek at its northern end.
The stone-pitched ford crosses Byfield Creek in a north-south direction at a bearing of 20°. It has a rectangular frame of timber sleepers fitted together and secured by bolts, presumably iron coach bolts, and filled with stone pitching to create a causeway across the creek.
The exposed fording is 4.8 metres wide by 9.4 metres in length. The average dimensions of the framework logs are: western log 40cm diameter; eastern log 30cm diameter; southern log 24cm diameter; and northern log 15cm diameter.
The stone pitching extends into the northern embankment past the water-mark. Within the crossing some stones have become loose and dislodged from their positions, which may be a result of natural erosion (scouring), or from motor-vehicles. Some subsidence has occurred, with the level of some stones lower in position compared to others, and cracking of some stones is evident. The predominant area of weathering and subsidence occurs in the middle of the ford, where water appears to be permanent to semi-permanent. This part of the ford is the most vulnerable to erosion associated with high water velocity during flooding.
A natural sand deposit on the southern bank of the creek is encroaching onto the crossing, and plant shoots are growing between the stone pitching. The log at the southern aspect is exposed for only a small portion, less than 50cm, the remainder being covered by encroaching sand deposits, up to an approximate depth of 20cm. Sediment deposits currently extend to approximately 4.6m from the point of the southern sleeper into the fording.
At the south-west cross-section, an exposed bolt is located in the middle of the southern log, approximately 12cm from its upper edge. Exposed height of the bolt is approximately 9cm and it appears to be an iron coach bolt.
In the south-west corner, the log appears to extend into the creek bank and is covered by sediments, indicating a continuation of the fording. Combined with the presence of sandy loam sediments extending approx 12 to 13 metres further south up the embankment, the apparent extension of the log may indicate the fording extends further into the southern bank than what is currently exposed.
From the crossing, the southern section of the old stock route extends approximately 420 metres to the Yeppoon-Byfield Road. There is a large sandy deposit extending 12m to 13m up the bank from the creek, which appears to have been washed downslope from loose deposits. Above the sand-bank, the roadway is comprised of clay and stone which rises for several metres before levelling out, with the soil changing to a loamy composition. Native trees, ferns and palms grow thickly along the embankment and creek bank.
Continuing towards the Yeppoon-Byfield Road, the path is covered with ground vegetation, leaf litter, including pine needles and fallen branches mixed with loose sand and soil. Towards the intersection with the Yeppoon-Byfield Road, a culvert has been created for draining water away from the road. Ground vegetation, mainly grasses and some saplings, provides a masking effect along the side of the Yeppoon-Byfield Road, making the entrance to the old road easy to overlook when driving past.
The northern section of the old road extends approximately 20 metres from the northern bank of Byfield Creek along what is now part of Richters Road reserve. There is no sand deposit, with the embankment comprised of a clay-based soil. There is thick ground-cover vegetation to either side of the path leading up the embankment and onto Richters Road, which is predominately blady grass. This ground-cover hides the entrance to the old road from Richters Road. Native trees, ferns and palms grow along either side of the pathway on the embankment down to the creek.
","history":"The road leading to and from the ford at Byfield Creek was established in the 1860s when the district was occupied by pastoral interests. It was a section of the sole track from Maryvale Station north to Byfield Head Station, and continuing on to stations in the Shoalwater area. A specific date of construction for the stone-pitched ford across Byfield Creek on this road has not been established, but as the ford facilitated access to Byfield Head Station and to properties to the north and west of Byfield, it may date to the 1860s when Byfield Head Station was established on the northern bank of the creek opposite where the ford is now sited. The crossing is the only known surviving section of stone pitching along what was, from settlement in the 1860s to the 1930s, the only access route to stations directly north of Yeppoon.
Byfield [originally Bayfield] is an isolated district, sandwiched between the Byfield Range and the Capricorn Coast. Traditionally it was home to the Butcha-Bura people (meaning men of the Banksia or Honey Suckle Tree). The Butcha-Bura belonged to the Ningebul tribe, which in turn was part of the Darrambul Nation, and they lived within the Byfield district until the latter part of the 19th century.
The area was explored by Ludwig Leichhardt and Thomas Mitchell between 1844 and 1846 and provided the most manageable overland route to the grassy plains of Shoalwater and Broadsound to the north. Land management practices of the Butcha-Bura people contributed to the development of these plains, which later proved ideal for the grazing of sheep and cattle. Fire stick farming enticed wallabies and kangaroo to feed on sweet new growth of grass, making hunting practices easier and more predictable.
Broadsound and the Isaac River country were explored by William Landsborough and J McDonald between 1847 to 1858, for the purpose of marking out runs. On 10 January 1854 the New South Wales Government proclaimed the Port Curtis Pastoral District open to settlement under pastoral occupation license. Landsborough acquired the Shoalwater run for a short period before L Samuel won a tender for it in 1858. The run was re-named Raspberry Creek due to the abundance of native raspberry in the area.
The first wave of permanent non-indigenous settlers to the Byfield and Shoalwater districts commenced in the early 1860s, with the arrival of the Hutton, Ross, Atherton and Tucker families, mostly from the New England district of New South Wales. In February 1863 the Tucker family selected the Maryvale and Bayfield [later Byfield] runs. Robert Ross and James Hutton took over the Raspberry Creek license from Samuel in 1863, along with the leases of Shoalwater and Banksia Plain in the same year. Hutton later bought out Ross' share in Raspberry Creek. The Ross family, with various financial partners, obtained much of the coastal country from the mouth of the Fitzroy River north to the peninsula at Shoalwater Bay. The Peninsula run was forfeited by Ross in 1864 and was successfully bid for at auction by Edward Hampton (Cranky) Baker. By 1865, Elliot of Tilpal had joined the Huttons, Newbold and 'Cranky' Baker as being among the first to permanently settle to the north of Byfield Creek in the Shoalwater area.
In the 1860s the Byfield and Shoalwater districts were accessed via a single circuitous route from Rockhampton, by-passing the Berseker Range which lay between the coast and the Fiztroy River. Materials, livestock and other goods were transported to and from these remote northern properties via this route, which linked head station to head station, and crossed Byfield Creek near Byfield Head Station.
An October 1868 survey of Maryvale Run [survey plan P42.90] shows the 'Road to Byfield' linking Maryvale and Byfield head stations. Byfield Head Station was located on the northern bank of Byfield Creek [see survey plan PALM40.4 (1870)], on what is now Lot 5 on RP613780, near the creek crossing.
In the mid-1880s the Byfield district was surveyed into farm portions and opened for agricultural selection. Pastoral leases gave way to agriculture, encouraged by longer tenure and high yields from relatively small areas. An 1887 survey plan [PALM40.125] of the farm portions surrounding the Byfield Head Station block [portion 171, surveyed in 1870] shows the old route linking Byfield with stations to the north and west, circumventing the homestead block along its eastern and northern boundaries. In 1887 this route was surveyed officially as the main road to Raspberry Creek and Peninsula stations [see also plan PALM40.126 (1887)], and heading south to Maryvale, crossing Byfield Creek in the approximate location of the stone-pitched ford, although the ford itself is not indicated on the map. The section of this road which follows the eastern boundary of the Byfield homestead block is now known as Richters Road. A second track, marked as 'old postman's track', was also indicated on the 1887 survey plan [PALM40.125]. This track traversed the Byfield homestead block diagonally from northwest to southeast, meeting Byfield Creek at the approximate location of the stone-pitched ford and the road south to Maryvale, and joining the road to Raspberry Creek north of the Byfield Head Station block.
The influx of new settlers increased traffic over the old Byfield Road across Byfield Creek. They needed to bring goods in and out by wagon and required a reliable crossing for foot traffic, vehicles and animals. In 1888 a weekly Mail Service [No.142] from Yeppoon to Raspberry Creek via Maryvale and Byfield commenced. The route was over 80 miles using two or three horses with pack saddles to carry mail and goods to be delivered. Jock Cowan continued this service to the residents of Byfield and Shoalwater for 40 years, using the Byfield Creek crossing to gain access to the northern route to Raspberry Creek via what is now Richters Road.
In the 1930s the Sherriff brothers introduced motorised delivery vehicles on the mail route. Beginning with motor bikes and then a utility fitted out like a little shop, they sold cigarettes, chocolates and odds and ends to residents along with delivering the mail once a week on a Sunday, using the crossing to access northern properties.
Well into the 20th century, horses and cattle continued to be driven along the old Byfield Road into Yeppoon for the sales. The Huttons of Raspberry Creek and Shoalwater runs were prominent in the establishment of the pastoral industry in Central Queensland, and worked with the Flowers brothers of nearby Yandouble and Pine Mountain to establish a live cattle export from Port Clinton to New Caledonia. To get cattle to the Rockhampton market, the Huttons and other graziers would drive them along the Byfield Road, using the fording to cross Byfield Creek to reach Adelaide Park Road, which follows the Mt Hedlow route around the Berserker Range. The Huttons, as with many families in the region, also bred their own racehorses along with work and saddle horses. Horse breeders such as the Huttons and Geddes found there was more profit in selling horses to India as army remounts and polo ponies than selling cattle. To get these horses to markets, they either needed to be driven along the route that crossed Byfield Creek, or loaded onto ships at Port Clinton.
Country race meetings and other social events were held on the station runs between 1879 and 1909, attracting visitors to the Shoalwater district from as far afield as Mt Hedlow and The Oaks. These races were held under the banner of the Palmerston Amateur Turf Club, formed in 1879, and known as 'The Raspberry Creek Races' although events were held at Banksia, The Oaks and Tooloombah as well as Raspberry Creek. Travel to and from the northern stations for these and other social engagements was only possible via the old Byfield Road and required traversing the Byfield Creek crossing either by buggy or on horseback.
Byfield district graziers and fruit-growers used the old road over Byfield Creek until a by-pass was opened in the early 1940s, in response to pressure from an increasing number of residents attracted to the area. A c1936 map of the area shows the development of the bypass as being nearly complete, but resumption of land through Lot 10 delayed completion of the road until the early 1940s.
The bypass, known as the Yeppoon-Byfield Road, gives access to the Byfield State School, Post Office and General Store and provides a comfortable journey for travellers between Yeppoon and properties north of Byfield Creek, with overpasses constructed over creeks and the roadway designed as a durable all-weather passage. This bypass circumvents the road leading to and around the boundary of Lot 171 and rejoins the original route at the northern intersection of Yaxley and Byfield Roads.
Although the Byfield Creek crossing on the old Byfield Road was cut off by the bypass, it remained in use as a short-cut for local property owners and council workers, being used by foot traffic, horseback riders, vehicles and heavy machinery, until very recent times. In an effort to stop vehicles using the crossing, the Livingstone Shire Council placed bollards across the old roadway, but these were removed shortly after by persons unknown and have not been replaced. By the early 21st century the old road south of the Byfield Creek crossing was overgrown, with re-growth vegetation, fallen trees and branches making it difficult for vehicles to access the crossing. The road following the eastern boundary of Lot 171 [Richters Road] is still in use, but no longer crosses Byfield Creek. It is unlikely that the stone-pitched crossing will return to regular local use.
Local interest in the stone-pitched crossing and the portion of the old road bounded by the Yeppoon-Byfield and Richters roads has remained strong, with the local Byfield State School using the area for Remnant Vegetation studies since the late 1990s. For descendants of the early pastoral and agricultural settlers still residing in the Byfield district, the stone-pitched crossing and road remains a tangible link with the past. Continued community involvement in the maintenance and conservation of the old road and ford resulted in its nomination to the Queensland Heritage Register.
","criteria":"The Old Byfield Road was in use from the 1860s and is important in illustrating the pattern of non-indigenous settlement in the Byfield, Shoalwater and Broadsound districts of central Queensland. The old road was the only access route to stations north and west of Byfield until the early 1940s, and was important in the establishment of the cattle and later fruit growing industries of the Capricorn Coast. The stone-pitched crossing which fords Byfield Creek along this route may date to the 1860s, and is integral to our understanding of the function of this road as a principal access route.
This crossing was the only made access to the northern end of Byfield and outlying properties until the final section of the Yeppoon-Byfield Road was opened to traffic in the early 1940s.
|The place is significant as the only remaining unmodified section of the original road through Byfield to and from properties in Shoalwater and Broadsound.
The stone-pitched crossing is important in demonstrating a method of constructing fords which is no longer practiced, and is of particular interest as the only remaining stone-pitched crossing in the Byfield area in an unmodified condition.
|The stone-pitched crossing is important in demonstrating a method of constructing fords which is no longer practiced, and is of particular interest as the only remaining stone-pitched crossing in the Byfield area in an unmodified condition.
|The place is valued by the Byfield community for its historical and educational associations. The crossing and early road has special association for the local community with the work of early settlers and postal workers, and is valued for its important role in early transport and communication in an otherwise isolated district. The place is also valued by the community for its remnant native vegetation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16484,"place_ref":601747,"name":"Bishop's House","alternate_name":"St Monica's Monastery/Priory | Bishops House | St Monicas Catholic Priory","street_address":"Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-07-01","description":"The Bishop's House, situated at the corner of Abbott and Minnie Streets, is a two-storeyed building constructed in reinforced concrete in a style reminiscent of colonial India. It has a rectangular plan form with a wide open verandah along Abbott Street. Verandahs that return half way down the southeast and northwest elevations have been enclosed. A toilet block extends at the western corner and a rear verandah has been enclosed. A two-storeyed c1960s addition extends from the southern corner of the building.
A fence contemporary with the construction of the building survives along Abbott Street and returns down Minnie Street. It consists of a low concrete wall with evenly spaced piers and "Cyclone" chain mesh infill panels running up to paired concrete gate posts in line with entrances at Abbott and Minnie Streets.
The Lake Street facade is equally proportioned in three sections with the centre section projecting. These sections are divided into three bays by rectangular columns which have between them at ground floor level a recessed four-centred arch valance and at first floor heavy scrolled brackets. The verandahs at both levels have a partially solid balustrade with shaped square section balusters. Above the verandah is a heavy dentalled cornice with parapet with blind balusters.
The entrance is accentuated at parapet level by a statue of Mary in a niche formed by columns supporting a heavy semi-circular pediment. Above this and behind the parapet rises a small gable with a heavy coping. This gable is repeated at the ends of the building along the Abbott Street elevation. The roof which employs both hip and gable forms is clad in corrugated fibrous cement sheeting.
The rear elevation has three sash casement window frames with small hoppers over located between the symmetrical concrete frame and enclosing a rear verandah. Windows at ground level have window hoods supported on decorative timber brackets.
The main entrance to the building is up wide concrete steps to a timber porch which has a heavy timber paneled door with lead-lighted side panels. This detailing is repeated at the entrance door and again in a c1940 dividing wall or screen across the foyer. Beyond this screen is a secondary foyer which has a heavy timbered silky oak stair with Edwardian detailing.
The floor plan is designed around a central hall on both levels that typically have french doors opening onto the verandahs. To the right of the main foyer at ground level is what is now a conference room. A small chapel is located in the southern corner of the ground floor in which is situated a white painted timber alter. Other ground floor rooms are now used as offices. The first floor landing extends across the width of the building through a colonnade to the rear verandah which has a single stair to the ground floor. A later suspended ceiling has been installed in this area. To the right of the first floor landing the original Bishop's suite exists in the western corner along Minnie Street. This was extended when the western verandah was enclosed.
The detailing of the doors and windows is Edwardian in clear finished silky oak. Doors are both panelled with patterned opaque hopper over lights or half glass with panelling below. Ceilings are plaster with simple coved cornices and floors are polished timber.
The Bishop's House is very intact.
","history":"The Bishop's House at Cairns, a two-storeyed re-inforced concrete building, was erected in 1930 as a monastery for the Augustinian fathers who administered the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown, and St Monica's Parish in Cairns. It replaced an 1887 timber presbytery.
Cairns was established in October 1876, as a port to service the Hodgkinson goldfields. In the same year the area from Cardwell to Cape York was separated from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brisbane as the Pro-Vicariate of North Queensland. In 1884 three Irish Augustinian fathers took charge of the Pro-Vicariate, establishing a monastery at Cooktown, and founding the parish of St Monica's at Cairns in 1885. An acre of land bounded by Abbott, Minnie and Lake Streets was acquired and the first St Monica's Church, a timber building at the corner of Abbott and Minnie Streets on the site of the present Bishop's House, was opened on 10 January 1886. In 1887, the year in which the Pro-Vicariate of North Queensland was constituted the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown, a timber presbytery was erected in Abbott Street, adjacent to St Monica's Church. In 1906, the Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown moved his residence to Cairns, which had eclipsed Cooktown as the principal port of far north Queensland, and St Monica's Church became a pro-cathedral.
St Monica's Monastery was erected during a flurry of Catholic building activity in Cairns, which included St Monica's Church-School in 1927, St Augustine's College in 1929, St Monica's Monastery in 1930 and Our Lady of Good Counsel Church-School [North Cairns] in 1936. The work was undertaken principally at the instigation of Father Joseph Phelan, transferred from Mareeba to Cairns to help with the re-construction of St Monica's Church and School following the devastating cyclone of 9 February 1927. Father Phelan had a knowledge of architecture, and appears to have designed the college, monastery and church-school at North Cairns.
The old St Monica's presbytery was demolished June-July 1930, and by the time the foundation stone of the new monastery was laid by the Bishop of Townsville on 31 August 1930, the exterior walls were half completed. The building was officially opened on 21 December 1930 by Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane, who described it as the finest episcopal residence in Australia [Cairns Post 22 December 1930:4]. The design is attributed to Father Phelan, who supervised construction along with Cairns builder Michael Garvey, who had constructed St Monica's Church-School in 1927 and St Augustine's College in 1929. The monastery was erected in less than 6 months, using day labour and Father Phelan's volunteer week-end working-bee. The plumbing and electrical work was contributed free of charge, and an altar for the oratory was donated as a memorial to a former parishioner. The staircase reputedly was donated by the English family of Malanda, who owned a sawmilling business. Total cost was about £7,430.
Construction of the new Augustinian monastery in Cairns illustrated the strength of the Catholic Church in the Cairns district in the 1920s. The effects of the February 1927 cyclone, followed by flood damage, a severe trade depression, and waterfront disputes affecting the city's building industry, did not deter the predominantly working-class Catholic community of Cairns from contributing funds and labour. The rapid construction was a tribute to the zeal of the Augustinian Fathers at Cairns, particularly Father Phelan, and the enthusiasm they inspired in the local parish.
St Monica's Monastery was erected during the third major phase of Cairns' development, which saw the city boom in the 1920s and 1930s. The Cairns hinterland Soldier Settlement Schemes of the 1920s, the completion of the rail link to Brisbane in 1924, the continued success of the local sugar industry, the expansion of wharf facilities, the extensive re-building necessitated by a spate of cyclones in the 1920s and the poor condition of earlier timber structures, combined to produce unprecedented building activity in Cairns. The city centre in particular was dominated until the 1980s by substantial, reinforced concrete and brick structures of the interwar period, and in this respect was markedly different from other 19th century-established Queensland towns and cites.
In 1941 the Vicariate of Cooktown was raised to the status of the Diocese of Cairns, with Bishop Heavey - Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown since 1914 - appointed the first Bishop of Cairns. At this time St Monica's Monastery became known as the Bishop's House. Bishop Heavey was the last of the Augustinian Bishops in the Diocese of Cairns. Following his death in mid-1948, administration of the Diocese was handed over to Diocesan clergy, severing an association with the Irish Augustinians which had lasted over 65 years. From this period, the Augustinian priests began to scale down their involvement in pastoral care in the Diocese, and were replaced mostly with Queensland-born priests trained at the Banyo Seminary in Brisbane. The Bishop's House remains the residence of the Bishop of Cairns.
","criteria":"The Bishop's House survives as important evidence of the re-building of Cairns in the 1920s and 1930s, during which period the city's status as the principal port of Far North Queensland was consolidated and the city centre was re-built. It also illustrates a tradition of building in re-inforced concrete, favoured in cyclone-prone Cairns since the early 1900s.
Together with St Monica's Old Cathedral, these buildings form a highly intact ecclesiastical group, and are important in illustrating the evolution of the Catholic Church in Cairns and district.
|Despite some minor refurbishment, the Bishop's House survives substantially intact. It remains a fine example of a monastery building designed to function in a tropical climate, and is of interest for its re-inforced concrete construction, considered more cyclone-proof than masonry.
|Together with the nearby St Joseph's Convent and St Monica's High School Administration Building, Bishop's House is part of a grouping of pre-1945 20th century buildings which, although of different styles, are all of similar scale, materials and planning. Both individually and as a group, these buildings make a significant aesthetic contribution to the Cairns townscape and Abbott Street streetscape, and contribute markedly to the city's sense of physical identity and history.
|The place has a strong association for residents and visitors alike with the earlier development of Cairns, and has a strong and special association for the Catholic parish of St Monica's, with the evolution of their parish and Diocese.
|The Bishop's House is important also for its close association with the work of the Augustinian fathers, particularly Father Phelan [parish priest of Cairns 1927-37], in the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown / Diocese of Cairns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16485,"place_ref":601748,"name":"St Monica's High School Administration Building","alternate_name":"St Monica's High School | St Monicas Catholic High School | St Monica's College","street_address":"Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-07-01","description":"St Monica's High School, which is set back from Lake Street, is a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building with a rectangular floor plan. It has a fibrous cement hipped roof and is surrounded on three sides by reinforced concrete verandahs that have been enclosed with the insertion of aluminium windows. Continuous horizontal wide projecting concrete hoods, which have rounded corners, run over the verandah openings and give the building a strong horizontal character. This is accentuated by small cornices running around the building at parapet and first floor levels.
The central entrance is highlighted by stepped piers at each side that rise through the first floor to a fluted stepped parapet which is finished with a small cross. Below this at first floor level is a large cross in low relief. Each side of this, also in low relief, is located the name ST MONICA'S - HIGH SCHOOL. Solid balustrades at first and ground floor levels have indented stripped patterns symmetrically positioned between concrete piers that support the verandahs and project and terminate above the parapet.
The original fence survives along Lake Street, and consists of a low concrete wall with evenly spaced piers and "Cyclone" chain mesh infill panels running up to paired concrete gateposts in line with the entrance door.
The ground floor has two large classrooms that are divided by a central hall which connects to a small attached rear porch and cloakroom. Access to the first floor is from a return stair at the end of the hall. Originally the first floor was divided for use as small music rooms. Evidence of this arrangement remains in the dividing walls although some changes have been made.
","history":"St Monica's High School [Administration Building] was erected in 1941 for the Sisters of Mercy in Cairns. The two-storeyed re-inforced concrete building was designed by South African-born Cairns architect Vibert McKirdy Brown, and was constructed by contractor VW Doyle.
Nearly 50 years earlier, during the height of the 1890s depression, the Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown, Bishop Hutchinson, had encouraged the Sisters of Mercy at Cooktown to take over St Monica's School in Cairns [established 1890 with lay staff], where the number of pupils had fallen dramatically from 70 to 19. Three of the sisters from St Mary's at Cooktown moved to Cairns in October 1892 and were successful in encouraging Catholic families to return their children to St Monica's School. By 1894 enrolment had risen to 80, and was well over 100 by the turn-of-the-century. They offered a full primary school curriculum and extra-curricula classes in French, drawing, painting, needlework, and music [vocal and instrumental] to older girls.
In the 1930s the work of the convent school expanded to educate girls to secondary school level. Despite a new St Monica's Church-School having been constructed after the February 1927 cyclone, St Monica's secondary school was conducted under difficult conditions. In what was predominantly a primary school, there were no purpose-designed classrooms for secondary subjects.
Cairns boomed during the interwar period, and by the end of the 1930s the need for a purpose-designed high school building at St Monica's had become urgent. Cairns architect VM Brown was commissioned to design a high school, to be erected on land in Abbott Street which the Sisters had acquired in 1922, adjacent to St Joseph's Convent. A former boarding house, which the Sisters had used as a music school, was demolished prior to construction of the new building.
St Monica's High School was erected toward the end of Cairns' third major phase of development. The Cairns hinterland Soldier Settlement Schemes of the 1920s, the completion of the rail link to Brisbane in 1924, the continued success of the local sugar industry, the expansion of wharf facilities, the extensive re-building necessitated by a spate of cyclones in the 1920s and the poor condition of earlier timber structures, combined to produce unprecedented building activity in Cairns in the interwar period. The city centre in particular was dominated until the 1980s by substantial, reinforced concrete and brick structures of the interwar period, and in this respect was markedly different from other 19th century-established Queensland towns and cites. St Monica's High School made an important contribution to this re-construction.
Work on St Monica's High School had begun by January 1941, and was completed by late August, at a cost of approximately £5,000. Plans had been approved prior to the Commonwealth Government's war-time restrictions on buildings costing over £3,000, introduced in mid-1941. Bishop Heavey blessed and officially opened the High School on Sunday 31 August 1941, and the school was occupied by the Sisters and students the next day.
The new building was considered an asset to the architecture of the city. The design was in the Moderne style, with sweeping horizontal and vertical lines and a minimum of architectural ornament. The building was constructed of re-inforced concrete throughout - including the floors and roofs of the deep verandahs. On the ground floor were two large classrooms, main entrance hall, and rear entrance porch and cloak room. Each of the rooms could be divided in two by folding doors. A staircase led from the entrance hall on the ground floor to a central hall on the upper floor, which housed the music rooms: 12 cubicles for pianos, insulated with Canite and Masonite, with glass observation windows in the dividing walls. The building was designed to be extended at the north end with an additional wing, and for a third storey to be added.
When St Monica's School expanded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and became exclusively a secondary school for girls, the purpose-designed 1941 building was not extended as intended. New high school blocks were erected fronting Lake Street, behind the original St Monica's High School building, which has been refurbished as the school's administration centre. In 1989, title to the property was transferred from the Sisters of Mercy to the Diocese of Cairns.
","criteria":"St Monica's High School Administration Building is significant historically for its close association with the development of Catholic secondary education for girls in Cairns and district since 1941. It is also evidence of the re-building of Cairns in the interwar period, sustained into the early 1940s until interrupted by the Second World War. During this period the city's status as the principal port of Far North Queensland was consolidated and the city centre was largely re-built. It also illustrates a tradition of building in re-inforced concrete, favoured in cyclone-prone Cairns since the early 1900s.
Together with St Monica's Old Cathedral, these buildings form a highly intact ecclesiastical group, and are important in illustrating the evolution of the Catholic Church and Catholic education in Cairns and district.
|Despite internal and external refurbishment as offices, St Monica's High School Administration Building survives largely intact, and is a fine illustration of 1940s tropical architecture in the then fashionable and progressive Moderne style. It is of interest also for its re-inforced concrete construction, considered more cyclone-proof than masonry, and is a good example of non-government school design of the period.
|Together with the adjacent St Joseph's Convent and nearby Bishop's House, St Monica's High School Administration Building is part of a grouping of pre-1945 20th century buildings which, although of different styles, are all of similar scale, materials and planning. Both individually and as a group, these buildings make a significant aesthetic contribution to the Cairns townscape and Abbott Street streetscape, and contribute markedly to the city's sense of physical identity and history.
|St Monica's High School Administration Building has a strong association for the local Catholic community with the work of the Sisters of Mercy in offering secondary education to the girls of Cairns and district in the mid-20th century.
|The place is important as a good example of the work of Cairns architect VM Brown, and is important for its close association with the work of the Sisters of Mercy in expanding Catholic education in far north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16486,"place_ref":601749,"name":"St Joseph's Convent","alternate_name":"St Josephs Catholic Convent","street_address":"179 Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-07-01","description":"St Joseph's Convent is two-storeyed with a rectangular plan form with a return bay on the southern corner. It is constructed of reinforced concrete and has a wide surrounding verandah at ground and first floor levels with a dominating two-storeyed entrance portico and gabled roofs. The original fence survives along Abbott Street which consists of a low concrete wall with evenly spaced piers and 'Cyclone' chain mesh infill panels running up to a Gothic-styled reinforced concrete arched gate in line with the main entrance door. The building, which is set well back from Abbott Street, has a lawned area in front with mature trees each side of a single width concrete entrance path.
","history":"St Joseph's Convent was constructed in 1912-14 for the Sisters of Mercy, who had established a foundation in Cairns in 1892. The 1914 building replaced two earlier cottage convents. The impetus for construction of a new convent came from Bishop James Murray, Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown 1898-1914. Construction of St Joseph's Convent at Cairns was considered one of his finest achievements. The new convent was designed by architect, civil engineer and surveyor E Gregory Waters. St Joseph's Convent was opened officially by James Duhig, Archbishop of Brisbane, on 22 March 1914. [Bishop Murray had died on 13 February 1914, prior to the opening.]
","criteria":"St Joseph's Convent is significant for its close association with the development of Catholicism and Catholic education in Cairns and district since the early 1900s.
Together with St Monica's Old Cathedral, these buildings form a highly intact ecclesiastical group, and are important in illustrating the evolution of the Catholic Church and Catholic education in Cairns and district.
|It is also an excellent example of the work of local architect E Gregory Waters, and illustrates the establishment of a tradition of building in re-inforced concrete, favoured in cyclone-prone Cairns in the early 1900s.
|Despite some refurbishment, the convent survives substantially intact. It remains a fine example of a convent building designed to function in a tropical climate, and is of interest for its re-inforced concrete construction, considered more cyclone-proof than masonry. Together with the nearby Bishop's House and adjacent St Monica's High School Administration Building, St Joseph's Convent is part of a grouping of pre-1945 20th century buildings which, although of different styles, are all of similar scale, materials and planning. Both individually and as a group, these buildings make a significant aesthetic contribution to the Cairns townscape and Abbott Street streetscape, and contribute markedly to the city's sense of physical identity and history.
|It is of significance for its close association with the work of the Sisters of Mercy in expanding Catholic education in far north Queensland, and for over 80 years the place has had a strong association for the local Catholic community with the work of the Sisters of Mercy in Cairns. It remains illustrative of the work of the Augustinian fathers in the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown, especially Bishop Murray, who encouraged the erection of Catholic churches, schools, convents and presbyteries throughout far North Queensland in the early years of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16487,"place_ref":601750,"name":"St Monica's Old Cathedral","alternate_name":"St Monica's Church and School | St Monica's Cathedral | St Monicas Cathedral | St Monica's Catholic Cathedral","street_address":"Minnie Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-07-01","description":"St Monica's Old Cathedral, located a the corner of Lake and Minnie Streets, is a two-storeyed, reinforced concrete building with timber floors and gabled roof structure. It has a rectangular floor plan with projecting c1948 porches at the west elevation and runs parallel to Lake Street and is set back from Minnie Street.
A pair of concrete arched pedestrian gates surmounted with Celtic crosses in low relief are located in Minnie Street each side of a vehicle crossing to the site. This gateway leads across an asphalt forecourt to a wide stair to the first floor entrance erected c1948. The stair has slotted balustrades and a landing that leads left and right to colonnaded porticos at first floor level. These porticos have stepped gables on three sides with large Celtic crosses in relief on each side. At the top of the main stair are located double entrance doors which have a raised stepped plain pediment with Celtic cross supported on piers with Doric-styled half capitals. Beside these, piers rise into a semi-circular arch, which has below it and above the entrance door, a glazed roundel. Above the arch is a small lancet window. Round-headed casement windows are located each side of the arch.
At the top of the main stair are double entrance doors which have a raised stepped plain pediment with Celtic cross supported on piers with Doric styled half capitals. Beside these, piers rise into a semicircular arch, which has below it and above the entrance door, a glazed roundel. Above the arch is a small lancet window. Each side of the arch are located round-headed casement windows. Access to the first floor was originally via a pair of timber dog leg stairs on the south elevation from Lake Street. These stairs led to double doors with timber porches with gable roofs over.
The western wall terminates at the first floor in a projecting gable with a coping. The gable terminates with squared piers finished with gable caps. The north and south walls have a high parapet that is finished in a wide castellation with regularly spaced piers which stop short of the top of the parapet and are finished with a gabled cap. At first floor level are large square aluminium windows with louvres which replaced paired timber casement windows with lancet hoppers. At ground floor level on the southern and northern elevations the segmental arched colonnades have been infilled with aluminium joinery. East elevation has a matching gable to west end, with small lancet windows at high level between squared piers. There are three louvred windows symmetrically positioned at first floor level and below this three casement windows with hoppers over.
The ground floor which was originally divided into classrooms has original walls remaining but the spaces have in part been subdivided to suit new functional arrangements. The panelled ceilings with deep timber floor beams projecting below them.
The original cathedral space that extends over the entire first floor area has utilitarian detailing, with timber supporting columns with lancet arches between them, dividing the main space from aisles on each side. At the western end of each aisle are located double entrance doors with semi-circular heads that open out to the double-storeyed porticos. A raised timber gallery extends between the aisles over the main entrance; this is accessed by a steep timber stair and supported by timber posts with decorated brackets. The aisle ceilings are clad in narrow tongue and groove boarding and the ceiling over the former nave is divided into large panels with the same detailing. Wrought iron tension rods from the roof trusses are suspended below the ceiling. There is a stage at the east end of the former nave.
","history":"St Monica's Old Cathedral was erected in 1927 as St Monica's Church-School, replacing an earlier church and school demolished in the cyclone of 9 February 1927.
Cairns was established in October 1876, as a port to service the Hodgkinson goldfields. In the same year the area from Cardwell to Cape York was separated from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brisbane as the Pro-Vicariate of North Queensland. In 1884 three Irish Augustinian fathers took charge of the Pro-Vicariate, establishing a priory at Cooktown, and in 1885 they founded the parish of St Monica's at Cairns. An acre of land bounded by Abbott, Minnie and Lake Streets was acquired and the first St Monica's Church, a timber building at the corner of Abbott and Minnie Streets, was opened on 10 January 1886. A school fronting Minnie Street opened at the beginning of the 1890 school year - staffed initially by lay teachers, but from October 1892 by Sisters of Mercy from St Mary's Convent in Cooktown, who established a foundation in Cairns. In 1906 the Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown moved his residence to Cairns, which had eclipsed Cooktown as the principal port of far North Queensland, and at this time St Monica's Church acquired the status of pro-cathedral.
The first St Monica's church and school were destroyed in the cyclone of 9 February 1927. Plans for a cathedral had to be abandoned as appeals were launched locally and in southern dioceses for reconstruction funds. Lawrence and Lordan, architects of Cairns, designed a building to function as both church and school. In the interim, mass was held at the Palace Picture Theatre, and the convent school was conducted at the Irish Association's Hibernian Hall.
Tenders for the new church-school at the corner of Minnie and Lake Streets were called in March 1927. The contract was let to Cairns builder Michael Garvey, who completed the large, re-inforced concrete building, officially opened on 16 October 1927, in about 7 months. The ground floor - 110 feet by 58 feet divided by folding doors - contained the school. The upper storey housed the church, including the altar from the first St Monica's Church.
The design used Gothic motifs, had spacious surrounding verandahs, and was much admired. The building was well ventilated, seated 900, and cost nearly £9,000 to erect. With new seating the total cost was over £10,000, and its construction illustrated the strength of the Catholic Church in the Cairns district in the 1920s. The effects of the February 1927 cyclone, followed almost immediately by flood damage, a severe trade depression, and waterfront disputes affecting the city's building industry, did not deter the predominantly working-class Catholic community of Cairns from raising within 8 months nearly £5,000 toward the re-construction. The local parish priest, Father Phelan, raised a working-bee of 40 men who for months gave their spare time to clearing the debris of the church and school destroyed in the February cyclone. The rapid construction was a tribute to the zeal of the Augustinian fathers, especially Father Phelan, and the enthusiasm they inspired in the parish.
St Monica's Church and School was erected during the third major phase of Cairns' development, which saw the city boom in the 1920s and 1930s. The Cairns hinterland Soldier Settlement Schemes of the 1920s, the completion of the rail link to Brisbane in 1924, the continued success of the local sugar industry, the expansion of wharf facilities, the extensive re-building necessitated by a spate of cyclones in the 1920s and the poor condition of earlier timber structures, combined to produce unprecedented building activity in Cairns. The city centre in particular was dominated until the 1980s by substantial, reinforced concrete and brick structures of the interwar period, and in this respect was markedly different from other 19th century-established Queensland towns and cites.
On 8 July 1941 the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown was raised to the status of Diocese of Cairns with Dr Heavey [Vicar Apostolic since 1914] as the first Bishop of Cairns. At this time St Monica's Church became St Monica's Cathedral, and imposing front stairs were added to the Minnie Street façade c1948. Prior to this, entry was from two sets of stairs on the Lake Street elevation.
In July 1968 St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral was opened, and the former St Monica's Cathedral ceased functioning as a church. The altar and Bishop's Chair were removed to the new cathedral and a stage was erected at the southern end of the former nave, which currently accommodates St Monica's School gymnasium. In the late 1960s and early 1970s St Monica's School became exclusively a secondary school for girls. New school buildings were erected fronting Lake Street and the lower level of St Monica's Old Cathedral, formerly the convent school, was refurbished as Diocesan and parish offices.
","criteria":"St Monica's Old Cathedral is significant as the first Roman Catholic cathedral in Cairns, 1948-68, and for its close association with Catholic worship and education in Cairns since 1927. It is also evidence of the re-building of Cairns in the 1920s and 1930s, during which period the city's status as the principal port of Far North Queensland was consolidated and the city centre was re-built. It also illustrates a tradition of building in re-inforced concrete, favoured in cyclone-prone Cairns since the early 1900s.
|Despite some internal and external refurbishment, St Monica's Old Cathedral survives substantially intact. It remains a good example of a type of combined church and school design favoured by the Catholic Church in the interwar period, and is of interest for its re-inforced concrete construction, considered more cyclone-proof than masonry, and adaptations to a tropical climate.
|Together with the nearby Bishop's House, St Joseph's Convent and St Monica's High School Administration Building, St Monica's Old Cathedral is part of a grouping of pre-1945 20th century buildings which, both individually and as a group, make a significant aesthetic contribution to the Cairns townscape, and contribute markedly to the city's sense of physical identity and history. They form a highly intact ecclesiastical group, and are important in illustrating the evolution of the Catholic Church and Catholic education in Cairns and district.
|The place has a strong association for residents and visitors alike with the earlier development of Cairns, and has a strong and special association for the Catholic parish of St Monica's, with the evolution of their parish and the elevation of Cairns to a cathedral city in 1941.
|The place is important for its association with the work of Cairns architects Lawrence and Lordan, with the work of the Augustinian fathers in the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown [in particular Bishop Heavey and Father Phelan], and with the work of the Sisters of Mercy in expanding Catholic education in north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16493,"place_ref":601756,"name":"Olsen's Home Hardware Store","alternate_name":"W.K. Hyslop's Reliance Stores | W.K. Hyslop & Sons (The Economists' Trading Centre) | Tulloch's Central Stores","street_address":"110-114 Grafton Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-04-09","description":"Olsen's Home Hardware store, a single-storeyed sandstone structure, has a triple gable corrugated iron roof partly concealed behind a parapet wall. The building is located fronting Grafton Street to the north, and consists of a single shop-front at the eastern end separated from an adjacent double shop-front by a section of sandstone wall. A continuous corrugated iron skillion roof verandah is located over the footpath.
The verandah has timber posts with timber brackets, and the parapet wall supports signage. Each shop-front consists of recessed french doors flanked by glass bays. Each bay window has a turned timber corner post, with the front section and return section each containing a single pane of glass. The double shop-front also has high level glazing which has been sheeted over. The sections of sandstone wall and timber window surrounds are painted.
The western and southern walls are constructed of predominantly rough faced ashlar, with dressed stones around window and door openings. The western wall has three tall arched sash windows with steel bars, and the bottom course of stone, slightly expressed to suggest a base, has small vented openings. The southern wall of the western section of the building has two arched doorways, which have enclosed walkways attached, flanked by a tall arched sash window with steel bars to either side. The southern wall of the eastern section, which is three courses shorter than the western section, has an arched sash window with steel bars and a doorway with paired timber doors and a glass fanlight.
Internally, the western section of the building, with the double shop-front, has a central row of timber posts. The eastern section of the building is separated by a rendered sandstone wall, with access via an arched opening. A second arched opening has reportedly been bricked-in and is covered by display walls. Interior walls are rendered, and side and rear windows have been sheeted over with displays of merchandise. Both sections of the building have boarded ceilings, and concrete floors have been laid with a setback from the side and rear sandstone walls. This setback has been filled with gravel and covered with a raised display platform, and is intended to allow moisture to evaporate to alleviate rising damp in the stonework.
At the rear of the building, a small single-storeyed timber and fibrous cement clad structure has been attached via a covered ramping walkway. This structure, which is used as an office, has a corrugated iron hipped roof, timber stumps and sash windows. Paired timber doors open to the rear, and the structure is attached to a second walkway on the western side which accesses an adjacent corrugated iron clad storage shed. Neither of these structures is considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
An L-shaped shed with a skillion roof is located towards the rear of the property. This structure has timber stumps, corrugated iron cladding and is used for storage. It is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Olsen's Home Hardware Store is a single-storeyed sandstone building constructed in at least two stages, mid-1870s and 1908.
The land on which the building is located was part of a larger town parcel [allotment 13 of section 28, parish of Warwick] alienated in 1859 for £7/16/-. However, by the time John Tulloch, a Warwick general storekeeper, purchased the land in 1872 from the original deed of grant holder for £50, there may well have been a small, shingle-roofed building, and possibly a cottage behind this, on the eastern part of the site [now occupied by Hyslops Furniture Store], which are evident in an 1899 photograph. Electoral rolls reveal that Tulloch was resident on his freehold land in Grafton Street from at least 1875 until c1880.
From October 1873 Tulloch was advertising in the local press as conducting the Central General Store, Grafton Street, and it is reasonable to suppose that this store was located on the land he had purchased in 1872. In 1876 he mortgaged his Grafton Street property to local 'gentleman farmer' Bertie Chiverton Parr for £1000, and by September that year he was conducting the Central Stores, suggesting that he had more than one store on the site. It is likely that the eastern bay of the present stone building, which is of a smaller scale than the other bays, was erected at this time. In 1877 Tulloch took Emu Creek sawmill proprietor William Hall into partnership in his Central Stores, with Hall & Tulloch announcing plans to enlarge their business. What is now the middle bay of the present building may have been added at this time. The store was for some period one of the leading businesses of this town [Warwick Argus 20 November 1900:2:5], but Tulloch lost the property to Parr when he defaulted on the mortgage. The firm conducted their final clearing sale in March 1879.
It is not known who then occupied the buildings until William Kennedy Hyslop, a young Scotsman who had been in the employ of GP Barnes at the Warwick Exchange [drapery store], opened his own general grocery and drapery store in Grafton Street in September 1888, in the premises formerly known as Tulloch's Store. He leased these premises from Parr prior to purchasing the whole of the land and buildings in late 1892, for £600. According to rates records, the land contained a store/s and house at this time.
Hyslop had resided in Warwick from at least April 1886, when he married a local girl. He was to become a prominent member of Warwick's Good Samaritan Lodge of the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society of Australasia in Queensland, and an active community member in general. He called his Grafton Street business the Reliance Stores, importing many lines directly from Britain, avoiding wholesale costs and passing on those savings to the public, and the business proved immediately successful. He was prepared to deal in kind, and as late as 1897 was advertising that he would take farmers' butter, eggs and hides in exchange for drapery and groceries. In the second half of the 1890s he opened a branch store in Allora, run by his son James, but this had closed by 1903.
In September 1902, Warwick architect Hugh Campbell called tenders for three stores and a dwelling for WK Hyslop, adjoining the eastern side of the Reliance Stores in Grafton Street. Local builder Daniel Connolly won the contract with a price of £500, and the buildings were completed by late December. The shops were known as Hyslop's Buildings, and were constructed partly for rental purposes and partly to enable the firm to establish a furniture and bedding department. These shops occupied the corner of Grafton Street and Acacia Avenue, were of timber construction, and survive in a modified form as the present Hyslop's Furniture Store. They are not included within the listing boundary for this entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.
The expansion of the dairy industry on the southern Darling Downs after the turn-of-the-century created boom years for Warwick businesses, and WK Hyslop was again able to expand his Grafton Street premises in 1908, when the stone buildings were extended and modified to form a larger, more cohesive building.
Warwick architects Wallace & Gibson [who later designed the new Barnes Emporium in Palmerin Street, 1910-11] called tenders for stone extensions to the WK Hyslop building in March 1908.
The successful tenderer was HD Miller, with a price of £1089. Work commenced in May, and the new premises were opened in late October 1908. The modifications comprised: the addition of a third bay, extending the building to the western boundary of the property; an extension of 15 feet to the rear of the existing stone buildings; remodelling of the existing shop fronts with large, fashionable plate-glass windows to match those of the new bay; and a new front awning and posts constructed across the whole. Physical evidence suggests that the stone blocks in the western and southern walls of the 1870s buildings were re-used in the construction of the 1908 western and southern walls: the semi-circular headed windows in these walls are more 1870s than early 20th century in design, and there are some oddly placed picked stones in the western and southern walls.
The additions to WK Hyslop's Reliance Stores were considered by his contemporaries to make a substantial improvement to Grafton Street, which was being transformed rapidly with the construction of a number of impressive masonry buildings, including The National Hotel [1907 & extensions in 1908-09] at the corner of Lyon Street; Devine's Buildings [1907] at the southwest corner of Grafton and Palmerin Streets; and a new Caledonian Stores [1907].
With the enlargement of his main premises, Hyslop was able to move all his departments into one building, and offer each of the shops in the 1902 Hyslop's Buildings for rental. Although Hyslop had opened a furniture and bedding department in the early 1900s, the firm continued to specialise in clothing and drapery until the 1920s at least. About 1914, the firm became WK Hyslop & Sons, and by 1922 was operating as The Economists' Trading Centre, Grafton Street.
In 1923, Hyslop let the stone building on a 10 year lease to The ACB, a Brisbane-based drapery firm which by 1933 had a chain of 30 stores throughout Queensland. During the 1920s the ACB was one of Warwick's three principal drapery stores, the competition being Barnes & Co. and Johnson & Sons. With the depression years of the early 1930s The ACB was bankrupted, and it is understood that the Warwick store reverted to being part of WK Hyslops & Sons, who had maintained their furniture business in the adjacent timber building.
William Hyslop had subdivided the land c1924, retaining title to the site of the stone building [subs 3 & 5] until his death in 1944, and transferring the 1902 Hyslop's Buildings [subs 1, 2 & 4] to his sons John and James. He does not appear to have resided in Warwick after the late 1920s. James Hyslop died in 1948, and in February 1949 title to the property containing the stone building passed out of the Hyslop family.
The building has functioned as a hardware store since the early 1940s. When Barnes & Co. liquidated c1938, their hardware business was purchased by members of the Connolly family of Warwick in partnership with Charles McKenzie, formerly the manager of Barnes' hardware department, and they formed The Warwick Hardware Company. This firm shifted to the Hyslop's stone building c1942, and purchased the property in 1949. The store remained The Warwick Hardware Company premises until 1970, when Dave Washbourne and Alexander McKenzie started trading there as M & W Hardware [a Mitre 10 franchise], purchasing the property in 1976. In the 1980s the property changed hands a number of times, but the hardware business has been sustained.
The present owners acquired the property in 1988, and have made a number of alterations to the building, including opening up the street awning, (which had been enclosed), replacing the front verandah posts, removing the walls and ceilings of the front display windows, concreting the floor, and adding an office extension to the rear of the building.
","criteria":"Olsen's Home Hardware Store, constructed in at least two stages [mid-1870s and 1908], is significant in illustrating the principal phases of early Warwick and district development, and in particular the flow-on effects to Warwick businesses of the district's 'dairy boom' in the early years of the 20th century. The place is important also in illustrating the strong and, for Queensland, unique tradition of stone construction in Warwick and district which was sustained from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries.
|With further research, the place has the potential to reveal important information about stone construction and materials in Warwick, and about local historical processes and developments.
|The building clearly demonstrates the principal characteristics of an evolving late 19th century store of substance and quality, with a turn-of-the-century remodelling which reflected new attitudes to merchandise display and customer convenience, as well as the buoyant nature of the local economy. This is particularly evident in the inclusion of the large plate-glass display windows.
|The building is significant for its strong contribution to the streetscape and to the Warwick townscape, in terms of materials, scale, form, design and intactness.
The building makes a significant contribution to the unique nature of Warwick, with its substantial proportion of surviving 19th and early 20th century stone and brick buildings.
|The building is of significance to members of the Warwick community and of Queensland generally who value Warwick's historical reputation as 'The Sandstone City'.
|The place has a strong association with the Hyslop family, who were prominent in the Warwick community from the 1880s to at least the 1940s, both as businesspersons and as active members of religious and social organisations, and who were respected for their charitable works.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16494,"place_ref":601757,"name":"Warwick Uniting Church","alternate_name":"St Andrews Presbyterian Church | St Andrew's Presbyterian Church","street_address":"Guy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"The Warwick Uniting Church is a simple sandstone structure, rectilinear in form, with a stone entry porch on the front eastern façade of the building. It is constructed of load-bearing, rock-faced ashlar sandstone and is divided into six bays separated with buttresses. Lancet arched openings, each housing a pair of lancet windows with a circular window above, are situated between each buttress. The majority of these windows are now filled with commemorative stained glass and the remainder with diamond patterned leadlight windows. A larger lancet arched opening at the eastern end contains three rose windows and five lancet windows, now partially obscured on the exterior by the entry porch. The western gable end contains a single rose window.
The entry porch is rock-faced ashlar with a pitched tiled roof and a pair of arched, timber entry doors surmounted by a small rose window. The steeply pitched roof of the church is clad in red terracotta tiles with small decorative stone pinnacles located in each corner and a small metal fleche resembling a miniature church spire at the roof ridge at the western end. The vestry and choir room is a small rendered masonry structure with a pitched roof added to the western end of the building. It is finished in pebbledash stucco and has a wide-pan corrugated iron roof which is painted.
The interior of the church has an open roof structure comprised of arched brace trusses with the ceiling lined in painted, diagonal timber boarding and acoustic tiles. The walls are lined in hardboard that has an ashlar-like profile and has a timber panelled dado. A pair of automatic, glass and timber framed doors separate the porch from the nave. The nave is carpeted, has a central aisle and recent timber pews. The choir and organ are located in the chancel, along with the pulpit, baptismal font, communion table, carved timber memorial chairs, war memorial boards and flags. The organ pipes are centrally located at the back of the chancel and are covered with a timber grille.
A window has been removed on the southern elevation and has been replaced with a recent door opening to a covered walkway that links the church to the new hall. A courtyard paved in terracotta tiles occupies the area between the church and hall. Lawn comprise the eastern and northern parts of the site, with a wide concrete path leading to the entry door of the porch flanked by mature trees including two large Silky Oaks and some smaller conifers.
","history":"Warwick Uniting Church is an unpretentious sandstone building built 1869-1870 and located on the corner of Fitzroy and Guy Streets, Warwick. The site also contains a parish hall (1998) and a manse (1940).
The sandstone church is the second church on this site which is associated with the earliest Presbyterian ministry on the Darling Downs. From the 1840s, an itinerant Presbyterian minister was present on the Darling Downs, however, it was not until Reverend Thomas Kingsford arrived in Warwick in 1851 that the church had a permanent presence in the district. The first services were held in the Court House, initially in the timber slab building in Alice Street and then in the new Court House in Albion Street.
In May 1857, the New South Wales Government granted land in Alice Street to the church to build a church, school and manse. It may be that the land was unsuitable in some way as that same year the church purchased an alternate site on the corner of Fitzroy and Guy Streets for the sum of £36. A sawn slab and shingle church was constructed on the site in 1858, becoming the second provincial Presbyterian church to be established in Queensland, the first being in Ipswich.
The congregation in Warwick continued to expand and in 1867 a building committee was formed, making the decision to build a finer and larger church. The old church was sold to Harry Houghton for removal and continued to be used as a residence. Construction of a new church began in March 1869. It was built of local sandstone quarried near Rosehill and had a shingled roof. The contractor for the building was John McCulloch, foremost stonemason in the town and brother of the then Minister of the church, Reverend Colin McCulloch.
Deposits of continental sandstone in the district surrounding Warwick provided a ready source of good quality building stone for the town. As Warwick developed and early buildings were replaced, this sandstone was used for a number of the city's finest buildings and has become a distinguishing feature of the place. John McCulloch was the most prominent of Warwick's masons. He had learned his trade in Scotland and arrived in Warwick in 1863. It is difficult to assess the full extent of McCulloch's work in Warwick due to inadequate records from his yard, however, he is known to be responsible for a number of churches and commercial buildings, as well as the Courthouse, Town Hall, Sisters of Mercy Convent and the Railways Good Shed.
The church opened on Sunday 20 November 1870 and the first service was conducted by the Reverend Isaac Mackay, a noted Scottish preacher who held services in both English and Gaelic. The church was not quite complete and had cost £1000. St. Andrew's is said to have been the first church building in the colony that was floored in "cement". The local newspaper, the Examiner and Times reported on 26 November, 1870 that the material was not only cheaper than timber but well suited to the Queensland climate as it was "cool, clean and almost noiseless when walked over" and commented that the building was "one of the best ornaments the town possesses".
A number of changes have taken place to the building over time. During the time that Reverend Robert Fraser was Minister (1882-87) he made an interest-free loan of £300 to the Committee of Management which was used to strengthen the roof and erect pinnacles on top of the buttresses. In 1897 a stone entry porch was added to the front of the building. This work is attributed to local builders, architects and surveyors, Wallace and Gibson, however, it is not clear whether they designed the porch as well as constructing it.
Fundraising for a hall began in 1900 and the Mary Williams Memorial Hall opened in 1904, incorporating an earlier hall that was re-aligned on the site. In 1922, a vestry and choir room were added to the eastern end of the church and a pipe organ was purchased as a Soldier's Memorial in 1924. A new manse, designed by R.H and H Campbell, was officially opened in 1940. It appears that the entry porch was re-modelled in 1950 through a financial gift of Charles and Esther Counsell and it is likely that the main roof was tiled and the pinnacles atop the buttresses were removed at this time. Major interior changes took place in 1964-65 following a gift from the Ross family. The pipe organ was extensively altered and the pipes were relocated into an alcove at the front of the church, the interior was re-lined including the fitting of acoustic tiles in the ceiling, installation of new pews and choir seating and the removal of traditional seating for elders.
In 1990, the Uniting Church congregations of Wesley and St. Andrew's joined together as one worshipping congregation and chose St. Andrew's church as their home, the church then became known as the Warwick Uniting Church. The Williams Memorial Hall was sold for removal in 1998 and a new hall designed by John Marsson and Associates Architects and also named the Williams Hall was dedicated in August 1999. A steel and glass link to the church was constructed at the same time and a window was removed to accommodate a new door to the church on the southern side. The manse is now used as office space.
","criteria":"Warwick Uniting Church is important in demonstrating the early presence and growth of the Presbyterian church in the Darling Downs and the pattern of development of religious and social institutions of the city of Warwick.
|As an early sandstone church in a city which owes much of its character to the use of local sandstone, Warwick Uniting Church has aesthetic value. The building makes a significant contribution to the streetscape, located on a prominent intersection of the town that includes Warwick Courthouse and Leslie Park.
|Warwick Uniting Church has social and spiritual significance for its association with the Presbyterian and Uniting Church congregation of Warwick as their principal place of worship for over 140 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16499,"place_ref":601762,"name":"Bundaberg Police Station Complex (former)","alternate_name":"Bundaberg Police Station | Bundaberg Court House","street_address":"Quay Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-12-01","description":"The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex is a single storey rendered brick building, situated on the corner of Quay and Maryborough Streets and oriented towards the Burnett River.
The building has a rectangular floor plan with a corrugated steel hipped roof behind a parapet which faces Quay Street and returns down the sides of the building to flanking verandahs that spring from below the soffit of the main roof and run down each side of the building. The eastern verandah is partially enclosed. The verandahs are supported on timber posts with decorated capitals and a vertical boarded scalloped valance to form a Tudor arch. The verandah originally ran across the rear of the building but has subsequently been enclosed when the rear of the building was extended. Several other stages of additions are evident.
The principal facade is asymmetric about the main entrance and retains the original entrance doors and half light above and an extended masonry pediment over supported by round columns with Doric capitals. Two round headed double hung windows are located on the east side of the main entrance and are framed by piers with moulded capitals. To the west the building has been extended in replicated detail when a strong room was added in 1935. The architrave of the windows is in relief from the surrounding wall surface and has a hood mould and keystone over which springs off recessed piers with moulded imposts. The strongroom window has vertical bars and the other walls are blank.
An entablature connects the pediment over the front entrance and returns down the sides of the building. Above this is a balustrade parapet with hour glass balusters. Original chimneys survive in the north eastern corner and at the rear of the building.
Access to the building is via a central hall from Quay Street which has a pair of flanking offices on the eastern side. Original fire places exist in both these rooms. On the west side of the hall is a single room which was created in 1935 when the strongroom was added. The hall leads, via a single door, to the Court Room which has an extended wall height to create a lofty space. This has recently been refurbished when subdividing partitions were removed to reveal the original volume and detailing. French doors with semi circular over lights and three round headed double hung windows open onto the side verandahs. Over each opening to the verandahs are high level narrow casement windows. The ceiling rakes from the walls to a line with the collar tie of the heavy timber trusses.
To the east of the Court House is the a single storey brick residence. The original plan form of this building is an 'L' with an attached square room at the rear that was originally the Charge Room. The building has hipped roofs which have wide eaves with exposed timber frame soffits and are clad in corrugated galvanised iron. It has a timber front verandah which has been enclosed. The verandah roof is contiguous with the main roof. The west side displays three double hung windows that have prominent hoods which have diagonal timber sides and corrugated iron roofs. A flat roofed brick addition has been made to the east verandah. Internally the building retains its original configuration with a main living room off the front verandah and three rooms down the western side with the Charge Room off the east verandah. The laundry addition is accessed down stairs off the east verandah.
To the south and the rear of the residence and to the east of the former Court House is a single storey brick cell block. This building has a narrow 'L' shaped plan form with a gabled corrugated clad roof and small high level barred windows on the north and east sides. A low pitched verandah with security screening is on the north side. The building was originally documented to have three four cells but appears to have been constructed with five. A charge room was added to the north west corner in the 1950s.
","history":"The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex is located at the corner of Maryborough and Quay Streets and addresses Quay Street. The former Bundaberg Court House is a rendered masonry and timber building constructed between 1882 and 1884. The former lock up keepers quarters, a single-storeyed brick and timber building and the lockup, a single-storeyed L shaped brick building, were constructed in 1900 as part of a larger police complex that included the now demolished two storeyed brick Police Station.
Bundaberg was first settled in the mid 1860s by timber cutters, with saw milling operative at Baffle Creek by 1866. John and Gavin Steuart secured a 320 acre land selection for timber and saw milling activities and other settlers followed. Leases for agricultural purposes followed the timber getting, with sugar plantations and maize cropping eventually taking precedence in the cleared areas. Agricultural settlement was encouraged by the Queensland government under the under the Coffee and Sugar Regulations of the 1860 Crown Lands Alienation Act. The first town survey for Bundaberg, situated on the Burnett river, was completed in 1869, ultimately establishing it as a service centre with harbour and port facilities for the agricultural and mineral produce of the area. During the following decade the sugar industry consolidated and a general economic boom in Queensland in the 1880s enhanced the local sugar boom. During the 1880s the Millaquin, Fairymead and Bingera sugar refineries were established providing the necessary infrastructure for the success of the fledgling industry. Thomas McIllwraith, Queensland premier and Colonial Treasurer 1879-83 represented the electorate of Mulgrave, incorporating Bundaberg, during this period of growth.
The sugar industry and the township of Bundaberg increased in both demographic size and political influence during the late nineteenth century, stimulating the demand for public buildings that reflected this affluence. The Bundaberg Court House was originally designed as a smaller timber building, however a larger brick building was the resultant design from the Department of Public Works and Housing, more befitting to the political importance and economic stature of Bundaberg.
Bundaberg Court House was designed by George St. Paul Connolly, acting Colonial Architect in the Queensland Department of Public Works. Connolly joined the Department in 1872 and worked on both public and private buildings, under the direction of Colonial Architect F.D.G. Stanley. In 1885 he was appointed Queensland Colonial Architect, a position he held until 1891.
The Bundaberg Court House followed the 'T' shape design developed during the nineteenth century. The major consideration in the design and planning of the Bundaberg Court House was the allowance for the correct movement of people in the building and the separation of the different groups involved in the judicial process. The verandahs at the rear of the building allowed for specific delineated entrances to the buildings. Jurors and barristers entered the court house by an alternative route to the public on their way to the public spaces. The judges had a private entrance and lobby via the rear verandah. The prisoners would be brought directly from the police cells to the court room through the side verandah door, from the nearby police reserve.
In 1900 the police took occupation of the adjacent lots to the Bundaberg Court House, previously occupied by the Lands office and the Customs House and Bond Store. Police had occupied smaller accommodation adjacent to these sites, but separated from the court house. A grand two storey brick Police Station, a lock up keepers residence and cell block were built providing for the close spatial relationship between the dual arms of justice administration that regularly operated in police/court precincts throughout the state. This proximity facilitated the movement of prisoners between the remand centre and the court proceedings, enhancing security and reducing risk of problems for Police during the transfer form one justice venue to the other.
In 1935 the Court House underwent extensions and renovations that included the addition of a strong room, and addition of extra office space and amenities for judges and jurors at the rear of the building. The office of the Clerk of Petty Sessions was enlarged by removal of two fireplaces and an internal wall.
The 1950s heralded a boom period for the city of Bundaberg, with population growing by one third from 15926 in 1947 to 21235 in 1957. Advances had been made in the production and marketing of sugar where coupled with the development of new port facilities, the third
in Queensland to operate bulk handling facilities. The new port opened in 1958 and was built downstream from the original wharves. This prosperity was combined with a general building boom that was reflected in the upgrading of various public buildings including the Bundaberg Court House.
In 1958 a new larger modern Court House was constructed in Quay Street, adjacent to the 1900 Police Station building and facing Anzac park situated on the banks of the Burnett River. At this time the original court house was remodelled to accommodate the Police Service. The major alteration to the building was the reorganisation of the court room space to provide four new offices and the addition of a recreation room and other amenities at the rear of the building. Various out buildings including wash houses, toilets, motor garages, horse stables and bicycle sheds were also located on the site at this time. The aggregate police site included the 1882-4 Court House, and the 1900 Police Station, lock up keepers residence, the cell block, providing a range of official and residential accommodation for the police service.
Since the inception of the police force in the nineteenth century, the police lived and worked within the boundary of the police reserve. The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex reflected the arrangement of the living and working conditions that still prevailed until the mid twentieth century. The location of barracks and other quarters on the same site as the police station provided an obvious law and order presence within the Bundaberg community at all times. This arrangement provided public access to the police force both day and night.
The lock up keepers residence was built as part of the original 1900 Police Station, maintaining the congruity of form and design in the combination of timber, iron and brick materials. The design was typical of turn of the century government accommodation incorporating two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and front and rear verandas. In 1940 a charge room was added to the building and in 1962, a laundry and internal toilet were attached. As onsite residencies became redundant, the building was used for office space to complement the main Police Station housed in the former Court House.
The original 1900 brick cell block consisted of six cells, with one padded cell and one larger communal cell. A concrete verandah with timber trim and balustrade ran the length of the building. A chain link stockade fence separated this area from the rest of the reserve and allowed for prisoners' exercise yard. In 1940, toilet and shower facilities were added at the eastern end of the building. A charge room was added to the building in 1952 and chain link wire was used to enclose the verandah portion of the cell block.
The 1900 Police Station was demolished in 1985, government offices now stand in its place.
In 1997, the Bundaberg court returned to the original court house while renovations of the 1958 building were undertaken. The central court room was refurbished when subdividing partitions were removed to reveal the original volume and detailing and it was restored to its original use
","criteria":"The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex consists of a single-storeyed masonry building constructed in 1882-84 and a single storeyed lock up keepers residence and cell block constructed in 1900. The scale and form of the buildings demonstrates the importance of Bundaberg as regional service centre for the sugar industry and other primary production activities in the Burnett region.
|The principal building of the reserve was used as the Bundaberg Court House from 1882 to 1958 and Police Station from 1958-1997, demonstrating the evolving patterns of justice administration, influenced by two distinct stages of prosperity in the history of Bundaberg and Queensland. The 1900 lock up keepers quarters and the cell blocks, remnants of a larger police reserve, demonstrates the close spatial and working relationship between the dual arms of justice administration.
|The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex is aesthetically dominated by the former Bundaberg Court House, designed to operate with an grand street presence. The complex forms an integral part of a precinct of government buildings including the 1958 Bundaberg Court House and the 1985 Waldren building, providing an eclectic streetscape of modern and traditional buildings, with both grand and domestic scale.
|The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex has a special association with acting Colonial Architect George St. Paul Connolly, of the Queensland Department of Public Works, as an example of his work during the 1880s.
The former Bundaberg Police Station Complex has a special association with Queensland police and judiciary, demonstrating the evolution of work practices and the changing nature of the lifestyle specifically associated with police force employment in a major regional centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16502,"place_ref":601765,"name":"Queens Gardens","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Paxton Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Townsville's Queens Gardens has a formal mid-twentieth century design in which early Victorian elements have been retained. These include open lawns, a small zoological section and formal garden beds. Castle Hill forms a dramatic backdrop to the Gardens, complementing the placement of trees, shrubs, and decorative bedding plants.
The Queens Gardens planting is organised on both an ecological and generic system. On the perimeter are straight avenues of tropical rainforest trees planted in 1887. Dominating the eastern boundary is an avenue of black bean (Castanospernum australe), some of which are original plantings. Along the southern boundary in the precinct known as the rainforest walk are a variety of botanical, historical and visually significant trees such as the mahogany tree from the West Indies (Swietenia mahogoni), the large banyan (Ficus retusa); the rain tree (Samanea saman); and the native carbeen (Eucalyptus tessellaris). The rainforest walk contains about 166 species of trees, shrubs and groundcovers, representative of the dry rainforest environments of North Queensland.
The main entrance to the Gardens is via the north-west entry gate on Paxton Street. The gate and fence consist of red brick gateposts and black-painted metal fence and gates. The second entrance is via the south-west entry gate on Gregory Street. A pedestrian path system comprises two tertiary paths, being the southeast-northwest and northeast-southwest paths in a classic 'T' layout. The secondary path system circumnavigates and connects the 'T' axis.
The formal entrance draws pedestrians down the southeast-northwest axis, which is flanked on either side by mirrored golden cane palms, formal annual beds and mazes. The granite rock face of Castle Hill dominates the vista of the southeast-northwest pedestrian path. The southeast-northwest and northeast-southwest paths intersect the central axis fountain, which is enclosed by a vine arbour and seating. Adjacent to the central fountain feature is a significant mango (Mangifera indica) and governors plum trees (Flacourtia jangomas).
The northern quadrant of the site contains a number of significant structures, artefacts and plantings. Aviaries and an adjacent vine arbour are a popular feature of the gardens, housing a variety of native parrots and farm birds. Behind the aviaries is the relocated and altered curators cottage (c.1878 and 1934). North of the aviaries past a herb garden is the secluded rose garden, which is enclosed on one side by columns transferred from the original Townsville Town Hall. This layout is a copy of the early twentieth century formal garden and includes the moulded terrazzo urn (1957) as the central focus.
The south-eastern half of the garden comprises open lawns and shady trees. Many of the trees in this area have historic and botanic significance, for example the hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) and tamarind (Tamarindus indicus). A small playground with a few simple swings is located in the far northern corner, with easy access via Kennedy Lane. The playground is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Queens Gardens is the surviving 10 acre (4ha) remnant of Townsville's former 100 acre (40.5ha) Botanical Gardens Reserve (Queens Park) proclaimed on 14 June 1870.
Nineteenth century gazetted botanic gardens were more commonly known as Queens Parks, named in commemoration of Queen Victoria who reigned as Monarch of the British Empire from 1836 to1901. These places attracted strong public patronage and each was considered the premium park of a town. The first Queens Park was a section of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. A subsequent botanic garden at Ipswich was called Queens Park.
From its beginning the gardens at Townsville have evolved in area, planning and design, as well as through their plant collection and community use. Initially the reserve was established to serve and support the role specific to Botanic Gardens across the country, which focused on botany as science, economic botany, education of the public about plants and horticulture and ornamental botany. The first of these functions for botanic gardens was a response to increasing nineteenth century interest in a scientific understanding of the natural world, where widespread enthusiasm for plant identification and cultivation had developed after the industrial revolution. Economic botany refers to the cultivation of plants within the botanic garden's exotic environment with a view to contributing to the economy of the local region and the colony as a whole, and involved acclimatising, cultivating and testing plants of commercial value. Ornamental botany recognised that human perspectives on nature were not totally focused on use, but also on the more aesthetic qualities of horticulture.
By the end of the nineteenth century, an international network of regional botanic gardens was established, extending throughout the British Empire, and with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as the key centre for botanical information and collections. Gardens were established in most major towns in Queensland, with Townsville's Botanic Gardens being included on an 1868 survey plan.
However, the size of the original reserve in Townsville and its proximity to the city centre resulted in town planning leases and excising of reserve land to accommodate public recreation and institutions. The first successful incursion into the reserve was made by the Townsville Cricket Club, which applied for space in the northeast corner of the Gardens to build a pitch. A major division of the Garden Reserve took place in 1886 when the Trustees of the Grammar School were granted 10 acres on Paxton Street. In exchange, the Minister of Lands accepted the 25 acre Norman Reserve, a Reserve for Grammar School Purposes, in the name of the Botanical Gardens Trustees. The Norman Reserve, which was located nearby on Kissing Point, was never utilised as a Botanical Reserve and was included in the Reserve for Defence Purposes established on Kissing Point in 1889.
In the same year that the Botanic Gardens was gazetted as a park (1887), Burke Street was extended through the Reserve to Paxton Street. Significant incursions into the reserve included a Gaol Reserve and Reserve for a Lunatic Reception House in the southeast corner (1885) and a reserve for sport and recreation (12 acres in 1899). By 1915 the Reserve was reduced to 35 acres, with leases being issued to the Croquet Club (1924). The final carving up of the Botanical Gardens took place in 1948 when part of the reserve was leased to the Townsville Bowling Club and part excised as a recreation reserve. The Botanical Gardens was thus reduced to 10 acres (4ha), its present size.
The Townsville Municipal Council initially received no government funding for the gardens and did little towards getting them established. Funding continued to be a problem even after 1878 when William Anderson was appointed as the first 'curator and practical gardener'. Anderson resided on site in a cottage constructed for his appointment until he retired in 1934. At this time, a new cottage was built and the original cottage was reused as a nursery.
Anderson was given no power to purchase plants nor was he given funds to establish the gardens. By 1880, because of the Municipal Council's inaction, the gardens had been removed from its control and trustees appointed by the Queensland government. Among these trustees was Thomas Allen Gulliver jnr, who had previously collected botanical material in Tasmania and North Queensland for Baron Von Mueller, Curator of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens and later Victorian Government Botanist. Thomas Gulliver and his brother, Benjamin Thomas Gulliver, had several plants collected from the Gulf of Carpentaria and Arnhem Land named in their honour. Baron von Mueller devoted his life to the study of systematic biology, and was the finest botanist in the southern hemisphere, describing and naming over 2000 Australian species and distributing Australian plants across the world.
Improvements in funding for the Townsville Botanic Gardens followed the appointment of trustees and, as planting and landscaping gradually proceeded, the gardens became a popular place for picnics and concerts. The Queensland Acclimatisation Society, which was formed in 1862, supplied initial plantings. Trees were also supplied from Anthelme le Thozet's garden of exotic trees and shrubs in Rockhampton. le Thozet was internationally renowned as a collector of plant specimens, and is most remembered for Muellerville, the experimental garden where he cultivated many trees and plants in order to determine their economic value and suitability for Queensland's tropical climate. Other trees were sent from Brisbane to Townsville by Walter Hill, the Curator of the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, who had visited Townsville in 1873. Walter Hill made a major contribution to the development of commercial crops in Queensland, supported the work of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society and was instrumental in establishing the Queensland network of botanic gardens.
However, funding for the Townsville Botanic Gardens continued to be scarce and the curator was forced to introduce charges for the use of the gardens for public functions, picnics and musical entertainments. Nevertheless, William Anderson was able to supply young trees to various bodies around North Queensland. Under a government subsidy scheme plants were supplied to the Ravenswood Park Committee, state schools at Croydon, Irvinebank and Black Jack and to many groups around Townsville. Plants were also exchanged with Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, Brisbane, Rockhampton and Port Darwin.
Anderson managed Queens Gardens within the parameters for which it was established as a trial garden for tropical economic plants. Some of the earliest recorded exotic fruit plantings included an acre of grape vines, along with cocoa nut trees (1896), coffee (1889), breadfruit (1899) and mangoes. Timber species included mahogany (1887), hoop pines and red cedar (1892). The majority of tropical tree species were planted around the perimeter of the gardens and included various figs, rain trees and an avenue of black bean.
The Agricultural and Pastoral exhibits of the first Townsville exhibition were held in August 1880 at the Botanical Gardens Reserve.
In 1893 the Council again took over responsibility for the gardens. Planting and landscaping gradually improved during the gardens' formative years and by 1894, the place was involved in propagation, experimentation and exchange thus contributing to the network of botanical gardens. Initially the gardens focussed on the traditional functions for botanic gardens, however the late nineteenth century saw the introduction of the popular Paradise style, which gave the gardens a pleasure ground image. In 1898, after various conflicts over the management of the Gardens, the Townsville Municipal Council successfully requested the resignation of the trustees. From that time on the Gardens were maintained as a park, rather than botanical gardens.
The gardens became extremely popular with local residents during the 1880s and 1890s. Council records indicate that in 1890 the Rose Bud Club held a Gypsy Tea in Queens Gardens. Further photographic evidence of a garden party given by Baron Northcote, the Governor General circa 1905 and another event circa 1916 support the view that the gardens were utilised early as a place for special events. The proximity to the General Hospital also resulted in heavy visitor use.
A Bush-house designed by local architects and civil engineers Tunbridge and Tunbridge was constructed in 1889. This structure and a Kiosk were destroyed by Cyclone Leonta in March 1903 and the 1878 curator's cottage badly damaged.
Photographs reveal that the central avenue with line of sight to Castle Hill was a feature by 1890. Former structures include an orchid house, a hipped roof aviary (c.1938) and the 1878 curator's cottage. Evidence of ornament artefacts includes a moulded terrazzo urn (1957) as the central focus of the formal gardens and a large arched trellis as a feature of the rose garden. The urn originally featured a statue in its centre and four stylised birds surrounding its rim.
Queens Park was utilised as a military base for both Australian and American units during World War II. No. 6 Transportation and Movements Office, 800 Brigade Military Police Company D and a Stockade were based in Queens Park during 1942-1945. Initially accommodation was in tents until demountable buildings were constructed. During this period the large trees were preserved.
In 1959 the Council employed Alan Wilson, former Assistant Landscape Architect with the Brisbane City Parks Department, to redesign the Gardens as Superintendent of Parks and Reserves for Townsville. Photographic evidence indicates that Queens Park continued in a limited capacity as an experimental botanic garden until the 1959 redesign. It was renamed Queens Gardens at this time to honour Queen Elizabeth II.
Jim Thomas, former superintendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and trained in the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, succeeded Alan Wilson as Superintendent in 1968. Thomas continued to maintain the Wilson designed Queens Gardens and was instrumental in saving many nineteenth century trees after cyclone Althea severely damaged the gardens in 1971.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the gardens gained further popularity as a venue for ceremonies such as weddings and major events, including VP50 celebrations and the annual Eco Fiesta. Except for a few minor modifications, the 1959 layout of the gardens has been maintained.
","criteria":"The combination of mature vegetation, open lawns and well-kept gardens provides an oasis close to the city centre. The gardens offer sensory aesthetic experiences engendered by the visual, auditory and olfactory qualities of the place that have been appreciated by the community over a long period of time. The gardens are enhanced by the landmark quality of Castle Hill's [QHR 601218] granite rock face, an important feature of the southeast-northwest vista.
|The place is an important example of a Queensland botanic garden and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial tropical public botanic garden that has evolved over time. Founded on consistent ideological principles, Townsville Queens Gardens, as part of the Queensland botanic gardens network, is a clear and identifiable type of place, with congruous hard and soft landscape features being a consistent part of the design.
|The place, established as both a scientific and a pleasure garden, has continued this association and has evolved as a focus for community events. It has social significance as a long-used and popular reserve for public recreation.
|Townsville's Queens Gardens demonstrates the development and continued management of a botanic garden in a regional city as a significant theme in the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history. The place has fulfilled the traditional functions of a botanic garden, including increasing horticultural knowledge about local plants with a view to developing their economic potential, sharing of this knowledge and seed stock nationally with like-minded institutions, and providing an attractive and educative venue for public recreation. As a regional botanic garden and part of the Queensland botanic gardens network, Queens Gardens has maintained a position within a national and international network of botanic gardens of which the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, was the originating hub.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16504,"place_ref":601767,"name":"Romavilla Winery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"77 Northern Road","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Approximately two kilometres north of the township of Roma in western Queensland, Romavilla Winery stands prominently to Northern Road, the main road north out of Roma travelling to the Carnarvon Gorge and beyond. The winery and vineyards are on the flood plain of Bungil Creek which runs down from the hills around Injune to the north. Bounded by Northern Road to the west, Bassett Lane to the north, a neighbouring property to the east and Edna Street and the adjacent caravan park to the south, the winery complex comprises a number of structures. Those considered to be of heritage significance are winery office, winery shed and distillery shed. A display vineyard occupies part of the front yard. A number of hoardings, including one for Bassett Romavilla Winery, stand along the front fence line.
Driveway and display vineyard
The winery shed is approached along a graveled driveway from the front entrance gate. A display vineyard stands to the south of the driveway adjacent to the small low-set timber-framed and clad winery office.
Winery Office
A small rectangular timber-framed building standing on low timber stumps and sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron, the office building stands west of the winery shed. The projecting gable roofed entrance porch opens into a narrow room running the width of the building. Two offices with a connecting doorway open onto this space. The building is clad with chamferboards and lined with fibrous cement sheeting with batten cover strips. The narrow front room is lit by rectangular casements windows to all three sides and banks of casements windows light the offices.
Winery shed
The winery shed is a large, timber-framed building clad with timber and corrugated iron. Sheltered by a series of high gabled roofs supported by king post trusses, the winery building is constructed as linked buildings on three levels stepping down the gradient of a slightly sloping site. The small extension at the front of the building is used for sales and wine tasting and together with the adjacent barrel storage area is built over a cellar used for long term wine storage. The centre section accommodates racked barrels and the pressing equipment, storage vats and bottling machinery stand towards the rear of the building.
The front elevation is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and the former tall rectangular parapet is now truncated to follow the outer roof lines of the twin gables behind. The single storey extension running across the front of the building is sheltered by a skillion roof which is screened by a low corrugated iron parapet. The metal sheet cladding extends down into the soil that has been piled up against the front of the building. The extension accommodates two entrances, both housing pairs of ledged and braced timber doors. One opens into the front lobby, the other into the front barrel storage area. Romavilla Vineyards signage is fixed to the upper centre of the elevation, flanked by pairs of fixed timber louvred windows.
The north, east and south sides of the shed are clad with corrugated iron and a continuous band of fixed timber louvres runs along the upper north and south walls. The north side has a number of lean-to extensions - an open storage area to the west end, small lean-to enclosed sheds flanking the entrance in the rear end of the shed and a skillion roof open storage space to the east end. This wraps around to the eastern side where it terminates in an enclosed shed to the south end. A number of concrete slabs, drains and structures, including timber and corrugated iron sheds and concrete water tanks, stand south of the shed.
From the front entrance lobby, the sales office opens to the left, the tasting area to the right and the front portion of the shed is directly ahead. An unlined, high volume space with fixed timber louvres along the upper north and south walls, the front portion of the shed is wider than the other parts of the shed and has a timber floor supported by timber posts from the cellar below. It accommodates barrel storage, a small open office cubicle and the excise inspector's office. The office cubicle sits on a timber platform projecting into the middle shed area where it is supported by timber stumps. The office accommodates narrow timber benches with cupboards below, a small table and a bench seat. A number of framed certificates and awards are propped around the office. A timber framed podium clad with vertical tongue and groove boards, the elevated excise inspector's office, stands to the north and is approached by a set of timber stairs. It projects into the middle shed area and commands views across the whole shed.
The middle and rear portions of the shed have concrete floors and a number of drains run through these areas. The barrel storage area in the middle portion of the shed is organised around a grid of walkways and concrete upstands accommodating concrete plinths on which the barrels stand.
The rear of the shed accommodates a range of early and modern equipment. Early equipment including the crusher, pressing equipment, in-ground concrete blending and storage tanks are considered to be significant. Pairs of large timber doors open from this area of the shed to the east and south. Marks in the concrete floor indicate where earlier concrete fermentation tanks stood. A number of these tanks now stand inverted in the yard to the north of the shed. Drive wheels and other elements of the earlier power generation system remain to the south wall of the shed. Two small in-ground concrete blending tanks stand to the middle of this area of the shed. Each tank has a low, rounded, concrete upstand supporting concrete posts to each corner linked by hollow metal rails. A large three chamber concrete storage tank runs along the north side of the shed. The tank has deep in-ground chambers with concrete walls rising about 1.7 metres above shed floor level. The flat concrete top has a number of lidded access hatches. A cut-away portion in the side of the tank allows a view into the middle chamber. Modern equipment including stainless steel storage vats, bottling equipment and cold storage is not considered to be significant.
The cellar is dug into the ground below the front part of the shed and is accessed from the middle barrel storage area by a set of concrete stairs descending below the excise officer's podium. A narrow corrugated iron sheeted chute incorporating a timber ladder drops into the cellar on the south side of the projecting front office cubicle. Rows of rough unsawn posts support timber beams carrying the framing for the floor above. Barrels rest on timber racks standing on the part concrete, part dirt floor. Perimeter retaining walls to the north and south are timber framed and lined with corrugated iron and those to the east and west are constructed of concrete and timber. A set of timber stairs to east side climbs to the tasting area above.
Distillery
The distillery shed is a rectangular timber framed corrugated iron clad building sheltered by a corrugated iron clad gabled roof. To the south, a small rectangular roof sheltering the distillery apparatus projects above the main roof. Both gable ends of the shed are infilled with horizontal timber weatherboards and fixed timber louvres run around the upper parts of the walls. The timber frame is a combination of sawn studs, beams and battens and adzed and unsawn timber posts. A skillion roof projects from the south side of the building sheltering the firebox hatch.
The distillery shed accommodates a storage room over a cellar to the north and a distillery room to the south. A braced and ledged timber door in the middle of the north elevation opens into the unlined storage area which has a timber floor. Fixed timber louvers run around the upper west, north and east walls. A metal grate stands immediately inside the entrance. A door on the east side opens into the still room where from the northwest corner a set of steep timber stairs to the cellar. The cellar has timber framed walls clad with corrugated iron set into the earth surrounding it.
In the distillery room, two copper boilers - one higher than the other - are set into a stepped rectangular brick frame which houses a firebox and stands against the south wall onto the dirt floor. A brick chimney extends out of the firebox and through the roof at the southwest corner. The firebox is accessed through a metal hatch on the external south wall. The hatch bears the maker's nameplate - Harvey & Son Engineers Brisbane. Each boiler is fitted with a tall copper cylinder standing perpendicularly over it, the whole crowned by a horizontal chamber just below the ceiling. The boilers are connected by a copper inverted U-tube and a number of cocks and tubes are worked within the apparatus which is held within a timber frame. A small timber ladder provides access to the upper part. To the front of the apparatus a cock regulates tubes that connect to the cellar below, running within a timber frame in the middle of the dirt floor.
Equipment
Equipment associated with earlier wine making practices has been retained and is displayed for visitors. This includes basket presses in the tasting/sales area and concrete fermentation tanks in the yard.
","history":"Romavilla Vineyards, on the outskirts of Roma in the Maranoa district of south western Queensland, was established in the 1860s by Samuel Symons Bassett. It dominated wine-production in the Roma district and later in Queensland for many decades, and continues to manufacture commercial wines. The earliest section of the present winery buildings was constructed in 1877-1878.
Grapes were grown successfully on the head stations of pastoral properties in the area in the 1850s, during the first wave of non-indigenous settlement, but Romavilla produced the earliest commercial wine in the Maranoa in the 1860s and was among the earliest of Queensland's commercial wine producers. At the peak of viticulture in the Roma district in the late nineteenth century there were 50 local vineyards, the majority of which had been established in the 1870s and 1880s. Most of the grapes grown were for table fruit, but a small wine-producing industry also emerged at this time. The principal vignerons in the district included SS Bassett, John Robertson (manager of Mount Abundance Station), William Tune, James Spencer, Alexandre Robinson, and the Tardent brothers (Henri, Alexis and Emile, from the late 1880s). Grape growing and wine producing remained important local industries well into the twentieth century, with historian Matthew Fox describing Roma in about 1920 as being surrounded by "a magnificent fruit and wine growing district" (M Fox The History of Queensland, its People and Industries Vol.2 1921:162).
Bassett, born in Cornwall in 1840, arrived in Sydney in 1856 and worked on his uncle's Hunter Valley property for some years. From 1860 he managed Euthulla Station in the Maranoa for his uncle and cousin, until in 1866 he purchased from the Crown nearly 270 acres [109 hectares] of recently surveyed agricultural land just outside the town of Roma. Here he established Romavilla Vineyards, with vine cuttings brought in by bullock dray from Toowoomba. In 1869 he diversified his interests with the establishment in Roma of a general store and a depot for wines sales.
In about 1870 Bassett built a house at Romavilla and in 1871 married Isabella Cameron of Brisbane. At Romavilla they raised a large family, with three daughters and six sons surviving to adulthood.
Bassett had no formal training either in grape-growing or wine-making, and learnt largely by trial and error. By 1881 he was employing a manager to run the winery, while he (and later his sons also) travelled throughout Queensland to promote Romavilla wine. By 1888 Bassett had 55 acres under vines, from which he was producing 7,000 gallons of wine per annum, as well as table grapes for the local and Brisbane markets. The Romavilla cellar was capable of holding 30,000 gallons of wine, and Bassett usually kept 20,000 in stock.
Like many of Queensland's early wine producers, Bassett's first cellar at Romavilla was above ground. That structure no longer exists. The earliest section of the present large winery building at Romavilla was constructed in 1877-1878, reportedly of cypress and imported Oregon pine, and was extended several times in later years. It accommodated the whole process of wine making, from crushing, to fermentation in vats, to maturing in barrels, to bottling, and incorporated a large underground cellar. In late 1888 the cellar was described as being partly above and partly below ground, "built of corrugated iron in 7 feet 6 inch lengths, with a space of 18 inches filled in with battens to the wall-plate, and covered with corrugated iron" ("Viticulture and Wine-making in the Southern Districts" in Votes and Proceedings of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1889 Vol.IV:26). The section of the cellar that lay partly underground measured 36 feet by 40 feet; attached to the end of this was a similarly constructed cellar building, all above ground, about 50 feet by 24 feet. There was no attempt to maintain a regular cellar temperature in this structure.
During the 1880s Bassett's reputation as a maker of good wines was established when Romavilla won its first prize for wine in 1886. The winery sustained a list of impressive prizes, including four first prizes out of eight at the 1900 Queensland Exhibition, nine first prizes out of ten at the 1901 Exhibition, and medals at international competitions in continental Europe. By the late 1960s, the winery had won over 650 certificates and medals in Australia and internationally.
Romavilla underwent considerable expansion during the last decade of the nineteenth century and in 1898 Samuel Bassett sent one of his sons, William Augustus, to learn wine-making from Leo Buring in South Australia.
By 1903 the property comprised 500 acres [202 hectares], mostly of light and dark sandy loam, with 170,000 vines planted. Much of this was under irrigation, with two recently-erected irrigation plants on the estate. The winery building included an immense cellar, which stored up to 50,000 gallons of wine at a time. Adjacent to the cellar was a "well-equipped plant, with the latest appliances for wine-making", including cooling coils on the vats to reduced heat during fermentation (Queensland Country Life November 1903:11). Romavilla was among the first wineries in Australia to use cooling during fermentation.
In August 1904 title to the property passed from Samuel Symons Bassett to The Romavilla Vineyards Limited (The Romavilla Vineyards Pty Limited from 1942). Following his death in late 1912, Bassett's sons expanded the enterprise into the largest wine-producing firm in Queensland. In 1916 the annual output was estimated at 31,000 gallons and the cellar holdings at 100,000 gallons. By 1923 Romavilla was supplying products to individuals and hotels (especially) all over Queensland. Romavilla fortified wines - such as port, sherry and madeira - were particularly popular and for a considerable period Romavilla distilled its own spirits for fortifying wine. By the 1930s the firm was supplying to wine saloons throughout the State; Queensland Government Railways stocked Romavilla port in its refreshment rooms; and Romavilla altar wine was popular in Catholic churches. By 1967 Romavilla Vineyards was the sole remaining commercial winery in Queensland, producing 20,000-30,000 gallons annually, until the emergence of a boutique wine-making industry in the Stanthorpe district of southern Queensland in the 1970s.
Following WA Bassett's death in the early 1970s the winery passed out of the Bassett family, but its historic involvement was perpetuated when the name of the enterprise was changed in 1977 to Bassetts Romavilla Winery Pty Ltd. New owners installed modern equipment within the nineteenth century structures but retained much of the earlier technology, which is now of considerable historical interest and a tourist attraction. Documentation has been preserved, including early award certificates and a letter from Prime Minister William Hughes, a former worker at Romavilla, who wrote recalling those days following a gift of wine from the vineyard.
The circa 1870 residence was destroyed by a severe storm in 1984.
","criteria":"Romavilla Winery demonstrates a continuity of use from the 1870s and is important for its association with early attempts to establish a Queensland wine-making industry. Immigrant agriculturalists experimented with grape-growing in Queensland wherever soil and climate were considered suitable, and for many decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Roma area was one of the principal grape-producing districts in Queensland. Although wine production is no longer a significant industry in the Maranoa, viticulture was one of the earliest commercial agricultural activities in the Roma district and wine production one its earliest agriculture-based industries. The first commercial wine in this district was produced at Romavilla Vineyards in the 1860s.
|Romavilla Winery is the oldest still-operating winery in Queensland, and retains much fabric important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century winery.
|As a rare surviving early winery in Queensland that has retained much of its building and some early equipment, the place is important in demonstrating aspects of Queensland's manufacturing history that are no longer common.
|With further investigation the surviving early fabric, Romavilla Winery, informed by the firm's early business records (held in the State Library of Queensland), has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's early wine-producing industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16505,"place_ref":601768,"name":"Cardwell Divisional Board Hall (former) and Honour Board","alternate_name":"JC Hubinger Museum | JC Hubinger Memorial Museum | JC Hubinger Memorial Hall","street_address":"51 Victoria Street","suburb":"CARDWELL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-03-21","description":"The former Cardwell Divisional Board Hall is located at the southern end of the Cardwell business district on the main street, Victoria Street, adjacent to the former Telegraph Office [QHR 600392]. Facing north-east toward, and across the road from, the beach and the Coral Sea, the hall is centrally positioned on its allotment, set back from all boundaries.
\nThe hall is a modest, symmetrical, single storey timber building, low-set on timber stumps, clad in weatherboards, with a hipped roof of corrugated metal sheeting and eaves lined with timber battens. Its front verandah has a skillion roof with central gable supported on pairs of posts demarcating the entrance, and a cross-braced balustrade. Openings are symmetrically positioned around the building with: double-hung sash windows on the front elevation either side of a pair of panelled entrance doors; 6 windows to each side elevation - 4 pairs of casement windows between double-hung sash windows at each end; and 2 pairs of panelled doors at the rear. The rainwater disposal system comprises slotted quad gutter and pvc downpipes.
\nThe hall interior is lined with beaded tongue-and-groove boards and houses a raised timber stage at the rear, flanked by 2 small rooms, and a room in the north-east corner near the entrance formed by partial height partitions. At the entrance, a portion of the ceiling is flat with the remaining coved ceiling featuring timber fretwork roses and steel tie-rods. Varnished timber stairs with matching railings lead from the hall to the stage where a large rouge and white marble memorial honour board listing the names of 26 men and 2 nurses from Cardwell who served in World War I is fixed to the rear wall. The honour board features simplified classical architectural elements (columns, entablature, and pediment) and is prominently positioned within the hall, supported on a substantial timber frame. Loose furniture in the hall includes the original table used by the Cardwell Divisional Board. This table, the honour board and the original stage area of the hall are of particular heritage significance, as is the scale and form of the hall itself.
\nWithin the grounds, 2 large trees are located along the boundary with the former telegraph office. A concrete access ramp located on the north-west side of the verandah provides access to both the street and to a detached toilet facility. These structures are not of cultural heritage significance. Behind the hall are two detached timber structures (a former courthouse and a former lock-up) that do not form part of this heritage listing but are of local heritage significance.
","history":"The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall was originally constructed in 1892 and is located within an early government precinct on Victoria Street, Cardwell. Very few purpose-built divisional board halls or offices survive in Queensland. The timber building became the Cardwell Shire Hall in 1903, and a marble honour board was added in 1922. After the Cardwell Shire Council's administrative functions moved to Tully in 1929 the hall was used by the Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) and later the Returned Sailors' Soldiers' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) before becoming a library from 1989-2008. It is now part of the Cardwell Bush Telegraph Heritage Centre and is called the JC Hubinger Museum.
European settlement of the Cardwell district began in January 1864 when a small party landed at Rockingham Bay.[1] The expedition was a private initiative led by George AFE Dalrymple and backed by the Queensland Government. Dalrymple hoped to establish the first Queensland port north of Bowen, which he had helped establish in 1861, and a viable route between the coast and his pastoral run Valley of Lagoons, which was taken up in 1863.[2] Between February and April 1864 Dalrymple journeyed to Valley of Lagoons and returned to the coast, establishing a dray road later called the Dalrymple Gap Track.[3] Initially known as Port Hinchinbrook, the new town was declared a port of entry in May 1864,[4] but Governor Bowen later changed the name to Cardwell, in honour of Edward Cardwell, the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies.[5]
Section 42 of the new town, between Victoria, Balliol, Bowen and Clitheroe Streets, was set aside for government purposes, and included the school, a police reserve, the Post and Telegraph Office, and later the Divisional Board Hall. The district was promoted by both Governor Bowen and Dalrymple, and initially it began to prosper. Money was provided for upgrading the Dalrymple Gap Track in 1864-65[6] and in the early 1870s a large jetty and a courthouse were built at Cardwell. However, Cardwell's potential as a sheltered, deep water port was never realised. The presence of the Cardwell Range behind the town hindered access to the interior and offshore shallows hampered larger ships. Cardwell was soon overshadowed by Townsville, which was declared a port of entry in 1865. From 1869 the goldfields of the Gilbert and Etheridge provided a stimulus for several years, as Cardwell became the terminus for the gold escort, but there was little shipping trade. By 1876 Cardwell's population was still only 150.
Despite the lack of development, the government established a number of services in Cardwell, thereby becoming the main industry in the town and guaranteeing its continued existence. By the mid 1870s a pilot's quarters, police barracks and lock-up, a Lands Office, combined Court/Customs House, Telegraph Office [QHR 600392], sub-collector's (of customs) residence and provisional school existed at Cardwell.[7]
The town also became the centre of local government for the district when the Cardwell Divisional Board was created in 1884, breaking away from the Hinchinbrook Divisional Board. Local government in Queensland evolved in several phases. The first phase, 1859-79, was a system of permissive municipal incorporation, where local residents could petition for the establishment of a local authority, under the Municipalities Act 1858, (NSW), and later the Queensland Municipal Institutions Act 1864 and Provincial Councils Act 1864. By 1878, 18 towns and cities had been incorporated in Queensland.[8] Regional areas were serviced only in part by a system of Road Boards, which had been established under the Department of Works. Consequently, the central government was regularly required to legislate on local community issues. The subsequent pressure on members of the Legislative Assembly to secure resources for their electorate led to widespread accusations of corruption.[9]
The second phase of local government was shaped by the Local Government Act 1878, and the Divisional Boards Act 1879, following expansion of closer settlement in Queensland. Instead of citizens petitioning for local government, the colonial government imposed local government on citizens. The 1878 Act established towns, cities and shires (the latter being closely settled areas close to towns or cities); while the 1879 Act created divisional boards to cover rural Queensland outside the towns, cities and shires.[10] Each division was governed by a board of no less than 3 and no more than 9 members.[11] Pugh's Almanac for 1880 listed a total 62 divisional boards (elected and appointed up to 23 February 1880), while 77 boards were listed the following year. The initial divisions often proved ineffective (largely due to size) and were progressively revised so that by 1902 there were 116 divisional boards throughout Queensland. Divisional boards either built halls or offices, or used pre-existing premises. Of the divisional boards listed in 1902, only 38 were reported as meeting at a divisional hall.[12]
The third phase saw the abolition of divisional boards and the older form of shire by the Local Authorities Act 1902, which created a simpler system of towns, cities and shires. The divisional boards became shire councils on 31 March 1903.
When the Cardwell Divisional Board was proclaimed it covered an area of 7000 square miles (18,130 square kilometres), from Mourilyan Harbour to Haycock Island and inland in a south-west direction towards Charters Towers.[13] Although the authority contained 500 rateable properties and at least 212 ratepayers, only 1 nomination was received for the 8 available elected positions (6 members and 2 auditors). The positions were eventually filled by Governor appointment (upon the recommendation of the police magistrate) but the sheer size of the division, seasonal difficulties and the business demands of the board members meant that meetings were difficult to organise and attendance rates were often poor.[14] In 1891 the population of Cardwell was only 139.
The new Cardwell Divisional Board met in the 2-storey 1870s courthouse in Cardwell, the first Thursday of every other month, until the building was badly damaged in a March 1890 cyclone. The replacement courthouse was much smaller, necessitating the construction of a new public building for divisional board meetings and other community functions. This was erected on the allotment to the north-west of the courthouse in 1892-93, as a dual-propose facility. The amount spent on the new hall, as reported in the Cardwell Divisional Board's accounts covering 1 January 1892 to 30 June 1893, was £320/3/10.[15] Inside the hall, a stage and associated facilities were provided at the south-west end, and a work and storage room existed as a rear annex until the late 1980s.
In 1903 the Cardwell Divisional Board became the Cardwell Shire Council and the hall continued in use as the shire chambers. In April 1922 the Honor [sic] Board Committee wrote to the Shire Council for permission to have the honour roll erected, either in the hall or on the verandah. Councillor Blackman moved that 'permission be granted to place the slab on the wall at the back of the stage and alongside the machine gun'.[16] The roll of honour, listing those men and women of the district who had served, and 2 men who had been killed, in World War I, was carved into a heavy marble honour board by Melrose and Fenwick of Townsville. A special structure was required to transport the honour board and the Cardwell Shire Council agreed to pay for the installation.[17] The foundations of the supporting timber frame went into the ground under the stage and the 'particularly fine Roll of Honor [sic]' was officially unveiled by Premier EG Theodore in May 1922.[18] Another Cardwell World War I memorial, a column by Melrose and Fenwick, was also built in the early 1920s and stands near the jetty.
Despite Cardwell's early promise, its time as the administrative heart of the Cardwell Shire was almost over. During the 1920s Cardwell was economically eclipsed by the sugar-mill town of Tully, surveyed in 1924. The suggestion 'would it not be fitting to name the streets of the Tully town after those who made the supreme sacrifice and those who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their country?' was published in the 'Cairns Post' in January 1927, and Tully's streets were named after those listed on the roll of honour in the Cardwell hall.[19] In 1929 the administration of Cardwell Shire was transferred to Tully, where a new shire hall was soon constructed. The Cardwell Shire later became part of the Cassowary Coast Regional Council, based in Innisfail, in 2008. However, the honour board remained in the Cardwell hall, and in 1931 Tully had to be content with a photograph of the honour board being shown at its ANZAC Day service.[20]
After the Cardwell Shire Council vacated the hall, it was leased to the QCWA, effective from 12 July 1929. The QCWA applied to the Railway Department for electric light to be extended to the hall, but this does not seem to have occurred before 1936.[21] In 1931 the QCWA also moved the timber front doors of the hall to the rear of the building. Despite the QCWA lease, the hall was still used for ceremonies by the Cardwell sub-branch of the RSSILA[22] before being gifted by the Cardwell Shire to the sub-branch as the 'Diggers Memorial Hall' at midnight, New Year's Eve 1945-46.[23]
Other community uses of the former divisional hall over the years have included entertaining visiting politicians, electioneering, auctions of properties forfeited for non-payment of rates, and dances. During World War II, a section of the Tully Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) was billeted in the hall during a recruiting visit in April 1942.[24] Musical and theatrical productions were also held at the hall, some of which left graffiti of their visits on the walls of staging rooms - the oldest is by the Musical Carlsons, who played there on 22 June 1925.
By the 1980s the condition of the well-used hall had deteriorated and concerns were raised about its future. Community sentiment strongly supported its retention, even though a new community centre was proposed for Cardwell. Following public representations it was decided to restore the hall as a 1988 Bicentennial Project, jointly funded by the Cardwell Shire Council, the Queensland Government and the Australian Bicentennial Authority. The works included restumping, re-flooring and demolition of the original rear annex due to extensive dry-rot. Proposals to move the honour board at this time were opposed by the community.
The hall was officially reopened in January 1989 as the JC Hubinger Memorial Library. It was named in honour of Johann Christian Hubinger, who was Chairman of the Cardwell Divisional Board and the Cardwell Shire Council 15 times. [25] In the early 1890s Hubinger, a German migrant to Queensland, was listed in Pugh's Almanac as a butcher, baker, storekeeper and insurance agent for South British in Cardwell.
By 1989 the form of the hall appeared essentially the same as it had in 1911;[26] except that the cross bracing pattern in the balustrading had changed; the verandah posts had lost their decorative capitals; handrails had been added to the stairs; the timber framework of the small gable in the front verandah had been sheeted over and the finial removed; a concrete ramp had been added to access the side of the front verandah and the picket fence had been removed. Four of the 6 sash windows on each side of the hall were also replaced with casement windows at some stage.
The JC Hubinger Memorial Library also functioned as a museum, and the local Returned and Services League used the stage area for a display of memorabilia and photographs. Cardwell's former courthouse and 1907 lock-up were relocated to the rear of the former divisional hall by 2003. The library moved to a new location in Balliol Street in 2008, but the hall continued to function as a museum within the Cardwell Bush Telegraph Heritage Centre, which includes the former courthouse, lock-up and Post and Telegraph Office. The hall was also used for the annual ANZAC Day dawn service until it was heavily damaged by Cyclone Yasi in February 2011.
Due to public support for retaining the hall, and for keeping the honour board there, it was extensively rebuilt in its original form, retaining original fabric in the stage area. The honour board was remounted on its original supporting frame and the hall was officially reopened on 20 October 2012.
Few other divisional board halls survive in Queensland, as most were simple timber buildings that were demolished or sold as local government facilities were upgraded. Other known surviving divisional board halls or offices are located in Nundah (Toombul Divisional Board, built 1891, QHR 600272), Strathpine (Pine Divisional Board, built 1889, QHR 600768), Gayndah (Rawbelle Divisional Board), and at the Caboolture Historical Village (Caboolture Divisional Board, built 1883, later moved).
","criteria":"The Cardwell WWI honour board is important for its aesthetic significance as a thoughtfully designed, classically composed tablet, finely crafted using contrasting rouge and white marble with gilded and leaded lettering. Prominently displayed at the stage end of the hall, it provides a dignified focus for the remembrance of those involved in this major world event.
|The Cardwell WWI honour board is an excellent example of its type. It is located in a prominent position within the hall and is an opulent example for a small community. It is made of fine quality marble and employs classical architectural elements to display, in a dignified and sombre manner, a list of 26 men and 2 nurses who served from the local community. The listing of nurses on an honour board is rare in Queensland.
|The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall (former), originally constructed in 1892, is important in demonstrating the origins and development of local government in Queensland. Very few purpose-built divisional board halls survive in Queensland, and the hall's simple form and small scale are indicative of the role and limited resources of the early divisional boards. The hall's location is also important surviving evidence of the administrative role of Cardwell as the main town in the Cardwell Shire prior to the 1920s.
The World War I (WWI) memorial honour board is a record of Queensland's involvement in a major world event. WWI memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. Often the focus of ANZAC Day ceremonies, they are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall (former) has a long and special connection with the people of the Cardwell District. Its numerous public functions as an administrative centre, theatre, Queensland Country Women's Association Hall, ANZAC Day ceremonial site, reception venue, library and museum have generated strong community associations. Community attachment to the hall ensured its survival in the late 1980s when it was threatened with demolition, and also ensured that it was rebuilt after cyclone Yasi in 2011.
Local attachment to the hall's honour board reflects the wider reverence felt for such memorials across Australia. As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies it is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16508,"place_ref":601771,"name":"St Joseph's Nudgee College","alternate_name":"Nudgee College | St Josephs College","street_address":"2199 Sandgate Road","suburb":"BOONDALL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-11-06","description":"Setting
Clustered on the highest part of a sprawling 148 hectare site, St Joseph's Nudgee College is a complex of educational and associated residential buildings constructed from the 1890s to the present. The extensive grounds are located in what is now the suburb of Boondall, a residential area fringed with light industrial and commercial development. The grounds contain, in addition to the school buildings, extensive areas of native wetlands, agricultural plots, pastures, playing fields and other sporting facilities. Despite the intensive development that has taken place around the school since it was first established, parts of the site retain the qualities of the earlier rural setting.
The school buildings are concentrated in the most elevated part of the site, an area bounded by Sandgate Road on the west and Northumbria Road to the north. In the most prominent position on the site, adjacent to the intersection, is a sporting field, Ross Oval. Mature trees, including a double row of camphor laurels along Sandgate Road, line the road frontages and contribute to the school's established garden setting. Located to the south of Ross Oval are the earliest college buildings including the Main Building, the Chapel and the Dunne Building. Substantial masonry edifices in an imposing Italianate style, these buildings are prominent landmarks and the most visible part of the school from the surrounding streets. Initially building work was concentrated in this area but over time has spread to the south and east of the main group of buildings.
Main Building (Cotter and O'Brien Residences)
Facing west towards Sandgate Road, the Main Building is a large three-storey rendered masonry building linked by a colonnade to the adjoining Chapel. Through its size, prominent position and imposing Renaissance Revival style architecture the Main Building dominates the built landscape of the school.
The formal entrance to the school, the TC Beirne Memorial Gate, is located directly in front of the Main Building. Consisting of stone pillars surmounted by crosses and fitted with wrought iron gates, it leads to a circular drive that divides the lawn in front of the Main Building. The fence adjoining the TC Beirne Memorial Gate has a stone base and wrought iron panels above. A stone statue of St Joseph is positioned in the lawn in front of the entrance to the Main Building.
Originally designed as a symmetrical building, U-shaped in plan and arranged around an east-facing courtyard, the Main Building was built in stages and has had several additions to the original design including the two-storey colonnade on the western front and a substantial L-shaped extension on the south side of the original building. The Main Building has a painted hipped corrugated iron roof with masonry chimneys projecting through the roof. Timber joinery is used throughout the building with the majority of the windows being large double-hung windows.
Western Façade
The original front façade is divided into five bays with the walls and roof of the central and end bays projecting beyond the line of the adjoining structure. The most striking feature of the façade is the two-storey masonry arcade with round arches and pilasters. The arcade elaborates the Renaissance theme of the original design, connects the Main Building to the chapel and protects it from the western sun. The roof of the arcade forms a terrace to the upper level of the Main Building and the parapet, which acts as a balustrade to the roof terrace, incorporates classical balusters.
The front entrance and the stair tower are located on the principal axis of the building, in the centre of the original façade. The entrance is emphasised by the projection of the central bay of the arcade, the use of arched and triangular pediments and a gable roof on the upper storey. The tower is situated on the eastern or rear side of the building but an ornamental belvedere on top of the tower is visible from Sandgate Road, above the roofline. The belvedere is an open observatory roofed by a dome on a square base and supported by columns. It now houses a marble statue.
The northern façade of the Main Building faces onto a small courtyard that overlooks Ross Oval. The major features of the northern façade are regular rows of double hung timber windows with arched pediments and decorative plaster friezes between each level. The brick-paved courtyard is bounded by the Chapel on the west and a modern classroom block on the east. Non-significant elements include the classroom block (Gallagher), which abuts the North Wing and a modern colonnade attached to the North Wing.
Rear Elevations
The rear of the main building faces onto the eastern courtyard. Heavy three storey concrete verandahs, built to replace the narrower original timber verandahs, incorporate the original cast iron panels. The contrasting style and proportion of the concrete verandahs detracts from the original architecture and blocks light out of the stairwell.
A two storey masonry block built in 1900, originally dormitories and now finance offices, adjoins the original southern wing and is connected to it by a two storey concrete verandah. An extension at the eastern end of the 1900 block serves as the infirmary.
The 1960s' extension at the southern end of the Main Building is the same height and materials as the original building but has fewer decorative features. Arched ornament similar to that used on the original building is found over the windows on one bay of the western façade and one bay of the southern facade. The ground floor of the southern extension contains kitchen and dining facilities.
Interior
The floor of the front entry porch, under the arcade, is raised several steps above the surrounding level. From the entry porch, a pair of timber panelled doors with a decorative glass and timber surround open into an entry vestibule. The vestibule is tiled with multi-coloured tessellated tiles and decorative mouldings including cornice, picture rail and skirting. A set of timber-framed doors at the rear of the vestibule has side panels and a fanlight, all of which are glazed with decorative leadlight. These doors open onto a corridor that runs north south through the building and a stairwell that leads to the upper floors. The corridor, which terminates at the entrance to the former senior classroom at the northern end and at the dining room in the southern extension, leads past a series of smaller rooms on either side of it, including former offices and parlours. In the stairwell opposite the vestibule is a grand marble and timber staircase, square in plan and wrapped around a central void.
The stairwell occupies the tower that terminates in the roof top belvedere. A primarily timber structure, the stair has ornamental balusters, carved stringers and marble treads and risers on the flights between ground and first floor. Painted cast iron panels are incorporated into the stair balustrade. Beyond the first floor the stair treads and risers are timber. A narrower stair connects the second floor to a room at the top of the tower under the belvedere.
The upper floor levels are similar in plan to the ground floor with rows of rooms accessed from a central corridor. Some larger rooms, such as a former library on the first floor level, occupy the full width of the building and open onto both the arcade on the western side and the eastern verandah. Interior walls are generally masonry with a plaster finish. Some ceilings in larger rooms are pressed metal. The first floor level of the arcade provides access to the choir loft of the Chapel.
Chapel
The Chapel, located adjacent to Ross Oval and abutting the northwest corner of the Main Building, is a rendered masonry structure, with a tiled gable roof. Positioned to the side and in front of the Main Building, the chapel is the closest, in the group of older buildings, to Sandgate Road. Designed in an Italianate style to complement the existing architecture, the Chapel is connected by the two-storey arcade to the Main Building.
The Chapel is basically rectangular in plan, with the long axis running east west. Projecting beyond the main walls are three bays, clustered around the western end of the Chapel. These bays consist of a single storey rectilinear bay on each side of the Chapel and a taller semicircular apse on the Sandgate Road or western end. The domed apse, the main decorative feature of the Sandgate Road façade, has a zinc roof incorporating ornamental vents and rendered and banded walls decorated with festoons.
Although the Chapel consists principally of a single large double height space, the facades are divided by the use of classical motifs into two levels. The ornament and detailing of the facades is based on the design of the arcade, which forms the east façade of the Chapel. On the lower level of the north and south facades is a blind arcade of round arches supported on pilasters. The upper level contains a row of tall narrow round arched windows separated by pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The parapet above repeats the classical balusters used on the arcade. An ornate cupola supported by diminutive columns and surmounted with an elaborate metal cross is located in the centre of the ridge of the tiled roof
The main entry to the Chapel, in the centre of the east front, is from the ground level of the arcade. Displayed in the arcade are several memorial plaques including an ornate marble WW1 honour tablet with marble pilasters, modillions, arched top and brass nameplates and a brass WW2 honour board.
The entry vestibule is single storey space located under the choir mezzanine. Small rooms, one of which functions as a vestry, open off either side of the vestibule. An arch supported on paired red marble ionic columns frames the opening from the entry vestibule into the main space of the chapel. A simple double-height space, the interior of the Chapel is symmetrical with a central aisle leading between rows of timber pews, to the high altar.
The double-height walls and coffered ceiling are decorated with classical motifs in plaster relief and a multi-coloured paint scheme. Pilasters on the lower part of the wall have ionic capitals while those on the upper part have Corinthian capitals. High leadlight windows, positioned between pilasters, light the space from above. The choir mezzanine, located at the eastern end overlooking the main space and accessed from the upper level of the arcade, is a curved cantilevered balcony with an ornate timber balustrade.
At the western end of the main space a chancel arch, similar to but grander than the entry arch, frames the high altar. The domed semi-circular niche which houses the marble high altar is painted various shades of blue. Single storey bays are attached to the sides of the main space adjacent to the western end. The northern bay contains a marble altar and opens onto the main space through two arches located between pilasters. The southern bay contains a room accessed via timber doors.
Former Dunne (Duhig) Building
The Former Dunne building, a rectangular masonry building with a tiled gable roof, consists of an undercroft with three storeys of classrooms above. Located to the east of, but in line with, the Chapel, it faces Northumbria Road across Ross Oval. Continuing the architectural style established by the Main Building and the Chapel, the Dunne Building has an arched arcade on either side of a projecting central bay and an attached semi-octagonal stair tower as the principal features of its main or northern façade.
The rendered masonry walls of the arcade are detailed with simple plaster mouldings. Classical balusters form the balustrade between the arches of the arcade. The base of the building is rendered in a banded pattern with arches opening to the undercroft. The bay in the centre of the symmetrical façade is ornamented with pilasters and narrow stained glass arched windows with decorative pediments. A large pediment with a cross mounted on its apex surmounts the central bay. Adjoining the pediment is a parapet with classical balusters that conceal the edge of the gable roof. The stair tower, which protrudes from the centre of the central bay, has an ornate zinc roof with small arched dormer windows and decorative round and arched stained glass windows. The symmetry of the façade is further emphasized by a set of wide masonry stairs positioned on axis with the stair tower that lead down to Ross Oval. .
The southern façade of the building is much plainer than the northern façade and overlooks the Former Quadrangle (Edmund Rice Mall), an extension of the courtyard space at the rear of the Main Building. With the exception of the banded base, the walls are simply rendered and painted. The original timber windows have been replaced with aluminium to suit the new floor levels. The gable roof has dormers on its southern face. The tall narrow eastern façade has arched openings and other arched motifs, two storey banded pilasters and a parapet, in the form of a pediment topped with urns and a cross, concealing the gable end. The western façade, which was probably similar to the eastern façade, has been completely obscured by the adjoining Gallagher building.
The undercroft can be entered from either the Quadrangle on the south or a terrace overlooking Ross Oval on the north. Toilets and service rooms are located at the eastern and western ends. The main stair is accessed from the undercroft. It has been modified to suit new internal levels but the lower flights remain substantially intact. Slate stair treads are worn and damaged in some areas.
The upper floors contain classrooms accessed via a concrete verandah. The interiors of this building, including the verandahs, have been largely rebuilt. Although much of the external wall remains intact, the original classrooms have been removed, floor levels altered and doors and windows replaced. The concrete verandah is set back behind the line of the colonnade with which it no longer aligns. The alterations are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Former Quadrangle (Edmund Rice Mall) and Big Ben
The original east-facing courtyard created by the construction of the Main Building has been further enclosed and extended by later buildings constructed on its northern and southern sides. Surrounded by the Dunne (Duhig) Building and the Gallagher Building on the north, the Main Building on the west, the South Wing and the Infirmary (Health Centre) on the south and the single storey Administration Building on the east, the Edmund Rice Mall is a focus within the school. It is a heavily used and centrally located outdoor space. The irregular shape of the mall and the variety of buildings surrounding it, together with the mixed planting, brick paving and planter boxes and bitumen play areas create an informal atmosphere.
Located at the eastern end of the mall is a freestanding metal clock mounted on a pillar. Known as "Big Ben", the clock has a round face enclosed in a cylindrical case that rests on a fluted column with a Corinthian style capital. Elevated on a rectangular stone base, Big Ben is now situated on the lawn in front of the Administration Building.
Ross Oval
Ross Oval, the principal sporting field at the College occupies a very prominent position on the College site adjacent to the intersection of Sandgate Road and Northumbria Road. A single grassed football field, it forms the setting for the northern facades of the Chapel and the Duhig Buildings, which are set on an embankment above the level of the oval. Masonry stairs are set into the embankment in front of the Duhig Building and near the entrance to the Chapel. There is a row of palm trees along the top of the embankment in front of the buildings.
The oval is surrounded by a low timber picket fence. A small grandstand is located on the northern side of the oval. The grandstand is a simple timber framed structure with stepped timber seating and a corrugated iron roof.
Wilkes Oval
Wilkes Oval, located on the eastern slope below Ross Oval, is the second most important sporting field at Nudgee College. The original slope has been cut and filled and retaining walls constructed to create the level playing field. Overlooked by the Dunne Building and the Administration Building, Wilkes Oval is bounded by Northumbria Road on the north, various accommodation buildings on the east and a car park and classrooms on the south. A grassy expanse mostly used for playing soccer, it is rimmed by mature trees on the north, east and west.
Former Senior School (Hodda Building)
A predominantly three-storey brick and concrete building, the former Senior School is located to the southeast of the Main Building on a sloping site. Originally consisting of three connected blocks arranged in a zigzag pattern around two landscaped courtyards, the former Senior School was notable for its clear functional layout and abstract facades. The three original blocks consist of a northeast dormitory block, a central dormitory block and a southwest classroom block. Major alterations and additions including a substantial extension to the classroom wing and the addition of a dormitory wing for Year 11 students have obscured the original design.
The original facades of the building are composed of a rigorous arrangement of cream brick walls and piers, aluminium framed strip windows, exposed concrete floor structure and flat roofs.
The interiors of the building have also been extensively altered.
Spaces that retain their original architectural character include the entrance foyers and staircases. The stairs have polished concrete treads and wide timber handrails. The dormitory in the northeast wing retains original roomettes, individual cubicles for sleeping and studying, enclosed by door height brick partition walls.
Remainder of the college grounds
Various ancillary buildings including a library, a number of halls, and staff and maintenance facilities are located around the grounds. Sports facilities in addition to Ross and Wilkes ovals include several sports fields ("the Flats"), tennis and basketball courts, golf course, swimming pool, rifle range and athletics field.
Significant structures within heritage boundary include:
Former Main Building:
- Original 1890 building (south wing and central portion including tower)
- Extensions to South Wing including 1900 building (Finance Department) and 1937 link
- North Wing including Ryan Hall (1903-04)
- Southern extension
Chapel (1914-16)
Former Dunne Building (1917-19)
Former Quadrangle
'Big Ben' (1917)
Ross Oval and grandstand (1927)
Wilkes Oval (1934-35)
Places within the heritage boundary that are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance:
Gallagher Building (1973)
Infirmary (1975)
Administration Building (1986)
Kitchen extension to Main building (1950s)
","history":"St. Joseph's Nudgee College, was established in 1891 to serve the needs of rural Catholic boys. It was the first purpose-built boarding college erected in Queensland for the Christian Brothers, who were the first Catholic order to provide secondary education for boys in Queensland, decades before the Marists or the Jesuits. Offering affordable Catholic education through to senior and university entrance, St Joseph's Nudgee College has been important in fostering Catholic upward mobility (social, cultural, economic and political) in Queensland. During the 20th century St Joseph's Nudgee College developed into a large educational complex. Most of the major structures were designed by prominent Queensland architects and illustrate the evolution of Catholic educational architecture in Queensland. The College remains a boys-only school and the property of the Christian Brothers.
The former Main Building, containing the oldest structures on the site, remains the core of the college. From here radiate 20th century developments constructed in response to school growth. The College has rarely had the luxury of building in anticipation of growth; a policy of keeping fees affordable has meant that funds for extensions have seldom been easy to raise.
Although Roman Catholics comprised approximately 23.5% of the Queensland population in 1891 when St Joseph's College at Nudgee was opened, government policy disadvantaged Catholic schools. The Grammar Schools Act of 1860 provided government support to Grammar Schools, but not to denominational schools. Although the Education Act of 1860, which established a system of primary schools in Queensland, provided some assistance to non-vested schools, The Education Act (1875) halted government aid to denominational primary schools. Committed to providing access to a Catholic education for all Roman Catholic children in Queensland, the Catholic Church responded by accelerating the development of a network of parochial schools from the mid-1870s.
The Christian Brothers, a teaching order founded in Ireland by Edmund Ignatius Rice in the early 19th century, were invited to Queensland by Bishop O'Quinn of Brisbane, to assist in the development of Catholic secondary education in the colony. The Order had established a permanent presence in Australia when Brothers Treacy, Lynch and Bodkin immigrated to Melbourne in 1868. When Bishop O'Quinn's wrote of the urgent need for a teaching order of men in Queensland, Brother Patrick Ambrose Treacy, considered the founder of the Christian Brothers in Australia, responded by establishing a Christian Brothers school in Brisbane in 1875. The Brothers chose land on Gregory Terrace as the site for their school but while awaiting its construction, commenced teaching in 1875 at St Stephen's Catholic Church in Elizabeth Street. The St Stephen's school was moved to Gregory Terrace after the school there opened in 1880.
St Joseph's College on Gregory Terrace functioned initially as a day school, but Bishop O'Quinn successfully pressured the Brothers to admit boarders to Gregory Terrace. Archbishop Dunne, who succeeded O'Quinn in 1881, continued to press the Brothers to increase accommodation for boarders. The establishment of Catholic boarding schools was not traditional in Ireland, where boarding schools were seen as the province of the elite. In Queensland, O'Quinn and Dunne promoted boarding schools as a solution to the vastness of the colony, which had a small population scattered over huge areas far distant from principal urban centres. Boarding schools were a logical choice for rural Catholic boys but southern boarding schools (as in Sydney) were expensive and O'Quinn and Dunne wanted to reach the poorer rural Catholics who comprised the bulk of the Catholic congregation. It was essential that Catholic boarding schools with moderate fees be established in Queensland.
Despite the construction of a new dormitory wing at the Gregory Terrace school in 1888, accommodation proved inadequate for the increasing number of boarders. In response, Brother Treacy decided to establish a second school specifically to accommodate St Joseph's boarders, on land at Nudgee owned by the Order. The site comprised 258 acres situated between Nundah Creek and Cabbage Tree Creek, about 9 miles from the Brisbane central business district, accessed via Sandgate Road and the Sandgate Railway. In addition to this, Treacy purchased 50 acres of adjacent land from Reverend Holme, a Presbyterian minister, obtaining title in May 1890. This included the 'Nudgee Mound', which became the site of the Main Building at St Joseph's College. In the late 1880s Nudgee was a rural district, convenient to the city but sufficiently isolated and removed from the distractions of town. Proximity to the city had been one of the perceived problems with Gregory Terrace.
Main Building 1890
The oldest structure in the school is the southern half of the Main Building facing Sandgate Road. Construction commenced in 1890 and the first pupils occupied the building in February 1891.
Stombuco and Son were engaged as architects. Andrea Stombuco was a flamboyant Italian sculptor, monumental mason, builder and architect who had travelled extensively as a youth before settling in the Cape Colony, where he owned and operated a stone quarry. He joined briefly in the Victorian gold rush in 1851 before practising as a sculptor, contractor and architect in that colony. The Catholic Church became his principal patron. In 1869 he was appointed Diocesan Architect for Goulburn in New South Wales, then in 1875 moved to Queensland, possibly at the invitation of Bishop O'Quinn. His commissions for the Catholic Church in Queensland included St Joseph's Christian Brothers College on Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill (1875-76 with additions by Stombuco and Son in 1886-87); St Mary's Roman Catholic Presbytery, Ipswich (1876) [600577]; churches at Laidley (1878), Pine Mountain (1878), Goodna (1880-81) and Sandgate (1880-81); All Hallows' Convent School, Petrie Bight (1880-82) [600200]; St Patrick's Church, Fortitude Valley (1880-82) [600210]; and St Vincent's Convent and Church, Nudgee (1883-84). In 1886, he entered into partnership with his eldest son, Giovanni. Churches at Wooloowin (1886) and Kangaroo Point (1887-88) and a number of prominent private residences were among the buildings designed by the father and son partnership. St Joseph's College, Nudgee (1889-90) was amongst the last of their work in Brisbane. In 1891, experiencing financial difficulty, Andrea Stombuco moved to Perth, where he died in poverty in 1907. His family remained in Queensland. On Andrea's departure for Western Australia, Giovanni Stombuco took up farming at Kuraby, South of Brisbane.
Initially, only part of the building designed by Stombuco and Son, the tower and a section of the South Wing, were constructed. The ground floor contained a classroom and the upper two floors held a chapel and dormitories. A temporary galvanised iron building containing four classrooms was erected close to the Main Building, but was removed in 1904. The front grounds appear to have been laid out early in the history of the college. By 1897, and probably much earlier, the heart shaped lawn with its surrounding carriage way and statue of St Joseph had been established, ornamental trees had been planted and a picket fence had been erected along the Sandgate Road boundary in front of the Main Building.
The school accepted its first pupils - 41 junior school boarders relocated from Gregory Terrace - in February 1891. The first principal was Brother Bodkin who had come to Australia with Brother Treacy in 1868. Archbishop Dunne was overseas at the time, but after his return he officially opened the College on the 8th May 1891. By this time £12,776 had been spent on constructing and setting up the school.
1900 Dormitory Block
In 1892 the remaining Gregory Terrace boarders were moved to Nudgee. Enrolments grew rapidly and between 1895 and 1900 the school population almost doubled. To accommodate increasing enrolments a two-storeyed building was constructed behind the Main Building in 1900. This was aligned east-west behind the South Wing of the Main Building and was eventually joined to the South Wing in 1937. The new building provided dormitory accommodation, which then enabled an upper dormitory in the South Wing to be converted into a chapel.
By 1902 Treacy believed that Nudgee was "the largest boarding institution of its kind in the Commonwealth", evidence of a sizeable Catholic rural population that set Queensland apart from other Australian states.
Main Building 1904
The northern half of the Main Building, including a section of the North Wing, was finished in 1904. This completed Stombuco and Son's design and the symmetry of the Main Building around the central tower. An arcade across the front of the building, which faced west into the strong afternoon sun, was added to the initial design and the tower was heightened and topped with a dome. The architect for this work was James Percy Cowlishaw (1867-1925), son of one of Brisbane's earliest private architects, James Cowlishaw. The ground floor contained senior classrooms and a students' hall, now known as Ryan Hall. The first floor held a library and both the first and second floors contained dormitories with bathrooms. This wing was opened officially by Governor Sir Herbert Chermside on 24th June 1904.
In the early 20th century St Joseph's College continued to grow and by 1913 enrolments had reached 209. Overcrowding made further extensions a necessity but the College remained heavily in debt. In 1911, the Golden Jubilee celebration for Brother Barrett, a longstanding Christian Brother who had taught for many years at both Gregory Terrace and Nudgee, was made the occasion for the beginning of a fundraising campaign. An appeal was made to the Queensland Catholic community and funds raised by this campaign made it possible to commence work on further extensions including the present chapel, new servants' quarters, laundry, kitchen, storerooms and infirmary, as well as the fitting up of science rooms. The new buildings, with the exception of the chapel, were probably located immediately to the south of the Main Building.
Chapel (1914-16)
Archbishop James Duhig of Brisbane laid the foundation stone for a new chapel on 5th October 1913 as part of the fund raising campaign. Construction commenced late in 1914 and the building was dedicated by Duhig on 25th March 1916.
Prominent Catholic architect Thomas Ramsay Hall (later one of the designers of Brisbane City Hall in 1919) was commissioned to design the new chapel. Hall was a Queensland-trained architect, a cadet in the Queensland Public Works Department before joining the architectural firm of FR Hall and RS Dods c1904 and then establishing his own practice in 1907. Hall was one of Brisbane's most successful architects of the early 20th century. His collaborations with GG Prentice as Hall and Prentice (1919-1929) and with LB Phillips as Hall and Phillips (from 1929-1948) produced some of Queensland's most important commercial buildings of the first half of the 20th century. His early work included Sandgate Town Hall (1911) and numerous public works designs.
Hall designed the new chapel at St Joseph's College in the Renaissance revival style, to harmonise with the Main Building. Internally he created a light and airy space, with white walls and light stained woodwork. The sanctuary was flanked by Ionic columns of dark red marble and the altar was of grey marble.
Additions 1917-1919: extension to 1900 Block; Dunne Memorial Block; 'Big Ben'
With the death of Archbishop Dunne in 1917, St Joseph's College received an unexpected windfall. Dunne bequeathed £30,000 of Church funds to the Brothers, of which £15,000 was allocated to Nudgee. This financed further building, again made necessary by overcrowding: 285 boys were enrolled in 1917 and even the library was being used as a dormitory. The block constructed in 1900 was extended to include 12 music rooms, teachers' rooms, a dentist's room, a men's dining room, and a new toilet block. The Dunne Memorial Block (later the Duhig Building) was a substantial two-storeyed structure containing 8 classrooms. Located close to the North Wing of the Main Building, it remained detached until 1975. TR Hall was again engaged as architect. The block was completed in 1919 but no public opening was held due to an influenza epidemic.
"Big Ben" is the name applied to a College icon, a large freestanding clock of English manufacture located in a lawn to the east of the Quadrangle. It was reputedly obtained by the Queensland government in 1895 and exhibited in Brisbane at the Queensland International Exhibition of 1897. Heindorff and Company of Queen Street then purchased the clock, which stood on the Queen Street footpath until the College acquired it in 1917.
Front wall (1930)
In 1930 a substantial front wall with imposing entrance gates was constructed, funded by Brisbane Catholic businessman TC Beirne.
1937 extensions to the South Wing
In 1937 the Main Building was linked to the dormitory block constructed in 1900, by three-storeyed extensions to the South Wing. The extension was principally a service block, providing two new locker rooms, new bathroom and lavatory accommodation and on the ground floor, serveries and an extension to the kitchen.
Late 1950s extensions
By the late 1950s, overcrowding yet again led to a renewed building program. Contributing to the overcrowding was the increased numbers of boys who were returning after Junior - a reflection of changed social expectations and economic circumstances. Expansion in the senior school was accommodated by further extensions to the Main Building. Two dormitories with shower blocks and new Brothers' rooms were constructed over pre-existing refectory extensions. In addition to these extensions, three new classrooms to the rear of the tennis courts were constructed.
The architect for this work was Frank Cullen, a nephew of Archbishop Duhig, who had commenced his career in 1928 as an articled pupil of Hennessy, Hennessy and Co., Brisbane. He established his own practice in 1936. Cullen undertook many works for the Catholic Church in Queensland.
New Senior Secondary School (1965-67)
The largest and most significant structure away from the Main Building is the Senior Secondary School, erected in the mid-1960s. Its construction reflected a state-wide rise in secondary school attendance combined with educational reform. In the 1950s Queensland had experienced a rapid growth in secondary student numbers, the outcome of the post-war 'baby boom' and increased immigration (including significant numbers of Catholics) combined with national economic growth. These changes together with the educational reforms brought about by the Committee of Inquiry on Secondary Education in 1961, led to increased numbers in the Senior School at St Joseph's Nudgee College and pressures on the senior curriculum. Improved funding for Catholic Schools from the Federal Government aided the expansion necessary to accommodate these changes.
As early as 1959 it was clear that better senior facilities would be needed. Plans for a self-contained complex for the senior school were completed in 1964. It was the largest single building project since construction of the Main Building in 1890 and was estimated to cost £1,000,000. Construction commenced in August 1965. The complex was opened and blessed on the 21 May 1967 and the accommodation section was occupied in July 1967.
The original building included the Senior Residence and School but not the Year Eleven Residence. Designed to provide for all senior school requirements, it included accommodation, laundries, classrooms, science laboratories and refreshment facilities. Professor Neville Anderson of the School of Architecture of the University of New South Wales was asked to consult on the project. He had worked for the Christian Brothers at Waverley College in Sydney and spent several days at the school developing the brief. Designing architects were Cullen, Fagg, Hargraves and Mooney, a practice that had carried out many commissions for the Catholic Church. The new Senior School, although similar in scale to the older buildings, was the first major building in the College grounds to depart from the Italianate architectural style adopted by Stombuco and Son in the late 1880s.
Mid-1970s extensions and alterations
During a mid-1970s building program the Dunne Memorial Block was joined to the North Wing by the construction of the Junior Sciences Block (now the Gallagher Building) in 1975. The original wooden verandahs on the northern facade of the 1900 South Wing were replaced in concrete and the South Wing was extended east to provide a new infirmary. Construction was plagued by industrial unrest and the main contractor went into liquidation.
Mid-1980s extensions
The Main Building reached its current form during a development program that commenced in the mid-1980s. At the beginning of the 1980s, the ever-increasing size of the school and the perennial problem of inadequate funding led to the remodelling of the administration of the school. A business manager was appointed and an Advisory Board established. In 1984, Civil and Civic Pty Ltd commenced work on a Campus Development Strategy and a Foundation was established to raise funds for the proposed developments.
Work began on implementing this strategy in 1985. The Quadrangle was refurbished and the following year an administration block was erected to the east of the Dunne Memorial Block. A Manual Arts Block was built in 1987 south of the South Wing. During the summer vacation of 1988-89 the Dunne Memorial Block was converted from two storeys to its present three storeys. The interior was gutted, but the form of the building and the principal façades were retained. A year eleven dormitory designed by Queensland architect Ian Ferrier was added to the Senior School during 1986.
Ancillary Buildings
Most of the ancillary buildings at the college post-date 1975. A range of smaller buildings such as the laundry, storerooms, boiler house and servants quarters were constructed, probably to the south of the Main Building, in the early days of the college. These have been removed or absorbed into the South Wing extensions. The largest and most significant ancillary buildings presently occupying the site include the Library, Tierney Hall, the McKennariey Centre, the Parents and Friends Multipurpose Hall and the Junior Residence.
Tierney Hall was constructed in 1975 in response to the need for a gymnasium and large hall in which to hold school functions. The architect for this work was William Douglas and the engineer was John Cavanagh.
The Library, named after Monsignor Vincent Cleary, was also built at this time. Monsignor Cleary was an old boy of the college and foundation director of nearby Pius XII Seminary. He died on 8th August 1975, a few days after the library designed by Ian Ferrier was opened.
The McKennariey Centre, opened in 1990, contained a range of indoor sporting facilities, health and physical education classrooms, a manager's office and a canteen. The Centre was named after Brother Leonard Bede McKennariey, son of the College's first pupil and a Christian Brother who had spent many years teaching at Nudgee.
The Parents and Friends Multipurpose Hall and the Junior Residence designed by architect Laurie Bertoldi, were opened in February 1995 by Archbishop Bathersby.
Sporting Facilities
Sport has been a significant focus in St Joseph's curriculum from its establishment. The College prospectus for 1890 made reference to play-grounds and a gymnasium and by 1896 the main sports field contained about ten acres, with football facilities and cricket pitch. One of the original sports areas was located in the northwest corner of the grounds, north of the Main Building and adjacent to the 1914-16 chapel, in the area now occupied by Ross Oval. A second playing area, down on the flat, was in use by 1927, although it was some distance from the main buildings and flooded during the rainy season.
In 1927 the Main Oval near the chapel was levelled, a grandstand was erected and the concrete wicket was replaced by two turf pitches. The name of the oval was changed from Main Oval to Ross Oval in 1978 at the request of the Old Boys Association. John (Jack) Ross (1894-1973) was a prominent and much loved sportsman who had attended Nudgee as a student from 1908 to 1912 and had then taught at the college from 1914 almost to his death.
The College's second oval, Wilkes Oval, located to the east of Ross Oval, was developed between 1934 and 1935 under the State government's Unemployment Relief Scheme implemented during the 1930s' economic depression, to provide day work for the long-term unemployed.
A swimming pool was also constructed under this scheme. For many years Nudgee Creek had served as the College swimming facility, with a corrugated iron shed and diving platform erected there. In 1935 a 25 metre swimming pool was built in the grounds, close to the southeast corner of Wilkes Oval. The pool remained in use until 1981 when deterioration forced its closure. The present 50 metre McKennariey pool was opened in 1982.
The school's first tennis courts were built in 1907, on the site of the present Edmund Rice Mall. They were dismantled in 1918 and four new courts were erected in 1922 some distance behind the South Wing, in the location of what is now a car park. These were removed in 1991 when the present courts were built.
","criteria":"St Joseph's Nudgee College, opened in 1891, is the oldest purpose-built Catholic boys' boarding school in Queensland. Initially established to accommodate the increasing number of boarders enrolling at St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace, the school provides important evidence of the development of residential education in Queensland. The emergence of Nudgee College as a boarding school in the late 19th century is evidence of the size and character of the rural Catholic population of the time. The College remains the premier Catholic boys' boarding school in Queensland and is significant for its important contribution to the upward social, cultural, economic and political mobility of Catholics in the Queensland community during the 20th century.The imposing and coherent architectural vision is part of a recognisable style of building (Italianate architecture in an elevated setting) favoured by the Catholic Church in Queensland, especially under Archbishops Robert Dunne and James Duhig, as an expression of Catholic aspirations in an Anglican and Protestant dominated society. Historically, St Joseph's Nudgee College belongs to a period of major Catholic building with widespread effects on the Queensland landscape and the Brisbane townscape in particular, and is important in illustrating this trend.
|St Joseph's Nudgee College has developed continuously on a large site and retains most of the original permanent buildings including the former Main Building. The imposing facades, prominent chapel, wide variety of classroom and residential buildings and significant outdoor areas such as the former Quadrangle and Ross and Wilkes ovals are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large denominational boarding school in Queensland. The complex is an excellent representation of the evolution of Catholic educational architecture in Queensland over a period of almost one hundred years. The historic core contains the work of several prominent Queensland architects including Andrea Stombuco, James Percy Cowlishaw and Thomas Ramsay Hall, yet remains remarkably cohesive in form, style, materials and scale.
|Situated on the 'Nudgee Mound', the most prominent and elevated part of the site, the older buildings of the College with their sweeping facades and architecturally cohesive design form a landmark in the northeastern suburbs of Brisbane. The rendered Renaissance revival architecture set in extensive grounds and bounded by established trees is valued for its aesthetic qualities and contribution to the historical character of the area. Ross Oval has been used for sport and recreation from the earliest days of the College and became the primary sports ground for the College after it was leveled and the grandstand built in 1927. The oval is an integral part of the main building complex and makes a significant contribution to its aesthetic appeal.
|St Joseph's Nudgee College, has a special association for generations of Catholic families who have sent their sons to this school since 1891. The college is considered the premier Catholic boys' boarding school in Queensland, and has a special role in Catholic education in this state.
|The College has a strong and special association with the Christian Brothers, the order which founded the College in the late 1880s and who continue their association with the school. Prominent Queensland Catholic churchmen including Brisbane archbishops have had a special association with the development of the College. The Dunne Memorial Block (now Duhig Building) was built from funds bequeathed by Robert Dunne, Brisbane's first Archbishop. Brisbane Archbishop Bathersby is a graduate of the College.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16509,"place_ref":601772,"name":"Aberfoyle","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"35 Wood Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-08-05","description":"Aberfoyle is a single-storeyed chamferboard residence with a corrugated iron hipped roof with projecting gables, a bullnosed verandah to the south, southeast and southwest, and timber stumps. The building is located on a level corner site fronting Wood Street to the south and Albion Street (the Cunningham Highway) to the west.
The entry, facing Wood Street to the south, is symmetrical in elevation and is composed of a central timber stair leading to the verandah, surmounted by a gable to the roof above, and flanked on either side by projecting five-sided corner bays on the southwest and southeast. Gables project above the corner bays, with the verandahs encircling them in plan. The western elevation has a central projecting gable, to which the verandah is terminated, with the kitchen wing projecting to the north. The rear of the building has enclosed verandahs, and a large single-storeyed addition on the northeast.
The roof has timber eave brackets and a central ventilator, and the projecting gables have timber finials and diagonal boarding over pressed sheeting. The verandahs have timber posts with timber capitals, timber handrails and cast iron balustrades to the projecting bay sections and entry, and cast iron brackets. The verandahs also have unusual lattice screens which consist of scalloped timber lattice which gives a star-like pattern. A brick chimney stack is located mid-way above an internal wall on the western side of the building, and the rear kitchen wing shows evidence of alterations to windows and an early addition to the northern end. The western elevation has decorative window hoods consisting of cast iron brackets with corrugated iron hood and timber sides, and the central window hood has a gable with finial.
The building has sash windows, french doors with patterned glass panels and fanlights opening onto verandahs, and decorative leadlight sash windows to the projecting southwest and southeast corner bays. These windows have leadlight, in a geometric pattern, to the bottom panel only. The main entry door assembly consists of a central door with solid bottom panel and leadlight upper panels, and leadlight panels to the fanlight and sidelights featuring a floral design.
Internally, Aberfoyle has six rooms opening off a central corridor with a kitchen wing at the rear. The front two guest rooms have curtained off projecting corner bays with leadlight windows and cedar frames, with the southwest bay containing a photographic image of a picturesque railway line in a bush location (possibly on the Cairns-Kuranda or the Spring Bluff rail line) set within a glass panel in the centre of a leadlight window. The southeast bay has a textured glass panel in place of a similar image which was originally located there.
Aberfoyle has ornate pressed metal ceilings and cornices, woodgraining to internal doors with fretwork panels above, and stencilled friezes, with a portion of the original frieze surviving intact in the entry foyer. Internal walls are lined with vertically jointed boards, and some early changes involving doorways and partition walls are evident in the fabric. The entry foyer has an arched timber opening to the narrower hall beyond, and the two middle bedrooms have early linoleum floor coverings.
The living/dining room has a non-original timber fireplace surround, and the chimney has been sealed. A timber door with textured glass upper panels provides access to the adjacent kitchen, but is not in its original position. The northeast bedroom retains the upper portion of a partition wall which originally separated a former adjacent bathroom which contained a sunken bath. A recently constructed bathroom is located adjacent in the northeast corner of the enclosed verandah.
A timber door with coloured glass upper panels, fanlight and sidelights, separates the hall from the enclosed rear verandah. The rear kitchen wing has undergone several changes, including the kitchen being refitted, but retains the upper portion of a partition wall which originally separated a maids room. The early addition on the northern end contains a study with working fireplace, and an internal bathroom has been constructed within the inside corner of the enclosed rear verandah.
A large single-storeyed addition has been constructed on the northeast, and contains living spaces and a garage. A deck has been constructed on the northwest, and an inground swimming pool is located on the northeast.
The grounds include three large Camphor Laurel trees along the Albion Street frontage, and terracotta tiled paths lead from the front gate to the entrance off Wood Street, and a side path from Albion Street to the verandah near the living/dining room. The paths have Marseilles tiles with edgings in a cabled design, also referred to as a rope or barley-twist design, and the entrance path has been reconstructed in places with tiles from the side path.
","history":"Aberfoyle, a residence in Wood Street, Warwick was constructed in 1910 to the design of local architect, Hugh Hamilton Campbell for local dentist Peter Alexander Affleck.
Warwick was established as an administrative centre of the emerging Darling Downs regions in 1847, with a post office being established in the town in 1848. This year saw the first survey work of the embryonic town completed by surveyor, JC Burnett, with further surveys in 1850, and the first sale of crown land in July 1850. On May 25, 1861, Warwick was granted the status of a municipality. Throughout the 1860s and with the introduction of a rail link to Toowoomba in 1871 Warwick was consolidated as a small municipal centre.
Warwick continued to grow as the service centre of the southern Darling Downs and by the 1910s consolidation of the town occurred with many substantial commercial, religious and residential buildings constructed. Barnes & Co, a local trading company, built a large department store in Palmerin Street; the local Roman Catholic community thought that a larger church was required to accommodate the growing population though this was not built until the late 1920s; full scale redevelopment of the railway station was undertaken and the commercial core of Warwick was consolidated.
Aberfoyle was built in 1910 on land to the south east of the core of the town near Slade Park. The area near this land was developing as a result of the subdivision of the Cornwall Estate into building allotments giving impetus there for closer settlement. Contemporary newspaper reports describe the area in which Aberfoyle was built as this portion of town where such a large amount of building progress has been recently made.
According to the titles information on the property, the land on which Aberfoyle was built was first acquired by Deed of Grant by Matilda Blewett on 26 April 1859. The titles suggest that Peter Affleck (Snr), a member of a prominent local saw-milling family acquired the property in November 1882. Affleck died in June 1886 leaving the property to his widow Anne Affleck. Peter Alexander Affleck, the son of the Anne and Peter snr, acquired the property on 19 August 1910. Peter Alexander was trained as a dentist and ran a dental practice from his surgery in Palmerin Street. Until 1910 a Miss Jessie L Affleck, presumably a relative of Mr Peter Affleck, is listed in the Queensland Post Office Directories as living at Freestone Creek. From 1911 she and Peter Affleck are listed as living in Wood Street, presumably in Aberfoyle.
The house was constructed for an unspecified sum by contractor, LA Tessman to the design of local architect, Hugh Hamilton Campbell. Campbell had been working in Warwick, variously as a cabinet maker and contractor, before practicing as an architect from about 1897, in which business his son, Roderick Hamilton Campbell, joined him as partner in about 1909. Campbell snr designed a cottage, Westhall, for a Mrs P Affleck in Freestone Creek, the mother of Peter Alexander and this may be the house in which Jessie L is listed as living until her move to Aberfoyle.
When construction was finished the two local newspapers wrote lengthy descriptions of the house. Aberfoyle was constructed as a six roomed timber residence with a central hallway from the main entrance off Wood Street. The hallway was divided by a glass door separating the entrance from the rear portion, off which access was given to a bathroom housing a sunken bath. The floor of the bathroom was covered with lead and the walls were clad to dado height with small gauge corrugated iron sheets. The painting was completed by local painter, Mr Donald Crawford and the plumbing by Mr E Morrison.
Aberfoyle was transferred to a William Tindal Scrymgeour in January 1927 and changed hands many times during the century. A breakfast room was added to the northern end of Aberfoyle between 1918 and 1927. Other additions were made after this. Conservation work has been an ongoing concern of the present owners who bought Aberfoyle in 1993; frieze stencils have been uncovered and repainted, joinery has been wood grained and restorative work has been done to the entrance pathway from Wood Street.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1910, Aberfoyle is a substantial timber house which demonstrates the growth of this area of Warwick during the 1910s; a period of commercial and social expansion for the town, following closer settlement.
|The decorative architectural composition of this substantially intact residence, along with its surrounding plantings and quality fittings and finishes, makes an important aesthetic contribution to the local streetscape and Warwick townscape.
|Aberfoyle is of importance as it was designed for Peter Alexander Affleck by local architect Hugh Hamilton Campbell who previously designed Westhall, a property at Freestone Creek, for Affleck's mother.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16510,"place_ref":601773,"name":"Toowong Cemetery","alternate_name":"Brisbane General Cemetery","street_address":"cnr Mount Coot-tha Road and Frederick Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-12-31","description":"The Brisbane General Cemetery at Toowong is located approximately 4 ½ kilometres west of the City on 43.73 hectares (108acres 1.6perches) bounded on all sides by public roads. The undulating and rugged terrain of the Cemetery falls steeply away from its northern boundary, Birdwood Terrace, which traces the ridge from the north-east corner of the site to Richer Street which forms the western boundary of the Cemetery proper. Mt Coot-tha Road forms the southern boundary and Frederick Street, provides the north-south line of the eastern boundary.
The shoulder to Mt Coot-tha Road, west of Richer Street, comprises an area of 1.116 hectares of Cemetery land that is utilised as supplementary carparking for the Botanical Gardens. The Brisbane City Council Bus Depot, Anzac Park, the Botanical Gardens and the northern end of the western freeway now occupy land that was originally part of the 250 acre 1 rood Cemetery Reserve.
Approach from the City along Milton or Sylvan Road to the Cemetery is impeded by the overpass and roundabout at the intersection of Frederick and Miskin Streets and Sylvan, Milton and Mt Coot-tha Roads Direct access through and views of the main entry have been severed and access through the main gates can only be made from a slip road approach from the west.
The main entrance to the Cemetery at the south-east corner of the site is through a semi circular gateway comprising stone gate posts and a cast iron fence on a brick masonry base with stone coping. constructed c1915. The gate posts are a simplified version of those to the design by Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley erected in 1873-74. The fence extends past Valentine Street on the Frederick Street boundary but is not continuous - a length of fence has been removed. To the west the fence extends more than a hundred metres and includes a narrow gate opening. The remainder of the site is unfenced but the topography to the northern, western and southern boundaries and the line of eucalypt trees along the Frederick Street form a natural boundary to the site.
The large site is elevated and has views to the City and surrounding suburbs. It is divided by a series of bitumen lined, serpentine roads between which portions of land for burial purposes have been overlaid with regularly shaped sections at varying orientations. A creek runs diagonally through the site from the north-west to the south east between two ridges. Through Portion 10, the creek is formed by an open concrete lined drain passing under the road to Portion 6 from where it exits the site under Mt Coot-tha Road.
Throughout the cemetery, the topography provides the social division of the cemetery with private graves occupying the highest ground in each portion, public graves along the lower sections and paupers and criminals occupying the low-lying, water logged ground along the creek. The contrast is stark between elaborate monuments built by the elite on the highest ground in an attempt to cheat death through immortality, when compared to the unmarked graves of anonymous paupers on low lying water logged ground. With two exceptions, the Presbyterians in Portion 24 and the Primitive Methodists mostly in Portion 6, the creek serves to separate the general ground to the south from the ground occupied by religious denominations to the north.
Portion 1 contains the Church of England graves with still born babies occupying the northern area of this Portion. Portion 2 which was originally allocated to the Wesleyan Methodists (2A) also contains the graves of more than 10,000 still born babies and other hospital burials. Portion 3 contains the Jewish Section, Portion 4 appears to be a general area and contains the Temple of Peace and the Caskey Memorial. Portion 5 contains public ground. Portion 6 contains Primitive Methodists and also a substantial number of the reinterments from the old Milton/Paddington Cemetery. Portion 7 contains Irish Catholics and 7A, the Roman Catholics. The small subdivision of 7A to the west of Portion 7 contains the early Roman Catholic graves. Portion 8 once contained Chinese graves (relocated to portion 2 and then 7 before being re-interred to 19). Most of the early Chinese graves were exhumed and removed to China. Portion 8 and 18 contain general ground with Greek and Russian Orthodox at the western ends of both.
Portions 9, 11, 12, 13 and 14 surround the Blackall Monument located on the highest knoll in the Cemetery. The upper reaches of these portions contain Queensland's most prominent political, legal, arts, religious and business figures. Portions 15 and 15 A contain public Catholic graves. Part of 15 was originally allocated to the burial of criminals and was later resold as Catholic ground. The pauper grounds were located in the low-lying area in Portion 16. The top dressing in this area has been stripped and the area is presently used for the dumping of tree trimmings and other rubbish.
Portion 10 contains the administrative buildings for the site - the Sexton's office, the Museum (former Sexton's office) and storage shed spanning the open drain, the Amenities block with a storage and workshop adjacent. The Shrine of Remembrance and Cross of Sacrifice occupy the southern end of this Portion and are prominently centred on an axis from the main entry gates. Portions 20, 21, 22, 23, 29 and 29A in the northern corner of the Cemetery were laid out after the turn of the century. Part of Portions 21and 22 contain hospital and Department of Native Affairs graves. Portion 22 contains Italian graves and also the grave of former Prime Minister Forde.
Portions 25, 26 and 27 laid out in the western corner of the site contain Catholic graves and occupy the land purchased in 1916 from Ned Alexander (Portion 872). Portion 30 was the last ground to be laid out in 1930 and contains, amongst others, graves for Dunwich and Goodna Asylum patients in its south-eastern corner. An avenue of oleanders marks the boundary between portions 29 and 30.
A survey of the layout of graves, reveal differences between many of the portions with some aligned to magnetic north, some to true north and others at varying degrees from North. The sections in the Church of England section are laid out at 45 degrees east of true north. (In August 1875, the Church of England requested that graves be laid east-west).
Framing the entrance to the Cemetery, are an imposing grouping of mature trees including Weeping Banyan (Ficus benjamina), Camphor Laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) and Bangalow Palm trees (Archontophoenix cunninghamia). Bamboo was originally planted to frame the entrance. A line of mature Cypress Pine (Callitris cupressiformis) behind the Cross of Sacrifice and Shrine of Remembrance serve to obscure the view to the Amenities Building. Hedges providing a screen to obscure views of the turn of the century Sexton's office have been removed. Substantial fig trees mark many of the roadway intersections over the site and an irregular arrangement of Cypress Pines, (Callistris cupressiformis), Bunya Pines, (Araucaria bidwillii) Camphor Laurels (Cinnamonum camphora), Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia) as well as Eucalypts and several other plant species over the entire site provide a natural appearance.
There are several small avenues of trees throughout the Cemetery including one of mature Camphor Laurels between portions 6 and 9 and another of an unidentified species along the approach to the Blackall Monument which provides an intimate canopy that belies and enhances the impact of the memorial and its end. A large banyan fig tree and a maple tree form the backdrop to the monument at the top of the hill.
There are approximately 117,000 people buried at Toowong and the variation of headstones and memorials is vast. The imposing Blackall Memorial forms the most dominant feature in the southern part of the cemetery, and long views of memorial are afforded for some distance along western freeway well before the approach to the cemetery is reached. Less prominent, but equally impressive is the craftsmanship attached to many of the individual graves. Sculpture, tiling, edging, cast ironwork, plantings and the like all contribute to the character of the site as a whole.
With the exception of the shelter sheds in various locations within the grounds, the structures associated with the administration and maintenance of the Cemetery grounds are confined to Portion 10. The Museum building, located over the open drain, was formerly the Sexton's office and was built at the turn of the century. It is a single storey, single skin timber framed building with terracotta tile roof. The two room structure is located above the floor of an earlier structure identified as the flower shed which was associated with the cultivation and selling of flowers from Portion 10. The internal partition wall was reconstructed, windows replaced and an adjoining store room was demolished as part of the museum conversion project carried out by the Brisbane City Council Heritage Unit in 1991. Adjacent to the former Sexton's office, also straddling the open drain is a storage shed of substantial construction. It has a concrete floor, insitu concrete walls with large, roughly sawn hardwood roof framing and lining.
The 1924 Sanitary Block or Amenities Building is a substantially intact, single storey masonry building with terracotta tile roof. The building has a symmetrical layout and is accessible from the east or west. The four corners of the building contain rest areas with battened openings and bench seating and provide access to the lavatories and retiring rooms, the men's on the south of the building and the women's on the north. Entry to the central dining room is via an ancillary space on the east containing showers (a later addition or modification?) and on the west containing a kitchen. The masonry internal walls are glazed face bricks in the ancillary spaces with painted brickwork the main central space. Tiles line the masonry walls to the lavatories, retiring rooms and associated corridors.
Other buildings on Portion 10 include the new Sexton's office, a single storey cavity brick building with terracotta tile roof erected in 1989 and a single storey masonry storage and work shed with metal roof of recent construction. This shed is located adjacent to the southern end of the amenities building.
","history":"Bureaucratic procrastination, manoeuvring and public discontent colour the early history of the Brisbane General Cemetery at Toowong and contributed to the decades of delay in providing a new General Cemetery for Brisbane in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The first cemetery serving the small penal settlement that was Brisbane between 1825 and 1842 was located near Skew Street, the northern approach to the William Jolly Bridge. It was here that soldiers and convicts were interred but was considered unfit for the burial of children. One soldier's four children were buried in a brick crypt in an area at North Quay near Herschel Street.
The concept of a rural cemetery located outside the bounds of town limits emerged as a major transformation in burial practices in the late 18th century in Britain and Europe and was well established by the time towns and settlements were being formed in Queensland. The new burial grounds surveyed at North and South Brisbane in 1844, just beyond the western boundary of the municipality, proved however, not to be sufficiently removed from the settlement. Whilst the proximity of both grounds allowed customary procession on foot, and natural drainage away from the early settlement served to allay sanitary concerns, as early as 1851, the public were petitioning the Government of NSW to relocate the North Brisbane Burial Grounds known as the Milton/Paddington Cemetery. Brisbane's rapid expansion following its opening to free settlement in 1842 was such that the Paddington Cemetery, was now in the heart of a prime inner residential area and was being challenged by the residents who feared for their health.
The first progress to establish a new cemetery were made in 1861 when 200 acres was set aside for cemetery purposes, 2 miles south west of the Milton Cemetery at Toowong. The land however, was chosen by default rather than by design. Augustus Gregory, the Surveyor -General had not favoured the Toowong site but found it to be the only locality to present the requisite requirements. The appropriateness of the site at Toowong for the purpose of a General Cemetery was an issue contested for the next two decades. The isolation and suitability of the Toowong site with its lack of access and public transport fuelled dissent and debate and the public continued to use the cheaper, more accessible familial grounds at Milton.
Although the Cemetery Act was passed in 1866 providing the means to establish general cemeteries under the control of government appointed trustees, it was another decade before the Cemetery was officially opened. In 1868, a further portion of Crown land, 53 acres in area, north of the cemetery reserve was added to fulfil of the Trustee's requirement for the entire cemetery to be surrounded with public roads.
The reserve of 250 acres 1 rood was gazetted and the Cemetery Trust established in October 1870 and its honorary trustees were amongst Brisbane's most prominent political and business figures - James Cowlishaw, John Hardgrave, William Pettigrew, Samuel Walker Griffith, George Edmonstone, Alexander Raff, John Petrie (Chairman), Michael Quinlan and Nathaniel Lade.
Trial sinkings at Toowong in December 1870 found the ground to be unsuitable, but this knowledge did not prompt the government to secure a more appropriate location. Queensland's second governor, Samuel Wensley Blackall had been a supporter of the Toowong site and in his ill health indicated his desire to be buried there. He was buried on the highest knoll on 3 January 1871 and his memorial is the largest and most prominent in the cemetery with commanding views of the city and surrounds.
The Surveyor General, the Trustees and the Colonial Secretary had not favoured the Toowong Site and even after the burial of Governor Blackall on its most prominent peak, the Trustees were still pursuing other more suitable prospects for a cemetery site. Three private properties had been offered for sale for cemetery purposes. Of these, Trustee George Edmondstone's property on Enoggera Creek was identified as being most suitable, however the Colonial Treasurer could not reach an agreement on price and the Toowong site came to be accepted as the Brisbane General Cemetery grounds.
In June 1871, Petrie, Pettigrew and Perry were nominated to chose a suitable 40 acres for clearing for the general cemetery. In 1872, ground lying north of the road and east of the western boundary of the 53 acre portion was cleared and enclosed by 540 rods of good quality pig fencing (a four rail fence) with two entrances not more than 4 rods on each side of the main entrance erected by John Ballard.
A Keeper's Lodge was built by E Lewis and gates and ornamental fencing at the main entrance, designed by the Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, were erected in 1873-74.
Between Governor Blackall's burial and the official opening of the Cemetery, there were six burials. The next interment was Ann Hill, wife of Walter Hill, superintendent of the Botanical Gardens on 2 November 1871. Thomas and Martha McCulloch were buried in November 1873, Teresa Maria Love on 16 March 1875 and Florence and Ethel Gordon on 4 July 1875.
The Trustees received numerous requests for separate burial sections from churches and other like minded group to ensure that religious and social class distinctions within society were perpetuated in mortality. Between November 1874 and August 1875 portions were allocated by the Trustees upon request. Portion No 1, was allocated to the Church of England, Portion No 2 to the Wesleyans, Portion No 3 to the Hebrews, Portion No 7 to the Roman Catholics, Portion No 16 to paupers and No 17 and parts of No 1 and 7 to public graves, Portion No 15 to criminals. In 1879, the Chinese were allocated part of Portion 2, then relocated in January 1884 to the ground below 7 and then again in April of that year to Portion No 8. The various cultural and religious groups were separated and boundaries clearly formed by winding roads. There is a strong showing of the Christian section of the graves, supporting the demographic dominance of Anglo-Saxons in Brisbane and the relocation of the Chinese several times (now in Portion 19) demonstrates the disregard afforded to this section of the community, which exhumed many of its dead for reinterment in China.
The lack of public transportation for funeral processions was one of the perceived shortfalls of the Toowong site, so the extension of the railway line through the western suburbs to Toowong in 1875 with the promise of a mortuary rail service provided the catalyst for the opening of the cemetery.
The grounds at the Cemetery were laid out by the prominent surveyor, George Phillips and a set of books drawn up by the Government Printer. The Cemetery was officially opened on 5 July 1875.
Controversy was quelled for a time but the respite was short lived and the Cemetery was subjected to a parliamentary inquiry in 1877 where public health issues, the steep and rocky terrain, the distance and inconvenience for mourners and the cost in relation to other alternatives including mortuary trains to Toowong were considered. No further meetings were held by the Trustees until March 1878.
The Cemetery had come to be valued for not only its heritage as the resting place of Governor Blackall but as a place for recreation and repose. Had the government decided from its inquiry to abandon the Toowong Cemetery in favour of another proposed site at Woogaroo, the Trustees wanted to retain the management of the Toowong site and for it to be maintained in an ornamental way as a place of resort for the people of Brisbane.
Community health concerns relating to the Cemetery began to dissipate in the second half of the 1880s. Whilst a public meeting of concerned residents discussed the closure of the cemetery in July 1885, within six months the local community was petitioning the Trustees to endorse the opening of a road through the cemetery reserve. Approval for the public thoroughfare through the cemetery was given in July 1886. The approval renewed concern in some quarters for the health risks associated with the increase in public activity at the Cemetery and the planting of trees amongst the graves especially of those dying of virulent diseases was advocated.
The cemetery was however, well established with trees by this time. From 1876, one year after its official opening, many plants and young trees had been supplied to the Cemetery from the Botanical Gardens and Acclimatisation Society. Initially, Walter Hill, the Botanical Gardens superintendent donated 38 shade and ornamental trees to the Cemetery and Mr Bernays of the Acclimatisation Society offered 50 trees in exchange for a subscription from the Trustees.
From 1878, the Cemetery gardens were attended by dresser, William Melville, a position he held for 38 years. Flowers, shrubs and plants were cultivated on the site on Portion 10 and sold to meet the needs of the site's visitors from a flower shed that straddled the creek. Mature camellias at the Cemetery, located in Portion 4 and 13 may be the first planted in Queensland from cuttings from Camden Park, the home of John McCarthur, who may have been the first to import them into Australia. A dam on Portion 16 was used for irrigation until 1905 when water taps were installed.
In 1886, the Defence Force leased the largely unused area of the cemetery, now occupied by Anzac Park, as a Rifle Range and the whole paddock and the Cemetery Overseer's cottage designed by Trustee, James Cowlishaw and built by E Bishop in 1877 came under the control of the Brigade Officer in charge of the Range. In exchange, the Government built another cottage in 1887 for the overseer at a cost of £250. A pavilion, also designed by Cowlishaw was built in 1885 at the northern end of Portion 10.
In 1891, extensive public usage of the cemetery land spurred the newly formed Toowong Shire Council to seek an arrangement with the Trustees to utilise some of the land for the purpose of public recreation. Whilst initially reluctant, the Trustees came to support the idea. In 1915, the Toowong Park Act was passed providing the Trustees with the means to transfer 132 acres 2 roods 18 perches to the Toowong Town Council for Park and Recreation purposes known in part as the Old Rifle Range for the sum of £1,000. This revenue was used to finance the construction of new gates and fencing and the purchase in 1916, of Portion 872, the sole adjoining private property, to satisfy the Trustees preference for completely surrounding the cemetery with public roads.
Agitation for public transport within close proximity of the cemetery was finally achieved with the extension of the tramway to the cemetery in 1901. A shelter shed was erected by the Brisbane Tramways Co in 1916.
The Paddington Cemeteries Act of 1911, authorised the Government to resume the several cemeteries at Milton and, upon the request of any relative of any person buried therein within 12 months, to disinter the remains of the deceased. The remains were removed together with any memorials to any cemetery agreed upon with associated costs borne by the Government. Of the 4,643 identifiable graves at Milton, there were 178 applications made. 139 remains and 105 memorials were relocated from Milton to Toowong throughout the site, with the greatest concentration to be found in Portion 6.
Tenders for a sanitary block were called by Trustee and architect, Edward Myer Myers in November 1923. The successful tenderer was Marberete Co and the construction was completed prior to Anzac Day 1924 when the Shrine of Remembrance and Cross of Sacrifice were unveiled. A report of the ceremony in the Sydney Mail incorrectly refers to the building as a mortuary chapel and flags of the Union Jack were hung over the entries to the men's and ladies' toilets to disguise the signage.
On 1 August 1930, Toowong Cemetery and all others with the Brisbane City Council municipality were placed under the management and control of the Council. The following year, the area of the Toowong Cemetery bounded by Mt Coot-tha Road and Miskin and Dean Streets was used by the Australian Military Forces for training and later was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and was developed as a Bus Depot. A substation was erected in the south-east corner of this site in 1935.
Flowers were cultivated and sold at the Cemetery from Portion 10 until the 1930s. In 1934 the area set apart for soldier's graves within Portion 10 was extended and incorporated the flower gardens and the octagonal pavilion was probably demolished at this time. Other shelter sheds were erected and six, including two with toilets, are dotted over the site. In 1936 the last available block, Portion 30, was laid out for burial purposes. To allow for more burials, the plot sizes were reduced from 9'x5'to 8'x4'.
By April 1975, all burial plots in the Cemetery had been sold and the Cemetery was closed with the exception of burials in family graves. That same year, hundreds of worn, forgotten headstones in three major city cemeteries were removed by Brisbane City Council workmen employed under the Regional Employment Development Scheme. Old, neglected monuments were removed from Toowong, Lutwyche and South Brisbane cemeteries and trees and shrubs planted. The long term aim of the scheme was to return the cemeteries to open space with a parkland atmosphere. It is thought approximately 1,000 memorials were removed from Toowong.
In the early 1980s, footpath clearances were substantially reduced along the Frederick Street and Mt Coot-tha Road boundaries and the tram shelter and tram lines were removed as part of the Route 20 overpass and roundabout development. As a result of this work, direct access through the main gates of the Cemetery from all directions but the west has been disconnected.
The Sexton's office, built around the turn of the century on Portion 10 above the floor of the flower shed, fell into disuse once the new Sexton's office was built in 1989. Restoration work to repair and reconstruct the former Sexton's office and its conversion to a museum was initiated by the Brisbane City Council Heritage Advisory Committee and the work carried out by the Heritage Unit in 1991. Another initiative by the Brisbane City Council Heritage Unit, also undertaken in 1991, was the establishment of the Toowong Cemetery Heritage Trail together with the Adopt-a-Pioneer program for plots in need of maintenance and to raise public awareness of the invaluable resource that the cemetery provides.
In 1992, steel boom gates were erected at the Birdwood Terrace and Frederick Street entrances of the Cemetery to deter vandalism, theft and drag racing. The same year, a group of volunteers formed The Friends of Toowong Cemetery and their activities include tending to neglected gravesites and organising tours of the Cemetery for interested parties. They have also produced several booklets including the Toowong Cemetery Resource Manual and Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary People.
The Cemetery was reopened in 1998 with approximately 450 plots available for sale.
","criteria":"The Brisbane General Cemetery at Toowong, established in 1866 and formally opened in 1875, is Queensland's largest cemetery. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history, as it provides evidence, through the division of its portions and the headstones and memorials they contain, of the history and the demography of Brisbane and the diversity of its cultural, religious and ethnic groups and districts. The layout of burial sites at the Cemetery is indicative of 19th century social and religious stratification and the progressive layering, development and diversity of styles of memorialisation contained within the Cemetery document changing attitudes to death and fashions in funerary ornamentation since the 1870s.
|The Toowong Cemetery is a rare example of the Victorian concept of a mortuary park and the collection of memorials and gravestones record unique documentary information that is of interest to art, military, local history, architectural and sculptural historians, students of typography and demography, genealogists and relatives of the deceased.
|Within its layout and location of structures including the former Sexton's office and storage shed constructed over the drain, the Toowong Cemetery has the potential to reveal further information about 19th and 20th century burial practices generally and specific cemetery systems.
|At the base of Mt Coot-tha, with the Botanical Gardens and Anzac Park opposite, and with the Brisbane Forest Park as its backdrop, the Toowong Cemetery's picturesque setting maintains the visual allusion of the Victorian concept of a mortuary park on the outskirts of the city. Its elevated location to minimise health risks and its inclusion of all denominations typify the characteristics of late nineteenth century cemeteries.
|Together with its man-made aesthetic attributes, such as fences, gates, pavilions, memorials and landscaping, an atmosphere conducive to repose and reflection that was an essential part of the ritual of honouring and remembering the dead was created and continues to be valued by the community.
|Many of the monuments display a high level of creative endeavour and are important for their excellence of design and craftsmanship, outstanding material splendour and dramatic physical impact. The Temple of Peace, Trooper Cobb's Grave and the Caskey Memorial have been previously listed individually for their significance on the Queensland and National heritage registers. The memorial to Governor Blackall Memorial is an imposing, tall, slender column of stone and has value as a landmark, dominating the southern section of the cemetery and the approach to Toowong along the western freeway. As a group, all the memorials both modest and grand, are enhanced by their collective location, range of types and infinite variations.
|As Brisbane's foremost public cemetery, the Toowong Cemetery was the focus of public ritual and sentiment and its association with the Brisbane and wider community continues. It is the burial place of individuals from all walks of life. The place has a special association with persons of importance in local, regional and Queensland history. Some noteworthy individuals buried at Toowong include but are not limited to a Prime Minister, two Queensland Governors, 13 Queensland Premiers, 11 Queensland Labor leaders, at least 15 Brisbane Mayors and many other prominent political, religious, sports, arts and business figures.
|The place has a strong association with Governor Samuel Wensley Blackall and the prominence of the site selected for his huge monument indicates the prestige allotted to him and remains as a legacy of his influence and popularity. The Cemetery also has a special association with the life and work of its Trustees - those responsible for its the development and maintenance, most of whom are interred within the grounds. As a foundation Trustee, architect James Cowlishaw's (1834-1929) association spanned 59 years. John Petrie (1822-1892), builder, monumental mason and Brisbane's first Lord Mayor was also a foundation Trustee and his monumental masonry business located opposite the main entry to the cemetery for 100 years produced a large proportion of the memorials and headstones in the cemetery. Architect Edward Myer Myers (1864-1926) was a Trustee from 1920 until his death and was responsible for the design of the Amenities Building. The monuments and gravestones provide evidence of the practice of monumental masonry and art metalwork in Queensland and of the work of notable architects, sculptors, artists and other craftsmen.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16511,"place_ref":601774,"name":"The Glebe Homestead","alternate_name":"Broadwater","street_address":"Taroom-Cracow Road","suburb":"TAROOM","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-03-23","description":"The Glebe Homestead is located approximately 40km northeast of Taroom, on a low sandy ridge overlooking the Dawson River to the northwest.
The homestead complex comprises a single-storeyed timber residence with early garden, tennis court and orchard; a two-storeyed shearers' quarters; a machinery shed; a c1960s cottage clad with fibrous cement (not considered to be of heritage significance); and cattle yards to the south of the timber residence.
Timber residence and garden
The residence is constructed of horizontal drop slabs of sawn Moreton Bay Ash (Eucalyptus tessellaris) housed in recessed sections of vertical timber members. The whole is elevated on low timber stumps, and the charred remains of earlier stumps are extant beneath the house. The original layout of the residence is evident: four rooms (two on each side of a narrow passageway which opens off the southwest side of the building) separated by a wide breezeway from two larger rooms to the northeast, with wide verandahs to the southeast and northeast. A bungalow-style hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheets comes down low over the verandahs, where it is supported on regularly spaced squared timber posts with later cast iron brackets. Several pairs of French doors open onto the verandahs from the interior. On the northwest side of the house is a small corrugated-iron gable roof over the northwest timber entrance steps to the breezeway. This breezeway is now enclosed with panels of doors and windows at either end. A later bathroom has been added to the northwest corner of the house, and a bedroom to the southwest corner, enclosing an existing verandah space.
Internally much of the timber partitioning is lined with hessian and papered, and other timber walls are oiled with a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine. The timber ceilings have been covered in some places with fibrous cement sheeting. A large fireplace in the living/dining room has a timber surround.
The house retains an extensive garden area, with early plantings including a plumbago hedge on the northeastern fence, a jasmine hedge along the northwestern fence, a climbing rose (Senica alba) near the northwest entrance to the house, and several early varieties of bougainvillea and crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia sp.). Just outside the fenced garden are three jacaranda trees (Jacaranda mimosaefolia), two of which define what was once the main gate into the garden. To the southwest of the garden is an unsealed tennis court, which has a high fence of wire mesh supported by timber saplings. Remnants of an early orchard adjoin the northeastern garden fence. To the west of the garden is a row of early pepper trees (Macropiper excelsum).
Outbuildings
To the southwest, separated from the main residence by an area of cement-set stone paving, is a small timber framed and timber-clad laundry. Attached to this is a timber-framed, fibrous-cement sheeted shed.
Further to the southwest, beyond the house yard, is a machinery shed that pre-dates the house. This is partially of slab construction and retains an early galvanised-iron gabled roof insulated with bark lining. It has skillion-roofed extensions along each side. Nearby is the former two-storeyed shearers' quarters, a gable-roofed, timber-framed building clad with sections of timber board and sheets of corrugated iron.
","history":"The Glebe Homestead, overlooking the Dawson River to the northeast of Taroom, was completed c1920. It is the second house on the property, erected after the first was destroyed by fire in 1915. It was built by and for the Rigby family, owners of The Glebe from 1900.
Non-indigneous occupation of the Dawson River district followed explorer Ludwig Leichhardt's journey through the area in 1844, during his exploratory journey from Jimbour to Port Essington. Squatters soon followed, with a licence for Taroom Station issued in 1845. The town of Taroom, named after the station, was surveyed in 1860. Closer settlement commenced in the 1880s, with land resumptions and subdivision under the Crown Lands Act of 1884.
Tenders to lease a pastoral holding known as Broadwater run (later The Glebe) were called in March 1851. It was not until November 1858 that the tender of George Bowman of Richmond was accepted for the 25 square mile run. The lease changed hands several times in the 1860s and 1870s.
By the mid-1880s Broadwater was one of six runs comprising the consolidated run of Cockatoo Creek. No improvements had been made to the property and in 1888 Broadwater, along with three other Cockatoo Creek runs, was resumed for grazing selection. In August 1900 portions 14 and 15 (Grazing Farms 124 & 125) - a combined area of 29 square miles, formerly Broadwater run and with frontages to the Dawson River and Cockatoo Creek - were selected by George Beaumont Rigby, and named The Glebe. The property had very thick coolibah on the black soil river and creek flats, and dense brigalow, sandalwood and mulga scrub elsewhere.
Rigby arrived in Taroom from England probably in the late 1870s. He found employment on Carrabah (formerly Taroom) run, where he formed a partnership with the manager, GC Langhorne, to acquire the 90,000 acre run from the Queensland National Bank in 1881. Whilst living at Carrabah, Rigby married Marian Frances Crawford in 1884 and five sons and one daughter were born to them. The partnership between Langhorne and Rigby dissolved in 1900 and in August of that year Rigby and his wife took up The Glebe. Rigby later acquired several adjoining blocks: an occupation license for Mountain Block (10 square miles) in 1907; a lease on Springvale (16 square miles) in 1921; and a lease on Price Creek, a 14 square mile block east of Springvale, by 1925.
By September 1901 the Rigby family were living in a tent on The Glebe. By 1908 the selection had been improved with a residence, woolshed (the Rigbys ran sheep in conjunction with cattle until the late 1940s) and cultivated paddocks; by October 1915 improvements included an iron-roofed residence, a kitchen garden, woolshed, machinery, fencing and cultivation. Soon after this survey, in December 1915, the Rigby residence was destroyed by fire and it took some years for the family for construct another home, which they built themselves from materials available on the property and using traditional construction techniques. Work on cutting and milling timber for the new house commenced almost immediately, but construction was slow. This was the time of the Great War in Europe. Two of the Rigby sons were serving overseas in the armed forces; there was a war-generated shortage of building materials; the property had to be run; and much time and energy was being invested in eradicating the prickly pear that infested The Glebe and other properties in the Taroom district prior to the introduction of cactoblastis lavae in the 1920s. During this period (1916-1919) the family resided in what is now known as the machinery shed, with its slab walls and bark roof overlaid with sheets of corrugated iron.
By early June 1921, when an appraisal of rent was made by the Lands Department, The Glebe homestead comprised a new house . . . 7 rooms, services laid on from 5000 gallon tank supplied from river, outbuildings etc. Descendants understand that the new house was designed by Florence Mary Rigby - George and Marion's only daughter - with the main bedroom and living room separated from the rest of the house by a wide breezeway, which, though housed under the same roof, was open at both ends.
A 1923 photograph was taken at The Glebe to commemorate a visit by the then Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan. This and other photographs of the period 1920s to 1940s show the house largely unchanged, with the exception of a small bedroom later enclosed at the southwest corner of the verandah. By at least the 1930s, a Chinese market gardener had established a vegetable garden on land between the house and the river, but this is not known to have survived the 1940s. By the late 1930s an air-strip had been cleared just south of the house.
George Beaumont Rigby died in 1931 and Marion Rigby in 1937. George had been very active in district affairs. He was an auditor of the Taroom District Hospital (established 1896), a position he held until his death, and was instrumental in establishing the Taroom Agricultural and Pastoral Society in the late 1890s. He was also a long-serving member of the Taroom Divisional Board (later Taroom Shire Council).
The property remained in the Rigby family for over a century, until resumed for dam purposes early in the 21st century. The woolshed was destroyed by fire in 1997.
","criteria":"The Glebe Homestead, completed by c1920, is important in illustrating the pattern of settlement in the Taroom district, being associated with the pattern of land resumption in the district in late 19th and early 20th centuries. The manner in which the homestead was constructed, over a number of years and from materials recycled or obtained from the property, reflects the impact of the Great War of 1914-1918, during which many rural communities in Queensland suffered materials and labour shortages, and the additional impact of the widespread prickly pear infestation on properties in the northwest Darling Downs, which created financial strain for many landholders.
|A machinery shed on the site, which pre-dates the main residence, retains early bark lining beneath a corrugated iron roof, which is a rare surviving example of this form of construction.
|The homestead has the potential to provide the opportunity for further archaeological research, as many of the buildings have survived intact with early machinery and fittings. The remains of an early building, which may be the previous house, are apparent beneath the present main residence.
|The homestead, which comprises a main residence, garden with mature trees and other early plantings, tennis court and outbuildings, is an intact and working example of an early 20th century pastoral head station, constructed during a period of financial, material and manpower shortages, and is important in illustrating its type. The main residence is important as a late example of sawn timber slab construction and of traditional interior finishes, illustrating how traditional bush construction techniques were sustained in rural Queensland for many decades after initial settlement. The idiosyncratic design illustrates an appreciation of local climate conditions, and the whole reflects the need for self-sufficiency and the shortage of materials and labour during the first world war.
|The main residence, set within a garden of mature trees and other early plantings, and outbuildings have aesthetic significance engendered by the rustic materials and picturesque setting in an open rural landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16512,"place_ref":601775,"name":"Hunter's Emporium (former)","alternate_name":"Hunters Emporium","street_address":"86 McDowell Street","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-30","description":"The former Hunter's Emporium comprises a two-storeyed brick building with façades to McDowall and Arthur streets, and an attached single-storeyed brick building, fronting Arthur Street, at the rear. A painted and rendered parapet embellished with moulded scrollwork and crowned with ball finials screens two side skillion roofs and a central hipped roof which shelter the two-storey building.
The external walls to McDowall and Arthur streets are of red face-brick worked with darker bands of brick which also form the decorative quoining defining the door and window openings. These bands and decorative surrounds are painted white on parts of the Arthur Street elevation. A cantilevered awning surmounted by a row of glass louvres runs along McDowall Street and extends around the corner into Arthur Street. The form of the three street-level island display windows in the McDowall Street elevation remains, but the glazing is not original. The street-level shop windows along Arthur Street are modern.
A narrow timber awning supported by decorative timber brackets shades the first floor windows to each street elevation. The soffits are lined with decorative pressed metal.
The small rectangular building at the rear (former office and show room), is entered from the back of the shop. It has a hipped roof surmounted by a large roof lantern. The rear loading platform is enclosed with corrugated galvanized iron. The loading area is accessed from the narrow rear service lane.
The interior of the ground floor of the store retains fluted timber columns with corbels supporting the beams running the length of the space. The ceiling is lined with decorative pressed metal and the walls are finished in painted plaster.
The main staircase to the upper floor is accommodated in the south-east corner and is fitted with square-moulded balusters with a moulded oak handrail. A plainer staircase occupies the south-west corner.
The purpose-designed silky oak showcases, other purpose-made shop joinery, and the cash railway system, have been removed from the ground floor.
","history":"The former Hunter's Emporium at Roma, constructed in 1916, is a large, purpose-designed brick department store situated at a principal intersection (the corner of McDowall and Arthur streets) in the commercial heart of the town. It was the head store and signature building in a chain of western Queensland drapery stores established by John McEwan Hunter (1863-1940), businessman and politician, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.
The town of Roma was established in 1862 as a supply and government administrative centre servicing the Maranoa pastoral district. The extension of the railway to Roma and on to Charleville in the 1880s, linking western Queensland to the coastal ports, combined with the tapping of the vast artesian basin in the late 1880s and early 1890s, stimulated regional development. By the early 1900s Roma was a substantial town serving a wide and prosperous pastoral and agricultural district, the principal economic activities being sheep and cattle grazing, wheat growing, fruit growing, viticulture and wine making.
In 1889 JM Hunter, a young Scottish immigrant, took up the management of JP McLeish & Co.'s general store and drapery at 88 McDowall Street in Roma, adjacent to the Queen's Arms Hotel at the corner of McDowall and Arthur streets. In the early 1890s he acquired this business in partnership with EJ Harding, trading as Hunter and Harding drapers, grocers and general merchants. In March 1894 Hunter, in partnership with the manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Roma, Alexander Fairlie Whitehill, acquired title to both the store and the adjacent hotel. About this time the firm of Hunter and Harding became Hunter & Co., storekeepers. By 1896 a branch of Hunter & Co. had been opened at Yeulba, where the firm also operated a sawmill and planning establishment. Further branches were opened at Mitchell (c1900), Wallumbilla (c1906), Jackson (c1913), Miles (c1925) and Chinchilla (c1941). By 1930, the firm had become Hunter's Ltd.
In February 1916 JM Hunter gained sole title to 86 and 88 McDowall Street. A few months later, on 11 April, a fire destroyed Hunter & Co.'s store, O'Malley's tailor shop and the Queen's Arms Hotel. The fire had started in the rear of Hunter and Co.'s store and the entire building and contents (the latter estimated at £12,000) were destroyed.
Hunter rebuilt the general store (1916) and the hotel (1917) as substantial brick structures, but transposed their location, with Hunter & Co.'s new emporium now situated prominently at the corner of McDowall and Arthur streets, and the Queen's Arms Hotel adjacent at 88 McDowall Street.
Roma prospered during the first three decades of the twentieth century, despite the impact of World War I (1914-1918), and many of its buildings were reconstructed in brick at this period. Work on erecting Hunter's new emporium commenced in the first week of August 1916 and was completed in late December that year. It was an imposing, two-storeyed brick building, construction by local contractor John Hill. The street façades were 'tastefully worked in selected bands of salt glazed bricks, as also around all doors and window openings ... over the first floor windows has been fitted a plastered cornice about 20 inches and a coping mould about 10 inches with the top finished artistically in scrolls and ball finials' (Western Star 16 December 1916). The ground floors of both street façades had awnings supported on timber posts, and the McDowall Street elevation featured three island display windows. At the rear of the main structure a single-storeyed rectangular brick building, lit and ventilated by a large roof lantern, accommodated a large show-room and offices, which were accessed from the back of the main shop. A strong room, office and underground cold storage were provided.
Local labour and materials were used wherever possible, and the timber fittings, including shelving and pigeon holes, showcases and glass-topped counters, were crafted by Roma cabinet maker and furniture manufacturer John Crawford. The new emporium had electric light, a cash railway and everything needed to make it 'thoroughly modern'.
The ground floor accommodated the drapery, grocery and ironmongery departments, while the furniture department and bulk store were located on the first floor. Every need of customers from the surrounding district was anticipated, the opening sale advertising 'General Drapery, Clothing, Boots and Shoes, Linos, Carpets, Furnishings, Grocery, Crockery, Ironmongery and Produce'. As the local press noted, the high capital outlay needed for such an extensive enterprise reflected the proprietors' 'unbounded faith in the prospects of the district' (Western Star 16 December 1916).
JM Hunter was a prominent businessman in the Maranoa district and was actively involved in the public life of his community and in State politics. He served as an Alderman on the Roma Town Council in 1898 and 1899 and as Mayor of Roma in 1900. He was instrumental in establishing the Roma Co-operative Milling Co. Ltd, which in 1900 constructed the Roma Co-operative Flour Mill and produced Excelsior brand flour until acquired by the Dominion Flour Milling Co. in 1914. He was a President of the Western Queensland Pastoral and Agricultural Association, which held its annual show at Roma. He was closely associated with the formation of the Queensland Traders' Association, a leading wholesale trading co-operative with headquarters in Brisbane, of which he was chairman from its inception.
In May 1907 JM Hunter was elected MLA for Maranoa, retaining this seat until 22 October 1919. Affiliated with the Queensland Labor Party, he held the position of Secretary for Public Lands in the TJ Ryan government from 1 June 1915 to 30 April 1918, and then as Minister without office until his appointment in October 1919 as the Queensland Agent-General in London, serving in this position until 1922.
JM Hunter had married Ellen Guthrie Moffat in 1890, They had one daughter, Helen Roma Jean, born in 1897. In 1927 Roma Hunter married Vincent Lancelot Victor Bressow in Brisbane. After her father's death in 1940 she and her husband took control of Hunter's Ltd, which remained one of western Queensland's principal retail firms well into the second half of the twentieth century.
When the Warrego Highway was sealed in the 1950s the smaller branches (Wallumbilla, Yeulba, Jackson and Chinchilla) became unviable, and were either sold or closed. The Roma store was sold in 1977 to the Anderson family trading as Ace Drapers; the Miles branch was sold in 1984; and the Mitchell branch, managed by Bill McMullen for nearly 30 years, in 2004.
In early 2008 Ace Drapers closed the former Hunter's Emporium at 86 McDowall Street, Roma.
","criteria":"Hunter's Emporium (former), a two-storeyed brick department store constructed in 1916 for Roma businessman and MLA for Maranoa, John McEwan Hunter, is important in demonstrating the consolidation of Roma as a major regional centre during the first three decades of the twentieth century, when many of the principal buildings in the town were being rebuilt in brick, and provides evidence of the quality of design and manufacturing skills available in Roma at this period.
As the headquarters and signature building for a chain of western Queensland drapery and general stores established by Hunter and Co. (later Hunter's Ltd) in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the building is important in illustrating the provision and expansion of general retailing in regional Queensland, in particular reflecting the growth of western Queensland at this period.
|The place remains substantially intact and is significant as a rare surviving, early twentieth century masonry department store in a Queensland regional centre, one of a small group of similar establishments which includes: the former Daking-Smith & Co. Department Store (c1909, QHR 601259) in Charters Towers; the former Boland's Department Store (1912 with 1930s extensions, QHR 602536) in Cairns; and the former Piggot's Department Store (1909-10 with later additions, QHR 600861) in Toowoomba.
|Prominently situated on a corner allotment in the principal street of Roma's central business district, the building is significant for the contribution of its form, scale and detail to the historical character of this area and to the Roma townscape.
|Hunter's Emporium has a special association with the life and work of John McEwan Hunter, a self-made and successful Roma businessman, local and state politician, and former Agent-General for Queensland. From the mid-1890s Hunter & Co. (later Hunter's Ltd) developed a chain of general and drapery stores in south-west Queensland. The substantial edifice that JM Hunter erected in Roma in 1916 as Hunter's Emporium was the head office and signature building of this chain.
|In its size and intactness the place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large regional department store of the early twentieth century, designed to impress. These characteristics include: the prominent location at the corner of two main streets in the heart of a principal regional centre; the substantial nature of the two-storeyed, brick structure; the decorative parapet and other detailing to the street elevations; the extensive use of pressed metal throughout the public areas of the store; the provision of natural lighting via the fenestration in the main elevations and a roof lantern to the rear store; and the store and loading dock facility at the rear of the premises.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16513,"place_ref":601776,"name":"United Service Club Premises","alternate_name":"The Green House | Montpelier","street_address":"183 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The United Service Club is located at 173-183 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane. The premises consists of a c1907 timber building, the Green House and a c1910 masonry building, Montpelier. A narrow laneway separates the Green House from the Baptist City Tabernacle [600175] to the east, while Montpelier abuts the neighbouring property to the west. There are plantings in front of both buildings, and substantial jacaranda trees to the rear.
\nMONTPELIER
\nMontpelier is elevated above, and set back from Wickham Terrace. It is a three-storey building with a basement, and is constructed of stone and brick, with a gabled corrugated iron roof. The front elevation faces south and addresses Wickham Terrace. The façade combines face brickwork and stucco finish, with brick piers dividing the elevation into seven sections. The façade returns a bay-width around the building. The piers at the central section and at either end of the façade rise above the roof line forming a parapet. The verandahs on the two upper levels are enclosed with windows and there are rendered masonry spandrels on each level. The back portion of the building is finished in smooth stucco and has many original sash windows. A wing continues from the north east corner of the building, while a separate, small service building is located on the north-west corner of Montpelier.
\nThe front entry to Montpelier is accessed via a set of masonry stairs and a ground floor verandah. This verandah has an ochre, yellow and grey terrazzo floor with brass strips and the lettering \"USC\". The centrally-located entrance lobby opens to lounge areas on the west and east sides of the building. These lounges have bay windows overlooking the front verandah, and fireplaces located on the extreme east and west walls. The hall leads to another lounge area and through to the dining room. The dining room extends east behind the Green House. Pressed metal ceilings are located in the lounges and the dining room. A kitchen and offices are located to the rear of Montpelier on this level. Four sets of stairs provide access to the basement level, and/or the level above. The main stair, located behind the front, western lounge, is decorated with a leadlight window. Bathroom facilities, containing early fittings, are located along the western side of this level. Access to the Green House is gained via two lounge areas on the eastern side of Montpelier.
\nLevel two of Montpelier contains the billiard room and accommodation facilities. Many of the accommodation rooms are fitted with ensuites, although original bathroom facilities remain on the western side of this level. A large patio area to the rear of this level overlooks Spring Hill to the north-west.
\nLevel three of Montpelier consists of function rooms to the front of the building, a reading lounge, and accommodation throughout the remainder of the floor. There is also a patio of the same dimensions and location as that on the level below.
\nThe basement in Montpelier is brick. Arches extend along the length of part of the basement, some of which are infilled. The basement houses cellars, bottle shop, offices and store rooms. A rear entry and formal stair case provide access to the ground level.
\nA small service building is located on the north-west corner of Montpelier. This is a stone building with a stucco finish marked to resemble ashlar. It is currently used as offices and storage rooms.
\nTHE GREEN HOUSE
\nThe Green House is located to the east of Montpelier and shares a similar setback from Wickham Terrace. A tall brick retaining wall with expressed piers and topped with a decorative cast iron fence, extends along the front of both buildings, and is higher in front of the Green House due to the slope of Wickham Terrace. A masonry set of stairs gives access to the Green House from the Wickham Terrace footpath.
\nThe Green House is an ornate two-storey timber and brick building with an asymmetrical façade and a multi-gabled roof in painted corrugated iron, facing south across Wickham Terrace. The Green House has a projecting gable and faceted bay with an octagonal domed roof on the southern elevation and a second projecting bay along the eastern elevation. Both bays have decorative timber bargeboards. To the rear of the building is a carpark area and later extensions by the United Service Club which connect the Green House to Montpelier.
\nThe Green House has first and second floor verandahs with narrow timber columns, stilted arches between the columns, decorative capitals, and timber balusters. There are also verandahs to both levels on the rear, northern elevation. Windows located on both the first and second levels are elongated with twelve to sixteen panes of glass in the frame, fairly typical of the Anglo-Dutch elements that are evident in the design of the building. A staircase is located in the eastern elevation of the building. The Green House is joined to Montpelier, and a door, accessed from the joined ground level verandahs of the buildings, provides an entry to both Montpelier and the Green House.
\nConcrete stairs in the southern, front elevation lead to the ground floor verandah which, like the first floor balcony, extends from the southern elevation around and along the eastern elevation. The front, main entrance is a panelled timber door with moulded architrave. The words \"GREEN HOUSE\" appear on the architrave.
\nInternally, the Green House is lined in tongue-in-groove timber panelling, with a picture rail. The ground floor of the Green House contains the 'Military Bar', the 'Moreton Room' and the 'Norman Pixley Room'. The Military Bar is located at the front, western side of the building and features a bay window. It has a panelled, timber door with decorative coloured glass fanlight and breezeway assembly. The double hung sash windows have a single large pane of glass at the base of the window frame and twelve panes of small glass in the upper section of the frame. The Moreton Room occupies most of the remaining floor space, and features pressed metal cornices and ceilings. Part of the ceiling has been lowered to house air conditioning ducts. A timber panelled door with fanlight assembly of recent origin opens to the verandah running along the eastern elevation. An early fireplace is located on the northern wall of the room. Opening off the Moreton Room is the 'Norman Pixley Room' which forms part of the faceted bay that projects out at the corner of the southern and eastern elevations. This room also has a pressed metal ceiling and a fireplace in its northern wall.
\nA dogleg timber staircase with half landing is located at the front of the Green House. A prominent feature of this staircase is the large arched window, with decorative coloured glass, located in the western elevation. The window has three rectangular sections at its base and three sections forming the arch of the window. The window frame and keystone are timber. The stairs lead to a hallway, from which open a series of offices. The office doorways are surmounted by glass fanlights, and one office has a pressed metal ceiling. One of the doorways is surmounted with a timber arch with exaggerated keystone and glass fanlight. Fireplaces exist in two rooms, and align with those found on the ground floor. Another staircase, of recent construction, is located in the northern elevation of the building.
\nAt the basement level of the Green House, is a recent plant room.
\nShrubs and other plantings are located in front of both Montpelier and the Green House, while large jacaranda trees dominate gardens to the rear of the United Service Club. The jacaranda trees are not located within the heritage boundary.
","history":"The United Service Club consists of two buildings, a 1907 timber house known as the Green House, and a masonry structure known as Montpelier, built 1910 on the site of an earlier three-storey masonry building, also known as Montpelier. Claude William Chambers was the architect of both the Green House and Montpelier. The buildings became the United Service Club premises in 1947. Prior to this date, both the existing and earlier Montpelier, and later the Green House, functioned primarily as residences and boarding houses.
\nThe settlement of Brisbane was established as a penal colony in 1825, and while it remained as such for less than twenty years, no land was alienated from the Crown until 1856. In this year, portions of Spring Hill were sold in one acre lots. The Deed of Grant for the land on which Montpelier and the Green House were to be built was issued to William Wilson on 29 January 1856. Title to the property subsequently transferred to Anglican Archbishop Edward Tufnell in February 1864, coinciding with the construction of the original Montpelier. William Davies, one of the most successful investors in the Gympie goldfield, purchased the property in 1897 and it remained in the Davies family until purchased by the United Service Club in 1946.
\nWickham Terrace, with its elevated position close to the city, quickly became popular with aspiring professional and business families following the sale of land in the 1850s. During the 1860s and 1870s Wickham Terrace was evolving into an area of boarding houses and homes, schools, clubs and medical rooms. Entrepreneurs built houses for rental and as lodging-houses, including Montpelier, built in 1864 as a pair of large semi-detached villas beside the Albert Street Wesleyan Methodist minister's home. Designed by Benjamin Joseph Backhouse, the two storey house with a hip roof and no verandahs soon became a lodging house. On 1 April 1865, an advertisement for the lease of a, \"highly eligible and pleasantly situated two-storey BRICK HOUSE, situated on Wickham Terrace, near the Observatory\", was included in the Brisbane Courier. It is likely that Montpelier is the building being described in the advertisement.
\nThe Green House was completed in 1907 on vacant land between Montpelier and the Baptist Tabernacle. Approval was given in October 1906 for a new building on Wickham Terrace, to be made of 'wood', for William Davies. The building was designed by Claude William Chambers and constructed by A Anderson. The first occupant of the Green House, originally known as Milford, was Dr Thomas Howard Morgan who became the registered lessee in July 1907 and remained at 173 Wickham Terrace until 1913. From 1913, the building was incorporated into Montpelier, substantially increasing the accommodation available. By 1928-29, Mrs Anne Mary Whyte was the proprietor of Montpelier.
\nMontpelier was replaced in 1910 with the existing three-storey masonry building which continued the name. Montpelier advertised by the proprietor Annie Forsyth in December 1910 as 'a magnificent mansion - conducted on the lines of leading Southern Hotels'. William Davies again engaged Claude Chambers as architect for the new brick boarding house. It is possible that a portion of the 1864 villa was retained and incorporated into the new Montpelier.
\nUntil the United Service Club obtained the Wickham Terrace property in 1947, Montpelier was used almost continuously for the provision of boarding house style accommodation. During Tufnell's ownership of the house, Lady Musgrave Lodge, founded in 1885 by the wife of Governor Sir Anthony Musgrave, used the boarding house to provide accommodation for young women from 1888 until moving to the rear of 121 Wickham Terrace in 1892. Annie Mabel Forsyth leased Monpelier in 1910. These leased premises were used as a first-class private gentleman's hotel, and were so exclusive that applicants required references to obtain lodgings.
\nIn 1940, the lease was purchased by Molly Sheehan, a former private secretary to politician RM King, Minister for Public Works and Public Construction in the Queensland Parliament from 1929 to 1932. Ms Sheehan remained as manager during World War II when the building was commandeered as accommodation for officers of field rank. One of the long-term residents of this period was Colonel Johnston, personal physician to General Douglas MacArthur.
\nOwnership of the site was transferred to the United Service Club in November 1946, and the Club relocated to its new headquarters in 1947. Founded in 1892, the United Service Club had occupied several premises before moving to the Wickham Terrace site. The last relocation was precipitated by Australia's involvement in World War II, when Club membership increased to 1200 so that new premises were needed urgently. In a near-city location, with a tram stop close-by, and provisions for ample parking, Montpelier and the Green House, with on-site tennis courts were ideal.
\nImmediately following the Club's acquisition of the site, conversions teams of carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, refrigeration experts and others began on a refurbishment of the two boarding houses. The ground floor of Montpelier was used for two lounges, a dining room, library, bar and kitchen, the second floor for residential rooms, and the third floor for three billiard rooms, card room and bathing facilities. All levels had wide verandahs facing the city that provided pleasant places to sit on hot summer evenings. The verandahs were later enclosed on the two upper levels.
\nThe Green House was not utilised at this time. Although valued at £5000, money was scarce immediately after the war, so various uses were considered such as providing a venue for entertaining women or renting rooms out to medical people. Although ladies were not admitted to the Club, the Green House was rented to an exclusive ladies group, the Moreton Club. They remained tenants in the Green House until 1959 when the building was converted to professional rooms and offices to raise revenue for the United Service Club.
\nWhile a Ladies Night on Thursdays was introduced in the 1940s, it was not until 1966 that women were permitted to join as associate members and the Green House refurbished. Club membership, once exclusively for serving and retired officers, was opened to nominated civilians about 1990 when both buildings were again refurbished. Further work, completed in 1996, included converting the brick building's 22 bedrooms to 16 units and enlarging the dining room. Refurbishment works were also completed on the Green House lounges, meeting rooms and top bar. In 2021, the place remains in use as the United Service Club welcoming male and female military and civilian members.
","criteria":"The United Service Club Premises, comprising the Green House (1906-07) and Montpelier (1910), are important in demonstrating the evolution of Wickham Terrace as an elite street of middle class boarding houses and residences, schools, clubs, medical rooms and private hospitals, a pattern of development which commenced in the 1860s and was sustained well into the 20th century. They are part of a tradition of use of the site and of Wickham Terrace, which is one of Brisbane's most prestigious streets.
The Green House, erected 1906-07 as residence-cum-professional rooms and first let to a medical practitioner, illustrates a pattern established in the 1860s whereby Wickham Terrace was a popular location for medical men, who generally practised from their own home. The association of the Terrace with the medical and allied professions is sustained to this day. Montpelier, purpose-built in 1910 as a large boarding/guest house or private hotel, demonstrates the continued popularity of Wickham Terrace with the affluent middle-classes as a residential location. The building's continued use as accommodation is important in illustrating this aspect of the history of Wickham Terrace.
|Both buildings are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a type of design and/or of a class of place. The Green House is a Federation-era timber residence which is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a distinctly regional, climate-responsive style of architecture with polygonal bays and widened verandahs, abundant carpenter decoration, and beautiful and unusual flying gables. It is important also in illustrating a class of place [residence-cum-professional rooms] once common along Wickham Terrace. Montpelier demonstrates stylistic elements of Federation Arts and Crafts architectural style, and has some handsome interior details such as beam-and-column ensembles, well-detailed joinery, fireplaces, and Art Nouveau pressed metal ceilings, cornices and leaded glass. Importantly, Montpelier is significant in illustrating a now rare example of its type: an early 20th century purpose-built, middle-class private hotel or boarding/guest house.
Both buildings are significant also in illustrating the principal characteristics of the work of respected architect Claude William Chambers, who had one of Brisbane's largest architectural practices in the early 20th century. The Green House is a fine example of his domestic work, and Montpelier, the former private hotel/boarding house, is important in illustrating the skill and breadth of Chambers' commercial work.
|In both buildings aesthetic value is engendered by the quality of design, materials, detailing and workmanship. The aesthetic appeal of the buildings is enhanced by mature planting, including jacaranda trees at the rear of the buildings.
Montpelier and the Green House are significant for their contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape, with its range of important building types dating from the 1860s to the 1930s and the fine adjacent parklands. The Terrace contributes significantly to the Brisbane townscape, and the United Service Club Premises, so prominently located near the intersection of Wickham Terrace and Upper Edward Street and adjacently to the dramatically designed Baptist City Tabernacle [QHR 600175], and visible from well along Edward Street, are important elements in the streetscape and contribute significantly to Brisbane's townscape.
|The buildings have a special association with the United Service Club of Queensland for social and cultural reasons, having been the home of the club since 1947, and with the Moreton Club, which occupied the Green Room from 1947 to 1959.
|The buildings have a special association with the United Service Club of Queensland for social and cultural reasons, having been the home of the club since 1947, and with the Moreton Club, which occupied the Green Room from 1947 to 1959.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16514,"place_ref":601777,"name":"Suttor River Causeway, Old Bowen Downs Road","alternate_name":"St Anns Crossing","street_address":"St Anns Road","suburb":"MOUNT COOLON","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"Much of the nineteenth century work on The Old Bowen Downs Road has fallen into disrepair. Remnants of the stone causeway over Percy Douglas Creek are barely discernible, but the 1876 causeway over the Suttor River at St Anns remains substantially intact.
The Suttor River Causeway, which is subject to flooding, is likely constructed of locally sourced stone. As the river is braided the causeway is in two sections, the southern section being longer and more intact than the northern. Flooding has dislodged some of the stonework, especially on the northern section. Two later concrete tyre tracks have been laid over the stone surface of the southern section, to accommodate motor vehicles. Timber posts remain on the downstream side of the crossing with an additional post on the upstream west side, possibly providing guidance during flooding. The causeway is flanked by indigenous Melaleuca sp. and Eucalyptus sp. and has an aesthetic value generated by the rustic materials and the bush setting.
","history":"Old Bowen Downs Road was established in the early 1860s as a teamster route between Port Denison (Bowen) and Bowen Downs Station near Aramac in central western Queensland. The road was in regular use until at least the late 1890s as a communication and supply line between the interior and the coast. While remnants of the road remain visible between Strathmore Station and Mount Douglas, the stone causeway built in 1876 over the Suttor River at St Anns remains largely intact as an example of early civil engineering stonework in northern Queensland.
The Kennedy district was first explored by Europeans in the mid-1840s when Ludwig Leichhardt ventured into the upper Burdekin Valley. The area was not opened for settlement until 1861 and by the end of that year pastoralists had taken up most of the runs in the region. These isolated western stations relied upon teamster routes for important communication and supply lines to the coastal centres of the Kennedy. One of these routes, which was established in the early 1860s and became known as the Bowen Downs Road, ran about 500km from Bowen through Eton Vale, Strathmore, Heidelberg, Hidden Valley (now known as Old Hidden Valley), Scartwater, St Anns and Mount Douglas, then on to Bowen Downs through Bully Creek (in 2007 known as Bulliwallah).
With a decentralized system of road administration, no local authority to facilitate road building and a constant lack of money, Queensland's early road networks were generally in poor condition. The Kennedy district was no exception. The region had been identified as a rich pastoral area and the government realised that the development and maintenance of roads in the district was essential to support the growing rural economy as settlement spread. In August 1863 Henry Taylor Plews, Engineer of Roads for the Northern Division, informed a Select Committee on the Main Roads of the Colony that with regards to most of the roads in the Northern District, "... a great many of them have not been surveyed, and are not yet marked out; and that there are continually new roads becoming necessary."
Anticipating a heavy traffic between Bowen (Port Denison) and the interior, he recommended that the existing track be surveyed and cleared, and the creek crossings made trafficable. The Select Committee concurred. Plews engaged extra staff to carry out works in the Kennedy district and in 1863 and 1864 the Queensland Legislative Assembly allocated funds for road development in the area.
By 1865 Frederick Byerley had replaced Plews as Engineer of Roads for the Northern Division; his report for the period covering 1864 to March 1865 showed that the construction of a trafficable road from Bowen to the Suttor River had been given priority and had cost about £925. Despite this injection of money into road development in the Bowen district, local residents remained dissatisfied. An 1865 memorandum to Arthur Macalister, Minister for Lands and Works, from the people of Bowen, argued that Bowen was excluded from trade with the pastoral runs of the interior, owing to the want of roads, and that government roads expenditure in the Bowen area was disproportionate to that spent in other parts of the Kennedy pastoral district. The petitioners suggest that the Bowen Downs Road should be maintained as far as Earls and from that point a new line through Conway running the course of the Rosetta Creek should be constructed. By 1868 the suggestion of a new line to Bowen Downs had been taken up and a map of the Kennedy district, published in 1868 by the government's Chief Engraver, Thomas Ham, showed the new route, named Port Denison Road, tracing along the course of Rosetta Creek.
Despite the construction of the Port Denison Road, traffic continued to use the old Bowen Downs Road and a fortnightly mail service covering some 353 miles [568 kilometres] between Bowen Downs Station and Bowen, as indicated in Pugh's Almanac of 1875, was maintained. In September 1876 the Engineer of Roads in Bowen reported that use of the Bowen Downs Road had increased, in part due to the wool trade and in part to the discovery of gold in the interior, and that this increase in traffic had warranted considerable repairs along the line. A priority was the construction of a stone bridge over the Suttor River at St Anns, which had begun earlier in 1876. The Engineer of Roads outlined how many of the stones "have turned on edge" and "present a bumpy surface to wheels", and concluded that although the work was costly, all the stones having to be blasted, "... the substantial completion of the Bridge is of urgent consequence for communication between the southern and northern goldfields."
The stone causeway at the Suttor River was an early civil engineering project undertaken by the Queensland government in North Queensland. The earliest appears to have been the stone bridge and culvert on Damper creek on the Dalrymple Gap Track [QHR 600393], which was built in the mid-1860s. From 1880, responsibility for surveying, constructing and maintaining roads passed from the Works Department to local Divisional Boards and the Department of Public Lands (as the latter still built roads on Crown Lands opened for selection) and the Queensland government did not resume a major role in building main roads until the 1920s.
In September 1896 the Survey Office issued instructions to Francis Blennerhassett to survey the Old Bowen Downs Road and mark out new camping reserves. Blennerhassett's plan, transmitted to the Surveyor General in August 1897, indicates that the road was still in use at the time and that portions were in good condition, including a 'good smooth rock crossing' over Strathmore Creek near Strathmore.
Remnants of the Old Bowen Downs road remain between Strathmore Station and Mount Douglas. A group of Bowen residents traced the road in 1964 and found several inns along the route as well as evidence of a stone crossing over Percy Douglas Creek near Mount Wyatt. Significantly, the stone bridge built over the Suttor River in 1876 was intact and was described in the 1960s as being "... flanked by a lagoon upstream, shaded by tall over-hanging ti-trees, and with shady groves on the downstream side ... On the far bank ghost gums completed a delightful scene ... The well-placed great black stones of the roadway and the neat stone-pitching of the walls were undisturbed after nearly a century of floods."
The Old Bowen Downs Road is no longer a state-controlled road and is no longer in general use. The stone causeway over the Suttor River is used mainly by local residents taking alternative routes between St Anns Station and Scartwater.
","criteria":"The Old Bowen Downs Road was established in the early 1860s as a teamster route between Port Denison (Bowen) on the coast and Bowen Downs Station inland, and continued in use until at least the late 1890s. As a vital communication and supply line between Bowen and remote western runs, development and maintenance of the Old Bowen Downs Road was crucial to the growth of the region's economy during the nineteenth century.
Remnants of the Old Bowen Downs Road are significant as evidence of the early establishment of vital road networks in rural Queensland during the second half of the nineteenth century. The 1876 stone causeway over the Suttor River remains particularly intact and is important in demonstrating engineering techniques and materials used in rural road construction in Queensland as settlement spread along the river valleys.
|The 1876 stone causeway across the Suttor River remains substantially intact and provides rare surviving evidence of road construction techniques and materials employed in Queensland at this period. It is a rare, early civil engineering project in North Queensland, built by the Queensland government prior to Divisional Boards taking responsibility for road building in 1880.
|Flanked by mature indigenous vegetation, the 1876 stone causeway across the Suttor River occupies a picturesque setting and is important for its aesthetic significance. It forms part of a landmark feature that is well known in the region and has been the subject of several publications including Pioneer Pub Crawl: Along the Old Bowen Downs Road and Bowen Downs and the Road to Bowen.
|The 1876 stone causeway across the Suttor River remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. These characteristics include the use of stone for the construction and the submersible design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16515,"place_ref":601778,"name":"Wynnum Ambulance Station (former)","alternate_name":"QATB Station","street_address":"33 Tingal Road","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-03-26","description":"A two-storeyed red face brick building, the former Wynnum Ambulance Station occupies a prominent site on the corner of Tingal Road and Cedar Street, Wynnum with the main elevation to Tingal Road. The building is positioned to the front of the allotment and is highly visible in the streetscape.
Sitting on a plinth of blue bricks, the building is symmetrical about a parapeted projecting breakfront. The breakfront has two wide doorways with bifold doors for vehicle access at ground level and two large recessed arched windows at the upper level. The bifold doors to the right hand side doorway have been replaced with aluminium framed glass sliding doors. Prominent cream rendered banding wraps the building and gives emphasis to the corners and the breakfront. The double doorway main entrance is defined by a plain projecting cornice sitting on three heavy brackets. Plain rendered arches with prominent keystones frame the central upper level windows. The letters QATB sit at the top of the parapet below an entablature composed of a plain cornice and chunky dentils. The spandrels below the arched windows contain the words Wynnum Centre. The breakfront is flanked by bays framed by pilasters. At ground level each bay has a single doorway defined by a small plain projecting canopy. The building is crowned by a gambrel tiled roof. A flagpole rises above the parapet.
The elevation to Cedar Street is less grand than the main elevation to Tingal Road. As the residential entrance to the superintendent's living quarters it is of a domestic scale appropriate to the streetscape. Corner pilasters emphasised by vertical rendered banding define the brick portion of this elevation. A timber framed annexe attaches to the right hand side and is clad with weatherboards. An external concrete stair, parallel to the elevation, arrives at the central entrance to the living quarters on the upper level. This entrance has a bifold timber door and is marked by a small bracketed overhang.
The rear elevation is obscured by four garage bays each enclosed by a tilt-up door. The corner bays of the Station building are clad with weather boards. The timber upper level verandah has been enclosed with casement windows at a later date.
The elevation to the north has corner pilasters emphasised by vertical rendered banding. At ground level the elevation is divided into two equal bays by a pilaster which finishes in a plain cornice separating the upper and lower levels of the elevation. Each lower bay has a sash window.
The operational areas of the Station are housed at ground level and the living quarters for the superintendent occupy the upper level. At the ground floor the large entry doorways open into a drive through plant room surrounded by subsidiary spaces including a committee room, office, bathroom, bearers' bedroom, bearers' dayroom and casualty room. The minor front entrances open into the committee room to the left and the casualty room to the right. A timber platform has been built over the concrete floor to the plant room. The loggia to the rear of the building accommodating a car washing space and laundry has been enclosed with weatherboards and the former rear door to the plant room relocated to the centre of this outer wall. The garages constructed immediately to the rear on a raised concrete plinth have blocked the drive through route of the plant room. Internal stairs in the laundry connect to the residence in the upper level.
The residence on the upper level is arranged about a north/south corridor with three bedrooms and dining room fronting Tingal Road and kitchen, sitting room and a bedroom opening to a verandah facing north-east. Rear stairs adjacent to the kitchen give direct access to the ground floor laundry and provide a rear door for the residence. Entrance is gained from Cedar Street via an external concrete staircase arriving at the central organising corridor. A number of partitions and door leafs have been removed. The rear verandah has been enclosed with casement windows. A toilet and laundry and associated rooftop drying area have been added off the north-east corner of the verandah.
A garage which was constructed to the rear of the site off Cedar Street has been demolished. Additional vehicle accommodation and workshop space has been constructed to the rear of the Station. Parallel to Cedar Street six bays of garages and workshops in brick and timber stretch from the rear of the Station building to the rear boundary. Four bays lie adjacent and parallel to the rear of the Station.
The adjacent timber framed cottage is clad with chamferboards, sits on short timber stumps and is covered by a pyramid roof. The cottage has four rooms organised off a central corridor, an attached kitchen wing and front and rear verandahs. The front steps have been removed and the front verandah balustrades sheeted with fibro. The rear verandah is enclosed and accommodates a small porch and toilet. Within the cottage, several partitions have been removed and new openings made. Some stumps have been replaced with steel columns.
","history":"A landmark building within the streetscape of Wynnum, the former Wynnum Ambulance Centre is a testament to the considerable community support for the ambulance service. The building is tangible evidence of the reliance of the ambulance service on community goodwill, community financial support, volunteer labour and dedication of ambulance service employees.
\nDuring the early days of settlement in Brisbane the police assumed responsibility for treating accident victims and from 1884 the Defence Ambulance Corps of the Moreton Regiment shared some of this responsibility.
\nThe City Ambulance Transport Brigade (CATB) was formed at a meeting of concerned citizens in September 1892 following the unsatisfactory management of an accident at a horse racing meeting. It was established that the principal object of the Brigade was to render first aid to the wounded and transport the sick and injured to hospital. Headquarters were established in the Courier Building (cnr Queen and Edward Streets, Brisbane). This was the first ambulance service in the world to employ paid staff.
\nPublic use of the ambulance service steadily increased and voluntary subscriptions proved insufficient to meet associated outlays. In 1895 the CATB secured supplementary funding with the Queensland State Government agreeing to provide a 1:1 subsidy against subscriptions.
\nThe first purpose-built ambulance building for Queensland was constructed in 1897 in Wharf Street, Brisbane. This building established the precedent for subsequent ambulance station designs. The design incorporated a two-storeyed building housing plant and staff facilities at ground level and a residence on the upper level. Large ground floor openings with bi-fold doors allowed ready access directly to the street for quick exit of horse and sulky.
\nDuring the late 1890s and early 1900s the ambulance service expanded establishing a number of centres throughout Queensland including Charters Towers (1900), Townsville (1900), Rockhampton (1901), Warwick (1901), Ipswich (1901), Toowoomba (1902), Mackay (1903), Ravenswood (1904) [entry in the Heritage Register 600445], Cairns (1904) and Bundaberg (1907).
\nIn 1902 the Brigade was restructured to better manage the rapidly expanding operations and to recognise the importance and contribution of regional ambulance centres. The reorganised entity became known as the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade (QATB). New headquarters were established in Ann Street, Brisbane in 1910.
\nBy 1921, the earlier 1897 ambulance station model had developed and refined to become formally accepted as the preferred planning strategy for residential ambulance stations. Station buildings were to be two-storeyed with facilities for garaging, casualty treatment, first aid, sleeping quarters for ambulance bearers and a committee meeting room at ground level; superintendent's accommodation was provided at the upper level. This two level arrangement was preferred because it allowed the superintendent direct access to his work and as it housed the operations and the residence in one building under one roof it was considered to be more economical than constructing two separate buildings. In larger centres recreational facilities were also provided as well as accommodation for additional staff who slept on the premises. Ambulance stations of substantial scale and street presence were constructed throughout Queensland as a consequence of this policy.
\nGovernment assistance to QATB continued through direct subsidy and the Department of Public Works was responsible for the design and construction of the ambulance station buildings. From 1927 there were a number of legislative changes culminating in 1991 when the QATB was disbanded and the Queensland Transport Ambulance Service (QAS) was established as a division of the Bureau of Emergency Services.
\nThis comment appearing in the Brisbane Telegraph in 1902 offers an indication of the community perception of the ambulance service at the time and it may be argued still holds true today.
\nThere are certain established associations working for the benefit of humanity at large. Of such associations the Ambulance Brigade has now become probably one of the most familiar and important. We can scarcely bring ourselves to believe that it has not existed forever. When any association holds this position in the mind, it may be ranked amongst the permanent institutions of society.
\nThe ambulance service in Wynnum
\nIn the south-east of Brisbane, Wynnum is part of a foreshore along Moreton Bay. From the 1840s, this area became a popular fishing location and many early non-indigenous settlers established farms in the area. The first land sales were conducted in 1860 at Lytton and around Waterloo Bay. The railway link to Cleveland via Wynnum in 1888 was a major impetus to closer settlement with large areas of land being taken up soon after. The district expanded rapidly over the next twenty years until in 1913 the Town Council of Wynnum was constituted. The area became known as a seaside resort and the Wynnum and Manly foreshore area became increasingly popular with day visitors and holiday-makers.
\nWynnum was perceived to be a \"healthy\" place to live with its sea breezes, protected beaches, vistas to Moreton Bay, fishing and availability of fresh local produce. The district continued to expand as the number of permanent residents increased; services and infrastructure were introduced; building activity expanded; and civic and community associations were established.
\nThe Wynnum ambulance service was an important civic and community association to emerge in response to the expansion of the district. It had it beginnings in 1915 when a first aid post was established in a tent on the beach at Wynnum to serve holiday makers visiting the area during Easter and Christmas holidays.
\nAs the catchment area serviced by the Ann Street Ambulance Station of the QATB expanded, sub-branches were established in satellite areas and adjoining municipalities. These were strategically located to link with existing rail infrastructure to provide connections to major hospitals in the Brisbane City centre. Wynnum was a suitable location for establishing an ambulance station being the centre of a thriving district and on the rail link to Brisbane. The Wynnum sub-branch was formed in 1919 at a public meeting took temporary accommodation in a cottage at 92 or 95 Tingal Road, Wynnum. The Wynnum Ambulance Station covers the area from Lytton to Redland Bay bordered by Doughboy Creek. Sub-committees were formed for areas within the district: Hemmant, Lindum and Tingalpa; Wynnum and Wynnum South; Manly; Birkdale; Wellington Point; Victoria Point; Redland Bay; Ormiston and Cleveland.
\nIn 1920 the Wynnum Ambulance Committee acquired lots 248 and 249 on the corner of Tingal Road and Cedar Street, Wynnum. This site was well located; close to the railway, on the main road and close to the service district of Wynnum. This was to become the site for the 1927 ambulance station. By 1921 Wynnum was gazetted as a self-governing ambulance centre. Lot 247 was acquired in 1922 and ambulance operations and superintendent's accommodation transferred to the cottage at 35 Tingal Road, Wynnum. The front verandah functioned as a storage area and casualty room for the fledgling ambulance service until the new purpose-built station opened in 1927. A garage for the ambulance vehicle was constructed at the rear of Lots 248 and 249.
\nIn the early days many ambulance volunteers were school teachers. Stretchers were housed at Wynnum Central School and calls for ambulance assistance were directed to the school. The teacher/teachers would place the patient on a train that was met by Brisbane Ambulance bearers at South Brisbane Station
\nWynnum was a rapidly growing district and accommodation and equipment for the ambulance service soon proved to be inadequate in the face of this expansion. During 1923, the Wynnum community began fundraising for a new purpose-built Wynnum Ambulance Station to be located on the Tingal Road/Cedar Street corner. The enthusiasm of the local community for the new building and the work of the ambulance brigade was evident in the parade of floats, processions and carnival led by mounted police and the South Brisbane Scottish Pipe Band on the day of the laying of the foundation stone. Community support was evident also in their fundraising efforts for the building. By day of the laying of the foundation stone the community had raised £1384/4/5 towards the estimated £4200 construction cost of the proposed building.
\nThe foundation stone was laid by Mrs A.Thynne, standing in for her ill husband, Colonel A.J.Thynne (first President of the QATB Central Executive). At this ceremony on 26 January 1926 she commented that an ambulance has now become an indisputable part of every town in Queensland. That is a peculiarly Queensland characteristic, and the people are proud of the efficient service... The establishment of a centre is beneficial to any district, not only because of its evidence of one of the highest forms of civic spirit in making provision for the quick and efficient first aid to the sick and injured. It is an effort towards fulfilling one of the noblest principles of Christianity, the love of one's neighbour.
\nOn this occasion the Hon. W.H. Barnes, MLA for the district observed that if any one wants to find practical Christianity he could find it among those doing ambulance work. The new, up-to-date premises would be a splendid advertisement for the growing district
\nThe new ambulance station, constructed at a cost of £3284/19/1, was opened in November 1927. The Department of Public Works contributed £750 towards the construction costs with the balance being raised by the Wynnum community. The Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland commented that the Wynnum Ambulance Brigade opened its \"commodious premises\" on Tingal Road and that \"the design is pleasing in effect and marks a valuable step in the march of progress in the Wynnum District.\" The drawings were prepared by the Department of Public Works and the design is attributed to Leonard Kempster. The contractor was Mr C.R. Schriver.
\nLeonard James Kempster was employed as an architect in the War Office and in private practice in London in 1890s to 1911. From 1911 to 1946 he was employed in the architectural office of the Department of Public Works (Queensland). Kempster's other ambulance work includes the design and documentation of the Childers QATB station in 1924. The Wynnum Ambulance Station building design reflected contemporary thinking for ambulance stations in regional centres. It is a two-storeyed building with the superintendent's residence occupying the upper level connected by rear stairs to the lower level. Accommodation for the superintendent was provided upstairs to give the superintendent a better opportunity to attend to the work of the station. The lower level houses the ambulance plant room, office, committee room, bearers' dayroom and bedroom, casualty room and bathroom.
\nA QATB subcentre was established in Cleveland in 1946. As this and other subcentres were established the demand on the Wynnum Ambulance Station eased.
\nFrom 1940 to 1995 various alterations and additions were made to the sheds, garages and cottages on the property. In the 1940s a garage (2 cars), workshop and store were constructed to the rear of the station on the boundary In 1995 the superintendent vacated the upper level of the Ambulance Station building. The Tingal Road Ambulance Station ceased operation in 1996 when it was replaced by a new ambulance centre adjacent to Wynnum Hospital, Whites Road, Wynnum.
\nThe upper level of the former Wynnum Ambulance Station is presently occupied by the Community Education Unit for the Greater Brisbane Region of the QAS and the lower level houses the Queensland Ambulance Service Historical Society (QASHS) and the Wynnum Historical Society.
","criteria":"With the associated cottage and garages/workshops, the former Ambulance Station demonstrates the evolution of the site and the development of ambulance services in the Wynnum district in response to changes in technology and increased demand for the services. As the earlier ambulance station, the adjacent cottage is important as part of the complex showing the progress of the ambulance service from temporary accommodation to a purpose-built building. The location of the Station demonstrates the importance of the railway link to Wynnum which facilitated the transfer of patients to the hospitals in Brisbane City.
The Wynnum ambulance service was an important civic and community association that emerged in response to the expansion of the Wynnum district during the early decades of the twentieth century.
|The former Wynnum Ambulance Station survives as the only known example of an early masonry residential ambulance station for Queensland.
|The former Wynnum Ambulance Station is an important example of the early design for residential ambulance stations in Queensland, a two-storeyed building incorporating ambulance service facilities at ground level and living quarters at the upper level, developed and refined from the first purpose-built headquarters in Wharf Street, Brisbane (1897).
The building is substantially intact and is important for demonstrating the principal characteristics of early residential ambulance stations.
|The former Wynnum Ambulance Station makes a substantial contribution to the streetscape. This building belongs within the tradition of well composed civic buildings, including police stations, courthouses and schools, designed by the Department of Public Works prior to World War II.
|The Wynnum Ambulance Station building is important for its association with the Queensland Ambulance Service (formerly QATB) during its phase of expansion into outer Brisbane and Queensland regional areas.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16518,"place_ref":601781,"name":"Howard Smith Wharves","alternate_name":"Brisbane Central Wharves","street_address":"Boundary Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-02-04","description":"The Howard Smith Wharves site is located on the northern bank of the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, between the Town and Shafston Reaches. The boundary of the site is formed by cliffs along the northern, eastern and southeastern perimeter, which in turn are bounded by Bowen Terrace and Moray Street, with Wilson's Outlook overlooking the site from the southeast. The site is entered from the west off Boundary Street, and passes under the northern section of the Story Bridge [600240], with the northern pylons of the bridge located within the Howard Smith Wharves site.
The site contains a series of buildings with surviving sections of wharfage located along the riverfront. These buildings include a two storeyed reinforced concrete office building, currently occupied by the Water Police, near the western entrance to the site; the No.2 shed located between the Water Police offices and the northern pylons of the Story Bridge; the No.3 shed located to the east of the bridge pylons; the No.4 shed located to the southeast; and the No.5 shed which is at the end of the group towards the southeast. There are a number of other smaller structures, which include four former air-raid shelters located along the base of the cliffs, numerous concrete slabs, and a former air-raid shelter and lavatory block adjacent to the western entrance to the site.
Water Police Offices and Wharves
The Water Police office building is a two-storeyed reinforced concrete structure with a hipped tiled roof and deep eaves. The building faces the Brisbane River to the south, with a rear street entrance from the north. The building has large sash windows with expressed sills and window surrounds, and long tiled sunhoods to the ground floor windows along the east, north and west elevations. The southern elevation has a cantilevered verandah to the first floor, with tiled awning, timber posts, batten balustrade and handrail, and corner lamps supported by curved metal brackets. French doors with fanlights open from the ground floor to the south, and onto the verandah from the first floor. The northern entrance has paired timber framed glass doors with wide sidelights, and louvred lavatory windows are located at the eastern end of the first floor. Evidence of early door openings which have been enclosed to house sash windows are visible.
Internally, the ground floor has a central entrance from the north with offices either side, and a large office area on the south overlooking the river. A concrete stair with metal balustrade and timber handrail is located in the southwest corner, and the building's reinforced concrete post and beam construction is evident. The first floor has a large office area opening onto the verandah overlooking the river to the south, with a central corridor accessing a lunch room, kitchen and lavatories on the northern side at the rear. The building has timber panelled internal doors with fanlights, and decorative ceiling cornices to the first floor.
A concrete edged, curved garden bed with a small cannon positioned centrally is located against the southern wall of the building, and decorative timber gates enclose the passageway between the office building and No. 2 shed to the east. A timber wharf extends from the southern elevation of the office building, and extends along the southern frontage of No. 2 shed with timber post and rail balustrade chain balustrade. This wharf has non-slip compressed sheeting fixed to the upper decking in traffic areas. A section of the wharf in front of the office building is recessed, with stairs down to a lower deck for smaller craft to berth.
The Sheds (Nos 2, 3, 4 and 5)
The sheds are single storeyed timber framed structures with corrugated steel gable roofs with deep eave overhangs on the northern and northeastern sides. The No. 4 shed has a double gable roof, and is the longest of the group. The sheds have corrugated steel cladding to walls, with large sliding timber doors to the ends of some of the sheds, and openings facing the river which originally provided access from the wharves.
Remains of timber piles from the earlier wharves are evident in front of No.3 and No.4 sheds. Internally, most of the sheds have timber floors, with No.5 having a concrete floor. Approximately half of the No.4 shed is built over the river. A concrete roadway runs behind the sheds, with concrete ramps accessing the ends of the sheds.
Former Air-Raid Shelters
A series of former air-raid shelters are located along the base of the cliffs, with one located near the western entrance to the site.
Two sets of shelters are constructed of large concrete pipes with entrances at either end. One shelter, approximately opposite the junction between No. 3 and No. 4 sheds, is four bays in length. The other shelter, approximately opposite the junction between No. 4 and No. 5 sheds, is two bays in length.
The other shelters, rectangular concrete structures, have been converted for use as storage facilities and have had window openings introduced. Two are located in a fenced enclosure opposite No. 4 shed, and the other is near the western entrance to the site.
Cliffs and surrounds
The cliffs extend from near the western entrance to the site to the southeastern boundary adjoining the Brisbane River. The cliff faces consist of overgrown sections in contrast to areas of exposed rock, and act as the support for the northern end of the Story Bridge. A large area of the site at the southeastern end is used to store stone blocks. This area also has two concrete slabs.
","history":"The Howard Smith Wharves were constructed 1934-early 1940s by the Queensland government to provide relief work during the depression years of the 1930s. Initially known as the Brisbane Central Wharves, the project was undertaken in conjunction with the construction of the Story Bridge, one of the Forgan-Smith government's principal employment-generating projects. Like other such schemes, the Brisbane Central Wharves not only provided employment, but established important infrastructure for Queensland's future development. Brisbane Central Wharves were leased by the Australian coastal shipping company Howard Smith Co. Ltd from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s, and are more usually referred to as the Howard Smith Wharves.
The site had an even earlier connection with Howard Smith, as the Brisbane Central Wharves replaced smaller wharves constructed in the early years of the 20th century by Brisbane Wharves Ltd, for lease by William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd].
The construction of wharves beyond Circular Quay was part of the gradual move downstream of port facilities at Brisbane, in a process which began in the 1840s. Following the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in 1842, commercial wharf facilities were erected at South Brisbane, which offered more direct access for Darling Downs and Ipswich commodities than the north bank of the river where the government wharf [Queen's Wharf] was located. By 1850 there were 5 commercial wharves on the south side of the Brisbane River.
However, following the declaration of Brisbane as a port of entry in 1846, a customs house was built in Queen Street near the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, on the north side of the river at Petrie Bight. From this time, the Town Reach rivalled South Brisbane in terms of shipping activity. In the late 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between Petrie Bight and Alice Street, near the botanic gardens. To encourage private business activity the colonial government and Brisbane Municipal Council also built wharves along Petrie Bight in the 1870s and leased them to shipping companies. By 1900 the Brisbane Municipal Council owned a string of wharves from the custom's house to Boundary Street.
Private companies constructed wharves further downstream at New Farm, Teneriffe and Newstead from the early 1900s. In the 1920s-30s the government built railway wharves at Pinkenba, branch rail lines to Teneriffe and Hamilton, and the state cold stores and reinforced concrete wharves at Hamilton. After the Story Bridge was opened in 1940 most large overseas and interstate vessels did not use the wharves at the Town Reach. Hamilton became the heart of Brisbane's port, and the part of the river from the South Brisbane Reach, round the Town Reach to Petrie Bight lost the ascendancy it had around the turn of the century. Since the 1960s, most of Brisbane's port activity has relocated to the mouth of the river.
In the 1880s William Howard Smith & Sons Ltd [later Howard Smith Co. Ltd] leased the Commercial Wharf on the Town Reach from the Brisbane Municipal Council. Howard Smith was one of several important shipping companies which traded on the Australian coast from the mid-19th century, and was one of the earliest. The business was established in Melbourne in 1854 by Captain William Howard Smith, and in the second half of the 19th century developed as one of the dominant companies in the Australian coastal shipping trade. Initially the firm traded between Melbourne and England, but in 1860 entered the inter-colonial trade, and from 1864 concentrated solely on this. Howard Smith was trading in central Queensland by the early 1870s, and in the 1880s extended its operations to northern Queensland. In the 1890s, the firm entered into a strong rivalry with other coastal shipping companies for the lucrative intra- and inter-colonial passenger trade.
In the late 1890s, Howard Smith moved downstream from the Commercial Wharves to the Brisbane City Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie Bight, and in the early years of the 20th century leased adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs. These wharves were extended c1912 and in the 1920s, and in the 1930s were resumed by the Queensland government and rebuilt as the Brisbane Central Wharves.
The resumption and rebuilding of the Brisbane Central Wharves was an adjunct to the construction of the Story Bridge between Kangaroo Point and Fortitude Valley. As part of the bridge project the state government had resolved to improve the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, by widening it to a uniform width of 800 feet (240 m), deepening the draught to about 26 feet (8 m), and improving the river approaches. This necessitated demolishing the existing wharves and sheds at the Brisbane Central Wharves, excavating the cliff below Bowen Terrace, and widening the river at this point by up to 70 feet (21 metres). The path of the river was cut back and made smoother. Three chords were planned around the bend in the river, each providing a berth of about 500 feet (152 m). The total work, described in the 1935 Annual Report of the Bureau of Industry (the government body in charge of the project), was estimated to cost in excess of £400,000.
Work on the scheme commenced in 1934 and continued into the early 1940s. In January 1935 the existing wharf facilities occupied by Howard Smith Co. Ltd were resumed, along with a disused wharf upstream owned by the Brisbane City Council. The construction of the wharves was undertaken using day labour, and was staged over several years so that port activity could continue.
The first of the new structures erected was a two-storeyed reinforced concrete building completed by 1936 as offices for Howard Smith Co. Ltd. It was located on the waterfront, and commanded excellent views of the Town and Shafton Reaches of the Brisbane River.
Three berths with five new storage sheds were planned. Each of the gabled sheds was constructed primarily of hardwood timber, and sheeted and roofed with timber boards and corrugated iron. Sliding doors within these sheds opened towards the river for the handling of cargo. Sheds nos.1-3 were located at the upper berth under the Story Bridge, the middle berth accommodated the large no.4 shed [double-gabled , twice as wide as the others, and much longer], and no.5 shed was located at the lower berth downstream. No.5 shed was the first to be erected and a temporary wharf constructed. The middle berth with no.4 shed was almost completed by 1937, then work commenced on the upper berth, which was to contain sheds 1-3. This was completed in 1939.
For the wharves, a reinforced concrete base was laid on the rock at the river's edge, with timber piles rammed into the riverbed. Large hardwood timbers were used for the walings and decking, which extended about 24 feet (8 metres) out over the river. Hundreds of thousands of feet of timber - mostly hardwoods such as ironbark, blue gum, yellow stringybark, spotted gum and messmate - were required to build the berths.
The road widening behind the sheds, which necessitated the cutting back of the New Farm cliffs, was completed by 1938.
As work continued on the lower berth into 1940, the Second World War intervened. By 1942 the men working on the Petrie Bight works were transferred to other projects more directly connected with the war effort, and work on the wharves was closed down. The third berth appears never to have been completed. A 1945 plan of the site shows the upper and middle berths complete but the lower berth still without any timber decking for wharfage.
In 1941-42 the Brisbane City Council constructed five air-raid shelters near the Howard Smith Wharves below the cliff face, for the Bureau of Industry. The threat of invasion by Japan appeared very real at the time, there was a substantial workforce employed at the wharves, and the site was located adjacent to the Story Bridge - a prime target in wartime. Three of the shelters were the usual 'pillbox' style built by the City Council at many places in the inner city and in the suburbs. This was a standard type, rectangular in plan and constructed of concrete. However, the other two shelters at the Howard Smith Wharves were constructed of large stormwater pipes with multiple entrances. The Brisbane City Council used concrete stormwater pipes to cover the slit trenches in the Botanic Gardens and Victoria Park, but no other air raid shelters of the 'pipe' type have been identified in Brisbane. It is not known why the two different types of shelters were constructed at the Howard Smith Wharves.
Howard Smith signed a 21 year lease over the Brisbane Central Wharves site in 1936. After this lease expired the company made the inevitable move in the early 1960s to better facilities downstream at the mouth of the Brisbane River. The Water Police then occupied part of the site [the office building and several sheds], and Queensland Works Department has used the site for storage for many years. Vehicles impounded by the police were stored here as well.
A large part of the timber decking from both the upper and middle berths was washed away during the 1974 floods.
Most of the wharves which were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the central city have been demolished in the riverside re-developments of the last 20 years. The former Howard Smith Wharves remain one of the few surviving, and the most intact, with office, sheds and wharfage.
","criteria":"The Howard Smith Wharves, constructed in the 1930s, are important in illustrating the evolution and development of Queensland history, providing rare surviving evidence of the port of Brisbane in the central city. Brisbane was and remains Queensland's premier port, and until the 1940s, the bulk of shipping facilities were located upstream from Hamilton. The Howard Smith Wharves are also important in demonstrating the range of employment-generating and infrastructure-building projects undertaken by the Forgan-Smith government during the 1930s Depression.
The Second World War air-raid shelters on the site are important as the most intact group of shelters surviving in Brisbane. The 'pillbox' shelters survive as excellent examples of their type, and the 'pipe' shelters are significant for their rarity value, being unlike any other known surviving air-raid shelters in Brisbane. The location of these shelters adjacent to the Howard Smith Wharves and Story Bridge illustrates the strategic importance of the wharves and bridge in 1941-42, and survive as an evocative illustration of how closely the war impacted upon Brisbane workers.
|As the last surviving wharfage in the central city the Howard Smith Wharves provide rare evidence of the pre-1940 port of Brisbane. The site is important also in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 1930s port facility containing office building, sheds, roadway and wharfage.
|As Howard Smith Wharves it was one of the largest single wharf leases in central Brisbane, and the extent of the site remains intact to illustrate this.
The series of sheds, and former air-raid shelters, are expressive of their utilitarian function, and the office building is a well-mannered structure which is suggestive of its former use as the Howard Smith Company offices in the hierarchy of structures on the site.
|The Howard Smith Wharves provide a setting for an appreciation of the views of the Story Bridge [600240], and through the scale and form of the various structures and the surrounding cliffs, the site has visual qualities which have considerable aesthetic value. The Howard Smith Wharves site is recognised as a Brisbane landmark, and makes a significant contribution to the Brisbane riverscape.
Individually, the various structures are of aesthetic significance as well as contributing to the aesthetic significance of the site as a whole. The surviving sections of wharves, constructed of large timber members, have a well-used and weathered aesthetic quality suggestive of former heavy usage.
The cliff faces, consisting of overgrown sections in contrast to areas of exposed rock, provide a dramatic visual backdrop to the low scale waterfront structures as well as acting as the support for the northern end of the Story Bridge.
|The site is significant also for its close association for over 6 decades with the work of the Howard Smith Co. Ltd, one of Australia's principal 19th and early 20th century coastal shipping companies.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16522,"place_ref":602587,"name":"Barron Valley Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"53 Main Street","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The Barron Valley Hotel is a large, two-storeyed hotel of brick and concrete construction with a metal sheeted roof. It is located in the heart of the central business district of Atherton, on the north-western side of Main Street on the Kennedy Highway. Its allotment extends through to Railway Lane which runs adjacent to the Cairns Railway. The hotel is rectangular in plan comprising four wings built around a central courtyard and each wing has an external enclosed verandah and internal open verandah on both levels. Parapets to the outer walls conceal the main roof from exterior view.
The enclosed verandah which overhangs the Main Street footpath is the principal feature of the façade and is supported at the kerb line by piers constructed of bullnosed bricks. Above a solid brick balustrade, decorated with three diamond patterns of diagonal brickwork, a continuous rendered masonry sill underlines seven banks of eight-light casement windows between the brick piers. The verandah roof, clad in metal sheeting, has multiple hips that project over alternate banks of windows. The brick parapet with rendered capping is accentuated by a horizontal band of decorative render and a central vertical projection formed with stepped brickwork.
The rear and side boundary walls, constructed of a concrete frame with contrasting dark brown brick infill balustrading and parapet, form the outer verandah walls. The verandahs are enclosed with windows (both early timber casement and later sliding aluminium sashes). The northern corner at the rear of the hotel projects forward and above the parapet and has a decorative rendered cornice.
At street level the front of the hotel (south-east wing) retains its early black skirting tile and fine bands of horizontal cream tiles dividing green wall tiles. The recessed main entrance, in the southern corner, is tiled to door height and the tiling extends as a dado along the remainder of the hotel frontage. Above the entrance doors and adjacent narrow windows, a glazed sign with metallic trim bears the name of the hotel in large stylised lettering. The underside of the verandah is lined with flat sheet and decorated with a stylised pattern of timber battens.
The main entrance opens into the foyer which has an intact interior featuring a decorative plaster ceiling and cornice, polished timber floors and timber joinery including wall and counter panelling with inlaid timber detailing, a main stair, reception area and early furniture. The public bar, adjacent private bar and the main lounge open off the foyer.
The public bar with two entrance doors from Main Street and a window between, features early cream tiled walls with black tile detailing to complement the inlaid timber panelling in the foyer and an early terrazzo floor and bar with later laminate counter. North of the public bar, a passage way from the street provides additional access to the public bar as well as the central courtyard and an adjacent tenancy. A pharmacy, with a recent fitout and shopfront, occupies a large proportion of the eastern corner of the ground floor and was formerly the billiards saloon. In the eastern corner, a small, intact barber's shop has an early shopfront, early fixtures and vertical tongue and groove boarded interior lining.
In the south-west wing, the lounge opens off the entrance foyer through veneer doors that match the wall panelling and is separated from the dining room in the western corner by leadlight bi-fold doors. The lounge has an open fire place and both lounge and dining rooms have polished timber floors and decorative plaster cornice and ceilings. Both the lounge and dining rooms have eight light doors that open onto external and internal verandahs. Adjoining the dining room area is a private dining room and the hotel kitchen which form the north-west wing.
The courtyard is used as an outdoor lounge/dining area and has shade sails supported on a new veranda which runs along the north side of the lounge and the east side of the kitchen and private dining room. An open passageway behind the north-east wing (pharmacy) provides external access to the courtyard.
The upper level houses the hotel's accommodation of approximately 30 bedrooms. The main access to this level is from the entrance foyer and there are secondary stairs within the courtyard and on the external verandah in the north-west wing. Each wing of the building has a central corridor with bedrooms either side that have access either to the internal or external verandahs. A sun deck has been constructed within the south-eastern end of the courtyard void. There are four communal bathrooms and in the north-east and north-west wings, a number of bedrooms have been converted to ensuites for adjoining bedrooms. In the north-west wing there is a larger room for family accommodation in the northern corner and a communal lounge in the western corner. The corridors have plastered and painted walls and polished timber floors. The bathroom in the north-eastern wing has early tiling and fixtures.
The large enclosed verandah extending over the footpath houses recreation areas and a meeting room divided with single-skin timber framed partition walls. The ceiling is lined with flat sheet and finished with timber cover battens in a stylised pattern.
In the grounds behind the hotel facing Railway Lane is a detached bottle shop which is a later addition and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Barron Valley Hotel was constructed in 1940-1941 and is located on the main street of Atherton. The site has been used continuously for hotel and accommodation purposes since 1890 and illustrates the role played by early hotels in the development and expansion of regional settlements. The present hotel, with its distinctive streamlined decorative detailing in the interior public spaces, has been run by the Nasser family for over 70 years.
Early European settlements on the Atherton Tablelands developed along the route from Port Douglas to the Herberton at Granite Creek near Mareeba, Rocky Creek near Atherton and Scrubby Creek near Carrington. Atherton, which takes its name from pastoralist John Atherton, was originally known as Prior's Pocket after Thomas Prior, a timber getter who was the first European to camp there permanently. The settlement grew to shelter men engaged in lumbering operations, including four brothers from the Mazlin family who played a key role in the local timber industry; much of the timber they cut was used to construct Atherton's early buildings.
The town was surveyed in 1885 by surveyor Falcone Hutten and the first town lots were sold in Atherton on 23 February 1886. From the mid-1890s Atherton's popularity as a settlement increased and it became firmly established as the main centre on the Tablelands. During the first years of settlement Atherton was also a staging post for Cobb and Co. Coaches, which stopped at the Barron Valley Hotel on their way between Herberton and Port Douglas. Atherton provided the surrounding mining population with the bulk of its produce and its importance as a regional centre was cemented by the arrival of the railway from Cairns in 1903. The railway was located behind the Barron Valley Hotel and eventually replaced the Cobb and Co. routes through to Herberton.
Thomas Peake's original Barron Valley Hotel - a shack beside the track to Herberton - was built in the 1890s. It was soon replaced by a single-storeyed hotel, which was also a Cobb & Co. way station and general store. In 1907-1908 it was rebuilt as a two-storeyed timber hotel, which became a feature of early life in Atherton and was a meeting place for all manner of occasions. Mr McCraw was the first licensee of this third hotel on the site and it became known as McCraw's Barron Valley Hotel.
Sconder (Alexander) Nasser, a Lebanese migrant whose family had emigrated from Kousba to Clermont in Queensland in the late nineteenth century, took over the ownership of the hotel in 1930. A number of Lebanese (Syrian) migrants settled in North Queensland pre-1900 and in the early twentieth century, particularly in coastal regions such as Innisfail and in the North West such as Charters Towers. Most worked as traders or shopkeepers but did not settle in dense communities. The Nasser family arranged a marriage between Sconder and Amelia Moses, from a Lebanese family based in Atherton, in 1912. Initially Sconder and Amelia returned to work in Clermont, but moved north after the disastrous 1916 Clermont floods. Initially they both worked at the Moses-owned Exchange Hotel (destroyed 1933 and rebuilt as the Grand Hotel) in Atherton. Prior to purchasing the Barron Valley Hotel, Nasser ran the town's first taxi service, operated a barber shop and built the first motor car garage in Atherton.
In the late 1930s Nasser decided to replace the two-storeyed timber hotel with a more substantial structure and engaged prominent Cairns architects Richard Hill and AJH Taylor to design it. Hill & Taylor, in partnership 1927-c1940 and 1945-1952, designed a number of prominent north Queensland civic buildings between the first and second world wars, including the Cairns City Council Chambers (1929-1930, QHR 601576), Cairns Post Office (1930), Johnstone Shire Hall in Innisfail (1935-1938, QHR 601579), Mossman Shire Hall (1936), and a number of country hospitals, including Mossman District Hospital (c1930, QHR 602713) and Proserpine Hospital (1939-1940, QHR 601573). This association with Hill and Taylor, as well as the distinctive interior detailing, underpinned the hotel's listing as a significant example of 20th century Queensland architecture by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2005.
The new Barron Valley Hotel was a two-storeyed brick building which featured 30 bedrooms, a billiards parlour, two bars, and a lounge and dining room separated by decorative leadlight folding doors, which could be opened to create one large dance hall or ballroom accommodating up to 250 dancers. A barber's shop opened directly to the street. The hotel was opened on Saturday 12 July 1941 with a dance. At the time of opening the interior was described as being dignified and up-to-date with deep cream and gold walls and polished timber floors.
In 1942, during World War II, the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces, General Sir Thomas Blamey, investigated using the Atherton and Evelyn Tablelands as a base for rehabilitating and training troops. Four officers made a thorough examination of the area, where already more than 5,000 troops were located, and selected a number of sites in the relatively dry western belt of the Tableland. They recommended that only two divisions be placed on the Tableland in view of the limitations imposed by the wet season, water supply and communications. The Tablelands were within easy reach of the battlefields of New Guinea and the climate gave the troops respite from the tropical heat of the coast and assisted in the convalescence of sick and wounded soldiers. The Tablelands also provided access to a training area similar to that of the South East Asian environment.
The establishment of the Tablelands Base Area in 1942 created a constant flow of Army traffic through Atherton's main street. Many of Atherton's buildings housed both Australian and American forces. The School of Arts building was taken over by the Red Cross, and the Girl Guides hall by the Australian Army for use as its historical section, while the Sharples Theatre became an Army Canteen. The Military took over the Atherton Showground and remained there for three years, building the Merriland Hall defence canteen (QHR 602016). The Barron Valley Hotel was requisitioned by the Australian Army as an officers club, mess hall and accommodation for two and a half years. For a few months before moving to Port Moresby, General Blamey made the hotel his base.
In 1945, Sconder's son Harold returned from three years military service and took over the running of the hotel. He retired from running the hotel in 1990 and the next generation of the family took over. In 2009 Harold's son Michael and his wife Maree are still the licensees and Harold's other son, David, runs the adjoining but detached bottle shop. Under Michael Nasser's ownership, the hotel underwent a major refurbishment between 2002 and 2007, which included: replacing the old iron roof; installing wheelchair access to a new deck and dining area; developing new men's and disabled bathroom facilities; upgrading the kitchen; and restoring the early furniture.
The Barron Valley Hotel has played an important role in providing accommodation for businesspersons, visitors and tourists to the Tablelands and has been promoted in tourism brochure over many years, including the 1949 Cairns, Innisfail & Atherton Tableland Visitors Directory. As Atherton's leading hotel the Barron Valley has provided accommodation for distinguished visitors including several Queensland governors. Its dining room/lounge have been used regularly for meetings, conferences and social functions. Local sporting clubs and community groups have been supported by the owners of the hotel and have a close association with the place.
","criteria":"The Barron Valley Hotel is notable amongst Queensland hotels of the late 1930s/early 1940s for the integrity of its layout and the intactness and quality of its interior, which employs a variety of decorative applied design elements and materials popular at the time of its construction. The main entrance foyer and staircase, which display a lavish use of North Queensland timbers in streamlined decorative finishes, fixtures and early furniture, are particularly fine.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial 'Art Deco' hotel of the late 1930s/early 1940s in a regional centre, retaining:
- its original form and function;
- early street presence;
- early configuration with upper floor accommodation, public spaces on the ground floor (including entrance foyer, lounge, dining room, public bar, private bar and former billiards room - the latter occupied by a retail pharmacy in 2009) and barber's shop opening directly to the street;
- extensive early finishes, fittings and fixtures, including: the timber joinery (main stair, wall panelling, cabinetwork, window and door joinery) made from local North Queensland timbers; polished timber floors; decorative battening to the fibrous-cement ceilings; leadlighting; tiling; terrazzo work; plaster and stucco work; glazed brick fireplace surround in the dining room/lounge; and signage; and
- early purpose-built furniture made from local North Queensland timbers (including dining room chairs and club chairs in the foyer).
The hotel is important in exemplifying the commercial work of the prominent Cairns architectural firm of R Hill and AJH Taylor (1927-c1940 and 1945-1952), which made a significant contribution to far north Queensland's built environment in the interwar years.
|The Barron Valley Hotel at Atherton, the principal town of the Atherton Tableland, was designed in 1939 and constructed 1940-1941. It is the fourth hotel on the site since 1890 and one of three large, substantially intact hotels on the Tableland - the other two being the Lake Eacham Hotel (1910-1911 extended 1926, QHR 600473) at Yungaburra and the Malanda Hotel (c1910) at Malanda - that have contributed significantly to the development of the region. The large Barron Valley Hotel has accommodated visitors to the region, including dignitaries, officials and tourists, and has provided a popular meeting venue and social and recreational focus for Atherton and district since the 1940s.
The Barron Valley Hotel is important for its historical association with the Atherton Tableland as a base for allied training and rehabilitation during World War II, being requisitioned for about two and a half years during 1942-1944 as the Australian Army's officers' club, mess hall and accommodation, and providing briefly a home to General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces.
Constructed for Sconder Nasser in 1940-1941 on the site of the previous Barron Valley Hotel which he acquired in 1930, the present Barron Valley Hotel is still owned and occupied by the Nasser family and exemplifies the contribution made by Lebanese immigrants to the development of regional Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16523,"place_ref":601786,"name":"Bedford Playground","alternate_name":"Spring Hill Playground | Bedford Park","street_address":"8 Love Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-05-09","description":"Bedford Playground comprises a large area of open space incorporating tennis courts, play equipment, an old steam locomotive, an elevated timber hall, a number of established trees and a large outcrop of porphyry formerly used as a quarry. The reserve is bounded on three sides by Water, Love and Quarry Streets and on the fourth side by dense vegetation concealing development beyond to the south east. At the corner of Quarry and Waters, on excised land, is a fenced timber building used as the Lady Gowrie Occasional Child Care Centre.
Entrance to the playground is via a driveway and pathway from Love Street. A high chain link fence surrounds the site. Where the ground is cut down for a road at the corner of Love and Water Streets, a retaining wall is clad with rubble stonework featuring recessed panels surrounded by concrete mouldings. A steel sign 'BEDFORD PLAYGROUND' is adjacent to the entrance to the site.
Within the playground, near the entrance of the playground is a large elevated hall with a substantially infilled undercroft. The building which has a rectangular plan running parallel to the Love Street boundary, has a gabled roof clad with 'super six' corrugated fibrous cement sheeting. Strip windows line the long sides of the building and smaller individual windows are found on the shorter ends. Entrance to the building is via a straight timber stair on the north eastern façade.
The most prominent feature of the playground is the large porphyry outcrop which is in the southern corner of the site. Partially concealing the outcrop are a large number of trees and plantings, growing around the base and on the stone itself. The outcrop has evidence of cutting on its north eastern face and varies in height from about 2 to 10 metres. Also on this face of the outcrop is a plaque cut from the stone with lettering "BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL: THIS QUARRY IS PRESERVED FOR ITS GREAT GEOLOGICAL INTEREST". Cut into the north western side of the outcrop is a winding and uneven concrete stair, the dimensions of which suggest that it was built for the use of children. The stair leads to a path which winds north east through the vegetation on the top of the outcrop, leading to a now overgrown lookout.
Recent metal, plastic and timber play equipment is found in the central part of the playground. Situated among the new equipment is a small play house known as the Betty Mansion, from the sign on the front of the structure. This is a model play version of a two storeyed interwar house, built on a concrete slab with reinforced concrete walls and finely detailed openings including a moulded and panelled front door. The entrance door is in a bay projecting from the front, north eastern façade. The bay terminates in a stepped parapet decorated with three vertical fins and the signage panel. Aside from this structure the early playground equipment has been replaced, although remnants of an Aladdin's Cave remain in the north western side of the outcrop and partially embedded concrete slabs provide evidence of earlier equipment.
A tennis court is found on a raised terrace on the south eastern border of the playground, adjacent to the outcrop. A steam locomotive is located in the north western corner of the site and is surrounded by a large steel fence.
One of the features of the playgrounds is the large number of established trees. Along the Water Street boundary are large shade trees providing privacy to the playground. Large trees are also found on the other boundaries and within the playground.
","history":"The Bedford Playground was established in 1927 as the third children's playground of the Playground Association of Queensland. The Park was officially named in 1959 in commemoration of Ms Josephine Mary Bedford, an early Brisbane philanthropist who was involved with the progress of family welfare and an integral and prolific member of the Playground Association.
The Playground Association of Queensland held their first meeting in 1913 and was formed to introduce concepts emanating from the United States movement toward providing public recreation parks and playgrounds. A comprehensive guide to the design and management of these new parks, written by landscape architects and social planners, Arthur and Lorna Leland was published in 1909 and many of the themes of this book were adopted by the Playground Association of Queensland in their mission statements. In a time of serious epidemics the Leland book, Playground Technique and Playcraft, promoted a revised level of care and protection of children, allowing them a better chance at success in life. The basic requirements advocated for the mental and physical well being of children were good food, air, sunshine and exercise. Of these basic requirements, the playgrounds provided for three, and were also thought to instil a love of nature and an appreciation of beautiful environments. The first playgrounds in America developed as part of this movement were in Charlesbank, Boston; Boone Park Louisville and many examples in Chicago all planned in the late nineteenth century. Many of these early playgrounds were designed by important landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted who was earlier involved with the highly influential design of Central Park, New York. Generally these American playgrounds were incorporated in large public recreation parks, usually with elements such as playgrounds, open air gymnasiums, running tracks and field houses, which provided covered accommodation for halls, administrative offices, libraries and club rooms.
Unlike the large recreation parks constructed in the United States for the whole community, the playgrounds established in Queensland by the Playground Association were planned on a smaller scale, focussing solely on children and providing a playground and usually a field house. Usually the playgrounds were associated with an adjacent kindergarten or creche, and this is thought to have been due to Mary Josephine Bedford's involvement with the Creche and Kindergarten Association. This group formed in 1907 with the purpose of instituting and maintaining day nurseries and free kindergartens for the children of the poor in Brisbane. Like the Playground Association, the Creche and Kindergarten Association were successful in achieving local and state government sponsorship and funding as well as funding from various national philanthropic trust funds. The success of these two organisations can be rightly said to be due to the tireless and strategic work of Mary Josephine Bedford. Throughout her life Bedford, who is perhaps best remembered as the life long companion of Dr Lillian Violet Cooper, worked toward alleviating the stress and poverty afflicting urban dwellers. On her many study tours with Cooper, Bedford researched successful methods and programmes on the provision of family welfare in America and Europe and she is known to have attended lectures at Berkeley University on public recreation parks in about 1911, just two years before the Playground Association was established. Ms Bedford was associated with many of the early efforts in Brisbane to establish welfare; she was instrumental in increasing the scope of the Children's Hospital in 1905, she was involved with the establishment of the Queensland branch of the National Council of Women also in 1905; she and Cooper were delegates at the International Council of Women in Stockhlm in 1912, and in 1916 both Bedford and Cooper served in Serbia during World War I, Bedford as an ambulance driver for which she received the 5th Order of St Sava. Ms Bedford remained an active participant of both the Creche and Kindergarten Association and the Playground Association until her death in December 1955. It is clearly through her extensive letter writing, evident in archival files on both organisations, that they achieved their successes.
The Playground Association in Queensland was formed with the practical intention of promoting the establishment of children's playgrounds and recreation centres in districts of poverty and high density. Also the Association worked towards assuming the administration of the parks and providing trained supervisors who were to direct play and, through this, to instil the values of courage, honesty and consideration in the children. The supervisors were also to look after the playground libraries, teach hand work and also to liaise with the children's homes. The Association was interested in the full social development of the child and saw the lessons learnt during play as an adjunct to the lessons the children studied in their classrooms.
The sites chosen for the three playgrounds managed by the Playground Association in their formative years were at Paddington, established 1918; East Street Fortitude Valley, 1922 and Spring Hill established 1927. All three were places of high density low cost housing. The characteristics of the sites were similar as well; the site was usually undeveloped and lying stagnant for various reasons, at Paddington the playground was part of a former cemetery and the Spring Hill playground was constructed on a former quarry site. The playgrounds were planned within a short distance of the local state school, usually near swimming baths and central to the density of housing surrounding the playground. They were planned with several mandatory features; a boundary fence to aid supervision and protection of the child, borders within the playground separating girls, boys and toddlers, a field house and a well considered plan incorporating play equipment and open space. The playgrounds were planned as model examples of recreational facilities for children, to be copied in both management and planning by schools and local councils across Queensland. Certainly the playgrounds established by the Playground Association foreshadowed a period of intense playground development in suburban Brisbane when a number were established by various groups, usually the city council or a local progress association. In 1938 a list was made of eight playgrounds managed or funded through the Brisbane City Council but not including those in which the Playground Association was involved. Like the three model playgrounds, the Brisbane City Council playgrounds were found in high density, inner city areas and included one in the Domain of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. Over the next ten years the Council continued to acquire sites for playgrounds, although it should be noted that only those playgrounds managed by the Playground Association were supervised, a practice which continues to this day
The playground created in Water Street, Spring Hill utilised the site of an early Brisbane quarry which had closed. From the 1860s until its closure in the early twentieth century the Spring Hill porphyry quarry was one of a series of quarries stretching along a porphyry seam extending north and south from the city. Porphyry is formed from volcanic ash, consolidated and hardened in the presence of solutions containing silica. The presence of various iron and manganese oxides results in a range of possible colours. Given the variance in strength through the stone, porphyry is not usually cut into ashlar blocks but often left rockfaced to minimise disturbance. Stone from the Spring Hill quarry was thought to be used in construction of the early Brisbane Normal School and other early Brisbane buildings. The quarry was closed by the early twentieth century.
On 22 January 1918 the land around the quarry was divided into twelve allotments and offered for sale. Only one portion of this subdivision was sold, that on the corner of Water and Love Streets to a Mrs Kate Downey. The twelve allotments remained undeveloped until 1924 when the Brisbane City Council were granted the land by the state government for use as a park on behalf of the Playground Association who offered to undertake supervision and management on their third Brisbane project after Paddington and Fortitude Valley.
The Spring Hill Playground was officially gazetted as a reserve for a Children's Playground on 20 March 1924. Mrs Downey surrendered her lot in the following year and the entire reserve was re-gazetted on 12 November 1925, measuring 1 acre and 36 perches. The early playground on the site was along the Water Street boundary, another park reserve was gazetted around the former quarry site, which the Playground Association assumed in recent years, increasing the size of the original playground.
Few early plans of the Spring Hill playground have been located, it seems, however, that it was originally planned with three principal sections divided by fences; the boys were closest to the Love Street end of the site and the girls at the Quarry Street end, divided by the infants section which was centrally located. A field house, or supervisor's cottage with a free library was located to the north of the girls section and toilets were provided for the girls and infants within the field house. The boys' toilets were in the northern eastern corner of their section. The field house was an early timber cottage moved to the playground from another site. Re-fencing in chain link occurred in 1935, further increasing security.
In 1945 a war memorial hall was opened at the playground, designed by the City Architect and funded by public appeal supplemented by the state and local council. The tender was awarded to MR Hornibrook who completed the work for £2517. The building was constructed to commemorate those from Paddington, Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley who served during WWII. The original supervisor's cottage was burnt down in 1959 and the Brisbane City Council donated the insurance money to the Playground Association to allow them to infill the undercroft of the Memorial Hall for use as a library.
Mary Josephine Bedford died on 22 December 1955 and to commemorate her instrumental role in the provision of playgrounds in Queensland a memorial tree was planted on 22 March 1956 at the Spring Hill Playground by Lady Lavarck, wife of Lieutenant-General Sir John Dudley Lavarack, Governor of Queensland. In 1959 the Brisbane City Council agreed to the suggestion of the Playground and Recreation Association to rename the park, the Bedford Playground in memory of Ms Bedford.
In December 1971 an area of land on the Quarry Street side of the park was excised for Health Purposes and this became the home of the Shaftsbury Citizenship Centre. Again, in March 1989 land at the corner of Quarry and Water Streets was excised for Local Government Purposes and this block of land is now the Lady Gowrie Occasional Child Care Centre, providing an additional service to the Lady Gowrie Child Care Centre which is at the St Paul's Terrace end of Love Street.
","criteria":"Bedford Playground which was established in 1927 is important in demonstrating the pattern of growth of the working class suburbs of inner city Brisbane, particularly Spring Hill. The playgrounds demonstrate early twentieth century philosophies of child care, particularly in relation to the importance of adequately providing for children in poorer communities to provide a better chance of their future success. The playground contains a substantial porphyry outcrop, remnant from an early quarry which was established in the 1860s, providing evidence of the early construction industry of Brisbane and a rare example of 'untamed' landscape in inner city Brisbane. The park is important as an integral example of the small number of open parks in the CBD and Spring Hill area.
|A rare example of 'untamed' landscape in inner city Brisbane.
|The playground demonstrates the principal characteristics of early model playgrounds formed by the Playground Association of Queensland and influenced by similar American models. This is particularly evident in the siting, and elements such as the memorial hall, the Betty Mansion (an early play fixture) and established plantings.
|The site has aesthetic significance as a public open space with established plantings forming a substantial element of the Spring Hill townscape. The former quarry is of particular aesthetic interest as a bold, natural form visibly contrasting with its immediate surrounds and visually linked to the large outcrops on St Paul's Terrace.
|The playground has special associations with the surrounding community as well known public recreation reserve and supervised children's playground.
|Bedford Playground has a special association with Ms Mary Josephine Bedford, an early Brisbane philanthropist who successfully instigated many elements of family welfare in working class suburbs of Brisbane through her involvement with both the Playground Association and the Creche and Kindergarten Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16524,"place_ref":601787,"name":"Neal Macrossan Playground","alternate_name":"Ithaca Playground","street_address":"14 Caroline Street","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-05-09","description":"The Neal Macrossan Playground is an open space of inverted T-shape plan, bounded by Caxton Street to the south, Hale and Chrystal Streets to the east, Moreton Street to the west and the children's kindergarten and toy library to the north. The site comprises is bordered by large prominent fig trees along Caxton Street and on the Moreton Street boundary. Two large fig trees, thought to be part of the original scheme, are on the intersection of Moreton and Dowles Street. Centrally located along the Caxton Street boundary of the playground, but excluded from this listing, is the Ithaca Swimming Pool.
The playground comprises three buildings along the northern boundary, adjacent to the kindergarten; a tennis court in the north eastern along Caroline Street; a skate bowl, known as Father Perry Place on the eastern side of the swimming pool; a large oval on the western side of the swimming pool and terraced playground space in the central area. The three buildings at the Neal Macrossan Playground are a large public hall facing Moreton Street, a small former free library to the east of this, and abutting this on the eastern side is a covered play area.
The public hall is an elevated timber building with a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. The building is clad externally with horizontal weatherboard. The western façade, facing the street, is lined with a verandah awning supported on simple stop chamfered columns. Between the columns is weatherboard panel balustrade which conceals timber stairs recessed in the verandah space. A large double timber boarded door, surrounded by lights and flanked by sash windows, is centrally located on this face of the building and provides access to a hall. The hall is lined on the southern side with an infilled verandah, and is lined internally with timber boarding and fibrous cement sheeting. At the front, eastern end of the hall is an elevated stage area, divided from the body of the hall by a timber arched proscenium.
The small square planned building on the eastern side of the hall, has a steeply pitched pyramidal roof clad with terracotta tiles. This is a simple elevated timber building with horizontal weatherboard external cladding and a large central window on the southern face. Abutting the east of this is a low set concrete block building constructed on a concrete slab and with a skillion roof clad with galvanised sheeting.
Neal Macrossan Playground is divided into sections by terracing of the land which falls away to the south. To the south of the buildings, which being at the northern end are on the highest ground, is the highest terrace. Below which are several terraced area, and a substantial embankment bordered the oval in the south western corner.
Established trees dominate the playground, particularly the aforementioned figs. Palms trees line the crystal street boundary, where the principal entrance to the playground is found through a chain link gate in a chain link fence. To the south of the buildings are several established shade trees. A tall hoop pine is planted at the eastern end of the playground, between the playground and the skate bowl.
","history":"The Neal Macrossan Park, Paddington was designed as a model playground by the Playground Association in 1918. This was the first of the three early playgrounds organised by the Playground Association and was on the site of a former cemetery.
The Playground Association of Queensland held their first meeting in 1913 and was formed to introduce concepts emanating from the United States movement toward providing public recreation parks and playgrounds. A comprehensive guide to the design and management of these new parks, written by landscape architects and social planners, Arthur and Lorna Leland was published in 1909 and many of the themes of this book were adopted by the Playground Association of Queensland in their mission statements. In a time of serious epidemics the Leland book, Playground Technique and Playcraft, promoted a revised level of care and protection of children, allowing them a better chance at success in life. The basic requirements advocated for the mental and physical well being of children were good food, air, sunshine and exercise. Of these basic requirements, the playgrounds provided for three, and were also thought to instil a love of nature and an appreciation of beautiful environments. The first playgrounds in America developed as part of this movement were in Charlesbank, Boston; Boone Park Louisville and many examples in Chicago all planned in the late nineteenth century. Many of these early playgrounds were designed by prolific and highly skilled landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted who was earlier involved with the highly influential design of Central Park, New York. Generally these American playgrounds were incorporated in large public recreation parks, usually with elements such as playgrounds, open air gymnasiums, running tracks and field houses, which provided covered accommodation for halls, administrative offices, libraries and club rooms.
Unlike the large recreation parks constructed in the United States for the whole community, the playgrounds established in Queensland by the Playground Association were planned on a smaller scale, focussing solely on children and providing a playground and usually a field house. Usually the playgrounds were associated with an adjacent kindergarten or creche, and this is thought to have been due to Mary Josephine Bedford's involvement with the Creche and Kindergarten Association. This group formed in 1907 with the purpose of instituting and maintaining day nurseries and free kindergartens for the children of the poor in Brisbane. Like the Playground Association, the Creche and Kindergarten Association were successful in achieving local and state government sponsorship and funding as well as funding from various national philanthropic trust funds. The success of these two organisations can be rightly said to be due to the tireless and strategic work of Mary Josephine Bedford. Throughout her life Bedford, who is perhaps best remembered as the life long companion of Dr Lillian Violet Cooper, worked toward alleviating the stress and poverty afflicting urban dwellers. On her many study tours with Cooper, Bedford researched successful methods and programmes on the provision of family welfare in America and Europe and she is known to have attended lectures at Berkeley University on public recreation parks in about 1911, just two years before the Playground Association was established. Ms Bedford was associated with many of the early efforts in Brisbane to establish welfare; she was instrumental in increasing the scope of the Children's Hospital in 1905, she was involved with the establishment of the Queensland branch of the National Council of Women also in 1905; she and Cooper were delegates at the International Council of Women in Stockhlm in 1912, and in 1916 both Bedford and Cooper served in Serbia during World War I, Bedford as an ambulance driver for which she received the 5th Order of St Sava. Ms Bedford remained an active participant of both the Creche and Kindergarten Association and the Playground Association until her death in December 1955. It is clearly through her extensive letter writing, evident in archival files on both organisations, that they achieved their successes.
The Playground Association in Queensland was formed with the practical intention of promoting the establishment of children's playgrounds and recreation centres in districts of poverty and high density. Also the Association worked towards assuming the administration of the parks and providing trained supervisors who were to direct play and, through this, to instil the values of courage, honesty and consideration in the children. The supervisors were also to look after the playground libraries, teach hand work and also to liaise with the children's homes. The Association was interested in the full social development of the child and saw the lessons learnt during play as an adjunct to the lessons the children studied in their classrooms.
The sites chosen for the three playgrounds managed by the Playground Association in their formative years were at Paddington, established 1918; East Street Fortitude Valley, 1922 and Spring Hill established 1927. All three places of high density low cost housing. The characteristics of the sites were similar as well; the site was usually undeveloped and lying stagnant for various reasons, at Paddington the playground was part of a former cemetery and the Spring Hill playground was constructed on a former quarry site. The playgrounds were planned within a short distance of the local state school, usually near swimming baths and central to the density of housing surrounding the playground. They were planned with several mandatory features; a boundary fence to aid supervision and protection of the child, borders within the playground separating girls, boys and toddlers, a field house and a well considered plan incorporating play equipment and open space. The playgrounds were planned as model examples of recreational facilities for children, to be copied in both management and planning by schools and local councils across Queensland. Certainly the playgrounds established by the Playground Association foreshadowed a period of intense playground development in suburban Brisbane when a number were established by various groups, usually the city council or a local progress association. In 1938 a list was made of eight playgrounds managed or funded through the Brisbane City Council but not including those in which the Playground Association was involved. Like the three model playgrounds, the Brisbane City Council playgrounds were found in high density, inner city areas and included one in the Domain of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. Over the next ten years the Council continued to acquire sites for playgrounds, although it should be noted that only those playgrounds managed by the Playground Association were supervised, a practice which continues to this day
The playground created in Paddington utilised the site of an early Brisbane cemetery which served the free settlers here from 1843 until 1875. The Paddington Cemeteries Act 1911 was passed to allow the land to be used for recreation purposes. The land on the southern side of Caxton Street became Lang Park and the land on the northern side was set aside as a reserve for the Ithaca Baths. On 13 June 1914 the remaining land on the northern side of Caxton Street was reserved for use as a children's playground. The original trusteeship lay with the Ithaca Shire Council, although the Brisbane City Council assumed the role on 15 April 1922. The land comprising the playground was twice increased in size; firstly in 1921 when the southern part of Moreton Street was closed and incorporated into the playground and secondly in 1934 when further land was adjacent to the first resumption was acquired for the playground. When the Inner North-West Ring Road (Hale Street Ring Road) development occurred in the early 1990s further land, previously unallocated state land, was given to the playground.
The Ithaca Playground, as the Neal Macrossan Playground was first known, was the first playground with which the Playground Association of Queensland was involved. The siting of the Ithaca Playground in the midst of a dense working class suburb on a previously disused publicly owned site reflects one of the fundamental aims of the Playground Association - to facilitate the full development of all children and to provide aid to those children who may not otherwise fulfil their potential. The designer of the Ithaca Playground is thought to have been Robert Black, an authorised surveyor and town engineer whose name appears on plans of the original planned site. The official catalogue of the Second Annual Town Planning Conference and Exhibition in 1918 included this plan which was titled, 'Plan of Children's Playground together with the Creche Kindergarten Free Library and Swimming Baths, Town of Ithaca' dated July 1918. It is interesting that the plan incorporates all of these elements which, though run by different organisations, were obviously components of a large public facility aimed at family welfare. The plan of the playground was not realised as fully as the drawing suggests. The proposed plan incorporated many elements formally laid out using axial lines, symmetry and focal points. Included on the lower terrace of the plan, allocated for boys' play was an oval for Football, Cricket and Sports; a giant stride, open space, shelter shed with storage and an area for playing marbles and tops, appliances (equipment) for senior boys, appliance for junior boys; playing area for junior boys, a wading pool and a sand pit. The upper terrace, closer to the Creche and Kindergarten and allocated for the play of girls and infants, was a children's free library, appliances for senior girls, games area, appliances for junior girls, sand pit, concreted area for ball games, basket ball court, central shelter, and appliances for kindergarten children with separate sand pit and wading pool. The plan suggests that these elements should all be divided, by garden beds, pathways and screens. The Ithaca Swimming Pool was at the southern end of the site near adjacent to the boys playing area. The land tapered toward the south, meaning supervisors housed in the administrative room provided in the free library would have all areas of the playground in view. The playground resulting from this planning was apparently less substantially built up, but the zoning and terracing was recognisable.
One of the key elements of the plan was the children's free library and supervisor's cottage which was constructed as a simple timber building with tiled pyramidal roof. The library was funded and built by Miss Marcella R Clark on behalf of the Order of the Round Table. Construction of the building was supervised by town engineer, Robert Black and the building was officially opened by Lady Gould Adams on 15 June 1917. This building which was originally on Moreton Street and known as a field house from the American models, was moved in about 1924, replaced by a large timber building housing the library, supervisor's cottage and a community hall. The orignal field house was moved to the east of the hall and remains in this place in 1998.
In 1959 the Brisbane City Council agreed to the suggestion of the Playground and Recreation Association to rename the park, the Neal Macrossan Playground in memory of Justice Neal Macrossan who had served about twenty years as the president of the Playground Association before his death in 1955. A locomotive was added to the playground on 20 March 1973 but this was removed in 1995. More recently the far south eastern corner of the site was dedicated as a skateboard/rollerblade facility and dedicated to Father Perry, a local Anglican minister who advocated strongly against the ring road. A naming ceremony was held on 25 September 1994.
","criteria":"The Neal Macrossan Playground which was established in 1918 is important in demonstrating the pattern of growth of the working class suburbs of inner city Brisbane, particularly Paddington. The playgrounds demonstrate early twentieth century philosophies of child care, particularly in relation to the importance of adequately providing for children in poorer communities to provide a better chance of their future success.
|The playground demonstrates the principal characteristics of early playgrounds formed by the Playground Association of Queensland, influenced by similar American models and designed as the model for all Queensland playgrounds. This is particularly evident in the siting, early land formation, early hall and established plantings.
|The site has aesthetic significance as a public open space with established plantings forming a substantial element of the Paddington townscape, in particular the large Moreton Bay fig trees which line Caxton Street and Moreton Street are significant landmark elements. The hall is a well composed building which contributes markedly to the streetscape.
|The playground has special associations with the surrounding community as well known public recreation reserve and supervised children's playground.
|Neal Macrossan Playground has a special association with Ms Mary Josephine Bedford, an early Brisbane philanthropist who successfully instigated elements of family welfare in working class suburbs of Brisbane through her involvement with both the Playground Association and the Creche and Kindergarten Association. This was the first playground planned by the Playground Association and has importance to this group which continues its supervision to this day. The playground was named for Justice Neal Macrossan who was a long time president of the Playground Association and has special associations with him.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16526,"place_ref":601789,"name":"Hann Family Grave","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bluff Downs Station","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"Bluff Downs Station is a cattle property in the northern part of the Kennedy District of Queensland. Situated about 150kms northwest of Charters Towers. The Basalt River approximately bisects the station. North of the river are open undulating black soil downs, and south are red basalt tablelands.
The Bluff Downs homestead sits on a bend on the river. The grave site is located about 1km below the Bluff Downs homestead on the western bank of the Basalt River. It is situated on a 'bluff' of land about 5 metres above the river. The bluff is suffering substantial erosion at the base.
The grave site is shaded by a scatter of eucalypts on the edge of a small plateau running towards the river. There is one prominent grave site remaining, that of members of the Hann family. It has a base platform of concrete, enclosed by an iron palisade fence with a white marble headstone. The grave faces the river. The fence has cast iron cross spearheads within arches, with corner posts of tulips with cast heads. There are some saplings sprouting from the grave.
The inscription of the headstone reads:
"Sacred to the memory of Joseph Hann
who was drowned in the Burdekin River,
January 4th 1864 aged 49 years.
Elizabeth his wife
died June 24th 1864 Aged 54 years.
Also of William, son of William and Mary Hann
died in February 1865 aged 2 weeks".
Beside this site, is a neat pile of decorative ironwork with concrete bases, being the remnants of fence of a grave site.
","history":"The Kennedy District was the first area settled by Europeans in North Queensland. The district was officially proclaimed open for settlement on 1 January 1861. Early pastoralists, encouraged by the success of the Australian wool industry, sought land in the district for sheep raising.
One of the earliest settlers was Joseph Hann. The Hann family had emigrated from Wiltshire in 1851, taking up land on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Family stories indicate that Joseph and his family were not satisfied with the quality of the land they had settled and, encouraged by the buoyant wool industry, decided to follow other Victorian pastoralists moving into North West Queensland.
Joseph and his sons, William and John sailed to Rockhampton, bought horses and equipment and travelled overland to Port Denison where they arrived in February 1862. On arrival at the port Joseph, finding that the entire land north to Rockingham Bay and along the Burdekin Valley had been selected, decided to explore the area west of the Burdekin.
During a two month exploration trip the Hanns selected ten runs on the plateau country west of the Burdekin. Joseph Hann described the runs as "fine sheep country, lagoons, waterholes, beautiful volcanic tablelands".
Joseph and his sons returned south to sell their Victorian property. However, before they could purchase sufficient sheep for the stations the market was drained of stock as a result of the demand created by pastoralists heading north and by the demand for meat on the Victorian gold fields. In order to fulfil the stocking requirements of their lease Joseph and William travelled to the Darling Downs where they purchased 1800 head of cattle.
The Hanns arrived with their stock at Bluff Downs in February 1863 after an epic overland journey of six months. During the next two years they were occupied with establishing their stations. Despite their venture into beef, wool production was still a priority so Joseph began replacing cattle with sheep at the earliest opportunity. The decision to restock with sheep was probably a sound one, made for practical reasons. Unlike other pastoral products wool could be stored without spoiling and was relatively light to transport, while meat, the principal product of cattle could not be stored.
In order to finance their pastoral empire, the Hanns had taken three partners into their venture before leaving Victoria. Richard Daintree who worked for the Geology Survey of Victoria and Melbourne financiers Rivett Henry Bland and Edward Klingender. In 1863 Richard Daintree arrived to manage Maryvale Station for the Hanns. He also planned to spend part of his time exploring and surveying.
By 1864 the Hann family began experiencing- the benefits of their pastoral venture. However, that year was to be a sad one for the family. In January Joseph Hann drowned in the Burdekin River while crossing near the small town of Dalrymple. William and the rest of the family continued their pioneering work although Elizabeth Hann did not recover from the shock of her husband's death. Her health declined and she died on 24 June 1864. William and Mary also lost a child, William, in February 1865 on Bluff Downs. Although it is believed that Joseph's body was not recovered after he drowned, Elizabeth and baby William are known to be buried on the bank of the Basalt River below the Bluff Downs Homestead.
Despite the early promise of the land west of the Burdekin, the Hanns found that the country was subject to drought. The mid 1860s were difficult years with drought and a slump in the economy and it wasn't until the discovery of gold, in western Queensland and particularly at Cape River in 1867, that the family could see that their pastoral venture was likely to be successful.
In 1868 Richard Daintree was appointed first government geologist for North Queensland and in 1869 he accepted the position of Queensland Agent General in London. Thus the partnership of Hann, Bland, Daintree and Klingender was dissolved in April 1869.
The dissolution of the Hann & Co partnership was the beginning of several changes in the family's life. Despite the more readily available markets for meat on the recently discovered gold fields, squatters were finding that the raising of sheep was not profitable. By 1870 William Hann and his neighbours had to concede that sheep were quite unsuited to the Kennedy. In November William left Maryvale station with 19,000 sheep. He collected an additional 6,000 head from his neighbours Mitchell and Stenhouse on Niall Station for the long trek to markets in the south. The droving trip was an epic journey, which ended in central Victoria eleven months later.
After the dissolution of the partnership the Hann family decided to consolidate their holdings by purchasing Maryvale outright from the remaining partners while, at the same time, selling their share in Bluff Downs. The Bluff was sold in mid December 1871 after William completed the sale of the sheep from the stations.
After his return from the south in 1872 the Queensland Government asked William to lead an expedition to explore Cape York Peninsula. The party reported on geological phenomena and potential pastoral country while paying particular attention to the search for payable minerals. During the trip gold was found at the Palmer River which led to a rush in 1873. At the height of the rush the Palmer Gold Field had a population of over 30,000, thus creating a new market for the Kennedy squatters which ensured their survival.
After William's remarkable trip south and his successful exploration trip to Cape York the family moved to Maryvale Station and restocked with cattle. Further discoveries of gold in North Queensland and the subsequent opening up of markets for meat in the 1870s ensured that the station became a viable pastoral holding and the Hann family were able to lay the foundations of a pastoral tradition which continues to the present day on Maryvale.
With the consolidation of the family holdings and the years of prosperity following the discovery of gold William found time to make a contribution to the local community. He became a foundation member of the Townsville Hospital Board, the Townsville Race Club and Show Society. He contributed 1000 pound to the construction of St James Cathedral, Townsville and served in local government.
William Hann died at the age of fifty-two in a drowning accident off the Strand, Townsville.
","criteria":"The Hann Family Grave, situated on Bluff Downs Station the pastoral home of the Hann family, is a memorial to three members of the pioneering Hann family who arrived in the Kennedy District of North Queensland during the first years of European settlement. Joseph Hann and his sons William and John were leading figures in the process of exploration and pastoral settlement in the Kennedy Region of north Queensland. William, commissioned by the Queensland Government in the 1870s, led an exploration trip to Cape York during which he discovered gold on the Palmer River. Early pastoralist and explorer William Hann, son of Joseph and Elizabeth and father of baby William, became a prominent member of the North Queensland community.
|The Hann Family Grave, situated on Bluff Downs Station the pastoral home of the Hann family, is a memorial to three members of the pioneering Hann family who arrived in the Kennedy District of North Queensland during the first years of European settlement. Joseph Hann and his sons William and John were leading figures in the process of exploration and pastoral settlement in the Kennedy Region of north Queensland. William, commissioned by the Queensland Government in the 1870s, led an exploration trip to Cape York during which he discovered gold on the Palmer River. Early pastoralist and explorer William Hann, son of Joseph and Elizabeth and father of baby William, became a prominent member of the North Queensland community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16527,"place_ref":601790,"name":"Cairns Wharf Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wharf Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-12-17","description":"The Cairns Wharves and associated structures are bordered by Wharf Street to the west and the waters of Trinity Inlet to the east. Located to the north and south of the site are various structures associated with maritime activities. The Cairns Wharfage Complex site includes concrete wharves 2 and 3; wharf sheds 2 and 3 and the clock tower above shed 3; White's (sugar) shed; an electrical shop; an amenities hall; a cargo crane; concrete roadways; railway tracks; and number 2 gate, flagpole and planters.
CONCRETE WHARVES:
The concrete wharves are part of the actively utilised wharf facilities in this part of the Cairns waterfront.
The wharf is decked in reinforced concrete which forms an integral part of the structure. The deck edge is marked by a discontinuous wooden beam. A series of concrete sections measuring about 3 metres long are immediately adjacent to the beam and extend the length of the wharf. The concrete sections are interrupted at regular intervals by metal boxes containing power points. Water taps are present at regular intervals, and plumbing, electrical conduits, and compressed air pipes are affixed to the underside of the wharf. Mooring irons are mounted to the deck surface behind the concrete buffers. A variety of types of mooring irons are present.
NUMBERS 2 AND 3 WHARF SHEDS, CLOCK TOWER AND CARGO CRANE:
The number 2 and 3 wharf sheds are long, rectangular buildings, clad with corrugated sheeting. The structures have truss-framed roofs with support posts along the long edges and down the centre. The walls have timber rails spanning between the posts and numerous door and window openings within the framing. Like the walls, the roofs are clad with corrugated sheeting. Aside from clearly modern replacement sections, the wall cladding - much of which is affixed with lead-head nails of various sizes - appears to be the original.
The buildings are in good condition, particularly given their age, location. exposure and past industrial usage. However the framing at the southern end of number 3 wharf shed exhibits signs of accelerated deterioration due to exposure to the weather. The covered area between the number 2 and number 3 wharf sheds appears to remain in a condition similar to that when it was originally constructed.
The loading dock behind number 2 wharf shed is largely intact and consists of an array of heavily maintained timber and concrete piles supporting a concrete deck. It is aligned perpendicular to the railway tracks. The loading dock remnant existing behind number 3 wharf shed consists of rectangular, round, or half-round decking support timbers placed on log or concrete piers. This loading dock also has a concrete deck.
The southern end of the wharf shed number 3 is surmounted by a clock tower. A clock face is located on all four sides of the tower. The tower is capped with a pyramidal roof and weather vane. A door providing internal access to the clock is located on the northern wall of the tower. Vents are located on all sides of the tower, close to the base. The clock appears to be in good working order and still chimes on the hour.
The number 2 wharf shed is currently used as the Cairns cruise ship terminal. Number 3 wharf shed contains storage areas for the Port Authority, storage for other shipping operators, and offices for the Customs Service.
The cargo crane is present at the end of the loading dock attached to the rear of number 2 wharf shed. The crane is mounted on a large 12-sided concrete base. The crane's I-beam jibs are stamped "NORMAN LONG AND CO LD/MIDDLESBROUGH/ENGLAND". The hoist consists of a cargo hook suspended by a steel cable. The cable winding drum is timber and largely intact. A commemorative bronze plaque is installed at the base of the crane.
WHITE'S SUGAR SHED:
White's Shed is a large timber-and-iron structure situated behind number 4 wharf (not included in the listing boundary) and immediately southwest of the existing number 3 wharf shed. The building consists of the original section measuring approximately 63 metres long (oriented parallel to the wharf) and 22 metres wide, and the post-1976 addition. The cladding on the two sections overlap somewhat, and the complete width of the existing shed is about 38 metres. A fence encloses the immediate surrounds to the northern side of the shed.
The basic structure of White's Shed appear to be largely intact, including much of the sugar bag stacking apparatus on the ceiling. However, the portions of the sugar conveyor located outside of the shed are no longer extant.
White's Shed is timber framed. Thirteen transverse frames support the roof, which are in turn linked by a ridge beam, purlins and girts, a wall top plate, and diagonal wall braces. Large double doors are present in the ends of the building and central on the east and west walls. These doors are supported by I-beams. The roof is gabled and has a ventilated ridge. A complex system of conveyors and hopper chutes for the delivery of sugar bags is present attached to the ceiling of the structure. The building's wall and roof cladding is of recently-installed corrugated sheeting. A secure room is present along the inside of the north wall.
A recent building report and contamination assessment revealed that the structural integrity of the building has been compromised by termites, and that a low level of heavy metals contamination is present.
ELECTRICAL SHOP:
The Electrical Shop consists of a brick structure located immediately north of White's Shed. The building measures approximately 20 metres long and 12 metres wide, and has an 8 metre by 4 metre shed in the rear (west) yard. The building is currently the Cairns Port Authority's Social Club.
The building's walls are cavity brick. The structure was constructed on a concrete slab and covered by a gabled roof. Five 4-paned windows extend down the northern side of the building. The windows are constructed with concrete lintels and sills. Four windows extend down the eastern end. A boarded-over attic window is also present. The south side of the building is marked by loading doors and four windows and this area is landscaped and modified for social functions. The western end of the building is marked by large access doors, a window, a doorway, and an attic window.
The shed at the rear of the building consists of a brick section and a section covered in iron cladding. This shed currently contains the compressor installed in 1955. This machinery continues to supply compressed air to the wharves.
The Electrical Shop is not of cultural heritage significance.
AMENITIES HALL:
The Amenities Hall consists of a timber-framed structure located immediately north of the Electrical Shop. The building measures about 28 metres long and 8 metres wide, and has a small 2 metre by 2 metre structure added to the rear. The building houses the collections of the Maritime Archaeological Association of Far North Queensland.
The building is a timber framed, gable-roofed structure placed on a concrete slab. The wall cladding consists of angular-rebated chamferboards. The original asbestos roof is in place. A loading door is present in the front (east) end of the building. The north and south walls of the building are symmetrically arranged with three double doors and five 6-paned windows down each side. Three 3-paned windows are present on the addition at the building's rear (west) end. Some of the original tables and benches, and the toiletries block are still in place.
The Amenities Hall is not of cultural heritage significance.
NUMBER 2 GATE, FLAGPOLE AND PLANTERS:
The ornamental gateposts at the number 2 gate are still in their original locations. The gateway consists of an entrance and exit lane separated by a concrete ornamental wall measuring about 2.5 metres wide and 4 metres tall. A concrete post flanks each side of the wall, and two gate hooks are affixed to each post. An ornamental coping is present on top of the wall. Low-relief Art Deco-style ornamentations are present on the wall faces, posts, and coping. Two matching single concrete posts are present on the opposite side of the entrance and exit lanes. These are also affixed with gate hooks, indicating that the original gates were double-hung and latched in the middle. The gates themselves are no longer present.
The entrance and exit lanes inside the wharf compound are separated by a concrete-bordered garden bed. A flagpole base is present behind the entrance wall at the western end of the garden bed.
Only the concrete gateway and side posts are deemed to be of cultural heritage significance. The concrete planter and flagpole are not culturally significant.
CONCRETE ROADWAYS:
The western edge of the 1945 concrete roadway is still visible, but the remainder is apparently underneath recent bitumen. Concrete U-shaped guttering is visible in front of the Amenities Hall and the Electrical Workshop, and may date to the original installation of the concrete roadway.
The concrete roadway presumably dating to 1946 consists of the entrance and exit lanes at the number 2 gate. The lane on the south side is pitched down the middle to ensure water drains to either side.
The concrete roadways are not of cultural heritage significance.
HARBOUR BOARD STORE FOUNDATION:
Concrete slabs are present in the parking area immediately north of the number 2 gate roadway. The southernmost of these borders a landscaped area adjacent to the roadway on the south and merges with the 1945 roadway on the east. The western edge angles southwest towards the northern gate post. The outline of the northern edged of the slab is marked by two angular "bays". The northernmost slab consists of a strip of concrete extending east-west about 14 metres north of the first slab. The intervening area is now covered with bitumen, by 20 low "humps" are discernible. These are the remains of concrete support piers arranged in a block measuring 5 piers by 4 piers. These piers mark the location of the "Cairns Harbour Board Store" or "Beer Shed".
The Harbour Board Store foundation is not of cultural heritage significance.
RAILWAY TRACKS:
Portions of two sets of tracks are visible. The portion of the first set within the area consists of a single set of double-rail tracks extending from the loading dock behind number 1 wharf southwards to the loading dock at the rear of number 3 wharf. The track extends past the original fixed 10-ton Cargo Crane behind the number 2 wharf. The tracks change from double-railed to single-railed near the southern end of the number 3 wharf loading dock.
A short section of the second railway tracks is still in place approximately 6 metres west of the number 2 gate. Two sets of tracks spaced 3 metres apart are present in this location. Both sets are double-railed.
AMENITIES HALL PARK:
Two concrete-bordered planters are present along the northern edge of the park. These planters are similar to the one currently located between the two vehicle lanes which pass through the number 2 gate.
The Amenities Hall Park is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Cairns was established by Europeans as a port in the second half of the nineteenth century. European passengers and government officials landed at Trinity inlet on 3 October 1876, and the inlet was subsequently declared a port of entry and clearance on 1 November that year. The township of Cairns was surveyed in late 1876. The impetus for the establishment of the port came largely from the newly-established Hodgkinson goldfields.
Upon settlement, rudimentary port facilities were constructed. These initially consisted of timber jetties with piles built out across the mud and mangroves to boats moored in deeper water. Most had an attached shed. Better facilities quickly replaced these early structures as they wore out or simply fell down. Generally these were privately constructed by shipping and trading companies such as Howard Smith, Burns Philp and AUSN. The town, including shops, hotels, warehouses, banks, the customs house and other government offices developed around the port area.
In 1884, Cairns was selected as the rail terminus for the Herberton tin fields and construction of the rail line west was begun. This assisted the fortunes of the port and in effect secured the future of the town. A timber railway wharf was built in 1886, connecting the wharf directly to the rail line into the hinterland. The other early northern port settlements of Cooktown and Port Douglas dwindled as a result of Cairns' railway connection. Each had previously threatened the position of Cairns as a port in the north.
In 1906 the Cairns Harbour Board was instituted, chiefly to commission and oversee improvements to the port. The private wharves were progressively acquired by the harbour board and by 1915 it owned all the wharves. Regular dredging of the channel was carried out, allowing larger vessels to enter the port after 1912.
Soon after taking over control of the Cairns wharves, the Harbour Board began planning for an extensive new system of wharfage extending along the shoreline in one unbroken length. The wharves were to be built in stages of reinforced concrete to the plans of Gummow Forest and Co of Sydney. Supervision of the project was given to Edward Gregory Waters, the Harbour Board's Chief Engineer. E.G. Waters worked as an architect, surveyor and engineer at various locations in north Queensland from 1890, working in Cairns from 1909 until 1917. In 1910 construction started on the first wharf, 300 feet in length, at the end of Lake Street (number 3 wharf). This wharf was finished by 1912. Further stages were commenced shortly after, and by 1915 there was an unbroken frontage of 1200 feet of concrete wharves in Cairns. In the early 1920s, loans totalling £50 000 allowed the harbour board to further extend the wharves, and by 1925 the concrete wharves were 1500 feet long. A railway was extended along the front of the wharf. By the end of the 1920s another concrete wharf with rail approach and shed was erected, separate from the others on the other side of Lily Creek. It was initially known as number 6 wharf, and later number 8 wharf. Cairns was the first port in Queensland to adopt reinforced concrete wharves to any extent.
Cairns introduced a mechanical system of handling bagged sugar in the mid 1920s, one of the first Queensland ports to do so. A storage shed was constructed as part of this system, capable of storing 6000 to 7500 tons of sugar. It later became known as "White's Shed".
Sheds were constructed on top of the main wharves to accommodate goods waiting for export or to be distributed around the town. One shed was built for each of the five berths. The sheds at berths 1-3 were joined together in one continuous line; sheds 4-5 were built as one long structure. In 1938 the Cairns Harbour Board produced a handbook, detailing its activities in the port. This handbook described the wharfage facilities at Cairns as comprising of some 1 900 linear feet of reinforced concrete wharves, with six "airy spacious sheds having floor space of 89 020 square feet", as well as the shed for sugar storage. Electric and hand powered cranes were also built at the rear of the wharves to lift heavy goods onto ships.
During World War II Cairns was the centre of a great deal of activity. At the port, the wharves were extended again in 1943 to create six continuous berths, and a shed was built and became number 6 shed. Also during the 1940s, a building was constructed for the Waterside Workers, for use as an amenities hall. It housed lunch and meeting rooms, showers and toilets. This building was located on the western side of Wharf Street between Lake and Grafton Streets. It was demolished in the 1990s. In 1942, extensions were made to number 5 wharf with a new shed being erected.
A clock tower above number 3 shed was constructed in 1948. It was reported in the 1948 Annual Report of the Cairns Harbour Board "[t]he electric striking clock was long felt want, particularly on the water-front". The Cairns Post carried a photo of the clock on its front page on 23 September 1948 with the caption that it "is a valuable asset to the port". The clock was manufactured by A.L. Franklin of Sydney at a final cost of £900. Access to the clock mechanism was originally achieved via a ladder on the roof of the shed. Subsequently a hole was cut in the office immediately below the clock making it easier to periodically change the car battery.
Many hundreds of people have been employed on the waterfront in Cairns over the years. Most working activity at the Cairns wharves has shifted upstream to newer wharf developments, including the bulk sugar terminals, built in the 1960s. These earlier wharves are used mainly for recreational vessels and passenger liners, but not to the capacity or extent that they were used in the past.
CONCRETE WHARVES:
Replacement of the timber wharves with concrete ones proceeded progressively starting in about 1910. This commenced with the manufacture of 67 concrete piles and foundation dredging. Plans were for each section of the wharf to be 300 feet long by 90 feet wide with a shed 240 feet long by 60 feet wide built directly onto each wharf. Reclamation was to take place behind the sea wall at the back of the wharf with mud from the dredge stiffened with the stone and mullock from the range railway after slips took place. The number 3 wharf was erected by 1912, number two wharf opened in 1913, and in 1914 the old number 4 wharf and buildings were demolished and replaced with a concrete wharf.
A photograph is available of the number 4 wharf during this reconstruction phase. The piles are reinforced concrete and the upper ends were apparently poured in-place in stages around four vertical iron rods. The iron reinforcing rods in the vertical posts were designed to interlock with the reinforcing rods in the concrete deck supports. Eight piles were placed between the sea wall area and the seaward edge of the wharf. Substantial wooden formwork was necessary to construct the reinforced concrete superstructure to support the decking.
The Harbour Board purchased the timber number 1 wharf in 1915, and replaced this with a concrete wharf within a year. The number 5 wharf was constructed in 1925 and was the entry/exit point for railway lines extending onto the wharf deck. Plans indicate that the number 5 wharf's deck had two pairs of railway tracks which merged at the junction with the number 4 wharf. The tracks curved onto the wharf deck at the southern end of the number 5 wharf, and the corner of the wharf was truncated parallel to this curve.
Number 6 wharf was completed in 1942 by the Allied Works Council. The design employed in constructing this wharf differed markedly to that used to construct numbers 1 to 5.: number 6 wharf was built with timber, supplemented with reinforced concrete.
NUMBERS 2 AND 3 WHARF SHEDS, CLOCK TOWER AND CARGO CRANE:
The Wharf Sheds were constructed at various stages throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
The first to be built were numbers 2 and 3 wharf cargo sheds, constructed on the decks of the concrete wharves. The number 3 wharf was constructed in 1912, and it is suspected that the number 3 wharf shed was constructed in late 1912 or early 1913. The number 2 wharf was constructed in 1912-1913, and the original sheds on the old timber wharf were retained as long as possible prior to being demolished in 1913. The number 2 wharf shed was constructed soon after this demolition. The numbers 2 and 3 sheds were connected by a continuous roof by 1925 and probably earlier. Much of the infrastructure related to the number 2 and 3 sheds was constructed in about 1913, including the nearby railway tracks and two 10-ton cranes adjacent to the tracks and immediately behind sheds 1 and 2. Loading platforms were constructed behind number 2 wharf shed by 1925. The wharf sheds were elevated above the surrounding dock land and wharves. This raised configuration of wharf sheds was considered to be state-of-the-art design which allowed easy loading and unloading of goods to and from railway cars and into the storage sheds (facilitated by wharf shed platforms that aligned to the height of the rail cars). An "awning" was installed to the rear of the number 2 wharf shed in 1942. The wharf shed roofs were cleaned and repainted in 1947, and the whole of the roof cladding was replaced in 1954. The northern end of the number 2 wharf shed is referred to as the "old engine room" on a 1978 plan.
A clock tower was added to the end of the number 3 wharf shed in 1947-1948. On 14 September 1948, the Cairns Post included the following details of the clock:
\tThe four dials are each six feet in diameter and are driven by a single central unit. They \tcannot show a different time on each face.
\tThe bell weighs half a ton, is three feet in diameter and is struck by a 20 pound hammer.
\tThe clock is operated electrically, but does not depend on the continuity of the mains. \tTimekeeping is kept by a pendulum weighing 100 lbs., which pushes the mechanism \tround with a force capable of overcoming all normal obstacles, yet it is so delicately \tpowered that it takes only a fraction of the current an ordinary electric torch would \tconsume.
\tThe only part of the clock which would stop if electricity failed would be the bell, \toperated by a one quarter horse power motor directly connected to the mains. As soon \tas current is restored it will pick up the correct hour automatically. It is intended to \tsilence the chimes between mid-night and 5.30 a.m.
\tThere are 27 gear wheels in the clock and about 30 bal bearings, which are heavy \tenough for hundreds of years of wear.
\tMr Franklin says that the clock is similar to that designed and installed by him for the \tTownsville Harbour Board in 1940 and others he has constructed during the last 25 \tyears, though each successive clock has incorporated some refinement in design.
Throughout the interwar years, a shed was built for each of the other berths. The sheds at berths 1-3 were joined together in one continuous line; and sheds 4-5 were built as one long structure. In 1943, shed number 6 was constructed.
In more recent times, viewing platforms were installed above the original roof line of number 2 wharf shed. The platforms were used as part of the terminal facilities for overseas passengers. These platforms were removed sometime in 1998 or 1999.
In 1984, number 1 wharf shed was demolished as part of the Trinity Wharf development, and in the 1990s number 4 wharf shed was demolished to provide greater wharf space. Wharf sheds 5 and 6 have also been demolished.
WHITE'S SHED:
The sugar storage shed was constructed in 1923. An electrical conveyor system was installed in the shed to move sugar bags to and from ships' holds and railway wagons, and was fully operational by 1926. The system consisted of an inclined covered conveyor extending from railway tracks on the west side of the shed up to the shed's roofline. This conveyor provided the linkage with the wharf railway system. A complicated set of conveyors and chutes was built into the roof of the sugar shed, and this system was used to stack bagged sugar at a rate of up to 80 tons per hour. A second conveyor extended between the roof of the sugar shed eastwards to the roof of number 4 wharf shed. This conveyor joined another in a T-configuration on the eastern side of the wharf shed's roof. The overhead conveyors from White's Shed to number 3 wharf were reconstructed in 1946, while maintenance and repairs to both "shore and floating plant" were made in 1947. The 27 year old facility was apparently modernised during the overhaul. Two travelling gantry cranes moved up and down the number 4 wharf's edge, loading and unloading the sugar bags into ship's holds via a set of conveyors mounted on the gantry cranes and connected to the T-conveyor.
Electric travelling cranes were located immediately adjacent to the northern end and western side of the building during this era. These cranes moved "sinker" logs from the railway tracks to the edge of the wharf between the numbers 3 and 4 wharf sheds.
The usefulness of the shed and log handling machinery declined in the late 1950s, and White's Shed was no longer in operation after the bulk sugar terminal was established at Portsmith in 1964. At this new terminal, huge volumes of sugar could be stored and delivered directly into the holds of ships, without needing to be packed into bags or other containers. This new method of sugar handling reduced significantly the wharf labour force for sugar. The sinker log crane on the west side of the shed was sold in 1959 and was later used at Rankine's Peeramon Mill, near Lake Eacham on the Atherton Tablelands, where it currently resides. The disused White's Shed was subsequently leased to mining companies, perhaps as early as the 1960s. The shed was used to store copper concentrate from the Red Dome mine between 1993 and 1997, and was leased to the Dianne Copper Mine prior to this. The name "White's Shed" derives from this period.
THE ELECTRICAL SHOP:
The existing electrical shop building is situated in the former location of the harbour workshops. The original workshops contained the fitter's and turner's shop and the blacksmith shop. This building was apparently demolished in about 1940, and the existing brick structure was built in this location in 1951. The rear shed was built and/or modified in 1967.
The existing building was used to supply power to the wharves, and as an electrical workshop. During its years as a powerhouse, the building contained a compressor, an emergency power generator, and transformers. A compressor was installed in 1955 to supply air to the wharves, and it was in this year that electrical workshop equipment was installed. The workshop maintained 21 cranes, fork lifts, and two stevedoring units. The workshop was still in use by 1958 and possibly later.
AMENTITIES HALL:
The Amenities Hall was built in 1954 for the Waterside Workers Federation. The rear structure addition is possibly a "septic block" installed in 1956. The 1954 plan of the building shows the arrangement of the amenities, with the front two-thirds of the building filled with tables and the rear containing the amenities themselves.
The building has housed collections of the Maritime Archaeological Association of Far North Queensland since 1988. A loading door is present in the front end of the building, and was reportedly added after 1988 so that large maritime artefacts could be easily moved into the structure.
NUMBER 2 GATE, FLAGPOLE AND PLANTERS:
A 1942 map of the wharf complex shows four traffic gates to the wharf complex fronting Wharf Street. It is suspected that these gateways were in place since the early history of the wharves. The number 2 gateposts at the number 2 gate are still in their original locations.
An octagonal three-tiered flagpole base was present at the eastern end of the existing garden bed. The flagpole base was concrete, and each tier was of decreasing diameter and height. The edge was bevelled. The base measured 1.2 metres across and 0.3 metres high, and the flagpole was once affixed by four bolts. This base was removed during maintenance activities in March 1999. Another flagpole base was constructed in July 1953.
CONCRETE ROADWAYS:
Concrete roadways were constructed on the reclaimed land behind numbers 1, 2 and 3 wharves in 1945 and 1946. The roads constructed in 1945 extended behind the wharves from number 1 to number 6 and the remainder of the concrete roads were presumably constructed in 1946.
HARBOUR BOARD STORE:
The Cairns Harbour Board Store (no longer extant) is clearly visible in 1920-1930 and 1940 aerial photographs of the area. The building was originally a bond store used by Customs to house beer, alcohol, and tobacco. The floor reportedly had a steel floor during this period to prevent theft. In recent years the building housed Coxen Chemicals (a detergent manufacturer) and Rothfire Pty Ltd (a prawn merchant). The building was either moved in the last decade to the modern workshop area or was demolished to make way for the bitumen carpark.
RAILWAY TRACKS:
Several railway tracks were laid at the Cairns wharves. The existing railway lines were laid at approximately the same time as the concrete wharves. One section of the line supported a 10-ton travelling crane, and another section, a travelling crane used to sort and load logs onto the parallel railway tracks.
Rail links with the Cairns hinterland were a key element of the success of Cairns as the regional port and consequently, as a viable town.
AMENITIES HALL PARK:
The park north of the Amenities Hall was once the location of several small structures. A 1942 plan of the area indicates that the "Pay Office" and a "Kiosk", both built in c. 1930 were present in the park area at that time. A "Tally Clerk's" office, built in c. 1930 was adjacent to the railway line behind the wharves. These buildings were apparently replaced by two small sheds prior to 1967, and the small sheds were themselves removed between 1972 and 1975.
","criteria":"The Cairns Wharf Complex is of importance in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as it represents an important stage of development of Queensland and Australian wharf facilities dating from 1909 to 1942. The wharves are among the earliest Australian attempts to introduce the medium of reinforced concrete into wharf construction. The construction of number 6 wharf in 1942 demonstrates the importance of Cairns as a centre for Pacific forces during World War II, and its timber and reinforced concrete construction reflects war-time expediency. The wharf-side cargo sheds, numbers 2 and 3, are the most visible surviving remnant of the Cairns waterfront development in the early 1900s. The cargo crane is the last remaining crane from the earliest period of the wharf's history in the 1910s, and helps to convey a sense of the industrial maritime history of the wharves. White's (Sugar) Shed is a place which demonstrates an evolutionary stage of the North Queensland sugar industry and wharf practices dating to the 1920s through 1950s. The closure of the shed to sugar handling in the early 1960s was the result of the opening of Cairns bulk sugar terminal at Portsmith in 1964. The opening of the bulk terminals reduced significantly the wharf labour force required for the handling of sugar. The railway lines demonstrate the importance of rail links in establishing Cairns as the dominant regional port in far North Queensland, and consequently, as a viable town. The railway lines are also integral to an understanding of the operation of the wharves, with wharf shed platforms that aligned to the height of the rail cars.
|The Cairns wharf sheds, numbers 2 and 3 and White's (Sugar) Shed, demonstrate rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as surviving wharf sheds are becoming increasingly rare throughout Australia as coastal cities revitalise their waterfront areas. White's shed, with its remnant bag-stacking machinery, is the only known example of this type of structure existing in Queensland and Australia, and as such also demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The remnant bag-stacking machinery located in White's shed has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history. Since records of the sugar bag conveyance apparatus have disappeared in the years since abandonment of the system, the intact features along the roof of the structure's interior offer insights which are only available through study of this physical feature.
|The number 2 and 3 wharf sheds are important in demonstrating the principle characteristics of a wharf-side cargo handling structure.
|The Cairns wharves site is important because of its aesthetic significance as the wharves, number 2 gate, White's shed and wharf sheds, numbers 2 and 3, including the clock tower, contribute to the streetscape of inner-city Cairns. The wharves run at right angles to the main city streets of Cairns, terminating the long views down Abbott, Lake and Grafton streets south. These views are framed by the mountains and mangroves behind and across Trinity Inlet. The clock tower is particularly of aesthetic significance as a local landmark.
|The concrete wharves are important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in the early twentieth century. The use of reinforced concrete for wharf construction represents one of the earliest Australian attempts to introduce this material for wharf construction.
|The Cairns wharves, sheds 2 and 3 and White's (Sugar) Shed, number 2 gate and clock tower have a special association with the Cairns community as physical evidence of the city's history and sense of identity. The clock tower affixed to the roof of the number 3 wharf shed has provided a focus for this identity, and has functioned as the city's and wharf's timepiece since 1948.
|The place has a special association with the work of the early Cairns Harbour Board. The wharves and sheds offer a physical reminder of the importance of the Board in establishing the maritime focus of the city and the development of the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16528,"place_ref":601791,"name":"Coolgarra Battery","alternate_name":"Coolgarra Old Furnace","street_address":"Coolgarra Station","suburb":"MOUNT GARNET","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"The remains of the Coolgarra Battery are located in a steep sided valley in hilly country to the north-east of Mt Garnet. Derwent Creek runs through the valley, this creek is ephemeral.
The Coolgarra Battery site comprises a series of benches extending down the northwest slope of the valley. A tall, redbrick chimney with a brick flue is the main feature of the site. This is one of only two brick chimneys surviving in the Herberton area (the other one being the Rocky Bluff Battery 15 km north-west of Herberton). The flue runs from the chimney to the boiler house site below the stamp battery. An old road curves to the northeast above the mullock heap. An earth ramp supported by bush timber posts has been built below the mullock heap. Below the ramp is a bush timber ore bin frame. Below this a stone retaining wall supports the bench where the stamp battery was located. There are concrete engine mounts and stamper foundations on the stamp battery. Another extensive stone retaining wall, which originally extended for over 110 metres, supports the main bench where the boiler house was located - 70 metres of this wall is still extant. Below this retaining wall several more earth benches support the concentration plant site and other infrastructure. The body of a return-tube boiler lies on the banks of the creek below the battery, this is not in situ. There is a considerable amount of iron debris lying around on the slope below the boiler house site, this includes iron tanks and wheels. An iron chute runs down the eastern side of the site, below an ore dump.
","history":"The Coolgarra Battery is situated on Derwent Creek, 15 kilometres north-east of Mount Garnet. The battery was constructed in 1901 by John Moffat's Irvinebank Company. When built, it was a modern plant utilising the best and most labour-saving designs. The battery was built to service the adjacent alluvial and lode tin fields. Its location was chosen for its ability to provide an almost inexhaustible supply of water needed to operate the battery.
In 1882 James Venture Mulligan, prospecting at the headwaters of Return and Emu Creeks, made discoveries of alluvial and lode tin which started rushes to the district. At Return Creek, a tributary of the Herbert River, many shafts were sunk on the lode claims and, although no underground workings had begun, mining companies became interested in the prospects. The rush to Return Creek attracted both local and southern investors and when S.J.Delaney applied, on 5 September 1882, for a machine site on Return Creek this encouraged further tin lode prospecting. People began arriving and settling at Return Creek and the first hotel was built in 1882.
The influx of prospectors and investors to the area created the beginnings of Coolgarra, which became a busy tin mining centre. Coolgarra was surveyed on 9 February 1884 by Peter G. Grant. As tin prices increased, many southern speculators were eager to join Delaney and on 16 April 1883 they formed the Beaconsfield Tin Mining Company with a capital of 25,000 pounds. They planned to erect a battery to crush, not only ore from their own numerous leases, but public stone as well. However, the machinery needed for these works was delayed, firstly in transit and then later in its construction. The Beaconsfield battery did not begin crushing until March of 1884, at the end of the wet season, and the venture failed. During this time, Coolgarra's miners had been sending their ore to John Moffat's batteries at Herberton and Watsonville.
By 1885 Coolgarra was growing, the township with five hotels, and several productive mines. In 1896 John Moffats's Irvinebank Mining Company began building a battery at Coolgarra on the Derwent Creek, a tributary of Return Creek. Extensive preparations were made for crushing and dressing plants and much of the machinery was in place by the end of 1900. The Irvinebank Company's battery, which superseded an earlier small battery erected at Coolgarra by a local man (possibly Dempsey), began crushing in 1901. It was built on the side of a steep sided valley and is believed to be the steepest battery site in North Queensland. Its design incorporated a series of benches and involved the construction of one of the largest and most extensive stone retaining walls connected with a North Queensland mining site. The Irvinebank battery had two log crate dams, the top one known as the Big Dam.
A tramline was laid from the Alhambra mine to the battery. Alhambra was the largest mine operating on the Coolgarra field and was the only mine in the area. Loaded ore trucks ran from the mine down to the mill, while horses hauled the empty trucks back up. Coolgarra's output of tin rose in the years 1901 to 1903, the Alhambra alone producing 20,000 pounds worth of tin in that period. The community had grown from 93 in 1893 to close to 250 in 1903. In that year 8,650 tons of ore were raised and treated but by October of 1903, work was suspended pending financial reconstruction of the company known as Coolgarra Tin Mines Amalgamated. At this stage also, mines were beginning to produce a lower grade ore, which created an overall slow-down.
In 1904 the Mining Warden noted that a period of depression had recently occurred, but felt that a brighter future could be expected for Coolgarra. And indeed, 1906 was said to be one of the better years for the area, with the battery working three shifts a day. However, although small miners and new discoveries kept work going, the larger mines were beginning to slow down. The Irvinebank Company's involvement in the operation of the Coolgarra battery ceased in 1906. A syndicated headed by Fred Taylor kept it operating to about 1910. By 1912 the battery had been dismantled and transported to Koorborra. This handicapped prospectors and led to the decline of the whole area. When the Big Dam collapsed after heavy storms in 1916, only a few prospectors stayed to work the area.
There was a wolfram-led revival in 1911 and in 1918 Bill Craven erected a battery on the foundations of the Irvinebank Company's Coolgarra battery. It operated until about 1928, but nothing of note occurred in the area after that. The site of Coolgarra township was dredged and almost totally erased when the Tableland Tin dredge went through the town site in the late 1970s.
","criteria":"The Coolgarra Battery is significant in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's mining history because it is an example of ore processing in a remote, difficult site.
|The Coolgarra Battery demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as the steepest battery site recorded in North Queensland and one of the largest and most extensive stone retaining walls associated with a North Queensland mining site. In addition, the site has one of only two surviving brick chimneys in the Herberton area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16531,"place_ref":601794,"name":"Cape Cleveland Lightstation","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cape Cleveland","suburb":"CAPE CLEVELAND","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-11-09","description":"The Cape Cleveland Lightstation is located on the northern point of Cape Cleveland, c20 kilometres east of Townsville. The eastern half of the Cape contains the Cape Cleveland National Park, an area of 7810 hectares. The lighthouse was established to mark the northern point of the Cape, and the entrance to Cleveland Bay.
The lighthouse precinct stands at the summit of a steep rocky hill, the plan of the site and the residence fitting in with the undulations of the site. To the north, west and east of the site is the water, with an accessible beach approached by road in a bay to the east of the lightstation. The Cape has a sandy beach, rocky cliffs and areas of lush vegetation in high parts.
The 10.7 metre high lighthouse is circular in plan, with riveted iron plates cladding an internal timber frame. The lantern room is constructed of iron. The domed copper cupola is painted red. The balcony is of cantilevered iron construction supported on brackets with a simple iron railing; several solar panels and antennae have been installed on the balcony.
The two keepers' quarters are timber framed, clad with timber weatherboards, corners and openings are trimmed with timber battens, external timberwork is painted pale green (walls), white and dark green. The door and window frames are timber with paired sash windows, mostly with metal flyscreens. The hipped roof is clad with corrugated fibro cement sheeting with stainless steel gutters and downpipes adjacent to tanks.
The old power house is a reinforced concrete bunker-like building with a rectangular opening and an asphalt-covered roof. A small extension to the east has a shallowly pitched galvanised-iron gable roof, and contains a second entry point. The extension has recently been used as a fowl-house. The new power house with a large metal door to the north-western well.
The garage/workshop is a timber framed building, lined with painted fibro cement sheet It has a gable corrugated fibro cement roof with metal gutters and downpipes. The building has timber-framed louvre windows, timber door frames and doors and timber floors. The workshop/store is of the same type of construction as the garage.
The lightstation also contains several tanks, an observation deck, a helipad, and a tram track, a flag pole, a solar hot water system, concrete foundations of other buildings, a roadway and weather recording equipment.
","history":"Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
By 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander George Poynter Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. In the two years following, due to a lack of funds to spend on marine safety, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights, The issue of coastal lights was not taken up until 25 May 1864, when Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to enquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include..the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
A Select Committee was also appointed by the Legislative Council with the more specific field of reference to enquire into and report upon the requirements of this Colony, under its increasing trade and commerce, as to the provision of additional lighthouses for its coasts and harbors.
The reports of both Select Committees were in agreement regarding the necessity of a light at Sandy Cape. Other points where it was considered that lighthouses were required were at Cape Capricorn on Curtis Island, Point Danger or Cape Byron and Bustard Head [601260]. Lady Elliot Island [601580] and Double Island Point were also among the sites which the Committee indicated as possible suitable sites.
Formal approval for a lighthouse on Cape Cleveland was granted in April 1878 and the Departmet of Public Works called for tenders for the construction of lighthouses on Cape Cleveland and Dent Island in May 1878. By the closing date, 14 June 1878, three tenders for each of the proposed lighthouses with two lightkeeper's cottages had been received.
The prefabricated lighthouse was designed by the office of the Queensland's Colonial Architect Construction was initialy undertaken by WP Clark and completed by John Clark and James Wiseman. Clark agreed to complete the lighthouses and cottages on Cape Cleveland and Dent Island within seven and eight months respectively, however, his contract was eventually transferred to John Clark and James Wiseman, who were to carry on the work under the title of Clark and Wiseman. Following a series of delays, the construction of the tower and cottages on Cape Cleveland and Dent Island were eventually completed in December 1879. A report to the Marine Department's Treasure dated 30th June, 1895, states the initial cost of constructing the Cape Cleveland Lighthouse was £3000, with annual maintenance costs of £279
The original cottages at Cape Cleveland have been replaced in 1953 with timber framed and weatherboard clad buildings. The original lens was replaced in 1956.
Cape Cleveland Lightstation was destaffed in 1987.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1879, the 13th lighthouse constructed by the Queensland government, Cape Cleveland Lightstation occupies an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast and reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales.
Cape Cleveland Lightstation is associated with Commander George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland (1862-1890), a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. During Heath's time twelve major lighthouses were built along the Queensland coast.
Other buildings and structures at Cape Cleveland are historically important because of their associations with World War Two activity on the site. Cape Cleveland was an important observation post, linked to Townsville. Warning of at least one Japanese air raid was provided by the Cape Cleveland post in 1942. The foundations of the radar hut, the ruins of the reinforced concrete powerhouse and the observation platform survive as reminders of this activity.
|The lighthouse is substantially intact, and survives as a good example of a type of lighthouse construction, a round timber-framed tower clad with galvanised iron sheets, unique to Queensland and incorporating Queensland resources. The use of a timber framed building clad in iron was continued throughout the Colonial Period, following the construction of the timber-framed lighthouse on Lady Elliott Island in 1873.
|Cape Cleveland lighthouse has strong aesthetic value. With its white tower capped by a red dome, it makes a dramatic visual statement in the natural landscape.
|Cape Cleveland Lightstation has strong association with lighthouse keepers' and their families who constituted an early maritime community. The area also has the potential to reveal further information about infrastructure associated with the lightstation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16535,"place_ref":601798,"name":"Lady Bowen Hospital Complex (former)","alternate_name":"Queensland Lying-In Hospital | Lady Bowen Hostel | Anzac House and Club | Roma House","street_address":"497-535 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"The Lady Bowen Hospital complex comprises three buildings, situated on the northern side of Wickham Terrace, overlooking Albert Park. The central building is the 1890 hospital, the oldest on the site and the original two storeyed brick Lady Bowen Hospital. To the west is a 1923 two storeyed brick Nurses' Quarters and to the east of the 1890 building is a c1943 timber framed and fibrous sheeting clad building constructed for use as a serviceman's club.
Original Hospital
The 1890 building has a complex plan which essentially comprises a front section which addresses Wickham Terrace and a long rectangular rear ward section running east west and connected to the front via common verandahs and the centrally located internal stair. The division of the two parts of the building indicates the original division between the front-of-house public areas of the hospital and the rear private ward section. The separation of these two sections reflects the fear of the spread of airborne germs.
The hospital is a load bearing structure of rendered brick, with enclosed verandahs of fibrous cement sheeting and glass louvres changing the nature of the façades which assume a less articulated appearance. The building is two storeyed with a basement beneath the rear wing. The corrugated iron clad roof is complex with a series of hips, half hips and tapering hipped projections above the bay windows.
The front wing of the building was constructed as the entrance and to house the public areas of the hospital. This section has a square plan with two double storeyed bay windows articulating the façades. The principal entrance to the building is centrally located on the ground floor of the southern façade of the front wing. The entrance is flanked by segmental arched window openings glazed with three hopper panels. The rear wing is rectangular planned, as expected of early hosptial ward planning with cross ventilation allowed through all intenral rooms.
The northern, rear facade of the building, is lined with a modern steel framed verandah which is linked to the rear verandahs of the adjacent buildings on the site. This facade is lined with early timber framed window openings and early doors, with some more recent penetrations.
Internally, the original hospital retains much of its 1890s character, with plaster rendered walls, plaster detailing, timber boarded floors and plaster rendered ceilings concealed by a suspended grid ceiling system. The basement floor of the building has concrete floors, rendered brick walls and, in some rooms, ripple iron clad ceilings. The internal stair is located between the front core of the building and the rear wing and is a substantial nineteenth century concrete structure with extant stair window and balustrading.
Former Nurses' Quarters
The 1923 Nurses' Quarters is a substantial two storeyed building comprising a rendered brick wing facing Wickham Terrace from the rear of which runs a long rectangular planned wing, flanked by verandahs to the east and west. The building is designed in the Arts and Crafts idiom with overscaled classical features.
The front wing is constructed to the line of the Wickham Terrace footpath and has a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. On the ridge line of this section of the roof is a substantial eight sided timber framed fleche with pyramidal roof. The eaves of the roof overhang the walls and are lined with timber boards.
This front section of the building is constructed from brick on reinforced concrete foundations. The external elevations of this section of the building are divided into two sections, giving external expression to the internal floor levels. The lower part of the elevation, originally face brick and now painted is capped with a ceramic tiled string course. The upper section is rendered with roughcast stucco. The façade of the building is symmetrically composed around a central round arched opening giving access to a recessed porch. The arch is surrounded by brick voussoirs, a large rendered keystone and several more regularly spaced overscaled rendered voussoirs. Flanking the archway on the ground floor are two vertical hung sash windows with timber framed and mullioned glass panels. These openings are surmounted by a brick header and rendered keystone and have concrete rendered sills. Similar openings line the eastern and western side walls of this section of the building. The upper level of the front façade of the building is lined with three window openings, which are also repeated on the side walls. These openings are fitted with vertical hung sash windows and sit on the line of the first floor string course, and have no decorative mouldings. The rear of the building has a discrete hipped roof, also clad with corrugated iron sheeting, the verandahs to the east and west are infilled.
General the interior comprises concrete slab floor, rendered brick walls and partitions and fibrous sheeted ceilings housed in a decorative timber grid like system. The skirtings and cornices throughout the buildings are rendered concrete and simple in execution.
C1943 Building
This two storeyed buildings sits on the corner of Wickham Terrace and Robert Street and has an T shaped plan. The building is timber framed and clad with fibrous-sheeting, which in some areas has been vandalised creating holes. The shallow pitched, half-hipped roof is clad with corrugated iron. The building is lined with discrete timber framed windows glazed with arctic glass.
The principal entrance to this building on the western end of the southern facade and is through a single half glazed door. This entrance is emphasised externally by a panel of glazing which extends upward over the two storeys of the building and also serves to light the internal stair well which is positioned here. To the north , rear of the building is a brick service wing which houses bathroom and kitchen facilities internally.
Internally this building is lined with fibrous cement sheeting on the walls and ceilings throughout. The outer edges of the ceilings taper downwards creating a substantial cornice feature. The proliferation of windows throughout the building contribute to naturally well lit and ventilated interior spaces. The stair hall is a dog leg timber stair with balustrade clad with fibrous sheeting.
","history":"The former Lady Bowen Hospital, on Wickham Terrace is a complex of three buildings, the earliest of which was constructed as the second purpose built home of the Brisbane Lying-In Hospital in 1889-90. In 1938 the Lady Bowen Hospital was superseded by the Brisbane Women's Hospital and the site on Wickham Terrace was leased for a variety of purposes. The buildings are currently occupied by various arts related organisations.
\nDuring the nineteenth century childbirth frequently resulted in the death of mother and or baby. Usually, babies were delivered in the family home with the assistance of midwives, of varying degrees of experience and training. During the time of the penal settlement, care for those women who could not afford the expense of a midwife, was available from the female prison, firstly located in Queen Street and later at Eagle Farm. Following the closure of this, destitute women were unable to find medical attention during childbirth until the formation of the Queensland Lying-In Hospital in 1864.
\nA committee was formed for the establishment of a lying-in hospital following a report in The Brisbane Courier of 16 August 1864 requesting those interested in the establishment of such an institution to attend a meeting at the Armoury on 19 August at 4.00pm. The committee formed as a result of this meeting lobbied the colonial government of the time for partial funding, under the provisions Hospitals Act 1862 which allowed funding to be used to assist the establishment of hospitals. Previously Queensland hospitals were established solely by public donation. The colonial government, under Governor Bowen allocated £500 toward the establishment of the first public lying-in hospital.
\nFrom the outset, the Ladies' Committee of the Lying-In Hospital sought to achieve three aims: firstly to improve midwifery standards in the state, secondly to change community attitudes toward accepting childbirth in hospitals and thirdly to promote moral reform in unwed mothers. To achieve the first aim, the training of midwives was conducted from the earliest days of the hospital in the 1860s.
\nOn 1 September 1864, a joint committee of ladies and gentlemen or the proposed Lying-In Hospital was held to consider the objectives of the new hospital. At this meeting a Ladies' Committee was appointed in which the management of the institution was vested and comprising the wives of many early prominent Brisbane citizens. The Ladies Committee were supported by a men's committee who provided advice and reference as required. The hospital, officially called, the Queensland Lying-In Hospital was, opened on 2 November 1864 in a house, Fairview, in Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill. This was described in an advertisement in the Brisbane Courier as having six large rooms, detached kitchen and servant's room, with tank and yard. The Ladies' Committee rented Fairview for £120 per annum.
\nThe hospital remained in this rented accommodation in Leichhardt Street until 1866 when the Lying-In Hospital was moved to a new purpose designed building in Ann Street, between Edward and Albert Street and adjacent to the Servants' Home (now known as the School of Arts). This was an eight roomed building with beds for twelve patients and ancillary rooms. In late 1867, this building was renamed the Lady Bowen Lying-In Hospital in recognition of the wife of Governor George Bowen, Lady Diamantina Roma Bowen. During her life in Queensland, Lady Bowen was an avid participant and organiser of charitable and social activities.
\nThe Lady Bowen Lying-In Hospital remained in Ann Street for about twenty-five years until 1889 when a larger hospital was built, on the outskirts of the central business area of Brisbane and overlooking Albert Park. A bill was passed in parliament to allow for the sale of the hospital in Ann Street to allow the Ladies' Committee to procure land elsewhere for reasons that:
\nThe situation is not by any means healthy, as the aspect is wrong for both breeze and sun; the situation is noisy; the present institution cannot be thoroughly cleaned without closing; and it is quite impossible to separate married women from single women, which separation is of course most desirable.
\nThe Ann Street property was sold for £6000 and patients were transferred to a property in Wharf Street, awaiting the opening of the Wickham Terrace Hospital. In October 1888 the Ladies Committee acquired the Wickham Terrace property, where formerly the house of Reginald H Roe, Head Master of Brisbane Grammar School was stied. Roe moved from his Wickham Terrace residence, known as Winholm, to a boarding house on the Brisbane Grammar site. Winholm is thought to have been demolished to make way for the lying-in hospital, certainly neither documentary or physical evidence suggests that the house has been retained within the hospital complex.
\nFollowing the acquisition of the land, the Ladies' Committee commissioned Brisbane architect, John Hingestone Buckeridge to design the new two storeyed hospital. Buckeridge arrived in Brisbane in February 1887 to take up his appointment as the Diocesan architect for the Bishop of Brisbane, Dr Webber. Previously, Buckeridge worked in London as an architect following his training with prominent British ecclesiastical architect, John Loughborough Pearson and studied at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Architectural Association. His appointment to the Diocese of Brisbane was to assist Webber on an ambitious church building program. Following the death of his wife, Buckeridge accepted the position in Queensland where one of his principal jobs was the supervision of the Church of England Cathedral, St John's, designed by his former principal, JL Pearson. Buckeridge worked in the position of Diocesan Architect officially until 1902 although for many of the later years he lived in Sydney. He designed about 60 timber churches throughout south east Queensland, including Christ Church, Milton (1891); along with a number of public and commercial buildings including the Gresham Hotel.
\nThe design Buckeridge provided for the Lady Bowen Hospital was for a two storeyed brick building with substantial basement level and with capacity for fifty patients. The building was constructed by local contractor, John Quinn who won the tender for construction of the building for £6200. The ground floor of the building housed an entrance hall, a sewing room for nurses and wards with bathrooms and linen rooms, Above on the first floor, were a number of wards, and below in the basement were the nurses' dining room and kitchens. A separate building to the rear of the hospital was used for septic cases.
\nThe foundation stone of the new hospital was laid by Lady Alice Norman on 29 May 1889 and the first patients were admitted to the hospital on 1 January 1890. No major additions or alterations were made to the complex until 1923 when the government approved the expenditure of £15 000 for the construction of a Nurses' Quarters to the west of the original building.
\nThe introduction of the Hospitals Act 1923 established an alternate structure with regional hospital boards for the management of Queensland hospitals. The management of the Lady Bowen Lying-In Hospital was vested in the Brisbane and South Coast Hospital Board from 1924. This brought about standardised practice throughout Queensland hospitals and official government contributions to the funding of hospitals. The State government took over full responsibility for the running of hospitals in 1945. The Ladies' Committee officially disbanded in 1924, although they retained an advisory role on the new board of management.
\nBy the 1920s, the Lady Bowen Hospital was seen to require upgrading and repairs. With growing concern over the high incidence of infant mortality, legislation was passed in the form of the Maternity Act 1922 to provide support and care for children and mothers. The Hospitals Board commissioned a report from the Professor of Obstetrics at the University of Sydney who recommended the construction of a new obstetrics hospital in the grounds of the Brisbane Hospital at Herston. The Hospitals Board were given government approval and funding in line with government platform, increasing support for women's and children's healthcare. The construction of a new obstetrics hospital, known as the Brisbane Women's Hospital was approved in 1929 and was opened in 1938. During this period Lady Bowen continued to operate and an operating theatre was constructed and sewerage system installed.
\nThe Lady Bowen Hospital was closed and staff and patients were transferred to the new women's hospital which opened on 26 March 1938. This heralded an era of short term leasees and alterations to the buildings of the former Lady Bowen Hospital which continues to the present day. The many tenants who have occupied the buildings since 1938 include the Bridge Board, the Social Service League, Essential and Emergency Services of the Civil Defence Organisation, the Australian Army Canteen Services, the Stanley River Works Board, the Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia, the Queensland State Archives, Agricultural Project (later the Agricultural and Environmental Education Branch and later, the Brisbane Urban Environmental Education Centre), the Australian Music Examination Board, Apprenticeship Board of Queensland, Department of Health (Chest Clinic for the Division of Health and Medical Physics) and the Queensland Writers Centre.
\nOf the tenants who have occupied the buildings since the relocation of the hospital, the various Army related tenants during World War II were most significant. The obvious impact of this tenancy was the construction of the two storeyed timber framed and fibrous-sheeting clad building on the corner of Wickham Terrace and Robert Street. In the early stages of the War the site was occupied by the Air Raid Warden's Organisation which became later the Civil Defence Organisation. In 1943 the site was acquired for use as a serviceman's club, known as Anzac House. During this occupation the Royal Australian Engineers Unit were responsible for the conversion of the hospital into a hostel with dining and other recreational facilities. Across Wickham Terrace, in Albert Park, a related dance pavilion was constructed. This has since been demolished.
","criteria":"The former Lady Bowen Hospital, Wickham Terrace was constructed in 1890 as the second purpose built home of the Brisbane Lying-In Hospital, established to provide health care and support to pregnant women who would otherwise not receive medical care during pregnancy or at childbirth. The Ladies Committee who established and managed the hospital from its inception in 1864 to its takeover by the Brisbane and South Coast Hospitals Board in 1924, worked toward achieving major advances in the field of obstetrics in Queensland, and the Lady Bowen Hospital was the precursor of the 1938 Brisbane Women's Hospital. The place demonstrates the evolution of health care, particularly obstetrics in Queensland, beginning as a nineteenth century charitable institution and became a core government funded service.
|The place is a rare surviving nineteenth century Queensland hospital and a unique nineteenth century lying-in or maternity hospital.
|The place demonstrates the principle characteristics of the nineteenth century pavilion planned hospital in its location on the outskirts of the central business area, situated on an elevated site overlooking a park and also with its internal planning creating well ventilated and naturally lit wards.
|The former Lady Bowen Hospital is a Brisbane landmark. The place is a large complex of sympathetically designed buildings, which despite more recent renovations, are of architectural merit, for their composition and detailing.
|The former Lady Bowen Hospital has strong associations with the Ladies Committee who were critical in the early provision of obstetric services and the place has a special association with early patron, Lady Diamantina Roma Bowen, for whom the hospital was named.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16536,"place_ref":601799,"name":"Christ Church Tingalpa and Burial Ground","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1341 Wynnum Road","suburb":"TINGALPA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-02-02","description":"Christ Church Tingalpa is a small, single-storeyed timber structure set well back from busy Wynnum Road at Tingalpa, on one acre of rising ground just east of the bridge over Bulimba Creek. The site fronts a major arterial road to the north, with light industrial development to the west, south and east. The church is aligned roughly east-west on the site, presenting a side wall to the street, but the entrance in the western facade is visible from the road on the approach from Brisbane city.
The building has a high pitched gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. The external walls which are clad with weatherboard sheeting, sit on a concrete base. The church has a simple rectangular plan, with a chancel alcove at the eastern end. To the south of the chancel is a small vestry, accessed both from the nave and from an external door in the western wall of the vestry. The chancel has a separate gabled roof, much lower than that of the nave but of the same pitch. The vestry at the southeast corner of the building also has a separate roof, the gable running at right angles to that of the chancel.
A small entrance portico is centrally located in the western facade of the building, and above this is a pointed arched vent with sloping timber louvres. There are large timber finials to the western end of the main gabled roof and to the gabled roof of the portico, and a timber cross at the eastern end of the main roof. The main entrance is a pointed arched double timber door which is flanked by three-paned patterned glass windows with timber trefoils. Three such windows are found on each of the two longer sides of the church, one in the eastern end of the chancel wall, and one in the southern wall of the vestry.
Internally, most of the walls and the ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting, braced with timber strips. The chancel walls are clad with vertically-jointed tongue and groove timber boards. A hardwood floor has been superimposed above the original concrete flooring. None of the church furniture, decorations and plaques remains.
The site contains a burial ground, with graves mostly to the west and south of the church, although the Coxen family grave is located in the area between the church and the street frontage to the north. All the graves are aligned to the east or southeast. The earliest headstone dates to 1868, the most recent to 1993, with burials in every decade in between. Some of the earlier graves retain their elegant wrought iron surrounds, and there are a number of substantial monuments and headstones illustrative of a variety of periods and styles. Unevenness of the ground in some parts is a fair indication that the site contains a number of unmarked graves as well.
The site is bordered by substantial trees, mostly Norfolk Island pines. At the front northeast corner of the allotment are two large fig trees which appear to flank the original entrance to the grounds.
","history":"The present Christ Church Tingalpa was erected in 1886 for the Anglican parish of Tingalpa, replacing an 1868 church designed by Brisbane architect RG Suter and demolished during the cyclone of 5 December 1885. It is understood that materials salvaged from the wreckage of the 1868 church were used to construct the second, smaller building.
Built and consecrated in 1868, the original Christ Church at Tingalpa was the first Anglican Church established between Kangaroo Point and Moreton Bay, pre-dating St Paul's at Cleveland (1873-74) [600769], Bulimba's St John the Baptist (1888) and St Peter's at Wynnum (1898). Initially part of St Mary's Kangaroo Point parish, the parish of Tingalpa was established by 1886.
The Tingalpa site, one acre of high ground fronting the road to Lytton [now Wynnum Road] about 6 miles beyond Kangaroo Point, was transferred early in 1868 from Joseph Berry to the Church Trustees [Bishop Edward Wyndham Tufnell and Tingalpa farmers Charles Coxen, John Mackenzie Shaw, Richard Warren Weedon and William Roach Wood]. Importantly, the site was central to the small but scattered farming community of the Bulimba-Tingalpa district [which in 1868 encompassed Wynnum-Manly-Lota as well]. The ground was cleared by voluntary labour and funds were raised through local and British subscription.
The church was free of debt almost immediately it was completed, and consequently was among the earliest Anglican churches in the Brisbane district to be consecrated, pre-dating All Saints on Wickham Terrace [600168], St Mary's at Kangaroo Point [600244], and possibly St Thomas' at South Brisbane (erected 1855), but post-dating the first St John's Church, consecrated in 1854. Guests at the Christ Church consecration ceremony of 27 October 1868, to which 400 persons were invited, included the newly appointed Governor of Queensland, Col. Samuel Blackall; the President of the Legislative Council, Sir Maurice O'Connell; the Chief Justice of Queensland, James Cockle; and the Mayor of Brisbane, Alderman Hardgrave.
The first Christ Church Tingalpa was a picturesque building and a landmark on the road from Brisbane to the southern end of Moreton Bay. Substantial stables were constructed in the grounds, but no parsonage or church hall was erected. On the same allotment a small burial ground was established. The first recorded burial was that of Susannah Weedon of Cannon Hill, on 12 July 1868. This was prior to completion of the church, constructed April-August 1868. Later burials included the Hon. William Duckett White MLC of Lota House [600247] and his family; Richard Thomas Jefferies [founder of the Queensland Musical Union - now the Queensland State and Municipal Choir - and of Palings Music Stores]; and members of many of the early farming families of the Tingalpa-Wynnum district, including the Coxen family. The most recent interment was in 1993.
In 1873 the Church trustees acquired from Joseph Berry an additional one acre block adjoining the eastern boundary of the original allotment. In late 1874 both parcels of land were transferred from the Church Trustees to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane.
Through the 1870s and 1880s Christ Church Tingalpa continued to serve a small, scattered rural community of approximately 50 square miles on the southeastern outskirts of Brisbane. In the early 1870s the principal cash crop in the district was sugar, but by the 1880s, changes in technology and the expansion of the sugar industry north of Brisbane had forced Tingalpa farmers into mixed farming and dairying, with some grape and wine production.
Following the cyclone of 5 December 1885 which destroyed the 1868 Tingalpa church the local Anglican community, not prosperous but determined to rebuild, reconstructed their church using timbers salvaged from the original building. The second and present Christ Church Tingalpa was re-consecrated on 25 July 1886, smaller and less decorative than the first building, but still of weatherboard construction with a shingled roof. A concrete floor was laid this time, to give the building additional stability in strong winds. An early, undated photograph shows a detached, timber-framed bell tower with double cross-bracing and a pyramid-shaped shingled roof, to the east of the chancel.
By the late 1880s Bulimba had become more densely settled and Wynnum-Lota-Manly boomed following the opening of the Cleveland branch railway [via Wynnum] in November 1889. By the mid-1890s the Anglican parish of Tingalpa, still approximately 50 square miles, had a population of well over 6,000. St Peter's Anglican Church was erected at Wynnum in 1898. By 1899 the Bulimba church held 260 seats; St Peter's held 120; and Christ Church, with its 50 seats, was clearly no longer the focus of Tingalpa parish. In 1900 St John the Baptist Church was removed from the Tingalpa parish, and the Tingalpa rector concentrated his efforts on the booming Wynnum-Manly district.
In 1906 Rev. JH Whitehead was appointed rector of Tingalpa parish, and due to his enthusiastic parish work Christ Church was renovated in 1907 and acetylene gas lamps installed. However, Rev. Whitehead resigned in 1910 due to ill health, and during the 1910s Christ Church was neglected.
In 1923 St Peter's at Wynnum became a parish in its own right and Christ Church Tingalpa was declared to be extra-parochial and placed under the control and care of the Order of Witness. Founded by Bishop Halford, who had resigned the Rockhampton Bishopric in 1920 to establish this work, the Order of Witness was a radical experiment within the Anglican church extension movement of the interwar period. Seeking to reach the men in the railway construction camps and mining camps, and the struggling families in the new soldier and immigrant settlements, Bishop Halford established an order of priests who lived very simply and were prepared to be sent anywhere a parish priest could not normally minister, living in the mining and construction camps, and bearing personal witness to their faith. To support their work, the Order obtained in 1922-23 a small farm adjoining Christ Church Tingalpa. The farmhouse became their Priory, and the ancient and historic little Tingalpa Church became their chapel.
The priory, grounds and chapel of the Order of Witness were blessed by the Archbishop of the Brisbane Diocese on 22 February 1923. The Church Chronicle of 1 March 1923:53 reported:
The old Church has been restored and enriched by additional ornaments and furniture. A painted figure of out Lord on the Cross hangs from the roof and the Altar is backed by dorsals and flanked by riddels of blue material. The cross and candlesticks are of silver. The whole effect is beautiful and devotional, and shows how even a little plain wooden Church can be transformed into a thing of beauty and joy. Local parishioners were encouraged to attend the Chapel services, and a call was made for funds to restore the building and cemetery.
Early in 1927 Bishop Halford left the Diocese of Brisbane, where he had been working in the Eidsvold and Burnett districts, to carry out similar missionary work in the Diocese of Rockhampton. It appears that the Tingalpa priory closed soon after and by September 1929 Christ Church Tingalpa, considered one of the historic churches of Queensland, was part of Morningside parish. Services in the Tingalpa church continued for some years, but the building once again fell into disrepair. By the mid-1930s the church was no longer attached to a parish, and demolition was proposed.
Once again the Tingalpa church was saved by an enthusiastic local priest. Rev. EJV Cavey, appointed to the Manly parochial district in 1938, took charge of Christ Church and organised a loan to renovate the building. The shingled roof was replaced with corrugated iron, the deteriorating concrete floor was replaced with hardwood, and the free-standing belfry was removed and replaced with a single cross-braced timber structure with a 4-gabled roof of corrugated iron, erected and dedicated to the memory of Miss Court, daughter of the first rector. The church was re-dedicated on 30 April 1939, and by November 1940 the debt had been cleared.
In the post-Second World War period much of the farming land in the Tingalpa district was subdivided for suburban and industrial purposes, and the population expanded rapidly through the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1950s Christ Church Tingalpa was painted and re-lined and in 1964 a church hall was erected on the land acquired in 1873. By 1968, the centenary of its establishment, the future for Christ Church looked promising.
However, with the decline in social relevance of established religions in the last quarter of the 20th century, has come yet another decline in the fortunes of Christ Church Tingalpa. Once again the Anglican authorities have called for its demolition. The belfry was removed in 1996, and all internal fittings, including a plaque erected to honour parishioners Stan Porter and his son Keith, who died in a Tingalpa plane crash in 1954, have been removed. The church hall and the block of land acquired in 1873 have been sold.
","criteria":"Christ Church Tingalpa and Burial Ground, established 1868 with the church re-constructed in 1886, is important in illustrating the pattern of development of Queensland history. In particular it illustrates the development of the Tingalpa-Wynnum district from the mid-19th century. The establishment of Christ Church Tingalpa is important in illustrating the determination of early immigrants to transplant to Queensland the culture and religion of their homeland. Historically, the place is significant as one of the earliest consecrated Anglican churches in Queensland.
|The burial ground is of particular importance. It is very early, pre-dating the general cemeteries established at Dutton Park [South Brisbane], Toowong, Kangaroo Point [Bulimba], Hemmant, Bald Hills and Lutwyche in the 1870s. It is rare as one of only a handful of Anglican church burial grounds surviving in Brisbane, with others located at Milton [Christ Church], Sherwood and Grovely [St Matthew's].
|It is important for its potential to reveal information about the pattern of early settlement of Tingalpa and adjoining suburbs and of early social and living conditions.
|With headstones dating from 1868 to 1993, the burial ground contains monuments and headstones illustrative of a variety of periods and styles. It survives in reasonable order, and is a good example of a small church burial ground established in what was initially a rural district.
Despite some white ant damage, the church remains a good example of its type - the simple, rectangular, pragmatic, ubiquitous Queensland weatherboard church - but appears to have retained some of the decorative elements of the first architect-designed building, including the timber trefoils to the windows, a trefoil arch in the portico, and the substantial pointed arched timber entrance doors.
|The building retains a picturesque setting, with tall perimeter planting and some of the earlier graves retaining their elegant wrought iron surrounds, and the whole makes a substantial aesthetic contribution to the Tingalpa townscape.
|Both church and burial ground are of special significance to the local community, with several generations of Tingalpa and district families having worshipped and been buried there. It has been significant as a centre for Anglican worship, observance and education since 1868.
|The place has a particular association with the work of the early settler families of the district, including the Weedon, Coxen, Stanton and White families, and is significant also for its association in the 1920s with the work of the experimental Order of Witness in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16547,"place_ref":601810,"name":"Sunnyside","alternate_name":"Dr Wright's House","street_address":"255 Main Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Sunnyside is a substantial, single-storeyed masonry residence located in Main Street, Kangaroo Point, on a sloping block overlooking the Brisbane River and the Brisbane central business district. While the property does not extend to the riverbank, the house behind is at a much lower level and the land on the river bank below is now part of a Brisbane City Council-owned public park, hence the views of the city have not been built out. Immediately adjacent to Sunnyside on the south boundary is State heritage listed Silverwells [600243].
The house is of face brick work, but only the north side wall remains unpainted. It has a rectangular core with a projecting gable with a decorative bay window in the front [eastern] elevation. There is a verandah across the remainder of the front façade and returning along the south side of the house. The verandah posts, aluminium 'lace' valances, and tiled concrete verandah floors, are much later than the core. There is a formerly detached brick kitchen house at the rear, with a brick croft or cellar below, where the land slopes to the river. Also at the rear, opening off both the kitchen house and the core, is a large timber pavilion dating probably to the 1910s or 1920s, and since enclosed. The core, kitchen house and pavilion roof each has a separate, hipped roof of corrugated iron. The whole, including the timber extension, rests on brick piers.
The interior has plastered masonry walls; high ceilings with decorative pressed metal panelling; well-detailed joinery [all now painted]; and timber flooring [recently coated with a polyurethane finish]. Many of the walls have been wallpapered [much appears to date from the 1960s or 1970s] and in some rooms paint has been applied over the wallpaper.
The interior is that of a solid middle-class rental property, well-detailed, nicely finished, with generously-sized rooms and high ceilings, but without the ornate entrance vestibule common to more flamboyant owner-occupier, late 19th century residences. The front door opens directly into the main hallway, which runs east-west, off which are the former front parlour and dining room to the right. These rooms do not open into each other, but have back-to-back fireplaces which share a double chimney. The parlour has an early grey marble fireplace surround, but that in the dining room is a later and unsympathetic brick surround. A door in the rear [west] wall of the dining room opens onto a service passageway which leads to the kitchen house at the rear, and off which, to the right, are a small china pantry adjacent to the dining room, and a maid's room beyond this.
The service passageway, which also runs east-west, leads to the now enclosed verandah which ran east-west beside the detached kitchen house. It is not clear whether a rear verandah initially ran the width [north-south] of the main building, but there is evidence of a former verandah between the maid's room in the core and the kitchen. This space has been enclosed as a bathroom; it has weatherboards externally on the north side and a c1960s interior.
Off the main hallway to the left are two bedrooms, but the doorways which once would have led from the hall into each bedroom have been bricked in and plastered [probably during the c1960 conversion to two flats], and there is no longer any evidence in the skirting boards of where these doorways were located. At its western end the main hallway opens into a cross-passage which leads on the right to the service passage and on the left originally to a bedroom door - this also has been bricked-in and plastered.
In-filling the L-shape formed by the main building and the kitchen house is one large room which appears to have been a former semi-open pavilion. This extension is clad externally with wide weatherboards to sill height. Above the sill the weatherboards are narrower and likely to be later in-fill, and in this are several aluminium-framed windows which are understood to have replaced earlier casements. The narrow hardwood floorboards of this room are arranged in a pattern which reputedly mirrored the original lattice ceiling above, extant but now covered with a recent plaster ceiling. Opening into this room is an external entrance accessed from the south side verandah.
The southern side of the house, the original bedroom wing, shows the greatest evidence of the c1960 alterations to form two flats. Access to the southern flat is now via the side entrance into the rear pavilion room. The third bedroom, formerly at the rear of the house, has been partitioned to form a bathroom, toilet and passageway leading from the pavilion room to the two front bedrooms, which are connected via an original doorway. In other words, the front bedroom can now only be accessed by passing through the second bedroom. The front bedroom has two step-out or telescopic windows opening onto the front verandah, and the second bedroom has a double sliding glass door of c1960 vintage opening onto the southern verandah, in the place of a former window. The single window to the third bedroom has been replaced by small, high windows to the bathroom and toilet. Another room, possibly a small fourth bedroom or servant's bedroom at the rear of the main building, has been converted into a kitchen. The wall between this room and the pavilion room [which currently functions as a combined dining and living room] has been almost totally removed, and it is no longer clear whether this room was accessed originally from a rear verandah, or from the cross or service passages in the middle of the house.
Attached to the kitchen house at the rear is a single-storeyed, skillion-roofed extension with a brick north wall, but open on the south side. Beside this is a larger skillion-roofed, weatherboard-clad double garage, again, open on the south side. Both these structures have concrete flooring. A concreted driveway leads from the street along the southern side of the property to the garages at the rear.
The front garden has an early path layout [extant by 1923] but c1970s planting and garden elements, including a stone water fountain, stone-edged garden beds, concrete blockwork front fence, and perimeter bamboo planting which acts as a screen to Main Street and to neighbouring properties.
","history":"
Sunnyside was constructed in the mid-1890s, on land owned by Joseph Thompson, a Sydney businessman who held substantial property assets on Kangaroo Point. The house functioned as a rental property until acquired by Dr Robert Wright, a Brisbane dentist, in 1920.
The site was part of a larger parcel of land [3 acres 2 roods 39 perches] acquired in three allotments [1-3] by Thomas Adams, a North Brisbane solicitor, at the first sale of Brisbane suburban allotments [at Kangaroo Point] held in December 1843. The purchased blocks were on the western side of Main Street, extending from the road to the Brisbane River. Kangaroo Point at this period was emerging not only as Brisbane's first suburb, but also as a rival to South Brisbane, attracting industry [a boiling down works and wool store] and shipping. All of the 1843 allotments were located near the wharf reserve, and were offered at a premium upset price of £5 per acre. Most had been cleared by 1837 as part of a former convict farm, but suburban allotments 1 and 2 were still covered in brush.
Adams' land passed to a trustee in March 1846, and in March 1861 two of the subdivisions [suburban allotments 1 and 2 - comprising 2 acres 1 rood 33 perches] were conveyed to Sydney businessman Joseph Thompson. Thompson held this and [reputedly] other Kangaroo Point property, until his death in 1902, but did not reside there. He developed the eastern half of the site, fronting Main Street, with investment houses, including an 1860s duplex [Mornington-Silverwells 600234] and Sunnyside [1890s]. From mid-1891 Thompson leased the western half of the land, with its river frontages, to the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company Limited [initially held on a 25 year lease]. The AUSN Co. established their workshops here and erected a wharf on the riverbank, directly opposite their Mary Street wharf, on the city side of the Brisbane River.
From photographic evidence and Queensland Post Office Directories, it appears that the house known by 1904 as Sunnyside, and later as Dr Wright's House, was erected in the mid-1890s, possibly occupied by 1896. It is not known who designed the house, but the style and materials suggest perhaps a Sydney architect. By the late 19th century, Kangaroo Point, with its ferry access to the adjacent Brisbane central business district, had become a fashionable residential address, particularly with central city business persons. A number of substantial homes were erected here in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, including Leckhampton [c1889 for Brisbane jeweller Charles Snow (600246)] and Home [c1902 for Brisbane draper John Lamb (600242)]. The construction of Sunnyside in the mid-1890s, so much later than the adjacent 1860s residence, illustrates the continued popularity of Kangaroo Point with middle class residents. From c1897 until c1903, 255 Main Street was tenanted by Charles M Foster of Foster and Foster, ironmongers - Foster had moved here from Shafston House [600241] at Kangaroo Point, which he apparently still owned. The Schureck family occupied the house from c1906 to c1920 [Julius Schureck was an Adelaide Street retailer].
Following Joseph Thompson's death at Wooloomooloo in Sydney in May 1902, his Kangaroo Point property passed to his son, civil engineer William Mann Thompson of Sydney. In 1920 WM Thompson subdivided and sold the property. Title to 255 Main Street [subdivision 3 of suburban allotments 1 & 2, par South Brisbane (38.3 perches)] was transferred from Thompson to Robert Wright, a Fortitude Valley dentist, in October 1920. Wright undertook some small alterations to the place, and c1923 erected a garage in the grounds. He may also have been responsible for the addition of the large pavilion room [originally perhaps a sleeping verandah] at the rear of the house.
The house has remained in the Wright family since. Title was transferred from Robert Wright to Wright and his three surviving children [Robert James, Edgar David and Eveline Violet] in 1945. Following the death of Robert Wright in 1952, Robert James Wright [the eldest son, who had followed his father into dentistry] applied to the Brisbane City Council in 1957-58 to convert the house into two flats. It is understood he occupied one half of the house, and later his sister-in-law took the other. From 1964, title was held solely by Dr RJ Wright, who died in the early 1990s. RJ Wright was the Chilean Consul in Brisbane, possibly from just after the Second World War until his death. He resided most of his life at Sunnyside, which served as the Chilean Consulate in Brisbane for over 40 years.
Sunnyside is once again a single home, currently occupied by a grand-niece of RJ Wright.
","criteria":"Sunnyside, Kangaroo Point, is important in illustrating the pattern of development of Kangaroo Point, Brisbane's first suburb, which from the 1850s attracted middle class residents who erected substantial homes overlooking the Brisbane River. The construction of Sunnyside in the 1890s illustrates the continued attraction of this quiet but centrally located suburb for the middle classes - a trend which was sustained into the 1920s. It is important also in illustrating the role of southern capital in developing Queensland from an early period. The place also has historical and social significance as the Chilean Consulate in Brisbane during the second half of the 20th century.
|The place is significant as a rare, late 19th century, single-storeyed brick residence in Brisbane, of a design and materials more commonly found in Sydney at this period. The place also is now rare as one of few 19th century residences surviving in Kangaroo Point, which has undergone enormous change since the construction of the Story Bridge and viaduct in the 1930s, the expansion of the shipbuilding industry on the point from the 1940s to the 1960s, and rapid and substantial residential re-development since the 1980s. Sunnyside and an adjacent 1860s brick duplex [Silverwells - 600243], are the last remaining 19th century residences in the block between Bright and Scott Streets, and together with the nearby Story Bridge Hotel (erected c1885) make an important historical contribution to the character of Kangaroo Point.
|Sunnyside is a substantial, well-detailed, late 19th century brick residence with aesthetic appeal, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type.
|Sunnyside is a substantial, well-detailed, late 19th century brick residence with aesthetic appeal, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type. Although the house, behind its garden screen of trees and bamboo, is scarcely visible from the street, the grounds, along with adjacent mature trees, make an important aesthetic contribution to Main Street.
|The place also has historical and social significance as the Chilean Consulate in Brisbane during the second half of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16548,"place_ref":601811,"name":"William Wyndhams gravesite and remnant orchard trees","alternate_name":"Wyndhams Farm | Carnym","street_address":"Boyne Island","suburb":"BOYNE ISLAND","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"William Trevelyan Wyndham's gravesite lies in a small clearing amid native flora at the highest point of Boyne Island facing east. The headstone consists of roughly hewn granite and local individual stones placed five feet in front of the grave in a rectangular shape. The stone reads; 'William Trevelyan Wyndham Born 3 April 1830 Died 8 July 1898'.
Nine mango (Mangifera indica) and two tamarind trees (Tamarind indicus) from Wyndham's original orchard are located throughout the suburb. Two tamarind trees are located in the corner of Wyndham Park near the southern boundary of the park at Olunda Street.
","history":"Although Boyne Island is best remembered for William Trevelyan Wyndham's association with it, initially the selection was taken up by Charles Hedley, a naturalist originating from Yorkshire. In 1882 Hedley and J.R.B. Dawson took up selection blocks on Boyne Island resumed under the 1868 Crown Lands Act. Hedley, enjoying a 'liberal allowance' from his father, sampled outback life and tried an oyster lease at Moreton Bay before trying fruit growing at Boyne Island. In 1888 an accident to his left arm rendered him unfit for manual work and he went to Brisbane and worked for the Queensland Museum, pursuing a career in natural history, concentrating on Australian fauna. Hedley wrote confidently on a range of topics including Botany, Ethnology, and Conchology. The culmination of his career was his appointment as Scientific Director of the Great Barrier Reef Committee.
In 1888 William Trevelyan Wyndham acquired Hedley's selection of 240 acres in the south east corner of the Island near the mouth of the Boyne River. Migrating to Australia in 1849 Wyndham first lived with an Uncle in the Hunter River area. His interest in Indigenous culture led to him to live with tribal Aborigines in New South Wales for seven years. He married, but after the financial failure of his farm and subsequent break-up of his marriage he came to the Fitzroy in 1875 and lived by fishing and shooting, spending time with a tribe on Keppel Island. Wyndham worked industriously to improve and establish a large orchard on the Boyne Island property, naming it 'Carnym', reported to be an Aboriginal name meaning 'sand'.
Pineapples, grafted orange trees, bananas and rare plants and seeds were imported from Kew Gardens in England. Wyndham later sent Boyne Island-grown plants such as lilies, back to Kew. The seeds of the mango trees came by boat from India and were given to Wyndham by Hedley. Whether the tamarind trees were planted by Hedley or Wyndham is unclear. The section of property that fronted the river was known as Plum Tree, presumably after the native Burdekin plums which are plentiful in the nearby scrub.
Wyndham's life as a fisherman made Carnym the ideal location, and he earned extra income delivering produce from his property to market through coastal waters to Gladstone. In 1889 he prepared a paper titled 'The Aborigines of Australia'. which he presented to the Royal Society of New South Wales in Sydney in June. Wyndham's paper applied chiefly to the Aborigines of northern New South Wales with whom he had with lived for seven years. He explained their traditions and customs and clearly stated their belief in a supreme being. Most importantly, his linguistic skills led him to the conclusion that the different Aboriginal languages had been derived from one original stock. That he was considered an authority is confirmed by the Smithsonian Society of America's correspondence with him on the possibility of Australian Aboriginal languages being derived from Tamil.
Wyndham died 8 July 1898 and was buried in the orchard at Carnym. Some time later his daughter Bessie had his remains relocated on a hill at the Western end of the property. Wyndham himself had prepared in advance by transporting a block of granite estimated to weigh 1 1/2 tonnes from Magnetic Island and carried by his boat. This was dumped at the mouth of the Boyne River at high tide and later dragged by Bullock team to the highest point on the island to become his headstone. The family association with Boyne Island continued for three generations, later members continuing to grow pineapples on the site, Bessie continuing to live at Carnym until 1941. In 1972 Comalco purchased the farm to build an aluminium smelter, production commencing ten years later. The site where the grave lies is owned by Comalco and is listed by them as a buffer zone between the smelter and the suburb.
The area where Wyndham's house was situated was sold and subdivided in the mid 1970's and the modest weatherboard house demolished in the early 1980's. A park in the area bears his name, with tamarind and mango trees from the original orchard still adorning the park and surrounding suburb.
","criteria":"The remnant trees demonstrate the uncommon aspect of a Nineteenth Century orchard and garden that was used simultaneously for hobby, scientific and commercial reasons.
The Tamarind trees have the potential to yield comparative botanical and genetic information with examples of a similar age in other countries.
Prominently situated on the highest point of Boyne Island, Wyndham's grave is located in a small clearing, its aesthetic appeal enhanced by its surroundings amid indigenous flora. Two Tamarind trees from the original orchard are located in Wyndham park, their age and size contributing to the parks visual appeal.
Wyndham Park is valued by the community for social and recreational purposes. Links to the former use of the site are expressed by a cottage style play structure symbolising Wyndham's dwelling, remnant Tamarind trees and the park bearing his name.
Boyne Island has a special association with the work of William Trevelyan Wyndham and Charles Hedley, both principal pioneers in the early development of Central Queensland and the Calliope area. William Trevelyan Wyndham's gravesite and the Tamarind trees are physical links to his work and interests, in particular his association with and anthropological observations of the languages and customs of Aboriginal tribes in New South Wales and Central Queensland. The site is also significant in regards to the previous owner, Naturalist Charles Hedley.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16551,"place_ref":601814,"name":"Jimna Fire Tower","alternate_name":"SEQ-4C 8","street_address":"Murgon-Kilcoy Road","suburb":"JIMNA","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The Jimna fire tower is located approximately one kilometre west of Jimna, on the southern side of the Kilcoy-Murgon Road. The Jimna fire tower is 47 metres high (pole length is 44 metres).
The tower comprises three ironbark poles in a triangular plan, which taper inwards from the base of the tower to the top of the tower. Each pole consists of two logs spliced together approximately halfway up the height of the tower, and is set into a concrete footing at the base of the tower. Poles are braced and cross-braced.
The poles support a hexagonal cabin at the top of the tower, accessed by a timber staircase which wraps around the outside of the tower. The staircase includes a series of small platforms.
A picnic area surrounding the base of the tower includes a car park, picnic tables and toilets.
","history":"Completed in 1977 by Arthur Leis, and still in use for fire detection, this timber fire tower is located one kilometre west of the township of Jimna, at the top of the Jimna Range. Supported by three ironbark poles or 'legs', the Jimna fire tower is the tallest fire tower in Queensland with a tower height of 47 metres (pole length is 44 metres).
\nThe township of Jimna (formerly Foxlowe) was established in 1922, following the relocation from Monsildale of the sawmill operated by the firm of Hancock and Gore. Hancock and Gore had commenced sawmilling operations at Monsildale in 1912. The entire township was moved, including sawmill, houses, shop, store and school.
\nPrior to 1935 a Forest Ranger looked after Forestry interests in the Jimna area. A nursery was subsequently established on the site of the present administration building and scrub clearing for the establishment of hoop pine plantations commenced in 1938, approximately 18 years after the commercial hoop pine plantations were established in Queensland, in the Mary Valley.
\nConsideration had been given to the need for effective fire protection as early as 1911, when discussed at an Interstate Conference on Forestry held in Sydney that year. Various methods of fire control appear to have been applied in subsequent years, including firelines and firebreaks of fire including in hoop pine forests, and in new plantations. Such outbreaks were serious as hoop pine is particularly vulnerable to fire.
\nIn Queensland, construction of towers for fire detection commenced during the mid-1930s as part of a fire protection system which also included firebreaks. Fire towers continued to be erected as plantations were established through the 1940s and the 1950s.
\nThe area of softwood plantations increased considerably during the 1960s and the 1970s. During this period there was also a program of construction of fire towers to serve new plantation areas and 16 towers were constructed . Nearly all these new towers were over 30 metres high, indicating the need to have towers taller than the surrounding plantations. By the mid-1960s some of the plantations would have been approximately 40 to 45 years old and in some areas had no doubt 'outgrown' the original fire tower. Fire towers were also used in conjunction with each other to pinpoint fires by taking crossbearings between towers.
\nArthur Leis commenced working for the Department of Forestry in 1957. Until his retirement in 1991, Leis was responsible for the erection of over 20 fire towers in Queensland. Leis designed the towers himself, cutting all the timber on site, and usually erecting each tower with the help of an off-sider and a block and tackle. Initially Leis' towers followed conventional design, supported by four timber legs. In 1967 Leis completed the first three-legged timber fire tower to be erected in Queensland, at Mount Binga in the Yarraman Forestry District. It is generally understood that Leis was responsible for the innovative new design. In 1968 the Department reported on 'the wisdom of converting to this type of structure. Costs per foot at $66 was about 25 per cent down on the 4-legged design, formerly adopted, and the structure is very stable and firm'. Leis constructed his last fire tower in 1986-87; a three-legged wooden tower at Mount Wolvi, south-east of Gympie. At the opening ceremony for the Mount Wolvi tower, the Hon. Bill Glasson, Minister for Lands, Forestry, Mapping and Surveying, presented Leis with a model of the new tower 'in commemoration of the many wooden fire towers he [had] constructed over the past 30 years'.
\nIn 1975-76 construction commenced on a new fire tower at Jimna which 'would be the tallest built to date', with a designed height of approximately 50 metres. Replacing an earlier tower, the new Jimna fire tower was erected by Leis and his son. Two ironbark logs were spliced together to make each of the three legs. To erect the tower the first leg was winched into position and the remaining two legs were hauled upright, bracing and stairs were attached, and finally the cabin constructed on top. The new tower was intended to work 'in conjunction with existing towers in the Jimna and Gallangowan areas, [to] improve the detection of wildfire's likely to affect the extensive Hoop Pine plantations and native forests in the district'.
\nThe Jimna fire tower was opened in October 1977 by the Hon. K.B.Tomkins, Minister for Lands, Forestry, National Parks and Wildlife. A picnic area has been established surrounding the base of the fire tower.
\nThe Jimna fire tower thresholded for National Estate social value at the Maryborough, Crows Nest and Nambour (non-Indigenous) community workshops conducted as part of the Comprehensive Regional Assessment for the South East Queensland biogeographic region Regional Forest Agreement.
","criteria":"As the tallest tower in Queensland, and constructed using three poles, the Jimna fire tower is a fine example of a three-legged timber fire tower.
|Jimna fire tower is valued by the community as the tallest fire tower in Queensland, for the views available from the top of the fire tower, and for its construction by a father and son team.
|Jimna fire tower is important for its association with Arthur Leis, who was influential in the design and construction of fire towers in Queensland from the 1960s to the late 1980s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16552,"place_ref":601815,"name":"Rocky Creek World War Two Hospital Complex (former)","alternate_name":"Rocky Creek WWII Hospital Complex (former) | Rocky Creek Second World War Hospital Complex (former)","street_address":"Kennedy Highway","suburb":"ROCKY CREEK","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-02-25","description":"The Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex site consists of the Entertainment Igloo and building remnants of the 2/2nd AGH, located on Frazer Road Reserve.
ENTERTAINMENT IGLOO:
The Rocky Creek Igloo is located on the southern side of the Kennedy Highway, approximately five kilometres north of Tolga. The World War II building is nearly rectangular in plan, 42.6 metres in length and 22 metres wide at its widest point. It is composed of two major elements: an "igloo" which formed the auditorium of the theatre; and the stage and backstage area.
The igloo has a curved auditorium roof 34 metres long, and has an overall width of 17.4 metres and a clear internal span of 16.8 metres. The interior space is 6.4 metres high to the top of the trusses, and the roof projects about a metre higher as a low-pitched gable to an overall height of about 7.5 metres.
The entire igloo stands on a concrete slab foundation about 18 metres by 34 metres in plan, with a raised kerb and two external drains running along the building's long sides, and twenty cast concrete feet which support the trusses. There are ten trusses spanning the interior space. Each is composed of two curved half-trusses which are pinned at the foundations and at the apex where they meet: a three-pin truss system. The trusses are made entirely of sawn pieces of native hardwood nailed together.
The roof of the igloo is clad with corrugated iron, the centre section of which has been angled up into a low-pitched gable. Rafters and the upper chords of the trusses support timber purlins, to which the corrugated iron is nailed. There is a ventilating gap in the roof above the centreline, protected by a raised sheetmetal ridge capping which is semi-circular in section. The curved roof has no guttering; water simply runs off into concrete drains on either side of the building.
Most of the interior of the auditorium is one large clear space. There are seven major ground-level openings into the auditorium, all symmetrically positioned. In the centre of the front wall are large double doors in the mid-point and at the rear end of each side wall, all protected by small skillion roofs. The rear doors are fitted with theatre exit bolts made by J Adams and Son of Sydney.
Along each side of the curved wall there are seven dormer windows with iron sides and skillion roofs, fitted with horizontally-pivoting window panes of Caneite. The only glass in the auditorium is in four small casement windows in the front wall. Low down on the side walls there is a horizontal opening in the iron for ventilation.
The stage and backstage area are housed in a more conventional timber-framed building with a gabled roof, which rises to about 9 metres above the ground at the ridge. It was built as a symmetrical structure continuing the centreline of the auditorium and it extends 8.6 metres along that axis and projects out sideways beyond the sides of the auditorium to 22 metres wide. The stage building is clad externally on its walls and roof with corrugated asbestos cement sheeting. The stage floor is elevated about a metre above the ground.
The entire structure of the stage building appears to be of sawn hardwood, framed with vertical studs and horizontal rails. Some interior walls are lined with vertical tongue and groove boards, and the entire proscenium around the stage is faced with selected vertical boards, left unpainted. The quality of the original carpentry is very good.
Post-war modifications to the backstage area include the partitioning of the stage itself with a stud framed wall just behind the proscenium, and two small partitioned rooms located at the rear of the stage. A small external room in front of the toilet in the western corner is a further post-war addition. All partitions and additions are timber-framed, and the rooms are lined and have ceilings of either asbestos cement sheeting or hardboard.
FRAZER ROAD - WESTERN SIDE:
Frazer Road extends in a south-eastern direction from the Entertainment Igloo.
The western side of Frazer Road contains several concrete floors on a long gentle slope running parallel to the road. From the northern end and extending south, the following remnants can be identified.
The "Disinfectant Room" , of which remains of the morgue can be identified. This includes a rectangular concrete floor with drain holes and two separate sewerage sumps, one on the north-eastern side and one on the east.
To the south-east of the disinfectant room, the remains of a bitumen road outcrop on the table drain at the edge of Frazer Road can be identified. This outcrop aligns with the road just south of the large cross-shaped ward.
Further south, remains of the "Dysentery Ward" include an elevated concrete slab with evidence of several walls and partitions. There are holes for drains and toilet outlets. There is a walkway leading down to the dysentery annexe (possible ablutions block). Marks in the concrete indicate that pans may have been used to supplement the toilets. There is a wing for beds running to the west and opposite that wing, to the east, there is another section of concrete floor that may have been another wing. The remains of garden beds are evident on either side of the western wing. There is a light glass, fibro and ceramic scatter surrounding the slab. At the northern corner is a sewerage inspection point. To the west-south-west is another, roughly in line with the end of the ward wing.
The remains of the "Psychiatric Ward" are located further up the slope. This is a cross-shaped ward. The north-south arm has a similar pattern of partitions, drains and toilet outlets to that of the Dysentery Ward. There are two simple wings to the east and west. Located close to the end of the western wing are the remains of a brick incinerator which has been relocated to this site. There is a sewerage inspection point on the north-east corner.
Remains of a bitumen road running roughly east-west are evident further along Frazer Road. This area has a scatter of artefacts including a drug bottle, and also a scatter of introduced garden plant species.
Further south are the remains of the "Venereal Disease Ward", another cross-shaped ward. The name "Hooks" has been scratched into the concrete of the annexe.
Twenty metres east of the VD Ward, in close proximity to Frazer Road, is another rectangular floor with no notable details. There is no known evidence of its former use.
To the south of the VD Ward are the remains of three concrete slabs that are slightly terraced. These are the remains of a former garden bed on either end of the southern-most terrace. The eastern edges of the northern concrete slab are crumbling badly. Further west is the remains of another concrete slab with an annexe running NNW-SE and a wing at right angles running south-west. This formed part of the Isolation Ward. It has been severely damaged by recent bulldozer activity.
East of the Isolation Ward and adjacent to Frazer Road is the remains of a small concrete floor with wall bases around the perimeter. The ground between the two elements contains a scatter of fibro, glass and ceramics.
FRAZER ROAD - EASTERN SIDE:
This section of the road reserve between Frazer Road and the cane field contains a cleared strip for high tension wires. The integrity of the hospital site remains on this side of the road are fair; road construction activities associated with the construction of Frazer Road, and the clearing of the large strip for the power line have caused damage to the site.
The eastern side of the road reserve contains the remains of several concrete floors and other remnants on a series of low wide terraces running roughly east-west. A fallen pole with ceramic insulators, evidence of roadways, broken sewerage pipes and a drainage line were all identified on the site.
","history":"The Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex was in operation from October 1942 until September 1945 as part of the medical installations established in North Queensland during World War II. Some 30 000 patients were treated at this facility in almost three years.
In the 1930s the threat of war with Japan became imminent. As Japanese aggression moved across the Pacific in the early 1940s, a military presence in North Queensland gradually intensified. The Australian Army first began investigating the resources of North Queensland in the late 1930s, and when war was declared on Japan on 9 December 1941, the construction of military installations began immediately. The bombing of Darwin (March 1942) and Townsville (July 1942), and the arrival of American troops in the north (from March 1942), added further impetus to the establishment of facilities in the area. When hostilities extended to Papua New Guinea in May 1942, the military presence in the north intensified further still.
The installation of medical infrastructure on the Rocky Creek site commenced on 6 October 1942 with the arrival of the 19th Field Ambulance from Calcium. They were charged with the preparation of a camp for the 5th Australian Camp Hospital (ACH). The 5th ACH arrived at Rocky Creek from Redbank on 14 October 1942. The Commanding Officer, Lt-Col LA Little (AAMC) and Matron K Cahill, assisted by several nursing sisters and a few male orderlies, established a small camp hospital on the south eastern side of Rocky Creek. Their duties complete, the 19th Field Ambulance left Rocky Creek on 17 October 1942 to set up camp just outside of Kuranda, where an Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) was to be established.
Over the next few weeks, activity at the site increased. The first patients were admitted on 20 October 1942, and were joined the next day by more patients when the 1st Australian Camp hospital left Wondecla and removed its patients to Rocky Creek. November 2 saw the arrival of the 1st Australian Mobile Laundry Unit, while 20 VADs (later AAMWS) commenced duties on 14 November, providing much needed nursing support.
In January 1943an advance party of 2/2nd Army General Hospital (AGH) AIF arrived at the Rocky Creek Hospital site, signifying a new phase in the hospital's development, and an intensification of activity. The 2/2nd AGH AIF replaced the 5th AGH which moved the next day, 5 January 1943 to a new hospital unit established at the North Cairns State School. The 2/2nd AGH, under the command of Colonel Talbert, the Commanding Officer, and Matron, Miss Jean Oddie, launched into the arduous task of expanding the small tent hospital into a large 1200 bed General Hospital. On 20 April 1943 they were joined by the 2/6th AGH AIF, who after serving two years in the Middle East (Greece, Crete, Jerusalem and Gaza), arrived back in Australia to find themselves transferred to Rocky Creek.
Patients treated at the Rocky Creek Hospitals usually arrived in Cairns from Papua New Guinea, to be transported to Rocky Creek by the 4th Australian Hospital Ambulance Train. The train ran three times a week.
The Rocky Creek Hospital Complex covered a site of 763 acres, encompassing private land purchased by the Australian Military Forces, and Crown Land. The Complex initially consisted of the 2/2nd AGH; the 2/6th AGH; the Mobile Laundry Administration Area; the 2/1st Australian Convalescent Depot, and associated medical installations. The 1200 bed 2/2nd AGH was constructed by a local Cairns firm, TJ Watkins PTY Ltd at a cost of £143 667. There were 73 buildings in total, including facilities for the 4th Australian Static Laundry. The Entertainment Igloo, recreation hut and warehouses were also constructed by Watkin and PR Ayre, at a cost of £2796. The 1200 bed hospital of the 2/6th AGH was built by AH Hodge and Sons of Toowoomba, while the 600 bed 2/1st Convalescent Depot was constructed by Clive Kynaston of Cairns.
Both the 2/2nd and the 2/6th Hospitals employed a similar layout and were constructed using similar materials. The two hospitals consisted of 40 wards, offices, stores and other auxiliary buildings. The wards were laid out in pairs, with a service annexe in between. Most were constructed with canvas, and measures 60 feet x 20 feet. Early wards had earth floors, watered daily to make them firm, and a rattan carpet down the middle isle. Other buildings were constructed from timber and iron. Later wards were set on a concrete slab and had a capacity of approximately 50 patients. By March 1944 both hospitals had been transformed from tent to hut hospitals and the bed capacity had increased to 1400, however, by September 1944 the daily bed average had increased to 1760. The buildings still had canvas walls but the floors were concrete and each ward had its own amenities, such as a wood stove, kerosene refrigerator, a permanent toilet and an office and dressing room. In October 1944 electricity supply, originally generator powered, switch to mains power, supplied by the Barron Falls Hydro Electricity Board.
The concrete ward floors consisted of reinforced concrete slabs varying in thickness. The annexes were bordered and partitioned by concrete wall bases, from which protruded metal wall ties. The concrete wall bases were slightly flanged on either side. On these flanges would have rested sheets of asbestos cement which formed the walls. They were probably nailed at the base to a wooden runner which would have sat on top of the wall base. The metal ties probably passed through the wood and continued up between the walls to the roof, or were bent over the wood if not in use. Where the asbestos cement sheets met the concrete, cover strips would have been nailed. Scatters of pieces of these cover strips are found over most of the site.
One of the wards in the 2/2nd AGH was the Malaria Experimental Ward. Participants involved in the experiments were all volunteers, and the trials involved groups of 5-6 volunteers being injected with parasites from the Anopheles mosquito which carries the malaria virus. Treatments were confidential and all volunteers signed a statement absolving the Army and medical staff of responsibility for any side effects.
While the work hours for staff at the Hospital Complex were long, various facilities were provided for their enjoyment in the leisure time available. The complex included an open-air picture show, where bingo was often played before the main feature. There was also a log-cabin recreational room and a tennis court with an ant-bed floor which was utilised by both patients and medical staff. Others spent their time planting garden beds outside their quarters and the hospital wards. Movies were shown in the Entertainment Igloo, constructed in 1943. A truck, with a projector on the back, would reverse up to the building along the built up driveway, so that the projector pointed towards the screen. Concerts and dances were also held in the building.
The staged closure of the Rocky Creek Hospital Complex began in 1944, and continued through to 1945. The 2/6th AGH was the first to close, in October 1944, followed by the 2/2nd AGH on 30 September 1945, which subsequently moved to Darley (Victoria). Following the end of the war, military buildings at Rocky Creek were auctioned and either dismantled or relocated. Some are to be found in the district today, having been purchased by local residents and farmers. Portions of land were sold as freehold allotments and many were subsequently converted to agricultural use. The Entertainment Igloo was purchased by Frank and Eileen Frazer in 1947. The stage was converted into a family home, in which the Frazers raised their 11 children. Mr Frazer manufactured cane furniture in the auditorium. Following the death of her husband, Mrs Frazer stayed on at the igloo until ill health forced her to move to Cairns in 1995. The igloo and land were donated to the Atherton Shire Council.
In the lead up to the 50th anniversary of victory in the Pacific celebrations in 1995, a War Memorial Park was established on the former site of the Mobile Laundry Administration Area through the efforts of a group of local residents. Various memorials, a flag pole, interpretive shelter and a sheltered park bench have been erected at the Park. Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies are now conducted at the park, while the remains of the Rocky Creek site are often visited by locals and visitors to the area where either they, or a relative, spent time at the hospital during the Second World War. It is also anticipated the local Tolga State School will utilise the Memorial Park for the purposes of education, in particular to develop an understanding among students of the importance of the Rocky Creek Hospital Complex during the Second World War.
","criteria":"The Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as an example of a World War II installation located in North Queensland. Being close to the Papua New Guinea battlefield, Queensland played a vital role hosting and supporting Australian and United States Servicemen. As a hospital complex, the site is significant for the role it played in the provision of medical treatment to these troops, including the use of new treatments and technology, and for the research conducted regarding the treatment of malaria.
|The Entertainment Igloo, constructed in 1943, demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as one of the few remaining small igloos designed and operated as a theatre during World War II.
|The Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history. Concrete slabs and scatters of artefacts could reveal information about the technology used in temporary military buildings during World War II.
|The Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex has a special association with those who spent time at the facility during the Second World War for cultural and spiritual reasons.
|The Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex has a special association with the work of the Australian Army Medical Women's Service (AAMWS) and with the important work of medical units, especially the Malaria Control Unit who developed new technology in Australia during World War II.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16556,"place_ref":601819,"name":"Rockhampton Botanic Gardens","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"100 Spencer Street","suburb":"THE RANGE","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"Rockhampton Botanic Gardens are located on a 33ha site west of the Athelstane Range and bordered to the west by the Murray and Yeppen-Yeppen lagoons. The northern boundary is the Rockhampton Golf Club and residential development spreads to the east of the site. The adjacent, partially developed Diggers Park establishes the southern boundary. The slope of the range creates a gently falling gradient from the entrance of the gardens to the banks of the Murray Lagoon. The Rockhampton Botanic Gardens comprise a series of gardens including: the lower gardens, the upper gardens, outer gardens, the War Memorial gardens and arid gardens.
\nThe formal entrance (east) to the botanic gardens is from Spencer Street through a set of masonry pillars with decorative iron gates. The informal entrance (north) from Ann Street comprises an avenue of Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii) interspersed with Bougainvillea. The Rockhampton Croquet Club, the Athelstane Bowls club, Athelstane Tennis Club, Rockhampton City Council Works Depot and the Rockhampton Golf Club are located along this avenue.
\nThe administration and visitor information centre, a small open truss steel and glass structure on a concrete block base located in the main circular drive is surrounded by established decorative gardens. The Hugo Lassen Fernery is located behind this building. The Fernery is a timber slated structure, built into the shape of a cross with eye-shaped openings cut into the slated walls. The Fernery houses a series of rock gardens with an established and mature exotic fern collection.
\nA floral clock, on a concrete base planted with flowering annuals, and is the centrepiece of the circular drive. The clock face presents to the northern entrance to the gardens. A small plaque commemorating the donation of the clock from the Rotary Club of Rockhampton is located at its base.
\nThe kiosk is located to the south of the visitor information centre and fernery and is approached by a series of concrete steps. Mature Banyan Figs (Ficus benghalensis) form an impressive shaded cove in which the kiosk is located. The kiosk building consists of three sections: the original 1912 octagonal core, the 1966 toilet block and the 1997 kitchen and servery. Tables and chairs occupy the understory of the Banyan Figs for kiosk clientele.
\nThe children's playground located in the understorey of a series of mature shade trees including, Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) and other fig shade varieties. An open barbeque shelter is located adjacent to the playground.
\nDuring the 1930s, the Intermittent Relief Scheme provided the labour for the extensive stonework throughout the lower gardens, particularly providing culverts and drains for the water course through the centre of the gardens.
\nOther significant gardens include: the lower gardens remnants of the experimental garden and the mature Mango orchard; the arid garden; the pinetum with mature stands of Kauri (Agathis sp.), Radiata (Pinus radiata) and Hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii) Pines, and rows of Tamarinds (Tamarindus indica), in the upper gardens; the outer garden’s Figs (Ficus hillii) with associated Ginger underplantings and water course; the zoological gardens and picnic area associated with the Murray Lagoon.
\nOther Structures
\nModern structures and landscape elements on the site, including toilet blocks, shade structures and sheds, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Rockhampton Botanic Gardens are located on a 33-hectare site west of the Athelstane range and bordered by the Murray and Yeppen-Yeppen lagoons. A series of established gardens combine to create an education and recreation retreat at the southern edge of the city. A complex site, now incorporating both built and natural environments, the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens has enjoyed continuous use since opening in 1873.
\nThe Rockhampton Botanic Gardens was gazetted as public gardens in 1869. Between 1868 and 1872, three sites were gazetted as botanic gardens for Rockhampton. The influence of Anthelme Thozet, a local botanist and collector, is thought to have prevailed in the selection of the Spencer Street site, a former reserve for the Commissioner of Crown Lands and site of a native police camp.[1] The proximity to a constant water supply, in the adjacent Murray Lagoon, and striking vistas from the western slopes of the Athelstane range were primary considerations for a successful botanic gardens site. [2]
\nThe development of the first ten acres (4ha) of the 100-acre (40.5ha) site commenced after the curator James Scott Edgar took up residence in a modified dairy shed on the grounds in 1873. Edgar was trained in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and this first section to be developed is still known as the lower gardens. Local botanist Thozet, Ferdinand von Mueller of Melbourne Botanic Gardens and Walter Hill of Brisbane Botanic Gardens contributed material for the garden. The Queensland Acclimatisation Society was also active in providing plant stock and seed material to the new curator. Edgar maintained a professional link between these and other international botanic gardens, collecting specimens and distributing seed stock developed in Rockhampton as well as receiving plants and seeds for propagation in the gardens.[3]
\nPlant collections were also distributed for educational purposes, with the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens being the key regional distribution point to primary schools for Arbor Day trees. The Rockhampton Botanic Gardens were second only to the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens in volume of supply; 1000 trees were distributed from the nurseries. The gardens developed experimental and economic botany while also accommodating the recreational needs of the district.
\nEdgar cleared land near the Murray Lagoon and established the lower gardens, which included lawn areas and a six-acre ‘experimental garden’. Plantings included ‘Mango, Jaca, Breadfruit, Mangosteen, Mamee Apple, Date Plum, Longan, Leechee and Wampee’, as well as palm varieties including Coconut, Date, Wine, Oil and Sago.[4] A grove of Banyan Figs (Ficus benghalensis) was also planted to the east, near the site of the later kiosk, and other more formal arrangements included a central avenue of Bunya Pines (Araucaria bidwillii), aligned north-south, and rows of Tamarinds (Tamarindus indica) and Oleanders (Nerium oleander), some of which survive along the eastern boundary of the reserve.[5] In 1884, a curator’s cottage was built near the Spencer Street entrance; it was home to the first three curators and their families until a new residence was built in the 1960s, near the Ann Street entrance.[6] Other structures from Edgar’s time included a finch aviary constructed in the lower gardens during the 1890s.[7]
\nThe Murray Lagoon was Rockhampton's original bathing spot. Edgar introduced a diving pontoon and sand to create a beach-like atmosphere on its banks. He used bamboo stands to separate the male and female bathing areas and the original rules and regulations restricted the hours of use at the discretion of the trustees. The Murray Lagoon in the Botanic Gardens was a popular picnic area for the Rockhampton district in the late 19th century. The Lagoon provided the necessary water to the gardens and was also part of a broader lagoon system that constituted the original water supply for the city of Rockhampton.
\nIn 1905 the deed of grant for the reserve was issued to the Rockhampton City Council. The reserve was enlarged to 197 acres (79.7ha). By this time Richard Simmons had assumed the role of curator of the gardens and set out to bring more of the land under cultivation. During his time at the helm, a packing or tool shed was built and a children's playground, animal section (moved to its current location in 1925), bandstand and kiosk were added to the recreational facilities available in the gardens.[8]
\nThe kiosk was erected in 1911 and opened on New Year's Day 1912. Rockhampton City Council's chief engineer, Mr G Pennycuick, designed the octagonal shaped building. At a cost of £340, it was open on five sides with two rooms at the rear, the ladies' dressing room and a kitchen/storeroom. A small cupola and a number of decorative gables surmounted the roof. In 1966, the kiosk underwent modifications that included the removal of the roof decorations and the addition of an amenity block for the gardens. Further modifications in 1997 upgraded the catering facilities of the kiosk.
\nThe Department of Agriculture and Stock financially supported the gardens with an annual grant of between £300 and £500. This was supplemented by annual subscriptions to the Botanic Gardens trust and nursery sales. Simmons's experience as a local nurseryman prior to his appointment as the curator was crucial in maintaining the flow of funds for the gardens. Catalogues of available plants were distributed on a regular basis and orders were taken not only from throughout the central Queensland, but as far afield as the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Links to the international botanic gardens network were maintained.
\nPlantings undertaken during Simmons’ curatorship enhanced the pleasure and recreational aspects of the gardens, with new ornamental species and beds containing colourful plants added to the lower gardens. He also extended the avenue of Bunya Pines to the south, with an alignment of Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) opposite a row of palms previously planted by Edgar.[9]
\nIn the aftermath of World War I (WWI) the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens underwent major changes. The additional land received in 1905 was removed from the reserve to create Diggers Park and a section of the Botanic Gardens was set aside for the War Memorial for Rockhampton and the surrounding district. The War Memorial is separately listed in the Queensland Heritage Register [QHR 600818].
\nIn 1932, the curator's position passed to the deputy curator, Henry George Simmons, son of Richard Simmons. During his time as curator, limited financial arrangements impeded the expansion of the gardens and the popularity of the gardens declined. The beachside resorts of Emu Park and Yeppoon had become more easily accessible for the people of Rockhampton. However it is during this period that the Hugo Lassen Fernery was built in 1938. Hugo Lassen was a local dentist who bequeathed money to the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens. The fernery, a sophisticated cross form bush house, contains extensive rockeries and houses an impressive exotic fern collection. George Simmons is responsible for the pinetum, developed in the upper gardens, that included Kauri (Agathis sp.), Radiata (Pinus radiata) and Hoop pines.[10] A vehicle terminus was built in the centre of the gardens in 1923, and entrance gates commemorating King George V were erected in 1953 at the Spencer Street entrance.[11]
\nThroughout the history of the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens, labour was sourced from pools of unemployed and itinerant workers. At the turn of the century the Labour Bureau supplied men to work in the gardens. During the 1930s, the Intermittent Relief Scheme provided the labour for the extensive stonework throughout the lower gardens, particularly providing culverts and drains for the water course through the centre of the park. In the 1990s, the ‘work for the dole scheme’ provided many young unemployed people work alongside staff of the gardens.
\nMajor developments at the gardens from the 1960s to the 1990s included the formalisation an upgrading of the animal section into a Zoo and formation of the Arid gardens, under the direction of Ken Baker (curator 1957-1972), and construction of the Japanese Gardens during the time of Tom Wyatt (curator 1974-1997). A floral clock, built by Rotary, was moved to the gardens in 1987.[12]
\nIn recent years, various structures and landscape features have been added to the gardens including new zoological enclosures and habitats, pathways, park shelters and other amenities. In 2015, seven of the Canary Island Date Palms were destroyed by Severe Tropical Cyclone Marcia, and along with remaining aged palms were subsequently replaced with mature specimens of the same species.[13] The 1890s finch aviary was dismantled and placed in storage in c2002.[14]
\nThe Rockhampton Botanic Gardens remain a popular recreational feature for the people of the district. The barbeque and playground areas are busy throughout the week and particularly on the weekends. Although the scientific arm of the gardens is no longer a predominant aspect of its operations, present staff are keen to create links between the gardens and the University of Central Queensland. The mature 19th and early 20th century plantings are indeed spectacular and the gardens provide a cool leafy oasis in the dry, hot, tropical climate of Rockhampton.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Botanic Gardens, gazetted in 1869 are important as the premier recreation and botanic retreat for Rockhampton. They demonstrate the importance of Rockhampton as the major urban centre for the central Queensland region, and the city’s desire to sustain a scientific, educational and recreational centre of international repute.
\nAs one of the first parks established by the Rockhampton City Council, the gardens demonstrate the commitment to provide recreational and educational facilities for the people of Rockhampton.
|The place’s botanical collection includes specimens rare in cultivation or of great maturity or both, including the remnants of a 19th century experimental garden. The Hugo Lassen Fernery is a very uncommon example of a large Queensland bush house.
\nThe zoological park, once an integral part of many botanic gardens, is now an uncommon feature, making the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens important in demonstrating the historical development of botanic gardens in general.
|As a regional botanic gardens, the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens maintained a position within a national and international network of botanic gardens of which the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was the originating hub. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a provincial botanic reserve, with a greater emphasis placed on the creating of an exotic collection of living botany rather than providing herbarium and library facilities. The early layout, established by JS Edgar, is substantially intact and exotic plantings dating from the 19th century include aesthetic, economic and experimental botany. Significant architectural features include the original curator's cottage (1884), the Kiosk and tool shed (1912), the War Memorial (1924) [QHR 601818] and the Hugo Lassen Fernery (1938).
|The Rockhampton Botanic Gardens is significant as a Rockhampton landmark and for its visual amenity. The grounds, comprising formal and informal landscaped areas with early and substantial plantings, slope down towards the Murray Lagoon and offer striking vistas from the western slopes of the Athelstane Range.
|The Rockhampton Botanic Gardens is held in high regard by the community and has been a popular place for events and recreation, and for visitors to Rockhampton, since the late 19th century.
|The Rockhampton Botanic Gardens have a special association with the pioneering work of curators James Scott Edgar (1873-1902), Richard Jacob Simmons (1903-1931), Henry George Simmons (1932-1957), Kenneth Clive Baker (1957-1972) and Thomas Wyatt (1974-1997).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16558,"place_ref":601821,"name":"Challinor Centre","alternate_name":"Sandy Gallop Asylum | Ipswich Mental Hospital | Ipswich Hospital for the Insane","street_address":"11 Salisbury Road","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1996-12-02","description":"The Challinor Centre is a place which contains many buildings and items of significance. These include the old pavilions - Blair Pavilion (1908), Byron House (1917), Charles Pavilion (1917), Clair House (1917), Dagmar House (1933); buildings constructed as part of the administration/recreation/service area in the centre of the site- the Administration Building (1914), Bakery (1913), Bath Houses (1913), Boiler house and Chimney (1913 & 1946), Former Disinfecting Room (1919), Kitchen (1913), Laundry (1912), Store (1917), Recreation Hall (1916); the former hospital - Grace House (1917); and features on the site including mature trees, grounds, roadways and the Reservoir (1914) located between the administration area and Byron House.
\nThe site is accessed via Parker Avenue which runs alongside the show reserve from the Ipswich Boonah Road. The planning of the site is divided into distinct male and female areas separated by administration/recreation/service area which is sited at the end of the entrance driveway. A feature is the radial planning which facilitated development on the ridge line and allowed buildings to be positioned to provide the best views for patients. Roadways follow this radial planning.
\nSignificant buildings are well designed and of individual architectural merit. Blair Pavilion is the largest building on the site and is in a arts and crafts style with dark brickwork and stucco walls and a high pitched roof. The Administration Building is in a neo-classical Georgian style and provides an imposing vista upon entering the site. The remaining buildings in the recreation/service area are in the arts and crafts style. Other significant buildings on the site are bungalow style brick structures, low set, allowing patients easy access to the grounds. These include Dagmar House, Byron House, Charles Pavilion, Clair House and Grace House.
\nThe site has extensive grounds and contains many mature trees and some gardens. Some trees relate to the previous entry driveway which ran from the Boonah Ipswich Road to the original 1878 pavilion where Arthur pavilion now stands. The palm trees in front of the Administration Building were planted shortly after that building's construction. The circular garden developed at the same time exists in form but the planting has been replaced. The site also contains remnants of the sunken fence in front of Blair pavilion and end wall of a sunken fences in the old Female division which is now part of a carport.
","history":"Sandy Gallop asylum, as it was first known, was established in 1878 as a branch asylum of the Goodna asylum. It occupied a 140 acre site on the southern outskirts of Ipswich. The main building consisted of a single storey timber and masonry structure which contained three dormitories and two day rooms. The asylum received mainly chronic cases from Goodna. By the 1880s, it was accommodating more that 100 patients.
\nThe constant growth in admissions of patients to asylums in Queensland prompted the creation of Sandy Gallop as a separate institution. From 1910 it was known as the Ipswich Hospital for the Insane. A major building program was undertaken between 1908 and 1917 at the instigation of James Hogg who was the Inspector of Hospitals for the Insane(1898-1908), and his replacement HB Ellerton (1909-1937). Buildings erected included two male wards, three female wards, hospital, administration building, laundry, recreation hall, kitchen, boiler house, and medical superintendent's residence. By 1920 the asylum was accommodating almost 450 patients.
\nChanges in legislation in 1938 and approaches to the treatment of mental patients saw the name of the institution change to the Ipswich Mental Hospital in 1938. The number of patients continued to grow throughout the 1940s and 1950s and overcrowding and staff shortages became major problems. Another phase of building activity occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s but did little to alleviate the difficulties of overcrowding. By the 1960s, more than 600 patients were being accommodated in the institution.
\nAs a result of the reorganization of mental health services in 1968, the institution was designated as a training centre for the intellectually disabled. It was renamed Challinor Centre and remodeled. In 1973 the original 1878 building was demolished and replaced by a substantially larger single storey brick complex. Other new buildings included a canteen (1978), workshops (1979) and a staff development centre (1981). Attention was given to providing recreational facilities for residents and in 1978 a sporting oval was constructed on part of the site of the former farm.
\nThese building works and improvements were intended to forge a new identity for Challinor and make a distinction from its previous role as a lunatic asylum and mental hospital. This process also involved the demolition of buildings of the previous era where possible. Almost all evidence of farming activities including sheds and yards had been removed by the late 1970s. In 1973 Allison House (the former No 1 female ward) was demolished and a section of the nurses quarters was demolished in 1981. The former medical superintendent's residence was demolished in 1984 after being partially damaged by fire.
\nFrom the 1970s a program of normalization and deinstutionalisation saw a steady decline in the numbers in the centre. Clients were encouraged and assisted to move into community based accommodation. The Challinor Centre was closed in 1994, and was adapted by the University of Queensland as its Ipswich campus from 1998-2014. The University of Southern Queensland acquired the site in 2015.
","criteria":"Challinor Centre is significant as the most complete example of an asylum in Queensland based on the principles of 'moral treatment', which heavily influenced the design of most asylums in the 19th and early 20th century. The principles of 'moral treatment' stressed the importance of providing a pleasant environment for patients, and are evident at Challinor in the extensive vistas, the well designed buildings, the distinct areas of male and female patients, the sunken fences, the gardens and mature trees, water supply, ventilation systems, and provision of employment, and recreation areas.
Challinor Centre is also significant for its pivotal role in the development of services for intellectually disabled in Queensland. Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century, little consideration was given to the needs of the intellectually disabled in Queensland asylums. They were simply regarded as belonging to the class of insane. A growing awareness of the special needs of the intellectually disabled in Queensland resulted in the construction of the first facilities for children at Challinor in 1933. This building, later known as Dagmar House accommodated children with severe intellectual and physical disabilities. From the mid 1930s, Challinor began to cater more and more for these children.
|Similar radial planning was used at Claremont Hospital in Western Australia, but the Challinor site is unique in Queensland.
|At Challinor the extensive grounds and views from the site are one of the most striking aspects and are of significance in demonstrating the principles of 'moral treatment'. The buildings were sited to take advantage of the vistas and the sunken fences were constructed to maximise the views from the building and give patients a sense of freedom. The south-eastern section of the golf course is significant as a open space over which there are extensive views to the south and south-east.
'Moral treatment' also emphasised the value of useful employment and recreation and the Challinor site is significant in demonstrating this. Although only remnants of farming activities remain, the laundry, kitchen and other workrooms survive as evidence of the patients' activities. Evidence of recreational activities also survive. The recreation hall survives remarkably intact. A tennis court was constructed on the open area to the south of Blair Pavilion. The present golf course was constructed during the 1920s principally for the staff but it was also intended for use by the patients.
Although the Challinor site is significant as a group of buildings and features, Blair Pavilion, along with its grounds, is of special significance as an exceptionally intact example of a building based on the philosophy of 'moral treatment'. No other building within the network of Queensland asylums more successfully demonstrates the principal aspects of 'moral treatment': the combination of large dormitories and single cells illustrates the separation of patients according to type of insanity; the design of the building, the sunken fences and the impressive vistas in all directions shows the importance attached to pleasant surrounds; the sophisticated ventilation system and large windows highlights the importance given to lighting and fresh air; and the remnants of the exercise yards and tennis court reveal the importance given to exercise and recreation.
|Challinor Centre is significant for the architectural qualities of the buildings, in particular those erected in the period 1908-16. They included the administration building, recreation hall, service buildings, Blair Pavilion, Grace House, Byron and Clair Houses, and Charles Pavilion. The architectural branch of the Department of Public Works was responsible for the design of these buildings. The period between 1900 and 1915 was arguably the golden era of the branch in terms of the quality of its work. Many of the finest public buildings in Queensland were designed in this period and included courthouses, police stations, customs houses, public offices, and asylum buildings. The buildings at Challinor are significant examples of the work produced by the Works Department.
Of particular architectural significance are Blair Pavilion and the administration building. Blair Pavilion is an extremely good example of the federation Arts and Crafts style. It has typical features of the style including dark brickwork, with roughcast upper walls. The external aspects of the ventilation system have been skilfully incorporated into the roof design in the form of large fleches. The administration building was designed by A S Hook, a young English architect, who after a brief period of employment with the Queensland Department of Works, had a successful and important architectural career in New South Wales. The building and its circular driveway, is an imposing entrance to the asylum. It is the front piece of the administration and service buildings. The Georgian style of the building was a speciality of the government architects office in Queensland. This building is one of the finest examples of this style in Queensland and one of the earliest.
Challinor Centre is significant for its landmark qualities within the Ipswich townscape. Challinor centre occupies one of the highest ridges in Ipswich and is a landmark within Ipswich. While the showgrounds and vegetation conceals the Centre from immediate view, it is readily recognisable from more distant vantage points. From the southern side of Denmark Hill, the Centre is prominent on the southern skyline. Similarly the Challinor buildings, particularly the chimney, dominate the skyline eastwards from Lobb Street. Approaching Ipswich from the south along the Warwick Road, Blair Pavilion is prominent on the horizon. These vistas are given prominence by the openness of the site due to the minimal development of most of site and the open landscape of the golf course. This contributes to the institutional nature of the site and its landmark qualities.
|The principles of 'moral treatment' also influenced the design and planning of Wolston Park and Toowoomba asylums. However, at neither place were the principles of moral therapy as thoroughly applied or as clearly articulated as at Challinor. The site of Wolston Park was not chosen for its views but for its convenience, situated on the Brisbane River halfway between Ipswich and Brisbane. The development of Wolston Park has been haphazard. A constant shortage of funds prevented any systematic planning and major flooding in 1893 disrupted plans that had been made. Toowoomba asylum was based on the pavilion plan but the wards faced each other rather than outwards to allow for views.
\nAt Challinor, Blair Pavilion (1907) and the No 1 female ward (1908), were dramatically different. Both buildings and the layout of their features, such as sunken fences were located on a radial grid which ran around the ridge of the site in an arc. The buildings were orientated on top of the ridge looking out at the surrounding countryside. The combination of planning and site allowed the principles of 'moral treatment' to be fully exploited in the physical configuration of the buildings and their grounds, and formed the basis of all future development on the site until 1940.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16559,"place_ref":601822,"name":"Commissioner Bidwill's Grave","alternate_name":"Bidwills Grave","street_address":"Cran Road","suburb":"TINANA","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-30","description":"Commissioner Bidwill's Grave is located on a rise, adjoining a sugar cane paddock, to the south of the junction of Tinana Creek and the Mary River, adjacent to Cran Road, Tinana.
The grave has a gabled sandstone headstone, with two large diagonal breaks, which has been reconstructed with a compressed fibrous cement sheet fixed to the back and a concrete base.
A Lychee tree is located to the west of the grave.
","history":"The headstone and lone grave located near the junction of Tinana Creek and the Mary River adjacent to Cran Road known as Commissioner for Crown Lands John Carne Bidwill's grave site is a significant place in the history of the Maryborough region. It marks the final resting place for John Carne Bidwill who was Commissioner for Crown Lands from 1849-52. Bidwill played an important role in the early development of the Wide Bay region, acting as Police Magistrate, Harbour Master, and registrar for Birth's, Deaths and Marriages.
Bidwill was however first and foremost a talented Botanist, and Natural-Historian. He is believed to have introduced certain fruits, such as the mango, into Australia. Bidwill took specimen examples of the Bunya Bunya pine (Araucaria Bidwillii) to London in 1843, a seedling of which was bought by Kew Gardens.
During exploration of the Brisbane Valley and areas to the north in 1841 he found examples of a giant Australian water lily (Nymphaea gigantea). He was involved in experiments to hybridise Gladioli, Hibiscus and Amaryllis. Bidwill's Hibiscus crosses were the first scientifically created examples in Australia.
John Carne Bidwill was born in Exeter, England, in February 1815. His father was a merchant. It is thought that his interest in botany was stimulated by two famous nearby nurseries owned by Veitch and Luscombe, Pince & Co. The Luscombe nursery was growing Australian plants in the 1830's. In 1832 Bidwill sailed aboard the "Exmouth" for Canada. After spending two years there he returned to England. In 1838 Bidwill and his sister Elizabeth sailed for Sydney to establish a branch of the family merchandising business in New South Wales.
At the end of 1838 John Bidwill applied for a 2000 acre grant of land to the west of Sydney. However increasing costs per acre of land, a result of the pastoral boom in New South Wales in the period of the late 1830's, saw Bidwill withdraw his application. Bidwill at this time sent back to England his first collection of Australian seeds, which were raised into plants at Joseph Knights Chelsea Nursery.
Bidwill left for New Zealand, arriving there in early 1839. He established two branches of the family business at Tauranga and Rotorua. Bidwill walked to Rotorua, collecting plant specimen's along the way. Two species were named after him resulting from his collecting through New Zealand, a Halocarpus and a Brachyglottis. His experiences in New Zealand saw him publish Rambles in New Zealand (1841). Bidwill returned to New South Wales, and sent the best of his New Zealand collection to John Lindley at the London Horticultural Society. Lindley did not publish Bidwill's work, and credited Ernst Diefenbach instead with his Bidwill's discoveries (Bidwill was to receive posthumous recognition).
John Bidwill returned to New Zealand in 1840 with his brother to build up the family business, and to continue his explorations and expand his botanical collection. Specimens from this period are kept at the Hooker Herbarium, Kew Gardens. Bidwill returned to Sydney in 1841 and worked with Jospeh Hooker son of the eminent Botanist. Colonial Secretary Mcleay also requested during this period that Bidwill undertake the collection of native fruits for study.
In furtherance of family business John Bidwill travelled to Moreton Bay in 1841, and began exploring to the north. He climbed the Glass House Mountains, and described a jasmine found on Mount Beerwah. It was known for a short time as Jasminum Bidwillii. Bidwill had also established a close relationship with the King and MacArthur families, and described and named a small orchid Dendrobium kingianum, which was named in honour of his friend Phillip King. In 1841 Bidwill began work as an assistant in the Sydney Botanical Gardens, and also became a member of the Australia Club. Bidwill sailed to England in 1843, auctioneering off botanical specimens collected in Australia, as well as his Gladioli Hybrids.
Bidwill returned to Australia in 1844, in company with his other sister Mary. On his return voyage he brought back to Australia specimens of banana's, apples, passionfruit and apricots. After his return he established his own nursery (thought to have been at Camden). Examples of his Camellias are still grown in the Camden area. He also continued his experimentation on hybridising Gladioli. Later in 1844 he again returned to New Zealand, sailing on to Tahiti. He attempted to establish a passionfruit plantation in Tahiti, which failed. He sent living examples of Tahitian orchids to England, but these were misdirected and sent instead to his father.
Bidwill was appointed in mid 1847 to the position of Government Botanist and Director of the Sydney Botanical Gardens, by Colonial Secretary Earl Grey. Charles Moore was appointed to this position as a result of a bureaucratic mistake in London, and arrived to take up this position in January 1848. Bidwill acted in the capacity of Botanist and Director until the end of 1847. Bidwill then took his case to the Governor and requested that he be considered for any Crown Lands Commissioner's position then being created. He was appointed Commissioner for Crown Lands in November 1848 and confirmed Commissioner for the Wide Bay region. Bidwill travelled from Sydney to Brisbane on the Tamar arriving at Wide Bay village in December 1848.
Bidwill after his arrival established a residence for himself on the banks of Tinana Creek, near the junction of the Mary River and the creek. His residence was some six kilometres down stream from the Wide Bay village. The village itself was renamed Maryborough in 1849, and subsequently proclaimed a township on 2 February 1851. Bidwill had erected for himself a cottage, stables and a barracks for his assistants in the Crown Lands work.
The name Tinana, given by Bidwill to his residence and gardens as well as the creek nearby, is thought to have been inspired by the Maori leader Tinanah. The garden that Bidwill established was extensive, and during his time as Commissioner, Bidwill continued to collect and grow botanical specimen's as well as to experiment and grow fruit and vegetable plants. He continued forwarding plants to Kew Gardens. Bidwill however was unable to act as an efficient administrator in his job as Crown Lands Commissioner.
In July of 1849 Bidwill was involved in an altercation with John Daniel Mactaggart of Kilkivan station, a result of a remark made by Bidwill accusing him of selling sly grog to his workers. Mactaggart challenged Bidwill to a duel, which was refused. Mactaggart struck Bidwill with a stock whip demanding satisfaction. A charge of assault was brought against Mactaggart by Bidwill, and the case was heard in Brisbane in May 1850. Mactaggart was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment.
Bidwill was noted as sometimes exhibiting irrational behaviour during his term as Crown Lands Commissioner. He was considered a "harsh master", and disciplinarian. An employee of Bidwill's, George Dart who was later to become a well known identity in the commerce and social life of Maryborough claimed that Bidwill resorted on one occasion to purchasing and setting a man trap to halt the stealing of poultry, gardens and livestock by local Aboriginal groups.
According to Dart the trap did catch an Aboriginal raiding the house garden, and the extent of injuries led to the "mercy" killing of the individual by one of Bidwill's workers. Bidwill himself shot at local Aboriginals on several occasions in an attempt to prevent their pilfering. On another occasion Bidwill chose not to intervene in the murder of a local Aboriginal that was committed by a settler George Fueber in the Maryborough settlement. The shooting was witnessed by Bidwill outside of Richard Palmer's Inn. He chose not to act intervene in the matter despite the fact that he was Chief Magistrate for the Wide Bay, and was therefore responsible for policing.
Bidwill's property featured two gardens, the larger was at the junction of Tinana Creek and the Mary River. This featured most of the botanic and fruit specimens. The Commissioner's living quarters were situated at a higher elevation to the west of the "lower garden" and featured a "house garden" supplying pumpkins, sweet potatoes and yams.
In 1852 he was ordered to mark a tree line for the use of drays, and to speed up the transport of prisoners from Maryborough to Brisbane. A more circuitous route then in use required five days of travelling between the two centres. Bidwill set out with horses and a dray from Tinana Creek and five other men. They cut a straight track through to Tahiti station, near Tiaro. Along the watershed of Tinana Creek the party followed a spur that divided Tinana Creek from the Mary River, and then travelled through the area of what later became Gympie. A temporary bridge was built over the Mary River in this area, and during its construction Bidwill was credited by George Dart with locating traces of gold, fifteen years before James Nash found the Gympie gold field.
The party then proceeded further south in the direction of the Glasshouse Mountains marking the tree line. The party came across evidence of the remains of the large scale killing of a stolen flock of sheep taken from Marodian station near Miva. The group camped near this location for several days, when the cook of the party informed Bidwill that rations were running short. Bidwill believing that the party were near Durundur station decided to cut through the scrub with an assistant, Slade, to get rations.
Both men's rations were exhausted in two days. For the next sixteen days Bidwill and Slade existed off snails, and edible roots identified by Bidwill. A party of Aboriginals rescued the starving men near Durundur station. The privations of the eighteen days, including eight without food severely affected Bidwill's health. Bidwill stayed for several weeks recuperating, before setting off for Brisbane in weakened state. Doctors in Brisbane sent him on to Sydney for further treatment. He returned to Maryborough, but despite the attendance of three doctors- one from Gayndah and two from Maryborough, died on the 16 March 1853 at the age of 38. He was buried amongst the plants of his botanical garden ("lower garden"). Cause of death was attributed to a severe kidney complaint.
A Bunya pine was planted at each corner of his grave to mark its position. His brother Charles came from New Zealand to collect his personal effects, all other items of Bidwill's were auctioned. In 1854 Sir Charles Moore and Brisbane Botanical Gardens Curator Walter Hill made a collection of specimens from Bidwill's garden. Surviving trees from the collection are thought to be a Bunya Pine and Sausage Tree in Queens Park, Maryborough. Other specimens were sent to Brisbane, Rockhampton and Ipswich.
A Lychee tree thought to be a surviving specimen from Bidwill's "lower" garden survives near the bank of Tinana Creek, approximately 30 metres from the grave. Conservation work was carried out on this headstone in 1988. A sandstone headstone identifies the grave.
John Carne Bidwill despite his enthusiasm and drive for botanical collecting and study is today largely an unknown figure in the history of Queensland, New South Wales and in the history of the South Pacific. A suburb of Maryborough, and a Parish near Maryborough are named after him, as well as a suburb in Sydney. Ten Australian and three New Zealand plant species are also named after him. Altogether thirty plants carry his name.
","criteria":"The Commissioner for Crown Lands John Carne Bidwill's grave, located near the junction of Tinana Creek and the Mary River adjacent to Cran Road, is important in demonstrating the growth of the Wide Bay district and the role of the first Commissioner for Crown Lands in the pre-separation period of Queensland history. It also marks the burial location of the first person commissioned to mark a new direct tree line for transport between the Maryborough-Wide Bay area and Brisbane replacing a more circuitous route via the Brisbane Valley.
The grave and adjacent Lychee tree are the last surviving evidence of the residence and gardens that Bidwill created during the period of 1849-52 during his appointment as Crown Lands Commissioner in the Wide Bay district. Bidwill chose to establish his living quarters six kilometres downstream from the original village of Wide Bay and named the creek junctioning with the Mary River at this location, Tinana. He also established a large botanical garden for the growing of specimen plants on the property. Bidwill himself was an active and prolific collector and grower of botanical specimens, as well as hybridiser of flowering plants. Specimens collected by him during travels in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific are kept in the Kew Gardens collection.
|(Criterion under review)
|The grave marks the burial location of the first Commissioner for Crown Lands appointed to the Wide Bay region in 1849, John Carne Bidwill. In the early years of the Wide Bay area (1849-52) Bidwill played an important role in its establishment. As the Crown Lands commissioner his duties included administration of the licences issued for Crown Lands, but also acting as Police Magistrate, Harbour Master, and registrar for Births, Deaths and Marriages. After his death in 1853 Bidwill was buried in the botanical garden he created, of which reportedly only one fruit tree, a Lychee, remains.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16562,"place_ref":601825,"name":"BAFS Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"331 & 333 George Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-02-22","description":"The BAFS Building is a three storey building with basement, constructed of load-bearing masonry that accommodates a pharmacy and offices. The building has sculptured, parapetted facades to both George and Turbot Streets which feature carefully detailed Classical and Art Deco-style decorative elements. The bottom half of the building is smooth-rendered and painted in a cream colour, which is also used on the mouldings around the windows and in bands on the corners of the building to simulate quoining. The first floor windows are set within wide arched openings which have exaggerated moulded keystones that connect to the sills of the upper floor windows. The upper floor windows have moulded surrounds with Art Deco-style decoration at the top that comprises of a stepped pattern around a central keystone. The first floor windows are multi-paned casements with arched heads and at upper level are multi-paned sashes, all have deep sills. Air conditioning units have been inserted into some of the first floor windows.
The George Street façade is symmetrically composed, with a central feature at upper level of a small balcony supported on corbels with a wrought iron balustrade. A pair of French doors, surmounted by a fanlight, open out on to this balcony. A round window decorated with festoons is directly below the balcony, followed by another small square window directly below this. A sign is located at the top of the façade, with the raised lettering "B.A.F.S Dispensary 1885-1915" The sign sits upon a short and simple entablature with prominent dentils. Mortar and pestles are mounted at each corner of the façade.
The Turbot Street elevation is more simple but also has a high degree of symmetry. The corners of the parapet are stepped and scalloped and there is a central semi-circular cut-out in the centre of the parapet. There are three horizontal bands of five windows, at street level they are high level narrow horizontal windows. Two downpipes with prominent rainwater heads are located either side of the central window and the entrance door is located off-centre beneath the second last line of windows, towards the back lane.
The pharmacy is located at street level with a recent shopfront of sliding glass doors to George Street. A deep awning returns around the corner a short distance into Turbot Street and is supported by iron tie-back rods. A doorway situated within the chamfered corner at street level, is no longer used. The Turbot Street elevation follows the slope of the street and a service laneway is located at the rear of the building. The slightly recessed entrance to the offices (BAFS Chambers) leads to a small vestibule and concrete stairwell providing access to the upper floors. The open well stair with two quarter landings has cast iron newel posts, timber balusters and a curved timber hand rail. A doorway from the back of the pharmacy also opens into the stairwell.
The enlarged landing of the staircase serves as an anteroom for the first floor offices, adjacent to this is an external light well. An arched doorway leads to a hallway on the left that provides access to the BAFS offices and a small barbershop. The hallway terminates in large double doors that facilitate loading from the rear laneway, a similar loading area is also located at the top floor. A kitchenette and toilets are located in the north-east corner of the building and have some original fittings. The hallway to the right leads to the BAFS Boardroom and several offices, some of which are occupied by doctors and others which are vacant. Partitions in this area are generally fibro-cement sheeting with simple timber joinery and glass in the upper third section of wall There are some suspended tiled ceilings and timber floors are carpeted throughout.
The northern end of the upper floor of the building has a similar floor plan to the first floor and contains offices and toilet and kitchen facilities. The former hall is located at the southern end. This is a large, well-lit, uncluttered space with an open ceiling with timber trusses and polished timber floorboards. French doors lead to the small balcony overlooking George Street. The upper floor is currently leased by a modelling agency who have fitted a reception area at the top of the stairwell.
The basement is accessed from an area at the back of the pharmacy which also contains an office, kitchenette, loading dock and large general storage area. The basement occupies the entire space of the ground floor and is partially subterranean. There is a regular pattern of columns and rows of storage shelves. A vault where medicines and pharmaceutical materials were previously stored is located in the space underneath the upper stairwell. Toilets are located in the north-east corner with a loading area adjacent.
","history":"The Brisbane Associated Friendly Societies' (BAFS) Building was officially opened in 1916 as a pharmaceutical dispensary and headquarters of the Brisbane Associated Friendly Societies. The building is located on the corner of George and Turbot Streets in Brisbane city and was designed by the notable local architectural firm, Chambers and Powell. It was the fourth city building occupied by the BAFS and the first that the society constructed themselves. The BAFS has had a presence in Brisbane city since 1885. A focal point for friendly societies throughout Queensland and the thousands of members they served, BAFS was an important force in health care in Queensland up to the mid twentieth century.
Queensland's first friendly society was established in 1843, members paid a monthly fee and were then entitled to claim sick and funeral benefits as necessary. Friendly Societies had emerged in Britain in the late eighteenth century as the country industrialised and a new class of urban worker emerged. Originally formed with the purpose of organising recreational activities for city workers, Friendly Societies soon grew into self-help organisations where members pooled their resources and helped each other out in times of need.
During the 1860s, membership of Friendly Societies flourished in Australia and the Societies expanded their services, contracting doctors to provide consultations to their members and beginning to provide free medicines. The medical fraternity became increasingly alarmed at the expansion of Friendly Societies and the threat they perceived to their profession. In response, the Societies amalgamated further, with the aim of providing even more comprehensive services. They aimed to offer greater choice of doctors and services, in premises they owned themselves. Pharmacists were less "protectionist" than doctors and Associated Friendly Societies (AFS) dispensaries were established throughout the capital cities of Australia.
The first BAFS dispensary was set up on 1st January 1885 in a small room in the Oddfellows Hall in Charlotte Street. At this time, the BAFS had 1200 members and incorporated nineteen Lodges. In 1893, a South Brisbane dispensary was opened by the BAFS. The next year the city dispensary moved to designated premises at 217 Queen Street. The dispensary stayed there until 1905 when it moved again to 344 Queen Street, in one of the premier retail blocks in the city.
In 1909, the BAFS celebrated its Silver Jubilee, its membership was 7185 and it now incorporated 100 Lodges. The same year, they established their third dispensary in Fortitude Valley. At the Annual Meeting in February 1915, it was reported that the membership had reached a total of 13 000 and that the property on George Street had been secured at the cost of £4080 for the purposes of building their own premises. A prospectus was prepared and sent out to all member Lodges, inviting them to support the building project through a debenture scheme. Debentures worth £12 000 were issued, the response from the Lodges was overwhelming and the amount was oversubscribed. Chambers and Powell Architects were commissioned to design the building and the Foundation Stone was laid on the 4th September 1915.
Lange Powell was the designer of the building as his partner Claude Chambers had moved to Sydney in 1915. Powell responded to the toast to "The Architects and Builders" at the opening ceremony. Powell went on to do further architectural work for the BAFS, such as re-furbishing the building they purchased in 1919 at 146 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley. Powell was an eclectic architect who understood well the design canons of the styles of the Interwar period. The best known of his surviving city buildings demonstrate considerable stylistic literacy, for example, the Ann Street Masonic Temple in Ancient Classical style and St. Martins Hospital in Arts and Crafts style. The design of the BAFS Building has stylistic similarities, albeit on a smaller scale, with other examples of his commercial work in the city, such as Perry House, Preston House and Exton House.
The George Street building was designed as a "head dispensary", intended to showcase the success and progress of the BAFS. The inscription of "1885-1916" on the George Street façade clearly reflected the Society's desire to maintain links with their history in Brisbane. A souvenir booklet written in 1916 claimed "it stands as a monument to the enterprise and progressiveness of the Associated Friendly Societies and is an acquisition to the architecture of George Street and the city, generally". The building had three floors and a basement, the whole of the ground floor, at street level, was occupied by the dispensary, the first floor accommodated offices for lease and the third floor contained two large rooms for use for meetings by the Board of Management and Lodges. The building, constructed by B Cunningham, had been completed at a cost of £11 707 15s 7d.
By the 1920s, the battle that had been raging between doctors and Lodges over who should control medical care had been largely won by the doctors due to the formidable fight waged by the British Medical Association - a dispute that had consequences across Australia. The BAFS Medical Institute, a collection of doctors who worked for the BAFS management committee considered amalgamating with the dispensaries but did not, effectively ending the connection doctors had with the BAFS.
Dispensaries, however, continued to flourish and the 1920s was characterised by strong growth. BAFS purchased their own premises in Fortitude Valley and South Brisbane, however George Street attracted over half of the total sales and over 60% of the total number of prescriptions for most of the decade. The interwar years were the "golden age" for the BAFS. The building was a hub of Lodge activity, the shops and offices of the "BAFS Chambers" were constantly let and included tenants such as a milliner, a masseuse and a car hire firm. There was also an Honorary Dentist and Honorary Optician who were paid a salary by BAFS and provided free services to members until at least 1940. One half of the top floor was used as a hall by Lodges who did not have their own premises, as well as for BAFS annual and quarterly meetings and a variety of social events such as smoke concerts.
The BAFS is now known as Friendly Care Chemists and has pharmacies in six locations across Brisbane, including George Street. The head office of the Society is still at George Street, however, both the Fortitude Valley and Woolloongabba premises have been sold. Only a small number of the offices are used and tenants include a barber, doctor and modelling agency.
","criteria":"The BAFS Building is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, representing the development of and changes in, the provision of health care in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Queensland. It demonstrates the growth and popularity of Friendly Societies as a means for working class people to provide for their health needs, prior to the development of Government welfare and health care.
|The BAFS Building demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage, being surviving purpose-built premises constructed by an association of Friendly Societies to accommodate a diverse range of their activities.
|The BAFS Building is important because of its aesthetic significance, designed by prominent interwar Brisbane architect Lange Powell and demonstrating a high degree of design accomplishment. The building's carefully designed facades make a contribution to the streetscapes of both George and Turbot Streets.
|The BAFS Building has a strong and special association with Brisbane Associated Friendly Societies for social and cultural reasons. The construction of the building represented a high point in the efforts and success of the BAFS and it was a civic icon in Brisbane for many years, renowned in Queensland as a source of competitively priced and high quality drugs. The building was a focus and gathering point for a large number of Friendly Societies and their members, used for meetings and social occasions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16563,"place_ref":602406,"name":"South Brisbane Cemetery","alternate_name":"Dutton Park Cemetery","street_address":"21 Fairfield Road","suburb":"DUTTON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-10-01","description":"The South Brisbane Cemetery occupies a large area of undulating land sloping from the ridge at Annerley Road, Dutton Park to T J Doyle Memorial Drive on the edge of the Brisbane River. It has gullies in the central section and the layout of graves and plantings is dictated to a large extent by this undulating quality of the land.
The cemetery, as a special memorial area, is bounded by walls and fences. The main entrance is on Annerley Road and has formal gates flanked by iron railings in the form of spears set into a low sandstone wall. The entrance is formed by a pair of wrought iron gates set between decorative sandstone pillars across the carriage way and a pedestrian gate. The gates match the railings and are composed of iron spears overlaid with a sinuous vine-like decoration. The entrance at Princess Street is not marked by special plantings.
Dividing left and right from the main drive are two curving drives. Although there is a formalised area of planting near the main entrance, the plantings are generally informal in layout, conforming to the terrain, and contain a great diversity of species, both indigenous and exotic. The burials are less informally arranged and are set closely in rows, as the land allows, with an east-west orientation. There are concrete paths between them and memorials of a wide variety of type, quality and age mark them. A number of the oldest memorials are large and elaborate displaying Victorian symbolism connected with death, such as broken columns, angels and vine leaves. Jane Hocking's burial, the oldest in the cemetery, is marked by the caved figure of an angel clinging to a cross atop a tapered column.
Service buildings constructed in the 1940s building programme survive. They comprise small brick toilet blocks, a brick building incorporating the walls and floor slab of a 1958 building, which was used as an office, store and garage, and a staff amenities block.
The cemetery contains a Trig marker, which was part of a triangulation survey of the South East region carried out by the government in 1883. This is located on the cemetery hill and is a sandstone block inscribed on top, which is now covered by a concrete path.
","history":"The South Brisbane Cemetery was established in 1866 as a general cemetery and occupies an area of land on the Brisbane River adjoining Dutton Park.
Although Christian burials in Europe were traditionally clustered around churches, following the rise of urban populations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, churchyards became inadequate for the numbers of burials required. After the example set by France, towns in Britain, and in Australia, set aside land on the outskirts of settlement as public cemeteries. This was thought to be healthier and provided a spacious, landscaped environment where monuments and plantings could be attractively set out. Brisbane's first public cemetery of this type was established at Milton in the 1840s though it has since been built over. Nundah cemetery was established in 1846 and Moggill in 1855.
The area now that is now known as Dutton Park was originally called Bloggo or Boggo. It was thickly timbered and cut by steep gullies. A rough track from Woolloongabba to Ipswich passed through it. Some farms were established in the 1840s, the road was surveyed and a bridge across the river was built in the 1860s, but there were few houses.
In 1863 the area around Dutton Park was surveyed. A large recreation reserve was set aside, and then divided into recreation and cemeteries reserves by a later survey. The Cemetery Act of 1865 provided for the government to set up general cemeteries under the control of local trustees and South Brisbane Cemetery was established in 1866 under Trustees T B Stephens, A J Hocking, W T Blakeney, W M Baynes and J Mooney. The first burial took place in July 1870 and was that of Jane Hocking.
The South Brisbane Cemetery was one of several government reserves in the area. A public park runs along its northern boundary and there were reserves for a pound, a gaol, an asylum and an orphanage in the vicinity. As public transport became available more people moved to the area. A railway station was opened at Boggo Junction in 1884 and the first horse drawn bus service linking the area with the city began in 1890. The main road and the railway pass close to the cemetery, which was important in providing access for funeral corteges and for those visiting graves before private transport was common.
A Caretakers Cottage was built in 1881 and in 1888 handsome entrance gates, railings and a boundary wall were designed by the noted architect AB Wilson and were built by W Reid at a cost of £662. In 1891 R Wilcock carried out additions to the wall to Wilson's design. l.
In 1904 permission was given to add an area of 7 acres on the south side of Cornwall Street to the cemetery reserve. This was an area that had been surveyed for residential subdivision and adding it to the reserve effectively closed a section of Cornwall Street.
In 1908 a tramline reached the area with a terminus close to the cemetery at the corner of Gladstone and Cornwall Roads. The area developed rapidly in the 1900s and in 1914 it was renamed Dutton Park in honour of C B Dutton, Secretary of Public Lands between 1883 and 1887. By the late 1920s, the suburb was considered fashionable.
The Greater Brisbane Council was created in 1925 by amalgamating the metropolitan councils. The Brisbane City Council assumed the management of public cemeteries in the metropolitan area from this time and took control of the South Brisbane Cemetery in 1928. In 1930 the portion of Cornwall Street between the two sections of the cemetery was officially closed.
In 1939 the Brisbane City Council embarked on an extensive programme of works at the cemetery. Over the next few years, concrete paths were laid, internal roads upgraded and kerbing installed. 60 feet of stone wall was constructed within the cemetery and a new chain wire fence erected from the existing iron railings in Cornwall Street to the cemetery corner. Two modern brick toilet blocks were constructed in 1941 at a cost of £500. Frank Costello, City Architect between 1941 and 1952, probably designed these. Alterations and repairs were also carried out to the Sexton's cottage and waiting shed. The landscaping at the cemetery was improved with the planting of many trees and shrubs, including cypress pines and blue gums along the Brisbane River.
Work on the cemetery was halted by wartime shortages of labour and materials, but recommenced in 1945 when a survey of the cemetery noted lavatory blocks for men and women, two shelter sheds, a timber sexton's cottage, a timber tool room, motor shed and men's room. A brick staff amenities block was constructed in 1954.
The memorials in the cemetery range from those of prominent early residents, displaying fine examples of the mason's skill, to those of prisoners from nearby Brisbane Gaol, including that of bushranger Patrick Kenniff, who was hanged in 1902. The memorials in the cemetery reflect post World War II immigration and the cultural mix of the South Brisbane area in the second half of the 20th century. These include Greek and Italian graves and those of the many Russians who first settled around Woolloongabba and South Brisbane in the 1920s, following the Communist takeover in Russia. The cemetery also contains the graves of 50 soldiers who died in World War II.
Regular visiting of graves to tend them has become less common in our society, as has burial itself. In the 19th century cremation was rare, but through the 20th century is has become steadily more common. Cemeteries established since 1950 have been of the lawn cemetery type with plaques laid flush with the ground, precluding the wide variety of memorials in earlier cemeteries such as that at South Brisbane. The cemetery was closed to new burials in 1961-2, but continuing use of family plots is permitted and a small number of new plots were released in 1998-9. In 1996 the Sexton's cottage burned down and the shelter sheds have not survived.
","criteria":"South Brisbane Cemetery is one of the earliest cemeteries in Queensland. It was established in 1866 and has been in use since 1870. In its form, memorials and plantings it provides evidence for the history of Brisbane and of European burial customs in Queensland.
|South Brisbane Cemetery has the potential to reveal information on changes in burial customs of the 19th and 20th centuries and on the social fabric of the area it serves from evidence provided by the memorials and inscriptions it contains.
|South Brisbane Cemetery is a fine example of a public cemetery in use since 1870 and includes memorials ranging from those of prominent early residents to prisoners of Brisbane Gaol. The parklike setting of the cemetery, its elevated location to minimize health risk and its inclusion of all religious denominations are typical of late 19th century cemeteries.
|South Brisbane Cemetery has aesthetic value as a picturesque public area comprising elements of landscape, mature trees, plantings, built structures and memorials. Many of the monuments in South Brisbane Cemetery have aesthetic significance due to the high quality of workmanship and design used in their construction.
|South Brisbane Cemetery has a special association with the community of Brisbane for social and spiritual reasons. It forms an essential component of the ritual of honouring and remembering the dead which continues to be important to the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16566,"place_ref":601829,"name":"Ravenswood Community Church","alternate_name":"St Patrick's Catholic Church | St Patricks Catholic Church","street_address":"Chapel Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"The Ravenswood Community Church is a rectangular planned building with a gabled corrugated iron roof. It is located south east of the town on a cleared rise facing Chapel Street.
On the western side of the building are remnant plantings and building material from the Mercy Convent, which was located next door. A brick entrance is located down the slope at the Chapel Street entrance to the site.
The front section of the building is clad with chamferboard while the rear has a single skin of chamferboard with exposed framing. Projecting from the nave is an entry porch, which faces Chapel Street. There are narrow windows either side of the porch and in the front wall of the porch. Similar windows are found along both sides of the structure.
A curved projection at the rear of the building marks the sanctuary. A sacristy and a similar extension are located on either side of the sanctuary.
The internal fittings include pews, timber and marble altar, baptismal font and confessional. The interior has been painted and fittings repaired. A new staircase to the choir loft has been recently constructed and windows replaced with new frames.
","history":"Ravenswood Community Church, formerly St Patrick's Catholic Church, was opened on 21 October 1871. Additions have been made to the church over time and it is understood that major additions were made to the building in the early 20th century.
Early discoveries of gold in the Ravenswood area were made by prospectors attracted to the district by gold mining at Cape River. Gold was discovered in the Ravenswood district in 1868 although the Top Camp Lode was not discovered until the following year.
Ravenswood was initially an alluvial field with some quartz reefing. Following the discovery of quartz reefs there were problems with attracting crushing machinery. The arrival of a five head stamp battery in 1869, led to a subsequent improvement in returns from the quartz reefs providing the miners with the impetus to develop a more permanent township.
By the mid 1870s, the population was fairly stable. There were a number of service industries established including five hotels, saddler, blacksmiths, chemist, baker, assayer, and butcher. auctioneer, a variety of stores from fancy goods to wholesalers.
About March 1871 a committee was formed to plan the construction of a catholic chapel. A subscription list was opened and donations acknowledged in the Ravenswood Miner. The construction of the church appears to have been a community affair with people from many denominations donating to the project or helping with construction. A small school was opened in the chapel soon after construction was completed.
Ross & O'Reilly who are believed to have been local builders constructed the building. Hugh Ross was identified as a builder in Charters Towers in 1875 where he constructed Acker & Company's building, the Oddfellows' Hall and the Anglican and Presbyterian churches. These churches are similar in design to the Ravenswood Community Church.
A severe storm in 1873 damaged the church although it is not known how severely. One local story says that the rear of the building had to be rebuilt while another says that the whole building was demolished and required rebuilding.
The Ravenswood Catholic community became a thriving one with a church, boarding school and convent located in Chapel Street. Fr JPF Connolly, from Townsville, was the first visiting priest to Ravenswood. Later, missionary priests from Italy and France visited the town before it became a parish in its own right.
In 1885 Fr Flood, first parish priest, began negotiations with the Sisters of Mercy to open a school and convent. The Ravenswood community again demonstrated their faith in the long term prosperity of their town by supporting Fr Flood's fundraising campaign. Fr Flood purchased a house for the nuns who arrived in 1886. The first convent school was probably opened in the church. And later a day and boarding school for girls was opened in 1890.
During the second world war students from St Patrick's College, The Strand, Townsville were evacuated to the boarding school at Ravenswood. After the war St Patrick's students returned to Townsville. The boarding school and convent remained in operation until 1948 when both were closed.
The school building was moved to Giru but the convent remained in situ until damaged in a storm and demolished by local residents for its timber.
Townsville builders Rooney & Company are thought to be the contractors who extended the church in 1905. The church continued to be used, although it was allowed to fall into disrepair, until 1957 when a community fundraising campaign raised fifty pound for repairs. Community working bees renewed the wall behind the sanctuary after it was damaged by white ants, the roof was renewed where necessary, and the white ant-damaged sacristy was demolished and reconstructed. The structure was then painted.
Despite this community activity the building was under-utilised and neglected until the mid 1970s when a local couple chose to be married there. Once again the community responded with working bees to repair the building in time for the wedding. Windows were replaced, the structure was painted, fittings were repaired and carpet laid in the aisle.
In the mid 1980s the Catholic Diocese of Townsville handed over the property to the Dalrymple Shire. Since that time the Ravenswood community, assisted with funds from local mining company Carpentaria Gold, has maintained its long association with the church by acting as caretakers of the building and by utilising the place as a community church. Special events such as carols by candle light, which involve the whole community, are also celebrated in the church.
The structure has recently been repainted and the stairs to the choir loft rebuilt.
","criteria":"Ravenswood Community Church, constructed in stages from 1871 by Charters Towers builders, Ross and O'Reilly, is important in demonstrating the periods of prosperity of the Ravenswood gold fields and is evidence of the spread of the Catholic religion in regional Queensland particularly North Queensland.
|(Criterion under review)
|The church, which is a simply constructed timber building overlooking the town, is a landmark in Ravenswood.
|The local community has had a long association with the church. On a number of occasions the survival of the church has depended on the concern and generosity of the Ravenswood community which has provided ongoing care and maintenance on the building since the 1950s. As a community church the building continues to be a focus for community gatherings, church services and celebrations.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16567,"place_ref":601830,"name":"Skilmorlie","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16 Bryden Street","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-15","description":"Skilmorlie occupies a high block, one allotment east of Lutwyche Road, with extensive views over Windsor, Herston, Fortitude Valley and Bowen Hills. The building fronted Lutwyche Road to the west, but has been extended and now addresses Bryden Street [off Lutwyche Road] to the south.
The building comprises a two-storeyed brick core c1873, with a c1923 weatherboard extension and verandah enclosures. The brick section is built on a stone [porphyry] base and has a rectangular plan form and a central tripled-flued chimney stack. It has a steeply-pitched roof clad with galvanised iron, probably replacing earlier shingles, with the end north and south brick walls each culminating in a gable. Almost all the exterior walls have been painted, but a small uncovered section on the east wall shows the dark reddish-brown facebricks and early tuckpointing. The brickwork is a variation of English bond. All the window openings, with their arched lintels, survive, as do the early sash windows. Verandahs on both levels along the western side of the brick core have been enclosed [c1923] with weatherboards and windows. There is evidence on the external east wall of a single-storeyed skillion having been attached to the building at an early stage, but this has been replaced with a c1923 weatherboard extension with a less steeply pitched skillion roof.
The internal walls of the c1873 section are of brick also. Ceilings are high and are plastered throughout, as are the walls. It is not clear whether early lath and plaster work survives in the ceilings, but the plaster on the walls appears to be mostly original. Floors upstairs and in the two main downstairs rooms are of wide boards. The downstairs front and back verandahs and hallway have early concrete floors resting on a stone [porphyry] base. There are deep timber skirting boards and architraves throughout. The fanlights to the doorways remain, but most of the internal doors, and the timber fireplace surrounds, have been removed.
The brick core comprises two rooms up and two down, with a hallway along the southern end of the ground floor leading from what was originally the front door in the western wall to a small stair hall in the SE corner of the building. There is an original arch between the hallway and the stair hall, and an early back door in the eastern external wall below the staircase. The lack of a central hallway is unusual in a house of this period, suggesting the design was the work of a competent architect who maximised the size and functionality of the rooms by offsetting the hallway.
The western downstairs room opens off the hallway, and the eastern off the stair hall. There is a doorway in the wall between these two rooms, which also have back-to-back fireplaces. The fireplace in the eastern room is much larger than its twin, and it is likely that originally the eastern room was a kitchen with a connecting door to the western room, which was probably a dining room. There is a door in the eastern external wall of the former kitchen, leading to the rear verandah. A door in the north wall of the former kitchen leads to what is now the backyard.
Upstairs, there is no hallway, and both rooms open off the stair landing. The western room is the most spacious in the building and opens onto the upstairs verandah. There is a fireplace in this room, but not in the room behind it.
During the c1923 renovations, two additional doors, one on each floor, were cut in the southern end wall of the brick core, giving access to the weatherboard extension. Apart from this modification, the brick core survives substantially intact and sound.
","history":"Skilmorlie, a small, two-storeyed brick residence, is believed to have been erected c1873 for John Bryden, an Irish immigrant cabinet maker and later property owner who arrived in Brisbane c1843. The house is one of the earliest surviving in the Windsor-Lutwyche district.
During the 1850s the land along Breakfast [Enoggera] Creek in the Windsor area was surveyed into farms, but by the end of the decade, most had been alienated by property speculators, and in the 1860s these were sold to Brisbane gentlemen seeking a semi-rural domestic retreat. By 1860 Daniel Rowntree Somerset had built the first section of Rosemount [next to Skilmorlie] and the first Oakwal on the hill opposite, but an important early impetus to Windsor's development was the construction of Bowen Bridge across Breakfast Creek in 1861. In 1864 the Chief Justice of Queensland, Sir James Cockle, commissioned a grand new Oakwal on the site of the old, and in the area west of the main northern road [now Lutwyche Road] and south of what is now Newmarket Road down to Breakfast Creek, merchant David L Brown, colonial architect Charles Tiffin, and newspaper proprietor James Swan took up residence in the 1860s. South of the creek, Bramston had built Herston in 1861 and further upstream, Ballymore was constructed in 1864 for Lieutenant DJ Seymour. When Skilmorlie and its sister house Fernfield were erected in 1873, there appear to have been two other early residences to the south of them, on the eastern side of Bowen Bridge Road [now Lutwyche Road]. Of these mid-19th century Windsor/Herston residences, only Oakwal and the two Bryden homes survive. [The present Rosemount was constructed in the 1890s.] In terms of surviving 1860s/1870s buildings in the Windsor district [and for that matter Brisbane], Skilmorlie and Fernfield are very significant.
In the mid-19th century, the Skilmorlie site was part of a block of just under 21 acres fronting Breakfast Creek to the east and the main northern road to the west, alienated in 1856 by Brisbane businessman George Byrne. In February 1873, surveyor, architect and civil engineer John Hall surveyed the land into three subdivisions, each with a frontage to Bowen Bridge Road. The northernmost allotment [sub 1 : 4 acres 3 roods 11 perches] was transferred to John Bryden in May 1873; the middle allotment [sub 2 : 4 acres 3 roods] was transferred at the same time to Bryden's younger brother James, a successful Brisbane cabinetmaker and upholsterer; and sub 3 [11 acres 1 rood], closest to Bowen Bridge, was retained by the Byrne family. The 1873 survey does not indicate any building extant on subdivisions 1 and 2.
On his Windsor land, James Bryden erected his new residence, Fernfield, designed by architect John Hall, who called tenders in March 1873. The residence was under construction by May 1873, and was to cost £700. Whether Skilmorlie also was designed by Hall is not known, but the materials and brickwork in the two buildings are remarkably similar, which suggests that the two residences were constructed about the same time. The skirting boards in both buildings are of the same profile, and the bricks used in both buildings are a dark reddish-brown, similar to those used in the 1874 Government Printing Office in William Street. The latter were supplied from William Williams' Lutwyche brickworks, and Williams could well have supplied the bricks for the Bryden residences at nearby Windsor. The Enoggera electoral roll dated 13 January 1875 records both John and James Bryden as resident on Bowen Bridge Road.
The Bryden brothers were the sons of an Irish Protestant cabinetmaker, James Bryden, of Newry, co Down. John, also a cabinetmaker by trade, had arrived in Sydney in March 1841, aged 30 years and single. He was still resident in Sydney in September 1842 when he purchased an allotment at South Brisbane, at an early sale of Brisbane Crown land held in Sydney, but is understood to have moved to Brisbane shortly after. During the 1840s and 1850s John Bryden acquired a number of allotments at north and south Brisbane, and appears to have been associated with contractor John Petrie. He married Susanna Trevethan in Brisbane in 1861, but there were no children from this marriage.
In the mid-1850s, James Bryden, his sister Isabella, and their niece Martha Jane Brennan, emigrated to the Australian colonies. They were in Victoria for about 3 years prior to joining John in Brisbane. By 1863 James had established a cabinetmaking and upholstery business on an allotment on the west side of Queen Street between Creek and Wharf Streets, Brisbane - probably that acquired by John Bryden at a sale of Crown land in 1852.
At Windsor, James and Isabella Bryden and Martha Brennan resided at Fernfield, and James and his wife Susanna lived at Skilmorlie. The two residences stand less than 50 metres apart. A Brennan descendant recorded that one access drive from Bowen Bridge Road serviced both houses, and that Skilmorlie was almost hidden behind trees.
John's wife Susanna died in 1881, and following John's death in 1890, aged 80, title to Skilmorlie passed to trustees. The Brennan family understands that Martha Brennan, who by April 1890 owned Fernfield [James Bryden had died in 1888 and Isabella in 1889], encouraged her brother David, an Irish master mariner, to emigrate to Brisbane with his family about this time, and to make Skilmorlie their home. David Brennan was resident at Bowen Bridge Road in March 1890 when he certified the death of his uncle John Bryden, and is identified in the 1893 Queensland Post Office Directory as resident at Skilmorley house, Bowen Bridge-road. This is the first known recorded reference to the name of the house. From the early 1900s it was spelt Skilmorlie in the directories.
The Brennans occupied Skilmorlie until the early 1920s. In July 1923 title to Skilmorlie, on a reduced site of just over an acre, was transferred from Queensland Trustees to Annabella Catherine Brennan, widow of David Brennan. Almost immediately this property was subdivided into 6 residential allotments - three fronting Lutwyche Road and three fronting Bryden Street, the western end of which was surveyed at this time from Skilmorlie land. Rental houses [occupied by c1924] were erected on each of the vacant allotments, and Skilmorlie was converted into flats with a weatherboard extension on the southern end and the western verandahs enclosed so that the house now addresses Bryden Street rather than Lutwyche Road. Skilmorlie stayed within the Brennan family as a rental property until mid-1996.
","criteria":"Skilmorlie, erected c1873, is significant for its close association with the development of Windsor in the mid-19th century as a middle-class suburb, and with the development of nearby Lutwyche as Brisbane's principal brick-making district late 1860s-1890s. It is one of the earliest surviving residences in the Windsor-Lutwyche district, contemporaneous with adjacent Fernfield, and with brick-maker William Williams' own residence [now known as The Grange (600347)] at Lutwyche.
|It is a rare surviving 1870s brick, two-storeyed, gable-styled dwelling in Brisbane, and offers a rare and valuable contribution to present knowledge of 1870s brick construction and design in Brisbane. Queensland-wide, buildings of this type and materials are rare.
|The potential contribution of this building to further research on 1870s building techniques, materials and design, on the development of early brick-making in Brisbane, and on the evolution of Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, cannot be underestimated.
|Skilmorlie is significant also as a substantially intact example of a modest but well built, detailed and designed, two-storeyed 1870s brick residence in Brisbane. A few brick, two-storeyed terrace houses and shop houses from the 1860s and 1870s survive in Brisbane, but there are even fewer detached brick residences of this type and period surviving, and large homes such as Glen Lyon (1876) [600049] at Ashgrove are of a grander scale than Skilmorlie.
|Despite the unsympathetic c1923 renovations, Skilmorlie retains an innate aesthetic quality and significance, a combination of the scale, form, design and materials of the early brick core. Behind the weatherboard extension and enclosed verandahs remains a well-proportioned Georgian-styled building of some considerable charm.
|The place is valued by the local community, who regard Skilmorlie, and adjacent Fernfield, as part of the unique heritage of Windsor.
|It is significant for its close association with the Bryden-Brennan families, who occupied the house for 50 years and retained it as a rental property for another 70. In particular, it has a close association with John Bryden, who participated in the first wave of free settlement in Brisbane in the early 1840s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16568,"place_ref":601831,"name":"Paddington Water Tower","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"16 Garfield Drive","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"Paddington Water Tower is located on a 529m2 allotment on Archibald's Hill. The site slopes westward away from Garfield Terrace down to Tooth Avenue. The Tower is located adjacent to the Garfield Terrace boundary with the pump house adjacent to its western side.
Paddington Water Tower is surplus to water supply requirements and is no longer in use. It is essentially unaltered from its original appearance. Located on Archibald's Hill, it is one of Brisbane's oldest and most prominent landmarks. It is probably the only one of its type in Queensland being a reinforced concrete tank elevated on concrete columns.
Of the other service reservoirs erected in Brisbane, Wickham Terrace (1870 &1882), Mount Crosby High Level (1891), Holt's Hill (1919)Bulimba (1940) are also now surplus to requirements and not in use.
The Paddington tank and its tower are of reinforced concrete construction The circular tank is supported on a structural framework of twelve columns and octagonal grids of haunched beams.
The water tower is 70 feet (21.34 metres) high and the tank has a capacity of 100,000 gallons (.38 megalitre) and the top water level is 335 feet (102.1 metres) AHD.
The tower is a prominent Brisbane landmark in the north western suburbs. It is visible from miles around and most vantage points and is readily recognisable.
","history":"By the beginning of the 20th century, Brisbane was drawing most of its water from the Brisbane River at Mount Crosby. Enoggera and Gold Creek Dams were also feeding into the system. At this stage none of the supplies were filtered and Brisbane's water supply was neither treated nor tested until the first decade of the twentieth century.
In 1907, American hydraulic engineer, Allen Hazen, was engaged by the Brisbane Board of Waterworks to report on the amplification of Brisbane's supply. He recommended against the construction of a dam on the Brisbane River in its middle catchment because of his perception of the danger of rapid loss of storage capacity because of siltation. He recommended storage on Cabbage Tree Creek, a tributary of the Brisbane River, some 19 kilometres upstream of Mount Crosby and further recommended the site of the Somerset Dam on the Stanley River for future amplification of storage.
From about 1916, the shape of Mount Crosby and nearby Holt's Hill underwent a series of changes with structures erected, extended and demolished in response to the water quality demands of Brisbane, and after 1922, of Ipswich.
To provide facilities to residents on elevated land for a full water supply, service reservoirs were constructed at Bartley's Hill in 1907 and 1919, Enoggera in 1912, Holt's Hill in 1919, Tarragindi in 1923, Paddington in 1927, Roles Hill in 1928, Eildon Hill in 1930, Bulimba in 1940, Sparkes Hill in1941 and Bracken Ridge in 1944. Previous service reservoirs had been constructed at Wickham Terrace in 1870 and1882, Highgate Hill in 1889 and the Mount Crosby High Level in1891.
Supplying water to the higher parts of Paddington had always been difficult, so it was a great benefit to residents when the Water Board opened this tower in 1927 which was fed from Enoggera Dam.. The Board had striven for 12 years to obtain the £12,000 necessary to build the Paddington Tower. The Tower was dedicated on 4 March 1927 and was officially opened by Mr EJT Manchester, President of the Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, with members of the board and local residents in attendance. The tower was described as the finest piece of work constructed by any authority and at the time was the most expensive single structure ever to have been constructed in the town of Ithaca.
At the opening the President said it had always been the aim of the Water Board to afford facilities to provide a full water supply to all residents on elevated land and that in time he hoped to see all elevated lands graced by water towers. The power for the motor which hoisted the water into the tank was switched on by Mr J J Roberts who referred to Paddington Heights as the Dress Circle of Brisbane.
The structure was designed by the Board's engineer and erected by the board's staff with day labour on a site 335 feet above sea level. The tank is composed of reinforced concrete and the height from the highest point is 70 feet. It is capable of holding 100,000 gallons. The Tramway Department provided the electricity required for the centrifugal pump which propelled water from the tank below
A cottage was erected alongside the tank on the vacant piece of ground shortly after the tower was opened so that the turncock would live on the premises and give every attention to see that the tank was constantly well filled with water.
","criteria":"Paddington Water Tower is important in demonstrating a phase in the history of Brisbane's water supply and the technological difficulties of providing reticulated water to elevated sites.
|The Paddington Water Tower is a rare example of an elevated reinforced concrete water tank. It is probably the only one of its type in Queensland being a reinforced concrete tank elevated on concrete columns.
|The Paddington Water Tower is important for its aesthetic qualities as a readily recognisable landmark. It is one of Brisbane's most prominent landmarks.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16571,"place_ref":601834,"name":"Bess Street Brick Cottages","alternate_name":"Hedge's Buildings","street_address":"22, 25-27 Bess Street","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-12-15","description":"The Bess Street Cottages are located on opposite sides of the eastern end of Bess Street, Windsor. 25-27 Bess Street, on the north side of the street and facing south, is a duplex - two c1880 brick cottages sharing a party wall along the boundary between lots 13 & 14 on RP 19286, parish of Enoggera. Diagonally opposite 25 Bess Street, on the southern side of the street and facing north, is 22 Bess Street, a c1880 brick cottage with a c1920s timber and fibrous-cement extension on the western side. To the east of 22 Bess Street is 20 Bess Street, a brick cottage of similar vintage but different form. This originally was a duplex, but has been substantially modified and converted into a single residence. This building is not included in the heritage listing. All the cottages are built close to the street, with narrow front yards.
22 Bess Street:
This is a small, 4-roomed brick cottage with later extensions and a c1920s reburbishment. The brick core rests on stone foundations and has a short-ridged iron roof with close eaves. There is a recent front verandah which replaces an earlier front verandah, which possibly did not extend across the extension on the western side. The external brick walls are rendered to resemble ashlar. Along the east wall, which is built to the property line, are two chimneys, both of which are constructed internally, suggesting that the original intention may have been to create a duplex as at 25-27 Bess Street, with the party wall along the property line. At the rear, a late 20th century extension containing kitchen and dining room replaces an earlier back verandah and kitchen house. On the western side of the cottage is a c1920s sleeping verandah, timber-framed with fibrous cement sheeting externally, clad with a pebble-dash render. The western extension has a geometrically patterned parapet [vaguely Art Deco in inspiration] and several sets of casement windows. It is high set, as the ground slopes slightly to the west, but the rendered front and side walls extend almost to ground level.
Internally, the house retains its original layout, with the c1920s extension and later rear additions clearly evident. The early core comprises four rooms. The front door opens directly into the parlour, off which, to the right, is the front bedroom. A door from the parlour leads into the former dining room, off which, to the right, is the second bedroom. The parlour and dining room each have a fireplace in the east wall. The parlour has one window opening onto the front verandah, with c1920s casements replacing earlier sashes. The dining room window in the rear wall has been bricked in and two small windows, one either side of the chimney in that room, appear to date from the c1920s refurbishment. French doors, possibly replacing earlier double-sash windows, open from both bedrooms onto the c1920s sleeping verandah on the western side of the house. At the southern end of the c1920s extension is a bathroom. Most of this has been modernised, but a section of c1920s terrazzo flooring remains.
The internal walls of the brick core are plastered and the rooms have highly decorative c1920s plaster ceilings, ceiling panels and cornices. It is understood that the ceilings were timber-boarded originally, and that these boards survive above the plaster. Flooring throughout is of timber. That in the parlour and dining room is later, narrow hardwood boards, but the front bedroom has earlier wide boards, possibly pine.
25-27 Bess Street:
25-27 Bess Street is a brick duplex, each house similar in form to 22 Bess Street across the road. Each has the same 4-roomed core resting on a stone foundation, and has a short-ridged iron roof with close eaves - although in these instances, the ridges run front to back rather than side to side. Each has an enclosed front verandah [not identical] and both have formerly detached timber kitchen houses [which may be of later date than the core] and an enclosed rear verandah and rear verandah extensions. These have evolved idiosyncratically. The side external walls are rendered, but the original front and rear external walls of both cottages are of face brickwork, now painted.
Other than in the positioning of the kitchen houses, the cottages are not mirrored in plan, as might be expected, but are replicated.
Internally, both cottages have plastered walls and mostly early timber flooring, although the dining room of 27 Bess Street has a later concrete floor, apparently laid on top of the timber floor. Both cottages have the same varying floor levels: in each there is a step down from front parlour to dining room, then another step down from the dining room to the rear enclosed verandah. The ceilings in most rooms of both cottages are of later fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips, possibly covering earlier timber boards. The second bedroom in 27 Bess Street has its original wide, beaded, tongue-and-groove ceiling boards. Each cottage has a fireplace in the dining room, but the chimneys have been removed.
","history":"These small brick cottages were erected in the late 1870s or early 1880s, most likely by or for Samuel Hedge, a Lutwyche brickyard proprietor.
The Lutwyche district was first surveyed in 1858 as farm portions, several of which were alienated by Sarah Sophia Bartley, wife of Nehemiah Bartley, in 1859. In 1865 part of the Bartley's land was subdivided and in October 1870, title to 4 acres [subdivisions 29A & 32 of portions 189 & 190, parish of Enoggera], passed to Samuel Hedge of Enoggera.
Samuel Hedge and Son were brickmakers at Lutwyche from at least 1878 [likely much earlier] until the early 1890s. The son referred to was Francis John Hedge, and by 1889 they had been joined in the business by Samuel Hedge junior. Samuel Hedge senior appears to have retired from brickmaking c1890. He resided in Bess Street during the 1880s, and returned there c1900, prior to his death in 1903. FJ Hedge continued as a brickmaker into the early 1890s, but by 1896 FJ Hedge and Samuel Hedge [junior?] were farming at Westhaldon, south of Gatton.
It is not clear whether Samuel Hedge's brickyard was located on the land he acquired in 1870. Being resident in the Enoggera district already, he may have established a brickyard elsewhere, or have been leasing from the Bartleys prior to purchase. The Windsor and Districts Historical Society suggests that Hedge's brickyards extended from Bess Street to Fuller Street and north to Kedron Brook.
Brickmaking was one of the earliest manufacturing enterprises in Brisbane, and in the 1870s and 1880s was concentrated principally in the Lutwyche-Kedron district [which then included parts of Windsor]. Well-known Lutwyche brickmakers of this period included William Anderson, Samuel Hedge and Son, John Salt, George and Charles Starkey, and William Williams. Fuller Street at Lutwyche was originally named William Street, possibly after early brickmaker William Williams, and nearby Brickfield Street recalls the brickmaking enterprise which Williams established at Lutwyche in the 1870s.
In August 1877 Hedge subdivided the 4 acres acquired in 1870, into 20 residential allotments and a dead-end street off Brook Street, variously known as Best or Bess Street in the early years. Later, Bess Street was extended east to meet McKenzie Street. The blocks at each end of Bess Street averaged close to 1 rood each in size; those in-between were surveyed as 27 perches each on the north side of the road and 23.4 perches each on the south side. The survey plan does not indicate any extant dwellings, but shows a perimeter fence around the 4-acre property.
Samuel Hedge sold the bulk of the re-subdivisions between 1878 and 1886, but retained title to 20 Bess Street [resub 9] and 25-27 Bess Street [resubs 13-14] until 1899. He also retained title to the block on the southern corner of Bess and Brook streets, which contained a duplex similar in form to what is now 20 Bess Street, but fronting Brook Street. This building is no longer extant.
As there was not yet a railway in the district, and nearby Lutwyche village was scarcely developed at this period, it appears that Hedge subdivided the land to service workers in his and other nearby brickyards. By 1885, the residents of Bess Street were mostly working class, many associated with brickmaking, and included: Frederick C Butler, drayman [FC Butler acquired re-subdivisions 3 and 4 in 1879 and 1881 respectively]; Charles Hawkwood, busdriver and George Perkins, brickmaker, both of whom lived in Edges Buildings [this is likely Hedges Buildings, and may refer either to what is now 20 Bess Street, or to 25-27 Bess Street]; John Hopkinson, gardener; James Morgan, brickmaker [Bridget Morgan acquired resubdivision 2 in 1882]; Mary Saxby; Joseph Sibthorpe, drayman [Samuel Hedge's daughter Caroline married Joseph Sibthorpe in 1876 and in 1884 acquired title to re-subdivisions 15 and 16]; and Edward Usher, brickmaker. By 1887, James Watterson, carpenter, also resided in the street [Watterson acquired re-subdivisions 5-7 in 1886]. Samuel Hedge is listed as resident in Bess Street by 1888. In 1890, the residents of Bess Street were mostly owner-occupiers: D Good, broker; J Morgan, brickmaker; S Hedge, snr; S Hedge, jnr, brickmaker; Mrs C Sibthorpe; Mrs MA Saxby; FC Bulter, drayman; and J Waterson (sic), joiner.
In 1998, both 22 and 25-27 Bess Street, Windsor were identified as places of heritage significance in the Grange District Heritage and Character Study prepared by the Brisbane City Council's Heritage Unit.
22 Bess Street:
Re-subdivision 8 [22 Bess Street] was transferred from Hedge to Henry Day in November 1881. The brick cottage on this property is built to the eastern boundary, suggesting that it also was built after the 1877 re-subdivision. The position of the house and the internal chimneys along the eastern wall suggests also that it was Hedge who erected the building, intending to construct a duplex similar to 25-27 Bess Street across the road, but that before this was accomplished, he sold the property to Day. Henry Day is listed as a Lutwyche butcher and blacksmith in the 1878-79 Post Office Directory, but does not appear in the district again until 1891, when he is recorded as H Day, builder, resident in Bess St. However, by this time title to 22 Bess Street had been transferred in 1889 from Day to Walter Henry Qualtrough. The property remained in the Qualtrough family, apparently as a rental investment, for about 3 decades, until transferred to Janet Watters, widow, of Brisbane, in August 1920. Mrs Watters resided at 22 Bess Street through the 1920s, until her death in 1931. It would appear that she was responsible for the refurbishment of the cottage, with the construction of a western sleeping verandah and bathroom, and decorative plasterwork throughout.
25-27 Bess Street:
Samuel Hedge retained title to 25-27 Bess Street until it was transferred in May 1899 to his daughter Caroline Aspinall [formerly Caroline Sibthorpe], who had married George Valentine Aspinall in New South Wales in 1895. The Aspinalls did not reside in Bess Street, but Mrs Aspinall retained 25-27 Bess Street as a rental property until her death in 1935. In 1944 Queensland Trustees transferred title to Sophia Mitchell Henzell, widow, who also appears to have bought the place as a rental investment. Through most of the 1920s and 1930s, 27 Bess Street was tenanted by Michael J O'Connor. The Richard Imrie family rented 25 Bess Street from c1919 until 1950, when Richard and Ethel Imrie purchased 25-27 Bess Street as joint tenants with Herbert and Irene Perry, who by then occupied 27 Bess Street. The two families apparently were not related. The Perrys gained Council approved for additions and alterations to 27 Bess Street, including the enclosing of the front verandah, in March 1955, and in 1962 approval was given for the construction of a garage. In 1984, title to 25-27 Bess Street passed to Gregory John Perry.
","criteria":"The Bess Street Brick Cottages, Windsor, erected c1880, are important evidence of the development of Kedron/Lutwyche/Windsor as Brisbane's principal brickmaking district in the 1870s and 1880s. Likely erected by brickmaker Samuel Hedge on land he owned and subdivided in the late 1870s, and occupied by brickmakers and others associated with the brickmaking industry, these cottages have a close association with this important early manufacturing industry in Brisbane.
|The cottages form an historically and spatially cohesive grouping of rare surviving, working class, 19th century brick cottages in Queensland.
25-27 Bess Street is significant in addition as a rare, single-storeyed, c1880 brick duplex, there being only a few of this type of dwelling extant in Brisbane.
|22 and 25-27 Bess Street remain substantially intact and are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of their type.
|22 Bess Street makes an aesthetic contribution to the streetscape, and 25-27 Bess Street has the potential to do so. The c1920s Art Deco-inspired internal renovation of 22 Bess Street has strong aesthetic value, the plaster work being an excellent example of its type.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16576,"place_ref":601839,"name":"Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks","alternate_name":"Belmont Electric Tramway","street_address":"Old Cleveland Road","suburb":"CARINA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"The Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks stretch for a distance of approximately 625 metres along the centre of Old Cleveland Road, from Jones Road to Orwell Street. They are a double line set in a concrete 'pavement' approximately four metres wide. A grassed verge follows both sides of the concrete pavement for most of the tracks' distance. Shrubs and small trees are sparsely scattered along the grassed areas.
The tramway tracks are standard gauge, with a width of 1435 millimetres, and are laid using 80 pound rails (except on curves). The curves near Orwell and Wonersh Streets are a heavier grooved, or guarded rail.
Near the Jones Road end of the tramway tracks, a section of the concrete and steel tramway is used for parking. The tramway tracks are clearly visible in this section and the creation and use of the parking facilities have had little impact on the tramway. Small traffic islands have been constructed over the tram lines at two intervals along the remainder of the tramway tracks where streets intersect with Old Cleveland Road.
","history":"The Old Cleveland Road tramway tracks were laid in 1948 by Brisbane City Council as part of Brisbane's tramway system. They replaced earlier tracks belonging to the Belmont (steam) Tramway, constructed in 1912 by the Belmont Shire Council. The line ceased operation in 1969 when the entire Brisbane tramway system was closed by the Brisbane City Council.
Trams were a feature of the Brisbane cityscape for over eighty years. The first, horse-drawn trams plied their way from North Quay to Breakfast Creek and the exhibition building in 1885. Until 1922 the tramway was operated by private companies who saw the potential of a tramway to aid the sale of land. During this period, trams were changed from horse-powered, to electric, and the tramway network grew from 20 cars servicing 24 kilometres of tramway lines, to 181 cars travelling along 68 kilometres of double track. One extension of the period was that which stretched from Stones Corner to Coorparoo, and which, when opened in 1909, formed the nucleus of later extensions to Camp Hill and Belmont (now Carina).
Early in the twentieth century, Belmont was a sparsely populated, 'outer' suburb of Brisbane, under the control of the Belmont Shire Council. The area did not enjoy the services of the Brisbane tramway network, to which the Belmont Council responded with the construction of the Belmont (steam) Tramway, opened in May 1912. It was a narrow-gauge tramway track of 1067 mm, laid with 42 pound rails on timber sleepers. The line was operated by the Railway Department with two return trips each day except Sundays. This was later increased to three and four trains per day to attract suburban growth. In 1922, the Belmont Shire Council lobbied for a railway to Redland Bay to extend the Belmont Tramway. The suggestion was rejected however, and the line was constructed via Cleveland instead. The Belmont Shire Council did not have the resources to continue the operation of the tramway, and the line closed on 16 April 1924.
From 1 January 1923, Brisbane's tramways passed into government ownership. The Brisbane Tramway Trust, under the authority of the State Government, controlled the tramways until the creation of Greater Brisbane in 1925. During this time, the Trust was very active in acquiring new tram cars, and making an extension of 11 kilometres to the city's track network. One extension, completed in January 1925, was along the Coorparoo line to Camp Hill, from Cavendish Road to Bruce Street.
In December 1925, the Brisbane City Council inherited the 80 kilometre Brisbane tramway network, as well as the former Belmont Shire Council's Tramway. The Belmont Tramway had reopened in April 1925, however this proved to be a temporary arrangement. The losses incurred in the running of the line led to its second and final closure in October 1926. Belmont residents were linked by private feeder bus to the Brisbane electric tramway network, and the rails of the Belmont Tramway were removed in 1935.
With the Brisbane City Council's acquisition of the Brisbane tramway network, the upgrading and extension of the system continued. Large numbers of new trams were built and in 1933-34 the Council's distinctive technique of mass concrete tram tracks were first used extensively in Queen Street. Steel ties were used instead of sleepers, with the whole of the track, except on curves, set in solid concrete. Standard railway rails were used with a groove in the concrete for the wheel flange, and guard plates were bolted to the rails on curves to form a groove. These concrete tracks required less maintenance, and formed an excellent road surface for other vehicles.
In the years following the Second World War, Brisbane experienced a housing boom which induced the Brisbane City Council to extend its electric tramway network. Belmont (now Carina) was one of the new housing areas to be serviced by an extension to the Coorparoo tramline, opened in July 1948. The new portion of the line ran from Bruce Street to Mayfield Road, and constituted a double-track route extension of 1550 metres. The remnant surviving along Old Cleveland Road forms part of the 1948 line extension. This track was a standard-gauge track (1435 mm) consisting of steel sleepers and 80 pound rail set in mass concrete. Of the 1550 metre extension, 664 metres utilised the road-bed of the former Belmont Tramway, between Orwell Street and Mayfield Road.
Extension of the tramway network continued throughout the 1950s. By 1959 more than 140 kilometres were laid in mass concrete. Mondays to Fridays, a total of 246 trams provided morning peak services, while evening peak traffic requirements needed 296 cars. Throughout the day, each route was serviced by a tram every ten minutes. During the following decade, however, various influences led to the eventual closure of Brisbane's tram system in April 1969. In September 1962, the Paddington tram depot was burnt to the ground with the loss of 65 trams, or twenty per cent of the council fleet. Three years later, a report on the future transport and traffic requirements of Brisbane, the Wilbur Smith Plan, was released. The report recommended the closure of the tramway system via a tram to bus conversion program. To this end, express buses were introduced along the Belmont and Mt Gravatt tram routes as supplementary services in 1966, followed by the addition of express buses to four more tram routes in 1967. In this year, an order for 204 rear engine diesel buses was increased to 340. In 1967-68, the Belmont route was cut back forty metres along Old Cavendish Road, to Jones Road. On 21 June 1968, Lord Mayor Clem Jones officially announced the conversion of all tramway routes to diesel bus operation, to be effected during the 1968-69 financial year.
Brisbane's tramway system closed on 13 April 1969. The final day had a carnival atmosphere, and an estimated 73 000 people used the tramway on the last day. The Paddington depot fire and the Wilbur Smith Plan were important influences on the City Council's decision to abandon tram services, however other trends also contributed to its demise. The increasing ownership of the private motor car; urban sprawl which saw more and more families move to outer suburbs not connected to the tram system, and lack of investment in the technological development of trams compared with diesel buses, all contributed to the conversion of Brisbane's trams to buses. With the closure of the Brisbane trams, Melbourne became the only Australian capital with a large scale tramway system.
","criteria":"Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as this portion of the tramway utilised the road bed of the earlier Belmont Tramway, established in 1912 by the Belmont Shire Council. Throughout Queensland, various Shire Councils undertook the construction of tramways which often represented a significant capital investment for relatively small communities. The tramway tracks also demonstrate the pattern of Queensland's history as an example of the Brisbane tramway system which operated from 1885 until 1969. The tramway tracks also demonstrate the expansion of the system into new residential suburbs in the post World War II era. The eventual closure of the tramway system further demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's history, as the forces of urban sprawl, the predominance of the motor car, and the perceived future transport needs of Brisbane city influenced the decision to close the tramway.
|Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks demonstrate rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as some of the last visible remnant tramway tracks in Brisbane. Other tracks have been removed, or covered over with bitumen road surfacing.
|Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks have the potential to yield information about the construction of mass concrete tramway tracks.
|Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks are important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement. Brisbane City Council pioneered the use of mass concrete tram tracks; in other cities concrete had been used as a foundation only.
|Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks have a special association with the work of the Brisbane City Council's Transport Department who were responsible for the operation of the tramway from 1925 to 1969.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16585,"place_ref":601848,"name":"Pandanus Creek Battery","alternate_name":"Breitkreuz's Mill","street_address":"Via Ravenswood to Mingela Road","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-05","description":"Compact and partly intact battery situated on the eastern bank of Pandanus Creek immediately north of a recent re-treatment plant, which is currently mothballed. The battery comprises two almost intact 5 headsets of stamps in iron frames. One mortar box is manufacture by Walkers Limited, the other by Brand and Drybrough. Alongside immediately to the north of the battery is a Ruston one cylinder gas engine. The treatment area below the battery contains the remains of a wilfley table and five berdan pans including three in situ. Three 5-metre diameter corrugated iron tanks are also located in this area. The brick chimney has received substantial damage to its northwest base possibly during removal of the boiler. Other features of the site include a stone launder from the mill area to the creek and the remains of a stone forge. Battery shed timber uprights remain in situ.
Plant:
5 head battery and frame - (mortar box) Walkers Limited.
Five head battery & frame - (mortar box) Brand & Drybrough Townsville: (stamper frame) Brand & Drybrough Engineers Townsville.
One cylinder gas engine with flywheel - Ruston Lincoln England.
5 Berdan Pans (3 in situ).
Wilfley Table (fragments).
","history":"The Pandanus Creek battery was relocated by C. Breitkreutz from Rochford in 1904 where it had been known as the Hadleigh Castle Mill. It had been erected in 1890. The 1890's were the heyday of mining in the district. It is not known when the battery ceased operations, but Breitkreutz owned the Three Sisters and Sisters Extended Mines on the Kirk River to the east and they were working between 1900 and 1916.
","criteria":"The Pandanus Creek battery is important in demonstrating the evolution of gold mining practices in north Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The place is also significant for its association with the enterprising Mr C. Breitkreutz of Rochford, where the battery had originally been part of the Hadleigh Castle mill.
|The battery is significant as one of very few surviving intact isolated stamp batteries in the Charters Towers Mining District.
|The technology of processing ore at the site is demonstrated through the association of the battery with a brick chimney, gas engine and a concentrating treatment plant below the battery, which includes berdan pans.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16586,"place_ref":601849,"name":"Lolworth Creek Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"100km west of Charters Towers","suburb":"BASALT","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-14","description":"The place is situated on the northern bank of Lolworth Creek at the base of a steep spur that forms a horseshoe bend in the creek. The place contains an intact five head stamp battery alongside a two-cylinder portable steam engine. Both items are located within the partly intact bush-timber frame of a battery shed. All corrugated iron cladding has been removed from the shed frame. Three earth settling tanks reinforced with bush timber are located on the creek bank below the shed. A concreted ford across the creek serves as a low dam. The remains of a tailings sands dump and cyanide treatment area are also located on the creek bank. Above the battery there is evidence of a campsite including the remains of a wood stove. An almost intact weighbridge with scales is a feature of this area.
Plant:
·\tFive head stamp battery - Burns & Twigg Engineers Rockhampton.
·\tTwo-cylinder portable steam engine - no brand (Brown & May, Devizes?).
·\tWeighbridge platform - no brand (H. Pooley & Son).
·\tScales - H. Pooley & Son Patentees Liverpool.
","history":"The Lolworth Creek workings, also known as Mount Hope, officially produced about 7,584 oz of gold from quartz veins in granite country rock. Unfortunately, there is only a relatively small area free from the thick basalt which covers all but the mined area north of the creek. The workings are located in four groups of leases: Mount Hope and Crystal Oak on the north, and the Toby Creek group to the south.
Government geologist W.E. Cameron inspected the reefs in 1920 and thought they might be profitably worked if they were equipped with inexpensive plant and opened out.
Auriferous copper was discovered in 1926 by W.H. Shetland in the Crystal Oak mine and the hand picked ore was railed to Charters Towers for treatment between 1928 and 1930. By mid 1931 76m of sinking and driving on lode material had resulted in 37 tons of picked gold and copper-bearing ore from about 700 tons of actual material broken. This just paid costs.
The Lucky Hit mineral claim near Mount Hope was the second to be pegged on the Lolworth Creek field and caused a mild influx of diggers. By late 1932 between 40 and 50 claims had been applied for.
The battery was erected on the northern bank of Lolworth Creek, opposite its confluence with Brandy Creek, sometime between mid 1930 and 1932, when there are reports of tonnage from various claims (such as Campbell's Hope Extended) awaiting crushing. It is not known for how long the battery operated, but about 60 small gold mines operated to the south during the 1930s and records of yields of gold per ounce from tons of ore suggest that local crushing continued up to 1938.
","criteria":"(Criterion under review)
|The stamp battery is a representative, but now rare product of the local manufacturers, Burns & Twigg of Rockhampton. The two-cylinder portable steam engine is also rare and may be a product of engineers Brown & May of Devizes. The place also contains a rare surviving weighbridge with scales.
|The Lolworth Creek battery is significant as a representative example of a small isolated battery and power plant of late 19th century design and manufacture still in use in the 1930s.
The bush-timber frame of the battery shed is partly intact. Below the shed on the creek bank are three earth concentrate tanks which, with a group of rendered stone cyanide tanks and tailings sands, illustrate the crude processing technology.
There is also evidence of a camp, including a metal wood stove.
|The combination of surface ruins and natural setting creates a significant historical landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16587,"place_ref":601850,"name":"Bowen Consolidated Colliery","alternate_name":"Bowen Consolidated Coal Company Colliery | No. 1 Underground Mine","street_address":"Station Street and Second Avenue Collinsville","suburb":"COLLINSVILLE","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-12-03","description":"Bowen Consolidated Colliery is located on the edge of the township of Scottville, approximately 3.5km south-west of Collinsville, and 75km south-west of Bowen. The large, former colliery covers an area of approximately 5ha. The major structures include the headframe and gantry, Number One shaft winding house, boiler house, Number Two shaft fan house, powerhouse, bathhouse, mine office, workshop, Garrick Shaft Fan House, sawmill, detonator magazine, lamp shed, water tanks, and single men's quarters. Remains of railway and tramline formations still remain. The remains of other structures include the workshop and stores site, Number Two shaft winding engine, lime store, cement shed, ramps, early bathhouse and fitting shop. Part of the site is surrounded by a recent wire security fence including the headframe, Number One winding house, boiler house and power house. Much of the site is overgrown with grasses, trees and other vegetation.
Headframe and Gantry
The tapered steel-framed, four-legged headframe is the tallest structure on the site, sitting on foundations about 15m square in plan. The legs each comprise steel tubing formed from four, quarter cylinder sections rivetted together. The legs are connected with four levels of horizontal steel I-beams with diagonal cross bracing of rods at each level. The assembly of bracing and cross members is rivetted together. A timber platform at the top level is surrounded by a steel railing.
The remains of the lift structure are extant within the headframe. It has the appearance of an open, narrow timber-framed tower rising to the third tier of the headframe at the top of which is a timber platform surrounded by a steel railing. On at least three levels, small timber platforms with steel railings project from the side. All platforms are connected by timber ladders with an additional ladder connecting the top of the lift structure with the top of the headframe itself.
At the lowest tier, and contained within the legs of the headframe, a structure with a corrugated iron gabled roof is located on the timber platform. This structure has open sides except for a small section of wall enclosed with corrugated iron.
Extending to the north from the side of the headframe at the level of the first tier is the partially collapsed gantry. This is an open sided timber structure with a timber deck on top and some extra decking at mid height. The structure contains the remains of a weighbridge and associated weighbridge office. It also contains the remains of at least one coal chute.
A Ruston Hornsby Grantham England two-cylinder steam winding engine is situated immediately adjacent to the west of the headframe. It is mounted on a concrete slab and has two exposed gear wheels and two cable drums with steel cable extant on the larger drum.
Number One Shaft Winding House
This is located approximately 12m south-west of the headframe. The building is about 8m by 11m in plan. It is a high-set, timber-framed structure with corrugated iron walls and a corrugated iron gabled roof. A curved ridge vent runs the length of the roof. The walls extend to the ground, enclosing the under floor area. There are openings where some sheets of iron are missing from the walls.
The entrance to the building is via the north-east elevation facing the headframe. A timber stair running along the side of the building leads to a landing and the door opening. To the right of the door is a large opening through which can be seen two large cable drums with extant steel cable. The plant located within the winding house includes a two-cylinder steam winding engine (Walkers Limited No. 847 1903).
Boiler House
Six boilers are extant at the site of the former boiler house approximately 28m west of the headframe. These consist of two sets of Babcock and Wilcox water tube boilers and chain grate stokers (a set of two and a set of four). Each set comprises a rectangular enclosure made of refractory bricks standing between 3m and 4m high. Riveted, steel steam drums are seated on the tops of the enclosures. They are held in place at intervals along the structure by steel girders that run up the sides and across the top. Large square, steel-framed openings at one end of the enclosure expose the ends of the sets of water tubes that run the length of the interior of the structure. A set of tubes is missing from the larger set of boilers, leaving a cavity. Underneath these openings are the arched brick openings of the furnaces.
Immediately to the north and south of the boilers are low brick structures, approximately 1m in height. These comprise the remains of a coal bin, (north) and the condensers and brick flue associated with the boilers (south).
Number Two Shaft and Fan House
The Number Two shaft and fan house are situated approximately 50m south-west of the headframe. The fan house, immediately south of the remains of the shaft, is a multi-compartment structure.
The eastern part of the structure is constructed of concrete blocks and has a gable roof with a timber frame and corrugated iron cladding. One end is open and the other has a large square opening. Two windows along the eastern side have timber frames and are covered with corrugated iron. There is a single, similar window on the western side. There is no ceiling in this part of the structure.
The rest of the fan house adjoins the western side of the gable-roofed building. This is a flat-roofed structure made of red and brown bricks. A single door opens into a small porch that projects from the front. A short brick tower about 3m high and 3m on each side projects from the roof close to the gable-roofed section.
Power House
The power house is located approximately 10m to the west of the boilers. The tall core of the timber-framed, gabled building with corrugated iron walls and roofing is about 22m long and 9m wide. Two skillion-roofed sections are attached to part of its northern and southern elevations. A steel flue projects from the roof. The plant inside the power house includes two British Thompson Houston Rugby generators, and three Bellis and Morcom diesel engines.
Bathhouses
The extant bathhouse is located approximately 90m to the south of the headframe. It is a lowset, rendered cavity brick structure with a corrugated iron gabled roof and small, high level, rectangular windows. It consists of two wings, one about 27m long running north-east to south-west and another extending about 11m from the middle of the south-eastern elevation. Entrance is gained via a double timber door opening in the middle of the northern elevation.
The interior has a concrete floor, white rendered walls and no ceiling. It contains a large common changing room and common shower area. The entrance opens into the changing area. This area has a row of timber pegs along each wall at a height of about 2.5m. An open drain runs along the centre of the floor in the shower area; there are no cubicles. Two lengths of square section steel channelling are suspended from the roof about 2m above the floor.
The foundations of the first bathhouse, consisting of a concrete surface, are located approximately 18m north-west of the extant bathhouse. A small corrugated iron bathhouse is situated adjacent to the north of the boiler house.
Lamp shed
The lamp shed is located about 5m east of the bathhouse. It is a small, timber-framed building, about 6m square in plan, with a gabled roof. The walls are clad with ripple iron sheeting and the roof and gables are clad with corrugated iron sheeting. There are timber-framed window openings and a single timber door.
Mine Manager's Residence and Office
The mine manager's residence and office is situated approximately 125m east of the headframe. It is a single storey timber house, about 16m square in plan, raised on short stumps with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting. The space between the stumps is in-filled with timber battens.
The main entrance is via the north-western elevation. A stair, running parallel to the elevation, rises to a timber landing covered by a corrugated iron skillion roof. A single timber door opens to the interior from the landing. The elevation consists of a front verandah that has been enclosed with sheeting. Two windows to the left of the entrance are aluminium-framed sliding windows; on the right, there are eight sets of louvres. The window hoods consist of flat metal sheeting.
The south-western elevation is clad with corrugated iron except for sections at the front and rear that are clad with flat sheeting. There are sets of louvres towards the front of the elevation and a timber-framed sash window at about the midpoint. Two sets of louvres at the very front are covered with sheeting. A section towards the rear of the elevation is recessed by about 4m; a timber-framed sash window is located at the midpoint of this section.
Workshop and Stores
The workshop and stores area is located approximately 25m east of the headframe, between the headframe and the mine office.
To the east of this area is a corrugated iron shed about 32m long and 25m wide with a steel frame and trusses, a concrete floor, and a high gabled roof. The side elevations consist of rendered brick or concrete walls to a height of about 1m, with corrugated iron cladding above this. Three corrugated iron, sliding doors, the largest in the centre, provide access through the front of the shed. There is a large square window opening above the central door and windows to the left of it, shaded by a flat metal hood. A series of steel-framed windows along the sides are each divided into 12 panels.
Adjacent to the west of the workshop are the remains of a number of structures including blacksmith's shop, carpenter's shop, points shed, brattice shed, store, a timber rack and an iron rack.
Garrick Shaft Fan House
The fan house is located approximately 115m south of the headframe. It is a partly demolished brick structure with a flat concrete roof. A brick tower, about 3m square and about 3m high, projects from the roof in the middle of the structure. Two courses of projecting bricks surround the tower a short distance from the top.
Sawmill
The sawmill is situated approximately 95m south-south-east of the headframe. It is an open timber-framed structure with a corrugated iron roof. Evidence of a tramline running from the sawmill directly towards the headframe is still visible. A small section of tramline and tram trolley remains inside the sawmill.
Railway and Tramway
Railway siding formation still exists although the tracks have been removed. The siding runs in a generally east-west direction across the site, both under and adjacent to the gantry. The remains of a separate network of tramlines through the site also remain although the track, itself, has been removed. The tramline remains connect the Number One shaft under the headframe with the workshops and stores site, boiler house, and sawmill.
Additional structures and evidence
A partly demolished detonator magazine, about 2.5m square in plan, is situated approximately 58m south-west of the extant bathhouse. A corrugated iron water tank is situated approximately 10m to the west of the Number Two Shaft Fan House. A group of three buildings designated as single men's quarters are situated approximately 30m south-east of the mine office.
Other remains on site include the entrances to the Number One and Number Two Garrick tunnels and adjacent office, the Number Two shaft winding engine mount, water tanks, lime store, cement shed, machine and coal loading ramps, boiler ash dump, brickworks and drain. Other artefacts remain in surface and subsurface deposits across the entire site.
","history":"The Bowen Consolidated Colliery (established in 1919) is a former underground mine at Scottville near Collinsville in North Queensland. The No. 1 Underground Mine at the Bowen Consolidated Colliery continued production until the end of 1962 by which time it had been superseded by the nearby fully mechanised No. 2 Underground Mine. The colliery is one of the earliest and most intact former coal mines in the Bowen Basin.
The Bowen Basin covers an area about 600km long and 250km wide extending from Collinsville in the north to south of Moura in Central Queensland. It contains about 70% of Queensland's coal. These are deposits of the Permian age and are the most important commercial deposits in the State, producing almost 100% of the State's coking coal and 60% of its thermal coal. In 2006-7, the State's top ten collieries for production were located in the Bowen Basin.
Commercial exploitation of Bowen Basin coal began at Blair Athol in the 1890s. At the time, the main coal producing area was the West Moreton coalfields. Some coal was also produced at the Burrum coalfields and on the Darling Downs. These mines supplied mostly thermal (steaming) coal to a domestic market; the Railway Department was a major customer. The success of mines depended on whether the coal was suitable for firing boilers and on their proximity to a railway line. Most early mines in the Bowen Basin struggled to remain commercially viable.
Intensive exploration of the Bowen Basin coalfield began only after the crisis in the base metals industry due to falling prices from 1907. Tests on the Bowen River Coal Company's lease in 1912 and 1913 sparked a rush to the field. Five syndicates had registered 17 leases straddling the Bowen outcrops by the end of 1915. However, the election of Queensland's first stable Labor government led in August 1915 to Cabinet refusing the private applications and reserving the 6.4 square kilometre area involved for State operations.
Competition for leases subsided into a long wait for railway construction to be completed. Construction of the 789 kilometres of railway took five years and the delay had exhausted most of the speculators long before the line opened in 1922. At the same time, by the end of 1919, a further nineteen leases had been forfeited to the State for non-payment of rent, and the surviving syndicates had amalgamated to form the Bowen Consolidated Coal Mining Company.
When the shares in the Company were released onto the market they failed to attract as much interest as had been anticipated, likely due to the rail link being some years away. So the Company only committed to a drilling programme at the time of the share release. However by the end of 1919 John McNaughton was appointed manager and work began in earnest. A site for the mine was chosen and two parallel tunnels driven into the Garrick Seam. This activity generated cash which enabled a shaft to be sunk into the Bowen Seam in 1920.
In 1921, two vertical shafts were commenced, a winding shaft 4.3m by 1.8m to a depth of 11m and an upcast shaft 3.7m by 2.1m to a depth of 109m. They were secured with a masonry collar and mounted with heavy headframe timbers set on the surface. A dam extending 53m was constructed for the mine water supply. A gantry and a permanent staging for landing skips were completed. By the end of 1921 a boiler, steam winch and saw bench with steam engine, buildings and explosives magazine were constructed.
The rail line connecting the terminus of the Government line to Bowen Consolidated was completed on 3 March 1923 and covered a distance of 4 miles 10 chains and included 75 chains of siding. The debt for the project was £31551.11.1d. Coal output for the year to 31 May 1923 was 4136 tons and a market had been located for all.
By the time the railway connection was finished in 1923, 26 miners and a similar number of surface men were at work at the Bowen Consolidated Coal Mine and output was averaging 35 tons of coal per day. Twin tramways were laid down the tunnels and serviced by a stationary steam hauling engine, a compressed air water pump was installed at the foot of the tunnel and the ventilation was improved by sinking a vertical shaft to an extension of one of the cross-cuts and equipping it with a double-inlet sirocco-type fan. Screens were installed on the loading gantry and the Cornish boilers supplied steam to the whole mine. An office building and bath-house were erected and by 1925 the main tunnel in the Garrick seam was 480m long and under 60m of cover. Coal output was 120 tons per day.
The steel headframe, 24m in height and with twin pulleys 3m in diameter, was purchased second-hand in Charters Towers as was the horizontal twin-cylinder winding engine built by Walkers Limited of Maryborough. The headframe and winding engine were installed on site in c1925.
Extant examples of this type of headframe are now uncommon. This type of headframe, where the weight is evenly balanced on all four legs is an old pattern that was superseded by the American A-frame construction in the interwar period. Only two other examples of this type of headframe are known to exist. These are at the Vulcan tin mine in the Mareeba mining district [QHR 600681] and the Dobbyn copper mine in the Mount Isa mining district. Both are three tier headframes; the headframe at the Bowen Consolidated Mine has four tiers.
By 1926, when production in the tunnels of the Garrick seam was halted by a fault, a ventilation shaft had been completed to the Bowen seam, and a brace had been constructed and connected to the loading gantry ready for switching to the better coal.
Bowen Consolidated Coal Mines Limited developed its own township 4km from Collinsville and the State Colliery and named it Scotsdale as a tribute to two of the directors of the old Bowen Coal and Coke Company Limited, Adam Hall Scott and John Dinsdale, but the name was changed to Scottville after objections from the postal department. Scottville grew at a slower pace than Collinsville because the mine which supported it was smaller and lacked government funding. Most of the dwellings were constructed from galvanised iron with the manager's house being the only substantial structure for many years. Only 17 miners' homestead perpetual leases had been taken up by the end of 1925 despite the fact that the population was approaching 300. The nearby town of Collinsville at this time had a population of around 800 and comprised a school, shops, police station, hotel, picture theatre, dance hall, bowling green and the early construction of a hospital.
In 1927 Bowen Consolidated Colliery employed 54 men and had seven horses working with the underground teams. By this time the underground section of the mine had electric lighting as did all surface buildings and a new Ingersoll Rand Compressor, to work the dip pump and the jack hammer machines, had been purchased to replace the old second-hand one.
A battery of new Babcock and Wilcox boilers was installed at Bowen Consolidated Colliery in 1929. The coal was railed to Bowen and after 1930 turned into coke for use in the Mount Isa Mine copper smelters. In 1930, a steam winch with coupled cylinders was in process of being installed underground for main and tail haulage. Two Babcock and Wilcox boilers and a new chimney of 24.7 metres in height with a diameter of 1.3 metres were also erected in that year. At this time both Scottville and Collinsville (servicing the State Coal Mine a few kilometres away) were 'thriving centres of population'.
Through the 1930s and 1940s the mine continued to be productive and by 1943 the entire output from the mine was being supplied to the railways. In 1946 two additional Babcock & Wilcox boilers were installed with a shed erected over them. The 1947 Bowen Harbour Board Annual Report noted that an 'electric generating set' was installed during that year; this may have been the extant power house.
By 1956 Bowen Consolidated Coal Mines Ltd was a subsidiary of Mount Isa Mines Ltd (MIM). Plans were made to sink a new shaft at the mine in order to meet expansion demands. Aerial photography was to be used to accurately map the area. Profit for the mine rose from £ 26,490 in 1955 to £103,667 in 1956.
In 1962, Bowen Consolidated Coal Mines made a new entry into the Bowen seam which would be known as Bowen Consolidated Coal No. 2 Mine. Production in the fully mechanised No. 2 mine commenced in September of that year (Bowen Independent 1962).The No. 1 Underground Mine at Bowen Consolidated Colliery continued production until late 1962.
By this time, commercial exploitation of coking coal in the Bowen Basin for the export market was commencing on a massive scale to supply the booming Japanese steel industry. International consortiums and mining companies introduced open cut mining methods using huge mining plant including some of the biggest draglines in the world. This revolutionised mining techniques in Queensland; small scale underground mines were largely superseded and the nature of coal mining in Queensland was completely transformed.
By 1980 MIM's subsidiary, Collinsville Coal Company had absorbed Bowen Consolidated Coal Mines Ltd. Part of the disused complex was fenced off by the 1980s.
The former colliery is probably the most intact of its era and type in Queensland. It is one of only two relatively intact former mines known to be extant from the first phase of coalmining in the Bowen Basin. The other is the Dawson Valley Colliery (former) [QHR 602723]. The Bowen colliery is recognised in the industry for its historical importance and by an industry expert, Professor Ray Whitmore, as containing 'the finest relics of coal mining in the 1920s anywhere in Queensland'.
","criteria":"The Bowen Consolidated Colliery is one of only two relatively intact former mines known to be extant from the first phase of coalmining in the Bowen Basin. The other is the Dawson Valley Colliery (former) [QHR 602723]. The Bowen colliery is uncommon for its relatively high level of intactness and as a collection of 1920s coal mining technology.
The headframe at the Bowen Consolidated Colliery is important as an uncommon example of its type. This type of headframe, where the weight is evenly balanced on all four legs is an old pattern that was superseded by the American A-frame construction in the interwar period.
|The Bowen Consolidated Colliery has the potential to reveal information through archaeological techniques on important aspects of Queensland's history, including early underground coal mining, the evolving technology in the coal mining industry in Queensland, the working conditions of the mine workers, and the organisation of labour.
The Colliery complex has the potential to answer a range of other archaeological research questions including but not limited to the creation, selection, use and rejection of coal mining technologies, the ethnic and industrial background of mine workers and its influence on operations and organisation, and the impact of technologies and industries on the environment.
|Bowen Consolidated Colliery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century colliery. Most of the above ground structures associated with the mine remain extant and many are highly intact. Extant structures include: headframe and gantry, winding house and plant, boilers, fan houses, power house and plant, bathhouse, mine manager's residence and office, workshop, sawmill and other ancillary structures.
|As one of Queensland's most intact former coal mines of its type and era, Bowen Consolidated Colliery (1919) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's coal mining history. As one of the first successful mines in the Bowen Basin, it provides important evidence of the beginning of commercial coal mining in the State's largest and most productive coal field.
The mine is also important in demonstrating the development of coal mining techniques in Queensland. It is typical, in scale and type, of mines prior to the late 1950s. Underground mines like the Bowen Consolidated Colliery became less common during the 1960s following the introduction of large-scale open cut methods.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16588,"place_ref":601851,"name":"Towers Hill","alternate_name":"Towers Chlorination Works | Rainbow Battery | Pyrites Works","street_address":"Southwest of Charters Towers city","suburb":"TOWERS HILL","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"Towers Hill is a large granite hill rising 1,343m above sea level.
Pyrites Works:
The site comprises a complex of remnant concrete, brick and stone-pitched mill foundations extending down the eastern slope of Towers Hill. Demolished remains of a large brick chimney are located on top of the hill. The stone footings of two furnaces, including internal brick stairways, extend down from the chimney to the hearth areas near the base of the hill. Stone-terraced foundations of the chlorination works are separately located immediately south of the furnaces. Remnants of the red tailings from the Pyrites Works are located at the north-east base of Towers Hill. White tailings sands and recent retreatment tanks are located at the eastern base of the hill below the chlorination works. The stone base of an original chimney and flue, and the formation of the Pyrites branch railway with stone bridge abutments, are located further south of the works, near an area of early camp sites.
Rainbow Battery:
The site comprises an area of concrete and rendered-stone battery foundations, engine mounts and retaining walls. A tailings pit and two large concrete settling tanks are separately located on the southern side. A stone and earth dam is situated adjacent to the battery foundations on the north-west. A partially removed area of tailings adjacent to the battery on the north-east forms a component of the site. The remains of the Pyrites Works are visible on Towers Hill to the south.
Clarke's Mine and Battery:
The concrete and brick foundations for a winding engine, boiler and headframe survive as evidence of the mine surface plant. A large pile of mullock now fills and covers the shaft entrance. A concrete lined inground water tank has been constructed on top of the spur overlooking the mine. The demolished remains of a timber-framed cement-sheet clad hut of World War 2 military origin are located beside the mine on the former telegraph maintenance track. Concrete stamp battery foundations and mill surfaces are situated on a lower level immediately to the south. The mine mullock was adapted during World War 2 for construction of four form-cast concrete explosives stores which are built into the dump. These stores form part of a large complex of similar wartime structures which are constructed over the south-west slopes of Towers Hill. The place is intersected by an early telegraph route with Siemens Bros. & Co., London, iron telegraph pole bases surviving. Timber poles from later telegraph and telephone route construction are also present.
","history":"Towers Hill was the site of the first discovery of gold in December 1871 which led to the development of the Charters Towers Goldfield. George E. Clarke, Hugh Mosman, John Fraser and an Aboriginal called Jupiter comprised the prospecting party. They camped near the quartz strewn outcrops of the North Australia Reef. Commissioner William Charters awarded prospecting claims to Clarke, Mosman and Fraser on the North Australia line of reef on 25 March 1872.
Pyrites Works:
By the mid 1880s milling technology had developed considerably since the early days of the 1870s before mining had reached the ores below the water table. Crushing involved the breaking of the ore by gravitation stamps, with the resulting powder carried by a stream of water over copper plates coated with mercury to catch the gold. The gold was then recovered by scraping the amalgam from the plates and separating the two metals by distillation. When mining reached the water table this method proved inadequate for the recovery of gold in pyrites and base metal sulphides. New plants were set up to concentrate and retreat the tailings from the mills. Six pyrites works are shown on Robert Logan Jack's 1878 plan of the Charters Towers Goldfield.
Chlorination, which was introduced in the mid 1880s, involved first roasting the concentrates slowly in a large reverbatory furnace to expel the sulphur from the pyrites and to oxidise their base metals so as to reduce the amount of chlorine they could absorb. Salt was then added to satisfy copper, zinc and other metals whose oxides have a tendency to form chlorides when chlorine is presented to them in a free state. Finally chlorine and water were introduced so that the gold gradually formed a solution of gold chloride which was collected and precipitated.
Mr D.A. Brown designed and installed the original works and at the height of the Charters Towers Pyrites Works prosperity, he was sent to South Africa and England to study new methods of treatment. He was much impressed by chemical and electrical work done in England and on returning, built his patent "Hillside" furnace, erected works, and in all spent about £60,000 on new plant.
Operation of the works involved ore being fed in at the top of the hill and swept down through a reverberatory furnace to the bottom. It was swept along a hearth 3.2m wide for a length of over 100m by automatic rabbles and took about three hours to descend. The furnace was surmounted by a monumental chimney stack 54.7m high and 5.6m in diameter at the base on the outside. The stack was built of 120,000 bricks.
Between the stack and the feed hopper were elaborate dust chambers - four double and five single ones. These chambers had a V shaped cross-section, about 9m across at the top and sloping 45 degrees to a trough at the bottom. They were built and buttressed in brick.
The furnace had a number of arches which were parallel to the length of the furnace rather than a continuous arch from side to side. The total fall of the furnace was 90.2m, the length of the hearth therefore being considerably more than 100m. The total height from the furnace door to the top of the chimney stack was 145m.
The wood consumed by the furnace was said to average 4 cwt. per ton of ore roasted. It was claimed that from 250 to 300 tons of mixed concentrates and slimes were processed per week.
A smaller Hillside furnace, 47.5m long and 3.2m wide, was used by Brown as the design basis for the larger one. Remains of this furnace are shown on the 1994 plan (attached).
The company installed a very complete electrical transmission plant and the ore was hoisted up an inclined tramway to the top of the hill by means of motors; the dust was sucked back from the chambers, a Roots blower was operated, the furnace was rabbled, and the ore conveyed.
Other components of the works included a Carr's disintegrator which crushed glass to add to filter vats of fine damped sand through which chlorine gas was passed, then chlorine water was added from above to dissolve out the gold. Eight precipitating vats, each about 3m in diameter by 1m deep, were used to precipitate gold from solutions. The precipitate was burnt in a reverberatory furnace, leaving the ash and gold to be smelted, or sometimes the gold was redissolved and precipitated, after which it was smelted.
With the advance of cyanide treatment technology, introduced commercially to Charters Towers by the Australian Gold Recovery Company in 1892, the low cost of handling and treating sands and slimes and the utter simplicity of the new process, meant that the chlorination works, once so prosperous, became redundant and were shut down. The Forrest-McArthur cyanidation process of treating mill tailings was perfected by 1895. In 1899 there were 96 cyaniding plants in Charters Towers. That was the year of peak gold production - 319,572 fine ozs.
By 1904 the Pyrites Works had converted to a cyanide treatment plant; four more sand vats of similar dimensions to those used in the chlorination process were added, and the red tailings which had been chlorinated were retreated by cyanide.
Just prior to the Pyrites Works closing a meeting of the board of management was held and when asked to read the minutes of the previous meeting the chairman, D.A. Brown, produced a revolver and shot and killed the inquiring member of the board. Brown was taken into custody and was subsequently tried and hanged in Brisbane. The landmark chimney, known locally as "Brown's Folly" was demolished in 1942 when it was considered a hazard to aircraft.
Rainbow Battery:
The Rainbow reef was the site of early mining claims worked during 1872. In mid 1875 the owners of the Rainbow Claim floated a company to finance the sinking of a new vertical shaft. From the Rainbow reef 15,479 tons of ore were crushed for 28,130 ozs. The vertical shaft was 67m deep and the underlie over 244m. The Rainbow mine continued to be worked until about 1896.
It is not known when the battery was constructed as it was not shown on R.L. Jack's 1878 plan or in an 1878 photo of the Rainbow line of reef. However the North Queensland Register reported in 1897 that the Rainbow battery had a 16h.p. engine, 10 head of stamps, 10 berdans, 2 wheelers, a buddle, and concentrators. Ore was run direct to the mill, which was on the Rainbow lease. The Rainbow battery was idle in 1897 and owned by the Queensland National Bank.
It is not known if it worked continuously again, although it is shown on Frederick Deighton's 1903 plan of the Charters Towers Goldfield and on later large-scale Geological Survey of Queensland plans. On the latter, extensive areas of associated tailings are also mapped. In 1911 it was reported that tributors took 36 tons from the Welcome P.C. mine mullock dump and treated it at the Rainbow battery.
A photograph of the Rainbow battery appearing in the Queensland Government Mining Journal of 15 February 1917 (p.65) shows the works still structurally intact and comprised a corrugated-iron clad battery shed, raff wheel, tanks, tailings dam and other buildings, with Towers Hill and the Pyrites Works chimney in the background.
Clarke's Mine and Battery:
Clarke's mine on the north-western side of Towers Hill is in the vicinity of the first discovery of gold in 1871 by Clarke, Mosman, Fraser and party. Clarke's Gold Mine was worked on the Lady Maria and Moonstone reefs between 1872 and 1885. In 1885 it was one of the claims that amalgamated to form the Mosman Gold Mine which was floated in the United Kingdom in the following year. Under this name it worked until 1898. After this the various claims split again and Clarke's Gold Mine reopened in 1914 and worked fairly successfully until 1924. In this stage the mine produced about 42,000 ounces of gold from the Lady Maria and Clarke's Moonstone reefs. The Clarke's shafts probably produced about 70,000 ounces of gold over their lives, but production figures are confused because of the amalgamations. George Clarke later prospected on the Russell River goldfield before going to Papua, where he was killed on the Mambare River in 1895.
","criteria":"The Pyrites Works site is important in demonstrating the evolution of gold extraction practices in Queensland.
Additional historical themes are represented by other components surviving in this landscape including an early reservoir, early telegraph line poles and World War 2 explosives magazines. Nature conservation values are also present.
The visible association of the site with a 1950s telephone line route utilising early telegraph line poles and the secure storage of explosives during World War 2 provides a unique combination of past technologies and events, and a continuity of history.
|It [the Pyrites Chlorination Works] is a rare, if not unique, survivor of its kind, exhibiting in its layout and foundation the latest chlorination process technology before the introduction of the cyanide process; then its takeover and adaptation to the cyaniding process.
|These characteristics give the site [the Pyrites Chlorination Works] the potential to yield information likely to contribute to further understanding the history of mineral processing technology.
|Towers Hill contains the most extensive remains of a pyrites chlorination works in Queensland.
The Rainbow battery site is a surviving example of the layout of a once representative ore processing mill and demonstrates the pattern of establishing a battery near a line of reef. In addition its location clearly illustrates a physical association with the Pyrites Works and Towers Hill.
The place [Clarke's Mine and Battery] also represents two distinct phases in the life of the Charters Towers field: the initial prospecting and working of surface outcrops, then the latter reworking of reef off-shoots from the surface workings following the exhaustion of the deep leads in the centre of the town.
|The [Pyrites Chlorination] works, located on the east side of Towers Hill, contribute to the historical landscape and landmark qualities which are further enhanced by the size of the granite Towers Hill rising 1,343m above sea level and visible from far distances.
|It [the Pyrites Chlorination Works] is a rare, if not unique, survivor of its kind, exhibiting in its layout and foundation the latest chlorination process technology before the introduction of the cyanide process; then its takeover and adaptation to the cyaniding process.
|Towers Hill has a special association with the community of Charters Towers for social reasons associated with its landmark qualities and led to the town and its surrounds being called "The Towers" since the 1870s.
|Clarke's mine and battery foundations are significant because of their association with George E. Clarke, one of the discoverers of the Charters Towers Goldfield.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16592,"place_ref":601855,"name":"Joseph Morris Mine","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Georgetown Mining District","suburb":"GILBERTON","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-05","description":"The mine workings are located immediately on top of a steep bank overlooking a creek. They comprise an open-cut shaft or collapsed stope with a drive extending along the strike of the reef which is about 8m in depth. A mullock dump descends from the shaft to the creek bed. A portable engine and a portable boiler are aligned to the mine workings. The boiler is a wet bottom type constructed with early conical pointed rivets and possibly manufactured in the United States. Remnants of a stone mount for a Cornish boiler, located alongside the portable plant, are also aligned towards the mine. A Cornish boiler, which was still on site (though not in situ) in the mid 1970s, has since been removed. South of the machinery area is a rock scatter associated with a stone and mud mortar flue and chimney base, which may have also been foundations for a second Cornish boiler. Further south is an iron lined assay furnace of stone construction, and a small top-fed retort kiln. \t\t\t\t\t\t
There is no definite evidence of a battery, such as discarded stamps, cams or tailings. The only likely battery foundations are two short vertical iron bolts, 1.6m apart, aligned with the portable engine. However these were more likely tension bolts for an engine or winch. An extensive area on the opposite bank of the creek extending west to the main road has been subjected to recent tree clearance and surface bulldozing. If a battery was located on the west side of Sandy Creek then all evidence of foundations and dumps would have been lost.
Plant:
·\tOne-cylinder portable steam engine - no brand (R. Hornsby or Ruston Hornsby?).
·\tPortable wet bottom boiler - no brand.
","history":"The Etheridge Gold Fields were discovered in 1869, with the first findings along the Etheridge River. By 1885 the Etheridge field, was the second most important in Queensland after Charters Towers, producing upwards of 20,000 ounces of gold.
Gilberton township was founded in the 1870s, in a remote area some 110km south of the principal township of Georgetown. The gold found around Gilberton occurred in a free state and was erratically distributed. Sometimes almost barren quartz yielded phenomenally rich patches of gold. For example, 2 tons of ore from the Joseph Morris field returned 48.23 ounces after rich specimens had been removed.
Although the nearby Cosmopolitan line of reefs was worked from 1871, the Joseph Morris reef was not worked until 1903. The Joseph Morris mine was sunk to 60m on a reef striking north. The remaining workings consist of a timbered shaft, open to the water level of about 30m and situated in the middle of a line of collapsed stopes.
A 60 ounce nugget is reported to have been found near the Joseph Morris mine. The reef was well noted for its sometimes extremely rich returns. The mine was worked in 1903, 1907 and 1910, producing 403.2 ounces of gold from 37 tons of ore.
Local information claims that the mine was named after the son of an early owner, though this has not been able to be confirmed.
","criteria":"The Joseph Morris mine is important in demonstrating the evolution of the gold-mining industry in Queensland, particularly in the remote Gilberton field, a part of the Etheridge Gold Field.
The Joseph Morris mine is significant for demonstrating a range of gold yields in quartz ore from barren to exceedingly rich.
|A portable steam engine and portable boiler on site are now the only such surviving examples recorded in the Gilberton locality. The wet bottom portable boiler is possibly of United States origin and is early and rare. It is the only wet bottom boiler recorded in North Queensland, and was probably used to power winding gear.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Joseph Morris mine is significant as it is representative example of the human effort and those technologies employed in gold mining operations during the second period of early mining on the Gilberton field at the beginning of the 20th century.
The place contains a range of plant and structural features that were once representative of the second period of early mining on the remote Gilberton field.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16593,"place_ref":601856,"name":"Ortona Mine and Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Forsayth-Agate Creek - Ortona (Iona) Station Road","suburb":"GEORGETOWN","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"Ortona Mine and Battery is situated on the banks of the Percy River on a large area of land that crosses a series of small seasonally active creeks. The place comprises early mine workings and the surviving components of a mill and mining camp. All of the components are located in close association.
\nThe mine workings comprise three groups of shallow open workings and a shaft. Surviving crushing and concentrating plant located on the site of the mill shed includes a jaw crusher, jigs, tables and a flat bed steam engine. The mill shed has mostly collapsed, although some of the bush timber uprights and part of the roof frame, with corrugated iron sheets, remains standing. The nearby workshop, which is similarly constructed, has partly collapsed around a tractor with a front loading scoop.
\nA boiler and a compressor are located in association with shafts and workings at the western end of the place. Adjacent are the remains of two small buildings constructed with flagstone surfaces and stone pitched wall sections. The purpose of these structures is not evident, although they may have been lock-up stores. The camp comprises the remains of a corrugated iron shed and a stove and fridge.
\nSeveral graves, including one with a headstone, are located in the proximity of the camp.
\nArtefacts and cultural features are numerous in both amount and variety. Bottle fragments are extremely common but occur in definite concentrations. Most bottles appear to be crown seal and are machine made. Bottles from Australian Glass Manufacturers (AGM) appear with some regularity. Three AGM base marks have been identified, one used between 1922-29, a second between 1929-33 and a third between 1934-48.
\nThere are brick fragments throughout the site. Oral evidence suggests that a Mr Brown made the bricks on site. The kiln for the manufacture of the bricks was destroyed in the 1960s when work was conducted on the dam.
\nTo the east of the main mine complex are the ruins of two dry stone wall structures. The structure closest to the mine complex has a ground surface area of 8 m2 and has a slate floor with an obvious edge. Remnants of two exterior corner walls survive and are constructed by embedding slate into antbed. The extant walls are approximately 2 m high. Oral evidence indicates that this building was the manager's residence, the last known manager being Anthony Linedale.
","history":"The Ortona Mine and Battery is located 100km south of Georgetown and is the most isolated copper mine and treatment plant in the Georgetown Mining District. The Mine appears to have operated only briefly, from 1899 to 1908. The remote location of Ortona Mine created difficulties with developing the ore reserves.
Gold was discovered in the Georgetown Mining District in 1868 and a series of other gold and base metal discoveries followed. The region became known as the Etheridge Gold and Mineral Field. The field peaked as a gold producer in the 1890s but was in decline by World War I. High base metal prices turned attention to lead, silver and copper and the field boomed until the onset of the Depression in the late 1920s again caused prices to drop. A brief revival in gold mining followed but the labour and materials shortages of World War Two ended all mining.
The Ortona Mine copper lodes were discovered in 1899 by Scarden and Smyth, two prospectors. In 1901 Scarden and Smyth sold the mine to Anthony Linedale. Linedale was reportedly working in association with John Moffat and the Irvinebank Mining Company. Cartage and treatment costs were very high and many mines starting up in the early 1900s could not afford to stay in business. Linedale, however, was able to make a profit by sending copper ore to Townsville by teams and then transported the copper on to London.
Between 1899 and 1908 about 145 tons of rich ore was sent for smelting. Records of 1908 show that 2,345 tons of ore were stacked ready for treatment, waiting for the completion of a reverberatory furnace. The mine was exploited to the water level by shafts and drives. With the use of an engine and baling tank one shaft was extended to 47m below water level. A crushing plant was later erected. However, there is no evidence of a furnace or any slag in the area so it is not known whether the furnace did become operational, or even for how long the mines operated. However records show that in 1910. Linedale's company constructed a road from their Ortona mine to Forsayth to connect with the Etheridge Railway.
An undated map of Ortona shows a cottage and office with a well and another office nearby, on the bank of the Percy River. On the same side of the river, further south, a hotel and kitchen apparently owned by August Kremens are located. On the opposite bank another hotel and kitchen, under the name of George Daly Ryan and next to it, a butcher shop with the name John Henry Clarke are also marked.
A brief revival of the Ortona Mine in 1919 was prompted by new gold finds. Although this engendered some activity, miners were by then deserting the area. Later prospectors and fossickers were discouraged by a lack of available explosives, as well as ongoing drought conditions, and seemed unprepared to work such an isolated area.
","criteria":"The Ortona Mine and Battery is significant demonstrating the effort employed in the early exploration and development of mineral deposits, in this case, copper. The place is the most isolated copper mine and treatment plant in the Georgetown Mining District. It contains historical landscape qualities and demonstrates a combining of natural and cultural heritage values.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16594,"place_ref":601857,"name":"Richmond Mine and Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Gulf Development Road","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-28","description":"Richmond Mine and Battery is located 10 kilometres east of Croydon and about 1 kilometre north of the Gulf Development Road. The vegetation in the immediate area is sparse and consists predominantly of eucalypts spp regrowth. Cattle graze the site.
The main workings of the place, including the shafts and incline, mullock, and battery site are situated on the crest and southwest face of Richmond Hill.
The mine and winding plant is situated on an earth bench cut into the hillside at adit level directly above the battery. Extensive areas of dumped rock extend down the hill from the mine. The mine site includes a portable steam engine with a connected cog drive to a small two-drum winding winch that is aligned to a timbered incline shaft. Items of plant in the vicinity include a winch base associated with the portable engine, a baling bucket and a small single-cylinder horizontal engine manufactured by the Stuart & McKenzie foundry of Croydon.
The battery site, situated on two earth benches leading to a flat immediately below the mine, includes the concrete foundations of a five head stamper frame and broken iron legs of the frame. A small inscription on the concrete foundations reads "AOP 18/5/13". A single-cylinder horizontal steam engine is located alongside the battery. A two-cylinder portable engine with all four wheels intact stands below the battery. The engine's flywheel lies alongside.
A tailings dump, dwelling sites, and machinery scatters extend southward from the base of the hill approximately 150 m, on flat ground.
On the flat below the battery site is situated a kiln constructed from a ship's tank and lined with ant bed bricks. An extensive area of cyanided sands is situated to the southwest of the kiln. The presence of the kiln and its position downhill from the battery site and in close proximity to the tailings sands indicates it was probably used to melt down the gold precipitate from the cyanide plant to produce gold bullion bars. It is unusual for such a feature to survive on cyanide plants.
The stone fireplace and chimney of a hut is located about 90m northwest of the remains of the stamper. Additionally, 100m south of the stamper, there is evidence of a row of at least 3 dwelling sites extending westward. These sites typically consist of stone arrangements, glass and artefact scatters, corrugated iron sheeting and remains of corrugated iron tanks.
Plant:
· One-cylinder horizontal steam engine - Stuart & McKenzie Makers Croydon.
· Two-cylinder portable steam engine - Robey & Co Engineers Lincoln.
· Two-drum winding winch - no brand.
· One-cylinder horizontal steam engine with flywheel - Clark & Faucet Engineers Queen St Brisbane.
· Two-cylinder portable steam engine (with 4 wheels) - no brand.
","history":"The Richmond Mine, near Croydon, was worked for about three decades, producing gold from 1886 until c1916. After 1914 the battery at the Richmond Mine crushed tin ore from mines on the Stanhill tinfield.
Croydon is situated in the heart of the Gulf Savannah, 562km west of Cairns, approximately 176km west of Georgetown and 144km south east of the port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Europeans first explored this area in the 1860s: McKinley searched for lost explorers Burke and Wills in 1862 and JG McDonald explored a route from Carpentaria Downs to the Gulf in 1864. Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from the markets. An overland telegraph line was constructed from Cardwell to Normanton between 1869 and 1872. This passed through the Croydon district and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields.
Gold was first discovered on Croydon Downs Station, which had been taken up by W. Brown in 1881. In the latter part of 1883, two of his employees found quartz carrying gold. However it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from WC Brown, prospected the area and discovered 20 payable reefs. The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under the administration of the Department of Public Works and Mines.
Hundreds flocked to the area. By 1887 the population of the district had peaked at 7000, and in 1897 it still had the third highest population in north Queensland after Charters Towers and Townsville. From 1890 to 1910, gold output from the Croydon reefs was second only to Charters Towers. Total production from inception until 1947 was 772, 374 ounces. By 1909 however, production began to decline and by 1914, the population at the turn of the century had halved. Inflation during World War One meant that the fixed value of gold could not keep up with increased costs and the field was reduced to a "poor man's field".
Residents on the Croydon Goldfield faced many hardships including inadequate supplies of water; pasture grasses and timber for fuel and construction purposes. Isolation was also a major problem until the Croydon to Normanton railway was completed in 1891. The area was subject to droughts and floods, and even a cyclone in 1906. During the 'crash' of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, many miners were thrown out of work. Despite all these difficulties, the 1890s were productive years for Croydon, as the value of gold increases during a depression. Pugh's Almanac of 1900 listed 3 banks, 6 blacksmiths, 5 bakers, 6 commission agents, 4 newsagents, 6 carriers, 2 chemists, 6 drapers11 share brokers, 18 hotels and 4 watchmakers, among many other assorted businesses. Other townships were established at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flannigan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs.
The Richmond reef, which outcrops on a hill capped with desert sandstone, strikes nearly north and south and underlies to the east at 35 degrees. Though small (8 to 10cm) and patchy, it contained extremely rich specimens.
The mine was worked from at least four claims and had underlie shafts at least 118m long. Between 1886 and 1907, a total of 6,615 tons of ore returned 21,324 ounces of gold. In the 1890s the Richmond PC was considered one of the best mines on the field. Curiously for a mine owned by syndicates, it was worked mainly by tributers (miners leasing part or all of the mine) in this period. It appears that the mine shut down after 1907 because the winding machinery and vertical boiler needed repairs that the miners could not afford.
Further work carried out between 1912 and 1916 under the name Richmond Amalgamated saw the production of 883 tons of ore yielding 3,696 ounces of gold. This appears to have been the last major production period. The present battery was erected in 1913, with the assistance of a Government loan under the Mining Machinery Advances Act of 1906. The stamps and shed came from the Highland Mary mine in Croydon and the mill engine from the yard of the local foundry, Stuart and McKenzies". The year 1913 is inscribed on the concrete footings. The battery also crushed for the public, including nearby tin mines, for which it installed Wilfley concentrating tables. By 1915 the mine's engine house featured a forge and a portable engine driving the winding engine, which was used to bail water by tank as well as raise ore. The mill shed housed a 5 stamp battery with a self feeder, engine, amalgamating table, berdan pan, two Wilfley tables, and a pump bringing in water from a dam at the rear. The boiler for the pump and engine was large and situated beside the mill shed. The mill in that year gained some notoriety when Albert Chambers was caught up in the drive belt for the Wilfley table and killed.
In 1921 the Richmond battery crushed 58 tons of tin ore from mines on the Stanhill tinfield. It is not known for how long the battery continued to operate.
","criteria":"The Richmond Mine and Battery is significant in Queensland's history as demonstrating the life cycle of a well preserved small mine in an isolated area. The battery and winding machinery show a pattern typical of small mines with intermittent production and using second hand plant. The four steam engines on site illustrate a range of manufacturers from Croydon (local manufacture), Brisbane and the United Kingdom. It is illustrative particularly of mines with small reefs with rich patches of ore, which were worked consistently on a small scale.
|The survival of the two-cylinder portable engine with wheels is uncommon in the context of early mining sites. The locally manufactured Stuart & McKenzie engine may be the only extant example of this model. The kiln or oven for melting cyanide residues is rare.
|The remains of the dwelling sites have the potential to provide valuable information contributing to an understanding of Queensland's history. Analysis of the spatial positioning of dwelling sites in relation to the processing plant and workings of the mine, and to each other, would provide new information about life and social hierarchy at isolated mines on north Queensland goldfields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Analysis of the physical remains and associated artefacts of the dwellings would aid in our understanding of ethnicity, diet, status, and social class of people living and working on Queensland goldfields.
|The combination of shafts, extent of mullock, plant, tailings as well as stone fireplace and house site evidence contributes to the significance of the place. The spatial layout of these components, for example the shafts and mullock on the hill (and winding gear for the underlie), the plant and stamper below, and the kiln and tailing sands further below the stamper, demonstrate the typical layout of a small but complete mining and milling site in Queensland.
|The place possesses an aesthetic significance engendered by an evocative quality in the siting of remnant mining objects, machinery and workings within a sparse, arid and isolated environment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16595,"place_ref":601858,"name":"Ebagoola Township and Battery","alternate_name":"Ebagoolah Township | Ada Stewart Battery","street_address":"TO BE DETERMINED","suburb":"COEN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-05-15","description":"The Ebagoola Township Site and Ada Stewart Battery is located 40km south of Coen and about 6km west of the Peninsular Development Highway. The homestead of Yarraden pastoral station is located nearby.
The place occupies a mostly flat area of land and is bounded on its southern side by a disused airstrip. A small hill (known as 'Hospital Hill') is located at the northeast corner of the site, about 400m northeast of the battery. To the east and west of the site boundary, are two intermittent creeks. The vegetation cover is predominantly grassland and open Eucalyptus spp regrowth, except for the main township area. Open Melaleuca forest is evident along the entire western boundary following the course of a dry creek bed. Cattle graze the place, particularly the site of the main Ebagoola township, which remains cleared.
Ada Stewart Battery
The battery is located about 500m north of Ebagoola township and within Lot 8 on E5146. The components of the battery comprise an almost intact three standard steel stamper frame with ten head of stamps in two mortar boxes. The battery is set in compacted clay foundations and as a result of vibration the frame contains a number of major cracks, which have been subjected to makeshift repairs. The body of a single-cylinder flat-bed steam engine is located alongside. The engine has been broken into two sections and the large flywheel has been placed against the stamper frame. Remains of a brick mounting for a Cornish boiler are adjacent to the engine. The boiler, which now lies several metres away, is of an early type.
The battery outflow and mill area below the boxes comprises a shallow excavated bench with collapsed belt wheels and a removed camshaft. The only surviving item of secondary processing plant is a grinding pan, which is not in situ. Other items of plant lying around the site include another belt shaft and wheels, a duplex pump, and the body of a smaller grinding pan. An extensive area of tailings extends west from the battery to the creek.
Plant:
·\t Ten head stamp battery with two 5 stamp mortar boxes - Lallal Iron Coy. Foundry Ballarat (on one mortar box).
·\t Cornish boiler - no brand (firedoors removed).
·\t Grinding pan (not in situ) - Langlands Foundry Limited Melbourne.
·\t One-cylinder rocking shaft reversing steam engine - no brand.
·\t Duplex steam pump (not in situ) - no brand.
·\t Grinding pan (not in situ) - no brand.
Ebagoola Township Site
The main area of the township site extends for approximately 250m on the eastern side and approximately 50m on the western side of a station track, which aligns approximately with a section of the former main street of Ebagoola Township (McDonald Street). The area remains cleared of low level vegetation and contains numerous stands of exotic trees including mature mango trees, tamarinds and several date palms. Apart from scattered sheets of corrugated iron and timber stumps there is little surface evidence of buildings. A survey peg marked 'EK28' demarcates the northern end of the visible remnants of the former township.
On western side of the station track and to the south of the survey peg, are indications of former building and habitation sites. Timber stumps, corrugated iron sheeting and piles of roughly cut timber are concentrated in places here and in other areas within the main township area. These remnants are found in close association with exotic trees, usually Mangoes. Other notable features within the township area are a number of bottle and rubbish dumpsites, the remains of an old dray or wagon and cattle yard fencing.
The only surviving building within the site of the former township is a small corrugated iron hut in the south of the main township area and about 450m south of the survey peg (about 830m southeast of the battery area). This hut was formerly owned by Tom Miller who died in 1958, and was occupied until recently by Christie Steenson of Coen. An open lean-to living area attached to the front of the hut has been removed. The interior is intact, partly furnished (including built-in bush timber shelving & a gas refrigerator of an early type) and in fair condition, although there is evidence of termite activity. A grove of mature Mango trees, glass, metal and other artefact scatters are evident in close proximity to the hut site. A metal drum, sunk into the ground about 10m northeast of the hut, is probably the remains of a toilet. Two stone piles are situated about 12m east of the hut.
Extending south from the hut is evidence of a concrete platform or floor and a line of three thickset low timber stumps. Further south of the concrete platform is the remains of a corrugated iron tank, however this does not appear to be in situ.
In addition to the remains within the township area, a building and/or dwelling site is located approximately 150m northeast of the battery area, at the western foot of Hospital Hill. This site consists of a group of features including a number of large timber stumps (lying on the ground), several glass scatters, two gateposts, and a large, near-dead Frangipani tree. Two culturally modified trees, thought to be the result of steel axe cuts, are also evident in this vicinity.
Workings
An extensive area of shallow workings extends for approximately 1km along the western fringes of the gazetted township site from the southwest corner to the battery area in the north. This heavily worked area stretches about 130m to the east in the direction of the station track (McDonald Street). The area is typified by numerous shallow pits and ditches, mullock dumps, machinery, and other metal remains. The most visible feature within this extensive worked area is a 6m high mullock dump found in close association to a concentrated group of shallow workings and machinery parts. This concentration of workings has a diameter of about 50m and includes a broken piece of machinery inscribed with 'This end toward the pump' and an almost intact vertical boiler complete with fire door and valve handle.
East of the main township area, on the western side and bed of a creek/gully, is a widespread and structureless area of alluvial diggings. This creek/gully aligns with the eastern boundary line of the site.
In the southeast of the site, along a fence line forming the site's southern boundary, is a worked area consisting of shallow pits and mullock dumps.
","history":"The township of Ebagoola was situated on the Hamilton Goldfield on the western fall of the McIllwraith Range, on Cape York Peninsula. The goldfield, named after the Member of Parliament for Cook, gold miner/investor John Hamilton, was proclaimed on 13 July 1900 following prospector John Dickie's report of gold in the area in January 1900.
Alluvial gold had been discovered on the Cape York Peninsula as early as 1876, on the Coen River, after the Palmer goldfield drew attention to the region. A small rush ensued in 1878. Although this soon dissipated, by the late 1880s a small township had been formed at Coen. In 1892 the Coen Goldfield was proclaimed officially and reefing work commenced. Although production totals paled in comparison with fields such as the Palmer, within the next few years the erection of batteries and a cyanide works at Coen gave the northern Peninsula a permanent base for prospecting expeditions. Gold was found on the Starcke River in 1890, at Batavia (Wenlock) in 1892, Ebagoola in 1899 and Potallah in 1902.
The township of Ebagoola was surveyed in September 1900 to service the newly proclaimed Hamilton Goldfield. The first Ebagoola camp was near the site of Dickie's discovery, but the surveyed town was located a mile to the north at the northern end of the field.
The majority of surveyed allotments were quickly purchased and a number of small businesses were established. Characteristic of new mining towns, these included a butchery (the first business established on the field), a general store and a hotel. These buildings were rudimentary, slab-walled structures with roofs clad with bark sheets held down by saplings, canvas over a ridge pole, and iron sheeting.
By November 1900 the population of the field was estimated at 330, of whom 130 were alluvial miners, 100 quartz miners, 50 businessmen and non-miners, and 50 women and children. Fever, dysentery and eye trouble were prevalent in the last part of the year, due to the lack of clean well water.
By the end of 1900, as a measure of confidence in the place, three large hotels and several substantial stores had been built, and dwellings were being erected as fast as building material could be obtained. Reserves had been laid out for Government buildings and the hospital on a mound at the northern end of town. The town was serviced by a post office from 1900 to 1917 and a school operated from 1905 to 1914.
As mining and ore treatment intensified on the field, Ebagoola township developed rapidly in the early 1900s. New businesses included two cordial manufacturers, a chemist, baker, two barbers, two blacksmiths, a confectioner, tobacconist, dressmaker, two auctioneers, commission agent and an accountant. There was also a tent hospital run by the chemist's wife, and a coach service from Ebagoola to Port Stewart, the closest port, about 60km east and about 240km north of Cooktown.
The first gold-bearing ore from the Hamilton field had to be sent to Coen, about 40km north, for crushing. By November 1900 there was only one 5-head stamper battery on the Hamilton field, and that was poorly equipped. It serviced the output of fifty mines and floods had caused its closure for 12 weeks at the beginning of 1901. However, the official return of gold for 1900 was 806 ounces of reef gold and 12,000 ounces of alluvial, valued at £35,258.
At the end of 1900 the 10-head Ada Stewart battery at Coen was relocated to Ebagoola, in time to crush ore during the wet season. A third battery was established on the field soon after.
Intensive mining activity in the Ebagoola district proved to be of short duration. Within a decade, the mines were closing. In 1907 the Pioneer battery was moved to the nearby Lukin field and in the same year the Ada Stewart battery changed ownership, and again in 1910. From 1909 to 1913 Berryman and Pool cyanided the Ada Stewart battery sands.
By 1910 the population of the field was recorded as 101, less than a third of the estimated population of late 1900. All the mines at Ebagoola had closed by 1913 and the town was practically deserted by the start of World War One (August 1914), with only one hotel, the Hamilton, still operating. By 1924 there were only a few fossickers getting very little gold. Tom Miller, the last resident of Ebagoola, died in 1958 and his corrugated iron hut remains, as do early tree plantings and street alignments.
","criteria":"Ebagoola Township Site, established in 1900, is significant in demonstrating the evolution of mining settlements on the remote Cape York Peninsula. After a decade of activity the population dwindled and dwellings were removed, leaving the street alignments and allotments identified by plantings of mangoes and date palms, which are significant in marking the township site today. The combination of the Ada Stewart Battery, remnant workings (both reef and alluvial) and nearby Ebagoola Township Site is important in demonstrating the development of the Hamilton Goldfield, and of small scale but intensive gold mining activity in far north Queensland, in the early 1900s. The Ada Stewart Battery at Ebagoola is significant because it demonstrates the need for reliable crushing batteries on remote goldfields to enable mining to proceed. Its presence on the Hamilton field also demonstrates a typical pattern of moving plant from field to field in response to new economic opportunities, in this case from Coen to Ebagoola.
|Major items of plant are significant. The flat-bed engine is rare though now broken. The 10 head battery is one of only two intact 10 head stamp batteries recorded in Cook Shire, and the only Lallal Iron Foundry product recorded in North Queensland. The form of the only remaining building in the Ebagoola township site, Miller's hut, in such intact condition, is now rare for abandoned mining towns. The surviving combination of reef and alluvial workings, battery and township within such a concise area is quite unusual in Queensland.
|The spatial layout and remnant fabric and earthworks at the Ebagoola township and Ada Stewart Battery are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early, intensively worked goldfield in far north Queensland. The battery includes a 10-head stamper, Cornish boiler, grinding pans, duplex steam pump, reversing steam engine, associated brick and clay machinery mounts, and tailing sands. The nearby township site consists of dwelling sites and associated materials; stands of date palms and mango trees, the remains of cattle yards, while extensive areas of shallow workings and alluvial workings are found throughout the whole site. Miller's hut in the Ebagoola township site is typical of dwellings in early North Queensland mining camps, although possibly it is of later origin.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16596,"place_ref":601859,"name":"Fischerton Water Race","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Tate-Almaden Road","suburb":"CHILLAGOE","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-11-21","description":"The remains of the water race run roughly parallel to the western and northern banks of the Tate River for approximately 6.5km to the western sluice face area adjacent to Soda Spring and an earthen dam wall at an unnamed north-south trending creek-line. This western end features evidence of iron fluming, timber retaining wall or loading ramp, concrete slab building surfaces and associated mining debris.
For most of its length the race is constructed of a stone retaining wall, in some places up to 2m in height, carrying a now shallow clay-lined drain on its up-slope side. While the majority of the stonewall is constructed of rough angular blocks, several sections are noted to include blocks specifically cut to form a smooth surface on the down-slope side of the race. At several sections along the race, fabric changes from stonewall to a low earthen ditch for lengths of up to 500m.
Along its course the race is crossed four times by vehicular roads (twice by the Tate - Almaden Road and twice by other tracks) and by a number of small creeks. Heavy water flows in the past along the majority of these intersecting creeks have collapsed small sections of the race. Approximately 5.5km from its western end the race intersects a large creek entering the Tate River from the north. This creek had previously been dammed, with the race constructed over the dam wall. This dam has been breached and the race has subsequently collapsed at this point.
The area 1.5 - 2.0km from the western end has been heavily affected by large powerful outflows of water from large underground (now partially exposed) water pipes emptying into the Tate River. Little remains of the race in this section.
Sections at the eastern end of the race are damaged in large part due to changes over time in the course of the Tate River. Much of the race here is now situated within the ephemeral riverbed. However, this section of the race still features large sections of drystone wall, some of which has been fixed in place through the concreting of blocks, as well as large sections cut or blasted out of the bedrock to form the race.
","history":"Tin was first discovered in Queensland at Stanthorpe in 1872. The first recorded finding of tin in north Queensland was by James Venture Mulligan in 1875 in the Wild River district, near Herberton. Gold was still paramount at that time, but by the 1880s the mining industry of north Queensland was shifting its focus away from gold toward baser metals such as lead, copper and tin. Prior to this few prospectors had been interested in base metal extraction in the remote areas of north Queensland as road, rail and nearby port facilities were largely non-existent making freight costs involved in shipping extracted minerals to the coast too high.
The first commercial tin workings in the north were, however, not conducted by large commercial European enterprises but by Chinese prospectors. Chinese miners are believed to have begun mining for tin in north Queensland as early as 1876-7, but certainly by 1878 the declining gold yields in the area had resulted in many Chinese investigating tin deposits located on Granite Creek and Cannibal Creek south-east of Maytown.
Prospectors J. Hogsfleisch (a pioneer mailman) and companions J. Dow, J. Williams and H. Hammond discovered tin on the remote Tate River in 1878. In 1883 the fields along the Tate were worked for the first time and for more than a decade small groups of miners washed the alluvial tin. Distance from batteries, however, precluded additional development of the field at this time. Further tin discoveries in north Queensland led to alluvial tin being worked at Stannary Hills in 1885, and along the Annan River north of Cooktown in 1885.
By 1893 a town was formerly surveyed on the northern bank of the Tate River. This town was named Fischerton after the local landowner Mr H. Fischer, but is also referred to as the Tate Tin Mines or simply the Tate. By the time the school at Fischerton opened on 16 October 1894 the town's population had grown to 260 men, 14 women and 14 children.
In 1894 the Brisbane-based Tate Alluvial Tin Syndicate N.L. negotiated with Fischer for the construction of a 10km water race from the Tate River to a working face east of the town site. An engineer, Mr George Bell, supervised the construction of the race that included 6.5km of excavation, 2.5km of drystone wall construction, 100m of fluming and 6km of solid rock blasting. The race emptied at its western end into a substantial dam with a 60m long embankment. The race was completed on Saturday 13 October 1894 at a total cost of £7,000. On the Monday following completion a dinner was held for the construction workers at Abraham's Royal Hotel in Fischerton followed by a picnic the next day and a ball in the evening. Flood damage only months after completion of the race completely destroyed the syndicate's finances with the mining operations taken over by John Moffat's Irvinebank Mining Company under manager William Waddell, later manager at Kooraboora Battery. The Irvinebank Mining Company then conducted sluicing operations on the Tate during favourable seasons. This company practiced a policy of preference for public ore designed to ensure a continuous supply of ore for processing at the company's mills. This practice provided quick returns for individual miners and encouraged them to work their claims more effectively. At Fischerton the company purchased the winnings of many of the old prospectors who scratched a living from the area's alluvial deposit.
Output at the Tate Tin Mines was usually in the order of 30 tons. In 1914 only 1.5 tons of tin was obtained through sluicing operations on the Tate, while just 5.5 ton were recovered by dry blowing. This downturn in tin mining fortunes was occurring across all fields then in operation in north Queensland. The Tate River, which had by then been a constant supply source for tin fossickers during nearly thirty years of operations, was reported to be producing meagre returns. The Irvinebank Company continued its operations on the Tate until 1920 by which time it had extracted 3,556 tons of tin over a quarter of a century of barely profitable operations.
","criteria":"The Fischerton Water Race is important in demonstrating the evolution of tin-mining practices in Queensland in the late 19th century. The water race is representative of practices used for the extraction of base metal resources in north Queensland and is significant as an early example of the effort, both manual and financial, that was applied to mine base metals in a remote location reliant on seasonal rains.
|The water race is a rare and uncommon example of its type and is the longest stone pitched water race recorded in North Queensland. It is unusual in its size, ranging to over 2m in height in places and with a total extent of up to 10km in length.
|The intactness of the water race 100 years after construction was completed testifies to the quality of the construction, in particular the stonewall sections. While water races were common to mining areas, the Fischerton Water Race is a fine example of its type with significant variation from a standard water race design involving simple earth ditches with timber, metal or masonry linings that often incorporated flumes.
|The structure is complex in design in terms of contours and fall. Various sections of the stone pitched wall show evidence of great effort in terms of shaping and fitting locally sourced stone to produce flat wall surfaces. Sections near the Tate River feature early examples of the concreting of stones to keep them in place as well as large sections blasted out of the bedrock to form the race.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16597,"place_ref":601860,"name":"Gordon's Mine and Mill","alternate_name":"Iron Range Mine and Mill | Gordons Mine","street_address":"TO BE DETERMINED","suburb":"TO BE IDENTIFIED","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-12-13","description":"The place is located in an area of dense regrowth rainforest on a hillslope descending to a tributary of Gordon Creek. Access tracks intersect the site on two levels. There are three mine adits on the upper level. The middle adit, or main tunnel, has caved at its entrance. An air receiver is located at the entrance to the main tunnel.
Concrete Foundations, 1994
The mill with most of the surviving plant is located either side of the lower access track. Components include, a building site benched into the hillside which contains several surviving bush timber shed uprights and the body of a Roots blower. The lower track passes through the middle of the mill site which contains a partly intact and badly corroded Huntington mill on a concrete base, and a suction gas producer with associated concrete engine mounts. A series of large corrugated iron cyaniding tanks are located along the creek bank below the mill. Remains of at least five cyanide tanks are evident together with a small concrete structure which appears to be a retort flue.
Plant:
·\tHuntington mill - Manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox Ltd. Regent Park N.S.W.
·\tGas producer - no brand (No. 8890)
·\tRoots blower (not in situ) - No 1 Roots Blower Alldays & Ions Ltd Birmingham England.
·\tAir receiver - no brand.
","history":"In early 1934 Jack Gordon prospected the Iron Range locality from the Packers Creek field near Portland Roads. In June he followed a gold trail up a tributary of Gordon Creek, a branch of the Claudie River, and discovered what was later called the Iron Range Reef.
Within two years, the region was a hive of activity with 45 men working along an 8 km strip. Although the original ore was shipped and railed to the Venus battery at Charters Towers for treatment, the Iron Range mill was in full operation by November 1936 after a Huntington mill was erected by Jack Gordon at the mine following great difficulties in transportation. This was soon followed by crushing machines on the Golden Gate and Scarlet Pimpernel leases. In 1938 the Iron Range mill operated for most of the year; a cyanide plant was installed and 29 men were employed.
Gordon's Reef outcrops on top of a steep ridge and the main tunnel was driven to cut the ore body approximately 57m below the ridge. Up to 1939, development work consisted of numerous tunnels and drives, which officially yielded 2,005 ounces of gold from 210 tons of ore. Between 1938 and 1956, the Mines Department annual reports indicate that a total of 10,428 tons of ore was crushed from the Iron Range and yielded 4,525 ounces of bullion gold and 122 ounces of fine gold. Although the vast majority was derived from Gordon's mine, some of the returns may relate to the surrounding leases.
","criteria":"Gordon's mine and mill is significant for demonstrating the material evidence of a successful 1930's mineral exploration and development project that resulted in the support of gold mining operations over a period of twenty years in difficult rainforest terrain on northern Cape York Peninsula.
|The milling plant remaining on site is now very rare in North Queensland: the Huntington mill is one of only two recorded in North Queensland, while the Roots blower is the only one recorded in association with a North Queensland mining place.
|(Criterion under review)
|The surviving plant and archaeology of the site demonstrate quartz mining and milling processes in a tropical rainforest, and rainforest regrowth.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16598,"place_ref":601861,"name":"Rocky Bluff Battery and Township","alternate_name":"Stannary Hills Mill","street_address":"TO BE DETERMINED","suburb":"HERBERTON","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-12-13","description":"The place comprises a number of components including the formation and terminus structures of the Stannary Hills - Rocky Bluff tramway: a ropeway formation descending from the tramway to the battery including concrete brake mounts; and foundations of the battery including terraced benches and high retaining walls descending steeply to the Walsh River; an intact stone weir across the river; and two township areas, one on the river flat and the other in the gully below the battery.
Chimney, 1994
The battery comprises four main terraced levels separated with high rock-face retaining walls. The crusher level includes sections of brick walls and flues of a two-unit Babcock boiler house, the substantial brick base of a metal chimney and concrete engine mounts. Adjacent are three pairs of concrete foundations for 30 head of stamps. The battery floor contains three circular brick bases for large agitator vats, and an intact square brick chimney associated with an arrangement of brick precipitation tanks. A furnace floor, below, contains the brick remains of a Merton furnace with flues connecting to the base of the chimney. This area also contains a small retort comprised of an iron furnace and brick firebox. Three circular concrete rendered brick buddle bases for the treatment of slimes are located on a lower level.
Evidence of structures at the settlement sites is minimal and includes timber stumps, rock walls and a dump of green beer bottles marking a hotel or store site. A section of steel chimney has been dumped on the settlement site. A small stone building known to survive in the vicinity of the settlement was not located in the time available for survey.
","history":"Tin was discovered in the Rocky Bluff district in 1883 but initially little development occurred. Extensive leases were acquired over the area by a South Australian company, the North Queensland Tin Mining Corporation, in 1900. The company passed the properties and fixed assets to the Stannary Hills Mines and Tramway Company Limited, an Adelaide based company with a nominated capital of £650,000. This company took advantage of the tramway clause in the Mining Act of 1898 and commenced surveys for a narrow gauge tramway from Boonmoo, along Eureka Creek to Stannary Hills, thence over the ridge to a terminus at Watsonville.
The line opened to Stannary Hills in May 1902. Instead of proceeding to Watsonville it was decided to construct a branch line 11 km to Rocky Bluff on the Walsh River and this opened on 18 November 1902.
The battery was constructed in 1902 on a machine area of 4 hectares beside the Walsh River. Sand and gravel had to be carted uphill from the river. Bricks were carted in on the Stannary Hills tramway and then lowered on a rope tramway 190m down the hill to the battery site. The battery was formally opened on 6 May 1903. Named "Jumping Moses", the 20 head battery, Huntington mill and Merton furnace were perched high on the steep hillside above the river.
The battery closed in June 1903 because the mortar box shifted and there was insufficient boiler power. The general manager, Charles S. Pasley, reported that the battery could only work at half power until the boiler was replaced by a larger one; £600 was to be spent on two frue vanners, two wheeler pans and a small four compartment jigger.
In 1905 new stamper foundations and storage bins were constructed, a further 10 head stamps were added and the old 20 head were replaced. New rolls were put in between rockbreaker and battery, and a travelling "grizzly" to take the crushed ore with the roughs taken out on a moving elevator. A Krupp ball mill reground the coarser parts of the battery pulp. All the pumps were replaced by new return pumps throughout the mill. The bases of the vanners were built in and the brickwork of the Merton furnace was repaired and relined. A slime buddle was also put in to deal more efficiently with the overflow slimes. The gravitation water supply was brought by wooden fluming about 2 km up the river, except at times of reduced flow, when a system of pumping from, and returning to a dam in the river was resorted to. Motive power for the battery was supplied by a 350hp Robey compound engine and for the dressing plant by a 30hp high-pressure engine, steam being generated in Babcock and Wilcox boilers.
In 1905 the small township of Rocky Bluffs had "some 200 inhabitants and ... a good hotel, store and provisional school". The battery supplied electricity to the school and some of the principal buildings in the township. The township was also reticulated from the gravitational water supply.
Because of its steep site the township had the reputation that no wheeled vehicle, cart, wagon or buggy ever got into its main streets. A postal receiving office operated from 1903 to 1907. The battery and general work at Rocky Bluffs, the terminus of the Stannary Hills tramline, gave employment to about 50 men in 1905. Ore was shipped in from surrounding mines, such as the Arbouin, which was connected by an aerial ropeway to the tramline, the Ivanhoe, Extended, Kitchener and Eclipse mines.
The Stannary Hills Company spent £120,000 in three years on tramways, plant and buildings, and mine development. The company was highly successful while tin prices remained high, but after the collapse of the market in late 1907 its influence declined. Between 1904 and 1911, when the company closed down output was valued at £275,352.
John Darling and Company, a South Australian company, bought the assets of the liquidated Stannary Hills Tramway and Tin Mines Limited and undertook extensive repairs in 1912 to reopen the battery. The battery was renovated in 1917. It reopened with one shift per day in the latter half of 1918 and operated into the mid 1920s. The tramway from the Junction to Rocky Bluff was dismantled in 1926.
","criteria":"The Rocky Bluff battery, tramway and township are significant as an expression of early integrated development in North Queensland's mining industry.
|The combination of functions in one place is unique: steam tramway and terminus, rope incline tramway, battery, weir and settlement. The battery of 30 head was one of the largest to operate in the Mareeba district.
The brick chimney and Merton furnace (though partly demolished), are a rare combination. The place is one of the few battery sites in Queensland with a brick chimney remaining.
|(Criterion under review)
|Due to difficult access the place retains comprehensive evidence of the layout of a range of representative late 19th century haulage, concentrating and settlement features. The battery layout still clearly demonstrates treatment processes through its surviving structures and surface archaeology.
|The battery site was selected for efficient operation above the Walsh River and the mountain and river setting is very impressive containing historic landscape values.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16599,"place_ref":601862,"name":"Wenlock Goldfield","alternate_name":"Lower Camp (Wenlock) | Batavia Goldfield","street_address":null,"suburb":"COEN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-03-03","description":"Wenlock Goldfield
The place comprises an area of intensive surface workings, mine shafts, mullock dumps, plant and equipment and structural foundations. One partly collapsed headframe of bush timber remains over the Golden Casket shaft. A concrete tank and structural foundations to its north indicate the remains of a tailings treatment area. The three main areas of surviving plant were associated with Fisher's Black Cat Amalgamated group of leases, Larsen's Consolidated leases, and Larsen's Deep mine.
The remains of the Black Cat group include several caved shafts, a Marshall portable steam engine, a vertical boiler, a colonial boiler and a more recent Southern Cross diesel engine. Larsen's Consolidated plant, to the north, is located alongside a large tailings dam site over Tunnel Creek. The area of mill sands extends north for over 200m. The Consolidated plant is centred around a partly intact Huntington mill, which is seated on a heavy concrete base. A suction gas producer is situated alongside. Larsen's Deep shaft, to the east, includes several small concrete machinery mounts around a caved shaft and a vertical boiler and winch. Scowan's workings, comprising an extensive area of surface diggings, extend east from the area.
Extensive surface workings also extend south and west of the described area. A recent hut and campsite is located 150m north-west in association with another large area of tailings.
Plant:
·\t One-cylinder portable steam engine - Marshall Sons & Co. Gainsborough & London.
·\t One-cylinder horizontal suction gas engine - Ruston Proctor & Co Lincoln.
·\t Vertical boiler - no brand.
·\t Truck chassis with engine - International (engine no. 437DA).
·\t Colonial boiler - no brand.
·\t Four-cylinder diesel engine - Southern Cross.
·\t Huntington mill - Manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox Limited Regent Park N.S.W.
·\t Gas producer - Hoskins Ltd Co. Makers.
·\t Vertical boiler - no brand.
·\t Two-cylinder one drum winch - no brand.
Lower Camp Settlement
The Lower Camp settlement area is centred on the east bank of the Wenlock River, extending from the vicinity of the grave of Thomas Power 200m north of the crossing, for about 1km northward to the junction of a small creek with the river.
The grave of Thomas Power is located on the bank of the Wenlock River and is surrounded by a tube steel rail. It contains a form-cast concrete headstone inscribed - 'In Memory of Thos Power Died 10 2 30'. Thomas Power reputedly died in a gunfight in 1930.
The settlement area, which extends up to 200m east of the riverbank, is profusely covered with large stands of mature mango trees. There is some evidence of campsite surfaces, bottle dumps, fence posts, as well as a large number of 44 gallon drums scattered about the site. A path and garden edging made of upturned beer bottles covering an area of approximately 3m x 6m is visible in close proximity to a number of mango trees and scattering of fibrous cement strips. About 40m north of the beer bottle garden are a series of 6 linear ditch and mound features that run parallel to the riverbank and measure about 13m in length. Each ditch is approximately 1m wide and its associated mound about 1.5m wide. These may provide evidence of a level of self-sustainable agricultural practice or communal vegetable patch that helped support the residents of this isolated mining settlement.
One concrete slab or floor surface is evident in the settlement site, which measures approximately 6m x 4m and is associated with a metal scatter, but no structures are apparent. However, housing and roofing materials including corrugated iron sheeting and fibrous cement strips/roof capping are scattered throughout the site. An old truck body can also be seen in the Lower Camp settlement site.
Forsythe's Batavia Battery site
Forsythe's Batavia Battery site is located on the riverbank at the junction of a small creek, about 1km north-west of the main Wenlock Lower Camp workings and mill. The site is identifiable by several small concrete engine mounts. No plant or structures remain.
","history":"Wenlock Goldfield (formerly Batavia Goldfield) and the settlement of Lower Camp are situated along the eastern bank of the Wenlock River on Cape York Peninsula, about 100km north of Coen. The Batavia Goldfield was proclaimed in 1892, following discovery of gold at Retreat Creek (a tributary of the Wenlock). In subsequent years camps known as Bairdsville, Top Camp (Plutoville), and Lower Camp (Wenlock) were established and supplied from Coen. The settlement of Lower Camp was formed after Kitty Pluto discovered gold there in 1915. It became the main township on the Batavia Goldfield in the 1930s and was officially named Wenlock in 1938. It is around this time also, that the Batavia Goldfield became known as the Wenlock Goldfield.
Alluvial gold had been discovered on the Cape York Peninsula as early as 1876, on the Coen River, after attention was drawn to the region by the Palmer goldfield. A small rush ensued in 1878. Although this soon dissipated, by the late 1880s a small township had been formed at Coen. In 1892 the Coen Goldfield was proclaimed officially and reefing work commenced. Although production totals paled in comparison with fields such as the Palmer, within the next few years the erection of batteries and a cyanide works at Coen gave the northern Peninsula a permanent base for prospecting expeditions. Gold was found on the Starcke River in 1890, at Batavia (Wenlock) in 1892, Ebagoola in 1899 and Potallah in 1902.
Following William Baird's discovery of gold at Retreat Creek in 1892, a 13km² area around the camp of Bairdsville was proclaimed as the Batavia Goldfield. Output for 1892-93 was an estimated 2,000 ounces of alluvial gold worth £4 per ounce. Miners continued prospecting the area. In 1906 gold was discovered at the Tunnel, 2km northeast of Lower Camp. The discovery of gold at Plutoville (Top Camp) by an Aborigine named Pluto in 1910 was suppressed, to allow Coen and Ebagoola miners first choice of the ground, and a rush did not take place until mid 1911.
Despite being so close to the workings at Top Camp (Plutoville), gold was not discovered at Lower Camp until January 1915 when an Aboriginal woman, Kitty Pluto, accidentally discovered a nugget while carting surface wash from Top Camp (Plutoville) to the Wenlock. Both Top Camp and Lower Camp workings are situated on the east bank of the Wenlock River, close to the edge of a low Mesozoic sandstone tableland rising above the workings. However the main centre remained at Plutoville (Top Camp) from 1911 to 1922. Stores owned by Dehn, Armbrust and Shepherd traded at Top Camp.
The original shallow alluvial area at Lower Camp covered less than 0.4ha and by 1916 most miners either had returned to Plutoville, prospecting the surrounding countryside, or had left the region altogether. In 1922, a group of miners attempted to locate the main leader's northern extension beneath the mantle of Mesozoic sediments. After sinking several shafts, they came across an auriferous lead at a depth of 5.4m and at a distance of 20m from a reef, which provided rich specimen stone. From then until the late 1930s, the Lower Camp was in constant production and has officially returned a yield of 35,016 ounces of gold.
The most productive area was confined to deeper ground to 25m and contained within the New Year's Gift, Prohibitionist, Double Chance, Band of Hope, Golden Casket and Hidden Treasure claims, all of which were later converted into general mining leases.
The Batavia was the most productive goldfield in Cape York during the economic depression of the early 1930s, with six payable mines. In 1932 it produced 2,793 ounces of recorded gold valued at £9,287, compared to 3,342 ounces valued at £11,114 in 1931. The use of motor lorries greatly assisted operations on the field. Two batteries had been established by the end of 1931 to crush the one-ounce stone. One of these was Forsythe's, formerly at Belmore Creek near Croydon, which had been shifted to the Batavia field in November 1931. Peninsula Mines Limited had taken over two leases at the beginning of 1932. Two boarding houses were established at Lower Camp during 1932 with 75 people on the field. A crude-oil engine driven Huntington mill began work in November 1932. Sheppard erected a six head stamp battery driven by suction gas. The Peninsula Mines Limited was using an oil engine driven boring plant. By 1935 the yield was 1,326 ounces of gold (more than the previous year) from the New Year's Gift, Golden Casket, Reform, Black Cat, United, Double Chance, Hidden Treasure and Duke leases. By the mid 1930s there was a population of about 160.
In 1938 Larsens' Consolidated Pty Ltd who were employing 20 men on the Prohibitionist, Winner, Dole, Tin Hare and Rose leases, moved their battery closer to the Duke and other leases. The battery output was 1,122 ounces of gold from the mines and dumps. Additional drills, a generator and a wilfley table were purchased. Three head of stamps, driven by a diesel engine, were erected at the Golden Casket mine in 1938. A new multi-tubular boiler and five foot Huntington roller mill were installed at the Black Cat Amalgamated Mine in 1939 by Fisher and Sons.
In 1942 the Australian Army dismantled and removed smaller, more portable equipment from the mines and mills of the Wenlock Goldfield. This was to prevent the Japanese from utilising the mines should they invade. This episode is one of the few examples of the scorched earth policy implemented on the northern part of Cape York Peninsula when invasion seemed imminent.
In 1946, in the wake of World War Two, the Golden Gate, Reform, Black Cat Amalgamated, Golden Casket, Wasp and Black and White mines were reopened. Joseph Fisher and Sons constructed a road from Portland Roads to Wenlock, which necessitated seven bridges. Sheds and huts were erected and machinery was installed at the mines. At the Black Cat Amalgamated mine a Marshall portable steam engine, a rock drill sharpener, air compressor, air hoist, Blake steam duplex pump and a Worthington steam duplex pump were installed in the re-equipping of the mines.
In 1947 Joseph Fisher and Sons purchased Zamittt's mines to obtain a complete block. After finishing carting their machinery from Portland Roads harbour they commenced reconditioning the Black Cat Amalgamated mine. The first crushing was put through the battery by June 1947 and 239 ounces of gold valued at £2,264 was obtained by the end of December 1947. A total of 517 tons of stone was crushed in the first year for a total return of 296 ounces, and dewatering was commenced and completed down to below the No.1 level. The main shaft was re-timbered, a new headframe and brace constructed, and a 2,000 gallon tank installed. Also that year the Wasp Syndicate, working on the Edna May Extended and Golden Casket leases, produced 520 tons of stone for a return of 349 ounces of gold.
The Wenlock was still the best producing field in Cape York in 1949, although production was far below that of 1948 - 364 ounces compared to 557 ounces. In 1950, 324 ounces of gold were produced from the Black Cat Amalgamated mine, 47 ounces from Edna May and 26 ounces from the Golden Casket. All the mines were flooded in April when the Wenlock River broke its banks. Dewatering was completed by the end of May by obtaining a Mines Department pump. Production declined markedly in 1951 to 203 ounces of gold and there were only the Fishers and one other person mining there. There were only four miners there in 1952 - the Fishers, George Scowan and Fred Taylor. Fisher and Sons put through 51 tons of Black Cat Amalgamated stone for a return of 2.63 fine ounces and another 11 tons from underground yielded 14 ounces of gold; 206 tons of dump yielded 27 ounces of gold. The total production amounted to £526. In 1953 FH Taylor, lessee of the Wasp and Edna May Extended, was carrying out improvements. He hired a Southern Cross diesel engine and pump from the Mines Department preparatory to sluicing the Edna May dump and deepening the Wasp.
As noted above production declined after the 1950 floods due to the lack of suitable pumps and many workings were abandoned. William Stanley, the last inhabitant from this earlier period, lived at Wenlock until his death in 1957. Prospectors continued fossicking around the old workings and during 1964-65 the recovery of two tons of handpicked specimen stone yielding 2,787 ounces of gold was reported. In 1986 claim holders used excavators to rework the Top Camp diggings and some coarse nugget gold was recovered before the field was abandoned. All evidence of the early Plutoville settlement and Top Camp workings were lost during this operation.
","criteria":"Wenlock Goldfield is significant historically as the most productive goldfield on Cape York Peninsula during the depression years of the early 1930s. Its richness has contributed to constant reworking and fossicking since then. The role of Aboriginals (Pluto, Kitty Pluto, Friday Wilson) in discovering and working the mining claims is significant. In addition, Kitty Pluto is the only woman recorded as discovering a goldfield in Queensland. The removal of portable mining machinery from the Wenlock by the Australian Army during World War Two is an example of the tactical action of denying the enemy resources which could be useful to an advancing enemy.
|Lower Camp Goldfield incorporates a wide range of diversified equipment and is comparable to many examples across the state. Isolation has been a factor in the survival of the plant as there were significant access problems. The Huntington mill is rare and the most intact of the two recorded in North Queensland.
|Wenlock Goldfield has the potential to provide valuable information contributing to an understanding of Queensland's history. Analysis of the spatial positioning of dwelling sites in relation to mine workings, would provide new information about life at isolated mines on Cape York goldfields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The diversified collection of surviving mining plant has the potential to contribute significantly to our understanding of early to mid- 20th century gold mining techniques.
|Wenlock (Lower Camp) is significant as the focal settlement of the most productive goldfield on Cape York Peninsula during the 1930s. Surviving evidence includes a lone grave, a concrete surface, scatters of housing materials, garden bed edging constructed of beer bottles, remnant vegetable garden/landscaping, and the largest concentration of mango trees recorded in association with a North Queensland mining camp.
|The place possesses an evocative quality, engendered by the cultural landscape value of remnant workings and camp remains set within natural bush, which generates aesthetic significance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16600,"place_ref":601863,"name":"Bower Bird Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mount Isa Mining District","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-12-13","description":"The place, which is situated on a small flat on the side of a spinifex covered hill, contains an almost intact five head stamp battery and the remnants of a small battery shed. A large number of early surface workings extend along the line of reef on which the battery stands. A camp site is situated about 100 metres east of the battery. Immediately south and west of the stamp battery are several earth benches of the former battery shed. A number of non-insitu items of plant are located in the immediate vicinity including two berdan pans, a stamper belt wheel, a cog wheel, a small set of scales, a forge constructed from half of a ship's tank, and the base of a grinding pan. An area of confused diggings and old mullock dumps extends north of the stamps. Immediately east is a shallow open cut and associated shallow workings.
The camp site comprises two low enclosed wall structures of crude stone construction each with an attached external fireplace or forge. A stone forge and other low rock walls are also evident. The construction suggests that the camp was of canvas and/or bough shelters for which the stonework formed low walls. Recent (1994) exploration drill pad bulldozing between the camp and stamp battery has destroyed further evidence of the camp.
Plant:
·\tFive-head stamp battery and frame - P.N.Russell & Co Engineers Sydney 1873 No 160.
·\t2 berdan pans.
·\tGrinding pan base - no brand.
","history":"The Bower Bird Goldfield was proclaimed on 5 September 1895 - and incorporated into the Cloncurry Gold and Mineral Field on 9 January 1913. The area encompassing the Bower Bird workings generally consists of rugged ranges of quartzite cut by streams draining into the north flowing Leichhardt River.
\nGold had been found at Bower Bird between 1870 and 1872. Fossickers (notably Bill McPhail) were prospecting the area before 1880 and R L Jack's 1882 maps show a \"Bower Bird Goldfield\" although no official returns were recorded until 1893. The first reef located was the Victoria and in 1884 it also provided the first stone for crushing which yielded 103 ozs of gold from 17.2 tons of ore, which was carted some distance to the Soldier's Cap (Mount Freda) battery near Cloncurry for crushing.
\nThe Bower Bird Battery of five stamps, four berdans, and concentrator was probably erected in 1895, after being relocated from other places. The stamper was already over 20 years old, having been manufactured in 1873. Between 1895 and 1897 the field's main producer the Victoria reef officially produced 930 tons of ore yielding 811 ozs of gold before being abandoned, possibly due to drought. It is not known whether the battery was also abandoned at this time or continued processing ore from other nearby reefs, such as the Lily of the Valley, Bertha and Two Mile, which yielded patches of alluvial gold. After 1900, a small quantity of ore was carted from shafts on May Downs station to the Bower Bird battery for crushing, with unknown results.
\nBy about 1895 the township, which was some distance from the battery consisted, of three stores, two hotels and a post office which closed in 1901.
\nIn January 1904 it was reported in Cloncurry that the battery shed had burnt down. Although there is no record, the battery may have been rebuilt because in 1909 the Victoria Reef was reopened and produced a further 8.1 tons of ore yielding 11.5ozs of gold. Hooper records that the battery was renovated in 1908 as a five head battery with a Brown and Stanfield converter to treat ore from the Victory mine. A Commonwealth Government geologist, C.S. Honman, inspected the field in 1937 but did not report on the battery.
","criteria":"Bower Bird Creek Battery is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's early gold mining industry and is an example of the transitory settlements that were a result of gold prospecting all over Queensland.
|The place is significant as a now rare example of a once representative gold battery and mining camp in a remote and semi-arid environment.
|The surrounding area contains numerous early workings and crude stone camp sites, which are comparatively undisturbed and may date from the 1890s occupation of the area by miners.
|The five head stamp battery and frame was built by P N Russell and Co., Engineers of Sydney in 1873 and this is the earliest manufacture date on recorded batteries in North Queensland. It is the only intact stamp battery remaining in Western and North-West Queensland and may be the earliest surviving in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16608,"place_ref":601871,"name":"Palmer River Gold Company Dredge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"TO BE DETERMINED","suburb":"TO BE IDENTIFIED","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-17","description":"The place contains the pontoon and partly intact superstructure and plant of a steam powered bucket dredge. The dredge which is partly buried under a high sand bar is situated in the middle of the river which is over 400m wide at the site. The pontoon measures 19m by 10m. The total length from the head of the bucket ladder to the end of the stacker is 37m. Ironwork throughout remains in good condition with the exception of the pontoon's rear plating which has corroded through at water level. All corrugated iron cladding has been removed but the iron frame and decking remains intact
A twin cylinder horizontal steam engine has been removed and now lies alongside. The cog-train drive for the bucket chain remains but the chain now holds only two buckets. The washing trommel, jig mount and a large gravel pump remain in place. The boiler which was mounted on the starboard/right hand side may still be in place under the sand bar covering this area. Items of plant removed and left in the river bed and on the eastern bank include - the engine mount, camshaft, iron chimney section, a winch drum and 13 buckets. The company's campsite is located on the east bank, 500m north-east of the dredge.
Plant:
·\tSteam gravel pump - W H Allen Son & Co Ld Bedford England Conqueror 14.
·\tTwo-cylinder horizontal steam engine (not in situ) - no brand.
·\tSuperstructure steel beams - Dorman Long & Co Mbro.
","history":"The Palmer River Gold Company N.L., a Cairns company, took up ground along the river between Frome and Strathleven and carried out dredging operations between 1926 and 1935. The company originally estimated that 2.6 million cubic metres of auriferous material was available but after four years work it was found that the yields were less than 25% of the anticipated values. A total of 3,584 ozs of gold was won during this period.
The all-steel bucket dredge and pontoon was built by Messrs Chas. Ruwolt Pty Ltd of Richmond, Victoria and shipped to Cooktown then railed to Laura in mid 1930. From there, the dredging plant weighing in total 350 tons was carted by six-wheeled trucks (Morris and Thornycroft) over the Great Dividing Range to Strathleven, a distance of 133km. The largest portion of the road was made by the company.
The dredge was erected under the supervision of Mr William Condron, consulting engineer for Ruwolt Pty Ltd, and Mr Walter Baker, the dredging company's General Manager. The dredge was capable of treating 50,000 cubic yards per month and had 31 buckets of 5 cubic foot capacity. Dredging operations commenced at the end of December 1930 and were carried on into the wet season. However a photograph in 1932 (John Oxley Library: neg. 31/31) shows the dredge partly submerged and damaged by floodwaters. The date that the dredge ceased operation and was finally abandoned has not been confirmed.
","criteria":"The dredge is significant as rare surviving evidence of contemporary technology for alluvial dredging and gold mining in Australia in the 1920s.
|The dredge is significant as rare surviving evidence of contemporary technology for alluvial dredging and gold mining in Australia in the 1920s.
It is the earliest surviving steam dredge in Queensland, and possibly in Australia, and is a rare extant example of early dredge construction.
|It is the earliest surviving steam dredge in Queensland, and possibly in Australia, and is a rare extant example of early dredge construction.
The dredge's survival despite more than 60 years annual exposure to the full force of wet season river flooding is a testament to its construction.
|The dredge demonstrates achievements in overcoming considerable access, transport and operational constraints.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16611,"place_ref":601874,"name":"Bulimba State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"261 Oxford Street","suburb":"BULIMBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"Bulimba State School is located on a 1.88 hectare site and is bound by Oxford Street to the north, Wentworth parade to the East, Riding Road to the West and by Barton Parade and freehold property to the South. It is a steeply sloping west facing site with levelled areas occupied by school buildings and parade and play areas at the top of the site. Pathways west of Block B and south of Block C wind down the steep embankment to the netball courts, cricket facilities and bottom oval on more level ground at the Riding Road and Barton Parade boundaries to the site.
The school buildings and structures comprise Block A, B, C and D (a demountable classroom), a new administration and resource centre and a timber framed classroom block under construction. Concrete walls retain both Wentworth Parade and Oxford Street (from the corner to the swimming pool) boundaries. A tennis court is located on the north-eastern corner, several metres above street level. Between the tennis court and the swimming pool, the demountable building -Block D, a shelter shed and the adventure playground are located.
Block A and B form the eastern and northern boundaries to the parade area, part of which is now occupied by the new outdoor learning area and verandahs of the new resource and administration building. A new classroom building is located to the west of Block B.
The in ground concrete swimming pool has covered seating and changing rooms enclosing it to the north, east and west. Block C, the former infant school and now used as the Preschool, is located to the west of the swimming pool and faces Oxford Street.
Block A is a symmetrical two storey load bearing brick building with basement and hipped terracotta tiled roof. The primary and secondary entrances to the building are expressed by a projected pedimented gable wing to the west and a pair of breakfronts to the east. A prominent fleche is centrally located.
The treatment of the elevations creates a basement level distinct from the two floors of the school proper above. The load bearing brick work to the basement is rendered and ruled to form a plinth upon which bays of stretcher bond red brickwork are relieved with pilasters of contrasting flemish bond dark glazed brickwork shafts with cement rendered bases and capitals of restrained detail. The horizontal banding of the frieze to the pedimented gable and breakfronts continues below the eaves around the perimeter of the building. The main entry is expressed by a pedimented doorway and the symmetry reinforced by two straight flight of stairs with half landing from the north and south.
At basement level, a play space occupies the area between the north and south stairwells with boys' lavatories at the southern end of the building and girls lavatories to the north. Separate facilities were provided for infants, older children and teachers and have now been altered to include a parents' room and storage areas. Seats to curtain walls, drinking taps and troughs, and store areas under main entry stair are also located in the basement which has a low floor to floor height compared to the floors above. Detailing in the play area includes bullnose brickwork on freestanding and engaged piers, eliminating right angle corners to reduce injury.
The classrooms have timber floors supported on a series of articulated steel beams expressed in the ceiling detailing and stairwells; corridors and utility areas have suspended concrete floors. Downpipes are located within the walls. Four four-light casement windows with fanlights above provide ventilation to the corridor and into the classroom through double hung windows
On the ground floor the main entry hall separates the office and head teacher's rooms. The hall leads to the centre of a north-south corridor which provides access to five classrooms between the north and south stair halls. The central three classrooms are divided by folding partition doors. A cloak room and cleaner's sink are provided at the eastern end of each stairwell. Another classroom and cloak room is located in the end bay at the southern end of the building. A similar layout exists on the first floor.
Block B is a high set timber framed building supported on steel open web joists with a cantilevered portion supporting the verandah. Stairs at the eastern and western ends provide access to a narrow verandah on the northern side of the building which contains a continuous hat and bag rack and provides access to the three classrooms. This building is of a type of which there are numerous examples, several of which are more comparatively intact and which represent a more extensive use of this type of structure.
Block C is a high set timber framed structure on concrete stumps. Three classrooms have been made into two and folding partitions have been removed as well as large sections of walls to the verandahs. The verandahs have been enclosed and stairs have been altered. The roof sheeting has been more recently replaced with corrugated iron and the roof fleche removed. Ceilings are coved and lined with tongue and groove V jointed boards verandahs enclosed stair altered, windows altered etc. This building is also of a type where there are many more intact and representative examples throughout Queensland.
","history":"Bulimba State School was first established in 1866 and contains several generations of buildings and structures that have been erected by the Department of Public Works to meet the growing needs of the community and are representative of some of the developments in education policy in Queensland since that time.
Prior to the establishment of the Bulimba State School, classes were held initially at Bulimba House, the home of DC McConnell, and then at the Baptist Church. In April 1866, a public meeting was held in the Bulimba Ferry Hotel with a view to raising funds for the construction of a National School. As the first settled agricultural district in the colony, the need for such a school had been felt for some time, but had been prevented by limited funds. Subscriptions of £61 were made at the meeting and through submissions from the meeting and the subsequent actions of a building committee, an agreement was reached by the Government to establish the school.
Michael Robinson's tender of £230 for a 18 foot x14 foot school building and a residence was accepted in June 1866 and due for completion by the following October. In the interim, the school opened on 16 July 1866 in the Wesleyan Chapel.
The first school building and residence were aligned and located at the top of the site in the south east corner facing south-west. As the district prospered and enrolments grew, extra classrooms were required and two additional timber wings were added to the school which was raised at the turn of the century to allow for eight teaching rooms at ground level.
Further additions were required within a decade and in 1915 a separate infants building was erected facing Oxford Street. It was a highset timber framed building erected on timber stumps to provide toilets and a play space underneath the building. It was clad in weatherboards with an asbestos cement slate roof and was lined internally with tongue and groove v-jointed boards to the walls and coved ceiling. The hat rooms at each end of the verandah were unlined internally and the remainder of the verandah had vertical balustrading. Two flights of uncovered external timber stairs provided access to the verandah between which the teachers' room was attached. The building comprised three classrooms with southern lighting and ventilation provided by a large bank of windows comprising casements, centre pivoting sashes and hoppers at the top to provide a variety of ventilation options. This arrangement was repeated, at the eastern and western ends of the building, both of which were protected by sunshades.
There were many representations made by the staff, the Parents and Citizen's Association, school committees and local politicians during the late twenties and thirties to accommodate the ever growing school population. In the early thirties, enrolments exceeded 520, of which over 150 were infants and it was resolved that the group of older timber classrooms should be replaced with a new building to accommodate 400, allowing the infants annexe, which was in good condition to remain.
The effects of the economic depression on building work in Queensland in the 1930s was dramatic and building work came to a standstill. The Queensland Government committed to providing impetus to the economy by embarking on capital works and relief works building programs from the early thirties until the late forties.
The relief works program favoured works involving local manual labour. It was through this scheme that the Bulimba State School's site was levelled off and tennis and basketball courts were built in 1935 followed by the erection of retaining walls to two frontages and to the tennis court which were completed in 1937 to drawings prepared by Gilbert Robert Beveridge.
Gilbert Robert Beveridge was born in Brisbane in c1904. He studied at the Brisbane Central Technical College and received his Diploma of Architecture from the Architectural Association in London and was awarded the Archibald Dawnay scholarship in 1927. He had a practice at Ascot from 1931-35 after which time he was employed first as an Assistant Architect then in 1938 as an Architect by the Queensland Works Department Architectural Branch. Beveridge's work in private practice included residential and small commercial projects.
Beveridge also prepared the plans for the new school building which was one of many substantial two and three storey schools built during this time, providing tangible proof of the Government's commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.
The brick Bulimba State School building was completed in 1938 and cost £21,965. The building comprised two storeys and a basement constructed of brick and concrete with a tile roof. The Ground floor was to provide for six class rooms (240 pupils) two teacher's rooms and a clerk rooms. The first floor was to provide for seven classrooms (272 pupils), one teacher's room and a cloak room, a total accommodation of 512 pupils. The Basement contained play areas and lavatories for teachers and pupils and a complete drainage system was provided with septic tank.
The next phase of major building activity occurred in the fifties. Around 1952, the Infant School must have suffered from some form of subsidence, as a program of works was initiated to include rectification work, general plumbing and straightening of the building and strengthening of the roof. Southern windows to the end classrooms were replaced with hoppers at this time and other general improvements were made.
The swimming pool and dressing sheds were erected in 1955 in the location of a disused tennis court with funds raised from parents and supporters during 1953-55 and subsidised by the State Government.
In 1957, a new two-storey classroom addition at the northern end of the building above the single storey female toilets provided the building with its present symmetrical form.
Plans for future extensions, to this building with wings on the western face at the northern and southern ends were not proceeded with and in 1959 a highset timber framed building supported on an open web truss system on concrete stumps was erected
More recently, a demountable building has been erected facing Oxford Street between the tennis court and swimming pool. An administration and resource centre has just been completed and additions to Block B and a new classroom block west of this building are under construction.
After peaking in the early sixties to in excess of 950 students, enrolments gradually declined to 242 in 1988. With the redevelopment of the area in the decade following, younger families have moved back into the area and the school enrolments are presently in excess of 450.
","criteria":"At Bulimba State School, established in 1866, the variety of building types and structures from different periods are representative of some of the many developments in education policy in Queensland and demonstrate the evolution of the school and the community.
The brick Bulimba State School building and the concrete retaining walls and associated fences and gates constructed in 1937-1938 are significant as a tangible demonstration of the Queensland Government's commitment to providing impetus to an economy and building industry reeling from the effects of the 1930s depression. The retaining walls, fences, gates and courts also have special significance for the local community as the work relief scheme employed local workers.
The main building, Block A erected in1937-38 is significant as a substantial interwar building which reflects the growth and stability of the population of Bulimba.
|Bulimba State School demonstrates the principle characteristics of a primary school precinct with a hierarchy of structures and open spaces built over several generations for educational purposes by the Department of Education. The school's structures and grounds provide a series of formal and informal spaces including open playground spaces, a formal parade ground, pathways, sports areas, swimming pool and tennis court facilities as well as undercroft and verandah areas.
It is an excellent and intact urban example of a substantial interwar building and displays the particular characteristics of this school building type. The use of brick and restrained detailing is typical for government buildings of the period, and Bulimba State School principal building follows in the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department.
|It is a fine example of a school building designed by the office of the Queensland Government Architect and has aesthetic significance brought about by its massing and restrained classical detailing.
Bulimba State School and grounds is also significant for the landmark value of its principal building and setting which provides a reference point in the community. The imposing massing and scale of the brick building looms high atop Carlton Hill above surrounding suburban development with commanding views afforded both to and from the site to Moreton Bay, Hamilton and New Farm.
|Bulimba State School is valued by its community for the essential community function it provides and as a link between the past and present through its long traditional connection with the area.
|Bulimba State School principal building follows in the tradition of fine buildings erected by the Queensland Public Works Department.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16612,"place_ref":601875,"name":"Holy Trinity Anglican Church","alternate_name":"Holy Trinity Church of England","street_address":"68 Hawthorne Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-05-09","description":"The Holy Trinity Church is a substantial, prominently sited building located on the crest of a hill in Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba. The church complex, which now houses only a church surrounded by landscaping has expansive views in all directions of the surrounding suburbs. The building is a landmark on a relatively undeveloped hillside position in Brisbane and is visible most many suburbs of inner city Brisbane.
The church is a brick structure with all external surfaces rendered with a roughcast concrete stucco. The principal roof is clad with terracotta cordova tiles. The design of the building is strongly influenced by the popular Spanish Mission style of the inter-war period manifest both externally and internally in the textured render, barley twist columns, heavy timber joinery and cordova roofing tiles. Combined with this obvious influence is Romanesque detailing including the raked arch motif on the parapets, domed roofs, tower and round arched openings embellished with Norman detailing.
The church has a traditional cruciform floor plan, with shallow transepts, an octagonal chancel at the eastern end and a dominant tower projecting from the north western corner. The body of the church is divided into a nave with a gabled roof abutted on the northern and southern sides by skillion roofed aisles, creating a high level clerestory. The transepts are formed by gabled abutments to the principal roof and the eastern end of the roof is separated from the principal by a secondary gabled parapet from which an octagonal hipped section roofs the chancel.
The corner tower stands about three storeys or 75 feet above ground level and has a square plan through to the second floor level where it tapers inward to form a platform which is surmounted by a circular planned lantern. Surrounding the lantern is an elaborate concrete balustrade featuring large flames at the four corners. Original floodlighting, concealed by the balustrade, illuminates the lantern at night. The lantern comprises a colonnaded exterior which supports a pointed dome roof clad with copper tiles and surmounted by a Latin cross. At the base of the tower, on the northern face is a one storeyed semicircular projection, with a half dome roof clad with painted copper tiles. The principal entrance to the tower is from the western face, through a double timber door, flanked by twisted columns and surrounded by an archway in relief plasterwork featuring moulded panels of two alternating types of crosses. Within the base of the tower is a curved cantilevered concrete stair which winds up inside the tower to give access to the upper levels. The faces of the tower feature double round arched openings separated by twisted columns on the first floor and thin slit windows on the floor above. A repeated arched moulding forms a cornice mould around the top of the second floor of the tower.
The western façade of the church houses two entrances, the principal entrance to the body of the church and the already mentioned entrance to the base of the tower. The principal entrance to the church is via a centrally located double timber door with circular motifs on each of five panels lining the exterior of the door. The door is protected by a small open porch, which has a gabled awning clad with cordova tiles and a vaulted concrete soffit supported on substantial columns with Composite order capitals. On the fascia and surrounding the round archway is a relief moulding featuring square panels of moulded panels featuring crosses. Flanking the entrance are two shallow pilasters which divide the façade into three bays. Within the central bay, above the entrance, is a row of six round arched window openings divided by thin twisted columns and glazed with coloured glass leadlights. Above this is a large wheel window again featuring brightly coloured glazing. The parapeted gable is lined at cornice level with a repeated arch moulding aligned with the taper of the gable. Surmounting the apex of the gable is a cross.
The side aisles of the northern and southern façades of the building are lined with paired round arched openings divided by twisted columns with Composite order capitals and flanked by panels with dog tooth mouldings. These openings define the internal bays of the nave and are glazed with figured stained glass panels. The windows throughout the church are steel casements. Above the height of the side aisles are taller paired round arched openings aligned with the lower windows, but glazed with two tones of green leadlighting. Above the windows is a cornice formed by the repeated arch moulding. The eastern end of the church features a number of single round arched openings glazed with stained glass panels. The repeated arch moulding is used as a cornice moulding on the octagonal chancel and raked on the two parapeted gables. A freestanding copper crucifix, with memorial tablet, is found adjacent to the western end of the southern elevation of the church. Adjacent to the south western corner of the building is a small rustic stone font which is thought to have a long association with the parish. Also apparent on the southern elevation is the semi basement under the southern transept.
Internally the body of the church is divided into a nave and side aisles with two heavy face brick arcades, comprising compound columns supporting round arched openings and forming a six bay nave. The compound columns are capped with white painted concrete capitals embellished with mouldings of foliage. The side aisles are further divided by round archways defining each of the bays of the nave and springing from the compound columns of the principal arcades. Also demarcating the internal bays are a number of heavy dark stained timber scissor roof trusses supported on white painted concrete corbels with simple mouldings. The ceiling of the church is lined with stained pine rafters between which are infill panels of timber based board, like an early coarse particle board. The internal walls of the Holy Trinity Church are all dark face brickwork with black pointing. The flooring throughout the interior is concrete which has been scoured to resemble flagging stones and treated with a light buff colour in areas to form patterns. Symbols, ? and ?, are inscribed in the concrete floor in the steps to the sanctuary area.
The transepts of the church are formed by projections aligned with the two most easterly bays of the nave. Housed in the northern facing chancel is a memorial chapel separated from the church by a face brick balustrade. Featured in this chapel are early stained glass panels commemorating Mr and Mrs Thomas Weedon, long time parishioners of the church. Housed in the chancel on the southern side of the church is a vestry and organ case. The vestry is formed by dark stained timber panelling with feature panels of timber cross bracing. Aligned with the transepts in the nave is a choir area, separated from the body of the church by stepped platforms.
The sanctuary in the chancel is demarcated by two adjacent round chancel arches, defined externally by the two parapeted gable ends and separated from one another by a recessed bay housing round arched openings. Altar rails are aligned with the forward chancel arch. The ceiling of the chancel follows the hipped roof line and is clad with a concrete render. The sanctuary has a number of stepped platforms, and on the uppermost platform is a timber altar. Also in the sanctuary area are two early patterned stained glass panels in round arched openings within the raked walls behind the altar. A large concrete pulpit, to which access is provided by three steps, is found in the choir section of the church and is decorated in the manner of the exterior of the building, painted white and featuring the repeated arch moulding as a cornice.
Generally the interior of the church is quite dark and heavy, as a result of the dark finishes, heavy joinery and small openings, mostly glazed with coloured glass. There is early electrical lighting within the church in the form of pendants in the nave and wall brackets along the walls of the side aisles. The pews and other furniture and fittings including the organ, altar furniture, lectern and altar candles are also early features of the church. An early sandstone baptismal font is elevated on small platforms in the south western corner of the church.
","history":"The Holy Trinity Church of England at Woolloongabba was constructed in 1930 to the design of Brisbane architect Eric Ford of the partnership, Chambers and Ford. The building was the third church on the site and replaced a timber church constructed in 1875.
Woolloongabba grew from a small settlement in the early 1860s to a major centre in the late nineteenth century. In the early 1860s Woolloongabba was known as One-Mile Swamp and was developing following diversion of the Toowoomba mail from South Brisbane to Kangaroo Point, the formation of the New Ipswich Road and the opening of Brisbane's first cross river bridge at South Brisbane in June 1865. These developments stimulated land investment at One-mile Swamp, and in 1864 the Clarence Town Estate was offered for sale. This parcel of land was sold to publican Thomas Hayselden in 1863, and the first Clarence Hotel, at the corner of Stanley Street and Boggo Road, was opened by him in January 1864. When Hayselden's Clarence Estate and neighbouring One-mile Swamp or Woolloongabba allotments were being advertised for auction or sale in 1864-65, the potential of the area for both small business and residential purposes was emphasised. Suddenly, in the mid-1860s, an area which previously had been defined by little other than hotels acquired a string of small businesses fronting the new Ipswich Road beyond Boggo Road.
The population of Woolloongabba, which had grown steadily between the 1860s and 1880s, increased rapidly following the expansion of the railway line to Woolloongabba in 1884, and the extension of the electric tramway to Woolloongabba/East Brisbane in 1897. During the 1880s and 1890s Woolloongabba developed as Brisbane's fourth major shopping centre, the others being central Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and Stanley Street at South Brisbane. By the turn of the century, most of the allotments facing Stanley Street, Logan Road and Ipswich Road at the Fiveways were fully developed commercial sites.
As the population grew, a Church of England congregation was formed and a church was constructed on land in Hawthorne Street, Woolloongabba. This land was acquired in March 1864 by Robert Creyke from Mary Ann Peterson who was granted the original Deed in 1861. Robert Creyke was the son of a Church of England Minister and following Robert's death in 1869, Reverend Creyke donated the land to the Diocese for the newly formed Holy Trinity congregation for construction of a church. The congregation was formed in 1869 and meetings and services were held in local buildings. In 1870 a simple church was designed by prolific architect, Richard Gailey and this remained the parish church for about four years before being destroyed in a wind storm in October 1874. Another church was dedicated for service on 23 May 1875 and photographs of this second building indicate that it was a rudimentary timber framed and clad structure with a rectangular plan and a steeply pitched gabled roof clad with shingles.
At the construction of their first church the Holy Trinity congregation were part of the South Brisbane parish, and after 1886 when Reverend HT Molesworth was appointed Curate-in-charge of the church a movement started toward the formation of a separate Holy Trinity parish. The parish was constituted by the Diocesan Council on 19 January 1888 and Reverend D Ruddock was appointed as the first Rector. In the following year, Brisbane architect, John Henry Burley designed a substantial church hall for the Parish which remained in use until 1998 when it was demolished. By 1890 a rectory also was constructed on the site to the design of diocesan architect, John Hingestone Buckeridge. This was in use until destroyed by fire in 1956.
In 1915 the rector of Holy Trinity Parish, CH Edwards, temporarily left the parish to serve in World War I and after a brief return in 1916 did not return to the parish until 1920, where he remained until 1925. It is thought that he instigated a movement to construct another church because the timber church, despite the premier hilltop site, remained relatively inconspicuous, particularly compared with those Roman Catholic churches being constructed on elevated Brisbane sites by Archbishop Duhig. In about 1916 a subscription scheme was devised to allow parishioners to donate a sum of money over a lengthy period which finally contributed to the construction of a substantial church in 1930. The 1920s was a period of expansion for the Church of England in Queensland and during this time many older churches were rebuilt and new churches constructed. Typically these new buildings were unpretentious, retaining influence from the nineteenth century Gothic revival but with more awareness of the Queensland sub tropical climate. In the late 1920s experimentation with derivatives of a hybrid of Romanesque and Spanish Mission architecture are apparent in both the Holy Trinity Church at Woolloongabba and at another Holy Trinity Church in Mackay designed by Lange Powell. Earlier in 1924, a Roman Catholic Church at Bowen Hills was constructed using Spanish Mission influences but few other churches display the hybrid style developed by the architect Eric Ford at Woolloongabba.
The architectural firm, Chambers and Ford who designed the Woolloongabba Church of England, was a partnership of Claude William Chambers and Eric Marshall Ford. Chambers and Ford remained in practise in Brisbane from 1920 until 1951, although Chambers was largely not involved and moved permanently to Sydney in about 1935. Chambers was a highly experienced and notable architect, who worked for a number of prominent Brisbane firms during the nineteenth century and formed several partnerships in the twentieth century, including Chambers and Powell (where EM Ford was office manager); Chambers and Ford and Chambers and Hutton. The partnership of Chambers and Ford designed several Brisbane churches notably St Margaret's Church of England, Sandgate (1927) and St James' Church, Kelvin Grove (1943).
Plans, prepared by Ford, for the erection of a new church at Woolloongabba were ready by the end of the 1920s and it is thought that the design was chosen from a limited competition. The parish was saved the expense of the demolition of the earlier church which was blazed to the ground in a fire on 11 December 1929.
The foundation stone was laid on 3 March, 1930 by Archbishop Gerald Sharp. A description rendered by the Buildings and Real Estate writer of the Brisbane Courier, talked of the building designed in the Italian Romanesque style of the eleventh century, "slightly modified to suit local conditions". The plan comprised a prominent tower, vestry, entrance porch and nave with side aisles and octagonal chancel. A basement was to provide access for a further two vestries. Finishes throughout the church included face brick internal walls with black tuckpointing, timber panelled ceilings and external roughcast render. A red tiled roof was to provide a contrast with the whitewashed external walls.
Tenders were called by Chambers and Ford for the Holy Trinity Church in the February edition of the Architects and Builder's Journal of Queensland and in the May edition of the journal the tender of JH Davis was accepted. The final cost of the church was about £9800.
The Holy Trinity Church was dedicated on 4 October 1930 by the Coadjutor Bishop of Brisbane, the Right Reverend Francis de Witt Batty. Most of the descriptions of the building on the day of its dedication focussed on its extraordinary site which crowned the highest part of Hawthorne Street and commanded a view of the entire parish. The completed building housed an organ by Messrs Whitehouse costing £560, electric lighting installed by Mr Dudley Winterford, plasterwork by James Bain & Son, glazing by Decorative Art Company and leadlights by Exton & Company. The garden and landscaping was set out by Mr H Stokes. Many of the internal fittings were donated by parishioners and much of the fitted and loose furniture, including the altar furniture and pews was designed by the architect, Eric Ford.
The church has remained as it was constructed with very few apparent alterations. The organ pipes have been painted, carpet runners and squares have been laid, commemorative stained glass windows have been added to the side aisles and work appears to have been undertaken on the reredos screen which is now concealed by a heavy curtain. The exterior of the church has been painted but retains a whitewashed appearance.
Alterations to the site include the 1938 renovation of an sub-basement area in the church for a Columbarium, or a place to hold funerary vases and the erection of a freestanding bell tower in 1949 to commemorate those soldiers who were killed during WWII. Landscaping around the building has been continually upgraded and many established trees remain on the site. In 1956 after the original rectory was destroyed the church acquired an adjoining property with an early house from the Sawyer family. This building became the rectory. In 1971 a freestanding crucifix was erected on the southern side of the church commemorating Eric Johnstone. The most substantial changes to the church complex occurred in late 1997 to early 1998 when the church hall and rectory were demolished.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1930 as the third Holy Trinity Church of England on the site, the building demonstrates the development of the Woolloongabba area from the nineteenth century when the original church was constructed and also reflects the expansion of the Church of England in Queensland during the 1920s when many parish churches were constructed or upgraded increasing the presence of the church in the state.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of inter-war church architecture, with traditional cruciform plan including prominent tower, Romanesque detailing, internal layout and furniture and stained glass panels in traceried surrounds.
|The outstanding landmark qualities of the Holy Trinity Church contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place; it is a well composed and dramatic building on a prominent site. The design of the building is significant as a good intact example of a blend of architectural influences, most apparently inter-war Spanish Mission and ecclesiastical Romanesque. Elements of the building have aesthetic merit as well designed features which complement the design of the place, such features include the artificial lighting both internal and external; internal furniture and fittings, most significantly the pews, choir seating, two altars and altar furniture, lectern, pulpit, organ and font; as well as the early stained glass panels in the memorial chapel, on the western façade and in the sanctuary.
|The church has special associations with the Holy Trinity parish and with the Church of England in Queensland as the site of a Church of England for nearly 130 years and as the parish church for sixty eight years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16615,"place_ref":601878,"name":"St Lukes Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Luke's Church of England","street_address":"Herries Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"St Luke's Anglican Church is a substantial blue stone building prominently located on the corner of Ruthven and Herries Streets Toowoomba. The building is surrounded by large established trees, including several large conifers on the Herries Streets side.
St Luke's Church is a traditional Gothic Revival church of the late 19th century, bearing such characteristic elements as an (incomplete) cruciform plan, steeply pitched gabled roof and Gothic details including pointed arched openings, sandstone buttresses lining the building and projecting above the eaves line and terminated with triangular caps. The foundations of the building and base courses are of sandstone and a projecting course of sandstone forms the junction between the sandstone and bluestone of the walls.
The roof of St Luke's is gabled over the eastern altar end of the church, western entrance end and the completed northern transept and the incomplete southern transept. The roof is clad with corrugated iron sheeting.
The western façade of the building has a centrally located 5-sided projection which is only mid height of the façade and houses internally a baptismal font. This small projection is roofed with a rolled iron pyramidal roof from a sandstone wall capping. Sandstone quoining is found on the corners of this small projection and around several small lancets on each of the faces. This sandstone quoining is repeated on the façade of the building, around the tripartite lancet windows centrally located above the baptismal projection. Flanking the projection are attached sandstone buttresses tapering toward the roof and demarcating a change in roof line which is more shallow over the internal side aisles.
The principal entrance to the building is at the western end of the northern side of the church where a large double door is recessed in a pointed arched opening surrounded by sandstone quoining and mouldings. The paneled door features large decorative wrought iron hinges. The door is accessed via a short concrete stair with sandstone balustrade. Lancet windows with sandstone quoining line the nave of the church and are separated by the sandstone buttresses. The extension site for the southern transept which is yet to be constructed is clad with corrugated iron externally. The transept is aligned with the northern transept and the gabled roof line has been constructed.
Internally the church is organized with a central aisle separating two aisles of pews. The interior is divided by internal arcades running the length of the nave and supporting the roof on the line at which its pitch changes. The arcades comprise clustered sandstone columns from which pointed archways spring. The archways are lined with clustered sandstone mouldings. The aisles outside the columns are linked at both the western, entrance end of the building and at the eastern end to the rear of the altar area with a small ambulatory.
A carved timber altar sits at the eastern end of the building. The church is washed internally with a bright blue light filtering through the stained glass window of Mary Queen of Angels, a loose copy of a Chartres window, in the eastern end. A sandstone pulpit and brass lectern sit adjacent to and in front of the choir stalls.
In the northern transept of the church is a Warriors Chapel with carved timber altar and two 'colours' (flags from battle) above the seating. The church has a numerous assortment of memorials tablets, windows, stones, honour boards and other small usually donated relics commemorating a person or event.
","history":"St Luke's Anglican Church, a substantial bluestone building at the corner of Herries and Ruthven Streets, Toowoomba was constructed in stages between 1897 and 1959 to the original design of Church of England diocesan architect, John Hingeston Buckeridge. The present church replaced an earlier timber slab building constructed in the mid 1850s.
The church of England acquired land at the corner of Herries and Ruthven Streets, Toowoomba at land sales held in Toowoomba during October 1854. At this stage of development, nearby Drayton was a larger settlement than Toowoomba which had been surveyed in 1849. It was in Drayton that the first resident Church of England minister settled in 1850. Reverend Benjamin Glennie followed early settlers to the fertile Darling Downs region where small settlements had commenced in the late 1840s. As a result of Glennie's foresight, the land in what was to become Toowoomba was acquired by the church for their first parish church in the area.
Soon after land acquisition a building fund was established and by 1857 a small timber slab building was constructed for use as a church and school. By the late 1860s, Toowoomba became the centre of the Darling Downs and the Church of England acquired another central site for the construction of a brick church known as St James' on the corner of Mort and Russell Streets, Toowoomba. Services moved from the primitive St Luke's Church to the permanent new church. School facilities remained at the slab building. There was much debate at the time about shifting the parish from the original St Luke's site and it is thought to have proceeded at the behest of influential members of the parish, who were keen to have the church closer to the residential area around the Mort Estate. Despite the removal of the parish to the site of St James, the debate continued for many years until 1891 when the Toowoomba parish was divided into northern and southern regions, with Margaret Street forming the intervening line. In the early 1880s services had resumed in the original St Luke's and small extensions were made to the building. With the formation of their own parish, renewed efforts were made into the construction of a major new church on the St Luke's church site.
In 1892 the Diocesan architect, John Hingestone Buckeridge was commissioned to design a new masonry church. Tenders were called in mid 1894, seeking separate prices for stone, brick and stone and brick versions of the design. The church committee agreed on a stone building and to afford this planned to stage the construction. In November 1894 the tender of J Renwick, a local contractor, was accepted for the first stage of the works for a sum of £3575. On 13 March 1895, Lady Norman laid the foundation stone of the new building.
John Hingeston Buckeridge, the architect of the building, designed many of the Church of England's buildings following his arrival in Brisbane as church architect in 1887. Prior to his arrival, Buckeridge was articled to leading English ecclesiastical architect John Loughborough Pearson from whom Buckeridge developed skills in the design of gothic revival buildings. Buckeridge designed many fine Queensland churches including Christ Church, Milton; and the Christ Church of England, Bundaberg.
St Luke's was designed as a traditional Gothic revival church, with cruciform plan (nave and transepts forming a cross shaped plan); steeply pitched roof; lancet windows and pointed arched openings; stained glass windows and a decorated interior. As well a large bell tower with steepled roof dominated the entrance corner of the building. Elegant sketches of the original design show a French gothic inspired building, with round tower projections and curved apse and chapel ends. The first stage of the building included five bays of the nave, and a small polygonal baptistery projecting from the western end of the building.
The parish have continued the completion of the unfinished building in several major building phases. In 1907 an organ from Norman and Beard of Norwich, England was installed at the eastern end of the church. In 1947 the parish installed a William Bustard designed and RS Exton and Co manufactured stained glass window at the eastern end of the northern aisle in memory of the Griffith's family. This brilliant blue window was a copy of one of the windows from Chartes Cathedral and depicts a seated and enthroned Blessed Virgin holding the Divine Son. This window was later moved to the altar area when the next stage of the construction works were completed.
In 1945 the parish agreed to complete the eastern end of the building as a war memorial and the foundation stone of these extensions was laid in 1947. A new design was commissioned from Charles Beresford Marks, which had included the northern transept and chancel. The extensions were built in stages and completed in 1959 and dedicated by Archbishop Halse. At this time foundations were laid for the southern transept and this area is yet to be completed. In the 1960s the organ was relocated in an organ loft near the altar. In 1990 the interior of the church was re-plastered.
","criteria":"St Luke's Anglican Church is of architectural and aesthetic significance as a prominent and well designed Toowoomba building and one of the major Queensland works of prominent 19th century ecclesiastical architect, John Hingeston Buckeridge.
|The building is an unusual example of a bluestone church in Queensland.
|The Griffith's memorial window has particular aesthetic value as a fine example of the work of William Bustard, a noted Brisbane stained glazier and artist. The trees surrounding the building contribute to the aesthetic value of the place.
|The church has social and spiritual value as a place of public worship for many years and for the large number of memorials, including an impressive War Memorial Chapel, and donated fixtures which reflect the importance of the church to the families and people forming the parish of St Lukes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16621,"place_ref":601885,"name":"Remains of the Langshaw Marble Lime Works","alternate_name":"Langshaw Marble Lime Works","street_address":"12 Julius Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-10-13","description":"The remains of the Langshaw Marble Lime Works' lime kilns are located on a level site fronting the Brisbane River to the west, at the base of a steep embankment below Pine Lodge [601895f]. The site contains the remains of two lime kilns built into the steep embankment, with a level area extending to the river bank and remnants of a timber wharf adjacent.
The remains of the kilns, consisting of masonry walls and hearths, are constructed abutting each other forming a D-shaped plan, with the northern kiln constructed of porphyry and the southern of brick. The Pine Lodge garage has been constructed at the top of the embankment, with the rear of the structure surmounting the kilns.
The porphyry kiln has squared rubble coursing, with an arched hearth with three layers of bricks forming the extrados, and is currently used as an outdoor fireplace. The second kiln is constructed of English bond brickwork, and is mainly overgrown. The site also contains a number of mature trees.
A recently constructed tiered stone retaining wall is located at the river bank, and the remains of a number of timber piles from an early wharf are located adjacent.
","history":"The lime kilns on the banks of the Brisbane River at New Farm, below Julius Street, appear to have been established in the late 1870s by Brisbane merchant James Campbell, who traded as James Campbell and Sons from 1882 and James Campbell and Sons Ltd from 1896, and who had established the Langshaw Marble Lime Works on the New Farm site by 1881.
The firm of James Campbell and Sons was one of Brisbane's earliest and longest established suppliers of building materials, which in the second half of the 19th century specialised in the retailing of lime, cement, plaster, paints and timber, and operated saw and planing mills, plantations, lime works and pottery kilns in a number of locations in southeast Queensland, as well as Campbell's wharf and warehouse at Creek Street, Brisbane, and a substantial fleet of freight vessels.
James Campbell was born in 1830 in Perthshire, Scotland, and in his youth was apprenticed as a plasterer. He married Isabella Mitchell in February 1853 shortly before emigrating to Moreton Bay, where they arrived in June that year. Finding little employment in Brisbane for a plasterer, James opened a small store in George Street, retailing building materials obtained from Sydney. Moreton Bay was passing through a recession at this period, and Campbell's first venture failed. He took odd jobs - timbergetting, fencing, carpentering, painting, bricklaying - until in 1854 he was able to acquire land in Creek Street, at the corner of Charlotte Street, where he erected a single-storeyed building and commenced business as City Lime, Cement and Plaster Stores - the business which ultimately became James Campbell and Sons.
Campbell's business prospered steadily through the 1850s and 1860s. In 1857 he bought additional land in Charlotte Street and in 1864 purchased 36 perches in Creek Street, opposite the city wharves, where he erected a 2-storeyed timber store and residence which remained the firm's headquarters until replaced in 1909 by an imposing five-storeyed brick warehouse. From the early 1860s, Campbell is understood to have operated lime kilns at Breakfast Creek and Lytton, supplied with shell and coral collected from Moreton Bay by sub-contractors.
In the 1870s James Campbell entered the timber trade, and from this point the business prospered rapidly, particularly after his two eldest sons, John Dunmore Campbell [born 1854] and James Mitchell Campbell [born 1860], entered the family business. In the mid-1870s, Campbell established his own fleet of ships and acquired his first sawmill, at Capalaba Creek, in 1876. This was closed in 1881 when his Coochin Creek Sawmill [Campbellville] was established. Between 1876 and 1936 the firm bought and sold at least 11 sawmills in southeast Queensland.
The New Farm riverbank on which Campbell's lime kilns were established in the late 1870s was part of a larger parcel of land alienated in 1845 by John McConnel [of Cressbrook and later Durundur], who acquired most of the land south of Brunswick Street to the river, between Kent and Sydney Streets - an area of almost 113 acres. In the mid-1870s part of this land, Eastern Suburban Allotments 14 and 15 [by then owned by Frederick Hamilton Hart and William Henry Barker] were subdivided as the Langshaw Estate - marketed as prime residential real estate with frontages to the Brisbane River, Bowen Terrace and the New Farm Road [Brunswick Street], suitable for gentlemen's villa residences. It appears that Langshaw, Barker and Moray Streets were surveyed at this time, but they are not listed in the Brisbane Post Office Directories until 1883-84.
Between June 1876 and December 1878 James Campbell acquired title to subdivisions 47-50 of ESA 15 and subdivision 51 of ESA 15A, on the Langshaw Estate, all of which had frontages to the Brisbane River and Moray Street, below Langshaw Street. It is not known if any structures existed on these blocks at the time of purchase. In February 1877 Campbell wrote to the Brisbane Municipal Council, requesting permission to erect a lime kiln at Bowen Terrace, on the Langshaw Estate, and a year later raised a mortgage of £1,500 on the property from James Gibbon. He advertised the Langshaw Marble Lime Works in Pugh's Almanac of 1881, for the first time.
A c1890 sketch and an 1896 survey plan indicate that two D-shaped sets of kilns were constructed, but only the southern 'D', comprising two kilns, currently survives. The two kilns comprising this southern set are constructed of different materials, with the stone kiln likely to pre-date the brick kiln. They may have functioned together as a pair of intermittent-firing kilns - one cooling and being drawn while the other was being charged and burnt. This was a simple and common form of burning lime, practised throughout the Australian colonies in the 19th century. Built into the side of the river embankment, limestone and fuel were layered alternately into each kiln from above, burnt for 3 days at 1,000 degrees Celsius, then allowed to cool ready for the drawing of the lime - a cycle of 6 or 7 days for each kiln in alternation.
In addition to the kilns, Campbell built a small wharf at the New Farm site, to which his ships transported limestone, and later timber, following the establishment of the Langshaw Planing Mills and Joinery Works on the property in 1882. These latter shipments included New Zealand White Pine from 1885 and Oregon Pine from 1887. A c1881 photograph shows the wharf extant.
In 1882 Campbell took his two eldest sons [John Dunmore and James Mitchell] into partnership as James Campbell and Sons. JD Campbell, [who from 1896 was chairman and managing director of James Campbell and Sons Ltd], supervised the Langshaw planing mills and lime works, and from at least 1883 he and his young family resided at Rocky Bank, overlooking the Brisbane River at New Farm, adjoining the mill and lime works on part of the land acquired by his father in the 1870s.
By the late 1880s, James Campbell and Sons had developed an extensive building supplies business which embraced timber, lime, brick, stone, asphalt, and hardware. In September 1883 they had acquired a half interest in George Fischer's Pottery at Albion [established c1861], the new firm being styled George Fischer & Co. - two years later they bought out Fischer and renamed the business the Albion Brick and Pottery Works. This was the start of Campbell's focus on Albion. In 1890, their Coochin Creek Sawmills were closed and an extensive new sawmill was opened at Albion, which became the focus of Campbell's sawmilling interests in Brisbane until the middle of the 20th century. The establishment of the Albion works, combined with the Australia-wide depression of the early 1890s and severe flooding of the Brisbane River in 1890 and 1893 - which caused extensive damage at Campbell's Creek Street warehouse and is likely to have inundated the New Farm lime kilns - resulted in the firm relinquishing the Langshaw property in the early 1890s. In June 1894 title passed to the Queensland National Bank Ltd, and three years later to Thomas William Hanmer, who held the interest in a £7,000 mortgage on the property taken out by James Campbell in 1886.
A search of the Brisbane Post Office Directories indicates that following James Campbell and Sons' removal c1894, the site of the former Langshaw mills and lime works remained unoccupied for about 20 years. A plan of Campbell's Wharf New Farm, thought to date to 1904, shows lime kiln ruins with an adjoining iron shed, a retaining wall at the high water mark with a short wharf, and remnants of the Langshaw Sawmill. In 1914 title passed to James Green, a Brisbane timber merchant, who had moved his Wickham Street business to the New Farm site by 1916. By 1921, Rosenfeld & Co. (Qld) Ltd, timber merchants, were operating a saw mill from this location, and title to the property passed to Julius Rosenfeld in January 1924. A disastrous fire in February 1931 destroyed the mill, and in 1933 Rosenfeld subdivided the land into residential allotments around a short cul-de-sac, Julius Street, which was dedicated by the Brisbane City Council in 1934. In 1935 a set of flats [Aloha Court - later renamed Pine Lodge] was erected on the subdivision containing the kilns, and at this time a garage associated with the flats was erected at the edge of the cliff, in part resting on the lime kiln remains.
James Campbell and Sons Ltd became one of the great success stories of locally-derived Queensland commerce/industry. James Campbell died in 1904, James Mitchell Campbell in 1906 and John Dunmore Campbell in 1909, but the business was sustained and flourished through the first half of the 20th century by three generations of the Campbell family. In 1951 it became part of the Carrick group of companies, but retained the name of James Campbell and Sons. In 1954 the firm celebrated 100 years of trading, and survived into the 1990s as Campbell's Timber and Hardware, until absorbed into the BBC Hardware chain c1995.
","criteria":"The remains of these late 1870s lime kilns survive as important evidence of lime manufacture in 19th century Queensland, illustrating the establishment and development of local industry, particularly that related to the building trade.
|Although by no means evidence of the earliest lime burning undertaken at Moreton Bay, they are rare surviving 19th century lime kiln remains which provide important information about the process and role of lime manufacture in Queensland, and have the potential to contribute to more exhaustive studies on these topics, to the analysis of kiln type, and to our general understanding of Queensland history.
|Although by no means evidence of the earliest lime burning undertaken at Moreton Bay, they are rare surviving 19th century lime kiln remains which provide important information about the process and role of lime manufacture in Queensland, and have the potential to contribute to more exhaustive studies on these topics, to the analysis of kiln type, and to our general understanding of Queensland history.
|The lime kiln remains are significant for their association with the work of the important early Queensland firm of James Campbell and Sons, whose building supplies business, established in 1854, survived into the late 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16624,"place_ref":601888,"name":"Victoria Flats","alternate_name":"Morella, Carinyah, Lumtah and Neerim | Kilroe's Flats","street_address":"369 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-03-30","description":"Victoria Flats are situated at the corner of Gregory Terrace and Kinross Street, Spring Hill, on the highest part of the ridge overlooking Victoria Park to the north and west. The principal elevation is to Gregory Terrace, to which the flats make a prominent streetscape contribution.
The building is domestic in scale and form. It is a two-storeyed brick building with 2 flats on each floor, each with a frontage to Gregory Terrace, and a sub-floor at the rear where the land slopes away toward Water Street The whole has a single, bungalow-style roof clad in terracotta tiles, with a short ridge and gablets at the apex, reminiscent of early 1900s houses, which unifies the building. Each flat has a separate front and rear entrance. Two symmetrically positioned, gable-roofed, external brick staircases at the front of the building give access to the two upper floor flats. At the rear, two separate external staircases also give access to the top two flats, but the original staircases have been replace with steel framing and concrete treads. The exterior walls are finished in stucco with decorative brickwork to the window sills. Windows on the ground floor have window hoods clad with terracotta tiles.
Each flat has a separate wrought-iron entrance gate on Gregory Terrace, with individual name plate in the gate: Morella, Carinyah, Lumtah and Neerim.
Internally, each flat is identical in arrangement, other than that the two flats on each floor are mirrored in plan. Although the two upper floor flats were initially designed with a different floor plan to the lower floor flats, all have been constructed to the ground floor pattern. In each flat, a small entrance hall leads into the public spaces - a living room and dining room with windows along the side of the building, and separated by a timber arch. A bedroom opens off each of these rooms on the party-wall side. The front bedroom has a small enclosed front balcony, and off the rear bedroom, through wide french doors, is a larger enclosed sleeping verandah. Originally the kitchen was located at the front of each flat, beside the front entrance hall, and accessed from what is now the living room [formerly the dining room]. At an early date, in each flat, the kitchen has been converted to a bathroom, and the bathroom, which opened off the sleeping verandah at the back, was converted to a kitchen. The present 'kitchens' retain the original wall and floor tiling associated with their former function as bathrooms: black and white patterned mosaic tiles on the floor and rectangular, white ceramic tiles finished with similar listello tiles, on the walls. Next to the original bathroom [now kitchen] and also accessed from the sleeping verandah is a toilet. In each flat, a rear door opens from the sleeping verandah onto a landing, off which is a separate, externally-accessed laundry.
The floors are of extremely narrow timber boards, possibly 'japanned' originally. The public rooms have early timber panelling, and plate and picture rails with decorative timber brackets, all of which has been painted. The ceilings retain their original fibrous-cement sheeting and timber battening arranged in decorative patterns. In at least one flat, the timber battening on the ceiling retains its dark staining, but most ceilings have been repainted. In each flat, there is a small triangular coat-cupboard in the entrance hall, and early built-in cupboards in the bathroom and kitchen. There is also an early, but not original, serving hatch between what is now the dining room [formerly the living room] and what is now the kitchen [formerly the bathroom]. Windows throughout are timber-framed casements, most retaining their original patterned, opaque glass. The front door to each flat has a decorative oval leadlight window.
The front garden is enclosed along Gregory Terrace by the original fence of rendered brick, but the retaining wall and fence along Kinross Street has been replaced [late 1990s] with a cement block and picket fence. In the backyard is a mature Jacaranda tree and a set of three timber-framed, weatherboard-clad garages with a skillion roof, recently reclad. These are accessed from Kinross Street.
","history":"Victoria Flats are understood to have been known initially as Kilroe's Flats, erected c1923 for Mrs Fanny [Frances] Kilroe. Designed by influential Brisbane architect TBM Wightman, they were amongst the first purpose-designed flats constructed in Brisbane.
This part of Spring Hill had been surveyed into 2 acre suburban allotments in 1860. Allotment 253, which ran between Gregory Terrace [which at the time formed the town boundary] and Water Street, and included the site of the later flats, was purchased in May 1860 by William Gray of Brisbane for the sum of £62. In 1863 Gray subdivided the land into 12 smaller residential subdivisions and William [later Kinross] Street. Most of the blocks lower down the hill in Spring Hollow sold quickly, but Gray retained the blocks fronting Gregory Terrace [subs 1-3 of allotment 253 -1 rood 37.6 perches]. This land remained vacant until Frances Kilroe, wife of Joseph Kilroe, acquired title in September 1918. The Kilroes erected a residence, Mirrunya, on subdivision 2, and were listed as resident there in the 1919-1920 Post Office Directory. Joseph Kilroe was associated with the drapery and haberdashery firm of Finney Isles & Co., and had married Fanny Elliott in Brisbane in 1895.
In 1922, Mrs Kilroe made application to the Brisbane Municipal Council to erect a block of flats on Gregory Terrace, with the plans approved in November. The architect was listed as TBM Wightman, and the contractors as Cheesman & Bull of Charlotte Street. The flats were erected on subdivision 1 of allotment 253, adjacent to Mirrunya, with frontages to Gregory Terrace and Kinross Street. Plans published in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland in June 1923 show a two-storeyed block of four flats [2 on each level], each with separate entrance, front verandah, vestibule, living room, dining room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms, rear sleeping verandah, bathroom, laundry and toilet. Details of the street fencing were also included. The flats were completed by mid-1924, and were known initially as Kilroe's Flats. Each of the four flats also had an individual name: Morella, Carinyah, Lumtah and Neerim. The name Victoria Flats may be a later descriptor.
The purpose designed flat or apartment building emerged as a new form of residential accommodation in Brisbane during the 1920s, and Kilroe's Flats on Gregory Terrace were amongst the earliest purpose-designed flats erected in the city, and certainly the first on Gregory Terrace, which became a popular location for blocks of flats in the later 1920s and 1930s. Brisbane, in comparison to Sydney where flat buildings were being erected from the early 1900s, was relatively slow to adopt this new form of domestic dwelling. Like most of Brisbane's purpose-designed flats, and similar to Melbourne rather than Sydney flats, Kilroe's Flats on Gregory Terrace were essentially suburban in nature: domestic in scale and design and located within a garden setting. They were unusual in that each flat had an entrance directly accessible from the street, rather than accessed from a common stairwell.
Three main types of purpose-designed flats evolved in Brisbane in the interwar period: moderate-rental blocks; prestigious and luxury flats or apartments; and the bachelor flat. Sometimes these were combined with professional chambers or shops. Kilroe's Flats, with their attractive street facades, private entrances, generously-proportioned rooms, and up-to-date facilities [including built-in cupboards in the entrance, kitchen and bathroom], were clearly aimed at the higher income, long-term rental market. The location was prestigious - situated on the high land along Gregory Terrace overlooking Victoria Park - and convenient to the central city.
The bulk of purpose-designed blocks of flats erected in Brisbane in the interwar period were intended as rental investments, rather than for immediate re-sale, as strata title was not available. Investors favoured centrally located positions, close to workplaces, shopping facilities, entertainment and schools, with easy access to public transport. Corner positions, which permitted plenty of opportunity to ensure flats were well lit and ventilated, were also favoured. Kilroe's Flats are early and important evidence of these considerations.
The designer of Kilroe's Flats, Scottish-trained architect Thomas Blair Moncrieff Wightman, arrived in Brisbane c1910 at the age of 26. He first lectured in architecture at the Brisbane Central Technical College, then was employed by architects Atkinson and McLay in 1912, and was in private practice in Brisbane by 1913 - firstly on his own, then as Wightman and Phillips from 1914 to 1918. From 1919 he practised alone until his retirement and subsequent early death c1933. He was a fellow of the Royal British Institute of Architects, and a councillor of the Queensland Institute of Architects (President in 1923-24, about the time he designed Kilroe's Flats).
Wightman's work was well received in Brisbane, and his residential work is considered to be important in the development of interwar domestic architecture in Queensland. He established a substantial residential practice, and attracted prestigious commissions which permitted design experimentation in adapting the traditional Queensland timber house to meet changing social and functional requirements.
Kilroe's Flats are the only purpose-built flats in Brisbane identified to date as designed by Wightman. In these flats, Wightman employed elements of domestic bungalow style in the tradition of the Queensland high-set house. The verandah spaces in particular are illustrative of changing lifestyles in Brisbane during the interwar period, when verandah widths and designs were being experimented with to permit their use as outdoor living and sleeping 'rooms'.
The Kilroes did not reside in their Gregory Terrace flats, and by c1925 had left Mirrunya, which from March 1928 they let to Lillian Leitch as a private hospital. By 1942 Mrs Kilroe had been widowed. In that year she sold Mirrunya, but retained the flats on an enlarged subdivision [resub 2 of subs 1-3 of allotment 253 - 1 rood 4.2 perches]. Following Fanny Kilroe's death in 1948, the flats [building and land] were sold to Edward and Bridie Lynch in 1949. They remain with descendants of the Lynch family, and unlike many of Brisbane's interwar flats which have since been converted to strata title, are retained on a single title.
","criteria":"Victoria Flats [Kilroe's Flats], erected c1923, is important in demonstrating the pattern of residential development in Brisbane during the interwar years, being among the earliest purpose-designed suburban flats constructed in Brisbane.
|As early surviving purpose-designed flats in Brisbane, the place is rare, and important in illustrating changing community attitudes to desirable and acceptable forms of housing. The incorporation of separate street entrances for each flat also is comparatively rare among Brisbane interwar flats.
|The place remains highly intact externally and substantially intact internally, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early, purpose-designed, middle-class flats in Brisbane - including the domestic scale, design and layout; the garden setting; the inclusion of separate entrances and separate laundries; and the attention to aesthetic detail [including leadlights in the front entrance doors, decorative timber brackets to the internal picture and plate rails in the living and dining rooms, and early decorative wall and floor tiling to the original bathrooms]. In addition, the location is illustrative of many of the principal concerns of investors in up-market flats, including: accessibility to public transport, workplaces, shops, schools and entertainment; aesthetics; and good light and ventilation.
|The place has aesthetic value, and makes an important contribution to the Gregory Terrace streetscape.
|The place has an important association with the work of Brisbane architect TBM Wightman, who was influential in the development of domestic architecture in Brisbane during the interwar years, and is the only purpose-designed block of flats identified to date as having been designed by him.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16625,"place_ref":601889,"name":"Schmidt Farmhouse & Outbuildings (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"3 Worongary Road","suburb":"WORONGARY","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-08","description":"There are three main buildings at this site: a farmhouse, a slab barn, and a small creamery. There are also three other buildings: a timber shed of indeterminate age, a small timber outhouse, and a collapsed garage.
The farmhouse
The farmhouse is a timber framed and braced building raised on timber stumps and clad in weatherboards to the sides and rear, and in wide T and G boards with exposed studs and bracing to the front.
The house consists of two parts: the front section of two rooms with verandah, and an attached kitchen or service wing also of two rooms. Part of the rear verandah has been enclosed as a bathroom and small store room.
Existing shingle battens indicate that the house originally had a timber shingled roof, now replaced with corrugated iron sheeting. The roof is gabled in two directions. A brick fireplace and chimney are located at the rear of the building.
The front verandah has recently had the original floorboards replaced with new hardwood boards. A length of early handrail and dowel balustrade exists on the northwest corner. The verandah was until recently enclosed to create a sleep-out, with a second stair leading to the ground on the east side. Evidence of this stair exists in the form of holes to one of the verandah posts where the handrail was let in.
Examination of the house indicates that it originally contained only two rooms at the front section, with french doors opening out from both rooms to the front verandah. The room on the eastern side of the house was the larger of the two. The wide beaded vertical boards (approximately 200 millimetres wide) to the northern and southern walls and to the original dividing wall remain.
At a later date a wall was added to the larger room to form the present central corridor. This wall was constructed of 100 millimetre wide v-jointed boards. The door and door hardware to this wall confirm its later construction. The v-jointed boards lining the ceiling to these rooms, the timber ceiling ventilators and the scotia cornices were probably added at this time as well. The ceilings may have been calico originally.
The weatherboard walls to the eastern and western elevation may be original but if so were likely to have been unlined internally. The internal lining of 100 millimetre T and G boards are certainly a later addition. It is more probable that these walls were lined internally with studs exposed to the outside and that these have decayed and been replaced at a later date. This assertion is supported by inspection of the door and window sashes. The french doors at the front of the house have 'lambs tongue' or ogee profile glazing bars which were hand moulded and which are more in keeping with earlier construction techniques. The windows have glazing bars which are machine moulded indicating that the sashes, if not the whole body of the windows, are later and likely to have been inserted when the east and west walls were reconstructed. Window hoods throughout are likely to date to this period also.
The current wall between the kitchen and the adjacent room, which is believed to have been a bedroom, is original judging by the wide vertical boards used in its construction. The opening in this wall does not appear to be original. In this section too, external walls appear to have been reconstructed and were, until recently, lined with 100 millimetre T and G boards as the main house.
A photograph dated c1910 indicates that changes had been made from what it is believed was the original construction, including the addition of dowel balustrading to the front verandah, the replacement of the original shingled roof with corrugated iron, and the addition of stairs to the eastern side of the verandah. Evidence of the earlier balustrading exists in the mortice holes to the north-eastern verandah post.
Subsequent changes included the enclosure of part of the front verandah and the construction of a lean-to laundry building on the west. These additions have recently been removed. Nothing remains of the laundry except for an area of concrete slab on the ground at the foot of the steps. Sheet lining to the early bathroom and to the ceiling of the rear verandah has been removed, floors sanded and the whole building painted. The early timber outhouse and shed remain.
The slab barn
To the west of the farm house is a large barn constructed primarily of hardwood slabs and milled weatherboards with a corrugated iron roof. The barn is 15 metres by 10 metres and is elevated off the ground. The floor of the central section is made of hardwood boards, while the lower floors to either side are laid with large timber slabs. The building has been rebuilt recently and some roof framing and sheeting are therefore quite recent. Some new hardwood slabs have been introduced recently.
The creamery
Located in the showgrounds is a small creamery believed to be part of the Schmidt's farm. It is a timber weatherboard structure about 3 metres square with a corrugated iron roof. The framing and sheeting of the roof appear to be later than the body of the building.
The building has a concrete floor, not original. The walls are sheeted at about three-quarter height with timber slats to provide ventilation. There is evidence of 100 millimetre T and G lining internally, some of which has been cut away because of termite damage. Window openings are filled with timber shutters.
","history":"This farmhouse and outbuildings were constructed in the late 19th/early 20th centuries on land which in the 1850s was part of the Murry Jerry pastoral run, leased by William Duckett White of Beaudesert. The site was subsequently included in the 200 acres taken up by WD White as a pre-emptive selection in 1869, but the present buildings and structures appear to date to a later period, when the land was used for agricultural purposes. It was occupied by the Schmidt-Kurth family, Worongary dairy farmers, from c1901 to c1986.
Murry Jerry, a 25 square mile cattle run based around the present town of Mudgeeraba, was taken up by Alfred Compigne in 1852 and transferred to WD White in September 1853. Following the introduction of the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868, designed to open the large pastoral holdings of southern Queensland to agriculture and closer settlement, Murry Jerry was opened for general selection in April 1869. Initially timber getters took up the land, but were soon joined by farmers growing corn or maize, and later establishing dairies. Timber remained an important industry, especially after the establishment of the first saw mills in the Mudgeeraba area by the mid-1880s.
Under the conditions of the 1868 Land Act, WD White applied in December 1868 for a pre-emptive selection of 200 acres of the Murry Jerry run [portion 7A], on the southern side of Worongary Creek, to commence at a marked tree on the right [southern] bank of the creek about 250 yards northwest from Worongary Hut. White's selection application made reference to improvements including a stockman's hut and a store/dairy. When the block was being surveyed early in 1869, surveyor GL Pratten noted a hut in the vicinity of the present farmhouse and outbuildings. No connection has been established between the huts [probably of slab construction] referred to in 1868/69 and the present structures.
White acquired freehold to the Worongary selection in 1878 and in August 1879 this was transferred to his son Ernest, who controlled WD White & Son's coastal properties from his base at Nindooimbah near Beaudesert following his father's move to Brisbane c1860. It is understood that during the 1870s Ernest White used the Worongary land for pastoral purposes.
In the 1880s the selection changed hands a number of times and its use for agricultural purposes appears to date from this period. The form and construction of the farmhouse core, with its 8" wide beaded vertical boarding, suggest that it also dates from this period. Title was transferred in April 1880 to Anne Stephens of Brisbane, widow of Thomas Blackett Stephens, who in 1877 had established the Hillview dairy on part of his 11,000 acre estate east of Worongary, acquired in the mid-1870s. The Stephens family subdivided portion 7A and title to the 163 acres west of the Mudgeeraba Road passed early in 1885 to the Starkey family, who had taken up land at upper Mudgeeraba in the early 1880s. Later in 1885 title passed to John Etchells of Nerang Creek, who in 1870 had been amongst the first to select land at what is now Surfers' Paradise. Etchells mortgaged this land in the second half of the 1880s, and in mid-1889 title returned to Anne Stephens, and remained in the Stephens family [Stephens Estates Limited from 1904] until transferred to Mudgeeraba farmer Carl Schmidt in July 1912.
Johann Karl [Carl] Schmidt had emigrated from Germany to Queensland in 1881, aged 21 years. He appears to have worked as a farm labourer in the Nerang-Mudgeeraba district and in 1890 married Bertha Abraheim, whose parents had selected land in the Mudgeeraba district in the late 1870s. In 1891 Schmidt selected portion 24, parish of Mudgeeraba, where he took up mixed farming and later established a dairy. The Schmidt family moved to the Worongary property c1901, and may have leased the farm from the Stephens Estate, or managed it for them, prior to acquiring title in 1912. Schmidt descendants understand that the farmhouse was already on the property c1901.
At the Worongary property the Schmidt family engaged in the district's principal economic activity: commercial dairying, heavily promoted by the Queensland government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1889 the Queensland Department of Agriculture [established 1887] sponsored the colony's first travelling dairy, which opened at Tallebudgera in April 1889 before moving on to other centres on the Gold Coast and throughout southeast Queensland, encouraging interest, demonstrating the technology, and imparting information and skills. The 1893 Meat and Dairy Act offered subsidies to dairy farmers, and introduced a tax on non-dairy cattle which funded the establishment of cheese factories and creameries. Quality controls were implemented with the introduction of compulsory grading of butter and cream in 1898, and inspection of dairies and factories under the Dairy Produce Acts 1904-05. Importantly, the Queensland Agricultural Bank was established in 1901 to increase the flow of credit to selectors - many of whom had taken up dairying. The Schmidt dairy was small - 20-30 cows - but typical of small selector farming practice in the early 20th century.
A number of turn-of-the-century alterations appear to have been made to the farmhouse, including: a detached kitchen joined to the main house; the shingled roof replaced with corrugated iron; weatherboard cladding on the external walls; new sash windows and window hoods; new front balustrading; ceilings and some internal walls lined with narrow tongue and groove boarding, with fretwork ceiling ventilators in the principal rooms; and a partition wall erected in the larger of the front rooms, to create a central hallway. These improvements, probably made by the Schmidt family and completed by c1910, reflect the rise in living standards which accompanied the expansion of dairying on the Gold Coast hinterland, as well as the determination of hard-working German immigrant families to succeed on the land.
Bertha Schmidt died in 1924 and in 1930, prior to Carl's death in 1931, the property was transferred to their youngest daughter, Mrs Eda Catherine Kurth. The farmhouse remained in the Schmidt-Kurth family until 1992, although by then on a substantially reduced site of 2548m². The land between the farmhouse and Worongary Creek was acquired by Albert Shire Council in 1987-88 for use by the Mudgeeraba Show Society, and the Schmidt's former creamery is now located within the showgrounds. The bales and separating room, initially situated east of the house and later re-located south of Worongary Road, no longer exist.
Rapid, sustained population growth on the Gold Coast hinterland in the last 15-20 years, and particularly since the early 1980s, has led to substantial re-development of former farming areas for new residential estates. The former Schmidt farmhouse is understood to be one of the earliest, and one of the few, surviving farmhouses on the Gold Coast hinterland.
","criteria":"The former Schmidt farmhouse and outbuildings demonstrate the pattern of Queensland's history by providing evidence of the farming history of the Gold Coast hinterland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In particular, it illustrates the expansion of commercial dairying on Gold Coast selections in the early 20th century. The place is also illustrative of the success of German immigration to Queensland in the last quarter of the 19th century.
|As very few farmhouses from the late 19th century are known to survive in the Gold Coast hinterland, the former Schmidt farmhouse demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The house, barn, creamery and other surviving outbuildings demonstrate some of the principal characteristics of a small, late19th/early 20th century dairy farm, and the farmhouse core survives as rare illustration of earlier form, construction and materials employed in a small, c1880 rural dwelling house in the Gold Coast hinterland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16626,"place_ref":601890,"name":"Woodlands","alternate_name":"Glen Urquhart | Clarke's Farm","street_address":"24 Woodland Street","suburb":"ASHGROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-08-04","description":"Woodlands is situated on half an acre of land (0.2 ha). The garden contains large mature trees, including a weeping fig, silky oaks, jacarandas, poincianas, Moreton Bay chestnuts, casuarinas, pines, flame trees and an albizia. It has a privet hedge along the front fence dating from at least the 1920s. A decorative wrought iron fence, gates and matching tree guards, constructed of Lowmoor iron and marked Baleys Patent Albion, survive from Charles Plant's time.
\nThe house is a single storey, timber building on stumps, low set at the front and high at the back where the land falls away to the former mining gully. The main, 1883 section is roughly square in plan, with walls of single skin, vertical beaded tongue and groove boards on a hardwood frame that has pegged tenoned joints visible at external door heads and windows. The roof is clad with corrugated iron. It has six main rooms with front and back hallways leading into the dining room. The joinery is cedar and the large cedar fireplace remains in the dining room. There are timber fretwork roses in the twelve foot ceilings. Cedar french doors with fanlights open onto the formerly encircling verandahs. The hall/dining room doors have etched and coloured glass panels in the upper sections. The leadlights believed to have been transferred from Ferndale have distinctive geometric patterns and have been incorporated as decorative features in internal and external walls and some fanlights. Wall panels are generally accompanied by elaborately carved cedar shelf/brackets, believed also to come from Ferndale.
\nExternally, the 'new room' added in 1933 sits comfortably at the corner of the house but has some distinctive details, in particular the concave sweep between the upper eaves and verandah roof levels of the original house, the sweep being clad with cedar shingles. Internally it has a plaster 'art deco' ceiling, silky oak joinery and panelling, including panelled doors with crossed diagonal decorative mouldings. The diagonal cross design is repeated in the casement windows and in the fixed and sliding leadlight panels that replaced the wall dividing this room from the drawing room. The adjoining verandah, now a breakfast room has cedar bi-fold windows that match the design of the casements in the 'new room'. There is a fireplace for an electric fire that survives. Some modernisation also carried out in other rooms at the time, includes the installation of a matching fireplace in the drawing room and its Art Deco green tiling, a terrazzo hearth and a green enamel stove in the original brick stove recess of the kitchen.
\nThe house retains its 1930s form, together with a high degree of intact detail, including door furniture and the remains of gas lighting in the bedrooms. The bedrooms also have built-in hand basins set in timber beaded cupboards.
","history":"Woodlands is situated on part of the 30 acres of land (12.14 ha) originally purchased in 1868 by James Clarke and known as Clarke's Farm. From at least 1882 Clarke and a William Reinhold prospected for gold on the property. In 1883, the land, together with a small house and outbuildings, was sold to William Widdop, although Clarke and Reinhold continued their activities. In the same year, Professor John Pepper leased the property for himself and his family. Pepper, an analytical chemist, also had an interest in other branches of the sciences, particularly the application of electricity. He had arrived in Brisbane in 1881 after gaining a name in his native England and abroad as an educator and populariser of science and for introducing evening classes to the London Polytechnic. He gave lectures and staged entertaining demonstrations including the famous illusion named 'Pepper's Ghost'. In Brisbane, he gave early demonstrations of electric light and of the gramophone as well as setting up courses in science at schools and introducing chemistry classes at the School of Arts. He also opened a laboratory in Queen Street as a consulting analytical chemist. He is credited with the first formal teaching of chemistry in Queensland.
\nFollowing an agreement made in 1883 with Widdop, who agreed to sell the property to Pepper if no payable gold was found, Pepper erected a house on the property, which is now known as 'Woodlands'. In 1886 this agreement became the subject of a legal dispute that was settled in favour of Pepper, who then purchased the land. In 1889 he sold the property to Charles Plant and returned to England.
\nPlant, who had extensive gold mining interests in north Queensland, including the Venus Battery, used the property to stay at when in Brisbane until he retired there in 1897/8 for the benefit of his children's education. About this time he erected a grand house for himself, adjacent to Pepper's house, which he named 'Ferndale' and erected a decorative wrought iron fence along Woodland Street that enclosed both houses.
\nPepper's former house was rented out until 1922, when the land was subdivided in anticipation of the marriage of Plant's elder daughter, Hilda. The house and land were placed in the name of her fiance, John MacDonald Grant, who had been in military service at Gallipoli and in France with Eric and Reg Plant, two of Hilda's brothers.
\nIn the same year, Plant made a similar provision for his other daughter, Oenone, transferring land between the former Pepper house and Ferndale to her future husband, John Finlay. This land was not built on however, and was used until the 1950s as an extension to the garden of the Grant's home, which they called Glen Urquhart. In 1933 a new room in the current, Art Deco style was added to the south east corner of the house by architects Addison and MacDonald.
\nIn 1932 Charles Plant died and in 1936 the land on which Ferndale stood was subdivided and the house was demolished. It had featured handsome carved cedar joinery and a ballroom surmounted by a lantern decorated with leadlight panels. These panels and some decorative joinery were then incorporated into the Grant home.
\nHilda Grant died in 1943 after prolonged ill health. She had been deeply involved with the Red Cross in both World Wars, being President of the Ashgrove Branch in WWII and Convenor of the Ithaca Branch of the Australian Comforts Fund. She was also commissioner for Girl Guides in the 1930s. John Grant lived until the age of 94, dying in 1977. Although he was trained as an engineer, becoming Chief Assistant Engineer for Brisbane Tramways, he retained his military associations after WWI. In 1938 he was appointed to command and raise the 61st Battalion of the Queensland Cameron Highlanders, which he did with notable success. They were later to play a significant role in the Battle for Milne Bay in 1942. Grant was also inaugural president of the Ashgrove RSL. During his presidency between 1932-35, committee meetings were held at his home. Woodland Street remains the official Ashgrove marshalling area on Anzac Day, a reminder of Grant's early role in organising Anzac Day observances in the area. Following his death, the land accompanying the house was subdivided into two blocks. Lot No. 2 on which the house is located was purchased by Mrs Janet and Major Austin Hogan in 1979 and named 'Woodlands', the house having no name.
\nMrs Janet Hogan is a recognised author on Queensland's heritage and is well known for her work in furthering an awareness of the State's heritage, especially the built environment. In co-operation with newspapers, magazines and television stations, she has worked on the production of many educational programmes. Mrs Janet and Major Austin have both played integral roles in the National Trust of Queensland and in recognition of their work, they have both been awarded Honorary Life Membership of the National Trust.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1883, Woodlands and its grounds are important for the evidence they provide of the way of life of prosperous citizens in the outer reaches of Brisbane in the late nineteenth century.
|The house is important as an example of a fine quality 1880's residence that is substantially intact, both internally and externally. The grounds and gardens, which contain mature plantings including several specimen trees, an early privet hedge and rare surviving ironwork fence and gates, contribute to the overall integrity of the property.
|The fine quality of interior finishes and fixtures, which include extensive decorative cedar joinery and leadlight panels give Woodlands considerable aesthetic significance. The large room, which was added in 1933, is of interest as an unusual and intact example of an Art Deco style interior incorporating extensive timber panelling and strong diagonal cross designs for the windows, doors and screens.
|(Criterion under review)
|Woodlands, is important for its association with several notable owners who have contributed to the development of Queensland in the fields of education, mining, defence, community service and the heritage conservation movement. For their work in furthering an awareness of the State's heritage, Mrs Janet and Major Austin Hogan are particularly noted.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16630,"place_ref":601894,"name":"Petrie Terrace Police Depot (former)","alternate_name":"Underground Night Club | Former Police Barracks | The Barracks","street_address":"25-61 Petrie Terrace","suburb":"PETRIE TERRACE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-12-14","description":"The Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot occupies the southwest edge of a ridge which overlooks the former Roma Street railway yards and the Brisbane central business district. It is bounded on the southeast by the Brisbane-Ipswich railway, on the southwest by Upper Roma Street, on the northwest by Petrie Terrace, and on the northeast by Victoria Barracks military reserve. It contains a number of significant elements, including:
The Former Petrie Terrace Police Barracks
Highly visible from a number of vantage points around Brisbane City, the former Petrie Terrace Police Barracks is a prominent landmark on a ridge overlooking the Roma Street Railway Yards and provides an impressive presence to Petrie Terrace. The place is important for views to and from the site including to/from Upper Roma Street, William Jolly Bridge and the Brisbane River, the riverside expressway, the Brisbane CBD, inner western suburbs such as from Cairns Terrace, Red Hill and from Petrie Terrace, Milton Road, Caxton Street and Victoria Barracks.
Opened in 1939, the former Petrie Terrace Police Barracks is a three-storey brick and concrete building in red face brick with contrasting horizontal banding in rendered concrete. The roof is sheeted with corrugated fibro cement tiles. The main elevation to the southeast is a single range, symmetrical about a narrow, faceted projecting parapeted central entrance. The modest entrance to the ground floor is approached by a set of concrete stairs to a covered entry porch opening into the main entrance lobby ahead. The central block is flanked to each side by verandahs to each floor. The elevation to Petrie Terrace is symmetrical about a hip-roofed projecting and faceted central bay flanked by verandahed wings which terminate in prominent hip-roofed blank end pavilions. The blank ends contain recessed rectangular panels to each floor level giving shadow and texture to the exterior walls. The faceting of the central bay forms a full length oriel-like window-bay suggestive of defensiveness. A prominent roof ventilator is located to the centre of the main roof. The second floor verandahs to both elevations are punctuated by pairs of Doric columns with battened timber balustrading with decorative criss-cross central panels. The verandahs to the ground and first floors have similar balustrading punctuated by solid brick piers. The projecting eaves around the building are timber lined. Other detailing includes decorative terracotta tile panels to the projecting parapet fronts to each elevation and vertical bands of incised arrows to the concrete door surrounds to the north, south and east entrances.
The southwest and northeast elevations are symmetrical about faceted parapeted blocks flanked by two bays of timber sash windows with the verandah ends and the fire escape stair block to the corners.
The central projecting parapets to each elevation contain panels of terracotta tiles with a stylised diamond pattern to each tile. The moulded concrete door surrounds to the north, south and east entrances have vertical bands of an arrow pattern to the upper corners.
The building is planned about a central staircase opening off the main entrance hall. The entrance and stair treads are finished in different shades of terrazzo. The stair has a moulded timber handrail, decorative timber newels and decorative wrought iron balustrading. The openings to the main stairwell on each level have large decorative consoles. The walls and partitions are of brick; the verandah floors, corridors and staircases are of concrete; and the roof is sheeted with corrugated fibro cement tiles. Internal walls are rendered and painted. Ceilings to corridors and ground and first floor verandahs are concrete. Ceilings to internal spaces on each floor, stairwells and the second floor verandahs are lined with fibro cement sheeting with timber cover strips. On the ground floor, offices and storage open off a central corridor to the northeast, former mess and kitchen area open off a small corridor to the south west and toilet blocks are positioned at each end of the building. The lecture theatre is accommodated in the projecting wing to the northwest opening off the verandah. This room retains the original timber folding doors. The first and second floors are organised about a central corridor off the central staircase. Bedrooms open off the central corridor and have doors with tilting glass fanlights opening to the verandahs. Toilets, bathrooms and drying rooms are located at each end of the building on both floors. On the first floor the projecting northwest wing accommodates the recreation room and on the second floor additional bedrooms.
The building is not secured and has been subject to continual vandalism and many of the windows and doors have been damaged or removed as have a large percentage of the ceiling linings. The internal spatial relations remain substantially intact including the configuration of the bedrooms, lecture theatre, recreation room, bathrooms and drying rooms, kitchen and office spaces. The plain concrete escape stairs and main terrazzo stair remain intact. The verandah posts and balustrading are substantially intact.
The Former Stables
The former stables at the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot are located on the north-western site boundary line opposite Caxton Street. The building is constructed of single storey brick masonry with a hipped corrugated red Colorbond roof with ventilated ridges.
The building, which was partly converted into garage accommodation in the late 1920s and fully in 1941-42, has been more recently refurbished as a night club. The floor now has several different level changes and the original floor finish is not evident. The render to the interior walls has been largely removed and there have been several partition walls, bar areas, stage areas and toilet facilities constructed within the building. The south western wing of the former E shaped building was demolished prior to the night club refurbishment with the exception of a section of the projecting eastern wall which survives and contains an early timber framed and clad pair of doors. The voids which housed horse then car washing areas between the wings of the E shaped building have been enclosed together with the area to the south east between the stables building and the former police garage and workshop constructed in 1936.
At the north western corner of the building a basement level has been more recently added through the underpinning of the original walls and the addition of a new end wall and contains several different floor levels.
Early fabric that survives include the majority of the perimeter walls which are constructed of English bonded brickwork. These walls have arrised corners to openings and engaged piers in the form of bull nosed brickwork to prevent injury. Several of the original openings in external walls are apparent including the bricked in windows to the Petrie Terrace elevation which correspond and provide evidence of the location of the stalls and loose boxes that were positioned along that elevation. Other elements include the roof structure of substantial timber trusses and large timber framed louvred ventilators to each of the ridges. The timber posts supporting the trusses to the central wing demonstrate where the former stalls and timber partition walls were located.
The Former Garage and Workshop
The former garage and workshop constructed adjacent to the Stables building in 1936 is a single storey brick masonry structure with a corrugated red Colorbond gambrel roof with timber lined eaves. It has also been refurbished as part of the nightclub. The floor and ceiling has been relined, the internal render largely removed and window openings in the north western wall have been converted to door openings. The openings in the other perimeter walls survive intact. Remnant masonry internal partition walls to the former office area survive. The building has an infill of bar and food preparation areas, cold rooms and stores.
The Former Police Wireless Transmission Station VKR
The former police wireless transmission station is a brick masonry building with metal roof constructed adjacent to the Petrie Terrace boundary near the intersection of Milton Road. It currently houses the Hog's Breath Café and has a large addition of recent construction along its north-eastern side. The interior and much of the exterior have been highly modified. This building is not included within the heritage listing boundary for the entry in the Queensland Heritage Register for the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot.
Other site elements
A wrought iron fence on a stone base runs along the boundary to Petrie Terrace. A gate post remains to the former vehicle entrance to the Barracks from Petrie Terrace with evidence of gate hinges. There is a retaining wall of roughly dressed sandstone, laid in courses, along the boundary between the former police and military reserves, at the northeast end of the site. The former square to the southeast now contains a bitumened open carpark.
","history":"The site of the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot occupies the southwest edge of a ridge formerly known as Green Hills, which overlooks the former Roma Street railway yards and the Brisbane central business district. The place has been associated with penal and police activity in Queensland since the 1850s. The site was occupied by the second purpose-built Brisbane Gaol from November 1860 until July 1883, and functioned as a police barracks from 1885 until the mid-1980s. Within the former Petrie Terrace Police Depot, the former Police Barracks, opened in September 1939, is a highly visible and prominent landmark in Brisbane.
The site was early associated with a penal facility. When Moreton Bay was opened to free settlement in February 1842, the only prison accommodation available was at one end of the former military barracks in Queen Street - the remainder of the building was occupied by storekeepers. In the second half of 1847 the former female factory in Queen Street, which had served as an immigration barracks for some years, was refurbished as a gaol. This was a temporary measure until Brisbane's first purpose-built gaol was erected in 1848-49. However, within a few years the construction of a larger gaol complex was considered necessary.
By 1856, a gaol reserve had been proposed in the vicinity of what is now Petrie Terrace - the area known in the 1850s as Green Hills. The site was considered remote, well-drained, healthy and extendable. In 1857 the NSW colonial architect provided plans for a gaol to accommodate nearly 100 prisoners at Green Hills. The contract was let in mid-1858 to Andrew and John Petrie of Brisbane - their name being commemorated in Petrie Terrace - who submitted a tender of £25,000. Construction commenced in October 1858, and was completed by September 1860, when the complex was proclaimed as the Brisbane Gaol. The buildings were masonry, and included 2 two-storeyed cell blocks; 2 two-storeyed guard houses containing offices, warders' room and store rooms, flanking the main entrance to the gaol [which faced southeast, overlooking the town of Brisbane]; kitchen block; washhouses; and lavatory blocks. The gaol reserve was enclosed by a wooden fence, which was replaced in 1862 by a 20 feet high stone wall, constructed by contractor Joshua Jeays of Brisbane. Stone for the gaol wall was obtained from the Woogaroo Quarry.
Almost from its inception, the Brisbane Gaol on Petrie Terrace was overcrowded. By 1865, overflow prisoners were being accommodated on the hulk Proserpine, anchored at the mouth of the Brisbane River, and in 1867 the decision was taken to convert the quarantine buildings then under construction on St Helena Island, in Moreton Bay, into gaol buildings. St Helena was gazetted as a prison in the same year, and operated in tandem with the Brisbane Gaol on Petrie Terrace. In 1870 the female prisoners at Petrie Terrace were relocated to the Toowoomba Gaol. These measures afforded only temporary solutions to the overcrowding at the Brisbane Gaol, and in the late 1870s plans for a new gaol at Boggo Road, South Brisbane, were prepared. This complex was constructed in the early 1880s and completed in 1883, with the goal on Petrie Terrace closing on 2 July 1883.
The colonial government initially intended that the Queensland Defence Force, which was reorganised and expanded in the mid-1880s following the 'Russian scare' of 1883, should occupy the former Petrie Terrace gaol reserve, along with the adjacent former military barracks, which had been established in 1864 to accommodate a small contingent of Imperial troops, but which had been occupied since 1874 by the Queensland Police Force.
However, in 1885 the gaol reserve on Petrie Terrace was divided between the newly established permanent Queensland Defence Force and the Queensland Police Force. The QDF occupied the 1864 military reserve and the northern end of the gaol reserve, the whole of which was renamed Victoria Barracks (QHR 600279) by mid-1885. The Queensland Police Force occupied the remainder of the gaol reserve on Petrie Terrace, as a police depot and training centre. At this time the former guard houses and a block which contained the chapel, kitchen and workshop, were renovated as quarters and offices for the police, but the former cell blocks were demolished. The police occupied the former gaol reserve for a century, from 1885 until the mid-1980s, although the site was not officially gazetted as a reserve for police purposes until 1901.
The re-use of the gaol reserve for police and military purposes necessitated the demolition of the surrounding stone wall, most of which was removed in 1885, although the arched stone entrance gate on the southeastern perimeter remained until the mid-20th century. The stone was recycled and used on various government projects in Brisbane, including the foundations supporting the iron palisade separating Queen's Park (QHR 600067) from Alice Street. It is understood that the stone base to the surviving fence along Petrie Terrace at the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot, and the stone retaining wall between the Defence and Police Reserves, are constructed from fabric from the 1862 wall.
In the 1880s, as the Queensland economy boomed and new districts were opened to settlement, the number of men recruited into the Queensland police force increased significantly. Recruits received a brief period of training at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot, where facilities were strained. Along with recruits, the depot accommodated probationary officers and unmarried officers serving in the Brisbane area. In 1889, the police barracks at Petrie Terrace was described as a very bad barracks, damp in wet weather, without a washhouse or proper earth closets, and overcrowded. Despite the poor conditions, prior to 1901 only minor alterations and additions were made to the depot buildings.
In the period 1895 to 1925 the Queensland population almost doubled. The Queensland Police Force, while not quite matching this growth rate, increased by one third, especially after 1910, when pay and conditions for police officers improved. In the first two decades of the 20th century a number of new structures were erected at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot to accommodate the increase. These included: a washhouse near the southern boundary of the reserve [timber, 1901, since demolished]; a residence for the Police Drill Instructor at the southwest corner of the reserve near the junction of Roma Street and Petrie Terrace [timber, 1907, demolished]; a dormitory block at the northeastern end of the reserve, near the Victoria Barracks boundary [2-storeyed, timber, 1907, demolished]; a stables building in the northern corner of the reserve, abutting Petrie Terrace and the boundary with Victoria Barracks [brick, 1912, extant]; and extensive additions to No.2 dormitory block (the former gaol kitchen and chapel building) at the southern end of the reserve [1914-15, since demolished].
The 1912 brick stables building contained stables for 40 horses, harness room and feed room. The building was E-shaped with external dimensions of 40m by 26m. As motor vehicles gradually replaced horses in police work, alterations to the stables building were undertaken in 1927 to provide some garage accommodation, and in 1936 a substantial brick garage and workshop was erected between the 1912 brick stables building and the 1907 timber dormitory block. At this period the 1912 stables still contained 15 loose boxes and 16 stalls.
In the late 1930s, following decades of police complaint that the buildings at Petrie Terrace were totally unsuitable for police purposes, the Queensland Government finally resolved to address police accommodation at both the Petrie Terrace Police Depot and the Roma Street Police Station and Barracks - the latter erected in 1879, and by 1899 considered inadequate. Early in 1938, work commenced on construction of a new three-storeyed, brick and concrete police barracks at the Petrie Terrace Police Depot, on land formerly utilised as a parade and drill ground. It was intended to accommodate recruits, probationers and single officers stationed at Petrie Terrace, Roma Street, and the Traffic and Criminal Investigation branches in Brisbane. At this period, single officers still were obliged to reside in barracks. When the new barracks were completed in 1939, however, it was occupied only by probationers and single officers - recruits were accommodated in the 1907 timber barracks.
The design for the new barracks was developed after extensive consultation with officers of the Queensland Police Force, with consideration given to providing commodious quarters for unmarried men, and taking advantage of the prominent ridge site to establish a distinctive and forceful presence as a sentinel building overlooking the centre of Brisbane and to the major arterial road of Petrie Terrace. The ground floor comprised offices, store, armoury, guard room, lecture theatre with folding partitions, kitchen and mess. The second and third floors contained bedrooms, bathrooms, drying rooms, and recreation rooms, and accommodated 100 unmarried officers. The first floor contained 18 two-men bedrooms and 4 three-men bedrooms and the second floor accommodated 18 two-men bedrooms and 8 three-men rooms. Every effort was made to provide maximum privacy for the occupants, and to admit as much light and air as possible. The warm Brisbane climate was accommodated with verandahs and balconies on each floor. The building was constructed largely of fire-proof materials [brick and cement and fibrous-cement roofing tiles], and enclosed escape stairs were provided at each end of the building.
When the barracks was officially opened on 29 September 1939, it was considered one of the best investments that the Government had made; it would enhance the reputation of the force and give dividends daily in efficient service. The Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland considered that the new barracks represented the new idea in the construction of public buildings, that they were not 'institutional' in their appearance, and that they were impressive in their architectural line and mass of brickwork, and the tiled roof makes the building a prominent landmark.
The Police Commissioner, in his report for the year ended 30 June 1939, stated of the new depot barracks: It is at this centre that a member of the Police force receives his early training prior to his admission as a constable, as well as his accommodation in the early years of his official life. Environment has a great influence on the future career of any person, and it is felt that the change in accommodation as well as the increased facilities for training will benefit both the public and the administration.
Design responsibility for the new Petrie Terrace Police Barracks was assigned to Raymond Clare Nowland, an architect in the Department of Public Works. Nowland had joined the architectural office of the Department of Public Works in November 1932, and was appointed a senior architect in this office in 1938. He produced the most significant buildings of his career between 1932 and 1942, including the Petrie Terrace Police Barracks (1939); University of Queensland Medical School (1939) (QHR 601167); Brisbane Dental Hospital and College (1941) (QHR 601909); Cairns Government Offices (1935) (QHR 600376); Rockhampton Police Court (1935) (QHR 600795); Fortitude Valley Police Station (1935) (QHR 601168); and Toowoomba Police Station (1935) (QHR 601710).
Construction of the barracks was the first stage of a planned remodelling of the whole of the Petrie Terrace Police Depot and grounds. The scheme provided for a square to the east and southeast of the barracks to incorporate formal gardens, tennis court, residences for senior officers and garaging for cars. In the early 1940s the former Brisbane Gaol buildings on the site, which the police had occupied since 1885, were demolished, the ground filled in and levelled, and a parade ground formed. New garaging was erected at the northeastern end of the site in the early 1950s, but not on the site of the former gaol buildings demolished c1940. It appears that no further structures were erected on this part of the site.
The new Petrie Terrace Police Barracks was constructed during an intensive public works building programme undertaken by the Forgan-Smith Labor Government in Queensland during the 1930s, to counter the effects of the economic depression. It was also the first stage of an ambitious building scheme proposed for the Queensland Police Force, which included the demolition of the Roma Street Police Station and Barracks and the transformation of the site into a public square as an extension of King George Square; and new police watchhouse, courthouse and centralised police headquarters buildings in William Street adjoining and incorporating the Public Library (the Library was to be relocated to a proposed new Public Library in Turbot Street). While the Petrie Terrace Police Barracks was erected in 1938-39, the advent of the Second World War diverted resources, and the remainder of the scheme did not come to fruition.
In 1941, just prior to the outbreak of war in the Pacific, a brick building to house the Police Wireless Transmission Station VKR was erected in the southwest corner of the police reserve, on the site of the 1907 Drill Instructor's Residence, which was removed. In conjunction with the wireless station, an aerial was erected at the top of the southern end of the 1938-39 police barracks. Two-way radio communication with wireless patrol vehicles had been established, and the station was linked to the interstate wireless police telegraphy service. Mechanised transportation and radio communication revolutionised Queensland police practices.
During the Second World War, military police attached to the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, United States Army, United States Shore Patrol, and the Royal Navy, also utilised the police wireless transmission station at Petrie Terrace. The Australian Army and the Royal Australian Navy continued to operated wireless patrol vehicles from this station for some years after the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific.
The war created other impacts on the Petrie Terrace Police Depot. In March 1942 an observation post was established at the depot, manned by members of the Volunteer Air Observers' Corps, who occupied the billiards room on the ground floor of the police barracks. A Royal Australian Air Force hut was erected in the depot grounds to house the office staff attached to this corps. This structure was taken over by the Police in 1946-47, principally to house records and stores, but has been removed since. Also in 1941-42, the surviving stalls in the 1912 stables were removed and the place was converted into a garage.
In the immediate post-war years, Queensland Police acquired wireless equipment from the Civil Defence Organisation, which was installed in a number of suburban police stations to receive broadcasts from station VKR. Improvements to the two-way transmission system in 1946-47 increased the coverage to a 60 miles radius of Police Wireless Station VKR. In the late 1940s a 70 foot aerial pole was erected in the Petrie Terrace Police Depot grounds to support transmitting aerials for the interstate police wireless service, which became increasingly important as a police tool.
By 1945, the Police were experiencing difficulty in accommodating cadets [recruits], probationers and single officers at the Petrie Terrace Depot. Both cadets and probationers were quartered in the 1907 barracks, and in 1949-50 this building was refurbished and a separate laundry building was erected for the use of cadets and probationers.
A number of alterations were made to the Petrie Terrace Depot in the 1950s, reflecting the advent of new technologies and changes in policing practices.
In 1951 Brisbane's Central Communications Room at the Criminal Investigations Branch came into operation, taking over the handling of police radio communications from the control room at station VKR, Petrie Terrace. The new facility, which was intended as the 'nerve-centre' of police communications in Queensland, was linked to the technical services of station VKR by land lines, and staffed by junior wireless operators. Senior staff supervised all transmissions and reception at the VKR control rooms, and operated the interstate radio telegraphy services.
In 1953 two tennis courts near the 1907 timber barracks were demolished to make way for a large garage which housed 30 vehicles.
In 1956 the bedrooms on the second and third floors of the 1938-39 police barracks were converted into new office accommodation for the Commissioner of Police and Licensing and Special branches. Cadets and single probationers were still housed in the 1907 timber barracks, but single officers were no longer accommodated at the Depot. Also in 1956 the engine room at the rear of the wireless transmission station was enlarged to house a larger emergency power plant for the station. From 1956 a number of structures at the southern end of the site were demolished to create a large open space which was developed as a parade ground.
In the early 1960s the Police Commissioner's and several other offices accommodated at Petrie Terrace moved into the newly opened Police Headquarters Building at North Quay. At Petrie Terrace, the 1938-39 building was re-converted into barracks, necessitating only minor alterations, and the 1907 barracks was removed. By 1964 the 1938-39 building contained accommodation for probationers and cadets on the first and second floors, and offices [including Inspector and Sub-Inspector of Police], class rooms and mess on the ground floor. Also by 1964, the transmission and reception of police messages had been transferred from Petrie Terrace to the North Quay building, and the Petrie Terrace wireless transmission station was being used principally for the housing of equipment and for workshop repair rooms.
Use of the Petrie Terrace Police Depot as a training facility ceased in 1973 when this function was removed to the Oxley Police Academy, but the Depot continued to serve other police purposes until the mid-1980s. In 1987 the State Government sold the former police reserve and buildings to private enterprise, and approval for re-zoning was gazetted in September 1990. A number of structures have been removed from the site, including the 1953 garage building and several structures at the northeastern end of the site; the Former Police Stables functioned as a nightclub through the 1990s, and is now vacant; and the Former Police Wireless Transmission Station was converted into a restaurant. The Former Police Barracks remains vacant and has suffered a high level of vandalism. The open area to the east and southeast of the Former Police Barracks, which contains significant sub-surface material associated with the former Brisbane Gaol (1860-1883), is now a carpark.
","criteria":"The Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot is important historically for its long association with penal and police activity in Brisbane, and is an important component of a precinct of penal, military, and police buildings established from 1860.
Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> sub-surface remnants of the former Brisbane Gaol [1860-1883], which have strong historical, social and archaeological significance.
> the stone retaining wall between the police and military reserves, which has aesthetic value engendered by the rustic material, and is important historically as remnant stone from the wall of the former Brisbane Gaol on this site.
> the wrought iron and stone fence to the Petrie Terrace street frontage, which is important as remains of the stone walling of the second Brisbane Gaol perimeter, and for its aesthetic contribution to the Petrie Terrace streetscape.
> the 1912 police stables which, despite late 20th century modification, is still illustrative of its type, has a strong aesthetic appeal engendered by the materials, forms and the interior spaces, and remains important surviving evidence of the nature of police work in Queensland prior to the introduction of mechanised transportation.
> the 1936 police garage and workshop, which, despite late 20th century modification, is still illustrative of its type, and remains important in illustrating early adaptations to mechanised transportation in the interwar years of the 20th century, along with the impact of mechanised transportation on the nature of policing in Queensland at this period.
|Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> the 1938-39 police barracks, which is important as a rare example of urban residential accommodation provided for unmarried police officers in the first half of the 20th century.
|As the site of the second Brisbane Gaol, the place has the potential to yield information from archaeological deposits that would contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history, particularly aspects of the history of punishment and prisons in colonial Queensland. The now open area to the east and southeast is important as the site of many of the Gaol structures and yards. This area is also important as the grounds associated with the Former Police Barracks, accommodating residences for senior officers, garaging, parade areas and tennis courts.
Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> sub-surface remnants of the former Brisbane Gaol [1860-1883], which have strong historical, social and archaeological significance.
|The former Police Stables, former Police Garage and Workshop, former Police Barracks, former Police Wireless Transmission Station VKR, the perimeter stone and wrought iron wall along the Petrie Terrace frontage to the former Petrie Terrace Police Depot, and the stone retaining wall between the military and police reserves at the northern end of the site, form a cohesive group of buildings and structures, which together contribute to our understanding of the nature of police training and administration in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century.
Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> the 1912 police stables which, despite late 20th century modification, is still illustrative of its type, has a strong aesthetic appeal engendered by the materials, forms and the interior spaces, and remains important surviving evidence of the nature of police work in Queensland prior to the introduction of mechanised transportation.
> the 1936 police garage and workshop, which, despite late 20th century modification, is still illustrative of its type, and remains important in illustrating early adaptations to mechanised transportation in the interwar years of the 20th century, along with the impact of mechanised transportation on the nature of policing in Queensland at this period.
|The former Police Stables, former Police Garage and Workshop, former Police Barracks, former Police Wireless Transmission Station VKR, the perimeter stone and wrought iron wall along the Petrie Terrace frontage to the former Petrie Terrace Police Depot, and the stone retaining wall between the military and police reserves at the northern end of the site, form a cohesive group of buildings and structures, which together contribute to our understanding of the nature of police training and administration in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century. They have aesthetic value, and make an important contribution to the streetscape of Petrie Terrace.
Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> the stone retaining wall between the police and military reserves, which has aesthetic value engendered by the rustic material, and is important historically as remnant stone from the wall of the former Brisbane Gaol on this site.
> the wrought iron and stone fence to the Petrie Terrace street frontage, which is important as remains of the stone walling of the second Brisbane Gaol perimeter, and for its aesthetic contribution to the Petrie Terrace streetscape.
> the 1912 police stables which, despite late 20th century modification, is still illustrative of its type, has a strong aesthetic appeal engendered by the materials, forms and the interior spaces, and remains important surviving evidence of the nature of police work in Queensland prior to the introduction of mechanised transportation.
The 1938-39 police barracks place has aesthetic value. The patterning of the façades in bands of red facebrick and imitation stone render give the building a lively, defensive quality in a style reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts movement. The detailing includes decorative terracotta tile panels to the projecting parapet fronts to each elevation and vertical bands of incised arrows to the concrete door surrounds to the north, south and east entrances.
Highly visible from a number of vantage points around Brisbane City, the 1938-39 police barracks is a prominent landmark on a ridge overlooking the Brisbane central business district and former Roma Street Railway Yards, and is an impressive presence in Petrie Terrace. The place is important for views to and from the site including to/from Upper Roma Street, William Jolly Bridge and the Brisbane River, the Riverside Expressway, the Brisbane CBD, the inner western suburbs [such as from Cairns Terrace, Red Hill], and from Petrie Terrace, Milton Road, Caxton Street and Victoria Barracks.
|Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> sub-surface remnants of the former Brisbane Gaol [1860-1883], which have strong historical, social and archaeological significance.
|The Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot is important for its association with the Queensland Police Force, demonstrating the evolution of work practices and the changing nature of the lifestyle associated with police force employment in a major urban centre.
Within the Former Petrie Terrace Police Depot there are elements with specific cultural heritage significance. These include:
> the 1938-39 police barracks, which is important as as the only building to be realised from an ambitious building program of prestigious police buildings proposed for Brisbane City under the extensive public works building programme of the Forgan-Smith government of the 1930s.
The 1938-39 police barracks is important also for its association with the work of the Department of Public Works, and in particular for its association with the work of architect Raymond Clare Nowland. It is one of the most notable buildings designed by Nowland, an architect of considerable talent working in the Department of Public Works during the period of extensive public works building in the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16631,"place_ref":601895,"name":"Julius Street Flats New Farm","alternate_name":"Julius Lodge | Green Gables | Ardrossan","street_address":"15 Julius Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-08-04","description":"Ardrossan (601895a)
Ardrossan, a decorative three-storeyed rendered masonry structure with strong Spanish Mission/Mediterranean architectural styling references, is prominently located on the northern corner of Julius and Moray Streets, opposite Green Gables. The building has a hipped, corrugated fibrous cement roof, and face brickwork to ground floor sill height with stucco above. Most windows are multi-paned casements with face brick sills.
The building has a symmetrical elevation facing Julius Street to the southeast, which consists of a central section surmounted by a decorative shaped gable parapet, with projecting enclosed sleep-outs to either side. The sleep-outs have casement windows above balustrade height, and different overall detailing to each floor; the ground floor has recessed arches to the front and side; the first floor has a rectangular moulding to the balustrade section; and the second floor has an infilled lattice pattern to the balustrade section.
A recessed, covered entry is located centrally, and consists of paired timber panelled doors and sidelights with glass panels to the upper section. The glass panels to the doors have ogee shaped framing to the outer, upper corners. The entrance has a shaped arch, stylistically similar to the shaped gable to the parapet above, and is accessed via a flight of three brick steps. The entrance is surmounted by a rectangular shaped relief moulding, with a central diamond pattern and a cornice base. Above this, a central stair-light extends from the first to second floor, and contains a series of tangential arc mouldings along its length, with moulded glass panels. A narrow slit, possibly for ventilation, is located centrally in the gable parapet above. A three panel casement window is located on each floor either side of the central entrance feature.
The northeast elevation to Moray Street has an offset narrow projecting gable, surmounted by a shaped parapet, with a hipped section to the first floor, and a lower hipped section to the ground floor. The ground floor hipped section has paired arched casement windows, and the second floor hipped section has a narrow casement window to both floors.
The southwest and northwest elevations have corrugated fibrous cement sunhoods to bedroom windows. The rear verandahs are enclosed with casement windows above fibrous cement sheeted balustrades. A metal stair is located centrally at the rear accessing back landings.
The building contains two flats per floor, each accessed from a central internal staircase at the front, and an external staircase and back landing at the rear. Each flat contains two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, an enclosed front sleep-out, and an enclosed rear verandah.
The entrance staircase is constructed of varnished timber with slim balusters and square newel posts. The timber entrance doors and sidelights are also varnished, as are panelled timber front doors to each flat. Stairs and landing are also of timber. The stair-light extends from the first to the second floor. Walls are rendered masonry, and ceilings have plaster mouldings.
Each flat has decorative plaster ceilings to most rooms, and multi-paned French doors open from the main bedroom to the enclosed sleep-out. Doors, architraves and skirtings are finished in varnished timber, with plate rails to the living room. Internal walls are plastered, with paint or paper finish, and the kitchen has been refitted.
A detached single garage is located on the northern side of the building fronting Moray Street. This structure is constructed of rendered masonry, with a hipped corrugated fibrous cement roof and paired timber garage doors. Timber framed and fibrous cement sheeted garages are located adjacent to the building on the southwest. A low rendered masonry wall, with squat pillars and face brick cappings, is located along the Moray and Julius Street frontages, with metal gates to the southern driveway.
Green Gables (601895b)
Green Gables, a three-storeyed structure with a masonry ground level and timber framed and fibrous cement first and second levels, is prominently located on the southern corner of Julius Street and Moray Street, opposite Ardrossan. The building has a tiled multi-gable roof and Old English architectural styling references, and soon after construction, the building was described as containing '6 flats, each flat contains 2 bedrooms, lounge and sleeping-out verandah, smoker's balcony, kitchen and bathroom.... and four garages.' When constructed, the building had a rendered masonry ground floor on a face-brick base, the first and second storeys featured imitation half-timbering, and the sleep-outs and smoker's balconies had roll down slat blinds. Stucco has been applied to the exterior of the building covering the imitation half-timbering.
The building has a symmetrical elevation facing Julius Street to the northwest. This comprises a central recessed section containing the entrance stair and landings, with projecting wings, stepped in plan, to both sides. Either side of the entrance section, diamond paned corner windows step out to a small room with a chamfered outside corner, formerly the 'smoker's balcony', which has been enclosed with aluminium framed sliding windows. Each wing culminates in a projecting gable section, jettied at the first floor, with central diamond paned casement windows and cantilevered sunhoods, with timber shutters to the ground level. Both ends of the building have sleep-outs enclosed with aluminium sliding windows. The ground floor entrance has a screen wall with paired arched openings and a stepped, tiled parapet, with the name 'GREEN GABLES' in relief. The glass entrance door, with narrow timber mullions, is offset to the right, and two small diamond paned casement windows step up following the line of the stair, with a tall narrow diamond paned stair-light between the first and second floors.
Each end of the building has a single diamond paned casement window on the southern side, with the enclosed sleep-outs to the northern side. The ground level window has an recessed arched header. The rear of the building has a recessed central timber staircase, with projecting timber lattice screening, flanked by gable sections with aluminium framed sliding windows. A small projecting gable section, jettied at the first floor, with central casement windows and sunhoods, is located at either end.
The building contains two flats per floor, each accessed from a central internal staircase at the front, and a screened external staircase and back landing at the rear. Each flat contains two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, separate toilet, an enclosed sleep-out, and an enclosed 'smoker's balcony'.
The entrance has a timber open well staircase with winders, and square balusters and newel posts. Ground floor internal walls are rendered masonry, and first and second floor walls are timber framed with recessed fibrous cement panels.
Each flat has decorative plaster ceilings to most rooms, multi-paned French doors open from the main bedroom to the enclosed sleep-out, and multi-paned single doors open to the enclosed 'smoker's balcony'. Internal doors, architraves and skirtings are finished in painted timber, and the rear kitchen doors have glass panes to the upper section. Kitchens and bathrooms have been refitted, and timber 'tradesman's cupboards' are located outside the rear door to each flat.
Four timber framed and fibrous cement sheeted garages are located adjacent to the building on the southwest. A low brick wall, with squat pillars and a low hedge, is located along the Moray and Julius Street frontages, with a timber gate to the Moray Street entrance on the southern side. The Julius Street frontage has rows of ornamental planting.
5 Julius Street (601895c)
Lot 9 on RP 50498. The existing structures on this site are not included in the heritage listing for the Julius Street Flats.
Syncarpia (601895d)
Syncarpia, a two-storeyed structure finished in imitation half-timbering, has a tiled hipped roof and concrete stumps. The building, located between Green Gables and Ainslie, has Old English architectural styling references, and fronts Julius Street to the southeast.
The building has a symmetrical elevation to Julius Street, with a recessed central section comprising a ground floor verandah, and multi-paned casement windows with tiled hipped window hoods to the first floor. The verandah has a tiled skillion roof, timber floor, central square timber posts, and corner columns composed of chamfered posts with stucco infill panels. The multi-paned glass entrance door is located centrally, and is accessed via timber steps to the verandah. The name SYNCARPIA is painted on the fascia above the entrance steps. Timber screens divide off either end of the verandah for the private use of the adjoining flats. These have multi-paned French doors opening onto the verandah. The southeast and northeast elevations have rough-cast stucco finish to the imitation half-timbering, whereas the other elevations have a flat painted finish.
The central section is flanked by projecting end sections with central multi-paned casement windows, with tiled hipped window hoods, surmounting feature panels of diagonal half-timbering. The side elevations have multi-paned casement windows, with sunhoods on the southwest side. A single-storeyed wing, which has been added to the rear of the building to the northwest, has a tiled gable roof, concrete stumps, multi-paned casement windows, and glass louvred panels which enclose what appears to have been an open side verandah. The northwest rear elevation has multi-paned casement windows with window hoods, and a metal framed stair to a first floor landing.
When constructed, the building appears to have contained seven flats with a shared bathroom. It currently contains five self-contained flats; two ground floor and three first floor flats containing one, two and three bedrooms. Access is via a central ground floor hallway to an internal quarter turn stair with winders. The stair has a timber balustrade to the first floor, and internal walls are mostly timber framed with fibrous cement sheeting. Some rooms have decorative plaster ceilings, and kitchens and bathrooms have been refitted.
A garden area, with some established trees, is located to the north of the building, and a carport and shed are located to the northwest adjoining the rear boundary. The Julius Street frontage has a timber paling fence on a brick base enclosing two front garden areas, containing large Palm trees, separated by a central entrance pathway.
Ainslie (601895e)
Ainslie is a two-storeyed masonry structure with a tiled hipped roof with projecting gables to the southwest. The building has Old English architectural styling references, and is located between Syncarpia and Pine Lodge fronting Julius Street to the southeast. The building has stretcher bond face brickwork, with regularly spaced darker bricks giving a patterned finish, and expressed coursing at sill height.
The building has a symmetrical entrance elevation facing southwest, which consists of a central section with a ground floor verandah, with projecting enclosed sleep-outs to either side. The sleep-outs have leaded, diamond paned casement windows, and are surmounted by a gable with stucco infill. The verandah has a tiled skillion roof supported by short, paired timber posts on brick piers, and a timber balustrade with crossed central balusters, and a curved timber valance. The verandah also has a concrete floor on a brick base, with a quarter turn stair at either end with a low brick balustrade with a curved parapet. Four central entrance doors, accessing each of the flats, open off the verandah, and are flanked by leaded, diamond paned casement windows with face brick to sill height and stucco above. The first floor has stucco finish, and centrally positioned paired, arched, diamond paned windows above a basketweave patterned feature brickwork panel.
Either end of the building has multi-paned casement windows, with tiled window hoods to the ground level. The northwest end has a basement laundry, and an awning linking an adjacent single-storeyed brick residence to the northwest. The northeast rear elevation has centrally positioned enclosed verandahs to both levels, with stucco finish, casement windows, and window hoods to the ground level. The enclosed verandahs are accessed from either end by metal framed stairs.
The building contains four two bedroom flats, each with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, enclosed front sleep-out, and enclosed rear verandah. Each flat has decorative plaster ceilings to most rooms, and French doors open from the bedrooms to the enclosed sleep-out and enclosed verandah. Doors (some with upper glass panels), architraves and skirtings are finished in painted timber, with plate rails to the living room. Internal walls are plastered, with paint finish, and the kitchens and bathrooms have non-original fixtures. The southwest paired, arched, diamond paned windows light the living rooms in the two first floor flats.
Skillion roofed carports are located to the north of the building at the rear of the site.
Pine Lodge (601895f)
Pine Lodge, a two-storeyed rendered reinforced concrete structure with a tiled multi-gable roof, is located between Ainslie and Evelyn Court, fronting Julius Street to the east and overlooking the Brisbane River to the west. The building has Old English architectural styling references, quite different from the adjacent Art Deco styling of Evelyn Court which shares a very similar floor plan and similar details. The riverfront part of the site contains the remains of lime kilns [601885], which are located below a steep embankment to the west of Pine Lodge.
The symmetrical Julius Street elevation comprises two gable end sections flanking a lower central entry. The end sections have paired casement windows with concrete window hoods to both floors, and the gables have boarded ends. The entry court is recessed, with a central multi-paned French door with concrete nib and hood surround, flanked by leaded, diamond paned sash windows. The first floor projects above the entry (possibly an enclosed verandah), and has a long leaded, diamond paned casement window, and the name PINE LODGE in relief.
The end elevations are gabled and stepped in plan, culminating in a gable section with a central bay window to each floor. Each bay has leaded diamond paned casement windows, with concrete brackets, nib and hood surrounds. Both elevations have a concrete quarter-turn stair with landing at the eastern end, with a porch at the landing level, leading to the rear doors of the upper flats. The porch has chamfered upper corners and a square concrete corner post, and the stair has a solid concrete balustrade. The northern end has a basement laundry, and the southern end has two basement garages, with a small terrace area above.
The symmetrical western elevation consists of a recessed, central entrance, with bay windows to either side, flanked by projecting enclosed sleep-outs. The bay windows have leaded diamond paned casement windows (some of which have been replaced with aluminium framed sliding units), concrete brackets, nib and hood surrounds, and are surmounted by gables to the roof. The sleep-outs have leaded diamond paned casement windows above balustrade height (some of which have also been replaced with sliding aluminium framed units), with chamfered upper corners and non-original window hoods. The design and detailing of the sleep-outs indicate that they may have been enclosed after construction. The central entrance has multi-paned French doors accessed via concrete steps. A concrete path, which is located along the front of the western elevation, is bordered by a fence with concrete piers and a metal railing above a steep embankment.
Pine Lodge contains four two bedroom flats, each with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room and enclosed sleep-out. Each flat is accessed via a central hall and stair, and also a rear entry. The central stair is constructed of concrete with terrazzo treads and a concrete balustrade. Each flat has decorative plaster ceilings to most rooms, and multi-paned French doors open from the main bedroom to the enclosed sleep-out. Doors, architraves and skirtings are finished in painted timber, with plate rails to the living and dining rooms. Leaded diamond paned swing doors separate the living and dining rooms. Internal walls are plastered with paint or paper finish, and the kitchens have been refitted.
A single-storeyed concrete double garage, with a tiled gable roof, is located to the southeast of the building, with its rear wall built on top of the remains of the lime kilns below. The driveway, which is shared with the adjoining Evelyn Court, is located to the south of the building. The Julius Street frontage has a concrete fence with a central metal gate. A garden area is located to the north of the building, with access to stairs which lead down to the riverbank below. A disused single-storeyed rendered masonry boat shed, with a corrugated fibrous cement gable roof, is located on the riverbank to the west of Pine Lodge. The boat shed has scribed render to imitate ashlar, casement windows and a rear timber door. The site contains established trees and plantings.
Evelyn Court (601895g)
Evelyn Court, a three-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a trafficable flat roof, is located between Pine Lodge and Julius Lodge, fronting Julius Street to the northeast and overlooking the Brisbane River to the west. The building has Art Deco architectural styling references, quite different from the adjacent Old English styling of Pine Lodge which shares a very similar floor plan and similar details.
The building was originally designed with a hipped roof, similar to Pine Lodge, but at some stage of construction the design was altered to accommodate a flat roof. The exterior treatment of the building was also altered, with Art Deco styling emphasising vertical elements and a stepped parapet.
The symmetrical western elevation consists of a recessed central entrance, with bay windows to either side, flanked by projecting enclosed sleep-outs. The recessed central entrance, accessed via a quarter-turn concrete stair with landing, has a concrete canopy supported by stylised columns, and a metal balustrade. Each level above has a casement window, and the roof has a large curved parapet, higher than the adjacent parapet. The bays have mostly leaded diamond paned casement windows, concrete brackets, nib and hood surrounds. The sleep-outs have mostly leaded diamond paned casement windows above balustrade height, continuous concrete window hoods which wrap around onto the side elevation, and a diamond pattern in relief to the corner wall sections.
The end elevations are stepped in plan, culminating in a projecting section with a bay window to each floor. Each bay has mostly leaded diamond paned casement windows, with concrete brackets, nib and hood surrounds. The northern end of the building has the name EVELYN COURT in relief on the parapet above the bay section. Both elevations have concrete quarter-turn stairs with landings at the eastern end, with a porch at the landing level, leading to the rear doors of the first and second floor flats (the stairs to the second floor flats have more flights). The porches have chamfered upper corners and square concrete corner posts, and the stairs have metal rail balustrade with a circular pattern. A disused garbage chute is adjacent to each porch. The below floor area of the southern end of the building has been enclosed to form a small, one bedroom flat.
The symmetrical northeast rear elevation comprises two end sections flanking a recessed central entry. The end sections have paired, mostly leaded diamond paned casement windows with concrete window hoods to each floor. The entry is recessed, with a central door flanked by diamond paned casement windows. A doorway from the landing between the first and second floors opens to an external cantilevered concrete stair with a metal balustrade which accesses the roof.
Evelyn Court contains six two bedroom flats, each with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room and enclosed sleep-out. Each flat is accessed via a central hall and stair, and also a rear entry. The central stair is constructed of concrete with a metal balustrade, and the hall has a terrazzo floor. Each flat has decorative plaster ceilings to most rooms, and French doors with leaded glass panels open from the main bedroom to the enclosed sleep-out. Joinery is stained or painted, and leaded diamond paned swing doors separate the living and dining rooms in most flats. Internal walls are plastered, kitchens have been refitted, and bathrooms retain original black and white tiling. The roof has been covered in layers or bitumen in an attempt to correct waterproofing problems.
A row of garages, located along the southern boundary of the site, is accessed via a concrete driveway along the western side of Evelyn Court. The riverbank contains some established trees and plantings.
Julius Street (601895h)
Julius Street, a short and narrow cul-de-sac, is surrounded by a highly intact group of 1930s flat buildings, and as such is recognised by the local community as a distinct place.
","history":"Julius Street Flats, consisting of seven properties comprising Ardrossan, Green Gables, 5 Julius Street, Syncarpia, Ainslie, Pine Lodge, and Evelyn Court, are located fronting Julius Street, a short cul-de-sac off Moray Street, New Farm. Two of the properties, Evelyn Court and Pine Lodge, have frontage to the Brisbane River. The seven properties were constructed between 1934 and 1938 on a parcel of land subdivided in 1933 by Julius Rosenfeld, who had operated Rosenfeld's Sawmill on the site from c.1924.
The land on which the properties are located was originally part of a larger parcel for which a Deed of Grant was issued to John McConnel in January 1845. Part of this land, eastern suburban allotments 14 and 15, was later transferred to his brother David Cannon McConnel (1818-1885), an early Queensland pastoralist who in 1841 had established Cressbrook [600503] in the Brisbane River Valley, the second run in the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales.
In 1876, the land on which the Julius Street properties are located was transferred to William Henry Barker and Frederick Hamilton Hart, and a Certificate of Title was issued in February of that year.
From June 1876 to December 1878, businessman James Campbell acquired subs 48, 49 and 50 of ESA 15 and sub 51 of ESA 15A. The firm of James Campbell and Sons specialised in building materials including lime, cement, plaster and timber, and operated timber mills, plantations, lime works and pottery kilns in a number of locations in south east Queensland, as well as Campbell's wharf and warehouse at Creek Street, Brisbane. The firm also established a thriving shipping trade with a substantial fleet of freight vessels.
The area surrounding subs 48-51 of ESA 15 and 15A was still largely undeveloped when James Campbell applied to the Brisbane Municipal Council for permission to establish a lime kiln on Bowen Terrace, below Langshaw Street, in 1878. In addition to the kiln, Campbell built a wharf and transported limestone, and later timber, to the site. In 1882 Campbell opened the Langshaw Planing Mills and Joinery Works on the property, and later a second lime kiln was constructed. The remains of lime kilns [601885] are located near the river bank below Pine Lodge.
In July 1897 the property was transferred to Thomas Hanmer, who retained it until August 1914, when it was transferred to James Green. A plan titled Campbell's Wharf New Farm, thought to date from 1904, shows lime kilns in ruins with an adjoining iron shed, a retaining wall at the high water mark with a short wharf, and the location of remnants of Campbell's Sawmill.
In January 1924, the property was acquired by Julius Rosenfeld who resumed timber milling on the site. Julius Rosenfeld operated Rosenfeld & Sons saw and planning mills, a subsidiary of Rosenfeld & Company Ltd which was based in Sydney.
A disastrous fire in February 1931 destroyed the mill, and in 1933 Rosenfeld subdivided the land into seven residential allotments surrounding a short cul-de-sac, and two allotments fronting Moray Street. This cul-de-sac was named Julius Street, and was dedicated by the Brisbane City Council in February 1934.
The seven properties fronting Julius Street, and two fronting Moray Street, were transferred as follows:
November 1933, resub 4 of sub 50 to Edmund Christian Hay Dixon and Ernestine Gertrude Mary Symons Dixon (site adjacent to Green Gables)
February 1934, resub 6 of subs 47 and 48 to Fred and Ethel Havill (Ainslie site)
February 1934, resub 5 of subs 47 and 48 to Geraldine Letitia Walsh (Syncarpia site)
March 1934, resub 2 of subs 47 and 48 to Mary and Maud Molloy (Ardrossan site)
July 1934, resub 9 of subs 49 and 50 to Jack Massie Garnett-Botfield (5 Julius Street site)
May 1935, resub 1 of sub 47 (site adjacent to Ardrossan), resub 3 of subs 49 and 50 (Green Gables site), resub 7 of subs 47 and 48 (Pine Lodge site), and resub 8 of subs 49 and 50 (Evelyn Court site) to Ernest William Mazlin.
Seven blocks of flats surrounding Julius Street were constructed between 1934-1938. This group of 1930s flat buildings is quite rare in Brisbane. This may be due to changes in Brisbane City Council ordinances regulating flat development which effectively precluded this type of development occurring after 1936-37.
Development of the flat or apartment building in Brisbane during the interwar period.
The purpose designed flat/apartment building emerged as a new form of residential accommodation in Brisbane during the 1920s. Brisbane, in comparison to Sydney and Melbourne, was slow to adopt this form of flat development, but the practice of converting old houses to flats was well established.
By at least the 1910s, Brisbane was following an Australia wide trend of converting larger houses to flats. The incidence of house conversions to flats grew dramatically during the 1920s and 1930s, a period of severe housing shortage in Brisbane. It was not unusual for a single-family dwelling to be converted to a two-family residence, or for a flat to be created underneath a high-set house by filling in between the stumps. Some of these conversions were architect planned, and had Brisbane City Council approval, but many were not, and provided a constant source of concern for the authorities who feared the creation of slum suburbs. The interwar growth of flats of all types in Brisbane posed a major dilemma for local government and for the construction industry.
The severe housing shortage was due mainly to an increasingly buoyant Queensland economy and substantial population growth, as a result of both natural increase and immigration. A rising Brisbane population combined with a substantial fall in the numbers of workers cottages being constructed, created a severe housing shortage. Also, rising rates, maintenance and related costs forced many owners to convert larger houses in flats and to subdivide large parcels of land.
The second form of flat development in the interwar years was the purpose-designed flat or apartment building. Such structures varied considerably in quality and amenity. There were three main types: moderate-rental blocks; more prestigious and luxury flats or apartments; and the bachelor flat. Sometimes these were combined with professional chambers or shops.
The most prominent of the interwar flat building were the substantial, architect-designed blocks aimed at the higher and more long-term rental market. In general, these flats were erected in single blocks usually two or three stories, masonry or a combination of masonry, timber and fibrous cement, and on average comprised six to eight flats. Up to date facilities, including built-ins in the kitchen and bathroom, a refrigerator, hot water system, and telephone, were important selling features. By the 1930s, some were providing facilities such as garbage chutes to a basement incinerator, and garage accommodation. In the most prestigious blocks, a maids bedroom was included with each self-contained apartment. Mostly, the blocks presented handsome street facades, predominantly in the fashionable Old English, Spanish Mission or Mediterranean architectural styles favoured by architects of much of the more prestigious domestic housing in Brisbane during the interwar period. Flats designed in the modernist, Art Deco and Functionalist schools were much rarer.
The single bedroom-cum-sitting room was the precursor to the bachelor flat. The construction of single-sex bachelor flats was a reflection of contemporary Brisbane attitudes which considered flats inappropriate places in which to raise a family, and the mixing of single persons of both sexes in flat buildings was viewed as undesirable and conducive to immoral behaviour. Flats were largely thought of as catering to a floating population and, along with the lifestyle changes necessitated when living beyond the detached house and garden, were yet to be accepted as permanent homes.
In August 1933, a contributor to the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland envisaged Brisbane developing 'a district largely composed of flat dwellings, similar to Darlinghurst in Sydney or St Kilda in Melbourne', which many had thought unlikely. In September 1933, the Courier Mail approached a 'prominent Brisbane architect' to comment on the sudden boom in flat construction in Brisbane. A strong trend toward preferences for flat life over suburban housing was identified, the reduction in the size of the average family being considered an important contributing factor. Another rationale may have been economic reasons accounting for the popularity in flat buildings; many working people found that the costs of land, finance, utilities etc were too expensive and they were turning to rented accommodation in the new well appointed flat and apartment buildings, which in turn created a strong environment for further investment in flat buildings.
Few blocks of flats appear to have been constructed in Brisbane prior to the early to mid-1920s. Suburbs like New Farm were scarcely touched by flat development until the 1930s when substantial numbers of new apartment buildings were constructed. The construction of flat buildings in Brisbane peaked in 1936-37, with a decline in 1938-39 partly due to the uncertain investment climate generated by threats of war in Europe, and partly due to the refusal of banking and financial institutions to lend on flat constructions.
The up-turn in flat construction in the mid-1930s echoed a strong improvement in the Brisbane building industry as a whole, which in 1935 had seen a 67.2% increase in expenditure. The most substantial growth was in the residential sector, with a boom in house building and 'phenomenal activity' in flat construction; the number in 1935 exceeding the combined totals of the previous two years. In 1935, 121 flat projects including house conversions were approved by the BCC. Brisbane's housing shortage was acute, and flat buildings were filling a gap in the rental market. Housing shortages continued into 1937, with rents increasing 10% on the previous year. Surprisingly, flat construction declined around this period due to the 'stringency of finance' for flat construction.
Ownership laws also contributed to the type of flats which were constructed during the interwar period. In Brisbane, terrace houses were usually intended as rental investments rather than for resale, and the flat buildings of the 1920s and 1930s appear to have been constructed under similar laws relating to tenement buildings. Strata Title was not available in Queensland until 1965, with the introduction of the Building Units Titles Act.
Company Title, in which the land and the building are owned by shareholders who have rights to exclusive use of flats within the building, and areas not allocated for exclusive use (common areas) is understood to have been first employed in Brisbane with the construction of Torbreck Home Units 1958-59. Lease schemes, whereby a developer owns the land and building and leases individual flats to the 'owners' may have been in operation much earlier. The leases are long term (eg 99 years) and contain covenants to regulate the management of the scheme. Tenancy in common schemes, a form of cooperative ownership in which a group of people own the land and building as tenants in common in agreed shares, may have been employed in Brisbane in the 1930s, when the cooperative housing model based on American systems of cooperative apartment houses first was being promoted in Australia.
It would appear however that the bulk of the flats erected in Brisbane in the interwar period were rental investments.
Investors favoured centrally located positions, close to workplaces, shopping facilities, entertainment and schools, with easy access to public transport. Proximity to a tramline was particularly important, and when the Julius Street flats were constructed, trams ran up Moray Street past Julius Street. This lead to a concentration of flat buildings around the principal tramlines running along Brunswick and Moray Streets in New Farm; Hamilton and Sandgate Roads in Hamilton, Ascot, and Clayfield area; Petrie Terrace; Leichhardt Street and St Paul's Terrace in Spring Hill; Grey, Vulture, Melbourne and Stanley Streets in South Brisbane; and Gladstone Road through to Dutton Park. Gregory Terrace, with access to tramlines within easy walking distance, and Wickham Terrace virtually in the Central Business District, were also favoured locations. Kangaroo Point, whilst devoid of a tramline or railway, was close to the CBD, which could be accessed by ferry.
Level sites were popular, and corner blocks were particularly sought after, as they provided each flat with greater access to light and ventilation.
To some extent, flats were viewed as an unavoidable outcome of modern life, and a certain amount of government and industry quality control was enforced. The underlying fear amongst all groups was that indiscriminate and uncontrolled flat development would lead to the creation of city slums.
BCC ordinances, adopted in 1926, included controls over flat developments; both new construction and house conversions. These controls regulated the percentage of the site which could be covered by a flat development; boundary and street alignment setbacks; the provision of separate facilities; soundproofing and privacy. Perhaps the most significant of the ordinances that controlled the flat developments stated that 'tenements shall not occupy more than 50% of the allotment of land on which it stands, but when the building is not more than three stories in height it may occupy two-thirds of the allotment'. As a result, Brisbane's interwar flats rarely exceeded three storeys.
Zoning was a new concept for Brisbane, and one which was being promoted heavily by the Town Planning Association and the Queensland Institute of Architects during the interwar years. A zoning map had been prepared by previous councils, and in 1935 the BCC appointed a town planning committee. In 1936, the BCC prepared amended regulations to further control the development of flats, which included; no flats permitted on land with a road of less than 50 links in width; no multiple-family building to cover a greater ground area than half the land upon which it is built; multiple-family dwellings to be restricted to two-storeys in height, unless constructed of brick, concrete, or other similar fire-resisting material where height may be increased to three stories (possibly further in exceptional cases). More regulations controlling house conversions, which were seen as developing slum areas, were introduced by the BCC in 1937.
Development of each of the seven Julius Street flat buildings
Ardrossan (601895a)
In March 1934, resub 2 of subs 47 and 48 was transferred to sisters Mary and Maud Molloy (spinsters) of Bowen Terrace, New Farm. In September 1936, the adjacent allotment, resub 1 of sub 47, was transferred to Mary and Maud Molloy from Ernest William Mazlin.
Ardrossan was designed by prominent Brisbane architects Chambers and Ford in 1934. The contractor was F Lee of Albion, and tender price was £3,500. Chambers and Ford practised in Brisbane from 1920 to 1951, and were responsible for the design of a number of apartment buildings in Brisbane during the interwar period.
The building, a decorative three-storeyed rendered masonry structure with strong Spanish Mission/Mediterranean architectural styling references, is prominently located on the corner of Julius and Moray Streets. The building retains most of its original fabric and contains six flats, each accessed from a central staircase and containing two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, an enclosed front sleep-out, and an enclosed rear verandah. When built, the front sleep-outs had roll down slat blinds.
When completed, Miss Mary Molloy resided in apartment no. 4, letting the remainder out. Soon after it was completed, a photograph of Ardrossan was featured in the Queenslander in February 1935 with the caption 'The latest in flats- This block of six flats....indicates the latest trend in flat building in Brisbane.' During the Second World War, the owners/residents of the Julius Street flats constructed a dug-out air raid shelter in the grounds behind Ardrossan.
Mary Molloy died in February 1957, and the property was transferred to Donald James Shaw in November of that year. The property was transferred to the current owner in October 1967.
Green Gables (601895b)
In May 1935, resub 3 of subs 49 and 50 was transferred to Ernest William Mazlin. This land was then transferred to Charles Robinson, of Kingaroy, in July 1935. At this time, EW Mazlin had acquired the sites for Evelyn Court (resub 8 of subs 49 and 50), Pine Lodge (resub 7 of subs 47 and 48) and the land adjacent to Ardrossan, (resub 1 of sub 47). Refer to Evelyn Court history for details concerning EW Mazlin.
It appears that Green Gables was constructed by Charles Robinson in 1935, but as yet no architect or contractor has been identified. It is possible that Robinson had a connection with EW Mazlin, as at this time EW Mazlin had been residing at his fathers home at 16 Dublin Street, Clayfield, and a Charles Robinson is first listed in the Post Office Directory as residing at 5 Dublin Street, Clayfield in 1934. EW Mazlin then moved to Sandgate Road, Clayfield. The Mazlin family were involved in building construction, and Robinson had purchased the site from Mazlin in July 1935 and Green Gables was being tenanted by August 1935, though it is certain if it was actually completed by this date. This may suggest that the design of the building was in place at purchase, and that Mazlin was involved in the construction. However, this connection has not been confirmed.
The property was sold to Anastasia Weitemeyer in February 1936 for £4750. Anastasia Weitemeyer (nee Gorey) and her husband Christian Ernest owned the Gympie Hotel, Bundaberg, and moved to Brisbane c.1936. Anastasia's parents had owned hotels, and she inherited various properties in areas such as Bundaberg, Maryborough, Gympie and Kalbar. They lived for a few years at 'Infracombe', Bonney Avenue, Clayfield, before moving into flat no. 4, Green Gables c.1940. They had a daughter, Doris, who later inherited the property, and two sons who were killed during the Second World War. Christian Ernest Weitemeyer's parents were Danish settlers who had pioneered the Maleny/Montville region.
Green Gables, a three-storeyed structure with a masonry ground level and timber framed and fibrous cement first and second levels, is prominently located on the corner of Julius Street and Moray Street, opposite Ardrossan. The building has Old English architectural styling references, and at the time of sale, the building was described as containing '6 flats, each flat contains 2 bedrooms, lounge and sleeping-out verandah, smoker's balcony, kitchen and bathroom.... and four garages.' The upper four flats were tenanted at £2/5/- per week, and the ground floor at £2/-/-. When constructed, the building had a rendered masonry ground floor, with the first and second storeys featuring imitation half-timbering, and some ground floor windows had timber shutters. The sleep-outs and smoker's balconies had roll down slat blinds, and a generator to power the refrigerators was located behind the rear stair. The first and second floors were painted pale green, with the ground floor a darker shade of green.
Stucco was applied to the exterior of the building c.1941. It is thought that this was done to make the building appear as if it were constructed of masonry, and this may have been a reaction to the BCC ordinances, introduced soon after the building's construction, concerning fire-resistant construction. The rear stair was also enclosed with timber lattice at this time.
The open sleep-outs and smoker's balconies were gradually enclosed, from the late 1940s to early 1950s. The southwest flats were completed first, with louvred timber panels initially, and later casement windows, and more recently aluminium framed sliding windows.
Anastasia Weitemeyer lived at Green Gables until her death in September 1969, when the property was transferred to her daughter Doris McDonald who, with her husband John and family, resided at the property until it was sold to the current owners in 1984. Green Gables was Strata Titled in September 1992.
Green Gables has had several long term tenants, an example of whom was Douglas Charles Lohrey Smith, a statistician, and his wife, who first rented a flat from Charles Robinson in August 1935. Douglas Smith lived there until his death in 1979.
5 Julius Street (Julius Lodge, formerly Nanmara) (601895c)
In July 1934, resub 9 of subs 49 and 50 was transferred to Jack Massie Garnett-Botfield, who transferred the property to Sydney Morey in November of that year. In December 1934, the property was transferred to Beatrice Ellen Nichols (spinster) and Robert Sydney Melloy. In the 1938-39 rates details, RS Melloy is recorded as working in the AMP Building, Queen Street.
Julius Lodge, originally named Nanmara, was built for Mr RS Melloy and Miss BE Nichols, and plans were approved by the BCC in November 1934. The building was described at the time of construction as being two-storeyed of brick and fibro construction with a tile roof. The building contained eight flats, four flats per floor, and each flat contained one bedroom, a living room, kitchen, bathroom and verandah. The contractor was Mr S Conwell of Holland Park, and the building was constructed at a cost of £2420. No architect has been identified. Each flat has a front entrance, with rear access from a central corridor, and reports indicate that the exterior of the building originally had imitation half-timbering.
The building has had a second bedroom added to each flat, to each of the four corners of the structure. These additions are constructed of masonry, and the verandahs have been enclosed. Stucco has been applied to the exterior of the building.
In May 1959, the property was transferred to Oswald and Emily Grant. In March 1960, the property was transferred to John Dennis Collins, who may have changed its name from Nanmara to Julius Lodge. Collins retained it until his death in July 1976, when it was transferred to Patrick James Collins and Maxine Hefferman. Julius Lodge was transferred to the current owners in September 1986.
Syncarpia (601895d)
In February 1934, resub 5 of subs 47 and 48 was transferred to Mrs Geraldine Letitia Walsh, for whom Syncarpia was built. The building was designed as an 'apartment house' by Brisbane architects Addison and Macdonald in 1934. The contractor was JR Holmes of Mt Tamborine, and the tender price was £1665. Addison and Macdonald practised in Brisbane from 1928 to 1940.
The building is a two storeyed timber framed structure with imitation half-timbering and stucco infill panels. The name of the building, Syncarpia, is the generic name for Turpentine which is a type of timber used in ship building and in marine environments. The name may have been chosen in connection to the site's former use as a sawmill.
When completed, Mrs GL Walsh resided in apartment no. 1, letting the remainder out. The building appears to have contained seven flats when constructed, with a shared bathroom. A single-storeyed rear wing was added sometime after 1937. Initially, the building was rented only to males, but later reports suggest that Syncarpia became a boarding house for single females.
Syncarpia remained in the ownership of the Walsh family, transferring to Peter Joseph Walsh and Patrick Leonard Vincent Walsh in December 1963, until March 1980 when it was transferred to William Valmond. The property was transferred to Michael Bunder in June 1984, and later the building was converted into five flats which were Strata Titled in June 1994 and transferred to the current owners.
Ainslie (601895e)
In February 1934, resub 6 of subs 47 and 48 was transferred to Fred and Ethel Havill.
Ainslie was built in 1934-35 by Fred and Ethel Havill, owners and contractors, who resided at Merthyr Road, New Farm. It appears that the property may have been a speculative venture, as it was transferred John Stapleton in August 1935. The Havill family were involved in a number of flat/apartment building developments during that period of the 1930s in Brisbane, and in particular New Farm. H Havill had also been involved in the construction of Pine Lodge, and had also submitted a tender for Ardrossan.
Ainslie is a two storeyed masonry structure and contains four two bedroom flats, with a kitchen, bathroom, front sleep-out (enclosed), and rear verandah (enclosed). Each apartment has front and rear access, with an entry porch on the southwest side and, similar to a number of the other Julius Street flat/apartment buildings, Ainslie has Old English architectural styling references.
John Stapleton died in April 1941, and the property was transferred to trustees until December 1953 when it was transferred to Herbert Antcliff. In December 1958, the site was amalgamated with the rear allotment, and a masonry residence was later constructed across the allotment boundary. Antcliff died in July 1964, since which time the property has had several owners. The property was transferred to the current owners in December 1984.
Pine Lodge (formerly Aloha Court) (601895f)
In May 1935, resub 7 of subs 47 and 48 was transferred to Ernest William Mazlin. At this time, EW Mazlin also acquired the site for Evelyn Court (resub 8 of subs 49 and 50), as well as the site for Green Gables (resub 3 of subs 49 and 50) and the land adjacent to Ardrossan (resub 1 of sub 47), both of which were sold soon after.
Pine Lodge, originally named Aloha Court, was constructed by owner contractor Ernest William Mazlin of Sandgate Road, Clayfield.
EW Mazlin's father William Mazlin was one of four brothers who pioneered the Atherton Tableland in 1880. Thomas, James and John were interested in procuring cedar and in 1881 their youngest brother William located a vast stand at a place he named Cedar Creek, now Ravenshoe. The Mazlin brothers were also heavily involved in mining. William Mazlin married Isabella Pasley and in March 1883 became the first selector on the Evelyn Tableland, not far from Herberton. His house, Orange Grove, still stands, and Ernest William was the eldest of eleven children born at Evelyn. Ernest was born on 9 September 1884, and known as Will, was educated at Evelyn and Herberton State Schools and later gained a Diploma in Engineering as an external student of the University of Queensland. He became a builder, cabinet maker and contractor, but was best known as the proprietor of a large sawmill in Ravenshoe. He also played a prominent role in the civic affairs of Ravenshoe and the surrounding district. Ernest married Ann White in 1912, and they had no children.
Ernest's father William moved his family to Brisbane c.1918. He built a house at 16 Dublin Street, Clayfield (extant) which he named 'Evelyn' in memory of his years pioneering on the Atherton and Evelyn Tablelands. Ernest Mazlin and his wife moved to Brisbane c.1934 and initially resided at his fathers house at 16 Dublin Street, Clayfield. They moved to 842-854 New Sandgate Road, Clayfield in 1935, with a George Oxnam at a property later named Ivondale Flats. Ernest and his brother Herbert appear to have purchased land and built speculative houses in Brisbane, and Ernest was involved in sawmills with his brother Percy. Ernest died on 5 June 1968 in Brisbane.
EW Mazlin and Julius Rosenfeld had an agreement concerning Mazlin's Ravenshoe mill and the land at Julius Street, New Farm. The details of the agreement are not known, but included the transfer of the Julius Street allotments to EW Mazlin in May 1935, and the Ravenshoe mill to Rosenfeld in 1934 which, by this time was operating as the Rosenfeld & Sons saw and planning mills. The agreement appears to have included options over other land, which Rosenfeld could exercise, for logging purposes and the use of the subsequent cleared land. Eric Rosenfeld, who operated Rosenfeld's Ravenshoe mill, was also a Cairns merchant who was involved in exporting timber from other sawmills, such as Pearson Brothers sawmill, Evelyn Tablelands, to London.
Initially, four of the nine allotments were transferred to EW Mazlin; two river front, one corner and one fronting Moray Street. It appears that RV Brady, builder of Ashgrove, who was also involved in the construction of Evelyn Court, was involved in the construction of Pine Lodge, however invoices indicate that Mazlin paid for materials, subcontractor's wages and sundries. The building was constructed in 1935, and records indicate that the total cost of the building was £4402, but in comparison to the relative costs of the other apartment buildings in Julius Street, this figure seems excessive. Pine Lodge shares the same floor plan as Evelyn Court adjacent, and it appears that both buildings were planned by June 1935 when both allotments were subdivided to allow for driveway access. No architect has been identified, however RV Brady was the author of the plans for the adjacent Evelyn Court, which shares the same floor plan, and the Mazlin family were involved in several building projects in Brisbane. Pine Lodge (Aloha Court) was first registered with the BCC as a 'flat building' in March 1936.
Pine Lodge is a two-storeyed reinforced concrete structure containing four two bedroom flats with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room and enclosed sleep-out. Each unit is accessed via a central hall and stair, and also a rear entry. The building has projecting window bays, with a similar floor plan and detailing to the adjoining Evelyn Court. The building has Old English architectural styling references, quite different to the adjacent Art Deco styling of Evelyn Court. The building is built near the edge of a steep embankment/cutting above the remains of two lime kilns [601885], and overlooking the Brisbane River.
In 1941, the property was transferred to Ralph David Sigmund Schureck who worked for Austral Lighting Co in Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. Since that time, the property has had a number of changes of ownership, and was transferred to the current owners in July 1989.
Evelyn Court (601895g)
In May 1935, resub 8 of subs 49 and 50 was transferred to Ernest William Mazlin. At this time, EW Mazlin also acquired the site for Pine Lodge (resub 7 of subs 47 and 48), as well as the site for Green Gables (resub 3 of subs 49 and 50) and the land adjacent to Ardrossan (resub 1 of sub 47), both of which were sold soon after.
Evelyn Court was constructed by owner contractor Ernest William Mazlin of Sandgate Road, Clayfield. (Refer to the Pine Lodge History for details)
The site plan for Evelyn Court appears to have been determined, along with Pine Lodge, by June 1935 when both allotments were subdivided to allow for driveway access. The building is shown on a BCC sewerage detail plan dated 1937, however construction was not completed until 1938. The plans for the building are signed by RV Brady, builder of Ashgrove, who may also have been the contractor, or worked for EW Mazlin in a supervisory capacity, as in some instances invoices were addressed to both Mazlin and Brady.
The building was originally designed with a hipped roof, similar to Pine Lodge, but at some stage of construction the design was altered to accommodate a flat roof. The specification for the building specifies a hipped roof. A flat roof, as detailed in Australian Gypsum Products Pty Ltd technical brochures, was constructed. The roof had waterproofing problems, and was resealed several times throughout the 1940s. Since that time, bituminous material has been applied to the roof several times. The exterior treatment of the building was also altered with Art Deco styling emphasising vertical elements and a stepped parapet.
The building was tenanted in December 1938 at £2/15/- per week, however work was being completed in early 1939. BCC files indicate that the building was first registered as a 'flat building' in 1939.
Evelyn Court is a three storeyed masonry structure containing six two bedroom flats with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room and enclosed sleep-out. Each unit is accessed via a central hall and stair, and a rear entry. The building has projecting window bays, with a similar floor plan and detailing to the adjoining Pine Lodge. The building has Art Deco architectural styling references, quite different to the adjacent Old English styling of Pine Lodge. The building also has a one bedroom flat underneath, which appears to have been enclosed at a later date. The building has garbage chutes to an incinerator (no longer in use), and a flat roof with stair access from the top foyer.
Evelyn Court shares the same name as Ernest's father's house 'Evelyn', 16 Dublin Street, Clayfield, and 'Evelyn' the family property near the Evelyn Tablelands in Far North Queensland.
In January 1951, Evelyn Court was transferred to Doris Margaret Back, Joan Cosby Back, Victor Merfyn Houseman, and Gloria Elaine Houseman. Since that time, the property has had a number of different owners, and was transferred to the current owners in March 1996.
Julius Street (601895h)
Julius Street was dedicated by the Brisbane City Council in February 1934, and was named after Julius Rosenfeld. Reports indicate that the Julius Street flat buildings originally had well maintained gardens, which existed well into the 1960s, and remnants of which survive.
Julius Street, a short and narrow cul-de-sac, is surrounded by a highly intact group of 1930s flat buildings, and as such is recognised by the local community as having a distinct sense of place. This sense of place is reflected in the diverse social history associated with the place. This perception has also been reinforced by the identification of all of the Julius Street properties in the New Farm and Teneriffe Hill Development Control Plan as places of cultural heritage significance, and the recent actions of resident groups.
","criteria":"The Julius Street Flats, consisting of seven properties comprising Ardrossan, Green Gables, 5 Julius Street, Syncarpia, Ainslie, Pine Lodge, and Evelyn Court, are located fronting Julius Street, a short cul-de-sac off Moray Street, New Farm. The seven properties were constructed between 1934 and 1938 on a parcel of land subdivided in 1933 by Julius Rosenfeld, who had operated Rosenfeld's Sawmill on the site from c.1924. The place is important in demonstrating the pattern of residential development in Brisbane, and in particular New Farm, during the interwar period when substantial numbers of flat/apartment buildings were constructed. The increase in the number of flat/apartment buildings being constructed during this period, particularly the mid 1930s, demonstrates the increase in Brisbane's population and the subsequent high demand for accommodation due to a shortage of housing. It also reflects changing community attitudes to desirable and acceptable forms of housing. The place, together with the associated remnant lime kilns [601885], is also important in demonstrating the former semi-industrial usage of the New Farm riverfront.
|The place is important as a rare example of a group of highly intact 1930s flat/apartment buildings. This rarity is partly the result of Brisbane City Council ordinances changing in 1936-37, which effectively precluded this type of development occurring after that time. The subdivision and subsequent development of the former Rosenfeld Sawmill site occurred over a short period of time, with all of the flat/apartment buildings having been designed, and most built, from c.1934-35.
|The place demonstrates the three main types of purpose designed flat buildings being designed and constructed in Brisbane during the interwar period. These include the bachelor flat, the moderate rental blocks, and the more prestigious architect designed blocks. The Julius Street Flats also demonstrate the fashionable styles, including Old English, Spanish Mission or Mediterranean, favoured by architects of much of the more prestigious domestic housing in Brisbane during the interwar period. Flats designed in the modernist, Art Deco and Functionalist schools were much rarer. The place is also important as it includes Ardrossan, an important example of a flat/apartment building designed by prominent Brisbane architects Chambers and Ford.
|Julius Street, a short and narrow cul-de-sac, is surrounded by a highly intact group of 1930s flat buildings, and as such is recognised as having a distinct sense of place. The Julius Street Flats have considerable aesthetic significance as a highly intact group of 1930s flat buildings, designed in a range of fashionable styles favoured by architects of much of the more prestigious domestic housing in Brisbane during the interwar period. The place is important as it contains some examples of particular architectural merit, and through its massing, scale, form, materials and detailing, makes an important contribution to the Moray Street streetscape, and to the urban fabric of New Farm. The place also makes an important aesthetic contribution to the Brisbane River.
|The place has strong associations with the local community, which is reflected in its diverse social history, and its importance is demonstrated through recent resident action to ensure its conservation.
|The place is important because, through its former use as a site for a sawmill, its subdivision and subsequent development, it has a special association with Julius Rosenfeld and Ernest Mazlin, and their contribution to the timber milling industry in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16634,"place_ref":601898,"name":"Wright Family Houses","alternate_name":"Oaklands (100 Mt Crosby Road) | Wrightson (106 Mt Crosby Road)","street_address":"98/100/106 Mt Crosby Road","suburb":"TIVOLI","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-01-30","description":"The Wright Family Houses are located on large allotments fronting Mt Crosby Road in Tivoli, north of the Ipswich city centre. Each allotment is long with a narrower frontage to Mt Crosby Road. The allotments extends down a gully toward a branch of Sandy Creek, where Perseverance Mine was located. All three houses are well set back from the road and are of timber construction with a square floor plan.
98 Mt Crosby Road
The residence at 98 Mt Crosby Road has a short-ridge pyramid roof and is sheeted in corrugated iron. The front verandah has been removed. A section of side verandah on the southern side of the house remains with its iron lace balustrade, its posts, brackets and capitals, and an acroterian remains on at least one corner of the roof guttering. The iron lace is similar to or identical with that of the earlier house, Oaklands, at 100 Mt Crosby Road, and the brackets are similar or identical with those on the later house, Wrightson, at 106 Mt Crosby Road. Walls facing the former front verandah are single-skin, vertically-jointed boards with horizontal bracing. Under the main roof are 5 bedrooms, a sleepout, study, formal lounge with marble and tiled fireplace, dining room, living room, and a kitchen. A small hip-roof structure at the right of the house is sheeted in corrugated iron and may originally have functioned as a service wing or business office.
No internal site inspection of 98 Mt Crosby Road has been possible for this assessment.
100 Mt Crosby Road [Oaklands]
Oaklands, at 100 Mt Crosby Road, is surrounded by a well-established garden, which provides strong evidence of early garden layout and includes a number of mature fig trees in the front yard. Early tiled garden-edging remains lining the borders of the front path leading to the main entrance of the house. The house has a short-ridge pyramid roof clad in corrugated iron, with two corbelled chimeystacks of brick construction rising above. Paired decorative brackets to the eaves of the main roof are located on all façades of the house. The house is surrounded on 3 sides by a stepped verandah with a skillion roof. The rear verandah has been enclosed and extended. The front pediment features a decorative timber bargeboard and finial, and the verandah has been enclosed sideways-sliding sashes featuring panelled coloured glass. The original cast iron balustrades have been retained.
No internal site inspection of 100 Mt Crosby Road has been made. Given the intactness of the exterior of the house and the garden, it would be unlikely that the interior was greatly altered.
106 Mt Crosby Road [Wrightson]
The pedestrian entrance to the residence at 106 Mt Crosby Road is lined by garden beds, which retain some reference to the original garden layout and which screen the façade of the house from Mt Crosby Road. The well-established garden includes a number of mature pine and conifer trees in the front yard. The front boundary is enclosed with a timber-paling fence and the side perimeter is enclosed with a wire fence. There is one vehicular entrance onto the site from Mt Crosby Road leading to a later garage on the northern side of the property. The northern perimeter of the property abuts Tivoli State School and the southern side of the property adjoins Oaklands. The original timber stumps of the house have been replaced with concrete stumps and the sub-floor is enclosed with timber battens.
The house is timber-framed and externally clad on its exposed faces in 6 inch deep chamferboards. The main roof of the residence is pyramid shaped and sheeted in corrugated iron, with 2 brick chimneystacks rising above. The stepped verandah has a bull-nose roof profile. Access to the verandah is gained by a short flight of timber stairs. The decorative fretwork pediment above the stairs features a sunray motif, which is repeated in the timber brackets to the verandah posts and which was a common embellishment of Irish design. The front walls are unlined, vertically-jointed boards braced by horizontal beams. Dowel balustrading encloses the verandah and lattice infill panels have been installed in the front verandah bays. The northern side of the house is enclosed with a combination of early 20th century sliding and fixed windows with coloured glass. To the rear of the house is a recent covered patio area adjoining the house and a pool. A separate garage and an attached covered bay are located to the northern side of the building.
The early front door, which has a cast iron knocker, central door knob, fielded panels and bolection moulds, opens into a short central hallway which extends half the depth of the house. Internally, 2 rooms open off a short hallway. Both rooms have French doors opening onto the front verandah. The room to the left also has a sliding door opening in an area that includes 2 bathrooms, toilet and storage spaces, created by enclosing the southern verandah. At the end of the hallway a single glazed timber door with etched glass provides access to the living room, which has a white marble fireplace. To the right of the living room is a bedroom with french doors opening on to an enclosed area, which is an enclosed part of the verandah. Access from the living room to the kitchen, with its original brick fireplace, is gained through a doorway. The rear section of the house, which appears to be a 20th century extension, is now used as a laundry, dining room and storage room. Substantial interior renovations, which are most evident in the rear section of the house and in the kitchen, have been carried out. The joinery and floors have been stripped of their original finishes.
There are timber floors throughout the house and all walls are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding. Similarly, all ceilings are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding, excluding the dining room which features what appears to be a pressed metal ceiling. All rooms have high picture rails. The hallway and living room both have bolection mould skirting boards, while all other rooms have plain skirting boards.
","history":"The Wright family houses precinct at 98, 100 and 106 Mt Crosby Road, Tivoli, are 3 timber houses on adjoining allotments built c1898-1903 for John and Elizabeth Wright.
The allotments on which these residences are situated were originally a part of the land purchased in 1864 as Portion 66, parish of Chuwar, county of Stanley [43 acres], by Josiah Bowring Sloman, part proprietor of the Queensland Times. The land appears to have remained unimproved during the 30 years of Sloman's ownership and by the mid-1890s it had been subdivided.
In September 1894, the title to the subdivisions on which the houses at 98 and 106 Mt Crosby Road now stand was transferred to Elizabeth Ann Wright, the wife of John Wright. Five years later Elizabeth was registered as the owner of the allotment where the main family house, known as Oaklands, was constructed and which is now delineated as 100 Mt Crosby Road. John Wright was born in 1837 at Coolbawm, county Kilkenny, Ireland, and married Elizabeth in 1862. He and his wife arrived in Moreton Bay on board the Naval Reserve in 1867 and in October of that year he moved to Ipswich to find work, while his wife and children remained in Brisbane. In the 1860s, Ipswich was an emerging centre of commercial and industrial activity and, despite the financial crisis of this period, it remained a place of opportunity for early pioneers. Coal mining was a burgeoning industry in the district at this time and Wright was from a long line of colliery owners in Ireland and had worked for several years in his father's mine before embarking for Australia This experience secured him a job at the Old Tivoli Pit owned by Harry Hooper and John Robinson, where he remained until 1873. In that year he negotiated a lease with Josiah Sloman, who then owned Portions 65 and 66, for mining rights on the land and with the financial backing of John Blond, a Brisbane coal dealer, he opened a small mine known as Perseverance Mine. Wright's mining interests continued to expand over the years with the opening of the Eclipse mine in Tivoli as well as mines in other coal-bearing districts like Purga, Walloon, Burrum and Oakey. While the Eclipse mine was lost in the 1893 floods, along with 2 of John's sons, the family business remained strong and his youngest sons, Andrew and John, later became mine managers. The Wrights became the largest producer of coke in Queensland and in 1910 the Jubilee History of Ipswich reported that the Wrights held contracts with the Mt Crosby Pumping Station, the Ipswich Pumping Station, Queensland Woollen Company, Electric Light Company of Toowoomba and Queensland Railway.
Although John Wright's mining interests were spread over Queensland, he resided in Tivoli until his death in 1915 and acquired a distinct local patriotism. While described in The History of Queensland (1919) as a "man of quiet disposition, reserved, and unassuming", he was known to have supported many local charities and with his wife helped found a Sunday school in the area. The Wrights also became prominent freehold landowners in the North Ipswich district, with Brassall Shire Council Valuation Registers showing the family owned several estates by the early 1900s. Despite their numerous real estate interests, the Wrights favoured the allotments on Mt Crosby Road (formerly known as Tivoli Road and Junction Road) for their family homes. No documentary evidence exists to definitively date the main family residence at 100 Mt Crosby Road, however it is known to have been existence by January 1898 when it was described in The Queenslander as "one of the nattiest villas in North Ipswich". The adjoining properties at 98 and 106 Mt Crosby Road reputedly were built for Andrew Wright and John Wright junior probably by 1903, the year of the earliest extant Brassall Shire Council Valuation Register, which records that on the land now covered by 98, 100 and 106 Mt Crosby Road there existed 3 residences owned by Elizabeth Ann Wright.
The juxtaposition of these properties is as much a physical representation of the rising social and financial fortunes offered to Ipswich colliers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it is a reminder of the concept of the extended family and a way of life no longer common. The Wrights were a close-knit family and their houses were a nest of domesticity. Elizabeth Ann Wright retained ownership of the land on which Oaklands stands until her death in 1920, after which the house was reputedly left vacant until 1922 when Elizabeth Ann Barbet, the youngest daughter of John and Elizabeth Wright, became the registered owner. Four years later the property passed to Benjamin Morgan, a close friend of the Wright family whose father had reputedly built a hut of chaff bags in a gully below Oaklands. The estate remains in the Morgan family.
The property at 98 Mt Crosby Road remained in the hands of Elizabeth Ann Wright until 1915 when the title was transferred to Andrew Wright. In 1931, Catherine Wright, the wife of Andrew, became the owner of the estate and retained the title until 1953. Since that time the property has passed to a number of different owners.
The house now known as Wrightson, at 106 Mt Crosby Road, was owned by Elizabeth Ann Wright until 1911 when the title to the property was transferred to John Wright junior. After his father's death in 1915, John Wright reputedly moved to the Darling Downs to manage the family's mining interests in the region but Wrightson remained his property until 1924 when title to the estate was transferred to Robert Hutchins Hunter. Since that time the property has passed had 5 owners. The house has been renovated in recent years.
","criteria":"The Wright family houses are important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place. Built for the collier and mining proprietor, John Wright and his wife, Elizabeth, these houses are representative of the burgeoning economic fortunes of the Ipswich region during the late 19th century. As Ipswich developed into a wealthy commercial and industrial centre of Queensland and as the coal industry continued to expand in the area, the construction of these 3 houses is indicative of the prospect of rising social and financial status offered in late-19th century Ipswich. The houses communicate a tangible link with the district's mining heritage.
|The Wright family houses are important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history and in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place. Built for the collier and mining proprietor, John Wright and his wife, Elizabeth, these houses are representative of the burgeoning economic fortunes of the Ipswich region during the late 19th century. As Ipswich developed into a wealthy commercial and industrial centre of Queensland and as the coal industry continued to expand in the area, the construction of these 3 houses is indicative of the prospect of rising social and financial status offered in late-19th century Ipswich. The houses communicate a tangible link with the district's mining heritage.
|The houses are also important because of their aesthetic significance, which contributes to the overall historical townscape of the Ipswich area. With its rich heritage, Ipswich abounds with significant examples of early Queensland architecture and as such these houses represent an important landmark in the area and their integrity as a group is strengthened by the direct connection between them.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16635,"place_ref":601899,"name":"Binna Burra Cultural Landscape","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Binna Burra Road","suburb":"BEECHMONT","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-12-31","description":"Binna Burra Cultural Landscape occupies 43.83ha on Mount Roberts, 8km south of Beechmont, and is surrounded by Lamington National Park – part of the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. Set in a mountaintop forest, the landscape comprises a ridge running south to north and turning east, with a central saddle formation (dip), and a downward eastern slope to steep cliffs. Access is via Binna Burra Road, which approaches from the northwest, and winds up and around the north and east extents of the ridge, then south to the National Park entrance.
\nFeatures of Binna Burra Cultural Landscape of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nOriginal and early layout, and setting
\nSurviving elements illustrating the site’s original and early layout demonstrate guest accommodation and facilities have been consistently set out in low-scaled clusters along the main ridgeline that forms a spine through the land holding, with groups of buildings set in clearings, orientated to attractive views of the surrounding landscape and interspersed with gardens and plantings, paths, memorials and signs.
\nThe site of the former Binna Burra Lodge and cabins complex occupies the northern crest of the ridge, with associated buildings either side of Lodge Road on its southern approach, and Groom’s Cottage and the adjacent camping grounds occupy the southern crest. Between them is a lawn area on the central saddle, which provides open space and views connecting the early features.
\nViews
\nThe elevated position and varied topography offers attractive, and in some cases spectacular, views from and within the extensive site. These are:
\nSite of former Binna Burra Lodge and cabins complex (1934-, buildings destroyed by fire 2019)
\nThe former Binna Burra Lodge and cabins complex site occupies an elevated clearing with steep slopes on its north and west sides, and two lower terraces (formerly occupied by cabins) formed to the east. The Lodge buildings stood on the south and west sides of the central open lawn area, with a paved viewing terrace to the north and the main entrance via Lodge Road to the south. An area of native gardens (established by regular guest Win Bristow) is between the two terraces, and memorials to Bristow and Binna Burra co-founder Romeo Lahey are at the northern end of the lawn. A remnant metal wheel (whim) survives from the former flying fox (1934) that conveyed guests’ luggage to the Lodge site.
\nFeatures of the former Binna Burra Lodge and cabins complex of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLodge Road (formed 1947)
\nThe single-lane Lodge Road branches off Binna Burra Road at the Christmas Camp site and ascends along the ridge to the former Lodge site. A ‘Welcome’ sign along the road denotes the entrance to the former Lodge, and the road ends with a turning loop at the arrivals area.
\nFeatures of the Lodge Road of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPottery Shed (pre-1961)
\nThe Pottery Shed is located on the west side of the Lodge Road, to the immediate north of the entrance sign. The single-storey stone building is rectangular in plan and has a shallow gable roof.
\nFeatures of the Pottery Shed of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEngine Room (c1947) and Barn (former Workshop 1966, relocated c1977, converted to Barn c2005)
\nThe Engine Room and Barn building stands on a level clearing, immediately southwest of the Pottery Shed. The lowset building comprises two parts both rectangular in plan. The Barn has a gable-roof and a later skillion-roofed west verandah. The Engine Room comprises a stone-walled skillion-roofed annexe on its east side. Remnant machinery (possibly from the 1950s sawmill constructed for cutting firewood to heat water for the Lodge) and the flying fox whim, are located adjacent to the building.
\nFeatures of the Engine Room and Barn of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nForestry Cottage (Cabin 43, 1941)
\nThe Forestry Cottage is situated on a slope on the eastern side of the Lodge Road, near the entrance to the Lodge area but separate to the main former Lodge site. The single-storey timber-framed cottage is rectangular in plan, with a shallow gable-roofed core and a later (c1970s) skillion-roofed extension on its eastern side.
\nFeatures of the Forestry Cabin of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nChristmas Camp (1933) and Commemorative Hoop Pines (1933 stump removed, 1983)
\nThe former Christmas Camp site comprises approximately one-hectare area of open, lawn on the saddle, roughly 250 metres south of the former Lodge site. One hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) planted in 1983, and a timber marker identifying the location of the original Christmas Camp hoop pine planted in 1933 (stump no longer extant in 2020) are situated along the forest edge, on the western side of the Christmas Camp 1933 site.
\nFeatures of Christmas Camp of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nGroom’s Cottage (1936-80)
\nGroom’s Cottage is located approximately 450 metres south of the former Lodge site, on the slope rising to the entrance of Lamington National Park. The cottage is rectangular in plan and sits on a terrace formed by an original stone rubble retaining wall. The ground floor is open-plan, with a stone fireplace on the south wall, a ground floor living area and an open-sided timber staircase that accesses the attic bedrooms (upper storey added 1940-80).
\nFeatures of Groom’s Cottage of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBunk House (1977)
\nThe Bunk House is sited parallel to the southern side of Groom’s Cottage. The single-storey building has a steeply-pitched skillion roof with high-level windows on its northern side. It contains four cabins, each with three-tier built-in timber bunks.
\nFeatures of the Bunk House of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCamping grounds (1966-)
\nThe camping grounds to the south are sited with easy access to the National Park entrance and are arranged with a relatively organic layout, with camping sites and amenities shelters set amongst mature trees on the western side, and on-site Safari Tents occupying the terraced eastern slope.
\nFeatures of the camping grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nArthur Groom memorial (1957)
\nThe Arthur Groom memorial is located on the lawn adjacent to the National Park entrance. The memorial comprises a basalt stone wall, with an off-centre brass plaque and rosewood timber seat.
\nFeatures of the memorial of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBellbird Clearing
\nBellbird Clearing is an activity area located on the eastern slopes. The area contains a lagoon, and a flying fox passes through the clearing. An activity area for ropes courses and abseiling activities is located adjacent to Bellbird Clearing.
\nFeature of Bellbird Clearing of state-level cultural heritage significance is:
\nBellbird Lookout (c1930s)
\nBellbird Lookout is located approximately one kilometre east of the former Lodge site. The view from this barrier free natural rock formation sweeps across the Numinbah Valley, taking in Egg Rock (Kurraragin), Turtle Rock, Ships Stern and the McPherson Range. There is an early track to the lookout (1930s).
\nFeatures of Bellbird Lookout of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nOld Vegetable Garden remnants (c1940s)
\nThe Old Vegetable Garden is an area located west of Bellbird Clearing that was originally used to grow vegetables to supply the Lodge, and retains remnant plantings and some garden fencing. Both the original late-1940s wells are housed in the old pump shed located in the area, along with partially restored engines.
\nFeatures of the Old Vegetable Garden of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nOther original and early built features
\nThe place incorporates a range of evolved and designed built features that contribute to the setting and functioning of the place. They include garden layouts and plantings; stone walls and edging; memorials; garden walks, walking tracks and roads; and open spaces such as lawns (some cleared of trees before the establishment of the site as a nature tourism resort), terraces and lookouts. Walking tracks traverse the site and journey deep into the forest or along clifftops. Signs are dotted across the site and vary in style, age and condition.
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nNon-significant features
\nFeatures of Binna Burra Cultural Landscape not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n","history":"
Binna Burra Cultural Landscape is a nature tourism site located on Mount Roberts about 8km south of the town of Beechmont and 32km southwest of the Gold Coast in southeast Queensland. Surrounded by the World Heritage-listed Lamington National Park, the place was established from 1933 by the company Queensland Holiday Resorts Limited, led by Romeo Watkins Lahey and Arthur Groom, to provide accommodation and facilitate visitors’ access to, and understanding of, the adjacent national park. It has picturesque aesthetic qualities, a strong and special association with those who value their experience of the place; and a special association with Lahey and Groom. It expresses evolved, designed and associative cultural landscape values.
\nTraditionally part of the lands of the Danggan Balun (Five Rivers) People, European activity at Beechmont (initially Beech Mountain) was limited to timber-getting until farming began in 1882. Selection of land for agricultural settlement to Beechmont’s south and east, including the Binna Burra site, occurred in the 1910s.[1]
\nA national park movement was initiated in Queensland after 1879 by pastoralist, businessman and politician Robert Martin Collins following his visit to the United States of America, where the movement had commenced in 1870.[2] This movement called for governments to reserve land in its natural state for the benefit of all people. Collins was instrumental in establishing Queensland’s first national park at Witches Falls, Mt Tamborine in 1908. He and others proposed the creation of a national park encompassing the Lamington Plateau, a spur of the McPherson Range.[3]
\nHowever, some of this land was made available for selection in 1911, as part of the state’s continued agricultural development. In that year, the O’Reilly family selected agricultural blocks located within the proposed national park.[4] The land on which Binna Burra was later established (Portion 178 at Mount Roberts) was selected by Beechmont dairy farmer George Daniel Rankin in 1913, while other portions to its north and east were also selected.[5]
\nRomeo Watkins Lahey, an engineer and timber merchant, joined the campaign to create a national park over the McPherson Range in 1911. Lahey was born on 2 June 1887 at Pimpama, the fourth child of David Lahey, arrowroot merchant and timber mill owner. Following Collins’ death in 1913, he played a significant role in the establishment of Lamington National Park.[6]
\nLamington National Park, comprising 47,000 acres (19,020ha), was gazetted on 31 July 1915. It extended from Ships Stern in the northeast to the Queensland-New South Wales border in the south, west to the headwaters of Stockyard Creek and northwest toward Canungra.[7] The national park was declared a reserve for the protection and preservation of native birds and animals in July 1918, and was surveyed by 1919.[8] The O’Reilly family provided its first visitor accommodation from 1915 and opened its guest house at Easter 1926.[9] One of their visitors was Binna Burra founder Arthur Groom, who stayed there in December 1927 and at least one other time.[10]
\nBorn on 11 December 1904, the son of Arthur Champion Groom, politician and land and stock agent, and his second wife Eva Rosabel, Groom jnr worked as a jackeroo in the Northern Territory, between 1922 and 1925. In 1925 he moved to Brisbane to write for the Sunday Mail newspaper. Between 1927 and 1932 Groom worked as a salesman for engineering companies, while in his spare time he explored and photographed the Lamington National Park. His first book was published in London in 1930.[11]
\nUpon Lahey’s return from World War I service with the Royal Australian Engineers of the Australian Imperial Force, he worked as an engineer in south-east Queensland, for the Lahey sawmilling enterprises and privately. He was director of the Lahey family’s companies (1924-30s), and chairman of directors of Laheys Pty Ltd (1934-49).[12]
\nGroom and Lahey were founding members of the National Parks Association of Queensland (NPAQ), established on 15 April 1930, the first national parks association formed in Australia.[13] The NPAQ was formed largely due to Lahey and he became its inaugural president, holding that position for 31 years, while Groom became its first honorary secretary, serving for four years.[14] The association’s purpose was: to preserve and promote the reservation of national parks in Queensland; educate the public about their value; achieve national parks’ legislation; ensure the enforcement of protective regulations for national parks; cooperate with all persons or organisations with similar objectives; and to raise funds to further these objectives.[15]
\nGroom and Lahey shared similar ideas for provision of lodges, guest houses or huts close to national parks throughout Queensland, but particularly near Lamington National Park. To turn their ideas into reality, they searched for a suitable site and financial supporters. In February 1933, with an option to purchase George Rankin’s isolated Mount Roberts’ selection (Portion 178), they met with interested backers, and resolved to establish a business partnership. As shares sold slowly during the Depression, they organised camps at Binna Burra to promote the company, including one on the King’s Birthday weekend in June 1933, with about 70 campers, and a month-long Christmas camp from 16 December 1933 for about 80 campers.[16]
\nThey registered their limited liability company, Queensland Holiday Resorts Limited, on 3 March 1934.[17] Its objects were ‘to provide tourist facilities and accommodation in beauty spots throughout…Queensland, and…to assist in preserving such in their natural state for future generations in accordance with the ideals of the National Parks Association of Queensland’.[18]
\nAt this early stage, Binna Burra comprised the June camp site on top of Mt Roberts; the site of the dining room; the Christmas camp site; a hoop pine tree planted by Lahey during the first Christmas camp; the access road to the first lagoon, which had been formed before the Christmas camp; and a track to Bellbird Lookout.[19] Fifty acres (20.23ha) were already cleared for farming[20] and one of the company’s immediate aims was to ‘carry out dairying and other agricultural operations on the property’.[21] Agricultural activities, including dairying, using pre-existing dairy shed and yards, and egg and vegetable production, were carried out on the site until 1947.[22]
\nDuring the 1930s, management of Binna Burra was divided between Groom and Lahey, with Groom as the on-site manager, while Lahey took charge of building infrastructure, and surveying and constructing the first walking tracks in the adjacent national park.[23]
\nIn 1934, a flying fox and the first buildings were erected on site. The flying fox comprised a heavy-duty cable, strung between a tree at the unloading point known as ‘the Dump’ and one on the cliff top near the future Lodge site, driven by a large whim (wheel) laid horizontally and rotated by a draught horse, to raise attached baggage and supplies about 150 metres. Guests walked up the goat track (steep) or the sheep track (less steep) to the campsite.[24] In the same year, Lahey’s road building team excavated a large site for buildings and felled trees for their construction.[25] By October 1934, dining room, kitchen, store, staff dining room, bathrooms and lavatories, flooring and tables for the tents and the first slab cabin dormitory for guests were built.[26]
\nLahey based his slab hut design on buildings he had seen in Victoria. They followed an early style of Australian housing and harmonised with the natural environment, consistent with the philosophy of Binna Burra. They were also inexpensive to build because the materials came from the property and achievable because there were skilled broad-axemen to build them.[27]
\nBy the end of 1935, two more slab huts, accommodating 22 people, and staff quarters were completed, and a dinner bell had been installed by Lahey.[28] In 1936, Groom began constructing a small cottage on the other side of the small mountain saddle from the Lodge, in anticipation of his marriage to Marjorie Dunstan.[29]
\nBetween 1938 and 1953, a further dozen cabins were constructed.[30] By September 1939, there was cabin accommodation for 54 guests and Lahey had constructed an attic for his own use above one of the guest cabins.[31] A separate laundry (1939) and an attic (1940) were added to Groom’s Cottage.[32] A Forestry Cottage (Cabin 43) was constructed in 1941 for the park overseer, about half-way between the Lodge and Groom’s Cottage.[33]
\nAfter World War II, visitor numbers seriously declined from their war-time high,[34] which Groom struggled to remedy through improvements and promotion. The road to Binna Burra was completed in 1947, ending the use of the flying fox, changing the way guests arrived, and resulting in the formation of the main entry, drive and arrival area.[35] In 1951, the Binna Burra road was transferred to the Crown and its maintenance taken over by the Department of Main Roads (MRD) leading to its upgrade to an all-weather road.[36]
\nTrees were removed from Binna Burra in the post-war period for several purposes. A sawmill operated onsite from c1947 until the early 1950s, which supplied firewood to heat water for the Lodge and two slab cabins were built during its operation. In the late 1950s, a timber firm paid to remove logs from the site. [37] Aerial photography from 1961 shows widespread clearing of the southern and eastern parts of the site (south and east of Binna Burra Road).[38] In 2020, only sawmill artefacts stored adjacent to the Engine Room remained.[39]
\nGroom died suddenly in November 1953 while on a business trip to Melbourne. For 20 years his life had focused on developing and managing Binna Burra. A memorial to him, designed by architect RP Cummings and funded by Binna Burra supporters, was unveiled on 3 February 1957 by Peter Grenning, Queensland’s Director of Forests. Originally sited on a grassy slope immediately in front of the entrance to the main border track at the Binna Burra end of Lamington National Park, the memorial was relocated closer to Groom’s Cottage, overlooking Nixon’s Creek and the Numinbah Valley, by 2001.[40] Its timber seat was replaced between July 2015 and March 2020.[41]
\nDuring the remainder of the 1950s, Binna Burra struggled to stay viable. The crisis culminated in 1960 with the Board of Directors proposing Binna Burra’s closure. Instead, Groom’s son Tony, assisted by his mother Marjorie, took over Binna Burra’s management and returned the business to profit during the following decade. From 1961, Groom’s other sons, Donn and Richard were also involved in the management of Binna Burra.[42]
\nAs well as a return to the Groom-era style of management, facilities were improved. In the first few years, the reception area was lined (1961); electricity was connected to the site (c1962);[43] and the last 6.5 kilometres of road to the Lodge were completed (1964), improving access.[44]
\nDuring the second half of the 1960s services (telephone, electricity, water supply and heating) were upgraded and accommodation added to the site. In 1966, the camping area was developed, a new toilet block and a workshop were erected. Six self-contained cabins were constructed on the site of the old playground using volunteer labour in 1969. The Binna Burra Road was bituminised in 1969.[45]
\nLahey resigned from Binna Burra’s Board of Directors in 1960 after a severe stroke and died on 26 October 1967. He had been a director, then chairman of directors of the Lahey family’s timber businesses from 1924 until 1949. Aware of the contradiction between his business and conservation interests, Lahey initiated reafforestation, reduced mill wastage, and gifted land for national park purposes, including land to Lamington National Park. He designed, surveyed, and often funded, graded tracks in national parks throughout Queensland to minimize ecological disturbance. In 1960, Lahey was awarded an MBE for services to national park development in Australia. Two plaques in Lamington National Park commemorate him, as does a stone memorial on Binna Burra’s front lawn.[46]
\nDuring the 1970s, the developmental phase begun at Binna Burra in the mid-1960s continued. From 1971 to 1972, cabins 24, 25, 26, 30 and 31 were replaced, while three new guest cabins were built. The Forestry Cottage, built on Binna Burra property in 1941, was acquired and the road encircling the Lodge was closed in preparation for new buildings. A new dining room, kitchen, lounge, and observation deck were opened by the Minister for Tourism, John Herbert, on 24 November 1973. The old dining room was repurposed as a games room, office foyer and fireplace.[47]
\nCamping has been integral to Binna Burra’s philosophy[48] and accordingly the camping grounds continued to be improved. By 1974 a kiosk, dining and activity centre, reticulated water, and powered sites were available at the camping ground to cater to campers’ and day-trippers’ needs.[49] Terracing of the campsite had commenced by 1977 and in 1988, permanent on-site tents were erected.[50] In May 1998, a teahouse opened near the camping grounds, replacing the kiosk.[51]
\nFrom the late 1970s into the 21st century, improvements, reconfiguration, and addition of buildings took place. The Workshop (now called the Barn) was relocated beside the Engine Room c1977. A series of cabin renovations were undertaken from the 1970s to the 1990s.[52] In 2013, the Binna Burra Sky Lodges, designed by DM2 Architecture, were completed. They comprised four separate three and a half storey buildings containing holiday units, located northeast of the Lodge complex on the edge of a north facing ridge.
\nDesigned changes to the Binna Burra landscape in addition to building layout have been made. Development of the Lodge gardens began in September 1968, when regular guest Win Bristow created a native garden between the upper and lower cabin terraces. Gardener Perce Bishop created rock gardens that formed a retaining wall along the corridor of the eastern cabins, as well as a children’s playground, by Christmas 1973.[53] His track around Mount Roberts below the Lodge (originally ‘Perce’s Parade’) was later developed as the Sense Trail by the Lamington Natural History Association and opened in 1975.[54] A Discovery Forest Children's playground opened in 1997, north of the Forestry Cottage.[55]
\nOver the course of Binna Burra’s history, its original site (nearly 178 acres/72ha) has almost halved. In 1951, 7.23ha of land was transferred to the Crown when the MRD took responsibility for Binna Burra Road.[56] In 1965, a further 1.26ha was excised for road purposes.[57]
\nIn 1969, three separate blocks of land with easements were created to the northeast of the Lodge buildings to provide a house lot for each Groom brother, who worked in rotation as Binna Burra’s manager and assistant manager from c1965-75.[58] These were treed allotments with views to the north. Lots 2 and 3 were purchased by Donn and his wife and Tony and his wife respectively, while Lot 1 remained in Binna Burra ownership. In 1970 Tony Groom erected a house on Lot 3. In 1973, Donn Groom erected a larger house, designed by Brisbane architect Robin Spencer, on Lot 2. This was purchased by Tony Groom and his wife in 1976. A one-bedroom house for Marjorie Groom was erected on Lot 2 in 1980. Lot 3 was sold by Tony Groom to his brother Richard in 1977 and returned to Binna Burra ownership in 1981 but was later sold.[59]
\nIn March 1970, 0.55ha of land located southeast of the most southern point of Binna Burra Road (Lot 1 RP 128297) was resumed by the Crown for national park purposes (site of the ranger station).[60] The remaining Binna Burra site was subdivided into three allotments prior to resumption of two allotments (Lots 2 and 3 RP171126; 27ha) for national park purposes in September 1980. The third allotment (Lot 1 RP171126) comprising 34.81ha (86 acres) remained as Binna Burra land (same extent in 2020).[61]
\nSince Binna Burra’s establishment, a variety of recreational activities have been encouraged, bringing diverse groups to the site. Initially, bushwalking in the Lamington National Park and the appreciation of nature were the primary pastimes. Abseiling began in 1962 and horse-riding was offered between 1963 and c1985, with the horses held in a yard opposite the entrance to Lodge Road and near the start of the Senses Trail.[62] In 1990, a bird hide was constructed near Bellbird Clearing for bird watching activities. In the 1990s, a flying fox across Bellbird Clearing was installed as a guest activity and a high ropes course offered nearby.[63]
\nVacation schools have been conducted since 1968. Starting with the Wildlife Preservation Society Spring School, others followed including shingle-splitting; Creative Arts and Photographics Schools (annually to 1984 at least); and Green Fingers Weeks (from 1970). The schools attracted and inspired well-known tutors and participants such as poet Heather Farmer; clarinettist Don Burrows AO MBE; photographer Steve Parish; Mervyn Moriarty, founder of the Flying Art School in outback Queensland; and photographer Nev Male.[64]
\nThe Binna Burra Cultural Landscape, its surrounding rainforest, waterfalls and views, have inspired aesthetic responses from artists, photographers, writers and musicians for more than eight decades. Artists’ camps were held in the 1930s to take inspiration from the scenic views of Egg Rock and Turtle Rock and the McPherson Range. Artists have depicted this region including important Queensland artist Vida Lahey (From Binna Burra, 1934), international artist Lois Beumer in her watercolour Rainforest Tangle 1986, and nationally acclaimed William Robinson in his landscape paintings. The adjacent McPherson Range inspired well-known photographers including Arthur Groom, Doug Spowart and Charles Ernest Stanley Fryer, while Romeo Lahey took plate glass photographs at the outset of World War I to campaign for the area’s reservation as a national park. Books written about Binna Burra, include Arthur Groom’s 1949 work One Mountain After Another and Raymond Curtis’ 2003 book, Rainforest Journal. Curtis’ orchestral work ‘Journey Among Mountains’ (1989) also celebrates the area.[65]
\nEnvironmental protection and education were early objectives in the establishment of Binna Burra. Groom and Lahey encouraged this through guided walks and talks which were continued after Groom’s sons became managers. The Lamington Natural History Association established in 1975 as a combined organisation between Binna Burra, O’Reilly’s and the National Parks Wildlife Service (NPWS) furthered this objective. The Association’s headquarters became the Environmental Study Centre in Groom’s Cottage, which was enlarged and renovated to house the director’s office, and a workroom. Bunkroom accommodation was constructed behind it for 36 children to provide facilities for school camps, and officially opened in 1977.[66] In 2001, Binna Burra achieved certification under the Green Globe standards for ecological sustainability and by 2019 had achieved an ‘Advanced Ecotourism’ certification from Ecotourism Australia's ECO Certification program.[67] In February 2020, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Griffith University and Binna Burra Lodge Limited to create ‘a strategic partnership…focusing on the development, interpretation and presentation of collaborative research and educational activities’.[68]
\nOne of the distinctive features of Binna Burra has been the support from its guests. For example, Frank Jesson, an artist who visited Binna Burra from 1938, illustrated cards and posters for Binna Burra without payment. Guests helped with chores in the 1930s, and from 1968 loyal guests improved the site by donating their time to building projects. This assistance was formalised by the establishment of the Friends of Binna Burra (FOBB) in 1984.[69]
\nThe 50th anniversary of the establishment of Binna Burra was celebrated in 1983. The tree-planting ceremony of the Christmas 1933 camp was repeated with the planting of another hoop pine 50m to its south; while a commemorative history of Binna Burra, Where the Beech Trees Grow: The Story of Binna Burra, was published in 1984.[70]
\nIn 1994, the global importance of the Lamington National Park was recognised when it was declared part of the Australian East Coast Sub-tropical and Temperate Rainforest Parks World Heritage Area (renamed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia in 2007).[71] This landscape is recognised for its outstanding natural universal values, representing: major stages of the Earth’s evolutionary history; significant ongoing geological processes and biological evolution; and for containing important significant habitats for the in-situ conservation of biological diversity.[72]
\nBinna Burra Cultural Landscape expresses evolved, designed and associative attributes. The landscape evolved from rainforest, possibly exploited by early timber-getters, into a partly agricultural landscape with about a third of the site cleared for dairying between 1913 and 1933. Agricultural activities, including dairying, and poultry and vegetable production, were carried out on the site until 1947. Working horses were onsite from 1935 to c1985. Further timber felling occurred between 1934 and 1959. Substantial regrowth of native vegetation has occurred since and will continue as the site is subject to the provisions of the Vegetation Management Act 1999, which preserves vegetation on declared sites. Binna Burra Cultural Landscape also includes designed features such as buildings; gardens; built elements such as stone walls and edging; memorials; garden walks, walking tracks and roads; playgrounds; and open spaces such as lawns, camping grounds, terraces, lookouts, and Bellbird Clearing. All of these features were formed intentionally to fulfil aesthetic, functional, or philosophical purposes as expressed by Queensland Holiday Resorts Limited in 1934.[73]
\nOn 8 September 2019, a devastating bushfire caused considerable damage at Binna Burra and the surrounding district. Buildings and site components were destroyed including the main Binna Burra Lodge complex (lounge/reception, shop, dining room, library and kitchen), all but one of the 43 Binna Burra cabins, and the three houses on Lots 2 and 3 RP124596.[74] The most easterly block of the Sky Lodges was significantly damaged. Some built features illustrating the layout of the Lodge complex remain. The flying fox whim (1934) and dinner bell (1935) also survived. Undamaged built features were primarily located south of the Lodge complex.[75] Binna Burra Road was rendered unsafe and in 2020 underwent major repairs and upgrade.
\nFollowing the 2019 fire event, Binna Burra Lodge Limited (formerly Queensland Holiday Resorts Limited) received support from community members and organisations, as well as government, showing the social importance of Binna Burra to the Queensland community and its importance to the region’s economy. The damage to the site was reported widely in the media, resulting in messages of support from individuals in Australia and overseas, and financial and in-kind support from businesses.[76] The FOBB raised more than $100,000 toward Binna Burra’s recovery.[77] Local, state and federal governments provided funding assistance.[78]
\nIn 2020, the Binna Burra Cultural Landscape retains buildings dating from 1936 onward, the Christmas 1933 camp site, camping grounds and facilities, natural vegetation, and built elements such as retaining walls, tracks, memorials, early signs, and open spaces, which all form part of its evolved and designed landscape. Their form and layout reflect the underpinning philosophy of connection with the natural environment. It is a place of natural beauty with picturesque attributes and over its lifetime, visitors to the site have developed a strong and ongoing association with the place. Binna Burra Cultural Landscape also has a special association with the life and work of its founders, Romeo Watkins Lahey and Arthur Groom.
","criteria":"Binna Burra Cultural Landscape (established 1933) is important in demonstrating the evolution of nature tourism in Queensland. Strongly associated with the establishment and expansion of tourism at Lamington National Park, a World Heritage site (Gondwana Rainforests of Australia), it is an early example of a nature tourism venture established to facilitate visitor access to, and understanding of, the adjacent national park, and is of international renown. It has sustained its use as a visitor base – offering a range of accommodation options, enhancing environmental awareness through education initiatives, and facilitating access to other nature-based experiences.
\nThe extensive evolved and designed landscape retains evidence of its original and early layout of accommodation and facilities focused along the spine of the land holding’s main ridgeline. Built structures, landscape features and recreational activities are integrated with their surrounds through their careful siting, scale, form and materials – illustrating the aim of providing sensitively designed tourist facilities and accommodation within an area of outstanding natural beauty.
|Surrounded by the Lamington National Park, part of the World Heritage listed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, the picturesque mountaintop forest setting is an integral part of the Binna Burra nature tourism experience. The place affords spectacular panoramic views of the surrounding natural environment, layered with scenic vistas that unfold within the site.
\nViews from Bellbird Lookout and other eastern vantage points span a northeast-east-southeast arc across the Numinbah Valley towards the iconic natural formations of Egg Rock (Kurraragin), Turtle Rock, Ships Stern and the McPherson Range. Views from the former Lodge and cabins site take in the Darlington Range and Coomera River valley to the west and northwest, and Beechmont to the north. Attractive views within the site unfold along the tree-lined Lodge Road and across the open lawn of the saddle to Groom’s Cottage.
\nEvoking strong feelings of seclusion and tranquillity at being deep within the rainforest, with impressive views from mountain to mountain, artistic responses to the place have appeared consistently over time and include paintings, orchestral work, poetry, photography and descriptive writing that capture its distinctive physical features and outstanding natural beauty.
\nAs a nature tourism destination, Binna Burra Cultural Landscape is renowned for its natural aesthetic qualities and guest amenities that have evolved over time. The provision of amenities reflect a consistent design response to context that utilises modestly scaled built forms made with naturalistic materials such as stone and timber to carefully integrate with the surrounding landscape. First constructed in 1936, the siting, scale, form and materials of Groom’s Cottage are an exemplar of this design response.
|Binna Burra Cultural Landscape has a strong and special association with nature tourists to Binna Burra from Australia and overseas as a place that has offered the valued customary experience of appreciating and staying within the natural environment of the Lamington National Park since 1933. The extent and degree of the community association has been shown by repeat visits; the popularity of Binna Burra’s special interest schools and educational camps; acts of voluntary assistance, support and fundraising; the functioning of the Friends of Binna Burra since 1984; and the community and government response to the devastating 2019 bushfire.
|Binna Burra Cultural Landscape has a special association with the life and work of Romeo Watkins Lahey MBE (1887-1967), who was instrumental in the establishment of Lamington National Park, and of Arthur Groom (1904-53), who promoted Lamington National Park through his writing and photography. Both were founding members of the National Parks Association of Queensland, the first national park association in Australia. They formed the company Queensland Holiday Resorts Limited, which established Binna Burra, to provide accommodation and access to the adjacent Lamington National Park. From 1933 until 1960 and 1953 respectively, Lahey and Groom were closely associated with Binna Burra as its designers, builders and managers, and as company directors of Queensland Holiday Resorts Limited.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16636,"place_ref":601900,"name":"Cressbrook Cemetery","alternate_name":"Cressbrook Cemetery-Evelyn","street_address":"off Jonsson Road","suburb":"EVELYN","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-17","description":"Cressbrook Cemetery is located in a paddock of Evelyn Station used (in 2003) for grazing cattle. The paddock slopes downwards slightly to the north, to an intermittent creek. Eucalyptus and acacia species are present on the boundaries of the paddock and a row of mangoes marks the approximate site of the Cressbrook Homestead. The four marked graves are enclosed within a barbed wire and timber post fence with a metal gate on the eastern side. A jacaranda tree and eucalypts are present within the enclosure. These trees do not appear to be part of a structured planting arrangement. The total area enclosed by the fence is 20 metres by 25 metres.
\nThe four graves are positioned side by side and face an easterly direction. They are constructed from concrete and each grave measures 1.5 metres wide by 3 metres long. There are three marble headstones, as Anna and Henry Stone share one. Two of the headstones, the Stone's and Alexander William Fraser's, are approximately 1.2 metres high with lead lettering and decorative elements. These were made by stone-masons Melrose and Fenwick, in Cairns and Townsville respectively. Mary Hull's headstone is a square piece of marble set in concrete, measuring approximately 50 by 50 centimetres. The ashes interred at the foot of Mary Hull's grave are not marked.
","history":"Cressbrook Cemetery contains the headstones of four people, Henry Stone, Anna Stone, Mary Hull and Alexander William Fraser. The graves are marked with three marble headstones set into concrete. Some of Hazel Hull's ashes are interred at the base of Mary Hull's grave.
\nHenry Stone was born in England in 1835. He came to South Australia aged 16 and began working on various pastoral properties. In 1859 he joined George Elphinstone Dalrymple on his expedition from Rockhampton to north Queensland in search of rich pastoral country. Pastoralists and Sydney businessmen funded the expedition after enthusiastic reports from Ludwig Leichhardt's 1844/45 expedition from Port Essington to the Darling Downs. Stone, who was the surveyor on Dalrymple's expedition, marked out large runs for members of the party and their financial backers.
\nDalrymple, Robert Herbert and the brothers Arthur and Walter Scott purchased an area known as the Valley of Lagoons in 1861 and installed Henry Stone as manager. Stone stocked the property with 25,000 head of sheep and cattle. It became essential to establish easier access to the coast. Stone was in the first expedition with Dalrymple, Scott and Farqurharson that crossed the Herbert Valley in search of route from the Valley of the Lagoons to the coast. On this expedition a route was not found.
\nOn March 8, 1864 Dalrymple, Stone and others departed from the Valley of Lagoons in another attempt to locate a route to the coast. They intended to build a road to Rockingham Bay and the newly settled port of Cardwell. The team included 12 European and 4 Aboriginal people, 3 bullock drays, 61 working bullocks, 63 fat cattle and 18 horses. Despite problems such as flood and loss of supplies, the first of the party arrived in Cardwell on 24 April and a dray route was soon established.
\nStone was given the responsibility of constructing the Vale of Herbert station, a half-way house between Cardwell and Valley of Lagoons. This was successfully completed in 1865 and Stone took up new runs on the Herbert River. The house constructed at the Vale of Herbert was known as Stone Hut.
\nScottish setters, Duncan and Maria McAuslan, had arrived in Queensland from New Zealand with their 2 young daughters, Anna and Mary, in 1868. They traveled overland from Bowen to the Valley of Lagoons, where Duncan worked as Head Stockman for the Scott Brothers, under Henry Stone's management. In 1873 Duncan McAuslan acquired 292 acres across Trebonne Creek from Stone hut, and 1280 acres known as `Greenfields'. Henry Stone owned the adjacent property, 'The Grange'.
\nDuncan McAuslan made two unsuccessful trips to the Palmer River Goldfields in 1879 with a large number of cattle fattened at Vale of Herbert. In this year McAuslan and Stone became partners in another run known as `Wairuna'. In 1880 Duncan McAuslan replaced Stone as manager of Vale of Herbert station.
\nEarly in 1880, 44 year old Stone announced his engagement to 16 years old Anna McAuslan. The first Bishop of North Queensland, Dr GH Stanton married them at Greenfields on 1 May 1883. They settled at The Grange until 1904, when they moved to Montecute at Evelyn.
\nThe McAuslans returned to Greenfields on the Lower Herbert catchment after the sale of Wairuna in 1881 where they ran cattle and a slaughterhouse. Duncan McAuslan died here while out riding on 22 July 1883. Greenfields was subsequently sold in 1885 to Thomas White, the surveyor who, in 1881, had laid out the town of Herberton. Maria and Mary McAuslan moved to Alston's, where Mary met her future husband, John Hull Jnr.
\nJohn Hull Jnr was born in England in 1865, one of eleven children. In 1871 John Hull Snr and his family, along with five other families, came to the Ingham area, to a property called Blackrock, to grow tobacco and later run a dairy farm. This was sold in 1887 and the parents retired to Epping in Sydney.
\nRev. Biddolf-Clive, of the Church of England, married Mary McAuslan and John Hull Jnr in Ingham in 1887. After their marriage they went to live at Gilldale, an outstation of the Valley of Lagoons.
\nWhile at Gilldale Mary is said to have learnt the local Aboriginal dialect and the medicinal properties of some native plants. In 1888 a heavily preganant Mary travelled on horseback to Stoneleigh, near Ingham, to be with her mother for the birth of her first child, Winifred Jane. This journey through Valley of Lagoons and across the Seaview Range to the coast would have taken at least a week. Mary returned to Gilldale alone with her newborn baby in the saddle.
\nMary and John Hull had seven children between 1888 and 1905. They were Winifred Jane (2/4/1988), Rhoda Maria (20/8/1889), Anna (23/2/1891), Elsie McAuslan (28/8/1892), Rowland Evered (13/3/1894), Kenneth Beven (10/12/1899) and Hazel Edith (2/7/1905).
\nMary and John Hull moved to Herberton in 1889 and went into the cattle business, butchering and breaking in wild bullocks. They also ran an unsuccessful dairy run. After Maria McAuslan's death in a buggy accident in 1892, Mary inherited money which she used to purchase Portion 157 at Evelyn. Mary named the property Cressbrook. The property was extended to include Portion 140 in 1905. It is believed that John Hull did not reside at Cressbrook for any length of time.
\nMary built a new house at Cressbrook out of locally pit sawn red cedar. The house was said to have survived the 1927 cyclone that destroyed many nearby houses. Mary operated Cressbrook as a dairy farm and a butcher/slaughterhouse, selling produce 20 kilometres away at Herberton. Mary supplied construction workers with fresh meat during the construction of the Herberton to Tumoulin railway. She also provided produce to the timber workers who worked along the timber tramway connecting Evelyn to the Herberton railway at Turulka which operated between 1912 and 1924.
\nEarly in 1913 Anna Stone, Mary Hull's sister, moved from Montecute to Cressbrook so that Mary could assist with a wound on her arm which needed to be changed daily. The injury led to Anna's death on 12 July 1913. Anna Stone was the first person to be buried at Cressbrook cemetery. After her death her husband Henry Stone moved to Cressbrook, suffering from failing eyesight, alcohol and laudanum addiction.
\nRhoda Maria Hull, Mary Hull's daughter, married Alexander William Fraser on 15 July 1914. They lived at Cressbrook after their marriage. Alexander Fraser was buried at Cressbrook cemetery after his skull was crushed in a timber felling accident on 13 April 1915. He was 22 years old. His father and brother-in-law attended Alexander's funeral. Fraser's family brought the marble headstone from Townsville. Rhoda was pregnant when Alexander died.
\nHenry Stone died on 11 October 1919 leaving his property, Montecute, to Mary Hull. He had been living at Cressbrook for five years. He shares a marble headstone, made by Melrose and Fenwick in Cairns, with his wife, Anna, in the Cressbrook Cemetery. Mary sold Montecute and used the money to purchase property for her sons, Rowley and Kenny, in East Evelyn. The property was one mile south of Evelyn, in an area with high rainfall. It was able to provide feed for Mary's stock when Evelyn was dry.
\nMary used Cressbrook as a boarding house after Henry's death, taking in people from Cairns with 'coastal fever', school teachers for the local Evelyn Scrub State School and visiting officials. She was a leading figure in the Evelyn area, being the local contact for childbirth, medical and police matters.
\nMary Hull suffered her first heart attack in 1924, and her second in 1936. She died three weeks after her third heart attack, on 31 October 1940. She had lived at Cressbrook for forty-eight years and was buried beside her sister, brother-in-law and son-in-law.
\nCressbrook was left to Mary's youngest daughter, Hazel Edith, who had married Don Fardon in April 1924. Hazel Edith Fardon and her family lived on the property until it was sold to Otto Jonsson in 1948, whose family owned the neighboring Evelyn Station. The buildings and fences were removed and Cressbrook was incorporated into Evelyn Station. In 2003 the property used for growing potatoes and grazing cattle.
\nHazel Edith Fardon was buried in Townsville with her husband after she died in the Blue Mountains on 21 August 1991. Some of her ashes were interred at the foot of Mary Hull's grave in 1992.
","criteria":"Cressbrook Cemetery is a small private cemetery containing the headstones of four early Herbert River settlers. It is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the development and decline of rural properties.
|The cemetery demonstrates the principal characteristics of rural homestead cemeteries, where members of extended families were buried in small private cemeteries on the property. Two of the graves in the Cressbrook Cemetery are marked with typically elaborate marble headstones, made by stone masons in regional centres, and imported into the district.
|The place has a special association with Queensland's history because it is the burial place of important pioneers of North Queensland. Explorer and pioneer Henry Stone surveyed blocks on the headwaters of the Burdekin in 1859. He was the first manager of the Valley of Lagoons and first settler of the Upper Herbert, establishing the Vale of Herbert Station in 1865. Anna Stone and Mary Hull were also important early pioneers of the Upper and Lower Herbert districts, arriving as children at the Valley of Lagoons in 1868.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16637,"place_ref":601901,"name":"Carroll Cottage","alternate_name":"Daniel Carroll's House","street_address":"6 Edward Street","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Daniel Carroll's House is located on a small block of land in Edward Street in the town of Kingaroy. The house is comprised of a four roomed cottage with several accretions. The cottage is a small, single storey timber dwelling, low-set on short timber stumps with a short, centrally located entry stair. The area of the house that accommodates the front two rooms has a steep, hipped roof without eaves that is clad in corrugated iron and the back two rooms have a simple lean-to roof. A verandah runs across the front of the house with a recent cross braced balustrade replacing an earlier dowel balustrade. The cottage is clad externally in weatherboards and has ogee-profile steel window hoods surmounting the windows, which are double hung timber sashes.
The detached kitchen is located at the back of the house, connected by a raised, covered walkway that has been enclosed in horizontal, corrugated iron sheeting. On the western side this area is abutted by a bathroom also sheeted in corrugated iron. The kitchen is a simple rectilinear building with a pitched roof. It is clad in weatherboards and has been extended with a small open, lean-to at the back which is used for timber storage. The cottage is lined internally with beaded, tongue and groove timber boarding and has three bedrooms and a parlour. The kitchen is lined with fibro cement sheeting.
","history":"Daniel Carroll's House is a small timber residence constructed in 1900 on a selection owned by Daniel Carroll. Carroll was an early settler of the district, part of a wave of selectors who took up land in the area from the 1880s onwards, and his cottage was the nucleus of a small settlement that was to become the town of Kingaroy. Significant pastoral expansion took place in southern Queensland commencing in 1840 when extensive tracts of land were taken up on the Darling Downs, Brisbane Valley and Logan River area in 1840 and 41. The first large properties of the Burnett district, Tarong and Nanango, were taken up in 1842.
For about 40 years, these large pastoral holdings survived substantially intact and their dominance suppressed the need for service towns. However, the Lands Act of 1868 caused dramatic changes to rural areas and large portions of these leases were resumed for selection purposes. The result was the closer settlement of smaller selections, which consequently enabled the establishment of rural communities and created a need for service towns and public facilities. The first notable selection in the area was that of the Markwell brothers, who applied for 2156 hectares of land in 1878. It was located on the Stuart River and Kingaroy Creek and became known as the Kingaroy Paddock, ultimately giving its name to the area.
In 1891, Daniel Carroll selected portion 107V, a 160 acre block abutting the Kingaroy Paddock. Carroll had arrived from Ireland at the age of twenty in 1887 and spent some years in the area working as a coach driver. In 1898, it was reported that Carroll was the only European living in the vicinity of the current site of Kingaroy and that he had built a hut for himself and a yard for his horses nearby. In 1900, in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage to Bridget Pender, Carroll had the present cottage built, by a Mr Ferdinand Seng. By this time, Carroll had selected further blocks of land adjoining portion 107V.
To facilitate the transport of timber and other produce of developing agricultural industries in the district, the Kilkivan branch railway was extended to Wondai in 1903 and to the "56 mile peg" in 1904. The 56 mile peg was near the corner of the Kingaroy Paddock. The termination of the railway line at the peg was the impetus for the establishment of the town of Kingaroy. Daniel Carroll and Arthur Youngman (owner of Taabinga station) sold town blocks at public auction in 1903-04. When the first train arrived on 19 December 1904, the Carroll Cottage was one of only three buildings at the termination site. The others being Carroll's new hotel, The Carrollee (burnt down in 1913)and F C Petersen's recently completed store. The official banquet for the opening of the railway was held in Carroll's horse paddock.
After the extension of the railway, the establishment of commercial premises such as shops and hotels were soon followed by public offices, churches and schools. The seven years that the town served as railhead were sufficient to secure its growth beyond neighbouring centres and establish a lasting dominance. Daniel Carroll continued to be involved with the development of Kingaroy through his property interests and as a member of a variety of committees for public facilities. He donated a building site from his original block for St. Mary's, the first Catholic Church in Kingaroy and also donated land for the hospital. The Carroll family moved into a new home in Albert Street in 1910, but retained possession of the cottage, which was rented out. The property is still owned by members of the Carroll family, with the Kingaroy Historical Society as caretakers. It is furnished and interpreted to the early Interwar period and is open by appointment as a house museum.
","criteria":"Daniel Carroll's House is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, reflecting the housing and living conditions of early settlers in rural districts. As the earliest dwelling to be constructed in Kingaroy, Daniel Carroll's House demonstrates the growth of the town from a rural selection to a thriving town around a railhead and later a regional administrative and commercial centre. Constructed in 1900, the house is conspicuous amongst surrounding Interwar homes as being of an earlier period and contributes to an understanding of how the town developed.
|Daniel Carroll's House demonstrates the principal characteristics of a small, timber residence constructed in a then remote rural district. Key features include the simple rectilinear form of the building, steep, hipped roof, basic four-roomed plan and detached kitchen. The house provides a good illustration of the way in which houses have traditionally been extended in Queensland.
|Daniel Carroll's House has aesthetic significance derived from its simple design, diminutive scale, cottage-like form and unrefined use of materials. It is largely intact and its current use as a house museum has the ability to evoke an impression of the lives of early residents and other times.
|Daniel Carroll's House has strong social value to the Kingaroy community, both as the earliest house in the settlement on its original site and also as part of a community museum complex maintained by the local historical society.
|The house has a special association with Daniel Carroll, a key figure in the establishment of Kingaroy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16639,"place_ref":601903,"name":"Brisbane General Hospital Precinct","alternate_name":"Royal Brisbane Hospital | Royal Women's Hospital | Royal Children's Hospital | Herston Hospitals Complex (current name) | RBH | Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital | RBWH","street_address":"40 Bowen Bridge Road","suburb":"HERSTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-03-28","description":"The Brisbane General Hospital Precinct comprises a collection of buildings and landscape features dating from the 1860s to the 1940s within The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH); itself a substantial complex bounded by Bowen Bridge Road (east), Herston Road (south), Bramston Terrace (west) and Butterfield Street (north), and situated in the inner northern Brisbane suburb of Herston. Significant buildings include the: former Fever Ward (1875); former Female Ward (1885); Lady Norman Wing (1895); Nurses’ Homes (Lady Lamington, 1897, 1914 and 1931; Block 1, north, 1936; and Block 2, south, 1939); former Mental Ward (1918); Edith Cavell Block (1922); former Superintendents’ Residence (1941); a Brisbane Tuff Wall (c1866) associated with the early entrance road from Herston Road; and a substantial Brisbane Tuff retaining wall (late 1930s / early 1940s) along Bowen Bridge Road.
\nThe prominent Nurses’ Homes and Edith Cavell Block are situated on the highest point of the Hospital site and visible from vantage points across the northern suburbs of Brisbane. These buildings, along with the former Superintendent’s Residence and former Mental Ward, are set amongst landscaped grounds with pathways, stone and brick walls, gardens and mature trees.
\nFormer Pavilion Wards: Fever Ward and Female Ward
\nThe former Fever Ward is a single-storey, brick building located to the east of the former Mental Ward, about halfway between it and Bowen Bridge Road. Aligned approximately north-south, the building contains a single open ward with timber verandahs to the north, east and west (now enclosed). The southern end of the building is clad with timber weatherboards. A timber pedimented former entrance is centred on the northern verandah, which retains stop-chamfered timber posts with moulded capitals. The hipped roof is clad in corrugated metal and has boarded eaves and a clerestory, which along with the early verandah doors and windows demonstrate the building’s previous form as a pavilion ward. The interior has been altered but the original queen post trusses and timber ceiling remain intact above a suspended plasterboard ceiling. A covered link connects the northeast verandah with the adjoining Female Ward to the north.
\nThe former Female Ward is a single-storey, brick building overlooking a portion of former O’Connell Terrace within the Hospital complex. The building, on a Brisbane Tuff base constructed from stone quarried at the Hospital site, is distinguished by two prominent roof ventilators and a central flue. Rows of early double-hung sash windows, with fanlights set above the level of the now demolished verandahs, are retained along the east and west walls. The north and south elevations are symmetrically arranged, with double-hung sashes flanking centred French doors. Original verandahs have been removed and the north-facing deck is modern and not of cultural heritage significance.
\nLady Norman Wing
\nThe Lady Norman Wing is located to the south of the Edith Cavill Block, on elevated ground at the western end of the precinct. Designed according to 19th century pavilion plan principles and incorporating the requirements of a children’s hospital with operating theatre, it is highly intact and retains evidence of its original planning, fenestration and other features for the provision of natural light and ventilation.
\nAn L-shaped, two-storey brick building (with basement) designed to the pavilion plan, each floor consists of a large ward (McConnel ground floor, Raff first floor) and a smaller ward (Gray ground floor, Cowlishaw first floor) opening onto wide verandahs. Set at right angles, the wards are connected by a two-storey brick core that contains a large central staircase and various ancillary rooms along a central corridor, including staff and patient rooms and a rare naturally lit 19th century operating theatre on the first floor. Two brick towers attach to the western side of the building accommodating ablutions facilities and a third tower in the form of a faceted bay projects from the northeast corner of the core.
\nThe intersecting hipped roof is clad in corrugated metal and features six corbelled brick chimneys with flat arched caps. The eaves are lined with timber boards and the separate timber-framed verandah roofs are unlined. A gable-roofed lantern centred over the core and the remains of a lantern over the former operating theatre (originally pyramidal with an apex ventilator, modified early to mid 20th century) facilitate natural light and ventilation to the interior. The three brick ablutions towers have pyramidal roofs.
\nThe exterior walls are face brick with rendered string courses, and the basement walls incorporate Brisbane Tuff. Window openings have contrasting face brick flat arch heads and rendered sills. Early timber joinery is retained throughout, including: narrow double-hung sash windows (core); narrow top-hung awning windows (towers); a bank of three tall double-hung sash windows (operating theatre); and alternating casement windows and French doors, with fanlights (wards). The verandahs have stop-chamfered timber posts with moulded capitals and decorative cast iron balustrades (first floor) with timber top-rails. Some verandahs on the northern side are enclosed and doors modern replacements.
\nThe building retains the principal spaces and planning, some of the wards have been partitioned for offices but the ward spaces are discernible. Many original internal features remain including: the decorative staircase with stop-chamfered timber posts that have moulded capitals and brackets; timber-framed skylights below the lanterns; skirtings, architraves and original doors to the ancillary rooms; and numerous fireplaces, some retaining decorative mantles and others enclosed, that illustrate the provision of heating prior to electricity. Many internal finishes are intact. The ripple iron ceiling to part of the upper floor remains, along with several fretwork ceiling vents. In the entrance foyer is a bronze plaque in memory of Mary McConnel, the founder of the Hospital for Sick Children.
\nNurses’ Home (Lady Lamington, Blocks 1 and 2)
\nThe Nurses' Homes consist of three linked buildings which form an integrated complex organised around a series of courtyards. The Lady Lamington Nurses’ Home is a brick building, E-shaped in plan, with timber verandahs and Marseille tiled roofs. It is situated on the crest of the hill on a steeply sloping site, and has walled courtyards facing east which contain established gardens. Attached to the western side of the Lady Lamington are two eight-storey towers (Blocks 1, north; and 2, south) of masonry construction. These towers are positioned opposite the southernmost and central wings of the Lady Lamington. All three buildings have sweeping views of Brisbane; to the north and east from the verandahs of the Lady Lamington and in all directions from Blocks 1 and 2.
\nLady Lamington
\nBuilt in three stages (1897, southern wing; 1914, central wing; 1931, northern wing) the Lady Lamington Nurses Home is two storeys with a basement in the older southernmost part. At the north eastern corner, the building perching dramatically on a steep slope is, due to the sudden fall in the land, five storeys tall. The courtyard gardens, are accessed from the verandahs via sweeping concrete stairs that are ornamented with concrete spheres mounted on low pillars.
\nThe verandahs have simple timber balustrades constructed of square dowels and arched timber valances between the verandah posts at the second top level; the ground floor level at the southernmost end. Below this level the verandah posts are mostly brick forming a screen wall with arched openings. The verandah floors, timber in the first stage, are concrete in stage two and three. The continuous verandahs are connected vertically by a series of external fire escape stairs and ladders.
\nThe building has a gambrel roof, which also covers the verandahs, and a number of brick chimneys. The chimney nearest the north eastern corner is brick with cement render bands. The English bond brickwork in the first section has been coated with a red pigment, and a cement-lime mixture has been painted on to resemble stretcher bond; and the basement brickwork is dark brown, contrasting with the red brick used elsewhere.
\nAll the wings are connected by long central corridors which have rows of identical cell-like rooms on either side; some larger rooms, with fireplaces, are located at the northern end of stage one. Each room opens onto the verandah via large double hung windows with sills at floor level (stage one and two) or French doors (stage three), with fanlights; the spaces between the interior partitions and the ceilings have been in-filled, mostly with glass louvres and flat sheeting. Large sitting rooms, with fireplaces, are positioned at the eastern end of the north and south wings, and the ground floor of the southern wing contains a main entrance, lobby area and large open space. Internal staircases and bathrooms are positioned adjacent to the western end of the central and northern wings.
\nEarly interior joinery, finishes, linings and fixtures are retained throughout, including: panelled doors, with fanlights; moulded archways, architraves, skirtings and picture rails; decorative fireplace hearths and surrounds; plastered walls, V-jointed (vj) tongue and groove (T&G), pressed metal and galvanised ripple iron ceilings (some concealed by later flat sheeting); door and window hardware; internal staircase balustrades; and functional features such wall-mounted bin frames and laundry chutes.
\nThe building’s climate-responsive features include: its ridge-top location; nine feet (2.7m) wide verandahs to all sides; verandah windows and doors; and vj T&G interior partitions designed to assist cross ventilation by originally stopping four feet (1.2m) short of the 13 feet high (4m) ceilings.
\nBlocks 1 and 2
\nThe eight-storey Blocks 1 and 2, similar in appearance and organisation, form two sides of a bitumen surfaced yard which is open at the western end. The lower two storeys, one of which is partly below ground level, have external walls of face brickwork while the upper six storeys are finished with white-painted cement render. Arcaded verandahs run along the northern and southern elevations. Both buildings have a number of decorative features that connect them to the Spanish Mission style such as textured render, arched openings, ornate columns at the uppermost level and decorative brackets and awnings at the ground level. Windows are metal-framed with smallish panes. Both buildings have flat roofs with sloped tiled parapets. The lift motor rooms which protrude above the parapet level have Marseille tiled external walls and castellated parapets.
\nA lift and staircase is located at the eastern ends of the blocks, with a concrete staircase with metal balustrade at the western ends. The lift shaft in Block 1 is partly enclosed by a decorative screen. The eastern and western ends of the buildings are connected on almost every level by a central corridor off which open a row of identical, cell-like rooms on both sides. Each room opens onto the verandah via timber French doors. On the lowest floor of the southern building (Block 2) is a large recreation room containing a stage.
\nEarly interior joinery, linings and fixtures include: plastered walls and columns with recessed dado and picture rails (ground floor); moulded architraves, skirting and cornices; and decorative glass light fittings.
\nFormer Mental Ward
\nLocated within the garden setting adjacent to the residential core of the Hospital, the former Mental Ward is a single-storey, U-shaped building to the northeast of the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home. Residential in scale, the detailing and massing of the ward building show influences of the Arts and Crafts movement. Symmetrical about a rectangular central wing which terminates in wings to the north and south, the building is distinguished by its steeply pitched roofs covered with terracotta tiles and three large roof ventilators. Approached from the east up a flight of concrete steps from the garden below, the central arched entrance of the main wing sits beneath a bell-shaped parapet, which has a decorative concrete capping and a bulls-eye vent. The verandahs flanking the main entrance have been enclosed with glazing. The parapets to the north and south wings have been removed and are now sheeted with fibrous cement. Verandahs to the north and south wings have been enclosed.
\nEdith Cavell Block
\nDramatically posed on the western ridge at the summit of the steeply sloping Hospital site, the Edith Cavell Block affords sweeping views across to the north of Brisbane. The building is H-shaped in plan, three-storeys with a basement, and clad in face brick. The south elevation is symmetrical about a projecting central bay with a polychrome arched loggia entrance at ground level. This bay is divided by brick piers between which there are concrete spandrel in-fills and sash windows. The central wing terminates in pavilions to the east and west. The external walls are faced at ground and first floor level with glazed brown bricks and above with a rough-cast finish. The south elevation has a regular rhythm of flat arched window openings with prominent rendered keystones and rendered sills. The striking north elevation consists of a polychrome arched loggia to the ground level opening from the building to the garden and swimming pool area. Verandahs to the first and second floors are divided into bays by brick piers and in-filled with painted timber slatted balustrading. These verandahs overlook the garden and swimming pool with change shed.
\nFormer Superintendent's Residence
\nSituated to the east of the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home and southwest of the former Mental Ward, the building forms part of a well-defined group of residential buildings in the centre of the Hospital complex. Residential in scale and materials, the building was skilfully designed and detailed with reference to the inter-war ‘Old English’ style by architects Conrad and Atkinson. A two-storey building, the lower floor is constructed in cavity brickwork and the upper floor is stucco over a timber stud frame. The house has a tiled roof and a distinctive asymmetrical front elevation to the east. There is a distinctive decorative bargeboard above a large bay window to the north of the arched entrance.
\nGrounds, Landscape and Views
\nThe Brisbane General Hospital Precinct grounds are well established, retaining a range of landscape elements and plantings from various phases of the hospital’s development. The site slopes upwards to the east from Bowen Bridge Road and to the west from Bramston Terrace, and is terraced with stone and brick retaining walls, for buildings, roads and garden areas.
\nA large Brisbane Tuff wall runs along Bowen Bridge Road and defines the eastern boundary of the Hospital site. Brisbane Tuff features extensively in landscape across the site, including a two metre high Brisbane Tuff wall to the rear of Block 7 that is associated with the early Hospital entrance road from Herston Road. Any modern surfaces within the boundaries for each Tuff wall are not of cultural heritage significance. Former quarry extraction sites are evident on the northern (former O’Connell Terrace) and southern edges of the precinct, forming steep rock-faced cliffs.
\nThe precinct is accessed from the north by part of former O’Connell Terrace that runs through the Hospital, and from the east by the roadway from Bramston Terrace running between the Lady Norman Wing and the Edith Cavell Block that was the main entrance to the Children's Hospital and offers a view to the Nurses’ Homes above. An additional roadway from Bramston Terrace to the north of the Edith Cavell Block is framed by poincianas (Delonix spp.) and Brisbane Tuff retaining walls.
\nThe associated grounds of the Edith Cavell Block, former Superintendent's Residence, and the Nurses' Homes form a residential core—in scale and character—within the Hospital site, which along with the gardens surrounding the former Mental Ward is the most extensive area of landscape on the site.
\nCourtyard gardens on the eastern side of the Lady Lamington include lawns, stone and brick-edged garden beds, concrete pathways, mature palms and hedges, and are enclosed by brick (south) and stone (north) walls ornamented with concrete spheres mounted on pillars adjacent to the entrance gateways. The brick wall to the southernmost courtyard sits on a battered stone retaining wall. An early concrete pathway and steps connects the Lady Lamington to the main Hospital complex, revealing views of the elevated Nurses’ Homes through the surrounding trees. A level area to the south of the Lady Lamington containing two poincianas is terraced by a brick wall and overlooks a steep, vegetated drop formed by the upper face of a former quarry and a rock wall excavated when the former Children’s Hospital was constructed. The modern pathways, services trench and shade structure in this area are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nOn the northern side of the Lady Lamington, a mature Bribie Island pine (western end, Callitris columellaris) and row of mature camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) and the remnants of brick fence piers overlook the former quarry cutting along O’Connell Terrace. A line of short brick pier remnants runs adjacent to the northern elevation of the Lady Lamington, beyond which is a concrete path. Any modern fabric associated with O’Connell Terrace that is at the base of the quarry face and within the heritage boundary is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nOther mature trees include a camphor laurel and leopard tree (Libidibia ferrea) on the eastern side of the Lady Lamington, and a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), poinciana and frangipani (Plumeria spp.) to the northwest. The elevated Nurses’ Homes are a prominent feature of the Hospital, offering panoramic views of the site and surrounds from their numerous verandahs, and highly visible (particularly Blocks 1 and 2) from vantage points and major roads across the surrounding suburbs.
\nGrounds surrounding the former Superintendents Residence and Mental Ward comprise a series of contoured terraces with roads, pathways, walls, gardens and lawn areas, and mature plantings. To the northwest of the residence stands the memorial gardens commemorating early pregnancy termination and loss. The fabric of this garden is not of cultural heritage significance. Garden beds to the front (east) of the former Residence have stone retaining walls and lawns to the north and south are surrounded by jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), palms, poinciana and stone-edged garden beds containing various shrubs. A lawn area between the former Residence and Mental Ward is framed by stone-edged garden beds and contains a mature hoop pine and leopard tree.
\nThe northeast corner of the Mental Ward terrace features a mature poinciana surrounded by garden beds, in the shade of which stands the memorial statue of Edward (Ned) Michael Hanlon (shifted to this location in 2000). The cast bronze sculpture stands on a cantilevered bronze plinth the front face of which is cast with the words ‘Rich in Good Works’. The plinth rests on a Brisbane Tuff retaining wall on which the original bronze plaque and a newer one explaining the shift are fixed. Concrete stairs and pathways flanked by garden beds give access to the front of the building. Areas of lawn and stone-edged garden beds extend to the southeast, with concrete pathways, stone curved steps, a stone spoon drain, a palm and a mature hoop pine. In the treed area on its western side is a cut along which stand a number of brick piers similar to those on the northern side of Lady Lamington.
\nThe grounds associated with the Edith Cavell Block are one of the few open spaces remaining on the site and provide the building with a pleasant garden setting and opportunities for sweeping views to and from the north and west. The garden area contains a fenced swimming pool area with change shed, garden seats, mature plantings and a stone edged garden beds.
\nThe area to the east of the Fever and Female wards is landscaped with lawn and recent plantings, with a terrace formed at the northern end by a modern brick wall. All modern landscape, road and pathway features within the ward buildings boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nOther Structures
\nOther buildings, structures, sheds, footpath and roads within the cultural heritage boundary, as well as modern partitions, joinery and suspended ceilings within the significant buildings, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Brisbane General Hospital was opened at the Herston site in January 1867, with the earliest buildings gathered around the corner of Bowen Bridge and Herston roads. This was followed by the Hospital for Sick Children (1883) erected on an adjoining site to the west, the Wattlebrae Infectious Disease Hospital (1902) to the north of O’Connell Terrace, and the Brisbane Women's Hospital (1938) on Bowen Bridge Road. At the beginning of the 21st century the hospital complex, known as The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH), is one of the largest in Australia and provides an extensive range of general and specialist services. It is a major teaching facility for medical, nursing and paramedical training, and a major medical research facility for Queensland.
\nAn integral part of the RBWH, the Brisbane General Hospital Precinct comprises a collection of buildings and landscape features dating from the 1860s to the 1940s including the: former Fever Ward (1875); former Female Ward (1885); Lady Norman Wing (1895); Nurses’ Homes (Lady Lamington, 1897, 1914 and 1931; Block 1, north, 1936; and Block 2, south, 1939); former Mental Ward (1918); Edith Cavell Block (1922); former Superintendents Residence (1941); a Brisbane Tuff Wall (c1866) associated with the early entrance road from Herston Road; and a substantial Brisbane Tuff retaining wall dating from the late 1930s / early 1940s along Bowen Bridge Road.[1] Positioned on the highest point of the hospital site, the Nurses’ Homes and Edith Cavell Block are visible from across the northern suburbs of Brisbane and, along with the former Superintendent’s Residence, are set amongst landscaped grounds with pathways, stone and brick walls, gardens and mature trees; forming the residential core, a central component to the functioning of the hospital from the 1890s until recent times.
\nInitially, the Brisbane General Hospital was managed by a voluntary committee and funded by public subscriptions and government subsidies. In 1863, the Queensland Government established a hospital reserve of 15 acres on Bowen Bridge Road which the Hospital Committee reluctantly accepted, expressing concern that it was an inconvenient site for the residents of Brisbane. The site, known as ‘The Quarries’, was bounded by Bowen Bridge Road to the east, O'Connell Terrace to the north and the open space of Victoria Park to the west and south. The General Hospital opened in January 1867 in an impressive two-storeyed, masonry building with a central tower designed by the Government Architect, Charles Tiffin.
\nBy the early 1900s the Hospital Committee faced a severe financial crisis. The growth in Brisbane’s population was not matched by increases in voluntary contributions and new facilities and upgraded existing facilities were necessary. Considerable construction work was undertaken between 1909 and 1920 including open air pavilions, a new operating theatre, outpatients building, mental ward and extensions to the Lady Lamington Nurses' Quarters.
\nThe Queensland Government assumed control of the Hospital in 1917 after the committee experienced severe financial difficulties in operating the hospital’s facilities. The Hospitals Act of 1923 signalled the transition from hospitals operating as charitable institutions to being regarded as essential public community services funded and maintained by government. Developments in medicine, increasing population and changing social conditions and attitudes to health care resulted in increasing numbers of people seeking treatment at the Hospital. The Brisbane and South Coast Hospitals Board was established in 1924 and assumed responsibility for the General Hospital and Hospital for Sick Children.
\nThe 19th century British convention of local authorities administering isolation or infectious diseases hospitals was adopted in Queensland with the Health Act of 1900. Responding to this legislation, the Metropolitan Joint Board for Infectious Diseases was formed in Brisbane and in 1902 the Wattlebrae Infectious Disease Hospital was established on property adjacent to the Hospital for Sick Children. Substantial buildings for the Wattlebrae Hospital were designed by the architectural firm Hall and Dods. Constructed in 1911, the complex included four open air pavilions with a small central brick building for ablutions and a two-storey timber administration block. Three open air pavilions and the administration block were demolished in 1999.
\n1866-1923
\nFrom 1866 to 1923 an intense building program was undertaken at the site in response to increasing demands for health care from a growing population. Buildings constructed during this time include the General Hospital Tower Block (1866), Nurses' Quarters (1866), Surgeon's Cottage (1866), Fever Ward (1875), Male and Female Fever Wards (1880), Hospital for Sick Children (1884), Children's Fever Ward (1884), Outpatients Building (1885), Operating Theatre (1887), two Female Wards (1885), Lady Norman Wing (1895), Lady Lamington Nurses' Home (1897 & 1914), O'Connell Block (1899), Courier Building (1908), Wattlebrae Infectious Diseases Hospital Open Air Pavilions (1911), Wattlebrae Administration Block (1911), Outpatients Department (1916), Mental Ward (1918), Mortuary Chapel (1918), Edith Cavell Block (1922) and a number of ancillary buildings and structures. The buildings described in the following paragraphs were constructed during this period and remain on the RBWH site:
\nFever Ward (1875) and Female Ward (1885)
\nA single storey brick building for the treatment of fever cases was erected in 1875, to the north of the site overlooking O'Connell Terrace. Modelled on the pavilion plan, which was based on contemporary ideas about the importance to healing of a healthy environment created with natural ventilation and efficient sanitation, this building contained a single open ward surrounded by verandahs providing accommodation for 25 patients. The Fever Ward (Ward 6) was converted to a gynaecological ward in 1890 and along with two adjacent Female Wards (Wards 5 & 7) constructed in 1885, became the focus of female health care in the Hospital. The Female Wards, distinguished by prominent roof ventilators, were also based on the pavilion plan and constructed on a base of Brisbane Tuff quarried from the site. In the 1930s, the former Female Ward accommodated a clinic for the treatment of poliomyelitis under the direction of Sister Elizabeth Kenny.
\nIn 2024 the former Fever Ward houses The Museum of Nursing History and the remaining adjacent Female Ward building has been adapted for use as offices. Despite demolition of part of the former Fever Ward and the enclosure of verandahs, the remaining fabric including the verandahs, doors, windows and clerestory, demonstrates its previous form as a pavilion ward. The verandahs of the Female Ward have been removed; however, the building is substantially intact, including a central ridge light. Also the integrity of the pavilion ward plan remains. A skillion roof has been constructed to the north covering a timber deck, structures which are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nLady Norman Wing (1895)
\nThe Hospital for Sick Children was established in 1883 in a two-storeyed timber building to the western end of the site. Responding to the constant problem of overcrowding in the Children's Hospital, a two-storeyed brick building was constructed in 1895 to the pavilion plan. It was named the Lady Norman Wing, in honour of the wife of then Queensland Governor Sir Henry Norman who opened the building and had an active interest in the hospital. The building was designed by John James (JJ) Clark and Charles McLay, who both made important contributions to Queensland architecture including with the Treasury Building, Brisbane [designed by Clark, QHR 600143] and the Brisbane Customs House [designed by McLay[2], QHR 600156].
\nThe Lady Norman Wing contained four wards, two on each level positioned at right angles off a connecting corridor, as well as accommodation for nurses, a consulting room, lavatories and conveniences. The wards, each named after a woman who had made a significant contribution to the hospital (Cowlishaw, McConnel, Gray and Raff), were ventilated by opposite rows of windows and doors that opened onto verandahs, some of which were later utilised to accommodate patients during times of overcrowding.
\nThe operating theatre on the first floor is the oldest known surviving operating theatre in Queensland.[3] During the 19th century, few Queensland hospitals had an operating theatre. Surgical procedures were limited and often rudimentary, and operating theatres did not become standard in hospitals until the 1920s.[4]
\nInternationally, the oldest surviving operating theatres date to the early 19th century, including the oldest existing surgical amphitheatre in the United States at Pennsylvania Hospital (1804),[5] and the oldest in Europe at St Thomas’s Hospital in Southwark, England (1822),[6] both featuring skylights. An 18th century operating theatre in London hospital no longer exists, but featured a large skylight capturing as much daylight as possible, supplemented by gas light.[7] A sunlit operating theatre was built at Sydney Hospital in 1855, but it is unclear if the skylight survives.[8]
\nThe layout of 19th century operating theatre rooms was simple: a theatre with white walls, large window with skylight, and inside scrub up basins.[9] A skylight or lantern and large windows were common to 19th century operating theatres, providing crucial amounts of natural lighting and overhead lighting for surgeons before the advent of electricity.[10] Skylit operating theatres were installed in Brisbane (1867),[11] Clermont (1876),[12] Maryborough (1886),[13] Brisbane’s Lady Norman Wing (1895), Rockhampton’s Lady Norman Hospital (1897),[14] and Charters Towers (1899),[15] but only the Charters Towers and Brisbane Lady Norman operating theatre and skylight are known to survive.[16]
\nOn its opening in October 1895, the Lady Norman operating theatre was described as ‘a fine, lofty apartment, well lighted from the top and sides’,[17] with a black and white linoleum floor that looked ‘the very ideal of cleanliness’,[18] and featuring ‘the latest improvements in tip-up basins and sinks.’[19]
\nThe roof of the Lady Norman wing was damaged in a storm in 1903, but repaired with funding donated from patron Mrs Raff.[20] The lantern roof in the operating theatre was altered from a pyramid roof to a gable roof form at some point in the early to mid-20th century.[21]
\nSubsequent additions to the Lady Norman Wing included a milk kitchen, treatment rooms and lavatories in the 1950s, and the remodelling of wards in the 1960s and 1970s, including one for use as nursing tutorial and lecture rooms. The building was adapted for use as offices in the 1990s but retains its principal spaces and planning, and is substantially intact.
\nNurses’ Homes (Lady Lamington; 1897 and 1914)
\nPressure for improved nurses’ accommodation finally came to fruition when what was to be the first stage of the Lady Lamington Nurses’ Home was erected in 1896-7 on the crest of the hill overlooking the hospital. The L-shaped building selected by the Hospital Committee from a number of competition designs was submitted by architect RS (Robin) Dods. It included accommodation for some 50 nurses in cubicles partitioned to below ceiling height for better ventilation; a sitting room with fire place on each floor; servants' quarters at basement level; and a two-storeyed semi-detached toilet block (since demolished). Built of brick with a Marseilles tiled roof (believed to be one of the earliest uses of the material in Queensland), it was enclosed by verandahs; the semicircular steps to the courtyard garden became a popular posing place for nurses’ photographs. Although the competition brief called for a kitchen and dining room, these were not included.
\nIn 1914, Hall & Dods called tenders for additions forming the building into a ‘U’ shape in plan; the contract being let to Brisbane builder George Day at a price of £11,889.
\nLady Lamington Nurses’ Home (named for the wife of the then Queensland Governor) was the first of Dods' Queensland buildings and established the practice of Hall & Dods (1896-1916), which quickly became the leading architectural firm in Queensland undertaking numerous residential, commercial, ecclesiastical, and hospital works. The firm’s hospital work included the Mater Misericordia Hospital’s Private (1908-10) and Public (1909-11, extended 1913) components and its Nurses’ Quarters and Kitchen (1913). Dods has been acknowledged as ‘one of the most significant early 20th century Australian architects'[22] and one of few Arts and Crafts-influenced practitioners in Queensland.
\nArts and Crafts was an international design movement that flourished between 1860 and 1910, its influence continuing into the 1930s. The movement championed traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and drew from an eclectic range of stylistic elements and details. Importantly, it valued local variations in traditions so that good design would have relevance within its context. For Dods this translated into designs that were climatically responsive, paying attention to aspect and ventilation,[23] with well-proportioned solid forms, wide porches or verandahs, and prominent steep roofs.
\nLady Lamington was to form the first part of what became the residential precinct for the Hospital site which stretched from the top of the hill down towards Bowen Bridge Road. It included the Edith Cavell Memorial Block for Nurses (1922), Medical Officers Quarters (1934; 1939; demolished 1994), Medical Superintendent's Residence (1941; now offices), and two other residences (erected 1941, since demolished).
\nEdith Cavell Block (1922)
\nBetween 1908 and 1923, major development of the Children's Hospital was undertaken in response to the increasing population and advances in medicine and surgery. The Hospital Committee purchased a portion of the Herston Estate and erected the Edith Cavell Nurses' Home to accommodate the increasing numbers of nurses required for the expanding Children's Hospital. Designed by the Department of Public Works in an Arts and Crafts-influenced style, the building was completed in 1922. The building was named in honour of Edith Cavell, a British nurse executed for helping refugees escape in Brussels during World War I. A swimming pool with associated landscape was constructed to the north of the building in 1958 and the area remains one of the few extensive open spaces on the site.
\nMental Ward (1918, extended 1948)
\nIn 1918 a single-storey, brick building was constructed to accommodate patients suffering from mild psychiatric illness. It heralded a new approach in the treatment of mental illness. Previously patients requiring psychiatric treatment could only be admitted to hospitals for the insane at Goodna, Ipswich and Toowoomba. This was the first ward in a general hospital in Queensland to provide treatment for the mentally ill. Initiative for constructing this ward came from Dr Henry Byam (HB) Ellerton, Inspector of Hospitals for the Insane, who was closely involved in the design with the Department of Public Works. Responsibility for individual projects within the Department of Public Works is seldom clear-cut but departmental files suggest that Thomas Pye had a major influence on the design of projects in the office during this time.
\nResidential in scale and influenced by the Arts and Crafts architectural movement, the U-shaped building accommodated male and female patients in separate wings divided into cells, a marked difference from the dormitory type buildings at contemporary mental hospitals. The garden was an important element of the setting of the building with grassed areas to the front planted with trees. Following increased demand to accommodate acute alcoholics and prisoners requiring medical treatment, locked cells were erected to the rear in 1948. The rear portion was known as Ward 14 while the front became known as Ward 16. In 1958 the former Wattlebrae Infectious Diseases Hospital (1930) was converted into a psychiatric unit and named Lowson House and Ward 16 became known as Ward 15. In 2017, the building houses offices for the Hospital’s Safety and Security Services Department. Externally, the building retains its original form except: the front parapets have been removed from the north and south wings and in-filled with fibrous cement sheeting, the front verandahs to the main wing have been enclosed with glass and metal louvres and the verandahs to the north and south wings have been enclosed with timber and glass. The building’s interior has been altered but the integrity of its form and plan remains.
\n1923-1945
\nThe 1920s and 1930s was a period of great expansion for the Hospital, with a major building program announced in 1925 following the introduction of the Health Act of 1923 by Edward Granville Theodore's Labor government, which saw the state government accept financial and administrative responsibility for the provision of health services in Queensland.
\nAtkinson and Conrad (also known as Atkinson Powell and Conrad and later Conrad and Gargett) were appointed Hospital architects in the mid-1920s. They were the pre-eminent interwar architectural firm in Queensland, particularly known for their use of the Spanish Mission style. Examples of the firm’s work include: Tristram's Factory, West End (1930); Brisbane Boys College, Toowong (1930, QHR 600337); and Craigston (1926, QHR 600165). As a high rise apartment block (albeit non-institutional), Craigston may be seen as having influenced Blocks 1 and 2 at the Brisbane Hospital site. The firm's work there included General Blocks 3 & 4 (late 1930s), Medical Officers Quarters (1934; 1939), and the Brisbane Women's Hospital (1938, in association with the Department of Public Works). All these buildings have since been demolished.
\nDevelopment at the Hospital site between 1926 and 1938 included the construction of Blocks 1 (1928), 2 (1930), 3 (1938) and 4 (1937); service buildings including the laundry (1926), kitchen (1935) and boiler house (1935); and additional staff accommodation including major extensions to the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home.
\nNurses’ Homes (Lady Lamington, Block 1 and 2) (1931, 1936 and 1939)
\nWith a dramatic increase in nursing staff in the 1930s, further accommodation was required. In 1931, Atkinson and Conrad in association with Lange Powell added a third wing to Lady Lamington creating the E-shaped plan of today.
\nIn 1936, the first of the two tower blocks, Block 1 (north), was completed; the second, Block 2 (south), in 1939. Both were joined to the first and second floors of Lady Lamington. They were planned in a similar way to the earlier quarters with a central corridor flanked by small rooms opening onto verandahs. The architectural vocabulary employed was, however, very different, using the contemporary Spanish Mission style favoured by Conrad and at this time established as the hospital’s house style. Accommodation was also provided for nursing training. A small single-storeyed library was built between the Blocks 1 and 2 in the 1950s. The roof on the northern block was rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in 1993, and the Marseilles tiles on the Lady Lamington roof were replaced in 2012.
\nSuperintendent's Residence (Pye House, 1941)
\nLocated to the east of the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home, the Residence for the Medical Superintendent designed by Conrad and Atkinson was completed in 1941. With its asymmetrical composition, and combination of face brickwork, imitation half-timbering and textured render, it reflected the nostalgia and quaintness expressed in the inter-war ‘Old English’ style.[24] The lower level provided a kitchen and living rooms, and the upper floor provided bedrooms. Maids’ quarters were provided in a single-storey semi-detached portion to the rear. Dr Aubrey Pye was the first Superintendent to occupy this residence. In office from 1935 to 1967, Pye was the longest serving Superintendent of the Hospital, presiding over a period of extraordinary development and dramatic change. Pye exercised significant influence over the administration of the Hospital and oversaw major changes and expansion to all facets of its activities. The building was refurbished in 1966. Known in 2017 as Pye House, the building is now used as offices. Few changes have been made to the building.
\n1945 to 2017
\nBy the end of the 1930s the site had become the largest hospital complex in Australia and has continued to expand, except for disruptions caused by World War II. During the 1950s new buildings included the Lady Ramsey Wing, a nurses’ home for the Women's Hospital. From the mid-1950s an increasing proportion of the capital works budget was devoted to facilities and equipment for support services. The first major building on the site to specifically accommodate specialist services, Block 8 commenced in 1956 and was built in three stages over 14 years, accommodating the pathology department and the Queensland Radium Institute. The hospital’s continuing role in medical education was reflected in the construction of the Edwin Tooth Lecture Theatre (1957) and the Clinical Sciences building (1966). During the 1970s, the major building project was the 14-storey Block 7 completed in 1977 with accommodation for casualty and outpatients, general wards and administration.
\nRedevelopment and expansion of the Hospital has continued from the 1970s with demolition of existing buildings, construction of new buildings, additions and renovations to existing stock and acquisition of additional property. More recent developments include new blocks for the former Children's Hospital and the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, and extensive redevelopment across the northern half of the site, including a station for the Northern Busway along Bowen Bridge Road. These modern developments on the Hospital site do not form part of this Queensland heritage register entry.
\nHistorically, on-site accommodation for the (female) nursing staff was seen as an integral part of both hospital efficiency and the propagation and maintenance of the nursing code. Recent social and educational changes have meant that the requirement for on-site nursing accommodation has greatly diminished, meaning adaptation of the Nurses’ accommodation buildings is required.
\nIn 2000, a statue of Edward Michael Hanlon was relocated to the northernmost part of the garden area in front of the former Mental Ward. Completed by Brisbane sculptress, Maria Kuhn, it had originally been unveiled in the forecourt to the Women’s Hospital in 1955. Its commissioning and placement acknowledged the instrumental role played by Hanlon in the development of the Hospital and in particular maternity facilities throughout Queensland.
\nThe grounds and landscape
\nThe grounds contain strong evidence of the layering and close conjunction of garden areas or elements from different periods of the hospital’s development. The steepness of the site has required terracing and stone retaining walls for major buildings and roads. The use of Brisbane Tuff, obtained from quarries on site, is a major landscape element. One of the most striking walls is the substantial Brisbane Tuff wall along Bowen Bridge Road constructed in the late 1930s / early 1940s as a result of a road widening.
\nRoads, pathways and walls throughout the site demonstrate the early planning and subsequent development of the site. The road to the rear of Block 7 is a remnant of the original planning of the Hospital. When it was established, the hospital’s main entrance was from Herston Road and this road was the principal thoroughfare on the site. The road has influenced the development of the site since its inception and was part of the master plan devised by Conrad, Atkinson and Powell in the 1930s. It remains a prominent roadway within the site. This road is separated from Block 7 by a generally 2m high Brisbane Tuff wall. Photographic evidence suggests this was part of the first building on site constructed in 1866 and has helped define the road since that time.
\nThe roadway from Bramston Terrace running between the Lady Norman Wing and the Edith Cavell Block was formerly part of O'Connell Terrace and was the main entrance to the Children's Hospital. Also, the pathway connecting the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home to the main Hospital complex is an integral element of the site.
\nThe Hospital grounds have two distinct garden styles: the 1930s hybrid character of picturesque garden beds and stone work, and the more recent style of mixed shrubbery of native and exotic plants. Distinctive features of the grounds include the planting of large flowering trees (in particular poinciana and jacaranda); palms; large shade trees (ficus and camphor laurel) and pines (hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii), bunya (Araucaria bidwillii), Bribie Island (Callitris columellaris) and kauri (Agathis robusta)).
\nThe landscaped grounds surrounding the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home, Edith Cavell Block and former Superintendent's Residence have developed to form a green, residential core within the Hospital site.
\nIn recent times, a memorial garden has been established in the landscaped area to the east of the Lady Lamington Nurses' Home (adjacent to the northwest of Pye House) to commemorate early pregnancy termination and loss. The garden provides a place for grieving family to place cremated remains in memoriam of their loss. A consecrated memorial wall has also been established in the garden upon which families are able to place plaques. The use of the area has important community value. Its placement within the landscape setting that has developed around the Nurses’ Homes and Pye House reflects how this differs in character from other parts of the RBWH site.
","criteria":"The Brisbane General Hospital Precinct is important in demonstrating the development of hospital health care in Queensland since the 1860s and changes in government involvement in the financing and control of the state’s health services from the mid-19th century. The place is also important for its association with the development of nursing training and medical education and research in Queensland.
\nThe former Fever Ward (1875) is the oldest building to remain on the site and, along with the adjacent Female Ward (1885), demonstrates the early development of the Hospital.
\nThe Nurses’ Homes (Lady Lamington: 1897, 1914, 1931; Block 1, 1936; and Block 2, 1939) demonstrate the important role of the nursing profession in the provision of health care in Queensland, which for many years was exclusively female. Nurses’ quarters were an essential part of a hospital complex in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, providing on-site accommodation for nursing and training staff, and regulating nurses’ behaviour and lifestyle. The two tower blocks demonstrate the significant growth of the state's premier hospital during the 1930s and correspondingly the implementation of the state Labor government's new health policies.
\nBuilt in response to problems of overcrowding, the Lady Norman Wing (1895) is the only building surviving from the pre-1920 era of the Children's Hospital complex. Constructed to accommodate the increasing numbers of nurses required during a time of expansion, the Edith Cavell Block (1922) demonstrates the early 20th century development of the Children’s Hospital.
\nThe former Mental Ward (1918) was the first attached to a general hospital in Queensland for patients being treated for mild psychiatric disorders and demonstrates changing attitudes in the treatment of patients with mental illnesses in Queensland. Extended in 1948, the building is also important for its later use as a hospital for the treatment of prisoners and acute alcoholics.
\nThe former Superintendent's Residence (1941) demonstrates the practice (since 1866) of accommodating the medical superintendent on the Hospital site.
\nThe Nurses’ Homes, Edith Cavell Block, Superintendent’s Residence, and associated garden setting, have developed to form a residential core, a central component of the functioning of the Hospital from the 1890s until recent times.
\nThe mature plantings, gardens, pathways, walls and select designated roads are important in demonstrating early planning and subsequent development of the Hospital site, and contribute to the settings of the place’s buildings.
|The former Fever and Female wards are important as rare surviving examples of single-storey pavilion plan ward buildings, following a scheme employed universally from the 1860s to the 1940s in Queensland hospitals and aimed at healing patients by promoting natural ventilation and good sanitation.
\nThe former operating theatre on the first floor of the Lady Norman Wing (1895) is a rare example of an operating theatre from the late 19th century in a Queensland hospital. Featuring the remains of a large lantern and large windows designed to provide natural light, it is the oldest, and one of two known surviving examples of a 19th century operating theatre in Queensland.
|With its collection of residential and ward buildings, set in landscaped grounds, the Brisbane General Hospital Precinct is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th and early 20th century hospital complex.
\nThe former Fever and Female wards, with their single open ward space and roof ventilation features, demonstrate the principal characteristics of single-storey 19th century pavilion wards.
\nThe Lady Norman Wing is a fine example of a two-storey late Victorian-era hospital block designed to a pavilion plan. The building was designed by architects John James (JJ) Clark and Charles McLay, both of whom made important contributions to Queensland architecture.
\nThe Nurses’ Homes and Edith Cavell Block are planned in a similar way: over a number of levels small accommodation rooms or cells are accessed off a central corridor and open to verandahs. This layout typifies institutional residential buildings erected during this time; as does the Lady Lamington, being planned around courtyards and gardens to create residential amenity and seclusion within the Hospital complex.
\nLady Lamington is highly intact and the earliest surviving nurses’ quarters in Queensland. A fine building in an Arts and Crafts-influenced style, it is an excellent example of the work of RS (Robin) Dods, one of Queensland's pre-eminent architects. Influenced by the Spanish Mission style, established by architectural firm Conrad and Atkinson from the 1920s as the Brisbane General Hospital’s house style, Blocks 1 and 2 echo some of the motifs of Lady Lamington.
\nThe Edith Cavell Block, designed by the Department of Public Works, is a good example of a public building in an Arts and Crafts-influenced style.
\nThe former Mental Ward was the first in Queensland attached to a general hospital for the treatment of patients with acute psychiatric disorders and served as a model for other psychiatric wards within a general hospital.
|The Brisbane General Hospital Precinct is notable for the collective quality of its groups of buildings and landscape elements, and is important for the range of building types and architectural stylistic influences employed there. Occupying a prominent hilltop off Bowen Bridge Road, a major arterial road for Brisbane, the Hospital is a major city landmark. The dramatic siting of some its buildings is made possible by the steeply sloping site.
\nVisible both from within the Hospital and from surrounding suburbs, the Nurses' Homes symbolise the significant contribution made by the nursing profession to the provision of health care in Queensland. The dramatic views uphill towards the Nurses’ Homes contrasts with the repose of the picturesque garden setting the Lady Lamington shares with the former Superintendent's Residence and Mental Ward below. Lady Lamington is a fine building; the quality and inventiveness of its design, construction and detailing, enhancing the site with its views, elevation, and sudden falls.
\nSited on the western ridge of the steeply sloping site, the Edith Cavell Block commands a dramatic view to the north and its striking northern elevation is enhanced by the open space and mature plantings around it.
\nDiscrete in scale and materials, the former Superintendent’s Residence belongs to a cohesive group of residential buildings within a garden setting in the centre of the Hospital site.
\nThe Brisbane Tuff wall to Bowen Bridge Road is an imposing presence on this major city arterial road and is synonymous with the Hospital.
|The Lady Lamington Nurses' Home evidences the early development of architectural interest in refining elements associated with domestic buildings and climate control. The building’s design uses devices such as awnings, verandahs, building orientation, cross ventilation achieved with partitions instead of walls, and large well-placed openings reworked for a different scale of building. These were to be abiding interests of Robin Dods in his reworking of the Queensland architectural idiom.
|The Brisbane General Hospital Precinct has a special association with the Brisbane community in being its principal hospital complex since 1867.
|The Brisbane General Hospital Precinct is important for its association with major figures in the development of medicine and health services in Queensland, and for its strong association with the work of influential Queensland architects.
\nThe 1918 component of the former Mental Health Ward is important for its association with Dr HB Ellerton who influenced its design and was instrumental in improving the treatment of the mentally ill in Queensland and establishing facilities for it in a hospital setting.
\nThe former Superintendent’s Residence is important for its association with Dr Aubrey Pye, medical superintendent from 1933 to 1967 and the first to occupy it.
\nLady Lamington is the first Queensland building designed by Robin Dods and marks the beginning of a long association between the Hospital and the firm he established with Francis Hall.
\nThe pre-eminent interwar architectural firm Conrad and Atkinson were important hospital architects from the 1920s and architects to the Brisbane Hospital from then until the 1980s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16640,"place_ref":601904,"name":"Residence, 150 Kingsley Terrace (c1888)","alternate_name":"Michael Gannon Residence","street_address":"150 Kingsley Terrace","suburb":"MANLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The residence located at 150 Kingsley Terrace is sited on three parcels of land that fall gently from the western street frontage toward the rear eastern boundary of the site. The residence is sited close to the street frontage of the property meaning the backyard is quite expansive. Vegetation to the site is quite minimal with only a few mature plantings contained to the boundaries of the site.
The residence itself is a two storey structure of timber construction, elevated well above the ground on a combination of timber and concrete stumps, as well as sections of concrete block wall under the front western verandah. The house is clad with a combination of timber chamfer boards to exposed external walls and VJ linings to external walls sheltered by verandahs. A central hip roof covers the core of the house as well as extending over the verandahs to the north, south and west. A separate skillion and hip roof cover the rear verandah and associated rear structure assumed to have once been the kitchen. All roof planes are sheeted with corrugated iron.
Enclosed verandahs surround the central core of the house. These enclosures are externally clad with asbestos cement sheeting and include a combination of louvred and awning sash windows. Recent renovation work has revealed that much of the original verandah structure remains intact, simply covered by more recent alterations and additions.
Entry to the house is via a central timber stair which leads to the verandah and original front door of the house which is surrounded by patterned coloured glass. Internally a central hall extends from the entry to the rear verandah. This hall is divided centrally by a doorway, creating a formal entry portion and informal rear. Flanking the entry hall is a main bedroom to the north and a formal dining room to the south. These rooms include central bay windows with floor to ceiling double hung windows. In the hallway and the dining room the ceilings are pressed metal reinforcing the formal nature of these entry spaces. Flanking the rear section of the hallway is the billiard room to the south and a store room and bedroom to the north. All rooms, have with the exception of the store room, open onto the verandahs through French doors.
The enclosed rear verandah of the house is now used as the main living area. A kitchen is located at the northern end of this verandah and a bathroom at the southern end. The structure adjoining the southern end of the verandah is thought to have once been the kitchen of the house but is now used as a bedroom. Evidence exists within this room and at the ground level to indicate that a fireplace may have once serviced these spaces. More recent additions to the rear of the house include a laundry and deck adjoining the original kitchen and rear verandah.
Internally the original pine floors still exist within the core of the house while hardwood flooring lines the verandahs. The walls and ceilings are generally clad with timber tongue and groove boards and the timber joinery to the doors and windows and associated architraves is still intact. Much of the glass within the widows is original as is the door and window hardware, including turned wooden door handles. Other original elements that survive within the house are a claw foot bath and gas lighting pipes within the ceiling cavity.
The area under the house is generally enclosed with a combination of timber battens, asbestos cement sheeting and concrete block work. This area serves as a garage and storage area and includes the enclosure to the original earth closet.
","history":"The residence, 150 Kingsley Terrace, Manly was constructed c1888 for Michael and Amy Gannon.
The first European settlement of the Wynnum Manly area of Moreton Bay occurred in the 1860s when two sugar mills, Lota and Wyvernleigh were established. The area soon became popular with holiday makers, and holiday homes were constructed along the bay. In 1882 land sales of the Manly Beach Estate (named after the coastal Sydney suburb) were held, giving the area its present name. The completion of the railway in 1889 provided further impetus for the development of the area as a seaside resort especially as Wynnum and Manly were the only bayside stations opened with the Cleveland branch on 1 November 1889.
In February 1888, Michael Brennan Gannon, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Toombul, Government Auctioneer and valuator (owner of Arthur Martin & Co), purchased a large portion of land in the Wynnum Manly area formerly part of Portion 57. Gannon sold off a considerable acreage of land, but retained ownership of that portion on which the residence was to be constructed.
It is likely that the house was constructed c1888 as, on 30 April of that year, a Bill of Mortgage was registered from Michael Brennan Gannon to the Royal Bank of Queensland Limited. The release for the mortgage was signed in September 1889. The house became the family's holiday home. The Gannon's permanent residence was at 'Waratah', Toorak Road, Breakfast Creek. Gannon's private residence (1885) as well as a villa at Hawthorne (1887-88) were designed by architects John Hall and Son. While the architect of the residence at Manly is not known, given Gannon's prior history with the firm, it is possible that John Hall and Son were the architects for the residence at Manly.
Besides his political endeavours, Gannon was actively involved in Brisbane's social and sporting society. In 1888, Gannon was Vice-President of the Albert Cricket Club, Governor Anthony Musgrave was President; he was involved with the Queensland Rifle Association; the Brisbane Bicycling Club; the Breakfast Creek Rowing Club; a Director of the Federal Building, Land Investors Society Pty Ltd and Deposit Bank and a Justice of the Peace.
During the early 1890s Gannon's speculative ventures began to fail. The Land Bank of Queensland was in possession of the land by the early 1890s and sold off smaller allotments from the block. Gannon was eventually declared bankrupt in 1895 with liabilities in excess of £97,000. He died in April 1898, aged 48 years. At the time of his death, his widow's place of residence was listed as 'Manly'.
Later owners continued to use the house as a seaside home. Over the years various portions of the remainder of the estate were sold. In 1927 Thomas and Elizabeth Goodman purchased the property and, for the first time, the house was used as a principal place of residence. The Goodmans remained there until the death of Elizabeth in 1953.
The property was vacant until 1955 when the public trustee sold it to an investor who had the house converted into three flats. The house remained as flats until June 1999 when the property was purchased by the current owners. The residence has been identified as a character building in the Wynnum-Manly Local Area Plan.
","criteria":"Constructed c1888, the residence, Kingsley Terrace, Manly, is significant in demonstrating the continued growth of the Wynnum/Manly area in the latter part of the 19th century. It is particularly significant for its association with the growth of Manly as a popular seaside resort following the extension of the railway line to the area in 1889.
|Substantial seaside houses still remaining on large areas of land are now uncommon, contributing to the significance of the place.
|As a substantial, two-storeyed timber building with wide verandahs, incorporating decorative timber balustrading and brackets, set on a large block of land with views towards Moreton Bay, the residence is significant as a good example of a late 19th century seaside house.
|Constructed for Michael Brennan Gannon, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Toombul and Government Auctioneer and Valuator, the residence is significant for its association with this prominent Brisbane identity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16643,"place_ref":601907,"name":"Maryborough Hospital","alternate_name":"Maryborough General Hospital | Maryborough Hospital","street_address":"Walker Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-02-02","description":"The Maryborough Hospital is a complex of hospital buildings standing amidst mature trees and large, open lawns on an elevated 5.9 hectare site west of the centre of Maryborough. The site is bounded by Walker Street to the southwest, which is the primary entrance, Yaralla Street to the southeast, Winston Noble Drive and a private aged care facility on the northeast, and Neptune Street to the northwest. The elevated grounds retain mature trees that are prominent in the largely-flat landscape of Maryborough.
Buildings of cultural heritage significance in the complex are:
-\tremnants of the original pavilion plan hospital (1887) including
-\tthe central administration building, (Centre Block/Block E)
-\tward, (Block C)
-\tremnant of the medical superintendent's residence, (Block N) and
-\tfront entrance gates;
-\tbus shelter on Walker Street;
-\tformer nurses' quarters (1928) (Demaine/Block F);
-\tformer Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital (1928) (Block K and Block T);
-\tdoctor's residence (1928) (Block Y);
-\tformer operating theatre (1938) (Block V);
-\tnurses' quarters (1938) (Block O);
-\tdoctor's residence (1938) (Block X);
-\tcovered walkway between nurses' quarters (by 1947);
-\tmedical staff duplex (1950) (Block Z);
-\tkitchen block (1951) (Block G);
-\tambulance station (1951) (Block D), and;
-\tboiler house (1954) (Block S).
Remnants of the original pavilion plan hospital
The remnants of the original pavilion plan hospital comprise two two-storey, brick buildings (the central administration building - Block E, and the former ward - Block C) linked by a two-storey walkway, a remnant of the medical superintendent's residence (Block N), and front entrance gates.
Blocks E and C are substantially disguised by closely-surrounding buildings and later accretions that are not of cultural heritage significance.
Block E is a low-set, two-storey building with a facebrick core surrounded by timber-framed verandahs on the front and side elevations of both levels and a hipped and gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The building is symmetrically composed around a projecting front entrance that is aligned axially with the original front entrance gates on Walker Street; however, this relationship is blocked by recent, three and four-storey buildings. The verandahs are mainly enclosed. Original cast iron balustrade survives but has been relocated from the first floor to the ground. Gable ends feature decorative, stop-chamfered timberwork and eaves supported on timber brackets. The ground floor interior is reasonably intact in its original layout, retaining plastered masonry partitions, moulded timber joinery, fireplaces, doors and door hardware, and windows. The large front entrance door is double leaf, timber-framed and glazed with sidelights and a round arched fanlight. The 1929 lift is retained in its original condition. The interior of the first floor does not retain its original layout, with walls and partitions demolished to open up into the enclosed verandahs, and new partitions inserted throughout.
Block C is an L-shaped, low-set, two-storey, building with a facebrick core surrounded by timber-framed verandahs on both levels and a hipped and gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It has eaves supported on timber brackets. The ground floor does not retain its original layout. The first floor retains its original layout with the large ward spatially intact and bathroom annexe accessed from the verandah. The levels retain plastered masonry partitions, a decorative timber stair, timber joinery, and a raked ceiling of timber boards with decorative timber vented rose in the first floor ward.
The remnant of the medical superintendent's residence (Block N) is a small, low-set, one-storey masonry building standing closely-adjacent to the rear of the 1928 nurses' quarters. It has facebrick walls and a timber-framed verandah at the eastern end, which follows the apsidal plan form of the building. The building has a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a facebrick chimney. An attached block at the rear of the building has its own hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and facebrick chimney. The interior retains its original layout, masonry partitions, fireplaces, and timber joinery including French doors and large double-hung sash windows.
The front entrance gates comprise four substantial rendered masonry gate posts with cast iron palisade gates and a short section of palisade fence either side. The central gate allows vehicle access and this is flanked by narrower gates for pedestrians. The central two gate posts are larger than the flanking posts and all feature a steeply-pitched, double gabled cap. The faces of the central posts have trefoiled, lancet-type recesses and this motif is repeated on the smaller posts with circular recesses housing trefoils. The corner edges of the posts are chamfered and the posts have enlarged bases. The iron gates and fence are decorative with substantial staves relieved by more delicate tracery.
Bus shelter
The bus shelter stands immediately adjacent to the entrance gates, abutting the Walker Street footpath. It is an open-sided, timber-framed shelter with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The timber corner posts are heavy and have large decorative timber brackets. The shelter is surrounded by a low, roughcast rendered masonry wall with iron chain swags between pillars. The wall supports a timber and iron perimeter seat under the shelter.
Former nurses' quarters (1928) (Demaine Building, Block F)
The former nurses' quarters (1928) is a large, low-set, two-storey masonry building facing Walker Street. It has a strong street presence with a well-mannered and robust domestic character. The building stands well back from the front boundary behind a generous landscaped yard featuring a circular drive around a small traffic island containing a mature poinciana (Delonix regia). The drive is framed on the Walker Street boundary by four mature, evenly-spaced fig trees. The structure has a reinforced concrete frame with rendered masonry infill sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It is symmetrically-composed, comprising a long central wing, parallel to Walker Street, flanked by transverse wings that project toward the street. Lining the front and the rear of the building are timber-framed verandahs with timber-battened balustrades and valances. The verandah projects forward centrally at the front and rear entrance, emphasised by a large roof gable with a battened end on both sides. Entrance is via a central concrete stair with timber balustrade up to the ground floor and via a central timber stair at the rear. The layout of the ground and first floors retains the main central stair hall and stair and the first floor retains French doors onto the verandahs. The remainder of the layout on both levels has modern partitions, some are in the location of earlier partitions. External steel fire stairs are not of cultural heritage significance.
Former Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital (1928) (Block K and Block T)
The former Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital (1928) stands at the rear of the site and faces northeast to the former North Street. It is a long, one-storey, reinforced concrete building with a steeply-pitched hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The core is encircled by a timber-famed verandah, enclosed with later weatherboards and aluminium-framed windows. The front is symmetrical with a central projecting bay emphasised by a gable roof with a battened gable end. Small concrete annexes project from the west verandah (the former matron's rooms), from the east verandah (former labour wards), and from the rear verandah (former bathrooms and service rooms). Connected by a short covered walkway to the eastern end of the rear verandah is the former septic ward (Block T). This small reinforced concrete structure is encircled by verandahs that are now enclosed.
The interior layout of the maternity ward is not intact. Original partitions have been demolished and modern partitions inserted.
Doctor's residence (1928) (Block Y)
The doctor's residence (1928) is substantially intact. It stands on the corner of Yaralla and Walker Streets and diagonally faces the intersection. It is a one-storey, low-set building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The reinforced concrete core is encircled by a timber-framed verandah that has a timber rail balustrade. The interior layout is intact, retaining timber partitions and timber joinery including doors, fanlights, and windows with original hardware. The yard is fenced separately from the hospital by an early fence and two mature pine trees frame the front corner view of the house from the street. Standing within the yard behind the house is a early, timber-framed and -clad garage.
Former operating theatre (1938) (Hanlon Theatre, Block V)
The former operating theatre (1938) is a one-storey, low-set masonry building standing immediately adjacent to the north-west of the former nurses' quarters (1928). The building faces Walker Street and has roughcast rendered walls and a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The front is symmetrical around a central projecting bay marked by a decorative Dutch-gable parapet. The bay is flanked by square steel-framed windows with hinged sashes of obscure glass.
Former nurses' quarters (1938) (Block O)
The former nurses' quarters (1938) is particularly intact and has a strong street presence with a well-mannered and robust domestic character. It is a large, low-set, two-storey masonry building facing Yaralla Street. It stands well back from the front boundary behind a generous, landscaped yard featuring a symmetrical circular drive around a small traffic island containing a poinciana (Delonix regia). Two mature palms stand in the front yard symmetrically, one either side of the drive. The structure has a reinforced concrete frame with rendered masonry infill sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheers. It is symmetrically-composed, comprising a long central wing, parallel to Yaralla Street, flanked by transverse wings that project to the front and back, resulting in an H-shaped plan. Lining the front and rear of the building are timber-framed verandahs with timber-battened balustrades and valances. The verandah is enclosed at the front entrance with steel-framed glass louvres and in other places with early sheet material and narrow, timber-framed casement windows - the windows are original and removed from elsewhere in the building. The verandah projects forward centrally at the front and rear entrance, emphasised by a large roof gable with a battened end on both sides. A central, concrete stair on both sides gives access to the ground floor. The layouts of the ground and first floors are intact. A central stair hall retains a clear-finished timber stair. A corridor runs through the centre of the three wings and provides access to small rooms on either side. The rooms open onto the verandah via timber, glazed French doors. Partitions are original timber-framed, single-skin clad with fibrous cement and Masonite. The building retains original timber joinery including doors and windows with original hardware.
A mature tree stands to the southwest of this building.
A timber-framed covered walkway connects the two nurses' quarters buildings.
Doctor's residence (1938) (Block X)
The doctor's residence (1938) stands to the south-east of the former nurses' quarters (1928) and faces Walker Street. It is a two-storey, low-set masonry building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The walls are rendered and the front is symmetrically-composed around a central arcade loggia with three round headed arches. The roof of the loggia is accessed from the first floor as a terrace. Square headed windows with timber shutters are located rhythmically on the front and sides and the rear elevation has a timber-framed, enclosed verandah on both levels. The interior layout is intact, retaining plastered partitions, and timber joinery including a clear-finished stair, and doors and windows with original hardware.
Medical staff duplex (1950) (Block Z)
The medical staff duplex (1950) is a one-storey, low-set facebrick duplex facing Yaralla Street. It stands within a defined yard near the street boundary and is a well-composed design with a hipped roof clad with tiles. The front elevation is symmetrical and has a central projection with a hipped roof accommodating the entrances and features timber-framed awning windows and two decorative, metal grilles. The front features darker orange bricks up to sill level with paler orange bricks above this. A fence separates the duplex yards into two. The interior was not inspected. The building retains its original layout intact.
Kitchen Block (1951) (Block G)
The kitchen block (1951) is a one-storey, low-set facebrick building with a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It stands immediately behind the Block E. The building has a series of large windows in its north-eastern side. The interior was not inspected.
Ambulance station (1951) (Block D)
The ambulance station (1951) is a one-storey, masonry building facing Neptune Street. It has a skillion roof clad with corrugated metal sheets concealed behind a parapet. The facade abuts the footpath and accommodates four large metal garage roller doors. At the northern corner of the building is a tall facebrick parapet tower that is symmetrically composed and attractively-designed. It has a rendered concrete cap and two parallel vertical concrete fins with curved tops. A narrow cantilevered concrete awning surrounds the building. It retains original double-hung timber-framed sash windows. The interior is not intact. The metal clad extension on the southwestern end is not of cultural heritage significance.
Boiler house (1954) (Block S)
The boiler house (1954) is a tall, reinforced concrete-framed building with facebrick infill panels and a steep, skillion roof clad with metal sheets. On all sides are metal louvres that ventilate the interior. The interior was not inspected.
All other structures on the site are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Maryborough Hospital opened in 1887 and has grown to comprise a complex of buildings covering a large site. The buildings of cultural heritage significance are: Block E (1887) and Block C (1887) - remnants of the original pavilion plan hospital; remnant of the medical superintendent's residence (1887); front entrance gates (1887); a bus shelter on Walker Street; former nurses' quarters (1928); former Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital (1928); doctor's residence (1928); former operating theatre (1938); former nurses' quarters (1938); doctor's residence (1938); medical staff duplex (1950); kitchen block (1951); ambulance station (1951); and boiler house (1954). The hospital has remained in continuous operation and in 2014 it remains the principal and largest hospital in Maryborough.
On the traditional land of the Badjala (Butchulla) people, the small town of Maryborough grew quickly from a struggling settlement established in 1847 to a promising town by the 1860s. With a busy government port of entry and through servicing the extraordinary wealth of the nearby Gympie goldfields, Maryborough was successful and the years 1870 to 1880 were extremely profitable with new commercial establishments, financial and other institutes, and industries established in the town. In this time of prosperity it was decided to construct a new Maryborough Hospital.
The first Maryborough Hospital was established in 1854 and prior to this the sick and invalid were treated at home by a few local medical practitioners. By 1859 it was moved nearer the new centre of town and was moved again in 1863. In 1864 the hospital was moved into its first purpose-built building, a substantial two-storey brick hospital. It was extended with additions in 1865 and 1876.
By the mid-1880s the hospital was considered inadequate and over 12 acres (4.8ha) of elevated land on the western outskirts of the town was reserved for a new hospital. The reserve was bounded by Walker Street to the south, Yaralla Street to the east, North Street to the north, and Neptune Street to the west.
The foundation stone of a new Maryborough Hospital was laid by Queensland Premier, Sir Samuel Griffith on 15 April 1885. By this time much of the hospital reserve had been cleared and trees planted.
The architect of the project, John James Clark was at that time the Colonial Architect, a position he retained from 1883 until 1885. Though this was a limited period of employment, Clark is a well-regarded architect as the designer of many important Queensland buildings. These include: Public Offices in Brisbane (Treasury Building QHR 600143); court houses in Mackay (QHR 600673), Rockhampton (QHR 600795), Warwick (QHR 600948) and Charters Towers (QHR 600403) as well as the Yungaba Immigration Depot in Brisbane (QHR 600245). Clark designed many health-related buildings throughout Queensland, including hospitals at Charleville and Geraldton; additions to Townsville Hospital, a lunatic asylum in Toowoomba (QHR 601161), and the Lady Norman Wing at the Brisbane Children's Hospital (QHR 601903).
Constructed by local contractor Robert Taylor, the Maryborough Hospital was an impressive complex and opened 20 May 1887. The total cost was approximately £16,000, arising from substantial donations from local benefactors and the Committee's General Fund with the remainder coming from the government. The new hospital comprised four separate brick buildings - a two-storey central administrative core (Block E) flanked by a two-storey ward on either side (Block C was the ward on the western side) with a one-storey kitchen block to the rear of the core. All were linked by one-storey, covered walkways. Block E accommodated offices, nurses' day room, dispensary, operating room, and dining room on the ground floor, and bathrooms and unspecified rooms on the first floor. The wards were identical and each accommodated a large public ward, small private ward, nurses' room, and store on the ground floor, repeated on the first floor.
Also constructed on the site at this time was a separate, one-storey medical superintendent's residence and a palisade fence with gates along Walker Street. The hospital design was based on contemporary principles about the pavilion plan.
For about 80 years from the 1860s, all Queensland hospital wards were based on the principles of the pavilion plan, which emerged as a development of hospital design in Europe in the 1850s. Pavilion planning was seen to overcome problems of poor ventilation and sanitation. From the nineteenth century, credence was given to the idea that disease was spread by foul air, according to miasmatic theory. The first pavilion plan was used in the design of the Lariboisièse Hospital in Paris, which was a series of detached pavilions where increased ventilation assisted patient recuperation. This was a breakthrough in hospital design because for the first time the building form was considered a crucial element of the healing process. By the 1870s and 1880s pavilion plan type hospital wards were being constructed in major Queensland hospitals. Of 76 pavilion plan wards constructed in Queensland during the nineteenth century only six survive: Maryborough; Isisford; Ipswich; and three wards at Royal Brisbane Hospital.
Under the direction of William Demaine, the chairman of the Maryborough Hospital board and government nominee, the Maryborough Hospital was 'modernised' during the interwar years. Demaine engaged architects outside the Department of Public Works to prepare new building designs with attention to new understanding of transmittal of diseases by germs - germ theory of disease having replaced miasmatic theory. Accordingly, new hospital buildings were dust free environments, had steam sterilisation of clinical equipment and a steam laundry. At Maryborough Hospital, old buildings were upgraded and new buildings were progressively aligned with germ theory concepts to meet the modern requirements.
In 1928 two substantial, reinforced concrete buildings were built in the grounds of Maryborough hospital: the Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital; and nurses' quarters. Both were designed by prominent and innovative local architect Philip Oliver Ellard Hawkes and were opened 24 November 1928.
The Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital was constructed as a result of the Maternity Act 1922, which introduced a state-wide network of free maternity wards and baby clinics. Before 1922, 'lying-in' hospitals were run by charitable or religious institutes to provide services for women unable to pay for private pre-natal care. The Act changed the nature of maternity care in Queensland, dramatically increasing the access to maternal and child health care.
Implementation began immediately and resulted in the construction of about 94 maternity hospitals or wards throughout Queensland before 1930. Many of Queensland's maternity wards were constructed to a standard plan, based on pavilion planning principles with surrounding verandahs and all beds in the ward located near on operable opening. Attached to the rear of the wards by an open verandah or covered walkway was a septic ward. The plan of the Maryborough maternity ward was built to the standard plan but was longer, accommodating 25 beds, nine private wards, matron's office, doctor's room, kitchenette, two labour wards, semi-detached septic ward, sterilising room, and matron's quarters. The one-storey, low-set building stood at the rear of the site and faced North Street.
The nurses' quarters at Maryborough Hospital was constructed following the introduction of the Hospital Nurses Award in 1921. This award set basic wages and working hours for nursing staff, and stipulated that all staff were entitled to free board and lodging in, if possible, separate rooms or suitable cubicles. The result of the award was the upgrading of accommodation for Queensland nurses and also an increase in the number of nurses employed at each Queensland hospital. Between 1924 and 1930, 26 nurses' quarters were constructed in Queensland. The Maryborough Hospital nurses' quarters provided accommodation for 78 nurses and domestic staff in a two-storey, long, narrow building with encircling timber-framed verandahs. It was built facing Walker Street, standing to the south-east of the 1887 hospital ward buildings.
To construct the nurses' quarters, the 1887 doctor's residence was partially demolished and a new doctor's residence was constructed to replace it. Also built in 1928 and designed by Hawkes, the house was built at the corner of Walker and Yaralla streets and was a one-storey, reinforced concrete structure with wide, timber-framed verandahs. It cost under £2000 and was carefully-designed to ensure passive temperature control.
Also in the late 1920s, a new morgue was built at the rear of the site, the 1887 buildings were refurbished, a lift was installed in Block E, and a second storey was added to the one-storey walkways.
The next phase of development at Maryborough Hospital occurred in the late 1930s under Demaine's continued stewardship. In 1938 a new nurses' quarters was constructed on the grounds facing Yaralla Street. It was one of the largest nurses' quarters in Queensland and similar in design to the 1928 quarters. It was also designed by Hawkes, although it was supervised by another architect, EH Boden, who may have contributed to the final design. It was a long, narrow, two-storey, reinforced concrete building with more than 100 bedrooms and encircling, timber-framed verandahs.
After the nurses moved into their new quarters, the 1928 nurses' quarters was converted to accommodate 35 private wards. At this time it was renamed the Demaine Building in honour of William Demaine, who was also Mayor of Maryborough at the time.
To augment the Demaine Building, a one-storey, masonry operating theatre with steam sterilisation facilities was constructed directly to the west. It was described in the Maryborough Chronicle at the time of opening 'as the most up to date in Australia', influenced by a 'famous hospital in Berlin', and a lengthy report of the innovative fittings and finishes was included. The building was later extended (1950s and 1970s) before being decommissioned and converted for use as a store (late 1970s) after new theatres were constructed.
Also designed by Hawkes, in 1938 a two-storey, reinforced concrete doctor's residence was built facing Walker Street. At the time, the Maryborough Chronicle described it as 'an imposing structure ... built on modern lines' and noted that attention was paid to ventilation. It accommodated ground floor living rooms with first floor bedrooms.
The total building costs of the 1938 work was £33,000 and was completed by Constructions Pty Ltd of Brisbane.
The Hospitals Act 1923 was amended in 1944 and, among other changes to the health care system, introduced the concept of base hospitals. Within each region of the state a base hospital was established to offer more specialised services than other hospitals in the region. Maryborough Hospital was renamed Maryborough Base Hospital in 1944, servicing the Wide Bay region.
A covered walkway connecting the two nurses' quarters was built by 1947.
Although the hospital saw increasing need for accommodation during the 1940s and several buildings were planned, little construction occurred at Maryborough Base Hospital until 1950. At this time, a one-storey, facebrick duplex was constructed facing Yaralla Street to the design of Brisbane architects Prangley and Tesch, accommodating medical staff. The Yaralla Street half of the hospital grounds had grown as a dedicated residential zone with separate buildings surrounded by lawns with maturing ornamental trees.
From its establishment, the hospital grounds were carefully laid out and this practice was continued into the 1950s. Landscape compositions were symmetrical with the buildings well-separated and standing proudly, surrounded by lawns with defined, straight paths and small areas of flower beds. The street boundaries were defined by tall ornamental trees. A particular feature of the hospital was circular drives that were aligned with the front of major buildings. Early photographs show that the mature trees planted on the elevated site of the hospital were conspicuous in the generally-flat landscape of the town. After the 1950s, less attention was paid to maintaining these landscape elements and some were demolished to make way for the construction of buildings.
In 1951, a kitchen with attached nurses' dining room was constructed to the rear of Block E. It was designed by Brisbane architects Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards and was a one-storey, brick building costing £143,000.
Also in 1951 an ambulance building was constructed on Neptune Street to the design of Bundaberg architect Eric H Bowden by contractor Les Howard. It comprised four bays for ambulances, an area with a hoist for servicing vehicles, change room, office, treatment room, equipment room, and toilets. Housing four ambulances, an ambulance servicing area, change room, office, treatment room, equipment room, and toilets, it cost £7,500.
From 1952 to 1992 the hospital operated as a training hospital for nurses. Over this period, a large number of training nurses were accommodated in the 1938 nurses' quarters.
In 1953 the first section of what was to become the largest building on the site was constructed in front of the buildings facing Walker Street. Always intended to be extended, this section of the building was opened 14 November 1953 by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Mr WM Moore. It operated as an outpatients and administrative wing of the hospital. Constructed by Queensland Building and Engineering Co. for £89,945.
In 1954 a new brick boiler house was constructed on Neptune Street to the design of Brisbane architects Donoghue, Cusick and Edwards.
In the early 1960s, the hospital grounds expanded. A 5 acre (2.88ha) block of land across North Street was acquired, North Street was closed, and the new land and the road reserve were incorporated into the hospital site. In 1965 a new Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital was constructed on the incorporated land. This new building took over maternity operations and the 1928 maternity ward was repurposed for general hospital use.
In 1977 and 1987 the outpatients building (1953) was extended, resulting in a large brick building of three and four storeys along Walker Street that obscured the earlier hospital buildings from view.
Between 1987 and 1989 the eastern ward of the original pavilion plan hospital was demolished.
In 1991 the former Lady Musgrave Hospital (1928) was extensively remodelled internally.
In 2006 a substantial aged care facility was constructed at the north east corner of the site on the land acquired in the early 1960s (corner of Winston Noble Drive and Yaralla Street). This facility comprised one-storey, masonry buildings in extensive gardens. To make way for construction, the morgue (1928) was demolished. The aged care facility was sold into private ownership in 2013 and the land it occupied was subdivided off from the hospital.
In 2009 the last resident doctor at Maryborough hospital retired and moved out of the doctor's residence (1928). The house was then used by the Wide Bay Hospitals Museum Society.
The ground floor of Block C was refurbished in 2012.
In 2014 Maryborough hospital continues to operate as the town's principal and largest public hospital.
","criteria":"Developed in phases since its establishment in 1887, Maryborough Hospital is important in demonstrating changes in health care theories, technology, and provision by the Queensland Government. Notably, it retains: pavilion plan hospital buildings (1887) that illustrate the prevailing miasmatic theory of health care; the former Lady Musgrave Maternity Hospital (1928) that illustrates the comprehensive and progressive Queensland Government-run maternal and child health care agenda of the 1920s and 1930s; a former operating theatre (1938) that illustrates the subsequent universal adoption of germ theory of disease in health care; former nurses' quarters (1928 & 1938) that illustrate the development of nursing education and the nursing profession in Queensland; doctors' and medical staff residences (1887 remnant, 1928, 1938, and 1950) that illustrate the development of the health professions, and; an ambulance station (1951) that illustrates the evolution of medical emergency services in Queensland.
Maryborough Hospital is important in demonstrating the development of Maryborough during the 1880s economic boom when it became a town of regional importance and an agricultural, pastoral, industrial, commercial, and shipping centre for Queensland.
|Maryborough Hospital is exceptional and rare in demonstrating the development of hospitals in Queensland from the nineteenth century through the twentieth century. The place retains buildings from the major periods of its development and many of these buildings are substantially intact.
The place retains rare surviving hospital buildings from the nineteenth century, including a rare surviving example of a pavilion plan ward in Queensland; an extensive number of such hospital wards were constructed but few survive.
|Maryborough Hospital is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland hospital, on a large site on elevated ground away from the town centre. Individual buildings on the site are also able to demonstrate characteristics of hospital buildings, including nineteenth century pavilion plan ward; nurses' quarters from the late 1920s and the late 1930s; maternity ward from 1928, several hospital residences and quarters; and an ambulance station.
|Maryborough Hospital is important for its aesthetic significance as a collection of buildings with strong architectural merit standing in attractively laid out grounds. Buildings and structures are well-composed and constructed with high-quality materials and skill, and have significant streetscape qualities enhanced by axial arrangements, sweeping circular drives, extensive lawns, mature trees, and bed plantings.
|Maryborough Hospital is important to the Maryborough community as their principal site of public health care since 1887.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16645,"place_ref":601909,"name":"Brisbane Dental Hospital and College","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"168 Turbot Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"Approached by a monumental sweep of wide concrete stairs from Turbot Street, the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is an imposing, neo-Georgian, two-storey, rendered masonry building on the corner of Albert and Turbot Streets, Brisbane. The building has a steel frame, concrete floors, stands on a rusticated granite base and has rendered facings to all elevations. A balustraded parapet provides a partial screen to roof top structures.
The Dental Hospital occupies the ground floor while the first floor and roof level house the Dental College of the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Queensland.
The main elevation to Turbot Street is symmetrical about a projecting entrance porch terminated at each side by slightly projecting wings. Ornamental standard lamps flank the main stairway at the base and at the summit. The entrance porch is defined by fluted Ionic columns and framed by the rusticated pilasters of the enclosing side walls. The internal spatial relationships within the building are expressed by the size and placement of the windows in the elevations. The service mezzanine floor is reflected in the row of small squat timber awning windows between the timber casement windows with arched fanlights of the ground floor and the large rectangular timber casement windows marking the College level on the first floor. A giant order is implied by the rusticated base and the heavy mutuled cornice and imparts a strong and unified character to the building.
The other elevations to the building contain a pattern of windows similar to that of the front elevation. The elevation to Albert Street is a single range terminated by slightly projecting wings; the northeast elevation contains a substantial entry stair and doorway to the Wickham Park wing and a service entry to the basement; and the rear elevation contains a subsidiary entrance to the Albert Street wing.
The building is organised as perimeter wings about a central square courtyard. Within the main entry porch, there is fine decorated timber panel work to the surrounds of the entry doors and restrained decorative plaster work within the porch. The porch opens on to the main vestibule and into the former waiting room overlooking the internal courtyard. Large surgery spaces and smaller rooms for teaching, service spaces and staff offices are organised about central corridors through each wing. Rooms open off the corridors and have views to the surrounding streets or the inner courtyard. There are stairwells off the corridors to each corner of the building. The stairwells contain terrazzo stairs, terrazzo panelling to dado level, plain and twisted steel balustrading and moulded timber handrails and are top-lit by roof lanterns. The stair to the east corner is now enclosed at ground floor level. The stairwell to the north corner travels from the first floor to the roof level only, does not have terrazzo dado panelling and has sheeting to the balustrade of the top flight of the dogleg stair. A dumb waiter in the north corner services each level but is presently sealed over at ground level.
The ground floor and some of the first floor have recently undergone an aggressive refurbishment but the logic of the circulation and the internal spaces remains though fabric has been lost. The former ground floor waiting room, now the reception and administration area, is lit from the courtyard by a bank of full height plain leadlight awning and fixed glass windows which are operated by a manual turning device. The mezzanine between the ground and first floor does not continue over this reception area where the ceiling height is to the level of the mezzanine storey ceiling. The present waiting room occupies the former office suite adjacent to the vestibule. Both the Hospital and College levels have surgeries in the northeast and southwest wings. These are long open rooms subdivided by head height partitioning. The recent refurbishment has removed earlier partitions, equipment, finishes, floor coverings and joinery but the integrity of the spaces has survived. The large timber casement windows with semi-circular fanlights and terrazzo sills remain in the surgeries at the Hospital level and the rectangular timber casement windows survive on the College level. The decorative timber and metal flat arch to the former waiting room and some timber doors remain to the ground floor.
The building was finished throughout with decorative plaster ceilings, Queensland maple joinery and panelling, and purpose-built timber furniture. Original fabric survives, particularly on the first floor where the waiting room and the Professor's room contain fine examples of discreet panelling, joinery and shelving in Queensland maple. The waiting room has four sets of fine Queensland maple doors with discreet plain leadlight glass panels and carved Queensland maple architraves beneath a decorative plaster ceiling coffered by ceiling beams. Purpose-built silky oak furniture remains in use in this area. The galleried lecture theatre has been gutted and is now subdivided into two seminar rooms. The smaller lecture theatre has been partitioned into offices and the museum is now a seminar room. Original finishes, floor coverings and joinery to staff offices and corridors is found on this floor.
The library on the roof is now a seminar room and contains timber shelving to the long sides of the room. The 1949 timber and fibro clad roof buildings continue to accommodate laboratories, staff offices, staff and student common rooms. Additional airconditioning plant has been located on the roof. Roofing to the south stairwell lantern has rolled ridge flashing.
There is a commemorative plaque in the external wall to the east corner of the Turbot Street elevation recording the laying of the foundation stone and a plaque commemorating the opening of the building in the southwest wall of the main entry porch.
The concreted courtyard in the centre of the building was to be laid out with gardens and a central fountain and acts as a light well for the building which encircles it. It was accessed from the main waiting room in the Turbot Street wing, the extraction waiting room in the northeast wing and the Junior Common Room in the Wickham Park wing. It is no longer accessed from the northeast wing and the 1985 brick extension projects from the Wickham Park wing at ground level. Air-conditioning and laboratory extraction ducts now encroach into the courtyard area.
From a masonry wall at street level, steep, grassed, battered banks rise up to two terraced levels to the Albert and Turbot Streets sides of the building. The upper level terrace has a concrete path and a row of pines marching around the building to the Albert and Turbot Streets elevations. A service lane to the northeast of the building off Turbot Street allows ambulance access to the rear and side. A set of concrete steps from Albert Street arrives to the rear of the building.
","history":"Opened in 1941, the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is an imposing two-storey, rendered masonry, neo-Georgian building looming above the corner to Turbot and Albert Streets and surrounded by terraced gardens. The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College was designed to be an integral component of an urban design proposal, The Turbot Street Development Scheme, for the city block bounded by Albert and Turbot Streets, Jacob's Ladder and Wickham Terrace. The Scheme, designed by Raymond Clare Nowland, senior architect in the Queensland Department of Public Works, included a Public Art Gallery, Public Library, the Dental Hospital and College and a beautifying of Wickham Park. The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College was the only part of the scheme to be realised. The site was part of an earlier Brisbane City Council reserve within Wickham Park which was exchanged in the 1930s for State owned land in Adelaide Street, adjacent to the former Supreme Court, enabling Adelaide Street to continue through to North Quay.
From the early twentieth century, there was a general enthusiasm for town planning throughout the British Empire, America, Europe and Australia. Nowland was one of a number of town planning activists in Brisbane advocating the development of a town planning strategy for Brisbane during the 1920s and 1930s. The Turbot Street Development Scheme is one of a number of urban design proposals for Brisbane reflecting this concern. Wickham Park was chosen from among a number of sites as the site for the project. The Scheme excited considerable public interest and comment and there was much discussion about the suitability of the site. It was considered that its central location gave it the advantage of convenience of access to public transport; that the siting of the buildings at a higher level and in a park would ensure a quiet environment and ample natural lighting to the buildings; that it was unlikely that the site would be hemmed in or overshadowed by further development; and that the site lent itself "to artistic approaches and aesthetic surroundings".
The monumentality and civic grandeur given to the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College through its association with a larger urban design proposal in a commanding, inner-city position reflect the importance of the building for the State Government and for the University of Queensland. Speaking at the laying of the foundation stone for the building on 20 March 1938 the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Edward Hanlon, observed that the building was to harmonise architecturally with its near neighbour, the Brisbane City Hall, making "Turbot Street one of the most beautiful streets in any city in the Commonwealth".
When a Faculty of Dentistry was formed within the University of Queensland in 1935, the Queensland State Government agreed to fund and build a new dental hospital and college. The first public Dental Clinic in Queensland had been established in Brisbane in 1908 and by 1926 the Clinic had been taken over by the Department of Home Affairs and was known as the Brisbane Dental Hospital. The proposed new Dental Hospital was to be the base for the dental services provided by the Brisbane and South Coast Hospitals Board and was part of an overall Government policy to provide public dental services throughout Queensland.
In June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The Forgan Smith Government embarked on a large public works building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the State. This building program included: government offices; schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.
Many of the programs have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland including the establishment of a system of public health care administered through a range of new hospitals and clinics. Notable projects undertaken include the University of Queensland Medical School, Herston; the Women's Hospital at the Brisbane General Hospital; the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College; and the Wilson Ophthalmic Hostel.
The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College was a building of major importance to Queensland and among the most ambitious projects within the Forgan Smith Government's building program. Construction commenced in September 1938 and the building was opened 6 July 1941 with Edward Hanlon declaring that the building was "better equipped and finished than any other dental hospital in Australia". The building is important in the overall development of the University of Queensland and the development of facilities for the training of medical and dental practitioners. The University embraced the model for training health practitioners promoted by the American Medical Association which advocated increased laboratory training in basic medical sciences and the use of hospitals for clinical training. The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College reflects this approach to health care training in its provision of specialist laboratories and a training hospital. During this time the architect responsible for the design of the Hospital and College, Raymond Clare Nowland, was also designing the University of Queensland Medical School which also reflects the adoption of this teaching model.
Raymond Clare Nowland joined the architectural office of the DPW in November 1932 where he became a senior architect in 1938. He produced the most significant buildings of his career between 1932 and 1942 including the University of Queensland Medical School, Herston (1939); Brisbane Dental Hospital and College (1941); Police Barracks, Petrie Terrace (1942) and the Cairns Government Offices (1935) (QHR 600376). Nowland undertook architectural studies at the Sydney Technical College (1911-14) and the Architectural Association School London (1919). In private practice from 1926-32, he undertook a range of domestic and commercial commissions including the Brisbane Clinic, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane (1930) (QHR 600171). The design of the Brisbane Clinic was influenced by an American medical model, the Mayo Clinic. His preference for designing within a restrained classicism reflects his architectural training, the prevailing professional architectural attitudes and the design direction given by the Chief Architect, A.B. Leven. Along with many British Empire architects of the 1930s both Leven and Nowland shared a respect for simplicity, order and rational planning which in his public work enabled Nowland to make a notable contribution to the architectural fabric of Queensland towns and cities.
In an earlier sketch design vertical emphasis was given to the building by recessed spandrels below the windows at each level. The monumental presence of the building was emphasised by rusticated quoins and pilasters framing the end wings. Changes to the building program, availability of materials, budget restrictions and an augmentation of the program to include servicing and air-conditioning resulted in alterations to the earlier sketch design proposal. The building was to have been constructed of sandstone but difficulties with supply and additional budget restrictions resulted in a substitution of brick and cement render and a reduction in the texture and decoration of the elevations. Considerable foundation work was undertaken to bridge the railway tunnel beneath the site to avoid vibration in the building.
The ground floor accommodated the Dental Hospital and the first floor and roof housed the Dental College. The ground floor provided offices for the Director and support staff, surgeries and associated facilities, and a reception/waiting room. The first floor provided a waiting room, surgeries and associated facilities, staff offices, two lecture theatres and a museum. The flat roof housed the library, upper part of the large lecture theatre and air-conditioning plant. The building program was augmented to include additional servicing so a mezzanine floor was inserted between the ground and first floors to accommodate air-conditioning and servicing to the College level surgeries. The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College was the first public building in Queensland to install air-conditioning. Rubber floors were provided in the surgeries and corridors on each floor, terrazzo was applied to the ground floor entrance and waiting room and other floors were linoleum. The waiting rooms featured Queensland maple panelling and purpose built silky oak furniture.
Additional roof-top accommodation for laboratories and staff, and staff and student common rooms was constructed in 1949. In the 1960s the University of Queensland erected a freestanding building (design by James Birrell) to the northeast, connecting with a walkway to the College level of the earlier building. A small brick extension was erected in the courtyard in 1985. Aggressive refurbishment of the fabric, furniture, fittings and equipment of the Hospital facilities and College surgeries and teaching areas was undertaken from 1997 to 1999. The integrity of the planning has survived along with some internal fabric including the entrance doors and surrounding panelling, timber casement windows, sills, doors, shelving, corridor finishes and three sets of terrazzo stairs. Servicing of surgeries and work areas continues to be facilitated by the mezzanine service floor.
","criteria":"The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is important in demonstrating the development of public dental services and the training of dental practitioners in Queensland. The Dental Hospital is an important component in the development of the public health scheme for Queensland initiated by the Forgan Smith Government in the 1930s and continues to provide public dental services. As the first College for the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Queensland, the building is important in demonstrating the development of the University and the training of dentists in Queensland.
The Dental Hospital and College is important in the development of the University of Queensland and in the training of medical and dental practitioners. The planning of the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College, with the inclusion of specialist laboratories for teaching and research and proximity to a hospital, is important for demonstrating the adoption of the American teaching model which advocated increased laboratory training in basic medical sciences and the use of hospitals for clinical training.
|The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is important as the only Dental Hospital and College in Queensland.
|The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is a fine example of a building planned to accommodate highly serviced medical facilities. The layout and commodity of the spaces survives having accommodated the late 1990s aggressive refurbishment work undertaken to comply with contemporary health regulations and advances in technology.
The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is an important building in the body of public buildings designed by the Department of Public Works in Queensland. The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is one of an impressive suite of important government buildings erected throughout Queensland designed in a classical idiom during the 1930s.
|In a restrained neo-Georgian idiom, the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College has aesthetic and architectural significance. With planar crispness and subtle detailing, it is a robust public building with a monumental street presence. An important component in an unrealised urban design scheme planned for Turbot Street and Wickham Park in the 1930s, The Turbot Street Development Scheme, the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is a landmark building occupying a busy city corner. The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is important as the only built work in this ambitious scheme of public buildings.
The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is important for its fine rare interiors including the entrance porch and decorative timber surrounds and timber doors to the main entrance; the stairwells and roof lanterns; the waiting room and associated furniture on the first floor; the Professor's room on the first floor; corridors and staff offices on the first floor; surviving joinery to the ground floor. The integrity of the spatial relationships within the building are important including the volume of the former ground floor waiting room with the accompanying bank of windows to the courtyard. The courtyard is important to the building. The associated grounds are important to the building including the impressive sweep of concrete stairs with flanking standard lamps from Turbot Street.
|A highly serviced building, the design of the Brisbane Dental Hospital and College demonstrates the focus on the application of technological advances in the delivery of health care prevailing in the 1930s and incorporates innovative technical features. The building is important as the first public building in Brisbane to install a fully integrated air conditioning system. The insertion of a mezzanine floor to accommodate air-conditioning and servicing of surgeries and work areas enabled the Hospital and College to incorporate technological developments and service the building efficiently and effectively. Inclusion of these extensive servicing features has facilitated the incorporation of late twentieth century technological advances introduced in the late 1990s refurbishment.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Brisbane Dental Hospital and College is important for its association with the architect Raymond Clare Nowland. The building is one of the most notable structures designed by Nowland, an architect of considerable talent working in the Department of Public Works during the period of extensive public works building in the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16646,"place_ref":601910,"name":"Gympie School of Arts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"39 Nash Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"The Gympie School of Arts is a substantial two storey brick building, located on one of the main streets of Gympie. It is situated on a sloping site, with rock walls retaining gardens beds in the front. Access is via a centrally located concrete stair, or a ramp which located on the western side of the site. The rear of the site is bitumened for car parking.
The building is of brown face brick laid in English bond, with deep red voussoirs over the windows. It is symmetrically designed with centrally placed cedar entrance doors with fanlight and sidelights. These are flanked by double hung windows on either side. This arrangement is replicated on the upper level.
The upper level has a verandah which runs across the front elevation and halfway around the side elevations which is simply designed and comprises timber square posts with smaller square balusters. The end of the verandah on the eastern side is partially enclosed to form a kitchen, and a stair leads from the verandah on the opposite side. The verandah roof attaches to the building below the main roofline, allowing space for a series of pairs of timber brackets which support the fascia of the main roof. The main roof is pyramidal in form, with a decorative ventilator at its peak.
The side elevations have regularly and symmetrically placed double hung windows and the rear elevation has three sets of windows in staggered positions. A door is located at the rear, below the central window, which allows access to a new toilet block abutting the building.
Internally, walls have been removed on the ground floor to create an open space and partitions have recently been erected around the perimeter of room. Floorboards on the western side of the ground floor have been replaced, and the entire floor has been sanded. The door entering the kitchen at the rear of the ground floor has been extended to form a double-leafed opening, and the stair is enclosed with new partitioning.
The staircase has a highly decorative cedar balustrade and is located at the rear of the building, opposite the entrance. A door allows access to the rear of the site, where a toilet block is located adjacent to the building.
The ceilings throughout are timber boarded, with suspended track lighting on the ground floor and suspended fluorescent lighting and fans on the upper floor. All outer walls are plastered, whilst the internal walls are either of timber boards, horizontally laid, or sheeted with fibro.
The first floor comprises a central room at the top of the stairs, with access to rooms on either side. Double leafed doors open from the central room into a larger room which runs the width of the building. This room is a large open space with symmetrically placed windows and doors and a pressed metal cornice. A set of double leafed doors opening onto the verandah are centrally located within the front wall.
","history":"The Gympie School of Arts is a substantial two storeyed brick building located on a prominent Gympie site. Constructed between 1904 and 1905, it was designed by local architect Hugo W Durietz.
The School of Arts movement began in the 1820s, when Mechanics Institute were established in Glasgow and London, and a School of Arts was established in Edinburgh. Their intention was to promote mental and moral improvement of the working classes. The first institute in Australia was formed in Hobart in 1827, followed by Sydney in 1833, from which date the movement rapidly spread throughout the rest of the colony.
The first School of Arts in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1846, although a building was not erected for the purpose until 1864. From this beginning, approximately 350 Schools of Arts were established throughout the state during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The intention of Schools of Arts was that they address the educational needs of the working classes, although it appears they were directed more towards the middle classes, with lectures on subjects such as philosophy, and classes in French and Latin, which may not have appealed to a largely illiterate working class. Some institutes also provided technical classes including measured drawing, painting and typewriting and all Schools of Arts provided a variety of entertainments as well as games, lending libraries and reading rooms.
The Gympie School of Arts was first established in 1870. Gold had been discovered in the region by James Nash in 1867, and the town grew rapidly. By 1868 there were 560 business licenses and 15 000 miners rights.
The impetus for a School of Arts was provided by Edward Bytheway, early settler and shopkeeper, and later mayor. Bytheway was involved in many community organisations including the local hospital and the Agricultural, Pastoral and Mining Company. Most Schools of Arts established in Queensland were driven by community minded men, usually middle or upper class, many with political aspirations.
The committee applied to the government for land on which to construct a suitable building. A temporary reading room was established in an existing building until the construction of a hall in 1874. There were many disputes over the siting of the hall, with some members wanting it near the government buildings, and others wanting it where it would be more accessible to the mass of the population in general. There were also disputes over whether the School of Arts should merge with the One Mile Miners Institute. Although this occurred in the early 1890s, it was unsuccessful and had dissolved prior to the erection of the new building.
It was decided that a new building was required as early as 1890, however the institute was financially insecure, owing to poor subscription levels. By 1904, there was 1000 pounds in the building fund, and the committee decided that this, coupled with the proposed sale of the existing building was sufficient to erect a new building.
Local architect, Hugo Durietz, who had previously served on the School of Arts committee, was requested to draw up plans for a new building which was not to exceed £1500. The committee provided a preferred layout, based on the workings of the previous building.
The design for the new building was of a functional nature with few decorative features. Constructed of brick it was two-storeyed with verandahs to the upper floor. The ground floor had a central entrance, with a library on the right and four classrooms on the left. The upper floor contained two rooms with specially reinforced floors for billiard tables and a reading room across the front of the building.
Hugo Durietz, the architect had arrived in Gympie at the beginning of the gold rush. He established many businesses in Gympie and was a member of various committees, including that of the School of Arts. By 1871, he was practising as an architect in Gympie, and designed many buildings in the town in the ensuing years.
The new School of Arts cost £1 400 and was officially opened on 28 February 1905 as the School of Arts and Technical College. It provided classes in practical subjects, which were also provided for state school students from 1909 on.
As with all Schools of Arts the 1920s saw the beginning of the demise of the institute. New forms of entertainment such as the radio, increases in car ownership resulting in a more mobile community, world wars and the economic collapse of the 1930s all contributed to reductions in membership. As members paid subscriptions, this financially disabled most institutes.
In order to raise revenue, the upstairs reading room was converted into a flat for rent in 1941. The role of the School of Arts was further diminished in the 1970s, when technical education was taken over by TAFE and the Gympie Adult Education Organisation. However, this was also a period where government support was given to the development of a free library system, and in January 1975, $30 000 was allocated to refurbish the School of Arts as a municipal library. At the end of 1975, the School of Arts Trustees resigned and the administration of the library was taken over by the Gympie Council.
As well as the library, the building also housed the Wide Bay Regional Council, Police Department and National Fitness Council at various times. In 1985, the building was shared by the library, and the Local History Collection, which was located in the former reading room. It was during this period that air conditioning and a book lift were installed in the building.
The library moved to new premises in 1995, leaving the School of Arts building unoccupied.
","criteria":"The Gympie School of Arts was constructed in 1904. It is one of many School of Arts constructed throughout Queensland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as part of an attempt to promote mental and moral improvement of the working classes. By the 1900s, almost every town in Queensland had a School of Arts and they were often seen as indicators of the prosperity or status of the town. As such, they demonstrate the evolution of Queensland's history.
|The building is an uncommon example of a School of Arts of masonry construction in the Queensland vernacular style.
|The place demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type, with provision for a reading room, library and games rooms. The inclusion of a verandah is also common to the design of Schools of Arts in Queensland. Most Schools of Arts in Queensland were of timber construction, with few substantial masonry buildings.
|The Gympie School of Arts is of aesthetic significance due to its simplicity and symetricality of design, and for its contribution to the streetscape. Internal features including the balustrading and joinery details also contribute to the overall aesthetic significance of the building.
|The place has strong associations with the community of Gympie due to its continued use as a library and educational facility. The building ceased to function as a library as recently as 1995.
|The building has special association with prolific local architect Hugo Durietz as an example of one of his more substantial Gympie buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16647,"place_ref":601911,"name":"Mackay Central State School","alternate_name":"Mackay Intermediate School","street_address":"251 Alfred Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Mackay Central State School is a two-storey brick and stucco building with three projecting gable bays. Its roof is clad with corrugated iron. Between each bay the main façade is recessed. There is a single storey level section at each end with a hipped roof. The central entrance comprises a porch of three archways with a half timbered ceiling. On the roof is an octagonal fleche which has a copper cupola roof and louvred arcading around the sides. All external windows, many original, are multi-panelled casements. The internal windows are multi-panelled sash windows with hopper ventilating top lights. Paired entry doors have four pane glazed top panels set over singular rectangular panels with deep moulded borders. Internal doors are similar, but constructed of timber only.
The school is symmetrical in design. The ground level comprised six classrooms, a teachers room and a passageway. A stove recess is still evident in the domestic science classroom in the eastern wing. There are eight class rooms on the upper floor and three of these can still be subdivided by the original folding partitions. The upstairs ceilings are half timbered and original air vents are extant throughout the building. Bathroom facilities are located at each end of both floors. The main building is reasonably intact and the original configuration of the building has been retained.
The southern and western boundary of the school grounds are planted with mature Banyan figs (Ficus benghalensis). The grounds also include mature mango trees.
","history":"The Mackay Central State School, the second to be built on the site, was constructed in 1933 to a design from the Office of Public Works.
In search of new pastoral land, John Mackay and his party entered and named the valley of the Mackay River in 1860, and the following year he returned to establish a cattle station. In 1862, the ketch 'Presto' entered the Mackay River landing stores and building materials, then surveyed the river mouth, which consequently was gazetted as a Port of Entry. The first settlers arrived in October 1862, establishing the settlement of Port Mackay on the south bank of the river. By the end of 1863, the name of the river had been changed to the Pioneer, the first survey of the town of Mackay had been made, and the first land sale of town lots had been held.
The town of Mackay soon began to prosper through the growth of the port, the nearby pastoral holdings, and the plantations along the river which included the beginnings of the local sugar industry. River Street developed as a busy waterfront precinct with wharves (the Government wharf opened in 1868), warehouses, offices, ships' chandleries, boat builders, hotels and boarding houses, and the Customs complex which by 1870 included the Customs House, the bond store and the Sub Collectors residence.
The first school on the site, on which the Mackay Central State School was to be built, was opened on 14 September 1871 with 41 pupils. In 1885, when student numbers reached 650, the boys and girls were separated. The boys school remained on the original site, while the girls moved to a site across the road (now the Mackay Entertainment Centre). In 1933, the schools were reunited at the girls school site.
The present school was constructed in 1933 as the Mackay Intermediate School. In 1928, Intermediate Schools were established to provide vocational training for senior primary school students. At the completion of Grade five, children wishing to have vocational training were sent to the district's intermediate school where they followed the curriculum of sixth and seventh grades as well as compulsory vocational subjects. This policy also avoided the duplication of vocational training equipment at all primary schools. Intermediate Schools were similar in room size and plan form to existing high schools. By 1937, there were Intermediate Schools in Brisbane North (1935), Brisbane South (1929), Bundaberg (1933), Charters Towers (1929), Gatton (1933), Gympie (1933), Mackay, Maryborough Girls and Boys (1936), Mount Morgan (1929), Roma, Warwick (1929) and Ayr (1937).
Designed by the Department of Public Works, the school is architecturally typical of the style of brick schools constructed during the 1930s. Brick schools were popular with architects as they were considered permanent, relatively inexpensive to maintain and labour intensive. It is partly for the latter reason that thirty brick schools were constructed in Queensland during the 1930s Depression, providing considerable employment relief. Typically, these schools were multi-storeyed, unlike the predominant single storey, timber school buildings. They were symmetrical in plan and usually exhibited classical style elements and featured a prominent central entry. Based on this plan, the Mackay Central State School was constructed as a purpose-built Intermediate School.
The foundation stone of the Mackay Intermediate School was laid by the Premier and local MLA, William Forgan Smith, on 22 July 1933. The school catered for 600 male and female pupils and comprised fourteen classrooms, domestic science rooms in the eastern wing and manual science rooms in the western wing. Like similarly constructed schools, the classrooms in the Mackay Intermediate School were divided by folding timber partitions.
On completion of the building, the primary schools students moved to their new school and the Girls Schools became the Infants School. Students attended the Infant School from grades 1 to 5, then the Intermediate School from which they could graduate to Mackay High School.
In 1967, the Infant and Intermediate Schools combined and became the Mackay Central State School. The building was extended, with a wing constructed at the rear of the building, to provide for the increased numbers of students. The extensions provided an additional three classrooms. Other buildings later constructed on the site include the pre-school and activities block.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1933, as a former Intermediate School, the Mackay Central State School is most significant in demonstrating the results of an important development in Queensland education, established in 1928, where schools provided vocational training for senior primary school student. Evidence of a practical approach can be still seen in the extant stove recess in the domestic science room in the eastern wing of the school.
Mackay Central State School is demonstrative of a government scheme, the Unemployment Relief Scheme, implemented to assist the unemployed throughout Queensland, by means of generating work projects, during the Depression of the 1930s.
|Further, the Mackay Central State School, is significant as one of the best examples of a purpose-built Intermediate School, the purpose for its use being clearly expressed in the fabric of the building, with the domestic science section located in the eastern wing and the manual arts section located in the western wing.
Constructed in 1933, the school is a good example of the types of brick schools constructed in Queensland during an era of substantial building activity.
|The building is a fine example of a two-storeyed Inter-war brick school. Due to its massing and scale, the building is a landmark in the streetscape, in keeping with the Queensland Government's 1930s policy to raise the educational status of primary education through the construction of well designed, imposing buildings.
Further, the mature boundary plantings, including Banyan figs (Ficus benghalensis) contribute to the aesthetic significance of the site.
|The grounds on which the Mackay Central State School is built has been the site of public education for over a century, and consequently, is significant for its strong association with the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16649,"place_ref":601913,"name":"Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":"Cairns Shire Offices","street_address":"51 The Esplanade","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-01-06","description":"The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers, a single-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located fronting the Esplanade to the northeast. A three-storeyed structure, which is not included in the heritage listing boundary for this place, is built adjacent to the southeast and southwest sides of the building.
The symmetrical northeast elevation has a central entry with projecting gable flanked by two bays of verandahs to either side. The roof has battened eaves with paired timber brackets, and multi-paned clerestory windows are located below the eaves and above the verandah awning. The projecting gable has roughcast finish with curved timber framing in relief, and is supported by corner pilasters with expressed cornice at the verandah eave level. The name MULGRAVE SHIRE OFFICE is in relief to the lintel above the entry, above which are paired multi-paned clerestory windows. The entrance is accessed via a set of steps with curved rendered masonry balustrades. The original verandah has been replaced (as part of the 1951-52 works) with rendered masonry columns supporting a rendered masonry parapet and cantilevered concrete sunhood. The parapet has relief detailing, including a stylised circular motif, and the columns have expressed cornices at the eave level. The cast iron balustrades from the original verandah are intact, and the entrance leads into a recessed vestibule with paired aluminium framed doors accessing the customer service area. Tall narrow windows open onto the verandah either side of the central entrance.
The verandahs are flanked by a slightly projecting bay at either end, which formed part of the 1951-52 extensions. Each bay has three narrow windows, unified by a common sill and cantilevered concrete sunhood.
The southeast and southwest elevations are mostly obscured by the adjoining building, which is constructed almost abutting the eaves. The southeast elevation comprises the 1951-52 additions at the eastern end, and the 1965-66 additions at the rear with a recessed entrance between. These additions have narrow windows with expressed mouldings, the rear addition has a low pitch ribbed metal roof concealed behind a parapet, and the recessed entrance aligns with the position of the original verandah. The original verandah has been removed from the southwest rear elevation, and the paired timber doors from the original board room now front a covered carpark under the adjoining building. The northwest elevation comprises the 1951-52 additions at the eastern end, with the 1965-66 additions at the rear which extend out from the building to the north. These additions have narrow windows with expressed mouldings, and the rear addition has a low pitch ribbed metal roof concealed behind a parapet.
Internally, the building has suspended ceilings to several areas, with non-original partitions and fittings. The customer service and general office area has early, and some original, details including wide cornices, clerestory windows, architraves, picture rails and skirtings. An early strong room is located in each of the rear corners, and each strong room has a ladder which access a storage area above. A partition divides the rear of the room, and another earlier partition is located across the original board room which has some original surviving details. The rear corridors between the original section of the building and the later extensions are in the position of the original rear verandahs. The later extensions have internal partitions and sheeted walls and ceilings.
The original fence fronting the Esplanade survives, and comprises rendered pillars with pyramid capitals and roughcast side panels, between which are sections of cast iron palisade on a hit-and-miss brick base. Non-original gates have been installed to both the pedestrian and driveway entrances The front garden contains several mature palms.
","history":"The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers, constructed in 1912-13, is a single-storeyed masonry structure located fronting the Esplanade to the northeast. The structure was erected during a period of considerable building activity in Cairns, which occurred in the years immediately preceding the First World War.
Cairns was established officially in October 1876 as a port to service the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields. In this first phase of Cairns' development there was a small flurry of building activity (mostly shanties and tent houses), but the town competed with both Cooktown and Port Douglas for the Hodgkinson trade, and made little progress until the establishment of a local sugar industry and the opening up of the Atherton Tablelands' mineral fields, in the early 1880s. The 1885 announcement that Cairns was to be the terminus for the Herberton railway established the town as the principal port in the region. These events boosted the local economy in the 1880s and generated a second building and development phase, during which the early temporary structures were replaced by more substantial timber buildings. A number of masonry and reinforced concrete public and commercial buildings were erected in Cairns in the years immediately preceding the First World War. Some of these buildings replaced earlier timber structures which were by that time in a poor condition. The third major phase of Cairns' development occurred between the First and Second World Wars, at which time the city's status as the principal port of Far North Queensland was consolidated and the city centre virtually re-built.
The Cairns Divisional Board was established in 1879 by the Divisional Boards Act of that year, which brought local government to the whole of the colony, and the divisions were mostly based on existing census districts. The Divisional board had its precursors in the forms of the Road Board, which was established to advise on the allocation of government funds for roads in the region, and the Cairns Progress Association. The first meetings were held in Port Douglas, but were not suitable for Cairns residents to attend. The divisional boundaries were redrawn a number of times, and a new Cairns Divisional Board met in Cairns in mid 1880. As Cairns developed in the early 1880s, dissatisfaction grew with the Cairns Divisional Board which was perceived to be more interested in the affairs of the country areas than of the town. Separation of the town from the division was achieved in 1885 when the Cairns Municipal Council was established to administer the town area.
The Cairns Divisional Board continued to operate out of its offices, which was constructed on a reserve gazetted for Divisional Board Offices, in the government precinct between Spence and Shields Streets, even though it was strictly outside of its municipal boundaries. The Cairns Divisional Board became the Cairns Shire Council c.1905 and then the Mulgrave Shire Council in 1940.
The Cairns Municipal Council became the Cairns Town Council in March 1903, which in turn became the Cairns City Council in October 1923. The former Cairns City Council and the Mulgrave Shire Council were amalgamated in March 1995, becoming the current Cairns City Council.
The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers, originally named the Cairns Shire Offices, was constructed in 1912-13, replacing an earlier timber structure. The building was designed by the North Queensland architectural partnership of Charles Lynch and Walter Hunt, a practice which had offices in Cairns and Townsville, as well as other regional centres, from 1911-21. The building was one of the partnership's earliest commissions.
Prior to forming a partnership with Walter Hunt, Charles Lynch had been a partner in the Townsville practice of Tunbridge, Tunbridge and Lynch, from 1907-10, which completed a number of projects in Cairns, including the School of Arts [600380], Central Hotel Buildings [600379], the Harbour Board Offices, and the rebuilding of the Court House Hotel. After his partnership with Hunt dissolved in 1921, Lynch practiced as an architect in Townsville until 1937. Walter Hunt had practiced as an architect in Charters Towers from 1900-10 prior to his partnership with Charles Lynch. After the partnership dissolved, Hunt practiced as an architect and surveyor in Townsville until 1931, and taught architecture at the Townsville Technical College from 1923.
The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers was constructed by builders Wilson and Baillie, and the successful tender (including the front fence) was £2,348. The building originally comprised a T-shaped plan, with verandahs to all sides, and with an entrance porch fronting the Esplanade.
The first major alterations and extensions were carried out in 1951-52, and the successful tenderer was TB O'Meara and Sons at a cost of £5,993.15.0. These works consisted of the partial removal of verandahs, additions to both sides of the building with the extension of the existing roof form, new toilets, alterations to the front elevation, and alterations to the interior.
Further alterations were carried out in 1965-66, and the successful tenderer was Del Ben and Company at a cost of £14,871. The works comprised the removal of the remaining side verandahs, additions at the rear of the side wings, internal alterations, suspended ceiling installed to the reception area, alterations to the toilets, and air conditioning to some rooms. Further internal alterations have occurred after this time.
","criteria":"The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers survives as an important illustration of the growth of Cairns and the former Cairns Shire in the years preceding the First World War. In particular, the place illustrates the local community's confidence in Cairns and the surrounding shire emerging as an important regional centre. The site has sustained a continued local government presence in Cairns since the early 1880s, when the Reserve for Divisional Board Offices was gazetted and the first offices constructed.
|Although the building has had two major extensions, the original form is clearly evident and it is a good example of an early twentieth century council chambers.
|The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers has considerable aesthetic significance, and together with its fencing and mature plantings, makes a considerable contribution to the Esplanade streetscape and Cairns townscape.
|The former Mulgrave Shire Council Chambers contributes markedly to the city's sense of identity and history.
|The building has a strong association with the Cairns City Council and the Cairns community, and is illustrative of the development of local government in the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16651,"place_ref":601915,"name":"Landsborough Shire Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":"Landsborough Shire Historical Museum","street_address":"6 Maleny Street","suburb":"LANDSBOROUGH","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-06-24","description":"Constructed in 1924 the former Landsborough Shire Council Chambers, a modest, timber building, has a discreet, civic presence on Maleny Street, Landsborough. The building is a low-set, hip-roofed, rectangular, timber structure with open front verandah. A narrow, skillion roofed extension has been erected to the west and a large Museum courtyard and building has been constructed to the east. The Museum building and courtyard will not be included in this description.
The building and west extension are clad with chamferboards. The picket paling skirt to the front verandah understorey have been replaced with chamferboards. The core of the former Landsborough Shire Council Chambers is symmetrical about a projecting pedimented gabled entry porch reached by a set of open timber stairs. The verandah to the east has been reconstructed but much original fabric remains to the balance of the verandah. A plain curved timber arch with prominent keystone and corbelled ends marks the entry. Four timber clad panels divide the verandah into bays and a plain timber moulded cornice runs around the verandah. The cornice is supported by small timber console brackets to the two mid panels. The front verandah is lined with vertical T & G boarding and post and rail framing is exposed to the verandah. The verandah has plain, vertical, timber slat balustrading and blank frieze panels with bottom rails supported by decorative end corbels. The main entry french doors have a clear glass 2-pane fanlight above the doorway and each door has five panels of coloured, textured glass with the top panel arched.
The interior has been altered but the chamber space remains along with much original fabric including the vertical T & G lining, post and rail framing, sheeted and battened ceiling, picture rails to the chamber, doors, casement windows and cupboard between the former office and the chamber.
","history":"The first European settlement was established in the Landsborough, originally known as Mellum Creek, by Isaac Burgess in 1871. His slab hut on the north of Gympie Road near Mellum Creek became a Cobb & Co. staging post on the run to the Gympie gold fields. Settlement of the area expanded particularly with the arrival of the rail line from Caboolture in 1890. Named Landsborough after the explorer William Landsborough, the Railway Station became the focus for a town centre and the town of Mellum Creek was renamed Landsborough.
Local government for the region was administered by the Caboolture Divisional Board from 1880. The Caboolture Shire, proclaimed in 1903, assumed responsibility for the administration of the regions of Pine Rivers, Landsborough, Kilcoy, Maroochy, Caboolture and Redcliffe. In February 1912, 423 acres were annexed from Caboolture Shire and proclaimed Landsborough Shire. The first Council meeting for the newly formed Shire was held on 20 April 1912. A Council residence and one room office was constructed in 1913 and was used for meetings of the Council until the first purpose-built Chambers was opened in 1924.
The former Landsborough Shire Council Chambers, designed by architect Walter Carey Voller and constructed by AE Round, accommodated a council chamber, 2 offices, a counter with office space and a walk-in strong room.
WC Voller served his articles under FDG Stanley from 1882 to 1886 and from 1893 operated a productive architectural practice in Brisbane. His most notable work includes St Paul's Presbyterian Church Mackay (1898), St Paul's Church of England Roma (1913), New Farm Methodist Church (1926) and Silkstone Baptist Church (1928). He owned a beach house at Caloundra and he and his family were frequent visitors and well known in the area.
In 1967 Landsborough, Maroochy and Noosa Shires became known as the Sunshine Coast and local government administration was located to Caloundra in 1968. The former Landsborough Shire Council Chambers closed in 1974. In 1975 the Landsborough Historical Society secured a lease over the building and in 1975 the building was opened as the Landsborough Shire Historical Museum.
During the 1950s the verandah was extended and enclosed to the east and an extension constructed to the west of the building to accommodate 5 offices. In 1977 the original timber fence was removed and a bullock wagon and two large palms located in the front garden. In 1988, alterations to the former Landsborough Shire Chambers were undertaken during the construction of the large Museum extension to the east. The front verandah was reinstated, office partitioning removed, the building painted and a new roof installed. A covered courtyard link between the early building and the new Museum extension and a roofed storage area to the north butt directly onto the building.
","criteria":"Opened in 1924, the former Landsborough Shire Council Chambers, a modest, low-set, single-storey timber building on Maleny Street, Landsborough, was the first purpose-built council chambers for the Landsborough Shire Council. Although the building has been altered and has received a major extension, the original form is evident.
|The place is important for its association with the work of architect Walter Carey Voller.
|Residential in scale, the building contributes a dignified civic presence to the streetscape.
|Sustaining a local government presence from 1924 to 1974, the former Landsborough Shire Council Chambers is important for its association with the Landsborough Shire Council and the local community and illustrates the development of local government in the region.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16652,"place_ref":601916,"name":"Pittsworth Shire Council Chambers and Shire Hall (former)","alternate_name":"Pittsworth Kindergarten","street_address":"Short Street","suburb":"PITTSWORTH","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"The former Pittsworth Shire Hall and Shire Offices, located in Short Street, is a single storey L-shaped brick building with a corrugated iron roof. The front entrance is centrally located under a projecting portico with gabled roof sheeted with corrugated iron. The portico has moulded timber posts. Decorated leadlight windows are located high in the eastern facade. The concrete gabled parapet, which forms part of the eastern facade includes the words 'Pittsworth Shire Hall' and, underneath, '1913'. A staircase is positioned on the southern side of the entrance portico. A verandah, with timber posts, is located facing east on the southern side of the building. The verandah has timber balustrades which are a later addition.
The building is constructed of predominantly orange face brickwork, however two bands of decorative blue brick are located in sections along all elevations. On the rear (western) elevation, besides having two decorative bands of blue brick, there are several bands (about ten) of the same blue brick at the top of the facade.
Internally the building has a large open space with high timber ceiling with a pressed metal ceiling rose. The original strong room, located in the north-western corner, is concrete lined and continues to the ceiling, a timber door above the strong room opens to storage space. Two small rooms are located on the southern side of the buildings, one room contains a kitchenette and the other houses office equipment. A timber extension clad with galvanised iron has been constructed along part of the western facade.
Externally, the area to the north of the building contains play equipment and seating areas. A timber shed is located in the north-western corner of the block. A timber framed toilet with corrugated iron roof is located near the north-west corner of the building. A number of trees and plantings surround the block.
","history":"Located in Short Street, the former Pittsworth Shire Council Chambers and Shire Hall building, constructed in 1914, was designed by WP Copp and built by John Fortune.
Most of the present Shire of Pittsworth originally formed part of the Beauaraba Pastoral Run. The Beauaraba Run was taken up by Charles Mallard in 1847. The station gave the town its name 'Beauaraba'. The Agricultural Selection Acts of 1868-1876 opened up the area to grain-growers and mixed farmers. In 1876 J Tyson Doneley, nephew of the Felton squatter, built the Beauaraba Hotel to serve the pastoral employees of the surrounding freehold estates and it was at this time that the town began to grow. After the railway from Toowoomba arrived in 1887, the town made rapid progress. Within three years, three more hotels, four stores, two butchers, a bank, two churches and two blacksmiths had been established. Coaches stopped at Pittsworth on the way through to Domville (Millmerran), Bark Creek and Leyburn. Wool from the south-western Downs stations was also carted to the railhead at Pittsworth. In 1886 the name changed to Pittsworth, a name which was suggested by Thomas Macdonald-Paterson, Post-Master General, in honour of his father-in-law, WC Pitts.
A Reserve for Divisional Board Offices in the town of Beauaraba (Pittsworth) was created on 16 August 1890 and advertised in the Government Gazette on 23 August 1890. The Reserve was placed under the control of the Pittsworth Shire Council on 7 March 1918.
Following closer settlement and the establishment of the Divisional Boards Act of 1879 a number of Divisional Boards were created. The Pittsworth area was originally part of the Jondaryan Shire, however, following representations to the Department of Local Government, a ballot was held, with the result that Pittsworth was proclaimed a local authority. Pittsworth Shire Council was established in 1913 and the first meeting of the new Council was held on 9 July 1913. The first Chairman was Mr WP Copp. Councillors were AC Krieg, DV Hannay, C McIntyre, J Holmes, JN Ronnfeldt, JT Stirling, WJ Crawford and W Sullivan.
At the Council meeting of 3 December 1913, Cr Krieg gave notice of motion that he intended to move at the next meeting that the matter of building a Shire Hall be considered. At the meeting of 18 February 1914 it was moved that plans and specifications be obtained both for a wood and brick building, to be ready for to be ready for next meeting. At the meeting of 25 March 1914, WP Copp, submitted his design for the proposed Shire Hall.
William Perham Copp was born in the Logan River district, Queensland in 1868 and settled in the Pittsworth area in 1887. Copp was working as a builder and contractor by 1892, later expanding his activities to include cabinet-making. From 1915 he practised as an architect in Pittsworth. Copp was a member for the local Shire Councils from c1898 until his death in 1919. Following his death, in Toowoomba on 24 February 1919, he was described in the Queenslander as 'one of Pittsworth's best known residents'.
Five tenders for the Shire Hall were received by the Council. John Fortune, listed in the Queensland Post Office Directories in 1914-15 as a 'Contractor', was successful in his tender for a brick building at a cost of £766-5-0. Council moved that as rent from its allotment became payable, it was to be banked in a separate account and be reserved as a building fund.
Besides its use as the meeting place for the Shire Council, over many years, the building was the venue for a number of functions including balls, lectures and meetings. For many years, it was one of only a handful of brick buildings in the town. Following a disastrous fire in the main street of Pittsworth in 1923 an area was proclaimed in Yandilla Street whereby plans for all proposed buildings had to be submitted to Council for approval. As a result, a number of brick buildings were constructed in Pittsworth following the fire.
In the 1950s the use of the building for social occasions began to decline, leaving only the monthly shire council meetings. One of the last functions held in the hall was a Naturalisation Ceremony held on 26 September 1955. The new civic centre was built in Yandilla Street and opened in August 1956. The civic centre included new council chambers and a new town hall and were built on land donated by the local Returned Services League.
Externally, the building has undergone few changes over the past 85 years. Small changes have included closing over the open south side of the verandah. Also, to the verandah, timber balusters have been added to the rails. The rails form part of the original design of the building. An extension, housing toilet facilities, was added to the western part of the building by the Kindergarten Association.
The building served the Pittsworth Shire Council for over 40 years. The property description was changed to Lot 10 on P21017 on 18 October 1956 and the building was leased to the Pittsworth Kindergarten Association. The Association continues to lease the building from the Shire Council.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1914, the former Pittsworth Shire Council Chambers and Shire Hall building, one of the most significant buildings in Pittsworth, is important for its association with the establishment of the Pittsworth Shire Council in 1913. The construction of a substantial brick building demonstrates the high level of confidence the members of the Council held for the future of their new Shire.
|The former Pittsworth Shire Council Chambers and Shire Hall is significant as one of the few brick buildings constructed in Pittsworth prior to the fire of 1923 which destroyed many timber buildings resulting in a predominance of brick ones being constructed.
|The former Pittsworth Shire Council Chambers and Shire Hall building is significant for its contribution to the Short Street streetscape. The building remains highly intact externally, with only minor changes over the last 85 years.
|(Criterion under review)
|The former Pittsworth Shire Council Chambers and Shire Hall building is significant for its association with WP Copp, Chairman of the first Shire Council and prominent figure in the area. Copp worked as an architect in Pittsworth from 1915-19 and designed the building for the Shire Council.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16657,"place_ref":601921,"name":"Mount Moran Battery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"New Woolgar Road","suburb":"FORSAYTH","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-09-22","description":"The Mount Moran Battery contains the remains of a five head stamp battery including mortar box, stamper rods and belt wheel. The battery frame has been removed. A colonial boiler, the remains of a steam engine with fly wheel and several berdan pans are located alongside the stamp battery. A collapsed corrugated iron camp is located across a gully to the west of the battery. A small steam pump is located near a well on a watercourse east of the battery. The place includes several early open workings.
","history":"Mount Moran Battery is situated on a sloping ridge above the seasonally active Agate Creek, west of Forsayth. The isolated five head stamp battery was erected in 1924 to crush ore won from the three reefs worked in the area - the Mona, Iona and Bosker.
Gold was discovered in the Georgetown Mining District in 1868 and a series of gold and base metal discoveries followed. The region became known as the Etheridge Gold and Mineral Field. The field peaked as a gold producer in the 1890s but was in decline by World War I. High base metal prices turned attention to lead, silver and copper and the field boomed until the onset of the Depression in the late 1920s again caused prices to drop. A brief revival in gold mining followed but the labour and materials shortages of World War Two ended all mining.
During the early years of gold discoveries on the Etheridge field small amounts of alluvial gold were found in gullies around Mount Moran. Although it was not until the 1920s that the area produced three working gold reefs. Between 1922 and 1936 the three mines, the Mona, Iona and Bosker, yielded 1,033 ounces of gold. Ore from the area was first crushed at the Ortona battery. By 1924 Mount Moran required its own crushing facilities. The ten head battery at Ortona, situated about 3 miles from Mount Moran field, was relocated from Ortona to its present site.
In 1924 there was increased prospecting in the area with satisfactory results. Several new gold-bearing lodes were discovered, however most of the work was confined to the Finger Point mine. Here, the principal owners formed a syndicate and amalgamated their holdings in a 16 acre lease. The claims in the area were the Blue Spec, Bosker, Brown Hill, Dinkum, Finger Print, Lucky Hit, Iona and Peg Leg, with the deepest shafts of 22metres and 27metres being sunk on the Peg Leg and Finger Print respectively.
The 1930s saw a brief revival in the area then known as 'the Mount Moran group of gold mines'. In 1936 the Mount Moran Battery crushed 157 tons of ore to yield 58 ounces of gold. However, there appears to have been no activity after this date. The Mount Moran Battery presumably ceased operation as the mines in the area closed.
","criteria":"The Mount Moran Mine is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's mining history, in particular the Etheridge Gold and Mineral Field. It contributes to an understanding of ore crushing technology utilised on a marginal lode and is an example of a small battery which was set up to crush ore for a few small mines in an isolated area of the remote field.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16658,"place_ref":601922,"name":"Burdekin Shire Council Chambers","alternate_name":"Ayr Shire Council Chambers","street_address":"145 Young Street","suburb":"AYR","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-10-13","description":"The Burdekin Shire Council Chambers is a single-storeyed building located at the northern corner of a level block bound by Young, MacMillan and Wickham Streets, Ayr, addressing Young Street. The site is one block from the main street, Queen Street, which forms part of the Bruce Highway. Several church buildings and the Masonic Hall are located nearby along MacMillan Street.
The building is constructed of face brickwork with a hipped corrugated iron roof and encircling timber verandah. Centred on the ridge is a skylight.
The verandah is open on its two street elevations, with a concrete floor, dowelled balustrades and stop-chamfered posts. The south-eastern and south-western verandahs are enclosed and clad in chamferboards. At the rear is a brick safe with a steel door opening into the office.
The entry to the building is marked by a curved concrete portico, flanked by gabled pavilions with arched openings.
The interior is divided into three by two parallel hallways. The two pairs of entry doors are aligned with the arched pavilions either side of the front portico.
The north-western end is the meeting room, with French doors opening onto the north-western verandah. It has a decorative cornice, and low-waisted four-panel doors with fretted toplights.
The central bays has two offices with moulded arched openings. The south-eastern end four offices opening from a central corridor.
The interior features rendered brick walls, high ceilings with decorative cornices, double-hung and leadlight windows and panelled doors with fretted toplights.
","history":"Burdekin Shire Council Chambers at Ayr was completed in 1922 as Ayr Shire Council Chambers, replacing an 1890s timber building destroyed by fire in 1919. The 1922 building was designed by local architect Frederick Smith and extended in the late 1930s.
Ayr was established in 1882 to service the developing sugar-growing district on the Lower Burdekin. In the early 1860s the land was taken up as pastoral runs, but during the second half of the 1860s and 1870s, following the introduction of the British government's Sugar and Coffee Regulations of 1864, pastoral holdings on the Lower Burdekin gradually converted to sugar cultivation. By the late 1880s, four sugar mills had been established in the Burdekin.
When local government was extended to all Queenslanders in 1879, with the passing of the Divisonal Boards Act, the Lower Burdekin was included in Subdivision 3 of the Division of Thuringowa, based in Townsville, while the area south of the Burdekin was included in the Division of Wangaratta. The Lower Burdekin community became concerned that it's problems were not being addressed by the Thuringowa Divisional Board, because board members from the district found it difficult to get to meetings in Townsville. An attempt to overcome these problems was made in September 1883 when the Lower Burdekin was included in Subdivision 2 and the remainder of the division within subdivision 1.
Despite these boundary alterations the problem of distance from Townsville could not be overcome so easily. A petition seeking to have the Lower Burdekin made a separate division was unsuccessful; despite support from the Thuringowa Board, the Minister for Lands rejected the petition. A further petition prepared in 1884, pointing out that the population of 2,000 people centred on Ayr, was not acknowledged. To maintain pressure on the government, residents formed the Burdekin Delta Association and a further petition was successful. The Division of Ayr was proclaimed in 1888 but comprised only land north of the Burdekin River.
Board members were elected in 1888 and a reserve for a municipal chambers gazetted in April 1889, but lack of government funding combined with the devastating effects of the early 1890s depression, prohibited Ayr Divisional Board from erecting its own premises until 1895, when an office and board room were constructed. This building was damaged in 1903 by cyclone Leonta, but was repaired.
Under the Local Authorities Act of 1903 all Divisions in the State became Shires, and the Ayr Divisional Board became the Council of the Shire of Ayr.
In 1917 local architect Frederick Smith was engaged to design a strong room for safe storage of documents. Smith had been an articled pupil of the family firm of WG Smith and Sons, Architects in Townsville. He was employed by both the Queensland and Commonwealth Government as Clerk of Works, Ayr [1916-17] and District Supervisor, Ayr. His other buildings in Ayr included the Delta Theatre [1910] and the public hospital [1917].
A fire in 1919 destroyed the 1895 building, but not the strongroom. After the fire, Council erected temporary offices next to the strong room and sought a loan to build substantial new brick chambers for the rapidly expanding shire. Frederick Smith prepared the plans and the tender of local builder AS Wight, for £2,824, was accepted. The foundation stone was laid by Governor Nathan on 25 July 1921 and the brick and concrete chambers measuring 16m x 10m, with a surrounding 3m wide verandah, was completed early in 1922. These dimensions and early photographs suggest the building was symmetrical about the central hallway, with the meeting room to one side and two offices to the other, and an arched portico at the entrance. Apart from its role as Council Chambers, the meeting room has been used by many local groups including the local branch of the Queensland Country Women's Association and the Chamber of Commerce, and the cane-cutters sign-on in 1935. The 1917 strongroom appears to now form part of the rear verandah.
The sugar industry sustained the local economy during the 1930s depression, and the district expanded. Although plans for extensions to the Council Chambers, including a second storey and rear extension, were rejected as being too costly at £4000, ground floor extensions, at half the original projected cost, were completed in 1939. This extension appears included the present second entrance corridor and the wing of 4 offices to the southeast, and the consequent extension of the verandah and roof. The construction of the rooflight, the second arched portico reflecting the first, and the new curved entrance portico may also have been constructed at this time. The southwest verandahs were enclosed in the early 1970s to allow for more office space while those on the northeast side were enclosed at an earlier date.
By the mid-20th century, the name of Ayr was no longer considered representative of the whole of the local authority district, and in 1946 the Home Hill Chamber of Commerce [Home Hill was established by 1913 to promote development south of the Burdekin River] suggested the name Ayr-Home Hill Shire. The name was never adopted, but in 1976 the Council applied to become the Burdekin Shire. Although the Place Names Board pointed out that the Council district covered only part of the Burdekin, representations from local politicians over several years resulted in the Shire being renamed Burdekin on 10 June 1982, Ayr's centenary year.
","criteria":"The Burdekin Shire Council Chambers, erected in 1922 during a period of expansion in the sugar industry, demonstrates the role of the Shire Council in the development of Burdekin Shire as one of Queensland's most important sugar-producing districts. It is the earliest surviving Council building on the Council reserve, which once included the Shire Clerk's residence, stables and fire station.
The Burdekin Shire Chambers is close to other historic places including Anzac Park, Masonic Lodge, the former Presbyterian Church and an imposing house at 115 MacMillan Street, thus making a substantial contribution to the historic streetscape of the town.
|Burdekin Shire Council Chambers is a substantial brick building occupying a prominent corner position, and makes an important aesthetic contribution to the Ayr townscape.
|The Burdekin Shire Council Chambers, an important example of the work of local architect Frederick Smith and local builder AS Wight, is valued by the community who expressed their concern in 1996 when the Council proposed alterations to the structure.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16659,"place_ref":601923,"name":"Rudd Residence","alternate_name":"Mitchell Residence","street_address":"248 Agnes Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-10-22","description":"The Rudd Residence is a large, high set, single storeyed timber dwelling located on a large block at the corner of Agnes and Herley Streets, Rockhampton, overlooking the Sisters of Mercy convent and school to the west.
The dwelling is symmetrically composed with a central stair and entrance with broad verandahs on either side. It has a low pitched hipped corrugated iron roof, divided into three portions that emphasises the symmetry of the front elevation. The house is elevated on tall concrete posts. Simple wide stairs lead to a carefully detailed entrance bay with a low, lined ceiling and double timber doors that feature an elongated oval cutout infilled with a fine timber lattice panel. The entrance bay is enclosed at the back with vertical timber louvres that are fixed to the balustrade. A detail of exposed roof timbers is repeated around the eaves of the building.
The deep verandah to either side of the entry expands to create polygonal, room-like spaces at the corners of the building. Parts of the roof are lined with horizontal timber VJ boards and the hardwood floor has a high gloss finish. Bays with multi-paned windows project into these verandah spaces. The verandah balustrade is composed of a simple timber grid which is reflected in a denser lattice fixed to the concrete posts and infilling the space between floor and ground levels. Panels of finer timber lattice have been fixed to the verandah columns on either side of the entry. On the northern side of the entry, these spaces were previously occupied by full length, rolling bamboo blinds. These blinds are still in place on the northern end of the front verandah and along the side elevation to the north.
The wide front door has a large oval-shaped leadlight, a motif which is continued into the broad fanlight and side panels which also contain oval leadlight windows. The front door opens into an entry vestibule which leads into a large central parlour. On either side of the vestibule there are small square alcoves with leadlight windows and fanlights on three sides that project into the verandah space . The parlour has a stark black and white colour scheme. It is lined with narrow, vertical timber VJ boarding to the walls and has a fibrous cement ceiling which continues down to picture rail level. The square motif of the verandah detailing is continued through to the ceiling which has a grid pattern formed of timber cover strips painted black. The bottom two-thirds of the walls are also painted black, as are all architraves and skirting.
On the northern part of the site, an area has been cut and levelled to accommodate a swimming pool. Part of the pool and the paved surround are located under the house. There is a retaining wall on the eastern side of the pool. The part of this wall next to the pool is faced with stone and topped with a timber fence, the section that continues under the house is concrete block. A fibrous cement wall with aluminium framed windows has been built at the edge of the paved area in the undercroft of the house. A similar wall has been inserted in the area between verandah floor level and ground level to the corner of the house.
The house is set back from the road in a large expanse of lawn with six prominent Canary Island Date Palms and two mature frangipani trees. The back section of the block is more densely vegetated with a variety of trees and shrubs.
N.B This description has been prepared using photographs only.
","history":"The Rudd Residence at 248 Agnes Street, Rockhampton was constructed in about 1923 and is believed to be the design of local architect Beatrice May Hutton. It is a large, high set timber dwelling located on a spacious block originally part of Allotment 47 granted to John Ward and Andrew Bertram in 1862. Frank Rudd, the son of renowned Rockhampton businessman W.H Rudd, purchased the block, an area of one acre and two perches, in November 1922.
Beatrice May Hutton was born in 1893 and educated at Rockhampton Grammar School. Like many of the women who attempted to enter the male domain of architecture at the time, Beatrice Hutton came from a family with associations in the field. Her father, Falconer West Hutton, was a surveyor and she initially wanted to pursue a career in surveying but had to "accept architecture as the nearest feasible alternative". She became the articled pupil of prominent Rockhampton architect, E.M Hockings from 1913 until 1916.
In October 1916, Beatrice Hutton became the first female architect to be admitted to the Queensland Institute of Architects. The Sydney architectural journal The Salon announced:
"The Queensland Institute is, we believe, the first Australian Institute of Architecture to admit a lady member...The credentials placed before the Institute Council by the candidate showed that Miss Hutton was an earnest and industrious student, and the application was supported by her principals."
Later in 1916, Hutton moved to Sydney to broaden her experience. From April 1917 she worked for expatriate Queensland architect, Claude William Chambers, becoming a junior partner from 1931-1933. The firm was listed for those years as "Chambers and Hutton" in Sands New South Wales Directory and it may be that Beatrice Hutton was the only woman practising as a principal in Sydney at the time. She returned to Rockhampton in 1934 to care for her elderly parents, effectively ending her architectural career. After her father died, Hutton moved to Brisbane with her mother in 1936 and opened an art studio in the Colonial Mutual Life Building in Queen Street where she exhibited and sold her wood carvings. Judith Mackay wrote in 1984 when Hutton was 90 that "Beatrice Hutton currently lives surrounded by an impressive array of her own handwork in wood carving, pottery and rug-making. Her sustained enthusiasm for using her creative skills is inspirational."
It is not yet clear what constituted her contribution to the work of Hockings and Palmer, however, several wide verandahed houses in Rockhampton have been attributed to Hutton's early career. The Rudd Residence is believed to have been designed for a friend of Hutton's, Eliza Dalzell, who was also the daughter of a former client. Hutton had designed a house at 98 Spencer Street in 1915 for Mr Dalzell who was manager of the Bank of Australasia. Hutton is known to have continued to design houses for family and friends after she left for Sydney and the Rudd Residence is thought to be the last surviving intact example of her work.
The Rudd Residence is located in the suburb of the Range, Rockhampton's "premier residential area" that overlooks the river, flood plain and town. The area was sought after by the well-to-do families of Rockhampton from the late nineteenth century onwards. Original allotments of ten acres were located on the crest and eastern slopes of the Range with subdivision commencing in 1882. The Etonville Estate was the first to be subdivided into eighty villa sites. In 1926, the Catholic Church sub-divided the Cathedral Estate on the Range and made available forty seven building lots. These had frontages to Agnes, Bishop, Jessie and Spencer Streets and became the sites of many commodious sub-tropical Rockhampton residences. The development and popularity of the Range was given further impetus by the 1918 flood, the highest recorded in Rockhampton. The Range was well above flood level and serviced by a tram route, had gas, water and telephone services available.
Houses were Hutton's particular interest and like other early women architects, she felt that women had a significant role in designing houses that were suitable for the climate and that utilised labour saving features.
","criteria":"The Rudd Residence, a large, high set, timber dwelling constructed c1923 in Rockhampton, is significant for its association with the development of Rockhampton, in particular the premier suburb of the Range, popular with the affluent families of the city from the late nineteenth century onwards.
|The Rudd Residence has potential to yield information about the entry of women into the professions in Queensland, in particular into the architectural profession. The Rudd Residence also has the potential to yield information about the work of Beatrice May Hutton, the first woman admitted to the Queensland Institute of Architects and probably the first woman admitted to an architectural institute in Australia.
|The Rudd Residence is important for its aesthetic and architectural qualities as a well composed and refined example of a timber residence designed for the sub-tropical Queensland climate. The expansive, well screened verandah with its variety of spaces and simple timber detailing and the many leadlight windows are particularly fine features of the house. The landscape setting of the house, including mature planting at the front, is also a significant feature.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16662,"place_ref":601926,"name":"First Free Settlers Monument","alternate_name":"First Free Settlers of Queensland Memorial Cairn","street_address":"Sandgate Road","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-06-26","description":"The First Free Settlers Monument is located at the corner of Sandgate Road and Bage Street in Nundah. It stands within a small park dedicated to the first free settlement in Queensland.
The monument itself consists of a simple, blunt octagonal cairn which tapers towards the top and rises without step or platform from the surrounding grass. It is constructed from rusticated sandstone blocks and on four faces are fixed bronze plaques explaining the purpose of the dedication and the occasion which it celebrates. The southern plaque lists the names of the original (male) settlers, the eastern plaque indicates that the memorial was dedicated by the people of Queensland on the occasion of the centenary of free European settlement in Queensland. The northern plaque refers to the work of Dunmore Lang and Goszner and the western refers to the past and present British rulers. The penultimate course of stonework has a sawn face which contains incised lettering, gilded, which reads "Queensland's First Free Settlers". The word 'free' is placed above the plaque naming the settlers.
The park is well-maintained and stands surrounded by streets. Sandgate Road passes along the straight side of the park to the north-east, while Bage Street passes on the south-western side. The remaining side is flanked by a short divided road (un-named) which provides access to Bage Street from Sandgate Road. The park is arcuate in form with a low, clipped plumbago hedge surrounding it. A low curved garden edge constructed from concrete embedded with a variety of small stones surrounds the hedge, of which that on the Bage Street side is more recently planted than that on the opposite side. Two poinciana trees flank the memorial and a bench is located under the south-eastern tree, which is a replacement of the originally planted tree. A cast iron drinking fountain is located in front of the bench. Entrance is gained through two breaks in the hedge which are placed on the central axis opposite the memorial. To the left of the entry on the curved side a low stone tablet was placed in 1988 marking the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of free settlement which coincided with Australia's Bicentenary. The plaque re-confirms German-Australian friendship.
Three flagpoles are placed at regular intervals along the northern side of the park and a timber sign of more recent origin is placed to the western side of the northern entrance to clearly identify the monument to the passing traffic on Sandgate Road.
Tablet 1:\tPastor Eipper, Pastor W Schmidt, Lay Missionaries, L Doege, F T Franz, A T W Hartenstein, G Hauszmann, P Niquet, A Olbrecht, A Rode. G Wagner, J L Zillmann.
Tablet 2:\tThese missionaries with their families, settled at Zion's Hill near this spot in the year 1838. This monument was erected by the People of Queensland, The Hon W Forgan-Smith LL.D. M.L.A Premier, Ald. The Hon. A J Jones, Lord Mayor, Brisbane.
Tablet 3:\tThis settlement was inspired by John Dunmore Lang and Johannes Goszner.
Tablet 4:\t1838 H.M. Queen Victoria, H.E. Sir George Gipps Governor of New South Wales. 1938 H.M. King George VI, H.E. Colonel the Right Honourable Sir Leslie Orme Wilson GCS GCMG GCIE, DSO LL.D Governor of Queensland.
German Australian Friendship Plaque unveiled during the German Australian Pioneer Week (QLD) on the 15th of October 1988 by the Hon. W. A. (Bill) Gunn, Deputy Premier, Minister for Public Works,, Main Roads and Expo and Police and Dr Karl-Heinz Berninger Consul-General for the Federal Republic of Germany in commemoration of 150 years first free settlement in Queensland by German Missionaries who settled in 1838 at Walkers Way, Nundah.
","history":"The First Free Settlers Monument at Nundah, a blunt tapered octagon of rusticated sandstone blocks, commemorates the centenary of the arrival of free settlers in the Moreton Bay district which was later to become a part of Queensland. It was unveiled on Easter Saturday, April 23, 1938 as a part of Nundah's celebration of the centenary of Queensland's free settlement.
The original group of settlers were recruited for the colony by the Rev. John Dunmore Lang who had heard of the works of their leader, Pastor Johannes Evangelista Goszner during his journey to England to recruit free settlers. Lang had a vision for improving the calibre of Australia's settlers by encouraging people of good Protestant stock to emigrate. Goszner had established a community in Germany where he trained lay people for missionary work. These people eminently filled the requirements that Dunmore Lang had established for his free settlers and he encourage Goszner to prepare a group for travel to Moreton Bay.
In 1837, ten men volunteered to travel to Moreton Bay which was, at the time a convict settlement based at Brisbane. The men, inspired by Lang's descriptions, intended to establish a mission for the Aborigines living in the vicinity of the convict settlement. Several of the men brought their wives and families with them. Two clergymen joined the group to provide pastoral care and guidance to the mission. Each of the lay men had practical skills with trades such as shoemaking, farming, brickmaking, tailoring, blacksmithing and medicine which would assist in the establishment of the proposed missionary colony. Schneider, the medical student, died of typhus at the quarantine station in Sydney on his arrival in the new country. Four more men arrived in 1844 to further the work of the mission, however although accepted by the local Aborigines, the settlers were unsuccessful in their efforts to convert them to Christianity.
The original settlement of Zion was located on the rise behind Toombul Shopping Centre in the vicinity of the street now known as Walkers Way. It was watered by Kedron Brook, now contained within an artificial canal. The mission itself was unsuccessful in converting any of the local Aborigines, but when, in 1848, the Government surveyed the land into blocks, many of the original settlers and their families chose to remain and purchase the land for their own use. The area became known as German Station as a consequence of their presence and was later re-named Nundah, as the suburb is now known. Many of the first free settlers are buried in Nundah Cemetery [600271] established in the 1840s.
The monument was erected as a consequence of the suggestion of George Joy Walker, born 1852 who, as an infant in arms had travelled with his family to the settlement at Zion when his father was appointed as tutor to the families of the first settlers. Walker died in 1933 and never saw the monument, although he would have been aware of the activities of the First Free Settlers Committee which took up the challenge with which he had presented them.
The location of the monument was described as the intersection of new and old Sandgate Roads and the original setting of the cairn is shown in early photographs as being a broad swathe of mown grass which has subsequently been formalised into the clearly defined space evident today. The monument was designed to 'rise from the turf without step or platform, symbolising the growth of European civilisation in Queensland out of the soil of Nundah.' It was unveiled by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, under the auspices of the First Free Settlers Committee. The unveiling ceremony was broadcast by radio station 4QG and a celebration ball was held in the evening.
Each year, in October, a ceremony is held at the memorial to commemorate the arrival of the first free settlers. The ceremony is generally attended by representatives of both State and Local government, diplomats, as well as local residents and others who are descended from the first missionary settlers.
","criteria":"The First Free Settlers Monument, Nundah, was erected in 1938 to commemorate the first free settlement within the area of Moreton Bay, later to become Queensland. The first settlers were German Protestant families who were recruited by the Rev. John Dunmore Lang. The monument is significant as it commemorates an important part of the evolution of Queensland's history, of which little physical evidence remains.
|The place demonstrates the principal characteristics of a memorial structure, by the use of materials and forms commonly associated with memorials and the formal layout of the surrounding park.
|It is also of aesthetic significance due to its design qualities and landmark presence within the streetscape.
|The place has strong associations with the Nundah and German communities, and others who attend the annual ceremony to commemorate the arrival of the first group of free settlers who established a community based on religious faith and hard work.
|The place also has a special association with the life and work of John Dunmore Lang, as it commemorates the initiatives provided by him for the establishment in Australia of a community of people with strong religious beliefs and pioneer spirit.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16663,"place_ref":601927,"name":"Serpentine Creek Road Cemetery","alternate_name":"South Redland Bay Cemetery | Redland Bay Cemetery | Cemetery 219","street_address":"398-408 Serpentine Creek Road","suburb":"REDLAND BAY","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-01-06","description":"The Serpentine Creek Road Cemetery is a 2.023 hectare [5 acre] cemetery reserve located on the eastern side of Serpentine Creek Road, just south of the intersection with Scenic Road, in southern Redland Bay. The reserve, rectangular in shape, runs east-west along a gravelly ridge, with farms on three sides and a frontage to Serpentine Creek Road. Being the only remnant forest on this side of Serpentine Creek Road, and sited on a rise, the place is prominently profiled on the horizon.
Several graves have been identified at the southwest corner of the site, near the road frontage. This area has been cleared of saplings and undergrowth, leaving naturally re-vegetated eucalypts and grasses. The remainder of the block is open woodland of principally casuarina, wattle and grass tree. There has been a high level of disturbance of the reserve through frequent fires and later grazing, which may account for the high proportion of more resilient casuarina and wattle at the expense of other indigenous species such as eucalypts and bloodwood. While there are no old-growth trees on the reserve, the original mix of species survives, and there is a particularly high diversity of indigenous flora, including one species of wildflower found only within the reserve. The vegetation mix is similar to that in the nearby Serpentine Creek Conservation Park, and, with so much of Redland Bay's indigenous vegetation lost to farming and encroaching residential development, remains important to the genetic exchange among plant species.
There is a wire and timber post fence along the northern end of the street frontage, but no perimeter fence around the graves. The burnt remnants of a post and top-rail fence, aligned east-west through the centre of the reserve, survive. These fences appear to be associated more with later grazing of the reserve than with the early cemetery.
There are just over a dozen identifiable graves, with names including Dittman, Doig, Fielding, Heinemann, Sinclair and Walker - all from early Redland Bay farming families. All the graves face east, aligned in several rows running north-south. It is not clear whether they have been arranged by religious division. Some headstones survive, bearing dates ranging from 1896 to 1909, and include the work of monumental masons W Bateson & Sons of South Brisbane, AL Petrie of Toowong and J Simmonds of Brisbane. Nearly all the headstones and grave surrounds [including two cast-iron surrounds] have been damaged. The most prominent memorial in the cemetery is that executed by AL Petrie - a sandstone obelisk, comprising plinth, shaft and column, with a marble plaque on the eastern face bearing the inscription: In loving memory of Willie, only son of Wm and Eliza Fielding who was drowned in Redland Bay while attempting to save the life of others 30th Dec 1905 aged 18 years.
","history":"Serpentine Creek Road Cemetery was established in 1890 as the Redland Bay Cemetery, serving the farming community of Redland Bay and nearby Mount Cotton and Gramzow [now Carbrook]. It closed c1945, but remains a Cemetery Reserve under the trusteeship of Redland Shire Council.
Land in the Redland Bay district, which extends from south of Cleveland to the lower Logan, and from the bay about 3 miles west to Mount Cotton, was taken up for closer settlement under the Cotton Regulations of 1860 and the Coffee and Sugar Regulations of 1864. There was also heavy logging of the valuable cedar and beech stands at this period. By the mid-1870s Redland Bay was well-known as a sugar district, dominated by the Redland Bay Sugar Plantation. This had been established by the Newton family in the 1860s and by 1870 was the principal sugar cultivator and employer in the district. However, much of the land at Redland Bay had been taken up by speculators in the 1860s - by 1871 there were only a dozen or so Redland Bay farms [exclusive of the Redland Bay Plantation] and 1 farm at Mount Cotton, supporting a total population of 40. More extensive farming at Redland Bay did not develop until the 1880s, when boom prices encouraged the sale of land to farmers.
By the early 1880s, sugar cultivation at Redland Bay and Mount Cotton had mostly succumbed to competition from north Queensland, although the Heinemann family at Mount Cotton continued to grow sugar on a substantial scale until the turn of the century. By the late 1880s, Redland Bay had emerged as a prosperous fruit-growing district - principally bananas, oranges and pineapples, with passionfruit a successful 20th century crop. Redland Bay State School was opened at the beginning of 1886, and Redland Bay farmers were the first in the district to erect a School of Arts [a substantial timber building opened in August 1889]. In 1889 their farmhouses were described as large roomy wooden houses of pleasing designs . . . and . . . in front of almost every house is a well stocked and neat flower garden.
In the early 1870s the densely scrubbed Mount Cotton district had been taken up by mainly German immigrants, who in 1875 erected St Paul's Lutheran Church at the intersection of what became known as the German Church Road and the Mount Cotton Road. They established a burial ground adjacent to the Church [601660], and the majority of the graves in this cemetery are those of the German pioneers of the Gramzow and Mount Cotton areas and those of their descendants. However, this cemetery did not serve the needs of the wider farming community. It was some miles over badly formed roads from Redland Bay, and was a Lutheran cemetery.
In September 1889 the Tingalpa Divisional Board, on behalf of the residents of Redland Bay, Gramzow and district, made application to the Lands Department for the reservation of portion 84a, parish of Redland [about 20 acres], as a Cemetery Reserve. 5 acres of this was gazetted as a cemetery [R.219] in February 1890, and five Redland Bay farmers [Frederick Muller, James Collins, Edward Heinemann, James Moore and Daniel James Collins] were appointed trustees in May 1890. Muller and DJ Collins were also members of the Tingalpa Divisional Board, and Edward Heinemann was the brother of the chair of the 1889 Tingalpa Divisional Board, Hans Heindrich Heinemann of Mount Cotton, and later served on the Tingalpa Shire Council. Several of the cemetery trustees were also on the committees of the Redland Bay School of Arts and the Redland Bay State School.
The chosen site lay on the road from Redland Bay to Gramzow on the Logan [now Serpentine Creek Road], about half-way between the two districts, in southern Redland Bay. It does not appear to have been farmed prior to reservation, and was heavily timbered with gum, casuarina [she-oak], bloodwood and grass tree, with mahogany and turpentine interspersed. It is not known how much of the 5 acres was cleared for cemetery purposes.
The 1890 cemetery reserve was known as the Redland Bay Cemetery, and remained the only public cemetery in the district for about 18 years. By the early 1900s, however, it was considered too inconveniently distant and 'desolate' for many in the Redland Bay community. In September 1907, Councillor PP Outridge of Tingalpa Shire Council offered to donate a block of 22 acres at Gordon Street, close to the township of Redland Bay, conditional upon 5 acres being used for cemetery purposes, and the remainder for public recreation. The offer was accepted by the Council, despite the refusal of the trustees of the existing Redland Bay Cemetery on Serpentine Creek Road, to relinquish their trusteeship.
Title to the Gordon Street land passed to the Council in late 1907 and a 5 acre cemetery was established on the site, with the first burial taking place early in February 1908. To avoid confusion with the Redland Bay Cemetery at Serpentine Creek Road, the new cemetery was known as the North Redland Cemetery from March 1909. Only four interments were removed from Redland Bay Cemetery and re-interred at North Redland Cemetery - 1 in 1908, 1 in 1923, and 2 in 1929 - and the two Redland Bay cemeteries continued to operate in tandem for some decades. By August 1925 the 1890 cemetery was known as the South Redland Bay Cemetery, when Edward Heinemann of Redland Bay, one of the original trustees of the Redland Bay Cemetery, was interred there. The cemetery was closed c1945, and by the late 1970s part of the reserve was being used for grazing purposes.
In 1908 James Moore had resigned as a Trustee of the Redland Bay Cemetery, and had been replaced by another local farmer, Albert Muller. Despite the passing of the original trustees, no further change of trustees was officially recorded until, following public petition that the place be conserved, control of the cemetery reserve passed to the Redland Shire Council in 1977. Grazing on the reserve ceased at this point.
In 1995, the old cemetery on Serpentine Creek Road was identified in the Redland Heritage Study as a place of local and regional significance. Recently the local community, with assistance from Redland Shire Council, has undertaken work on clearing the grounds, identifying grave sites, recording information from the surviving headstones, and establishing a botanical inventory. Following a 1997 fire, which destroyed much of the casuarina forest on the site, substantial re-growth of other indigenous species has occurred.
","criteria":"Serpentine Creek Road Cemetery, established 1890, evidences the closer settlement of the Redland Bay district in the late 19th century, when it was established as a prosperous fruit-growing district. The small cemetery, set on the top of a ridge amid farm lands, is evocatively illustrative of the efforts of early, isolated farming communities to improve local facilities.
|The place is significant also for its remnant and now uncommon indigenous vegetation mix, in a district which has been heavily farmed since the late 19th century.
|The place has aesthetic value in its prominent skyline profile and in the rusticity of the few surviving grave sites, which contain several headstones and memorials, and grave surrounds in concrete and iron.
|The place has strong significance for many families in the Redland Bay district, because of its association with their family history and with the establishment of their community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16665,"place_ref":601929,"name":"Villa Maria Hostel","alternate_name":"Villa Maria Catholic Hostel","street_address":"167-173 Saint Paul's Terrace","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"This assessment deals only with the E-shaped building constructed between 1927 and 1968 and bounded by Gotha Street, St Paul's Terrace and Warren Street. The later buildings to the southeast of the Villa Maria Centre site were not inspected and do not form part of the culturally significant fabric of the complex.
Boldly occupying most of the sloping city block bounded by Gotha Street, St Paul's Terrace and Warren Street, Villa Maria convent and hostel dominates the streetscape of St Paul's Terrace, Fortitude Valley. Major alterations to the fabric of the interior have been made to accommodate contemporary expectations for hostel and aged care facilities. The building has changed little in external form and expression, although many of the external openings have been glazed with the enclosure of the verandahs.
The three-, four- and five-storeyed, polychromatic facebrick building designed in a Romanesque idiom, has its principal elevations to St Paul's Terrace and Warren Street. The E-shape building is sheltered by terracotta tiled roofs and celtic crosses crown all the gable parapets. The massive quality of the exterior is relieved by a regular rhythm of round and flat arches to the verandah openings and characterised by bands of geometric patterning, light coloured brickwork to sills and arches, decorative arcading and scalloped corbelling. The corners of the building are defined by towers with gabled parapets and the north-west and south-east wings are punctuated by narrow central towers incorporating minor entrances. These entrances are defined by short white-painted columns with decorative composite capitals supporting an embellished semi-circular arch. The tower facades are enlivened with decorative arcades to the upper levels.
The former main entrance to the complex is to the centre of the Warren Street frontage which is asymmetrical around a wider central tower than that of the other elevations. This entrance is approached by a set of brick stairs from street level and is sheltered by a projecting, white-painted concrete porch with a vaulted ceiling and a gable roof surmounted by a celtic cross and supported by four columns with decorative composite capitals. A narrow, square tower rises adjacent to the south-east and is distinguished by the geometric patterning and decorative corbelling characteristic of the building. The entrance to the complex is now in the middle of the southern section of the Warren Street wing.
The ends of the north-west and south-east corner towers and the exterior of the chapel are visible from Gotha Street. The chapel is a three-storey volume characterised by a blind, semi-circular apse and tall narrow arched window openings between flat buttresses to the sides. The fine polychromatic brickwork includes light brick banding defining the arches and bases of the long windows and eaves decorated with corbelling in a machicolation motif.
The earlier stages of the building (Warren Street wing and half the St Paul's Terrace wing) have internal load bearing masonry walls with timber and reinforced concrete floors and the later 1960s wings are of concrete column and beam construction with concrete slabs.
The plan is arranged as a cloister treatment around central courtyards with external verandahs and colonnades, the chapel dividing the cloister into two. The planning remains largely as designed in the 1920s - with double loaded corridors internally accommodating rooms for residents opening onto verandahs and provision of communal living and working spaces in various parts of the building.
The south-east wing and the south half of the Warren Street wing have been refurbished and now accommodate ensuited bedrooms off double loaded corridors. Most original wall, ceiling and floor finishes have been lost, bedrooms enlarged and ensuites added. The special purpose rooms (including the bakery) in the former convent area are replaced with other room configurations. Some of the communal dining/living spaces remain. Verandahs are enclosed or subsumed and most of the verandah openings are now glazed. Verandahs to the south-east wing have been subsumed by the larger bedrooms but retain unglazed verandah openings. Verandahs to Warren Street are subdivided into rooms. At the time of inspection (June 2008), the other wings were being dismantled in preparation for a similar refurbishment.
The former main entrance opens onto an inner porch and then into the vestibule to the chapel. These areas are notable for the fine timber panelled doors surmounted by semi-circular lights or painted tympanum murals, decorative architraves and coloured glass windows matching those in the chapel. Some silky oak and other joinery survives throughout the building including cupboards, windows and doors. South of the chapel, the handsome terrazzo stair with elegant turned timber posts and austere decorative iron balustrading remains.
Chapel
A splendid three-storey rectangular volume with a towering vaulted ceiling, the chapel has a projecting apse to the east, a mezzanine gallery to the west and holds a congregation of over 350 persons. Lit to each side by five, tall, narrow, coloured glass windows with decorative geometric grids featuring crosses and arcade motifs, the interior is finished in white painted plaster with ribs, compound columns and decorative features picked out in gold. Latticed ceiling roses vent the space. The sanctuary is within the projecting apse, lit by a small narrow light to each side and encircled by a blind arcade. It accommodates the original decorated marble reredos and altar with flanking angels on marble plinths on the rear elevated platform and a plainer freestanding marble altar to the lower front platform. The chapel houses a number of statues including those of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady, St Patrick, St Joseph, St Theresa and St Francis. A fine set of painted stations of the cross in carved timber frames hang on the walls. The sanctuary floor is carpeted (the original mosaic marble finish may survive under) and floors to the nave are parquetry. The gallery has a decorative timber panelled front of silky oak and is supported by handsome columns with a marble treatment.
Side doors open onto the colonnades of the flanking cloisters. The colonnade to the southeast is now enclosed and overlooks the courtyard a level below. The roof of the chapel colonnade to northeast is supported by white-painted concrete columns with cushion capitals and forms part of the encircling colonnade to the courtyard.
Courtyards
The north courtyard is an open space with some moveable tables, chairs and umbrellas. The south courtyard accommodates recent raised garden beds and a shade structure. A number of recent extensions and a freestanding rectangular building, none of which are considered to be of cultural heritage significance, intrude into the courtyard space and along the northeast side of the chapel.
Lift and lift tower
The external form of the lift tower to Warren Street survives and accommodates a modern lift.
Fence and entrance gates
A perimeter fence around the three street frontages comprises brick piers punctuating brick infill panels with decorative centres in a geometric pattern. A handsome white-painted concrete gateway embellished to match the front entrance porch houses a decorative solid metal double gate opening to the corner of St Paul's Terrace and Warren Street. A similar gate constructed to match this earliest gate also stands to the other St Paul's Terrace corner.
Views
The complex affords sweeping views across the CBD of Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and over to the Story Bridge.
","history":"The Villa Maria Centre is a large complex occupying most of the Spring Hill block bounded by Gotha Street, St Paul's Terrace, Warren Street and Barry Parade. Villa Maria was established by the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious order which has cared for the poor, aged and needy in Queensland since 1874. The Villa Maria Hostel, the subject of this assessment, comprises about two-thirds of the Villa Maria Centre as it stands today. It incorporates the original convent and chapel, and was constructed in stages between 1927 and 1968.
Catholic priest, scientist and author Father Julian Tenison Woods, co-founder with Mother Mary MacKillop of the Sisters of St Joseph, established a foundation of Perpetual Adoration in Brisbane in the early 1870s and formed the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in 1874. A primary objective of the order is the practice of perpetual adoration - there is always one of their number in prayer. Led by Catherine Gaffney (Mother Stanislaus) the first Mother Superior, the first Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (a group of six) rented a house in South Brisbane. They lived extremely frugally, supporting themselves doing needlework, and assisted the poor and needy around them
In 1881 the Sisters moved to Spring Hill where, in 1900, they purchased two cottages in Leichhardt Street (now St Paul's Terrace) at the corner of Warren Street, now part of the current site of the Villa Maria Centre. They became known in Spring Hill as the Black Sisters because they wore long black dresses and bonnets. Though needlework continued to be their main source of income (they were well known for making priests' vestments and supplying Brisbane emporiums with bridal trousseaus), the Sisters were unable to support themselves solely from needlework and began taking in boarders who paid a weekly rental for the rooms. In 1902 they began caring for elderly ladies. Further houses were acquired and the land used for vegetables, flowers, fowls and a cow. In 1912 the Sisters began making altar breads for the archdiocese of Brisbane.
The largest period of growth for the Institute of Perpetual Adoration took place under the guidance of Archbishop James Duhig. Upon succeeding to the See of Brisbane in 1917, one of Duhig's earliest works was to give formal approval to the work of the Sisters. In 1920, Archbishop James Duhig gave diocesan approbation to the Institute and granted the Sisters their distinctive dress of a black habit and black scapular covered with a white mantle. Up to that time, the Sisters had had no legal security as a religious institute and had worn no strictly religious dress.
James Duhig, Archbishop of Brisbane, took a great interest in the work of the Sisters and encouraged them to build a new facility on their Spring Hill site. Villa Maria was also part of Duhig's larger urban design and town planning initiatives, which included the grand scheme for the Holy Name Cathedral. He saw Villa Maria as an integral component of a vision of Brisbane as a city of grand buildings and boulevards, with Leichhardt Street (now St Paul's Terrace) as a tree lined boulevard with tall government buildings and stately mansions on one side and to the other, Victoria Park, plunging into a valley and climbing to the Herston slopes which was to be a future University site.
The design of the new building - a convent and hostel - was given to Hennessy, Hennessy, Keesing and Co. and J.P. Donoghue, a Sydney firm of architects. The firm was commissioned by the archdiocese to design several churches, schools, convents, monasteries, hospitals and charitable institutions. Its work culminated in the proposed scheme for the Holy Name Cathedral. Amongst the other ecclesiastical buildings they designed were St Joseph's Dalby (1921), St Agatha's Clayfield (1925), St Augustine's Coolangatta (1926) and St Ignatius Toowong (1930) [602532].
The convent and hostel of Villa Maria was built in four stages - 1927-1928, 1940, 1965 and 1968. On 6 December 1925 Duhig laid the foundation stone of the first stage of the building, comprising the hostel and chapel. The chapel opened in 1927 and the hostel in 1928.
By 1938, the Sisters were ready to build the next stage of the complex and commissioned Brisbane architects, Cullen and Egan, to complete the project. Cullen was a former articled pupil and draftsman at Hennessy, Hennessy and Co. and nephew of Archbishop Duhig. Cullen and Egan prepared the working drawings and supervised the construction of the later stages continuing the original concept of the Hennessy scheme with the same architectural form, expression and detailing with some variation in the internal planning. In 1940 the second section of Villa Maria, the convent wing which included facilities for bread making, ironing and laundry work, was completed. A lift tower was incorporated into the 1928 portion of the building adjacent to the main entrance on Warren Street at the junction of these two stages of the building. In the following year, the basement of the new convent building was converted into dormitories for country girls.
It was not until the early 1960s that plans were prepared to complete the building. In 1963 further cottages were demolished to make way for a new wing along St Paul's Terrace. On 17 July 1965 Archbishop O'Donnell opened this wing, which provided additional accommodation for 38 women. Built by MJ O'Leary and designed by the architects Frank L Cullen, Fagg, Hargreaves and Mooney, the building cost more than £100,000. The wing was named the St Stanislaus wing in honour of Catherine Gaffney (Mother Stanislaus) the first Mother Superior of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
In 1968 the final stage, St Gabriel's Wing, was constructed. Honouring Mother Mary Gabriel Moloney, Mother-General from 1955-1967, the wing ran from Warren Street to Gotha Street along the southeast of the site. Opened on 7 April 1968 by Archbishop O'Donnell, the new wing was designed by architects Frank L Cullen, Fagg, Hargraves and Moony and built by J O'Leary. It provided 48 bedrooms for aged ladies, 22 private rooms for the Sisters, a spacious reception lounge and laundry. With the completion of St Gabriel's Wing, the capacity of the hostel was increased to 134.
In the 1990s further buildings were constructed to the southeast to provide additional care facilities, a new chapel and convent. This part of the complex links with the earlier hostel and chapel by a covered link at ground floor level.
In 2008, the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration continue to care for elderly women and the Villa Maria complex remains the centre of their work in Brisbane. The early convent/hostel building has changed little in external form and expression, however external openings have been glazed with the enclosure of the verandahs. The interior of the building has been extensively altered in the first decade of the 21st century to accommodate contemporary expectations for hostel and aged care facilities. The planning remains largely as designed in the 1920s with double loaded corridors internally accommodating rooms for residents opening onto verandahs and the provision of communal living and workings spaces. The building now accommodates only the hostel/aged care facilities and the convent is housed within the adjacent later buildings. The chapel continues to be used for worship by the residents but not as the chapel for perpetual adoration.
","criteria":"A prominent landmark on the elevated ridge of St Paul's Terrace, Spring Hill and visible from many parts of the immediate neighbourhoods of Fortitude Valley and the Brisbane CBD, Villa Maria is distinguished by its distinctive picturesque massing and fine polychromatic brickwork. It is distinguished by restrained embellishment including geometric patterning in the brickwork, decorative entrance porches and decorative corbelling.
Surviving original fine joinery and finishes, particularly within the main entrance porch, chapel vestibule and chapel including fine timber panelled doors, glazed fanlights, coloured glass windows with cross and arcade motifs, painted decorative murals are a delight. The chapel provides a contemplative haven with its towering vaulted ceiling, narrow coloured glass windows and fine quality furniture and finishes including polished timber pews, parquetry flooring, timber panelling to the galley and handsome marble treated columns.
Villa Maria is notable for the expansive views it affords across Brisbane CBD, Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley.
|Opened in 1928, Villa Maria is significant as the first permanent home of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Queensland and has remained a focal point for their activities until the present day. Villa Maria provides evidence of the development of the order in Queensland and the religious and social practices they implemented. Villa Maria is significant for its association with the social welfare program of the Catholic Church in the establishment of hostels and hospices, particularly for women.
Villa Maria is important as evidence for the period of expansion of the Catholic Church in Queensland during the 1920s and 1930s under the leadership of Archbishop James Duhig. Known for his particular interest in urban design and town planning, Villa Maria is an important component of Duhig's vision for Brisbane as a city of boulevards and fine buildings. The establishment of the convent and hostel reflects the active interest of Archbishop Duhig in the work of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and his confident building program which saw the establishment of many of the Catholic church's prominent buildings including St Ignatius Church Toowong [602532], Corpus Christi Church Nundah [601460], part of All Hallows' School [600200] and Nazareth House [601391].
|Villa Maria is significant for its considerable architectural merit, particularly the well-composed exterior and chapel, and is a fine example of the work of Hennessy & Hennessy, Keesing and Co and J.P. Donoghue, prominent architects in Brisbane and Sydney who undertook many projects for the Catholic church during Archbishop Duhig's time.
With is picturesque massing and finely crafted polychromatic brickwork, distinctive round arches, arcading, prominent tower, restrained ornamentation, geometric patterning in the brickwork and use of corbelling in a machicolation motif, Villa Maria is a fine example of a building in the Romanesque idiom, a style commonly employed in the design of religious places during the inter-war period.
The principal architectural component of the Villa Maria complex, the chapel, incorporates defining elements of the Romanesque most notably masonry construction, round arched windows, patterned brickwork, brick detailing including the machicolation motif; and within a towering vaulted ceiling, restrained embellishment and narrow coloured glass windows. It comprises the essential elements of a typical 20th century Catholic church including a collection of religious furniture and icons, in particular altars, statues and stations of the cross.
|Villa Maria is important for its association with the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, who have maintained a presence on this site since 1900. The place has been associated with the work of the Sisters in caring for the aged and infirm for over 70 years, and for a time, in offering accommodation for young women working in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16669,"place_ref":601933,"name":"Cleveland Police Station and Court House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Passage Street","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-03-26","description":"The former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse is a low-set, single storey, timber building overlooking the memorial reserve on the corner of North and Passage Streets, Cleveland. Two projecting gabled wings are linked by a single-room width verandahed wing to form a H-shaped plan. The east and middle wings are the former station residence and the west wing accommodates the former courthouse and office. Clad with weatherboards, the building has tongue and groove boarding to the interior and verandahs and a skirt of vertical battens around the base. The front and side verandahs have solid, curved timber valances and battened balustrades. Bellcast hoods sit over the casement windows to the gabled fronts of the flanking wings. Small timber louvred rectangular vents sit above the hoods. The flèche rising from the middle wing roof ridge has been removed. The roofs are sheeted with corrugated fibrolite.
Surrounded by verandahs, the station residence is entered from the verandah to North Street. The front door opens into a hall extending to the rear dining verandah. The east wing has two bedrooms and a kitchen all opening onto a sleepout verandah. The kitchen also opens to the enclosed rear dining verandah of the middle wing which contains the living room and a bedroom both flanked by the front and rear verandahs. French doors open from the bedrooms and living room to the verandahs. There are discreet battened fan lights with a small, s-shaped decorative mid-panel to the living room and bedrooms off the hall. An eight-pane sash window opens from the kitchen to the dining verandah. The bathroom is off the rear dining verandah behind the kitchen and a toilet has been added adjacent to the bathroom in the corner of the rear verandah.
The west wing has undergone a number of alterations. The former entrances to the courthouse and office were off the west verandah to Passage Street. The verandah is now enclosed and partitioned into an office and storage area and is no longer accessed from Passage Street. Concrete paths from 1935 indicate the location of the two sets of timber stairs that arrived at the west verandah and concrete stairs to the verandah remain from later alterations. The courtroom is partitioned into two offices and a corridor runs between the former verandah and courtroom to the brick extension built to the south. The sheeted and battened ceiling of the courtroom is intact and part of the glass partition between the courtroom and the office is visible above the doorway in the corridor.
A small, detached, timber washhouse with a corrugated iron clad skillion roof lies immediately south of the east wing. Set on a concrete floor and clad with weatherboards the washhouse has exposed timber framing to the interior, some timber shelving and a copper in the south-east corner.
There are two later extensions to the police station built to the south of the west wing. A brick and timber extension connects directly to the former office and a steel framed demountable extends further south from the earlier extension. There are a number of outbuildings on the site including a brick lock-up and garages. (These structures are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.)
","history":"The former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse, constructed 1934-35, is located at the corner of Passage and North Streets. The building is the second purpose built police station and courthouse on the site. It replaced an earlier building constructed in 1879 that also performed both functions.
Governor Fitzroy authorised a town survey of the area in 1850, and soon after proclamation, the first land sale took place in 1851. At the time of the sale, Ipswich was still a strong contender for the capital of Queensland and there was strong rivalry between Cleveland (promoted by Ipswich interests, supported in turn by the Darling Downs squatters) and Brisbane, as to which would become the port to serve the north.
The first police station and lock-up in Cleveland, following Separation from New South Wales in 1859, was located in a building in Paxton Street rented from Frances Bigge. This building survives as the Old Courthouse Restaurant. By the mid-1860s over 100 people were living in the town and government services began to be required. The Cleveland Police District was formed by 1865 and maintained a sergeant and a constable. By the mid-1870s this building was still used for police purposes, although it was becoming evident that a new building was required.
Following the announcement of a reserve in 1874 plans were drawn up by the Office of the Colonial Architect in 1875. Design approval was given to the drawings on 30 August 1875, however, the building was not constructed. In July 1879 the Police Commissioner wrote to the Colonial Secretary commenting on the unsatisfactory condition of the police station. By the end of the year work had begun on the building and was completed in 1880 at a cost of £436. Besides the delay in construction, the courthouse was also built on a different site to the one reserved in 1874. The area of land on the corner of Shore and Passage Streets was proclaimed on 23 January 1884, by which time the police station and courthouse had been built. This area was 'in lieu of that reserved on the 25th September 1874'. The original reserve, known as the 'Paddock' was subdivided and auctioned as allotments on 26 October 1889.
A defined government precinct had been established including the police station and courthouse. When the railway was constructed from Brisbane to Cleveland in the late 1880s, the survey of the line followed the alignment of Shore Street for some distance, before terminating diagonally opposite the police station where the Cleveland Station was constructed. The line was later extended to Cleveland Point, and this station was renamed Cleveland West. By the turn of the century the population of Cleveland had grown to over 500.
The first purpose-built police station and courthouse served the local community for over 50 years, however, by the early 1930s there were calls to replace the building as it was showing its age. Plans were prepared for a new police station and courthouse by WJ Ewart in November 1934. The new police station and courthouse cost almost £1500 and was described in an Annual Report for 1934-35:
\tThis...new building is of timber construction and has a corrugated fibrolite roof. In addition to the courtroom and office with veranda to same, the accommodation consists of three bedrooms, hall, living room, kitchen, pantry, bathroom and sleepout veranda, together with a veranda on front and back, the back verandah being enclosed to provide dining accommodation. A detached washhouse has also been provided, but the existing cell building, stables, earth closets, etc, from the old building have been reused.
The original floor plan dated 30 November 1934 prepared by the Government Architect's Office shows a single story timber building comprising public waiting area, court room, and an office to the rear, open verandahs on the northern, western and eastern elevations and an enclosed verandah on the southern elevation. The former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse is an example of one of a number of court house types developed by the Government Architect for use throughout country Queensland and in suburban areas.
The Cleveland Courthouse was a purpose-designed building, reflecting the estimated level of use, accommodating the particular needs of the local community, sited to constitute a strong civic presence to that part of the town. A motel now occupies the post and telegraph office site to the south-east, however, there is clear evidence in the park reserve, in the mature tree planting and the war memorial, of the early role of this area as an important civic precinct.
The building has strongly defined 'private' and 'public' sections. The original floor plan states 'plan to be reversed'. The reversal of the plan resulted in the public side of the building prominently facing the corner of Passage and North Streets, lending more privacy to the domestic side of the building. Originally the verandah on the eastern side was open with a lattice screen, the verandah opened to the public space within the court room. This verandah was enclosed as early as 1939 due to the entry of the weather from that direction and alterations and extensions have continued since that time. The flèche has also been removed.
In 1963, there were plans to extend the original building as well as a proposed new cell block. Early outbuildings were altered and later demolished to provide space for additional accommodation. By 1968, the construction of a new courthouse toward Middle Street was proposed. An existing car port was demolished to provide space for the building. During these renovations, the timber steps along the eastern elevation were also removed and replaced with concrete.
Further work was undertaken in early 1973. Toilets were installed in the residence and the brick cell block was constructed, replacing the earlier wooden cells. Earth closets were also removed at this time. Single men's quarters were still extant at the southern end of the site. In the 1970s demountable buildings were added to the police reserve which was originally designed to accommodate five police. By 1982, the early building was further adapted to accommodate the CIB.
By 1998 the building accommodated almost 50 staff at various times. New premises were constructed and staff moved out of the building in December 1998. The building is currently unoccupied.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1934-35, the former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse is significant for its association with the development of Cleveland, reflecting the importance of Cleveland as a major centre and port, rivalling Brisbane in its early years as the possible port to serve the north. The first purpose-built police station and courthouse was constructed in 1879, demonstrating the continued judicial use of the site for nearly 120 years.
|The former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse is significant as a rare example of a combined court house, police station and residential building. Most suburban police stations were not constructed with a courthouse, further demonstrating Cleveland's importance as a major centre outside of Brisbane.
|The former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse is a fine and intact example of a timber suburban court house. It has a special association with the work of the Government Architect's Office which developed a number of court house types which sought to respond to matters both economic and climatic, as well as providing a high quality of public building even on this modest scale.
|The siting of the former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse at the corner of Passage and North Streets provides evidence of the early role of the area as an important and strongly defined civic precinct, an area which includes the park reserve, mature tree planting and the war memorial. It is significant as an unpretentious building contributing a confident civic presence to the street. Thoughtful planning has produced a commodious building suited to its function.
|The site of the former Cleveland police station and courthouse is significant for a long association with law and order and the dispensing of justice in Cleveland since 1879. The building was a focus for a wide range of community services and this, together with the tradition of constables-in-charge, ensured that the former Cleveland police station and courthouse provided an important community focus in the town.
|The former Cleveland Police Station and Courthouse is significant for its association with Brisbane architect, WJ Ewart, who designed the building. Ewart was Chief Architect with the Department of Public Works from 1923-1927 and Senior Architect from 1927-1934.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16670,"place_ref":601934,"name":"Allan Slab Hut","alternate_name":"Price Property","street_address":"Warrah Road","suburb":"DUCKINWILLA","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The Allan Slab Hut is a small structure, approximately three metres by four metres in plan, located on a property in the vicinity of Doongul Creek, west of Torbanlea. It has a simple rectangular form, a pitched roof and a lean-to addition on the northern side. A large fig tree is located to the north, along with remnants of former fences and hitching rails.
The walls are constructed of vertical hardwood slabs that have been shaped with an axe or adze. The slabs have been dressed at the top and bottom to conform to a regular depth and are connected to top and bottom plates with either nails or lengths of twisted wire. Rails have been checked into round corner posts and there is also a central round post in each of the long sides of the hut. The floor is formed from ant-bed and although now covered with dust, is clearly discernible. An entry door is located on the eastern wall, it has a fanlight space above that is covered with corrugated iron. In the eastern end of the southern wall the slabs have been cut at about two-thirds height to form a long window-like opening. This has now been boarded up with horizontal boards. A galvanised, corrugated iron water tank is also situated against the southern wall.
The corrugated iron sheeting and roof battens have been replaced, however, some of the roof structure is comprised of hewn rafters. The gable ends are infilled with horizontal timber boards. The lean-to on the northern side also appears to be more recent. It is roughly constructed of a mixture of round and hewn rafters. The plate supporting the roof structure has been simply nailed or wired to the slab wall and the other edge of the roof is supported by three large round timber posts. The western end of the lean-to space has been enclosed with horizontal sheets of corrugated iron and the northern wall is enclosed with chicken wire.
An exterior hearth formed of a semi-circle of river stones located at the western end of the hut is now covered with dirt and can only be seen in times of heavy rain. Beyond the fig tree on the northern side is a small waterhole. The former orchard area lies beyond this, with a single Chinese Date tree surviving.
","history":"The Allan Slab Hut at Doongul Creek, via Torbanlea is a basic, hand-built hardwood structure built sometime in the first decade of the twentieth century by Henry Price, an emigrant miner from Wales, as the home for his family.
Henry Price arrived by ship in Maryborough sometime around the turn of the century and was followed some time later by his wife Esther Ann Price and her daughter Blodwen Comely Evans Price. It is believed that the family squatted on their small selection before formally selecting the land in 1913. The possibilities for self sufficiency offered by this selection of one hundred and sixty five acres and three roods, would have brought greater economic stability and autonomy than Esther Price had ever known. Illiterate and twice widowed by mining accidents in Wales, Esther married Henry Price in her middle age and emigrated to Australia with her daughter. Their lives were typical of poor migrants who came to Australia and eked out a living on small marginal selections.
The slab hut was the first house the family had ever owned and Henry built it himself from hardwood felled, or already fallen, on the property, possibly ironbark or stringybark. Esther was a midwife and in Wales had lived in a tiny urban cottage with her brother and five lodgers. She had to acquire a range of new skills to deal with life in rural Queensland. She cooked outdoors at an uncovered hearth and worked five acres of market gardens to raise a small income.
Her daughter, Blodwen married Archibald Allan, a miner from Howard in 1912 and raised her surviving five children on the property in a former school building, brought to the site from Upper Doongul sometime in the 1920s. A number of the children were born on the property with Esther in attendance as midwife. Archibald Allan travelled twelve miles by bicycle to work ten and twelve hour days, six days a week in nearby coal mines to support the family after Henry Price's death. Esther and Blodwen sold vegetables in Howard to supplement his wages which were barely enough to feed the family and the sons hunted for wild birds to provide some protein in their diet. Esther was known in the district as a "wise woman", someone who would assist women in having their babies and it is likely that she traded her midwifery skills for other goods or services. Midwives, both trained and untrained, provided the primary care for birthing women in Queensland until the 1930s and homebirthing continued as a more common practice in rural areas than urban.
The mines in the Torbanlea district were a source of opportunity for migrants and yet the conditions for miners were such that financial security was still difficult to attain. Coal was first discovered in the Burrum River region in 1863 and mining was well underway by the turn of the century. There were three producing mines - Burrum, Riverbank and Torbanlea, which in 1900 produced about one fifth of the Colony's total production. The Burrum Colliery run by Queensland Collieries Company Limited was by far the biggest operation in the district and was the stimulus for the founding of the town of Howard. The managing Rankin family had instituted a rule of "paternal despotism" and the fine house "Brooklyn" that the company built for them in Howard stands in stark contrast to the hand-built timber hut of the Allan family.
The Burrum coal mines were the last to be unionised in Queensland, conditions were notoriously bad and average wages were a shilling a day. Miners were paid by the ton, used pick and shovel and were never certain that they would have work the next day. Mining was the only local source of employment and the mine operators dictated the terms of employment. A small number of favoured permanent miners were provided with a miner's hut, a four-roomed stringybark cottage, of which there were fourteen in Torbanlea. Families had an average of eleven children and whilst most miners usually had only one meal a day, they endeavoured to provide two meals a day for their children.
In this context, the construction of the slab hut was something of an achievement. The building method is an improvised version of fencing construction techniques used to construct a basic dwelling of hardwood slabs nailed and wired to posts and rails. It demonstrates the family's need to make do with what they could find or afford, rather than reflecting a tradition of craftmanship or even bush carpentry. Many mining families in the district lived in dwellings constructed of posts, flattened kerosene tins and hessian sacks and strained economic circumstances meant that many families were not able to hold on to their selections. In fact, the Allan family property is now an isolated piece of freehold land within an area of former selections that reverted to Crown land when previous owners were unable to sustain a living. The resilience and tenacity that was necessary for the Allan and Price families to be able to hang on to their selection and indeed consolidate and develop it, is demonstrated by the length of time that the hut was used as a dwelling.
Esther Price lived in the slab hut until she died in 1936. She planted a fig tree that now shelters the hut, which is situated amongst the remnant evidence of the orchards and market gardens that once surrounded it. Three other trees have been planted on the property to commemorate members of the family, two figs and a Crow's Ash. The slab hut has subsequently been used as a fowlhouse and for general storage and is currently not used.
","criteria":"The Allan Slab Hut is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, representing the continuity of pioneering life in rural Queensland into the twentieth century. The hut provides evidence of the harsh and basic living conditions and improvised building techniques and survival tactics employed by settlers of the Burrum region.
|As a surviving example of a slab building constructed using primitive building techniques and erected in the early twentieth century, the Allan Slab Hut demonstrates rare, uncommon and endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The Allan Slab Hut, together with the large adjacent fig tree, has aesthetic significance for its qualities as a ruin and integral part of its rustic setting, evocative of past agricultural and domestic activities.
|The place has a strong association with impoverished mining families of the Burrum region, reflecting the struggle and hardship experienced by this community as they toiled to establish viable lives for themselves.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16672,"place_ref":601936,"name":"Laurel Hill Farmhouse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ruffles Road","suburb":"WILLOW VALE","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-12-01","description":"Laurel Hill Farmhouse, a single-storeyed weatherboard residence with a corrugated iron gable roof and timber stumps, is located fronting Ruffles Road to the northwest.
The residence has verandahs to four sides, with a separate kitchen wing at the rear connected via a covered landing. Original attic windows, one to each gable end, have been infilled with weatherboard.
The verandah has a corrugated iron skillion roof, with a timber lined ceiling (partially removed) and timber posts, capitals and brackets. Sections of the verandah have deteriorated and partially collapsed, and only a few sections of balustrading, consisting of dowel balusters and timber handrail, survive. The building has weatherboard cladding to the side and rear walls, and a single-skin externally cross-braced wall to the front verandah. The main entrance, consisting of a panelled timber door and fanlight, opens off the front verandah and is flanked by two french doors with fanlights on the northern side and a french door and fanlight on the southern side. Multi-pane sash windows open to the side and rear verandahs, and a timber door opens from the living area to the southeast verandah and covered landing, and a second door with fanlight opens to the northeast verandah.
The kitchen wing consists of an unpainted weatherboard structure with a corrugated iron gable roof and timber stumps, with a corrugated iron lean-to addition at the rear. This structure has sash windows to the main section, with corrugated iron and timber batten hoods, and hopper and louvred windows to the lean-to. A timber door opens to a covered landing to the northwest, and a second door opens to the southeast with timber steps to ground level.
Internally, the residence has a large living area facing the southeast and northeast verandahs, with two bedrooms to the southwest and two bedrooms to the northwest. Ceilings and walls are unpainted, and the original attic space has been closed and the access stair removed. The ceiling of the living space has been altered and now consists of plywood sheeting with timber battens, and some internal walls may have been altered and partially re-lined. Door heads are not of a uniform height, and the main bedroom has french doors opening from the central hallway, also suggesting some alteration to internal walls. The exterior walls have wide horizontal boarding, and the internal walls have vertical boarding. The bedroom ceilings vary, with some comprising raked cornices with joists supporting floorboards for the attic above, and others finished with timber boarding.
Internally, the kitchen wing has unpainted ceilings and walls. The main section contains a dining area and bathroom, and has vertically boarded walls and a boarded ceiling. The rear lean-to addition houses the kitchen with a stove recess at the northern end.
The building's immediate surrounds include overgrown gardens to the northwest fronting Ruffles Road, with the remains of a rock garden to the north of the house. There are also a number of large trees to the north and south, and the remains of a partially demolished shed to the northeast.
","history":"Laurel Hill Farmhouse, a single-storeyed timber farm house with attic, was erected in 1883-84 for Pimpama arrowroot grower and manufacturer, William Doherty. The builder was Alexander Fortune of Coomera. At the time, Laurel Hill Farmhouse was considered the finest residence in Pimpama district, and in 1897 was photographed by the Queensland Lands Department as an example of a successful Queensland selector's home.
Much of the Pimpama district had been taken up in the 1850s by William Duckett White of Beau Desert Station, who leased 20,000 acres between the Logan and Coomera Rivers, including upper Hotham Creek [a tributary of Pimpama River], as Pimpama run. A small settlement was established on Pimpama River c1860, but the site was abandoned within a few years in preference to Hotham Creek. Much of Pimpama run was thrown open for selection from April 1869, and White forfeited his remaining leasehold on Pimpama from 1 January 1870. The private subdivision and sale in February 1870 of town and farm lots at the junction of the Pimpama River and Hotham Creek, consolidated Pimpama township and initiated a small farming community of predominantly Irish settlers.
In the 1860s, farmers along the Pimpama River experimented firstly with cotton growing, then with sugar, both of which initially were dependent on South Pacific Islands labour. By December 1876 the principal Pimpama sugar plantations [Ormeau, Malungmavel, Pimpama and Yahwulpah] had ceased production, and were devoted either to cattle or arrowroot, but some smaller farms in the district continued with sugar growing for several decades.
The Pimpama selectors of the 1870s, searching for a new commercial crop, discovered that the climate, soil, and abundance of pure water in the Pimpama district were ideal for the cultivation and manufacture of arrowroot. Arrowroot gave about the same return as maize or potatoes, but was more frost, drought and flood resistant. The first commercial arrowroot in Pimpama was grown in the late 1860s, and the Lahey family, who moved to Pimpama in 1870 and eventually took up Sunnyside, adjoining William Doherty on Hotham Creek, went into arrowroot cultivation on a large scale, inventing a mechanical processing method which revolutionised the production of arrowroot, and marketing arrowroot under their own brand. By 1884, arrowroot was widely grown in the Pimpama and Coomera districts, and a number of new manufacturing plants were being established.
Most of the selections along upper Hotham Creek were surveyed in 1871, but not proclaimed for selection until August 1874. In the interim, many farmers were 'squatting' on these selections, with no guarantee that they would ultimately secure the land as leasehold.
Irish-born settlers William Doherty and his wife Eliza Fannon had arrived in Queensland by September 1867. It appears that they were resident in Brisbane until November 1869 at least, but had moved to the Pimpama district by August 1870, when William Doherty signed a local petition calling for a provisional school to be established in the area. It is not known where in Pimpama the Doherty family lived at this period, but William Doherty worked on a number of local sugar plantations and farms before taking up his own selections in the mid-1870s.
In October 1874, Doherty selected portion 21, parish of Pimpama [158 acres of second class pastoral land on Hotham Creek, on which Laurel Hill Farmhouse was later built]. The block already contained some improvements, including a slab barn and a small humpy [dwelling], and about 12 acres of scrub cleared and partly under cultivation, for which Doherty paid £20, and was issued with a conditional lease on the property for 10 years from 1 January 1875. At the same time he selected the adjoining portion 31 [135 acres], on which existing improvements comprised a bark-roofed barn, a small slab house, some cleared scrub and a small stockyard. It appears that the Dohertys resided on portion 31 from October 1874 until mid-1879, when they moved to portion 21. In 1879, Doherty also acquired the lease to portion 151, an 84 acre block which abutted the eastern boundary of portion 21.
In January 1884 he obtained title to portions 21 & 31, and embarked on substantial improvements to the property, which he had named Laurel Hill. A fine new house, erected for the Dohertys by Coomera builder Alexander Fortune, was completed by late January 1884. [This is understood to be the existing Laurel Hill Farmhouse.] Fortune, resident in the Coomera district by 1872, was a carpenter by trade, and had erected Coomera State School and an Anglican church at upper Coomera.
At Laurel Hill, William Doherty raised cattle and grew various crops. By 1884 he had between 40 and 50 acres under arrowroot, and erected his own factory in the first half of the year. Remnants of this mill survive. Before the turn of the century, he purchased Pimpama Plantation at Ormeau, [approximately 1,150 acres which he used for grazing purposes], and c1901 acquired Sunnyside, the Lahey family's substantial arrowroot plantation adjacent to Laurel Hill on Hotham Creek. Following William Doherty's death in 1904, the properties were divided between his three sons: Laurel Hill went to William Alexander [Alex], Sunnyside [re-named Willowvale by the Dohertys] to Thomas, and Pimpama to Robert.
By 1908, Queensland farmers on about a dozen farms in the Yatala, Pimpama, Ormeau and Nerang districts, were supplying almost the whole of the arrowroot used in Australia. Doherty Brothers of Hotham Creek and Robert Doherty of Ormeau, with together approximately 100 acres under arrowroot [or 50% of the total 200 acres under arrowroot in these districts], were among the largest arrowroot growers/producers in Australia. The Willowvale arrowroot mill was moved further downstream on Hotham Creek, closer to the Pacific Highway at Pimpama, and continued production until the mid-1930s. Alex Doherty at Laurel Hill turned to dairying in the early 1920s before retiring to the Gold Coast c1947. Subsequently the property was purchased by the Miles family of Pimpama, with title to Laurel Hill transferred in 1950. Members of this family resided in the house until mid-October 1997.
The Doherty family were prominent members of the local community, involved in church and civic affairs. William Doherty was a trustee of Pimpama School of Arts and served as a councillor on Coomera Divisional Board from c1887 to c1889. His son Thomas later became chairman of Coomera Shire.
Some changes to the farmhouse were made during the Doherty family's occupation. There is evidence of minor re-arrangement of internal partition walls, and the staircase to the attic has been removed and the stairwell enclosed, possibly in the 1920s. The ceiling linings in several of the rooms may date to the 1920s also. The original kitchen wing reputedly burnt down in the late 1920s, and was replaced with the present kitchen building.
","criteria":"Laurel Hill Farmhouse survives as an important illustration of the pattern of Queensland's history, demonstrating the success of arrowroot growing and manufacturing in the Pimpama district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when this Queensland region supplied almost the whole of the arrowroot used in Australia. As early as 1897, the house was considered illustrative of what the Queensland land selection system could achieve, and was promoted officially as the ideal type of settler's residence.
|It is rare to find an early 1880s farm house as intact as this on the Gold Coast hinterland, which has experienced enormous pressure for development in the last quarter of the 20th century.
|The place has potential to provide important information about rural timber building techniques of the early 1880s, and about the types of materials used. The c1920s kitchen wing appears to have been constructed to much the same footprint as the earlier building it replaced, survives very intact, and in materials and form complements the 1880s building.
|Laurel Hill Farmhouse survives reasonably intact, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an early 1880s settler's farm house with unpainted interior and original joinery.
|The place is valued by the local community for its long association with the Doherty family and their work in the local community, and for its illustration of pioneering achievement. The Willowvale/Pimpama community has a number of families descended from the first European settlers in the area, who value Laurel Hill Farmhouse as an important link with the past.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16675,"place_ref":601939,"name":"Yungaba Migrant Hostel","alternate_name":"McRich | Killin","street_address":"74 Ward Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"'Yungaba' Migrant Hostel is a fine intact example of a late nineteenth century grand house. It is located at 74 Ward Street, on the Athelstane Range, Rockhampton on a site which falls from the rear of the property at the north, toward the southern Ward Street frontage. The house is centrally located at the rear of the property with an ancillary building positioned beside it on the western boundary. A number of significant trees located along the Ward street frontage obscure a complete view of the house beyond.
Also located along the Ward Street frontage is a privately owned single storey dwelling sited on the remaining 32 perch parcel of land subdivided from the original two acre 32 perch site. The residence is set back from the street and the property is well vegetated and completely fenced.
A bitumen driveway enters the site on the western side of the property and rises up to the main southern entry of the house before slowly turning back down the slope to exit on the opposing side of the site. The driveway also continues around the house to form a ring road and there is a small car parking area located on the north east side of the house.
A line of palm trees follows the driveway from the street entry up to the main entrance. A concrete entry stair complete with decorative sides, base piers and associated flower pots creates a grand entry from the driveway to the entry terrace before ascending the timber stairs onto the verandah.
Yungaba itself is a single storey residence of timber construction. Elevated slightly above ground level the house is clad in a combination of timber weatherboards and chamferboards and has an impressive roof line which builds symmetrically from the verandah through the body of the house to a large central clerestorey roof which was formerly the promenade deck. Decorated chimneys are positioned in three corners of the roof effectively framing the clerestorey roof as one moves around the house.
Verandahs surround the southern, eastern and western elevations of the house, however the verandah to the northern rear of the house has been enclosed to expand the kitchen, dining and amenities areas. The verandah has timber posts and handrails with decorative cast iron balustrade infill panels. Timber lattice panels are set above the handrail level on both the eastern and western elevations.
The centrally located front door is framed between two bay windows, whose roof forms are echoed in the main roof form. Internally the short entry hall leads to a central two storeyed open space naturally lit by the clerestorey roof above. The internal room structure of the main part of the house is symmetrical about this central room. Beginning with the two main rooms which flank the entry hall a series of three rooms sit either side of the central great room. These rooms are now used as offices. On both the east and west elevations all of the rooms have been extended onto the verandah area. Beyond the central great room the rear northern portion of the house is comprised of an office area in the former dining room, extended kitchen in its original position and amenities area.
Internally the timber floors are predominately covered with carpet with the exception of the amenities areas. The walls and ceilings are clad with timber tongue and groove boards and the timber joinery to door and window architraves is well crafted. The entry hall and central room have a timber panelled dado and a dressed timber arch announces the entry from the hall to the central room of the house. Ornate carved timber and tile surround fireplaces are located in one of the main rooms at the entry, the dining room and a secondary room on the eastern side of the house.
During the immigration period the house was substantially extended These alterations are easily distinguished from the original fabric and form of the house by the use of different materials including asbestos cement and masonite wall sheeting. Additional timber windows, doors and associated joinery are very simplistic and understated. Rooms opening along the eastern and western elevations were all extended onto the verandah and as such the width of the verandahs along these sides has been reduced substantially. The rear verandah to the house has also been enclosed.
At the rear of the house a timber framed water tank stand complete with galvanised iron tank has been enclosed with timber weatherboards to create a shower room. This enclosure has a simple galvanised iron skillion roof integrated into the tank stand structure.
The two storey ancillary building constructed to the south west of the house is set on concrete stumps with no useable area to the ground. The ring road passes between the ancillary building and the main house. The building is a simple timber framed and weatherboard clad structure with a galvanised iron hip roof. A verandah is located on the north east side of the building and access is gained by either a timber ramp or stair leading from the ring road to the verandah. Internally, the building is broken up into a series of training rooms and bathroom facilities, all of which are accessed from the verandah. The interior walls and ceilings are lined with hardboard with timber cover strips and the timber floors are covered with carpet or vinyl.
","history":"Yungaba Migrant Hostel was constructed in 1890 as a private residence for John Ferguson's daughter Catherine Jane Ferguson and her husband, solicitor, Charles Sydney Jones co-founder of Rees Jones Solicitors, one of the oldest surviving legal practices in Queensland today. The house was named 'Killin' after Ferguson's parish in Scotland however was popularly known by locals as 'McRich' which may be loosely interpreted as 'son of rich man'.
John Ferguson arrived in Rockhampton during the 1860s and quickly established himself as a builder and contractor. In 1884, he purchased a large share in the Mount Morgan mine, becoming very wealthy when the public company was floated. He was a prominent political figure in Rockhampton and later a Senator in the first federal parliament.
The house is reported to have been designed by architect James Flint. In 1887, Flint had opened a practice in Rockhampton which was booming as a result of the Mt Morgan Mine. His most notable works are the mansion, 'Kenmore', he designed for John Ferguson (1893-1894) and the Criterion Hotel (1888-1889). Both works are claimed to be the most florid examples of Victorian Architecture in Queensland.
In 1896 Charles Sydney Jones died and the house was left to his wife Catherine Jones. It is not clear if she remained living in the house as there are reports that Dr Cani, the first Roman Catholic Bishop to Rockhampton occupied the house in 1895. The property was most definitely purchased in 1898 by Dr Cani's successor Rev. Dr Joseph Higgins. During Higgins' ownership, architects Eaton and Bates were commissioned to design alterations and additions to the residence. The exact extent of works is not clearly understood but it is likely that included the roof top promenade deck and chapel constructed at the north east corner of the house. George T Eaton and Albert E Bates opened their practice in Rockhampton in 1894 having both previously worked for John Kirkpatrick in Sydney. Their practice flourished and branches were opened in Mt Morgan, Longreach, Clermont, Townsville and Rockhampton before moving their main office to Brisbane in 1902. Commissions from the Catholic church comprised a large portion of their work.
Higgins was transferred to Ballarat and the property was purchased by the Duncan sisters in 1909 and on to Robert Donaldson, Grazier in 1919. In 1925 the residence was purchased by notable Rockhampton solicitor Hugh Grant. It is reported that the promenade deck resounded with music and laughter whenever young people gathered for private dances which were part of the social life of the times. Grant subdivided the original 2 acre 32 perch site into four parcels of land. This new configuration comprised three 32 perch sites along Ward Street, numbered lots 2,3 & 4 and the remainder of the original land parcel on which 'Killin' was located numbered Lot 1. The larger allotment was configured to allow independent access to Ward Street.
The promenade deck and rear chapel may have been removed from the house during Hugh Grant's occupation. It is thought that the promenade deck was removed as it had deteriorated significantly while the chapel was removed and relocated into town where it was adapted to a private residence.
During WWII the house was commandeered from Grant by the United States Army as General Eichelberger's headquarters. From this location Eichelberger coordinated the American army contingent stationed in Rockhampton. During the army's occupation a number of minor sanitary plumbing fixtures were introduced into some of the rooms. These plumbing installations were photographically documented by the U S Army. A photo of the whole house taken at the time clearly shows the promenade deck removed, thus supporting reports of its removal during Hugh Grants ownership.
The Queensland Government purchased the house in 1949 for offices. With the war over, Australia again needed large numbers of migrants to fuel the economic development of the country. As part of this initiative the Queensland government decided to adapt 'Killin' as a hostel for sponsored migrants. Not since the 1860's had Rockhampton received migrants as part of a government initiative.
As an immigration hostel the original house was substantially altered. Alterations and additions included the construction of male and female bathroom facilities in the north west corner of the house; expansion of the bedrooms onto the existing verandahs; possible construction of the central clerestorey roof where the promenade deck once sat; possible removal of the entry gable roof and two way stair; and construction of an ancillary dormitory wing to the west of the house. These extensions are still in place today.
The adaptation of Killin to a migrant hostel also included a name change to Yungaba. As part of the push for post war immigration, the state government sought to improve the cold and impersonal image of the state migration building at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane. Premier Ned Hanlon requested the building be given a new name of aboriginal origin meaning welcome or resting place. Experts advised that no such translation existed and as such an alternative was selected from a Maryborough dialect. The depot was officially renamed 'Yungaba' an aboriginal word meaning land of the sun. It is assumed that 'Killin' was also renamed in light of Hanlon's request.
The functions of Yungaba were to ... receive and investigate all nominations; to attend to reception on arrival; to provide temporary accommodation for migrants whose destination is to distant parts; to attend to problems of welfare and after-care .
It is unconfirmed when 'Yungaba' formally closed as an immigration hostel however it is reported that the building lay vacant during much of the 1960's. During the 1970's Family Services occupied the house. The house is currently occupied by Families Youth and Community Care who use the building for administrative and interview purposes . Apart from the adaptive works undertaken in the initial postwar period, the government has made few alterations to the building fabric of the house.
","criteria":"Yungaba Migrant Hostel is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, reflecting the Federal Government's post war initiatives to increase immigration in order to fuel the economy. In particular the renaming of the house from 'Killin' to 'Yungaba' illustrates the Queensland State Government's intentions to improve the image of migration centres in Queensland.
|Yungaba Migrant Hostel demonstrates the principal characteristics of a grand house. Designed for the sub-tropical Queensland climate, it is a fine example of a substantial timber residence on the Athelstane Range, Rockhampton. Overlooking the town, the Range area was sought after by the affluent families of Rockhampton from the late nineteenth century onwards.
|Yungaba Migrant Hostel is as a well crafted and composed piece of residential architecture and is aesthetically significant.
|As a primary place of reception, temporary accommodation and guidance, Yungaba Migrant Hostel is important for its special association with sponsored migrants arriving in Rockhampton during the post war period.
|Yungaba Migrant Hostel is important for its special association with the Ferguson family in Rockhampton and the architects James Flint, the original designer and George T. Eaton and Albert E. Bates who designed the alterations and additions to the house.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16697,"place_ref":601961,"name":"St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral","alternate_name":"St Monicas Catholic Cathedral","street_address":"183 Abbott Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-31","description":"St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral is located fronting Abbott Street to the northeast, between the Bishop's House [601747] to the north and St Joseph's Convent [601749] to the south, within a highly intact ecclesiastical group.
In form, the Cathedral consists of one large rectangular space of equal height which houses the narthex, choir gallery, nave and sanctuary. Single-storeyed side verandahs are partially enclosed in places to house a side chapel, confessionals, and entrance to the baptistery, with a single-storeyed vestry and sacristy structure at the rear of the sanctuary. The baptistery is a separate structure with a circular plan which is attached to the northern side of the narthex.
The Cathedral has a reinforced concrete frame clad externally with red brickwork and internally with cream brickwork. The dominant external expression is of a large rectangular box articulated by regularly spaced reinforced concrete arched window units surmounted by reinforced concrete spandrel panels and separated by brick piers to parapet height concealing a shallow pitched hipped roof. A single-storeyed verandah with a deep fascia to a horizontal awning supported by concrete columns is located along either side of the Cathedral.
The Abbott Street elevation comprises a wide central reinforced concrete arched window surmounting paired timber panelled entrance doors on which are housed the Coat of Arms of the previous Bishops of Cairns. A cantilevered horizontal awning is located above the entrance doors covering a driveway, and the central window has a large reinforced concrete cross clad in ceramic tiles. The central window is flanked by brick piers with a narrower reinforced concrete arched window to either side. The three windows have been reglazed with stained/painted glass forming the commemorative 'Peace Window'. The Abbott Street elevation is framed by wide panels of brickwork to parapet height, which are flanked by the enclosed ends of the single-storeyed side verandahs each of which have a brickwork panel separated from the main body of the Cathedral by a vertical strip of glazing. The enclosed end of the northern verandah forms the entrance to the baptistery.
The baptistery has a circular plan, and in elevation comprises narrow reinforced concrete arched window units surmounted by reinforced concrete spandrel panels and separated by brick piers. The baptistery has a shallow pitched roof with a central aluminium fleche which has a curved base and is surmounted by a cross.
Both sides of the Cathedral comprise twelve reinforced concrete arched window units surmounted by reinforced concrete spandrel panels and separated by brick piers, with wider panels of brickwork at either end. Paired timber panelled doors surmounted by pivoting fanlights are located below each arched window and open from the nave and sanctuary onto the side verandahs. The fanlights are glazed to match the arched windows above. Three bays of the southern verandah are enclosed to form a side chapel adjacent to the sanctuary. This side chapel has five narrow reinforced concrete arched window units which are separated by brick piers. All windows in the Cathedral were originally glazed with a burgundy red field and an amber border, however the eastern windows and a number of the northern windows to the nave and sanctuary have been reglazed with stained/painted glass. Two sets of paired confessionals, which are the same height as the side doors and are surmounted by fanlights, are located on both side verandahs.
The rear of the Cathedral has a single-storeyed structure which house the vestry and sacristy. It is designed to the same proportions as the side verandahs, and has narrow reinforced concrete arched windows at either end, and the rear wall has small regularly spaced rectangular windows. The rear wall of the sanctuary is face brick to parapet height.
Internally, the Cathedral has an overwhelming red glow from the vast expanse of burgundy red glass in the windows. However, this is gradually being diminished with the replacement of the glass with stained/painted glass. The Cathedral has a flat plywood sheeted ceiling which obscures the arched top of the side windows. The nave and sanctuary are within the one large space, with either side characterised by the regular rhythm of vertical windows surmounting paired doors (designed to be open for cross ventilation) separated by solid brick piers. A choir gallery is located above the narthex and is accessed via a narrow stair concealed behind a brick wall to either side of the entrance doors. The choir gallery has a brick balustrade with timber handrail, and stepped timber speakers/screens to either side. The gallery is supported by brick columns with low brick walls attached which separate the narthex from the nave and provide the entrance to the baptistery. The doors to the confessionals to either side of the nave are detailed to match the paired doors opening onto the side verandahs, however these doors have a single leaf to each confessional and open inward.
The baptistery houses a central marble baptismal font, and is accessed via ornamental metal gates. The wall sections between the arched windows are clad with cream marbled vinyl tile.
The sanctuary comprises almost the same area as the nave and consists of a raised platform accessed via steps with marble treads and risers. A raised platform in the centre houses the altar, and another raised platform against the rear wall houses the Bishop's chair and crozier which are set in a marble framed recess which is clad with marbled vinyl tiles and also has the Bishop's Coat of Arms. Above this a large crucifix is fixed to the rear wall of the sanctuary. The vestry is accessed from the rear of the sanctuary either side of the Bishop's chair, and also via paired timber panelled doors either side of the sanctuary. The side chapel is located to the south of the sanctuary, and has a marble framed recess clad with marbled vinyl tiles behind the side altar.
Cream Italian marble has been used for the altar, lectern, side altar, baptismal font, consecration stones, holy water fonts, treads and risers in the sanctuary and side chapel, and framing to the recess behind the Bishop's chair and side chapel altar. The Bishop's chair, crozier and Coat of Arms are of carved timber. Blonde timber has been used for the pews and handrail to the choir gallery.
The floors are finished with a pale green vinyl tile, however much of the nave floor has been covered with a dark blue carpet. The floor of the sanctuary was finished with a cream marbled tile, which has also been covered with a cream carpet.
The bell from the original St Monica's church is located to the north of the Cathedral. The bell is set in a low metal frame surmounting a memorial plaque.
","history":"St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral, dedicated as a memorial to the Battle of the Coral Sea, was constructed in 1967-68. The Cathedral is surrounded by the Old Cathedral [601750], Bishop's House [601747], St Joseph's Convent [601749] and St Monica's High School Administration Building [601748], which together form a highly intact ecclesiastical group. St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral is the only Cathedral in Cairns, as the seat of the Anglican Bishops in the region was Thursday Island, for the Diocese of Carpentaria, until it was incorporated into the Diocese of North Queensland centred in Townsville.
Cairns was established in October 1876, as a port to service the Hodgkinson goldfields. In the same year the area from Cardwell to Cape York was separated from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brisbane as the Pro-Vicariate of North Queensland. In 1884 three Irish Augustinian fathers took charge of the Pro-Vicariate, establishing a priory at Cooktown, and in 1885 they founded the parish of St Monica's at Cairns. An acre of land bounded by Abbott, Minnie and Lake Streets was acquired and the first St Monica's Church, a timber building at the corner of Abbott and Minnie Streets, was opened on 10 January 1886. A school fronting Minnie Street opened at the beginning of the 1890 school year - staffed initially by lay teachers, but from October 1892 by Sisters of Mercy from St Mary's Convent in Cooktown, who established a foundation in Cairns. In 1906 the Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown moved his residence to Cairns, which had eclipsed Cooktown as the principal port of far North Queensland, and at this time St Monica's Church acquired the status of Pro-Cathedral.
The first St Monica's church and school were destroyed in the cyclone of 9 February 1927. Plans for a Cathedral had to be abandoned as appeals were launched locally and in southern Dioceses for reconstruction funds. Lawrence and Lordan, architects of Cairns, designed a building to function as both church and school. In the interim, mass was held at the Palace Picture Theatre, and the convent school was conducted at the Irish Association's Hibernian Hall.
Tenders for the new church-school at the corner of Minnie and Lake Streets were called in March 1927. The large reinforced concrete building, which seated 900, was officially opened on 16 October 1927 and cost nearly £9,000 to erect. The ground floor contained the school, and the upper storey housed the church, including the altar from the first St Monica's Church.
The construction of this church-school illustrated the strength of the Catholic Church in the Cairns district in the 1920s. The effects of the February 1927 cyclone, followed almost immediately by flood damage, a severe trade depression, and waterfront disputes affecting the city's building industry, did not deter the predominantly working-class Catholic community of Cairns from raising within 8 months nearly £5,000 toward the re-construction.
On 8 July 1941 the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown was raised to the status of Diocese of Cairns with Fr John Heavey (Vicar Apostolic since 1914) as the first Bishop of Cairns. At this time St Monica's Church became St Monica's Cathedral, and imposing front stairs were added to the Minnie Street facade c1948.
Bishop Heavey, the last Bishop of the Augustinian Order in the Cairns Diocese, died in June 1948 and was succeeded by the Most Rev. Thomas Cahill. Bishop Cahill began the changeover to an administration conducted by the Diocesan Clergy, and from this point the number of Augustinian priests in the area declined. The majority of new priests who arrived were Queenslanders who had studied for the Priesthood at Banyo Seminary, Brisbane. Bishop Cahill began extending functions and procedures in the area now that it was a Diocese and no longer 'missionary territory'. In 1951 he welcomed the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary to Cairns, who later opened Calvary Hospital, and the Bethlehem Home for the Aged was opened by the Sisters of Mercy in 1967.
In 1958, the means of fund raising for St Monica's parish passed from the voluntary work of organisations and offerings in the Sunday collection, to the more organised scheme of 'planned giving'. This enabled the parish to plan ahead financially and borrow funds accordingly for particular projects. The scheme of 'planned giving' was adopted throughout Queensland, and was an important contributing factor which enabled the construction and adaptation of a large number of churches during the 1950-60s to accommodate the post Second World War increase in population, and later to reflect changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council decree on the liturgy.
The construction of St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral was one of the major achievements of Bishop Cahill's episcopate. Bishop Cahill however never presided in the new Cathedral as Bishop of Cairns. He was appointed Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn Arch-Diocese, prior to the completion of St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral, where he remained until his death in 1976. He was also appointed to the Chair of the Episcopal Liturgical Commission. The Most Rev. John Torpie became Bishop of Cairns in 1967.
Brisbane architect Ian Ferrier was commissioned in 1965 to design the new Cathedral, having also designed Cathedrals in Darwin and Port Moresby, both of which have strong references to the indigenous culture of their particular regions.
Ian Ferrier designed many projects for the Catholic Church throughout Queensland during his career. He graduated in architecture from McGill University, Canada in 1952 and came to Australia in 1953 where he spent two years working in Sydney. He moved to Brisbane in 1955 to work for architect Jack Donoghue. In 1957 he received substantial commissions which enabled him to establish his own practice. Early commissions were mainly in the fields of education, health and ecclesiastical architecture, and throughout his career Ian Ferrier designed some 25 churches and chapels, as well as the Cathedrals of Cairns, Darwin and Port Moresby. Ian Ferrier also played an active role in the affairs of his profession, and in 1980 became National President of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. He was awarded the Board of Architects of Queensland inaugural Architect of the Year award in 1995, and retired from practice in 1996. Ian Ferrier also designs the Coat of Arms for Catholic Bishops in Queensland, including the Bishop of Cairns, as well as interstate Bishops, universities and municipalities.
Bishop Cahill attended the Second Vatican Council, 1961-65, at which the public worship of the Catholic Church was subject to substantial revision after a period of approximately 450 years of rigidity. St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral was designed to reflect materially the changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council's decree on the liturgy, and it is thought that it may be one of the earliest Cathedrals designed in an attempt to reflect these changes. Of particular note are the following:- the altar is free standing so that the celebrant may face the people; in place of the High Altar is the Bishop's Chair; and the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in a small private prayer chapel to the side. The baptistery is a separate structure with a circular plan attached to the northern side of the narthex, and symbolises baptism as the sacrament of entry to the church in the tradition of the Italian Cathedrals such as Pisa, Florence and Sienna. The baptistery does not reflect the changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council as the Baptismal Rites Latin edition was not produced until 1969, and the English edition in 1971. Similarly, a choir loft was constructed above the narthex, which pre-dated the changes mandated concerning the role of the choir and music in the celebration of the mass.
St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral follows the basic form of the original basilica model of the early churches of the Roman Latin Rite. Bishop Cahill requested the architect to design the Cathedral with arches as a major design element, however Ian Ferrier has said that he found it a challenge to reconcile the use of arches whilst designing in the modernist idiom. He developed a system of reinforced concrete arches along either side of the Cathedral, which house leadlight windows surmounting doors to side verandahs. The side arches were designed in concert with a vaulted ceiling, however due to cost constraints, the vaulted ceiling was eliminated and a flat soffit erected in its place which internally obscures the top of the arch. The Cathedral was constructed with a reinforced concrete frame, with inner and outer skins of brickwork, and the side verandahs were designed to allow the side doors to be left open, particularly during the wet season, to allow cross ventilation. The original design included transepts, which were deleted due to cost constraints, however a section of the southern transept was retained as a side chapel. The original design of the Cathedral also called for more extensive use of marble, particularly to the floors of the nave and sanctuary. The architect's original intention for the leadlight windows was to eventually house stained glass when funds permitted, but in the interim to use gold and light blue glass as per his design for the Sisters of Mercy St Bernard's College, Herberton. However Bishop Cahill did not like the colour blue and requested that the windows be constructed with a field of burgundy red glass with an amber border. It was not until the glass was being installed that the enormous impact of the vast areas of burgundy red glass began to be felt. However, as the glass had been paid for and delivered to site there was no option but to install it.
The foundation stone was laid on 28 May 1967, and the Cathedral was consecrated on 8 July 1968 by the Most Rev. Cahill Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn, and opened on 14 July 1968 by Cardinal Gilroy Archbishop of Sydney. The Cathedral was dedicated as a memorial to the Battle of the Coral Sea which was fought due east of Cairns from 4-8 May 1942. The baptistery was dedicated to the memory of Patrick and Elizabeth Cahill. On completion of the new Cathedral, the former St Monica's Cathedral ceased functioning as a church, and the Bishop's chair was removed to the new Cathedral. The decision to dedicate the Cathedral as a war memorial was partly to access the provision of tax deductibility for donations to the building fund. The final cost of the Cathedral was approximately $300,000.
Bishop Torpie retired in August 1985, and was succeeded by Bishop John Bathersby. The Most Rev. Dr James Foley became Bishop of Cairns in August 1992.
St Monica's bell was commissioned from M Byrne, bell-founder in Dublin, Ireland. A bell tower was constructed adjacent to the front of the original St Monica's church (demolished in the cyclone of 1927) and the bell was installed, consecrated and blessed in November 1902. Later the tower and bell were moved to the rear of the Bishop's House until the tower was demolished in 1982. The bell has now been installed at ground level in the grounds of the Cathedral.
The Bishop's chair is located behind the altar in the Cathedral. The 'Bishop's Throne' as it was known in ecclesiastical terms prior to September 1968 was presented to St Mary's Church, Cooktown by Mr Ambrose J Madden, a Cooktown merchant and businessman. The Vicar Apostolic of Cooktown moved his residence to Cairns in 1906, but it was not until 1940 that the Very Rev. Thomas Hunt suggested to Bishop John Heavey that the throne should be brought down to Cairns. At the end of that year, by the favour of Mr Charles Hayles Snr, the throne was shipped to Cairns. When the Diocese of Cairns was declared on 8 July 1941, and St Monica's became a Cathedral, the throne was already installed. The chair was transferred to its current location in the new Cathedral in 1968.
On Sunday 30 November 1969 the Colours of the 51st Infantry Battalion, the Far North Queensland Regiment, were put 'to rest' on the wall in the sanctuary of the Cathedral.
The 'Peace Window', a triple arch window at the eastern entrance to the Cathedral, was installed to coincide with the Victory in the Pacific celebrations in Far North Queensland, celebrating 50 years of peace in the Pacific, on 2 September 1995.
In 1998, the replacement of the burgundy red and amber glass in the 24 nave windows commenced. The glass is being replaced with stained/painted glass in a continuous design depicting the whole of Creation as written in the first chapters of Genesis. The artists for both the 'Peace Window' and the Creation series are Gerry Cummins and Jill Stehn of Eumundi, Queensland.
","criteria":"St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral, constructed 1967-68, is significant as one of the earliest Cathedrals designed in an attempt to materially reflect the changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council's decree on the liturgy. After attending the Second Vatican Council, 1961-65, at which the public worship of the Catholic Church was subject to substantial revision after a period of approximately 450 years of rigidity, the Most Rev. Thomas Cahill Bishop of Cairns commissioned Brisbane architect Ian Ferrier to design the Cathedral to reflect these changes. Bishop Cahill was appointed Archbishop of Canberra-Goulburn Arch-Diocese, prior to the completion of St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral, and was later appointed the Chair of the Australian Episcopal Liturgical Commission.
St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral follows the basic form of the original basilica model of the early churches of the Roman Latin Rite. When commissioned to design the Cairns Cathedral, architect Ian Ferrier had designed the Cathedrals of Darwin and Port Moresby, and during his career designed many projects for the Catholic Church throughout Queensland, including some 25 churches and chapels, as well as the Coat of Arms of the Bishops of Queensland.
St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral is an integral member of a highly intact ecclesiastical group which includes the Old Cathedral [601750], Bishop's House [601747], St Joseph's Convent [601749] and St Monica's High School Administration Building [601748], located on a site which has had a strong association with the Catholic community of the region since the Irish Augustinian fathers founded the parish of St Monica in 1885. The Cathedral has had a close association with Catholic worship since its construction, and as the only Cathedral in Cairns (as the seat of the Anglican Bishops is the Diocese of North Queensland centred in Townsville) St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral has performed an important role as a venue for major religious and civic functions.
The dedication of the Cathedral as a war memorial enabled donations to the building fund to be tax deductible. The introduction of the scheme of 'planned giving' in St Monica's parish in 1958 enabled the parish to plan ahead financially and borrow funds accordingly for particular projects. This scheme was adopted throughout Queensland and was an important contributing factor which enabled the construction and adaptation of a large number of churches during the 1950-60s to accommodate post Second World War increases in population, and later to reflect changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council decree on the liturgy.
|(Criterion under review)
|It is significant as one of the earliest Cathedrals designed in an attempt to materially reflect the changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council's decree on the liturgy.
The Cathedral reflects materially the changes mandated by the Second Vatican Council's decree on the liturgy, and also demonstrates a considered response to the tropical climate of Cairns.
|St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral is a landmark which, through its form, scale and materials, makes a strong contribution to the Abbott Street streetscape and Cairns townscape. The Cathedral presents a robust and austere aesthetic which attempts to reconcile the basic form of the original basilica model of the early churches of the Roman Latin Rite whilst being designed in the modernist idiom.
|As a memorial, the Cathedral has a strong association with the Cairns community and the community of Far North Queensland. The Cathedral was dedicated as a memorial to the Battle of the Coral Sea which was fought due east of Cairns from 4-8 May 1942. In November 1969 the Colours of the 51st Infantry Battalion, the Far North Queensland Regiment, were put 'to rest' on the wall in the sanctuary of the Cathedral. In September 1995 the 'Peace Window' was installed to coincide with the Victory in the Pacific celebrations in Far North Queensland, celebrating 50 years of peace in the Pacific.
|St Monica's War Memorial Cathedral is also an integral member of a highly intact ecclesiastical group which contributes markedly to the city's sense of identity and history, as well as illustrating the evolution of the Catholic Church and Catholic education in Cairns and the surrounding region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16701,"place_ref":601965,"name":"Lochiel","alternate_name":"Runnymeade | Langley Grove? | Balmoral?","street_address":"6 Hillside Crescent","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"Lochiel is a two-storeyed with basement timber structure with a masonry core and a corrugated iron gable roof. It is located on the northeastern corner of Toorak Road and Hillside Crescent, on the south facing slope of Toorak Hill overlooking the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River to the south. Lochiel has substantial gardens/plantings, and ancillary structures including garages (former stables), shed, and lych gate.
Lochiel was constructed as a private residence and underwent two major extensions before its conversion into six flats. The earliest section of the building consisted of the existing masonry core, which comprises a south facing wing with basement rooms, and a wing at the rear forming an L-shaped plan. A large timber 'museum' wing was added to the western end of the building forming a U-shaped plan. This wing is high-set with a recessed masonry enclosed room below. The rear wing was extended to the north and a second storey added, and later the courtyard space at the rear was enclosed. The building was subsequently converted into flats.
The main entrance to Lochiel, when still a single residence, was from the south fronting Hillside Crescent. The southern elevation is high-set and consists of the 'museum' wing at the western end, with an enclosed verandah with a corrugated iron skillion roof and brick piers which returns along the eastern side of the building.
A wide entrance stair, with rendered masonry upstands to either side, is located centrally. Non-original timber framed french doors with obscured glass panes and sidelights are located at the top of the stair, the verandah has been enclosed with glass louvres and compressed sheeting, and latticed timber panels are located between the brick piers supporting the verandah. The eastern gable end of the roof has decorative timber bargeboards, and a deck opening from the first floor of the rear wing is located adjacent to the gable end and is supported by timber posts above the enclosed eastern verandah.
The deck has cross-braced timber balustrades and a decorative porch/aedicule forming the entrance to the first floor. The porch/aedicule has paired timber posts with cross-bracing, latticed timber valance, louvred timber shutters above balustrade height, and decorative timber gable with battens and curved timber elements. The decorative southern gable of the first floor is located above the porch/aedicule, and has a battened timber screen with an arched central section and curved timber trim. A sash window with corrugated iron sunhood is located adjacent to the porch/aedicule.
The two-storeyed rear wing is constructed of chamferboard, and overhangs the ground floor of the early rear wing on the eastern and northern sides and is supported by timber posts with curved brackets. The eastern elevation of the first floor has centrally located french doors accessed via an external timber stair, and flanked by sash windows with timber shutters to either side. A continuous corrugated iron sunhood supported by curved timber brackets shades the first floor windows and doors. The northern elevation has a large L-shaped timber stair, which bridges a driveway, accessing a central first floor porch. The porch has paired timber posts with cross-bracing, cross-braced balustrades, and non-original french doors with obscured glass panes. The porch is flanked by sash windows, and a continuous corrugated iron sunhood supported by curved timber brackets shades the windows and porch. The stair has a stepped battened timber balustrade, and the southern gable has a battened timber screen with an arched central section at the base.
The western elevation of the first floor has sash windows with timber shutters flanking a smaller non-original casement window. A continuous corrugated iron sunhood supported by curved timber brackets shades these windows.
The northern rear side of Lochiel consists of the enclosed courtyard flanked by the two-storeyed rear wing to the east, and the 'museum' wing to the west. The enclosed courtyard has a corrugated iron skillion roof supported by timber posts, with louvred glass panels and compressed sheeting forming the exterior wall. A recessed entrance is located centrally, with multi-paned bifolding timber doors. A rendered masonry chimney is located at the rear of the original section of the building adjacent to the enclosed courtyard.
The 'museum' wing is constructed of chamferboard and has a corrugated iron gable roof and is supported by brick piers with latticed timber infill panels. The southern elevation is highly decorative, with a central bay window flanked by non-original casement windows (with a corner window unit to the southwest corner) and surmounted by timber detailing to the gable. The bay has narrow sash windows with etched and coloured glass panes and timber shutters. The bay is crowned by a timber valance consisting of triple curved sections, and paired lancet windows with leadlight panels are located in the gable above. The gable has a metal finial, and a battened timber screen with an arched central section and curved timber trim supported by curved timber brackets. A non original door is located on the eastern side of the bay and is accessed via a timber stair.
The rear elevation of the 'museum' wing has a metal finial and a battened timber screen to the gable, similar to the front elevation however without any of the decorative timber detailing and trim. Paired lancet windows with leadlight panels are located in the gable above a lean-to addition, which consists of an early section at the western end (possibly part of the original 'museum' wing), and later enclosures at the eastern end. The lean-to has louvred glass windows as well as a row of fixed glass high level windows.
An entrance to the rear lean-to, with a corrugated iron hood with curved timber brackets, is located on the western side. A porch with decorative timber detailing protects a second entrance located mid-way along the western elevation (this entrance was possibly originally a bay window). The porch has a gable roof with latticed timber gable panel and balustrade, curved valance and paired timber posts with cross-bracing. A continuous window hood surmounts several non-original casement windows, and two dormer windows with arched leadlight panels are located on the western side of the roof.
An internal lightwell, created during the conversion of the building to flats, is located on the eastern side of the 'museum' wing.
Internally, the earliest section of the building is of rendered masonry construction and comprises two large rooms either side of a wide central hall fronting the southern verandah. Both rooms have wide timber architraves and skirtings, french doors opening to the verandah, a panelled timber door with deep reveals opening into the central hall, and a fireplace with marble surround flanked by narrow windows (now closed over but originally opened to the rear courtyard) either side. The western room has an infilled opening on the western side and a coffered ceiling with timber beams and cornice, and the eastern room has a plaster ceiling and cornice. The central hall has a plaster ceiling and cornice, and the end has been partitioned off to create a storage cupboard and the original opening to the rear has been infilled, but its form is still visible from the rear. The enclosed verandah has a raked boarded ceiling, and the western end has been partitioned off with french doors accessing a bathroom with terrazzo floor. The enclosed eastern verandah houses a kitchen area at the northern end.
Internally, the rear wing is also of rendered masonry construction and comprises two large rooms with plaster ceilings and cornices, and deep timber skirtings and a timber fireplace surround to the central room. Both rooms have non-original multi-paned doors opening onto the enclosed verandah/undercroft space of the two-storeyed rear wing. The northern end of this space houses a bathroom, and the northern end of the masonry rear wing has been extended with the addition of a kitchen (possibly a free-standing structure added prior to the construction of the second storey). This kitchen structure has a raked ceiling on either side to the underside of the collar-beam, two small centrally pivoted windows which open against the rear of the end wall of the masonry wing, and a door and sash window opening to the rear.
The enclosed courtyard has been partitioned into several rooms, and has raked boarded ceilings and timber floors. The posts supporting the skillion roof have chamfered corners and are set back in line with the rear of the 'museum' wing.
Internally, the 'museum' wing currently houses two flats, but originally consisted of predominantly one large room with exposed tie-beams and hammer-posts with decorative curved timber brackets and raked boarded ceiling. A non-original ceiling has been installed to the underside of the tie-beams, and the space above, which is lit by the leadlight gable and dormer windows, remains intact with evidence of the original location of exhibits being visible. The original timber floor, consisting of alternately dark and light timber boards giving a striped appearance remains intact.
The 'museum' has been partitioned into several rooms, with plaster ceilings and cornices, timber architraves and skirtings, and casement windows. A boarded ceiling with deep cornices and high level windows is located in the rear northeast room, which is the location of the maid's dining room and scullery prior to the building's conversion into flats. The rear room (within the lean-to) has boarded walls and raked ceiling, and was used as a work room at the rear of the museum prior to the conversion into flats. A lightwell has been inserted into the eastern side of the 'museum' wing adjacent to the early section of the structure (in place of the original openings into the museum from the former dining room and courtyard), and provides light and ventilation to internal rooms adjacent.
The basement of the early masonry core is constructed of painted stone with brick quoining, and comprises two large rooms either side of a narrow central room. The floor of the western room is below the adjacent ground level, and a doorway to the west is accessed via stone steps. A barred window with arched header opens to the south below the verandah, and a fireplace is located against the northern wall with a narrow window adjacent. The narrow central room opens off the western room via an adjoining doorway, and has a barred window with arched header to the south. The floor of the eastern room is at the adjacent ground level, and the room is accessed via a low opening to the east, with a window with arched header to the south. A flight of stone steps is located against the northern wall at the rear of the western room, and leads to the underside of the enclosed courtyard floor.
A masonry room is located below the 'museum' wing. This room is constructed of mostly unpainted brickwork, with some rendered brickwork at the front, and has tall sash windows opening to the surrounding below floor space. The room is accessed via a door in the eastern wall (adjacent to the door accessing the basement of the early masonry core) and a door in the western wall fronting the adjacent garden. A concrete path with brick retaining wall wraps around the rear of this room with a gate accessing the adjacent garden. Internally, this room has a ripple-iron ceiling and timber architraves.
Lochiel has extensive gardens, particularly to the southern part of the property. A decorative lych gate is located at the southeast of the garden, on the corner of Toorak Road and Hillside Crescent. The lych gate has brick piers surmounting rendered retaining walls either side of a flight of concrete steps. The piers support a decorative hipped gable shingle roof, which has terracotta finials at the corners, and curved projecting rafters with shaped ends. Steel gates with a concave top edge are fixed to the garden side of the lych gate. The gates access a gravel path which leads to the southern entrance to Lochiel. Both Toorak Road and Hillside Crescent frontages have rendered brick retaining walls/fences, with a driveway gate at the northern end of the property.
The gravel path from the lych gate leads to a circular area with a central tree. From this area, a set of concrete steps accesses a path/terrace surmounting an embankment, with a second set of concrete steps leading to the southern entrance to Lochiel. The circular area has a stone threshold and stone pillar, and the gravel path has stone edgings and stone garden features.
The southwest section of the garden consists of a grove of mature trees with a wide terrace below a dry-stone embankment. A masonry retaining wall separates this area from a raised lawn and garden on the western side of the structure. The southeast section of the garden has an open lawn bordered by mature trees and shrubs. A masonry retaining wall separates this area from a raised lawn and garden on the eastern side of Lochiel.
A storage shed is located to the east of Lochiel at the northern end of the lawn. The shed has a gable roof with ribbed pan and corrugated iron sheeting and chamferboard walls. The southern gable has decorative timber bargeboards surmounting a gabled porch with latticed timber gable panel and decorative timber detailing. Lean-to structures have been added to the sides and rear of this building.
The rear of the property comprises an area of lawn with stone retaining walls to the rear boundary. Garages are located at the northwest corner of the property. The garages have a corrugated iron skillion roof supported by timber posts, with a weatherboard wall at the eastern end and timber garage doors. The garages contain part of the squared rubble-coursed sandstone structure of the original stables. The sandstone forms the rear wall of the structure, with three transverse wall sections, and the western end wall has a raked parapet. Brickwork surmounts the rear sandstone wall forming a parapet, and an early set of steps is located adjacent to the western end wall. The floor of the garage is concrete.
","history":"Lochiel comprises a substantial timber and masonry residence together with associated outbuildings (the former stables, shed, and lych gate) set within substantial grounds on the lower reaches of Toorak Hill overlooking the Hamilton reach of the Brisbane River. The house has evolved over several stages: its genesis is believed to be a two story masonry house erected by JF Buckland in the 1860s. After the house was purchased by John Samuel Cameron (the younger) in 1899 two timber additions were undertaken: a museum wing by 1906 and a first floor addition over the eastern wing by 1927. The layout of the garden is also believed to date from Cameron's ownership. Lochiel remains in the ownership of the Cameron family; the house having being converted into flats after World War II. This history is based entirely on publicly held records. It is believed that further information is held by the Cameron family, which may well contribute further to its understanding.
The land on which Lochiel stands forms part of an original deed of grant of 5 acres (described as allotment 5 of portion 1) made in April 1855 to John James Perry and William Anthony Brown both of Brisbane. It is not known whether the land was occupied at this time, however Nehemiah Bartley writing in 1854 describes a foot track over Toorak Hill (then called Gage's Hill) to German Station at Nundah so avoiding the longer route by the river bank. Prior to 1845 squatting licences were known to have been granted in this vicinity (including to Gage who cleared land, and planted maize and vegetables). On the other side of Breakfast Creek, just three years after the declaration of free settlement and the first Brisbane land sales, land was offered for sale including the Newstead House (QHR 600265) parcel (house erected 1845/6).
The value of the Breakfast Creek / Hamilton district had been recognised from the earliest settlement of Brisbane. In 1824, prior to the resiting of the Moreton Bay penal colony from Redcliffe to Brisbane, it was Breakfast Creek which was nominated by Governor Brisbane and John Oxley as a more suitable place for settlement with the rocky point now known as Cameron Rocks identified as having good anchorage and a natural wharf. The first known settlement in the district however came with the establishment in 1829 of Eagle Farm as an annexe to the penal colony. The construction of the Eagle Farm Road by convicts (later also called Breakfast Creek Road and Hamilton Road, now Kingsford Smith Drive) and a bridge across Breakfast Creek later providing impetus for the early development of the area.
In 1865 allotment 5 was transferred to Peter Nicol Russell described on the title as of London but according to electoral records resident at New Farm. In the same year this was subdivided into 15 lots. An 1864 advertisement for sale of nearby lands describes the area along the Eagle Farm Road as at all times the most favourite direction for suburban residence, it has of late been even more enquired after for similar purposes ... Very great improvements have attended the progress of this locality during the last twelve months.
According to title's information, on 21 September 1867 (but possibly some two years earlier), three of the subdivided parcels of allotment 5 (subs 11, 12, and 13) containing 2 roods and 16 perches were transferred to Ellen Gertrude Buckland. EG Buckland (?-1911) was the wife of John Francis Buckland (1832-1910). JF Buckland arrived in Queensland in 1862 from England establishing an auctioneering partnership with Simon Fraser (Fraser & Buckland 1863-1873); later in business on his own account as an auctioneer and broker. He was an original member of the Nundah Divisional Board (created 1880/1) until 1883 when he became the first Chairman of the new Toombul Divisional Board of which he remained a member until the late 1880s when, with the creation of the new Hamilton Divisional Board, he no longer resided within the boundaries of Toombul. From 1882-1892 he was the MLA for Bulimba.
The first Post Office Directories (1868) record Buckland as residing at Breakfast Creek (which the area was known as). Based on a combination of the Post Office Directories and photographic evidence, it is the Bucklands who are believed to have erected what was to become the first stage of Lochiel. A photograph dated 1868 shows the house at this stage believed to have comprised 2 rooms upstairs with kitchen area below fronting what is now known as Hillside Crescent. No architect or builder has to date been identified although in 1864 Brisbane architect WH Chambers erected the Queen Street premises of Fraser and Buckland. During the Buckland's residency the house appears to have been known firstly as Balmoral Cottage and from 1885-6 as Runnymeade.
The Bucklands' Toorak Hill neighbours at this time included several substantial residences: James Dickson's 'Toorak' (QHR 600216) erected c1865, 'Eldernell' (1869), 'Waterview' (later 'Camden House'; demolished), and 'Mt Pleasant' (on the western side of Toorak Rd).
In 1889 a further 2 roods 16 perches was added to the Runnymeade holding with resubs 11-16 of subs 6, 7, and 8 (with frontage to Dickson Terrace) being acquired again in the name of Ellen Gertrude Buckland. (This land is no longer part of the Lochiel holding and does not form part of the entry in the Heritage Register). A photograph dating from this time shows Runneymede as a masonry house in cottage orne style comprising a simple gabled front section with verandahs facing south and a gabled brick wing to the northeast, which has apparently been added by this time. The house and extension have distinctive bargeboards with wavy edges. The photograph also shows a roof in the location of the existing small shed located to the east of the house and a mature garden. In the same year the Bucklands acquired a near neighbour to the east when Kate Quinlan erected 'Maria Ville' (later called 'Eltham').
In 1892, Buckland became insolvent although according to the Post Office Directories he remains at Runnymeade until the mid 1890s. From 1895-97 the house is listed as vacant, but was apparently occupied for a short time thereafter by Fred Lawson (of Lawson and Johnson fancy goods dealers) and renamed Langley Grove.
In 1899 the property was transferred by the mortgagee to John Samuel Cameron who renamed the house Lochiel. Cameron (1868-1917), son of John Samuel Cameron (1834-1902) and Frances Spencer Cameron was a partner in the Brisbane auctioneering firm established by his father, (John Cameron & Sons, which remains a family firm). JS Cameron Snr and his family are believed to have resided nearby to Lochiel (then Runnymeade) in the 1880s at Greenbank. In 1884 the family moved to Doowabah at Ormiston. In a manuscript held by the John Oxley Library, one of John Samuel Cameron's three sisters recalls that the Camerons were very keen gardeners, and with the help of John Neish, the Scottish gardener Captain Hope [of 'Ormiston House'] had brought out with him, we soon had a wonderful flower and fruit garden which was greatly helped by the many Sharks that were buried for fertilising purposes.
In 1900 John Cameron jnr married Etty Florence Griffiths Higgins. The Lochiel household also included Marian Griffiths Higgins (later Brown; Etty's daughter from her first marriage to Ernest Higgins) and two sons John Griffiths Cameron (b1903) and Stuart Francis Griffiths Cameron (b1904). Photographs show the house and grounds prior to the erection of the museum c1906. The studio photographs which appear to be contemporaneous are taken from the south east and north east. They show the house prior to the enclosing of the verandahs as well as a good view of the eastern wing of the house (including a small separately roofed timber addition) prior to the addition of the upper story. The roofed area to the rear of the house is also shown. Garden structures including post and rail fences, trellises and a small building on the eastern boundary are visible.
According to his sister Cameron was a keen collector, when young of Shells and Birds' Eggs and Native Weapons of all sorts but later became very interested in good China and Glass, particularly Bohemian and Venetian Glass, and his large collection contained many very beautiful specimens. Apparently to house his collection, by 1906, Cameron had added the museum to the western side of the house.
Built of timber, the museum interior is shown in photographs as having decorative tie beams and hangers, high level windows, and a striped timber floor. The collection appears to have been highly personal and eclectic with aboriginal artefacts, oriental furniture, porcelain paintings, and sculptures filling the space. The purpose built museum is believed to be rare. To date only one other purpose built private museum has been identified: at 'Beaufort Hill' Clayfield where in the 1920s Edward Hawkins had a museum room incorporated as part of a tower addition to an existing house.
By 1906 the lychgate at the corner of Toorak Road and Hillside Crescent had also been erected. By this time Hamilton was well established as a suburb of Brisbane. In 1899 the electric tram service to Ascot commenced; subdivisions continued including that of the nearby Toorak Estate (following the death of James Dixon in 1901); in 1904 the town of Hamilton succeeded the Shire of Hamilton as the local authority area; and 'the Rocky Wharf' (later called Cameron Rocks apparently in honour of JS Cameron), once described as the perfect landing place for a fledgling penal colony, was now a place for couples to "spoon" away the evening hours. A contemporary newspaper article describes the Hamilton township:
The mansions and villas of many of Brisbane's commercial men crown every green knoll, inviting the cool breezes of the eastern ocean ... Hamilton Road is a well-kept thoroughfare, and provides a much frequented drive, whilst the electric tramcars which traverse it are invariably filled on summer afternoons and evenings ... At the present time there are about 5,000 souls resident in Hamilton.
In 1916 Cameron appointed his brothers Waverley Fletcher Cameron, Stuart William Cameron, and his wife Etty Florence Cameron as trustees. They remained as trustees administering his estate after his death in the following year on 26 April 1917. Under the terms of Cameron's will, his wife continued to reside at Lochiel (including the enjoyment of the museum) until her death in August 1945 when Lochiel passed to their two sons.
The BCC Sewerage Detail Plan records that by 1927 an upper story had been added to Lochiel positioned over the early brick eastern wing, although based on photographic evidence this may have been as early as 1912. An undated photograph shows Lochiel after this addition which was detailed to match the museum wing. To date it has not been possible to identify who was responsible for this work. Based on drawings prepared by architects Job & Collins c1945 the upper floor was accessed by an internal stairwell from the existing eastern wing of the house.
The 1927 sewerage plan shows Lochiel much as it is today although at this time the land holding still extended through to Dickson Terrace. The plan shows the small shed, garages (believed to be former stables) to the north west of the site, lychgate, and several other unidentified structures. In the 1930s half of the land holding (fronting Dickson Terrace) was reconfigured into three blocks - subs 1 and 2 with frontage to Dickson Terrace; sub 3 with a narrow frontage to Toorak Road. None of these blocks were sold but remained (as required by Cameron's will) as part of the administered estate of John Samuel Cameron although sub 1 was leased from 1936 to one of the Cameron sons, John Griffiths Cameron. A house may have been erected on this site at this time.
Following the death of Etty Florence Cameron in 1945, her two sons inherited the property as provided for under their father's will. At this time the contents of the museum were apparently dispersed and architects Job & Collins prepared drawings for the conversion of the house into flats. One drawing also shows the pre-flat layout of the ground floor: the early masonry core of the house contains the dining room and a bedroom; the eastern wing, a bedroom, stairwell to upper level, maid's room (in the timber portion), and bathroom on the verandah; to the rear of the house is the living room with stairs to basement level marked; kitchen, scullery, and associated service rooms to the west of the living room; the museum is shown with several entrances marked to other parts of the house. It is not known what use if any was made of the basement rooms (which in addition to the original kitchen rooms also includes a room under the museum). The second drawing documents the conversion of the house into the 6 existing flats.
From 1947, the two Dickson Terrace blocks are separated from the main house block subs 11,12, and 13 and sub 3 (containing the house Lochiel) - each son acquiring a block with the house block being held in joint ownership. After the death of Stuart Cameron in 1972, the whole of what is now considered the Lochiel house block is acquired by John Griffiths Cameron. Lochiel was acquired by the present owners following the death of their father in 1976. A 1997 application for demolition which was refused by the Brisbane City Council attracted a considerable number of objections. Lochiel remains on the market. A feasibility study for its reuse commissioned on behalf of the Queensland Heritage Council in 1998 has identified several potential uses.
","criteria":"Arguably unique and indeed highly idiosyncratic Lochiel comprises a substantial house, outbuildings, and large established garden situated on the lower slopes of Toorak Hill overlooking the Brisbane River. It is a rare, intact, and fine example of a suburban estate; its evolution over several stages (the earliest believed to date from the 1860s) well illustrating the development of Brisbane and one of its earliest suburbs, Hamilton.
|Arguably unique and indeed highly idiosyncratic Lochiel comprises a substantial house, outbuildings, and large established garden situated on the lower slopes of Toorak Hill overlooking the Brisbane River. It is a rare, intact, and fine example of a suburban estate; its evolution over several stages (the earliest believed to date from the 1860s) well illustrating the development of Brisbane and one of its earliest suburbs, Hamilton. The early masonry core of the house, with surviving lower service area, is both a fine and rare surviving example of its type. The more idiosyncratic nature of Lochiel is more particularly found however in the form, placement, and exuberant detailing of the substantial timber additions (museum c1906 and upper eastern wing by 1927) and in the very building of the museum room as a purpose built private exhibition space. The garden including structural elements (such as paths, steps, walls, and decorative features) and mature plantings is also considered a rare and intact example of a pre World War II garden.
|An investigation of the fabric of the house and garden and the publication of information believed held by the Cameron family have the potential to substantially contribute to the further understanding of the history of Lochiel.
|It is a rare, intact, and fine example of a suburban estate; its evolution over several stages (the earliest believed to date from the 1860s) well illustrating the development of Brisbane and one of its earliest suburbs, Hamilton. The early masonry core of the house, with surviving lower service area, is both a fine and rare surviving example of its type.
The garden including structural elements (such as paths, steps, walls, and decorative features) and mature plantings is also considered a rare and intact example of a pre World War II garden
|Lochiel has considerable aesthetic qualities including the picturesque qualities of the house and garden (including garden structures) and the site itself with its views to the river
|Lochiel has a long association with JF Buckland, who was prominent in Brisbane's civic affairs. For over a century it has remained in the ownership of the Cameron family, a testament to the particular vision of JS Cameron.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16702,"place_ref":601966,"name":"Gona Barracks","alternate_name":"Kelvin Grove Training Area | Kelvin Grove Military Reserve","street_address":"3,7,12, 25 & 26 Gona Parade","suburb":"KELVIN GROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"Gona Barracks occupies a site of almost seven hectares in the inner northern Brisbane suburb of Kelvin Grove. The complex is comprised of approximately 70 individual buildings, located in two fairly evenly divided areas known as the 'upper barracks', accessed via Kelvin Grove Road, and the 'lower arracks' entered from Sylvan Road. The upper barracks area features an expansive central parade ground area, around which a group of buildings is arranged. The lower barracks feature two main groups of buildings set within grassed and bituminised areas.
THE UPPER BARRACKS
GUN PARK SHED 1
The upper barracks area contains two gun park sheds. The first of these is located to the north west of the Kelvin Grove Road entry to the site. The building is a long single storey timber structure, set on a concrete base, with a gabled roof sheeted in corrugated steel. Original timber doors to the elevation facing the parade ground have been replaced with roller and tilting metal doors. The end rooms contain their original doors and windows. A series of horse hitching rails are located along the length of the western side of this building.
GUN PARK SHED 2
The second gun park shed located on the barracks site mirrors the other gun park shed in construction materials and design. It also contains some early VJ timber linings and early room divisions, although the main gun park space has been subdivided. A ceramic drinking fountain situated on the edge of the parade ground outside this building may be original to its construction. This shed also features a series of horse hitching rails on the western elevation.
ARTIFICERS WORKSHOP (STORE)
West of gun park shed 2 is the artificers workshop. It is a small single storey building on a concrete base with a timber frame clad in ribbed steel sheeting with a gabled roof sheeted in the same material. Internally, the building has two main rooms, one set at a slightly lower level than the other. The building may have been built in two stages. One section appears to be of early construction, and modern cladding has been applied to the outside. This building has been extensively reworked over the years.
STOREROOM
Adjacent to the artificers workshop. on the western extreme of the site, is a c1950s storeroom. It is a small single storey building constructed of a timber frame with part height corrugated iron sheeting roughly applied, and steel mesh to the upper portions with an earth floor. The shallow pitch gabled roof is sheeted with corrugated iron. A timber door is centrally located.
ARTILLERY DRILL HALL (ADMIN)
The 1915 Artillery drill hall is positioned at right angles to the number 2 gun park shed, on a north-east - south-west axis, near the western boundary of the site. The building addresses the central parade ground area. The hall is a long, predominantly single storey building constructed of timber weatherboards, with a two storey section at the western end, reflecting its original construction as two separate buildings. Roofs to both buildings are gabled and sheeted with corrugated steel.
The two storey section of the building to the west features original flanking single storey wings. Some original timber double doors on the ground floor of this building remain, while weatherboards and roller doors have been inserted where other timber double doors once existed. One of two original flights of stairs to the building remain. The lecture room on the first floor exists in its original configuration.
In the eastern section of the building, some original timber double doors are infilled with weatherboards, louvre windows and single doors. To the northern elevation, aluminium framed windows and doors are positioned in many original door openings.
Internally, there are a number of original VJ walls and ceiling linings, while the large central hall has a more recent suspended ceiling. The hall is subdivided into two smaller areas, one of which is further subdivided by part-height partitions.
SANITATION, ABLUTIONS AND LATRINE BLOCKS
Two sanitation, ablutions and latrine blocks are located to the north-east of the Artillery drill hall. The block closest the hall is currently a female toilet, and appears to have been constructed as an earth closet in association with the Artillery drill hall. It is a small single storey weatherboard building sitting on a concrete base, with a gabled roof sheeted in corrugated iron. A corrugated iron screen shields the entrance to the toilet from the parade ground.
The neighbouring circa World War II toilet block is a small single storey structure, clad in weatherboards on a concrete base, with a skillion roof sheeted in corrugated steel. It appears to have been built on the site of an earlier wireless hut.
To the north of the ablution blocks are two c1980s buildings, an armoury and lecture room. The armoury is a small single storey masonry building on a concrete base sheeted in corrugated steel and skillion roof. The lecture room is a portable metal clad building set on low stumps.
ENGINEER'S (RAE) DEPOT (ADMIN)
The 1915 Engineer's (RAE) depot is located east of the Artillery drill hall, and sits at right angles to this building. It is a two storey timber framed weatherboard building with an additional two storey wing at the southern end constructed at right angles to the original building. The gabled roof is sheeted with corrugated steel. Access to the building from the parade ground is gained to the upper floor via four bridges. The site drops away dramatically around this building and to the east access to the building is made to the lower floor.
Internally, full height partitions divide the central space, creating individual offices, while the lower floor features messes. Early VJ linings to the perimeter walls on the upper level exist, while the lower level has mostly recent linings and finishes although the timber post and beam structure remains visible. A face brick wall lines a large part of the lower level on the parade ground side. An original timber door to the waggon shed on the lower level exist, while timber infill and new doors and windows are in place where other timber doors were once located.
The later wing contains several rooms on the upper level and a large modern kitchen below.
A tennis court is located to the east of the Engineer's depot, and a flag pole is located in the parade ground area to the west.
PARADE GROUND STRUCTURES
The central parade ground area is located to the south of the structures noted above. It is a bitumenised area with storage compounds and small shelter sheds located on its eastern elevation. The most substantial structure in this area is a c1980s single storey building set on a concrete base covered with steel sheeting, comprising seven bays with roller shutters.
TOOWONG DRILL HALL (ADMIN)
The 1915 Toowong drill hall is located to the east of the central parade ground area. The hall is a large timber framed building sheeted in corrugated iron. It sits on concrete stumps and bearers with infill of corrugated iron sheeting, forming a basement level.
South of the Toowong drill hall is a c1980s armoury. It is a single storey building on a concrete base sheeted with corrugated steel, with a skillion roof. This building is not of cultural heritage significance.
AUSTRALIAN ARMY SERVICE CORPS (AASC) DRILL HALL
The AASC drill hall is located south of the Toowong drill hall, in the eastern corner of the upper barracks site. It is a long single storey timber building set on a concrete base. A centrally located double storey height section is flanked by lower, single storey wings. The gabled roof is sheeted with corrugated steel. Some original windows and doors survive, while others have been replaced with steel tilting doors. The building also features aluminium awnings. Internally, the original drill room space contains a series of offices with part height partitioning and suspended ceilings. Some early VJ timber partitions and linings remain and the timber roof trusses exist above the suspended ceilings. The eastern end of the building contains a bar and mess area.
To the rear of the AASC drill hall, on the south-western corner of the building, is a timber toilet block set on a concrete base, with a skillion roof sheeted with corrugated iron. It is joined to the drill hall via an attached shower block.
A c1970s toilet block, and c1980s shelter are also located to the rear of the AASC drill, at the eastern end of the building. These structures are not of cultural heritage significance.
FRANK MORAN MEMORIAL HALL
The Frank Moran Memorial Hall is located south-west of the AASC drill hall. It is a single storey timber building sited on low concrete stumps, with a gabled roof sheeted with corrugated steel. A skillion roofed addition is located to the rear of the building to the south. The interior features VJ timber walls and original ceiling lining.
Located adjacent to the memorial hall is a concrete slab which originally supported a post World War II Petrol, Oil and Lubricant store.
INFANTRY DRILL HALL
The 1914 Infantry drill hall is located in the southern corner of the upper barracks site. It is a large single storey building, timber framed and sheeted in corrugated iron, with a gabled roof also sheeted in corrugated iron. The building has a concrete floor that is not original. A 1939 skillion roofed addition is located to the northern end of the building, and another addition exists to the south. Internally, most of the drill room space is intact with exposed roofing. There are offices with original timber linings and doors, located along the western elevation.
On the south-western corner of the building is a 1914 latrine building. It is a small timber framed building sheeted with corrugated iron, and has a simple gable roof with a skillion attached and sits on a concrete base.
A 1930s fire hut is also sited on this corner of the drill hall. It is a single storey building on a concrete base, timber framed and sheeted in corrugated iron with a corrugated iron roof.*
A small metal clad storage shed built on a concrete base is located to the west of the drill hall, along the property boundary on Kelvin Grove Road. This structure is not of cultural heritage significance.
GARAGE AND WORKSHOP
The 1941-42 garage and workshop building is sited adjacent to the Infantry drill hall, along the western elevation of the central parade area. It is a large single storey building set on a concrete base, sheeted and roofed in corrugated iron. The roof has a saw tooth profile. Internally, the building is divided into various rooms, some with suspended ceilings. The steel structure remains and is visible through most of the building.
Three small structures are located north-west of the garage and workshop. One is a c1940s bowser store, consisting of a timber frame supporting a corrugated iron roof, sheltering two petrol bowsers. Another is a c1950s-60s small single storey storeroom set on a concrete base, timber framed and sheeted with corrugated iron, with a gabled, corrugated iron roof. The third building is a c1980s latrine. It is a demountable or pre-fabricated type amenities block and is not of cultural heritage significance.
ARMY RESERVE RECRUITING COMPONENT
This building is located on the western side of the main entry to the site from Kelvin Grove Road. The c1930s structure is a single storey timber building on low concrete and steel stumps. The building has a gabled roof sheeted in corrugated iron. Two building wings extend to the east and west of the main part of the structure. Internally, the building comprises a number of rooms to the north and a large room to the east. Opening off this large room is a kitchen containing some early windows and doors. Other windows are of more recent installation, as are wall linings, ceilings and floor coverings. The building has early loft storage areas accessed by ladder at each end of the main section.
A flag pole is located to the north of this building, in the centre of the main entry to the site.
THE LOWER BARRACKS
The lower barracks area is located to the north-east of the upper barracks area. A driveway joining the two barracks areas runs from the north-western elevation of the Engineer's depot to the eastern elevation of the Quartermasters store in the lower barracks area. External access to the lower barracks area is gained via Blamey Street and Kelvin Grove Road, through the upper barracks. The area developed for Engineers is located in the northern portion of the lower barracks, while the area for Signals is positioned in the southern portion of the site.
The Engineers area is reached immediately upon entering the lower barracks from Blamey Street. A group of seven buildings are loosely organised around a bitumen area, and include administration buildings, a bridging store, an armoury and quartermasters store, an RAE training assembly hall and a 1970s prefabricated lecture room. The bridging store is a timber-framed shed building, while the other structures in the Engineers area are timber or steel framed buildings, set on concrete stumps and featuring weatherboard cladding and corrugated iron or steel roofs. The Engineers buildings are a mixture of structures built both on-site, and relocated from Wacol Army Barracks in 1953.
South of the Engineers area is a group of buildings established in an 'L' configuration around a bitumen area for Signals men and women. Some of the structures, including a battery room, Signals Corps Area Assembly Hall, a latrine, an administration building, a lecture room and a c1970s shelter shed were constructed on-site, while other administration buildings, a canteen and a surgery were relocated to the site from the Wacol Army Barracks in 1953. The buildings are generally timber or steel framed with weatherboard cladding and corrugated iron and steel roofs, set on concrete stumps. The 1970s shelter shed is a concrete block building.
Located between the Engineers and Signals areas, on the eastern border of the site, is the PMG School for Linesmen in Training building. It is a two storey timber-framed building sheeted in fibrous cement panelling. c1970s 'wash point' is cited south of the School for Linesmen building, across a roadway and open area. It is a concrete parking area with storage sheds at one end used for the washing down of vehicles.
THE LANDSCAPE
The Gona Barracks site contains a variety of trees and shrubs, endemic, planted and self-seeded, that have developed over time with the development of the site. The trees can be broadly classified according to the period of planting as indicated by their size, species and location.
VEGETATION WHICH PREDATES ARMY OCCUPATION
One Ficus platypoda along the Kelvin Grove alignment appears to be the only remnant vegetation on site.
INTERWAR VEGETATION
A significant stand of stately Jacaranda acutifolia and Grevillea robusta trees planted as an avenue along the roadway between the Engineers' depot and the Toowong drill hall in the upper barracks area, forms the most significant stand of vegetation on the site. It appears the embankment and roadway on which these tress stand was in existence by 1925. Within this group are a number of Phytolaccia dioica which are possibly of a similar age.
POSTWAR VEGETATION
A group of assorted trees including exotic species and some Queensland rainforest trees are to be found on the embankment below the parade ground area.
SELF SOWN TREES
Numerous isolated trees have seeded themselves throughout the site and in particular on batters created during earthworks in the 1920s on the upper barracks and in 1953 on the lower barracks. Several isolated Ficus platypoda occur is scattered locations on the lower barracks. These specimens are of a moderate size and may have self sown, planted or may be remnant.
","history":"The Gona Barracks site was established just prior to World War I in the 1910s, for the purpose of military training for specialist units of compulsory militia forces. The site continued to develop and became a Citizens Militia Forces training complex in the 1950s, and later an Army Reserve recruitment centre.
The settlement of Brisbane began in 1825 with the establishment of a penal colony along that part of the Brisbane River that was later to become the town's central business district. Transportation ceased less than twenty years later in 1842, and Brisbane was opened to free settlement. The town was surveyed, and land to the north and west of Spring Hill, an area of early settlement, was made into park land. West of Victoria Park, the largest of the government reserves, the area now known as Kelvin Grove was cleared, and subdivided and offered for sale by the 1860s. The site that was eventually to become Gona Barracks was listed as Portion 322, Parish of North Brisbane, County of Stanley.
On 28 March 1879, Portion 322 was granted by the colonial government to the Brisbane Grammar School as an endowment. The school retained the endowment until 1911, leasing grazing rights to the holding as a means of raising funds for the school. No buildings were thought to have been constructed on the site throughout this period, and the only improvement to the endowment was the construction of a number of fences.
In May 1911, the Commonwealth acquired the Brisbane Grammar School endowment, and renamed the site the Kelvin Grove Defence Reserve. Acquisition of the property was a response to the need for training facilities for Australia's expanding military forces. Forces of a voluntary nature, supported by a small number of permanent forces, had been in place in most of the Australian colonies by the late nineteenth century. With the Federation of Australia's six colonies on 1 January 1901, defence became the responsibility of the new Commonwealth Government, and a Department of Defence was established in March 1901. The department took over control of the various colonial volunteer forces which, together with 1500 full-time soldiers, numbered almost 30,000. An external report completed in 1909 suggested the volunteer militia forces needed to be increased to number 80,000 soldiers and led to the establishment of the Army's Royal Military College at Duntroon in 1911. The Federal Government's response to the report was to introduce compulsory military training for both men and boys. The bulk of the Army's officers and troops were to serve on a part-time basis in the Australian Military Forces (AMF or militia), attending training one night per week and participating in some weekend camps and an annual encampment.
By 1911, some 90,000 men and boys had registered for military training Australia-wide, a number which expanded to over 130,000 two years later. Facilities for training in Brisbane included drill halls in Alice and Adelaide Streets in the city, and in Boundary Street in Spring Hill. The increase in numbers placed pressure on these facilities, none of which had room for expansion as each was located in a built-up area. The Department of Defence decided it would solve the problem by swapping the three inner Brisbane drill hall sites with the State Government for more adequate land, specifying that the site be close to a tram line. The Survey Officer of Engineers, Captain Good, identified three possible sites to replace the inner city drill halls. The Grammar School Endowment was favoured in assessments of the sites, and in November 1910 the trustees of the endowment accepted an offer of £8000, and the deed of title for the "Kelvin Grove Defence Reserve" was transferred to the Commonwealth in May 1911.
THE KELVIN GROVE DEFENCE RESERVE
The first buildings to be constructed on the Kelvin Grove Defence Reserve were an Infantry drill hall, consisting of a large drill space with eight offices along one side of the building, an associated toilet building, and an artificers workshop for Army mechanics, completed in 1914. This began an era of intense building activity at the site, precipitated by Australia's entry into World War I in August 1914. To enable the construction of further buildings, the site had to be made level, an activity costing over £3000. By October 1915, the levelling had been finished, and another building, the Engineer's depot, had been added to the site. This two-storey timber building was rectangular in shape, and was constructed to the design of Queensland Public Works Department architects. This building was completed at a cost of just over £1500 for the 23rd and 15th Engineer Companies, and included two wagon sheds and two harness rooms.
An Artillery drill hall, Brigade office and two gun parks for the Artillery units were the next additions to the site, constructed at the end of 1915. The Artillery drill hall was a rectangular, single storey building with offices and wagon sheds at each end of a centrally located drill hall. The Brigade hall was a two storey building, located to the west of the drill hall. The two gun park buildings were built at right angles to the Brigade hall, along the Kelvin Grove Road alignment. Each of the buildings featured a large room for the storage of 13 pounder artillery pieces, harness and cleaning rooms, and an office and commanding officer's room. These artillery buildings were designed by the Queensland branch of the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs, and are among the earliest Commonwealth designs in Queensland. Most Commonwealth buildings at this time were being designed and constructed by the various state's public works departments as it was some time before the Commonwealth established its own department with its own employees.
A drill hall for the Australian Army Service Corps (AASC) was added at the same time the Artillery buildings were constructed. This hall was built near the 1914 drill hall, at the opposite end of the site from the Artillery drill hall. The single storey timber building was constructed to the plans of Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs architects, whose drawings were more detailed copies of plans prepared by the state government. Some other ancillary buildings were added to the Kelvin Grove site by the end of World War I. These included a military laundry with an attached engine house, and a 'disinfector' building.
The First World War came to an end on 11 November 1918, and Australian troops returned home. Despite a lack of interest in matters military among the Australian government and people, military training continued at Kelvin Grove throughout the 1920s. By 1921, the Kelvin Grove site had become the training centre for the AASC, Signallers, Engineers and Artillerymen. The reserve was also used by the 11th Mixed Brigade for large training exercises, to which the specialist units based at Kelvin Grove were attached. On one occasion in 1923, the Kelvin Grove Engineers, Artillery, Signals and AASC units, together with Infantry, Australian Light Horse and Australian Army Medical Corps from elsewhere, combined for a training exercise at the site.
The use of some of the Kelvin Grove Defence Reserve buildings changed during the 1920s. The AASC moved out of its drill hall, which thereafter became ordnance offices and stores, while one of the gun parks was converted to an ordnance store, and the 1914 drill hall was converted to an ordnance lecture room.
The interwar period from 1919 to 1939 was an era of gradual expansion on the Reserve site. The first building to be constructed after the war was a corrugated iron remount depot. This building was dismantled and re-erected in 1933, and together with two riding yards and a manure pit, became the riding school. Many of the subsequent buildings to appear on the site throughout the Depression years of the 1930s were structures relocated from other locations. In 1934, the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) drill hall was relocated to Kelvin Grove from Toowong, at a cost of £1620. The hall was located on sloping land near the AASC drill hall at the southern end of the site. It was positioned on reinforced concrete stumps and converted into a two storey building. A Belgian 5.9 inch gun, captured from the Germans at Pozieres in France during World War I by the Queensland 9th Battalion, was mounted on the grass outside the building. Living quarters for an Army staff officer were also added in 1934. The three bedroom timber house was constructed along Sylvan Road by builders NT Stansfield and Thomas Foster at a quoted price of £1500. The following year, a Field Artillery officer's mess was constructed between the Artillery drill hall and brigade office, thereby converting the two separate buildings into a single structure.
The Frank Moran Memorial Hall was another building to be added to the Kelvin Grove site in the interwar period. Frank Moran was a cadet officer prior to World War I, involved the training of Brisbane Grammar School military cadets. When Australia entered the war, Moran enlisted in the 1st AIF and left Australia in November 1914. He fought at Gallopoli and died of wounds on board ship in August 1915. The Hall was one of three memorials erected in his memory, the others being a Memorial Cross at St Brigid's Catholic Church in Red Hill (dismantled in the 1930s); and a stained glass window in the Brisbane Grammar School War Memorial Library. Capital for the construction of the hall came from funds raised by Moran in 1913 and 1914, intended for the construction of a recreation building for cadets at Red Hill. Some £400 were raised, but lay forgotten until 1920. In 1925, the trustees of the fund decided to donate the money to the Army, provided the funds were used in a project that reflected the intentions of Moran more than ten years earlier. The following March, it was proposed the money be used for the construction of a recreation hut at Kelvin Grove which was to bear Moran's name. The Commonwealth Department of Works and Railways prepared plans for the Frank Moran Memorial Hall in 1928, and in November 1929 the hall was completed at a cost of £461. The simple timber building was sited between the AASC drill hall and the 1914 Infantry drill hall. Left over funds were used to purchase furniture, and a bathroom extension was added in 1933. In 1937 ownership and control of the hall was signed over to the Defence Department.
Throughout the interwar period, the northern portion of the Kelvin Grove Defence Reserve, the 'lower barracks', remained undeveloped by the Defence Department, who leased the land to private individuals for grazing purposes from the 1920s. The department resumed control of this area for the riding school in late 1934.
As the 1930s progressed, it became increasingly evident that another war was approaching. In February 1938 further additions were made to the site following a reorganisation of the existing buildings. The Engineers had moved from their 1915 depot building to the relocated Toowong drill hall, and the Army Signals Corps moved into the former Engineer's depot, renamed the Kelvin Grove Signals Corps depot. The southern side of the building was extended with a two storey wing, positioned at right angles to the original structure. This area housed a drill space and various stores and messes. In May 1939, the original 1914 drill hall was also altered with the construction of a skillion-roofed extension to the north. A fire hut was relocated to the rear of this drill hall. The Queensland 61st (Infantry) Battalion occupied the building at this time. Finally, in May 1939, a new lavatory block featuring a female toilet was erected under the Signals Corps depot; a closet building behind the AASC building was converted into a cookhouse; and a wireless hut located to the north of the Signals Corps depot, and a combined social and lecture hall were added to the Reserve.
WORLD WAR II
Australia entered the Second World War on 3 September 1939 with a declaration of war on Germany. Within the month of September, the 5th Field Artillery Regiment; the 42nd and 43rd Artillery Batteries; the 105th and 111th Artillery Batteries; and the first motor transport for the Batteries' 18 pounder guns and 4.5 inch howitzers, had assembled at the site. The militia troops from the Signals Corps, the RAE and the AASC were also located at the Kelvin Grove Mobilisation Stores, and the 9/49th Signals Unit and the 61st Battalion were operating out of the 1914 infantry drill hall.
During World War II there were two permanent additions to the Kelvin Grove site. One was a garage and workshops building for servicing AASC vehicles, made necessary by the Army's process of converting from horse transport to motorised. Plans for the building were prepared in November 1939 and it is thought construction of the building was completed around 1942. The other permanent construction was the School for Linesmen-in-Training building, a two storey, timber framed and sheeted with fibrous cement building, finished by July 1941. The still undeveloped lower barracks area was the location of the building, constructed at a price of £2961 by PR Ayre. The building was constructed for the Post Master General's Department, who agreed to train militia forces at the facility.
Besides the permanent additions to the barracks site, a number of temporary structures were added to accommodate some of the troops mobilised for the war effort. By the end of the war in 1945, temporary and permanent buildings of various shapes and sizes had spread throughout the Military Reserve. An area of notable development occurred around the staff officers quarters at the lower barracks. Here, 27 buildings formed the 2nd Australian Commander Royal Engineers camp. The buildings were likely to have been standard prefabricated structures of the World War II period, consisting of timber and masonite with fibro sheeting. A sloping dirt road connected the upper and lower barracks areas at this time, as did a long line of steep steps.
The US Army were also involved with the Kelvin Grove site during World War II. The parade ground area at the upper barracks site was made level by the US Army, whose alterations created the sunken road that runs past the relocated Toowong drill hall.
POST WAR YEARS
The Second World War ended in August 1945, and in the months to followed, Kelvin Grove Military Reserve saw the demobilisation of returning soldiers, and the disposal of surplus stores. In 1947, 48 buildings consisting mainly of the RAE Maintenance Company and Signals Camps in the Lower Barracks area, were designated as surplus to Army requirements and sold.
The post-war era was also a period of major reshaping of the Australian Army. The defence force was no longer to consist of a small core of professional offices, supported by a part-time army. To this end, the Australian Regular Army was created in September 1947, in which it was planned to have 19 000 full-time soldiers. The Australian Military Forces (militia) were renamed the Citizens Military Forces (CMF) in 1948, and in 1951 the Commonwealth introduced the National Service Scheme which required all 18 year old Australian males to register for six months compulsory full-time military training, followed by a period of part-time service. The Kelvin Grove site, which became known as the Kelvin Grove Training Area in 1948, was to be used in the National Service Scheme as a major CMF training centre in Brisbane.
In 1952 the Defence Department decided to construct a new CMF complex for the training of Engineers and Signals at the Kelvin Grove site. The complex required many buildings, some of which were new buildings constructed at the site, and others were relocated from elsewhere. In establishing the CMF facility, CMF Engineers dug the initial earthworks, and the old riding school was demolished. Twenty-one World War II era buildings were relocated to the lower barracks area from the Wacol Army Camp, and a weatherboard assembly hall was built for both the Engineers and Signals. The depots for both groups were completed in 1953 and the engineers buildings were painted blue and the Signals buildings painted brown to distinguish between the two Depot areas. Authorisation for sealing the road linking the upper and lower barracks areas was also given in 1953. During the 1950s the School for Linesmen Building became the headquarters of the 5th Cadet Brigade which controlled all the school cadet units located in Brisbane and surrounding districts. The 5th Cadet Brigade remained in the building throughout the 1960s.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the upper barracks continued its links with the Artillery. A 6 inch gun, reported to be from the HMAS Sydney, was located behind the 1915 Engineers depot. The gun was later removed to the Queensland Maritime Museum, although the 'H' frame steel base remained.
The boundary of the Kelvin Grove training area altered somewhat throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s. In the lower barracks area, two acres were purchased from the Queensland Government in 1953, and in subsequent years, the Army exchanged some of its land for privately owned land to make the Barracks site more symmetrical and to accommodate the expansion of the Signals depot. A portion of a State Government road reserve was also purchased at a cost of £1000 in 1961. While the lower barracks area was expanding in this period, the upper barracks area was reduced in size. The laundry site had been privately leased since the 1920s, and in 1954 the building and equipment was sold to the company, Bishops Laundry and Dry Cleaners, and thereby excised from the barracks site.
GONA BARRACKS
During the 1960s the Australian Army began renaming their barracks sites, drawing on prominent battles for the names. The Kelvin Grove site became 'Gona Barracks', derived from the Battle of Gona, fought between Japanese and Australian troops on the north coast of Papua between 16 November and 9 December 1942. The barracks continued to evolve and new military units moved to the site. In 1965 five brick houses were built along Blamey Street at a cost of £30,000 for use as married quarters. Two of the houses were later removed from Blamey Street, and the remaining three were excised from the barracks site. In 1966 the parade ground area was resealed in order to install two helicopter landing pads, while by the 1980s, a new steel demountable lecture room was constructed where the former riding school once stood. Another building, the 1934 staff officers quarters, was removed and relocated to Witton Barracks at Indooroopilly in 1974. In the 1970s portions of army land were acquired by the Main Roads Department for various road works adjoining the site, while another portion was sold and became part of the QUT Kelvin Grove Campus.
In recent years, Army recruitment in south-east Queensland became centred at the Gona Barracks site. Over the years, the use of many buildings changed and alterations to the buildings were made, especially in the upper barracks area. The former Artillery drill hall, former Engineers depot and the former AASC drill hall have been particularly altered internally.
In October 1998, following a period of scaling down of activity at the site, Gona Barracks officially closed. Units based at the barracks were dispersed to other Army bases, the museum shifted to Enoggera and a war memorial flagpole sent out to the Royal Australian Regiment Memorial Walk and Contemplation Building at Enoggera.
","criteria":"The former Gona Barracks is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as evidence of Queensland's preparations for military involvement in various world conflicts. Specifically, Gona Barracks is associated with the expansion of military training for militia forces after the introduction of compulsory military training in 1911, the provision of facilities for specialist militia units, and the continuation of voluntary military forces until 1998. The place contains World War I drill halls built for militia units of infantry, and more specialised groups such as the artillery, engineers and service corps, and as such demonstrates the extent of the various sections of the armed forces at the time and the commitment of the citizen soldiers who comprised these units. The general size of the barracks site also demonstrates the site's early history as the Brisbane Grammar School endowment, from 1879 to 1911.
|The World War I era buildings in the upper barracks area of Gona Barracks demonstrate rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as a surviving precinct of buildings from this period, and as examples of the early design of buildings by the Commonwealth. The concentration of drill halls, and the number of different types of drill halls for the various services sited at one location was not a common military practice at the time. The gun park, services, artillery and engineers drill halls are rare surviving examples of their type.
|Gona Barracks has the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history as the World War I buildings in the upper barracks demonstrate the development of military technology. The buildings constructed for the artillery, service corps and engineers demonstrate in their form and room layouts the important role played by horses in military activity at that time, which was later supersede by motorised transportation.
|Gona Barracks is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places, as the layout of the World War I buildings illustrate the military use of the site. This group of buildings was carefully and deliberately placed around a central parade ground area, a practice which was followed in other parts of Australia. The World War II buildings also demonstrate the principal characteristics of this type of building, constructed of timber with corrugated iron roofs, elevated on low stumps.
|Gona Barracks is important because of its aesthetic significance. The World War I buildings in the upper barracks area are of aesthetic significance as a group of similarly scaled buildings constructed of timber, positioned around a central open space or parade ground area. These qualities are enhanced by the overall intactness of the exteriors of most of these buildings.
|Gona Barracks has a special association with a substantial part of Queensland's military community. As a military training ground since the early years of World War I until 1998, thousands of servicemen and women have an association with the site which has played an active role during the major periods of defence organisation in this country. In more recent years, it has functioned as an Army recruiting centre, particularly for the Army Reserve who were based at the site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16703,"place_ref":601967,"name":"Rockhampton Hospital - Therapies Block and Medical Superintendents Residence","alternate_name":"Outpatients and Sister Kenny Clinic and Medical Superintendent's Residence","street_address":"Canning Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-11-21","description":"The Rockhampton Hospital is on a large site elevated on the Athelstane Range, to the south of the Rockhampton town centre. The site is bordered by Canning, North, Cambridge and Quarry Streets. The buildings on which this report focuses are the therapies block and medical superintendent's residence both on Canning Street, a fence along the Canning Street boundary of the property and a former nurses' quarters, near the Canning Street entrance of the hospital.
Former Outpatients' Department and Sister Kenny Clinic
This is a substantial one storeyed face brick and concrete building situated close to the northern corner of the site and addressing Canning Street. The building has an L-shaped plan and a shallow pitched roof comprises two hipped sections all concealed by a parapet. Forming the northern, Canning Street elevation and the western elevation fronting the entrance drive, is an open brick framed loggia. The loggia comprises a number of square headed openings separated by substantial brick pillars which extend upward and project from the face of the parapet above the loggia. The openings are balustraded with brick panels with rectangular cutouts. The parapet steps up, to form symmetrical Art Deco projections over the principal entrances on the two principal façades and at the corners of the building. These projections feature clustered vertical bands of shaped brickwork. The façades of the building are lined with variously coloured brick bands and detailing surrounding windows and on the parapet projections.
1936 Medical Superintendent's Residence
This building was designed by the architects of the former Outpatients Department and Sister Kenny's Clinic and is similar in material and detail. It is a one storeyed dark cavity brick and concrete building with a multi hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. The house is sited facing Canning Street and this elevation of the building is dominated by a large, hipped roof porch, supported on brick piers surmounted by double timber columns. The porch is balustraded with vertical timber battening at the height of the brick piers. The interior contains three bedrooms, a bathroom, a lounge, kitchen and dining room. Accommodation for a laundry is under the house. The building is very intact, although the kitchen and bathroom have been refurbished. Two conifers are on either side of the Canning Street entrance.
Fence along Canning Street
Along the Canning Street boundary of the site is a substantial brick fence, which visually integrates the brick buildings along this side of the hospital. The fence steps down the length of the boundary and at each break features brick piers decorated with strapwork caps. Along the top of the fence is a line of rectangular cutouts, similar to those on the balustrades of the former Outpatients Department and Sister Kenny Clinic.
","history":"The Rockhampton Hospital Site was established in 1867, and was the second site of a hospital in the city. The extant buildings on the site date from the twentieth century. The parts of the hospital which are considered to be of cultural heritage significance include a former Outpatients Department incorporating a purpose built Kenny Clinic dating from 1938; a former nurses' quarters dating from 1929 and a medical superintendent's residence constructed in 1936, along with a substantial brick fence on the Canning Street boundary of the hospital.
A hospital, named the Port Curtis and Leichhardt District Hospital, was established in Rockhampton in 1858, and in 1867 a decision was made to relocate the hospital to a more elevated site on the Athelstane Range to the south of the town centre. A large two storeyed brick building was constructed on the new site to the design of local architect, John Thomas Thorne. This was extended on the late 1870s and additional buildings were constructed on the site in the 1880s all to the design of another Rockhampton architect, John Wilson.
The Rockhampton Hospital, as it was now named, grew slowly until the introduction of the Hospitals Act (1923) generated a large number of building works on site. The Act brought about many changes to the practice of health care provision in Queensland, resulting in the state government providing more funding to hospitals, bringing about the current system of health care as a responsibility of the state. The Act allowed for the creation of districts, each with a hospital board responsible for fundraising and management issues. Shortfalls in funding were met by state and local governments. The Hospital Board created to oversee the Rockhampton Hospital as a result of the Act, reviewed the entire site, at the time they were appointed. One of the first initiatives of the newly created board and as a result of the Maternity Act (1922) a maternity ward was constructed on the Rockhampton Hospital site in 1928. The Rockhampton maternity ward, which is now demolished, was of a standard plan and form. The next major building work, which was designed by local architects, Hockings and Palmer in 1926, was a nurses' quarters constructed in 1929.
Medical Superintendent's Residence
Hockings and Palmer, the architects of the first nurses' quarters were again employed on the next building project; the construction of a medical superintendents residence on Canning Street. Many medical residences were constructed on Hospital sites during the 1930s when formal schemes were introduced to house medical staff on site. To complement this building, and foreshadowing the design of the Outpatients Department of 1939, a brick fence was constructed along the Canning Street perimeter of the Hospital site. This was considered an integrating element and was dedicated to the memory of Mr G Sandrock, an early hospital benefactor. The elaborate geometrically designed gates have been removed but are stored on site.
Outpatients Department and Sister Kenny Clinic
The next major building constructed at the Rockhampton Hospital was a brick Outpatients' Department and Sister Kenny Clinic, also designed by Hockings and Palmer. The building was officially opened by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Mr EM Hanlon on 25 June 1939.
At the opening discussion of the rapid and dramatic increase in the number of outpatients in the five years prior to the construction of the building was given as the reason for it. The Hospital Board had decided that the building would also house a Sister Kenny Clinic for the treatment of poliomyelitis. Two nurses trained in the Kenny method of treatment, came from Brisbane to Rockhampton to provide treatments at the clinic. The cost of the building was estimated at £13500 of which the government had made a subsidy of £3100 and the balance had been finance by a debenture loan from the State Government Insurance Office.
Sister Kenny became a renowned medical figure for her treatment of people with poliomyelitis, an infectious disease causing motor paralysis and permanent deformities. Following an outbreak of the disease in 1931-32, Kenny's unorthodox methods of treating poliomyelitis were more seriously considered by the medical establishment resulting in the establishment of several clinics throughout Queensland, Australia and internationally. Although the benefits of her methods were never fully endorsed in Australia, the popularity of Sister Kenny and of her treatment was prolific. Previously poliomyelitis was treated with immobilisation, but Sister Kenny advocated mobility in the form of massage, warm baths and constant nursing supervision. Despite controversy surrounding Kenny, her methods were an interesting and controversial development in the treatment of poliomyelitis, spastic paralysis and other long term physical disabilities which were unavailable elsewhere.
Kenny opened a private clinic in Townsville in 1932 and soon attracted the attention of the government to her endeavours. The Home Secretary, EM Hanlon, supported her methods and through the government financed the establishment of Kenny Clinics at Townsville, Rockhampton, Cairns and Brisbane. The popularity of her work expanded and in 1938 the wing of the new outpatients block at the Rockhampton Hospital became the only purpose built Kenny Clinic in Queensland. At the opening the Minister, EM Hanlon, defended the government's financial backing of the Kenny method by saying "the methods were now in operation not only in Queensland, but in Tasmania, New South Wales and in London. In all those centres a great number of cases had been successfully dealt with and...the clinic...would prove a wonderful service to the people of Rockhampton."
The Outpatients' Department and Sister Kenny Clinic have been converted for us as a therapies block. The building is an important example of the work of architects, Hockings and Palmer and similar to their design for the Rockhampton Town Hall. It was designed, like the nearby residence and fence, from polychrome brick with Art Deco inspired detailing.
In the years following the construction of the Outpatients' Department, the idea of a 'modern hospital' emerged as a departure from the nineteenth century pavilion planned hospital which endured into the twentieth century. The modern hospital was focussed on cleanliness and efficiency influenced by the new germ theory of disease. These values were achieved within the framework provided by a new, modern architecture and characterised by multi levelled high rise structures incorporating new building and health technology.
As a result of these ideas governing hospital design many new buildings were constructed on the Hospital site. A five storeyed nurses quarters' was built from 1950, designed by Brisbane a architects, Conrad and Gargett. In 1952 the same firm designed a single storeyed isolation ward and in 1958 they designed a two storeyed animal house. The next major building was constructed in 1959 when Conrad and Gargett designed a four storeyed chest clinic funded by the Federal Government as part of plan to eradicate tuberculosis and other chest related diseases. In 1970 construction of a new multi storeyed surgical block was commenced. In 1986 the remaining nineteenth century buildings and the 1930, Roy Chipps designed nurses' quarters were demolished.
","criteria":"The Rockhampton Hospital demonstrates the growth of Rockhampton and its prominence as a large regional centre. The former Sister Kenny Clinic is important for its demonstration of the development of medical history, particularly concerning the treatment of poliomyelitis.
|The building is rare as the only purpose built Kenny Clinic constructed in Queensland, although many others opened in converted buildings.
|This building, which is substantially intact, has the potential to yield further information about Kenny's methods of treatment.
|The former Sister Kenny Clinic, medical residence of 1936 and fence along Canning Street are good and characteristic examples of the work of Rockhampton architects, Hockings and Palmer and designed in a manner similar to their most prominent Rockhampton building, the Town Hall. In particular the former Outpatients' Department and Sister Kenny Clinic is particularly prominent as a well designed corner building.
|The buildings at the hospital have considerable architectural merit, as well composed and complementary structures with significant landmark qualities and are important elements of this streetscape. The former nurses' quarters, also designed by Hockings and Palmer, is a well designed functional building adapted to the tropical climate of Rockhampton with much attention paid to ventilation.
|The hospital site has importance for its associations with Sister Kenny and as the principal place of public health care in Rockhampton for about 130 years.
|The site is important for its associations with local architects, Hockings and Palmer.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16706,"place_ref":601970,"name":"Longreach Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Capricorn Highway","suburb":"LONGREACH","lga":"LONGREACH REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-12-12","description":"The station complex has a prominent location on the Capricorn Highway at the northern end of the main commercial precinct. It is opposite parkland with mature trees and a memorial.
Passenger Station
The Passenger Station building is a substantial and stylistic timber passenger station of the early twentieth century, demonstrating an Edwardian influence in style and decoration including central portico with parapet and pediment. The building is located on concrete stumps with timber floor throughout.
On the northern side of the building is the cantilevered steel framed platform awning with bull-nose front edge. Two timber sash windows are located along the northern side of the building.
The building has an imposing open front verandah with paired timber posts, capitals and brackets with a hipped main roof with a parapet surmounted by turned finials. The date AD 1916 appears on the pediment. The roof is clad with corrugated galvanised iron with original metal ventilators intact.
There are some internal tongue and groove VJ walls still exposed, however, the Ladies waiting room has been fitted out with toilet facilities. A bench seat remains in the waiting room.
Original ticket windows survive in the western end of the building. The windows have been fitted with security grills. A bench seat remains in this central walkway section.
Internally, some suspended exposed grid drop-in ceilings have been installed and new tiling has been laid in the entrance ticket hallway.
Corrugated galvanised iron tanks are located at the western and eastern ends of the building.
Refreshment Room
The Refreshment Room is a single storey timber building, clad with weatherboards, with a half-gable roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The roof projects on the northern [or track side] with additional diagonal strut supports. The eastern and western ends has timber posts supporting verandah roof.
One original colonial sash window and double tongue and groove VJ doors are located in the eastern side of the building.
Internally, the building is lined with tongue and groove VJ boards throughout. A stove recess, with numerous metal flues, is located in the western wall. A roller door to a loading dock is located on the southern wall.
A tank and tankstand is lcoated at the western end of the building.
Goods Shed
The Goods Shed is a large timber and steel framed shed with gable ends, with recent colorbond cladding. Steel columns are lcoated to the northern side, elsewhere the frame is timber. The roof trusses are composite timber and steel with steel rods as tension members.
A single track enters the shed at the western and eastern ends through new hinged double gates clad with colorbond. A new concrete floor has replaced the original timber floor. Original offices at each end have also been removed. Two new roller shutter doors are located in the southern and western sides.
Timber struts to a projecting roof forming an awning are located over a former loading platform, southern wall. A quad gutter is located to the southern side and an ogee gutter to the northern side of the building.
A new office with recent aluminium framed windows has been installed in the south-west corner.
A corrugated galvanised iron tank on a steel stand is located near the shed.
Male Toilet
Freestanding male toilet block at east end of station, with pyramid roof, part chamferboard wall cladding and glass louvre windows.
","history":"The plan to build a railway in southern Queensland in 1863 prompted the residents of central Queensland to demand their own railway. The discovery of rich copper deposits at Peak Downs west of Rockhampton strengthened their case and in January 1864, Engineer for Roads, Northern Division, Henry Plews was ordered to survey a line to the copper field. Plews was made Chief Engineer of the northern railway in October 1864. The line opened as far as Westwood in September 1867.
\nThis line was too short to be profitable and approval for an extension was granted in late 1872. Robert Ballard was appointed Chief Engineer and was given authority to let contracts for each section. The aim was to produce an affordable line.
\nAs work progressed, towns developed at each temporary terminus. Some such as Pine Hill declined after the railway passed while others such as Alpha and Emerald continued to grow. Many buildings and businesses were shifted westwards from one terminus town to the next.
\nThe line reached Duaringa in 1876, Blackwater in 1877 and Emerald in 1879. After Bogantungan (1881), the most difficult section was encountered - the crossing of the Drummond Range. The decision to extend the railway from Barcaldine (1886) to Longreach was the result of pressure being brought to bear by parliamentary representatives from Central Division and the fear that the northern Separation Movement could succeed. The final section was completed to Longreach in February 1892.
\nThe Longreach site was selected by railways surveyors due to the presence of a large waterhole on the Thomson River. It was a popular stop for teamsters but it had never developed into a hotel or small community. Longreach was gazetted as a township in November 1887, and the first land sales occurred soon after that.
\nAt the time the extension was completed, the bitterness of the Shearers' Strike was affecting the town and Premier Sir Samuel Griffith was rebuffed when he arrived to try to officially open the line.
\nWhen the line was completed, there were no railway buildings at the terminus, although a small post and telegraph office had been built to service the telegraph line which had advanced beside the railway. The first station building was a small timber shelter shed and office, 60ft x 14ft.
\nThe opening of the railway from Barcaldine to Longreach caused a building and population boom in the area. By 1914, Longreach had 14 hotels.
\nIn 1912 Commissioner Evans promised a deputation of locals that he would ask the government to build a station at Longreach similar to that at Winton. QR at this stage was undergoing a major reinvestment and rebuilding program of railway lines, branch lines, carriages, locomotives, and buildings. The new station was begun in 1915/16. This would indicate something of the political influence of central Queensland, in that a new building was provided even though the existing building remained intact. The new station was completed in 1916/17.
\nThe current timber station was completed in 1916 to a design attributed to Henrik Hansen, this date appearing on the pediment. It is similar to stations he designed at Emerald, Mount Morgan and Archer Park. The most obvious difference is the platform awnings: Archer Park and Mount Morgan have carriage shades with a curved roof; Emerald re-used the platform shade from Central Station; and Longreach has a cantilevered platform shade.
\nThe refreshment room was built shortly afterwards. It has now closed and the building is used as offices.
\nThe goods shed is thought to have been built in 1892 and was substantially renovated in 1988.
\nLongreach is a focus for heritage tourism for Queensland Rail, being the terminus for Queensland Rail's 'Spirit of the Outback' rail adventure, offering what is promoted as a 'unique insight into the history and culture of early Australia'.
","criteria":"The station helps to demonstrate the pattern of Queensland history as Longreach is one of the largest of the many towns which developed as the result of railway construction. Longreach remained the terminus of the Central Line from 1892 until an extension was built to Winton to connect with the Great Northern Line in 1928 and it has been significant as a centre of railway operations up to the present day.
|The refreshment room is a rare surviving example of a free-standing timber refreshment room.
|Longreach Railway Station demonstrates many of the principal characteristics of a late 19th century railway complex design.The passenger station, platform, refreshment room, goods shed and other ancillary buildings are significant for their contribution to an understanding of how the complex functioned.
The passenger station is associated with the office of railway designer Henrik Hansen and compares with similarly designed stations at Archer Park, Emerald and Mount Morgan.
|The passenger station, platform awning and refreshment room exhibit aesthetic characteristics valued by the community as finely-detailed and well executed examples of railway buildings. They make a substantial contribution to the townscape at the junction of the Capricorn Highway with the main street of Longreach and form part of an important urban precinct including parkland and a memorial.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16730,"place_ref":601994,"name":"Christ Church, Childers","alternate_name":"Childers Anglican Church","street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"Christ Church, Childers is a timber building located on Macrossan Street, a secondary street running parallel to the main street of the town of Childers. Views of the church are gained from McIllwraith Street as it slopes away towards the cane fields which provide a backdrop to the church. The church is set back from the street and is accessed via a wide red concrete driveway. It is low-set on brick piers and is clad in painted weatherboards of a creamy colour. The roof is steeply pitched and finished in "trimdeck", wide-pan steel roof sheeting in a dull brown colour-bonded finish. The gable ends are surmounted by small timber crosses.
The building has a five bay nave, a chancel with a Northern vestry, side aisles and a polygonal baptistry flanked by two entry porches. The baptistry has a hipped roof with three triangular segments that create a distinctive feature on the western elevation of the building to the street. The chancel is separately roofed with a steeply pitched roof that extends on the northern end to roof the vestry. The side aisles and porches also have separate skillion roofs, providing space for bands of clerestory windows on the northern and southern walls. The clerestory windows are comprised of fixed windows with cusped heads, arranged in groups of four and filled with coloured glass in muted tones of yellow, pink and green. The northern and southern walls each have five pairs of timber lancet windows, all of which are fitted with stained glass.
The windows depict the story of the life of Christ and contain a number of repeated motifs such as a town of clustered white-washed buildings with a middle eastern appearance, palm trees and flowers such as purple irises and daffodils. The baptistry also has three lancet windows set with stained glass depicting the baptism of Christ, Christ as a baby being brought to the temple and Christ with the children. A tripartite lancet stained glass window with a common sill is located high in the eastern gable in the back wall of the sanctuary.
The interior of the church has an open timbered ceiling lined with diagonally laid boards that have been painted in an ochre colour. At each fifth rafter there are arch braced, scissor trusses that are tied at eaves level by metal rods. Each arched brace continues below the line of the clerestory and lands on a timber post. A second line of arches runs perpendicular to the roof trusses between the aisle posts along the length of the side aisles. These slender, pointed timber arches spring from moulded capitals on the aisle posts. The side aisle rafters also have arched bracing members in keeping with the truss bracing. The wide, gently pointed chancel arch springs from a timber moulding that runs around the sanctuary, forming a sill to the eastern windows.
Walls throughout the interior are lined with vertical, v-j pine boards that have been painted white. Aisle posts are painted in a dark brown and the timber pews are unpainted. The aisles and sanctuary are carpeted and the sanctuary is raised six steps above the nave floor. The organ and (unused) pulpit are located against the northern wall, adjacent to the vestry. The vestry is entered via a lancet arched door opening and has a similar door leading to a set of external stairs. A bell mounted in a timber frame is located next to the landing of the vestry steps. The vestry contains framed photographs of the past priests of Christ Church and other pieces of memorabilia.
The baptistry is separated from the nave by a lancet arched opening flanked by timber posts with moulded capitals and the floor is raised two steps above the nave floor. The baptistry is a small, five-sided space that contains a sandstone font, a tall timber candleholder and a small shelf with anointing oil. To either side of the baptistry are lancet arched door openings leading to the entry porches. Adjacent to the southern door are three timber honour boards.
A low-set brick parish hall is located on the southern side of the church and a timber rectory facing Macrossan Street is to the north-east, separated from the church by steel fencing.
","history":"Christ Church, Childers a timber church constructed to the design of Anglican Church architect J H Buckeridge in 1900 is the second church to be built on the site on the corner of Macrossan and McIllwraith Streets.
In early 1888, an application was made for a grant to build a church at Isis Scrub (later Childers). By June, The Church Chronicle reported that £25 had been given towards the construction and by November a small hardwood church, the first Christ Church, was opened. The development of religious institutions in Childers reflected the more general consolidation of the town. Christ Church was initially part of the Howard Parish and was ministered to by the itinerant Parish Priest, Father J.E Clayton. From the time of the dedication of this early church, the congregation lobbied for their own resident priest and a more substantial church building. Father W.S Marshall became the first resident priest appointed to Childers in 1898 following the offer of Mr James Equestrian to pay the priest's stipend for the first year of appointment.
In 1899, the Diocesan Architect of Brisbane John H Buckeridge was approached by the Building Committee to prepare plans for a new and bigger church in Childers. The Committee had considered other designs prepared by Buckeridge for the Church of England and the design of Christ Church has a close relationship to Buckeridge's other timber churches, particularly St Colomb's in Clayfield which opened in December 1899.
John Buckeridge came to Queensland upon the request of Bishop William Webber and at the recommendation of J.L Pearson, eminent English architect and designer of St. John's Cathedral, Brisbane. Webber was Bishop of Queensland from 1885 and undertook an ambitious church building program throughout the state. He was not content with merely building churches but was intent upon them being well designed works of ecclesiastical architecture and it was for that reason he invited Buckeridge to come to Queensland in 1887 and formalised the position of Diocesan architect. Buckeridge was Diocesan Architect at a time when Queensland's population was expanding and there was a high demand for church buildings. It has been said that "Buckeridge's churches were more than simple timber and tin chapels. He had the architectural ability to set them apart from the generally more pedestrian buildings of other denominations." His church architecture was a loose interpretation of the Gothic Revival style and used good quality local materials in an economical manner with attention to the need to design appropriately for Queensland's sub-tropical climate.
Initial tenders submitted for Buckeridge's design for Christ Church were considered too high and the plans were modified in December 1899 to meet the budget. Local builder, Mr Irwin signed a contract for £540 which included a price for the pews which were also designed by Buckeridge. The building was constructed during 1900 and the work was supervised by Bundaberg architect, Frederic Herbert Faircloth. Faircloth practised in Bundaberg from the early 1890s and was responsible for many buildings in Childers, particularly after a huge fire destroyed much of the main street in 1902.
Canon Eva, the priest at St. Paul's Church, Maryborough opened and dedicated Christ Church on 9 May 1901 to co-incide with the formation of a separate parish based in Childers. The first parish priest was Father T. Ashburner. The original church was put into use as a parish hall, until 1967 when it was sold for removal and a new masonry Memorial Hall was constructed. The congregation continued to make changes to the church and precinct over time. In 1906, a house was purchased for £330 for use as a Rectory. During the 1920s and 30s the church was painted several times, a fence was erected and in 1932 the Brand and Gant families presented memorial gates and a font. Parishioners also donated several sets of stained glass windows during this period and all except for a single window in the side chapel were to the design of renowned stained glazier and artist William Bustard.
Bustard worked for R.S Exton and Co. from 1921 until the closure of the company's glass studio in 1958. Bustard was a prolific designer and producer of high quality stained glass and his work is featured in many of Queensland's outstanding buildings of the early twentieth century, including a number of churches for the Anglican church. Many of his windows for Christ Church depict scenes from the life of Jesus Christ from the Annunciation to the Ascension. Six stained glass windows were installed in the sanctuary and baptistery in 1940-41. A further six pairs were dedicated in May 1947, having been installed over several preceding years. By 1958, all the church windows in the nave had been fitted with stained glass designed by Bustard. A more recent window in the side chapel, depicting Christ Church surrounded by local fauna and flora was installed in 1992.
The interior of the church which was originally unpainted, was painted in the 1950s. At the same time, the vestry was lined and the timber stumps were replaced with brick piers. The church was again painted in 1975 and the roof cladding was replaced in 1983. The sanctuary was re-lined with imitation timber panelling in 1984 and an alabaster set of Stations of the Cross were donated by the Percival family in 1994. The Christ Church Parish now has churches in Childers, Apple Tree Creek, Cordalba, Howard and Torbanlea as well as conducting services in Woodgate and Burrum Heads.
A recent inventory of parish churches within the Brisbane Dioceses has found that of the surviving twenty-two timber buildings designed by Buckeridge for the Anglican church, only five are identified as sustaining their design intactness, having experienced only minor changes such as changes to roofing materials and the additions of linings. Christ Church, Childers is considered the most intact of these.
","criteria":"Christ Church, Childers is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history having been constructed during a period of unprecedented growth in the Isis, when Childers emerged as the centre of a substantial sugar-growing district and major social, cultural and religious institutions were established in the town.
|The church has a fine and rare set of windows by distinguished artist and stained glazier William Bustard, which are among the aesthetically significant features of the building. As a surviving intact timber church designed by John Buckeridge during his time as Diocesan Architect, Christ Church demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Christ Church, Childers demonstrates the principal characteristics of a timber church located in a small rural settlement. Key features of the church include the simple building form, steeply pitched gable roof and the free interpretation of the Gothic Revival style evidenced by the use of lancet window and door openings and pointed arches.
|Christ Church, Childers is a refined piece of architectural design, in particular the elegant timber detailing of the interior of the church has aesthetic significance. The church has a fine and rare set of windows by distinguished artist and stained glazier William Bustard, which are among the aesthetically significant features of the building. As a surviving intact timber church designed by John Buckeridge during his time as Diocesan Architect, Christ Church demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Christ Church, Childers has strong and special associations with the Anglican Parish of Childers as their principal place of worship for 100 years.
|The church also has special associations with the architect John Buckeridge, who made an important contribution to the development of church architecture in Queensland, and notable Queensland artist and stained glazier William Bustard.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16731,"place_ref":601995,"name":"Monier Ventilation Shafts, Wickham Terrace","alternate_name":"Monier Stormwater Ventilation Shafts | Monier Sewer Ventilation Shafts","street_address":"500 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-04","description":"Two Monier ventilation shafts (Monier vents) are located adjacent to Wickham Terrace in Brisbane City, just outside the boundary of the suburb of Spring Hill. The southernmost of these two vents (c1904) is located on the footpath outside Roma Street Parkland within the Wickham Terrace road reserve, just north of Twine Street, while the northernmost vent (c1905) is located in a garden bed just inside the Parkland, west of Dark Street. The vents were placed at the heads of two separate stormwater drainage systems for Spring Hill (Hanley’s Valley and Spring Hollow respectively), to vent the sewer gases produced at a time when Brisbane’s stormwater drains also carried household greywater.
\nBoth ventilators are constructed of smooth reinforced concrete, pre-cast in a hexagonal shape, with simple ornamentation, and archival plans indicate they may have up to 1m of their structure underground. The vent set into the footpath near Twine Street, c1904, has a regular hexagonal shape, with base dimensions of approximately 65cm parallel to the road, from face to face (referred to as the ‘height’ of the hexagon); and about 75cm across the path, from point to point (referred to as the ‘width’ of the hexagon).[45] Twin ornamental bands are set about halfway up the shaft, which has an estimated height above ground level of around 9m. There is a cornice just below the mouth of the shaft.
\nThe vent in the Roma Street Parkland near Dark Street, c1905, has an irregular hexagonal shape, being approximately 55cm across the garden bed, face to face (height); and about 85cm parallel to the road, from point to point (width). It stands on a rough concrete base slab (160cm long parallel to the road), inside a garden bed retained by a low stone wall. Twin ornamental bands are set over halfway up the shaft, which has an estimated height above ground level of around 9m. There is a cornice just below the mouth of the shaft.
\nThe thickness of the two vents’ concrete walls is unknown. Plans of a 30ft (9.1m) tall Monier vent (1901, not extant) in Thorn Street, Kangaroo Point, show a regular hexagonal base with an adjusted dimension of 2ft 9 inches (84cm) from face to face, with c1m of the shaft set underground.[46] A wall thickness of around 3 inches (7.5cm) at the base, reducing to about 2 inches (5cm) at the top of the shaft, can be estimated from this plan.
\nFeatures of the Monier vents of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Monier vents not of State level cultural heritage significance:
\nAny other modern elements present within the heritage boundaries of the Monier vents.
Two Monier ventilation shafts (Monier vents) are located on Wickham Terrace in central Brisbane.[1] The vents, which resemble tall, thin chimneys, are hexagonal in section, pre-cast reinforced concrete structures. One (c1904) is set into the footpath outside Roma Street Parkland, just north of Twine Street; while another (c1905) stands in a garden bed just inside the Parkland, west of Dark Street. They are associated with the first Spring Hill stormwater drainage systems, laid c1879-86.
\nAt the time the vents were constructed, Brisbane’s stormwater drains were called ‘sewers’, as they also carried household sullage (greywater), and this arrangement produced noxious gases which had to be vented from the highest points in the stormwater/sewerage system. The term ‘Monier’ refers to the reinforced concrete system patented by the French gardener Joseph Monier in 1867 and introduced into Australia in the early 1890s. The Monier vents, now decommissioned as Brisbane’s stormwater drains no longer carry greywater, have always been rare in Queensland, and represent one of the earliest known uses of pre-cast reinforced concrete in Queensland.[2] In 2023, two other Monier stormwater vents are known to survive: one near the east end of the south side of Florence Street, Teneriffe (1904) [QHR 602068], and one on St Pauls Terrace, Spring Hill, opposite Gloucester Street (1905) [QHR 602067].
\nThe two Wickham Terrace Monier vents were located at the heads of two separate stormwater drainage systems for the early Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill. The vent on the footpath near Twine Street was at the head of the system for ‘Hanley’s Valley’, located between Leichhardt Street and Wickham Terrace. The vent in the Parkland near Dark Street was at the head of the system for ‘Spring Hollow’, located between Leichhardt Street and Gregory Terrace.[3]
\nSpring Hill is part of the traditional land of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples.[4] The suburb was surveyed into suburban ‘villa’ allotments from 1856, which were soon subdivided into smaller allotments by speculative landowners. Along with Kangaroo Point and Petrie Terrace, Spring Hill was among the earliest of Brisbane's dormitory suburbs, attracting residents from the middle classes to the high land along the ridges, and the working classes to the valleys in between.[5] Trustees were appointed for the Albert Park and Recreation Ground Reserve, just to the west of Spring Hill, in September 1877. This initially had a size of 25 acres, 1 rood and 30 perches (10.3ha), although a much larger area of parkland, reaching to Countess Street and Roma Street, had existed in 1865. Albert Park was eventually incorporated into Roma Street Parkland in 2001.[6]
\nWhen Brisbane acquired municipal status in late 1859, there was no system of drainage or sewerage in the town, and the creeks running through the inner city periodically flooded during the 1860s. Brisbane’s first drain (1860) was an ovoid stone drain, running down Albert Street from Elizabeth Street to the creek that ran northeast along Margaret Street. Most people dumped refuse in creeks and channels, trusting that stormwater would carry it away to the river, and for some years drainage and sewerage were viewed as the same thing. However, from c1868 the Brisbane Municipal Council developed a policy of 'rainfall to the river' and 'sewerage to the land'. Drainage systems (then called ‘sewers’) were constructed to carry off stormwater and household greywater; while a sanitary service, based on earth closets, was used for human excreta (nightsoil). The nightsoil was initially collected for burying or burning at a depot (such as the later site of Ballymore Stadium in Herston), and later dumped at sea. A sewage treatment system for Brisbane was finally completed at Luggage Point, Pinkenba in 1923.[7]
\nThe Brisbane Drainage Act 1875, under which the colonial government agreed to set aside crown land for sale to finance Brisbane's drainage scheme, provided the impetus for construction of Brisbane's early arterial stormwater drains. These systems were designed by the colonial government's Engineer for Harbours and Rivers, William David Nisbet (1837 – 1897), and carried out by government contractors under government supervision. Upon completion they became the property and responsibility of the Brisbane Municipal Council, which was also responsible for building subsidiary drains.[8]
\nBy 1878, the inner city was drained by three separate systems: the Frog's Hollow system – a main drain down Albert and Margaret Streets with branches laid by the Brisbane Municipal Council; the Adelaide-Creek Street system, which drained the centre of the town from Makerston Street to Queen Street and the lower sections of Elizabeth and Charlotte Streets; and the Makerston Street system, which served the area between Makerston Street and Petrie Terrace, and between Wickham Terrace and College Road and the Brisbane River.[9]
\nBetween 1879 and 1886 the Brisbane Municipal Council, using government loans, developed an arterial drainage system, again designed by Nisbet, for the densely populated suburbs of Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley, even though part of the Valley then lay outside the Brisbane municipal boundary. These drains, built at a cost of £36,000, carried off both stormwater and household greywater – and relied on rainwater to flush the system into a natural watercourse. Most of this system of ‘sanitary engineering’ (engineering of waste disposal to preserve human health) initially consisted of open stone drains, until they were covered in the late 1890s.[10]
\nThe drainage of Spring Hill, as envisaged by Nisbet, used the two existing valleys. The southernmost arterial drain, servicing an area of about 83 acres (33.6ha), headed east down Hanley’s Valley, following an existing watercourse, crossed Wharf Street near its intersection with today’s Turbot Street, and reached Boundary Street near its intersection with Wickham Street. A brick culvert then carried the runoff down Boundary Street to discharge into the Brisbane River at Petrie’s Bight. This culvert was meant to prevent water from Spring Hill pooling and stagnating in Fortitude Valley – long a source of complaint from Valley residents. A drain then followed the watercourse as it continued northeast from Boundary Street, alongside Wickham Street, to the foot of the Fortitude Valley near the town’s boundary with the Booroodabin Division (which then bordered Brisbane along Gregory Terrace and James Street). The Wickham Street drain then fed into the larger watercourse which flowed southeast from near today’s Exhibition show ring, and along today’s East Street, before crossing Ann Street and turning to the northeast, past James Street to discharge into the Brisbane River at Child’s Creek in Newstead (roughly in a line with the northeast end of today’s Waterloo Street).[11]
\nThe northern Spring Hill arterial drain, servicing 205 acres (83ha) of land, ran northeast down Spring Hollow, including along the course of today’s Water Street, until it also met the watercourse flowing southeast from the future show ring site, near the northeast end of today’s Machinery Street. The Spring Hill Municipal Baths, on Torrington Street, Spring Hill, were opened in 1886 directly above the upper section of the Spring Hollow drain, and the water pumped up to the baths from the Brisbane River was released each evening, to flush the Spring Hollow drain, for the next 75 years.[12]
\nBy 1890, the Brisbane Municipal Council had completed an arterial drainage scheme for the city core, at a total cost of nearly £130,000.[13] The Booroodabin Division was annexed by the Brisbane Municipal Council in January 1903, and in 1908 a loan of £18,500 was secured to enable the Council to complete the drainage of Merthyr, New Farm, Teneriffe, Bowen Hills, Mayne and Newstead by the end of 1909.[14]
\nWithout a proper sewerage system, Brisbane residents still disposed of household and trade waste into the stormwater drainage systems. This led to solid material blocking street channels and gully-holes (especially in dry weather); foul smells emanating from the stormwater drains; and the chronic pollution of local creeks, which became open sewers.[15] Prior to bacterial theory being widely accepted, the resulting ‘miasma’ (unpleasant smell or vapour) was thought to cause disease.[16]
\nThe situation was compounded in 1900 with the arrival of bubonic plague in Australia, carried by rats aboard ships arriving from foreign ports. The first case of human plague in Sydney was reported in January 1900, and in Brisbane (a day and a half away by steamer) on 27 April 1900. Between 1900 and 1909, plague broke out in most of Queensland's ports, galvanising the State into developing tighter controls over public health and sanitation.[17]
\nWhere house drains into Brisbane’s stormwater drains were not ‘trapped’ (provided with a water seal to prevent gases escaping from the sewer), rats with plague-carrying fleas could travel from the sewers into peoples’ yards or houses.[18] Untrapped drains also created an olfactory hazard. On 18 February 1901, a motion at a Council meeting called for all gully holes (street entrances into the sewer) to be trapped, to prevent noxious smells arising.[19] In addition, in March 1901, Queensland’s first Commissioner of Public Health, Dr Nathaniel Burnett Ham, using the strong coercive powers given to him under the provisions of the Health Act 1900, called for the drains in Spring Hill and other districts to be properly trapped.[20]
\nDr Ham also requested that the Brisbane Municipal Council erect sewer vents in city streets.[21] Once drains or gully holes into the main sewers were trapped, the sewers themselves had to be adequately ventilated to remove the smell, usually at the highest point of the system.[22]
\nSewer ventilation shafts were usually built in iron or steel;[23] and the first Monier (reinforced concrete) vent was not constructed in Brisbane until the early 20th century. Concrete was used prior to, and by, the Romans, but after the fall of the Western Roman Empire its use in Western Europe was fairly limited until the development of Portland cement by Joseph Aplin in Leeds in 1824. Concrete was used in construction in Queensland from Separation, including for the residence ‘Goldicott’ [QHR 601601] in Toowong in 1885; but it was the invention of reinforced concrete in the late 19th century which led to a building revolution. Embedding iron or steel rods in concrete meant that the concrete, which was strong under compression but weak under tension (bending and twisting), benefited from the tensile strength of the steel; while the steel was protected from fire and rusting by the concrete. Reinforced concrete was touted for its strength, durability, fire-resistant properties, ease of use and its ability to be shaped for a wide variety of uses, including complex, large-scale structures.[24]
\nPre-cast concrete, also used by the Romans, added its own advantages to construction. The ability to manufacture concrete components in moulds, at a distance from their final position in a structure, be it nearby or in a distant factory, led to better quality control and consistency of product, a wider range of options, fewer delays due to bad weather, and less formwork clutter on building sites.[25]
\nThe Monier system of reinforced concrete was invented by Frenchman Joseph Monier (1823-1906), a commercial gardener who decided to replace fragile clay flowerpots with concrete pots reinforced with iron mesh. His system was first patented, for horticultural troughs, in 1867, and he later applied for more patents for other uses–including for reinforced concrete pipes in 1868. Monier's was the first true reinforced concrete, based on calculations which ensured that the steel was dispersed so as to take tension and shear forces. Monier sold his rights outside France to local businessmen and engineers for lump sum payments. The German engineer Gustav Adolf Wayss purchased Monier’s patent in the mid-1880s and developed it further. Other reinforced concrete systems included those of the French engineer Francois Hennebique (patented 1892), or the American Engineer Julius Kahn (patented 1903).[26]
\nThe Monier system was introduced to Australia in the early 1890s by William Julius Baltzer, a New South Wales (NSW) engineer. Baltzer, in association with contracting engineers Carter Gummow and Co. of Sydney, gained the Australian rights to the Monier system.[27] The company constructed the first Monier structure (a small arch for a stormwater culvert) in Burwood, New South Wales, in 1894; and a sewer aqueduct linking the Sydney suburbs of Annandale and Balmain soon followed. Carter Gummow & Co (later Gummow Forrest & Company, c1898) also introduced the Monier system to Victoria in 1897, building the Anderson Street Bridge over the Yarra River. Baltzer brought the first Monier pipe-making machine into Australia in 1896, for Carter Gummow & Co, which began making pipes on a small scale near Darling Harbour in Sydney in 1897. The company found that the European system of embedding wire netting in the pipes did not greatly increase its strength, so it tested alternative systems and took out fresh patents. Gummow Forrest & Co was acquired by the NSW government in 1915, which started the State Monier Pipe and Reinforced Concrete Works.[28]
\nAnother company involved in manufacturing Monier pipes, from 1901, was the Monier Pipe Company of Victoria. This was formed by the firm of Monash & Anderson, which had become the Victorian agents for Monier reinforced concrete in 1897. In 1905 the Monash and Anderson partnership was dissolved and a new company, the Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co. Pty. Ltd, was created.[29]
\nThe first building in Queensland to use the Monier system of reinforced concrete was the Rockhampton Customs House, constructed 1899-1901, where the interior of the dome was constructed of reinforced concrete.[30]
\nIn late 1900, the Brisbane Municipal Council called tenders for the construction and erection of an iron ventilating shaft at Thorn Street, Kangaroo Point, before asking the successful tenderer (Finlayson Bros, the Queensland agents for the Monier system from 1899) to then quote for a Monier vent. Plans of the Monier vent for Thorn Street, costing £55 and signed by Finlayson Bros on 9 January 1901, show a tapering, regular hexagonal shaft, probably pre-cast in a mould. It was 30ft (9.1m) high (with about a metre buried in the ground), and 2ft 9 inches (84cm) wide at the outside of its base. Wall thickness, estimated off this plan, varied from about 3 inches (7.5cm) of reinforced concrete at the base, to two inches (5cm) at the top.[31] No trace remains of this first known Monier vent in Queensland.[32]
\nFurther Monier vents, along with steel vents, were soon built in Brisbane for sewer ventilation purposes. In February 1902, City Alderman (1901–04, North Ward) Richard Gailey (1834 – 1924), a well-known architect, stated that the City Engineer needed to report on providing ventilators ‘at the upper or higher ends of all the existing storm and house sewage drains in the city, beginning with the drains behind Wickham Terrace, and in Spring Hollow, George Street, Merthyr Road, and Bowen Terrace and Clay Street, and afterwards the drains between Main Street and Wellington Road, and at the Woolloongabba railway station’.[33]
\nThe Brisbane Municipal Council (Brisbane City Council from March 1903) responded to such demands for sewer ventilation, and on 30 April 1903, the Works Committee recommended that the City Engineer be authorised to erect sewer ventilating shafts wherever they were urgently required, with an estimated cost of £1,537.[34]
\nA ventilating shaft for the Florence Street drain in Teneriffe was authorised by the City Council in July 1904, with an estimated cost of £30, which may give a date for the Monier vent on Florence Street.[35] This vent, located at the south side of Florence Street near its eastern end, was placed at the head of a drainage system, begun in the 1880s, which discharged into the Brisbane River downstream from the Bulimba Ferry wharf.[36]
\nIt is also likely that the Monier vent on Wickham Terrace near Twine Street dates from 1904. A Brisbane City Council key plan, 4 chains to an inch (undated), shows two ‘Monier shafts’ on Wickham Terrace, near Twine Street and Lilley Street (latter not extant in 2023), both venting the Hanley’s Valley drainage system. The Monier vent at the head of the Spring Hollow system, inside the Roma Street Parkland near Dark Street, is not yet present on this plan.[37]
\nThe Monier vent near Dark Street appears to postdate March 1905, when Richard Gailey blamed the absence of proper ventilation of the Spring Hollow sewer for cases of dengue fever (actually spread by mosquitos) in Spring Hill. He noted that sewer gases were escaping from gully-gratings along the sewer’s route, and people were having to add ventilation pipes to their houses, to draw off sewer gases from their connecting drains.[38]
\nIn response to complaints about a lack of vents in the North Ward (Spring Hill) the City Council authorised £150 for the erection of sewer ventilation shafts in May 1905. In July 1905 authority was given for the erection of a ventilation shaft in Leichardt Street (now St Pauls Terrace in this location) near Gloucester Street.[39]
\nThis Monier vent, located on the footpath on the north side of St Pauls Terrace outside Brisbane Central State School, is on a ridgeline, and could have been at the head of a sewer running either northwest, towards the Spring Hollow drain, or southeast towards the Wickham Street drain (north of Boundary Street), although the latter is more likely, as a drain was constructed down Gloucester Street c1886.[40]
\nThe Monier vent for Spring Hollow may have also resulted from the 1905 funding. It was extant by January 1907, when it was reported that ‘the ventilating shaft erected at the upper end of this particular sewer [Spring Hollow] was devised to meet this evil [escape of sewer gas through back pressure through the water in traps]’.[41]
\nNo other Monier vents related to Brisbane’s stormwater system are known to have been built, although a smaller, octagonal version (extant, about 3m high, with an attached metal lamp bracket) was constructed in the early 1930s to vent a men’s public toilet located in the Williams Street retaining wall [QHR 600135].[42]
\nThe surviving Monier vents in Brisbane are no longer used to vent stormwater drains. Once new sewerage systems, which carried both human waste from water-flushed toilets and household greywater, were installed, Brisbane’s stormwater drains no longer required ventilation. The separation of the sewerage system from the stormwater drainage system also solved the dilemma of Queensland’s downpours overloading the sewerage system; sewer pipes no longer needed to be large enough to carry stormwater, while stormwater drains could be discharged into waterways with less pollution.[43] In 2023, the four surviving Monier vents (of the six known to have been constructed) are decommissioned, and no longer appear to be connected to active stormwater drains.[44] They survive as remnants of an important improvement to Brisbane’s sanitary engineering in the early 20th century.
The Monier Ventilation Shafts, Wickham Terrace (c1904-5), are important as rare and early evidence of urban sanitary engineering in Queensland, in particular the need to ventilate gases from stormwater drainage systems at a time when such drains also carried household greywater.
\nBrisbane’s Monier vents are early and intact examples of the use of the Monier system of reinforced concrete in Queensland; and are amongst the earliest known pre-cast reinforced concrete structures in the state.
|The Monier Ventilation Shafts, Wickham Terrace, which are tall, reinforced concrete shafts installed to vent gases from stormwater drains, are a type of vent that has always been rare in Queensland. Of the six Monier vents known to have been constructed in Queensland, four survive in 2024.
|The Monier Ventilation Shafts, Wickham Terrace, have the potential to contribute to our understanding of Brisbane’s early urban stormwater drainage schemes, and early pre-cast reinforced concrete technology in Queensland.
|The Monier Ventilation Shafts, Wickham Terrace, are highly intact examples of reinforced concrete ventilation shafts for stormwater drains. They retain their original location, hexagonal shape, concrete construction, twin ornamental bands on the shaft and cornice near the mouth of the shaft, and their full height, which expelled noxious gases well above the heads of pedestrians.
\nTheir location, at the highest points of the early stormwater drainage systems of Spring Hill, is also important in demonstrating the past extent of those systems, and the principles of their ventilation.
|The Monier Ventilation Shafts, Wickham Terrace, are intact surviving examples of one of the earliest known uses of pre-cast reinforced concrete in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16737,"place_ref":602001,"name":"Gladstone Central State School, Block B","alternate_name":"Block B, Gladstone State School","street_address":"94 Auckland Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Situated on a sloping site in the northwest corner of the Gladstone Central State School grounds overlooking Auckland Street, Block B is a free-standing, single-storeyed timber building sitting on low concrete stumps to the east and north and higher concrete stumps to the west and south. The low-pitched gable roof is sheeted with polytex sheeting and has small triangular decorative panels of vertical slats to the north and south gable ends. The exterior is clad with painted weatherboards.
The north and south elevations each have a bank of fourteen awning windows sheltered by a sunshade awning with lattice triangular panels to each end. The south elevation also contains a porch entrance to the east verandah and the north elevation contains two small windows to the west corner.
The building is planned about a single room with lateral verandahs. The building has been altered but some original fabric remains including timber linings, doors and windows. The single room has been subdivided with concertina doors to form three rooms and partitioned spaces and enclosures added to the verandahs.
A small, single-room, rectangular, gable-roofed annexe extends from the centre of the east verandah. Clad externally with weatherboards, the annexe has two casement windows to the north and east elevations and the ceiling and interior walls are lined with tongue-and-groove boarding with coved mouldings to the corners and cornice.
The east verandah is enclosed and lined internally with tongue-and-groove boarding and coved mouldings to the corners and cornice. There is a bank of clerestorey louvres to the south of the annexe and three sets of clerestorey and six sets of half height louvres to the north. Rooms to the corners of the verandah have been partitioned with fibro cement sheeting. A plain timber door opens to the annexe. There is a porch entrance to the south and a plain timber door in the east wall to the north of the annexe.
The west verandah is approached by a central set of timber stairs. The corners of the verandah have been enclosed to the north for toilets and to the south for a small kitchen. Both enclosed areas open to the verandah. There are four timber casement windows to the west in the south corner and three timber casements windows to the west in the north corner. The open middle portion of the verandah has a timber handrail and two horizontal midrails and a single stop chamfered verandah post at the top of the stair. The west verandah has exposed stud framing and is lined with chamfer boards. There are three sets of triple sash windows to the centre with timber doors to each side and an additional timber door near the north enclosure. There are tilting fanlights above all doors. The panel and sheeted french doors to north of the windows are stop chamfered to the interior. Tusk tenon joints to the framing of the windows and doors.
The main room has a coved ceiling lined with tongue-and-groove boarding with coved corner mouldings and cornice and exposed timber truss bases. There are winding mechanisms for the tilting fanlights.
","history":"Block B of the Gladstone Central State School was erected in 1904 as the first timber classroom extension to the Gladstone State School, established in the early 1860s.
The town of Gladstone at Port Curtis was founded by the New South Wales colonial government in 1853-54, and during the 1850s a number of private schools operated in the township. In 1861, following the separation of Queensland from New South Wales, a primary school was established at Gladstone under the provisions of the Queensland Government's Education Act of 1860, which provided government assistance for primary education modelled on the New South Wales system of national [or state-assisted] schools.
At Separation in December 1859, there were only three national schools in Queensland [at Drayton, Warwick and Brisbane], established under New South Wales legislation. The first 7 national schools established in the new colony of Queensland opened in 1861. Among these was the Gladstone Primary School, which opened about April that year.
The Gladstone Primary School initially may have occupied the premises of a former private school conducted from 1859 by JH Carvosso, who was appointed the first national school teacher in Gladstone in 1861. A purpose-designed primary school was constructed in 1863-64 and opened at the beginning of 1864, on the present school reserve. It was a T-shaped brick structure. The front section of the building, facing Auckland Street, was the residence of the school master; behind this, at right angles to the residence, was a long school room to accommodate 70-80 students.
Queensland's national school system, administered by the Board of General Education, was replaced in 1875 with a system of free, compulsory, secular education for children aged 6 to 12 years, administered by the Department of Public Instruction. At this time the Gladstone Primary School became the Gladstone State School. By 1879, average attendance at the school had reached 110, and classes were being conducted on the verandahs. To relieve the overcrowding, a separate teacher's residence was erected in 1880-81, and the front section of the 1863 building was remodelled as a classroom.
By 1897, total enrolment was close to 200 and the average attendance had reached 150. The school was again in urgent need of additional classrooms. Extensions were approved by the Department of Public Instruction, but the local community was not able to raise the one-fifth contribution needed to fund the additions until 1904, when a new timber block was erected in front of the 1863 building, and connected to it by a covered walk-way. Tenders were called in March 1904. The contract was won by J Connors with a price of £437/2/3, and the building was completed by late 1904. Despite a number of modifications, it survives as the present Block B.
In November 1913, the Gladstone State School Committee refused to spend any more money on repairs to the 1863 school building and requested that it be demolished and replaced with a new timber building in keeping with the 1904 wing [Block B]. This building [Block A] was erected in 1914-15 and opened in February 1915. In 1917 the 1863 building was sold for £2 for demolition/removal.
By the mid-1930s, Block A had become the High School wing of the Gladstone State School, and two additional timber wings had been erected. One of these accommodated primary school children [Block C], and the other was the Infants School [Block D]. In 1936/37 a purpose-designed home economics and manual arts wing was erected [Block E], but there was little further expansion of the school premises until well into the second half of the 20th century. Gladstone State School was renamed Gladstone Central State School on 14 November 1968.
By March 1973, the school had acquired an additional large teaching block [Block G], an administration block [Block H], and a toilet block [Block J - replacing earlier earth closets]. At this time plans were drawn for a new Block C, and it appears that the old Block C was removed to another part of the site, and re-named Block F. By 1978, Block A [the 1914-15 building] had been removed and the new Block C had been constructed, but Blocks B, F [the re-sited former Block C], D & E remained.
","criteria":"Block B, Gladstone Central State School is significant historically for its association with the important work of primary school education in Gladstone since the early 1900s,
|Block B, Gladstone Central State School has had a special association for generations of Gladstone residents as a place important in their personal histories.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16746,"place_ref":602010,"name":"Irlam's Ant Bed Building (former)","alternate_name":"Oakey Farm | Irlams Ant Bed Building","street_address":"Clermont-Alpha Road Oaky Creek, 20km west of Clermont","suburb":"OAKY CREEK","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Irlam's former farmhouse/inn is located at Oaky Creek along the Clermont-Alpha Road. The place contains an 1870s building constructed of rammed earth (pisé de terre ) mixed with ant bed. This building is located within a fenced house yard 48 metres long and approximately 24 metres wide, abutting the south-east side of the road.
Ant Bed Building
The ant bed building is situated in the north-east corner of the house yard, approximately 5.5 metres from the fence line, and has a northerly aspect. It is a single-storeyed, one-roomed structure, approximately 7 metres by 7.5 metres, with walls approximately 41cm thick of rammed earth mixed with ant bed, resting on a base of brick coursing. The building has a shallow-pitched, hipped roof of galvanized iron, which extends beyond the exterior walls as a 2 metre wide overhang to verandahs on all sides. This is supported on timber posts.
Adjoining the southern verandah is a wire and timber-framed enclosure, with grape vines growing through it, measuring approximately 3 metres by 6.5 metres.
It appears that each of the rammed earth walls originally had a base of coursed bricks, laid brick-on-edge. Much of this brick work either has fallen out or has been removed. (Some loose bricks are scattered around the building, likely sourced from the missing wall coursing.) The rammed earth walls have been undermined by the actions of animals and insects, with some erosion possibly being advanced by ground moisture. The western wall has suffered the least degradation. Some cracking of the walls has occurred on all sides due to subsidence and expansion/contraction. All the external walls have been lime-washed at some period. Both the northern (front) and southern walls of the building have a centrally positioned timber doorframe and door of timber boards. There is a small, centrally positioned, timber-framed window opening (unglazed) in the eastern wall, but no opening in the western wall.
Internally, sawn timber boards line the upper walls. The timber roof structure probably dates to the 1930s, when the shingles were replaced by corrugated iron. The floor of the building is earth on shale. There is no indication of a below-ground cellar.
The house yard
Apart from the ant bed building, the attached timber and wire trellis, and the brick scatter surrounding the ant bed building, the remaining structures within the house yard are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register.
","history":"The ant bed building at Oaky Creek was associated with a farmhouse-cum-wayside inn established by George Irlam c1870 on the Clermont-Alpha Road, along the route to Aramac. At the inn, travellers could break their journey and sample the farm's home-grown produce.
The Clermont district was opened to non-indigenous settlement after Ludwig Leichhardt, who had explored the area in 1844, reported on its potential for pastoralists, agriculturists and miners. In the early 1850s the Archer brothers were the first pastoralists to take up land in the area and they were soon followed by other squatters and by fossickers in search of gold, coal and other minerals.
The discovery of gold near Hood's Lagoon (soon known as Diggings Lagoon) in the early 1860s paved the way for a rush to the district. A nearby settlement was surveyed in 1863 as the town of Clermont. Homesteads and townships west of Clermont were established rapidly and the bush tracks blazed by the carriers, teamsters, farmers, graziers and miners who needed a comprehensive network of roads for transporting wool, gold, copper and other produce to coastal ports, became well travelled routes. The Clermont to Aramac route via Oaky Creek was established in 1863 and following the 1866 opening of a post office at Clermont, weekly mail services to settlers in outlying areas commenced along this track.
The disruption to Aboriginal life was not welcomed by the traditional owners of the area - the Kairis (Khararyas), Wangans and Jagalingus (Jangga). Violent frontier conflict had commenced by 1861 and continued through the 1860s and into the early 1870s.
As the frontier conflict subsided, Cobb & Co. Coaches established a network of coach routes from Rockhampton to the western districts in the early 1870s. From 1878 to 1884 the firm ran a regular weekly coach between Copperfield (Clermont) and Aramac.
George Irlam had acquired various interests in the district west of Clermont by the late 1860s. He held a license for the Lord Nelson Hotel at Oaky Creek from 1869 to 1876 and by January 1871 had purchased all the Red Rock Valley cattle.
In 1872 Irlam selected 160 acres (about 65ha - portion 44, now known as Oaky Farm) at Oaky Creek, about 20 km west of Clermont along the Alpha road. An 1873 survey plan of Irlam's selection shows an established house, stockyard, garden and cultivation area on the flat of Oaky Creek. A later survey plan of the area, dated July 1879, identifies an inn in the approximate location of the farm house identified on the 1873 plan. In 1876-1877 there was no license issued for Irlam's Lord Nelson Hotel at Oaky Creek, but he did take out a license for the Oakey Creek Hotel. Given that Oaky Creek is a small district, and that an inn in this area would need to be located on the main Clermont to Aramac route to be viable, it is highly likely that the Oakey Creek Hotel was the inn identified on the 1879 plan. Whether it was earlier known as the Lord Nelson Hotel, established in the late 1860s, has not been confirmed.
When Irlam made application in July 1877 for a deed of grant for his selection, he claimed to have been residing continuously on the property since 22 February 1872 (the time of official selection). The improvements comprised a dwelling house, stock yards, and 16 acres under cultivation. Irlam made no mention of conducting an inn or hotel on the property. However, it appears that the dwelling on Irlam's selection fulfilled the dual function of farmhouse and inn, serving as a refreshment stop for travellers along the Clermont to Aramac route. Being comparatively close to Clermont (20km distant), the demand for overnight accommodation was limited and Cobb & Co. coaches did not change horses at Oaky Creek.
As soon as Irlam's conditions of selection for portion 44 had been fulfilled in 1877, he transferred the license to the Oakey Creek Hotel to James Nicholls, who in turn transferred it to J Williams in 1879. There is no license recorded for the period 1881 to 1883, but Charles Cook held the license briefly in 1884.
According to local historian Dan O'Donnell, by 1878 Irlam's hotel was well-known to travellers along the Clermont to Aramac route, for the fresh fruit grown in the adjacent orchard, which contained both tropical and temperate fruit trees including lemons, apples, peaches and bananas. A dairy (likely the surviving ant bed building on Oaky Farm) was located near to the road and to the hotel.
Australian architectural historian Dr Miles Lewis has recorded the nineteenth century use of crushed anthill clay, or ant bed, for adobe, cob, pisé de terre, earthen flooring and later the surfacing of tennis courts. Ant bed appears to have been used mainly in rural areas either due to an absence of other materials, or for its adhesive and/or insulating properties. Few ant bed structures are known to survive in Queensland.
In 1884 the railway was opened to Clermont, but coaches, carriers and travellers continued to use the Clermont to Aramac route because the rail service beyond Clermont continued north to Blair Athol, leaving western districts dependent upon traditional coach services and independent carriers. Despite this sustained use, no license for a hotel at Oaky Creek was issued after 1884.
In 1891 title to portion 44 was transferred to John Gustav Finger, who worked the property as a grazing farm until his death in 1915. In 1918 his sons August Henry and Louis Rudolph gained title to the farm, which still comprised 160 acres. The brothers expanded the yards for working cattle, which included construction of a loading ramp and dip. Louis Finger bought his brother's share in the property c1919.
Thomas and Albert James purchased the property in 1957 and continued to work it as a grazing farm. They moved another house to the site around this time, and the early dwelling house (a timber slab structure) was used by Tom James as a work shed for his saddle and leather making business. The ant bed building was used for storage. Tom resided at the property until his death in 1996.
","criteria":"The ant bed building is important in demonstrating building techniques and materials no longer common or practiced in Queensland. Constructed of rammed earth (pisé de terre) mixed with ant bed, the building is a rare surviving example of the use of ant bed as a building material and of this construction technique. If ant bed was chosen for its insulation value, then the place is even rarer.
|With further analysis of the fabric, the ant bed building has the potential to contribute further to our understanding of early construction techniques and materials in Queensland, especially in remote areas.
|As the main surviving element of the former farmhouse/inn at Oaky Creek, the ant bed building is important in demonstrating some of the principal characteristics of a small, isolated, 1870s wayside inn-cum-farmhouse. These include the location of the structure close to the Alpha Road; its function as a large, separate store or dairy; and the use of locally available materials in its construction.
|The ant bed building at George Irlam's former farmhouse/inn, established in the 1870s at Oaky Creek about 20km west of Clermont, is important in demonstrating the pattern of early non-indigenous settlement in the central highlands of Queensland. During the 1870s the building was associated with the functioning of the place as both a wayside inn and a selection farmhouse. The combination of commercial, residential and agricultural functions was illustrative of the frontier nature of early non-indigenous settlement in rural Queensland. The ant bed building is significant for its contribution to our understanding of the role of wayside inns in supporting early transportation and communication networks in isolated and remote areas of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16747,"place_ref":602011,"name":"Toowong Municipal Library (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"579 - 583 Coronation Drive","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-28","description":"The Toowong Municipal Library (former) is located on the western side of Coronation Drive in Toowong. The library site comprises a two storeyed building sited amid dense vegetation on a corner site, with open air carparking facilities off Booth Street and a terraced area with seating and a playground.
The library comprises a cavity brick lower floor, the plan of which is formed by three intersecting circles. Above this base floor is a 'floating' crystalline form with 12 sided polygon (dodecagon) floor plan whose external walls taper outward as they rise and which houses the principal public floor of the library. The external steel wall framing of the upper floor is diagonally crossed, or braced, and sheeted with plywood panels set within the structural framing and framed with silky oak beading. The upper two rows of steel framing are infilled with glazed panels, the top level of which are operable windows.
The first floor is a suspended reinforced concrete slab spanning from the brick base of the building to an outer steel channel welded to twelve 6 inch diameter steel columns, coincident with the twelve edges of the building. The roof, supported on RSJ purlins is pitched upward toward the centre of the building where a large, recently constructed, funnel shaped form houses an air conditioning plant. The roof has been clad with metal decking.
The principal entrance to the library floor is via wide concrete steps extending along one of the sides to the east of the building, off Coronation Drive. The entrance comprises a recessed portico from which electronic glass doors give access to the library. Access is provided to the lower floor from a doorway in the rear of the building and via an internal stair. The lower floor of the building is of glazed face brick and contains a number of irregularly but well proportioned timber framed window openings and small concrete panels reflecting the placement and layout of the internal stair.
The internal layout of the library floor is essentially open plan, with part-height partitions allowing space to continue beyond room divisions. Central on the floor is a large symmetrically arranged, circular counter and workspace area. The curved counter is lined on the front face with vertical strip timber boarding and this also lines the partitioning on this floor which form the workspace and office beyond the counter. The workspace is a circular semi open room adjacent to the counter. This floor plan of this space is reflected on the lower ground floor as one of the intersecting circles forming the floor plan. On the western side of the workspace is a small office which is formed with 1/2 glazed full height partitioning screens, maintaining the feeling of space in confined areas. Between the workspace and the office is a spiralling cantilevered concrete stair. The interior of the lower floor of the library has a concrete floor and glazed brick walls. Built along the walls of the major work area are original timber cupboards, shelving and counter units. Within a small pod to the north of this workspace is a toilet and bathroom. The other large space on the lower floor accessed via a door at the west of the building houses a reception area, office, and bathroom and storage facilities.
","history":"The former Toowong Municipal Library is prominently located on Coronation Drive and was opened in April 1961, built to the design of Chief Architect at the Brisbane City Council, James Birrell. It provides evidence of the City Council's expansion of public facilities in the post war period.
Following World War II, when shortage of both labour and materials restricted building work to essentials, the Brisbane City Council embarked on a capital works programme which provided the city with a substantial number of upgraded and new recreational and educational facilities. During the period from 1945 to the early 1960s about ten libraries were constructed and two renovated and redevelopment and construction occurred at five major pool complexes. From the period 1955 until 1960, when most of this vast programme was realised, the Chief Architect with the Brisbane City Council was James Birrell. He was responsible for the design of about 150 sites ranging from his two major projects - the Centenary Pool Complex and the Wickham Terrace Carpark to a number of bus shelters, park entrances, public toilets, cemeteries, sewerage depots and a bus depot. Included in his work of this time was the redevelopment of the Toowong Baths and the construction of a major municipal library at Toowong.
Birrell graduated from architecture at the University of Melbourne in 1951, where he was much influenced by one of his teachers, Melbourne architect Roy Grounds. It was Grounds' use of strong primary forms which influenced Birrell's early work, including that work for the Brisbane City Council. Like Grounds, Birrell used highly identifiable forms sited in landscapes which, apart from a reality associated with their function have an abstract reality or quality which relies solely on their form and siting. The Toowong Library characterises this aspect of his work:
The library is a twelve-sided figure where the geometry is made more insistent by the walls sloping outward with diagonal external framing. The derivation of the library's form can be explained by book-shelving arrangements and its ring-beam construction, but if it has any meaning in itself this is in having the appearance of a flying-saucer and being easily identifiable at 300 metres on a busy road.
In 1952, Birrell expressed aspects of his architectural philosophy in the Melbourne journal Architecture and the Arts, with which he was much involved. These ideas are manifest in many of his Queensland buildings, including those constructed for the Brisbane City Council. This philosophy described the primacy of material and structural integrity, advocating a new engineering dynamism imbued by the materials, technical knowledge and industrial procedures of contemporary culture. This is certainly one of the enduring forces in his work. Following World War II rapid progress was made in the technology of building materials, particularly in the Brisbane steelworks industry. The new and developed materials and products which Birrell used frequently include acrylics and plastics; concrete screen blocks; and timber based boards significantly plywood. Using expertise gained during the war years, Evans Deakin, local ship builders were instrumental in solving complex geometrics in steel work often required on the projects of Birrell.
Of the work James Birrell designed for the Brisbane City Council, very few buildings remain substantially unaltered. Several toilet blocks survive - at Nundah Cemetery, Victoria Park, Mt Coot-tha; two libraries at Annerley and Chermside survive although both have been substantially altered; an entrance feature at Albert Park survives; several buildings in the Abbotsford Road Workshops and the Ann Street Bus Depot survive; two buildings at the Wynnum Civic Centre survive although they have been dramatically altered; buildings survive at the Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery although later unsympathetic buildings significantly alter the original context; a number of pool complexes survive although many of these have been redeveloped; an electrical substation at Stafford survives and the much altered Centenary Pool and Wickham Terrace Carpark. Many of Birrell's council projects were illustrated in national design journals including the Chermside, Annerley and Toowong municipal libraries, the Stafford substation; the Langland Park pool complex and the Toowong Baths redevelopment; toilets at Mt Coot-tha; Centenary Pool, Wickham Terrace Carpark and a works depot at Mt Gravatt.
Following his years at the Brisbane City Council, Birrell moved on to firstly, the University of Queensland and after to the James Cook University where he was involved in master planning the site, and, from there, to Papua New Guinea where he designed many substantial buildings, before returning to private practice in Australia. The work of James Birrell, particularly during his time at the Brisbane City Council and after, as the architect to the University of Queensland is widely held to be influential, innovative and excellent.
The Toowong Municipal Library was opened in April 1961 as the largest suburban library in Brisbane and designed to service the western suburbs. The design of the timber, glass and steel framed building, a twelve sided externally framed form floating on an organic brick base, was controversial and received much attention when completed.
The library was constructed on three allotments which were part of a New South Wales Land Purchase by Robert Towns and George Christie. The site was also part of the 1889 Moore subdivision of this area of land and changed hands a number of times before one of the lots was acquired by the Council of the Town of Toowong on 1 September 1903. This lot remained in the Council's use as a storage facility until the decision to build the library was made in 1959. At this time the two other allotments, closer to Booth Street were also acquired. Houses had been constructed on these blocks and these were demolished to accommodate the library.
The provision of libraries by municipal councils in Queensland is a relatively new phenomena, with most libraries currently operating established since the late 1940s. Previously, Schools of Arts and privately owned Reading Rooms provided a similar service and these were often run by local committees and subsidised by local councils. Local councils were granted authority in the Local Government Act 1878 to establish and operate libraries, although this was very uncommon until the twentieth century. The first publicly funded municipal library was opened in Kurilpa (West End) in 1929 and a similar library was operating in South Brisbane soon after. Local councils became seriously involved in the construction of libraries in Queensland after the Libraries Act 1943 was passed which provided for the establishment of a State Library Board which was to provide for the improvement of library services throughout the state. By 1950 seven libraries were operating throughout Brisbane and by April 1961 when Toowong Library was opened the Council was operating twelve libraries.
Prior to the construction of the Toowong Library, James Birrell designed two other libraries for the Council at Chermside (1957-8) and Annerley (1956-7). The design of these buildings, although modern, were more conventional than the design of the Toowong Library. In 2014 the Annerley Library (with substantial additions) still operates as a municipal library. The much altered Chermside Library was sold in November 1997.
Discussions concerning the provision of a municipal library at Toowong started in 1956 when the Council set aside £4000 for the construction of a district library to service the western suburbs of Brisbane. Over the next few years several properties near the Toowong Railway Station were investigated as potential library sites. It was not until March 1959 that firm plans were made to use the Council storage facility at the end of Coronation Drive. Alderman Ord, the local councillor, announced to the press in March 1959 that 'a library of brick, glass and steel would be the biggest municipal library in the suburbs and the first in the western suburbs. It would serve the people of St Lucia, Indooroopilly, Toowong, Auchenflower, Taringa, Brookfield and Kenmore'. Ord went on to say that the library would form a civic block with the recently redeveloped Toowong Baths site.
The design of the Toowong Library was innovative and controversial. From the earliest reports of the unusual 12 sided library in 1959, the press covered the story of the planning and growing controversy over the design of the building. The City Librarian lodged a formal complaint over the design of the building with the City Council's Manager of Planning and Building, detailing criticism of the shape, internal layout and lack of consultation with librarians through the design process. In reply to this James Birrell prepared a memorandum addressing the complaints:
The City Librarian has criticised the circular shape of the building, stating that most library authorities favour the more conventional rectangular or square buildings as being more economical of shelf space...his opinion is correct that square buildings have more perimeter than round buildings. However shelf space is not the only criterion upon which the circular plans have been adopted...a circular building form is the most economical for the structural enclosure of a large open space and results in functional arrangements for the provision of natural light and ventilation and circulation within the reading room...Criticisms have been levelled at libraries of all shapes and sizes. Each should be treated on its own merits.
Criticism continued until the opening of the building on 13 April 1961 and it is thought that the reason the project was realised substantially unaltered from the first plans of 1959 and amid the controversy was that the Lord Mayor, Alderman TR Groom and local councillor, Alderman Ord's interest in, and fostering of, modern architecture. An article in the Courier Mail quoting Alderman Ord suggested that the controversy surrounding the building was a sign of vigour in the local architecture scene.
The building was constructed for about £26 000 by local contractors Stuart Brothers, using innovative construction techniques and materials, with the design involvement of the Engineering Branch of the Council's Department of Works. Many architectural and building journals featured the building following its opening. As early as August 1959 a photograph of a model of the library appeared in Cross-section. In December 1961 an article about the library with photographs appeared in the RAIA journal, Architecture in Australia.
New materials used on the library were detailed in the May/June 1961 issue of Building Materials, which featured the building. Such materials included Rotary Red Cedar Exterior plywood panelling, also featured in the Plywood and Plywood Products journal of September 1961. The roof membrane of the library was formed with 2 inch thick laminated fibre board clad with bituminous felt and finished with white grain render and a copper fascia. When completed, the centre point of the roof of the building was finished with an amber acrylic light dome, apparently the largest acrylic dome produced in Australia at the time. Machinery connected to the upper most level of glazing surrounding the building allowed the windows to be mechanically opened. Installed in the ceiling of the library were two concentric light troughs formed with fluorescent tubes between purlins concealed with a translucent acrylic sheeting, operating in much the same way internal lighting operates with most current suspended ceiling systems. As well there were a number of suspended lighting features of circular fluorescent tubes fixed together on a light framework.
The careful placement of the Toowong Library on its site, likened to the work of Birrell's great and abiding influence, Walter Burley Griffin, allows it to be viewed from the street as a one storeyed structure floating amid surrounding vegetation. The rear of the building reveals its true two storeyed nature, but even this view reinforces its floating quality, as the base is an organic form of dark face brick. The skilful manipulation of the site allowed the original entrance to the base and to the library level to remain segregated. The considered landscape design by the Brisbane City Council's parks section includes the use of succulents, rocks and palms and is credited to the talented landscape architect, Harry Oakman.
During the 1960s, following Birrell's' departure from the Council, alterations were made to the library including the replacement of the light troughs and suspended lighting features. The library was threatened for closure in 1982 following the opening of a new municipal library at Indooroopilly in 1981. The Toowong Library did in fact close but local residents' action saw it re-opened in 1983. Alterations were made to the building in 1983 when one of the rooms on the lower floor was acquired for use by the local councillor as a ward office. This room which was originally planned as an auditorium was used by the library as a workroom and to accommodate the councillor was partitioned to form a reception, office and storage space.
By 2001 the building had been painted externally and the amber plastic roof dome was replaced with a large funnel shaped object concealing an air conditioning plant. The interior of the building remains substantially intact with original unpainted internal timberwork, glazed brickwork on the lower floor and original furniture and fittings including the counter, some perimeter shelving and other shelving units. The building ceased operating as the Toowong Library in 2001 and is privately owned.
","criteria":"Toowong Municipal Library is important in demonstrating the provision and upgrading of public facilities by the Brisbane City Council in the post war years. The Toowong Municipal Library, opened in 1961 as a district library for the western suburbs of Brisbane, demonstrates the accelerated provision of municipal public libraries following the introduction of the Libraries Act 1943 and the consequent establishment of a State Library Board.
|The library is a rare surviving and substantially intact example of the architecture and planning of James Birrell. Birrell is an architect of national stature and repute and the place is significant as evidence of Birrell's thought and practice. Birrell was Chief Architect of the Brisbane City Council in the period from 1955 to 1960. James Birrell was responsible for the design of more than 150 projects during his six years as the Chief Architect, of these projects only a few survive intact.
|It is a good representative example of one of the most important schools of thought on architecture in Australia in the post war period; that of the Melbourne School of Roy Grounds and Robin Boyd.
|The library has aesthetic and architectural significance as a civic landmark designed, in conjunction with the Toowong Pool, to herald the suburb of Toowong and the western suburbs beyond. The place is a fine example of Birrell's considered approach to siting strong forms within landscapes. The scale, texture, mass, proportions, juxtaposition of elements and siting has produced a fine, well composed building of significant architectural quality. The Toowong Library is an exceptionally fine architectural accomplishment and one of the finest examples of post war architecture in the state.
|As well the building demonstrate Birrell's preoccupation with structural integrity and his use of innovative building materials and techniques which reflected the culture of the time. This was particularly apparent in post war society when many new and innovative building materials and techniques were developed using expertise gained in various industries during the war years.
The building was designed to incorporate many innovative building techniques and products and are creative works of the period. The project received considerable attention in national building and architecture journals.
|The building has social significance and has strong associations with the Toowong and wider Brisbane community as an important public facility of considerable usage and prominence.
|The building has strong associations with the architect, James Birrell, as a fine examples of his prolific and influential Council work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16748,"place_ref":602012,"name":"Dux Hut","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Dux Anchorage","suburb":"SOUTH STRADBROKE ISLAND","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-04-06","description":"Dux Hut is located on the western shore of South Stradbroke Island, facing Tippler's Passage in Moreton Bay. It sits above the high water mark and is surrounded by primarily native vegetation on the inland side, some of which has been cleared in the immediate vicinity of the hut, and by mangrove flats, on the bay side. A mature rubber tree in front of the hut, and several other mature, introduced trees close-by, provide shade.
Two recent structures associated with a working oyster bank are located on the southern side of the hut, but are obscured from view by the surrounding vegetation. Timber piles from a jetty are evident in the water in front of the hut, and an oyster bank is located in the bay, slightly to the south of the hut.
There are two distinct sections to the hut; the original gable-roofed section which is elevated on timber stumps, and a skillion-roofed extension which was constructed on the northern side of the original structure after 1957. This section sits at a lower level.
The original section consists of a single room. It has a post and sapling unlined frame, held together in a variety of methods, including wire and string ties, nails and rudimentary mortice and tenon joints. Some of the ties are of nylon string and appear to have been added at a later stage.
The frame is clad externally with disparate pieces of corrugated iron. The framework internally suggests that there were previously window openings, however these are now covered with corrugated iron. A window in the western side is thought to have been added at a later date and comprises a corrugated iron flap which is hinged along the top and opens outwards, supported by a timber prop.
The gable roof is also clad in corrugated iron and the floor is of timber boards, overlaid with variously patterned linoleum pieces. The room is furnished with a number of single beds.
On the northern side of the original section is an annexe. This is at a lower level than the original section and has a skillion roof. The construction technique is similar to that of the original section, with an unlined timber frame externally clad in corrugated iron. However, the frame is constructed of machined timber members and the corrugated iron is in sheets rather than small pieces. Large openings, of similar design to the window in the original section, are located in each side of the annexe and doors are located in the western and northern sides. At the front of this area is a sink and benchtop, and the remainder of the space is divided by a minimal amount of furniture.
","history":"Dux Hut was erected c1930, on Oyster Camp Reserve R.638 on South Stradbroke Island, in conjunction with oysterman Augie Dux's working of the oyster bank directly opposite, in Tippler's Passage.
Oyster cultivation in Moreton Bay has been regulated since 1863, and exploitation of the Bay's oyster banks as a food source by the indigenous population dates many thousands of years. In the mid-1820s, British convicts employed in establishing a penal settlement at Moreton Bay collected and burned oyster shells to produce lime, and during the first two decades after the opening of the district to free settlement in 1842, oyster shells [often including the live oysters] were collected by the schooner-load for the same purpose. This exploitative practice was prohibited under the Queensland colonial government's Oyster Act of 1863, which introduced a licensing system for oyster cultivation. The Oyster Act of 1874 implemented further controls: a system of annual licenses regulated the collection and cultivation of bank oysters [oysters found or cultivated between high-water mark and two feet below the level of low-water mark], and seven-year leases were made available for dredge oyster sections within the Bay. [Dredge oysters were identified as those found below the level of two feet below low-water mark]. These leases were offered at public auction, and attracted high prices during the late 19th century.
By 1886, oyster fisheries in Moreton Bay extended for nearly 100 miles, from Southport to Caloundra. 178 oyster banks, comprising over 5,000 acres, were being worked, and 40 dredge sections were available for lease. Moreton Bay and Sandy Straits were considered the great nurseries and breeding-grounds for oysters on the eastern seaboard of the Australian Continent, with an estimated 40,000 oyster cultivation bags in Moreton Bay, and scope for many times this number. The principal export market for Moreton Bay oysters was Melbourne, but periodic glutting of that market by New Zealand oysters was problematic for the Queensland industry. The industry was plagued also by operators who denuded oyster banks, and made little or no effort at replenishing the stock.
The Oyster Act of 1886 was introduced to encourage sustainable oyster culture [the cultivation of oysters and the taking of oysters for sale]. The Act offered transferable, 14 year leases over identified oyster grounds [which could comprise both an oyster dredge section and oyster banks]. Licenses were still available for working oyster banks not within a dredge section. A penalty for selling under-sized oysters was introduced, and lessees and licensees were required to register a brand, which had to appear on all oyster bags. Importantly, lessees had to reserve some cultivation on each bank, and to constantly renew the oyster stock.
To encourage the oyster industry further, and to regulate the practice of oystermen 'squatting' on Crown land, the Queensland government in 1889 proclaimed 26 oyster camp reserves, varying from 5 to 40 acres, in Moreton Bay and Sandy Straits. On these reserves, licensed oystermen were permitted to camp, build houses, fence in small allotments, and carry out activities associated with oyster farming. Further oyster camp reserves were proclaimed in the 1890s and early 20th century, as the need arose. Oyster Camp Reserve R.638, a five acre reserve at Jurim, south of Tippler's Landing, was gazetted in 1896 under the provisions of the Crown Lands Act of 1884, following application by the Inspector of Oyster Fisheries that a camping ground for oyster bank licensees was required urgently near Swan Bay.
The largest leaseholder of oyster dredge sections and oyster banks in Moreton Bay from the late 1870s to the 1920s was The Moreton Bay Oyster Company, established in 1876. The Company operated leaseholds near Stradbroke and Bribie islands and at Hervey Bay, employing a small community of workers. In the southern Bay a camp was established on the mainland at Coombabah, north of Southport. In 1881 the Company took over the lease of Currigee run on South Stradbroke Island, and a small settlement of oystermen and their families was established there as well.
Oyster cultivation in Moreton Bay peaked in the period 1880-1910. The breaking through of the ocean at Jumpinpin in May 1898, separating Stradbroke Island into north and south, decimated the oyster banks of southern Moreton Bay; this, combined with mud worm infestations, competition in the market place from New Zealand oysters, increased labour costs, and over exploitation of the oyster banks, culminated in the industry declining after 1910. However, The Moreton Bay Oyster Company continued its operations until 1965, and after the company was wound down, a number of its oyster leaseholds were taken up by previous employees. By the mid-1980s, there were no longer any dredge oyster sections in Moreton Bay, and Queensland wide, oyster production had fallen to 10% of peak period [1880-1910] output. Labour-intensive oyster cultivation is now rare in Queensland, and most oyster bank licensees harvest naturally occurring oysters.
Dux Hut on South Stradbroke Island was erected c1930 on Oyster Camp Reserve R.638, opposite Oyster Bank 122 in Tippler's Passage, by Augie Dux of Labrador, who had taken up the licence of this oyster bank in 1928, under the provisions of The Fish and Oyster Act of 1914. From early maps, this bank appears to co-incide with Oyster Bank 122 worked from at least 1884 by Henry Tippler, a pioneer of oyster farming in southern Moreton Bay.
Freidrich Carl August [Augie] Dux, born in 1878, was the son of German immigrants who settled at Nundah in the early 1870s. In the 1880s the family moved to Caboolture, where Augie's father, Johann Dux, took up fishing, crabbing and oyster culling at Pumistone Passage and Bribie Island. Dux Street and Dux Creek at Caboolture were named after this family. As a youth, Augie worked with his father on the oyster banks, and in the early 1900s, moved to southern Moreton Bay where he worked as an oysterman, eventually gaining employment with the Moreton Bay Oyster Company based at Currigee. He married Lillian O'Connell of Currigee in 1905, and c1910 the family moved to Southport.
Augie Dux later took up several oyster bank licenses in southern Moreton Bay, including Oyster Bank 122 in Tippler's Passage [1928]. His sons helped him to develop the oyster banks, obtaining timber and shell bedding from Crusoe and Rat islands nearby. On Oyster Camp Reserve R.638, directly opposite Oyster Bank 122, Augie Dux and his son Stanley erected a one-roomed hut, for use when working their oyster lease in Tippler's Passage. It is understood they re-used timbers initially cut by Augie in 1918, when the family moved to Broad Street, Labrador, where they erected a house of saplings and bark, with a hardwood floor. About 1929 this house was demolished and replaced with a new house of milled-timber, the timbers of the 1918 building being re-cycled in the hut on South Stradbroke Island. The stumps of this hut are understood to be of Bloodwood, the framing of Ti-tree saplings, and the floor and some of the wall linings of hardwood, all of which was cut by Augie Dux and his sons in the Labrador area. Oyster farming at this period was still highly labour intensive, and poaching was a continual problem. Stanley Dux recalls spending from Monday to Saturday each week at the hut, working and guarding the oyster bank.
About the same time as the hut was erected, the Dux family also constructed a jetty of cypress pine, immediately in front of the hut. This jetty survived for many decades, but now only a few stumps remain in the foreshore to indicate the location.
The Dux family retained the license to Oyster Bank 122 until August 1957. They were well known in southern Moreton Bay - the reserve in front of their Labrador home was named Dux Oval, and the foreshore in front of their South Stradbroke Island hut became known as Dux Anchorage. Since their time, the hut has been extended with a skillion-roofed kitchen, the window openings have been changed, the corrugated iron sheeting has been replaced, and a number of introduced shade trees have been planted.
Subsequent licensees of Oyster Bank 122 used the hut in association with working the oyster bank until two new sheds were erected about 50 metres to the south, in the 1980s. From the early 1970s, Dux Hut has been used also as a recreational venue - and exclusively so since the 1980s. In 1995, R.638 was repealed, and Dux Hut currently (February 1998) sits on Unallocated State Land.
","criteria":"Dux Hut on South Stradbroke Island, erected c1930 in association with the working of Oyster Bank 122 in Tippler's Passage, is important in illustrating aspects of the early-established and important oyster industry in Moreton Bay. In particular, it demonstrates the important relationship of the oyster reserves established by the Queensland government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to the working of oyster banks and oyster dredge sections. Significantly, the hut remains in situ, on the shoreline, opposite a working oyster bank taken up by at least 1884.
|Local knowledge suggests that Dux Hut is one of only a few oystermen's huts remaining in southern Moreton Bay.
|It has been well maintained, and despite some changes, still demonstrates the principal characteristics of an oysterman's improvised 'camp': small scale, simplicity of design, use of re-cycled materials, and lack of amenities. With the addition of a skillion-roofed kitchen extension, changed window openings, and introduced shade trees, the place also demonstrates the principal characteristics of a squatter's beach-side recreational hut.
|Dux Hut is of aesthetic significance, largely due to its bayside setting. The rustic and rudimentary construction techniques also contribute to its aesthetic qualities and assist in the integration of the hut in the landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16749,"place_ref":602013,"name":"Monkland State School Residence","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Brisbane Road","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-11-09","description":"The Monkland State School Residence is located within the school grounds, at the rear of the site adjacent to the railway line and is separated from the remainder of the school buildings by a tubular metal framed wire fence. Also located on the site is a small timber structure at the rear of the residence, and various plantings including a row of five palm trees immediately in front of the building.
The building is elevated on a combination of concrete and metal posts and is of timber construction with a corrugated iron roof. It comprises the original core and later additions of two rooms on the western side and an enclosed verandah on the eastern side. The core has a gable roof which intersects at right angles with a gable roof over the western addition.
A set of centrally located timber stairs provide access to the front verandah which has a balustrade with circular section balusters and is enclosed with metal framed insect screens. The front door is opposite the stairs and opens into the centrally located sitting room. It is flanked with double hung windows, the frames of which feature a chamfered detailing, and additional doors are located at right angles to the front face at either end.
The sitting room contains a rendered brick chimney breast and mantle-piece and is flanked by a similar sized dining room on the western side and two bedrooms on the eastern side. At the rear of the building is the bathroom, the kitchen, and an additional bedroom. This bedroom and the dining room open onto an enclosed verandah on the eastern side via sets of french doors. All ceilings and walls are lined with fibro-cement sheeting, apart from those on the enclosed verandahs, where ceilings are of tongue and groove boards with exposed beams and internal walls are of weatherboard.
An enclosed verandah is located at the rear of the residence, adjacent to the kitchen, from which steps lead into the rear yard. A laundry structure at ground level completes a 'U' shape at the rear of the building, the centre space of which is covered by a corrugated iron roof.
","history":"The Monkland State School Residence was constructed in 1884 and is a small timber structure raised on stumps with a corrugated iron roof. It was designed when architect Robert Ferguson was employed as Superintendent of Buildings for the Department of Public Instruction.
Ferguson arrived in Queensland from Ireland in 1860 and by 1864 was employed as a temporary foreman of works for the Queensland Government. He continued to work for the Government Architect in the areas of Wide Bay and Brisbane until 1879 when he was appointed Superintendent of Buildings for the Department of Public Instruction. In this position, Ferguson developed designs for single skin timber school buildings based on the Suter style, but 'avoiding the technical disadvantages of exposed studding by reverting to external sheeting.'
In 1885, Ferguson resigned from the Department of Public Instruction to become a partner in his brother-in-law's firm, John Petrie and Son. He resumed employment with the Public Service as Surveyor to the Meat and Dairy Board in 1894, a position in which he remained until his death in 1906.
In 1880 a public meeting was held at Monkland to discuss the establishment of a school for the district. Following the discovery of some of the most prosperous gold mines in the Gympie region in the early 1870s, the area had rapidly expanded and by 1873, a number of shops and four hotels were trading in the main street. By the 1880s, many families were living in the area and the walk to the nearest school at One Mile was reputedly hazardous and lengthy for small children.
As a result of the public meeting, a committee was formed, and the secretary, Mr John Clowes of One Mile Creek made a formal request to the Department of Public Instruction for the establishment of a new school, stating that the 'probable number of children likely to attend is about ninety.' Local subscriptions were promised and a site was proposed, although an alternative site on the corner of Brisbane and Araluen Roads was proposed in subsequent correspondence with the Department. This was probably due to a report from the head teacher of One Mile School disputing the fact that an additional school in the district was required, and that less than a mile separated the initially proposed site and the existing school.
Following a non-committal report by District Inspector John Shirley in 1881, Clowes again wrote to the Minister of Education stating that the number of likely pupils had increased and subscriptions of between £80 and £100 had been promised. The subscriptions were integral to the establishment of the school as under the Education Act of 1875, local communities were required to contribute one fifth of the cost of the construction of a new school.
Following a further inspection in the same year, after which District Inspector McGroarty advised that the proposed site was too close to the existing One Mile School to be beneficial, the committee continued their campaign. They focussed their efforts on another site, known as G F homestead no. 151, for which they paid £32.11.3 for improvements in 1881. During this time, a sub-group of the committee decided on yet another site, which was resumed and subsequently gazetted as a School Reserve.
Finally, in March 1883, McGroarty's successor, R Newcombe Ross recommended a State School be constructed on the initially purchased site and tenders were called for the construction of a school and residence. The lowest tender was received from Metcalfe and Wilson who were awarded the project, however their partnership dissolved prior to commencement of works. The next lowest tenderer, William Condon was then awarded the contract, agreeing to complete the school and residence in eight months for £895, including materials, of which approximately £180 was to be paid for by local subscriptions.
The buildings were completed in September 1884 and the first occupants of the residence were headmaster Charles Reinhold and his wife Marion. The school opened on Wednesday 24th September 1884, with 74 pupils enrolled on the first day. Numbers continued to grow and over 200 pupils were enrolled by the end of the year.
At the time of opening, the Monkland State School comprised a single room school building, and a detached residence, both of which were extended a number of times. The residence originally comprised three bedrooms, a sitting room with fire place, a kitchen an enclosed verandah at the rear and an open verandah at the front. Constructed of timber weatherboards, it was elevated on low stumps and early plans depict the roof as shingled. At the time of its construction, it was departmental policy to provide residences for married headmasters 'thereby securing a resident caretaker and cleaner for the school in the person of the headmaster's wife.' The construction of residences also addressed problems associated with the lack of suitable teacher accommodation in remote areas and was used to encourage teachers to relocate to these areas.
Few additions or alterations were made to the house, apart from the construction of a fence which divided the residence from the remainder of the school grounds in 1886. In 1887, land was resumed by the Railway Department, which removed a large triangular portion from the rear of the site.
In 1890, Charles Reinhold requested that an additional two rooms be added to the western side of the residence. At this time, conditions were quite cramped with space shared by Reinhold, his wife, their four children and a servant. The additions were approved, as well as the lining of all internal walls, and the extension of the front verandah to partially wrap around the eastern side. The tender of local contractor Henry Lee for £149 was recommended and the school committee was requested to contribute £29.16.0.
In 1932, a cyclonic storm severely damaged the school building, resulting in the demolition of a wing constructed in 1886, and the repair and extension of the original core. The residence remained relatively unscathed, only suffering damage to the roof over the kitchen. The new school building remained in use until a major reconstruction of the school occurred in 1958.
The Monkland State School continued to develop and expand, with a number of demountable buildings added to the site in the 1970s and 1980s. The school residence is fenced off from the main body of the site and remains largely intact but currently unoccupied.
","criteria":"The Monkland State School Residence was erected in 1884 as part of the newly established Monkland State School. As the only surviving building on the site from this period, the residence provides evidence of the growth of the area east of Gympie during the 1880s due to mining activity. It also provides evidence of the development of the education system throughout Queensland and is demonstrative of government policy of the period when residences were erected to overcome problems associated with the lack of appropriate accommodation for teachers in remote areas and also as encouragement for teachers to work in these areas.
|Although many similar residences were constructed throughout Queensland, many were replaced by new structures in the 1930s. The Monkland State School Residence is a rare surviving example of its type. It is the earliest of only four known intact examples of school residences constructed during the Ferguson period of school design.
|Although extended on a number of occasions, the Monkland State School Residence is largely intact and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type by its form and use of materials, as developed by Robert Ferguson.
|Its simple form and materials contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place.
|The building has strong associations with past pupils, many of whom still reside in the area, and contributed to the school centenary publication printed in 1984. It also has strong associations with the present Monkland Parents and Citizens Association.
|The Monkland State School Residence has special association with architect Robert Ferguson as a rare surviving example of his work whilst employed as Superintendent of Buildings for the Department of Public Instruction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16752,"place_ref":602016,"name":"Merriland Hall","alternate_name":"Former Atherton Camp Supply Depot | Merrilands Hall","street_address":"Mazlin Street","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Merriland is a large igloo situated within the Atherton Show Grounds and located at the corner of Robert and Mazlin Streets, Atherton. The name \"igloo\" was a Second World War slang shorthand term for any of a number of building forms with curved metal roofs. The igloo was designed as a camp supply depot, today it is composed of two major elements:
\n- an \"igloo\" of timber trusses clad in corrugated iron which forms the auditorium
\n- a brick frontage which forms part of the stage, backstage area and dressing rooms.
\nA separate building has been attached to the rear of the auditorium. This weatherboard building with a CGI roof, is a cafeteria.
\nThe Merriland Hall is approximately 60 m long and has an overall width of 30 m. The igloo stands on a concrete slab foundation with a raised kerb and two external drains running along the building's long sides, and cast concrete feet which support the trusses. There are sixteen trusses spanning the interior space. Each is composed of four curved half-trusses which are pinned at the foundations and at the apex where they meet. The two adjacent trusses are laced together at top and bottom chord level. Therefore, each half-truss is comprised of four timber chords sprung into arch form, with light timber bracing nailed into position to form a curved open-latticed box truss. The trusses are made entirely of sawn pieces of native hardwood nailed together.
\nHorizontal timber members run the full length of the auditorium on each half-truss. The roof structure is braced by a pattern of crossed diagonal timber struts running across the roof between the trusses. The centre section of the roof has been angled up into a low-pitched gable with rafters rising up from the upper chords of the trusses to meet a ridge beam running down the centreline of the igloo. Timber purlins running the length of the roof are nailed to these rafters and to the upper chords. The corrugated iron cladding is nailed directly to the purlins. There are four ventilators in the roof.
\nThe interior of the auditorium has been divided into two spaces. The rear of the building is basically a clear space, it has been set up for indoor sports. An indoor basketball court has been marked out on the concrete floor and two backboards have been attached to trusses on either side of the igloo. One side of the auditorium has been modified to include both male and female toilets in a narrow concrete-block extension. A wire storage cage has been erected at the rear of the igloo. On the other side of the igloo, storage facilities have been provided in the form of timber lockers. In the centre of the rear wall are large double doors. Above the doors, and to either side, are a series of fixed glass windows.
\nA raised timber dance floor has been constructed in the front section of the building, with a stage and backstage area at one end. Dressing rooms and additional backstage space are housed in the 1958 brick frontage. Raised galleries, approximately 4m wide, have been constructed along either side of the dance floor for seating.
\nThe cafeteria is housed in a rectangular timber-framed building with a gabled roof, which has been attached to the rear of the igloo. This symmetrical structure is raised off the ground on concrete stumps. It is externally clad in weatherboard and the internal walls are lined with fibro cement sheeting. Vinyl floor tiles line the timber floor. Six timber framed glass windows extend along either long wall. Exit doors are located on each side of the building. The internal area has been divided into two elements; a hall containing tables and chairs and a small kitchen situated in the rear of the building. The fitout of the cafeteria kitchen is modern and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"In November 1943 an Australian Defence Canteen was erected at the Atherton Showgrounds. Built for the Army by the Allied Works Council, with D. Prangley in charge and under the supervision of R C Nowland, a government Senior Architect, it was a timber arched, unlined igloo structure, sheeted with corrugated iron. The structure was a component of one of the largest military store depots on the Atherton Tablelands. After the war the igloo was purchased by the Atherton Show Society and retained at the Showgrounds, becoming known as Merriland Hall.
\nAtherton became a town when it was surveyed in 1885, and named for John Atherton in 1886 when the first lots were put up for sale. It began as a timber town and once much of the timber had been felled, maize, originally grown by Chinese tenant farmers, became the important crop. Peanuts, also introduced by Chinese settlers, were an alternative crop to maize. Today dairying is its main industry. Prior to World War II Atherton was a quiet country town however by December of 1942 the war had impinged upon the area quickly changing the landscape and the lives of the townspeople.
\nIn 1942 the Tablelands Base Area was established, creating a constant flow of Army traffic through the town's main street, as camps were set up to train troops in jungle warfare before their being sent to the islands north of Australia. Many of Atherton's buildings housed both Australian and American forces. The School of Arts building was taken over by the Red Cross, and the Girl Guides hall by the Australian Army for use as its historical section, while the Sharples Theatre became an Army Canteen. Meanwhile, the Barron Valley Hotel was requisitioned by the Australian Army as an Officers Club and, for a short time, General Blamey made this his headquarters.
\nSo much change occurred in Atherton during the war that it has been suggested that both the community and the economy could have been overwhelmed by the strain put upon it. But the reverse appears to have been true, as the one hundred thousand troops camped throughout the Tablelands area gave the residents the chance to become involved in the war effort by assisting and entertaining the visitors, while still keeping business running. Prosperity came with the influx and Atherton provided much timber towards war requirements. Maple was needed for aeroplane propellers and plywood for use in the manufacture of sea and air craft, while timber was also employed in the making of rifles, furniture and packing cases. Socially, the local people did much to entertain the forces and organised many dances, picture shows, concerts and outings as well as inviting the troops into their homes. In return, the soldiers helped in matters such as assisting to enlarge the Methodist Church, which was too small to accommodate their extra numbers.
\nIn 1942 the Military took over the Atherton Showground and remained there for three years. In November of 1943 a large igloo was erected for the Army by the Queensland Building and Engineering Co., under the auspices of the Allied Works Council. It was 200 ft by 100 ft in size and built particularly to house the \"Daily Issue Department\", or Australian Defence canteen. A bakery, which daily supplied bread for all the forces in the area, was built on the western side of the show ring. The canteen igloo was constructed with a nailed hardwood timber arch construction, each arm made up of two half arches, pinned at two supports near the ground and at a central point. It formed an arch with timber bracing nailed into position to form a curved box truss. Although the original US design was intended to be covered with camouflage netting, the igloos built for Queensland were sheeted with iron. These changes, as made by the Allied Works Council, provided a stronger, more durable building which would be capable of withstanding winds of up to 65 miles an hour. The timber used in the igloos was hardwood or Oregon and the outer sheeting was corrugated iron.
\nThe Allied Works Council, the builder of this and other wartime prefabricated buildings, was formed in February of 1942 to co-ordinate and facilitate the needs of the Australian and US military forces in Australia during the war. The work carried out by the Allied Works Council included roads, camps, hospitals, ammunition depots, aerodromes, mess and recreation facilities, and gun emplacements. The Allied Works Council is significant because so much of their construction work transformed Australia, leaving a post-war legacy of roads and buildings still in use for peaceful pursuits.
\nThe Defence Canteen igloo was purchased by the Atherton Tableland Agricultural Society for a very low price after the war. When the Shire Hall, built in 1898, was destroyed by fire in 1948, the war-time igloo became a Community Centre. A committee was formed to manage the hall and they set about building a dance floor measuring 5,000 square feet with a further 2,000 square feet of galleries for seating. The four thousand pounds needed for this work was put up by the Shire Council, and money raised by the Atherton Choral Society and the Atherton Players. Both these groups put all their spare funds into improving the facilities, later adding chairs, stage lighting and dressing rooms. A contest was held to name the new Community Centre hall and Miss Eileen Burke won with the name \"Merriland\". The committee gave a Grand Ball to celebrate the opening and the Merriland Hall went on to host most of the social and cultural occasions of Atherton for many years.
\nAmong the entertainments held at Merriland Hall were concerts by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the Australian and Queensland Ballets as well as numerous shows by local and visiting amateur societies. From 1952 the Choral Society presented a variety concert or musical comedy every year when Princess Alexandra visited the area in 1959 most of the population of Atherton was able to gather in the hall to see the popular visitor. In 1958 a brick frontage and additions to the stage and dressing rooms were constructed at a cost of 400 pounds. In 1963 the Atherton Players produced more money and effort and repainted all the interior walls in preparation for the upcoming Drama Festival.
","criteria":"Merriland Hall is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history because of the role it played in the provision of services to Australian and American army personnel who were training in north Queensland during World War II.
It is the largest igloo to be erected on the Tablelands and is one of only a few large igloos constructed during this time that is still situated on its original site. Since this style of building was only used during the war, the construction is distinctive of a period of great significance to the Atherton area.
|Merriland Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of this type of structure and represents a significant advancement in timber technology and construction achieved during the Second World War which enabled long span lightweight structures utilising hand nailed timber in small sectional chord sizes to be erected quickly and at low cost. It demonstrates the ability of the Allied Works Council to meet emergency demands for the construction of Allied defence works.
|An impressive structure with a simple recognisable form, Merriland Hall is a local landmark. Adaptations made over time clearly reflect its change in use and contribute to its aesthetic and social value. Internally, the innovative timber structure is clearly expressed, and the expansive interiors contribute to the aesthetic significance of the structure.
|Merriland Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of this type of structure and represents a significant advancement in timber technology and construction achieved during the Second World War which enabled long span lightweight structures utilising hand nailed timber in small sectional chord sizes to be erected quickly and at low cost. It demonstrates the ability of the Allied Works Council to meet emergency demands for the construction of Allied defence works.
|Merriland Hall has a special association for the people of Atherton and district as it has been their community hall from 1948. It also has a strong association with the Allied Works Council whose works during the Second World War had a profound and enduring impact in the region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16753,"place_ref":602017,"name":"Paronella Park, Mena Creek Falls and Mena Creek Environmental Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mena Creek-Jappoon Road","suburb":"MENA CREEK","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"Paronella Park comprises approximately 5 hectares of gardens, and contains the remains of several rendered reinforced concrete structures and garden elements which were inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain. The Park is located on the northern bank of Mena Creek in an area of exceptional natural beauty. The entrance to the Park, and the main buildings, are located at the top of a cliff adjacent to Mena Creek Falls. The falls flow into a large rock pool which contains a small island at the eastern end, and the southern bank of the creek is reserved as the Mena Creek Environmental Park.
A gravel carpark fronts Innisfail - Japoon Road, which crosses Mena Creek via a single lane concrete bridge. The entrance to the Park doubles as the pathway to the adjacent pedestrian suspension bridge which crosses the top of the falls to the Environmental Park on the southern bank. A single-storeyed gable roofed structure fronts the carpark and houses the museum collection. This structure is clad with fibrous cement sheeting and has casement windows.
The Park is entered via a pathway which leads through lush vegetation to the former cottage, now operating as the tea rooms. This single-storeyed with attic structure has a steeply pitched corrugated iron hipped roof with dormer windows, and a timber frame with stone walls finished with a rough textured render. The building is located overlooking the falls, and has a central gable porch on the southwest forming the main entrance. The building has timber framed casement windows, some with metal hoods, and an extension has been added to the rear. Internally the building has a souvenir shop and dining area at the front, with kitchen area and office at the rear. A toilet block is located to the east of the tea rooms, and a terrace to the south of the building overlooks the falls.
The 'Castle' is located to the southeast of the tea rooms, and its three-storey tower is visible from the road. The structure consists of the ruins of the former ballroom/cinema and its associated facilities, and is entered from the southwest forecourt/loggia. The structure is of reinforced concrete with a rough textured render. The forecourt/loggia has a central fountain, a coloured geometric patterned concrete floor, is roofed with a pergola, and is overlooked by the three-storeyed tower. The upper floors of the tower have narrow timber framed casement windows, with a balcony to the second storey. A narrow stair accesses the roof which has a concrete balustrade with squared planters creating a battlement effect. The former foyer and ballroom are open to the sky, and reinforced concrete columns, walls, stairs, and counters demarcate the various spaces. The former kitchen area is roofed, and retains some early fittings and fixtures. A free-standing fabric structure has been erected within the area of the former ballroom to provide shaded seating. The structure has been propped in various areas, and exhibits extensive amounts of concrete deterioration.
A series of paths, stone walls and concrete balustrades with squared planters are located between the tea rooms, the castle and the cliff fronting the falls. Narrow steps with concrete balustrades lead down the side of the cliff to the hydro-electric plant which houses original machinery. The plant is built into the side of the cliff and is constructed on 12 reinforced concrete piers set into the pool below. The reinforced concrete structure has rough textured rendered walls, and its roof has concrete balustrades with squared planters. Much of the hydro-electric scheme survives, including sections of aqueduct at the top of the falls, inlet pit and pipes.
The eastern end of the Park is much lower, and is accessed via the 'Grand Staircase' which is accessed via a path which leads below and behind the castle. The staircase, balustrade and squared planters are constructed of concrete, with markers indicating the levels of various floods. The lower section of the Park has a picnic area fronting the end of the pool opposite the falls. This area has concrete tables, benches and balustrades with squared planters, and provides access to the pool for swimming and boating. A small island is located opposite.
To the northeast of the picnic area is the former 'Cafe by the Pool' which is accessed via paths through lush vegetation which open into a large clearing. This symmetrical two-storeyed reinforced concrete structure has rough texture rendered walls with stairs either end accessing the first level which has concrete balustrades with squared planters. The second storey consists of a central room with side stair accessing its roof which also has a concrete balustrades with squared planters. The ground level has a wide central opening flanked by windows with battened timber valances. The structure overlooks a long pool with a series of fountains bordered by concrete balustrades with squared planters to the east. To the east of this is a large lawn, formerly the location of tennis courts.
The remains of change rooms, toilets blocks and a music pavilion are located nearby, all of which are constructed of reinforced concrete with a rough texture render, concrete balustrades and squared planters.
Paths radiate through the grounds, with the central elements being the 'Five Ways'. The paths vary in their design and materials, with some having stone edgings, concrete bridges, and concrete balustrade with squared planters.
To the north of the Five Ways is the 'Palm Grove', with the entrance to the 'Tunnel of Love' at the northern edge. The entrance has a reinforced concrete structure providing access to the tunnel which connects with the 'Fernery', which contains Giant Ferns, on the opposite side of the ridge. The Fernery consists of a gully through which flows Teresa Creek, a stone lined watercourse which is fed by Teresa Falls at the northwestern end.
The 'Kauri Avenue' runs east-west and is located to the south of the Five Ways. This impressive avenue of tall Kauri Pines provides a dramatic contrast to other areas of the Park. To the southeast of the Kauri Avenue is the 'Meadow', a large open clearing, which leads into further paths.
The eastern end of the Park is screened by substantial stands of bamboo, with a variety of paths providing access to Mena Creek and the other areas of the Park. The Park contains a substantial collection of rainforest plants, and these are identified with appropriate signage.
The Mena Creek Environmental Park on the southern bank of Mena Creek contains a steep concrete path which accesses the southern bank of the pool from the Innisfail - Japoon Road above. A timber pontoon is located on the southern bank of the pool, and barbecue facilities are also provided. Public toilets are located at the top of the path at the edge of a lawn which fronts the road. This area also has picnic facilities, provides access to the suspension bridge, and overlooks the falls and Paronella Park on the opposite bank.
Paronella Park, Mena Creek Falls and Mena Creek Environmental Park and the associated Unallocated State Land has substantial plantings and natural features, and each contributes to the overall setting for the place.
","history":"Paronella Park comprises approximately 5 hectares of gardens. Designed and constructed by Jose Paronella in the early 1930s as a 'commercial pleasure garden', the Park contains the remains of several rendered reinforced concrete structures and garden elements which were inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain. The Park is located on the northern bank of Mena Creek in an area of exceptional natural beauty. The entrance to the Park, and the main buildings, are located at the top of a cliff adjacent to Mena Creek Falls. The falls flow into a large rock pool which contains a small island at the eastern end, and the southern bank of the creek is reserved as an Environmental Park.
Jose Paronella was born in February 1887 in La Vall de Santa Creu, a small village in the province of Catalonia in northeastern Spain. Jose was the youngest of six children, and the family lived in a two room dwelling and Jose's father tended olives for local farmers. His grandmother's tales of 'romantic Spanish castles' and the 'nobleza' profoundly influenced Jose and inspired him to eventually create his commercial pleasure garden and follies at Paronella Park.
Paronella initially worked as a baker in a nearby town, but decided to move to Pamplona to seek work. Before leaving, he was betrothed to Matilda Soler from the same village. While working in Pamplona, he decided to book his passage to Australia, and to send for Matilda when he had established himself. He sailed from Genoa and arrived in Sydney in July 1913, where he boarded a steamer for North Queensland and initially worked at Mt Selwyn in the mining industry for four months. He then moved to the South Johnstone region in January 1914 and worked as a cane-cutter and later as a cook for a cane-cutting gang. Paronella found the working and climatic conditions difficult to adjust to. He did not believe in wasting time or money on 'frivolous pursuits', and eventually saved enough money to purchase a section of rainforest which he cleared and planted with sugar cane. He received much assistance from members of the local migrant community, most of whom shared a strong desire to purchase and farm their own land. Eventually Paronella sold the land for a profit, and over the next few years he purchased, improved and sold approximately 12 cane farms. Paronella also purchased a mining lease at Mt Garnet which he worked, together with several labourers, over the next few years. He was also involved in money lending.
In October 1921 Jose Paronella became an Australian citizen, and was by this time comparatively wealthy. Paronella's goal was to construct a 'Spanish-style Castillo', and it was around this time that he received an extortion letter from 'The Black Hand' demanding £500. 'The Black Hand' was a branch of the Camorra of Italy and the Mafia of Sicily, and reportedly profited by prostitution, 'white-slave' trading, blackmail and extortion. 'The Black Hand' had been established in Sydney and Melbourne, and was making inroads into the successful Italian communities in the Innisfail region. In 10 years, there were reportedly 11 murders, 30 bombings, and many blackmail and extortion attempts. Paronella was susceptible to extortion as he had been involved in tax evasion. The Innisfail district had many Spanish, Italian and Greek migrants, and Mourilyan was known at this time as 'Little Italy'. Paronella decided to return to Spain to avoid both 'The Black Hand' and the taxation officials, and to marry Matilda Soler.
Paronella sailed for Spain in 1924 under the false name Jose Buxeda (his mother's maiden name) to avoid detection by the taxation officials. Unfortunately, since his departure for Australia, Jose had not written to Matilda Soler, and when he arrived unannounced he found that she had already married. Matilda's mother arranged for Jose to marry her younger sister Margarita, who had been training as a furrier in a fashion house in France, and was home on holidays. They were married in September 1925, and travelled throughout Europe on an extended honeymoon. Paronella used this opportunity to observe the architecture and gardens, including tourist parks, cinemas, ballrooms, cafes and hydro-electric schemes. In Madrid, Paronella was particularly impressed with the cafe by the water in the Botanic Gardens, and was also impressed by the work of Antonio Gaudi. In early 1926, Jose and Margarita left Europe for Australia via America, a voyage which would take 7 weeks.
On arrival, Paronella was confronted by taxation officials, who had already deducted £1,000 from his savings account for unpaid taxes, and required him to produce letters attesting to his character before he was allowed through immigration. Once this problem had been addressed, Paronella purchased a cane farm at Mourilyan, near Innisfail, where he and Margarita initially settled and where their first child Teresa was born. Paronella also retained his mine at Mt Garnet.
Paronella intended to find the perfect site for his 'Spanish-style Castillo' and commercial pleasure garden, and in the late 1920s visited Mena Creek.
At this time Mena Creek was named Stewart Creek (the upper reach of Stewart Creek was renamed Mena Creek by the Surveyor-General in March 1954 after Henry Noone's daughter Philomena 'Mena' Fallon). The area had been established by Henry Augustine Noone who obtained a lease and established a camp (c.1914) at the top of the falls, and for two years cleared the land and felled cedar. Noone, who had emigrated from Ireland in 1888, was a trained surveyor and also worked in various capacities, including as a timber-getter. He was integral in the establishment of the South Johnstone Sugar Mill and the development of the South Johnstone Region. According to his memoirs, Noone was particularly attached to the area and decided take up 'a block or two for canefarming'. He formed a Settlement Group of 40 blocks of approximately 160 acres each, arranged for enough applicants for these blocks, and convinced the government to survey the area (based on his survey). Noone was assigned portion 56 on the southern side of the creek.
Noone regularly brought his family from Innisfail to Mena Creek to camp, picnic and swim. In early 1929, due to increasing interest from campers and visitors, Noone cleared an area along the southern bank of the creek and gave it to the local council for use as a picnic and recreation reserve (this area forms the reserve on the opposite bank of the creek to Paronella Park, and was gazetted in 1947 as a recreation reserve, in 1953 as a reserve for camping purposes, and then in 1976 as a reserve for Environmental Park under the control of Johnstone Shire Council). Noone also opened the Hotel Mena and was integral in the establishment of the school, and it was around this time that Paronella visited the area and selected it as the perfect site for his 'Spanish-style Castillo' and commercial pleasure garden. At this time it was still a fairly isolated area with mill tramline and horses providing the main transport. The roads were more like tracks, and a train ran once a week to Innisfail but the journey took three hours.
By this time all of the land in the area had been taken up. Paronella convinced the owner of the land on the northern side of the creek to sell him an area of approximately 12 acres which was unsuitable for cane farming, and which fronted the creek and falls. The owner, August Koppen, agreed to a cash settlement of £120. The sale was not finalised until July 1931, however Paronella was allowed to begin clearing the land prior to possession.
Paronella restricted the cost of his ambitious project to construct a 'Spanish-style Castillo' and commercial pleasure garden by using second hand and locally available materials. These materials included sand and gravel from the creek, discarded cane train tracks as reinforcement for the concrete, timber from nearby abandoned houses for the framing to the cottage and for the formwork to the concrete structures, and clay from his property for the exterior render.
Some of the materials and methods Paronella used when constructing the concrete structures throughout the Park are thought to have contributed to their later deterioration and structural problems. The sand used in the concrete mix was reportedly not suitable for this type of concrete construction, the aggregate content may have been insufficient, and the rusting of the steel reinforcing rails (some of which were rusty and buckled when first used in the construction) was exacerbated by insufficient concrete coverage.
Many of the concrete structures have a modular character, which has been attributed to the reuse of formwork from one structure to another. Paronella drew his plans/designs in a sand box, which the workers would refer to during the construction of each element of the Park. Paronella was strongly influenced by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, and the design of Villa gardens visited during his European honeymoon. He also admired the work of Antonio Gaudi, and created garden elements inspired by those in the Alcazar Garden in Seville and the Botanic Gardens in Madrid. In particular, the 'Cafe by the Pool' was inspired by the cafe by the water in the Madrid Botanic Gardens.
The exterior render was made from the clay dug from the site. Initially a cave was created in the side of a ridge in the lower section of the property, and this was gradually increased until it formed a tunnel through the ridge. This tunnel was incorporated into the design of the Park as the 'tunnel of love' connecting the 'palm grove' to the 'fernery'. The clay render was initially the rich red colour of the local soil, but this colour faded due to weathering and the buildings were soon whitewashed annually. The render was applied with a rough finish, and hand-prints are visible on the 'Cafe by the Pool'.
Paronella did much of the work himself. He also employed a canecutter (who had worked as a carpenter in Malta) and the canecutter's nephew to work on the project full-time. He also made use of the large number of unemployed men who had arrived in the Innisfail region during this period, and exchanged food and shelter for labour.
Paronella first constructed a stair linking the lower section of the property adjoining the rockpool to the upper section above the cliff fronting the road. This stair is now referred to as 'the grand staircase', and it was used to carry the sand, gravel and clay to the upper section, and the materials Paronella introduced to the site including cement, steel rails and timber to the lower section.
Next Paronella constructed the cottage, now used as the tea rooms, overlooking the falls. This enabled him to move his wife Margarita and daughter Teresa to the property from the cane farm at Mourilyan. The cottage, which was not constructed in the Moorish inspired style used for the other structures in the Park, comprised four main rooms, an entrance foyer and bathroom, with an attic with dormer windows. The building reportedly had the first indoor plumbing in the region, and was constructed with a timber frame, stone walls (initially unrendered) and casement windows. The family moved into the house on Christmas Eve 1931.
The 'Cafe by the Pool', inspired by the cafe by the water in the Madrid Botanic Gardens, was constructed in the lower section of the property to service the picnic area adjacent to the rockpool. Margarita ran the tea rooms ('Cafe by the Pool'), and Montserrat Gabasa was employed as a housemaid, as well as assisting Margarita serve afternoon teas and helping on weekends with visitors at the gate. Eventually her brother Richard was also employed to assist Jose in the Park. Changing cubicles and toilets were constructed near the picnic area, and a tennis court and music pavilion were constructed nearby.
In 1932 their second child Joseph was born. Jose then began work on the 'Spanish-style Castillo' which some considered to be a self-indulgent personal folly, but which he believed would attract tourists to the Park.
The 'castle' was clearly visible from the nearby main road. The ornamental structure had several levels with external staircases, balconies, parapets and squared planter pots. Paronella maintained a small museum in the structure, and the rooftop formed a viewing platform. The castle contained a theatre/ballroom with stage, which was intended to be used as a reception centre. The entrance comprised a loggia covered in bamboo with a fountain pool stocked with goldfish. Later, a picture theatre was installed, and the room was decorated with textured walls with Spanish pictures, blue velvet drapes edged with gold braid and fringing for the windows, red curtains for the stage, canvas seats, and Black Bean timber parquetry flooring. A large revolving mirror ball (made in the United States of America with 1270 mirrored facets) was installed, and coloured lights were used to create spectacle. An ice cream parlour, cafe, kitchen, bakery and laundry were also installed.
By August 1932 Paronella had completed most of the planned clearing and laid out steps and pathways. Margarita had developed a love of gardening and assisted Paronella in designing the paths and gardens throughout the Park. Inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, and the villa gardens visited during their honeymoon, they placed particular emphasis on contrast creating a series of clearly defined spaces which enabled a variety of vistas and differing perspectives, intimacy and openness, and light and shade. With advice and assistance from the Forestry Department, tree planting began in 1932. The Department supplied the trees on condition that 'representative stands of certain species are planted and nurtured', and that they were cared for and never felled. These included Hoop and Kauri pines, and a particularly impressive avenue of Kauri pines was established. Paronella planted over 7,000 trees and the whole Park was threaded by pathways, bridges and avenues. Paronella also built a shaded orchid and fern house for Margarita to tend 'exotic' plants. It is claimed that the Botanic Gardens supplied Margarita with 50 varieties of Maidenhair ferns to propagate and form the nucleus of a collection.
Paronella named the artesian spring after their daughter Teresa, and he constructed several fountains near the entrance to the 'Cafe by the Pool'. The island at the end of the rockpool was named 'Paronella Island' and a bridge was constructed so that it could be accessed for picnics, and the boundaries of the Park were screened with several varieties of bamboo. Paronella considered the Park to be a retreat and, unlike those of more arid climates, the gardens would provide an oasis not from the desert but from the acres of sugarcane which surrounded the Park.
In 1933 Paronella installed a hydro-electric system which harnessed the cascade. The system used an aqueduct from the top of the Falls across to an inlet pit. The water then fell 30 feet, and was within the capacity of the turbine, an English model with variable pitch inlet valves to control the flow, which was directly coupled to a DC generator which was ex-army stock and which Paronella acquired cheaply. Engineers from the South Johnstone Sugar Mill helped to design and install the system. The turbine and alternator were lowered onto a concrete platform built on 12 reinforced concrete piers below the cliff, and the walls and roof were then constructed around the equipment. It was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland. The system was approved to operate in 1934, and the power was reticulated throughout the Park to operate lighting, pumps and refrigeration, and was also integral to the establishment of the picture theatre that Paronella had planned. The system also supplied power to the nearby township of Mena Creek.
By this time visitors were enjoying the walks, waterfalls, afternoon teas, swimming, boating and picnics. They could play tennis or bowls, listen to music, dance in the ballroom or relax in the loggia.
The last building constructed was the gatehouse (no longer extant) from which tickets and souvenirs were sold. A horse-shoe shaped wrought iron sign with the name 'Paronella Park' was installed above the entrance. By 1935, all of the major works had been completed at a cost in excess of £20,000, not accounting for labour costs.
The completed Park was opened to the public in 1935. A Chamber of Commerce Conference was being held in Innisfail, and the Governor Sir Leslie Orme Wilson was in attendance. A visit to the Park was arranged as part of the itinerary, and the Governor was highly impressed and commented to journalists that 'Jose Paronella has created a place of beauty which will be a great attraction to visitors in the future. His buildings are of unique design. The Park is a credit to North Queensland. It is absolutely remarkable to see what one enterprising man can do'. By this time, access to Mena Creek from Innisfail had greatly improved.
The Park proved very popular with the public. A diving board was installed over the pool, lights were strung throughout the Park, and the tennis courts became the venue for the local tennis club. However, high running costs and a series of natural disasters prevented the same degree of financial success.
Although the Park was popular with locals, the tourism industry in North Queensland was in its infancy, and interstate tourists were rare. Only one company, the White Car coaches, brought tourists from Brisbane to the area. Their itinerary included a visit to the 'Spanish Castle'. As recalled by Teresa Paronella, other tourist facilities at this time included the Malanda Jungle tourist park where visitors would watch 'Aborigines climbing trees and doing corroboree dances'. Initially the Park was not a financial success, and Paronella relied on his other business interests for income. At this time Paronella had an alluvial mine at Hot Springs near Ravenshoe, and was still involved in money lending and buying and selling farms. Paronella also installed two petrol bowsers at the Park. He was more than a successful businessman, he was a creative artist and Paronella Park was his monumental work of art displaying imaginative design, architectural planning and skilled craftsmanship. The Paronella family, and their employees, also took guests on guided tours.
In 1940 the first wedding reception was held, and the reception centre could seat in excess of 400 guests. 80 foot long tables were set up, and special china was ordered from Gibson and Patterson in England with a picture of the castle and falls. Several local women were employed to help Margarita with the catering. The ballroom was also made available free of charge for the annual children's fancy dress ball and the Park was made available for the annual school sports day. The Park was very popular with the local children, to the extent that the school had a rule which stated 'no going over to Paronella Park during school hours'. The turbulence of the bubbles below the hydro-electric scheme was 'like a spa', and children also sometimes fished in the pool.
World War Two had a substantial effect on the Innisfail region, and many Italian members of the local community were interned. By February 1942 Japanese forces had gained footholds in territories adjoining northern Australia which made it seem probable that the advance southwards would continue, culminating in the invasion of Australia. On 19 February 1942 the Japanese bombed Darwin, and the United States of America lost its bases in the Philippines. In April 1942 General Douglas MacArthur was appointed as Supreme Commander of the South West Pacific Area, and North Queensland became a hive of military activity.
In the South Johnstone area, many women and children had already been evacuated. Jose refused to allow his wife and children to be evacuated, however he did construct an air raid shelter underneath the shed in the carpark, which was lined with timber and contained a toilet, and shelving for food, candles, lamps and blankets. Much of the local population had gone, through enlistment, evacuation or internment, and basic food and supplies were rationed. However, by April 1943 111,000 USA troops were serving in the South West Pacific Area, and by the end of that year there were over 500,000. The significance of the American presence for Paronella was that it brought immediate prosperity to the Park.
Paronella Park was the ideal location for rest and recreation for both American and Australian forces. Thousands of servicemen were stationed in Cairns and throughout the Atherton Tablelands. The carpark was soon full of military vehicles, and the Americans had substantial amounts of money to spend. The Americans, with their Cairns and Innisfail girlfriends, were desperate for a respite from the war, and the Park provided swimming and other recreational activities, films, dinner and dancing that continued until the early hours of the morning. For Paronella Park, these were the boom years, and the region in general experienced a business bonanza.
After the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the servicemen gradually left the region. However, with peace came a surge of interest in North Queensland tourism, coupled with a significant increase in the numbers of local residents who owned a car, which augured well for the continued prosperity of the Park.
However, by mid 1945 Jose Paronella began to show symptoms of a yet to be diagnosed illness. During a visit to Brisbane in February 1946 Jose collapsed, and returned immediately to Mena Creek, arriving just before rising floodwaters closed the roads and railway line. A cyclone had formed in the Coral Sea, and the intense depression brought widespread rain to the whole region. Loggers had been felling the last of the giant cedars in the creek's catchment area, and a large number of logs had been piled up near the creek ready for transport to the timber mill. The rising flood waters lifted some of the logs which had then lodged against the railway bridge upstream creating a dam and blocking the water flow. For the first time, the Paronella family saw the waterfall silenced. Local residents tried to drag the logs from the water, but for an hour a vast lake formed upstream, collecting more debris until the railway bridge collapsed and a fifty foot high wall of water carrying the huge logs hit Paronella Park. The assault continued for 40 minutes and the Park was devastated. The local paper reported 'Steel girders were snapped like splinters as the logs smashed down the concrete handrails and removed whole flights of steps. Another log shot over the cliff on the northern side of the swimming pool and tore off the outside of the power house snapping huge steel girders and leaving others in a twisted tangle. The water pipe leading to the turbine collapsed under the terrific pressure'. Mud, debris and trees lay everywhere, all the garden soil was washed away and the fernery and plant collection was destroyed.
The local community rallied to help the Paronella family. The 'Cafe by the Pool' was abandoned as it was irreparable, and efforts were concentrated on clearing the hall of debris and repairing the damage caused by logs. To ensure that the Park could again be opened to the public, all food services were moved to the hall, and an access road to the lower park was created so that the huge cedar logs could be cut out and hauled away. Electrical technicians from the nearby mill assisted Jose to repair the hydro electric plant. The system was changed to A/C, and the speed of the turbine was increased. Jose bought a second hand alternator from wartime disposals, and to power the carbon arc system in the cinema the A/C would be converted back to D/C.
The final cost of repairs was approximately £8,000, however the Park was not insured for this type of damage. This was a period of extreme economic hardship for the family. The Park was closed to visitors for 6 months, and it was at least two years before the ravages of the flood had been completely cleared. It was during this time that Jose was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Jose Paronella died on 23 August 1948, and is buried in Innisfail cemetery.
Margarita continued to operate the Park, and the property was transferred to both Margarita and Joseph Paronella in August 1954. Teresa married and moved to Brisbane, and Joseph married Valentina in 1952. Margarita died in 1967, after which time the property transferred to both Joseph and his wife Valentina. They had two sons and continued to operate the Park, with further floods occurring in 1967, 1972 and 1974. Joseph died in April 1972, and the property was transferred to his widow Valentina. Valentina married Leslie Juhas in March 1974, and the property was transferred to John and Janice Kickbusch in November 1977.
In 1979 a disastrous fire swept through the Park and destroyed the hall and cafe. The Park was closed for some years, but was slowly revived by a series of caretakers and lessees, in spite of further damage caused by cyclone Winifred in 1986 and a flood in January 1994. In January 1994 Paronella Park was transferred to the current owners Mark and Judith Evans, who have undertaken considerable conservation works and continue to operate the Park as a tourist attraction. A museum has been created with the assistance of the Paronella family. An attached caravan park is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
A pedestrian suspension bridge constructed across the top of the falls was officially opened on 17 September 1988 as a joint Johnstone Shire Council Australian Bicentennial Authority project.
","criteria":"Paronella Park, designed and constructed by Jose Paronella in the early 1930s as a 'commercial pleasure garden' and 'Spanish-style castillo', contains the remains of several rendered reinforced concrete structures and garden elements, set in approximately 5 hectares of gardens, which were inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain. The Park is located on the northern bank of Mena Creek in an area of exceptional natural beauty, which includes the Mena Creek Falls and the Mena Creek Environmental Park on the southern bank. Paronella Park is significant as one of the earliest tourist attractions in North Queensland, which was constructed when the tourism industry in North Queensland was in its infancy. Paronella Park is significant for its association with the development of the tourism industry in North Queensland and the Johnstone Shire.
|Designed as a 'commercial pleasure garden' and 'Spanish-style castillo' inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, Paronella Park is unique in Queensland, and is a rare and unusual example of an early tourist attraction.
The hydro-electric system utilised in Paronella Park was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland, and as such is both rare and significant as an example of creative and technical achievement, and has the potential to reveal further information about the development and application of this technology.
|Paronella Park has suffered several disastrous floods, and one major fire, and as such has the potential to reveal further information about the original design of the Park, and its association with Jose and Margarita Paronella. Paronella Park also has the potential to reveal further information about the development of the tourism industry in North Queensland, and the role of Paronella Park in the development and social life of the local community.
The hydro-electric system utilised in Paronella Park was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland, and as such is both rare and significant as an example of creative and technical achievement, and has the potential to reveal further information about the development and application of this technology.
|(Criterion under review)
|Paronella Park, Mena Creek Falls and Mena Creek Environmental Park, is a place of exceptional natural beauty and has considerable aesthetic significance. The place contains substantial mature plantings and remnant rainforest, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding landscape of sugarcane. The design of Paronella Park was inspired by the Moorish architecture and gardens of Spain, and as such the park has strong aesthetic and architectural qualities. The concrete structures, which have been damaged by flood, fire and weathering, are surrounded by lush vegetation which enhances the sense of discovery, and romantic qualities of ruined structures contribute to a strong sense of place. The strong aesthetic qualities of Paronella Park are enhanced by the emphasis placed on contrast which creates a series of clearly defined spaces which enable a variety of vistas and differing perspectives, intimacy and openness, and light and shade. Paronella Park also contains a significant collection of rainforest plants, as well as 'exotic' plants.
|The hydro-electric system utilised in Paronella Park was the earliest application of hydro-electric technology in Queensland, and as such is both rare and significant as an example of creative and technical achievement, and has the potential to reveal further information about the development and application of this technology.
|Paronella Park is also significant for its association with the development and social life of the local community, and its role as a place of rest and recreation for servicemen during the Second World War. Paronella Park was also a place of entertainment and celebration for the local community, and as such has strong social significance.
|Paronella Park is significant for its association with the energy and vision of Jose and Margarita Paronella, who were prominent members of the local community and who made a considerable contribution to the development of Mena Creek township and Johnstone Shire. Jose and Margarita Paronella were also prominent members of the local migrant community which was integral in the development of the South Johnstone region.
\nMena Creek Environmental Park and Mena Creek Falls are important for their association with Henry Noone, who was responsible for establishing a camp at the top of the falls, surveying the area and giving the land which is now the Environmental Park to the local council for use as a picnic and recreation reserve. Mena Creek was named after Noone's daughter Philomena 'Mena' Fallon. Noone was important in the establishment of the Mena Creek township, and was also integral in the in the establishment of the South Johnstone Sugar Mill and the development of the South Johnstone region.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16760,"place_ref":602024,"name":"Drew Residence (former)","alternate_name":"Samuel Drew's House","street_address":"20 Wharf Street","suburb":"SHORNCLIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-11-24","description":"The Former Drew Residence at 20 Wharf Street, Shorncliffe, is a substantial, high-set, single-storeyed timber residence with enclosed brick undercroft, attic and viewing tower. It is located at the southern end of Shorncliffe, on a property of over 60 perches which slopes to Cabbage Tree Creek, providing boat access.
The core of the house is rectangular in form, with gabled transverse wings at each end. There is a substantial brick chimney rising above the main roof, and the roofs of the side wings have galvanised iron ridge ventilators. Its most distinctive characteristic is a centrally-positioned Mansard tower over dormer rooms in the main roof, providing a central focus to the front elevation and a viewing room with vistas over Cabbage Tree Creek to Moreton Bay. Across the front of the main body of the building is a deep verandah.
The Wharf Street elevation is particularly decorative, with paired, chamfered verandah posts with timber capitals and brackets; a decorative timber balustrade across the front verandah; decorative timber bargeboards and gable infills; an attic room with large dormer window over the front entrance and vestibule; and the elaborate timber viewing tower above this, complete with decorative bargeboards, spandrels beneath the guttering and acroteria.
The rear elevation also has a central, decorative focus, where a dormer window and a room beneath this project from the core of the house, overlooking Cabbage Tree Creek. There are some later additions at the rear, and the undercroft has been enclosed with brick, which is screened from the front street by timber battens.
Most of the windows are tripartite sashes, and have window hoods. Those facing the street incorporate a small gable in the window hood.
The interior also has ornate decorative elements and fine joinery. These include a narrow staircase in the vestibule with turned timber balustrades and an ornate, carved newel post. The interior is lined throughout with wide tongue and groove boards. To dado height throughout most of the house the boards are diagonally placed, contrasting with the vertical boarding above. Architraves around all windows and doors have a carved quatrefoil detail to the corners, and doors throughout are timber panelled. The interior is painted throughout.
In plan, the building is largely symmetrical. The centrally-positioned front door with side and fan lights opens into a wide vestibule, off which a large room opens either side. That on the western side is the lounge room, which has an early timber fireplace surround incorporating an over mantle and a cabinet. The eastern room was formerly a dining room, and has ornate, hand-crafted timber architraves.
Each of the side wings contains two rooms. Those in the western wing are separated by pairs of folding, panelled timber doors. Those in the eastern wing function as bedrooms and do not have connecting access. The side rooms which face Wharf Street are accessed both from the front verandah and from the large rooms which open off the vestibule. The two rooms which face the creek are accessed from rooms at the rear of the house.
Beyond the vestibule a door opens into a room at the rear of the house which overlooks Cabbage Tree Creek, and from which two small rooms open, one either side, entered via arches, one of which is an early arch. These are the rooms which give access to the rear rooms in the side wings. The back room on the western side also has access to an external set of stairs, but the stair to the room on the eastern side has been removed. Later bathroom extensions at the rear are accessed from these rooms also.
A narrow stair in the vestibule leads to two small attic bedrooms with arched doorways. From the front attic room another narrow stair leads to the tower viewing room.
The enclosed undercroft, which is accessed via a recent stair in the room behind the vestibule, contains an living space, dining area and kitchen. The chimney at this level has a double fireplace, which is of recent construction, but utilising the base of the original chimney. A recent galvanised iron awning extends from the rear of the undercroft.
The grounds have been altered, and the only evidence of the boatshed are two slipways, now covered by rapid mangrove re-growth. A recent timber jetty extends from the rear of the property into Cabbage Tree Creek, and later sheds replace the stables along the northwestern boundary of the property. A tennis court has been constructed in the southeast corner of the block along the creek frontage, and gardens have been built up in front of the house. Paved paths have been added and the driveway cemented. The front fence along Wharf Street has three ornate timber gates, one situated in front of the stairs leading to the front entrance, and the other two on the eastern side of the property which give vehicle access. These are 1947 replicas of the original timber gates.
","history":"This substantial timber residence with sub-floor, attic and tower, is understood to have been constructed in the 1890s, possibly in three stages, by American carpenters and boat-builders Samuel Drew and his sons Albert Edward and Frederick William, as their family home. As builders, the Drews erected many houses in the Sandgate/Shorncliffe district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during the peak of Sandgate/Shorncliffe's popularity as a seaside resort. They established a boat-building enterprise [constructing mostly pleasure craft] on Cabbage Tree Creek behind 20 Wharf Street, and were well known in local sailing circles.
In the early 1850s, Brisbane commercial interests headed by Thomas Dowse and Brisbane Valley squatters John and David McConnel, promoted the establishment of a shipping centre at the head of Cabbage Tree Creek. They were in competition with rival claims for Brisbane and Cleveland as the principal port for Moreton Bay. The Village of Sandgate was officially surveyed in 1852, with the first sale of Sandgate town lots held at Brisbane in November 1853. Most of the land sold was purchased by the speculative investors behind the move to create a port at Sandgate. However, with Brisbane subsequently consolidating its position as the port for Moreton Bay, Sandgate languished. Landowner inaction, poor communication and strong Aboriginal resistance further retarded its development.
Native police were stationed at Sandgate from late 1852 until 1862 to 'disperse' the Bribie Island and Ningy-Ningy people, and facilitate non-indigenous occupation of the land in the Cabbage Tree Creek and Pine Rivers districts. With the removal of hostile indigenes, Sandgate/Shorncliffe developed slowly from the 1860s as a seaside excursion venue. By 1868, Cobb and Co. was operating a twice-weekly service to Sandgate, and by the mid-1870s, three coach companies were offering services to the bayside resort. In the 1860s six hotels were established at Sandgate, although only two, the Sandgate and the Osborne, survived the decade. Also from the 1860s, a number of summer seaside residences and boarding or guest houses were erected, mostly along Eagle Terrace and at Shorncliffe. In the 1870s the permanent population increased, agitation for a rail link with Brisbane emerged, and municipal status was granted to the Borough of Sandgate in April 1880. With the opening of the extension of the railway from Brisbane to Sandgate in 1882 the permanent population grew rapidly, settlement spread along the flats, and weekend holiday-makers turned the township into a bustling seaside resort. The popularity of Sandgate/Shorncliffe as a seaside resort attracted day-trippers, seasonal holiday-makers and the Moreton Bay sailing fraternity, well into the 20th century.
Samuel Drew, his wife Jane Harris and family emigrated to Australia from the United States of America in the mid-1880s, and by 1887 were resident in Sandgate. They had arrived during a colonial-wide economic boom and the local flurry of development which followed the opening of the railway line to Sandgate. Drew, who was a carpenter and boat-builder by trade, gained employment as foreman/carpenter at William Street's joinery works in Creek Street [now Palm Avenue], Sandgate, and in 1888 erected a house there, at the corner of Creek and Wharf Streets.
William Street, reputedly formerly employed by Samuel Drew in America, was by this time a prominent Sandgate builder and contractor, who erected the Sandgate Post Office [600290] in 1886-87 and the Sandgate Baptist Church in 1887, as well as many houses in the Sandgate/Shorncliffe area. Early in 1886, he had purchased over an acre of land at the southern end of Creek Street [present Palm Avenue] on the western side of the street, adjoining Cabbage Tree Creek, where his joinery works were established. Street was a Justice of the Peace, a trustee of the local cemetery, and along with EB Southerden [first mayor of Sandgate], was joint treasurer of the Sandgate School of Arts. By 1890 William Street was in partnership with W Krimmer as proprietors of the local skating rink in Sunday Street, Shorncliffe, erected 1888-89, and Samuel Drew was manager of the rink.
During the widespread economic depression of the early 1890s, William Street was forced to liquidate his business affairs, his Creek Street property passing to his mortgagor, the Queensland National Bank, in 1893. The Drew family's 1888 house was located on this property, which in 1904 Albert Edward Drew, Samuel Drew's son, purchased from the bank.
From 1889 the land west of Street's Joinery Works, along Wharf Street, was made available as residential allotments. Samuel Drew acquired title to 1 rood 22.4 perches [resubdivisions 96-98 of subdivision A of allotment 3 of section 15, Village of Sandgate] of unimproved land backing onto Cabbage Tree Creek and fronting Wharf Street, in May-June 1890. The eastern boundary of this land abutted William Street's Creek Street property. According to Samuel Drew's descendants, over the next decade the Drews built their family home here in several stages: firstly the main bedrooms and sewing room, then the central section [including the tower]. A stables, complete with bell tower, and a large boatshed which housed the family's boat building business, were erected prior to the construction of the third stage of the house.
It is not clear whether Samuel Drew actually lived in the Wharf Street house, as through the 1890s and early 1900s he was listed in the Queensland Post Office Directories at Creek Street, Sandgate. His Wharf Street property was transferred to four of his children in 1895: Mary Ellen, Elizabeth Jane, Albert Edward and Frederick William, then in 1905 [perhaps following Albert's purchase of the Creek Street property in 1904] back to Samuel, who on the same date nominated Mary Ellen and Elizabeth Jane Drew as trustees. When Samuel Drew died in April 1907, the funeral party left from his late residence, Creek-street, Sandgate [Brisbane Courier 26 April 1907:4:3]. However, by 1911 his widow, Jane, was resident in the Wharf Street house, and his unmarried daughters remained there until their deaths in the mid-20th century.
The family understands that the sisters conducted a sewing and sail-making business from 20 Wharf Street for many years. An intriguing reference in the Queensland Post Office Directory of 1910-11 lists 'Drews Sanatorium Home for Infants' at Sandgate - whether the Drew daughters ever used their home for this purpose has not been established. In 1918-19 Samuel John Drew [Sameul Drew's youngest son] built a house for himself at 19 Wharf Street. He and his brother Albert Edward, who continued to live in the 1888 house at the corner of Wharf Street and Palm Avenue [formerly Creek Street], maintained the family boat-building business from the boatshed at the rear of 20 Wharf Street until the 1930's depression, when Samuel leased his house and moved to Toowoomba. Albert and fellow boat builder and relative, Theo Woodhead, constructed the last boat in 1948, the year in which Albert died. Albert Drew, known locally as 'Skipper' Drew, was a foundation member of the Sandgate Yacht Club, established in 1912, and was well-known in local sailing circles. He won many sailing titles on Moreton Bay, in craft he had built himself.
In 1947, prior to Elizabeth's death in 1950, Samuel John Drew and his son Oliver, also a builder, repaired and repainted 20 Wharf Street in white and several different shades of grey, believed to be the original colours. At this time they removed an early hedge and fence, replacing them with a smaller wrought iron fence. As the original timber gates were in poor condition, replicas were constructed in their place. In 1952, 20 Wharf Street suffered slight damage by a cyclone, and decorative fretwork across the ridge of the tower was blown away.
Following Elizabeth Drew's death in 1957, the residence was transferred to Samuel John Drew and William Roy Drew [son of Frederick William Drew and Samuel Drew's grandson]. As both had homes elsewhere, it was decided to convert the house into two flats to provide an income sufficient to pay the rates on what was effectively three blocks of land. In 1966 the flats were reconverted to a single house and offered for sale, passing out of the Drew family in 1967. The large boatshed on Cabbage Tree Creek and the stables were demolished subsequently. In 1987-88 the house was raised slightly and the undercroft, which previously housed a bathroom, laundry, and two water tanks, was converted into a lounge/dining room area. The place remains a private residence.
","criteria":"Constructed in the 1890s by American carpenters and boat-builders Samuel Drew and his sons as their family home, the place is important in illustrating the expansion of Sandgate as a town and seaside resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The place is closely associated with the Drew family and their contribution to local pleasure-craft construction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, further illustrating the nature of Sandgate as a bayside community.
|The Former Drew Residence is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, late 19th century artisan's residence designed to impress, and of large timber sea-side homes in the Sandgate/Shorncliffe area in general, including in the design a tower room with views over Cabbage Tree Creek to Moreton Bay.
|The place exhibits a range of aesthetic characteristics, including the setting of the house adjacent to Cabbage Tree Creek; the scale, form, and materials employed; the decorative external timberwork; and the quality of the interior detailing, particularly the well-crafted joinery. The place makes a significant contribution to the streetscape, and is a local landmark.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16767,"place_ref":602031,"name":"St Marks Church","alternate_name":"St Mark's Anglican Church","street_address":"36 Larnach Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"St Mark's Church is situated in Larnach Street, Allenstown, and compliments the surrounding local streetscape of timber residences.
The building is timber framed and clad with tongue and groove hardwood, parts of which have exposed framing to the exterior, and windows have pointed arch heads. The gabled roof is covered in corrugated iron.
The street façade has a projecting baptistery flanked by two porches either side, and there is a small vestry attached to the northern side of the sanctuary at the east end.
The interior of the building has a Rood-screen across the chancel and an apsidal sanctuary. St Mark's also contains a nave, pews and font all in original form, and there is stained glass in the Baptistery.
Note - This place has not been inspected internally by an officer of the Department.
","history":"St Mark's Anglican Church at Allenstown, Rockhampton, was erected in 1900. The foundation stone of St Mark's was laid by Mrs Dawes, the wife of the first Bishop of the Diocese of Rockhampton (The Right Revd. Nathaniel Dawes), on 14 October 1900. This Church was subsequently completed and able to be used for services for the first time on Sunday, 23 December 1900.
\nSt Mark's is also located on Larnach Street, which appears to be a street named in honour of an early (1860s) Rockhampton Anglican churchwarden and member of the Church of England Aid Society - J.A. Larnach.
\nThe Rockhampton suburb of Allenstown was the first suburb south of the Fitzroy River. This place obtained its name through William Allen, a merchant and leading layman of the Primitive Methodist Church. In about 1864, William Allen subdivided land in the Dawson Road area and sold these blocks \"to working men for $30 an allotment, allowing them nine months to complete the payments. When one of these men was asked where he lived he is supposed to have replied 'Allen's Town'.\"
\nAllenstown's St Mark's Church is one of two identical buildings, both of which were constructed in 1900 by the Anglican Cathedral Parish to meet the needs of Rockhampton's suburban parishioners. St Mark's remains largely in its original configuration, while the other example which was located in Wandal, has since been demolished.
\nThe first Anglican cleric to reach Rockhampton was Queensland's first Anglican Bishop, Bishop Tuffnell, in November 1860, though lay ministers held Anglican services in Rockhampton during the late 1850s. Following shortly after Tuffnell's visit, The Revd. Thomas Jones arrived at Rockhampton, becoming the popular pioneer Anglican Rector. Jones encouraged his congregation to raise sufficient funds in 1862 to allow construction of a small timber church to be built on what later became the site of the present Cathedral Hall and Offices.
\nLater more funds were raised for a new and larger church with plans drawn up and construction beginning on St Paul's Church in 1872, though this building was not completed and consecrated until 1883. In 1892 the Church of England Diocese of Rockhampton was formed and the St Paul's Church was upgraded becoming the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul the Apostle. The foundation bishop, The Right Revd. Nathaniel Dawes, was formally emplaced on 30 November 1892.
\nSt Mark's is the only remaining ecclesiastical building in south Rockhampton which retains the vernacular building style in timber. The interior retains the integrity of the arrangement of furnishings and liturgical accoutrements associated with the influences of the Oxford Movement. The interior of the building has a Rood-screen across the chancel - one of few remaining examples extant within the Diocese of Rockhampton, and an apsidal sanctuary.
\nThe emergence of the Oxford Movement and its impact on the practice of the Church of England occurred during the early decades of the 19th century:
\nAfter the threat of liberalism had receded another challenge arose, with the growth of scientific discovery. ... In 1833, spurred by John Keble's Assize Sermon at Oxford, a group of [Anglican] theologians began to fight against liberalism and the new science. Their crusade became known as the Oxford Movement. ... They set out to create - or to re-create - a Church that was chiefly concerned not with social and political influence but with spirituality and its expression through ritual, as had been the concern of the Catholic Revival.
\nAlthough the Oxford Movement was largely concerned with doctrinal reform of the Church of England, it also had an impact on the \"the interior arrangements of churches; older churches were remodelled and new churches built ... with the focus on the altar rather than the pulpit.\"
\nThe Rood-screen is an example of the impact of this Movement on internal church architecture, often viewed as \"an open screen, often richly carved and painted, across the entrance to the chancel of a church, extending from floor level to the underside of the rood-beam.\"
\nThe Rood-screen extant within St Mark's is believed to have been erected in the 1920s. Most other Rood-screens found in the Rockhampton Anglican Diocese were erected as World War One Memorials, though St Mark's does not possess any designated plaque to confirm whether this was the case though it is presumed to be so.
\nWithin the Diocese of Rockhampton, apart from the example in St Mark's in Allenstown, the only other extant examples of Rood-screens are found in the Anglican churches at Mt. Morgan, Jericho and Barcaldine.
\nInternally St Mark's is largely in original condition, though the Sanctuary was altered with cladding in the 1960s. The Altar furnishings are 1960s reproductions, and there is also an Icon of St Mark which was donated by the Greek Community in the 1950s.
","criteria":"St Mark's Anglican Church is important in demonstrating the pattern of suburban evolution in the City of Rockhampton, and the concomitant role of the Church of England in meeting the needs of suburban parishioners - in this case in Allenstown - Rockhampton's first suburb south of the Fitzroy River.
|St Mark's demonstrates a rare example of internal church decoration by possessing an extant example of a Rood-screen, an aspect of internal church architecture associated with the influences of the Oxford Movement.
|This Church is a fine example of the timber Gothic-style architecture dating from 1900, and is the only timber vernacular ecclesiastical construction extant in Rockhampton on the south side of the Fitzroy River.
This church also exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics contributing to the streetscape of Larnach Street, valued not only by the local Allenstown parishioner community, but also the broader community.
|This place has a special association with both the Allenstown and broader Rockhampton Anglican community for both social and spiritual reasons.
|St Mark's also has special association with the work and organisation of the Anglican Diocese of Rockhampton and the needs of Rockhampton's suburban parishioners.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16770,"place_ref":602034,"name":"Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse (former)","alternate_name":"Lone Parents Club","street_address":"309 Herston Road","suburb":"HERSTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-12-17","description":"The former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse is a large, freestanding, two-storeyed brick building rendered with a rough cast finish, located in the north-east corner of the Victoria Park Golf Course bounded by Gilchrist Avenue and Herston Road, Herston. The main entrance towards Gilchrist Avenue overlooks Victoria Park below and a bitumen carpark occupies the former putting green terrace between the building and the road.
\nThe main elevation is symmetrical about a centrally projecting gabled entry porch which was the core of the 1931 building. The 1939 alterations and additions are in the non-identical wings flanking the central bay and the terminating pavilions to the east and west. The building conveys the impression of a Spanish-Mission or Mediterranean character established in the 1931 design but the overall impact is of thoughtful classicism within a restrained use of Spanish references.
\nThe three bays of the main entrance porch, now glazed to form an enclosed entry vestibule, are punctuated by square columns with rounded concrete brackets. The balcony above the entrance porch has three round arched openings with decorative concrete balustrade panels. The glazing to these openings was a later addition. A gable vent of curved tiles sits below the low pitched gable roof clad with Marseilles tiles.
\nWithin the west loggia, a stairtower sits between the formal entrance and the minor entry porch which has a decorative roof edge capping of round tiles. The upper loggia has two sets of paired open round arches screened with timber blinds.
\nAt ground level in each of the end pavilions, a projecting central bay capped with round roof tiles is flanked by pairs of casement windows decorated with wrought-iron window grilles. Slender half columns in a stylised Corinthian order define the corners of the bay and casement windows with a scalloped fringed sill are recessed within the bay. At the upper level of each pavilion a continuous sill wraps around the corners below three generous window bays which in the west wing are filled with sets of casement windows and in the east with louvres. The wings have Marseilles-tiled hipped roofs with bracketed eaves.
\nFrom Herston Road the tiled roof and upper level of the building peep through the vegetation around the perimeter of the property. This elevation is asymmetrical about a central gabled bay. Three separate pedestrian bridges cross from Herston Road to the upper level connecting with the latticed porch entrance to the living quarters and the dining room.
\nThe south-west and south-east corners continue as wrap-arounds from the main elevation. A plain pilaster with a round tile decorative coping above the capital is located one-third the way along each side elevation and finishes the corner. To the west four bays of metal framed casement windows at the upper level afford views across the Golf Course.
\nThe building plan accommodates access and vertical circulation within the loggias to the front of the building and services and storage along the rear. At ground level the pavilions contain the former locker/changing areas. The upper level contains the former large dining room, ancillary service areas, meeting spaces and the living quarters in the east pavilion.
\nFrom the reception vestibule a metal staircase to the right arrives at the upper level loggia. The reception vestibule opens into the former main bar area. Evidence suggests that later openings have been made in the wall between the main bar area and the west pavilion. The stair from here arrives at the upper loggia which connects to the former dining area. At ground level, the east wing houses a former billiard room and toilet/shower facilities. An acoustic tile ceiling has been inserted in the new reception and main bar areas. Plain plaster ceilings are found elsewhere throughout the ground floor. The toilets in the west wing retain original finishes and the former women's shower area has been altered to accommodate toilets. The men's shower, change and toilet facilities were accommodated in the east wing.
\nThe upper floor contains the former spacious lounge and dining area, kitchen, bar, storage, meeting room and living quarters. Windows to the west offer an extended view across the Golf Course. The low-ceiling of the former dining space is punctuated by plain plaster rendered ceiling beams finished with decorative corbels at the wall junctions. An extensive hardwood dance floor survives. The former dining area and the meeting room open to the front balcony and east loggia which provides views towards the old Exhibition Building, the RNA showgrounds and lower Victoria Park. The former living quarters of the east pavilion are accessed from the east loggia and included a bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, storage area, balcony and rear verandah entrance to Herston Road. In contrast to the restrained decoration of the public areas the living quarters has a number of decorative cornices in an Art Deco style.
\nSome mature trees from the original landscaped setting remain around the former Clubhouse. A chain wire fence on a tuff base sits on the retaining wall to the rear. Housings in the tuff base suggest that this was formally a timber fence. A section of steps and buggy ramp is located on the western edge of the car park.
\nThe former clubhouse building and its immediate surrounds have been altered since the place was entered in the Queensland heritage register, to accommodate adaptive reuse works carried out in the 2010s.
","history":"The Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse was constructed in two stages, 1931 and 1939, as the clubhouse for Brisbane's first municipal golf links, established in Victoria Park in 1930-31.
\nThe modern game of golf originated in Scotland in the 18th century. By the late 19th century it was popular throughout Britain, and in the 1880s and 1890s, British immigrants established golf clubs throughout the British Empire.
\nGolf was introduced to Queensland in the 1880s by two Scots, the Ivory brothers, who laid out a six-hole course on Eidsvold cattle station, near Gayndah. Golf courses at Ravenshoe and Townsville [1893] are the first recorded Queensland courses. The Brisbane Golf Club, formed in 1890, was the first organised golf club in Queensland, but did not establish a course [at Chelmer] until 1896. It was a private club, attracted the patronage of Lord Lamington [Governor of Queensland 1896-1901], and until 1920 was the only golf club in Brisbane. The Toowoomba Golf Club was formed in 1896 with a nine-hole course on Drayton Road and the Ipswich Golf Club was established in 1897.
\nHowever, golfing was not widespread in Queensland by the turn of the century. The game was the preserve of the affluent, with founders and club members mostly from professional and business sectors. High membership fees and the cost of golfing equipment often excluded the less well-to-do from the sport.
\nQueensland entered a period of prosperity in the 1920s, which engendered a new enthusiasm for public sport and recreation. Bowling and golfing in particularly became very popular. Many new players were women, who had gained a greater social freedom during the war, although generally in golf clubs they were admitted as associates rather than as full members.
\nSeveral new private golf clubs were established in Brisbane in the 1920s: the [Royal] Queensland Golf Club at Hamilton in 1920, followed by clubs at Sandgate [1921], Wynnum [1923], Goodna [Gailes] [1924], Indooroopilly [1926], Oxley [1928] and Nudgee [1929]. A round of golf was considered to be eighteen holes but by 1929 there were only three eighteen-hole courses in Brisbane: Brisbane, Royal Queensland and Indooroopilly. The other Brisbane courses were nine-hole courses played twice to achieve the stipulated round.
\nIn the 1920s, municipal golf courses were established throughout Australia, enabling broader social access to the game. Successful municipal courses established in Sydney [1920] and Adelaide [1922], which provided the public with affordable facilities and at the same time generated municipal revenue, stimulated moves for the creation of Queensland municipal courses. The Queensland Golfing Association, eager to foster golf in Queensland, first approached the Mayor of Brisbane in 1922 with a proposal for a nine-hole municipal course at Victoria Park. In 1924 the Toowong Town Council investigated the possibility of establishing a municipal course on One Tree Hill [Mt Coot-tha] and Taringa Shire Council also investigated developing a course. Both proposals were abandoned. In 1923 the Ipswich City Council took over the Ipswich Golf Club and established the first municipal course in Queensland, with public play commencing in 1924.
\nFollowing the formation of Greater Brisbane in 1925, the Brisbane City Council prioritised the provision of parks and public reserves, and the establishment of sport and recreation facilities within these areas. A large section of Victoria Park - established in York's Hollow in 1865 - had been reserved as the site for a new University of Queensland since c1906, and had lain largely undeveloped. When the University announced in 1926 its decision to build at St Lucia instead, the Queensland Golf Association again raised the issue of establishing municipal golf links at Victoria Park. This time the proposal was greeted with enthusiasm by the Council. Both the first Lord Mayor of Greater Brisbane, Alderman WA Jolly, and the Town Clerk, SE Travill, were tireless supporters for the establishment and development of the municipal golf course at Victoria Park. Jolly became the inaugural president of the Victoria Park Golf Club and remained in this office until 1934. He was made a life member in 1935 in recognition of his services to the Club. The proposal was supported also by Parks Superintendent Harry Moore, who estimated that the cost of developing the land as a park would be £50,000 to £60,000 - far in excess of the cost of establishing a golf links.
\nSome delay in implementation was experienced due to the slow process of transferring much of Victoria Park back to the City Council. A course was designed by Stan Francis, who laid plans before the Council in February 1930 and who supervised the laying out. Much of the work on the course was completed under the Intermittent Relief Scheme, and was well in hand by September 1930 when the council put out tenders for the construction of the clubhouse. This building was situated at the northeast corner of the course because it allowed players to return in an easterly direction, as advised by Francis. It was also close to the tram along Bowen Bridge Road, which was convenient for players. The clubhouse was designed in the office of the City Architect, AH Foster, with plans drawn by Assistant Architect Reyburn Jameson. The building was in the Spanish Mission style, popular for recreational interwar buildings such as bathing pavilions and picture theatres, and which had been used in the design of the Council's Moora Park Kiosk at Sandgate [erected 1928].
\nWork on the clubhouse commenced early in 1931, and it was ready for occupation in September. The links were completed a couple of months later, and the Victoria Park Golf Course was opened officially on 20 November 1931. Final construction cost for the course and clubhouse was £13,919 [course £9,794; clubhouse £4,125].
\nTo ensure the successful functioning of the new course, the Victoria Park Golf Club was formed at a public meeting on 20 March 1931, at which it was confirmed that the Council provided the course, clubhouse, the salaries of a Club Secretary and Club Professional, and assumed responsibility for the upkeep of the course, while the Club members were responsible for the operations of the Club. Any casual player was entitled to play the course without joining the Club, on payment of the appropriate green fees.
\nThe Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse boasted every modern facility, but no bar, as many members of the Council were not in favour of making alcohol available. There were protests about this lack, both as a facility to members and as a revenue-earner. The Council eventually gave permission for a bar, which was opened on New Year's Day, 1935.
\nDuring the depression years of the 1930s many private golf clubs lost membership, but that of the Victoria Park Golf Club doubled between 1933 and 1937. In response to this expansion and to be able to continue to attract membership, the clubhouse was extended and remodelled in 1939 by City Architect, Harold Erwood. Wings were added to either side of the existing building, with the additions and alterations focussing on improved member and associate services and facilities, including new lounge and dining room areas with a timber dance floor upstairs; a doubling of locker space, toilet and shower facilities; private rooms; modern kitchen; independent access for women; and new exterior lighting. The upper floor also provided new living accommodation for the club secretary, in the eastern wing. The layout, incorporating facilities for women in the west wing and those for men in the east wing, reflected a marked social separation between the sexes. The extended building opened on 26 October 1939 and continued in use throughout the Second World War, despite the original 17th and 18th fairways being occupied as a military encampment. The lounge area of the clubhouse was extended in 1948 and the ground floor was refurbished in 1963.
\nThe Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse was one of the larger public buildings erected by the Greater Brisbane Council, and the golf links remained the only municipal course in Brisbane until the establishment of the St Lucia Golf Course in 1985. Other civic work produced by the Brisbane City Architect's office during the interwar period included bandstand rotundas, kiosks, dressing sheds and toilet blocks. This work ranged across a number of styles and generally care was given to their design. Tramway substations and the New Farm Powerhouse were designed by engineers in the Council's Tramways Department.
\nThe course was considered to be one of the finest municipal golf courses in Australia and has been described as the cradle of golf in Brisbane. Under the tutelage of AE Gazzard, foundation professional 1931-72, some players went on to become professional golfers in the Queensland and Australian arenas.
\nIn the mid-1970s a new clubhouse was constructed on the brow of the hill between Herston Road and Gilchrist Avenue, and was opened on 14 December 1975. The links were altered so that the ninth and eighteenth holes were near the new clubhouse, changing Francis' orientation of the course. The 1930s clubhouse was vacated at this time, and from 1978 was tenanted by the Lone Parent Club of Queensland. During the 1980s the building was used as a nightclub but was soon after abandoned and occupied by squatters. After a period of vacancy, it was leased to the Mental Illness Fellowship Queensland in 2010 and works to repair and adaptively reuse the building followed.
","criteria":"The former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse, erected in the 1930s, is important for its association with the development of golf as a popular recreational sport in Queensland. The establishment of the Victoria Park Golf Course in 1930-31 as Brisbane's first municipal golf links, along with the formation of the Victoria Park Golf Club and the construction of a purpose-designed clubhouse, illustrates the Greater Brisbane City Council's strong commitment to the development of public recreational facilities during the interwar period.
The former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse is an integral element within an historic precinct situated around York's Hollow and along Bowen Bridge Road between Gregory Terrace and Breakfast Creek, which has been important in the evolution of Brisbane's and Queensland's history. This area includes the residential, ecclesiastic and educational structures along Gregory Terrace overlooking Victoria Park, Bowen Park, an early tram shelter shed adjacent to Bowen Park along Bowen Bridge Road, the RNA Grounds, the former Exhibition Building at the northeast corner of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road, the Exhibition Railway, Victoria Park, Centenary Pool, the Electricity Sub-station at the northwest corner of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace, Victoria Park Golf Course, the former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse, Royal Brisbane Hospital, and the Herston Medical School.
|It is both a good example of Brisbane City Council civic architecture of the period, and a rare interwar recreational building designed and constructed by the Brisbane City Council.
|The former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse is a substantial interwar civic building in Brisbane. It is both a good example of Brisbane City Council civic architecture of the period, and a rare interwar recreational building designed and constructed by the Brisbane City Council. In its Spanish Mission references, the building embodies the then popular association of this style - often employed in designs for picture theatres and bathing pavilions - with recreational activity. The more formal neo-Georgian 1939 extensions are mindful of its civic presence, reflecting the success of the municipal golf links as a Council venture in the 1930s.
The former Victoria Park Golf Clubhouse is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an interwar clubhouse, accommodating the principal elements necessary to the successful functioning of a golf clubhouse of this era, including locker and associated ablutions areas for members and associates, segregated by gender; a separate entrance and lounge area for female players; an administrative station; living quarters for the Club Secretary; and clear physical and visual links with the golf course proper. The building retains clear evidence of the 1939 gender segregation in the arrangement of internal spaces and circulation patterns.
|Despite having lost much of its park setting, the building retains an aesthetic value: the exotic suggestion of the Spanish Mission references, tempered by the neo-Georgian restraint, combine to create a robust, elegant sports pavilion.
|The place has social significance for its close association with the popularisation of golfing in Brisbane and in Queensland for over four decades. It also has one of the last large timber dance floors in Brisbane, and has been associated with Brisbane social functions such as balls, dinners, and receptions for many decades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16772,"place_ref":602036,"name":"Gympie Railway Station Platform Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Tozer Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-10-14","description":"The Gympie Railway Station, a large railway complex bounded by Chapple, Mellor and Tozer Streets, is located on Caledonian Hill to the northeast of the central business district of Gympie. The complex comprises a long island platform which links via a subway, underpass and overbridge to neighbouring streets to the south and by parallel railway lines to engine yards and the remainder of the larger railway complex to the north. The island platform accommodates a substantial station building, a guard's room and storage room all built in the Pagoda idiom favoured by Queensland Railways at the time.
Station building
The main station building is a long narrow, one and two-storey, timber-framed structure running the length of the raised concrete island platform. Its varying roof forms are a dominant feature with raised lanterns piercing the roof lines. Generous platform awnings extend from each side of the building shading to the platform edge. The roofs are clad in rib and pan metal sheeting and external walls are clad in chamferboard.
The centrally located two storey section accommodates the main entrance at the platform level. The single storey portions extend either side and cantilevered platform awnings run along their lengths shading the platform. Roofs to the lower level are truncated hips and a gambrel roof shelters the upper level.
The main entrance to the station faces Tozer Street and provides access to the ticket booth and waiting area. The entrance is framed by a decorative archway with short timber balusters. Curved glazed fanlights are located above the two timber panelled entrance doors and above casement windows with coloured glass panes. Wall cladding below the window sills in this area is formed from vertically fixed v-jointed boarding.
The unlined timber framed platform awnings clad with metal sheeting are notable for the large, decorative riveted iron brackets running the length of the station building sheltering the platform edges.
Windows on the upper level are double-hung and top sashes have a multi-paned detail of coloured glass. These windows are shaded by timber-framed awnings with decorative timber brackets.
Openings on the lower level include double-hung windows with a similar multi-paned coloured glass to those to the upper level and timber-framed panelled doors with glazed fanlights. Bay windows with double-hung sashes project towards the platforms on each elevation to the south of the main entrance. Openings are framed with decorative timber architraves.
The roof lantern vents are located along the length of the building and include two to the northern end, one to the southern end and one on the upper level roof. Light and ventilation are provided through timber slatted openings.
Gutters to the platform awning are quad-profile while gable rolls and gutters to the main roofs are recent square profile metal.
The short southern elevation features gable ends finished with a decorative slatted barge board and exposed ceiling joists. A small multi-paned ticket window is the only opening. The northern elevation of the main building is obscured by the c.1924 refreshment room addition but similar gable details to the south elevation are visible above the roof of the addition.
The c.1924 addition has a lower pitched roof and shorter timber-framed platform awnings. Walls to the addition are clad in weatherboard and windows are simple double-hung sashes protected by timber-framed window hoods. On the western side of the addition a recent timber-framed covered walkway has been erected which links the station building to the guard's building.
The interior of the station building is centred on the main waiting area. To the south of this area is the current ticket sales area (the former ladies' rest room), former station master's office, and former booking office. To the north of the waiting area is a souvenir shop (the former servery), a refreshment room (reconfigured) and a former bar room and yards area now housing a model train display. On the upper floor a large open room (the former kitchen, scullery and pantry) is now used as training/office area. The interior of the lantern vent is visible in this room.
Internal walls and ceilings are lined with v-jointed boards with simple timber cornices, architraves and other mouldings. Internal doors which remain are panelled glazed doors with coloured panes similar to those in the external openings. Floors are lined with recent linoleum. A solid timber counter faces the waiting area from the ticket sales area. A staircase to the east of the ticket sales area accesses the upper floor which has similar finishes and detailing to the lower floor.
Distinctive elements of the station building and platform include a metal drinking fountain, timber and wrought iron platform seating, early signage, an early telephone located in the former servery area, remnant gas fittings in the store room end of the building and a fold up washbasin behind the bar in the refreshment room.
Guard's building
The guard's building, a timber-framed structure with a gable roof, accommodates male and female toilets and storage areas. Walls are clad with chamferboard while the roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Timber-framed louvred vents are located at the wall and ceiling junction on the western and eastern elevations. Gutters are formed from quad-profile metal and gable ends feature metal gable rolls. The recent covered walkway extends from the station building to form a platform awning on the western-side of the guard's building. Panelled doors with fanlights above are located on both platform-facing elevations while double-hung windows are located on the northern and southern elevations. All openings are framed with decorative architraves and architrave blocks. Internal partitions and ceilings are lined with v-jointed boards.
Store building
A store building is located next to the guard's building and is a simple timber-framed structure with a gabled roof. Walls are clad with chamferboard while the roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Gutters are quad profile metal and gable ends feature metal gable rolls. Windows are simple double-hung sashes and large, ledged doors open out to the western platform. A small metal window hood shelters the doors.
Signal maintainer's hut
The signal maintainer's hut, located at the northern end of the platform, is a small timber-framed structure sheltered by a gabled roof with overhanging eaves. Walls are clad with chamferboard and the roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Gutters are quad profile metal and gable ends feature metal gable rolls. Sets of multi-paned windows are located on platform facing elevations.
Covered waiting area
A covered waiting area links the main station building to the goods lift and subway to the south. The structure's flat, cantilevered roof is supported by substantial bracketed timber posts. The roof is clad with rib and pan sheeting.
Subway
A concrete-walled subway provides pedestrian access from the southern end of the platform to the station entrance off Station Road below. It is accessed through wrought iron gates which open to concrete-formed steps leading down from the platform. The opening in the platform is bound by wrought iron spear-topped balusters and is sheltered by a roof formed from curved, corrugated metal sheeting supported on a timber frame. A sign with lettering 'WAY OUT' is located at the entrance to the steps. At the base of the steps the platform above is supported on a concrete-formed arched lintel. The walls of the subway are formed from concrete which has recently been painted with decorative murals. Access to Station Road is through another set of wrought iron gates. A 1963 ticket and parcel office is located on Station Road and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Footbridge and underpass
Concrete formed steps parallel to the railway lines rise to a now demolished footbridge which passed over the Station Road underpass. Walls supporting the steps are formed from heavy concrete walls, piers and plinths and are capped with concrete sills. Two half-through steel plate girder bridges supported on concrete abutments carry the rails over the underpass. A scallop-edged wall leads to another smaller set of concrete steps which lead directly into the road underpass.
Luggage lift
A luggage lift is located behind the subway access steps at the southern end of the station platform. It is sheltered by a simple gabled roof. The goods lift is framed with sheet metal and accessed into the lift is at the rear by a small sliding door. Early signage is visible at the rear of the lift.
Overbridge
A large timber overbridge is located at the far southern end of the station building with steps leading from the island platform to a bridge over the railway tracks and with steps at each end alighting onto Lady Mary Terrace to the west and the grounds of the Railway Hotel to the east. This structure is framed in timber and is supported on braced timber posts supported on concrete plinths. Balustrades are formed with timber posts and horizontal rails. Directly over the railway line, timber smoke screens are attached to the underside of the bridge.
","history":"The Gympie Railway Station platform complex is an intact component of a much larger former railway complex. Built on a site operating as a railway station from 1881, the platform complex largely dates from the 1910s and includes the station building and adjacent structures, pedestrian subway and luggage lift, underpass, footbridge and overbridge. The complex was built in response to changing requirements associated with the expansion of Queensland railway network and reflects the important status of Gympie within this system.
Gympie (initially called Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in October 1867 by James Nash in the Upper Mary River district. The new gold field put Queensland on the map as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. By Christmas of 1867, according to the Gold Commissioner, the Gympie field had a population of 4,000 (or over 15,000 according to James Nash). Although the alluvial deposits were quickly exhausted, from 1868 shallow reef mining occurred. The early makeshift structures of Gympie gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings.
Within months of the establishment of the goldfield, the idea of a railway linking Gympie to a port had been raised and various proposals for a starting point including Maryborough, Brisbane and Tewantin were promoted. Ultimately, the campaign for a Maryborough-Gympie route was successful. By the end of the 1870s, an intensive phase of underground reef mining was underway, facilitated by the injection of share-holding capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. Gold exports made up 20% of Queensland's economic output by 1870, outperforming wool in 1875. The increasing influence of the mining industry, and its ability to compete with other interests jostling for a rail link was evident with the Queensland government's approval in August 1877 of three railways connecting mining towns to their principal ports: Townsville to Charters Towers; Bundaberg to Mt Perry; and Maryborough to Gympie. The Maryborough-Gympie line was the first in the colony to run in a north-south direction rather than westwards from a port; the beginning of Queensland's coastal route.
Originally a terminus was planned for Commissioner's Hill, where most of Gympie's government buildings were clustered, but in 1880 a more central site on Caledonian Hill was approved. The railway to Gympie opened in August 1881 and soon became the dominant transport artery for the movement of goods and people in and out of Gympie. Within three months of opening, the traffic between Gympie and Maryborough required two trains daily. Timber extracted from the abundant softwood and hardwood stands surrounding Gympie was the main product to be transported for many years.
The station buildings at Gympie and Maryborough were positioned at the terminus of the track line, marking the railway's dead end status. Within a year of the line opening Gympie representatives had begun lobbying for a rail link to Brisbane. Brisbane commercial interests also pushed for better access to the Gympie market. A route was surveyed in 1885 and by 1886 the first section of the North Coast line from Brisbane-Caboolture had commenced construction. In 1888 construction of the remaining sections commenced simultaneously from Caboolture and Gympie. The Gympie-Brisbane line was opened in mid-1891, linking a route extending from Brisbane to Bundaberg. To enable the extension to proceed, Gympie's station building was moved from the end of the track and re-sited within the yard on the southern side of the line.
The passing of the North Coast Railway Act in 1910 facilitated the linking of the separate regional divisions of Queensland Railways into one network, through extending the state's coastal route. The passing of the Act (together with the Great Western Railway Act 1910) provided a major impetus for increased spending and construction works on the Queensland railways. New stations were built along the main lines in places such as Brisbane, Gympie and Townsville between 1910 and 1917. A corresponding development of improved locomotive technology, rolling stock, and railway infrastructure in general characterised this period, along with the construction of new rural branch lines throughout Queensland.
Major improvements and additions were undertaken at the Gympie station from 1911 to 1915. A triple-gabled, open-ended engine shed was built in 1912. In the same year plans were drawn for a substantial new passenger station building, designed within the architectural section of the Railway Department's Chief Engineers Office. Vincent Price was in charge of the architectural section at this time.
The station was based on the Queensland Railways A series 'Pagoda' standard design. From the 1860s, Queensland railway stations were predominantly built in timber, with only a small number of masonry stations built in major urban centres like Brisbane and Toowoomba. The Pagoda design series saw Queensland Railways adapt stylistic elements of what is often described as 'Federation style' to its existing timber tradition. Federation style architecture, broadly dating from the 1890s to 1915, incorporated a wide range of stylistic influences including the Queen Anne, English Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau and the American shingle styles. Distinctive characteristics employed at Gympie included the use of decorative timber detailing, windows with small upper panes of coloured glass, ornate platform brackets, and Marseilles tiles on a picturesque roof form featuring half hipped ends, projecting gables and lantern vents. Other passenger stations built in 1913 in the 'Pagoda' style included the much smaller Yarraman (since relocated), Dirranbandi and Home Hill stations. Gympie's station appears to be the largest timber passenger station built by Queensland Railways during the twentieth century.
Construction of the station commenced in early 1913, with the new building commencing operations from 1 December. Positioned on an island platform, the long narrow chamferboard-clad building housed a bar, refreshment room and servery, waiting room, ladies room, station master's office, telegraph and booking office and sheltered ticket sales area. A smaller upper floor housed the kitchen, scullery and pantry for the refreshment room, serviced by a hand operated lift, and a concrete underground cellar was provided behind the bar. Cantilevered platform awnings with decorative riveted iron brackets extended the length of the building on both sides, from which lamps were suspended for lighting. Upon its completion, the Gympie Times described the station as '...certainly the most attractive of government buildings in Gympie...which lends distinction to its surroundings'. Next to the station on its north end, a smaller timber building following the Pagoda design style housing a lamp room, porter room, guard's room and toilets was completed around this time.
Other major work included the construction of a subway and luggage lift to provide pedestrian access from the southern end of the island platform to the station entrance, and an adjacent underpass to replace a gated crossing between Station Road and Mellor Street. Large excavations were required for this undertaking, and concrete walls were built to line the underpass and the station entrance. A set of concrete steps between the entrance and underpass linked to a small timber footbridge running parallel with the railway, connecting to Lady Mary Terrace. Two half-through plate girder bridges were constructed to carry the rails over the underpass. In 1915, a large timber two-span overbridge with steps leading from the island platform and steps alighting onto Lady Mary Terrace and Station Road was also completed. Timber screens were attached below the bridge to reduce pedestrian exposure to train smoke.
The Gympie goldfield passed through its most profitable period from 1901 to 1906 and in 1903 produced its peak annual output. After 1906 production declined and by 1925 the last of the big mines had ceased operations, ending a 50 year phase of deep reef mining in Gympie. By this time dairying and agriculture (especially fruit production) had emerged as key contributors to the economy of the Gympie district, strongly influenced by the opening of the Mary Valley branch railway in 1915 and the resulting influx of new settlers. These industries were heavily reliant on transport by rail and increasingly informed activities within the station complex while shaping the development of the surrounding precinct. The Wide Bay Co-operative Dairy Company was located on Tozer Street from 1906 and in 1925 built one of Australia's largest butter factories, a reflection of the region's prominence in dairying. In 1937 the Petty Sessions District of Gympie was Queensland's largest milk and butter producer, with the greatest number of dairy cattle in milk. The Gympie district was the largest producer of bananas in Australia in the 1920s and from the 1930s an important pineapple and bean growing area. Fruit trains began operating from Gympie to Melbourne from 1923 and in 1929 the Gympie Fruit Growers Co-operative Association erected premises opposite the station on Tozer Street.
The opening of the Townsville-Cairns section of the North Coast line in December 1924, the final link of Queensland's coastal route, sent more goods and people through Gympie. This increase in traffic determined further substantial alterations to the complex in the second half of the 1920s. Plans were drawn for an extension of the refreshment rooms in 1924, the northern end platform was extended in 1927 and the subway lift shaft at the south end was altered for a new electric lift. Other work included the installation of an electropnuematic signalling and interlocking system and triple storey signal cabin, addition of more rail lines within the complex, a new turntable and coal chutes. A 1932 site plan shows the platform shade extending from the south end of the station building to the subway entrance had been built and the earlier single storey signal cabin at the north end of the platform was in use as the signal maintainer's 'hut'.
By the 1930s, the Gympie railway station complex had evolved into one of Queensland's most substantial and busy railway complexes. Extending beyond the main yard into adjacent streets, a range of structures existed to meet the needs of railway staff and customers. Such structures included engine and wagon repair shops, storage and maintenance sheds, loading banks and trucking yards, offices, union rooms, station masters residence and guards, loco, inspectors and waitresses quarters. Within the yard were some 11 miles (17.6 km) of railway line.
The station played an important role in moving goods and people throughout most of the twentieth century. Gympie was the terminus for passenger services from Brisbane and Maryborough and the administrative boundary between these railway districts and operated as a crew change point, train examination, shunting and re-marshalling centre. During WWII, Gympie became an important depot and meal stop for troop trains. After the war the local small crops industry continued its expansion and in 1955 agricultural loadings worth a total of £1,494 000 were sent from the Gympie station including 900,000 cases of pineapples, 85,000 cases of beans and 20,000 cases of bananas.
Over time, a range of factors including the transition to diesel from steam, competition with road transport and changes in rural industries impacted on the operations of the station and informed changes to the complex. By 1956 a small timber building had been built next to the signallers hut on the platform and was used as a porter's room. The sheltered ticket sales at the south end of the station building area had been enclosed for other purposes and the north end was also extended for storage. In 1963 a new ticket and parcel office was built within the former parking area adjoining the subway entrance.
During the 1970s, the roof tiles on the station building were replaced by metal sheeting. By 1980 the roofing on the guard's room had also been clad with metal sheeting, the lantern vent removed and the half-hipped head roof ends of the building replaced with gables. The platform was further extended to accommodate longer air-conditioned trains. The three storey signal cabin was made obsolete around 1980 with the introduction of CTC signalling and was removed circa 1989.
In 1970 the 24 hour refreshment rooms dispensed with evening trading, before the service stopped altogether in 1972. In the 1930s, the rooms had employed two cooks, a manager and 15 waitresses. The closure of the refreshment rooms and other operational needs saw the internal spaces of the station building used for other purposes. In 1981 the main station building accommodated spaces for records and other storage, porters, fitters and driver's rooms, loco crew amenities, inspector's office, switchboard and CTC control room. The former kitchen on the first floor at this time housed the station master's office. The porter's room on the platform was in use as an electrician's hut.
The Gympie station had been operating for a century by 1981 but by the end of the 1980s was rendered largely redundant. As part of the upgrading and electrification process of the North Coast line between Brisbane and Rockhampton, an eastern deviation was constructed by Queensland Rail. A new station 'Gympie North' was built as part of this project, opening in early 1989 with the inauguration of electric train services. Gympie Railway Station was relegated to a goods and freight depot from 1989 before officially closing as a Queensland Rail station in 1995. By this time many of the structures within the complex had been removed.
For over a century the station complex was intrinsically linked to the economy of Gympie and the surrounding area and played an important regional role in Queensland's rail network. While facilitating the movement of goods, the site was also an important social space, for the wider community who greeted and farewelled family, friends and distinguished visitors at the station, for rail travellers passing through, and for the many employees connected to the station.
The closure of the station occurred in the same year goods trains ceased operating on the Mary Valley branch railway following its gradual decline in previous decades. The line however, was not formally closed and in 1996 the Mary Valley Heritage Railway Board negotiated to conduct tourist steam train services on the line and in 1997 became the custodians of much of the Gympie Railway complex. The Mary Valley Heritage Railway commenced operations on the former Mary Valley branch line on 23 May 1998. The 'Valley Rattler' steam train tours and rail motor rides have since become a major tourist attraction for the region. A large group of volunteers and trainees contribute to the operation and maintenance of the line, rolling stock and buildings between Gympie and Imbil.
","criteria":"The Gympie Railway Station platform complex is important in demonstrating the expansion of Queensland's railway network and the growth of Gympie as a major regional centre. As a key site for the movement of goods and people for over a century, the station was intimately connected to the Gympie district's development of its mining, timber, dairying and agricultural industries.
First established in 1881 as the terminus of the line from Maryborough, the station evolved over time following connections to Brisbane in 1891, the Mary Valley branch railway in 1915, and the extension of Queensland's coastal railway route. Major improvements dating from 1910s including the island platform, station building and associated pedestrian infrastructure demonstrate the response to changing requirements associated with the expansion of Queensland railway network and the important status of Gympie within this system. Later additions, including the platform shade, platform extensions, electric luggage lift and additional platform buildings further illustrate this growth.
|The highly intact passenger station building (1913) is important as an example of a large station building derived from the Queensland Railways A series 'Pagoda' style standard design and is considered rare in Queensland, as is the luggage lift (1927) connecting the platform and subway.
The intact arrangement of structures within the platform complex is rare within a Queensland railway station setting and includes the station building and adjacent staff and storage structures, pedestrian subway and luggage lift, underpass and overbridge.
|The passenger station building is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a major regional railway station of the early twentieth century. These characteristics are expressed by the highly intact building in its platform setting, substantial and imposing form, exterior detail, internal layout of offices, storage spaces, refreshment and waiting rooms, and associated fittings, fixtures and decorative detailing. The station building's shaded platforms and waiting areas, its generous eave overhangs and window awnings are distinctive elements of early twentieth century railway architecture in Queensland.
The passenger station building is important in demonstrating the evolution of passenger station design in Queensland during the early twentieth century. Derived from the A series 'Pagoda' style standard design, distinctive features including the ornamental platform brackets, coloured glass windows, decorative timber detailing and roof form demonstrate the adoption of Federation style architectural characteristics by Queensland Railways during the 1910s.
Adjacent ancillary buildings used for staff and storage purposes are important in contributing to an understanding of how the station functioned. The platform shade, subway and luggage lift, underpass, and overhead bridge illustrate the response to the requirements of passengers and pedestrians.
|The landmark qualities of the Gympie passenger station building, derived from its elevated location and substantial form, reinforce its status as an important part of Queensland's regional transport network and declare Gympie's regional standing. Its prominence combine with its distinctive design features, including the ornamental platform brackets, coloured glass windows, decorative timber detailing and roof form to make a strong contribution to the Gympie townscape. The cohesive arrangement of buildings and structures within the complex, its aesthetic qualities and distinctive spine-like arrangement evoking the shape of the hilltop on which it stands, can be appreciated from a number of vantage points within and beyond the complex, including the Railway Hotel [QHR 602540] and adjacent streets.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16775,"place_ref":602039,"name":"Manly Retaining Wall","alternate_name":"The Great Wall of Manly","street_address":"Falcon Street","suburb":"MANLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The Manly Retaining Wall is located at the corner of Wellington and Falcon Streets and divides both streets down the centre, forming two levels of access. At the intersection of the two streets the wall is approximately 7 metres high. It extends approximately 100 metres along both streets, tapering towards the ends to follow the incline of each street. Concrete steps are located at the end of the wall on Wellington Street, providing access to the upper level.
The wall sits on a concrete base, 3 foot (914mm) high and is constructed of basalt blue metal stone which was quarried at nearby Lytton. The wall has a backing of 9 inches (228mm) of dry stone packing behind the rear face (embedded in the cutting) which steps from 8 foot 3 inches (2.51 metres) at the widest part of the base to 12 inches (304mm) at the top. The front face is straight and is capped with a cement coping, 12 inches (304mm) wide.
The individual stones are irregular in form and size and are laid in a random pattern. Each block is bedded in concrete and the joints are heavily pointed with cement plaster. In various places, the plaster has been formed into shapes depicting Australian native animals, including kangaroos, emus, goannas, and also human heads and boomerangs.
","history":"The Manly Retaining Wall is located at the corner of Falcon (formerly know as Spring) and Wellington Streets, forming a cutting in the centre of each road. It was constructed in 1933 and comprises irregularly shaped stones which were quarried at Lytton, bedded in concrete.
The first European settlement of the Wynnum Manly area of Moreton Bay occurred in the 1860s when two sugar mills, Lota and Wyvernleigh were established. The area soon became popular with holiday makers, and holiday homes were constructed along the bay. In 1882 land sales of the Manly Beach Estate (named after the coastal Sydney suburb) were held, giving the area its present name. The completion of the railway in 1889 provided further impetus for the development of the area as a seaside resort, although the area maintained its connections with the fishing industry. By the late 1920s, access to the area was possible by rail, bus or road, further increasing its popularity as a resort and also as a permanent place of residence for Brisbane businessmen and their families.
Street layouts in the area of the retaining wall form a meandering pattern due to the original estate surveys and also the irregular topography. In some places, the slope to the bay was so steep that the road was divided in two to allow access to houses located on either side of the road.
Falcon Street is an example of this. It was originally divided by an embankment which was so high and wide that it restricted access for two way traffic. A retaining wall to replace the embankment was much needed, however the cost of construction would have been more than the surrounding properties were worth. The initiative of the Brisbane City Council District Engineer for Wynnum in applying for relief labour made the wall a financial possibility.
The Unemployment Relief Scheme was introduced by the State Government in 1932 as a means of providing work projects for the unemployed during the Depression of the 1930s. The Brisbane City Council took advantage of this scheme to construct the retaining wall, providing tools and materials whilst the state government provided the labour. Other structures in the area, including similar retaining walls and the Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve [602039] were also constructed under the relief scheme.
The wall was an ambitious project. It is approximately 200 metres long and meets foundation pressures ranging from 1.5 tons (48.75 kPa) per square foot to 4 tons per square foot (130 kPa). Because of the clay formation of the soil, the foundations of the wall were critical. A plan for the wall was produced by the City Engineer's office in February 1933, and is signed by the Designing Engineer and the City Engineer, Mr Gilchrist. On site calculations are said to have been made 'with the aid of a piece of 4 x 4 placed on end in the clay and loaded with concrete blocks'.
Due to the labour being supplied by the relief scheme, a variety of workers were employed on the project, including an unknown artists who formed figures within the concrete plaster pointing. These figures include kangaroos, emus, boomerangs and human heads, one of which is apparently a likeness of the District Engineer in charge of works.
The wall is a locally well-known feature of the area and is included in the Brisbane City Council's heritage walk booklet under the local name of 'the Great Wall of Manly'.
","criteria":"The Manly Retaining Wall is demonstrative of a government scheme which was implemented to assist the unemployed throughout Queensland. It was constructed in 1933 under the Unemployment Relief Scheme which was implemented in the previous year as a means of generating work projects for the unemployed during the Depression of the 1930s.
|(Criterion under review)
|Due to its size, the Manly Retaining Wall is a prominent landmark in the area. The random pattern of the stonework and the substantial concrete pointing which includes animal figures such as a kangaroo, emu and goanna also contributes to the aesthetic significance of the place.
|The Manly Retaining Wall demonstrates technical achievement and is a notable engineering accomplishment incorporating high quality of workmanship.
|Known locally as 'The Great Wall of Manly', and included in the Brisbane City Council's Heritage Trail for Wynnum-Manly, the place has strong associations with the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16776,"place_ref":602040,"name":"Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve","alternate_name":"Manly Wading Pool","street_address":"The Esplanade","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve is located in a recreational reserve on the foreshore of Moreton Bay. The Manly jetty extends into the bay to the north of the pool and barbecue areas are located at either end of the pool. The area at the northern end has been refurbished to include showers, change rooms, toilets, a play area and a man-made white sandy beach known as 'Pandanus Beach'. Trees are planted along the foreshore and at either end of the pool and include pines, bauhinia and figs. A memorial to W H Barnes, MLA for Bulimba and Wynnum, in the form of a sandstone drinking fountain is also located at the northern end of the pool.
The pool is a large oval shape measuring 128 metres x 54 metres, with a depth at the centre of approximately 750mm. Separated from the bay by a narrow concrete path, it is constructed of concrete with a natural compacted clay base which is covered with fresh sand fortnightly. It has five shallow steps surrounding the edges on all sides except that closest to the road. A concrete ramp provides additional access at the south-western corner of the pool and a slippery slide is located in the northern end of the pool. Two depth indicators are located at either end of the pool.
The pool contains salt water which enters the pool through three concrete pipes at high tide when flood gates retain the water. The pipes have mesh across them to prevent sea life entering the pool.
Vegetation in the surrounding park area includes pine, bauhinia and fig trees.
","history":"The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve was constructed in 1932 by relief workers and is a shallow tidal pool with concrete walls and a sandy bottom.
The first European settlement of the Wynnum Manly area of Moreton Bay occurred in the 1860s when two sugar mills, Lota and Wyvernleigh were established. The area soon became popular with holiday makers, and holiday homes were constructed along the bay. In 1882 land sales of the Manly Beach Estate (named after the coastal Sydney suburb) were held, giving the area its present name. The completion of the railway in 1889 provided further impetus for the development of the area as a seaside resort, although the area maintained its connections with the fishing industry. By the late 1920s, access to the area was possible by rail, bus or road, further increasing its popularity as a resort and also as a permanent place of residence for Brisbane businessmen and their families.
The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve was constructed by the Brisbane City Council, as part of the Unemployment Relief System which was established to provide work projects for the unemployed during the Depression of the 1930s. The Council took advantage of this scheme to complete a number of projects in the Wynnum Manly area, including the Manly Retaining Wall [602039] providing tools and materials for each project, whilst the state government provided the labour.
The pool was created by the construction of a concrete sea wall beyond the high water mark, with little excavation required. This wall creates a barrier between the pool and Moreton Bay and also provides a promenade along the foreshore of the Bay. Three pipes are located along the length of the wall, through which water flows at high tide. Flood gates are then closed to prevent the water from receding at low tide. This process is carried out fortnightly and the bottom is cleared of any build up of silt at the same time.
It seems that few alterations have been made to the pool since its original construction, although alterations have recently been carried out on the surrounding area to provide change rooms and a barbecue area, as well as a white sandy beach. Installation of flood lighting also occurred before the summer season of 1933, presumably to allow for night time use.
The pool has been popular with both locals and visitors since its inception in 1932. It remains in use for most of the year, by swimmers in the summer months and by model boat enthusiasts during winter.
","criteria":"The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve is demonstrative of a government scheme which was implemented to assist the unemployed throughout Queensland. It was constructed in 1932 under the Unemployment Relief Scheme which was implemented in the same year as a means of generating work projects for the unemployed during the Depression of the 1930s.
|The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve is a rare example of early wading pool technology of this type in Queensland.
|The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve is a rare example of early wading pool technology of this type in Queensland.
|It is also of aesthetic significance due to the surrounding landscape and its siting adjacent to Moreton Bay.
|The Wynnum Wading Pool Reserve is a rare example of early wading pool technology of this type in Queensland.
|Well known and utilised by local residents and visitors, the place has strong association with many community groups and is significant as a park complex and for its social history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16777,"place_ref":602041,"name":"Canecutters Memorial","alternate_name":"Pioneers of the Sugar Industry Monument","street_address":"Fitzgerald Esplanade","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The Canecutter's Memorial is located on the Innisfail Esplanade overlooking the Johnstone River at the eastern end of Edith Street. It is sited on a small sealed area set among trees and a grassed park-like area. The land to the east of the memorial slopes steeply towards the river.
The white marble monument consists of an octagonal pool from which rises a square section plinth containing a water fountain and bowl on each face and topped by a life-sized statue of a man cutting cane by hand. The cane cutter wears the typical clothing of shorts and hat and wields the trademark cane knife in his right hand. Under his left arm and across his back sweeps a sheaf of standing sugar cane.
Below the statue, two opposing faces of the plinth feature bas reliefs depicting cane cutters at work. That at the front of the monument carries the Latin motto 'UBI BENI IBI PATRIA', which loosely interprets to 'Where one is content, there is one's homeland'. On the other two faces are inscriptions, one in English and one in Italian. The English version reads:
TO THE PIONEERS
OF THE SUGAR
INDUSTRY
DONATED BY THE ITALIAN
COMMUNITY OF INNISFAIL
DISTRICT
ON THE FIRST CENTENARY
OF THE STATE OF QUEENSLAND
1859 1959
Below these panels are cast metal water spouts in the form of water bags over metal bowls. The water then flows into fluted marble basins supported by pairs of conventional dolphins. The whole is surrounded by an octagonal metal railing made in the form of stylised cane stalks topped by tram rails and decorated with implements associated with the trade.
","history":"The Canecutter's Memorial was erected in 1959 by the Italian community of the Innisfail district to commemorate the centenary of the state of Queensland. The life-size statue of a canecutter was chosen, reflecting the importance of the sugarcane industry in the development of the district's economy.
The town of Innisfail (called Geraldton until 1911) was founded in 1880 by Thomas H Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald arrived on the banks of the Johnstone River with 35 South Sea Islanders and ten Irish workers to grow sugarcane on a 10,000 hectare land grant, funded by the Catholic Bishop of Brisbane and All Hallows' Sisters of Mercy. Others arrived soon after, and a community was established with an economy based firmly on the production of sugar. In 1882 a sugar mill was built at Mourilyan in 1882, followed by the establishment of the South Johnstone mill in 1915.
Sugarcane was first grown commercially in Queensland in 1864. The crop was originally grown on large plantations, using South Sea Islander labour as it was considered working in cane fields in the climatic conditions of Queensland was too prejudicial to the health of Europeans. This practice began to change in the 1880s and 1890s however when the state government adopted a policy of gradual repatriation of South Sea Islanders. Queensland sugarcane growers considered workers from the warmer parts of Europe, including Italy, to be appropriate replacement labourers. The first Italians to arrive in North Queensland landed in Townsville in 1891. A small number moved into the Johnstone area during the 1890s, although they came as tenant farmers and not labourers. The first large group of Italian nationals seeking cane cutting contracts arrived circa 1907-08. These Italian migrants were known for their determination to accept hardship and poor working conditions which, together with great economic cooperation, saw many Italian labourers gaining their own holdings.
While many Italians arrived in North Queensland before the First World War, Italian immigration peaked in the years following the war. At this time conditions in Italy were such that many looked abroad to start a new life. Australia became a favoured destination in the 1920s when the United States moved to restrict immigration from Italy. The Australian and Italian Governments agreed on a chain migration system, where Italians already resident in Australia nominated relatives and fellow villagers, leading to the development of a chain immigration system. As a result of this system, family group pocket settlements mushroomed. The strong Italian community established in the Innisfail district before the war was strengthened further by the post-war immigration.
The number of Italian migrants arriving in North Queensland peaked again in the years following World War II. Immigrants from many European countries, including Yugoslavia, Malta, Spain and Italy arrived in Australia as displaced persons, and were indentured to work in the cane fields. Of the displaced migrants, the Italians were the largest ethnic group to be employed in the sugar industry, continuing to make a significant contribution to the sugar growing communities of North Queensland, including Innisfail.
In 1959 the Queensland Government suggested communities commemorate the centenary of separation from New South Wales by a structure of a permanent nature. A group from the Italian community in Innisfail decided to erect a statue. Photographs taken throughout the history of the sugar industry in the Johnstone area were submitted to Sydney artist L Yonna who suggested a statue in the form of a canecutter. The committee formed to oversee construction wrote to the Chamber of Commerce of Carrara, Italy, requesting the submission of designs by suitable sculptors. The design of Renato Beretta, the Instructor at the Carrara Academy of Arts, was selected. The monument was made in Carrara, arriving in 32 cases to be erected by an Italian migrant P Bertolani who had arrived in Australia two months previously. The monument was officially unveiled by the Premier of Queensland, the Hon F Nicklin, on 4 October 1959. It cost £5000 to construct.
","criteria":"The Canecutter's Memorial is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as an illustration of the significance of the sugar industry in North Queensland. For many years, the growth of Innisfail and the surrounding district was reliant on the sugar industry, an industry which continues to the present day to be a crop of importance in the economy of the Johnstone Shire. Erected by the Italian community of Innisfail, the Memorial is important in demonstrating the contribution of Italian migrants to the sugar industry, both as labourers and farm owners. The subject of the Memorial, a canecutter, further demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's history as a figure in the sugar industry made obsolete by the mechanisation of cane harvesting in the 1960s and 1970s.
|The Canecutter's Memorial demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as an early example of a monument carrying an inscription in two languages, English and Italian. Constructed in 1959, it is a multicultural tribute to the pioneers of the sugar industry, which predates the nation-wide move towards multiculturalism later in the twentieth century.
|The Canecutter's Memorial is important because of its aesthetic significance as a skilled example of the sculptor's art, occupying a prominent position along the Innisfail Esplanade, an open park-like area situated along the Johnstone River, and terminating long views east along Edith Street, one of the major streets of the central business district of the town.
|The Canecutter's Memorial has a special association with the Italian community of Innisfail, whose members erected the memorial in 1959 to the pioneers of the sugar industry, many of whom were Italian. The Memorial also has a special association with the wider community of Innisfail as a tribute to the pioneers of an industry that has been of vital importance to the development and prosperity of the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16779,"place_ref":602043,"name":"Kenilworth Homestead","alternate_name":"Kenilworth Station","street_address":"Eumundi Kenilworth Road","suburb":"KENILWORTH","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-11-30","description":"Kenilworth Homestead is a large complex on about 38 hectares of land to which access is provided via the Eumundi-Kenilworth Road, about 3km west from Kenilworth. The land on which Kenilworth Homestead is situated undulates from a hill on the eastern side of the property toward the Mary River on the eastern side, on a bluff overlooking which is the homestead complex, incorporating the early house. Access roads run north through the property providing access to the homestead as well as an complex of outbuildings, incorporating the barn.
The homestead complex, incorporates a number of buildings, structures, gardens and established tree planting. The c1865 homestead is centrally located with a 20th century extension to the east. To the west of the homestead is a reconstructed slab hut, a nineteenth century timber cottage moved to the site from Gympie and a 20th century timber kitchen/residence. The outbuildings, to the east of the homestead complex, include a 1901 silky oak barn with extensions and a number of other timber buildings all constructed during the occupation of the Rowe family.
The complex houses two important early buildings relating to the pastoral workings of the place; the principal residence dating from about 1865 and a 1901 barn. Also related to the early history of the site are a number of large established trees and a small cemetery overlooking the property from a hill on the eastern end of the site.
The principal residence is a single storeyed timber building facing north with a rectangular plan and verandahs lining the two long sides. Part of the verandah has been closed in creating additional rooms. The main gabled roof is clad with corrugated iron and reduces in pitch at the verandah line. The timber construction technique is unusual, without visible horizontal support and using very high quality and well finished cedar slabs. The foundations of the building are a system of load bearing bed logs that support floor joists and tongue and groove timber floors. The single skinned wall construction comprises regular 2 inch thick cedar boards measuring about 10 inches wide, joined with beaded tongue and groove joints and fixed into the foundations below the floor boards and into the ceiling joists above the ceiling, resulting in the absence of visible horizontal timber members. Doorways and windows are formed within frames of thinner beaded cedar boards with beading.
The building is arranged with a row of five central principal rooms running parallel to the long sides of the house. These rooms are lined on the north side by an open verandah and on the south side with a line of smaller rooms to the south of which is another partially enclosed verandah. Without halls the rooms provide direct access to each other through hand crafted panelled and moulded single doors and a series of 'secret' doors made from the cedar wall slabs. The interior joinery, including all of the walls, ceilings and floors, is stained but not painted. The doors which lead from the principal rooms to the northern verandah are also quite unusual, not being of standard size or proportion. One of the door openings is fitted with wide French lights where the door sleeves are divided with fine timber mullions into a number of square panes. These square panes are repeated on the windows in the house and on several half glazed doors.
Internally the building has significant furniture and fittings, including several carved timber sideboards, an early light fitting, Aboriginal artefacts given to the owners of the homestead by the Gubbi Gubbi people in commemoration of a long association, and other documents including photographs. Two of the main rooms, the drawing and the dining rooms share masonry fireplaces which a substantial square planned chimney services.
A timber one and two storeyed extension wing, dating from the 1950s, abuts the south -eastern corner of the house from the kitchen. Despite the substantial size of the wing, it is partially concealed by the large fig tree to the south of the house. The wing reflects the massing, form, proportion and fenestration patterns of the principal house, with a gabled corrugated iron clad roof and door and window openings similar to those of the house. To the west of the house is an car shade, to the north of which is a reconstructed slab hut, constructed, like many of the other reconstructed buildings on the site from building materials from earlier dismantled outbuildings. To the west of the slab hut and diagonally placed facing north west is a timber worker's cottage with pyramidal roof and verandahs which was relocated from Gympie.
Large established trees and established gardens surround the homestead complex, significantly a c1901 fig tree to the south of the house, a garden area to the north of the house and several other trees in the vicinity.
The 1901 barn is part of a large complex of outbuildings. It is one storeyed timber structure constructed from single skinned horizontal timber weatherboards on a timber frame with internal bracing. The building comprises a large central room, flanked to the east and west by a row of six smaller stalls. Dividing the stalls from the central room is horizontal boarding which is separated at a high level to produce horizontal cavities between the boards. The stalls have been internally lined with fibrous cement sheeting and fitted with bunk beds. The roof of the building is clad with corrugated iron and is gabled with a shallower pitch over the two rows of stalls. The barn is now on a concrete slab and this forms a walkway around the building. Abutting the southern end of the barn is an open are constructed from recycled materials and abutting this is a modern concrete block covered stage area and dormitories which are in the final stages of completion.
The other outbuildings in this area include a stockyard and house; toilet blocks, and a small building now used as a chapel. These buildings are constructed from concrete block and timber and all have corrugated iron clad roofs.
To the west of the buildings on the site is a large hill only the eastern side of which is on the property. Near the crest of the hill is a small enclosed cemetery, housing a grave with three headstones; Henrietta Lillian Josephine (1873-1875); Alma Blanche Claudine Beattie (1895) and unmarked rock said to mark the grave of a small aboriginal girl. Alongside this formal grave is a large cairn with a memorial with a plaque in memory of the Gubbi Gubbi people who also used this area as a burial ground. Between the buildings and the hill are substantial trees, a pair of bunya pine trees and a pair of hoop pine trees.
","history":"The Kenilworth Station was taken up in 1850 by Joseph Smith. A substantial timber residence was constructed on the station in about 1865 by a later and long time owner, Isaac Moore. The Rowe family purchased the property in 1925 and have retained Kenilworth since then. During their ownership the focus of the former pastoral property has become tourist oriented.
The area of the original Kenilworth Station, along with a vast area in the Wide Bay district was initially inspected by Dr Stephen Simpson, the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Reverend Stephen Eiper in 1843. Eiper was determining the suitability of the area for establishing a German settlement, and Simpson was investigating a crime. Joining the pair on this early exploration was Richard Joseph Smith, a soldier who later became the original leasee of what was to become Kenilworth Station. The area was opened up for leasing in 1850, prior to which depasturing licenses were issued each year. Smith applied for a five year lease of 22, 000 acres on the east bank of the Mary River on 18 August 1850 on which to run about 640 cattle. On the following day Smith tendered for another 18,000 acre run, known as North Kenilworth and adjoining the northern boundary of the Kenilworth Run. Smith's tender for both runs was officially accepted on 30 April 1855 following a Commissioner's report of the area, although presumably Smith was occupying the land prior to this.
Smith retained Kenilworth Station for several years before transferring the lease to Charles Frederick Parkinson and Colin Fraser, who are believed to have been managing the station already. Parkinson and Fraser were, like Smith, ex-military and it was Parkinson or his wife who is thought to have named the run in memory of the Walter Scott novel. Parkinson and Fraser transferred the run to Ipswich merchant, Walter Gray in July 1860. Gray died shortly after acquiring Kenilworth and the property was transferred to Isaac Moore in 1863 who owned it for many years and is believed to be responsible for the construction of the early homestead.
Isaac Moore (1811-1903) arrived in Fryerstown on the Victorian gold fields in 1853 and ran a successful store. He then relocated to Queensland to embark on pastoral pursuits. Moore went into partnership with WH Baynes on the Barambah Station and following Baynes' death Baynes' interest in the station was purchased by Moore's sons. Moore was well known in the Wide Bay/Burnett district as a local politician. Moore increased the size of the Kenilworth Run to about 100 square miles by adding to it other adjacent runs including Cambroon and Cordalba which he purchased at the same time as Kenilworth.
It is believed that during the occupancy of Isaac Moore at Kenilworth from 1863 until 1875, the early homestead was constructed. The present owners of the house believe the date to be closer to 1865. The construction of the building has been attributed by descendants of the Moore family to two cabinet-makers from Orkney Island. The high quality of the finish of the internal timber work and the unusual construction technique support this proposition. The construction technique of the principal residence will be further explained in the description section of this report but varies from other Queensland homesteads of this age in its high quality finish and absence of visible horizontal framing or bracing.
A census taken in 1871 suggests that two inhabited buildings were extant at the Kenilworth Station. It is suggested that these buildings were an original slab hut (now rebuilt) constructed by Smith and the principal residence constructed in about 1865. A survey plan, dated 14 December 1878, shows two building in approximately the position of the current residence.
In 1873 an application was made by Isaac Moore under section 14 of the Land Act 1868 to lease 400 acres of pastoral land on the Kenilworth Run under the pre-emption. Moore was to pay a £10 annual rental and a £7 survey fee. The 400 acres selected by Moore ran across the Kenilworth Station and also an adjoining station, Obi Obi. The improvements on the selection included a dwelling house worth £800, another dwelling house worth £100, stockyard and paddock fences worth £300. Although Moore paid rent for his selection from January 1873, the lease was not formalised until 20 October 1879 after an official survey.
Isaac Moore remained on his selection until 1875 when his 14 month old daughter, Henrietta, died and was buried on a hill overlooking the homestead. The management of Kenilworth was taken over by Patrick Lillis. Although some reports suggest Lillis purchased the property at some time during his management this conjecture is not supported by primary documentary evidence. Some confusion exists over the management of Kenilworth Station during the 1870s and 1880s. In 1890, still under the ownership of Isaac Moore, Duncan Beattie assumed the management of Kenilworth replacing Lillis who was experiencing serious financial problems.
In about 1901 it is believed that a large silky oak barn lined with quandong was constructed under the direction of Beattie who was renowned for the Hereford herd and thoroughbreds he raised on the Kenilworth Run. The barn is believed to have been constructed by an early timber getter and gold miner, Ned Allen using timber from the Walli Valley. The building was designed to house six stalls on each side of a large central enclosed area. A ball was held to open the building and to raise money for the Gympie Hospital.
Following the death of Isaac Moore in 1903, Kenilworth Station was passed in equal one- quarter shares to his four children Hugh Moore, Isaac John Moore, Frances Annie Moore and Emma Isabella Mary Clarke. The sons assumed the property and on Hugh Moore's death the property, still measuring 400 acres was transferred to Isaac John Moore.
In 1921 Kenilworth Station was subdivided and in the following year large areas of the property were sold. In 1924 the town of Kenilworth was established on a resumed part of former run and the postal services which were formerly managed at the homestead were transferred to the new town.
In 1924 a Frank Rodgers of Kenilworth became the owner of 100 acres of the subdivided Kenilworth Station being that part which housed the residence and barn. This was transferred to long time owner of the property Henry Faris Rowe on 13 July 1925. Henry Rowe was married to Frances Hassall of the nearby Mount Ubi Station. In 1964 on the death of Henry Rowe the title was transferred to James William Faris Rowe who transferred the property to his son, Justyn Rowe in 1997.
During the ownership of the Rowe family Kenilworth Station has gradually changed from a working pastoral station to a museum, farm stay and school camp site. Many buildings have been constructed on the site to further this endeavour. A large timber extension was added to the eastern end of the principal residence in two stages from the 1950s. Near the principal residence has been built a slab hut based on the original slab hut of Richard Smith; a self contained timber cottage dating from about the 1960s and an 1880s worker's cottage moved to the site from Gympie. Two small buildings; a blacksmith's store and an office administration area have been constructed adjacent to a central circular driveway. The 1901 barn has been extended and renovated. Abutting the barn is a modern concrete block stage and dormitory wing which is not yet completed (May 1998). Adjacent to this is a number of reconstructed timber buildings and a stockyard. The timber buildings on the site have been constructed in sympathy with the early structures.
For many years the Rowe family have been interested in understanding the history of the Gubbi Gubbi people, particularly where they were involved with Kenilworth Station. Recently reconciliation celebrations have been held by the family and the Gubbi Gubbi people.
","criteria":"Kenilworth Homestead, on one of the earliest stations established in the Gympie district, demonstrates the pattern of development in the area from nineteenth century pastoralism. The resumption of a large part of Kenilworth during the 1920s, and the subsequent division into smaller farming properties and the nearby town of Kenilworth, is important in demonstrating the pattern of land use and occupancy in rural Queensland during the early twentieth century.
|The principal residence, thought to date from about 1865, is an uncommon and rare example of an early timber house demonstrating unusually high craftsmanship and quality of finish.
|The place has the potential to provide archaeological evidence of building construction techniques from the mid nineteenth century and of the formerly extensive pastoral station complex. As evidenced by recent reconciliation ceremonies Kenilworth Homestead has a long association with and strong importance for the local Aboriginal community, in particular the Gubbi Gubbi people, and has the potential to reveal further evidence of this association.
|The residence and the stables, with associated grounds including the gardens, paddocks, cemetery and driveway, provide a good example of a mid-nineteenth century pastoral run.
|The buildings and grounds have aesthetic value, enhanced by their picturesque natural setting incorporating the Mary River and surrounding ranges. The gardens, trees and grounds surrounding the buildings contribute to their setting.
|The construction technique of single skinned wide vertical slabs with tongue and groove beaded joints with concealed framing is unusual and demonstrates the skills of the two cabinet makers thought to be involved with the construction of the building.
|The homestead is of social value for its long association with the local community and as the earliest surviving homestead in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16785,"place_ref":602049,"name":"Townsville and District Education Centre and Memorial Gates","alternate_name":"Townsville West State School","street_address":"29 Ingham Road","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE WEST","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-10-05","description":"The former Townsville West State School is a rectangular brick building of three stories, located at the intersection of Ingham Road and Sturt Street, Townsville, about two kilometres from the city centre. The building faces south addressing Ingham Road which becomes the highway north of the city. Opposite the building running parallel to the road is the northern railway line.
\nSet into a recess in the Ingham Road fence are the Memorial Gates. The gateway is a free-standing rendered masonry archway with a pair of wrought iron gates below. The archway has an elliptical arch with scored voussoirs, a coved cornice and scored pilasters to either side. 'Their name liveth for ever' stands in relief on the cornice, with the dates '1914' and '1919' on each pilaster. The ironwork of the gates includes the words 'Soldiers Memorial Gate of Honour'. Mounted within the returns of the archway are two white marble tablets entitled 'Honour Roll, Townsville West State School'. Each tablet is inscribed with about 100 names, some marked with the letters 'D', 'K', 'P' and 'W'. Behind the gateway on either side are a pair of large trees, possibly blackbeans.
\nThe former Townsville West State School is a symmetrical building, with a linear plan on an east-west access. At the centre of the southern facade is the projecting bay of the main entry and near either end are two smaller breakfronts with secondary entries. The roof is hipped and clad in painted corrugated fibrous cement sheet, with a timber fleche at its centre. The rear or northern elevation also has two breakfronts near either end which mark the linear plan, three-storey height, and Georgian-style symmetry, proportion and massing make the building prominent within its largely domestic context.
\nThe external walls of the two upper levels of the building are face brick, punctuated by pilasters with rendered capitals and bases and a rendered cornice. Between the pilasters are paned casement windows with awning lights above. The two upper levels sit on the rendered base of the Ground Floor which has arcades and smaller window openings.
\nThe central bay of the southern facade is emphasised as the main entry to the building by the triangular pedimented gable, the rendered entry door surround, the double stairway and projecting further than the end bays. Also mounted over the main entry door is the school bell.
\nIn the entry foyer on the First Floor are brass plaques commemorating the opening of the building in 1939 and the centenary of the school in 1987. In the corridor near the entry hang two large timber honour boards entitled \"Roll of Honour, Teachers and Pupils who fought for the Empire in the Great War\". Each board has some 100 names, some marked with 'K' and 'W'. Also in this corridor hang several historical photographs relating to the school, including a gathering of past students for the 50 year Jubilee of the school in 1937.
\nThe First and Second Floors contain a series of classrooms opening onto a corridor running the length of the building on the southern side. There are panelled doors with toplights and double-hung windows between the classrooms and the corridor. The high ceilings, regular external windows and internal windows and doors provide substantial natural light and cross ventilation. The floors to the classrooms are timber, whilst the floors to the corridors, stairs and utilities are concrete. The two stairways, near either end of the building, have steel balustrades, cast newels and timber handrails.
\nMany of the classrooms of the two upper levels are divided by panelled folding timber partitions. The four classrooms at the centre of the first floor level may all be opened to form a small auditorium with a stage at its eastern end. At the far eastern end of that level is the home science room. The ground floor level includes covered play areas, ablutions, storage areas and a workshop.
\nThe foreground of the former Townsville West State School building is lawn, pathways and carpark, with vehicular access from Wilson Street to the east. To the west of the building fronting Ingham Road is a small vegetated lot which includes a number of native plants. The building is separated from the present school to the north by a level grassed area which has low retaining walls and remnants of the tennis courts. The present school is a number of timber and transportable buildings beneath several large banyan trees, sited near the base of Castle Hill. To the west of the school playground is the West End Cemetery (601475).
","history":"The former Townsville West State School, designed by the Queensland Government Architects Office was opened on the 10 June 1939. Costing £28,200, the school was built during the Depression by local workers employed under the Unemployment Relief Scheme. The school building of 1937-9 is the second of three Townsville West State Schools constructed within the same school grounds. The first, constructed in 1886-7, was one of the earliest public schools of Townsville.
\nEarly settlement in Townsville spread along the beach in the present North Ward area, with the commercial centre located along the bank of Ross Creek in the present Flinders Street East area. As the town developed settlement spread south-west along the track to the hinterland which was an extension of Flinders Street. By 1868 a cemetery had been established along the track in the area known as West End. By 1878 the Carrier Arms Hotel, a soap and candle factory in Morris St, the Townsville Gas and Coke Co and the Townsville Brewery Co had sprang up in the new suburb. The North Queensland Pastoral and Agricultural Association was formed on 19 December 1879 and the stockyards and ring were constructed soon after in their present location on Ingham Road.
\nWest End, along with neighbouring suburbs, saw a second wave of population growth after the completion of railway facilities in the North Yards in the early 1880s. Along Ingham Road the West End Hotel (1885) and St Mary's Catholic Church (1888 - 600879) both survive from this period.
\nThe rising population triggered the need for a school in West End. On 22 April, 1884 the Mayor, H Hubert, made an application for a school reserve to be set aside in the West End area. A reserve of four acres was established with some of the land being excised from the nearby cemetery reserve (West End Cemetery - 601475). Because of the growth of the suburb it was estimated that the school would need to accommodate 400 students.
\nBy 11 January 1886 tenders had been called for the construction of a timber school building, out-buildings and a head teacher's residence. Townsville West State School was built with government funding and a one-fifth subscription from the local community as required under the State Education Act of 1875. The school was opened on 21 March 1887.
\nBy 1919 Townsville West was the third largest school in Queensland with an enrolment of 1150 students and a staff of thirty three.
\nGladys Moncrieff, one of Australia's most famous singers, attended the school during the first years of the twentieth century. The school has a perpetual trophy in her name for singing at the Townsville Juvenile Eisteddfod.
\nThe school has also honoured students and teachers who served, and in some cases died, during WWI, by erecting both honour boards in the entrance foyer, and memorial gates. Because both memorials contain the same number of names it is thought that the honour boards were installed soon after the war. However, in 1921 the school community apparently decided to remember their past students in a more tangible way by erecting War Memorial Gates at the entrance to the school. A fete was held and £542 was raised, of which £430 was used to construct the gates which stand at the main school entrance on Ingham Rd. 200 names inscribed on marble tablets are attached to the arched gateway. Close to Anzac Day each year the school still holds a ceremony to honour past students who have served in the armed services in both world wars and other military conflicts.
\nBy the 1930s the area had grown to the extent that the original school building was seen as inadequate. The old building was thought to be poorly ventilated and lacking light, so it was decided to construct the present building. Some of the old school buildings were pulled down and the timber was used to construct hospitals on Palm and Fantome Islands. The Head Teacher's House was sold and re-located at 17 Truscott Street, Garbutt and the Kindergarten building was given to the Townsville Grammar School.
\nOn 18 September 1937, the Jubilee Year of Townsville West State School, the foundation stone of the new school was laid by the Hon MP Hynes, MLA, Secretary for Labour and Industry. Plans were prepared in the Queensland Government Architect's Office of the Department of Public Works. The new building, which cost £28,200, was opened by the Hon H Bruce, MLA, Minister for Public Works and Public Instruction, on 10 June 1939. The Chief Architect at the time was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966). Leven was born, educated and worked as an Inspector of Works in Scotland before migrating to Australia. From 1910 to 1951 he was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951. Other members of the office involved in design were FJ Jellett and HJ Parr.
\nThirty brick schools of similar design to Townsville West were constructed in Queensland during the Depression. They were built as part of a Queensland Government initiative to provide impetus to the flagging economy through an active capital works program.
\nThe school was constructed of brick and concrete. The whole of the ground floor, all corridors, hat and cloak rooms, and staircases were built in concrete, all other floors were made of hardwood. The building contained twenty-one classrooms situated on the first and second floors. 832 students could be accommodated in the new classrooms. There was also a woodwork room and a dressmaking classroom on the first floor, accommodating twenty students each. A head teacher's room, two staff teacher's rooms and hat and cloak rooms were also provided. Some of the classrooms on each of the first and second floors had folding partitions. Storerooms and toilets for male and female teachers, boys and girls and infants were located on the ground floor. The remainder of the ground floor space was utilised as play space. A complete drainage system was installed and the school grounds were graded and leveled.
\nFirst floor facilities in the new school building allowed for the commencement of domestic science and manual training. It was the only school in Townsville with such facilities and students from other areas visited the school once a week to receive tuition.
\nAt the beginning of 1942 Townsville became a restricted military zone with up to 90,000 military personnel stationed in the city and surrounding district. Townsville West State School, like many other schools, was commandeered by the military and a first aid post and convalescence ward were established on the first floor. Classes for Volunteer Aid Detachments (VADs) were held, dressmaking classes for the Women's Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF), first aid classes, various classes for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as well as community meetings. In September 1942, the 5th Australian Transport Unit under the command of Major Douglas, camped in the grounds under the fig trees at the rear of the school. These units used the school water supply and shared the ablutions with hospital patients.
\nDuring 1943 the medical facilities were moved out of the school. Some school classes reopened from August 3rd and all classes were operating again by October 1943. However, the site was not completely vacated by the Australian Army until 31st March, 1946.
\nStudent enrolments peaked at about 1000 after the war and then began to decline. The decline was exacerbated by an Education Department policy decision to move Grade Eight from primary to secondary school in 1963. To boost numbers the school began accepted both physically and intellectual disabled students after 1957. The school was seen as specially suited to the needs of these students because of the Domestic Science and Manual Arts facilities. However, the location of these facilities on the first floor and the toilets on the ground floor created difficulties for disabled students. Eventually, all students and most school activities were moved to new school buildings on Wilson Street, behind the 1939 building.
\nWhen the Townsville Teachers College opened in 1969, West End State School was utilised as a Demonstration School for student teachers.
\nThe building withstood the devastation of Cyclone Althea which hit Townsville on the 24th December, 1971. In the aftermath of the cyclone the Home Science room was opened to the community so that people could cook their meals. The Salvation Army also used the school as a relief centre, where they made bread, milk and blocks of ice available for several weeks after the cyclone.
\nIn 1975 the Townsville and District Education Centre (TADEC) was established in one room of the school and by 1981 had expanded into half the building. TADEC, which is still operating from the building, is one of seven such centres in Queensland. It was established as a community education resource for teachers, parents and community groups and for the past twenty-three years has made a significant contribution to community education in North Queensland.
\nIn 1977 an environmental study area was established in the school grounds at the initiative of students and teachers. The area received many honours including a Greening of Australia Project award in 1987. The school grounds also contain a number of trees including large banyans, figs and blackbeans, some of which bear small plaques. The fig trees have been in the grounds since before the 1920s and mark the site of WWII military camp. Two large trees situated on either side of the Memorial Gates may be related to the First Arbour Day.
\nThe first floor corridor contains several photographs, including a depiction of the memorial gates, a gathering of past students for the 50 year Jubilee in 1937, and an award winning choral group.
\nThe original school bell, which is over one hundred years old, hangs in its original position above the main entrance gates.
\nFrom 1991-2009 the building was utilised by the Townsville and District Education Centre, a library, conference rooms, a creche and kindergarten, manual arts and home science facilities and a venue for a community group. In 2018 the building is vacant.
","criteria":"Opened in 1939, the former Townsville West State School, is demonstrative of a government scheme, the Unemployment Relief Scheme, implemented to assist the unemployed throughout Queensland, by means of generating work projects, during the Depression of the 1930s. The school, constructed during a era of substantial building activity, is one of four surviving, intact schools of the period in North Queensland, including Ayr High School (601574).
The former Townsville West State School Memorial Gates, constructed in 1921, are an example of a relatively small number of this type of memorial. War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. Two timber honour boards located in the a corridor of the building also list names of former students and teachers who served in WWI.
|The former Townsville West State School Memorial Gates, constructed in 1921, are an example of a relatively small number of this type of memorial.
|The building is a fine example of a two-storeyed Inter-war brick school.
|Due to its massing and scale, the building is a landmark in the suburban streetscape, in keeping with the Queensland Government's 1930s policy to raise the educational status of primary education through the construction of well designed, imposing buildings.
|The building has a strong association with the local community. The grounds on which the former Townsville West State School is built has been the site for over a century of public education for the West End and Townsville community. The building has also been the centre of a variety of community activity in the past, including the use, during WWII, of the building and grounds for a military encampment and convalescent ward and for community meetings and classes. During the emergency period following Cyclone Althea in 1971, the building was utilised as a community relief centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16788,"place_ref":602052,"name":"South Sea Islander Church and Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"46 Johnston Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The South Sea Islander Church is a single-storey, timber building, set on concrete stumps, with a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. The church is clad externally with chamferboards. Louvred timber ventilators are located high in the west & east elevations (gable ends). Two sets of casement windows are located in the north & south elevations (long ends). Each window has a simple, diamond decorative motif in the central panel. There is an entry door and set of timber stairs at each end of the church in the southern elevation. Ramp access has been recently added to the church.
Internally, the timber lined church has been painted white, incorporating a stained timber framework. The church houses original timber pews, timber altar and a organ.
The hall is a single storey timber building, set on concrete stumps, clad with weatherboards and a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. A pair of double hung, sash windows are located in the western, eastern and southern elevations. Internally, as the cladding is single skin, the building framework is exposed. The floor is timber. A timber staircase is located on the southern side of the building.
Both buildings are located within picturesque grounds, including landscaped garden beds dedicated to various families.
","history":"The South Sea Islander Church and Hall were built c1920 on the Fairymead plantation to cater to the spiritual needs of the South Sea Islander population, many of whom were labourers on the plantation. The church and hall were removed from the Fairymead site in 1995 and relocated to a section of the Bundaberg Cemetery where many South Sea Islander people have been buried.
The land on which the Fairymead plantation was established was originally part of the cattle property 'Tantitha'. The owners of the property, A and AH Brown sold it to the Young family. Trading as AH and E Young, Arthur, Horace and Ernest Young harvested their first cane crop in 1882. Juice was punted to Millaquin until Fairymead became a complete sugar mill in 1884. Fairymead was floated into a public company, Fairymead Sugar Company, in 1912.
Florence Young, sister of Fairymead's founders, was secretary of the Queensland Kanaka Mission [QKM]. Young ran religious and educational classes for Islanders and later did missionary work in the Pacific and Asia. In October 1895, it was reported that in Bundaberg the '... largest plantations, are Messrs. Gibson Bros, Bingera and Fairymead, the property of H and E Young'. It was also reported that the 'religious education [of the South Sea Islander plantation workers] is well looked after, and on the leading plantations churches and schools have been specifically provided for them ... Christianity is spreading amongst them, and making its influence felt... '
Florence Young was born in October 1856. Settling in Sydney in 1878, after the death of her parents she moved to Fairymead in 1882. Almost immediately, Young began to hold prayer meetings for planters' families. Young conducted classes in pidgin English, using pictures, biblical phrases and a chrysalis to explain resurrection. Under Young's guidance, the Queensland Kanaka Mission [QKM] was formally established at Fairymead in 1886 as an evangelical and non-denominational church. The QKM aimed to prepare South Sea Islanders for membership of established Christian churches after their repatriation and employed paid missionaries and members of Young's family. At its height in 1904-05, the QKM engaged nineteen missionaries and 118 unpaid 'native teachers' and claimed 2150 conversions. Young also established the South Sea Evangelical Mission [SSEM], which became a branch of the QKM in 1904. Florence Young administered the SSEM from Sydney and Katoomba and made annual visits to the islands until 1926.
As early as 1889, Government Inspector Caulfield believed the behaviour of several South Sea Islanders had been improved by religious teaching. One employer at first sceptical of her plans, later told Young that the lessons kept the boys on the plantation on Saturdays whereas they had formerly gone to town to drink. It has been suggested that plantation owners probably extracted as much material as possible from the missionaries' work, in categorising them as a stabilising factor in a society which viewed the repercussions of activities in town with trepidation, but it could be said that the missionaries may well have reduced the level of tension created by the presence of an alien element in Bundaberg society.
The church and hall were constructed c1920 on the Fairymead plantation, replacing an earlier hall. The buildings were constructed after the departure of Young from Bundaberg, who continued to travel to the islands and spent much time in Katoomba, administering the South Sea Evangelical Mission. They are, nevertheless, reminders of the continued influence of Christian Missionaries and their work in the Bundaberg area.
The South Sea Islander Church and Hall were moved to their present location in 1995 when a portion of the Bundaberg Cemetery was set aside for Historical and Cultural Purposes. The church and hall continue to be utilised by the South Sea Islander community and remain as a tangible link between the community and the experiences of their ancestors.
","criteria":"A good, intact example of a simple missionary church and hall, the South Sea Islander Church and Hall are significant for their strong association with the South Sea Islander community and the exploitation of this large workforce employed in the Bundaberg district, one of the most affluent sugar districts in the state, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Importantly, the church and hall have a strong association for the present local South Sea Islander community and the experiences of their ancestors in Queensland.
|A good, intact example of a simple missionary church and hall.
|Located within picturesque grounds, including landscaped garden beds dedicated to various families, the church and hall are important for their aesthetic contribution to the site. Internally, the original timber pews, altar and organ contribute to the aesthetic significance of the church.
|Moved to the site in order that they may be closer to the graves of ancestral members of the South Sea Islander community, the South Sea Islander Church and Hall are significant for their continued association with ancestral worship.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16789,"place_ref":602053,"name":"Sir Anthony's Rest","alternate_name":"Sir Anthonys Rest","street_address":"Sir Anthony's Rest Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"Sir Anthony's Rest is located on a cane field in the area known as 'The Hummock', approximately five kilometres east of Bundaberg. The Hummock is one of the area's most well known geographical landmarks.
The site provides an expansive view towards Bundaberg, the nearby town of Bagara and surrounding canefields, and consists of a dry rubble earth and stone platform, measuring c4-5 metres high by c40 metres long and c35 metres wide. Located in the south-eastern corner of the property, the platform takes up approximately 0.1 hectare of the twenty hectare cane farm.
A large fig tree, mango trees and other mature vegetation are located to the north-east of the platform. There is no remaining evidence of the framed shelter constructed for the Vice-Regal visit.
The remainder of the property is planted with cane.
","history":"A dry stone, rubble platform, Sir Anthony's Rest was constructed during the visit of the Governor of Queensland, Sir Anthony Musgrave, to Bundaberg in his 1888 tour of the area. At this time Bundaberg was celebrating its 21st year of non-Indigenous settlement. Using South Sea Islander labour, WG [William Gordon] Farquhar of the Hummock plantation constructed a lookout for the Governor and his party facing east, with a view over the cane fields of the Woongarra. The area was part of the highest geographical point in the area, known as the Sloping Hummock.
From the deck of HMS Norfolk, Lieutenant Matthew Flinders took a bearing on a small volcanic outcrop, five kilometres to the south of Mon Repos beach. Flinders was surveying the waters between Great Sandy Island (Fraser Island) and the mainland. He named the outcrop the Sloping Hummock during his 1799 visit.
Amongst the first of the sugar plantations in Bundaberg was Millaquin, established in 1882. It was joined in 1883 by the Hummock, Oakwood and Spring Hill plantations. WG Farquhar's 182 hectare block in the heart of the Woongarra was named the Hummock, as it took in part of the Woongarra's only landmark. By the end of 1882, Farquhar had 154 hectares of cane on the seaward slope of the Hummock, untouched by frost. In May 1883 Farquhar's juice mill machinery was delivered and in its enthusiasm the Sugar Planter described the rollers as measuring '60 feet by 30 feet', confusing feet with inches. The first crushing was made on Saturday 30 June 1883.
After one successful season, Farquhar sold to HJ Rhodes, a New South Wales capitalist. Farquhar visited Scotland, and his native Aberdeen, but returned to spend the rest of his life at the Hummock. Rhodes was soon in trouble, with drought and falling prices threatening to force him into insolvency, but both men carried on. Farquhar retained control, dying in 1909, aged 67, having seen the Hummock crush for the last time in 1893 when the plantation amalgamated with Nott Brothers' adjoining Windermere.
Farquhar, like most of the Woongarra farmers, barely made a living from maize growing. Although the soil was good and two crops per year could be obtained, the inundations of pests and disease, the expense and difficulties of transport, and the lack of a strong market, combined to erode farmers' profits. However, in the early 1880s the district was transformed following the construction of the Millaquin Sugar Refinery (1880-82) and the establishment of a viable sugar industry in the area. Small crushing or 'juice' mills were erected on farms throughout the Woongarra, and the juice piped directly to the refinery, or if along the Burnett River, transported by punt. In the period 1882-84, 24 crushing mills were established in the Bundaberg district, most of them in the Woongarra. By October 1882, when the Millaquin refinery went into production, crushing mills were operating at Ashgrove, Avoca, Fairymead, Glenmorris, Grange, Kepnock, Mabbro, Summerville, Windermere and Woodbine plantations. Seaview, Mon Repos and Sunnyside Plantations were established in 1884. Woodlands followed soon after. Sugar was embraced wholeheartedly by the Woongarra farmers, particularly when they could obtain cheap indentured labour from the South Sea Islands to help clear the scrub and work the cane fields.
South Sea Islanders had been working on other sugar plantations in the Bundaberg district from at least the mid-1870s. They were not brought directly to Bundaberg until 1879, but prior to this planters obtained Islanders via Maryborough, whose sugar industry had been established in the late 1860s.
It was during Farquhar's time at the Hummock that the Governor of Queensland, Sir Anthony Musgrave, undertook a northern tour and visited a number of towns, including Bundaberg. Musgrave was considered to be a very popular Governor, undertaking tours to the northern ports and inland towns in 1883, 1884, 1887 and 1888. Musgrave was keen to make himself acquainted with as large a portion of the colony as possible. In all the places visited, Musgrave was well received. Musgrave, proclaimed the Division of Woongarra in 1885.
Anthony Musgrave was born in the Antigua, West Indies in 1828. Educated in the West Indies, Musgrave, became the Governor of South Australia in 1873. From 1877-1883 he was Governor of Jamaica. On 21 July 1883, he became Governor of Queensland. Musgrave left London on 22 September 1883 and arrived in Melbourne on 1 November 1883. Musgrave opened Parliament on 8 November 1883. With Samuel Griffith, who became Premier in November 1883, Musgrave shared a deep enthusiasm for Australian Federation. Musgrave visited England in June 1886 and planned to retire. In June 1888, Sir Thomas McIlwraith became premier. The two soon clashed over the governor's right to unfettered exercise of the prerogative of mercy. Musgrave appealed to the Colonial Office, McIlwraith defiled him and London supported the premier. A few weeks later, Musgrave died on 9 October 1888.
Musgrave was the sixth Governor of Queensland, in the position from November 1883 - October 1888. Making themselves visible and approachable to as many people as possible were key factors in obtaining and maintaining the Governor's popularity amongst the people. Musgrave covered considerable distances on tour and Lady Musgrave, intelligent and well-educated, often accompanied him on tour or held ladies' receptions. During the 1888 tour, Governor and Lady Musgrave visited Bundaberg on 30-31 May, Maryborough on 4 June and were in Gympie on 5 June. Musgrave's visit to Bundaberg had been the first official visit from a Governor of Queensland in ten years, since Governor Kennedy.
From the earliest days of colonial Queensland, governor's tours were more than familiarisation tours. They were both practical and ceremonial and received detailed coverage in the Queensland press. Tours encourage a sense of community within the places visited and was an opportunity to display progress made and to receive recognition for achievements. A vice-regal visit provided the chance to bring matters of local importance to the Governor's attention. The ceremonial and social aspects of governors' tours followed a similar pattern established in Britain during the late eighteenth century. Aspects included a reception by the local council, loyal addresses and the presentation of gifts and local curiosities. Visibility extended to eating in public. An interest in the welfare and progress of the people was demonstrated by laying foundation stones, taking an interest in children and performing ordinary activities in public. Following his welcome, the Governor was usually escorted into the town where he paused at the nearest official building, usually the court house, so that addresses of welcome could be made.
Musgrave and the Vice-Regal party arrived in Bundaberg on Wednesday, 30 May 1888, by the Government steamer Lucinda. On their first day, the party travelled to Millaquin Plantation and later drove around the town. Following a procession in Bundaberg on Thursday morning, the Vice-Regal party them headed out of the town. Lunch was taken at Mon Repos. One of the more unusual aspects of the tour was arranged for the Vice-Regal party was at the Hummock, Farquhar had fixed up a retreat at the highest available point. Here a booth, surrounded with basaltic boulders, had been constructed where refreshments were taken. The view from the booth was considered to be the finest in the district, overlooking the cane farms of the area. According to reports at the time, both the Governor and Lady Musgrave expressed delight at so picturesque a scene, and spoke approvingly of the general aspects of that portion of the district... 1
Farquhar's use of South Sea Islands labour probably dates from the establishment of the plantation in 1883. Most planters considered the use of South Sea Islanders for field work, especially clearing of stumps and rocks in preparation for planting, essential in establishing a successful sugar plantation. Where possible stones would be broken into convenient size for handling, loaded onto drays and carted to the farm boundary lines, and there built up as stone wall boundary fences averaging one and a half metres in height and just over one metre wide. Local tradition also records that wooden sleds, pulled by draught horses, followed around the paddocks as the land was being cleared. Rocks unearthed during this process were placed on the sled. Big rocks which would not fit on the sled would be broken up with spalling hammers. These pieces would then be placed on corn bags, an Islander on each corner, which would then be carried to the sled. When full, the sleds were taken to the end of the paddock where they were unloaded.
The construction of Sir Anthony's Rest is similar to the construction of the number of dry-rubble boundary walls which were constructed in the area using South Sea Islander labour. These walls were constructed in layers, with larger stones placed around the outside and smaller stones used for the infill. This seems to have been a common construction method in the Woongarra, but the origin of the technique has yet to be established.
Usually the crowds wishing to gain a view of the Vice-Regal party were large and often, there was no building in the town large enough to accommodate all those who wished to attend. Consequently, the erection of marquees was utilised. In Rockhampton, 'a marquee of green branches' topped with the Royal arms, was erected near the quay for the reading of speeches. Usually, structures specially assembled for visits by touring governors were temporary. The platform constructed for Sir Anthony's Vice-Regal party is rare as an example of a more permanent feature associated with a governor's tour.
","criteria":"Sir Anthony's Rest is significant for its association with an important historical event, Governor Sir Anthony Musgrave's tour of the area in June 1888, during the development of the Bundaberg/Woongarra region.
|Sir Anthony's Rest is significant as a rare physical remnant of a governor's tour to an area, particularly as most shelters for visiting Vice-Regal parties were of a temporary nature.
|Measuring c40 metres long by c35 metres wide, and rising to a height of c4-5 metres, Sir Anthony's Rest is significant for its landmark value, clearly visible from one section along the Bagara-Bundaberg Road.
|Importantly, Sir Anthony's Rest, has a strong association for the present local South Sea Islander community and the experiences of their ancestors in Queensland.
Sir Anthony's Rest is significant for the strong social significance it holds for the residents of Bundaberg and the surrounding areas and is highly valued by the community. Sir Anthony's Rest was identified in the Burnett Shire Heritage Study.
|Sir Anthony's Rest is significant for its association with the South Sea Islander community and the exploitation of this large workforce employed in the Bundaberg district, one of the most affluent sugar districts in the state, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16790,"place_ref":602054,"name":"Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall","alternate_name":"Coorparoo Shire Hall | Coorparoo School of Arts","street_address":"208 Cavendish Road","suburb":"COORPAROO","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-01-06","description":"The Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall is a single storey timber building, with concrete stumps and a corrugated iron roof, located on the corner of Cavendish Road and Halstead Street, Coorparoo.
The form of the 1892 Hall is still intact with the main hall to the rear of the building and administration rooms to the front. Later additions and extensions include the building of the verandah in the 1930s, extensions to the eastern, or rear facade in 1938, the brick addition to the front facade in the 1950s and the strong room extension to the southern facade.
The Cavendish Road, or western elevation, is symmetrical with projecting porches under separate gabled roofs. Double hung sash windows with window hoods are located along the elevation. Decorative timber brackets form part of the window hoods. The 1950s brick extension is centrally located between the two projecting porches. At the top of the brick facade an inscription reads 'Coorparoo School of Arts & R.S.L. Memorial Hall'. A doorway and two windows are located at the northern end of the western facade. The doorway provides the entrance to the kitchen which forms part of the 1930s verandah extension.
The masonry strong room is located at the corner of the western and southern elevations. The timber remainder of the southern elevation has narrow windows along the length of the elevation and a doorway located at the eastern end of the building. Located along the roof are two ridge ventilators.
The rear of the Hall, the eastern elevation, is in two sections. The extensions are in timber with a separate corrugated iron roof. The larger section, now housing the stage, has two windows located high in the facade. The second, smaller section, houses a dressing room and has a window located along the eastern elevation.
The northern elevation comprises a verandah, built during the 1930s. A set of stairs leading to the verandah is located in the eastern end of the elevation. Louvred windows are located along most of the facade with a set of three windows at the western end.
Further along the western end of the northern elevation, which forms part of the front section of the Hall, are two windows located beneath a gable with a decorative timber bargeboard. One comprises a set of two windows with a window hood, and a second set of three double hung sash windows, also with a window hood. The window hood which covers the set of three windows includes decorative timber brackets.
Internally, the front foyer opens to two rooms on the northern and southern sides. A vent with decorative fretwork is located in the room at the southern end of the. The strong room is accessed from this room.
Paired timber doors with a breezeway open to a small hall. The timber within the doors' framework has been angled to create an decorative effect. The Hall's street numbers 208 and 210, are located on small oval metal plates on the architrave. Female and male toilets are located to the northern and southern ends of the Hall. The toilets, installed in the 1950s, have terrazzo floors and skylights.
Paired, panelled timber doors, with a breezeway, lead to the main hall. The main hall has a timber floor and the raised stage is located at the eastern end of the room. The stage is accessed via a set of timber stairs. Timber vents with decorative fretwork are located along the length of the ceiling. The central section of the timber ceiling is flat and the sides and ends are angled. Two doors, leading to the verandah, are located in the northern elevation. Three narrow windows are located along the northern elevation.
Also located along the northern elevation is the Coorparoo Roll of Honour and the first telephone in the district. The Honour Board is a copper board mounted on a timber base. Names are applied on individual brass strips. The Board displays ornament relief such as scrolls, flowers and cannons. The wooden telephone is framed within a timber box with glass front.
The verandah, or northern elevation houses kitchen facilities at the western end and a small storage area, with a doorway to another smaller room, is located at the eastern end. From the storage area some evidence of window infill is located. The window still exists but has been boarded up at some stage.
The property is surrounded by a low wire fence and a car park is situated at the rear of the building. A picket fence is located at the base of the building at the corner of the western and northern elevations.
","history":"The Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall was constructed in 1892 for the Coorparoo Shire Council. The Council remained in the building until October 1925, when amalgamation of local governments occurred and Greater Brisbane was created. Since 1925, it has been used as a School of Arts.
The Divisional Boards Act 1879 established 74 local authorities in Queensland with Coorparoo administered as Subdivision 3 of the Bulimba Divisional Board. Primary concerns of the board included the maintenance and improvement of roads and bridges, the Bulimba ferry and water supply to river villages. In 1888 Coorparoo was represented on the Bulimba Divisional Board by Frederick Thomas Brentnall, Frederick Wecker and John Douglas. These men, along with other Coorparoo residents, claimed that more could be accomplished for the locality. They resigned from the Board and led demands for the creation of the Coorparoo Shire. The Shire of Coorparoo was proclaimed on 27 October 1888.
By 1892 the Councillors decided that a Shire Hall was a necessity. Two allotments on the corner of Cavendish Road and Council (now Halstead) streets were purchased. Henry Wallace Atkinson, a local architect, designed the Hall and it was built by a Mr Allibone at a cost of £514, plus £78 for architect's fees and £14 for seating. The Council moved in on 7 October 1892.
Constructed with gas fittings for six lamps, the Hall was the first gas lit building in the Shire, further, the first telephone in the district was installed on 1 November 1892. The Hall was hired out as a social club and played an important role in the social life of the district. The Roll of Honour was unveiled by James Stodart, MLA on 24 June 1916. The honour board is dedicated to the men and women of the District who served in the Great War.
With the amalgamation of local government authorities and the establishment of Greater Brisbane in 1925, a new use was sought for the shire hall. Local residents organised to form a School of Arts committee and, in 1928, the Trustees of the School of Arts contracted to pay the Greater Brisbane City Council £1000.
In 1930 the Trustees accepted the offer of the Avondale Lodge to build a side verandah on the north-west elevation. The Trustees paid £200 for the fabric. The new wing was officially opened by Trustee and politician RM King on 19 July 1930. In 1938, the stage was removed providing more space in the Hall and a small stage was constructed at the rear.
In 1946, the Brisbane City Council began asking for payment of £750 which was owing on the purchase price of the hall, the alternative was to hand in the Hall's keys. Revenue was raised through a variety of activities, including renting the hall to the Coorparoo Kindergarten, and by 1948 the fund stood at over £550. It was also at this time that the Coorparoo RSSAILA suggested that they take over the Hall and it debts. Solicitor King drew up a new constitution for the two groups and in April 1956, the Minister of Public Lands and Crown Law Office approved the amalgamation and constitution. The Hall was subsequently renamed the Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall.
The brick and stucco additions as the front of the Hall were initially rejected at a meeting of the School of Arts committee in December 1951, however, by July 1953, the Trustees' honorary architect, EP Trewern, had drawn up plans and specifications and called for tenders. Builder AA Lock's tender for £777 was accepted.
Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall continues to be used extensively by the community.
","criteria":"The Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall is significant as it demonstrates the development of the institution of local government in Coorparoo.
The Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall is significant as the first gas lit building in the Shire and also housed the first telephone in the district.
|In its relatively unchanged state, the Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of a late nineteenth century local shire hall.
|Located at the corner of Cavendish Road and Halstead Street, the Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall is important for its aesthetic significance and its contribution to the streetscape.
|The Hall has a special association with the people of Coorparoo and continues to be a focal point for social and community functions.
|The Coorparoo School of Arts and RSL Memorial Hall is significant for its association with architect Henry Wallace Atkinson, who designed the building in 1892.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16792,"place_ref":602056,"name":"Mackay Technical College (former)","alternate_name":"Block E Mackay TAFE","street_address":"Alfred Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The former Mackay Technical College, now known as Block E, Mackay TAFE, is a two storeyed, brick building, elevated on a brick base and low stumps. The building has a hipped roof with a gable roof projection, clad with corrugated iron. A ventilator fleche with a domed metal top is located in the centre of the hipped roof. The building occupies a prominent position on the corner of Alfred and Wood Streets, Mackay. It is painted brick on the ground floor and roughcast render on the first floor.
The building has an assymmetric front (north) elevation with a projecting gable to one side with a ground floor verandah on the northern and southern side of the building and first floor balcony wrapping around the north, south and west sides of the building. A simple timber bargeboard is located in the gable of the projecting wing. A series of windows appear on both floors of the projecting gable section. A group of six long, rectangular windows are located in the ground floor and a group of five long, rectangular windows are located in the first floor and are surrounded by decorative mouldings. Below these windows the raised lettering reads 'TECHNICAL COLLEGE'. A large blue 'E' is located on the northern elevation.
Double hung, sash timber windows are located on both floors on the eastern side of the building. The windows on the ground floor are protected by sunhoods with curved, timber brackets and clad with corrugated iron. A timber staircase is located on the eastern side of the building leading to the first floor balcony on the southern side.
Timber french doors open to the verandahs from both the ground and first floors. On the ground floor the verandah has been enclosed on the western side. Timber balustrading, hand rails, verandah posts and lattice valances are located on the ground floor verandah and first floor balcony. A series of timber sunshading is located on the western side of the balcony. As part of the enclosing of the ground floor verandah, a series of timber, casement windows are located on the western side of the building. Paired, timber entrance doors are surrounded by a breezeway and fanlight assembly.
Internally, the front entrance leads to a foyer with rendered walls with a high, pressed metal ceiling. An arched opening with decorative mouldings and keystone leads to the central hall and central staircase. The hallway runs east-west through the building with a number of panelled, timber doors with breezeways, leading to offices and staff rooms. The hallway has a high, pressed metal ceiling. Part of the enclosed verandah on the western side of the building is used as a staff room. This room is vertically lined with timber and has a ripple iron ceiling. The eastern wall of the room is brick. On the western side of the building, in the room which originally housed the library, is the College Counsellor's office. This room has plastered walls and a pressed metal ceiling. A timber picture rail is also located within the office.
A timber door opening off the central hall, facing the northern side of the building, leads to the main office area. This office has plastered walls with a pressed metal ceiling. In one corner of the office, a porcelain wash basin with splashboard is still intact. The windows on the western side of the room are double hung, sash timber windows, which originally opened to the verandah. A timber door leads to the enclosed space which is vertically lined timber and has a ripple iron ceilings. In some class rooms white boards have been attached to the blackboard, however, in one classroom on the ground floor, one of the blackboards remains intact.
The original turning, timber staircase is also extant with timber railings and timber newell with decorative carved sections. Similarly to the arrangement of rooms on the ground floor, the planning arrangement of rooms on the first floor remains intact. A hallway with a high, pressed metal ceiling leads to several offices and classrooms. The original north facing classroom is now used as a library. This room, like the others in the building, has plastered walls and a pressed metal ceiling. Double hung, sash timber windows are located on the western side of the room and timber french doors lead to the balcony.
The building has been slightly modified with partitions, air conditioning and kitchen facilities in order that it may continue to function as part of Mackay TAFE. The surrounding site has been built up by structures associated with the Mackay TAFE. The north-west corner of the property, adjacent to the former Mackay Technical College, is currently used for car parking facilities. This carparking area, which has a number of established palm trees and other plantings, is surrounded by a low, timber, picket fence. The fence does not run passed the former technical college building along Alfred Street, but continues for a small way, terminating near 'Block D', on the eastern side of the former technical college building.
","history":"The former Mackay Technical College was constructed in 1911-12 to a design prepared by the Office of Public Works.
Mackay was settled by Europeans in the 1860s, by pastoralists seeking new areas for expansion. Sugar became the dominant industry of the region from the 1880s, and the town grew significantly in the early to mid-20th century due to this industry. State education in Queensland in the 19th century was quite rudimentary. In 1875, legislation was passed which created the system with free, compulsory and secular education. This was, however, limited to a primary school level. After 1860, Grammar schools provided the only secondary education in the colony at this time, and these schools were only available to those who could afford the associated fees.
Technical colleges, and the teaching of technical education attempted to fill this gap in the provision of education and were the precursors of state high schools in Queensland. They started as private institutions but were gradually taken over by the state. The technical college grew out of the school of arts movement in the late 19th century. Schools of arts, institutions run by local committees providing a library, reading room, lecture hall and rooms for public meetings, were established from the mid-19th century largely to improve the education of the working class. The school of arts committees usually organised classes in the useful arts and sciences to mechanics and tradespeople.
The first technical college in Queensland started in Brisbane in the 1870s. It operated entirely within the existing school of arts organisation, with the school of arts committee charging fees for its few subjects. The colonial government were involved from the early 1880s, providing a small grant to cover costs. However, the particular subjects remained completely within the control of the school of arts committee. From this initial grant the involvement of the colonial government continued to increase. In the 1890s an endowment system matched revenue raised in fees on a pound for pound basis. A Board of Technical Education was established in 1902 to provide administrative support and distribute government subsidies. Later in the 1900s this board was abolished. The state government took over the running of technical education in Brisbane, and then across the state a decade later, with the passing of further legislation.
In 1907, Education reported that the Department had collected much information on the most modern methods of constructing and equipping technical colleges. Information had been supplied by the United States Bureau of Education and JW Turner, who, in association with GH Knibbs, had been commissioned by the NSW Government to tour the United States and Europe studying technical colleges.
The Mackay Technical College building was one of a number of similar buildings constructed for technical colleges around the state at this time. These technical colleges were constructed in Rockhampton, Warwick, Toowoomba and Mount Morgan. They were generally established without the direct involvement of the government, being run by local committees. As in Mackay, architectural plans and specifications were supplied by the government, along with funds for construction, but administratively, the technical colleges remained autonomous.
In Mackay, the Department of Public Instruction took over the administration of the technical college soon after it was constructed. The Mackay Technical College also incorporated the Mackay High School. Compared to other states the total number of high schools in Queensland was small, reflecting the state's ongoing low priority given to secondary education. Emphasis was placed on vocational and technical training, and consequently, money was spent on technical education and new architecturally attractive and well-equipped technical colleges. Like the Mackay High School (1911), the Bundaberg State High School (1919) was built attached to a technical college.
Prior to the construction of the Mackay Technical College, administration was under the control of the School of Arts committee. At the time, the work of the College was confined to day classes. Eventually, an evening class was established for those people who had left school but still wanted to continue with their education. Later, a book-keeping class was included in the curriculum and following that, a dress-making class. In 1904, the School of Arts committee suggested that other classes be established including cooking and carpentry. In 1907, the committee established a cookery class in a shop belonging to a Mr Elworthy. Attendance at this class eventually dropped off due, it is thought, to a lack of accommodation available for the students.
The committee's problems due to the lack of a suitable building was alleviated when it was announced that the Government would contribute four-fifths of the cost of the construction of buildings for technical college purposes. The School of Arts committee held a meeting to discuss means of providing the remaining funds required to construct the technical college. A sum of £500 was raised, with the state government also contributing the expertise of architects in the Works Department who provided plans and specifications.
By 1907, the government had prepared plans for Mackay Technical College, however, construction of technical colleges did not become a major concern until 1911. Originally, the Committee planned to have a wooden building constructed, however, after calling a second meeting, it was decided to collect the extra amount required for a brick building.
The building was designed by the Works Department architects in 1910, with the drawings signed by AB Brady and T Pye. The Annual Report of the Department of Public Works reported that the contract, 'for the main building only, will shortly be completed...' Construction commenced in 1911 and was completed by 1912 in time for the beginning of the school year. The completed scheme included a detached brick building, containing a chemical laboratory and carpentry workshop. The contract amount for the Mackay Technical College was £3845.
As constructed the building was two storeys. On the ground floor were a dressmaking room, a room for general instruction and offices for clerical and administrative staff. At the rear of the building a room catered for cookery classes. Also at the rear of the building were toilet and cloak room facilities. This section has been removed. On the first floor were located three classrooms and a large art and lecture room. A separate, single-storey building, no longer extant, was constructed at the rear of the main building and housed a chemical laboratory and carpentry workshop. In 1916, drainage and repair works were undertaken to the College, as well as the addition of furniture and fittings. Total cost of the works was £96.15.8.
The official opening of the Mackay Technical College was held on Wednesday, 21 February 1912, with formal duties undertaken by the Mayor of Mackay, HD Petersen. Among the 150 guests included the Committee members and Mr Denniss, Principal of the High School. Telegrams were received from the Ministers for Education (KM Grant) and Railways (WT Paget).
The day was a grand occasion in Mackay's history. It was reported that the opening of the College building 'which would also be used as a high school' marked a 'new stage in the educational history of Queensland', and was a 'sign of intellectual progress in the community of Mackay'.
The building served as the Mackay Technical College and High School until 1959 when a new high school was constructed in the city in Milton Street. New buildings for the TAFE [the provision of technical education was rearranged as Technical and Further Education in the 1960s], were constructed on the Alfred Street site from the 1970s to the present. Now known as 'Block E', Mackay TAFE, the former Mackay Technical College is currently occupied by the Student Support Unit, including the College Counsellor, Literacy Unit and Disabled Services.
","criteria":"The former Mackay Technical College, constructed in 1911, is significant in demonstrating the provision of technical education in Mackay, and by extension in Queensland. It is one of many technical colleges constructed throughout Queensland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as part of an attempt to 'promote mental and moral improvement of the working classes.' The building is significant as the first state high school in Mackay, and is significant in demonstrating the history of education in the city and surrounding area.
|The former Mackay Technical College is significant as it displays the principal characteristics of an institutional building from the government architect's office of the period, with typical details such as its two storey masonry and timber construction and asymmetric design, with pressed metal ceilings, timber joinery and decorative ventilator fleche. The place demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type, with provision for classrooms and lecture rooms, a library, a laboratory and office area.
|With its design incorporating simplicity and asymmetry, its wide verandahs and timber posts, prominent central fleche and its position on the street corner surrounded by trees and plantings, the former Mackay Technical College is important for its aesthetic significance and for its contribution to the Albert street streetscape. Internal features including the timber joinery details and pressed metal ceilings also contribute to the overall aesthetic significance of the building.
|Forming part of the educational system in Mackay for over ninety years, the former Mackay Technical College is significant for its association with the teachers, students and other associated people during that time. The place has strong associations with the community of Mackay especially with its continued use as an educational facility.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16793,"place_ref":602057,"name":"Keating Residence, Indooroopilly","alternate_name":"Residence, 8 Westminster Street (1890s) | Keating House | Louis Stamm residence","street_address":"10-12 Westminster Road","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"The Keating Residence, Indooroopilly, is a substantial rendered brick two-storeyed house, prominently sited on a principal thoroughfare from Indooroopilly Railway Station to the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre. The building is apparent from many surrounding streets and is distinguished from other development in the area by its age and unusual architectural treatment.
The residence is a two-storeyed building, with unusual external features such as a pyramidal roofed tower on the principal elevation and extending its octagonal plan form down through the corner of the building. The building is essentially rectangular in plan with one of the short faces of the plan from facing Westminster Road being the principal façade of the building. The octagonal tower element projects from the south eastern corner of the plan.
The building has a complex roof structure, dominated by the tower element which is higher that the other roof elements. The entire roof and the awnings which line the faces of the building are clad with corrugated iron sheeting. A number of gabled projections extend from the face of the building. The gable ends are treated with diagonally battened panels incorporated into which are fine finials and drop mouldings. Variously sized gabled projections occur on each of the four faces of the building, from various points. This asymmetrical massing contributes to the overall picturesqueness of the structure.
Access is provided to the building from a two part stair extending from the Westminster Road footpath to the entrance door. The Westminster Road boundary of the property is bordered by a large rendered masonry fence which acts as a retaining wall, braced by a number of piers. The fence is capped with a row of face bricks. Centrally positioned in this fence is a wrought iron gate providing access to a series of concrete stair rendered with a red colouring. These stair reach a concrete landing level with the surrounding landform and from here a second series of concrete steps lead to the front door. This second series are flanked by a short rendered masonry wall with face brick capping.
The southern elevation which is the principal façade, has a central entrance bay, with the tower element to the east and a gabled projection to the west. The central entrance, to which access is provided via the already mentioned stairs, is a single timber framed and glazed door with a elliptical fanlight above. The glazing in these features and in most other openings throughout the building is arctic glass. The tower element is lined on both storeys with round arched window openings fitted with casements and a round arched transom above. Below the windows, which are separated by simple moulded pier-like elements is a concrete panel with six rectangular perforations, filled with glass bricks on the inside face. The ground floor of tower windows are shaded by an awning supported on oversized brackets and extending from the front door around to the eastern facade of the building. The gabled projection on the southern face of the building features a ground floor bay window which has a steeply pitched hipped awning supported in similarly oversized brackets. The upper floor of the gabled element features a central three part window opening, again shaded by an awning.
The entire building is lined with a series of concrete rendered mouldings, at base level forming a plinth; at the level of the sill of the ground floor windows; at the level of the base of the round arched windows above the ground floor windows; at the line of the first floor; at the line of the sills of the first floor windows and, again, at the top of these windows, below the arched transoms. This banding is variously smooth rendered and moulded. The western, eastern and northern faces of the building, continue the banded mouldings, fenestration patterns and gable detailing.
Internally, the two floors of the building are arranged around a central hall which continues northward from the position of the front door to the rear of the building. On the ground floor the front door provide access to a large porch area which incorporates the area of the tower element. The large proportion of window openings in the walls ensure that this porch area and a similar area on the first floor are naturally lit and ventilated. The flooring in the porch is of terrazzo tiles which have been formed into patterns reflecting the unusual planform of the spaces. French doors open onto the porches from internal rooms.
A large nineteenth century doorway opens from the ground floor porch to the hallway of the house. It is thought that this was the original entrance to the building when the porches were only semi-enclosed prior to the renovations of 1920s. This doorway comprises a single timber panelled and moulded door flanked by sidelights and a transom panel above. The sidelights and transom feature leadlight panels. This door leads onto the hall, in the vicinity of the timber dog-leg stair. The stair features turned newel and balusters and is clad with stained timber boarding on the underside.
The hall of the ground floor, like most of the rooms on this floor is lined with timber panelling to a height of about 2500mm. The hall features a number of plaster rendered archways supported on piers. The ceiling of the hall is plastered and without cornices.
The first room on the west of the hall from the doorway is a study, which has a large bay window into which is fitted a window seat. The three windows within the bay are fitted with leadlight panels. The walls of the study are lined with timber panelling surmounted by a plate rail supported on timber brackets aligned with the framing of the wall panelling. The ceiling of this room is lined with pressed metal, with a central panel, borders and cornices. Like this room the drawing room on the ground floor is lined with timber panelling with a plate rail and has elaborate pressed metal ceilings. A white marble fire place and a large three part window opening with leadlight panels are features of this room. The dining room on the ground floor, which is in the north eastern corner of the building, is the only room on the ground floor which survives with a nineteenth century interior. The room has plaster walls, a plaster moulded cornice, a white marble fire place with cast iron grate and surrounds and a tiled hearth.
The rooms on the upper floor have been more recently renovated, with c1950s wall veneer panelling on all walls and plaster walls and ceilings. The windows are framed in original moulded timber framing. The ceiling of the first floor hall has been recently repaired with plasterboard.
","history":"This residence on Westminster Road, Indooroopilly, was constructed in about the 1890s as the home of Louis Stamm, a Brisbane based business man. The building is thought to have been designed by prominent local architect, Richard Gailey. The building was last occupied as a residence in c.1999.
During the 1880s and 1890s Indooroopilly developed as a fashionable suburb with the construction of a number of substantial residences. Louis Stamm, who later built the residence on Westminster Road, purchased a 42 acre block at Indooroopilly on 21 April 1873 only two years before the opening of a railway station at Indooroopilly. The coming of the railway provided the major impetus to the development of the suburb. By the late 1880s government and social facilities, including a school, an hotel, shops and a carpenter were established in Indooroopilly.
Louis Stamm is variously described in sources as a merchant, newspaper proprietor and brewery owner in Queensland. He is listed in the Queensland Post Office Directories simply as a Justice of the Peace. Stamm subdivided the Indooroopilly property which included land adjacent to the railway station in 1875, the year that train services were established, and land was sold from this original allotment during the next twenty years encouraging further growth of the suburb. Major suburban residences including Ross Roy, Claude Chambers' own house dating from 1897; Henry Hunter's own house designed by him on Clarence Road in 1888; William Archdall's house on Station Road by Hunter and Corrie of 1891; Warwillah (Glencairn) for FC Bolton designed by Charles McLay in 1892; Riverton for James Cannan and Tighnabruaich for HC Stanley both designed by FDG Stanley in the late 1880s; Newlands for Newman Wilson designed by Alexander Wilson in 1889 and a number of houses designed by Oakden, Addison and Kemp including Warranoke for Gilson Foxton, Robert Rendle's house and Addison's own house, Fernbrook, all dating from the late 1880s-early 1890s.
This residence, which Louis Stamm constructed for his own use in the 1890s belongs to the tradition of these other houses. Louis Stamm is thought to have commissioned local architect, Richard Gailey to design the building. Gailey was commissioned for the design of a number of substantial residences in the late nineteenth century, including Moorlands, Glen Olive (his own house) and Verney. A description of early large homes in Indooroopilly appeared in The Brisbane Courier of 15 August 1931 which after listing a number of the houses mentioned above describes the house of Louis Stamm:
"...while the home of Mr LJ Keating, on Westminster-road was constructed to the design of the late Mr Richard Gailey and is considered to be one of the outstanding examples of residential architecture in Brisbane. It was built by Mr Keating's grandfather, the late Mr L. Stamm about 35 years ago and used to be occupied by the late Dr Hawkes, Mr HR Boer (at one time Attorney General), Mr T Daley, solicitor and other prominent citizens."
It seems that Louis Stamm may never have lived in this house, as his residence is listed most often as at 25 Herbert Street, Spring Hill. Stamm was an early Chairman of the Indooroopilly Divisional Board when it separated from Taringa and Toowong. By 1885 Stamm retained only 10 acres of his original Indooroopilly allotment and this was mortgaged to Henry Love who subdivided it in the late 1880s. Stamm retained lots 71, 72 and 73 of Portion 46 and this transfer from Love was recorded in 1898. Stamm is thought to have built the house at about this time. The residence appears to have been leased to a number of people during the years from its construction to the 1920s when the Keating family moved there.
Stamm died in 1903 and the house and land were passed to his daughter Mary Louisa Keating, who had married Andrew Keating in 1884. Mary Louisa and Andrew had two children, Louis Joseph and Margaret Francis. Louis Keating and his wife, Eileen Matilda, moved into the residence on Westminster Road in 1924. Eileen Matilda died and Louis remarried, Eileen Phillis. Following the death of Louis Keating, Eileen Phillis Keating remained at the residence until early 1999.
During the 1920s or 1930s the house seems to have been extensively renovated. Much of the interior fittings and finishing of the present building, particularly on the ground floor, along with some external detailing, appear to date from this period rather than from the late 1900s from which the shell of the house dates.
","criteria":"The residence at 10-12 Westminster Road was constructed in the late 1890s and demonstrates the development of Indooroopilly at this time when a number of substantial, architect designed residences were built on large allotments.
|The building is an outstanding example of late nineteenth century architecture in its picturesque massing, unusual detailing and garden setting. The interiors of the house are of particular significance, with intact fittings and fixtures dating from the 1920s. In particular the timber wall panelling, pressed metal ceilings, carpeting, fixed furnishing and other fittings on the ground floor of the residence are of particular interest.
|The residence has aesthetic and social value as a local landmark. The building is prominently sited on a principal thoroughfare and is distinguished by its unusual architectural treatment and age from the surrounding development.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16794,"place_ref":602058,"name":"Ithaca Town Council Chambers and Red Hill Kindergarten (former)","alternate_name":"Ithaca Library","street_address":"99 Enoggera Terrace","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"Prominently located at the corner of Enoggera Terrace and Kennedy Terrace, the Former Ithaca Town Council Chambers and Red Hill Kindergarten comprises the original single storey brick Council Chambers and a two storeyed timber extension attached to the south west corner of the Council Chambers. The extension, which fronts Kennedy Terrace, is generally obscured from view by several mature trees in the grounds. With the exception of two rooms, the former Council Chambers are presently used as a community hall. The former Clerk's room and the former Accountant's room, together with the extension, comprise the Red Hill Kindergarten. A shelter shed, is situated adjacent to the southern end of the Council Chambers, and fronts Enoggera Terrace.
The former Council Chambers is a single storeyed, hip roofed building with a basement. The external walls are brick with contrasting rendered elements including linear banding and ornamental framing around openings. Two entry porches of different design and materials to distinguish the former public entry and the former main entry, are located at the northern and southern ends of the building respectively.
The timber framed shelter shed includes a diamond pattern shingle roof and terracotta ornaments. The shelter shed is open on all sides, and is divided lengthways by a lattice panel which separates the public seating on the street side from the kindergarten entrance at the rear of the structure.
Generally rectangular in plan, the former Council Chambers is accessed via a decorative timber and brick entry porch at the northern end of the building, which leads into the original chamber space. The southern wall of the chamber has been partially removed, and the removal of the wall between the Mayor's room and the Engineer's room creates a large open space approximately twice the size of the original chamber, now a community hall. The original pressed metal ceilings are generally intact and this, together with evidence of former openings, indicates the original organisation of the rooms. Modern fluorescent lighting is suspended from the ceilings of the Mayor's room and the former Engineer's room.
A small kitchen is located in a separate room on the northern side of the hall. A door at the rear of the hall leads to a verandah, the northern end of which is enclosed as a toilet and bathroom, whilst the southern end leads to the kindergarten extension.
Formerly the main entrance to the building, the southern entry porch includes a single rendered column. A sign above the porch identifies the building as "Ithaca Hall". A set of double doors with coloured glass panels opens into a hallway, and a staircase at the end of the hallway leads down to the basement. The basement generally comprises a series of storage and amenities spaces. The hallway also provides access from the hall into the Clerk's room and the Accountant's room which are now used as part of the kindergarten space.
The Red Hill Kindergarten is accessed via a separate entry off Kennedy Terrace, through the space behind the shelter shed. This entry space is paved, and has been covered with a pergola type structure and enclosed by a high timber fence. The former Clerk's room is presently used as the kindergarten Director's office, whilst the former Accountant's room is used as the kindergarten kitchen. The original Council vault and vault door remain intact in the kitchen. A skylight has been inserted through the ceiling of the kitchen.
The two storeyed timber extension which adjoins the south west corner of the original building provides classroom space for the kindergarten on both levels. An area on the south eastern side of the extension has recently been converted to provide an adult toilet and bathroom.
","history":"Prominently situated on Enoggera Terrace, the former Ithaca Town Council Chambers presently comprises the Ithaca Library and Red Hill Kindergarten. Completed in 1910, the former Chambers were designed by Brisbane architects Henry Wallace Atkinson and Charles McLay, and built by Charles Thomas Hall and Francis Joseph Mayer.
The Municipality of Brisbane was proclaimed on 7 September 1859, shortly before the Separation of Queensland from New South Wales in December of that year. Although individual settlements such as Fortitude Valley, Kangaroo Point and South Brisbane agitated for separate municipality status, it was not until the Local Government Authorities Act of 1878 and the Divisional Boards Act of 1879 that a series of local authorities were created in the Brisbane Metropolitan area.
The Division of Ithaca was proclaimed in 1879, and was named after the birthplace of Lady Roma Diamantina Bowen, wife of Queensland's first Governor, George Bowen. Ithaca was one of eight divisions within the Municipality of Brisbane, and comprised most of the western suburbs of Brisbane from Kelvin Grove Road to Mt Coot-tha and the head of Kelvin Grove Brook. An area just before the junction of Waterworks Road and Kelvin Grove Road formed the southeastern extremity of the Division.
The Division of Ithaca was proclaimed a Shire in 1887, and eventually a Town on 19 August 1903. In 1900 the Council purchased subdivisions 131 to 133 on Enoggera Terrace, at the corner of Kennedy Terrace, considered by the Council to be a central location within the Town area. Although plans had previously been drawn up, Atkinson and McLay were commissioned to prepare plans for a suitable hall in brick and in wood in 1909. Tenders for the new Council Chambers (brick) for the Ithaca Town Council were invited in October 1909; that of Hall and Mayes for £1149 was accepted, but reduced to £1100 with the removal of certain embellishments from the plans.
Atkinson and McLay practiced in partnership from 1907 until McLay's death in 1918. Prior to working in private practice, both Atkinson and McLay worked for the Department of Public Works during the late nineteenth century.
The Council Chambers fronted Enoggera Terrace, with the main entrance at the southern end of the building. In addition to the Council Chamber, the building provided offices for the Town Clerk, Accountant, Mayor and Engineer, and included a strongroom. A second entrance was provided at the northern end of the building. An internal staircase led to an Earth Closet, lavatory and tool store downstairs. The plans indicated a future extension of the building along the Kennedy Terrace frontage; a modified version of which appears to have been carried out with the extension of the building to accommodate the Kindergarten during the 1950s. The Council Chambers were completed in 1910. Signage on the building and a flagpole had been added to the building by 1919.
Enoggera Terrace was also used by trams. The tram line extended along Enoggera Terrace to the terminus at the corner of Kennedy Terrace in 1902, and was subsequently extended to its terminus at Federal Street in 1904. During the 1920s/30s a tram shelter was erected adjacent to the front of the former Council Chambers, to a standard Brisbane City Council design.
The Town of Ithaca was absorbed into Greater Brisbane in 1925. Part of the building and the grounds were subsequently used as a Council depot until 1961.
During the 1940s the Red Hill Community Centre was established in the former Council Chambers by TR Groom (later Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 1955 to 1961) and other community members. The Centre included a library in the former offices of the Mayor and Engineer, and a kindergarten established in 1947 made use of the former Chamber. The former Chamber was also hired out for various community activities such as dancing classes, wedding receptions and Liberal Party meetings.
The library was taken over by the Council in 1946/47 by which time it occupied the former Chamber, and was renamed the Ithaca District Municipal Library. Although plans were prepared c1946 for a proposed gymnasium and club room at the rear of the building, these additions did not eventuate.
Additional space in the building was required by the early 1950s; a large extension to the west of the building was completed by 1954 and used for kindergarten classrooms. In 1959 the Kindergarten was formally inaugurated as the Enoggera Terrace Community Association - Kindergarten. Further need for space during the early 1960s resulted in the Kindergarten taking over the former Council Works Department sheds in the grounds, and the space underneath the building whilst the Library took over some of the Kindergarten space. Successive leases have required the occupants of the building to carry out improvements; consequently the building has undergone a series of minor changes and alterations.
The Library closed in 1998, and the former library space is now used as a venue for community groups and community meetings. The toilets at the rear of the former Chambers have been altered, and a new adult toilet provided in the Kindergarten. The former Works Department sheds and the flagpole at the front of the building are no longer extant (February 2000).
Only eight of the twenty town halls that existed at the time of Greater Brisbane in 1925 are still extant (December 1999); six of which remain in Council ownership including the former Ithaca Town Council Chambers, Brisbane City Hall [600065], Sandgate Town Hall [601566], Toombul Shire Hall [600272], Windsor Shire Chambers [600349] and Hamilton Town Hall. Coorparoo Shire Hall and the South Brisbane Municipal Chambers [600306] are no longer owned by the Brisbane City Council.
","criteria":"The former Ithaca Town Council Chambers provides evidence of the growth and development of Ithaca during the early twentieth century. Owned by the Brisbane City Council following the formation of Greater Brisbane in 1925, the former Ithaca Town Council Chambers is also important in demonstrating the development of local government in Brisbane. The tram shelter shed adjacent to the former Ithaca Town Council Chambers provides evidence of the extension of public transport services through Ithaca during the early twentieth century.
|With its prominent location at the corner of Enoggera and Kennedy Terraces and its clearly articulated facades with modest decorative detailing, the former Ithaca Town Council Chambers, and adjacent tram shelter, makes an important contribution to the Enoggera Terrace streetscape.
|Erected in 1910 for the Ithaca Town Council, and extended in the 1950s, the former Ithaca Town Council Chambers and kindergarten extension continue to have a strong association with the Red Hill/Paddington community as a focal point for social and community functions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16797,"place_ref":602061,"name":"St Davids Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St David's Church of England | St David's Anglican Church | St David's Church | St Davids Church","street_address":"1 Church Street","suburb":"ALLORA","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"St. David's Church, Allora is a small timber building elevated on a short brick plinth and clad in weatherboards, with a steeply pitched, wide pan "trimdeck" roof. It is set within a large grassed site, together with the timber rectory and parish hall.
The building follows traditional church planning with a central nave of six bays with an apsidal chancel at the rear end. Six windows with foiled heads line the side aisles of the building, indicating the internal bays. Gabled projections from the northern and southern sides of the church provide an allusion of transepts and enhance the formality and scale of the building. Other notable architectural elements on the exterior of the building include a slender timber fleche located on the crossing of the roof ridges, six gabled roof vents and scalloped and pierced bargeboards.
The church is entered via a small gabled porch that is centrally located on the principal façade. The porch is part of a concrete apron that continues to the boundary of the site at the street where a set of four decorative steel gates on brick piers are located. The porch is flanked by single windows with trefoil heads and a tripartite lancet stained glass window arrangement is located above. A ramp is located on the northern elevation of the building.
The interior of the church has an open roof structure comprised of arched brace trusses with the ceiling lined in unpainted, stained diagonal timber boarding. Timbers used in the construction and furnishings of the church, such as cedar, are now rare or irreplaceable. Timber fittings include the pews, rails, pulpit and altar. Stained glass windows are located in the gabled sections in the north and south walls and the apse.
The Rectory is a low, single storey house with a gabled hip roof . It is constructed of timber and has verandahs on two sides and an enclosed section of verandah on a third side. The house is entered via a short set of steps which are flanked by two pairs of timber columns with decorative capitals and brackets. The roof is clad in painted corrugated steel and has two brick chimney stacks. The parish hall is comprised of two sections, both timber with corrugated steel roofs and elevated on short timber posts. The northern section is a former church and has a pitched roof, small entry porch and three pairs of double-hung sash windows on each side. The southern section is wider with a shallower, pitched roof and pairs of casement windows with an arched detail at the heads.
","history":"St. David's Church, Allora, a timber, Gothic Revival style church prominently located at the end of the main thoroughfare of the town, was constructed in 1887-88 to the design of leading Queensland colonial architect F.D.G Stanley. This building is the second church to be built on the site, which also contains a rectory designed by architect J. H Buckeridge(1901) and a parish hall (1912, 1962).
Allora claims to be amongst Queensland's oldest inland towns. The beginnings of a small settlement at the crossing of Dalrymple Creek was recorded in 1844. A survey of the town was completed by G.F Pratten in 1859 and land sales began the following year. In 1862, Reverend Benjamin Glennie bought land at Dalrymple Creek in the name of Bishop Tufnell. A two roomed timber slab cottage was built on the site of the present Parish Hall and used as a school, Sunday school and teacher's residence. Reverend Glennie preached here once a month. Prior to this, church services in Allora had generally been held at the Dalrymple Hotel and sporadically at a number of the early stations. One such is recorded to have been held by Glennie at Talgai Station in 1852.
Allora township continued to grow throughout the 1860s. By the end of the decade, Allora was becoming a substantial town, servicing the blacksoil farms established along Dalrymple Creek as a result of the lands acts of the1860s. In 1868, the first purpose built church of St. David was erected on the site of the present church. It was designed by architect Richard Suter and was typical of his timber churches that used outside studding to decorative effect. Suter also designed Allora's first national school in 1866 which was similar in design to the church. The original slab hut continued to be used for church services until the completion of the new church and was then relocated in 1870 to form part of St. Matthew's Church, Spring Creek. In 1870 Allora became a separate parish and a new rectory parsonage was built, again designed by Suter.
The first mention of a new church appeared at the Easter meeting on 27 April, 1886 when a subscription list was proposed. Plans for a timber church with shingle roof to seat 400 were discussed with architect F.D.G Stanley. The brief was revised to seating for 250, as the initial design proved too expensive. New plans were shown at a meeting in December 1886 and were accepted by the Vestry. Tenders were called in January 1887 and local contractor W.G Gillam's tender of £800 was accepted. Construction was delayed, however, when Bishop Webber requested a number of changes to the design, including the removal of doors planned for the north and south gable walls. Not all of his requests were able to be accommodated, nonetheless Bishop Webber laid the foundation stone on 5 August. The 1866 church was re-sited within the precinct to make way for the new church and was then used as a parish hall. This building was demolished in 1911.
The new church was informally opened with a service on 23 December 1888, however, the consecration of the church was not performed by Bishop Webber until 1 February, 1890.
The church at this time was of single skin timber construction with exposed bracing and studding on the exterior and a timber shingle roof. All the principal interior fittings were also designed by Stanley and made of cedar. F.D.G Stanley has been described as "the best known of all Queensland's early architect's because of the quality, diversity and extent of his work". He designed ten churches for the Anglican Church, five of which survive. Six of these were timber and St. David's Church, Allora is the only one that remains the property of the diocese. St. George's Church, Beenleigh (1875) is the only other surviving timber church of Stanley's design but is no longer within Anglican ownership.
Minor alterations have been made to the St. David's Church over time. In 1888, a rainwater tank was installed on the south side of the church to keep water away from the foundations. The thrust of the shingle roof was causing the side walls to shore and in 1892 tie rods were introduced to reduce the outward thrust. In 1897, the exterior was sheathed in horizontal pine chamfer boards and painted, at a cost of £108. A memorial altar and altar rails were added to the church after World War One and the original altar and rails were then donated to St Andrew's Church at Glengallan. To celebrate the golden jubilee of the church in 1938, the shingled roof was replaced with diamond laid, fibrous cement tiles. This cladding was replaced in 1978 with corrugated metal sheeting and the church was painted at the same time. Sixteen stained glass windows - nine in the chancel, two in the lower western wall and five in the north wall - were installed in the early 1980s.
The early rectory designed by Suter was sold for removal to W. Leggat and re-sited at 35 Warwick Street, Allora. The present rectory was constructed in 1901 to the design of architect John H Buckeridge who was then architect for the Diocese. Construction was supervised by the Toowoomba firm of James Marks and Son and the cost was £546. A hall for Sunday School was built in 1912 and was then amalgamated with the former church of St. Andrew, Glengallon in 1962 to form the parish hall presently on the site. In 1967, a lean-to garage and storage shed were built next to the hall.
","criteria":"St. David's Church Precinct is significant for demonstrating the growth of the Allora district within an important agricultural area of the Darling Downs. In particular, St. David's Church Precinct demonstrates the growth of the Anglican Church in Queensland and reflects local community efforts in meeting their spiritual needs, being an accretion of both purpose-designed buildings and buildings brought to the site.
The church also has a special association with prominent colonial Queensland architect F.D.G Stanley and is one of two remaining intact timber churches designed by Stanley for the Anglican Church. The rectory has an association with another important Queensland architect, John Buckeridge.
|St. David's Church Precinct demonstrates the principal characteristics of a small, nineteenth century timber church and related buildings located in a small rural settlement. Key features of the church include the simple building form, steeply pitched gable roof, timber fleche and scalloped and pierced bargeboards.
|The church has architectural and aesthetic significance derived from the well composed design which uses architectural elements to enhance the formal presence of the church in its setting. The rectory also has aesthetic significance as a fine example of a gracious timber dwelling. The collection of buildings has significant landmark qualities in the Allora townscape and from the New England Highway.
|St. David's Church has a strong spiritual and social association with the Anglican Parish in Allora as their principal place of worship for over 100 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16800,"place_ref":602064,"name":"Strathearn","alternate_name":"Anzac Cottage (no.37)","street_address":"16 Quarry Road","suburb":"ALDERLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-02-05","description":"This house is a single storey, timber weatherboard house with a short ridge corrugated iron roof. It occupies an elevated position with the back windows looking out towards Enoggera Army Barracks and the hills.
The front elevation of the cottage features a verandah which has been enclosed with fibro sheeting. A centrally-located entry is accessed via two timber steps and features side-hung casement doors. Abutting the casement doors on either side is a louvred opening, extending half-way down the front façade from the front eave. A casement window is located either side of the central entry. The side walls of the enclosed verandah contain louvred openings.
The side elevations of the cottage feature two, two-paned sash windows, surmounted by metal shades. A metal shade also covers the rear kitchen window.
The cottage is located on a sloping block, resulting in the building being high-set at the back. It is supported on capped concrete posts, infilled with timber slats. A timber staircase provides access to the rear of the house. Positioned above the stairs in the rear wall are three casement windows.
Typical of pyramidal and short ridge houses with a front verandah the front door opens onto a passageway that separates the two front bedrooms and leads into the sitting room. The kitchen and dining room are at the back of the house.
While the house originally had a third bedroom, this has been converted into a bathroom.
Substantial plantings are located to the rear (western) and side (southern) elevations of the cottage.
","history":"This small timber weatherboard house was built as an Anzac Cottage Trust home in 1920, and was occupied by members of the same family until 1998.
With the many casualties and deaths suffered by Australians during World War I, the public reacted by building war memorials and providing homes for wounded veterans and families of those killed. One remarkable scheme was Anzac Cottages. Many of the cottages were built on donated land, volunteers supplied most of the labour, and they were built in many Australian states. Probably the first one was erected in Western Australia by volunteer labour, and officially opened on 15 April 1916.
In Queensland the initial Anzac Cottage Trust, a sub-committee of the Queensland War Council established 25 September 1915, met weekly at the Commercial Travellers Sample Rooms in Charlotte Street. The objectives of this committee were to acquire land for the erection of homes for homeless widows, or other female dependents, and descendants of deceased men who had enlisted in Queensland for military or naval service during World War I. The committee was also responsible for the nominating those who would occupy the cottage. While rental was small, 1/6 a week, the widow had to be of "good character", remain single, not be seen drinking publicly nor have male callers. She was also required to pay all the rates, any other local government charges, fire insurance and maintain the house in good order. From the outset, the land was to be vested in the Public Curator upon trust in perpetuity and the widow or female descendant was required to sign a lease with the Public Curator. The rental was intended to fund the maintenance of these cottages. An occupier could apply to this fund for assistance with maintaining their house in good repair. The Public Trustee, with agreement from the Committee, had the right to raise revenue for the repairing, maintaining and/or rebuilding of such cottages.
The conditions of tenancy for the Anzac Cottages also stated that any child, descendant or widow who married had immediately to vacate the property. They were allowed to reside or share the occupancy only with the approval of the Committee. On the death of the widow, a descendant capable of caring for the remaining family could, at the discretion of the Committee, be allowed to remain on signing of a lease. Alternately, the house could be re-let to a person who fitted the Trust's conditions and on similar terms.
The first Anzac cottage built in Queensland was at Wynnum, opened by the Governor on 12 August 1917. Many of the Anzac Cottages constructed in Queensland were funded from profits of "Golden Caskets", the Queensland lottery, numbers three, four and five. This was an initiative of John (Harry) Coyne, chairman of the Anzac Cottage Committee, subcommittee to the Queensland War Council. The prizes awarded in these lotteries were very large. First, second and third prizes were £5 000, £1 000 and £500 respectively and the total prize pool was £10 000.
Golden Casket number three went on sale on 2 March 1918 and was drawn at the Brisbane Stadium on 23 August 1918. The forth Golden Casket sold out in less than five months and was drawn 14 May 1919, while the fifth was drawn on 13 November 1919. Harry Coyne MP, still Chairman of the Anzac Cottage Committee, was again at the Brisbane Stadium to conduct the draw and told the large crowd that profits from the three Golden Caskets would allow for between 60 and 80 homes to be built for war widows.
Thirty-eight cottages were built in Brisbane, and most had a name reflecting the Anzac theme; names such as Kitchener, Haig, Monash, Hopetown and Chauvel. The second last cottage to be built, number 37 was called Strathearn and was erected at 16 Quarry Road, Alderley. It was occupied by the Warner family.
English born John Thomas Warner was 42 when he enrolled at Enoggera, although he gave his age as 38 years old. Private Warner was buried in a shell explosion at Ypres in 1917. Rescued the following day he was sent home. He died during March 1920 and was buried in a war grave in Toowong. The newly widowed Mrs Mary Ann Warner and five children moved into their new Anzac Cottage, Strathearn in July 1920, and a son Jack was born soon after. Her daughter Mrs Florence Richardson Handley, who was ten when the family moved into Strathearn, moved back into the family home following the death of her husband. As a World War II Prisoner of War he worked on the Burma railway and died when his Japanese transport was torpedoed.
Mrs Warner was a keen gardener and a family tradition was the adding of a piece of a sacred bamboo planted by Mrs Warner to wedding bouquets and the giving of each family member a cutting for planting when they moved into a new home. Mrs Warner was working in her garden when she died in 1955, and the Public Curator permitted Mrs Florence Richardson Handley to remain in the house.
This Anzac Cottage remained the venue for family activities such as Christmas Day, until Florence Handley died on 10 February 1998. Since then, the house has remained vacant. The wooden fence which was supported by stones from the nearby quarry has been recently removed, as have some of the trees and shrubs.
The Anzac Trust Committee was disbanded in 1932 with all responsibility passing to the Public Curator (renamed Public Trustee in 1978). By 1956 the number of World War I widows and dependents requiring housing had decreased and most of the cottages were rented to non-Anzac families. Also, the maintenance fund was in financial straits so that it was suggested by the Public Curator to the Attorney General that some of the vacant dwellings be sold to fund repairs to tenanted cottages and consideration be given to winding up the Trust. The Anzac Cottages & TB Homes Act of 1960 was subsequently passed, enabling the sale of Anzac Cottages. Thirteen were sold by 6 April 1963 and Strathearn was the only remaining Anzac Cottage the Public Trustee was still responsible for in 1999.
","criteria":"Strathearn is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, built under the Anzac Cottage Scheme to provide accommodation for the families of Queensland enlisted soldiers or sailers who died during World War I. These houses were funded with the proceeds of the Queensland lottery, draws three, four and five.
|Strathearn is a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as one of the last Anzac Cottages, built under the Anzac Cottage Scheme, to be held by the Public Trustee.
|Strathearn is intact and in original condition, and as such is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an Anzac Cottage.
|Strathearn is of aesthetic significance, adding to the streetscape of Quarry Road.
|The place has a special association with the Queensland community as evidence of the community's response of support for the families of those killed during World War I.
|The place has a special association with the work of the Anzac Cottage Trust, a sub-committee of the Queensland War Council. Strathearn also has a special association with the Queensland lottery. The Trust constructed many cottages with funds raised in Queensland lottery, draws three, four and five.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16801,"place_ref":602065,"name":"Bourbong Street Weeping Figs","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The Bourbong Street Weeping Figs are four mature Ficus benjamina planted in the centre of the road reserve, between Barolin and Maryborough Streets, Bundaberg. The trees are centrally aligned and mounted in a pebblecrete base allowing an open-ground plot of approximately one metre square. The trees are interspersed with double sided angle parking with identical pebblecrete treatment as the tree surrounds. The trees contribute to the general streetscape of the central business district which includes the School of Arts, former Commercial Bank, the Post Office, the War Memorial and Buss Park. Together the buildings, park and weeping figs form a distinctive precinct.
","history":"The Bourbong Street Weeping Figs are four mature Ficus benjamina planted in the centre of the Road reserve in 1888, between Barolin and Maryborough Streets. Additional plantings were undertaken by the Bundaberg City Council in the 1920s.
The first town survey for Bundaberg, situated on the Burnett river, was completed in 1869, ultimately establishing it as a service centre with harbour and port facilities for the agricultural and mineral produce of the area. During the following decade the sugar industry consolidated and a general economic boom in Queensland in the 1880s enhanced the local sugar boom. During the 1880s the Millaquin, Fairymead and Bingera sugar refineries were established providing the necessary infrastructure for the success of the fledgling industry.
The sugar industry and the township of Bundaberg increased in both demographic size and political influence during the late nineteenth century, stimulating the demand for municipal landscaping that reflected this affluence. Municipal landscaping enhanced the streetscapes by adding character and dignity, also providing essential shade in the main business precinct of a city. Trees were also incorporated for the benefits to the health of the city, thought to assist in clearing of noxious smoke and fumes. The Ficus family were a popular choice for such plantings due to the dense foliage and broad spread of the canopy, which when planted in close proximity provided a continuous avenue of shade. The use of planting in the centre of the street, resolved the concern over the root system interfering with building foundations. Bourbong Street was gazetted two chains wide allowing ample room for two way traffic and centre plantings on the road reserve.
The commitment of the Bundaberg City Council to urban landscaping was spasmodic, with resolutions for the planting of shade trees in Bourbon Street passed and rescinded twice in 1882. In August 1888, local business identity Frederic Buss, donated £500 towards the planting of trees, as well as fencing and trenching of the ground to ensure that the project was undertaken. Trees were planted in Bourbong, Barolin, Maryborough and Woongarra Streets through this project. In the early 1920s additional trees were planted in Bourbong Street of the same variety as the original trees.
Frederic William Buss, (1845-1926) migrated to Queensland in 1863 from Kent in England, establishing Buss and Turner department store in 1888 on Bourbon Street, Bundaberg. Buss's business empire expanded into commercial real estate and eventually he was to become an influential figure in the local sugar industry, including production refining and distilling in his portfolio of interests. Although he was active in local politics, taking his place in both the chamber of commerce and the municipal council, Buss declined to take a seat in the State Parliament, instead concentrating on local affairs.
The changing use of the road system from horse to car over the twentieth century saw the gradual erosion of the avenue of trees, resulting in the four trees between Barolin and Maryborough streets being the only remaining trees in the central business district of the once grander concept. Over recent years, these figs have suffered considerable stress. The open tree surrounds are considerably reduced, thereby restricting the root system form receiving adequate rainfall and moisture. The recent completion of redevelopment works in the central business district further reduced the open-ground plots provided for the figs.
","criteria":"The Bourbong Street Weeping Figs, located between Barolin and Maryborough Streets comprise four mature Ficus benjamina originally planted in the centre of the road reserve in 1888, with additional plantings in the 1920s. The trees demonstrate the affluence of Bundaberg as the centre of a thriving sugar industry in the late nineteenth century that is reflected in the addition of major street planting to the urban fabric of Bundaberg.
Additional trees planted in the early 1920s, demonstrate the continuing commitment to civic landscaping by the Bundaberg City Council.
|The trees dominate the streetscape and are integral to the aesthetic of the main commercial precinct of Bundaberg.
|The Bourbong Street Weeping Figs have a strong association with Frederic Buss, a prominent businessman, agriculturalist and municipal alderman, as an example of his generosity and commitment to the municipal development of Bundaberg.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16803,"place_ref":602067,"name":"Monier Ventilation Shaft 2 (Spring Hill)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"134 St Paul's Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-04","description":"The three surviving concrete ventilation shafts are located in Brisbane's inner city suburbs of Spring Hill and Teneriffe. Two are in Spring Hill - one at the eastern end of Albert Park, on the footpath on Wickham Terrace opposite Twine Street; another on the footpath on St Paul's Terrace, opposite Gloucester Sreet. A third is located on the footpath in Florence Street, Teneriffe, west of the intersection with Macquarie Street. They ventilate stormwater drains rather than sewers.
The Spring Hill ventilators are located on ridges, but the Teneriffe ventilator is on low ground near the Brisbane River. It is not known what rationale was adopted in deciding where the vents were to be placed.
The ventilators are constructed of reinforced concrete, hexagonal in shape, with simple ornamentation at half height and apex. The Spring Hill ventilators are 30 feet tall [approximately 9 metres] with a base width of 21 inches [about 52cm]. They have a wall thickness of 4.5 inches [11.5cm] at the base, tapering to 3 inches [7.8cm] at the top. The Teneriffe ventilator is of slightly smaller dimensions.
All three ventilators are thought to have been constructed in accordance with the patented Monier ventilation system for venting public sewers and drains, and probably pre-cast in an hexagonal mould, with the top face open.
","history":"The Monier Ventilation Shafts are thought to have been constructed c1904, as part of a system of ventilation shafts [either concrete or steel/iron] located at intervals along some of Brisbane's inner city arterial stormwater drains. Three concrete shafts survive [of at least five erected] and may be the first pre-cast reinforced concrete structures in Queensland.
The Wickham Terrace shaft, on the footpath at the eastern end of Albert Park, opposite Twine Street, was one of a pair, the other having been erected just inside the park, opposite Lilley Street, but since removed. A concrete shaft of identical dimensions exists on the footpath of St Paul's Terrace, opposite Gloucester Street. Both the Wickham Terrace and St Paul's Terrace shafts appear to have been associated with the first Spring Hill stormwater drainage system, laid in the 1880s. A third shaft, of similar but smaller dimensions, exists on the footpath near the former Queensland Primary Producers' Woolstore No.8, in Florence Street, Teneriffe. Stormwater drains were laid in Florence and Ethel streets in mid-1904, and the concrete ventilation shaft at the east end of the Florence Street drain may have been constructed shortly afterwards.
In the 19th century, the distinction between drainage and sewerage was not well defined. Drains were described as sewers and they received a combination of sullage, roof and surface run-off. They relied on rainwater for flushing, and discharged to the nearest watercourse.
When Brisbane acquired municipal status in late 1859, there was no system of drainage or sewerage in the town. Most people dumped refuse in the creeks and channels, trusting that stormwater would carry it away to the river, and for some years the Municipal Council considered drainage and sewerage as one and the same thing. However, from about 1868 the Council adopted the policy of 'rainfall to the river' and 'sewerage to the land', developing a city drainage scheme to carry off stormwater and an earth closet sanitary service.
The Brisbane Drainage Act of 1875, under which the colonial government agreed to set aside crown land for sale to finance Brisbane's drainage scheme, provided the impetus for construction of Brisbane's early arterial stormwater drains. The systems were designed by the colonial government's Engineer for Harbours and Rivers, WD Nisbet, and carried out by government contractors under government supervision. Upon completion they became the property and responsibility of the Brisbane Municipal Council, which was responsible also for laying branch drains.
By 1878, the inner city was drained by three separate systems: the Frog's Hollow system - a main drain down Albert and Margaret Streets with branches laid by the Brisbane Municipal Council; the Adelaide-Creek Street system, which drained the centre of the town from Makerston Street to Queen Street and the lower sections of Elizabeth and Charlotte Streets; and the Makerston Street system, which served the area between Makerston Street and Petrie Terrace, and between Wickham Terrace and College Road and the Brisbane River.
Between 1879 and 1886 the Brisbane Municipal Council, with government loans, developed an arterial drainage system for the densely populated suburbs of Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley [even though the Valley lay outside the Brisbane town boundary]. Much of this work comprised open drains, which were covered in the late 1890s. South Brisbane and Kangaroo Point drainage systems were constructed in 1885-86. In the late 1880s, the Brisbane Municipal Council drained parts of New Farm, and a drainage system for Petrie Terrace, begun in 1883, was completed in the late 1880s. By 1890, the Brisbane Municipal Council had completed an arterial drainage scheme for the city core, at a total cost of nearly £130,000.
The densely populated Division of Booradabin was annexed to the Municipality of Brisbane in 1903, and in 1908 a loan was secured to enable the Council to complete the drainage of Merthyr, New Farm, Teneriffe, Bowen Hills, Mayne and Newstead by the end of 1909.
Without a proper sewerage system, Brisbane residents still tended to dispose of household and trade waste into the stormwater drainage systems. This led to the chronic pollution of local creeks, and foul smells emanating from the stormwater drains. Prior to bacterial theory being widely accepted, such miasma was thought to cause disease.
The situation was compounded in 1900 with the arrival of bubonic plague in Australia, carried by rats aboard ships arriving from foreign ports. The first case of human plague in Sydney was reported in January 1900, and in Brisbane [a day and a half away by steamer] on 27 April 1900. Between 1900 and 1909, plague broke out in most of Queensland's ports, galvanising the State into developing tighter controls over public health and sanitation.
In the early 20th century, the Commissioner of Public Health, using the strong coercive powers given to him under the provisions of the Health Act of 1900, required the Brisbane Municipal Council to erect ventilators in city streets to remove foul and unhealthy smells from the drainage systems. In 1900, the Council called tenders for the construction and erection of a ventilating shaft at Thorn Street, Kangaroo Point. No trace remains of this vent, except for its design, which was in the Monier system of re-inforced concrete, and identical with that of the vents that have survived on Wickham Terrace and St Paul's Terrace.
The Monier system of reinforced concrete [invented by Frenchman Joseph Monier and patented in 1867] was introduced to Australia in the early 1890s by WJ Baltzer, a New South Wales engineer. Monier's was the first true reinforced concrete, based on calculations which ensured that the steel was dispersed so as to take tension and shear forces. Baltzer, in association with contracting engineers Carter Gummow and Co. of Sydney, gained the Australian rights to this innovative fabric. The company constructed the first Monier system structure [a small arch for a storm water culvert] in Burwood, New South Wales, in 1894 and a sewer aqueduct linking the Sydney suburbs of Annandale and Balmain in 1895. The first use of the Monier system in Victoria was in 1897 with the Anderson Street Bridge over the Yarra, designed and constructed by Carter Gummow & Co.
Carter Gummow and Co. began manufacture of Monier pipes in Sydney in 1897, and John Monash's Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co. commenced production in Melbourne in 1903.
During the financial year 1903-04, the Brisbane Municipal Council authorised the spending of £1,537 on erecting sewer [drain] ventilating shafts wherever they were urgently needed. It is thought that the surviving concrete ventilation shafts were constructed in consequence.
","criteria":"The Monier Ventilation Shafts, constructed c1904, are important in illustrating late 19th/early 20th century attitudes toward public health and sanitation, and survive as visible evidence of Brisbane's early and extensive stormwater drainage scheme and venting system. The three surviving concrete shafts are thought to be the first pre-cast reinforced concrete structures in Queensland, and examples of the earliest application of the Monier system of reinforced concrete construction in Queensland.
|They provide rare surviving evidence of this early use of true reinforced concrete, and are significant as indicators of the technically advanced state of municipal engineering and construction in Brisbane at the turn of the 20th century.
|They have the potential to contribute further to our understanding of: i. community attitudes toward public health in the late 19th/early 20th centuries; ii. Brisbane's early stormwater drainage scheme; and iii. early pre-cast reinforced concrete technology in Queensland.
|They remain highly intact examples of their type and demonstrate engineering skill and involvement in creating aesthetically pleasing but functional structures.
|They remain highly intact examples of their type and demonstrate engineering skill and involvement in creating aesthetically pleasing but functional structures.
|They provide rare surviving evidence of this early use of true reinforced concrete, and are significant as indicators of the technically advanced state of municipal engineering and construction in Brisbane at the turn of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16804,"place_ref":602068,"name":"Monier Ventilation Shaft 3 (Teneriffe)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Florence Street","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1998-08-04","description":"The three surviving concrete ventilation shafts are located in Brisbane's inner city suburbs of Spring Hill and Teneriffe. Two are in Spring Hill - one at the eastern end of Albert Park, on the footpath on Wickham Terrace opposite Twine Street; another on the footpath on St Paul's Terrace, opposite Gloucester Sreet. A third is located on the footpath in Florence Street, Teneriffe, west of the intersection with Macquarie Street. They ventilate stormwater drains rather than sewers.
The Spring Hill ventilators are located on ridges, but the Teneriffe ventilator is on low ground near the Brisbane River. It is not known what rationale was adopted in deciding where the vents were to be placed.
The ventilators are constructed of reinforced concrete, hexagonal in shape, with simple ornamentation at half height and apex. The Spring Hill ventilators are 30 feet tall [approximately 9 metres] with a base width of 21 inches [about 52cm]. They have a wall thickness of 4.5 inches [11.5cm] at the base, tapering to 3 inches [7.8cm] at the top. The Teneriffe ventilator is of slightly smaller dimensions.
All three ventilators are thought to have been constructed in accordance with the patented Monier ventilation system for venting public sewers and drains, and probably pre-cast in an hexagonal mould, with the top face open.
","history":"The Monier Ventilation Shafts are thought to have been constructed c1904, as part of a system of ventilation shafts [either concrete or steel/iron] located at intervals along some of Brisbane's inner city arterial stormwater drains. Three concrete shafts survive [of at least five erected] and may be the first pre-cast reinforced concrete structures in Queensland.
The Wickham Terrace shaft, on the footpath at the eastern end of Albert Park, opposite Twine Street, was one of a pair, the other having been erected just inside the park, opposite Lilley Street, but since removed. A concrete shaft of identical dimensions exists on the footpath of St Paul's Terrace, opposite Gloucester Street. Both the Wickham Terrace and St Paul's Terrace shafts appear to have been associated with the first Spring Hill stormwater drainage system, laid in the 1880s. A third shaft, of similar but smaller dimensions, exists on the footpath near the former Queensland Primary Producers' Woolstore No.8, in Florence Street, Teneriffe. Stormwater drains were laid in Florence and Ethel streets in mid-1904, and the concrete ventilation shaft at the east end of the Florence Street drain may have been constructed shortly afterwards.
In the 19th century, the distinction between drainage and sewerage was not well defined. Drains were described as sewers and they received a combination of sullage, roof and surface run-off. They relied on rainwater for flushing, and discharged to the nearest watercourse.
When Brisbane acquired municipal status in late 1859, there was no system of drainage or sewerage in the town. Most people dumped refuse in the creeks and channels, trusting that stormwater would carry it away to the river, and for some years the Municipal Council considered drainage and sewerage as one and the same thing. However, from about 1868 the Council adopted the policy of 'rainfall to the river' and 'sewerage to the land', developing a city drainage scheme to carry off stormwater and an earth closet sanitary service.
The Brisbane Drainage Act of 1875, under which the colonial government agreed to set aside crown land for sale to finance Brisbane's drainage scheme, provided the impetus for construction of Brisbane's early arterial stormwater drains. The systems were designed by the colonial government's Engineer for Harbours and Rivers, WD Nisbet, and carried out by government contractors under government supervision. Upon completion they became the property and responsibility of the Brisbane Municipal Council, which was responsible also for laying branch drains.
By 1878, the inner city was drained by three separate systems: the Frog's Hollow system - a main drain down Albert and Margaret Streets with branches laid by the Brisbane Municipal Council; the Adelaide-Creek Street system, which drained the centre of the town from Makerston Street to Queen Street and the lower sections of Elizabeth and Charlotte Streets; and the Makerston Street system, which served the area between Makerston Street and Petrie Terrace, and between Wickham Terrace and College Road and the Brisbane River.
Between 1879 and 1886 the Brisbane Municipal Council, with government loans, developed an arterial drainage system for the densely populated suburbs of Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley [even though the Valley lay outside the Brisbane town boundary]. Much of this work comprised open drains, which were covered in the late 1890s. South Brisbane and Kangaroo Point drainage systems were constructed in 1885-86. In the late 1880s, the Brisbane Municipal Council drained parts of New Farm, and a drainage system for Petrie Terrace, begun in 1883, was completed in the late 1880s. By 1890, the Brisbane Municipal Council had completed an arterial drainage scheme for the city core, at a total cost of nearly £130,000.
The densely populated Division of Booradabin was annexed to the Municipality of Brisbane in 1903, and in 1908 a loan was secured to enable the Council to complete the drainage of Merthyr, New Farm, Teneriffe, Bowen Hills, Mayne and Newstead by the end of 1909.
Without a proper sewerage system, Brisbane residents still tended to dispose of household and trade waste into the stormwater drainage systems. This led to the chronic pollution of local creeks, and foul smells emanating from the stormwater drains. Prior to bacterial theory being widely accepted, such miasma was thought to cause disease.
The situation was compounded in 1900 with the arrival of bubonic plague in Australia, carried by rats aboard ships arriving from foreign ports. The first case of human plague in Sydney was reported in January 1900, and in Brisbane [a day and a half away by steamer] on 27 April 1900. Between 1900 and 1909, plague broke out in most of Queensland's ports, galvanising the State into developing tighter controls over public health and sanitation.
In the early 20th century, the Commissioner of Public Health, using the strong coercive powers given to him under the provisions of the Health Act of 1900, required the Brisbane Municipal Council to erect ventilators in city streets to remove foul and unhealthy smells from the drainage systems. In 1900, the Council called tenders for the construction and erection of a ventilating shaft at Thorn Street, Kangaroo Point. No trace remains of this vent, except for its design, which was in the Monier system of re-inforced concrete, and identical with that of the vents that have survived on Wickham Terrace and St Paul's Terrace.
The Monier system of reinforced concrete [invented by Frenchman Joseph Monier and patented in 1867] was introduced to Australia in the early 1890s by WJ Baltzer, a New South Wales engineer. Monier's was the first true reinforced concrete, based on calculations which ensured that the steel was dispersed so as to take tension and shear forces. Baltzer, in association with contracting engineers Carter Gummow and Co. of Sydney, gained the Australian rights to this innovative fabric. The company constructed the first Monier system structure [a small arch for a storm water culvert] in Burwood, New South Wales, in 1894 and a sewer aqueduct linking the Sydney suburbs of Annandale and Balmain in 1895. The first use of the Monier system in Victoria was in 1897 with the Anderson Street Bridge over the Yarra, designed and constructed by Carter Gummow & Co.
Carter Gummow and Co. began manufacture of Monier pipes in Sydney in 1897, and John Monash's Reinforced Concrete & Monier Pipe Construction Co. commenced production in Melbourne in 1903.
During the financial year 1903-04, the Brisbane Municipal Council authorised the spending of £1,537 on erecting sewer [drain] ventilating shafts wherever they were urgently needed. It is thought that the surviving concrete ventilation shafts were constructed in consequence.
","criteria":"The Monier Ventilation Shafts, constructed c1904, are important in illustrating late 19th/early 20th century attitudes toward public health and sanitation, and survive as visible evidence of Brisbane's early and extensive stormwater drainage scheme and venting system. The three surviving concrete shafts are thought to be the first pre-cast reinforced concrete structures in Queensland, and examples of the earliest application of the Monier system of reinforced concrete construction in Queensland.
|They provide rare surviving evidence of this early use of true reinforced concrete, and are significant as indicators of the technically advanced state of municipal engineering and construction in Brisbane at the turn of the 20th century.
|They have the potential to contribute further to our understanding of: i. community attitudes toward public health in the late 19th/early 20th centuries; ii. Brisbane's early stormwater drainage scheme; and iii. early pre-cast reinforced concrete technology in Queensland.
|They remain highly intact examples of their type and demonstrate engineering skill and involvement in creating aesthetically pleasing but functional structures.
|They remain highly intact examples of their type and demonstrate engineering skill and involvement in creating aesthetically pleasing but functional structures.
|They provide rare surviving evidence of this early use of true reinforced concrete, and are significant as indicators of the technically advanced state of municipal engineering and construction in Brisbane at the turn of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16806,"place_ref":602070,"name":"Killila","alternate_name":"Killila Cottage","street_address":"100 Stoneleigh","suburb":"LUTWYCHE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-10-01","description":"Killila is located on two allotments at 100 Stoneleigh Street, Windsor, north of the Brisbane city centre. They are each 405 m2 with the rear of the allotments also accessed from Salt Street. The property is located amidst a number of late 20th century brick unit blocks in this part of Stoneleigh Street.
The single-storey, high-set timber residence is sited close to the Stoneleigh Street boundary and the entire property perimeter is enclosed with a wire fence. There is vehicular access to the site from both Stoneleigh and Salt streets, however only the Stoneleigh Street entrance gives access to a driveway leading to the garage situated on the eastern side of the property.
The timber-framed house appears to have been constructed or reconstructed in at least three stages. A hipped-roof attached kitchen wing at the rear appears to be the oldest section of the house, likely part of the c1885 cottage. The core of the residence, which appears to be of mostly early 20th century fabric, has a short-ridged hipped roof of corrugated iron, and possibly replaces the earlier cottage core. It has early 20th century additions, comprising a gabled, east-facing projecting at the front, and enlarged eastern side verandah, and rear additions. There are stepped verandahs with a skillion roof on three sides. All roofs are clad in corrugated iron and a corbelled brick chimneystack protrudes from above the kitchen.
The front verandah has been enclosed with timber louvres and the original dowel balustrading is covered by fibrous cement panels. The original square verandah posts with tapered chamfers, have simple capital and astragal embellishments, and are visible in the front façade. Entry to the front verandah is gained via a short flight of later concrete stairs and through a single lattice door. A flying gable above the entry has decorative fretwork fronted by a simple slat infill and bargeboard. The side verandahs have also been enclosed with hinged windows. The formerly exposed face of the eastern gable, now hidden by the side verandah in-fill, has 8 inch deep chamferboards, which may have been recycled from elsewhere in the house.
The exposed faces of the rear extension are clad in chamferboards with some sections in vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding. A flight of timber stairs to the rear wing of the house is sheltered by a corrugated iron roof. All windows in the rear extension are hinged and those facing south from the dining room feature coloured glass inserts. The majority of rooms with windows to the rear of the house are protected by hoods. Two distinct styles of hood are present, with some featuring galvanised skillion roofs and timber batten sides and other hoods featuring a convex profile with star motif on the sides typical of inter-war sunhood design.
The original timber stumps of the house have been replaced with concrete and the sub-floor has been enclosed with timber battens. The area directly beneath the kitchen wing currently functions as a storage area and has an early brick fireplace which shares a chimney with the kitchen fireplace above.
The early front door is centrally positioned in the front façade of what appears to be the first stage of the core. It has a cast iron knocker, central door knob, fielded panels and bolection moulds, and opens to a wide hallway which extends the length of the core. It is divided about mid-way along by a slatted timber arch. Six rooms open off this hallway, three to the left and two to the right. Above each doorway is a pivoted fanlight with waxed paper inserts. The first room to the left is the main bedroom, formerly a parlour, with a large double-hung sash window opening to the front verandah. It has a very fine pressed metal ceiling in Art Nouveau pattern. The second and third rooms on the left are currently used as bedrooms with French doors opening to the eastern side verandah. The front room on the right hand side has a bay window with double-hung windows to the front façade and French doors opening to the side verandah. The partition between the second and third rooms on the right has been removed to create one large living room, divided by a timber screen. This area has a fireplace with a fine timber surround in the southern wall, which backs onto the fireplace the adjoining kitchen. What was formerly the third room on this side of the hallway has also been extended onto what was formerly part of the western side verandah. The door opening into this room has early glass paneling.
The far end of the hallway opens into an enclosed and extended former verandah area at the rear of the house, which is now used as a dining room and which appears to be an early 1900s extension. To the left is a bathroom and to the right is the kitchen and pantry. The kitchen retains the original wood oven and the former external walls of the kitchen wing are clad in a wider timber profile than the other walls in the house. Beside the pantry is a toilet, and adjacent to this a flight of timber stairs leading to the backyard.
The walls in the core are mainly single-skin, constructed of narrow, vertically-jointed tongue and groove boarding. The ceilings, with the exclusion of the pressed metal ceiling in the front northeastern room, are lined with the same boarding. The cornices are All rooms off the hallway have high picture rails and lambs tongue skirting boards. Joinery in the hallway, including the doors, is decorated with an early timber graining effect.
","history":"Killila is a timber house, erected as a working class cottage c1885, with extensive early 20th century alterations to convert it into a substantial middle-class home.
The allotment on which this residence is situated was first alienated in 1858 as Portion 155, parish of Enoggera, county of Stanley [20 acres], by James Baker, a compositor of Brisbane, at a cost of £79. Five years later, the title was transferred to Robert Cribb, a Brisbane broker. Cribb immediately set about subdividing the land and in November 1880 title to subdivisions 11-22 and 51-56 of portion 155, comprising just over 7 acres, was registered in the name of John Lloyd Bale.
Bale was an accountant, agent and broker, and at the time of purchasing these Albion subdivisions was serving as Chairman of the Ithaca Divisional Board. He was elected a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1883 and remained in that position until his death in 1885. He resided in an 1860s house at the corner of Albion and Bowen Bridge (Lutwyche) Roads named Stoneleigh, which gave its name to Stoneleigh Street. Most of Bale's land in the Albion/Windsor area remained unimproved, and between 1882 and 1884 he re-subdivided the property as the Stoneleigh Estate.
In May 1883, title to re-subdivisions 56 and 57 of subdivision 56, comprising an area of 32 perches [the site of Killila Cottage] was transferred to Elizabeth Parsons, the wife of George Alfred Parsons, brickmaker. Parsons was based at Lutwyche at this period, and it is unlikely that he lived in Stoneleigh Street, Albion. However, the Post Office Directories record Robert Parsons, brickmaker, as resident in Albion in the period 1885 to 1887, and it is possible that a cottage had been erected at 100 Stoneleigh Street by 1885, perhaps occupied by Robert Parsons. Certainly the cottage was constructed before the property was sold early in 1888 to the next owner, Mrs Margaret Duhig, widow and mother of James Duhig [1871-1965], the prominent Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane between 1917 and 1965.
Margaret Duhig emigrated from Ireland to Brisbane, following a sojourn in England, with James and two of her other children on 8 April 1885, aboard the Mackara. Two other children followed later. For 3 years the Duhigs were unable to afford to purchase their own house in Brisbane and resided in rental properties in Paddington, Spring Hill and Petrie Terrace before purchasing the cottage at 100 Stoneleigh Street. When James Duhig joined the work force in 1885, aged nearly 14, his weekly wage was one of the solid bases of the family economy and his support contributed to the deposit paid on the Stoneleigh Street cottage.
Although title to the Stoneleigh Street property was not registered in the name of Margaret Duhig until February 1889, and the Post Office Directories first record her as resident in Albion in that year, personal letters in the Brisbane Catholic Archdiocesan Archives indicate that the Duhigs were residing at Albion by early 1888. On 26 April of that year, James Duhig wrote to his brother, Martin, announcing the family's purchase of the property for £250 and expressing a hope that it "could double our money at any time". Three months later, Margaret Duhig wrote to Martin explaining that she was paying 8% interest and that extensions were carried out to the house for a sum of £40. For the Duhigs, it was a modest family house, affectionately named Killila Cottage after their home in Co. Limerick, Ireland.
By the mid-1880s Windsor shire was an ideal suburban location, being within a stone's throw of the city yet enjoying all the attributes of the country. The Duhigs' neighbours in Stoneleigh Street, who in 1892 included a prominent draper, 2 accountants, an auctioneer, an engineer, several clerical workers, and numerous tradesmen and semi-skilled workers, reflected the growing eclectic social milieu of the Albion/Windsor area in the late 19th century, with more affluent residents building substantial homes on the higher ground and the working class in the valleys in between.
It was during his residence at Killara Cottage that James Duhig began thinking seriously about a theological career. In 1890, after nearly five years of clerical work for the Co-operative Butchery Company, he returned to the Christian Brothers' Gregory Terrace School as a day student to study Latin and French with a view to furthering his theological interests. He also became an active member of the Catholic community, joining the Catholic Young Men's Society and serving as a parish catechist in Wooloowin. After 5 years of religious study in Rome, Duhig was ordained a priest in 1896 and returned to Brisbane the following year. Rising through the ranks of the Catholic Church, he succeeded Robert Dunne as Archbishop of Brisbane in 1917. Duhig's commitment helped raise the profile and status of Catholicism in Queensland, but he was also an influential figure in the State's social, political and economic activites. Duhig used his public profile to advance issues such as education, urban development, artistic development, justice and land settlement. As the driving force behind some 400 major buildings, including religious, educational, medical and charitable institutions, 'James the Builder' also left his mark on the physical structure of Brisbane.
When James Duhig embarked for Rome in 1891 to study for the priesthood, the family faced precarious financial circumstances. In the early 1890s, the mortgage repayments on Killara Cottage had stretched the family's budget and when Margaret Duhig contemplated selling she was reputedly unable to find a buyer, ironically having passed up an offer in 1889 from the Windsor Shire Council to purchase and resume the property to open up Salt Street.
Despite the financial difficulties, Margaret Duhig retained ownership of the property until her death in 1902. It was then transferred to her daughters, Mary and Ellen Duhig, before it was registered in 1908 solely in the name of Mary Duhig, who retained title to the property for the next 29 years. Ellen joined the Order of the Good Samaritans, and Mary never married. By 1904 their sister Elizabeth and her husband Francis Joseph Cullen, had moved into Killila Cottage, where they raised their family. The Cullens resided here until 1937, and reputedly it was during their occupancy that substantial additions and renovations were made to the house. Mortgages on the property taken out in 1903 for £300 and in 1913 for £500 may be an indication of the date/s of the alterations, but this has yet to be confirmed. The Cullen and Duhig families appear to have been very close. One of James Duhig's nephews, Frank Lee Cullen, became a well-known Brisbane architect in the late 1930s, and undertook a number of commissions for the Catholic Church.
In 1937, title to the property was transferred to Edgar Luke Samuel Pilkington, and it has remained in the Pilkington family since. Brisbane City Council records indicate that the house has not been substantially altered since at least 1946, with additions limited to construction of a single detached garage in 1961 and a tennis court on what is now a separate property at 98 Stoneleigh Street.
","criteria":"Killila was constructed c1885 as a much smaller cottage, which was substantially refurbished and extended early in the 20th century. It is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, illustrating in its fabric the pattern of upward social mobility from worker's cottage to middle-class residence, which characterized the struggle of Irish immigrants in Queensland to succeed in their new country and to raise the status of Catholics in an Anglican-dominated society.
|The house is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a generously-sized middle-class residence of the early 20th century. The interior in particular is remarkably intact, including the internal layout, fabric, and finishes - such as early graining to the joinery and wall and floor finishes, patterned wax papers on the transom lights over the internal doors, and c1920s electric light shades.
|The place makes an important aesthetic contribution to the historical townscape of Windsor, which abounds in 19th and early 20th century residences, and contributes significantly to the historical character of the local area.
|The house is also significant for its association with James Duhig [1871-1965], the prominent Queensland Catholic Archbishop from 1917 to 1965. During his religious career, Duhig helped raise the status of Catholicism in Queensland and played an influential role in the social, economic and political issues facing the State from the 1920s to the 1950s. As a youth, Duhig resided at Killila Cottage at Stoneleigh Street for several years before embarking for Rome to study for the priesthood. It was during his time at the Windsor residence that he first became actively involved in the Brisbane Catholic community. The house remained in the Duhig family for close to 50 years, during which time it was transformed into a middle-class residence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16807,"place_ref":602071,"name":"Baree School of Arts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Creek Street","suburb":"BAREE","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-01-25","description":"The Baree School of Arts is located at Creek Street Baree, on a large parcel of land that falls gently from the street frontage to a creek which skirts the southern and eastern boundaries of the site. The building is set into the north west corner of the site and addresses Creek Street. A well maintained garden is located at the front of the building while the remainder of the site is an open grassed area with a few mature plantings lining the edge of the creek.
The school building is elevated above ground level on timber stumps and is constructed of timber with a corrugated iron gable roof to the main hall and simple skillion roofs over the front and side verandah structures. Externally the street frontage of the building is clad with timber T&G boards below the verandah roof and weather boards above it, while the remaining three elevations are clad with corrugated iron.
The main entry to the building is from Creek street by a recently constructed ramp structure that abuts the verandah. A centrally located set of French doors form the main entry to the school however there are also two single leaf doors located either side of the main doors providing a secondary entry to the hall and separate entry to the enclosed verandah and area that was once the library. A secondary access to the hall is provided via a timber stair which adjoins the southern enclosed verandah.
A number of brass memorial plaques are located at the entry to the building. These plaques memorialise local residents associated with the School of Arts as well as the official opening of the building and the parties involved with the construction of the new entry ramp.
The building is rectilinear in plan and includes a large hall and associated stage area as well as toilet facilities, a kitchen and meeting area all located on the enclosed verandah. The ceiling follows the line of the rafters in the hall and on the verandah and is not lined. Similarly, walls are generally not lined however a combination of timber weatherboards, tongue and groove boarding and corrugated iron have been used on some sections of wall.
At least one original six pane double hung window survives in the building, the remainder having been replaced with metal framed glass louvres.
The undercroft of the building is predominantly natural ground but does include a small section of concrete pavement located directly under the stage area. A number of concrete plinths and associated holding down bolts indicate an element of some size was once secured to the floor.
","history":"Constructed in 1910 the Baree School of Arts is a modest timber building located at Creek Street, Baree.
The School of Arts movement began in the 1820s, when Mechanics Institutes were established in Glasgow and London, and a School of Arts was established in Edinburgh. Their intention was to promote mental and moral improvement of the working classes, although it appears they were often directed more towards the middle classes, with lectures on subjects such as philosophy, and classes in French and Latin, which may not have appealed to a largely illiterate working class. Some institutes also provided technical classes including measured drawing, painting and typewriting and all Schools of Arts provided a variety of entertainments as well as games, lending libraries and reading rooms.
The first institute in Australia was formed in Hobart in 1827, followed by Sydney in 1833, from which date the movement rapidly spread throughout the rest of the colony. The first School of Arts in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1846, although a building was not erected for the purpose until 1864. From this beginning, approximately 350 Schools of Arts were established throughout the state during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A typical School of Arts building was of timber construction including a hall and two or three rooms used for library and meeting purposes. Larger provincial centres buildings were of masonry construction. Although varied in scale, form and materials they were readily identifiable in the streetscape and often incorporated impressive facades which spoke of the cultural ambitions of those who built them. Essentially the school of arts building type became an integral part of townscape fabric along with the police station, the courthouse, churches and schools.
The Baree school of Arts developed in association with the mining settlement at Mt Morgan. Gold was discovered in the Mt Morgan region by Edwin Morgan, Thomas Morgan and Sandy Gordon in 1882 and from this early discovery the town grew. The government took action to establish a township to service the new mine and in 1884 the District Surveyor instructed Surveyor Byerley to undertake a survey of land adjoining the mine. The original town survey included two subdivisions and these areas were referred to as north and south Calliungal, but have always been known locally as Baree and Mt Morgan respectively.
Mt Morgan developed as the central township to the region however over the next 10-20 years the services provided in the main township were duplicated in outer localities such as Baree, Red Hill and Victoria. At its peak in 1916 Baree sustained a settlement of 500-600 people and the School of Arts was just one of a number of buildings which lined Creek Street and formed the centre of the township. Today the School of Arts is one of only a few buildings that remain as part of the original streetscape.
Prior to the establishment of the Baree School of Arts a school had been established in Mt Morgan in 1891. This building was destroyed by fire and a new building erected in 1923 only to be destroyed by fire again. The existing School of Arts building is the structure that was erected following these disasters. It is not clear what the impetus for the Baree School of Arts was however, most Schools of Arts established in Queensland were driven by community minded men, usually of middle or upper class.
The Baree School of Arts was officially opened on 20 October 1910 by Captain G A Richards the General Manager of Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited. The land on which the school was constructed was reserved for that purpose in July 1909. It is not clear if an architect was commissioned to design the structure or who the builder may have been. However, considering the modest nature of the structure it may be that the facility was designed and constructed using community resources.
Over the past 90 years the Baree School of Arts has been used for various community leisure activities and receptions including dances, movies, weddings, parties and local resident meetings. The multitude of uses has resulted in some physical alteration to the building fabric, most notably the adaptation of the library/reading room to accommodate a toilet facility. However, despite these changes the original configuration of the building remains largely intact. The Baree School of Arts is a highly valued community resource and an important remnant of a town ship which once serviced one of the biggest gold mines in the world.
","criteria":"The Baree School of Arts was constructed in 1910. It is one of many School of Arts constructed throughout Queensland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as part of an attempt to promote mental and moral improvement of the working classes. By the 1900s, almost every town in Queensland had a School of Arts and they were often seen as indicators of the prosperity or status of the town. As such, they demonstrate the evolution of Queensland's history.
The Baree School of Arts was once part of a cluster of buildings which formed the core of the Baree township and serviced the Mt Morgan mine. As a remnant structure of this township the building helps to demonstrate the growth of the region surrounding Mt Morgan and the community infrastructure which developed within those settlements.
|Whilst not as grand as its Mt Morgan neighbour the Baree School of Arts is a modest structure perhaps more reflective of a public facility conceived using community resources. The building has been physically altered over time however, it remains largely intact and does demonstrate the principal characteristics of a building of its type, with provision for a hall, reading room and library.
|Today the building stands as the only significant structure in the Creek Street streetscape.
|Over the past ninety years the school of arts building has accommodated a multitude of community gatherings, including public meetings, dances, movies and private functions. As such the place has a strong association with the residents of Baree and stands as community focal point within the township.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16810,"place_ref":602074,"name":"Oogarding","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"100 Simpsons Road","suburb":"BARDON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-06-23","description":"Oogarding is a substantial two story residence with basement designed in the Mediterranean Style. It is constructed of load-bearing masonry that has been smooth rendered, recently re-rendered and painted in a creamy tone. The medium-pitched roof is clad in glazed terracotta Marseilles pattern tiles and has exposed rafter ends that are decoratively shaped on the front elevation and agricultural pipe vents set in a diamond pattern in the gable ends. The entrance door is a significant feature and is strongly expressed with raised rendered decoration to resemble substantial masonry surrounding the panelled door. The door, designed by Rylance, has eight square panels which are repeated in the form of a vertical strip of four square windows on either side of the door. The door is surmounted by a leadlight fanlight with the name of the house incorporated into the design.
In plan, the house has an offset cruciform shape with the entry positioned at the core of the house on the Western side. A sunken passageway leads from the front door to a hall that leads, through large openings, to the dining room, lounge room and terrace as well as to the stairs to the upper floor. Each of these major public rooms occupy an arm of the cross in plan and the lounge in particular is generously proportioned. The dining room and lounge room are linked by timber and glass sliding doors with arched heads. An ornate fireplace with a faux stone finish and moulded decoration is a prominent feature of the lounge room, as are the decorative plaster ceilings of both public rooms. The terrace is a semi-enclosed room with a short arcade of three arched openings on the northern wall and single arches on the eastern and western walls. The suspended timber floors are red stringybark and covering tiles have recently been removed from several areas. All joinery and mouldings in the house are silky oak, apart from the handrail which is maple.
The house was originally designed to cater for a family served by a maid and a secondary circulation route links the main public rooms with the kitchen and laundry areas. A bathroom is located between these utility areas and public areas and has a small antechamber adjacent to it. Renovations in the 1960s relocated the kitchen further to the south-east edge of the house, in the position formerly occupied by the maid's room. A round-arched loggia links the utility areas to the garage which provides accommodation for three cars.
The second story accommodates four bedrooms, a bathroom and a sleepout. The expansive main bedroom is located directly above the lounge room in the north-east corner and has several built-in cupboards. The highly detailed bathroom has an alcove bath, a built-in shower recess, a decorative sandblasted mirror designed by the architect and a strong single colour scheme of carefully detailed blue tiles.
On the exterior, the main bedroom projects slightly and is supported by corbels. On the northern wall, multi-paned French doors open out to a small semi-circular "Juliet" balcony. These doors are surrounded with raised rendered decoration similar to that around the front entry door. Windows throughout the house are generally multi-paned timber sash and casement windows and most have external timber louvre shutters.
N.B This description was prepared on the basis of documentary evidence only, the place was not inspected.
","history":"Oogarding, a two storey, rendered masonry house in the Mediterranean style was built in 1940-41 to the design of architect Mervyn Rylance. The house is prominently located on a sharp bend in Simpsons Road in the Brisbane suburb of Bardon and is set on a large block of land, against a stand of tall gum trees.
In 1940, Rylance was commissioned by Mr James Gervase (Gerb) Joyce and Mrs Edith Joyce to design a house for them on a one acre allotment which had been subdivided from the Joyce family property in Bardon. Gerb Joyce was a well known Brisbane business identity and owner of the Helidon Spa soft drink company. The Joyces named their new house Oogarding, the Aboriginal name for the spa to which they owed their fortune. It appears that the Joyces commissioned Rylance on the recommendation of the builder Mr Jan Cupka. Cupka had constructed at least three other buildings designed by Rylance around this time.
Rylance opened his architectural practice in Brisbane in 1933 and domestic commissions formed the basis of his practice. In the period up until World War II, he designed a number of relatively expensive and substantial homes in both the English and Mediterranean styles. The Mediterranean style established itself strongly in the temperate parts of Australia in the interwar period. This was largely due to the efforts of it's central proponent, Professor Leslie Wilkinson and through his position as the first chair of architecture at an Australian university. Wilkinson was able to influence many architects with his ideas about the suitability of Mediterranean styled architecture for the Australian climate. In effect, the style was a regionalisation of Georgian domestic architecture and avoided blatant Mediterranean features such as those adopted in Spanish Mission architecture, preferring classical details, smooth render, soft tones and round arches that simply evoked a Mediterranean feeling.
Mervyn Rylance was one of these young architects influenced by Wilkinson's ideas. Although he was born in Brisbane, Rylance was educated in Sydney and England and was an articled pupil with Joseland and Gilling Architects in Sydney. F Glynn Gilling was recognised as a leading practitioner of the Mediterranean Style and his Woolcock Forbes house was to have a lasting influence on Rylance. Very few pure Mediterranean Style houses were built in Brisbane and Rylance was responsible for the design of a number of key examples including the Blanchard House at 43 Maxwell Street, New Farm, the Bartlett House at 390 Swann Road, St. Lucia and Oogarding.
The house was constructed by Mr Jan Cupka and it appears to have been built on the basis of a negotiated contract as no tender was advertised. When interviewed in 1995, Mrs Joyce remembered Rylance as "a dedicated professional", attending the site every couple of days during the nine month construction period. He personally applied the faux stone finish to the fireplace, throwing sand at the wet render and ruling in the joints with his pencil.
In 1964, a new family room was added to the south-east corner of the house, to the specification of Terrence Reid. Later in 1965, Hayes, Scott and Henderson Architects designed a new garage, front terrace and other landscape works and re-modelled the kitchen. The Joyce family lived in the house from its construction until 1999 when the house was bought by the Gasteen family.
","criteria":"Oogarding demonstrates the principal characteristic of a substantial, interwar Mediterranean Style residence with important style indicators such as asymmetrical massing, cement rendered masonry construction and Marseilles tiled roof, strongly expressed main entry door, round arched and arcaded loggia, "Juliet" balcony and multi-paned, double hung windows with louvred timber shutters.
Oogarding is important because of its aesthetic significance, due to its fine and restrained design, careful detailing, high quality and distinctive interior fittings and garden setting. The house has significance as a surviving intact example of the work of important interwar Queensland architect, Mervyn Rylance and is considered among the best examples of his work and a key example of Mediterranean Style architecture in Queensland.
|Oogarding demonstrates the principal characteristic of a substantial, interwar Mediterranean Style residence with important style indicators such as asymmetrical massing, cement rendered masonry construction and Marseilles tiled roof, strongly expressed main entry door, round arched and arcaded loggia, "Juliet" balcony and multi-paned, double hung windows with louvred timber shutters.
|Oogarding is important because of its aesthetic significance, due to its fine and restrained design, careful detailing, high quality and distinctive interior fittings and garden setting.
|The house has significance as a surviving intact example of the work of important interwar Queensland architect, Mervyn Rylance and is considered among the best examples of his work and a key example of Mediterranean Style architecture in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16811,"place_ref":602075,"name":"Fraser family grave site and memorial, Hornet Bank","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Hornet Bank Road","suburb":"TAROOM","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"The Fraser family grave is located approximately 250 metres northwest of the Hornet Bank home yard, beyond a waterhole.
The site is marked by a fence of hollow metal rails between low timber posts. There is no evidence of individual graves or headstones within this enclosure.
A stepped three-tiered concrete plinth stands to the middle of the fenced area and accommodates a plaque, with the inscription:
In memory of the Fraser family who were massacred at the station homestead by the aborigines on October 27th 1857.
Erected by the descendants of the late Andrew Scott, founder of Hornet Bank September 8, 1853. Unveiled 27th October 1957.
A small metal plaque at the base of the front face of the memorial records:
Hugh T Scott & J Hamilton, Builders
","history":"Hornet Bank station in the upper Dawson River district was taken up in 1853 by Andrew Scott and the homestead, on a reduced acreage, remains the property of his direct descendants. In 1857 the station was the site of the killing by local Aborigines of eleven settlers, eight of whom were members of the Fraser family, who were managing Hornet Bank for Scott. The Hornet Bank massacre resonated deeply in colonial circles, escalating the frontier war in the Dawson River district and prejudicing subsequent European-Indigenous relationships throughout Queensland for decades.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt led the first European exploration of the upper Dawson River district in 1845. Within two years of this expedition non-indigenous settlement in the area had commenced, with squatters attracted by Leichhardt's glowing reports of its rich pastoral land. One of the earliest settlers in the region was Andrew Scott, who took up the first of the Hornet Bank blocks in 1853.
Born in Scotland in 1810, Scott arrived in Australia in the late 1830s. He gained pastoral experience at the property of his future father-in-law, Robert Brodie, in the Hunter district of New South Wales. Taking advantage of the newly opening pastoral districts in the north, in September 1853 he applied for a pastoral lease along the Dawson River. The Aboriginal name for the lease area was Gaganybilany, but Scott reputedly named it Hornet Bank after he was attacked by a hornet swarm there. In March 1854 John Fraser, a Scotsman who had worked as a bookkeeper at Jimbour on the Darling Downs before moving to Drayton, took on the management of Hornet Bank for Scott and moved there with his wife Martha and their children. In May 1856, while overlanding Hornet Bank sheep to Ipswich, John Fraser became ill and subsequently died in town. Mrs Fraser stayed on at Hornet Bank and her eldest son William, who had established himself as a carrier based at Ipswich, returned to the property to look after the family. William, however, was often away for months at a time in connection with his business.
Around this time tension was increasing between local Aborigines, the Jiman, and non-Indigenous settlers along the Dawson River. A series of incidents in 1856 and 1857 culminated in the killings at Hornet Bank Homestead. As the most western station along the Dawson River, Hornet Bank was an easy target for Aboriginal attack and in late October 1857 it was relatively unguarded with William Fraser absent from the station. The events that unfolded at Hornet Bank in the early morning of 27 October 1857, described in the contemporary press as a 'dreadful calamity', resulted in the death of eleven inhabitants of the station, including eight members of the Fraser family, all of whom were women and children, attacked at the homestead. The sole survivor was Sylvester Fraser, the second youngest son of the family, who was aged 15 at the time. The victims were buried on the property. In October 1957, to commemorate the centenary of the killings, a concrete memorial was erected on the grave site by Andrew Scott's descendants.
The Hornet Bank killings revived squatter agitation for greater frontier protection and in the following six months a 'squatter's crusade', supported by sections of the colonial press, was waged throughout the Dawson and Burnett districts by small bands of squatters and Native Police. It has been estimated that several hundred Aborigines were killed during this period. Sporadic warfare continued in the Dawson River area to 1870.
Despite the 1857 tragedy, Andrew Scott retained ownership of Hornet Bank Station. In 1860 he married Robert Brodie's daughter Christina, but the couple did not reside permanently at Hornet Bank until the frontier violence had been quelled. During the mid-1860s Hornet Bank was managed by Andrew Gordon, with whom Scott was in partnership. This was a period of physical expansion for the Hornet Bank head station, with a number of new structures erected, all of timber slab construction. Scott's father-in-law, Robert Brodie, was a stonemason by trade and is believed to have built most of the 1860s slab buildings at Hornet Bank prior to his death there in 1867. Reportedly, after a new slab homestead was completed c1865, the house formerly used by the Fraser family was used as a store. Gordon Reid, author of A Nest of Hornets (1982), described the original house as "like the usual bush hut of those days; it had a verandah and a bark roof, and was divided into three main rooms - a sitting room, a store and a sleeping room, the last being in the middle."
Andrew Scott had acquired numerous properties in the Leichhardt district by the mid-1880s, when Hornet Bank was one of 19 runs he consolidated as the 640 square mile Goongarry Station. When inspected in November 1887 the oldest improvements on Hornet Bank were the woolshed and associated yards and pens, which were 30 years old (ie. erected c1857). The main house, constructed of shingles, slabs and sawn timber and the store, of shingle and slab with excavated cellars, were recorded as 22 years old (ie, erected c1865). A cottage of sawn timber with an iron roof had just been erected (c1887). At this time the head station also contained a c1877 buggy and dray shed, a c1883 meat house, a c1885 school house of slabs with an iron roof, and a c1885 stables. No mention was made in the 1887 report of a slab house or store dating to the 1850s. Of the structures on Hornet Bank extant in 1887, only the c1865 slab building survives.
That the residence associated with the 1857 killings had been removed was confirmed in 1916-1917, when the station was visited by the Royal Commission into Public Works enquiring into a proposed railway from Juandah to Taroom: "When the Commissioners visited Hornet Bank during one of their inspection tours they found that the old homestead where the massacre occurred was removed and in its stead a more up-to-date residence erected." [Queensland Parliamentary Papers 1916-17 Vol.3 p1057 "Royal Commission into Public Works" Appendix F: "Notes made by the Secretary of the Commission (Mr JTH Bird) on the history of Taroom and surrounding district." p87]
On Andrew Scott's death in 1892, Hornet Bank passed to his sons.
","criteria":"The Fraser family grave site and memorial is significant for its association with early non-Indigenous settlement on the upper Dawson River region, during a period of violent interaction between European pastoralists and Indigenous people. Hornet Bank station, established in 1853, was one of the earliest pastoral runs taken up in the Leichhardt district. In 1857 the head station was the site of an attack by Aborigines in which eleven inhabitants of the station were killed, including eight members of the Fraser family, all of whom were buried on the property. The Hornet Bank killings escalated a sporadic frontier war in the Dawson River area until Indigenous resistance was quelled by 1870, and prejudiced subsequent European-Indigenous relationships throughout Queensland for decades.
|Through archaeological investigation of the grave site combined with extensive documentary material relating to the 1857 killings at Hornet Bank, the place has the potential to yield information that will contribute to further understanding of frontier relations between Aborigines and non-Indigenous settlers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16812,"place_ref":602076,"name":"T J Byrnes Monument","alternate_name":"T.J. Byrnes Monument","street_address":"Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-01-06","description":"The TJ Byrnes Monument is located at the intersection of two principal streets in Warwick - Palmerin and Grafton - opposite the Warwick Post Office. It comprises a pedestal and life-like statue, facing east along Grafton Street, set on two stepped courses of a basaltic rock identified in 1902 as Melbourne bluestone. The whole rests on a concrete base, nearly obscured by later road surfacing.
The pedestal of veined marble is approximately 3.5 metres high, is alike on all four faces, and comprises plinth, dado and entablature. The plinth is a diminishing panelled block with a heavy moulding above. Inscriptions on the four panels of the plinth read: THOMAS JOSEPH BYRNES MLA for Warwick, 1896-98 [east face], Born Brisbane 1860 [north face], Premier of Queensland 1898 [west face], and Died 1898 [south face]. At the base of the east face of the plinth is the inscription: Andrews Bros Sydney. The dado forms the shaft of the pedestal. At each corner is a column with foliated capital set in a rectangular recess, and each face has two pilasters either side of a semi-circular headed recess. The entablature consists of architrave, frieze and projecting cornice, with a panelled pediment at the centre of each face. 1902 is inscribed on the pediment of the east face.
The life-like statue stands larger-than-life at approximately 2 metres in height. It is carved of a fine white marble. The figure stands as if addressing an assembly, with right hand extended and a manuscript in the left hand. The head is bare, and the figure is clothed in conventional 19th century morning costume.
","history":"This monument was erected in 1902 by the citizens of Warwick and district to honour the former Premier of Queensland and MLA for Warwick, Thomas Joseph Byrnes, who died on 27 September 1898 at the age of 37. He was the first Queensland-born premier of this state, and had held office for only five months prior to his death. The sudden loss of this youthful, charismatic leader shocked Queenslanders, who mourned the passing of his vision of a strong and vibrant Queensland as much as of the man himself. Byrnes is the only Queensland premier to be honoured with two memorial statues [the other being in Brisbane], and is one of only three Queensland premiers [along with Sir Charles Lilley and TJ Ryan] to have a medal for scholarship posthumously endowed in his name.
Byrnes was born into a large, impoverished Irish Catholic family in Brisbane in 1860. In 1866 the family moved to Bowen, where Byrnes was educated at the local primary school. In 1874 he won a scholarship to the Brisbane Grammar School, where he won the Lilley gold medal for distinction in Greek, Latin and English, annually from 1875 to 1877. In 1876 he won the University of Sydney prize in the junior public examination, which granted him an extension scholarship to complete his secondary education at Brisbane Boys Grammar School. This was followed in 1879 with a scholarship to Melbourne University where he graduated in Arts [1882] and in Law [1884] - both with honours. On 8 July 1884 he was admitted to the bar in Victoria, but returned to Brisbane immediately and was admitted as a Queensland barrister on 5 August 1884. During 1884-85 Byrnes read law in the chambers of Patrick Real, then built up his own large, successful law practice in Brisbane.
In 1890 Byrnes entered politics. He was elected to the Legislative Council in August and was given the portfolio of Solicitor-General in Sir Samuel Griffith's newly formed coalition government. Byrnes' politics were essentially Catholic conservative. Although at this time he supported Federation, he opposed the Shearers' Strike of 1891, invoking an outdated conspiracy law to convict unionist strike leaders.
In March 1893 Byrnes was appointed Attorney-General, and held this portfolio until his death in 1898. He entered the Legislative Assembly as MLA for Cairns, [Sir Charles Lilley's 'pocket borough'], from April 1893 to April 1896. Byrnes' policies at this period received considerable support in far north Queensland - he advocated the continued use of South Sea Islander labour and declared an interest in northern development [without committing himself to separation]. Later he became an outspoken opponent of the separationist movement, which may account for his choosing to stand [unsuccessfully] for North Brisbane in March 1896.
Although nominated for North Brisbane by Premier HM Nelson, Byrnes was unpopular in the capital, where he was seen to be concentrating more on his law practice than on his portfolio. His integrity had been called into question in several legal disputes where he used his powers as Attorney-General to further personal interests. However, immediately following his defeat in North Brisbane, Byrnes stood in April 1896 for the electorate of Warwick, where he achieved a resounding victory. At Warwick, Byrnes had a large Irish-Catholic vote as well as the support of Arthur Morgan, owner/editor of the Warwick Argus and former MLA for Warwick who had stood aside for Byrnes' benefit. Byrnes' personal appeal, his Queensland birth, and his conservative politics [advocating the postponement of Queensland's involvement in Federation], contributed to his success. In Warwick, the self-made man epitomised what could be achieved in Queensland, the land of opportunity.
Warwick took great pride in its state representative, and Byrnes reciprocated by assiduously promoting Queensland and his electorate. When he and Premier Nelson represented Queensland at Britain's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897, Byrnes visited Warwick, England to promote his constituency and the Darling Downs, and in June 1898 presented Warwick, Queensland with gifts from its English counterpart.
Early in April 1898 the president of the Queensland Legislative Council, Sir Arthur Palmer, died. Premier HM Nelson succeeded him, and on 13 April 1898, TJ Byrnes was appointed Premier, Chief Secretary and Attorney-General. Fellow Parliamentarians supported his appointment because he was popular with voters, and the struggling coalition government needed the charismatic Attorney-General as their figurehead.
Byrnes was to spend little more than 5 months in office. On 27 September 1898 he died at his residence at Yeronga near Brisbane, after a short illness [pneumonia complicated by a severe cardiac condition], less than 2 months short of his 38th birthday.
On the day following Byrnes' death, all Warwick businesses were shut, and on the day of the state funeral in Brisbane, Warwick schools closed. A week after Byrnes' death the Mayor of Warwick, J Allman, suggested that a fund administered by a citizens committee be established to erect a memorial to Byrnes, in Warwick. A public meeting was called on 20 October 1898, at which time a committee was formed. Over the next 3 years £250 was raised locally from 363 subscribers, and this was matched £ for £ by the Queensland government.
In Brisbane, a Byrnes Memorial Fund was established from which the Byrnes Medal for scholarship was created, and a £2,000 bronze statue was erected in Centenary Place. Warwick also chose a statue as a memorial, but in stone. Erecting a statue was a traditional tribute by European towns and cities to their great men and women, and illustrated as much about the sophistication of the town which commissioned it as about the person being commemorated.
In June 1901 the Warwick committee accepted a tender of £500 by Andrews Bros of Sydney for a marble statue of TJ Byrnes, resting on a marble pedestal. The statue was carved in Italy from Carrara marble and arrived in Sydney about September 1902. Both the statue and the veined Sicilian marble pedestal, designed by ED Andrews, were freighted from Sydney to Warwick by New South Wales and Queensland railways free of charge, and were erected in November 1902 under the supervision of Warwick architect Conrad Cobden Dornbusch.
There had been some committee debate over the most appropriate site for the statue. The original proposal was to locate it opposite the two-storeyed 1897-99 stone post office [600963] which had been erected during Byrnes' term as MLA for Warwick. Later, some favoured the Southern Square [now Leslie Park]. Both sites were submitted to the Municipal Council, which preferred the more prominent post office location - so that the children going to school could see the man who rose from the bottom to the top rung of the ladder.
The pedestal was erected at the intersection of Palmerin and Grafton Streets - in the centre of town opposite the post office - on 25 November 1902, and the statue was raised to face the rising sun [looking east along Grafton Street] at daybreak the next day. The whole monument weighed 26 tons, rested on a concrete block and plinth of Melbourne bluestone, and stood 19.5 feet high. Inscriptions on the four sides of the pedestal read: Thomas Joseph Byrnes; Born Brisbane 1860; Premier of Queensland 1898; Died 1898. Following suggestions from local residents, the Warwick Council agreed that MLA for Warwick 1896 to 1898 should be placed under the name. The monument was surrounded by a temporary wooden picket fence until an iron railing could be erected. This iron railing had been removed by mid-1935.
The statue was unveiled officially on Saturday 13 December 1902 by His Excellency the Governor of Queensland, Sir Herbert Chermside, in the presence of several Byrnes' relatives; the Mayors of Warwick, Brisbane and South Brisbane; the Minister for Railways and Works; the Hon Arthur Morgan [MLA for Warwick 1887-1896 and 1898-1906]; and Warwick dignitaries. Sir Herbert described Byrnes as a great statesman and patriot and stressed the distinction conferred on Warwick by having had the Premier as its representative. All speakers emphasised Byrnes' remarkable academic achievements and charisma, his rise from poverty to greatness, and his Queensland birth, and portrayed him as a role model for Queensland youth. Besides honouring Byrnes, the statue was intended as an example to the young of the possibilities open to even the poorest Queenslander. The unveiling of the monument was an important occasion for Warwick and a souvenir photograph and description were published by The Warwick Examiner and Times.
","criteria":"The TJ Byrnes Monument at Warwick is one of Queensland's earlier public monuments, and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the way in which Queensland towns and cities honoured their heroes and heroines in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and promoted them as role models.
|It remains an excellent example of its type - a life-like, finely carved statue set high on a decorative pedestal and located at the intersection of two of the principal streets in Warwick - specifically designed and located to impress.
|The monument is significant for its aesthetic and landmark qualities, and has been a prominent part of the Warwick townscape since 1902.
|The monument is significant for its aesthetic and landmark qualities, and has been a prominent part of the Warwick townscape since 1902.
|As a memorial, the place has a close association with the life and work of TJ Byrnes - barrister, politician, and one of Queensland's early heroes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16815,"place_ref":602079,"name":"Chinese Temple and Settlement Site","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Off Gulf Development Road","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Chinese Temple and settlement site is located north west of the township of Croydon. The site is situated between The Gulf Development Road and the low hills to the north of the site.
Artefacts are spread over a considerable area although the physical remains of structures are located in the town block bounded by Charles, Kelman, Nicholas and Edward Streets.
The Temple:
The description of the Croydon site and use of the remnant structures has been based on the extant Hou Wang Temple, Atherton.
The remnants of the temple are the main feature within the town block. The concrete temple foundations comprise a main building with overall dimensions of 22 metres by 6 metres. The temple is orientated NE-SW with the main entrance facing SW. The building comprised:
a 4 metre by 6 metre front section, possibly with a suspended roof;
a 1.7 metre deep, covered porch;
an internal concrete floor 6 metres wide and 10.75 metres long;
a rear section, probably on low timber stumps, 6 metres wide and 7 metres long.
A large spread of granite chips extends 4 metres from the entrance. Four postholes at the SW extremity of the granite indicate that the porch may have extended beyond the main building. Poles probably supported a suspended roof over a raised timber deck.
A 2.5 metre square sunken section is located at the rear of the large concrete slab. It was probably the section known as the 'sunken courtyard or 'heavenly well'. It was a central offertory area within the temple where incense sticks might be burned.
Six sandstone bases remain in their appropriate location. Two others were removed from the site and are now located at a private residence in Croydon. The bases have been carved to broadly represent the form of the lotus flower. The use of carved sandstone seems to indicate that someone in the community was competent in the art of stone masonry. Rare sandstone burial markers on a number of the Chinese graves in local cemeteries seem to support this theory.
Adjacent Structures:
Caretaker's House and Meeting Hall:
There are traces of a second building 2.5 metres south of the temple. There is evidence of several postholes and remnant walls of corrugated iron embedded in the ground. Preliminary investigation indicates that this structure had an earthen floor. In the narrow passage between this building and the temple there is a mound of earth, which probably supported a tank stand.
The 'Pig Oven' or Outdoor Oven:
Twenty six metres to the south east of the temple foundations are the remains of a stone or 'pig' oven. The oven, built of local stone, was held together with a mixture of mud and broken termite mounds, to form a wall 600mm thick. It was 2.2 metres in diameter and stood well above the present 1.2 metre height. The upper section has collapsed. The collapsed stone now radiates out to approximately 1. to 1.2 metres from the base of the structure. To date no other Chinese ovens have been located in north Queensland although a number have been identified in the Northern Territory.
Other Structures:
Traces of a small structure are located to the nor north west of the 'Pig' Oven. Evidence of a remnant corrugated iron wall indicates that this is a similar structure to the Caretaker's House near the temple.
To the south east of the temple, straddling Charles Street, is a collection of foundations of several houses. Small rooms, passage ways and entrances are outlined by stone. Remnants of a second, small outdoor oven are located between two of these buildings.
Dump:
A modern dump is located to the south west of the Temple outside the boundary of the town block containing remnant buildings. It holds a considerable amount of material from across the site including old bikes, matchboxes, broken crockery, household pots and pans, and corrugated iron.
Artefact Scatters:
While most larger pieces of material have been collected into the dump the site is still covered with a vast quantity of material. Matchboxes, pot and pans, broken pottery shards, and corrugated iron. Pieces of sheet metal, cut in decorative patterns, which may have been fixed to the roof ridge of the temple, are scattered round close to the temple.
","history":"Chinese settlers moved into the Croydon area soon after the gold discovery was reported in 1885. From the earliest days of settlement they played a significant role in the viability of the isolated field by supplying fresh vegetables and fruit. They also supported the work of the miners as cooks, carriers and by working on tribute.
Gold was discovered on Croydon Downs Station soon after it was established on Belmore Creek, north west Queensland in the early 1880s. However, it was not until 1885 that the manager William Chalmer Browne and station hands Walter and James Aldridge located twenty payable lines of gold reef. A rush began to the area when the discovery was reported in October.
On 18 January 1886 Croydon was proclaimed a goldfield under the administration of the Queensland Mines Department. The town was surveyed the same year. By the end of 1887 Mining Warden L.E.D. Towner reported that the town had been transformed from a rough mining camp to a flourishing and well built centre with a population of approximately 3500 of whom 300 were Chinese, Cingalese, Malays and African. These figures are surprising given that under the Queensland Goldfields Amendment Act of 1878 Chinese were excluded from a gold field for three years unless they had made the discovery.
Despite these legislative restrictions Chinese settlers moved into the area soon after gold was found. It has been suggested that their involvement was primarily "... as gardeners, cooks, and carriers. No Chinese held claims at Croydon, although some worked on tribute for other miners. The majority however, worked as market gardeners on 172 acres surveyed in the town plan as garden areas. The Chinese were the chief providers of fresh fruit and vegetables on the goldfields usually growing fruit such as custard apples, mandarins, watermelons and lemons.
The Chinese settlement at Croydon developed on the north west fringe of the town. This was a similar pattern to other mining towns in north Queensland. The community constructed a temple, houses and associated facilities such as pig ovens, with the temple as the central focus of the settlement.
Temples were not simply places of religious worship, rather, they were an integral part of the village. They were places to meet, to check one's horoscope before embarking on a new venture and places where ancestors were venerated. In China each rural village may have had several temples. Each temple was primarily dedicated to a single deity. Emigrant Chinese in Australia generally adopted the practice of only one temple unless there were socially disparate clans within the same town. Temples in Australia had a single deity in a central role, supplemented by several other deities. They were not necessarily 'lesser gods' but, in the temple were given a supplementary status to the major deity.
Given the temple's role as the central focus of daily life, the community would worship at any time. Major gatherings were reserved for festival days when the community gathered to worship, feast and to hold processions.
Apart from being places of worship and community activity temples of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century provided an important social welfare role. This role was based on the Confucian principle of Universalism, which stated that:
\tWhen the great principle of Universalism prevails the world will become
\tthe common property of all; the people will elect men of virtue, talent and
\tcapability; they will act in good faith and fellowship ... Provision will be
\tmade for the aged till their death, employment given to the able-bodied,
\tand the means for self-development given to the young ... Perfect security
\twill prevail everywhere"
\t
The goldfield had a relatively short life but the size and form of the temple was far more substantial than would be expected in an itinerant community. The floor plan shows that the temple was slightly larger than the Atherton temple where the regional Chinese population exceeded 1000. According to a 1986 analysis of the Australian Chinese population after 1881, Sydney, with 3,500 and Melbourne, with 2,400 were the two key centres of population. Research showed that the total Chinese population in all other colonial capitals did not exceed 500 in each place. So Croydon, with an average of 300 people, probably had one of the largest Chinese populations in regional Australia.
Race relations on the Croydon goldfield have not been researched extensively. A "... minor 'roll up' against the Chinese occurred in September 1886 and in 1888 the Amalgamated Miners Association's demands that all Aliens leave the field initiated further conflict. While anti Chinese sentiment was demonstrated across north Queensland at that time, contemporary reports, newspaper articles and government documentation indicate that generally good commercial and social interactions prevailed between the Chinese and local communities on the goldfields. Evidence of the long term occupation of the Chinese settlement and temple site at Croydon, the graves of Chinese buried throughout Croydon cemeteries, and the continuing presence of descendants of the Chinese still living in Croydon seems to support this.
While the Croydon goldfield was initially highly lucrative the boom years were short lived. After a peak in gold production in 1900, mining declined during the next two decades. The first three years of the century were so dry that crushing was restricted and after 1905 output fell as water threatened operating mines. The town was damaged in a tropical cyclone in 1906 at a time when the community could ill afford the loss. Mining continued to decline until 1914 when the last Golden Gate mine closed. Crushing ceased in 1918.
Remaining evidence of Chinese occupation of the site would indicate that people utilised the temple site for a considerable period in the twentieth century. Several Croydon families are descended from the early Chinese settlers.
","criteria":"The Chinese Temple and Settlement site, Croydon demonstrates the extent of Chinese involvement in exploitation of natural resources in Australia in the nineteenth century especially their crucial contribution to the viability of isolated settlements associated with the goldfields.
With over three hundred people residing there at its height, the Chinese settlement at Croyden was, at that time, one of the largest Chinese communities in regional Australia. Although a typical goldfield community where race relations were sometimes volatile, surviving physical evidence of the settlement and contemporary documentation indicates the Chinese created a successful community at Croydon.
The Croyden settlement demonstrates the pattern of other Chinese settlements in north Queensland, including the location; on the fringe of the main town servicing a goldfield and the inclusion of a temple as the central focus of the settlement.
|Of particular significance are the two remnant 'pig' ovens, which are rare examples of ovens on a Chinese settlement site in Queensland.
|The remains of the settlement, including the foundation of the temple and associated buildings, several house foundations, extensive artefact scatters, and a dump of material gathered from the site have the potential to yield further information about the Chinese communities which flourished in Queensland in the nineteenth century. Of particular significance are the two remnant 'pig' ovens, which are rare examples of ovens on a Chinese settlement site in Queensland.
|The place has a special association with Chinese settlers in Australia and their descendants.
|The Chinese Temple and Settlement site, Croydon demonstrates the extent of Chinese involvement in exploitation of natural resources in Australia in the nineteenth century especially their crucial contribution to the viability of isolated settlements associated with the goldfields.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16820,"place_ref":602084,"name":"Y Station, 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery","alternate_name":"Mount St John Anti-Aircraft Battery | No. 2 Station, Gun Station 393","street_address":"695 Ingham Road","suburb":"MOUNT ST JOHN","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"Y Station, 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery occupies the summit of Mount St John, located 2.3km directly west of the main north-south airfield runway at Garbutt, Townsville. The former gun station stands in the landscaped grounds of a private residence (2016, not of state-level cultural heritage significance) that in 2020 is bounded by the Mount St John Wastewater Treatment Plant to the north, undeveloped airfield land to the east, undeveloped land to the south, and industrial and commercial development to the west. The property is accessed via a private road that winds east from Toll Street.
\nFeatures of Y Station, 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe HAA gun emplacements are in an arc configuration, radiating from the southwest to the north of the central command post, and the LAA gun emplacement is to the east. The surrounding magazines are to the northwest, southwest, east, and southeast.
\nCommand Post
\nThe command post is a reinforced concrete structure, formerly used as a central control point that identified and calculated aircraft trajectories, and distributed signals to the gun emplacements.
\nThe command post comprises a semi-underground concrete-roofed plotting room, which is roughly square in plan. It is accessed via steps down to a doorway in the south corner and an escape hatch in the east corner of the roof.
\nThe area southeast of the plotting room was the location of the former open pits (either three separate pits or one compartmentalised pit) – for an identification telescope, rangefinder, and predictor. Remnants include an exposed open-topped concrete box (assumed predictor cable terminus).
\nPartially exposed sections of metal conduits (assumed housing for signal cabling) are located to the southwest of the plotting room, and align with another open-topped concrete box (assumed junction box) embedded in a remnant earth revetment to the west.
\nFeatures of the Command Post also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nHAA Gun Emplacements
\nThe four HAA gun emplacements are octagonal-shaped, concrete slabs of a standard layout, built to house and operate 3.7 inch (94mm) static anti-aircraft guns. They are located north, northwest, west, and southwest of the command post.
\nEach gun emplacement originally comprised a central unroofed gun pit, with a single entry point through an open side that faced the command post. The other seven sides likely had walls that retained the formed earth revetments. These features have been removed with the exception of a remnant earth revetment on the northern side of the southwest gun emplacement.
\nWhile no guns remain in place, their locations in the centre of the slab floors (excluding the north emplacement) are discernible through holdfasts (which would have attached to the hexagonal base plates of the guns’ static mounts).
\nFeatures of the HAA Gun Emplacements also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMagazines
\nThe four magazines are reinforced concrete structures built to house ammunition for the gun station. They are rectangular in plan and located at a detached but accessible distance from the gun emplacements – to the northwest, southwest, east and southeast.
\nAll magazines are of identical size, single-roomed and originally located underground with semi-concealed stairways, single metal doors and two metal ventilators on the roof. The southwest magazine is the most intact. The other magazines have had the soil around them removed and are in various degrees of exposure.
\nFeatures of the Magazines also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLAA Gun Emplacement
\nThe LAA gun emplacement is an octagonal-shaped platform built to accommodate a Bofors 40mm mobile anti-aircraft gun. It comprises a concrete slab atop low, off-form, concrete walls, and is located on the downward slope east of the command post.
\nFeatures of the LAA Gun Emplacement also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nAreas of archaeological potential
\nAreas where the brief but intensive occupation of the site has resulted in potential archaeological evidence that could contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of the design, operation and site-specific modifications of HAA gun stations in Queensland include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of the place not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nY Station (initially called No.2 Station, and later Gun Station 393) 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, on Mount St John in Townsville, was constructed in early 1942 as part of the World War II (WWII) air defences of Townsville. Built to defend Garbutt airfield to the east/northeast, it retains: five anti-aircraft gun emplacements, a semi-underground command post, and four magazines. It is a representative example of the anti-aircraft defences of Queensland during WWII, and demonstrates Townsville’s strategic importance and role during the war in the South West Pacific. Since 2016 the place has been incorporated into the landscaped grounds of a private residence.
\nWhen WWII started in September 1939, Townsville, part of the traditional land of the Wulgurukaba and Bindal peoples, was an important Queensland port. Established in the mid-1860s, its subsequent growth was based on pastoralism, the sugar industry, and mining.[1]
\nAustralia was under little threat of air attack until late 1941. On 8 December 1941, the United States of America (US) entered the war, following the previous day’s bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. Simultaneously, Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) raised fears of air attacks on Australia. The first Japanese air raid on Australia (Darwin) occurred on 19 February 1942; and Broome, in Western Australia, was attacked on 3 March 1942. Japanese air raids on other targets in Australia seemed likely, and an invasion of Australia was also feared.[2] America's General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia on 17 March, after being ordered to leave the Philippines.[3]
\nDue to its position in the north of Australia, Queensland was at risk of land-based air attack (launched from airfields in the NEI or New Guinea), as well as attacks launched from aircraft carriers. As a result of the growing fear of Japanese air raids, the Queensland Government issued the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, which ordered local authorities near the coast to build air raid shelters. All Queensland coastal state schools were closed in late January 1942, and although most reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. A policy of voluntary evacuation of women and children from Queensland coastal areas was also implemented on 27 January 1942.[4]
\nAfter the raid on Darwin, many felt Townsville, the largest city in the north of Queensland, ‘would be the next to experience a large-scale raid…. However, due to its distance from the front line, it could not be raided by land-based bombers, which had added to the devastation in Darwin. Thus any [bombing] attack would come from aircraft carriers or long range Kawanishi flying boats’.[5]
\nTwo key naval battles prevented carrier-borne Japanese aircraft being used to attack Townsville. The battle of the Coral Sea, fought 4-8 May 1942, resulted in the sinking of one Japanese light carrier, damage to a Japanese heavy carrier, and prevented a Japanese invasion force from reaching Port Moresby, New Guinea (now known as Papua New Guinea). The Battle of Midway, fought in early June 1942, resulted in the sinking of four Japanese heavy aircraft carriers.
\nAustralia then became the springboard for the Allied attempt to push back Japanese forces. General MacArthur moved his General Headquarters, South West Pacific Area (GHQ, SWPA) from Melbourne to Brisbane on 20 July 1942, a day before the Japanese landed on the north coast of New Guinea in the Buna-Goa area and attempted to advance overland to Port Moresby, via the Kokoda Track. In September 1942, another Japanese landing force was defeated at Milne Bay, Japanese troops were halted at Imita Ridge on the Kokoda track, and a joint Australian-US effort to retake New Guinea began.[6]
\nQueensland played a major role in the build-up of troops and supplies for the counter-offensive. In late 1942 Townsville was the principal port for those Allied troops serving in the New Guinea campaign, and Cleveland Bay, between Magnetic Island and Townsville, was an important assembly point for shipping. The Australian forces chose Townsville as the Area Combined Headquarters for the North East Area, while the American forces used Townsville as the headquarters of the United States Army Base Section Two and the 4th Air Depot of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).[7] Between 1942 and 1945 the Townsville and Charters Towers region became one of the largest concentrations of airfields, stores, ammunition depots and port operations in the South West Pacific Theatre.
\nGarbutt airfield, just west of Townsville, was defended by the Australian 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft (16 HAA) Battery, stationed in Townsville early in the war in the South West Pacific. 16 HAA had two separate units defending Garbutt and its approaches: No.1 Station and No.2 Station. No.1 Station, at Jimmy’s Lookout, northeast of the airfield, was operational by 9 March 1942.[8]
\nConstruction of No.2 Station (later called Y Station) at Mount St John, located directly west of Garbutt’s main north-south runway, commenced in February 1942 and was completed towards the end of April 1942; however, construction of its semi-underground command post did not commence until late 1942.[9] No.2 Station ‘was Townsville's largest and most modern anti-aircraft battery when completed… the site included ‘four concrete ammunition bunkers... four 3.7” [94mm] guns of the latest design, and an underground command post and plotting room’.[10] Four other 3.7 inch gun positions were built in Townsville: at Aitkenvale; The Strand; Pallarenda (3 Mile Creek), and south of the mouth of the Ross River. There was also a 3.7 inch gun station at Nelly Bay, Magnetic Island.[11]
\nQueensland’s static HAA gun stations typically consisted of a semi-underground command post, set to one side of a 180 degree arc of four octagonal gun emplacements, with about 100ft (30m) between the centres of the emplacements. Gun emplacements could either be built above-ground or set in-ground, and a gun crew usually consisted of 10-12 men. There were also two to four earth-covered reserve magazines (or shell stores), set outside the arc of gun emplacements. A typical command post included: an underground plotting room, entered from an external open pit which had separate compartments for a rangefinder, an aircraft spotter’s identification telescope, and a predictor. The predictor (a mechanical analog computer) was used to calculate where the aircraft would be when the shells arrived. It was manually programmed to follow a target, taking into account its course and speed, as well as the shells’ direction and velocity. This information was relayed automatically to the gun layers in each emplacement, so that all guns were trained on the same target area. The target’s height was deduced by the rangefinder, so that the fuses of each shell could be set to explode at the correct height. This targeting information, which was transmitted to dials on each gun, appears to have been relayed via underground cables, protected by metal conduits when above ground.[12]
\nAt Mount St John, the 3.7 inch gun positions, which appear in wartime aerial photographs to have been originally surrounded by protective earth walls, consisted of an octagonal surface concrete platform, with a smaller hexagonal concrete mount and eight metal bolts fixing for the gun’s hexagonal metal base plate. There was also a concrete platform for a Bofors 40mm light anti-aircraft gun, just east of the command post. The command post appears in wartime aerials to have had an open pit with three connected compartments (or three separate pits) –likely for an identification telescope, rangefinder, and predictor – along its southeast side. Camp buildings and tents for the unit were located to the south, west and north of the arc of gun emplacements. The main access track to Mount St John during WWII came from Ingham Road to the south, branched both west and east around the hill, headed up to the gun emplacements, and down the other side of the hill, to the north. There were also secondary tracks heading east from the hill.[13]
\nNo.2 Station's function was to observe all aircraft movements around Garbutt airfield and make sure that all aircraft followed the correct lane of entry. Any aircraft following an incorrect lane was to be fired on as an enemy aircraft. The Mount St John gun station was connected by phone to No. 3 Fighter Sector Headquarters (3FSHQ) at Townsville Grammar School [QHR 601029], as well as various other installations, and was staffed 24 hours a day. All four guns were in place by 11 March, and open sights were fitted on 22 March.[14]
\nAt 1206 hours on 21 March 1942 the first Japanese aircraft was sighted over the city by observers at Kissing Point Battery. It was described in one report as ‘silvery underneath, wings like a Douglas, with the leading edge being tapered back’.[15]
\nThe Kissing Point (coastal) Battery rang through to both No.1 and No.2 stations of 16 HAA; but discovered the phone lines were down. Even if either unit had spotted the aircraft, they would not have been able to fire accurately, as open sights were not fitted until the following day. Another unidentified aircraft was spotted on 22 March, also near midday.[16]
\nThe names of the batteries were changed in April 1942, with No.1 Station changed to X Station at Rowe's Bay and No.2 Station to Y Station at Mount St John.[17] The first time both these stations fired on an enemy aircraft was on 1 May 1942. Intelligence recorded that: ‘At approximately 0945 hrs 16 A.A. Bty opened fire on enemy Recce aircraft flying at a great height. At approximately 1220 hrs U.S.A.A. Bty. opened fire on hostile aircraft, which made out to sea’.[18]
\nA more detailed description of what occurred on 1 May emerged from unit diaries: ‘Planes were sighted by X Station at Palleranda [sic] at a height of approximately 24,000 feet, heading directly towards the aerodrome at Garbutt. X Station immediately went into action and with the first salvo caused the planes to change direction and climb steeply to 29,000 feet and out of range of the guns. Y Station at Mt St John also went into action at this stage. In all, 33 rounds were fired; 25 from the station at Pallarenda and 8 from the station at Mount St John’.[19]
\n‘According to the unit diary, these two aircraft returned at 1140 hrs, releasing a balloon over Garbutt aerodrome at 25-30,000 feet. The balloon descended and blew out to sea, the diary remarking that \"tactics proved that they were enemy aircraft\"’.[20] The balloon was a radiosonde, or a dropsonde, which was an instrument platform with radio transmitting capabilities. It contained instruments capable of taking air temperature, humidity and pressure measurements at different heights. Its descent provided an indirect measure of wind speed and direction at various atmospheric heights. The data was then transmitted back to the aircraft. This information was vital for bombing accurately during a raid. ‘This was either a test run, or the preliminaries to a raid being planned… It is most likely that these flying boats were from the 14th Kokutai [Air Group] based in Rabaul harbour’.[21]
\nMount St John's Y Station was involved in more action. Prior to Townsville's first air raid on the night of 25-26 July 1942, the city received a warning that a raid would soon occur. ‘This clue was unfortunately unheeded by military authorities. For three days prior to the first air raid on the city, AA [Anti-Aircraft] units were on high alert, with yellow alerts and unidentified aircraft reports occurring more frequently than usual. At 0920 hrs on 22 July 1942, unidentified aircraft were seen flying at 25,000 feet over Townsville. At 1000 hrs, Y Station at Mount St John reported \"white balloon at 25,000 feet slowly descending\". Once again the Japanese used dropsondes to record wind speed and direction at certain heights for a planned raid on Townsville’.[22]
\nTownsville was attacked three times during late July 1942, by the 2nd Group of 14 Kokutai Japanese Naval Air Force, using Kawanishi H8K (Emily) four-engine flying boats based at Rabaul. On the night of 25-26th July, two Emilys dropped bombs in the sea off Townsville's wharves. However, Y Station did not fire until a second raid early in the morning of 28 July. At 0220 hrs that day searchlights at Rowe's Bay picked up a lone Emily at 10,000 feet (3048m). After 20 rounds were fired from Y Station an explosion close to the nose of the aircraft occurred, causing it to drop its bomb load in an uninhabited area of nearby Many Peaks Range. During the third raid on the morning of 29 July 1942 an Emily dropped seven bombs in Cleveland Bay and one on a paddock at Oonoonba, and was intercepted and damaged by two US fighter aircraft.
\nBy late 1942, Y Station was known as Gun Station 393.[23] During the war, at least 22 concrete 3.7 inch gun stations are known to have been constructed in Queensland for the Australian Army. As well as the six in Townsville, and one on Magnetic Island, six were constructed in Brisbane, and three in Cairns, as well as two at each military airfield at Mareeba, Iron Range (now Lockhart River Airport), and Horn Island. Two gun stations were also built at Jacky Jacky (now Northern Peninsula Airport), construction type unknown.[24]
\nBy early 1944, when the fear of Japanese air attack had diminished, Townsville had 24 x 3.7 inch guns (in six gun stations); Brisbane was also defended by 24 such guns; and Cairns 12. In March 1944, a report to the Commonwealth’s Defence Committee recommended reducing the number of anti-aircraft guns in Cairns and Townsville, as they were now out of range of Japanese land-based bombers.[25] In early 1944, Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) personnel formed complete ‘shadow units’, which could fully crew the guns. From mid-1944 onwards, the AA groups in Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Newcastle, Port Kembla and Melbourne were disbanded.[26]
\nOn 31 July 1944 the 16th HAA Battery was disbanded, and the guns were removed. Since the end of WWII, industrial development of the surrounding area has occurred, and parts of Mount St John were quarried, with soil being removed from near Y Station’s features, including most of the earth walls around the gun emplacements. Three of the concrete magazines were exposed, by earth removal during quarrying, to varying degrees by 1976. Sections of one gun platform and the stairs of two of the exposed magazines were also removed at some point. A wastewater treatment plant was built to the north of Mount St John, by 1976.[27] Y Station’s surviving concrete features remained on Mount St John in a ruinous, overgrown state. From 2016, these features were incorporated into the gardens of a large private residence, with landscaping including lawns, retaining walls, and new roads and footpaths. A section of the route of the wartime access track to the summit from the south has been reinstated for interpretation purposes.
","criteria":"Y Station, 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery (1942) is a representative example of Queensland’s anti-aircraft defences during World War II (WWII). In its location, layout and fabric, the Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) position is important in demonstrating Townsville’s strategic importance and role during the war in the South West Pacific, when Queensland was the main staging area for the Allied defence effort.
|Y Station, 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of the design, operation and site-specific modifications of HAA gun stations in Queensland. Areas around and between the built features may contain archaeological evidence, including communications infrastructure, command post pit features, and glass, metal and ceramic artefacts, deposited during the construction and brief but intensive occupation of the site.
|Y Station, 16 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery is an intact example of a HAA gun station built in Queensland during WWII. In its location, layout and fabric, it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, retaining: a central semi-underground concrete command post with plotting room; a radiating arc of four concrete gun emplacements for 3.7 inch (94mm) anti-aircraft guns (with a visual relationship between the command post and the gun emplacements); four associated concrete magazines (one remains completely buried); and its siting in a strategic location to protect a facility from enemy air attack – at this place, on high ground overlooking Garbutt airfield to the east/northeast. A concrete platform for a Bofors light anti-aircraft (LAA) gun also remains.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16837,"place_ref":602101,"name":"Village Twin Cinemas","alternate_name":"Village Twin Cinema Complex | Merthyr Picture Palace | Astor Theatre","street_address":"701 Brunswick Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"The Village Twin is located on the corner of Brunswick and Barker Streets, New Farm and bordered by Oxley Lane at the rear. The exterior form is largely that of the former Astor Theatre and comprises rendered masonry walls with a large gabled roof sheeted in corrugated iron. Entry to the cinema is from Brunswick Street, with fire exits to the lane and Barker Street.
The upper part of the front façade has been painted black and screened with white aluminium strips fixed horizontally to a supporting framework which is attached to the original façade. Large orange lettering designed in the style of the Village corporate logo from the 1970s is affixed to the upper right hand corner. The top of the gable is visible behind this later façade.
The lower portion of the front wall is tiled with deep-green enamel finish ceramic tiles, which also wrap around the Barker Street corner. The profile of the tiled section is such that the engaged piers of the original façade are distinguishable. Five double glass doors lead into a wide set of stairs up to the foyer. The opening, which is the same proportions as that of the Astor, is surmounted by a timber panelled bulkhead with downlighting. On each side of the entry doors, three glass display cabinets are set into the tiled walls with posters of current and forthcoming attractions. A cantilevered awning lined alternately with aluminium strips and fluorescent lighting projects over the street. This lighting effect was intended to assist the transition from the dark interior of the foyer to the brightness of the street.
The Barker Street façade is blank and painted in two tone olive green paint, in line with the upward slope of the street. There is evidence of an early concrete wall, the silhouette of panelled areas is discernible in the upper section of the wall and the configuration of the downpipes appears to be the same as for the Astor.
As a whole, the interior is extremely intact and remarkably demonstrative of the early 1970s, the period in which the cinema was refurbished as a twin complex. The foyer is stepped, not unlike the grand picture palaces of the interwar period where entry into the cinema was staged to heighten the experience of arrival. The foyer has upper and lower areas with a consistent decorative scheme throughout. The cinemas are located above the foyers and are arranged back-to back with a shared projection room between them.
The lower foyer is extensive, with interior finishes of dark brown brick and horizontal timber panelling stained dark brown, the ceiling is also lined with the same dark timber. This theme is continued through to rubbish bins, ashtrays and display units which are made of the same timber with strong horizontal design elements and aluminium details. Boxed, timber pelmet lighting runs along the walls throughout both the upper and lower foyers and the stairs. The foyer space is arranged symmetrically with staircases of identical detailing on either side of the centrally located ticket office. The ticket office is located in the space beneath the stairs to Cinema Two which was previously occupied by a fountain and decorative light fitting. Bold geometric carpet with a pattern of purple, green and blue circles and ellipses in a black background covers the floor throughout the entire foyer area, including the stairs.
A large alcove that once housed a coffee shop and art gallery runs along the right hand side of the lower foyer. A servery area with kitchen remains but is no longer used. A long banquette upholstered in bright blue vinyl and wool runs along the Barker Street wall and a number of chairs and tables are positioned here. On the opposite side of the foyer there is a door which leads to the manager's office and store room. Adjacent to this is the space where the ticket office was formerly located and is now panelled with horizontal timber, consistent with the rest of the interior. Signage throughout the foyer is composed of bronze, metallic lettering mounted directly onto timber elements such as doors.
The stairs to the upper foyer have solid, rectangular wall mounted timber handrails cut at an angle at each end. The central handrail has minimal balusters, again emphasising the horizontality of the timber detailing throughout the interior. Entrances to the cinemas are located opposite each other in the upper foyer. Each entrance has a pair of heavy timber double doors recessed into vestibule spaces for the stairs leading up into the auditoria. Bronze, metallic lettering announcing Cinema One The Blue Room and Cinema Two The Purple Room are situated above the doors, mirroring each other. The upper foyer is dominated by a large but delicate, crystalline hanging light fitting located in the centre of the ceiling. Two purple vinyl benches and two small café tables with chairs are located in the upper foyer.
The candy bar is located on the Barker Street side of the foyer. An office, which was previously part of the coffee shop, is next to the candy bar at a level between the upper and lower foyers with small sets of steps between the two. Doors to both male and female toilets are to be found opposite the candy bar. The doors are timber panelled consistent with the rest of the interior and have the same style signage. The female toilets retain a separate powder room area with a small vinyl covered bench and large mirrors on the far wall. Toilet cubicles and benchtops are terrazzo of a neutral colour. The male toilets have a large vestibule with a wall mounted copper sculpture hung against a bright yellow wall. The toilet partitions are also terrazzo.
Steep stairs lead to the cinema auditoria. The contrast between the sleek, dark style of the foyers and the vivid profusion of light and colour in the cinemas intensifies the sense of escapism and fantasy common to much cinema design. The Blue Room is the larger and more ornate of the two cinemas. The most obvious feature is the vaulted ceiling, a plaster moonscape with craters of varying depths which conceal red, blue and green lights. Larger, shallower craters are interspersed with the light craters creating a rich and complex surface. There are 294 light globes on three circuits, two of which are currently used. A variety of lighting effects can be achieved using these different circuits and the coloured globes. A pelmet which conceals recessed lighting covers the intersection between ceiling and wall and turquoise woollen drapes fall to meet the carpet which comes about one metre up the wall. The original carpet with an op-art, circular dot pattern of blue and brown remains throughout the cinema. The curve of the vault frames the screen which has several layers of turquoise wool drapes forming the curtain and surrounds. Architectural drawings from the 1970s refurbishment reveal that the plaster ceilings are attached to the bottom chord of the existing curved timber truss.
The auditorium has two distinct levels of seating, the floor of the front section gently slopes towards the screen whilst the floor of the back section is steeply raked. The seating throughout the cinema is upholstered in blue vinyl and seating in the back section has circular drink holders integrated into the armrests. Timber screens of horizontal panelling divide areas of seating and a solid balustrade of similar detailing runs along the edge of the void at the top of the entry stairs. A small niche containing a seat for the usher is located within this, a reminder of that period when cinemas employed ushers to show people to their seats and keep an eye on them throughout the show. An intercom in this niche is still used to enable communication between staff members.
The Purple Room has a more gentle ambience, however, the ceiling is also a significant feature. The ceiling is vaulted with floating, sprayed vermiculite, square panels over concealed purple lighting, translucent purple resin light boxes and square air conditioning vents arranged in an irregular pattern. Carpet of the same design as the Blue Room but in shades of purple and mauve is intact in the front half of the auditorium, however the foyer carpet now covers stairs and passageways and a purple version of the foyer carpet is in the back section. The cinema has the same seating configuration as Cinema One but with a smaller number of seats. Seats are upholstered in purple vinyl and the walls are covered with purple wool drapes. Timber detailing is the same as Cinema One and also includes an usher's seat. Wall lighting is concealed under pelmets at the top of the walls. A fire escape stair is located to the right of the screen.
The shared projection room is located at the back of each auditoria and is accessed from both cinemas.
","history":"The Village Twin at New Farm opened in late 1970, was the first twin cinema complex in Queensland and one of the earliest multi-screen cinemas in Australia. It was a renovation of the popular Astor Theatre, established as the Merthyr Picture Palace c1921, on the same site at the corner of Brunswick and Barker Streets.
The site - part of a larger parcel of land alienated in 1845 - had been subdivided by 1880 as a residential allotment of 44 perches, and a cottage, fronting Barker Street and Oxley Lane, appears to have been extant by 1883. There does not appear to have been any development of the northern end of this block prior to approval being granted by the Brisbane City Council in September 1921, for Mousley & Halliday of New Farm to erect a picture show with concrete and iron walls at the corner of Barker and Brunswick Streets. Known as the Merthyr Picture Palace, the theatre was functioning by 1923 at least, and probably opened in late 1921.
The Merthyr Picture Palace was the third picture theatre established in New Farm, which in the early 20th century was one of Brisbane's most closely settled suburbs, particularly north of Brunswick Street. The Earls Court Picture Theatre, one of the earliest picture shows in Brisbane, operated at the corner of Brunswick and Kent Streets from c1912 and was renovated as the Rivoli Picture Theatre c1920. The Colosseum Picture Theatre was established c1918 at 528 Brunswick Street [near the corner of Harcourt Street], but appears to have folded in the early 1920s. All three theatres were established along the principal street of New Farm, in close proximity to each other in the heart of the suburb. Competition amongst early suburban picture show exhibitors was strong, and despite the enormous popularity of moving pictures, only the Merthyr Picture Palace [remodelled as the Astor Theatre in 1924] survived the introduction of sound films in the late 1920s and the economic depression of the early 1930s.
Richard Francis Stephens and Charles Eric Munro, who established one of Brisbane's most successful suburban interwar picture theatre chains, had acquired an interest in the Merthyr Picture Palace by at least 1924, when they commissioned Brisbane architect Claude E Humphreys to design additions and alterations to the theatre. Humphreys undertook a number of picture theatre commissions around this time, including theatres at Toowong and Kelvin Grove, and the front facades he designed were ornate fantasies in vaguely 'Mediterranean' style. Brisbane City Council approval for the renovations to the Merthyr Picture Palace was gained in September 1924, and it is likely the alterations had been completed by the end of the year. The 1924 façade to the Astor Theatre changed little until the 1970 reconstruction, despite an impressive £7,000 renovation of the theatre undertaken in 1937 to the design of architect George Rae, which provided a seating capacity of 1,145.
Stephens & Munro, exhibiting at the Astor as Merthyr Theatres [Pty] Ltd for over 45 years, developed the Astor as one of the most successful suburban picture theatres in Brisbane. From the 1920s to the 1950s, moving-going was a popular recreational pastime. Suburban picture theatres, many of which had elaborate street facades, were local landmarks and provided a focus for local social activity. Theatre proprietors were local identities, and knew their patrons by name. Their audiences, most of whom lived within walking distance, dressed for the occasion and made regular bookings to ensure good seats.
Following the introduction of television to Brisbane in the late 1950s, cinema attendance declined steadily. The introduction of wide screens, technicolour and superior sound systems failed to halt this world-wide trend, and many of Brisbane's suburban theatres closed in the 1960s and 1970s. From the 1950s, the larger exhibition chains countered the loss of 'hardtop' audiences with the construction of drive-in movie theatres. Another approach, pioneered in Australia in Melbourne in the 1960s, was to create multi-screen cinemas within the shells of existing single auditorium theatres. The first of these multi-screen adaptations appears to have been the State Theatre in Melbourne, which was remodelled into two separate theatres, the Forum and the Rapallo, in the early 1960s. Later in the decade, Village Theatres commissioned Melbourne architects Ron G Monsborough and Associates to convert the former Rivoli Cinema at Camberwell into the Rivoli Twin Cinemas.
In mid-1969, Verdun Richard Stephens and Douglas Francis Stephens, took out a 10 year lease on the Astor Theatre from Merthyr Theatres Pty Ltd, but it appears that the following year the cinema was sold to Village Theatres (Brisbane) Proprietary Limited, a Melbourne-based exhibition company, with both the lease of the theatre and title to the site transferred to the new owners in 1971.
In 1970, Village Theatres commissioned Ron G Monsborough and Associates to design a twin cinema complex within the existing space of the Astor Theatre. Administration of the contract was handled by the Brisbane architectural firm of Briggs, Petersen & Burdett. The Astor Theatre remodelling was Village Theatres' first Queensland venture and second twin cinema complex, and possibly the third multi-screen cinema to be constructed in Australia. In the conversion, Monsborough economically adapted the existing volume of the early cinema to create two smaller yet spacious theatres under the one roof. The cinemas are located back-to-back with a shared projection box between them. Drawings from the 1970 conversion indicate that the new ceilings were fixed to the existing curved, timber truss. These trusses were distinctive to Queensland theatre design and it is understood that few remain in Brisbane.
The Telegraph described Ron Monsborough as "acknowledged as a leading Australian cinema design architect" and that the Village Twin "is the best example of his outstanding ability in this field." In the late 1960s, Monsborough had travelled to the USA, Canada, Europe and the Far East to study cinema design. He was the architect for the Village Theatres Group and still practices as a consultant in cinema design. Monsborough also designed the conversion of the former Metro Theatre in Albert Street in 1973 into the three screen Albert Cinemas.
Promoted as "a new concept in cinema entertainment", the Village Twin opened on 26 December 1970. Cinema One [The Blue Room] had a seating capacity of 555, and Cinema Two [The Purple Room] could seat 352. The complex included a coffee lounge and mini art gallery, and the whole was considered ultra-modern in both design and decoration. Of particular note was Cinema One, described by one movie reviewer of the day as "a beautiful sea-blue auditorium, with a roof which makes one think of white coral ..." It was the first cinema to have wall-to-wall carpeting and the luxurious qualities of the complex were strongly emphasised in the press at the time. Special features in the foyer included a fountain and wall-mounted, beaten copper Gemini figures which symbolised the twin aspects of the complex.
The re-modelling of the cinema also reflected current concepts in cinema programming and marketing. The intention at the time of opening was that the larger Cinema One would feature popular, box office successes with wide audience appeal whilst the smaller Cinema Two would screen contemporary films with a more limited public appeal. The then general manger Mr Bruce Simpson said that the "complex is directed at the sophisticated young people of the city ... but would not alienate those of a more conservative outlook." The Village Twin has maintained a reputation for screening quality and art-house films. In the early 1980s Cinema Two was leased by the Valhalla group, which operated cinemas in Melbourne and Sydney and screened principally revivals and non-mainstream film.
Since at least 1984, Edenfile Pty Ltd has held a half interest with Village Theatres in the Village Twin Cinemas. In August 1999, Melbourne-based Palace Cinemas bought Edenfile's 50% shareholding, thus completing a Palace cinema network in all Australian capitals.
","criteria":"The Village Twin Cinema Complex is significant for its continuous use as a cinema and its association with moving picture exhibition in New Farm since the early 1920s. Completed in 1970, the cinema is significant as the first twin cinema complex in Queensland, and one of the earliest multi-screen cinemas in Australia.
|It is a rare surviving and remarkably intact example of its type.
|Being a renovation of an existing picture theatre, the place also has the potential to reveal important information about the earlier structure on the site and thus contribute to our knowledge of 1920s and 1930s picture theatre design in Queensland. In particular the remaining curved timber truss which is unique to Queensland cinema design and the 1920s façade and exterior form of the former Astor, are important.
|The Village Twin Cinema Complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of cinema décor, in particular, the distinctiveness of late 1960s/early 1970s design.
|The interior in particular has strong aesthetic value. The highly decorative moulded ceilings of the cinema auditoria, the timber panelling, brick facing, carpeting and fittings in the foyers and the original and surviving internal colour schemes all contribute to the aesthetic and architectural significance of the building. The design exemplifies the sense of escapism and fantasy which is central to the tradition of cinema and theatre design.
|Located on a slight rise on busy Brunswick Street, the place is a well-known New Farm landmark and a theatre on this site has been the focus of social activity and popular culture in the suburb for over seventy years. It has a special association for Brisbane cinema audiences as an early alternative or art house cinema. As such, the Village Twin is important in demonstrating the evolution and specialisation of cinema audiences.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16841,"place_ref":602105,"name":"Fairview","alternate_name":"Pattemore House | Armstrong's House","street_address":"15 Porter's Lane","suburb":"MALENY","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-09-04","description":"Fairview is situated halfway down the steep slope which forms the backdrop to the township of Maleny, on the Blackall Range west of Nambour. It is a low-set timber house capped with a steeply pitched, corrugated iron clad, short ridge roof with gablets to the east and west, and stepped down surrounding verandah roofs. The verandahs have been enclosed on the western and southern sides and southeastern corner.
\nExternal walls are single-skin, vertically-jointed timber boards, diamond braced with belt rail, protected from the elements by skillion roofed verandahs. The front verandah has three bays, with a pair of verandah posts either side of the entrance. Square posts with simple stop chamfers support the roof and are enhanced with later decorative brackets. There is a later two-rail slatted balustrade across the open verandahs. There are three doors off the front verandah, French doors to both front rooms either side of a four-panel low waisted timber front door.
\nThe front door opens onto a hallway which has doors to rooms on either side, before opening through a timber archway into a large dining room.
\nInternally all rooms under the core have walls of tongue and groove 6 inch wide boards that are beaded. The hall has a belt rail and hat rail on both walls. The two front bedrooms have a T&G ceiling and twin-paned sash windows to side verandahs, while the rear bedroom has French doors to the side verandah. There are clear glass fan lights above the front and back doors and rear bedroom French doors. All the bedrooms have a square of linoleum with the surrounding timber boards painted red. An exposed beam from the dining room juts into the front north eastern bedroom and hall, and these beams are visible in the dining room. The dining room and rear bedroom both have sheeted ceilings.
\nThe western and southern verandahs have been enclosed with weatherboards and windows. About half of the eastern side also has been enclosed to form a large room. At the rear of the house and under the verandah roof are the kitchen and a large breakfast room. The northern wall of both the kitchen and breakfast room has diagonal braced vertically-jointed timber boards and the other walls are lined, including the stove recess with its old wood fire stove. The kitchen has a double row of three hopper windows facing south while the stove recess has louvres. The large breakfast room has a twin-pane sash window into the dining room, and a pair of casement windows, a set of four casement windows and door along the southern wall, and a door to the side verandah and kitchen. The southern facing external wall is protected by a skillion roofed over the paving and raised path to the back garden.
\nFairview is surrounded by mature trees including Frangipani [Plumeria sp.], Avocados [Persea americana] and a Moreton Bay Fig [Ficus macrophylla]. The garden, which is enclosed by a barbed wire fence, has many mature trees including a large Moreton Bay Fig.
","history":"Fairview is a lowset, four-roomed timber dwelling under the core with four rooms under the stepped-down surrounding verandahs. It was constructed of Beech [Nothofagus sp.] cut, pit sawn and dressed on the property, for John Robert and Emily Pattemore in 1907.
\nAboriginals had long known the Maleny district, on the Blackall Range behind Nambour, as an area where the important Bunya Pine [Araucaria bidwilli] grew. The first Europeans to live in the district were transient timber getters who heard from local Aborigines of the huge Red Cedar [Toona australis] trees on the Blackall Range. While timber was cut, it was not always shifted due to the lack of roads and steepness of the terrain. The first non-indigenous person to settle in the area was Isaac Burgess, who took up residence on his selection on 1 January 1872. Others followed in the late the 1870s. They built their homes using timber pit sawn on their own land. Pits were dug near where the trees stood and there they were sawn down to scantlings and boardings, and afterwards planed, tongued and grooved by hand as required. As the Red Cedar was cut out attention turned to the Beech trees and Maleny pioneers of the timber industry include Isaac Burgess, Francis and William Dunlop, Joseph McCarthy, and JD Campbell.
\nBy 1886 there were sufficient people living in the district to necessitate the establishment of the Blackall Range School. About 1890 the area became known as Maleny, the same year that a small postal receiving office opened. In the late 1890s farmers in the Maleny area turned to dairying and by 1900 were sending cream by pack horse to Landsborough for railing to the Queensland Meat Export Company's Brisbane butter factory. The length of time it took to transport Maleny cream to Brisbane was problematic, encouraging Maleny farmers to establish their own co-operative dairy factory in 1903-04. The first cream was treated at the new Maleny Butter Factory on 19 December 1904. The factory proved very successful, and was replaced twice before closing in 1992.
\nDuring the first decade of the 20th century the little township of Maleny grew with the dairy boom. An ES&A Bank was established in 1906, a hotel was built the next year, and there was a butcher and general store. Maleny was listed as a township in Pughs Almanac of 1912 for the first time: the district had a population of about 510 with town businesses including auctioneer, baker, butcher, blacksmith, 2 contractors, dairy factory, hotel, plumber, saddler, sawmiller and 2 store keepers.
\nThe Pattemore family of New South Wales moved to the Maleny district in 1906-08. John Robert (Robert) Pattemore was born on 7 August 1850 in England. His parents emigrated to New South Wales in 1855, and raised their family at Ulladulla, New South Wales, where Mr Pattemore worked as a market gardener. Robert trained as a butcher. He married in 1871 and in 1879 he, his wife Emily and young family moved to Tilba Tilba, where he worked as a butcher. They later moved to Central Tilba where they operated both a butchery and a property called Myrtle Vale. They raised four sons and three daughters.
\nAccording to family folklore the 1902 drought was so severe that the Pattemore family decided to move to a farming area with more reliable rainfall. Sons William John (Bill) and Herbert Stanley (Stan) heard of the lush Blackall Range in Queensland, then being promoted for its dairying opportunities, and by 1906 were cutting timber there. In 1906 Bill began sawmilling at Maleny in partnership with Maleny fruitgrower ET Thynne as Thynne and Pattemore. Bill and Stan were joined by their brothers Ernest Edward and Albert Aaron Pattemore in 1907.
\nThe Pattemores sold their New South Wales interests in 1906 and in 1906-07 Bill and Stan purchased 5 Maleny farm blocks for the Pattemore family - one for their father and one for each of the four sons. Title to portion 1257, the site on which Fariview was soon constructed, was registered in the name of John Robert Pattemore in September 1907. The block comprised 154 acres, much of it bordered by Obi Obi Creek.
\nFairview was erected by the Pattemore sons in 1907 for their parents, Robert and Emily Pattemore, who followed them to Maleny in 1908. The house was constructed entirely of Beech, used even for the original stumps. The brothers pit-sawed the timber on the property, hand planed it, and made 6 inch tongue and groove boards with a single beading. The sawdust from the work was left in a mound at the rear of the house, which was a feature of the rear garden for many years. The house comprised four rooms under the core roof, with an enclosed room at the rear end of each side verandah. Verandahs encircled the house, with the back verandah enclosed and used for a service room.
\nRobert and Emily arrived by ship in 1907. Unfortunately, Emily Pattemore contracted Rheumatic Fever around this time and was incapacitated for the rest of her life. Two widowed daughters came up from New South Wales to look after their mother.
\nBy 1907 all of Robert Pattemore's sons were farming at Maleny. Bill Pattemore also retained his interest in the Thynne and Pattemore sawmill on Thynne's homestead block at Maleny. For some years there was also a mill on Fairview.
\nJR Pattermore operated his Maleny property as a dairy farm on the share farming principle. Albert built the share farmer's house, which has since been moved to Caloundra.
\nFor some years Ernest worked as the share farmer on Fairview, but in 1923 moved to Nambour. Albert returned to butchering, first at Cooroy and later at Brisbane. Bill had moved to Cooroy about 1920 and by 1924, Stan was the only son remaining in Maleny, where he was farming his own property, Forest Lodge on Gardner's Road, north of his father's property. Fairview continued as a dairy farm, with a share farmer. Robert Pattemore continued milking a few cows and growing corn until the end of his life in 1947.
\nErnest Pattemore's children, Arthur and Emily, visited Fairview frequently from the 1920s to the late 1940s. They remembered the place as quite a large house, with a front garden large enough for the cousins to play cricket. Either side of the front gate was a Bunya Pine, not a favourite of the children as underneath was too spiky and hurt their bare feet when playing. There were two mature Moreton Bay Fig Trees in the back garden.
\nA raised cobble path led from the front verandah to the front gate. The front and side verandahs had a balustrade and the verandah posts had decorative brackets. Under the back verandah roof was the kitchen, large breakfast room with windows, and a pantry. Leading from the breakfast room back door there was a raised path to the back gate about 6 to 10 metres away. To the left of the back door was the laundry under a skillion roof; it was paved with slats and cobble stones and had tubs, bench and copper. Later a laundry was moved inside adjacent to the bathroom under the verandah roof.
\nThe house block was fenced - to keep the cattle out - and just beyond this fence was a shed that had space for the buggy, cow bails and dairy. There was a loft above, and that is where the corn was stored. In Robert's latter years his son Stan took on responsibility for the home farm, cultivating the corn and any farm work. His sisters continued to look after the house and parents.
\nFollowing Mrs Emily Pattemore's death at nearly 87 years in 1937, her husband remained on his farm, and in August 1941 celebrated his 91st birthday as Maleny's oldest resident. Following his death on 10 January 1947 title to his farm was transferred out of the Pattemore family in August 1948. Subsequent owners included the CSR in 1964 and by May 1969, the George Armstrong family. In 1995 Fairview was acquired from the Armstrong family by the Caloundra City Council. The house is rented and the land let to a farmer.
\nIn recent years Fairview has been re-roofed, a skillion roofed verandah has been added at the rear, and a slatted balustrade has been constructed across the remaining open verandahs. The raised path still leads to the back of the property but the front path is overgrown and no longer leads to the front gate. The old farm shed out the back has been removed.
\nWhile most Maleny district houses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were built of pit sawn local timber, few surviving houses of this type were identified in the 1995 Caloundra City Cultural Heritage Study. Included amongst these was Fairview, listed as Armstrong's House [MY 56], identified for its historic, aesthetic, representative value and integrity. A 2001 review of the 350 plus places identified in the 1995 survey resulted in a much shorter list of locally significant places. While some farm houses were noted the new list did not include any houses constructed of pit sawn local timber. The only building constructed of local pit-sawn timber included in the listing was the first stage of the Maleny Hotel [MY 26], erected in 1907. Fairview [Armstrong's House] (1907) was not included in the preliminary register as a place sufficiently well known or documented for its cultural heritage significance, but was included as a place worthy of further investigation.
","criteria":"Fairview, constructed in 1907 of local Beech [Gmelina leichardtii] cut, pit-sawn and dressed on the property, is important in demonstrating the early development of Maleny as an agricultural settlement and the expansion of dairying in Queensland in the early 1900s.
|It is one of the oldest surviving pit sawn timber residences in the area.
|It remains substantially intact, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early farmhouses of its era, with hand detailing, good workmanship, and idiosyncratic construction techniques, and is constructed of local timbers no longer widely available.
|The materials, timber detailing and workmanship, and simple plan and form, demonstrate a strong aesthetic quality. Plantings around the house are remnants from when the property was an established dairy farm and add to the aesthetic appeal of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16855,"place_ref":602119,"name":"Nundah Fire Station (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Union Street","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-03-26","description":"The Nundah Fire Station is a two storey, symmetrical timber framed building at the north end of Union Street off Buckland Road and backing onto the railway line. The building is clad with fibrous cement sheeting to the first storey, has timber weatherboards to the lower storey and a terracotta tiled hip roof. On the first floor a central, open verandah balcony projects over the engine room entrance with "Nundah Fire Station" painted in red across the sheeting to the lower part of the balcony. The black painted horizontal cover battens against the white painted sheeting to the first storey give the building a striking street presence.
The ground floor of the Fire Station accommodates the engine room, watch office, locker room and ablutions area, dormitory, kitchen, laundry and duty officer bedroom. The timber pole connecting the residence to the engine room has been sawn off at the first floor level and the pole cupboard is now used for storage at ground level. The locker room contains intact purpose built lockers for the firemen's uniforms and personal effects. The concrete floor to the engine room is marked with red wheel tracks and a concrete footpath crossing connects to the street. The interiors are lined with tongue and groove boarding and the ceilings are sheeted and battened, except the watchroom which is plastered. A brass plaque commemorating the opening of the station is on the engine room wall outside the watch office. The rear external timber stairs have been replaced with metal stairs and the laundry now accommodates an additional shower. Windows to the ground level are shaded by horizontal timber hoods on cantilevered timber brackets and fixed aluminium louvre screens have been added around the windows.
The residence on the first floor has a kitchen, living room, dining room, an open verandah balcony, three bedrooms and a bathroom. The living and dining rooms and main bedroom open by french doors onto the verandah balcony. There are glazed fanlights above these french doors and side lights to the those off the dining room. The pole connecting the residence and the station below is housed in a cupboard adjacent to the bathroom. The interiors are clad with tongue and groove boarding and the ceilings sheeted and battened. The kitchen cupboards, linen cupboard, dining room cupboard and main bedroom wardrobe remain. The terrazzo floor to the bathroom survives.
The grassed and concreted grounds are well maintained. A concrete path leads from a chain and rail gate in the north east corner to the rear stairs to the residence. A concrete driveway to the south east arrives at the hose drying area and shed to the rear of the station. Recently planted palms (Archontophoenix sp.) are to the north and south boundaries and to front of the station.
","history":"A modest, functional civic building, the Nundah Fire Station has been the operational centre for fire services in Nundah since 1936.
Between 1860 and 1868 there were five attempts to form a fire fighting service for Brisbane. Each brigade struggled to survive unable to attract a viable subscription base and hampered by inadequate equipment and an unreliable water supply. The establishment of an effective fire service did not enjoy a high priority among civic and government leaders.
A fifth brigade, the City Volunteer Fire Brigade, was established in 1868. New rules provided for better financial control and balanced representation through the Fire Brigade Board with membership from the Brisbane Municipal Council and insurance companies. These arrangements were consolidated by the Fire Brigades Act of 1881. Funding for fire serivces came from contributions by Queensland State Government, Brisbane Municipal Council, insurance companies and subscriptions. In 1889 the first full-time firemen were employed and a permanent fire brigade was established. A new headquarters, designed by HW Atkinson, was completed on the corner of Ann and Edwards Streets (on a corner of the Normal School site) in 1890. This began a long association between the Fire Brigade and the various architectural firms with whom he was associated.
The fire fighting needs of the city increased as Brisbane continued to develop. Nundah Fire Brigade was formed by volunteer local residents in 1916 after The Fire Brigades Act Amendment Act of 1902 allowed local authorities to establish independent boards and brigades. Brigades were formed in Hamilton (1917), Windsor 1917, Ithaca 1918 (QHR 601199), Toowong 1918, Taringa 1919, Wynnum 1921 and Sandgate 1923. These were voluntary bodies with only the superintendent and immediate assistants receiving a salary. The Fire Brigades Act of 1920 rationalised the network of fire brigades in Brisbane and suburbs, centralising control under the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board in 1921.
The Nundah Fire Brigade stored its equipment at the Royal Hotel until a shed and bell tower were erected in Union Street, Nundah in 1917. This shed functioned as the Nundah Fire Station until 1936 when the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board was resiting old fire stations and erecting new stations, funded by the State Government, as part of an upgrading of fire services under the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Edward Hanlon. Under this program, the early fire station at Nundah was demolished and a new purpose-built two storey station was constructed to a design by HW Atkinson and AH Conrad by the contractor TF Woollam. The station was opened by Hanlon on 11 December 1936. Other stations built under this policy include Coorparoo, Wynnum, Hamilton, Sherwood, Sandgate and Toowong.
The new building housed the station facilities on the ground floor and a residence for the superintendent on the first floor. This combination of station and residence was common in fire stations and this plan was duplicated at Wynnum and Coorparoo.
In 1990 the Metropolitan Fire Brigade became a division of the Bureau of Emergency Services. The Nundah Fire Station will be decommissioned in 1999 and operations transferred to a new station at Hendra.
","criteria":"Nundah Fire Station is an important example of the upgrading of fire stations undertaken in Brisbane suburbs by the Queensland Government through the Metropolitan Fire Board during the 1930s. The building has been in continual use as a fire station from 1936 to 1999.
|Nundah Fire Station is an intact example of the work of the architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad.
Nundah Fire Station is a fine intact example of the architecture and planning of Brisbane suburban fire stations of the 1930s incorporating offices and engine room to the ground floor and a residence to the first floor. The interiors in both the operational and domestic areas are intact interiors and reflect the operation of 1930s fire stations. The kitchen is a fine example of an intact domestic interior.
|Nundah Fire Station, with its associated grounds, has aesthetic and architectural significance as a modest, functional civic building. Robust and austere, with its simple but striking horizontal banding and use of readily available materials, it is easily identified in the streetscape.
|Nundah Fire Station is important for the continuing association of the Fire Brigade with the community of Nundah since the establishment of fire fighting services for the area by local resident volunteers in 1916.
|Atkinson, through the firms he was associated with, sustained a long association with the Fire Services in Brisbane commencing in 1890 with his design for the new headquarters for the Brisbane Fire Brigade. His architectural practices were responsible for many of the fire stations throughout Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16858,"place_ref":602122,"name":"Orient Hotel","alternate_name":"Excelsior Hotel","street_address":"560 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"The Hotel Orient, a three-storeyed rendered masonry structure with a hipped corrugated iron roof, is located on an acute corner site at the intersection of Queen and Ann Streets, a major intersection on the edge of the central business district. The building's highly visible location and expressive form make it a city landmark.
The building is located on a triangular site, with the earliest section at the northern end of the site fronting Queen and Ann Streets, and the later addition forming a wing across the southern part of the site linking both street frontages. A small service yard with some later infill is located on the northwest fronting Ann Street, and the wedge-shaped corner of the building fronting Queen and Ann Streets is rounded to form a sharp curve.
The ground floor has an awning to the Queen Street frontage and to the northern end of the Ann Street frontage. The awning is supported by steel tie-rods fixed to the exterior of the first floor, and has decorative pressed metal soffit and fascia, with the name HOTEL ORIENT in relief. The Queen Street frontage has an entrance at the southern end, with regularly spaced sash windows fronting the street and returning along the Ann Street frontage. The entrance is accessed via a flight of steps to recessed doors which have a leadlight fanlight panel. A metal grille above the entrance has the letters H and O intertwined, and the side walls are finished with glazed ceramic tiles with a decorative frieze and trims. The glazed ceramic tiles continue along the street frontage, however they have been covered with a textured coating with only the frieze being left exposed. The windows along the Queen Street frontage dating from the interwar refurbishment have decorative leadlight panes, and later sash windows retain evidence of being adapted from earlier doorways. The corner has evidence of earlier doorways, and currently has paired non-original timber framed glass doors with a raised threshold which aligns with an internal stage area. The windows to the Ann Street frontage have their sill heights at footpath level, with a cast iron palisade set in the sill to each window. An entrance to the bar is located at the western end of the original section of the Ann Street elevation.
The first and second floors have regularly spaced sash windows with decorative leadlight panes fronting Queen Street and returning along the Ann Street frontage. The windows have continuous window hoods to both levels supported by shaped timber members and clad with shingles. The walls are finished with a textured render.
The remainder of the Ann Street frontage consists of the end elevation of the southern wing, which has textured render and two sash windows per floor. Verandahs enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and sliding window units are located on the northern side of the southern wing, and return along the western side of the main section. The entrance to the small service yard is located adjacent to the enclosed verandah, and has lattice screening and a skillion roof. Later infill also fronts Ann Street between the small service yard and the central section of the building, and consists of an early section to the ground level finished with textured render, and a later brick first floor section with skillion roof. The building has several rendered chimney stacks, a large billboard is mounted on the roof fronting the intersection, and a deck has been constructed over the small service yard at the level of the second floor.
Internally, the building has a cellar at the southern end, mostly located under the Queen Street end of the southern wing. The cellar has both face brick and squared rubble-coursed porphyry walls, and two brick arched alcoves are located on the western side. The cellar is accessed via concrete steps from the enclosed service yard area, which is split-level and located between the ground and first floors.
The ground floor has a large bar area at the northern end fronting both streets. The corner contains a non-original raised stage area, and the ceiling is coffered with beams possibly indicating the locations of original load bearing walls and central corridor. Two cast iron columns are located towards the stage end of the bar area, and correspond to a change in direction of the central corridor to both upper floors. The bar fit-out is non-original, and toilets are located behind the bar area fronting Ann Street. An entrance foyer with reception/office is located at the southern end fronting Queen Street, with a stair accessing the upper floors. The foyer has pressed metal ceilings, and decorative leadlight doors and fanlight separate a second smaller bar at the rear. This bar has pressed metal ceilings, and timber wall panelling to door head height. Toilets are located at the rear of the bar, and early windows with leadlight panes open to the adjacent service yard.
The first floor is entered via a stair at the southern end which access a central lobby. This lobby is located at the western corner of the intersection of the main section of the building and the southern wing. A second dogleg stair, located on the eastern side of this lobby, accesses the second floor and has turned timber balusters and timber handrail. Paired timber doors open either side of the stair, with an arched leadlight fanlight to the southern door. The northern end of the first floor has been fitted out as a nightclub, and the majority of the internal walls have been demolished and render has been removed exposing the brickwork. The form of the early corner lounge with fireplace is still visible, and window architraves and sills survive. A small bar separates this area from a pool room at the southern end of the floor, which has rendered masonry walls and fireplace. A kitchen is located on the western side of the nightclub, in an addition fronting Ann Street.
Steps to the side of the first floor central lobby access the enclosed verandah to the southern wing. A narrow timber stair, with timber balustrade and handrail, is located within the verandah and accesses the second floor, and evidence remains of it originally accessing the ground floor. The verandah detailing includes dowel balustrades, narrow louvred timber panels, and an arched timber boarded valance with rounded ends. The verandah walls to the southern wing are of painted brickwork, and have flat-arched sash windows and doors with fanlights which access store rooms and toilets.
The second floor retains the early layout of a central corridor, with rooms opening to either side, which returns to connect with the enclosed verandah to the southern wing. At this level, the enclosed verandah returns along the western side of the main section of the building. Ensuite bathrooms have been added to the rooms, by either converting an existing room into two ensuites or by constructing an ensuite in part of an existing room. Arches are located in transverse corridor walls, and some early detailing survives including doors and fanlights, architraves, shirtings and arch mouldings. The deck over the small service yard is accessed from the enclosed verandah.
","history":"The Hotel Orient, a three-storeyed brick building erected for Brisbane publican John Morse as the Excelsior Hotel, was constructed in two stages: a two-storeyed building with cellar in 1875, with a third floor and southern extension in 1884. Both stages were designed by Brisbane architect Richard Gailey. Occupying an early Queen Street subdivision, the hotel illustrates the northern extension of the Brisbane central business district around Petrie's Bight in the last quarter of the 19th century.
John Morse emigrated from England to Queensland in 1862. He held the licence to the Assembly Hotel at the corner of Edward and Margaret streets, Brisbane, from 1865 to 1868, then followed the gold rush to Gympie, where he was licensee of the Bendigo Hotel until returning to Brisbane in 1873, taking up the licence to the Union Hotel at the corner of Ann and Wickham streets [now Centenary Place], which he held until 1875. By 1875 he was married with a young family.
In 1874 Morse purchased in two parcels a small, triangular block diagonally opposite the Union Hotel - 15.4 perches of land at the intersection of Queen and Ann streets, Petrie's Bight. The subdivisions were part of an early town allotment alienated in 1864 by William Hobbs, and subdivided by Josiah Young in 1874. The site was strategically located along Queen Street, the principal thoroughfare between Brisbane Town and Fortitude Valley, and was close to the Union Hotel and Morse's regular client base. Petrie's Bight was then developing rapidly, stimulated by construction of municipal wharves downstream from the Customs House in 1875-77.
Brisbane architect Richard Gailey called tenders for the construction of a hotel at the corner of Queen and Ann streets in November 1874, the same month that Morse gained title to the property. Gailey was a Londonderry architect who had settled in Brisbane in 1864. He established his own practice here in 1865, and over the next 60 years built up a thriving business, working until his death in 1924. Hotels were Gailey's speciality. He designed over 30 hotels or modifications to existing hotels in Brisbane alone in the period 1869-1895, with hotel work elsewhere throughout the colony. The largest and most opulent of the Gailey-designed hotels were erected during the 1880s, reflecting the general building boom in Queensland during a period of unprecedented economic growth. His impressive surviving boom era hotels include the Regatta [1886] (600331) at Toowong, and in Fortitude Valley the Wickham [1884-85] (600213), Prince Consort [1887-88] (600212), Jubilee [1887-88] (600211), and Empire [1887-89] (600199). The Hotel Orient is his earliest surviving, still operating Brisbane hotel, and contributes significantly to our understanding of his work.
In mid-1875 Morse registered a £2,000 mortgage on the Queen and Ann streets corner site, which is likely to have financed construction of the hotel. The building was completed by June 1875, when he applied for a license to operate the place as the Excelsior Hotel. At that time the building was his own property, unoccupied, yet to be licensed, and containing more than the necessary accommodation as required by the Publican's Act. An 1881 bird's-eye sketch of Brisbane shows the early Excelsior Hotel as a two-storeyed building with a cantilevered first floor verandah.
The hotel appears to have prospered with the growth in trade centred around Petrie's Bight. In September 1884 Gailey called tenders for additions to the Excelsior Hotel, consisting of an additional Story on the present Building, and a Three-story Building at the Southern end, extending from Queen to Ann streets. This established the present form of the building.
About 1888 the remodelled hotel was advertised as one of the architectural features of the city - fitted up with every appliance and found with every convenience necessary to the carrying on of a large business, and the comfortable accommodation of the public. The house is situated in one of the most charming parts of the city, and from it may be gained a panoramic view of the river and the surrounding suburbs. Balconies extend round the hotel, and on these open large and comfortably-furnished rooms, thus securing to the visitor plenty of fresh air during the hot months. A sketch of the hotel which appeared in The Queensland Figaro of 20 April 1889, shows a three-storeyed building with encircling verandahs and french-doors on the upper two levels, opening onto the verandahs, with a wider curved street awning at ground level supported by double timber posts. The place was advertised as a family hotel, of first-class standard.
Two decorative iron pillars in the main bar on the ground floor, bearing the lettering A Sargeant & Co., may replace earlier masonry walls. Their style suggests they were installed c1890s, which may indicate another period of renovation of the hotel.
John Morse held the licence to the Excelsior Hotel from 1875 until 1906, with one short-term transfer of the license to George Boreham in 1889-90. In March 1906 Morse retired from the hotel business, moving to Dornoch Terrace in Highgate Hill, and leasing his hotel to publican John Brosnan, who renamed it the Hotel Orient. A year later Brosnan transferred the lease to Isaac Francis, and throughout most of the 20th century there has been a rapid turnover in lessees and licensees of the place. One of the longest-serving licensees was Joseph Thomas Kelly, who held the license throughout the 1930s and to at least the early 1940s.
Morse's wife, Wilhelmina, died in September 1909, and John in December the same year. The Hotel Orient passed to their daughter, Mary Ann Durham, who retained title to the property until August 1912, when it was transferred to Perkins & Co. Ltd, established Brisbane brewers and hotel owners, which became Castlemaine Perkins Limited in 1928. The Orient remained the property of this company until 1980. There have been a number of owners since.
In the 1920s and 1930s the Hotel Orient was modernised, during a period of substantial hotel renovation throughout Brisbane. Sewerage was connected in 1925, and in 1930 the Marberete Co. installed a cold room and builder SS Carrick carried out alterations, both jobs to designs by Castlemaine Perkins' architects George Henry Addison and Herbert Stanley MacDonald. In 1935 Marberete Co. carried out further alterations to the Orient, again to the design of Addison and MacDonald. The 1930s renovations included much use of leadlights and pressed metal ceilings, the remodelling of the ground floor private bar and entrance at the southern end of the building on the Queen Street side, and streamlining of the exterior. A photograph of the renovated Orient Hotel, published in The Sunday Truth of 20 February 1936, shows the 1880s ground level posts and awning replaced with a cantilevered flat awning, the first and second floor verandahs removed, the french doors on these levels converted to windows with narrow encircling roofs over, and a large neon sign above the main roof, displaying CASTLEMAINE XXXX. In April 1936, the Orient Hotel was valued at £16,000. Facilities at this time included 2 bars, 3 sitting rooms, 1 dining room, 4 double guest rooms, 15 single guest rooms, 6 sleeping rooms for licensee, family and staff, 4 bathrooms, 9 waterclosets, 2 urinals. Although located approximately half a mile from both the Central Railway Station and the AUSN Wharf, the place was used extensively by the travelling public, and averaged 15 guests per week.
Another significant refurbishment of the Orient Hotel was undertaken c1956. By this time the corner entrance was no longer in use, and the public bar was accessed from Queen Street. The 1956 renovations included changes to the public bar, and the rearrangement of guest lounge, dining room and kitchen facilities on the first floor, to permit increased accommodation for the licensee and staff.
In the early 1980s further substantial refurbishments included the gutting of much of the first floor for a new dining room, bar and kitchen, and changes to the public bar on the ground floor. In 1990 the public bar acquired its present configuration, and in 1995 the premises were converted to budget accommodation, with ensuite bathrooms installed on the top floor.
Despite the on-going refurbishments, the Orient retains its 1880s form, and remains one of few 19th century hotels to survive in the Brisbane central business district, where once there were many. It continues to trade as an hotel, and is one of the longest licensed hotels in inner Brisbane, pre-dated only by the Victory [on the northeast corner of Edward and Charlotte streets - originally the Prince of Wales, established 1855], Exchange [northwest corner of Edward and Charlotte streets, from 1863], Port Office [southeast corner of Edward and Margaret streets - initially the Shamrock, from 1864], and the Treasury [northwest corner of George and Elizabeth streets - originally the Dunmore Arms, from 1865]. Social change and renovation of the central business district with high-rise office and apartment blocks, has seen the demolition of 19 major city hotels since 1970 - particularly those which occupied strategic corner positions on principal thoroughfares, as was typical of Brisbane's 19th century hotels.
The Hotel Orient demarks the juncture between Brisbane City and Fortitude Valley along a major inner city thoroughfare. It's landmark value is particularly noticeable since the late 20th century demolition of the nearby National Hotel, a late 1880s hotel which occupied a similar triangular-shaped corner site one block to the east, at the intersection of Queen and Adelaide streets.
","criteria":"The Hotel Orient, erected as the Excelsior Hotel in two stages, 1875 and 1884, is important in illustrating the pattern of settlement in Brisbane. The 1884 additions in particular are illustrative of the growing economic and social sophistication of colonial Brisbane.
|The Orient is one of a handful of surviving 19th century hotels in central Brisbane, and is important for its rarity.
|It is important in illustrating the evolving nature of inner city hotels, and has the potential to reveal further information about 19th and 20th century hotel design and evolution.
|Despite numerous refurbishments, the place retains its 1870s-80s footprint, form, streetscape presence, and much early fabric, illustrating some of the principal characteristics of a 19th century three-storeyed, masonry, first-class hotel, including the corner siting and clear evidence of a former corner entrance, a footprint which follows the shape of the land subdivision, provision of ample accommodation on the top floor, a rear service wing, and stone cellar.
|Much of the fine 1930s refurbishment survives, including the street awning and continuous window hoods, internal and external finishes, highly decorative leadlights, and pressed metal ceilings and cornices. These elements, together with the building's expressive form and highly visible location, contribute to its considerable aesthetic and architectural significance.
|The Hotel Orient demarks the juncture of the Brisbane Central Business District and Fortitude Valley along a major inner city thoroughfare, and as such has landmark significance with strong social value.
|The place is important for its association with the work of architects Richard Gailey, George Frederick Addison and Herbert Stanley MacDonald.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16859,"place_ref":602123,"name":"Isis Masonic Lodge","alternate_name":"Corinthian Lodge","street_address":"18 Macrossan Street","suburb":"CHILDERS","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-04-28","description":"The Isis Masonic Lodge is a tall rectilinear timber building whose form and simplicity creates a striking presence in Macrossan Street, Childers. Located in a residential setting, the site is grassed and slopes away from road level with a ramp and handrail defining access to the building. Two thin pencil pines Cupressus semperzirens on either side of the entry ramp are the only plantings on the site. The building is two storey and raised on concrete and timber stumps, with an ornate façade whose parapet covers the gable end of the shallow, pitched roof. The façade is the most characteristic aspect of the building. Painted in blue and white, the colours of Freemasonry, the front stands out starkly against the undecorated sides and back of the building.
The front elevation is symmetrically composed around a central entrance which is comprised of doorways and a porch. The porch has a gable roof at the upper level, supported on timber posts with a decorative wrought iron balustrade to the balcony which is accessed via french doors. The porch is supported at ground level by timber Tuscan columns surmounted by a simple entablature bearing the name of the Lodge and a sign commemorating its centenary. The columns are mounted on pedestals. The central entrance is comprised of a pair of timber doors with a fanlight above and moulded architrave. The doorway is flanked by double hung timber windows on both levels. At upper level, the architrave of these windows takes the form of mini-pilasters supporting a moulded lintel.
The front elevation is finished in chamferboards. Pilasters are located at the corners, separated by a protruding string course at first floor level. The upper level pilasters support an entablature and pediment with simple timber mouldings and the symbols of Freemasonry are located within the tympanum. The sides and back of the building are clad in weatherboards with four aluminium framed windows at the upper level and three smaller windows at the lower level. Five small wall vents with iron hoods are located between the windows on the top floor on both sides of the building.
The planning of the interior of the building is simple, the front section contains anterooms and a stairwell with the rest of the building occupied by hall-like spaces on both levels. On the ground floor, there is a wide entry hall decorated with framed photographs of early members of the Lodge, the Queen and photographs of the building over time. A door opening leads to a large square room with timber columns located down the centre of the room. The room is lined in horizontal tongue-in-groove boarding. On the eastern wall are small timber display cases which contain a collection of Lodge cards. Two doors at the back of the room lead to a small kitchen and toilet, both lined in fibro-cement boarding with recent aluminium framed windows. A small servery hatch is located in the wall between the kitchen and the hall. A cast iron ladder leading to a hatch to the upper hall which serves as a fire escape is situated in the south-eastern corner of the kitchen. A set of timber stairs outside the toilet in the south-western corner leads to the undercroft space where another toilet is to be found.
The staircase is located on the eastern side of the entry space and features a cedar balustrade with turned balusters and substantial newels. The stairwell and anterooms on both levels are lined with horizontal tongue-in-groove boarding, painted with a colour scheme of a dark brown dado, cream walls and white ceilings. Floors are timber.
A small storage room is located at the top of the stairs and a narrow landing leads to the main Lodge room which is entered via a door at the eastern side of the building. The main room is lined in horizontal tongue-in-groove boarding painted in tones of blue and white. The floor is carpeted in a strong blue colour with the central feature of a tessallated timber board of black and white squares which was given to the Isis Lodge when the Tiaro Lodge was closed down. Furniture and regalia is unfixed and includes bench seating, a number of ornate timber chairs and several staves. The ceiling has a number of decorative ceiling roses.
","history":"The Isis Masonic Lodge in Childers is a two storey timber building constructed in two stages, the first in 1897 and the second in 1909, to the design of Bundaberg architect Frederick Herbert Faircloth. Located in Macrossan Street, a block behind the main street of Childers, the building survived a major fire in the town in 1902 and remains as one of the oldest buildings in the town.
In the 1870s timber cutters were the first European settlers to come to the area surrounding Childers, attracted by large quantities of hoop pine, red cedar and other timbers. The town was established during the 1880s after the land in the nearby area was surveyed into 50 acre farm blocks in 1882. There was no official town survey and Childers developed following the private subdivision of portions 870 and 871, at the railhead of the 1887 extension line from Isis Junction. On 31 December 1886, the Isis Divisional Board was proclaimed and the extension of the railway to Childers in 1887 provided further impetus for the development of the town.
The Freemasonry movement was an integral part of community life in the 19th century and the establishment of a Lodge was a local event representing progress and consolidation of the community. The first meeting of Freemasons in the Childers district took place in 1894 and was called by Constable Richard Henderson and Thomas Gaydon, a local chemist. Early members came from all three constitutions of the time, the English, Scottish and Irish and a vote was taken at a second meeting in January 1895 which resolved to establish a Lodge under the English constitution. This was achieved in April of the same year with the inauguration of the Corinthian Lodge No. 2573 EC. There were 14 founding members and the Master was Worshipful Brother Robert Henry Blisset who had been master of the Star of the East Lodge in Maryborough.
The opening ceremony and consecration of the Corinthian Lodge took place in the Isis Divisional Board's Office on 4 April 1895. Subsequent lodge meetings were held in the Childers schoolroom, with furniture and regalia provided by sponsor Lodges in Maryborough and Bundaberg. Members paid a joining fee of £1/1/- for members of English Constitution Lodges and £1/11/6 for members of other constitutions, a portion of which went towards a building fund.
A hall committee was formed in July 1896 and the land in Macrossan Street was purchased in April 1897 upon this committee's recommendation, at a cost of £30. Members of the lodge cleared the land and donated money and goods towards the new hall. A single storey timber hall was proposed and funding was provided in the form of a loan from Wor. Bro. Blissett who matched the interest rates offered by the Bank of North Queensland. Bundaberg architect F Herbert Faircloth was commissioned to provide plans in 1897.
Herbert Faircloth was responsible for the design of a large number of buildings in Childers, particularly after a disastrous fire destroyed most of the main street in March 1902. Born in Maryborough in 1870, Faircloth was articled to the German-trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich and practised for most of his life in Bundaberg, designing many of the town's major buildings.
The first Lodge meeting was held in the new hall on 8 October 1897. By 1908 it became apparent that the hall was not big enough and Faircloth was again approached to provide plans for an additional storey to the hall. JE Sharpe's tender of £368 was accepted and the enlarged hall was consecrated on 9 July 1909.
Two storey halls were a popular form for Lodges in Queensland - the upper floor would be reserved for Lodge meetings and the lower floor provided space for a range of public events, such as dances, euchre and smoke nights, picnics and sports days. Founded on principles of fellowship, charity and "the practice of moral and social virtue" , Freemasonry thrived in the absence of Government welfare and Freemasons supported each other and their families, particularly in country areas.
In 1920, the two Grand Lodges of Queensland merged to form the United Grand Lodge of Queensland, ending years of division within the Freemasonry movement in Queensland. As a consequence, the name of the Corinthian Masonic Lodge in Childers was changed to it's current name - the Isis No. 93 UGLQ first appearing in the minutes of 11 November 1921.
Minor alterations have taken place over the years, including the installation of electricity in 1915, replacement of weatherboards in 1956 and re-wiring, re-stumping and replacement of the corrugated iron roof in 1976. A kitchen and toilet have been added to the rear of the building. The building has been used continuously as a Masonic Lodge since its construction.
","criteria":"The Isis Masonic Lodge is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history having been constructed during a period of unprecedented growth in the Isis, when Childers emerged as the centre of a substantial sugar-growing district and major social, cultural and religious institutions were established in the town.
|As a two storey, timber hall with an impressive façade with decorative timber detailing and blue and white colour scheme, the Isis Masonic Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of Masonic Temples in small rural settlements.
|The building has aesthetic significance derived from its fine yet simple design and timber detailing and its striking presence in the streetscape.
|The place has a strong and special association with the Childers community, in particular local Freemasons and their families, as the principal and symbolic place for the practice of Freemasonry in the town and an important centre for cultural and social activities for over 100 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16860,"place_ref":602124,"name":"Gayndah Shire Hall","alternate_name":"Gayndah and District Soldiers Memorial Hall and Council Chambers | Gayndah Town Hall | Gayndah Soldiers' Memorial Hall","street_address":"32-34 Capper Street","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-09-28","description":"The Gayndah Shire Hall is a single storeyed rendered concrete building with corrugated iron roof situated on the southern corner of Capper and Pineapple streets. The building makes an important civic contribution to the streetscape of Gayndah’s main thoroughfare. Along with the Gayndah War Memorial [QHR 600517] and Gayndah Court House [QHR 601294], the Shire Hall is part of a prominent collection of civic structures in the town centre.
\nL-shaped in plan, the building has a façade composed of three symmetrical bays, the central one projecting beyond the others. The entrances to the Council Chambers and Town Hall Theatre are located in the end bays. Raised signage panels on the parapet denote these functions. The central bay signage panel bears the name, ‘Gayndah Soldiers' Memorial Hall’.
\nThe fenestration comprises pairs of three-light casements and fanlight, which are separated by pilasters with simple vertical detailing and articulated by raised vertical and horizontal rendered concrete bands. The pilasters finish to the underside of a wide string course that projects forward to form a hood at each entrance and at the centre of the building. The parapet is decorated on its upper edge with a string course and another below this, both being decorated with a vertical lined pattern.
\nThe skillion roof to the Council Chambers has sloping parapets at each end that conceal it to the east and separates it from the gable roof over the hall and skillion roof over the bio box behind the façade. The hall roof is hipped at its southern end and has a ventilated gablet at each end.
\nThe hall is entered via stairs to a vestibule with ticket office. The ladies' and men's cloak rooms are located on either side of the vestibule and have cement rendered walls, fibrous cement sheeted ceilings with timber cover battens and timber floors. Inside the Hall is framed with arched timber trusses between which the curved ceiling is lined with fibrous cement panels and timber cover strips. Timber lattice ventilation panels are located in the centre of the ceiling between the trusses. The floor is timber-framed on concrete stumps and is lined with Crow's Ash. The stage has a simply detailed battened proscenium and dressing rooms open off the eastern side. The supper room and kitchen, which have been altered and extended including with floor coverings and banks of louvres, is also located on the eastern side. A structure above the entrance to the hall to access the sound and lighting equipment is a later visually intrusive addition.
\nThe council offices are entered via stairs to a public space that retains its original counter. The offices are divided by timber and glass partitions and the council chambers are lined with timber panelling. The ceilings are lined throughout with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover battens and the furniture in the chambers dates from the original fit-out.
\nThe 1970 brick toilet block on the north-western corner of the lot has been redesigned to provide disability access. The building has been rendered to match the façade of the hall. A small section of the original fenced lawn is retained south of the toilet block along Pineapple Street.
\nFree-standing signs fronting Capper Street and an interpretative sign located east of the Council Chambers entrance are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nWith the exception of the later additions to the rear of the council offices and the supper room, the Gayndah Shire Hall is highly intact.
\n
The Gayndah Shire Hall was constructed in 1935 on the corner of Capper and Pineapple streets by the Gayndah Shire Council. The building was designed by prominent Brisbane architects, Hall and Phillips, and is one of a number of civic buildings designed by the partnership during the interwar period.
\nGazetted in 1849, the town of Gayndah initially developed as the centre for a number of large sheep stations taken up in the Burnett region during the 1840s. Gayndah's early growth as a pastoral ‘capital’ is largely attributed to the determination of the squatters, and for a short time, the town reputedly rivalled Brisbane as the capital for Queensland. Gayndah also developed as the administrative centre for the area: a court house and post office were established in the 1850s and a school [QHR 600516] was erected in 1861. A branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney was opened in 1864, and a Town Council was established in 1867, comprising a mayor and three aldermen. In 1880 the Rawbelle Divisional Board was established and attended to all business outside the jurisdiction of the Town Council. Gayndah’s tropical climate and alluvial soils provided excellent conditions for fruit growing. Citrus orchards flourished, and together with cattle and dairy farming, provided both the basis for the development of Gayndah from the turn of the century and sustained growth for the shire in the 1920s and 1930s, with citrus growing developing into a primary industry in the 1930s. In 1922, a new board known as the Rawbelle-Gayndah Joint Board was formed and comprised a delegation from Gayndah. The Town Council and Joint Board merged in 1925 to form the Gayndah Shire Council, which consisted of a Chairman and six councillors.[1]
\nIn 2008, the Shire was amalgamated with those of Biggenden, Eidsvold, Gayndah, Monto, Mount Perry and Munduburra to form the North Burnett Regional Council.[2]
\nLike all Australian communities, Gayndah was impacted by WWI (1914-1918). Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died. A scheme was put forward by the Gayndah Town and Rawbelle councils in 1918 to erect a public hall in Gayndah in honour of the local soldiers who enlisted in World War I (WWI). WWI memorials were erected by Australian communities even before the end of the war and took a variety of forms, including honour boards (from 1915), stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns or urns), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. The proposed memorial hall at Gayndah was of the latter type and once finished, was to be shared by both local authorities whilst also providing a hall for public purposes.[3]
\nA war memorial [QHR 600517], in the form of a large outdoor honour board designed by leading Brisbane metal artisan Ernest Gunderson, was erected in 1919 at the junction of Capper, Meson and Warton streets. It was moved to its current location on Capper Street in 1988.[4]
\nThe need to replace Gayndah’s existing town hall – built in 1881 – and the community’s continuing desire to build a local memorial hall, prompted the Gayndah Town Council to apply in 1922 for a Treasury loan of £5000 for the erection of a new town hall. A poll was held in May the following year and residents supported the loan application. In December that year, the Treasury stated it was unable to offer the loan until the following financial year. Fundraising for the erection of the new hall became a community effort. The Gayndah sub-branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) and the Gayndah Branch of the Country Women’s Association lead local fundraising efforts throughout the 1920s.[5]
\nThe site for the proposed Town Hall had been acquired by the Gayndah Town Council in 1924 possibly through arrears in rates payments. The block (1376m²) was subdivided in October 1929 and the southern section (652m²) was transferred to the Queensland Country Women's Association.[6]
\nAt a meeting of the local progress association on 29 September 1933, it was resolved to proceed with the Town Hall project, which was supported by the Gayndah branch of the RSSILA and the Gayndah Chamber of Commerce.[7]
\nIn the 1930s, loans and subsidies were being offered to local councils for construction projects with the aim of reducing mass unemployment brought on by the Depression. Across Queensland, town and shire councils took advantage of the economic assistance to construct new civic buildings. An application was made by the Gayndah Shire Council to the Treasury for a subsidy of £3000 and a loan of £3000. The loan was approved and tenders were called in March 1934 for a new concrete Town Hall at Gayndah. HE McDonnell was the engineer for the project and Tom Cullen was the foreman. Construction of the building commenced in September 1934.[8]
\nThe Town Council engaged the Brisbane architectural firm of Hall and Phillips to design the council chambers. Hall and Phillips had formed a partnership in 1929, when Lionel Blythewood Phillips was admitted into partnership with Thomas Ramsay Hall, formerly of Hall and Prentice, who designed the Brisbane City Hall [QHR 600065]. Hall and Phillips continued in practice until 1948 and their projects included the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba [QHR 600978], Southport Town Hall [QHR 601649], and shire offices at Gatton, Murweh, Boonah, Dalby [QHR 601018], and Monto.
\nThe Council Offices were designed to include the council chambers, a general office, a spare office and offices for the Town Clerk, the Health Officer and the Engineer. The hall included ladies and gentlemen's cloak rooms, a ticket office, the hall and stage, dressing rooms and a supper verandah with kitchen. Separate public toilets with a septic system were constructed at the rear of the hall.[9]
\nThe council offices were complete by May 1935 and the hall completed in July. The building, which was named the Gayndah and District Soldiers Memorial Hall and Council Chambers, was officially opened on the 19 July 1935 by the Hon E Hanlon, in commemoration of the employment relief loan the Gayndah Town Council had received from the State Government in order to construct the building. Problems associated with the availability of materials and the quality of the day labour sent to work on the project are recorded in the Council minutes.[10]
\nThe project, which cost £7012 received an additional £500 subsidy and £500 loan from the State Government and excluded the furnishings and fitting out of the toilets. The building, described as ‘a nice example of modern architecture’ in the 12 October 1934 edition of the Building Journal, added a new style of architecture to the town.
\nThe Town Hall Pictures and supper rooms opened on 7 August 1935 and were operated by lessees continually until 1997 when the regular showing of films in the hall was discontinued.[11]
\nThursday nights were reserved for functions other than films and various committees held balls and concerts in the hall. The balls were well attended until the mid-1960s and with three different picture programs a week, the Town Hall offered a wide cross section of the community an opportunity for entertainment.
\nA memorial plaque was installed on the front of the building on Armistice Day in 1938 as a tribute to the district’s fallen soldiers.[12]
\nIn 1974 alterations were made to enlarge the supper room and upgrade the kitchen with funds provided by the Regional Employment Development (RED) scheme. An office and a kitchenette were added to the rear of the council offices at this time. The original lighting was removed in the 1980s but was subsequently reinstated when new lighting was installed. Other changes include the removal of the gates to the vestibules (these are stored on the site) and the construction of a brick toilet block on the corner of Capper and Pineapple Streets in 1970.[13]
\nIn 2017, the Gayndah Shire Hall continues to be used for its intended municipal purpose as the seat for the North Burnett Regional Council. Occasionally, the hall theatre is still used for movie screenings. The hall and the Gayndah War Memorial [QHR 600517], also located on Capper Street, play a focal role in Gayndah’s Anzac Day Services.[14]
","criteria":"The Gayndah Shire Hall (1935), is important in demonstrating the pattern of constructing civic buildings by local governments during the 1930s assisted by funding from unemployment relief projects.
\nOpened in 1935, the hall and council chambers are a tangible expression of a sustained period of prosperity in Gayndah, resulting from the continuing growth of the horticultural – particularly citrus fruit growing - agricultural and dairying industries in the Shire in the 1920s and 1930s.
|The Gayndah Shire Hall (1935), is an important example of an interwar regional civic building. It was designed by the prominent Brisbane architectural partnership Hall and Phillips and combines council offices and chambers, and a large public hall and theatre with stage, supper room, and dressing rooms. The building, prominently positioned on the main thoroughfare of the township, remains substantially intact and is still in use for its original purpose as the seat of the local government.
|The Gayndah Shire Hall has aesthetic significance as a well composed building designed to reflect the progressive nature of the Town Council and makes an important contribution to the streetscape of Gayndah’s main thoroughfare, Capper Street.
|The Gayndah Shire Hall has a strong and special association with the Gayndah community and has been the focus of social, municipal and commemorative activities since 1935.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16862,"place_ref":602126,"name":"Yeppoon War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Normanby Street","suburb":"YEPPOON","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The Yeppoon War Memorial is situated over three streets and a park in Yeppoon, all located in the central section of the town. The beach foreshore and esplanade, Anzac Parade has a row of mature hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) evenly spaced by approximately two metres. This row extends around the corner into Normanby Street, with four mature hoop pines centre planted into a specially created tree reserve. The avenue continues in Normanby Street between Mary Street and Arthur Street planted in the roadside reserve. A row of Coconut Palm Trees is centre planted in James Street under which small concrete cairns are located. Each cairn carries two brass plaques commemorating an individual serviceman. Two original plaques remain in situ, on a short timber pickets.
The monumental style War memorial is located in Beaman Park. A simple white concrete obelisk is located in the centre of a double stepped base that has polished concrete horizontal surfaces and white vertical surfaces. The obelisk has marble tablets inset into each face of the obelisk, representing the four conflicts in which Yeppoon residents enlisted. The obelisk culminates in a pyramidal apex.
","history":"The Yeppoon War Memorial comprises a series of avenues of trees, located over Anzac Parade, James and Normanby Streets planted in 1921 and 1984, to commemorate the servicemen lost from the local community. The memorial Obelisk, erected in 1952, is located in Beaman Park at the intersection of Normanby and Hill Streets, commemorates all servicemen and women from the Yeppoon district. Together they create an integrated precinct of remembrance for the international conflicts in which Australia participated.
Up until the early twentieth century, there were few statues or monuments in Queensland. However, as a result of the First World War (1914-1918), memorials were erected in almost every Queensland town. Such public expression of both grief for the dead and pride in the nation has not been generated by previous or subsequent wars. Memorials erected following subsequent wars were often adjuncts to the original commemorative symbols.
The First World War had an enormous impact on the Australian population. Of those who went to war, almost one in five did not return. It was common for families to lose more than one son and for small communities to lose a whole generation of men.
In 1916, the British Government prohibited the exhumation and return of bodies. This, coupled with the impracticality of visiting distant graves ensured war memorials became an expression of public mourning, revered as cenotaphs (literally meaning empty tomb) by those who erected them. Placed in prominent locations, such as planting of memorial trees in Yeppoon's main thoroughfares, they became symbols of remembrance and were considered to be as sacred as gravesites.
Materials, design principles and symbols suggesting permanence, reverence and commemoration were important elements. In Yeppoon, trees symbolising continuing life were planted in 1921, at The Esplanade, James and Normanby Streets, as the original public commemoration. Native Australian Hoop Pines were selected as the preferred tree, suited to the harsh seaside conditions and longevity of up to 700 years making them an ideal choice for a continuing memorial. At this time The Esplanade was renamed Anzac Parade. While the trees in Anzac Parade flourished, those in James Street declined after the 1940s. Most of the memorial plaques for individual lost soldiers located under trees in James Street had disappeared. In 1984, Yeppoon Returned Services League and Livingstone Shire Council cooperated to replace the trees and plaques and to extend the memorial to those who died in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. Palm Trees were planted in James Street and plaques moulded in brass in the pattern of the originals and set in small concrete cairns honour 29 Yeppoon residents.
The Ulam marble Yeppoon Honour Board, financed by public subscription and listing 68 townsmen enlisted in World War One, was originally housed in a glass-fronted case in the Yeppoon railway station. This marble tablet was incorporated into the 1952 obelisk placed in Beaman Park as the Yeppoon War Memorial. A marble plaque reading 'Lest we forget' inserted above the original inscriptions, was a gift from local businessman, B.C. Kent. Plaques commemorating the enlisted for World War 2, Korea and Vietnam have also been added to the obelisk.
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. They manifest a unique documentary record and are demonstrative of popular taste in the post war periods.
|Avenues of trees were uncommon in Queensland, a form of memorial favoured by the southern states and in particular rural Victoria.
|The memorial at Yeppoon demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative form erected as an enduring record of this community's contribution to events of national significance. In Yeppoon, this is achieved through a combination of avenues of trees, the renaming of Anzac Parade, plaques to individuals sacrificed in war and a symbolic monument dedicated to all who enlisted in the Australian armed forces.
|The Yeppoon War Memorials are an important aesthetic element in the townscape.
|The range and extent of memorial selected by this small community demonstrates the enormous impact that war had and the importance of the commemorative process.
The mature hoop pines on Anzac Parade and Normanby Streets have landmark qualities for the township of Yeppoon.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16866,"place_ref":602130,"name":"St Josephs Church","alternate_name":"St Joseph's Catholic Church","street_address":"Fryer Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-11-26","description":"St Joseph's Church, a reinforced concrete structure with a corrugated iron gable roof to the nave and lower skillion roofs to the side aisles, is located on a level site fronting Fryer Street to the southeast. The church consists of the original central section which has had arcades added to both sides with vestries at the rear.
\nThe southeast elevation is a symmetrical composition with a central pointed arch entrance with timber doors flanked by lancet shaped niches. The central entrance is surmounted by a large plate tracery window which comprises five lancets surmounted by two quatrefoils and a central foil with eight sections, and framed by an expressed moulding. A crucifix window is located above this window, and a small crucifix surmounts the gable parapet. The central section of this elevation is flanked by paired buttresses which separate the lower side aisles. The side aisles each have a pointed arch entrance with timber doors surmounted by a crucifix window. The side aisles are framed by paired buttresses (originally a single buttress, with the second buttress added as part of the side arcade). The church is accessed via concrete steps fronting Fryer Street. A marble foundation stone is located adjacent to the main entrance.
\nBoth side elevations are similar, and each consists of a pointed arch arcade with parapet concealing a skillion roof to the side aisle. The pointed arches are separated by pilasters which extend above the parapet giving a castellated effect. Each arcade has a concrete floor, and a vestry is located at the rear. The windows to the side aisles are separated by buttresses, and consist of triple leadlight lancets with lower casements sections set in a pointed arch composition. Paired timber doors housed in a pointed arch open from the side aisle to the arcade. Each vestry projects from the arcade, and the side wall has six narrow pointed lancet windows, and a pointed arch timber door opens to the rear. The clerestory to the nave has paired leadlight lancets set in a pointed arch recess. The southwestern side has a concrete ramp with metal handrail accessing the arcade.
\nThe rear of the building has less decorative mouldings with buttresses separating two leadlight windows, each of which consists of tall paired lancets either side of the central altar. A circular leadlight window with central quatrefoil is located at the top of the gable. The location of original doors is evidenced by pointed arch recesses at the rear of the side aisles.
\nInternally, the building has a timber gallery above the entrance accessed by a corner timber stair with turned balusters. The side aisles are separated from the nave by concrete columns surmounted by pointed arches with expressed mouldings. The building has a concrete floor, and the nave has a scissor braced King-post roof with curved side braces and lined with diagonal boarding.
\nThe church has a highly decorative carved timber altar, set against the rear wall on a raised platform, comprising a tiered arrangement of pointed arch niches housing statues and surmounted by a crucifix. The rear wall has timber panelling to the height of the column capital, and the northeastern side aisle has a carved timber altar and timber altar rail. A memorial plaque to Monsignor Bourke is located on the wall of the northeastern side aisle. Church furniture includes timber pews and decorative Stations of the Cross.
\nThe Fryer Street boundary is fenced with concrete pillars with pointed arch recesses and metal palisade panels.
","history":"St Joseph's Church was designed by Townsville architectural firm CD Lynch and Walter Hunt, and was constructed by Townsville building firm Rooney Ltd in 1920-21.
\nThe new settlement of Cleveland Bay, established in 1864 at the mouth of Ross Creek, was part of the Catholic Diocese of Brisbane. The first priest in the northern section of the new diocese was Fr William McGinty who established a parish centred on Bowen. Fr McGinty first visited Townsville (Cleveland Bay) in 1866 where he performed baptisms on 16 February and said Mass on the following Sunday in the Court and Customs House on Melton Hill.
\nIt was not until 1872 that the parish of Townsville was established with Fr Connolly as parish priest. The first church in the new parish, St Joseph's, was opened by Fr Connolly in 1872. The new timber building was located on The Strand close to the site of the present church. This church, which was the first constructed in the town, was destroyed by flood waters which swept the building out to sea during torrential rain in 1892.
\nIn 1878, because of the vastness of the Queensland Vicariate, Bishop Quinn, Bishop of Queensland, proposed that three new dioceses be established with one centred on Townsville. However, in 1882 only one new Queensland diocese was established, with Rockhampton as its centre. Townsville waited a further fifty-two years before a diocese was established in the north.
\nDespite the disappointment, Catholics in Townsville continued planning for the establishment of a Townsville Diocese. A great deal of work was done to establish Catholic institutions, religious orders and new parishes in the north Queensland portion of the Rockhampton Diocese. Part of this expansion included the construction of new schools and churches, including the Sacred Heart Church [600939], which was to be the cathedral church of the new diocese.
\nBecause of the focus on the expansion of the Catholic Church across north Queensland during the later part of the nineteenth century, planning for a new St Joseph's Church did not begin until 1918. The new building was designed by Townsville architectural firm CD Lynch and Walter Hunt. The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Shiel of Rockhampton in January 1919. The building was constructed by Joseph Rooney of the well known north Queensland building firm of Rooneys Ltd and opened in July 1921.
\nThe new church, which faced Fryer Street, was located close to the site of the original church which had faced the Strand. The altar, which was designed by parish priest Monsignor Bourke, was crafted by Joseph Rooney in memory of Matthew Rooney and his wife and daughter, who lost their lives when the ship Yongala sank off Cape Cleveland in 1911.
\nSince the construction of the first church on the site in 1872, St Joseph's Church and parish has been a focus for Catholic community worship and activity. Key church organisations have been located close by, including the parish presbytery, a Catholic orphanage, St Joseph's Primary School (established in 1875), St Patrick's Convent and St Patrick's Secondary Day/Boarding School (established in 1905).
\nSmall extensions, which were added to the church in the 1950s, increased the size of the rooms on either side of the altar. Some changes were made to the interior layout in the 1980s. The creation of a raised platform with a modern altar was in keeping with the changes recommended by Vatican II. These changes saw the removal of some pews and most of the statues, however the Rooney Commemorative Altar was not removed.
","criteria":"St Joseph's Church, erected in 1920-21 with additions carried out in the 1950s, is important in demonstrating the establishment and growth of the Catholic Church in North Queensland.
|St Joseph's Church exhibits the principle characteristics of a Roman basilica, is of aesthetic significance and makes an important contribution to the Fryer Street streetscape.
|The church has a particularly fine interior, including a finely crafted altar, scissor truss roof, choir gallery and leadlight windows. The Church, constructed of reinforced concrete, is an early example of the adoption of this building material for the cyclone enforced renewal of churches in North Queensland.
|St Joseph's Church is significant for its special association with the Townsville parish, the first Catholic parish established in North Queensland after settlement. St Joseph's Church is the second church erected at the site and is significant for its strong and special association as a centre of Catholic worship and community life since the 1920s.
\nThe altar has a special association with Joseph Rooney. The altar, which was designed by parish priest Monsignor Bourke, was crafted by Joseph Rooney in memory of Matthew Rooney and his wife and daughter, who lost their lives when the ship Yongala sank off Cape Cleveland in 1911.
|The church is an important example of the work of Townsville architectural firm of CD Lynch and Walter Hunt, and north Queensland building firm Rooney Ltd.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16869,"place_ref":602133,"name":"Cape Pallarenda Quarantine Station (former)","alternate_name":"Cape Pallarenda Coastal Battery | Northern Regional Office, Environmental Protection Agency | Northern Regional Office, Department of Environment and Resource Management","street_address":"1 The Esplanade","suburb":"PALLARENDA","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"The former quarantine station is located at Cape Pallarenda on a rise behind coastal sand dunes. Mount Marlow rises from a small flood plain at the rear of the complex.
There are sixteen timber buildings within the heritage register boundary, some of which were constructed at West Point and later moved and re-assembled at Cape Pallarenda. The buildings are set within a green rainforest setting which contributes to the tropical ambience of the site. The buildings are timber framed and clad with vertical chamfered timber boards. The buildings are supported on concrete stumps.
The buildings that form part of the quarantine station include a central group namely the Marine Parks/Coastal Management (former Administration/Doctors Building); Conference Room/Planning Section (former First Class Quarters); Reception/Library/Records/RDs office (former Second Class Quarters); QNPWS/Conservation Strategy/Resources (former Dining Room); Graphics Lab (former Kitchen); Wetlands/GIS Mapping (former Married Quarters); and Administration/Accounts (former Engine Drivers Accommodation). To the south of this group is the Cultural Heritage/Engineering (former Manager's Residence). To the northern of the central group are the Habitat Hut (former Storage Shed); Workshop (former Laundry); Museum (former Disinfectant Block); and Storage Shed (former Shower Block).
The roofs of the buildings are generally half hipped with ventilation panels in the small gable ends formed by the half hip. The roofs are clad with a mixture of corrugated iron sheeting and aluminium decking. The roofs in many cases extend over generous verandahs and are supported on stop chamfered columns. Between the timber columns are simple timber battened balustrades. The stairs which provide access to the buildings are generally open tread timber stairs with simple timber rail balustrade.
The buildings feature double French doors opening onto the verandah spaces with operable transom windows above. Lining the original faces of the buildings are vertical sash timber framed windows. The former Manager's Residence features remnant interiors which are earlier than the other buildings of the complex.
The former First Class Quarters and Second Class Quarters were originally two halves of the nineteenth century West Point Hospital Building, a large timber building with surrounding verandahs built on the pavilion planning principles. The former Married Quarters was originally the Hospital Kitchen, also moved from West Point. Another building from the West Point Quarantine Station site is the former Dining Room which was built as the single women's quarters. The central original dining room has been divided into several offices internally.
The former administration block dates from 1915, and has a long east west axis comprising a core of offices arranged around a central hall with verandahs surrounding the building, measuring 2.7 metres in width. The building is elevated on concrete stumps and has a low half hipped roof.
A number of associated structures are found throughout the site defined by the heritage register boundary. These include World War II fortifications and various water structures.
The World War II fortifications are located on the lower slopes of Mount Marlow, to the north west of the former quarantine station buildings at Pallarenda. The facilities are built on the rocky slopes with the command post on the highest point. There are five structures still surviving as well as concrete slabs in the accommodation area, drainage systems along the paths and a substantial piece of curbing and guttering along the track to the gun emplacements. Other visible evidence includes a large hole in rock with a remnant camouflage frame over it, a levelled area below the command post which is surrounded by a stone pitched wall and steps.
The command post is a concrete building which comprises two rooms, one above the other, with observation slits cut at head hight round three sides of the structure. Access to the building is from the northern side into the lower room and from the rear into the higher room. The gun emplacements are also built of concrete. The guns were protected by a cantilevered extension, with a shell store and cartridge store of reinforced concrete at the rear. Searchlight facilities are of similar construction without the rear store rooms. The road drainage system and curbing and guttering are of rock lined channels held in place with concrete. The level area below the command post is surrounded by a stone-pitched wall with concrete and stone steps. There is some evidence that the buildings were covered in camouflage paint. Some sections of the buildings have been painted in recent years in an attempt to cover graffiti.
On the bank of a creek which runs beside the quarantine station is a concrete weir which was apparently built to supply water. The remnants of a stone jetty is sited near where this creek flows to the sea. An early timber footbridge provides carriage across the creek.
","history":"The former Quarantine Station at Cape Pallarenda was established between 1915-1916, using building materials previously used in the construction of an earlier quarantine station constructed in 1884-1885 at West Point, Magnetic Island.
The concept of isolating those parts of the community suffering from disease dates to 14th century Italy, when Venice, trying to protect the city from ship-born disease, established a segregated area away from the centre of population. These isolation areas became known as quarantine stations, from the Latin words for forty days after which time patients, if they were not dead were considered clear of disease.
Quarantine in the northern part of Australia began when the Moreton Bay District of New South Wales (later part of Queensland), established a quarantine station at Dunwich on Stradbroke Island in July 1849 after deaths were recorded on a ship arriving at Moreton Bay in January 1849. The introduction of disease into Northern Australia became an issue as the population of Australia increased after the discovery of gold in 1851, and in Queensland after the opening of a gold field at Crocodile Creek in Central Queensland in 1866. In 1867 the population expanded as a result of a rush of 15,000 diggers to new gold fields at Gympie, Central Queensland and Cape River, North Queensland.
This growth of population and the development of Australia as a sea trading nation made it obvious that there was a need to control the introduction and spread of infectious diseases. The first Queensland Health Act was drafted in 1884; the other Australian colonies had drawn up laws by the late 1890s. In general, legislation established Central Boards of Health to enforce notification of infectious diseases and to provide guidelines for quarantining suspected cases.
Townsville, the first or second port of call for shipping on the Asia/Pacific route, was identified as a place where suspected cases of ship-born disease could be detained. In 1875 Magnetic Island, just off Townsville, was set aside as a place of quarantine. Tents were set up at Picnic Bay, with passengers cared for by the Butler family, who had recently established pineapple plantations on the Island. The Butlers later built primitive huts at either end of the beach for male and female emigrants. A number of people died at Picnic Bay and are buried at the eastern end of the Bay.
In 1884 a permanent quarantine station was established at West Point, Magnetic Island, in response to the provisions of the Queensland Health Act and as a result of community concern about the standard of accommodation for people quarantined on the island. Colonial Architect John James Clarke prepared drawings for five buildings in 1883. Tenders were called on 9 October 1884 and the West Point site was gazetted as an area for quarantine in March 1885.
Townsville builders, Lesser and Soarre, won the contract and work commenced in November 1884. By mid-1885 the hospital, single women's quarters, married quarters, single men's quarters, and a store had been constructed at a cost of £3,765. In early 1886 Townsville firm Cavell & Holt won the tender to construct a caretaker's cottage at a cost of £305. Between December 1885 and 1887 a jetty, Surgeon's Quarters, wash houses, and fencing were constructed by C & A Sparre at a cost of £11,005. In 1887, EJ Cavell built a luggage shed at a cost of £116.
By 1909, when responsibility for the Quarantine Service had passed to the Commonwealth, the Port of Townsville had developed into the second busiest port in Queensland with special ferry facilities needed to transport quarantine cases to West Point.
The West Point location had not proved to be an ideal one for a quarantine station. Lack of water, distance from the port, and distance from medical authorities caused difficulties. An increased interest in the study of tropical diseases after the establishment by the Commonwealth Health Department of the Tropical Institute Research Project in the General Hospital grounds in 1911, also led to a re-evaluation of the location of the quarantine station.
A site was set aside at Cape Marlow (later Cape Pallarenda), for a mainland quarantine station in 1910, but it was not until 1914, with the threat of increased disease after the outbreak of World War 1, that planning began in earnest to move the West Point buildings to the mainland.
Tenders, which were called in July 1914, were rejected as too high. Reviewing the proposal, the Director General of Works under the direction of the Minister for Home Affairs, decided the project should be carried out as an Employment Enhancement Scheme. The cost of the project, built by day labour, was set at £12,400 and reassessed in 1917 at £15,538.
The Cape Pallarenda site was cleared and a road cut across the town common to German Gardens (now known as Belgian Gardens). The Director of Quarantine approved the transfer of "buildings from Magnetic Island to the Cape Pallarenda site, some new buildings to be erected", in April 1913.
Removal took 7 months from November 1915 to June 1916. The large buildings were unroofed, dismantled into wall and ceiling panels and the floors separated into scantlings. The materials were loaded onto a barge for transfer to the jetty at Cape Pallarenda. The buildings were re-erected according to drawings supplied by the Government architect for the Department of Home Affairs.
On the new site the buildings received new roofs, had verandah handrails added, and the window details were changed. New buildings were constructed for the Administration Block (present Marine Parks Building), the Bath Block, The Asiatic Shelter Shed, the Laundry (Wet Tropics Volunteers Building), Incinerator Shed, and Disinfecting Block ( present Museum Building). The layout of the complex was detailed in a site drawing by CMU Todd, Works Director for Queensland, in 1916.
Living facilities at the quarantine station were divided by the same class system that existed in ships. There were separate dining and living facilities for first and second class passengers and a segregated area near the fumigation shed for Asiatic seamen and passengers. The Asiatic area was a covered concrete slab where hammocks were suspended under a canopy.
The complex was linked by a series of footpaths and a service road system. A well was sunk in the sand dunes above high water mark and a series of water mains were connected throughout. The beach front well was never entirely satisfactory and a small earthen weir was constructed in the creek behind the jetty. This weir never held water and in 1925 a second, small concrete dam was constructed on the slope of Many Peaks Range at the rear of the Station. This weir was constructed by A Jensen and cost £1284.
The quarantine station continued to accept quarantined passengers from ships travelling the Asian shipping routes well into the twentieth century. There was a good deal of activity, particularly during the flu epidemic of 1919 and the bubonic plague pandemic of the early part of the twentieth century. In August 1920, 13 Vietnamese sailors died of meningitis and were buried behind the hospital.
By 1942 Townsville had become the supply base for the war in the South-west Pacific. Australian Area Combined Headquarters for the North-east Area was established in Townsville as well as the United States Army Base Section Two, the Fourth Air Depot of the United States Army/Airforce, a naval replenishment port and a major transhipment centre for troops and supplies. Townsville was heavily defended with radar, searchlights and anti-aircraft installations. Fixed coastal defence installations were constructed on Mount Marlow at Pallarenda and on Magnetic Island.
The facility at Pallarenda was designed to protect the northern entrance to Townsville Harbour and to protect the shipping passage between the mainland and Magnetic Island. The construction at Pallarenda included two gun emplacements, two searchlight installations, a command post and a sizeable camp. The complex was probably constructed by the Main Roads Department under direction from the Allied Works Council, which was the principal construction authority in Queensland for wartime installations such as roads, airstrips and coastal defence fortifications.
The Station continued to function throughout World War II and up until the Malayan War when, between 1966 and 1974, the Hospital and Observance Block were taken over by the 9th Field Ambulance Corp Field Hospital.
A new hospital building was constructed in 1973, mainly to treat contagious patients returning from the Vietnam War. The Hospital and Observation Block, built of material from the West Point site, were damaged during Cyclone Althea in December 1971 and demolished to make way for the new building. Although completed, the hospital was never used as a medical facility because of the construction of a contagious diseases hospital in Melbourne which accepted cases from all over Australia.
The construction of the Melbourne Contagious Disease Hospital marked the end of the Pallarenda facility as a place of quarantine. Planning to locate the recently established Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) into the complex began early in 1974. By November 1974 AIMS personnel had moved into six transportable laboratories and the former Quarantine Station buildings. AIMS remained until 1977 when the organisation moved to a permanent location at Cape Ferguson, south of Townsville.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GRBRMPA) was located in the present Marine Parks building for a short time, soon after it was established in 1975. However, after AIMS and GRBRMPA moved out, the complex remained empty until 1 February 1986 when the area was gazetted as an Environmental Park.
The grounds of the former quarantine station were planted with native vegetation and the former Administration building occupied by the Marine Parks Section of the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage. The rest of the buildings were restored in 1991-1992 and occupied by the Northern Regional Office of the then Environmental Protection Agency.
","criteria":"The site demonstrates government and community attempts to eradicate and treat tropical disease and effect racial segregation at the turn of the century.
The complex has historic links with seaborn immigration and early settlement of Townsville and North Queensland and with the development of Townsville as a port. These links extend to the various wars with which Australia has been involved and to the foundation of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and to the establishment of the Department of Environment and Heritage.
|The former Cape Pallarenda Quarantine Station was constructed in 1915/16, under an Employment Enhancement Scheme and is one of few surviving early quarantine stations in Australia and the only, substantially intact example in North Queensland.
|The site comprises a coherent group of early 20th century timber buildings constructed for the Federal government and includes building elements from the 19th century quarantine station at West Point, Magnetic Island.
|These links extend to the various wars with which Australia has been involved and to the foundation of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and to the establishment of the Department of Environment and Heritage.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16870,"place_ref":602134,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former), South Brisbane Branch","alternate_name":"Ng House","street_address":"39 Melbourne Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-05-26","description":"The former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch is a two storey rendered brick building with a corrugated iron roof partly concealed by a decorative, moulded parapet with a dentilled cornice.
The building turns the corner between Melbourne and Grey Streets in three stages. Every change in angle occurs between a pair of pilasters. The eastern façade, along Grey Street, is divided into five bays by paired giant order pilasters. A paired, copper door is located along Grey Street topped by a classical entablature with a row of dentils. A similar entablature can be seen over a second entry at the right hand bay of the Grey Street frontage. The southern façade, along Melbourne Street is divided into two bays by pilasters. Double hung sash windows are located on both the ground and first floors. Recessed, square copper panels are placed between the upper and lower windows.
Internally, the building has undergone refurbishments on both the ground and first floors. The entrance foyer has a decorative plaster ceiling and cornices. A archway with recent decorative timber work opens to a hallway from which offices open on each side. Original timber doors, with breezeway assembly, remain in offices along the eastern wall. The original strong room is located in the northwestern corner of the ground floor.
A staircase, with a copper handrail, leads to the first floor landing which has an original cast iron railing. A downpipe has been retained in the southwestern wall on the first floor. The first floor offices are currently unoccupied.
","history":"The building was originally constructed as the South Brisbane branch of the Queensland National Bank. Constructed by local builders, A Stonadge and Son, to a design by Addison and McDonald, the new premises at 39 Melbourne Street was opened for business on 31 July 1929.
The land on which the building was to be constructed was one of thirty allotments sold in the Brisbane land boom of 1854. The Deed of Grant for the land was acquired on 11 May 1854 by William John Loudon. As it was situated within the town limits drawn up in 1846, the allotment was affected by each of the major urban developments on the South Brisbane peninsula such as the development of the public transport systems, the declaration of the first-class urban areas and the widening of the major arterial roads [Melbourne and Grey Streets]. It was also one of the many areas inundated by the floods of the 1890s. Subdivision of the original blocks was underway by 1870 and allotment 1 section 15, of which this site is a part, was acquired by Patrick Maunsell on 3 March 1871. It was sold by Maunsell's widow in 1897 and passed through several hands until the site was acquired by Janet Mearns Pike and Richard Pike in 1912.
The economic development of South Brisbane was reflected in the various properties which occupied the site prior to the construction of the bank in the late 1920s. These included boarding establishments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which served the needs of workers and visitors to the city until 1917. The more diversified nature of commerce in the area from that time is reflected in the tenancy of the Pikes Building which was constructed by 1917. The State Department of Works leased the site in 1917 and various state offices including the Chief Protector of Aboriginals and the Department of Water Supply were situated there. In 1925, the whole of the site was resumed by the South Brisbane City Council. It passed to the Brisbane Municipal Council and, in 1927, part of the land was dedicated for road purposes. Resubdivision of the land followed and sub 3 of allotment 1 of section 15 was sold to the Queensland National Bank in September 1927. The A & B Journal of Queensland in July 1927 describes the '...corner purchased by the Queensland National Bank as one of the gem positions of the whole business thoroughfare ...'
Brisbane City Council approved a new building for the Queensland National Bank Ltd, Queen Street, Brisbane in October 1928. Architects advertised for tenders and in the A & B Journal of Queensland, November 19, 1928, advertised that A Stonadge and Son's tender had been successful. The building cost just over £339. From 22 May 1928, the bank had occupied temporary premises in the adjacent Trocadero Building in Melbourne Street.
Situated on the corner of one of the three distinct shopping centres which developed in South Brisbane in the early twentieth century, Baynard's Corner Melbourne Street, the Queensland National Bank was ideally placed to capitalise on the industrial and commercial development on the South Brisbane Peninsula. The construction of the South Brisbane Branch of the Queensland National Bank may have reflected the determined drive by the Bank to increase its market share in Queensland and to acquire the custom of the importers and merchants of the cities.
The business potential of the Queensland National Bank many not have benefited to the same extent as that of its rival from the major developments in transport in the area, however, its drive to acquire the business of merchants and importers may well have been served by the up-grading of transport facilities in the area. These included the relocation of the in-bound lane of the tramway from Stanley Street to Grey Street in 1918. From that time, all in-bound trams from West End, Dutton Park, Ipswich Road, Coorparoo, Greenslopes and Balmoral stopped at the Bayards corner intersection where the bank was situated. When the Melbourne Street Railway Station became the terminus for both the interstate line through Kyogle as well as the southside commuter services, access to potential clients would have been increased considerably.
The South Brisbane branch was one of a number of suburban branches established in the 1920s. Its move into the area reflects the bank's optimism and confidence in the potential of the locale and its desire to capture a large slice of Queensland's financial markets - a confidence and desire which it apparently shared with its counterpart and rival, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia whose banking chambers adjoined. The building in both its aspect and architecture reflects both the optimism for the future and the competitive drive which several of the banks were exhibiting at this time.
In July 1949, title passed from the Queensland National Bank Ltd to the National Bank of Australasia, who held the property until 1978, when the branch was closed. Title to the land changed several times until the property was purchased by the current owners in 1983.
The former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch was identified as a Place of Contributory Significance in Brisbane City Council's 1993 Heritage Study of the South Brisbane, West End and Mater Hill areas. The Heritage Study was prepared as part of the South Brisbane Development Control Plan.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch is significant as it provides evidence of the contribution made by the building program of Queensland banks in the late 1920s, to the Queensland economy, reflecting the strength and solidity associated with the bank it represented.
|As a surviving remnant of the former scale of the South Brisbane area, which has been substantially altered due to development, the former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch is significant for its rarity.
|(Criterion under review)
|Aesthetically significant, the former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch, along with the adjacent former Commonwealth Bank building, contributes to the Grey Street streetscape. Situated on the corner of Melbourne and Grey Streets, the former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch is a prominent landmark in the South Brisbane area, reflected in its inclusion in the Brisbane City Council's Heritage Study of the South Brisbane, West End and Mater Hill areas.
|A purpose-built bank, constructed as the South Brisbane branch of the Queensland National Bank, the building is significant for its association with past and present clients of this major Queensland and Australian banking institution.
|The former Queensland National Bank, South Brisbane Branch significant for its association with Brisbane architectural firm Addison and McDonald who designed the building and with local building firm A Stondage and Son.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16872,"place_ref":602136,"name":"Fortitude Valley State School (former)","alternate_name":"former Fortitude Valley Boys School and former Fortitude Valley Girls and Infants School | State Emergency Services State Headquarters","street_address":"95 Brookes Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-03-26","description":"Two distinctive and substantial brick buildings on the south side of Brookes Street, Fortitude Valley, between the Fortitude Valley Police Station and the railway line were the core buildings of the former Fortitude Valley State School. Their decoration and construction details are reminiscent of the Gothic Revival style favoured for ecclesiastical and educational buildings of the time. Within this idiom, these buildings give expression to a more restrained Gothic, displaying a sense of mass solidity and simplicity. Both are lively compositions with decorative textured surfaces and discrete detailing.
Former Girls and Infants School (Benjamin Backhouse 1867):
This free-standing two-storey red face brick building sits on a rusticated tuff base. The exterior is now painted. Though asymmetrical, the school is designed to a basilica-like plan with the narthex and nave expressed externally by steeply pitched intersecting gable roofs. The main entrance is from a five-sided apse porch to the east. To the north, a timber single-storey room with gable roof and decorative paired brackets projects from the middle of the nave. The passage between this room and the main building is now enclosed. The verandah to the south is now enclosed and a single storey brick extension has been constructed to the southeast corner off the apse porch and south verandah.
The building has battered, banded corners and two horizontal stringcourses to the upper level. The north and south gable fronts have three lancet windows to the upper level each with a plain head-mould. Beneath the eaves, both gable fronts are decorated with crow gable corbelling and three blank bullseye windows. A vertical rectangular louvred vent to the east gable sits above the apse porch. The eaves are supported by plain corbelled brackets and the underside is lined with tongue and groove boards. The words "primary school" are spelt out in projecting brick on the north side of the nave at the upper floor level. Curved sunhoods with bold brackets and lattice spandrel screens shelter the windows of the ground floor to the west and southwest.
The entry and circulation apse opens into a large school room from which two smaller teaching rooms open to the west. The ground and first floor plans are identical. These rooms are now partitioned into office workspaces and meeting rooms. The interiors are plain with stop-chamfering to doors and window frames. The apse stair has stop-chamfered newell posts with ball and half-ball tops and plain rectangular timber post balustrading. Much of the joinery survives. The ceiling to roof of the large school room at the upper level is presently covered by a suspended ceiling of acoustic tiles but a preliminary investigation reveals that the roof is supported by four collar-braced king-post trusses within a lofty timber lined roof space. The arched pendant posts with decorative corbels survive and are visible beneath the suspended ceiling. A dog leg stair with half landing has been inserted from the south-west teaching room to the teaching room directly above. In the large school rooms, high set windows to the south and larger lower windows to the north accommodated galleried classes. High set windows to the south and west of the small teaching rooms also accommodated galleried classes. The south verandah is enclosed with weatherboards and louvres and partitioned into toilets. A timber louvre to the former southwest lavatory on the south verandah survives. There are hat/coat hooks along the masonry wall to the verandah. The pavilion extension to the south of the apse is entered from the south verandah. A light and airy room, with a mansard profile sheeted and battened ceiling, it is lit by a bank of south facing windows.
Former Boys School (Richard Suter 1874):
This axially-planned, symmetrical one-storey brick building is east of the former Girls and Infants School and also conforms to a basilica-like plan. Separate, steeply pitched gabled roofs express the narthex and nave and the main entrance is from a five-sided apse porch to the north. The building sits on stone foundations and the verandahs to the east and west rest on low brick piers. The verandahs have been enclosed. The beehive-like corbelling to the eaves of the nave and north gable front is more elaborate than the corbelling on the Girls and Infants School.
The apse entry, with a narrow tongue and groove board lined ceiling, opens into the high ceilinged large school room from which two small teaching rooms open to the south. The large school room has been subdivided into two spaces by a vertical tongue and groove lined post and rail framed partition. Both partitioned spaces have a tongue and groove lined ceiling with a plain cornice. There are timber floors throughout. Cambered arched window openings are a feature throughout the building and double arched doors open from the large school room to both verandahs. Windows to the south portion of the large school room are sheeted over and could not be inspected. Windows to the west wall of the north portion have been clumsily replaced but a window to the north east survives. The two small teaching rooms are lit from the south by a bank of casement windows and each opens to its adjacent verandah. The flat sheeted and battened ceiling across these rooms falls with the gable roof slope near the edges of the rooms. Throughout the building door mouldings, window frames, verandah posts and verandah rails are stop-chamfered. Many verandah posts survive within the enclosing boarding, some with capitals intact. There is evidence that there were handrails and balustrading to the verandahs.
Grounds:
The former Opportunity School, a number of sheds, masts and a lookout are scattered to the south of the site.
Bitumen paths have been laid throughout the site. A bitumen carpark and a gravel parking lot lie to the north of the site. There is haphazard planting to the Brookes Street boundary and close to the buildings.
These incidental buildings and plantings are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Two substantial brick buildings form the former Fortitude Valley State School in Brookes Street Fortitude Valley. The two-storeyed brick building designed by Benjamin Backhouse in 1867 was the former Girls and Infants School. The adjacent single-storey designed by Richard Suter in 1874 was the former Boys School.
Fortitude Valley was settled throughout the 1850s, with a boost to immigrants with the arrival of John Dunmore Lang's free settlers on the ship Fortitude. Denied promised land grants this group moved from York's Hollow, near Wickham Terrace, to what became known as Fortitude Valley. A government census in 1861 showed that there was a total population of over 1300 people in the district by that year.
The Fortitude Valley School opened in rented premises in 1861 in Ann Street near Brunswick Street with an average attendance of 140 boys. A girls school joined the boys in 1864. As attendance continued to rise in this flourishing village, the need for a more permanent educational facility ensued. The site in Brookes Street was selected and the students took up residence in the 1867 two-storeyed building designed by Benjamin Backhouse. As enrolments continued to grow the need to provide additional facilities saw a second building designed by Richard Suter constructed in 1874. The Girls and Infants school were located in the original building and the Boys occupied the new building. The schools were considered separate entities.
Both Backhouse and Suter's designs were modelled on the Lancastrian system. This system combined galleried schoolrooms and smaller classrooms for use in conjunction with monitors and pupil teachers. Monitors and pupil teachers used the classrooms for drill learning with small groups while the teacher conducted the main class in the schoolroom. The arrangement of the rooms allowed the school to cope with very large numbers of children in ratio to small numbers of teachers. The 1867 Fortitude Valley School was designed to accommodate 300 children.
Benjamin Backhouse was born in Ipswich, England and migrated to Queensland in 1861 after a sojourn to the Victorian goldfields between 1852 and 1860. During his eight years in Brisbane he was to erect more than 100 buildings, drawing from a wide range of public, commercial and private clients. He was architect to the Board of General Education between 1863 and 1868. He designed brick schools for Warwick, 1864 [600947], Maryborough, 1866, and Bowen, 1866 supervised the construction of South Brisbane, 1864 and extended the Normal School. He also designed a number of timber schools in the southern part of the Colony before moving south to Sydney in 1869.
Richard George Suter was born in London and migrated in 1853. By 1865 Suter was working with Backhouse whilst establishing his own practice. After Backhouse left Queensland in 1868, Suter was offered independent commissions from the Queensland Board of Education. Suter was to develop the use of exposed external studding on timber buildings which was particularly popular in school building constrained by cost and availability of materials.
","criteria":"Two distinctive and substantial brick buildings on the south side of Brookes Street, Fortitude Valley, between the Fortitude Valley Police Station and the railway line were the core buildings of the Fortitude Valley State School. The two buildings are early examples of Queensland public school buildings, demonstrating the evolution of settlement in Brisbane.
The 1913 extension to the former Girls' and Infants' School and the dividing partition of the former Boys School are important for demonstrating architectural responses to changes in educational theory. Other alterations indicate architectural responses to the evolution of the operational activities of the Fortitude Valley State School.
|They are rare examples of the Gothic Revival style favoured for ecclesiastical and educational buildings in the nineteenth century. The two buildings are important for their intact interiors including; roof trusses, timber lined ceilings, joinery, and apse stair. The design allowed for large schoolrooms combined with small classrooms that accommodated galleried seating, features essential to the nineteenth century Lancastrian teaching system. They are rare surviving Queensland examples of schools designed to accommodate this system of education.
|The two buildings contribute to the Brookes Street streetscape aesthetic, which includes the Holy Trinity Church and Rectory, the Fortitude Valley Police Station and the 1948 Fortitude Valley State School.
|The 1867 two-storeyed former Girls' and Infants' School designed by important Queensland architect Benjamin Backhouse, and the 1874 single-storeyed former Boys' School designed by another important Queensland architect Richard George Suter are outstanding examples of their educational work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16873,"place_ref":602137,"name":"Herries Private Hospital","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"180 McLeod","suburb":"CAIRNS NORTH","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"Herries' Private Hospital is situated at 180 McLeod Street and is surrounded by holiday apartments. Opposite is the McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery. Herries' Hospital is a two-storey timber building, polygonal in shape, basically a rectangle with the south-west corner truncated to form another (much shorter) side. It has a hipped corrugated iron roof. At the rear of the building there is a skillion roof extending out over the lower floor from the back wall, it covers the kitchen/bathroom area. The building sits on very low stumps.
The wide front verandahs are enclosed. The front verandah section and core are weatherboard with exposed stud framing - the studs are exposed on the inner wall for the verandahs and the outer wall of the core. The sides of the house beyond the verandahs and the rear are walled by corrugated iron.
The front and sides have regularly spaced casement windows divided by mullions into a large central pane of light blue glass with two smaller panes of plain glass below and above it. At the rear is a row of similar windows on the ground floor but the upper floor has three double-hung windows of mullioned plain glass.
The ground floor is entered by a front door on the truncated southwest corner. This is floored in timber, and is sloping in places. Ahead of the front door is a stairway to the top floor, which is very narrow and steep. Behind the stairway is the toilet and bathroom, at the southeast corner of the building. The downstairs area also contains the kitchen, the toilet and bathroom. The back door opens from the kitchen.
Upstairs, the floor is polished timber. The front verandah is open for the front part of the house, but has been closed in to make a room on the southeast corner. The rest of the floor has a central room with a room behind it to the east and another beside it to the north. The room at the back left-hand corner was the maternity room and the one the right hand corner was the operating theatre.
In the backyard are the remains of an outside toilet, a trellis, a post which may be from a washing line, and the remains of an air raid shelter that is currently used to store bricks. The only vegetation on the block is a large fig tree in the back yard.
The property is fenced by a variety of materials, but the front fence consists of concrete piers set in a low (half a metre) concrete wall joined by panels of galvanised iron pipes with galvanised wire mesh. There is a double gate at the northern end and a single gate at the southern end of the fence. The piers are topped by pyramidal caps painted a pale green, while the piers are cream. This appears to echo the paint scheme of the house, which is cream on the lower storey (though deteriorating) and has the faint remnants of a greenish paint on the upper floor, the weatherboards of which appear to have been scraped back.
","history":"Herries Private Hospital is situated at 180 McLeod Street, Cairns, opposite the Pioneer Cemetery. It is an enclosed wooden building moved to its present site from Cooktown in 1920. It was owned by Janet Abercombie Herries, a nurse and midwife, who ran it as a private hospital from 1921 to 1938.
Matron Herries was born Janet Abercombie Mackie in Glasgow, Scotland on 29 August 1869. She trained as a nurse but became ill and was advised, for her health's sake, to live in a warmer climate. She emigrated to Australia and worked as a nurse in North Queensland, marrying Robert Herries in 1902, in Mossman. They had four sons and, when the family moved to Cairns in 1916, Janet Herries took a lease on a two storey house in Bunda Street. In 1918, at the urging of many local doctors, she opened one of the first private hospitals in Cairns, at the Bunda Street house. The hospital cared for nine or ten patients at a time, both maternity and general. The hospital section was upstairs and the family lived on the ground floor.
The land at 180 McLeod Street, Cairns, was first purchased at auction on 20 September 1888 for 27 pounds. The vacant land was sold seven times after that, before being purchased by Mr Francis Albert Blucher, in 1918. In 1920 the building in question was transported from Cooktown and re-erected on the McLeod Street site. It is suggested that this building had originally been a fashion house known as "Miss Timony's Premises" and had been situated on the corner of Charlotte and Walker Streets in Cooktown. This is borne out by the truncated front of the building which gives the appearance of being a corner business premises.
When the lease on the Bunda Street premises expired in 1920 Matron Herries leased 180 McLeod Street from Mr Blucher. On 20 December 1921, the Cairns Town Council records the registration of a private hospital by Janet Abercrombie Herries. While Matron Herries was in residence, the Cairns Post advertised the property for sale as a "...two storey building ... 10 bedrooms ... The property is known as Nurse Herries Hospital and is occupied by Nurse Herries who is a first-class tenant and is willing to take a long lease." It was bought by Mrs Charlotte Mary Cato on 23 October 1923, who later sold it to Mrs Herries on 26 May 1924.
Herries' Private Hospital catered for nine to ten patients at a time and Matron Herries had women who travelled from Herberton, Mount Garnet and other areas of the Tablelands, coming to her for the birth of their children. It is said of her that she worked very hard and earned respect and affection from the Cairns community. Many of Cairns' older residents were born in Matron Herries hospital and these people have a strong feeling of attachment and history to the house.
The building had suffered damage during a cyclone while still in Cooktown, in 1907. During the 1927 cyclone in Cairns, it was more extensively damaged. A member of the family recalled the roof being blown to the cemetery opposite. After the cyclone, the upper verandah was enclosed with windows and alternate wooden louvres and the roof was lined.
When Matron Herries retired in 1939 the hospital was closed. Her husband, who had worked at the Hambledon, Gordonvale and Babinda mills, died in 1941. Matron Herries lived on in the house with her son Charles, a chemist, until her death on 25 October 1958.
In the 1986 cyclone (Winifred) the diagonal front section of the building fell outwards. A builder recommended that the open area on the ground floor and the upstairs louvres be enclosed.
Charles, Mrs Herries' last surviving son, lived in the building until his death in 1996.
","criteria":"Herries Private Hospital, as a known surviving example of one of the many buildings in North Queensland that were moved from declining mining fields and their associated ports to more prosperous towns, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. It was moved from Cooktown to Cairns, preserving in its polygonal shape its original function as a corner commercial building, with one corner truncated to maximise the street frontage.
Herries Private Hospital is strongly associated with the role of midwives and nurses in Queensland's history. Until recently, few babies were born in hospital. Most were delivered by midwives, either in the woman's own home or in that of the midwife. Every town of reasonable size had a number of these small private maternity homes or hospitals. Many also looked after medical cases not severe enough to be admitted to the main hospital.
|Herries Private Hospital demonstrates a rare feature of Queensland's cultural heritage by having a private air raid shelter, constructed during World War Two, extant in its backyard.
|Herries Private Hospital is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a private hospital prior to World War Two. Private maternity hospitals, owned and operated by midwives, were once common throughout Queensland. The building has remained in the family of the nursing sister who ran the hospital. Its current form also illustrates the common tendency since World War Two to enclose verandahs, providing more weather tight space., often in response to cyclone damage. It is otherwise little changed.
|Herries Private Hospital has a strong association for many of Cairns' older residents who were born in Matron Herries' hospital. She and the hospital are remembered with affection.
|They disappeared from Queensland after World War Two, but the nurses and midwives who ran them were once an indispensable group of people who looked after the births of most Queenslanders. Of the hospitals which have survived, few are still identified in the public mind as such. Herries' Hospital is still strongly associated with the midwives and nurses who were so important for the health and well being of Queensland's mothers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16874,"place_ref":602138,"name":"Evelyn Scrub War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Jonsson Road","suburb":"EVELYN","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-02-28","description":"The area of the old township of Evelyn is comprised today of grassy paddocks and tall eucalyptus trees, and is used as grazing land for cattle. Timber cattle yards are constructed immediately behind the memorial.
The Memorial stands on private property on the Jonsson Road, off the Tumoulin to Ravenshoe Road in the southern Atherton Tablelands.
The Memorial is in the form of a substantial pedestal supporting a narrow pointed obelisk topped with a spherical object. The entire monument is concrete. Forty-one names and fates of the men from Evelyn Scrub who served in the Great War are attached to a brass plaque secured to one side of the pedestal behind a glass screen. Of particular interest is the inclusion of the name of an aboriginal person (designated as such) listed among those who died in service. A second plaque is fixed below the first, dedicated to the pioneers of the Evelyn Scrub by the Evelyn Social and Sports Club in 1983.
A single flagstaff stands five metres from the memorial on the southern side. There are no associated gardens or plantings remaining at the Memorial.
","history":"History
The Evelyn Scrub War Memorial was erected after the First World War [1914-18] on land set aside for the purpose by Edward Daniel, c1919. It lists the names of all the men from the Evelyn district who had served in the war. Forty-one names are recorded on the memorial.
In 1882 land on the Evelyn Tableland was surveyed into blocks between 160 and 640 acres. Selections were taken up as dairy and agricultural farms. Evelyn township was established on the edge of the rainforest 'scrub' in the 1890s as a commercial centre for the Evelyn Tableland farming district. Evelyn Scrub State School was established in 1895. The town had two timber mills, a town hall where congregations for the Salvation Army, Presbyterians and Methodists were held, shops including a general store and butchers shop and some small houses. The railway connecting Ravenshoe with Cairns was completed in 1910 and a horse drawn timber tramway named the Evelyn Scrub Tramline Co. was built from Evelyn to connect with the railway line at Turulka about 10 kilometres away and operated until 1921. The railway was used to transport timber from the sawmills to the port of Cairns. In 1918 a wide variety of crops were grown in the region, including English and sweet potato, maize, bananas, pineapples, grapes, oranges, apples, strawberries, peaches, plums, lemons, pawpaw and honey.
Following the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, approximately 90% of the young men from the Evelyn Scrub eventually enlisted for overseas service. Some never returned, and of those who did, very few went back on the land. Community send-offs were held for the volunteers of the Evelyn district at the Pioneer Hotel in Tumoulin. On their return the soldiers were accorded a public welcome.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.
Memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as the grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
The Evelyn Tablelands was severely affected by the prolonged drought of 1915. It was the worst drought on record and cattle were sent away to the newly opened pastures of Millaa Millaa. In 1918 a cyclone again devastated the area, causing extensive damage to crops through flooding and heavy rains. Another drought in 1923 contributed to the economic decline of the Evelyn Tableland. The depression of the early 1930s had a major impact on the towns of the Atherton Tablelands. The three sawmills that had operated on Evelyn Tableland, between them producing £7,705 worth of timber in 1917, were dismantled and removed. Shops and houses from the township were also moved as people sought greater opportunities elsewhere. The school was closed in 1946.
The Evelyn War Memorial is now all that now remains of the town. It serves as a reminder of those who served in far away battles and is also an illustration of the once bustling farming and timber getting community in an area that is now sparsely populated. A dawn service is held at the Memorial each ANZAC Day in commemoration of those who served.
","criteria":"Evelyn Scrub War Memorial, erected c1919, is significant historically as a record of community and district participation in the First World War and as an embodiment of the prevailing sentiments and attitudes at the time.
As the last standing structure at what was once the town of Evelyn it illustrates the growth and decline of farming communities in the evolution of the history of the Atherton Tablelands.
|As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies it is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16875,"place_ref":602139,"name":"Public Reserve incorporating the Privy Pit and Site of Convict Barracks and Store","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Junner Street","suburb":"DUNWICH","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-02-25","description":"The Public Reserve containing the Privy Pit and Site of Convict Barracks and Store is bounded by Junner Street, Ballow Road and Cunningham Street at Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island. Looking toward Dunwich from the point of arrival Junner Street dissects an elevated headland. The heavily vegetated, lower section of headland on the northern side of Junner Street was the location of the military post and stores depot established by Captain Logan. Running out to the southwest from this headland and forming the north eastern extent of the barge landing facility is the causeway which was constructed as part of the outstation. The most complete view of the outstation and causeway as they originally existed may be gained from the northern inshore public reserve near the beach swimming enclosure.
It is no longer possible to view the barracks and store in their entirety. Other than the privy pit, which is located at the base of the south western bank of the headland, there are no visible remains of the convict settlement. Today the site is a public park and children's playground, sheltered by an enormous combined fig tree canopy and bordered by vegetation on the south west and north west bank faces.
It is believed that the foundations of the compound may still be interpreted through careful archaeological excavation and examination. The remains of the privy pit are also not extensive. It is reported that the position of the pit may be marked by a slight depression in the soils surface. From this location the pit drops down about 2.2m to a horizontal tunnel which runs approximately 3-3.5m before reaching the opening in the bank.
The pit is lined with rectangular blocks of sandstone with stone lintels above. This method of construction suggests a trench was dug from the pit to the bank, lined and capped with stone and backfilled. It has been suggested that the Privy pit was originally designed to be washed out with each high tide. This is now difficult to interpret due to the changes in the shore line contours that have taken place over time. More recent additions to the pit carried out by the Redland Shire Council include a stone apron to the face of the bank and the remains of a steel grille which at one time covered the entrance to the pit.
To the north east of the outstation site is the tourist information centre (located on a separate title) and associated car park. Both the outstation site and the information centre are located in the south east corner of the extensive public reserve which is comprised of a rugby league field and picnic area which fronts the beach and swimming enclosure. Vegetation is scattered along the perimeter of the reserve becoming more prevalent along the beachfront . It is possible that some of the established plantings may date from the earlier quarantine and benevolent asylum establishments.
From the elevated Ballow Road boundary of the reserve there is a grand view back to Brisbane. From this point the focal and structuring nature of the reserve in the broader townscape becomes more apparent. The reserve is a picturesque community centre and a memorable gateway to Dunwich and the broader North Stradbroke Island.
","history":"The Dunwich public reserve site includes an area upon which a privy pit, convict barracks and store were constructed in 1827 as part of a military and stores depot servicing the recently established settlement of Brisbane.
In 1823 John Oxley discovered the Brisbane River and a recommendation was made that a settlement should be established on its banks. In June the following year colonial administration proclaimed an intention to establish a settlement at Moreton Bay or in the near vicinity. There was general indecision regarding the type of settlement that should take place following Oxley's glowing report of the area. However, Governor Brisbane proceeded with his original instructions to establish a penal settlement at Moreton Bay, hopeful that one day the area might be opened up to free settlement. Moreton Bay was one of four such penal settlements to be established in Australia in the 1820's.
On the 1st of September 1824 the Government vessel, 'Amity', departed from Sydney bound for Moreton Bay. The ship included Lieutenant Miller, Commandant of the settlement; John Oxley, Commanding Officer and Chief of the expedition; Lieutenant Butler, assistant Surveyor; Allan Cunningham, Botanist; general troops and 29 convicts. Approximately half of the convicts had volunteered in the hope they may gain a ticket of leave for their efforts in establishing the first settlement. The convicts were from varied backgrounds including quarrymen, lime burners, bricklayers, marble polishers, stone cutters, brick makers, plasterers and labourers.
On the 10 September 1824 the 'Amity' arrived in Moreton Bay and following an inspection of St Helena, Redcliffe was selected as the site for settlement as originally recommended by John Oxley in 1823. Redcliffe proved unsatisfactory, however, and the settlement was short lived. In late September 1824, the Amity was nearly driven ashore by a fierce storm, prompting Oxley to declare the site an unsafe place to anchor. Following further exploration of the surrounding waters Oxley discovered a safer point of entry into the bay through the south passage between North Stradbroke Island and Moreton Island.
In October 1824 Governor Brisbane visited the Moreton Bay settlement and following a journey some 30 miles up the Brisbane River endorsed Oxley's earlier recommendations for settlement.
It appears that the settlement was officially relocated from Redcliffe to Brisbane in May 1825, however the dates are unconfirmed. Lieutenant Miller established the settlement on the high ground overlooking the Brisbane River, near the current Victoria Bridge location.
Proceeding the movement from Redcliffe to Brisbane, John Gray, Pilot of Port Jackson, received orders to survey and buoy the south passage as discovered by Oxley. To maintain the buoys, a pilot was posted at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island. A sandbar at the mouth of the Brisbane River prevented large ships from entering the river and Amity Point became a pilot station at which large vessels unloaded and distributed their cargo to smaller craft capable of navigating the bar and transporting goods into Brisbane. The Amity Point pilot station was the first in the Moreton Bay penal settlement and continued to operate till the wreck of the Sovereign in 1848, when it was relocated to Moreton Island and shipping then used the northern entrance to the bay via Cape Moreton.
In 1827, Governor Darling visited the settlement and amongst other concerns, expressed a dissatisfaction with the inability of large ships to navigate the sandbar at the mouth of the Brisbane River. Captain Patrick Logan, Commandant of Brisbane, recommended the settlement be relocated to Green Point or Bird Island. On 29 November 1827, Governor Darling directed Captain Logan to establish a military post and stores depot at Dunwich, formerly known as Green Point. Plans and materials were sent from Sydney with instructions to establish a warehouse and accommodation for convict labourers, boatmen and soldiers. The plans were drawn by William Dumaresq, Acting Civil Engineer for New South Wales. In May 1828 Logan reported that the magazine at Dunwich was roofed and nearly completed and the military and prisoner barracks at Dunwich were finished and occupied.
The store compound was separated into two sections by a high dividing wall. The separate store building was used for goods and was surrounded by a high perimeter wall with only one entry point. The barracks were to the north west of the dividing wall and provided quarters for both convicts and officers. The privy was in the southern corner of the enclosure with a shaft constructed down and out to the shoreline.
The outstation at Dunwich only functioned for a few years. In 1830 Captain Logan was killed and in November 1831 Logan's successor Captain Clunie requested that the use of the settlement be discontinued. Clunie confirmed cargoes were still being lost over board during unloading in rough weather, local Aborigines were proving hostile and had killed a convict in the garden and the issue of smuggling had not been eliminated. Following its closure, a small guard remained to protect the buildings and records indicate that timber loading continued there until about 1837.
The settlement was briefly used as a Catholic mission to the local Aborigines from 1843 to 1847. The buildings at this time were reported as being derelict and in much need of repair. The mission was never successful and the last Passionist Father was forced to leave the island after continued threats from Aborigines.
In 1849 Brisbane's penal colony was closed and the military withdrawn. As a free colony there was a need for a quarantine station to protect settlers from disease. Captain Wickham proclaimed Dunwich as a suitable place for a quarantine station in 1850 due to its isolation from Brisbane. Dunwich remained a quarantine station until 1864 and received all immigrants coming to Brisbane. The quarantine buildings are noted as being constructed along a ridge which ran down to the jetty. This ridge may be interpreted today as the parcel of land to the south west of Junner Street.
It is not clear whether there was an intention to use the old outstation compound as part of the quarantine station. However, considering the time that had elapsed since the Catholic mission occupied the buildings and the level of deterioration at that point in time, it is probable the compound would have deteriorated further and as such would have been unsuitable for use as part of the quarantine station.
During the time Dunwich was used as a Quarantine Station one of the most notable and tragic arrivals to the settlement was that of the ship, 'Emigrant'. Stricken with typhus fever, the ship had already lost 16 people on its journey from Plymouth to Brisbane. While at Dunwich a further 26 people died including the ships surgeon, Dr George Mitchell, and Resident Surgeon for the Moreton Bay Hospital and Coroner for the Brisbane districts, Dr David Ballow. As the quarantine station had only just opened there had been no time to establish adequate buildings or staff and as such the ketch 'Aurora' was sent from Brisbane to Dunwich with tents and supplies.
From 1864, the Queensland government attempted to establish a Benevolent Asylum at the old quarantine station. In 1866 the asylum was officially opened at Dunwich. The institution was declared a home for the old and infirm, disabled, inebriates and for a short time lepers. To begin with the asylum used the existing quarantine buildings, however as the establishment expanded these facilities became used for hospital and administrative purposes. There is no mention of the convict outstation during this period of settlement.
A site plan from 1913 illustrates the development of the expanding benevolent asylum at the time of its peak. The development has quite obviously expanded the original quarantine station layout and has been established on the high ground in a 'u' shape around a lower lying open space (now the public reserve) which fronts the beach. It is reported that the area was used as a community green space for asylum residents and visitors to the establishment and included a beach swimming enclosure in a similar position to the current facility.
In 1947 the institution was officially closed as a result of overcrowding and deteriorating health conditions. The institution was then transferred to the old RAAF base at Sandgate, and renamed 'Eventide'. Dunwich was then opened up to government land sales and mining of mineral sand resources. Ward buildings were sold and either relocated on site or to the mainland. More substantial brick structures were demolished. The parcel of land which once formed the community space was gazetted by the government in 1949 as a public reserve and since that time has stood as the community green space of the Dunwich Township.
The development of North Stradbroke island as a popular holiday retreat and rich mineral sand mining resource has meant the barge landing facilities and surrounding area at Dunwich have undergone continual change since 1947. Whilst not significant, the physical layers of growth do help to illustrate the development of Dunwich and the importance of the site as an entry to North Stradbroke Island.
Despite the substantial development of Dunwich, the remnant structure of the earlier quarantine station and benevolent asylum are echoed in the current town layout. The central community space of the benevolent asylum is now the focal green space of the township and a memorable entry point to Dunwich. The physical remains of the convict barracks, store, privy pit and causeway may still be interpreted and are a subtle reminder of the historical importance of the place.
","criteria":"Constructed as a military and stores depot in 1827, the site formed the primary landing place for all vessels coming into Moreton Bay and Brisbane and therefore has historical significance for its valuable role in the early settlement of colonial Queensland.
|The Privy Pit and site of the Convict Barracks and Store are extremely important and rare pieces of Queensland's built heritage. With the associated Causeway at Dunwich, Windmill and Commissariat Store in Brisbane and Women's Prison at Eagle Farm it is one of four convict structures known to survive in southeast Queensland.
|Whilst the privy pit and causeway are the only visible signs of the outstation that remain, careful excavation and examination of the site of the convict barracks and store has the potential to yield a greater understanding of Queensland's early convict history.
|The physical fabric of the privy pit clearly illustrates both principal characteristics of European building techniques and construction methods used by convicts to build a structure of this nature in the early part of the nineteenth century.
|The public reserve has aesthetic and social significance as the central public space of the present Dunwich township and previous Benevolent Asylum. Originally a community green space for Benevolent Asylum residents and visitors, the reserve has been central to the development of the current township since the asylum's closure. Today the reserve stands not only as a village green to the town but as a remnant of the town's development over the past 173 years. Views to and from the reserve and site vegetation contribute significantly to the visual qualities of the place.
|Technical achievement is also demonstrated in the design and construction of the privy pit and method by which the high tide was said to have cleansed the pit on a daily basis.
|The public reserve has aesthetic and social significance as the central public space of the present Dunwich township and previous Benevolent Asylum. Originally a community green space for Benevolent Asylum residents and visitors, the reserve has been central to the development of the current township since the asylum's closure. Today the reserve stands not only as a village green to the town but as a remnant of the town's development over the past 173 years. Views to and from the reserve and site vegetation contribute significantly to the visual qualities of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16876,"place_ref":602140,"name":"Springbrook Road and Associated Infrastructure","alternate_name":"Toll Road | Springbrook Mudgeeraba Road | Memorial Cairn","street_address":"Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road","suburb":"SPRINGBROOK","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-10-22","description":"The Springbrook Road Complex commences at the intersection of Austinville Road and the Gold Coast - Springbrook Road. The road, which is bitumened and in all but four small sections two way, rises generally in a southerly direction over a distance of approximately 22.5 kilometres. Features of the road infrastructure include:
Two curved timber bridges, one approximately 4.5km from Austinville Road and the other about 2km further along the road. The bridges are constructed to skirt the side of the mountain in tight corners, removing the need for major cutting into the mountain or filling a valley at this point to create flat surfaces for the road to continue.
The bridges are constructed from a combination of round and squared hardwood, with support formed by round logs braced with pairs of squared members. A standard timber balustrade with ribbed metal safeguard strip has replaced an early timber balustrade. Recent timber decking covers both of the bridges, which are aligned with the adjacent bitumen road. The bridges provide access for only one lane of traffic and a give way sign on the north facing access road regulates traffic.
A one-way road section starting at 11.5km and finishing at about 12.5km from the Austinville Road is an unusual feature of the roadway. At the southern end of this part of the road is a water fountain and water trough fed from a nearby spring. The two rustic features are site near to one another on the mountain side of the road and being constructed of the stone of the mountain are barely discernible from the surrounding landscape. The trough is a long and heavy stone and concrete basin and the water fountain is formed from a stone and concrete plinth through which a fountain head is run to bubble on the top surface.
To the south of the Springbrook-Nerang Road intersection, the Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road separates into two distinct roadways. The area of the lower, southern facing road is of high aesthetic value beauty with large dramatic cuttings of the mountainous volcanic stone surmounted by natural vegetation. To the east of this part of the driveway are fleeting but expansive views of the valley and lower areas below increasing the quality of sublimity of the area.
Wunburra Lookout is a small cleared area just off the roadway and is signed. It consists of a concrete and rock viewing platform looking out over the valley with a simple chain wire safety fence.
At Hardy's Lookout a small clearing to the west of the roadway near the entrance to Old School Road, is a small Memorial Cairn constructed of stone set in concrete and recording the names of pioneers of Springbrook from 1906. Nineteen names are recorded on a brass plaque. Surmounting the cairn is a flat brass disc is a north point with place direction references.
","history":"The Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road was constructed to encourage settlement and development in the Springbrook area in the mid 1920s. Several elements including two curved timber bridges, a water trough and a water fountain date from this early construction time.
The difficulty of access to the Springbrook plateau was a significant factor in the delay of settlement. Prior to settlement in 1906, the only access consisted of a walking trail on the western side that ended up in the Numinbah Valley. Once land was advertised for selection, the Lands Department was required to provide a road.
The early settlers knew that for their farms to succeed, reliable access was necessary. The determination to provide an alternate route off the mountain resulted in two tracks being brushed through the forest. One headed off the southern end of the plateau towards the village of Mudgeeraba. Jim Hardy and George Trapp blazed the Mudgeeraba track by following the ridge that separates the east and west branches of Little Nerang Creek. When they reached the confluence of the two creeks they turned east, only to find that the Nimmel Range blocked their way. By skirting round the flanks of Mount Nimmel, they managed to reach the dirt track that linked Mudgeeraba with the little cluster of farms near Neranwood.
By 1914 the track was upgraded to allow horse-drawn wagons known as 'buckboards' to negotiate the rough terrain. It coiled its way off the mountain down present-day Carrick Road and beyond to the meeting of the east of west branches of the Little Nerang Creek, over the Mount Nimmel Range and on through the Alstonville Valley before joining the present road at the Alstonville turn-off. The first Springbrook to Mudgeeraba road was an improvement on the brushed track.
After several deputations in the 1920's to the Minister for Main Roads, it was decided to survey a new route onto the mountain. The gradient required for such an undertaking was of much concern to the surveyors. A gradient of 1 in 18 was considered to be the limit for successful road building in Queensland at the time. The deputations from the Springbrook residents must have been very persuasive as the proposed Springbrook road required a gradient of 1 in 12 and in parts 1 in 10. It is believed to be the first road in Queensland to have been successfully constructed using such a steep gradient. A Swiss engineer named Juries was employed to conduct the initial survey, due to his experience in mountainous country. Fred Parkes, the Main Roads engineer and Tom Peters who represented the Nerang Shire, were grateful for his expertise. The terrain was so rough and steep that it was necessary to dig toeholds into the sheer hillsides, to enable the men to safely carry the delicate survey instruments to the next position.
Tenders were called for each one and a half miles of surveyed section and C.J.Hicks, a road contractor from northern New South Wales, tendered successfully for the construction of the new road. He commenced work at Rathbone's crossing in March 1925 and reached the eastern bank of the Little Nerang Creek in February 1926. Just over three miles of road had been constructed at a cost of £15 500. The section between Neranwood and Wunburra proved to be the most difficult of all. Work commenced in September 1925 and it took until November 1928 to complete the four miles of backbreaking road work at a cost of £20 000.
The men employed on the road had a camp on the ridge that runs between Big Gully and Watertrough Gully. These were the two greatest natural obstacles to the construction of a road and where the construction gang would spend most of its time. The provision of living quarters for the men was governed by specific regulations. A single man had to be supplied with a canvas tent measuring 6 feet by 8 feet. A married man was entitled to a tent measuring 8 feet by 10 feet, and if he brought his family along, a tent measuring 10 feet by 12 feet was provided.
The road was officially opened in February 1928. The sign erected at the toll gates at the base of Wunburra Range, just above the present Neranwood Park, proclaimed the times that traffic was allowed to travel up or down the narrow one-way road. A speed limit of 12 miles per hour was recommended. It was called the Toll Road as a charge was payable for each journey up or down the mountain. During the 1930's the toll was nine pence each way, rising to one shilling in the 1940's. Mrs Leu, whose husband had worked on constructing the road, became the gatekeeper. She was on call 24 hours a day, irrespective of the weather or personal considerations and received the sum of 30 shillings a week. She took her responsibility very seriously, especially in the 1940's, when the timber jinkers were frequent users of the one-way. She would not allow any vehicle to pass if the time for the down traffic had just lapsed as it was always possible that a vehicle was still on the road.
The stone water trough was built by the men who constructed and maintained Springbrook Road, as the only watering point for their horses on the high mountain stretches. It is now used as a well and is a tourist attraction. Visitors make use of the opportunity to drink the clean spring water and collect some to take home. The gully is part of Wunburra, which means For Run Up Hill-Hunting Dog, which forms part of Springbrook National Park.
The curved wooden bridges were built by Charlie Kolb, a bridge builder. He built the first one over the Little Nerang for just over £5 000. The bridges are an unusual feature of the Springbrook-Mudgeeraba road, in the fact that they were very early examples of this kind of bridge on a steeply sloped mountainous roadway to be built in Queensland. The timber decking has been replaced, and signs at both ends of the Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road remind motorists that the bridges are not suitable for large vehicles.
A memorial cairns was constructed at Hardy's Lookout, off the Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road in 1961 by the residents of Springbrook to celebrate the opening of the Springbrook School in 1911.
","criteria":"The Springbrook Road Complex was important in the consolidation and expansion of the Springbrook region and also in providing access to Springbrook National Park. Prior to its completion access to the plateau had been extremely limited which seriously affected development of the area.
|The trough and water fountain are remnants of an earlier use of the road when horses were used. The survival of these elements is a rare and unusual element of the Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road.
|The Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Road has aesthetic significance as a picturesque place, where the natural rock formations and vegetation are juxtaposed with early evidence of man-made road cuttings and road construction. Lookouts that allow motorists to stop and enjoy the panoramic views have been popular since the road's completion. These include Wunburra Lookout, and Hardy's Lookout.
|It is understood that this road was the first in Queensland to have been successfully constructed using a steep gradient of 1 in 12 and, in parts, 1 in 10.
The curved timber bridges have technological significance, as they are very early examples of this kind to be built in Queensland.
|The Pioneer Memorial Cairn, included within the heritage register boundary at Hardy's Lookout, has social significance as a record of the early Springbrook settlers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16877,"place_ref":602141,"name":"Former Springbrook State School (QPWS Information Centre)","alternate_name":"Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Information Centre, Springbrook National Park","street_address":"2873 Springbrook Road","suburb":"SPRINGBROOK","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-08-05","description":"The former Springbrook State School sits on a revegetated site with considerable regrowth and understorey growth. The site includes a number of structures: the Information Centre, playshed, toilet block, carpark, stump, water trough, and tanks. Beyond these is a boardwalk and lookout.
The Information Centre is in the former Springbrook State School building [1911]. It is a modified version of a standard Queensland Works Department School Plan. It is a low-set timber-framed, weatherboard-clad building with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron, and numerous additions and alterations. It consists of a large classroom, an enclosed verandah at the rear, comprising two rooms, an additional kitchen adjoining the enclosed verandah, a new front verandah and an access ramp.
The classroom is a large asymmetrical VJ lined room. The tongue and groove ceiling slopes at the northern and southern ends, which were originally separate verandahs. On the southern end, the wall to the back rooms supports the additional span of the ceiling, and at the north a metal support beam has been added. The door in the northern wall is a recent French door with French lights. The southern door is a sliding boarded door, with an opening for a display. Windows on the eastern and western walls consist of a pair of hoppers to the north (covered by a display on the western wall) and a bank of windows under the central flat ceiled area. This bank of windows consists of a central casement pair (original) and a slightly taller group of two hoppers, topped by louvres. The hardware on the windows varies. The sills are made from red cedar and silky oak, now stripped and varnished. The windows all have simple awnings. The floor is covered in cork tiles. Bricks have been laid on a portion of the eastern wall and the adjoining floor to provide fire-protection for a pot-belly stove. A blackboard and display board are on the northern wall. Displays of varying permanence have been constructed in the room, including a false suspended ceiling, replicating forest shade and a "pioneer room" in the northwest corner.
The three rooms at the rear of the building consist of two rooms in the verandah area and an additional kitchen on the eastern wall. The western room is entered from the central room and has one VJ wall and the remainder clad in fibrous cement sheeting and a sloped fibrous cement ceiling which continues the line from the classroom. There is a double pair of hopper windows with steel hardware and the floor is covered in cork tiles. A large portion of the room is occupied by temporary walls for a display. The central room has the same ceiling and floor as the western room, and is primarily a corridor. Doors open onto the exit stairs, the two other back rooms and the classroom. There is one fixed window with glazing in four panels. The eastern room is a newer addition with concrete stumps, a separate roof structure, a flat ceiling and a narrow board floor. It is lined with fibro boards, with no cover strips and there is one set of hopper windows on the north and a sink on the eastern wall.
The existing front verandah is a more recent structure [1986], built to resemble the original verandah (now enclosed) but with a separate roofline and supported on steel posts. It consists of timber railings and vertical balustrades except on the western end where it is enclosed in weatherboards to replicate the port rack area of the original verandah. The ramp is designed for wheelchair access and continues the structure of the verandah, on steel stumps.
The playshed [1954] is a rectangular unlined and timber structure with a concrete floor, constructed to a standard Queensland Works Department plan. It appears to have been built in the position of another structure as there are post holes remaining in the concrete floor. The walls are built of alternating wide and narrow vertical boards, which overlap each other. It appears to be roofed with Super 6 sheeting. The shed contains a restored Queensland Buckboard, which belonged to James Hardy, a Springbrook pioneer, and other equipment.
The toilet block is a semi-enclosed structure built from rock and timber with a metal roof, of National Parks vintage. It is divided into two separate rooms, each with a WC and external basin.
The carpark is recent, having been built on the site of the school tennis court.
The stump is the remains of a New England Mountain Ash (E. andrewsii) and is located about three metres from the main school building. The stump remains, approximately 3.5 m tall, complete with traces of springboard marks.
The water trough was added to the tank region after 1953. It is a metal trough with three taps that feed directly off the tank.
The tanks consist of two tanks near the school and playshed (both metal, installed 2003) and one above the toilet block, which although older is due for replacement and may already be replaced. These are not considered to be of heritage significance.
The boardwalk and lookout were constructed from treated pine in 1986 and are not considered to be of heritage significance.
","history":"The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Information Centre, Springbrook, was erected as Springbrook State School in 1911. It was built by W Norman to a modified, low-set version of a standard Queensland Works Department School Plan.
Non-indigenous usage of the Springbrook Plateau began with the declaration of a Timber Reserve in 1879. Due mainly to inaccessibility, the timber was little exploited. In 1905 Gilbert Burnett, Forest Ranger, recommended that, as the hardwood could not be worked profitably, the area should be opened to selectors. The following year AH Burbank surveyed the plateau. Land was made available on the 3 September 1906, and the first settlers, mainly from the Bega area of the south coast of New South Wales, arrived in December 1906. They laboured to clear the thick bush and established small dairy and produce farms. Descendants of these settlers still live in the area. Within ten years large areas of the plateau were completely cleared.
Springbrook State School was established in 1911. In 1909, James Hardy corresponded with the Undersecretary of the Department of Public Instruction, David Ewart, concerning the possibility of a school being established at Springbrook. There were insufficient numbers for a State School and the community was not ready to fund a provisional school. The following year the Department of Public Lands received a petition to reserve an area for a school and dip, part of portion 91 held by John Boyd as Agricultural Farm 5256, Brisbane District. In February 1910 a public meeting was held to elect a School Building Committee and an 'Application for a State School' was sent to the Department. In March Inspector Shirley inspected the area and recommended establishment of a school on 15 acres to be surrendered to the Lands Dept by W Boyd. The Department of Public Works was requested to provide a plan and estimate for a school, and they suggested that reducing the structure to one verandah and stumps only two foot high would reduce the cost. W Norman won the contract for £209 and the Inspector of Works reported the completion of the building on 18 March 1911. Miss Elisabeth Josephine McMahon was the first teacher and fifteen children were enrolled when the Springbrook State School opened on the 26 April 1911.
In the following year an extremely large New England Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus andrewsii), which grew beside the school, was cut down and burnt. The stump of this tree remains beside the school building and springboard marks are still evident on the side. In 1912 the schoolyard was fenced. In 1914, following an application to JG Appel, the Home Secretary, who lived at Beechmont and understood the weather, a stove was installed in the school. In 1915, tenders were called for the erection of a rear verandah and BF Franklin tendered £50/5/0 and was accepted. The verandah was completed in September 1915. At some stage in the early years George Morton and Colin Sprenger laid an ant bed tennis court at the site of the current carpark. Further minor repairs and painting were undertaken over the years. In 1932 the school was restumped, but the stumps were too small and the building suffered from subsidence. In 1953, new windows were installed and in 1954 the playshed was erected, on the site of a previous rough shed. At some time in the 1950s the verandahs were enclosed and a small room was built adjoining the rear verandah.
The school was closed at various times during its term. In 1915, a teacher did not arrive for several months and in 1929 Grace Ethel Baker arrived as teacher but left the next day and no teacher was appointed until March. By May 1932 enrolment had dropped to 10, with an average attendance of 5.7. The Director of Education wrote and informed the committee that the small enrolment did not justify keeping the school open and the children would be accepted in the Correspondence School. Following appeals, this decision was repealed and Mr Mackie remained as teacher. By January 1933, however, enrolment had fallen to nine, and the Director of Education closed the school in March. Plans were made for moving the school building and equipment to Wanburra. A petition with 29 signatures was received protesting this removal and in May 1934 Inspector Bevington recommended that the school be opened on a trial for three months to see if attendance would improve.
In 1971 only four children were enrolled at Springbrook State School and the school was closed in February. The Springbrook pupils were transferred to Mudgereeba State School, as were the furniture and fittings from the former Springbrook State School. School Reserve 454, comprising approximately 3 hectares, and its buildings was transferred to the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The school building was used occasionally for training Police cadets and then as offices by the NPWS until being converted into an Information Centre for Warrie National Park. National Parks toilets were built at the site. In 1986, the building was renovated and restumped with the aid of a Commonwealth Employment Scheme. The window paint was stripped, a new front verandah and access ramp were built and cork flooring, a pot-belly stove and information displays were installed. Landscaping was undertaken and a board walk and lookout were built. When Mount Cougal, Warrie, Wunbburra, Gwongrella and Natural Bridge National Parks amalgamated in 1990, the old school building became the Information Centre for Springbrook National Park. Over the years the area has been revegetated and the largely cleared school site is now primarily bush. In 2003 new water tanks were installed.
As dairy farming became less profitable, farms were subdivided and the population of Springbrook grew from fifty in the 1950s to 400 in 1990. In 1984, the new Springbrook State School (School number 1931) was opened at 2327 Springbrook Road.
","criteria":"The former Springbrook State School, constructed in 1911, is significant as evidence of the late settlement of the difficult to access mountain plateaux of the Gold Coast hinterland. The Springbrook Plateau was settled as late as 1906 and then was only minimally developed and sparsely populated as a farming community. The former Springbrook State School is evidence of this early period, being the first public building erected and the oldest remaining building on the plateau.
The Stump is demonstrative of earlier attitudes to vegetation, particularly given the late 20th century re-vegetation program on the site.
|It is an attractive, although somewhat modified, version of typical small, early 20th century school designed by the Queensland Works Department. The 1954 playshed is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, a standard design also supplied by the Queensland Works Department.
|(Criterion under review)
|The place has a strong association with the Springbrook community, having been a social centre as well as the only educational establishment for six decades.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16879,"place_ref":602143,"name":"Wynnum Fire Station (former)","alternate_name":"Wynnum Fire Station","street_address":"39 Mountjoy Terrace","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-05-28","description":"The former Wynnum Fire Station is a two-storey, symmetrical timber-framed building in Mountjoy Terrace opposite the south-western end of Wolsey Parade. The building is clad with fibrous cement sheeting to the first storey, has timber weatherboards to the lower storey and a corrugated, fibro-cement sheeted hip roof. On the first floor a central, open verandah balcony projects over the engine room entrance with "Wynnum Fire Station" painted in red across the sheeting to the lower part of the balcony.
The ground floor of the former fire station accommodates the engine room, watch office, locker room and ablutions area, dormitory, kitchen, laundry and duty officer bedroom. The timber pole connecting the residence to the engine room has been removed and the pole cupboard is now used for storage at ground level. The locker room contains intact purpose-built lockers for the firemen's uniforms and personal effects. The concrete floor to the engine room is marked with red wheel tracks and a concrete footpath crossing connects to the street. The interiors are lined with tongue and groove boarding and the ceilings are sheeted and battened. The laundry now accommodates additional lockers and storage. Windows to the ground level are shaded by horizontal timber hoods on decorative, cantilevered timber brackets.
An extension has been inserted between the laundry and the duty officer's bedroom to accommodate a shower to the bedroom and provide additional storage area. A shower has also been added to the ablutions area of the locker room.
The rear external timber stairs connect to the former residence above. The residence has a kitchen, living room, dining room, an open verandah balcony, three bedrooms and a bathroom. The living room, dining room and main bedroom open by french doors onto the verandah balcony. There are glazed fanlights above these french doors and side lights to the those off the dining room. The pole cupboard housing the pole that connected the residence and the station below is adjacent to the bathroom. The interiors are clad with tongue and groove boarding and the ceilings sheeted and battened. Original fabric remains including kitchen cupboards, linen cupboard, dining room cupboard and main bedroom wardrobe. The bathroom is substantially intact with the terrazzo floor, pressed metal wall sheeting and the original hot water heater remaining. A carved keystone timber archway separates the dining room from the bathroom/bedroom area.
There is a gable-roofed timber shed in the south-west corner of the site. Clad in weatherboards and flat sheets at the gable ends, internally the shed is partitioned into two spaces.
The grassed and concreted grounds are well maintained. A concrete driveway along the western boundary arrives at the hose drying area and shed to the side and rear of the station. Recently planted palms (Archontophoenix sp.) stand to the front of the station.
","history":"A modest, functional civic building, the former Wynnum Fire Station is a prominent landmark on Mountjoy Terrace in Wynnum.
Between 1860 and 1868 there were five attempts to form a fire fighting service for Brisbane. Each brigade struggled to survive, unable to attract a viable subscription base and hampered by inadequate equipment and an unreliable water supply. The establishment of an effective fire service did not enjoy a high priority among civic and government leaders.
A fifth brigade, the City Volunteer Fire Brigade, was established in 1868 under rules which provided for better financial control and management through the Fire Brigade Board. These arrangements were consolidated by the Fire Brigades Act 1881 under which it was established that the Brigade was to be funded for fire services from contributions by the Queensland State Government, Brisbane Municipal Council, insurance companies and subscriptions. In 1889 the first full-time firemen were employed and a permanent fire brigade was established. A new headquarters, designed by HW Atkinson, was completed on the corner of Ann and Edwards streets (on a corner of the Normal School site) in 1890. This began a long association between the Fire Brigade and the various architectural firms with whom he was associated.
Fire Services in Wynnum
In the south-east of Brisbane, Wynnum sits on Moreton Bay. The railway link to Cleveland via Wynnum in 1888 was a major impetus to closer settlement with large areas of land being taken up soon after. The district expanded rapidly over the next twenty years until in 1913 the Town Council of Wynnum was constituted. The area became known as a seaside resort and the Wynnum and Manly foreshore area became increasingly popular with day visitors and holiday-makers. Since that time it has developed as a dormitory suburb of Brisbane, conveniently linked to the city.
Wynnum was perceived to be a 'healthy' place to live with its sea breezes, protected beaches, vistas to Moreton Bay, fishing and the availability of fresh local produce. The district continued to expand as the number of permanent residents increased; services and infrastructure were introduced; building activity expanded; and civic and community associations were established.
The first fire brigade was established in Wynnum in 1921. Three blocks of land were purchased in Mountjoy Terrace, opposite Wolsey Parade, and a temporary building erected to serve as the fire station and residence. The Wynnum District was included in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board's District in 1928 and the brigade continued to operate from this station until the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board replaced it with a new station under a fire services upgrading program funded by the Queensland Government and instigated by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Edward Hanlon. The Wynnum Fire Station was opened by Hanlon on 25 May 1938. The new building housed the station facilities on the ground floor and a residence for the superintendent on the first floor. This combination of station and residence was the typical design for fire stations in Brisbane at this time. Similar residential fire stations were built at Yeronga (1934) [QHR 602144], Coorparoo (1935) [QHR 600569], Nundah (1936) [QHR 602119] and Hamilton (1941). A weatherboard-clad, gabled shed was constructed at some time shortly after the new fire station, being visible in a 1943 aerial.
The 1938 building continued to operate as a fire station until 2004 when a new facility for the service was built elsewhere and this property was sold into private ownership. Since that time it has served as a residence.
","criteria":"The Wynnum Fire Station (former) is an important example of the upgrading of fire stations undertaken in Brisbane suburbs by the Queensland Government through the Metropolitan Fire Board during the 1930s.
The former Wynnum Fire Station is important in demonstrating the growth of Wynnum during the early twentieth century and into the 1930s.
|The Wynnum Fire Station (former) is a rare and intact example of the architecture and planning of Brisbane suburban fire stations of the 1930s. The station remains as the only operational fire station from the 1930s. The interiors in both the operational and domestic areas are substantially intact. The place is rare in demonstrating the development of the fire service in Wynnum with both fire station buildings remaining on the one site.
|The Wynnum Fire Station (former) is a rare and intact example of the architecture and planning of Brisbane suburban fire stations of the 1930s. The Station remains as the only operational fire station from the 1930s. The interiors in both the operational and domestic areas are substantially intact.
|The Wynnum Fire Station (former) has aesthetic and architectural significance as a modest, functional civic building. Robust and austere, it is a landmark on Mountjoy Terrace within Wynnum.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Wynnum Fire Station (former) is important for its association with the work of the architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad. Atkinson, through the firms he was associated with, sustained a long association with the Fire Services in Brisbane commencing in 1890 with his design for the new headquarters for the Brisbane Fire Brigade. His architectural practices were responsible for many of the fire stations throughout Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16880,"place_ref":602144,"name":"Yeronga Fire Station (former)","alternate_name":"Queensland State Emergency Service Office","street_address":"785 Ipswich Road","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-04-23","description":"On the southeast corner of Yeronga Park, the former Yeronga Fire Station is a two-storey timber framed structure, clad with weatherboards to the lower level and battened fibro sheeting to the upper level, beneath a red terracotta tiled gabled roof. A discreet awning with a pressed metal edging decorated with pateras and fluting shelters the engine room entrance to the School Road frontage and is supported by steel tie-rods fixed to the exterior of the first floor.
Rectangular in plan, the ground floor contains an engine room, watchroom, dormitory, kitchen, bathroom and recreation room. Tall, vertical, timber, bifold, counterweighted doors to School Road open into the engine room around which the other rooms are arranged in an L-shape. The concrete floor to the engine room has been painted green but the red fire engine guide tracks are evident in areas where the paint has worn. The watchroom is at the front of the Station off the engine room and opens into the adjacent dormitory. The fireman's pole terminated in a small hall in the centre of the building to the rear of the engine room. The pole has been removed. The kitchen, bathroom and dormitory open off this hall. The recreation room is to the rear of the Station off the engine room and opening to the rear yard. All ground floor rooms are lined with tongue and groove boarding and have fibro sheeted battened ceilings. The dormitory contains built-in timber cupboards and tilting fanlights to the engine room wall. The bathroom could not be unlocked but a terrazzo floor was evident under the closed door. A serving hatch has been cut into the wall between the kitchen and the recreation room.
A dog-leg timber stair at the rear of the Station connects to entrance to the residential accommodation for the station superintendent above which contains three bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and hall. A laundry, on a suspended concrete slab supported by concrete piers, is off the landing of the dog-leg stair. The laundry was not able to be unlocked. The entrance to the residence opens off a small sheltered porch at the top of the stair through an arched doorway into a central hall. The smaller bedrooms and bathroom are through an arched opening to the west of the hall and the kitchen and living room open to the east and south of the hall. The cupboard to the east of the hall that housed the fireman's pole is now used for storage. The kitchen no longer functions as a kitchen but cupboards to the west and an arched recess and broom cupboard to the south remain. The bedroom to the northwest and the bathroom have been converted to toilets. The living room has an arched recess and opens to an enclosed verandah to the southeast. The wall separating bedrooms one and two has been removed. All rooms are lined with tongue and groove boarding and have fibro sheeted and battened ceilings. The battening to the ceiling in bedroom one forms a lozenge-like pattern.
A small, tubular-steel and chain wire gate to the west of the Station opens to a drained, concrete path continuous about the west, north and east of the Station. A battered bank rises up on each side of the concrete path to the level of the park behind. Concrete vehicle tracks from Ipswich Road gateway finish at the rear of the Station. Repairs to the northeast corner of the concrete path indicate the location of an earlier tank stand. Two timber sheds have been erected to the rear of the station for storage and additional office accommodation.
","history":"A modest, functional civic building, the former Yeronga Fire Station on the corner of School Road and Ipswich Road within Yeronga Park, is a prominent landmark on the busy Brisbane arterial, Ipswich Road,
Between 1860 and 1868 there were five attempts to form a fire fighting service for Brisbane. Each brigade struggled to survive unable to attract a viable subscription base and hampered by inadequate equipment and an unreliable water supply. The establishment of an effective fire service did not enjoy a high priority among civic and government leaders.
A fifth brigade, the City Volunteer Fire Brigade, was established in 1868 under rules which provided for better financial control and management through the Fire Brigade Board. These arrangements were consolidated by the Fire Brigades Act of 1881 under which it was established that the Brigade was to be funded for fire services from contributions by the Queensland State Government, Brisbane Municipal Council, insurance companies and subscriptions. In 1889 the first full-time firemen were employed and a permanent fire brigade was established. A new headquarters, designed by H.W.Atkinson, was completed on the corner of Ann and Edwards Streets (on a corner of the Normal School site) in 1890. This began a long association between the Fire Brigade and the various architectural firms with whom he was associated.
Fire Services in Yeronga:
With the establishment of the South Coast railway in 1884, Yeronga was recognised as a desirable commuter suburb. Settlement of the suburb remained subdued until the interwar years when residential building activity increased dramatically, with the number of residences in Yeronga doubling. At this time, the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board was attempting to respond to the increased fire fighting needs of the expanding Brisbane suburbs. In the 1930s, the Board was resiting old stations and erecting new stations under a program funded by the Queensland Government, instigated by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Edward Hanlon. The former Yeronga Fire Station, the first fire station in Yeronga, was erected under this program by contractor William Allen Miller and opened by Mr W.B. Denmead on 18 April 1934. The new building housed the station facilities on the ground floor and a residence for the superintendent on the first floor. This combination of station and residence was the typical design for fire stations in Brisbane at this time. Similar, though larger, residential fire stations were built at Coorparoo 1935 (QHR 600569); Nundah 1936 (QHR 602119); Wynnum 1938 (QHR 602143) and Hamilton 1941.
The Yeronga Fire Station was decommissioned in 1974 when operations were relocated to the new Acacia Ridge Station. The former Yeronga Fire Station has since been a Queensland State Emergency Services office.
Queensland State Emergency Services has deemed the former Yeronga Fire Station to be surplus to requirements and the Department of Natural Resources is currently handling the disposal of the property. The former Yeronga Fire Station is to go to auction on 19 May 1999.
","criteria":"The former Yeronga Fire Station is an important example of the upgrading of fire stations undertaken in Brisbane suburbs by the Queensland Government through the Metropolitan Fire Board during the 1930s.
The former Yeronga Fire Station is important in demonstrating the growth of Yeronga during the 1930s.
|The former Yeronga Fire Station is an important example of the architecture and planning of Brisbane suburban fire stations of the 1930s. The interiors in both the operational and domestic areas are substantially intact.
|The former Yeronga Fire Station has aesthetic and architectural significance as a modest, functional civic building. Robust and austere, it is a landmark on Ipswich Road, a busy Brisbane arterial.
|The former Yeronga Fire Station is important as one of a number of civic and community service buildings located within Yeronga Park.
|The former Yeronga Fire Station is an important example of the work of the architectural firm Atkinson and Conrad. Atkinson, through the firms he was associated with, sustained a long association with the Fire Services in Brisbane commencing in 1890 with his design for the new headquarters for the Brisbane Fire Brigade. His architectural practices were responsible for many of the fire stations throughout Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16881,"place_ref":602145,"name":"Rosemount Hospital","alternate_name":"Rosemount Repatriation General Hospital | Rosemount Military Hospital | Rosemount","street_address":"189 Lutwyche Road","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-09-24","description":"Rosemount Hospital occupies 2.422 hectare site on an east facing slope overlooking Breakfast Creek at Windsor. It comprises a variety of buildings, structures and gardens and includes a former 1880s brick residence set amongst a collection of WWI, interwar and WWII timber wards and ancillary buildings and a recent masonry complex for geriatric patients.
The site is divided by the large two storey masonry complex constructed in the late 1980s. To the west are the former Medical Officer's Quarters facing Lutwyche Road, a single storey timber framed building elevated on concrete stumps with a hipped corrugated iron roof and walls clad in pine chamfer boards. It contains two bedrooms, a kitchenette, lounge, entrance porch and verandah which has been enclosed. The building is presently unoccupied.
Also located on Lutwyche Road is the former dental hut, a single storey timber framed building clad in timber chamferboards with a terracotta tile gambrel roof and finials. It is elevated on timber stumps and was converted to several different uses including an assistant officer's quarters and later as an orderlies' hut.
The remainder of the surviving buildings are located to the east of the masonry complex.
Wards 1-5 are located within the southern portion of the site. Each has had stumps and roofing replaced, ventilated ridges removed and verandahs enclosed with casement windows and metal louvres. The interiors of the dormitory have been lined with fibrous cement sheeting . At the northern end of each of the wards an addition which may incorporate the frame of the early walkway has been lined externally with small timber chamferboards. A steel framed covered connecting walkway links the buildings. Ward 1 is now occupied by the GARU and Karuna. Part of Ward 2 is also occupied by Karuna. Wards 3 contains the Red Cross canteen and the University of Queensland have research units in part of Ward 3 and in Ward 4. Ward 5 is unoccupied.
Wards 6 and 7, constructed c1939, are single storey timber framed buildings elevated on concrete stumps and beams with a fibro cement roof and walls lined in FAC board. They were built with 11' wide verandahs to the north and south sides with canvas roller blinds which have been enclosed. Self contained ablutions located in an annexe at the eastern end of each building have been altered.
The buildings are highset at their eastern end and the subfloor area has been enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting. Ward 6 is presently used for storage of bulk medical stores and Ward 7 has been recently refurbished as offices for its present tenants, Home and Community Care (HACC). The interiors have been lined, some partitions installed and the building has been painted internally and externally.
The Matron's flat and household workers' quarters is a timber framed building lined with tongue and grooved pine elevated on timber stumps. The verandahs are lined with fibrous cement sheeting to sill height with venetian blinds above. The Matron's flat, contained a verandah, office, bedroom, lounge, vestibule, front hall and bathroom. The Household workers' quarters contained a hallway, bedroom, sewing room, dining room, lounge, and back and side verandahs. All internal partition walls have been removed and the building was used as a kitchen until recently and is now unoccupied.
The Rosemount residence has a western wing constructed of English bond red facebrick relieved with stone sills and window dressings, multipaned leadlight windows and a dark facebrick base. It has a corrugated iron roof and bay windows to the north and to the west with battened and bracketed eaves and an elaborate timber entrance porch with seating to the north. The western bay window is protected by a narrow porch which provides entry to the semi detached kitchen. An early stone retaining wall frames the walkway at the end of the building.
The 1880s brick wing of the early Rosemount residence and the adjoining kitchen is of the same layout that appears on the 1916 plan and contained bedrooms, bathroom, large dining room, kitchen scullery, larder and cook's room. Timber detailing throughout is substantial and elaborate and includes ceilings, architraves, skirtings, dados, dining room mantel piece and door and window joinery. The dining room and hall have elaborate coffered ceilings and the floor to the halls has tessellated tiles. The lower level of the house to the east of the main hall was replaced sometime after WWI. This timber wing replaced a masonry portion in a similar configuration and early windows and doors have been incorporated into timber framed walls. The rear verandah and viewing platform was enclosed and roofed and the spiral stair removed. The posts, ripple iron ceiling and other details of the early verandah survive and have been clad with timber chamferboards and casement windows. The massage room was located on the eastern verandah , and an ionisation room and orthopaedic room were contained within the house during WWI. It was later adapted for use as the Sister's quarters.
The former Sisters' Quarters No 1 (day nurses quarters) is a single storey timber framed building elevated on concrete stumps with pine chamfer board cladding and a corrugated iron gambrel roof. Its linear plan contains what were formerly thirteen bedrooms, an entrance lounge, hall and a bathroom and shower room opening off a central hall. The western end of the building is in contact with the ground and the walls and floor at this end of the building demonstrate some signs of failure, the extent of which is unknown. The building is presently unoccupied.
The Operating Theatre is a single storey timber framed building lined with vertical tongue and groove pine boards and six-light sash and frame windows. It is elevated on concrete stumps and has a corrugated iron gable roof with ventilated ridge. Entry is gained via a series of ramps to a porch on the western elevation. A pair of six-light timber panel entrance doors with matching sidelights and fanlights provide the main entry to a large foyer with a staff entry to an office through a four panel timber door. The interior comprises a theatre, offices and ancillary spaces with floors and coved skirtings finished with terrazzo.
The former lavatory block is a timber framed building with a concrete floor and corrugated iron gambrel roof. Its walls originally lined with tongue and grooved pine boards have been sheeted on the exterior with fibrous cement sheeting. The building is presently divided with a central timber partition and is unoccupied.
The former Recreation Hall is a single storey timber framed building, lined with vertical tongue and groove pine boards and is elevated on concrete stumps with a corrugated iron gable roof. The roof structure incorporates iron tie rods below a coved timber boarded ceiling. Natural light and ventilation are provided by a combination of sash and frame windows divided by pairs of top hinged sashes to the east and west elevations. Entry to the building is gained at the southern end via a ramp or short flight of stairs and the building is connected to the eastern and southern wards by a timber framed covered walkway.
The former mortuary building is a simple single storey brick building with concrete floor and corrugated iron roof. Access to the interior was not available.
Indigenous Health occupy a highset single storey timber framed building with corrugated iron roof in the north east corner of the site. This building was removed to this location after 1966. Another highset single storey timber framed building with corrugated iron roof lined in vertical tongue and groove boards with sash and frame windows was also removed to the south eastern corner of the site after 1966 and may have been relocated from somewhere within the hospital complex.
","history":"The former residence of Rosemount and its grounds on Lutwyche Road at Windsor have served several different functions over more than a century. Originally a home to several notable Brisbane identities, the site was transformed into a military hospital during World War I and has also served as a repatriation hospital, psychiatric facility and as a centre for rehabilitation.
Allotment 13 on which the original Rosemount residence was built was granted to Charles Windmell in March 1855. Daniel Rowntree Somerset, purchased this allotment (and allotments 11 and 12) in August 1855 and built a lofty house of stone containing drawing room, dining room, four bedrooms and hall with marble chimney pieces, enriched cornices and centres which he offered for sale in 1858-59. The property on 77 acres, also included a detached kitchen built of stone containing a pantry store room and two servant's rooms; a coach house and stable built of hardwood slabs and an acre of garden well stocked with flowers, shrubs and fruit trees. The property was first leased and then purchased in July 1865 by Maurice O'Connell. Sir O'Connell and his wife Eliza Emmaline came to Brisbane in 1860 after a six year term as Government Resident at Port Curtis. He was a grandson of Governor Bligh, and was very prominent in the affairs of the colony of New South Wales. He was a founding member of the Queensland Legislative Council and its president until 1879. A highly respected and involved public figure, O'Connell was appointed Administrator of the Colony in the absence of the Governor on four occasions. A locality in Windsor was named O'Connelltown in his families' honour and Le Geyt Street was named after Lady O'Connell's maiden name.
O'Connell immediately began subdividing and selling allotments 11 and 12 as smaller building sites. He took out three mortgages of £1500 in July 1865, £605 in August and £367/5 in September 1866 on Allotment 13. It is not certain what he did with the loans but in 1872, O'Connell lost the property comprising the house and 24 acres 36 perches to Mary Jones after she exercised her power of sale when the O'Connells defaulted on repaying the £1500 loan. Jones transferred the property to Francis Sophia Jones , wife of the Reverend Thomas Jones of All Saints Church, Wickham Terrace and the property was then offered for sale or to let in May 1872. The description of the house at this time closely matches that when the house was sold by Somerset, suggesting that no major construction work had been undertaken. The property was described as being built of stone, consisting of six rooms with detached kitchen, storeroom and larder. There were also wooden stables, with stalls for five horses, coach house and loft and a room for a groom. The grounds surrounding this residence comprised about 22 acres including flower and kitchen garden, a cultivation paddock of five acres and a pasture for five or six cows.
Maurice Lyons, solicitor leased the property in October 1872 for a term of three years and continued the lease after the property was purchased by his wife, Matilda in September 1873. Lyons kept racehorses and nearby Lyons Parade and Lyons Terrace are named after the family.
In February 1880, stock and station agent, James Hamilton Scott purchased the house on 6 acres 4 perches and soon after nominated Henry Vyvyan Hassell and Samuel McGregor as trustees for purposes unidentified. The remainder of allotment 13 was offered for sale as Rosemount Estate by Lyons, subdivided into 90 'villa sites'.
Trustees, Hassell and McGregor took out a mortgage for £1,500 from Richard Cruise in December 1882 and Scott appears in the Post Office Directories for 1883-4 as residing at Rosemount. Scott may have been responsible for the additional stone house that was believed to have been added to the original building and connected by a timber walkway.
In 1885, the property was purchased by Alfred Jones, the manager and one of the founders of the firm, Gordon and Gotch. It is believed that the original stone house began to fail and Jones demolished and replaced it with the brick wing and porch to form one long residence. Jones is also believed to have added the look-out across the eastern verandah of the building accessed by a spiral stair. The design of the brick addition has been attributed to prominent architect GHM Addison.
In 1901, Jones purchased an adjoining 2 acres, 1 rood 34 perches, a subdivision of allotment 14. Alfred Jones resided at Rosemount until his death in 1912 when the property was inherited by his sons, Sydney William and Herbert Alfred. The following year, the sons left the house to live in Ascot.
The property was lent to the military authorities for the term of World War I and was not formally acquired from the Jones' family until 1926 along with an additional 1 acre 1 rood 27 perches in the southwest corner. Rosemount was initially used as a hospital for massage and ionisation cases but the existing buildings soon proved to be insufficient for the increasing number of soldiers requiring hospital care. In 1916, eight open air style wards with semi-detached general areas and bathrooms and central kitchen area were constructed in the grounds between the house and Breakfast Creek by the Department of Home Affairs. Existing outbuildings such as the coach house, laundry and stables were adapted for use as orderlies' quarters and for other auxiliary uses.
Construction on a second phase of buildings commenced in December 1918 and was substantially complete by the end of 1919 at which time the hospital complex comprised a total of 13 wards, five huts, a dining hall and kitchen, theatre block, two buildings for staff quarters, sisters quarters, administration block, massage block, stores, dispensary, curative metal workshop, curative boot repairing workshops, boiler house, mortuary, motor shed, oil shed, dental buildings, eight fire boxes and a gymnasium.
The design of the new wards was adapted from the standard pavilion plan of the time and like the open air wards were designed to provide for the maximum circulation of fresh air. Patients were ideally situated in close proximity to a door or window without the distinct disadvantages of having no walls, particularly in winter months and with the opportunity of respite on open verandahs.
Initial plans provided 10' verandahs to enable patients to sleep out and to increase accommodation in the wards. The Chairman of the Board argued that patients everywhere prefer sleeping on the verandah and it was thought that this would especially be the case in Queensland. However, the Principal Medical Officer disagreed with this deviation from the standard design and insisted that the five wards be constructed with standard 5' verandahs.
A compromise was reached and the five identical timber pavilion plan single storey wards elevated on timber stumps with corrugated iron roof and ventilated ridge, measuring 80 ft by 17 ft, were erected with 8' verandahs. Each ward included a dormitory, two cubicles, a Sister's office, servery and an annexe sterilizer room and self contained ablutions block at the southern end. The ward buildings were stepped down the gentle east facing slope and were connected by a timber framed walkway with corrugated iron roof. Wards 1 and 2 were constructed as a 20 and 22 bed ward respectively. Wards 3,4 and 5 were 30 bed wards.
In April 1921 Rosemount Hospital was taken over by the Department of Repatriation from the Department of Defence. The Repatriation Department immediately began a building program which included the erection of a new residence for the medical officers at a cost of £950, alterations and conversion of the Administration block to nurses quarters and single officers quarters. A detached room was constructed for sterilising which adjoined the existing scientific block. The Dental hut was altered for research work and the tinsmith's shop became a pharmacy. Alterations were made to the existing mortuary and a hut was altered for office accommodation.
Alterations were made to the administration building to provide office accommodation for the medical superintendent and an out-patients department. The Red Cross Buildings were altered as accommodation for the resident Medical Officer and pharmacist and a lavatory and bathroom were added. A lavatory was moved 15' from the front gate to the right, to provide a gate keepers cottage. The dental hut was converted to be used for pathological examinations. The 1916 open air wards and associated outbuildings were demolished prior to 1935.
In December 1939, approval was granted for the construction of new wards by the Department of the Interior, for the accommodation of service personnel. The construction of similar wards in Sydney and Melbourne were also approved. In February 1940,the Major General reported that while there were a small number of army patients at Rosemount it was expected that the numbers would increase before June with the establishment of larger Militia Camps and the involvement of the Australian personnel in the Middle East.
Plans were prepared by the Department of Works after consultation with the Departments of Repatriation and Defence. Initially thirty beds were to be provided but with the escalation of the war, this requirement was increased to a total of 82 beds available for defence patients. To cope with the extra patients and resultant staff increase, additions were also made to the kitchen and boiler house, nurses quarters, orderlies and maids changing rooms and stores.
Following World War 2, the Department of Repatriation rationalised and reorganised its facilities for service personnel. The Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital became the principal acute care facility and as a consequence the Rosemount complex was transferred to the Brisbane and South Coast Hospitals Board in the early 1950s. The Board was experiencing major problems with overcrowding and the Rosemount site was used to alleviate some of those difficulties and was used for a variety of purposes, principally the care of long term patients. Minimal improvements were made at Rosemount as the Board's capital funds were needed for the expansion on the Herston site. In 1951, over three acres on the banks of Breakfast Creek was sold to the Brisbane City Council and is presently open space used as parkland.
In the 1980s the Rosemount site was used as a psychiatric facility for the nearby Royal Brisbane Hospital. During this period the operating theatre was used to administer electroconvulsant therapy (ECT or 'electric shock treatment). The adjacent Ward 6 functioned as an intensive care unit, Ward 7 was the lock ward and the former nurses quarters were used as accommodation for medical staff..
In the late 1980s a new two storey masonry complex to accommodate the geriatric services divisions was erected to the west of the Rosemount residence and part of this building is now used as a day hospital. This project necessitated the demolition of some the massage block, X-ray building, garage, male staff hut, workshop and stores.
At the present time the Rosemount complex remains part of the Royal Brisbane Hospital and fulfils a number of functions. These include: geriatric rehabilitation, an Aged Care Assessment Team, Indigenous Health, palliative care (Karuna) and home and community care (HACC).
","criteria":"Rosemount Hospital is significant as a military hospital developed as a result of World War I. It demonstrates the development of facilities required to treat the extensive number of service personnel injured in World Wars I and II. The extent of war injuries is an aspect of the war that tends to be overshadowed by the number of fatalities as recognised by war memorials. These buildings are a testament to those who survived but nevertheless suffered as a result of the conflict.
It (former Rosemount residence) also demonstrates the type of residential development that occurred along the northern bank of Breakfast Creek from the 1860s and is important for its association with early European Settlers in this area. It is also significant for the evidence it provides of changing trends in psychiatric and general nursing and medical care.
|This is the only such facility surviving in Queensland and one of the few from this period in Australia.
The five timber ward buildings have added significance as a rare surviving example of a set of timber pavilion ward from World War I.
|(Criterion under review)
|The former Rosemount residence is significant as an example of an 1880s residence by prominent nineteenth century architect, G H M Addison, and has added significance for the intactness of its 1880s brick wing including the interior of its rooms.
Significant buildings include the former Rosemount residence, the Medical Officer's quarters, Dental Hut, the five timber pavilion wards constructed in 1918, the former lavatory building and operating theatre, the timber pavilion buildings constructed c1939, the former Matron's quarters, the Sister's Quarters, the former Red Cross Hut and the Morgue. Other significant features include the connecting walkways, stone retaining walls and mature trees.
|(Criterion under review)
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16883,"place_ref":602147,"name":"Former North Ward Defence Complex, Townsville","alternate_name":"Oxley Street Defence site | 11 Brigade Administration Support Battalion Headquarters Company","street_address":"46 Oxley Street","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-12-03","description":"The former North Ward Defence Complex, Townsville, is located on a town block bounded by Oxley, Leichhardt and Mitchell Streets and the Strand. The entrance to the complex is off Mitchell Street. Most of the buildings face into the complex, but the office section of the 1905-06 Drill Hall faces Leichhardt Street. Vacant land at the front of the block faces the Strand.
At one stage there were 28 buildings and structures on the site. Three buildings are identified as being of cultural heritage significance:
Building 1:\tFormer Offices and Stores Building [1890]
This building is constructed in English bond red brick. There is a gable in the roof over the gantry which is located over the large central opening at the first floor level. The opening has a modern glazed door in it. The building has timber double hung windows and a pair of original V-jointed board doors at ground floor level. One door on the ground floor has been covered over with sheet metal. Its rubbed brick arches - flat arches, distinguish the building over the window and single door openings, segmented arches over the large ground and first floor level openings. The building has a hipped corrugated iron roof with slatted boxed eaves to all elevations. The interior of the building, while possibly retaining some of its original form, has been converted into office space and extensively remodelled.
Building 5: \tAdministration Offices and Storeroom
\t\t[former Drill Hall and Offices, 1905-06]
The offices and hall building is a timber framed structure consisting of sections of both exposed timber studs to the exterior with vertical V-jointed board to the inside, and conventional weatherboard clad section. The exposed stud detail is located under the verandah only. The wing of the building, with its long elevation to Mitchell Street has a corrugated iron gabled roof with a semi-circular gabled vent while the longitudinal wing has a hipped corrugated galvanised iron roof with a vent to the south-east gabled end. The roof has areas of both open and slatted vented eaves. The structure sits on concrete stumps.
Doors are generally four panelled timber with pairs of doors with a highlight over to doors opening to the verandah. The windows are pivoted timber framed sashes, some of which appear to have been converted from double hung. The interior of the Mitchell Street wing has been relined but the other wing retains much of its original V-jointed lining boards.
Building 27:\tOffices [former Staff Quarters, c1890]
The administration building is a timber; six room former residential building with a pyramidal corrugated iron roof. The building is constructed on brick piers. Chamfer boards clad the external walls and verandah roof. The structure is exposed wooden stud framing to the verandah side with beaded lining boards facing the rooms. The building has an encircling verandah, which has been sheeted in with fibre cement sheet, timber trellis work and windows, and doors, which have been added at a relatively recent date. The verandah has a curved corrugated iron roof. The former service block at the rear of the building, which adjoins the south-west portion of the verandah, is a timber framed fibre cement sheet slatted timber structure with a corrugated iron skillion roof.
Internally, the rooms are generally uniform in detail with French doors with highlights over to the verandah to most rooms and four panel doors with highlights over to the passage. The doorways at either end of the passage have four panel doors with sidelights and highlights.
","history":"The North Ward Defence Complex, development of which began in 1885, was constructed as a Volunteer Defence Training facility. The majority of the present buildings on the site date from c1890 to c1942.
In the 1840s Britain gave its colonies a limited amount of self rule. One of the reasons for the decision was the cost of maintaining government responsibilities in the far flung empire. While Westminster retained control of foreign relations and international trade and some aspects of defence, the colonies were given more responsibility for their own defence. Military property was transferred from the Imperial Board of Ordnance in London to local colonial control. England supplied and paid the troops and the colonies were responsible for other military needs.
It was not until the discovery of gold in the 1850s that the need for a strong military presence in Australia was seen to be necessary. Gold shipments required protection within the country and shipments at sea needed protection from privateers. Compounding these problems was the perceived threat of invasion during the build up to the war in the Crimea. Because the Imperial British forces were likely to be directly engaged in the Crimea the Australian colonies began to develop volunteer forces for their own defence purposes. These volunteers supplied all their own needs except weapons and instruction.
During the second half of the 19th century international instability gave rise to concerns about military preparedness in the Australian colonies. Until 1878 Queensland's defences ended at Rockhampton. The rest of the coast was undefended until the formation of Townsville No.4 Battery and Garrison Artillery. The Townsville Battery was raised as a tactical response to the threat of seaborn attack, especially from privateers who might be interested in shipments of gold from the port of Townsville. Despite the establishment of No.4 Battery and Garrison Artillery there was still some concern in the Townsville community about the preparedness of the city for attack during the 1880s and early 1890s.
Efforts were made to improve Queensland's defence force, however these were unsatisfactory and volunteers continued to attend parades at their own expense. In a move to improve the situation the Queensland Government introduced the Defence Act of 1884, which provided for permanent artillery and a partially paid militia.
The North Ward Defence Complex appears to have been developed as a response to the 1884 legislation. It appears that the first building, contracted for in 1885 and constructed c1887, was a drill hall. About 1890 a two-storeyed brick office and stores building was erected at the corner of Oxley and Mitchell Streets, and in a separate contract, Staff Officers' Quarters, Stables and Fencing were erected c1890. These early buildings were designed in the Queensland Colonial Architect's office.
In 1904 the Queensland Government Architect Alfred Brady approved drawings prepared by District Architect Thomas Pye for a new drill hall and administrative offices. The drawings indicate that the existing Staff Quarters, Stores and Offices Building, Stables and small shed were to be retained, but that the original drill hall was to be removed. The new hall was completed in 1905-06.
In 1889 James Bevan Edwards, a senior regular British officer, visited Australia to advise the colonies on how to improve their military defences. His visit reflected both local and imperial concerns including moves towards Federation and hostile incursions into the Pacific Region. Edwards, basing his ideas on what was happening in Europe and England, advised the Australian colonies to amalgamate their permanent forces and to form a federal voluntary militia from their paid citizen soldiers.
Edwards' suggestions were considered at conferences attended by the colonial commanders in 1894 and 1896 but nothing was resolved. On 1 March 1901 the volunteer militia of the six colonies passed into the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth under the administration of the Department of Defence without being formally amalgamated into one Australian army. The Commonwealth government had to decide whether to amalgamate the six colonial volunteer militia forces or to raise a new force. With the passing of the Defence Act of 1903 the Commonwealth Government amalgamated the six colonial militia forces into a paid voluntary force which would defend Australian sovereignty both overseas and in Australia. Unpaid volunteers were confined to the defence of Australia.
The threat of war in Europe in 1914 saw members of the militia and the volunteer forces clamouring to join the Australian expeditionary force. In all, over 50,000 militia joined the Australian Infantry Force (AIF) during the First World War, signalling the demise of the volunteer force as the main military organisation in Australia.
The North Ward Defence Complex became a focus for cadet training after the First World War. Compulsory military training was instigated after the war for young men between the ages of eighteen and nineteen, who lived in cities and large towns. Responsibility for junior cadet training reverted to the states while senior cadet training no longer really existed beyond physical training and rifle practice.
The Cadet's Orderly Room had deteriorated by 1908 and in August the Commonwealth Inspector for Public Works, RN Quinn recommend that it be demolished and that the Sergeant's Room be partitioned to create space for the cadets. These works were carried out and the building has remained largely unchanged since.
In 1937 the Commonwealth Defence Department began negotiations to acquire the remainder of the town block bordered by Leichhardt and Oxley Streets on which the Defence buildings were located. Negotiations with the State government were protracted and it was not until 19 October 1939 that the purchase was finalised.
A plan of the site indicates that the galvanised iron clad, saw-tooth roofed Quartermaster's Store (Building No. 8), located on what was the newly purchased land, was constructed by 1942.
Other corrugated iron buildings on the site are likely to have been 19th century structures. Two timber framed, corrugated iron store buildings along Mitchell Street were demolished in August 2000, one of which appears to have been the c1890 stables.
Some minor alterations were made to the Drill Hall in the 1970s and some alterations were made to the 1890 Offices and Stores Building when it was converted to the 11 Brigade dentist's surgery.
Concrete block toilets were constructed to the rear of the Drill Hall at the time women were allowed to join the armed forces in the late 20th century.
The complex is no longer owned by the Department of Defence.
","criteria":"The former North Ward Defence Complex, elements of which date from c1890 through to 1942, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being evidence of the Colonial response to changes in British military defence policy, the training of Queensland militia under both colonial and Federal administrations, and the continued occupation as a defence complex for over a century.
|The 1890 Former Offices and Stores Building and the 1905-06 former timber Drill Hall and Administrative Offices are rare surviving examples of their type and period of construction in Queensland. The drill hall in particular is one of only two Federation-era drill halls surviving in Queensland, the other being at Rockhampton. These buildings also are important in illustrating the principal characteristics of the work of the Queensland Government Architect's Office in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|As a mainly pre-1945 military complex, the North Ward Defence Complex is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, including the composition and arrangement of buildings and structures, and is significant for its contribution to an understanding of the infrastructure required for the training of volunteer militia in Queensland prior to the Second World War.
|The c1890 buildings and the 1905-06 Former Drill Hall and Administrative Offices have aesthetic value engendered by their form, fabric, detailing and scale. The two-storeyed, c1890 Former Brick Offices and Store has landmark value in the Mitchell Street streetscape.
|The North Ward Defence Complex is significant for its long association with the Queensland Volunteer Defence Forces, and their important contribution to the defence of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16886,"place_ref":601882,"name":"Pechey Forestry Arboretum","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"New England Highway","suburb":"PECHEY","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-07-23","description":"The 4.5 hectare Arboretum is located on the New England Highway south east of Perseverance Dam Road within the Pechey State Forest, Number 909. The Arboretum lines the highway for approximately 300 metres and the site has a depth of 150 metres. The Arboretum is approximately 500 metres from the entrance to the Perseverance Dam Road and is bounded by forestry roads which serve as firebreaks.
The Pechey Forestry Arboretum is a plot of heavily treed land which retains seven of the original twenty-four species planted in the late 1920s. The overall condition of the place is reasonable although infested with weeds.
","history":"In 1910 the then Under Secretary of the Department of Public Lands in which Forestry was a sub-department, wrote that the needs of Queensland pine timber would have to be met by exotic varieties secured by importation in a manufactured state or from local plantations on land incapable of producing indigenous varieties.
Arboreta are plots of land where different varieties of trees and plants are planted by government or research bodies to determine suitability of plantings in particular climate, soil type and topography conditions.
As an example of the scientific research into the viable varieties of exotic plantings the Pechey Forestry Arboretum was established. The initial areas of the Pechey State Forest were purchased from the estate of EW Pechey by the Forestry Department in 1926. Under the guidance of Elton Sharman, establishment of plantation areas was commenced in 1927. The land was to supply miscellaneous hardwood, case timbers and future plantation softwood for the Darling Downs market.
A nursery was established on the site in 1927. As one of the many trial plantings throughout Queensland to determine the potential for a broad range of species for timber plantation purposes within State Forests, the Pechey Arboretum an area of 4.5 hectares was established in 1928.
","criteria":"The Forestry industry has played an important role in the economic, social and historical development of Queensland. The Pechey Forestry Arboretum demonstrates the phase from the 1920s when plots were planted for scientific and research purposes to develop and encourage diversity within the Forestry industry.
|The Arboretum has the potential to yield further information about the establishment of arboreta, a field of significant research to the agricultural development of Queensland, about which little research has been done.
|The Arboretum has scientific significance and demonstrates the principle characteristics of scientific plots, in particular, it represents the optimum development of plots which were planted in the 1920s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16887,"place_ref":602150,"name":"Archerfield Second World War Igloos Complex","alternate_name":"Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd premises | Hasting Deering (Australia) Ltd premises","street_address":"98-138 Kerry Road","suburb":"ARCHERFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-27","description":"The site comprises four timber framed igloos with corrugated iron and ribbed metal sheet cladding. Numbered from the eastern end of the site, the igloos are identified by a number from 1 to 4. The site fronts Kerry Road to the north, with a recreation reserve to the south fronting Mortimer Road.
All four igloos are of similar construction, and utilise nailed timber arch construction, where each arm is made up of two half arches pinned at two abutments close to the ground level, and at a central or crown pin. Each half arch consists of two adjacent trusses laced together at top and bottom chord level and each truss consists of a top and bottom chord laced together in arch form. Each truss is therefore made up of four main timber chords sprung into arch form, and light timber bracing nailed into position to form a curved open-latticed box truss.
The structures were originally sheeted in corrugated iron, however igloos nos. 1-3 have been re-sheeted with ribbed metal sheeting. The structures also have translucent sheeting at regular intervals, approximately located between each box truss, which provide adequate lighting levels. The igloos have ridge ventilators, concrete floors, and the abutments are fixed by timber plates into concrete footings. Original external stormwater drains along the side of each igloo are still in use, some with grates known as 'Bailey's matting'. Internally, the igloos are used for a range purposes including storage and manufacturing, and consequently have various free-standing structures.
Igloo no. 1 is the former store, and is the smallest of the four igloos. It is located closer to Kerry Road than the remaining three igloos which are in alignment facing north-south. When constructed, it was described as being 255 feet long and 170 feet span and of Oregon construction, and currently has skillion roofed side annexes.
Igloo nos. 2 is of similar size and is the largest of the four igloos, and when constructed was described as being 353 feet long and 188 feet 6 inches span and of hardwood construction. It has an overhead walkway near the ridge, and its abutment pins are raised a few metres above the ground on timber frames which result in much greater clearance.
Igloo no. 2 has a large single-storeyed administration building added to the northern end, and large additions have also been made to the southern end including a paint booth and engine testing room. This igloo has skillion roofed side annexes, and large louvres have been installed in the northern wall above the administration building.
Igloos nos. 3 and 4 are of similar size, and when constructed were described as being 353 feet long and 170 feet span and constructed of hardwood timber. Igloo no. 3 has skillion roofed side annexes and the name HASTINGS DEERING on the northern wall above the entrance which has evidence of early sliding door mechanisms. Internally this igloo shows some signs of structural movement, with the cracking of some narrow timber members and cracking of concrete surrounds to abutments. Igloo no. 4 has original gable roofed side entrances, and has been enclosed at the southern end with several demountable structures, and a fence separates it from the surrounding Thiess Contractors site.
Large carparks are located to the north of igloos along the Kerry Road frontage, and several demountable and ancillary structures are located around the igloos and the site in general. An original concrete drainage channel is located along the northern part of the site parallel to Kerry Road, with an original bridge north of igloo no. 3. This drainage channel turns southwards between igloos nos. 1 and 2 and runs to the rear of the property.
","history":"The Archerfield Second World War Igloos Complex is comprised of 3 former igloo hangars and one associated igloo store. These structures are located on a site which had been part of the Archerfield Aerodrome during the Second World War, and each is a timber truss igloo structure with corrugated iron or ribbed metal sheet cladding. The igloos were constructed in 1943-44 by the Allied Works Council for the Department of Aircraft Production. The complex was used for military aircraft maintenance and repair under the control of the US 81st Air Depot Group, and under the U.S. 5th Air Force under the command of General Douglas MacArthur's Supreme Headquarters of the South West Pacific Area. It has been noted in a study of prefabricated Second World War structures that the Archerfield Second World War Igloos are among 'the longest clear span buildings existing in Australia.'
1. History of the Site, and aviation in Brisbane, to the Second World War
The area immediately surrounding the Archerfield Second World War Igloos Complex has been known as Archerfield only since 1929. As early as 1826 the wider area was known as Cowper's [later Cooper's] Plains, named after the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement's first medical officer, Dr Henry Cowper, who, during his regular visits to Limestone Hill [Ipswich], camped overnight on the government cattle run established on the grassy plains east of Oxley Creek, about 7 miles south of the main Brisbane River settlement.
The first freehold land in the district was made available in the 1850s, and most of the remaining land was taken up in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1855 Thomas Grenier purchased from the New South Wales Government 640 acres, much of which is now part of Archerfield Aerodrome. The land on which the igloo structures are located was granted by Deed of Grant in July 1856 to John and Isaac Markwell. The land was transferred in December 1878 to George and Samuel Grimes, and later to Annie and Martin Finucane in March 1901 who subdivided the property. The land surrounding the igloos was transferred to the members of Spring and Sims families in the 1910s and 1920s, and this land was acquired by the Crown in February 1945 pursuant to the provisions of the Lands Acquisition Act 1906 and The Real Property (Commonwealth Titles) Act of 1924.
The first aerodrome in Brisbane was established on a site at Eagle Farm which had been inspected in February 1922 by Captain EC Johnston, Superintendent of Aerodromes, Civil Aviation Department, as a site for a civil aerodrome. A grass airstrip was formed in 1923, and a layout for hangar blocks with a caretaker's cottage was prepared in February 1924. The Brisbane Civil Aviation hangar was constructed at the site c.1925, and the first commercial operations were commenced by QANTAS in 1926, which formed the Brisbane Flying Training School in 1927. By August 1928 a second hangar housing QANTAS was located adjacent to the north of the Brisbane Civil Aviation hangar, with a caretakers cottage to the south. However, the aerodrome suffered from poor drainage and flooding.
Significant aviation events during this period included the landing of the Southern Cross in June 1928. Squadron Leader Charles Kingsford-Smith and CTP Ulm completed the first trans-Pacific flight from California to Brisbane, landing at Eagle Farm. Kingsford-Smith and Ulm formed Australian National Airlines in 1929 and initiated scheduled services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Also of note in 1928, Squadron Leader HJL Hinkler AFC completed the first solo flight from England to Australia in 16 days in a light aeroplane. On 10 April 1933, Queensland aviator Mrs Lores Bonney left Archerfield on the start of her solo flight to England.
In September 1928 the Brisbane City Council approved of about 228 acres of farm land at Cooper's Plains (renamed Archerfield July 1929), near Oxley - part of the 640 acres first alienated by Thomas Grenier in 1855 - as the site for a new Brisbane aerodrome. This site was intended to replace the Eagle Farm Aerodrome, which had suffered substantial flooding. In 1929 the Commonwealth Government resumed the bulk of the present airfield, with frontages to Beatty, Mortimer and Boundary Roads, and additional land was acquired in 1930, 1936 and 1942. In August 1929 it was stated that as soon as the aerodrome at Archerfield was acquired and prepared, flying activities would be transferred from Eagle Farm which would then be available for disposal, and that the two existing hangars would be moved to Archerfield, but that the caretakers cottage on the site would remain. Eagle Farm continued to operate until 1931 when it was closed after heavy rains. The first hangars were erected or moved to Archerfield in 1930-31. The Queensland Aero Club, which had been established in 1919, was based at Eagle Farm during the 1920s and moved to Archerfield 1931.
In 1929 the Eagle Farm site was placed with the Department of the Interior for sale, and several options for disposal of the property were considered, including industrial sites or to the general public in broad acre lots or by subdivision. In 1931 it was assessed as having a poor prospect of sale, and it was recommended to lease the land until the real estate market improved.
Until 1939, Archerfield Aerodrome comprised one large, grassy field of nearly 300 acres, several hangars located along the Beatty Road side of the airfield just north of the earlier cemetery [601968], and the Queensland Aero Club's facilities at the northern end of the field along Boundary Road. There was no tarmac, and the roads in and out of the airfield and to the buildings were unsealed. The first control tower was a small timber structure on steel posts, which was replaced by a new Archerfield Administration, Passenger Terminal and Control Tower Building [601140] erected in 1941. Preliminary plans for a control and administrative building were prepared in 1936 as part of the Commonwealth Department of Civil Aviation's commitment to improve facilities at a number of strategic airfields around the country. From 1935-36, it was reported that the number of passengers travelling through Archerfield had doubled, and that Brisbane's position as a strategic centre in the Empire Air Mail scheme had been enhanced by QANTAS Empire Airways duplication of the English mail service.
In June 1939 the Eagle Farm Aerodrome site was still being considered for sale, however by early 1940 the Minister for Civil Aviation, the Honourable JV Fairbairn, stated that the Eagle Farm Aerodrome site was very suitable for training purposes, and directed that it be retained. This was supported by Captain Johnston, who originally selected the site. This decision is likely related to Fairbairn's attendance at a meeting in Ottawa in December 1939 in which the details of the Empire Air Training Scheme were concluded. Australia had declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and the importance placed on the retention of Eagle Farm in concert with Archerfield is reflected in Fairbairn's report to Prime Minister Menzies that the only activity that we have undertaken which could lead to the winning or losing of the war by our failure or success in carrying out our undertaking is the Empire Air Training Scheme.
After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Archerfield Aerodrome assumed a new strategic importance as it provided a base for Australian, American, British, and Dutch air squadrons, was used for the maintenance and repair of military aircraft, and for training purposes. Archerfield Aerodrome played an important role in the Allied war effort, particularly following the entry of Japan into the war with the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 9 December 1941. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Archerfield Aerodrome was placed on "war alert". The aircraft were dispersed around the boundary of the airfield to minimise damage in case of attack and duty crews were on immediate standby at all times. Other precautions at Archerfield in case of air attack included slit trenches, introduction of camouflage, and the use of decoy aircraft.
2. Military Aviation in Australia, and Events Leading to the Second World War
The Australian Flying Corps were involved in the First World War as part of the Army. Following the establishment of the RAF in 1918, Australia's Minister for Defence, Senator GF Pearce, appointed the Swinburne Committee to report on the needs of military aviation. Australia's involvement in the Imperial defence strategy inevitably placed its senior military commanders in a position subordinate to their British counterparts, and as its starting point the Committee accepted the strategy's basis that Australia's security would continue to be based on sea power. The committee found that while they supported the establishment of an air service, they rejected any suggestion that it should have an independent role. Any Australian air force would exist solely to support the sea and land forces.
The Committee recommended the formation of a single, separate air corps, which would be administered by an Air Board comprised of members of the Naval and Military Boards, while the wings of the corps allotted to the Navy and Army were to be controlled by the Naval and Military Boards respectively. Cabinet approved the proposal on 18 February 1919, and the Air Board was formed with the Air Corps key role determined as surveillance. The Navy and Army had their own tasks for the air service, and in April 1920 put forward a proposal for the formation of an air force to meet certain fundamental needs of the Navy and Army, which included torpedo bombers, patrol planes, flying boats and seaplanes, fighting planes, reconnaissance planes and bombers. The Air Corps became the Royal Australian Air Force on 31 March 1921 with a total complement of 21 officers, and the bulk of its aircraft came as a gift from the Imperial government and consisted of essentially obsolete machines left over from the First World War.
The RAAF came into being as the worlds second separate air force, and its establishment coincided with the decision to place defence spending on a peacetime basis for the first time since the First World War. In 1924, the Air Board described the RAAF's condition as most unsatisfactory and that it survived on a hand to mouth existence, with 65 officers and 300 men and only two machines fit for war. Defence funding became even tighter in the Depression years, and the situation did not improve until the mid-1930s with the growing threat of war and easing of the Depression.
A particularly strong anti-RAAF move emerged in 1929 when there was a possibility that the Air Force would be dismembered and split between the other two forces, a threat which was apparent until after the mid-1930s. This coincided with Salmond Report of 1928 which recommended that Australia substitute air power (due to its speed, mobility, flexibility and offensive striking power) for sea and land power. As the Air Force entered the 1930s, it was still equipped with 1916-17 types of machines, although the growing threat of the Japanese air force had been recognised as early as 1925 in the Memorandum Regarding the Air Defence of Australia by Air Commodore Williams.
The 1920s had seen a vast improvement across the spectrum of aircraft performance, particularly in range and reliability. This was highlighted in 1928 when Squadron Leader Charles Kingsford-Smith and CTP Ulm completed the first trans-Pacific flight from California to Brisbane landing at Eagle Farm, and Squadron Leader HJL Hinkler AFC completed the first solo flight from England to Australia in 16 days in a light aeroplane. The capability now existed for long range strike operations against enemy shipping.
Australia's defence independence was constrained by the commitment to the Imperial strategy and the British connection. The Imperial Conference of 1923 declared that the basis of the Empire's security was the sheltering screen provided by the Royal Navy, a judgement which was confirmed at subsequent conferences until 1937. Twice during the interwar period, a review of the RAAF was thought necessary, but in each occasion the government turned to an RAF officer, resulting in the Salmond Report of 1928 and the Ellington Report of 1938.
Germany had invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and on 3 September 1939 Australia declared war on Germany. The RAF realised that if massive expansion were necessary, Britain had the industrial capacity to increase aircraft production but it would not be able to train enough aircrew from British sources. Through Australia's commitment to the defence of Britain, agreement was reached that Australia and other Dominions would participate in a massive training program, subsequently known as the Empire Air Training Scheme, the details of which were concluded at a meeting in Ottawa in December 1939. Australia contributed over 27,000 men to the scheme throughout the Second World War. The RAAF's involvement in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) was more complex than in Europe.
At this time, there were 12 RAAF squadrons, of which two existed in nucleus only and four were citizen force. The aircraft inventory consisted entirely of obsolescent machines. In Brisbane, aviation activities centred on Archerfield (including civil aviation) and Amberley which was under construction. The former Eagle Farm Aerodrome site was taken over by the RAAF for Flying Training purposes on 8 March 1940.
On 7 December 1941 the US Navy Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese. The US Pensacola convoy bound for the Philippines was redirected to Brisbane, arriving on 22 December 1941. Most of the Convoys seventy crated A-24s and P-40s were trucked to Amberley for erection and then for flying to their Clark Field destination in the Philippines, but Archerfield also shared in the erection of both fully crated and deck cargo delivered aircraft. A decision was made in January 1942 to develop Eagle Farm as a major aircraft erection depot and aerodrome from which the planes could proceed. Initial works were delayed by heavy rain for three weeks converting the ground to a quagmire, and as a result thousands of feet of ashes and coke breeze were carted from the gasworks and deposited in order to keep trucks moving with borrow material from Nudgee. Shiploads of aircraft components were arriving at the port and had to be transported to Amberley, and some to Archerfield, for assembly until Eagle Farm was ready. The Americans advised that the runways were urgently needed for the fighter plane protection of Brisbane, and on 29 March 1942 a squadron of P-39 aircraft landed. Archerfield Aerodrome would assume a new strategic importance as it would provided a base for Australian, American, British, and Dutch air squadrons, would be used for the maintenance and repair of military aircraft, and for training purposes, while maintaining its civil aviation functions and well established repair and maintenance facilities.
Shortly after the entry of Japan into the War, Australian foreign policy appeared to make its most dramatic shift since Federation. On 27 December 1941 Prime Minister Curtin stated that Australia now looked to America free from any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom...we shall exert all our energies toward the shaping of a plan, with the United States as its cornerstone. At this time, the RAAF did not have a fighter remotely capable of combating the Japanese Zero, which served the Japanese Naval units.
By February 1942 Japanese forces had gained footholds in territories adjoining northern Australia which made it seem probable that the advance southwards would continue, culminating in the invasion of Australia. This threat of invasion in 1942 is summarised in a statement made by Prime Minister Curtin in 1944, in which he said now that Singapore was lost and we were unable to concentrate a superior fleet, the strength of our defences was inadequate to defend Australia...against an enemy with command of the sea and air. We lacked air support, possessing no fighters whatsoever, and our bomber and reconnaissance planes had been reduced to about 50 machines. No country faced a greater danger with less resources than Australia.
The RAAF had not performed well up until this time, with their involvement in the Far East campaign consisting of a series of devastatingly quick defeats, and a humiliating flight down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies before final defeat or capture. On the 19 February 1942 the Japanese bombed Darwin, and the Darwin Air Station was not well prepared. Several Australian and American aircraft were destroyed on the ground or shot down, and large numbers of the RAAF deserted their posts with 278 personnel still missing four days after the attack.
It was against this background that the decision to place the RAAF under General Douglas MacArthur was made on 18 April 1942. The directive appointing General MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) placed under his control all armed forces which the governments concerned have assigned, or may assign, to this area. The Supreme Headquarters was based in Brisbane in the AMP Building [600147]. Tenants were compulsorily evacuated under military orders from 21 July 1942 until 14 June 1945.
Recognising the need for a coordinating agency for all Australian construction of a military nature, an Allied Works Council (AWC) was formed in February 1942, and the works were mainly carried out by the Civil Construction Corps, into which labour and manpower could be drafted. The Civil Construction Corps, a labour force of more than 50 000 people was set up in April of the same year. While some of these people were volunteers, the majority were drafted. The AWC was disbanded in September 1945.
3. Second World War Construction Work at Archerfield
In November 1939 defence works tenders were announced by the Department of the Interior, including £8,583 for the erection of an Elementary Flying Training School at Archerfield. This was initially named the 3 Flying Training School (FTS), but was soon renamed 2 EFTS, and was based at Archerfield from November 1939 until it was disbanded late April 1942.
In June 1941, it was reported that contracts for 49 buildings at Archerfield for the RAAF had been accepted by Senator Foll, Minister for the Interior. These buildings were constructed by contractor H Trelour and were located at the southeast of the aerodrome at the corner of Mortimer and Beatty Roads. The RAAF 23rd Squadron was based at Archerfield from 30 August 1939 to 6 May 1942, while the RAAF airfield at Amberley was under construction.
On 1 July 1942 the RAAF closed down its Station and Archerfield was then given over entirely to the U.S. operations in July 1942, in concert with the ongoing civil aviation operations and the well established repair and maintenance facilities. Under U.S. Lt. General George C. Kenney, a Central Command Base for the 5th Airforce was established. Planes flown in and out of Archerfield by the U.S. Air Force included B-17 Flying Fortresses, Liberators, Kittyhawks, Dakotas, and B-26 Marauders. The embryo U.S. camp, named 'Camp Muckley', was developed to the southeast of the Archerfield Aerodrome.
The construction of anti-aircraft gun emplacements at Archerfield was proposed in July 1941, however following the bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941, the excavation of slit trenches and air-raid shelter construction proceeded swiftly. While Amberley had paved runways, Archerfield still had grass runways. Initially Archerfield was too small, and the runway too short. Extensions to the landing area to the northeastern corner were approved in March 1942 which involved severing Boundary Road, and the existing Queensland Aero Club buildings fronting Boundary Road were moved. March 1942 saw the strengthening of anti-aircraft defences in Brisbane at Archerfield and Eagle Farm, and other locations. Camouflage work at Archerfield was underway from April 1942.
In 1943, a site on nearby Kerry Road was chosen for the erection of 5 large span nailed timber arch igloos. The five Kerry Road igloos were constructed on this site by the Allied Works Council for the Department of Aircraft Production in 1943-44. The igloos were situated near the Archerfield Aerodrome but separated by Beatty Road. A taxiway between the aerodrome and the igloos allowed the structures to be used for the servicing and repair of military aircraft. Four of these igloos were used as hangars and the fifth as a store.
A December 1942 camouflage report for the Department of Aircraft Production indicated that while looking at sites for additional hangars it was noted that the Department of Civil Aviation contemplated extensions of runways east of Beatty Road, and that action was being taken to acquire a strip of land 15 chains deep parallel with Kerry Road which was intended to become the main access road to the aerodrome. It was noted that at some future date it was intended to remove some of the existing hangars at Archerfield and place them along Kerry Road, and this may account for the location of the existing igloos well back from the road. Eventually five large igloos with ancillary buildings were constructed. Work on the first of the five igloos (either no.3 or no.4) and ancillary buildings was commenced around February 1943 by contractor William Hughes and Co Pty Ltd. It has been noted that 'The igloos are a testament to the then Commonwealth Government's philosophy of dual purpose planning, of high cost projects for wartime and post-war'. This 'dual purpose planning' would provide for continuing industrial and infrastructure development in the post-war period.
A camouflage report of March 1943 noted the siting of a Civil Construction Corps camp for the 'new hangar work' on Kerry Road, and suggests anti-aircraft guns were located there. By March 1943 the initial pair (nos. 3 and 4) of Kerry Road igloo hangars were under construction, and these were noted as being 353 feet long and 170 feet span and of hardwood construction. The valuable maintenance and airframe repair resources of civilian organisations such as QANTAS and AOA/ANA continued to operate and were much in demand at Archerfield, and QANTAS was at work in the second igloo hangar to be constructed (no.3 or no.4) before construction works were complete in August 1943.
The second pair of igloo hangars to be erected (nos. 2 and 5) featured their abutment pins raised a few metres above the ground on sturdy timber frames, resulting in much greater clearance, and drawings of these two igloos are dated October 1943. These igloos were noted as being 353 feet long and 188 feet 6 inches span and of hardwood construction. By January 1944 the middle two igloo hangars were complete, with the eastern igloo hangar half built and the western igloo hangar not yet erected. By April 1944, all five igloos were almost complete, with the western igloo hangar underway. The fifth igloo functioned as the store, and was noted as being 255 feet long and 170 feet span and of Oregon construction, and the four igloo hangars were surrounded by hardstand. Taxiways lead to the south of the igloos and then to the west of the site crossing Beatty Road. A photograph dated c.1945 shows the western igloo with a large concrete storm water drain running under the site. A total of 35 buildings including ancillary structures such as administration buildings, lavatories and guard houses were also erected.
The Kerry Road igloos were shared initially by ANA and QANTAS, in the repair and maintenance of military aircraft for the Department of Aircraft Production. One of the middle two igloo hangars was reportedly used to remove planes' engines which were then sent to nearby Salisbury for testing. The larger igloo hangars (nos. 2 and 5) had walkways near the ridge which enabled overhead access of the planes. When U.S. forces reached the Philippines, their activities at the Kerry Road igloos ceased. From February 1945 the middle two igloo hangars were given over to the U.K.'s Royal Naval Air Service. Their transportable Aircraft Maintenance Yard No. 1, referred to as TAMY 1, assembled, repaired and flight tested aircraft for the Fleet Carrier force sent to the Pacific after Victory in Europe. Accounts of large scale dumping at sea of much of the 'Lease-Lend' equipment from the decks of carriers, fifty miles plus off the east coast of Australia, were reported. The RAF and the Netherlands East Indies Air Force were also stationed at Archerfield from mid-1945.
Development of the Igloo
Faced with wartime manpower shortages as well as a lack of building materials, particularly steel and timber, it was necessary for the authorities to find a method for constructing large, easily assembled structures suitable for such functions as hangars, stores and shelters. Prefabrication provided part of the solution, particularly in Queensland where there was less building infrastructure and equipment, (partially due to fears of bombing raids). Although prefabricated buildings had been in use in Australia from the beginnings of European settlement and World War I saw the development of the Nissen Hut, the prefabricated structures used during the Second World War differed in terms of their production line technique, span and sheer size.
American designs and technologies for building large span timber structures were introduced to Australia for this purpose, although it has been suggested that a French engineer employed at Hornibrooks, Breakfast Creek, may have been responsible for the innovative design of the type of timber arched hangar built at Archerfield. These large igloos used small pieces of timber (sometimes green, unseasoned timber) nailed together to form a trussed framework roofed with corrugated iron. The igloo is a light nailed hardwood timber arch construction, where each arm is made up of two half arches more or less freely pinned at two abutments close to the ground level, and at a central or crown pin. Each half arch consists of two adjacent trusses laced together at top and bottom chord level and each truss consists of a top and bottom chord laced together in arch form. As a result, each truss is made up of four main timber chords sprung into arch form, and light timber bracing nailed into position to form a curved open-latticed box truss.
These igloos were designed to have the half arches raised by ropes and pulleys before being pinned together at the centre. The igloos at Archerfield were one of several designs for lightweight long span structures which utilised timber in small sectional sizes of chords to enable the lattice trusses to be hand nailed in jigs on site and speedily erected at low cost. As previously stated, it has been noted in a study of prefabricated Second World War structures that the Archerfield Second World War Igloos are among 'the longest clear span buildings existing in Australia.'
Post War
The land surrounding the igloos was acquired by the Crown in February 1945 pursuant to the provisions of the Lands Acquisition Act 1906 and The Real Property (Commonwealth Titles) Act of 1924. The RAAF and the RAF had a presence at Archerfield Aerodrome until 1946. The RAAF 23rd Squadron returned to Archerfield in 1948, and remained there until 1955. After the conclusion of the Second World War, Eagle Farm was re-established as Brisbane's principal airport by the Department of Civil Aviation with operations commencing in 1949, and Archerfield became Brisbane's secondary airport, catering for general aviation and flying schools. Archerfield Aerodrome is still government owned, and managed by the Federal Airports Corporation.
All five igloos are now in private ownership and one (No. 5) is no longer within the heritage register boundary.
Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd occupied the site in 1962, which was purchased from the Commonwealth for £20,000 and transferred in June 1965. Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd still own the site on which No. 4 igloo is located, and only minor changes to its structure has occurred. Other changes to the Thiess Contractors site include the demolition of a house at the front of the site in 1991. This house was originally used as an office, and has been replaced by an administration building. The other three igloos are now owned by Hastings Deering (Australia) Ltd. Other remnants from the Second World War period on the Hastings Deering property include a drainage channel running through the carpark at the front of the site and a bridge across the drain.
Originally a supplier of milking machinery and tractors, Hastings Diesels Ltd moved from their Melbourne Street premises at South Brisbane to Kerry Road, Archerfield in 1957. The property was transferred in April 1968. Currently named Hastings Deering, the company operates large scale sale and servicing of earthmoving equipment. There have been a few major changes to the Hastings Deering site, including the addition of a single-storeyed administration building to the end of igloo no.2, the construction of additions for such purposes as painting and engine testing, and the re-roofing of the igloos.
","criteria":"Archerfield Second World War Igloos Complex is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, and is comprised of 3 former igloo hangars and one associated igloo store. These structures are located on a site which had been part of the Archerfield Aerodrome during the Second World War, and were constructed in 1943-44 by the Allied Works Council for the Department of Aircraft Production. The igloo complex was used for military aircraft maintenance and repair under the control of the U.S. 81st Air Depot Group, and under the U.S. 5th Air Force under the command of General Douglas MacArthur's Supreme Headquarters of the South West Pacific Area. The igloos complex is important in demonstrating the strategic role of Archerfield Aerodrome in the maintenance and repair of military aircraft, and the significant contribution to the Allied war effort made by the well established civil aviation repair and maintenance facilities at Archerfield Aerodrome.
The development of the igloo complex, and Archerfield Aerodrome as a strategic facility for the repair and maintenance of military aircraft, is a result of a shift in Australian foreign policy in December 1941, when Prime Minister Curtin announced that Australia now looked to America free of the United Kingdom to shape a plan with the United States as its cornerstone. As a result, all Allied forces were placed under the control of General Douglas MacArthur in April 1942, and under U.S. Lt. General George C. Kenney, a Central Command Base for the 5th Airforce was established at Archerfield. This contrasts with Archerfield's previous role as Brisbane's airport, and later as a base for the RAAF 23rd Squadron, and a location for the RAAF Elementary Flying Training School which serviced the Empire Air Training Scheme to provide airmen for the defence of Britain, from late 1939.
The igloo complex is representative of the massive wartime infrastructure constructed at and around sites such as Archerfield Aerodrome, and has been noted as being a testament to the then Commonwealth Government's philosophy of 'dual purpose planning'. This philosophy applied to high cost projects for both wartime and post-war use, and would provide for continuing industrial and infrastructure development in the post-war period. Since the late 1950's, the igloo complex has been continually associated with the industrial development of the surrounding area.
The location of the igloos well back from Kerry Road also demonstrates the intention of the Department of Civil Aviation at the time for this to be the principal entrance to Archerfield Aerodrome, which had been Brisbane's principal airport prior to the Second World War. As a result of the massive infrastructure works during the war, Eagle Farm was re-established as Brisbane's principal airport with operations commencing in 1949, and Archerfield became Brisbane's secondary airport.
The igloo complex is a significant example of the work of the Allied Works Council, and as such, is a testament to its ability to meet emergency demands for the construction of Allied defence works during the Second World War.
|The igloo complex is one of the few highly intact Second World War sites which clearly demonstrates the site's original function, in this case as a major military aircraft repair and maintenance facility, and the important role this played in the defence of the South West Pacific Area. It also has the potential to reveal further information concerning the function of, and activities which occurred at, the site during the Second World War.
The igloo complex is also a highly intact group of timber truss igloo structures, which demonstrate the principal characteristics of this type of structure, and represent a significant advancement in timber technology and construction achieved during the Second World War which enabled long span lightweight structures utilising hand nailed timber in small sectional chord sizes to be erected quickly and at low cost. It has been noted in a study of prefabricated Second World War structures that the Archerfield Second World War Igloos are among the longest clear span buildings existing in Australia.
|The igloos are substantial structures in a relatively flat landscape, and through their bulk and simple form make a considerable aesthetic and architectural contribution to the surrounding area, and are recognised as local landmarks. Internally, the innovative timber structure is clearly expressed, and the expansive interiors and quality of natural light contribute to the aesthetic significance of the structures.
|The igloo complex is also a highly intact group of timber truss igloo structures, which demonstrate the principal characteristics of this type of structure, and represent a significant advancement in timber technology and construction achieved during the Second World War which enabled long span lightweight structures utilising hand nailed timber in small sectional chord sizes to be erected quickly and at low cost. It has been noted in a study of prefabricated Second World War structures that the Archerfield Second World War Igloos are among the longest clear span buildings existing in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16888,"place_ref":601159,"name":"Lonsdale House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"283 Boundary Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-08-27","description":"Lonsdale House is located in Boundary Street, Spring Hill, close to the intersection with St Paul's Terrace, on a small elevated block overlooking central Brisbane. It is a two-storeyed timber house with attic rooms, with double-storey verandahs to front [south] and back [north] elevations, and single-storey extensions to the rear. The exterior is clad with 12" deep pine chamfer boards. Built on a slope running west-east, the house is partly high-set on timber stumps or replacement concrete stumps. Because of the slope of the land, there are stairs on the western side leading from the street to the 'ground' level front verandah.
The main house has a steeply-pitched gabled roof covered in galvanised corrugated iron. There are early hipped, concave, corrugated-iron verandah roofs to the upper level verandahs. The single-storey rear extension on the west side has a hipped roof, and the single-storey extension to the east side has a mono-pitch roof, both covered in corrugated galvanised iron. There is a central brick chimney rising above the main roof, and resting on stone foundations.
The front verandahs have timber posts with decorative capitals and fretwork brackets. On the lower level the timber balustrade has simple timber dowel in-fill and there is a timber lattice valance. Two of the bays are in-filled with timber lattice privacy screens. The first floor has a cast iron balustrade.
The front elevation at ground level has a more recent timber-framed, glass entrance door with fanlight over on the west side, and a pair of 6 over 6 timber vertical sash windows. These have narrow glazing bars with no horn to the top sash, and the glass appears original or early. To the first floor there are three early double casement doors with glazed fanlights over, opening onto the front upper-level verandah. The front gable has a centrally placed 6 over 6 timber vertical sash window, over which is a convex curved corrugated iron window hood, supported on curved timber brackets with decorative pendants, in-filled with a cross lattice.
The east side elevation of the main house has a pair of 6 over 6 timber vertical sash windows to the ground floor and first floor, with the same materials and detailing as those at the front. All have convex corrugated iron window hoods, supported on curved timber brackets with decorative pendants, in-filled with a cross lattice. There are no windows on the west side.
The rear elevation of the main house is obscured by the double-storey verandah which is in filled and the two single-story ground-level extensions. The gable has a centrally placed 6 over 6 timber vertical sash window, over which is a hood of the same design as the front and side elevations.
The single storey western extension at the rear is rectangular, with a corrugated iron stove recess at the north end, with an iron stove chimney. There is a door in the north elevation and a timber-framed window in the west side elevation. It is clad with 8" deep chamferboards and has a galvanised corrugated iron hipped roof. It appears to be of an early date.
The rear extension on the east side is elongated with two windows in the east side elevation. It is clad with fibrous-cement sheeting, with a galvanised corrugated iron mono-pitch roof running down to form a valley gutter with the extension on the west side. There is a small lean-to extension at the northern end of this extension, also clad in fibrous-cement sheeting, with a window in the western side wall. There are two lean-to corrugated iron roofs running off these two single-storey extensions at the rear.
The rear yard has a corrugated iron roof structure in the north west corner under which is a small, brick WC outbuilding. In the north east corner is a timber-framed carport. The front boundary has a brick wall with brick piers, painted and in-filled with vertical timber picket fencing.
Internally, the ground floor has a full-length hall on the west side with a steep timber staircase running up the side wall. The single-flight staircase has four stairs turning onto the first floor landing, and has a turned newel post and simple stick balusters. The hall has a timber arch with decorative brackets separating vestibule from stairwell. The vestibule has a c1940s decorative plaster ceiling; the remainder of the hall [ceiling and walls]is covered in fibrous-cement or ply-wood sheeting with timber battens. Two rooms, one front and one back, open off the hall on the ground floor. The front room has two timber 6 over 6 timber vertical sliding sash windows to the front [south] elevation and 1 to the side elevation. The ceiling is lined in jointed timber boarding with a decorative timber (gas) vent. The walls are lined with ply-wood timber sheeting with battens. The north dividing wall has double and single leaf 4 panel timber doors leading to the room at the rear.
The rear room has a single 6:6 timber vertical sliding sash window to the side elevation, and a blocked window to the rear [north] elevation. There is a fireplace with early timber fire surround. The ceiling is lined with timber boarding with central timber decorative (gas) vent. The walls are lined with plywood sheeting with timber battens.
A door with fanlight over, leads from the hall out onto the rear verandah, which has been in-filled. On the west side is a small store room, while on the east side the verandah has been incorporated into a later kitchen extension. This extension is lined [walls and ceiling] with what appears to be compressed timber sheeting and has c1950s detailing and fittings.
On the west side the single-storey rear extension, an early service wing formerly detached from the main house, has walls and coved ceiling lined with timber tongue and groove boarding with a narrow beading. This wing is divided into two rooms by a wall of vertically jointed tongue and groove timber. Access to the southern room [possibly a former servant's room] is off the verandah. It has timber small-pane sash windows to the east and west side elevations. The rear room [early kitchen] has a corrugated iron stove recess in the rear [north] wall and a door to the rear yard area. A narrow enclosed corridor runs between the two extensions to the rear yard area.
The first floor has a generous landing providing access to 3 rooms and the rear verandah, and staircase access to the roof space. To the rear [north] elevation is a blocked window, and a narrow timber 8 panel door leading out onto the enclosed verandah. There are two rooms to the front [south] side of the house and one to the rear. The front room on the west side has a double casement timber and glazed door, with fanlight over, leading out onto the verandah. The doors have a single timber panel to the bottom, and 4 horizontal panes over with a marginal glazing bar detail, and margins in-filled with coloured glass. Walls and ceiling are lined with timber boarding. The front room on the east side has two double casement doors, with fanlights over, leading onto the verandah, of the same design as the adjoining room. There is a 6:6 timber vertical sash window to the side elevation. Walls and ceiling lined with timber boards. The room to the rear has a fireplace with early timber fire place surround. There is a single 6:6 timber vertical sash window to the side elevation, and a blocked door opening onto the rear the verandah. Walls and ceiling are lined with timber boards.
The rear verandah is fully enclosed, and partly extended on the west side. A narrow corridor runs from the landing access door onto the verandah to a window and a fire escape door. On the west side are two small rooms, the first containing a shower and basin, the second a toilet. The enclosed verandah on the east side is lined with ripple iron. It has a window to the east side elevation and rear elevation. Timber decking runs from the fire escape door across the roofs of the single story ground-level extensions.
A narrow straight flight of stairs runs from the first floor landing to a small landing in the roof area which is lit by a small skylight.. It provides access to two rooms, one to the front [south] side and one to the rear [north] side. The room to the front is lined with wide timber boarding, and has a centrally placed 6 over 6 timber vertical sash window in the gable end. A small access door to the roof space reveals closely spaced battens to the rafters, providing clear evidence that the roof originally had timber shingles. The room to the rear is L-shaped. It has a chimney, but no fireplace, and a single timber sash window to the gable. Walls and ceiling are lined with timber boarding.
Floors throughout are of timber.
","history":"This two-storeyed timber residence with attic was constructed by 1879, and possibly dates to the 1860s. It is located in the heart of Spring Hill in inner Brisbane, and is associated with the mid-19th century development of this area as one of the city's earliest dormitory suburbs.
Land in Spring Hill, much of it located within the original Brisbane town boundaries, was alienated in the 1850s and 1860s as large suburban allotments. Blocks along the ridge roads which became known as Wickham Terrace and Leichhardt Street, were the first to be taken up, followed by the area between Boundary Street [which formed the old northern limit to Brisbane Town] and Gregory Terrace. Subdivision of these allotments commenced from the 1850s, and Spring Hill, within easy walking distance of Queen Street, rapidly emerged as North Brisbane's first dormitory suburb, with little commercial or industrial base of its own. More affluent residents occupied the larger allotments and houses along the ridges, and the working classes occupied the valleys in between [Hanly's Valley and Spring Hollow].
Subdivision accelerated during the 1870s and 1880s, and by 1900 Spring Hill was Brisbane's most densely populated suburb. From the 1860s a row of small shops was established along Leichhardt Street between Fortescue and Rogers Streets, with other shops congregated around the hotels at the intersections of Leichhardt Street with Edward, Wharf and Boundary Streets. In the 1870s and 1880s churches, schools, hospitals, a mechanics' institute and a tram service were established along Leichhardt Street, which became the hub of Spring Hill.
Boundary Street, running from the river west to Gregory Terrace, attracted a mainly working class population, including artisans, trades persons and labourers, with middle class residents occupying the higher blocks near Leichhardt Street and Gregory Terrace.
Lonsdale House, fronting Boundary Street close to the intersection with Leichhardt Street, was erected on part of Northern Suburban Allotment 97, an area of just under 3 acres alienated in 1853 by pastoralist David Cannon McConnel, and subdivided the same year. In December 1853 subdivision 16 of NSA 97 [22.5 perches] was re-subdivided into two blocks, 283 Boundary Street [12.5 perches - site of Lonsdale House] and 277 Boundary Street [10 perches]. An 1856 map of Brisbane shows two structures fronting Boundary Street, between what became Leichhardt and Phillips streets - the westernmost of these may have been located at 283 or 277 Boundary Street, but this is not clear.
In 1862 Robert Bourne of Brisbane acquired title to the 12.5 perches re-subdivision fronting Boundary Street, and to the adjacent 10 perches in 1864, by which time he was living in Spring Hill. Whether he erected Lonsdale House after obtaining title to the land, or whether it was already extant, is not known. Nor is it known whether he ever occupied the house. Robert Bourne and his wife Anne Butler were retired missionaries [associated with the London Missionary Society in Tahiti 1817-1827]. They had business interests in Sydney and in Victoria in the 1830s and 1840s, and c1852 moved to Brisbane following the move there from Sydney in 1851 of their daughter and son-in-law, Harriet and George Raff. Bourne acquired a number of Brisbane properties, including 1a 20p of NSA 97 between Leichhardt and Phillips streets from DC McConnel in February 1856, and portion 192 [1a 3r 36p] on the southern side of Boundary Street in November 1856. He was resident in Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill by 1868, possibly in the two-storeyed brick residence he appears to have erected on the land he purchased from McConnel in 1856, adjoining the northern boundary of Lonsdale House. Bourne was Secretary to the Queensland Board of General Education from June 1860 to January 1870. He died at his home in Leichhardt Street in 1871, aged 78. His death was certified by his son Joseph Bourne of Boundary Street, Brisbane.
Following Bourne's death his Spring Hill properties were transferred to executors [sons-in-law George Raff of Brisbane and Stewart Murray of Sydney], and after Anne's death in December 1878, Raff offered the Spring Hill properties for sale by auction in August 1879. By this date, 4 houses had been erected on the property: Lonsdale House [a two-storeyed timber building with verandah and balcony front and back, containing seven rooms, with detached kitchen]; a four-roomed timber cottage adjacent ; the two-storeyed brick house behind ; and Strathmore Cottage fronting Boundary Street opposite Lonsdale House. They were located close to the heart of Brisbane, on a rise, with breezes and fine views over the town and river.
Lonsdale House on 14.2 perches [comprising the original 12.5 perches re-subdivision plus extended northern and eastern boundaries] was purchased by Henry Lander Pethebridge for £350, with title transferred in March 1880.
Pethebridge, a carpenter and joiner and government Inspector of Works in the Portmaster's Office, was resident in Brisbane from at least April 1860, when he married Elizabeth Mary Symons. The family lived at various addresses in Spring Hill until the mid-1870s, when they left Brisbane briefly, but had returned by May 1877. Pethebridge was employed in the Department of Harbours, Lighthouses and Pilots, and supervised construction of Cape Bowling Green Lighthouse in the early 1870s. In August 1874 he was appointed Inspector of Works [Class IV] in the Department, a position he held until 1900. The Pethebridges occupied Lonsdale House after their purchase of the property. Mrs Pethebridge died in 1894, but Henry remained at 283 Boundary Street until his death in 1910, after which the property passed to his son, Samuel Augustus Pethebridge of Melbourne, and son-in-law Edward J Atkinson of Brisbane, as trustees. Lonsdale House then was rented out to a series of tenants who used the place as a boarding house.
Sir Samuel Augustus Pethebridge died in January 1918 and in August that year, 283 Boundary Street was transferred to Bridget Kenny of Spring Hill. The property changed hands several times in the 1920s, and from c1934 was occupied by the Hough family. Herbert Hough obtained title to the property in 1946, ane retained this until 1956. From the 1950s, if not earlier, the house was utilised as a boarding house of 9 rooms, [1 room enclosed on the first floor rear verandah and 1 room in the kitchen wing, in addition to the 7 rooms in the core of the house], and a second ground-level kitchen was constructed at the rear, c1950s. Title was transferred to the present owners in 1966.
Lonsdale House is a rare surviving early inner-city residence, and was identified in the Brisbane History Group's 1993 Spring Hill Heritage Tour as a place of cultural heritage interest.
","criteria":"Lonsdale House, erected by 1879, provides important surviving evidence of the development of Spring Hill as an early dormitory suburb of Brisbane.
|It is a rare surviving building of its type [a mid-19th century, 3-level, Georgian-style, detached timber town-house] in Brisbane, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, including the town-house form with the entrance set to one side of the house; attic rooms with dormers; wide vestibule and narrow, steep internal staircases; early joinery [french doors, narrow-mullioned windows, simple stick balustrading to the staircases]; early exterior decorative detailing; and early, formerly detached, kitchen wing.
|It is a rare surviving building of its type [a mid-19th century, 3-level, Georgian-style, detached timber town-house] in Brisbane, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, including the town-house form with the entrance set to one side of the house; attic rooms with dormers; wide vestibule and narrow, steep internal staircases; early joinery [french doors, narrow-mullioned windows, simple stick balustrading to the staircases]; early exterior decorative detailing; and early, formerly detached, kitchen wing.
|The building is significant for its aesthetic quality and contribution to the streetscape of Boundary Street and to the Spring Hill townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16890,"place_ref":601078,"name":"St Brigid's Convent (former)","alternate_name":"St Brigid's Convent | Convent of the Annuciation | St Brigids Convent (former) | St Brigids Convent","street_address":"9-17 Upper Clifton Terrace","suburb":"RED HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-03-28","description":"The St Brigid's Convent (former) is located on the crest of Red Hill, a residential suburb of inner-northwest Brisbane. Fronting Upper Clifton Terrace to the west, the 0.17 ha, sloping site is bounded on all other sides by residential properties. The masonry former convent building is a landmark in its setting and is a prominent element of the Red Hill skyline, particularly from the east. It retains a visual connection to the southwest with St Brigid’s Church and Musgrave Road (a major arterial road through Red Hill); and panoramic vistas over Brisbane CBD are available from the eastern (rear) and southern verandahs.
\nConvent Building (former), 1902-03
\nThe Convent Building (former) is a two-storey structure, with an additional basement at the rear that is cut into the sloping terrain of the site. It is rendered externally and has a corrugated metal-clad, steeply-pitched hip and gable roof, which features small ventilation gablets and reconstructed decorative cresting and finials. Verandahs on the ground and first floors wrap the perimeter of the building and are sheltered by skillion roofs of corrugated metal sheeting.
\nThe former public and communal spaces (including former chapel, vestry, refectory, parlour and foyer) are located on the ground floor, private spaces (including sleeping areas) are on the first floor, and former service spaces (including former kitchen and laundry) are within the basement. A gabled projection protruding from the front (west) and rear (east) elevations punctuates the perimeter verandahs, and features a further front projection at ground floor level which reflects the location of the former chapel sanctuary.
\nThe ground floor is accessed via a foyer at the northwestern end of the building, and its planning arrangement is orientated around a central hallway (running north-south). Most rooms were historically accessed from this hallway, with the exception of the former front parlour, which was only accessed from the foyer (an additional door now connects to the hall). The southern end of the hallway is terminated by the former chapel (southwest) with southern former vestry, and the former rear parlour (southeast). A former dining room, standing between the rear parlour and northeastern stairwell (which is opposite the foyer and accesses the first floor), is fitted-out with a recent kitchen (the fit-out is not of significance).
\nThe plan form of the first floor is similar to that of the ground floor, with rooms flanking a central hallway. The first floor contains four bedrooms, a bathroom and an ensuite. Room partitions that formerly created smaller bedrooms (cells) are no longer discernible. The northern verandah is enclosed (c1920s addition) to form an additional living space.
\nThe interior walls of the ground and first floor are of load-bearing brick, and are plastered and painted. The ground floor ceilings have pressed metal finishes, which vary in pattern from room to room, and the first floor ceilings are lined with narrow tongue and groove (T&G) boards. The skirtings are of wide timber and the architraves are of timber (the skirtings and architraves on the first floor have been painted).
\nJoinery throughout is generally of cedar (some of which has been painted). The front entrance has surrounding leadlights and cedar panelling, and the projection to the western (front) elevation has a bank of three lancet windows on the upper level. The rear projection has a bank of three lancet windows on both the ground and first levels. The ground floor chapel has leadlight lancet windows, and a lancet-shaped timber-panelled door opening into a small former vestry at the southwestern end. The front parlours on the ground floor have step-out sash windows, and folding timber cedar doors separate the former chapel and former dining room on the ground floor. Most other windows are timber double-hung sashes with rounded heads. Three-light timber casement windows, located in the northern wall of the enclosed verandah, are an early addition. A tall arched opening leading from the first floor hallway to northern verandah enclosure indicates the former location of a window.
\nMost doors are timber, of a low-waisted design, and have centre-pivoting fanlights. A rounded arch infilled with a glass and timber screen and door separates the hallway from the foyer on the ground level, and features a metal base plate with an engraving marking ‘SMITHS SPRING’.
\nThe stairs connecting the ground and first floors are of timber, with a decorative timber balustrade and timber panelled to dado height; and painted timber panelling forming the underside of the stair.
\nVarious early fireplaces, with early fine timber and marble mantlepieces, tiles, heaths and grates, have been retained. These are located in the former rear parlour and dining room on the ground floor, and the eastern bedroom of the first floor.
\nThe verandahs generally have timber floors, decorative cast iron columns (except for those to the northern verandahs, which are square timber), and balustrades and valances which feature ecclesiastical motifs of lancet and rose windows. Most verandah ceilings on the ground floor are flat and lined with corrugated metal sheeting; and most of the verandah ceilings on the first floor are raked and lined with V-jointed timber boards. Those on the southern first floor verandah are unlined and feature stop-chamfered rafters and purlins. The first floor of the northern verandah is an early c1920s addition, externally enclosed with timber weatherboards and three-light timber casement windows, and internally lined and ceiled with VJ timber boards. Northern, eastern and southern sides of the basement feature a colonnade of lancet-shaped masonry arches.
\nA narrow timber service staircase in the northeast corner of the verandah links the ground floor to the basement, which contains the former kitchen and pantry spaces. The basement plan is organised around a central hallway (former main pantry), running north-south, with the former kitchen to the east, and excavated rooms to the west (the excavated rooms are not significant). An opening in the southern wall of the former kitchen features a large fireplace opening and the adjacent, eastern wall features an opening that is now infilled with brick. The hallway and former kitchen are terminated to the south by store rooms. Part of the understorey colonnade at the southeast corner of the building has been enclosed. A small store room, located in the southwest corner of the building, is only accessed from the south. This store room also features an unlined ceiling, with various names and dates painted onto the underside of the timber floorboards of the chapel. All other brick walls to the understorey have been painted, and some of the arches within the colonnade have been enclosed with glass and metal grates.
\nGrounds
\nThe building sits on the high ground of a sloping block, with a small front garden adjacent to Upper Clifton Terrace, and some perimeter planting along the southern side of the block. A timber picket fence runs along the Upper Clifton Terrace frontage and is a reconstruction of an earlier design (although stands at a reduced length). The footpath leading from Upper Clifton Terrace to the front building entrance, and the pine tree planted to the northeast of the building are also reconstructions of early features.
\nNon-significant features
\nRecent additions that are not of cultural heritage significance include: aluminium-framed window sashes; the southern driveway; the eastern pool, garage and associated structure; recent kitchen and bathroom fitouts; clear acrylic attached to the eastern verandah and lattice attached to the northern verandah; recent linoleum and carpet floor linings, plywood ceilings and recently excavated western rooms to the basement; interior painting; and chandeliers.
\n\n
","history":"
St Brigid's Convent (former) at Red Hill, was erected in 1902-03 for the Order of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland to a design of the Queensland-based architectural firm, Eaton and Bates. The building is located on a sloping site, fronting Upper Clifton Terrace, and is in close proximity to St Brigid’s Church [QHR 600284] on Musgrave Road. The site comprises a rendered masonry former convent building, which overlooks Brisbane central business district (CBD) and is a landmark in the Red Hill skyline, and associated grounds. It has a long and special association with the Sisters of Mercy and remains an excellent example of a Catholic convent of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
\nThe residential suburb of Red Hill is located approximately 3.5 km northwest of Brisbane CBD, and the area was first subdivided for semi-rural estates in the 1860s. The land on which the former convent is situated was surveyed and alienated in 1865 as portions 608 and 609, parish of North Brisbane.[1] At this time Red Hill was sparsely populated, with the steepness of the hills deterring settlement initially; but from the 1870s, its proximity to the town centre, the availability of cheap residential allotments in the valleys and the later provision of a tram service through the district (opened along Musgrave Road, 1897-98), encouraged residential and corresponding religious development of the area.[2]
\nCatholicism, a major branch of Christianity, arrived in Queensland with the establishment of the Moreton Bay penal colony in 1824, and in 1959 the Diocese of Brisbane covered the entire colony of Queensland. The first mass celebrated in Queensland was in May 1843 in a temporary chapel in Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, and St Stephen’s Church, the first Catholic church constructed in Queensland, was consecrated in 1858. The first Catholic parishes in Brisbane were established in Coorparoo, South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point, Red Hill and Rosalie.[3]
\nOn 10 May 1861, the Sisters of Mercy, headed by Ellen Whitty (Mother Vincent Whitty), arrived in Brisbane at the invitation of Bishop James Quinn, and established their Mother House at All Hallows (Fortitude Valley, Brisbane). At the time of the arrival of the Sisters of Mercy in the Colony of Queensland, the colony’s population was 30 059, with 7 696 (39%) of these being Catholics.[4]
\nInitially founded in Ireland by Mother Catherine McAuley in 1831, the Sisters of Mercy congregation was uncloistered, and developed primarily with a mission to improve social justice through educational, religious and social services for women and children at risk of homelessness, exploitation and entrenched poverty. The first Australian Sisters of Mercy foundation was established in Perth and Victoria in 1957, and then subsequently in New South Wales (1859), Queensland (1861), South Australia (1880) and Tasmania (1892).[5] By 1863, three schools had been established by the Sisters in the Brisbane / Ipswich area; and in the years following, orphanages, benevolent women’s and children’s institutions and hospitals were also established.[6]
\nIn 1877, the first St Brigid's Church was erected on the site of the present church on Musgrave Road, Red Hill, and in 1881, the Sisters of Mercy from All Hallow's Convent, Fortitude Valley, established a school at St Brigid's Church, travelling daily to Red Hill. The Sisters also undertook pastoral work in the Petrie Terrace-Red Hill district. On 9 June 1901, a new St Brigid's School was opened and blessed at Red Hill, adjacent to the Church, reflecting the expansion of residential settlement in the Red Hill district around the turn of the century.
\nAlmost immediately after being purchased from the crown in 1865, portions 608 and 609 (the site on which St Brigid’s Convent was later constructed) were subdivided. These portions changed tenure from 1866; and in 1873, the six subdivisions of portion 608 (fronting both Upper and Lower Clifton Terrace) were acquired by Lydia Pigott, widow of Gayndah grazier, Peter John Pigott. It is likely that the first development on the site, the construction of the residence Kenilworth, occurred after this acquisition. In December 1874 Lydia Pigott married Brisbane broker and merchant, William Horsley, and they appear to have been resident at Kenilworth by 1876, when the residence was first listed in the Post Office Directory. Extensive terracing on portion 608 is likely to have been developed as part of the grounds of Kenilworth (removed between 2000 and 2004), as well as several large pine trees along the Upper Clifton Terrace frontage (removed).[7] In 1889 Lydia Horsley (formerly Piggott) acquired title to an adjacent block, subdivision 11 of portion 609, and the Horsleys resided at Kenilworth until c1900. The house appears to have been rented out for several years prior to its acquisition by the Sisters of Mercy.
\nThe early 1900s saw considerable growth for the Catholic parish at Red Hill, with a building program including: the construction of a school (1901), a convent (1902-03) and a church (dedicated 1914). [8] The convent site (subdivision 3-8 of portion 608 and subdivision 11 of portion 609) was acquired by the Sisters of Mercy in May 1902 for the sum of £1610; with the title registered under the names of Archbishop Robert Dunne, and Sisters Emily Mary Conlan, Bridget Murphy, Honoria Griffin and Mary Potter.[9]
\nThe acquisition of this convent site on the crest of Red Hill aligned with a pattern of constructing of substantial Catholic buildings on prominent hilltop locations during the 19th and 20th centuries. The visibility and image of the Church was considered a source of enormous pride for the Catholic congregation and clergy, and hilltop sites tended to be deemed the most suitable for church, school, convent and monastery buildings. The construction of these prominent buildings was intended to create an impressive and assertive public presence and demonstrate the strength of the Catholic Church. An article in the Catholic Leader in 1955 later noted the outcome of this practice, stating, ‘It is impossible to go any distance in city or suburbs without the eye catching one of those glorious sites for the acquiring of which the Catholic Church is now famous.’ [10]
\nThe Sisters at Red Hill commissioned architectural firm Eaton and Bates, of Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville, one of the more fashionable and prolific firms of the day, to design their new convent. Sydney-trained architects George T Eaton and Albert E Bates had formed a partnership in Rockhampton c1894 and developed a successful Central Queensland practice in the late 19th century, with branch offices established at Mount Morgan and Longreach by 1898, Clermont in 1900, Gladstone in 1901, Maryborough in 1902, and Townsville by 1902. Arthur B Polin of Sydney joined the partnership in Townsville c1901, as Eaton, Bates & Polin. Early in 1902 their head office was moved to Brisbane, with branches retained at Rockhampton and Townsville. A branch also operated briefly at Toowoomba in the early 1900s. They entered and won many architectural competitions around the turn of the century, and undertook a wide variety of work, from hotels and commercial buildings to residences, hospitals and masonic halls. One of their most notable commissions was for the new Queen's Hotel (1901-04) [600936] at Townsville, won in competition. Eaton and Bates received many commissions from the Catholic Church, including churches at Barcaldine, Gladstone and Donnybrook, convents and schools at Mount Morgan, Gladstone and Geraldton and a school at Toowong. The firm also supervised construction of St Joseph's Cathedral, Rockhampton and the Church [later Cathedral] of the Sacred Heart, Townsville (1896-1902) [600939]. Their style was eclectic, drawing upon both eastern and western classical traditions, with a particular emphasis on verandahs and pavilions - both as a decorative device and as a response to the warm Queensland climate.
\nIn mid-1902, Eaton and Bates called tenders for the erection and completion of a brick convent building at Red Hill. The construction of St Brigid’s Convent (initially also referred to as the Convent of the Annunciation and St Bridget’s Convent) was completed and occupied in 1903, with Sister M Thecla Kelleher, Head Teacher at St Brigid's School, as the first Superior. The building cost over £3100 to construct, and it was furnished in 1903 for a little over £500. At this time, the north verandah was single-storeyed, with bold and ornate ecclesiastical motifs incorporated into the iron valances and balustrades. A decorative picket fence defined the frontage of the property to Upper Clifton Terrace, and the grounds along Upper Clifton Terrace contained several mature pines trees.
\nThe organisational layout of the convent’s plan included main living rooms on the ground floor, sleeping quarters on the first floor, and servicing rooms to the understorey. The main living areas comprised: a small parlour adjacent the main, northern entrance; a chapel with adjoining vestry to the south; a lounge room (divided from the chapel with folding doors); and a dining room. The first floor was divided into various sections: a space for the Mother Superior for a bedroom or private office; and southern and western areas for bedrooms (cells). The understorey level included a kitchen (with a working fireplace), a pantry and store rooms, and was accessed via a small stair at the rear of the building, on the eastern verandah. It is thought that a small bedroom and anteroom in the southeast corner of the understorey may have been a later addition.[11]
\nIn mid-1906, the Sisters acquired title to several blocks adjacent to St Brigid's Convent: subdivision 10 of portions 615 & 616 [20.6 perches, (521 square metres)] and subdivisions 12 & 13 of por 609 [36.2 perches, (915 square metres)], parish of North Brisbane, county of Stanley, from the estate of Alexander Fraser. Subdivisions 12 and 13 extended the convent grounds along Lower Clifton Terrace.
\nVarious newspaper articles dated from 1909 to 1939 indicate the use of the convent grounds as a venue for fundraising fetes. The fetes were generally run by a committee who organised entertainment, and stalls were set up in the grounds by members of the community. Reports of these fetes describe the grounds of the convent as having ‘pretty green lawns,’ garden beds with ‘many blooms of snapdragons, zinnias, lilies, and geraniums,’ and tall shady trees.[12]
\nThe northern upper floor verandah of the convent may have been added in 1923, when additions to the convent costing £1140 were carried out by the builder Corbett. This verandah was most likely immediately enclosed with weatherboards and timber casement windows (possibly from the original building fabric) to accommodate orphans from St Vincent’s Nudgee while they looked for employment in the city. This addition coincided with the replacement of an external window to the verandah with a doorway. [13]
\nSince this addition, other alterations have been made to the building and the site. Some partitions on the first floor have been removed and modifications have been made to the windows in the western wing. The kitchen has been removed from the understorey; and a new kitchen has been installed on the ground floor (the eastern verandah was enclosed to accommodate this installation, but the enclosure has since been removed). The stair at the rear of the building has also been extended to service the first floor.[14]
\nAt its peak, St Brigid's Convent is likely to have accommodated 8 or 9 sisters, but no pupil boarders. The Sisters continued their pastoral work in the district, and in later years, several basement rooms and a small cottage in the backyard (since demolished) are understood to have been used as refuges or temporary accommodation for the homeless. Although St Brigid's School was officially closed in October 1989, several Sisters remained at St Brigid's Convent until the building was sold and vacated by the Order in late 1999.[15]
\nThe closure of the school and convent coincided with the dramatic fall in the number of religious staff in Catholic organisations during the late twentieth century. Numbers of nuns in Australia dropped from 14,622 in 1966 to 5,927 in 2009; and their average age considerably increased during the same period, with the percentage of nuns 60 years or older rising from 36.5 percent in 1976 to 85.6 percent in 2009.[16]
\nOn sale of the property in c2004, the statue of Mary of the Assumption housed in the front elevation of the convent’s chapel was removed by the Sisters of Mercy. A sculpture representing the wings of St Brigid replaced the statue after 2013.[17] Steps associated with the terracing were removed from the site in 2003; and the terracing of the grounds was also razed at this time. The convent was renovated to accommodate the changed use of the building as a private residence after its sale in early 2005.[18] A timber fence running along the Upper Clifton Terrace boundary was replaced by a brick fence, but was partially reconstructed in 2009 to match the early design. At this time, a fence was also constructed along the northern boundary of the site, separating the convent from the northern lot (Lot 6 RP99989).[19]
\nAfter the ownership of the northern allotment (Lot 6 RP99989) and the eastern allotments fronting Lower Clifton Terrace were separated in c2004, a multi-unit dwelling was constructed to the east of the former convent in c2010, and a residential dwelling was constructed on Lot 6 to the north of the former convent in 2016.[20]
\nIn 2017, the place retains its Convent Building (former) with some of its associated grounds. It is a good example of a late 19th / early 20th century convent building, demonstrating the principal characteristics of the type of place, and remains representative of the ecclesiastical work of Eaton and Bates architects. While now in use as a residential property, the place demonstrates the growth of the Catholic parish to the fringe areas of Brisbane CBD and is important for its association with Sisters of Mercy. The building continues to be a landmark in its setting.
","criteria":"St Brigid’s Convent (1902-03), occupied by the Sisters of Mercy in Red Hill from 1902 to 1999, is important in demonstrating a way of life of a religious Order that has made a significant contribution to the state of Queensland. The place is a good example of a purpose-built convent building, which illustrates the educational, religious and social practices the Order of the Sisters of Mercy implemented throughout the state in the early 20th century.
\nThe place is a distinctive representation of a body of substantial Catholic buildings erected on prominent hilltop locations in Brisbane in the first half of the 20th century.
|St Brigid's Convent is a well-executed and largely intact example of a purpose-built masonry Catholic convent of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, and demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type, including:
\nThe convent is a fine example of the ecclesiastical work of the architectural firm Eaton and Bates, who made a significant contribution to Queensland architecture in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
|St Brigid’s Convent is important for its aesthetic significance due to its landmark qualities, expressive architectural attributes, panoramic views and streetscape presence.
\nSet on a prominent hilltop location, the place has been a distinctive element of the Red Hill skyline for over a century. It is a highly visible landmark when viewed from the east, particularly from the Inner City Bypass, Musgrave Road and Kelvin Grove Road; and it retains panoramic vistas of Brisbane CBD to the southeast, an important southwestern visual connection to St Brigid’s Church [QHR 600284] on Musgrave Road, and a strong streetscape presence to Upper Clifton Terrace. The place’s hilltop siting expresses an identifiably assertive and impressive public image articulated by the Catholic Church in the 19th and 20th centuries.
\nSt Brigid’s Convent has well-composed elevations, and features intact, fine detailing including: cedar joinery, lancet and leadlight windows, pressed metal ceilings, decorative fireplace mantelpieces, and decorative balustrades and valances. Ecclesiastical motifs throughout the building express the former life of the building as a place of religious living and worship.
|The place is significant for its long and special association with the work of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland, in particular their important educational and pastoral work in the Red Hill-Petrie Terrace district from the early 1880s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16891,"place_ref":601044,"name":"Cooks Monument and Reserve","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Charlotte Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1997-04-30","description":"Cook's Monument is situated in a small reserve located between Charlotte Street and the Endeavour River estuary, on a slight rise adjacent to the site where James Cook beached the barque Endeavour for repairs in mid-1770. The reserve is grassed, with palms and mature trees around the perimeter.
The monument comprises a tall, slender sandstone column, topped with a detailed capital, which rises from a square pedestal resting upon a granite base and plinth. The steps of the plinth lead to a square dado incorporating drinking fountains on each side. These fountains were once linked to a regular water supply [possibly an internal tank], and the water outlets emerge from the mouths of sculpted animal heads. The dado is set beneath a modest entablature and the pediment is flanked by sandstone urns at each corner.
To the north of the Cook Monument is the 1803 cannon sent in 1885 to Cooktown by the Queensland colonial government, for the use of the local volunteer defence force. It stands on a concrete platform. Adjacent to the gun is an interpretative sign.
To the south of the Cook Monument, but within the same reserve, are three more recent memorials and the early town well:
i. Kennedy Memorial: a conical-shaped granite cairn, approximately 1.2m high, resting on a concrete base, with an embossed brass plaque in the face addressing Charlotte Street.
ii. National Horse Trail Marker: a simple granite cairn or marker approximately .5m high, conical in shape, with an embossed brass plaque in the face addressing Charlotte Street.
iii. Annan River Water Supply Memorial Fountain and Early Town Well: The fountain comprises a series of metal water pipes constructed over an early, brick-lined town well. The well has a diameter of 23 feet at ground level, from which the shaft is bricked down 16 feet to a 4 feet 6 inches wide ledge, after which it narrows to 14 feet diameter, and is bricked down a further 8 feet 4 inches, at the bottom of which are granite slabs. In the wall of the upper shaft are two arched entrances, now filled in with rubble, leading to underground spider channels or aqueducts which formerly fed the well with storm water run-off, in addition to the ground water from below. Formerly there were three cross-logs let into the walls near the top, for roof joist supports. Adjacent to the well was a tank stand with engine and boiler beneath. Water was pumped form the well to the tank, then from the tank to the wharves via a galvanised pipe along the foreshore. .Above the bricks are several courses of cement blocks [added at a later date], topped by a metal railing added in 1989 as part of the conversion to a fountain. The capacity of the well is approximately 47,000 gallons.
","history":"The Cook Monument at Cooktown was erected in 1887 by Hobbs and Carter of South Brisbane, to designs prepared in the office of the Queensland colonial architect, George St Paul Connolly.
Cooktown had been established in September 1873 as the Endeavour River port for the Palmer River goldfields. By the mid-1880s it was serving one of the most significant goldfields in Queensland. A railway was constructed from Cooktown to Laura between 1884 and 1888, further opening the port to development. By the late 1880s Cooktown had become the important centre not only of a thriving mining district [boosted by the 1887 discovery of tin along the Annan River], but also of pearling, bêche-de-mer, and pastoral activity. After 1885, Cooktown was also the main port for Queensland trade with New Guinea.
In May 1886, the then premier of Queensland, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, travelled to Cooktown and other northern ports on a tour of inspection, partly associated with defence issues, more with political strategy. The Separation movement was gaining momentum in Townsville and the far north, and Griffith was keen to demonstrate his government's commitment to, and concern for, northern Queensland. The Cooktown Municipal Council at this time was seeking to commemorate James Cook's encampment at the Endeavour River in the winter of 1770, and it appears that Griffith, as political expediency, committed the colonial architect's office to designing the Cook monument at Cooktown.
The Cooktown Municipal Council had intended that the monument include a statue of James Cook, but when tenders were called in June 1886, then again in September 1886 and February 1887 with different materials specified, they were for the column only. In December 1887 Sir Samuel Griffith re-visited Cooktown, and when requested by the mayor to provide assistance in commissioning the statue, refused, stating that it was more important to commemorate the event than the person.
The contract had been let in February 1887 to Hobbs and Carter of South Brisbane, with a price of £1,059 and completion time of 8 months. It appears that the memorial was not constructed on the site originally proposed, which necessitated an additional foundation, bringing the final cost to £1,297. The foundation stone was laid on 1 September 1887 by the mayor of Cooktown, John Savage, and the work had been completed by January 1888. Sandstone used in the construction came from Murphy's Creek in southeast Queensland, and it was reputedly the first stone structure erected in Cooktown.
Around the monument, a small [1.5 acres] reserve for municipal purposes was gazetted in June 1888. A brick-lined town well, believed to have been built by the Cooktown Municipal Council to service ships berthed at the nearby Cooktown wharves, was constructed in the reserve, south of the monument. This work probably was undertaken post-1888, as the Council filled in much of the Cook Monument Reserve in 1889. A small vertical boiler engine pumped water from the well to the wharves through a 3" diameter pipe. It is understood that the well has also supplied adjacent Charlotte Street businesses from time to time.
In the 20th century, several other memorials were erected within the reserve:
i. Kennedy Memorial: a granite cairn erected in 1948 to honour British explorer Edmund Besley Court Kennedy, who was killed by Aborigines on Cape York Peninsula [part of Cook Shire] in December 1848. Kennedy's exploratory work helped to open far north Queensland to pastoral settlement in the mid-19th century. The memorial was unveiled on 25 September 1948 by the Chair of the Cook Shire Council, Mayor WCH Hodges.
ii. National Horse Trail Marker: a small granite cairn erected in August 1977 to mark the beginning of the National Horse Trail from Cooktown to Melbourne, and the epic ride of Dan Seymour, who in the early 1970s demonstrated the feasibility of such a trail. The trail was mapped between 1974 and the 1980s, when it was made a bi-centennial project. Sections are used regularly, but few people have ridden the full distance. The marker was erected by the Australian Trail Horse Riders' Association and was unveiled by Henry Tranter, President of the Tablelands Trail Horse Riders' Club.
iii. Annan River Water Supply Memorial Fountain: in 1989 the old town well on the reserve was cleaned out and a fountain constructed over it to commemorate the inauguration in November 1989 of a new permanent water supply from the Annan River to Cooktown. The Annan River pipeline was a joint federal, state and local government project, replacing Cooktown's previous water supply from the bore fields on the southern outskirts of the town.
iv. 1803 Cannon: There is now located in the reserve a cannon cast in 1803 in Carron, Scotland, and bearing the royal monogram GR. During the height of the 'Russian invasion' scare of 1885, the Cooktown Municipal Council telegraphed to the Premier of Queensland, requesting him to supply arms, ammunition and an officer to take charge of the Cooktown volunteer defence force. This cannon was sent, along with 3 cannonballs, 2 rifles and 1 officer. Initially the cannon was located on the foreshore near the Powder Magazine [600425] on Webber Esplanade, overlooking the entrance to Cooktown Harbour on the Endeavour River estuary. It is fired once a year as part of the annual Cook's landing re-enactment celebrations.
","criteria":"Cook's Monument and Reserve is significant historically for its commemoration of Cook's encampment below Grassy Hill, at the mouth of the Endeavour River, in mid-1770 - the first official British sojourn on the east coast of Australia. The place is significant also as Queensland's earliest memorial to James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour, and illustrates Cooktown's early developed sense of historical importance.
The site contains an early brick-lined town well, which is important in illustrating the establishment of municipal services in early Cooktown.
|The monument is a fine example of its type and one of the finest sandstone public memorials in Queensland. It is also an excellent example of the work of the Queensland colonial architect's office under George St Paul Connolly.
|Its aesthetic setting within a grassy, treed reserve contributes significantly to the townscape of Cooktown, and from the Endeavour River estuary is a Cooktown landmark.
|The place has a special association for the people of Cooktown with their sense of historical identity. A number of other memorials have been placed in the reserve, illustrating this continued association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16893,"place_ref":601156,"name":"Uanda","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"27 Clifton Street","suburb":"WILSTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"Constructed in 1928 across two blocks of land, Uanda is a low-set, hip-roofed, single-storey timber cottage set in a leafy street among timber houses of the same era. Rectangular in plan with a central projecting front porch flanked by bay windows, the house is clad with weatherboards and has a simple valance of timber palings to the lower level. The bay windows have bell-curved, shingle-clad skirts and multi-paned sash windows below flat projecting roofs and are supported on exposed timbers with a bird-mouth detail to the ends. The roof is tiled and has short projecting eaves with v-j boarded soffit. The house is elevated on concrete stumps, approximately one metre above the ground at the front and higher at the back as the ground slopes away.
The porch is now enclosed with weatherboards, glass louvres and casement windows and contains two entrance doors, each with a concrete stair with steel balustrade. Internally, there is evidence of the original pair of timber framed doors in the southern wall. On the exterior, there is evidence of twin corner verandah posts with decorative cappings. The porch is generously proportioned and has had an internal dividing wall recently removed. The floors are covered with linoleum and the ceiling is timber v-j boarding.
The original planning of the house is clearly discernible; public rooms with decorative details are located towards the front of the house and service rooms are at the back, although there are now two kitchens and two bathrooms dating from when the house was converted to a duplex. The principal rooms at the front of the house are lined in a compressed timber-fibre sheet material (known commercially as "beaver board") with decorative joinery, in particular, ornate cornices and architraves and a plate rail in the former living room, now divided into two smaller rooms. The ceilings have a grid-like pattern of timber strips and floors are timber boarding. Several of the interior doors are timber with four horizontal panels and some original hardware and there is also a multi-paned, timber and glass door between the front bedroom and hall.
The original kitchen is located in the north-west corner of the house, is lined vertical timber v-j boarding and contains some of the original joinery, including a set of tall cupboards. There is a set of three casement windows over the sink and a small timber sash window next to the back door. A toilet is located on the landing outside the backdoor of the kitchen next to a set of timber steps. The second kitchen is located in the north-east corner in the former sleep-out. This room has a door and stairs to the back garden. On the exterior of this room there are several timber decorative details including timber capitals and panels of early, painted timber slatted blinds. The two bathrooms are located between the kitchens. Both have terrazzo floors, baths and small cabinets. The top of the laundry chute remains in one of the bathrooms, however, the chute itself and cupboard in the laundry on the ground floor have been removed.
Two laundry hoists are located on a concrete slab in the back garden. A timber framed and fibro garage is located on the western side of the site.
","history":"Uanda, a low-set timber cottage built in 1928, is situated on two blocks originally part of Suburban Allotment No. 21 granted to Michael O'Neill in 1855. The Allotment slopes down from Newmarket Road to Enoggera Creek. The land subsequently passed through the hands of several owners until the boom in residential development in the area during the 1920s and 1930s following the extension of the electric tramline to Windsor in 1914 and the Grange in 1928. The area became known as the Langley Bank Estate and the portion of the Estate between Vardon and Granville Streets was re-subdivided and additional streets added, including Clifton Street, before being offered for sale again as the "model Darrima Estate" in 1928.
In April 1928, re-subdivisions 47 and 48 were purchased by Richard Jack, a young wool classer of Brisbane. By this time about 20 homes had been built in Clifton Street. The Brisbane City Council Building Application Register for 26 April 1928 records Jack's application for construction of the house at a cost of £799. The entry records that the architect was N. McCredie and the builder HW Dillecate of Milton. The house was constructed promptly and Richard Jack and his family were living in the house by October 1928. The house is named on the 1934 detail plan for the Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Department as Uanda. The name is thought to have an association with a property near Hughenden which had some special attachment for the Jacks. The Jacks remained in the house until 1960 when the property was sold. It was sold again in 1966 when it was converted to a duplex. The property has since changed hands several times.
When constructed the house was rectangular in plan with a central projecting open front porch containing the entry steps and door to the south. The porch was flanked by bay windows and the house contained an entry hall, two bedrooms, kitchen, dining nook, living room, bathroom, sleepout verandah to the south east and laundry under. The kitchen had built-in cupboards; the bathroom had a laundry chute connecting to a cupboard in the laundry beneath the house; the lounge opened onto the entry hall through 4 large glass paneled doors; the lounge and main bedroom were wallpapered; other walls throughout the house were lined with vertical tongue and groove boards; and the living room had a plate rail. The house was originally painted cream with dark green to the bay windows.
Uanda is currently the only identified work of architect and potter Nellie McCredie. The career of Nellie McCredie is typical of the careers of women who entered the architectural profession prior to World War Two. These early women architects were rarely able to sustain their careers and as a result, examples of their work are extremely rare. Only three Brisbane buildings, including Uanda, have been identified. The other two were designed by Elina Mottram who practiced in Brisbane from 1924 to 1926.
Nellie McCredie was a member of a leading architectural family with associations with Queensland as well as New South Wales. She was the niece of well-known Sydney architects Arthur Latimer and George McCredie who from 1889 to 1893 opened a Brisbane office, as McCredie Brothers and Chambers. Nellie McCredie's cousin, Leith C. McCredie, was also an architect and worked in the 1920s in the Sydney firm of Robertson and Marks.
Nellie McCredie graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Sydney in 1923, one of Australia's earliest architectural graduates. After graduating, she worked briefly for Dorman, Long and Company, contractors for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Later she worked with several unidentified architects in Cairns for about 10 months, then came south to Brisbane where she was employed from November 1925 to early 1929 as a Draftswoman in the Workers' Dwellings Branch of the State Advances Corporation. It has not been possible to identify any of the work produced by the Workers' Dwellings Branch as work by McCredie as government drawings of the period were rarely signed by their designers. It was during this time that she designed Uanda as a private commission.
Nellie McCredie was concerned with improving the quality of life of the average Australian. In her Bachelor of Architecture thesis she advocates simple, chaste buildings in "appropriate" settings generously planted with trees, illustrating her ideas with "a pretty suburban cottage" not unlike Uanda in its symmetry, central entrance porch and simple hipped roof. In her preference for simple, classic buildings McCredie reflects the ideals of her university teachers, including Professor Leslie Wilkinson.
Like many of her women contemporaries, her practice of architecture was not to be sustained. Having studied pottery in Brisbane under the master craftsman, LJ Harvey, McCredie returned to Sydney in 1932 where she became a professional potter, setting up a commercial pottery at Epping in partnership with her younger brother Robert Reginald (Bob) McCredie. She exhibited actively with the New South Wales Society of Arts and Crafts into the 1950s and in 1951 won the Society's Elizabeth Soderberg Memorial Award for pottery. Pottery by the McCredies is well regarded for its simplicity and craftsmanship. It is represented in five public collections in Australia: National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Art Gallery of South Australia and Shepparton Art Gallery.
","criteria":"Uanda, a low set, single storey timber house built in 1928, is historically important for its association with the entry of women into the professions in Queensland, particularly into the architectural profession.
|As one of a small number of surviving intact examples of the work of pioneer women architects in Queensland and the only remaining architectural work of Nellie McCredie, Uanda demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Uanda has aesthetic significance derived from it's careful, symmetrical composition, interior detailing and its contribution to the streetscape - in form and massing sympathetic to its neighbours and contributing a modest presence to a leafy suburban street.
|Uanda has a strong and special association with the work of Nellie McCredie, an important pioneer woman architect, potter and member of a leading architectural family with associations with Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16894,"place_ref":601157,"name":"Normanton Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Burke Developmental Road","suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"The Normanton Cemetery Reserve covers eight hectares of flat ground on the southern outskirts of the town. Wooden gates mark the entrance to the well-maintained cemetery. There are lawn plots to the right of the front gate while the oldest burials are to the rear of the reserve. A modern fence surrounds the whole cemetery with some white cedar trees on the fence line although there are very few trees within the boundary.
It is divided into several areas including early graves, an old Chinese section, and a section for various religious denominations and a newer lawn cemetery area. Most of the graves have remained undisturbed and some are from the time before the cemetery was officially gazetted. The burial register dates from 18 August 1887, but one of the earliest headstones dates from 24 January 1870. In all there are over 1000 names in the burial register and the cemetery is still being used.
There are a remarkable variety of memorials. They range from marble and sandstone to wrought iron bedsteads; from the very simple to the ornate, from very well preserved to mere traces. The Chinese section is of particular interest as evidence of the part played by Chinese people in the development of the area.
The headstones consist of many forms of slab that were possibly imported from east coast or southern Queensland. Some of the graves are still enclosed by wrought iron railings, which seem to be in good condition. Some have sheet galvanised iron around them while others have a galvanised metal shelter over the main part of the grave and some have small shelters for flowers. Most of the headstones are small, indicating the difficulty of transportation to the isolated north west of Queensland.
Iron bedsteads bound many graves of small children; some with the testers to hold mosquito nets still attached. Some of these are further decorated with large seashells. One grave is outlined with large turbinate seashells, covered with small gravel and marked by a small burial marker.
","history":"Normanton Cemetery has served the town and surrounding district since at least 1870. The cemetery, which is still in use, contains some unusual memorials and encapsulates information on the history of the area since settlement.
The first settlers in this area of north west Queensland were Liddle and Hertzer who selected Magowra Station in the 1860s. The settlement of Normanton was established in 1864 as a port and service centre for the surrounding pastoral ventures and was declared a town in 1868. In 1879 James Burns (later Burns Philp & Co) established a store there. Normanton, because of its location on the north coast of Australia, was utilised as a point of departure for goods and passengers destined for Europe, China, Asia and India. Wool, meat and later minerals were exported and the town was once suggested as the terminus of the proposed transcontinental rail line. With this suggestion, land prices in the town boomed with allotments selling for £200in the early 1880s.
The discovery of gold in the Croydon district in 1885 and the subsequent demand for access to and from the port at Normanton saw the construction of the Normanton to Croydon Railway in 1891.
By this time there were an estimated 2000 people in the town, which was a centre for government services. The Carpentaria Divisional Board office was the only brick building, but the town boasted a Police Court, Customs House, School of Arts, many hotels, two churches, a hospital and a school. Two newspapers were published bi-weekly and the town was connected to the outside world by the telegraph, a weekly steamer to the south and a train to Croydon three times a week in 1891.
The town did not develop as its early planners had hoped and when mineral prices fell and mining declined cattle were the main export by the First World War. Early in 1920 the steamer service was reduced to once in three weeks. Then Normanton was serviced from Thursday Island each month until the development of the beef road system in the 1960s. From this point, Normanton lost some of its isolation and commerce shifted to trade with the coastal towns of Queensland by road. With the reduction of the rural labour force, the town slowly declined until today there are 4200 people in the Carpentaria Shire including a substantial Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
The cemetery, in operation since at least 1870, has continued to serve the community of Normanton and the Carpentaria Shire for one hundred and thirty years.
","criteria":"The Normanton Cemetery, in use from at least 1870, reflects the development of the region from that period to the present day.
The economic and social history of the district can be read through the inscriptions and type of material used in headstones. Nationality, health, social status, lodge affiliation, occupation, religion and cause of death are often included in the inscriptions. Family relationships can be noted and the high infant mortality and death in childbirth are often recorded. The large number of single graves is illustrative of the hardship and isolation of pioneering life in north west Queensland.
|The cemetery is an important record of the cultural development of the area, showing the ethnicity, occupations and social status of the inhabitants of Normanton and the Carpentaria Shire since settlement.
|The cemetery is significant for its high spiritual and symbolic value to the community
because of its continuity of use as a burial place for the region for one hundred and thirty years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16895,"place_ref":601250,"name":"Stewart's Creek Gaol (former)","alternate_name":"Townsville Correctional Centre | Stewarts Creek Gaol","street_address":"Centenary Drive, off Dwyer Street","suburb":"STUART","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-31","description":"The Townsville Correctional Centre is a walled facility situated on a much larger prison reserve of 677 hectares on Centenary Drive, off Dwyer Street, Stuart. The structures associated with the former Stewart's Creek Gaol, which include the former Gatehouse and the Central Observation Tower, are located within the Townsville Correctional Centre, adjacent to more recently erected gaol buildings.
The former Gatehouse is a two-storeyed, symmetrically designed, red brick structure in the classical tradition comprising a central gate with wings (now used for offices) on either side. It is built in red brick with rendered pilasters at the corners of each wing. The wings are divided by cream coloured brick string courses above the lower windows and below the first floor windows. The steel-barred windows are surmounted by corrugated iron and timber window hoods. Arched vents in cream coloured brick are set into the eaves of the gabled roof above each wing. Verandahs at both storeys extend from the sides. Short lengths of the original prison wall extend from each wing.
The main gate is located in the centre of a recessed bay between the two outer wings of the building. The steel gate is surmounted by large fanlight with wrought iron infill. The gate and fanlight are surrounded by cream brick moulding. The whole bay is surmounted by an ornate concrete pediment decorated with scrolls and the date of construction of the building. The gate opens into a concourse, the full two storeys in height, which runs through to the rear of the building. The concourse ends at a large rear gate. This opening is very similar to the one at the front except that a barred steel gate is used instead of solid steel.
Much of the interior of the Gatehouse has been altered to accommodate offices, however a number of original features remain. These include fireplaces, internal security doors and vent covers.
\t
The Central Observation Tower is located some distance behind the Gate House. It is a tall cylindrical structure surmounted by an octagonal cabin. The cabin is surrounded by a covered walkway and three covered walkways project from it at right angles to each other. Wrought iron balustrades enclose all of the walkways. They are roofed with corrugated iron. The walkway that surrounds the cabin is supported by wrought iron brackets. Those that extend from the cabin are supported by one pillar each. These are square in cross-section and taper slightly towards the top.
\t
Access is gained into the tower via a narrow door at the base. A spiral staircase ascends the interior of the tower to the cabin. The cabin is clad with weatherboard. Doors open onto each of the three projecting walkways. A set of three windows open from each of the other five sides. The interior is furnished with a lavatory and wash basin.
The tower extends upwards out of the roof of the cabin. This section of tower is square in cross-section. A projecting molding surrounds it at about two-thirds of its height. Tall narrow vents open into each side below this molding. A molded circle reminiscent of a clock decorates each side of the tower near the top. A small pyramid roof of corrugated iron covers the top of the tower.
\t
","history":"The original Stewart's Creek Gaol, of which the Gatehouse and Central Observation Tower are now the principal surviving elements, was constructed in 1890-1893, to plans prepared c1889 in the office of the Colonial Architect, George St Paul Connolly. Charles McLay was the principal designer in the office at this time. The gaol was erected by contractor Thomas Matthews at a cost of £31,600.
\nThe gaol was intended to function as the principal prison in north Queensland. It was the only maximum-security prison established in north Queensland in the nineteenth century, ranking alongside St Helena Gaol (opened in 1866), the Rockhampton Gaol at North Street (1876-1878), and the South Brisbane Men's Prison at Boggo Road (opened 1883). As well as providing a maximum-security gaol in the north, the Stewart's Creek Gaol helped relieve overcrowding at Boggo Road and St Helena and also reduced the expensive and dangerous necessity of escorting convicted north Queensland felons to these southern establishments.
\nThe decision to erect a major gaol facility at Stewart's Creek (later Stuart Creek) on the outskirts of Townsville reflected the rapid rise of Townsville as a regional administrative and commercial centre and port. The town was founded in 1864 at the beginning of a period of rapid expansion in north Queensland, fuelled largely by pastoral activity, gold mining and sugar industry. Between 1867 and 1910, Townsville grew rapidly to become the north's main commercial centre and port.
\nThe Stewart's Creek Gaol replaced an earlier Townsville Gaol, completed in 1878 at North Ward. By the second half of the 1880s the North Ward gaol was proving unsuitable in terms of its location and design. With the expansion of suburban Townsville, local residents began to complain that the prison was located too close to the centre of town. The gaol was also chronically overcrowded, making it difficult to maintain adequate separation and classification of prisoners. In 1889 the Prisons Department took up 150 acres of ground near Stewart's Creek and the Colonial Architect's office was requested to prepare plans for a new prison.
\nThe site chosen for the construction of the new gaol was a former sheep quarantine ground, located approximately eight kilometres from town. The new gaol buildings were sited conveniently near the Great Northern Railway, which made possible the rapid and easy transit of prisoners and supplies to and from Townsville.
\nThe contract for construction of the gaol was let on 8 April 1890 to Thomas Matthews, and the buildings were occupied in 1893. The gatehouse (extant) comprised Governor's quarters and Chief Turnkey's quarters flanking a main front gate. This gave access to a central circulation space and muster ground bounded on the north and south sides by two administration buildings (no longer extant). Beyond these buildings were the three main cell blocks (no longer extant). These were configured in a semi-radial pattern, to allow for the construction of additional wings if required. Earlier Queensland prison designs, such as Boggo Road (completed 1883), had utilized a more restrictive cruciform arrangement of cell blocks. An underground tank of 66,000 gallons (300kl) capacity was constructed for rainwater, which was pumped to high level tanks for the supply of the various buildings. The buildings were constructed of brick on concrete foundations, and the whole of the complex was enclosed by a six metre high concrete wall (no longer extant).
\nStewart's Creek Gaol was occupied in 1893 by male prisoners previously confined at the Townsville Gaol at North Ward. The majority of prisoners confined at Mackay Gaol were also transferred to Stewart's Creek, and the Mackay Gaol was then closed. Female prisoners at the North Ward were transferred a few years later, when associated infrastructure was in place.
\nThe prominent Central Observation Tower was designed in 1897 by JS Murdoch, employed in the Queensland Government Architect's Office. Murdoch later had a prominent career in the Commonwealth Works Department, where he was appointed Chief Architect by 1919 and was involved with the planning of Canberra and the design of the provisional Parliament House. The structure is known locally as the 'Trig Tower' because trigonometrical survey readings are taken from it.
\nIn the late 1960s a new medium security block, the first of its type in north Queensland, was constructed south of the existing prison on the site of the former prison piggery. When completed in 1967 the new prison provided accommodation for up to 192 prisoners.
\nThe original maximum-security prison was redeveloped in the 1990s. When works were completed in 1996 much of the original prison was demolished, including the cell blocks and the perimeter wall, the latter replaced by a state-of-the-art razor wire fence. The original Administration Buildings were also demolished.
\n\n
The early 1890s Gatehouse and the 1897 Observation Tower were refurbished in 1995-1996. The interior of the Gatehouse was renovated with the provision of office space and administrative areas. The exterior was reconstructed to its original design with open verandahs and latticework, and non-original fixtures and accretions were removed.
\n","criteria":"
The place remains important in illustrating some of the principal characteristics of late nineteenth century prison design, including construction of a forbidding entrance (gatehouse) and central observation tower.
The Central Observation Tower is a fine example of the design skills of architect John Smith Murdoch, who later had a distinguished career in the Commonwealth Department of Works.
|The Gatehouse is a well composed design in the classical tradition displaying a pleasing symmetry and a high degree of legibility. The imposing, steel main gate is highly evocative of the penal function of the building.
|The former Stewart's Creek Gaol Gatehouse (1890-1893) and the Central Observation Tower (or Trig Tower) (1897), are the oldest surviving intact prison buildings in Queensland. The Gatehouse pre-dates the former Women's Prison at Boggo Road in Brisbane (c1903) (QHR 601033), by about a decade. They provide rare surviving physical evidence of late nineteenth century approaches to prison design and administration in Queensland.
Queensland's other main surviving nineteenth century prison, St Helena in Moreton Bay, survives in a ruinous condition and illustrates earlier attitudes to prison design and administration.
|The early surviving structures associated with the former Stewart's Creek Gaol (including Gatehouse and Central Observation Tower), erected during the 1890s, are important in demonstrating the evolution of nineteenth century prison design and operation in Queensland. They also demonstrate the pattern of settlement in Queensland, in particular, the important role Townsville played as a regional administration centre at the time.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16897,"place_ref":601690,"name":"St Mary's Anglican Church, Church hall and Bell Tower","alternate_name":"St Marys Anglican Church, Church hall and Bell Tower | St Marys Church","street_address":"11 Gordon Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"St Mary's Church:
The main St Mary's Anglican Church building runs parallel to Gordon Street in Mount Morgan township, and is of two distinct components: the original Church with octagonal Apse (eastern end); and a later added Vestry (western end).
St Mary's Church is a prominent visual element in both the Gordon Street and greater Mount Morgan township built landscape.
This Church is part of a Anglican Church site that also contains a Church Hall, Rectory, and Bell Tower.
The extant Church is a substantial red faced brick building, featuring external solid brick buttresses and lancet windows.
The Apse section of the Church has metal roof sheeting. Whereas the main roof of the Church - a simple gable roof, is clad in Asbestos roof sheeting material.
The Vestry addition to the Church is also of red brick, and has a corrugated sheet metal gabled roof. This structure has windows and doors that reflect the form of the original Church building.
Storm water from the main church structure and the Vestry is collected in two separate concrete water tanks that are visually obtrusive. These storm water tanks are situated on the Gordon Street side of the main Church building.
The Bell Tower is a timber framed tower, situated on the Gordon Street side of the main Church building.
The interior of St Mary's Church remains relatively intact. The apse features a timber lined ceiling with exposed joists, and the internal walls are rendered brick.
An important internal decorative feature of St Mary's Anglican Church is the extant Rood-screen.
Internal church roof features include exposed truss work and roof purloins with no ceiling lining, thereby exposing the underside of the roof sheeting material.
Church Hall:
St Mary's Anglican Church Hall is a fine extant example of a timber hall, which is slightly elevated off ground level on small timber stumps
The Church Hall is clad in timber weatherboards, and is rectangular in shape with a gabled roof lined with corrugated metal sheeting.
The Hall has verandahs to eastern and western elevations, with a portico entrance with a small gable vent to the southern end.
Verandahs on this Hall contain a combination of original timber dowelling balustrades, and more recent metal additions associated with walkways.
Internally the Hall is lined with timber VJ boards, and the roof has exposed truss work.
","history":"In 1889, James Wesley Hall, the first Mine Manager of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited (1882 - Dec.1891), and Mount Morgan's first Mayor (1890), donated the funds required for the erection of St Mary's Church of England, in Gordon Street, Mount Morgan. The Vicar at this time was Reverend G.L. Wallace, and the "first Confirmation Service was held at the end of 1889, forty-seven candidates being presented to Bishop Weber of Brisbane". This event taking place prior to the formation of the separate Rockhampton Diocese (in 1892).
The great benefactor of St Mary's Church was James Wesley Hall. Wesley Hall was the first Mine Manager of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited from 1882 until he resigned in December 1891. He was also a brother to the Mine's other influential Hall brothers, Thomas and Walter. Wesley Hall also took an interest in Mount Morgan township in 1890 when he became Mayor of the first Town Council, as well as instrumental in instituting in 1895 the symbol of Central Queensland soccer - the Wesley Hall Cup - a challenge trophy for the Central Queensland British Football Association. With Wesley Hall's resignation from the Mine in 1891, the first phase of the Mount Morgan Company's history has been said to have ended:
He had guided it through its formative years with skill and dedication until it achieved fame as the richest single gold mine in the world. Unlike his two brothers [Walter Russell & Thomas Skarratt Hall] who "dabbled" in mining, Wesley Hall was an experienced practical miner. He was responsible for building the Lower and Top Works which increased gold extractions to ninety-eight per cent. The Top works were probably the largest of their kind in the world at the time, so his pride in the mine was justified.
Though resigned as Manager, Wesley Hall still maintained an interest in the Mine as one of the Company's Board members. With his death in 1901, his position on the Board was replaced by Kelso King.
The extant St Mary's Anglican Church is a red brick building constructed from bricks made in Mount Morgan's own brick works. Other Mount Morgan buildings similarly constructed include the Grand Hotel (1901) on the corner of Central and Morgan Streets, and the Masonic Temple (circa 1903) in Gordon Street. One heritage study detailed:
The church is built of red faced bricks and comprises two parts - the main church building, and a vestry addition. The building is unusual for its octagonal apse, which is roofed in sheet iron. The walls of the church have solid brick buttresses and small lancet windows. The interior remains relatively intact: the apse features a timber lined ceiling with exposed joists.
The first Church of England erected in Mount Morgan "was a wood and iron structure on the site of the present [St Mary's Church] hall". Besides the existing 1889 Church is a small timber belltower that is presumed to remain from the first Church building. At the rear of the present Church is located the St Mary's Church hall. This Church Hall was erected in 1902 on the site of the original church. This Hall has been described as "one of the finest timber halls in the town, both because of its design and also its integrity". The Hall's verandahs comprising alternating large and small timber dowelling balustrades, with a portico entrance with a small gable vent.
St Mary's Church was consecrated by Bishop Nathaniel Dawes, the first bishop of Rockhampton, on 5 October 1899. The Church's rector at this time was the Reverend H.T. Hainsselin.
The first Anglican cleric to reach nearby Rockhampton was Queensland's first Anglican Bishop, Bishop Tuffnell, in November 1860, though lay ministers held Anglican services in Rockhampton during the late 1850s. Following shortly after Tuffnell's visit, The Rev. Thomas Jones arrived at Rockhampton, becoming the popular pioneer Anglican Rector. Jones encouraged his congregation to raise sufficient funds in 1862 to allow construction of a small timber church to be built on what later became the site of the present Cathedral Hall and Offices.
Later more funds were raised for a new and larger church with plans drawn up and construction beginning on St Paul's Church in 1872, though this building was not completed and consecrated until 1883. In 1892 the Church of England Diocese of Rockhampton was formed and the St Paul's Church was upgraded becoming the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul the Apostle. The foundation bishop, The Right Reverend Nathaniel Dawes, was formally emplaced on 30 November 1892.
Reverend A.A. Fellowes' (1967) autobiographical history of life and service in the Rockhampton Anglican Diocese states work on the "initial beautifying of St Mary's Church in the Mount" was carried out during the residence of Rev. Farnham Maynard (1910s - resigned April 1920). It was during this period that there was "added the Rood Screen, the Baptistry and the Vestry at the west end of the Church". On these, and later additions to St Mary's interior decoration, Fellowes pointed out that the
... Rood Screen in St. Mary's was a Memorial of World War 1 (although the Crucifix on the top of it did not arrive from England until the time of the Reverend W.B. Charles). As a Memorial of World War II, we put in the two stained-glass windows in the Sanctuary - the Annunciation and the Nativity - as well as the side chapel dedicated to St. Oswald, King Martyr.
During Canon E.A. Wight's residence (1939-42), the corrugated iron roof of the St Mary's Church was replaced by a fibro corrugated roof.
The emergence of the Oxford Movement and its impact on the practice of the Church of England occurred during the early decades of the 19th century:
After the threat of liberalism had receded another challenge arose, with the growth of scientific discovery... In 1833, spurred by John Keble's Assize Sermon at Oxford, a group of [Anglican] theologians began to fight against liberalism and the new science. Their crusade became known as the Oxford Movement... They set out to create - or to re-create - a Church that was chiefly concerned not with social and political influence but with spirituality and its expression through ritual, as had been the concern of the Catholic Revival.
Although the Oxford Movement was largely concerned with doctrinal reform of the Church of England, it also had an impact on "the interior arrangements of churches; older churches were remodelled and new churches built... with the focus on the altar rather than the pulpit."
The Rood-screen is an example of the impact of this Movement on internal church architecture, often viewed "an open screen, often richly carved and painted, across the entrance to the chancel of a church, extending from floor level to the underside of the rood-beam." The Rood-screen extant within St Mary's was erected after the end of World War One. Most Rood-screens found in the Rockhampton Anglican Diocese were erected as World War One Memorials. Within the Diocese of Rockhampton, apart from the example in St Mary's in Mount Morgan, the only other extant examples of Rood-screens are found in the Anglican churches at Jericho, Barcaldine, and St Mark's in Allenstown, Rockhampton.
Mount Morgan is a gold and copper mining town, that throughout much of its life has experienced only the impact of one major mine and one mining corporation involved in its activities at any one time. "The existence of a single mine and the longevity of the mine make Mount Morgan outstanding in Queensland mining history". And as part of this phenomenon, the fluctuations in the fortunes of the mine and its company have similarly impacted upon the township itself, causing fluctuations in employment, town population and the town's size.
Despite the ebb and flow of the town's fortunes, Mount Morgan still retains much of its early character evident in the scale of its buildings and their siting. "It has a fine collection of town buildings - Churches, Halls, Shops, Hotels, and civic buildings: Court House, Police Station, Shire Hall, and Railway Station. Together these buildings reflect the scale of the town and its dependence upon a single mining operation - very few of the buildings are of high-style architecture but are vernacular in character."
The extant St Mary's Church in Gordon Street is a product of the initial development of the town of Mount Morgan following the discovery of gold and the establishment of the mine from 1885-86. The formal establishment of Mount Morgan's town life is typified by the various services, societies, and churches which established themselves during 1885-1891. At its peak in the 1910s, Mount Morgan had a town population estimated at 14,000, but by 1976 this had diminished to only 3,246.
The hilly terrain in which the Mount Morgan township was spawned is one of the town's most dominant features. These hills, combined with the grid layout of the town has produced quite unusual effects where "some quite modest buildings are very prominent within the townscape, because of their hillside location, and the townscape importance of larger buildings is heightened, due to their location at the tops of ridges." This includes the visibility of St Mary's Church, but is even more pronounced with regards to the Masonic Hall, that is also situated on Gordon Street.
","criteria":"St Mary's Anglican Church complex is important in demonstrating the pattern of evolution of the central Queensland mining town of Mount Morgan, and the concomitant role of the Church of England in meeting the needs of this important mining community's Anglican parishioners.
|St Mary's demonstrates a rare example of internal church decoration by possessing an extant example of a Rood-screen, an aspect of internal church architecture associated with the influences of the Oxford Movement.
|This church also exhibits particular aesthetic characteristics contributing to both the streetscape of Gordon Street, as well as being a significant component of the broader historic Mount Morgan township landscape, valued not only by the local Mount Morgan parishioner community, but also the broader community.
|This place has a special association with both the Mount Morgan and broader Rockhampton Anglican community for both social and spiritual reasons. This special association also extends to recognition of Mount Morgan's Anglican mining community, and the contributions of James Wesley Hall in establishing the current Church building.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16899,"place_ref":601692,"name":"Assay Office & Store, Mareeba","alternate_name":"Forestry Office | Assay Office and Store (former)","street_address":"167 Walsh Street","suburb":"MAREEBA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The Assay Office and Store are situated in the grounds of the Mareeba Court House and are located at the corner of Hort and Constance Street, Mareeba. The complex comprises two buildings:
\nAssay Office (Laboratory)
\nStore Room and Office
\nThe Assay Office is a tall, single story building approximately 6.5 m long and 4 m wide, with a verandah approximately 2.5 m wide facing the store room and office. The Assay Office was built on a concrete slab foundation. The exterior walls are mostly weatherboard, however approximately 4.5 m of the wall facing Hort Street is constructed of brick (English bond), this wall contains a brick chimney. Adjacent to the chimney is the small building constructed in 1917, which was used to house the air gas plant. It has corrugated iron walls nailed to a timber frame. It was constructed on a concrete base.
\nThe hipped roof is constructed of asbestos tiles, and extends over the verandah on the eastern side. A small porch covers the entry to the building, which faces Constance Street. The interior of the building consists of one room. The internal linings are tongue and groove. The building has three exits including the front door, another on the east side of the building and, opposite this on the west side of the building, is a third door that opens out onto the verandah. There are three windows, all are double hung sash windows with plain timber surrounds. Fanlights have been incorporated into the front door and the door on the western side of the building. A panel of wire mesh is fixed to the inside of all glass windows for security purposes.
\nA large block of concrete located on the eastern wall marks the location of the Muffle Furnace. Next to this is a damaged section of brick wall where some of the bricks have been removed from the wall and are now lying in a heap on the floor. This is the remains of the Wind Furnace.
\nThe verandah has a concrete floor and is enclosed with wire mesh and has a wire mesh door on the Constance Street side.
\nThe Store Room and Office is a single story building which has the same floor dimensions as the Assay Office, and includes a verandah on the eastern side (facing the Assay Office). The store room and verandah were built on a concrete slab foundation. The exterior walls on the north, south and west sides are weatherboard. The eastern side is an exposed stud frame wall with a single skin on the inside of the frame. It has a hipped colour bond roof. The store room has two exits, both doors being located on the eastern side of the building. There are four double hung sash windows, one in each of the two side walls and two along the western wall. The interior of the building is one large room, which has a tongue and groove lining.
\nThe block is sparsely vegetated and is surrounded by a wire mesh fence. The two buildings are set close to the road and overlook the St Thomas School and the St Thomas of Villanova Catholic Church.
","history":"The Government Assay Office was built in 1916, it is situated behind the Court House on the corner of Hort and Constance Streets, Mareeba. It was designed by the Government Architect and built by E G Greening of Atherton, at the cost of 400 pounds. The adjacent storeroom and office, constructed in the same style, was built the following year.
At the end of the 1890s, the important minerals around the Mareeba area were wolfram and molybdenite, used for hardening and strengthening steel. These were mined mainly at Wolfram Camp, Mt Carbine, Mt Perseverance and Bamford. In May 1915 Queensland's first secure Labor government was elected into power. Under the leadership of T J Ryan, and with many members drawn from the State's northern mining fields and a policy of State capitalism, the Queensland Government set about implementing a policy of acquiring State enterprises to compete on the free market. There was a pre-World War One boom in wolfram in both Australia and Europe, to supply armament industries. However, a wartime ruling banning the sale of ore to foreign buyers prompted the Government to assist the local mines by building a State Battery at Bamford and an Assay Office in Mareeba.
Mareeba, because of its proximity to the rail network and the surrounding mineral areas, was chosen as the site for the Assay Office. The town of Mareeba was originally surveyed in 1893 following the arrival of the railway from the coastal port of Cairns. The line was later extended to service the Herberton tin fields. In 1901, the Mareeba to Mungana railway line was opened to service the Chillagoe mining fields, further securing the future of the township. By 1916 the population of the Mareeba district was estimated to be over 1,200.
The Assay Office, a single, two-roomed brick and timber construction, was built in 1916 by local Atherton builder, E G Greening. The design of the Mareeba Assay Office was modified from other similar buildings, which had been found to have certain design faults. In particular, the original plans called for the walls and ceiling of the office to be constructed of pine timber, which could have been easily ignited by the heat of the muffle furnace used in the assaying process. Therefore, the plans for the Mareeba Assay Office allowed for the whole of the west wall to be constructed of brick. Other local adaptations included the inclusion of a door adjacent to the Balance Table to allow fumes to dissipate.
In November 1916 the State Mining Engineer recommended that another building be provided on the site for use as a storeroom and office. He further recommended that this building be of the same dimensions as the existing Assay Office building, but of cheaper construction. Therefore, the walls of the building were constructed entirely of chamferboard, on a concrete slab, with a fibro cement roof. He requested that the construction of the office and storeroom be dealt with "as an urgent matter" because he wanted the building completed before the Assayer was appointed. The second building was constructed in 1917, adjacent to the original Assay Office.
The Government Assayer appointed was Mr Cosmo Murray. It is said 14 year old Bill McGore was his apprentice for possibly the last 18 months of the building's use as an Assay Office. Late in 1917, at the request of the Government Assayer, the complex was fenced at a cost of 22 pounds, to keep children from the nearby school away from the area containing poisons, as well as to deter cattle which strayed nearby at night. Also in 1917, the Government Assayer requested incandescent lights be installed in both the Assay Office and the storeroom, since he often worked at night. These were approved of at the cost of 6 pounds.
In 1917 a report showed that the Assay Office was proving very convenient to miners from surrounding districts, because samples could be treated there at the same time as they were sent to buyers and this ensured better conditions regarding sales of ore. However, the metals boom came to an abrupt halt following the end of the war in November 1918. By 1921, the Mareeba Assay Office was closed.
With the construction of Mareeba airfield in 1942 and the influx of troops to the area during World War II, the Assay Office was used as an American Army PX store. In 1943 it became the district headquarters for the Australian Women's Army. A.W.A.S. personnel were barracked in eight-bedded huts in Arnold Park alongside the Assay Office, using the building itself as their orderly room. At this time, Mareeba Railway Station was the Tablelands' main depot for materials needed in the construction of roads, army camps, warehouses, hospitals and other defence facilities. These movements, plus the 3,579 U.S. and Australian troops brought to the area, once again changed the face of Mareeba township. It became one of the "feeding points" for troops travelling by train to the Atherton Tableland, with local women providing the food from their own rationed supplies.
In 1949, the Assay Office was taken over by the Queensland Forestry Department, who used it as an office until 26 July 1964. The Mareeba Magistrate's Court then used the former storeroom and office as a storage area until 1978, at which time the Public Works Department began using it for storage. At the present time, both buildings are unoccupied.
","criteria":"The Assay Office and Store is important in demonstrating the evolution of twentieth century mining technology in Queensland, in particular the role of the Queensland Government in providing assay services to miners of rare metals, in this case Wolfram, during the metals boom sparked by World War One.
|The complex is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of small Assay Offices. The Mareeba Assay Office has altered little since it was constructed in 1916. Its layout and fabric were modified to rectify design faults with similar buildings constructed in Charters Towers and Cloncurry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16905,"place_ref":601711,"name":"Palmwoods to Buderim Tramway Track Foundation and Formwork Remnants","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Telco Road","suburb":"BUDERIM","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-07-28","description":"The heritage listed section of the Palmwoods to Buderim Tramway is a narrow, level track approximately 1.57km long, winding through undulating, heavily-forested terrain on the outskirts of Buderim. The route begins at Telco Road and travels generally west. The track includes considerable engineering in the form of sharp corners, substantial embankments and cuttings, as well as more subtle elements including remnants of explosives bores, timber sleepers and a cattle grid. Three tree stumps with evidence of historical felling techniques stand adjacent to the track. The tramway sits high in the terrain, which generally slopes from north down to southern gullies and the geology varies between solid sandstone to a softer stone towards the western extent of the tramway boundary. At certain points along the track, views can be seen to Tanawha and the ranges behind.
Cuttings
The cuttings are double or single-sided and range in depth up to 9m, through earth, soft stone and solid sandstone. Approximately 770m from Telco Road is the most distinctive cutting; 48m long, 8-9m deep, double-sided and cut through solid sandstone.
Embankments
The track has four substantial earth embankments. Approximately 190m from Telco Road, the longest is 63m long, 20 to 30m in height, with sides steeper than 45 degrees.
Culverts
Small concrete culverts channel water transversely under the track.
Sleepers
The track retains three sections of exposed timber sleepers. The first is located approximately 870m from Telco Road is the largest and most intact section of exposed sleepers at 14.2m long. The average distance between sleepers is 40cm. The most intact sleeper of this group is 43cm long x 20cm wide. The second section, located 910m from Telco Road contains only one exposed sleeper, 145cm long x 20cm wide. The final section of exposed sleepers is located approximately 960m from Telco Road and comprises four degraded sleepers across a distance of 230cm.
Tree stumps
Along the track are three stumps of felled trees with evidence of the springboard felling technique. The first is located approximately 380m from Telco Road and is visible from the track. Standing 6m north of and 6m above the track, the stump is 305cm tall and 270cm in circumference. It has two springboard notches: notch 1 - 154cm above ground, 13cm wide x 6.5-9cm high; notch 2 - 180cm above ground, 14cm wide x 6-8cm high. The stump is partially hollow. The second tree stump with springboard notches is located approximately 450m from Telco Road, standing 4m north of and 5m above the track. It is not an obvious fell and the springboard notches are not deep. The third tree stump is located approximately 770m from Telco Road, standing 5m north of and 5m above the track. There are springboard notches visible from the track but it is not an obvious fell.
Explosives Bores
Approximately 1050m from Telco Road, and opposite the site of the former Mon's Station, are remnants of explosive bores drilled into the stone face of a cutting - evidence of the blasting technique to create the cutting. Two semi-circular bores are evident, 110cm-115cm long x 5.5cm wide.
Timber and earth feature
Approximately 1320m from Telco Road is a timber and earth feature, possibly a retaining wall or the remains of a timber bridge. Located on the north side of the track, it comprises a 245cm long timber member inset into the northern wall of an earth hollow.
'VE' carving
Approximately 1450m from Telco Road is the monogram 'VE' carved into the stone face of a cutting. The carving is 20cm high x 30cm wide.
Cattle grid
Approximately 1540m from Telco Road and near the western end of the track is remnants of a cattle grid, comprising timber members fixed into a grid by metal pins. The grid is 315cm x 270cm and individual timber members are 270cm x 27cm.
","history":"The Palmwoods to Buderim tramway track began operations in December 1914 and provided the impetus for substantial settlement expansion and economic growth in the Buderim area. It was constructed as a 'private' tramway, and continued to operate until August 1935. The length of the line was seven miles, fifteen chains (11.5km), which ran from the Queensland Government Railway Station at Palmwoods, across undulating country to Forest Glen on the Bruce Highway, and then climbed to the top of Buderim 'Mountain'.
The first inhabitants of the Maroochy District were the Aboriginal peoples of the Nalbo, Kabi Kabi, Dallambara and Undanbi groups.[1] Europeans first penetrated the Maroochy District in the 1820s.[2] One of the significant figures in the early exploration of timber in South East Queensland was Andrew Petrie. Petrie explored the Maroochy area from 1838 and collected specimens of the bunya pine (araucaria bidwillii).[3] The importance of the bunyas to the local Aboriginal peoples was recorded by early Europeans and Governor Gipps was persuaded to proclaim a reserve on 14 April 1842 which prohibited settlement or the granting of timber or grazing licences on land on which the bunya tree grew.[4] While it was purportedly enacted to protect sources of food for the local Aboriginal peoples, it is equally likely that the proclamation was a way of protecting valuable sources of timber from exploitation.[5] In 1859, the Colony of Queensland was created, and the Unoccupied Crown Lands Occupation Act 1860 was one of the first Acts passed by Queensland Parliament. It repealed the Bunya Proclamation, and provided for squatters' and timbergetters' licences.[6]
The native forests remained a steady source of income during the 1870s and 1880s, but Maroochy settlers needed to be versatile to ensure their selections remained economically viable. Most grazed beef cattle and the Buderim settlers experimented with sugar.[7] Sugar ‘was a major contributor to the economic development of Maroochy Shire'.[8] It was first grown in the Maroochy area in 1865 and sugarcane was first crushed in the area at a small mill in Buderim in 1876.[9] Sugar crops took years to mature, so a variety of crops were needed to provide the farmer with another, more immediate source of income.[10] Other significant crops grown in the area were bananas, citrus orchards, pineapples and ginger.[11] The 1880s saw closer attention given to the dairying potential of the Maroochy region. Initially dairy cattle were kept for domestic needs, but dairying would soon develop into an industry, particularly with the slump in the fruit industries between 1908 and World War I when a number of fruit growers turned their fields into pastures.[12] ‘Between 1880 and 1915, Maroochy developed into Queensland's largest fruit growing area and an important centre of dairy farming'.[13]
Queensland's coastal areas north of Brisbane, and the hinterland, developed rapidly in the 1880s. Buderim, a settlement which developed to service the local farmers, was established by the late 1880s. Shipping of timber and farm and fruit produce from Buderim and surrounds was complicated by problems with the silting and bars of the Mooloolah and Maroochy rivers. There was great competition in the region, and between regions, for development investment, with the port of Maryborough to the north being a rival for vital road funds.
In 1879, local government was established in the Maroochy area with the creation of 74 Divisional Boards, including Caboolture, which incorporated much of today's Maroochy Shire. In 1890, the Maroochy Divisional Board was established, formed from the southern section of the Widgee Divisional Board and the northern section of the Caboolture Divisional Board. Buderim was part of the Caboolture Divisional Board until 1898, when it joined the Maroochy Divisional Board. In 1903, the Maroochy Divisional Board became the Maroochy Shire Council.[14]
Government railway building began in Queensland in the 1860s and a Gympie to Maryborough link was opened in 1881. An extension from Brisbane through Palmwoods north to Yandina was completed in 1891. The line was neither coastal nor western, lying between Buderim, the Lower Maroochy River, and the Blackall Ranges. While this positioned desired transport from Buderim to the capital and its markets tantalisingly close, poor roads hindered access. The roads up the steep slopes to Buderim were difficult to negotiate, especially in wet weather.
A tramline to ensure Buderim growers could get their goods to market had been proposed for years.[15] Maroochy Shire Council established a committee in 1903 to consider the possibility of a tramway to Buderim. Differences arose between supporters of the Buderim/Palmwoods link, the Buderim/Woombye link, and those lobbying to join with the Moreton sugar mill tramway system near Diddillibah, causing negotiations to continue for some time. During this time, the Maroochy Council purchased tramway lines from the Moreton mill in 1910, and using a government tramways loan of £27 000, extended the line (2 feet gauge) from Nambour to Mapleton west. Finally, an Order in Council for the establishment of the Palmwoods/Buderim tramway was reported on 29 July 1911 in the "Queenslander".
The Palmwoods to Buderim tramway was constructed across some technically difficult terrain as a narrow gauge railway of two feet, six inches (76.2cm). This differed to the three feet, six inches of Queensland Government Rail and two feet (61cm) of sugar mill trams. The tramway was also a private tramway so while owned by Council, the Maroochy Shire Council had applied for a government tramway loan and then the 130 ratepayers in the area benefiting from the tramway were levied additional rates to service and repay the loan. The project cost £34 000, of which £21 000 was raised by the loan. The repayment of the loan continued until 1971 when the total had amounted to £84,000.
Throughout Queensland, various Shire Councils undertook the construction of tramways which often represented a significant capital investment for relatively small communities. The Palmwoods to Buderim Tramway is considered to be a ‘private' tramway as it was constructed by a local government, and not the Queensland Government. Examples of other tramways built by local governments include the Belmont Tramway, established in 1912 by the Belmont Shire Council,[16] and the Aramac to Barcaldine Tramway, established in 1913 by the Aramac Shire Council. Like the Palmwoods to Buderim Tramway, the Aramac to Barcaldine line connected to the Queensland government rail network.[17]
The tramway began operations on 1 December 1914 and was officially opened by the Minister for Railways on 18 June 1915. The official party and many others travelled to Buderim on the tram for the ceremony in the School of Arts. With this steady means of transport the Buderim area boomed. The Nambour Chronicle of 16 August 1935 reported that 'fruit production increased enormously, land values rose to great heights and further land was taken up by settlers at high prices. The tram, to cope with the traffic, had frequently to make two trips a day. Timber and fruit products were loaded onto the tram at the Buderim Terminus Station. Goods could be taken to Palmwoods and then transferred to the main line for export or distribution.[18]
The tram became a central feature in the area it serviced. It assumed importance for all social facets of the community, as well as the primary economic purposes. Expectant mothers were driven to the Buderim Station by horse gig to travel by tram to Palmwoods and thence by train to Nambour, to await the birth in one of the maternity nursing homes, there being no hospitals in the region. Passengers from the Vise Road area would be driven in a gig to Telko Station to go to Palmwoods, either to visit Brisbane or Nambour, and then on return by the tram they would get off at Mons Station, to climb the slope and steps up to Mons Road and higher to the present Mons School Road. There was no direct road access to the Mons Station from Mons Road. Loveday records that Mons Station was '"a mere shed with no visible means of approach'. Other social uses for the tram included transport to sporting and recreation events, while throughout the depression days those who were drawing the 'dole' would travel by tram and then train to Woombye to collect their sustenance allowance.
Patrons of the tramway included more than the local population. Passengers from Brisbane would travel to Palmwoods to meet the tram and then journey to Buderim. The tram consisted of approximately 13 wagons, one passenger coach and a guard/brake van, pulled behind a German Krauss or American Shay steam engine. The flat-top wagons had fruit cases placed down their centres along which planks of timber were arranged to form central seats. In this manner about 150 passengers could be carried each trip. and at times two trips per day were made. Visitors would stay in one of Buderim's guest or boarding houses, or travel down to the coast.
The tramway began to lose money in the 1920s from reduced freight revenue through lower farm output and introduced competition from the new network of main road transport. Another reason for the decline of the tramway was the onset of World War I, which curtailed any planned extensions to economically rationalise the line. A Queensland Survey Office map of the Buderim tramway shows hand drawn lines indicating, perhaps, two alternative track extensions to Maroochydore. Such plans failed during the economic depression of the 1930s. In 1933, the tramway actually ceased to operate for a short period because repairs were needed on the engine operating at that time and there was no balance in the tram working account. The Depression possibly added to all other factors to seal the fate of the tramway.
The final run of the Buderim tram occurred on 10 August 1935. The last duty of the Buderim tram was to assist in dismantling the railway by delivering the rails, which had been sold to the Moreton Sugar Mill Co., to Palmwoods. Only the rails and engines are recorded as being sold, but the bridges and most of the sleepers and buildings were also removed at the time or later.
In 2014, the heritage listed portion of the original tramway route is a publically accessible walking track.
References
[1] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, p.1; Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf.
[2] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, p.11; Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf.
[3] Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf; Powell, J. 1998. People and Trees: A thematic history of South East Queensland with particular reference to forested areas, 1823-1997. Queensland: Queensland CRA/RFA Steering Committee, pp.8-9.
[4] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, p.5; Heap, E. "In the Wake of the Raftsmen: A survey of early settlement in the Maroochy District up to the Passing of Macalister's Act (1868). Queensland Heritage. Volume 1, Issue 3, p.4; Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf
[5] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, p.5.
[6] Moreton Bay Courier, The. 1860. The Land Acts. The Moreton Bay Courier. 25 September 1860, p.3; Heap, E. "In the Wake of the Raftsmen: A survey of early settlement in the Maroochy District up to the Passing of Macalister's Act (1868). Queensland Heritage. Volume 1, Issue 3, p.5; Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf; Sunshine Coast Council 2011. Maroochy Region (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/sitePage.cfm?code=maroochy-region.
[7] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, p.24.
[8] Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf
[9] Sunshine Coast Council. 2012. Walk Buderim (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/addfiles/documents/heritage_culture/walk_buderim.pdf.
[10] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, pp.20, 24-25.
[11] Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf
[12] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, pp.60-61.
[13] Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf
[14] Sunshine Coast Libraries. 2009. A short history of Maroochy (online). Accessed 29/08/2014 from: http://library.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/library/documents/heritage/a_short_history_of_maroochy.pdf; Fraser, G. and N. McGarvie 2010. The Buderim - Palmwoods Tramway. Buderim - Palmwoods Tramway Incorporated. Buderim: Queensland, p.19.
[15] Gregory, H. 1991. Making Maroochy: A History of the Land the People and the Shire. Boolarong: Brisbane, Queensland, p.73.
[16] Old Cleveland Road Tramway Tracks QHR 601839.
[17] Smith, A. 1996. "The Aramac Tramway". Lectures on North Queensland History. No.5. Townsville: Department of History and Politics, James Cook University of North Queensland.
[18] Information provided in application.
","criteria":"The Palmwoods to Buderim tramway (1914-35), through the transport and communication facilities it provided, played a central role in the development of the region, and as such is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. The tramway was a specific response to the economic and social pressures encountered by Australian settlers at a particular phase of the twentieth century. The influence of World War I and the following economic depression on the establishment, operation and closure of the tramway is also of historical significance.
The tramway was funded by the Maroochy Shire Council, partly through additional levying of local ratepayers, and remained under the control of the council for the entire period of its operation.
|The tramway foundation and framework remnants demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as evidence of a tramway with a gauge of two feet, six inches, and being of ‘private' (local government) construction.
|The environment through which the tramway route traverses is of considerable visual appeal, particularly in the steeper hilly section, lending the place aesthetic significance. The appeal of the environment is complemented by the technological grandeur of the construction modifications to the landscape, especially as they were achieved in a horse-powered era. There remains a pleasing unity in the track remnants.
|The place has a special association with the local communities serviced by the tramway for social and cultural reasons. The tramway, as the transportation hub for the region, facilitated community participation in sporting and cultural events, and provided a connection to Nambour and Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16907,"place_ref":601714,"name":"St John the Baptist Anglican Church Complex","alternate_name":"St John the Baptist Church","street_address":"55 Crawford Street","suburb":"RICHMOND","lga":"RICHMOND SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-02-25","description":"St John the Baptist Anglican Church, Richmond is a small, rectangular, single-storeyed timber building with a gabled corrugated iron roof. Attached to the rear of the building is a skillion-roofed extension accommodating several rooms, and there is a skillion-roofed open verandah across the front façade. The church stands in the front half of a flat, grassed block fronting Crawford Street, which is parallel to, and one block from Goldring Street, the main street of Richmond. Apart from backing onto the commercial properties of the main street, the area has mainly residential buildings.
The church is approached via a set of decorative wrought steel gates, and a pathway flanked by two trees. To the north-west of the church is a steel bell tower.
The exterior cladding of the building is chamferboard, which has been covered with aluminium sheeting of a similar profile. The building sits on low concrete stumps.
The front entry door has two leaves with stop-chamfered rails and tongue-and-groove boarding, and decorative early iron hinges.
Internally, the nave and sanctuary combined measure approximately 7m x 9m. Most of the internal finishes of the building are silky oak, including the varnished v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards lining the walls and raked ceiling; the timber scissor trusses of the roof framing, which are exposed internally; the arch of the sanctuary; and the altar rails.
The nave is furnished with eight silky oak pews with pegged joints, and the table used as the altar is also silky oak. Mounted on the wall of the nave is a memorial board, which includes plaques commemorating the dedication of the altar rails in 1906, the gates and fence in 1951, and the bell tower in 1981.
To either side of the entry doors are two tall stained glass windows signed by Oliver Cowley and dated 1988, one depicting John the Baptist and the other the baptism of Christ. To the side walls at either side of the sanctuary are two further stained glass windows, installed in the 1990s, in commemoration of pioneering men and women.
The extension to the rear is centrally divided, with bathroom facilities added at the south-east corner. Its walls and raked ceiling are lined with fibrous cement sheets. Furniture in this extension includes wardrobes, a lectern, a bellows organ and an iron bed.
","history":"St John the Baptist Church, Richmond, was constructed in 1909 by Mr Moore of Hughenden.
Richmond developed in the late nineteenth century on the banks of a waterhole on the Flinders River, primarily as a service centre for the extensive merino sheep and cattle grazing pastoral activities of the region.
By 1878 the Anglican Church had established a presence in North Queensland under the leadership of Bishop Frodsham. In order to serve the isolated northern and western areas the members of the Anglican Synod of North Queensland proposed the establishment of the Bush Brotherhood of St James. This was probably the first time in Australia that a diocese planned to establish the Bush Brotherhood in its area. Although the proposal was approved, nothing happened until 1903 when a Bush Brother was appointed to Herberton as a mission priest. In 1909, at Cloncurry, Edward Travers Crozier was installed as head of the North Queensland Bush Brotherhood.
A report in North Queensland 1878-1958 80 Years of Anglican Progress says that the Brotherhood of St Barnabas also worked in the Richmond Parish. Despite the fact that there was no church building, Bishop Frodsham held services in a dance hall attached to a hotel and later in the Richmond Court House where he used the magistrates bench as a pulpit.
During a tour of the west in 1904 Bishop Frodsham was reported to be advising the Richmond church community about the construction of a church. In The Northern Churchman, December 1906, reference was made to the efforts of the community to double the amount of £105 in the Church Building Fund. By 1907 plans and specifications had been approved for the erection of an Anglican church at Richmond. The church was to be called St John the Baptist and was to be erected on land donated by Thomas Cox of Hughenden.
In 1908 the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge granted £30 towards the construction of an Anglican church at Richmond. Reverend Canon Walter Williams, returning to North Queensland from England, reported to the Richmond congregation that he had been given a silver chalice and paten for the yet to be constructed church in the town. When Bishop Frodsham visited Richmond in July 1909 he dedicated the newly constructed church. Monthly services were held in the new St John the Baptist Church, with the rector travelling from Hughenden. In 1911 the Church Building Committee reported that the debt on the building was still being paid off. Further reports indicated that the congregation expected to start painting and fencing the church and also that the belfry had been erected and a bell installed. The church could boast a small organ by 1911.
By 1909 Hughenden had one priest and one deacon to serve 80,000 square miles. To overcome the shortage of priests the Anglican Synod sought young, unmarried priests from outside the region to serve in North Queensland. By 1913 a Bush Brother had been appointed to Richmond and a large room and verandah added to the vestry for his accommodation.
While the Richmond community continued to depend on sheep and cattle for its livelihood it received a boost during World War Two when an airstrip was constructed outside the town. During the wool boom of the 1950s the Richmond district was host to large teams of shearers and station workers, creating a vibrant economy. During this period there was a building boom including the construction of Housing Commission homes. The construction of the rail extension from Hughenden to Richmond and Mt Isa in the 1960s also gave the local economy a boost.
During those years the Anglican Church continued to play a significant role in the Richmond community. A front fence and steel entrance gates were dedicated in 1951, and a steel-framed bell tower in 1981. The church building was clad with metal sheeting and two stained glass windows were added in the front facade in 1988; two stained glass windows were installed in the side walls to the sanctuary c1997.
","criteria":"St John the Baptist Church at Richmond, constructed in 1909, is important in demonstrating the expansion of the work of the Anglican Church in small western Queensland communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly the influence of the Bush Brotherhood in establishing parishes and church buildings in remote towns.
|The interior of the building, which remains highly intact, has a strong aesthetic appeal generated by the clear varnished silky oak lining boards, joinery, furniture and memorials. This interior remains important in demonstrating the aesthetic possibilities of simply-designed, small timber churches of this era.
|The place has a special association with the Bush Brotherhood movement in western Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16909,"place_ref":601716,"name":"Radar Station, Charlie's Hill","alternate_name":"RAAF 211","street_address":"Off Charlie's Hill Road","suburb":"INKERMAN","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"The No 211 Radar Station is located south of Home Hill by way of the Bruce Highway, turn east into Charlie's Hill Road and travel 2 km, turn right onto an unsealed track, which leads up to the radar station on top of a small hill, known as Charlie's Hill. To the north-east are Rita Island and Peters Island. The physical remains of the radar station comprise two above ground semi-circular igloos, two spotter's posts, tower foundations and miscellaneous concrete foundations.
The two above ground semi-circular igloos were built on concrete slab foundations and are constructed of reinforced concrete. Each igloo has a tower located at one end, which is believed to have been utilised as an exhaust, with fans drawing in fresh air from the front of the igloo and sucking it out the tower opening. The two igloos are approximately 80 m apart.
The eastern (receiving) igloo is approximately 10 m long x 6 m wide. Along the base of the north-east side wall (rear) of the igloo is a small timber framed opening. There is an opening on the southern side, approximately 2 m wide, which would have been the door. The door is no longer extant. Anecdotal evidence indicates that the door was staggered ie. enter one side, walk around one partition, and then another, like an s-bend, to ensure that light was contained inside the igloo at all times. This would also have provided a constant flow of air into the igloo, which was then drawn through the igloo by an exhaust fan situated in the tower. There is a square steel box on top of the tower inscribed with the words 'A & W... & Co LTD ENGINNEERS GLASGOW'. It is not known what this was use for. The interior of the igloo is bare, except for a modern lounge chair and some rubbish.
The remains of four square concrete footings, approximately 1.5 m x 1.5 m, of the wooden tower, which carried the receiving aerial, are located approximately 10 m to the east of the igloo.
To the north east of the footings is the remains of a 'spotters post' - a chest height, concrete lined hole in the ground. This was operated by member of the Voluntary Air Observers' Corps (VAOC) whose role was to sight air and sea craft visually to confirm radar readings. The telescope is no longer extant.
North of the receiving igloo are two small concrete foundations, their purpose is unknown.
The western (transmitting) igloo is approximately 10 m long x 6 m wide. The interior of the igloo is bare. Exit holes for the aerial cables are evidenced in the concrete floor. There is a small opening in the floor on the north-west corner (rear) of the igloo approximately 2 m long x .5 m wide. It contains modern rubbish.
To the west of the igloo are four square concrete foundations, approximately 1.5 m x 1.5 m, which are the foundations of the wooden tower, which housed the transmitting aerials.
Located in the middle of the tower foundations is a chest-height, concrete lined hole, the remains of another 'spotter's post'. Due to heavy grass cover this was not located during the 2000 survey.
Other infrastructure associated with the site including a smaller igloo situated at the base of the hill, which is believed to have contained a diesel alternator to power the station, were not located during the 2000 survey.
","history":"The Charlie's Hill Radio Direction and Ranging (RADAR) Station, located south of the town of Home Hill, was constructed in 1943 as part of the World War II defences mounted in north Queensland. It was constructed by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
With the imminent threat of war with Japan in the Pacific the Australian Government had been looking to the resources of north Queensland from the late 1930s. Following the declaration of war on Japan on 9 December 1941, Japan launched simultaneous attacks on Hawaii, Hong Kong and Malaya. Immediate action was taken to construct military installations in north Queensland. The bombing of Darwin (March 1942) and Townsville (July 1942) and the arrival of American troops in the north (from March 1942) accelerated plans to establish facilities in the area. However the shifting of the war to New Guinea in May 1942 intensified the military presence in the area as the important role the north would play in the defence against Japan was recognised.
Radar stations were established along the north Queensland coast during WWII to give the earliest possible warning of approaching enemy aircraft. The RAAF installed No 211 Radar Station on Charlie's Hill in late 1943. It was one of twenty radar installations established along the north Queensland coastline. Whilst many were established in remote locations, the station at Charlie's Hill was located near the town of Home Hill just south of the Burdekin River.
The installation, known as a 200 Series, fixed ground 'high flying' radar station was one of only two of this type located in north Queensland (the other being No 220 at Bones Knob, Tolga). The 211 Radar Station utilised British Advanced Chain Overseas (ACO) equipment, operated in the HF band at 42.05 megacycles per second, which is a wave length of about 7 metres, and had height finding capabilities. Two 186 foot wooden towers, which were assembled in kit form, stood approximately 100 metres apart, and supported the transmitting and receiving aerials. The equipment was housed in two above ground semi-circular bomb-proof igloos constructed of reinforced concrete. The eastern igloo housed the receiving equipment whilst the western igloo housed the transmitting equipment. It is believed that these igloos were designed to be built underground, with a short access tower at the end, although the tower would have also provided much needed ventilation. Other services provided at the site include a camp-site of huts, mess and toilet facilities and a power generator. These were constructed at the base of the hill on the north-western side.
The No 211 Radar Station was maintained and operated by a radar unit made up of members of the RAAF and Women's Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF). The radar units were usually small, numbering around 35 personnel. The station was operated for 24-hours a day with the shifts usually divided into three eight-hour shifts - day, evening and night. Each shift comprised three-four people - one recording the incoming messages, one working on the plotting table, one operator, and a fourth person to operate the telephone. During a shift the personnel would rotate every two hours, to help break up the monotony of the work. The RAAF staff, who lived on site, maintained and operated the station. The WAAAF staff, who worked as operators, plotters, and recorders, were on site during daylight hours only. The WAAAF personnel were accommodated in the hotel at Home Hill.
Following the surrender of Japan in August 1945 military installations in north Queensland were disbanded. The Charlie's Hill Radar Station ceased operating on 1 October 1945. The equipment was dismantled and removed. Before leaving the area, the officers and operators of the unit, in return for the hospitality of the Home Hill residents, hosted a tennis afternoon, dinner and dance in the town.
Since the end of World War II, the site of the No 211 Radar Station, Charlie's Hill has been maintained by the Burdekin Tourism Association Inc., Ayr as a local tourist attraction.
","criteria":"The No 211 Radar Station, Charlie's Hill a complex comprising two semi-circular igloos, spotter's posts and tower foundations, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history by representing the role it played in World War II fortifications in north Queensland.
|The No 211 Radar Station, Charlie's Hill is a good example of defence facilities constructed in north Queensland and has the potential to yield further information about this aspect of Queensland history. It is one of a series of radar stations, which were constructed along the Queensland coastline to give the earliest possible warning of approaching enemy aircraft.
|The station, in its design, layout and siting, demonstrates the principal characteristics of WWII military installations involved in the defence of the Queensland coastline.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16911,"place_ref":601718,"name":"Home Hill Powerhouse","alternate_name":"Inkerman Irrigation Area Power House","street_address":"First Avenue","suburb":"HOME HILL","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-08-02","description":"The Former Home Hill Powerhouse is a brick and corrugated iron structure situated on a large block in First Avenue, Home Hill. The surviving original powerhouse structure comprises two main elements: an administration area and the generator house.
The administration area is a two-storeyed asymmetrical building constructed of brick on concrete foundations and has wings on both sides of a central round arch doorway. The building has a small frontispiece, which is painted green. The arch doorway is surmounted by a pediment decorated with the date of construction of the building, 'A.D.1922' and the name of the present function of the building, 'Pivot Service Centre'. The doorway opens to an entrance hall and staircase, which leads to the first floor. The staircase is constructed of concrete with an iron handrail.
The western wing has narrow brickwork columns dividing the facade into three bays. It supports a verandah on the ground and first floors. The ground floor has been partitioned into three rooms: a laboratory, storeroom and galley kitchen. The interior walls are rendered and are painted white. The first floor has been partitioned into two rooms with a timber-framed wall. These rooms were not inspected internally, although they appeared to be bare of any fixtures and fittings and have a very simple interior.
The ground floor of the eastern wing contains the main administration office of 'Pivot Agriculture' and is comprised of one large room, which has been divided into offices and includes a reception area and front counter.
The first floor of the eastern wing is comprised of one large room, now vacant, but recently used as offices. The interior has been modified with the inclusion of a false ceiling and timber panelling for office partitioning. The original timber windows have been replaced with aluminium windows.
The former generator building is reached via a single doorway at the rear of the entrance hallway, with another doorway on the first floor also located at the rear of the entrance hallway. Access to the former generator building was limited to a narrow walkway that leads to the rear of the building. The former generator building is a three-storey structure with a concrete floor covering part of the first floor level. The building contains the remains of the power plant, including steel pipes, fans and fluming.
Two large rice storage bins have been constructed at the first floor level. These bins are located on a platform supported by concrete piers. The bins are positioned on the northern side of the three storey generator building.
A newly constructed corrugated iron warehouse abuts the rear of the building. To the west of the powerhouse is a long corrugated iron clad building, possibly associated with the former use of the place as a rice factory.
","history":"The Home Hill Powerhouse, a substantial brick and corrugated iron structure located in First Avenue, Home Hill, was completed in 1922 as part of the Inkerman Irrigation Area Scheme. At the time it was the largest powerhouse in North Queensland, supplying power for irrigation purposes to the farmers [mainly cane growers] on the Inkerman Estate until 1953.
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The Inkerman Repurchased Estate, formerly part of Inkerman Station, was opened for selection on 8 December 1911, principally as sugar-growing land. Easy terms encouraged many people with little or no farming experience to take up blocks, and within a year, many of the 500 families who had settled at Inkerman had exhausted their limited capital and were heavily in debt. One drought convinced them that irrigation was essential, but few could afford to irrigate with individual pumping plants.
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In January 1913 the Inkerman Farmers and Glaziers Association began lobbying the State Government for the provision of a State-subsidised irrigation scheme for their district, modeled on the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme in New South Wales, which utilised a central powerhouse to supply power to irrigation pumps on surrounding farms. In February 1913 the Assistant Engineer of the Water Supply Department, HEA Eklund, visited Ayr to report on the proposal. Eklund determined that there was adequate water beneath most Inkerman farms, and supported the idea of a communal irrigation scheme, which would be the first of its kind in North Queensland. Eklund calculated that a central powerhouse could serve 135 farms of an average size of 50 hectares. Although his initial estimate at £74,000 was rejected as too costly, this was revised in 1915 to £131,000 as more people settled in the area. However, the costs now were spread across more farms, Eklund estimating the cost of power at less than a penny per unit, far cheaper than the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, which then was less than a sixth the size of that proposed for Home Hill.
\t
In May 1915 Queensland's first secure Labor government took office. Under the leadership of Premier TJ Ryan and sponsoring a policy of State capitalism, the new Queensland Labor Government set about acquiring State enterprises. In July 1916 the Inkerman irrigation scheme was approved. The Inkerman Water Supply Board was constituted in February 1917 to manage and repay the capital cost over 28 years, the anticipated life of the plant. Detailed survey work was undertaken and by the end of the year, 100 well sites had been tested, 70 selected, and a contract for the manufacture of reinforced concrete casing let to Hume Brothers of Melbourne, with production commencing in late 1918.
The cost of the scheme escalated in a bout of post-First World War inflation. Shortages and strikes following the war delayed the construction of the central powerhouse, the cost of which had risen by 150 percent. The cost of well sinking had nearly quadrupled, and the number of transmission lines had doubled. In 1921 a fresh estimate put the cost of the scheme at £392,361.
On 15 May 1922 Premier Theodore performed the official opening, although the main turbine was not yet completed. The powerhouse provided electricity to the town of Home Hill [surveyed in 1911 to service the Inkerman Repurchased Estate and developed from c1913], and to a few Inkerman farmers for irrigation purposes - the rest waiting to be connected. The central powerhouse could not drive all the pumps at once, and to prevent overload, power was provided in rotation, whilst at night there was hardly any load on the system.
Under the Irrigation Act of 1922 control passed to the Irrigation and Water Supply Commission, which found many discrepancies between the book values and actual worth of many of the assets. All the dead and abandoned wells were written off, and the value of the powerhouse building halved as it was considered that a less elaborate structure would have served as well. £171, 478 was wiped off the capital assets giving a net worth of £235,000. By mid 1923 nearly £400,000 had been spent yet only a thousand hectares were irrigated. Inevitably, the half-complete scheme lost money. Although wartime conditions had contributed, the Water Supply Department had to share the blame: there had been no proper supervision to control well-sinking costs, and operating costs were high with a large powerhouse running at night just to power lights in Home Hill.
1931 was so dry that the powerhouse worked 24 hours per day from March to June. Farmers were rostered to maintain an even demand day and night. The installation of meters at last ensured that water and power were not wasted. For the first time the operation made a profit of nearly £3,000 after paying interest, its first contribution to paying off the capital cost.
The Moore Government, which replaced the Labor administration in 1929, sold most of the State Enterprises, and accepted the Inkerman farmers proposal to take over the district's power supply and irrigation scheme. The first meeting of the Inkerman Irrigation Board was held on 23 June 1932. The Board made farmers responsible for maintaining their own pumps, motors, wells and spear systems from 1 July 1932 and fixed the water rate at £6.
Local management of the irrigation scheme increased confidence. The Board met the interest bill on the reduced capital as well as redemption on the loan, besides setting aside £6,000 annually as required under the Water Act for renewals and extensions. By June 1935 it was comfortably in surplus. The supply of power to Home Hill increased year by year, and despite a reduction in charges, remained profitable.
During the Second World War the rapid deployment of troops to North Queensland overtaxed the Townsville Power Station and new generating equipment was almost impossible to obtain. As its peak demand was at night, and Home Hill's by day, the Inkerman Irrigation Board agreed to supply electricity to Townsville. FA Rocketts and Son completed the Home Hill-Townsville link in July 1944. After technical problems were overcome, the first current was fed to Townsville on 5 August 1944. Home Hill's surplus power was insufficient, and an extra diesel plant was installed at Townsville, but the sale of power boosted the Irrigation Board's finances.
The State Electricity Commission established a regional electricity board at Townsville in December 1945. A mass meeting of Inkerman Irrigation Board farmers in June 1946 endorsed the Townsville Regional Board's takeover proposal. Under an amendment to the Electric Light and Power Acts passed later that year, the powerhouse was sold as from 1 January 1947 for £105,000, £28,449 less than the outstanding debt to Treasury. After a cash payment for coal and stores and sale of electric motors to farmers, the Irrigation Board paid half the difference and the rest was written off.
By 1948, most of the power was flowing from Townsville to Home Hill, over 3 million units per annum, 14 times the flow in the opposite direction. Home Hill Powerhouse continued to operate 16 hours per day until the commissioning of the new Townsville generating station on 11 May 1953. Eight days later the Home Hill Powerhouse, whose whistle had blown every day at 8am, 12 noon, 1 pm and 5 pm, regulating local working hours, for 31 years, was decommissioned.
In the mid-1960s rice growing emerged as an important new agricultural pursuit for the Burdekin. In 1969 the former Home Hill Powerhouse was officially opened by the Premier of Queensland, the Hon. Joh Bjelke-Petersen, as the Lower Burdekin Rice Producers Co-operative Association Ltd's rice mill.
Considerable infrastructure for the rice milling process was developed round the former Power House. During this time the shed located on the northern side of the power house was removed and replaced by a single story corrugated iron skillion shed. Some internal partitioning and office walls of concrete block were constructed on the ground floor of the Power House building. The machinery and machinery foundations were removed from the machine shed which is located against the eastern façade of the three storey generator building.
More recently the complex has housed agricultural chemicals for the sugar industry.
","criteria":"The former Home Hill Powerhouse is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the pivotal role of irrigation in the development of the sugar industry in North Queensland. The former powerhouse provided electricity for pumping water for irrigation purposes, to early settlers on the Inkerman Repurchased Estate who otherwise would have been unable to grow sugarcane. The irrigation system demonstrates the pattern of state enterprises administered by Queensland's first functional Labor Government under the leadership of Premier TJ Ryan.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type: a substantial central powerhouse with brick office building and attached corrugated iron and brick generating building.
|The Home Hill Powerhouse has a special association with the Home Hill community as the provider of power for their irrigation system initially and later their shops and homes. The community was involved in the initial construction of the irrigation system and later took over its operation and maintenance. The powerhouse regulated working hours in Home Hill for 31 years by habitually blowing its whistle every day at 8am, 12 noon, 1 pm and 5 pm.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16920,"place_ref":601142,"name":"Former RS Exton and Co Building (Part)","alternate_name":"Ace House","street_address":"333 Ann Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1999-12-17","description":"The RS Exton and Co Building (part) is situated on the south eastern side of Ann Street within a precinct of early low scale buildings, including the Masonic Hall, CPS House and St Andrew's Uniting Church. The façade continues the scale of these buildings. The remnants of the building include the north western façade addressing Ann Street and remnant walls returning from this.
The façade is supported by a metal frame and hording and is, therefore, concealed from Ann Street. The reminder of the land is undeveloped and is flanked by laneways on either side with access form Ann Street.
The façade is a symmetrical composition of face brick construction laid in English bond with rendered detailing. The facade is surmounted by a parapet with a projecting stepped up central bay housing a pediment. A rendered cornice runs the length of the parapet and stepped section. The pediment detail is embellished with dentilling and with the date A. 1907. D in relief lettering. Flanking the pediment is lettering repeated on each side, RS Exton and Co. The façade comprises a central round arched recess extending from ground floor level to just below the parapet. This central recess is flanked by narrower paired round arched recesses. The arched recesses of the façade are ornamented with rendered keystone and string courses.
","history":"The former RS Exton and Co Building was constructed in 1907 as the premises of the renowned painters and decorators, RS Exton and Co. The warehouse was designed by Brisbane architect, Claude W Chambers. Recently, the building was partially demolished and the façade only survives.
Robert Skerrett Exton was a prolific painter, decorator and glazier who practiced in Brisbane from 1882 until 1921. In 1882 Robert Skerrit Exton established a painting and decorating partnership with George Gough. Both men were from Lincolnshire, England. Exton arrived in Brisbane and in the 1870s established himself as a glazier in Harcourt Street, Fortitude Valley. By 1880 Exton had moved to premises at 337-9 Queen Street, Brisbane.
In 1882 the partnership of Exton and Gough allowed an expansion of Exton's solo concern. George Gough was a painter and decorator of many years experience. In 1883 the partnership moved from Exton's earlier premises to 526 Queen Street, opposite Petrie Bight. The partnership continued here and with branches in Toowoomba and Rockhampton until 1907 when it dissolved.
Typical of most painters and decorators of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries, Exton and Gough and their employees provided a wide range of services for the householder or business person building or improving their premises. Services included painting and decorating, and signwriting. Exton and Gough also provided paint supplies for tradesmen and were agents for embossed metal ceilings and importers of art glass and wallpapers of the latest European design. During the 1880s Exton and Gough expanded their business to incorporate a department for the manufacture of stained glass, the only of its kind in Queensland.
Exton and Gough quickly assumed a reputation for high quality work and were commissioned for prestigious projects including Government House (George Street), the Treasury Buildings, Customs House, the Smellie and Co Warehouse, the Wesleyan Methodist Churches in Brisbane and the Valley. Exton and Gough provided stained glass windows for St Stephen's Cathedral and St Patrick's Church in the Valley. During the 20th century, Exton worked on the Brisbane City Hall and the Regent Theatre.
Following the dissolution of the Exton and Gough partnership, RS Exton and Co was formed and George Gough established a separate painting and decorating business in Albert Street. RS Exton constructed a building at 333 Ann Street to continue business. Robert Skerrett Exton acquired the title for the land on 17 April 1907. Exton and Arthur Hatton, an associate, obtained a mortgage on the property in December of 1907 for $1000 with a time frame of just over 2 years to repay the loan. The Ann Street property was transferred to RS Exton and Co on 5 December 1910 when RS Exton and Co became a limited company and Robert Skerrett Exton, Arthur Joseph Hatton, William Exton and Robert Harold Exton were appointed as the directors.
The warehouse is thought to be designed by Brisbane architect Claude W Chambers, as the RS Exton and Co Warehouse appears in the list of completed buildings in an advertisement for Chambers in Queenslanders As We See 'Em of 1915. When constructed the building's face brick façade was symmetrically arranged around a central round arched full length recess flanked by narrower double arched recesses. Greek key relief moulding on cement panels, signage and other classical motifs decorated the façade.
The choice of Ann Street, as the site of the RS Exton and Co Warehouse was in accord with other early twentieth century business who maintained businesses in the Street. At the time RS Exton and Co constructed its warehouse, this area of Ann Street had been transformed with the construction of the Central Railway Station in the late 1880s; a number of hotels including the Canberra Hotel and the Oxford Hotel were established nearby along with a number of businesses and churches. Immediately adjacent to the RS Exton and Co Warehouse was J Simmonds Monumental Works, located adjacent to St Andrews Presbyterian Church on the corner of Creek and Ann Streets. Subsequent to the construction of the RS Exton and Co Warehouse, the Masonic Temple, Shell House, the Government ANZAC Square Offices, the People's Palace, the City Hall and other hotels and businesses were constructed in Ann Street. Ann Street, a series of two to four storeyed buildings built to the footpath and punctuated occasionally with towers became a significant promenade through Brisbane. Since the 1960s, many of these earlier buildings have been demolished and replaced with multi storeyed office buildings.
RS Exton and Co continued to offer painting and decorating services and expanded the stained and leaded glass aspect of the business. In 1913, The Salon reported that the leadlight department of RS Exton and Co was under the management of a Mr Smyrk who for many years was one of the principal artists in the studio of Messrs William Morris and Co, Ruskin House, London. The windows produced by the RS Exton and Co are of very quality and are clearly influenced by the work of the English Arts and Crafts movement, particularly the stained glass work of Edward Burne-Jones. RS Exton and Co began to concentrate more fully on the design and manufacture of ecclesiastical and domestic glass.
To this end, RS Exton and Co employed several young artists to design the stained glass work. The most prolific and renowned of these designers was William Bustard who was employed in 1921 on commission as a stained glass designer. Bustard remained an employee on this basis with RS Exton and Co until the closure of the glass studio in 1958 with the demise of interest in decorative glass. Bustard was a prolific producer of fine stained glass which was used throughout Queensland, fine examples being in St Mark's Church, Warwick; St Paul's Presbyterian Church, St Paul's Terrace, Spring Hall; St Thomas' Anglican Church, Toowong; and St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, Rockhampton.
Other significant designers included Charles Lancaster, whose work survives at Hampton Court, Bowen Terrace, New Farm and George Oxlade who later formed his own painting and decorating business, Oxlade Brothers, who are operating to this day at art suppliers.
The company expanded in the 1910s or 1920s and another building was constructed adjacent to the western side of the 1907-8 warehouse. This building has since been demolished. RS Exton died in 1921 and the company was compromised by the effects of the early 1930s Depression and by World War II. The business contracted through the 1940s and the glass department closed in 1958. In the early 1940s the Ann Street Warehouse of RS Exton and Co, was used by EJ Lynch Motor Body Repairs Hoods and Upholstery.
","criteria":"As the only known premises of the RS Exton and Co business, or its predecessors, to survive, the building façade at 333 Ann Street has important and rare associations with a prolific and well known painting, decorating and stained glass business who were responsible for work to many of Queensland's outstanding nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings.
|The RS Exton and Co Building (Part) comprises a well designed warehouse façade of aesthetic and architectural value which contributes to the scale and architectural quality of this area of Ann Street.
|Through its position on Ann Street and the quality of the external detailing, the remnant building demonstrates the ethos and significance of the RS Exton and Co firm.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16922,"place_ref":601170,"name":"Monkton","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Ardoyne Road","suburb":"CORINDA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-31","description":"A timber-framed dwelling, Monkton is located at the northern end of Ardoyne Road at Corinda. It has a symmetrical front comprising double street-facing gables either side of a projecting porch. Bay windows are located in the walls on each side of the porch. The main roof of the house is hipped and the external walls are clad with weatherboards.
The front of the house sits at ground level and the protruding front porch is accessed by a single concrete step. The porch has double tapered posts above sill height with Georgian style mouldings supporting thick verandah plates above. Weatherboard clad piers rise at each corner with thick sills from which extend the verandah posts. Lattice in fill panels are fixed in between the posts below arched valences.
The main roof is clad in Marseilles pattern terracotta tiles. Gabled fascias are narrow in width and are formed from moulded timber. The chimney has a flat cap and two flue openings and is finished with rough cast render which is painted. It has lead flashing to the tiles. Soffits to the main roof are supported by long shaped soffit brackets and are lined with spaced pine battens.
The low pitched roofs to the bay windows and porches are clad in roll and pan profile galvanised iron sheeting. All gutters are quad profile. Soffits to the porches and bay windows are supported on small shaped soffit brackets and are lined with fc sheeting. Each of the gables to the street is formed with fibre cement sheeting with vertical batten cover strips. In the centre of each gable is a lattice-formed roof ventilation grill.
The side porch has similar details to front porch but has timber slatted balustrades. A recent landing and timber framed stairs have been added to the side porch.
The bay windows to the street and to the south have casement windows with a central fixed bay with curved glazing bars. The bay window to the north-west has casement windows only. All other windows in the house are multi-paned timber casement windows. Porthole windows are located on the front porch, north elevation and south elevations of the house. External doors to the house (located at the side porch and on the front porch) are panelled timber doors with multi-paned glazing at the top. French light doors open onto the front porch.
The house becomes high-set at the rear where the land slopes down to a levelled yard. It is supported on brick piers at the rear and the under-storey area is open.
The house consists of two bedrooms (a main bedroom in the south-east corner and a second bedroom to the south), a sleep-out known as "the new room" (c.1930s-1940s) to the west, a kitchen in the north-east corner, two bathrooms, a hall, a sitting room and a parlour. A side porch off the kitchen provides access to the lower garden to the north via recent stairs.
The front porch provides entry to the parlour which features built-in early cabinets with leadlight glazed doors and recessed bookcases surrounding a face-brick fireplace with concrete hearth. The fireplace projects into the adjacent kitchen where the surface is smooth rendered and painted.
The sitting room features a bay window overlooking the river to the north-west, with a built-in solid timber window seat. Walls are lined with clear-finished timber v-jointed boards to picture rail height. Clear-finished timber panelled doors with cathedral patterned glazing provide access to the hall from the sitting room. A pair of bi-folding doors provides access to the new room to the west.
Early built-in joinery cabinets are located throughout the house including a linen press extending to the ceiling in the hallway, a former servery, cupboards and a pantry/broom cupboard extending to the ceiling in the kitchen, a wardrobe with storage cupboards extending to the ceiling in the main bedroom and a cupboard in the parlour.
All rooms have walls lined with v-jointed boards and ceilings of fibre-cement with cover strips. The main bedroom, parlour and sitting room have plaque rails and cornices are of a similar design. Other rooms have simpler picture rails. Skirtings are clear-finished timber in the parlour, sitting room, new room and main bedroom with simpler beaded skirtings in other rooms.
Floors throughout the house are hardwood except for the hall and the second bedroom, which are pine. The floor to the kitchen is finished with recent ceramic tiles. The flooring in the bathroom to the west is green terrazzo with a black terrazzo border. Many early light fittings and bakelite powerpoints and light switches remain throughout the house.
Additions to the place include a security grille to the front porch, some new kitchen cabinets, a bookcase in the hall and new bathroom fixtures. Recent leadlight windows are located in the internal bathroom.
Other structures on the site include a recent carport on the street boundary to the south-east, a shed to the south, a recent pool fence and a recent rainwater tank in the south-west corner. A recent shade structure is located over the driveway immediately in front of the house. These other structures are not considered of cultural heritage significance.
An early concrete fish pond sits within the pool fence at the rear of the house.
There are views from the rear of the property along the Brisbane River to the west towards Seventeen Mile Rocks and across to Fig Tree Pocket. Mature trees provide a foreground to the house along Ardoyne Road and a mature jacaranda shades the garden to the south-west. There are several garden beds and other plantings throughout the garden.
","history":"Monkton is a timber-framed house of modest proportions located in Brisbane's leafy south-west suburbs. It was designed in 1925 by Elina Mottram, Queensland's longest practising early female architect. Of all the buildings designed by early women architects in Brisbane, Monkton is one of only three that remain. It has a symmetrical street-facing façade, carefully detailed interiors and overlooks the Brisbane River to Fig Tree Pocket.
Women gradually entered the architectural profession in the early twentieth century. Architectural training was not easily accessible and women were not readily accepted into the profession. The first woman architect in Australia was Florence Taylor (1879-1969) who, despite applying for admittance to the Institute of Architects of New South Wales in 1907, was denied acceptance until 1920 due to her gender. Women such as Taylor generally came from relatively privileged backgrounds and were often exposed to the profession by male relatives in architectural practice or in related occupations such as builders or surveyors. In Queensland, though the Brisbane Central Technical College offered some architectural and building subjects and a Diploma in Architecture by 1918, it was not until 1949 that the University of Queensland offered a degree course admitting both men and women.
Prior to this time several women made notable contributions to the architectural profession in Queensland, including Lily Addison (c1885-1968), daughter of architect GHM Addison; and Beatrice Hutton, daughter of a surveyor from Rockhampton. Hutton was the first woman to be admitted to an architectural institute in Australia when her application to become an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects was accepted in 1916.
It was not until April 1924 that a woman architect opened her own practice in Brisbane, when Elina Mottram established her office in the T&G Building on the corner of Queen and Albert Streets. The Architectural Building Journal of Queensland announced that "Brisbane has at last a lady architect...we trust that she will get her fair share of public support". Today, Elina Mottram is considered the most successful of Queensland's early women architects.
Elina Emily Mottram (1903-1996) was born in Sheffield, England, the only child of Arthur Mottram, a building contractor and stonemason. She came to Brisbane in 1906 with her parents, attending Nundah State School, and later undertook studies in Architecture at the Brisbane Central Technical College while employed by architect FR Hall of Brisbane during the city's 1920s construction boom. She received a Diploma in Architecture in 1925.
Mottram taught building construction at the Brisbane Central Technical College between 1926 and 1928. During this time she also worked as an architect in Longreach (1926-1928) and in Rockhampton (1928-1929). In Longreach she designed public and commercial buildings, including the Masonic Temple, Longreach Motors and the office of Winchcombe Carson Ltd. She also remodelled the AWU building and the School of Arts.
Mottram registered as an architect with the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1930. During the 1930s depression, when work was scarce, she was a postmistress at Raglan via Rockhampton from 1930-1936. In partnership with her father as A and E Mottram, she worked in Rockhampton in 1937 and later in Longreach 1938-1941, where she was foreman of works for her father for the first stage of construction of the Longreach Hospital (1940). She was employed as a draftswoman with the American Army Engineering Office in North Rockhampton in the Second World War. She later worked with the Queensland Railways and designed Eagle Junction Station.
Other residential commissions by Mottram, included a two-storeyed block of flats in Scott Street at Kangaroo Point c1925 (QHR 601171), a Tudor revival residence for Zina Cumbrae-Stewart overlooking the river, and a residence for Mrs Thurlby on the corner of Winchester and Hants Roads Ascot (now demolished). Of all the buildings designed by early women architects in Queensland (ie those practising before World War II) only three survive in Brisbane - Nellie McCredie¿s house at Wilston (QHR 601156), the Scott Street Flats and Monkton. In her article, 'Designing Women: pioneer architects', historian Judith McKay discusses the manner in which these women designed their buildings. She quotes Florence Taylor as saying "Men build houses but women build homes", and Beatrice Hutton as stating that:
"Men don't know how to build houses for women. Think of the cupboards that are either left out or put in the wrong place! And there are many details that only a woman can understand."
McKay describes a focus on comfort, simplicity and utility with attractive bay windows and ample storage, as attributes of Mottram's early work, including Monkton.
Monkton was built in 1925 on Ardoyne Road to the west of Oxley Road at Corinda for William and Margaret Dunlop who were then only recently married. It was named to commemorate Monkton Farm, William Dunlop¿s parents' farm which was to the east of Oxley Road.
Margaret Dunlop (nee Berrie) grew up across the road from the land on which the house was built. The land belonged to Margaret's parents and was given to the young couple as a wedding gift. The Dunlops commissioned Elina Mottram to design a house for the site. Elina, one of only a handful of women practising at the time, had been recommended to them though apparently they did not choose her particularly because she was a woman. Elina described Margaret Dunlop, who was 19 at the time, as an "exemplary client, intelligent and interested." Mrs Dunlop chose the fittings and hardware and specified that the kitchen be on the north-east. Mottram's original specification of works and materials for Monkton survives, providing a valuable insight into domestic construction practices at the time and Mottram's (and her clients') specific architectural detail requirements.
William and Margaret Dunlop lived at Monkton their whole lives and raised four boys there. When they died the house was left to their son Robert and in 2008 the dwelling remains in the family's possession.
During this time some changes have been made to the property. Between the late 1930s and the mid-1940s the addition of a rear bedroom was made to the house; this is still known as the "the new room". Portions of the land were excised, one to the north and one to the west reducing the property to its current size. New kitchen cabinets were added and an internal room was made into a bathroom in the mid-1990s. A built-in bookcase was installed after 2005 along with half-height partition walls in the parlour and main bedroom. A recent timber-framed staircase has been added to the side porch. A recent shade structure has been erected over the front driveway in front of the house.
","criteria":"Monkton, a timber-framed dwelling constructed in 1925, is significant for its association with the entry of women into the professions in Queensland, particularly into the architectural profession. Women began to establish careers in architecture in Queensland from the early 1900s, initially working in male-owned practices. In 1924 Elina Mottram, the designer of Monkton, became the first woman in Queensland to establish her own architectural practice.
|Monkton has a special association with the work of Elina Mottram, the first woman to open her own architectural practice in Brisbane and Queensland's most successful and longest practising early female architect. The survival of the 1925 specification of works and materials for Monkton, combined with the intactness of the place, makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Ms Mottram's work. The detailing of the interior joinery is highly characteristic of her domestic work.
|Monkton is significant for its aesthetic and architectural qualities as a highly intact, well composed and refined example of a timber residence. These qualities are reflected in its symmetrical street frontage and distinctive exterior and interior detailing. Monkton's elevated situation overlooking the Brisbane River through mature trees creates an idyllic setting and the large garden surrounding the house adds to its picturesque character.
|Monkton remains substantially intact in form and detailing. It is rare as one of only a few surviving examples of the work of early women architects in Queensland and one of only three in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion E | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16923,"place_ref":601174,"name":"St John the Baptist Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St John the Baptist Church","street_address":"171 Oxford Street","suburb":"BULIMBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-07-09","description":"The church is a landmark in Bulimba and occupies a level site on a prominent corner on the main street.
St John the Baptist church is a timber building with a corrugated iron roof. It is set on low brick piers and has a nave with side aisles open to the main body of the church. The nave is divided into seven bays by scissor trusses supported by stop-chamfered posts. A porch protects the main entrance at western end of the church and faces the street. Further entrances to the west, north and south sides are less prominent and all are accessed by low flights of steps. There is a car park on the southern side of the church.
The interior of the church has silky oak panelling and there is a timber chancel screen of a light and open design, which is now at the western end of the church. The interior is lit by lancet windows fitted with coloured glass and by small round windows set high in the wall on both sides of the nave.
","history":"St John the Baptist Anglican Church is a timber church constructed in 1888 and is prominently sited at an intersection of the main street of Bulimba.
European settlement of Bulimba began in the early 1850s with farming of small crops and fishing along the river. David McConnel built 'Bulimba House' there, keeping cattle to acclimatize them before moving them to his pastoral property, 'Cressbrook', and growing maize and oats to feed them. In 1864 a large part of the Bulimba House land was subdivided into residential blocks. A ferry operated between Bulimba and the city from 1864 and, as the river provided the easiest route to Brisbane, it seems a natural progression that boat building began to develop as an industry in the area.
Initially the Anglican residents of Bulimba were members of St Andrews parish at South Brisbane and in October1868 an Anglican church at Tingalpa was dedicated after a committee of local residents, chaired by Charles Coxon, raised funds to erect a church to serve the Bulimba and Tingalpa areas.
By 1872 Bulimba was a postal township and from the 1870s the area gradually became more densely populated as it shared in the development boom of the 1880s. In 1881 the Presbyterians erected a church at Bulimba. In 1887 a grant of £25 was made toward building an Anglican church and Mrs Coxen put up a notice near the Bulimba ferry in 1887 calling a public meeting to seek support for the provision of regular local Anglican Services. As a result of the meeting, the Reverend H M Bannister commenced the Bulimba Mission. Religious services and a Sunday school were conducted in the local School of Arts.
Mrs Coxen donated land for a church in what is now Birkalla Street and also made a donation of £100 to the building fund. In 1888, this land was sold and the current, more central, site was purchased. Mrs Coxon died in 1906 and the church contains a memorial plaque and lectern commemorating this major benefactor.
John Hingeston Buckeridge, appointed Diocesan Architect in 1887, designed the new church. Buckeridge was born in England as the son of an ecclesiastical architect and was articled to leading ecclesiastical architect John Loughborough Pearson between 1874 and 1879, studying at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Architectural Association in London. He undertook important works for the Church in England before moving to Queensland for personal reasons and to supervise the proposed new Anglican cathedral to Pearson's design. Although work on the cathedral did not commence until after 1900, Dr William Webber, the Bishop of Brisbane, needed an architect to take charge of an ambitious building programme. It was intended to provide a series of 'substantial and permanent churches in Queensland' to serve an expanding population. Although many of these churches could not be expensive, Buckeridge lifted them above the ordinary by quality of design and materials.
Lady Musgrave, wife of the Governor, capped the first stump of the new church at Bulimba on 23 June 1888. T Whitty constructed it at a cost of £700 and the first service was held there on 29 September 1888 on St Michael and All Angels Day. As Bishop Webber was then overseas, the dedication service did not take place until 2 June 1889.
In 1893 the Bulimba Mission became part of Tingalpa parish and between 1900 and 1915 was under the direction of the Cathedral. In 1895, a Sunday school hall was built parallel to the church and behind it as seen from Oxford Street. This hall does not survive.
Many of the decorations and furnishings in the church were memorial gifts. They include the bell turret, constructed in 1915 in memory of Samuel and Mary Woodland and the pulpit given in memory of Corporal Frederick Storey who died at Gallipolli, which was installed in the same year. A small organ of unknown make was purchased from Lutwyche Park and installed in 1916.
Considerable works were carried out on the church in the 1930s, despite the straightened financial circumstances of the community in this period. A retaining wall was needed on the Oxford Street side of the site because the street level had been raised. This was constructed using Depression Relief labour. In 1936, the Reverend Tomlinson acquired a bell from the wrecked ship Maheno, which was installed in the belfry. A reredos and timber panelling were installed in the church in 1937, in time for its golden jubilee in the following year.
In the early 1950s, the timber screen was relocated from the chancel to the nave of the church and work was carried out on the organ, which was moved from the north to the south side of the building and converted to electricity. H W Jarrett carried out restoration work on the organ in 1978.
A brick parish hall was erected on land acquired further along Oxford Street in 1965 and was extended in 1986. The site of the original hall next to the church became a car park area.
","criteria":"As one of a series of churches designed by J H Buckeridge for the building programme instituted in the 1880s by Thomas Webber, Bishop of Brisbane, St John the Baptist church is evidence for the way in which the Anglican Church developed in Queensland during the nineteenth century. As the first Anglican church in the area it also reflects the development of Bulimba.
|St John the Baptist Anglican Church is a good and intact example of a timber church of its era.
|In its form, scale and detail it makes a substantial visual contribution to the built character of Bulimba.
|St John the Baptist Anglican Church has served Bulimba and the surrounding area since 1888 and continues to play an important role in the life of the community as the venue for shared religious and social experiences.
|St John the Baptist Anglican Church has a special association with the life and work of the Diocesan Architect, J H Buckeridge, and Bishop Webber, whose vision for the developing Church in Queensland encompassed the construction of new buildings of substance and quality.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16924,"place_ref":601169,"name":"Pelota Mano Court","alternate_name":"Fronton | Basque Handball Court","street_address":"Trebonne Road","suburb":"TREBONNE","lga":"HINCHINBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-07-27","description":"The Pelota Mano Handball Court is located in Trebonne Road, Trebonne. The court comprises two reinforced concrete walls and concrete slabs on the ground. The long or side wall [eastern elevation] is eighteen metres in length. The end wall [southern] elevation is six metres in length.
The concrete sections extend beyond the long wall, in a generally northerly direction, for six metres. The slab extension has remains of a brick wall extension which has collapsed. An electrical fuse box and conduits are located on the end wall. The court sits generally in the north-eastern corner of the property, surrounded by a chain wire fence. There is no other development on the property on which the court is located.
","history":"The Pelota Mano [Handball] Court, or fronton, was opened on 28 November 1959, in Trebonne, a small township, eight kilometres west of Ingham in the Herbert River district of North Queensland. Jack Williams, solicitor, opened the court and Reverend Father Tomas Ormazabal, travelling Chaplain for the Spanish community of North Queensland, dedicated it. The court was established through the efforts of the local Basque community.
Handball is an ancient game. The Maya tribes of pre-Columbian America and the ancient Greeks and Romans had versions of the game. The Romans spread it throughout western Europe. In the area of modern-day France, a variation of the Romans' game of 'pila' emerged, and during the Middle Ages it became known as 'jeu de paume'. Basque handball is a derivative of this game.
Andrea Navajero, a Venetian historian, travelled through the Basque county in 1528 and commented on how all the males played this game. Indoor ['courte paume'] and outdoor ['longue paume'] versions endured during the 18th century, but following the French Revolution the games were nearly abandoned for being associated with royalty and nobility. Its popularity, however, remained in small circles. From the early outdoor version evolved modern tennis and in the Basque country it became the present manifestation of Basque handball.
The Basque pelota mano derives from Roman versions of the game and spread throughout western Europe and France. What became the traditional game 'pelota basque' played in church porticos or during village festivals is now played competitively at international competitions. The supreme version of the game is today 'cesta-punta' and is played with a long, scooped wicker basket, a 'chistera', on a fronton called a 'jai-alai'.
Besides the chistera, the game can be played with an assortment of equipment, for example, the bare hand, a wooden bat or a wooden-framed strung racket called a 'xare'. There are also different types of balls, for example, one is covered in leather and weighs 52 grams, another is covered in parchment and weighs 90 grams, while yet another is rubber and weighs 40 grams.
Originally played face to face, the introduction of more rapid rubber balls compelled a change in the game: returning the ball to a wall instead of over the net. Thus Basque handball was born. While theoretically, the game can be played anywhere where there is a high wide wall, three types of pelota mano courts evolved: the 'plaza laxoa' or open court with only one wall at the front; the 'ezker pareta' or left-wall court with one wall at the front and one on the players left and the 'trinketa' or original court of the indoor form with four walls. The handball court at Trebonne is an example of the ezker pareta type of court.
Basque migration to the Herbert River District, North Queensland, began in 1907 and grew in momentum, peaking between 1958 and 1960. The numbers were never great [In the five voyages between 1958 and 1960 that brought Spaniards to Australia, 387 identified themselves as Basque residents] and today there is little, if any, migration of Basques to North Queensland. By the late 1960's only 100 people of Spanish nationality, 85% of whom identified as Basques, remained in the district.
Basque immigrants were predominantly male, with most arriving to cut sugar cane. While canecutting was an arduous task and left the canecutter weary by nightfall, on the weekends the cutters were keen to socialise. One popular gathering place was a farm owned by the Mendiolea family, where migrants found hospitality and companionship, home cooked food and family life. In Trebonne in the 1950's improvisation was necessary. The Mendiolea concrete farm house had a high, wide back wall, and, with a tennis ball, many young Basque migrants soon found a traditional outlet for their excess energy - pelota mano.
Another place to socialise was the Trebonne Hotel run by Mr and Mrs Joe Sartoresi. The hotel attracted Spanish and Basque canecutting gangs working and living on the farms west of Ingham and was ideally located on the intersection of the main road from Ingham to Abergowrie and the road to Stone River. Open-air dancing took place on a wooden floor laid over the grass and card games, especially 'mus', were played. These pastimes connected the Basque people with their homeland. Eventually they were able to play pelota mano in the grounds of the hotel, courtesy of Joe Sartoresi.
The hotelier was persuaded to build a court by two brothers, Jose Marie and Felix Jayo, who ran a baker's shop across from the hotel at the time, and Albert Urberuaga. They had seen the potential for a proper court in the grounds of the hotel. For many months Sartoresi remained sceptical. The cost was an issue and he had never seen the game played. One afternoon, Sartoresi visited the Mendiolea farm, where he not only saw the vigorous and noisy game in progress, but noted how many people were gathered, and that a good amount of beer was being consumed as the afternoon passed. He came away with a change of heart. He could see that the initial cost of the court would be compensated by the increased clientele and the business they would generate.
In order to build the fronton a plan was required. Albert Urberuaga with Augustin Adarraga obtained a plan from the Basque country, however, being for a plan for a jai-alai court, it was too large and had to be modified in both size and strength. The court also had to comply with building regulations which required that the structure be able to 'withstand winds of over 100 miles an hour.' Appropriate plans were drawn up by architectural firm, Ford, Hutton and Newell. Builders Idillio Quartero and Ken Duffy were engaged for the construction.
The structure was built on two feet wide and six feet deep foundations. It was constructed of concrete composed of four parts river gravel and sand to one part portland cement. It was estimated that about 80 tons of cement was used. Both upright walls were reinforced with steel. At the highest point the walls were six metres and at the lowest point, three metres. The court was 18 metres in length and six metres wide. The playing surfaces were finished with a cement render. The cement was mixed in a large cement mixer and transferred to wheelbarrows. The wheelbarrows were pushed up planks on wooden scaffolding constructed around the formwork. In between moves of the scaffolding the slope of the plank increased. As it did a run-up was required with each push of the full wheelbarrow. There was much community interest in the construction and the Basques could hardly restrain their excitement. The two contractors with one paid worker, an apprentice, and some weekend helpers took six weeks to complete the contract.
The playing area was divided into six cuadro [sections] each one marked and numbered in paint. At a later date Jose Badiola, bricklayer, added another 10 feet of wall to make seven cuadro. Not built to the same specifications as the original this addition was later demolished as it became unsafe. The fronton was also equipped with lights for night games.
On the opening day, formalities were conducted by Jack Williams and Father Ormazabal, and tributes were paid to the Sartoresi family, an exhibition game and barbeque were also held. On this occasion and for special competitions traditional Basque clothing was worn to play the game, consisting of a white skirt and trousers with a green or red sash, a guerrko, and espadrille like footwear, known as alpargatas.
The publicans during the heydays of the fronton were Joe Sartoresi and Gino Manini. The first advertised event was a 'Monster Dance and Barbecue' held on Saturday, 16 July 1960. Entertainment included an exhibition of handball and an orchestra. A Spanish Handball Club was founded on 24 June 1960. Joe Sartoresi was appointed Patron while Pasqual Badiola was elected President. The Spanish Club held barbeques to raise money for the upkeep of the fronton, to purchase seating and to purchase the goatskin pelotas which were sent from the Basque country.
For nearly a decade, the fronton attracted many people, especially on Friday nights and on the weekend. Up to 200 people gathered, particularly on nights when there was dancing and a barbecue organised by the Club. Over the years, the Spanish Handball Club [variously referred to as the Spanish Club, the Handball Club and the Trebonne Handball Club] was not the only organisation which benefited from the entertainment at the fronton. The Trebonne State School, Ingham Golf Club, Tennis Association, amongst others, have been beneficiaries. In all the years of its use, activity at the fronton peaked from July to December, the harvesting months.
Few of the Basques who came to the Herbert River District in the late 1950s and early 1960s remained. Most, if they did not return to their Basque homeland, settled elsewhere, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney. Today the Pelota Mano Handball Court stands unused, attracting occasional interest from locals and tourists. It remains, however, as a solitary remaining monument, marking the small but significant migration of Basque people to North Queensland.
","criteria":"The Pelota Mano Court, Trebonne, is significant historically as a rare illustration of the presence of people of Basque origin in Queensland. Basque migration to northern Queensland peaked in the late 1950s, and although small in numbers, contributed significantly to the sustainability of the sugar industry in North Queensland in the 1950s and early 1960s.
|There are few monuments or reminders of the presence of the Basques in Queensland, as many later returned to their homeland or relocated to southern cities, which devolves strong rarity value on the Pelota Mano Court, Trebonne. The place is further significant for its rarity as the only purpose-built fronton constructed in Queensland.
|Constructed with one wall at the front and one on the players left, the Pelota Mano Court is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the 'ezker pareta', or left-wall type of traditional Basque handball court construction.
|The Pelota Mano Court, Trebonne has social significance, having historically a strong association for the Basque community in Trebonne and surrounding areas as one of the focal points for their cultural and social activities. It remains important to people of Basque descent who still reside in the district, as evidenced by the recently written history of the place.
|The Pelota Mano Court, Trebonne, is significant for its strong association with the Basque community in the district. The small but significant migration of Basque people to the area was instrumental in the success of the sugar industry in North Queensland, particularly in the period following the Second World War.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16926,"place_ref":601661,"name":"Christ Church Anglican Church","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cannon Street","suburb":"ST LAWRENCE","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-27","description":"The Christ Church, Anglican Church, is a single storey, timber building clad with weatherboards with a gable roof clad with corrugated iron, prominently located at the eastern end of Macartney Street. A small front porch with a separated gable roof is located at the western end of the building. The gables of the main roof and the porch are surmounted by timber crucifixes. The rooms on the southern side of the church have a skillion roof clad with corrugated iron.
A set of timber stairs is located in the porch leading to the front door. The paired, cedar doors have a pointed arch design and open to the main part of the church. A group of three pointed arch, stained glass windows are located high in the eastern elevation. A similar, single window is located above the main door. A circular ventilator is located high in the western façade. Five pointed arch, cedar windows are located along the northern elevation. Three pointed arch, cedar windows are located along the southern elevation. The side rooms, associated with the skillion roofed extension, have multi-paned sash, casement windows surmounted by metal sunhoods.
Internally, timber pews are located on either side of a central aisle leading to the raised sanctuary at the eastern end of the church. The eastern wall of the sanctuary and adjoining southern wall are lined with painted horizontal tongue and groove timber. The remainder of the church is clad internally with chamferboards. This sanctuary is raised about a metre higher than the church floor and includes a cedar altar and communion rails. The timber ceiling is braced with arched metal rods.
At the rear of the church is a sandstone font with decorative mouldings and designs. The timber dedication plaque on the porch incorporates a brass centenary plaque attached to the original timber plaque. The timber plaque reads: 'Laid by Hon T.J. Byrnes; May 21 1898; A.H. Julius Vicar; W Armstrong Warden'.
The skillion roofed extension is accessed via paired cedar doors in the southern wall. The area is timber floored and clad with chamferboards. A partition divides the room at the western end and a timber trunk and metal bed with mosquito net are located in the room. A timber organ, built by WH Paling & Co, is located in room on the southern side of the church.
The church is surrounded by mature trees and garden beds.
","history":"The Christ Church Anglican Church, St Lawrence was constructed in 1898 to a design by Alfred Mowbray Hutton and constructed by Newman Brothers of Rockhampton.
European settlement began in the St Lawrence area by 1860, when John Arthur Macartney formed Waverley Station. The St Lawrence area had a strong connection with the pastoral industry in the 19th century. McCartney took up land at the head of Broadsound and Waverley in 1860 and used the banks of the St Lawrence Creek to land his supplies. Later that year a boiling down works for tallow was established. In 1861 the Rockhampton Port Master recommended the site for a port, and government buildings were soon constructed. These included a Telegraph Office, Police Station and Court House.
Prior to the establishment of an Anglican church at St Lawrence, quarterly Catholic and Anglican services, were held at the Courthouse. The development of the meatworks in 1893 meant a steady growth in population and by the end of the 1890s, a permanent church building became a necessity.
In March 1898, Vicar AH Julius visited St Lawrence to make arrangements for the immediate construction of a building. Five acres of land 'in a good position' was purchased and it was reported that '...the Church will be a conspicuous object in the main street of the town...'
Rockhampton architect, Alfred Mowbray Hutton, designed a simple building with seating for around 100 people, a side section with a large classroom and a small bedroom and verandah for visiting clergymen. Tenders were called for submission of quotes by 18 April 1898. Newman Bros of Rockhampton were awarded the contract. Alfred Mowbray Hutton (c1868-1911) was in partnership with George C Lavater as Lavater and Hutton, architects in Mildura before coming to Queensland. He took over the Rockhampton practice of James Flint in mid-1894. Hutton became an associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1897. From 1898 to 1904 he was in partnership in Rockhampton with EM Hockings and in 1911 with FE Boddington. On Saturday 21 May 1898, the Foundation stone of the church was laid by the Hon TJ Byrnes MLA, Premier of Queensland.
With a classroom for a Sunday School and a bedroom for visiting clergy, the church played an important role in the local community. At one time, the vestry served as the residence for a local school teacher. Apart from a period of about two months, there has never been a resident priest at the church. Currently located in the Parish of Park Avenue, the Christ Church Anglican church, has also been part of the Parishes of Rockhampton and North Rockhampton.
Repairs to the church became a necessity, and in 1985 local people organised a restoration committee to raise sufficient funds to replace the roof, paint the vestry and to have the stained glass windows restored. A 1988 bi-centennial grant paid for the lining of the church's north and south walls as well as the reflooring, relining and painting of the vestry. Monthly services are still held in the church.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1898 and forming part of the old town of St Lawrence, the Christ Church Anglican Church is significant in demonstrating the development of the Anglican Church in Queensland and St Lawrence during this time.
|With its steeply pitched gable roof and pointed arch motif windows and doors, the Christ Church Anglican Church is a good example of a picturesque and well executed Gothic influenced timber ecclesiastical building.
|The church is important for its aesthetic significance, particularly its substantial landmark qualities in the St Lawrence townscape and from Macartney Street.
|As a place of public worship for over 100 years, the Christ Church Anglican Church is significant for its social value for the Anglican community of St Lawrence and surrounding area.
|The church is significant for its association with Alfred Mowbray Hutton, a prominent architect in the Rockhampton and surrounding area, who designed the church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16975,"place_ref":602155,"name":"State Butchers Shop (former)","alternate_name":"Ladbrook's Butchery | Dore & Donald Butchers | Bushell's Meats","street_address":"75 Arthur Street","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"The Former Roma State Butcher's Shop is located in Arthur Street, Roma, in the town centre, south of the intersection with McDowall Street.
It a rectangular, single-storeyed brick building with a gabled roof to the front [east] elevation and hipped gablet roof to the rear [west] elevation. There is a hipped roof wing on the south side. All roofs are covered in corrugated iron. To the rear of the wing is a modern car/van port structure. The front [east] elevation has a decorative gable comprising evenly spaced vertical painted timbers on plaster. Centrally placed in the gable is a timber louvred ventilation panel. There is a cantilevered awning, with a cloth 'Dutch style' blind on the south side, beneath which is a modern aluminium shopfront.
To the south side there are two original high level windows, now blocked-in. The hipped roof wing, originally open, is now partly built in by a brick wall with a window, with the remainder enclosed in vertical metal sheeting. There is a decorative timber trellis screen fence to the street [east] elevation of the wing. The van/car port is a flat roof metal structure with vertical metal cladding to the south side. In the wall beneath this structure there is a timber door with a skylight over, either side of which are 4:4 pane timber vertical sash windows. To the rear [north] elevation there is a timber lean-to structure clad in weatherboarding, with a centrally placed opening. The rear brick wall of the building is painted with a centrally placed door. In the west side wall there are 3 closely spaced 4:4 pane timber vertical sash windows at the northern end, a door, and two original high level windows, now blocked in, at the southern end. The external brickwork is a combination of stretcher bond to the front and sides of the building, indicating cavity construction, and English bond to the rear, indicating solid wall construction.
Internally there is an L-shaped shop area with modern counters. There is a door from this area into a large cold room store on the north side and a door into the meat preparation area. Beyond the preparation area is a store/staff room area.
The c1920 stables do not survive. There is a small detached toilet block to the northeast corner of the building, but no other structures. The south side of the site has an access road leading to parking at the rear. There is a car width access way along the north side.
","history":"This single-storeyed brick shop was erected in 1919 for the Queensland Government as a purpose-designed State Butcher's Shop. From 1915 to 1929, 90 State butcher's shops operated in Queensland for various periods, mostly in leased or purchased premises. The peak number of shops operating at any one time was 72, in 1922-23. The Roma shop was one of Queensland's few purpose-designed State butcheries, and one of the more substantial of the regional State butcher's shops.
In 1915 TJ Ryan's Labor government won office in wartime Queensland on the strength of promises to improve living standards - principally by addressing the problems of high commodity prices, price-fixing and the emergence of monopolies. The Labor party in general and Ryan and his Treasurer, EG Theodore, in particular, advocated public ownership of key economic activities, in competition with private enterprise, but at fair prices. They argued that by operating at a reduced profit margin [the State butcher's shops average one-fifth of a penny profit on every pound of meat sold], the cost of goods and services provided by State-run enterprises would be reduced, and that the flow-on effect would be to reduce and stabilise prices for similar goods and services provided by the private sector. In the period 1915-1925 the Queensland Government instituted or acquired a diversity of business enterprises, including a State Insurance Office, a Public Curator's Office, the Golden Casket State Lottery, sawmills and joinery works, mining and fishing ventures [including a string of State Fish Shops], a hotel, a sugar mill, cold stores, plant nurseries, cattle stations and a network of butcher's shops, the process being formalised with the passing of the State Enterprises Act of 1918. These activities were part of a broader, pragmatic Labor platform which advocated State intervention in the private sector to protect individuals against capitalist exploitation, not as a means of involving workers in the control of production, or of raising wage levels. Labor politicians regarded State enterprise as 'State capitalism' rather than 'State socialism'.
In 1915 cattle raising was one of the principal economic activities of the State, and meat was considered a staple food. Believing that all Queenslanders should have access to meat at fair prices, and needing to maintain a regular supply of cheap meat to the Allied fighting forces, the Ryan government introduced a State-wide system of State-owned butcher's shops which proved to be among the more successful of the numerous State enterprises. The first State butcher's shop was opened in Roma Street, Brisbane, on 12 November 1915, and soon other shops were established in Brisbane suburbs and in regional centres such as Rockhampton, Gympie, Townsville, Charters Towers, and Mount Morgan, following the railway lines via which frozen meat was distributed to the State butcheries. During the life of the scheme 90 shops were opened throughout the State.
The town of Roma was established officially in 1862 to service the Maranoa pastoral district, and as a government administrative centre. With the extension of the railway to Roma and Charleville in the 1880s, linking Western Queensland to the coastal ports, Roma boomed, and emerged as an important regional centre. Roma was considered an important centre in the State-wide chain of butcher's shops established by the Labor government from 1915. It was a substantial town serving a wide pastoral and agricultural district, and functioned as an important distribution centre for meat slaughtered at the State-owned Charleville Meatworks, further west along the railway.
Toward the end of 1918 moves were made to open a State butcher's shop at Roma. In fairness to established butcheries, when the State intended to open a butcher's shop in a town or suburb, inspections were made of existing butcheries, to assess the possibility of State acquisition. At Roma, at least two butchers were keen to sell their business and/or premises, but inspection revealed that these shops were not sufficiently well-equipped, and recommendation was made to erect purpose-designed premises of the most up-to-date kind. The recommendation was accepted, but while an appropriate site for new premises was being sought, two State butcher's shops opened in Roma on 1 March 1919, in leased premises in Wyndham and Arthur Streets.
By May 1919 a vacant allotment in Arthur Street had been resumed, and an adjacent allotment was purchased subsequently from Henry Hoffman. A cottage on this second land parcel was removed to Charleville Meatworks to make room for the construction of the State butcher's shop. Plans were prepared in the office of the Queensland Government Architect. The new building was completed by late October, and opened on 18 September 1919, at which time the leased shops in Arthur and Wyndham Streets were closed. The new premises was of brick construction, and at a cost of £4,061/13/3, was one of the more expensive of the purpose-built State butcher's shops. It contained an office, shop, breaking-down room, salting-room, cold room, country order department, store, and engine-room. In 1920, just over £300 was spent on stables.
Only six purpose-designed butcher's shops were constructed in Queensland, each apparently built to an individual design: a retail butchery within the Central State Fish Market, South Brisbane [the markets were a substantial brick complex erected 1917-18 at a cost of over £45,500]; Booval State Butchery [erected c1919 at a cost of just over £600]; Roma State Butchery [brick, erected 1919 at a cost of just over £4,000 (this figure possibly includes plant)]; Ayr State Butchery [brick and wood, erected c1920 at a cost of just over £2,000]; Mackay State Butchery [fibrous-cement and wood, erected c1921 at a cost of just over £2,600]; and Walkerston State Butchery [erected 1922-23 at a cost of about £536]. Cold stores and additions were erected at various butcher's shops, but no other purpose-designed shop was constructed.
Initially the State butcher's shops were supplied with frozen meat from meatworks companies, but from 1921 they purchased their own stock which they killed at their own slaughter-yards, ensuring that the State butcher's shops were supplied always with fresh meat at very competitive prices. It has not been established whether the Roma shop continued to be supplied from Charleville Meatworks.
Despite benefits such as the provision of employment, assistance to small farmers and small business, and the provision of cheaper meat to thousands, the State Enterprises scheme proved an economic failure. Some State enterprises had been purchased at an inflated price; others were located in unsuitable areas or were badly managed; others suffered the effects of economic recession, or of the mid-1920s drought. Following the passing of the Profiteering Prevention Act of 1920, other mechanisms were in place for controlling prices. By 1926, Labor premier William McCormack had declared publicly his intention of disposing of unprofitable State Enterprises, although little action was taken at the time. Some of the State butcher shops were disposed of in the period 1926-1928 [including the Roma shop], and when Labor was defeated at the 1929 election, the in-coming Country/Progressive/Nationalist coalition government disposed of most of the remaining State Enterprises, including the 39 remaining State butcher's shops, which ceased trading as of 30 June 1929.
In their 14 years of operation, the State butcher's shops sold over £5 million worth of meat and had made an overall profit to the Treasury of £185,000, but when interest and other charges were factored in, they lost about £6,000. However, this pales by comparison with the combined £2 million loss sustained by the State stations and the State-acquired Chillagoe railway, mines and smelter.
The State butchery in Arthur Street, Roma, was sold in July 1928 to Roma butchers Dore and Donald Ltd. Edwin Arnold Donald, son of a Roma grazier, built up a successful butcher's business in Roma in the 1910s, and it appears to have been his two Roma shops which were leased briefly by the State Butcheries Department in 1919.
The former Roma State Butcher's Shop remains a privately owned butchery. The original street awning supported on timber posts has been replaced with a cantilevered awning, and the shop front has been modernised. A small office, where customers paid for their meat, was removed when the front section of the shop was refurbished c1999.
","criteria":"The Former State Butcher's Shop, Roma, erected in 1919, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history. In particular, the place is illustrative of the highly co-ordinated, state-wide system of State butcheries which provided cheaper meat to thousands of Queensland families in the years 1915-1929. During this period successive Queensland Labor governments established various State enterprises, with the network of State butcher's shops being among the more successful of these experiments.
The Roma State Butcher's Shop was considered an important distribution centre for meat supplied from the State-owned Charleville Meatworks, which is illustrated in the construction of a substantial brick building with state-of-the-art butchery equipment and facilities.
|The Roma shop was one of only six purpose-designed State butcher's shops constructed 1917-1923 - most of the State butcher's shops operated from leased or purchased premises - and was among the more substantial [full brick construction] of these.
|The place has remained a butcher's shop, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-designed State butcher's shop of its era.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16977,"place_ref":602156,"name":"Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX and Walker's Camp, Little Bynoe River","alternate_name":"Walker's Camp","street_address":"Burke and Wills Access Road (Private Road)","suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX and Walker's Camp are located 35 kilometres south-west of Normanton. They are about 2 kilometres south of the Normanton-Burketown Road and close to the Little Bynoe River. The sites are located above the waterline on small, seasonal overflows of the river.
Both campsites are accessible via the Burke and Wills Access Road, which runs south off the Normanton-Burketown Road. Both sites are located on unremarkable, dusty landscapes showing no evidence of the dramatic events that took place there. The Burke and Wills Camp B/CXIX is marked by signs and memorials and enclosed by a graded track. Visitors are able to bring vehicles onto the site via this track.
Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX is marked by the 10 remaining blazed trees made during the party's three day occupation of the site. These trees are located within the fringe of bush round the site and are not obviously tampered with. The blazing is unimposing but remains present on a number of trees at the camp sites. The fact that the blazes are not readily evident without examination has probably enabled most to survive.
Walker's Camp lies within an overflow of the Little Bynoe River. It is marked by a single blazed tree. A stainless steel plaque which reads "Walker's Camp, 8-12th Jan 1862 DNH 1998" has been fastened to the blazed tree. Visitors to this site need to walk through bush for about 500m to reach it.
Carpentaria Shire Council has completed significant signage and site protection work as part of funding received from the Community Memorial Restoration Program. Interpretative signage, bollards that protect the site and help restrict access, a protective shelter and a designated car park and access roads have all been installed on the site. None of these additions or alterations is of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"On 11 February 1861, four members of the Burke and Wills expedition attempting to cross the Australian continent from south to north, established their most northerly campsite adjacent the Bynoe River in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Two of the party camped at this location for three days while expedition leader Robert Burke and surveyor William Wills ventured further north in an attempt to reach the Gulf coast. During their occupation of the site, the party blazed 15 trees to mark its location. A search party led by Frederick Walker arrived in the area 11 months later, on 8 January 1862, and also established a camp on a small seasonal lagoon near Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX. Walker's expedition blazed a tree to record the location of their camp approximately three quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometres) north of Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX.
Inspired by the prevailing interest in the sciences and exploration, the Royal Society of Victoria established a committee in 1857 to 'fit out' an expedition to traverse the Australian continent from 'south to north'. The Royal Society, a philosophical organisation whose membership came from the highest levels of society, the sciences, the squattocracy and the government in Victoria, approached the community for donations to fund the exploration. Within two years they raised over £9,000 including £6,000 from the Victorian Government. The chief aim of the expedition was to build on previous exploration work in order to open up the "centre" of the continent.
The Royal Society advertised the position of leader of the Victorian Exploration Expedition and Robert O'Hara Burke, a police superintendent from the Castlemaine District of Victoria, was chosen to lead the expedition - a position he had anxiously and diligently pursued. Burke was born in 1821 in County Galway, Ireland, to Protestant gentry. He was educated at Woolwich and served as a lieutenant in the Austrian cavalry and later in the Irish Mounted Constabulary before emigrating to Australia in 1853.
The Society chose William John Wills as the expedition's surveyor and astronomer and third-in-command behind camel master George Landells. Wills was born in Devon, England in 1834 and trained in medicine. He emigrated to Australia in 1853 and after a short stint working as a shepherd at Deniliquin, New South Wales, he assisted in his father's medical practice at Ballarat in Victoria.
The guidance from the Royal Society regarding the details of the expedition were unclear and it appeared from instructions presented to Burke on 16 August 1860, that he could travel in any direction he chose once he arrived at Cooper's Creek. However, there was pressure on Burke and Wills to hasten to the "centre" ahead of a rival South Australian group to be led by John McDowell Stuart, who was instructed to explore to the northwest across the continent.
Burke left Melbourne ahead of Stuart with a large party of men, stock and supplies. By the time he reached Menindee on the Darling River, it was obvious that the push north was going to be hampered by extreme summer weather and the slow speed of the drays carrying equipment and stores. Burke decided to establish a permanent camp there while waiting for the last of his equipment to arrive. Feeling that he had to continue north as quickly as possible, Burke left a party of men at Menindee and pressed on towards Cooper's Creek with a reduced team of eight men. He arranged to have the rest of the team and stores moved up to Cooper's Creek within three months.
On arrival at Cooper's Creek, Burke decided to make a dash for the Gulf with Wills, Gray and King, before the wet season set in. This northern party was made up of Burke as party leader, Wills as second-in-command and astronomer, navigator and meteorologist, King as attendant to the party's camels, and Gray as camp organizer.
Following a line to the northeast of Stuart's proposed track, Burke and his team arrived at the Little Bynoe River on 11 February 1861. They were 57 days out from Cooper's Creek and 13 days over the planned time. Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX became the most northern of their camps as mangroves blocked further progress to the Gulf. As they were running low on stores and concerned about meeting the remainder of the exploration party at Cooper's Creek, Burke and Wills left Gray and King at Camp B/CXIX and pushed further north through the mangroves in an attempt to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria coast. However, after three days of difficult travel, they returned south picking up Gray and King at Camp B/CXIX. The explorers left little evidence of their stay on the Gulf except for 15 blazed Coolibah and Gutta-percha trees.
Most early Australian explorers marked their route of passage across the continent by blazing trees. Blazed trees identify the routes they travelled and the points along their route where they made important observations. Distinguishing markings were often cut within each blaze. The most common markings included the initials of the explorer, the date the blaze was made, and a unique number related to the progress of the expedition (e.g. the number '1' would be used to signify the location as camp 1). Explorers were often directed by expedition organisers and sponsors on the configuration of the actual markings to be cut. It is common for unique markings on blazed trees to be matched with entries made in explorers' diaries and journals. In this manner, it is sometimes possible to gain an understanding of what occurred at a particular location when little physical evidence remains.
Between 14 February and 21 April 1861, the four men, with Gray sickening, struggled back towards Cooper's Creek on short supplies and with failing camels. Gray became ill suffering from pain in his head and limbs. His condition continued to deteriorate until he died on the morning of 17 April 1861.
Travel had been so slow that the team at Cooper's Creek gave up hope after four months of waiting, and after burying messages and food at the foot of a tree, left the camp to go for help hours before Burke, Wills and King returned to the camp. Thinking they were alone and unaware of the buried supplies, the three men attempted to reach the nearest police station at Mount Hopeless in South Australia. However, the difficult terrain and the health of the explorers and their two remaining camels were so bad they were forced to remain along Cooper's Creek, where both Burke and Wills died in late June. King was cared for by local Aboriginal people and survived until rescued by Alfred William Howitt's search party in mid-September 1861.
Apart from Howitt, others were sent to search for the lost explorers. One such person was Frederick Walker, who had already made several prospecting trips on behalf of pastoralists during 1860 and 1861. In late 1861, Walker led a party to find the Burke and Wills expedition. Walker established his own camp on a small seasonal lagoon and, during the subsequent four days, located Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX approximately three quarters of a mile away on the Little Bynoe River. Walker's party left several blazed trees in the vicinity of his campsite beside an overflow of the Little Bynoe River.
In the early 1860s, Liddle and Hertzer established Magowra Station, which encompassed Camp B/CXIX and Walker's nearby campsite. The township of Normanton, 35 kilometres from Camp B/CXIX, was established in 1864 as a port and service centre for the surrounding pastoral ventures and was declared a town in 1868.
Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX and Walker's Camp remained 'undiscovered' until 1909 when staff from Magowra Station found Walker's blazed trees and the blazed trees at Camp B/CXIX. JP Thomson, of the Queensland Geographical Society, published an article in the Queensland Geographical Journal 25th Session titled "Expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria, 1909-10". Thomson located 15 blazed trees on this visit.
In 1999, David Hillian revisited the site and was able to relocate 10 blazed trees. Thomson's recorded Tree Number 9 is believed to have vanished in 1997 and Number 1 was destroyed in 1999. Tree Number 6 had also been removed to be housed in the Normanton Railway Museum.
","criteria":"The Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX and Walker's Camp are significant in illustrating a principal characteristic of early exploration in Queensland - the marking of expedition campsites with blazes to record information for future travellers. The earliness, intactness, and rarity of these blazed trees makes this place an outstanding example of its type.
|The camps are significant in that they have the potential to yield additional archaeological evidence that may add to our store of knowledge about practices and processes of nineteenth century exploration in northern Queensland and Australia.
The place has research potential, especially if other campsites from the Burke and Wills expedition are located in the future, and therefore may enable a better understanding of the hardships endured on that expedition. The place may also yield information suitable for comparative analysis with camps associated with other exploration events.
|The Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX of 11-14 February 1861 and Walker's Camp of 8-12 January 1862, adjacent to the Bynoe River in the Gulf of Carpentaria, are important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history in that they reflect the nineteenth century interest in scientific exploration and the exploration of central and northern Australia. The Burke and Wills Camp B/CXIX is the most northerly marked camp established during the expedition.
Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX is important in demonstrating the pattern of exploration designed to 'open up' the Australian continent for pastoralism. The process of pastoral expansion into a still largely unknown Gulf region of Queensland commenced soon after the expedition concluded, forever changing the region.
The place is significant to the broader Queensland and Australian community as a symbolic representation of the past in the present, providing tangible evidence of the Burke and Wills Expedition and the search effort by Walker's party that was made to locate the lost explorers. Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX is significant as a landmark.
The camps are also significant tangible evidence of the extent and degree to which the story of the Burke and Wills Expedition has had an impact on the broader Queensland and Australian community.
|The blazed trees on both the Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX and Walker's Camp sites, together with the 'Dig Tree' at Cooper's Creek (601073), are rare surviving and tangible evidence of the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition, and also of Frederick Walker's search for the lost explorers.
The blazed trees are also rare in that they are still identifiable as belonging to an early exploration event and that they have also survived since 1861 in a remote and inhospitable landscape.
|Burke and Wills' Camp B/CXIX and Walker's Camp sites have a special association with the work of Robert O'Hara Burke, William John Wills and Frederick Walker who were key figures in nineteenth century Australian and Queensland exploration.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion C | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16978,"place_ref":602157,"name":"Westpac Bank","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"337-343 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-13","description":"Located on the corner of Flinders Street Mall and Stokes Street, in the centre of Townsville, the Westpac Bank is a two storeyed masonry building with a smaller attic storey. Built up to the property alignment on the street sides, the building is roughly L-shaped in plan with a single storey service zone occupying the rear of the site. The south east frontage to Flinders Street is 62 feet long (18.9m) and the north east frontage to Stokes Street is 135 feet (41.1m). Constructed of reinforced concrete with an outer brick veneer, the walls are generally finished with cement render, now painted.
The street facades are designed in an imposing classical style. Giant Tuscan order colonnades are terminated in solid corners with banded rustication. The columns sit on a raised base, about a metre above the Flinders Street level, and carry a simple entablature surmounted by a more ornamental parapet with a central cartouche and panels of classical balusters. The name of the bank, flanked by circular motifs, is written in the frieze. The base of the building, which has been refinished with a pebble aggregate, diminishes on the Stokes Street side due to a gentle rise towards the north. The northern most part of the Stokes Street elevation, originally two shops, is face brickwork with a rendered entablature matching the main part of the building. An awning projects over the footpath in front of the brick section. Most of the windows are generously proportioned steel framed casements with simple classical architraves.
The banking chamber, which occupies the corner position on the ground floor, has entrances from both Flinders Street and Stokes Street. The Flinders Street entrance is raised about five steps above the footpath level. The entrance doors are located centrally in the walls behind the colonnades. These walls are decorated with pilasters, positioned directly behind the columns. Simple ironwork panels and gates are positioned between the bases of the columns. Automatic aluminium doors have replaced the original bronze doors. The banking chamber, although much altered, is in the original location and retains some original structural walls and columns. The remainder of the ground floor is occupied by the bank and used for offices, storage and staff facilities. Due to the slope in Stokes Street the northern end of the ground floor has been built at a higher level. An additional ground floor entrance on Stokes Street opens directly into the higher level.
Entrances to the upper floors are located on both Flinders and Stokes Streets. The Flinders street entrance, located in the banded section of wall on the southern end of the colonnade, leads to an entry vestibule and dogleg staircase. The stair, which extends to the third level, has terrazzo treads and risers, a timber handrail and a decorative iron balustrade.
The Stokes Street entrance to the second level is less prominent, being positioned in a gap between the rendered and the brick sections of the building. The stair at this entrance is a single straight flight terminating in a landing located closer to the upper level. At the landing, the stair splits into two flights, which run at 90 degrees to the main flight of stairs. The second level consists of a central corridor with offices along the street side of the building and services on the opposite side. Although somewhat altered the second level retains many original details including signage, stair handrails, timber paneled doors, timber and glass partitioning and terrazzo dividers in the toilet cubicles.
The third storey, originally a residence, is a tenanted office and training rooms for the bank. It is positioned close to the Flinders Street façade occupying about a third of the area of the floor below. The remainder consists of a large flat roof deck surrounded by the building parapet. The third storey is located behind the parapet and is not very visible from the street. A water tank sits above the roof of the third storey.
","history":"An imposing two-storeyed masonry building, the Westpac Bank was erected in 1935 as the Bank of New South Wales. This building was the third premises built by the bank in Townsville.
The Bank of New South Wales, founded in 1817, was intimately associated with the early development of Townsville. Robert Towns, the co-founder of Townsville, was a director of the Bank of New South Wales. Not surprisingly, he was instrumental in encouraging the bank to establish a branch at Cleveland Bay. After some delays, the Bank of New South Wales opened a branch in rented premises on 20 March 1866. The Bank of NSW was the second in the settlement, after the Australian Joint Stock Bank which had opened a month earlier.
The Bank purchased an allotment on the corner of the Strand and Wickham Street in 1867 and premises and a manager's residence were erected two years later. Anticipating the future growth of Townsville in Flinders Street East, the Bank purchased two allotments on the corner of Flinders and Wickham Streets in 1875. Two-storeyed premises were erected in 1887.
As the centre of the business district shifted westwards along Flinders Street, the bank again decided to relocate its Townsville branch. In 1915, the Bank of NSW purchased an allotment, 66¢ x 165¢, on the corner of Flinders and Stokes Streets. As with the previous relocation, the bank did not erect new premises immediately. The shops on the allotment were rented and some sold in 1922. More than fifteen years after the initial purchase of the land, Brisbane architect, FR Hall, senior partner of Hall and Cook, was commissioned to prepare plans for a new building containing offices and shops as well as facilities for the bank.
The building costing £32,345 was constructed by Stuart Brothers of Sydney and completed in 1935. It was occupied by the Bank of NSW which had amalgamated in 1931 with the Australian Bank of Commerce, formerly the Australian Joint Stock Bank. The building was considered one of Townsville's most "imposing edifices" at the time of construction. It was designed to ameliorate the hot climate through the use of cross ventilation and cavity construction. Elaborate bronze entrance doors were a feature of the elevations and cost over £1,000. The banking chamber had paneled wainscots and counters in north Queensland maple.
Renovations were carried out in 1961, 1966, 1968 and 1971. The exterior has been subject to minor alterations while the interior on the ground floor has been refurbished.
","criteria":"The Westpac Bank, the third location of the Bank of New South Wales in Townsville and one of the largest banking buildings in north Queensland at the time of its construction, demonstrates the evolution of commerce in north Queensland and its contribution to the development of Townsville as a regional centre.
|In the choice of a classical style of architecture, central location and arrangement of spaces - a spacious banking chamber combined with shops, tenantable offices and residential accommodation on the roof level - the Westpac Bank is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an interwar bank in a regional centre.
|A fine example of the commercial architecture of Francis Richard Hall, the Westpac Bank, with its well-ordered and classically proportioned facades, contributes to the Flinders Street streetscape.
|The place has a strong association with the work of the Bank of New South Wales in fostering the development of Townsville in the 19th and early 20th centuries as North Queensland's principal regional commercial centre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16979,"place_ref":602158,"name":"Townsville Technical College (former)(Block A, City Campus, Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE)","alternate_name":"Townsville State High School","street_address":"212-260 Stanley Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-13","description":"Situated on the corner of Stanley and Walker Streets, against the dramatic backdrop of Castle Hill, Block A is the most prominent building at the City Campus of the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE. A two-storeyed masonry building with a metal roof, it forms part of a group of buildings on the southern side of Stanley Street, including the former School of Arts building (600925) and the Sacred Heart Cathedral (600939), that contributes to the aesthetic qualities of views to Castle Hill.
Built to the street alignment, the building is composed of three main parts, a truncated corner structure and two flanking wings arranged in an L-shaped plan. The classical design of the façade is evident in the regular arrangement of windows, varied roofline of pediments and domes and classical detailing in balustrades and mouldings. The symmetrical composition emphasises the corner location. The external walls of the building are brickwork, rendered and painted where visible from the street.
The main entry is located at the truncated corner facing the Stanley and Walker Street intersection. In contrast to the rest of the façade, the entrance vestibule and the conference room, immediately above, are recessed behind narrow verandahs and surmounted by an octagonal dome. Each face of the octagonal base of the dome has a round window. A vented fleche surmounts the dome and three other similar fleches are mounted on the ridge of the roof. Panels of classical balusters form the parapet around the dome and the balustrade to the upper level verandah. The ground floor verandah has wrought iron balustrades.
On each of the street facades; adjacent to the corner structure, at the ends of each wing and in the centre of the Stanley Street wing, are projecting bays surmounted by open bed pediments and stepped parapets. Banded rustication emphasises the corners of the bays. Windows in the bays are arranged in groups of three, with two single sashes flanking a pair of casement windows. On the upper level of each bay the central window is arched. The elaborate moulding and keystone over the arched window protrude into the tympanum above. Windows are generally pairs of timber casements with pivoting highlights over.
The ground floor is raised above the street and a half flight of stairs at the street corner leads to glazed timber doors opening onto the entry vestibule. The entry vestibule is octagonal in plan with timber panelling up to door head height and a tiled floor. French doors open from the vestibule onto the narrow verandahs overlooking the street. The main stair, opposite the entrance door, consists of a single flight splitting midway up into two curved flights, positioned at 90 degrees to the lower flight. The stair, which is framed by an ornamental arch, has a decorative wrought iron balustrade and timber handrail. The flat-sheeted ceiling of the vestibule has timber cover battens laid out in a pattern reflecting the geometry of the room. A reception office is located adjacent to the entry vestibule. The entry vestibule opens onto verandahs on the back of the building that enclose two sides of a courtyard.
Each level of the building is similar in plan with offices and classrooms accessed from the rear verandahs. Lattice screens and timber doors secure the entry vestibule from the verandahs on the lower level. The verandahs have painted brick columns, timber floors and vertical slatted balustrades and are partly enclosed by brick walls and toilet facilities. The lower level verandah has a flat ripple iron ceiling and lattice valence while the upper level has a raked timber boarded ceiling. Half glazed timber doors to classrooms and offices open directly from the verandah. The walls facing onto the verandahs are unpainted brickwork. Window heads and sills are concrete. A flight of stairs, enclosed with lattice panels and doors, is located along the external edge of the verandah on the Stanley Street wing. A connection has been built between the western end of the Stanley Street wing and the adjoining Block E. A raised concrete walkway joins the end of the verandah on the upper level of the Walker Street wing.
On the first floor level above the main stair, a pair of silky oak doors with matching side lights open into the octagonal conference room. The conference room is a double height space encircled by a mezzanine gallery and lit from above by circular windows. A set of French doors opposite the entrance doors opens onto the verandah which overlooks the street. The ceiling of the space is domed and has timber cover battens relating to the geometry of the dome. The gallery, reached by a set of narrow stairs in a niche off the main space, has an iron balustrade incorporating a circular motif in the design.
The offices and classrooms have flat sheeted ceilings with timber cover battens laid out in a variety of orthogonal patterns. Timber framed vertical sliding black boards remain in some of the rooms. Exposed air conditioning ducts have been installed in some classrooms and offices.
The courtyard at the rear of the building contains a lush tropical garden.
","history":"The Barrier Reef Institute was erected in 1920/21 as the Townsville Technical College. Designed for a prominent corner site by the Architectural Branch of the Queensland Department of Works, it is a substantial two-storeyed masonry edifice. The building also became the Townsville State High School in 1924, reverting to sole use as a technical college in 1964.
In Queensland, local committees were responsible for conducting early courses of technical instruction. Classes in Townsville were initially run by the School of Arts Committee. By 1900 there were five Technical Colleges in Brisbane with classes being taught at eighteen other locations in Queensland. At this time the state government began to take a more active interest, establishing the Board of Technical Education in 1902 with the aim of improving and expanding technical education throughout the State. A Technical Education Branch of the Department of Public Instruction, under the direction of RM Riddell, replaced the Board in 1905 and legislation, introduced in 1908 and 1918, progressively empowered the government to take over existing technical colleges.
At a conference in 1904, RM Riddell defined the role of technical as opposed to secondary studies. The prime duty of technical colleges, he maintained, was to meet trade requirements. In mining, agricultural and industrial districts, technical education received a boost when employers, such as the Mount Morgan Mining Company and the State railway workshops accepted the idea of technical training for employees and apprentices. Enrolments jumped from 3000 to 4000 in 1905. By 1910, Queensland had a comprehensive system of technical education.
In 1908, the Technical College committee in Townsville erected a new building on the School of Arts site, on the corner of Stanley and Walker Streets. The building proved to be unsuitable for technical classes and a report by the Director of Technical Education suggested the construction of a new building. The government was slow to respond and only after concerted lobbying by committee members was the construction of a Technical College in Townsville approved.
An allotment on the opposite corner of Stanley and Walker Streets was resumed in 1917 under the Public Works Land Resumption Act of 1906. The Architectural Branch of the Department of Works prepared plans for a new building with an estimated cost of £15,922. The local committee was required to fund one-fifth of the total amount. Construction was delayed for several years but the building was eventually ready for occupation on 19 April 1921. The building was of two storeys: the ground floor comprised vestibule, office, classrooms for applied mechanics, drawing, science, book keeping, shorthand and typing and the first floor comprised library, teachers room, classrooms for mathematics, art, millinery and dressmaking and cookery.
The new building enabled an expansion of technical courses in Townsville but the Department of Public Instruction decided that some students also needed access to general subjects. At the time no public secondary school existed in Townsville and the Department decided to open a High School in conjunction with the Technical College.
Due to the emphasis placed on vocational and technical training by the Department of Public Instruction, a formal high school system was not introduced in Queensland until February 1912. In 1911 the Legislative Assembly had granted funds for the establishment of high schools in towns were there was no grammar school and by 1912 six state high schools had been established. While the state government was reluctant to compete directly with the grammar schools by setting up high schools in opposition, it had no hesitation in annexing technical colleges in grammar school towns. The high schools could be accommodated in the existing technical colleges, minimising expenditure. The buildings were used as high schools by day and as technical colleges at night.
The Townsville High School was opened on 1 July 1924, with 63 students. Additional accommodation was necessary by the mid 1930s and in 1939 the Stanley Street wing was extended, in the same architectural style, to provide extra classrooms.
In 1964 Townsville State High School was relocated to a new complex at Boundary Street, South Townsville and the site reverted to use for technical education as the Townsville TAFE College. After the construction of a new TAFE campus on Fulham Road, Pimlico, the Walker Street complex became known as the City Campus of the Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE.
The 1920/21 building now functions as an administration and classroom block.
","criteria":"Designed and erected in 1920/21 as a technical college and utilized soon after construction as Townsville's first high school, the former Townsville Technical College demonstrates the evolution of the Queensland Government's post-primary educational strategies. This building together with the former School of Arts on the opposite corner, show the pattern of development of technical education in Queensland, from establishment by local committees to subsequent government control in the early 20th century. Used since 1921 as a technical college and from 1924 to 1964 as a high school and technical college, the place demonstrates the development of technical and secondary education in important regional centres like Townsville.
|Designed for its prominent corner location, the former Townsville Technical College is a fine example of an interwar public building in a classical style and is an excellent intact example of an early 20th century educational building designed by the Architectural Branch of the Queensland Department of Works. It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of an early 20th century purpose-built technical college, including joint use for many years as a high school. The imposing classical facades and simple rational planning utilising open verandahs reflect Queensland government policy of the time, to raise community awareness about the value of technical training through the construction of a well designed building with a strong presence in the townscape. The former Townsville Technical College incorporates natural lighting and ventilation, and appropriate classroom arrangements and facilities for hygiene, which were common themes in the design of educational buildings in the first half of the 20th century.
|The former Townsville Technical College is part of a small group of historic buildings including the former School of Arts building (600925) and the Sacred Heart Cathedral (600939), that create the foreground to picturesque views of Stanley Street dominated by the looming presence of Castle Hill.
|In continuing use as a technical college over a period of more than eighty years and as Townsville's first high school, the former Townsville Technical College has a special association for the Townsville community with the provision of State secondary and technical education.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16980,"place_ref":602159,"name":"Australian Mutual Provident Society Building (former)","alternate_name":"AMP Building (former) | Connolly Suthers Lawyers","street_address":"416-418 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-08-01","description":"The former AMP Society building is situated on the corner of Flinders and Stanley Streets, at the western end of Flinders Street Mall. A five storeyed steel framed structure with concrete floors and cement rendered brick infill walls, it is comprised of three main floors, a basement and a smaller upper level which contains a former caretakers flat and roof deck. Prominently located in Townsville's main street, the building has a simple rectangular form distinguished by elegant proportions and street facades that are decorated in a stripped classical manner.
The building has a frontage of 33 feet (10.05m) to Flinders Street and 114 feet 9 inches (34.97m) to Stanley Street. Built to the property alignments, the street facades are treated with banded rustication. The base of the building and decorative elements around the main entrance are faced with red granite. A frieze with medallions delineates the first floor level. A further frieze at the top of the building is inscribed with the AMP name. Above the cornice, a parapet wall with alternating panels of blank wall and classical balusters forms the balustrade around the roof deck level. The uppermost level, a few rooms in a simplified classical style, is visible behind the parapet.
Along Stanley Street the ground slopes down from the Flinders Street corner revealing the basement level. A timber panelled door, situated at the southeastern end of the Stanley Street elevation, opens directly into the basement. Windows to the basement level are fitted with wrought iron grilles. The simple repetitive Stanley Street façade has rows of generously proportioned timber double hung windows.
The tall narrow Flinders Street façade, being the front of the building, is the most embellished. The main entrance is in the center of this symmetrical façade with a window on either side. The entrance has a decorative surround in red granite. A cornice over the entrance supports a cartouche. The window immediately above the entrance is surmounted by a broken bed pediment. Other windows on this level have a projecting cornice where as the windows on the levels above and below have only simple architraves. The AMP Society emblematic statuary complete with flagpole is located above the entrance at the roof deck level, further emphasizing the center of the Flinders Street façade.
The ground floor level is raised slightly above the Flinders Street pavement. Three granite steps lead to paneled entrance doors with a metal transom grille over, in a pattern reminiscent of fish scales. The richly finished entrance vestibule is lined with a reddish marble. A pair of glazed timber doors with brass handles and kickplate and an elaborate fanlight over opens onto the main business chamber. A dogleg terrazzo stair, which extends to the roof level, has a timber handrail and decorative wrought iron balustrade. The walls in the stairwell are lined with black and yellow ochre coloured tiles.
The loftily proportioned business chamber retains many original fittings and finishes including timber paneling, timber counters with marble tops and timber and glass screens. A coffered plaster ceiling with large cornices is supported by pilasters with Corinthian capitals.
","history":"The Australian Mutual Provident Society building (AMP Society), located on the corner of Flinders and Stanley Streets, Townsville, was completed in 1938. It was the second building in Townsville to be purpose-designed for the AMP as its North Queensland regional office.
The Australian Mutual Provident Society was formed in 1849 to provide facilities for life assurance on the mutual principle for people in New South Wales. Within fifty years of its inception it was well known for its application of bonuses, and also for the "practice of sustaining policies in force by advancing premiums from the surrender value".
On 31 August 1848 Rev WJ Walsh, Thos. Holt, T S Mort, Chas Lowe and William Perry met in Sydney to discuss the formation and prospectus of a company to provide life assurance. The company was formed under the then Friendly Society's Act.
Only 321 policies had been issued by the Society during the five years from its inception but by 1856 it was felt necessary to obtain an Act of Incorporation. The Friendly Societies' Act, under which the Society was registered, did not afford sufficient opportunity for the expansion and extension of its business. The Act was assented to by Parliament on 18 March 1857. The Act provided for the first time in any country for the protection within certain limits of the proceeds of life policies and annuities against the claims of creditors, and this Society was the first office in the world to issue policies subject to this protection.
As the business of the Society progressed, agencies were extended throughout the Australasian colonies, with branches in New Zealand and England. A district agency was established in Townsville in April 1883 in rented premises consisting of a galvanized iron-roofed wooden building about 16' by 12'. It serviced North Queensland centres as far a field as Cooktown, Mossman, Ravenswood, Winton, Mackay, Blackall and Tambo, and loans and mortgages from the Society could be raised against policy or property.
By the mid-1880s the Townsville branch had proved so successful that substantial new accommodation for the Society was proposed, on a site fronting Flinders Street East, then Townsville's principal business address. The land was purchased in1885 at a cost of £1400. An impressive two-storeyed brick building, designed by Sydney architects CHE Blackmann and John (later Sir John) Sulman, was erected in 1886/87 and occupied in January 1888.
Townsville members of the Society (policy holders) requested the establishment of a Local Board in October 1887. Problems raised in relation to the establishment of a Local Board included the estimated considerable cost involved and, if the request was granted, an expected demand for Local Boards at Maryborough and Rockhampton. The whole question appeared to depend on "separation". It was decided that Townsville was not sufficiently advanced for the establishment of a Branch, but the progress of the "separation movement" should be watched and, should a decision for separation be made that a Local Branch would be established at whichever of the northern towns to be selected as the capital of the new colony.
By 1937 it was decided by the Society that, with the industrial growth and development of North Queensland, larger premises must be constructed. This building, designed by Brisbane architects Francis Hall and Harold Cook, and built by Stuart Bros Pty Ltd, was again located in Flinders Street, but further west, to where the focus of commercial activity had shifted. Local labour and materials were used where possible on the construction of the building with the pink granite facing from the Hervey Range area being mined and installed by Melrose and Fenwick, prominent local stonemasons.
The three storey brick building, with a frontage of 33 ft to Flinders Street and 114 ft 9 inches along Sturt Street, was officially opened on the 21 February 1938 by the Deputy Chairman of the AMP's Queensland Board, Brigadier-General L C Wilson. The ground floor was occupied by the Society, with two offices let to tenants, and the first and second floors set aside for letting purposes. Provision was made for caretaker's quarters. The building is described in 1938 as having lighting, power, sanitation and air-conditioning designed on the most modern lines.
The AMP Society was active in assisting the economic development of the Townsville community during a period of worldwide financial unrest. A 650 ft extension of the Townsville wharf was completed in June 1929 with a loan of £25,000 from the Society to the Harbour Board.
The Townsville AMP Building with its conservative expression through the use of classical motifs, symmetry and pediments is a typical example of an Insurance building of the inter-war period. A restrained classical style was popular for public buildings during the 1920s and 30s throughout the country and provided a solid image for insurance companies, banks and government buildings.
Above the pediment was a marble tableau illustrating the Society's motto Amicus certus in re incerta [a certain friend in an uncertain event]. Until the Society's logo was changed in 1988, an Amicus tableau was erected on every AMP building, and usually was removed when the Society no longer occupied the premises. At Townsville, the Amicus was moved from the 1886/87 building at Flinders Street East to the new building at the corner of Stanley and Flinders Streets when the AMP shifted in 1938. The tableau depicts an erect female figure, with a cornucopia by her right side, holding the palm of victory above a seated woman and child to her left. To her right is a seated male figure, alienated from the family grouping.
The origin of the Amicus statues dates to the establishment of the Society in 1857. From its inception, AMP Society policies featured a steel engraving of the port of Sydney, and underneath, a representation of the Society's seal, designed by artist OR Campbell. The seal comprised a central figure with plume and cornucopia, two subordinate figures, a castle and a rising sun. [The Australian Imperial Forces in the Great War later adopted the Sun badge.] At the foot of the statuary appeared the Society's motto: "Amicus Certus in Re Incerta". During a period of rapid growth in the 1860s a Victorian sculptor, J Summers, was commissioned to execute the Society's seal as a statuary tableaux for its headquarters building in Pitt Street, Sydney. The Amicus statue soon became a familiar icon on all AMP buildings.
The 1938 building underwent a restoration process in 1978 at a cost of $600,000. The wood panelling and the ceiling in the main chamber were restored, the granite plinth was partially sandblasted and the exterior of the building painted.
The building was purchased in the mid 1990s by Connolly & Suthers, a prominent Townsville law firm.
","criteria":"The former AMP Building, the third premises of the Society in Townsville, demonstrates the evolution of commerce in north Queensland and its contribution to the development of Townsville as a regional centre. The new location shows the shift to the west, of the focus of business activity on Flinders Street since the 1880s.
|The Townsville AMP Building is an intact example of a commercial building of the interwar period and retains many of its original fittings and finishes. Designed in a restrained classical style with an ordered arrangement of internal spaces, it is an excellent example of an insurance building of the period.
|The AMP building, a landmark at the intersection of Flinders and Stanley Streets, contributes to the streetscape of Flinders Street through its prominent location and carefully designed facades. Along with other two-storey buildings in Flinders Street, it enhances the visual impact of the street. It is an important part of the historic streetscape of Flinders street, which has long been the main street of Townsville.
|The building, with its emblematic statuary and name emblazoned on the façade of the building, has clear associations with the AMP society, a company that was, and still is, well known and important in Queensland's history. The building's prominent street address and strong architectural design reflects the company's powerful presence in the main streets of many of Queensland's towns and cities. The building was designed by prominent architects Hall and Cook, who also designed the AMP's Queensland headquarters erected in Brisbane in 1931-34, and who had a notable presence in North Queensland in the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16981,"place_ref":602160,"name":"Lion Brewery (former)","alternate_name":"Townsville Brewery | Playpen | Eagers Showroom","street_address":"719-741 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-07-30","description":"Located at the western end of Flinders Street near the corner of Knapp Street, the former Lion Brewery is in a semi-industrial area of Townsville, opposite the former railway yards and a two storey hotel on the corner with Knapp Street. Set back from the corner, but built to the Flinders Street alignment, it is an imposing multi-storeyed brick building consisting of two main storeys and a tower on the south western end of the site. Originally red brick with contrasting white window surrounds, the building is now painted.
\nThe main entrance is located on the western side under a metal hip-roofed porch, a recent addition. Adjacent to the entrance is a walled courtyard which occupies the street corner and has a number of trees growing in it. An entrance centred on the southern Flinders Street facade is not original.
\nThe building has two principal storeys. The lower storey windows, round arched with keystones, have been blanked out. On the second storey, windows with a shallow brick-arched top have been either blanked out or replaced with stained glass of recent origin. Painting has obscured some of the original detail. On the Flinders Street side, parapet walls decorated by simple pilasters and surmounted by ornamental domes supporting spheres conceal a double gable roof over the two storeyed section. A simple frieze extends around the building at the top of the second level.
\nTwo additional storeys project above the frieze at the south western end of the building forming a tower. The third storey is approximately one third of the area of the building and has a triangular pediment in the centre of its Flinders Street elevation. This level has pairs of pointed-arch windows framed by a larger recessed arch. The fourth storey is slightly smaller, set back from the front and rear of the third level. Openings in the fourth level are round arches. A flat roof over the tower is concealed by a parapet with similar ornament to the lower parapet. An elaborate corbelled cornice embellishes the lower part of the parapet. A neon sign surmounts the tower which originally featured a decorative wrought iron crown and flagpole.
\nAlthough the interior of the building has been altered, the arrangement of spaces is essentially intact. The spaces in the tower comprise a series of small rooms with brick walls and arched brick openings. The spaces adjoining the tower on the lower two storeys are open plan with posts of various design. Parts of the second level floor have been removed to create new staircases and a void looking towards the new stage area. Much of the internal timber structure remains. This exposed timber structure consists of massive hardwood posts and beams with crude rounded capitals and trussed double gable roofs over the two storey section. Much of the internal linings are likely to be covered by later linings and joinery elements.
\nSubstantial additions have been made to the rear of the brewery. Constructed largely of rendered concrete block with a gabled corrugated steel roof similar to the two original roofs, the additions include basement spaces, two fire escape stairs, toilets and a large stage area. A courtyard with perimeter wall and entry porch have been added to the Knapp Street corner. These additions to the rear and side are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nWhen viewed from Flinders Street opposite the intersection with Knapp Street, Castle Hill (QHR 601218) makes a powerful setting for the former brewery; its presence behind all the blocks along the north-western side of Flinders Street being perceived most strikingly at the other intersections with perpendicular streets that occur along its course into the centre of the city.
","history":"The former Lion Brewery, a substantial two storey brick building with a four storey tower, was erected in 1894 for Samuel Allen, a Townsville businessman and Albert Lanfear, a brewer from Brisbane. On opening in late 1894, it became the third brewery then operating in Townsville. It was designed by Brisbane-based architects, JB Nicholson and his former partner ARL Wright, who had previously worked for Lanfear in Brisbane. Of a number of substantial 19th century breweries built in Queensland it is the only known example still in existence.
\nSamuel Allen, the managing director of Samuel Allen and Sons, an established North Queensland company and the agents for the West End Brewery, formed a partnership in 1893 with Albert Lanfear, a founding partner and manager of the West End Brewery and the West End Ice Works. Two breweries were already operating in Townsville: Martin's and Sons New City Brewery and the North Queensland Brewing Company. Allen and Lanfear planned to build a larger scale operation that would provide beer for North Queensland. Although economic recession was affecting most Australian colonies in the 1890s Townsville's economy was expanding and Allen and Lanfear purchased three allotments on the western end of Flinders Street opposite the railway goods yard.
\nJohn Beauchamp Nicholson was engaged to design the brewery. He had been the architect for additions to the West End Brewery in 1888-89. In 1890 Nicholson formed a partnership with Alfred Robert Linus Wright. They were the architects of some of Brisbane's most distinctive hotels, such as the Normanby Hotel 1889-1890 and Chardon's Hotel 1891-92. In 1890 they designed the Wine and Spirit Store at the West End Ice Works, for Albert Lanfear, and between 1890 and 1893 they carried out further additions to the West End Brewery. The partnership officially ended in 1891 but in a special supplement of The Queenslander, March 16, 1895 both Nicholson and Wright are credited with the design and Nicholson with supervision of the project.
\nNicholson and Wright went to considerable effort to design a building for the Townsville site that was not only efficient as a brewery but had aesthetic merit and was more than just a large industrial structure. The appearance of the building was praised in contemporary publications. Described as the \"most elegant building in Townsville\", the playful use of ornament and variation of window openings contributed to its \"picturesqueness of design and gracefulness of outline\". The fenestration on each level was addressed differently, varying from simple arches on the ground level to gothic forms on the third level. Other features included a truncated pyramid roof on the tower surmounted by an elaborate wrought iron structure with flagpole, Boyle's patent ventilators, an octagonal chimney and ornamental cornices and mouldings, especially on the tower.
\nBrisbane contractors Madsen and Watson were engaged to construct the building for a sum of £6500. The building was constructed of red brick with white brick around the openings and measured 110 ft (33.5 m) along the Flinders Street frontage by 66 ft (20 m) deep. The main part of the building, comprising two storeys and a cellar, adjoined a tower 95 ft (29 m) in height. A boiler house at the rear of the brewery was also built. The brewery began production in the latter part of 1894 and was called the 'Lion Brewery'.
\nIn addition to its equipment the brewery contained machinery for manufacturing aerated water and ice. The brewing system was based on the gravitational principle and was extensively described in the Australian Brewers' Journal, July 20, 1895. Water was raised by a pump to an iron tank at the top of the tower and passed into water-coolers and then insulated tanks on the floors below. Also housed in the tower were the hot-liquor vat, grist cases, mash tuns and the copper-room containing two open steam copper boilers. On the second floor were ammonia-condensing coils, refrigerators and a fermenting room; a large, lofty space with cavity walls to ensure a cool stable temperature. In the basement of the tower were the engine and mill rooms and the refrigerating and ice-making machinery. The remainder of the cellar and the main floor above were used for storage.
\nDespite the optimism of Allen and Lanfear, the brewery was not an immediate success. Problems with water and the competition with other breweries hindered development. After only four years of operation, the Lion Brewery amalgamated with the Charters Towers company, Towers Brewery, to form Northern Breweries (Queensland) Ltd. The Lion Brewery was renamed Townsville Brewery. Brewing continued but output and sales steadily declined. Brewing eventually ceased and for a period the complex was used for storage and warehousing. In 1929 the North Queensland Cool Storage Company acquired the site and used the property and facilities for the manufacture of ice and for cold storage.
\nThe building was requisitioned and used as a warehouse by the United States Army during the Second World War. Like other tall structures in Townsville the upper part of the chimney was demolished during the war and possibly, the roof and crown of the main tower were also removed at this time. The property was vacant for several years after the war until it was occupied by EG Eagers and Sons, car dealers, and used as their north Queensland headquarters and Townsville showroom.
\nIn 1988 the building was sold and converted into a nightclub. Changes to the building fabric included the addition of a lift to the tower; additions to the northern side of the building housing basement store and car park, escape stairs, toilets and a stage; and additions to the western side against Knapp Street including an entry court, beer garden and perimeter wall. Most of these additions were constructed of rendered concrete block. Shutters shown in early drawings have been replaced with fixed glass. Many changes have been made to the interior of the building including installation of air conditioning, fixtures associated with the nightclub, new stairs and openings in floors and masonry walls. In 2010 the building operated as a live music and entertainment venue.
","criteria":"The Lion Brewery (former) is important in demonstrating the development of Townsville as north Queensland's principal regional centre in the late 19th century. It is surviving evidence of the growth of manufacturing in Townsville during this period, and is important historically in illustrating the development and expansion of the brewing industry in Queensland in the 19th century.
|The Lion Brewery (former) is significant as the only surviving substantial 19th century brewery in Queensland.
|Although the interior has been altered, the Lion Brewery (former), in its arrangement of spaces and in its largely intact exterior, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, rendered-brick, late 19th century brewery.
|Designed by architects with expertise in breweries, the Lion Brewery (former) is a prominent landmark in Flinders Street, the main street of Townsville. It dominates a corner at the intersection with Knapp Street, important in the comparative view provided of Castle Hill, a key Townsville landmark since the 1860s (QHR 601218). The variety of ornament, free use of historical reference, pleasing composition and imposing mass of the building demonstrate aesthetic qualities that are valued in late 19th century architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16987,"place_ref":602166,"name":"Canambie Homestead","alternate_name":"Joseph Dixon's House","street_address":"12 Dixon Road","suburb":"BUDERIM","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-10-22","description":"Canambie Homestead is located on a substantial suburban block in central Buderim, on the high ridge which forms the spine of the plateau, facing southeast.
It is a substantial, single-storeyed, exposed-frame timber building, constructed of local beech [floors, wall linings and ceilings], red cedar [joinery], and hardwoods [framing and roof structure], and set on low stumps, some of which have been replaced with concrete blocks. It has a short-ridged roof clad with corrugated iron, covering early shingle battens. The core of the house is surrounded by verandahs with simple chamfered posts with timber capitals and decorative timber brackets supporting the verandah roofs, which are separate from the main roof. These are lined with the same wide, single-bead boards used on the walls. French doors open from each room onto the verandahs. The rear verandah has been enclosed at the northern end with wide, chamfered slabs, and currently functions as the kitchen. The floors of this enclosed verandah are of the same wide beech boards as the interior floors; the remainder of the verandah flooring is of more recent narrow hardwood boards.
The core has a long, wide central hallway, from which doors open off to the front parlour and rear dining room to the left, and to three equal-sized bedrooms to the right. Above each of the internal doors is a decorative timber fretwork ventilation panel. Three folding cedar doors between the parlour and dining room, can be opened to create one large entertaining space. The dining room has a fireplace backing onto the hallway wall, with a fine cedar fireplace surround and the chimney clad with the same wide, tongue and groove, single-bead timber as lines the walls and ceilings throughout the core. Between the fireplace and the rear wall is a built-in dresser or sideboard.
Ceilings throughout have been painted white, but the walls are oiled, and have developed a rich patina. Joinery and doors throughout are of varnished red cedar, excluding the rear door at the end of the hallway, which of more recent vintage. The internal floors have been sanded and coated recently with a polyurethane finish.
A detached c1970s building is located in the backyard, adjacent to the main house. It is a timber structure resting on a cement slab, and mimics in detailing the earlier house, with verandahs on three sides, the same timber posts and brackets as the main house, an exposed timber frame lined with wide single-bead silky oak boards, and french doors opening onto the north verandah. The interior space is one large room.
The house is set well back from the street, behind a high, late 20th century timber fence. Trees in the front grounds appear to date from the same period, and there is little evidence of an earlier garden layout. On the southern side of the house, attached to the verandah, is a timber trellis supporting a very old grape vine, which is likely to be associated with much earlier times.
","history":"Canambie Homestead was erected probably in the early 1880s for Buderim Mountain sugar planter and sugar mill owner Joseph Chapman Dixon, his wife Elizabeth Alice Fielding, and family. The name 'canambie' reputedly is an indigenous word meaning 'black plum'. The place is still utilised as a residence, and remains one of the earliest surviving sawn-timber houses on the plateau.
JC Dixon emigrated from Liverpool to Melbourne in mid-1864, when in his early twenties. He moved almost immediately to Sydney, where he worked in a variety of occupations for several years. In 1868, lured by reports of the success of the sugar industry in Queensland, Dixon and two fellow members of the Society of Friends visited the Moreton Bay district. The party was guided by timbergetter William Grigor to the Mooloolah Plains, as yet unselected, then returned to Sydney. In 1869 JC Dixon returned to Queensland with four other Friends, all of whom selected land on the Mooloolah River, and commenced sugar cane cultivation. Dixon in partnership with Herbert Everett selected land downstream, which proved a poor choice - their sugar crop was badly damaged by floods. They abandoned the selection and moved to a sugar plantation on Doughboy Creek, near Brisbane. When at Mooloolah, Dixon had heard from a timbergetter about Buderim Mountain. Selling his interest in the Doughboy Creek property to Everett, Dixon made the first application to select land on Buderim Mountain, in June 1870.
From the early 1860s, Buderim Mountain had been extensively logged, principally for the fine stands of red cedar and white beech, which was shipped to Brisbane via William Pettigrew's wharf on the Mooloolah River. In mid-1870 the plateau was opened for selection. Dixon took up adjoining portions 44 [80 acres] and 53 [30 acres], parish of Mooloolah, in June and August 1870 respectively, erecting as his first residence a slab hut on portion 44. Many of the first selections were taken up for their timber resources [eg Pettigrew's and Grigor's selections], and early agriculturalists made an income from timber while clearing the land. Dixon also ran cattle on the plateau, which he slaughtered and sold to his neighbours in return for their labour, and hired a teamster to drive a bullock team hauling timber to the coast. At the Queensland census of 1 September 1871, the farming district of Mount Buderan contained only 3 inhabited houses. Within a few years more land had been selected, and from 1 April 1874 Thomas Ridley, who had selected portion 45 within a day of Dixon's first selection in June 1870, operated the Buderim Mountain postal receiving office.
In 1873, Joseph Chapman Dixon married Elizabeth Alice Fielding of Eagle Farm, near Brisbane, returning with his bride to the slab hut on Buderim Mountain. By August 1874, Dixon was cultivating principally maize and sugar cane, with some coffee. By the mid-1870s, sugar cane was grown extensively on Buderim Mountain, with planters utilising South Sea Islander labour. In 1875, JC Dixon and his father-in-law John Fielding went into partnership to established the mountain's first sugar mill, which was erected on part of portion 47 [Mill Road is indicative of the site]. Fielding and Dixon purchased an evaporating-pan sugar plant from Fountains of Burpengary, who had imported it from Scotland. The site was surveyed and burnt off in late 1875, the sheds and chimney were erected through early and mid-1876, Fountains dismantled the plant and sent it by steamboat to the Maroochy River in July, in August the plant was brought by bullock wagon up the mountain, and the first cane was crushed in October 1876. In the early 1880s, Dixon and Fielding converted to the vacuum pan system of sugar production, to increase efficiency.
By 1881, JC Dixon was one of the largest landholders on Buderim Mountain, having acquired the freehold of nearly 480 acres and the leasehold of another 80 acres, and was in partnership with John Fielding in the freehold of another 200 acres and the 3 acre mill site. By the mid-1880s he had acquired another 1000 acres of scrub land running down the southeast side of the mountain to Mountain Creek.
It is not clear when Dixon erected Canambie Homestead, which sits on part of what was formerly portion 53. Information recorded in the Caboolture Divisional Board Valuation Register of 1881 suggests that Dixon worked contiguous portions 24, 44 and 53 [a total of 130 acres] as one farm, and that in 1881 improvements comprised 4 slab houses, 40 acres under cultivation, and some fencing. With all the land that Dixon and Fielding held on Buderim in 1881, between them they owned only 1 sawn-timber house, and that was located on portion 45, formerly owned by Thomas Ridley and by then jointly owned by Dixon and Fielding. It may be that the Dixon-Fielding families were sharing a house at that period. A similar pattern was recorded in 1882. There does not appear to be a record for 1883, but by 1884, Dixon's combined portions 44 and 53 [110 acres] were improved with a sawn house and stables and a slab house with outbuildings. The data does not make it clear on which block the sawn-timber house was located, but it likely refers to Canambie Homestead.
Besides being one of the principal employers and largest landowners on Buderim Mountain, JC Dixon was an active member of the local community. He was instrumental in the establishment of a provisional school at Buderim Mountain in 1875-76, and served as secretary of the School Committee from 1876 until at least 1888. By July 1876 he had been appointed a Justice of the Peace, and in the same year took over the operation of the Buderim Mountain postal receiving office from Thomas Ridley. When the receiving office was elevated to a post office in June 1884, JC Dixon was appointed the first postmaster, a position he held until March 1892, when the job passed to Buderim storekeeper John Kerle Burnett. In August 1888, he was appointed a trustee of the new Buderim School of Arts. In mid-1895 he opened a school for his South Sea Islander employees.
In 1880 a second sugar mill on the mountain - The Buderim Mountain Sugar Company Mill - was established by local growers, with financial backing from James Campbell and Sons. At this period there were still only 7 main farming families on Buderim Mountain, but they were able to support two sugar mills. Buderim farmers initially made a good return from sugar. Between 1881 and 1884, many of the early slab homes were replaced with sawn-timber houses, and by the late 1880s a small village had developed around the intersection of the two principal roads on the mountain [now Main and Ballinger]. From 1885, however, legislation designed to curtail the employment of South Sea Islanders on sugar plantations forced most Buderim Mountain sugar planters to turn to alternative crops - principally bananas and oranges. By August 1889 the Buderim Mountain Sugar Company Mill had closed. JC Dixon was the only Buderim Mountain farmer still growing sugar cane on a commercial scale.
Dixon claimed in his reminiscences that by 1896 the returns from sugar no longer justified production costs, hence he closed the mill that had been operating for 20 years. He may also have been fearful of the competition likely to be generated by the new Moreton Guarantee Sugar Mill, erected at Nambour in 1896-97, which became the central mill for the Buderim-Maroochy-Mooloolah-Nambour district. In 1896 he sold the stock, stores, plant and some of the houses associated with his mill, but retained his Buderim land.
Although Dixon had taken up land at Flaxton on the Blackall Range by the early 1890s, and was developing it with coffee and orange trees from1892, when he sold the Buderim mill he moved to Gympie, where he spent the next 11 years in the boot trade [backed by his brother Thomas Coar Dixon, boot manufacturer of Brisbane]. Dixon then sold out and returned to Flaxton, where he established a successful dairy and worked his citrus orchard. It is understood that Joseph and Elizabeth Dixon remained at Flaxton until their deaths in the late 1920s. On Buderim Mountain, the family is commemorated in the naming of Dixon and Mill roads and Fielding Street.
John North Burnett, son of Buderim Mountain's first storekeeper, John Kerle Burnett, may have occupied Canambie after the Dixons moved to Gympie. Around 1900, John North Burnett was recorded as a fruit grower and boarding house keeper on Buderim Mountain - whether he had converted Canambie into a boarding house has not been verified - but by 1903 the family had moved to a farm at Brookfield, near Brisbane. In 1905, title to about 16.5 acres of portion 53, containing the Canambie Homestead site, was transferred from Dixon to John North Burnett, farmer, of Brookfield. In 1910, the title passed to his brother, Charles Arthur Burnett. Title changed hands several times in the 1930s, until acquired by the Hamilton family in 1938, who kept the property until the late 1960s or 1970s. It is understood that new owners in the 1970s undertook considerable restoration work on the house, which was by then on a considerably reduced block. A detached building was erected in the backyard c1970s, utilising similar materials and detailing to the homestead.
","criteria":"Canambie Homestead, erected probably in the early 1880s, is important in demonstrating the early development of Buderim Mountain as an agricultural settlement, in particular the early success of sugar growing and sugar milling in the district.
|It is one of the oldest surviving residences on the plateau, remains substantially intact, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 1880s farmhouse of substantial proportions and fine detailing and workmanship, constructed of local timbers no longer generally available.
|It is one of the oldest surviving residences on the plateau, remains substantially intact, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early 1880s farmhouse of substantial proportions and fine detailing and workmanship, constructed of local timbers no longer generally available.
|The materials, timber detailing and workmanship, and simple plan and form, demonstrate a strong aesthetic quality.
|The place is one of the finest early residences on the mountain and has a special association for the Buderim community with its heritage.
|Canambie Homestead is significant for its close association with one of the earliest settler families on Buderim Mountain, the JC Dixon, who in partnership with John Fielding, established the first sugar mill on Buderim Mountain, 1876-1896.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16988,"place_ref":602167,"name":"Lilyvale Stand Monument","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lilyvale Road","suburb":"CAPELLA","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-02","description":"The Lilyvale Stand Monument is a wall addressing both the Lilyvale Road [Gregory Mine Road] to the north and Kestral Coal Access Mine Road to the east.
The wall is approximately six metres along both the northern and eastern sides. It is approximately 1.2 metres high and one metre wide.
The wall is constructed predominantly of large stone blocks concreted together, with a large face stone, placed at the intersection of the wall lengths, addressing the Gregory Mine Road. The face stone contains spaces for four plaques [Currently, all four plaques are missing, however new plaques have been prepared and will be affixed to the wall in the near future]. Some pieces of petrified timber have also been used in the construction of the wall.
The Lilyvale Stand Monument is situated approximately three kilometres away from the Kestral coal mine.
","history":"The Lilyvale Stand Monument was constructed in 1998 by a group of dismissed mine workers from the Gordonstone Coal Mine [later renamed by Rio Tinto to Kestral Coal Pty Ltd]. Following their dismissal, the mine workers commenced a protest line in early October 1997, which was to continue for 22 months, until August 1999, becoming Australia's longest running black coal dispute.
The Gordonstone Coal Mine, an underground coal mine located approximately 62 kilometres north-east of Emerald, commenced operations in 1992. The life of the mine was thought to be circa 25 years, with the project being undertaken as a joint venture by ARCO, an American oil company; Mitsui a Japanese coal trader and, Australian company, MLC. ARCO was the senior partner with 80% ownership. At the time, over $500 million was invested in the project. By 1996-97, total raw coal produced at Gordonstone Coal Mine was 4.4 million tonnes, breaking world production records for an underground coal mine.
Shortly after the Federal Workplace Relations Act became law in mid-1997, 312 miner workers at the Gordonstone Coal Mine were dismissed, as the miners were not interested in accepting the company's direction that mine workers surrender conditions in their certified Enterprise Bargaining Agreement [EBA]. The 312 mine workers, members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union [CFMEU], resisted the company's attempts for them to agree to new terms, considering them unacceptable. The new agreements were products of the Federal Workplace Relations Act of 1996, which established Australian Workplace Agreements as individual contracts between employer and employee instead of collective bargaining through Enterprise Bargaining Agreements. Considerable industrial trouble has resulted from enforcement of this provision.
By September 1997, two employees had accepted individual contracts, with the other 310 opting to remain with the EBA. With negotiations faltering, ARCO made the decision, on 1 October 1997, to retrench the entire production and engineering workforce of 312 employees. The mine workers subsequently set up a protest line on 6 October 1997. The protestors continued a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week protest that was to last for 22 months, becoming Australia's longest black coal industry dispute.
ARCO had kept on a management team of over 100 and commenced recruiting a new workforce. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission [AIRC] ordered that the company give preference to former workers. The company refused to reopen the mine on those terms. The Gordonstone Coal Mine sat idle and in February 1998, the AIRC found that the dismissals had been unfair and ordered ARCO to pay compensation. The workers were awarded Australia's largest unfair dismissal ruling, leading to a payout of $4.6 million to 282 of the retrenched employees who brought applications to the AIRC.
In October 1998, companies wholly owned by Rio Tinto Limited negotiated to purchase the mine. The intention of Rio Tinto was to recommence mining operations utilising a new workforce not connected to the CFMEU. The CFMEU argued that Rio Tinto should re-engage the entire workforce that had previously been dismissed by ARCO, with proceedings commencing in the AIRC to obtain such a result. Rio Tinto claimed that the dispute was one between the CFMEU and Gordonstone Coal Management Pty Ltd, and that it was not involved. The ruling was made that Rio Tinto should be made a party to proceedings.
In the meantime, the protest line continued. When Rio Tinto Limited acquired the mine, the numbers on the protest line increased. It was during protracted legal actions that the members of the protest line decided that a reminder of its struggle was in order and set about designing and building a monument. The construction of the monument also served to assist the protestors in overcoming what was increasingly a frustrating and tedious daily existence as the legal battle associated with the retrenchments was being carried out in the AIRC and the Federal and High Courts. Members of the protest line gathered the materials for the monument, including stones and petrified wood, from the surrounding area. Concrete required for mortar was donated to the protest group.
Construction of the wall took approximately four months and was completed by November 1998. A ceremony to bless it was organised, to be followed by a day rally in Emerald. Initially, the local Roman Catholic priest was approached to undertake the blessing, however, he declined as the congregation was divided in its opinion over the Gordonstone mine issue. Eventually, the Captain of the Salvation Army, Steven Metcher, agreed to perform the blessing.
The Salvation Army, particularly Captain Metcher, had over the previous year, assisted with the counselling of many families who had been affected by events at the mine. The wall was officially blessed on 22 November 1998 with speeches being made by representatives of workers throughout Australia.
With the contract of purchase completed on 10 February 1999, Rio Tinto took over the control of the mine and immediately reopen it using a 'scab' workforce [the derogatory term given to a person or employee willing to cross a picket line]. This action aggravated the protest line and through the assistance of families, friends and associated groups and Unions, the numbers on the Lilyvale Stand [as it became known] increased once again. The protest line attempted to stop the non-union workforce entering or leaving the mine site - resulting in over 280 people being arrested over the next four months, including Labor MP, Jim Pearce, a former coal miner.
On 10 August 1999, the members of the Lilyvale Stand decided to remove the picket line, following a Supreme Court injunction preventing the protesters from stopping workers entering or leaving the mine, which had been renamed by Rio Tinto from Gordonstone Coal Mine to Kestral Coal Pty Ltd.
It is estimated that over 5000 people, including mine workers from Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, visited the picket line throughout the 22 month protest.
","criteria":"The Lilyvale Stand Monument, constructed in 1998, is significant as a physical reminder of Australia's longest running dispute in the black coal industry with a protest line that continued uninterrupted for a total of 22 months, from October 1997 until August 1999. It demonstrates the pattern of Queensland's industrial history whereby Unions and workers resist the implementation of industrial legislation which they consider unfavourable to them.
|The Lilyvale Stand Monument is also significant as it was constructed during the days of the protest line by members of the Lilyvale Stand, from materials obtained from the general area, rather than as a retrospective tribute to the protest line members. Strike memorials are uncommon in Queensland and those built on site during the dispute are particularly rare.
|The Lilyvale Stand Monument is significant for its strong social significance, particularly for its association with the workers from the Gordonstone Coal Mine, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and the families, friends and supporters of the mine workers who constructed it, as a representation of their determination to fight a retrenchment decision that the Australian Industrial Relations Commission later ruled to be a case of unfair dismissal.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16989,"place_ref":602168,"name":"Quetta Memorial Precinct","alternate_name":"St Bartholomews Old Cathedral | Bishops House | All Souls and St Bartholomews Cathedral Church and Quetta Memorial","street_address":"Douglas Street","suburb":"THURSDAY ISLAND","lga":"TORRES SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-07-27","description":"The Anglican precinct on Thursday Island is located at the southwest end of the island, in the oldest section of the town, one street back from the foreshore. The site is bounded by on the southeast by Douglas [formerly Tully] Street, on the southwest by Jardine Street, on the northwest by Chester Street, and on the northeast by the Catholic precinct. The land slopes slightly toward the southeast and the Douglas Street frontage, which has a low concrete fence extending in front of the church and church hall grounds. Several houses at the southwest end of the site, although church property, are not included in the heritage listing.
The principal structures on the site include: the Bishop's House [1891]; All Souls' and St Bartholomew's Cathedral Church (Quetta Memorial) [1893-1965]; the Church Hall [1902-03]; and the Rectory [1904]. The grounds contain a number of memorials, a bell tower, mature plantings, garden paths, stone-edged gardens and fencing.
The Church
The Quetta Memorial is a late 19th/early 20th century Gothic Revival style church in mass concrete, rendered to resemble stonework, with a 1960s front extension of concrete and fibrous cement sheeting. The whole rests on concrete foundations.
The chancel/sanctuary and the earliest section of the nave are housed under separate, steeply pitched, gabled roofs which have late 20th century corrugated iron roof cladding. Typical of this style of church design, the chancel/sanctuary roof is lower than that of the nave, but, unusually for an Anglican church, is at the northwest end of the building, such that the entrance to the nave is from the southeast, which faces Douglas Street, the main street in the town of Thursday Island. The earliest section of the nave is four bays in length, with a clerestory. The southeast gabled end of the nave has later sheeting, mimicking timber boarding, and replacing earlier weatherboards. The nave has a single-storeyed, skillion-roofed aisle along either side, in which the bays are articulated by concrete piers, and with pairs of lancet-shaped arched timber doors in each bay. The southwest aisle extends to incorporate a vestry, accessed off the chancel/sanctuary. Windows in the clerestory, sanctuary, chancel and at the ends of the aisles, are lancet-shaped and have fixed stained-glass memorial panels.
There is a 1960s addition to the front [southeast], which extends the nave and aisles by two and a half bays. It does not replicate the earlier structure, having a distinctive style and separate form, with a single roof, much less steeply pitched than that of the earlier nave, and considerably lower, extending across both nave and aisles. The side walls of this extension are of concrete with articulated bays. On either side, the bay closest to the original nave has a square headed timber door with a fixed stained glass panel [rectangular] above. There are casement windows in the next bay, on either side, again with a stained-glass panel above. The front of this extension is timber-framed with fibrous cement sheeting and cover-strips, and has a pair of centrally positioned, aluminium-framed glass entrance doors, with stained glass memorial windows either side. There is a small, cantilevered, ply-covered awning over the front doors, and above this are two round windows with fixed stained-glass panels. These both feature ship motifs. On either side of the entrance is a bank of clear-glass, hopper windows.
Internally, the early section of the nave has a high open ceiling, timber lined [unpainted], with exposed timber trusses. There is a fine timber ventilation frieze along the full length of the side walls of both the nave and the chancel/sanctuary, just beneath the roof. Interior walls are rendered to resemble stonework, and the floors are of concrete. Reflecting church liturgical practices of its era, the floor of the chancel is raised above that of the nave, and the floor of the sanctuary, at the far end of the chancel, is raised further. The high altar is placed here, three steps above the floor of the chancel. At the southeastern end of the chancel, projecting into the nave, is the low altar, which rests on a concrete platform raised two steps above the floor of the nave, but one step below the floor of the chancel. Both altars are constructed of local granite in a random rubble pattern. A pulpit of moulded concrete is located on the concrete platform in front of the chancel, on the southwest side. The nave has two rows of timber pews, and there are timber choir stalls in the chancel.
The early section of the nave is separated from the aisles by lancet-shaped concrete arches with plain mouldings, which support the roof structure. At the northwest end of the northeast aisle is a small chapel, separated form the remainder of the aisle by a low timber railing, and from the nave by a carved timber screen of indigenous design.
The 1960s extension has a much lower ceiling, clad with fibrous cement sheeting. The side concrete walls are rendered, but the front wall, which is timber framed, is lined with fibrous-cement sheeting. Square concrete pillars follow the line of the arches between the earlier nave and the aisles, and support the roof of this section. The extension floor is of concrete.
The church contains many relics and memorials associated with the wreck of the Quetta in 1890, with other Torres Strait shipwrecks, and with persons closely associated with the work of the church.
Quetta 'relics' include a lifebelt, washed ashore on Albany Island; and a porthole, thickly encrusted with coral growth, and the Quetta's stern riding light, both of which were salvaged from the wreck in 1906. A slab of timber on which the diocesan arms is carved and painted, the top of a small credence table, and a palm stand to the memory of Edgar Dawson, are made from Quetta timbers. In addition to the relics from the ship, many of the church furnishings are memorials given by families and friends of Quetta passengers, including a brass offeratory plate, lectern and plaques [including a memorial plaque to two young girls from the Lacy family, one of whom survived the wreck, and one of whom drowned]; and a window in memory of Alexander and Louisa Archer, who drowned in the wreck. There is a framed early photograph of the Quetta, and a 1911 plaque with the inscription:
This Cathedral was erected TO THE GLORY OF GOD and in memory of those lost in the wreck of the BI SS QUETTA 3484 tons which about 9.14pm on FRIDAY 28TH FEB. 1890, struck an unchartered rock in the ADOLPHUS CHANNEL whilst outbound from Brisbane to London, and although in calm waters and bright moonlight, sank within three minutes with the loss of 133 lives out of a total of 293 on board. Presented by GRS February 1911.
In addition, there is a brass plaque with the inscription:
This memorial stone was placed here by the Hon. John Douglas CMG Gov't Resident May 24th 1893 This Church was consecrated by the Right Rev CG Barlow Bishop of North Queensland Nov 12th 1893 as a memorial of those who were lost in the SS Quetta Feb 28th 1890 and as a thanksgiving offering for those who were saved.
In the church grounds west of the sanctuary/chancel is a steel frame supporting a ship's bell with the lettering QUETTA and the date 1881. Beneath is a stone plaque on the ground, with the inscription: This bell was rededicated on the centenary of the loss of the "RMS Quetta" 28th February 1990 I Anthony, Bishop of Carpentaria.
Other relics/memorials not associated with the Quetta include: two benches from the wreck of the Volga; a Union Jack taken down on Green Hill Fort at the proclamation of Federation on 1 January 1901; various memorial stained glass windows; and various memorial plaques, including those to the Hon John Douglas and Hugh Milman, both of whom served as Government Residents on Thursday Island. There is also a marble plaque in memory of over 300 persons who perished in a hurricane [cyclone] off Cape Melville on 5 March 1899, in which 73 vessels [mostly pearl-shell luggers] were wrecked or foundered.
Just inside the front entrance is a marble and timber font, installed in 1902, which is a memorial to two Congregational missionaries, Rev. James Chalmers and Rev. Oliver Tomkins, who were killed in British New Guinea in 1901. The stand has been refurbished.
In the front grounds of the church, just south of the main entrance, is a concrete memorial erected in 1961 to commemorate of the arrival of the Christian missionaries in 1871. The plaque on the front reads: Thank God for the first missionaries who, on 1st July 1871 at Darnley Island brought The Light of Christ to the Torres Straits. The concrete platform on which the obelisk and cross stands is in the shape of a small boat.
There is a steel-framed bell tower, resting on a concrete platform adjoining the northeast side of the church, which is likely to date from the 1960s when the front extension was constructed. The brass bell is understood to be that obtained from Townsville c1903.
The Church Hall
The Church Hall [Parish Institute] is located close to the Douglas Street frontage at the eastern end of the site. It is a substantial timber-framed building, rectangular in form, with verandahs to front and sides, resting on concrete stumps no more than 900mm high at the front, and almost at ground level at the rear. It has a high gabled roof, clad in corrugated iron, which extends in bungalow fashion over the side verandahs. The front gabled end has chamferboards and is decorated with a tall finial. The rear gabled end has weatherboards. The front verandah has a separate roof with a small centrally positioned gabled pediment. Both front and southwest verandahs have plain timber posts, but the northeast verandah is enclosed with later profiled iron sheeting and louvred windows. The front verandah has later timber rails. Access to the building is via wide timber steps to the southwest side verandah.
The southwest [side] and front walls have exposed stud framing and are lined with narrow, vertically-jointed, tongue-and-groove timber. The side wall has four pairs of French doors opening onto the verandahs. The front elevation has a centrally positioned main set of double doors with fanlight above, which would have been accessed originally from centrally positioned front steps. To either side of the front door is a pair of triple-paned casement windows, with the glass painted. The rear elevation has a small skillion-roofed extension with later additions.
Bishop's House
The Bishop's House is situated on higher ground behind the church hall, to the north of the church, facing southeast toward Douglas Street. It is a timber-framed residence, high-set on concrete stumps. The core of the building has an early high-pitched gabled roof, re-clad with modern corrugated iron, and has some surviving decorative detail in the gabled ends. Early surrounding verandahs have separate roofs, also re-clad, but have been enclosed and altered on several occasions with a variety of fabric [corrugated iron, fibrous-cement sheeting, glass louvres, sliding windows, casement windows, and timber boards], making the original form of the building difficult to read. There is no discernible surviving evidence of the original timber balustrading to the verandahs. The front enclosed verandah retains a centrally positioned entrance, and early timber portico with a small gabled roof [re-clad], but most of the decorative elements to the portico have been removed, and the original timber steps have been replaced by a spiral of concrete steps with an iron railing, at the side of the porch.
Attached to the enclosed back verandah is a sequence of small additions. There are two small, early, timber-framed, gable-roofed structures which were likely originally kitchen houses, one behind the other, and accessed through each other. The kitchen house adjoining the main building is the larger. These are now clad with fibrous cement sheeting, and it is not clear whether the original timber boarding [possibly single-skin] survives. Off the second kitchen house, at the rear, is a semi-open skillion -roofed laundry area, and attached to this, a small, later, skillion-roofed drying area with fibrous cement sheeting to balustrade height.
On the southwest side of the building one perimeter stump has been removed and a steel beam inserted, to provide car accommodation beneath the house. It is likely the house was accessed from Chester Street, at the rear, but the back garden is so overgrown that any driveway has been obscured.
Internally, the building has been altered substantially, and the early layout is no longer easily read. What appears originally to have comprised the front verandah, a central corridor, and two rooms on the northeast side of the core, is now one large enclosed space, used as a living room or lounge. Opening off this at the rear, in an enclosed space which was originally the back verandah, is the dining room. Much of the former back wall of the house, between the lounge and the dining room, has been removed to open up this space. The northeast side verandah has been enclosed, possibly at an early date but with later modifications, to create three bedrooms. The southwestern side of the house was modified in the 1960s to provide a suite of rooms for the Bishop, which included a main bedroom [which possibly was originally two smaller rooms], a sitting room and an office on the enclosed side verandah, and a bathroom on the rear enclosed verandah. The office has a private entrance from the southwest garden. There is also a small bedroom in the enclosed corner of the front verandah on this side of the house. This side verandah was also enclosed at an early period, but with a number of alterations since.
The first of the attached gable-roofed structures at the rear of the building is located off the dining room, and contains one large kitchen space and a toilet and external door at the southwest end. The smaller gable-roofed attached building beyond the kitchen contains a bathroom and a scullery, from which a door opens to the covered laundry and drying-area.
Most of the internal walls and ceilings in the house are lined with fibrous cement sheeting. However, the ceilings of what were formerly the northeast side and rear verandahs retain their original early timber lining in the form of wide, tongue-and-groove boards with a central double beading. Floors throughout appear to be early, with evidence of weathering on the underneath of the former verandah floorboards.
The house is situated within a very overgrown garden. The front garden has a curving concrete path lined with stone-edged garden beds, which serpentines from the front edge of the block to the front door. On most sides of the house there are concrete paths, some based on rubble rock foundations, and garden beds. To the northeast of the building is the former Bishop's Chapel, a small, high-set building with corrugated iron walls and roof. The date of construction has not been identified.
The Rectory
This is a high-set, timber framed building which has been clad with fibrous cement sheeting and a 'Colorbond' roof. The earlier form appears to have been a small bungalow with a front verandah, but this has been enclosed.
","history":"The Quetta Memorial Precinct on Thursday Island was established in the early 1890s. The principal buildings on the site are: The Bishop's House (Bishop's College), erected in 1891 as the residence for the first rector of the Church of England parish of Thursday Island, and which in 1900 became the residence of the first Bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Carpentaria; All Souls and St Bartholomew's Cathderal Church and Quetta Memorial, erected in stages between 1893 and 1964/65; the Church Hall, erected in 1902-03 as the Parish Institute; and the Rectory, erected in 1904.
Thursday Island [Waiben] is located within the Prince of Wales [Muralag] group, just off the northwest tip of Cape York. The original inhabitants of the Muralag islands, the Kaurareg people, shared some cultural characteristics with Cape York Aborigines and spoke the same basic Australian language, Kala Lagaw Ya. However, they were a maritime people who lived from harvesting the sea, shifting camp sites regularly. Waiben had a restricted water supply, and it is thought that no permanent Kaurareg settlement was established there.
During the first half of the 19th century British shipping began to make regular use of Torres Strait, entering into a passing trade with the Islanders. Colonial occupation commenced in the 1860s and 1870s with the arrival of bêche-de-mer crews, pearl-shellers, Protestant missionaries from the southwestern Pacific, and government officials.
Queensland had no jurisdiction over the Torres Strait until its annexation in 1872 of the islands of the southern half of the Strait, a measure intended largely to protect Queensland interests in the pearl-shelling and bêche-de-mer fisheries in the Strait and along the Barrier Reef, and to regulate the employment of South Sea Islanders in these enterprises. At annexation, Torres Strait Islanders acquired the same official status as mainland Aborigines.
In 1877 the official Queensland government settlement at Somerset on Cape York [established 1864] was moved to the newly surveyed town of Port Kennedy on the southern side of Thursday Island. The new location provided a sheltered, deepwater anchorage, and was more centrally located along the main shipping route through the inner channel of Torres Strait - the principal trade route to Asia and the northern route to England. In 1879, at British Colonial Office direction, Queensland jurisdiction was extended to the islands of the northern half of the Torres Strait.
The first Christian missionaries to establish a presence in the Torres Strait were associated with the London Missionary Society. From 1871, as the first step in bringing Christianity to Papua/New Guinea, the Society began to land its Pacific Islander teachers [mostly Loyalty Islanders] in the Torres Strait - at Erub [Darnley], Tutu [Warrior] and Dauan [Mt Cornwallis] islands in July 1871, and at Mabuiag [Jervis], Moa [Banks], Massid [Yorke] and Saibai islands in 1872. These lay teachers brought an indigenised form of Protestantism to the Torres Strait, reinforced the status of the Strait's Pacific Islander maritime workers, and paved the way for European missionaries. From 1871 to the mid-1880s, Congregational missionary the Rev. Dr Samuel MacFarlane headed the western division of the London Missionary Society's New Guinea mission. He was based initially at Erub, then moved to Dauan, where he established a school for island boys.
Torres Strait Islanders now refer to the arrival of the Christian missionaries in the Torres Strait in July 1871 as 'the coming of the light', a cause for celebration and memorial:
For generations of Islanders the arrival of the missionaries has marked the divide between darkness and light. They brought deliverance from a life most preferred to forget, certain aspects of which had become anathema to their religion, and to their idea of themselves as a civilised people. . . . Just lately the Islanders have begun to look back on bipotaim [time prior to the coming of the missionaries in 1871] more favourably, and while they remain devoutly Christian, a growing number now seek in elements of the pre-colonial culture the means to reaffirm their identity as Torres Strait Islanders and so strengthen their sense of community.
By the mid-1880s nearly the whole of the Torres Strait Islander population was nominally Christian. French Catholic missionaries established a presence on Thursday Island in 1884-85, but Protestantism was well-established in the Torres Strait by this date.
In 1878, shortly after the establishment of permanent settlement on Thursday Island in 1877, the Church of England Diocese of North Queensland separated from the Diocese of Sydney, with the Right Rev. George Henry Stanton consecrated as the first Bishop. The new Diocese constituted a vast area of about 300,000 square miles, bounded on the west by the Queensland/South Australian border, on the south by latitude 22°S, on the east by the ocean, and encompassing the islands of the Torres Strait.
Anglican services on Thursday Island were held initially at the Court House, conducted by lay preachers and occasional visiting clergy. In 1885-86 a substantial block of land in the main street, bounded by Douglas [Tully], Jardine and Chester Streets, and adjacent to the Catholic missionaries, was vested in the Synod of the Diocese of North Queensland for church purposes. In April 1887 the first Anglican church committee on Thursday Island met to arrange for regular visits from a Church of England curate, and in June a church building fund was established. Little more was accomplished, however, until a tragic shipwreck in the Torres Strait in 1890 proved a catalyst for the construction of an Anglican church on Thursday Island.
On the night of 28 February 1890 the British mail and passenger ship SS Quetta struck an unchartered rock in the Adolphus Channel, off Albany Island, and sank with the loss of 133 lives. It remains one of Queensland's [and Australia's] worst maritime disasters. The ship was en route to Britain, and carried nearly 300 passengers, many of them from prominent Queensland families. Most of the Europeans on board were drowned, and the loss was felt throughout colonial Queensland.
Shortly after the accident a visiting Anglican priest, the Rev. AA Maclaren, conducted a burial service over the site of the wreck of the Quetta. At a meeting of the Thursday Island Church of England Committee on 10 April 1890, Rev. Maclaren proposed that members of the Anglican Church be invited to subscribe to the erection of a church on Thursday Island, as a memorial to those lost in the Quetta. The idea was put to a general meeting of Thursday Island's Anglican congregation, held at the courthouse on 20 July 1890 and chaired by Bishop Stanton, where it was resolved:
That in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable that a Church and Parsonage be erected on Thursday Island; the Church to be a fitting memorial of those who were lost in the wreck of the 'Quetta' on the night of February the 28th last, and that the Church Committee take the necessary steps for carrying this into effect.
Some discussion ensued as to whether the memorial should be a Union Church, but only an Anglican church could be erected on Church of England property.
The first step was to attract a resident minister. In 1891 a rectory was built from locally raised subscriptions. Situated on the high ground of the Church of England property, at the northeast end of the site, the rectory was highset on timber stumps, of exposed timber stud-framing, lined with deep chamferboards, and surrounded by verandahs. It had a centrally positioned front door, and french doors with fanlights opening onto the front verandah. Once the rectory was completed, Rev. Maitland Woods was installed as the first incumbent clergyman of the parish of Thursday Island, and canvassing began for funds for construction of a Memorial Church - a durable edifice, of artistic proportions, worthy of its commemorative intentions. Nearly £1600 was subscribed at this first appeal, from all over Australia and from Britain, and not restricted to Anglicans. Thursday Island's Presbyterians were particularly supportive of the project.
After considering the cost of brick or stone, the Church Building Committee decided that the memorial church should be constructed in concrete, and commissioned a design from John Hingeston Buckeridge, Brisbane's Anglican diocesan architect from February 1887 until 1902. Buckeridge designed about 60 churches in southern Queensland and later church and mission buildings in British New Guinea. Like many Queensland architects, he was declared bankrupt in 1892, following the collapse of the building industry during the depression of the early 1890s, and moved from Brisbane to Sydney. He prepared the design for the Quetta Memorial Church in 1892-93, most likely from Sydney. The original design was for a Gothic Revival style building with chancel, nave of 5 bays in length, aisles, bell tower spire, vestries, and side entrances. However, like many Queensland churches, the Quetta Memorial Church was constructed in stages, as funds became available, and was never completed as originally designed.
The Hon. John Douglas, Government Resident at Thursday Island and a staunch supporter of the project, laid the foundation stone on 24 May 1893. Six months later, on 12 November 1893, the completed sanctuary/chancel [built to slightly smaller dimensions than the original design] was consecrated by the Right Rev. Dr Barlow, the second Bishop of North Queensland, as All Souls Quetta Memorial Church. At this time Douglas made an appeal for the Bishop to permit clergymen of other Protestant denominations to conduct services in the church, but the Bishop made no formal statement on this.
By mid-1895 the chancel and four-fifths of the nave had been completed. The concrete side arches to the nave had been constructed, but were clad externally with temporary timber boarding, until the aisles could be built. A skillion-roofed timber vestry had been erected on the western side of the church, off the chancel. There was no debt on the building, but the Church Building Committee was anxious to complete Buckeridge's design, and a second appeal for funds was launched in 1895. At this time the church was promoted as a focus for missionary work in the Diocese of North Queensland, and already attracted numbers of Japanese and South Sea Islanders - groups prominent in the Torres Strait pearl-shell industry. At the same time the Bishop of North Queensland, Dr Barlow, was working toward the establishment of a new far northern diocese, the centre of which was likely to be at Thursday Island - in which case the Quetta Memorial Church would become a Cathedral.
It appears that by 1901 the aisles had been constructed, but in timber, which was a temporary measure. These had lancet windows along the sides, as in Buckeridge's original design. The building seated about 250 persons, in wooden chairs rather than pews, was already a place of pilgrimage, and something of a tourist attraction. A number of relics from the wreck of the Quetta were displayed, and there were various memorials to persons who had died in, or had been saved from, the Quetta, as well as relics or memorials to other Torres Strait shipwrecks. The association of the place with the Torres Strait, and with the sea, was very strong.
In the second half of the 1890s Bishop Barlow travelled to England, where he raised £10,000 as a minimum endowment for a new diocese, which produced a small annual income of £300. On 3 August 1900, the Diocese of Carpentaria was created, encompassing the Torres Strait, Cape York Peninsula, the Southern Gulf of Carpentaria and the whole of the Northern Territory. In Queensland the boundary of the new diocese extended to south of Port Douglas, with Cairns remaining in the Diocese of North Queensland. There was no large population centre in the whole of the new diocese. Access was principally by sea, and so Thursday Island, centrally located on a major shipping route, was chosen as the seat of the Bishop. The Ven. Gilbert White, Archdeacon of North Queensland, was consecrated as the first Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Carpentaria, at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, on St Bartholomew's Day, 24 August 1900, and was installed at Thursday Island on 18 November 1900. At this time the All Souls' Quetta Memorial Church became the All Souls' Cathedral Church and Quetta Memorial.
Thursday Island parishioners agreed that the Bishop should be appointed Dean of the Cathedral, with a Sub-Dean to be appointed to take charge of parochial matters. The cathedral was also to be used for parochial purposes. The existing rectory was to be taken over by the Diocese as the See House, or Bishop's House, and a new residence was to be provided for the clergyman of the Thursday Island parish.
The new Bishop had a formidable task ahead, and little funding. Fearing that it would be difficult to attract clergy to the Diocese, he proposed to establish a Diocesan theological training college on Thursday Island. This was made possible following an undertaking by Lord Beauchamp, Bishop of New Guinea, to support three students at the Theological Training College for three years, from 1 January 1901. The Primate of Australia and others contributed towards a fourth studentship. The new theological college was known as Bishop's College, and was established in the See House on Thursday Island, which in late 1900-early 1901 was enlarged to 11 rooms, providing accommodation for 4 college students, as well as the Bishop and the Thursday Island rector. It is likely that the side and rear verandahs were first enclosed at this stage, and there was an ecclesiastical arched timber balustrade to the front verandah by this date. Bishop White travelled widely through his diocese, and the See House on Thursday Island was used primarily as the Bishop's College. Lord Beauchamp later renewed his support, but the college closed in 1907 following the establishment of a parochial theological college at Nundah.
In 1901 Bishop White also attempted to establish a School for Girls in the Japanese Schoolroom at Thursday Island. A number of Japanese were very active in the Church of England on Thursday Island in the late 1890s. By January 1901 some Anglican services were being conducted in Japanese [through an interpreter], and the Japanese community had erected a small building known as the Japanese Schoolroom on Church of England property. Little is known about this building, but it seems to have been used mainly for conducting evening English classes. The building also served on occasions as a venue for Church meetings. Whether or not the venue was the deterrent, the Girls' School was not supported, and closed within a few months.
In the early 1900s both the Bishop and the local parish worked to improve the Church of England premises on Thursday Island. In the period 1901-04 a parish hall and a new rectory were erected, the whole of the church ground was fenced, a belltower was built, renovations were made to the Japanese Schoolroom, and additions were made to the South Sea Home - both the latter established on Church property in the 1890s.
By January 1902, with Bishop White's encouragement, the local parish had decided to erect a Parish Institute, a purpose-designed church hall in which to hold parochial meetings, social gatherings, church society meetings, a Sunday School, etc. The construction of this hall was considered essential to the expansion of the work of the parish. Funds were raised in 1902, tenders were called in October that year, and the foundation stone was laid by Hon. John Douglas, Government Resident and a Church of England warden, on 8 November 1902. The building was of timber construction, and measured 50ft by 25ft, with a 9ft deep verandah along front and sides. It was designed by John Hamilton Park, of Cairns, who had trained as an architect under FDG Stanley in the 1880s, and who in 1899 was foreman for the construction of military works on Thursday Island, where he also practised as an architect for a short period. The building was erected by contractors Byres and Young, of Thursday Island, and was officially opened by Bishop White on 21 January 1903.
Other ground improvements during the first half of 1903 included the construction of a belfry tower (with a bell purchased from Townsville), and the enclosure of the Cathedral grounds with a picket fence of 'gothic design' along Douglas Street, and wire netting at the rear of the property. The Japanese also raised funds to improve their school.
In October 1903 a deputation of prominent Thursday Island citizens, including the Hon. John Douglas, petitioned Bishop White to allow visiting clergymen of other denominations to preach at the Cathedral. The claim was made on the grounds that other denominations, particularly the Presbyterians, had contributed significantly to the construction of the Quetta Memorial Church in the 1890s. The Bishop deliberated over this, but having studied early minutes, it was clear that the original intention had been to erect an Anglican church, and in December 1903 he refused the petition. In February 1904 the Bishop modified his position by offering visiting ministers the use of the parish institute, but he would not be moved on the issue of use of the Cathedral.
In 1904 a new timber rectory was built in the church grounds, completed to accommodate a new minister and his wife who arrived on Thursday Island in September. Also, by October 1904, the South Sea Home, apparently situated on the Church of England property, had been extended.
A description of the Anglican community on Thursday Island in 1905 reveals a multi-cultural community, whose economy and culture were connected closely with the sea:
The congregation of the cathedral is an interesting one, comprising soldiers from the garrison, pearl-shellers, visitors form ships, South Sea Island and Japanese communicants, in addition to the white population, and often a detachment of native Christians from Mobiag or one of the other Torres Straits islands. Special prayer is offered daily for 'those engaged in fishing, travelling, or doing their business in the great waters,' and few strangers visit Thursday Island without a pilgrimage to the cathedral and its relics of the dangers of the deep.
Following the death of the Hon. John Douglas in 1904, it was decided to complete in concrete the northeast aisle of the cathedral as the Douglas Memorial Chapel, to serve for daily services and devotional meetings. Plans were commissioned from JH Buckeridge, but fund raising for this project took many years. The Chapel was finally opened on St Peter's Day, 29 June 1913. It contained a memorial stained glass window executed by Kayll and Reed of Leeds, of an elderly St John [in the likeness of John Douglas] at Patmos, which was donated by Torres Strait Islanders. Almost immediately, fundraising began for completion of the southwest aisle, which was opened on 20 June 1915. The new aisles deviated from Buckeridge's 1892 design, in that they now had rows of paired, lancet-shaped arched doors along the sides, which when opened, made the cathedral extremely light and cool.
A number of memorials were placed in the cathedral in the early years of the 20th century. These included:
# a marble plaque in memory of over 300 persons lost during the cyclone of 5 March 1899, which decimated the pearl-shell fleet and light-station staff off the east coast of Cape York Peninsula.
# a marble font dedicated on 9 November 1902 to the London Missionary Society missionaries Rev. James Chalmers and Rev. Oliver Tomkins, who were killed in British New Guinea in 1901. Rev. Chalmers had worked for many years in New Guinea, was well known in the Torres Strait and at Thursday Island, and the subscription for the memorial font was raised from amongst all sectors of the Thursday Island community, not just Anglicans. The original marble columns were replaced in 1973.
# a memorial brass tablet in honour of Hugh Milman, unveiled on 7 October 1913:
IN MEMORY OF HUGH MILMAN, Government Resident at Thursday Island, who served Queensland faithfully for thirty years. He was kind of heart, true to his friends, and an earnest supporter of this Church, which he served as Parochial Councillor and Churchwarden. He died September 23rd 1911.
# two memorial stained glass windows, ordered from England, dedicated in November 1915. One was in memory of Deaconess Buchanan, well known in northern Queensland at the time; the other was in memory of Mr and Mrs Alexander Archer, who were drowned in the Quetta. Mr Archer was an inspector with the Bank of New South Wales in Brisbane, and the memorial was subscribed to by senior members of the Bank staff.
Late in 1914 the London Missionary Society approached the Bishop of Carpentaria with a request that the Diocese take over the Society's Torres Strait Mission. The offer was accepted, and the hand-over was formalised in March 1915. On 1 July 1915 the Rev JJE Done was appointed to take charge of the Mission, establishing his headquarters on Mabuiag Island. In September a second priest was appointed to St Paul's on Moa Island [established c1906] and in 1917 a third priest was stationed at Darnley Island, taking over Darnley, Murray, Stephens and Massig [Yorke] islands. As Torres Strait Islanders converted from Congregational to Anglican practices, All Souls' Cathedral Church and Quetta Memorial became increasingly the focus of religious life in the Torres Strait.
During the Second World War most of the civilian population of Thursday Island was evacuated to the mainland, and the Island became a garrison town. During this period services continued to be held at the Cathedral, and oral history suggests that the church hall was requisitioned for military purposes.
The 1960s was a period of change within the Diocese of Carpentaria. The front of the cathedral was extended in 1964-65, but not to Buckeridge's original concept. In 1965 St Bartholomew was declared the patron saint of the Cathedral, which became known as The Cathedral Church of All Souls and St Bartholomew (Quetta Memorial). In 1968 the Diocese of Northern Territory separated from the Diocese of Carpentaria, and around this time the Bishop's House on Thursday Island was renovated, with substantial internal changes.
Memorials placed in the Cathedral in the late 20th century include a timber screen of very fine traditional Islander work, carved by Abia Ingui of Boigu Island, which was placed between the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and the low altar in 1989. Vibrant stained glass windows, designed by artist Oliver Cowley, were placed in the clerestory in the 1980s. In 1989 the Cathedral was re-roofed.
In 1996, after nearly a century, the Diocese of Carpentaria was re-absorbed by the Diocese of North Queensland. At this time the Bishop's House on Thursday Island was vacated. The Cathedral still provides an important focus for the Anglican parishes of the Torres Strait, which today comprise Bamaga, Coconut Island, Darnley & Stephen Islands, Kubin & Moa Islands, Mabuiag, Murray Island, Saibai & Dauan Islands, Thursday Island, and Yorke Island.
All Souls' and St Bartholomew's Cathedral Church (Quetta Memorial) remains a focus not only for Christian worship and ceremony in the Torres Strait, but also for Torres Strait Islander identity, and plays a leadership role in the community. The ceremonial signing of the Torres Strait Regional Agreement, along with a special church service, were celebrated here on 1 July 1994, a date co-inciding with the annual celebration of the 'Coming of the Light' [the arrival of Christian missionaries to the Strait on 1 July 1871]. A strong spirituality and sense of self-determination are considered by many Torres Strait Islanders to be the two pillars of local society: if one is missing, the community is 'unbalanced'.
","criteria":"The Quetta Memorial Precinct, Thursday Island, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history. As one of the earliest church precincts established in the Torres Strait, it provides evidence of the introduction of Christianity in the region, of the impact this has had on the lives of the people of the Torres Strait, and of the development of the town of Port Kennedy [later Thursday Island] as the bureaucratic and commercial centre of the region. As a memorial to the lives lost and saved in the wreck of the Quetta in 1890, the Cathedral in particular is illustrative of the nature of early non-indigenous settlement in northern Queensland, and the particular hazards of shipping at a period prior to the development of a comprehensive system of navigational aids along the Queensland coast. As the See House for the Diocese of Carpentaria for approximately 96 years, the Bishop's House has strong historical significance. It is important for its early association with the Bishop's College, the first far northern Anglican theological college, which was accommodated in the Bishop's House from 1901 to 1907.
|The Cathedral, with its relics and memorials to those lost in the Quetta and other Torres Strait shipwrecks, provides a unique historical record of these events. It is the only known memorial church in Queensland associated with maritime disasters.
|The Anglican Cathedral Precinct on Thursday Island remains a substantially intact church complex, with Bishop's House [1891], Cathedral [1893-1964], Parish Institute [1902-03] and Rectory [1904] extant within the original extent of the church grounds, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type. The Cathedral and church hall [Parish Institute] remain particularly fine examples of their type. The Cathedral is an excellent illustration of the imposition in an exotic location of the late 19th century colonial fashion for erecting Gothic Revival style church buildings, but adapted to local conditions [including climate, lack of local raw resources, the cost of importing materials, and the fledgling nature of the local parish] - as illustrated by the use of concrete rather than stone or brick, the provision of timber ventilation friezes along the top of the side walls of both nave and sanctuary/chancel, the modification of the architect's original design to include doors along the length of the aisles, and the construction in stages. The interior of the cathedral is highly intact, and contains many memorials. The late 19th/early 20th century sections of the cathedral are important in illustrating the range of the ecclesiastical work of architect John Hingeston Buckeridge, who was the Brisbane Anglican Diocesan architect from 1887 to 1902.
|The Quetta Memorial Precinct is an integral historical and aesthetic element of the Thursday Island townscape, and makes a significant contribution to the streetscape of Douglas Street. The cathedral and church hall make the strongest visual impact in the street. The interior of the cathedral produces a strong aesthetic experience, engendered by the high spaces, the arcaded aisles, the fine timber ceiling and exposed roof trusses, the stained glass memorial windows, the dark-stained timber pews and other church furnishings, and the number and variety of memorials.
|The Cathedral, Church Hall and Bishop's House are of social, cultural and spiritual importance to the people of the Torres Strait, and particularly to the Anglican community, for its association with the expansion of Christianity in the region. The Cathedral has been, and still is, a focus for worship for generations of Thursday Islanders, and is considered the 'mother church' and focus for Anglican religious activity in the Torres Strait. The Cathedral contains many relics and memorials associated with shipwrecks and with the sea, not just with the Quetta, and is intimately associated with Torres Strait culture and its identification with the sea. Many Torres Strait Islanders consider the Anglican precinct to be a sacred place, in the same sense as the original Kaurareg people would have regarded places as 'sacred'. The Cathedral has a special association also with the people of Queensland, as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the Quetta shipwreck of 28 February 1890, one of Queensland's [and Australia's] worst maritime disasters. From its inception, the Quetta Memorial has functioned as a place of pilgrimage and as a tourist attraction, has been visited by many prominent people, and is well known in Queensland. The Cathedral has acquired a mystique engendered by its dramatic origins, its memorial status, its longevity, and its tropical location. The Church Hall has been the focus of social and cultural activities on Thursday Island for close to a century, and the Bishop's House, which accommodated successive Bishops of the Diocese of Carpentaria from 1900 to 1996, is regarded by Thursday Islanders as a holy place.
|The precinct has a special association with the missionary work of the Church of England in Queensland [and in Australia]. Constructed initially by non-indigenous interests as a memorial to white colonialism, the Quetta Memorial was quickly transformed into the hub and focus of Christian life within the Torres Strait, and fostered the spread of Christianity through the islands. The life-histories of generations of Islanders are encompassed within this church, and the first indigenous Torres Strait Islander Anglican ministers were ordained here. The place is illustrative of the leadership role played by the Church in the Torres Strait.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16990,"place_ref":602169,"name":"Woody Island Lighthouses & Ancillary Building Site","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Woody Island","suburb":"HERVEY BAY","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-03-30","description":"Woody Island Falls within the Great Sandy approximately five kilometres due east of Urangan, between Fraser Island and the mainland. The island has an area of about 660 hectares of undulating terrain and is approximately eleven kilometres long by three kilometres wide. The island is heavily timbered with hardwood species. A central ridge divides the island, rising to about 80 metres above sea level. The slope is easy on the landward or western side and falls steeply to seaward, culminating in an abrupt and discontinuous rocky escarpment towards the north which extends for about nine and a half kilometres. A small sandy beach is located towards the southern seaward point.
The ground cover consists of sparse native grasses on two old lighthouse clearings and dune flats, with very little cover through the higher and timbered areas. The two lighthouse clearings are located at Middle Bluff and North Bluff. The lighthouses are no longer operational.
The site consists of the:
Middle Bluff Lighthouse and surrounding area:
The Middle Bluff lighthouse is relatively intact. It has a hardwood timber frame clad with timber weatherboards. The lamp and prisms have been removed and the lamp room glass has been replaced with plastic. The second landing window has been replaced with an aluminium one, while the lower landing window has been removed and built over. A steel mesh grill has been installed in the lighthouse.
Internally, a timber ladder leads from the lower section to the upper section, or lamp room, of the lighthouse. A smaller opening then leads to the deck of the lighthouse. The timber deck and iron railings are intact and in good condition. The position where the light was placed in the lamp room is also evident.
The remains of the lightkeeper's residence are located a few metres to the north of the lighthouse. The residence was removed in the 1960s and the remains are predominantly timber boards. Some of the stone paving surrounding the keeper's residence is discernible to the east of the lighthouse, however, it is not particularly clear at ground level and is better viewed from the deck of the lighthouse.
North Bluff Lighthouse and surrounding area
The North Bluff lighthouse is in a more dilapidated state than the Middle Bluff light. Similar to the Middle Bluff lighthouse, the North Bluff light has a frame of timber hardwood. Much of the timber weatherboard cladding is coming away from the frame. Nothing remains of the lamp room. Most of the timber deck and iron railings are evident, particularly on the northern side of the lighthouse, though some of the railings have fallen to the ground. The lighthouse is surrounded by timber posts which were once part of a fence, constructed in the 1950s.
The timber remains of the assistant lightkeeper's residence are located about four hundred metres to the south of the North Bluff light. Unlike the paving at the Middle Bluff light, the stone paving surrounding the position where the residence was located at North Bluff is very clear. The square position of the house is evident and the remains of a wood-fired stove remain. Glass, ceramic and other items found by the various tour groups, particularly school groups, have been placed in a large mound on the stone paving.
About twenty metres to the south of the residence is a large mature tree near a brick-lined depression which housed toilet facilities.
Site of Signal Mast, North Bluff:
The site of the Signal Mast is located to about 100 metres up a slight incline to the west of the former residence site. The site is defined by a circular rock-lined area with the remains of the Signal Mast in the middle. The signal mast is no longer extant with only a circular metal base with the remains of a coat of black pitch in situ.
Rock-lined Track:
The remains of the track are extant at Middle Bluff, the track, however, is not particularly clear. Following the path north the North Bluff lighthouse, the track becomes clearer. At one point, the track disappears and reappears further along. The rock-lined track runs for approximately four kilometres, apart from the section (of around one kilometre) where it disappears.
Telegraph Line:
The remains of the telegraph line include the first line [1870] which ran along the western side of Woody Island to the mainland at Urangan and on to Maryborough and the second line [1903] which ran along the eastern side from Jeffries Beach across to Fraser Island and the Sandy Cape Lightstation. The remains include the cast iron poles, some with cross arms and glass insulators still intact.
Graves Site:
The grave of Sarah May Hardie is located on the eastern side of Woody Island south of the North Bluff light. It is a concrete headstone with the words 'SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SARAH MAY HARDIE WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE AUG. 8 1883 AGED 19 YEARS "KEPT",' engraved on it. It is surrounded by a recently constructed painted, timber, picket fence. The remains of the original fence are located near the grave. The original fence posts are timber with decorative, chamfered tops.
A number of other unmarked graves are thought to be located in the same area as Sarah Hardie's grave. The exact location of these, however, is not clear. There are reputedly nine graves on Woody Island.
Gas Shed and Gas Pipeline:
The kerosene shed is a single storey, timber framed shed, with a gable roof clad with recent corrugated, galvanised iron, with a skillion roof extension. At the rear [western] elevation, the building has a small, copper [painted white] piping. This piping was laid underground and extended up the ridge to the Middle Bluff lighthouse. The copper pipeline is still extant and visible is some places along the track leading to the Middle Bluff lighthouse. The pipeline is surrounded by square, fibro sheeting.
","history":"The twin, timber lighthouses, and lightkeeper's residence at North Bluff, were constructed in 1866 to designs prepared by the Office of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin. A second residence was constructed at Middle Bluff in 1868.
Up until 10 December 1859, the colony of New South Wales extended as far north as Cape York Peninsula. In 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline which had few safety features in place, and became responsible for all navigation lights and harbours along this coastline. At the time the only lighthouse which existed had been built at Cape Moreton [600257] by the New South Wales Government in 1857.
By 1859, Maryborough, first settled in 1847, was already operating as a port of some importance. The main export was wool from the inland areas. Migrant ships were also coming into Maryborough. Ships coming into Maryborough had to enter through Hervey Bay, an area full of sandbanks, on which ships could easily become stranded. A channel, with a minimum of over five metres of water at low tide, ran down the middle of the Bay, past the east of Woody Island, along Fraser Island and into the Mary River.
In 1862, the Queensland government had appointed a Portmaster, Commander GP [George Poynter] Heath and had passed the Marine Board Act 1862. GP Heath [1830-1921] was born at Hanworth, in Norfolk, England. Late in 1859 as a lieutenant, he applied for the government post of marine surveyor in the new colony of Queensland and was appointed. In his thirty-three tenure of office in what became the sub-department of harbours, lighthouses and pilots, Heath was responsible for supervising the opening of 13 new ports, establishing 33 lighthouses, 6 lightships and 150 small lights and marking the inner route of the barrier reef. In November 1887 he retired from public service because of ill health and later returned to England.
In the two years following the establishment of the Marine Board Act 1862, due to a lack of funds to spend on marine safety, activity concentrated on dealing with pilots and harbour lights, The issue of coastal lights was not taken up until 25 May 1864, when Members of the Legislative Assembly moved that a Select Committee be appointed to inquiry into and report upon the state of the harbours and rivers in the colony. The Committee consisted of Messrs Macalister, Douglas, Sandeman, Cribb, Challinor and Bell and convened for the first time on 27 May 1864. The Committee widened the terms of reference to include the question of the necessity of additional lighthouses on the coast of Australia, within the colony of Queensland.
In a 'Notice to Mariners' in the Government Gazette, in 1865, mention was made of the Burrum River which formed part of Hervey Bay, and that, when property beaconed and buoyed, the river would be easy steamers and small craft to navigate. In the same year, orders were sent for two lights for Hervey's Bay, as Hervey Bay was then known. Towers for fourth order, fixed [non-flashing] lights1 on Woody Island were completed by contract in 1866 and the lanterns were placed and fixed by the pilot's boat crew in 1867. Bringing the lenses and holophotes2 down from Maryborough and getting them up into the lanterns and finally adjusting them, took around ten days.
A call for tenders for the construction of lighthouses and a lightkeeper's cottage on Woody Island was advertised in the Maryborough Chronicle on 26 May 1866. Plans and specifications for the buildings were available in the Harbor Office in Maryborough. It is likely that the design for the lighthouses and the original lightkeeper's cottage at North Bluff was prepared by the Office of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin. The Office prepared the specifications for the cottage at Middle Bluff two years later [1868]. The plans were likely to have been overseen by Robert Ferguson. Ferguson was employed by Tiffin as a temporary foreman of works from 1864-1870, where, in 1867, wrote specifications for and oversaw construction of the lighthouses at Bustard Head and Sandy Cape.
John Simpson was appointed as the first lightkeeper of Woody Island and the lighthouses became operational on 1 October 1867. The two lights were considered as one unit, twin lights that lined up with each other. In the Government Gazette in 1867, Portmaster, GP Heath described how the lights operated together in order to guide vessels through Hervey Bay:
When entering Hervey's Bay, steer so as to pass one or two miles of the Fairway Buoy, until the two lights on Woody Island are visible, and a brought into line. Steer with the lights in one ...until the two lights are almost on the same level ... keep a look-out for the red buoy ... On sighting the buoy, steer ... [directions given] ... for the red buoy off the Woody Island Spit ... When the lights are seen to become red at the same time, a vessel is about one-third of distance from the spit across the channel ... From thence, steer to pass ... as usual ... until the high light [Middle Bluff light] is obscured ... Steer SSW until the light again opens out as a bright light ... from which a course must be ... shaped for the river heads...
Initially, a keeper's house was built at North Bluff. The main light was positioned south at Middle Bluff, however, keeper's quarters were not constructed at Middle Bluff until 1868. Both lights had signal masts and a storage shed was built on the beach at Middle Bluff, on the eastern side of the island, to store kerosene for the lighthouse along with other provisions.
The lamps and burners were the first of that size and description ever constructed for petroleum oil, and burnt with great certainty and less variation of flame than other petroleum burners. The Portmaster was concerned, however, as to whether he was justified in having only one lightkeeper on the island, considering its nearness to Fraser Island. The lights were two nautical miles apart, over a bad road, and the keeper, while at one light, left his family unprotected near the other lighthouse. Also, in the case of sudden illness, there was no person able to light the distant light, which might have led to very serious results.
The issue regarding the safety of the lightkeeper and his family was resolved in 1868, when an assistant lightkeeper was stationed at the upper lighthouse [North Bluff] and a house built nearby. The contract for the cottage for the assistant lightkeeper went to Messrs Pawson and Humberstone for £127, and was built from drawings and specifications prepared by the Office of the Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin. The telegraph line was completed to Woody Island about 1870, thus allowing the lightkeeper at the lower lights to communicate the approach of vessels from the northward, and the assistant, the approach of those from the southward.
The Portmaster proposed a line of telegraph between Woody Island and Maryborough, not only on account of any accident which might happen to the lights or lightkeeper, and as an instalment of the line which must eventually be carried on to Sandy Cape when the lighthouse was established there, but as a consequence to vessels arriving in Hervey Bay, or passing through the Great Sandy Strait, and wishing to communicate with Maryborough or any other station without going the thirty miles up the river and back again unnecessarily.
In 1870, the telegraph line was established and Woody Island was connected to the mainland and Maryborough. The line crossed underwater from Urangan and was carried on iron poles imported from England up to the Middle Bluff lighthouse. In 1903, the telegraph line was connected to the Sandy Cape Lightstation from the Middle Bluff light. The line was carried on iron poles down to the eastern shore of the Island to a point known as Jefferies Beach, where the cable again went underwater to Fraser Island.
In 1871, Woody Island was listed as a reserve for the Acclimatisation Society. This reserve was in place until 1959. During their time of association on the Island, the Society introduced several pairs of rabbits in 1866. Rabbits remained on Woody Island until 1952 when myxomatosis was carried to the island via mosquitoes and the rabbit population was killed off. Also, in 1871, one of the lightkeepers, Mr Sheridan, introduced 200 coconut trees to Woody Island, of only one of which has survived.
The first lightkeeper, John Simpson, remained at Woody Island until 1870, when he was transferred to the Sandy Cape Lightstation. Simpson's replacement was Peter Hardie, lightkeeper, who remained on Woody Island until 1897. In 1883, Hardie's daughter, Sarah May Hardie, died of lung congestion and was buried south of North Bluff. It is thought that a number of other unmarked graves are located in the area.
During the period when the lighthouses were operational, Woody Island was predominantly cleared of vegetation, this enabled a clear view to the lights and the signal masts from the mainland. Today, regrowth covers much of Woody Island.
The North Bluff light was converted to an unwatched automatic light on 21 June 1937 running on gas. The keeper was no longer employed but remained in the house. The North Bluff Lighthouse was closed on 17 June 1959, at the same time, the Middle Bluff Lighthouse was automated, running on gas. In April 1960, Woody Island was gazetted as a national park. The gazettal of Little Woody Island as a national park followed in February 1977.
Following the automation of the Middle Bluff Lighthouse in 1959, the keepers' residences at Middle and North Bluff were demolished during the 1960s. In 1985, Middle Bluff Lighthouse was converted to solar power, only to be closed two years later in 1987.
Some maintenance and conservation work has been undertaken in the last few years by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, particularly to the Middle Bluff Lighthouse. With reasonably easy access to Woody Island from nearby Hervey Bay, school and other tour groups are regular visitors to the island.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1866, while not forming part of the major lighthouses constructed along the Queensland coast from the late 1860s to 1890, the Woody Island Lighthouses and Ancillary Buildings site is significant in demonstrating Queensland's history, occupying an integral part in understanding the establishment of maritime navigational aids along the Queensland coast, and reflects the growth and development of Queensland after its separation from New South Wales. The site survives as an important illustration of the early industrial development of Queensland, and of the settlement of the Maryborough/Hervey Bay in particular, and the geographical importance of the area for maritime and communication purposes.
The Woody Island Lighthouses and Ancillary Buildings Site is associated with Commander George Poynter Heath, the first Portmaster of Queensland [1862-1890], a significant figure in the development of the Queensland lighthouse service. Heath was responsible for supervising the opening of 13 new ports, establishing 33 lighthouses, 6 lightships and 150 small lights and marking the inner route through the Barrier Reef.
|The Woody Island lighthouses are further significant as rare examples of twin lighthouses constructed along the Queensland coast.
|With further archaeological and historical research and analysis, the place has the potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history and early maritime technology and to reveal further information about infrastructure and other grave sites associated with the lightstation and with the history of Woody Island.
|Constructed using an octagonal, timber-framed tower clad with weatherboards, the Woody Island lighthouses are significant as early examples of this type of construction, typically found in Queensland. The use of timber framing [usually clad with iron] was even more frequent following the construction of the Lady Elliot Island lighthouse in 1873.
|The ambience of the lighthouses, including the ruins and the overgrown vegetation, combined with their distinctive positions on the Island, overlooking Hervey Bay, the Great Sandy Strait and neighbouring Fraser Island and Little Woody Island, creates a strong aesthetic appeal which has attracted public interest and has invited 'exploration', for many years.
|For the Hervey Bay and Maryborough communities, the place has a strong association with their heritage.
The Woody Island Lighthouses and Ancillary Buildings Site is especially significant for its strong association with the life of the lightkeepers, their families and maintenance and stores people, who contributed to the continuum of a system dedicated to the single aim of maintaining the navigational aids for a period of nearly 120 years.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16991,"place_ref":602170,"name":"St Andrews War Memorial Hospital Administration Building","alternate_name":"Emmanuel College | St Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Building","street_address":"465 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-03-24","description":"St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Block is a two storey, rendered masonry building located on Wickham Terrace, opposite Albert Park. A brick retaining wall with two entrances fronts Wickham Terrace, together with a small garden area with two flagpoles. The building is rectangular in form and is comprised of three sections which present a symmetrical façade to the street. A central section with a pyramidal roof of corrugated steel is flanked by two wings with hip roofs clad in half-round, terracotta tiles. The roofs have deep, boxed eaves with decorative brackets and timber panelled soffit.
The lower section of the ground floor is strongly expressed as a base with a rusticated ashlar-like finish to the render. The upper part of the façade is subdivided by a string course at the sill level of the upper floor windows. The exterior of the building features regularly placed rectangular windows, taller on the ground floor and smaller at the upper level with rectangular moulded panels between them. A number of timber, multi-paned casement windows and fanlights survive although many others have been replaced with aluminium framed windows in order to accommodate air conditioners. The main entrance is located to one side of the central section and has a concrete awning with recent automatic door. An ornate, arched doorway recessed into the wall is found at the western end of the Wickham Terrace façade. The door itself has five raised horizontal timber panels with an arched timber fanlight and is richly ornamented with a cartouche above the fanlight.
At the rear of the building, evidence of the 1860s house is apparent. The central section is painted sandstone ashlar with several original window openings and a sandstone chimney. In the interior of this section some of the planning of the former residence is discernible and several door openings, mouldings and sections of timber floor remain. The chimney-breast can be seen at both ground and first floor levels and an early dog-leg staircase with balustrade and curved handrail remain. This section of the building has been altered over time. Many of the rooms have decorated plaster ceilings and deep cornices with Art Nouveau inspired ornamentation. The front entrance to the building opens into a hallway space and reception area that has a recent, low ceiling of acoustic tiles and a timber reception desk. Central hallways run from the entry area through both the western and eastern wings.
On both levels of these wings the planning is essentially that of the former Emmanuel College with rows of equal-sized, small rooms located either side of the hallway. Most of these have decorative plaster ceilings and cornices. The far western end of the building departs from this pattern. On the ground floor, a board room is located in the north-western corner, the room has been recently decorated and has padded wall panelling up to picture rail height. A dog-leg staircase is located outside the board room and has curvilinear, wrought iron balusters and a curved timber handrail.
At the top of this staircase is an entrance doorway to a suite of rooms, articulated as a separate apartment. The entrance door has the stylised appearance of an external door with large hammered-finish, decorative copper hinges, leadlight window and wrought iron door knocker and peephole. A small vestibule is separated from the main rooms of the apartment by a pair of swinging leadlight doors with an Art Deco influence. The main two rooms are panelled in two toned timber with a plate rail and highly decorative ceiling edges and cornice. A recent partition has been inserted into this area dividing it into three small rooms. A brick fireplace is located in the north-west corner. The other two rooms of the apartment are finished in smooth render with decorative ceilings. A bathroom is located at the end of the hall at the west end of the building and appears to have been part of the apartment. The walls are tiled in white, oblong ceramic tiles with a black tiled edge and a random placement of richly coloured Art Deco style tiles. The floor is finished in black and white tiles with a Greek key patterned edge.
","history":"St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Building is a two storey rendered masonry building, the greater part of which was constructed in 1931 and 1936, and that also encompasses sections of a residence owned by Sir Charles Lilley dating from the late 1860s. From 1912 to 1954, the building was occupied by Emmanuel College, the Presbyterian college of residence of the University of Queensland. From 1954, it has been part of St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital.
Crown land along Leichardt Street and Wickham Terrace was sold from 1856 marking the beginning of the development of Spring Hill, the "second northside suburb within the old town boundary of Brisbane". The meandering ridge roads of Wickham and Gregory Terrace were cleared of eucalyptus forest and indigenous communities in the late 1850s to 1870s to make way for the residences of the Brisbane elite. One of these was judge and politician, Sir Charles Lilley. Between 1863 and 1889, several parcels of land in the block now bounded by Bradley Street, Boundary Street, Wickham Terrace and North Street were purchased by Lilley or his trustees.
An article in the Queenslander, 29 May 1930, claims that Lilley built Jesmond Cottage, a "one storeyed stone dwelling with slate roof" in Spring Hill around the time of his premiership in the late 1860s. As his family grew, it is believed that he added a two storey stone extension and acquired or built an adjacent cottage which was used as accommodation for his sons.
Lilley emigrated to Sydney in 1856 but soon moved to Brisbane where he worked in the law and as an editor for the Moreton Bay Courier. In 1858, he married Sarah Jane Jeays, the daughter of Brisbane architect Joshua Jeays. Lilley's legal and political career advanced during the 1860s and 1870s. In 1860, he was elected MLA for Fortitude Valley and became Attorney-General in Macalister's ministry in 1866 and 1867. He was Premier of Queensland from 1868-1870, appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1879 and received a knighthood in 1881. He is best remembered as a champion of free education as his 1870 Act introduced free primary education in Queensland. Sir Charles Lilley died in 1897, leaving a widow and thirteen children. The site in Spring Hill remained in the hands of his trustees until the death of his son, Edwyn Mitford Lilley in 1911, at which point the land was subdivided and sold.
Following the opening of the University of Queensland at Garden's Point in March 1911, Emmanuel College purchased over an acre of land on Wickham Terrace towards the end of the year. Emmanuel College was the Presbyterian Church's residential college and Theological Hall and was one of the first residential colleges to be established, along with St. John's and King's Colleges in Kangaroo Point in 1912, Women's College also at Kangaroo Point in 1914 and St. Leo's also on Wickham Terrace in 1918. None of these other early college buildings have survived.
The Presbyterian College Committee was formed in 1910 and £856 was subscribed towards the costs of buying suitable premises for a college by a large number of Brisbane residents. The decision was made to purchase the former Lilley residence, then being used as a boarding house, and the college opened with five students on 15 May, 1912. For twelve years this remained the principal building of the College. Also on the site were a separate kitchen block and three cottages. The cottage on the block of land bordered by Bradley and Boundary Streets was pulled down and the land sold within a few years of the establishment of the College. The timber cottage to the West and facing Wickham Terrace was used as the Principal's residence and demolished in 1936 and another facing Bradley Street provided quarters for the domestic staff.
A two storey fibro-cement building, at the eastern end and perpendicular to the buildings facing Wickham Terrace, was completed in 1923. Initially this building had twelve students' rooms on the top floor and a dining room and billiard room on the first floor with showers and bathrooms in a basement at the north end of the building. In 1927, a three storey brick building comprising a new dining hall, kitchen and student rooms was completed at a cost of £5000. The old kitchen block was also demolished at this time. In 1931, the stone house was extensively remodelled with the addition of a two storey cement wing on the eastern side, the rendering of the original stonework and changes to window openings. These alterations were designed by Brisbane architect D.F.W Roberts and cost £2750. A western wing was constructed in 1936 to a cost of £6500. The detailing is the similar to the earlier alterations but it is not known whether Roberts was also involved in this extension.
After World War Two the University re-located from Garden's Point to St. Lucia and Emmanuel College moved to new premises at the same time. In 1954, the old Emmanuel College was purchased by the Presbyterian Church of Queensland for the establishment of a private hospital. In May 1958, the St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital opened with a surgical ward, medical ward and a small children's ward. The church bought most of the remaining land on the block bounded by Wickham Terrace, Boundary, North and Bradley Streets during the 1950s and 60s and the hospital has continued to develop the site in succeeding decades. The main building of the former Emmanuel College has become the front of the hospital and has been used variously for administrative purposes, nurses' accommodation and the children's ward. The building is currently used as offices by the hospital administration.
","criteria":"St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Building is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, representing the development of the Spring Hill area from it's earliest residential development through to institutional uses across the twentieth century.
From 1954, the administration building has been associated with St. Andrew's Hospital, demonstrating changes in nursing and health practices.
|As the last remaining example of an early residential college in Brisbane city, dating from the time that the University of Queensland was located in the city, St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Building demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Building has the potential to yield information about 1860s houses in Brisbane.
|It has aesthetic significance due to the quality of it's design and decorative details. In particular, the building makes an important contribution to the Wickham Terrace streetscape.
|From 1912 until the College re-located to St. Lucia after World War Two, the Wickham Terrace college building was a hub of student life and the Theological Hall of the Presbyterian church.
|The place has a strong association with Emmanuel College, the Presbyterian Church and with St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital.
St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital Administration Building has a special association with Sir Charles Lilley, a former Premier and Chief Justice of Queensland and campaigner for free education in the state, as it encompasses sections of his residence dating from the 1860s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16992,"place_ref":602171,"name":"La Boite Theatre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"69 Hale Street","suburb":"PETRIE TERRACE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-01-30","description":"La Boite Theatre illustrates its name, being literally a box-shaped brick building with rounded corners. It is constructed of dark reject bricks with texture created by variations in the way in which the bricks are laid in the lower section. The roof is metal clad and low pitched.
The building is designed over three levels. On the ground floor is the foyer, flanked by small lobbies and a ticket office with the auditorium seating 200 behind it. This contains a central acting space with seating around it. Tunnels are located under the raked seating and provide access for the actors to different parts of the stage.
There is rehearsal space, a workshop, storage, office and dressing rooms in a basement area below the stage and a gallery above. A brick-paved courtyard opens off the foyer.
","history":"La Boite Theatre was built in 1972 to the design of Brisbane architect Blair Wilson for the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Company.
The Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society was founded in 1925 by a group of local theatre enthusiasts led by Barbara Sisley and Professor J J Stable. Their stated object was 'to stimulate public interest and to promote public education in the drama and to promote and encourage the study and development of the best in dramatic literature and art.' Their first play was 'The Dover Road' by AA Milne and in 1926 they performed an Australian play and decided that they would in future include at least one Australian play in each year's programme. In 1931 they held their inaugural Australian Playwriting Competition, the winning play causing controversy when it was performed because of its realistic subject matter and coarse language. It was a sign of things to come. The theatre company became known for its production of modern and innovative theatre. They are now Australia's oldest continuously running theatre company.
The group has performed in many theatres including Her Majesty's, the Bohemia, Cremorne, Theatre Royal, Rialto, Old and New Albert Halls and held a lease on the Princess Theatre in South Brisbane for several years. However, one by one theatres closed and with the demolition of the Albert Hall in 1967, the last available and affordable venue for productions in the central city area was lost. The society looked for a way to continue productions and decided to establish a permanent home 'where the theatre's image could flourish and members would be welcome at all times'.
The society had acquired two timber cottages on the corner of Hale and Sexton Streets, Petrie Terrace in the late 1950s for use as clubrooms. They then purchased adjoining properties and decided to convert one of the houses into a theatre-in-the-round. There were several reasons for this decision. To begin with, there was no existing theatre in the round in Brisbane, even though some experimental productions in this style had been well received. In 1965 an experimental in the round performance was held in the converted house in Sexton Street.
Theatre in the round would extend the range of theatrical experience available to the Brisbane public and allow actors and directors to employ new techniques. There was an increasing overseas trend for more flexible performance space and a theatre in the round offered the simplest and cheapest way of achieving this. The equipment and scenery needed was not as elaborate as that required for a conventional theatre and seating capacity could be smaller so that an existing building could be utilised.
The converted cottage seated 65 people and opened for performances in June 1967. In spite of the small space and limited technical facilities, a lack of proper seating and air conditioning, the new theatre was an artistic success. It was named La Boite (The Box) to acknowledge its box-like shape.
Theatre-in-the-round, where the audience surrounds the players, is an ancient way of presenting performances but was new as a 20th century theatrical form. It was an outcome of ideas developed in the first decades of the century in reaction to the restrictions of traditional theatre. At the time, theatres provided elaborate settings were the audience went to see and be seen and were seated on the ground floor and in rows of tiers and boxes facing a picture frame stage. Scenery and costumes were elaborate; acting was exaggerated in style and productions expensive to mount. Changes included simplification of settings and the use of lighting as an integral part of the performance, rather than just as means of illuminating the players.
In a reaction to the proscenium stage, a movement began in the mid-20th century to design theatres with the performing area placed centrally in the auditorium. The placing of the audience around the performers rather than in front of them permitted a much closer relationship between actors and audience to develop. Margo Jones in Dallas, Texas, who studied this concept and used it for productions, wrote an influential book on her work, Theater-in-the-Round (1951). Notable examples of theatres associated with developing this concept are the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, USA (1961) and the Royal Exchange in Manchester, England (1976).
The remaining cottages at Milton were used as studio, workshop and storage areas. Brisbane Repertory Theatre mounted more than forty productions over the next four years and their space needs became pressing. Brisbane City Council approval for a new theatre replacing the converted house was granted in 1971. It was also to be a theatre in the round, though this time designed and built for the purpose. Blair Wilson of Brisbane firm R Martin Wilson & Sons created the design with input from the theatre's Artistic Director, Jennifer Blocksidge. It was the first purpose built arena theatre in Australia, the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney using a converted space for its performances.
The building construction was financed by a dollar-for-dollar grant of $40 000 from the State Government in November 1971. The 'dream theatre' designed by Blair Wilson was originally costed at $100,000, but it was found possible to reduce this to the available budget of $80,000 and retain the original design. This was done by modifying some details, reusing lighting and sound equipment from the old building and reducing costs for materials and finishes. The Governor, Sir Alan Mansfield, planted a time capsule in the foundations on 28 November 1971.
Utilising reject bricks that had chipped corners or minor irregularities of shape effected a major saving. Blair Wilson subsequently won the Industry Clay Brick Award for creative use of brick and the distinctive dark bricks forming a curvaceous box are a strong feature of the design. It was felt by a number of people visiting the theatre that the slight irregularities of the bricks imparted character and a demand for similar bricks were experienced by the supplier. Externally a small courtyard leading off the foyer proved a pleasant social space for use at intermission. The interior had tiers of seating on all four sides of the building surrounding a central stage. One bank of seats was made removable. The finish was simple and modern with a suspended black ceiling and exposed brick walls. Tunnels under the seating tiers allowed performers to move around the theatre without being visible.
The succeeding Governor, Sir Colin Hannah, officially opened the theatre on 11 June 1972. The Courier Mail noted at the time that the Brisbane Repertory Theatre had made Australian theatre history by owning the first theatre in the country to be designed and built 'in the round', a significant departure from traditional theatre design. Internal changes have occurred to the theatre since, but the essential design elements remain. In 1988 seats from the Expo 88 Russian Pavilion replaced the original seating.
Brisbane Repertory Theatre continued to be innovative and established the Early Childhood Drama Project in 1975 and held its first season of all Australian plays in 1980. In 1993 it became a professional company. As such, its needs were somewhat different than those of the amateur company for which the theatre was designed. A need for more space and the development of nearby Lang Park stadium prompted consideration of a move. In 1996 La Boite incorporated as a non-profit organization.
The theatre was used as a venue by the Queensland Theatre Company in the 1970s and continues to be used by a variety of local occasional companies, as well as presenting an annual season of productions by La Boite Theatre Inc. Since 2000 the Company has also been using the Powerhouse theatre for performances.
On 23 December 2001 it was announced that the theatre company would move to the new Creative Industries Complex at Kelvin Grove and administrative and rehearsal functions moved to the Dixon Centre at West End. Work began on the new theatre in 2002 and the Company plans to open in the new location in 2004.
","criteria":"La Boite Theatre illustrates the development of theatre in Queensland, as an arena theatre, which allowed the presentation of modern, flexible and intimate performances, reflecting trends in Europe and America, and rejuvenating amateur theatre in Queensland. It is also important as a purpose designed building for a longstanding and popular theatre company who have played an important role in the arts in Queensland.
|La Boite Theatre is rare as the first purpose designed theatre-in-the-round in Queensland.
|The design for La Boite Theatre won a building industry award for the innovative use of material and is also innovative in form, the exterior expressing the name, which means 'The Box' and was carried forward from the earlier theatre, converted from a cottage.
|La Boite Theatre is strongly connected with the development of the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Company, for which it was specifically designed and which has housed it for 30 years. The company took its name from the building when incorporated.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16993,"place_ref":602172,"name":"Boolboonda State Primary School (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Boolboonda Tunnel Road","suburb":"GIN GIN","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2000-08-25","description":"The Boolboonda State School is located at Tunnel Road, Boolboonda on a large portion of land which slopes gently away from the road entry. The school building is sited well back from the road amongst a cluster mature trees, of mixed species, which create an intimate sense of enclosure around the structure. An earth closet is located to the rear of the school building further up the slope.
The school building is a timber framed and weatherboard clad structure, rectangular in plan and elevated slightly above the ground on timber stumps. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and is comprised of a central gable and verandah skillion roofs to the front and rear of the building. Timber louvred vents punctuate both gable ends. Storm water from the roof is collected in two corrugated metal sheet water tanks located on the eastern side of the building.
Entry to the school is by a set of stairs to the front northern verandah which appears to have once extended the entire width of the building. This verandah is now enclosed at the eastern end. The rear verandah is a later addition to the building and is partially enclosed at both ends creating a semi enclosed space. The balustrade to the front verandah is comprised of a top and middle rail while the rear verandah balustrade has a top and bottom rail with timber batten infill.
Windows to the building are all double hung however vary from a six pane configuration on the eastern and western elevations to a four pane configuration on the northern and southern elevations On the western elevation a timber framed sun hood shelter a bank of three double hung windows while on the eastern face metal sunhoods are set over single double hung windows set central to the school building and verandah enclosure.
Internally the school building is a single volume space with a small verandah enclosure in the north east corner. The floor is unfinished timber boarding and the walls and ceiling are lined with timber T&G boards. The ceiling follows the gable roof form but is truncated across the apex of the roof.
The outhouse to the rear of the school building is timber framed and clad with weatherboards and has a simple vertical timber batten screen to its entry. The roof is a single sheet of curved corrugated metal sheeting.
","history":"A school had been established with the construction of the Mount Perry railway line in the period of 1879-1884 to service the educational needs of children of railway workers employed by the contractors O'Rourke & McSharry. The original school closed with the completion of the Bundaberg-Mount Perry railway line in 1884. In 1896 a local committee proposed that the Department of Public Instruction establish a school for local children of the Boolboonda area. The School opened in 1897 and in 1909 was declared a State School. It was closed for enrolments in 1973.
The Mount Perry railway ( originally known as the Bundaberg Railway) was built by the Queensland Government to service the Mount Perry copper mines. The construction of the railway line to Mount Perry opened up the district to large scale commerce whereby freighting of grain increased from 197 tons in 1882 to 766 tons in 1886 and timber from the nearby Watawa area grew from three tons in 1883 to 3,753 tons in 1884. With the advent of the railway, a growing number of families were to settle in the area, especially those associated with the maintenance of the Mount Perry railway line. It was these local families that would agitate for the establishment of a school. Enrolments were received from the farming component of the community, railway workers, and also with miners associated with the exploitation of wolfram and molybdenite in the Boolboonda area.
The first letter of application for the establishment of a school at Boolboonda was sent on behalf of four residents with twenty children aged between five and thirteen, all living within a ten kilometre radius of the proposed school location. The nearest school maintained by the State was at Drummer's Creek (Dingle Dell) some eight kilometres distant. A building Committee was elected on 16 May 1896, consisting of William Wormington, Peter Campbell and Henry McDade.
The original proposed site was to be on ten acres of land, to the north of the Mount Perry railway line. The Department of Public Instruction applied for the use of this land which was part of the railway reserve. The Railway Department rejected this request, and instead selected a second location on the southern side of the railway line, all being part of a forfeited mineral lease. Construction of the building took place between October 1896 and January 1897, although surveying of the proposed school reserve still had yet to be undertaken.
The school was completed on 23 January 1897, and was inspected by the Head Teacher at Mount Perry. Cost of the building totalled £97.14.0. The school was opened as a Provisional School on 22 March 1897, the first teacher appointed was Kate Ruddy, and some twenty-four children were enrolled in first year.
The concept of a provisional school was developed to cope with increase in the number of new settlements and townships in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The government developed a criterion whereby a minimum of 30 children was required in an area before a school would be erected. In areas such as Boolboonda, where this criteria could not be met, the government gave financial assistance to local committees to establish provisional schools. Provisional schools were regarded as an interim measure until a state school could be built and were often hastily erected by voluntary labour using basic materials. These schools were seen as a convenient means of providing elementary education throughout the colony and soon became an integral part of the educational landscape.
In 1909 the school changed in status from a Provisional to a State School, Class 10. Some two years later with the increasing number of enrolments (thirty eight in 1911), the school committee requested that an additional verandah be constructed. The work was carried out in September for a cost of £29.15.0
The Boolboonda State School in the period of 1916-23 experienced a great deal of tension and conflict between some of the school committee members and the Head Teachers (themselves local people). An inquiry was conducted in 1922, a result of which was the transfer of a local teacher and the appointment of one from outside of the district.
The average number of children who attended the Boolboonda State School varied from 16 children in 1897 to a high of 25 children in 1903, and again in 1922. Attendances climbed at the end of the 1940s and remained high until the middle of the 1950s. Numbers then averaged at around sixteen until the middle of the 1960s but experienced a decline post 1966. With a declining attendance of local children of around seven in the period of 1967 -1972, the decision was taken to close the Boolboonda Sate School in February 1973.
From 1897 until its closure in 1973 some eighteen teachers taught at the Boolboonda State School. The longest serving of these was Margaret Campbell who was teacher at Boolboonda from 1926 until 1958.
After closure the Boolboonda State School grounds and building were then held in trust by local residents and used as a community meeting area until the Kolan Shire Council became trustee in the early 1980's. The land is now a Reserve for Park and Recreation with the Kolan Shire Council as Trustee of the reserve and building.
","criteria":"As an intact example of a provisional school constructed at the end of the nineteenth century and with little change or modification to the building, it serves as an important reminder of the development of state education to rural communities throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
|The grounds include a variety of mature plantings that create a picturesque surround to the school buildings.
|The Boolboonda School, as with many educational institutions, forms a strong axis around which the community revolves. The Boolboonda and surrounding district residents have used the school for educational purposes, as a meeting place, for public functions and over the years has been a central gathering place for the residents of the area. The community's sense of association with the place has been strengthened by the fact that the residents of the Boolboonda area paid for the purchase of the land and former school following its closure. Accordingly, the educational component of the cultural heritage of community would be retained within the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17003,"place_ref":602184,"name":"Tieri War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Talagai Avenue","suburb":"TIERI","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-06-29","description":"The Tieri War Memorial comprises two large pieces of petrified wood. One piece is dedicated as a memorial to those who fought in World Wars One and Two and the second piece is dedicated as a memorial to those who served in the Vietnam War, including a brass plaque dedicated to the memory of Cliff ['Cliffy'] Bond, who served in Vietnam, Malaya and Borneo.
The petrified pieces are partly enclosed on one side by a low brick wall. A number of plaques are located on the wall. One plaque commemorates those from the Peak Downs area who served in World Wars One and Two. A second plaque commemorates the tracker dogs of the Vietnam War, [including the names of the eleven dogs] and a third plaque commemorates VJ Day.
A group of pencil pines create an avenue toward the memorial and a number of Gallipoli pines are located to the rear of the structure. Flag poles are also located to the rear of the memorial.
","history":"The Tieri War Memorial was constructed in 1984 in memory of those servicemen and women from the Peak Downs area who served in a number of conflicts, but especially as a memorial to those who served in the Vietnam War.
The construction of the memorial came about when two Vietnam Veterans met in Capella on ANZAC Day in 1983. Each one was not aware that the other had served in Vietnam as they were not wearing their medals. This was due to the public feeling connected with the Vietnam War at the time. By the end of that day, however, the two had decided to hold the next ANZAC Day celebrations in Tieri.
It took several months to decide on an appropriate memorial which could be placed in the town. During the year, one of the Veterans located a large petrified tree and a piece of this was brought into the town and set up in the shopping centre. Following ANZAC Day celebrations in 1984 it was decided that the shopping centre was not an suitable location for the memorial.
With assistance from Mount Isa Mines Limited, who provided the site and paid for the construction, the Tieri War Memorial was completed. Since its construction, many returned servicemen and women have visited the memorial, particularly to commemorate ANZAC Day [25 April] and Long Tan Day [18 August].
","criteria":"War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state.
|The memorial at Tieri demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the appropriate use of various elements, particularly commemorative plaques and trees, as well as the more unusual use of petrified wood.
|The Tieri War Memorial is especially significant for its strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of major historic events and as the focal point for the remembrance of those events, particularly as a memorial to those who served in the Vietnam War.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17004,"place_ref":602185,"name":"Brick Cottage","alternate_name":"Gayndah Museum","street_address":"8 Simon Street","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-12-14","description":"The Brick Cottage Gayndah is located on the southern end of Simon Street, Gayndah, between Capper Street and Burnett Terrace.
The cottage is a simple, symmetrical single storey building constructed of locally manufactured bricks laid in Flemish bond with a corrugated iron roof. A timber framed addition is attached at the rear and has corrugated iron skillion roof.
The masonry portion of the house displays a Georgian influence through its simple rectangular form and symmetrical façade which has two large six-pane sash windows and two front doors to Simon Street. A rear door provides access to the enclosed verandah and lean to on the western elevation and there are two sash windows on the southern elevation and one on the northern elevation. The eaves are not lined and the rafters have a curved end profile.
Internally the main cottage has a recent concrete slab floor, rendered walls and ceilings lined with beaded tongue and groove boards. The cottage is divided into two by a load bearing masonry wall that houses two fireplaces - one to each side. The northern portion of the cottage was once two rooms and evidence survives of the location of the dividing wall.
To the rear of the cottage is an enclosed verandah and semi-detached lean-to. The enclosed verandah has been extended and divided into two rooms. Both rooms are clad with weatherboards and some sections lined with fibro sheeting. The semi-detached lean-to is constructed of wooden battens with a corrugated iron roof.
","history":"The Brick Cottage Gayndah was built in 1864 by Mr Henry Fenwick for a Mr Alexander Walker, early resident and licensee of the Gayndah Hotel. The Cottage is located in the centre of town and is the oldest surviving brick residence in Gayndah.
Gayndah was first settled as a town in 1849, shortly after squatters selected land in the Central Burnett. The site of what was to become the Gayndah Township was selected and named in 1849 by Maurice Charles O'Connell, Land Commissioner for the Burnett. In 1850 the name of Gayndah was recognised when the Post Office and Courthouse were gazetted, but it wasn't until 1852 that Gayndah was gazetted as a town.
Once the road to the Port of Maryborough was surveyed and cleared in circa 1850 an influx of settlers followed and over the next ten years Gayndah's sheep, cattle, diary and agricultural industries began to flourish. Early freehold land sales were held in Gayndah in 1854. Joseph Hadley was one of the first people to buy land in the town and purchased the land that the brick cottage now resides on in 1854 for £3/12/-.
In 1864, Alexander Walker purchased the land from Mr Hadley and employed local builder, Henry Fenwick, to build a brick cottage, where it is believed he resided for the next six years. Alexander Walker was an early resident of Gayndah. He was the licensee of the Gayndah Hotel and owner of the property, Mt Cyrus, located just outside Gayndah. He was also foster father to the Barnard boys, who he had taken into his care when their father died in 1858.
In 1870 William Barnard took over ownership of the brick cottage on Simon Street. William Barnard, a local blacksmith, and his wife Elizabeth McDonald, remained as residents of the cottage until the death of their daughter, Ellen, in 1958. The cottage then passed through a number of hands until the Gayndah Shire Council purchased the cottage in 1969 in order to save it from demolition.
The allotment the Brick Cottage resides on once ran from Capper Street through to Burnett Terrace and had several other buildings on the lot including a Blacksmith. Constructed of locally manufactured brick laid in the Flemish bond, the Georgian style cottage originally consisted of 3 rooms with a central fireplace. In circa 1900, an open verandah with a small room to one side that served as a semi-detached kitchen was added to the back of the cottage. The presence of two front doors also indicates that the cottage may have been built for use as a residence and shop but there is no evidence to support to suggest that any of the owners used it for this purpose.
During the Barnard's occupation the interior of the original cottage remained relatively unchanged. When the Barnard's sold the property in 1958 it passed through a number of hands and underwent some alterations. The back verandah was enclosed sometime during the late 1950s and the original timber flooring was removed, leaving the main bedroom with a rough concrete floor and the living area with a dirt floor. The mantels over the central fireplace were also removed at some point and the wall separating the two bedrooms demolished, effectively changing the cottage from 3 rooms to 2.
A number of conservation works have taken place since the Gayndah Shire Council purchased the Brick Cottage in 1969. In 1988 the original shingled roof was removed and replaced with a corrugated iron hip roof. At this time, work was also carried out on the ceiling, which needed to be repaired again in 1994, as it was beginning to sag due to incorrect installation of the roof timbers. The dirt floor in the main room was laid with concrete to match the exposed floor in the bedrooms, the front doors of the cottage were replaced and the interior walls replastered. The mantels over the central fireplace were also replaced, on one side with what is believed to be a replica of the original and the other with the mantel from the fireplace at Ban Ban homestead.
The Brick Cottage now operates as a Museum under the direction of the Gayndah Historical Society. Once the only building on the lot, the cottage is now borded on both sides by other buildings from the town of Gayndah to form part of an historical village. It houses a collection of memorabilia, which covers many aspects of early life in and around Gayndah.
","criteria":"The Brick Cottage Gayndah was erected in the town of Gayndah in 1864. It holds a special association for the community of Gayndah as the only surviving residence from the town's settlement period. The Brick Cottage demonstrates the pattern of development of some of Queensland's more remote towns.
|Built in the very early stages of the town's development, the cottage is a good example of a mid 19th century workers dwelling and constructed of the now rare use of locally produced hand made bricks.
|Built in the very early stages of the town's development, the cottage is a good example of a mid 19th century workers dwelling and constructed of the now rare use of locally produced hand made bricks.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17005,"place_ref":602186,"name":"Cliveden Mansions","alternate_name":"Chippendale","street_address":"17 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"Cliveden Mansions consists of two main portions, the 1888-89 house fronting Gregory Terrace, and the 1915 boarding house extension to the rear.
The 1888-89 section of Cliveden Mansions is a two-storey rendered brick building, featuring timber-framed floors and roof, and corrugated iron roof cladding. Two original chimneys are visible above the roof line. A series of timber-framed additions exist to the northern and eastern sides of the masonry core. The northern addition has chamferboard external cladding which has been rendered. Timber-framed verandahs to two sides have also been enclosed.
Internally, the 1888-89 section consists of a series of major and minor rooms opening on to a central stairway and passage. A full room bay arrangement punctuates the otherwise rectilinear plan form and is surmounted by a distinctive octastyle roof. Most rooms have access to either the western or southern verandah. Much of the timber door and window joinery survives intact, including a coloured leaded glass main entry and coloured patterned glass stairwell window. The original timber internal staircase has been painted. Some original internal decorative finishes survive including moulded plaster cornices and ornate plaster ceiling roses.
The 1915 boarding house addition is a 2-3 storey timber-framed structure with a corrugated iron hip roof. The plan form is a simple series of single rooms accessed by a central corridor and opening out on to a narrow perimeter verandah. The eastern and southern external walls are clad with chamferboards while the northern external wall is of single-skin VJ construction.
The verandahs are simply detailed with timber dowel balustrades and timber french doors with fanlights opening out from the rooms. The verandah posts are stop chamfered. A modern steel stair is visible at the eastern end of the verandah.
Internally, the rooms are divided by single-skin VJ walls, interior ceilings and corridor walls are lined with VJ timber. Bathrooms are fitted with post-World War II fittings of varying styles and standards.
The existing brick and cast iron fence to Gregory Terrace is thought to be the original 1888-89 fence. Evidence of the front stairs and path with a distinctive 45 degree turn also survives.
","history":"The first structure to be built at 17 Gregory Terrace was "Chippendale", a detached house designed by George Addison for Selina Forth. A purpose-built boarding house was added in 1915 for Pauline Eschenhagan, also to the design of George Addison. Both the house and rear addition have continued to be used as boarding house accommodation since this time, and are currently known as "Cliveden Mansions".
Land in the settlement of Brisbane was first alienated from the Crown in 1856. Some of the earliest land purchases were made in the Spring Hill area, including lots along Wickham and Gregory Terraces. The site of Cliveden Mansions, described as portion 216, county of Stanley, parish of Brisbane, was originally granted to Patrick Bradley in 1861. The holding was later subdivided, and subdivisions 3 and 4 were acquired by the Crowther family in 1872. The Crowthers sold the property ten years later to Moses Ward, a Fortitude Valley chemist. Throughout this time, Post Office Directories indicate the property was vacant. Selina Forth became the owner of the property in 1888, and retained the title until her death in 1911. It was during Ms Forth's ownership of the property that Chippendale was built.
The construction of Chippendale was the result of human tragedy in the Forth family. Selina Forth was the wife of John William Forth, an alderman for the east ward in 1882 and 1883, and the owner of a large wholesale and retail produce business located in Elizabeth Street. The Forths, together with their ten children, were residents of Wickham Terrace in the early 1880s, before moving to "Stanley Hall" at Clayfield, built for the Forths in 1885-86. The Forths resided only a short time at Stanley Hall. Clara Forth, their 20 year old daughter, died there in 1886, and shortly after the family returned from a visit to Europe toward the end of the year, John Forth was killed while helping transplant trees in a paddock near his home, on 28 December 1886. Selina Forth subsequently sold Stanley Hall in 1888, and purchased the Gregory Terrace property in the same year. She had George Addison of Oakden Addison and Kemp design her house in 1888-89, and in 1890 she took up residence there, naming the house Chippendale. Ms Forth lived in the house with her son William Forth, and, on occasion, two other women.
Following the death of Selina Forth in 1911, the beneficiaries of her will sold Chippendale to Pauline Emma Eschenhagen in 1913. Pauline Eschenhagen, together with her husband Carl, and later her son Edward, ran a very successful restaurant and catering business in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Anti-German sentiment during World War I forced the sale of the business in 1915 however, and Ms Eschenhagen mortgaged Chippendale and had the architect of the original house, GMH Addison, design the large boarding house extension to the rear of the property. It is thought the front northern addition to the house was also completed at this time. In 1915 the property was leased to Grace Tate who ran the property as a boarding house. Ms Tate held a lease on Chippendale, including the boarding house extension, until at least 1929. In the same year the boarding house extensions were added, Ms Eschenhagen also had architect TR Hall design a new villa residence further along Gregory Terrace next to St Joseph's College and lived in this house with her family until her death in 1921.
As proprietor of the boarding house establishment, Grace Tate represented a common practice whereby many of Brisbane's boarding houses were run by women. The 1916 listing of boarding houses in Pugh's Almanac noted 54 such establishments, of which 40 were run by women. The figures for 1918 show a similar pattern: 46 of the 66 boarding houses listed in Brisbane were operated by women. What was unusual about the Gregory Terrace boarding house was the purpose-built nature of the rear portion. It was a more common practice for boarding houses to be larger houses subdivided into smaller dwellings.
The construction and operation of the Gregory Terrace boarding house from 1915 reflects the popularity of Spring Hill and other inner-Brisbane suburbs as locations of boarding house accommodation at that time. Boarding houses existed in Brisbane from the earliest years of free settlement in the 1840s. From this era until the 1890s, boarding houses were particularly well established in the South Brisbane/West End/Woolloongabba, and Teneriffe/Newstead areas. The Brisbane floods of 1890 and 1893 adversely affected the popularity of South Brisbane however, and the population drifted to the north side of the river. Further impetus towards the establishment of boarding house accommodation in the inner-city suburbs occurred in the 1910s when the cost of living outgrow the rise in wages, a situation worsened by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. This economic pattern may have forced many into boarding house accommodation. The Depression of the 1930s certainly had this effect with an influx of labour into the cities in search of work.
Pugh's Almanac and the Post Office Directories from the 1910s indicate the saturation of lodging houses in Wickham Terrace and Boundary Street alone. Pugh's Almanac for the years 1916 and 1918 list 18 and 15 boarding houses in Wickham Terrace respectively, while in South Brisbane only seven are recorded for both years. The Post Office Directories for 1915-16 included listings for 195 boarding houses in Brisbane, of which six were listed in Boundary Street. While neither listing is conclusive, they do illustrate the importance of Spring Hill as a location of boarding houses.
During the 1930s Spring Hill and other inner-city suburbs waned in their popularity as a "desirable address", and they remained unpopular for much of the remainder of the twentieth century. Wealthy residents increasingly relocated from their inner city dwellings to the suburbs, and the inner-city area was increasingly known as an industrial and working class area. These areas continued to be considered "undesirable" in the 1970s and early 1980s when there was a decline in the number of families with young children, and an increase in elderly and single people, migrants from non English speaking backgrounds and Indigenous Australians residing in the area. Significant numbers of former residents of psychiatric institutions also began relocating to boarding house and hostel accommodation within inner Brisbane. Attitudes began to change in the mid to late 1980s and 1990s however, as inner-city gentrification occurred. Properties were increasingly acquired for middle-class residential, commercial, recreational and cultural uses, including many boarding houses. Between 1987 and 1996, 37 per cent of all boarding house premises in inner north Brisbane suburbs closed, and pressure of redevelopment of these places continues.
The Gregory Terrace boarding house remained in the Eschenhagen family until 1949, and was renamed "Cliveden Mansions" during the family's ownership, in 1941. The Canadian Pacific Tobacco Company Ltd purchased the property in 1949, and the property was owned by four different owners during the 1950s before being bought by Salem Tamer in 1958. Hunsoomie Tamer became a joint owner in 1967, and Salem and Hunsoomie retained the property until 1979 when it was purchased by Neil Gibbins and Elaine Katte. The current owners, Treklodge Pty Ltd, purchased the property in 1992, and continue to operate Cliveden Mansions as a boarding house.
Brisbane City Council building records indicate approval for alterations to the building was given in 1957. It is not certain what this work was, however it may have included various verandah enclosures and internal planning changes that currently exist.
","criteria":"Cliveden Mansions is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history as an illustration of late nineteenth and twentieth century housing patterns in inner Brisbane. The 1888-89 section demonstrates a characteristic of Brisbane residential development whereby the wealthy built along hilltops and ridgelines, surrounded on the lower slopes and hollows by the less wealthy members of the community. It also demonstrates the expansion of residential development beyond the city centre in the later nineteenth century. The 1915 boarding house extension illustrates another housing pattern whereby inner-city suburbs such as Spring Hill had the highest concentrations of Brisbane boarding houses in the early twentieth century.
|The 1915 boarding house addition demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as a purpose-built boarding house. Most boarding houses were larger houses subdivided into smaller dwellings. The 1915 extension is also rare as a three-storey building constructed in light-weight timber framing.
|The original 1888-89 house is important because of its aesthetic significance as a competent example of late nineteenth century Victorian domestic style architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17006,"place_ref":601689,"name":"Hibernian Hall","alternate_name":"HACBS Hall","street_address":"38-44 Hawthorne Street","suburb":"ROMA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-04-27","description":"The Hibernian Hall is a large, predominantly timber framed building, rectangular in form, roofed in short-length corrugated iron sheeting. It has an entrance area with a bio-box over, a large auditorium and a stage area. There are later skillion-roofed extensions to the rear [east] end and a large shed structure attached via a covered walkway to the south-east corner of the building.
The front [west] elevation comprises a two-storeyed decorative gable structure with asymmetric single-storeyed wing walls to the side. The ground floor and wing walls are of rendered masonry construction, while the first storey decorative gable is formed in pressed metal sheeting over timber. The ground floor has a centrally placed open entrance, over which is a cantilevered awning with pressed metal detailing. There are two symmetrically placed windows with decorative architraves. The window on the south side is a 6:9 pane timber vertical sliding sash, the window on the north side is a 6:1 pane timber vertical sliding sash. The side wing walls are terminated by a pilaster with a decorative cap. The north wall which has a pair of vertical timber doors, acts purely as a screen wall with no building behind. The south wall has a 6:4 pane timber vertical sliding sash window and a timber door giving access to a store room.
The first storey façade, set between 2 pilasters with decorative caps, is based on the 'Dutch' gable style. There is a centrally placed oriel window with a pressed metal base and corrugated iron hipped roof. The side lights are single 4:1 pane timber vertical sliding sashes and the front light is a pair of 6:1 pane timber vertical sliding sashes. There is a single 4:1 pane vertical sliding sash window placed symmetrically either side of the oriel. These windows have a hood supported on decorative brackets. Above the oriel there are the initials 'H.A.C.B.S.' in raised lettering inside a curved boarder. There is a single shamrock on the face of the pilasters.
The side elevations are of a similar design, with the south side having a single-storeyed skillion-roofed awning over a promenade or verandah. The walls comprise 9 bays, which reflect the internal layout of the building, with the bay at the western end for the 2 storey entrance/store/bio-box area, 7 bays to the auditorium, and 1 bay at the eastern end for the stage area. The walls are constructed of timber framing. There are 7 external concrete buttresses along each wall, between which there are 5 pairs of timber bi-fold doors with skylight over. On either side, beneath the roof line, there are 7 high level panels of later metal vertical louvres providing cross-ventilation to the auditorium, with remnant panels of timber lattice above, which have been sheeted from the inside of the auditorium. Above the doors on the north side there is horizontal boarding [chamfers]. On the south side, beneath the verandah awning, there is exposed stud framing above the doors. The verandah has a store at the western end, is open for the length of the auditorium and has toilets at the eastern end. The walls to the stage area are clad in horizontal boarding.
The rear [eastern] elevation is of timber framing clad in vertical sheets of corrugated iron. There are 2 windows at the northern end of this rear wall - one to the rear of the stage and another to a supper room located beneath the stage. There is also a fire-escape door to the sub-floor supper room. There is a modern lean-to extension at the southern end of the rear wall, clad in vertical metal sheeting, containing changing rooms.
Internally, inside the entrance there is a centrally placed 3-sided ticket booth. To the south side is a store room, and to the north a staircase to the first floor bio-box [not inspected]. The auditorium is accessed through 2 pairs of bi-fold doors either side of the ticket booth. There are also 3 single doors in the western wall providing access to the ticket box, a store room and the staircase. The bio-box window has been in-filled.
The auditorium has a seven bay canted ceiling comprising alternative bays of decorative pressed metal and open timber lattice. The floor is timber and level, suitable for dancing. The walls are of vertical timber with a dado rail running around. At the northern end is a raised stage area which projects into the auditorium. The proscenium arch is formed from decorative pressed metal sheeting. There are doors either side of the stage. The door at the south side is blocked by a single flight of metal stairs. The rear stage area has open stud timber framed walls and an exposed roof framing. There is no fly tower, but the roof over the stage is probably of sufficient height to accommodate some raised scenery. There is a supper room beneath the stage area [not inspected].
The southern verandah opens onto a large courtyard, the site of the former open-air cinema, which is used now as a basketball court. At the rear of the courtyard is a substantial canteen and shelter shed, clad in vertical metal sheeting.
","history":"The Hibernian Hall in Roma is a large, timber-framed hall-cum-picture theatre erected in 1932 for the Roma branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society. It was designed by Perth and Brisbane architects Cavanagh & Cavanagh.
Roma was the principal town of the Mount Abundance district, which was developed as a pastoral and agricultural region following exploration by Thomas Mitchell, New South Wales Surveyor General in 1846. The township of Roma was proclaimed in September 1862, one of the earliest towns established in Queensland after separation in 1859, and was surveyed in 1863. It was named after Lady Bowen - Countess Diamantina Georgina Roma, daughter of a Governor of the Ionian Islands, and wife of the first Governor of Queensland, Sir George Ferguson Bowen. The town of Roma was declared a municipality in 1867 and grew slowly as a pastoral service centre and government administrative centre until the opening of the railway in the 1880s, connecting the Maranoa to the coastal ports, after which the town flourished. In addition, the vast Western Queensland artesian basin was tapped in the late 1880s and early 1890s, securing an alternative water supply for cattle and sheep.
With the expansion of Roma's population in the 1880s, a branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society was established in the town in April 1886. At its peak, the society attracted nearly 180 members. 'Hibernian' is defined as of or belonging to Ireland, or Irish. From the 1860s Irish immigration to Queensland was encouraged by the Catholic Church in Queensland. Thousands of Catholic Irish working class emigrants were attracted to the colony, and although they settled widely, they tended to form enclaves within towns and districts, defined by their religion and their societies. Hibernian Associations flourished in late 19th/early 20th century Queensland, strongly supported by the Catholic Church, and attracted widespread Irish Catholic membership. They could be considered the voluntary social welfare extension of official Catholicism.
Benefit societies were popular in 19th century Australia, where self-help was the dominant philosophy and liberalism a principal ideology, and where colonial governments made little provision for public welfare benefits. Modelled on similar mutual benefit societies established in Britain, the Australian societies provided contributing members with access to financial assistance such as sickness benefits, life insurance, provision of funeral costs, and benefits to members' widows and families. Some societies lent money to their members to finance home construction. Benefit societies also operated as social clubs, organising events such as dances and sports days which played an important role in the social life of the community, particularly in country districts. Roma Hibernians organised sports days, campdrafts and rodeos until 1946.
The Roma HACBS acquired the site of the present hall late in 1899, and erected their first hall on this property in 1900. Later an open-air cinema was established beside the Hibernian Hall, on the south side, which was the venue for the first moving picture show exhibited at Roma.
This first hall was enlarged in the mid-1920s, to plans prepared by popular Perth and Brisbane architects Cavanagh & Cavanagh, who had designed a number of churches, convents, schools and presbyteries for the Catholic Church in Queensland. The extensions had been completed by May 1926, at which time the hall was described as a two-storeyed timber building with a gallery; it could seat 750, and could be used for a variety of public entertainments. This building was destroyed by fire on 22 July 1931, but almost immediately the HACBS commissioned Cavanagh & Cavanagh to prepare plans for a replacement hall-cum-picture theatre [the present building]. The architects called tenders in October-November 1931, with the contract let to Roma contractor GP Williams. The building was erected at a cost of £3,120, and was officially opened on 28 June 1932.
The double-storeyed façade of the new Hibernian Hall, with its stepped parapet and curved pediment, oriel window to the projection room above an ungated opening to the foyer and ticket-box, read more as a picture theatre than a community hall. The building demonstrated many of the principal elements of 'tropical' picture theatre design of this era, including: panels of open timber lattice high along each side wall, just under the roofline and sheltered by the eaves, for cross-ventilation purposes; a row of large bi-fold doors along each side of the hall which could be opened in hot weather, those on the southern side opening to a covered promenade along the side of the building; pressed metal and fretwork panels in the auditorium ceiling, accommodating ventilation and acoustic requirements with decorative effect; a decorative pressed metal proscenium arch; a stage area which could accommodate live performance as well as film screenings; and the projection booth [or bio-box] located above the foyer and ticket box. Elements more characteristic of a hall than a picture theatre were the flat, sprung timber floor, the lack of a dress circle, the inclusion of a supper room beneath the stage, and the lack of a theatre café.
The Hibernian Hall screened films in competition with Roma's newly completed, 800 seat Capitol Theatre, likely designed by Brisbane cinema architect CE Humphreys. The Capitol, operated by RA Crawford, was erected c1932 and functioned as a cinema until destroyed by fire in 1989. That the town of Roma could support two picture theatres in the 1930s illustrates the popularity of film as family entertainment prior to the introduction of television.
The Hibernian Hall functioned as much more than a picture theatre. The scale and facilities of the new building guaranteed its popularity as the premier venue for community and social events in Roma, including balls, dances, fêtes, choral and school concerts, protest meetings, farewell functions, election meetings, political speeches, religious festivals, art shows, and touring entertainment [everything from ballet, opera and theatre to vaudeville and pantomime]. The Hibernian Hall also served as a temporary venue for services when the new Catholic Church was being built, and as the venue for sittings of the Supreme Court.
The hall was acquired by the Roma Town Council in 1976 and continues to be used for community and social activities, including regular roller-skating. It no longer functions as a picture theatre.
","criteria":"The Hibernian Hall, 38-44 Hawthorne Street, Roma is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, the scale of the hall illustrating the importance of Roma as a regional and recreational centre for the surrounding pastoral and agricultural district, and the importance of community groups in maintaining the social fabric of rural communities in the first half of the 20th century. The place has a strong association with the work of the Roma branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society from the turn of the 20th century through to the 1970s.
|The Hibernian Hall remains highly intact, and is an excellent example of a large, purpose-designed hall-cum-picture theatre of the interwar period. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including the 'picture theatre' façade; the projection booth above the foyer and ticket-box; the large auditorium with its use of decorative pressed metal and timber lattice in the ceiling; the use of timber lattice panelling high in the side walls for cross-ventilation purposes; the stage which could accommodate both live-performance and film screenings; the large, sprung timber dance floor opening onto an external verandah promenade; and the inclusion of a supper room.
|The place has aesthetic value, engendered by the two-storeyed, shaped-pediment façade with its pressed metal finish and oriel window above a central foyer opening and awning; and by the interior detailing, including the use of pressed metal and timber latticing. The Hibernian Hall is a substantial structure with a decorative front façade designed to impress, is prominently located on a major street, and in form, materials, scale and design, makes a strong contribution to the townscape of Roma.
|The place has social value, being the venue for a diversity of community, social and recreational events over many decades.
|The place has a strong association with the work of the Roma branch of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society from the turn of the 20th century through to the 1970s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17007,"place_ref":602187,"name":"St Mary's Catholic Church","alternate_name":"St Marys Catholic Church","street_address":"20 Merivale Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-12-03","description":"St Mary's Catholic Church is situated on a large corner block at the intersection of Merivale and Peel Streets in a light industrial and commercial area of the inner Brisbane suburb of South Brisbane. An imposing rendered masonry building with corrugated iron roofs the church is located on the highest part of the site near the western corner. The front of the church faces northwest onto Peel Street. Formerly occupied by an earlier church, the northern portion of the site adjacent to the church and closest to the street intersection is now a car park with some landscaping. In the eastern part of the site facing onto Merivale Street is the Former Presbytery, a timber building on stumps with corrugated iron hip roofs. The former presbytery is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
St Mary's Catholic Church consists of a wide high central space or nave, narrower aisles on each side of the nave, and a semicircular chancel. A proposed bell tower and transepts were never built. The nave, a double height space with a clerestory, projects forward of the single storey side aisles to form the main façade or liturgical west front of the church. Terminating the longitudinal axis of the nave at the liturgical eastern end is the projecting semicircular chancel. Small rooms, the sacristy and vestry, flank the chancel on the north and south. The nave is roofed by a simple timber framed gable roof with gabled ventilators and the aisles by lean to roofs. The chancel, sacristy and vestry, all additions at the rear of the church, have smaller separate roofs that are largely concealed by parapet walls. The arrangement and form of the church is based on the traditional model of the basilica, originally a type of Roman public building that early Christians adapted for worship.
Described at the time of its completion as being built in a style of architecture based on early Italian, the church has a form and architectural features that are associated with the Romanesque revival but includes a variety of details drawn from other styles. The most characteristic feature of Romanesque architecture is the use of the round arch. Other distinguishing motifs that are used at St Mary's include the wheel or rose window, a frieze that contains a blind arcade, stringcourses and a type of arched corbel motif known as mock machicolation.
The liturgical west front of the church, which actually faces northwest, is simple in form but richly embellished with architectural detail. A two storey structure, taller than it is wide, the symmetrical west front is divided into three bays and surmounted by a parapeted gable in the form of a broken bed pediment. The central bay of the façade contains the main entrance to the church, an imposing arched opening with a shafted jamb framing a recessed doorway. Over the timber panelled doors is a semicircular tympanum containing three arched windows and above the tympanum, a blind arcade of colonettes. The main feature of the gable is a wheel window centred in the gap created by the broken base of the pediment. Raked corbelling over the wheel window supports the projecting edge of the pediment. A cross is situated at the pinnacle of the pediment and at the other end of the ridge of the nave roof.
The bays on either side of the entrance bay consist of pairs of pilasters on a banded base that appear to support the pediment. Between each set of pilasters are two narrow rectangular windows separated by a half or engaged column. A small square window centred in the base of each bay has unusual moulded surrounds including jambs terminated by a stylised volute and a coved cornice with a leaf pattern. Other facade details include rosettes, dogtooth banding, acanthus leaf capitals to pilasters and arabesque ornamentation on the pediment.
The northeast and southwest side elevations are similar. The aisles consist of four bays delineated by engaged piers with an ornamental top. Tall narrow windows with round arched tops are arranged in pairs in each bay with the exception of the bay second from the front that contains the side entrance doors. Each side entrance is an arched opening further emphasised by a shallow decorative gable. Masonry stairs lead up to the entrance into the north aisle while the south aisle is level with the ground outside. The main decorative detail on the side elevations is a double-layered arched corbel table running along the top of the aisle walls between the engaged piers. Above the roof of the aisles the clerestory portion of the nave wall is visible. The wall treatment is similar to the aisle walls including engaged piers and the same pairs of arched windows. The walls are blank at the northern corner of the building where the bell tower was originally proposed.
The chancel, sacristy and vestry, additions to the rear of church were built using similar materials and details to the original part of the building. Three sets of external masonry stairs lead to timber entrance doors that open directly into each of these three spaces, the stairs on the eastern corner being the tallest due to the slope in the land. The curved walls of the chancel are distinguished by a high row of quatrefoil stained glass windows. All of the entries into the church are marked with a cross, situated at the apex of the roof over.
The interior of the church, well lit by natural daylight, has rendered white painted walls, dark stained timber ceilings and choir mezzanine and a concrete floor. The main entrance to the church, located under the mezzanine, has a low raked plaster ceiling. A decorative timber canopy and posts further differentiates the entrance. Quarter turn timber stairs with winders in the northern corner of the west front lead up to the stepped choir platform, a balcony like space housing the organ and overlooking the nave.
A colonnade of four round arches supported by stumpy columns on tall pedestals runs along the north and south edges of the nave separating it from the aisles. Above the colonnade is the clerestory with arched windows that let light directly into the double height space of the nave. The ceiling of the nave is lined on the rake and exposed timber trusses, a variant of a queen post truss with arched braces, span across nave.
The skillion-roofed aisles also have raked clear finished timber boarded ceilings supported by exposed timber trusses. Narrow round arched windows illuminate the aisles and a set of timber doors with fanlight over open to the exterior. Shrines dedicated to Jesus and Mary are located at the southeast ends of the aisles.
The sanctuary is located at the eastern end of the nave. A Chancel arch flanked by decorative niches separates the chancel from the nave. A change in floor finish and level defined by a marble altar rail also mark the sanctuary as a different kind of space. The chancel, roofed by a dome, is more richly finished than the rest of the church. It has a mosaic tiled and marble floor, quatrefoil stained glass windows over pilasters surmounted by arches in low relief. The lower part of the curved chancel walls are lined in marble panelling. Located in the centre of the space under the dome is the high altar, an elaborate gothic structure in various coloured marbles. Small rooms located on either side of the chancel are the vestry and sacristy. The room on the southern corner retains built in timber wardrobes and cupboards.
Externally the church is surrounded by hard paved surfaces except for lawns near the main entrance and gardens on the northeast side of the church. The original front fence and gates have been replaced but masonry piers on either side of the gates remain. A stone grotto is situated to the west of the main entrance.
The former presbytery, now known as the Parish House, and various sheds and utility buildings at the rear of the church are not of cultural heritage significance. The St Vincent de Paul Centre, to the southwest of the church on the neighbouring block, is not included in the listing.
","history":"St Mary's Catholic Church, South Brisbane, is a late nineteenth century rendered brick church designed by Brisbane architects, Simkin and Ibler and constructed by Woollam and Norman in 1892-1893. At the time of its opening on the 2nd July 1893 construction of the church was not finalised. The proposed tower, transepts and chancel were never built and it was not until 1929 a permanent sanctuary was added to the eastern end of the church to the design of architects Cavanagh and Cavanagh. The former Presbytery (now parish house), built at about the same time as the church, was completed by February 1893.
St Mary's was the second Catholic Church to be built in South Brisbane and was built adjacent to the first church, a small wooden chapel erected in 1865. The chapel was expanded in 1868 when two aisles were added almost doubling its size. Sparsely inhabited in 1861, the population was only 1080, South Brisbane was a small but growing residential suburb. By 1871 the number of inhabitants had increased to 4222.
In the 1880s, Brisbane experienced an economic and building boom and South Brisbane's population trebled, reaching 22 849 in 1891. The connection of the rail network and the development of commercial, industrial and dockside activities on the southern banks of the river further contributed to South Brisbane's growth. The Municipality of South Brisbane was declared in 1888. As residential suburbs expanded the population of the old municipality of Brisbane decreased, by more than 2000 between 1886 and 1891.
The expansion of the population meant that the chapel was no longer adequate to the needs of the South Brisbane congregation and a meeting was held in August 1889 to discuss the construction of a new and larger church. The Catholic Church had begun acquiring allotments adjoining the original church reserve in 1884 and by 1889 it had amassed considerable land at the northwest end of the block bounded by Cordelia, Peel and Merivale Streets. Fund raising for the construction of a new church commenced in 1890 and by the end of 1891 half the cost of the building had been collected. Architects Simkin and Ibler produced drawings of the proposed church. An imposing edifice with Italianate and Romanesque revival details, it was designed to accommodate a congregation of 800 people.
George Simkin and John Ibler were architects practising in Brisbane in the 1880s who joined in partnership from 1889 to 1894. One of their early projects, the Breakfast Creek Hotel (600057), is a well-known Brisbane landmark. Much of their work together was for the Roman Catholic Church and included important commissions such as Dara, Archbishop Dunne's residence at Petrie Bight, St Stephen's Roman Catholic Girls School, Charlotte Street, Brisbane (600106) and a convent for the Sisters of Mercy, now known as Cloisters (600953), at Warwick. Simkin and Ibler worked in a variety of architectural styles and their designs are noted for an eclectic, sometimes flamboyant, use of ornament. At St Mary's, described at the time of opening as having the Basilica form of plan and an architectural style derived from "a phase of early Italian", ornamental details drawn from a variety of sources are elegantly combined to enliven a traditional plan and arrangement. The style of the church, which combines Romanesque and Renaissance revival elements, was not common at the time as most nineteenth century churches were designed in the Gothic revival style.
Cardinal Moran laid the foundation stone of the new church on the 25th September 1892 in a ceremony attended by Archbishop Dunne, Archbishop Carr and other high-ranking clergy. Blessed and opened by Archbishop Dunne on 2nd July 1893, St Mary's cost £2 150 to build. Despite the economic crisis and devastating floods of the early 1890s £1473 had already been raised for the project and a further £400 was collected at the opening. Due to the limited funds only part of the proposed church was built, the nave and aisles. The concrete rendering was postponed and several parts of the building including the eastern end and the rose window were temporarily constructed from timber. A description of the church as it appeared at its opening, noted the ample provision made for ventilation and the high altar installed in the new church that had previously been used at St Stephen's Cathedral.
The presence of St Mary's in South Brisbane in the 1890s reflects to some extent the character of South Brisbane at the time. The Roman Catholic Church drew much of its membership from the Irish and the proletariat, and it was linked to the labour movement. Though South Brisbane attracted some of Brisbane's elite because of its proximity to the city and elevated home sites, South Brisbane in the 1890s had a reputation as a "workingman's suburb". Most of the names on St. Mary's baptism register at the turn of the century were Irish.
From 1866 the original chapel had been a dual-purpose building also functioning as a school. After the opening of the new church it continued to be used as a school until 1909 when substantial new school buildings were built on the southwest portion of the site. The chapel then served as the infant's school until 1926 when extensions to the school incorporated rooms for infants. A substantial bell housed in a timber belfry was erected in 1914 adjacent to the church and in 1915 a convent for the Sisters of Mercy was constructed, diagonally opposite the school on the corner of Cordelia and Peel Streets.
The most significant change to the church since its construction in 1893 was the completion of the sanctuary, including vestry and sacristy, in December 1929. Designed by Cavanagh and Cavanagh Architects in a similar manner to the original building, the sanctuary was constructed of reinforced concrete and brick by B Robinson. The third Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig, officially opened the additions. The interior of the chancel with its marble wall linings and altar rails, terrazzo floors, domed plaster ceiling and stained glass windows was more ornate than the rest of the church. A new marble altar by sculptor and monumental mason, Frank Williams of Ipswich, who carried out all the marble work, was installed. The original chapel, no longer required for school purposes, was demolished at this time.
In 1938, the presbytery was completely renovated. Mr. F. Chamberlain of Toowoomba was appointed as architect. The renovations were blessed by the Rev. Dr. J. English. The appearance of the building must have been altered quite dramatically. The Archbishop expressed amazement at the alteration and the current building bears little resemblance to the original. The original gabled roof appears to have been altered to a hipped roof.
With the influx of Catholic immigrants into the area after World War Two, St Mary's became an important gathering place for a number of ethnic groups. Prior to the war the Lebanese community had used the church for Mass, which was said by their own priest, until their church in Ernest Street was constructed. A variety of Catholic communities, who lived initially in South Brisbane after emigrating, were invited to use the church. Italian, Dutch, Polish, Lithuanian and Slovenian people attended St Mary's for services conducted by their own priests. The Dutch Men's Choir performed at the church during the 1950s and 1960s. As late as 1993, the Lithuanian and Slovenian communities regularly met at the church. The Lithuanians conducted a regular Sunday Mass. The Slovenians, whose priest lived in Sydney, used the church less frequently. A plaque in Lithuanian is mounted on a wall at St Mary's.
The school closed in 1964 and the school, convent and belfry have since been demolished. The St Vincent de Paul centre now occupies the site of the school. Of the original complex of buildings at St Mary's only the church and presbytery, which has been substantially altered, remain. The former presbytery is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","criteria":"St Mary's Catholic Church demonstrates the pattern of development in Brisbane that resulted from the economic boom of the 1880s, in particular the development of South Brisbane at a time when rapid expansion of riverside industry and the adjoining residential suburb created the need for more substantial buildings to service an increased population. Surviving evidence of South Brisbane's former character as a predominantly working class suburb, the church reflects the Irish and proletariat origins of the congregation. Built without the proposed belltower and transepts and not completed at its opening, the church also shows the impact of economic hardships experienced in the 1890s.
|Most 19th century churches were built in the Gothic Revival style. St Mary's is an early example of a church built in a style derived from Italian Romanesque and Renaissance architecture. Modelled on the basilica, St Mary's was designed in an eclectic manner typical of late 19th century architecture but in a style that was then unusual for churches in Queensland.
|An excellent example of a substantial late 19th century masonry church, St Mary's demonstrates the principal characteristics of second or permanent churches that were built in established parishes to replace earlier temporary and often dual-purpose structures.
|St Mary's is an important landmark in Peel Street. Simple in overall form and finishes, the church is elegantly detailed with a spacious well-lit interior.
|The site of the first Catholic church built in South Brisbane in 1865 and used continuously for both worship and Catholic social services ever since, the place has a strong association with the Roman Catholic Church of Queensland. In particular St Mary's has a special association with the migrant Catholic communities that developed in South Brisbane after the Second World War.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17008,"place_ref":602188,"name":"Bulolo Flats","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 McLachlan Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"Bulolo Flats occupies most of a narrow, slightly sloping site at the southern end of busy McLachlan Street, Fortitude Valley, on the eastern side of the street, close to the northern exit from the Story Bridge, and one allotment south of the intersection of McLachLan and Brunswick streets.
It is a two-storeyed brick building comprising eight one-bedroom brick flats, four flats per floor, accessed via a central entrance from McLachlan Street. The roof is hidden behind front and side parapets. A laundry block is accommodated on the roof, at the rear. This has a flat roof behind its own parapet. On each side elevation, a centrally-positioned recess accommodates timber stairs and landings that once functioned as the service stairs, and now serve as fire-escapes only. The upper floor flats and front ground-floor flats each have a door opening onto the service stair. The two rear ground-floor flats have a back door opening to the narrow spaces along the sides of the building. At each side of the building three brick steps lead from the street to these side spaces, which once provided side access to the service door of each flat. This access is now gated. There is a brick planter box each side of the front entrance, occupying a narrow space between the front wall of the building and the street boundary.
It is a well-executed building in both design and workmanship, with brickwork used for simple decorative effect in the exterior elevations. The exterior walls are of face-brick, of a flecked, mostly red-orange hue. The plinth, which is deeper at the front where the ground slopes to McLachlan Street, is of cream brick. Exterior decorative detailing - such as to window sills, around the top of the planter boxes, and along the top of the parapet to the side and front elevations - is in dark brown, salt-glazed brick.
The front elevation to McLachlan Street is divided into three bays, delineated by simple brick pilasters which rise above the level of the parapet. In the two front side bays, on each level, former sleep-outs have been enclosed with fixed glass panels in aluminium frames. In the central bay, on the upper level, there is a fixed glass window with an aluminium frame; on the lower level a central entrance porch has been constructed over the original stairs. Above the porch is a rendered panel with the name of the building, BULOLO, in low relief 'Art Deco' style lettering.
The decorative detailing in the front elevation is simple but effective, and includes: the use of polychromatic brickwork in the parapet; the use of multiple brick pilasters at the corners of the building; the creation of textured effects using expressed brickwork; and the incorporation of six small 'grotesques', two in each of the front bays, at about the height of the upper floor.
","history":"Bulolo Flats, a two-storeyed block of eight self-contained brick flats, was erected in 1934 for Brisbane businessman and politician Thomas Charles Beirne as purpose-designed residential flats for young women working in his Fortitude Valley department store. The building was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Hennessy, Hennessy and Co. of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Thomas Charles Beirne (1860-1949) had a strong association with the development of retailing in Queensland and with the expansion of Fortitude Valley as a major Brisbane retail centre. Like his contemporaries MD Piggott, J McWhirter and FJ McDonnell, Beirne founded a fortune based on the burgeoning retail trade and the transformation of nineteenth century drapery stores into large twentieth century department stores.
After having trained as a draper in Ireland Beirne had emigrated to Victoria in 1884, where he was employed in a Melbourne drapery store. In 1886 he joined fellow Irishman MD Piggott in partnership in a small retail drapery in South Brisbane. A disastrous fire in the store in 1889 and the dissolution of the partnership in August 1891 resulted in Beirne establishing his own store in Fortitude Valley, which was emerging as a retail centre to rival North and South Brisbane. His business expanded over the succeeding decades to become one of Queensland's leading department stores, with branch stores established at Ipswich (1892) and Mackay (1902). In 1894 James McWhirter was employed as Beirne's manager for one year, became his partner for another three years, then opened his own establishment on the other side of Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley, in competition to Beirne. The strong rivalry between the Beirne and McWhirter drapery shops and their evolution into large department stores was one of the principal factors in establishing Fortitude Valley as an important retail centre, dominated for the first half of the twentieth century by the two 'big' stores.
From 1898 Beirne was an active member of the Brisbane Traders' Association. He was a supporter of the Labor Party from its infancy, but would not be tied to Party policy. In 1905 he was appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council, remaining a member until the Council was abolished in 1922. He was a successful business person and sat on a number of company boards, including those of the Brisbane Tramway Co., the Queensland Board of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, Queensland Trustees, the Atlas Assurance Co., and the British Australian Cotton Association. In 1927 he was elected to the Council of the University of Queensland and served as warden of the University from 1928 to 1941. In 1935 he donated £20,000 to the University to establish the TC Beirne School of Law.
A devout Roman Catholic and close friend and confidant of Archbishop James Duhig (1871-1965), Beirne was a prominent benefactor of the church. In July 1929 he was awarded a papal knighthood of the Order of St Gregory in recognition of his work for the Church, especially in connection with Duhig's planned Holy Name Cathedral [QHR 600208] in Fortitude Valley. On his death in 1949 the Courier-Mail commented that 'Brisbane has lost a personality whose life has been woven strongly into its own progress and development for half a century.'
Beirne was regarded as a good employer and in erecting Bulolo Flats he appears to have had the welfare of his female employees at heart, the flats being intended for the use of girls who came from the country to work at his Fortitude Valley department store. Many of Beirne's young female employees were experiencing city life for the first time, and he took a paternal interest in their moral welfare. Located in McLachlan Street close to Brunswick Street, Bulolo was conveniently situated within easy walking distance of the main Fortitude Valley shopping centre and the TC Beirne emporium. The building accommodated eight flats, each comprising a large bed-sitting room with adjoining sleep-out balcony, a kitchenette with built-in cupboards, and tiled bathroom with built-in bath, hot water geyser and built-in cupboards. Each flat had both a private entrance and a service entrance with a trades hatch to receive deliveries (such as milk, bread, meat and vegetables). Shared laundry facilities were provided on the rooftop. The flats offered girls the privacy of a home of their own, as an alternative to shared accommodation in hostels, boarding houses, guest houses, private hotels and tenement or apartment buildings.
The construction of Bulolo Flats was an indication of changing social attitudes toward the role of women in the workplace and of community expectations about the behaviour of women in society. Designed as private homes for young women earning their own income, they were symbolic of contemporary community recognition that many young, unmarried women of this era could support themselves financially and were no longer content to live in the family home, or in supervised accommodation such as hostels, or in other forms of communal dwellings. At the same time, the intention to attract only female occupants allayed traditional community suspicions about the immorality of single men and women inhabiting shared residential accommodation. By insisting that Bulolo Flats were designed for women only, the stigma of 'fast' or 'loose' being applied to the young unmarried female occupants was removed.
Although quite fashionable in Sydney and in London, flats designed especially for single women were uncommon in Queensland, and no other self-contained block for this purpose is known to have been purpose-constructed in Brisbane in the interwar period. Sometimes referred to as 'bachelor flats', they were distinguished from one-bedroom flats in that the bedroom and sitting room were combined, with a small kitchenette attached (sometimes just an alcove with a sink and single gas burner). Bachelor flats often had shared bathrooms, water closets and laundries, and were in reality tenements, not self-contained flats. For example, the only other identified, purpose-built interwar flat/tenement building in Brisbane designed expressly to accommodate single girls was St Helier, a block of six brick tenements erected in 1930 in Grey St, South Brisbane (no longer extant). Each apartment comprised a bed-sitting room with kitchenette. Bathrooms and water closets were shared - one bath per three persons - and there was a common laundry. In 1932 a second storey was added, comprising three tenements and an owner's flat of six rooms. Similarly, a few blocks of 'bachelor flats' or tenements were erected in Brisbane for single men - such as Donegal (1934 and 1936) on St Paul's Terrace in Fortitude Valley. Bulolo was unusual in that, although designed along the lines of 'bachelor flats', the apartments were self-contained with private bathrooms and water closets.
Bulolo was erected in the vanguard of the revival in Brisbane residential construction following the economic depression of the early 1930s. A chronic housing shortage in Brisbane had been exacerbated by the depression and the collapsed of the residential construction industry. With many young couples unable to afford to purchase land and take on house repayments the demand for rental accommodation intensified, and in this environment small flat developments, both purpose-designed and house conversions, were proving attractive investments for small-scale developers. For a large enterprise such as TC Beirne (Pty) Ltd, however, the construction of Bulolo Flats was a philanthropic gesture rather than an investment opportunity, providing employment during construction and much-needed residential accommodation for young women during an accommodation shortage.
Title to the site of Bulolo Flats was acquired by TC Beirne (Pty) Ltd early in 1934; in July that year Council building approval was obtained to erect a block of flats to cost £4,500 and work commenced the same month. The contractor was PH Turner & Co. and the building was designed by architects Hennessy, Hennessy and Co.
Hennessy, Hennessy and Co. was a Sydney-based architectural firm with branch offices in Brisbane and Melbourne. The firm had been established in Sydney in 1884 by John Francis Hennessy and Joseph I Sheerin as Hennessy and Sheerin. Both were devout Catholics and friends of Archibishop (Cardinal) Moran, and their firm designed extensively for the Catholic Church in New South Wales. In 1912 Sheerin left the practice; his place was taken by Hennessy¿s son Jack Francis Hennessy jnr and the firm was re-named Hennessy and Hennessy. The Brisbane office was established in 1916 in association with Brisbane architect Francis Hall (Hennessy and Hennessy and FR Hall). In 1925 Jack Donoghue was the Brisbane partner (Hennessy, Hennessy, Keesing and Co. and JP Donoghue). Leo Joseph Drinan was manager of the Brisbane office 1924-1927 and Brisbane partner/manager from 1928 to 1967. Like the Hennessys, Hall, Donoghue and Drinan were all Catholics with close connections to the Church in Queensland. Jack Francis Hennessy, the principal of this firm in the interwar period, was TC Beirne's son-in-law, having married Stella Beirne in 1922.
Hennessy, Hennessy and Co.'s work for the Catholic Church in Queensland included Villa Maria Convent on St Paul's Terrace, Fortitude Valley and plans for the Holy Name Cathedral, also in Fortitude Valley, which did not come to fruition. Hennessy, Hennessy and Co. were leading practitioners of mainstream interwar styles such as Spanish Mission and Romanesque and many of their buildings featured textured face brickwork, as in Bulolo Flats.
The name of the flats appears to have been derived from the Bulolo goldfield in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea, southwest of Lae. The site of a rush in 1934 when these flats were constructed, the Bulolo field was attracting much Australian interest and investment.
Bulolo Flats remained the property of TC Beirne (Pty) Ltd / TC Beirne Ltd / Duncan Street Properties (Pty) Ltd until 1955. The flats remain in single ownership and have not been strata-titled.
","criteria":"The place has a special association with TC Beirne, a prominent Queensland businessman and politician, for whom the flats were erected. It remains strong evidence of his compassion as an employer and as a committed Catholic and humanitarian, which earned him the respect of his staff and of the Queensland community generally.
|Bulolo Flats, constructed in 1934, is important for its association with the provision of residential accommodation for women in Brisbane during a period of chronic, bordering on acute, housing shortage. It was one of the few residential establishments of its type constructed in Brisbane at this period, and was an attempt to address contemporary community concerns about the moral 'evils' of single men and women together in other forms of shared residential accommodation of the period, such as boarding houses, guest houses, and private hotels. The place also demonstrates contemporary community recognition that modern young women were seeking an independent lifestyle outside the family home.
Brisbane attracted the greatest percentage of residential flat developments in the State during the interwar years, and from late 1933 the erection of purpose-designed, purpose-built blocks of residential flats led the recovery in Brisbane residential construction following the severe and widespread economic depression of the early 1930s. Construction of Bulolo Flats in 1934 was in the vanguard of this activity.
|Bulolo Flats remains highly intact. As an excellent example of its type it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a well-designed, well-constructed, domestic-scale block of self-contained residential flats for single women. Each small flat contains a bed-sitting room, sleep-out, kitchenette, bathroom, water closet, built-in cupboards, and front and rear (trades) entrances. Common areas include the central street entrance, halls, stairwells and the former shared laundry facilities on the rooftop. The lack of provision of garaging is consistent with its interwar purpose as flats for young women residing within easy walking distance of their place of work. Decorative details such as the planter boxes at the front, either side of the entrance stairs; the stylistic concerns with utilising brickwork for decorative purposes (including salt-glazed highlights and patterns in a darker colour brick and the incorporation of dramatic pilasters to the exterior); and the incorporation of small 'grotesques' in the front elevation; remain intact.
The place is an excellent example of the domestic work of the architectural firm of Hennessy, Hennessy and Co. in Queensland. The firm received a large number of commissions from the Catholic church in Queensland, and they are better known for their design work in convents, church schools, churches and presbyteries throughout the south-east of the State. In Bulolo, their concern with Romanesque stylistic influences so often found in their institutional work and of which they were leading practitioners, is apparent in their domestic design work as well.
|Bulolo Flats is an uncommon Queensland example of purpose-built residential flats of the interwar period intended to accommodate single women only. Unlike some other 'bachelor flats' or 'flats for business girls' of this period, in which bathrooms and lavatories were shared, the Bulolo Flats, although essentially bed-sits, were self-contained, with private bathroom, water closet and kitchenette.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17009,"place_ref":602189,"name":"Babinda Hotel","alternate_name":"Former Babinda State Hotel","street_address":"65-85 Munro Street","suburb":"BABINDA","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-02-22","description":"The Babinda Hotel is located on Munro Street, Babinda and occupies a prominent position in the town's main street.
The Hotel is a two-storey building, constructed of timber and roofed with corrugated iron sheeting. The front façade of the building features open verandahs with a series of single and double timber posts.
A gabled pediment in the centre of the building with a timber infill defines the entrance to the hotel. Twin timber doors, surrounded by lead lighted windows inscribed with the BSH insignia, provide access to the hotel. On either side of the entrance are a number of casement windows
The ground floor of the hotel consists of two bars (main bar and western bar), dining room, kitchen, gambling room, games room, gym, cellar/storeroom and private office. The second floor consists of a public accommodation wing that opens onto a wide verandah overlooking Munro Street as well as a private residence and an internal verandah that overlooks the games room.
The accommodation wing on the second floor features a number of ornate timber archways in the hallway and double French doors that open onto the verandah.
The main bar on the ground floor features steel beams that run across the ceiling that once transported kegs from the storeroom to the bar. The western bar (originally the private bar) features a silky oak archway and balustrade that defines the entrance of the bar and servery. The lower part of the walls of the main entrance and western bar are also silky oak.
To the rear of the hotel there is a concrete slab that defines the old stable floors.
Babinda Town Study report 2000 - Two storey symmetrical building with hipped transverse corrugated steel roof at front, transverse gable at rear, central gable over street entrance. Raised on timber stumps, low at front, higher at rear because of fall of ground. Front wall at street level is concrete, rest of building is timber framed, with vertical tongue & groove boards. Imposing facade with open verandahs in Federation style. Original details such as verandah balustrades, posts and brackets, leadlight around doorway, office window, timber panelling and stairway are intact. The ornate roof ventilator was removed in the 1980s.
","history":"The Queensland Government constructed the Babinda State Hotel in the town of Babinda between 1916 and 1917. It was the only Hotel at the time constructed and operated by the Queensland Government under the Labor Government's State Enterprises scheme.
The town of Babinda was first established in circa 1912. The township's first entry in Pugh's Almanac describes Babinda as a small township of 100 people on Mulgrave Railway, in a district mainly devoted to sugar-growing, distant 30 miles from Cairns. Between 1914 and 1915 the population of Babinda rose rapidly due to the construction of the Babinda Central Sugar Mill. The town was surveyed for future development in 1915, and private owners bought allotments and began to build homes and businesses. Gradually government facilities were established to serve the local community including a post office, courthouse, police station and state school.
From 1915 the Labor Government, led by TJ Ryan and encouraged by wartime restrictions, food shortages and the consequent high prices, established a series of state-run businesses to compete with private sector business. The idea of state enterprises was not new. During the 19th century governments had operated railways and post offices as monopolies, but the general public accepted these as legitimate areas of government. The new state enterprises were distinctly different and designed to directly compete with private enterprise in order to provide the basic necessities at reasonable prices. The first foray into state enterprises was the establishment of the state butchers shops in 1915. This was followed by the establishment of state pastoral stations, fish supply shops, saw mills, produce agencies, cold stores and mines. Despite the good intentions of the government, the state enterprises lost money except for their one success story, the State Hotel at Babinda.
The construction of a State Hotel at Babinda was linked to the repercussions of the Sugar Works Act of 1911. Under this Act the sale of intoxicating liquor was prohibited in sugar growing areas and the two existing hotel licences in the town were revoked and the owners compensated. This left the town with a definite lack of accommodation in the area and it was muted that the lack of quality accommodation in the town would discourage "the better class of labour" from seeking employment at the sugar refinery. To address this problem the State Government built the first and only state owned and run hotel in Queensland. As it was run by the government, the hotel was also permitted to sell alcohol.
Designed by architects in the Department of Public Works and built by day labour, the hotel opened its doors to guests in May 1917. The hotel was a two storied modern structure of concrete and wood with a corrugated iron roof. It had 58 bedrooms - 24 in the First Class Section and 34 in the Second Class Section and was "splendidly furnished throughout", with reputedly one of the largest bars of any hotel in Queensland. The new State Hotel was designed as a showpiece, and was to be the social centre of Babinda, as well as a major physical landmark in the town. It was the entertainment venue for important visitors and Prime Ministers Hughes and Bruce were both greeted at civic receptions in the hotel.
Initially the hotel was operated by the Home Department and with a Manager appointed and paid by the Department. Following the passing of the State Enterprises Act of 1918 the management of the hotel was transferred to State Enterprises, which were administered by the State Trade Office - a part of the Department of Labour and Industry.
Unlike nearly all other State Enterprises, the State Hotel actually made money. In 1929 its turnover in the bar was more that 300 pounds a week and that of the house was almost 200 pounds a week. However, with the onset of the economic depression from 1929 and the massive losses other state enterprises were experiencing, the newly elected Country Party Government in Queensland was intent on selling off all state enterprises.
Sale of the Hotel was announced in Parliament in September 1929 with the reading of a special bill The Babinda State Hotel Sale Act of 1929. To entice buyers the government offered a monopoly on hotel trade in the town at least until 1935. It was also a condition of the sale that the purchaser make an application to the licensing court for the deletion of the word 'State' from the name of the hotel. Babinda residents opposed the decision to sell the hotel and urged the government to grant additional liquor licences in the area. The Labor party also expressed concern that a syndicate of Italians might buy the hotel, with the leader of the ALP William Forgan-Smith suggesting that action had to be taken to safeguard the rights of Britishers. Despite this opposition the sale of the hotel went ahead as planned.
Comprising of the two storey hotel buildings, including accommodation wings and staff quarters, modern furnishings, plant equipment, sample rooms, shop front and garage, the property was put to auction in March 1930. Only four bids were received for the hotel, the highest bid coming from a Mr J.A. O'Hagan of Brisbane. John O'Hagan, licensed victualler and former licensee of Lennons Hotel and the Hotel Daniel, continued his negotiations with the Government and eventually bought the hotel for 50,000 pounds, payable in instalments without interest. Upon the sale the hotel was re-named the Babinda Hotel.
O'Hagan continued the grand tradition of the hotel up until the Second World War, when business declined and he sold the hotel in 1941. Since that period the hotel has had a succession of owners but has continued to operate as a hotel with accommodation facilities. The hotel has undergone few alterations over the years with the exception of the removal of the second-class accommodation wing and other outbuildings in 1970. It still remains the only hotel in the town of Babinda and dominates the commercial centre of Babinda.
Babinda Town Study report 2000 - The hotel was built by the Ryan Labor government in 1917 as Queensland's only State Hotel, to control the sale of alcohol which was otherwise prohibited within the
Babinda Sugar Works Area. The new State Hotel survived the 1918 cyclone with only minor damage. It operated as a grand hotel, and was the entertainment venue for important visitors to Babinda for many years. Prime Ministers Hughes and Bruce were both greeted at civic receptions in the hotel. There was also a large second class accommodation wing for itinerant workers. In 1930 the Moore Nationalist government sold most of the State Enterprises including the State Hotel. It was bought by
John O'Hagan, who was lessee of Lennons and the Hotel Daniel in Brisbane, he continued the grand tradition until the Second World War, when business declined and he sold the hotel in 1941. It has had a succession of owners since. The second class accommodation wing was demolished in 1970.
","criteria":"The Babinda Hotel, formerly known as the Babinda State Hotel, was erected in the town of Babinda in 1917 and demonstrates important aspects of Queensland's political and economic history of the early twentieth century. As an early building in the town of Babinda, the hotel also provides evidence of the history of Babinda as a sugar growing settlement in far north Queensland.
The hotel provides physical evidence of a period in the history of the state of Queensland, which saw the Labor Government establish a series of state-run businesses to compete with private enterprise.
|The State Hotel was the only hotel constructed and operated by the Queensland Government (one of only two known "state" hotels in the country) as part of the Labor Government's State Enterprises Scheme, which ran from 1915 until 1929.
|The form of the State Hotel, and the facilities provided, demonstrate the characteristics of a country hotel from the early twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17010,"place_ref":602190,"name":"Taylor-Heaslop Building (former)","alternate_name":"People's Cash Store; grocers; JR Blane, grocer & hardware merchant; Moreton Rubber Works | John Evan's Cash Draper; George Logan Draper; Johns & Co Draper | Ernest Reid, Draper","street_address":"10-14 Logan Road","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-02-06","description":"The former Taylor-Heaslop Building is an imposing three-storey masonry building located in the commercial precinct known as the Woolloongabba Fiveways. Centred around the intersection of Stanley Street East, Main Street and the northern end of Logan Road, the Fiveways is now divided by heavily trafficked roads and freeways. The Taylor-Heaslop Building is set in the most intact part of the Fiveways precinct at the northern end of Logan Road. Now blocked off from Stanley and Main Streets, this part of Logan Road retains many 19th and early 20th century buildings.
Situated in the middle of a truncated block formed by the convergence of Logan Road and Stanley Street East, the former Taylor-Heaslop Building is built to the property alignments and fully occupies several parcels of land. It is the tallest building in the predominantly two-storey streetscape and consists of a basement, shops at street level and two upper storeys, now mostly used as offices. The former Taylor-Heaslop Building has two street facades, the southwest façade facing Logan Road and the northern façade facing Stanley Street East. Hidden from view behind parapets is a corrugated metal roof that has three ridges running the length of each shop. Metal ventilators and brick chimneys are visible above the parapet. Original light wells have been covered up with either transparent or metal roof sheeting.
A row or terrace type structure originally built as three shops, the Taylor-Heaslop building is comprised of three long narrow adjoining buildings on separate titles; 10, 12 and 14 Logan Road. 14 Logan Road is bigger than the other two shops, having a wider frontage and a greater depth of plan due to the truncated shape of the site. The facades of 14 Logan Road are distinguished from the façades of 10-12 Logan Road by the use of a different fenestration pattern and a more ornate style.
The masonry street facades are finished with render and paint and decorated with a variety of ornament in a predominantly classical style. At the street level glazed shopfronts are covered by footpath awnings. Pilasters with fluting on the first level and twisted rope detail or scrollwork on the second level mark the corners of the building and the junctions between 10-12 and 14 Logan Road.
The curved corrugated iron awnings over the footpath and the parapet with frieze and cornice supported on modillions are continuous elements across the street façades. Mounted on top of the parapet are masonry balls on the Logan Road façade and a fan type ornament on the Stanley Street façade. These parapet ornaments mark the position of the party walls that separate the three tenancies. Two of the original cast iron columns supporting the footpath awning remain on Logan Road. The remainder of the posts have been replaced with timber. The Stanley Street East awning has been recently rebuilt in timber.
The facades of 10-12 Logan Road are restrained with openings defined by simple architraves. The original cantilevered verandahs on the two upper levels have been removed and some of the french doors replaced with casement windows. Six pairs of the original doors remain on the Stanley Street façade but all have been replaced on the Logan Road façade. The original transom lights and cast iron vents remain.
The façade of 14 Logan Road, designed without a verandah, is in a more ornate eclectic style with swirling plant motifs in panels breaking up the expanse of wall. Windows are double hung sashes separated by square columns with bulging capitals. The windows on the first floor have stylized ogee-arched tops.
The sidewalls are predominantly painted brick and abut the walls of the neighbouring buildings, a two-storey former bank built in the mid twentieth century to the northwest and a modest single storey commercial building and timber sheds on the southeast. The northwest sidewall is notable for a painted Moreton Rubber sign, a local landmark.
Most of the shopfronts have been rebuilt over time. On Logan Road the street level shop fronts retain their c1920s remodeling, with leadlights above plate glass display windows and recessed doorways. On Stanley Street the two shops on the perimeter of the building have glazed shop windows while the middle shop retains the original wall, entry door and window.
Similar materials and finishes can be found throughout the Taylor-Heaslop Building. Party walls are mostly rendered brickwork, original internal walls and ceilings are lathe and plaster, and floors are concrete or timber on the upper levels. However interiors in each of the three buildings vary considerably. 10 and 12 Logan Road are similar in design but 12 Logan Road is in an advanced state of disrepair while 10 Logan Road has been renovated. The larger spaces of 14 Logan Road have been renovated and new office partitions inserted.
The basic layout of each building is similar. The main shopfronts face Logan Road while entries to the upper floor offices and other shop windows face Stanley Street. Hallways or vestibules from Stanley Street lead to a timber staircase, located along the northwest party wall half way between the two street frontages. A light well is located adjacent to the stair in 10 and 12 Logan Road. The stairs to the upper levels of 10 and 12 Logan Road retain or have had reinstated the original turned timber balustrade. The flight of stairs between the ground floor and the first floor of 12 Logan Road has been removed. The stair in 14 Logan Road has been largely rebuilt. Doors located in the masonry party walls connect the adjoining buildings.
The only basement inspected was 10 Logan Road, a large space with a concrete floor, painted brick walls and the remnants of two brick fireplaces. A smaller space opens off the main space and some toilets, accessed from this smaller space, are built under the footpath. The basement has no ceilings and the timber framing of the floor above is clearly visible.
At the ground floor level, a portion of the party wall between 10 and 12 Logan Road has been removed, to form a single shop on the Logan Road frontage. The glazed entry vestibule and display window which fronts Stanley Street is built at a lower level to the main floor and has very tall ceilings. External masonry walls and timber windows open into this space suggesting it may once have been more open. The upper levels consist of two floors of office space, divided into smaller rooms arranged around the central stair and light well. These levels have been renovated retaining original rooms, timber flooring and internal door and window joinery. The first floor has marble fireplaces.
The upper levels of 12 Logan Road retain original lathe and plaster walls, ceiling roses, timber stairs and fireplaces with timber mantelpieces. Much of the internal fabric in this part of the building is decayed and plasterwork has fallen off walls and ceilings. The first floor is a single open space with metal storage racks suspended from the framing of the floor above. The second floor is similar in layout to the office levels of 10 Logan Road.
Shops occupy the ground floor of 14 Logan Road. The first floor is divided into tenancies by recently constructed timber and glass partitions. Exposed steel beams supported on concrete blocks set into the walls hold up the floor above. Casement windows have been added to the eastern sidewall. The second floor is a single open space with new glass and timber partitions built around the stair. The ceiling is lined with timber boards at the southern end and flat sheeting at the northern end. A large skylight sheeted in green fibreglass illuminates the northwest end of the space.
Because of its height and double street frontage the building is visible from the surrounding area and contributes to its historic character. Although the scale and urban fabric of the Wooloongabba Fiveways has altered dramatically over time, it retains a significant group of historic buildings many of which can be seen from and form the setting for the Taylor -Heaslop Building.
","history":"A substantial brick commercial premises of three storeys and basement, the Former Taylor Heaslop Building was erected in 1889-90 as a set of three attached shops. The northwest and middle shops were built for Brisbane chemist Walter Taylor, as an investment. The southeast shop, which is larger than the other two, was built for South Brisbane grocers James and Thomas Heaslop and was a branch of their highly successful People's Cash Store. The three shops were designed by Brisbane architect John Beauchamp Nicholson and were erected as one building, with the street façades of Heaslop's shop distinguished from those of Taylor's two shops.
The land on which the building is located was originally part of a suburban block of just over 16 acres, located at the intersection of the roads to the Logan and to Ipswich [later known as the Woolloongabba Fiveways]. This parcel [suburban portion 165, parish of South Brisbane] was alienated by James Gibbon in 1857, and was subdivided into commercial and residential allotments by the late 1870s.
In the 1880s Woolloongabba boomed as both a working class residential district and as a commercial centre, due principally to construction of the rail link from the Ipswich line at Corinda [South Brisbane Junction] to South Brisbane, which opened in June 1884. The main purpose of this line was to bring coal from West Moreton to the ships at South Brisbane, terminating, via a tunnel at Lower River Terrace, in Stanley Street, near the dry dock. However, the main goods yard and passenger terminus was at the western end of the former water reserve at One Mile Swamp, near Main Street between Stanley Street East and Vulture Street [now the site of the Woolloongabba Busway Station]. The railway looped across Logan Road through suburban portion 165 to reach the goods yards and passenger station.
In addition, from 1887 a horse-drawn tram service linked South Brisbane to Mount Gravatt via Logan Road and the Woolloongabba Fiveways, and from 1 November 1889 the newly opened Cleveland Railway terminated at Woolloongabba. From here passengers continuing on to North and South Brisbane transferred to horse trams.
These improvements to passenger and goods transportation stimulated commercial development at the Woolloongabba Fiveways. In January 1886, title to a small, triangular parcel of land between Logan Road and Stanley Street East, at the Fiveways Corner [subs 1 & 2 of section 1 of suburban portion 165, containing 30 perches] was transferred to South Brisbane chemist and dentist Thomas Watson Thomason. Within a few months, Thomason had subdivided this land into eight smaller commercial re-subdivisions, each with a frontage to both Logan Road and Stanley Street East. At the Fiveways Corner, Thomason established The Five Ways Pharmacy in a two-storeyed timber building. The other seven re-subdivisions were sold by the end of 1886.
In August 1886, Henry Willoughby acquired title to re-subdivision 8 [9.3 perches], and in December 1886 Catherine Taylor, wife of Walter Taylor of Brisbane [likely the Queen-street wholesale chemist, dentist and property investor], acquired title to re-subdivisions 6 & 7 [8.7 perches]. In December 1887, title to Willoughby's allotment was transferred to South Brisbane grocer Thomas Heaslop, and in May-June 1889 Brisbane architect John Beauchamp Nicholson called tenders for the construction of substantial brick buildings at the Woolloongabba Fiveways, for Walter Taylor and J & T Heaslop. This appears to refer to the large, three-storeyed brick building at 10-14 Logan Road, Woolloongabba which, when completed, dominated the Fiveways Junction.
Early photographs reveal that at street level on both street facades, the three shops shared a common convex iron awning supported on posts with decorative cast iron bracketing. The middle and northwest shops had cantilevered verandahs on the upper floors, onto which french doors opened. The verandahs had elaborately decorative cast iron balustrading, valances and brackets. By 1955 these verandahs were removed. Designed without verandahs, the façade of the southeast shop was distinguished by arched windows and greater use of render ornament.
Nicholson developed a successful architectural practice in Brisbane in the 1880s. His notable commissions include: the Princess Theatre (1888-89) [600353] at nearby Clarence Corner; the Norman Hotel (1889) on Ipswich Road, Woolloongabba and the Shaftson Hotel (1889-90) at East Brisbane [both hotels possibly erected for members of the Heaslop family]; and, in partnership with architect ARL Wright: the Normanby Hotel (1889-90) [600283] at Red Hill; Parbury, Lamb & Co.'s Warehouse in Eagle Street (1890) [demolished]; Lady Musgrave Lodge, Astor Terrace, Spring Hill (1891-92) [demolished]; and Chardon's Hotel, Ipswich Road, Annerley (1891-92) [demolished]. Nicholson had designed J & T Heaslop's shop and store in Stanley Street, South Brisbane, erected 1885-87, and later their shop in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, erected in 1891. Despite his varied architectural commissions and development interests, Nicholson was declared insolvent in 1891 as a result of the prevailing economic depression.
The Taylor-Heaslop building at the Woolloongabba Fiveways was under construction by August-September 1889, when Catherine Taylor and Thomas Heaslop registered easements and encumbrances over a party wall now erected on their Woolloongabba property. At this time, part of Heaslop's allotment was effectively made the property of Catherine Taylor, to accommodate the whole of the middle shop. The building was likely completed in 1890.
The timing was unfortunate. In 1890 the economic boom of the 1880s burst and Queensland, along with the rest of the world, entered a period of widespread economic depression. In addition, the extension of the railway to Melbourne Street, which opened on 1 December 1891, by-passed Woolloongabba station, diverting passenger traffic on the South Coast, Cleveland and South Brisbane Junction lines to South Brisbane. The Woolloongabba passenger station closed, but the railyard remained the south side's principal goods yard and locomotive depot until the line was closed in 1969.
J & T Heaslop's People's Cash Store had opened in the southeast shop [14 Logan Road] by 1891, but the Taylor's two shops, at 10-12 Logan Road, may have been unoccupied until at least one was tenanted by SH Rawlings, boot importer, from c1892. In October 1893, Catherine Taylor transferred her interest in the two northern shops to James Heaslop, who maintained these as rental propositions. By the late 1890s, Albert M Goodall appears to have taken over Rawlings boot importing business in the building.
Brisbane in the 1890s supported four principal shopping centres: North Brisbane [along Queen, George, and Adelaide Streets]; Fortitude Valley [along Brunswick, Ann and Wickham Streets]; Stanley Street, South Brisbane; and the Woolloongabba Fiveways. Branches of J & T Heaslop's People's Cash Store were opened in each of these centres, and their building at 10-14 Logan Road, Woolloongabba, dominated the Fiveways commercial district.
Irish brothers James and Thomas Heaslop had arrived in Queensland in 1863 with their parents, Samuel and Mary Heaslop, and brothers Samuel, Robert, John, George and William. In 1865, James and Thomas established a small retail grocery business at One-Mile Swamp [near Clarence Corner, South Brisbane] and by 1900 had created a chain of 'direct importing' stores known as the People's Cash Store. The principal wholesale and retail stores were at Stanley Street, Clarence Corner, and branch stores had been established at the Woolloongabba Fiveways; Melbourne Street, South Brisbane [at the southern end of Victoria Bridge]; Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley; Rockhampton; and Charters Towers.
The Heaslops were well known and respected in Brisbane business circles, and were staunch supporters of the Catholic Church. Thomas Heaslop served on the South Brisbane Municipal Council 1888-1895, from the inception of the Borough of South Brisbane, and was Mayor of South Brisbane for three terms, 1891-1893. He was involved with the commissioning of the South Brisbane Municipal Council Chambers, paid the workmen on the site nearly £500 out of his own pocket when the contractor, Abraham James, absconded in 1891, and officiated at its formal opening on 1 July 1892. His term as mayor also encompassed the great floods of 1893, which decimated large sections of South Brisbane, West End and Woolloongabba.
In 1901 James and Thomas dissolved their partnership. At this time, title to 14 Logan Road [the southeast shop] was transferred from Thomas Heaslop to James Heaslop, giving the latter ownership of the 3 shops at 10-14 Logan Road. James leased 14 Logan Road to Thomas Heaslop [Thomas Heaslop & Co. Limited by 1911]. Thomas died in 1911, but his Company continued to operate a branch of the People's Cash Store from James Heaslop's Woollongabba Fiveways building until the early 1920s.
From 1 May 1902, Fiveways draper John Edwin Sheppard Evans took up the lease of the middle shop [12 Logan Road] from James Heaslop, and from the 1 February 1903 he also took up the lease of the northwest shop [10 Logan Road]. Evans was no stranger to the locality. In February 1888 he had established a drapery business next door at 8 Logan Road, in premises owned by AR McLeod. By 1900 he was occupying 6-8 Logan Road, and in 1902-03 expanded into Heaslop's building. Together, John Evans Cash Draper and Heaslop's People's Cash Store dominated the shopping centre at the Woolloongabba Fiveways in the early 1900s.
Evans died in 1907, and for some years the business was conducted by his widow, Margaret Anne Higgins Evans, until she sold to George Logan in 1910. As George Logan, Draper, the business was sustained into the early 1920s.
James Heaslop died in 1922, following which his estate passed to his widow, Clara Ellen Heaslop, who from February 1923 leased 14 Logan Road to grocer and hardware merchant John Robertson Blane. Also in 1923, George Logan apparently sold his drapery business to William Johns, who took a lease of 10-12 Logan Road from Mrs Heaslop in March 1923.
In the 1920s, Woolloongabba flourished as a shopping centre, servicing the rapidly expanding eastern and southern suburbs of Balmoral, Hawthorne, East Brisbane, Coorparoo, Stone's Corner, Greenslopes, Holland Park and Annerley, all of which had electric tram access to North and South Brisbane via the Woolloongabba Fiveways. Many of the earlier shops around the Fiveways were re-developed at this period, including the block opposite Mrs Heaslop's building in Logan Road, but her building continued to dominate, in scale and landmark value, the Fiveways Junction. It appears that the street level shop facades of Mrs Heaslop's building were remodelled at this period.
In terms of height and street presence, the only building to rival Mrs Heaslop's building at the Woollongabba Fiveways was the Broadway Theatre, a three-storey high brick picture theatre fronting Ipswich Road, just past the intersection with Logan Road, erected in 1923 but destroyed by fire in June 1962.
JR Blane, grocer & hardware merchant, occupied 14 Logan Road until c1928, and Johns & Co., Drapers, occupied 10-12 Logan Road until c1930. Ernest Reid acquired John's drapery business about this time, and also expanded into 14 Logan Road [the southeast shop, formerly Blane's], occupying all three of Mrs Heaslop's shops until c1932. In the midst of the depression of the early 1930s, Mrs Heaslop found it difficult to attract tenants for the Woolloongabba premises following Reid's departure. The shops remained vacant until c1936, when the Moreton Rubber Works, motor tyre retailers who had premises further south along Logan Road, occupied 14 Logan Road as their offices. In the late 1930s, 10-12 Logan Road was occupied by estate agents Five Ways Real Estate & Auctioneers.
Mrs Heaslop died in 1944, and the building passed out of her estate in 1950, when 14 Logan Road was acquired by Frederick Pratt and 10-12 Logan Road was transferred to Mrs Ruby Richards, then to Andrew Lowreys in 1951. In 1953, Pratt also acquired title to 10-12 Logan Road, and the property remained in his estate until 1989.
From the 1950s, the expansion of outer suburban shopping centres had a negative impact on older, inner city shopping districts such as the Woolloongabba Fiveways. The closure of the Woolloongabba Railyards and the cessation of Brisbane's tram services in 1969, and the construction of the Southeast Freeway through Woolloongabba in the early 1970s - which effectively cut the suburb's commercial heart in half - further contributed to the decline of Woolloongabba as a shopping centre. The northern end of Logan Road, where the Former Taylor-Heaslop Building is located, is no longer directly accessible from the Fiveways Junction. However, in the last two decades of the 20th century, this section of Logan Road, which is now virtually a cul-de-sac, was rejuvenated as an antiques, secondhand goods, and gallery precinct. The ground floor of the shop at 10-12 Logan Road, for example, is occupied by a furniture restoration business.
","criteria":"The Former Taylor-Heaslop Building, erected in 1889-90, is important as surviving evidence of the Woolloongabba Fiveways, one of Brisbane's principal shopping centres in the latter part of the 19th century, and for demonstrating the impact of the economic boom of the 1880s on metropolitan Brisbane. Heaslop's People's Cash Store at 14 Logan Road, and a sequence of drapery establishments [principally John Evans', George Logan, John's & Co. and Ernest Reid] at 10-12 Logan Road, were amongst Woolloongabba's leading retailers prior to the 1930s depression.
|While a number of similar buildings of this era were erected at South Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and in the Brisbane central business district, comparatively few have survived as intact as this building.
|The place is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a boom-era commercial premises. A four-storey masonry building with decorative street facades, glazed shop fronts at ground level and footpath awnings, it is a row or terrace type structure that was originally divided into three shops. The building is unusual in that each shop has two street frontages, and the southeast shop, although constructed at the same time as the rest of the building has more ornamental façades. A fine example of the commercial work of Brisbane architect John Beauchamp Nicholson, the place is important in contributing to our understanding of his work.
|The former Taylor-Heaslop Building, a landmark in Woolloongabba since 1889, has aesthetic value due to its prominent location, imposing size and idiosyncratic design. It is an integral part of the townscape of a distinctive locality and remains a key element in establishing the character of the Fiveways Junction, especially the northern end of Logan Road.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17013,"place_ref":602212,"name":"Hawthorne Ferry Terminal & Hardcastle Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28 Gordon Street","suburb":"HAWTHORNE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"The Hawthorne Ferry House is on the bank of the Brisbane River in Hardcastle Park facing the former wool store complex at Teneriffe across the river. It is approached from the riverside by a pontoon and from the landward side by a pathway and entrance leading into a covered waiting area.
Hardcastle Park is a level open area running along the riverbank at Gordon Street, Hawthorne. The park is lightly treed so that the ferry house is visually prominent from the road. The park is entered through an archway composed of two stone pillars supporting a metal arch forming the name of the park. A path edged with Brisbane Tuff (porphyry) kerbstones leads from the entrance to the ferry house. This, is an open timber framed structure set on stumps and clad with weatherboards. It is cruciform in plan and the crossing of the intersecting gables of the terracotta-tiled roof is topped with a low tower and cupola clad in flat sheet metal. The gable ends have decorative timberwork and paired brackets.
The sides of the building to the river and land entry are open and have timber balustrades and corner posts. Those to the north and south have small rooms set on either side of the central passage way.
The interior has a timber floor and ceiling and there are timber bench seats against the walls.
","history":"The Hawthorne was built in 1925 by the Brisbane City Council to a design prepared earlier for the Balmoral Shire Council previously responsible for the efficient servicing of several ferry routes across the Brisbane River.
Since the days of the convict settlement at Moreton Bay when a punt was poled between the main settlement and the south bank of the river, ferries have been a vital transport facility for Brisbane. The river twists and loops through the city and cross-river access is important in linking city and suburbs and greatly reducing travel time between them. Although the first bridge linked the city and South Brisbane in 1862, no other bridges were built for many years, public transport was limited and few people had private transport until after WWII. People who needed to commute to work and to access shopping and entertainment facilities used cross-river ferries on a daily basis. Ferries were the only major transport service provided by metropolitan local authorities as responsibility for care and management had been placed in their hands by an 1858 Act.
In November 1844 the first ferry service commenced between Customs House and Kangaroo Point and in 1850 Samuel and Matthew Buckley operated a rowing boat ferry service at Bulimba. In 1888 Bulimba and Hawthorne were included in the area for which the Balmoral Divisional Board was responsible. Balmoral Shire was created in 1901 and was responsible for Apollo, Bulimba, Norman Park and Hawthorne ferries. A special sub-committee was responsible for the provision of boats, buildings and landings and fixed fares. In 1921 the Balmoral council decided to replace the existing waiting sheds and landing at Bulimba with a substantial ferry house to shelter waiting passengers. In 1922 they commissioned a ferry house design from the prominent architectural firm of GMH Addison and Son. Construction was underway by August 1922.
The design for the proposed Bulimba building appeared in the December 1922 edition of the Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland, however, as GHM Addison died in February 1922 following a protracted illness, the design was most likely by George Frederick Addison. The quality of the building and the choice of a noted firm of architects for the design attest to the importance of the ferry in the life of the community.
George Henry Male Addison was Welsh born and trained in England. He immigrated to Adelaide in 1883 and then moved Melbourne. He was an artist as well as an architect and was one of the founders of Melbourne Art Society. He moved to Brisbane in 1886 as local partner of Terry, Oakden and Addison. Addison won prizes for both architectural design and fine arts and served on a number of important committees and advisory panels connected with both. In late 1892 he set up in practice on his own, forming a partnership with L G Corrie in 1898. The firm designed many major buildings including churches, banks and commercial buildings. From 1919 he was in practice with his son, George Frederick Addison as G Addison and Son. G F Addison studied at Brisbane Central Technical College and was articled to his father. Apart from his military service in WWI, he practiced as an architect until 1940.
In 1924 the Balmoral Council called tenders for a second ferry house, to a slightly modified version of the Bulimba design, to be erected at the Hawthorne ferry terminal. The original design was rotated and a central gabled entry added on the river side, making the building cruciform in plan and accommodating two small rooms in the arms of the structure. The modification follows the style of the original and allows the two terminals to be seen from the river as a pair. It is not known if Hawthorne ferry terminal was designed by Addison or adapted from the plan for Bulimba by others. The ferry terminal is directly opposite the large complex of wool stores and wharves at Teneriffe, so that the ferry carried many people to and from work.
In 1925 the various Brisbane district councils amalgamated into a single local government authority, the Brisbane City Council, and construction of ferry terminals because their responsibility. In October 1925 the contract for the new waiting shed at Hawthorne was let for the original design, though other Brisbane City Council terminal buildings were less ornamental. Of the other ferry terminal buildings on the Brisbane River, most were built much later and none are as ornate as the Brisbane and Hawthorne ferry houses.
In 1939 the area around the Hawthorne ferry terminal was generally known as Hawthorne Ferry Park, but the local residents applied to the Brisbane City Council to have it named in memory of SWB Hardcastle, a well-known and highly regarded Hawthorne resident who had lived near the park. It was suggested that if Council supplied the stone, the residents would pay for a memorial in the form of an entrance arch. An area of over an acre was converted from freehold land for this purpose and a stone and metal arch bearing the name of the park was erected at its entrance.
The ferry terminal retains its original function and is generally very intact, although alterations to the tower included removal of clock faces set on the north and west.
","criteria":"The Hawthorne Ferry terminal is important as one of a pair of intact purpose-built ferry terminals from the first part of the 20th century. As with the Bulimba Ferry Terminal, its quality of design and detail demonstrates the importance of ferries in the development of Brisbane before a network of bridges and public transport was fully developed and before many people owned cars. The ferry terminals are also evidence for the workings of the Balmoral Shire Council before the Brisbane suburban councils were amalgamated in 1925.
|The Hawthorne and Bulimba Ferry terminals were the largest ever built to service Brisbane ferries and are now rare as early examples of their type, as most Brisbane River ferry terminals are now served by modern buildings.
|The Hawthorne Ferry terminal not only illustrates the architectural details of the Federation Queen Anne style as applied to a small scale building, but also those features typical of ferry terminals comprising a pontoon for river access, a landing area and covered waiting area for passengers.
The Hawthorne Ferry terminal is significant as a creative example of the later work of the prominent Queensland architectural firm of GMH Addison and Son who are generally known for larger buildings.
|The Hawthorne ferry house has considerable aesthetic significance as a small timber public building that exhibits a high standard of design. Domestic scale and details have been imaginatively applied to a wharf building of mundane function. The aesthetic qualities of the ferry house are greatly enhanced by the trees and open green space of Hardcastle Park in which it is set. The park with its ferry house and entrance archway building is a landmark both from the water and from the landward side.
|The Hawthorne Ferry terminal in its park setting has a long association with the residents of the area as a building often used on a daily basis and as a local landmark that makes an important contribution to the character of the area. The commemorative archway to Hardcastle Park was erected at the behest of Hawthorne residents.
|(Criterion under review)
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17014,"place_ref":602193,"name":"5 Lynch Street","alternate_name":"Ruth Fairfax House | Yeddo","street_address":"5 Lynch Street","suburb":"INGHAM","lga":"HINCHINBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"5 Lynch Street is located on a flat site at 5 Lynch Street, Ingham opposite the railway line. It is located close to the front and southern boundaries which are formed by high concrete block screen walls covered in a thick hedge that provides privacy to the verandahs when the amado are open. To the north a carport abuts the house adjacent to the projecting gable over the entry. Behind the house, a smaller detached single storey timber lined and clad building houses a living area and the kitchen. A garden shed and large bush house occupy most of the remainder of the rear of the site.
The main portion of the house was rebuilt on a concrete slab. The encircling verandahs supported on stumps have a timber floor of boards, 375mm wide. Part of the verandah was not constructed where the house came within close proximity to the building already located on the site and a portion of the verandah roof at the rear is sheeted with corrugated iron as there were insufficient tiles that survived the removal to Ingham.
There is some supposition about the accuracy of the relocation of walls and it is possible a secondary hallway was created between the rear bedrooms. The bathroom has been converted into storage and two sleeping apartments were adapted for the bathroom.
Nails have been used in the re-erection of the framework. Most of the screens survive athough little if any remains of the original paper on the shoji screens. Some of the papier mache on the fusuma screens survives the screens as do most of the ranma, the moon window, the tokonomas and the tanas. The ceiling has been replaced with ply sheeting.
Glossary
Amado\t\tHeavy wooden storm doors on the exterior of the house that slide away during day time to allow light and air into the interior
Fusuma\t Heavier sliding doors made from opaque paper on a wooden frame. - used as room separators often decorated with seasonal scenes.
Nageshi\t Wooden runners in which sliding doors run.
Ranma\t\tFretwork panels which sit above the door lintels and allow air to circulate through the house.
Shoin\t\tAn elevated and slightly projecting alcove which developed from Buddhist study alcoves. It was adopted by the upper classes and became attached to the tokonoma.
Shoji\t\tTranslucent paper sliding screens used on the outer edges of room. Allow a diffuse light to enter - easily removed.
Tana\t\tDecorative shelving which like a soin window adjoins the tokonoma.
Tatami\t\tStandard floor mat, made from rice straw, which is the basic size module for all Japanese rooms. It is approximately 910x1820.
Tokonoma\tA wall recess which is used for displaying art or flower arrangement and is regarded as the focal point of a Japanese room.
","history":"5 Lynch Street, is a single storey timber framed residence with tile roof imported from Japan by Judge GW Paul and erected on a suburban allotment at the corner of Langshaw Street and Bowen Terrace in New Farm in 1887. It was sold at auction in 1962, dismantled and transported to Ingham and re-erected at its current address in Lynch Street. It is the first known residence of its type to be imported from Japan.
The Brisbane suburb of New Farm has played an important part in Brisbane's history since early settlement, providing land for both farming and recreational activities. Its development as a residential area was a little slower, despite Fortitude Valley's earlier establishment. While houses began to appear on the peninsula in the 1860s, it wasn't until the 1880s boom economy that the area between Brunswick Street and the river began to develop solidly with many of Brisbane's most prominent citizens choosing to live there.
It was into this increasingly wealthier residential area that Judge GW Paul, the then Southern District Court Judge, chose to build his Japanese house in 1887. The house was fully manufactured in Japan, and imported into Brisbane, along with Japanese labour - three carpenters and two plasterers - who travelled from Kobe to construct the house, under the guidance of an English supervisor. The house was the first known piece of authentic Japanese architecture in Australia. Japan had been open to full trade with the West for less than twenty years and its influence at the time on Western culture was confined principally to Japanese furniture and interior elements, which had begun to appear in European houses some time earlier.
George William Paul was born in Penrith, New South Wales in 1838, and became a member of the English bar in 1861. He returned to Australia in 1863 and worked in private practice in the new colony of Queensland for some years until being appointed Crown Prosecutor. He went on to become a judge of the District Court in 1871 and was described in his obituary as one of the finest criminal barristers in Brisbane as well as having spent regular intervals on the bench of the Supreme Court.
Judge Paul travelled to Japan in 1886. The house he imported was a copy of the house he stayed in at Kobe during his few months in Japan. Its suitability for the Brisbane climate was allegedly one of the criteria by which Judge Paul chose to bring the house to Brisbane. The house, constructed on a sloping site at the corner of Langshaw Street and Bowen Terrace at New Farm, was reported in the Brisbane Courier on 12 December 1887 in an extensive and highly favourable article. It was also covered in a later issue of the Boomerang with illustrations by GHM Addison. Few Queenslanders, apart from merchant seamen, would have visited Japan at this early time and even fewer would have thought to attempt something such as importing a whole Japanese building. Together with the house, Judge Paul had also brought back with him from Japan, an extensive collection of ceramics and other art treasures.
The house, named Yeddo, was fully manufactured in Kobe, somewhat larger than standard, and was test assembled there before its export. There is some supposition that the house was imported as a speculative venture and its failure to sell prevented a wider trade.
The house was an elevated timber post and beam construction and built on a 6' grid with some plaster infill and a heavy tiled roof after the shoin style. This style of Japanese house remains the one with which most non-Japanese associate Japan, that is, wood framed with paper sliding doors. The shoin style refers to a small elevated bay or box window derived from a type of study alcove (shoin) popular in early Buddhist ecclesiastical communities as early as the 12th Century. These study places became a status symbol and feature in the main guestroom of official residences between the 16th and 18th centuries. Other elements that combine to produce the shoin style are the tokonoma and tana.
The tokonoma, an interior focal point, derives from the private altar in a priest's home, which was originally a low wooden table on which incense was burnt, flowers were placed and above which scrolls were hung. In shoin style this became a built-in alcove often coupled with the tana - originally freestanding scroll racks that became a built in shelving system. These three elements are combined in the house's central room to produce the shoin style.
Like typical Japanese houses, 5 Lynch Street's walls consisted of movable shoji (wood and translucent paper screens to filter the light between the exterior and interior) and fusuma (heavier paper mache partitions between interior spaces to provide privacy). The only fixed walls were around the kitchen, bathroom and tokonamas. These walls, presumably for bracing were made from a plaster on lathe. Heavy timber storm shutters or amado ran around the verandah and effectively formed another layer of enclosure. These could be slid away or removed entirely storing neatly away in the amaboko at the end of each run. At the New Farm site, the kitchen was detached off a servery via the dining room. A bathroom and teahouse were also located in the grounds.
All materials were imported except the plaster and mortar which were mixed to Japanese specifications. The roofing tiles were dark blue-grey, shaped like the English pan-tile. The ridge and hip closers were decorated with the Buddhist chyrsanthemum symbol in high relief.
The house at New Farm covered about 30 squares, including a 6' wide verandah all round. It had four main rooms (which could be subdivided to make eight) and three tokonomas and chigai-tanas. There was an akari shoji (moon window) made by exposing the bamboo frame of a plaster wall in the suki-ya tradition. The shelves of the chigai-tana were meticulously veneered to avoid exposing end grain. The corner posts and beams of the tokonomas had been chosen from cherrywood, hokki pine or bamboo samples. There were few hand wrought iron nails in the house as most of the joints were mortised and tenoned and secured with wooden pegs.
The jointing of the roofing timbers were intricately detailed. The roof was of traditional construction with two beams 24" by 10" in section used for strutting the rafters and hanging the ceiling. The tiles were set in a mud-like mortar on a thin timber decking. The ceiling also was made from this thin timber veneer like plywood. In spite of the houses' flexibility the subtle modular and the fine workmanship, the roof was heavy and complicated.
The Tokyo modular system appeared to have been used. Horizontal distances measured between column centers were in multiples of 3 feet. Vertical distances were floor to mid-transom, 6 feet 6 inches and thence to the ceiling, the width of one and a half mats with a ceiling height of 11 feet. The timber floor had been made from the packing cases in which the house was shipped instead of the usual tatami - the boards were 1.5 inches thick and 15 inches wide and beautifully laid. It was not sunk for tatami matting - only 3/4 inches as if for carpeting. The module was broken only by two internal passages, each 3 feet clear. This must have been a stipulation of the owners as these are not likely to have existed in a Japanese house.
Judge Paul lived in the house until his death in 1909 after which the Public Trustee sold the house to John Cockburn in January 1911. In 1927 it was purchased by George Maxted, a Brisbane bookmaker and sold again in 1948 to the Country Women's Association who renamed it the Ruth Fairfax House and used it as their headquarters until 1960 when they moved to premises in Gregory Terrace. Changes that had been made to the house by this time included cutting off some of the original posts below floor joint level and replacing with brick piers, painting external wood work in cream and dark brown, varnishing sand staining internal woodwork and adding electricity and plumbing.
In March 1962, the house was sold to a developer who offered the house at demolition value to the City Council, University of Queensland and the National Trust. Time constraints and lack of finances prevented the offer being taken up.
The house was purchased at auction for £600 by Dr Pam Markwell, through her sister, acting as agent. With only thirty days for the house to be taken apart for transportation to Ingham, the Markwells enlisted the help of William Carr of the University of Queensland's architecture department, who, with some of his students, recorded the demolition and dismantling for later erection of the building in Ingham. The Markwells then transported the materials 1000 miles north to be rebuilt with local labour.
Some of the timber framework, ranma and a decorative frieze went missing during the trip north. The ceiling and some of the lath and plaster wall panels also did not survive the trip. A number of roof tiles were broken when being unloaded in Ingham. The meticulous mortise and tenon jointing was broken to allow for the removal of the frame and few if any mortice and tenon joints survive. Nails were used in the reassembly.
The house is now re-erected in Ingham. Modern materials have been used to replace those lost in transit or broken during demolition or delivery. The new owners sanded down the timber to its original state.
","criteria":"5 Lynch Street, built in New Farm in 1887 and transported and re-erected in Ingham in 1962 is important as the first known and one of few imported Japanese houses to Australia. The story of 5 Lynch Street is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. It provides evidence of late nineteenth century society's attitudes and interest in other cultures.
|As a fully imported Japanese house, 5 Lynch Street, although relocated and altered, demonstrates a rare building type in Australia and displays the principal characteristics of a Japanese House in the shoin style.
|As a fully imported Japanese house, 5 Lynch Street, although relocated and altered, demonstrates a rare building type in Australia and displays the principal characteristics of a Japanese House in the shoin style. Many of its characteristics are directly comparable with the typical Queensland house of the period.
|The detailing of 5 Lynch Street from its heavy decorated roof tiles to its light and intricately detailed paper screens, its wide floor boards, its screening systems and its solutions to controlling its environment has aesthetic significance that varies from the Queensland house of the period.
|5 Lynch Street is also important for its association with its owner, Judge GW Paul, who had the prescience to import the house from Japan, something that had not been previously attempted from a country that had only recently been opened to full trade with the West.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17016,"place_ref":602195,"name":"Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station","alternate_name":"Racecourse Railway Station | Brisbane Racecourse | Ascot Racecourse","street_address":"230 Lancaster Road","suburb":"ASCOT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-06-25","description":"Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station occupies an almost 50ha flat site in the Brisbane suburb of Ascot, approximately 6km northeast of Brisbane CBD. The site is bounded by Lancaster Road (south); McGill Avenue (southwest); Kitchener Road (west); Mein Street, Gordon Street and residential properties (north); Nudgee Road (east); and mixed-use development (east and southeast). The public entrance to the racetrack is at the south end of the site via Lancaster Road, at Racecourse Road’s north termination, and a secondary entrance is from the northeast.
\nThe place encompasses two sections: a Racecourse Complex, and a Railway Station Complex to the southwest.
\nRacecourse Complex
\nThe Racecourse Complex comprises a turf racetrack, with a range of grandstands, betting facilities, ticket offices, turnstiles, toilets and associated structures. Most of these buildings are located at the southwest edge of the track, adjacent to the main straight and the public entrance.
\nThe grandstands and associated structures retain a strong visual connection to and expansive views of the racetrack. From east to west, these buildings comprise: St Leger Stand, Totalisator Building, Paddock Stand, Members’ Grandstand and John Power Stand. To the south of the grandstands is a public concourse, a Stable (former) and a Sydney Tote Office (former). Race Day Stalls are at the far west end of the track.
\nRacetrack
\nThe oval-shaped, turf racetrack has a circumference of 2,027m and a main straight of 434m. The configuration of the northeast chute has been altered to wrap closer to the track, various training tracks have been added on the inner side of the track, and the track has been re-turfed.
\nEntrance Gates (1913)
\nThe Entrance Gates fronting Lancaster Road comprise two sets of paired, wrought iron gates, hung between three masonry piers that are bookended by two ticket offices. The offices have gable roofs with large eaves and are accessed by operators from the north, with openings to the south for ticket sales.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nExtending north of the Entrance Gates is a bitumen access road, bridged over by the railway and lined with established gardens. The road leads to the grandstand entrances, public concourse and Race Day Stalls.
\nMembers’ Entrance (c1914), Paddock Entrance (c1914) & St Leger Entrance (c1913)
\nEntered from the access road are three ticket offices, which formerly provided separated access to racecourse grandstands and viewing areas (depending on the ticket purchased): the Members’ Entrance (west), Paddock Entrance (centre), and St Leger Entrance (east).
\nThe ticket offices are single-storey brick buildings. The Members’ Entrance and Paddock Entrance have gable roofs with transverse gables at each end, and the St Leger Entrance has a Dutch gable roof. Access to the public concourse is from the south (Members’ Entrance and Paddock Entrance) and southeast (St Leger Entrance). The Members’ Entrance has central turnstiles, south-facing arched ticket windows (west end) and an entrance gate (east end). The Paddock Entrance has turnstiles (eastern end) and south-facing ticket windows. The St Leger Entrance has turnstiles and ticket windows alternating along the length of the southwestern elevation.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nRacecourse Forecourt
\nAn open forecourt lawn at the southwestern edge of the racetrack allows unimpeded views of all areas of the racetrack from all of the grandstands.
\nSt Leger Stand (1913, extended 1938)
\nThe St Leger Stand is a brick grandstand, with north-facing tiered seating overlooking the racetrack. The original section (1913) stands to the west and the four easternmost seating bays are an early extension (1938) – both sections are of a similar form and detailing. The building has a Dutch gable roof, with transverse gables over entry bays to the south, and rounded transverse gablets to the north.
\nThe tiered seating area is accessed from the Racecourse Forecourt and via rear concrete stairs (located in the entry bays). The base of the grandstand houses toilets, refreshment rooms, a cafe, a commercial kitchen and other facilities.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nTotalisator (Tote) Building (1913, extended 1917, 1923 and c1950s)
\nThe Totalisator Building is a timber and brick structure with a hip roof. The building has a long and narrow plan, with long sides facing north and south (1913), and an L-shaped extension with a Dutch-gable roof at the southern end (1928). The ground floor has had partitions removed to create a single open space.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nPaddock Stand (1890, extended 1921-22)
\nThe Paddock Stand is a brick grandstand with tiered seating facing north to the racetrack. It is comprised of two sections – the original section (1890) to the east and the early extension (1921-22) to the west – which are discernible in form and fabric. The original section has a vaulted roof with a gabled ridge ventilator, and the early extension has a gable roof. A sunken walkway connects the two sections, extending under the Racecourse Forecourt.
\nThe base of the stand accommodates bars, jockey change rooms, weighing rooms and stewards’ rooms to the ground floor, and offices to the first floor.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nMembers’ Stand (1904, extended 1925)
\nThe Members' Stand is a three storey brick grandstand, with gable and hip roofs. The stucco walls are rough-cast to the first floor. The base of the stand comprises a Committee Bar, Members’ Bar and toilets on the ground floor; a Members’ Dining Room, kitchen and toilets on the first floor; and private boxes, press boxes and a kitchen on the second floor.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nJohn Power Stand (1957-1958)
\nThe John Power Stand is a concrete and brick grandstand, with two levels of tiered seating facing northeast and overlooking the racetrack (the second level is no longer in use and has been replaced with roof sheeting at the original seating pitch). The base of the stand accommodates ticketing booths, bars, restaurants, toilets, public seating and open space for bookmakers.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nTurnstiles (c1936-1945)
\nThe Turnstiles building stands to the east of the St Leger Stand. It is a single-storey building with a terracotta-tiled Dutch-gable roof. It features timber cladding to the gablets, and face brick walls with a stucco-finished base.
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nToilet Block (by 1936)
\nThe Toilet Block stands to the south of the Totalisator Building and St Leger Stand. It is a single-storey amenities building with a terracotta-tiled, Dutch-gable roof and timbering to the gablets. The walls are stucco – scored to mimic ashlar jointing below sill-height and rough-cast above sill height. Some toilet partitions are of VJ timber.
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nStable (former, c1928)
\nThe Stable (former) forms part of the southwest boundary of the public concourse. It is a long, masonry horse-stabling building with a gable roof and face brick walls. The west end is partially open and divided into individual stalls. The east end is enclosed for offices and store rooms.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nA replica race day stall building (2012) to the north of the c1928 structure.
\nRace Day Stalls (c1951-58)
\nThe Race Day Stalls comprise five stall buildings to house horses on race days. The entrance to this area of the site is via Gordon Street and is marked by stucco-finished masonry pillars. The buildings are partially open, timber structures with gable roofs clad in corrugated cement sheets.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nParade Ring Monument (by 1919)
\nA concrete monument stands in the centre of the parade ring / mounting yard, to the south of the Paddock Stand (it has been moved from its original location). It is of an Art-Deco style, with a large circular plinth (shaped to hold water) and a central stepped pillar that features a clock and two painted plaster motifs of a leaf centred within a wreath. The upper section of the monument has been removed.
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nSydney Tote Office (former, by 1965)
\nThe Sydney Tote Office is a timber betting office with hip roofs, which has been moved from its original location and orientation. It currently stands to the south of the Totalisator Building. The office is mostly single-storey, with a small section protruding from the centre of the building and forming a second storey. The interior was not inspected.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance include:
\nCamera Tower (c1948)
\nA metal Camera Tower, supported by metal cross-braced framing, is attached to the northwest side of the Members’ Stand.
\nJudge’s Box (1963)
\nThe Judge’s Box is located between the Members’ Stand and John Power Stand. It is a skillion roofed tower standing on a tall concrete pier. A small room at the top of the tower has stucco walls, and is accessed from the ground via a metal stair that spirals around the pier. A window runs the length of the racetrack-facing (northern) elevation and its view aligns with the racetrack winning post (finish line).
\nOther Features
\nTo the south of the grandstands and along the southwest boundary of the public concourse are a collection of single-storey buildings with face brick walls and terracotta tile roofs. These include: toilet blocks (c1910-20), refreshment stands and turnstile buildings.
\nThe ground surface surrounding these structures is of concrete, paved and lawn, and features mature shade trees.
\nLandscape Features
\nThe grounds of the racecourse create a parkland setting and include well-maintained gardens, specimen trees, avenues of trees, flower beds (including seasonal bedding out schemes) and expanses of lawn.
\nThe south public concourse between the grandstands and ticket offices is shaded by mature trees, including: figs (Ficus sp.), Camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), and Poincianas (Delonix regia). Other rows of trees located around the racetrack and public concourse are indicative of formal planting schemes undertaken at the site.
\nRailway Station Complex
\nThe Ascot Railway Station on the Doomben Line is the eighth rail station northeast of Brisbane Central Station. It comprises: two station buildings and platforms on opposite sides of the rail tracks (an 1882 timber-framed building is to the northeast, and a 1914 precast concrete building is to the southwest); a timber footbridge (c1911; southeast of the station buildings); a concrete toilet block (southwest of the 1914 station building and adjacent McGill Road); a concrete platform and mechanical interlocking signal system. A second timber footbridge (c1914) is located at the northwestern end of the heritage boundary (over the rail tracks between Ascot and Hendra railway stations), providing access between Kitchener Road and a laneway to Gordon Street.
\nTimber Station Building (1882, extended c1883 and c1911; re-roofed 1914)
\nThe Timber Station Building is a single-storey, timber-framed building with a gable roof and short timber and concrete stumps. The roof extends over the southwest platform. A northeast verandah (c1911) runs half the length of this elevation and is accessed via timber stairs at each end.
\nThe building has a central waiting area opening onto the platform and flanked by a booking office to the southeast (extended toward the southeast c1911), and a ladies’ room and toilet to the northwest (c1883). The ladies’ room is entered from the platform and provides access to the toilet, which is recessed toward the north.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nConcrete Station Building (1914)
\nThe Concrete Station Building is a single-storey, concrete building with a gable roof, and standing on concrete dwarf walls. The building has a central waiting area, a southeast ‘ladies’ room’ and toilet, and a northwest booking office. The waiting area is open to the northeast platform. A semi-enclosed waiting area along the southwest side of the building is accessed via a small stair.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nPlatforms (c1882 and c1914)
\nThe raised platforms are adjacent to each station building and are of brick and concrete. Both platforms have been resurfaced with bitumen. The passenger platform adjacent to the Concrete Station Building and extending inbound to the northwest is currently in use.
\nMechanically Interlocked Signalling System (1914)
\nThe Mechanically Interlocked Signalling System comprises:
\nTimber Footbridges (1911 and c1914)
\nThe Timber Footbridges are built to a standard Queensland Railways design, with timber-framed painted trusses that span over the railway line. One footbridge is to the south of the station buildings and links the two platforms. The other footbridge is located inbound from the station buildings and provides access between Kitchener Road and a laneway to Gordon Street.
\nToilet Block (by 1934)
\nThe toilet block is a single storey, precast concrete structure with a corrugated metal-clad, hip roof. The concrete structure is exposed and has a painted, rough finish. The building is accessed from an entrance on the southwest elevation via a VJ-lined timber door.
\nThe interior was not inspected.
\nFeatures Not of State-level Heritage Significance
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance within the Racecourse Complex include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance within the Railway Complex include:
\nThe Eagle Farm Racecourse, located in the Brisbane suburb of Ascot approximately 6km northeast of Brisbane CBD, was established in 1863 and continues to operate as Queensland's premier racecourse. It includes Ascot station and railway line (1882); the Paddock Stand (1889); the Members' Stand (1904, extended 1925); the St Leger Stand (1913, extended 1938); the Totalisator Building (1913, extended 1917, 1923 and c1950s); the entrance gates (1913); ticket boxes (1914); the John Power Stand (1958); and timber and brick buildings and timber stabling areas.
\nHorse racing was one of the first sports conducted in Queensland following the opening of the Moreton Bay district to free settlement in 1842. Organised by the Moreton Bay Racing Club, the first recorded horse races in Brisbane were held at Coopers Plains on 17 July 1843. A racecourse at New Farm was established by May 1846 and operated until the early 1860s.[1]
\nEagle Farm Racecourse was established in 1863 when a grant of 320 acres (129.5ha) was approved and the site named the ‘Brisbane Racecourse'. The Deed of Grant for the racecourse land, signed by Governor Bowen on 12 October 1863, stipulated that ‘the appropriation thereof [was] as a racecourse and for no other purpose whatsoever'. The land was placed under the trusteeship of the Hon Maurice C O'Connell MLC (president of the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1860-79), the Hon John F McDougall MLC, and the Hon George Harris MLC, who were members of the Queensland Turf Club (QTC).[2] A grandstand capable of seating 350 people and a saddling paddock were constructed before the first three-day meeting took place on 14-16 August 1865. Attended by about 3000-5000 people each day, the races took place in a thickly forested area, and race-goers saw only occasional glimpses of the horses.[3]
\nBefore horse racing gained widespread popularity in Queensland in the 1880s, the QTC employed a number of fundraising strategies to improve its cash flow to overcome economic downturns and to repay the cost of improvements. The QTC organised the Brisbane Hunt Club in the late 1860s, which hunted in the district with a hound pack; and charged each rider 1 shilling per event. Starting in 1870 and continuing into the 1880s, the Club divested itself of land to the north of the present day race track, to pay off the considerable mortgage its earlier borrowing had necessitated.[4] The racecourse was also used for diverse purposes to generate income, such as polo matches from 1877-c1900, cricket matches, ladies croquet, night athletics, shooting competitions run by the Brisbane Gun Club (1879), and the Queensland Volunteer Force’s encampment in 1879.[5]
\nBy the end of the 1880s, the QTC had assumed a leadership role in the state's racing industry. A new code of rules modelled on those of the English Jockey Club was adopted in 1885 and a system of registration of all racing clubs under the QTC rules was instituted. The QTC thereby constituted itself the supreme racing authority in the colony and the ultimate court of appeal. Another significant step undertaken during the 1880s was the publication of the first edition of The Queensland Racing Calendar in 1886.[6]
\nA boom in horse racing at the end of the 1880s led to more clubs and meetings. The QTC staged four, two to three day meetings per year at Eagle Farm, coinciding with the main public holidays of: Christmas-New Year, the Queen's Birthday, the Royal National Association’s Exhibition and the Prince of Wales' birthday. With several clubs and courses in operation in Brisbane, meetings often clashed; consequently, in May 1890 the leading racing clubs agreed to empower the QTC to allot dates for meetings, thereby confirming it as the premier club. The second major metropolitan club was the Tattersall's Club, which did not have its own track and preferred to hire the Eagle Farm course for its meetings. The Tattersall's Club held its first meeting at Eagle Farm Racecourse on 10 December 1884.[7]
\nIn the early years, race-goers drove their buggies or rode their horses to the track. Others arrived by a small steamer known as the ‘shuttlecock boat'.[8] A major achievement for the QTC was the opening of the Brisbane and South East Railway Line extension from Eagle Junction to Ascot on 3 September 1882. Although the population of Brisbane was too small to justify building railways just for commuting between the city and its suburbs, some rail lines, such as the seaside line to Sandgate and the branch line to Eagle Farm Racecourse, were built solely to benefit Brisbane residents.[9]
\nThe railway enabled access to the racecourse by a larger racing public. By 1885, a fork siding for turning engines had been laid adjacent to the grounds, in what is now the members' car park at the corner of Lancaster and Kitchener roads. The timber station was built on the racecourse side of the single rail line in 1882, to a floorplan designed in 1881. [10] A ladies waiting room was added in c1883 to the north west of the station building.[11] The building is the earliest surviving example of a timber passenger station in metropolitan Brisbane.[12]
\nWhile horse racing was controlled and patronised by Queensland’s colonial elite, large numbers of people from all strata regularly attended race meetings. The spatial organisation of the Eagle Farm Racecourse reflected class hierarchies. All non-members paid to enter the racecourse and once inside, patrons, if they wished to pay more, were separated according to the additional price for certain areas. Entrance to the St Leger Stand cost less than the entrance to the Paddock Stand and saddling area, while members were located in their own stand. The area around the totalisator (introduced in 1879) was one space that was less defined, where punters of all classes placed bets. [13] Working class people tended to gather in the ‘outer', an area in the middle of the racetrack. This space was especially popular during major race programmes, with all manner of entertainment including boxing tents, sideshows and drinking booths, competing with the bookies’ stands.[14]
\nIn September 1889, tenders were called by joint architects, Hunter and Corrie, and J H Buckeridge, for the construction of a brick and iron grandstand.[15] Constructed in the Paddock area, the grandstand became known as the Paddock Stand after it was completed in 1890.[16] A photo dated c1914 shows the Paddock Stand as having a vaulted roof with a vented and gabled ridge ventilator, timber-clad gable ends, and large supporting columns. The stand featured a tiered base for seating that faced the racetrack, and decorative cast iron balustrades. A large open area in front of the stand facilitated the viewing of races and socialising.[17]
\nThe economic depression of the 1890s severely affected racing, with all the main clubs experiencing financial difficulties. Attendances dropped considerably and prize monies fell. At Eagle Farm, all proposed capital works were suspended.[18]
\nIn 1897 the Racecourse Railway Station was renamed Ascot Railway Station (after the famous racecourse in England), and in the same year the line was extended to Pinkenba. From December 1899, the advent of the electric tram along Racecourse Road provided an alternative means of transport for patrons.[19]
\nFrom the late 1880s, conferences between the major racing clubs of Australia had been held to formulate uniform rules of racing. On 14 October 1912, Queensland accepted the final draft of the Australian Rules of Racing, and from that time, the Club progressed with new building works.[20]
\nThe early 20th century brought further improvements to the Eagle Farm Racecourse grounds and facilities. The three-storey Members’ Stand was designed by Hall & Dods, architects and tenders invited by 1 August 1904. The committee of the QTC later accepted a tender for £1200 for the erection of the new stand by a Mr Carrick.[21]
\nHall and Dods, architects were also the designers of a new grandstand at Ascot Racecourse, the tender for which was advertised in January 1913.[22] This St Leger Stand was in use from November 1913.[23] A 1919 photograph of the St Leger Stand shows it as having a gabled roof, supported by bracketed columns, with dentil details at gable ends and a rounded north-facing gablet. The grandstand had sheltered tiered seating which faced the racecourse, and ornamental balustrades.[24]
\nTenders for the construction of entrance gates to the Eagle Farm Racecourse were called on 11 January 1913. Designed by architects Chambers and Powell, the gates were built by A Gillespie at a cost of £1120.[25] Photographs from the 1940s depict the entrance gates as constructed of metal and featuring the QTC logo. The gates stood between masonry piers that had a face brick base and were topped with ornamental urns. To either side of the piers were brick ticket offices that featured stucco accent bands, ticket windows facing the street, and tiled roofs with tall ventilation fleches.[26]
\nAlso in January 1913, tenders were called for the construction of a new totalisator building (Tote Building) designed by architect, GHM Addison, after the previous one burnt down.[27] The new single-storey building was of brick and served both the Paddock and St Leger reserves.[28] It had a tiled Dutch-gable roof with a central ventilation fleche and verandahs to the long sides (east and west).[29] In 1917, improvements were made to the Totalisator building to include a Julius Premier totalisator machine. The building was extended to the north, with the two-storey extension comprising a face brick base and numbered board facing the track. The roof was raised in height and altered to include a transverse Dutch-gable and more impressive roof fleche.[30]
\nIn 1914, Addison supervised two further building projects for Eagle Farm Racecourse. In January 1914, he called for tenders for the construction of latrines at the racecourse, which were constructed by Hornibrook at a cost of £1335. Addison also designed the ticket boxes at Eagle Farm Racecourse, for which tenders were called in April 1914, with the successful builder being James Malskrey with his quote of £915.[31]
\nOn 17 March 1916, W Lindsay's tender of £151.5s for the construction of a bandstand (demolished between November and December 2014)[32] at Eagle Farm Racecourse, designed by Atkinson and McLay, was accepted.[33]
\nDuring this period of development at the Eagle Farm Racecourse, railway facilities were also improved. An overbridge adjacent to the Ascot Railway Station was completed in October 1911, and in 1912 a new siding was constructed at the Hendra (north) end of the platform, to store trains on race days. At this time, the 1880s fork siding was removed. Between August 1911 and January 1914, the timber station building was extended a third time, providing additional office space and a verandah extension to its southeast end.[34]
\nFollowing lobbying from the Hamilton Town Council, a second railway station building was constructed on the western side of the line in 1913-14, opening on 20 February 1914.[35] This was a pre-cast concrete building, with ticket office, passenger waiting room, toilet, and a signal cabin spanned by a terracotta tile roof. The signal cabin housed the lever frame of an interlocking signal system and with extensive window openings overlooking the rail line. This station was constructed using a technique of pre-cast concrete panels stacked vertically within a concrete frame to form a wall. Queensland was the first state to experiment with this method, making the Ascot Station one of the earliest pre-cast station buildings built in Australia. It is now the oldest surviving pre-cast concrete railway station still in operation on the Queensland Rail network. Earlier (now demolished) examples were Northgate (1911-12) and Chelmer (1913), while Kuranda (opened September 1914) is the next oldest surviving.[36] Precast concrete structures became the new standard for Queensland Rail buildings, often replacing earlier timber structures on the site. The prefabricated concrete system was later adopted and used extensively on NSW railway structures.[37] The roof of Ascot’s timber station building was changed to Marseilles tiles, to match the new station building, after plans for this alteration were drawn on 24 January 1914.[38]
\nCongestion on race days at the racecourse station resulted in further improvements during the first decades of the 20th century. The QTC had found that the level crossing gates, inserted when the rail line was extended to Pinkenba, obstructed access to the course. In 1914 the Club agreed to pay the cost of building a subway underneath the railway embankment. Wartime delays hindered its completion until April 1916. In 1920, plans were devised to duplicate the railway line to cater for the ever-increasing number of patrons, but did not come to fruition.
\nAfter World War I, further development of the racecourse took place. A major addition to the Paddock Stand was constructed in 1922. Designed by H W Atkinson & A H Conrad, and Francis R Hall, the grandstand extension was constructed by J G Hobbs for £23,000.[39] Architects Atkinson & Conrad were in partnership in Brisbane from 1918 to 1927. Between 1916 and 1924 Francis Richard Hall worked in association as Hennessy and Hennessy and F R Hall, Architects.[40]
\nIn November 1924, a tender was advertised for extensive additions to the Members' Stand, designed by Hall and Prentice. The architectural firm of Hall and Prentice was established in 1919 when Thomas Ramsay Hall entered into partnership with George Gray Prentice. Hall was one of Brisbane's most successful architects of the early 20th century and the firm designed many prestigious buildings in Brisbane, including Brisbane City Hall (QHR 600065), Sandgate Town Hall (QHR 601566) and the Tattersall's Club (QHR 600093). He was involved in racing through the Tattersall's Club and the QTC, and his name is commemorated in the T R Hall Handicap.[41] In December 1924, the Daily Standard newspaper described the planned alterations to the Members’ Stand as having a terracotta tiled, gable roof, white exterior stucco walls with cherry-red face brick window and void trims, and dark brown timberwork. The interior included a spacious lounge 85ft (25.91m) in length, with polished Queensland hardwood timber floors, heavy mock oak beams, and plastered walls and ceilings. The fittings, counters and wall details were finished in dark polished oak. The lounge featured a main wall of glass and an observatory window, ‘which will assure a perfect, unobstructed vista of the lawns and horse quarters’.[42] The base of the stand comprised general offices, a weighing room, inquiry room, committee’s dining room and bar, official’s dining room, kitchen, stores, lavatories and members’ cloak rooms. The building work for the Members’ Stand was let to SS Carrick.[43]
\nOther additions by Hall and Prentice included alterations to the main and ‘flat' totalisators, as well as a new lavatory block in April 1923. Alterations to the Totalisator building recorded in May 1923 included an increase in payout windows from 26 to 43, and the provision of additional space in the main enclosure by making a bay window on the northern side of the building. By May 1924, however, the Telegraph newspaper reported the intention to lower the roof of the building to enable uninterrupted views for patrons from the adjacent areas and grandstands.[44]
\nIn May 1938, Hall and Cook, architects, called tenders for extensions to the St Leger Stand.[45] Harold Morton Cook (1901-68), employed by F R Hall in Brisbane between c1924 and 1930, later formed a partnership with Hall as F R Hall and Cook Architects, Brisbane, which operated from 1930 to 1939.[46] The extensions to the St Leger Stand were contracted to Blair Cunningham and Sons, builders, and were reported as adding 80ft (24.38m) to the length of the stand. The extension increased the accommodation of the stand to 3000 people, and included the addition of a ladies’ rest room. It cost approximately £9000. Simultaneously, new turnstile buildings were constructed by G Day and Son, builders, for approximately £1500.[47]
\nThe QTC’s regular race meetings continued until December 1941 when Australia faced the threat of invasion by Japan. Military authorities took over the racecourse on 19 December. From then until 1946, Eagle Farm Racecourse was known as Camp Ascot and accommodated thousands of Americans. The first contingents of American servicemen from the Pensacola convoy marched from Bretts Wharves down Racecourse Road and through what has since been termed ‘The Gateway to Victory', in December 1941.[48] In the early 1940s, eight ‘igloo' stores were erected at Eagle Farm Racecourse for the Australian and United States Armies. Throughout World War II, the QTC conducted races at Albion Park, with the Victory Cup Meeting in May 1946 marking the return of racing to the Eagle Farm Racecourse.[49]
\nIn the 1950s two major building works were undertaken. The Totalisator building, which straddled the Paddock/St Leger boundary, was extended and the John Power Stand was built in 1958 by KD Morris & Sons, Pty Ltd, at a cost of £450,000. Designed by architect Martin Conrad, the grandstand was named after Dr John Power, President of the QTC from 1947 to 1965.[50] This stand originally featured two levels of tiered seating stacked one above the other, however, the upper level of seating was later replaced with roof sheeting due to issues with concrete deterioration.[51] Conrad designed a number of other buildings at the racecourse in following years, including the Judge's Box (1963) and a ladies toilet (1966).[52]
\nThe QTC celebrated its centenary year in 1963 with social events, exhibitions of memorabilia and with a carnival held from 8-15 June 1963. However, the previous year marked the establishment of the off-course TAB, which ‘cost race clubs a lot of patrons with punters electing to have their bets legally at a local agency’.[53]
\nRacecourse improvements since 1963 have taken several forms. In 1969 a new kikuyu grass training track, aluminium running rails, a horses' swimming pool, a state-of-the-art testing facilities for the Laboratory, and a covered betting ring were added.[54] In 1990 there was major track extension between the 1600 metres and the 1200 metres and the QTC acquired several properties bordering the 1600 metres up to the 1400 metres starts. The new 1600 metres start was used for the first time in February 1991. In 2005 refurbishment of the St Leger Stand was undertaken. Restoration of the old Totalisater building occurred in 2006, followed by relocation of the Racing Museum into its upper floor. Prolonged drought led to expansion of the existing infield dam, excavation of a new dam, and the installation of underground water tanks in 2008.[55]
\nChanges to the management of the Eagle Farm Racecourse have also taken place. At the QTC's Annual General Meeting on 9 September 1997, the membership unanimously voted for incorporation from 31 March 1998, to allow the Club to hold freehold title of Eagle Farm Racecourse in its own name. Circa 2002 there was an in-principle agreement by the QTC Board to merge the QTC and the Brisbane Turf Club (which managed Doomben Racecourse) to form one entity.[56] The merger to form the Brisbane Racing Club (BRC) subsequently took place on 8 August 2008 and became operational on 1 July 2009.[57] At this time, a history of the QTC was published and a conservation management plan for the complex was created.[58]
\nOne of the first objectives of the Board of the BRC was the creation of a Master Plan to develop Eagle Farm and Doomben Racecourses, which was announced in April 2009. [59] It proposed a ‘world class racing facilities in a precinct … [with] a variety of lifestyle, residential, retail and commercial developments…. infield stabling and a dedicated veterinary clinic…extensive landscaping ... and 16.5ha of open leisure space and parklands … for use by the community'.[60] As part of this initiative, another Conservation Management Plan was prepared in 2011 to inform development plans.[61]
\nIn 2012 the mounting yard and the race-day tie-up stalls, previously sited at the western end of the John Power (Members) Stand, were returned to their pre-1946 location behind the public grandstand.[62]
\nRedevelopment of Eagle Farm and Doomben Racecourses into a range of residential, commercial and recreational land uses, in accordance with an approved Master Plan commenced in 2013.[63] The development included: upgrading both racetracks and associated facilities; introduction of non-racing (residential, commercial and retail) and the continued operation of the racing facilities; bikeways and pedestrian paths as well as private open space areas; parking and stabling areas in the centre of the racecourse; and enhancement of existing buildings and structures on site.[64] To enable development, the large land parcel that predominantly comprised the Eagle Farm Racecourse was reconfigured in October 2015 to create five separate allotments.[65]
\nIn 2017, the stables complex (a series of early horse stables, sand rolls and other buildings associated with horse stabling); workshops and sheds associated with the maintenance and operation of the racecourse, located to the north and west of the stables complex; and a house accessible from Nudgee Road, located north of the stables complex were demolished.
\nIn their place, a new access road and a residential tower were completed in 2018, and site preparation for a second tower commenced.[66] A supermarket with related retail and commercial facilities in the northeast corner of the racecourse site, on Lot 804 SP292903, is under construction in 2018 and scheduled to be officially opened on 31 July 2018.[67]
\nIn 2018, Ascot Railway Station retains most of its mechanically interlocked signal system, however, the semaphore signalling posts have been disconnected with some rods, links and cables removed.
\nBefore railway ‘safeworking’ systems were computerised and centralised in Queensland, mechanical signals were controlled from signal cabins, which dealt with the traffic on a particular block of railway line. Signal cabins coordinated signals that indicated whether or not a section of track was clear of other traffic. Early signals were mechanical, while later signals were operated electrically.[68]The interlocking control system comprised: points: (movable sections of railway line that enable trains to move from one line to an adjacent line); semaphores or signal arms (red and white or black and white levers on posts, which indicate which sections of line are open and which are closed); a lever frame (a number of levers that operate the points and semaphores); a signal cabin (a room where the lever frame is located); and the interlocking mechanical system that prevents points and signals from being in conflicting positions, which could lead to derailments or worse. Ninety percent of the interlocking is done by a complex mechanism under the levers in the signal cabin. Some interlocking is done at the points themselves and on the semaphore arms. Every interlocking installation is individual and unique to the location controlled. At Ascot Railway Station, the signal cabin adjoins the main concrete passenger station on the northern end of the western platform.[69]
\nAscot Railway Station is the last station in metropolitan Brisbane to retain semaphore signalling and a mechanically interlocked cabin.[70] It is one of only seven such systems intact in Queensland, with Kuranda Station using the only operational mechanically interlocked signal system.[71] This is a reduction since 2008 when there were seven mechanically interlocked signal cabins still commissioned in Queensland: Ascot (not used), Charters Towers, Ingham, Innisfail, Kuranda, Laidley (rarely used) and Mackay. At this time, there were about 19 surviving decommissioned interlocked signal cabins complete with their frames in Queensland (six had been relocated), along with 36 signal cabins minus their signal frames, and 10 known signal frames in various states of intactness. Approximately 100 mechanically interlocked signal cabins had been demolished at stations around Queensland.[72]
\nSince 1863, Eagle Farm Racecourse has been a centre for horse racing, attracting a wide cross-section of the community to its events. During its stewardship of the site, the QTC commissioned an array of facilities designed by noted Queensland architects and set them within landscaped grounds with mature trees and gardens, to create a popular gathering place for the valued customary experience of horse racing. Many of its patrons were delivered to the racecourse via the purpose-built branch railway line to the adjacent Ascot station, provided by the Queensland Government.
","criteria":"One of Queensland’s earliest racing venues, Eagle Farm Racecourse (1863), with the associated Ascot Railway Station (1882), is important in demonstrating the development of horse racing into a major sport and industry in Queensland. The place has state-wide importance through its evolution and development into Queensland’s premier racing venue.
\nThe provision of a suburban branch railway line and station to serve the racecourse from 1882 demonstrates the importance of horse racing from early in Queensland's history.
|The Ascot Railway Station is the last station in metropolitan Brisbane and one of only seven in Queensland that retains a once-common, now uncommon, mechanically interlocked signalling system, which is highly intact.
|Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station is important as an excellent early and intact example of a large operating racecourse; demonstrating the principal characteristics including: a track; stables; race day stalls; mounting yard; starting gates; fencing; grandstands with extensive views of the racetrack; betting facilities; ticket offices; structures associated with the calling and broadcasting of races; amenities; sheds and garages for grounds equipment; entertainment facilities; open spaces for the gathering of crowds; and landscaped grounds. The layout of and interrelationships between these features demonstrate how the racecourse operated and evolved over time in response to changing needs, crowd numbers and technology.
\nThe collection of late 19th and early 20th century structures and buildings at Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station are good, intact examples of Queensland architecture from the Federation period. This collection of buildings demonstrate the principal characteristics of this type including: the use of relaxed, romantic and picturesque composition, scale, and forms; terracotta tiled, hipped and gabled roofs with timbered gables; decorative brick and / or roughcast stucco walls; elaborate timberwork; leadlight windows; and high quality materials and workmanship. The buildings forming this group comprise: Entrance Gates (1913); St Leger Stand (1913, extended 1938); Members’ Stand (1904, extended 1925); Paddock Stand (1890, extended 1921-22); Totalisator Building (1913, extended 1917, 1923 and c1950s); railway station buildings (1882 and 1914); ticket offices (c1913-14); and toilet blocks (c1910-20). The collection also includes later buildings designed with similar architectural features, including: Stable (former, c1928); Toilet Block (by 1936); and Turnstiles (c1936-45).
\nAs the prestige of Queensland’s premier racecourse attracted a variety of architects to design for the Queensland Turf Club (QTC, Brisbane Racing Club since 2009), Eagle Farm Racecourse is an important representation of the intact, unique and exceptional work of a number of prominent architects who made an important contribution to Queensland’s built environment. These works include:
\nThe St Leger Stand, Paddock Stand, Members Stand and John Power Stand are important as intact examples of sporting grandstands of a representative range of eras, demonstrating the principal characteristics of their type including: their location on the edge of and overlooking a sporting ground; substantial and open forms, with large roofs to shelter spectators; elevated and tiered seating for optimal and expansive views of the grounds; a base below the seating, with associated facilities, services and amenities; and durable materials to facilitate large crowds.
\nAs the third of its type in the world, the Totalisator is an early example of a totalisator building with automatic totalisator, demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with later improvements, including: its substantial size; location within a racecourse; large tote boards with numeric and alphanumeric characters displaying race odds and / or dividends; large room housing the totalisator apparatus; and betting windows accessed by punters on one side and bookmakers on the other.
\nAscot Railway Station is an excellent, intact example of a Queensland railway station complex from the late 19th and early 20th century; demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including: station buildings, platforms, railway tracks, mechanical signalling systems with signal control room, footbridges and amenities.
\nThe Timber Station Building (1882) is an intact, excellent and early example of a timber railway passenger building, demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type including: its timber construction, gable roof, platform-facing waiting area, ticket sales office and ladies’ room with amenities. It is the earliest known surviving example of a timber passenger station in metropolitan Brisbane.
\nThe Concrete Station Building (1914) is an intact, excellent and early example of a concrete railway passenger station building, demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type including: its precast concrete construction with ornamental timber detailing, gable roof, platform-facing waiting area, ladies waiting room, lavatories and offices. It the earliest known surviving example of its type in the Queensland Rail (QR) network and in Australia.
|Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station is of exceptional aesthetic significance to the State for its intact expressive architectural attributes, evocative qualities, and streetscape and visual merit that are complemented by its built and landscaped setting.
\nAs Queensland’s premier racecourse, the place expresses its prestige and notable standing through its high quality architectural design and elegantly composed and scaled buildings, finely crafted interiors, excellent craftsmanship, detailed ornamentation, and character of its established landscape setting.
\nThe place is also important for its beautiful attributes, embodied in the balanced architectural uniformity of scale and materiality, and the established landscaped setting. As a cohesive set of structures utilising common materials such as brick, terracotta, cast iron and timber detailing, the beauty of the complex is reinforced and harmonised by its setting of mature trees, formal gardens and open space. The grandstands offer extensive views of the racetrack, with view corridors from each facilitating spectators’ views of races.
\nThe elegant and well-composed Entrance Gates contribute to the streetscapes of Lancaster and Racecourse roads as the prominent and distinctive public face of the Eagle Farm Racecourse.
\nApproached via the little-altered Doomben railway line, with its remnant mechanical signalling system, the early station buildings and timber footbridge of Ascot Railway Station, framed by a park-like setting, evoke a sense of nostalgia for the past when race-goers arrived at Eagle Farm Racecourse in this manner, ready for the excitement of a day at the races.
|Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station has a special association with QTC members, officials, owners, trainers, jockeys and with generations of race-goers from all strata of Queensland society, who have attended the Eagle Farm Racecourse for social interaction, recreation and the enjoyment of this popular sport. Since 1863, the Eagle Farm Racecourse has been the setting for popular customary experiences, as demonstrated by photographic and documentary records.
|Eagle Farm Racecourse and Ascot Railway Station has a special association with the Queensland Turf Club (QTC; Brisbane Racing Club from 1 July 2009). Since 1863, this organisation has made an important contribution to the development of horse racing in Queensland, a major sport and industry. From early in the club's history the QTC undertook a leadership role in the industry and in operating the Eagle Farm Racecourse as Queensland's premier racecourse.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17017,"place_ref":602196,"name":"Kelvin Grove Fig Trees and Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"104A Kelvin Grove Road","suburb":"KELVIN GROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-31","description":"The Fig Trees are growing in three separate but linked locations within a length of one kilometre along Kelvin Grove Road, from the Normanby Fiveways to Prospect Terrace. They create an important sense of approach to the Brisbane central business district along Kelvin Grove, which is one of the city's major arterial roads.
The Normanby grouping comprises five (5) mature Weeping Figs (Ficus benjamina) on a median strip between the inward and outbound lanes of Kelvin Grove Road. Despite road widening and the new fly-over Inner City Bypass, the trees still dominate the local streetscape. A turning lane divides the group into two sections comprising two trees nearest the Normanby and another three to the north.
At Marshall Park - a narrow island of parkland along the western side of Kelvin Grove Road, north of the Victoria Street intersection - seven (7) Hill's Fig Trees (Ficus macrocarpa var. hillii) line the eastern side of the reserve bordering Kelvin Grove Road. Prior to 1978, when the reserve was proclaimed, the trees on part of the Kelvin Grove Road reserve. Beneath these figs are grassed areas with playground equipment. The trees provide a barrier between the busy road and the residences to the west, as well as greatly enhancing the character and visual amenity of this area.
The Prospect Terrace grouping comprises three (3) Weeping Figs (Ficus benjamina) on the road reserve at the corner of Prospect Terrace and Kelvin Grove Road. This triangular plot also hosts several other species including palms, and the air raid shelter, now used as a bus shelter.
The shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by four concrete piers. A fig tree branch has grown down onto, and then along, the top of the roof slab. It accommodates two freestanding seats, bolted to the floor, in each end bay. Paving abuts the floor slab to the south and west.
","history":"The fig trees along Kelvin Grove Road at the Normanby Fiveways, Marshall Park and Prospect Terrace, were planted either during the late 19th or early 20th centuries. It is possible that some may be associated with the work of Ithaca Divisional Board and Shire Councillor Silvanus White, who reputedly planted many trees in the Ithaca district in the late 19th century. However, they are more likely to be associated with the Ithaca Town Council's extensive programme of town improvement and beautification in the early 20th century.
During the 1850s a track passing through Kelvin Grove northwards to Newmarket, Enoggera and Cash's Crossing was known as the Northern Road, and remained the major route northwards from Brisbane until Bowen Bridge was constructed in the early 1860s. By 1881 the 'track' was known as the Kelvin Grove Road.
On survey plans of the 1860s, the Kelvin Grove area was marked as the 'Three Mile Scrub'. In February 1865 forty portions of one to two acres were surveyed between Kelvin Grove and Waterworks Roads, stretching from the Normanby to Enoggera Creek. By the end of August that year some of these portions along Kelvin Grove Road had been subdivided into residential allotments ranging in size from twenty to thirty perches, up to a half acre or so. Local subdivision into small housing lots continued for decades, resulting in an early 20th century townscape denuded of vegetation.
By 1881 the urban population within suburbs such as Kelvin Grove had grown so much that Queensland's Registrar-General was referring to the city centre and its surrounding suburbs as the metropolitan city of Brisbane. Despite this population growth, the Municipality of Brisbane had annexed no suburban land. Nor had any of the suburban communities surrounding the city centre sought incorporation under Queensland's existing municipal provisions. Therefore the Queensland Government imposed local government, creating during late 1879 and early 1880 a number of Divisions ringing the city centre.
Ithaca Division, which included the districts of Windsor and Enoggera as well as Kelvin Grove, Red Hill, Paddington and Milton, was created in November 1879, Kelvin Grove Road forming the eastern boundary with Booroodabbin Division. In September 1887 Ithaca Division was subdivided into Ithaca, Windsor and Enoggera Shires, with Kelvin Grove remaining within Ithaca Shire.
During the second half of the 1880s a more crowded urban core and a developing public transport system encouraged land subdivision and suburban expansion in Brisbane, including northwest to Kelvin Grove. By 1888 the Normanby Fiveways had become a busy centre. Tramlines were laid along Kelvin Grove Road during 1897 to 1901, and by the end of 1903 the tram service extended along Kelvin Grove as far as the corner of Edmonstone Road, handy to the Newmarket Hotel.
Ithaca Shire was proclaimed a town in 1902. For virtually its entire existence, Ithaca Town Council pursued a policy of creating a distinctive and aesthetically pleasing environment, and of providing civic amenities such as parks and playgrounds. The Council's street beautification strategy is probably best known for the creation of embankment gardens during the 1910s and 1920s, some of which remain along thoroughfares such as Musgrave and Windsor Roads. However, the planting of street trees by the Council, community organisations and individual residents also featured in many annual Mayoral reports.
Ithaca Town Council minutes for December 1908 referred to suggestions from trustees of the sports ground now known as EE McCaskie Park, on the eastern side of Kelvin Grove Road, for the planting of trees. In July 1909 the minutes recorded an offer by the proprietor of the Normanby Hotel to contribute £10 towards tree planting at the Normanby Fiveways. The fig trees on Kelvin Grove Road at the Normanby appear to have been planted around this time, judging from subsequent Mayoral reports.
Reporting for 1909, Ithaca Mayor George Hall outlined how Shade trees have been planted at the Normanby, along the Kelvin Grove Road ... Alterations were made to a number of tree guards to prevent the continual destruction of young growing trees. The cost of planting and protecting the trees at the Normanby is shared by the ratepayer whose property they will most improve. The Mayor did not specify whether the damage was wreaked by people, horses, vehicles, or the plentiful goats.
The widened road reserve now known as Marshall Park existed by 1893. Named for local Alderman H. Marshall and formerly known as the Kelvin Grove Playground, Marshall Park has long been used for children's recreation, although not officially reserved as a park and named, until 1978. An unsourced newspaper clipping held by John Oxley Library, dated 9 September 1922, includes a photograph which seems to show the fig trees in Marshall Park. A line of eight trees is already well-grown, reaching a height approximately three times that of a passing vehicle. Brisbane City Council plans for McCaskie Oval drawn in 1949 represent nine trees along the western side of Kelvin Grove Road. Photographs taken in 1958 confirm their large size by the middle of the 20th century.
The Prospect Terrace triangular section of road reserve was marked on the 1901 Musgrave Road Tramway Estate map. At the instigation of the Brisbane City Council efforts were made c1996 to close the road reserve at the corner of Prospect Terrace and declare it a reserve for park purposes, but negotiations have not been concluded.
The urban improvement works carried out by Ithaca Town Council extended over two decades. They included the planting of street trees by the Council itself, sealing of roads and improvements to footpaths and drainage. More mundane works such as forming and metalling, laying concrete kerbing and channelling, and footpath widening along Kelvin Grove Road were carried out over a number of years. The road featured in the surviving Mayoral reports for 1917, 1918 and 1921. The report of 1917 had commented that Kelvin Grove Road was very rough in places. By 1921 Mayor John Tait could report that Kelvin Grove Road had been metalled to the Town boundary.
During the decade after the planting of the Normanby trees, Council continued to report the encouragement, and practical assistance, given to individuals and community organisations wanting to plant more street trees. In 1917 the Milton and Rosalie Improvement Association had submitted a request to Council for the planting of avenues of trees along Baroona Road and Nash Street. During 1921, the Town Council reported planting 147 trees. Furthermore, Tait reported that the residents are taking much more interest in the beautification of the Town, and already we have two streets in which trees are to be planted by the residents themselves. And for 1923, Tait reported that the many small reserves and little gardens about the Town are looking well and do credit to our gardener, Mr Jolly. During 1924 the community planted trees along Mary, Moreton and Castlemaine Streets.
On the basis of the interest taken by the former Ithaca Town Council in landscaping and town beautification projects during the period 1902-1925, and available photographic evidence, it seems most likely that the fig trees which survive along Kelvin Grove Road between the Normanby Fiveways and Prospect Terrace, were planted during this period.
The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Kelvin Grove as an air raid shelter in 1942. On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war. Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Kelvin Grove were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter piers have been painted and seating has been introduced.
","criteria":"The fig trees are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland history, specifically several decades of continuing commitment by the Ithaca Town Council to municipal development, urban improvement and beautification, and the encouragement offered by the Council to local residents for the greening of Ithaca which had been denuded during five decades of intensive subdivision and building. The Kelvin Grove air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located at the corner of Kelvin Grove Road and Prospect Terrace is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
|The trees are important because of their aesthetic significance. Lining a major arterial road, these large and mature fig trees are significant as defining one of the gateways to the centre of Brisbane. Despite recent major road construction, the fig trees still dominate the streetscape in their respective locations, providing welcome shade with a distinctly subtropical atmosphere.
|The Kelvin Grove air raid shelter, now used as a bus shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The trees are valued by the modern community for their streetscape value, as was demonstrated by extensive community protest in 1996 when the Brisbane City Council proposed cutting down two adjacent fig trees for street widening.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17021,"place_ref":602200,"name":"Day Dawn PC No.3 Shaft mine remains","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Paull Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The Shaft is open and well defined behind a chain wire safety fence (14m x 14m) that was erected in the late 1960's by the City Council. A temporary wire chain safety fence has been placed on the eastern side presumably to render safe this side from subsidence. The shaft is open and intact. 50 metres to the south west is a brick magazine. Substantial foundations for mine machinery associated with the mine lie to the north. The Day Dawn PC No. 4 is in evidence to the east as has a temporary safety fence around it. The USL on which the shaft lies is heavily grassed and is generally clear of other built or natural features.
","history":"The Day Dawn PC No. 3 mine was a part of the Day Dawn Prospecting Claim which was the first lode mine to turn out £1,000,000 worth of gold in Queensland. This took place in 1898.
Discovered in late 1871, Charters Towers became the richest of the North Queensland mining fields. The field was proclaimed a town in 1877, and by the early 1880s was a prosperous settlement which made a major contribution to the social, political and economic development of North Queensland.
The original Day Dawn P.C. was taken up by a group of German miners and was the first to give Charters Towers a good start and indeed may be said were it not for it, Charters Towers would be a one horse mining centre. The ground was first worked in 1874 and was for many years a 'stringer'. In the hands of Mr Frederick Pfeiffer and his partners Christian and Ievers, the wealth of the Day Dawn Reef at a depth of 200 ft was found in 1878. All at once the stone came in 4 ft thick of 3 oz stuff. The reef widened as far as 20 ft and occasionally went to 5 oz to the ton. The Day Dawn PC ranked as the fifth largest producer on the Charters Towers goldfield with 275,128 tons crushed for a return of 379,859 oz of gold. From 1902 onwards the returns grew less. The mine was closed in 1913.
In June 1887 the mine was sold to an English company for £470,000 and used the name Day Dawn P. C. Gold Mining Company. Returns for the first five years (1887 to 1891) were 120,722 oz of gold with total dividends of £155,000.
The Day Dawn PC No. 3 mine was put down as a vertical shaft by this new English owner some time around 1891 to work the eastern portion of the Day Dawn Claim, which had increased in size from 24 to over 55 acres. It was sunk to cut the Eastward Ho reef and to prospect a big portion of the Rainbow Flat. The original Day Dawn PC together with the No. 2 to the west were underlie shafts. To the east the No. 4 was put down some time after. In 1897 No. 3 shaft turned out 9,500 tons for 15,000 oz.
Gold Production for the Day Dawn PC from 1881- 1913 was 75,128 tons of ore raised for a return of 379,859 oz and dividends returning £638,00. It was the goldfield's 5th mine in terms of value of output.
When in use the shaft was in three compartments. In 1898 it is known the vertical descent of the shaft was 868 ft with two underlies going north east and north west. The total depth at the time was 1078 ft. The capital brace was 40 foot high and was quite distinctive with a long raised walkway to the east. The head frame was an open timber structure. In 1897 the North Queensland Register listed the equipment on the surface to include a 430 ton hopper, a stone breaker, a 28 hp engine, two air compressors, two robey boilers, six rock drills and an underground air machine.
","criteria":"Mine Remains at the Day Dawn PC No. 3 shafts are located on what was one of Australia's most productive gold fields and reflects the importance of the mining industry to the development of North Queensland. In association with other surviving mining sites, the place has the ability to demonstrate the pattern of Queensland's mining history.
The remains of the Day Dawn PC No. 3 along with the machinery mounts, powder magazine, and water tank are the few tangible remains of the Day Dawn era of mining on the Towers. The original Day Dawn PC and the No. 2 shafts have been destroyed. However the vista of the Day Dawn ridge with Frederick Pfeiffer's villa residence still intact in nearby Paull Street coupled to the outline of the tramway that connected these mines to the Excelsior Mill provides evidence of the nature and scope of mining activity that permeated most aspects of life in Charters Towers from 1872 to 1918
|These remains of surface infrastructure and their surrounding cultural landscapes have the potential to yield information about the nature and scope of mining activity during this period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17022,"place_ref":602201,"name":"Old St Mark's Anglican Church","alternate_name":"St Mark's Anglican Church | Old St Marks Anglican Church | St Marks Anglican Church | St Marks Church","street_address":"2 Boronia Drive","suburb":"DAISY HILL","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-03-30","description":"St Mark's Anglican Church is located on a south-west facing slope on 6212m2 overlooking Winnetts Road at Slacks Creek. Located in the grounds of an earlier cemetery, the church is a simple timber building with a steeply pitched painted roof of corrugated iron. It is lowset on concrete stumps and is clad with painted weatherboards. The gabled roof porch at its south-western end has a valance of simple detailing, the vestry is attached at the north-eastern end of the building and has a skillion roof. The roof space is ventilated with timber louvred vents at each end.
The original porch roof that extended over a narrow landing and stairs survives but the flooring has been replaced. The recently constructed landing and disabled access ramp replace a later set of stairs and landing.
The walls of the interior of the nave are lined vertically with silky oak v-jointed tongue and groove boards and the boards to the ceiling are laid along its length. From the wall the ceiling follows the line of the rafters, then the pitch is reduced up to a central section of flat ceiling. A pair of iron tie rods provide structural stability.
All of the joinery is of silky oak and includes a belt rail, pair of doors and six lancet shaped windows, three to each side wall with a nine pane central pivoting sash beneath a fixed sash of six. panes. The whole of the interior of the nave is unpainted and is clear finished.
The vestry is unlined and unpainted.
Whilst the church is orientated so that it faces the road, the graves within the cemetery are orientated east west with headstones facing east up the hill and away from the church. There are 32 marked graves and 20 unmarked graves with 2 reserved and 15 vacant plots.
","history":"The Winnetts Road property on which St Mark's Anglican church is sited was donated in 1880 by the Gommersall family for use as a community burial ground. Mrs and Mrs Gommersall were the first to be buried in the cemetery and their graves are dated 1883.
On Friday 9 March 1900, a committee formed by local families met in the local school building to plan for the building of a church in Slacks Creek and it was agreed to build the church within the site originally set aside for burials. At its meeting on 10 September 1900, the committee decided to call tenders for a church of plain weatherboard, 20 feet by 20 feet, also a porch to same, 6 feet by 6 feet which was to accommodate 24 worshippers.
Only one tender for a church at Slacks Creek was submitted, and builder W Anthony's price of eight-five pounds and ten shillings was accepted in January 1901.
The church of St Mark was dedicated on 21 April 1901by Bishop Webber. Later additions to the original building include a vestry added at the north-eastern end and the lining of the ceiling and walls internal walls.
Surrounding the church, the cemetery contains the graves of several of the original parish council members who were instrumental in the planning and construction of old St Mark's. The 1901 parish council included Thomas White, Thomas Usher, Robert Gommersall, Frederick Armstrong and William Winnett. The Winnett family graves are located in close proximity to the rear of the church. There are also other well known local families and settlers in the cemetery such as the Ushers, Murrays, Morrows and Shailers.
In 1977 when St Marks, Slacks Creek was formed as a separate parish the rectory was built at No 4 Boronia Avenue. By 1978 the church could no longer accommodate the growth in population and from that time services were held in the rectory garage until the second church was built adjacent to the original church. The 1901 church was converted for use as a hall by the parish and the community. To celebrate the church's centenary in conjunction with the Centenary of Federation celebrations, the church was recommissioned on 30 March 2001. As part of this celebration, the church was restored, its early furniture and fittings returned and disabled access provided.
","criteria":"St Mark's Anglican Church and its cemetery, an early community burial ground donated by a local resident, is a strong focus of the community of Logan City and provides evidence of the efforts of the early pioneers within the locality and the development of the Anglican Church within it.
|The siting of St Mark's church within a graveyard is of particular interest as it provides evidence of an uncommon aspect of our cultural heritage. This practice has a long history and is one which has been largely discontinued. The collection of memorials and gravestones in the graveyard at St Mark's Anglican Church records unique documentary information that is of interest to historians, genealogists and relatives of the deceased providing evidence of early settlers and those closely associated with the founding of the church in the local area.
Through its unpainted interior linings and its retention of early fixtures and fittings, St Mark's Anglican Church also demonstrates an uncommon example of an intact interior in a timber church.
|St Mark's Anglican Church and its cemetery, an early community burial ground donated by a local resident, is a strong focus of the community of Logan City and provides evidence of the efforts of the early pioneers within the locality and the development of the Anglican Church within it.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17027,"place_ref":602214,"name":"Classic Cinema","alternate_name":"Triumph Cinema | Elite Cinema | East Brisbane Picture Theatre","street_address":"963 Stanley Street","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-07-27","description":"The Former Classic Cinema occupies a site at the southeast corner of Stanley Street East and Withington Street, East Brisbane. The façade fronts Stanley Street East, which is a major arterial road. The surrounding streets are mostly residential, but there is a small commercial node either side of Stanley Street East, where the cinema is located. Diagonally opposite, on the northeast corner of Stanley Street East and Didsbury Street, is the East Brisbane Hotel, erected in 1889.
The theatre is built to the street alignments and occupies the whole of the site. The front façade is two storeys in height, of rendered brick, and decorative, with strong streetscape presence. In an extraordinarily eclectic metaphorical mix typical of 1920s picture theatre architecture, the facade combines a mix of 'Classical' and 'Mediterranean' decorative and design elements. There are five bays, not of equal width, defined by pilasters, at the top of which are decorative concrete urns. A balustraded concrete pediment unites the two bays either side of the central bay. This middle bay is wider and taller, with a high pediment with the name TRIUMPH in rendered block lettering. Below the theatre name is a cantilevered tiled window hood above a bank of five-paned casement windows with opaque, green and amber Arctic glass. Behind these windows is the original bio-box. In the bays either side are pairs of similar casement windows, with similar window hoods above.
At street level there is a centrally placed wide, low-arched entrance, defined by half pillars on each side, with concrete steps leading to what was formerly a semi-open foyer. This has been partly enclosed with later timber-framed glass doors, recessed from the arch entrance. To either side of this arched entrance is a billboard case, and in the end bays are small 'porthole' windows with a square leadlight panel in each, now enclosed with timber lattice.
As was typical of suburban picture theatre construction of this period, the masonry façade returns along the sides only one narrow bay in depth. What the elegant façade was intended to obscure is that the main part of the structure, housing the auditorium, is a large, timber-framed space with a steep, gabled, galvanised iron roof. The side walls of the auditorium are clad externally with later cement sheeting. At the rear [southern] end of the main building the gable is in-filled with weatherboards and there is a lower, hipped roof extension over the stage area.
The main change to the building is that the foyer has been expanded and pushed back into the auditorium, c1970s. This space has a low, false ceiling of acoustic tiles, and the floor, which was formerly raked and part of the auditorium, has been raised and levelled. A ticket box and candy-bar are located on the western side of the foyer, and there are toilets on the eastern side. The auditorium is accessed from doorways at either side of the rear wall of the foyer. Above the renovated foyer is the projection booth, which is the original bio-box, accessed from steep, narrow timber stairs behind the ticket box on the western side, and near the men's toilets on the eastern side.
The auditorium remains remarkably intact and retains much of its early decorative finishes. It is a large space, with the roof supported by unboxed laminated timber arches, and has an early lattice ceiling with hessian or canvas backing which follows the curve of the arches. There are three decorative light panels in the centre of this ceiling. There is a raked timber floor, sloped more steeply at the northern end of the building. The side walls are lined internally with vertically-jointed tongue and groove timber boards to dado height, and above this have early plasterboard panels with decorative 'classical' mouldings between the timber arches.
There is a small stage the southern end of the auditorium, with a proscenium arch in plasterwork with 'classical' motifs. On either side of the stage, angled to direct focus to the rear wall, are large, early plasterboard panels with decorative 'classical' mouldings. The rear wall is constructed of galvanised iron sheeting, on which is painted an early 'screen'. A later cinema screen which once filled the proscenium arch has been removed. There are two early sound horns which hang above the stage. There is off-stage space either side of the stage, which suggests that it may have been used for performance purposes as well.
","history":"The site of the Classic Cinema, East Brisbane, has been associated with film exhibition since 1921. The building itself dates to 1927, with minor modifications probably c1970.
The site was earlier part of a much larger parcel of land purchased from the Crown in 1855 by Joseph Darragh of Brisbane. Darragh held the land, unsubdivided, for nearly 30 years, and it was the eventual subdivision of this property into residential allotments [mostly 16 perches] in the mid-1880s, which established East Brisbane as a dormitory suburb. Prior to this, East Brisbane was semi-rural in character, with a few isolated families scattered through the bush, and a number of elite estates [such as Mowbray's and Heath's] along the riverbank.
In June 1885 Mrs Annie Elizabeth Cocks gained title to subdivisions 112 and 113 of eastern allotment 128, parish of South Brisbane, county of Stanley [32 perches - later the site of the picture theatre]. Mrs Cocks owned this land for over 20 years. About 1906 she sold it to Brisbane real estate agent George Henry Blocksidge, who in 1907 transferred the property to Henry William Robinson, who established a fuel depot here.
On 1 July 1921 the property was transferred from Robinson to Frederick Carl Christian Olsen, who established an open-air picture show on the site that year. A sewerage detail plan dated 1919 shows a picture theatre, partly roofed, occupying the whole of the site. The date may be misleading. It is not unusual for alterations to be made to original detail plans, and in this instance, the theatre as shown on the site is more likely to date to between 1921 and 1927. Oral history reveals that the facade of this theatre was timber, and that about one-third of the seating area was roofed in flat galvanised iron, which on rainy days could be manually extended over about half the seating. The Olsens reputedly were very proud of this technological feat. Around the perimeter of the site were fences of flat iron.
Frederick Olsen died in January 1926. The Stanley Street East property passed to his widow, Maria Gustava Olsen, a year later, and then to Vigo Gustav Olsen [her son] in June 1927. Around the same time Vigo Olsen raised a mortgage on the property from Ernest Adolph Burmester, which is likely to have financed the construction of a new picture theatre to cost £2,000, for which Vigo Olsen already had permission from the Brisbane City Council to erect. Olsen, who lived nearby at Didsbury Street, East Brisbane, had let the contract to construct the theatre to Corinda contractor and architect Arthur Robson. It is highly likely Robson also prepared the design. He had worked for the Workers' Dwellings Board in Townsville as an inspector and as an architect in Rockhampton in the early 1920s. From 1923 he was resident in Corinda and practised as an architect and builder in Brisbane and other centres throughout Queensland. Robson both constructed and/or designed picture theatres throughout Queensland in the 1920s, including the Indooroopilly Picture Theatre [later the El Dorado], and the Paragon Theatre at Childers. By August 1928, he had erected 23 picture theatres in Queensland.
The picture theatre at Stanley Street East is listed as the Triumph in 1927 licensing records, but there is some suggestion that the place was known initially as the East Brisbane Picture Theatre. It is possible that the name was changed when the new picture theatre was built in 1927, and this is the name which still appears in relief on the façade of the building.
Vigo Olsen died in August 1929, and the property passed to his widow, Ida Elizabeth Olsen, in April 1931. Around this time Mrs Olsen raised a further mortgage on the property from EA Burmester, possibly to purchase sound equipment for the theatre. Sound movies were introduced in 1927 with Warner Brothers' production of The Jazz Singer, and over the next few years motion picture exhibitors either converted their theatres to sound or went out of business, as demand for the 'talkies' swept the world.
In mid-1934 title to the property was transferred to accountant Albert Frederick Stoddart of East Brisbane, and Alma Jones, wife of Sylvester Stephen Jones of Mount Gravatt, as tenants in common. The Jones were related to the Olsens. Gordon Jones took over the management of the Triumph in 1934, when he was only 17 years old. In 1943, AF Stoddart transferred his interest in the property to Gordon, who managed the theatre until c1970, exhibiting (from at least 1938, and likely earlier) as the Triumph Theatre Company.
A 1940 photograph of the theatre shows a façade remarkably similar to that which survives today. The foyer was reached via concrete steps from the street, but had not yet been enclosed with glass doors. Folding iron gates still secured the foyer, and these were at the front of the building, on the footpath. The interior of the foyer was lined with fibrous sheeting and dark-stained timber cover-strips; there was a centrally located ticket-box at the back of the foyer; and doors to the auditorium were located either side of the ticket box. The terrazzo flooring in the present entrance is likely to date to 1927.
In the 1930s, there were approximately 200 picture theatres operating in Queensland, of which about 25% were located in Brisbane. This was the period when most Brisbane suburbs had at least one picture theatre, if not more, and encouraged local allegiances. Theatre staff - owners, management and other employees [such as projectionists, organ or piano players, ticket sellers and ushers] - generally lived in the district, and the theatre offered a local community focus and sense of local identity. Competition for audiences was strong. The Triumph's closest contemporary competitors were the Broadway at the Woolloongabba Fiveways; the Mowbray Park Picture Theatre on Shafston Road; the Allahmbra at Stones Corner; the Roxy (Gaiety) at Coorparoo; and the Norman Park Picture Theatre near the Norman Park Railway Station. Of these, only the Triumph survives.
Following the introduction of television to Brisbane in the late 1950s, Brisbane cinema audiences declined rapidly. Suburban cinemas struggled to continue screening films and in the 1960s and 1970s many closed, the buildings converted into alternative uses or the sites redeveloped. By the 1980s, only a handful of single-screen interwar suburban cinemas survived in Brisbane.
In 1960-61 the Triumph had a seating capacity of 800, suggesting that some seating refurbishment had occurred since 1938, when the theatre seated 950.
By January 1970 the property had been acquired by Ray Arthur Chesterman and Merle Audrey Chesterman, and was transferred in February 1970 to Eric Dare, who owned the place for over three decades. The changes in ownership c1970 correspond with a transformation of the theatre. By 1970 the Triumph had been re-named the Capri East Brisbane and was operated by the Capri Theatre Company, which screened mostly R-rated sex films. In 1971 the capacity of the theatre was listed as 510, indicating that seating and/or possibly foyer refurbishment had taken place.
The cinema is believed to have closed for a short period in the 1980s, but by 1988 had re-opened as the Classic Cinema, an art-house screening alternative and revival films, and the venue for film festivals and the annual Brisbane screening of Australian Film, Television and Radio School productions. The theatre functioned as an art-house until closed in mid-2000.
","criteria":"The former Classic Cinema, East Brisbane, constructed in 1927 as the Triumph Theatre, a suburban family cinema, is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history. The site has been associated with film exhibition - arguably the most significant form of 20th century popular culture/entertainment - since 1921, and until its closure in mid 2000, was amongst the longest operating of Queensland's picture theatres. The place is important in illustrating the nature of Queensland film exhibition, in particular the contribution of family-owned enterprises to this industry.
|The former Classic Cinema is a rare, substantially intact, surviving 1920s Queensland picture theatre, and one of only three substantially intact, single-auditorium, interwar picture theatres remaining in Brisbane [the others being the Dawn (1928) at Chermside and the Gaythorne (1938-39) at Gaythorne]. Of these, the Classic is the earliest and most ornate. In particular it retains a remarkably intact and highly decorative 1927 façade of 'classic' picture theatre design now rare in Queensland.
|The place is, and always was, a very fine example of the 1920s suburban 'picture palace': a large auditorium built to a modest budget, with a more glamorous street façade to attract patrons, and remains important in illustrating the principal characteristics of this class of building and of this genre of picture theatre design. These characteristics include: an imposing façade incorporating an eclectic mix of 'Classical' and 'Mediterranean' decorative and design elements, in substantial materials, in a deliberate attempt to impress and create streetscape and townscape presence; a large, gable-roofed, single-span auditorium supported by laminated timber arches; a central arched entrance; a bio-box located above the entrance; early lattice ceiling to the auditorium interior; a raked timber floor; decorative plasterboard panelling along the auditorium walls; a decorative proscenium arch; a small performance stage with decorative plasterboard panels either side; and a 'screen' painted onto the sheet metal rear wall. The aesthetic hierarchy of materials and details established between façade and main structure is particularly illustrative of this type of building.
The place is important also in illustrating the principal characteristics of the work of Brisbane architect/builder Arthur Robson, who specialised in theatre construction and erected and/or designed dozens of suburban and regional theatres in Queensland in the interwar period.
|The place has aesthetic value engendered by the well-proportioned decorative façade, the building's imposing presence in a suburban landscape; and the imposing space of the large arched auditorium with its decorative wall finishes, proscenium arch and lattice ceiling.
|The place has been identified with the townscape and social character of East Brisbane since the 1920s; in the past has generated a strong sense of community focus, being a venue for local social activity and popular culture since 1921; and for well over a decade in recent years was associated with Brisbane's art-house movie circuit, being well-known to thousands of Queensland 'film-buffs', and the venue for film festivals and screenings of film-school productions.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17029,"place_ref":602216,"name":"Annerley Army Reserve Depot (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"158 Dudley Street","suburb":"ANNERLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The rectangular site has a long frontage to Dudley Street to the south, with a wide, gated entrance through the galvanised pipe and chain wire fence. To the east the site is bounded by Linville Lane. The principal buildings on the site are the two drill halls - constructed in 1914 and 1954.
The 1914 drill hall is generally similar to others built around the same time in Queensland, such as those at Roma and Ayr. It is a simple gable roofed building enclosing a single large space. Small offices are ranged along the east of the large space.
The building is framed with timber, with corrugated galvanised iron sheeting and timber boarded lining. The corrugated iron roof is supported by timber and angled steel trusses. A ventilator, covered with curved corrugated sheeting, runs the full length of the ridge. The timber floor is raised a short distance from the ground. The windows are predominantly double hung timber sashes.
The standard plan of the drill hall has only been slightly modified. The principal alterations to the building include the addition of a verandah with flanking enclosures at the south end, forming an entrance porch facing Dudley Street. This addition was placed by 1935. A small skillion roofed annexe in the middle of the west wall after 1935.
The 1954 drill hall building consists of two sections - the drill hall to the north and a wing to the south containing bathrooms, toilets and stores, including the armoury, located in the south east corner of the building. In place above some doors in the southern section of the building are original timber signage. A substantial brick-walled foyer links the two sections. Double timber glazed doors are located at either end of the foyer. The floor is timber laid over concrete - a standard feature of drill hall design during the period. Along the western elevation (rear) of the building, the joinery is steel and in the eastern elevation, facing the parade ground, the joinery is timber.
The northern section, as first built, contained a large tall space about 37 metres long and 15 metres wide. Six large roller doors open out on the eastern side onto the parade ground. Smaller offices range along the north and west of the hall. In 1964, a mezzanine floor, covering more than half the floor area of the drill hall, was added. On the mezzanine are former offices, messes, a lecture room and a theatrette.
Other buildings on the site include the a toilet block (1913) with a gable roof and clad with corrugated iron. A second brick toilet block, kitchen and shower block is located along the Linville Lane side of the property. Also located in the north-eastern corner of the site include a small brick building which originally stored inflammable liquid and a demountable building. A large skillion roofed shed sheeted with ribbed colourbond metal, with a roller shutter door is located along the Waldheim Street side to the north of the parade ground.
An open bitumen sealed parade ground is in the centre of the site, with the various buildings arranged around three of its perimeters. On the south, the parade ground is separated from the street by a belt of mature camphor laurel trees. Other mature trees include a mango in the north east corner and a jacaranda in the south east. The site has been cut to form the level parade ground, and there are battered retaining walls to the north and east.
","history":"The drill halls at Annerley were constructed in 1914 and 1954 to designs prepared by the Office of the Government Architect, Department of Public Works.
Volunteer military forces have played a central role in the organisation of the defence of Queensland. Volunteer units were formed from 1860 onwards and regular training camps were organised as citizen soldiers became the foundation of the State's defence. The first Easter encampment of the Queensland Volunteer Force was held at Toowoomba in 1875. These camps were held so that the various individual groups could train in larger numbers, a necessary requirement if they were to be an effective fighting force in the event of war.
A series of war scares in the late 1870s and an official survey of the colony's defences prepared by two military officers from England forced changes to Queensland's colonial defences. In 1884, the Defence Act was passed, completely reorganising the defence of the colony. The volunteer system was continued but augmented, with the establishment of the first permanent local force in Queensland. The permanent force included paid militia and volunteer units forces, as well as members of the Police Force Rifle Clubs. After the passing of the 1884 defence act the government authorised the construction of a large number of drill halls around the colony. Many were built in the suburbs of Brisbane, and in the major towns such as Ipswich, Warwick, Gympie, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns. Approximately 30 halls were constructed after 1884 and towards the turn of the century for the militia units.
In 1901, the new Commonwealth Of Australia was formed. The Commonwealth government thereafter assumed control of a number of formerly colonial responsibilities, including defence. An amendment to the Defence Act provided for compulsory drilling for boys aged twelve to eighteen and annual training for youths aged eighteen to twenty. The amendment was implemented in 1911 The initial training groups in 1911 numbered over 90 000 youths and the size of the defence grew from 23,506 in 1910 to 60,972 in 1915.
The Department of the Army responded to these changes by providing appropriate facilities for the compulsory militia force. Drill halls had been built in Brisbane in the late 19th century, including one in Alice Street and another in Adelaide Street. Following the national growth, drill halls and parade grounds were built all over Queensland. Drill Halls were built to a standard design in central locations to provide the organisational structure and all weather sites for militia and cadet training. The Commonwealth entered into an arrangement with the states in this early period of Federation whereby the Commonwealth paid for the construction and maintenance of their buildings but the state's architects did the work.
In Queensland, the design and construction of this new batch of drill halls was undertaken by the Department of Public Works. This generation of drill halls followed the basic form of those constructed in the 19th century period. Most known examples are timber framed and sheeted with corrugated iron. Most 19th century drill halls had curved, iron framed roofs, a design unique to Queensland. Those constructed for World War I broke with this tradition, with timber framed gabled roofs and were constructed of corrugated iron. Head Commonwealth architect, John Smith Murdoch observed in 1915:
\t'... the Minister of Defence laid down the principle that we were to put the cost of
\tdrill halls down to bedrock, there being so many required; and those drill halls are
\tmade of wood and iron and are found good enough...'
The Commandant of the first military district applied for suitable land to the Stephens Shire Council from late 1912 to early 1913, but was rejected on both occasions. William Stephens, son of Thomas Blackett Stephens, a Councillor with the Stephens Shire Council, offered 2.7 acres of his own land in Dudley Street for the purpose. When it was inspected, the land was found to be in a well-elevated position within easy distance of the Ipswich Road Tramway Terminus. The land was a treeless, grassed slope, without any improvements apart from a barbed wire fence around the perimeter. The Commandant recommended the land for purchase and a price of £519 was settled between the vendor and the commonwealth.
The first drill hall constructed on the Annerley site, known as the Junction Park Drill Hall, was constructed in 1914 to a design by the Office of Public Works signed by AB Brady. Tenders were called on 24 February 1914. The cost of construction was £1625. In the Annual Report for the Public Works Department for 1915-16, works conducted to the Junction Park Drill Hall included the addition of drainage and furniture at a cost of £35/5/0. The drill hall was built in the south eastern corner of the site facing Dudley Street. Typical of drill halls at the time, the Annerley building was simple in form. It comprised a meeting hall, covered so that night time drilling could occur, with offices for each of the companies assigned to Annerley.
The site became the headquarters and offices of the 2nd Brigade Area and Machine Gun Section 2nd Light Horse, Headquarters Machine Gun Section and two companies of the Ninth Infantry, area office and store 9A and for two companies of cadets. In addition to these companies, the 3rd AMC (Field Ambulance) and the 34th AMC (Company) were also placed at the site.
By 1947, a number of outbuildings had been added to the site including, toilets and showers, a kitchen and an officer's mess. During World War II, encampments for personnel of the Australian and United States armed forces were placed wherever space could be provided. Training depots like the one at Annerley provided a range of facilities for the garrison troops.
Construction of drill halls ceased at the end of World War I. By the mid-1930s, the political situation in Europe began to worsen and there was a revival of citizen forces.
Following the Second World War, the Australian defence forces had a major overhaul. The existing situation, where a small core of professional officers was supplemented by a volunteer force, was deemed unsatisfactory for the national force. In September 1947, the Australian Regular Army was created as a body of full time professional soldiers. The Australian Military Forces, the existing organisation of part time soldiers, was retained but renamed the Citizens Military Forces (CMF). The National Service Scheme, requiring all 18 year old males to register for one year of military service and further part time service, was introduced in 1951. This ensured that the number of participants in the CMF would grow. At this time, the Annerley site was renamed the Annerley CMF Training Depot. The army needed new or upgraded facilities to cater for these major changes. Resources were generally directed to facilities for the regular army and very few drill halls were constructed in the 1950s. Only six were built in Queensland at this time, one of which was the drill hall at Annerley (1954).
Plans to upgrade the Annerley facility were drawn up in 1953. The 1952-53 Works Program allocated £20,000 for the first phase of redevelopment of the CMF training depot at Annerley. Plans included designs for a multi-purpose drill hall with company stores and offices and an attached annexe for showers and latrines and quartermaster's store. The siting of the building on the western boundary of the land allowed a metalled parade ground to be prepared between the original drill hall and the modern one. In 1964, additional accommodation for officers was added by creating a mezzanine floor in the drill hall space. The mezzanine floor included extra offices, a theatrette, a lecture room and officers' and sergeants' messes.
The place is no longer owned by the Department of Defence. In 2004 the Queensland Heritage Council approved the adaptive reuse of the place for residential purposes, including subdivision, constructions of new dwellings and demolition of ancillary structures. No work had commenced on site as of November 2004.
","criteria":"The former Annerley Army Reserve Depot is significant in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as the drill halls (1914 and 1954) located on the site are good, intact, surviving examples of their respective type and period and demonstrate the development of the site as a militia training depot, following the amendments to the Defence Act. A number of drill halls were built in Queensland, and around Australia in the period 1911-1916, in order to provide facilities for the increased number of new conscripts. The original drill hall (1914), which retains its early form, demonstrates the establishment of compulsory militia force in Australia in 1911. This scheme is visible in the fabric and layout of the drill hall and the parade ground.
Construction of the second drill hall in 1954 is associated with the reorganisation of Australian voluntary forces into the Citizen Military Forces (CMF), following World War II, and demonstrates the reaction of the Australian Department of Defence to the Cold War of the early 1950s.
|The Annerley Army Reserve Depot is significant in that the place demonstrates a continuity of military use from pre-World War I to the late 1990s. The combination of World War I and post-World War II drill halls located at the same site is significant for its rarity in Australia and particularly in Queensland. Together, the 1914 and the 1954 drill halls demonstrate the continued use of a standard drill hall design in Australia, often modified only slightly, for over 100 years.
|The two main buildings on the site are significant as good, intact examples of the types of drill halls built by the commonwealth government during their respective periods of construction. In the 1914 drill hall, the use of corrugated iron and timber was in response to a need for the buildings to be constructed efficiently and economically. Two standard designs were used, only varying in size.
The 1914 building is one of six that survive in Queensland, the others being located at Toowoomba (relocated), Albion, Kelvin Grove (ex-Toowong), Maryborough and Rockhampton (ex-Mt Morgan). These buildings were all to a standard design with offices running down one side, clad in corrugated galvanised iron with open angle steel roof trusses and pivoting timber windows and timber floors.
The Annerley building is unusual as it has eight bays. It is significant as an example of one of the larger types of drill halls found in Australia. Drill halls from the mid-1950s period were constructed to a standard design with some variations in each state relating to configuration and materials.
The associated outbuildings on the site, including a kitchen, showers and latrines and various storage facilities provide further evidence of the use of the site and the manner in which the participants spent time in the compound.
|Until recently, the Australian Army has continuously used the site since the early 20th century. Whilst the numbers of servicemen and women who may have visited and trained at the site cannot be ascertained, their association with the depot is certain.
|Until recently, the Australian Army has continuously used the site since the early 20th century. Whilst the numbers of servicemen and women who may have visited and trained at the site cannot be ascertained, their association with the depot is certain.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17034,"place_ref":602221,"name":"Charters Towers Gold Mine Shafts and Remains","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Stubley Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"(a) DAY DAWN BLOCK AND WYNDHAM NO.1 MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft is located close to the western side of Upper Deane Street, on vacant land. It is surrounded by a 10m x 6m chain wire safety fence and is visible from the street. The shaft opening is 3m across with a predominantly rock collar. The eastern and northern side of the shaft openings however, show some small evidence of collapse in recent times. The ground within the fence is lightly grassed and free of debris. There are no other mine remains in evidence but evidence of the tramway which connected this, the No.2 and no.3 shafts of the Day Block and Wyndham Co. to the main railway lines lies beside the shaft.
(b) DAY DAWN BLOCK AND WYNDHAM NO.3 MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft, machinery foundations and mullock heaps are located on vacant land on the eastern side of Stubley Street and are visible from the road. The area is accessed by a drivable track off Stubley Street, diagonally opposite Day Street.
The shaft is open and well defined behind a 12m x 13m chain wire safety fence erected in the 1960s by the City Council. The vertical shaft has a rock collar and is claimed to have a vertical depth of 568ft. Within the fence there are the remains of two of the mine's head frame leg footings.
The fenced area of the shaft is flanked on either side by small mullock heaps which rise to high ground behind the shaft.
Opposite the shaft, (across the track) are the remains of large concrete and brick, machinery and building foundations. Slightly to the west of these large foundations is a large rectangular concrete slab close to the curb of Stubley Street.
Houses sit close to this area on the northern side.
(c) DAY DAWN FREEHOLD EXTENDED MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft is located at the southern end of Oxford Street on vacant land. Access can also be gained by Faull Street, (a dirt track), off Cambridge Street.
The vertical shaft sits directly behind a house and is open and well defined within a chain wire safety fence 18m x 18m. The entrance to the shaft is very wide and overgrown and is claimed to have a vertical depth of 1,185ft. Three of the mine's concrete footings for the head frame legs are visible inside the fence.
Across the track, opposite the shaft are the concrete and brick remains of a settling pond. Some small mullock heaps are visible to the east of this structure and a large excavation is in evidence further again to the east.
A natural ridge runs east west to the south of this area.
(d) PLANT'S DAY DAWN MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft is located near the corner of Marion and Oxford Streets in Charters Towers and consists of a fenced shaft with some small concrete slab foundations around the outside of the fence.
An altered landscaped in the form of a small plateau towards the Elizabeth Street side of the block with minor concrete foundations in the escarpment, could also be associated with the former mine site, possibly where the machinery and auxiliary buildings stood.
The shaft has a concrete cover and is in meed of some repair. A conical concrete footing structure lies on the ground inside the fence.
(e) BRILLIANT DEEPS MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft and foundations of surface infrastructure are on land in between Anne and Park Streets with access via Park Street. Of significance here is the shaft, with the remnants of a brick exhaust chimney on the rim of the shaft, and the large concrete and brick remains of machinery and building foundations. The shaft is open and well defined to a depth of 2,552ft and is enclosed by a 14m x 14m chain wire safety fence. The land surrounding the shaft is flat with no evidence of mullock heaps.
On the eastern side of the shaft is a new mine currently being worked by Charters Towers Gold Mines.
Housing surrounds the land on which the two mines sit.
(f) QUEEN CROSS EXTENDED MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The mineshaft and brick machinery foundations are located on vacant land at the top of Gladstone Road, at the junction of Arthur Jones Avenue. Access is gained by Deanes Street which manifests itself as a dirt track running through scrubby terrain behind a residential area. The site is not visible from the road but is accessible.
The shaft is wide with no evidence of a rock collar and does not appear to be of great depth. It is enclosed in a 14m x 14m chain wire safety fence. Directly opposite the shaft on the western side are the reasonably small foundations of the mine machinery constructed entirely of brick.
(g) NEW QUEEN CENTRAL NO.2 MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft and infrastructure remains are located on vacant land bounded in part by Sayers Street to the south, Norman Dungavell Dr to the east, and Cross Street to the west. The site lies nearest to the southeast corner of the lot and is accessed by Sayers Street. The shaft and remaining infrastructure are visible from the street.
The shaft is open and well defined behind a chain wire fence of 14m x 14m. It is vertical to a depth of 1,900ft. Two poppet head footings stand outside the fence on the north and south sides and minimal concrete foundations are in evidence on the other sides of the fence.
Opposite the shaft, towards Sayers Street, are the remains of brick and concrete machinery foundations, the largest structure being in the centre with a concrete slab on the eastern side and a smaller brick structure on the western side. Another concrete slab lies between the shaft and the foundations on the western side.
(h) ST GEORGE AND MOONSTONE MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The shaft is located on the southern side of Towers Hill with access via Chloride Street. The shaft lies at the intersection of upper Chloride Street and Percy Street but as both of these streets are unformed, access to the shaft is through open bush commencing from the private road to the Microwave Repeater Station.
The shaft itself is open and well defined behind a chain wire safety fence (14m x 14m). The opening to the shaft is 6m x 4m wide and is filled with water to approximately 1.5m from the surface. Within the fence there are the remains of one of the mine's head frame leg footings, and outside the fence on the eastern side are some small mullock heaps. Remains of concrete foundations are found scattered around the shaft, but none are intact.
","history":"CONTEXT
These eight vertical mine shafts are to be found amongst the suburban streets of Charters Towers and were developed during the period of intense gold mining that occurred on the Charters Towers Goldfield from 1872 to 1917. During this forty-five-year period, Charters Towers became one of the most important goldfields in Queensland, and in Australia, attracting heavy investment interest from overseas companies. At its peak it accounted for more than a third of Queensland's entire gold production. The success of the goldfield led to the permanent establishment of the town of Charters Towers and had a major impact on the continued settlement of North Queensland and the economy of Queensland as a whole.
Gold was discovered at the foot of Towers Hill in late 1871 and in August 1872 the Charters Towers Goldfield was officially proclaimed. There was little alluvial gold at Charters Towers, the major payable gold to be found in downward sloping reefs of gold-bearing ore. Gold mining in Charters Towers was characterised by deep underlie shafts with levels striking the various reefs that ran through the field. Vertical shafts were also a feature of the goldfield however not as common as the underlie shafts. (There are approximately 200km of mine shafts under Charter Towers.)
Because Charters Towers Goldfield was a reefing field it required capital and equipment for its development. Underground mining of this nature led to the development of more stable settlements as opposed to some of the fleeting settlements that developed and then disappeared around short-lived alluvial gold fields.
The gold mining leases (GMLs) that were taken up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries covered the entire area of Charters Towers in a patchwork fashion. Mining companies who held the leases would often sink several shafts on their land to cut the reefs, with unsuccessful prospecting being a common aspect of mining as well as the spectacular successes.
A heightened phase of prosperity was entered when the great wealth of the Day Dawn Reef was discovered in 1878. It was to become one of the highest producers of gold on the Charters Towers field. Charters Towers boomed throughout the 1880s, overshadowing all other mining centres in North Queensland. Increased speculation was triggered by the floating of companies on the London stock market from 1886 following a display of Charters Towers Gold at the Colonial Exhibition in London in 1885 and changes to investment law. British investors poured wealth into Charters Towers during this period providing the capital which gave rise to the substantial nature of the city and the continued large scale mining.
By 1886, thirty-three shafts had been sunk to below the 152m-level and gold production had doubled since 1883. In 1889 the famous Brilliant Reef, the richest on the field, was discovered and Charters Towers continued to prosper throughout the depressed economy of the 1890s with its peak production of 319,572 ounces of gold in 1899, and the population peaking to approximately 27,000 in 1900. The great numbers of wage-earning miners employed by the mining companies in Charters Towers also created an environment conducive to the growth of an industrial union which made a vital contribution to the Queensland labour movement.
Charters Towers was so full of confidence during its peak that its inhabitants referred to it as 'The World'. No other mining town in North Queensland came close to its prosperity and diversity.
The early 20th century was marked by a steady decline in gold production. Menghetti suggests that '... already an unhealthy amount of the return was coming from the re-treatment of the residues with the cyanide process which had arrived in Charters Towers in 1892'. In the three years after 1910 the number of employed miners on the field fell from 2,631 to 985. Government subsidies were granted to some mines for further exploration, however this yielded little and the population of Charters Towers began to drift away.
Most mines had been abandoned by 1916 with the last of the big mines, the Brilliant Extended, closing down in 1917. By the end of this peak gold mining period, Charters Towers Goldfield had produced about 7 million ounces of gold.
Throughout World War I, most of the infrastructure around the mines (e.g. headframes, poppet heads and machinery) was dismantled for recycling purposes during the war effort. In many cases the infrastructure was simply moved to new mines.
During the 1960s the Charters Towers City Council constructed fences around the remaining mine shafts. In recent years a program of capping many old mine shafts has been in place. The Department of Natural Resources and Mines currently maintain the mineshafts.
(a) & (b) DAY DAWN BLOCK AND WYNDHAM NO.1 MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS & NO. 3 MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Company worked three shafts on the Day Dawn reef continuously from 1883 to 1912 and was one of the three great mines on the Day Dawn lode. It had the greatest yield of any mine on the Charters Towers goldfield: 589,531 tons of ore was raised for 546,531 oz of gold. The mine was situated on Gold Mining Leases 1807, 1808, & 1809 on an area of 100 acres.
Tom Mills took up the Day Dawn Block in 1880 to complement his lease on the Wyndham mine alongside in the west. This 'Block' lease, as it was known, was forfeited and then taken up by J. Malone and A. Young who formed the Day Dawn Block Company and started a vertical shaft to cut the Day Dawn lode. Litigation over this lease instituted by Mills against the company resulted in a compromise where the Wyndham lease was amalgamated with the Day Dawn Block and the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Company was formed in 1882.
The No. 1 shaft was on the former Day Dawn Block lease and was on the eastern boundary of the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham lease. In June 1883 a straight shaft was sunk and it cut the Day Dawn reef at 475 ft. The Northern Mining Register Christmas Number of 1891 said, 'Never before in the history of the field or perhaps in Australia, has a block shaft bottomed on such a show' The shaft was a small one but from it between the walls was taken 32 tons of stone which yielded 187 oz 16dwt 6gr (of gold).' (P.51). By 1897 the No.1 shaft was abandoned.
The No. 2 shaft was an underlie shaft and was sited on the original Wyndham lease on the eastern side of Upper Mosman Street.
The No.3 shaft in the west was a vertical shaft to a depth of 560 ft. An underlie shaft then followed the lode and intersected a shoot at a depth of 1,200 ft. It was when this shaft was connected to the No.2 shaft at the No. 14 level that rock drills were first used with success on the goldfield: The North Queensland Register's Mining History of Charters Towers remarked that '... the ground was terrifically hard and the contractor Mr Beith, lost money.'
In 1886 the mine was sold to a British company which in 1897 had paid-up capital of £500,000. The three mines were connected by tramway to the main rail line where the ore was transported to the company's mill at Selheim. (The mill at Selheim is extant). This was 14 miles to the east on the Burdekin where 60 head of stamps made it the largest reducing plant of the goldfield. In 1900 the company employed 225 men.
With reserves depleted, work started on the Talisman reef with reasonable returns from 1904 to 1906. There was a gradual decline and the company entered voluntary liquidation in 1909 with tributors working the mine until it closed in 1912.
(c) DAY DAWN FREEHOLD EXTENDED MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
This shaft was identified as part of the Day Dawn Freehold Extended Mine on Jack, Rand and Maitland's map of 1898. It was sunk at the western end of the Day Dawn reef and in 1898 had a vertical depth of 1079ft.
From the early days of the goldfield nothing payable was found on the surface in this vicinity. Around 1887 the Day Dawn Consols Company, with shares principally held in Melbourne, was floated to prospect the area at greater depth. A two-chamber shaft was sunk to a depth of 500ft at the southern end of the common boundary of the company's two leases, GML 1685 & 1684 comprising 25 acres. Soon after the ground was virtually abandoned.
The Day Dawn Freehold Extended Gold Mining Company was floated locally around 1896-97 to take over the rights and the machinery of the first company. The company had capital of £50,000 in 100,000 shares at 10/- each. The new company sank a shaft cutting the Day Dawn reef at 1,100ft. It was then taken to 1,250ft with an underlie shaft opened and sunk a further 50ft. The No.1 west level was driven 550ft with only poor stone being found. The No.1 East level was driven 495ft with two levels being opened and fair quality ore being reported in 1897.
In 1898 the mine was taken over by the Dawn Gold Mines on GMLs 1882, 1883 & 2052 on over 69 acres with capital of £100,000. Prospecting work was undertaken on the Talisman reef from 1905 to 1907 without success, followed by the acquisition of the Wallis Day Dawn lease to the west in 1910 which also failed to produce payable ore. The mine was closed in 1911.
(d) PLANT'S DAY DAWN MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
Plant's Day Dawn Gold Mines Ltd held land north of the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham lease on GMLs 1702 & 1703 on an area of 50acres. In 1902 a deep shaft was sunk to cut the Day Dawn reef. The shaft reached a depth of 1,200 ft by 1906, after which work was ceased.
This shaft is associated with E.H.T. Plant the influential mining magnate of Charters Towers who was responsible for the construction of the Venus Battery and Thornburgh House and is credited with making a major contribution to the industry and life of Charters Towers.
(e) BRILLIANT DEEPS MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
According to the Sydney Mail of 17 August 1895, 'The most important event of the past ten years from a Charters Towers point of view was the striking of what is now known as the Brilliant Reef...'(p337). The discoveries on the Brilliant Reef ensured the field's survival during the depression of the 1890s and in the excitement that followed the discovery the Charters Towers Stock Exchange was reconstructed, opening for business in Mosman Street in 1890.
Numerous mines developed to exploit the Brilliant Reef in the Queenton area of Charters Towers lying to the east of the city. The Brilliant Deeps shaft was sunk on a 31 acre gold mining lease. It was taken up in 1891 as the Brilliant Extended Block when the company sunk a three compartment vertical shaft to over 2,000ft in depth.
Because of a lack of capital, the company was reconstituted in 1896 as the Brilliant Deep Levels Gold Mining Company. The shaft was then carried to 2,250ft where the lode was intersected, but it was not payable. An explosion of dynamite of Christmas Day 1896 damaged the shaft collar throwing 30 men out of work. An underlie shaft had been driven to 2,615ft but no payable ore was found and operations were suspended in 1904 due to difficulty in ventilating the shafts.
Until 1907, returns from the Brilliant Deeps shaft were minimal. From 1897 to 1899 a mere 69 oz of gold was produced and from 1900 to 1907 there were no returns at all.
In 1907 the company was reconstituted as the Brilliant Deeps Ltd and the western ground was prospected with greater success when the 'hanging wall' reef was struck in the No.2 west level and from 1908 regular crushings were obtained. In 1911 the 'footwall' reef was found in extending the No.4 level west at a depth of 2,811ft. In 1914 the 'hanging wall' workings were connected to the Brilliant Block workings for ventilation purposes.
From 1908 to 1916, 22,843 oz were returned making it a mediocre producer. The Brilliant Deeps was the mine with the deepest vertical descent on the Charters Towers Goldfield.
Prospecting has been resumed on this site with the Charters Towers Gold Mining Company digging immediately adjacent to the old shaft, aiming for the reserves on the Brilliant Reef which are reputed to still lie beneath.
(f) QUEEN CROSS EXTENDED MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
While many of the mines in Charters Towers experienced a gradual decline after the turn of the century, one last rich find was made in 1902 with the discovery of the New Queen Cross Reef.
In 1902, GML 1913, then named the East Victoria, was surveyed to the east of the Victoria and Queen reefs. By 1905 it was renamed the Queen Cross Extended and comprised 25 acres of land. It was at this time that the shaft for the Queen Cross Extended Mine was sunk on this lease. Returns from the mine were first reported in late 1905 with July's crushings giving a yield of 51 tons of ore for 19oz 15dwt. The amount of ore raised was very small and the mine was soon closed. As the history of neighbouring mines would indicate, this mine probably held no great promise for high returns.
(g) NEW QUEEN CENTRAL NO.2 MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
The New Queen Central Mining Company operated from 1892 to 1916 with very little success. Two vertical shafts were sunk on GML 1602 and five reefs were worked including the Just-in-time, 'Old' Queen Cross, 'New Queen Cross, Victory and the Brilliant but even though other surrounding mines had rich pay shoots, very little ore extended onto this ground.
The No.2 shaft was at the eastern boundary of the lease and cut the Just-in-Time reef at 600ft and the 'New' Queen Cross reef at 846 ft at which depth levels were driven with little success. The vertical shaft was continued with formations being opened up at 1,453ft (approximating the Brilliant reef) and1868ft.
By 1916 the company held GMLs 2478 and 2483 and had raised 7 626 tons of ore with a yield of 8,157 oz of gold and dividends of £1500. The mine closed in June 1916.
(h) ST GEORGE AND MOONSTONE MINE SHAFT AND REMAINS
In 1917 Reid reported this shaft as that of the St George and Moonstone Gold Mining Company on GML 2457. This shaft was sunk in 1915, subsidised by the government to 798ft, intending to intersect the Moonstone reef.
The Moonstone reef was one of the earliest to be worked in Charters Towers on the southern side of Towers Hill in 1872. In the 1890s Millet's Wellington, which was an amalgam of claims on the Wellington and Madeline reefs, dominated mining activity on this side of the hill with the Moonstone reef on the higher ground to the north being worked by various 'Moonstone' companies. When Maitland carried out his survey in 1898, the Havelock Block on GML 1509 to the north of Millet's Wellington, was abandoned giving some suggestion that prior to 1898, the St George and Moonstone Shaft was on a claim previously taken up to work the Havelock Reef.
The prospecting in 1915 was unsuccessful and operations were suspended and the mine was closed.
","criteria":"The mineshafts and their surrounding remains are important in demonstrating the development of the mining industry in Queensland. They reflect the immense gold mining activity that occurred in Charters Towers from 1872 to 1917, which saw it become the second largest city in Queensland during this time period and the third largest gold field in Australia. Gold from Charters Towers made a powerful contribution to the economic development of Queensland and the settlement patterns of North Queensland.
|From the hundreds of mines that were active in Charters Towers during its peak, these eight mineshafts and their surrounding remains are among the few tangible links left to the mining activity that was so prevalent in a town which had a substantial impact on Queensland's development.
|The mine shafts, the remaining foundations of surface infrastructure and their surrounding cultural landscapes have the potential to yield information about the nature and scope of mining activity which dominated life in Charters Towers from 1872 - 1917. As a group, the mineshaft sites give an insight as to how the town of Charters Towers developed in the midst of massive gold mining operations.
|The eight mineshafts and the remaining infrastructures surrounding them are good examples of mines and vertical shafts developed for deep reef gold mining during the period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17042,"place_ref":602229,"name":"Soldier Settler House","alternate_name":"Hecstanvale","street_address":"Gladstone-Monto Road","suburb":"UBOBO","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-09-28","description":"The soldier settler house is a single storey, timber building set on high timber stumps clad with weatherboards. The gable roof building is clad with corrugated galvanised iron. Timber framed, casement windows, with metal window hoods, are located along all elevations of the building. These windows have replaced the original sash windows. [Some of the window hoods have star patterns, a common design and occurrence in the buildings constructed in the Boyne Valley].
The original staircases located in the northern and southern elevations have been removed. The stove recess in the north-west corner of the building is still extant.
Internally, the building comprises three rooms [a bedroom, dining room and a kitchen]. Later, the eastern side of the northern verandah was enclosed and the southern verandah was enclosed to provide for more rooms in the house. A modern water tank is located on the in the north-western corner near the building. The south-west corner of the undercroft has been enclosed with weatherboards.
The verandah on the southern side of the house appears to have been enclosed. Further, it would seem that additions have been constructed on the westerns side in the form of an extension to provide for another room, as well as the enclosing of the verandah on the northern side as well as the addition of a porch and staircase. The house is not in as good condition as the house on Lot 114 and was not inspected internally.
A single storey timber building is located to the rear of the house. The building has sash windows, with metal window hoods with a star pattern. The hipped roof is clad with corrugated galvanised iron.
The former soldier settlers house is located on a working farm. The house is surrounded by mature vegetation, with views south to the Boyne River.
","history":"The soldier settlers house is a high-set, timber building constructed in 1920, on property owned by RS Davies. An ex-serviceman from the First World War, Davies had acquired title to Portion 115 [as it was known] under the Ubobo Soldier Settlement Scheme. In the 1960s, the Davies family purchased Lot 114 [formerly Portion 114], on which another soldier settler's house is located.
Non-Indigenous exploration of Boyne Valley area commenced with Captain James Cook in 1770, Matthew Flinders [who named Port Curtis] in 1802 and John Oxley in 1823. More systematic inland exploration in the area had been led from the mid-1840s by Ludwig Leichhardt and Thomas Mitchell. By the early 1850s there were many squatters seeking to take up pastoral properties on the northern frontier of the Burnett District.
In June 1853, a government survey party under Francis McCabe was established at the Port Curtis harbour to lay out a township and to initiate a survey of the hinterland in preparation for its development as a pastoral district. When McCabe's labours had resulted in the partial survey of the town, a Government Residency was established at Gladstone in 1854 to oversee civil development in the Port Curtis Pastoral District.
Closer settlement in the Boyne Valley and the surrounding district occurred in a number of waves. The first wave was the periodic resumption of the original leasehold runs into smaller leases, which were then let as grazing properties. This was the common pattern from the 1870s through to the end of the First World War. In later years, more intensive settlement occurred with the reduction of the grazing blocks into agricultural and dairy selections. The Port Curtis Dairy Company Ltd [the PCD] was formed at Gladstone in 1904, with its first timber factory buildings erected at Gladstone in 1906. Later developments included the construction of the railway line from Byellee to Many Peaks through Ubobo, which opened on 25 July 1910.
Along the Boyne River, the major development in the pattern of land use occurred with the creation of the so-called 'soldier settlements' to assist veterans of the First World War. In 1920, the 21-year leases on the pastoral properties of Ubobo, Hybla, Melrose, Degalgil and Cluden expired. When the 1914-1918 war ended the Government sought to compensate those members of the services who were being discharged from the Army, Navy or Air Force, by making available land under the Solider Settlement Schemes. One such scheme was the Ubobo Soldier Settlement Scheme.
These areas were resumed by government legislation, leaving a homestead block as an option to the original selectors. The selections were available by perpetual lease, with Agricultural Bank assistance up to approximately $1400 available to develop the property and purchase stock. The Settlement Supervisor was WA Collins. He was later succeeded by ET Wannop. The money provided by the Agricultural Bank as advances on development work, was paid following the inspection of the work, and the endorsement of the payment by the Supervisor. All of the farms were to be used as dairy farms and associated farming. William P [Bill] Spencer, a carpenter at Nagoorin, had a contract to build all the soldier settler houses.
The selectors were from every walk of life. There were shop assistants, bank tellers, a plantation manager, drovers, Englishmen, a Scottish champion ploughman and local residents of the Port Curtis District. One of the first properties in the Ubobo area, Portion 115, was taken up by RS [Robert Sydney] Davies in 1920. The portion number contained 95 acres. Davies was born in England in 1883, and aged sixteen years, he stowed away in a troopship for South Africa. Once there, Davies joined an Essex Regiment with which he fought during the three years of the Boer War [1899-1901]. He remained in the British Army for eight years, serving in India and Burma.
In the years preceding the First World War, Davies was a rubber plantation manager for Burns Philp in Choisuel, in the British Solomon Islands. He also oversaw the Japanese pearl divers working for Burns Philp. Davies enlisted in the war on 5 October 1914, joining the Queensland 9th Battalion.
The 9th Battalion, which served in the First World War with honour, was the first to leave Queensland and among the first Australian troops to land at Gallipoli on the morning of the 25th April 1915. Davies, as a member of a boat carrying twelve men, went ashore ahead of the main force. Some months later, Davies was wounded, losing one of his eyes. He returned to Australia on 5 July 1915.
The Ubobo soldier settlement brought back, for a short while, encouragement for the future, which had fallen away with the ending of the mining era, and the closure of the Many Peaks mine. The dairy industry developed, agriculture was encouraged, and much farm land was opened up on which were grown good cotton crops finding employment for cotton pickers. During the 1910s dairying expanded in the surrounding districts, particularly at Mt Larcom and Bracewell, and the PCD Company made steady progress. Following the appointment in January 1916 of Joseph W Rigby as Manager and Secretary, the area from which the Company received cream was extended and the Company's growth was greatly accelerated. In the period 1916 to 1923, suppliers increased from 216 to 502 and manufactured butter from 179 to 539 tons.
By the 1920s, the PCD was one of the largest co-operative dairy companies in Queensland. The activities of the PDC at Gladstone and in surrounding districts stimulated the expansion of commercial dairying in Central Queensland. State wide, dairying was an important economic activity for the first half of the 20th century.
The township of Ubobo first appears in the Queensland Post Office Directory [Country] in 1926. The majority of those listed in the area are farmers [39 out of 54], including RS Davies. The other listings are for labourers, graziers and stockmen as well as a storekeeper/postmaster and a teacher. There are numerous changes in ownership/tenure over the years in the first ten years of the town appearing in the Directories, seventeen farmers left the area and eleven new names appeared. Later with the years of the depression, falling prices and not being able to meet liability that looked so attractive in the beginning, many others left.
While initially providing future prospects, for the most part the soldier settlement schemes were generally disastrous because the resumed land was cut into small, uneconomic blocks, Added to this was the inexperience of most soldier settlers, or an inadequate capital base, and the result was social and economic disaster. At Ubobo, the resumed leases were cut up into fifty-four farms: twenty-seven in the parish of Wietalba and twenty-seven in the parish of Ubobo. Virtually every block was taken up. These fifty-four households [most including children] were expected to make a living as dairy farmers where five families had formerly grazed cattle and in good years make a modest profit and in bad years a loss. Many properties were surrendered by the original selectors, most of whom left the district with a degree of bitterness.
Following the Second World War, with the economic depression of the butter section of the dairy industry, the properties were gradually bought by others to amalgamate with their holdings, thus providing a larger and more viable area. Excepting the actual river frontage with the good agricultural land thereabout the settlement has again reverted to its former purpose, the grazing of cattle.
RS Davies' property is now occupied by Hector [son of RS Davies] and Gloria Davies, who established a modern piggery as well as lucerne growing on the site. The property taken up by RS Davies is the only block still occupied by descendants of the original soldier settler. The Davies family purchased Portion 114 [now Lot 114], in the 1960s. This block, originally taken up by RJ Metten, has a solider settlers house constructed on the property. It is in a more deteriorated state than the house constructed by RS Davies.
When constructed, the soldier settlers house comprised three rooms, a bedroom, a dining room and a kitchen. A verandah opened on the eastern end of the southern side of the building and another verandah on the northern side. At a later date, the verandahs on both sides of the house were enclosed to provide more space. The house is currently unoccupied.
","criteria":"The soldier settlers house is significant for its association with the major redevelopment of the Boyne Valley area, and the establishment of the soldier settlements in the Ubobo area in particular, following the First World War, which led to closer settlement of the area generally.
\nThe soldier settlers house is significant as a surviving building remaining on the property on which it was taken up. Significantly, it was taken up by one of the earliest soldier settlers in the area, RS Davies, and is the only remaining property which is still being worked by the descendants of the original soldier settler.
|As a substantially intact, extant structure, located on its original block and associated with the development of the soldier settlement schemes, the soldier settlers house is significant for its rarity.
|Designed to a standard government plan, the soldier settlers house is significant as an example of a typical type of construction. Like the majority of soldier settlers' homes, the small, high-set, timber cottage originally comprised a core of four rooms with verandahs opening to both the front and the rear of the building.
|The soldier settlers house is significant for its association with those who took up property under the soldier settlement schemes and their descendants, and with their experiences, in the majority of cases, ultimately unsuccessful, with the scheme.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17043,"place_ref":602231,"name":"Picnic Bay Jetty","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Esplanade","suburb":"MAGNETIC ISLAND","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-05","description":"The jetty is located within Picnic Bay. It extends into the Bay from the Esplanade where Yule Street meets the beach.
The jetty was initially 800 feet long; however, the 1977 extensions increased the length by about twenty feet.
160 square concrete piers, installed by a cantilever pile driver, are evenly spaced along the length of the jetty. Round piers encased in concrete were used in the construction of the assembly area at the end of the jetty.
The jetty structure is made up of round timber beams topped with wide timber decking. A raised walkway, which runs along one side of the jetty, has timber handrails along both sides. The remainder of the jetty is used as a driveway for luggage and emergency vehicles meeting the ferry. There is no safety rail along the outer side of the jetty.
The walkway is lit with six evenly spaced fluorescent lights. Lighting is also located in the shelter sheds at the end of the Jetty.
The sheltered area at the end of the Jetty is made up of three structures. One shed, which appears to be older, is a southeast facing skillion structure of corrugated iron. The north west wall is enclosed to provide shelter from the weather. A second shed is centrally located at the end of the Jetty. This square structure has a hipped roofline of aluminum. The covered area is spilt into four by central walls which have been painted with murals by children from Magnetic Island State School. Seats are located along each of these walls. A third sheltered area, which may have been part of an earlier shelter, is attached to the central structure. This area is the walkway to the main access stairway to the ferry.
","history":"The Picnic Bay Jetty appears to be the third jetty constructed on the site. A permit to construct the facility was issued in 1957 and the structure was completed about mid October 1959. The present jetty was constructed under a permit issued by the Department of Harbours and Marine. It was built using Federal funds and leased to Magnetic Island company Hayles Magnetic Pty Ltd. The company was associated with tourist ventures on Magnetic Island from 1898 and leased the present jetty from 1960 until 1981.
Tourism on Magnetic Island began with the Butler family who first settled on the Island in 1877. Harry Butler and his family established a small dairy, orchard and mixed farm in Picnic Bay. The family experimented with the planting of pineapples and after building small huts adjacent to their house the island became a favourite weekend and holiday destination for mainland people. The Butler family established an intermittent ferry service at the time they began their small tourist venture.
Tourist development on the island began in earnest when Robert Hayles built an hotel at Picnic Bay in 1899. Hayles arrived on the Island in 1898 after working in the pastoral and mining industries in western Queensland. Later he owned a store and a hotel in Charters Towers. In 1898 Robert Hayles purchased the holiday facilities erected by the Butler family and constructed a two storey hotel, dance hall and his own jetty west of that constructed by Harry Butler and close to the site of the present day jetty.
In March 1900 Robert Hayles applied for permission to construct a wooden jetty which would be six feet wide and 100 feet long. Construction was approved by the Marine Department late in March 1900. The new jetty was damaged during Cyclone Leonta in 1903 and by 1910 was in poor condition. Correspondence indicates that Robert Hayles carried out extensive repairs to the structure.
Initially, on the mainland, the company operated from existing wharves and temporary landings in Ross Creek. In 1909 Robert Hayles was granted creek frontage on which to build a landing depot. A new twenty year lease agreement, granting the Hayles Company a 30 foot Flinders Street frontage to Ross Creek for the construction of another depot, was signed in 1925.
To facilitate his tourism venture Robert Hayles began a program of purchase or construction of small ferries. His first purchase, from Sydney, was a small steam ferry called the Bee. After the Bee was destroyed in a storm in 1901 Robert Hayles commissioned the construction of the 22 passenger Phoenix and later the Magnet. These boats were to be the foundation of a much larger Hayles fleet that eventually operated in places such as Cairns, Darwin, Townsville, Sydney and Canberra.
The introduction of a ferry service to Magnetic Island had a significant impact on the Island community. This was particularly so after the 1900 enforcement of compulsory education (first introduced in the Education Act 1875). The establishment of a regular Magnetic Island ferry service early in the twentieth century ensured that students could live on the island and travel to school each day. From this point the permanent population on the Island began to grow and more commercial businesses were established.
The Hayles family tourism business continued to prosper and on 20 June 1910 Eustace Robert (Bob) Hayles was granted a permit to construct a jetty at Picnic Bay. While it is possible that this permit was for a second jetty it is unlikely that the Hayles Company waited six years to replace the jetty damaged in the 1903 cyclone.
A letter dated 1 February 1917 from the Townsville Harbour Board to the Marine Department indicated that there were two jetties at Picnic Bay and one at Nelly Bay. These privately owned jetties were in poor condition and the Harbour Board suggested that no further private construction of landing stages should be allowed on the Island.
The Hayles' tourism business prospered and expanded. A new hotel was constructed at Picnic Bay after the first was destroyed by fire in 1911; a guesthouse and jetty were constructed at Arcadia, Magnetic Island together with tourism ventures at Nelly and Horseshoe Bays, Magnetic Island. On 13 March 1922 the Hayles Company, Hayles Magnetic Island Pty Ltd, was formed with Bob Hayles appointed as Chairperson. The company expanded to Cairns in 1924 where they provided a regular mail and cargo service between Cairns and Cooktown. The same year the company opened an office in Darwin. From there they provided a cargo service to outlying mission stations, lighthouses and to settlements along the Victoria and Daly Rivers.
In August 1920 control of the Magnetic Island foreshore was vested in the Townsville Harbour Board. While this move gave control of jetties to the Harbour Board, the Board, in June 1925, adopted a policy not to erect jetties on Magnetic Island but rather to approve the erection of shipping facilities by private developers.
While the Hayles family company continued to expand with a fortnightly Cairns to Green Island Service opened in 1928 and the introduction of Brisbane River Cruises in 1936 the outbreak of World War II in 1939 saw shipping operations cease when the Australian military requisitioned the company fleet. The facilities at Picnic Bay were also taken over as a rest and recreation camp for service personnel.
There was a period of expansion and upgrading of facilities after the company property was returned to the Hayles family in 1945. Roads, buildings and jetties were upgrades and access to jetties dredged both on Magnetic Island and in other locations. In 1957 the Townsville Harbour Board approved the construction a new jetty at Picnic Bay. Tenders were called on 15 January 1959 and the jetty, constructed by John Holland (Constructions) Pty Ltd, was completed about mid October 1959.
The Commonwealth Aid Marine Works Trust Fund, at a cost of £43,000, financed construction. It was leased to Hayles Magnetic for 20 years during which time the company was responsible for the maintenance of the structure. The shelter shed at the end of the jetty was constructed under a Community Employment Program through the Townsville City Council in 1977.
The jetty was damaged during Cyclone Althea on Christmas Eve 1971 but remained structurally sound. At the end of the lease in 1981 the Picnic Bay Jetty Maintenance Fund was established with Hayles Magnetic the major user of the facility. The Fund, which generated resources through the collection of berthing fees, provided income for jetty maintenance.
By 1984, although the company no longer had a lease on the jetty, it was berthing up to 3,640 times compared to 1,150 other berthings with a total of 250,000 to 300,000 people using the jetty annually.
In November 1985 the Townsville Harbour Board sought approval from the Department of Harbours and Marine to construct a shelter shed on the Jetty. Plans, prepared by the Townsville City Council, indicated that the original location of the structure was slightly altered to allow better access for passengers.
Apart from being a point of arrival and departure from the Island, the Jetty has always been a significant place for the Magnetic Island community. They have utilised it for fishing and as a place to walk for recreation or exercise and to sit looking across Cleveland Bay to the vista of Castle Hill and the Townsville skyline. The jetty is also frequently used as a mooring place for small yachts and fishing vessels.
In 2001 it was announced that when new harbour facilities at Nelly Bay, Magnetic Island were completed the Picnic Bay Jetty would be removed as soon as the structure became obsolete to requirements. The Magnetic Island Historical Association, the North Queensland Conservation Council and Magnetic Island community members became concerned about the proposed demolition of the jetty.
On Sunday 8 July 2001 1500 people from Townsville and Magnetic Island rallied on the Picnic Bay Jetty asking that the jetty be saved. This initial rally was followed by a series of news articles, letters to the Bulletin, letters to the Minister for Transport and a nomination to the Queensland Heritage Register.
Members of the Island community advised Townsville Cultural Heritage staff that they had already established an "Interim Management Committee" to oversee the ongoing care of the jetty if the State Government was no longer prepared to maintain the structure.
","criteria":"Picnic Bay Jetty, constructed by October 1959, is at least the third jetty constructed on this site. Leased by the Hayles Company in 1960 this jetty, and earlier jetties, has been linked with the Hayles family company on Magnetic Island since 1898.
|The community values the Picnic Bay Jetty both for its contribution to the economic development of Magnetic Island as a significant tourist destination and for the jetty's role in the commercial, family and recreational life of the Island community. The importance of the jetty to the island community was recently demonstrated through the proposal to set up a management committee to assume responsibility for the structure once it becomes obsolete to requirements.
|The present jetty is evidence of the significant contribution made by the Hayles Company, through the company's development of Magnetic Island as a major tourist location, to the Queensland tourism industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17044,"place_ref":602232,"name":"Quartz Hill Coach Change Station Site and Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Via Mount Surprise","suburb":"MOUNT SURPRISE","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"The site is on the western bank of Elizabeth Creek, approximately 10km downstream from Mount Surprise. On the opposite bank of the creek stands the natural feature called Quartz Hill. Apart from the trees alongside the creek bed, the site is sparsely vegetated, and the bare soil is scattered with basalt stones.
The significant remnants of the Quartz Hill Change Station include the cemetery, the rectangular stone foundations of the hotel, a large bottle dump, several stone formations of unknown purpose, two small cleared areas, and an old road to the crossing of Elizabeth Creek, which is marked by a blazed tree. There is also a scattering of metal artefacts, including horseshoes. All of these components can be found between the existing roads and Elizabeth Creek.
When the main road from Mount Surprise turns west towards the O'Briens Creek Gemfields, a secondary track continues northwest, and passes close to the four graves in the cemetery. The southernmost grave is that of John Dutton. It faces east and has a marble headstone. A cast iron fence, set into stone corner plinths, surrounds the grave. The other three graves face southwest; the grave just north of John Dutton's grave consists of a cast iron headstone with no inscription and a rectangular arrangement of stones. The next grave has a rectangular cairn of basalt stones, stacked on top of a plinth of quartz rocks. The northernmost grave has the least intact stone arrangement.
About 190 metres southeast of the cemetery are the foundations of what was probably the hotel. The foundation stones enclose an area about 5 metres wide by 13 metres long, and seem to have an internal partition towards the southern end and a 2-metre extension to the east. A line of stones also extends north from the northwestern corner. South of the foundations is a cleared rectangular earth pad.
To the northeast of the hotel foundations is a three-sided linear formation of stones, and to the north of this is a cleared area of about 30 by 20 metres. Southeast of the hotel is a group of flat stones around a small tree, and further southeast is an overgrown, horseshoe shaped arrangement of stones that could be a hearth or a shelter. East of the hotel, near the creek, is a large artefact scatter, mostly of green beer bottles with some tin, spread over an area of about 5 metres by 15 metres. North of this bottle dump is an extensive scatter of tin, glass, ceramics and metal. Some distance to the south is a small depression containing a bottle and metal scatter.
At some distance to the southeast of the hotel is a section of the coach road. The road originally headed south after crossing the creek, before swinging to the northwest to head past the hotel. The modern road now obscures the section towards the hotel, and a modern cattle track exists just to the west of the coach road's approach to the creek. On the western bank of the crossing stands a blazed melaleuca tree. Further southeast is a horseshoe shaped stone structure, 2 metres by 1.5 metres, which stands at one end of an L-shaped stone arrangement. This structure and the graves are the most obvious features of the change station site, and can easily be seen from the road. .
","history":"The Quartz Hill coach Change Station was a product of the development of pastoralism and the discovery of gold, tin, and copper in Northern Queensland. In 1888 Quartz Hill became an overnight stop on the "coast to coast" coach transport and mail routes from the east coast (via Herberton and later Almaden) to Georgetown on the Etheridge goldfield, and on through Croydon to Normanton. Despite the later construction of railways to cover sections of the route (such as the Croydon to Normanton railway, 1891), Quartz Hill remained a coach station until 1908.
In the 1860s Ezra Firth, in partnership with James Atkinson, took up the Mount Surprise Station on the banks of Elizabeth Creek, while the Collins Brothers took up Brooklands Station to the west, on the banks of Junction Creek. The topographical feature of Quartz Hill is located on the east bank of Elizabeth Creek, about 10 km downstream (northwest) from Mount Surprise. Gem quality beryl (aquamarine) and garnet were found in the area. Early twentieth century maps of the various runs of Mount Surprise Station shows that whilst Quartz Hill lay within the boundary of the Albert Downs run of Firth's Station, the location of the Quartz Hill Change Station, west of Elizabeth Creek, was in the Fixby Run of the Collins' Station. The whole area is now part of a much larger Mount Surprise Station.
Copper was discovered in the area in the mid-1860s. Geologist Richard Daintree, in partnership with William Hann, established an open-cut copper mine on what was then thought to be the Lynd River but which later proved to be a separate watercourse and was named the Einasleigh. Ore was excavated and carted in bullock drays to Townsville, but despite good returns, the costly freight made the mine unprofitable. The partners ceased work and the mine entrance was sealed. For some years after the death of Daintree in 1878 the location was lost. Renewed mining interest in the Einasleigh River district was stimulated by the 1890s boom in copper and railways, resulting in 12 copper leases being developed in the area by 1899.
To the west of Mount Surprise Station, Georgetown was established following the discovery of gold near the Etheridge River in 1870. Initially it was just one of several shanty towns which mushroomed on the huge Etheridge goldfield. By late 1871, the (unproclaimed) township had a population of 600, and emerged as the field's administrative centre. The population and fortunes of Georgetown fluctuated in the 1870s, following the discovery in 1873 of the rich Palmer River Goldfield, and the Hodgkinson rush of 1876. However, by mid 1878 miners were returning to the Etheridge. The overland telegraph from Cardwell to Normanton reached Junction Creek, south of Mount Surprise Station, in 1871, and Ezra Firth supplied meat to the small settlement that developed there. In the 1881 Queensland Census, the Etheridge District had a population of 1042 and the towns of Charleston (later Forsayth), Georgetown, and Gilberton.
An 1886 census map of the Etheridge District shows a road from Georgetown passing through Brooklands Station, and crossing Elizabeth Creek near Quartz Hill. One branch of the road then heads south through Mount Surprise to Junction Creek, while the other branch heads north, to the Lynd River, alongside the telegraph line from Junction Creek to Palmerville.
In the late 1880s, due to the development of the Croydon goldfield and a government desire for coast-to coast mail delivery, Cobb and Co extended its Normanton to Georgetown two-day coach run and cut a rough track from Georgetown to Herberton; a distance of around 160 miles. There was already a service from Port Douglas to Herberton, but the Georgetown to Herberton "gap" was not bridged until 1888. This route was the busiest in Queensland during the Etheridge and Croydon booms, according to William Lees, writing in 1920.
The change station at Elizabeth Creek near Quartz Hill appears to have been established in 1888 to service the new Cobb & Co. route between Georgetown and Herberton. Change stations were always built near water, and a groom would feed and water the tired horses and harness a fresh team while the driver and passengers ate. Stations were generally placed about 20-30 km apart. According to Cobb and Co records, the route from Herberton to Georgetown ran through Watsonville, Orient Camp, Montalbion, California Creek, Emmerson's Cobb and Co stables, Fossilbrook, and Quartz Hill, a distance of 167 miles.
A postal receiving office was opened at Quartz Hill on 13 December 1888, the first keeper being Mrs Hutson (likely the wife of Alfred Hutson, Quartz Hill Hotel). Alf Hutson was granted a Victualler's License in mid 1889 (Georgetown district), and he is listed at Quartz Hill in the February 1890 Queensland Government Gazette.
Sometime between 1890 and 1895 Arthur C Bicknell travelled from Herberton to Georgetown on a coach that was carrying mailbags. On the third night he recorded that "we arrived at a little place called 'Quartz Hill', where there was a fairly good hut kept by an Englishman and his wife". The coach continued with the mail to Georgetown the next day.
Between 1892 and 1903 Cobb and Co held the contract for Mail Service No. 210, running between Herberton and Georgetown. In 1898 a coach left Georgetown for Herberton every Wednesday, and left Herberton for Georgetown on Fridays. Quartz Hill was noted as a "parcel office", (i.e. a postal receiving office). By 1900 coaches left Herberton for Georgetown on Sundays and Thursdays, and left Georgetown for Herberton on Fridays and Tuesdays.
The license for the Quartz Hill Hotel was transferred to Patrick Brophy in 1900, and then to Robert Neary that same year. J Geraghty was keeper of the receiving office in 1901, the year in which at least one traveller complained about the poor food and basic bedding arrangements, and in February 1902 Margaret Geraghty was listed as the licensee at Quartz Hill.
The construction of the Chillagoe railway meant that in 1904 Cobb and Co obtained the contract for Mail Service No. 210(a), from Almaden on the railway to Georgetown twice a week, via Sandy Tate, Rocky Tate, Petty's Change, Fossilbrook, Black Springs, Quartz Hill, and White Springs, a distance of 150 miles. John Dutton was the receiving office keeper in 1905, while in January 1906 Bridget Dutton held the license at Quartz Hill. A photograph in the North Queensland Register in 1905 shows two buildings, two local horse-buggy teams, and one bicycle, at Quartz Hill, "Where the Georgetown and Almaden Coaches meet weekly".
However, changes in transportation were threatening the existence of the Change Station at Quartz Hill. In 1900 John Moffat of the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company acquired an interest in the Einasleigh Copper Mine, which was to prove the premier base metal producer on the Etheridge. By 1901 the copper matte was being transported by camel to Almaden via Quartz Hill. Gold from the Etheridge gold field was also transported in this manner through Quartz Hill. This mode of transportation proved unsatisfactory and by 1902 the construction of a railway line was suggested between Georgetown and Almaden to join with the Chillagoe Railway. The potential route passed through Quartz Creek, but instead the railway was constructed further south, through Mount Surprise and Einasleigh, terminating at Forsayth (previously Charleston). The railhead reached Mount Surprise from Almaden in 1908, and opened at Forsayth in January 1910.
In January 1907 Cobb and Co sold its interest in the Almaden to Georgetown run to JS Love, and John Dutton died the following month, aged 49. His headstone still stands in the small cemetery near the site of the Change Station. A map in the 1908 Annual Report of the Department of Mines still shows a hotel at Quartz Hill, and Bridget Dutton was the licensee for the year ending June 1908. However, by March 1909 Quartz Hill was no longer mentioned under Licensed Victuallers in the Georgetown district, and Bridget Dutton had taken on the license at the Australian Hotel in Einasleigh. The receiving office at Quartz Hill seems to have closed in July 1908, the same month that a post office opened in Mount Surprise, no doubt due to the railway having reached the latter location.
","criteria":"The development of a Coach Change Station at Quartz Hill demonstrates how the development of North Queensland's mining and pastoral industries required the establishment of transport routes to service those industries. The exploitation of the Etheridge Goldfield led to the 1888 development of a Cobb and Co coach route from Herberton, and later Almaden, to Georgetown, with an overnight stop at Quartz Hill. The building foundation remnants at Quartz Hill, along with a bottle dump, evidence of the coach road, and a small cemetery, mark the location of an important early transport route in Northern Queensland, and demonstrate the functional arrangement of a class of places that, due to changes in technology, is no longer in use.
|The remains of the Coach Change Station have the potential to provide new information about construction methods in rural North Queensland during the late nineteenth century. Analysis of the Change Station's surviving infrastructure, including the building foundation remnants, bottle dump, evidence of the coach road, and a small cemetery, and the spatial arrangement of its components (including the proximity of this remnant evidence to water), would also aid understanding in how late 19th century and early 20th century coach change stations functioned, and how people lived and worked in these places.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17047,"place_ref":602235,"name":"Student Residences, QUT Kelvin Grove Campus","alternate_name":"Hall of Residence, TAFE Queensland","street_address":"95-107 Musk Avenue","suburb":"KELVIN GROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-02-25","description":"Unlike earlier halls of residence, the accommodation at Kelvin Grove is provided in small domestic-scaled buildings. These are dispersed on the steeply sloping southern sides of a southward sloping valley at the corner of Blamey Street and Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove. The accommodation units with south-east to north-east orientation are clustered in two groups together with accommodation for tutors and laundry facilities. These groups are arranged informally around the community services building which is a focus of the complex. This central core is sited at the top of the complex which steps to suit the topography and is interconnected with the accommodation by pathways.
The overall impression is of a hillside village with a high degree of unity resulting from the repetitive use of pitched metal deck roofs, walls of white painted bagged cavity brick masonry and timber elements - pergolas, balustrades and lattice screens all stained dark brown. The broken profile of roofs scattered and staggered over the steep slope and the consequent changing perspective together with the remnant regrowth eucalypt vegetation reinforced by landscaping based on Australian native species providing shade and shadow to white washed walls all serve to visually enliven the courtyard spaces and pathways on the site.
Community Services Building
The community services building is a two storey building which steps down the site and houses a communal dining room, recreation areas and support facilities on the upper level with store rooms and more recently enclosed areas on the lower level to house student counselling services. The building has a large open timber trussed roof and sloping ceilings lined with straw board panels. Pergolas provide shade to several outdoor areas.
Residences
The residences are divided into two clusters. One cluster comprises four two-storey 4-person maisonettes and one single storey 4-person tutorial unit, while the second cluster contains five two storey 4-person maisonettes and one single storey 4-person tutorial unit. Both clusters have their own laundry and one of the maisonettes in the first cluster had a paraplegic unit.
Each maisonette has two bedrooms per floor with the entry, kitchenette and bathroom adjacent to the half landing of a dogleg stair. A timber framed cantilevered verandah with lattice panelled end walls is provided to the upper bedrooms with a corresponding paved area to the lower floor bedrooms. Additional natural light is provided to the common areas and upper bedrooms through clerestory lighting.
The tutorial units comprise four sleeping areas, a bathroom, kitchenette and study and tutorial areas on one level with timber pergolas providing shade to openings.
","history":"A Cabinet decision of May 1973 established a policy of providing Halls of Residence for young people who were obliged to live away from home to attend classes. The Halls of Residence at Kelvin Grove were designed for short-term accommodation for country students undertaking TAFE block release apprenticeship courses (of 6-7 weeks duration) which were not available regionally.
\nA site at Chelmer was proposed but after it was inundated in the 1974 Brisbane floods an alternative site at Kelvin Grove (originally part of Gona Barracks) was selected. This land had been excised from the Barracks site in the early 1970s when a right-of-way was created for a proposed North-Western freeway. The bulk of the Barracks site was on the western side of the proposed freeway, fronting Kelvin Grove Road. Land on the eastern side of the freeway alignment, with frontages to Victoria Park Road on either side of Blamey Street, was gazetted as a Reserve for a Technical College. The land on the northern side of Blamey Street was intended as the site for a new Technical Correspondence School. The proposed freeway did not go ahead after the Commonwealth government withdrew funds for urban freeways, and by mid-1975 that land on the southern side of Blamey Street was selected for the first Brisbane Hall of Residence.
\nAgainst a background of criticism by the Commonwealth of the standard of recent Brisbane buildings for TAFE the Brisbane architect, John Dalton, was commissioned to design the hall of residence in mid-1975. The building was to be staged with accommodation in Stage 1 for 120 students, 6 tutors and a warden and with provision for a future Stage 2 for a further 120 students and another 6 tutors. The design and documentation phases were accelerated so that construction would commence before a 30 June 1976 funding deadline.
\nAn initial design based on higher densities with self-contained groups of four students with kitchenette and bath room was revised in October 1975 to one of more domestic scale with a centralised dining/common room, to bring the project within a cost limit of $10,000 per student. The successful tender for $1,254,561 (slightly over budget) was received from Hornick Constructions and the completed complex was handed over on 13 December 1978. The building won awards from the RAIA for meritorious architecture in 1979 and for civic design in 1982.
\nThe design of the accommodation at the former Hall of Residence, Kelvin Grove was a departure from earlier halls of residence and illustrates the changing ideological and utilitarian needs of students at the time as well as the particular needs of short term occupants.
\nThere was a global shift that began in the 1960s in response to changing student needs brought about by sweeping social change, growing student numbers and economic constraints. Accommodation which was institutional and formal, where student movements could be more easily monitored and regulated was being replaced with that which provided students with more independence and a more informal living environment.
\nThis departure in approach to student accommodation is clearly demonstrated in the design of the Hall of Residence at Kelvin Grove through the scale and informal clustering of buildings and entwining paths which, on the steep topography, provide a measure of privacy without fully divorcing the activities in the dwellings from passing pedestrians, thus maintaining a sense of community.
\nJohn Dalton (1927- ) was born in Yorkshire, England and came to Queensland in 1950. While training at the Central Technical College and the University of Queensland, he was employed in the offices of Theo Thynne and Hayes and Scott. Soon after he graduated in 1956 with a Diploma of Architecture he commenced private practice and quickly established a reputation for high quality design:
\nHe became well known through his domestic work which included houses he designed for himself in 1952 and 1960. Through the 1960s his reputation was further enhanced by his success in the Institute of Architect's awards programs, through his innovation in climatic design, through writing and publication of his work and through teaching. His early advocacy for reintroduction of vernacular elements such as verandahs, high-set houses, roof ventilation and climatic design generally was notable and influential and led to international exhibition of his work in Australian pavilions at Expositions in Montreal and Osaka.
\nDalton's success in the 1960s was a prelude for larger public and award winning commissions in the 1970s which included:
\nOf these works, the Hall of Residence, Kelvin Grove is the only extant project which has a residential component.
\nEarly in the 1980s, Dalton largely closed down his Brisbane practice and moved to Allora.
\nDalton's work has international recognition, is widely published and is included in key texts on the history of architecture, including Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture; J.M. Freeland, 'Architecture in Australia: A History' Richard Apperly, et.al 'A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture' and many others.
\nThe project was commissioned by the Queensland Works Department on behalf of the Education Department. Within the Queensland Department of Public Works the project was overseen by the Ukrainian-born architect Peter Prystupa (1920-1989) who trained in Vienna during and after World War II. In 1949 he emigrated to Queensland where he upgraded his European training to meet local practice requirements at the University of Queensland, joining the Works Department in 1953. In the 1970s Prystupa was responsible for commissioning architects with established reputations for good design, including John Dalton, Robin Gibson, James Birrell and Darvall Miller. Prystupa is said to have countered the opposition of the conservative (Country Party) Queensland Government of that time, to the Kelvin Grove project by emphasising that the housing was primarily intended for country students.
\nIn 1987, the responsibility for Technical and Further Education was transferred from the Department of Education to the Department of Employment, Vocational Education and Training. In the 1990s, approaches were made by the Queensland University of Technology to purchase the complex. These were initially rejected but in September 1993, the complex was transferred for $4 million -considerably less than the replacement cost.
\nIn the original scheme, five clusters of residential units were constructed around the community building. Three of these clusters were demolished in 2002 as part of the redevelopment of the site for the Kelvin Grove Urban Village.
","criteria":"The former Hall of Residence at the QUT Campus at Kelvin Grove demonstrates the pattern of development of the provision of improved facilities for Technical and Further Education in Queensland. It also provides evidence of the development of a climatically responsive architecture.
|The project is an uncommon and intact example of a public commission by the architect John Dalton. It exhibits the principal characteristics of his work in the 1970s and demonstrates the successful adaptation and continuity of the themes that he had developed in his body of residential work into the public realm - the marked differentiation between the contained and more open parts of buildings achieved by changes in materials and contrasts between solid core of white painted masonry and the brown stained timbers of verandahs and pergolas, and angled white walls and pitched roof forms projected at various angles in a distinctive response to the Queensland climate.
|The former Hall of Residence at Kelvin Grove is an innovative example of student residential accommodation with a distinctive, relaxed and informal composition, and the complex is of recognised quality and interest which has won architectural awards, been widely published and exhibited internationally.
|The former Hall of Residence at Kelvin Grove is an innovative example of student residential accommodation with a distinctive, relaxed and informal composition, and the complex is of recognised quality and interest which has won architectural awards, been widely published and exhibited internationally.
|The complex is an important example of a public commission by the Queensland architect John Dalton who was a pre-eminent Australian architect of the 1960s and 1970s renowned for his residential work and innovation in climatic design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17048,"place_ref":602236,"name":"Lagoon Creek Railway Water Supply Facility and Pump Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Buckle Street","suburb":"CABOOLTURE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-01-24","description":"Lagoon Creek is a small watercourse in the Caboolture Shire. It begins at Moodlu and runs in an easterly direction through the north of Caboolture before entering Tea Tree Swamp on the eastern side of the Bruce Highway. It is an important part of the ecosystem within Caboolture Shire and provides a regular water flow into the Tea Tree Swamp Wetlands. The pump site is located approximately one kilometre north of the Caboolture CBD. It is situated at the end of Buckle Street and is shielded from the surrounding suburban development by mature vegetation.
The surviving built elements of the system comprise a concrete slab and foundations for the pumping station above the eastern bank of Lagoon Creek, associated iron pipes and a low concrete weir running from bank to bank some 300 metres downstream.
","history":"The former railway water supply pumping station was built in 1913 on a waterhole on Lagoon Creek at Caboolture. It was the third pump site drawing water from this source to supply tanks at the Caboolture railway station replenishing the stock of steam locomotives. The facility was developed in stages from the opening of the line until 1947 and its use was discontinued in 1968 when the use of steam locomotives on the line ceased.
Progress throughout the world during the 19th century was facilitated by the development of industrial technologies, particularly those associated with the use of steam power. The introduction of a railway transport system that was able to move large quantities of goods and materials quickly, reliably and cheaply and could carry passengers and mail was a key component in the development of a modern economic and social structure. In Australia, the linking of resources with trade outlets over large distances and the reliable provision of goods and services to new settlements was a vital factor in the settlement of the country. At the time the only alternative form of transport to rail was horse or bullock dray. Proximity or otherwise to a railway line frequently dictated the success or failure of a budding township. The construction of the North Coast railway line to Caboolture was the catalyst for its growth and development as the principal centre of the district.
When Queensland was separated from New South Wales in 1859 it had no railway system and only one good road, which linked Brisbane and Ipswich. The first railway track was laid between Ipswich and Toowoomba between 1864 and 1867. Laying new lines was expensive because of the distances and difficult terrain involved so priority was given to lines that connected inland resources with ports. Queensland railways were at first a series of parallel lines rather than a network and urban centres along the coast were linked comparatively late and little by little. A line along the coast north of Brisbane was surveyed in 1882 and approved in 1884.
Those surveying a new railway line took into account terrain, soil type, the presence of existing settlements and resources and proximity to a suitable water supply. A good supply of clean water was necessary to supply steam locomotives. Water had to be replenished at 30-40 mile (48-64 km) intervals, a procedure which took about 10 minutes. Watering stops were established at intervals along the line. In urban areas the town water supply was used, but where one did not exist other suitable sources were identified.
The availability of a good and plentiful supply at Lagoon Creek was instrumental in the choice of Caboolture as a railway station. When the line was first surveyed, it was thought that Morayfield might be chosen as it was already a settlement of some size, but the water supply was unsuitable and on 19 April 1884 a water reserve of approximately 130 hectares on the north of Lagoon Creek was proclaimed. A pump house was built at the northern end of the Caboolture railyards to draw water from Lagoon Creek. A pipe was laid to a nearby waterhole and water was then pumped to elevated tanks in the main railway yard from which the locomotives were supplied. The section of railway between Northgate and Caboolture was opened in 1888 and the section to Gympie in 1891.
The boiler supplied to provide steam power for the pumps had originally been part of one of the earliest steam locomotives to operate in Queensland, an A10 class locomotive, which was made by Neilson & Co of Glasgow and imported in 1867. The boiler was removed from its locomotive in 1889 and adapted to drive the pump at Lagoon Creek. However, by 1902, the creeks in the Caboolture district had fallen dramatically, a result of the severe and widespread drought of the late 1890s and early 1900s. By June 1902, it was estimated that, with a weekly consumption of about 60,000 gallons, there was only about six or seven weeks supply remaining in the lagoon. The railway's Chief Engineer, William Pagan, proposed that the pipeline be extended to a larger lagoon further down the creek. To avoid the necessity of resuming land, the pipes were laid along streets to the new site at the termination of a street and a new pump house was built on the bank of the lagoon.
The boiler installed at the new site was a vertical Smith and Faulkner boiler that had been installed in July 1902 at the previous site and operated a Worthington pump. Considerable problems were experienced with this boiler and within a few months, the recycled A10 boiler had replaced it.
The lagoon was estimated to have an unfailing supply and the new site was in use by early 1903. Although the drought broke in 1903 so that the water supply increased, the demand for water also increased along with the volume of traffic on the line. The major regional centre of Rockhampton was then linked to Brisbane and branch lines were constructed, including an important branch line to Kilcoy in 1913. As a result of the increased demand improvements were carried out at Lagoon Creek pumping station. A small concrete weir 300 metres downstream was constructed to increase the capacity of the lagoon. The pumping equipment was upgraded and the station relocated to the eastern side of the lagoon. New pipes were laid and a boiler from a B15 locomotive was installed at the site.
The old boiler at the previous site was sold to WF Suffolk on 14 November 1913. It was stripped of useful components but the shell was left on site. At some point it fell into the lagoon where it stayed until raised in 2000.
In the 1930s 1.6 million litres of water were pumped weekly from the creek to supply railway locomotives. In 1939 electricity was supplied to the pumping station and electric pumps were installed, relegating the steam engine to a backup. In 1934 it had been planned to increase the height of the dam 18 inches (45 cm). This was done and wing walls built into the banks for support between 1943 and 1947.
Diesel trains began operating on main lines in Queensland from 1952 and did not need a water supply. In the 1950s and 1960s they gradually replaced steam trains and the last steam locomotive working on a regular basis in Queensland was decommissioned in 1969. By 1968, there were no steam engines on the North Coast line, so that the pumping station at Lagoon Creek was redundant. The station was closed and the pumping equipment removed in February 1968. The concrete slab and foundations of the pumping station remained, as did the weir. At the railway station the water tanks were removed and sold for scrap. The land containing the pumping station was sold to Caboolture Shire Council in 1984. Roads bound this land on the south and east and the lagoon on the west.
A non-profit community group, the Friends of Lagoon Creek, was formed in 1989 to work to preserve and protect Lagoon Creek and its eco-systems. The restoration and re-vegetation of the Lagoon Creek catchment is their primary objective and they are also working to conserve the pump station site, whose history they have researched. They removed the boiler from the creek in October 2000, it has had conservation work carried out on it and is currently held at Caboolture.
","criteria":"The presence of a pumping station at Lagoon Creek demonstrates the role played by the construction and operation of the North Coast railway line and its branches in the development of Caboolture. A reliable source of clean water was essential to supply locomotives in the days of steam power. That Lagoon Creek offered this was a major factor in the choice of Caboolture as a railway centre and of its continued importance in this role.
|The weir and pumping station remains at Lagoon Creek are a rare surviving components of a water supply facility developed by Queensland Rail for the use of steam locomotives. A reliable water supply was ensured by the provision of tanks along the line using natural water sources where suitable water was available. The pumping station is evidence of the use of steam power, an early and important technology, in the development of Queensland's railway system.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17049,"place_ref":602240,"name":"Thermo Electric Ore Reduction Corporation Mill","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wolfram Road","suburb":"DIMBULAH","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-07","description":"The place contains four separate groups of structural foundations in addition to a number of breached weirs along Bulluburrah Creek. A group of concrete foundations and engine mounts on the west side of the Wolfram road form the remains of the Irvinebank Company mill powerhouse and molybdenite tower.
Opposite, on the eastern side of the road, a series of terraced building surfaces retained by heavy dry stone walls, formed the foundations of the Thermo Electric Ore Reduction Corporation's store and office. A feature of this group is the form-cast concrete walls of the office, which remain in good condition, though without a roof.
The Thermo Electric Corporation mill foundations to the south are connected to the store and office by a benched track supported by a rock retaining wall. The mill foundations are extensive and comprise massive retaining walls of rough-dressed stone blocks, supporting eight terraced benches with concrete machinery mounts and rendered surfaces. A fourth group of machinery mounts south of the mill comprise the boiler room and power plant foundations.
","history":"The Hodgkinson River area was declared a goldfield in 1876. While yields of gold were small compared to those being produced along the Palmer River, the area is also a geologically rich mineral field. The mineral known as wolfram (also known as 'wolframite') was discovered in 1894 in the headwaters of the Hodgkinson River scattered over the surface as bunches in quartzose boulders or in drifts interspersed with coarse gravels. In 1900, 91 pounds of molybdenite was also discovered. This was said to contain some of the finest specimens of molybdenite discovered anywhere in Australia.
Wolfram is composed of a heavy gray-white metallic element, with pure wolfram being used mainly in electrical applications and is also the ore from which tungsten is refined. In 1899 wolfram was returning £38 per ton. Other than along the Hodgkinson, wolfram has been located in north Queensland at Bamford Hill approximately 85km west-south-west of Cairns in 1893, north-west of Cairns at Mount Carbine in the 1890s, on Moa Island in the Torres Strait during the 1940s, and also in the Herberton district.
A small town formed near the mineral deposits, and by 1900 there were 100 men working wolfram, molybdenite and bismuth at what became known as Wolfram Camp. The Irvinebank Mining Company invested there in 1900, appointing a manager, Alexander Gillan.
Demand for high grade wolfram, after the development of tungsten as a lamp filament in 1904, and for molybdenite for use in patent alloys, led to an early interest in rare metals by British firms, the most prominent being George G. Blackwell and Sons of Liverpool. Prices in 1904 for both metals were high - up to £200 per ton for molybdenite and £140 per ton for wolfram - and attracted many goldminers. Of the 1,136 people on the Hodgkinson by 1904, 700 were miners working at Wolfram Camp. By 1909 wolfram was returning £41,820 compared to the value of gold production at £7,089. But the rare metals industry was unstable - there was insecurity in the unknown overseas markets where demand fluctuated erratically and local miners were never sure of their returns. So a Wolfram Co-operative Association was formed to arrange advances and shipments through intermediaries such as the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency and W.J. Lempriere and Co, but generally the local industry was poorly organised.
From 1904, 2,500 tons of wolfram valued at £250,000 were produced at Wolfram Camp, half of which went through John Moffat's Irvinebank Company mill. John Moffat, a large speculator and enterprising investor in north Queensland mining, was diversifying his interests through steady exports of rare metals. The Irvinebank Mining Company spent upwards of £1,000 on development work on the main mines the Weate, Tully, Weate United and Comerford in 1905. The Irvinebank Company set up the battery in 1906 on Bulluburrah Creek in the lower valley using the technology for separating molybdenite which was developed by local miners. W.A. Pepper was the battery manager. The battery comprised: a rockbreaker, Cornish rolls, a Krupp table, and a Frue vanner to remove the quartz. This battery was a stabilising influence on Wolfram Camp - treating ore from the Mulligan, United, Downfall, Nichol's, Forget-me-Not, Bonner, Tully, Weate, Larkin United, Murphy's and Leinster's claims. The mill was closed for long periods throughout 1909 because of strikes over the 44-hour week. It operated again from 1910 to 1912 and was closed in the rationalisation of the Irvinebank Mining Company's assets that year.
The wolfram mining industry passed through a depression for several years from 1910 chiefly because of the exhaustion of the residual surface accumulations of ore, thus ending the days of the gougers. The Irvinebank Company had been the chief producer but its operations were not a financial success. High cartage costs to the mill and water supply were problems, as was the old and troublesome ball mill, whereas the company's molybdenite plant, erected for the separation of quartz and molybdenite with aid of oily water, was a model of simplicity. Lionel Ball, government geologist, noted that: "The Irvinebank Mining Company's enterprise ... in the hazardous undertaking of wolfram mining demands recognition. Its mines are the deepest and by far the most extensive at Wolfram; and had it not erected a battery, the yield for some years past would have been insignificant, while Wolfram as a town would probably have ceased to exist".
Many of the mines were closed during World War One. In 1915 new rolls were added by the Irvinebank Company to the dry crusher and a roasting furnace was built to treat increased quantities of pyrites. A government subsidy was also used for a road deviation to assist Wolfram miners. In 1916 the Irvinebank Mining Company replaced the ball mill with stamps and installed a dynamo for lighting and a magnetic machine to separate wolfram from bismuth and the impurities from the concentrates. A 66hp suction gas engine and belt-driven air compressor were erected at Leisner's Wolfram Block mine.
The advent of the Thermo Electric Ore Reduction Corporation of Britain sustained the Wolfram district through the war years with the government paying fixed prices. Mr F.C. Cann was General Manager and consulting engineer. Unfortunately the completion of the company's new and extensive reduction and concentrating works was delayed until 1918 when the first unit of 20 stamps and the concentrating plant became operational.
The Corporation's mill was located adjacent to the Irvinebank Mining Company's battery. The new company bought the Irvinebank Company's and other mines, built a new dam, and planned a new gravity treatment plant. The Corporation lost some of its machinery in transit during the war. Twenty head of stamps and an aerial ropeway were erected to treat the wolfram ore in 1918. The mines were formed into groups with common haulage systems. The central collection point for the mines (Liesner's Wolfram Block, Murphy and Geany, Larkin and Wade, Hillside, Hughes, Tully and Mulligan) was the Forget-me-Not mine, and the buckets were transported electrically to the mill.
The Thermo Electric Ore Reduction Corporation failed to survive the slump in metal prices after the return to free market forces in March 1920. Within weeks Wolfram Camp was almost deserted. It is presumed that the mill ceased to operate from this time and was dismantled as the next wolfram mining revival in 1926 saw the Queensland Rare Metal Company erecting a new battery on the site of the Irvinebank Mining Company's previous 10 head battery.
","criteria":"The Thermo Electric Ore Reduction Corporation Mill at Wolfram is important in demonstrating the evolution of rare mineral mining and processing practices in Queensland in the early 20th century. The mill provides physical evidence of an important shift in mining practices and employment in the Hodgkinson River area, from gold to rare mineral mining and processing.
The Thermo Electric Ore Reduction Corporation Mill is significant in Queensland's history as an example of overseas (British) capital funding a state-of-the-art ore processing works, which was short-lived (18 months) due to foreign market influences and an inability to diversify.
The mill and associated remains, especially the scale of the mill foundations, demonstrate the scale and economic importance of wolfram mining in north Queensland in the years prior to, and during, World War One.
|The mill is representative of an uncommon mining practice in north Queensland, that of rare mineral mining of molybdenite and bismuth.
The Thermo Electro Co. office, a 1918 form-cast concrete building, is unique in relation to early twentieth century mining in north Queensland. The heavy stone retaining walls with concrete machinery mounts rise up the steep slope in eight terraced benches and are the largest and most massive mill foundations recorded in north Queensland.
|(Criterion under review)
|The mill is significant due to its association with John Moffat, who between 1872 and 1918, played an important role in the development of the base metal mining industry in north Queensland. The mill is representative of Moffat's efforts to diversify his mining activities in the north, particularly his activities involving the extraction, processing and export of rare metals.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17051,"place_ref":602245,"name":"Aspasia Mine and Battery","alternate_name":"Mount Turner Battery","street_address":"Gulf Development Road","suburb":"GEORGETOWN","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-04-13","description":"The Aspasia Mine and Battery is located 1 kilometre north of the Gulf Development Road, approximately 11 kilometres west of Georgetown. The terrain surrounding the battery is mostly flat with a line of reefs forming a low ridge from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of the site. It is sparsely vegetated with eucalypt and grass and is grazed upon by cattle. On the western boundary the landscape undulates with a series of eroded gullies. At the southeast corner of the site, a large quartz outcrop is visible alongside a station track.
The place contains mine workings, a battery and concentration plant foundations arranged in close association. The main component of the place is an almost intact five head stamp battery set on rendered brick and stone mounts. Concrete foundations for the diesel power plant (which has been removed) are located alongside the stamp battery. Parts of another five head stamp battery are scattered to the south west of the battery area, however there are no foundations to indicate installation of a second stamper. A timbered shaft, partly caved at the surface, is situated 8 metres south of, and in line with the battery's mortar box. The former hoisting gear over this shaft comprises a light bush timber whip pole and metal pulley. The battery area contains bush timber uprights of varying lengths which formed supports for the battery shed roof, water tanks and belt wheel shafts. Southeast of the stamper are the remains of an elevated tank and tank stand. The stand's timber stumps remain in place, but the corrugated iron tank has fallen and lies between the stumps and an adjacent mineshaft. A mullock heap about 3 metres wide and 30 metres in length stretches in an east-west direction to the north of the stamper. A line of shallow, open stopes extends northward of the stamp battery from the north edge of the mullock heap.
A linear arrangement of 3 shallow pits is located about 260 metres south of the battery area and on the reef line. Approximately 100 metres north of the battery area, on the eastern side of the station track, is a shallow shaft and associated mound. This feature forms the northern most point of the heritage boundary.
The two shafts and series of open stopes within the battery area, as well as the shallow pits to the south and north of the battery, are located on the reef line that traverses the site from southwest to northeast.
Surface evidence of the former workshop and camp (including scatters of corrugated iron sheeting, remains of timber stumps, and bottle and tin can scatters) is located approximately 140 metres south of the battery and about 40 metres directly west of a station track. Some of the tin cans evident in this scatter carried inscriptions on their bases which read 'use before 30 Oct 1951', as well as 1950.
","history":"The Aspasia Mine, 3-4kms west of Durham on the former Etheridge Gold and Mineral Field, was worked from 1916 to 1929, during the 1930s, and between 1947 and 1952, producing gold, silver, lead and copper.
The Etheridge was an unusually large gold/mineral field and the rushes were widely scattered. The first recorded gold in the district was found by geologist Richard Daintree in 1867 near present day Georgetown. A series of other gold and base metal discoveries followed and after publication early in 1869 of Daintree's report of discoveries of gold on the Gilbert River, the first rush began. By July 1869 a population of 3,000 were mining the rivers for alluvial gold, and by November 1870 reef mining had commenced. By late 1871, the township of Etheridge (later Georgetown) had a population of 600. The Etheridge Goldfield was proclaimed officially on 18 January 1872, with Georgetown designated the administrative centre.
In 1872 the Durham area, just west of Georgetown, was developed with more than 44 separate auriferous reefs being worked and crushing machinery set up in Georgetown. The Durham Mine worked a rich auriferous reef down to the 122m level between 1879 and 1899 and again from 1907. It produced over 20,000 ounces of gold.
For a short time the Etheridge was one of the richest goldfields in Queensland and in 1885 was still the second highest producer behind Charters Towers. However, due to the isolation, which resulted in high transport costs and scarcity of labour, and with the continuing development of Ravenswood (1868) and the Hodgkinson (1876) in competition, production began to lag behind other fields. Etheridge reefs were small and shallow, yet expensive to develop. The high cost of living meant the population was less likely to settle permanently, so the availability of labour was an uncertain factor. It was, however, known as a reliable standby when other rushes had been worked out.
The Etheridge field peaked as a gold producer in the 1890s but was in decline by World War One. However, high base metal prices during the war turned attention to lead, silver and copper and the field boomed until the onset of the Depression in the late 1920s again caused prices to drop. The 1930s Depression temporarily rejuvenated the Etheridge due to the tendency for gold values to rise during a depression, and unemployment relief funds were provided to assist prospectors.
Approximately 3.5km west of the Durham and north of Hawkins Hill, a line of reefs can be found. The most southerly mine, the Aspasia, was worked between 1916 and 1929, during the 1930s and between 1947 and 1952, for gold-silver-lead ore. Silver-lead-zinc ore was first discovered near the site of the Aspasia in 1888, but it wasn't until the World War One boom in base metals that the area began to be mined. The main workings consisted of three shafts and nearly 45m of stopes, from the surface down to at least 9m. Officially the records show a production of 716 tons of ore, returning 37 ounces of gold, 14,626 ounces of silver, 285 tons of lead and 0.8 tons of copper.
In the aftermath of World War Two, production costs rose and after 1950, silver-lead prices fell, leading to the closure of the Aspasia mine in 1952.
","criteria":"The Aspasia mine and battery is significant in Queensland's history as an example of a small battery working through the Depression years and until after World War 2 and producing a range of base metals including silver-lead.
|The compactness of the site and relatively intact state of the stamp battery, haulage gear and water tanks, is rare in North Queensland. The close spatial relationship between the mine and battery is typical of early mining operations conducted on a small intermittently worked scale. Location of a treatment plant on top of a potential mineral resource is today unusual. The very intact timbering in the mine shaft, including the ladder, and the intact whip pole, are rare in Queensland.
|The stamp battery, haulage gear and water tanks retain the principal characteristics of their type and are important in illustrating the nature of early to mid 20th century mining technology and mining practices for small mines on Northern Queensland mineral fields. The place is significant as a highly legible former mining site in Queensland.
|The place possesses aesthetic significance generated by the strong visual impact inherent in the juxtaposition of remnant mine objects, machinery and workings within an arid, isolated natural environment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17052,"place_ref":602246,"name":"Albion Fire Station (former)","alternate_name":"Albion Fire Station","street_address":"40-46 Bridge Street","suburb":"WOOLOOWIN","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-02-28","description":"A substantial two-storey red and orange face brick building, the former Albion Fire Station stands in a suburban garden setting south of the corner of Bridge and Merehaye Streets, Albion overlooking the Brisbane-Sandgate railway line and directly opposite the road overbridge connecting Hudson Road and Bridge Street. The ground floor and the upper floor accommodate separate commercial offices.
\nThe main elevation faces east onto Bridge Street and is symmetrical about a recessed parapeted central bay that contains two large arched entrances to the ground floor distinguished by decorative surrounds and infilled with glazing and two deep open porches to the upper level. A plain cream stepped cornice runs around the top of the east, north and south elevations. The central parapet contains the words 'ALBION FIRE STATION'. The flanking projecting bays are defined by rusticated pilasters to the corners and accommodate a bay of casement windows with fanlights to the each of the ground and upper levels. The ground floor window surrounds are distinguished by decorative brickwork matching the main entrance surrounds. The sills to the upper windows are painted cream. A low brick wall to the south accommodates an arched gated entrance to the side entrance to the south side of the upper level. The words 'Albion Lodge' are lettered above the gate. A timber fence post stands south of the brick wall. The base of a brick wall stands to the north side of the building.
\nA foundation stone recording the dedication of the building is set into the plinth of the south bay of the main elevation. Under the inscription \"READY AYE READY\" it is recorded that the stone was laid on 1 December 1925 by the Chairman of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board and lists members of the Board.
\nThe asymmetrical south elevation contains three bays of casement windows and a loggia to the ground floor and a verandah enclosed with casement and louvre windows to the upper level. The lintels of the windows are picked out in cream. The pillared loggia is reached by a flight of wide concrete steps from the garden and forms the main entrance to the south side of the upper level. The north elevation has a plain porch entrance approximately half way along the building. The porch has been enclosed with sheeting and louvres. The bays of windows to the north and west at the northwest corner are sheltered by plain timber framed hoods. The rear elevation contains a set of central bifold doors to the ground floor and a flight of timber stairs rises to a timber landing accessing the rear of the upper level.
\nThe main entrance to the ground floor opens into a large central space which continues through a narrowed corridor to the rear timber bi-fold doors. Discrete rooms to the sides and rear open off the central space. Two large rectangular rooms occupy the northwest and southwest corners and are lit by banks of casement windows to each side of the room. The south side contains a stairwell and a large meeting room with a small store room. The north side contains a stairwell and two smaller interconnected rooms with a store room and toilet beyond. A tea room and toilet occupy the rear to the north of the narrow corridor space. The interior walls are painted and plastered masonry and the ceilings are rendered with a textured finish. The side rooms are a step above the central space. Doors to each side of the central space open to the stairwells that rise to the upper level. The rear toilet contains an intact early urinal.
\nStairwells to the north and south arrive at the upper level that is a mirror image of spaces about a central dividing wall running east-west. In each half the rooms work off a central corridor. This main dividing wall is cut through at its east and west ends to provide access between the two halves of the floor. In each half, the outer corner rooms open to the enclosed verandahs that run the length of the north and south sides; a large central room to the east opens onto the open porch and the central room to the west is partitioned into a number of small spaces and opens out to the rear landing. The deep open porches to the centre of the east side offer a prospect over the railway line to the suburb of Albion beyond. Tilting fanlights to the central north-south partition facilitate ventilation through the rooms. Throughout the walls and ceilings are painted and plastered masonry. Each stairwell is lit by a large window and contains a flight of timber stairs with a substantial timber handrail and decorative metal balustrade.
\nThe verandah roofs are clad with terracotta tiles and the main hipped roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
\nThe building is set in a suburban yard with grassed and treed areas to the south and west. A timber shed with gable roof stands in the centre of the backyard to the west of the building. A freestanding brick chimney stands south of the shed. Narrow concrete paths run along the north and south sides of the building. There are flights of concrete stairs at each end of the north path. A chain wire fence runs along the south boundary and a timber fence runs along the west boundary. The north and east boundaries are not fenced. The adjacent property to the corner of Merehaye and Bridge Streets accommodates a dirt carpark used by the tenants of the building. Shaded by luxurious mature mango trees, the carpark provides a lush garden setting for the building and affords opportunities for views of the former fire station building.
","history":"A substantial two-storey red brick building standing prominently on Bridge Street, Albion, the former Albion Fire Station was opened on 17 January 1927. Designed by the Department of Public Works, the building was the major and coordinating fire station for the Brisbane northside area. Its sister station at South Brisbane (corner Main and Vulture Streets, Woolloongabba), opened in September 1927 and also designed by the Department of Public Works, was the major and coordinating fire station for Brisbane southside area. Prior to this, the only other substantial brick fire station buildings were the two buildings constructed as Brisbane Fire Brigade Headquarters - firstly to the corner Ann and Edward Streets (architect HW Atkinson, 1890) which was replaced by a new building further north in Ann Street (architect HW Atkinson and C McLay, 1908). Generally fire stations were small timber buildings, often only sheds or garages. The former Albion Fire Station is the only survivor from this group of substantial brick buildings. The first Brisbane Headquarters was demolished in 1951 and the second in the mid-1980s to make way for Cathedral Square. The South Brisbane Fire Station was decommissioned in 1971 and demolished in the mid-1980s.
\nFrom 1860 a number of attempts were made to establish a fire brigade for Brisbane but it was not until 1889 that a permanent fire brigade was established. To cope with the fire fighting needs of the expanding city, The Fire Brigades Act Amendment Act of 1902 allowed local authorities to establish independent boards and brigades. Brigades were formed in Hamilton (1917), Windsor (1917), Ithaca (1918), Toowong (1918), Taringa (1919), Wynnum (1921) and Sandgate (1923). These were voluntary bodies with only the superintendent and immediate assistants receiving a salary. The Fire Brigades Act of 1920 rationalised the network of fire brigades in Brisbane city and suburbs, centralising control under the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board in 1921.
\nThe former Albion Fire Station replaced the Windsor Fire Station which was established under The Fire Brigades Act Amendment Act of 1902 in 1917 and located on land that is now an extension of Truro Street, Windsor. Following the amalgamation of fire brigades in 1921, the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board purchased the Bridge Street site for a new Windsor Fire Station. When constructed it became known as the Albion Fire Station and remained in operation until 1961 when it was replaced by a new Windsor Fire Station to the corner of Fosbery and Truro Streets, Windsor.
\nThe costs of the construction of the fire stations at Albion and South Brisbane was unable to be funded by the State Treasury and a loan from the Commonwealth Bank was negotiated. The loan for £35,000 over 25 years was covered by debentures bearing interest at 6% government guaranteed. The Albion Fire Station was the smaller station and cost £9,978.
\nThe original drawings for the former Albion Fire Station have not been located, but the annual report for the Department of Public Works (year ended 1926) recorded that the building was to be constructed of brick and concrete and accommodate the brigade facilities on the ground floor. These facilities included garage space for two fire engines with a repair shop and pit at the rear and an access yard at the back. There was a rest room or dormitory for nine persons and a billiard room taking a full-sized table. Other rooms on the ground floor included a mess room, kitchen, pantry, locker room, watch room, battery room, equipment store and district officer's room with private bathroom and lavatory. A flat concrete roof was to cover the whole building and accommodate laundries.
\nA later drawing (1960) shows two flats (one to the north, one to the south) for brigade officers occupied the upper storey. Each flat had an entrance porch at ground level, internal access to the ground floor station and provided front and side verandahs, kitchen, pantry, bathroom, living room and bedrooms.
\nIn 2016 the ground floor accommodates the office of an architectural firm and the upper floor is also used for office purposes. The fabric of the building has been altered to accommodate these uses but the earlier arrangement of spaces as a fire station can be clearly read and appreciated.
","criteria":"The former Albion Fire Station, constructed as part of the rationalisation of the network of fire brigades in Brisbane undertaken by the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Board after 1921, is important in demonstrating the development of fire fighting services in Brisbane.
|The former Albion Fire Station, a rare example of a substantial early twentieth century fire station, is important in demonstrating the architecture and planning of fire stations at that time, accommodating brigade facilities to the ground floor and residential quarters to the upper level. The former Albion Fire Station is important as the sole survivor of only four substantial brick fire stations constructed during this time.
|The former Albion Fire Station, a rare example of a substantial early twentieth century fire station, is important in demonstrating the architecture and planning of fire stations at that time, accommodating brigade facilities to the ground floor and residential quarters to the upper level. The former Albion Fire Station is important as the sole survivor of only four substantial brick fire stations constructed during this time.
|The former Albion Fire Station, with its associated grounds, has aesthetic and architectural significance as a substantial, robust civic building. A landmark building, thoughtfully designed and distinguished by finely detailed brickwork, it has a dramatic presence on Bridge Street, a busy thoroughfare through the northside of Brisbane.
|The former Albion Fire Station is important for its association with the work of the Department of Public Works and is a fine example of work produced by the Department during the early decades of the twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17053,"place_ref":602248,"name":"McWhinneys Brick Cottage","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"47-55 Birley Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2001-02-23","description":"59 Birley Street is located on the western side of Birley Street, about two-thirds of the way down toward the hollow which runs between Leichhardt Street and Wickham Terrace [Hanly's Hollow].
It contains two principal structures: a c1900 high-set timber residence at the front of the block, attached via an enclosed c1900 timber verandah to a c1860s brick cottage at the rear.
The c1860s cottage is a small, rectangular, two-roomed brick structure with gabled-roof and close eaves. It rests on stone [porphyry or Brisbane tuff] foundations, low at the back and approximately 90cms above ground at the front, where the land slopes. The stone blocks are roughly dressed and laid in courses, the more regular blocks placed along the exposed southern side. The roof is clad with corrugated iron, with the original shingle battens surviving beneath this.
The red face brick is laid in Flemish bond but brick-on-edge ['rat-trap' bond] - a faster and cheaper method of construction often used for working-class construction in Brisbane in the 1860s and 1870s. There are remnants of white tuck-pointing on the bricks closest to the eaves, but the lower sections of the western and southern external walls have been badly repaired with later cement grouting. The northern external wall has been clad with a recent 'pebble-dash' render. The front [eastern] wall was been painted and with the enclosing of the front verandah, is no longer exposed to the elements. It has two window openings symmetrically positioned either side of a central doorway. The western wall, built almost on the boundary of the allotment, has no fenestration. A chimney top, nicely detailed with decorative brickwork, rises above the roof at the southern end, but the main shaft of the chimney is internal.
The interior of the cottage comprises two small rooms. The former front entrance [the door has been removed] opens from a now enclosed timber verandah into the southern room, which is larger than the northern room and contains a fire place and chimney. It is likely this room functioned as kitchen, living room and dining room. There are two windows to this room - one opening onto the front [eastern] verandah and retaining its original double-hung sash window, and the other a later opening in the southern wall beside the fireplace. The northern room is accessed from the southern room and has no external access. It originally had two windows, one in the north wall and the other in the eastern wall opening onto the verandah. The original sash window in the north wall has been replaced with louvres, and the window in the eastern wall has been in-filled with fibrous cement sheeting.
Both rooms retain their early skirting boards and the interior of the cottage is lined with plaster - walls, ceilings, partitioning wall and chimney. Much of this is early lathe and plaster work and early cement render, but sections of the ceilings have been replaced with recent plasterboard sheeting.
The floor boards are of pine, some of this early and secured with hand made nails. The floor in the northern room has been replaced.
The front verandah was likely replaced c1900 with the construction of the attached timber house, and is now enclosed. The northern section of this verandah has been partitioned and enclosed as a bathroom. The southern section is now an internal passageway with an external door at the southern end. This verandah links the brick cottage to the timber house.
The c1900 house is a high-set, timber-framed, weatherboard clad structure with a corrugated iron hipped and gabled roof. It has a front extended gable and small front verandah which has since been enclosed.
In plan, the timber house has a central corridor opening off the enclosed front verandah. On the northern side of the corridor are three rooms. On the southern side there are two. The room at the rear on the southern side appears to have been partitioned to create a corridor through to the back door which opens onto the enclosed front verandah of the brick cottage. Floorboards throughout are the original, likely pine. Rooms throughout are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove boards and the ceilings are also tongue and groove. The house retains its original joinery, including doors and window frames, some of which are sash and some casements. All the internal doors have fanlights above. The place is remarkably intact considering that it has been occupied as a rental property for approximately a century.
A yard adjoining the cottage on the southern side contains a number of archaeological deposits - horse shoes, bottles, coins, broken pottery, shells and handmade nails have been found here - and there is sub-strata evidence of an early brick pathway to the cottage.
","history":"The brick cottage at 59 Birley Street, Spring Hill, was likely erected in the mid-1860s for Thomas McWhinney, plasterer.
This part of Spring Hill was surveyed officially into suburban allotments in 1856, and was soon subdivided for closer residential settlement by speculative land owners. Along with Kangaroo Point and Petrie Terrace, Spring Hill was among the earliest of Brisbane's dormitory suburbs, attracting middle class residents to the high land along the ridges, and the working class to the hollows in between: Hanly's Hollow [between Wickham Terrace and Leichhardt Street], Spring Hollow [between Leichhardt Street and Gregory Terrace], and York's Hollow [to the north of Gregory Terrace - an area occupied by a number of brick-makers in the 1850s and 1860s].
The site on which the brick cottage is located was part of a larger parcel of land [1 acre 3 roods 8 perches - suburban portion 179, parish of North Brisbane] with a frontage to Leichhardt Street, purchased from the Crown in May 1860 by Patrick Byrne of Brisbane for the sum of £216. Almost immediately Byrne subdivided this portion into 10 subdivisions around a central access road [Birley Street] off Leichhardt Street. At this period, Birley Street did not extend through to Wickham Terrace. The two subdivisions at the top of the hill, with frontages to Leichhardt Street, comprised 39 perches each, but the remainder, running down the hill each side of Birley Street into Hanly's Hollow, were each just under 20 perches. The first transfer was recorded in August 1861 and all but one of the subdivisions sold in the period 1861-65. By the census of September 1871, there were 12 houses in Birley Street, all inhabited, accommodating 58 persons. Many of these houses appear to have been rental properties, and attracted mostly working class tenants such as bootmakers, carpenters, labourers, mariners, plasterers, printers, storemen and a number of widows, who were likely existing on modest incomes.
In September 1865, Patrick Byrne sold subdivision 3 of suburban portion 179 [19.4 perches] to Thomas McWhinney [sometimes McWhinny or McWhinnie] of Brisbane, for the sum of £63. This is the site of the present brick cottage. It is not known if a house was extant on the land at the time of sale, but the price suggests not.
In April 1866 McWhinney took out a mortgage of £25 on his Birley Street property from the Queensland Building Society No.2, of which he was a member. The timing, within a year of acquiring the land, suggests that the mortgage was used to help finance construction of the brick cottage. McWhinney was occupying the land in October 1872, when he applied to bring his property under the provisions of the Real Property Act of 1861, and is listed in the 1874 Post Office Directory as resident in Birley Street.
McWhinney and his wife Isabella Todd and family had arrived in New South Wales by 1858, and moved to Brisbane in the early 1860s, where Thomas, who was a plasterer by trade, gained employment with James Campbell. He worked for Campbell for 26 years until his retirement c1888, for most of that time as a foreman, supervising the plastering and designing the mouldings for most of the principal construction work undertaken by Campbell during that period.
The cottage at 59 Birley Street is constructed in Flemish bond brick-on-edge ['rat-trap' bond], a form of construction used in other Spring Hill buildings of the 1860s and 1870s [such as Moody's Cottages in Rogers Street (600314, 601065)]. It was a faster and cheaper form of construction, usually restricted to working class homes and small workshops and stores. At 59 Birley Street the exterior brick work was finished with tuckpointing and the internal fireplace was plastered, which may be explained by the connection with McWhinney.
By 1883 the McWhinneys had left Birley Street and had moved to Arthur Street in Fortitude Valley by 1885, but McWhinney retained his Birley Street land, likely renting out the brick cottage. In 1885, McWhinney also gained title the adjacent subdivision 6 on the northern side of his Birley Street allotment. In the 1880s there were only four or five houses along this side of Birley Street [which did not extend past Lilley Street at that stage], and it is possible [but not confirmed] that in the late 1880s, 59 Birley Street was known as Jireh Cottage, occupied by compositor Thomas Wright. In May 1894, title to subdivisions 3 and 6 was transferred to Mary Ann McWhinney of Brisbane, spinster, and in August 1896 Thomas McWhinney, aged nearly 77, died.
In the mid-1890s Birley Street was extended through to Wickham Terrace and in May 1900 subdivisions 3 and 6 of suburban portion 179 were transferred from Mary Ann McWhinney to Richard Gailey, the well-known Brisbane architect, who is appears to have developed these two blocks with the construction of four timber houses for rental purposes. The existing houses on this land, one of which is now connected via an enclosed verandah to the front of the brick cottage at 59 Birley Street, appear to date from this period.
By 1913, 59 Birley Street was occupied by Mrs Jane Collins. A Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Detail Plan dated 1914 indicates a structure at 59 Birley Street which correlates with the present c1900 timber house attached to the brick cottage at the rear.
In June 1916, title to subdivisions 3 and 6 of suburban portion 179 was transferred from Richard Gailey to his daughter, Evadne Jane Gailey of Brisbane. The houses on these blocks remained rental properties, 59 Birley Street attracting mainly widows. In 1952 both subdivisions passed to Alfred Roberts, and following his death in 1979, was sold in 1983 to the Queensland Master Builders Association (Union of Employers), who have retained them since as rental properties.
","criteria":"McWhinney's Brick Cottage at 59 Birley Street, Spring Hill, erected probably in the mid-1860s, has high historical significance and is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history. It is associated with the mid-19th century settlement of Spring Hill as one of Brisbane's earliest dormitory suburbs, and illustrates the nature of residential subdivisions and construction in Brisbane at this period - particularly the use of brick and stone as distinct from timber.
|The brick cottage is a rare surviving example of its type and age in Brisbane, and is particularly significant for its brick-on-edge construction, for the intactness of many of the finishes, and for what it reveals of mid-19th century working-class living conditions.
|Archaeological deposits in the grounds have the potential to reveal information since its non-indigenous occupation in the 1860s.
|The brick cottage is a rare surviving example of its type and age in Brisbane, and is particularly significant for its brick-on-edge construction, for the intactness of many of the finishes, and for what it reveals of mid-19th century working-class living conditions.
|The place has aesthetic value engendered by the materials, form, scale and setting of the brick cottage.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17056,"place_ref":602251,"name":"Deebing Creek Mission (former)","alternate_name":"Deebing Creek Aboriginal Reserve | Deebing Creek Aboriginal Mission | Deebing Creek Aboriginal Home","street_address":"South Deebing Creek Road","suburb":"DEEBING HEIGHTS","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-09-24","description":"Located approximately eight kilometres south of Ipswich City, access to the site of Deebing Creek Mission is from the Cunningham Highway and at the end of South Deebing Creek Road.
Historic plantings at the site include a large Bunya Nut Pine Tree. Other historic plantings include two large Fig Trees, a Mango Tree and a Date Palm.
The 1907, 20,000 gallon underground brick tank constructed at the Deebing Creek Mission to alleviate the poor water supply remains in-situ. This underground tank is now screened by thick vegetation on three sides and has an old fence around it. The tank has been used as a rubbish dump and has numerous car tyres in it.
Evidence of terracing remains at the site near the southern boundary fence as the land falls away to Deebing Creek. A large stone on which the children of the school sharpened their lead pencil has also been reported at the site in proximity to the terracing and water tank.
A single headstone was erected at the Cemetery dedicated to Mrs Julia Ford who died in 1896. However oral evidence from Mr John Lynch and Mr Les Davidson, and a 1975 report by Mr J. Skinner, Land Inspector to the Land Administration Commission indicate that there were as many as 13 additional burials at the Cemetery. This is substantiated by a newspaper article of 1892 stating that two people had died at the Mission that year and were buried at the nearby Cemetery. The remains of several stone cairns thought to mark the locations of some of the additional grave are also present at the Cemetery.
There are two old huts on the land dating to the Second World War which do not relate to the Mission period. Local Indigenous families squatted in the huts during the 1950s-1960s.
There is a high level of archaeological potential at the Deebing Creek Mission site. Inspection by officers of the Environmental Protection Agency and Traditional Owners revealed a possible location for the Deebing Creek Mission school site and Superintendent's residence including the presence of ceramics, old bottles, glass and a harmonica. Additionally, it is known that Aboriginal residents constructed housing along the banks of Deebing Creek (Figure 2). Published reports state that each house was made of timber with up to four partitions, dirt floors and concrete steps leading from the back of the house towards the banks of Deebing Creek.
","history":"Deebing Creek Mission comprised areas of land which were gazetted for Aboriginal purposes from 1892 to 1948. The first area of land to be gazetted was R. 177 (see #3 & 4 in Figure 1) situated at what is now known as Lot 219 RP858789. This area does not appear to have been used as a place of residence, but from about 1900 it was used as a farm to support the Mission. Two further portions of land were gazetted as Aboriginal Reserves in 1892, the first in lieu of a Water Reserve, and the second nearby on the west bank of Deebing Creek. This area, with the proclamation of additional land, became what is known as the Deebing Creek Mission and a place of residence and work for missionaries and Aborigines until 1915. This Mission was transferred to Purga in 1915, although the Deebing Creek Mission land, remained an Aboriginal Reserve and was used for grazing purposes. Purga Mission was closed in June 1948 and all the reserves were rescinded in December 1948.
Around 1887 the Aboriginal Protection Association of Ipswich commenced work on the establishment of a mission at Deebing Creek. It is not clear from the records if a specific religious denomination had responsibility for the Mission, although it is understood that the Reverend Peter Robertson, Chairman of the Aboriginal Protection Association, was a minister of the Presbyterian Church. The Aboriginal Protection Association, comprising Reverend Peter Robertson and local business figures William Foote, George Thorn and John Greenham formed with philanthropic and economic motives to establish a Mission. The Committee had sole authority to run the Mission from 1892-1897. At the time of estalblishment there were two known groups of Aborigines in the Ipswich area. The first were camped in Queens Park in Ipswich and the second at Purga. It is thought that a combination of the two groups were the core of the first residents at the Deebing Creek Mission.
The Statistical Returns for Deebing Creek School No. 612 (the Mission school) for 1900 state that all of the children attending the school belonged to the Salvation Army, but this may have come about because the Superintendent, Thomas Ivins, appointed in 1896 was a member of the Salvation Army. A report from the Chief Protector in 1906 states that the Deebing Creek Mission, situated five miles (8 kilometres) from Ipswich, was controlled by a Board appointed by the Church authorities. However, the name of the Church has been blackened out in the report. It is evident, however, that the Aboriginal Protection Association, the term regularly used by the committee, managed the Deebing Creek Mission, but relied heavily on the Government to assist financially. The Committee saw this as a legitimate claim after the Deebing Creek Mission was asked to take orphan children and was proclaimed an Industrial School in 1896. The Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act of 1865, provided that Aboriginal and 'half-caste' children under the age of fifteen could be brought before a bench of magistrates and ordered for detention at a relevant mission.
The Reverend Edward Fuller became the first manager of the Deebing Creek Mission. From February 1892 he was thought to have lived in a tent for a year, after which he and his family lived in an architect designed house overlooking the bark huts of the Aborigines along Deebing Creek. It is not stated where this was situated, but it may have been on R. 371 (see #1 in Figure 1), the area gazetted in lieu of a water reserve in April 1892. The mission was supplied with provisions by the Government from February 1891 to February 1894 when a grant of £250 per annum was authorised. This continued until 1896.
In July 1892 a deputation from the committee of the Ipswich Aboriginal Protection Association requested that the land already granted to the home be vested in trustees and that a small additional area of land be granted in the immediate locality for the purposes of the Mission. This occurred on 29 October 1892, with the gazettal of a temporary Reserve for the use of the Aboriginals of 41 acres adjacent to Deebing Creek. This description aligns it to the east of portion 197, and is denoted on the survey plan as R. 65 (see #2 in Figure 1), a part of which is now Lot 228 on CC2905, an Aboriginal Cemetery Reserve. Trustees of the Aboriginal Protection Association were appointed.
The first record of the number of Aboriginal residents at the Mission appeared in correspondence of 1893, which indicated that there were 33 people. The numbers varied as some went away to work and returned at other periods. Prior to the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897 the Aboriginal people of Deebing Creek Mission were free to come and go as they pleased. There were only two Aboriginal workers on the Mission at that time.
With the passage of the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act1897, the lives of Aboriginal people became increasingly controlled by the State. This Act was described as being passed 'to make Provision for the better Protection and Care of the Aboriginal and half-caste Inhabitants of the Colony, and to make more effectual Provision for Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Opium'. The Act established the positions of Protectors of Aborigines who administered the Act, and to whom a report was provided each year on each Mission and government settlement. It also provided for the establishment of government-run reserves, made provision for the removal of Aborigines to reserves, and provided for written agreements for the employment of Aborigines. The Act provided Regulations to control the residence, movement, employment and wages, in effect, every aspect of an Aborigine's life. The Act also expanded official control over mixed-race families. This control, of course, extended to the residents of the Deebing Creek Mission after 1897, especially in relation to agreements for employment outside the Mission.
Both children and adults were sent to Deebing Creek Mission from all over the State, from north Queensland as far west as Charleville. Aboriginal people who were sent to reserves away from their traditional lands are known as 'historical' people. The reserves which became their homes were the traditional lands of other groups, but the State authorities did not take this cultural aspect into account in removing people from place to place. Nonetheless the reserves, such as Deebing Creek Mission, became 'home' to those who were sent there by the Aboriginal Protectors. This has caused great difficulties for Aboriginal Peoples.
A typescript report, probably from Archibald Meston in 1896, stated that the Deebing Creek Mission provided a home and food in varying numbers for up to 150 people. He commented that the children received a plain public school education, and that the Aborigines provided labour for clearing, fencing and cultivation on the land that was suitable. Evidence from Meston's official report of 1896 indicates that the Mission consisted of a Mission house, buildings at the head of the creek and housing for Aborigines which Meston considered were too close together.
A short history of the school dated 30 January 1894 verifies that work began at the Mission in 1887 by the then present committee of the Aboriginal Protection Association. In 1894 there were 62 Aborigines at the Station and 27 attending school. An amount of £20.6.8 per month was received from the Government. J Fitzgerald was the teacher and Superintendent. At this stage a tent was being used as a school-room. Each adult male was required to work on the Mission for four hours each day and each family was encouraged to build their own dwelling. By 1897 the land had been fenced off into three portions and the houses and gardens had been fenced off from a common area. Thirteen cottages had been erected.
A report dated 5 September 1894 from the Police Magistrate to the Under Secretary, Colonial Secretary's Office, states that there had been clearing of timber at Deebing Creek Mission and substantial 2 railed fencing erected. Two new huts were in evidence and another one was being built. There were about twenty children at the school. It was reported that the land was poor and that 12 young men were doing fencing and clearing.
Evidence that a school had been established by 1895 is also located in the Register of Purga Aboriginal School (formerly Deebing Creek) which shows the name, residence and admission age of children from 21 January 1895. Twenty-five names appear on the admission register for 1895. Thereafter the numbers ranged from 3 to 20 until the school was relocated to Purga Mission site in 1915. On 4 September 1895 correspondence indicates that there were new cottages, and that a tent that had been used as a school-room had been replaced by a new building to accommodate 80 people. There was at this time mention of the game of cricket being played.
A report dated December 1895 on the material organisation of Deebing Creek Provisional School shows that the school was a rough slab building, canvas lined, and with shingles, being 36 feet long, 13 feet wide with a semi partition about 10 feet from the entrance. It was close to the Superintendent's quarters. Another hardwood building, 38 feet by 12 feet, to accommodate children being sent was thought not to be required, in which case it was to be converted to a school room.
The only evidence of the location of the school in the Deebing Creek area appears on the original plan. This plan indicates that the school was situated on R. 371 (see #1 in Figure 1), the area of land granted in lieu of the water reserve. A report of 1931 states that the school was erected on the south-west corner of the portion. In 1905 the Secretary of the Aboriginal Protection Association reported to Dr Walter Roth, Chief protector of Aborigines, that the portion on which the farm was situated was R. 371 (see #1 in Figure 1) and the House was on the west and the farm on the east end.
Correspondence from the Chief Protector of Aborigines to the Home Secretary on 1 February 1907 provides an indication of how the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865 was administered. The Chief Protector stated that the Government was pleased to remit the unexpired portions of the sentences of detention passed upon the undermentioned Industrial School children: Paddy, Jacky and Chloe - sentenced by the Bench of Magistrates, Roma on 7 June 1904, upon conviction on charges of being neglected children, to detention in the Deebing Creek Industrial School for seven years.
On 21 November 1896 the Government established, under the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865, an Industrial School at the Deebing Creek Mission, near Ipswich, to be known as the Deebing Creek Industrial School. The gazettal notice included the appointment of Thomas Ivins and Charlotte Emily Ivins as Superintendent and Matron respectively. The grant of £250, authorised in March 1894, was continued until June 1896, at which time a grant of £50 was given to assist in building rooms for orphan children. In 1896 the Reverend Peter Robertson, chairman of the Aboriginal Protection Association, requested and was granted funding for building and to purchase more land. In 1902 it was reported that the Mission received 3s. 6d. weekly for each child committed there under the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865. At that time there were twenty-three committed children.
The Statistical Returns for Deebing Creek School from 1895 to 1923 indicate that the name of the first school was Deebing Creek Provisional School, No. 612. The school retained this number when it became the Purga Aboriginal School. The building was thought to have been removed to the Purga Creek site in 1915.
After the passing of the 1897 Act, regular reports were submitted to the Parliament from the Northern and Southern Protector of Aborigines until 1904 when the positions of Northern and Southern Protector were amalgamated to the position of Chief Protector. Although the Aboriginal Protection Association was managing the Mission at this time, it was apparent that the Committee or the Superintendent provided a report to the Protector each year. These reports provide some indication of the number of Aborigines who were admitted or attended the school and the number residents at the Mission. The numbers varied at Deebing Creek Mission largely because of the itinerate work that occupied Aboriginal people outside the Mission. From 1896 the numbers resident show a high of 150 that year to a low of around 54 in 1913. Similarly the school admission register shows a high of 21 admissions in 1896 and a low of one admission in 1910, but these figures are sometimes at variance with those shown in the Chief Protector's Report.
On 20 November 1896 the Aboriginal Protection Association notified the Government that they had bought adjoining land to prevent new houses being built too close together along Deebing Creek, and requested £100 towards the cost. This was probably the additional 110 acres of land purchased by the committee from Joseph Gutteridge, but in May 1897 it was decided to convey the land to the Government rather than have it vested in trustees. The annual grant was increased to £550. The additional land was stated as being portion 197 of 57 acres and portion 204 of 53 acres, adjacent to R. 65 (see #2 in Figure 1) which had been gazetted as an Aboriginal Reserve on 29 October 1892.
Meston was not the only person to complain about the unsuitable locality of the Deebing Creek Mission, especially in relation to the absence of fertile land, but also the proximity of the Mission to Ipswich and the availability of alcohol. The only fertile land available was the Nine Mile Reserve. During January and February 1901 there was a dispute over the use of the Nine Mile reserve, the Reserve for the Use of the Aborigines at Purga Creek. This was a part of the original land reserved in January 1892 for the use of Aborigines but had not been used, and no buildings had been erected by the mission because of threats by local residents. As the Mission grew it became necessary to utilise the land and the Aboriginal Protection Association decided a fence was required. Local residents petitioned against this as the Nine Mile was used for camping and water for stock. The dispute led to a deputation asking that the Mission not continue fencing, a decision that was reversed by the Home Secretary. Letters to the Editor from both sides of the argument appeared in The Queenslander. The Reverend Robertson claimed that the Mission was not able to build a fence on a property they had owned for 9 years, and also that produce of cream and timber produced by the Mission was being boycotted. There were some vicious letters from the local constituency in the newspaper, one suggesting that an alternative piece of land be found for the Mission. Reverend Robertson stated that due to the Mission's increase the Committee had bought three farms at Deebing Creek and two at Purga.
Improvements to buildings and land were made and reported from time to time. In 1904 it was reported that improvements on the Mission property itself were made to the value of over £250, and in 1907 a 20,000 gallon underground tank was to be constructed at Deebing Creek Mission to alleviate the poor water supply. The 1907 Protector's Report published a photograph of Deebing Creek Mission which shows about 8 homes in the background with numerous people in the foreground of the image. The Aboriginal people were interested in attending and competing in the footrace in Ipswich called the Sheffield Handicap. In 1907, for the purposes of the Aborigines attending the footrace, the operation of the 1897 to 1901 Act was suspended for same. This referred to the Aboriginals Protection and the Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 which controlled the movement of Aboriginal people outside the reserves; they were required to have a permit to travel. In 1909 it was reported that a new home had been erected beside the school for the committal children. The reports during this time also showed a gradual improvement in the farming operations, with an increase in stock and vegetable produce which supplied the Mission with meat, milk and vegetables, with some at times being sold to supplement the Mission's income.
The 1910 Protector's Report suggests that there was a marked improvement in the homes and life of those residents who had been the longest under the influence of the Mission. It was reported that the Aboriginal people made it a true home.
In 1912 two new homes were built at Deebing Creek Mission and improvements made to others. It was stated that the Mission controlled about 2,072 acres of land, which including 200 acres at Deebing Creek.
In 1914 the Deebing Creek Mission was relocated to Purga. It is not stated clearly in the records exactly where the buildings from Deebing Creek Mission were relocated to and what improvements were made. The Government, who it is known was managing the area in 1920 when the Salvation Army took over, may have taken over management of Deebing Creek Mission around 1914.
In correspondence on 18 December 1914, the Reverend Robertson requested payment to assist the removal of buildings from Deebing Creek Mission to Purga. The letter stated that for 25 years 'we' have been in charge of the Mission and have spent every year more money on food and clothing for the people than received from the Government. The Aboriginal Protection Association had concerns regarding the paying of their accounts. It is interesting to note that from this time the Reverend Robertson is not mentioned in reports or correspondence and the Committee is mentioned in the 1914 Protector's Report for the last time. Although the records are not clear on this point, it appears that the Aboriginal Protection Association of Ipswich may have decided to abandon the management of the Mission after its moved to Purga.
It is apparent from documents in relation to the prickly pear infestation at Deebing Creek in 1929 that the Mission there was not occupied, but under the control of the Salvation Army and John Bleakley, Chief Protector. The document refers to the Salvation Army Aboriginal Colony. In 1931 a report by the Ranger in relation to the proposed opening up the Deebing Creek Mission area for selection stated that a school had been erected on the south west corner of portion 204.
The 1934 Report of the Aboriginal Department indicated that the farm had been subdivided, and a considerable amount of ring barking and suckering had been carried out at Deebing Creek.
In 1967 some Ipswich Aboriginal people, under the leadership of Mr Les Davidson, petitioned the Queensland Premier requesting that their burial grounds, bora rings, cave paintings and any cemetery excavations be preserved as are European burial grounds. This letter identified two burial grounds, one at Deebing Creek Mission and one at Purga.
Undated newspaper clippings from 1974-1975 gave publicity to the request of the Aboriginal people, whose ancestors were buried at Deebing Creek Mission, for their land to be returned. Mr Davidson also enlisted the assistance of Senator J. L. Cavanagh to have the land of their forefathers returned. Mr Davidson said that Aborigines who were born at Deebing Creek Mission included people from around Ipswich, Cherbourg, Brisbane, Beaudesert and country areas.
On 21 February 1976 land was gazetted for the resumption of an area of 3,600 square metres being part of Agricultural Farm No. 7869, Lot 218 CC2906, for Aboriginal Cemetery purposes. At the same time an easement was proclaimed, which was resumed from the same Lot. This was surveyed on 25 June 1975 and is currently gazetted as Lot 228 CC2905. The Cemetery Reserve, Lot 228 CC2905, is situated on the west bank of Deebing Creek, which was a part of the original Aboriginal Reserve, R. 65 (see #2 in Figure 1).
During 1977 there was correspondence in relation to compensation for the owners of the land from which the resumption was executed. There was also discussion relating to access for visitors to the reserve. It appeared that access to the Cemetery was to be controlled by the Lands Department for the purpose of clearing the area and repairing headstones until the matter of compensation was finalised.
From 1978 to 1980 there is correspondence in relation to requests from Mr William Thorpe for access to land records for his personal research. One of the letters from the Department of Aboriginal and Islander Advancement to Mr Thorpe indicates that the Department was undertaking research to ascertain the names and burial places of the original residents of Deebing Creek Mission. Other papers indicate that there was a proposed submission to the Aboriginal Development Commission to obtain several hundred acres of land at Deebing Creek.
On 23 November 1985 an Order in Council of 21 November 1985 rescinded the proclamation of a portion of land of 55.847 ha in the Ipswich Land Agent's District, parish of Purga (Churchill) which had been proclaimed for Public Purposes on 25 August 1886 and gazetted on 28 August 1886. The area of about 138 acres aligned largely with the Aboriginal Reserve R. 177 (see #3 & 4 in Figure 1) proclaimed on 2 January 1892 that was reduced in size in the re-gazzetal in 1901.
","criteria":"Deebing Creek Mission is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history as it was an institution created to house, utilise labour and control the movement of Aboriginal people in the latter part of the 1800s until its closure in 1915 when the Mission was moved to Purga.
|The intactness of an underground water facility, historic plantings, and the cemetery at Deebing Creek Mission have the potential to reveal further information about 19th and 20th century life and burial practices at an institutionalised Mission.
|Deebing Creek Mission has a strong association with the Indigenous community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. The Mission is of great significance to the traditional Aboriginal people of that area, and also to others known as 'historical people' who were sent to live at the Mission from 1892-1915. The Cemetery is a significant burial ground for Aboriginal people in the area relating to Mission times.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17058,"place_ref":602253,"name":"Potters House","alternate_name":"Townsville Baptist Church (former)","street_address":"513 Sturt Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-02-27","description":"The Potter's House is prominently located on the corner of Sturt and Fletcher Streets, Townsville. The site is 521m2 in area and is located on a side road on the northern side of Sturt Street overlooking Ross Creek. Plantings on the site include palms and frangipani with recent garden beds.
The church is a single storey rendered brick building with buttressed walls built directly onto the exposed granite surface of the site. The natural contours of the granite are readily visible within the grounds and along the length of the building. The church has a timber floor, corrugated iron roof and a simple rectangular form with a small front entrance porch facing Sturt Street. The porch and church proper have gable ends lined with boards and decorated with timber battens and finial. The northern end of the church roof is hipped.
Stairs leading from the entrance porch meet the footpath. There are five pointed arch windows along each side wall of the church, with one either side of the front entrance in the southern wall. The windows have pairs of 3 light sashes and comprise an irregular mix of coloured and plain glass panes. The entrance porch houses a pointed arch double door to the southern elevation and single pointed arch window with 2-light sashes to its side walls.
The hall is attached at right angles to the rear of the church and is a single storey timber framed and lined and clad building raised on stumps with a gabled corrugated iron roof and boarded ceiling. Timber battens are located around the understorey. The exterior weatherboard cladding has been lined with plastic moulded weatherboard sheeting. There are two pointed arch windows with single 6 light sashes to the western wall and 7 pointed arch windows in the northern wall which also contain a mix of coloured and plain glass panes. At the eastern end, toilets have been constructed of concrete block with a corrugated iron skillion roof. The hall and toilets are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The interior of the church is a simple open space with decorative embellishment. A platform is located across the northern end of the church from which a pair of doors lead into the hall. A pointed arch in the southern end provides access to the entrance porch. The walls are rendered and the coffered ceiling is lined with beaded boards. The ceiling houses 5 fretwork ceiling roses positioned between the tie rods which brace the building.
","history":"The Potter's House, the former Townsville Baptist Church, is a rendered masonry church with attached timber hall, built in 1922 using secondhand bricks from another building and salvaged timber from a previous church on the site that was damaged by a cyclone in 1903. The church was sold by the Baptist Church in 1981, but its use as a place of worship and meeting has continued.
\nServices of worship for members of the Baptist Church commenced in Townsville in January 1888 in rented premises. In 1891 the Townsville Baptist Church bought the land and two cottages (at the rear of the allotment) from the original landholder, Duncan McVean, for £500. At the time the allotment took up one half of the length of Fletcher Street between Sturt and Walker streets. This block has been subdivided, re-subdivided and amalgamated but the front portion facing Sturt Street was in continuous use by the Baptist Church from its purchase until its sale in 1981 when the Church moved to Kirwan.
\nIn 1893, a vacant Congregationalist church building and contents were purchased and re-erected on the Sturt Street site. The first service was held in November 1893. In January 1903 the building was damaged by cyclone Leonta. What could be salvaged was used to erect a church hall. Church records from 1912 reveal that this structure was intended to be temporary. A building fund was set up for a new church and hall, but it was not until 1922 that a replacement church was built. Lack of funds precluded a completely new building. Therefore a second hand one was found in the form of a disused powder magazine, eight miles from Townsville at Brookhill and purchased. The congregation dismantled and cleaned around 30,000 bricks. The building contract was signed for £832/6/- and the foundation stone was laid on 8 July 1922. It is highly likely that at this time the old timber church hall was attached to the rear of the new church.
\nChurch records reveal that work to the hall was carried out in 1949. In 1957-58 steps were constructed to the rear and the guttering and downpipes were replaced. In 1959-60, the Townsville City Council resumed eight feet of the property at the front of the church for road purposes, which brought the front steps to the edge of the footpath. The front stone retaining wall was built by the council in 1962. The concrete toilet block was added to the church hall in 1969-70 and the Church was repaired in 1971-2 following damage sustained during cyclone Althea.
\nIn 1981, the land and buildings were sold because the Townsville City Church and the Currajong Baptist Church were both too small. The congregations decided to combine and bought a new property at Kirwan. The Sturt Street property has changed ownership a number of times since 1981. It has been occupied and used as a place of worship by the Potter's House Christian Fellowship since approximately 1985, a use which continues in 2017.
","criteria":"The Potter's House site demonstrates part of the pattern of Queensland's history through its continued use as a place of Christian worship since 1893, and particularly in its association with the Baptist Church from 1893 until 1981.
|The principal structure on the site comprises a substantially intact early 20th Century Baptist church (1922) which is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, reflecting in the lack of ornate decorative detailing and plain interiors, the essence of Protestant worship.
|Located on a rise on the northern side of Sturt Street, the Potter's House makes a contribution to the streetscape at the intersection of the residential and commercial areas.
|The church, valued by the community as a meeting place for the Baptist Church community, demonstrates the commitment and resourcefulness of that community, which, with limited funds, was able to erect the present building, by the salvaging and recycling of other buildings and materials, both on and off site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17059,"place_ref":601709,"name":"Brisbane Exhibition Grounds","alternate_name":"RNA Showgrounds | Royal Queensland Showgrounds | Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland Exhibition Grounds/Show Grounds | National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland Exhibition Grounds","street_address":"574 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"BOWEN HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-07-25","description":"The Brisbane Exhibition Grounds are in the inner-city suburb of Bowen Hills, about 2km from Brisbane’s central business district. The place consists of a large complex of buildings and open spaces set on a sloping site, generally bounded by Bowen Bridge Road to the west, Brookes Street to the east, and O’Connell Terrace to the north.
\nThe North Coast Railway Line and Gregory Terrace cross the showgrounds approximately east-west, splitting the place into three areas: the Main Showgrounds Area, between the railway and Gregory Terrace, with the show ring at its centre; the Sideshow Alley Area, northwest of the rail line; and the Petty’s Paddock Area, southeast of Gregory Terrace.
\nFeatures of the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMain Showgrounds Area
\nThe Main Showgrounds Area is the central portion of the Brisbane showgrounds with the No. 1 Show Ring at its centre. The area is bounded to the north by the railway line, to the south by Gregory Terrace, the Old Museum Building (original 1890s Exhibition Building) [QHR600209] to the west, and O’Connell Terrace and Brookes Street to the east. The No.1 Show Ring and its encircling stands and buildings are the central feature of the area, splitting the remainder into western and eastern halves. The western part of the Main Showgrounds Area contains the former Industrial Pavilion Façade, and the Gregory Terrace Entry Building. The eastern portion of the Main Showgrounds Area provides facilities primarily for exhibitors and animals including animal stabling, sleeping quarters, a bar and restaurant, and outdoor spaces.
\nFeatures of the Main Showgrounds Area also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nNo. 1 Show Ring
\nThe No.1 Show Ring consists of an expanse of flat lawn with a gravel track circling its perimeter. It is oval in plan, narrower at its southwestern end. Located at the centre of the showgrounds, it is surrounded by open air seating and lawns, with buildings arranged in an arc from its southwestern to eastern ends including stand buildings, Ring Control and Broadcast Buildings, and the former Commonwealth Bank Building (now Governor’s Pavilion).
\nFeatures of the No.1 Show Ring also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nJohn MacDonald Stand
\nLocated on the northwest side of No.1 Show Ring, the John Macdonald Stand is a substantial brick grandstand structure with a Dutch gable roof. At the centre of the roof is a large ridge turret with four-faced clock which can be seen throughout the showground. Three sets of stairs provide access to the terraced timber seating. Below the stand is an arcaded walkway and a series of rooms.
\nFeatures of the John McDonald Stand of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMember’s Stand
\nThe Member’s Stand is located on the western side of No.1 Show Ring, between the John MacDonald Stand and the Ernest Baynes Stand. The stand is a concrete stand structure with brick walls and a skillion roof. The terraced seating of the stand is accessed internally from a member’s bar located below the stand.
\nFeatures of the Member’s Stand of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nErnest Baynes Stand
\nThe Ernest Baynes Stand is a brick stand between the RNA Council stand and the John Macdonald Stand. It has tiered timber seating arranged in four sections overlooking No.1 Show Ring, with a skillion roof (once part of an earlier upper seating tier).
\nThe seating area is accessed from ringside via three sets of brick and concrete stairs with two sets of non-original stairs providing access to the upper levels of the stand from the rear. The sub-floor houses a dining room, commercial kitchen, offices, toilets, and other service areas. Access is via two sets of concrete stairs and a sunken walkway, which separates the main stairs to the seating area and the brick pilastered wall of the stand.
\nFeatures of the Ernest Baynes Stand of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRNA Council Stand
\nThe RNA Council Stand is located at the southwest side of No.1 Show Ring, between the Ernest Baynes Stand and the former Commonwealth Bank Building, overlooking the show ring. It is a three-storeyed brick building with a hip roof and a small tower at the southeast corner of the building.
\nThe building accommodates offices, meeting rooms, and Councillors' seating stand which is accessed through the building. The RNA Council Stand features high quality materials and fittings throughout. The building has been extended at several stages since construction to include an internal staircase at the northwest side, a new entrance and offices at the southwest side, and additional seating and office space on the northeast.
\nFeatures of the RNA Council Stand of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Former Commonwealth Bank Building (now Governor’s Pavilion)
\nThe Governor’s Pavilion is located to the south of No.1 Show Ring, adjacent to the RNA Council Stand. It is a single-storeyed rendered brick building with a hipped, terracotta-tiled roof. An arched entry door is located on the eastern side, and tall, arched windows with decorative keystones and false balustrades line the other walls.
\nFeatures of the Governor’s Pavilion (Former Commonwealth Bank) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMachinery Hill Stands
\nMachinery Hill Stands are a series of uncovered stands, curved around the north-northeastern perimeter of No.1 Show Ring, between the northeast end of the John MacDonald Stand and the Marshalling Yard Stand. They are of concrete construction with brick and concrete walls. Simple seating is provided on either bare concrete terraces or slatted timber benches and is accessed from the rear via vomitorium and stairs. Below the stands are kiosks and a bar facing the arrivals railway station and plaza. There is a large sign at the back of the northern stand, with the lettering: MACHINERY HILL.
\nFeatures of Machinery Hill Stands of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Industrial Pavilion Façade
\nThe façade of the former Industrial Pavilion is a decorative face-brick wall facing Gregory Terrace and ‘The Plaza’. The wall steps down in sections along the slope of Gregory terrace, transitioning from single to double-storey in height. Arched windows and large doorways are regularly spaced along the façade. The Royal International Convention Centre has been built behind the façade and is not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Former Industrial Pavilion Façade of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGregory Terrace Entry Building
\nThe entry building is a raised timber building fronting Gregory Terrace, with a verandah fronting No.1 Show Ring and an under-croft at ground level. The building has been relocated.
\nFeatures of the Entrance building of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStockman’s Rest
\nStockman’s Rest is a grassed open space area, formed as a level terrace on a gentle slope in the grounds. Positioned between the Stockman’s Bar and the Stock Pavilion, it is lined by mature fig tree planting and contains a small pavilion and a mature fig with an early stone garden wall towards the middle of the park.
\nFeatures of Stockman’s Rest of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStock Agent’s Offices
\nThe Stock Agents' Office is located centrally to the animal enclosure buildings, immediately southeast of Stockman’s Rest. The structure is a single-storeyed masonry building, with basement. Rectangular in plan, it is constructed in dark face-brick with decorative details such as soldier courses. Its stepped parapets conceal a hip roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. The interior has a timber floor with rooms arranged either side of a central hall. The basement’s interior has toilets and a storeroom with brick walls, a concrete floor and some early timber columns.
\nFeatures of the Stock Agent’s Offices of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStockman’s Bar and Grill
\nThe Stockman's Bar and Grill abuts the Stock Agents' Offices to its northeast side. It is a timber framed building, rectangular in plan, with saw-tooth roof in three bays. Its northwest elevation is brick with a stepped parapet. Internally the building consists of a large hall with concrete floors, a modern bar and kitchen is located at the northeast side and the southwest side opens to a large outdoor terrace and garden with large weeping fig trees. There is a timber verandah to the southeast side, and a large concrete and metal framed roof over the terrace.
\nFeatures of the Stockman’s Bar and Grill of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nHorse Stalls & Sale Ring
\nLocated at the southeastern corner of the main showgrounds, the Horse Stalls are a group of stable buildings and a sale ring building arranged either side of a laneway. The stalls and sale ring are of timber-frame construction with weatherboard, flat sheet, or corrugated metal sheet cladding and saw-tooth roofs.
\nThe stable buildings along the Gregory Terrace side of the laneway stalls are built to the boundary, forming a wall, stepping down the slope of the street, each stable painted with a different mural. The stable buildings north of the laneway are arranged in an L-shape plan around the sale ring building. The stable buildings contain stalls with sleeping quarters above.
\nThe Sale Ring building is single storey with stalls in a subfloor area at the southern corner. The sale ring consists of covered stands arranged in a U-shape plan around a dirt-floor sale ring at the centre.
\nFeatures of the Horse Stalls & Sale Ring of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStock Pavilion (former Pig Pavilion)
\nThe Stock Pavilion is located north of Stockman’s Rest and abuts the eastern side of the Beef Cattle Pavilion. It is a timber framed and clad building with a saw-tooth roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. The upper sections of most walls are open or enclosed with timber lattice or metal wire mesh. The concrete boundary wall to O’Connell Terrace forms the northern wall of the building. Internally, the floors are concrete, and many walls are unlined. Animal stalls occupy most of the building, comprising low walls with steel rings for tethering animals and hay racks above. Along the northern perimeter of the building are sleeping quarters, with hatches to more accommodation above, of timber framed and board lined partitions, with lockers on the opposite wall of a narrow corridor. These walls feature graffiti made by the occupants of the sleeping quarters over many decades. A dining hall, storage room, and cattle wash area occupy the three extensions to the southern side of the building.
\nFeatures of the Stock Pavilion of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBeef Cattle Pavilion
\nThe Beef Cattle Pavilion is located at the northern corner of the main showgrounds area, north of the Machinery Hill Stands. The building is a large, rectangular, double-storeyed concrete structure with face-brick wall and a saw-tooth roof. Its northern wall is built to the O’Connell Terrace boundary. The main entrances are located on the southern side, a large door at ground level is located below a double staircase providing access to the first-floor entrance. Large, sliding timber doors at ground level and a ramp to the first floor on the western side as well as roller doors on the northern side provide access for cattle and vehicles to both levels of the building. Internally, both levels are large, open spaces with exposed concrete columns and beams, and accommodation for cattle and their owners.
\nFeatures of the Beef Cattle Pavilion of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nO’Connell Terrace Gate Buildings
\nAt the eastern end of O'Connell Terrace is a large vehicle gate. To the western side of the gate is a toilet block constructed of masonry with roughcast render finish and a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. To the eastern side is a timber framed and clad pedestrian gate.
\nFeatures of the Toilet Block of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSideshow Alley Area
\nThe Sideshow Alley Area of the Brisbane Showgrounds is located on the northwestern side of the railway line, bounded on its other sides by Bowen Bridge Road, Bowen Park, and ’The Pavilion’ building at its northeast. The Sideshow Alley Area contains mostly open spaces used for various activities and temporary attractions during the Royal Queensland Show and other events.
\nNo.2 Show Ring
\nNo.2 Show Ring is located at the northeastern end of the area, between both passageways under the railway. It is an open, grassed area. Three large weeping fig trees line the southwest boundary of the show ring.
\nFeatures of No 2 Show Ring of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSideshow Alley
\nSideshow Alley is located in the northwest end of the exhibition grounds and is bounded by Bowen Bridge Road on the west, Bowen Park on the northwest, No.2 Show Ring to the northeast, and the railway line to the southeast. Entry to Sideshow Alley is via the 1930s gates from Bowen Bridge Road or through the two passageways below the railway line. Sideshow Alley is a large expanse of open, level bitumen pavement, accommodating temporary attractions and events during the Royal Queensland Show and other events.
\nFeatures of Sideshow Alley of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSideshow Alley Gates on Bowen Bridge Road
\nLocated in the western corner of Sideshow Alley, adjacent to Bowen Park, the Sideshow Alley gates are a pair of single-storeyed brick structures either side of a large vehicle gate. Each building has a decorative façade facing Bowen Bridge Road, with prominent stepped parapet, pilasters, and face-brick diamonds. Each building has ticket windows and a pedestrian gate under a small, cantilevered awning. A large metal gate closes the driveway located between both buildings.
\nFeatures of the Sideshow Alley Gates of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPetty’s Paddock Area
\nThe Petty’s Paddock area consists of buildings, open spaces, and plantings south of Gregory Terrace. These include Dairy Industry Hall, Sugar Hall, John Reid Pavilion, Former Wool Hall (Building 8) fronting Gregory Terrace and open spaces and plantings such as Gregory Rest at the corner of King Street and Gregory terrace, and large weeping fig trees.
\nFeatures of Petty’s Paddock Area also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nJohn Reid Pavilion
\nThe John Reid Pavilion is located at the corner of Gregory Terrace and Alexandria Terrace, abutting the Dairy Industry Hall and Sugar Hall on its southwestern side. The pavilion is a large hall structure with a gable roof and lower skillion roofs around three sides. The exterior walls are clad in timber weatherboard. The interior consists of a single large hall with exposed metal frame structure. The front wall to Gregory Terrace has been replaced in concrete.
\nFeatures of John Reid Pavilion of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Wool Hall (Building 8)
\nThe Former Wool Hall is located at the corner of Alexandria Street and Gregory Terrace, occupying the northern end of Alexandria Park. The building is a large pavilion with a central gable roof and skillion roofs either side. The structure’s metal columns and timber roof framing are exposed to the interior and clad on the exterior with corrugated metal sheets. One face-brick wall remains at the Alexandria Street side of the pavilion. It has large window openings and doorway, and fixed louvre vents are located at each end of the wall.
\nFeatures of Former Wool Hall (Building 8) of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nDairy Industry Hall
\nThe Dairy Industry Hall is a long, narrow, two-storey building abutting the southwest side of the John Reid Pavilion. The building is of concrete and metal frame construction with face-brick walls, a sign on the Gregory Terrace side spells the words \"Dairy Industry Hall\" in steel lettering. The building has a saw-tooth roof. The building’s western wall is glazed, open to Gregory Rest and ‘Primary Street’ laneway.
\nFeatures of the Dairy Industry Hall of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSugar Hall
\nThe Sugar Hall abuts the southern end of the Dairy Industry Hall, facing on to ‘Primary Street’ laneway. The hall is a small brick structure, its rendered front elevation has a pediment concealing a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheets. An awning on the front elevation shelters two large doorways either side of a central servery. Internally, the hall is one space with concrete floors and timber roof trusses exposed to the interior.
\nFeatures of the Sugar Hall of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGregory Rest
\nGergory Rest is an area of open space along the southern side of Gregory terrace, across from the showgrounds main entrance. The area is bounded on its southeast by the Kings Co-op buildings, and the to the southwest by the Rydges Hotel. The open space is shaded by two large weeping fig trees and contains recent plantings, retaining walls, seating and decks.
\nFeatures of Gergory’s Rest of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n","history":"
The history of the annual Brisbane Exhibition (the ‘Ekka’, also known as the Royal Queensland Show), held at the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds (Royal National Association (RNA) Showgrounds), starts with the staging of the first Queensland Intercolonial Exhibition in August 1876. The site has been the venue for Queensland's principal agricultural, pastoral and industrial exhibitions since that time, with new buildings and facilities added and old ones replaced as circumstances required. Attendees have formed fond memories of various aspects of the Ekka, from Sideshow Alley to the exhibits, baby animals to showbags, competing at the show, and events such as the Grand Parade and fireworks displays in the main show ring. The Exhibition Grounds remain Queensland's premier showgrounds and retain a variety of structures and facilities dating from 1887 (No.1 Show Ring) onwards.
\nOrigins of the Brisbane Exhibition
\nThe site of the Exhibition Grounds is part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples and their York’s Hollow (Barrambin) campground,[1] and includes most of the land originally granted by the Queensland Government to the Queensland Acclimatisation Society (the Acclimatisation Society). This organisation was established in 1862 to promote the introduction, acclimatization, propagation and distribution in Queensland of economically useful plants and animals. In 1863 and 1866 it was given a total of 44.5 acres (18ha) of land, through which ran a creek, east of Bowen Bridge Road. The Acclimatisation Society established a public exhibition garden [Bowen Park, QHR 601523] at the northwest corner of the site, fronting Bowen Bridge Road and O'Connell Terrace, while the rest of the site was used for experimentation purposes.[2]
\nThe southwest corner of the Acclimatisation Society’s grounds, within the bend of the creek and fronting Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace, later became the site of Queensland's 1876 Intercolonial Exhibition.[3] Such events, like the ‘Great Exhibition’ in London in 1851, were designed to display the products of the industrial age. Similar exhibitions occurred throughout Australia, to promote trade between the colonies and attract international investment, but these were ‘one off’ events. The concept of holding annual exhibitions to demonstrate the products of the colonies was promoted by agricultural societies.[4]
\nThe 1876 exhibition in Brisbane was not the first competitive demonstration of agricultural and industrial progress in Queensland. In 1854, prior to Separation, squatters from the Darling Downs and Moreton Bay districts of New South Wales established an agricultural and pastoral association to hold exhibitions of produce. In the 1860s and 1870s other regional agricultural and pastoral associations were formed, among the earliest being the Darling Downs Agricultural Society (based at Toowoomba) in 1860.[5] These Associations conducted annual exhibitions of agricultural, horticultural, and pastoral produce and farm machinery. Prizes were awarded for best exhibits. The object was to encourage the exchange of knowledge and to foster better farm practices. Associations such as these proliferated in Queensland during the second half of the 19th century, and each held an annual 'show'.
\nIn 1874, Queensland's Chief Inspector of Stock, Patrick Robertson Gordon, initiated the establishment of a national agricultural society, to plan Brisbane's first Intercolonial Exhibition. In May 1875 an inaugural meeting was held to form the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (the Association). The first meeting of the Association was held on 13 August 1875. At this meeting, use of part of the Acclimatisation Society's grounds was discussed, and subsequently a lease of about 12 acres (4.9ha) was arranged.[6]
\nThe Intercolonial Exhibition was intended to promote and showcase the agricultural, pastoral and industrial resources of the whole of Queensland. The Association sought to encourage regional agricultural societies and associations by holding a grand central exhibition for competitions between winners from the regional shows. To avoid clashing with the latter, and in order to hold the Exhibition during fine weather, before the shearing season, and when good feed would be found along the roads, it was decided to stage the Exhibition in August 1876.[7]
\nThe 1876 Exhibition
\nThe first Exhibition Building, a large timber hall with side aisles, a central clerestory and two annexes, was erected in 1876 on Gregory Terrace near the corner of Bowen Bridge Road. The first Queensland Intercolonial Exhibition was opened by the Governor, Sir William Wellington Cairns, on Tuesday 22 August 1876, a day which was declared a public holiday, with the Exhibition running until 28 August. Exhibits in the Exhibition Building included plants, furniture, wines, jewellery, minerals, embroidery, fine arts and clothes, fruit, and other produce and technology. Two show rings were located north of the Exhibition Building, along with cattle, sheep and horse stalls. Dogs and poultry were on display, as well as farm machinery, a windmill, steam engines, a stamper battery, and a timber cottage erected by sawmiller William Pettigrew. Judging of exhibits and displays took place, along with sales of livestock and machinery. Beginning a long tradition, there was also a bar at the first exhibition – although aerated waters and fruit were offered at the Temperance booth. [8]
\nThe Exhibition proved immensely popular, with 15,000 people attending on the opening day (Brisbane’s population then being 22,000). On the start of the first day, the crush of the crowd overwhelmed the inadequate turnstiles, and mounted troopers had to drive back people pressing from the outside. Due to the successful turnout, the Exhibition became an annual event, including a public holiday in Brisbane and other areas – the holiday in Brisbane now being known as ‘People’s Day’ and usually occurring on the sixth day of the show. [9]
\nThe show continues, 1870s-1890s
\nDisplays and competitions related to animals, horticulture, rural produce, products and technology continued to be important aspects of the show experience, as did competitions demonstrating rural skills, handicrafts, fine arts, cooking, and fashion.[10] As time passed, pavilions were constructed for specific animals, produce, technologies and industries.
\nThe area taken up by the Exhibition also changed over the years. In 1879, the Association was awarded a lease of around 18.5 acres (7.5ha) of the Acclimatisation Society’s grounds for a period of 50 years.[11] In 1881 the railway to Sandgate was constructed through Acclimatisation Society’s grounds, including the area leased by the Association, and in compensation the Association was given more of the Acclimatisation Society’s land ‘across the creek’ (to the northeast).[12] After this the Exhibition Grounds comprised all the land southeast of the railway line, bounded by Bowen Bridge Road, Gregory Terrace, Brookes Street and O'Connell Terrace; while the Acclimatisation Society retained the land (Bowen Park) northwest of the railway.[13]
\nThe Association continued to improve its facilities during the 1880s, erecting a grandstand in 1885.[14] As the show ring was inadequate, in 1886 the Association decided to form a new cricket ground and cycling track, in the hope that sporting events could bring in a permanent income.[15] This new show ring (the current No.1 Show Ring), formed by reclaiming a section of the creek north of Gregory Terrace, was ready for the 1887 show. The 1885 grandstand was relocated to the west side of the new show ring.[16]
\nIn June 1888 the original Exhibition Building was destroyed by fire.[17] in July 1888 the Association called for competitive designs for a permanent Exhibition Building, while a temporary Exhibition Building – a galvanised iron shed erected at the back of the grandstand – was used for that year’s show.[18]
\nBefore committing to a new Exhibition Building, the Association needed security of land tenure. Under the provisions of the National Association and Acclimatisation Society Act 1890, 23 acres, 1 rood and 32.5 perches (9.5ha) of land leased from the Acclimatisation Society for an exhibition ground was resumed and granted to the Association as Trustees, who were also empowered under this act to borrow money from the Queensland Government for construction.[19]
\nThe design competition was won by the accomplished Brisbane architect George Henry Male Addison. The foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1891 and the builder, John Quinn, was required to have a section of the building completed for the August 1891 exhibition, and the whole of the building completed within 12 months.[20] The Exhibition Building [QHR 600209] was completed for the 1892 Exhibition, which 45,000 people attended despite the economic depression occurring at that time. [21]
\nHowever, the Association could not escape the effects of the 1890s depression and struggled to repay the government loan on the Exhibition Building. As a result, the colonial government resumed the building and liquidated the Association's debts in December 1897. Prior to this, from May to August 1897 an International Exhibition was held. As well as using the Exhibition Building, a large, covered annexe was constructed just to the rear/northeast. Due to the Government’s resumption of the Exhibition Building, the covered annexe housed the 1898 exhibition.[22]
\nImprovements, 1900-1914
\nThe Association struggled to maintain the viability of the remaining Exhibition Grounds until 1902-03, when the Queensland government took control of the Association's assets, leasing the Exhibition Annexe back to the Association during the annual exhibition, and charging an annual rental for the grounds and other buildings.[23]
\nIn the early 1900s the Queensland economy revived, and the Association's financial position improved, allowing substantial improvements of the Exhibition Grounds. A two-storey building for the Secretary’s office, council room and a post office, located next to the Exhibition Annexe, was constructed in 1905.[24] Next, a new grandstand, designed by Brisbane architect Claude William Chambers to seat 2500 people, was erected for the 1906 Exhibition at a cost of £6248, with its easternmost bay completed in 1909. In 1923, this stand was re-named the John MacDonald Stand (extant 2023) in honour of a long-serving Association councillor.[25]
\nOther improvements and changes occurred in time for the 1906 exhibition. The side show booths, which had been located on the hill to the northeast of the ring, were moved onto the Acclimatisation Society’s grounds on the northwest side of the railway, their place being taken by machinery exhibits. The hill has since become known as Machinery Hill, and the valley northwest of the railway as Sideshow Alley. [26]
\nAnother extension to the Exhibition Grounds occurred in 1909, when an adjacent 6 acres (2.4ha) of land called ‘Petty’s Paddock’, south of Gregory Terrace and southwest of Alexandria Street, was acquired.[27] Also in 1909, a council room (later known as the Gregory Terrace Entry Building, extant in 2023), with a prominent roof fleche (since removed) and a verandah on the inner side, was erected over the turnstiles from Gregory Terrace, near the 1905 office building.[28]
\nIn the 1910s the Association established a relationship with Brisbane architects Richard Gailey Snr and Richard Gailey Jnr. In early 1914, Richard Gailey Architects called for tenders for a Sheep, Pig and Poultry Pavilion, and this long open shed, (progressively demolished from the 1960s), was constructed along the southwest side of Petty’s Paddock in time for the 1914 show – the first year that land south of Gregory Terrace was used for the Exhibition. Other improvements for the 1914 show included: the conversion of sheep sheds east of the No.1 Show Ring into a dining hall; six grassed terraces on the Machinery Hill side of the ring; and a small show ring (not the later No.2 Show Ring) for dairy cattle, located northwest of the railway, with dairy cattle stalls nearby.[29] By the 1910s a tram loop also existed from Bowen Bridge Road, along Gregory Terrace, and back to St Pauls Terrace via Alexandria Street/Sutton Street.[30]
\nWorld War I and the 1919 influenza pandemic
\nAlthough a military enlistment depot was established at the Exhibition Grounds during World War I (WWI, 1914-18), this did not prevent the annual Exhibition from proceeding or inhibit the expansion of the Exhibition’s facilities.[31] Affleck House, on the southeast side of the railway line, was completed by August 1918 for the use of Stock Breeders' Association delegates during the show. This timber building burnt down in 1969 and was rebuilt in masonry (extant in 2023).[32]
\nAn important wartime addition to the grounds was Austral Hall, designed by architect William Hodgen and erected in 1904 as a Boer War memorial concert hall in Toowoomba. This was purchased by the Association for £1500 in 1917 and re-erected in the northeast corner of Petty’s Paddock for the 1918 show.[33] Reflecting the growing popularity of the motor car, the building became the first Brisbane Exhibition pavilion to be dedicated solely to motor vehicle displays (previously located on Machinery Hill). In 1919 Austral Hall was renamed the John Reid Pavilion (extant in 2023) following the death that year of Brisbane merchant John Reid, a long-time supporter of the Association.[34]
\nFrom May 1919 the showgrounds were used as an isolation hospital during the influenza pandemic which swept Australia following the return of service personnel from overseas at the end of WWI. Huts were erected as isolation wards for the nearby Brisbane General Hospital, and dining rooms were set up for the expected influx of seriously ill patients. The Exhibition Annexe, previously in use as a wool store, was also utilised as a hospital. Due to the threat of contagion, and to save disturbing patients in the isolation wards, the Exhibition was cancelled that year.[35]
\nInterwar growth, 1920s
\nFollowing the visit of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) to the Exhibition in 1920, the Association moved to incorporate the word 'Royal' into its name as the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland, which over the years has been reduced, unofficially, to the Royal National Association (RNA). The RNA also registered as its trademark the word 'Ekka' (a colloquial shortening of the word 'Exhibition').[36]
\nA number of improvements were made to the Exhibition Grounds in the early 1920s.[37] By 1923 the 1885 grandstand had been moved from the main show ring to overlook a new dairy show ring (No.2 Show Ring, part extant in 2023), formed on a reclaimed section of creek northwest of the railway line. This new ring was also used for wood chopping competitions. The 1885 grandstand was replaced at the No.1 Show Ring by the Ernest Baynes Stand (extant 2023). Designed by architect Richard Gailey Jnr and constructed by John Hutchinson, it had two tiers of seating, with a seating capacity of 5000 and a total capacity of 7000. It was constructed with a steel frame faced with brick, the larger steel sections being imported from Britain and the smaller sections made in Australia. The foundation stone of the new grandstand was laid by the Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan, in November 1922, and the stand was completed in time for the August 1923 Exhibition, at a cost of £26,884. The sub-floor contained a dining room that accommodated 600 people, and a row of shops facing the lane at the rear (southwest side) of the structure.[38]
\nAnother early 1920s addition was the RNA Council Stand (extant in 2023), located adjacent to the south end of the Ernest Baynes Stand, which was also constructed in time for the 1923 show. Originally two storeys, it included a council room, the Secretary’s office and a press room. At some early period, the northern end of the building was extended to incorporate an entrance to the seating in front of the stand. In 1930 a third storey was added to the building, and in 1958 a two-storeyed extension was constructed at the rear (southwest), with a new roof constructed over the seating in 1959.[39]
\nAdditional buildings were constructed on the Exhibition Grounds during the late 1920s. In 1928 new Horse Stalls (extant 2023) were built along Gregory Terrace, as well as a series of new dairy cattle pavilions along O’Connell Terrace northwest of the railway line.[40] A Sheep and Wool Pavilion was also built on O’Connell Terrace southeast of the railway line in 1928. A toilet block was added behind this pavilion (next to Gate 4 on O’Connell Terrace) by 1933 and was extended to the east c1946-51 (extant 2023).[41]
\nOther improvements in the late 1920s included the Lady Forster Creche, which was opened in Costin Street near the main entrance to the Exhibition Grounds in time for the 1928 show and later moved to northeast of No.1 Show Ring in 1939.[42] In 1929 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which since 1923 had conducted a bank at the Exhibition Grounds during the annual show, constructed a purpose-designed bank building (extant 2023 as the Governor’s Pavilion), just to the south of the Council Stand. The northeast end of the building was extended in 1947.[43]
\nDuring the 1920s, the RNA also sought to make the Exhibition Grounds a first-class venue for cricket, football and other sports, although it had limited success. The year 1928 was a high point for the Association's sporting ambitions, with the showground hosting the first England versus Australia cricket test of the 1928-29 series. Legendary Australian cricketer Donald Bradman made his Test debut at this event. More successful than cricket or football was Exhibition Speedway, on the dirt track around No.1 Show Ring, established in 1926.[44]
\nInterwar growth, 1930s
\nDespite severe economic depression in the early 1930s, the Exhibition continued to attract its strong annual attendance during the 1930s, with total show attendance rising from 263,702 in 1932, to 361,677 in 1938.[45] In 1932, more land was acquired from Bowen Park, bringing the total area of the Exhibition Grounds to about 40 acres (16ha).[46] In the same year, a Beef Cattle Pavilion was constructed on O'Connell Terrace just southeast of the railway line, while a Pig Pavilion was added between the Beef Cattle Pavilion and Sheep and Wool Pavilion by 1933. At this time, machinery was on display northwest of the railway line, south of the dairy cattle pavilions. Also in 1933, a dairy produce hall was built alongside the southwest side of the John Reid Pavilion.[47]
\nBy 1933, the RNA was using part of Alexandria Park as a car park. Located south of Gregory Terrace between Exhibition Street and Alexandria Street/Sutton Street (latter no longer extant), this park was gazetted in 1888 and had been the site of a quarry. The northern two thirds of Alexandria Park was leased from the Brisbane City Council (BCC) by the RNA c1929-30; and the southern third of the park was leased from January 1937.The whole park was still leased by the RNA in 1954.[48]
\nAs the economy recovered during the second half of the 1930s, a number of substantial improvements were made, with £17,000 spent between 1935 and 1936 alone.[49] A show camp building, to accommodate visiting ‘farm boys’, was built in 1935 on the western side of Alexandria Street, but this was relocated to the southeast side of Alexandria Park in 1948.[50] In 1936, Richard Gailey Jnr called tenders for: a Wool Hall (extant as ‘Building 8’ 2023), which was built in the northwest corner of Alexandria Park; a new Pig Pavilion (later called the Stock Pavilion, extant 2023), which was built on the site of the earlier pig and sheep pavilions on O’Connell Terrace; and additional horse stalls (extant 2023), located adjacent to Brooke Street north of the 1928 Horse Stalls. Gailey also designed a new brick and concrete Stock & Station Agents' offices (extant 2023); and an adjacent Anglican Church Mission dining hall (later the Stockman’s Bar and Grill and the Bushman’s Trading Post, extant 2023), located just northeast of the site of the previous dining hall. Both buildings were ready for the 1936 show. Also completed in 1936 were new concrete roads in Sideshow Alley; two masonry turnstile entrance buildings (extant 2023) on Bowen Bridge Road; and fat cattle pens in the northeast corner of Alexandria Park.[51]
\nOther improvements in the late 1930s included the Sugar Hall, a small masonry building next to the Diary Hall, opened in 1937 (extant 2023).[52] A new Industrial Pavilion (two facades extant 2023), designed by Richard Gailey Jnr, was also constructed on Gregory Terrace, and covered 3.5 acres (1.4ha). The two-storey brick entrance building on the east side of this pavilion opened in 1937, and the rest was completed in June 1939 at a total cost of £52,558. The earlier Exhibition Annexe (called the Industrial Pavilion by 1933) was demolished during 1938. A new Electricity Hall (later called the Hall of Science, demolished 1986), located at the corner of Gregory Terrace and Costin Street, was completed for the 1939 show – reputedly the first show pavilion in Australia dedicated entirely to electricity exhibits.[53]
\nWorld War II and the immediate post-war period
\nDuring World War II (WWII, 1939-45), the Exhibition Grounds were occupied by military authorities as a venue for training, accommodation and embarkation of troops, which interrupted some shows. In 1940 and again in 1941, the military vacated the grounds temporarily for the August Exhibition. Following the entry of Japan and the United States of America into the war in December 1941, American troops were stationed at the showgrounds. The Exhibition of 1942 was cancelled but was renewed in a limited fashion in 1943 and 1944. A large rodeo was also held at the Exhibition Grounds in late 1943, involving American and Australian troops.[54]
\nIn the immediate post-war period, further expansion of the Exhibition Grounds’ facilities occurred, and the show’s popularity continued. Attendance at the Brisbane Exhibition rose from 509,131 in 1946, to 655,948 in 1949.[55] The RNA redeveloped Alexandria Park in 1948, after acquiring the two wartime buildings erected on the park to the south of the 1936 Wool Hall – a food store and a canteen services store (later the Horticulture Pavilion and the Poultry Pavilion respectively). A Caged Birds Pavilion was added between the horticulture and poultry pavilions in 1949, and a Fruit Pavilion was added between the horticulture and wool pavilions in 1951. A concrete viaduct (Marshalling Yard Stand, extant 2023), on the east side of the No.1 Show Ring, was constructed c1948, to allow animals to pass underneath into the ring and for the public to access Machinery Hill from Gregory Terrace. Around this time, a single-storey hipped-roof building was constructed at the south end of the Marshalling Yard Stand, and two-storey brick Lady Competitor’s Box (extant 2023) was built immediately behind the same stand.[56]
\nBy 1946, mature shade trees, mostly weeping figs (Ficus benjamina), were growing throughout the Exhibition Grounds. These were a result of pre-WWII planting efforts, with trees sometimes relocated within the grounds as new facilities were created.[57] The weeping figs at Gregory Rest, on the south side of Gregory Terrace, existed by at least 1923.[58] Most of the other surviving fig trees on the Exhibition Grounds, and around the former perimeter of Alexandria Park, appear to have been planted during the burst of improvements during the 1930s. By 1936, plantings of weeping figs included those: around the No.2 Show Ring; south of the beef and pig pavilions on O’Connell Terrace (including those in what is now Stockman’s Rest); a newly formed picnic area on the old dining hall site between No.1 Show Ring and the 1936 dining hall (trees were transferred to this site); and along Alexandria Street in the northern part of Alexandria Park by then leased by the RNA.[59] Plantings of weeping figs also occurred around the southern section of Alexandria Park, including on St Pauls Terrace, between 1936 and 1946 (most likely soon after the 1937 RNA lease of this end of the park). More weeping figs were planted along the eastern half of the Gregory Terrace frontage of Alexandria Park between 1951 and 1960.[60]
\n1950s-1970s
\nThe 1950s saw further improvements and works to the grounds, with the addition of concrete open seating for No.1 Show Ring near Machinery Hill in 1950 (extant 2023), and construction of a new Beef Cattle Pavilion on the site of the old one on O’Connell Terrace in 1950-1 (extant 2023). By 1951 another stable was added adjacent to the new horse exercise yard in the northeast corner of the showgrounds. Additional land, between Water Street and St Paul’s Terrace, was also acquired in the 1950s, followed by the removal of the existing houses. Improvements in 1958 included more seating on the northeast side of No.1 Show Ring (extant 2023), along with a concrete wood chopping arena on the west side of No.2 Show Ring. The demolition of 1885 grandstand occurred around this time. [61]
\nThe popularity of the Exhibition continued to rise. A major event in the 1950s was the visit of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, during the 1954 Exhibition. In 1958, 733,000 people attended the show.[62]
\nIn the following decade, improvements continued within the Exhibition Grounds. By 1965, all of Alexandria Park was officially owned by the RNA, and the Exhibition Grounds now covered 49 acres, 3 roods and 1.1 perches (20.1ha).[63] In 1962 the RNA moved its offices from the Queensland Primary Producers Association building in Adelaide Street to the Exhibition Grounds, and in 1964 a double pavilion, known as the Agricultural Hall and Douglas Wadley Pavilion, opened on land acquired along Constance Street. The Agricultural Hall housed district and junior farmer exhibits, while the Douglas Wadley Pavilion, housed dogs. A new Dairy Industry Hall (extant 2023) was erected in 1964, on the site of the 1933 Dairy Hall adjacent to the John Reid Pavilion, to coincide with a 1964 dairy industry symposium. By 1969 the building at the south end of the Marshalling Yard Stand had been replaced with a two-storey brick Ring Control and Broadcast Building (extant 2023). Money was borrowed to build the two-storey Frank Nicklin Pavilion, northwest of the Agricultural Hall, to accommodate government departments, which had long been involved with displays at the show.[64]
\nA popular and enduring aspect of the Exhibition – the animal nursery – was established in 1964 by RNA councillor Frank Robertson. At the 1972 Exhibition a purpose-built facility for the animal nursery was opened, in the easternmost of the dairy cattle pavilions, and named in honour of Robertson.[65]
\nAnother perennial favourite has been Sideshow Alley. In the post-WWII period, the face of Sideshow Alley, traditionally home to the weird and wonderful, began to change. The tents and booths that promised bizarre wonders and exotica, ‘freak’ and peep shows, largely disappeared due to the age of television, to be replaced with high technology rides, tests of skill, and popular music entertainment.[66]
\nMore facilities were added during the 1970s, including a chairlift between St Pauls Terrace and the wood chopping arena in 1970. A new Members Stand was constructed in 1972 (extant 2023), between the Ernest Baynes Stand and the John Macdonald Stand.[67]
\nSome controversy came to the Exhibition Grounds in 1971, during the South African Springbok Rugby team tour, as demonstrations against apartheid in South Africa were held in Brisbane and throughout Australia. No.1 Show Ring at the Exhibition Ground was commandeered to host test matches, as a safe distance could be maintained between spectators and would-be protesters. A two-metre-high chain wire fence was erected to separate spectators from players, and the Queensland Government declared a state of emergency from 13 July to 2 August.[68]
\n1980s-2000s
\nThe Exhibition continued its popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, with further investment in infrastructure, and a record attendance of 891,232 in 1981.[69] Improvements and new buildings included the refurbishment of the John MacDonald Stand in 1985; the construction of a new Exhibition Building (extant 2023) on the site of the Hall of Science building in 1986; and the opening on 28 November 1988 of the Walter Burnett Building, adjacent to the Frank Nicklin Pavilion. Structures from the World Expo (1988) Fun Park were relocated to the fat cattle yards site in Alexandria Park (‘Expo Place’, extant in 2023) in 1991; and a new Dairy Goat Pavilion was built south of the easternmost dairy cattle pavilion in 1992.[70] The top seating tier of the Ernest Baynes Stand was removed in the early 1990s, while the wood chopping arena and the westernmost 1920s dairy cattle pavilion was demolished in the early 2000s, during construction of the Inner City Bypass.[71]
\nSince 2008
\nIn 2008, Bowen Hills – including the area of the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds – was declared an Urban Development Area (later a Priority Development Area). In 2010 the RNA and the property and infrastructure company Lend Lease unveiled plans for the ‘Brisbane Showgrounds Regeneration Project’, a redevelopment of around one quarter of the site, comprising an upgrade to the showgrounds’ facilities and the inclusion of new office, retail and residential spaces. This involved the demolition and clearing of various buildings and areas – mostly concentrated south of Gregory Terrace.[72]
\nRedevelopment work began in April 2011. As a result, the 1937-9 Industrial Pavilion was extensively rebuilt as the Royal International Convention Centre, retaining only its northeast and southeast facades, while the 1909 Gregory Terrace Entry Building was moved further northeast along Gregory Terrace. A new dual-use multi-level carpark/animal pavilion (The Pavilion) was constructed northwest of the railway line, and the railway station was upgraded for regular use as part of the Cross River Rail project.
\nThe site continues to host an annual Exhibition with a rural emphasis, and in 2016 the 1892 Exhibition Building was once more used for Exhibition displays – for the first time in 119 years.[73] Outside the Ekka period, the No.1 Show Ring, Royal International Convention Centre, 1986 Exhibition Building and John Reid Pavilion, and other RNA facilities, are used for a wide variety of events.
\nThe continued popularity of the Royal Queensland Show is evidenced by: its ongoing operation since 1876 (only four annual exhibitions on this site have been cancelled: the 1919 Exhibition due to the influenza pandemic; in 1942, when the grounds were occupied by military personnel; and in 2020 and 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic); its recognition as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland (under the ‘event and festival’ category) as part of the state’s Q150 celebrations in 2009; and its sustained high attendance figures (400,000 people in 2023).[74]
\nIn 2023, the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds retain a variety of show facilities from different periods, open spaces, and mature weeping fig shade trees. The site is a living legacy to decades of showcasing the best of Queensland’s primary and secondary industries, and entertaining Queenslanders. Over the years, generations of attendees and competitors have formed fond memories of various aspects of the event.[75]
","criteria":"The Brisbane Exhibition Grounds is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland’s primary and secondary industries through an annual Exhibition, or ‘Ekka’, organised by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA). Held in August since 1876, the Ekka, also known as the Royal Queensland Show, brings rural activities to an urban setting and has become a major event in the lives of Queenslanders.
\nThrough its provision of facilities such as a primary show ring; public stands; exhibition pavilions; buildings for animal and exhibitor accommodation; offices for organisations; and open and green spaces with trees for events, side shows and crowd movement, the Ekka has encouraged excellence in Queensland's agricultural, horticultural, pastoral and industrial sectors through competitions and the display of animals, produce, products and technology.
|The Brisbane Exhibition Grounds are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a show ground in a capital city. Exceptional as Queensland's premier show ground, the place retains purpose-built buildings and open spaces from a range of eras that reflect the place's evolution over time. Principal characteristics of the place include its central, accessible location, adjacent to a railway; generous grounds; primary show ring with public stands; exhibition pavilions; buildings for animal and exhibitor accommodation; open and green spaces with trees for Sideshow Alley, movement of crowds, and events; and offices for the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland.
|The Brisbane Exhibition Grounds is important for its aesthetic significance brought about by its individually prominent, intact buildings, and collectively as an expansive show ground with beautiful and evocative attributes, and landmark qualities.
\nThe No.1 Show Ring and its stand buildings evoke a strong sense of the excitement and spectacle of the show through their grand scale, and the form of a show ring partially encircled by large stand buildings. The John Macdonald stand is particularly important as a landmark, with its prominent clock tower visible from within the showgrounds and the surrounding area.
\nThe eastern part of the Main Showground Area, including the Horse Stalls, Stock Pavilion, and Stockman’s Rest, through their utilitarian forms, simple materials, and large trees are highly evocative of the rural nature of the Royal Queensland Show.
\nThe former Industrial Pavilion Façade, John MacDonald Stand, and Stock Agent's Offices are intact and are important for their individual beautiful attributes brought about by their: prominent siting in their areas, cohesive architectural designs, high quality construction, robust materials, and well-composed facades.
|The place has a strong association with generations of Queenslanders who have attended and participated in the annual exhibition, known as the 'Ekka', since its inaugural event in 1876, and the many other events that have taken place at the Exhibition Grounds. The Ekka brings together Queenslanders from throughout the state and from various groups, year after year, to participate in various ways in the show, with a public holiday show day occurring in Brisbane and many other Queensland regions, towns and local government areas during the event.
\nEkka experiences—that include co-ordinating, competing in, or watching events in the show ring, participating in or judging competitions, staying with or visiting animals in their stalls, organising or viewing exhibits, running or visiting Sideshow Alley attractions, buying showbags and eating Ekka-related foods—have become embedded in the memory of many Queenslanders.
|The Brisbane Exhibition Grounds is significant for its long and close association with the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA), an organisation of importance in Queensland’s history. Through its creation and ongoing organisation of an annual event for State-level competitions between winners of local Queensland shows, and its provision and maintenance of suitable facilities, the RNA has been important in promoting excellence in Queensland’s primary and secondary industries. The Brisbane Exhibition Grounds have been the home of the RNA’s annual show since the first exhibition in 1876; the site of the Association Secretary’s office and Council room since 1905; and the location of the RNA’s offices since 1962.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17063,"place_ref":602261,"name":"Point Lookout Foreshore","alternate_name":"Mooloomba","street_address":"East Coast Road","suburb":"POINT LOOKOUT","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-08-27","description":"This area comprises the whole of the Scenic, Recreational and Camping Reserve at Point Lookout, reserves for Life Savers at Cylinder Beach and Main Beach, the Reserve for Camping near Kennedy Drive.
\nPoint Lookout reserve is a large area of natural bush between the main East Coast Road and the ocean and consists of the rocky headland known as the Point and three small beaches enclosed by rocky headlands and steep vegetated hillsides. All three beaches, Frenchman's, Deadman's and Cylinder Beach, have outstanding scenic coastal landscapes, both as seen from vantage points above and from within the beach landscape.
\nFrenchman's Beach is particularly notable for its scenic value, its scale and intactness and minimal development visible from the beach. A timber staircase leads from the main road to the beach and provides vistas of the beach and the coastal vegetation behind it. This vegetation is extensive and reaches up the high dunes to the road. At the bottom of the high dunes there is a large area of smaller sparsely vegetated dunes that contain depositions of volcanic ash.
\nCylinder Beach lies crescent shaped between rocky headlands, backed by natural vegetation behind the beach and on the headlands. Some of the vegetation behind the beach itself has been removed in past years to provide car parking and camping facilities, although sufficient remains to screen the development on the hills behind the beach. The vegetation on the southern-most headland, Cylinder Headland, is particularly dense and screens a church and other development along Hopewell Street.
\nCylinder Beach faces north and is the most popular swimming beach at Point Lookout. The beach often has a lagoon, which is a popular place for children to swim. Cylinder Headland is used as a vantage point to watch the surfers and the swimmers on the beach and to view Shag Rocks and Moreton Island, which can be seen in the distance.
\nDeadman's Beach lies between Frenchman's and Cylinder Beaches and is also contained by rocky headlands. Some housing development can be seen from the beach above the rocky cliffs and trees at the northern edge of the beach. The remainder of the beach has a dense backdrop of natural vegetation. The southern end of the beach consists of a series of rocky outcrops that contain numerous rock pools. The area behind this part of the beach consists of high dunes and a rocky cliff. The cliff known as Camel Rock is composed of rhyolitic volcanic rock that is heavily fractured and contorted. Where the cliffs join Frenchman's Beach they have eroded in part to form a cave of reasonable size. The high dunes are mostly vegetated, but in one area a large dune is denuded and consists of a large sand drift that is a popular play area for children.
\nSouth of these beaches is a large headland which is the main topographic feature of Point Lookout. It is composed of high rhyolitic cliffs that jut into the ocean. They form a landscape of steep sided narrow gorges, with rock shelves and rocky inlets. The two main inlets are North and South Gorge.
\nThe headland presents vistas from a walking track that follows the top of the cliffs from the site of the old camping and recreation area above South Gorge. The immediate view is of the Gorge and its swimming beach, and of Main Beach and Eighteen Mile Swamp to the south. Further to the east, the track provides panoramic views of the ocean and of Whale Rock with its blowhole. The track winds around North Gorge where there are views of waves breaking on rocks and of the narrow sand inlet at the base of the Gorge. The path then climbs to the headland overlooking Frenchman's Beach and back to the main East Coast Road. The whole walk is about one kilometre long.
\nThe indigenous Casuarina and Pandanus trees dominate the headland vegetation and Banksia and Brush Box the hillsides and more protected parts of the Reserve headland area. While much of the original understorey species have been replaced over time with intrusive garden plants, on the Point Lookout headland most of the grass cover and some of the native shrubs remain.
","history":"Captain Cook named the rocky headland on North Stradbroke Island 'Point Lookout' in 1770, as a warning to shipping. Although the area had been used and occupied for tens of thousands of years by Indigenous people, the first recorded European presence at Point Lookout was in 1803 when Matthew Flinders, returning to Sydney from an ill-fated exploration trip further north, sent men ashore at an area that is now known as Cylinder Beach to collect water from a spring.
Point Lookout remained isolated and although close to Brisbane was rarely visited. The first European settlements on Stradbroke Island were on more accessible parts of the island, where there was safe anchorage. A pilot station was set up at Amity in 1825, and a depot for stores for the penal settlement at Moreton Bay was established at Dunwich in 1827, though this was abandoned shortly afterward.
Warner carried out a survey of the coast from Point Lookout to New South Wales in 1846. This was only a beach transverse, but a survey of the Moreton Bay area by Dixon included an area at Point Lookout as one of a number of government reserves located in various parts of the bay earmarked for possible future use. However, development continued to be in the more accessible parts of Stradbroke Island and in 1850 a quarantine station was set up at Dunwich to be succeeded by a large government benevolent asylum in 1864.
In 1895 Bill North was granted an occupational licence for one year to run cattle around Point Lookout, and he built a hut at the Point and a cattle dip behind Adder Rock. He continued to use the land for a number of years, supplying the asylum at Dunwich with meat.
In 1902 North cared for five surviving crew members of the brigantine Prosperity, which was wrecked at night half a mile south east of Point Lockout. Two of the crew died and were buried behind the dunes on what has continued to be named Deadman's Beach.
Because the government used Stradbroke Island, like other Moreton Bay islands, for institutional purposes, the population of Brisbane did not consider these places as holiday destinations, despite their proximity and natural attributes. Amity Point developed as a small holiday resort, but it was quite separate from Dunwich. The only connection between the two places was by walking along the beach at low tide or along the route of the telegraph line.
The first settlement of Point Lookout occurred in 1932 when a substantial concrete lighthouse was built. A lighthouse and signal station was proposed in 1825 but did not eventuate and in 1848 the pilot station was moved from Amity to Cape Moreton because the South Passage was considered too dangerous. A hut was built to store acetylene cylinders at Cylinder Beach, which derived its name from this usage. Shortly after the construction of the lighthouse Bertie Clayton established a guesthouse above Main Beach. Guests arrived at Amity Point by launch and were collected by him by car and taken back to the guesthouse either along the beach, or at high tide, along a track beside the swamp adjacent to the beach. Clayton's guests were accommodated in tents with timber floors that later evolved into tent-like huts with concrete walls and fibrous cement roofs.
Land was surveyed and offered for sale by the Department of Lands. Most of the blocks sold were situated between the guesthouse and the lighthouse reserve with another small area on the hill behind Cylinder Beach. The land offered for sale was well away from the foreshores and wilderness areas, which were protected from development and made into a Reserve for Camping and Recreation.
In 1935 Hayles Cruises started a regular launch service from Brisbane to Amity Point. This allowed campers and others to visit the Point and encouraged some permanent and weekend settlement. Growth was modest and was halted by the war when the area was occupied by American and Australian forces and placed out of bounds to civilians.
After the War, which had little long-term impact on the area, the Point returned to being a holiday place. It was still difficult to access, requiring a three-hour launch trip from Brisbane and a bus trip over Clayton's rough track from Amity. Building at Point Lookout was difficult as all materials had to be transported from Brisbane by the same route. Some small permanent houses or huts were built mainly for holiday accommodation. A census taken in 1948 showed that the population consisted of 40 permanent residents, 20 holidaymakers in houses and 30 guests at the Samarinda Guest house, the name given by new owners to Clayton's Guest House. A new Clayton's Guest House was constructed behind Cylinder Beach.
The Benevolent Institution at Dunwich closed in 1947 and the area opened for settlement. In 1955 Stradbroke Island was made part of the Redland Shire and shortly thereafter a rough road was constructed linking Dunwich, Amity Point and Point Lookout. In 1957 a barge service was commenced from Redland Bay to Dunwich that allowed regular vehicular access to the island.
Point Lookout experienced an increase in growth and easier access brought it to the attention of the popular press, with numerous articles appearing in newspapers. Increased interest and demand for holiday housing led to the release of more sites for sale by the Department of Lands in the 1970s and 1980s. Growth since has been steady, but development has been small scale and mainly domestic. The Reserve has remained largely intact, although some land was resumed for subdivision in the 1970s and some development is now visible from the beaches.
Point Lookout headland has become a whale watching lookout and a point for observation of passing sea birds. It is a popular place to observe fish, turtles, porpoises, sharks and other marine life. A special vantage point is the headland overlooking Frenchman's Beach that affords good views of the water below.
","criteria":"The Point Lookout foreshore is significant for the rarity and importance of the cliffs to the understanding and appreciation of geology in Queensland.
The foreshore is important for its outstanding natural beauty, offering a wide variety of land and seascape elements and views. The foreshore with its outlooks to the north and south are comprised of a series of beaches, rocky headlands, gorges and rocks, areas of diverse vegetation and rugged water edges of rock ledges, blowholes, tunnels and reefs. It is an area of great diversity and aesthetic complexity and offers panoramic views of the ocean.
The Point Lookout foreshore is valued by the indigenous community of North Stradbroke Island for social, cultural and spiritual reasons and has social significance as a holiday place of long standing both with inhabitants of Stradbroke Island and with those who have been regular visitors.
|The Point Lookout foreshore is significant for the rarity and importance of the cliffs and sea caves in the Triassic rhyolites at Point Lookout to the understanding and appreciation of geology in Queensland.
|The foreshore is important for its outstanding natural beauty, offering a wide variety of land and seascape elements and views. The foreshore with its outlooks to the north and south are comprised of a series of beaches, rocky headlands, gorges and rocks, areas of diverse vegetation and rugged water edges of rock ledges, blowholes, tunnels and reefs. It is an area of great diversity and aesthetic complexity and offers panoramic views of the ocean.
|The Point Lookout foreshore is valued by the indigenous community of North Stradbroke Island for social, cultural and spiritual reasons and has social significance as a holiday place of long standing both with inhabitants of Stradbroke Island and with those who have been regular visitors.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17119,"place_ref":602258,"name":"Training Depot Drill Hall Complex (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Archer Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-06-05","description":"The former training depot drill hall has roughly a square floor plan. Viewed from the south or front elevation [Archer Street] it is divided into three equal gable roofed sections with a transverse gable over the drill hall behind. It is low-set building set on concrete stumps with a corrugated iron roof and is clad on three sides with weatherboard and has sash windows. The front is clad in an exposed frame and single skin tongue and groove 'V' joint vertical boards. There is a full length skillion roofed veranda across the western side.
Internally, the front and western sides of the building are divided into partitioned offices and other rooms. Internal walls and ceilings are mostly tongue and groove vertically-joined boards with a number of walls being covered over with plywood and fibro sheeting. A fibreboard and batten ceiling in the drill hall section has also been added to what was originally an open roof cavity.
The floor in the hall is tongue and groove hardwood. The office and vestibule areas have been covered with linoleum, carpet and tiles.
The rifle range is approximately 25 metres long with a backing board at the northern end. The backing board is angular in shape and approximately eight metres across and four metres high. It is constructed of double skin horizontal timber slats packed with gravel and earth in between each one. A metal plate on which the target was placed is positioned in the centre of the range at the base. It is located adjacent to the drill hall.
The former drill hall, relocated from Mount Morgan, and later used for administration and as a sergeant's mess, is located on the eastern side of the site. The former drill hall is a low-set rectangular building with a corrugated iron and plywood exterior on concrete stumps. The original core of the building has a gabled corrugated iron roof. A skillion roofed extension has been added to the southern end. Internally, the former drill hall has a combination of original tongue and groove, vertically-joined, single skin boards and more recent fibro, plywood and particle board partitions. The floor of the original building is 75 millimetre tongue and groove hardwood, with tiles and carpet in the extension at the southern end [the former sergeant's mess]. The original sash windows have been replaced with modern fittings. A veranda and outdoor pergola area extending back from the southern end of the building have been dismantled.
The former store is the former wagon shed removed from Mount Morgan at the same time as the former drill hall. The former wagon shed is a rectangular gabled roof shed with a corrugated iron exterior over a timber framework. There is no internal sheeting. Three sets of large hinged double doors across the western side provided access to the building. The building has no windows. The floor is a concrete slab with the exception of a small section of raised timber flooring at the northern end that has been partitioned off from the remainder.
The former Q Store, located in the north-east corner of the site, is a red brick, rectangular building with a hip corrugated iron roof with a small windowed loft/attic in the centre and a concrete floor. Internally, the building is divided into three equal brick walled sections each with large sliding double doors both sides of the building, giving access to Alma Street and the depot yard. Concrete ramps open to the yard side.
The only windows to the building are very high [at least two metres above the ground]. These are sash windows across both ends, protected by vertical steel bars. Two sections have exposed timber beams and rafters and the third section has had a fibro sheet ceiling installed. Other modifications to the place include some fibro sheet and vertically joined board partitioning and the addition of chip board flooring in the loft/attic to facilitate storage.
Other buildings on site include an administration building, originally constructed as a married quarters, located in the north-east corner of the site. The building is a low set rectangular building set on concrete stumps with a corrugated iron roof and hardiplank sheeted exterior. Internally, the rooms are partitioned with AC fibro sheet. The floor is timber. The adjacent carport/store has a colorbond square boxed sheet exterior over a timber frame with a roller door and skillion roof.
A second former married quarters, later used as an administration building, is located in the north-east corner of the site. The building is high-set on concrete stumps with a weatherboard sheeted exterior and a corrugated iron hip roof. The interior is partitioned with masonite walls with timber flooring and original casement windows.
Other buildings on site include, more recently constructed stores, administration buildings and sheds. The area where the memorial was situated now comprises a square of raised earth. Constructed around eight years ago, the memorial stone has been moved to the new premises on Western Street. The parade ground, a bitumen quadrangle, measures approximately 60 metres by 30 metres. The area served dual purposes as both a parade ground and parking enclosure.
","history":"The training depot drill hall was constructed in to specifications prepared by the Office of the Government Architect in May 1906 with additions to the southern side in 1937. Later additions to the site include the relocation of a drill hall and wagon shed from Mt Morgan in 1928 as well as the construction of a rifle range and brick Q Store by 1939. Further construction works were undertaken during and following the Second World War.
In the early 1850s, the Archer brothers, William and Charles, were the first to exploit the pastoral prospects of the Rockhampton region following favourable reports from the explorers Ludwig Leichhardt and Thomas Mitchell a decade earlier. The New South Wales Government proclaimed the new pastoral districts of Port Curtis and Leichhardt in 1854 and Charles Archer reached Gracemere in 1855. Rockhampton was proclaimed a town in 1858 and an official town survey was carried out by Arthur Wood.
At the time of Queensland's separation, defence of the colonies was linked to Britain and British foreign policy. There was no guarantee that the Royal Navy would be able, or willing, to protect the Australian colonies in all eventualities. Each colony therefore developed their own defence forces.
The Queensland government did not have the financial resources or population to establish a standing army; consequently, volunteer military forces have played a central role in the organisation of the defence of Queensland. Volunteer units were formed from 1860 onwards and regular training camps were organised as citizen soldiers became the foundation of the State's defence. These camps were held so that the various individual groups could train in larger numbers, a necessary requirement if they were to be an effective fighting force in the event of war.
A series of war scares in the late 1870s and an official survey of the colony's defences prepared by two military officers from England forced changes to Queensland's colonial defences. In 1884, the Defence Act was passed, completely reorganising the defence of the colony. The volunteer system was continued but augmented, with the establishment of the first permanent local force in Queensland. The permanent force included paid militia and volunteer units, as well as members of the Police Force Rifle Clubs. After the passing of the 1884 defence act the government authorised the construction of a large number of drill halls around the colony. Many were built in the suburbs of Brisbane, and in the major towns such as Ipswich, Warwick, Gympie, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns. Approximately thirty halls were constructed after 1884 and towards the turn of the century.
The training depot was situated on the northern portion of what was Section 25, the whole of which was originally designated a 'square' [recreation reserve]. The block bounded by Alma, Archer, Cambridge and Denison Streets was known as Leichhardt Square. In 1881, Leichhardt Square was proclaimed a Reserve for Public Purposes temporarily under the control of the municipality. In 1884, municipal control was declared permanent. Archer Park Railway Station was constructed on the southern half of the 'square' in the late 1890s and opened in 1899.
The northern portion of Leichhardt Square [the training depot] was gazetted as a Defence Force Reserve [R139] in 1901. The reserve was one of many sites nationally that was transferred from the state to the commonwealth at Federation for defence purposes. This included buildings, fortifications, guns, ammunition and stores. In Rockhampton, a total of £4,526 of land, buildings and furniture was transferred. The 'Drill Shed Reserve, Archer Park' was valued at £2,250 with no structures listed as being on the site at the time.
Before Federation the Queensland Defence Forces in Rockhampton are known to have utilised a site in Fitzroy Street. Prior to, or in addition to this, a shed near the court house was used. There is no official evidence of the use of the Leichhardt Square for defence purposes until 1901. The Fitzroy Street site was proclaimed a temporary drill shed reserve in 1886. At this time, it was considered that the defence movement in Rockhampton was likely to develop over the next few years and that, having four Corps with only one drill shed, the space was inadequate for the purpose without any spaced annexed to drill on. The 'one storey, brick drill shed', as the Fitzroy Street structure was described, was constructed in 1878, although it is not known whether it was purpose built. In 1901, following the creation of the Archer Street site, the Fitzroy Street reserve was rescinded.
The local council appears to have been reluctant to lose the Archer Street site and attempted to negotiate conditions. The council consented to the transfer of the remaining portion of Leichhardt Square to military authorities subject to the government transferring to the council a portion of land adjoining the hospital to the Hospital Committee, and giving the council a certificate of title for the Fitzroy Street site. It would seem that the council did not acquire the Fitzroy Street site as it was subsequently used as a drill hall by Navy reservists as well as the 11th Field Ambulance.
Specifications for a drill hall and offices for the defence force, Rockhampton were prepared by the Department of Public Works, office of the Government Architect in May 1906. The specifications included the construction of the drill hall and offices, tank stands, earth closet as well as a split paling fence and double gates. By 1911, when repairs were undertaken to the site, an armoury, to the east of the drill hall had been constructed. The contract included general repairs to the woodwork, doors, windows and fanlights. Gravel was also laid down around the main entrance to the drill hall. Those structures to be painted included the drill hall, the armoury, the earth closet, two tanks, the front fence and four gates. The roof and walls of the armoury was also to be colour-washed.
At the time of its closure, the depot was occupied by the 42nd Battalion, the Royal Queensland Regiment. The Battalion claims an association with the site from its inception. The Battalion traces its history as a volunteer reserve unit to 1884 when a reorganisation of the Queensland Defence Force occurred, providing for the 5th Regiment, two companies of which were raised in Rockhampton. The 42nd Battalion, Queensland Regiment, has particular associations with Central Queensland, first through the Port Curtis Regiment and then in 1927 the Capricorn Regiment. The 42nd Battalion was originally raised in December 1915 and served with distinction in both world wars, but its military ancestors in Rockhampton go back to 1860 when Governor GF Bowen on his first visit suggested that 'a corps of volunteer riflemen' should be raised to provide internal and external defence for the township and also 'to foster that spirit of independence and self-reliance, without which no people whose annals are recorded in history has ever attained a vigorous manhood'. The Volunteers became an integral part of the city. From the Volunteers rose men of the calibre of Colonel DD Dawson who in 1918 was in command of the 42nd Battalion CMF [after service in Egypt and Gallipoli] and Brigadier-General WG Thompson, who became one of the city's most distinguished citizens.
Other united to have occupied the site include the 3rd Battalion Queensland Mounted Infantry, 15th Australian Light Horse, 9th Field Ambulance, 35 Field Engineer Squadron, 107 Transport Company, 4 Transport Company, the Royal Queensland Regiment, Regimental Cadets and the Air Training Corps.
The drill hall, along with the armoury and earth closets, remained the only buildings on site until April 1928. At this time, three structures, a drill hall, wagon shed and earth closet, were removed from Mount Morgan and re-erected at the training depot. The drill hall and wagon shed, although modified, have remained on the property since that time. Plans to renovate the 1906 drill hall were carried out in 1937, when it was extended on the southern side. By 1943, the original armoury had been replaced with an ablutions and store block. A petrol/oil store was located to the west of the drill hall. This was later removed and a brick store was constructed in the north-west corner. The drill hall moved from Mt Morgan was being used for administration and also as a lecture hall, while the wagon shed moved from Mt Morgan was in use as a garage. By far the most construction taken place on the site was at the northern end. Buildings included another store, latrines, officers' mess and two buildings used as sleeping quarters, as well as an administration building, kitchen/officers' mess, other sleeping quarters and sergeants quarters.
By 1943 the brick Q store had also been constructed. According to the oral histories from those who were associated with the site, the Q store had been constructed at least by 1939. A section of this building was also utilised as a magazine, until it was decommissioned in the 1980s. During the Second World War, army medicals were held in the 1906 drill hall, which, by then, was also used as a recruiting depot. Similarly, in the 1950s, medicals for National Servicemen were held in the hall. The adjacent parade ground was the assembly point for servicemen on route to camp. Following the war, the drill hall was a popular venue for functions and dances and the 42nd Battalion used to cater for refreshments as a fundraiser.
By 1939, the rifle range has also been constructed. The range was used for firing 22 calibre bullets inside modified 303 and other rifles. This served the dual purpose of allowing reservists to have regular weapons handling practice and to provide experience prior to using larger calibre bullets at a regular, but less easily accessible, firing range. The range was used by school cadets from at least the Second World War. Besides defence units, the range was also used by civilian clubs, until the late 1980s.
At various times, sections of the 1906 drill hall have been used as a Q Store, armoury, sergeant's mess and secure storage for vehicles loaded with goods. Immediately before its decommissioning, the drill hall fulfilled a number of purposes for the 42nd Battalion, as offices for Battalion headquarters staff, officer's mess and hall. Battalion memorabilia were displayed in cases and on the wall at one end of the hall area. From 1939 onwards, the 1906 hall was not used for formal military drilling. The hall area was not considered large enough for drilling purposes and the parade ground was used for such activities.
Further work to the site following the war included plans for residences for married quarters in February 1957 and again in February 1958. In order to construct the buildings, the earlier [c1943] officers' mess was demolished. By the 1990s, the buildings no longer met requirements for married quarters and were used for administration purposes.
In October 2000, the 42nd Battalion officially vacated the Archer Street Training Depot, moving to a larger site at Western Street, near the Rockhampton Airport. Presently, the former training depot remains vacant.
","criteria":"The former Training Depot Drill Hall complex is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, particularly as the drill hall [1906] is a good, intact example of a post-Federation drill hall built prior to the increased construction of halls following amendments to the Defence Act in 1911. The drill hall is significant as a good example of its respective type and period and demonstrates the development of the site as a militia training depot. This scheme is visible in the fabric and layout of the drill hall and the parade ground.
|The 1906 drill hall is significant as a now rare example of one of the earliest extant, in-situ, drill halls in Queensland, and one of few remaining drill halls constructed prior to the First World War. Many of the extant drill halls in Queensland, for example those at Annerley, Albion, Kelvin Grove and Sandgate, were constructed post-1911, following the amendments to the Defence Act.
|With large spaces originally designed for internal drilling exercises and offices for companies assigned to the site, both the original drill hall and the relocated drill hall from Mt Morgan are significant as examples of the type of drill halls designed by the commonwealth government before and during the First World War. Particularly, the use of timber and corrugated iron was in response to a need for the buildings to be constructed efficiently and economically.
The associated buildings and structures on the site, particularly, the rifle range, the former married quarters, the 1914 wagon shed relocated from Mt Morgan, the various storage facilities, as well as the former brick Q Store, and kitchen and ablutions blocks provide further evidence of the use and evolution of the site, and the manner in which the participants spent time in the compound.
|Until recently, the Department of Defence had continuously utilised the site for at least a century. Whilst the numbers of servicemen and women who may have visited and trained at the site cannot be ascertained, their association with the depot is certain.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17120,"place_ref":602259,"name":"No.53 RDF Station","alternate_name":"Radar Hill","street_address":"Gulf Developmental Road","suburb":"MOUNT SURPRISE","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-07-12","description":"The remnant fabric of No.53 RDF Station, Mt. Surprise is dispersed over a wide area. The now collapsed radar control tower (part of the 'Doover') is located in the original position just beneath a rocky knoll at the northern end of Mount Lookout. From its location, excellent views are obtained west, north and east over the surrounding flat country. Extending southwards, other remnant infrastructure is located at various points on three small terraces at descending elevations and at the base of the hill where the encampment was located.
At the summit on the northern side there is a concrete roofed bunker (now semi-collapsed), excavated into the rocky outcrop, in association with a pit with circular concrete base and an embedded metal cylinder stood vertical. The metal cylinder has a handle and locking pin. This device is thought to be associated with a fixed machine gun. The pit is semi-ringed with excavated earth/rock.
Directly below the rocky knoll of the summit is a small flat terrace (8.2 metres x 8.8 metres) of granitic gravel/sand retained on one side by a low rock wall and an underlying concrete base for the Doover hut and tower. The Doover hut and tower, now collapsed and minus the transmitter/receiver (radar screen) and aerial etc, is essentially a four legged BHP steel frame structure with remnant elements of corrugated iron sheeting (for the hut which housed 2 radar operators and a mechanic). Small ventilation slits are evident in one corrugated iron sheet. Other surviving features include electrical wire and metal conduit pipe. Turning mechanisms lie close by on the pad while further turning gear is evident within the structure. It appears that some of the iron in the structure has been salvaged at some time in the past.
The entire summit including the Doover pad is encircled by remnants of a 9-10 strand wire/barbed wire fence strung on bush poles (local adaptation) and semi-flanked on the western, northern and eastern sides by small 'sentry posts' constructed from local rocks. A short swing arm is bolted near the top of some of the bush poles. The strategically placed 'sentry posts' offer good vantage points to the country below. They are typically a crescent shaped arrangement of rocks piled to create a low protective barrier. Three iron stay poles are affixed to the ground at separate points some distance from the Doover. The cement base in which one stay is embedded is inscribed with the initials FWG, RCR, ECL and the date 6.5.43.
Other local adaptations are evident. Ironwood and Ironbark trees, used as telephone poles, with ceramic insulators affixed to squared timber cross-arms bolted to the trees, still survive. An Ironwood tree (as telephone pole) adjacent to the Doover is a particularly fine example, with fine bush carpentry still evident. Also in evidence is the negligible regrowth (callousing) over the cut since its creation.
To the south, on a small terrace below the Doover, is an area of introduced granitic gravel/sand (7.4 metres x 11.4 metres) similar to that used for enlargement of the Doover pad. No building foundations are evident in this deposit however a linear stone arrangement and a small pit and mound feature can be seen. Excavation in this area may shed light on the former function.
Further south, close to the southern edge of the third terrace, is another collapsed bunker with concrete roof and associated pit with circular concrete base and an embedded metal cylinder stood vertical. The metal cylinder has a handle and locking pin. The pit is semi-ringed with excavated earth/rock. This structure closely resembles the other at the summit. Two rock-piled 'sentry posts' are found at slightly lower elevations near this second bunker/pit complex. They have roughly southern aspects.
A total of eight (8) rock-piled 'sentry posts' were noted at various points around the summit and third terrace.
Two concrete slabs of equal dimensions (4.0 metres x 5.6 metres) lie further south and downslope on the lowest (fourth) terrace. One slab is located on the upslope margin of the terrace and close by, to the west, an Ironwood 'telephone pole' tree with squared timber cross section and insulators. To the east of this cement pad a single strand of fence wire is strung from the ground and affixed high onto an adjacent Ironwood tree with wire netting attached to the lower part close to the ground (possibly a base for hessian camouflage netting). A number of possible walking pads zig-zag indeterminately upslope from this cement pad. The cement pad presents evidence of division into a roomed structure (with bolts protruding from the cement).
On the same terrace in a westerly direction is an identical concrete pad (4.0 metres x 5.6 metres) with protruding bolts and an adjacent Ironwood 'telephone pole' tree with squared timber cross-arms affixed with bolts. Nearby lies a fallen, partially burnt bush telephone pole and associated ceramic insulators and fixings (some now dislodged and lying separate).
A faint, wide track leads from the eastern cement pad in the direction of the other.
At the southern base of the hill is a T-shaped concrete pad with associated deep pit and collapsed cement slab with oval/circular holes. Another cement pad is located some distance away in a southwest direction. These features are thought to be associated with the encampment. Ongoing excavation into the southern base of Mount Lookout for gravel extraction may have significantly destroyed the encampment area. A long and narrow heap of piled earth was noted (11/3/2004) to contain cement and other metal debris.
","history":"No.53 Radio Direction Finding Station, Mt Surprise was established in 1943 as one of 25 RDF stations controlled by the Royal Australian Air Force No.42 Radar Wing Headquarters in Townsville. These stations were constructed across northern Australia to provide warning of potential Japanese aircraft raids on Queensland's eastern seaboard centres. They utilised the most secretive of new technology and for security reasons little was known by the wider community of their existence and function. Frequently much of the associated infrastructure at these sites was removed or demolished after the war.
In response to the Japanese military dominance in Southeast Asia and the western Pacific in 1942-43 and with the invasion of Australia seemingly imminent, a network of Radio Direction Finding (RDF) stations was established throughout the northern inland and coastal regions of Australia and Papua New Guinea and islands of the western Pacific. The Royal Australian Air Force constructed 25 RDF stations in northern Queensland, covering the area from Mackay to the Torres Strait, the Atherton Tablelands, Cloncurry district and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
No.53 RDF Station, Mt Surprise was a key link in the detection of low flying aircraft heading from the Japanese occupied Dutch East Indies via the Gulf of Carpentaria in the direction of Townsville or the Atherton Tableland, in the Cairns hinterland, where many Australian and American military units were undergoing jungle warfare training. Its other roles were to provide assistance to the Catalina flying boats returning to base in Townsville, following long-range patrol over Java and in the training of radar personnel prior to postings to 'active' areas.
Radio Direction Finding technology - later termed Radar to follow the American terminology - was developed by the British during the lead up to the second world war and was quickly shared with its major allies, including Australia. The enemy did not possess the technology hence its development and application gave the allies an edge at a crucial time during the war. The equipment installed at the Australian radar stations was mostly an Australian version of the original British technology. The British Aircraft to Surface Vessel Mk I was modified by Australia's Radiophysics Laboratory (RPL) to a Shore Defence or Coastal Artillery radar then rapidly modified again by RPL to become Air Warning Mk I. These Australian electronics were the first in the world to have a timebase which was virtually unaffected by voltage variations in the power supply. The Australian version was designed for the tropics and was lightweight and portable for installation in remote locations.
The installation at Mt Surprise was Australian designed: an Air Warning (AW) aerial on an AW tower weighing 12 tons, with AW electronics. It is likely that the station operated AW Mk2 equipment, designed to be assembled on site from a kit provided. The kit, known as a 'Doover', comprised the control tower, a hut for radar operators and mechanic, turning mechanism and radar transmitter/receiver screen and was hauled to the summit of the hill by flying fox. This rig proved extremely reliable and efficient in the tropics and was used by Australian, American and British forces. The operators' hut was lined with masonite and clad with galvanized iron and was supplemented by separate facilities for power generation and distribution, operations and signals. The radar screen in this equipment utilised a 5 inch cathode-ray tube built into the receiver cabinet. The generator likely was powered by a Ford V8 alternator and the aerial was easily put together as it was formed from piping and hand turned.
The Allied Works Council (AWC) constructed No.53 RDF Station, Mt Surprise in early to mid 1943. A camp was constructed at the southern base of the hill and consisted of mess, kitchen and toilet/washroom facilities and accommodation tents. Replacement of the tents with prefabricated masonite huts commenced in November 1943, with all but one replaced by the end of March 1944. One airman later recorded that it was a very comfortable camp. Water was pumped some considerable distance from Elizabeth Creek.
No.53 RDF was formed at Richmond, New South Wales on 15 May 1943 with establishment strength of 38 (including one officer). Thirty-six personnel departed Richmond on 19 July 1943 with an advance party arriving at Mt Surprise on 29 July. The officer in charge conducted an inspection of facilities and returned immediately to No.42 Radar Wing in Townsville with a report.
The remaining personnel arrived on 14 August 1943 when investigations were under way to locate a suitable airstrip. By the end of that month, a camouflage party from the Department of Home Security was engaged at the station. During this time black-out lighting was installed, preparation of slit trenches was under-way, fixed weapons had been installed and small arms were issued to the airmen whose defence training included shooting expeditions in the surrounding country. Defence preparations continued in January 1944 with the construction of a 25 yard shooting range.
The radar installation was completed on 15 August 1943. Initially, No. 53 RDF obtained very few radar plots and there was uncertainty as to whether this was due to technical limitations (ie. lack of range of the equipment) or due to absence of aircraft within reasonable range. Within three months the equipment was determined to provide excellent results at long range. In February 1944, despite technical difficulties and the Station operational on reduced power, results at up to 100 miles range were achieved.
The rapid early development in radar technology was evident at this station with the installation of an interrogator (equipment designed to receive and interpret signals to detect if an aircraft was 'friend or foe'). The Station Diary (A50s) records that the interrogator installation party arrived by aircraft on 14 December 1943 and had the equipment operational within two days.
Station morale was maintained by the periodic visits of various padres on chaplaincy duty and officers of the 25 OBU (Operational Base Unit) who showed educational films and discussed technical courses. Fraternising with locals was not prohibited and generally took place at the nearby Mt Surprise hotel which was restricted to wartime rations of one nine gallon keg per week; at the weekly dances; and at cricket matches (eg. 'singles' vs 'marrieds'). Other recreational pursuits took the form of a comprehensive PT program including gymnastics and swimming parades. Overnight fishing expeditions to deep water holes along Elizabeth Creek were organized through the local police station and there were shooting expeditions to the surrounding country.
Rations were supplemented by the raising of young pigs captured during hunting expeditions to the surrounding country. Captured piglets were kept in a pen near the encampment and fed on kitchen scraps until considered rid of their objectionable wild taste.
Diary entries record the occasional disruptions to radar watch caused by normal and special maintenance or technical difficulties and the periodic visits of RAAF technicians to undertake special maintenance. Other interruptions arose from the occasional storm and disruptions to the power supply and interference to the otherwise poor telephone communications leaving the station totally isolated.
As the threat of invasion by Japan declined, significant operational changes occurred at No.53 RDF. From 22 May 1944 the previously continuous radar watch was reduced to four hours daily and by the end of June, operational strength was reduced to 18. Hitherto, operational strength had varied between 29 and 41.
On 8 January 1945 the Station was placed on a 'care and maintenance basis' with reduced personnel after which its operational strength rapidly declined as staff were deployed elsewhere. The Station was relocated to Pitt Town, New South Wales on 2 June 1945.
Throughout its entire operational period, No.53 RDF Mt Surprise never detected any enemy aircraft and was never confronted with any hostility.
The former encampment area at the southern base of Mount Lookout is now the site of a local shire council gravel extraction operation.
","criteria":"No.53 RDF Station, Mt Surprise is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being surviving evidence associated with the early development and use of radar technology to provide an air warning system to assist in the defence of Australia during World War Two. As one of a small network of 25 coastal and inland radio defence finding stations established in northern Queensland in 1942-44 it is significant for the role it played in providing an early warning mechanism for Townsville and for the many Australian and American units at training camps dispersed throughout the Atherton Tableland.
|No.53 RDF Station demonstrates a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage. It was one of a small network of RDF stations established in northern Queensland during the World War Two. Much of the associated infrastructure with these sites was removed or demolished after the war and there has been attrition at these sites since 1945. Each site is important in displaying adaptation to the particular location characteristics and topography.
|The associated archaeological remains at No.53 RDF Station have the potential to provide valuable information contributing to an understanding of Queensland's history. Analysis of the surviving infrastructure could assist in understanding how radar stations were spatially arranged and constructed in response to the particular features of the chosen site; the physical problems encountered by the Allied Works Council (AWC) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) personnel while working and living in an isolated part of inland Queensland; and the specific adaptations to the challenging local environment. Scattered artifacts and archaeological remains (rusted metal, concrete slabs, bunkers, pits and sentry posts etc) could reveal information about the technology applied in the construction and operation of World War Two radar establishments, including temporary military buildings and structures and the associated communications infrastructure.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17121,"place_ref":602260,"name":"RAAF Operations Building Site (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Green Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The former operations building is the major building on the site. It comprises two sections. The lower section is constructed of reinforced concrete with a flat concrete roof, floor and walls and the second story, a building resembling a house constructed on top of the concrete building. Internally, the lower section of the main building has a central corridor running roughly east-west lengthways, with rooms opening off the corridor. These rooms housed the former receiving room and signals office. At the eastern end of the building some walls have been removed to create a larger space now used as a lecture room. The room has a tiered floor and rendered walls. The section remains largely in its original form with only minor alterations, including the removal of the original mechanical ventilation system.
The upper section is a typical tropical building with a pitched roof, larger overhangs, louvred and casement fenestrations and exposed stud timber wall framing. The interior of the building is lined with plywood. Internally, the upper section has a number of room opening from two corridors. A strong room is located in the north-east section of the house. The upper section has had the verandah enclosed and bathroom and kitchen facilities modified. The roof sheeting has been replaced with colorbond. Some of the louvred panels have been removed or sheeted over. The area beside the house, covering the lower section, has been sheeted with bitumen. This area was formerly camouflaged with garnished netting.
The former Orderly Room, later used as a recreation room by the SES, is a low set single building with a rectangular plan form with a combination of a gabled roof and skillion roof disguising externally the size of the single internal space. The building has been extended with two small lean-tos. The main building has a corrugated fibro roof with weatherboard cladding. The additions are clad in fibro sheeting with a corrugated iron roof. A kitchen and bar have been added to the building by the SES. A suspended grid ceiling has been installed throughout the building.
A number of ancillary structures are also located on the site. The rappel tower (post 1969) is a timber pole structure with elevated platforms on two levels. It was constructed for SES training.
","history":"The former RAAF Operations building was constructed in 1942 as an operation and signals building for the Royal Australian Airforce. The building was operated in association with the Royal Australian Airforce Base established at Garbutt some kilometres to the west, and the United States Army Air Force Base. The lower section was constructed of reinforced concrete with a flat concrete roof, while a timber 'residence' was built on top of the operations building to conceal it from the air.
Townsville was established as a port in 1864, in association with pastoral expansion of the time. Pastoralists had pushed the frontier of non-Indigenous settlement north as far as Rockhampton by the late 1850s. In search of additional productive runs, pastoralists continued moving north along the Queensland coast and inland. The Townsville site was recommended to the Queensland government as a suitable port by two pastoralists, Robert Towns and John Melton Black, being part of Black's pastoral holdings. Land was sold from 1865 when the town was proclaimed a port of entry and a small settlement developed. By 1866, Townsville supported banks and hotels, wharves and stores and a local newspaper.
By the late nineteenth century, Townsville had established the necessary infrastructure to be the dominant city of the north. Apart from the port, the railway head and the location of the Supreme Court in the north, there were other things in its favour, and the town was proclaimed a city in 1902. In the early 1920s, the rail line from Brisbane to Townsville was completed, prompting further development within the town fuelled by these transport links. By 1940, when the Second World War was being fought predominantly in Europe and North Africa, Townsville had a population of about 30,000. With the entry of the Japanese and Americans into the war in late 1941, the population of Townsville swelled with a huge influx of both Australian and American troops. Military personnel outnumbered civilians by more than three to one as the population headed towards 100,000.
The Australian Airforce was established on 31 March 1921, becoming the Royal Australian Airforce [RAAF] on 31 August of the same year. Prior to that, the Australian Flying Corps [AFC] had begun in 1914 and was based at Point Cook, in Victoria, where aviation training was carried out. Administratively, however, the AFC was part of the existing armed forces, and it was not until the formation of the RAAF that an independent air force was established as part of the Australian armed services.
An airfield for civil aviation was established at Townsville by the city council in the late 1920s. The site of this field was quite poor, however, and an alternative site at Garbutt, west of the city centre, was chosen for a new airfield. This site was part of the large reserve of low-lying land known as the Town Common, used primarily for grazing. Land was cleared and the airfield prepared, opening in January 1939 and operated by the Townsville City Council. Facilities were almost non-existent, with a single runway consisting of a gravelled path.
The increase in Japanese military activity in the Pacific in the late 1930s led the Australian Government to establish air bases in the north of Australia. The Department of Defence began negotiations with the Townsville City Council to transfer the Garbutt aerodrome to the Commonwealth in early 1939. The acquisition was completed on 12 December 1940 and construction of a series of buildings began for the RAAF on site, including hangars, workshops, accommodation buildings and mess rooms. The existing lightly gravelled runway, originally 100 feet wide, was upgraded to RAAF status to 150 feet and lengthened. By mid-1941, 24 Squadron of the RAAF were based at Garbutt. Civil aviation also continued at the site during this period.
The base was further developed by the Americans in late 1941. War was looming in the Pacific in the early 1940s, as it had in Europe in the late 1930s. The Americans required bases in the region to maintain supplies to their forces in the Philippines, and by late 1941 the United States Army Air Force [USAAF] was in Townsville to develop its own facilities at the RAAF base. The American base, United States of America 4th Air Depot, Garbutt, was planned for aircraft repair and assembly. A large camp was constructed with 35 'igloo' type buildings used as repair shops, stores and office accommodation.
With the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 7 December, 1941 the Americans had been brought into the war. The Japanese advance south was swift and successful, taking the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaya and Rabaul in January and Singapore in February 1942. In the same month Darwin was bombed. Faced with the threat of invasion, [Townsville was put on invasion alert on 1 May 1942], the Australian and American Governments began to develop a major military base in the Townsville region. As a result, the air base at Townsville was further expanded as thousands of troops descended upon the city. Further air fields were developed west of Garbutt, and further west again at Charters Towers and Macrossan. The sphere of influence of the Townsville base was much wider than before. Townsville became the base for North East Area Command, with its major responsibility the protecting of sea lanes to the north to Port Moresby.
During the war, particularly in the early part of the Pacific campaign, the Townsville air base was crucial to fighting. Along with Darwin, the base was one of the principal air transport centres in Australia, an important air base of strategic value. It was also one of the few air bases in Australia from which fighter aircraft engaged enemy aircraft.
The operations building at Green Street was constructed in 1942 as part of the rapid development of the Garbutt air base, after the commencement of the war in the Pacific. The site chosen for the building was some kilometres from the air force base, in an undeveloped portion of land that contained one or two sheds and fowl houses. This area may have been part of the Town Common, providing a common area for grazing and tending to animals. The operations building did not need to be located on the air base, and in some respects, it was more appropriately sited off base. The activities carried out within the building were not strictly related to the daily operations at the air base, but were however, quite sensitive and extremely important to the Allied war effort.
Drawings for the building were prepared in April 1942 by engineers in the Department of the Interior. The drawings indicate the sensitive nature of the building. The building's function was not referred to in any construction drawings. It was usually referred to as 'RAAF Project No 81' or 'Reinforced concrete building No 81', and the drawings for the preparation of the site were stamped 'SECRET'.
It is likely that the building was constructed by the Allied Works Council [AWC], the organisation established to coordinate the construction of wartime buildings in Australia. The AWC was established in February 1942, and undertook most of the construction of the necessary wartime infrastructure such as buildings like the one at Green Street. AWC records indicate that a reinforced concrete operational control building in Townsville had been completed by June 1942. Its construction had been designated an 'A1' priority, and its total cost was £30,000. The building described is quite probably the one in Green Street.
Designed as a rectangular building of reinforced concrete construction, a 'traverse' or protective wall, three metres high, was shown on drawings, constructed around the perimeter of the building to protect it from attack. The external walls and all the internal walls of the operations building were constructed of reinforced concrete. To disguise the building from the air, a separate building was constructed at one end of the flat roof of the building. Of timber construction with a corrugated iron dwelling, this additional dwelling was designed to resemble a typical domestic dwelling, so that when viewed from the air, the complex would be inconspicuous.
Internally, the reinforced concrete building contained a crew room, operations room, a signals office, receiving room, rooms for intelligence, navigations, signals and meteorological offices, an emergency power plant and a telephone exchange. A cypher room and strong room were also provided. The building had its own air conditioning system; a small fan room separate from the main part of the building was constructed to the west of the main building and provided air conditioning plant and servicing to the operations room. Air conditioning ducts were run through the main corridor of the building.
A separate orderly hut, lavatory block and miscellaneous hut were also constructed. The two hut buildings had 'dummy' stove recesses to further disguise the nature of the site. The construction drawings indicate that the iron to be used on the roofs of the buildings was to be painted to look older than it actually was. The drawings of these buildings were prepared in August 1942 by ET Doig, the Superintending Engineer of the Department of the Interior.
The building functioned as an overall communications centre for the base of the North East Area command, an area on the north-eastern coast of Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria and up to Port Moresby. The movements of Australian aircraft within this strategic area were controlled from this building. Flight operations were planned and monitored from here, briefing and debriefing sessions with pilots were carried out. In May 1942 the Battle of the Coral Sea was fought, a naval and aerial assault against the Japanese off the north-east coast of Australia. A significant Allied victory, the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first major repulse of the Japanese in the Pacific after their series of successful conquests south since December 1941.
While designed to resemble a residence, the timber building constructed on top of the operations building was a major part of the facility as well. An L-shaped structure, it contained rooms for an adjutant, an orderly's room, and warrant officer and an engineer officer, as well as another strong room. There were no internal links between the buildings, the timber building being accessed by timber staircases to the ground. A flower box, shrubs and an artificial tree were placed around the building to emphasise its domestic appearance. The drawings prepared for the building indicate that 'timber' battening and supporting posts were to be painted on the traverse, again, to hide the presence of the operations building. Further camouflage work was undertaken on the remaining section of the concrete roof in the form of garnished netting.
Camouflage is an important component of the art of warfare. The term came into use during the First World War and was derived from the French term 'camoufler', meaning to 'make up for the stage'. A general definition of camouflage is the 'art of concealing that you are concealing'. All manner of war material and personnel can and have been camouflaged.
The manner of camouflage employed at the Green Street site, with the construction of a house on top of the concrete ground floor was that of concealment. From the air, the operations building would have looked like a typical Queensland house. Further, the other buildings on site, with their dummy stove recesses, skillion roofs and other disguising elements, would not have been conspicuous. Techniques like this were popular ways to disguise structures from the air. In many instances large factories were disguised by draping equally large camouflage nets across them that were painted in such a way that from the air the scene resembled a typical residence or rural landscape. In America during the Second World War, aircraft factories in California were concealed in this way.
The Green Street site was not the only intelligence unit in the area, nor was it the only camouflaged building. The Royal Australian Air Force operated the No 1 Wireless Unit at Stuart. This was a highly secret post intercepting aircraft transmission signals. A RAAF officer, serving in Townsville described a visit to a telegraphists' bunker at Stuart:
'My first impression was that it was an old farm house. It had been camouflaged with verandah rails and doors etc. and it wasn't until you got right up to it that you realized that you were looking at a solid concrete building. Inside there were about thirty operators sitting in front of receivers and a real live Japanese who was an interpreter and ...was not allowed to leave the station. The only external evidence that there was something unusual going on was the aerial array... '1
The use of camouflage in Australia was not uncommon. The East Sale RAAF base in Victoria was constructed in such a way that from the air it looked like a country town. Other examples include the roofs of buildings being painted to make them appear like tennis courts.
The form of the former RAAF Operations building, a reinforced concrete bunker below, and a timber residential building above, to disguise the lower building, is a now rare example of a camouflaged building from the Second World War surviving in its partially camouflaged form. Other elements of camouflage indicated on drawings at the time, such as the artificial tree and the painting of stumps and balustrading on the traverse no longer survive. The traverse is also no longer extant, demolished at an unknown date. The major aspect of the camouflage however, the timber 'residential' upper floor still survives and allows the building to be understood.
Other examples of a camouflage site in the Townsville area include the No 1 Wireless Unit which still exists, located a few hundred metres from the main highway, however, it is not in as good condition as the Green Street site. Also the Signals Bunker, Stuart [601708] has remnants of its external camouflage colour scheme, chosen to blend with the pink granite of Mt Stuart, still evident.
Thousands of Allied forces were concentrated in Queensland and a vast expanse of military infrastructure was constructed to accommodate this influx of personnel and equipment. Much of the work was of a temporary nature and relatively little evidence remains to demonstrate the extent and nature of military activity. Most buildings and infrastructure were dismantled and removed soon after the cessation of hostilities in August 1945.
Until 1943, the air base in Townsville was a joint operation between the Australians and the Americans. In June of that year, control was handed over to the Americans alone, and remained that way until early 1945. The threat of Japanese invasion, however, had receded by late 1942, after the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The air force base at Townsville, and the operations building at Green Street, lessened in importance as wartime operations moved north and Townsville's air bases became large workshop areas in the later years of the war.
There are few records regarding the Green Street site and the operations building at the time of the war's end. A request however, was made to the Department of the Interior in June 1947 to officially acquire the Green Street site. The Commonwealth acquired title to the site in 1951. The RAAF base in Townsville was always considered a permanent base, and after the war the base was reduced in size to that originally planned before the war.
The RAAF was located at the Green Street site until the late 1960s, when with the changes in the organisation of the air force, the building was no longer required. While the site has remained in the ownership of the Department of Defence, the State Emergency Services [SES] in Townsville has been based at Green Street since the late 1960s when RAAF operations was relocated to another site. Some buildings on the site from the wartime period have been removed with the SES occupancy of the site, while others have been added. While no technical equipment remains inside the building, or on the rest of the site, the building is still available as a 'remote operations headquarters' for the nearby RAAF base if required in times of war or national emergency.
A review was undertaken by the Department of Defence in 1996, identifying properties that could be rationalised. The Green Street site was earmarked for disposal as part of that review. The building is no longer owned by the Department of Defence.
","criteria":"The former RAAF Operations Building site is significant as part of the infrastructure developed in Townsville during the Second World War, a time when the population of the town trebled with the influx of Australian and American troops. Functioning as an overall communications centre for the base of the North East Area command, an area on the north-eastern coast of Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria and up to Port Moresby, the former RAAF Operations building site is significant as one of a number of Second World War structures and complexes which survive in the Townsville area, demonstrating the substantial role the region, and particularly Townsville, played in the war in the Pacific.
|The former RAAF Operations Building is significant as a rare and substantially intact example providing evidence of the use of sophisticated camouflage techniques developed during the Second World War. While there are similar buildings of this type and of the same period that survive, the former RAAF Operations Building is particularly significant as it has been only slightly modified since 1942.
|With its reinforced concrete construction and timber 'residence' placed over for camouflage purposes, the building is a good, intact example of this type of wartime construction with the evidence of concealment still in place. Other examples of a camouflage site in the Townsville area include the No 1 Wireless Unit which still exists, located a few hundred metres from the main highway, however, it is not in as good condition as the Green Street site. Also the Signals Bunker, Stuart [601708] has remnants of its external camouflage colour scheme, chosen to blend with the pink granite of Mt Stuart, still evident.
|The former RAAF Operations Building site has a special association with the Australian and American military personnel in north Queensland during the Second World War, and with the work of the Allied Works Council in coordinating wartime construction activity at a national level.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17124,"place_ref":602317,"name":"Mountview House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"37 Leichhardt Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-13","description":"Located on a prominent ridge in Spring Hill, one of Brisbane's oldest residential suburbs, Mountview house is a two-storeyed stone and brick building with two-storeyed verandahs on three sides. Situated on a corner, facing Leichhardt Street to the north with Downing Street to the west, it is built up to the Leichhardt Street alignment. Side gardens separate the house from Downing Street and the eastern neighbour.
The house is raised half a level above Leichhardt Street on a masonry base. It consists of two major parts, the original rectangular planned stone core on the east, abutting a brick extension on the west. A smaller brick wing and other more recent extensions are located on the south side of the building. Due to the angle at which the building faces the Leichardt Street alignment, the front façade steps back at the junction between the stone and brick sections. The stone used appears to be local porphyry, squared and laid in rough courses. The brickwork has been painted.
The stone core and western brick extension have separately framed hip roofs clad in painted corrugated iron. A box gutter runs between the two main roofs. A rendered masonry chimney emerges from both roofs. The chimney on the stone core is larger, having multiple flues.
The verandahs on the front façade are not continuous due to the stepping back of the western brick wing. The verandah, which wraps around the northern, eastern and southern sides of the stone core, is enclosed with cement sheeting and louvres. An open verandah on the front of the western brick wing is set back from the enclosed verandah, running into the sidewall of the stone core. It has cast iron balustrades, timber posts and a shingle valence between the upper and lower levels. The shingle valence can also be seen built into the enclosed verandah. The verandahs have skill ion roofs that are hipped at the corners and ends. The overhangs on the verandah roofs are wider than those on the main part of the house.
Located in the space created by the setback of the brick wing, the front entry stairs are built into the masonry base. The stairs terminate in a small entry porch, a timber framed, flat roofed structure with a timber-battened valence that is attached to the western end of the enclosed verandah. A door opens off the entry porch directly into the stone core of the building. A steel framed stair links the lower level of the open front verandah with the side garden.
The brick wall on the western side of the building, the only side without a verandah, has five double hung timber framed windows with six paned sashes. A single storey extension with a brick parapet wall and shallow pitched roof has been built on the southwestern corner of the building. This relatively recent extension abuts an older southern brick wing with a low-pitched hipped roof and projecting corbelled brick bay. An open timber staircase connects the eastern garden with the upper level of the southern verandah.
From the entry porch, the front door opens into a wide hallway. The hallway, located in the stone section of the building, contains a staircase that leads to the upper level. In addition to the hallway space, the stone core has two rooms on each level, all containing fireplaces with timber mantelpieces and opening onto the enclosed verandahs. Openings in the thick masonry walls have deep timber reveals and timber architraves. Some timber paneled doors remain but French doors from the openings onto the enclosed verandahs have been removed. The enclosed verandahs have been partly lined with cement sheeting and the stonework walls facing onto the enclosed verandahs have been painted.
Access to the western brick extension is directly from the entrance hall. This section of the house consists of a single large room on each level. A fireplace, flanked by double hung windows, is positioned in the centre of the western wall on the lower level. On both levels, a door in the north wall leads to the open north verandahs. Bathroom and laundry facilities have been built into the upper level of the southern verandah.
Windows throughout the older part of the building are generally timber framed double hung sashes. Internal walls and ceilings are plastered and painted and floors are generally timber.
The brick wing at the rear of Mountview house is accessed from the lower level of the southern verandah. It consists of a single room and contains remnants of a former fireplace. The other additions to the rear of Mountview House include a large kitchen area and storeroom and are of relatively recent construction.
","history":"The earliest section of Mountview House, a two-storeyed stone residence, is believed to have been erected in the 1860s for Brisbane foreman carpenter Daniel McNaught. A two-storeyed brick wing designed by architect Andrea Stombucco was added in 1882, when the house was converted into a preparatory school for boys.
This part of Spring Hill was surveyed officially into suburban allotments in 1856, but was soon subdivided for closer residential settlement by speculative landowners. Along with Kangaroo Point and Petrie Terrace, Spring Hill was among the earliest of Brisbane's dormitory suburbs, attracting wealthier residents to the high land along the ridges, and the less affluent to the hollows in between: Hanly's Hollow [between Wickham Terrace and Leichhardt Street], Spring Hollow [between Leichhardt Street and Gregory Terrace], and York's Hollow [to the north of Gregory Terrace - an area occupied by a number of brick-makers in the 1850s and 1860s].
The site on which Mountview House is located was part of a larger parcel of land [suburban portions 177 and 178, parish of North Brisbane - totalling just over 2 acres] with a frontage to Leichhardt Street, purchased from the Crown by Brisbane draper RA Kingsford in November 1856 at a sale of Villa Allotments at Hanley's Valley, Brisbane. In the early 1860s this property was surveyed into 18 residential allotments and a 40 feet wide road, later known as Downing Street.
In January 1863, Daniel McNaught of Brisbane purchased from Kingsford subdivisions 1 & 2 of suburban portion 178 [37.3 perches], at the corner of Leichhardt and Downing streets, located on the highest ground in Spring Hill. By September that year, McNaught had taken out a £450 mortgage on this property, from fellow Spring Hill resident, Robert Bourne. It is possible this helped finance the construction of Mountview House.
Daniel McNaught, a Dumbarton and Glasgow trained carpenter, and his wife Barbara Ure, were amongst the first wave of Scottish immigrants to Queensland, arriving at Moreton Bay via the immigrant ship Artemisia in late 1848. For three years in the early 1850s Daniel prospected on the New South Wales goldfields, but in 1855 returned to Brisbane where he worked for his brother-in-law, businessman and contractor John Petrie [his sister, Jane Keith McNaught, had married John Petrie in Queensland in 1850]. From the early 1860s McNaught was manager of Petrie's joinery works, and as foreman carpenter supervised the finishing of many of Petrie's most significant construction projects, including Parliament House, the Supreme Court, the Brisbane Hospital and the Brisbane Gaol on Petrie Terrace. Like many of the early Scottish immigrants, Daniel McNaught was active in local politics in the 1850s, opposing the re-introduction of convict labour and working for the separation of Queensland from New South Wales. He was a prominent and long-term member of the Wharf Street Congregational Church, a director of the City and Suburban Building Society from its inception, and a Magistrate of the colony.
It is thought that John Petrie constructed and/or designed Mountview House for the McNaughts in the 1860s, possibly initially as an investment rather than as their home, as Daniel McNaught, carpenter, is recorded as resident in Creek Street in the 1868 and 1874 Post Office Directories. However, the McNaugths were resident at their Leichhardt Street property in 1876, the year in which Mrs McNaught died. By this year also a small timber cottage had been erected at the rear of Mountview House, fronting Downing Street [No.8], which was occupied by their son John Ure McNaught, a Queen Street bookseller and stationer. By 1878 Daniel McNaught had moved into the cottage, and Mountview House was occupied by Presbyterian minister Rev. JF McSwaine.
In 1880 Daniel McNaught took out two mortgages on his Spring Hill property, totalling £1850, and from 1 August 1881 Sarah Cargill held a five-year lease on Mountview House, which she ran as a boys' preparatory school. In January 1882, title to the property [which included both Mountview House and 8 Downing Street] was transferred from McNaught to Mrs Rebecca Thorn, who honoured the lease with Sarah Cargill. It is likely Mrs Thorn commissioned the 1882 additions to Mountview House, designed by Brisbane architect Andrea Stombucco, for Sarah Cargill's Boys' Preparatory School.
By 1883, Daniel McNaught had left Downing Street, and at his death in 1891, aged 67 years, was resident at Edgar Cottage in Amelia Street, Fortitude Valley.
In 1890 Rebecca Thorn sold off 16 perches at the rear of Mountview House, containing No.8 Downing Street, retaining Mountview House on 20.7 perches. By this year, Mrs Mary Glandford was utilising Mountview House as a boarding-house, and the building continued in this function for several decades.
Following Rebecca Thorn's death in 1916, Mountview House was transferred by her devisees to Joseph O'Donnell of Brisbane, who established a motor garage at the corner of Leichhardt and Downing streets [33 Leichhardt Street], and occupied Mountview House as his private residence. He may also have continued to operate the place as a boarding house.
In 1937 O'Donnell sold the property to James Walter Cloughley and Miss Annie Ellen Cloughley, both of whom in 1938 also acquired title to 8 Downing Street - the 16 perch subdivision from the Mountview House grounds sold by Mrs Thorn in 1890. Under the Cloughleys, Mountview House functioned as a tenement building. In 1954 they sold 8 Downing Street and in late 1955 transferred Mountview House to the principal partners in the Brisbane architectural firm of Ford Hutton and Newell - Peter Edward Newell, Theodore Bernhard Hutton, Neville Henry Lund and Bruce Donald Paulsen - who refurbished the building as offices. Since the 1970s the building has served as both residence and professional offices.
","criteria":"Mountview House, a c1860s two-storeyed stone residence with 1882 additions, is important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular the pattern of residential settlement in the capital city, Brisbane, in the mid-19th century. It is also important historically for its association with the first wave of Scottish immigrants to Queensland, including the McNaught and Petrie families, and their contribution to the expansion of the colony.
|The place has rarity value as one of comparatively few c1860s stone buildings to survive in Queensland and is important in illustrating features of an 1860s residence, including two-storeyed construction in stone, verandahs, fireplaces, a chimney and a hipped roof.
|The place has rarity value as one of comparatively few c1860s stone buildings to survive in Queensland and is important in illustrating features of an 1860s residence, including two-storeyed construction in stone, verandahs, fireplaces, a chimney and a hipped roof.
|Located high on one of the principal ridges through Spring Hill, the place has landmark value and maintains an important contribution to the streetscape of Leichhardt Street. Additions to the original 1860s core, including the brick wing added by Andrea Stombucco and the entry porch, have been well designed and enhance the aesthetic appeal of Mountview house.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17131,"place_ref":602323,"name":"Big Fig","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Station Street","suburb":"MIRIAM VALE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-01-06","description":"The Big Fig (Ficus benjamina) is situated in an unused corner of the Station Street road reserve bounded by a railway fence to the north, a private fence to the east, Blomfield Street to the south and Station Street to the west. Both streets are sealed and a drain has been constructed opposite the trunk of the tree on Station Street.
The site is located in the commercial centre of Miriam Vale, close to the railway station, and adjacent to the War Memorial Park to the west, which lies between the Fig Tree and the Miriam Vale Hotel on the other side of Blomfield Street, opposite the railway station. The Big Fig is easily identified when entering the eastern end of the main street, which tourists travelling through to Agnes Waters and the Town of Seventeen Seventy must do. The Big Fig is associated visually with Miriam Vale Shire Council's town beautification scheme along Blomfield Street, in which the reserve on the railway side of the street has been converted into a long, tree-lined park fitted with amenities for local residents and tourists.
The trunk of the Fig Tree is approximately 12 metres in circumference, and the canopy has a span of approximately 30 metres east to west, by 35 metres north to south. The lower branches of the tree near the trunk are very high and thick. The outer limits of the canopy droop down to near ground level on the western, northern and eastern sides. The crown of the canopy is between 10 and 15 metres high.
There is no grass cover under the canopy to the west and south of the tree, and sparse ground cover near the fence lines of both the railway yard and private property. Leaf litter covers most of the ground surface beneath the canopy. The tree root system protrudes from the trunk and surface roots are evident to the west and south of the trunk.
","history":"The Big Fig at Miriam Vale is thought to have been planted around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, local residents recalling the Fig Tree as being well established by the 1920s. It was a focus for community activity, both social and economic, through much of the 20th century. The tree is a well known landmark and meeting place in the town, and until 1977 served as the site for the collection of local cream and milk for rail or road transportation to Gladstone, dairying being an important economic activity in the Miriam Vale district.
Miriam Vale pastoral run was one of the earliest established in the Port Curtis district, reputedly taken up in January 1854 by Arthur PJ Chauvel and Joseph Sharp, along with the runs of Urquhart, Polmaily and Walton, soon after the proclamation of the Port Curtis Pastoral District on 10 January 1854. Acceptance of their tender for these runs did not appear in the New South Wales Government Gazette until 9 June 1857. Walter Blomfield, reminiscing in 1949, states that cousins Edwin Cordeaux Blomfield [Walter's father] and EK Cox purchased the lease, along with 8,000 sheep, in 1856, although the lease was not recorded in Queensland as being transferred to Cox and Bloomfield until 1869. Early squatters in the area concentrated on wool production, exporting their produce via Gladstone, which was established in 1853-54.
In 1868 Cox and Bloomfield applied under the conditions of the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868 for their runs Woodlands, Miriam Vale and Polmaily to be consolidated as the Miriam Vale run and Silex, Ilex and Gochen to be consolidated as Bulburan. Miriam Vale was divided into resumed and leasehold sections in 1869/70, but there was little demand to open this land for selection. Some Miriam Vale land had been taken up as freehold by 1884. In January 1875 a telegraph office was opened at Miriam Vale, and a post office was established there in April 1877, reflecting a population increase in the district.
The first Miriam Vale selections were made available in 1889, encouraging new settlers into the area. Saw milling was an important adjunct industry, as the land was cleared for grazing or agriculture. Miriam Vale was first listed as a separate district in the Queensland Post Office Directory of 1892. It had a population of about 60, but no real township. The post office was located at Miriam Vale, but closest settlement appears to have been in the Mt Jacob area at that time. In 1893 the Miriam Vale Hotel was established and the Miriam Vale Post and Telegraph Office was made official.
The township of Miriam Vale was surveyed in 1895 in anticipation of completion in 1896-97 of the final segment of the Gladstone-Bundaberg section of the North Coast Railway. The route passed close to the Miriam Vale Post and Telegraph Office on House Creek, and the Miriam Vale Railway Station and township were established in the vicinity. The opening of the railway to Gladstone on 1 October 1897 had an immediate impact on the development of the Miriam Vale district. With ready access to markets now available via the railway, 90 Miriam Vale blocks were thrown open for selection between 1897 and 1902, and district residents listed in the Post Office Directories jumped from 26 in 1896-97 to 83 in 1900. The Miriam Vale State School was opened on 14 July 1897.
Dairying emerged as an important economic activity on these selections, boosted by the establishment of a butter factory at Gladstone in the early 1900s. In September 1904 the Port Curtis Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd was formed at Gladstone, with the express purpose of establishing a regional butter factory, which opened at Gladstone about March 1906. Located adjacent to the main railway line, it provided an accessible market for cream produced by regional dairy farmers, including those at Miriam Vale.
The Big Fig at Miriam Vale is located close to the Miriam Vale Railway Station. It is a Ficus benjamina, which is an introduced species to the area, and may have been planted as a Queensland Railways initiative following construction of the North Coast Line through the Miriam Vale district in 1896-97. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Queensland Railways Department promoted ground and garden improvements at its stations, and encouraged the planting of quickly growing, large-canopied trees which would help to keep down dust and provide travellers with shade. Near several of the railway stations along the Bundaberg-Gladstone section of the North Coast Line a single large Ficus benjamina has been planted, suggesting that the tree at Miriam Vale was part of an early Railways Department tree-planting scheme. However, this has not been confirmed, and there are several local stories suggesting that the tree was planted in the early 1900s by differing early residents.
Older Miriam Vale residents can recall the tree as having reached a substantial size by the 1920s and 1930s, such that horses could be tethered underneath it while their owners attended to business at the nearby general store, and children played in its branches. The Big Fig has provided a shady meeting spot for generations of Miriam Vale residents, and since construction of the nearby war memorial in 1921 has provided welcome shade for many Anzac Day meetings. Farmers and their drays [later trucks] congregated under the tree while waiting for their cream cans to be loaded onto the train to Gladstone. In the 1950s/1960s a Gladstone veterinarian regularly visited Miriam Vale, where he conducted consultations beneath the Big Fig.
The tree maintained its connection with the dairy industry through the mid-20th century, serving as a collection point for dairy farmers bringing cans of cream to be loaded and transported by road to Gladstone when the first motorised truck began carting cream from Miriam Vale to the Port Curtis Dairy Factory in 1952. By this year a ramp, facing Blomfield Street, had been built alongside the trunk of the Big Fig for the loading of cream and later milk cans onto the back of delivery vehicles. The place served as an easily accessible and shady location for farmers to assemble and wait for their produce to be loaded. During the 1960s, the original loading ramp was replaced with a new ramp, and an early fence and gates, reputedly constructed around the tree and cream/milk collection area by Queensland Railways, was demolished. The new ramp was built facing Station Street, and remained until at least 1977 when the last contract for the milk run to Gladstone was cancelled. Several small earth mounds to the north of the trunk of the Fig Tree are all that remain of the second ramp.
The Big Fig is an instantly recognisable landmark in Miriam Vale and its expansive canopy has provided a shady resting place for generations of travellers passing through the town to Agnes Waters and the Town of Seventeen Seventy. It has recently been adopted by Miriam Vale Community Development Inc. as its official logo. Plans have already been made by this group for the future conservation of the tree, with a board walk, rest area and interpretive information planned to be constructed beneath the Big Fig.
","criteria":"The Big Fig at Miriam Vale, adjacent to the Miriam Vale Railway Station, is thought to have been planted around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. During much of the 20th century it had an important association with the development of dairying in the Miriam Vale district, being associated with the collection of Miriam Vale cream and milk for transport by rail, and later road, to Gladstone for processing.
|The Big Fig has aesthetic qualities which have contributed significantly to the Miriam Vale townscape since at least the 1920s, and which are valued by the Miriam Vale community and visitors alike. The tree is a well-known landmark in the town, and is recognised by, and is familiar to, visitors who pass through Miriam Vale to the coastal holiday towns of Agnes Waters and the Town of Seventeen Seventy.
|The Big Fig is significant as a popular meeting place for generations of Miriam Vale residents, and the current Miriam Vale community holds the historical, social and tourism values of the tree in high esteem.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17139,"place_ref":602326,"name":"Bell Park","alternate_name":"Botanic Gardens Reserve","street_address":"Hill Street","suburb":"EMU PARK","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-04-29","description":"The Botanic Garden remnant known as Bell Park consists of Park and Recreation Reserve. The Park is an area of 11 hectares bounded on the south by Hill Street, to the west by the caravan park and swimming complex, to the north by Lions Park and to the east by the Pacific Ocean. No longer a densely vegetated area as it was described in the 1890s, Bell Park has large, open, grassed areas with some more formally planted rows of hoop pines, particularly in the southern section of the park.
Access to Bell Park is from Hill Street with low timber fencing marking the car park area from the remainder of the park. Bell Park contains a range of mature pines on the eastern border [sea side] and open grassed areas. Other areas of mature vegetation include hoop pines along the Hill Street entrance to the park; pines and coconut palms in the south-west corner; along the western boundary near the caravan park and particularly, in the northern end of the park, an area that generally, has less infrastructure than the remainder of the reserve.
Structures within Bell Park include a timber tower thought to be a judges box/starters box, near this structure is a large, open grassed area said to be a runners track; two timber rotundas, one constructed with tree trunks for uprights, while the second rotunda has uprights made from sawn timber. A timber stall is located to the north of the timber tower and located near this stall is a large, mature ficus sp.
Bell Park has other facilities available including toilets, play equipment, footbridges and concrete pathways for pedestrian access. A brick stage with a concreted area is also located in the park.
","history":"Bell Bark was gazetted in 1899 as a Reserve for Botanic Gardens and Public Reserve, following an earlier gazettal in 1892 as a Reserve for Public Purposes. Following developments, particularly in the early 1910s with the establishment of pathways and seating by the Emu Park Ladies Improvement League, the Reserve became a popular venue. The popularity of the park was re-established during the 1940s when large company picnics were held there. Bell Park is still very much valued by the community and continues to be a focal point as a recreational destination for residents and visitors.
In 1867, residents of Rockhampton signed a petition asking the Surveyor-General to mark out a town at the nearest point on the central Queensland coast where they might be able to enjoy a day at the beach. The place selected was on the Cawarral cattle run, owned by Messrs Ross, Beddome and Palmer. By 9 January 1869, a proclamation appeared in the Queensland Government Gazette declaring Emu Park a Town Reserve.
One of the more important aspects of Emu Park's development occurred with the establishment of a railway line from Rockhampton in 1888. The survey for the line was begun in 1885, and on 30 September of that year, Parliament approved a direct line via Lake's Creek. To save the expense of bridging the Fitzroy River, the line started from North Rockhampton, and as a result of this, was to be the creation of two separate railway systems for Rockhampton, similar to Bundaberg. The original survey by Robert Ballard called for a line traversing a mangrove swamp for a distance of six miles [eleven kilometres] for the run into Emu Park. The permanent survey for the line however showed that the Ballard route was situated below the high water mark. A cheaper [but longer] route was adopted instead. Fountain Brothers were awarded the contract on 27 October 1886. Heavy rain interrupted construction, however the line was opened on 22 December 1888, in time for the Christmas period. During its history, sometimes as many as five trains, with up to 13 carriages each, were handled by the turntable at the Emu Park Railway, especially on picnic days.
Whilst the Rockhampton to Emu Park line was predominantly a recreational line, within twenty years of its proclamation, Emu Park, with only a small local population and dependent on Rockhampton for support and assistance in almost every aspect of its development, had a railway line, new school, boarding houses and hotels to cater for visitors as well as other service facilities. Most significant however, were the number of private holiday homes being established in the town
Emu Park was made even more accessible when, in late 1899, the Rockhampton Junction Railway was completed. As a result, people further afield, including Mount Morgan residents, could enjoy a break at the beach. From the outset, two trains ran each way daily including Sundays and three on Saturdays.
As the town of Emu Park developed, the Emu Park Progress Association, sought to preserve an area facing Fisherman's Beach close to the town. It was an area of greenery, that was considered to be unique in the area. Correspondence of 9 December 1889 requesting the improvement and proclamation of the area as a Park reserve was sent from the Gogango Divisional Board to the Under Secretary for Lands in Brisbane. This request, was initially rejected, but was however, successful later, when in 1892, an area was set aside as a Reserve for Public Purposes. The same area was re-established, in 1899, as a Reserve for Botanic Gardens and Public Purposes. This area was later to be re-named Bell Park.
Originally, the Botanic Gardens Reserve included an area of around 40 acres from Hill to Pybus Streets and from the coast to the railway yards. The gazettal was sought to preserve the 'natural' garden space rather than any intention to create a formal botanic garden. Located on the sea front, the Botanic Gardens was considered to be an oasis of beauty and recreation for families and visitors, in the middle of the original Emu Park township. In 1906, the Livingstone Shire Council [The Livingstone Shire was formed by a change of name from Gogango Shire on 8 August 1903] requested the Deeds of the Botanic Gardens Reserve and the adjacent Fishermen's Reserve. This was granted and gazetted on 16 May 1908.
Whilst it was gazetted as a Reserve by 1892, the Botanic Gardens Reserve did not become easily accessible to the public until the early 1910s. By 1915, souvenir pamphlets on Emu Park advertised the assets that was the Botanic Gardens Reserve. At this point, Reserve was still predominantly dense brush and was described as breaking the 'unvarying sweep of the shore.' Also by this time, the care and maintenance of the Reserve was being undertaken by the Emu Park Ladies' Improvement League, headed by the President, Mrs E Bell.
The League had a small fund to carry out works such as the opening up of pathways and the provision of seats and tables. By c1920, the timber rotundas had been constructed in the Park. It was suggested at the time that, whatever is done in the direction of upkeep and maintenance should be done carefully and that the all too common error of opening up straight tracks of any sort to the beach, should be 'most carefully avoided.' The Botanic Gardens was renamed Bell Park in the 1930s, in recognition of Mrs Bell and her role in organising the opening up and maintenance of the park.
By the end of the 1940s, the days of large, company and community picnics had become well established. The annual picnics of the Central Queensland Meat Export Company at Lakes Creek and the Rail Department, Rockhampton, developed into huge proportions. The Mount Morgan community, particularly those associated with the mine also showed much support for Emu Park as it was the only resort on the coast that was easily accessible by train.
Earlier in Emu Park's history, Mount Morgan Limited had arranged for picnics for employees, however these ceased after 1927. By 1949, when a social club run by employees was established, picnics of the mine employees continued once again. The social club developed its annual picnic at Bell Park, often with 3000 or more people attending. An advance party of four would arrive at Emu Park three days before to prepare the ground and other necessary arrangements for marquees, races and catering. On the day of the picnic, which was generally near the May Day weekend, the first train left Mount Morgan at dawn, with the last train returning by midnight.
A section of Bell Park with a long, grassed area is suggested to be the area where races were held. The races were called by a person located in a nearby timber tower.
On 3 August 1950, the Botanic Gardens proclamation was rescinded in favour of a Park and Recreation Reserve [R666] and a Camping and Recreation Reserve in two parts [R665 - which now comprises Lots 31 and 92]. A caravan park is now established on Lot 31 and controlled by Livingstone Shire Council as is a swimming pool complex.
Recently in a study on open spaces and recreation areas in the Livingstone Shire, it was recommended that areas of cultural significance and high scenic value be protected. As one of the most popular parks in the Livingstone Shire, Bell Park is included in this study.
","criteria":"Bell Park is significant for its continued use as a cultural and recreational destination at Emu Park, which was established as a resort town for the people of Rockhampton and surrounding areas in the 1860s.
|Further, the judges box and the associated running track are particularly significant for their rarity.
|With its mature vegetation and landscaped areas, built structures including timber rotundas and judges box, and its sweeping easterly views toward the Pacific Ocean, Bell Park is significant for its visual amenity and for the contribution it makes to the Emu Park townscape.
|Bell Park is especially important for its strong social significance. For over 100 years, the area has held a special association with the people of Emu Park and surrounding area, with the community actively involved in the gazettal of the original densely vegetated area in the early 1890s, through to the activities of the Emu Park Progress Association and Emu Park Ladies Improvement League and later, when large company and community picnics were held in the grounds of the park. Bell Park is generally held in high regard by the community and is a popular place for visitors to Emu Park.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17144,"place_ref":602329,"name":"Allison Testing Stands (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"116 Lamington Avenue","suburb":"EAGLE FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-08-05","description":"The site comprises four sections, six open engine testing stands constructed in 1942, two enclosed testing stands constructed in 1943, two open stands constructed in 1943 and the concrete flooring and footings of a hut and warehouse. The chief characteristic of the site is the functional nature of the design of each section.
\nThe most prominent features of the six open engine testing stands constructed in 1942 are the six reinforced concrete walls which separated the testing stands and provided a degree of protection against excessive noise or a propeller malfunction. Stands 1 to 4, numbered from the north, have been constructed on a raised concrete platform 40 cms above ground level. Parts of its flooring have been raised higher above the general level of the platform. They indicate the positions where each engine stand and its respective control cabin would have stood.
\nMost of the remaining evidence of the purpose and working life of the site is on the platform. Of the monorail above each engine, only the vertical I-beams, cut off at their base, indicate where they were situated. Engines and propellers were manoeuvred into position using a block and tackle which ran along this monorail. Four steel circles set in the concrete, the legs of the barrel-type engine stands cut off at their base, show the engine stand position. What remains of the timber sleeper and bitumen floor along the frontal width of stands 1 to 4 delineates the position of the propeller arc. Drum caps, steel plates and pieces of cloth are embedded in the bitumen.
\nThe two enclosed stands from 1943 have been constructed using brick walls set on a concrete foundation. The pattern of the 35 centimetre thick walls is a variation of English bond. The roof of each is reinforced concrete and features eight vertical fins. The southern enclosed stand is open at both its eastern and western ends and has a concrete floor. Two doors and two windows open towards the central area in which a brick control cabin with a reinforced concrete roof is located.
\nThe design and construction of the northern enclosed stand mirrors that of the southern one. The horizontal I-beam section of a monorail, rated for a maximum loading of 2 tons, is positioned close to the ceiling at the eastern end of this stand.
\nOf the two walls built to protect workers in the two open testing stands constructed in 1943, only one remains standing. The control cabin that served both stands is built of concrete, while two distinct, raised platforms on each side of the control cabin, both with the circular footprints of the barrel-type stands, attest to the position of the test engines. Oil residue indicates the position of the propeller arc.
\nTo the north-west of the enclosed test stands are the concrete footings of a hut constructed in 1942. Immediately north of this are the footings and concrete floor of a warehouse constructed in 1943. Both are surrounded by concrete pavement.
\nMost sections of the stands site have altered little since the fixtures used for engine testing were removed, however modern concrete block walls constructed to ceiling height in the northern enclosed testing stand have created a secure room occupying approximately one third of the structure.
","history":"The Allison Testing Stands (former) was an aero engine testing facility constructed in three stages during 1942-43 for the purpose of static testing of engines from the General Motors-Holden's Ltd overhaul plant at Breakfast Creek, Brisbane. Simple and functional in design, the site encompasses six open stands constructed by servicemen of the 81st Air Defence Group of the 44th Depot Repair Squadron; two enclosed engine stands constructed by the Allied Works Council; two open stands of unknown construction; and a concrete pavement area which is the site of former associated buildings.
The first Allison Testing Stands were constructed on the eastern side Schneider Road and the Eagle Farm Aerodrome in November-December 1942 as a consequence of arrangements made for Australia to serve as a stronghold for United States (US) operations in the Pacific during World War II (WWII). The area, however, had previous links with aviation.
The original Eagle Farm Aerodrome, west of Schneider Road, was established by the Civil Aviation Branch of the Department of Defence in 1922 as the civilian landing ground for the city of Brisbane. Prior to this the 34 hectare site had been used for dairying by previous owners, David Wilson and William Lynn. Other dairy farms continued to operate nearby, most significantly that on the eastern side of Schneider Road on sub A allotment 4 portion 3, Parish of Toombul, County of Stanley which from 1922 was owned by George Franklin.
To foster the development of civil aviation at Eagle Farm the Civil Aviation Branch constructed a government hangar (1924) and a caretaker's cottage (1925). In 1927, in its first expansive step away from Longreach, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited or QANTAS, erected a hangar and commenced operations there of the Brisbane Flying School. By late 1930 Queensland Air Navigation Ltd operated scheduled services north to Townsville from Eagle Farm Aerodrome, while Australian National Airways Ltd flew passengers south to Sydney.
The effects of years of above-average rainfall on the low-lying estuarine land forced the Civil Aviation Branch in 1928 to establish an alternate site where future expansion would not be restricted. In 1931 Archerfield Aerodrome, to the south of the city, was designated Brisbane's aerodrome. Both the government and QANTAS hangars were reconstructed there that year. The Eagle Farm site reverted to grazing land leased by Margaret Wilson and David Campbell. By arrangement, on weekends members of the Brisbane Gliding Club conducted flights using a winch launch.
Not until the first half of 1940 was the Eagle Farm site reconsidered as a landing ground for powered aircraft. It served as a relief landing ground for pilots from the Royal Australian Air Force's (RAAF) No. 2 Empire Flying Training School based at Archerfield Aerodrome until late 1941.
The attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 hastened the strategic role Australia played in providing the bases and armaments needed to fight the war in the Pacific. Well placed to the south of battle lines and with resources of labour that could be allocated to the purpose, Brisbane played a primary role. At Archerfield companies such as Aircraft Pty Ltd, Australian National Airways Pty Ltd, and QANTAS commenced the repair and maintenance of aircraft, including engine overhaul, for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).
From mid-January 1942 an Aircraft Erection Depot was established for the USAAF on the Eagle Farm aerodrome site. Constructed at an eventual cost of over £250,000, it served initially as an aerodrome where aircraft shipped to Australia could be reassembled. Later, captured enemy aircraft were test-flown and assessed by the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit based in Hangar No. 7 (Second World War Hangar No. 7, QHR 601007).
The Queensland Main Roads Commission and its contractors extended the original Eagle Farm aerodrome to accommodate three runways and eight hangars. Such was the pressing need for these facilities that, where necessary, American service personnel participated in the construction.
The repair and maintenance of aircraft was another matter. From 1939, companies in other Australian states had been involved in manufacturing aircraft engines for the RAAF, notably the Gipsy Major engines for DH82 Tiger Moths and single-row Wasp radial engines for the Wirraway fighter. From the beginning of 1942, as part of the general gearing up of industry in Queensland, aviation companies commenced the overhaul of aircraft engine for the USAAF. Australian National Airways Pty Ltd at Archerfield Aerodrome produced its first two reconditioned radial engines in May 1942. Initially their mobile engine testing facility, consisting of an engine mount framework and control cabin on the chassis of a truck, was sufficient.
The Allison engine was, however, an in-line, liquid-cooled, V12 engine. The Allison company operated in the United States from the 1920s. In 1935 it was taken over by General Motors. To overhaul the numbers of Allison in-line engines needed for aircraft such as the Kittyhawk fighter, the Australian subsidiary of this company, General Motors-Holden's Ltd, was contracted in the latter half of 1942 to establish an overhaul and assembly plant in an igloo warehouse at Breakfast Creek. At its peak, this dedicated facility was capable of overhauling ten engines per day. Initially 180 men and women were employed. The site later doubled in size and approximately 530 workers were employed there. As in the other aircraft repair workshop, many were women who had had no previous experience with aircraft components.
From a monthly output of three engines in December 1942, the Breakfast Creek plant increased to a peak of 116 engines per month in April 1943. Subsidiary contractors such as the Toowoomba Foundry Pty Ltd were involved in the re-boring of engine block components.
All reconditioned engines had to be tested. Supplied by the USAAF for this purpose were field units believed to be of the 'Jacobsen' brand. Each comprised one fully equipped control cabin and two barrel type engine stands on four circular legs. Above the control cabin were the reservoirs of fuel and oil needed to 'run-in' and test the new engines. Inside the control cabin an operative monitored a series of instruments, keeping a log of temperatures and pressures as each unit was brought gradually up to maximum rpm and run at this 'red-line' speed for five minutes. The test schedule for each engine involved up to an hour to set up, then several hours to test-run and de-rig.
From June 1942 Commonwealth representatives processed the compulsory acquisition of land encompassed by the first extension to Eagle Farm Aerodrome. Included was the dairy on sub A allotment 4 portion 3 on the eastern side of Schneider Road operated in 1942 by Clara M. Franklin and her son. Here the fixed testing stands for the planned output of Allison engines were constructed. All buildings, other than the original farmhouse, were demolished.
Members of the USAAF 81st Air Depot Group, a unit formed in May 1942 and based at Eagle Farm, erected the first six stands in October-November 1942. Around this time a system of connecting roadways were constructed around the stands and adjacent to the north, a hut. Only men were employed here in the round-the-clock shifts of Australian civilians and American servicemen. On 13 August 1943 a reporter for the Courier-Mail described the work as the 'noisiest war job' (p4).
Complaints about the noise by Brisbane residents possibly influenced the design of the next two enclosed testing stands, plans for which were drawn up in March 1943. Including contingencies, their estimated cost was £12,254. As these two brick sound-proofed stands, a slab for a warehouse to the immediate north of the earlier hut, and the additional two open stands also erected in 1943 were to the north of the original row of six, more land was required.
For the purpose of this 1943 extension to the testing stands, resubdivisions 1-30 of sub C of allotment 4 of portion 3 of Parish of Toombul County of Stanley initially were hired through the RAAF. Not all the land was needed though. Resubdivisions 1-6, upon which most of the extension's buildings were constructed, belonged to Christopher Gills.
Also influencing the construction of this extension was a May 1943 request by General Douglas MacArthur for an engine overhaul capacity within Australia of 1,950 engines per month, 600 per month of which would be Allison engines. To cope with these projected numbers, several buildings within the former Rocklea Munitions Works were converted for aircraft engine overhaul.
Such a large output required a new testing facility, planned for construction in a Rocklea quarry. Originally 42 test cells with 21 control cabins were envisaged. It was hoped these especially designed brick structures would reduce the noise level of continuous testing to the point where it did not affect the health of operators, or be a nuisance to nearby residents. Following progressive downgrading of overhaul operations in Brisbane from July 1944, only eight of the Rocklea engine test cells were completed.
Priorities changed as the Pacific war moved further away from Australia. Fewer aircraft engines were overhauled in Brisbane. The departure for New Guinea in April 1944 of the 81st Air Depot Group added imeptus to the discontinuation of operations. The field units of control cabins and engines stands were removed. The permanent testing stands at Eagle Farm were described as not having been in use for some months by late December 1944.
When the Eagle Farm airfield was returned to civilian use after the war, the Allison Testing Stands were simply left standing. Aerials and historic photos indicate that sometime between 1944 and 1946 the hut to the north of the stands was removed. Part of the northernmost enclosed testing stands was converted for storage with the installation of two concrete block walls. Aerial photographs from the period indicate that between 1974 and 1978 the warehouse was removed or demolished.
Eagle Farm airport was closed in 1988 when a new airport was constructed to the north. In 2002 the Brisbane City Council acquired the airport site from the Commonwealth. The land was transferred to TradeCoast Land Pty Ltd in 2005 and a master plan was prepared to guide its development as an office park and for warehousing. The testing stands along with Hangar No. 7 (QHR 601700) are now the only structures remaining from the use of the site as a major airfield during WWII.
","criteria":"The Allison Testing Stands site is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the period of rapid mobilization of available resources in Queensland in 1942-43 for the Pacific theatre of war during World War II.
|The site demonstrates rare aspects of Queensland's history. Until the mass overhaul of engines during World War II necessitated fixed testing sites, the task of engine testing was a mobile activity. Of the two fixed testing facilities constructed in Brisbane during the war, only this site, which incorporates three different designs of testing stand, has survived.
|Because of its position in the aero engine overhaul process, the Allison Testing Stands site has a special association with the group of Queensland civilians whose labour for the Aircraft Production Commission contributed to the war effort. Most had no previous experience with the engineering aspects of aircraft engine overhaul.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17146,"place_ref":602331,"name":"Einasleigh Hotel","alternate_name":"Central Hotel","street_address":"Daintree Street","suburb":"EINASLEIGH","lga":"ETHERIDGE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-02-06","description":"The Einasleigh Hotel is the principal building in the township of Einasleigh, and the only two-storey building. The hotel is located on the main street of Einasleigh, facing east and overlooking the Einasleigh Gorge.
The hotel is rectangular in plan, and timber framed, with a hipped roof of galvanized corrugated iron that extends over front and rear verandahs. There is a single-storey, skillion-roofed extension to the southern elevation and a two-storey, gable-roofed addition attached to the southwest corner of the building. There is also a single storey extension to the rear verandah, in the northwestern corner.
The walls to the verandahs are single-skin horizontal chamferboard with exposed timber stud framing. The northern and southern walls are clad externally with ripple iron, and have bull-nosed metal window hoods. The rear verandah on both levels is enclosed with corrugated galvanized iron sheeting.
Both front and rear upper verandahs have a simple two-rail dowel balustrade, and timber posts support both the upper and lower verandahs. The front upper verandah's balustrade is a recent (metal) replica. The lower front verandah has a deep valance of corrugated galvanized iron, with a (non-original) shark-tooth pattern along the bottom edge, and the painted lettering 'EINASLEIGH HOTEL'. Above the balustrade on the upper rear verandah there are pivoting panels of corrugated iron, which can be opened for ventilation.
The current ground floor plan includes a dining room on the south side, which contains a door to a small office in the enclosed section of the southern skillion extension. An east-west corridor, with a stairway to the first floor, divides the dining room from the bar room to the north. Evidence of two fires can be seen above the bar. The bar room is divided from a games room by a modern partition wall with a large opening, which has recently been panelled with timber from the collapsed Dance Hall. Four doors in total open onto the ground floor front verandah. To the west of the dining room is the enclosed rear verandah, with a pantry and stairs to the first floor. Behind the bar room and games room is a storage area and cold room within the enclosed rear verandah, which has been extended to the west.
Internal walls on the ground floor vary from vertical tongue and groove timber boards, to horizontal chamferboard, to fibrous cement.
The first floor of the hotel retains a high degree of integrity. Interior partitioning is single-skin, vertically jointed tongue-and-groove timber boards, creating ten bedrooms, each reached from either the front verandah, or the rear verandah. An east-west corridor, containing the staircase from the ground floor, divides the four larger bedrooms in the south from the remainder. From each bedroom, French doors open directly onto the verandahs. Each leaf has three panels, the upper two being of opaque glass and the lower panel of timber. Above each set of French doors is a timber fretwork ventilation panel. However, two of the original 12 bedrooms have been converted into bathrooms. An older bathroom is located on the top floor of the two-storey extension to the rear verandahs.
Kitchen, north elevation
Behind the southern end of the rear verandah is a semi-detached, single-story kitchen, set on a concrete slab, with a gabled roof. The external walls are clad in corrugated galvanized iron, and it is internally clad with fibrous cement. The kitchen is connected to the rear verandah by an awning.
Other structures in the rear yard include a covered breakfast area west of the kitchen, a timber and corrugated iron clad laundry west of the breakfast area, and a concrete-block structure containing toilets, behind the northern end of the hotel. A large fig tree stands behind the toilets. A modern demountable residence is sited in the northwest corner of the property. South of the hotel, running in a line from east to west, is a modern hardiplank shed on a cement pad, an old corrugated iron clad skillion-roofed shed on a cement pad, a modern gabled aluminium shed, and an old corrugated iron clad engine shed with a steeply pitched gable roof. Southwest of the engine shed is a small timber-fenced yard with a skillion roofed shelter, probably a stable.
The structures which are not of historical significance include: the toilet block; the covered breakfast area; the laundry; the hardiplank shed; the modern aluminum shed; the demountable residence; and the two caravans on the property.
","history":"The Einasleigh Hotel (known as the Central Hotel until 1999) was constructed between August 1908 and June 1909. It is the sole survivor of five hotels that were trading in the copper mining town of Einasleigh by the end of 1910.
Pastoralists settled the Einasleigh district in the early 1860s and copper was discovered in the area in the mid 1860s. Richard Daintree, in partnership with William Hann, established a short-lived open-cut copper mine on what was then thought to be the Lynd River but which later proved to be a separate watercourse and was named the Einasleigh. Ore was excavated and carted in bullock drays to Townsville, but despite good returns, the costly freight made the mine unprofitable. The partners ceased work and the mine entrance was sealed. After the death of Daintree in 1878, the exact location of the mine was lost for some years.
Renewed mining interest in the Einasleigh River district was stimulated by the 1890s boom in copper and railways, resulting in 12 copper leases being developed in the area by 1899. A township, known as Copperfield, was established on the banks of the Copperfield River to service the new leases. This was surveyed as the township of Einasleigh in 1900, by which time two hotels, a general store, a billiard room, a butcher's shop and a bakery had been erected. The 1902 Queensland Post Office Directory for Georgetown lists John Evason at the Einasleigh Hotel and JP Steele at the Daintree Hotel, both in Einasleigh.
In 1900 John Moffat of the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company had acquired an interest in the Einasleigh Copper Mine, which was to prove the premier base metal producer on the Etheridge and which attracted southern capital to the field. Between 1900 and 1924 the Einasleigh Copper Mine produced 8,107 tons of copper, 2,288 ounces of gold and 131,284 ounces of silver. It also brought a long-wanted transportation link, with construction of the Etheridge Railway between Almaden and Forsayth (formerly known as Charleston). Prior to the railway, copper had to be transported to Almaden by camel. The line was constructed by the Chillagoe Company in order to access ore supplies from the Einasleigh Mine, as the Chillagoe field was producing insufficient ore to keep the smelters running. The line was operated by Queensland Railways. The railhead reached Mount Surprise in 1908, and by February 1909 it was 22 miles from the Einasleigh Copper Mine. By July 1909 the railhead was 20 miles past Einasleigh, reaching Forsayth in January 1910. As a consequence of the copper mine and the railway, Einasleigh became, for a brief period, a prosperous township. It was the largest centre in Etheridge Shire between 1907 and 1910, and served as the supply centre for the Oaks gold rush and its later township of Kidston.
Miners employed by the Einasleigh Copper Company in 1908 numbered 50 and approximately 6,000 tons of ore was transported to the Chillagoe smelters. By 1909 staff had increased to 105 and nearly 11,000 tons of ore was sent to the smelters. The mine had started to come into full production and ore trains were running six days a week from Einasleigh to the Chillagoe smelters by 1910. This level of mining activity required in addition to miners, a railway crew to keep the trains running efficiently and many teamsters to supply the mine's huge wood requirements. During this period around 8-10 teams were working in Einasleigh.
The 'boom' times in Einasleigh did not last long. The First World War (1914-18) interrupted Australian access to overseas mineral markets and led to the closure of mines in the Einasleigh area and elsewhere. One ore train per week ran from Einasleigh to the Chillagoe smelters. This and the occasional livestock train were the only traffic using the Etheridge railway. The district population began to move away as the need for teamsters and rail maintenance crews diminished and by the 1920s Einasleigh Township had all but disappeared. In 1919 the Queensland government took control of the Etheridge Railway along with the Chillagoe Company's assets after the collapse of the company. The Einasleigh mine was re-opened under State ownership, again to supply ore to feed the Chillagoe smelters. This revival in activity was short-lived, the mine closing in 1922. The first mine in north Queensland, it had played an important part in keeping the region's copper mining industry alive by helping to keep the Chillagoe smelters open.
Although mining had diminished in importance during World War I, the line remained important for transporting livestock and providing a passenger and goods service for the small communities along its route, including Einasleigh. Reconditioning of the line carried out in 1951 enabled diesel electric locomotives to haul substantial livestock loads until the late 1960s. However, by the 1980s ore and livestock freight on the line had declined markedly and from 1988 the Queensland government promoted the tourism potential of the Cairns to Forsayth Railway.
The Central Hotel and an adjacent dance hall were constructed at the height of Einasleigh's prosperity. The 1908 Queensland Government Gazette's annual list of Licensed Victuallers in the Georgetown District, for the second half of 1907, only listed Emma Kershaw, at the Australian Hotel, in Einasleigh. In September 1907 Rose Mary Gard applied for a Miner's Homestead Lease (MHL) consisting of two roods facing Daintree Street, on which the Einasleigh (Central) Hotel now stands. At this time the annual rent was five shillings per year. The Central Hotel was built between August 1908, when improvements to the site consisted of a fence only, and June 1909, by which time functions were being held in the Central Hotel and the adjoining dance hall.
In August 1909 Herbert Linneman was issued a license for the Central Hotel in Einasleigh, although the MHL was not transferred to him until 1 May 1912. By December 1910 there were five hotels in Einasleigh: the Australian, licensed to Bridget Dutton; the Einasleigh (Mary Susan Francis); the Copperfield (Marion McGuire); the Federal (W.J. Tracey), and the Central (Linneman).
On 2 May 1912 the MHL was transferred to Marion McGuire, along with the Victuallers License for the Central Hotel. The 1914 license inspection recorded that there were 12 moderate sized bedrooms for the public (in 1916 it was confirmed that these 12 bedrooms were on the first floor; in 1962 the back rooms were numbered 1 to 7, and the front rooms were 8 to 12). On the ground floor were three moderate size bedrooms for servants, one large bedroom for the licensee, one large sitting room for the licensee, and two large sitting rooms for the public. This made a total of 2 public rooms, 12 bedrooms for hire, and five private rooms/bedrooms. Stairs from the front and back verandahs acted as fire escapes. To the rear of the hotel were one gents' double WC (with a urinal by 1917), one ladies WC, four horse stalls (with roof and walls), plus another 3 stalls (roof only). There was also a bathroom (detached), and a cordial factory.
During the 1920s license reports varied in their description of the number and use of rooms, but generally the average was 12 public bedrooms on the top floor, with two to three private bedrooms downstairs, a bar (located in the centre of building facing Daintree Street), two public sitting rooms/parlours, and a public dining room (either the licensee's large bedroom or the licensee's private sitting room may have become a public room by 1916). In 1916 a storeroom and pantry are also mentioned as being on the ground floor. A large kitchen is mentioned in 1917, which appears to have been semi-detached, at the rear of the hotel. In 1924 the dimensions of the two public sitting rooms were given as 21 x 10 feet, and 12 x 14 feet.
By 1918 the Einasleigh Hotel had closed, leaving only the Central, Copperfield, Federal and Australian hotels. In October 1920 the license for the Central was transferred from McGuire to Catherine Draper, and the hotel's ownership was transferred to George Moses Malouf. By 1921 only three hotels, including the Central, remained in town. All three were located on Daintree Street.
Marion McGuire died in September 1922, and the MHL was transferred to the Public Curator, before being transferred to Malouf in October 1923. Therefore, by October 1923 Malouf owned both the Central Hotel and the lease of the land on which it stood. By 1927 only the Central and the Australian (formerly the Copperfield) hotels were still trading in Einasleigh. In June 1931 the Central's license was transferred to Mary J Limkin, former licensee of the Australian Hotel, who also obtained the MHL in July of that year. By April 1932 the Central was the only hotel in Einasleigh.
A 1936 inspector's report noted the internal ground floor partitions of the hotel were made of pine. The bar was still at the centre of the building, and one dining room and one sitting room were mentioned. Guest rooms were recorded as two doubles, and six singles, with four private bedrooms. A kitchen, washhouse, two bathrooms, pantry, stables and garage were also noted. In 1951 the hotel's license was transferred from Mary Limkin to Joseph E Ryan, before being transferred to Mervyn H. Limkin in 1953. Mary Limkin continued to own the hotel and hold the MHL. In 1960 a dressed pine and hardwood partition was built six feet from the door of the lounge to the bar counter, to prevent direct access to the public bar.
By 1960 an open verandah at the side of the hotel was being used for cooking, as the old semi-detached kitchen at the rear of the hotel was riddled with white ants. This side verandah is probably the skillion-roofed extension on the south side of the hotel, which is currently part open, and part enclosed. The State Government requested that either the verandah kitchen be ceiled and lined, or that the old kitchen be replaced. Limkin planned to re-build on the site of the old kitchen (measuring 18 feet by 15 feet), and a 1962 inspection report refers to a semi-detached kitchen to the rear, of timber, iron and timbrock, with a concrete floor, which still exists.
In 1962 the dining room was located at the front of the southern side of the ground floor, and a ladies lounge bar was located at the front of the northern side. According to a plan of the hotel sketched by a local resident, the lounge bar area previously contained a bedroom and office. The ladies lounge bar was turned into a games room in the 1970s or 1980s.
Between 1966 and 1975, members of the Millhouse family held both the license and the MHL. The current bar was installed by the Millhouses, and was extended recently. The license was transferred to LM Mosch in 1975 and the MHL was transferred to Mosch in 1977. That year the old toilets were demolished, and a new septic system was installed. In 1980, plans were approved for a new male bathroom and a new laundry, and a 1983 report stated that the public bar was located in the northeast corner of the ground floor of the hotel. The license changed hands six times in the period from 1981 to 2000.
The Central Hotel gained notoriety in late 1994 and early 1995 as the focus for community protest against the Queensland government's proposed closing of the Cairns to Forsayth railway. Only the Mt Surprise to Forsayth section of the line was to remain, as a tourist railway. The Einasleigh community was particularly vocal in its call for the line to remain open. The 450 km line from Cairns provided a vital passenger and freight service (equipment, food and fodder) to the Einasleigh district, where roads were cut during the wet season. In a bid to preserve the district's lifeline, the 40-strong population of Einasleigh blockaded the railway at Einasleigh for 4 days from 16 December 1994, holding the Last Great Train Ride hostage. During this period the locals fed and housed the train passengers and crew until the blockade was lifted after negotiation with police.
In many small country towns the local hotel is the social hub and at Einasleigh the Central played a significant role in the organisation of the December 1994 protest and the events that followed. Not only was the plan to blockade the train formulated in the pub, its bar and rooms provided country hospitality to the train passengers stranded in the town. The State government condemned the action and remained committed to closing the railway. In response, Einasleigh and district residents (about 130) gathered on the verandah of the Central on 13 January 1995 to meet with State and Federal politicians. Like the blockade, this was a significant event in the history of the town.
The Central Hotel survived two fires during the interwar period and continues to trade, now as the Einasleigh Hotel. The interior ground floor plan has changed a number of times over the decades, and two of the first floor bedrooms, in the northwest corner, have been converted into bathrooms. The verandah support posts no longer have ornamental brackets, and two of the sash windows to the front lower verandah have been replaced with horizontal glass louvres. However, the hotel still plays an important role, servicing the Kidston and Gilberton areas and acting as a social focus for the local community. Recently the hotel has been refurbished, using in part timber salvaged from the adjacent dance hall (known as "the leaning building") that collapsed and was demolished in 1999.
","criteria":"The Einasleigh Hotel, constructed in 1909, is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. It was erected during a brief period of prosperity and expansion in the copper mining town of Einasleigh, during the peak extraction years of the Einasleigh Copper Mine. It is important in demonstrating how mining activities and associated railway lines can give rise to small businesses and townships to service the industry. The last of the old hotels in the mining towns of the Etheridge Goldfield, it is also the last survivor of five hotels in Einasleigh, and has become the social center for the Einasleigh district. It was also closely associated with the blockade of the Cairns to Forsayth Railway in 1994.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. As a two-storey early twentieth century timber and galvanized iron hotel, complete with upstairs bedrooms for guests, both open and enclosed verandahs, a detached kitchen, and a number of outbuildings, it exemplifies a particular way of life in rural Queensland
|The place is important for its aesthetic significance. As the largest and most visually dominant building in the small township of Einasleigh, the Einasleigh Hotel has a landmark quality that helps to define the township.
|The Einasleigh Hotel has a strong association with the local community. It is the only hotel in the immediate vicinity for the residents of Einasleigh, Kidston and Gilberton, and as such it is the focal point for many social activities in the area. It hosts the annual rodeo, sports and racing clubs, and government and private educational classes for local pastoralists.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17147,"place_ref":602332,"name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church | St Andrews Presbyterian Memorial Church | St Andrew's Church","street_address":"114 Rankin Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"St Andrew's Presbyterian church is located on a cut and fill platform on a sloping site on the western side of Rankin Street overlooking the Johnstone River. Rankin Street contains several important civic buildings including the Town Hall and the Catholic Church and the Hospital. With the exception of some minor changes to the ground floor and the removal of furniture, the church is very much as described in the local press at its opening ceremony.
St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church is of A-frame design with a rectangular plan form and is located well above street level, accessed by stairs punctuated by large diamond shaped planter boxes. Pairs of doors under large suspended, tiered awnings provide entry to the church either side of the eastern wall. The eastern wall is of a folded triangular form with bricks laid on the diagonal, housed within a triangulated band of perimeter windows and decorated with a diamond shaped leadlight window with a burning tree motif. The western wall houses sash windows to the kitchen and sanctuary and is clad in timber cabin mould chamfer boards.
The steeply pitched roof of the building is clad in ribbed aluminium sheeting with three dormer windows on the north and south sides between the trusses. Where the roof meets the ground, large concrete footings or stormwater drains and planter boxes form the transition. Three triangular roof lights are positioned above the dormer windows at the apex.
The lobby occupies the eastern end of the building where a pair of symmetrical staircases against the side walls lead to the church above and the mezzanine floor for the choir above that. At ground level, access to the hall is via a single, central door opening. The hall is a single volume with an open kitchen at its western end. It has high level windows on the southern boundary and pairs of french doors opening onto the open vestibule along its northern side. The stairs to the chancel and the former vestry (converted to toilet facilities) are located at the northwestern corner of this floor. The eastern end of the open vestibule has been more recently enclosed to form a new vestry. The hall floor is a painted concrete slab; the ceiling is lined with battened fibrous cement sheeting, revealing the timber floor structure for the church above.
The church walls are lined with vertically-jointed tongue and groove tulip oak boards laid diagonally, radiating out from the apex with center infill panels at the intersection in a dark stained sheet material. Lighting pelmets lining the side walls are decorated with a triangular motif and have triangular cut outs in the base to allow light to wash both up and down the walls. Suspended lighting baffles at the apex filter light from the roof lights above. The chancel has a screen, altar, lectern and planter that also incorporate triangular forms. Behind the screen is a single flight of stairs to the ground floor.
The original furniture (including pews and communion table) has been removed to the present Innisfail Uniting Church and the original royal blue carpet and rubber matting (representing the corporate colour of the former Presbyterian Church) has been replaced.
A manse is located at the rear of the site and is accessed from a driveway along the northern boundary of the property. It has a rectangular plan form and is highset on stumps and framed, clad and lined in timber. It has a hipped corrugated iron roof and enclosed, encircling verandahs. The manse is leased as a private residence and was not inspected in detail. It is not considered to contribute to the cultural heritage significance of the place.
","history":"St Andrew's Memorial Church is a striking, A-frame building erected on Rankin Street to the design of far North Queensland architect, Eddie H Oribin. It was constructed for the Presbyterian community of Innisfail in 1961 on the site of, and incorporating part of, an earlier church building. Its innovative design makes a significant contribution to the townscape of Innisfail.
\nPrior to the first regular Presbyterian Church service conducted in the old Court House in October 1913, Innisfail's monthly services were conducted in the Oddfellows Hall in Owen Street by Mr Charles Fixter, who travelled from Mirwinni.
\nThe first committee meeting was held January 1914 and during 1916 the present church site was purchased from Mary Graham. After a £500 bequest was left by Peter Margach for the building fund it was decided that a church should be built. The church construction was commenced early in 1918 but the framework was flattened during a cyclone in March. The building contractor, Frank Robson, replaced the framework and the church was completed and officially opened in November 1918. In 1925, the ground under the church was excavated and a concrete hall built by Peter Van Leeuwen, made possible from another bequest of £499 from Mary Kate Margach. This hall 36'x 26'was later enlarged by an additional 24' and formed the foundation of the new building.
\nIn 1959, a successful stewardship campaign was conducted in which the people pledged to support the church, and as a result, it was decided to proceed with the erection of a church to the Glory of God and as a memorial to those who had paid the supreme sacrifice in World Wars I and II and during the Korean campaign.
\nThe church was designed in 1959 by Eddie H Oribin while in association with SG Barnes. Eddie Oribin was born in Cairns in 1927. In 1953 he became a registered architect and formed a partnership with SG Barnes in Cairns, where they undertook residential and commercial work and church commissions. After Barnes' death in 1959, Oribin continued his work until 1973 when the office was closed down. Other churches designed by Oribin include the Gordonvale Church of England, Proserpine Church of England and the Mareeba Methodist Church.
\nSt Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church at Innisfail was designed to incorporate part of the concrete floor and walls of the of the old church erected in 1918, which housed the Sunday School kindergarten. Plans for the new church were submitted to the Presbytery by Rev Andrew Leslie McKay of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Cairns, following approval by the Innisfail congregation. The cost estimate was £18,000 with furnishings to cost £2,000.
\nTendering for the new church opened on 2 November 1959, closing on 29 January 1960. The successful contractor was local builder AG Pepper. On the 18 May 1960 a new addenda was issued altering the design of the rear wall. Originally Oribin had intended a full length laminated cross extending from the apex to the ground within a glazed diamond gridded frame. Particular grids were to be infilled with hexagonally shaped sashes and small triangular panels of coloured glass. The replacement of the rear wall design was intended to be temporary to alleviate costs and was to be eventually rebuilt as designed - a priority subordinated by the damages requiring repair following cyclone Winifred.
\nThe building was opened and the memorial tablet unveiled on 4 November 1961 by Rev AL McKay as Moderator of the newly formed Presbytery of Carpentaria (separated from the Presbytery of Townsville in August that year). The building as reported in the local press at the time was in the form of a traditional tent, constructed of fabricated steel 'A' frames with the main church floor being supported on the cross arm of the 'A' with the hall below. The exterior of the building was completely roofed from apex to ground with ribbed aluminium sheeting with three dormer windows on each side for light and ventilation. The seating capacity of the church was 200 with additional choir seating of 30 and the new hall was almost doubled in size.
\nAll materials used in the building were purchased locally or through local agents and all work carried out was by the local tradesmen. The church furnishings comprised 24 silky oak polished pews, maple communion table and chairs, polished lectern, marble baptismal font and a polished maple, plate glass sliding door hymn book press. Installed on the choir floor was a double manual Hammond electric organ with tone cabinet and book rests for the choir. Internally the building was lined with diagonally sheeted tulip oaks walls in a natural finish, polished Johnstone River hardwood floor in the church with blue carpeting the full length of the center aisle, and blue rubber flooring to all staircases.
\nThe chancel end of the church featured a patterned screen wall with green glass inserts and a softly illuminated gold finished cross surmounting a polished copper flower bowl. Natural light was provided by triangular side dormer windows positioned between the main trusses, triangular front windows surrounding a triangular brickwork panel and three triangular tinted fibreglass rooflights. By night it was lit by indirect fluorescent lights housed in pelmets along the side wall and spot lights in the lighting baffles at the apex.
\nThe hall was furnished with laminate covered kitchen cabinets and lit with fluorescent lighting. The minister's vestry was located at the north-west corner with polished table, chairs and telephone. An open side vestibule located below the three dormer windows to the northern side of the nave completes the ground floor and is suitable for entrance to the building in wet weather.
\nIn 1976-77, the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches amalgamated as the Uniting Church of Australasia. This formally changed the title of the church from Presbyterian to Uniting Church. On 1 February 1986, cyclone Winifred crossed the Queensland coast causing damage to the church and forcing the congregation to attend services at the East Innisfail State Primary School while the proceeds from fundraising were put towards church repairs. However, rather than repair the church, the cost of which was estimated as extremely high, the Uniting Church gave the building to the Johnstone Shire Council in exchange for a block of land in Scullen Avenue. Using the insurance money collected as a result of the cyclone damage, the congregation erected a new church on this site.
\nWhen the Uniting Church finally moved to their newly constructed church in Scullen Avenue, mobile items including the pews, cross and altar were moved also. The Oribin-designed church remained unused until 1988, when a separate Presbyterian congregation, which had separated from the Uniting Church, approached the Council to purchase it. Repairs to the church were undertaken by the new congregation through fund raising and voluntary labour, utilizing many sources from Cairns to Innisfail. The largest challenge was repairing the damage to the roof and internal ceiling sheeting incurred during cyclone Winifred in 1986.
\nAt this period the illuminated cross which had been located on the roof ridge almost 20 metres above the ground, was removed due to maintenance difficulties. Its whereabouts is unknown.
\nThe church was described in Austral Eden: 200 years of Australian architecture (1999) by Patrick Bingham Hall as the isoscelean masterpiece of an ever-resourceful maverick architect.
","criteria":"Located on the site of and incorporating the first Presbyterian Church in Innisfail, St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church demonstrates the pattern of development of the Presbyterian community in the region and the commitment to memorialize war dead.
|St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church at Innisfail has aesthetic significance as an outstanding and distinctive example of the use of local timbers and craftsmanship in a design reflecting the world-wide influence of the work of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's ideas on organic architecture. As a tall, A-frame building located on the crest of a ridge overlooking the Johnstone River, St Andrew's Presbyterian Church is a landmark in Innisfail.
|It also has special association with far north Queensland architect Eddie H Oribin as an outstanding and intact example of his innovative and highly inventive work.
|St Andrew's Presbyterian Memorial Church is valued by the community for its townscape and memorial significance.
|It also has special association with far north Queensland architect Eddie H Oribin as an outstanding and intact example of his innovative and highly inventive work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17155,"place_ref":602339,"name":"Old Westmoreland Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"150 km West-Northwest of Burketown","suburb":"BURKETOWN","lga":"BURKE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-31","description":"Old Westmoreland Homestead is located within the precinct of the present head station adjacent to dwellings, cold room, garages and workshops. It is set amongst lawns to the south of the main sheds and a dwelling, and east of the present homestead.
The original two-roomed homestead is constructed from hewn sandstone blocks using ant bed mortar and fill. It measures 10 metres by 14 metres, inclusive of the surrounding verandah, which is approximately 2.3 metres wide. The hipped roof of early corrugated galvanised iron is nailed with lead-head nails to bush timber roof rafters and purlins. It is secured to the external verandah posts with wire twitches. The roof is unlined.
Several of the round timber posts supporting the verandah roof have been replaced due to termite damage. The original posts appear to have been replicated in style if not in size or, possibly, timber species.
The original doors have been replaced with VJ plank doors, some half-height. Several have rim locks evident. The original timber door lintels are present but severely damaged by termites. The windows are voids with traces of the original joinery evident.
Internally, the building is divided into two rooms by a partition of hardwood framing and single-skin corrugated iron to ceiling height, the roof space open above this. Centrally positioned in this wall is the doorway connecting the two rooms. Above the door is a ventilation panel in-filled with metal lattice.
The floor was originally dirt or ant bed (pers comm. G Gould, owner). At some stage prior to 1980 it was concreted inside. Antbed flooring remains on the north-east verandah and most of the south-east verandah. It was repaired in the period 1980 to 2004.
The building is currently used for storage and outdoor entertainment. A later kitchen, 3 metres by 4 metres, constructed of metal framing and cladding, is located on the south-western side of the homestead. It is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The original, separate kitchen, located to the north of the building, is no longer extant.
A photograph taken in 1963-1964 shows an added skillion on the northeast side extending the full length of the building. At some unknown date this has been truncated to its present size. There is no evidence to suggest whether this was part of the original homestead or, more likely, a later addition.
","history":"Westmoreland Station, near the border with the Northern Territory and close to the Gulf of Carpentaria, was taken up in 1881 by Thomas and Robert McIntosh, Robert Philp and William Kirk. It originally comprised 640 square miles (approximately 165,759.24 hectares). Thomas Brassey McIntosh managed the property for the partners, and c1882 constructed the two-roomed stone house now known as Old Westmoreland Homestead. It is believed by many local residents to be the oldest surviving home in the district.
When Westmoreland was taken up in the early 1880s, guerrilla warfare between the indigenous owners of the land and the occupying pastoralists was being waged throughout the Gulf country. There are many conflict sites in the area, including Hells Gate (about 20 miles (32 kilometres) south-east of Westmoreland), Massacre Inlet and Battle Creek. The c1882 homestead on Westmoreland station was constructed with thick stone walls, inward opening doors, and few windows, to provide security for persons and property during potential attacks by Aborigines.
By 1887 the South Australian Mortgage and Land Company had taken over the lease of Westmoreland, which by 1891 had been transferred to the Bank of Australasia.
When consolidated in 1895, the station comprised Westmoreland and Westmoreland Nos. 1 to 4, 7 and 11. The main homestead was located on Westmoreland No. 3, where improvements included an iron-roofed stone homestead, kitchen, and outbuildings, the whole valued at £200. The block comprised 100 square miles (25 899.881 103 hectares), with rich creek flats, steep stony ridges and open forests of box, bloodwood and tea-tree. Much of the land was thickly grassed and had permanent water, and was considered good cattle-fattening country in ordinary seasons.
In the late 1890s Queensland entered a period of severe and widespread drought. The Gulf country was affected and in 1897 the lease to the Westmoreland consolidated run was forfeited and the run remained unoccupied for about 15 years.
From 1 October 1912 Westmoreland was let on a 30 year lease to John Norman McIntyre. At this time the consolidated run was estimated to comprise over 655 square miles (169 644.221 22 hectares). In 1913 McIntyre complained that the valuations on the property were over 20 years old and many of the improvements no longer existed. On Westmoreland No.3 the roof structure to the stone homestead had been eaten by white ants and the kitchen had collapsed.
In 1916 the Westmoreland Pastoral Company took over the lease, and conducted the Westmoreland run in conjunction with its other properties: Cliffdale and Patterdale in Queensland and Wollogorang in the Northern Territory.
A valuation inspection of Westmoreland undertaken in 1932 valued the stone homestead and outbuildings at £300, the homestead stockyards at £200 and total improvements at £1,210. In 1937, a further appraisal noted that the stone homestead was the only extant residential structure on Westmoreland; there were no huts on any of the other blocks. At this period the Westmoreland Board of Directors comprised Sir William Charles Angliss and Walter Sidney Palethorpe Kidman, two well-known Australian pastoralists. The lease passed to John Allan Fennell in 1938 and Thomas Staines Bernard Terry in 1939.
A new residence was constructed adjacent to the stone house during the second half of the twentieth century. It is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","criteria":"Although there has been some adaptation the building remains a rare example of vernacular nineteenth century stone pastoral homesteads in Queensland. The use of antbed mortar was once quite widespread, but few examples remain where this versatile material was put to use.
|Old Westmoreland Homestead exemplifies the simple dwellings established during nineteenth century colonial settlement in remote parts of Queensland. The simplistic form of the building, and the use of local materials, demonstrates the principal characteristics of this class of place: nineteenth century pastoral property homesteads.
|The place retains a high degree of aesthetic value generated by the picturesque qualities of the simple design and the rustic materials employed in the construction: sandstone for the walls; ant bed for mortar and flooring; corrugated galvanised iron to clad the roof; and rough-cut bush timbers for the verandah posts.
|Old Westmoreland Homestead, constructed c1882, is important for its association with, and as rare surviving evidence of, early efforts to establish the pastoral industry in north-west Queensland in the second half of the nineteenth century, during a period of frontier violence. The building shows clear evidence of being constructed with due consideration for possible conflict: thick walls (which would also have helped insulate the building), inward opening doors, and few windows.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":17156,"place_ref":602340,"name":"Chelmer Police College (former)","alternate_name":"Waterton | The Lady Wilson Red Cross Convalescent Home | 10 WRAAC Barracks","street_address":"17 Laurel Avenue","suburb":"CHELMER","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-10-01","description":"This place is a memorable element of the Laurel Avenue streetscape, presenting as a large, Federation era house with prominent gable and sweeping verandahs, a big pitched metal roof and chimney, set well back behind an established garden and enhanced with mature fig trees in the street, flanking the entrance path.
The entrance path divides around a large circular garden bed before leading to the front stairs beside the prominent verandah gable. The front section of the house consists of formal rooms, along the lines of former drawing and dining rooms, a sitting room and lounge. A bay-fronted room is positioned behind the front gable and is of the same width, projecting a metre or so across the front verandah. The front verandah turns around this room forming the southern edge of the house. Immediately to the northern side of this front formal room is the entrance hall, and to the north of this again are two rooms back to back around a double-sided fireplace. The position of this fireplace is conveyed by the chimney in the views of the building from the front. The verandah turns around this pair of rooms, forming what was the northern side of the original house. The verandah edge details are still intact along this northern side verandah, indicating that c1941 northern addition to the original house was built immediately adjacent to the original house rather than cut into it.
The entrance hall leads to a north-south connecting hall with a formal room at its southern end. This formal room is identified by its own gable on the southern side of the house and a projecting bay window. The connecting hall runs past what is now a Bar and leads to the stairs connecting the lower and upper floors of the c1941 northern addition to the original house.
The next layer of rooms consists of an institutional dining room and kitchen connected via an original rear verandah to a toilet and shower room wing. Three storerooms/offices in an enclosed verandah exist opposite the toilets/shower rooms. These rooms appear original. As this amenities wing has an external chimney on its rear wall it is likely that this was the original kitchen/servants' wing. The main building is connected via an elevated covered walkway to the dormitory building running along what is now the rear boundary of the property.
The dormitory building consists of front and rear verandahs, in various degrees of enclosure, and internally is planned around a central corridor accessing small, simple bedrooms and shared amenities rooms. It is highset with a largely open undercroft, and some simply enclosed rooms which could serve as store rooms or workshops etc.
The c1941 addition to the north of the old house is of two storeys. The upper floor consists of a lecture room to the front, a covered verandah space in the middle and two office rooms to the rear. The lower floor has two rooms to either side of the central covered space. A staircase connects both central verandahs and another stair connects the addition to the original building.
Internally, the joinery and fittings in the c1900 house are of good quality, consistent with the Federation-era styling of the exterior, without being excessively lavish. Skirtings and architraves in particular are simple but generously proportioned. It is possible that some of the joinery and mouldings currently painted were originally clear finished red cedar, or similar, which if re-instated would increase the visual richness of the interiors considerably. The walls and ceilings generally are lined with painted, tongue-and-groove, vertically-jointed timber, with either elaborate ceiling roses or coffers, bay windows, or decorative fireplaces used to elevate the character of the formal rooms. More simply treated rooms such as bedrooms and service rooms have been largely removed or remodelled. The later additions are altogether more pragmatic and possibly more altered to suit changing needs than the original sections of the building. The internal linings in the two storeyed c1941 addition and the c1941 dormitory building are generally a combination of tongue-and-groove walling and battened, smooth sheeted ceilings with simple, largely traditional joinery and detailing.
The lowest, former house with its generous, pitched roof relates well to its front yard and the Laurel Avenue street trees. It is set well back behind an established garden and enhanced by mature fig trees [Ficus benjamina] in the street, flanking the entrance path. The entrance path divides around a circular garden bed which may be an original garden design feature. Mature trees such as a jacaranda [Jacaranda mimosaefolia], palms and mango [Mangifera indica] in the front yard, and the Camphor Laurel [Cinnamomum camphora] in the street to the south of the figs, contribute significantly to the aesthetics of the setting. The Federation-era detailing and decoration of the old house, as seen from the front yard, is strong, well balanced and effective. The battened front gable and heavily shaped verandah posts with decorative sweeps and frieze in particular provide a strong visual appeal. The c1941 addition to the north of the original building is discernably different from the earlier building but arguably sympathetic in roof line and joinery. The c1941 dormitory building to the rear of the property and the other substantial changes to the house are contained at the rear of the original building, without detracting from the presentation to the street.
Despite many years of pragmatic institutional maintenance and incremental change to suit changing functions, each historical layer of building work is clearly articulated, with limited impact on earlier fabric. The buildings in their front garden setting present a cohesive, substantially intact group demonstrating the principal characteristics of both a substantial, c1900 middle-class residence and a c1941 convalescent home.
","history":"The place which functioned as the Queensland Police College until 2012 at Chelmer, was established c1900 as a private residence, with additions in the form of staff quarters and a ward block constructed in 1941-42 when the house was converted into a convalescent hospital for the Australian Red Cross Society.
The substantial, middle-class residence is thought to have been erected c1900 for Thomas Beevor Steele, a Brisbane insurance agent. Steele acquired title to the Laurel Avenue site in March 1900. At this time the property comprised two blocks totalling nearly one and a half acres, stretching from what is now Laurel Avenue to the Brisbane River. A £950 mortgage on the property taken out in September 1900 may have helped finance construction of the house, which was named Waterton. Steele, who previously resided at Indooroopilly, is first listed as resident at Chelmer in the 1901 Queensland Post Office Directory, suggesting that the house was constructed by this date. In February 1901 a Brisbane Courier article identified the Steele family as residing at 'Waterton', Chelmer, a name that remained in use during its earliest years. In design and decorative elements, the house also suggests an early 20th century date of construction.
Title to the property passed in September 1913 to Alison Eavis Harding Frew (1883-1952), a prominent Queensland civil engineer, who resided there until c1940. AE Harding Frew specialized in bridge design, his work including approximately 80 bridges throughout Queensland during his career. He was a consulting engineer in Melbourne during the 1920s and on the Pyrmont Power House at Sydney in the early 1940s. He was a consultant on the 1926 Brisbane Cross River Commission and was the designing engineer for the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane, from 12 November 1926 to 1932. From 1932-1935 he was the Engineer for Bridge Construction on the Hornibrook Highway project, the bridge linking Sandgate and Redcliffe. Much of this work was carried out during the period in which he and his family were based at 17 Laurel Avenue, Chelmer.
In 1938 Harding Frew acquired two blocks of land adjacent to the southern border of his Laurel Avenue property, creating an estate of approximately 3.75 acres with a long river frontage. However, he appears to have encountered financial difficulties about this time, taking out a number of mortgages on the property, and reputedly was bankrupted. In January 1939 Queensland Trustees Limited, as mortgagees in possession, offered 17 Laurel Avenue for sale at auction. At this time the dwelling comprised 4 bedrooms, large dressing room, drawing and dining rooms, sitting rooms, lounge, spacious front and side verandahs and sleep-out, and well-appointed kitchen and bathroom. There is a suggestion that Frew had made extensions to the c1900 house, but this has not been confirmed.
The property did not sell in January 1939. In July 1940 title to just over 1 rood near the southeast corner of the site was transferred as a residential subdivision block, and in December 1940, the house and the remaining land, nearly 3.5 acres, was transferred to the Australian Red Cross Society for use as a convalescent home for Australian servicemen returning from the battlefields of the Second World War. The purchase price was £2,000, which scarcely reflected the value of one of the oldest and largest family homes in the Chelmer district. Title was transferred to Red Cross trustees Edith Wassell and George Rees in 1941, and to the Australian Red Cross Society in 1947. The Society converted the house into the Lady Wilson Red Cross Convalescent Home, providing for the rehabilitation of convalescent Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen. The home was named in honour of Lady Wilson, President of the Queensland Division of the Australian Red Cross at this time, and wife of His Excellency Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, Governor of Queensland.
Conversion of the house into a convalescent home required additions to, and some alteration to internal partitions in, the main residence, and construction of a substantial dormitory block behind and parallel to the main house. In 1941 Brisbane architects RW Voller, RM Wilson, and EJA Weller, as Honorary Architects to the Australian Red Cross Society, jointly called tenders for a new dormitory and officers' quarters for the Red Cross Society's Lady Wilson Convalescent Home at Chelmer. A contract for construction of the dormitory was let to contractor AS Taylor by June 1941, and tenders for 'officers' quarters' [staff quarters] opened about August 1941. Minor works were still being carried out early in 1942. Photographs of the 'Chelmer Convalescent Home', taken in August 1944, reveal that the northern addition to the house, which comprised the staff quarters, was constructed by this date. The place reputedly accommodated 73 patients. It is also likely that during the 1941-42 extensions an institutional kitchen and dining room was constructed, and the former kitchen was refitted as toilets and shower rooms. A 1944 photograph of the front of the building shows cast iron balustrading to the verandahs, which has been replaced since with simple timber rails.
In the early 1950s the convalescent hospital was closed and the property was leased to the Australian Military Forces from 1 April 1953 for use as a Women's Royal Australian Army Corps Barracks, occupied by the 10 WRAAC. The WRAAC had been established in 1951 in response to a severe manpower shortage created by the demands of the Korean War and national service in a time of full employment. In the late 1970s female soldiers began to be integrated into the Army at large and in early 1984, the WRAAC was disbanded. In its 33 years of existence, the Corps played an important role in the evolution of Australia's armed forces and the acceptance of women into this field.
A valuation inspection of the Laurel Avenue property made in January 1953, prior to the military authorities taking up the lease, provided a thorough description [accompanied by plans] of the Red Cross structures on the property, and show how the buildings had functioned as a convalescent hospital. The core of the house contained recreational and office spaces, and a large dining room and kitchen extension at the rear. The northern addition to the main house served as staff quarters. To the rear of the main house and parallel to it, was a high-set, timber framed, fibrous-cement clad dormitory building.
The main building [the c1900 house] was described as approximately 50 years old, timber-framed, with 8" chamferboard cladding to the exterior walls, and set on hardwood stumps which varied from 4'6" to 6' in height. The roof retained its original corrugated galvanized iron. The house was surrounded by extensive verandahs, by that date mostly enclosed, and the verandah roofs were lined with 6" vertically jointed pine boards. Flooring to the verandahs and much of the interior was 4" x 1" hardwood, with some 6" x 1" pine. The interior walls and ceilings were lined with 4" vertically-jointed pine. Most of the joinery, including early doors, fireplace surrounds and palm stands, were cedar. There was a front bay window with 6' 'colonial sashes', and French doors opening onto the verandahs. The main entrance door had leadlight surrounds. The dining room on the southwest corner of the main building had been extended as a dining hall, clad externally and lined internally with fibrous cement sheeting. Adjacent to this was an institutional-size kitchen. Bathrooms and toilets [which appear to have occupied an earlier kitchen wing] had vertically-jointed timber ceilings, fibrous-cement sheeting on the walls, and terrazzo floors. There was a laundry under the main building.
At the northern end of the main building was the two-storeyed addition erected as staff quarters. This was timber-framed and clad externally with fibrous-cement sheeting. The ground floor contained an open lounge with a cement floor; an interior lounge with fibrous cement sheeting to ceiling and walls and hardwood floor; a dormitory, lined and ceiling in vertically-jointed timber, with polished timber floor; and a bathroom/toilet. A covered stairway led to the upper level, which had a hardwood timber floor, and was lined with vertically-jointed timber in the central room and fibrous-cement sheeting in the bedrooms (2) and dormitories (2).
At the rear of the main building was the dormitory or ward block, containing two wards separated by a central ablutions area, and a doctor's room, sister's room, and store room at the far northern end. Floors throughout were of hardwood and the ceilings of Caneite. The ablutions area had terrazzo flooring and contained toilets, showers and locker rooms arranged around a central passage-way running north-south, servicing both wards. French doors opened from the wards onto verandahs along both sides, which were screened with Aerolax blinds. A sub-floor extended the entire length of the building. It had concrete flooring and had been used principally as workshops. It was also part-enclosed as library headquarters for the Red Cross in Queensland [a large room at the southern end]; store rooms; ablution blocks; laundry; boiler room; and French polishing room. On the western side of the library was an extension which housed the handicraft section.
Beyond the dormitory building, to the west, was a detached, single-storey structure, timber framed, double-sheeted with fibrous-cement, and divided into two rooms, which were utilized as male staff quarters. This building had a 'Super 6' roof of corrugated fibrous-cement sheeting.
Close to the northern boundary, midway along the depth of the property, was a single garage which appears to have been constructed during the period when the place functioned as a private residence. It was hardwood framed and floored, clad in 6" timber chamferboards, and had a tiled roof. Beyond the garage the ground flattened out to a level floodplain, before dropping steeply to the Brisbane river.
Comparatively few changes were required for occupation by the 10 WRAAC from 1953 to 1969, and during this period the Red Cross continued to maintain its library headquarters in the sub-floor of the dormitory block. About 1964-65, the Red Cross subdivided the land into smaller residential allotments around an extension of Sutton Street, leaving the buildings leased by the armed forces on a much smaller parcel of land. At this period the house lost its river access.
In the late 1960s a new facility for the WRAAC was constructed at Kelvin Grove. 10 WRAAC vacated 17 Laurel Avenue early in February 1969, although the Army's lease didn't expire until 31 October 1969. The Red Cross failed to sell the property at auction in May 1969, but toward the end of the year it was purchased by the Queensland Police Department for use as an in-service training centre. In January 1970 the Queensland Police College opened at 17 Laurel Avenue, offering a wide variety of specialist and qualifying courses. This function ceased in 2012. The main change to the grounds since 1970 has been the construction of a car park along the southern boundary of the property from Laurel Avenue to the former dormitory block.
","criteria":"The Queensland Police College (former) at 17 Laurel Avenue, Chelmer, was constructed c1900 as a private residence, Waterton, for Brisbane insurance agent Thomas Beevor Steele. From c1913 to c1940 it was occupied by AE Harding Frew, a prominent Queensland civil engineer. The place demonstrates the pattern of Queensland's history, being evidence of the early 20th century suburban occupation of the Chelmer district by upper middle class residents, who constructed large family homes in spacious grounds, many of which had river frontages. As the Lady Wilson Red Cross Convalescent Home for returned members of the Australian armed services from c1941 to c1953, the place provides evidence in the fabric of the building of a Queensland response to the impact of the Second World War. Changes made to the building and grounds to accommodate the hospital have not obliterated evidence of the earlier function as a private residence. Following the close of the convalescent home, the place served as a Women's Royal Australian Army Barracks from 1953-1969, and as a Queensland Police College from 1970-2012, maintaining an institutional use which had little impact on the predominantly residential character of Laurel Avenue. Evidence of these uses is readily apparent in the fabric of the building.
|The former residence in its garden setting is of strong architectural merit, exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place. This building is a memorable element of the Laurel Avenue streetscape, presenting as a large Federation-era house with prominent gable and sweeping verandahs, a big pitched metal roof and chimney, set well back behind an established garden and enhanced with mature fig trees [Ficus benjamina] in the street, flanking the entrance path. The c1941 northern addition to the house to accommodate the convalescent hospital staff is of interest in the sensitive placement beside or behind the original building, indicating that the appearance of the buildings from the street was of importance at the time. The c1941 addition to the north of the original house has a similarity of form with the original, and has been distinguished from the original in its use of fibrous-cement cladding consistent with architectural thinking at the time regarding its construction and the character of its use. The c1941 dormitory building is also fibrous-cement clad and this is consistent with its institutional use and pragmatic character.
As a formerly residential building converted to an institutional use the place provides evidence of the impact of the Second World War on Queensland and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type, namely a c1941 convalescent hospital. The c1941 dormitory to the rear of the site has been carefully sited to minimise impacts on the appearance of the original building from the street, while achieving a close link with the necessary service spaces such as kitchen and dining room inserted in the original building. The form of the dormitory building is of note - the central enclosed space functioning as either a single space or (as currently) a series of rooms off a central corridor, flanked by verandahs which can be either open or enclosed, is a generic form similar to other Second World War hospital buildings, such as formerly at Rhyndarra in Yeronga [now demolished], but is not a standard public works design. Again, the c1941 addition to the north of the house was custom-designed for this site and its particular use.
|The former residence in its garden setting is of strong architectural merit, exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community and demonstrates the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural place. This building is a memorable element of the Laurel Avenue streetscape, presenting as a large Federation-era house with prominent gable and sweeping verandahs, a big pitched metal roof and chimney, set well back behind an established garden and enhanced with mature fig trees [Ficus benjamina] in the street, flanking the entrance path. The c1941 northern addition to the house to accommodate the convalescent hospital staff is of interest in the sensitive placement beside or behind the original building, indicating that the appearance of the buildings from the street was of importance at the time. The c1941 addition to the north of the original house has a similarity of form with the original, and has been distinguished from the original in its use of fibrous-cement cladding consistent with architectural thinking at the time regarding its construction and the character of its use. The c1941 dormitory building is also fibrous-cement clad and this is consistent with its institutional use and pragmatic character.
|The place has had a special association with the work of the Australian Red Cross as a Convalescent Home, with the Australian Army as a Women's Royal Australian Army Corps [WRAAC] barracks, and with the Queensland Police Service as a training college. The combination of these associations, demonstrated in this one building, gives the place significance in Queensland's history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19459,"place_ref":602342,"name":"St John's Church","alternate_name":"St Johns Church | St John's Anglican Church","street_address":"278 Ford Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-08-05","description":"St John's Anglican Church is situated in Ford Street, North Rockhampton, in the heart of 'Kanaka Town'. It is a small, timber-framed building, rectangular in form, with a main gable-roofed core, a hipped-roof sanctuary at the eastern end, and a small, skillion-roofed entry porch at the western end. The small, box-like church with its steeply pitched gabled roof of corrugated iron, pointed arch windows, original single-skin boarding and exposed stud walls expresses elements of Gothic style.
Most of the exterior of the building is clad with fibrous-cement sheeting, laid over the original chamferboard single-skin exposed-stud construction. The whole rests on timber stumps which vary in height from 0.75m at the western end, to 0.85m at the eastern end. All stumps have been either replaced or repaired.
The sanctuary at the eastern end of the building is windowless and is clad with weatherboards. The originally open-sided front entry porch at the western end of the building has side walls of fibrous-cement sheeting, each with a small rectangular window, and is accessed via central timber stairs. There is a skillion awning across the front of the church and the porch. The eastern internal wall of the porch is the original exposed-frame external wall of the main building, with the original timber double-entry doors which give access to the main hall.
There are two pointed arched windows in each side wall of the main hall, but the arched tops are now covered by fibrous-cement sheeting externally and are only evident from inside the church. Beneath each arch are two hopper windows.
The interior walls of the main hall and of the sanctuary are lined with single-skin chamferboards, now painted. The chamferboards in the main hall, which is of earliest construction, are wider than those in the sanctuary. The ceilings of both spaces have been lined with later fibrous-cement sheeting, which gives the appearance of continuity between the two sections. Flooring throughout is timber boards, but the floor of the sanctuary is raised.
In the main hall two rows of timber pews are arranged either side of a central aisle. Attached to the walls of this space are plaques and donated religious pictures. Suspended from the ceiling frame that lies between the sanctuary and main hall is a large timber crucifix. A framed print of Jesus and his disciples is positioned centrally along the wall above a gold coloured curtain. The main alter is positioned centrally in front of the curtain on the podium. At the eastern end of the main hall, between the pews and the sanctuary, church furniture includes a, timber prayer desk, timber chair, small podium, and a simply carved clam-shell font. The relief carvings adorning the pedestal of the font feature religious iconography relating to the life and crucifixion of Jesus. The dedication plaque on the base of the font, below the Crucifix relief reads:
To the Glory of God for use at St John's Mission Church,
Ford Street North Rockhampton. This Shell was given by
the people of St Bartholomew Menapi-Papua and Parish
priests Father Norman Cruttwell and Father Amos Paisawa
to the Mission Congregation of St Johns.
The font, pictures and prayer desk remain an integral part of the church, the font being functional, used for baptisms and special services, as well as being a distinctive piece of furniture.
The grounds of St John's Anglican Church comprise well kept lawns, with trees and shrubs surrounding the Church and garden beds along the eastern and northern boundaries. Several trees - a poinciana, two pine trees framing the entrance to the church, and a large silver wattle - and shrubs delineate the church from the grass footpath that extends to Ford Street. The pine trees in particular add to the symmetry of the church and grounds.
","history":"St John's Mission Church, a small Gothic-style timber building, was constructed in mid-1912 in Ford Street, North Rockhampton, in the heart of the district known as 'Kanaka Town'. It was the second place of worship to be built on the site, replacing a small mission room erected there in 1896.
South Sea Islanders had been arriving in Rockhampton from the 1860s, indentured to work on the districts cane plantations and inland pastoral properties. The first group were 189 men from Tanna, 30 of whom went to Peak Downs and 40 to the Barcoo.
Efforts were made by the Church of England to reach the South Sea Islander people in the Rockhampton district in the 1880s, coinciding with the formation of a new parish of North Rockhampton, and the movement leading to the establishment of the Church of England Diocese of Rockhampton in 1892. By 1889 there were 200 Islanders in Rev. Francis Drinkall Pritt's parish of North Rockhampton, 78 of whom where employed by the Yeppoon Sugar Company. Support of the South Sea Islander community by the Diocese extended to aiding Islander people to purchase land in the Creek and Ford Street area by registering property in the name of the Church or parish priest.
The site of St John's Mission Church was purchased in 1891 by Edward Costello. His association with South Sea Islanders has not been established, but in 1896 the South Sea Islander community of North Rockhampton erected St John's Mission Room on this land, with their own materials and labour. It was dedicated on 5 May 1896. The first baptisms [five men and four women from the South Sea Islander community] at St John's Mission Room took place on 19 June 1896 and the first marriage there was celebrated on 15 December 1896. The South Sea Islander community used the small mission room for their weekday meetings and Sunday School, while worshipping at St Barnabas' Church, located about a kilometre away. The South Sea Islander community of North Rockhampton had been closely involved in the levelling and clearing of the St Barnabas' site in 1896. On 24 January 1899, the day of the dedication of St Barnabas' Church, a special service for South Sea Islanders was held, in which the greater part of the service was conducted in the Motu (Mota) language.
With their dedication to the Christian faith evident in their everyday life, the South Sea Islander community in Rockhampton was supported by the clergy, parish and synod in their fight against the racist Commonwealth Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901. The Synod of 1904 petitioned the Commonwealth Government on the Islanders' behalf to prevent their forced removal back to islands. This was especially pertinent for the Australian-born children of Islander families, and those who had lived as Australians for many years within the community.
By 1910 the mission room constructed near the present site of St John's Church had suffered major white ant damage, and plans were made to replace this building with a church of sturdier construction. On 19 January 1910 the site was acquired by the Corporation of the Synod of the [Anglican] Diocese of Rockhampton for £10, and fund-raising for construction of a Church commenced. By May 1912 the South Sea Islander community, working without parish assistance, had raised £60 for the construction of St John's Mission Church, the cost of which was estimated at £80.
The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Halford of Rockhampton on 25 May 1912. The Morning Bulletin of 27 May 1912 reported that about 30 South Sea Islanders were present and that the Bishop, clergy and people present proceeded round the site of the church, making their offerings at the foundation stone as they passed it while singing 'Onwards Christian Soldiers'. The church was completed and fenced by the end of October 1912 and the remaining £20 debt was cleared by the mission congregation in March 1913.
Two weekly services were held at the church, one on Sunday afternoons led by Frank Solomon, and another every Tuesday evening led by the Vicar. Born in the Solomon Islands, Mr Solomon was a lay reader and regularly led the congregation in evensong and services. After a lifetime of dedication to the church Frank Solomon, the Vicar's representative on the first St John's Mission Church Committee in 1912, died on 5 October 1945.
In the 1910s the South Sea Islander community of North Rockhampton expanded as families became more settled. By June 1913 a Sunday School had been established at St John's, and in 1916 the Church building was enlarged with the addition of a sanctuary to the eastern end. By c1916 a silver wattle had been planted to the south of the building.
St John's Mission Church had an association for many years with the people of Menapi, Papua, who have on a number of occasions dedicated gifts to the North Rockhampton church. One of the most impressive is a clam-shell font on a carved pedestal.
St John's Church celebrated its 50th anniversary on Sunday 28 October 1962. Improvements made to the church for its anniversary included cladding the exterior with fibrous-cement sheeting and painting, which was carried out by a team of voluntary workers. Two weeks later Mrs Pasawi and Mrs Crutwell from Menapi dedicated two pictures to St John's, one of the Last Supper and the other of Bishop George Ambo. It is possible that the pine trees either side of the front entrance to the church were planted around the time the front entry porch was enclosed.
Weekly services and Sunday School at St John's were an integral part of the South Sea Islander community at North Rockhampton and continued with few interruptions until recent times, when growth and expansion of South Sea Islander families has widely distributed community members throughout North Rockhampton and surrounding district. A small congregation still attends Sunday services at St John's. Although Sunday School no longer functions at the church, special services such as funerals or christenings and events on the Christian calendar, draw large attendances. St John's Church remains a significant part of the streetscape of Ford Street, and represents the physical, spiritual and material growth and development of the South Sea Islander community within Rockhampton.
","criteria":"St John's Anglican Church is important in demonstrating the evolution of Central Queensland's South Sea Islander community and a pattern of multicultural integration within Rockhampton and surrounding districts. The site of St John's Church has served the South Sea Islander community of Rockhampton since the St John's Mission Room, which stood near the present Church, was dedicated on 5 May 5 1896. St John's Mission Church, erected in 1912 by the South Sea Islander community with no financial assistance from the Diocese of Rockhampton, represents a South Sea Islander custom of whole of community involvement in a matter deemed to be important and essential to the spiritual growth and moral well being of the community.
|St John's Anglican Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a European religious building type adapted within South Sea Islander culture. With its pitched gable roof, crucifix finials, pointed arch motif windows (visible internally), porch and sanctuary, St John's Church illustrates the principal characteristics of a modest, Gothic-influenced, timber ecclesiastical building. The interior fabric of the Church retains high social significance for the South Sea Islander community, with many items, including a clam-shell font on a carved pedestal, providing a tangible link with the people associated with the Parish, and to their missionary benefactors in Menapi, Papua.
|St John's Church remains a significant part of the streetscape of Ford Street, and as a remnant of North Rockhampton's 'Kanaka Town', represents the physical, spiritual and material growth and development of the South Sea Islander community within Rockhampton.
Of special association with St John's and its streetscape value are the trees along the front boundary to the property: two distinctive pine trees planted on either side of the front entrance to the church; a poinciana tree; and a large silver wattle which is thought to be a remnant of the original plantings on the site, evident in a c 1916 photograph.
|St John's Anglican Church and prior mission room has a strong and special association for the South Sea Islander community for social, cultural and spiritual reasons. Socially, St John's has been the focus of community gatherings and events relating to events on the Christian calendar, prayer services, Sunday school, weddings, funerals, baptisms and social Church meetings. The place represents a link to the early Islanders who established a strong community both in the immediate neighbourhood and nearby regions that shared a spiritual link with the Church.
|St John's has a special association with the clergy, parish and Synod who supported the South Sea Islander community's opposition to the Commonwealth Acts of 1901 that sought to return South Sea Islander people to their islands of origin against their will. St John's Church has special association with the activity of individuals within the South Sea Islander community and Anglican Church whose activities have been significant within the history of the region and state of Queensland, including Bishop George Halford, consecrated as Anglican Bishop of Rockhampton in 1909, who was greatly respected for his long and active support of the South Sea Islander community; and Frank Solomon, the South Sea Islander community's Vicar's representative on the first St John's Mission Church Committee , who dedicated his life to this church.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19462,"place_ref":602343,"name":"Tobacco Kiln","alternate_name":"Flue Curing Barn","street_address":"12 Chisholm Trail","suburb":"OAK VALLEY","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-09-27","description":"The tobacco kiln or flue curing barn is an almost-square building of brick construction now situated on a small 10m x 15m block of land at 12 Chisholm Trail, Oak Valley, via Townsville. This block is not fenced, but has been enclosed within the fence line of the adjoining property on the corner of Chisholm Trail and Glenrowan Road. The tobacco kiln is sited 10 degrees off a direct north/south orientation, with the door aperture situated in the western wall. This former entrance is at present closed off by timber and corrugated sheeting, presumably for safety reasons.
The western and eastern walls are 4.12m long and the northern and southern walls are 4.1m long, with the wall height averaging 4.25m above the present ground level. The single brick walls are constructed of moulded clay bricks approximately 220mm x 110mm x 70mm, which is slightly smaller than a standard imperial brick of 9 x 4.5 x 3 inches. The bricks are laid in a stretcher bond design with rather coarse mortar that finishes roughly flush to the outside of the brick. These brick walls are finished at the top with a timber frame and are then tied together internally by steel bolts 1.5cm (5/8 inch) thick and approximately 1m apart.
The roof is a pyramidal shape with a truncated apex to allow a square ventilator on top. The timber-framed roof is sheeted externally with corrugated iron, and has iron capping covering the four ridges. It is lined internally with an insulating material, possibly fibro cement sheeting. The eastern and western sides of the top ventilator are still attached to the apex of the roof. They are made of flat galvanized sheet and are also lined with the same insulating material as the roof. The sheeting on the western side of the ventilator clearly shows an imprint of the queen's head and the number 33 underneath. A shaped piece of iron lying inside the building indicates that the damper over this ventilator was also pyramidal in shape.
Although the external furnace area of the kiln has at some stage been dismantled and filled in, it can be located on the eastern side where ground subsidence reveals a round flue outlet. This is 1.5m from the northern edge of the building with 4.18m between the top of the brick wall and the top of the outlet. The diameter of the outlet is approximately 30cm. The corrugated roof sheeting at the centre of the eastern wall has been cut back in two places and the metal in between bent down, indicating the former position of the chimney. A flat piece of iron attached to the left of this is probably the remains of a holding bracket for the chimney. Looking inside through the broken bricks on the western wall, it is possible to see a second matching flue outlet at a corresponding distance from the southern edge of the building. At a lower level, between these round outlets and the northern and southern walls, are two square holes indicating the flue inlets. Although no longer attached to the inlets and outlets, the remains of two iron flues still lie on the dirt floor, running across the barn and back again. They appear to be made out of iron sheeting fashioned into round pipes with telescopic sleeves joined together to form the returns. Some remnants of timber tiers are also evident, mainly along the northern wall. These tiers are made of bush saplings.
The door to the kiln on the western wall is missing. The left hand jamb of a timber door frame is still in place, 1.7m from the northern wall. It is impossible to say exactly how big the door was because the rest of the frame and some bricks above and to the right of the door have become dislodged, thereby enlarging the opening.
","history":"The four metre square brick tobacco kiln or flue curing barn at 12 Chisholm Trail, Oak Valley stands on a small 150m² block currently owned by the Townsville City Council. When constructed c1933, the block on which the tobacco kiln is situated comprised 157 acres of farming land owned by Greek immigrant, Elias Emmanuel. There is some indication that Dick Moyes may have built the kiln.
In the early 1930s the tobacco industry expanded in North Queensland following government initiatives to combat growing unemployment created by world wide economic depression, and thereby boosting local economies.
The Commonwealth and State governments, together with the British-Australian Tobacco Company, jointly funded the Australian Tobacco Investigation Committee to find areas suitable for good quality tobacco growth. As a result, the Department of Agriculture and Stock tested twenty-five experimental tobacco plots during the 1927-28 season. This occurred in an area from Bowen to Mareeba and west to Pentland and Chillago, with one plot tried at Hervey's Range, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Townsville. All of these areas proved successful, producing a bright tobacco with good colour, aroma, texture and aging qualities. Mareeba became the site for a government experimental farm, since its surrounding district contained large areas with the most suitable sandy soils and climactic conditions. During the following two seasons, the Department conducted further trials at this farm, while several areas including Pentland, Charters Towers, Hervey's Range and Chillago tried crops on a commercial scale. Despite adverse weather conditions that affected the yield per acre, the leaf obtained good prices, and many people hailed North Queensland as the premier tobacco growing area of Australia.
The demand for tobacco land spread suddenly. In mid-1930 the government released at least 25 portions of land as agricultural homesteads in the Mareeba district. These attracted special purchase conditions. A local unemployment relief scheme to clear the land, and the availability of trained instructors from the Department also initially assisted Mareeba farmers. This enabled them to meet the 1930-31 season. Some crown land and some private subdivisions appeared at Hervey's Range in 1931, and tobacco fever also spread to the Major's Creek-Woodstock area south of Townsville, which then included Oak Valley. Tobacco growing in this area peaked with 31 farms in 1932 and had disappeared by 1940.
Several factors contributed to the failure of the Townsville tobacco industry. It was generally considered that the Experimental Farm at Mareeba contributed greatly to the success of the industry in that area. Although the Townsville and District Development Association agitated for a government Experimental Farm in this area to provide support for local inexperienced growers, this never eventuated. Water was always a problem as tobacco growers relied on the northern wet season. Failure of the season had drastic consequences, as did a heavy season. The tobacco plant was particularly prone to diseases and pests. Inexperienced farmers lacked the expertise to deal with these diseases, as well as cope with the complicated curing process. Government fiscal policy did not always favour the local grower: increased excise on home-grown tobacco and reduced duties on imports were blamed for the unsatisfactory position of the industry in 1934. This variety of causes often meant farmers could not sell a large enough portion of their crop at prices high enough to cover their capital outlay. Capital required to establish a tobacco farm was estimated at around £950, a considerable sum in the 1930s. This included the cultivation of 15 acres, deposit on land, a small hut, clearing, curing barns, bulk shed, horses, farm equipment and some labour costs.
One of the major costs was the construction of a curing barn, or barns, depending on the size of the farm. Local tobacco kilns were essential as it was imperative that tobacco leaf be cured immediately after harvesting, and a number of kilns appeared in the Hervey's Range and Woodstock areas. Kiln walls had to be insulated and farmers used different materials, according to their means and the availability of local resources. Different constructions in the Townsville area included brick, two layers of corrugated iron filled with sand, bush timber coated with cement plaster, home-made concrete brick, reinforced concrete, and sun-dried bricks of clay and chopped grass.
The curing process was crucial, and flue curing was the most modern, scientific method available in the 1930s. The kiln at 12 Chisholm Trail used this new technology, closely resembling drawings of a model flue curing barn in the Queensland Agricultural Journal of August 1931. The flues carried heat at ground level from the outside furnace, across the barn and back to the chimney outlets, raising the temperature inside the kiln and thereby curing the tobacco. This process overcame earlier curing problems such as leaf contamination by smoke from open fires, and also allowed greater control over heat and humidity in the curing barn.
The object of curing was to obtain leaf with a bright yellow colour similar to that of a fresh ripe lemon. After cutting, several tobacco leaves were strung together, tied to a stick at regular spaces, and then hung on tier poles in the curing barn. The leaf was then cured in an extremely complicated process involving three distinct stages: yellowing the leaf, fixing the colour and killing the leaf, and completely drying the leaf. The first stage needed a warm humid atmosphere to complete the ripening process; the second increased the heat and lowered the humidity through controlled ventilation until leaf veins were substantially dry; and the third further increased heat and decreased ventilation until the entire leaf and stem was completely dried. This process necessitated specialized knowledge to control heat, humidity and ventilation, and could differ slightly depending on the type and condition of the crop. This challenged inexperienced farmers entering the tobacco industry.
A report in 1984 stated that some old kilns in the Majors Creek area were then being used as storage sheds on farms. However, it is probable that the brick tobacco kiln at 12 Chisholm Trail is the only kiln in the area still containing remnants of flues and some tier poles, which indicates that it was never reused for other purposes. It was probably built sometime in 1933. A piece of iron visible in the top vent clearly shows an imprint of the queen's head with the number 33 underneath. This is a well known Lysaght insignia for its flat sheeting, and the number indicates that it was produced in 1933. With the tobacco industry in decline after 1932, it is unlikely that the kiln was built much later than this.
The bricks used in the construction appear to be commercially made, however there is some variation in the stretcher length between 220mm and 225mm which could contradict this. There was a local brickworks located nearby at Stuart, but there was also a contemporary report about some farmers with brick-working skills and ample supplies of local clay. Investigation into this is continuing. The brick and iron construction would have involved considerable expense. A similar brick construction in the same area was quoted as costing £65. The willingness to invest considerable capital in the industry shows either a solid faith in its potential or a desperation to survive in harsh economic times.
The Townsville tobacco industry did have some positive impact on the district. It was one of the major reasons for the formation of the Townsville and District Development Association. Lobbying by the growers on Hervey's Range prompted the construction of a new access road and this provided employment to a large number of men through an Unemployment Relief Scheme. The establishment of a local tobacco grading company also provided some employment during the worst years of the Great Depression. The kiln at 12 Chisholm Trail stands as a reminder of the tobacco industry of the 1930s. Though short-lived, it was an important phase in the evolution of the Townsville district.
","criteria":"The tobacco kiln, constructed c1933, is important physical evidence of an agricultural industry developed in response to community needs during the Great Depression. Both State and Federal governments initiated trials to find suitable land for growing tobacco with the hope of easing high unemployment and boosting local economies. The Queensland government undertook many agricultural schemes of this nature during the Depression of the 1930s, many of which were short lived. It also reflects the recurring pattern in Queensland's history of developing agriculture as an important part of land settlement.
|The tobacco kiln is a rare remnant of Townsville's history given that this area is no longer a tobacco growing district. This kiln is particularly so because it does not appear to have been reused for other purposes. It still contains the remains of the original flues and tier poles.
|The tobacco kiln demonstrates the principal characteristics of flue curing techniques which were the most modern and scientific method available in the 1930s. Its design closely followed that recommended by the Senior Instructor in Agriculture through a contemporary state-wide agricultural journal. The considerable capital investment it represented indicates either a faith in the potential of modern agricultural techniques or a desperate bid to survive in harsh economic times.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19465,"place_ref":602346,"name":"Hoop Pines","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"34 Strathpine Road","suburb":"BALD HILLS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-02-22","description":"The two Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) are located within the grounds of St Paul's Anglican School, Strathpine Road, Bald Hills. They are situated at the end of the school's main driveway, framing the entrance to the school's Administration Building, which is a late 19th/early 20th century former farmhouse.
The older tree is approximately 25m high with a canopy diameter of approximately 27m. The younger tree is approximately 18 metres high with a canopy diameter of approximately 22m. Both trees have lost the upper trunk and canopy as a result of storm damage in the mid-1980s.
","history":"The two mature Hoop Pines situated in front of the Administration Building of St Paul's Anglican School, Bald Hills, are believed to mark the location of the original Stewart Farmhouse at Bald Hills. The Stewart family, along with their relatives the Duncans, were the earliest non-indigenous settlers in the Bald Hills area (known to Aboriginal people as Wyampa) and later established one of the district's most successful dairy farms. The taller of the Hoop Pines may be remnant old growth vegetation, approximately 190 years old. The smaller Hoop Pine may be approximately 140 years old - either planted or a seedling from the older tree.
The prevalence of valuable logging trees such as hoop and bunya pines and red cedar was one of the principal attractions for the establishment of a penal settlement at Moreton Bay in the 1820s. Historian JD Steele suggests that "Brisbane owes its foundations to Oxley's enthusiasm for its river and its indigenous pine tree, Araucaria cunninghamii, usually known as the hoop pine. The tree was first observed by Oxley on 1 December 1823, on the banks of the Pine River near Petrie . . ." [JD Steele The Explorers of the Moreton Bay District 1770-1830 1972:90]. Within 50 years, most of the hoop pine had been extracted from the Moreton Bay region.
The establishment of Bald Hills as a farming community in the late 1850s was closely linked to the move by Scottish squatters John and David McConnel of Durundur on the Upper Stanley River [south of the Conondale Range and west of the Glass House Mountains], and their pro-Brisbane, pro-JD Lang associates, to establish a port at Cabbage Tree Creek [Sandgate] in the 1850s. The move was given impetus with the reinstatement of the northern passage to Moreton Bay, around the northern end of Moreton Island and south past Redcliffe and Cabbage Tree Creek, as the principal shipping passage in 1848, following the wreck of the Sovereign in the south passage in March 1847. In the early 1850s the McConnels and their associates, who supported JD Lang's vision of the development of a 'cotton colony' north of Brisbane between Cabbage Tree Creek and South Pine River, lobbied for the establishment of a port at Cabbage Tree Creek, which they claimed was more convenient for shipping than the Brisbane River, offered safe berths for larger vessels, and in particular, would give more direct port access to the Stanley River squatters, who could travel via North Pine through Bald Hills to Cabbage Tree Creek. The McConnels were joined by a number of prominent Brisbane businessmen, including John Richardson, Thomas Dowse, Robert Davidson and George Raff, who in 1852 called for a port to rival Cleveland, and the development of a resort suburb, at Bramble Bay. The New South Wales government had already set aside a village reserve at the head of Cabbage Tree Creek, and now the Scottish connection was pushing for its survey and the survey of a road from Brisbane. The village was surveyed in 1852 and in November 1853 the first Sandgate town lots were offered at public auction. There was much interest, and high prices were obtained, with the McConnels, Dowse and Robert Davidson purchasing heavily.
Sandgate never did develop as a port, development being retarded by government decisions, the inaction of early speculative landowners, poor communication with Brisbane, and strong Aboriginal resistance to European settlement. However, the lobby group did not give up hope through the 1850s, and the enticement of agricultural settlers to the Bald Hills area behind Sandgate in the mid-1850s may have been connected with move to develop a port at Cabbage Tree Creek. The link is Thomas Gray, who was responsible for encouraging the Stewart and Duncan families to take up land at Bald Hills, and who was connected with the McConnels; and the fact that both he and WJ Loudon, who had invested heavily at the first sale of Sandgate allotments, both purchased allotments at the first sale of Bald Hills land.
Thomas Gray, a Brisbane bootmaker, had emigrated to New South Wales in 1841/42 from the Black Isle, Scotland, to work for fellow highlanders the McConnels at Moreton Bay. During the voyage Gray befriended fellow Scots John Stewart and his sisters Jessie [Janet] and Margaret, and the Duncan brothers and their families. In 1845 Gray married Janet Stewart and John Stewart married the Duncan's sister, Jane. Stewart and the Duncans eventually settled on the Hunter River, while Gray established a bootmaking business in Brisbane in 1844. In the mid-1850s Gray convinced the Stewarts and Duncans to leave the flood-stricken Hunter River district and move to the South Pine River north of Brisbane, to the area now known as Bald Hills. Stewart made a preliminary trip to the district c1855 to select suitable land, not just for himself and the Duncans, but also for a large number of Hunter River settlers who were equally interested. Stewart immediately applied to the New South Wales survey office to have the land surveyed, but it was not proclaimed available for sale until December 1856, with Stewart finally purchasing land in February 1857. Due to the delay in survey, most of the interested Hunter River settlers meanwhile had moved to the Clarence where new land was available. Only Stewart and the Duncans and their families from the Hunter took up land at Bald Hills, moving onto their selections in early October 1857. They are generally acknowledged as the first non-indigenous settlers at Bald Hills.
After their experiences on the Hunter River, the settlers selected the higher ground for their farms, erecting their first houses [apparently slab and bark] on the low ridge above the South Pine River where St Peter's Anglican School is now situated. Fearing attack from Aborigines, their houses were loop-holed for rifles and located within sight of each other. These precautions proved unnecessary, for at the request of Thomas Gray and other settlers in the area between Cabbage Tree Creek and Caboolture, a detachment of Native Police was stationed at Sandgate from 1858 to 1862. Under the command of Lieutenant Frederick Wheeler, the Native Police eliminated Aboriginal resistance to white settlement in the Pine Rivers, Cabbage Tree Creek and Caboolture districts by the early 1860s.
The Stewart and Duncan families cleared the gentle slopes along the South Pine River for their crops. By the end of the 1860s most of the valuable stands of red cedar and hoop pine in the Bald Hills district had been removed, although much scrub remained. Through the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s maize, potatoes and some oaten and wheaten hay were the principal cash crops, and John Stewart had early experimented with arrowroot and cotton, for which he won bronze and silver medals at the London International Exhibition of 1862. Following the opening of a railway to Bald Hills in 1888, dairying became the principal economic activity in the district. By 1929, dairy farmers at Bald Hills were supplying up to 1000 gallons of milk daily to Brisbane and Sandgate.
John Stewart and his family were well respected in the Bald Hills community and active members of the local Presbyterian church, John serving as an Elder for nearly 40 years. The earliest Presbyterian services in the Bald Hills district were conducted at the Stewart home until a small slab and shingled church was erected in 1863 at the corner of the Strathpine and Bald Hills roads. In 1889 the slab church was replaced by a milled-timber building erected on land donated by John Stewart in 1887, further west along Strathpine Road. [This building was destroyed by fire in 1909, and replaced with the present building in 1911.] Two of Stewart's sons, James and Charles, became Presbyterian ministers. Rev. James Stewart was the founder of the Brisbane City Mission.
Many local events also were celebrated at the Stewart home, including the opening of the bridge over the South Pine River in May 1865, when a ball was held in the Stewart barn.
In 1890 John Stewart took out a £600 mortgage from the Brisbane Permanent Building and Banking Company Ltd, which may have financed construction of a new residence. If he did, the Stewarts occupied their new house for only a few years, for in 1895 the main portion of the farm - nearly 67 acres, including what is understood to be the site of the Stewart family's first residence and the possibly c1890 house - was transferred to William Thomas Taylor. The remaining Stewart property was developed as the Woodlawn dairy farm, managed by Alexander Caldwell Stewart until his accidental death in 1900. The Woodlawn Farmhouse survives at 15 Listowel Street, Bald Hills. Jane Stewart died in 1898, and her husband John in 1905, but at least one son continued to dairy farm at Bald Hills for many years.
Taylor held the original Stewart property for only a few years, transferring it in February 1898 to Samuel Unwin of Eagle Farm, who in November 1905 took out a £600 mortgage on the property. The residence located on this property and which now functions as the Administration Building at St Paul's Anglican School, appears to date to the 1890s or very early 1900s, but it has not been established whether it was erected by Stewart c1890 or a later owner. A photograph dated 1906 shows the house prior to additions and verandah enclosures, with the two already mature hoop pines forming a natural frame to the front entrance. From this evidence it is clear that the trees were not late 19th or early 20th century plantings, and it would have been unusual for them to have survived to the 20th century, were they not incorporated within the earlier Stewart house garden.
The property continued to be worked as a dairy farm, changing hands again in 1907 and also in 1910. In 1921 it was acquired by William John Hawkins of Bald Hills, who was a leader in Queensland dairying, credited with being instrumental in the establishment of the first milk supply cold store in Brisbane, at the Roma-street Railway Station, c1898. In 1929 a Brisbane newspaper described WJ Hawkins as "a successful settler, possessing a fine property and picturesque homestead" [Brisbane Courier 14 December 1929].
Further ownership changes were registered in 1934/35 and 1940, then in 1954 the property passed to John Joseph Murray Redmond and Dorothy Eliza Redmond. It was the Redmonds who transferred the land to the Anglican Church in 1958, to develop as a boys' Church of England School, thus ending over a century of agricultural activity on this land.
Bald Hills remained predominantly a farming community until the second half of the 20th century, when many of the early farms were subdivided for residential settlement. Few 19th century farmhouses have survived, and of those which remain most have been substantially altered. The former farmhouse which is now used as the Administration Building of St Paul's Anglican School, is a rare surviving late 19th/early 20th century farmhouse in the Bald Hills district, and its site is associated with the earliest phase of non-indigenous settlement in the district. A tangible link with the early farm remains in the unsubdivided school grounds and its two early hoop pines.
","criteria":"The Hoop Pines at St Paul's Anglican School, Bald Hills are indicative of the pattern of Queensland settlement, being associated with the evolution of non-indigenous settlement in the Moreton Bay district in the 1850s, and with the earliest development of the Bald Hills district in particular
|The larger of the two Hoop Pines is likely to pre-date non-indigenous settlement, and as remnant forest growth is rare surviving evidence of the valuable stands of Hoop Pine which made the Moreton Bay district so attractive for early colonial settlement, and which had been virtually removed from the Bald Hills district by the late 1860s. The two early Hoop Pines at St Paul's Anglican School are of horticultural interest and are rare specimens of trees of this age surviving in the Brisbane area.
|The Hoop Pines have aesthetic significance for their landmark value on the ridge at Bald Hills.
|They also have a special association for the community of Bald Hills as evidence of the work of the Stewart family, who, together with their relatives the Duncans, were the first non-indigenous settlers in the area, and were instrumental in developing Bald Hills as an agricultural district supplying Brisbane and Sandgate; and for the community of St Paul's Anglican School as marking the administrative centre of the school.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19468,"place_ref":602349,"name":"Row of Street Trees","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Macrossan Street","suburb":"HALIFAX","lga":"HINCHINBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-09-06","description":"The Row of Trees, comprising eight Mango trees (Mangifera indica), a Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina), and an African Mahogany (Khaya spp.) are situated in Macrossan Street, the main street of Halifax, in the block between Alma Street at the northern end and River Avenue at the southern end. The trees are planted down the centre of the street at approximately 25m intervals over a length of 255 metres.
The Mango trees have an average trunk circumference of 4.1m but each tree has its own character with trunks gnarled and burled in different patterns. The largest circumference is 5.15m with the smallest circumference measuring 2.75m. The average height of the trunk up to the first major fork in the tree is 3.62m but varies from tree to tree, the tallest measuring 5.05m and the shortest 2.79m. The average total height of the Mango trees measured [by use of a clinometer] was 20.20m, however these figures are approximate because of the difficulty in accurately sighting the top of each tree.
The shade of each Mango tree extends to an average area average of 132 m² providing a welcome shade source in summer. This shade extends over the western side of the street where the majority of the shops and the two hotels are located.
The canopy circumference is comparable to the root ball. It is estimated that the depth of the root ball extends at least 18 metres below the surface of the road reserve and quite possibly interlinks at many points at the tips. Their size and height is not only due to their age but also due to the availability of the water table which is approximately 2 metres below the surface. The tree roots provide an excellent structure to bind the soil and decrease erosion, a major problem in a wet area like the Herbert. The surrounding road surface, which extends right up to the base of the trees, is sealed with bitumen.
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There have been some changes in the composition of the row of trees. One Mango tree has been replaced with a Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina), to ensure that the aesthetic and shade qualities enjoyed by the community would remain. This is the only tree in the row to retain a circular concrete bench seat around its base. All of the Mango trees used to have these benches, which have since been removed. There is also a more recent African Mahogany (Khaya spp.) which appears to have been planted in place of a Mango tree.
","history":"In the mid-1880s members of the small community of Halifax planted a row of Mango trees along Macrossan Street, the emerging hub of the new township. The trees were planted as part of a broader public works program in Halifax initiated during the 1880s by six prominent settlers: Harald Hoffensetz, August Anderssen, Austin W Carr, Niels C Rosendahl, John Alm and Francis Herron, who constructed local roads, a church and school using volunteered time and money. These settlers also contributed to the economic stability of the township and promoted the district and the community at every opportunity. The Mango Trees are probably the last remaining stand of trees associated with this public improvement program, which at one time may have extended to other parts of Halifax.
In 1864 an official exploration party headed by George Elphinstone Dalrymple, Government Surveyor and Government Lands Commissioner, travelled from Port Hinchinbrook (now Cardwell) to the Valley of Lagoons Station and opened the Herbert River district for selection. In 1867, John Davidson explored the lower end of the Herbert River Valley and three years later settlers were beginning to trickle into the district. In 1873 there were three sugar plantations established: Gairloch, Macknade and Bermerside. They all had separate mills and the lower Herbert District was developing into individual communities with the first sugar crush at Macknade in 1874. The founder of Halifax, August Andersson, arrived in Bowen with his wife Eva from Hamburg in August 1872 and they quickly made their way to the Herbert River district. Andersson was employed on the Macknade Plantation as a carpenter but later worked on the construction of the nearby Ripple Creek Sugar Mill. Andersson continued working at the Macknade mill until 1879 when he moved up to the Gairloch Plantation and set up a shop near the Planters Retreat Hotel which was halfway between Gairloch and Ingham. It was here that he opened a successful blacksmith business which enabled him to purchase land downstream in 1880, which would later become Halifax.
In 1880, convinced of its possibilities, August Anderssen and Francis Herron made an exploratory survey of the lower Herbert Region before heading off to Cardwell to approach the Land Agent to stake a selection. A small land rush ensued, marking the beginning of an area noted for its small farm settlement, distinct from large plantations. Anderssen purchased 360 acres (portion 228) and a year later purchased the adjoining block (portion 270), but later that year sold part of it to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR). The company proceeded to build a wharf there to service their Victoria Plantation nearby. At this stage sugar would be loaded at the Halifax wharf, which was an important terminus for Herbert River traffic, and then taken downstream by boat to the deepwater port of Dungeness at the mouth of the Herbert River. At around the same time that the Anderssen family moved down to their property, so too did nine other families. They occupied an area of approximately 2,200 acres comprising ten selections, which became known as Black's Township. In 1881 Copnell built the first hotel on Anderssen's Riverview estate. It was established on an area of Anderssen's estate which would later become the present Halifax and was quickly joined by a store built by Eugene Regazzoli who purchased a portion of Anderssen's land. This store serviced the fledgling community.
The six main Black's Township settlers decided to form a company to negotiate with CSR to supply the Victoria Mill with cane. They called themselves the Herbert River Farmers Association and included: Harald Hoffensetz, August Anderssen, Austin W Carr, Niels C Rosendahl, John Alm, and Francis Herron. These men were forerunners of the small farm and central mill system which would characterize the sugar industry. They also put a lot of effort into improving their district. For example, in 1883 they approached the Divisional Board for a road to be made from the wharf to Cordelia Vale. This would then provide an important service link with Ingham. When the Divisional Board was unwilling to commit funds to the project the Herbert River Farmers Association cleared a track to Cordelia Vale themselves.
By now most of the six families had been in the district for nearly ten years. They met every Saturday nearest the full moon with the men conducting the Herbert River Farmers Association meetings and the women enjoying the social opportunity to meet together. It is not surprising that in 1883 the community lobbied the Queensland government for a school. A provisional school was approved for the area only on the condition that the community provide teacher accommodation and a schoolroom. The Association decided to contribute all work on a voluntary basis with Anderssen, Hoffensetz, and John Alm constructing the building out of hardwood. In September 1883, a school for 17 local children commenced. The men in the Herbert River Farmers Association were dedicated to the welfare and progress of their community and were instrumental in the development of the settlement which would later become the township of Halifax.
Halifax began as a township in 1885 when Anderssen decided to utilize unused portions of his land and engaged a local surveyor to subdivide his land into township allotments and roads. He engaged a Townsville auctioneer and they started an active and successful promotion campaign which attracted many people including over 300 who came from Townsville. Anderssen's Town became the envy of the nearby town of Ingham and appeared ready to surpass Ingham as the major town in the district. The nucleus of a township was already established; it had a hotel, a store, a wharf and a tramline. In addition the new town was in the vicinity of three major plantations and mills: Ripple Creek, Macknade, and Victoria, so its future appeared secure. This sale produced immediate capital gains for the two businesses already established, and Copnell sold the hotel to CF Robinson and it later became the Halifax Hotel. Initially regarded as Lower Herbert, it was not until 1886 that the settlement was officially named Halifax after the nearby Halifax Bay, named in 1770 by Cook. With the formation of a township secure, the community turned to the establishment of a Church.
The Halifax community set about building its own church using volunteer labour. Again key settlers Anderssen and Hoffensetz designed and supervised the building project and it was completed in 1886. It is most likely during this initial period of community building that the Mango trees were planted in the main street of the new town as part of a beautification program. A grandson of Niels C Rosendahl claims his grandfather planted them. While many communities in Northern Queensland during the settling period planted Fig trees (Ficus spp.) in public places the settlers of Halifax planted Mango trees (Mangifera indica) which were considered practical, as they were fruit bearing trees and much valued for their shade.
By the 1890s when much of colonial Queensland was suffering crippling economic depression, the Lower Herbert district was booming. Rather than large settlers starting plantations, there was a general move to small individually owned farms bolstered by the completion of the Victoria to Halifax tramline in 1890. It enjoyed a culturally diverse population including a large population of South Pacific Islanders, brought in as indentured labour to work on the sugar plantations, and Chinese who worked on the CSR tramline to Lucinda.
In response to the banning of 'coloured labour' in 1891 a Townsville businessman recruited Italian workers to fill the labour shortage left when Pacific Islanders were repatriated to their islands. This initiated a chain migration pattern and many of these Italian immigrants settled around Halifax. Halifax was fast becoming the centre of the district, rivalling Ingham as the main commercial centre.
However the town did not fulfil its promise. Progressive silting of the Herbert River made the river too shallow for many vessels, and an alternative transportation method for the sugar industry was sought. In 1896 the CSR Company built a tramway through the mangroves to a newly established deep-water port at Lucinda. With the tramway now extending from Ingham to Lucinda and the usage of waterways in decline, Halifax ceased to function as a service centre for the sugar industry.
By 1900, the Mango trees in Macrossan Street were large and kept well trimmed by the community, providing welcome shade for the hotel patrons against the tropical heat. A c1900 photograph indicates that the trees were pruned to promote upward growth and possibly to extend the spread of the canopy to maximise the shade potential. In 1904, the usefulness and beauty of the Mango trees was noted in a local newspaper:
Strangers, sighting Halifax for the first time cannot fail to be struck with the natural advantage of the town, although the greater part of it has not been built on the orthodox Government surveyed line. The tramway runs down the centre, or thereabouts, of the main street, and a nicely planted, uniform row of mango trees gives excellent shade. This umbrageous ornamentation is something to be proud of and it makes one wonder why that "one of the best shade trees" has been so persistently ignored in school grounds and other public places in North Queensland.
At the turn of the 20th century increasing arrivals of Italian workers invigorated the Lower Herbert District, with many later buying their own farms and bringing their families out from Italy. Again the Mango trees in Macrossan Street provided a social meeting venue for the new immigrants, who regularly met under the shady canopies. Older members of the Italian community maintained this tradition for well over 50 years. They are also remembered for displaying extreme pride in their meeting place, sweeping the street clean and free of leaves and mangoes before settling down on the benches installed around the base for lively discussions. These benches were extant by the mid-20th century. Younger members of the community also found a welcome social spot under the Mango trees. In the 1950s, after a Saturday night party at the Dance Hall situated between the two hotels, young men and women would spill out onto the street to congregate under the trees before heading home.
In 2003, nearly one hundred and twenty years after they were planted, the Mango trees in Halifax continue to fulfill the role intended by the community who planted them. They are a welcome source of shade against the tropical sun and provide natural character and beauty to the town of Halifax. As Halifax is located on an emerging tourist route the aesthetic quality of the trees in the town's overall character is highly valued and is perceived to contribute to the local economy.
","criteria":"The Row of Street Trees in Macrossan Street, Halifax, comprises eight mature Mango Trees (Mangifera indica), a Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina) and an African Mahogany (Khaya spp.). The row is significant to the local and Queensland community for its historical, aesthetic and social qualities. The Mango trees are thought to have been planted c1885-86 as shade trees to help Europeans adjust to the tropics and as part of a beautification program, using introduced species as was common then.
The Mango trees are important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the earliest establishment of the township of Halifax on the Herbert River in the 1880s, and with the role of the Herbert River Farmers' Association in developing the town and district.
|They are an excellent surviving example of late 19th century shade trees planted in public spaces, particularly interesting for the choice of Mango trees (Mangifera indica), which are both fruit-bearing and much valued for their shade, rather than the more usual Fig trees (Ficus spp.).
|The trees have become part of the community life of Halifax as shady meeting places in the area of the town, particularly for the elderly, and are valued by the locals throughout the district and by visitors for their aesthetic qualities.
The trees are important for their aesthetic value. Halifax is distinctive for its avenue of trees and the aesthetic qualities they project. Visitors to the town remember the Mango trees in particular for their size, height and beauty; being all approximately 20 metres in height, possessing gnarled trunks, and planted at a uniform distance. The trees are a significant physical feature of the Macrossan Street streetscape and contribute significantly to the character of Halifax.
|The trees have become part of the community life of Halifax as shady meeting places in the area of the town, particularly for the elderly, and are valued by the locals throughout the district and by visitors for their aesthetic qualities.
The trees have been an integral part of each stage of community development in Halifax, and have a strong and special association with the local community as a meeting place. At one period a concrete seating bench was constructed around the base of each tree. One Mango tree, dubbed the 'Tree of Knowledge', remains a favourite meeting place for older Italian men who have regularly met friends there over a period of fifty years. The trees are also fondly remembered as the place for younger members of the community to meet friends on a Saturday night. The community has always taken pride in Macrossan Street and its trees and the current Halifax community feels a strong and special association with them. When removal of the trees was proposed in late 2001 the community organised a protest petition to be sent to the Hinchinbrook Shire Council which was signed by over 800 people from Halifax and surrounding districts, including Cordelia, Taylors Beach, Lucinda and Ingham.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19472,"place_ref":602352,"name":"Astor Theatre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"77 Burrowes Street","suburb":"SURAT","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-09-27","description":"The Astor Theatre is situated in the commercial centre of Surat and is a simple rectangular timber building set on low stumps. The roof is gabled and clad in corrugated iron and is concealed from the front by a deep stepped parapet. There are louvred openings in the upper section of the parapet and a cantilevered awning over the entrance. There are exit doors in the side and rear of the building and well as the front entrance.
The front section of the building is divided into three and comprises a central foyer with a confectionary bar to the left and the ladies toilets to the right. The projection box is above the foyer and is reached by narrow timber stairs on the left hand side.
The auditorium is a simple rectangular space; the walls being lined with timber and fibrous plaster sheeting. The ceiling is unlined and laminated timber struts brace the walls. The floor is raked and there are several louvred timber windows along the walls to provide ventilation. Towards the rear of the building, there are sections of latticework under the eaves. The interior lining now covers this provision for ventilation.
There is a speaker area behind the screen and the men's toilets are at this end of the building also. Canvas stretcher chairs provide seating.
There is a small shed to the rear of the building and a modern brick footpath has been laid outside the front entrance.
","history":"The Astor Picture Theatre was built in 1925 as an open-air picture theatre in Surat, which is the administrative centre of the Warroo Shire and is situated on the Balonne River 80 kilometres south of Roma.
The Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell mapped the area in 1846 and the District of Maranoa was proclaimed in November 1848. The new Commissioner of Lands arrived with several police in 1849 and set up camp on Yambougal station, moving slightly up river a few months later. This was the site selected in 1849 by surveyor James Burrowes for a service township on the Balonne River. He called the township Surat, after his former home in Madras, India. The main street, on which the theatre is situated, carries this surveyor's name.
A Court of Petty Sessions at Surat was gazetted in 1850 and a police building was erected. The Lands and Post Offices were soon represented and in 1859 a hotel was built. By the time that the town site was surveyed for land sales in 1863, a number of buildings had already been erected. Although Surat was superseded by St George as an administrative centre for the district in 1865, it continued to serve the surrounding area, which became Warroo Shire. Surat gained a school in 1874 and its first church in the late 1870s. In 1879 Cobb and Co set up a coach service from St George to Surat and on to Yuleba, constructing a staging post and store at Surat. This service was run until 1924, when it was the last coach route to be run in Australia.
Surat Pictures Limited was formed in 1925 when W Kitson sought building approval for the construction of a picture theatre in the main street of Surat. This was an open-air picture theatre comprising an earth-floored enclosure, a canvas screen at the rear and a shallow building along the street frontage containing a foyer with a projection booth above it. This type of structure was the cheapest and simplest kind of purpose built film venue and was not uncommon at the time in the warmer parts of Australia, though many of them were later roofed over.
The Lumiere Brothers had produced the first moving films in Paris in 1895, followed by Edison in America in 1896, although these early films were very short and simply captured events without a narrative. The first feature movie 'the Story of the Kelly Gang' was made in Australia in 1906 and it was the ability of film to tell a story that was the key to its popularity. At first, films were shown as part of variety shows in theatres or were screened in halls. In the 1900s purpose built picture theatres showing a program of films accompanied by music were built in America, Europe and Australia. Some of those catering to centres with large populations were huge and luxurious, though most were far more modest.
Films were much less expensive to show than live theatre and the equipment was easily transported, making them well suited as an entertainment in country areas, some films being displayed by travelling 'picture show men' in the early years. The growing popularity of films led to the construction of many open-air theatres or simple shed-like buildings as permanent venues for showing film. Although theatre chains usually owned the large 'picture palaces' in cities, most small picture theatres in Queensland were independently owned and Queensland eventually had more independently owned theatres than any other state in Australia. These small ventures, frequently family owned, did not have the capital to build lavish premises, nor did they have a large client base in country areas and might screen movies only once or twice a week. Having invested in expensive projection equipment, particularly after the advent of talkies, extensions and improvements to picture theatres were often made piecemeal as demand grew and money became available. The Astor Theatre, extended in stages, provides a good illustration of this process.
The first films shown at Surat were silent and had a piano accompaniment, a generator providing power for the projector. Bill McKay Senior was the first proprietor and ran the Astor until the 1930s, when it passed to Geoff Armstrong. Between 1938 and 1940 a Mrs. Crump leased it. It was operated during the Second World War by GO and RD Armstrong and was acquired in 1945 by E J and V M Aldridge who ran it as a family business, with their son acting as the projectionist.
Country picture theatres provided an important service to people in the surrounding area. Coming into town for a night at the pictures provided good family entertainment, a venue for courtship and an opportunity for people of all ages to meet. Picture theatres showed feature films, newsreels, and cartoons and were often also used for live shows and special events. They provided a stimulus for the imagination and a relief from isolation and anxiety, particularly in the difficult years of the Depression and of World War II. They were a link with the wider community in Australia and with contemporary American culture as presented by Hollywood. For all these reasons, picture going enjoyed widespread popularity throughout rural Queensland between the 1920s and 1950s.
Surat was connected to a reticulated water system in 1952 and electricity was laid on in 1953 when the Aldridge family sold the theatre to S Barry, who had run the Queen's Theatre in Toowoomba during World War Two. During Barry's ownership the Astor underwent major changes. In the 1950s it was converted into an indoor theatre and roofed over, although it retained an earth floor. Such conversions were commonly made to shelter patrons and improve sound quality. The Royal Theatre at Winton is now the only example of this early open form to survive as a cinema.
In the 1960s the Astor was extended substantially, toilets were added and a raked timber floor was installed. The theatre could become very cold in winter and gas heating replaced the chip heaters originally used. It is thought that the interior was also lined with fibrous cement sheeting during this period. Television came to Surat in the 1970s and reduced attendance, as it had elsewhere. Barry sold the theatre to Lawrence Cherry who owned a local service station. Between 1974 and 1981 Cherry, N & M Crain and L & D Waud ran the Astor, which was then purchased by Len and Doreen Waud. Mr Waud had been a projectionist in Sydney in 1936 and his wife an usherette at the Regent in Toowoomba. A new sound system was installed.
In common with many rural centres, Surat lost population in the 1980s and 90s as falling prices and severe drought reduced the town's income and businesses closed. In the mid 1990s a programme to revive the town was set in motion by the local shire council and community and the town is now experiencing an economic resurgence. The Cobb and Co staging station has been developed as a museum and tourist attraction. The Astor Theatre is still used and hosted the Movie Muster, a festival of Australian films, during the Centenary of Federation celebrations in 2001. Although extensions and additions took place in the mid 20th century, these were to improve function as a picture theatre rather than to create change and the building is still a good example of its type, which has become rare. It retains early carbon arc projectors.
","criteria":"The Astor Picture Theatre, Surat is important in demonstrating the development of picture theatres in Queensland and the part that picture going played in the life of Australia in the 20th century, before it began to be displaced by television. Picture theatres enjoyed widespread popularity, especially in rural areas, as they provided not only entertainment, but also a venue for social interaction and a means of reducing isolation by providing a window into the wider world. The Astor Theatre is evidence for the popularity of picture going throughout rural Queensland between the 1920s and 1950s.
|The Astor is rare as one of the very few early picture theatres remaining in Queensland that have not been adapted for other uses. Alterations have been made over the years to improve its function as a picture theatre, rather than to accommodate changed use. It retains two early projectors in the bio box.
|The Astor Theatre is a good example of its type, illustrating the way in which many small picture theatres were developed from modest early beginnings and retains characteristics of its type such as long sight lines, a raked floor, foyer, projection box and confectionary counter.
|The Astor Theatre is centrally located in Surat and makes an important contribution to the built character of the town.
|It has important associations with the community of the town and the surrounding area, as a venue for social interaction and popular entertainment, and for many members of which it is a focus for memories.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19477,"place_ref":602355,"name":"Stannary Hills to Boonmoo and Stannary Hills to Irvinebank Tramway formations","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"To be determined","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-25","description":"The formations are evidence of two tramways that operated between Irvinebank and Boonmoo for approximately 29 kilometres in the tin mining fields west of the Atherton Tablelands. One formation is evident from Boonmoo to Rocky Bluffs via Stannary Hills and the second tramway from The Junction to Irvinebank. The tramways ran on a two foot gauge, distinct from the state railway system which operated on a 3 foot 6 inch gauge.
The tramway alignment is traceable from Boonmoo siding but the evidence at this end is now minimal. The heritage register boundary starts at latitude 17.25991 S and longitude 145.10478 E (by GPS; WGS Datum 84) where the formation now forms part of a station access road. The formation heads south-east along Eureka Creek. The formation is partly excavated into the sides of Eureka Creek valley. The formation is raised over some areas of solid rock by means of stone retaining walls containing earth fill. Ruins of bridges, minor earthworks and cuttings can be seen between Boonmoo and the 6 Mile (6 miles from Boonmoo). A large quantity of broken bricks mark the site of the former brick factory beside the tramway formation at 10 Mile (17.30605S, 145.17661E).
A number of ore bins can be seen on or near the formation, with markings 'Arthur Berlin' at 17.30863S 145.17891E. The formation was not inspected from here to Stannary Hills due to difficult access along Eureka Creek, however near the ore bin site, the tramway formation turns sharply into the west bank of Bock's Creek, a tributary of Eureka Creek, travels upstream along this creek and then comes back into Eureka Creek on the east side of Bock's Creek. Eureka Creek Gorge is between Bock's Creek and Stannary Hills.
Two old mango trees, about 25 metres away from the formation, mark the tramway station site at Stannary Hills (17.31285S, 145.21458E and 17.31285S, 145.21458E). Some glass and metal fragments are evident here, and there are some remains of the Stannary Hills station building, most notably remnants of the loco service pit.
A concrete weir is constructed in Eureka Creek at Stannary Hills, this is included in the heritage entry. Remains of a corrugated iron water tank can be seen on the formation above the weir (17.31367S, 145.21448E). The formation is clearly visible at Stannary Hills excepting a 10 metre section where the formation rounds a bend between the mango trees and the weir and appears to have been disturbed by recent mining activities.
From Stannary Hills to the Black Bridge site (17.31528S, 145.22139E) the formation is benched into the side of a steep slope into Eureka Creek. Concrete blocks and the base of timber stumps are all that remains of this bridge, the largest on the Stannary Hills to Irvinebank section. The Bradman inscription ('Bradman 320') is inscribed on one of the concrete blocks here, although it was not located at the time the formation was inspected.
The tramway diverges at the Junction on the bank of Eureka Creek adjacent to a station track (17.31304S 145.23055E). Cuttings can be seen on both sides of the creek and both sides of the station track. There is no evidence of the bridge that once took the tramway across Eureka Creek from the Junction towards Rocky Bluffs. The formation of the Rocky Bluffs line is evident from the Junction to a point at 17.31304S 145.23055E. From here the formation has been disturbed by recent mining activities. The Rocky Bluffs line crosses Loloma Dam (the section crossing Loloma Dam does not form part of the entry) and into Lot 612 OL72 where the formation and terminus at Rocky Bluffs becomes part of the Rocky Bluffs entry to the Queensland Heritage Register (QHR: 601861).
The Irvinebank line turns south from the Junction and can be clearly traced to a point at 17.31159S 145.23102E where it has been disturbed by mining activities The formation again becomes visible at 17.31564S 145.23133E to 17.32465S 145.23143E. Further mining disturbance has heavily impacted the formation from here to 17.33427S 145.22602E. The formation is clear from this point to Yorkies Cutting, at the boundary between Boonmoo and Mont Albion Stations.
Yorkies Cutting is located at 17.34205S 145.23102E. It is a distinctive landmark about 5 metres deep and 20 metres long consisting of a cutting into rocky ground. From here the formation is visible for another few hundred metres, in some places the metal railway spikes show where the formation once lay on flat sandy ground. The formation is not evident for approximately 200 metres through a sandy area of melaleuca sp. but can be seen again as it approaches Hales Siding.
Hales Siding consists of a small curved section of tramway formation north of the Herberton-Petford Road. This section is apparently part of some sort of spur line that went from the main line into Hales Siding. The area to the north of the road consists of a flattened, disturbed area marked by distinct signs of several layers of settlement over a large area. These include a concrete floor with machine foundations and two posts (possibly from a roof or shed over machinery), at least three mature common mango trees, two smaller Bowen mango trees, one small citrus tree, a number of small pine trees, a jacaranda and a frangipani. A vertical excavation into rock could mark an engine watering pit, a well or a mineshaft. While there are areas of disturbance, there is evidence of the tramway spur line.
The tramway formation meets the northern side of the Herberton-Petford Road at GPS S17° 21.807" E145° 12.812". The line reappears on the opposite side of the road at S17° 21.803" E145° 12.803". At this latter point there are small scatters of coal, slag and glass bottle fragments and the tramway is visible though indistinct. There is evidence of the spur line to a point of major disturbance at S17° 21.675" E145° 12.612" about 25 metres from the Stannary Hills Road junction. Some sections between these GPS readings are indistinct and there are signs of possible disturbance but no old tracks. Other sections are very clear and include raised areas, shallow cuttings, a stone formation and a fallen telegraph pole with wire and insulator fragments.
From the Stannary Hills Road junction, the tramway formation follows the Herberton-Petford Road in a south-westerly direction. About 300 metres from the junction it meets a track heading approximately south-east, which creates an area of disturbance 8 metres wide. On either side of the track the tramway formations are broken from S17° 21.786" E145° 12.474" to S17° 21.784" E145° 12.473". On the tramway formation to the south-west of the disturbance there are the remains of a bridge over a creek at S17° 21.828" E145° 12.453" and a small creek crossing with reinforcing rods near a cutting.
From the track, the tramway formation follows the Herberton-Petford Road until it meets another track about 600 metres from the Stannary Hills Road junction. This also heads approximately south-east. It creates an area of disturbance approximately 13 metres wide. On either side of the track tramway formations are broken from S17° 21.920" E145° 12.281" to S17° 21.919" E145° 12.285".
From here, the tramway formation runs fairly close to the Herberton-Petford Road and is frequently visible, particularly for about a kilometer in the vicinity of Weinart Siding. There is stone pitching near to the road at S17° 22.358" E145° 11.418". The base of a telegraph pole, broken insulators and a metal bracket for holding insulators were found nearby, between the tramway formation and the road. Small metal scatters, including rail spikes, were also found on or next to the tramway formation in this area.
The area south of Weinart Siding has suffered considerable disturbance. A fence and a firebreak intersect the tramway formation and a new track or firebreak runs along the fence. The disturbed area runs from the northerly side of the track/fire break along a fence (S17° 22.496" E145° 11.324") to S17° 22.539" E145° 11.260" on the south side. The disturbance extends to the Herberton-Petford Road.
From the disturbance south of Weinart Siding to Victoria Siding, the tramway heads more or less south and is no longer close to the Herberton-Petford Road. North of Chinaman Creek, mining and grazing activities have caused considerable disturbance between southern point S17° 23.653" E145° 11.068" and northern point S17° 23.504" E145° 11.151". There is a section of tramway formation visible between these points but part of it serves as a bank on the Mont Albion Station dam.
The tramway formation from Chinaman Creek to Victoria Siding (on the Irvinebank-Petford Road) is clear and in good condition and there are many scatters and tramway remains. Among these is a creek crossing with a wooden pole and fine stone work at S17° 24.042" E145° 11.108". There is also a standing telegraph pole at S17° 23.912" E145° 11.104"; another is nearby. Close to the first pole is a partly exposed 2-3" pipeline. There is another railway sleeper with two spikes at S17° 23.885" E145° 11.123" and one with four spikes at S17° 23.859" E145° 11.136". At this point there is a crossing with stone work.
The tramway formations meet the Hereberton-Petford Road again at Victoria Siding. The heritage boundary ends at a deep rock cutting at Ganes Flat which is marked by a mature mango and other exotic trees.
","history":"The Boonmoo to Stannary Hills and Stannary Hills to Irvinebank tramway formations represent two private tramways constructed between 1901 and 1907 that provided transport for the tin mining fields west of the Atherton Tablelands in north Queensland from their construction until 1936. The tramlines are on a 2 foot gauge, distinct from the standard 3 foot 6 inch gauge used on the government railway of the time. Sleepers and bridge spans were constructed from local timber such as cypress pine, bloodwood and spotted gum. The Boonmoo to Stannary Hills section was also known as Dixon's tramway, named after the engineer responsible for the construction of the first tramway.
James Venture Mulligan reported the first tin deposits to the west of Atherton Tablelands in June 1875. Four years later a group of prospectors found tin in the Wild River and pegged the Great Northern Mine. Further tin lodes were found and in 1881 the Great Western Mine opened, followed by Eureka Creek in 1882 and Gibbs Creek in 1883. Prior to the construction of the tramways Cobb and Co provided the only reliable form of transport between the tin mining area west of the Atherton Tableland and the coastal ports of Port Douglas and Cairns.
In 1884 the Queensland Government chose Cairns as the coastal terminus for a railway to Mareeba across the Great Divide, although the line was not built until 1893. Copper deposits were discovered at Chillagoe/Mungana in 1888 creating renewed calls for increased transport between the coastal ports and the mining areas west of the Atherton Tablelands.
The construction of the 3 foot 6 inch Cairns to Mungana railway by the Queensland Government in 1893 sparked interest in the Herberton area from a group of Adelaide based mining entrepreneurs. North Queensland Tin Mining Corporation was registered on 20 September 1899 with WH Phillips as Chairman and S Dixon as Queensland Director. It had capitol of £20 000 in £100 shares. The company was particularly interested in the Eureka Creek mines, which had been abandoned by tin workers in the early 1890's due to high transport costs. By October 1900 the company controlled a range of assets including 500 acres of mining leases, 320 acres of freehold, tramway leases, water rights and battery sites at Nigger Creek and Rocky Bluffs. The closest siding on the government railway to the Eureka Creek tin fields was Boonmoo, also known as the 35 Mile.
In 1901 North Queensland Tin Mining Corporation was floated to raise the capital to construct the Boonmoo to Stannary Hills tramway. Properties and fixed assets to the Stannary Hills Mines and Tramway Company Limited, an Adelaide based company with a nominated capital of £650,000. The company was the first to take advantage of the 1900 Amendments to the Mining Act of 1898 which introduced provisions for tramways to carry goods and passengers in addition to mineral traffic, to attract investment in Queensland mining operations. C.T. Stephens was appointed to survey the line and supervise construction of the tramway by Dixon in 1901.
The original line was surveyed from Boonmoo along Eureka Creek to Stannary Hills and terminating at Watsonville. Work began at Boonmoo in early 1901 and reached Stannary Hills in 1902. For several miles construction work offered no major difficulties, but within 4 or 5 miles of Stannary Hills the ranges had to be surmounted, which necessitated cutting around the hills to enable a reasonable grade for the line. After the Boonmoo to Stannary Hills line opened in May 1902, instead of proceeding to Watsonville, it was extended 11 kms to Rocky Bluffs (QHR: 601861) a battery site on the Walsh River where minerals from the Eureka Creek tin deposits could be processed.
A modern 33 head stamper battery, capable of crushing 100 tons a day, was installed at Rocky Bluff immediately on completion of the line. The battery was known as 'Shaking Moses' and was formally opened in May 1903. The tramline finished at the top of a steep incline above the battery. All firewood for the boilers and ore for treatment at the battery were lowered down the inclined tramway with two tracks for a distance of about 600 ft. Brake control on the trucks was exercised from a platform at the top of the inclined tramway.
Passenger fares were 3 shillings sixpence each way from Stannary Hills to Rocky Bluff and passengers travelled "at their own risk". There were no stations, passengers simply hailed the tram to board it
Mining entrepreneur of north Queensland, John Moffat, had a strong interest in the transport developments at Stannary Hills. With the commissioning of his second tin smelter, Loudoun Mill at Irvinebank (later to become the Irvinebank State Treatment Works, QHR: 600679), in the latter part of 1904, it became clear that improved transport was necessary, for firewood, tin from the outer areas and for transporting ores. Firewood was particularly important, as the Loudoun Mill consumed in excess of 100 tonnes a day in its peak and supplies from Irvinebank were dwindling. Moffat decided to build the Stannary Hills to Irvinebank tramway, to connect with the Stannary Hills to Boonmoo line.
Construction work on The Junction to Irvinebank section started in August 1906. About 150 men were employed on the construction work, with one gang working on cuttings and general formations, one gang on platelaying and one gang on bridge construction. Construction workers were paid 8 shillings per day, while gangers were paid 10 shillings per day.
By 1907 Herberton and Irvinebank were the centre of Queensland's base metal industry with major smelters and batteries producing nearly three-quarters of Queensland's tin production. The construction of a tramway from Irvinebank to Stannary Hills had the potential to link Moffat's tin mining empire by rail to the newly discovered coal supplies at Mount Mulligan (QHR nomination: 601036), the port of Cairns, Brisbane, and on to Melbourne, Sydney and eventually Adelaide.
Early in 1907 the rails had extended almost all the way into Irvinebank. A siding and goods shed known as Close-up was established just below the overflow of the Ibis Dam at Loudoun Mill. This remained the goods shed until the tramway station at the Loudoun Mill was completed. The first load of firewood was delivered to Loudoun Mill by tramway on 28 March 1907. John Moffat's company began transporting goods on behalf of the public from June 1907.
The official opening of the tramway was a festive occasion. It took the form of a grand picnic, hosted by John and Margaret Moffat at the 'All-but' near Fireclay Gully on the west of town on 29 June 1907. Several trams conveyed the 1500 guests to the specially cleared site. Businesses closed for the day and all of Irvinebank was there. Entertainment included sports, dancing, barrel mule and steam merry-go-round.
After its construction, the Stannary Hills to Irvinebank tramway served for two decades as the most reliable form of transport to and from Stannary Hills, Rocky Bluffs and Irvinebank. A long procession of politicians, journalists, promoters, company directors and Governor McGregor himself came this way to visit John Moffat and the Loudoun Mill. The passenger carriage was attached to the goods wagon loaded with coke and town and mill supplies and hauled by wood burning locomotives. The twenty-one mile trip took four hours and all travel was at the passengers own risk.
In the first year 61,782 tonnes of freight and 8,696 passengers were transported between Irvinebank and Boonmoo. Passenger fares were 4 shillings return from Irvinebank to Stannary Hills, compared to 2 shillings for the same distance, from Boonmoo to Stannary Hills on the Rocky Bluffs line. A 2 shillings and sixpence surcharge was charged for public freight on the Irvinebank line and the first class freight rate was 40% higher than the Government and Stannary Hills Tramway rates.
While the Stannary Hills to Irvinebank tramway was principally used for transporting ore, metal, fuel and general supplies, it also offered an enormous social benefit to those employed in the tin industry west of the Atherton Tablelands. A number of social outings relied on the transport of the tramway, such as employees picnics and other special events. The tramways also carried goods such as kerosene, ice, fruit and vegetables, beer and mail.
John Moffat retired from managing the Irvinebank mining industry in February 1912 aged 72. One time General Manager of Stannary Hills Mine and Tramway Company, JH Reid, took over as manager of Irvinebank Mining Company Ltd and continued operations on a restricted scale. The First World War further accentuated the decline in the Irvinebank tin fields. The whole of the mining, milling and smelter works were sold to the Queensland Government in 1919 for the total sum of £22,500.
Loudoun Mill was reopened as the Irvinebank State Treatment Works in October 1919. Operations were continued until December 1920. The tramway service from Boonmoo to Irvinebank came under the control of the State Treatment Works. In 1922 the State Government purchased the Stannary Hills to Rocky Bluffs line from John Darling and Company, who had previously purchased the tramway from Stannary Hills Mine and Tramway Company. Locomotives and stock were then moved to Irvinebank and pooled with the Irvinebank tramway engines and stock. The Junction to Stannary Hills line was dismantled in 1926.
After several unsuccessful attempts had been made to revive the mining industry in the district, tramway operations ceased permanently at the end of 1936. In 1938 the locomotive 'Old John' was sold to the Marian Sugar Mills. During the Second World War the government disposed of all recoverable materials from the mines. The rails were taken up and sold to cane and mining tramways in the state. Some ironwork was purchased by Douglas Shire Council for the Port Douglas tramway, which was eventually incorporated into, and is still used by, the Mossman Mill.
","criteria":"The Irvinebank and Stannary Hills tramway formations, constructed between 1901-1907 are significant in Queensland's history for the role they played in the development of the north Queensland tin fields.
|The formation demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage as a track with a gauge of 2 foot, constructed specifically for the mining industry for private freight and passengers, and being of private construction.
|Archaeological remains such as discarded mining equipment, bottle dumps, locally made bricks and bridge span constructions associated with the tramway formation have the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history.
|The tramway formations have a special and continued association with the tin mining community of north Queensland and a special association with the life or work of John Moffat.
|The tramway formations have a special and continued association with the tin mining community of north Queensland and a special association with the life or work of John Moffat. Moffat was important in Queensland's history as a regional entrepreneur who controlled mineral developments in North Queensland from 1880 to 1912. Moffat built the Irvinebank to Stannary Hills tramway between 1906-1907, and owned and operated the Irvinebank to Stannary Hills tramway privately from 1906 to 1912.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19479,"place_ref":602356,"name":"Queen's Park","alternate_name":"Queens Park","street_address":"Milford Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-09-27","description":"Queen's Park is currently bounded by Brisbane Street to the north, Milford Street to the west, Chermside Street to the east and the boundaries of Lots 1- 2 RP 99201 and Lot 442 SL 4125 to the south excepting an access road from Griffith Road between these lots.
The northern section of the original reserve is occupied largely by Ipswich Girl's Grammar School, though it contains two memorials and a striking pyramidal structure of limestone terracing alongside Brisbane Street. The entrance gates are now on a triangular piece of land to the northwest corner of the park and separated from it by Limestone Street. The section of the original reserve to the south is now known as Limestone Park and contains several major sporting facilities. The section in the centre is officially Queen's Park and also contains the Burley Griffin Incinerator, which is separately entered in the Queensland Heritage Register [600596].
Queen's Park contains two ridges of silicified magnesian limestone running north-northwest and south-southeast. This type of limestone has been used for stonework features within the park. These are of a consistent and distinctive style and are constructed of rubble with stone capping and include walls, steps, terraces and several gateways with cylindrical posts.
The section to the north of Brisbane Street contains a knoll, the northwestern end of the limestone ridge. This has a striking landscaped feature of limestone paths and terraces reminiscent of a stepped pyramid topped by trees. There are two identical memorials on each side of structure and near the road. These are low obelisks formed of limestone rubble on concrete bases with a panel of contrasting basalt rubble on each face. They have pyramidal limestone caps. That on the southwest commemorates Allan Cunningham, botanist and explorer, and that to the north is dedicated to Thomas Glassey, an early reformist Member of Parliament for Ipswich. Behind his memorial is a feature called 'the hummock' a remnant of the limestone ridge encircled by a low stone wall.
The park contains a number of early plantings including alternating hoop and bunya pines beside the gates on Chermside Road. There is also a stand of grass trees (Xanthorroea australis) near the present lookout that are believed to have existed when the park was formed. Intentional plantings include fig trees, bunya and hoop pines, bottle trees and bamboo. Many of F.W. Turley's plantings survive, including trees lining Brisbane Road and plantings of the bougainvillea that he helped to popularise.
The park contains a number of buildings, major examples of which are:
The Curator's House is a timber building with a corrugated iron roof and is situated on a slight rise. The house has been altered internally, although it retains battened ceilings, much original joinery and some leadlight. A clipped box hedge has been cultivated in front of the house to form the words 'Queens Park'. There are also bougainvillea plantings around the house. Close to this are brick bush houses, the smaller of which is a 1941 bush house built by Turley.
The Incinerator Theatre is within a fenced area and has a modern rehearsal hall nearby. Although the former incinerator was intended as an industrial building, it is also aesthetically pleasing in its form and setting and was sufficiently well regarded by the community to trigger a campaign to preserve it. Its aesthetic qualities have been important to the success of its recycling as a venue for the performing arts.
The sports clubs premises in the Park include those of the Ipswich Lawn Tennis Association, which is located on the Chermside Road boundary near Rockton Street intersection. It has several courts and a timber clubhouse with a tiled gabled roof and a gabled porch extending over a verandah at the front. The interior contains an office, early timber shower cubicles and a kitchen.
The Croquet Club has a court (lawn) overlooked by a timber and fibrous cement clubhouse. It is set on low concrete blocks and has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and topped by two decorative ventilators. The interior comprises a large open hall lit by windows with coloured glass inserts, a kitchen and (store?)
The Ipswich Bowling Club is located in the northern section of Queen's Park and comprises a two-storey late 20th century brick clubhouse and bowling greens.
Queen's Park also contains several memorials. These are:
The Macfarlane Memorial (1895). This commemorates a former Ipswich mayor and Member of Parliament John Macfarlane and is in the form of a sandstone obelisk on a corbelled base with a leaded marble plaque on the northern face. On the back of the monument, the stonemason is identified as E. Greenway, Ipswich.
The WB Darker Memorial Rotunda (1949). This Rotary Club of Ipswich project is dedicated to Walter Darker; a prominent Rotarian who was Chairman of Directors of several major Brisbane companies, President of the Associated Chamber of Commerce of Australia and Chairman of the Queensland Division of the Red Cross. The shelter is hexagonal in form with a metal-clad roof supported on timber posts with decorative brackets. It shelters seating.
The Naval Monument (1967). This faces Brisbane Street and is a cairn of concrete bricks on a concrete base and is topped by a metal anchor. A metal plaque on the base records its dedication to the naval servicemen of the Ipswich and West Moreton District.
Other built features in the park include an open-air wedding chapel, a modern kiosk and children's playground, bush houses and a nursery.
","history":"Queen's Park, Ipswich is the central section of a reserve granted in 1858 as a botanic garden and park for public recreation.
In 1842 Henry Wade set aside a 'reserve for public recreation and botanic gardens' at Woodend in the first survey of Ipswich, though this was not developed. In 1855 Walter Hill was appointed Director of Brisbane Botanic Gardens and the 'branch' botanic reserves at Ipswich, Toowoomba and Warwick were under his supervision. The people of Ipswich objected to the site reserved by Wade and a public meeting was held in 1856 regarding a change of site to the current area. In 1858, the proposed reserve was approved, provided that land was made available for railway use. It was much larger than the current area now designated Queen's Park and was bounded by Torch Street to the north, incorporating a section of riverbank; Milford Street to the west, Salisbury Road to the south and Chermside Road to the east. It included two major limestone features and a spring in the southern section where Aborigines camped until the 1890s.
In 1859 trustees for the park were chosen in accordance with the system also used for other Queen's Parks. They were all men very prominent in Ipswich in the 19th century - John Panton, George Thorn Jnr., Patrick O'Sullivan, Frederick Forbes, Christopher Gorry, Henry Challinor, Arthur McAlister, Henry Kilner and George Faircloth. The Board of Trustees were formally appointed in 1862 and a Deed of Grant for 207 acres was recorded on 8 May 1862. In the following year they issued rules for opening hours and the protection of flora in the park by impounding grazing animals and banning the cutting of grass and trees. These regulations seem to suggest that the reserve was regarded as a town Common by the public and may have been the trigger for several petitions made between 1863 and 1872 for council control of the reserve.
Walter Hill, Director of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, supplied plans for the park layout, together with suitable trees from the Brisbane Gardens, including araucarias and cupressus, in 1864, though he noted on a visit in 1876 that the plans had not been followed. However, at this time the trees supplied by him were said to be growing well and the park was in good order with a drive and entrance gates and enclosed by a post and rail fence. The Brisbane Botanic Gardens and Acclimatisation Society had also supplied fruit trees and flowering shrubs by 1875 and a house had been built for the Superintendent. Facilities built while the park was a government garden included a bush house erected in 1890 and a band rotunda constructed in 1891. Ipswich was noted for its champion bands and performances drew huge audiences for Saturday concerts in the park.
Serving a scientific and commercial purpose as well as a recreational one, the park was also active as a horticultural/agricultural experimental station and propagating garden. It supplied plants for Arbor Day plantings and to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. Trials of clover are reported as being carried out in 1891. Government support was provided in the form of grants in aid and by 1890 the Ipswich gardens had received £8300, more than any other regional reserve except the Botanical Gardens at Rockhampton, demonstrating the importance of the work carried out by such facilities.
The original reserve shrank in area over time. A section to the north of the park which included a length of river bank, was resumed for the railway which opened to Brisbane in 1874 and two roads were cut through the park. This division of the park into three sections affected the way in which the park developed. The central section of the reserve was gazetted as a Park Reserve on 18 August 1891 and a School Reserve to the north was excised. The Central Boys and Girls School reserves were possibly also excised at this time. In 1893 Queen's Park was transferred to Ipswich City Council. The following year, the southern section, now Limestone Park, was transferred to Ipswich City Council
Land within the park was leased to several sporting associations. The first of these was the Ipswich Croquet Club, which was founded in 1902 and was allotted space for a court in the park. The Ipswich Bowling Club was founded in 1910 and opened a green for play in the park in 1912. A clubhouse was built for them to the design of W Haenke in 1914. This was removed to make way for a new clubhouse in the 1960s.
In 1915, F W Turley, who had trained at Kew Gardens in England, was appointed as curator and began a number of works that are still prominent features of the park. Under his direction more trees were planted in what was a still fairly open landscape. Turley planted bougainvillea in several locations in the park, popularising the plant to an extent where it was voted as the floral emblem of Ipswich in 1930. One variety, which has a brick red flower, is called Turley's Special after him. \t
In the 1930s Depression a number of large-scale works including the construction of walls, gates and terracing were carried out in the park by relief labour. The park curator's house was relocated to the current site and in 1936 enclosures were built to accommodate a menagerie. This included emus, kangaroos and ducks and at one time had koalas, dingos and a fox. The sports clubs also commissioned building works in this period. In 1933 William Haenke designed a clubhouse for the Croquet Club and in 1934 a clubhouse was built for the Ipswich Lawn Tennis Association. Haenke also extended the Bowls Club in 1935. He was born in Ipswich and, after working for a Melbourne firm of architects in the 1890s, returned to practice in his native town in 1900 until his death in 1953.
In 1935 a reverberatory incinerator was constructed in the southern section of Queen's Park to process the city's refuse. Built to the design of Walter Burley Griffin, it is now one of only six surviving examples of the twelve incinerators of this type built in Australia. Although it ceased its original function in 1960, it has been adapted as an intimate theatre, opening in 1969 as the home of the Ipswich Little Theatre.
Other sections of parkland were leased for diverse purposes in the Interwar period. In 1928 a service station was established on the northeast corner of the park and a section on the western side was used to construct the King George V memorial scout hall that opened in 1937. Following World War II a kindergarten was constructed close to this site.
In 1960 the introduction of a one-way street system isolated the entrance gates to the northwest and they are now located on a small island between roads. In 1967 the Haenke bowls clubhouse was replaced by a two-storey brick structure, which was extended and modified in 1977.
Queen's Park has continued to develop and recent work has included the redesign of the menagerie as a nature garden and the reconstruction of an early bell gazebo that collapsed in the 1980s. In 2001 the Nerima Japanese garden was created in an area formerly occupied by steel framed glasshouses.
","criteria":"Queen's Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of development in Queensland, being an early park reserve intended to serve the scientific and economic needs of the colony as a botanic garden and also as a place of resort for public recreation. It is also associated with the development of several sports organisations in Ipswich, the croquet, bowls and lawn tennis associations having facilities in the park from early in the 20th century.
|Queen's Park was one of three government reserves for gardens located at the early settlements of Ipswich, Toowoomba and Warwick, other of which were later established in a few other key regional centres.
|It is a good example of its type, being an early Queen's Park Reserve for botanic and recreational purposes, which began under the aegis of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and the administration of boards of trustees chosen from prominent local citizens, then eventually passing into the control of local government authorities. It preserves examples of mature plantings, garden layout, stone walls, bush houses, rotundas and other park structures which reflect changes in ideas and usage over time.
|Queen's Park has aesthetic significance as a major landmark in the city of Ipswich. Its natural landform of gentle slopes and elevated position contribute to the visual character of the town and important vistas can be obtained to and from the park. It contains several major buildings of good quality design, such as the Burley Griffin incinerator, the sports clubhouses and the park curator's house and features many fine examples of stonework in local limestone.
|The park has a strong association with the people of Ipswich as a place of recreation, incorporating a parklands, zoo area, facilities for tennis, bowls and croquet, a band rotunda, a wedding chapel and is a source for plants for homes in Ipswich.
|It has associations with the life and work of Walter Hill, the first Director of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, and of the early 20th century curator, F W Turley, who oversaw much of the planting and landscape features that are still evident today and with other curators and gardeners. It is also associated with the prominent Ipswich men who served as Trustees from 1862 until the last part of the 19th century and with architects M W Haenke and W Burley Griffin who designed buildings in the park.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19484,"place_ref":602362,"name":"Muralambeen Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Off Bosworth's Road","suburb":"FORREST BEACH","lga":"HINCHINBROOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-25","description":"Muralambeen, a rural property close to the north Queensland coast near the Palm Islands, is situated on the fertile flood plains of the Herbert River, south east of Ingham. The approach to Muralambeen is via a long drive flanked by mature pine trees. The homestead, a single storey low set timber residence with corrugated iron hipped roofs, is set in a shady fenced garden surrounded by agricultural land. Lucy and Palm Creeks flow past just to the south of the homestead garden.
The house is raised approximately 1m above the ground on short concrete stumps and surrounded by verandahs. Short flights of stairs lead to the verandah on the western, northern and eastern sides of the house. The verandahs, which continue all the way around the building except for the southwest corner, are screened by lattice panels and partly enclosed with cement sheeting and timber casement windows.
The roof of the house has been amalgamated and extended over time. Once a pair of simple hip roofs surrounded by lower pitched verandah roofs, various extensions and alterations have created a complex roofscape of interlocking hipped roofs with box gutters, valleys and ridges. The roof is modest in scale and appearance due to the relatively low pitches used and the small size of the original elements.
The house is largely constructed of timber. Simple timber posts support unlined verandah roofs with exposed timber framing. Wall construction consists of outside studding with timber cross bracing and single skin linings of timber boards. The boards in exterior walls are laid horizontally. They are profiled as chamfer boards on the outside and as beaded boards on the internal face. Newer sections of the house are clad and lined with cement sheeting, except for the southern wall of the house which is clad with timber chamferboards. The older sections of the house have double hung timber-framed windows and timber-framed french doors opening onto the verandahs. Casement windows are used in the newer works.
Built in stages, the house is comprised of an original core, a major addition of a northern wing and various accretions. The house, with the exception of the southwest corner, has a suspended timber floor and is roughly L-shaped in plan. The original core and the northern addition are one room in width and are joined by an enclosed breezeway. Utility spaces have been created by enclosing sections of the verandah.
The breezeway, which forms the main entrance to the house, is centrally located connecting the east and west verandahs. Narrower on the western end, it is the only large living space and is the focus of the interior. Formerly the junction of two verandahs, the breezeway has been enclosed with timber casement windows and cement sheeting. The roof over the breezeway has been raised and the floor replaced with narrow timber boards.
The wing on the north side of the breezeway contains a row of three bedrooms. The bedroom on the northeast corner, formerly two rooms, is twice the size of the other bedrooms. The central bedroom is now used as a study. A small room, originally enclosed with insect screens, has been built into the north west corner of the verandah. Timber panelled doors open from these rooms onto the northern verandah.
On the southern side of the breezeway is the oldest part of the house, consisting of two bedrooms and surviving sections of the original verandah. The kitchen and associated scullery and a dining area have been built into the original verandah and have raked ceilings. A bathroom of relatively recent construction, has been added to the narrow western end of the breezeway. The dining area is an extension of the breezeway. The kitchen, originally a detached building, is located in the enclosed southern verandah. A stove alcove has been built, projecting beyond the line of the original verandah. The adjoining scullery is lined with timber shelves for crockery. A servery window in the scullery overlooks the former washing up area, now the laundry and once the location of the house's only water supply.
The semi-enclosed laundry area, on the southwest corner of the house, is separated from the main house by a change in floor level. The floor of the laundry area is a concrete slab on the ground. Located in the crook of the L-shape formed by the main house, it was built on the site of the original detached kitchen. It also contains a toilet and a shower and is partly enclosed with cement sheeted walls and insect screens.
The garden contains large shade trees and various decorative shrubs. Lawns to the north and east of the house are the locations of former rose gardens and tennis courts. A large timber and steel shade structure is adjacent to the southwest corner of the house. A small garage is located to the west of the house.
","history":"Muralambeen Homestead is located on Bosworth Road in Forrest Beach, 8 miles south-east of Ingham on the Herbert River flood plains in the Kennedy pastoral district. Muralambeen was first taken up in 1876 by Christopher Allingham, and the site today includes a timber house erected c 1881-83 for John Allingham.
The first European penetration of the Kennedy pastoral district began in the mid 1840s when Ludwig Leichhardt passed west of the Herbert River while exploring the upper Burdekin Valley. No immediate attempts were made to settle this region, with sporadic explorations taking place following Leichhardt's journey.
One of the earliest squatter settlers to follow Leichhardt was Christopher Allingham. He had immigrated to Australia with his parents and family in 1841 from County Fermanagh, Ireland. The family was well-established farmers and business people in Ireland, and on arriving in Australia the Allinghams settled near Armidale in New South Wales where they engaged in grazing and inn keeping. In 1852, in the wake of the public acclaim afforded to Leichhardt's ventures in north Queensland, Christopher Allingham left Armidale in search of pastoral land in the Burdekin region, only to return to New South Wales when he found the land was not available for selection. When Christopher made his next expedition north in 1859 he was accompanied by his cousin, John Allingham, who had arrived in Australia 4 years earlier. The two men travelled with cattle and sheep, and in 1861 arrived in the Burdekin region where they took up the run they called Hillgrove. John soon after moved back to Armidale and married Frances Allingham (same surname but not related to John) in 1862. The young bride returned with her husband to Hillgrove and was reputedly the first white female to live north of the Burdekin River
The 1870s was in general an era of expansion for the Kennedy pastoral district and graziers were facing improved economic prospects and stability following the financial crisis of the previous decade. By this time, John's brother, Johnstone Allingham, had joined the family at Hillgrove and during the 1870s the Allinghams extended their pastoral interests in north Queensland by taking up Kangaroo Hills and Waterview stations. In late 1875 and early 1876, Christopher Allingham also took up a number of selections in the county of Cardwell, including Selection 171 which contains the present homestead site. The selection was approved on 22 January 1876 and comprised a total of 1309 acres.
By November 1876, Christopher had returned to New South Wales where he died and the lease to Muralambeen was transferred to John Allingham, who added a further 1280 acres of leasehold land to the original selection in October 1881. One year earlier, John was issued with a notice from the Lands Department that compelled him to build a house on the property to satisfy the residency conditions on selection. No form of house had previously been erected on the site and in a deposition to the Law Agent of Cardwell in November 1880 John Allingham claimed this oversight was due to him being unaware of the residency conditions on selection when he became trustee of Christopher's estate. In a letter to the Under Secretary of Public Lands in December 1880 John Allingham stated that 'the wet season having apparently set in, it is impossible to get about on the land in question to erect the necessary buildings &c. for the purpose of residence' and the following February a similar claim was made to the Lands Department. At this time, John and Frances Allingham were living at Kangaroo Hills, however on 2 November 1881 their residence at that station was destroyed by fire. By 3 January 1883, a house valued at £50 had been constructed at Muralambeen, the whole property had been fenced and a significant garden had been laid. It was a modest, one-room house built on stumps and constructed from oregon pine and eucalypt hardwood from Maryborough with a surrounding verandah and detached bedroom. A separate building with an earthen floor and corrugated iron walls and roof was used as the kitchen, storeroom and laundry, while another structure was built for the bathroom. John and Frances Allingham resided there between January 1883 and December 1884 and it is said that during this time it 'grew into a commodious residence surrounded by a wealth of beautiful flowers, creepers, gaily coloured foliage plants and glorious trees'.
John and Frances returned to live in New South Wales in early 1885, leaving William Baggot and William H Broad as residents at Muralambeen. When John Allingham died in late 1885 Johnstone Allingham became lessee of Muralambeen. Frances remained in Armidale for some time and the station was left in the care of several managers before Johnstone Allingham moved his family there in 1894-95. In c 1900, Johnstone added a large wing to the residence, consisting of a row of 4 square bedrooms and an enclosed room in the north-western corner which was connected to the original house by a breezeway.
When Johnstone died in 1901, he was reputedly buried on the site and management of the property passed to his 3 sons. The following year, when a further 640 acres adjoining the original Muralambeen portion was selected, Frances was apparently residing once more at Muralambeen, which became known 'at all times [as] a happy social centre' for the Allingham family. Around 1908, Frances appointed her nephew, James Allingham, as manager of the property and conveyance documents show that on 11 October 1911 title to the property was belatedly registered in the name of Frances Allingham. Following her death in 1916, the Union Trustee Company of Australia was appointed as executors of her estate and on 25 January 1918 James Allingham was registered as lessee of Muralambeen for a period of 5 years from 15 January 1917. In September 1928, James was registered as sole owner of the property and it was immediately used as collateral for a mortgage.
Following a cyclone in 1940, repairs and extensions were carried out to the Muralambeen house and in 1952 James Allingham demolished the original kitchen and converted an enclosed verandah in the house to the new kitchen. When the Victoria Mill was constructed, sugar cane was grown on the property again in 1952 following a failed venture in the early 1900s. In the early to mid 1950s, James began subdividing the land and over the years further subdivision has resulted in the reduction of the homestead site to its present size. James Allingham died in 1959 and the property has continued to remain in the family.
","criteria":"Muralambeen was first selected in 1876 by Christopher Allingham and a portion of the surviving house was constructed c 1881-83 by John Allingham. The site stands as important surviving evidence of the early exploration and settlement of north Queensland in a period when pastoralists were experiencing improved financial fortunes and the region was expanding demographically and economically.
|Built initially to satisfy selection requirements, Muralambeen demonstrates the principal characteristics of a rural homestead including low-set single storey timber construction, extensive verandahs and a form evolved from gradual additions to the original house. The house retains its original core and subsequent expansion and modifications are clearly visible in the fabric of the house. A relatively well-preserved example of architecture of the Queensland pastoral frontier, it is a valued part of the historical character of the area.
|The house and property are also significant for its association with the Allingham family, who has had an association with the homestead site for nearly 130 years. Christopher Allingham was one of the earliest European settlers in the Kennedy pastoral district to follow the expeditions of Ludwig Leichhardt. The Allingham family were pioneers of the district and played a key role in the pastoral history of north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19488,"place_ref":602365,"name":"Tamborine Mountain Road/Geissmann Drive","alternate_name":"Tamborine Station-Tamborine Mountain Road","street_address":"Geissmann Drive","suburb":"NORTH TAMBORINE","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-08-05","description":"The Sandy Creek to North Tamborine Mountain section of the Tamborine Mountain Road descends from North Tamborine to the valley to the north west. It is two lanes wide, 7.7km long, and follows the original alignment. It has been widened in the less steep areas for safety reasons as it is still a major access road, but it retains many of its original features such as culverts, cuttings and rock embankment walls. The alignment includes two large 'S' bends, a feature that enabled the road makers to wind up steep pitches while maintaining a gradual gradient. These are not found in modern roads as modern vehicles can climb much steeper gradients. The original bitumen road surface remains, but has been re-surfaced many times.
The Cedar Creek to North Tamborine section traverses very steep hillsides and deep gullies and retains its original alignment with a large 'S' bend winding up the hill. As it has a steep gradient, the road has been made by cutting into the hillside and depositing the spoil down hill to make a wider road bed and ease construction problems. Where the cliff has been cut back, some rock walls have been built to stop the bank eroding onto the road and blocking it. Below the road dry stone rock walls, ie walls that have no mortar joining the stones, cover the steep embankments to prevent the road surface sliding downhill. To prevent the heavy rainfall washing the road away, culverts under the road direct the water away from the road surface. In some sections these original culverts were not adequate in very heavy rain.
The lower part of the road from Cedar Creek to Sandy Creek traverses more gentle slopes so there are fewer retaining walls, embankments and sharp curves. The road has been widened in several places but it still retains original culverts and walls. It goes through dry sclerophyll forest down to the valley.
Cuttings and embankments are found mainly in the upper section. Many of the embankments are clad in dry stone walling many metres deep and can be seen from the road but many have been covered by the abundant vegetation. Some early dry stone walls can be seen on the upper bank of the road alongside more modern rock walls. One of the original stone embankment walls is found near the Sandy Creek Bridge between the road and the creek. It is about 1.5m high and approximately 16m long and protects the road embankment from erosion from the flooding of Sandy Creek and from road surface run-off.
Twelve culverts were noted and they vary in date and design. They include circular concrete pipes, larger rectangular pipes and modern rectangular section pipes. Some are single, some double depending on the expected water flow. Around each of the inlets is a rock channel and wings to guide the water into the mouth of the pipe and these have been individually designed for the particular site. Many have concrete end walls and loose concrete added to the surface. On the outlet side there is mostly a rock surround around the pipe and, if space, a concrete apron to prevent erosion. As with any functional road, there is evidence of a continuous upgrade of surface and culverts as required for safety but many of the original culverts survive.
The roadside vegetation is dry sclerophyll for much of its length changing to subtropical vine rainforest in the upper areas. This rainforest area with the Bangalow Palms in Cedar Creek Valley has retained its original characteristics and forms an important part of the landscape of this site. Another feature of the road reserve is the Sentinel, a piece of basalt, standing beside the upper S bend. It has stood beside the road since its construction as part of a larger bolder, too heavy to move, and as such has become a local landmark.
","history":"Tamborine Mountain Road was constructed in 1922-1925 to link the small farming community of North Tamborine on the Tamborine Mountain plateau to Tamborine Railway Station. Linking North Tamborine to the railway system enabled greater tourist access to the mountain, and greater market access for Tamborine Mountain produce. Tamborine Mountain Road was one of the first construction projects undertaken by the newly formed Main Roads Board and was one of the first declared Main Roads and one of the first bitumened roads in Queensland. It remains a main access and tourist road for North Tamborine.
North Tamborine is situated on a plateau 548m in altitude and 10km by 3.5km in area, with steep escarpments around most sides with only a few areas where the slope is gentle enough to allow the construction of a road. The first wave of non-indigenous settlers on Tamborine Mountain in the 1870s and 1880s established walking and bridle tracks through the rainforest to reach their selections, where they cleared the land to grow bananas and fruit [and later dairy produce] for the Brisbane markets. Farmers used the same tracks to take their produce down to the valleys. The early track makers had problems with the steep gradients and high rainfall and any track in the area was difficult to make and hard to maintain.
The Tamborine Plateau was recognized early as a tourist and health destination because of its elevation, rain forest vegetation, waterfalls and landscape values. In 1898, the Geissmann family moved to North Tamborine and built a large boarding house, Capo di Monte, and advertised it as a Health Resort. It became very popular and visitors included Lord and Lady Lamington and Sir Wm McGregor, Governors of Queensland. Later the house was converted to holiday flats and the family acquired other interests in the area. The Geissmann family was also involved in sawmilling and was very prominent in the area even after Capo di Monte was destroyed by fire in 1932. The upper section of Tamborine Mountain Road was renamed Geissmann Drive about 1982 to honour their contribution to the community.
In July 1918 the Tamborine Mountain Progress Association, anxious to improve access to markets for the increasing number of dairy farmers and fruit growers on the mountain, urged Tamborine Shire Council to construct a good road down the mountain to link North Tamborine with the Tamborine Railway Station. Land was resumed and a route with a reasonable gradient was surveyed in 1920.
The request was timely. By 1920 the need to provide all-weather roads was a priority for all Queenslanders - a response to the increased number of motor vehicles on the roads, and to the need to provide suitable infrastructure for an expanding economy. Queensland roads were in a deplorable condition, the result of haphazard planning by under-funded local authorities. In response, the Queensland Government established the Main Roads Board in 1920 to oversee the construction of connecting roads and bridges and to provide funding to the local authorities involved. The first Board Chairman, JR Kemp, reported that earlier roads failed because they had not been surveyed properly, had too steep gradients, had insufficient drainage for heavy rain areas, had insufficient foundations and carried too heavy loads. These roads often needed expensive maintenance. To reduce the cost of construction and maintenance, Kemp specified standards for the design of road beds, drainage systems, bridge design and other critical areas of road making. In 1925 the Main Roads Board became the Main Roads Commission under JR Kemp as Commissioner and continued the overseeing of road and bridge construction throughout Queensland.
In 1922 a National Main Roads Policy was proclaimed, providing funds for main roads construction on a one for one subsidy basis. Road costs were apportioned as ½ Commonwealth funded, 3/8 State and 1/8 local authority. The Commonwealth funding was intended also to provide employment for returned First World War servicemen.
Under the provisions of the Main Roads Act 1920, Tamborine Mountain Road was gazetted on 16 December 1921 as one of Queensland's first seven Main Roads, and the Main Roads Board subsequently made funds available to Tamborine Shire Council for its construction. The Board also specified engineering standards for many aspects of the construction, including road beds, culverts and dry stone rock retaining walls. Some of the retaining walls on the lower side of the road were reputedly 15 feet high. A crushing plant was set up at Sandy Creek in 1923 to provide the road metal, the stone being obtained from a quarry below Curtis Falls.
During 1922-23, its first year of operation, the largest expenditure on permanent road works by the Main Roads Board was on the construction of the Tamborine Mountain Road.
The mountainous upper [southern] part of the road from Sandy Creek to North Tamborine rose to a height of 1800 feet, and was one of the most difficult works undertaken in the period 1922-24. It was completed in 1924 at a cost of £32,158. The road linking Sandy Creek to the Tamborine Railway Station was completed in 1925. Tamborine Shire Council then asked the Main Roads Commission to bitumen the road surface to reduce maintenance costs and this was done. It was one of the first bitumen roads in Queensland. The total cost of the road by 1925 was £42,500.
As funding for the Tamborine Mountain road was partly the responsibility of the local authority, North Tamborine residents in the 'benefited area' were levied increased rates. In 1925, the rates increased to 1s 8d in the £, three times that of the surrounding area. This was a hardship for many so in 1930, when changes to the Main Roads Act permitted the levying of tolls on roads with high maintenance costs, Tamborine Shire Council paid £500 to have a toll keeper's house erected at Sandy Creek. Tamborine Mountain Road was one of the first three Queensland main roads/bridges to have a toll imposed under the provisions of the Act. It was anticipated that tolls from tourist vehicles would contribute to the repayments to the local authority but the toll was uneconomic and disliked and was removed in 1945.
Tamborine Mountain Road remained the principal access road to North Tamborine for many years and continues to be a main tourist and access road to the plateau and North Tamborine. The upper [southern] section still winds through subtropical rainforest which for decades has provided an aesthetic portal to the plateau.
The road has had continuous maintenance over its life but still retains many of the original features such as the alignment, culverts and retaining walls.
","criteria":"The road is important historically as it was one of the first Main Roads in Queensland gazetted by the Main Roads Board. The road demonstrates achievement in road building in difficult terrain in the 1920s and the early use of asphaltic concrete as a road surface. It also demonstrates the application of scientific and engineering standardized approaches to road construction as advocated by the first Main Roads Board, to reduce costs and produce better roads. The road is important also in demonstrating the success of the co-operative effort of a small community to improve their means of access, and is significant for its contribution to the development of Tamborine Mountain farming and tourism.
|Tamborine Mountain Road has survived with a number of original elements, including 1920s culverts and rock walls. These demonstrate the principal characteristics of the Main Roads Board's standardized requirements for the construction of important early Queensland roads. These elements are particularly evident in the upper one third of the road.
|This upper section [Geissmann Drive], which winds through subtropical rainforest and which for decades has provided an aesthetic portal to the plateau, is valued by local residents and tourists alike for its aesthetic qualities. It is from the Tamborine Mountain Road approach that most visitors, since the 1920s, have obtained their first experience of the mountain's subtropical rainforest environment, which is highly valued for its natural heritage qualities.
|The place is important to the community for its continuing social and cultural connections. In re-naming the upper [southern] part of the road as Geissmann Drive, the local community has honoured the work of the pioneering Geissmann family, early guesthouse owners and sawmillers who did much to promote Tamborine as a health resort and tourist destination and were active in the local community for many years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19490,"place_ref":602367,"name":"Rockhampton Administration Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"233 Denison Street","suburb":"ROCKHAMPTON","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-07-12","description":"The former Rockhampton Railway Administration Building is located near the Rockhampton city centre on the corner of Stanley and Denison streets, diagonally opposite the main railyards. It retains a physical relationship with the North Coast Railway along the middle of Denison Street, which passes the former railway office building before crossing the intersection of Dension and Stanley streets to enter the railyard.
The former administration building is a two-storeyed, painted brick structure with a hipped roof and open verandahs to both levels on all sides. It has ornamental cast iron lace balustrades to the upper verandahs and cast iron columns to both levels. Original external timber joinery survives. The ground floor external walls have rendered quoins painted in a contrasting colour. The rear corners have timber fire escape stairs contained within the perimeter of the verandahs.
There is a low concrete fence along both street frontages. The grounds include mature Hoop Pines and palm trees.
Internal alterations made in 1985 - including suspended ceilings, fluorescent lighting, new staircase, new joinery and new office fitout - are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former Railway Administration Building at Rockhampton was constructed in 1886 to a design prepared in the Office of the Chief Engineer for Railways. Its construction reflects the importance of Rockhampton as the coastal terminus of the Central Railway and the important role of the Central and North Coast Railways in opening the Rockhampton hinterland and central western Queensland to settlement and economic exploitation, especially pastoralism and mining, during the last three decades of the 19th century.
The Port Curtis Pastoral District was proclaimed in 1854 following pastoral exploration of the Fitzroy, Dawson and Mackenzie River systems and the Broadsound and Peak Downs areas in the early 1850s. A small settlement was established at Rockhampton in 1856 to service the pastoral properties being taken up in the district, but until the nearby Canoona gold rush of 1858, comprised little more than a few buildings and a small wharf. In 1858 the township of Rockhampton was surveyed, gazetted and proclaimed a port of entry.
\t
A key impetus to the separation of Queensland from New South Wales in 1859 was complaint that the Sydney-based government spent little on transport and communications infrastructure in the northern districts. One of the first agenda items for the Queensland government was the establishment of a railway system. In 1863 plans were approved for construction of the Southern and Western Railway, a narrow gauge system to link the pastoral properties of the Darling Downs with coastal and international shipping. Although less populated and having a much smaller economic base than the Darling Downs, Port Curtis and Leichhardt district pastoralists argued that a rail link to the coast was essential to develop the area. Their political influence in the Queensland parliament resulted in a deal being struck: their support for the southern line in exchange for a second rail line to be constructed linking the Rockhampton hinterland to the coast. The discovery of rich copper deposits at Peak Downs west of Rockhampton strengthened the central Queensland case.
The Rockhampton railway was approved in October 1864. Work commenced in 1865 and the line (at that time known as the Great Northern Railway) opened to Westwood in September 1867. A two-storeyed, prefabricated iron station and goods shed were imported from England and erected at the coastal terminus in Stanley Street, Rockhampton. Wayside stations were established at Gracemere, Stanwell and Westwood. These were of Queensland design and construction.
The line was too short to be profitable and approval for an extension was granted in late 1872, opening to the Dawson River in 1874, Duaringa in 1876, Blackwater (where coal had been discovered) in 1877 and Emerald in 1879. After Bogantungan (1881) the most difficult section was encountered - the ascent of the Drummond Range. Longreach, the western terminus of the Central Railway, was reached in 1892.
These railway extensions increased rail traffic in Rockhampton and by the mid-1880s additional administrative offices were needed. In 1884 FWC Kerr, a casual draftsman in the Central and Northern Division of the Chief Engineer for Railways' Office, worked on the plans for a new, substantial brick administration building for Rockhampton. This was constructed in 1886 at the corner of Denison and Stanley streets, diagonally opposite the 1867 station. It was unusual for Queensland Railways to construct a stand-alone brick office building; most of the larger railway office buildings were combined with passenger stations (such as at Roma Street and Central stations in Brisbane and the Townsville Railway Station) and in other centres tended to be smaller and of timber construction. Offices for a pay clerk were added in 1926.
Until 1982 the building functioned as headquarters for the Central Railway and later Central Division except for a brief period in the late 1890s when Central Division was combined with Southern Division, for economic reasons.
The original prefabricated station in Stanley Street was demolished in 1973 and replaced by a new station building. On 10 November 1982 a new railway administration building was opened adjacent to the 1970s station.
The 1886 railways administration building was refurbished as a Driver Training Centre in 1985. Alterations at this time included the installation of fire escape stairs and internally, suspended ceilings, fluorescent lighting, a new staircase, new joinery and a new office fitout. The building was vacated again in 1994 then occupied briefly by QR in 2000 before being sold.
","criteria":"The former Railway Administration Building, Rockhampton, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, illustrating the importance of Rockhampton as a major railway administration centre and the significance of the Central and North Coast railways to the central Queensland economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|It demonstrates an uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage, being the most substantial purpose-built railway administration building extant in Queensland; other substantial administration centres (including Central and Roma Street in Brisbane and Townsville Station) combine with railway passenger stations.
|The place is important in illustrating the characteristics of its class of cultural places: a substantial, late 19th century government office building designed for a sub-tropical climate. It is significant for the quality of its architecture and is a good example of the design work of the Office of the Chief Engineer for Railways in the late 19th century.
|The building makes an aesthetic contribution to the streetscape and is a Rockhampton landmark.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19495,"place_ref":602374,"name":"Old Croydon Cemetery","alternate_name":"Croydon Cemetery","street_address":"West of the railway station","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-10-25","description":"Old Croydon Cemetery Cemetery Reserve R18, comprises of two hectares and is located to the west of the Croydon township.
Current access is via an unnamed, graded track near the eastern boundary. This road was constructed relatively recently for water supply access. It appears to run through the southeast corner of the cemetery reserve. This access is immediately adjacent to an area of about 4500 square metres, less than a quarter of the original surveyed area, which is now broadly considered as the 'Old Cemetery'. This section is maintained and mowed on an "as required" basis. The area is unfenced.
There are two headstones recording European burials, dated 1888 and 1889, and two markers recording Chinese burials. There are four other discernible graves with no identification.
The terrain is gently sloping with fine-grained sandy soil. Vegetation is predominantly natural with Eucalypts and other endemic trees scattered through the grounds. Tussocky native grasses provide a dense ground cover for much of the year. Native animal and bird life actively use this habitat.
","history":"The Old Croydon cemetery is one of at least 10 cemeteries which served the Croydon area after it was declared a goldfield in 1886. The cemetery was surveyed by John Sircom in 1886 and declared a cemetery reserve on 25 August 1888. It is no longer in use. The Croydon field was the last of the north Queensland gold rushes of the nineteenth century. After a peak in gold production in 1900, mining declined over the next two decades. There was a small revival during the 1930's Depression and again from 1988 to 1991. The present population of the district is approximately 300, and only the main Croydon cemetery is still in use.
Croydon is approximately 110 miles (176 kilometres) west of Georgetown and 90 miles (144 kilometres) south east of the port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. This area was first explored by Europeans in the 1860s. Mackinley searched for lost explorers Burke and Wills in 1862. J.G. Macdonald explored a route from Carpentaria Downs to the Gulf in 1864. H.E. Young investigated routes for an overland telegraph line between Cardwell and Normanton, which was built between 1869 and 1872, and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields. Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from markets
Gold was first discovered on Croydon Downs Station which had been taken up by W.C. Brown in 1881. In the latter part of 1883, two of his employees James and Walter Alldridge found a leader of quartz carrying gold. However it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from W.C. Brown, prospected the area and discovered twenty payable reefs. The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under administration of the Mines Department. W.C. Brown and the Alldridge brothers shared a £1000 reward for the discovery, and the reward claim, Lady Mary, was taken up by 6 partners including W.C. Brown and Richard Alldridge.
By 1887, total population of the district had peaked at 7000, and by 1897 it still had the third highest population in north Queensland after Charters Towers and Townsville. From 1890 to 1910, gold output from the Croydon reefs were second only to Charters Towers. Total production from inception until 1947 was 772,374 ounces. By 1909 however, production began to decline and by 1914, the population at the turn of the century had halved. There was a small revival around Tabletop and Golden Gate between 1988 and 1991.
Residents at Croydon goldfields faced many hardships from inadequate supplies of water, pasture grasses and timber for fuel and construction purposes. Isolation was also a major problem until the Croydon to Normanton railway was completed in 1891. The area was subject to droughts and floods, and even a cyclone in 1906. Industrial action in 1888 resulted in the formation of a branch of the Amalgamated Miners' Association, and a strike occurred in 1889 when mining companies again tried to lower wages. Some mines close to Croydon township failed around 1890 when the ore was cut by a wall of granite. However rich discoveries at Golden Gate to the north west compensated a little for this. A financial setback occurred in the "crash" of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, throwing many miners out of work.
As on many other Queensland goldfields, Croydon had a Chinese community which developed on the north west fringe of the town. The community constructed a temple, houses and other facilities such as pig ovens. By the end of 1888 Mining Warden L.E.D. Towner reported that Croydon had a population of approximately 3500 of whom 300 were Chinese, Cingalese, Malays and African. It appears that a shifting population of around 300 Asians was maintained. This figure is surprising given that the Queensland Goldfields Amendment Act of 1878 excluded Chinese people from new fields for three years unless they had made the discovery. However it appears that their involvement at Croydon was primarily as gardeners, carriers and cooks. There was some racial tension at times. A race riot occurred in 1886 when a Chinese residence was pulled down. Also, in May 1888, W.O. Hodgkinson, Minister for Mines, ejected all Chinese from the Croydon and Etheridge goldfields. However, they were soon allowed to return because their market gardens were essential to the well-being of the community.
Despite all difficulties, the 1890s were productive years for Croydon. Pugh's Almanac of 1900 listed 3 banks, 6 blacksmiths, 5 bakers, 6 commission agents, 4 newsagents, 6 carriers, 2 chemists, 6 drapers, 11 sharebrokers, 4 newsagents, 18 hotels and 4 watchmakers, among many other assorted businesses. Croydon became a municipality in 1892 under the control of the Croydon Divisional Board, and in 1907 administration passed to the Croydon Shire Council.
The fields developed with Croydon as the main administrative and commercial centre surrounded by 'satellite' communities established at outlying reefs. Members of the outlying communities would visit Croydon on Saturday nights to shop, conduct their business and socialise. There were townships at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Mile, and campsites at Homeward Bound, Croydon King, Mark Twain, Lower Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flanagan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs. This resulted in the establishment of at least 10 cemeteries throughout the district.
Croydon township was first surveyed by John Sircom in 1886 after the district had been proclaimed a goldfield. The Old Croydon cemetery was also surveyed by John Sircom in 1886. It was declared a cemetery reserve on 25 August 1888 and identified as Lot 32 on C8186, Parish of Croydon, County of Surrey. At the time of survey, the cemetery already contained several graves. It apparently continued in use for several years until the main cemetery was surveyed and gazetted. According to the original survey plan, access was from a track extending from Samwell Street and running adjacent to the southern boundary of the reserve. This access is no longer used.
","criteria":"The Old Croydon Cemetery, in use since at least 1886, reflects the early development of the region. The cemetery is an important record of the cultural development of the area, showing the ethnicity, occupations and social status of the inhabitants of early Croydon since settlement.
|The cemetery has the potential to yield information in regards to the early history of the inhabitants of Croydon, their ethnic, social and religious backgrounds and standing within the community.
|The cemetery is significant for its high spiritual and symbolic value to the community because of the burials that took place there and the evidence of hardship experienced by the first inhabitants of Croydon.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19496,"place_ref":602375,"name":"Station Creek Cemetery","alternate_name":"Golden Gate Cemetery","street_address":"Normanton Road","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-10-25","description":"Station Creek cemetery covers 1 hectare of land, five kilometres north west of Croydon on the north east side of the Normanton Road, and two-three kilometres south east of the Golden Gate town site. The site is just west of Belmore Creek.
There are two clearly marked graves, although evidence of a further 34 has been noted. One of the marked graves is that of a young girl, Charlotte Brown. This grave is marked by a metal railing with higher rails towards the head.
The cemetery is bounded by natural vegetation and a Department of Main Roads gravel stockpile on the eastern boundary. Access is from the Normanton Road about 100 metres west of the Belmore Creek bridge crossing.There is minor difficulty with access due to construction of the Belmore Creek bridge which has substantial side drains to the approaches. A roughly defined track crosses a drainage gully on the north side of the road. The track terminates near the corner of a post and wire fence which encloses the present cemetery boundary. The fence was recently constructed and may not reflect the original boundary. A single gate provides entry.
The terrain is gently sloping with fine grained, sandy soil. Vegetation is predominantly natural although introduced weed species have been noted. Eucalypts and other endemic tree species are scattered through the site. Tussocky native grasses provide a dense cover during most of the year. Native birds and animals utilise this habitat.
","history":"Station Creek cemetery is one of at least 10 cemeteries which served the Croydon area after it was declared a goldfield in 1886, although it is no longer in use.. It appears to have been gazetted as the Golden Gate cemetery in 1900 after a survey completed by Charles McGowan in 1899. It comprises 1 hectare of land, 2-3 kilometres south east of the Golden Gate town site, and east of the Croydon to Normanton railway line. However, this cemetery is commonly known as the Station Creek cemetery, while an earlier burial ground west of the Croydon to Normanton railway line, adjacent to the Golden Gate township, is commonly known as the Golden Gate cemetery. The Croydon goldfield was the last of the north Queensland gold rushes of the nineteenth century. After a peak in gold production in 1900, mining declined over the next two decades. There was a small revival during the 1930's Depression and again from 1988 to 1991 in the Tabletop and Golden Gate areas. The present population of the district is approximately 300, and only the main Croydon cemetery is still in use.
Croydon is situated approximately 110 miles (176 kilometres) west of Georgetown and 90 miles (144 kilometres) south east of the port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. This area was first explored by Europeans in the 1860s. Mackinley searched for lost explorers Burke and Wills in 1862. J.G. Macdonald explored a route from Carpentaria Downs to the Gulf in 1864. H.E. Young investigated routes for an overland telegraph line between Cardwell and Normanton, which was built between 1869 and 1872, and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields. Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from markets
Gold was first discovered on Croydon Downs Station which had been taken up by W.C. Brown in 1881. In the latter part of 1883, two of his employees James and Walter Alldridge found a leader of quartz carrying gold. However it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from W.C. Brown, prospected the area and discovered twenty payable reefs. The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under administration of the Mines Department. W.C. Brown and the Alldridge brothers shared a £1000 reward for the discovery, and the reward claim, Lady Mary, was taken up by 6 partners including W.C. Brown and Richard Alldridge.
By 1887, total population of the district had peaked at 7000, and by 1897 it still had the third highest population in north Queensland after Charters Towers and Townsville. From 1890 to 1910, gold output from the Croydon reefs were second only to Charters Towers. Total production from inception until 1947 was 772,374 ounces. By 1909 however, production began to decline and by 1914, the population at the turn of the century had halved. There was a small revival around Tabletop and Golden Gate between 1988 and 1991.
Residents at Croydon goldfields faced many hardships from inadequate supplies of water, pasture grasses and timber for fuel and construction purposes. Isolation was also a major problem until the Croydon to Normanton railway was completed in 1891. The area was subject to droughts and floods, and even a cyclone in 1906. Industrial action in 1888 resulted in the formation of a branch of the Amalgamated Miners' Association, and a strike occurred in 1889 when mining companies again tried to lower wages. Some mines close to Croydon township failed around 1890 when the ore was cut by a wall of granite. However rich discoveries at Golden Gate to the north west compensated a little for this. A financial setback occurred in the "crash" of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, throwing many miners out of work.
As on many other Queensland goldfields, Croydon had a Chinese community which developed on the north west fringe of the town. The community constructed a temple, houses and other facilities such as pig ovens. By the end of 1888 Mining Warden L.E.D. Towner reported that Croydon had a population of approximately 3500 of whom 300 were Chinese, Cingalese, Malays and African. It appears that a shifting population of around 300 Asians was maintained. This figure is surprising given that the Queensland Goldfields Amendment Act of 1878 excluded Chinese people from new fields for three years unless they had made the discovery. However it appears that their involvement at Croydon was primarily as gardeners, carriers and cooks. There was some racial tension at times. A race riot occurred in 1886 when a Chinese residence was pulled down. Also, in May 1888, W.O. Hodgkinson, Minister for Mines, ejected all Chinese from the Croydon and Etheridge goldfields. However, they were soon allowed to return because their market gardens were essential to the well-being of the community.
Despite all difficulties, the 1890s were productive years for Croydon. Pugh's Almanac of 1900 listed 3 banks, 6 blacksmiths, 5 bakers, 6 commission agents, 4 newsagents, 6 carriers, 2 chemists, 6 drapers, 11 sharebrokers, 4 newsagents, 18 hotels and 4 watchmakers, among many other assorted businesses. Croydon became a municipality in 1892 under the control of the Croydon Divisional Board, and in 1907 administration was under the Croydon Shire Council.
The fields developed with Croydon as the main administrative and commercial centre surrounded by 'satellite' communities established at outlying reefs. Members of the outlying communities would visit Croydon on Saturday nights to shop, conduct their business and socialise. There were townships at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Mile, and campsites at Homeward Bound, Croydon King, Mark Twain, Lower Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flanagan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs. This resulted in the establishment of at least 10 cemeteries throughout the district.
The township of Golden Gate was surveyed in December 1892 by W.A. Irwin, although there were buildings constructed well before this. The survey was late in the history of the field considering that the first reward claim, Golden Gate PC, was taken up by Joseph Hardy and James Fulton on 12 April 1886. However, yields from the Golden Gate fields were meagre until 1891, when a rich ore chute was discovered in Roger's No. 1 mine. It went on to become the most productive field in the Croydon area. By 1900, Golden Gate had a population of 600, 11 hotels, 8 stores, 3 churches and 3 butchers. A school operated from 1896 to 1921, and a post office from 1891 to 1919. Production declined during the years leading up to World War 1, and the township virtually disappeared after the closure of Forsythe's Pioneer Mill in 1922.
Station Creek cemetery appears to have been originally gazetted as the Golden Gate cemetery in 1900, after a survey completed by Charles McGowan in 1899. Another and earlier burial ground commonly known as the 'Golden Gate Cemetery' lies west of the Croydon to Normanton railway line adjacent to the Golden Gate township. This earlier cemetery was never gazetted. It was possibly in use until gazettal of the later cemetery at Station Creek. Gordon Grimwade, who prepared a Conservation Plan for the Croydon cemeteries in January 2000, has recommended that this matter needs resolution by a 'location and ident' survey.
It is not known why a new cemetery was gazetted for the area in a different location. However the new site is midway between the Golden Gate group of mines and the Sunset group of mines, so it was possibly moved to facilitate common use by both of these communities.
Mines in the Golden Gate group included Golden Gate Nos 1 to 10, Golden Gate United, Golden Gate Consols, Tracey's Block, Morgan's Block, Rogers no. 1, and Plants Block, the deepest mine on the Croydon goldfields. Mines in the Sunset group included True Blue, Content, Blue Peter, Sunset and Lady Isabelle.
","criteria":"The Station Creek Cemetery, first surveyed in 1899, reflects the early development of the region. The cemetery is an important record of the cultural development of the area, showing the ethnicity, occupations and social status of the inhabitants of early Croydon since settlement.
|The cemetery has the potential to yield information in regards to the early history of the inhabitants of Croydon, their ethnic, social and religious backgrounds and standing within the community.
|The cemetery is significant for its high spiritual and symbolic value to the community because of the burials that took place there and the evidence of hardship experienced by the first inhabitants of Croydon.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19497,"place_ref":602376,"name":"Croydon Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Julia Creek Road","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-10-25","description":"Croydon Cemetery, Reserve R16, comprises 4 hectares of land and is about 2 kilometres south of Croydon township. Access is via Julia Creek Road. A well maintained fence, with a single vehicle width gate and adjacent pedestrian gate, entirely encloses the cemetery.
The terrain is generally flat with fine grained sandy soils. The original survey plan noted sand with substratum of sandstone and drainage into Highland Mary Creek. The vegetation is predominantly natural, with Eucalypts and other endemic tree species scattered through the site. Native grasses provide a dense cover most of the year. Native birds and animals utilise this habitat.
There is extensive use of soldered sheet metal grave markers. These were often three dimensional and filled with ceramic floral displays protected by glass panels. This practice appears to be confined to this cemetery.
The graves with headstones represent only a small proportion of burials in the cemetery. The variety of material used in headstones is varied and ranges from polished granite to marble, sandstone, sheet metal, cast iron, concrete and tiles. The headstones show several stages of decay with sandstone weathering and marble deteriorating in the tropical heat.
The more elaborate headstones generally relate to Catholic burials with simpler headstones on the protestant graves. Some Chinese graves are marked with sandstone headstones and others with simple clay bricks. Many graves are surrounded with whatever materials were available including metal cots and iron railings.
","history":"The Main Croydon cemetery is one of at least 10 cemeteries which served the Croydon area after it was declared a goldfield in 1886. Cemetery Reserve R16 was surveyed in September 1888 by W.A. Irwin, gazetted in 1889, but was probably in use earlier than this. It was the second cemetery surveyed in close proximity to Croydon township, and is the only one in the district still currently used. The Croydon field was the last of the north Queensland gold rushes of the nineteenth century. After a peak in gold production in 1900, mining declined over the next two decades. There was a small revival during the 1930s depression and again from 1988 to 1991. The present population of the district is approximately 300.
Croydon is approximately 110 miles (176 kilometres) west of Georgetown and 90 miles (144 kilometres) south east of the port of Normanton on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Europeans first explored this area in the 1860s. McKinley searched for lost explorers Burke and Wills in 1862. J.G. Macdonald explored a route from Carpentaria Downs to the Gulf in 1864. H.E. Young investigated routes for an overland telegraph line between Cardwell and Normanton, which was built between 1869 and 1872, and later became a lifeline for the northern mining fields. Pastoralists followed these early explorers, bringing sheep in 1865, but by 1867 many had retreated because of fever, drought, low wool prices and distance from markets
Gold was first discovered on Croydon Downs Station which had been taken up by W.C. Brown in 1881. In the latter part of 1883, two of his employees James and Walter Alldridge found a leader of quartz carrying gold. However it was not until 1885 that Richard and Walter Alldridge, acting under instructions from W.C. Brown, prospected the area and discovered twenty payable reefs. The finds were reported in October 1885, and the Croydon area was proclaimed a goldfield on 18 January 1886, thus coming under administration of the Mines Department. W.C. Brown and the Alldridge brothers shared a £1000 reward for the discovery, and the reward claim, Lady Mary, was taken up by 6 partners including W.C. Brown and Richard Alldridge.
Hundreds of people flocked to the area. By 1887, total population of the district had peaked at 7000, and by 1897 it still had the third highest population in north Queensland after Charters Towers and Townsville. From 1890 to 1910, gold output from the Croydon reefs were second only to Charters Towers. Total production from inception until 1947 was 772,374 ounces. By 1909 however, production began to decline and by 1914, the population at the turn of the century had halved. There was a small revival during the 1930s Depression, and around Tabletop and Golden Gate between 1988 and 1991.
Residents on the Croydon goldfields faced many hardships from inadequate supplies of water; pasture grasses and timber for fuel and construction purposes. Isolation was also a major problem until the Croydon to Normanton railway was completed in 1891. The area was subject to droughts and floods, and even a cyclone in 1906. Industrial action in 1888 resulted in the formation of a branch of the Amalgamated Miners' Association, and a strike occurred in 1889 when mining companies again tried to lower wages. Some mines close to Croydon township failed around 1890 when the ore was cut by a wall of granite. However, rich discoveries at Golden Gate to the north west compensated a little for this. A financial setback occurred in the "crash" of 1893, when most banks closed doors and gold buying ceased, throwing many miners out of work.
As on many other Queensland goldfields, Croydon had a Chinese community which developed on the north west fringe of the town. The community constructed a temple, houses and other facilities such as pig ovens. By the end of 1888 Mining Warden L.E.D. Towner reported that Croydon had a population of approximately 3500 of whom 300 were Chinese, Cingalese, Malays and African. It appears that a shifting population of around 300 Asians was maintained. This figure is surprising given that the Queensland Goldfields Amendment Act of 1878 excluded Chinese people from new fields for three years unless they had made the discovery. However it appears that their involvement at Croydon was primarily as gardeners, carriers and cooks. There was some racial tension at times. A race riot occurred in 1886 when a Chinese residence was pulled down. Also, in May 1888, W.O. Hodgkinson, Minister for Mines, ejected all Chinese from the Croydon and Etheridge goldfields. However, they were soon allowed to return because their market gardens were essential to the well-being of the community.
Despite all difficulties, the 1890s were productive years for Croydon. Pugh's Almanac of 1900 listed 3 banks, 6 blacksmiths, 5 bakers, 6 commission agents, 4 newsagents, 6 carriers, 2 chemists, 6 drapers, 11 sharebrokers, 4 newsagents, 18 hotels and 4 watchmakers, among many other assorted businesses. Croydon became a municipality in 1892 under the control of the Croydon Divisional Board, and in 1907 administration passed to the Croydon Shire Council.
The fields developed with Croydon as the main administrative and commercial centre surrounded by 'satellite' communities established at outlying reefs. Members of the outlying communities would visit Croydon on Saturday nights to shop, conduct their business and socialise. There were townships at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron, Twelve Mile, and campsites at Homeward Bound, Croydon King, Mark Twain, Lower Twelve Miles, Mulligan's, Flanagan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs. This resulted in the establishment of at least 10 cemeteries throughout the district.
John Sircom first surveyed Croydon township in 1886 after the district had been proclaimed a goldfield. The main Croydon cemetery, Reserve R16, was surveyed in September 1888 by W.A. Irwin, gazetted in 1889, but was probably in use earlier than this. It was the second cemetery surveyed in close proximity to Croydon township, and is still currently used. Croydon Shire Council's Burial Register appears to refer only to this cemetery. The first documented burial in this register is that of F.W. Kennedy on 5 January 1889. The first marked grave after gazettal was probably for William Pascoe who died on 19 July 1889.
Seventy-four Chinese burials were registered in Croydon between 1889 and 1951, although there are possibly around 130 graves. On at least four occasions exhumations occurred. Two bodies were exhumed in 1907, one in 1909, nine in 1913 and one in 1915. These exhumations reflect the spiritual importance for the Chinese to return permanently to their ancestral homeland, but given this, the number of exhumations seems small.
The cemetery reveals a fairly high death rate in Croydon, especially among the young. Their iron bedsteads mark some children's graves. Miner's phthisis was also a common cause of death. Some headstones record that friends erected them, and this reflects the isolation of many from their families, and the poverty of some on the fields. A small number of headstones are surprisingly impressive and are representative of the wealth of the goldfield.
As with many other north Queensland cemeteries Melrose and Fenwick produced the majority of the headstones. This firm started their Townsville operation about 1896-97, subsequently extending to Cairns (1908) and in 1915 to Charters Towers and Mackay.
Other stonemasons represented in the cemetery include J Petrie, Brisbane; J H Simmons, Brisbane; and E Greenway of Ipswich.
John Petrie was the son of Andrew Petrie, Forman for Public Works for the fledgling Colony of Morton Bay, who is recognised for his contribution to the development of the early architecture of Brisbane. John, who assumed responsibility for his father's business in 1848, expanded the stonemasonry company to Charters Towers and Townsville in 1889.
J H Simmons is known to have worked from a Brisbane base from about 1883 to at least 1910. Simmons supplied headstones throughout Queensland and is regarded as one of the most productive stonemasons of his time.
Ipswich stonemason Ernest Greenway was a descendent of early Colonial architect Francis Greenway who designed many of the public buildings in New South Wales during Macquarie's time as Governor of the Colony. Ernest Greenway learnt his trade in England and migrated to Queensland in 1882. He established a stonemasonry business in Nicholas Street Ipswich. He later moved to Grey Street and finally to Limestone Street in 1891. His business functioned from the Limestone Street site until 1934.
","criteria":"The Croydon Cemetery, in use from the late 1880's, reflects the development of the region from that period to the present day. The cemetery is an important record of the cultural development of the area, showing the ethnicity, social attitudes to death, availability of materials, occupations and social status of the inhabitants of the Croydon Shire since settlement.
|Given the nineteenth century Chinese practice of exhumation and transfer of remains back to their homeland it is rare that there are intact Chinese burials in cemeteries on Queensland mining fields. Therefore the surviving sandstone and small brick headstones at Croydon that denote intact burial sites are significant for their rarity. The uniqueness of the cemetery is further enhanced by the use of three dimensional 'vases' as grave markers in the absence of headstones.
|The cemetery has the potential to yield information in regards to the early history of the inhabitants of the Croydon goldfields, their ethnic, social and religious backgrounds and standing within the community. The economic and social history of the district can be read through the inscriptions and type of material used in headstones. Nationality, health, social status, lodge affiliation, occupation, religion and cause of death are often included in the inscriptions. Family relationships can be noted and the high infant mortality and death in childbirth are often recorded. The large number of single graves is illustrative of the hardship and isolation of pioneering life in north west Queensland.
|The work of a number of significant Queensland monumental firms is evident in this cemetery including that of Melrose and Fenwick of Townsville, Ernest Greenway of Ipswich and that of J Petrie and JH Simmons of Brisbane.
|The cemetery is significant for its high spiritual and symbolic value to the community because of its continuity of use as a burial place for the region for one hundred and ten odd years. The regard for the cemetery is evidenced by the Croydon Shire Council's funding of a conservation plan and ongoing maintenance of the cemetery.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19499,"place_ref":602378,"name":"Nostalgic Queen's Theatre","alternate_name":"Queens Theatre","street_address":"George Street","suburb":"WALLUMBILLA","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-10-25","description":"The Nostalgic Queen's Theatre is situated on the main highway through Wallumbilla.
It is a rectangular building with a timber frame. The roof is gabled and the main elevation has a plain rectangular façade clad in metal sheeting with a central doorway below a small window. The sides and rear of the building are clad in fibrous cement panels held in place by timber battens.
The interior forms a large rectangular auditorium with a ticket office to the right hand side of the entrance. Laminated timber arches support the roof and the level floor is timber. The walls are lined with vertical timber boards and hardboard sheeting.
Canvas layback seats at the rear of the theatre and canvas armchairs at the front provide seating for about 200. The building does not currently have toilets.
","history":"The Nostalgic Queen's Theatre is a modest purpose-built picture theatre built in 1939 in the town of Wallumbilla, 40 kilometres east of Roma.
Wallumbilla is the largest of three small service towns in the Bendemere shire, whose economy is based on primary production including cattle, grain and timber and on the natural gas industry. Europeans first settled the district in 1854 when Wallumbilla pastoral run was taken up. The township developed as a service town with the coming of the Western railway in 1880.
In the 1900s films were brought to Wallumbilla by a traveling projectionist and shown in Bishop's Hall using a hand-cranked projector. At an unknown date the local shopkeeper, Eddie Murphy, purchased the hall and relocated it to the site of the current news agency. He renamed it Murphy's Hall and used it as a picture theatre showing silent films accompanied by piano.
The Lumiere Brothers had produced the first moving films in Paris in 1895, followed by Edison in America in 1896, although these early films were very short and simply captured events without a narrative. The first feature movie 'the Story of the Kelly Gang' was made in Australia in 1906 and it was the ability of film to tell a story that was the key to its popularity. At first, films were shown as part of variety shows in theatres or were screened in halls. In the 1900s purpose built picture theatres showing a program of films accompanied by music were built in America, Europe and Australia. Some of those catering to centres with large populations were huge and luxurious, though most were far more modest.
Films were much less expensive to show than live theatre and the equipment was easily transported, making them well suited as an entertainment in country areas, some films being displayed by 'picture show men' such as the one who travelled to Wallumbilla. The growing popularity of films led to the construction of many open-air theatres or simple shed-like buildings as permanent venues for showing film. Although theatre chains usually owned the large 'picture palaces' in cities, most small picture theatres in Queensland were independently owned and Queensland eventually had more independently owned theatres than any other state in Australia. These small ventures, frequently family owned, did not have the capital to build lavish premises, nor did they have a large client base in country areas and might screen films only once or twice a week. The Queen's Theatre at Wallumbilla is such a picture theatre.
In 1930, Les Cadsow, a baker, bought the Wallumbilla hall and continued to use it as a picture theatre, naming it the De Luxe. It was renamed the Liberty Theatre, presumably when the Second World War broke out, but burned down in 1939. Cadsow bought new projectors with the thought of starting again but could not afford to do so and so he sold the projectors to the Giles brothers from Miles who constructed a new, purpose built picture theatre. Frank and Paddy Giles were saw millers and builders and also operated as Rex Touring Pictures. They showed films in Miles, Dulacca, Jackson, Yuleba and Wallumbilla over a weekly circuit. Wallumbilla had the Saturday night screening as it had the largest audience.
The Wallumbilla theatre was simple in form with a timber frame clad in fibrous cement sheeting held by timber battens. Laminated arches of cypress pine, which allowed good sightlines to the screen, supported the roof. Timber was also used for the floor and the walls, which were lined with Swedish hardboard for good acoustics, though the roof was unlined. Though simple, the picture theatre aspired to a touch of Hollywood glamour with Chinese lanterns over the lights and pictures of Warner Brothers and MGM stars on the walls.
A country picture theatre such as the Queen's provided an important service to people in the surrounding area. Coming into town for a night at the pictures provided good family entertainment, a venue for courtship and an opportunity for people of all ages to meet. Picture theatres showed feature films, newsreels, and cartoons and were often also used for live shows and special events. They provided a stimulus for the imagination and a relief from isolation, particularly in the difficult years of World War II. They were a link with the wider community in Australia and with contemporary American culture as presented by Hollywood. For all these reasons, picture going enjoyed widespread popularity throughout rural Queensland between the 1920s and the advent of competition from television.
In 1951 the Giles brothers sold the theatre to Hendrickas Johannes Payne and his wife Violet who ran it in conjunction with the Queen's Café across the road and hence the theatre became known as the Queen's Theatre. They upgraded the equipment and screened every Wednesday and Saturday night plus a Saturday matinee until 1962. In August 1962 Rodney and Shirley Houston leased the theatre from Payne. The sound system was modernized and new release movies were shown. To utilize the theatre when films were not being shown, roller-skating was introduced and proved very popular. In 1967 the Houstons bought the cinema and continued to show films even during the early 1970s when television began to displace going to the pictures as the most popular form of entertainment. The Queen's Theatre closed in 1975, but opened for 6 months over the summer of 1981. However, home videos then began to pose serious competition and the Queen's closed for 7 years.
It was kept in good repair, however, and in 1988 was able to screen The Man from Snowy River in celebration of Australia's Bicentennial year. Films were shown again in 1993 to celebrate the Wallumbilla School Centenary. Double features were then shown to full houses on two successive nights. This success encouraged the owners to reopen the theatre, renaming it the Nostalgic Queen's Theatre. The equipment was upgraded and a new wide screen installed. The theatre was also connected to mains electricity supply, instead of the generator that had previously provided electricity. The theatre opened again in January 1994 screening on one Saturday night a month during the summer. The Nostalgic Queen's Theatre is still used intermittently to screen films and hosted the Movie Muster, a festival of Australian films, during the Centenary of Federation celebrations in 2001.
The exterior cladding on the front of the building was replaced in the 1980s, when the confectionary counter opening onto the street on the right hand side of the entrance was sheeted over. The bottom panels of the fibrous cement sheeting on the side and rear walls has been renewed with equivalent modern sheeting. The interior of the building is still intact.
","criteria":"The Nostalgic Queen's Theatre, Wallumbilla is important in demonstrating the development of picture theatres in Queensland and the part that picture going played in the life of Australia in the early and mid 20th century, before it began to be displaced by television. Picture theatres enjoyed widespread popularity, especially in rural areas, as they provided not only entertainment, but also a venue for social interaction and a means of reducing isolation by providing a window into the wider world. The Queen's Theatre is evidence for the popularity of picture going throughout rural Queensland in the mid 20th century.
|The Queen's Theatre is a purpose built picture theatre that is still in use for its original purpose. It is now one of only a few early theatres remaining in Queensland that have not been adapted for other uses.
|It is a good example of the type of modest picture theatre once common in rural towns, being very simple in plan and having arches to support the roof to provide good sight lines.
|The Queen's Theatre has important associations with the community of Wallumbilla and the surrounding area, as a venue for social interaction and popular entertainment, and for many members of which it is a focus for memories.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19501,"place_ref":602380,"name":"Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool","alternate_name":"The Little Citizens Free Kindergarten | Rosalie Kindergarten","street_address":"57 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2002-09-27","description":"The Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool is situated on a triangular site with elevations to Elizabeth and Nash Streets, Rosalie. It is constructed of hardwood weatherboards slightly bellcast over the supporting brick piers and has a central two-storey section flanked by single storey pavilions.
The terracotta tiled roof is complex in form and the most striking feature of the main, Elizabeth Street elevation, is two storey porch forming an entrance on the ground floor and a small balcony above. Multiple paned sash windows echo the Georgian influence displayed in the symmetrical pavilion form.
The building is divided into public, private and services zones. The upper storey of the central section is reached by a timber staircase and contains a flat, originally the caretaker's residence, complete with laundry and bathroom with original fittings. This floor is currently used for storage.
The ground floor contains the entry and service areas that are divided from the main teaching and play zones by a waiting area. The teaching area is large and airy and can be divided by folding doors. The toilet rooms are situated at each end of the building and contain early timber partitions and cabinets. A wide verandah flanks two sides of the playrooms and has timber balustrades with metal diamond mesh above. Stairs from the verandah lead down to a play area beneath the building.
The interior is lined with boards to dado height with fibrous cement sheeting above. The rooms are ceiled with fibrous cement sheeting and timber battens. The building contains some fine detailing including mitred corners and bellcast bases to the weatherboard walls and well-executed timber balustrading and details to the verandahs. Such details as fittings and door furniture are preserved and reflect the quality of design and construction in this building.
On the Nash Street side of the building is a playground with mature trees.
","history":"The Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool is a two-storey timber building that was built in 1935 for the Crèche and Kindergarten Association to the design of A E Brooks.
The development of kindergartens was an outcome of a movement that developed in the Western world in the late 19th century in response to new knowledge about the role of diet, hygiene and exercise in the health of children. The Infant Welfare movement in Australia began around 1904 and aimed both to improve the health of children and to educate their mothers. In the early 20th century, approaches to running a household and bringing up children became more 'scientific' and this was reflected in the design of buildings, domestic science classes in schools and specialized training for early childhood teachers. The new direction in rearing children was towards active play and planned nutrition within a light, clean and airy environment, a very different approach to the structures of a Victorian childhood.
The Crèche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland was formed in 1907 as a function of the Institute of Social Services in Fortitude Valley. A second branch was established in January 1911 and was called the Ithaca Crèche and Kindergarten. They cared for babies and children up to five years of age in two cottages at Herbert Street, Rosalie. The earliest childcare building in Brisbane, probably in Queensland, was Paddington Kindergarten, which was built in Charlotte Street in 1916 and included a crèche from 1917. The Ithaca crèche then closed, but the kindergarten remained in operation after lobbying by parents.
In 1922 the Maternity Act provided for the establishment of maternity hospitals and baby clinics in Queensland to improve the health of mothers and children. This was a Labor government initiative as fostering a healthy population and boosting the birthrate was thought to be essential to the development of the state. Funds from the proceeds of the Golden Casket Lottery were used to implement this. The Golden Casket lottery was introduced in 1916, initially to assist the Australian Soldiers' Repatriation Fund and Anzac Cottages Scheme. In 1920, the operation of the lottery was taken over by the Queensland government and the main recipient of proceeds became the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund.
The Crèche and Kindergarten Association had leased various premises in the 1920s and in 1933; a Mother's Club was formed to raise funds for a permanent building. By 1934 they had raised £150. They also ran a street carnival at Roma Street for two months, which raised £791/18/4. The association approached H E Hanlon, the Home Secretary and husband of the Rosalie committee chairwoman, who promised assistance. This took the form of a government subsidy for the construction of a new kindergarten on a pound for pound basis from Golden Casket funds. The Home Department also provided £600 to buy land. In 1935, this site on the corner of Elizabeth and Nash Streets was purchased for the construction of a kindergarten. Even with the subsidy, the amount collected fell short of the cost and a government loan of £946/8/5 was provided to bridge the gap.
Arnold Brooks, architect for the Canberra Hotel and for various social welfare facilities, designed the new building. Brooks had worked in the offices of a number of distinguished architectural firms. Between 1888 and 1892 he was articled to Oakden, Addison and Kemp, remaining with their office as an assistant until 1901, when he joined the Telegraph newspaper. In 1908 he became an assistant to architect JPO Cowlishaw and then chief assistant at the architectural firm of Hall and Dods, acting as manager when Dods moved to Sydney in 1913. Brooks was a correspondent on architectural matters for various journals and served on planning and Ideal Home committees. He was appointed architect to Brisbane Grammar Schools in 1921 and in 1922 established his own practice. In 1929 he designed what was his best-known building (now demolished), the Canberra Hotel. In 1929 he also became associate architect for the Queensland Crèche and Kindergarten Association. In 1935 he assumed the same role for the Queensland Society for Crippled Children.
R A Lind & Sons of Manly built the kindergarten at a cost of £3791. Work began on 1 April 1935 and the Hon. H E Hanlon, Minister for Health and Home Affairs, opened the new facility on 23 November 1935 as 'The Little Citizen's Free Kindergarten'. At the time it was considered to be the best-designed kindergarten in the Commonwealth. A number of features were thought innovative including a caretaker's residence on the upper floor; separate play areas for toddlers and older children, an undercover play area and large teaching areas divided by folding doors.
Rosalie Kindergarten was involved in the practical training of early childhood teachers since the inception of the Brisbane Kindergarten Training College in 1911. In 1940, it was one of two branch kindergartens that undertook a trial of the Nursery School program, teaching children between 2 and five years old. The Kindergarten Director, Miss Edna Hill, went to Melbourne for a year's training in this program at the Melbourne Kindergarten Teacher's College.
Because it was originally a function of the Social Services Dept, the work of the kindergarten was aligned to the social needs of the area, caring for large groups of children for up to five days a week, providing hot meals mid-day and opening for hours that allowed mothers to work. During the Depression the hours were extended to allow mothers to maximize any available income. In 1942 although kindergartens in Brisbane were closed for a time they soon reopened as they made it possible for mothers to contribute to war work.
The Kindergarten is till operating as a childcare facility and the suitability of its design for this purpose is demonstrated by the very minor nature of modifications made to the fabric since its inception.
","criteria":"The Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool is important in illustrating the growth of the Infant Welfare movement and changing attitudes to health, education and child care in Queensland during the early 20th century. The size and quality of the building demonstrates the commitment of the Labor government of the period to initiatives promoting maternal and child welfare as part of the development of the state. The contemporary ideals of light, space and airiness for children's facilities are well expressed in the design of the building.
|The Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool is rare in Queensland as a purpose built kindergarten built before World War Two.
|It demonstrates the distinct function and design of a purpose built kindergarten of the era and was considered to be particularly well-designed example when it was built. The suitability of its design for this purpose is demonstrated by the minor nature of modifications made to the fabric since its inception, resulting in a high degree of intactness.
|The kindergarten building has aesthetic significance as a well executed building in the Georgian revival style with references to the Queensland vernacular. It is a local landmark.
|(Criterion under review)
|The Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool has an association with the local community over several generations as a community service providing education and recreation for children, training for early childhood teachers and assistance for mothers.
|The Rosalie Community Kindergarten and Preschool is an important example of the work of architect Arnold E Brooks who was considered to be an innovative designer of child and aged care facilities.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19502,"place_ref":602381,"name":"Cooroy Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"14 Myall Street","suburb":"COOROY","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"The main railway station complex is bounded by Diamond Street to the north, Elm Street to the east and south, and Myall Street and Maple Street to the west. The station building is near the northern end of the railway yards, east of the North Coast railway line. The goods shed and crane are opposite the station building, on the west side of the line.
Station Building
The station building has a gabled corrugated iron roof that varies in width and height on the east side, but which is integrated along the west side to form an awning extended over the platform. This awning is supported on curved timber brackets. A small skillion extension has been added to the north of the office, on the east side of the waiting shed. The building is 22.6m long, and is clad with weatherboards. Its components, from north to south, include: a male and female toilet section (3.6m by 3m); a waiting shed (5.8m by 3 m); an office (7m by 4.9m); and a former signal cabin (6m by 4.3m). The main entrance to the station building consists of stairs and a ramp up to the east side of the waiting shed. To the west of the station building is a concrete platform covered with bitumen. This runs for some distance to the north and the south of the station building.
The men's and women's toilets have exposed studs to the interior, and have original windows on the north and east sides. The east and north walls of the waiting shed are also single skin, with the studs exposed internally. There are timber benches within the shelter shed, and a window to the east has been covered over. The office is lined internally with vertical timber boards, and has a ticket window and two fanlight windows on its north side, and a stable-style door on the west side. All office windows have been replaced. The office also has a door to the former signal cabin on the south side. The latter room is lined with fibrous cement sheeting. There is a modern metal roller door on its west side, a pair of timber doors on the east side, and a window to the south. The former signal cabin stands on a thick concrete slab, and has an external water tank on its eastern side. The rest of the station building stands on concrete stumps.
Goods shed and crane
The goods shed has a gabled corrugated iron roof, and is clad with weatherboards. Small eaves to the east and west sides are supported on straight timber brackets. A timber loading dock extends along the east and south side of the shed, and extends south to where a whip crane is mounted. The shed has two sliding doors and a window on the east elevation; a door on the south elevation; two sliding doors with their own small platforms on the west side, along with a window; and a small window on the north side. Internally the shed has exposed ceiling beams and wall studs, and an office or workshop area has been partitioned off at the south end, with the walls and ceiling lined with fibrous cement sheeting. Internally, each timber sliding door has a protective timber frame which it slides behind when opened.
","history":"The 1891-1916 timber railway station building at Cooroy is one of only nine nineteenth century timber country station buildings that remain on the North Coast Line, which extends from Brisbane to Cairns. Only two of these stations also have an extant goods shed and crane. The Cooroy station building, located between Maple Street and Elm Street in Cooroy, is clad in hardwood weatherboards, and has a gabled roof that extends to form an awning over the platform, supported by curved timber brackets. This particular style of station building was built in Queensland from around 1884 to 1906.
Cooroy was a logging centre well before it was a town. Development of the Noosa area was underway by the mid 1860s with timber getters active along the Noosa River and Kin Kin Creek, and a sawmill was established c1870 at Mill Point, Lake Cootharaba, to supply the Gympie goldfield with timber. As timber supplies close to the coast were depleted, the timber-getters moved inland. The land around Cooroy was part of a 5,000 acre [2 023ha] timber concession held by the sawmilling company Dath Henderson and Bartholomew from the mid 1880s until 1907, at which point the government repurchased the land and opened it for selection.
After 1891 timber was sent from the Cooroy railway station to Dath Henderson and Bartholomew's sawmill at Bulimba. A railway line had been opened from Maryborough to the Gympie goldfields in 1881, and this was extended south to Cooran in June 1889, and then to Cooroy in April 1891. Meanwhile, a line northwards from Brisbane reached Caboolture in June 1888 and Cooroy in July 1891. As a result, Brisbane was linked to Gympie and Bundaberg, and timber milled near Cooroy could easily reach the Brisbane market. Construction of the North Coast line continued until 1924, at which point Brisbane was finally linked to Cairns.
Although the Cooroy railway station was established in 1891, the town was not surveyed until 1907, and town allotments in Cooroy were sold in April 1908. Prior to 1908 the only buildings near the current business centre on Maple Street were James Duke's portable office (1891-1897), the railway station and station master's house, and JL Boden's sapling and bark store on the railway reserve (1906-1908). However, by 1910 there were three banks and two hotels, plus several cottages and stores. A butter factory was opened in Cooroy by the Wide Bay Co-operative Dairy Association in 1915, and by 1920 Cooroy had a population of 450, with an economy based on dairying, timber and bananas.
The Cooroy railway station was also a busy tourist stop from 1891, as the North Coast line stimulated tourism to the North Coast's bathing spots and mountain resorts. Given the lack of a decent road north of Brisbane prior to the construction of the Bruce Highway in the 1930s, people generally took the train to Landsborough to access Maleny or Caloundra; to Palmwoods to get to Montville, Buderim, Mooloolaba, Alexandra Headland and Maroochydore; to Nambour for Mapleton, Maroochydore or Coolum; and to Cooroy for Tewantin and Noosa Heads. At Cooroy, passengers could transfer to either horse-drawn coaches or motor cars to travel by road to Tewantin, where they could then catch a motor boat to Noosa. In early 1893 Myles and Co's Coach from Cooroy to Tewantin met the train from Gympie once a day.
In 1890 plans were prepared for 3rd Class shelter sheds to be constructed at North Arm, Eumundi and Cooroy. These were simple, rectangular gabled structures, each 24ft by 10ft (7.3m by 3m), consisting of an office and waiting shed. In April 1891 Fitzwilliam Williams was contracted to build two goods sheds and three sheds at stations including Cooroy for £664. The surviving station buildings at Palmwoods and Woombye were also originally 24ft by 10ft structures.
The 1890 building, consisting of an office and shelter shed each 12ft (3.6m) in length, was extended by a further 12ft in 1895 to include a goods shed at the north end. By 1897 Cooroy railway station consisted of a station building, siding, telegraph, 10cwt scales, loading bank, and a timber-loading stage. In 1899 a 12ft long ladies room was added to the north end of the station building, taking the total length of the building to 48ft (14.6m). The fact that the Cooroy station building had been extended twice before the town of Cooroy was even surveyed demonstrates that there was a fair amount of traffic at the station, either for timber or tourism. In 1908 two ventilation fanlights were installed in the office above the ticket window, which was smaller than the current window.
The station building was extended again circa 1916. By this time the 48ft building no longer had a goods shed section, and was instead divided into a ladies room (12ft long), waiting shed (19ft or 5.8m long), and an office (17ft or 5.2m long), the latter having already been expanded from 10ft to 16ft (4.9m) wide. This configuration of ladies room-waiting shed-office was a common feature of Queensland Railway's standard designs, although the size of each section could be increased, and smaller versions might dispense with one or more of the components. A photograph taken in 1911 shows the goods shed and the station building in its 48ft configuration, with the widened office. It also shows an unknown building, no longer extant, just to the north of the station building.
The 1916 plan called for the office to be extended 6ft (1.8m) to the south, and for the addition of a signal cabin 20ft (6m) long by 14ft (4.3m) wide to the south of the office, thus extending the building to its current length of 74ft (22.6m). The station building was also moved southwards to its current position opposite the goods shed. The goods shed is not present on a 1909 plan of the station, but it and its timber platform are extant on a 1910 plan, located west of the line and just south of the office. There was also a 1-ton crane at the station by 1916. By March 1918 the station's signalling and interlocking was completed, and was operating from the signal cabin.
The only extensions to the station building since 1916 have been a small skillion alcove at the north end of the east side of office, where a water tank was once located, and a ramp has been added to the eastern entrance of the waiting shed. The former ladies room has been divided into men's and women's toilets. A 1917 plan shows that the signal cabin had windows on rollers along its western side, but if these existed they have since been removed, and the signal cabin is now used for storage. The goods shed does not seem to have changed since 1911.
Other changes at Cooroy station over the years included the installation of trunkline telephone facilities in 1909, and gas lights in 1920. Post and telegraph services operated from the railway station between 1892 and 1911, and level crossing gates interlocked with signals were installed in 1912 (not extant). The platform was extended in 1913, and in 1915 a new loop siding was added for the Wide Bay Co-Operative Dairy Association Ltd's new butter factory. The current overhead timber footbridge to the north of the station was built circa 1985, to replace a 1961 footbridge.
Buildings that are no longer extant include a cream shed to the south of the office (shown on a 1909 site plan) that was moved to Gympie in 1918. In 1909 there was also a trolley shed and a maintenance office to the west of the line, south of the platform. On a 1916 plan a refreshment room was located to the east of the north end of the platform. The Tewantin Café was operated by Mrs Godwin for coach passengers to Tewantin, on land leased from the railways near the gates on the eastern side of the line. This café was operating by Christmas 1912, was sold to the Railway Department in August 1915, and was burnt down under suspicious circumstances on 1 October 1915. By 1920 there was an ambulance shed at the northeast corner of the railway yards.
Other removed features include an array of sidings and a crane on the eastern side of the line for loading agricultural produce and storing wagons, and a lamp room. Cattle, pig and sheep yards on the west side of the line were removed in 1977. A 1988 plan of the railway complex at Cooroy shows an inspector's house, inspector's hut, and fettler's hut to the west of the line, south of the road bridge, and an assistant station master's house north of the bridge. Most of these buildings were sold and removed in the 1980s and 1990s.
","criteria":"Cooroy Railway Station is important in demonstrating the extension of the North Coast line during the late 1880s and early 1890s to link Gympie, Maryborough and Bundaberg with Brisbane, which facilitated the extraction of timber from the North Coast area from the late nineteenth century and the expansion of agricultural settlement (principally associated with dairying) from the early twentieth century. The extension of the station building several times between 1891 and 1916 reflected its increasingly heavy use during this period. Cooroy was also an important access point for tourists travelling to Tewantin and Noosa from 1891 to the mid 1930s.
|The relationship between the station building, its platform, and the goods shed with its timber platform and metal whip crane, is important in demonstrating the functioning of a small but busy country railway station. The layout of the Cooroy station building, which includes toilets, a waiting shelter, a ticket office, and a signal cabin, is also representative of the standard Queensland Railways designs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Cooroy station building has changed little since its extension in 1916, and its associated goods shed (circa 1910) is also in near-original condition. It is one of only nine surviving nineteenth century country railway station buildings on the North Coast railway line. All of these station buildings are located between Gladstone and Brisbane and date from the 1890s. Only two of these stations retain their goods shed and crane: Yandina and Cooroy.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19503,"place_ref":602382,"name":"Hemmant State School and Dumbarton","alternate_name":"Doughboy Creek Mixed School | Bulimba Creek School | Ashcroft House, Gibson House","street_address":"56 Hemmant-Tingalpa Road","suburb":"HEMMANT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-09-04","description":"Hemmant State School is situated on a four-hectare site facing Hemmant-Tingalpa Road. The school uses only the northern third of the block. The remainder is separated by a fence and provides grazing for horses. The occupied portion is roughly equivalent to the original two acre site. The site slopes west/east and is partially levelled with a retaining wall above the playground. All principal area of heritage significance on this site is to the west, ie above, this retaining wall. This area includes the 1876 school, the 1915 open-air annexe and its extension, the 1931 teachers' room, the 1884 playshed, and Dumbarton House. These buildings and structures are arranged around a bitumened play area. To the west of the playshed is the toilet block, which is relatively recent and not of significance. To the east of the retaining wall and not included in the heritage register boundary are the preschool, playground and shade cover, tennis courts and shelter sheds, a shade house, and three sheds.
The 1876 school is the building closest to Hemmant-Tingalpa Road. It is an asymmetrical, low-set, rectangular, timber framed structure, 8.5m by 12m., which has been divided into two classrooms. An enclosed verandah extends along the western side and into a walkway to the other school buildings. The walls are weatherboard except on the eastern wall where it is weatherboard on the southern section with more recent aluminium siding for the remainder. The stumps are concrete and the floor timber, although internally it is covered with carpet and linoleum. The roof is corrugated iron, slightly hipped and broader on the eastern side to cover the enclosed verandah section. The roof is straight on the western side but protrudes beyond the line of the building to shade the windows. There are two whirlybirds on the verandah portion of the roof. Each classroom has four banks of three hopper windows on the western side. On the southern wall there is a row of four casement windows topped by hoppers and protected by an awning in the classroom, and a hopper window on the enclosed verandah section. There is also a ventilation window into the ceiling space in the southern wall. On the eastern wall there are aluminium framed sliding windows above the aluminium cladding sections of the wall. Access to the building is via a parallel staircase, railed and posted, on the eastern wall, which leads to a landing which goes to an ante-room on the enclosed verandah. Internally the walls are primarily tongue and groove, vertically jointed boards, with fibrous cement ceilings - flat in the classroom and sloped in the verandah. The classrooms are divided by a wall with a sloping blackboard and white board on either side of French doors. Cupboards run under the black/white boards. The northern end of the enclosed verandah has a stove and sink fitted on the eastern wall. The northern end of the verandah leads to an enclosed walkway through to the other school buildings.
The 1915 open-air annexe and its extension are to the north of the 1876 school building. It has been modified and extended. It is a highset timber building, approximately 21.5m by 11m, with concrete stumps, partially enclosed under. The roof is corrugated iron and has two ventilators on the southern portion. To the north and west it is hipped to accommodate now enclosed verandahs. The external walls are clad with chamferboards except on the walkway from the other buildings, which is weatherboard, and the enclosed northern verandah section, which is clad with aluminium siding. Above the aluminium are aluminium framed sliding windows. Access to the building is via the walkway from the 1876 school building, perpendicular stairs from the west, and stairs on the northern side. Internally the building is divided into nine sections. On the western section there is an enclosed verandah which has been converted into a computer room. This room is lined with fibrous cement sheeting and has a timber, tongue and groove ceiling. There is access to the walkway from the 1876 school building and from the teachers' room. Double timber doors lead onto the front steps and there is a double hopper window adjoining. An arch leads into a small room, which, with its neighbour, has been divided from the original open-air annexe classroom. Each has a false ceiling. The southern one has a pair of double casement windows, each topped by a hopper. A door leads into the original annexe schoolroom. This is a large (7200 by 7700) room with tongue and groove timber walls and a pressed metal ceiling, flat in the middle and sloped towards the sides and ends. The western end of the ceiling is obscured by the false ceilings in the adjoining subdivided rooms. There are metal stringers between the walls. Three sets of the windows consisting of a double casement topped by a hopper are on the southern wall. A large archway leads onto the enclosed northern verandah.
East of this is another large classroom, 6210 by 7700, with board lining. Five triple hopper windows cover the whole of the upper part of the southern wall and the northern wall is occupied by a door and louvres onto the enclosed verandah. The verandah runs most of the length of the building with tongue and groove vertically-jointed walls onto the classrooms and a tongue and groove sloping ceiling. It is 3100 mm wide along the original annexe room and then splits to 1900 mm while the remainder is occupied by a stairway. At the eastern end of the building are three small offices. Two continue the line of the original walls and are fitted with casement windows topped by hoppers. The third continues the verandah and has aluminium framed sliding windows. The sub-floor is partially enclosed and the remainder is concreted or bitumened and fitted with fixed timber seats between the stumps. The land slopes and the area is divided by a small retaining wall with steps across it. The western end is enclosed with corrugated iron into a storage room and the eastern end is enclosed with chamferboards to form a tuckshop and small additional room. The tuckshop has three sets of double casement windows on the eastern end. There are tin and chamferboard walls along some sections of the southern wall and a drinking trough and bubblers along one.
The other teaching building is the 1931 teachers' room, which is to the north of the 1876 school building and to the west of the 1915 open-air annexe. It adjoins the latter and is connected to it by a doorway onto the western verandah. It is a small, lowset weatherboard building with casement windows with awnings on all three exposed sides. Internally walls and ceiling are lined with tongue and groove vertically jointed timber boards.
The 1884 playshed is on the eastern side of the bitumened area. It is an open timber framed structure, 12550 by 7200 mm. The roof is corrugated iron supported by timber posts with angled bracing. It is partially enclosed on the eastern side with corrugated iron which has a blackboard along it. The floor is bitumen and there are fixed timber seats between the posts. Large hooks are screwed into the beams at two places.
Dumbarton is situated on the southern side of the school complex. It is a high-set, single-storey dwelling with exposed cross brace stud framing. It has a transverse gabled roof with colourbond sheeting , a roof light over the stairwell, finials on the gables and a weathercock on the chimney of the double fireplace. The verandah roof is curved and separate from the house. The verandah surrounds the basically square core of the house and in the southeastern portions it is enclosed with chamferboards and fibrous cement sheeting. The open portions have timber handrails and dowelled balustrading. The posts are moulded and have decorative brackets. Access to the verandah is by steps or a ramp, both recent, on the western side of the house. Another set of steps leads from the south (rear) of the house. All windows and doors onto the verandah are covered with security mesh.
Internally the house has a central hall, with rooms leading off on either side. At the front are two rooms now converted to offices. Each room has vertically jointed walls and tongue and groove ceilings, French doors leading onto the front (northern) side and a double hung window on the other external side. The room on the east has access to a small modern en suite bathroom. The room on the right has a fireplace with timber surrounds and shelf. The next door on the left is another modern bathroom with pine ceiling and a dividing wall with leadlight through to the en suite bathroom. The hall enters a larger back room on the right with vertically jointed walls and ceiling, the second half of the double fireplace, a double hung window onto the west and French doors onto the verandah at the south. The remaining quarter of the floor is occupied by a kitchen that opens into the enclosed sections of the verandah. All the fittings are modern, including the sloping clear sealed pine tongue and groove ceiling on the verandah portion and the three double hung windows in the new section. Early double hung windows and French doors open onto the verandah, presumably from the original room. Narrow stairs lead to the attic which consists of two rooms. These are carpeted and lined with vertically jointed timber boards except on two walls which have horizontal beaded boards. The ceilings are recent with clear finished tongue and groove boards. The eastern room has two double hung sash windows with timber framed hoods. The western room has the chimney through it and leads onto a balcony with timber railings and cross balustrading. There is a recent door into the roof space at the front of the building.
","history":"Hemmant State School was established in 1864 as the Bulimba Creek School [non-vested]. It contains several generations of public works buildings that were built as the community at Hemmant expanded and developed. The oldest remaining building was erected in 1876, to a design by Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley. The Playshed was added in 1884. The house known as Dumbarton, which was relocated from another Hemmant location to the school site in 2001, was built probably in the 1870s or early 1880s and local opinion attributes its construction and occupation to the Uhlmann and Gibson families - the former significant in the area as local butchers, milkmen and storekeepers, and the latter significant in the development of the sugar industry in Queensland.
Hemmant was originally known as Doughboy Creek and the first land sales took place in 1858. Non-indigenous settlement in the area commenced the following year when the Franklin and Popham families migrated in the same ship and took up adjacent pieces of land at Hemmant. English, Scottish, Dutch and German migrants followed and established farms. The soil was easy to clear and fertile, and the first crops were vegetables and fruit, which were transported up the river to Brisbane until the construction of the bridge over Bulimba Creek in 1870 made road transport possible.
In 1863 William Gibson and his son Angus arrived in Moreton Bay and settled at Hemmant. The remainder of the family followed in 1864. In 1866 William Gibson obtained cane cuttings from Louis Hope at Ormiston, which he planted at Hemmant, on a farm he called Clydesdale. Other farmers in the district also switched to sugar production. In 1868 William Gibson and Sons established the Clydesdale Sugar Mill, and by 1871 there were seven mills in the area. In the second half of the 1870s, however, drought and disease destroyed the crops repeatedly and sugar farming was moved further north. In 1883, the Clydesdale Mill was sold and the Gibson family began the move to Bingera at Bundaberg. The mill closed down the following year, and Hemmant returned to vegetable and dairy production.
Hemmant State School was opened on 9 May 1864 as Bulimba Creek School on a two acre site. It was a non-vested school - the Department of Public Instruction supplied the teacher, Frederick Ffoulkes Swanwick, and the parents paid for the construction of the school, a shingled, weatherboard building, 15 foot by 30 foot. Eighteen children enrolled during the first week and 74 by the following year, although the average attendance was only 32. By 1866 three classes were required. In 1866 the name was changed to Doughboy Creek Mixed School, to avoid confusion with the newly established Bulimba State School. It then became the Doughboy Creek Primary School (1869), Doughboy Primary School (1870) and Hemmant Primary School (1876). In 1873 a new teacher's residence was built.
Complaints by the teacher and parents about the condition of the school, which had been built entirely of pine and was now a dangerous, white ant-eaten shell, resulted in a detailed inspection by David Ewart in 1876. He recommended that a new school be built - with the residents again contributing to its construction. The building was a standard Public Works school design [Burmester, Pullar & Kennedy 1996 classification: B/T2], 40' by 20' with 8' verandahs on both front and back, designed by FDG Stanley, the Colonial Architect. In 1884, a large open playshed was built to another standard Public Works design [Burmester, Pullar & Kennedy 1996 classification: B/T5]. In 1897 the shingles on the school building were replaced with iron and in 1899 two new rooms and other improvements were made to the teacher's residence. In 1889, 5.3 perches were transferred to the Railway Department to enable the construction of the Cleveland Railway line, and in 1912 the Headteacher's residence was moved to the north of the railway line and more land was resumed to make an island platform closer to Hemmant Village. During the flood of 1893, much of Hemmant was submerged, including a popular tourist attraction known as The Aquarium. During the flood the men took refuge in the school while women and children were lodged in nearby buildings.
An open-air annexe [Burmester, Pullar & Kennedy 1996 classification: C/T9], 32'6" by 25' with 10' verandahs on two sides, was built by AG Temperley for £439/16/8 in 1915. It was equipped with canvas blinds to offer some protection from the weather. This was built with its front verandah adjoining and connected to the rear verandah of the existing building. In 1922 sash windows were installed to replace the blinds and the building was enclosed. In 1931 Mr AC Weedon was contracted to improve the residence, construct a teachers' room and install new earth closets for £152.0.0. The Teachers' Room was built on the front of the verandah of the previously open-air annexe. In 1939 the school residence was sold and a tennis court built on the site. An additional 5 acres 3 roods 29.6 perches which adjoined the original school site was added to the school in 1951 to make a total of 7 acres 3 roods 0.4 perches. In 1955 the schoolrooms were remodelled and a new classroom was built at the rear of the previous annexe. In 1961 major remodelling and additions took place at a cost of £55,000. Major changes which took place in these 1955 and 1961 remodellings included enclosing the verandahs, removing the front verandah of the original school, and dividing its large classroom into two. In 1980 the preschool was opened and in 1988 the tennis courts were cleared.
In 2001 a nearby house now known as Dumbarton was moved from 41 Hemmant-Tingalpa Rd, corner of Brand Street, onto the school site. Dumbarton was associated with the development of Hemmant as a farming community in the last quarter of the 19th century. Its original site was part of a 29 acre property alienated from the Crown by Friedrich Uhlmann and F Harz in 1859. In 1869 the land was subdivided and the Dumbarton site was transferred to Friedrich Uhlmann. In 1873 this land was further subdivided and one acre [including the Dumbarton site] was transferred to the Doughboy Sugar Company. In 1880 a mortgage was taken out against the property - possibly for improvements, which may have included construction of the house. In 1885 title to this property was transferred to Angus Gibson, then to Christof Uhlmann in 1888, thus returning to the Uhlmann family.
The Gibson and Uhlmann families were connected by marriage, William Gibson's daughter Margaret having married Frederick Uhlmann's son Christopher Frederick in 1876. Local sources, and descendants of the Gibson family claim that the house was built by Friedrich Uhlmann for the Gibson family, possibly as early as 1864. The first definite evidence of the house is in 1887, when it is marked on a Railways survey of the proposed route of the Cleveland Railway Line. In 1911 the house and land were bought by Henry Skiller who lived there until his death in 1955 when it was transferred to Alan Skinner, subdivided and sold to William and Elizabeth Ashcroft. The house fell into disrepair but was renovated in the 1990s.
In 2000 the Main Roads Department acquired the land to build a new road to the Port of Brisbane. Following representation from local residents, members of the Gibson and Uhlmann families and local historical organisations, the house was moved to the Hemmant State School site in April 2001. The name 'Dumbarton' has been applied to the house only recently. Previously it was known as the Gibson House or the Ashcroft House. 'Dumbarton' was named after the original home in Scotland of the Ashcroft family.
","criteria":"Hemmant State School was established in 1864 and is one of the oldest still-operating State schools in Queensland. The earliest surviving building on the site dates to 1876. The school is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history. Established shortly after the subdivision of the Doughboy Creek area into farms, the school illustrates the expansion of agriculture [initially small cropping and dairying] on the outskirts of Brisbane during the late 1850s and 1860s, during the period when Brisbane was consolidating its position as the principal town and capital of Queensland. In the 1870s the school population expanded with the introduction of sugar cultivation into the Doughboy Creek area, and expanded again in the 1920s and 1930s when meatworks were established in adjoining suburbs, employing Hemmant residents.
|Hemmant State School was established in 1864 and is one of the oldest still-operating State schools in Queensland.
|The Hemmant State School group comprises school buildings from the 1870s, 1880s, 1910s and 1930s and are significant in representing changing trends in school architecture, which were themselves representative of developments in education policy and practices. The 1876 building is considerably modified but a rare survival. The 1884 playshed is intact, including hooks which may have been used for hanging gym equipment, and relatively rare. The 1915 open-air annexe is considerably modified but many of the modifications are cosmetic and reversible. Major changes, such as the addition of another classroom and the substitution of windows for canvas blinds, are themselves representative of changes in the school population and education policies and practices.
Dumbarton, although considerably modified, provides evidence of c1880 single-skin and cross-bracing construction and is one of few remaining buildings in the Hemmant area which illustrates domestic architectural style and form of its era.
|Hemmant State School has a particular significance for the people of the small rural community of Hemmant. The school developed as the district grew and was a meeting place and community centre for many years.
Like Hemmant State School, it has strong community importance. When it was threatened with demolition in 2000, local action resulted in government intercession and the removal of the house to the local school site.
|It is also associated with the locally prominent Gibson and Uhlmann families, who were among the first settlers in the Doughboy Creek [Hemmant] area. The Gibson family was also important in the development of the Queensland sugar industry, and Angus Gibson, who held title to Dumbarton from 1885 to1888, was active in local government in the early 1880s and was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council 1899-1920.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19505,"place_ref":602384,"name":"The Rocks Guesthouse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"20 Cleveland Terrace","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-04-10","description":"The Rocks Guesthouse is situated high on Melton Hill at 20 Cleveland Terrace, with panoramic views of the Coral Sea, Magnetic Island and Cleveland Bay. It is accessed from Cleveland Terrace. There is an unnamed laneway on the eastern side of the property and Herbert Street flanks the southern boundary. The place is an asymmetrical timber structure with readily discernable stages of metamorphous from private residence to hospital and later to guesthouse.
The Rocks Guesthouse consists of a combination of gabled and hipped roof structures, each timber framed and timber clad, with roofs of corrugated iron.
The original portion of the house (c1897) has a hipped roof with a projecting front gable and a half front verandah with a curved iron roof. A verandah has been added at an early date in front of the projecting gable and continuing around the eastern side of the house overlooking the adjacent laneway. A further skillion-roofed addition to the original front verandah extends over early brick and rendered stucco stairs, which remain in situ under the boards. The verandahs have a recent dowelling balustrade between timber columns, which have decorative timber brackets. The handrail is an angular shape. Flooring to the verandahs is of 4in wide hardwood.
Modern replica work includes the fretwork under the gable, the gable finial and the property name sign. The large front entrance door is early as are the door fittings.
The exterior walls of the original house are exposed stud frame lined internally with 8in deep chamfer boards. The piers for the original house are of brick (commons) similar to the ones used to construct the side wall. The piers (13½in x 13½in) are supporting bearers and in turn are supported by a layer of small rocks in a mud mixture. The brick piers extend partway to the middle of the house; beyond this, concrete piers are continued to the end of the operating theatre.
Internally the rooms of the original house have 13ft 6in high ceilings, picture rails, timber fretwork ceiling roses and timber partitioning in 5in wide tongue-and-groove boards. The main drawing room has a large bay window framed by an arch. The windows are large double-hung timber sashes with two panes per sash. While the side windows have long been removed and replaced by French windows and fanlights, evidence of their existence remains behind the door-jambs on the verandah, above the fan light and from the part removal of diagonal bracing. Original timber ceiling roses have been uncovered throughout the house and replicas have replaced those that were missing. Electric fans have been installed in some of the rooms and wired up through the ceiling roses. Above the internal doors are decorative timber fretwork panels. The pattern is very similar to the fretwork in Osler House (QHR 600931) and similar to fretwork attributed to Benjamin Toll that is found also in Charters Towers. Floors throughout are 6in wide hoop pine.
The principal additions associated with the conversion of the residence into a hospital in 1909, including a former operating theatre, staff quarters and kitchen, are largely confined to the rear of the residence. Of particular note is an attached hipped roof structure, which formerly contained an operating room and sterilizing room. The former operating room (now a guestroom) is still accessible from outside. This room has three lights in the roof, covered with corrugated iron. Fixed timber vents are located on the lower third of the room on two sides and closable timber vents are located on the upper level. There is an ornate ceiling rose of pressed metal.
The remainder of the rear rooms have been converted into guest rooms and some doors have been in-filled. Some of the smaller rooms have been converted into en-suites to service adjoining rooms. In the roof space above the hall in the rear section, is a large early water tank.
Four rooms constructed on the western side of the house in the 1930s have been converted into two rooms, en-suite and porch area. These rooms are under a skillion roof and the entrance porch is concealed behind timber lattice.
An above ground air-raid shelter constructed during World War Two is located at the back of the house and is currently used as a guest room. It has a modern en-suite added to the room.
There is a concrete pit or bunker under the western side of the house, accessible via a small timber hatch in the floor of one of the 1930s rooms. It measures 2.7m long by 1.2m wide and is 1.5m high. It has two large vent pipes inserted in the concrete ceiling, which emerge in the space between the top of the concrete structure and the floorboards of the house.
There is a timber and iron garage in the back yard, next to the former operating theatre, which is a later addition.
Gardens
The Rocks Guesthouse occupies most of the 811m² allotment with two small landscaped garden areas at the front of the house and along the eastern side, dominated by a meandering brick pavement. At the rear of the house the garden is less defined and there is a paved car parking area. Two of the three flora identified in the 1997 Melton Hill Workshop Report as significant, remain. The Frangipani (Plumeria acuminata) in particular, located on the eastern side of the house, has grown into a sizable and noteworthy tree as has the Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera) that is located on the front western side to the building.
Stone and Brick Wall
The front of the property has a very impressive entrance stairway and rock wall, which was built in either the first or second stage of construction (c1897 or 1909). The return section of the stairs leading up to the house survives under the present verandah. The front stone wall joins onto the side brick wall which curves around the corner of the property and is situated over the boundary line on an unnamed laneway which runs between Herbert Street and Cleveland Terrace The brick wall and the stone wall are noted in the 1926 and later surveys .The bright red bricks are laid in a variation of Flemish bond and indicate signs of early brick making techniques with characteristic folding of the pug, lack of consistency in sizing and imperfections. The rendered capping course is painted white.
","history":"The Rocks Guesthouse was constructed c1897-1900 as a private residence, on land held by Elizabeth Hamilton, wife of pastoralist and prominent publican Frederic Hamilton. Built as an investment, the house was leased to middle class tenants. In 1909 Dr Ernest Humphrey converted it into a private hospital, which it remained until a further conversion in the mid-1930s into a guesthouse. The Rocks continued as 'gents only' accommodation throughout World War Two, during which it was made safe with the addition of an above-ground air raid shelter. While it has changed hands several times since, it has remained a guesthouse.
The Rocks Guesthouse, is situated in the former grounds of John Melton Black's c1864 residence (since demolished), one of the first houses built in Townsville. JM Black arrived in Cleveland Bay in 1864 , where he established at Ross Creek a small port to service the inland pastoral run he had taken up in partnership with Robert Towns. Townsville, as it became known, rapidly became one of the most successful ports in north Queensland. By late 1866 it was described as a thriving seaport with considerable trade and commerce facilities such as banks, hotels, stores, businesses and a post office, servicing the burgeoning pastoral properties in the Burdekin and North Kennedy districts. In the 1870s mining to the west provided a major impetus for the rapid growth of Townsville. As sugar growers moved into the coastal plains, a large fleet of vessels, providing export facilities for the sugar industry, was established at Townsville.
In 1882 the rail link to Charters Towers was opened, with an extension to Ravenswood in 1884. The telegraph line from Townsville to Charters Towers was completed in July 1883 and the first telephone exchange was opened at Townsville during November 1883. By 1900, the economy of the city was soundly based on the mining, pastoral, sugar and transport industries.
About 1864 JM Black had erected his private residence on a prominent hill overlooking the emerging port. In these establishment years Black controlled the affairs of Townsville and when the town became a municipality in early 1866 he was elected as the first Mayor. A year later he resigned and left for Scotland to take up business affairs associated with an inheritance.
Title to his Melton Hill property (allotment 5 of section 3A, containing 6 acres), was held jointly by Towns and Black, but was transferred to Robert Towns in 1867 following Black's departure. In 1870 title was transferred to Shepherd Smith of Sydney, Manager of the Bank of New South Wales. Three years later Smith sub-divided the land into 24 lots. The site containing Black's former house and remaining grounds was situated on subdivisions 5-7 of allotment 5 of section 3a.
The Melton Hill subdivisions attracted the business elite of Townsville. On 25 August 1877, well known squatter, wool provedore, businessman and Separationist, Enoch Price Walter Hays, purchased Black's former house and remaining grounds. He leased the house to bank manager H Echlin, until the end of 1884. One year later Hays and his wife moved into Black's former house and they continued to reside there until Hays' death in 1893. Mrs Hays remained here until the property was transferred in 1895 to Elizabeth Hamilton, wife of Frederick Hamilton, pastoralist and publican.
The Hamiltons resided nearly diagonally opposite Mrs Hays, and acquired at least two other properties on Melton Hill in Elizabeth Hamilton's name, and on which they erected investment houses. During the time that the Hamilton family owned the former JM Black residence, it was leased to middle-class tenants.
A second house (later "The Rocks Guesthouse") was constructed in the grounds of JM Black's former residence between c1897 and 1900., It was a combined gabled and hipped roof structure consisting of four to five rooms with a central hallway, front verandah covered by a curved corrugated iron awning and a skillion verandah at the rear. The rooms were large and airy with 13ft 6in high ceilings, picture rails, timber fretwork ceiling roses and interior partitions of tongue-in-groove boards. The main drawing room had a large bay window framed by an arch. The windows were large double-hung timber sashes with two panes per sash. A brick wall along the laneway was also constructed at this time and consists of bricks of similar make and type to the piers of the house. The new house was leased first to George Frazer, manager of the shipping firm Howard Smith and Sons, for two years and then to William Montgomerie.
In 1903 Townsville was hit by cyclone Leonta, which caused damage to most of the houses on Melton Hill, including the complete destruction of the residence of long term Townsville medical practitioner, Dr Ernest Humphrey .
In 1905 Elizabeth Hamilton died and the property containing Black's former house and the 1897-1900 residence was transferred to Frederic Hamilton. A year later Hamilton sold the whole of the property (both houses) to Dr Ernest Humphrey and his wife, who moved into the c1864 residence and continued to let the new house to Montgomerie, who remained there until 1909.
In late 1909 Dr Humphrey converted the c1897-1900 residence into a private hospital. Alterations included substantial additions. A corridor led to new rooms at the rear of the building, which included a kitchen, common bathroom and laundry, sterilizing room, operating room and servants' quarters. The operating room and sterilizing room were adjoining and were accessed from the house but the operating room was also accessible externally. This room had three ceiling window lights to allow natural light for operations, Inside, fixed timber vents were situated on the lower third of the room on two sides and closable timber vents were located on the upper level. The lower vents were needed to dissipate the heavy Ether used in operations. The front entrance to the hospital was accessed from imposing rendered brick stairs.
The plans for the hospital conversion were approved in August and work was complete by November 1909. Miss I Campbell, Matron of the Townsville General Hospital, was employed to manage the hospital, which was called "The Rocks Private Hospital." It was a modern and well-equipped hospital with a staff of one matron and seven nurses and aides. The nurses were housed in a building constructed at the rear of the block along Herbert Street. This burnt down in the 1970s.
After 15 years operating his hospital and 30 years practicing medicine in Townsville, Dr Humphrey unexpectedly died on 16 September 1925 during a sea voyage south. Mrs Humphrey continued to reside in the family home (the former Black house) until at least 1938, but title to the whole of the Melton Hill property passed to their son Jack on Dr Humphrey's death. In 1926 Jack had subdivisions 5, 6 and 7 re-surveyed to clarify the unusual angle of the allotments resulting from JM Black's former house being built prior to the 1873 subdivisional survey. Notings on the 1926 survey plan indicate a "wood building" and "brick wall" on the hospital site.
It appears that The Rocks continued to operate as a private hospital, managed by Matron M Williams, into the mid-1930s, despite title to the hospital site being transferred in 1929 from Jack Humphrey to Walter Bartlett Chapman.
In 1934 the property was transferred to Frank Edward Payne, who converted it into a boarding house. The conversion may have reflected the impact of the Hospitals Act of 1923, which introduced a system of partly government-funded district hospitals, transforming public hospitals from charitable institutions for the poor to essential community services and a government responsibility. This system was enhanced under the Hospitals Act of 1936 and from 1 January 1946 access to public hospital treatment was made free for all Queenslanders. Between 1920 and 1940 the number of beds in Queensland's public hospitals rose from 3,700 to 7,606, increasing at a greater rate than population growth . In addition, the government-run hospitals tended to be better equipped than the small local private hospitals.
In the 1930s the rooms in The Rocks Private Hospital were converted into guestrooms and are still used as such. The previously spacious recovery rooms were divided by 8ft high timber partitions while in other areas internal walls were removed. The western side of the house was extended with four new bedrooms under a skillion roof. As a large, airy and ornate building with panoramic views of Cleveland Bay and Townsville, it quickly became popular with affluent holiday-makers and visiting professionals. Utilising the former name, Payne advertised the place under the name "The Rocks Guest House". By 1939 a male clientele was targeted, offering services such as free lunch and a taxi service.
The Rocks Guest House continued to advertise throughout World War Two and while little information regarding the use of the building at this period survives, anecdotal evidence suggests that it may have been used as a convalescent home for returning servicemen. An above ground air-raid shelter was constructed at the rear of the house during the war.
In 1962 George and Sophie Gray purchased The Rocks Guest House. A world champion billiardist, George Gray had been a master cue-man during the 1920s. In 1936 Gray retired with his family to Townsville, running a billiard hall in Flinders Street. A large billiard table was the focal point of The Rocks during the 1960s, which continued to operate as a boarding house for young men. After this period the property deteriorated and functioned as budget lodging.
An August 1966 plan detailing proposed alterations to the boarding house indicated that by that date a separate wooden structure had been erected toward the rear of the allotment. It consisted of four rooms plus a verandah built against the drystone wall of Herbert Street. This building was largely destroyed by fire in June 1977 and what remained was demolished in August that year.
The Rocks Guesthouse changed hands in 1995 and extensive renovations were made. Partitions to the front rooms introduced as in the 1930s were removed and the large decorative arch, which announced the bay window, was reinstated as a key element to the main drawing room. Electrical re-wiring was undertaken and repairs were carried out to walls, floors and ceilings damaged by water and termite infestation. During the renovations one of the walls introduced in the 1909 additions was removed. Other elements were either revealed or rediscovered by the removal of introduced cladding, including original timber ceiling roses and stairs of brick rendered in stucco, left in situ under the extended front verandah.
The ornate fretwork under the gable was restored as well as the gable finial and painted property sign. A new verandah balustrade was installed and the curved brick wall at the front of the property was reconstructed.
In 1996 The Rocks was reopened as up-market Bed & Breakfast accommodation.
During the course of renovations made in 1997, a concrete pit or bunker was discovered beneath the floorboards. It was concealed in one of the bedrooms, accessible by a small timber hatch in the bedroom floor. Its original use or date of construction is unknown.
","criteria":"The Rocks Guesthouse, constructed c1897-1900 as a private residence and converted in 1909 into a private hospital, is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the construction of middle-class urban housing in areas with desirable amenity values; and the establishment of private hospitals in urban centres in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.A concrete air-raid shelter in the back yard remains as evidence of the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Townsville.
|The Rocks Guesthouse demonstrates rare surviving evidence of early 20th century private hospitals in Queensland, which are no longer common. The former operating room in particular is now rare in Queensland.
|The Rocks Guesthouse is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 19th century middle-class North Queensland timber residence converted into a private hospital in the early 20th century: The core includes spacious, high-ceilinged rooms; a large bay window to the principal public room; and decorative elements such as fretwork ceiling vents. Its grounds retain an early brick and stone retaining wall and front garden stairs. At the rear of the original house the former operating room remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including the need for adequate light and ventilation, demonstrated in the low fixed louvre vents, upper level movable louvres, overhead skylights and both internal and external entry.
|The Rocks Guesthouse makes an important aesthetic contribution to the Melton Hill historical precinct. Situated in Cleveland Terrace between St James Cathedral (QHR 600887) and Synod Hall (QHR 600888) at one end and the remnants of JM Black's Drystone Wall (QHR 600885) on the other, it forms part of a notable group of elite residences, including Selhurst (QHR 601247) and Warringa (QHR 600886).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19506,"place_ref":602385,"name":"Fig Tree","alternate_name":"Heritage Tree","street_address":"Roseberry Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-03","description":"The Roseberry Street Fig Tree is a mature Ficus benjamina (weeping fig) situated in the grounds of the Government Offices in Roseberry Street, Gladstone. It has a height of 12 metres and a canopy spread of approximately 37 metres with a trunk circumference of 660cm. The tree overhangs the road providing shade for cars parked along the street. Around the base of the tree is a small garden planted with shade loving shrubs which add to the aesthetic value of the place. A modern wooden seat has been placed underneath the deep shade of the tree and near this is located a plaque outlining the history of the tree and its connection to former prominent Gladstone citizens, James Friend and William Robert Golding. The tree dominates the streetscape with its obvious beauty, age and size and it has become a place of rest and conversation for those working in the immediate vicinity.
","history":"The Fig Tree, located on the corner of Roseberry and Auckland Streets, Gladstone, is a mature Ficus benjamina planted c1903 by local businessman James Friend in what was at the time, the horse paddock in the grounds of his Roseberry Street home, Elonera House.
Gladstone township was established in April 1854, and the Friend family [Henry and Mary Ann Friend and their two small sons Harry (Henry jnr) aged 3 and James aged 1] were amongst its earliest settlers, arriving in 1855. Henry Friend snr was employed on the construction of Gladstone's first water supply. When this work was completed he established a general store in Toolooa Street, at the Barney Point end of town. As settlement gradually focussed further north, on Auckland Creek and the shipping trade, Friend established a shipping and forwarding agency, with his own wharf and warehouse, on the banks of the creek. He was a foundation alderman on Gladstone's first municipal council in 1863, and served as Mayor in 1866 and again in 1869-70.
In 1875 his sons Henry and James took over the family general merchandising business as H & J Friend, with considerable success. In 1900 they moved from Auckland Creek to Goondoon Street, and in 1939 the business became a limited liability company known as Friends Pty Ltd. In 1954 the company celebrated 97 years of service to Gladstone during the centenary of the establishment of Gladstone in 1854.
The Friend family were also involved in the pastoral industry. Henry Friend snr acquired an interest in Diamantina Station and the export of cattle to Asia; and by 1900 Henry jnr and James Friend were the proprietors of Springwood Station in the Springsure district. By 1920 their interest in Springwood Station had passed to James Friend's sons, Herbert and Cyril. The Friends were prominent members of the Gladstone community. Both Henry and James were Justices of the Peace, and Mrs James Friend was secretary of the Gladstone Benevolent Asylum.
James Friend married Ellen Matilda Prizeman in 1879. They raised a family of 3 sons and 3 daughters, born between 1880 and 1891. In June 1900 title to a one acre block of land bounded by Roseberry and Auckland Streets and Oaka Lane, was transferred to Ellen Matilda Friend, wife of James Friend of Gladstone, merchant. On this land James and Ellen erected a substantial two-storeyed residence, Elonera House, facing Roseberry Street near the corner of Oaka Lane. It was one of Gladstone's finest houses, complemented with a large garden and stables, and a horse paddock at the corner of Roseberry and Auckland streets. It was in this paddock that the Fig Tree was planted on the Roseberry Street frontage, reputedly by James Friend c1903.
In February 1928 title to the property passed to Robert Horner Fletcher, medical practitioner, of Gladstone, who subdivided it into four allotments. Title to the 28.85 perch subdivision at the corner of Roseberry and Auckland Streets, containing the Fig Tree, was transferred to prominent Gladstone citizen and historian William Robert Golding jnr in May 1930. Elonera House was converted into a private hospital called Balcomba in 1931, and into four flats during the Second World War, in response to the housing shortage. It remained flats until 1980 and was demolished soon after.
Title to the corner allotment with the fig tree passed to a series of investors in 1980-1981, until in 1982 it was acquired, along with the adjacent subdivisions, by the Crown. Government offices were constructed on the site of Elonera House, at the corner of Roseberry and Oaka Lane. The Fig Tree remains near the corner of Roseberry and Auckland Streets, adjacent to an open area which is used as a car park. In 1983 the local community was successful in having the tree entered in the National Trust of Queensland's Register of Significant Trees, and in the early 1990s the Fig was the focus of public attention when the community rallied to save the tree, which appeared to be in decline. In 1993 the Gladstone Port Authority funded the erection of a sign recording the history of the tree. The tree has been identified in the 1999 Gladstone City Cultural Heritage Places Study as a place of cultural heritage significance.
","criteria":"Estimated to be around 100 years old, the Fig Tree, State Government Centre, Roseberry Street, Gladstone is a familiar landmark in the town of Gladstone, and is linked historically to James Friend, a prominent member of the Gladstone community, who reputedly planted it in his Roseberry Street garden c1903. It is the only surviving remnant of the large garden which surrounded one of Gladstone's finest residences, Elonera House, erected c1900 and demolished c1980. The tree is valued by the present community for its streetscape and aesthetic value and is well-known to local residents and business houses, many of whom have contributed newspaper articles and offered support to conserve the tree when it appeared to be in decline in the early 1990s.
|Estimated to be around 100 years old, the Fig Tree, State Government Centre, Roseberry Street, Gladstone is a familiar landmark in the town of Gladstone, and is linked historically to James Friend, a prominent member of the Gladstone community, who reputedly planted it in his Roseberry Street garden c1903. It is the only surviving remnant of the large garden which surrounded one of Gladstone's finest residences, Elonera House, erected c1900 and demolished c1980.
|The tree is valued by the present community for its streetscape and aesthetic value and is well-known to local residents and business houses, many of whom have contributed newspaper articles and offered support to conserve the tree when it appeared to be in decline in the early 1990s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19510,"place_ref":602390,"name":"El Nido","alternate_name":"Cassa Anna","street_address":"194 Kingsford Smith Drive","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-02-28","description":"El Nido is a large, Spanish Mission style residence situated prominently on the steep southern slope of Hamilton Hill, overlooking the Hamilton and Bulimba reaches of the Brisbane River, with views south/southwest across the city centre and east toward the mouth of the river. The house is accessed both from Hillside Crescent and from Kingsford Smith Drive, but sits well above Kingsford Smith Drive. It is a landmark building, seen from the river, from the Bulimba and Newstead areas, and from along Kingsford Smith Drive.
The house is a substantial, roughcast rendered brick building of two storeys with a sub-floor, taking advantage of the slope of the site. Elements of the Spanish Mission style include: a complex main hipped roof and small ancillary skillion roofs at various heights, all clad in Cordova style terracotta tiles; the use of colonnaded verandahs with semi-circular arches, barley twist columns and wrought iron balustrades; and the white roughcast exterior.
The entrance is from the western side of the building; the southern elevation, overlooking the river, is considered the 'front'. The originally open verandahs on the southern elevation have been enclosed with glazing, but the colonnade effect has been preserved.
Internally, the house remains substantially intact, with original timber wall panelling in the public rooms, and decorative leadlight windows throughout. Extensive views are obtained from the dining and living rooms on the eastern side of the house.
At the southern end of the block is a garage, accessed off Kingsford Smith Drive. This building is similarly designed with a Spanish Mission feel, with its roughcast rendered exterior walls and Cordova tiled roof. The grounds also contain stone terracing [which may be remnants of the Braeside garden]; concrete paving and stairs, and a private air-raid shelter of concrete construction at the northern end of the block, erected during the Second World War. This structure has been rendered to resemble the finish to the house.
","history":"Originally known as Cassa Anna, this early Brisbane Spanish Mission style house was constructed c1928 for Mr and Mrs EF Powers. It was designed in 1927 by important Brisbane architect Eric Percival Trewern, who was instrumental in popularising the Spanish Mission style for domestic architecture in Brisbane. The builder was B Hollingsworth of Coorparoo, who constructed many of Trewern's residential designs.
The site was first alienated from the Crown in 1853/54 by William Robert Howe Weekes of Brisbane, as part of a parcel of land which comprised the whole of Hamilton Hill through to what is now Crescent Road, and down to Eagle Farm Road [later Hamilton Road, then Kingsford Smith Drive] along the river. In the 1860s Weekes sold much of this land to Brisbane auctioneer and politician James Robert Dickson, who erected Toorak House at the top of Hamilton Hill. By the mid-1870s Hillside Crescent had been formed, and the subdivision which was later the site of El Nido [subdivision 1 of allotment 6 of portion 1] had been created, with title held by Dickson.
In late 1878 Dickson transferred title to subdivisions 1-3 of allotment 6 of portion 1 [three blocks between Hillside Crescent and Hamilton Road] to another Brisbane auctioneer and politician, John Francis Buckland, and an adjacent two blocks, also fronting Hamilton Road, [subdivisions 4and 5] to dentist David Ralph Eden. Braeside House, a substantial two-storeyed residence, appears to have been erected c1880 on subdivisions 4 and 5, and was occupied by solicitor John Robb Baxter Bruce by 1883. In the early 1890s Bruce acquired title to all five subdivisions and part of the adjacent subdivision 6. The house stood about two-thirds of the way along the site, overlooking the Brisbane River.
Braeside changed hands a number of times between 1902 and the 1920s, but remained on one title until the late 1920s. An aerial photograph of Hamilton Hill dated c1925 shows Braeside and its grounds very clearly. The main carriage drive led from a surveyed road [later closed] along the western boundary of subdivision 1 (near its intersection with Hillside Crescent), eastward across subdivisions 1-3 and parallel to Hillside Crescent, until it reached the house on subdivisions 4 and 5. Also evident in the photograph is a set of stairs leading south from the main carriage drive down the steep slope to another carriage drive running parallel to Hamilton Road. This second carriage drive led to two structures in the southwest corner of the estate [on subdivision 1], close to Hamilton Road, which may have been stables or garages. The stairs appear to be those shared by 'gentleman's agreement' with the occupants of 19 Hillside Crescent, since the late 1920s (since removed).
The Braeside Estate was subdivided during the 1920s economic boom, when rising Council rates combined with the lure of attractively increasing prices obtained for inner city suburban blocks in good locations, led to the subdivision of most of the remaining large suburban estates at New Farm, Hamilton, Ascot and Clayfield. Edward Ferdinand Powers acquired title to subdivision 1 in September 1927; title to subdivision 2 was transferred in 1928, as was that to Braeside on subdivisions 4 and 5 and re-subdivision 1 of subdivision 6; and subdivision 3 was transferred in 1932, although possibly sold in 1927-28. New houses on subdivisions 1-3 were erected and occupied by 1929.
The block which Powers acquired in 1927 comprised 30.8 perches of steeply sloping land with spectacular views over the Hamilton and Bulimba reaches of the Brisbane River, and east toward the mouth of the river. The site may also have contained the buildings associated with Braeside House, evident in the c1925 aerial photograph.
In mid-1927 Powers commissioned architect EP Trewern to design a substantial Spanish Mission styled residence for this site, to take advantage of the views. The design was well publicised [likely by its architect] and attracted considerable interest at the time, being heralded in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland of 11 July 1927 as:
The Spanish House Introduced to Brisbane
Spanish architecture is to be introduced to Brisbane in home designing. Mr EP Trewern, architect, has received from a local medico a commission to erect a residence for him of this type, and, as the location is on the Hamilton Heights, it will be seen to advantage. . ..
A similar claim that Spanish Mission design was being introduced to Brisbane was repeated in the Daily Mail newspaper of 28 October 1927:20, which published a sketch of the principal elevations. The same sketch also appeared in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland of 10 November 1927:54. Of particular interest were the Cordova-style roofing tiles, manufactured by the Shannon Brick and Tile Company [of Sydney and Brisbane] and reputedly used for the first time in Brisbane.
Elements of Spanish Mission style were not new to Brisbane in 1927, having been used on picture theatre facades since the 1910s. Craigston Flats on Wickham Terrace, erected in 1927, employed elements of the Spanish Mission and/or Mediterranean styles. However, El Nido was the earliest or one of the earliest Spanish Mission style houses in Brisbane, and was designed by a prominent architect who subsequently popularised this style for domestic housing in Brisbane. Other important Spanish Mission style houses designed by Trewern include Santa Barbara at 209 Moray Street, New Farm [1929-30, cost £4,000 - (QHR 601547)] and 17 Griffith Street, New Farm.
EP Trewern's Brisbane architectural practice, established in 1920 and maintained until his death in 1959, proved highly successful. During the interwar years he was influential in popularising Georgian revival style in Brisbane commercial building, and Spanish Mission style in Brisbane residential architecture. He designed residences throughout Brisbane, and his interwar commercial work included business premises, flats and office renovations. His larger commissions included the Country Press Association Building at the corner of Elizabeth and Edward Streets [1924-25 - demolished]; Heindorff's Building in Queen Street [1926-28 - demolished]; Inchcolm Professional Chambers on Wickham Terrace [1929-30 - (QHR 600170)]; Turrawan Private Hospital at Clayfield [1932 with 1935 additions]; and the new Surfers Paradise Hotel [1936-37 - demolished].
Trewern was actively involved in furthering professional architectural standards in Queensland. He served as Vice-President of the Queensland Institute of Architects 1929-30, Member Board of Architects of Queensland 1929-35, Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 1930, President Queensland Institute of Architects 1931-35, Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1931; Vice-President of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 1932-33, and Federal Councillor 1932-35.
City Council building approval for El Nido was granted in November 1927. Expected to cost £3,500, the brick and stucco residence was one of the most expensive houses erected in Brisbane in the late 1920s. In 1927 Brisbane was experiencing 'boom' economic conditions; even so, most houses were erected in timber, and in the financial year 1927-28, the average cost of an average 4-roomed timber house with kitchen and front and back verandahs was £558. In 1927-28 a very comfortable timber residence could be erected for between £1,000 and £1,500, and more elaborate and stylish timber homes averaged between £1500 and £2000. The 20th century construction of domestic dwellings in brick or concrete was still in its infancy in Brisbane, and El Nido was at the cutting edge of this movement. In the twelve months from November 1927 to October 1928, approvals were given for only four homes of greater cost than El Nido: a brick and stone house at Ascot to cost £4,200; two brick houses at Clayfield priced at £7,000 and £3,700 respectively, and a timber residence at Clayfield costing £4,000. El Nido and its middle class contemporaries were as close to mansion status as Brisbane generated in this era.
In February 1928 EF Powers took out a mortgage on his Hamilton Road property, which may have helped finance the construction of Cassa Anna. On 1 November 1928, the Brisbane Courier reported Mrs EF Powers entertained a few guests at luncheon at Cassa Anna, indicating the building was completed by this time. The house and its garage, the latter accessed off Hamilton Road, figure prominently in an aerial photograph of Hamilton published in The Queenslander of 19 March 1931.
Cassa Anna was considered one of Brisbane's most beautiful homes, and was featured in the January 1933 issue of the Brisbane society publication Steering Wheel and Society and Home, reflecting the social status of its owners. It is not clear whether Powers was a medical practitioner as reported in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland in 1927. He appears to be the Edward F Powers who married Olive MacDermott in Sydney in 1927, suggesting that Brisbane was not their home city. They did not occupy the building for any length of time. They undertook a world tour in 1932, during which time they lent the house to Sydney friends. Then in April 1933 title was transferred to medical practitioner Robert Graham Brown.
In January 1937 Brown transferred the property to Norman Edward Gow of Brisbane, who retained the house for nearly 20 years. Gow also appears to have leased the house to other occupants for some years, possibly even to the former owner, Dr Brown, who remains listed in the Post Office Directories as resident here until at least 1940. By at least September 1935 the house was known as El Nido [meaning 'the nest' or 'the home' in Spanish]. It was occupied at the time by JP Ragland, consul for the United States of America, and was a focus for 'society' functions in Brisbane.
During the Second World War [1939-45] a concrete air-raid shelter was erected along the northern boundary of the property.
In honour of the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh to Brisbane in 1954, the occupants of prominently-positioned El Nido decorated the front elevation of their house with the British Coat of Arms and the lettering 'God Save the Queen'. The elaborate decoration would have been seen from the river and from the Brisbane Airport approach to the city, along Hamilton Road [Kingsford Smith Drive].
Since 1957 the property has changed hands a number of times. It remains a private residence, and retains its views over the Brisbane River and eastward toward the river entrance.
","criteria":"El Nido, erected in 1928, was an important and expensive house of its era, which remains important in illustrating the pattern of Brisbane suburban infill in the 1920s and 1930s, when the large suburban estates of the 1880s and 1890s were subdivided for closer density middle class housing. The extent of this infill was not rivalled until the late 20th century. The house is illustrative of the new trend toward brick construction for Brisbane's more expensive homes, a reflection of a booming economy. Its design is credited with being instrumental in popularising Spanish Mission residences in Brisbane in the interwar period, and reputedly its construction introduced the Cordova tile to Brisbane. The grounds retain the original garage, a private Second World War air-raid shelter, and early terracing.
|El Nido is one of the earliest and best conceived of the interwar Spanish Mission style houses erected in Brisbane, important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type: a substantial, decorative, middle-class residence designed in the Spanish Mission style to take advantage of a steeply sloping block with extensive views across Brisbane and along the Brisbane River.
|Situated prominently along a major arterial road, the building was designed to be viewed and to impress. Building and grounds retain strong aesthetic value, and are significant for their landmark quality.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19513,"place_ref":602393,"name":"Original Maryborough Town Site","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Russell Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-09-04","description":"The original Maryborough town site is aligned northwest/southeast along the northern bank of the Mary River, on the northwest outskirts of Maryborough. Indications of the early site include: gravesites; sawpits; stone building foundations; bridge remnants; and archaeological material. The site stretches over a series of creek-lined gullies and is currently occupied by a mixture of open parkland, pasture and heavy vegetation. The main entry to the site is along Aldridge Street, the only surveyed road within the town site that is sealed and open to public vehicles. This road did not exist when the town was settled and the park area near the intersection of Alice and Aldridge Streets was originally the cemetery.
\nThe extent of the cemetery is not known but the grass-covered park on the northwest side of Aldridge Street contains the marked graves of George Furber and Joseph Wilmshurst. The park contains at least one other identified grave, now marked only by a headstone plinth. Numerous other depressions in the ground are suggestive of several unmarked graves. Two more marked graves are located on the opposite side of Aldridge Street.
\nThe site extends southwest down both sides of Aldridge Street. Just past the (unformed) intersection with George Street the road crosses a creek at the bottom of a gully. In the creek bed on the southeast side of the road are the remains of the original creek crossing. These consist largely of remnants of structural timbers. The large park area on this side of Aldridge Street was originally the site of Chinese gardens. There is a carpark at the southwest end of Aldridge Street, which currently stops short of Queen Street. From the carpark, the site of Aldridge's first inn lies to the west.
\nMuddy Creek runs through the southeast side of the site, and joins the Mary River southwest of the end of Aldridge Street. The land to the southeast of Aldridge Street and the site of Aldridge's inns drops down towards the creek. East of the creek's mouth is a concentration of bamboo, mature native trees and other exotic species, and a small stone and concrete jetty stands just upriver from the mouth of Muddy Creek, near the site of Furber's inn.
\nNorthwest of the mouth of Muddy Creek, the terrain rises from the river to a river terrace, where Furber Street is located. The river terrace is quite flat and is framed by Muddy Creek to the southeast, a ridge to the northwest near the junction of Furber Street and Palmer Street, and another ridge to the northeast the parallels to the Mary River. Much of the original township spreads along the top of the northeastern ridge, with most buildings located on the southwest side of Queen Street.
\nThe lower river terrace is covered with over a metre of flood-deposited sediment that has helped protect archaeological material; council workers have encountered archaeological deposits during on-site works. The topsoil on the main ridge along Queen Street has been scoured in some areas, reducing its archaeological potential. Shale and course stone is evident where the ground is bare along the ridge. Some stone foundation work remains on the site of Aldridge's first inn. Behind the Queen Street ridge the land dips, before rising towards a second ridge.
\nThe upper river terrace, the site of Aldridge's two inns, the land by Muddy Creek, and the site of the pioneer graveyard, is largely open grassed parkland dotted with trees. Much of the old township, including the gaol, Blackman’s hut and store, Rickett’s Inn, and Thorpe’s hut and yard, is located in an adjacent paddock to the northwest. The paddock is largely clear of trees. There is patchy grass cover, with some areas of bare earth. The line of the old Gayndah road can still be seen, descending to the river terrace from near the site of Palmer's inn. There is little above-surface evidence of the town, but the placement of the structure markers enable the town's layout to be understood. Some features such as the marked graves and sawpits are clearly evident. Modern built features within the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Original Maryborough Town Site was occupied between 1848 and 1855, and is located about four kilometres northwest of the current city centre, on the north bank of the Mary River. It provides important evidence of the early settlement of the Wide Bay district, and is unique amongst the pre-1859 towns of Queensland in that it retains most of its originally occupied town site in an open, relatively undeveloped state. The site has the archaeological potential to shed light on life in an early Queensland settlement.
\nThe free settlement of what became the colony of Queensland commenced on the Darling Downs in 1840. In 1842, the same year Moreton Bay was opened to free settlement, Andrew Petrie was commissioned to explore the Wide Bay district. With a group of men that included Henry Stewart Russell, the explorer and pastoralist, five convicts for crew and two Aboriginal guides from Brisbane, Petrie travelled by whaleboat to explore the Mary River (known variously to Aboriginal people as Moonaboola, Mooraboocoola, Numabulla or Booie) as a possible source of bunya trees (Araucaria bidwillii) for timber. The explorers travelled about 50 miles (80km) upstream, concluding the area would prove suitable for sheep rearing, as the river would allow wool to be transported by boat. One of the men, Captain Joliffe, was an employee of the pastoralist and businessman John Eales, who later took up a large run at Tiaro and sent Joliffe there with 16,000 sheep.
\nIn 1843 the Moreton Bay Commissioner for Crown Lands, Stephen Simpson travelled overland to the Wide Bay district. Downstream of Tiaro, around the junction of Tinana Creek and the river, Simpson noted the suitability of the area for a settlement. Although John Eales’ venture pastoral failed, due to a combination of disease, attacks by the traditional owners, and financial problems, other pastoralists soon took up runs in the area, largely to the west of the river. By 1847 more than 20 license applications for runs had been lodged in the region. In July 1847 the government surveyor JC Burnett gave encouraging reports of the suitability of what was then known as the Wide Bay River as a location for a port to service the area, predicting a settlement ‘as soon as there is prospect of trade’. The river was named Mary after Lady Mary Lennox, the wife of Governor Fitzroy.
\nIpswich publican George Furber arrived in the Wide Bay district in September 1847 to set up a wool store, shanty and wharf on the site of an abandoned outstation of Tiaro, named Girkum, in the midst of open forest on the southern bank of the Mary River. The first shipment of wool was dispatched in December 1847. However, the site was on the wrong side of the river for the sheep runs to the west, and in June 1848 Edgar Thomas Aldridge and the Palmer brothers, Richard and Henry, selected a new site on the north bank of the river, just opposite Furber's business. This site was not the best for ship access, but its closeness to Furber's site, and the fact that it was also open forest, offered some security against potential raids by the local Aboriginal people. The spread of the pastoral frontier and its associated violent disruption of traditional Aboriginal lifestyles and land use inevitably caused conflict between traditional owners and settlers. The site of Maryborough was the traditional country of the Badtjala/Butchulla people, while much the Mary River district further upstream was that of the Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi.
\nThe Palmers and Aldridge both established inns, along with wool stores and a wharf, and this settlement was known as Wide Bay. The Commissioner for Crown Lands, John Carne Bidwill, a noted botanist, arrived in December 1848, and established a camp on a new site nearby on the southern side of the river on the banks of Tinana Creek. Prior to building his own residence at Tinana Creek, Bidwill also rented a small slab hut in Maryborough, for himself and two men, next to the gaol site in what later became Queen Street. One of Bidwill's tasks was to find a coastal overland route from Maryborough to Brisbane as an alternative to the then route through Gayndah; however, he died in 1853 without accomplishing this task.
\nA post office was established on 23 January 1849, and the settlement then became known as Maryborough, then the most northern coastal settlement in Australia. That same year JC Ricketts built an inn in Maryborough. Furber had also opened a liquor establishment on the north bank of the river by 1850, near the mouth of Muddy Creek, but Aldridge's 'Bush Inn' did the best business of the four establishments, and he regularly supplied goods and services to the troopers of the Native Police. The presence of so much alcohol (including unlicensed outlets), and a high rate of crime and violence at the frontier settlement led to 15 residents petitioning the governor to establish a police force and Court of Petty Sessions. The court commenced in January 1850, with William McAdam appointed Chief Constable.
\nBy 1850 Maryborough was established as a commercial centre and as a port for shipping wool, hides, timber, and tallow. Boiling down unwanted sheep produced tallow, used to manufacture soap in Britain, and James D. Walker and Edmund Blucher Uhr had established boiling down plants downstream from the settlement. There were also sawpits between the inns and the river, which were used to square-off timber, including Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) and South Queensland Kauri (Agathis robusta), for ship transport. The Maryborough to Gayndah road snaked northwards through the western side of the settlement, near the Palmer's inn. Numerous other buildings were constructed on the upper river terrace, including Robert Blackman’s hut and store, Emanuel Thorpe’s hut and enclosed yard, and structures on Charles Gregory’s and Henry Martin’s allotments. In the 1920s Bill Bolton, an early resident of Maryborough, recalled Chinese vegetable gardens in place along the banks of Muddy Creek, just east of the settlement, where potatoes, turnips, leeks and cabbages were cultivated.
\nAlthough most settlers at Maryborough erected their buildings wherever seemed the most suitable (or available), applications to purchase land were made to the government and, as the amount of wool being shipped from the settlement was increasing dramatically, in 1850 the government appointed a surveyor. Hugh R Labatt arrived in July 1850, with instructions to select a suitable site for a township, with regard to providing good conditions for a port. He came to the conclusion that the existing settlement was not the best location, and he preferred the site of Uhr's boiling down plant (now Queen's Park), where the river was deeper and would accommodate larger vessels. As the settlers contested this decision, both sites were surveyed.
\nMaryborough was declared a township in 1851, and had a population of 299 at the time of the March census. There were 45 families, with an average of 1.5 children per family. All of the 142 single adults were male and 24% of the total population were Chinese. The unusually high Chinese population was because of their role as labourers in the pastoral industry; their large presence in Maryborough during the census is likely to have been because they were waiting for work in the district. By 1856 there were 16 Chinese at Maryborough.
\nThere were 45 timber and shingle buildings in the town, including a courthouse, church, stores, houses and various inns. The largest occupation group was that of shepherds, stockmen and labourers, followed by the occupation group of commerce, trade and manufacturing. The census did not record the Aboriginal people who worked at the settlement, who included domestic servants and labourers.
\nThe first blocks of the new site (near the current Queen's Park) were sold on 14 January 1852. Although many were purchased, and the buyers included Henry Palmer, Aldridge, McAdam, Uhr, and Labatt, relocation did not take place immediately, as many people were naturally reluctant to move when they had established homes and businesses at the old site. In 1855 John G. Walker launched the 75-ton schooner Blue Jacket near the mouth of Muddy (or Baddow) Creek, it being the first boat built on the Mary River. However, as trade at the port of Maryborough grew and more and larger ships called at the wharves at the new site (or East Maryborough), it became apparent that the town at West Maryborough would have to be moved.
\nAnother impetus for the last settlers to abandon the original town site may have been the increased conflict with Aboriginal people at Maryborough betwe`en 1852 and 1855. While there was some co-operation during the early years of settlement, conflict and hostility was the pervasive form of interaction between settlers and Aboriginal people. An axe thrown during a dispute in 1847 over flour rations had wounded George Furber, and he was later accused of killing at least three Aboriginal people in the period after this event. Furber and his son-in-law Joseph Wilmshurst were in turn killed in 1855, while sawing timber next to Tinana Creek. Aldridge, once a stout defender of the old site, moved his business operations to East Maryborough in 1855.
\nBy 1856 the original Maryborough town site was virtually abandoned. The site reverted to farming, although Aldridge and McAdam continued to live nearby acquiring more property in the area. In 1883 Aldridge built Baddow House [QHR 600690], which still stands just to the southeast of the old town site. He also cultivated extensive gardens around Baddow House and the area they once occupied extends toward the bank of Muddy Creek. Remnants of the gardens also account for some of the exotic vegetation within the regrowth in this area.
\nThe wool trade continued to prosper, and shipping increased immensely after Maryborough was proclaimed a port of entry in 1859, and a municipality in 1861. In April 1861 land for agricultural purposes on the Mary River was sold, which accelerated the closer settlement process, and by the end of the 1860s thousands of free immigrants had entered Queensland through the port of Maryborough. The trade of supplying the goldfields discovered at Gympie in 1867 also went through Maryborough.
\nOf the early Queensland towns that existed by the time of Separation from New South Wales in 1859, only Maryborough retains most of its originally occupied town site in an open, undeveloped state. The original settlement areas of Brisbane (including at Redcliffe), Dalby, Drayton, Gayndah, Gladstone, Ipswich, Rockhampton, Toowoomba and Warwick have all been developed and are currently occupied.
\nThe site of the original Maryborough town site is largely still undeveloped. Signs were erected in a 1988 Bicentennial project to indicate the sites of various historical structures. Although the site of McAdam's house, southeast of the intersection of George and Aldridge Streets, is now freehold land outside the heritage boundary, the locations of all the remaining buildings of the settlement, as mapped by Labatt in 1850, remain undeveloped in 2015. As indicated in a 1987 archaeological study, the river receded from its 1850s waterline, and waterholes and streams in the area silted over. The vast majority of the surface evidence of the settlement was removed or obscured by the combined effects of flooding or human intervention. The site was periodically flooded and over a metre of silt was deposited on the river terrace where Furber Street is located. Sugar cane was grown over part of the site in the early twentieth century and fossickers have also combed the area for souvenirs.
\nIn 1919 a farmhouse was moved onto the northwest end of the site, near where Palmer's inn stood, but it has been since removed, along with its outbuildings. Cane farming on the pasture that lies to the northwest of the current parkland has resulted in a long mound running parallel to, and to the east of, Queen Street. A Maryborough City Council sewerage treatment plant was built near the location of Aldridge's inn, but was removed by 1987. A long thin mound running through the pasture parallel to, and to the west of, Queen Street may be related to this. The site of the plant's tank was the circular hollow between the sites of the first and second of Aldridge's inns. The stone and concrete jetty near the mouth of Muddy Creek is close to the alignment of Furber's wharf, but was built for the STP outfall pipe.
\nIn 2007, an archaeological investigation was conducted within an area of the known built township that extended outside (northwest) the then state heritage register boundary. This area encompasses one-third of the buildings of the settlement, and accommodated a variety of activities - residential, commercial, administrative and stock rearing. Structures within this area included Palmer's Inn, Palmer's Store, Blackman's hut, store and enclosed yard, the gaol, Emanuel Thorpe's hut and enclosed yard, and several huts. The archaeological investigations revealed artefacts and features dating to the historical occupation period, including deposits of bottle glass, moulded tobacco pipes, porcelain and stoneware fragments, as well as personal items such as a brass button and a copper half penny.
\nAdditional targeted archaeological investigations were undertaken in this area in 2015, taking advantage of improved access to historical occupation layers (due to the removal of later structures) and improved mapping technology. The investigations revealed isolated finds in the disturbed topsoil, as well as in-situ artefact deposits and features located in the relatively undisturbed subsoil clays. The majority of features were encountered on the west side of the study area, and included a number of post holes and pits containing deposits of ceramic bottles and glass gin bottles dating from the historical settlement. The decontextualised artefacts (including fragments of blue transfer ware, black and green glass, clay pipes, and earthen ware) found across the study area also have the potential to reveal important information about the occupation and abandonment of the site.
","criteria":"The Original Maryborough Town Site demonstrates the evolution of early settlements in Queensland's history, in particular the movement of pastoralists and timber-getters into the Wide Bay district in the 1840s, and their need for a safe port to ship their products and to bring in supplies.
Established in 1848 and largely abandoned by 1856, the town site provides relatively undisturbed evidence of early European occupation in the Wide Bay Region. Its abandonment reflects the need to establish a viable settlement with better river access.
|The Original Maryborough Town Site is unique among the early town sites of Queensland. Of those towns in existence by the time of Separation from New South Wales in 1859, Maryborough is the only one that retains most of its originally occupied town site in an open, relatively undeveloped condition.
|As a rare example of an early and substantial Queensland town site that has remained in a relatively undeveloped state since its abandonment, the Original Maryborough Town Site has the potential to yield information that will contribute to our understanding of Queensland's history.
\n
Archaeological investigation may provide evidence of the town's occupants and their material culture, the layout and buildings of the settlement, burials, early streets and industrial sites such as sawpits, yards and jetties that together may provide a more complete and accurate understanding of this important and early Queensland settlement.
The abandonment of the town site, the subsequent lack of development, and regular flooding that has deposited a protective layer of alluvium over the lower areas of the site, means the site has the potential to reveal, through archaeological investigation, important and new information about everyday life and work in an early Queensland settlement. While the upper northwest part of the site has been subject to disturbance from farming activities and erosion, the potential remains to encounter artefacts and features dating to the historical occupation period in this area.
The Kangaroo Point Cliffs extend south from just north of the former Naval Brigade Depot to the former South Brisbane Dry Dock, west of the Captain Cook Bridge. After 150 years of quarrying the site now comprises a vertical rock face approximately 25m high which extends most of the length of the site. The base of the cliffs and quarry floor are accessible to pedestrians via steps leading down from Scout Place on River Terrace and vehicular and pedestrian access is provided along Lower River Terrace.
Floodlit by night, the rock faces are a spectacular backdrop to the City Botanic Gardens and are a distinctive feature in the riverscape and in the townscape.
The cliffs expose an ancient bed of Brisbane tuff, known locally also as porphyry. The stone outcrop at Kangaroo Point is part of a belt of Brisbane Tuff generally less than one kilometre wide, extending from Chermside to Dutton Park, with a branch through New Farm and Norman Park towards Belmont. The distribution of Brisbane tuff is very sporadic, for it is underlain by the old metamorphic rocks which underlie the central business district and form many of Brisbane's hills. Other tuff quarries were located at Leichhardt Street [now St Paul's Terrace], Spring Hill; Skyring's quarry near All Hallows' Convent, Fortitude Valley; and at O'Connelltown, but the Kangaroo Point Quarry is the most extensive and most illustrative of this rock formation.
The Kangaroo Point Cliffs show continuous thick exposure of massive welded tuff, the major rock type of the Brisbane Tuff. At the northern end of the former quarry, a dyke-like structure occurs in a zone of alteration, and may represent a former vent or site of escape of fumerole gases. The 'dyke' is an uncommon feature and the only one so far recorded from the tuff.
The ridge of the cliff along River Terrace is an open grassed terrace with a stone retaining wall to the cliff edge. A lookout shelter, Scout Place, stands within the terrace and overlooks the City Botanic Gardens and offers expansive views across Brisbane City, Southbank, up and downstream of the Brisbane River and beyond to Mt Coot-tha.
The quarry floor varies in width and accommodates a range of facilities and vegetation. A pedestrian walkway and bicycle path threads along the length of the site sometimes to the water's edge and at times winding closer to the cliff face. There are a number of platforms projecting over the river providing resting and viewing opportunities. Open grassed and landscaped picnic areas are scattered along the way and accommodate tables, benches and BBQ facilities. The site is dotted with colourful and distinctive sculptures, follies and pavilion shelters. A number of the sculptures contain elements associated with the various activities that have occurred along the river. In particular, sculptures adjacent to the former South Brisbane Dry Dock incorporate items of ship fabric and a series of river buoys stands beside the former Naval Stores.
Along the site there is remnant fabric from the various former activities associated with the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, including timbers from the former coal wharves and, near the Captain Cook Bridge, a number of concrete piers, some with metal casings, which supported the cranes that hoisted coal from the wharves.
The cliff face has dense vegetation in parts including the area northeast of the Captain Cook Bridge. The quarry floor below the Kangaroo Point TAFE College accommodates a small inlet with distinctive rough hewn rock edges and a dense mangrove clump with a timber boardwalk winding through. There are a number of old timber piles with copper bands scattered through the garden beds in this area. There is also a distinctive lower ledge of rock along the cliff base at this point.
The river edge varies; at times it is a battered stone retaining wall, at others a rocky edge with mangrove clumps. There is a range of debris caught up along the edge including chunks of concrete, pieces of steel and lengths of timber.
The northern end of the cliff base accommodates the former Naval Brigade Depot. Surviving elements include No.2 Store [a timber building recently refurbished as the Naval Stores Museum]; the wharf; the concrete boatslip; and the timber stairs [now closed] leading up the cliff face to St Mary's Church.
","history":"The Kangaroo Point Cliffs below Main Street, River Terrace and Lower River Terrace, Kangaroo Point, are the remnant evidence of extensive non-indigenous quarrying over 150 years [c1826-1976]. They have played a significant role in the development of the city and port of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, since the 1820s. They are a distinctive landscape feature which, along with the Story Bridge and the Brisbane City Hall, has acquired iconoclastic status in the Brisbane townscape. The cliffs contain the best known outcrop of Brisbane Tuff, the distinctive pink and green building stone used in some of Brisbane's earliest [1820s and 1830s] public buildings; in base courses, retaining walls, side walls and cellars of 19th century free settlement buildings; and in later municipal and government works such as roadmaking, kerbing, wharfs and marine walls.
The Kangaroo Point 'Cliffs' which Aborigines knew prior to European settlement, were steep rocky slopes with boulder outcrops and vegetation. The earliest identified historical reference to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was made by NSW Surveyor-General John Oxley, during his exploration of the Brisbane River in early December 1823, when he noted in his field book a "high, rocky bank" below what is now River Terrace, Kangaroo Point. On 1844 survey plans prepared by surveyor James Warner, the high ground of Kangaroo Point was described as a "bold rocky ridge", much of which is still evident in late 19th century photographs of Kangaroo Point.
Following the removal of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement from Red Cliff Point to the Brisbane River [North Brisbane] around May 1825, the river flats at the northern end of Kangaroo Point were cleared and planted with wheat and maize to supply food for the new settlement, and c1826 Commandant Logan opened a quarry at the base of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, to supply stone for his building works at North Brisbane. According to Allan Cunningham's August 1829 survey of Brisbane Town, this early quarry was located opposite the Botanical Gardens, at the "highest point of a wooded ridge", in the vicinity of the later Naval Stores. The rock was punted across the river to Stone Wharf, about 150 metres upstream from the present Edward Street ferry landing.
The stone quarried from the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was known as 'phorphyry' [later Brisbane Tuff], a consolidated volcanic ash or rhyolitic ignimbrite deposited during the late Triassic age following a Nuee Ardent (glowing cloud) eruption. These eruptions are generally violent and voluminous and the erupted body moves with great speed for long distances, up to 100km if the relief is sufficient. The Kangaroo Point Cliffs are made up of such a flow or of two almost consecutive flows. These volcanic rocks are of the same age and chemical composition as the more coarsely crystallized Enoggera Granite and other granite bodies north-west of Brisbane. All may have originated from the same parent meltrock and magma in the final stages of consolidation of the eastern Australian mountain belt, 230-220 million years ago.
During the 1820s and 1830s stone from the Kangaroo Point quarry was used to construct a number of government buildings at the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, including the Commissariat Store (1828-1829) and its William Street retaining wall.
Following the closure of the penal colony and the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement in February 1842, Brisbane's earliest suburb, Kangaroo Point, was surveyed into suburban allotments, auctioned in December 1843. The lower areas of the Point, which had been cleared during the convict era for cropping purposes, and which had easy access to the river, attracted various early industries, including a boiling down works, a soap and candle factory, ship building, foundries and sawmills. By the 1850s, there were some 80 to 90 houses on the peninsula, including several fine residences along Main Street.
From 1842 the Kangaroo Point Quarry was rented to private builders, including John Petrie, until placed under the control of the newly established [September 1859] Brisbane Municipal Council in 1860. By this date, however, only two small quarry faces had been opened - one below St Mary's Church and the other below the later TAFE college. The Municipal Council continued to sub-lease the quarry to private builders, under whom the quarry mainly supplied stone ballast to ships. This wasteful use of the stone and the manner in which it was quarried was of particular concern to the Rector of St Mary's Church located on the cliff above, resulting in the Colonial Government resuming control of the quarry in 1864. By the mid-1880s the quarry face extended a little over 100 metres, or about one-eighth the length of the present worked-out quarry face.
In 1880 the entire length of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs below River Terrace from Leopard Street to St Mary's Church was placed under control of the Brisbane Municipal Council as a Temporary Reserve for Public Purposes subject to the right of the Government to use it for works in progress and to resume any land it might require for wharfage, railway and quarrying purposes (QGG 26 June 1880). This heralded Government construction in the early 1880s of new coal wharves at the foot of the southern end of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, adjacent to the South Brisbane Dry Dock. The new wharves were serviced by a branch rail line and siding, which necessitated the cutting back of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs below Lower River Terrace.
Until the mid-1880s the export of coal from the West Moreton district was frustrated by a lack of direct access to deep water wharves for bunkering of coal onto ships for export from Brisbane. Coal came into Brisbane and was loaded onto drays for transport to the wharves. To facilitate the more efficient handling of coal for export, various extensions to the railway system were proposed and in 1880 an extension to the Ipswich-Brisbane lin,e branching off at South Brisbane Junction [later known as Corinda] between Sherwood and Oxley, and coming around to Woolloongabba and South Brisbane via Yeerongpilly, was approved. The project included a sidings branch to new coal wharves adjacent to the Dry Dock at South Brisbane. The contract for the wharves and sidings branch was awarded to Acheson Overend & Co. After a number of delays, the line was finally opened in 1884.
After construction of the wharf, it was found necessary to remove a bar of rock in the river which prevented the proper use of the two 4.5 tonne (10-ton) steam cranes installed on the wharf. Overend & Co. undertook the removal of the rock bar and constructed an additional 18mx12m (60ft x 40ft) jetty with a 6.8 tonne (15-ton) steam crane for coaling large ocean vessels. Coal traffic from the wharf at South Brisbane flourished and in 1900 additional siding accommodation was constructed and a travelling crane installed replacing crane number 4. This travelling crane dominated the South Brisbane vista along the river for many years. By the mid-20th century oil fuel was replacing coal and the bunkering of coal declined. In 1960 the rails were removed from the wharf and the wharf was demolished in 1974.
In 1886-88, as part of Queensland's marine defence strategy, the Colonial Government constructed a depot for the Queensland Marine Defence Force at the foot of the northern end of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, on the floor of the earlier Kangaroo Point Quarry. Established to provide storage, repair and training facilities for the colony's modest but growing fleet of marine defence vessels and newly established Naval Brigade, the Depot originally comprised two two-storeyed timber buildings roofed with galvanized corrugated iron and resting on stone foundation walls with concrete footings. These buildings contained lecture rooms; a gun battery for training; store rooms; carpenters' shops; workshops for ship repairs; and a torpedo storeroom/workshop. A wharf was erected in 1887-88, and a flight of timber stairs was constructed c1890 to provide access up the cliff to Amesbury Street and St Mary's Church, which served as the Naval Chapel for many years. A concrete boatslip was constructed c1900.
The Depot remained the operational base of the Queensland Marine Defence Force until the formation of the Royal Australian Navy [RAN] after Federation in 1901. The Kangaroo Point Depot remained the principal training facililty for Queensland naval reservists until the construction of a depot at Alice Street in the 1920s. On 31 October 1959 the RAN handed over the Kangaroo Point Depot to the Australian Army, which used it to accommodate its 32nd Small Ships Squadron. In 1984 the Army removed its Small Ships Squadron to Bulimba, and the Kangaroo Point Depot was vacated. In 1986/87 the site was transferred to the Brisbane City Council.
Only one of the former Naval Depot buildings [No.2 Store] survives and this now accommodates the Naval Stores Museum, a Brisbane City Council Social History Strategy initiative developed to allow visitors to gain an understanding of the histories of Brisbane's naval defences, the Brisbane River, Kangaroo Point and Australian Federation. The former Naval Brigade Depot was entered permanently in the Queensland Heritage Register in October 1992 (QHR 600239).
In 1898 the Marine Department opened a new quarry south of the Naval Depot, about halfway along River Terrace, to supply rock for river walls at Hamilton. This was the start of the scheme of dredging and training walls devised by EA Cullen, appointed Engineer of Harbours and Rivers in 1902, to complete the development of the river port of Brisbane. The Department of Harbours and Rivers (later the Department of Harbours and Marine) used the Kangaroo Point Cliffs quarry for marine work until 1976. In the period 1898 to 1919, this work included: the training walls or revetments which contain the dredgings of the reclamation of the tidal flats for industry at Hamilton [1898-1900], Doughboy [1900], Coxen Point, and Lytton; the training walls which regulate tidal flow and link Parker, Bulwer, Gibson and other estuarine islands with the mainland; and the stone pitching of the river banks at the City Botanic Gardens. By 1919, more than half a million tones of stone for these walls had been removed from the Kangaroo Point Quarry. In 1928, stone from the Kangaroo Point Quarry was used to double the height of the Lytton training wall and to shape and maintain other early 20th century training walls. Other Harbours and Marine projects utilising stone from Kangaroo Point included the Manly Boat Harbour and the new port at Fisherman Islands in the 1970s.
The rock for these projects was loaded onto punts at the quarry and towed to the work sites. Extensive quarrying by the Marine Department opened the rock face of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs between the Naval Stores at the northern end of the site and the coal wharves at the southern end, creating the dramatic length of perpendicular drop that distinguishes the Kangaroo Point Cliffs today. By 1976, when control of the Brisbane River passed to the Port of Brisbane Authority, most of the available Kangaroo Point rock had been exploited and the quarry was closed.
Brisbane Tuff is now exposed along the cliff face, providing an important source of geological information. The quarry floors and ridge of the cliffs are now important public park reserves and enjoyed as places of informal recreation. The cliffs are popular for abseiling and rock climbing, and are valued as a riverside walkway, picnic area and vantage point - especially for Brisbane River and Southbank festivities.
Scout Place, the lookout on the top of the cliffs adjacent to River Terrace, between Llewellyn and Bell Streets, was erected in 1982 to designs prepared by the Brisbane City Council's Landscape Architecture Section, to commemorate seventy-five years of scouting in Queensland.
","criteria":"The Kangaroo Point Cliffs are important in demonstrating the pattern and evolution of Queensland's history, in particular for their association with the development of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. The cliffs were a major source of stone for Brisbane buildings, roadworks, wharfage and marine walls for a period of 150 years from the commencement of the penal colony at Moreton Bay in the mid-1820s.
Accommodating important coal wharves from 1884 to 1960, the Kangaroo Point Cliffs are significant in the development of Brisbane as the principal port of Queensland.
|As a rare resource of Ignimbrite and containing an unusual dyke-like structure, the cliffs of the former quarry have the potential to yield technical information that will contribute to an understanding of the geological development of the Queensland landscape.
|As a rare resource of Ignimbrite and containing an unusual dyke-like structure, the cliffs of the former quarry have the potential to yield technical information that will contribute to an understanding of the geological development of the Queensland landscape.
|A dramatic presence in the riverscape and townscape, floodlit at night, the Kangaroo Point Cliffs are an important visual landmark forming a backdrop to many views and vistas of the City.
|The Cliffs are valued as a public vantage point offering expansive views north and west over Brisbane. The park reserve to the river edge and ridge of the cliffs is important as a place of informal recreation, a sheer hewn cliff face accommodating a vantage point to its ridge and a landscaped public recreation reserve incorporating lush vegetation, sculptures, follies and a walking path. The cliffs are particularly popular for abseiling and rock climbing. The cliffs are valued as a riverside walkway, picnic area and vantage point. Scout Place on River Terrace is important in commemorating the contribution of the Scouting movement to the local and wider community.
|Accommodating an early naval defence station and other defence force activities from 1888 to 1984, the Kangaroo Point Cliffs are important for their association with Queensland colonial defences and with the Australian Defence Forces.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19521,"place_ref":602401,"name":"Riverside Centre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"123 Eagle Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2023-12-01","description":"Riverside Centre (completed 1986) is an office tower complex located at the northeastern edge of Brisbane Central Business District (CBD). It includes an Office Tower, public Plaza, Plaza Buildings, and a section of a riverside promenade known as the Riverwalk. The 1.35ha site fronts Eagle Street to its northwest and the Brisbane River to its southeast, and its other (northeast and southwest) sides are bounded by high-rise commercial and mixed-use buildings. Standing within Brisbane’s Golden Triangle precinct, the complex employs cohesive Modernist design principles and makes a notable contribution to the cityscape.
\nThe complex is laid out with the 40-storey Office Tower standing centrally on the site’s western (Eagle Street) edge, with a low-rise, mixed-use Plaza Building (fronting the Brisbane River to the south of the Office Tower) and a public Plaza that steps down towards the river. The Office Tower’s triangular form maximises views out to the river. The Riverwalk runs along the length of the site’s river edge and extends over the water. Under the Plaza are two levels of underground car parking and service areas.
\nRiverside Centre contributes to the vista of the Brisbane CBD skyline from the Brisbane River (Town Reach), Kangaroo Point and the Story Bridge (QHR 600240). Its riverfront siting, distinctive forms and surrounding open and low-rise plaza setting accentuate the place within this view.
\nFeatures of Riverside Centre of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Riverside Centre not of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nOffice Tower
\nThe Office Tower’s triangular plan form with rounded corners is orientated so that one side of the building faces Eagle Street to the northwest, and two sides face northeast and southeast to largely unobscured views up and down the Brisbane River. The 40-storey concrete structure has two basement levels and a tall foyer occupying the entire ground floor at the Plaza level.
\nThe Office Tower’s exterior is a grid of grey granite stone cladding and large banks of fixed windows shielded on the northeast and northwest sides by external metal sunshades. The grid is interrupted by ‘sky terraces’ (recessed open-air balconies) at various locations on the river-fronting (south and northeast) elevations of the building, accessed via some offices. The building has a flat roof, with the top storey externally expressed by having fewer windows and housing the largest ‘sky terrace’, expanding along the eastern corner. The Office Tower exterior has a strong, clear form and a graphic aesthetic quality depicting Modernist principles.
\nThe base of the building (formed by the foyer level and two mezzanine levels above (known as levels 5 and 6; former Brisbane Stock Exchange)) has a solid and heavy exterior appearance. Clad with polished granite stone, this solid form melds at the ground level into two massive hyperboloid columns at either end of the Eagle Street elevation. These columns frame the building’s entrance, which is further emphasised by an undulating, metal-framed glass canopy. The base’s other sides have regularly-spaced columns, between which are enclosures of tall, frameless glass.
\nThe exterior of the building is highly intact, with minor changes including: windows cut into the eastern corner of levels 5 and 6, the removal of the original main entrance doors and replacement in the same location to a larger design, and the removal and replacement of secondary access doors. Tenancy branding, including at the top of the building and at the front entrance, are regularly updated.
\nThe building’s main entrance is from the Plaza from Eagle Street, with secondary entrances from the Plaza on the other sides. The foyer is approximately 15m in height and wraps around the central, triangular, structural service core. Its off-form concrete ceiling features a pattern of exposed radiating and concentric-curved rib beams. The glass foyer walls undulate inwards at the eastern end of the building to accommodate and overlook an exterior water feature in the Plaza. The foyer ceiling lowers on the northeast and south sides of the building, under the former Brisbane Stock Exchange. Between these levels, a cantilevered concrete stair with travertine stone-lined balustrades overlooks the foyer below. The former Brisbane Stock Exchange has been converted to open-plan office tenancies and the originally open mezzanines at the northwest end have been enclosed with glass.
\nAbove the base of the building, repeated concrete floor plates feature open-plan office spaces, supported on a central, triangular, structural service core, with concrete columns at the building’s outer edges. The structural service core contains services such as banks of lifts, fire stairs, services ducts and toilets. The lift heights are staggered, culminating at low, mid and high levels with crossover lift lobbies. Plant rooms are on levels 16, 17, 40 and the rooftop, containing modern equipment. To each level, the central structural service core is surrounded by an approximately 12.5m wide ring of open-plan office space, unimpeded by columns. Tenancy fit-outs (such as partitions, floor surfaces, lighting, furniture, fixtures and fittings) are non-structural and were designed to be changed by respective tenants. No substantial original interior fit-outs to these levels survive. Some alterations to the floor plates have been made to connect and disconnect multi-floor tenancies via stairs, voids and enclosures.
\nPanoramic views up and down the river are available from all levels of the triangular Office Tower as a result of its form, the surrounding open space Plaza, and the lowset nature of the Plaza Buildings.
\nFeatures of the Office Tower of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Office Tower not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPlaza
\nThe Plaza surrounding the Office Tower provides a pedestrian thoroughfare from Eagle Street at the west end of the site, stepping down to the Riverwalk and Brisbane River at the east. The Plaza is an open, largely uncovered space, providing for a public thoroughfare across the site, and for access into the Office Tower and three Plaza Buildings. The open space of the Plaza allows for views of the Office Tower from the ground plane, and for the Office Tower to access light and air. While new landscaping has been added, some original plants and planter beds have been retained and / or remain in early locations.
\nAt its east end, the Plaza features a curved walkway canopy supported by round columns. A water feature extends into the east corner of the Office Tower, and cascades down to a pond at the Riverwalk level, following the steps of the adjacent curved stairs and stair / ramp (referred to as a stramp). It has a row of fountains in the upper pond (adjacent to the Office Tower) and is crossed by the Plaza flooring at this level (the crossing has been widened). Views of the river, framed by a raised curvilinear beam, become apparent at this side of the Plaza.
\nFeatures of the Plaza of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Plaza not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSouth Plaza Building
\nThe low-rise South Plaza Building stands within the Plaza at the southeast end of the site. It features curved wall forms and a flat roof. Views of the river are obtained from its balconies / terraces and large window openings.
\nThe three storey building features a food court on the central/ground floor (aligned with and accessed via the upper plaza level), and a restaurant / bar on the first floor. Its length has been reduced, with the western portion of the building removed to accommodate 111 Eagle Street (c2007-09). An external northeastern stair and an internal north-western stair provide access between the ground and first floors. Each level features unroofed balconies / terraces and large glass openings to the east and southeast sides, overlooking the Plaza, river and Story Bridge. A semi-circular plant room extends above the first floor.
\nLarge circular planter beds on the northwest side of the building have low concrete walls with polished grey granite caps. A circular floor opening with concrete walls to the upper level is vertically aligned with the ground floor planter bed, providing light and growth-space to the plants below.
\nThe lower (Riverwalk) level’s former void space enclosure for a proposed river road has been opened for a restaurant fit-out (not of State-level cultural heritage significance).
\nFeatures of the South Plaza Building of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Plaza Buildings not of State-Level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRiverwalk
\nThe Riverwalk is a mostly uncovered footpath that extends over the river along the southeast side of the site. Originally terminating at the allotment boundaries, the footpath now connects into a wider route along the river. It has a paved floor finish, and concrete bollards with large metal chains along the water’s edge.
\nFeatures of the Riverwalk of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Riverwalk not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews
\nThe complex forms part of the recognisable cityscape vista of Brisbane CBD that can be viewed from the Story Bridge, Kangaroo Point and the up and down the Town Reach stretch of the Brisbane River.
\nViews of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCompleted in 1986, Riverside Centre was designed as development company Lend Lease’s principal project for the 1980s. It was built during a boom in office tower construction in Brisbane, including the emerging heart of the financial district between Queen and Edward streets. Designed by internationally renowned architect Harry Seidler in 1983, the $200-plus million development included a 40-storey office tower, a plaza providing open-air public space with access to the Brisbane River, and entertainment, food and transport facilities. Riverside Centre became home of the Brisbane Stock Exchange, with a purpose-built bourse on the lower office levels. It also became a popular centre for recreation, as Brisbane’s social focus was increasingly oriented towards the outdoors and the river.
\nGrowth of the Brisbane Central Business District
\nPart of the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Yuggerah people, the non-indigenous occupation of Brisbane began with the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement (1824), before the area was opened for non-indigenous settlement in 1842. Established on the site of the former penal colony, Brisbane then was encircled by two reaches of the Brisbane River, and was declared a port of entry in 1846. It became the capital of the colony of Queensland in 1859, and was proclaimed a city in 1902.
\nThe expansion of the colonial economy and related shipping activity from the 1840s shaped the need for buildings in Brisbane to house office-based work, banking, and insurance.[1] Brisbane developed as Queensland’s commercial and financial centre and its major port, hosting the headquarters for the colony’s principal businesses, financial institutions, shipping companies and government. Its buildings were erected largely in economic boom periods in the central business district (CBD) in the 1860s, the 1880s and the 1920s. These were clustered into precincts, with most of the government buildings erected along George Street, the retail and financial district stretching down Queen Street, and a shipping, wharf, and warehouse precinct along the Town Reach, the riverfront between the Botanic Gardens and the Kangaroo Point bend.[2]
\nIn the early 1920s, most of the Brisbane CBD’s buildings reached only one or two storeys (including residences), with warehouses up to three and four storeys, and a small number of commercial buildings extending up to eight storeys (such as Perry House, built in 1910).[3] The 1920s boom brought taller buildings, but in 1926, building heights were restricted to a maximum of 132ft (40.23m), or eleven storeys.[4] Accordingly, financial buildings along Queen Street were erected up to ten storeys during the 1920s and 1930s, but much of the CBD’s built stock remained lower scaled[5] By the time construction work was halted for the outbreak of World War II, the Brisbane City Hall clock tower (278ft) was the tallest structure in the CBD.[6]
\nThe rise of the office tower
\nThe second half of the twentieth century brought considerable change to the Brisbane CBD. Brisbane’s population climbed to half a million in the late 1940s, overtaking Adelaide as Australia’s third largest city.[7] The CBD’s first postwar office building, an eleven-storey curtain wall modern office block for MLC, was completed in 1956, though a credit squeeze limited further construction for the next several years.[8] Shopping centres were built in the suburbs and shipping facilities moved further downstream towards the river mouth, leaving the CBD’s traditional retail and wharfing precincts in decline.[9] However, Queensland’s mining and property industries boomed in the 1960s and 1980s, encouraging investment into the state. This, accompanied by governmental encouragement of private enterprise, favourable development policies and the removal of building height restrictions under Brisbane’s first Town Plan in 1965, increased business in Brisbane’s CBD.[10] High-rise offices were constructed across the CBD to meet demand from Queensland’s growing tertiary industries, particularly finance (including banking, insurance and assurance, and merchant banking); government; and to serve as state headquarters for Queensland’s agricultural, pastoral and mining companies.[11]
\nThe high-rise office tower emerged as a building typology during the late 19th century in Chicago and New York in the United States of America, where architects and engineers manipulated the metal frame, electric lift, and air-conditioning systems to establish tall buildings for work spaces.[12] During the mid-to-late 20th century this building type was increasingly constructed in Australian cities and continuously evolved with the established building tradition.[13] While there are numerous descriptions of the height associated with the term ‘high-rise’ worldwide, it is most often based on building codes and fire regulation applicable in individual geographical locations.[14] With the removal of height limits in the 1965 town plan, Brisbane’s high-rises rose above 132ft (40.23m; approximately 11 storeys).[15]
\nHigh-rise office towers from the late 20th century typically featured a structural frame of metal, reinforced concrete or pre-stressed concrete; repeated floor plates with spaces for desk work; entrance foyers for centralised access; and vertical cores that usually assisted in withstanding lateral forces such as wind and included: lifts, stairs (for fire egress), toilets and service ducts.[16] Most buildings of this type adopted the ‘shell and core’ concept, where the exterior design of the building was highly-specified, and the interior spaces were standardised and flexible (largely open-plan), allowing for tenant-specified individual fit-outs and periodic refitting.[17] Semi-public spaces that were at the forefront of user-experience, such as entrance foyers, lifts, boardrooms and restaurants, were often of a more refined architectural finish.[18] During the 1960s and 1970s, heavy concrete curtain wall cladding was popular, and from the late 1970s, building designs increasingly featured flat, sleek and reflective surfaces, including all-glass facades or polished marble or granite.[19] The curtain wall cladding was often modular and prefabricated.[20] Sun control was handled in various and evolving ways, such as structural frame projections, external shading devices (including external hoods, screens, egg-crate sun breakers (horizontal and vertical flanges positioned in a square grid), or sun-blades), reflective glass, or interior blinds.[21]
\nBetween ninety and one hundred high-rise offices were constructed in the Brisbane CBD between 1965 and 2000, with more in near-city suburbs.[22] The first building to claim a height over eleven storeys, the 16-storey Pearl Assurance office, was completed in 1966. The next several years brought a series of ever-taller buildings, from the 20-storey Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Building (1967);[23] to the 23-storey Bank of New South Wales (1970); the State Government Insurance Office (1971); the first building over 60 metres, 167 Eagle Street (1973); and a series of high-rise towers for government, mining, investment, financial and insurance groups completed by 1976, mostly designed in the ‘international modern’ style which dominated high-rise office design in Australia.[24] The most intense growth in the CBD occurred in a five year period in the mid-1980s, when development underpinned by a resources boom triggered extensive office building construction.[25] Almost one million square metres of floorspace was constructed in Brisbane during this time, significantly reshaping the city’s appearance.[26]
\nThe former wharf and warehouse precinct along Town Reach was a focus for high-rise office development. It held the city’s first high-rise and two of the tallest buildings (167 Eagle Street, 1973; and AMP Gold Tower, 1978), as well as several more modest high-rise offices. The construction of the city’s first fully glass-clad ‘Gold Tower’ for AMP in 1978 gave rise to the precinct being called the ‘Golden Triangle’, and its reputation as a desirable office location.[27] Office towers were erected in the Golden Triangle and named for the highest-paying lessee, ranging in scale from the 18-storey, $9 million GWA House on Market Street (1982), to the record-setting $60 million AMP Blue Tower (1984), a 35-storey ‘technologically-advanced marvel’.[28] The Golden Triangle became the CBD’s acknowledged financial heart[29] as the precinct became home to a series of ‘gleaming office towers’.[30]
\nThe 1980s also saw the emergence of office towers described in real estate parlance as ‘blue chip’, ‘premium’ or ‘prime’, responding to demands from the financial and professional sectors.[31] Notable amongst these were the Gold Tower, its twin ‘Blue Tower’ (1984), the CML building on Queen Street (1984), Capital Centre on Adelaide Street (1984), Central Plaza One and Two (1987-88), and Waterfront Place (1990).[32] In a single decade (1979-1989), Brisbane climbed from one of the least expensive cities for office rentals in the world, to 15th in the world for premium office buildings, and 24th in the world for office rentals overall.[33]
\nThe long boom of Brisbane’s office towers ended abruptly in 1990. Projects were put on hold as the Queensland economy began a downward turn, and Australia entered a recession. Several proposed major office towers projects were postponed or abandoned. Strong building activity did not recommence for another decade.[34]
\nLend Lease, Harry Seidler and Associates, and Riverside
\nIn 1979, development company Lend Lease began investigating sites for a landmark project.[35] Lend Lease, established in 1958 by Dick Dusseldorp, was one of Australia’s largest development construction companies,[36] responsible for housing, retail, and commercial construction across Australia in the second half of the 20th century. The company formed a development triumvirate with construction and engineering business, Civil and Civic, and financial enterprise, General Property Trust (GPT),[37] allowing it to undertake significant projects.[38] The company had built two ‘landmark’ or statement high-rise projects in Sydney: Australia Square (1968) and the MLC Centre (1976), both designed by architectural firm Harry Seidler and Associates.[39]
\nEncouraged by Queensland’s economic progress and forecasts for further growth, the company focused on the Brisbane CBD for its 1980s landmark.[40] The company’s attention was drawn to the burgeoning financial centre, where, by 1979, office towers lined the streets between remnant shipping company and government maritime buildings. Though construction had shifted towards the river, development on riverfront sites had been limited by a proposed riverfront road.[41] The disused wharves of the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company (AUSN), Thomas Brown and Son, and Nixon Smith remained in situ, used for carparking.[42]
\nA Lend Lease subsidiary, Lend Lease Developments, began to acquire multiple sites fronting Eagle Street and the river.[43] In June 1981, the company announced that it had received approval in principle for a multi-million dollar riverfront development project.[44] After a year of planning, revisions, and land purchases, in August 1982 the Courier Mail published plans for ‘Riverside Brisbane’, Lend Lease’s $200 million development for its 1.4 hectare Eagle Street site.[45] ‘Riverside Brisbane’ was proposed to include an office tower, shops, residential apartments, plazas, promenades, a marina, an ‘historic precinct’ for the soon-to-be-demolished Wool Exchange, and a section of the riverfront road, a condition of the development’s approval.[46] The company highlighted its desire to create a ‘total pedestrian environment’ with tourist facilities including restaurants, taverns and bistros ‘to give the complex life after business hours’.[47]
\nOver the following year, Lend Lease continued to accumulate land, as well as leasehold over a laneway (Parbury Lane), and the AUSN’s No. 11 and No. 13 wharves within the river.[48] Having acquired control over a 2ha site, Lend Lease engaged architect Harry Seidler to redesign the Riverside project in August 1983. Austrian-born Seidler had already achieved significant renown as an architect in residential and commercial designs, including the award-winning Rose Seidler house (1950),[49] Australia Square,[50] MLC Centre, the Australian Embassy in Paris (1977), and the soon-to-be-completed Hong Kong Club Building (1984). He had received multiple awards from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, including its highest honour, the Gold Medal, in 1976, for outstanding achievement in architectural design and the promotion of architecture and the profession; and received an OBE for his services to architecture in 1972.[51] His firm, Harry Seidler and Associates (established 1960), had been working with Lend Lease almost since its inception, designing apartment buildings (Ithaca Gardens (1960) and the controversial Blues Point Tower (1961)),[52] recreational facilities (Thredbo Ski Lodge (1962)) and commercial buildings (Australia Square and MLC Centre, the former of which was considered ‘one of Australia’s most important works of the postwar period’).[53]
\nInfluenced by international architects, artists and designers Walter Gropius, Oscar Neimeyer, Marcel Breuer and Josef Albers, Seidler’s designs strongly adhered to principles of modernist architecture. Modernist architecture developed in pre-World War I Europe and gained popularity in Australia after WWII. Notable for a rationalisation of planning, emphasising clarity and simplicity of form and detailing,[54] the style had been adopted in Queensland in a variety of residential, religious, public, and commercial buildings.[55] Seidler was one of the country’s foremost postwar architects to design in the modernist style.[56]
\nAs in earlier projects, Lend Lease allowed Seidler creative freedom to achieve the design requirements.[57] While the facilities remained relatively consistent with the earlier design, Seidler’s design for Riverside reenvisaged them into an integrated plan adopting his architectural philosophies,[58] similar to his designs for Australia Square and MLC Centre.[59] At the centre of the site was a triangular-shaped office tower, set in an open-air plaza, with surrounding low-rise retail, entertainment, and commercial facilities. The buildings featured clean lines and limited ornamentation. The positioning of the office tower, set back on its plaza, was in accordance with modernist design principles,[60] while the curved form and position of the low-rise buildings within the plaza provided an organic-shaped contrast to the geometry of the tower.
\nThe office tower was 40 storeys, including two basements for carparking.[61] It was positioned in line with the city street grid, providing views along Eagle Street and down Elizabeth Street, while its triangular shape allowed two-thirds of the office’s full height glass windows to face the Brisbane River. Aluminium sunshades, fitted on two sides of the building, were designed to address the different angle of the sun on each elevation, but minimise disruption to the views. Recessed sky terraces interspersed across two sides of the building broke up any repetition. The tower was to be clad in a cool pearl-coloured granite, providing a contrast to the glass towers emerging along Brisbane’s skyline.[62]
\nThe main entrance to the tower building, from Eagle Street, was covered by a glass canopy with gathered columns.[63] These were braced by radiating concentric floor ribs, providing ornament as well as being a structural necessity. This led into a four-storey (15m), glass-walled foyer, with exfoliated black granite-lined floor with strips of travertine.[64] The foyer was ceiled by external support concrete beams brought together in a decorative web pattern, designed by Mario Desideri, successor to renowned Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi.[65] Services were located in the building’s core.[66] The height of the building required three banks of lifts, with changeover levels, and a separate lift to the two basement carpark levels. The tower contained 36 levels[67] of offices to be leased to commercial tenants. The column-free, open floor plates allowed for fit-outs to be adapted to a tenant’s preferences, and easily altered when turnover occurred. The tower’s floor size (1,500m2) was unusually large, allowing larger firms and businesses to consolidate their operations into a smaller area, providing advantages in improving communications and reducing costs.[68]
\nPlans for the plaza changed slightly after an additional land purchase was settled in 1984.[69] A 350-room hotel building was postponed for a later stage,[70] while a six-storey office building morphed into a single-storey commercial structure; and a low-rise riverfront residential apartment building was removed.[71] The latter provided additional space for the open plaza, which occupied over half of the site,[72] providing unimpeded views and direct public access to the river. It was enhanced by landscaped gardens, trees, and a jet fountain water feature which pooled on each side of the triangular building’s riverside face, and cascaded down the terraced plaza towards the river.[73] Stairs and ramps (called by Seidler, stramps) carried pedestrians down to the riverfront, where a promenade extended along the site’s 180m river frontage, lined with bollards linked by nautical chains, purpose-designed by the architectural team.[74] A ferry terminal and marina, which led off the promenade, provided public and private access to the site from the river.[75] Views from the plaza took in the sweep of the Town Reach, Kangaroo Point Cliffs and Story Bridge, framed by a curvilinear beam across the step-ramp and cascading fountain.[76]
\nThe public plaza was of particular significance to both Seidler and Lend Lease. Lend Lease had long envisaged the waterfront public space as an important part of the landmark project, while for Seidler, the provision of public space in the creation of an urban environment[77] was an essential part of his design.[78] Above all, Seidler was quoted as saying, Riverside would be a place for people: ‘“It’ll be a meeting place, a shopping place, an eating place – a landmark for decades to come.”’[79]
\nConstruction of the Riverside Centre
\nSite work was underway on the project by April 1984, when the name ‘Riverside Centre’ was publicly used.[80] Construction work officially began in June 1984, and was launched with a flag-raising ceremony featuring the Queensland Theatre Orchestra, two tonnes of fireworks, a 400-person cocktail party, and a two-hour riverboat dinner cruise for one hundred children from the St Vincent’s Home for Children.[81] In accordance with its intention for Riverside Centre to be its landmark development of the decade, Lend Lease promoted the building project heavily, including addressing any potential issues with an immediate public relations campaign. When a series of blackouts affected CBD buildings in March 1985, Lend Lease advertised Riverside as ‘Brisbane’s Most Prestigious Powerhouse’, promoting it as ‘the only major centre with 4 generators capable of supplying 100% power to the whole building… a technological masterpiece’.[82]
\nCivil and Civic began construction of the office tower in 1985, progressing at an average of one floor every four days.[83] The core was built first using a jump-form technique, and the concrete tower was poured in place, with prestressing occurring on site.[84] Economic considerations built into the design helped to speed construction and minimise costs; the corners of the tower’s triangular shape were rounded to simplify the design, and repetition of elements allowed for uniformity of structural beams.[85] Pylons were laid into the river in March 1985 for the riverfront road, which was to run under the development, but within months, the requirement for the road had been scrapped.[86] The topping off was celebrated in October 1985 with full-page newspaper advertisements congratulating the workers, and a large party was held.[87] The following twelve months was spent finishing the building, plaza and low-rise buildings, installing office fit-outs, landscaping, and trees on the terrace gardens.[88]
\nThe cost of the project allowed for high-quality materials, finishes, sculptures, and artwork. A sculpture by artist Norman Carlberg, ‘Winter Wind’, a 10m repetition of a single quadrant shape in white-painted steel was commissioned and installed in the main section of the foyer (from the Eagle Street entrance), and tapestry artwork by Alexander Calder (a favourite artist of Seidler, whose work had been used in earlier Lend Lease developments) along the travertine walls of the lift core on the north and southern sides of the foyer.[89] The architectural team from Harry Seidler and Associates, including Harry Seidler, Henry Feiner, and Greg Holman, designed minutely detailed interior fittings in what was referred to as ‘a “ridiculous amount” of design creativity’, including purpose-designed light-up elevator buttons, ashtrays, and skirting ducts.[90]
\nAround $15 million was reportedly to be spent on interior fit-outs for tenants in the four month period leading up the building’s opening, ‘the same efforts needed to build a small city high-rise’.[91] The initial fit-out included a purpose-designed facility on the fifth and sixth floors for the Brisbane Stock Exchange, the building’s anchor tenant, featuring a trading floor, theatre and a mezzanine over the foyer, and no external windows. Pre-commitment tenants were able to specify their own fit-outs from the outset, including stairs between levels. By its opening Riverside Centre had over 75% pre-committed tenants (a high figure for the time).[92]
\nThe plaza was also minutely detailed, with granite seating, signs, waste bins; porfido (porphyry) plaza paving; and the Riverside Centre name and logo across the site.[93] The plaza buildings included a single storey commercial building on the northern side close to Eagle Street (‘North Court’ or Northwest Plaza), and Michael’s Riverside Restaurant on the riverside, cantilevered over the river (Northeast Plaza). On the southern side, a single-storey retail court near Eagle Street flowed into a two-storey building fronting the river promenade (South Plaza). The lower floor held ‘On the Deck’ eateries and shops, while on the upper floor was ‘Friday’s’, with outdoor bar terraces featuring finishes in imported granite and overlooking the plaza and river.[94] The plaza buildings’ financial, retail, care services and eateries would not only serve Riverside Centre workers, but also the 14,000 to 20,000 office workers employed throughout the Golden Triangle, where these services were limited.[95] Lend Lease aimed to provide a range of eateries, from restaurants for business lunches to quick dine-in or casual takeaway, to Friday’s, catering for after work crowds.[96] Retail fit-outs were by Aspid International.[97]
\nClimatic considerations had been woven through the design, and were implemented during the construction. The use of sunshades (installed in 1986 as the building’s ‘eyelids’) and granite facing, instead of a glass-faced facade, reduced heat load on the building.[98] Hailstorms in January 1985 led to extensive testing to ensure the sunshades would withstand future storms, and a year-long study was undertaken to determine individual angles of installation.[99] The glass canopy over the main entrance and a wavy canopy connecting the tower’s north-eastern entrance to the northern plaza buildings provided shelter from subtropical downpours.[100] The length of the project allowed time to study and eliminate wind tunnels in the plaza, and to best position outdoor eating areas for summer shade and winter sun. This, Lend Lease Development hoped, ‘would ensure that people would be drawn to the plaza not only because of its facilities and views, but because it offered the right atmosphere at the right time of year.’[101]
\nTenants moved into Riverside in September, before celebrations to mark the building’s opening began on 1 October 1986.[102] The fireworks displays, hot-air balloon launches and parachutist drops were covered in newspapers and on the evening television news.[103] Ten days of celebrations followed.[104] The tower was intended as an ‘intelligent building’, with advanced technology installed.[105] On completion, the building was transferred to GPT. The official handover ceremony included using the tower’s advanced technology to turn on the top floor air-conditioning from Sydney. [106]
\nArchitectural recognition
\nRiverside Centre drew immediate acclaim from the architectural world. Covered in Australian and international architectural publications,[107] it was awarded the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ (Queensland Chapter) best building award in 1987 (joint winner with the State Works Centre (no longer extant)), which acknowledged the ‘superbly detailed, sophisticated’ tower as ‘the central focus of a well ordered urban precinct which provides the city with a fine example of the potential to be gained from positively relating development to the river.’ While the entrance lobby was ‘somewhat overwhelming, but impressive,’[108] the incorporation of water in the pedestrian concourse, art works in the lobby and well selected furniture contribute to an overall feeling of good taste’.[109]
\nThe national architectural body, the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, awarded Riverside Centre the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for non-residential works in 1987.[110] The Sir Zelman Cowen award was generally awarded for public architecture, but Riverside Centre’s public pedestrian plaza set it apart from other private developments. As the jury noted, Riverside Centre reflected Seidler’s approach to high-rise projects, where ‘the use of a high-rise solution justified by the provision of open space for people at the foot of his buildings…providing a community attraction for all those who do not directly use his building, but seek shelter in the city oasis he creates’.[111] While the project was not ‘anything radically new’ for Seidler and his ‘already well-honed skills’, the project’s scope and size ‘allows his very simple clean cut design approach to make an impact by its repetition over a large area and a number of small buildings at the concourse level’.[112] In addition to the ‘interesting architectural solutions’ of the building itself (including its triangular shape, clean building lines, the texture provided by the aluminium sunscreens, and the ‘imagination and attention to engineering detail’[113] expressed in the foyer’s ceiling), the ‘impressed jury’ noted Riverside Centre’s ‘unique relationship to the Brisbane River’, linking the tower to the river and making the river ‘not only part of the building, but a focal point.’[114]
\nRenowned British historian of modernist and contemporary architecture, Kenneth Frampton, authored a publication on Riverside Centre in 1988. ‘In many respects Riverside Centre represents a consummate synthesis of everything that Seidler has projected and realised over the past twenty years’,[115] Frampton wrote, marvelling at the ‘straight-forward logic with which Seidler has arrived at the parti for Riverside Centre.’[116]
\nA balance is established between the twin dialogical themes that inform the entire work; on the one hand, the opposition between tectonic and organic morphologies, on the other, the play between symmetry and asymmetry, which permeates the entire site and which will be so much more dynamic as a dialogue, once the project is complete.[117]
\nIn a later publication, Frampton highlighted the vertical juxtaposition of the tower against its horizontal length; the play between symmetry and asymmetry of the structures across the site, and ‘the contrast between the tectonic logic of the skeleton structure and its plastic amplification as an isostatic form.’[118]
\nMonths after the completion of Riverside Centre, Seidler was named a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for the advancement of architecture.[119] He and the architectural firm went on to design a number of office towers around Australia, including Grosvenor Place, Sydney (1988); Shell House, Melbourne (1989); Capita Centre, Sydney (1989); and QV1, Perth (1991).[120] Frampton and some later commentators, including Australian architect, academic and author, Jennifer Taylor, considered Riverside Centre a standout amongst Seidler’s later office tower developments: an evolution in Seidler’s work incorporating the landscape concepts of South American architects Burle Marx and Niemeyer and notions of ‘isostasis’;[121] Seidler’s solution to the problems of urban space in Australian architecture;[122] a demonstration that it was ‘still possible to continue with a viable culture of modern architecture’;[123] and ‘a notable urban achievement, which, besides being an accomplished work of architecture, regenerated an entire urban precinct and turned the focus of a city towards its river with unprecedented generous riverside plazas.’[124] In 1996, the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded Seidler the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, one of the highest honours for architects in the world, for his body of work. In his accompanying speech, Seidler referenced Riverside Centre (alongside other projects).[125]
\nIn 1988, Riverside Centre received further recognition as the joint winner of the Robin Dods award (a triennial award by the RAIA Queensland Chapter for excellence over a three-year period), as, according to the judging panel, it ‘sets an incredibly high standard as well as giving Brisbane a magnificent riverfront public space.’[126] The building received first prize in the 1989 Marble Architectural Awards in Carrara, Italy.[127] In 2011, the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) awarded Riverside Centre its Enduring Architecture award. This award is given to a structure at least 25 years old, of outstanding merit that, considered in a contemporary context, remains important as a high quality work of architecture.[128] Riverside Centre was also recognised as significant 20th century architecture by the AIA at both State and National levels.[129]
\nOffice impact
\nRiverside Centre’s opening had an immediate impact on Brisbane’s commercial office market. Thanks to the availability of river views across two-thirds of the tower,[130] Riverside commanded some of the highest rents in Queensland – $444 per square metre in 1988 – and was credited with increasing rental levels in prime office market from 15% to 20%.[131] The presence of the Brisbane Stock Exchange in the tower encouraged legal, accounting and stockbroking firms, including some establishing Queensland offices for the first time.[132] The prestige of the building was also acknowledged as a draw for some tenants. The Queensland Division of the Building Owners and Managers Association awarded Riverside Centre a special citation for its ‘outstanding contribution to the city by establishing Brisbane as a mature commercial centre and for its civic and environmental design’.[133] Developers undertaking other large office tower developments in the Golden Triangle acknowledged the new standard the project had set for the ‘top end of the market’,[134] while the Queensland Governor stated in 1988 that Riverside Centre ‘has brought a whole new dimension to the standard of accommodation to which professional and commercial organisations may aspire.’[135]
\nThough a private development, Riverside Centre was highlighted by state and local governments as evidence of the city and Queensland’s growth and development. It was promoted by successive Brisbane Lord Mayors as part of Brisbane’s diamond jubilee and the Shine On Brisbane campaign;[136] in the United States as a technologically ‘intelligent’ building;[137] and was featured in a Queensland Government television programme in the late 1980s.[138] Its completion, alongside that of the Brisbane Transit Centre in Roma Street, prompted ‘a school of thought… that Brisbane is capable of being the business capital of the southwest Pacific by the year 2000.’[139]
\nThe scope and cost of the office tower development project was significant. The size of the site – 1.4ha – dwarfed most of the sites on which Brisbane’s other office towers were erected,[140] and for a brief time it was the tallest building in Brisbane (though its successor was under construction when Riverside opened). At a reported cost of $200 million, Riverside Centre was the first office tower development in the CBD to cost over $100 million, and was significantly more expensive than the record-setting AMP Blue Tower, constructed two years earlier for $60 million.[141] Riverside Centre remained one of the few 20th century office tower developments in the Brisbane CBD to cost over $100 million, with only two further projects, both neighbours to Riverside Centre, before the economic recession of the 1990s: the two-tower Central Plaza complex designed by Japanese architect, Kisho Kurokawa, and Queensland architectural firm, Peddle Thorp, opening in two stages; and Waterfront Place, designed by Perth architectural firm Cameron Chisholm Nichol, and also opened in two stages (Eagle Street Pier, 1989; Waterfront Place, 1990).[142]
\n\n
Public impact
\nThe public aspects of the development were also quickly appreciated, as Riverside Centre began to draw people to the city after working hours. Ferry services started at the Riverside terminus, which replaced the Creek Street ferry stop, in October 1986, bringing city workers and visitors to and through the site. A high-speed service running to the University of Queensland started the following year, and City Cats served the terminal from 1996.[143] By 2003, Riverside was Brisbane’s busiest ferry terminal, serving 400,000 passengers annually.[144] The riverfront promenade was incorporated into a bikeway that was extended along the riverfront in the mid-1990s, providing riverfront access to the site for pedestrians, cyclists, and commuters.[145]
\nThe South Plaza eateries were advertised to the public to ‘come and enjoy’ while ‘soak[ing] up the feel of the tropics under the sun and the palms, beside the river.’[146] Friday’s and Michael’s became popular venues for Brisbane residents – students, those celebrating special events, and office workers – over the following years.[147] Building management and tenants hosted art displays, showcase exhibitions,[148] and fundraising events in the foyer;[149] and a viewing gallery in the Stock Exchange fit-out was open to the public.[150] In May 1987, the recently-formed ‘Cats Tango’ craft markets were moved to the Riverside Centre plaza. Renamed the Riverside Markets, the Sunday event proved a huge attraction, bringing large numbers of suburban residents and international tourists to the site on a weekend for the next 22 years.[151]
\nRiverside’s development, and the intense change in the CBD’s physical fabric, was accompanied by significant social and cultural change.[152] As Brisbane’s population reached over one million people in the early 1980s,[153] the city prepared to host two major international events: the Commonwealth Games (1982) and the World Exposition 1988 (colloquially Expo 88). ‘Shine on Brisbane’, ‘Image ‘82’ and ‘Image ‘88’ campaigns encouraged beautification in and around the city, and the city was promoted internationally (particularly in the United States) amidst a push to encourage international tourism.[154] Pedestrianism was improved in the city centre with the construction of pedestrian bridges crossing Anzac Square (1982) and the opening of Post Office Square (1984).[155] The Queen Street Mall, opened in two stages (1982 and 1987) both improved pedestrianism and enticed shoppers to return to the city. Legislative change in the late 1970s provided for Friday night shopping in the city and Sunday trading in hotels. Riverside Centre was part of Brisbane’s identity shift in the 1980s, providing facilities for al fresco dining before it was incorporated into the Town Plan in the 1990s; and popularising open, riverfront gathering space with markets and promenades in the leadup to Expo 88.[156]
\nRiverside’s opening also coincided with renewed public interest in the Brisbane River. A hub for commerce, transport and recreation from the mid-19th century, the Town Reach of the river had fallen out of favour in the second half of the 20th century, as wharves and bathing facilities were removed, and the Riverside Expressway cut off public connection to the riverbanks. Only a promenade through the Botanic Gardens provided unimpeded access to the river. From the late 1970s, river management, development and clean-up committees had emerged, urging an end to dredging, cleaning up the river, beautifying and managing development on riverbanks. Brisbane City Council declared 1987 the ‘year of the river’, creating river management studies and strategies, and a riverfront walk was opened through the mangroves. Increasingly, images of Brisbane portrayed the river from the Story Bridge or Kangaroo Point, with Riverside Centre at their centre. The relocation of the Customs House ferry terminal to Riverside Centre placed the new office tower at the heart of river transport into and out of the city. In coming years, as Brisbane’s ‘River City’ identity emerged, Riverside Centre’s restaurants and terraces became a popular gathering space for New Years’ Eve fireworks, special events such as the arrival of the ‘tall ships’ in 1987 and 2001, the docking of the Endeavour replica in 2011,[157] and the annual Riverfire festival fireworks displays.[158]
\nRiverside Centre in the 21st century
\nRiverside Centre has continued to attract and retain high-profile tenants to its office tower, including stockbroking firms, banks, accountants, legal firms and in 2023, the organisers of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.[159] The tower’s anchor tenant, the Brisbane Stock Exchange, was replaced by the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) in 1990, remaining a significant financial centre in Brisbane until 2005.[160] As home of the ASX, the building was a target for protests in 2001,[161] and Richard Branson launched Virgin Blue onto the ASX from the building’s foyer in December 2003.[162] In 2006, the twenty-year old office tower was fully leased, and was still referenced as a benchmark by developers.[163]
\nIn 1999, a section of Riverside Centre’s 2ha site was sold to Singaporean development company Bloomberg. Bloomberg and its subsidiary, Riverside Developments, engaged Harry Seidler and Associates to design a new mixed-use (residential, retail and commercial) tower for the site, to be called Riparian Plaza.[164] Designed to complement Riverside Centre,[165] and opened in 2005, Riparian Plaza received the AIA’s National Award for Commercial Architecture in 2007.[166]
\nIn 2007, approval was given for the construction of a new high-rise office tower at 111 Eagle Street. The development involved the removal of part of the South Plaza building, containing retail on the ground floor and an opening to Friday’s.[167] ‘One One One Eagle Street’ opened in 2012, receiving national commendations for Commercial Architecture and Sustainable Architecture from the AIA in 2013.[168]
\nChanges have been made to Riverside Centre to adapt to changing business needs.[169] Such changes have generally been sympathetic to the original design and of a high quality, frequently undertaken with the assistance of Harry Seidler and Associates.[170] Fit-outs in the office tower and plaza buildings have regularly changed to suit new tenants, including remodelling of the ASX floors and the installation of river-facing windows in the formerly windowless lower levels.[171] A coffee shop was added to the foyer in 2007,[172] while the Calder tapestries were replaced by a Robert Owen piece, HAZE (Spectrum Shift), in 2008 and Sydney Ball’s October Fields in 2016 (commissioned by Harry Seidler and Associates, selected by Penelope Seidler and recommended by Greg Holman). Seidler was an admirer of Owen,[173] and Ball’s works had been used in other Seidler towers.[174] The foyer was refurbished in 2016, including new entry doors, café fit-out, reception desk and new furniture and digital tenancy directory installed.[175] The Eagle Street canopy was reglazed, with advice and guidance from Harry Seidler and Associates.[176] The office elevators were remodelled and modernised in 2016-2018, receiving an international award in 2019.[177]
\nFit-outs in the plaza eateries were also changed for new occupants in the 21st century, and the Northwest Plaza was converted to a tavern in 2003.[178] Riverfront restaurants, fronting the boardwalk, were opened in 2008 in the space set aside for the riverfront road (The Groove Train in the Northeast Plaza and Jellyfish in the South Plaza).[179] New glass awnings were installed on the plaza buildings in 2006, and a second storey was added to the Northeast Plaza in 2008, both designed by Harry Seidler and Associates’ Greg Holman.[180] The plaza was relandscaped in 2016, receiving an award from the Australia Institute of Landscape Architects Queensland for its ‘respectful’ but not ‘subservient’ response to the ‘iconic building’ in 2018.[181]
\nThe ferry terminal fabric was replaced in 2003,[182] though original fabric was left in the waiting area, including a granite seat and sign, and remains in use in 2023. The marina was reduced at the same time and removed in 2017.[183] The ferry terminal fabric which was replaced is not of State-level cultural heritage significance and is outside the heritage boundary.
\nThe complex was evacuated during the January 2011 floods.[184] The carpark remained closed for a month, and the two boardwalk restaurants were refitted.[185] The boardwalk restaurants were again inundated in February 2022 and refitted.[186]
\nOn 28 July 2023, the place's owner received development approval for the partial demolition of two levels of existing basement car park and full demolition of the existing low-scale buildings located at the northern end of the site to facilitate the reconfiguration of the basement car parking areas and additional bicycle parking and servicing areas and the construction of a 26-storey office building with retail uses provided at the lower levels.[187] The area affected by the development approval is largely outside the heritage boundary.
","criteria":"Riverside Centre (1986) is important in demonstrating the evolution of the built environment of the central business district (CBD) of Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, in the late 20th century. Created as development company Lend Lease’s principal commercial development project for Australia in the 1980s, and designed by renowned architect Harry Seidler AC OBE (1923-2006) of Harry Seidler and Associates, the multi-award winning, nationally recognised Riverside Centre is an exceptional example of a high-quality office tower development undertaken during that period in Queensland. Built at the peak of a boom in office tower construction in Brisbane; designed by one of Australia’s most renowned architects; and incorporating an office tower integrated with a generous, publicly-oriented plaza, and recreational and entertainment facilities, in a riverfront setting, Riverside Centre in its form, fabric and accomplished architectural design, is a distinctive example of a high-rise office tower development from this period in Queensland.
|Riverside Centre’s office tower is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a high-rise office tower built in the late 20th century in Queensland, being an exceptional example of this class of place. This exceptionality is evident in its high-quality, awarded and architecturally recognised design by a renowned architect for one of Australia’s largest development construction companies. The principal characteristics demonstrated at the place are its: prestressed concrete structure, multistorey construction (over 11 storeys) comprising repeated floor plates and a structural service core; modular exterior cladding and glazing; foyer providing centralised access; internal public spaces and surfaces finished with high quality materials, and flexible office floor plates designed to allow for individual tenancy fit-outs. While the tower’s tenancy fit-outs have changed, as designed for in a commercial building of this type, the building retains a high degree of architectural integrity. Designed by renowned architect Harry Seidler AC OBE of Harry Seidler and Associates, the latter of which has remained involved with changes to the place since its completion, and as property developer Lend Lease’s principal commercial development project in Australia during the 1980s, the tower’s outstanding design quality has been widely recognised in Queensland and Australia through ongoing acknowledgement in publications and through accolades given by the architectural profession.
|Riverside Centre, a highly regarded, accomplished development that exhibits cohesive Modernist design principles, is aesthetically important for its high architectural quality.
\nThe visually striking office tower’s beautiful attributes are demonstrated through its well-composed symmetrical and sculptural triangular form, repetitive façade treatments of uniform dimensions, and impressive foyer incorporating modern artwork. The office tower’s centrality to and cohesiveness with the remainder of the place, in particular the surrounding plaza space, is emphasised by the well detailed, high-quality materials throughout (including large expanses of glass and stone), the floor strip finishes that radiate from the office tower’s foyer out through the plaza, and the open setting established by the plaza and low-rise south plaza building. The design, forms and layout of the Riverside Centre have impressive aesthetic qualities, notably through the juxtaposition between the office tower’s form and the expressive curvilinear forms of the cantilevered entrance canopy, south plaza building, and landscaped plaza (including stairs, sinuous walkway canopy, water feature that provides a visual link between the office tower and river, and curvilinear beam), and through the place’s strong visual and physical connection with the Brisbane River.
\nThrough the office tower’s riverfront siting, distinctive form and surrounding open plaza and low-rise plaza buildings, its beautiful attributes make a notable contribution to the cityscape vista of Brisbane CBD along the Town Reach of the Brisbane River, and from Kangaroo Point and the Story Bridge (QHR 600240).
|Riverside Centre, through its outstanding architectural excellence, is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative achievement in the late 20th century. Designed by renowned architect Harry Seidler AC OBE of Harry Seidler and Associates, the qualities of the place have been repeatedly recognised in architectural publications, critique and awards since its construction; most notably with the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) (Qld)’s award for Best Building in 1987, the RAIA’s national Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture in 1987, the RAIA (Qld)’s Robin Dods Triennial Medal in 1989, the First Prize in the Marble Architecture Awards (Carrara, Italy) in 1989, and the Australian Institute of Architecture (AIA) Queensland Chapter’s ‘25 Year Award for Enduring Architecture’ in 2011. These awards acclaim the Riverside Centre's: outstanding architectural quality; the office tower’s refined and rational design (including its form, scale, size, materials and structural system); impressive foyer with quality materials; considered responses to climate (including exterior sunshades tailored to orientation, and sky gardens); well-ordered urban design and the generous, open space of the plaza layout; and the highly-regarded physical and visual connection of the place to the Brisbane River.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19522,"place_ref":602402,"name":"New Farm Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"137 Sydney Street","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The basic Edwardian layout of the park, designed by Henry Moore, remains largely intact today, along with remnants from the late 1940s/early 1950s garden redesign undertaken by Harry Oakman. Various structures and rose gardens have also come and gone, but many of the earlier tree plantings remain.
New Farm Park's 15.0076 hectares currently contains a wide variety of trees, both mature and recent plantings, including jacarandas, poincianas, figs, palms, and coral trees. The central lawn within the jacaranda drive contains the remnants of the post-1948 rose garden arrangements, and an area of rainforest has been planted behind the library. In the shade of the trees near the kiosk site is an understorey of tropical plants, a character of park planting that is a distinct aspect of Brisbane's historic parks and large gardens.
Vehicle access occurs at the Oxlade Drive entrance, and the Library carpark. The main pedestrian entrances are at Dixon Street, the corner of Sydney Street and Brunswick Street, the old vehicle entrance on Brunswick Street between Sydney Street and Elystan Street, a path opposite Elystan Street, and a path running from the site of the old ferry terminal at the end of Brunswick Street. The jacaranda drive still follows its original course, and two of the original footpath routes within the drive still exist, radiating out from near the Oxlade Drive vehicle entrance. A new path runs between the kiosk site and the playground, and another new path links New Farm Park to the Brisbane Powerhouse.
Facilities include a sports oval, a playground surrounded by mature banyan trees, picnic and barbeque areas near the river, a croquet lawn and two tennis courts, a library, a half basketball court, and a canoe and boat ramp on the river.
Other structures include three toilets, three small shade shelters near the oval, a post-World War Two shed south of the kiosk site, a croquet clubroom, small shelters around the croquet lawn, a tennis court shelter, soccer clubroom, gardener's depot, bandstand, shelters in the playground, a large Marquee south of the kiosk site, interpretative history signs, and a concrete stairway near the river (1915). Sculptures have also been commissioned for the park, and the Sandakan Memorial has been built recently. A new ferry terminal has also been built adjacent to the park.
The main features of historical interest from the 1914 to 1939 period include the remaining half of the croquet lawn, the concrete stairway near the river, the sports oval near Sydney Street, the jacaranda drive, and the two remaining paved paths within the drive loop. The Federation Queen Anne style bandstand, with tiled bell-cast hip roof, is of particular interest.
Post World War Two features of interest include the remnants of Oakman's rose gardens design, the rectangular, hip-roofed masonry croquet clubhouse, and the post-war shed with tiled roof, which lies to the south of the kiosk site. This shed was an open picnic shelter until recently. The soccer clubroom by the sports oval also has an interesting mosaic mural on its northern side.
Besides the mature jacarandas and fig trees around the loop drive, other mature tree plantings of note include the various lines of palms, the weeping figs near the river, the banyan figs incorporated in the playground, the Queensland bottle trees shading the Brunswick Street barbeque area, poincianas along Brunswick Street and elsewhere, and remnants of Oakman's massed plantings of franpanis and bauhinias to form groves in a 'wild woodland' manner.
","history":"New Farm Park, created in 1914, currently covers 15.0076 hectares of land, and is bounded by Brunswick Street and Sydney Street, New Farm. It adjoins the Brisbane Powerhouse arts precinct and the Brisbane River.
Prior to European settlement, the New Farm area was covered with bush and dotted with shallow lagoons. It supported a variety of wildlife and proved a bountiful resource to local Aborigines. The area was called "Binkin-ba", or place of the land tortoise.
After a penal settlement was founded in 1825 at the location of the current Brisbane Central Business District, food was grown on cleared land in South Brisbane and the Botanical Gardens. In 1827 Captain Logan ordered the clearing of a new farm between the present day Merthyr Road and the river; drainage canals were dug, and convict labourers grew maize, potatoes, pumpkin, and corn. The convicts were marched to work each day from their main barracks in town, following a track on high ground that later became Moray Street. Due to the decline of the penal settlement following changes in British policy, free settlement began in Brisbane in 1842. A farmer named Prendegast appears to have planted maize at the new farm in 1842, although he was only leasing the land.
Speculators in 1844 purchased the new farm's lowlands, and tenant farming followed, with dairying and small crops. Early resident Richard Jones, later the first Brisbane Member in the New South Wales Parliament, acquired 93 acres in 1847, and called it "New Farm".
In 1846 the Moreton Bay Jockey Club moved its annual race from Coopers Plains to land at New Farm owned by Thomas Adams. This land included Eastern Suburban Allotments 22, 28, 29 and 30, located at the south-eastern corner of the New Farm peninsula. The first (members only) meeting was held in May 1846, and public attendance began at the 1848 three-day race meeting. By 1849 the "Brisbane Races" were being held over the Christmas-New Year's period. The race meetings moved to Eagle Farm in 1861.
Opinions vary as to the exact location of the racetrack itself. During the 1880s the land once owned by Thomas Adams was marketed for subdivision as the "Old Racecourse Estate", but allotments 28 to 30 included both the site of New Farm Park, as well as the land to the north of the small creek that formed the park's north-eastern boundary. In 1895, Merthyr Road was known as "Old Racecourse Road", and in 1913 the annual report of Henry Moore referred to the "old racecourse paddock" that was to become "New Farm Park". A 1925 aerial photo (John Oxley Library) appears to show the remains of the track on CSR land and the site of the Powerhouse, intersected by Lamington Street near the river.
As horse racing disappeared from the area, suburban Brisbane was growing. The Municipality of Brisbane was formed in 1859, and the small farms of New Farm gave way in the 1870s to the residences of Brisbane's elite. Sir Samuel Griffith purchased 80 acres bounded by Sydney Street and Moray Street in 1870, and built his residence "Merthyr" in 1881. Low-density residential development was also occurring in James Street, Brunswick Street, and Bowen Terrace by 1879. In 1884, suburban development was mainly contained within the Moray Street, Merthyr Road, and James Street area. Many estates were subdivided during the 1880s speculative boom, but they were not necessarily built on. This included the old racecourse lands, which had been resumed by the Australian Bank of Commerce. They were marketed as the "Russell Association Lands" in 1887, and the remaining subdivisions were offered for sale as the "Old Racecourse Estate" in 1888-89. The Colonial Sugar Refinery was built on part of this land in 1893.
Horse-drawn trams had extended their run along Brunswick Street to Langshaw Street by December 1885, the electrification of trams occurred after 1895, and the trams reached New Farm Park in 1926. Portions of New Farm's swamps were drained between 1884 and 1887, and open stone drains were built on the eastern side of the peninsula, being diverted along Merthyr Road to the river. The City of Brisbane absorbed the Booroodabin Shire in 1903, and finished the job of draining the area between 1903 and 1909.
In 1884 Nehemiah Bartley wrote a letter to the Brisbane Courier on the need for a recreation reserve for New Farm's growing population, but negotiations for a park at New Farm did not begin until 1911. By 1912, about 15 hectares (37 acres, 1 rood, 8 perches) of the Old Racecourse Estate remained unsold, the land lying to the south west of the small creek that entered the river at Norris Point. In June 1913 the Australian Bank of Commerce accepted the City's offer of £25,800 for the land.
The Brisbane City Council had been seeking control of the parks within its area, as trustees, who answered only to the Governor, usually administered the parks. Between 1887 and 1913 it gained full control of Wickham, Observatory, Hardgrave, Babbage, Albert, Alexandra and Victoria Parks. The International Town Planning movement that existed at the time also helped to put city planning and beautification programmes on the city's agenda. Between 1913 and 1925, Bowen, New Farm, Raymond, Newstead, Perry, Centenary and Teneriffe Parks were created.
In his Annual Report for 1914, City Parks Superintendent Henry Moore noted that work had begun at New Farm Park on the 18 May 1914. According to Moore, a main drive, over 1000 yards in length and varying from 33 to 60 ft wide, had been formed and prepared for gravelling, as had 950 yards of pedestrian walks, at 9 feet wide. The drive and walks were later laid with white Nundah gravel. Two lagoons, one with 2 islands and one with three islands, had been dug to a depth of 2 feet 6 inches, with 800 cubic yards of earth being removed and used to fill in an offset from the river that extended 200 yards into the park. Two acres had been trenched throughout to a depth from 1-2 feet for an ornamental flower garden, and 14 circular beds from 50-60 ft in diameter had been trenched to 2 feet deep, ready to plant. 386ft of earthenware pipes had been laid to drain the lower lagoon into an offset from the river, and 500 holes for trees, plants, shrubs, had been prepared. 650 trees, plants, shrubs had been planted, and 3 acres of low-lying and swampy ground filled to a depth of 18 inches and grassed. Five and a half acres of undulating ground had been graded in readiness for rolling out a sports ground. Over 100 jacarandas had been planted around the drive, and poincianas had been planted in a continuous line from Sydney Street along Brunswick Street to the river. Flame trees were to have been planted behind the jacarandas, for a colour contrast, but these do not seem to have eventuated.
Poinsettias had been planted in three circular beds, and bougainvilleas had been planted on both sides of a 160-yard walk, which may have been the path seen running East-West across the centre of the park within the jacaranda drive in a 1925 aerial photograph. 100 palms and been planted, most transplanted from other parks. The main clusters of these palms lie to the south of the Kiosk site; near the Powerhouse; along Brunswick Street between the poincianas; and either side of the two original pedestrian entrances from Brunswick Street, one opposite Elystan Street, and the other opposite Oxlade Drive. A double row of palms was also planted to the southeast of the original vehicle entrance for the drive, half way between Sydney Street and Elystan Street, and which is currently closed to vehicles. The concrete stairway near the river was probably built around this time.
Negotiations occurred in September 1914 with Mr and Mrs Pemberthy, who agreed to closure of Russell Street (now Alford) between Sydney Street and Dixon Street, and inclusion of this land in the park, on the condition that an entrance was formed at the end of Dixon Street.
In 1915 a kiosk and bandstand were constructed in the park. Albert Herbert Foster, who became City Architect in 1913, designed both. Built in the Federation Queen Anne style, of timber with a Marseilles terracotta-tiled, bell-cast hip roof, the kiosk included accommodation for a lessee. The tender price of £598, from Tealby and Leitch, was accepted in September 1915, with the contract to be carried out within 10 weeks. Located between the tennis courts and croquet lawns, it addressed the circular drive and the central pleasure gardens.
The bandstand was also built in the Federation Queen Anne style. In July 1915 the £359 tender of Legge, Gladwin and Co was accepted, construction to take 6 weeks. Until the Kiosk burnt down in 2000, it was one half of the last surviving kiosk-bandstand related group in Queensland. A kiosk and bandstand were built in Albert Park in 1911, a bandstand at Bowen Park (1914), and kiosks were built in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Moora Park (Sandgate) and Mt Coot-tha.
In 1916 two concrete cricket wickets and 2 football grounds were completed at the north-western side of New Farm Park, and a croquet site was selected in the northeast. The Croquet lawns were to form a break in the belt of trees on the park's north-eastern boundary, and until recently hedges always screened the lawns. Seven tennis courts were completed in 1917. However, World War One delayed an official opening for the park. At the opening of 20 July 1919, conducted by Governor Gould-Adams, Mayor Buchanan noted that the park had been created because the city was deficient in "lungs". 800 rose bushes had been planted, as well as fig trees and Chinese elms along the northern boundary and the river. Some figs were also planted around the drive, mainly on its southern side.
In 1920 the Prince of Wales visited the park, and the Bougainvillea Avenue was renamed the "Prince's Walk". In August 1922 two war trophies were added to the park: a 5.9" German howitzer, captured by the 26th Battalion east of Amiens in 1918, and a Albatross aircraft, one of the many German aircraft surrendered to Britain at the end of the war. The howitzer was mounted in the south-western corner of the park, between the concrete steps and the powerhouse, until its removal to the Crosby nursery in 1955 due the deterioration of its wheels. The Albatross was kept in a shelter nearby, and was removed in 1931. The shelter appears to have still existed in 1955.
The small creek that formed the park's original north-eastern boundary was filled in over time. In 1917 a Brisbane City Council minute called for it to be filled as far as the drain from the kiosk. The creek was still present on a 1921 map, but in January 1922 a Brisbane City Council minute noted that the watercourse on the park's northern boundary had been reclaimed, and that a new boundary fence was required due to the addition of CSR land to the park. In September 1921 the CSR Refinery planned to extend Lamington Street to the river, which would cut off part of New Farm Park, but the company offered allotments in Richardson Street and Cowley Street, where the playground is today, as compensation. When the Brisbane Tramway Powerhouse (decommissioned in 1971) was built in 1927-28 straddling the site of the creek, it occupied some undeveloped parkland, and the present boundary of New Farm Park was thus set by 1927. To screen the Powerhouse, some trees were planted in the 1930s, but they have since been removed.
In 1935 the main drive was sealed with bitumen to reduce the dust problem, but a shelter for a visitor's book that was proposed the same year did not eventuate. In 1938 it was decided to create a proper cricket oval, with land filling to the level of Sydney Street, although this would only contain one football field. Two dressing sheds were built near the oval in 1938, and basketball courts were constructed 1938-39, around the tennis courts that existed in the northern corner of the park- currently the library's carpark. In 1940 it was proposed to remove the bougainvillea hedge (visible in a 1937 aerial photo) from around the rose gardens, and to plant more jacarandas around the drive. There were supposedly 20,000 rose bushes in the park by 1940, according to the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau. The old rose bed design of Moore's can be clearly seen in a 1937 aerial photograph, but by 1946 this design was a ghost of its former self.
Harry Oakman (1906-2002) conducted the first major redesign of the park from 1948 onwards, with a new rose garden layout being developed by 1953. Oakman had been Head Gardener, Department of Parks, for Newcastle City Council from 1940 to1946, and was Manager of Parks and Gardens for the Brisbane City Council from 1946 to1963. He later worked in Canberra, and wrote seven books on tropical and sub-tropical gardening.
Oakman added new pedestrian paths in a loop inside the main drive, lookouts over the rose gardens, and planted new trees and shrubs, while maintaining most of the original tree plantings. A rose pergola was built in 1954, between the Oxlade Drive entrance and the bandstand, a children's playground was constructed in 1955 (later upgraded in 1962 and 1987). A new vehicle entrance was formed opposite Oxlade Drive in 1958-59. A new croquet clubhouse appears to have been built between 1952 and 1955, along with new toilets. A shed was also constructed south of the kiosk by 1951. A Memorial drinking fountain honouring Mrs Henry Robertson, founder of Junior Red Cross, was built in 1948. It was later damaged and was removed, being replaced in 1968 at Mrs Robertson's request.
However, Oakman's main triumph was his redesign of the rose beds. He believed that the roses should be organised by variety and colour, so that the public could be educated on the subject. In 1953 Henry Moore criticized Oakman's approach, but Oakman responded that the "loss" of roses that Moore was concerned about was simply an ongoing process of replacing old bushes with new plantings, better organised. Oakman also noted that 30-odd years of incompetent management had led Brisbane's parks to their current state of "dereliction". In October 1947 Oakman had been critical of the Brisbane City Council's practice of cutting roses to supply council offices, pointing out that 5656 dozen blooms had been appropriated over the previous year.
A 1950 planting list included 2,500 rose plants, and by September 1953 a total stock of 5,325 bushes is listed in Brisbane City Council reports. This figure increased to 10,227 by 1957. Some Brisbane City Council sources claim that 11,000 bushes of 300 varieties were planted in 1962, although another Brisbane City Council source claims that this was the total stock at the time. An article in the Telegraph, 6 March 1965, claimed that there were 40,000 roses bushes in New Farm Park, which made it one of Australia's top three rose gardens. After the 1974 flood covered the rose beds in up to 5cm of toxic silt, 4,000 new rose bushes were ordered in 1974, and 3,000 more in 1975.
A library was also built in the Park in 1975, despite local opposition to the loss of open space. A Report by the Queensland Conservation Council released that year claimed that Brisbane's parks were, in general, often flat, lacking in trees and natural water features, and had too much emphasis on built-recreation facilities. The report argued that too many buildings, sports clubs, car parks, and roads all defeated the purpose of parks as open spaces.
In 1969 a new sports clubhouse was built, and in 1979 a clock tower and time capsule, for Rotary International's 75th anniversary, was installed near the Oxlade Drive vehicle entrance. In 1984, a light German field gun was removed from the playground to go to the 2/14 Light Horse Regiment's museum. Captured by the Light Horse in Palestine in World War One, the gun had been sited by the Sandgate pier from 1923 onwards. At some point it had come to rest in New Farm Park.
A 1991 study by R.J. Dobbs (Brisbane City Council parks management officer) found that the most popular areas of the park were the playground, barbeques, oval and bandstand. The main usage groups in 1991, according to Dobbs, included mothers and children, the handicapped and elderly, joggers and exercisers, tourists, picnic groups, wedding parties, social functions, and sports groups.
Since a 1991 concept plan was developed for the park, jacarandas have been planted around the oval, a rainforest walk and a half basketball court has been established behind the library, and more picnic tables and barbeques have been added near the river. A path has been built between the kiosk site and the playground, running between the croquet lawns and the drive; the park has been linked to the Brisbane Powerhouse arts precinct, the Oxlade Drive entry has been upgraded, and a new pedestrian entry has been created at the corner of Sydney Street and Brunswick Street. Interpretive history signs have also been added at places in the park. Two tennis courts and a shelter were built on one half of the croquet lawns after 2001. A new ferry terminal has been built recently, and in 2004 controversy has surrounded plans to build a new, larger kiosk to replace the 1915 kiosk destroyed in 2000.
Features that have been lost over time include the bougainvillaea planted around the rose gardens (gone between 1940-1946); the two lagoons, and the east-west pedestrian path through the centre of the park (gone by 1937); the tennis courts and basketball courts lost when the library was built in 1975; two old dressing sheds near the oval; sightboards at the north-east and south-west sides of the oval; an iron gateway on the south-eastern side of the oval; two old toilets between the Dixon Street entrance and the croquet lawns, and the 1954 rose pergola. An arbour that replaced the latter has also been removed since 2001. The 5.9" memorial gun, the Albatross aircraft and its shelter, and a caretaker's cottage that once stood on the north-east boundary, north-west of the gardeners' depot, have also departed. In addition, the Oakman-era oval pathway inside the jacaranda drive, marked by the surviving mature poincianas, and most of Oakman's 1948-1953 rose gardens design, which was laid out within the circuit of the jacaranda drive, has disappeared. There was also a shelter just inside the loop road, on its northern side. The part of the surviving rose gardens that most closely resembles Oakman's original design is the large spiral near the bandstand. The original vehicle entrance is currently blocked to cars. In 2000, a four-month trial by the Brisbane City Council of an Aboriginal homeless shelter near the playground was ended by the State of Queensland. Dog toilets have also come and gone recently.
Current park use includes both active and passive use. Active use ranges from sports use, such as soccer, football, croquet, tennis, basketball and boule, to social events and festivals, playground use, weddings, and cycling and jogging. More passive uses include picnics, strolls through the gardens, listening to brass bands every second Sunday, and tourists visiting to witness the jacarandas bloom.
","criteria":"The changing land use in and around New Farm Park, from Aboriginal resource, to convict farm, from tenant farming to racecourse, from elite residences to suburban subdivision, and finally to parkland, demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's history, and the process of the creation of open spaces as an area's population grew. The Brisbane City Council's purchase of the land at New Farm reflected its interest in the international Town Planning movement of the time. Redesigns of the park also demonstrate changes in parks philosophy and use over time, with a shift in emphasis from genteel Edwardian ornamental gardens and leisure activities, to barbeques and jogging.
|The Edwardian 1915 bandstand is rare. The park itself can also be considered as a rare example of a new park being designed by Henry Moore, as his other projects involved redeveloping existing parkland (including Bowen and Newstead Parks). The remaining croquet lawn is also uncommon in Queensland.
|The Edwardian bandstand is a very fine example of its type.
|The park's vistas, jacaranda drive, river frontage, rose gardens, subtropical shrubberies and mature trees including palms, figs and poincianas, demonstrate an established subtropical garden character and are well appreciated by the public.
|The first Brisbane City Parks Superintendent (from 1912), Henry Moore, horticulturalist and landscape gardener, displayed a high degree of creativity in his initial design of New Farm Park. Features such as the jacaranda drive continue to impress the public. Harry Oakman, landscape architect, also displayed creativity in his post-1948 re-design of the park including the rose beds, although only a remnant of this rose garden design remains. Both men were also innovators in the field of tropical garden design.
|The park has a long-standing and strong association with the local community, including the post-war Italian community. The playground is very popular with local mothers and children, and festival organisers, wedding parties, sportspeople, the elderly, and picnickers use other parts of the park.
|New Farm Park also has an association with the life and work of people of importance: Henry Moore, Harry Oakman, and Albert Herbert Foster, Brisbane's City Architect from 1913 to 1932.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19523,"place_ref":602403,"name":"Crows Nest Post Office","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"19 Curnow Street","suburb":"CROWS NEST","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-27","description":"The Crows Nest Post Office is a single storey timber building set on low stumps and is located prominently on the corner of Curnow Street and Toowoomba Road. It is the type identified as T18 by the National Estate Study of Historic Post Offices in Queensland, being an intact single porch and gable post office with frontages to both streets.
The post office has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron with a decorative lantern on the roof ridge. The northern elevation has a projecting gable with an adjoining porch, over which the main roof is extended and is supported by paired timber posts. The main entrance is through the porch and is reached by stairs with timber handrails. There is a bank of triple sash windows in the gable and a sun hood shades these. Banks of windows are on either side of the building, those on the western side also shaded by a hood.
The interior of the building is lined with painted tongue and groove boards and has a high ceiling. Changes, such as a more modern counter, appear to be minor.
To the rear of the post office is the residence. This is a high set timber building with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The elevation facing the street has pairs of casement windows above a low timber wall that appears to be an early adaptation of a verandah. The main entrance is currently on the eastern side of the building, which has windows of a form similar to those on the post office.
","history":"Crows Nest Post office was constructed in 1911 and is the second purpose built post office in the town, which is the centre of a rural area whose industry is based on cattle and sheep and increasingly, on tourism.
In 1843 Campbell McDonald of Durandan run took out a depasturing licence for the Crows Nest area and in 1849 James Canning Pearce took up the first pastoral license. His head station comprised huts, yards and a large fenced paddock. The run passed through a number of owners before being acquired by WB Tooth in 1858. In 1868, under the Crown Lands Alienation Act, Tooth gained a lease for half of the run, the rest being resumed by the Crown and opened up for closer settlement.
The Crow's Nest station was unsuccessful and was abandoned; the lease was forfeited for non-payment of rent and the land opened for selection in 1875. Two timber reserves of 960 acres and 5665 acres were declared and in 1876 reserves for a township and cemetery were made. Settlement at Crows Nest was begun in the vicinity of the station homestead, which is thought to have been near the present police station. The town was surveyed in February 1877 and the first land sale was held in April of that year. A hotel was erected soon afterwards and a Court of Petty Sessions was instituted with J T Littleton, a local landholder, as Police Magistrate. A telegraph office was opened on 17 October 1877 and in 1878 a post office was opened in the same modestly scaled premises, which were situated in Albert Street.
In 1886 a branch railway line from Toowoomba reached Crows Nest, its purpose being to principally to provide transport for timber from the Crows Nest and Pechey area, but also to encourage the development of farming and dairying along its route. Becoming the railhead for such a line made Crows Nest an important commercial centre but the railway initially caused some problems because the line passed the settlement at a point north of the town centre. As a consequence the business centre shifted closer to the railway station, a large paddock in the vicinity having been purchased and subdivided for sale by the time of the station's opening. The post office moved to the railway station in December 1886 and for some time the Station Master performed postal duties, a common arrangement in small centres where the railway station was the focus of communications and movement of goods.
The area thrived and the township developed quickly in the early 1900s. In 1905 two banks opened branches in Crows Nest and a newspaper, the 'Crow's Nest Record' was established. A butter and bacon factory was built and there were several sawmills in the area, including a large planing factory built in 1907. In 1906, Percy Gargett, a newsagent, won the contract to conduct postal, telegraph and telephone services at Crows Nest and had a building constructed in Curnow Street next to McDiarmid's store.
Although in 1901 the Commonwealth Post Master General's Dept was created, transfer of responsibility from the colonies to new organizations was gradual. The Commonwealth administration upgraded buildings and facilities in towns associated with agricultural and pastoral expansion, such as Crows Nest. New post offices were built in some towns and others had facilities upgraded. In 1911, an official post office, the current building, was constructed at the corner of Curnow and Toowoomba Road, conveniently close to the railway station.
The new post office was built to a standard type designed by the Queensland Works Department. A timber building with a single porch and gable and a lantern surmounting the roof, it was a variation of the form that became one of the most readily identifiable post office styles. Post office buildings constructed in Queensland between 1906 and 1921 achieved a high standard of design and construction and architecturally, the porch and gable type is significant for the quality of construction and detail, for the resolution of climatic considerations, and for the visual appeal of its form. While the buildings referred to a standard type, designs for individual post offices were modified to suit each site and local needs. 13 post offices of this type were constructed between 1909 and 1913, mainly to serve small towns in South East Queensland. Not all of these survive and some are no longer post offices.
Crows Nest thrived and by 1921 had a population of over a 1000, close to the present population level. The railway closed in 1961 and the track, buildings and yards were removed, the land being used for other purposes, including a park.
The Post Office is still in use for its original function, though it is now privately owned. It has changed little since first constructed.
","criteria":"Crows Nest Post Office is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland history, being a facility erected during the period before the First World War when the new Commonwealth government made a policy of upgrading postal services to developing agricultural and pastoral communities. It reflects the growth of Crows Nest and its importance as a railhead and commercial centre for the surrounding district in the early years of the 20th century.
|Crows Nest Post Office is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a timber porch and gable post office building of the period 1906-1921, designed by the Queensland Works Department, which was instrumental in improving the quality of building design and construction in Queensland.
|Crows Nest Post Office has aesthetic significance as a well-designed and distinctive public building. Its position with elevations to both Curnow Street, and Toowoomba Road makes it prominent in the townscape of Crows Nest to which it makes an important visual contribution.
|Crows Nest Post Office has had a long connection with the people of Crows Nest and the surrounding district as a provider of communication services that have been conducted from this building since 1911 until the present time.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19524,"place_ref":602404,"name":"Yeppoon State School (former)","alternate_name":"Queen Street Community Hall","street_address":"29 Queen Street","suburb":"YEPPOON","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-03","description":"The former Yeppoon State School is a single storey timber building clad with weatherboards, set on high timber stumps set into a concrete base. The building has a gabled roof running east-west, clad with asbestos cement sheeting. The building appears to have been extended on the north-east side. This section also has a gable roof clad with asbestos cement sheeting.
The building has a centrally located porch, on the southern side, with a gable roof. Timber steps, lead to a concrete landing. The central gable is infilled with timber shingles, below which is a rounded lintel with dentils. The central gable and end gables have plain bargeboards. Similar to the central gable, the end gables at the western and eastern sides of the building are infilled with timber shingles. Timber, louvred ventilation openings are located high in the western and eastern elevations. The building has verandahs to the north and south sides.
The southern elevation, the main entrance to the building, has two double timber doors leading to the main internal room. Located above the two doors are timber framed rectangular window openings with each holding three square panes of glass. The front [southern] verandah has been enclosed on the western side with two, two-pane early casement windows still in-situ. The verandah has timber balustrading with timber posts and heavy, curved timber brackets.
The western elevation has a large feature window with eight rectangular timber framed openings, divided into three levels by different types of windows. The bottom level has casements; the second level has pivoting windows and the top level has fixed windows which slope in an easterly direction toward the main room of the building. At the top of the windows, between them and on the outer wall is a panel of mesh. The window is surmounted by a timber framed hood clad with corrugated iron.
The rear [northern] verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards and louvres at the eastern end and with vertically joined timbers on the western side. The enclosed area at the western end has early timber framed, sliding glass windows in-situ. Along the eastern elevation, the later gabled extension to the building has two rectangular window openings with each holding three square panes of glass. The window is surmounted by a timber framed window hood. A similar window feature is located along the northern elevation of the later extension.
A steel and concrete staircase is located on the northern side of the building leading to concrete stairs, which in turn, lead to the rear of the site and a concrete court area.
Internally, the building is composed of one large room which was originally partitioned into two classroom. The room has two circular ceiling vents with lattice covers. Tie-rods run from the northern to southern walls at both the western and eastern ends. The ceiling is lined with timber boards and is level in the centre with the northern and southern sides sloping at an angle to the wall. The walls are also lined with timber boards.
Evidence remains of a folding partition across the centre of the building which would have divided the large room into two smaller classrooms. Hinge marks are located on vertical posts on each side along with reinforced brass holes in the floor for bolts. There are hinged flaps in the skirting boards. Some of these have their original hinges and bolts. There are four doors in the building-two on the southern side and two on the northern. The two on the southern side are original double doors, while only the door on the western end of the northern wall is an original double door. The door at the eastern end of the northern wall is a later addition.
There are two sets of four pivoting windows on the northern and southern sides. These are placed opposite each other above the doors. There are three mullions in each set of windows and each window has three panes. In each set the windows are paired and attached together with a bar so that opening one opens its partner.
Very high up on the walls there are some old hooks which may have been used to hang charts. There are four on the northern wall, one on the west and one on the east. Some of these only retain their base plate and the hook has been broken off.
Toilets, constructed of besser block, are located in the central western side of the undercroft area. The north-eastern corner of the undercroft has also been enclosed with timber flooring and a timber frame clad with corrugated iron.
The site on which the hall is located slopes in a northerly direction away from Queen Street, with Queen Street sloping from east to west. The grounds are uneven with rocky outcrops and roughly grassed with remnant original plantings. Terraces have been constructed with dry-stone rubble walls. Mature plantings on the site include two large, frangipani trees as well as shrubs such as loquats.
A stone retaining wall has also been constructed on the southern side of the site with timber balustrading running east-west indicating the extent of the wall. A picket fence is located at the front of the building along the Queen Street frontage.
","history":"The former Yeppoon State School was constructed in 1889, following the establishment of the Provisional School in 1885.
In 1867, residents of Rockhampton signed a petition asking the Surveyor-General to mark out a town at the nearest point on the central Queensland coast where they might be able to enjoy a day at the beach. An area to become know as Bald Hills [and later still Yeppoon] was proclaimed a Town Reserve on 30 April 1868. Rockhampton residents also demanded that the government proclaim a second site, Emu Park, around 35 kilometres from Rockhampton, as Town Reserve. It was considered by the residents that it would be necessary to cater for the future needs of the expanding town of Rockhampton. Emu Park was declared a Town Reserve on 9 January 1869.
Following its gazettal as a town, Yeppoon remained comparatively unpopular with Rockhampton residents, who preferred Emu Park, consequently, it was pastoralists and selectors who were the first to settle and develop the Yeppoon area. The land in the area was very fertile, with a yearly average rainfall higher that than of either Rockhampton or Emu Park, and by 1878, the immediate Yeppoon hinterland had been largely developed for agriculture, with the surrounding area used for grazing.
The beginning of the 1880s brought changes to the district as people began to take more of an interest in the town. Between 1881 and 1884, it was predominantly residents of the area who purchased the remaining 30 town lots. These lots had not sold at the first land sales in 1873. When an additional town area was surveyed in 1881, however, these lots had all sold out by 1885.
The first school opened in Yeppoon was a provisional school which opened in 1885 with 25 pupils. At the time, it was necessary to show that there were at least 30 pupils ready to be enrolled before a state school could be provided. By January 1889, enrolments had grown, with 60 children at the school. At this time, a new building was constructed to accommodate the larger number of children. As the first school was a provisional school, the existing building is the first state school in Yeppoon.
In January 1884, Mr James Atherton, on behalf of the community requested that the Department of Public Instruction for a teacher to be appointed to teach the Yeppoon children. Along with the request, Mr Atherton offered his house for the purpose.
On 7 June 1884, the application to have a provisional school established at Yeppoon was sent to the Department explaining why a school was needed. The current site was chosen [although the area was not set aside as a Reserve for School until March 1888]. On 18 June 1884, the Minister for Public Instruction, Sir Samuel Griffiths, approved the application, and finally, on 4 May 1885, Provisional School number 442 opened at Yeppoon.
By September 1888, the Yeppoon community again wrote to the Department of Public Instruction, on this occasions requesting an application form for the establishment of a state school. The formal application was sent on 31 October 1888.
On 21 March 1889, a tender in the Queensland Government Gazette called for the construction of new State School Buildings at Yeppoon. The new school was opened in August the same year. At this time, the old provisional school building was added to the teacher's residence in order to enlarge it.
Several extensions and additions to the school were added over the years, including a fifteen foot extension in July 1900 [possibly the extension to the north-east side of the building ]; other additions in January 1901; repairs in July 1911; commencement of the planting of gardens in April 1917 and new school buildings in 1918. In June 1930, tenders were called for the purchase and removal of the teacher's residence. By July 1929, tenders were invited for the construction of additions to the school, following which, an eastern wing, with two classrooms was opened.
On 10 June 1945, a public meeting was held to discuss the urgent need for representations to be made to the Minster for Education requesting that a new school on a new site be provided as both the existing school and site had become overcrowded. It was to take some time before the Department a new school site, and once again, three more classrooms were added to the eastern wing - two in 1950 and one in 1953.
Finally, in August 1955, the Department of Education acquired an area of 42 acres in Jeffries Street and the site was set aside as a school reserve. The Queen Street school became the Infants' School consisting of the 1889 building, including offices and staff rooms. The remaining buildings were moved to the Jeffries Street site to form part of the new state school. The site remained the site of the Infants' School until 1971, when it became a Reserve for Recreation Purposes, when the building became a fitness centre. The adjacent land, now a freehold block, remains as offices of the Yeppoon and District Kindergarten Association.
In July 1993, the Reserve for Recreation Purposes was rescinded and the site became a Reserve for Local Government Purposes, with a sub-purpose as a local hall. Since that time, the former Yeppoon State School building has been used as a community hall, and continues to be used regularly by various community groups.
","criteria":"Constructed in 1889, the former Yeppoon State School is significant as the first state school established in Yeppoon, following the establishment of the provisional school in 1885. The former school building provides evidence of the growth of the Yeppoon and surrounding area during the 1880s due to the increasing attraction of coastal living. The former Yeppoon State School is further significant providing evidence of the development of the education system throughout Queensland.
|Largely intact, the former Yeppoon State School is significant as an example of a building type developed by the Department of Public Works for the Department of Public Instruction. The former Yeppoon State School building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a building of its type by its form and use of materials, reflecting the ways in which architects of the Works Department have addressed problems of light and ventilation in response to climatic conditions, particularly the use of large feature windows and hinged skirting boards to allow for cross ventilation.
|Its simple form and materials contribute to the aesthetic significance of the place and the contribution of the building to the Queen Street streetscape.
|The former Yeppoon State School is important for its connection with the community in and around Yeppoon as a provider of public education for several generations. The former Yeppoon State School is further significant for its later use as community hall.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19527,"place_ref":602408,"name":"St Andrews Presbyterian Church (former)","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Presbyterian Church | St Andrews Presbyterian Church | St Andrews Church | St Andrew’s Church","street_address":"65 Ipswich Street","suburb":"ESK","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-06-11","description":"St Andrews Presbyterian Church (former), Esk is a modest, timber church located in Esk. Standing at the intersection of Ipswich and Middle Streets, the town’s main thoroughfares, the building faces west towards Middle Street and is in landscaped grounds with open lawns and boundary plantings. The nearby hall, manse and sheds are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of St Andrews Presbyterian Church (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nChurch building (1876 and 1900 extension)
\nThe timber-framed and clad church is low-set and rectangular in plan with its short sides facing west (front) and east. It has a steep gable roof with a small timber belfry, small gable roofed front entry porch at its western end and a series of lancet windows down both long sides. Wide double doors from the porch lead in to the nave, which has raked ceilings with exposed scissor trusses. A sanctuary is at the eastern end of the nave, one step up from the nave floor level, it features an altar rail; curved and raised dais with turned timber balustrade; and lectern, which are early fabric. A part height partition separates the sanctuary from the former Sunday school room (later the vestry) which occupies the eastern end of the building and has a separate eastern entrance. The sanctuary and former Sunday school room are likely an early extension made in 1900, which follows the earlier building in structure, materials and detail. The addition is clearly delineated in the exterior weatherboards and interior wall linings.
\nFeatures of the church building of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the church building not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nChurch grounds
\nThe church building stands in a simple landscaped setting of open lawns and boundary planting providing an uncomplicated rural character and allowing for natural lighting and ventilation of the church’s interior spaces.
\nFeatures of the church grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the church grounds not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSt Andrews Presbyterian Church (former), is a timber-framed, gothic-influenced building, dating from 1876, located in the town of Esk in the Brisbane Valley, approximately 53km northwest of Ipswich. It was established as the first Presbyterian Church in the Brisbane Valley through the initiative of David Cannon McConnel and his wife Mary, of Cressbrook Station, who maintained a close association with the church. In 1887, the church was moved to its current site on the corner of Middle Street and Ipswich Street (Brisbane Valley Highway) and served the Brisbane Valley community for approximately 125 years.
\nThe town of Esk (also known as Mount Esk, Sandy Creek and Gallanani) lies within the traditional lands of the Jagera People. Esk developed on land resumed from the former Mount Esk pastoral run, which was established in 1842. European settlement at the town site began with a teamsters' camp at the crossing of Sandy (or Esk) Creek on the coach road north from Ipswich to Nanango in the Burnett region. A township site was surveyed on the east side of Sandy Creek in 1872 and the first building, a hotel, was constructed in January 1873.[1] The town grew steadily during the 1870s as a service town after the resumption of pastoral land in the Brisbane Valley for agricultural settlement under the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868.[2]
\nSt Andrews Presbyterian Church at Esk was the first Presbyterian church built in the Brisbane Valley and one of the earliest known rural Presbyterian churches in the West Moreton region. Presbyterians were present in the future Queensland from 1838 (Moreton Bay settlement), with Rev. Thomas Mowbray as their first resident minister from 1847 and the first Presbyterian church opening in Grey Street, South Brisbane in 1851. Other congregations followed settlement throughout the colony. By 1863, the year in which the Presbyterian Church of Queensland formed, Presbyterian congregations existed in Toowoomba, Ipswich, Warwick, Rockhampton, Gladstone and Maryborough.[3] In 1875 there were 15 ordained Presbyterian ministers in Queensland.[4] Rural Presbyterian churches in the West Moreton region known to pre-date the church at Esk were established at Warrill Creek (before June 1872), Laidley (November 1872), Murphy’s Creek (May 1876), and Helidon (June 1876).[5]
\nThe church at Esk was established through the efforts of high profile members of Queensland’s early Presbyterian church, David Cannon McConnel (1818-1885), who established Cressbrook pastoral run in the Brisbane Valley in 1841, and his wife, Mary (née McLeod, 1824-1910).[6] McConnel, the son of a prosperous Manchester mill owner, became a successful pastoralist and cattle breeder at Cressbrook and a large landholder and farmer in Brisbane.[7] Both David McConnel and his wife were ‘imbued with principles of religious non-conformity, educational enlightenment and middle-class culture’.[8] Mary McConnel is recognised for her philanthropic works in the Colony of Queensland, especially her role in founding the Brisbane Children’s Hospital in 1878.[9]
\nIn honour of their 25th wedding anniversary in 1873, the McConnels advocated for a Presbyterian Church to be built in Esk and established a subscription to fund its construction. Alexander Raff, pastoralist, politician, businessman and later Elder of the Presbyterian Church, and other Brisbane Valley pastoralists, donated money towards the building.[10] On 15 August 1873, Mary McConnel purchased a one-acre (0.41ha) suburban allotment in Middle Street, in the recently surveyed township east of Sandy Creek.[11] The McConnels paid for the land to be cleared and fenced.[12] On 10 April 1876, a further four, one-acre (0.41ha) suburban allotments, contiguous to the first allotment, were purchased by Mary McConnel. These allotments, between East and Middle Streets, occupied the northeast corner and highest land of the town site.[13] St Andrews Presbyterian Church was most likely erected on the allotment purchased in 1873.
\nThe first recorded event at St Andrews Presbyterian Church was a service conducted by the recently arrived Rev. David Watt, M.A., on 12 February 1876.[14] Like many other rural churches of this period in Queensland, the small timber church replicated those of England, with Gothic-influenced architecture, steep roof, and lancet windows.[15]
\nOn 23 April 1876, the Rev. Watt was inducted by the Rev. Colin McCulloch, Commissioner of the Presbytery of Brisbane, into the newly formed charge (parish) of Esk Town and district.[16] On that occasion, Rev. McCulloch stated:
\nThe hearty thanks of all interested in the new charge are due to the surrounding stations for their ready and cordial support, and especially to DC McConnel, Esq. of Cressbrook, and his lady. But for their influence and liberal aid, Esk might have remained for years to come without a church or a minister…[17]
\nBy early 1877, David McConnel had purchased the current site of St Andrews Presbyterian Church from its first recorded owner, Patrick Lawlor.[18] This allotment was situated opposite the convergence of the Gatton to Esk Road and the Ipswich to Esk Road. The church most likely stood on the rise above it. Tenders were invited for the erection of a clergyman's residence at Esk in October 1876 with plans and specifications viewable at Messrs George H Wilson and Co (Agent), Ipswich.[19] By 12 January 1877, the Presbyterian manse, sited in the northwest corner of the newly acquired allotment, was almost completed.[20] In October 1878, the church and manse were described as ‘a very neat church and a comfortable manse’.[21]
\nThe 1880s were a period of growth for Esk. In 1884, two sawmills opened and in 1886 the railway reached the town, though it was located on the opposite bank of Sandy Creek from the established settlement. In time, the commercial centre of town shifted closer to the railway station and yards.[22] Most buildings were moved to the western side of Sandy Creek or were built there, including the Roman Catholic (1884) and Anglican (1889) churches. The Methodist church built on the east side (1883) was moved to Toogoolawah in 1906 and the later Methodist church was sited on the west side of the creek. In 2020, only the former St Andrews Presbyterian Church, Esk State School and some houses remain, marking the first settlement on the eastern side of Sandy Creek. In 1888 a small portion of the Presbyterian church land on Ipswich Street to the rear of the church (0.11ha) was leased for 21 years to Arthur Henry Thompson (Stock, Station and Commission Agent, and Auctioneer) and Walter Francis, as joint tenants, with its £10pa rent used for improvements to the church property.[23]
\nProbably as a result of the transfer of the town centre to the west side of Sandy Creek, the church was moved ‘from the hill to…near the manse’[24] – its current site – in October 1887. The church was positioned to the south of the 1877 manse (removed c1947), in an open setting with perimeter plantings; its front entrance facing west and accessed via a pathway from a gateway on the corner of Ipswich and Middle Streets.[25] This relocation was funded by the charge, especially the stations of Cressbrook, Colinton and Manumbar.[26]
\nThe McConnels actively supported the Presbyterian Church at Esk after its establishment. In July 1883, the McConnels transferred the land on which the church and manse stood, and the five nearby allotments owned by Mary McConnel, (five acres / 2.02ha), to the Presbyterian Church of Queensland.[27] David McConnel served on the Esk Presbyterian Church’s Committee of Management until his death in 1885.[28]
\nMary McConnel’s association with the church continued. In 1898 she opened the Presbyterian church bazaar in Esk.[29] In 1899 prior to her departure overseas, the chairman of the Presbyterian Church committee:
\nspoke of the work of the church and Sunday-school by Mrs McConnel, sen, of Cressbrook…. the friend they respected and loved, and to whom they were indebted for so many improvements in the church. The presentation of an illuminated scroll [not extant in 2020] was gratefully acknowledged, which…added considerably to the appearance of the window at the east end of the interior of the church.[30]
\nMary McConnel’s close association with the Esk Presbyterian Church was commemorated in 1907 when church members planted two ornamental trees in the church grounds: ‘on either side of the entrance gates … in memory of Mrs DC McConnel and Mr George Smith, both…energetic church workers for many years.’[31] These memorial trees were most likely planted on either side of the historical corner entrance to the church site, shown in a c1897 photograph.[32]
\nOther members of the McConnel family were involved with St Andrews Presbyterian Church at Esk. David Rose McConnel of Cressbrook (son of David and Mary McConnel) attended the soiree that celebrated the church’s move in 1887 and in 1889 he was serving on its committee.[33] When Henry Plantagenet Somerset, MLA, opened the Esk Presbyterian Church’s ‘Scotch Tryst’ (bazaar) on St Andrews Day 1908, he stated his wife [Katharine Rose McConnel], ‘the daughter of the founder of the Presbyterian Church in Esk…had taken a keen interest in its progress’.[34]
\nThe Presbyterian church continued to grow within the Brisbane Valley. By 1885, there were congregations at Biarra, Moombra, Esk, Wivenhoe, Deep Creek and Cressbrook and the Esk charge was 64km long.[35] Other Presbyterian churches opened as the community grew, such as Wivenhoe on 30 January 1890.[36]
\nAlthough Esk experienced difficulties in the 1890s due to flooding and financial recession, the 1900s were a period of growth. Dairying developed into a major industry in the fertile Brisbane Valley following its establishment in the 1890s. Cream depots operated by local farmers opened at Esk and other centres, and the opening of the Cressbrook Condensed Milk Factory in 1898 boosted milk production in the upper Brisbane Valley.[37] Dairying in the area expanded and a butter factory was built in Esk c1903. In 1908, the population of Esk exceeded 600 and in 1913, the town was officially named Esk.[38]The boom in dairying lasted until the end of World War I with several small revivals later.[39]
\nReligious instruction for children at Sunday school was integral to the Presbyterian church. Fund-raising for a hall for Sunday school purposes commenced c1899 when the Sunday school enrolment was 69 scholars. In 1900 the church was extended for a little over £70 to erect a Sunday school ‘of the same size as the current building…and…attached to it’.[40] This work almost doubled the length of the church, moved the sanctuary eastward to create more seating and added a room behind the sanctuary, which presumably was used as a Sunday school as intended. Completion of the extension was celebrated in July 1900.[41]
\nBy 1908, Sunday school enrolments had risen to 90.[42] In 1909 the Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser newspaper reported the church’s recent purchase of a hall for Sunday school use, the debt on which needed to be repaid. The siting of this hall is unknown, but it was possibly the former stock and station agent building located behind the church on the site of the current manse.[43] Numerous newspaper articles reported activities in the St Andrews hall from 1909 to 1930 – for Sunday school, social and fund-raising events, and as a temporary hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919.[44] In 1933 the church was fund-raising for its renovation; however, the building was removed from the site by June 1949.[45]
\nRepairs and changes to the church have occurred during its lifetime. In September 1878, a hailstorm broke windows of the church and manse, necessitating replacement.[46] The congregation in 1884 raised funds to ‘improve the little church building, which was cold and draughty’.[47] Throughout 1920 and 1921 the church raised funds for renovating and painting St Andrews church and manse. Repairs to the church, hall and manse took place by March 1922 after damage from a cyclonic storm in November 1920.[48] In December 1926, another hailstorm broke 16 window panes in the church.[49]
\nSt Andrews Presbyterian Church at Esk celebrated its 50th anniversary in February 1926 with a re-union tea held in Esk’s Lyceum Hall, attended by Rev. Mervyn Henderson, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland and Principal of Emmanuel College, University of Queensland.[50]
\nIn 1947 the 70-year-old church manse was reportedly sold for removal and plans for a new manse were submitted to Esk Shire Council.[51] In mid-1948, Reverend AD Calvert (ministering at Esk July 1948-February 1950) moved into the new manse, located east of the church,[52] which the Queensland Moderator of the Presbyterian Church dedicated on 19 March 1949.[53]
\nA small gabled timber building with a metal roof was added to the site, northeast of the rear of the church between 28 June 1949 and 1 July 1951.[54] This building’s use is not known.
\nThe intention to re-establish a church hall after World War II was shown when the Queensland Moderator of the Presbyterian Church performed a ‘stump ramming ceremony’ on the corner stump of the proposed new Fellowship Hall on 19 March 1949.[55] The current hall, located north of the church, was moved on site between 1 July 1951 and 1 May 1958.[56] Oral history reported that the church bought the Esk Commercial Hotel’s billiard room (1887) for use as its hall, and this is supported by aerial photography.[57]
\nThe Esk Presbyterian charge celebrated its centenary on 21 March 1976. At that time, its parish extended from Wivenhoe to Nanango and from Atkinson's Lagoon to Kilcoy.[58] A centenary history of the Esk Presbyterian Church was published by the congregation that year.[59]
\nSt Andrews Presbyterian Church did not join the Uniting Church of Australia when it formed on 22 June 1977, combining most Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches in Australia. The church was used by the Continuing Presbyterian Church thereafter.[60]
\nSt Andrews Presbyterian Church, Esk played an important role in the Esk and district community from its establishment in 1876 until its closure about 125 years later. Not only did the church support the religious needs of the community, it commemorated Boer War and World War One soldiers who served, and contributed to the social life of the community through events and organisations such as its Women's Guild, (formed 1908).[61]
\nSt Andrews Presbyterian Church was sold in May 2003. Since then the church building has been re-purposed as a wedding venue and its communion table removed. Non-significant structures have been added to the site since 2003, including a skillion-roofed shed to the north of the hall, and a timber walkway linking the church with the hall.[62]
\nIn 2020, the former St Andrews Presbyterian Church is part of an Esk heritage walk.[63] The place retains its 1876 church (extended 1900), set in open, landscaped grounds with perimeter plantings.
","criteria":"St Andrews Presbyterian Church (former) at Esk (1876, moved on site 1887, extended 1900), as an early rural Presbyterian church in the West Moreton region and the first in the Brisbane Valley, is important in demonstrating the expansion of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland associated with closer agricultural settlement. It is an intact and representative 19th-century timber church set in landscaped grounds, comprising lawn and perimeter plantings.
|The former St Andrews Presbyterian Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a timber-framed church built in 19th century Queensland. An intact and early example of its type, the principal characteristics include its: modest size; symmetrical, low-set, gable roof form with projecting gable roof front porch; timber-framed and clad construction; timber belfry; lancet windows; timber doors; interior layout with its delineation of nave, sanctuary, vestry; and open landscaped setting.
|The former St Andrews Presbyterian Church has a long association with the people of Esk and the surrounding district, being a place of worship and social focus for approximately 125 years.
|The former St Andrews Presbyterian Church, Esk has a special association with David Cannon McConnel (1818-1885), an early, successful, and long-term pastoralist of the Brisbane Valley, and his wife, Mary née McLeod (1824-1910), an important philanthropist in Queensland.
\nIn 1873, through donation of land and funds, the McConnels initiated the establishment of St Andrews Presbyterian Church, which commenced in 1876 as the centre of the Presbyterian charge of Esk. Their involvement in its management and development continued throughout their lifetimes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19529,"place_ref":602410,"name":"Brisbane City Council Tramway Substation No 9 (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"97 Wynnum Road","suburb":"NORMAN PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-08-05","description":"The former substation is a two-storey building of austere appearance and is constructed of dark, glazed brick. It occupies most of the block at the corner of Wynnum Road and Norman Avenue with its long axis at right angles to Wynnum Road to the north.
The metal clad roof is concealed by a stepped parapet and engaged piers form shallow decorative panels in the brickwork. The building is placed on a flush rendered plinth and the high window openings have heads and sills of concrete render. Finely detailed sheet metal rainwater heads and downpipes are prominently placed on the north and south elevations and contribute to the verticality of the design. The western side, facing Norman Avenue, features a large steel roller shutter protected by a curved metal hood.
The southern end of the building has been extended to accommodate a toilet. This single storey extension features panels of English bond and garden bond brickwork formed between engaged corner piers. Remnant concrete slabs and brick walls provide evidence of previous structures near this extension.
The interior has been modified to accommodate State Emergency Service use. A steel and timber framed floor has been inserted into the main volume of the building and the ceiling formed is lined with fibrous cement sheeting finished with timber cover strips. The lower level of the original floor is used to park a rescue boat and accommodates a secure mesh enclosure. A kitchen and dining area occupy the upper level of this floor. The original travelling crane remains, running north south for the entire length of the building and supported on steel rails resting on corbelled brickwork. All of the internal brickwork has been painted white.
A sheet metal and concrete block garage has been erected between the former substation and Wynnum Road.
","history":"The former Brisbane City Council Tramway substation no 9 was built to the design of Brisbane City Council Tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg around 1935 during a period of tramways expansion.
Horse-drawn trams operated in Brisbane from August 1885, operated by an English company, Metropolitan Tramway and Investment Co. Ltd. The first public supply of electricity in Brisbane was from a generator in Edison Lane, which supplied the General Post Office in 1888. Early development in the industry was in the hands of a number of private companies and the situation was complex because the metropolitan area comprised fourteen separate local authorities. After various liquidations and restructurings the City Electric Light Company Limited (CEL) was established in 1904. Parallel development took place in electric traction. The Brisbane Tramways Company, a private enterprise formed in 1895, introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane in 1897 after purchasing the early horse car system, converting it to electric operation and expanding and extending the routes. A power station to supply current to the electric trams was constructed in Countess Street in 1897.
The tramway system extended out into the suburbs, the Countess Street power station was unable to supply all the energy requirements. Two engine sets from Countess Street were transferred to a building in Logan Road to provide for a feeding point for the system on the south side of the river. Supply was also fed from the tramway 550-volt DC mains to a number of establishments along the tramway routes, such as butcher shops, sawmills and factories. By 1918, the whole of the tramways public power supply equipment in South Brisbane was sold to the City Electric Light Company, which developed a supply for South Brisbane from its power station in William Street. At the conclusion of the First World War there was general support for the notion that the tramway system be owned and operated by a public authority rather than a private company. In 1922, an Act of Parliament inaugurated the Brisbane Tramway Trust.
The establishment in 1925 of the Brisbane City Council created a single public authority that could plan for the provision of electrical services throughout the entire city. Expansion of electricity supply and the development of better public transport networks were important issues for the Greater Brisbane City Council and were closely linked to suburban development. At this time the situation of energy generation and supply was chaotic. Three small obsolete power stations generated energy for trams and electricity for Ithaca and Toowong and the supply for all other suburbs was purchased in bulk from CEL under 10 year agreements.
The 1920s and 1930s was a period of tramways expansion following the BCC acquisition of the tramways system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust in 1925. In 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council, anxious to control the city's electricity supply, decided to build its own powerhouse at New Farm, under the supervision of the BCC Tramways Department. Opened on 28 June 1928, New Farm Power Station distributed 1100 kW AC power to a network of 11 suburban tramways substations erected in the 1920s and 1930s. The substations were located at strategic points throughout the system - substations No. 2 (Russell Street) and No. 6 (Windsor) came into service in 1927, No. 4 (Petrie Terrace) and No. 5 (Newstead) in 1928; Substation No. 9 (Norman Park) came on line in 1935.
Considerable attention was given to the design of the substations serving the tramway system. The architecture was marked by the stylistic preferences of individual architects particularly the Brisbane City Architects AH Foster and FG Costello and the BCC Tramways architect RR Ogg. Although they were robust utility buildings, generally small in scale, elegant proportions and such details as finely crafted brickwork distinguished them.
Prior to 1940, their design was the responsibility of BCC Tramways Department architect and construction engineer, Roy Rusden Ogg. In conjunction with the tramway's chief engineers Nelson and Arundell, he designed at least 10 Brisbane substations between 1926 and 1936 and the first two stages of the New Farm powerhouse. Ogg also designed the Tramways Departments Head Office building on Coronation Drive in 1929.
The Norman Park substation remained in service until the phasing out of Brisbane's trams in the late 1960s. In 1969 the line was closed and the substation's electrical equipment was removed, though the travelling crane remains. The building became a State Emergency Services Depot and changes were made to the interior to accommodate this use. The lower level of the original two level floor has been extended to park a rescue boat and a steel and timber framed mezzanine floor has been inserted in the main building space. A single storey garage was added on the northern side
","criteria":"The former tramway substation is important in demonstrating an important aspect of Queensland's industrial development and is closely linked to Brisbane's suburban expansion in the 1920s and 30s and with the development of the electricity supply system.
|The former substation is now uncommon evidence for an important mode of transport, which was discontinued in Brisbane in 1969 and for which much of the infrastructure has since been removed.
|In design, scale and materials, the former substation is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Brisbane tramways substations.
As a well-conceived utility structure, it is important as a fine example of the municipal work of tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg.
|The former substation contributes to the streetscape, its quality of design and materials enabling the prominently placed building to successfully combine function and a pleasing appearance.
|As a well-conceived utility structure, it is important as a fine example of the municipal work of tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19530,"place_ref":602411,"name":"Brisbane City Council Tramways Substation No. 8 (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"134 Kedron Park Road","suburb":"WOOLOOWIN","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-08-05","description":"The former substation is a two-storey building of austere appearance and is constructed of dark, glazed bricks laid in English bond.
It has a metal clad gabled roof concealed by a brick parapet at the front and sides. The parapet on the front and western sides is decorated with a moulded brickwork stringcourse and a decorative band comprising three-course corbelling, brick dentils and a cornice. The sheet metal rainwater heads and downpipes are also finely detailed. The window openings have flush concrete render heads and sills, although a projecting concrete sill spans the row of three windows high on the Kedron Park Road elevation. A large galvanised sheet steel roller shutter is fitted to the opening below these windows.
The lower part of the main building is spare in detail. Entry is by a concrete and steel stair supported on brick piers. The exterior reveals a series of changes to the building, with openings variously enlarged, added and filled in. The rear wall is clad in colour-finished corrugated iron. There is a single storey garage of stretcher bond brick at the southwest corner and a shipping container has been positioned immediately to the south of the main building.
The interior has a steel and timber mezzanine floor and the ceiling is lined with fibrous cement sheeting and timber cover strips. The travelling crane survives complete with ropes and pulleys. It runs north to south on steel rails supported on corbelled brickwork and intermittently by a series of engaged piers. The face brickwork is variously painted and unpainted and a number of remnant openings and brackets provide evidence of the building's previous function.
Adjoining the main space is a kitchen area, leading to a toilet and storage area. The external areas of the site are paved in bitumen and flow into the car park of the adjoining hotel.
","history":"The former Brisbane City Council Tramway substation no 8 is a two storey building of dark brick built to the design of Brisbane City Council Tramways architect R R Ogg between 1934-37.
Horse-drawn trams operated in Brisbane from August 1885, operated by an English company, Metropolitan Tramway and Investment Co. Ltd. The first public supply of electricity in Brisbane was from a generator in Edison Lane, which supplied the General Post Office in 1888. Early development in the industry was in the hands of a number of private companies and the situation was complex because the metropolitan area comprised fourteen separate local authorities. After various liquidations and restructurings the City Electric Light Company Limited (CEL) was established in 1904. Parallel development took place in electric traction. The Brisbane Tramways Company, a private enterprise formed in 1895, introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane in 1897 after purchasing the early horse car system, converting it to electric operation and expanding and extending the routes. A power station to supply current to the electric trams was constructed in Countess Street in 1897.
As the tramway system extended out into the suburbs, the Countess Street power station was unable to supply all the energy requirements. Two engine sets from Countess Street were transferred to a building in Logan Road to provide for a feeding point for the system on the south side of the river. Supply was also fed from the tramway 550-volt DC mains to a number of establishments along the tramway routes, such as butcher shops, sawmills and factories. By 1918, the whole of the tramways public power supply equipment in South Brisbane was sold to the City Electric Light Company, which developed a supply for South Brisbane from its power station in William Street. At the conclusion of World War I there was general support for the notion that the tramway system should be owned and operated by a public authority rather than a private company. In 1922, an Act of Parliament inaugurated the Brisbane Tramway Trust.
The establishment in 1925 of the Brisbane City Council created a single public authority that could plan for the provision of electrical services throughout the entire city. Expansion of electricity supply and the development of better public transport networks were important issues for the Greater Brisbane City Council and were closely linked to the spread of suburban development. At a time when few working people owned their own transport, a reliable public transport system was essential to link people with their work and with schools, shops and services. However, the situation of energy generation and supply was chaotic. Three small obsolete power stations generated energy for trams and electricity for Ithaca and Toowong and the supply for all other suburbs was purchased in bulk from CEL under 10 year agreements.
The 1920s and 1930s was a period of tramways expansion following the BCC acquisition of the tramways system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust in 1925. In 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council, anxious to control the city's electricity supply, decided to build its own powerhouse at New Farm, under the supervision of the BCC Tramways Department. Opened on 28 June 1928, New Farm Power Station distributed 1100 kW AC power to a network of 11 suburban tramways substations erected in the 1920s and 1930s. The substations were located at strategic points throughout the system - substations No. 2 (Russell Street) and No. 6 (Windsor) came into service in 1927, No. 4 (Petrie Terrace) and No. 5 (Newstead) in 1928; Substation No. 9 (Norman Park) came on line in 1935.
Considerable attention was given to the design of the substations serving the tramway system. The architecture was marked by the stylistic preferences of individual architects particularly the Brisbane City Architects AH Foster and FG Costello and the BCC Tramways architect RR Ogg. Although they were robust utility buildings, generally small in scale, elegant proportions and such details as finely crafted brickwork distinguished them.
By 1933 an additional substation was urgently required at Kedron in order to relieve a serious overload being carried every afternoon by the substation at Windsor, where the 500kW mercury arc rectifier plant was carrying 700 volts. Council minutes suggest that provision for this new substation should have been made two or three years prior to 1933, but that the expenditure was delayed for financial reasons until it became essential for safety.
On 29 May 1934 the council authorised purchase of an allotment facing Kedron Brook Road and adjoining the Kedron Park Hotel for the purpose of constructing a tramway substation. Tenders were received on 8 June 1934 and that of General Electric Industries Limited Brisbane was accepted using materials supplied by British Thomson Houston Ltd of Rugby. A further portion of land to be used as an easement was purchased in August 1934.
Prior to 1940, the design of substations was the responsibility of BCC Tramways Department architect and construction engineer, Roy Rusden Ogg. In conjunction with the tramway's chief engineers Nelson and Arundell, he designed at least 10 Brisbane substations between 1926 and 1936 and the first two stages of the New Farm powerhouse. Ogg also designed the Tramways Departments Head Office building on Coronation Drive in 1929.
The Kedron substation remained in service until the phasing out of Brisbane's trams in the late 1960s. In 1969 the line was closed and the substation's electrical equipment was removed, though the travelling crane remained. The building became a State Emergency Services Depot and changes were made to the interior to accommodate this use. The lower level of the original two level floor has been extended to park a rescue boat and a mezzanine level was inserted in the mid 1980s. A single storey brick garage has been added.
","criteria":"The former tramway substation is important in demonstrating an important aspect of Queensland's industrial development and is closely linked to Brisbane's suburban expansion in the 1920s and 30s and with the development of the electricity supply system.
|The former substation is now uncommon evidence for an important mode of transport, which was discontinued in Brisbane in 1969 and for which much of the infrastructure has since been removed.
|In design, scale and materials, the former substation is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Brisbane tramways substations.
As a well-conceived utility structure, it is important as a fine example of the municipal work of tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg.
|The former substation contributes to the streetscape, its quality of design and materials enabling the prominently placed building to successfully combine function and a pleasing appearance.
|As a well-conceived utility structure, it is important as a fine example of the municipal work of tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19535,"place_ref":602415,"name":"Jimbour Dry Stone Wall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"off Dalby-Jandowae Road","suburb":"JIMBOUR","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-31","description":"The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is located on the Jimbour Ridge, a low, open, grassy but stony ridge to the north of Jimbour House and is constructed of scattered volcanic rocks taken from this ridge. Its construction type is a random double wall, being two outer skins (walls) of irregularly shaped stones, not laid in courses, which taper inwards. The space between has been filled with smaller stone rubble.
The wall extends an approximate length of 6.5 kilometres (4 miles). Some sections remain in an original state and stand to an approximate height of 1.5 metres (5 feet). Other sections have collapsed to the foundation stones and the first layers of building stones and stand to a height between 50 and 70 centimetres.
In these deteriorated sections of the wall sapling posts or (in a small section) steel posts have been inserted to support wire mesh and barbed wire. These posts appear to have been inserted by removing the outer facing stones of one side of the wall, placing the posts in position, then replacing the outer stones to secure the posts.
","history":"The Jimbour Dry Stone Wall is located on a low, stony ridge to the north of Jimbour House, the former head station on the once expansive Jimbour pastoral run on the Darling Downs. The wall was constructed most likely during the 1870s, apparently as a barrier to prevent sheep from crossing the stony ridge, to keep dingoes from preying on the sheep and to prevent wallabies from destroying crops planted in paddocks close to the head station.
Dry stone walling is an ancient craft using stone with no mortar to construct a wall. It gained popularity in Britain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the enclosure movement and the practice was introduced to Australia during the mid-1800s. Traditionally each dry stone wall was constructed by laying two parallel outer walls of stones, which tapered inwards towards the top; filling the space between with smaller stones and rubble; then laying coping stones across the top to complete the wall. Dry stone walls were labour intensive to construct and repair, but in areas where stone was readily available, for early land owners they could prove economical and more durable than timber fences, requiring less maintenance and being fireproof. For European settlers the walls also transformed the landscape into something that resembled their native homes, a process that has been described by one scholar as 'colonisation by mimesis' - 'a type of ground clearing that instituted one type of memorialisation over another'.
In 1863/64 Messrs Bell & Sons, the pastoral lessees of Jimbour run, applied under right of pre-emptive purchase for the freehold of nine portions of land along Jimbour Creek and around Jimbour head station. Pre-emptive portion one included the eastern end of the Jimbour Ridge. The survey plan (D35119) on which this application was based and dated 2 January 1864, shows a number of timber fences across the property, but not a stone wall (or any type of fence) along the Jimbour Ridge. Certificate of title to these portions was granted to Messrs Bell & Sons in 1864.
With security of tenure, the Bells made extensive improvements on the Jimbour freehold during the 1870s. Stately Jimbour House, Queensland's grandest 19th century homestead, was erected 1874-77 and the dry stone wall was constructed likely around the same time, in a period when the station reached its peak as a 19th-century pastoral enterprise.
Following the extensive restoration of Jimbour House in 1925, the Queenslander newspaper printed a story about the property to celebrate the formal re-opening of the house. The article, written from notes by Harry Ensor, Joshua Peter Bell's overseerer, 'right hand man' and building supervisor at Jimbour during the 1870s, records that the first plan was to build a log fence on the Jimbour Ridge, but the idea was abandoned due to the abundance of available stone. Instead, a dry stone wall was built for a length of about 4 miles (6.5 kilometres). This wall was about 5 feet (1.5 metres) high, 2 feet 6 inches (75 centimetres) wide at the base and 18 inches (45 centimetres) wide at the top. Dubbed the 'Great Wall of Jimbour', its construction proved to be a feat of human perseverance. The stony ground of the ridge meant that bullocks needed to be continuously shod and the workmen were forced to lace greenhide to their boots. The difficult terrain and extent of the wall would have made it a time-consuming task. Ensor recalled that the work gang leader, who first thought of the idea and supervised construction of the wall, became affectionately known as 'Stonewall Jackson'.
Ensor also claimed that the dry stone wall was built to divide the Jimbour run. It is not clear what is meant by this comment. An 1877 survey plan (A3441005 drawn by surveyor Martin Lavelle) of further Jimbour pre-emptive purchases shows the dry stone wall extending the length of a stony ridge (the Jimbour Ridge) to the north east of the station residence. By this time it appears the wall had been in place for several years, with the surveyor noting that the wall was in 'a bad state being full of grass'. However, the wall was not used as a boundary for any of the portions surveyed.
It seems more plausible that the wall was constructed as a barrier fence. Jimbour in the 1870s was a large sheep station still employing shepherds to manage the flocks. The stony ground of the ridge on which the wall was built would have been difficult to patrol on foot and Harry Ensor recollected how the 'grass was on many occasions higher than the sheep' making it difficult to shepherd them. The stone wall was constructed to the traditional height required to enclose sheep and it seems likely the purpose of the wall was to prevent flocks wandering over the grassy ridge at a time when Jimbour suffered from a dingo problem.
The stone wall may also have served a supplementary purpose of keeping wallabies away from the plains adjacent to the head station where blue grass and wild oats grew. In the late 19th century wallabies were a persistent problem for land owners on the Darling Downs, who were forced to erect fences in an effort to control their movements. An 1874 Brisbane Courier report on Darling Downs selections around Jandowae noted 'thousands of wallabies' had become pests in the region and that fences were being constructed 'for the sole purpose of shutting in these little grass devourers' . At Jimbour, wallabies were no less of a problem. In 1882 the Land Commissioner for the Darling Downs reported to the Lands Department that portions of Jimbour were 'rendered almost useless by reason of being overrun with wallaby'.
With the repurchase of Jimbour in the early 20th century and subsequent 1909 subdivision of land either side of the Jimbour Ridge for closer agricultural settlement, the dry stone wall was used as the approximate demarcation line for subdivisions north and south of the wall. The 1909 surveys cross and re-cross the wall many times, but the survey lines mostly follow within a few metres of the stone wall. Despite sections of the wall being today in a state of collapse where wallabies have created trails over the wall, other sections remain in a relatively well-preserved state and stand as a testimony to the skills and tenacity of early pastoral workers in Queensland.
","criteria":"The dry stone wall at Jimbour was most likely constructed in the 1870s as a barrier fence, at a period when Jimbour Station was one of Queensland's largest pastoral enterprises. It is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history insofar as it provides evidence of traditional European technology used by early settlers in controlling, shaping and adapting to the Queensland landscape.
|Dry stone walls of this size and extent are scarce in Queensland and the Jimbour Dry Stone Wall provides a relatively well-preserved example of a rare, uncommon or endangered aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|It stands as a testimony to the tenacity and skills of early pastoral workers and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a traditional form of wall construction, dry stone walling, transplanted to Queensland in the 19th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19539,"place_ref":602419,"name":"Numinbah Valley School of Arts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Nerang - Murwillumbah Road","suburb":"NUMINBAH VALLEY","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-07","description":"Numinbah School of Arts is an elevated, single-storey timber building with a corrugated galvanised iron, double gabled roof. It faces the main road that links Nerang to Murwillumbah.
The core of the building is rectangular in plan with a small entrance veranda under the second and lower gable. An enclosed veranda with a hipped roof is attached on the left or southern elevation and there is an open-air annexe on the northern side. The main entrance to the building is via the entrance porch.
There are two sets of steps to the supper room on the southern elevation separated by pairs of sash windows which do not have sunhoods.
Both gables have a flying gable with bargeboards featuring fretwork decoration. The superior gable has a lattice infill on either side of the central open entrance which is flanked by windows with skillion sunhoods. Above the entrance is a large board proclaiming that the hall is the Numinbah Valley School of Arts. The lined entrance porch contains a ticket office on the left and another room on the right. There is a notice board inside this foyer and one outside under a window and another outside the supper room. There is a doorway to this supper room but no steps.
There are two doors into the hall on the northern elevation, but only the door near the front has steps. This side also features two pairs of sash windows with skillion sunhoods on either side of the door. From near this entrance to the rear of the building is an open-air annex. The sub-floor at the end of the building has been closed in. A large plastic tank and another concrete one at the back is used as the hall's water source.
On the southern elevation, a post and two-rail timber fence stretches from the rear of the hall to the brick and concrete public toilets and then across to the boundary of the adjoining property. On the northern side of the hall the fence separates the open rural park-like area from the road. Near the hall is a fairly level open stretch of ground with some simple plank seating near the river. Beyond this flattish area is undulating lightly timbered land. Near the road is a billabong.
The toilet block is not significant.
","history":"The Numinbah Valley School of Arts was built in 1925 and is a single story timber building raised on stumps and capped with a corrugated galvanised iron roof. Extensions were carried out in 1937, 1960 and 1981. On entering the Numinbah Valley hamlet it is the first structure on the right side of the Nerang-Murwillumbah Road.
The Numinbah Valley strikes north from the McPherson Range and is enclosed to the southeast and the southwest by the plateaux of Springbrook and Beechmont. The Nerang-Murwillumbah road runs along the valley floor adjacent to the banks of the Nerang River. The cliffs, narrow ridges, forested slopes and open farmlands combine to create one of the most scenic rural areas in the Gold Coast Hinterland.
Settlement of the area is associated with timber getters moving up from the Tweed and Richmond Rivers in search of the valuable red cedar trees in the 1870s. The Queensland Government opened up the timber reserves in the Numinbah district for selection, subsequently a wave of settlers moved into this area. The timber resources of the area supported the economy of the local farming facilities and supplied timber for a number of local and regional saw mills. Dairies, banana plantations, beef and pig production, played a significant role in the subsequent economic development of the area. The valley was isolated from the sea and it was not until the early 1900s that it was linked to Nerang by a mountainous track of 18 miles. As the population in the valley increased and farming prospered the community called for better roads, mainly due to the dairy farmers needing to transport their goods to Nerang for railing to the Kingston Butter Factory within a short space of time. It was deemed the responsibility of the Numinbah residents to maintain this road - it was often damaged by large timber wagons.
In 1909 the Yaun family started moving their sawmill operation to Upper Nerang (the early name for the Numinbah settlement). Initially this pioneering family owned the Pine Mountain Sawmill at Nerang from 1896. The Numinbah sawmill continued to operate and employ local labour until destroyed by fire in 1944.
In 1915 L.M. Yaun wrote to the Lands Department about acquiring reserve land for a community hall. After negotiations, the local community agreed to pay for a survey of land adjoining a road and a timber reserve for the School of Arts reserve. On 8 September 1916, 2 roods and 3 perches of thickly timbered land with dense undergrowth, was gazetted a reserve for a School of Arts. For many years the main venue for social and recreational events had been a farmer's barn or paddock. In 1923 Yaun again wrote to the Lands Department asking if the land could be used for a public hall as a social venue was required.
It was the need for a social, recreational and educational facility that galvanised the community in 1925 to raise funds by subscriptions and fund raising events so that they could build a hall. Members of the community donated timber to be processed in the Yaun Bros. sawmill (situated only a few hundred meters from the proposed School of Arts site); all work at the mill was carried out gratis. Cyril Duncan built the Numinbah Valley School of Arts hall for approximately £100 and this included the roofing iron and nails.
The first 'Mechanic's Institutes' or 'Schools of Arts' were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self improvement and to promote moral, social and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no public libraries and books were expensive, so that access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important educational and recreational service. The first institute in Australia was formed in Hobart in 1827, followed by Sydney in 1833, from which date the movement rapidly spread throughout the rest of the colony.
The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 with the aim of 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to establish Schools of Arts and they became one of the principal sources of adult education. From this beginning, approximately 350 Schools of Arts were established throughout the state during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A typical School of Arts building was of timber construction including a hall and two or three rooms used for library and meeting purposes. Larger provincial centres buildings were of masonry construction. Although varied in scale, form and materials they were readily identifiable in the streetscape and often incorporated impressive facades which spoke of the cultural ambitions of those who built them.
When the Numinbah Valley School of Arts opened in September 1925, it was free of debt. The new single-story, weatherboard clad School of Arts was 50 by 25 feet, capped with corrugated iron gable roof over the core and a lower gable over the entrance porch. At the rear there was a ten foot stage with a room either side. The flooring, which was donated crow's ash flooring, was dressed by local labour and excellent for dancing. Seating was around the walls, which were 12 feet high. The roof was well braced and the hall included a side entrance.
The first letter requesting a school for Numinbah Valley was dated 10 July, 1926, and the parents asked if the Numinbah Valley School of Arts could be used as a Provisional school. From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries the Queensland Government began to focus on the importance of education for children between the ages of six and twelve. The education system was poorly funded in this period. As a consequence many smaller communities, such as Numinbah Valley, were responsible for the establishment and funding of their own schools. The following year on 7 February the Provisional Numinbah School opened in the School of Arts building. There were 16 pupils; 13 boys and 3 girls. The Queensland Government recognised this school as a Provisional School. Limited Government assistance was given, such as salary assistance for a teacher and the supply of state approved books. The community had to provide the school building as well as accommodation for the teacher. The school continued to use this building until a purpose built State School opened in its own Education Department building on 8 October, 1934.
By 1937 roads had improved and banana plantations had been established. With increased development it was deemed necessary to enlarge the School of Arts. This included a 25 foot extension added to the rear to provide a much larger area for dancing and seating for concerts and other purposes. Also the front entrance was altered to provide male and female changing/ cloak rooms on either side of the entrance.
During the early 1960s the hall was further enlarged with the construction of a side veranda on the southern elevation, to allow for more seating and a supper area. The community, especially the local QCWA (Queensland Country Women's Association), helped raise the necessary funds. With the introduction of electricity to the valley in 1961 kerosene lanterns were replaced with fluorescent and other lights and power points were fitted. The kitchen was installed in 1962. Also in the 1960s the front entrance was again modified with the left-hand side room converted to a ticket office with a mother's room on the other side.
In September, 1975, locals and others celebrated the School of Art's 50th Birthday. An article 'Hub of Valley has a birthday Party' in the Courier Mail of 21 September, 1975, mentioned the gable of green painted hall as having very elegant fretwork infill. Also the article commented that the hall was used for wedding receptions, gift evenings, dances and socials, and church services.
A corrugated iron roofed open annexe was added along the end of the northern wall in 1981, and has been extended since. During 1983 prison labour from the Numinbah Valley State Farm was used to build a bar in the supper room, and the following year they repainted the hall. One prisoner painted Australian theme murals on three walls of the bar area.
A post and two-rail fence encloses much of a large semi open space on the northern side of the hall. This area stretches from the Nerang River to the main road and has been used for school and local sports days, picnic area and other recreational activities.
The Numinbah Valley School of Arts is a well loved community building and has been since it was built. It is a fine example of a community built building that is still being used for the very same purposes it was originally meant for - recreation, socialising and education.
","criteria":"The Numinbah Valley School of Arts, built in 1925, is one of many School of Arts constructed throughout Queensland. By the 1900s, almost every town in Queensland had a School of Arts and they were often seen as indicators of the prosperity or status of the town. As such, they demonstrate the evolution of Queensland's history.
The building is representative of an intact, community built School of Arts. It has strong associations with the Numinbah Valley and surrounding area as a recreational and social facility since 1925. It has been used as the venue for diverse activities ranging from state education, dancing classes, church services, cinema, exercise classes, table tennis, school sports and P and C fund raisers. It has also been home for many organisations and clubs including the local QCWA (Queensland Country Women's Association) and the Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade. The Numinbah Valley School of Arts is important for its connection with the valleys' community and as an integral part of the social and community life of the locality.
|It has aesthetic significance due to the simplicity of the design, symmetry of the front entrance with fretwork bargeboards, as well as the adjacent rural park-like area. As well proportioned and detailed timber buildings built in a traditional style, the Numinbah Valley School of Arts makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Numinbah Valley. The building is significant as part of the rural landscape that has a scattered population. The building has a landmark position with the small community as it is a large structure and is positioned on the main road through Numinbah Valley.
|The Numinbah Valley School of Arts is representative of a community hall built for the school of arts movement in Queensland. Its fabric is largely intact.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19543,"place_ref":602423,"name":"Cooroora Masonic Temple (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Station Street","suburb":"POMONA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"The former Masonic temple is a rectangular timber framed building clad externally with hardwood chamferboard. It is set on low metal stumps and has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron. A verandah along the front appears to have been built in and a small gabled timber porch shades the front entrance and is accessed by timber stairs to each side. Windows along both sides and the front have been blocked but the front windows lighted the anterooms and not the hall proper.The blocking of the side windows to the hall has enabled the murals painted on the interior to cover the whole of each wall.
The front part of the building is an anteroom and contains portraits of Lodge Masters and Members. The interior of the lodge room is lined with vertical boards and has a coved ceiling. The ceiling and upper section of the walls is painted a traditional light blue, which also provides a suggestion of sky. Below this each wall is covered with a trompe l'oeil mural depicting famous buildings replete with Masonic symbolism. The Eastern wall depicts the Temple of Demeter and Dionysus at Eleusis, the western wall the temple of Theseus at Corinth, the Southern wall the Choragic monument of Lysicrates at Athens and the Northern wall the building of the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem.
The lodge room currently retains equipment and furniture pertaining to Masonic use including chairs was locally manufactured by Page.
","history":"The former Cooroora Masonic Temple was erected in 1923 and is opposite the railway station in the small Sunshine Coast hinterland town of Pomona.
The land on which it is situated was part of an Agricultural Allotment of 160 acres occupied under license by Robert Peter Grant in 1896. The area developed in the early 20th century with an economic base of timber, dairying and fruit growing. Page Furnishers Pty Ltd, a furniture making concern established in 1919, has also been a major source of local employment. The township of Pomona was named in 1900 for the Roman goddess of fruit and for much of the 20th century acted as a service and administrative centre for Noosa Shire.
Freemasonry was established in Pomona in 1913. It had arrived in Australia with the first European settlers and spread from New South Wales into Queensland in individual lodges. The first Freemason's lodge in Queensland was established in 1859, shortly before Separation from New South Wales. New lodges were formed as settlement spread, as when a group of 17 Masons in Pomona applied to the Grand Lodge of Scotland to form a Lodge under the Scottish Constitution. This was consecrated as Lodge Cooroora No 1128 on 15 November 1913 at a ceremony at which 78 people were present. The first ordinary meeting was held on 13 December 1913. In 1920 the Lodge affiliated with the Grand Lodge of Queensland under the English Constitution and on 21 April 1921 joined the United Grand Lodge of Queensland as Cooroora Lodge No. 232.
For the first ten years of its existence, the Cooroora Lodge met in a hall at the Noosa Showgrounds. On 22 May 1923 the Trustees of the Lodge purchased a block of land across the road from the railway station. A temple was erected using volunteer labour and cost £800. The first meeting in the new building was held on 23 June 1923.
A local fruiterer and restaurateur, William (Bill) Hodge, who had joined the Lodge in 1920, was Master in 1924-25. In 1925 he began a project to embellish the temple that was to take nine years to complete. Working mainly in the evenings he painted trompe l'oeil murals on all four internal walls of the lodge room. These murals are replicas of those that decorated the Masonic Temple at the Criterion Restaurant, London and were featured in an article in the September 1921 edition of an English Masonic magazine, the Masonic Record. Using the small black and white photographs accompanying the article as a guide, Hodge reproduced the scenes of classical and biblical architecture on the walls of the Pomona temple. Between 1925 and 1928 he painted the Eastern and Western walls and between 1932 and 1934 the southern and northern walls. Hodge mixed the lead-based paints himself, using a neutral palette of beige, grey, black and white. During both periods he worked by kerosene light, as electricity was not supplied to Pomona until 1941. Hodge died in 1949 and is buried in Pomona cemetery.
The subjects and symbols depicted are integral to Masonic tradition and philosophy. Although materially modest in value, reflecting the economic status of the small community who met there, the murals provide a sense of richness and elegance to what would otherwise be a very simple interior. They are valued and have been cared for by the members, remaining in good condition.
It is believed that the Criterion Restaurant and the original murals were destroyed during the bombing of London during World War II and that no other known copies of the murals have been made. .
Some of the furniture in the temple was made locally by Page, possibly by Herb Page who established the original cabinet-making workshop in Pomona in 1919.
The number of lodge members peaked in 1965 at 55. Falling membership numbers and lack of funds to maintain the building have made the lodge unviable and it is about to close, the members then meeting at the Tewantin Masonic Lodge.
","criteria":"The former Cooroora Masonic Temple is important in demonstrating the development of Pomona in the early 20th century and the spread of Freemasonry through Queensland in the wake of European settlement.
|The interior murals, which embody much of the symbolism and beliefs of Freemasonry, are thought to be unique in Australia. As the original murals appear to have been destroyed by bombing during World War II, the Pomona paintings may now be the only record of this work, originally carried out in the temple of the Criterion Restaurant in London.
|The former Cooroora Masonic Temple is an intact example of a regional timber Masonic temple, a category of building prominent in the streetscape and important in the social life of many country towns.
|The murals decorating all four interior walls of the temple have aesthetic value and represent a remarkable achievement for the artist, William (Bill) Hodge who worked from small scale black and white photographs in difficult conditions over period of many years to complete the work.
|The former Cooroora Masonic Temple has a special association with those Freemasons living in and around Pomona and with the Freemasonry movement as an early 20th century temple in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19546,"place_ref":602427,"name":"Swain House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"139 Laurel Avenue","suburb":"CHELMER","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"The Swain house is a single storey timber dwelling with a triple gabled front elevation. It has a hipped roof clad in terracotta tiles.
The interior is substantially intact and has a sunroom at the front of the house. The dining and living areas are linked and there is a large sandstone fireplace in the living room. The dining room is lined with timber and a two-way, lead-lighted cupboard, previously linking the dining room and kitchen, now links the kitchen and former breakfast room. At the right hand side of the house are bedrooms and at the rear there is a bathroom, sitting room and maid's room. Part of the rear verandah has been enclosed to form a bedroom. An open deck has been added to the rear and left-hand side of the house.
The house is set in an extensive and intact 1920s garden that includes a grass tennis court. The garden contains most of the native and exotic trees planted by Swain in the 1920s and many fruit and rainforest trees. The grounds contain a large plantation of hoop and kauri pine trees near the bank of Brisbane River and a number of mature cedar trees. A row of mature kauri trees lines the southern boundary of the land and tallow wood, crows ash, satinay and yellow pine trees are found in a group to the right of the site behind the tennis court. On a slope to the rear of the house are fruit trees including a loquat, mulberry and mandarin and two eucalyptus trees.
","history":"Edward Swain purchased the 1.5 acres of riverfront land for this house in 1920 when he was Director of Forests in Queensland. He took out a mortgage for £1300 and constructed a California Bungalow style home in which he was living by 1925. He surrounded the house with extensive plantings of native and exotic trees reflecting his life's work in forestry.
Edward Harold Fulcher Swain was born in Sydney in 1883 and was the first Cadet Forester in the New South Wales Forestry Branch in 1899. He studied forestry in Montana, USA in 1915 and on his return became a District Forest Inspector in Queensland. Between 1918 and 1924 he was Director of Forests in Queensland. During this time he set aside large tracts of hoop pine forest in the Brisbane and Mary Valleys and planted areas of introduced species. On the abolition of the office of Director in 1924, he became inaugural Chairman of the Queensland Forestry Board until 1932. This Board was responsible for the management and control of the State Forests and National Parks.
Swain laid the foundations of modern forestry economics in Queensland. His new ideas and strong personality frequently brought him into conflict with others and he was often a controversial figure in an industry deeply rooted in traditional practice. Amongst other achievements, he pioneered forest assessment surveys, promoted the permanent reservation of good forests and forest land, improved pricing policies which led to a better use of timber resources and expanded staff training and the activities of his department. He wrote a number of books on forestry, was a founder of the Australian Forestry School at the Australian National University and supported community interest in trees. In 1924 he was instrumental in establishing the Sherwood Arboretum, a park on the Brisbane River, which is dedicated to the growth of indigenous trees.
In 1932 Swain publicly campaigned against the indiscriminate allocation of forested land as land grants, at the time a policy of the incumbent National Party Government. Although the Labor Party won the election, in the controversy and inquiries which followed Swain lost his job. He became a research consultant for Australian Paper Manufacturers in South Australia before becoming Commissioner for Forests in New South Wales until his official retirement in 1948. Between 1951 and 1955 he was United Nations Forestry Consultant in Ethiopia. Swain died in Brisbane in July 1970.
His daughter Nancy and her husband occupied the family home from 1946. She shared her father's interest in indigenous species and planted rainforest trees in the grounds.
The house itself reflects Swain's obsession with exploring the potential of Australian timbers. It was constructed of rosewood with the intention of proving that this timber, then not well regarded for the purpose, was suitable for building. The house also displays Queensland timbers to advantage, the joinery including panelling in pine and kauri.
Most of the trees planted by Swain and his family survive and are now large trees that make a major contribution to the landscape of the area. The Alan Fletcher Research Station of the Department of Primary Industries nearby uses the hoop pine plantation for research into forestry practices.
","criteria":"The Swain house was built in the early 1920s on a 1.5-acre block of land fronting the Brisbane River at Chelmer. The land has not been subdivided since the house was built and as a comparatively modest family home in grounds of this size and location, it illustrates and early phase in the development of Brisbane.
|The house is a good example its type and era, being substantially intact in both form and internal features. It is rare in retaining its original setting in extensive grounds with mature indigenous trees on the bank of the Brisbane River. Such features as the maid's room and grass tennis court, which illustrate a way of life now passed, are uncommon.
|The house and its setting, particularly the stands of mature trees planted by EHF Swain, have aesthetic value and make an important contribution to the streetscape.
|EHF Swain was a nationally significant figure in the development of the forestry industry in Australia and his house and tree plantings have a strong association with his life and work, illustrating his interest in timber and forestry research. The hoop pine plantation continues to be of value for research purposes.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19548,"place_ref":601841,"name":"Lyndhurst","alternate_name":"The Reid House","street_address":"3 London Road","suburb":"CLAYFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-12-12","description":"'Lyndhurst' is not visible from the street and is located on a sloping site set well back from London Road. It is reached via a long concrete drive in the same location as the original gravel driveway.
The large, single-storey house has a timber frame elevated on timber stumps at the front and set close to the ground at the rear. The area beneath the house is enclosed with concrete blocks that have been rendered to match the exterior fibrous cement sheeting. A pair of narrow concrete stairs leads up to the two doors at the front of the house.
The roof is steeply pitched and composed of two large hips that are symmetrically arranged around a central axis through the front elevation and are clad in terracotta Marseilles pattern tiles. Twin gables, of a uniform roof pitch, project from the building's front elevation. The pediments of the gables are clad with fibrous cement sheeting and are decorated with wide timber battens. Two tall rendered chimneys with concrete caps are the only other visible elements on the vast roof. Part of the verandah roof on the eastern side of the house has been replaced with corrugated iron.
The existing external walls of the house are clad with fibrous cement sheeting fitted to a timber frame that incorporates the original verandah posts. The original external walls, which are presently part of the buildings' interior, are also clad with fibrous cement sheeting that may possibly be covering the original chamferboard. Where the verandah has been enclosed, a variety of windows have been installed.
Although alterations have been made, the original plan of the house can still be read and the form of most rooms remains substantially intact despite the introduction or alteration of door and window openings. Internally, most of the original rooms are lined in narrow vertically jointed pine boards, though some are clad in fibrous cement sheeting. The former drawing and dining rooms have picture rail and dado mouldings. In part of the former kitchen wing, narrow lining boards have only been used on one side of the wall, leaving the timber frame exposed. The ceilings in the former drawing and dining rooms are pressed metal, exhibiting rich designs together with a perimeter border. The ceilings to most of the other original rooms are also pressed metal, though simpler in design. The former timber lined soffits to the original verandah remain despite the enclosure of the verandah and the introduction of kitchen and bathroom facilities for the various flats. The former kitchen wing has painted pine ceiling boards. Timber floorboards exist throughout the house, which contains three open fireplaces, of which only those in the former dining and morning rooms have chimneypieces. The two simply moulded timber surrounds, which are presently painted, are similar in design although that in the dining room is larger.
Most of the original doors, many of which were French doors, have been removed with their hinges leaving open doorways. The original interior doors are of panelled timber with pressed metal push plates. Evidence of the original dark stained finish is evident under layers of paint. The bay windows are substantially intact despite having been relocated from the corner of both front rooms. A decorative internal timber fretwork grille is fitted to both of them.
A large two storeyed addition, which is not considered significant, has been constructed at the rear of the original house.
","history":"Lyndhurst is a timber residence erected in 1896 for John Reid, principal of J C Hutton & Co., ham and bacon processors. It was the first substantial house designed by R S (Robin) Dods after his commencement in the Brisbane partnership of Hall and Dods from August 1896. Dods was a prolific, innovative and highly skilled architect whose work moved the Queensland timber house tradition forward. His work was influential and during his lifetime, the 'Lyndhurst' design was published more often than any other of his domestic works.
In the mid 19th century the 'Lyndhurst' site was included in a parcel of just under 30 acres alienated in 1858 by Theodore Franz of Kedron Brook. This land was subdivided in the late 1870s and again in the mid 1890s and following the second subdivision, John Reid acquired title in September 1896 to a block of 3 acres 18.8 perches with a frontage to London Road. Reid had come to Queensland from Victoria in 1882 and established the Zillmere bacon curing works north of Brisbane for JC Hutton & Co in about 1890. This facility was then the largest of its type in Australia. Reid was also associated with the Yangan cheese factory near Warwick (established 1893) and was Chairman of Directors of the Nambour sugar mill.
Robert Smith (Robin) Dods (1868-1920) was born in New Zealand. After living in Scotland in the early 1870s, the family moved to Brisbane after his father's death. From the age of 11 he lived with his mother and stepfather, Dr C F Marks, on Wickham Terrace. In 1886 he returned to Scotland to study architecture, where he was articled with Hay and Henderson in Edinburgh. Completing his articles, Dods moved to London in 1890, where he worked for a number of architects, including the prestigious firm of Aston Webb and Ingress Bell. Dods' training in London placed him amongst the third generation of Arts and Crafts based architects, contemporary with Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright. Central to his philosophy was a belief in developing a new architecture based on regional tradition, clearly expressed in his subsequent domestic work in Brisbane.
In 1894 he returned to Brisbane for a year's visit, during which time he and architect Francis Hall submitted a successful competition entry for the nurses' home at the Brisbane Hospital. He returned to London, but came back to Brisbane in August 1896 to set up in partnership as Hall and Dods. Within the partnership, Dods was responsible for most of the design, while Hall concentrated on management. The practice was the most influential source of modern design in Brisbane, producing a wide range of accomplished buildings and was credited with achieving an 'architectural revolution in Brisbane.' Dods was able to integrate contemporary British design philosophies with the traditions of Queensland housing and the requirements of a subtropical climate, producing practical and attractive houses that were finely detailed and widely copied. The partnership was sustained until 1913, when Dods left to practice in Sydney. Soon after his move to Sydney World War I virtually stopped all building and Dods died prematurely in 1920.
John Reid commissioned Hall and Dods to design his Clayfield residence soon after the partnership was formed in August 1896, following earlier commissions with John Hall and Son to design Hutton's Zillmere works and the Yangan cheese factory. Lyndhurst was Dods' seventh domestic commission in Brisbane. Tenders were called on 5 September 1896 and the contract was let to Walls and Huster with a tender price of £1,007.
When completed, the Reid house faced northeast and was set well back from London Road with a gravel drive on the western side terminating in front of the house and sloping down to the road. Although it was unusual in Brisbane to do so, Dods also designed the front garden of the house. It was set out in three formal terraces and had garden stairs that led across a formal parterre to the lawn tennis court beyond. Hedges with topiary features were planted around the perimeter. Queen palms were planted either side of the entrance and weeping fig trees to the east side and rear. This garden was lost when the property was subdivided in 1945.
The timber-framed house, although derived from Queensland tradition, incorporated some important differences in planning, details and materials. The design was plain and the decoration, although sparingly used, was classically derived. An extreme roof pitch ensured that the roof was dominant, and the roof geometry was symmetrically arranged around a central axis. It was clad with terracotta Marseilles roofing tiles - an early use of this material in Queensland. However, the 'symmetry' of the house was only implied, for in plan the central corridor was moved to one side to favour rooms with wider verandahs on the western side. The front verandah broke forward as a porch with a pedimented gable, giving protection to the stair. The pediment itself was cranked along the sides, reflecting a subtle change in pitch as the steep roof flattened out slightly over the verandahs. The verandah had turned balusters and 8" x 3" timber verandah posts with the wide face to the outside, subtle but unusual embellishments in Queensland. The design of the front stair was similarly unconventional, with an awning supported on verandah posts, and narrow projecting verandah elements flanking the stair, all of which were covered. The house had two tall rendered chimneys with concrete caps.
The whole house was raised on wooden stumps in the traditional Queensland fashion, but instead of a vertical batten skirt around the perimeter, the base was sheeted with hardwood weatherboards, relieved only by small vertical slits, with a gap for the ant caps just below floor bearer level. The effect was of a solid house firmly tied to the ground. Solidity was to become an identifying characteristic of all Dods' buildings. The house design was published in the premier London architectural journal The Builder in 1906 and in Domestic Architecture in Australia by W Hardy Wilson in 1919.
The external sheeting of the front wall was of pine chamferboards, in conventional fashion, but the wall itself was unconventionally blank. With the exception of corner bay windows and the front door and sidelights, there were no other openings in the front elevation. At a subsequent date the corner bays were moved to the front, the central pediment porch was removed and two gables were constructed over the relocated bay windows.
Internally, the walls were sheeted with innovative narrow, vertically jointed pine boards and the ceilings with pressed metal of Art Nouveau design.
The service wing at the rear projected to the west at right angles to the main house, and contained kitchen, two pantries and a ground level washhouse. It had a blank wall to the street, relieved only by two oval-shaped windows to the kitchen itself, but opening onto a latticed verandah at the rear.
Lyndhurst remained the Reid family home for nearly 25 years. Following John Reid's death in January 1919 his widow sold the property and in January 1921 the house, on a slightly reduced site, was transferred to David Rhoades of Brisbane, then a month later to Letitia Macdonald. Queensland Post Office Directories list William A Macdonald as a resident from 1921-22 until at least 1940, although a Mrs Buss is thought to have lived at Lyndhurst in the 1930s. A detached extension at the rear of the house was extant by 1929.
Following Mrs MacDonald's death in 1942, the house was transferred in 1945 to Richard and Gladys Lucas. They subdivided the property, separating the front garden and tennis court from the house and driveway (still off London Road). Lyndhurst was sold c1946 and title changed hands frequently from this period until acquired by Aitkin Investments in 1983. It is likely that the house and extension were converted to flats in the late 1940s or early 1950s, resulting in a number of alterations, including enclosing of the verandahs, cladding of the exterior walls with stucco coated fibrous cement, some additional interior partitioning and extensions to the rear addition. Turrawan Private Hospital (1930s) is on adjoining land and was sold to Uniting Healthcare in 1998. 'Lyndhurst' may have become part of the property at that time. It has been sold to the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association for Clayfield College recently.
","criteria":"'Lyndhurst' is important in terms of Queensland's architectural history and in the development of the Queensland house. It is believed to be the earliest substantial residence designed by the influential partnership of Hall & Dods in 1896. Robert (Robin) Smith Dods is noted for the introduction of ideas on architectural design that were then current in the United Kingdom and integrating them with traditional Queensland forms and materials. His designs subsequently influenced Australian architecture. 'Lyndhurst' is situated in an area where many fine homes, including others by Dods, were subsequently built and illustrates the development of Clayfield as a prestigious residential area.
|'Lyndhurst' is rare as an early example of Dods domestic work. Although he designed many houses, few, particularly of the size and quality of 'Lyndhurst', survive.
|As a residence designed shortly after his return from the United Kingdom, it is of particular interest in understanding the development of domestic design in Brisbane. Although it has sustained major alterations, it retains much of the original layout and characteristic features of his work.
|'Lyndhurst' is important for its association with the life and work of RS (Robin) Dods, an innovative and influential architect who made a major contribution to the development of housing design in Queensland. It is an early and influential example of his work, adapting Arts and Crafts design philosophy with the climactic constraints posed by sub tropical dwelling.
|'Lyndhurst' is important for its association with the life and work of RS (Robin) Dods, an innovative and influential architect who made a major contribution to the development of housing design in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19550,"place_ref":602181,"name":"Norfolk Island Pine Trees","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"127 Shore Street North","suburb":"CLEVELAND","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2003-11-21","description":"The Norfolk Island Pine trees are located at 127 Shore Street North, along the road leading to Cleveland Point, nearly half way between the former Cleveland Hotel and Paxton Street, on the eastern side of the road. The trees
The maturity of the Norfolk Island Pine trees suggests that they were planted in the 19th century, and photographic and documentary evidence suggests that they are likely to date to the middle of the century, probably planted as a part of the 1860s garden surrounding Francis Bigge's cottage on Shore Street North - the site now occupied by Norfolk Pines home units.
","history":"The Norfolk Island Pine trees at 127 Shore Street North, Cleveland, were planted most likely in the early 1860s by Brisbane Valley squatter Francis Edward Bigge, an enthusiastic promoter of Cleveland as a rival to Brisbane. The trees are located on part of allotment 8 of section 6, Town of Cleveland, alienated from the Crown in 1853.
During the 1830s Cleveland was known as Emu Point, a jumping-off point to Dunwich on Stradbroke Island. Despite some early setbacks, Cleveland would eventually become the centre of the developing Redlands district.
Pastoral settlement spilt down the range from the Darling Downs into the Brisbane River Valley during the early 1840s. Squatters who took up runs here included young English brothers Frederic William and Francis Edward Bigge at Mount Brisbane, which they established in 1841. Frederic returned to England c1850, but Francis remained in Queensland for over thirty years. A member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1851, and of the Queensland Legislative Council from 1860 to 1873, FE Bigge was the principal advocate for the establishment of Cleveland as the port for Moreton Bay in the 1840s and 1850s, and held substantial financial interests in the colony. He visited England briefly in the 1850s, where he married in 1857, returning to Moreton Bay in 1858. It is believed that on their return, the Bigges lived mainly at Cleveland, leaving Mt Brisbane in the hands of a manager. By 1868, FE Bigge had three addresses listed in the Post Office directories: Mr Brisbane Station, Cleveland and Brisbane.
The pastoralists of the Darling Downs and West Moreton adopted Ipswich (then called Limestone) as their main supply centre. However, the squatters' interests at Ipswich ran counter to those who wanted Brisbane as the commercial centre and chief port of the region. Exports such as wool could be transported directly from Ipswich to Cleveland, thus bypassing the convict-tainted Brisbane with its river mouth blocked by a bar. Francis Bigge and other pastoralists invested heavily in the port of Cleveland. One 19th century commentator estimated that Bigge eventually spent £10,000 over two decades in efforts to develop Cleveland into an export outlet.
The Brisbane versus Ipswich (and, by implication, Cleveland) argument was often heated. The Moreton Bay Courier of 14 January 1850 reported an Ipswich public meeting which called for a shift of the port to Cleveland. Francis Bigge thundered: The ships for Great Britain would receive at Cleveland Point the produce of the country. They would there load their passengers who, as they passed up to Ipswich in the steamers, would give a cheer for dirty Brisbane.
Surveyor James Warner noted in 1841 that Cleveland offered the only apparently eligible site for a maritime township along this shore of the Bay. By 1842 a track linked Cleveland with Coopers Plains, Ipswich and beyond. This may be the track reported to have been marked out by Francis Bigge and Arthur Hodgson of Eton Vale on the Darling Downs. However, it took another decade of squatter agitation for Cleveland to be officially surveyed.
The claims of Ipswich and the squatters were seemingly sunk by the well-known story of the visit to Cleveland by Governor Gipps in 1842, when he was forced to flounder through low-tide mud lying between the Shamrock and the shore. Brisbane offered a most attractive locality elevated upon the riverbank, but was hampered by the river mouth bar and sixteen miles of meandering river. Ipswich, although more easily accessed by the Darling Downs squatters was even further from the Bay. When the Governor became mired in Cleveland's low-tide mudflats, so too were that centre's claims. With the low-tide mudflats regarded as a more serious barrier to ship-borne trade and communications than the bar at the mouth of the Brisbane River, Brisbane gained the upper hand in its desire to become the principal port and the new colony's capital. Bigge and others pressed their claims regardless.
Bigge and others began to develop Cleveland despite a lack of official surveys. In June 1847 the Moreton Bay Courier reported that some private dwellings had been built. In the same year the first light was erected at Cleveland Point to guide shipping, and a stone jetty was completed. In 1849 Bigge built a large brick hotel. For some years known as "Bigge's Folly", this building [with an additional storey and 'renovated'] is now the Grand View Hotel. Although legend has it that Bigge's Folly was erected initially as a private house, other accounts have it purpose-built as a hotel.
In 1849 Bigge, John Balfour of Colinton and other squatters petitioned the New South Wales Governor to survey land already reserved for the Town of Cleveland. This survey was completed in 1850 and a town was proclaimed in December of that year. William Pettigrew noted at the time that: The talk of late has been about Cleveland ... All eyes are ... set on Cleveland ... A great many of the Sydney people are going to purchase land there as they are sure that Cleveland will become the chief port. At the first auction on 13 August 1851, eighty lots were offered for sale. This land would become the nucleus of the township of Cleveland, officially renamed from Emu Point in July 1851 for the Duke of Cleveland.
At this first land sale a number of Sydney people speculated in Cleveland allotments, including Edmund Tobias of Sydney who purchased several acres. Balfour and Bigge also bought heavily. Balfour's half a dozen allotments comprised over twenty acres, and Bigge purchased (or was a partner in) a dozen allotments totaling some seventeen acres.
In 1852 Francis Bigge commissioned John Petrie to erect a store at Cleveland, and by March 1853 exports were expected to commence next boiling season. In 1853 Bigge built accommodation for his employees - the building at the corner of Paxton and Shore Streets later used as a courthouse and now a restaurant. However, the October 1853 sinking of the Countess of Derby when crossing the South Passage on her way to collect a large quantity of wool and tallow from Messrs Robert Graham & Co was a blow to Cleveland. Then fire in January 1854 destroyed the Courier and virtually its entire cargo of 400 bales of wool. This second disaster prompted Graham to abandon Cleveland, and move his headquarters to Brisbane. Despite these setbacks some further development continued.
The Moreton Bay Courier of 26 August 1854 reported that heading from Bigge's Folly towards the point, we passed two other substantial brick cottages ... but both uninhabited. Published in 1859, Rambles at the Antipodes described Cleveland as one of the most interesting spots in the neighbourhood ... celebrated for some rather abortive attempts at the establishment of a more convenient shipping place than Brisbane itself. Clearly Cleveland's time as potential port or colonial capital had passed, despite the efforts and expenditure by Bigge and others. The writer claimed, possibly erroneously, that Cassim's Hotel was very isolated, the nearest resident being a fellmonger, upon a creek four miles off. It is possible that a number of residences had been abandoned or were used only as summer houses.
An unsourced item probably dating from the early 1870s, held by the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, describes standing on a comparatively high background where there were two hotels and a few small cottages, and from there a track sloped a short distance ... to the lighthouse ... Descending the slope, the first private dwelling on the right was a good-sized cottage, built and owned by Mr Bigge, who a few years previously had returned to England, whereupon his Cleveland retreat was much in favour with certain Brisbane families.
Francis Bigge occupied the land on which the Norfolk Island Pine trees stand, sometime between 1859 and 1863, if not earlier. The land comprised four allotments originally alienated in 1853: two purchased by Sydney speculator Edmund Tobias [allots 7 & 8, sec 6, Town of Cleveland], and two by Moreton Bay squatter John Balfour [allots 9 & 10, sec 6, Town of Cleveland]. Bigge purchased allotments 9 & 10 from Balfour on 31 December 1859. Conveyance of allotments 7 & 8 from Tobias to Francis Edward Bigge of Cleveland was made in October 1863. It is likely that neither Tobias nor Balfour built upon their allotments, but Bigge had erected a house at Cleveland overlooking Moreton Bay by March 1864, apparently on the land he had acquired from Balfour and Tobias.
In March 1869 Bigge applied for a certificate of title for allotments 9 and 10, by which time he had sold the property to politician and Darling Downs squatter Joshua Peter Bell of Jimbour Station. These two allotments comprised 2 roods 31 perches in total, and were valued at £800, suggesting that the property had been improved, and likely contained Bigge's residence. The property at this time was also subject to a lease from 1864 for 7 years, to a Mr Tubbs, but it is not known whether this applied to the whole of allotments 9 and 10. At the same time, Bigge also transferred allotments 7 & 8 to Bell. The total holding then comprised 1 acre 1 rood 11 perches.
JP Bell was one of the most influential men in Queensland, and in the 1870s was a co-founder of the Queensland National Bank. The Cleveland property remained in his ownership, apparently mainly tenanted, until his death in 1881. In 1882 title was transferred to William Finucane, who retained ownership for two-and-a-half decades.
Photographer William Boag travelled Queensland between 1870 and 1878 with his horse-drawn darkroom, undertaking commissions, photographing places across Queensland, and selling prints of "spec" photos. In November 1871 Boag travelled the southern shores of Moreton Bay. Amongst the photographs he took there is one showing a pair of Norfolk Island Pines - juvenile, but well above house height - standing where Shore Street begins to rise as it heads northwards to the Point. These are thought to be the two landmark Norfolk Island Pines on Bell's property. The same photograph shows several other denser trees surrounding the Norfolk Island Pines, which possibly includes the extant fig tree.
A 1906 photograph taken from near the front of Cassim's Cleveland Hotel, looking northwards towards Cleveland Point, shows the Norfolk Island Pines, one already split, towering over the surrounding tall vegetation. Subsequent photographs of the 1910s and later, confirm the pines' local landmark status. These later photographs also clearly show the mature surrounding trees. It seems reasonable to assume, given the maturity of both the pines and adjacent trees in 1906, that it is these trees which were photographed in 1871.
The whole of the Shore Street property subsequently passed to Catherine Byrne in 1906. In 1911 the house and garden on just over 3 roods [allotments 9 & 10 and subdivision 2 of allotment 8 (now BUP103110)] were transferred to the Bernays family, who occupied it until Mrs Bernays' death in 1949. An anonymous chronicler of Cleveland history whose memoirs are kept at the Redlands Library, wrote of how Mrs Bernays had every reason to be proud of her home and its beautiful garden, most of which had been planted by its previous owners. She always used to tell me that she would never allow the Norfolk Island Pines to be cut down as they were such a guide to boatmen as they came to Black's Jetty at night. She had often been thanked by the men after a wet night as the trees stood out against the background of the Brisbane light glare. [Black's Jetty extended into Moreton Bay from behind Cassim's Cleveland Hotel, to the south of Mrs Bernay's property.]
These landmark Norfolk Island Pines and their associated trees must be viewed in the context of the efforts by Francis Bigge, Balfour and others, during the 1840s and 1850s, to establish Cleveland as the leading port and export outlet for Darling Downs and Brisbane Valley produce. Already by 1906 the pines had grown to a landmark height, towering over the surrounding vegetation. It is not surprising that throughout the 20th century local mariners used the distinctive pair of trees as navigational guides.
","criteria":"The Norfolk pine trees are important because of their association with the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the attempts of Brisbane Valley and Darling Downs squatters to establish Cleveland as a port and colonial capital to rival Brisbane.
|The Norfolk Island pine trees have a special significance for the seagoing community of Moreton Bay, as their prominent position has provided a navigational landmark for Moreton Bay sailors throughout the 20th century.
|The trees have a strong association with squatter Francis Edward Bigge, who was prominent in the serious, but failed, mid-19th century attempt to establish Cleveland as the principal port of Moreton Bay.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19551,"place_ref":602429,"name":"Gair Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"181 Annerley Road","suburb":"DUTTON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-05","description":"Gair Park, a garden of remembrance containing a cenotaph, is a triangular piece of land bounded by Annerley Road, Gladstone Road and Maldon Street at Dutton Park. It is undulating in form and slopes down towards the road junction. The northeast corner has been truncated to close access to Maldon Street from Annerley Road and a side road has been cut to the south linking Gladstone Road and Annerley Road.
The memorial is situated near the western corner of the park at the top of a grassy avenue flanked by hedges and eucalypt trees. It is in the form of a an obelisk, 20 foot high and square in section composed of coursed blocks of Brisbane Tuff (porphyry). It is set on a sloping plinth faced with masonry tiles and is surrounded by a paved area. Bronze memorial tablets beneath bronze laurel wreaths are set low on the sides of the shaft. These are inscribed In Memory of Fallen Comrades with the dates beneath commemorating the First and Second World Wars and the Korean, Malaya, Vietnam and Borneo conflicts. The fourth plaque commemorates the dedication of the memorial and is inscribed Unveiled by his Excellency the Governor of Queensland Lieutenant General Sir John Laverack KBE, CB, CMG, DSO and dedicated by Reverend A G Reilly on 25 April 1951.
On the plinth are plaques inscribed Lest We Forget. Dutton Park sub branch RSSAILA and Lest We Forget. Yeronga/Dutton Park RSL Branch. Merged 3.2.1964. The park also contains a number of park seats and timber shelters and scattered plantings.
","history":"Gair Park is a triangular area of land at the intersection of two major roads at Dutton Park and was developed as a park in 1936 and as a garden of remembrance and memorial following World War II. It now also commemorates subsequent conflicts.
The area now that is now known as Dutton Park was originally called Bloggo or Boggo. It was thickly timbered and cut by steep gullies. Some farms were established there in the 1840s, but there were few houses until the 1880s. As transport became available, more people moved to the district. A railway station was opened at Dutton Park in 1884 and the first horse drawn bus service linking Dutton Park with the city began in 1890. It was replaced by electric tram in 1908, after which the area developed more rapidly. In 1914 the suburb was renamed in honour of C B Dutton, Secretary of Public Lands between 1883 and 1887, and by the late 1920s, was considered fashionable.
In the 30 June 1929 edition of the Sunday Mail, an article generally praising the suburb commented unfavourably on the area at the intersection of Annerley and Gladstone Road where there was 'a vacant triangle of public land which would make a charming little tree shaded reserve, but at the present time it remains little more than a rubbish heap, that is more of a disfigurement to the locality than an acquisition, which it would be if tided up and planted with shade trees.'
Steps were taken to address this problem in 1936 when the area, previously part of the road reserve, was vested in the Brisbane City Council for general municipal purposes. It was reserved as a park and Gilchrist prepared plans for it in June 1936. In 1938 the planting of fifty trees furthered the development.
The new park was named Gair Park in honour of parliamentarian Vincent (Vince) Clair Gair, Labor member for South Brisbane. Born in Rockhampton in 1901, Gair moved to Dutton Park with his parents in 1916. His family was politically active and he became Secretary of the South Brisbane branch of the ALP and by 1924 was its president. He was first elected to the Queensland Parliament in 1932 and gained his first Ministry as Secretary for Mines in 1942. He became Minister for Labour and Employment 1944-50 and Deputy Premier in 1947. In 1950 he became Treasurer and was Premier in 1951. He introduced the 40-hour working week and was associated with the modernisation of the Factory and Shops Act. In 1957 he was expelled from the Labor Party following a divergence of opinion and became leader of the breakaway Democratic Labor Party in 1964. He was a Senator for the DLP between 1965 and 1973, and then took up the appointment of Ambassador for Ireland until 1976 when he withdrew from politics. He lived locally until his death in 1980 and was always active in his constituency, supporting local institutions particularly those associated with health and children's welfare.
Following World War II, the Dutton Park and District Progress Association applied for permission to build a Memorial Hall. The Brisbane City Council did not favour this scheme and it was suggested that they lease a portion of Dutton Park instead. However, the proposal of the Dutton Park sub-branch of the RSSAILA to develop Gair Park as a Garden of Remembrance with a suitable memorial was approved. The Brisbane City Council Building and Planning Branch prepared plans in 1949. The memorial was in the form of a masonry obelisk set with bronze memorial tablets placed on a plinth of sufficient depth to accommodate the laying of wreaths. It was situated at a corner of the park, at the crest of the rise, and was approached through an avenue of shrubs and hedges. Hugh McKernan constructed the memorial, which was unveiled on Anzac Day 1951 by Lieutenant-General Sir John Laverack, Governor of Queensland. To the members of the Dutton Park sub branch it was a major achievement and represented the transformation of what was by then described as an unkept piece of ground into a place of beauty.
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before World War I. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation and the majority of Australian war memorials date from this era. Monumental memorials built following World War II and subsequent conflicts are less common and many comprise additions to earlier memorials or practical projects, such as public recreational facilities. As a cenotaph in a Garden of Remembrance dating from World War II, therefore, the memorial is of a less common type in Queensland. It has had memorials to previous and subsequent conflicts added to it.
The park setting has become less formal over time. In 1954 approval was given for the construction of a small concrete wall along the full length of the Annerley Road frontage with recesses for park seats and a new flowerbed in the Gladstone and Annerley Road corner. In the 1960s an avenue of eucalypts replaced earlier plantings. In 1973-74 the Multiple Sclerosis Society requested tables and chairs be provided to encourage use of the park by the inmates of the nearby convalescent home. The park now contains a picnic area and a number of shelters.
Gair Park is now used for informal outdoor recreational, cultural and educational activities. Ceremonies are held there on Anzac Day to honour war dead.
","criteria":"Gair Park is a garden of remembrance and cenotaph commemorating the war dead of the Dutton Park district. Memorials that pay tribute to war dead are an important element of Queensland towns and cities and demonstrate the way in which involvement in war has helped to shape the pattern of Queensland's history. They represent a conscious expression of Australian patriotism and sense of nationhood and reflect the public taste and social attitudes of their time.
|A high proportion of war memorials in Queensland were built to commemorate World War I. Gair Park is less common in that the garden and cenotaph were constructed following World War II. After this conflict, adding to existing memorials or constructing practical memorials, such as public facilities, more commonly remembered the fallen. Gair Park is a good example of it type as a cenotaph in a formal garden of remembrance.
|Gair Park is important for the aesthetic qualities of both the parkland setting and the war memorial it contains. The cenotaph is dramatically sited at the top of a grassy slope rising above Annerley Road at a major traffic intersection and is a landmark in the area.
|Gair Park and its memorial have a strong association with the community of Dutton Park as evidence of the impact of a major historic event on the district and also as a major project of the Dutton Park sub branch of the RSSAILA (now RSL). It is also an important ceremonial and recreational venue.
|Gair Park is linked to the life and work of former Queensland Premier, Vincent Clair Gair (1901-1980), and its naming acknowledges his active support for the area while Member of the Legislative Assembly for South Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19552,"place_ref":602431,"name":"St Saviour's Anglican Church (former)","alternate_name":"St Saviours Anglican Church (former) | St Saviour's Church | St Saviours Church","street_address":"26 Hynes Street","suburb":"SOUTH JOHNSTONE","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-09-24","description":"St Saviour's is a rendered masonry building with a corrugated iron roof. It is rectangular in plan with a separately-roofed front entrance porch and a northern rear vestry wing. It faces east onto Hynes Street, the main street of South Johnstone, and the symmetrically arranged façade, with its curved parapets to the front gable and front porch, and banks of windows with semi-circular arched fanlights, along the side elevations, makes an aesthetic contribution to the streetscape.
The front elevation has a six-paned timber framed casement window with semi-circular fanlight, either side of the centrally positioned front entrance porch, which is accessed from the north side via two concrete steps. The porch is enclosed with rendered masonry walls and has a flat corrugated iron roof concealed by a curved parapet, which mimics the front gable to the main building. There is a semi-circular arched window in the south wall of the porch, in-filled partly with glass and metal louvers and partly with a timber panel. The front wall of the porch until very recently had a grouped arched opening comprising three six-paned timber-framed casement windows with fanlights. The windows had been removed at the time of inspection, leaving a large open space in the wall with the central fanlight still in place. The porch gives access to the main entrance to the church, which consists of arched timber French doors
The side walls extend 15 metres from the front to the rear of the building, with three grouped arched openings consisting of three six-paned timber-framed casement windows, the central window in each group being taller than the others, and one six-paned timber-framed casement window to the rear, on each side wall. There are two single six-paned timber-framed casement windows in the rear wall. All windows, other than the louvre window in the porch, have semi-circular fanlights and textured glass. There are five buttresses along each wall.
A vestry wing extends 4 metres out from the northern wall at the rear of the building. There is a timber door on the eastern side of the wing, facing the street, which permits external access to the vestry. The doorway has a trim consisting of a painted red arch with a red cross above the door, inside the arch. There are three concrete steps, painted red, leading up to the door.
Externally the building is painted white with red trim on the external windowsills, fascia and on the trim below the top of the parapet. Gutters are painted green.
Internally the walls are painted light green with white window frames and white ceilings. The floors of the nave, sanctuary and vestry are of concrete. There is an angled wood-panelled ceiling in the nave. Three overhead fans are suspended from the nave ceiling.
The sanctuary is separated from the nave by a small step, a timber partition that drops from the ceiling, and folding timber doors. An arched opening leads through the northern wall to the vestry. A bench with a sink and laminate cupboard are against one wall of the vestry. This furniture is not significant. The western end of the vestry has been enclosed for a toilet.
No original church furniture remains inside the building.
The grounds consist of lawn with a gravel access driveway along the southern side of the building. A concrete path leads from the building to the gate. Two gate posts and the two external posts from the original front concrete fence remain in place and have embossed crosses. The remainder of the front fence has been replaced with cyclone wire fencing and a new gate, retaining the view of the church from the street. Neither the wire elements of the front fence nor the new green Colourbond fence along the rear and side boundary of the block have heritage significance.
","history":"St Saviour's Church, South Johnstone was completed in 1939 to serve Church of England (Anglican from 1981) parishioners at the southern end of the parish of Innisfail. Reputedly it was designed by Arthur Brown and constructed by local builder Mose Romano. Reverend John Feetham, Anglican Bishop of North Queensland, consecrated the church on Palm Sunday, 2 April 1939. It was used for Anglican religious service until 2003 and is currently privately owned.
South Johnstone is part of the Innisfail district (Innisfail was known as Geraldton until 1911). Thomas H Fitzgerald, who arrived on the banks of the Johnstone River to grow sugar cane on a 10,000 hectare land grant funded by the Catholic Bishop of Brisbane and All Hallows' Sisters of Mercy, founded the port of Geraldton in 1880. Others arrived soon after and a community was soon established with an economy firmly based on sugar production. In 1882 a sugar mill was built at Mourilyan followed by the establishment of the South Johnstone Mill in 1916.
Sugar cane farming was labour intensive, and as a result the region attracted a diverse racial mix of people including Pacific Islanders, Chinese, Italians, Malays, Japanese and Javanese. The prosperity of the sugar industry became dependent on the contract labour provided by Pacific Islanders in particular. The Chinese population, mainly failed miners from the Palmer River goldrush, established market gardens on the North and South Johnstone Rivers to supply goods for the workers in the sugar industry. The first Italian migrants arrived in North Queensland in December 1891 and were soon joined by friends and relatives to establish the strong Italian farming community that continues in the Innisfail region today.
The establishment of the South Johnstone Sugar Mill in 1916 provided the stimulus for the development of the town of South Johnstone. At the time of opening, 100 farmers supplied cane for the first crush, and by 1930 this had grown to 300 farms supplying cane to the South Johnstone Mill.
The First World War accentuated the decline of the western mineral fields of North Queensland, and a large population shift took place to the expanding coastal sugar production areas such as the Johnstone, Tully, Mackay, Cairns and Babinda areas where miners were reportedly in demand as preferred workers for the sugar mills and farms . Census information shows a steady increase in the population of Johnstone Shire from 1901 (population 2,924) to 1925 (population 8,000)3 and 1934-5 when the population was reported at 12,777 . The population increase corresponds with a steady rise in sugar production in the Shire, particularly from 1924 .
A cyclone in 1918 destroyed many buildings in the South Johnstone area, after which buildings were constructed of solid materials such as brick and concrete where possible. The Innisfail district, including South Johsntone, prospered in the 1920s due to the success of the local sugar industry. Sugar growing and milling also supported the area through the worldwide economic depression of the early 1930s. Many of the public and commercial buildings constructed in the area during the 1920s and 1930s, including St Savour's Church at South Johnstone, reflect the fashionable architectural and decorative styles of the interwar period, such as Mediterranean, Spanish Mission and 'Art Deco'.
The Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas, an organisation of Anglican priests that had served the western mineral fields since its inception in Herberton in 1902, began to work in the developing coastal sugar areas after 1924 . Between 1926 and 1939 the Anglican Church, aided by the Bush Brotherhoods embarked on ambitious church building schemes in the developing sugar areas of North Queensland. Seven churches, including St Saviour's, were dedicated or consecrated during this time in coastal sugar towns such as Cairns, Tully, Innisfail, Mackay and South Johnstone .
The Brotherhood of St Barnabas was one of a group of Brotherhoods founded in 1896 to address the problems of providing pastoral care in the sparsely settled areas of Queensland. The Brothers were volunteers, recruited from England to work for five years in the developing colony of Queensland, travelling where they were needed, remaining unmarried for their time of service and receiving only board and lodging and an annual payment of £25 for personal items in return for their service in often difficult conditions .
South Johnstone Anglicans had been under the care of the priests serving the parishes of Cairns and Geraldton [later Innisfail], since the late 1890s. The first Church of England service in Geraldton was held in the Geraldton Division Board Hall in 1898, and was conducted by priests from the Parish of Cairns. In 1899 a timber church was constructed on the corner of Alice and Rankin Streets and a rectory was built on the corner of Alice and Owen Street in 1905. In 1900 the Parish of Geraldton was separated from the Parish of Cairns. The church was moved to a bigger site on Rankin Street in 1917, but this church, along with most of the town, was destroyed by the devastating cyclone of 1918. It was replaced by St Alban's church, on the corner of Rankin and Alice Streets, which was opened and dedicated on 5 October 1929.
Few Church of England rectors stayed longer than five years in the Parish of Innisfail and visiting priests such as the Bush Brotherhood were relied on heavily. From 1931 to 1933 members of the Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas (Rev. HA Norton, Rev. EW Gribble and Rev. CG Brown) served the Parish, then members of the Bush Brotherhood of St Lawrence (Rev. NA Townsend, Rev. R Campbell and Rev. Underhill) took over the responsibility until 1938. Church records indicate that the building of St Saviour's Church was due to the efforts and enthusiasm of Brother Ray Campbell in particular .
On 22 October 1935 the Church of England purchased a 1012m² block of land in South Johnstone for the erection of a daughter church to St Alban's. The site was purchased from Jose Maria for a cost of £65, and the concrete building was constructed in 1938-39 by Mose Romano at a cost of £1000. It is understood that the porch and vestry were added at a later date. The design, reputedly by Arthur Brown, was in Spanish Mission style.
The Bishop of North Queensland, Reverend John Olive Feetham, who ten years earlier had conducted a similar ceremony at St Alban's, dedicated St Saviour's Anglican Church on Palm Sunday, 2 April 1939. Half of the construction cost had been paid by this time. An active St Saviour's Ladies Guild subsequently raised funds through dances and other activities to help finance the remaining debt. Bequests also contributed to reduction of the debt.
Rev. EW Gribble returned as the incumbent rector in Innisfail parish from 1940 to 1945 after completing the required five years of voluntary service to the Brotherhood of St Barnabas .
St Saviour's provided a place of worship for Church of England parishioners at the southern end of the parish of Innisfail, with Holy Communion celebrated regularly on Sundays and weekdays. However, from the 1940s the population of South Johnstone began to decline. St Alban's Parish Notes of March 1946, records "notes from St Saviour's always seem to include accounts of farewell parties these days".
From the 1960s the building was shared as a place of worship by minority religions in the district. One parishioner remembers the Lutheran Church holding services (twice monthly) and Sunday school in St Saviour's for around 20 years from 1969. Pastor George Rosendale, from the Lutheran Mission of Hope Valley (now Hope Vale), was one of the Ministers to serve the Lutheran congregation in South Johnstone. He was one of the first Aboriginal Lutheran pastors.
The Pew Bulletin in June 2003 noted the cost and on-going maintenance issues of Parish properties and included an assessment of the Sunday ministry at St Saviour's. Because of these concerns the church was advertised for sale in July 2003 and subsequently was sold to a local business that currently uses the building as a training centre.
Internal furnishings, including the altar and pews, were removed when the church was sold in August 2003. Changes to the external fabric of the building, including removal of most of the front concrete fence, removal of the external crosses, removal and replacement of the front window architrave and the installation of air conditioning units, took place between the time of the sale and February 2004.
","criteria":"St Saviour's Anglican Church, erected in 1938-39 to service the then expanding population of the Innisfail district, is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement associated with the growth of North Queensland's sugar industry. In particular it illustrates how the growth of the North Queensland sugar industry during the interwar period generated prosperity in small communities such as South Johnstone, enabling parishioners to construct their places of worship in masonry rather than the more usual timber. It is important also as surviving evidence of the work of the priests of the Bush Brotherhoods of St Barnabas and St Lawrence, who served the Anglican parish of Innisfail from 1931-38.
|The substantial, rendered masonry church in the Spanish Mission style remains largely intact. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, and is illustrative of its era.
|As a rare and surviving church building constructed by the Bush Brotherhood of St Barnabas and St Lawrence, the former St Saviour's Anglican Church, South Johnstone, has a special association with the work of the Bush Brotherhood, who were important in the Anglican Church's (Church of England) presence in remote areas of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19554,"place_ref":602433,"name":"Ebbw Vale Memorial Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Brisbane Road","suburb":"EBBW VALE","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-17","description":"Ebbw Vale is a small suburb and the soccer field occupies approximately 1/7 of the populated land area.
The park contains two playing fields. The original soccer field faces Brisbane Road and the second field to the rear of the site is also used for cricket, baseball, softball and touch football as well as swap meets and other gatherings.
A car park and a two-storey brick clubhouse separate the two fields. The clubhouse has a skillion roof and large windows on the upper storey that overlook the main soccer field. There is also a bank of stands and a viewing box, a small canteen and concrete toilet block, a metal storage shed and a recreation area comprising a shelter, picnic tables and benches
The other major feature of the park is the war memorial that is situated at the corner of Brisbane Road and Jordan Street. It comprises a square granite base supporting a pedestal of white Helidon sandstone and a life-sized statue of a Digger in marching kit above crossed British and Australian flags. Pilasters of brown sandstone with Corinthian capitals separate recessed marble plaques on each face of the pedestal. These bear the names of 22 volunteers from the district.
","history":"Ebbw Vale Memorial Park was first known as the Whitwood ground, as in the early 1890s the owners of the Whitwood Colliery made the land available for their employees to use as a football ground. The colliery fielded two teams and soccer has been played at this venue ever since together with other sports.
Football in various forms is a very ancient game. It has been played in Britain since at least the Middle Ages, though there were few rules and these varied from one district to another. In 1815 the first written rules were drawn up and 1863 the Football Association was formed in Britain. At this time the two codes of Rugby and Association football were defined. In 1870 an 11 player team was agreed upon and regulations were further refined in the in the 1870s and 1880s.
The word 'soccer' was coined from the abbreviation 'assoc' (as opposed to the derivation of the term 'rugger' from rugby) in the 1880s, though it was not in general use at that time.
This codification took place when many Britons were emigrating to Queensland and Ipswich drew miners from parts of England and Wales where football was very popular. Improvements to conditions and hours of work won by trade unions increased the leisure time of working people, including the gaining of a Saturday half day off, and this helped to promote team games like football.
In Queensland, the Anglo-Queensland Football Association was formed in 1886 and regular matches were held between several Brisbane teams. The Pineapple Hotel was used as headquarters of the Association and a team called the Pineapple Rangers was formed and played in the field behind the hotel, now used again for soccer games. The first soccer game played in Ipswich took place on the North Ipswich Reserve on 26 June 1886. Ipswich became officially involved with the Association from 1887. In 1889, the Association changed its name to the Queensland British Football Association. In the 1890s the game was well promoted and popular in Queensland; Maryborough and Rockhampton also having strong association football teams. Intercolonial matches were staged and in 1914 Brisbane hosted the second annual conference of the Commonwealth Football Association.
The land comprising Ebbw Vale Memorial Park was formed from Lot 227 acquired by William, Joseph, John and James Stafford in 1890 and an irregularly shaped strip of land, part of the adjoining lot 226, which was added to the block in 1892. The Stafford brothers owned the Whitwood Colliery, having sunk the Whitwood number 1 shaft near the end of Whitwood Road, Ebbw Vale in 1887. In 1899, number 2 shaft was sunk on the northern side of the Brisbane-Ipswich Railway line opposite Railway Street. The coal reserves in this area had previously been proven by driving a tunnel under the soccer field from the first shaft.
Several collieries had football teams formed by miners including Stafford brothers at Dinmore, Wright's at Tivoli and Lewis Thomas at Blackstone. The first soccer game at the Whitwood ground to receive press coverage was held on 5 July 1892, though it is clear that games had already been held there for some time. The home team at that game was a combination from the players of the Bush Rats, Dinmore and Whitwood teams. By 1893, the Whitwood ground was also being referred to as 'St Helen's' as well and this name was later used for the football team itself. In 1909, when the nearby railway station opened, it was also called St Helens, before being renamed Ebbw Vale the following year. Ebbw Vale is a town in Wales and was the name of an early coal mine in the area.
In 1904 James Stafford left the colliery partnership and during 1911 all three of his brothers died. Johanna Stafford, widow of Joseph, took over the running of the business, though rising costs and a falling market affected profits. By 1917 she was in partnership with her brother in law, Richard Darker and his son, Walter. Around this time, members of the St Helen's Club, officially formed in 1912, were raising money locally with the intention of purchasing the ground, already referred to in 1915 by the Queensland Times as 'the famous old Whitwood ground'. This did not eventuate and in 1924, the Council of the Shire of Moreton acquired the land, although the mining rights below 70 feet continued with the colliery.
Responsibility for running and maintaining the field was originally in the care of 'trustees' from the local community and it continued to be cared for by volunteer effort, in some cases over three or four generations of the same families. The players are said to have originally used a stand of trees on the ground for changing and then the verandah of Stan McCrea's house nearby.
In the 1940s, team sports suffered as players were called up for the defence forces, but St Helen's organised the 'Ipswich Essentials' composed of miners, railway employees and others in reserved 'essential' occupations. After the war, the club entered a golden era when soccer was very popular in Ipswich and matches between the four major district teams, Saint Helen's, Blackstone Rovers, Bundamba Rangers and the Dinmore Bushrats, were hotly contested. St Helen's was a very successful club and had large spectator support and a number of outstanding players. Lance Petie, Duncan McKenna and Chas Matters played for Queensland and Alan 'Oscar' Pitcairn, Gordon 'Bunny'Nunn, Col Kitching, Cliff Sander and Brian Vogler all played for Australia. Sander, Vogler and Kitching represented Australia in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic team, together with coach Al Warren. 1956 was a peak year for St Helen's peak when they won all major trophies offered.
In the 1960s soccer in Queensland became more professional and top players were drawn to major ethnic clubs in Brisbane. This inevitably had an effect on teams like St Helen's that lost players. Dinmore merged with Redbank and then this club merged with St Helens in 1966 to form St Helens United. In 1967 St Helens regained some team members and won the Ampol Cup.
In 1969, the local war memorial was moved to the grounds from near the Ebbw Vale railway station. This digger statue on a sandstone pedestal was made by A L Petrie and was unveiled on 14 May 1918. It honours those from the area who served in WW I and includes the names of several soccer team members including William Jeffrey, Peter Jeffrey, H Mills and possibly LW Breslin
Ebbw Vale became a suburb of Ipswich in 1949 and in 1971 a new certificate of title was issued to the Council of the City of Ipswich. It continued to be leased to the sports club, initially through individuals, then from 1993 to St Helen's United Soccer and Recreation Club Inc. At this time, the clubhouse was built using volunteer labour.
St Helen's merged with Coalstars Soccer Club in 1997 to form the Ipswich Knights. At the time it was agreed that the Coalstars' ground would be upgraded to QSF Premier League standards and the Ebbw Vale field used women's and junior matches. Some local families now have fourth generation members playing soccer on the field. While soccer has always been played at the ground, it has also provided a venue for cricket and for baseball, softball and touch football. Other clubs have also used the facilities. The field, being an accessible open space, has also been used for community gatherings at Christmas and on Australia Day. A community breakfast was held of the field for Anzac Day 2002.
","criteria":"The ground at Ebbw Vale was made available as a venue for football and cricket games for employees of the Whitwood Colliery in the late 19th century. Soccer became an important sporting activity in Ipswich through the city's coal mining industry and its links with Yorkshire and Wales, where pit football teams were common. The Ebbw Vale field is connected with the development of soccer in Queensland, both as an early pit field and as the home of a successful club that produced a number of state, national and Olympic players in the mid 20th century.
|Ebbw Vale Memorial Park is uncommon as a 19th century soccer ground in Queensland, which has been continuously in use for this purpose. Raymond Park (Pineapple Park) in Brisbane is slightly older, but this has not been in continuous use for soccer.
|Ebbw Vale Memorial Park has been traditionally maintained by community effort and local volunteers have cared for the ground and provided coaches and players, in some cases for several generations. The park has social significance as a testimony of continuous voluntary service and because it forms a recreational focus for the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19555,"place_ref":602434,"name":"Purga Aboriginal Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Carmichaels Road","suburb":"PURGA","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"The Purga Aboriginal Cemetery is located approximately 15 kilometres south of Ipswich City along the Ipswich-Boonah Road. A signpost at Carmichaels Road (off the Ipswich-Boonah Road) marks the turn-off to the cemetery, following Carmichaels Road approximately one kilometre to a right hand turn and travelling c100m to access the cemetery driveway. A recent amenities block has been constructed in the south-west corner of the reserve. This is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The whole area is one hectare with a smaller portion within the reserve fenced off with a chain wire fence and gate. This fenced off portion has a number of early marble headstones, one dating to 1918. Other graves within the fenced off portion are marked by simple timber crucifixes and low-set concrete headstones. The grave of Aunty Janey Arnold is located in the fenced off portion. A number of graves are located in the larger area of the reserve outside the small fenced portion. These graves are marked in various ways including simple timber crucifixes with small brass plaques and concrete surrounds and more elaborate granite headstones. A timber sign in the south-west corner reads 'DOREEN THOMPSON MEMORIAL CEMETERY'.
","history":"Purga Creek Aboriginal Mission comprised areas of land gazetted for Aboriginal purposes from 1892 until they were rescinded in 1948. The first area of land to be gazetted was R.177 situated about 8kms south of Ipswich in an area referred to as Purga Creek (South). Buildings and structures associated with the Purga Creek Mission site no longer exist. The cemetery, gazetted in 1968 but in use much earlier, retains a long association with the Purga Creek Aboriginal Mission with the earliest marked grave dating from 1918 a few years after the establishment of the mission.
The Purga Creek Aboriginal Mission was established in 1914 as a self-supporting farm and a training venture for future employment and remained so until 1948 when the mission closed. At the time the buildings were described as being dilapidated with better facilities available at other State Aboriginal settlements. The closure of the mission also ended a 27 year association of the Salvation Army with the place.
An earlier mission had been established at Deebing Creek in 1892 following the selection by the Aboriginal Protection Society of a suitable site to accommodate Aborigines. Set up in Ipswich by a group of businessmen and women, in 1889 the society was taken over by members of various local church groups. A particular concern of the society was the accessibility of alcohol by the Aborigines. Deebing Creek was a place of residence and work for missionaries and Aboriginal people until 1914 until when the mission moved to Purga Creek. During the period of time when the mission was located at Deebing Creek, R.177 (now known as Lot 219 RP858789) was referred to as the farm at the Nine Mile or the Nine Mile Reserve, with farm produce supporting the Deebing Creek Mission.
One of the first to complain about the suitability of the Deebing Creek Mission site, and the absence of fertile land, was Archibald Meston. In 1897, under the provisions of the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, Meston was appointed Protector of Aborigines for south Queensland. Under the act, the lives of Aboriginal people became increasingly controlled by the State, providing for the establishment of government-run reserves, provision for the removal of Aborigines to reserves, provided for written agreements for the employment of Aborigines as well as controlling the residence, movement, employment and wages of Aboriginal people.
In September 1901 an area of 112 acres was gazetted as a temporary Reserve for Aborigines. This was much the same parcel of land gazetted in January 1892 (R.177) though slightly smaller in area. By 1910 several acres of the Nine Mile Reserve had been cleared and stumped and twelve acres had been placed under crop. By 1913, when trying to operate the Nine Mile farm from Deebing Creek became increasingly difficult, a move to Purga Creek about 4kms south of Deebing Creek was proposed. This move was also thought necessary to minimise the temptation for Aboriginal people to obtain alcohol from Ipswich.
In 1914 the Committee governing the Deebing Creek Mission purchased a small farm of 62 acres close to the Nine Mile Reserve at Purga, as a site for the proposed relocated mission settlement. This is understood to be portion 60 (now Lot 60 on CC1433) located between Purga Creek to the west and the Ipswich-Boonah Road and Fassifern Branch Railway to the east, just west of the Nine Mile Reserve. Apart from the convenient proximity to the railway, the new site provided space for the erection of increased dormitory and storage accommodation as well as extra cultivation.
Most of the cost of relocation was met by the State government with £200 being approved towards the cost of removing and re-erecting the principal buildings (including the school) from the old site at Deebing Creek to the new Purga Homestead. Opportunity was taken to discard the old system of slab huts and to erect, utilising inmates' labour, new, neat timber cottages on stumps, to receive the families transferred from Deebing Creek. These cottages were aligned around three sides of a square paddock of about six acres, and could be closely supervised from the official quarters. The resident mission population rose to 85 that year.
Aboriginal children and adults from all over the State - from North Queensland and as far west as Charleville - were sent to Purga Creek Mission. Aboriginal people who were sent to reserves away from their traditional lands are known as historical people. The reserves which became their homes were the traditional lands of other groups, but the State authorities did not take this cultural aspect into account in removing people from place to place. Nonetheless reserves such as Purga Creek Mission became home to those who were sent there by Aboriginal Protectors.
In 1915 there was 20 acres of land under cultivation at Purga Creek, sufficient produce had been grown both to provide for the mission and to sell locally, and the mission had produced prize winning herds of pigs, dairy and beef cattle.
In 1920 the Salvation Army, which appeared to have had some involvement, perhaps from a temperance and charitable aspect, with the Purga Creek Mission from the early mission days, was approached by the State government to take control of the site. The Salvation Army accepted and made immediate improvements, including construction of a large school hall, a dining hall for the orphans, repairs to the girl's dormitory and conversion of the old school into a boy's dormitory. The Salvation Army used the term 'colony' instead of 'mission'. The War Cry reported the official function of the opening of the Aboriginal Colony in January 1921. When the Salvation Army took over there was accommodation for 40 boys and girls and room for 100 Colonists.
The Reports of the Aboriginal Department over the years in relation to Purga were brief, mainly stating the number of orphan children maintained at the Purga Industrial School, an aspect of the Salvation Army work, and an update on the agricultural operation. In 1933 it was stated that a well was sunk in the village. This is the first time the word 'village' is used in connection with Purga Mission. There appeared to be encouragement of the cultivation of private gardens by Aboriginal residents. Whilst archival records for Purga Creek are sparse between 1914 until about 1935, reports from the interwar period show that married couples and their families were encouraged to live in their own huts on the mission and cook for themselves from weekly rations. Orphaned children and unmarried adults resided in dormitories. The Aboriginal men worked on the farm or went out to work.
By the mid-1940s with a decreasing population and with buildings deteriorating a Visiting Justice, JJ Leahy wrote to the Under Secretary of the Department of Health and Home Affairs in January 1947 regarding the poor state of the buildings at Purga. The Salvation Army requested urgent repairs to the buildings at Purga Mission buildings in April 1947. The brief report on the Purga Mission in 1947 showed that renovations and improvements had been made to the buildings. A total of ten children were then at the mission.
In 1948 the Director of Native Affairs indicated that Purga Mission was to be closed, the official date of closure being 30 June 1948, which is also the date of the school's closure. The total number of residents was seven. The children were sent to other Aboriginal Settlements. The Land Administration Board was to take over all the land and improvements within the Mission Reserve, apart from the church building, which was to be left to the disposal of the Salvation Army. The proclamation to rescind a number of reserves including R.177 appeared in the Queensland Government Gazette in December 1948.
In March 1968 a Reserve for an Aboriginal Cemetery (R. 841), under the control of the Director of Aboriginal and Island Affairs as trustee, was proclaimed. An area of one acre (Lot 217 CP858790) was excised from the original R.177 (now lot 219 on RP858789). The earliest marked headstone dates to 1918, indicating that the cemetery was in used from the earliest years of the Purga Creek Mission.
In May 2002 an article headed 'Indigenous community mourns elder' appeared in The Courier-Mail recording the death of Brisbane elder Aunty Janey Arnold, a long-time Indigenous rights and equity campaigner. Aunty Janey was born about 1908 in an Aboriginal camp site on the outskirts of Mitchell. When she was one, Aunty Janey's family was moved to Deebing Creek Mission outside Ipswich and later moved to the nearby Purga Creek Mission. Auntey Janey was buried in the Purga Aboriginal Cemetery.
Harold Blair, the world renowned tenor, was the most famous of Purga Creek Mission residents, being brought to Purga when he was 3 months old and stayed until he finished his schooling at 17 years of age. When he died in 1976 a memorial service was held at the Purga Aboriginal Cemetery and his ashes were scattered at that site.
","criteria":"Purga Aboriginal Cemetery is important as a place of ritual and ceremony having a strong association with the Aboriginal community associated with Purga Creek Mission, established in 1914. The cemetery is the resting place for the Aboriginal people from the Purga Creek Mission and their descendents, including Aboriginal people who were moved to Purga Creek from other areas around Queensland, and who are known as 'historical' people.
|Purga Aboriginal Cemetery is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history as it is connected to the establishment of the Purga Aboriginal Mission in the area in 1914 when the mission moved to Purga Creek from Deebing Creek. Whilst the mission closed in 1948 the cemetery remains open and has had recent burials. The cemetery is a physical reminder of the practice of isolating Aboriginal people from the mainstream Queensland community in the early twentieth century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19561,"place_ref":602439,"name":"Sir William Glasgow Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"270 Queen Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-13","description":"The Sir William Glasgow Memorial is located on a paved area at the northwestern edge of Post Office Square, adjacent to Adelaide Street in Brisbane City. The memorial is comprised of a large statue standing on a stone plinth, and is in strong axial alignment with the Shrine of Remembrance in Anzac Square [QHR 600062]. Prominent vistas of the memorial are available from Anzac Square and from the sections of Adelaide and Queen streets that bound Post Office Square.
The Daphne Mayo designed, bronze statue of Glasgow is approximately 2.5 metres high and set on a tapered plinth. Panels of grey granite clad the plinth and bear gilt inscriptions detailing Glasgow’s career and service record. A square, stone base that supports the plinth has recent inscriptions on the top face, northwest and southeast of the statue, labelling details of the memorial’s rededication on 2 February 2008.
The statue depicts Glasgow in the uniform of an officer of the Light Horse holding a pair of field glasses. He is standing at ease in a relaxed and natural pose and gazes reflectively into the distance. The stamp of the foundry, Foundaria Natistica, Battaglia, Milan is imprinted on the bronze behind the statue's right heel.
Other elements of Post Office Square, including the above ground park area and lower level commercial spaces, are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance in relation to the Sir William Glasgow Memorial.
","history":"The Sir William Glasgow Memorial was designed by Queensland sculptor Daphne Mayo and completed in 1964. It is in the form of a naturalistic bronze figure of Sir William, dressed in Australian Light Horse uniform and set on a granite plinth.
Thomas William Glasgow was born at Blackmount, near Tiaro, Queensland in 1876. He was educated at One Mile State School in Gympie and at Maryborough Grammar School. After leaving school he initially worked as a clerk in the office of a mining company, then as a bank clerk in Gympie. He joined the Wide Bay Regiment, Queensland Mounted Infantry, while still in his teens. In 1897 he was one of 20 chosen to represent Queensland at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London. He served in the Boer War as a Lieutenant in the 1st Queensland Mounted Infantry Contingent, when he took part in the relief of Kimberley and the occupation of Bloemfontein. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1901, an unusual distinction for someone of his rank.
After the war Glasgow returned to his hometown and took over the operation of his father's grocery store together with his brother, though he married in 1904 and purchased a cattle station in central Queensland. In 1903, he had organised the 13th Light Horse Regiment at Gympie and was promoted to captain in 1906 and major in 1912. When war broke out in 1914 he was appointed to the AIF with the rank of major in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment, which embarked for Egypt in August 1914. Glasgow distinguished himself at Gallipoli and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. In 1916 he became Brigadier-General in command of the 13th Australian Infantry Brigade on the Western Front.
His most memorable battle was at Villers-Bretonneux on 25 April 1918. Two Australian Brigades, including Glasgow's, had been given the task of recapturing this village, recently taken by the Germans and a key position. Glasgow's plan of attack differed from that put forward by the high command, but his opinion prevailed and the action was a great success, later described as a turning point in the war. After this battle Glasgow was promoted to Major General and given command of the Australian 1st Division.
In 1919 William Glasgow returned to Australia and was knighted. He continued in the pastoral industry but entered Federal Parliament as a Senator in 1920 and served as Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Defence. Between 1940 and 1945 he served as Australia's first High Commissioner to Canada.
Sir William died in Brisbane in 1955 and was given a State funeral. The Queensland Club set up a memorial fund and commissioned at statue by the important Australian sculptor, Daphne Mayo, in 1961.
Mayo studied in Brisbane under L J Harvey and was awarded the Wattle Day League travelling art fellowship in 1914. Although the outbreak of World War I delayed her taking up the fellowship, she travelled to London in 1918 at the war's end, and studied at the Royal Academy. There she won the Landseer Scholarship and the Edward Stott travelling scholarship to Rome. She returned to Brisbane in 1925 and began to exhibit her work in Brisbane and Sydney.
Daphne Mayo was most productive in the 1920s and 30s and she is probably best known for her allegorical work, The Progress of Civilization in the State of Queensland, on the tympanum of the Brisbane City Hall (1930) and the Women's War Memorial in Anzac Square, Brisbane (1929-30). She was awarded an MBE for her services to art in 1959 and became a Trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery. In 1964 her statue of Sir William Glasgow was completed and the work was dedicated on Anzac Day, 1966. It was Mayo's last major commission and she died in 1982.
The statue was originally sited on the Police Reserve at the corner of Ann and Roma Streets, but was moved to a triangular reserve near the Roma Street tunnel in 1968. A modern plinth sheeted with granite replaced the original sandstone plinth.
In February 2008 the statue was rededicated following its relocation to Post Office Square during the construction of the Inner Northern busway. The statue now faces Anzac Square.
","criteria":"The statue commemorates the role played by prominent Queenslander, Sir William Glasgow, in the major events of World War I and his service to the community.
|As a monument, prominently sited and erected by subscription as an enduring record of a person's public service and contribution to major historical events, the statue of Sir William demonstrates the principal characteristics of public memorials, being both a commemoration and exemplar of attributes admired by the community.
|The statue of Sir William Glasgow is important for the quality of its design and execution and the major contribution it makes to the streetscape.
|It is significant for its connection with the life and work of the important Australian sculptor, Daphne Mayo, as her last major commissioned work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19562,"place_ref":602440,"name":"Eagle Street Fig Trees","alternate_name":"Plantation Reserve | Fig Tree Reserve","street_address":"118A Eagle Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-13","description":"The reserve is a triangular island located at the intersection of Eagle, Elizabeth and Creek Streets. The site, consisting of a partially paved and landscaped area, is dominated by the huge fig trees that provide a striking visual effect in the business precinct of the Eagle Street area.
The reserve is planted with three fig trees, two White Figs (Ficus virens) and one Banyan Fig (Ficus benghalensis). The branches of the Banyan Figs are supported with prop roots that develop from the aerial roots that are produced to gather moisture from the atmosphere. The White Fig is taller than the Banyan and has pale green foliage which first appears as a shade of pink or bronze. This species is found occurring naturally in Queensland and throughout tropical Asia.
There are two interpretive bronze plaques located on site. The first of the bronze plaques is mounted on a small plinth and contains an engraved inscription. The inscription describes the natural features of the site as it was in 1889, the history of the site prior to 1889 and the role it played in the commercial activities of the area. The second plaque contains a map showing the course of the creek that originally flowed through the site.
","history":"The small triangular reserve at the intersection of Eagle, Elizabeth and Creek Streets was granted to the North Brisbane Municipal Council by Queen Victoria, signed by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Henry Wiley Norman, on 16th May 1889.
It was gazetted on 17th May 1889 as, "745 Folio 210 101/11 perches... Reserve for Plantation, urinal etc. only and for no other purpose whatsoever... Rent: 1 peppercorn per year if demanded by the Queen Victoria and her heirs forever. Mineral Rights reserved by the Crown." The land could be resumed if these conditions were not observed.
Walter Hill planted the three fig trees located on the site. He was appointed Brisbane's first superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens in 1855 and remained a key figure in the management of the Gardens until 1881.
Public toilets were constructed on the reserve but were removed in the 1970's. The area has been paved and 19th Century reproduction light fittings have been installed, as well as facilities such as garbage containers and seats.
","criteria":"The Eagle Street Fig Trees are important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. The Fig Trees or 'Plantation Reserve' is important because it survives as a remnant of the development of the area during the first half of the nineteenth century. Early photographs of the area show rows of horse and carts lined up to service the wharf area and adjacent warehouses. The area was established as a Reserve in the late 19th Century to provide an area for the carriers to rest and refresh themselves amidst an area of high activity.
|As a representative of a mid-Victorian era Reserve, the Eagle Street Fig Trees demonstrate rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage. Located in a busy trading precinct, the Eagle Street Fig Trees provided workmen with respite from the hectic wharf trading area. The Fig Trees have retained this function in their current setting.
|The Eagle Street Fig Trees have landmark value at the intersection of several major streets in Brisbane's central business district and provide shade and visual amenity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19563,"place_ref":602441,"name":"Francis Lookout","alternate_name":"Francis Outlook","street_address":"157 Dewar Terrace","suburb":"CORINDA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-09-07","description":"The parkland is called Francis Lookout and is located on the corner of Dewar Terrace and Hilda Street, Corinda. The park was previously used as a private cemetery and still contains several memorials. A timber lychgate was constructed in 1902.
The park is in a significant hilltop position with panoramic views of Brisbane, especially towards Mt Coot-tha. The site sits at 50m high, and is in the mid-range of Brisbane lookout heights.
The Lookout is a local landmark, being prominent in the urban landscape of the Corinda area as well as from the cross-river area of Fig Tree Pocket. The site is generally an open, grassed and reasonably level knoll, gently falling away to the northwest corner.
The boundary fence is white painted 100mm x 75mm hardwood intermediate posts set in the ground with a 100mm x 100mm diamond profile top rail and two strands of wire. Entry and corner posts are generally 125mm x 125mm with a chamfered apex.
The collection of eucalypts is especially significant, as they represent a community type that is found exclusively on rock outcrops at higher altitudes. There is also a significant bunya pine, which appears to have been planted 40 - 60 years ago.
The site contains 10 known graves and one unlocated grave. The five Francis family graves are situated together and surrounded by a white painted fence. The other graves are located to the northern side of this and scattered in a seemingly random way.
The lychgate is a small timber structure supported on 100mm x 100mm posts with a gable roof covered by timber shingles. The floor of the structure is concrete.
","history":"Francis Lookout is an area of parkland located on a prominent hilltop site in Corinda. It contains burials from between 1862 and 1966. The Francis family, one of the first families to settle in the Corinda area bought 21 acres, Portion 120, in 1862, which extended from the Brisbane River up to the present location of Francis Lookout. They also bought 33 acres which extended from Oxley creek to the present Sherwood Road.
The Graves
Their cemetery was dedicated when their youngest son, Clement, died in 1863. One acre was dedicated for this purpose as there was no municipal cemetery in the district. The last of the family to be buried here was Mary Francis, wife of the Francis' eldest son, Dick, in 1937.
Other graves in the cemetery include; the Jones grave, the Dunlop grave, the Clarkson grave, the Walker grave, the Gray grave and two unlocated burials.
The Lychgate
According to Alex Francis, his mother, Angela Francis, erected the lychgate for her husband and the elaborate barge boards were carved by her friends. A small bronze plaque reads 'ERECTED BY ANGELA FRANCIS 1902'.
The Lychgate has a gable roof that was originally covered with timber shingles. These were replaced with concrete tiles in 1962, but have again been replaced with timber shingles. East and West gables are infilled with weatherboards. The original timber floor has been replaced with at least two concrete slabs.
In 1930, the Brisbane City Council took direct control of thirteen of Brisbane's cemeteries. At this time Frances Lookout was under the control of trustees. One of these, George Waugh approached the council with the request the council take over the cemetery, on the condition of the trustees waiving all claims to compensation and that the council would undertake to properly care for the cemetery in perpetuity.
Formal council resumption occurred in 1934. Improvements and repairs to the cemetery occurred in 1935-36 and were as follows:
·\tthe erection of a low fence on the road boundaries;
·\trepair and painting of the picturesque shelter shed;
·\tstraightening and adjusting of the existing fence enclosing the graves;
·\tthe provision of a suitable name board on the reserve.
","criteria":"Francis Lookout is important in illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being rare surviving evidence of the mid and late 19th century development of the Corinda area as a farming community. In its strong association with the Francis family from 1862 and beyond, the place is also illustrative of the contributions made by individuals to the evolution of Queensland's history.
|The place is a rare privately established burial ground in the Brisbane area, and has the potential to reveal further information about the settlement of the Corinda district, about 19th and early 20th century burial practices, and about the contingencies of pioneering life.
|The place illustrates some of the principal characteristics of a small privately established burial ground, including a lack of denominational divisions and the locally connected interments - especially the graves of the family on whose land the ground was established, and of their neighbours. Its layout and funerary furniture are indicative of 19th century cemeteries.
|The hilltop setting of Francis Outlook with its panoramic views of Brisbane and as an example of a well considered timber framed lychgate, Francis Outlook is important because of its aesthetic significance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19564,"place_ref":602442,"name":"Centenary Place","alternate_name":"Centenary Park","street_address":"85 Wickham Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-08-06","description":"Centenary Place is a teardrop-shaped park bounded by Ann, Wickham and Gotha Streets. The park falls gently from the corner of Ann and Gotha Streets and is bisected along its length by a processional path, starting with a ceremonial archway at the narrow southern end of the park. This path is the formal spine of the park, reinforced by avenues of trees with a series of monuments providing focal points along its length. At the park's centre is the statue of Thomas Joseph Byrnes, former Premier of Queensland. The statue occupies a large paved area formed by the convergence of the central path. Curved paths leading to the centre of the park from Ann and Wickham Streets are mirrored on either side of it.
Between Byrnes and the archway, the central path passes through a shaded avenue of mature fig trees and a monument to the Scottish poet Robert Burns. At the northern or Gotha Street end of the park, the central path accommodates a 1999 sundial sculpture commemorating the 75th anniversary of Centenary Place.
Grassed areas are delineated by formal paths, mulched garden beds, hedges and several regular lines of trees. These significant mature trees include poincianas (Delonix regia), weeping figs (Ficus benjamina), white figs (Ficus virens), Canary Island date palms (Phoenix canariensis), Queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana) and wine palms (Butia capitata). The overall visual effect is a well developed formal tropical landscape character.
Sandstone park signage walls have been erected on each of the Wickham and Ann Street frontages.
At the city or southern end of the park, a formal stone podium, incorporating stone steps and the arched gateway, leads into the central path. The gateway is formed by opposing Brisbane Tuff piers surmounted by a wrought iron archway.
The ironwork incorporates the lettering 'Centenary Place' and supports for the spherical glass lanterns on each side. The podium forms the roof of what was variously a tramways cash office and lost property office, and is now an automated traffic signal control centre. Access to this basement area is provided by two steep, narrow concrete stairs bounded by Brisbane Tuff retaining walls. The stairs on the western or Wickham Street side are protected by a simple, compressed fibre cement canopy erected in 2000. The Brisbane Tuff loggia on the western side of the podium was erected as a tramway shelter in 1938.
The bronze figure of Robert Burns stands on a tapered dressed sandstone pedestal with a rusticated granite base and thistle-patterned cornice. Three faces of the plinth feature bronze bas-reliefs. The fourth face features the statue's inscription in applied bronze letters.
The Byrnes statue is also bronze and supported on a sandstone pedestal. When Centenary Place was constructed in 1924, the statue was moved to its present position in the park. The pedestal features an elaborate base and cornice. A carved sandstone wreath decorates the north and south faces of the pedestal. The west face features a worn inscription of Byrnes' name and dates of birth and death. Mounted on the base of the statue is a small plaque bearing a brief description of Byrnes and the statue. This plaque incorrectly credits the sculptor of the statue as being 'Sir Bertram Macenell'. The statue was actually sculpted by renowned artist, 'Sir Bertram Mackennal' and is noted as being Mackennal's fiftieth sculpture.
The strength of the central path as an axial feature has been diminished by the loss of its relationship with the stone remnants of the Holy Name Cathedral site. Thus the northern end of the central path lacks the strong foci provided elsewhere by the archway and the two statues.
","history":"Centenary Place was designed and constructed for the purpose of commemorating the centenary of European settlement in Queensland (1824-1924). Clearing of the land began in 1924 and the park was formed in 1925. It covers an area of 8,748 square metres and is bounded by Wickham Street, Ann Street and Gotha Street, Fortitude Valley. The park was one of the last civic projects undertaken by the former Brisbane City Council prior to the formation of the Greater Brisbane Council in 1925. The park has been in continual use by the public since its creation and was extensively refurbished in 1999/2000.
Celebrating the centenary of European settlement in Queensland was an important milestone in the state's history, an opportunity to demonstrate how far it had progressed in 100 years. From its beginnings as a penal colony, followed by the arrival of free settlers, separation from New South Wales, Federation and the First World War, Queensland had experienced many tumultuous events in its first 100 years worthy of commemoration and celebration. The creation of Centenary Place provided the public with a tangible means of doing this.
To advance the centenary celebrations, a Centenary Celebrations Committee was formed as was a Centenary Fund. Many fundraising events were held by the Centenary Celebrations Committee and all proceeds from these events were devoted to the Centenary Fund to go towards the provision of centenary memorials, including Centenary Place. Other commemorative memorials and events included the minting of commemorative medals, a statue of John Oxley, the founding of the John Oxley Library which included the purchase of some 6000 books and numerous tree planting ceremonies across Brisbane.
The Catholic Church took great interest in the development of Centenary Place, sensing an opportunity to promote their vision of a new cathedral and envisaging the site as the forecourt for the proposed Holy Name Cathedral, a massive 'Renaissance basilica' that was to occupy the block bounded by Gotha, Ann, Gipps and Wickham Streets. Although the park was designed by Henry Moore, the Parks Superintendent for Council, given the layout, which is still intact, includes a central path originally designed to lead to the proposed cathedral entrance, it is possible that Archbishop Duhig and the cathedral architect, John F. Hennessy, contributed to the design.
The Council began clearing existing buildings from the site in 1924 and Centenary Place was formed in 1925. Other features were added at later dates with the drawings for the podium, archway and tramways office dated 1928. Centenary Place was designed by Moore who was also responsible for designing New Farm Park and Newstead Park. He employed a formal design with defined layouts, planted garden beds, grassed areas, low sandstone retaining walls and curved paths. The garden includes mature specimens of poinciana (Delonix regia), Canary Island date palms (Phoenix canariensis), Queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana), wine palms (Butia capitata) and fig trees including, weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) and white figs (Ficus virens). In 1947 Harry Oakman, the Council Parks & Gardens Director, planned additional garden beds along the walks in the fig and poinciana avenues. These proposals were largely in place by 1950.
The original design of the park specifically allocated space to accommodate a statue of Thomas Joseph Byrnes [602076] former Premier of Queensland and the first Queensland-born premier. The statue, by renowned sculptor, Sir Bertram Mackennal, is believed to be one of Brisbane's earliest and was originally erected at Petrie Bight, at the junction of Wickham and Boundary Streets in 1902. When the park was completed in 1925, it was moved from Petrie Bight to its new location.
A statue of the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, was proposed for Brisbane as early as 1888 when the President of the Burns Club, Alderman Galloway, contacted the President of the Queensland Scottish Association, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, to suggest their organisations combined forces and funds to commission the statue. However, the Scottish community had to wait many years before seeing their dream realised as it was not until 1929 that a statue of Robert Burns was commissioned by the Brisbane Caledonian Society and Burns Club and installed on a pedestal provided by the Council. Traditionally, statues of Robert Burns are placed so that the poet's back is turned on the church. The statue of Burns in the park has been positioned in accordance to this tradition and had the Holy Name Cathedral been built, the poet's back would have be turned on it. The statue of Burns has served as a focal point for gatherings and events, such as the Burns Night, for the Scottish community of Brisbane since its installation in the park.
From 1962 to the mid 1970s, Centenary Place was Brisbane's designated people's forum or speaker's corner. Sunday afternoons became a regular event in Brisbane with hundreds of people turning up to hear speakers holding forth on all manner of issues including speakers campaigning for Aboriginal rights in the 1960s and 1970s. After the people's forum ceased at Centenary Place, the people of Brisbane had to wait until 1990 before a new location was officially made available by the Brisbane City Council at King George Square.
Over the years the park has undergone numerous changes. In 1938, a tram waiting shelter was built onto the Wickham Street side of the archway podium and tramways office. The park also featured two air raid shelters, one each on the Ann and Wickham Street frontages. Similar shelters [602473] were constructed at many inner city sites in the early 1940s as part of Queensland's wartime defences. In 1961, the Council prepared plans to convert the Wickham Street air raid shelter into a toilet block. These were evidently demolished by the time the Council planned the construction of a new toilet block in 1973. This entailed the demolition of the remaining air raid shelter on Ann Street. In 1977 the park was extended towards Wickham Street at the entry podium area and the edge trimmed around Gotha Street. The park underwent extensive refurbishment in 1999-2000 carried out by Belt Collins Landscape Architects which restored the original formality of the park.
","criteria":"Centenary Place, established in 1925, is important as Brisbane City Council's principal contribution to the celebration of the 1924 centenary of European settlement in Queensland and Queensland's growth and development during this time from a penal colony to a state. It is also important as the site of a public forum or speaker's corner during the 1960s and 1970s when political activism was increasing and public speaking spaces were use to promote public awareness of both national and local issues. The increasing importance of open spaces in urban areas is also demonstrated through the changing land use of Centenary Place from urban development to parkland.
|Centenary Place has strong association with the works of horticulturalist and landscape gardener Henry Moore, who was the first Brisbane City Parks Superintendent (1912-1925). His design work in Brisbane includes New Farm Park and Newstead Park. It is also associated with Harry Oakman, Parks Superintendent for the Brisbane City Council (1948-1963) who was the first purpose-trained landscape architect to be employed by a government in Queensland.
|Centenary Place is aesthetically important for its formal stone stepped arched gateway with opposing piers with a wrought iron archway which leads into the processional pathway that extends through the park. The avenues of mature specimens of poinciana (Delonix regia), Canary Island date palms (Phoenix canariensis), Queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana), wine palms (Butia capitata) and fig trees including, weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) and white figs (Ficus virens) provide a pleasant vista amongst its busy, commercial surrounds and make an important contribution to the landscape.
|Centenary Place has a strong association with the Catholic community as evidenced by its selection as the forecourt for the proposed Holy Name Cathedral and placement of the statue of prominent Catholic, former Queensland premier, Thomas Joseph Byrnes. It also has strong association with the Scottish community as evidenced by their selection of the park to house the statue commissioned of Scottish bard, Robert Burns and by their use of the park to hold events such as the Burns Night.
|Centenary Place has an uncommon structure built from Brisbane Tuff which displays both ceremonial and utilitarian functions by combining the formal commemorative steps and archway with a tramway office and passenger shelter.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19565,"place_ref":602443,"name":"Graceville Memorial Park","alternate_name":"Graceville Recreation Reserve","street_address":"173 Oxley Road","suburb":"GRACEVILLE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-09-05","description":"Graceville Memorial Park, bounded by Oxley Rd to the east, Plumridge Street to the north, and Appel Street to the west, lies just to the east of the Ipswich to Brisbane railway line, and currently covers 6.6 hectares. There is vehicle access from Oxley Road, along the memorial drive, and pedestrians can access the park from anywhere along Appel Street, Plumridge Street, and Oxley Road, as well as from the end of Addison Street in the south, and via the access way from Churchill Street. The park is flat, and the main features consist of the tree plantings and buildings. The number one cricket oval is near Oxley road, the number two oval is in the middle of the park, and a concrete wicket is located in the northwest corner of the park.
\nMature bunya trees (Araucaria bidwilli) and cotton trees (Hibiscus tiliaceus) are planted on the northern and western perimeter of the park. An avenue of mature bauhinia (Bauhinia variegata), cabbage tree palms (Livistona australis), and Chinese elms (Celtis sinensis) runs from Oxley road to the war memorial, and a single row of mature figs and camphor laurels runs west from the memorial to Appel Street. Behind the grandstand are two mature Moreton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla), and two mature bunya pines. The Oxley Road frontage still has some mature fig trees and palm trees, along with more recent plantings.
\nA steamroller stands under a shelter between Oxley Road and the car park. Further west is the cricket clubhouse, a single-story timber building, with a low-pitched skillion roof clad in galvanised iron. A sightboard stands just to the north of the clubhouse, and across the number one oval, a second sightboard stands among the memorial trees on Plumridge Street.
\nThe Cricket Grandstand
\nThe cricket grandstand that faces the number one oval is a rectangular pavilion, with a timber-trussed hipped roof clad in corrugated iron that is supported on plain timber posts. The tiered seating area is supported on an orange brick base, which contains two changing rooms, toilets, and a storage area. The hardwood floorboards of the seating area are covered in bitumen sheeting, and there is a scorer's desk in an upper row of the timber seating. The gable on the northern face has a flagpole and a rising sun motive infill. A divided timber staircase rises to the viewing area on the north face. Below the concrete capping to the walls on the east, west, and south elevations there are decorative panels of roughcast render between the projecting rows of bricks.
\nWar Memorial
\nThe war memorial is at the western end of the memorial avenue of trees, at the south side of the park, and consists of a polished grey granite column set on a light grey granite pedestal, which sits on a stepped base of rusticated grey granite. Sandstone tiles and a low fence of sandstone with eight sandstone bollards surround the 5.5 metre high monument. The shaft of the column has a gold laurel wreath imprinted on its north face, and is crowned with a polished ball, which is etched with a map of Australia, and the words \"ANZAC\". The north face of the pedestal has a small plaque reading The Great War 1914-1919, above a copper scroll that lists the Shire's dead in the First World War and which is inscribed Fallen Heroes of the Sherwood Shire, Honoured and in Memory Evergreen. Under the scroll is a small plaque reading Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria Mori. At the base of the pedestal is the badge of the Royal Australian Navy. On the east face is a plaque reading World War II 1939-45, and under it, is a plaque inscribed In honour of the men and women who served Australia in time of conflict during World War II. Lest We Forget. At the base of the pedestal is the rising sun badge of the Australian army. On the west face a plaque reads Korea-Malaya Borneo-Vietnam. Under this is set the badge of the Royal Australian Air Force. Three flagpoles stand to the west of the monument.
\nCroquet Clubhouse
\nThe croquet clubhouse and its three playing lawns stand on the Appel Street frontage of the park. Small shade structures with seating are on the borders of the croquet lawns. The clubhouse is a rectangular timber building with its long axis addressing the middle lawn. It has a gabled roof that is clad in corrugated iron. A modern shade structure extends over the southern entrance, and there is an extension at the northern end of the building. A gable projects towards the lawn above an entrance on the northern side there are sash windows. Internally, the clubhouse has a timber floor, with walls and ceiling clad in fibrous cement sheeting. Most of this internal space is used for small tables and chairs and there is a small kitchenette and toilet at one end. Two timber honour boards are displayed.
\nNumber two oval's changing shed, which has its back to the croquet lawns, is a timber building on a concrete slab with a skillion roof clad in galvanised iron. It has an extension on its southern end that accommodates a small garage.
\nThe features of the Graceville Memorial Park which are not of historical significance include the aluminium storage shed near the croquet clubhouse and the aluminium shed to the south of the number two oval's changing shed; the brick toilet block; the cricket practice nets; a drinking fountain near the playground; the playground and its equipment; the bikeway; the half basketball court and car park; the steamroller's shelter shed; and assorted park seating.
","history":"Graceville Memorial Park, located on a flat, low-lying part of Graceville, was opened as the Graceville Recreation Reserve in 1904, but it was referred to as Graceville Memorial Park by 1926. The park was enlarged in July 1979, with the resumption of about 11 perches of vacant, ownerless land (now identified as Lot 2 RP70795) for an access way to Churchill Street, south of the park.
\nFrom 1840 to 1859 the peninsula that includes the suburb of Graceville was known as Boyland's Pocket, a run for sheep and cattle. After 1859 the area was subdivided into farms with an average size of about 30 to 40 acres. Maize, potatoes, and bananas were grown, cotton was attempted in the 1860s, and sugar cane was produced until a cold spell in the 1870s. The area was relatively isolated from Brisbane until the railway line from Ipswich bridged the river from Chelmer to Indooroopilly in 1875. Graceville's subdivision for residential housing started during the building boom of the 1880s, and the Graceville railway station was opened in 1886. The Sherwood Shire was created in 1891, as a division of the Yeerongpilly Divisional Board (1879).
\nFrom the late 1880s onwards there was an increased interest in Queensland in healthy outdoor recreation, and the flood-prone grassland on which the park was later sited was used as a lacrosse field in the 1890s. The formation of sporting clubs in Queensland led to pressure on local councils to provide facilities, and in May 1904 the Sherwood Shire Council decided to obtain subdivision 1 of portion 14, a 17 acre 3 rood 3 perch (7.19 hectares) site for use as a recreation reserve.[1] The park was improved by a Recreation Reserve Committee, who planted shade trees around the reserve before it was formally opened in September 1904.[2] The reserve was vested in the Sherwood Shire Council, to be held in trust for recreation purposes, and the park's primary role since then has been as a leased venue for various team sports, mainly cricket and hockey, but also including soccer, rugby league, and Australian Rules football. A croquet club and a tennis club were also established. Other users included the Graceville Methodist Sunday School, which held classes in a ground shed on the reserve between November 1914 and November 1917, and a bridge club, which was formed at the croquet club premises around 1929. Aviators may have also used the park as an aerodrome in the 1920s.
\nThe outpouring of grief in Australia that accompanied the deaths, and overseas burial, of 60,000 service people in World War One, led to a period of memorial building across the nation. A memorial was unveiled in Graceville Recreational Reserve on 29 November 1920. Funded by public subscriptions, the memorial was designed by Mr I Bennet, and was erected by A.L. Petrie Monumental Works, at a cost of £225. On a copper scroll made by Ernest Gunderson, 51 soldiers and one nursing sister were included in a list of Sherwood Shire's fallen. 265 men, and seven nurses had enlisted from the Shire. Between 1985 and 1996, a low sandstone wall was built around the monument, and three flagpoles were set to the west. Plaques representing each of the three armed services have also been added to the north, east and west sides of the monument since 1985. In 2004 sandstone pavers replaced the bitumen that had been laid around the monument.
\nOver a year before the unveiling of the memorial, in August 1919, 52 memorial trees were planted.[3] Bunya pines and cotton trees were set in a single row along Plumridge Street and Appel Street (then called Graceville Parade) on the western and northern edges of the park; and an avenue of bauhinias, cabbage tree palms and Chinese elms was planted either side of a drive from Oxley Road to the memorial. A single line of figs and camphor laurels continued west from the memorial towards Appel Street. It is unclear which 52 trees were specifically planted to commemorate the dead, as memorial plaques and crosses were vandalised in the 1920s and had been removed by the 1950s.[4] Some of the memorial trees were also reportedly vandalised and removed in the 1920s, while others in the avenue and row appear to be later plantings or replacements.[5] By 2004, there were 29 bunya pines and 11 cottontrees remaining in the park.[6]
\nThe eastern section of the drive had a bitumen surface by 1961, but the western section of the memorial drive, from the memorial to Appel Street, has reverted to grass. A trophy field gun captured by the AIF near Abancourt, France, in August 1918 was also sited near the memorial from the early 1920s, but it was removed before 1952.
\nIn 1925 the Sherwood Shire was incorporated in the City of Greater Brisbane, and the recreation reserve is referred to as Graceville Memorial Park in the 1926 Park Schedule for the City. However, the emphasis on sports had continued. By 1924 the park contained three cricket ovals, with a shelter and dressing sheds, three croquet lawns, and two tennis courts. The Graceville Croquet Club was formed in March 1919, with T.M. Hall, MLC, as its first Patron. A number of returned servicemen were settling in area at this time, and their wives wanted their own sporting activities. The Sherwood Shire Council leased a portion of the park to the croquet club in May 1919. The southernmost of the three croquet lawns remained as rough grass until 1923, and the croquet clubhouse was probably built between 1924 and 1929. The clubhouse has received a small extension to the north since 1985. The Brisbane City Council continues to lease the premises to the club.
\nThe Western Suburbs District Cricket Club was formed in 1921, and it has had an association with the park since 1924. In 1928 the Queensland Cricket association took out a twenty-year lease on playing ovals one and two, and a seasonal lease on oval three. The grandstand facing the number one oval was opened in September 1936. The Brisbane City Council Register of new buildings lists the grandstand on 13 February 1936, with H. Sanham as the contractor, and the Brisbane City Council as the architect. The cost of the brick and timber building was listed at £1000. The two changing rooms and storage area within the brick ground floor have been renovated and reconfigured over time, and the current latticed balustrade at the front of the seating was introduced since 1985. Two similar grandstands currently exist in Brisbane, one at Bulimba Memorial Park (built 1923), and one at Langlands Park (1937).
\nOverlapping ovals replaced the three undersize ovals. The number one oval was reconstructed with ash, its sightscreens were moved, and the arris fence was removed. Soon after 1968 some practice-bowling cages were installed on the south side of the park between the croquet club and the war memorial. Currently, the two main ovals have turf wickets, and a concrete wicket stands where the number three oval used to be located. The cricket clubhouse to the east of the grandstand started as a refreshment stall circa 1946, and was extended in the 1960s. Both the number two and number three ovals had their own dressing sheds, which have changed or have been removed. The current timber changing-shed facing the number two oval replaced an earlier structure between 1946 and 1952. It has been extended to the south since 1985, and a new aluminium shed has been erected nearby.
\nAlthough there were two tennis courts in the park's southeast corner by 1924, the Banksia Tennis Club did not take out a formal lease until 1938, for one rood and 4.4 perches of land. The club also built a timber clubhouse before 1946. The Banksia Tennis Club surrendered its lease in 1989, due to the aging of its membership, and a car park and a half basketball court had replaced the tennis courts, their fences, and clubhouse, by 1993.
\nOther clubs have also used the park over time. The Brisbane Hockey Association has had the winter use of the ovals since 1941, and in 1955 the Graceville United Soccer Club had the winter use of the number four oval, an area in the north of the park between ovals one and three. This area had a concrete wicket by 1952, but this had been removed by 1975. In the 1960s there are also references in Brisbane City Council records to the Sherwood District Junior Australian Rules Club, and the South Rugby League Juniors. There were floodlights on poles around the perimeter of the park by 1961, but in 1975 the South West United Hockey Club requested new lighting, for night training.
\nOther built features in the park include the toilet block near the croquet club, which was built in the late 1960s, and the playground, which existed between the cricket clubhouse and the tennis club by 1961. The playground's equipment was upgraded in 1968, the late 1980s, and in the 1990s. A shade canopy was added in 1993. A bikeway path, along the western and northern perimeter of park, was built about 1991. In 1996, the steamroller, which had been in the playground since the 1960s, was moved, restored, and installed inside a roofed enclosure to the east of the car park. The steamroller is an 'S' type, four steam-horse power model, built between 1923 and 1925, by Marshall and Sons and Company, in Gainsborough, the United Kingdom. The ex Brisbane City Council steamroller is listed as a 'Engineering and Industrial Heritage Site' on the website of Engineers Australia, Queensland Division.
\nFeatures that have now been removed include two earth closets, sited either side and to the south of the memorial, which were probably removed around the time that the new toilet block was installed. A zigzag concrete path, installed in the 1960s, once ran through the site of the playground, and some of the tree plantings along Oxley Road, including fig trees and palms, have been replaced. Buildings that have been removed since 1985 include the timber changing shed for the number three oval, and a small shed just north of the croquet club which was replaced by an aluminium shed.
","criteria":"Surviving as a highly visible remnant of the development of the Graceville district, the use of the park for team sports from the 1890s to the present demonstrates the interest in health-promoting recreation that occurred in Queensland from the late 1880s onwards. Reflecting the proliferation of recreational sport clubs that occurred during post-war suburban development, a croquet club was established in the park in 1919, and cricket and tennis facilities were operational by 1924. The Brisbane City Council's expenditure on a cricket grandstand during the Depression demonstrates the continued importance of sport to Queenslanders during the 1930s.The decade after the First World War witnessed demonstrations of grief for those who had died. Graceville Memorial Park's War Memorial, with its linked memorial avenue, and rows of memorial bunya and cottonwood trees along Appel and Plumridge Streets, demonstrates the process of grieving that was occurring across Australia in 1920 and is symbolic of both civic mourning and national pride.
|Graceville Memorial Park has features that are now uncommon within a suburban park, such as the handsome and substantial Interwar grandstand and the extensive formal plantings of memorial bunya trees.
|Graceville Memorial Park is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class, having open recreational space, sports facilities, clubhouses and a grandstand within a park whose focal point is a War Memorial and which is bordered by memorial plantings.
|As a large open space with fine mature trees, the park has landmark value. The memorial avenue of trees delineates the ceremonial approach to the War Memorial and effectively marks the park's southern border. The cottonwood and bunya arrangement is also striking in its contrast of alternating size and shape. A well-designed and substantial cricket grandstand enhances the aesthetic values of the park and is a fine example of the work of the Brisbane City Architect's Office in the 1930s.
|The war memorial in the park has a strong and continuing association with the wider community as evidence of the impact of a major historic event and as the focal point for the remembrance of that event. The park is also important to the local area as a venue for sport and recreation for several generations, having a long-standing association with the Graceville Croquet Club and Western Suburbs District Cricket Club.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19566,"place_ref":602445,"name":"Holman Street Ferry Terminal","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"116 Holman Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-11-01","description":"The Holman Street Ferry Terminal is on the bank of the Brisbane River at the end of Holman Street, Kangaroo Point next to Captain Burke Park. Trees flank a small timber waiting shed and the river bank on either side of the shed is supported by a retaining wall. This extends about 13 metres to the north and about 30 metres to the south between the ferry and the Brisbane Jazz Club building. The longer section of wall is composed of dressed blocks of Brisbane Tuff; on the northern side it is composed of concrete and irregularly placed pieces of Tuff. The terminal is approached from the riverside by a pontoon and from the landward side by a pathway and concrete apron entrance leading into the terminal. On the northern side of the entrance there are plantings of shrubs and a bauhinia tree. To the south is a grassed area with two large mature trees. The modern pontoon structure and the mangrove trees in the water along the retaining wall hide the waiting shed from the river.
The terminal building is square in plan with a hipped roof, clad in terracotta tiles and crowned with two terracotta finials. It has arched openings to the street and the river. The floor of the building is concrete and the walls are clad in chamfer board. The interior has timber bench seats against the walls.
The terminal has a modern extension to the jetty leading to a pontoon and extending again to another modern pontoon to which the ferry docks. This jetty from the terminal to the landing stage has modern metal mesh guardrails. The modern section of the jetty is not considered to have heritage significance.
","history":"The Holman Street Ferry Terminal was built prior to 1919 for the Municipality of Brisbane, then responsible for the servicing of ferry routes across the Brisbane River. Kangaroo Point is one of Brisbane's earliest suburbs, emerging in the 1840's with other localities such as South Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and Spring Hill. Because of its close proximity to the city, Kangaroo Point played an important role as a point of arrival and departure for Brisbane's ferries.
In 1845 the Government accepted a tender of £34 from George Beer for a second ferry crossing for Brisbane from Kangaroo Point. In 1852 the government outlaid £185 and in 1853, £700 for ferry improvements. Andrew Petrie worked on improving the approaches and also the road at the north end of Kangaroo Point ferry. In 1853 W. Carter won the lease for Kangaroo Point Ferry and put on a new horse-punt - 30 feet long and 12 feet broad, pulled by a rope and chain.
Ferries ran from a number of different localities in the area including Holman, Bright, Thornton and Ferry Streets. Destinations on the north side included Charlotte and Edward streets, and Customs House and Merthyr Road, New Farm. The Petrie Bight - Holman Street ferry was in operation at separation in 1859.
A cable operated vehicular punt plied the route well after the Victoria Bridge was erected in 1874, transporting people, vehicles and animals. The ferry began to operate from the Customs House Reserve in 1882, but as a vehicular ferry, is believed to have ceased in 1883/84. A new vehicular steam ferry began operating from Charlotte Street to Bright Street at the same time. A passenger ferry continued, however, and the waiting shed on that side of the river was re-erected on the customs house site in 1886. Tidal steps were apparently built on the Holman Street side to service the passenger ferry.
Work was carried out at the Holman Street landing stage and pontoon in 1906. At that time there was a ferry tollhouse on site, but it is not possible to tell whether this also served as a waiting shed. Repairs were carried out on the site in 1912, but were probably related to the pontoon.
In 1919 the Ferries and Baths committee recommended that the shelter shed on the Kangaroo Point side of the Customs House ferry be cleaned inside and the chamfer boards be oiled on the outside. A recommendation by the Lighting Committee in 1919 saw the installation of electric lighting at the Holman Street ferry - electricity having replaced gas for street lighting at Kangaroo Point, circa 1918. In July 1925 the Brisbane City Council's Bridges and Ferries Committee recommended that control of all ferries should pass to the new Greater Brisbane Council.
","criteria":"The Holman Street Ferry Terminal is important as an intact example of a purpose built ferry terminal from the first quarter of the 20th Century. Together with terminals such those at Hawthorne [602212] and Bulimba [602211], its quality of design and detail demonstrates the importance of ferries in the development of Brisbane before a network of bridges and public transport was fully developed and before many people owned cars.
|The terminal waiting shed represents an increasingly rare building type as modern buildings now serve most Brisbane River ferry terminals.
|The Holman Street terminal displays those features typical of ferry terminals comprising a pontoon for river access, a landing area and covered waiting area for passengers.
|The terminal also has aesthetic significance as a well-designed public building in a parkland setting. The ferry terminals serve as focal points in the journey along the Brisbane River.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19567,"place_ref":602446,"name":"Mount Coot-tha Forest","alternate_name":"Mount Coot-tha Reserve | Mt Coot-tha | Mount Cootha","street_address":"Sir Samuel Griffith Drive","suburb":"MOUNT COOT-THA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-09-04","description":"Mount Coot-tha Forest is one of Brisbane's largest natural areas, with over 1,500 hectares of open eucalypt forest just 15 minutes drive from the CBD. Flanking the south-western suburbs of Brisbane lies the Taylor Range, the southern end of which ends abruptly at Mount Coot-tha. It is located approximately 5 kilometres west of Brisbane CBD and abuts the suburbs of Enoggera, The Gap, Ashgrove, Bardon, Rainworth, Toowong, Taringa, Chapel Hill, Kenmore Hills and Brookfield. It is primarily accessed by Simpsons Road, Mount Coot-tha Road, Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, Dillon Road, Gap Creek Road and Gold Creek Road.
The vegetation of Mount Coot-tha is mainly associated with dry eucalypt forest including the species, Spotted gum (Corymbia varigata), Grey gum (Eucalyptus propinqua), Forest red gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis) and Narrow-leafed ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra). Various species of acacias, including Brisbane Golden Wattle (Acacia fimbriata) and Broadleaf Wattle (Acacia implexa) are predominant in the understorey shrubs along with grass trees Xanthorrhoea species. Native grasses, primarily Kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) and Blady grass (Imperata cylindrica) make up the minimal ground cover.
Sir Samuel Griffith Drive is a two lane circuit of the outer edge of Mount Coot-tha. It has an undulating circuit through open forest and offers shifting views of the city. It is a renowned tourist drive, providing access to many picnic areas and vantage points in Mount Coot-tha Forest.
Gold mining related remnants include a wooden trolley line, well, wooden shaft structure, battery site, concrete plinth, iron cover, dam, sump and ore dump.
Second World War remnants include concrete slabs and a number of creek crossings, concrete drains and footbridges at the J.C. Slaughter Falls and Hoop Pine Picnic Grounds. There is also a 'Detonator Locker', cut into a hillside and partially covered with earth, beside one of the walking tracks in J.C. Slaughter Falls Park. It is formed by curved corrugated iron, rolled to an elliptical profile. The manufacturer's stamp 'Manufactured by the American Rolling Mill Co. Middleton Ohio' is still clearly visible. The back wall of the shelter is formed by tray-profile sheet metal. A steel frame surrounds the opening. There is a section of steel frame inside the shelter, which appears to have been built to reinforce the structure.
The ABC broadcast tower and associated structures [located on Lease A on SP122735] are not included in the Entry in the Heritage Register.
","history":"Mount Coot-tha Forest is part of the Taylor Range which forms a backdrop of hills to the city of Brisbane, and is the best known vantage point from which to view Brisbane and surrounds, offering sweeping views of the city, Moreton Bay, Stradbroke Island and the southern ranges. Since the 1870s the area has been extensively utilised in a number of ways including as a timber reserve, a vantage point, a place of recreation, for gold mining, as a military site and for television broadcasting. It is now predominantly used as a recreation and picnicking area and is the broadcasting site for several television stations. It forms part of Brisbane Forest Park.
The Taylor Range was originally named Glenmorrison Range by the explorer John Oxley in 1823. In the earliest recorded visit to Mount Coot-tha by European explorers, including surveyor Alan Cunningham, on 6 July 1828, this range was referred to as Glenmoriston's Range and Sir Herbert Taylor's Range by the colonial botanist, Charles Fraser, and as Glenmorriston's Range by Captain Patrick Logan, Commandant of the penal settlement at Brisbane. Fraser's journal describes in detail the species of trees found there, and that the view from the south-east to north-west was extensive and very grand.
During the decades following the commencement of free settlement in Brisbane in 1842, Mount Coot-tha appears to have been highly valued as a vantage point for recreation and survey and as the source of fresh water streams. The area was originally known as One Tree Hill after all the vegetation on the knoll was cleared except for one large gum tree. When Reverend Bell made an application in 1865 to purchase land on One Tree Hill, it was refused with the Surveyor General noting it was required for trigonometrical purposes, and moreover was frequently used by the people of Brisbane for recreation on account of the extensive views and fresh air. Thus Mount Coot-tha's value as a vantage point and a place of recreation was recognised at an early stage in the city's development.
In 1860 Brisbane Forest Park was investigated for gold prospecting opportunities through the government funded Gold Exploration Expedition. The findings of the expedition was that, with one or two exceptions, there was were no discoveries worthy of notice. Despite this, gold prospectors persisted and a number of small claims were established. It was 1894 before the first claim was recorded in Mount Coot-tha Forest and seemed to have been a tentative affair, not proceeding beyond the initial explorations. In 1933 it was cleaned out and retested. The remains of these attempts are still evident on the eastern bank of Ithaca Creek. Gold prospecting continued intermittently in Mount Coot-tha Forest until the early 1950s but no significant finds were recorded. Some remnants of these activities remain with a number of shafts, open cuts and a trolley line dating from the early 1950s.
The Taylor Range provided a source of good timber and One Tree Hill was first proclaimed a reserve for railway purposes on 21 February 1873 in order that the source of timber could be secured for development of the railway from Ipswich to Brisbane. In 1880 the timber reserve was cancelled and the area was re-designated as a Reserve for a Public Park under the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1861. One Tree Hill, including 1500 acres of surrounding bush land, extending from Toowong cemetery to Gap Creek, was placed in the care of a body of trustees and declared a reserve for public recreation. The site was renamed Mount Coot-tha in 1883 with the name being thought to derive from the aboriginal word for native honey, ku-ta.
The Trust oversaw numerous works projects in the Reserve including fencing, road construction and clearing vegetation. In 1884 the Trust recorded the attendance of some 9000 visitors to the area between April and December demonstrating its popularity with the public. Mount Coot-tha Forest became even more accessible to the public with the granting of the Saturday half-holiday in Queensland, as part of the Factories and Shops Act 1900. The half-holiday was the beginning of the weekend as an institution, and together with public holidays, the popularity of recreation areas and activities increased.
The traditional route up Mount Coot-tha, and now one of the main access roads, is Sir Samuel Griffith Drive. Originally people walked up Mount Coot-tha and from this a track developed. By the 1870s some adventurous people were driving up with horses and carriages. When the area became a public park in 1880, the track was improved to become a steep and windy road that traversed Mount Coot-tha in a circular route, a popular route for walkers, buggies and the occasional motorist. This track formed the basis of Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, named after one of the more eminent trustees, Sir Samuel Griffith, twice Premier of Queensland, from 1883 to 1888 and then again from 1890 to 1893. By the 1920s it was a favoured scenic circuit regularly utilised by motoring day-trippers and for car rallies and in the early 1930s was dedicated as a public road.
Looking at the view has been the most popular and continuing form of recreation on Mount Coot-tha and in 1886, to accommodate people's needs, a shelter shed and water tank were erected on the area of the present Lookout and Kiosk [601564]. In 1901 a pedestal and directional dial, identifying elements of the panorama, were installed. For many years this small feature was a landmark for visitors to the lookout and was a precursor to the directional plate located on the modern lookout platform. A small timber kitchen was later built in 1912. A larger kiosk was constructed c.1918 and formed the basis of the present kiosk. In 1928 the kiosk was enlarged and a two-storey timber extension for living quarters was added. The early shelter shed and small kitchen were demolished. During the Second World War the lookout was converted to military use. In 1949 and 1950 further work and extensions were carried out including a circular drive, new entrance, raised viewing platform, lounge and lavatories, extensions to the living quarters and construction of a timber tankstand.
Prior to the First World War, two dams were built on the gully formed by East Ithaca Creek, in the area now known as J.C. Slaughter Falls. It is unclear when and by whom the dams were constructed although records show them being in place by 1913. The dams were appreciated as a scenic picnic spot and by bird-watchers, wildlife enthusiasts and amateur artists. The destruction of the lower dam by flood in 1916 did not detract from the appeal of the setting and it 'remained a spectacular ruin' below the new dam, erected in 1921. By the mid-1950s the area had fallen into disrepair and the surviving dam was demolished in the late 1960s or early 1970s. In 1974, following extensive improvements along East Ithaca Creek gully, J.C. Slaughter Falls Park, named in honour of the Town Clerk and City Administrator from 1940 to 1967, was opened. In the West Ithaca Creek area a similar development was completed in the late 1970s and was named after the local pioneering landowner Captain Henry George Simpson.
In 1919, following some years of financial difficulties, the Trust was disbanded and the Reserve was transferred to the Toowong Town Council. In 1925, the Queensland State Parliament passed the City of Brisbane Act 1924 to set up a single government in Brisbane. This led to control of Mount Coot-tha passing to the newly formed Brisbane City Council. The first elected mayor was Sir William Jolly and part of his election promise was the extension and improvement of the park system, including the securing of vantage points like Mount Coot-tha. Therefore, under the Jolly administration, the area of the Reserve expanded dramatically, acquiring more than 1000 acres. On his retirement Jolly stated that he felt that securing Mount Coot-tha Reserve was one of his administration's most important achievements.
During the Second World War, the Mount Coot-tha Forest was turned over for military use and served as a mine storage and assembly depot. Personnel from the 55th US Naval Construction Battalion and the RAAF Magnetic and Acoustic Mines Section were based at the depot, with the major camp area lying on the eastern point of the Forest near the present Hoop Pine picnic area. In 1944 the facility was dismantled and moved to Darwin although work was carried out on the building and mine depots until 1945. Rehabilitation of the area commenced in late 1946. A number of features installed by the military such as some concrete slabs, concrete channeling, footbridges and terracing still remain. The concrete slabs have been incorporated into the picnic areas as the floors of picnic shelters and as the floor of the open air chapel at J.C. Slaughter Falls.
The 1950s saw the introduction of television to Australia and by 1959 Channel Nine and Channel Seven both commenced broadcasting in Brisbane resulting in Brisbane City Council giving permission for the construction of transmission towers on Mount Coot-tha. Eventually two more towers were constructed for Channel Ten and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The three towers for the commercial television stations, Channel Seven, Channel Nine and Channel Ten, are located on private freehold land along with their respective studio facilities. The fourth tower, used by the ABC, is on land owned by the Brisbane City Council. The towers are highly visible from many parts of Brisbane, even at night as they are mounted with blinking warning lights for aviation purposes. The towers are not included in the Entry in the Heritage Register.
Apart from its many different land uses by the people of Queensland, Mount Coot-tha Forest provides an area of natural habitat for plants and animals. Its topography provides a variety of habitats for vegetation and for many species of fauna, including three rare species of owl - Powerful owl (Ninox strenua), Masked owl (Tyto novaehollaniae) and Sooty owl (Tyto tenebricosa).
Mount Coot-tha Forest has an extensive and diverse history of uses and associations since the late 1800s to the present including as a timber reserve, a vantage point, a place of recreation, for gold mining, as a military site and for television broadcasting. Its predominant use now is as a recreation and picnicking area and it is the broadcasting site for several television stations.
","criteria":"Mount Coot-tha Forest is an early example of the importance that the Queensland public placed upon recreational, scenic and environmental values. It has been used as a vantage point since the first recorded European ascent of Mount Coot-tha in 1828. Since then, the growing popularity of visiting the summit has reflected the emergence of leisure and recreation time for the general populace, and the advent and popularity of the motor car. The area has been continually used and enjoyed by the public since the early development of Brisbane. It is also important for demonstrating a range of different land uses such as a reference point for surveying, timber reserve, gold mining and military activities that are representative of Queensland history while retaining its original values.
|The recreational, scenic and environmental attributes of Mount Coot-tha Forest have been valued by the people of Brisbane since the early days of European settlement in Brisbane. The use of the area for leisure activities was strengthened with the legislation of the Saturday half day holiday in 1900 which heralded the beginning of the traditional weekend. The picnic areas and walking tracks are evidence of the continuity of recreational activities in Mount Coot-tha Forest since the late 1800s to the present and the area is popular with different recreational groups including scouts, bushwalkers, runners and mountain bike riders.
|Mount Coot-tha Forest is important because of its aesthetic significance as a prominent scenic and landmark element in the cityscape and affords spectacular views in all directions, as well as views to the mountain, particularly from the city.
|The remnants of gold mining in Mount Coot-tha Forest represents a now uncommon aspect of Queensland's history. While gold prospecting was once a common way of life in Queensland, the proximity of gold prospecting activity so close to Brisbane is uncommon. These remnants are the only physical evidence left of the attempts to establish a fledging gold industry at Mount Coot-tha.
|The remnants of gold mining activity have the potential to yield information about the nature and scope of the activities that took place in Mount Coot-tha Forest which will contribute to an understanding of how the area was used over time.
|Mount Coot-tha Forest has strong association with former Queensland Premiers Sir Samuel Griffith, who was a trustee, and Sir William Jolly who, through his administration in the mid 1920s, was instrumental in maintaining and expanding Mount Coot-tha Forest and played an important role in ensuring the area was preserved for the enjoyment of the Queensland public into the future.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19568,"place_ref":602447,"name":"Oxley War Memorial","alternate_name":"Oxley Place | Oxley Memorial Park","street_address":"1218 Oxley Road","suburb":"OXLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"The Oxley War Memorial stands to the northwest of a small rectangular park on the corner of Oxley Road and Bannerman Street. The park setting contains grassed areas, decorative planted beds and hedges, scattered trees, children's play equipment and the war memorial monument.
The sandstone and marble monument stands on a low dressed stone plinth on a surround of stone pavers. A stepped sandstone pedestal bears a sandstone soldier figure facing west. Identifiably Australian with a slouch hat and 'rising sun' hat badge, the little digger stands at ease with hands resting on his rifle in the reversed arms position.
Carved squat bollards stand to each corner of the stone paver surround and are linked by hollow metal tube rails to the north, east and south. A rectangular decorative garden is planted to the north and south of the paver surround. Three flagpoles stand to the east of the monument.
Surmounting the plinth is the little digger statue. The soldier stands at ease with his head slightly bowed and his rifle reversed resting on his left boot. The hands are crossed and resting on the rifle butt. He is supported by a tree trunk located behind and to his right side.
The west face of the dado bears a marble plaque commemorating those associated with of the district who fell in the First World War. It reads:
OXLEY HONOURS THE MEMORY
OF
W. M. BOURKE\tR. PRICE
W. COOLING\tT. L. ROWLANDS
W. CROCK\tR. L. SINNAMON
M. ENRIGHT\tC.H. TOWNSON
J. FISHER\t S.J. TOWNSON
A. J. GIBBINGS\tA. WEBSTER
S. HAGGER\tD. WEBSTER
C. MITCHELL\t
WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR
1914-1919
Small marble plaques to the north and south faces commemorate involvement in the Second World War (1939-1945); the Korean War (1950-1953); the Malayan Emergency (1950-1960); Borneo; & the Vietnam War (1962-72). Bronze military badges of the Australian Armed Services are fixed to the base of the pedestal.
","history":"Today, the Oxley War Memorial sits on the crest of a ridge on the corner of Oxley Road and Bannerman Street in Oxley, where it is an important visual component of the streetscape setting on a busy arterial road.
The War Memorial was originally erected by local residents and unveiled in 1920 on a small parcel of reserved land on the corner of Oxley Road & Ipswich Road . In 1929 Brisbane City Council acquired the land on which the monument stood from the previous proprietors who were the registered trustees of the reserve. The memorial was moved to its present location in the 1980's due to traffic requirements.
The memorial was funded by public subscriptions at an establishment cost of about £110. The mason was F Willliams & Co of Ipswich, who was also responsible for the memorials at Toogoolawah, One Mile West Ipswich & Western Suburbs Ipswich (1917); Colington & Mount Alford (1918); Booval & Bundamba (1919); Boonah, Maroon & Oxley (1920); Esk & Toombul Shire Nundah (1921) the Weeping Mother Memorial at Gatton (c.1922); Warwick (1923-4); & the Ipswich Cemetery Cenotaph (1932).
Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in the wake of the war became our first national monuments. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. The casualty rate of the Australian volunteer military forces was significantly and proportionally higher than any of the other combatant groups, claiming 20% of the Australian volunteers who served, and 1.5% of the total Australian population. Australia's maturity as a nation and continuing commitment to the 'motherland' were proven beyond doubt. No previous or subsequent war has made such a devastating impact on the nation.
Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word 'cenotaph', commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means 'empty tomb'.
Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they often commemorate those who served, not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.
Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the soldier statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk was favoured in the southern states, where overall responsibility for the approval of war memorials fell under the jurisdiction of a Board made up of artists & architects.
Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, seen as embodying the ANZAC myth and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian ...loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity.
The digger and the little digger statues are an iconic Queensland memorial form. Oxley Memorial Park is an exemplar of this class of cultural places.
War memorials are the focal point for the local community during the solemn annual ceremonies of 25 April, Anzac Day, our National day of commemoration & remembrance for all those who have fallen in war. The Anzac Day dawn ceremony, the one minute of silence, the Ode and the bugle call of the Last Post are especially poignant and moving experiences for Australians, young and old alike. The Oxley War Memorial encapsulates this aesthetic for the local community, and for the wider Australian community.
","criteria":"The Oxley War Memorial is an important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history representing a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the State. It provides evidence from an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The monument provides a unique documentary record of the fallen, and demonstrates popular taste of the inter-war period.
|Unveiled in 1920, the memorial at Oxley demonstrates the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements. As a digger statue, it is representative of the most popular form of memorial in Queensland.
|The Oxley War Memorial is an important visual component of the streetscape, a prominent and sombre landmark within a landscaped park setting on a busy arterial road. The little digger statue displays a high level of workmanship and design, additionally contributing to its aesthetic quality.
|The Oxley War Memorial has a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the district's involvement in the First World War. The more recent additions to the memorial for the remembrance of other major offensives during the 20th century, informs us of the historical continuity of the place, and its social & cultural relevance to the community.The Oxley War Memorial is also the focal point for the district's annual Anzac Day memorial services.
|The sandstone sculpture of the little digger atop the marble monument seated on a sandstone pedestal is a fine example of the work of the Queensland mason and sculptor Frederick Williams of F Williams & Co, Ipswich. Williams was responsible for a large number of First World War cenotaphs throughout the Brisbane River Valley and the Ipswich area of south-eastern Queensland. It is believed that Williams used his young 14 year old son as the model and inspiration for this work, as well as for his other little digger statues.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19569,"place_ref":602448,"name":"RAN Station 9, Pinkenba (Myrtletown)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Myrtletown Reserve 51 Sandmere Road","suburb":"PINKENBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-17","description":"The surviving structures of the former RAN Station 9 stand at the southeast corner of a reserve at the end of Gannon Road in Myrtletown. A rough dirt roadway continues from the end of Gannon Road along the southwest edge of the reserve, and Sandmere Road is gazetted but unformed along the northwest side of the reserve. The reserve contains two concrete buildings, with other ruined concrete structures and concrete slabs to the north. The wartime concrete structures contrast with the green and peaceful nature of the well-groomed riverside park.
The buildings are single-storey rectangular concrete structures with flat concrete roofs concealed by the parapet edges formed by the perimeter walls. The structures were cast in-situ and the walls and ceilings display an off-form finish. Glazing has been lost to all the window openings and most doors are lost. Steel grill security screens have been fixed to all openings.
The control hut is made of concrete 12" (30.5mm) thick and is approximately 19' by 22' (5.8m by 6.7m). It stands close to the park edge at Boggy Creek, aligned southwest-northeast. The rectangular plan is divided into even quarters with three enclosed rooms and an open entry courtyard in the southwest quarter. There are two doorways off the open courtyard, protected by a freestanding blast wall. The door to the northwest opens into a fully enclosed room (former workshop and store) which connects to a room to the northeast (former indicator loop room). The storeroom contains an uninstalled louvered timber door, leant up against the wall. The indicator loop room has a single narrow unglazed observation window at eye height on the northeast corner. This narrow opening is sheltered by an external cantilevered tapered concrete hood.
The door to the northeast of the courtyard leads into a room at the southeast corner of the building (PE beam receiver room). The floor level of this room is below the ground level and is reached by a small flight of concrete stairs. The PE Beam receiver room has a large low unglazed window opening to the northeast (PE beam opening) and a larger window/doorway to the southeast. Many of the wall openings in the structure contain remnants of timber framing. A concrete slab and kerbing lie to the south and west of the structure.
To the northwest of the control hut is the concrete generator hut, which is about 18' by 18'6" (5.5m by 5.6m). The generator hut consists of a large rectangular room (generator room) and an adjacent smaller narrow rectangular room (store) both opening onto a small enclosed rectangular entrance corridor with an external door to the southwest corner. The generator room has long narrow unglazed windows at eye height to the northeast and southeast. Both openings have external cantilevered tapered concrete hoods. One opening contains the timber window frame. The interior of the generator room contains a concrete mounting on the floor, as well as some freestanding thick timber framing. Two rectangular concrete slabs lie northeast of the generator hut.
There is a scatter of trees, a picnic shelter and barbeque facilities to the northwest of the two concrete huts, but these features are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. To the north of the huts is a rectangular raised area with remnant low concrete walls, with a concrete slab to its northwest. These features mark the site of the quarters and mess building. Located to the north and south ends of the quarters site, to its northeast, are two rectangular brick cisterns, rendered with concrete. Each has a round pipe opening on top of one end, and a modern metal cover with a hatch at the other end. The cisterns were probably the septic systems for the living quarters.
","history":"The remaining built elements of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Station 9, a World War II-era indicator loop and photo-electric (PE) beam monitoring complex, are located in Myrtletown Reserve, at the end of Gannon Road near Pinkenba. The concrete control hut and concrete generator hut still stand at the southeast corner of the reserve, along with a number of concrete slabs from the quarters and mess building.
The site of RAN Station 9, located on the northern bank of Boggy Creek where it joins the Brisbane River, was gazetted as a Reserve for Recreation in 1885. A Reserve for Landing was located just to the north, and both reserves were initially under the control of the Toombul Divisional Board. In January 1925 both reserves, now jointly known as Myrtletown Reserve (3.55 hectares), were transferred to the Brisbane City Council, which remains the trustee. The Myrtletown area, formerly an agricultural district, is now an industrial zone, with large undeveloped blocks and few houses. Most residents left due to the construction of Brisbane Airport nearby (opened in 1988), and the local school closed in 1971.
During World War II the coastal artillery defences of Moreton Bay were upgraded. These included Fort Lytton (1880-1881) [QHR 600248] on the southern side of the Brisbane River's mouth and Fort Cowan Cowan (late 1930s) [QHR 602559], on the west side of Moreton Island. Fort Bribie [QHR 601143], at the northeast tip of Bribie Island, was established in 1939 after Germany's invasion of Poland plunged the world into war. Japan's entry into the war on 7 December 1941, and the consequent perceived invasion threat to Australia, led to a further expansion of Moreton Bay's defences. Fort Bribie upgraded its two 6" gun emplacements in early 1942, and in June 1942, the Commander of the Allied Naval Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area requested as a matter of high priority that Moreton Bay be developed as a naval operating base. Later that year two American 155mm field guns were emplaced on Panama Mounts at Skirmish Point [QHR 601143], at the south end of Bribie Island. In 1943 a similar battery was built at Rous, on the east side of Moreton Island.
The major access route into the Brisbane River was the Northwest Channel, which ran from near Caloundra across the bay in a southeast direction (east of Bribie Island and towards Moreton Island) and then southwest towards the mouth of the Brisbane River, forming a Z-shaped route. This dictated the ideal positions for coastal artillery batteries, with the most effective sites for guns being the closest points to the channel bends. However, Rous battery was designed to deter ships from shelling targets within Moreton Bay from the ocean side of Moreton Island.
During World War II Moreton Bay was also protected by RAN stations numbers 1 through 10. RAN 1 was a Port War Signal Station at Wickham Point, Caloundra (not extant), and RAN 2 was a Controlled Mining and Guard Loop Station which was initially located at Fort Bribie (extant), before it was moved to Tangalooma on Moreton island in 1943 (not extant). RAN 3 was a Controlled Mining and Guard Loop Station at Cowan Cowan, and RAN 4 was the Indicator Loop and Harbour Defence ASDIC (anti-submarine detection sonar) Station at Woorim [QHR 601143], on Bribie Island (extant). RAN 5 was the Combined Training Centre (Naval Wing), at Toorbul; RAN 6 was an Advanced Fairmile Base (AFMB) at Bongaree, Bribie Island; and RAN 7 was an Indicator Loop and Harbour Defence ASDIC Station at Bulwer on Moreton Island (extant). On the Brisbane River, RAN 8 was the Boom Defence Facility, an Anti-submarine Boom across the Brisbane River between Lytton and Bulwer Island (not extant); RAN 9 was the Indicator Loop and Photo-electric Beam Station, Myrtletown (extant); and RAN 10 was a Naval Store at Pinkenba (status unknown).
Indicator loops were used to detect the presence of any submerged submarines. An indicator loop relies on the production of an induced current in a stationary loop of wire when a magnet moves overhead. Even if wiped or degaussed, submarines still have sufficient magnetism to produce a small current in a loop. The technology was developed by the British Royal Navy at HMS Osprey (Portland Naval Base) from 1915. If an indicator loop showed the presence of a vessel the two possibilities were 'sub' or 'non-sub'. If no ship could be observed on the water, it was obviously a submarine, and a vessel could be despatched to drop depth charges.
Alternatively, if an indicator loop was located next to a controlled minefield, in which the mines were connected by electrical cable back to a mine control hut on shore, the mines could be detonated manually if a submarine was detected. It had to be an enemy submarine as friendly submarines always entered port surfaced. The controlled mines in Moreton Bay were accompanied by 'guard' indicator loops and mine loops. When a submarine was detected by the guard loop, the operator would wait until there was also a galvanometer 'swing' on the mine loop and then the mines would be detonated by sending a current down the mine loop.
RAN Station 9 was designed to detect any Japanese submarines or surface vessels attempting to navigate up the Brisbane River. By 1942, the navy had become aware of recent developments by Japan, Germany and Italy in the manufacture and use of miniature submarines and human torpedoes. Existing indicator loop systems had legs set at a 200 yard spacing which was fine for large submarines but useless for the miniatures. By September 1942 the RAN decided to lay a miniature indicator loop across the mouth of the Brisbane River.
The indicator loop cables were laid in a miniature indicator loop pattern with legs 40 yards apart, from RAN Station 9 to Fisherman Islands. If a submerged submarine was detected by RAN Station 9 a signal would be transmitted to RAN Station 8, the Boom Defence Facility at Fort Lytton, to raise the boom cable. HMAS Kinchela was permanently moored in the Brisbane River as part of this Boom Defence system. The indicator loop was completed by HMAS Bangalow by early March 1943.
The indicator loop was supplemented with a photo-electric beam above the water, to detect the presence of surface vessels entering the Brisbane River. RAN Station 9 in Brisbane was one of only three PE beam installations built in Australia during World War II, the others being between South Head and Middle Head in Sydney, and between Point Lonsdale and Point Nepean at Port Phillip in Melbourne. Lieutenant Colonel Buckland of the Australian Army was responsible for the installation of all three.
The PE Beam equipment consisted of a transmitter on the Fisherman Islands side of the Brisbane River housed in a concrete hut, at a bearing of 68 degrees and 25 minutes from the receiver at Myrtletown. The current status of the transmitting hut is unknown, due to the development of wharfage facilities around that location. The PE beam transmitter consisted of a power valve that transmitted in the visible and infrared wavelengths. An infrared screen blocked out the visible light so that it couldn't be seen from the outside. The beam from the transmitter was directed at the reflector (a 90 cm parabolic mirror) in the control hut at Myrtletown, which focussed the rays to a pin point on the cathode of the PE cell.
Breaking the beam closed a contactor on to an 80 Volt DC supply and connected it in parallel with a service contactor. While the beam was in normal operation, a loudspeaker gave a buzzing note. When the beam was broken, the speaker reproduced the clicking of the receiver relay. An alarm buzzer also sounded and a flashing red light came on actuated by the relay. During this interruption, another contactor closed and a sentry (searchlight) was exposed across the river, on a bearing a few degrees inside the line of the infrared PE beam. The service contactor switch for the searchlight was then closed by the switchman, who carried out a quick search of the area; the control panel contactor being immediately reset by pressing a button on the control panel. Resetting stopped the alarm buzzer, flashing light and the clicking in the loudspeaker, leaving the apparatus ready to give another signature immediately.
The PE beam was completed in September 1943 and on 23 October 1943 the first trial of the beam was undertaken. RAN Station 9 commenced operation in January 1944, after a construction cost of £3337. Lieutenant Joe Duggan was the Officer in Charge.
RAN Station 9 never detected any Japanese intruders, although submarines had been sighted east of Stradbroke Island (March 1942) and off Moreton Island (June 1942), and on 14 May 1943 the hospital ship Centaur was struck by a torpedo and sunk off the Brisbane coastline. The last attack to occur in the approaches to the Port of Brisbane took place on 4 June 1943 off Cape Moreton, when a Japanese submarine fired on the American ship MV Edward Chambers. The indicator loop in the Brisbane River was removed in June 1945.
A 1946 aerial photograph of the RAN Station 9 facility shows that the quarters and mess building were located to the north of the control and generator huts (at the location of the existing concrete slabs and brick cisterns). Two outhouses were located northwest of the existing generator hut. The larger of the two remaining structures, the control hut, accommodated the indicator loop and PE beam instrumentation and was where the loop cables terminated. The smaller building housed the generator. The living quarters for officers and ordinary ranks were separated by a mess area.
","criteria":"As incongruous concrete structures in a quiet area of flat, well maintained grassland along the north bank of Boggy Creek as it joins the Brisbane River, the remaining buildings and foundations of RAN Station 9 are a picturesque but poignant reminder of attempts to defend shipping in the Brisbane River from Japanese submarine attacks.
|The surviving concrete huts and the concrete remnants of the quarters and mess building at RAN Station 9 at Pinkenba (Myrtletown) are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being surviving evidence of the efforts made to defend Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River against enemy ships and submarines during World War II. The indicator loop and photo-electric beam installation at Myrtletown was part of an interlocking system of naval defences for Moreton Bay, which incorporated coastal artillery batteries, indicator loops, controlled minefields, ASDIC (anti-submarine sonar detection) devices, Fairmile anti-submarine motor launches, a photoelectric (PE) beam and an anti-submarine boom.
|RAN Station 9 was one of only three PE beam harbour defence installations constructed in Australia during World War II. The others were constructed between South Head and Middle Head in Sydney, and between Point Lonsdale and Point Nepean at Port Phillip in Melbourne.
|RAN Station 9, by its location, orientation to the river, and room layout, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a World War II indicator loop and PE beam station, an anti-submarine defence. Its location next to the Brisbane River demonstrates the need to detect enemy vessels attempting to infiltrate upriver, and the placement of the control hut reveals the bearing of the PE beam transmitted from Fisherman Islands. The layout of the rooms in the control hut provide evidence of the functions of such a facility, with the indicator loop room having an observation window over the river and the PE beam room having a large window to receive the beam transmitted from Fisherman Islands.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19571,"place_ref":602449,"name":"Millaa Millaa Falls","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Theresa Creek Road","suburb":"MILLAA MILLAA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-12-05","description":"The Millaa Millaa Falls are approximately 18.3 metres in height and are formed from volcanic basalt which has weathered to create distinctive vertical striations (pipe formations) in the surface of the rock and which gives the falls its pleasing textural backdrop. There is a large pool below the falls that is surrounded by rainforest, except for a grassed viewing area facing the falls and a concrete block pad on the waters edge.
A set of concrete steps leads from the lower bus park down to the viewing area. The bus park is separated from the viewing area by a low post and rail fence. An circa 1950 timber-framed weatherboard toilet block is located on the north-eastern side of the falls and remains in use. A biological toilet facility has been constructed on the northern side of the bus park (2005). A shelter shed and interpretive bus shelters have also been erected on the north-western end of the bus park (2005). A track with steps runs from the 1950s toilet block and terminates at the upper car park.
There is a stone monument on the fence line, erected in 1982, at the western end of the lower bus park with a bronze plaque attached that commemorates the explorer Christie Palmerston.
The Millaa Millaa Scenic Reserve also may contain other sites of heritage significance that have not been formally identified at this time. These include the original clearing near the falls and its associated campsite; railway objects located near the western boundary of the reserve adjacent to the Irwin Track; and blazed trees associated with survey and logging tracks within the reserve.
","history":"The Millaa Millaa Falls were discovered during exploration of overland routes to connect the Herberton mining fields with Queensland coastal ports. The falls are named after the nearby township of Millaa Millaa. The name "Millaa Millaa" is derived from a phonetic adaptation of the Aboriginal word "Malay Malay", which in the language of the local Mamu Aboriginal people refers to the rainforest vine (Elaeagnus triflora), which fruit was a seasonal food source. This plant occurs throughout the surrounding area and is commonly known as the Millaa Millaa Vine. This is contrary to the popular belief that the name Millaa Millaa means either "water fall", "many waterfalls" or "plenty water", but does demonstrate how important the falls are in the regional psyche.
In 1882 tracks were blazed through the rainforest close to the falls by both Sub Inspector Alexander Douglas (May 1882) and Christie Palmerston (October to December 1882). Palmerston also mapped an improved track through the area during 1884-85, which subsequently became known as the Palmerston track. The popular belief that Palmerston camped at and named Millaa Millaa falls, which is in part commemorated by a monument at the site, cannot be substantiated from the historical record.
A clearing at the Millaa Millaa Falls was used as a rest stop for the early horse and mule pack teams that traversed the Palmerston track when travelling to and from the Herberton mining field. This clearing was also used as a base for land surveyors working in the area in 1909 and as a camp for workers constructing the railway line between Malanda and the Millaa Millaa township in the 1920's.
Also during the 1920's a quarry was established next to the Millaa Millaa Falls to supply a nearby crushing plant with stone, which was used to produce road-making materials. Blasting and excavation work at the quarry threatened to damage or destroy the falls, but due to the efforts of the Millaa Millaa Progress Association it was protected, and by the mid 1920's had become a popular stop for tours of the Atherton Tablelands. Conversely, the quarry, which was abandoned in 1927, was also partly responsible for the latter popularity and preservation of the falls because of the access that it provided to the site.
In the late 1950's access to a popular swimming hole known as "Rawson's Pool" which was located on private property downstream from the falls was stopped and the focus then shifted to Millaa Millaa Falls. The access road to the quarry was upgraded and extended down to near the base of the falls and a small car park constructed. Also at this time, public facilities were added to the site including toilets, shelter shed, and barbeques. Further safety and interpretive improvements were carried out in 2002. In 2003, the quarry was converted into a car park and a walking track and steps created which lead down to the falls viewing area. In 2005 a biological toilet facility, shelter shed and interpretive bus shelters were built. Millaa Millaa Falls is now part of what is known within the tourism industry as the "waterfall circuit" near Millaa Millaa township, which also includes the Zillie and Elinjaa Falls.
The Millaa Millaa Falls is an icon within the tourism industry, not only within North Queensland but also nationally and internationally. A 2008 search of the internet revealed at least 917 tour sites advertising the falls, with 276 containing photographs. The falls has also featured in numerous movies, documentaries and television commercials; advertising everything from Indian lotto to Swedish Timotei shampoo. The place is also used for a range of community events.
","criteria":"Millaa Millaa Falls is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history due to its close association with the tracks, surveying, railways, roads and tourism, which aided the development and settlement of the Atherton Tableland region. At various times the immediate area around the falls was used as a rest stop for the early horse and mule pack teams that travelled along the Palmerston track on their way to and from the Herberton mining field; used as a depot for the first land surveyors working in the area; a camp for workers on the Millaa Millaa railway, and as a quarry for road materials.
|Millaa Millaa Falls is also a place of importance because of its aesthetic significance, which lies in both its natural beauty and picturesque qualities, and because of its iconic representation, both nationally and internationally. Images of the falls are one of the most recognised natural features from the Atherton Tablelands and are used by local council and Australian tourism operators to promote the region. The natural and visual integrity of the falls has changed little over time, which is evidenced by the numerous historical images, although the site access, public facilities, and viewing environs have been modified.
|Because of Millaa Millaa Falls importance to the far north Queensland tourism industry and its historical utilization as a picnic and swimming venue, it has since the 1950's developed a strong social and cultural association with people of the region. Millaa Millaa Falls is also culturally important to the regional Mamu Aboriginal people, as it was a seasonal food source and camping area at the time of first European settlement of the area. The falls were also the first natural landmark to be associated with the area, even before the establishment of the Millaa Millaa Township.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19574,"place_ref":602452,"name":"Clayfield House","alternate_name":"Turrawan Private Hospital | Turrawan","street_address":"8 London Road","suburb":"CLAYFIELD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-09-24","description":"Clayfield House is located on a sloping block, supported by high concrete stumps at the eastern end and a brick retaining wall to London Road. It is a single storey building constructed of timber with a typical Dods steeply pitched hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting.
It has two projecting bays facing London Road; the eastern bay contains the main, and former private, entrance. This is accessed by a shallow set of stairs approaching a porch constructed of substantial timber beams in the Arts and Crafts style. The phrase EAST WEST ?? HAME'S BEST is carved into the beam across the entrance.
The remainder of the front elevation comprises a central verandah, which is now enclosed with the balustrades intact and sheeted over, and a protruding bay on the western end. The eastern elevation also comprises an enclosed verandah with intact balustrades and the location of the separate surgery access is evident, although the stairs to this have been removed. Verandah detailing consists of simple and elegant timber brackets and balustrades typical of Dod's style.
The interior is lined with vertical tongue and groove boards and has timber floors and ceilings. The joinery is well detailed and includes such features as cupboards, multiple paned double-hung and French windows, a bay window and a walk through sash window opening on to the verandah.
Although a few internal walls have been removed and some added, and rooms have been built into the verandah, the general form of the house has altered little. The original plan, separating residential and medical areas, can still be read and most rooms remain substantially intact.
","history":"Clayfield House was constructed in 1906 as 'Turrawan', a combined residence and surgery, for Dr Arthur C F Halford.
Robert Smith (Robin) Dods (1868-1920) was born in New Zealand. After living in Scotland in the early 1870s, the family moved to Brisbane after his father's death. From the age of 11 he lived with his mother and stepfather, Dr C F Marks, on Wickham Terrace. In 1886 he returned to Scotland to study architecture, where he was articled with Hay and Henderson in Edinburgh. Completing his articles, Dods moved to London in 1890, where he worked for a number of architects, including the prestigious firm of Aston Webb and Ingress Bell. Dods' training in London placed him amongst the third generation of Arts and Crafts based architects, contemporary with Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright. Central to his philosophy was a belief in developing a new architecture based on regional tradition, clearly expressed in his subsequent domestic work in Brisbane.
In 1894 he returned to Brisbane for a year's visit, during which time he and architect Francis Hall submitted a successful competition entry for the nurses' home at the Brisbane Hospital. He returned to London, but came back to Brisbane in August 1896 to set up in partnership as Hall and Dods. Within the partnership, Dods was responsible for most of the design, while Hall concentrated on management. The practice was the most influential source of modern design in Brisbane, producing a wide range of accomplished buildings and was credited with achieving an 'architectural revolution in Brisbane.' Dods was able to integrate contemporary British design philosophies with the traditions of Queensland housing and the requirements of a subtropical climate, producing practical and attractive houses that were finely detailed and widely copied. The partnership was sustained until 1913, when Dods left to practice in Sydney. Soon after his move to Sydney World War I virtually stopped all building and Dods died prematurely in 1920.
In 1905 Arthur Charles Frederick Halford, a doctor, purchased just under an acre of land comprising re-subdivisions 1-4 and 98-101 of subdivision 3 of portion 79 at the corner of Sandgate and London Roads. Tenders were let for the construction of a house for him, to the design of Robin Dods, in August 1905. The builder is thought to have been Hall and Mayer and the house cost £1382.92 to complete. Comprising a residence and surgery, the building originally faced Sandgate Road, with the entrance to the residential section accessed from this road and the surgery accessed from London Road. Tennis courts were constructed behind the house. It was at the time the only building between Wagner and London Roads.
It was not uncommon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for doctors to have a surgery in their home. A number of small private hospitals were also run from houses, particularly for maternity cases. An Arthur Halford is registered as an obstetrician in this period. Other houses in the area were used as residence/surgeries at different times. It was a form that Dods was familiar with as his stepfather and brother were doctors and Dods designed a surgery/residence for his brother on Wickham Terrace. [Espie Dods House 600172].
In 1906, Dr Halford was living at 'Turrawan', though by 1915 he was also practicing from 157 Wickham Terrace. In 1910 a trust was set up for the property with trustees Arthur Halford and Union Trustees. In 1923 the trustees for the property became Arthur Halford, his wife Nora and daughter Nora Millar. In 1922 the 1,500 seat Savoy Picture Theatre was constructed next to the house on Sandgate Road.
Dr Halford is thought to have lived and worked from 'Turrawan' until 1920, when a lease was let to Alexander Murray for five years. In 1926 the Post Office Directory lists a Dr Neville Sutton as the occupant, using London Road as his preferred address.
Mrs Halford died in 1932 and in 1935 resubs 98, 99 and 100 in London Road were sold and houses were built on them. Part of this land appears to have included a portion of the 'Turrawan' tennis court. At an unknown date 'Turrawan' was rotated on the site to face London Road and now also occupies a part of the former site of its tennis court.
Nora Millar Halford married Harold Love in 1936 and in 1945 Dr Halford died. In the following year, the property was transferred to Savoy Pictures Pty Limited.
In 1960 the property was resurveyed and subdivided into two blocks and an easement. The realignment of the boundary between lots one and two suggests that the house was already in its current position at that time. In 1961, BP Australia purchased Lot 1, the block on the corner of Clayfield and London Roads and constructed a service station on it. This closed down in the early 1980s and a garden nursery now occupies its site.
In 1984 Lot 2 was sold to Rodney and Colleen Abbott and was a boarding house when purchased by the current owner in 1988. Since then it has operated as Clayfield House, providing supported accommodation.
A small addition containing a bathroom has made to the rear of the house and some internal walls have been removed or altered. Although the chimneys are no longer present, presumably having been lost when the house was rotated, a tiered corner fireplace remains in the former dining room.
","criteria":"Clayfield House is important in terms of Queensland's architectural history and in the development of the Queensland house. It was designed by the influential partnership of Hall & Dods in 1906.
|Clayfield House is uncommon as an early example of a purpose designed doctor's surgery and residence and also as an example of Dods domestic work. Although he designed many houses, few, particularly of the size and quality of Clayfield House, survive. Although some alterations have been made to the house, it retains much of the original layout and detail illustrating characteristics of his work.
|Clayfield House is situated in an area where many fine homes, including others by Dods, were built and illustrates the development of Clayfield as a prestigious residential area. Clayfield House, as a purpose designed surgery/residence, then private hospital illustrates the development of medical practice in Brisbane. Clayfield House demonstrates the principal features of a doctor's residence and surgery with separate entrances and a room layout that separates the practice rooms from the residential areas of the building.
|It has aesthetic significance as a substantial and well-designed dwelling and is important for its association with the life and work of RS (Robin) Dods, an innovative and influential architect who made a major contribution to the development of housing design in Queensland.
|Robert Smith (Robin) Dods is noted for the introduction of ideas on architectural design then current in the United Kingdom and integrating them with traditional Queensland forms and materials. His designs subsequently influenced Australian architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19575,"place_ref":602453,"name":"Pinkenba War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Eagle Farm Road","suburb":"PINKENBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-10-03","description":"The monument stands on a small, grassed triangular portion of road reserve at the corner of Eagle Farm and McBride Roads, Pinkenba. Approximately 2.5 metres high, it stands within a grassed area defined by a white painted concrete curb supporting a fence of hollow metal poles linked by metal chain. A flagstaff stands to the north within the fenced area.
The bronze memorial is supported on a plinth of cast rusticated-finish concrete blocks. A pedestal, similar in form to the base of a truncated obelisk comprising beaten panels with a Doric column at each corner sits on top of the plinth. It supports a square platform surmounted by a small dome. An upright artillery shell, hung with a frail bronze wreath, projects from the dome.
The sides of the pedestal bear the memorial inscription and the names of the enlisted and fallen. The panel to the north bears the inscription in relief lettering; the south panel contains the names of the fallen, each an individual name plate within a decorative honour scroll; the east and west panels contain the individual name plates for the enlisted.
A landscaped area incorporating trees, garden bed and park furniture is situated near the fence of the neighbouring property to the north of the monument area. A seat, picnic table, tap and large, green metal utility box in this area are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Pinkenba War Memorial is located on a small triangular portion of land at the intersection of McBride Road and Eagle Farm Road at Pinkenba. Unveiled on 16 August 1919 by Queensland Governor Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, it was erected to commemorate the men from the district who had served during WWI.
\nA small community existed at Pinkenba as early as the 1860s when the residents began discussing the need for a school in the district. A formal application for a school, lodged in 1874, listed 22 families with children living in the area. The early residents largely comprised small farmers, many of them of German origin. From the late nineteenth century, the abattoir of the Queensland Meat Export Company was located at Pinkenba and it remained a major employer in the district until after WWI. The wharves, servicing passenger and freight ships, were also a hub of commercial activity. In 1897, a rail link was provided to service the wharves, industries and residents of Pinkenba.
\nDuring WWI, the Pinkenba wharves were the point of embarkation for many Australian troops, including members of the Light Horse. Pupils from the local school visited the wharves to farewell soldiers from the district. The Pinkenba War Memorial records the names of 42 men who enlisted, eight of whom are listed as fallen.
\nThe uniquely styled Pinkenba War Memorial was one of the earliest WWI monument memorials erected in the Brisbane region, predated by the East Brisbane War Memorial in Mowbray Park [QHR600189] which was unveiled in August 1917. The earliest known Queensland WWI monument memorial is the Colinton War Memorial [QHR 650029], which was unveiled on 17 January 1917.
\nThe memorial was designed and constructed by the Queensland firm of Ernest Gunderson. Gunderson was a skilled tradesman of Norwegian extraction whose firm specialized in the manufacture of bronze honour boards. The firm operated until the mid 1930s and supplied memorials all over Queensland. His best-known and largest memorial is in the main street of Gayndah. At the time of its unveiling, it was described as one of the finest in the State.
\nGunderson individually moulded decorative devices for his honour boards and these make them quite distinctive as a Queensland type. The Pinkenba monument features similar devices including an artillery shell encircled by a wreath. There were also a series of statuettes fixed to the monument that were removed, probably before WWII. These included mounted light horsemen located on each corner above the columns and a statuette of a soldier that stood to the north of the dome.
\nIn 1983, Brisbane City Council plumbers and sheet metal workers repaired some of the damage sustained by the monument. However, important elements including the statuettes and some lettering remain lost.
\nIn the 1960s, the character of Pinkenba changed. Many residents moved out of the area as homes were resumed to make way for proposed Airport expansion. More heavy industry moved into the suburb. The War Memorial remains a vestige of the earlier more residential character of the area.
","criteria":"The Pinkenba War Memorial is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the national outpouring of grief at the deaths of about 60,000 Australians during WWI. During an era of strong and widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism most Queensland communities erected a public memorial to honour local participation in the war. Each monument is a unique historical documentary record.
|The memorial is important in exemplifying many of the elements common to WWI memorials in a form that is unusual for its type. Designed as a tangible place of memory to act as a focus for public mourning in the absence of graves, the memorial displays the names of the enlisted and the dead, it is designed to endure and it is set in an area large enough to accommodate ceremonial occasions. However, the memorial demonstrates a form that is unusual for WWI memorials in that it is composed of an unusual combination of classical and non-traditional elements.
|Together with it's setting, the memorial makes a significant aesthetic contribution to the townscape of Pinkenba. It is visually striking and it is located prominently in a verdant setting.
|The memorial is of social and spiritual significance for the local community, having a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event and as the focus for annual remembrance of that event in local Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.
|It is also significant as an example of the work of Ernest Gunderson, the well-known Queensland manufacturer and supplier of honour boards and memorials.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19576,"place_ref":602454,"name":"Sandgate War Memorial Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"8 Seymour Street","suburb":"SANDGATE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-10-03","description":"Sandgate War Memorial Park is a small island of parkland bounded by Seymour Street, Bowser Parade and Brighton Road. The memorial and surrounding gardens constitute an integrated and contained landscape within the island and provide a verdant forecourt to the Sandgate Post Office and the former Sandgate Town Hall.
The monument, a cenotaph form reminiscent of the Lutyens' Cenotaph (Whitehall, London), is the central focus of the park. Constructed from coursed pale grey quarry-faced granite, the monument is approximately 2.6m x 1.4m in plan, rising to a height of about 5m from a concrete plinth measuring about 4.6m x 3.7m. A band of dressed and polished granite forms a collar to the stepped crown of the cenotaph. A low protective painted metal rail is erected to the perimeter of the plinth. Within this protective fence stand decorative bollards linked by metal chains. Plaques to the long sides of the monument list those from the Sandgate district who fell in WWI, WWII and the conflicts in Malaya, Korea and Vietnam. A verse is inscribed to the obverse side:
They died, and yet in memory shall they live,
That we may know the worth of sacrifice,
Know that their death is freedom's cause,
Stands as a beacon light to point the way
To paths of peace.
A large metal utility box located near a path to the north east of the memorial and a recently constructed wooden rotunda in a corner of the park are not considered to be culturally significant.
The park also contains a green painted metal drinking fountain. Concrete paths across the island converge on the monument. The park contains mature palms, shade trees and decorative planted beds and hedges.
","history":"Sandgate War Memorial Park is a triangular portion of land situated close to the Sandgate Town Hall. The war memorial located in the middle of the park was unveiled on 24 February 1924 to memorialize the men from Sandgate who had died while serving their country during WWI (1914 - 1918).
European settlement in the Sandgate district began in the 1850s. By the 1860s, the area was frequented by visitors from Brisbane for recreational purposes and after the opening of the rail to Sandgate in 1882 the area rapidly developed as a seaside resort. A post office was erected near the railway station in 1887, the township of Sandgate was proclaimed in 1902 and a town hall erected in 1912. By the mid-twentieth century, increased use of cars meant that more distant seaside places became more accessible and the popularity of Sandgate as a seaside resort declined.
According to Brigadier J. H. Cannan, in a speech given at the unveiling of the Sandgate monument, 330 soldiers from the township had enlisted for WWI. Of these, 51 were killed. The impact of the war Australia-wide was devastating with over 300, 000 volunteers from a national population of 4 million serving overseas and one fifth, approximately 60, 000 dying. Virtually every community in every state was affected by the war in Europe and Asia Minor.
After the war, memorials honouring those who served were erected in nearly every city, town and community in Australia. The erection of memorials peaked during the period 1919 to 1925. Typically, a committee of patriotic citizens was formed which raised money by public subscription and public entertainments. Land on which to erect the memorial was usually provided by the local authority. Expenditure was often considerable for the size of communities and war memorials became a matter of local pride, an indication of a district's patriotism and wealth (McKay 1983, pp 12 - 13).
Construction of the Sandgate memorial was organized by a committee chaired by the Mayor of Sandgate (Alderman W. H. Bowser). The design was by prominent Queensland architect, George Gray Prentice, who was practicing at the time in partnership with Thomas Ramsay Hall. The Brisbane newspapers reported that the memorial, composed of about 100 tons of granite and concrete, cost around £850. The granite blocks that made up most of the structure were donated by Alderman Bowser from his quarry at Samford and the top sills and the borders of the trachyte panels were of polished Victorian granite. At the unveiling, the Mayor noted that granite was used to 'resist the sea atmosphere'. The front panel of the monument listed the names of the 51 Sandgate soldiers who had lost their lives during the war and the rear panel contained a verse composed by W. H. Lister, a member of the committee. The foundation stone was laid by the Queensland Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan, on 14 July 1923 and the completed memorial was unveiled by the Governor on 24 February 1924.
The monument was built by Messrs. Lowther and Sons. This was an early Brisbane masonry firm, established in the 1880s by John Lowther. The Lowthers became one of the largest suppliers of stone and marble in the southern hemisphere by the time of WWI. Charles Lowther served with the Light Horse in Palestine during the war. After his return in 1919, he executed war memorials for the family firm. Notable memorials built by the firm include the Digger at Blackbutt (1920) and the obelisk at Goodna (McKay 1983, p 36).
The extant concrete posts and chain surrounding the monument were erected in 1931 to replace a pre-existing wooden fence. Subsequently to the unveiling of the monument in 1924, the names of Sandgate residents killed in WWII, Malaya, Korea and Vietnam were added to the monument.
The park that forms the setting for the monument contains a large small-leafed fig that reputedly was a popular meeting place. The grandsons of Hezekiah Shepherd, said to have been an inspector and overseer of works with the then Sandgate Municipal Council, claim that he planted the tree in the early 1880s and built a seat (no longer extant) under it. The rotunda in the park was built during the 'Australia Remembers' commemorations in 1995.
","criteria":"The Sandgate War Memorial Park is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the national outpouring of grief at the death of 60, 000 Australians during WWI. During an era of strong and widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism most Queensland communities erected a public memorial to honour local participation in the war. Each monument is a unique historical documentary record.
|The memorial is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places, being a substantial and highly intact commemorative structure erected as a tangible and enduring place of memory to act as a focus for public mourning in the absence of graves. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|The memorial and surrounding park make a significant aesthetic contribution to the townscape of Sandgate. The park constitutes an integrated and contained landscape that provides a verdant forecourt to the Sandgate Post Office and the former Sandgate Town Hall.
|The memorial and park are of social and spiritual significance for the local community, having a strong and continuing association with the community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event and as the focus for annual remembrance of that event in local Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.
|The memorial is significant as an example of the work of prominent Brisbane architect, G. G. Prentice and the Brisbane masonry firm Lowther and Sons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19578,"place_ref":602456,"name":"Sherwood Arboretum (including the John Herbert Memorial Vista)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"38A Turner Street","suburb":"SHERWOOD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-05-03","description":"A rolling open landscape provides a spacious setting for clumped tree plantings, individual specimen trees, and an avenue of mature and semi-mature Queensland kauri.
The Sherwood Arboretum is bounded on the west by the Brisbane River and on the south-west by Jolimont and Turner Streets. Residential properties occur on the other boundaries. These properties are accessed from Joseph and Ferry Streets in the north; Dudley and Dunella Streets in the east; and Douglas Street in the south.
Public vehicle access occurs off Jolimont Street with a 50 vehicle car park, and a smaller car park on Dewar Street directly into the John Herbert Memorial Vista.
Pedestrian access is provided from the Jolimont Street Car Park; off Dewar Street, Joseph Street, Turner Street; and from the pontoon on the Brisbane River centrally located on the Arboretum's eastern boundary.
","history":"The Sherwood Arboretum covers an area of 15 hectares, containing approximately 1,100 trees from about 300 species. The arboretum comprises parkland, artificial freshwater wetland and has an extensive frontage to the Brisbane River.
In keeping with an international trend toward the application of scientific methods to forestry, and over concern for the depleting stock of Queenslands forests and commercial timbers, Sherwood Arboretum was established at the urging of a number of community interest groups, the Local Government Authorities and the State Government.
In June 1922, the Curator of the Botanical Gardens, Ernest Walter Bick F.L.S. wrote to the Brisbane Deputy Town Clerk outlining the need to establish '...an Arboretum near the city where the growth of native and other trees could be studied.' The Government Botanist, Cyril Tenison White, raised public awareness, when he wrote to the daily papers on 13th July 1922. The proposal was sponsored by the Empire Forest Association, and gathered the support of the Royal Society, the Queensland Naturalists' Club, the Horticultural Society, the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, the Public Health Association, and through a number of articles in the A & B Journal of Queensland.
No suitable land was initially identified within Brisbane Shire. In 1925, the Greater Brisbane Scheme saw the amalgamation of local councils and shires to establish the City of Brisbane Council. Land previously purchased by Sherwood Shire Council was considered suitable, and a proposal to dedicate land for Arboretum purposes was strongly supported by the outgoing Sherwood Shire Council.
Symbolically, Sherwood Arboretum was officially opened on World Forestry Day, 21 March 1925, with a planting of 72 Queensland kauri (Agathis robusta) along a central promenade named Sir Matthew Nathan Avenue in honour of the Queensland Governor.
Many of the people associated with the opening and the first plantings are well known today as founders of the State and Brisbane City, prominent local residents and landowners, and leading scientists of the day such as: Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland; William Jolly, the First Mayor of Greater Brisbane; Archbishop Duhig, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane; Romeo Lahey, local timber mill owner and founder of the National Parks Association, W D Francis of the Queensland Herbarium and author of "Australian Rainforest Trees"; and E H F Swain, then District Inspector of Forests who became Director of Forests in 1928.
From its outset, the Sherwood Arboretum was focussed on growing Australian trees, and especially Queensland trees.
Over 600 specimens had been planted by 1929 with plans for another 400 in place. The temperature, climate and soils did not favour these early endeavours, and many of the plantings from the 1920s and 1930s appear to have failed.
Significant tree plantings include pine, fig and native plum, such as: Queensland kauri (Agathis robusta); bull kauri (Agathis microstachya); bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii); hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii); Bribie Island pine (Callitrus columellaris); (Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla forma macrophylla); Queensland weeping fig (Ficus microcarpa); cluster fig (Ficus racemosa); rusty fig (Ficus rubiginosa); and Queensland rarities like Burdekin plum, (Pleogynium timorense) and Davidson plum (Davidsonia pruriens). From the west, the more arid interior and tropical north are wilga (Geijera parviflora); broad-leafed bottle tree (Brachychiton australis); lacebark (Brachychiton discolor); tulip oak (Harpuilia pendula); with the Leichardt tree (Nauclea orientalis); celery wood (Polyscias elegans); yellow wood (Flindseria xanthoxyla). Mangroves occur along the river frontage: milky mangrove (Excoecaria agaloeha), grey mangrove (Auicennia marina) and river mangrove (Aegiceras corniculatum). Examples of exotic species are uncommon, but include a Syrian Ash (Fraxinus syriaca) from Asia Minor.
In 1946 a number of land parcels and some connecting unformed roads were acquired adjacent the Arboretum. This addition is now named the John Herbert Memorial Vista, commemorating the State Member for Sherwood 1956-1978, who was an active member of the local community and had a long association with the National Trust of Queensland. The John Herbert Memorial Vista is managed as an integral part of the Arboretums natural biosystem.
The Sherwood Arboretum has a special association with Brisbane's renowned landscape architect, Harry Oakman, Manager of Parks and Gardens for the Brisbane City Council 1946-1963.
Oakman had been Head Gardener, Department of Parks, for Newcastle City Council from 1940 to1946, and was Manager of Parks and Gardens for the Brisbane City Council from 1946 to1963. He later worked in Canberra, and wrote seven books on tropical and sub-tropical gardening.
Harry Oakman (1906-2002) produced a major redesign of the Sherwood Arboretum, although his design was not implemented at the time. It has served subsequent generations, however, and the essential characteristics and elements of today's design reflect those advanced by Oakman by maintaining the original tree plantings and developing new elegant looping pedestrian pathways from the perimeter and within the main drive; capturing vistas overlooking the forests and the plantings; and culminating in the wharf and terminal.
A Report by the Queensland Conservation Council released in 1975 claimed that Brisbane's parks were, in general, often flat, lacking in trees and natural water features, and had too much emphasis on built-recreation facilities. The report argued that too many buildings, sports clubs, car parks, and roads all defeated the purpose of parks as open spaces. The Sherwood Arboretum stands in stark contradiction to this generalisation.
The park's vistas, river frontage, subtropical mature trees and mature plantings of Queensland pines, native figs and specimens of rare Queensland native plums in a setting of grassed open spaces, open lagoons and shrubby borderlines, demonstrate an established subtropical garden character and are well appreciated by the public. Indeed, Sherwood Arboretum is listed as the third or forth most visited park in Brisbane.
The changing land use in and around Sherwood Arboretum, from Aboriginal resource, to colonial farm, to suburban subdivision, and finally to parkland, demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's history, and the process of the creation of open spaces as the area's population grew. The Brisbane City Council's management of the land at Sherwood reflected its interest in the international Town Planning movement of the time. Redesigns of the park also demonstrate changes in parks philosophy and use over time, with a shift in emphasis from formal genteel Edwardian avenues and strictly scientific pursuits, to the development and maintenance of living natural ecosystems with a rich and a diverse biota and multiple opportunities for leisure activities and leisurely interaction with the natural environment.
The park has a long-standing and strong association with the local community. The children's playground is very popular with local mothers and children. The mix of open space, timbered slopes and forest groves attracts the use of festival organisers, wedding parties, sportspeople, the elderly, picnickers and the disabled.
Current park use ranges from active to passive. Active use ranges from sports use, such school events and cross-country running, through numerous social events and festivals, playground use, weddings, cycling and jogging. More passive uses include picnics, strolls through the gardens, quiet contemplation, and visitation by tourists. Many of the trees have heavily scarred trunks and limbs, especially the long-lived figs, bearing the testimonials of the countless lovers who have felt inclined to leave their testimonials inscribed.
Sherwood Arboretum continues to hold its scientific and cultural values with Queensland native specimens and plantings vastly predominant, and exotics noticeable by their near absence.
The original formal Edwardian layout of the park as exemplified by the Queensland kauri plantings along Sir Mathew Nathan Avenue, has given away to less formal grove-like clumpings, more fluid and more in keeping with contemporary standards of garden design and aesthetics. The garden redesign undertaken by Harry Oakman has inspired the contemporary layout, although many of the earlier tree plantings remain.
The Sherwood Arboretum has a character of park planting that is a distinct aspect of Brisbane's historic parks and large gardens.
The Arboretum lands hold important environmental values for the suburb and Brisbane city as a whole by providing critical water habitat for native plants and animals, by maintaining in stream water quality and for flood mitigation. It is a bird watching site of State significance and international repute, with 124 species recorded.
The Arboretum continues to play a role in science, with new plantings of the rare and endangered angle-stemmed myrtle (Austromyrtus gonoclada) in accordance with the State Governments recovery plan for this species; and ongoing studies in ecology and reproductive strategies for the dusty moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa).
A series of improvements since 1974 has led to the establishment of two artificial freshwater lagoons, a children's playground, disabled user access, car parking improvements, a large roofed amenity block with bench seats and tables, a riverside boardwalk and public jetty on the river, and pedestrian pathway system, garden furniture, and an artistic installation commemorating the 1974 flood showing the height of the floodwaters. An ablutions block is currently under construction. These structures are not considered to be significant.
","criteria":"The Sherwood Arboretum is important as evidence for the development of modern scientific methods of managing forestry and timber production in Queensland following the First World War. The need for an arboretum in Queensland was identified by a number of eminent scientists and was supported by important scientific, commercial and community interest groups. The establishment of the Sherwood Arboretum was only achieved through cooperation between these groups and various levels of government, demonstrating the importance of the project.
In keeping with a long tradition of tree planting by eminent persons, the Arboretum contains plantings by the then Governor, Sir Mathew Nathan, and numerous distinguished scientists, politicians, local landholders and community leaders.
|Sherwood Arboretum appears to be unique among Queensland's public open spaces and botanical gardens by its concentration of tree species native to Queensland, and by the virtual exclusion of exotics.
|Sherwood Arboretum is an important example of its type, combining public amenity and scientific purpose within an aesthetically pleasing arboreal landscape. It continues to serve its original function for research along with other public uses such as public relaxation, education and leisure.
|The wide vistas, the riverside location, majestic landscapes and large and small natural beauties of the Sherwood Arboretum have a high aesthetic value, encouraging an appreciation of nature and sense of place which far exceeds what its small acreage might otherwise imply.
|The Sherwood Arboretum is a managed landscape demonstrating a high level of creative and technical achievement in balancing aesthetically pleasing design characteristics with scientific requirements.
|Sherwood Arboretum is important to researchers and national and international visitors for its natural, aesthetic and scientific values, and is also valued by the local communities of Sherwood, Chelmer and Corinda as recreational space.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19580,"place_ref":602458,"name":"Enoggera Reservoir","alternate_name":"Enoggera Dam","street_address":"30 & 50 Mt Nebo Road","suburb":"ENOGGERA RESERVOIR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-07-03","description":"The Enoggera Reservoir is located at Waterworks Road, The Gap. It covers an area of 358.1468ha. The Reservoir landscape contains the Enoggera Dam, associated buildings, cleared land and forest. The buildings include, the valve house, treatment plant and underground reservoir, chemical store and office building, two cottages (referred to as eastern cottage and western cottage), pump house, storage hut, toilet block and hut.
Upstream face of the dam embankment, showing the original crest of the dam (with Valve House) and 1970s wall extension.
Enoggera Dam
Enoggera Dam is located on Enoggera Creek, a largely suburban tributary of the Brisbane River which rises at modest elevations in the D'Aguilar Ranges, eleven kilometres north west of the Brisbane CBD.
Valve House
The valve house, built 1866, is a timber-framed, weatherboard clad house that sits on what was once the crest of the original dam but is now at the base of the new dam wall on the upstream side. The valve house controlled the flow at intake from reservoir into the delivery pipes. It no longer functions.
Treatment Plant
The treatment plant is immediately below the dam and comprises a 1982 dissolved air floatation clarifier and slow sand filters dating from 1912. Both systems are still functioning. A brick, flat roofed chemical store and office building stands beside the slow sand filters. Treated water flows to an underground reservoir between the treatment plant and the pump house.
Cottages
The two cottages are accessed from Waterworks Road. Both are timber-framed, high-set iron roofed houses with front verandahs. The eastern cottage is the more ornate. Its gabled portico features decorative barge boards and timber archway through to the verandah. Structural features of both cottages are consistent with early twentieth century dwellings.
Pump House
The pump house is a small, weatherboard hut with a corrugated iron gable roof. It dates from the 1930s. The pump still functions.
Stone Storage Hut
The storage hut is a simple gabled structure built into the slope falling from the treatment plant to the site entry. It has loadbearing stone walls approximately 450mm thick with brickwork quoins or keystones above the second course of stonework. The gable is infilled with weatherboards and the timber-framed roof is clad with corrugated iron.
Toilet Block
The toilet block is a 1960s concrete structure with a flat, metal roof. This structure is not significant.
Concrete Hut
The hut is a 1960s concrete block structure with a flat concrete roof. This structure is not significant.
Memorial Plaque and Tree
Memorial plaque and jacaranda tree (Jacaranda mimosifolia) planted in memory of August Rudolph Sprenger Junior who was the Enoggera Reservoir caretaker from 19 March 1951 until his death on 22 March 1972, aged 57.
","history":"The Enoggera Dam is the oldest major dam in Queensland, being commissioned by the Brisbane Municipal Council in 1864 and completed in 1866. It is located on Waterworks Road, The Gap, approximately 10 kilometres west of Brisbane's CBD.
Enoggera Dam was one of the earliest major dams to be built in Australia, the first being the Yan Yean Dam north of Melbourne in 1859. It was a conventional nineteenth century clay cored earthfill dam, designed and built by Joseph Brady.
Prior to the establishment of water supply systems, Queensland residents were expected to make their own arrangements to supply water for themselves. There were a number of different methods used such as collecting rainwater (using the runoff from the roof of a house was popular), sinking a well in their gardens, using water reserves from local creeks or purchasing water from private suppliers.
Since separation from New South Wales in 1859, Queensland's European population grew rapidly, from 23,520 in 1859 to 30,059 in 1861 to over 250,000 by 1883. People were attracted to Queensland by the offers of free passage and gifts of land orders. With such rapid population growth the current methods of water supply were both impractical and inadequate to support and sustain the population. The population growth brought with it an expectation, particularly from immigrants to Queensland, that towns with populations in excess of three to four thousand people should be able to supply residents with a clean, reliable source of water. Prior to the building of Enoggera Dam, Brisbane's main source of water was a small and heavily polluted dam across Wheat Creek [602218], which flowed through the centre of the settlement.
In the early 1860s, Queensland's first governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, created municipal councils in the main Queensland towns to provide a foundation upon which the colony's political growth could be based. The municipal councils, realising that strong infrastructure was essential to future growth of the colony, began to investigate the best means of providing a permanent water supply to the Queensland population. Unlike the situation in Britain where private enterprises had traditionally provided infrastructure services such as water supplies, Queensland councils decided from the outset that either the council or publicly run boards would have responsibility of supplying water reticulation systems.
The Brisbane Municipal Council was the first Queensland council to commence proceedings in developing a reticulated water supply. They contracted a civil engineer, Thomas Oldman, to survey Brisbane's water supply in 1863. Oldman recommended schemes based on both the Brisbane River and Enoggera Creek, The Gap, however, the Council preferred Enoggera Creek and this was the option settled on. Another engineer, Joseph Brady, was responsible for the design and construction of Enoggera Dam.
The Gap was originally settled in 1859 by farmers attracted by water in Enoggera Creek and consisted mainly of farming land. The presence of a significant water supply in Enoggera Creek led to it being selected as the site of Brisbane's first major dam and thereby facilitating development in the area.
In 1865, other Queensland municipal councils, Ipswich, Warwick and Maryborough, began surveying water supplies for their areas and after the completion of the Enoggera Dam in 1866, these councils also went on to construct dams.
Construction of Enoggera Dam commenced in 1864 and was completed by 1866. The cost of construction was approximately £65,000, some £15,000 over the council's allocated budget but close to Brady's original estimate of £68,491. After the dam's completion a commemorative drinking fountain, the Walter Hill Fountain, was built in Brisbane Botanic Gardens [600067] to celebrate the arrival of clean drinking water to the city.
In 1867, the Board of Waterworks (later known as Brisbane Board of Water) constructed a cottage on the premises as accommodation for the clerk of the waterworks and later, in 1900, a workman's cottage was also built. Both cottages still exist along Waterworks Road and are still in use as accommodation.
The Enoggera Dam has two unusual features. Its method of drawing water is based on using three outlet pipes as opposed to the traditional one or two outlet pipes. This feature allowed the delivery potential of the dam to be trebled, protected the delivery pipes from damage from the weight of the water and also ensured that in an emergency the water flow could be easily and completely cut off. This arrangement was not in the original designs by Brady and appears to have added at a later date. None of the water supply systems built for the other Queensland councils in the same period appear to have this delivery system. The second unusual feature relates to the spillway, added in 1976. It has a flood mitigation system that incorporates an open culvert at the full water supply level to limit flows in the early part of a flood. This configuration provides an interval during which the peak flood flow from the unregulated downstream catchment can clear before the flood pondage of the reservoir fills and open ogee spillway of the dam begins to function.
The Enoggera Dam demonstrates technological changes over a significant period of time. Since its 19th century construction it has been modified a number of times, particularly after floods in 1870, 1887, 1931, 1967 and 1974. The original outlet work was constructed in masonry, a practice that was discontinued and replaced by concrete shortly after the dam's completion. Modifications were also made in 1908, 1912 and 1982 to improve water quality. Despite the changes, the dam structure remained in near original form until 1977 when major modifications were made to it. This included raising the height, constructing a new byewash and rebuilding the water delivery arrangements. These changes resulted in Enoggera Dam being reopened with a commemorative plaque noting that the new construction incorporated the original 1866 structure.
The Enoggera Dam is no longer the main water supply for Brisbane although it was used to supplement water supplies, albeit in a somewhat modified form, until it was decommissioned in 2003. However, due to prolonged drought conditions, the dam has recently been recommissioned. Of the dams constructed during this period, only Enoggera Dam remains as intact and operational. Only remnants of the dams constructed in Ipswich, Warwick and Maryborough remain. Enoggera Dam now forms part of the scenic Enoggera Reservoir.
","criteria":"The Enoggera Dam, constructed in 1866, is part of an early scheme of setting up water supply systems in key towns in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland history following Queensland's separation from New South Wales in 1859 and recognising the need to build substantial water supply infrastructure to service its population and stimulate further growth in the region. The present structures clearly show the change in water storage and treatment technology from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Only remnants remain of the other dams constructed during this era (Ipswich, Warwick, Maryborough). Enoggera Dam is the only one that remains intact and operational.
|The Enoggera Dam is important as the first major dam built in Queensland. It is rare as one of the few remaining examples in Queensland of an intact and functioning reservoir and treatment plant from this period in time.
|The Enoggera Dam is important in demonstrating the principles characteristics of a nineteenth century water storage facility including an earth embankment across the site to form a reservoir, gradients on the upper and lower sides of the embankment to prevent erosion, treatment plant with slow sand filters from 1912 and outlet works (the pipes used to draw and deliver water) constructed with masonry.
|The Enoggera Dam has aesthetic importance as a collection of visually striking and complementary structures including, the treatment plant, valve house, pump house, storage hut and cottages set against the backdrop of the man-made lake and surrounding bush, which are important scenic elements in this area of the Brisbane Forest Park.
|The Enoggera Dam is important in demonstrating a high degree of technical achievement in Queensland as an example of conventional nineteenth century clay cored earthfill dam with a flood mitigation function provided by twentieth century rock fill and concrete technology. The dam also demonstrates an unusual spillway arrangement, which incorporates a flood mitigation function, and an unusual method of drawing water based on using a combination of three outlet pipes to draw and deliver water as opposed to the traditional one or two outlet pipes.
|The Enoggera Dam has special association with Brisbane's early water supply authorities as it is an example of early major water supply infrastructure as commissioned and operated by the Brisbane Municipal Council, Brisbane Board of Waterworks and the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board. It is also associated with renowned engineer, Joseph Brady, one of Australia's earliest and most prominent engineers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19581,"place_ref":602459,"name":"Toowong Memorial Park","alternate_name":"Toowong Cenotaph | Toowong Soldiers' Memorial","street_address":"65 Sylvan Road","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-09-04","description":"Toowong Memorial Park is an 8.99ha site bounded by Sylvan Road on the south, the Brisbane-Ipswich railway line on the east, Dixon Street on the north, and houses and Park Lane on the west.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLandscape and layout
\nThe park is a well-maintained landscape of manicured grass with lightly wooded areas and open spaces. A high stony ridge runs through its centre, approximately from southeast to northwest and at its highest point and roughly central in the park stands the Soldiers Memorial. North of the ridge, the park is lightly wooded and slopes gently down to a flat area near Dixon Street. South of the ridge the ground falls more quickly down and is mostly open, accommodating two large grass football fields, a long stand of mature fig trees between fields and bordering Sylvan Road, a Memorial Gate on Sylvan Road, and two sections of a memorial avenue of palms.
\nMemorial Gates, Sylvan Road (in this location since 1959)
\nThe Memorial Gates comprise a pair of face brick piers with moulded caps and finials, supporting a set of decorative wrought iron gates.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMemorial Avenue of Palms
\nThe Memorial Avenue of Palms comprises two disconnected stretches, one in its original location, and one removed and replanted (1993). The avenue begins at its original location opposite the intersection of Sylvan Road and Bennet Street and immediately curves west (away from its original north direction). This non-original stretch ends at the main vehicle entrance into the park from Sylvan Road. The short second stretch is original and is roughly central to the park and north of the avenue’s beginning. Both avenues comprise closely and evenly-spaced palms on both sides passing through a field of manicured grass. The end of the original avenue is at the base of the slope leading to the Soldiers Memorial.
\nRemnants of Memorial Avenue of Pines
\nThe Remnants of the Memorial Avenue of Pines is not well-defined and other trees and structures have been added to interrupt it. However, some semi-mature pines are in an early alignment on the northern slope running between Dixon Street and toward the Soldiers Memorial.
\nSoldiers Memorial
\nThe Soldiers Memorial is a 12m tall stone column on a 5.75m high square, stepped stone base surrounded by a low palisade enclosure. It stands in a large manicured grass area capable of accommodating memorial service crowds, which is encircled by palm trees.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMature Fig Trees
\nThe Mature Fig Trees stand between the two sports fields of the southern flats.
\nFeatures of Toowong Memorial Park Not of State-Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Toowong Memorial Park not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nToowong Park is an 8.99ha park formed on land resumed from private owners in 1914-5 and was allocated as a park in 1918 by Toowong Town Council. Memorial Gates and a Memorial Avenue of trees were added that year and following the dedication of the Toowong Soldiers' Memorial in the park in 1922, it became known as the Toowong Memorial Park. Since this time, Toowong Memorial Park has been important to the community as a central venue for Anzac Day ceremonies, organised and informal sports, and other recreational activities.
\nThe Toowong area (then known as West Milton), was surveyed and divided into several large estates in 1850. In its early days the Toowong area was an upper-middle class suburb, consisting of detached 'villas' on large allotments and made popular by its proximity to the central business district. The opening of the Brisbane to Indooroopilly railway line and Toowong station in 1875 triggered a period of rapid development and a large number of shops and houses were established for the increasing number of residents. In 1880 Toowong's first local authority was elected, the Toowong Divisional Board. However, on 30 May 1880 the area was regrouped and the Shire of Toowong was formed. By the end of the nineteenth century, a large amount of the land surrounding many of the early grand homes had been subdivided into estates. Following sustained growth, on the 19 August 1903, the area was declared the Town of Toowong under the provisions of the Local Authorities Act 1902, and the tram lines were extended to the Toowong Cemetery in the same year. In addition to many other achievements during its time, Toowong Town Council was successful in its focus on securing numerous land allotments for recreational use.
\nDespite the large number of subdivisions that occurred during the latter half of the 19th century, a map from 1895 shows the parcel of land bounded by Sylvan Road, Dixon Street and the railway line to retain large allotments. These allotments were resumed,[1] and on 7 September 1918, Toowong Town Council declared the land a park reserve, to be known as Toowong Park. When Toowong was amalgamated to become part of Greater Brisbane in 1925, management of the park passed to Brisbane City Council.
\nAustralia's involvement in the First World War exacted a heavy toll in death and injury. Of a relatively small population of about five million people, 60 000 service people were killed and 152 000 wounded. The outpouring of grief in Australia that accompanied these deaths, and the fact that the dead were buried overseas, led to a period of memorial building across the nation and residents of Toowong were quick to commemorate their soldiers by rededicating Toowong Park as Toowong Memorial Park and erecting a number of memorial features.
\nThe park's Memorial Gates were erected to mark both the official opening of the park on 7 September 1918, and to honour the more than 400[2] people from the local community who enlisted during the First World War. They were originally located closer to the centre of the Sylvan Road perimeter; and were moved to their current location near the southeast corner of the park in 1959. At the opening ceremony, nearly 350 trees were planted in the park to honour the soldiers.[3] Relatives of deceased soldiers were asked to plant a tree within the park in memory. Each tree had a plaque affixed and inscribed with the soldier’s name.[4] In September 1918, a commemorative avenue of palms was planted in the park running north from the intersection of Sylvan Road and Bennet Street. At the same time, an avenue of ‘Norfolk Island’ pines (Araucaria heterophylla; however, these may have been hoop pines, Araucaria cunninghamii) was planted from Dixon Street running south.[5] These would form north and south avenues to a planned central memorial.[6]
\nIn 1919 a competition was held to design a memorial for the park. It was won by a young Scottish draftsman, George Rae, who worked in the Brisbane office of renowned architect Lange Powell. The work on the memorial was carried out by Andrew L Petrie Monumental Works, who were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland at this time. The firm was also responsible for many other First World War memorials throughout Queensland. The memorial cost £700 and was financed by public fundraising.
\nThe new memorial was known as the Toowong Soldiers' Memorial and was located on a prominent hill within the park. It was unveiled by Governor Sir Matthew Nathan on 2 July 1922. Following the opening of the memorial, the park became known as Toowong Memorial Park. Recorded on marble tablets affixed to the memorial are the names of 101 residents of the Town of Toowong who were killed in in the First World War.[7] In April 1993, the Toowong sub-branch RSL dedicated another memorial cairn, located just inside the Memorial Gates on Sylvan Road, intended as the new location for Anzac Day ceremonies. In the same year, part of the Memorial Avenue of palms was relocated to allow completion of a second oval rugby union oval. The Memorial Avenue remains in this alignment, leading toward the RSL memorial from the car park entrance of the park with a small length in its original alignment near the centre of the park. On Anzac Day, processions continue to march along this avenue and gather at the new memorial for the Dawn Service.
\nThe park provides an open space for community activities, recreational pastimes and organised sport, a tradition which is continued today. In its early days, the park was the venue for the annual Sunday School picnics, and the Methodist inter-church children's sporting competitions. In 1919, Toowong Council celebrated the signing of the peace treaty at Versailles by throwing a picnic for the local children in the park. More recently, the park has also been home to local Girl Guide and Scout groups, and the former headquarters of both remain in the park.
\nOne of the earliest sporting facilities associated with the park was the Auchenflower Bowls Club, established on Bayliss Street in 1920. The club was sold in 2003 and demolished to make way for townhouses. Part of the land which protruded into the north-west perimeter of the park was resumed by Brisbane City Council. Originally known as the Toowong Rugby Club, the Western Districts Rugby Football Club, formed in 1960, is the only remaining sporting club to still use the park. Wests Junior Rugby Union Club was formed in 1966 and in 1968 a clubhouse was opened. In 1994 the first Women's team was formed. Sharing the grounds until 1999 was the Toowong Cricket Club, also originally established as a section of the Toowong Amateur Recreation Club in 1948. The Toowong Harriers, one of the oldest athletic clubs in Queensland also used the park during the early 1970s. The park is also home a basketball stadium (formerly known as the Vince Hickey Stadium) and neighbouring public half-court. The stadium was used to host the 1994 World Masters Games, and has also been a venue for the Australian Basketball Championships. It is still currently used for Brisbane Basketball League games. In 2017 a new large clubhouse and car park were built and the oval was reconfigured.
\nThe Toowong Memorial Park enjoys regular patronage from the Brisbane public for both sporting and recreational purposes and is utilised by the Toowong Returned and Services League to conduct remembrance ceremonies throughout the year.
War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following the First World War. The Memorial Gates, Soldiers Memorial, and avenues of trees, created between 1918 and 1922, are important aspects of the park, demonstrating the theme of remembrance and establishing the layout of the park. They are representative of the process of grieving that was occurring across not only Toowong, but also Queensland and Australia at that time. After the First World War, Toowong Town Council, like most Queensland communities, erected a public memorial to honour local participation in the war.
\nToowong Memorial Park is also representative of the importance of sport and recreation in Queensland's history as demonstrated through the sporting ovals and Girl Guide and Scouts Huts.
|The memorial gates in Toowong Memorial Park are a type of commemorative structure uncommon in Queensland.
|A public park since 1918 and a memorial park since 1922, Toowong Memorial Park is important as an intact example demonstrating early twentieth century ideals and designs for the layout of such places. Elements within the park include sporting ovals and clubhouses, a Girl Guide hut and Scouts' hut, Memorial Gates, the Soldiers' Memorial and avenues of palm trees, avenues of pines, and native trees, which demonstrate the use of the park for recreational and memorial purposes.
\nThe Memorial Gates and Soldiers' Memorial are commemorative structures erected as a record of the local impact of a major historical event, and are good examples of their type. Memorial gates are also a less common type of commemorative structure.
\nThe Soldiers' Memorial is also a fine example of the early work of prize winning architect George Rae, who was only 21 years of age at the time, and the craftsmanship of the Brisbane masonry firm, AL Petrie and Son.
|Toowong Memorial Park is important for its aesthetic values as it provides a pleasant vista of open, green space in the otherwise densely populated Toowong landscape. The elements within the park are also important for their aesthetic qualities. The memorial gates provide a dignified entrance and display high quality workmanship and design. The Soldiers' Memorial's elevated position and craftsmanship, make a significant contribution to the park's aesthetic value. The abundance of trees, including mature figs and palms, interspersed with open sporting areas, provide for pleasing vistas within the park.
|Toowong Memorial Park is important as a community landmark, which has been continuously used by the people of Toowong for a variety of social, recreational and memorial functions since 2018. The park, memorial gates and Soldiers' Memorial were commissioned by the Toowong Town Council and are important as a place for remembering the participation and deaths of local Toowong residents in the First World War, and as evidence of the impact of a major historic event. Anzac Day dawn services are conducted at the Soldier’s Memorial each year. The Soldier’s Memorial is a place of quiet reflection surrounded by the trees planted by bereaved families. The avenues of palms are also significant for their commemorative function. The park has a long history of use by sporting groups, Girl Guide and Scout groups and strong, ongoing association with the local community, and its aesthetic contribution to the Toowong townscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19582,"place_ref":602460,"name":"Dornoch Terrace Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Dornoch Terrace","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-10-01","description":"The Dornoch Terrace Bridge in Highgate Hill is a distinctive landmark, which is highly visible from both northern and southern approaches along Boundary Street. The northern view along Boundary Street undulates through corrugated iron roofed cottages and past local landmarks such as the Kurilpa Library clock tower [602461]. Looking south, the scene takes in the St Lucia reach of the Brisbane River and the suburbs beyond. Its arch spans the excavated Boundary Street, and Dornoch Terrace passes over it. The excavations are supported by concrete retaining walls, faced in fine stonework. Pedestrian access is via incorporated concrete staircases and ramps, and vehicular traffic access between the two streets is provided by a slip road.
Located at the highest point in Boundary Street, the bridge's arch terminates powerful axial views along West End's main thoroughfare. Looking south and upwards from the West End shopping area, the eye is led past the Kurilpa Library clocktower towards the bridge. From the south, the arch is also a prominent part of the streetscape.
The Dornoch Terrace roadway is supported by a painted concrete vault, generated by a basket-handle arch and sprung from concrete abutments on either side of Boundary Street. The abutments stand proud of the surrounding stone retaining walls and feature a plinth and impost painted in a contrasting green. The off-form striated finish of the vault's soffit is evident beneath the paintwork, whereas other parts of the bridge appear to be rendered and painted. The arch features an architrave painted in a contrasting green and crowned with a keystone. Above the spandrels, the bridge's solid concrete balustrade features a rendered stringcourse at pavement level and a simple concrete capping. The balustrades are terminated at each end by a pair of Brisbane Tuff piers, except at the eastern end of the southern balustrade which ends in a single stone pier. The balustrade and abutment walls of the bridge are frequent targets for graffiti attacks and bear evidence of many attempts to paint over them.
Retaining walls and bridge approaches
To facilitate pedestrian and vehicular movement between the two streets, a slip road and a series of staircases and ramps were integrated into the treatment of approaches to the bridge. Fine Brisbane Tuff walls taper out from the bridge, supporting surrounding houses.
The stonework to the retaining walls is generally Brisbane Tuff rubblework. The stones are hammer finished to effect a flat surface and carefully shaped and positioned, eliminating the use of infill pieces and effecting the random distribution of Brisbane Tuff colours. The pointing is generally proud of the stone face and shaped into smooth curves.
Western approach - Dornoch Terrace
The main feature of this approach is the narrow two-way slip road along the southern side. This is the only vehicular connection between Dornoch Terrace and Boundary Street
Near-vertical retaining walls rise from each side of the slip road. The wall rising to Dornoch Terrace is surmounted by concrete capping and a simple painted post and rail fence. The wall on the southern side incorporates openings to stairways to the properties above. A small section of this wall curves around into Boundary Street.
Southern approach - Boundary Street - eastern side
The retaining wall stepping down from the southern side of the bridge supports flights of stairs alternating with gentle ramps. The stonework is finished to the profile of the stairs and ramps and capped with concrete. The capping, in turn, supports a balustrade of solid concrete panels spanning between stonework piers. Like the piers on the bridge itself, these consist of Brisbane Tuff ashlaring with a bevelled capping piece.
The retaining wall between the stair and the adjoining property to the east comprises sections of brickwork and Brisbane Tuff ashlaring.
Northern approach - Boundary Street - eastern side
This embankment extends from the bridge down to outside 222 Boundary Street. It combines exposed rock faces, vegetation, dry masonry closest to the bridge, sections of fine stonework similar to that used on other embankments. Part of this stonework appears to have fallen away from the concrete retaining wall behind.
Northern approach - Boundary Street - western side
This embankment supports a pedestrian walkway from the bridge to the corner of Bristol Street. In an unusual arrangement, the stair at the bottom of this walkway passes below the awning of what appears to be a former corner shop. The path, supported on a stonework retaining wall, then ramps up to a dog-leg. Here the retaining wall rakes down to form a low wall in front of a vegetated rock face, before raking up again to meet the bridge. The dog-leg in the path takes it behind this overgrown embankment and connects it with the footpath on Dornoch Terrace. A simple painted timber handrail follows the top of the retaining wall.
","history":"The Dornoch Terrace Bridge was built in 1941 by the Brisbane City Council. It provides a vehicular and pedestrian thoroughfare down Dornoch Terrace towards the Brisbane River. Built as an overpass across Boundary Street, the bridge allows access to the road below by a series of staircases and a slip road.
The Bridge is a prominent landmark in the West End and Highgate Hill area and reflects the period when Boundary Street was regraded as part of an ambitious scheme to connect West End to the new University of Queensland campus at St Lucia. The excavations are supported by concrete retaining walls, faced in fine stonework, creating dramatic approaches to the bridge and incorporating connecting staircases and a slip road between the two streets. The Dornoch Terrace Bridge and associated retaining walls survive as the only visible evidence of this ambitious scheme.
Highgate Hill was first settled by Europeans in 1856. The first European settler in this area was Mr. Trimble, an officer at the Customs House. He was followed by many new settlers, including the Wilson family, famed for naming the area 'Highgate Hill'. Prior to European settlement of this area there was a track along the present Dornoch Terrace through to the present Gladstone Road and through to Annerley. In the mid 1800s Dornoch Terrace was known as 'The Broad Road', and ran atop the area we now know as Highgate Hill.
Initially a farming area, by 1889, the area around Dornoch Terrace became increasingly built up and populated. A reservoir was built on the corner of Dornoch Terrace and Gladstone Road to service the growing population. Not long after this much of the land surrounding Dornoch Terrace was subdivided into various estates.
The increase in urban population in the Highgate Hill area can be partly attributed to the rapid growth of industry in the West End area, especially along the river. Initially the main industry in this area was timber. Once the area had been cleared of timber, factories were subsequently constructed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many along the river and on Montague Road (well below the high hill of Dornoch Terrace). A variety of industries were established and included a gas works [QHR 600342], a concrete pipes works, a soft drink factory, a boot factory, glass works and an ice-cream plant.
The introduction of a public transport system to service the Highgate Hill area began with the Soden omnibus service in 1878. This ran from the city centre, across the river and up to Dornoch Terrace, from there it would travel to Ipswich Road. Electric trams were introduced to Brisbane in the early 1900s, and by 1908 Highgate Hill could be reached by this service. The electric trams travelled all the way up Hardgrave Road and down to the Hill End ferry. There was also a tram service that travelled up Boundary Street, this however, ceased well below the summit of Dornoch Terrace. The bridge was never used for trams. Tram services ceased in 1969.
Several large houses were built along Dornoch Terrace at this time, including 'Torbreck' (now the Torbreck apartment building [QHR 601256]) and 'Kinauld' [QHR 600225], designed by Architect Alexander. B. Wilson and built in 1888. The building of these prestigious houses signifies the growth and increased wealth of the Highgate Hill area, in particularly along Dornoch Terrace.
There were two prior bridges known to span Boundary Street. A map of 1895 reveals that an 'over bridge' was in existence and in December 1888, the South Brisbane Municipal Council approved a tender by the firm of Walters and Cooper to construct a bridge at this intersection. This late 1880s bridge existed until the current bridge replaced it in 1941. This earlier bridge was known to locals as the 'Black Bridge' due to wet tar falling from wagons carrying felled timber. The ends of the timber were washed with tar, and on the journey across the bridge the tar would drip onto the road and subsequently be splashed onto the bridge railings.
In 1909 the University of Queensland was formed, and was initially accommodated in Old Government House [QHR 60018] at Gardens Point. However, in 1926, Dr James O'Neil Mayne and Miss Mary Emilia Mayne donated £50,000 to the Brisbane City Council to resume land at St Lucia and this was to become the new site of the University.
Due to the Depression there was no prospect of building the new university until 1935 when the Premier, W. Forgan Smith, announced that the Queensland government would undertake construction at St Lucia. Part of this construction was the proposal to build a bridge over the Brisbane River from West End to St. Lucia.
Building a bridge over the Brisbane River involved developing a suitable approach from the city to the proposed bridge included the resumption of land and excavation along Boundary Street. Drawings for a new bridge carrying Dornoch Terrace over Boundary Street, and associated retaining walls, were prepared between 1939 and 1941 and the works were carried out by the Brisbane City Council. The University of Queensland development was suspended during the Second World War, the St. Lucia Bridge project was subsequently postponed. When work resumed after the War, the University building program was revised and downsized due to inflated building costs. The bridge connecting West End to St. Lucia never eventuated; however, in 1941 the Dornoch Terrace Bridge was built.
The building of the Dornoch Terrace Bridge was achieved with no major hurdles. The bridge was designed to sit somewhat lower in elevation to the original 'Black Bridge'. This was due to the side accesses running down the bridge onto Boundary Street below. It was also to attain a comfortable slope down Dornoch Terrace towards Hill End. During the construction of the bridge the embankments were dug away, what was removed was then reused in the Victoria Park embankment on Bowen Bridge Road.
Today the Dornoch Terrace Bridge receives a great deal of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, both over and under. It provides an easy pedestrian thoroughfare to the West End shops on Boundary Street, vehicular and pedestrian access to the restaurants at Hill End, and ease of access to the houses and apartments for Highgate Hill residents.
","criteria":"As a prominent landmark in the district, the scale, texture and colour of the walls have considerable visual impact on Boundary Street, Dornoch Terrace and the surrounding streets. The bridge provides attractive views from Dornoch Terrace and is itself an important scenic element.
|Consisting of substantial stone retaining walls, supporting pedestrian and vehicular paths and associated residential development, Dornoch Terrace Bridge is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places as it displays uncommonness in bridge design in Queensland as well as being an important community facility in the past and the present.
|The Dornoch Terrace Bridge is part of a substantial road expansion / infrastructure project undertaken by the Brisbane City Council and is evidence of the 1930s proposal to connect West End and the University of Queensland at St Lucia. It is important as an indication of a phase in Queensland's history when the value of education, and providing suitable academic institutions, was beginning to be recognised.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19583,"place_ref":602461,"name":"Kurilpa Library","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"178 Boundary Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-02-05","description":"Kurilpa Library is sited on Boundary Street, close to the intersection with Vulture Street and the commercial centre of West End.
It is a two-storey brick building with a central clock tower that also contains a peal of bells. It is neo Georgian in style, symmetrical in form and with classical references. The ground floor is higher than the first and rests on a rendered course contributing to the visual solidity of the base of the building. The openings on the ground floor are all of arched brickwork with moulded keystones. The main entrance has a pair of timber doors with a fanlight above and a prominent keystone.
The division between levels is emphasised by a moulded stringcourse and cornice. This carries the wording 'KURILPA LIBRARY' above the entry in bronze lettering. Otherwise it consists of alternating moulded rectangles separated by circles.
The tower continues above the entry with plain pilasters supporting a moulded classical pediment with a dentilled cornice, and flanking another arched opening with a moulded keystone. The windows to each side of the tower on the first floor are square headed, as are those on the sides. Above them the eaves of the terracotta tiled hipped roof are decorated with a supporting row of brackets. The tower penetrates the roof form and continues up to a third storey. On each face it has a recessed arch with a hood mould containing a clock with Roman numerals above two smaller arches of fixed louvers. Plain pilasters run to either side of recesses from a heavily moulded base to a crisp cornice line. The copper dome has a small cast finial.
Inside, the small entrance lobby contains a bronze honour board on the right hand side. It opens onto a high-ceilinged room that occupies the whole of the original ground area and contains the library. To the rear of this is a narrow room created by the enclosure of the verandahs, which contains library support facilities. The upper floor has a large room used for meetings and two small offices. There is a tearoom to the rear in the enclosed verandah space. The clock tower is reached by an access hatch and contains a full peal of bells as well as the clock.
The front fence is designed to match the building, having pillars with moulded tops incorporating rosettes. The base of the fence is brick with a capping mould above, which is an iron railing of crosspieces with central circles similar to that of the entry balustrade. A low hedge is situated between the building and the fence.
The land behind the building is enclosed and contains a landscaped area directly behind the building and small car park.
","history":"The Kurilpa Library is a two-storey brick building with a projecting central clock tower and addresses the main street in the inner Brisbane suburb of West End. It was constructed by the Brisbane City Council and opened in 1929.
The provision of libraries by municipal councils in Queensland is a relatively new phenomenon, with most libraries currently operating having been established since the late 1940s. Previously, Schools of Arts and privately owned Reading Rooms provided books for loan by subscription. Schools of Arts or Mechanics Institutes were established in Britain in the early 1800s with the declared intention of assisting self-improvement and promoting moral, social and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, classes and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no public libraries and books were expensive, so that providing access to them for a moderate subscription was an important educational and recreational service. Local councils had sometimes subsidised Schools of Arts and were granted authority in the Local Government Act 1878 to establish and operate libraries, although this was very uncommon until the twentieth century. Kurilpa Library was the first publicly funded municipal library in Queensland and a similar library was opened in South Brisbane soon afterwards. However, local councils did not become seriously involved in the construction of libraries in Queensland until after the Libraries Act 1943 was passed which provided for the establishment of a State Library Board and the improvement of library services throughout the state.
South Brisbane was at one time a municipality in its own right, but was amalgamated, together with the other local government authorities of the Brisbane area, into the Brisbane City Council in 1925. The South Brisbane Council urgently requested that its scheme for building a library at West End be progressed. They had been approached by the committee of the West End School of Arts for £2,000 in order to erect a new library with accommodation for a caretaker. Ernest Barstow, Alderman for Kurilpa, supported this request and the City Architect was requested to prepare plans and estimates.
Kurilpa was the name given to a locality covering South Brisbane, West End and Hill End by local aborigines. European settlers borrowed this name for a small township that grew up within West End, near the existing library and this name is inscribed on the library building.
The City Architect was A H Foster who served in this position from 1925 until his death in 1932. Alfred Herbert Foster was an articled pupil of noted architect G H M Addison. He trained and worked in London for six years before returning to Brisbane and forming the practice of Stanley and Foster in 1902. He worked for the Queensland Government, and then became Architectural Assistant to the City Engineer in 1913. During his time as City Architect he designed several well-known municipal buildings including the Fortitude Valley Baths.
The building was completed in 1929 and was the first purpose built municipal library in Queensland. The clock and tower formed a distinctive part of the building, emphasising its civic nature.
The construction of the library helped to reinforce and define the commercial and civic centre of West End.
The building is still in use as a library and the upper level rooms are used for meetings. Little change has occurred other than the enclosure of the rear verandah to both floors in late 1959.
","criteria":"The Kurilpa Library is important in demonstrating the development of public lending libraries in Queensland. Purpose built by the Brisbane City Council in 1929 before the Libraries Act of 1943 and the establishment of the State Library Board, it illustrates a transition between 19th century subscription services, such as that provided by Schools of Arts, and the modern library network. The quality of the building and its prominent position illustrate the importance given to encouraging literacy and to reading as a recreation in the early 20th century
It is important for its association with the development of the West End district, and is evidence for the provision of civic amenities in response to its growth in the early 20th century.
|The Kurilpa Library has strong social significance to the community of West End and the surrounding area as a public lending library and meeting place for over eighty years.
|The Kurilpa Library is rare as the first municipal lending library in Queensland.
|The Kurilpa Library has aesthetic value as a handsome and well-composed public building in the neo-Georgian style. Its clock tower and prominent position on a major road contribute to its landmark qualities.
|The Kurilpa Library is important for its association with the life and work of A H Foster, Brisbane city architect between 1925 and 1932.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19584,"place_ref":602462,"name":"Yeronga Memorial Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ipswich Road","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-12-02","description":"Yeronga Memorial Park is bounded by Ipswich Road to the east, Villa Street to the north, Park Road to the west, and School Road to the south. A road, formerly Frederick Street, enters the park from the north, providing access to car parking for the Bridge Club and Croquet Club. Honour Avenue, which is bitumened, crosses the northern part of the park, with vehicle access from the Park Road end only. Weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) are planted symmetrically, several metres from the kerb. Honour Avenue effectively divides the park into two zones: the sports facilities established in the early twentieth century are situated to the north of Honour Avenue, and the native woodland and late twentieth century sports facilities are situated to the south of Honour Avenue.
At the western end of Honour Avenue are the memorial gates at Park Road. These consist of two pairs of red brick piers with smooth rendered corners. They stand on rough rendered plinths, and are topped by projecting cornices crowned by globes. The two inner piers support vehicle gates, and there are also iron pedestrian gates on each side of Honour Avenue. A metal plaque on the southern inner pier reads: These gates have been erected by the residents of Yeronga and District as a permanent memorial to those men and women of the suburb who served in the Great War 1914-1919. The plaque (1979) on the northern inner pier reads: This plaque has been dedicated as a memorial to those men and women of the district who served in World War II 1939-1945 and Malaya, Borneo, Vietnam 1948-1973.
The Ipswich Road memorial gates, where Honour Avenue used to link with Ipswich Road, are more ornate, with the inner two piers being taller, and have smaller engaged piers facing towards the pedestrian piers. Each of the four main piers stands on a smooth rendered plinth. Low brick walls form a small enclosure on the park side of each pedestrian entrance, and there is a wooden fence leading to the gates from the footpath, north and south of the piers. On each face underneath the cornices is a decorative band of render inset with a green glazed tile displaying a floral pattern. The northern plaque reads: These gates were erected by the women of Stephens Shire in honour of the men who fought for them. The southern plaque reads: This tablet is dedicated to the women workers of Stephens Shire.
The World War One memorial pavilion stands on the southern edge of the rough-formed carpark of the ex-bowling clubhouse, near a palm-lined pedestrian path running diagonally from Honour Avenue to Ipswich Road. The square pavilion is rendered in concrete. The corner pilasters with ornamental capitals carry a thin encircling entablature, with a heavy projecting cornice above. A low parapet conceals a gutter for the domed roof. Standing on a plinth of concrete steps, each of the four arched entrances contains a decorative iron gate and fence. The pavilion shelters a square, polished stone pillar on a rough sandstone plinth. Marble tablets on each side of the stone pillar record the names of the dead from Stephens Shire, in World War One. A plaque also notes: July 1921- Erected by the residents of Stephens Shire and District in appreciation of our boys who sacrificed their lives in the Great War 1914-1919. A small sandstone flaming urn crowns the pillar. A World War Two memorial stone stands to the west of the pavilion.
To the north of Honour Avenue are a number of other significant facilities within the park. From west to east, these include: a Scout hall; three tennis courts; a Girl Guides hall; the site of old tennis courts on a grassy terrace near Frederick Street; and two unused interwar bowling greens, set at different levels. A brick shed stands to the south of the upper bowling green.
The Scout hall is low set, long and rectangular, with narrow vertical timber boards for most of the building, and weatherboards around the wider eastern section. It has a galvanised iron roof, and double-hopper windows. The Girl Guides hall has an early (possibly 1940s) weatherboard, skillion-roofed section with a later concrete block extension.
Several croquet greens and a croquet clubhouse occupy the north-east corner of the park. The weatherboard clubhouse of the Stephens Croquet Club is a small rectangular building with a gambrel roof clad with corrugated iron. It stands on concrete stumps. The roof ridge has an orbed finial at each end, above small gablets which ventilate the roof space. A small projecting pediment marks the main entrance, which faces north over the lawns. The building has early multi-paned windows.
A large in-ground draughtsboard stands between the ex- Bowling Club and Honour Avenue, and an arris rail fence runs north from the memorial gates along Ipswich Road. A shale stone retaining wall runs along Ipswich Road, forming an embankment terrace running south from the memorial gates. A cricket oval lies south-west of the rugby field, and the timber Country Women's Association (CWA) rooms face School Road on the southern edge of the park, between the old Yeronga Fire Station and the Yeronga Park Kindergarten and Preschool Association. The CWA building is a modest timber cottage, supported on low concrete stumps and sheltered by a hip roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Between the Swimming Pool Complex and Honour Avenue is a third cricket oval.
Located in the naturalistic bushland landscape of the southwest corner of the park, the Swimming Pool complex includes a masonry slab-on-ground, change rooms and kiosk building, one Olympic size swimming pool, two small wading pools, a 25m heated swimming pool and a small masonry swim club building. The wading pools are sheltered by shade structure and there is a scattering of poolside chairs and tables around the concourse. The pool complex is fenced and entry is from School Road. A bitumen carpark stands adjacent to Yeronga State School.
The mature trees featured around the park include the area of eucalyptus woodland near the swimming pools, and the plantings associated with the park's memorial role. These include the weeping figs planted along Honour Avenue, of which those in the centre of the park are the best examples. Other mature figs are planted along Ipswich Road and School Road. There are Canary Island date palms along the path near the memorial pavilion, and also along the northern boundary of the bowling and croquet greens. A large double-row, alternately queen palms and Chinese fan palms, curves from Ipswich Road, behind the rugby grounds, to School Road, and a line of queen palms runs across the northern boundary of the park. There are some queen palms planted along the eastern side of Frederick Street, which extends into the park, and a small double row of palms cuts from Frederick Street diagonally to Honour Avenue. Some palms also run down Park Road in front of the Scout hall. Two mango trees stand near the old tennis court terrace, there are cypress trees planted on three sides of the functioning tennis courts, and assorted specimen and memorial trees grow on the east lawn between the memorial pavilion and the Ipswich Road memorial gates. A large tallow wood eucalyptus stands near the entry to the rugby ground carpark.
Informative Note
The current clubhouse of the Southern Districts Rugby Union Club, the former bowling clubhouse, the cricket pavilion, the modern tennis courts and tennis clubhouse, the Girl Guides clubhouse and the toilet block south of the Honour Avenue are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Yeronga Memorial Park, bounded by Ipswich Road to the east, Villa Street to the north, Park Road to the west, and School Road to the south, was declared as a reserve for a Public Park and Recreation Ground in 1882. Its evolution has reflected the development of Yeronga and a number of important themes and events in Queensland's history.
Before European settlement the area was utilised by Aborigines of the Coorparoo or Yerongpan clans of the Yaggara Tribe, and this use continued for some time after the establishment of a convict settlement in Brisbane in 1824. The area was first used by the Europeans to depasture sheep from the Government Farm at Oxley. Development of the Darling Downs made the Ipswich Road the main route to the interior, and the initial rough track was surveyed in the 1860s. The first sales of Crown land in the Yeronga area, involving 154 acres, had taken place in 1854. Land use in the area moved towards dairying and crops, including arrowroot, cotton, sugar, corn and potatoes. In 1879 the Yeerongpilly Divisional Board was established, extending from Brisbane to the Logan River and from Mount Gravatt to Goodna. In 1886 the Stephens Division (about nine square miles, and including Yeronga) was formed, becoming the Stephens Shire in 1903.
The first major boost to development around Yeronga occurred when the South Brisbane to Corinda railway link was opened in 1884. The railway link initiated Yeronga's popularity as a residential suburb. By 1887 the Stephens Division had a population of 3480, and by the 1890s Yeronga had become popular with the elite, with grand homes intermingling with farming estates and small subdivisions. The second main phase of development at Yeronga was again transport-related; it began after the Ipswich Road tramline reached Yeronga Park in 1915.
Yeronga Memorial Park is one of the oldest parks in Brisbane. In 1882 103 acres and three roods (41.9 hectares), of portions 153A, 154A, and 155A Parish of Yeerongpilly, County of Stanley, was declared a reserve for a Public Park and Recreation Ground. In 1888 102 acres, three roods and 62 perches were declared a permanent reserve under the Stephens Divisional Board, and areas of the current park were cleared. Remaining native vegetation suggests that the reserve was originally open eucalypt forest. However, the extent of the reserve has been reduced over time by excisions. Part of portion 155A was lost in 1888 to the South Coast Railway and a water reserve. In 1902 and 1912 some parts of 155A were given over to Villa Street, and in 1919 part of the school reserve was added to the park to form Honour Avenue, while some land was lost to a repositioning of the railway line. In 1921 part of portion 155A was reserved for showground purposes, but it was returned to the park in 1925. In 1930 some land from portion 153A was excised for the erection of the Yeronga Fire Station (1934), and in 1931 land from 153A was added to the school reserve for the construction of a sports oval. In 1950 a part of 153A facing School Road was excised for the Yeronga Kindergarten and Pre-School, and in 1953 the remainder of 155A was removed, later being occupied by Yeronga High School (1960) and the Yeronga Technical College (1967). In 1975 another part of 153A facing School Road was excised for a Meals on Wheels Depot, and the current park covers 22.46 hectares.
One of the most historically significant aspects of Yeronga Park is its World War One memorial role, which was developed between 1917 and 1921. Circa 1917, a road was constructed through the park, aligned east to southwest, from Park Road to Ipswich Road. Between 1917 and 1919 a total of 96 weeping figs and flame trees were planted either side of this road, forming Honour Avenue. Each tree was accompanied by a metal shield, which bore the name of a soldier by the Stephens Shire who would not be returning, set on a timber post. Having a named avenue of memorial trees within a park is uncommon in Queensland. The memorial avenue is one of the earliest of its type in Australia. KS Inglis, author of "Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape" (1998) identifies the earliest World War One avenue of honour as being established in Victoria in 1917, which is contemporaneous with the Yeronga Park memorial avenue.
A memorial pavilion and two sets of memorial gates to the park were built in 1921. The gates stand at each end of Honour Avenue, and although the pavilion is offset to the north-east of the avenue, it is still linked to the other memorial elements by a palm-lined footpath that runs diagonally from Honour Avenue to Ipswich Road. The domed pavilion form of war memorial is uncommon. The dedication on the southern inner pier of the Ipswich Road Gates, to the women workers of Stephens Shire, is also unusual in Queensland.
The outpouring of grief in Australia that accompanied the deaths of 60,000 servicepeople in World War One, and the fact that the dead were buried overseas, led to a period of memorial-building across the nation. Of the 559 residents of the Stephens Shire that had enlisted in World War One, the names of 97 are carved into the marble tablets fixed onto a stone in the centre of the memorial pavilion. Although the original shields set on posts by the trees have long since disappeared, they have been replaced by name plates set into concrete at the base of the trees, or on the path along Honour Avenue. Given the attrition rate on the original trees along the avenue, other trees in the park, near the Ipswich Road gates, have received plaques. The old-style plaque and post arrangement can be seen under a mango tree in front of the Country Women's Association Rooms on School Road, dedicated to Private T. Markey. In 1979 the memorial gates at Park Road received a plaque dedicated to the soldiers of later wars.
Following the formation of Greater Brisbane in 1925, the administration of Yeronga Park passed to the Brisbane City Council.
During World War Two Yeronga Park was occupied by a number of American military units. A 1946 aerial photograph shows an extensive network of huts, which had been erected in the park to accommodate these troops. Little physical evidence of this occupation survives within the park. Part of the existing Girl Guides hall at the northern end of the park may date to this period. To the west of the memorial pavilion the American Legion has erected a memorial stone, commemorating the World War Two occupation of the park by the United States' military forces.
Apart from its role as a memorial park and as "Camp Yeronga" in World War Two, Yeronga Park has also been an active recreation venue for most of its history, and various clubs have leased sections of the park. The Yeronga Tennis Club was formed in 1909, and still occupies the three courts near Villa Street. Four other early courts on a terrace near the bowling club have reverted to grass. The Queensland Blind Cricket Association erected a timber hall in the north of the park in the 1920s, and the Stephens Croquet Club was formed in 1923. In the same year the Croquet Club built a wooden clubhouse in the north-east of the park. The Annerley Bowls Club operated in the park from 1927 to 1992, and its modern two-storied brick clubhouse, to the west of the croquet club, is now used by the Brisbane Bridge Centre. There is also a brick shed, which was extended in the 1950s, standing to the south of the upper bowling green. In 1936 a large in-ground draughtsboard was built to the southwest of the World War One memorial pavilion, and this was resurfaced in 2003. The Yeronga Park shale stone wall, which runs south along Ipswich Road from the memorial gates appears to have been the result of a Depression works project in the mid 1930s.
The Yeronga Park Memorial Swimming Pool Complex was built in the southwest of the park between 1960 and 1964, with an Olympic pool and two wading pools, and a heated pool was added by 1972. Designed by architects Bligh Jessup Brentnall and Partners, the pool complex is a type of war memorial that was favoured after World War Two. Utilitarian structures such as swimming pools and hospitals were considered to be a more appropriate gesture of remembrance than purely monumental structures. In 1970 the Southern Districts Rugby Football Club took out a lease in the park. Their current clubhouse was built in 1986.
Non-sports organisations have also staked their claim on park land. The Kurilpa Scouts occupy the Baden Powell Memorial Hall, and the Yeronga Girl Guides occupy a building further east along Villa Street. The Yeronga Boy Scouts, who occupied the scout hall until 2003, was established in 1921. There was a smaller building present in a 1946 aerial photograph, but it was aligned parallel to Park Road. The current hall is drawn in its present position and configuration on a 1951 map. The Annerley Girl Guides was formed in 1934, and their current timber hall may be a relic of the World War Two military occupation of the park, with a 1950s concrete block extension. The Queensland Country Women's Association established a headquarters on the School Road side of the park in 1952. Three organisations also built on land that was excised from the park, as mentioned earlier: the Yeronga Fire Station, the Yeronga Park Kindergarten and Preschool Association, and Meals on Wheels.
Some features of the park have disappeared over time, and these include the small huts, with white or grey mineral siding, built in World War Two for the United States' military. Various older sports clubhouses have also been replaced or removed over time. There was a small clubhouse next to the tennis courts by 1946, but the current concrete block clubhouse was built between 1964 and 1972. The concrete block clubhouse of the Queensland Blind Cricket Association was built in the 1950s, with a later extension to the west. A small shed due east of this clubhouse has been removed since the 1980s. The original interwar timber two-storied Annerley Bowls Club clubhouse was replaced with the current brick two-storied clubhouse before 1972. There also appears to have been an octagonal shelter in the north-east corner of the current Rugby field, until the 1970s. This area had long been used for Sunday School picnics, which usually occurred on the Eight Hour Day holiday in May. A brick pavilion to the west of the South's Rugby Clubrooms, visible in aerial photographs from 1960 onwards, has been demolished recently. Honour Avenue has lost a number of its original trees, and the most easterly section of bitumen and kerbing, near the Ipswich Road Gates, has been removed. The most intact section of the avenue of trees lies adjacent to the central cricket oval.
","criteria":"Yeronga Memorial Park is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, being a recreation reserve established in 1882, and later a memorial park from 1917. Within the layout, structures, buildings, plantings and activities pursued in the park are illustrated several important themes and events in Queensland's history. These historical layers include: sporting activities since the 1880s, including Queensland Blind Cricket, bowls and croquet since the 1920s; Boy Scouts and Girl Guides activities; a World War One and World War Two memorial function; and providing a Depression-era work opportunity in the construction of the stone wall along Ipswich Road.
|The memorial avenue lined with trees, memorial gates, and memorial pavilion, created between 1917 and 1921, are key aspects of the park, both historically and in establishing the current layout of the park. They demonstrate the process of grieving that was occurring across Stephens Shire (1903 to 1925), Queensland and Australia at that time. After World War One, most Queensland communities erected a public memorial to honour local participation in the war, and each monument is a unique historical documentary record. The honour avenue is one of the earliest World War One memorial avenues established in Australia. The domed memorial pavilion is an uncommon form of war memorial in Queensland. The dedication on the Ipswich Road memorial gates, to the women workers of Stephens Shire, is an unusual public recognition of women's role in World War One.
|Yeronga Memorial Park is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type: a public park since 1882 and a war memorial since 1917. Much of the 1917 layout of the park survives. Elements within the park that are important in demonstrating the use of the park for these purposes include: the tennis courts and surrounding cypress trees; the croquet clubroom and lawn (1923); a pedestrian path lined by palms (pre-1946); the bowls club lawns (1927); the in-ground draughtsboard (1936); the memorial pavilion (1921); the World War Two memorial stone north of Honour Avenue which is formed by a memorial avenue of trees (1917-1919); the memorial gates (1921). To the south of Honour Avenue, lies the CWA hall (1952), the Memorial Swimming Pool Complex (1960-1964); the shale stone retaining wall along Ipswich Road (1930s); a curved palm avenue (pre-1946) and indigenous vegetation (primarily eucalypts).
Individual features of the park are also good examples of their type, such as the timber Croquet clubroom and lawn, the bowling greens, the memorial gates, the memorial pavilion, and the Memorial Swimming Pool Complex.
|Yeronga Memorial Park is significant for its aesthetic values. Contributing to this value are the substantial and imposing memorial gates at both entrances that provide a fitting and dignified entrance to Honour Avenue and the memorial pavilion. The shale stone wall, running south from the Ipswich Road gates towards the former Yeronga Fire Station, is a picturesque feature. The abundance of trees in the park, interspersed with open sporting areas, provide for pleasing vistas within the park, especially between the croquet club and the tennis courts, and across the central cricket oval. The croquet clubroom and the brick structure near the upper bowling green, also contribute to its aesthetic quality. The park also contributes to the streetscape along Ipswich Road at Yeronga/Annerley.
The mature trees that enhance the picturesque aspect of the park include: the surviving memorial fig trees along Honour Avenue; those planted in the eastern memorial lawn; the memorial palms in numerous locations within the park; the cypress trees around the tennis courts; the mango trees near the old tennis court site; the fig trees along Ipswich Road and School Road; and the eucalyptus woodland near the swimming pools.
|Given the role of the park as a memorial to the war dead of the Stephens Shire, its long history of use by sporting groups, and its presence as a landmark on Ipswich Road, Yeronga Park has a strong and ongoing association with the local community and is of social significance.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19586,"place_ref":602464,"name":"Railway Signal Cabin and Turntable","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ellenborough Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-27","description":"The elevated timber signal cabin and adjacent turntable are situated close together to the east of the bridge across the Bremer River and are faced on three sides by the exterior walls of a large shopping centre.
The elevated signal cabin is a rectangular timber structure three storeys high. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting with a timber finial at each end. The cabin houses a 55-lever T-bar interlocking machine by MacKenzie and Holland. The top level houses the signal levers and good visibility is provided for the signalman by banks of windows to each side. The machinery to which the levers are connected is below and single windows light the two lower levels.
An external staircase on the north side gives access to a door on the second level and leads to a narrow landing on the top floor, which is shaded by a roof. The structure contains a pericope for signalmen to obtain a view under the adjoining vehicular bridges over the rail corridor. There is a Synchrome Electric clock on the northern elevation. There is also a semaphore signal mast to the north of the signal cabin.
The turntable is situated to the north east of the signal cabin. It is a standard 60-foot table with pneumatic motor, originally powered by the Westinghouse air brake pump and system on the steam locomotive.
","history":"The three-storey timber signal cabin at Ipswich containing an 1881 McKenzie and Holland mechanical interlocking signal frame and the nearby locomotive turntable and semaphore signal were once important components of the Ipswich railway station infrastructure.
The early governments of Queensland placed a high importance on providing reliable transport from the coastal cities to the productive interior regions and it was one of the motivating factors for the 1859 separation of Queensland from New South Wales.
The first railway in Queensland started from Ipswich, a provincial centre, rather than the capital, because it was thought that river transport adequately linked Brisbane and Ipswich and that the major need was to improve transport between Ipswich and the productive Darling Downs region. Work started in early 1864 and the first section of line, from Ipswich to Grandchester, was opened in 1865, gradually extending to the Darling Downs and eventually further west. Ipswich and Brisbane were linked by rail in 1875.
Although the Ipswich railway workshops were at North Ipswich, the railway station was in the centre of the town, on the southern side of the river. The line from the station passed over a combined rail/road bridge across the Bremer River. It then passed through the workshops, continued beside the river, crossed Mihi Creek and on to Grandchester and the Darling Downs.
There have been three railway stations at Ipswich, all situated close to the same site. The first was immediately south of the Bremer River Bridge and opened on 31 July 1865. When the extension from Ipswich to Sherwood opened on 5 October 1874, space did not allow a direct connection and the trains had to reverse. Trains from Brisbane had to pass the junction then reversed in, while those from Toowoomba could run straight into the station but had to reverse out before continuing to Brisbane. When the Ipswich deviation was opened on 26 April 1875 it provided a direct line through Ipswich. .
Where more than one train uses a railway line it is important to avoid train movements that may result in a collision. Early methods to prevent this included a Staff and Ticket relay system where a physical token was carried on the train and was passed to the next train travelling in the opposite direction before it could proceed. An Electric Staff functioning as part of an electronic system was introduced later, but operated on much the same principle. With the ongoing growth of the rail network, and where train movements have become more frequent and complex, the further evolution of safeworking has seen the development of Centralised Train Control (CTC). This is a system where the signals and points controlling movement are operated from a remote computer location. Within QR other forms of train control are now replacing or augmenting this system also.
An interlocked yard is a railway yard where semaphore or coloured light signals are controlled in such a way that signals cannot be set to proceed unless the points that operate in conjunction with the signals are correctly set. A mechanical interlocking device is a system of rods, sliding bars and levers that are configured so that points cannot be changed in conflict, thus preventing movements that may cause a collision or other accident.
The earliest designs used various ingenious and patented methods to interlock the levers. Stevens & Sons invented a tappet system that later became almost universal but didn't renew their patent so that this system was adopted by many other manufacturers.
McKenzie and Holland (originally McKenzie, Clunes & Holland) were one of the earliest signalling contractors in Britain and supplied many railway companies, though few of these mechanisms now survive. In 1873 they introduced a new design of lever frame that would set the style of all frames to come. A dogleg on the shape of the levers allowed them to stand upright in the frame when in the normal position, which made them easier for a signalman to use. The locking mechanism was known as cam and soldier rotary locking and remained in use for many years, although later models refined the design.
At the International Exhibition in Sydney in 1880, Herbert, the Commissioner for Queensland Railway, was impressed by a display of McKenzie and Holland interlocking machines. The New South Wales Government bought the equipment on display, using it for the first installation in Australia. Queensland ordered the same equipment for Roma Street and Ipswich stations and this arrived in October 1881. Although the interlocking mechanism was a major factor in ensuring safety at busy stations, traffic on much of Queensland's railway lines was insufficient to warrant the installation of the expensive machinery required and most lines obtained safeworking by staff and ticket or a similar system. The fact that the only mechanism installed in Queensland outside Brisbane was at Ipswich suggests a high level of traffic at Ipswich and its importance as a railway centre.
At Ipswich, a contract was immediately let for a signal cabin and the interlocking was completed in late 1883. The design of this first cabin is unknown, but signal cabins in Australia have followed precedents that proved successful overseas and the current signal box generally resembles elevated cabins built by McKenzie and Holland in Britain. On 12 August 1895 a contract was let to W. Chaplain to build a new signal cabin and this is the cabin now in place. It controlled train movements between Thomas Street and East Ipswich stations and to the Railway Workshops across the river. The cabin is unusual in being three, rather than two storeys high, its location making this necessary, so that the signalman could see over the top of the bridge and also the main line to the west.
A contract to build a new station on the through line, in a cutting, was let to Henry Wyman on 9 March 1886. This opened on 17 October 1887. This station had one through platform with dock platforms at either end. Extensive alterations were planned and began in 1914. It was intended to include a new station building west of the original station on the through alignment between West and Waghorn Streets, though this was not built. Work completed included a subway in line with West Street, a new platform and the foundations for the proposed station.. A new 60-foot turntable was installed as part of these alterations in 1921, replacing a 41-foot turntable that was too short to accommodate the new locomotives. Electropneumatic signalling and interlocking was to be installed, but was installed at Gympie instead, so that Ipswich retained its mechanical interlocking system. A third railway station was eventually built in 1974.
The other major feature remaining from the railway infrastructure is a locomotive turntable. Ipswich station was unusual for a major station in having only a single line, as the double track main line between Brisbane and Toowoomba was slewed to pass through the station, which only had one through platform face, other platforms being dead ends. A turntable provides for the rotation of locomotives, being a section of line mounted on a rotating platform with the operating mechanism beneath. As part of the station yard alterations in 1921, a new 60-foot (19 metre) turntable was provided near the elevated signal cabin, replacing the old 41-foot (13 metre) turntable that was too short for modern steam locomotives. An English Cowan Sheldon and Co Ltd no 10297 motor that was installed in 1957 operates it.
Diesel electric locomotives replaced steam locomotives on Queensland railways during the 1960s, with Ipswich being the last fully dedicated steam locomotive depot in southern Queensland. They could travel in either direction without turning so that turntables became unnecessary and many turntables and fork lines have been removed, so that they are now uncommon. The turntable at Ipswich was in use for both steam and diesel a locomotive when many locomotive hauled trains terminated there. The turntable is still a part of QR operations and is still used for turning steam locomotives.
Although Ipswich was only the second station in Queensland to have mechanical interlocking installed, it was retained long after its withdrawal from Roma Street. The technology became obsolete, as electrical interlocking or electro-pneumatic systems replaced mechanical interlocking. Computerised Centralised Traffic Control signalling systems that allow control of trains, generally from a single dedicated location up to several hundred kilometres away, now control most of the network.
The section of railway yard containing the signal cabin and turntable has been isolated from the railway station by the development of a large modern shopping centre. The signal cabin was de-commissioned in 1995.
Positioned on the former main line leading to the Ipswich Railway Workshops is a semaphore signal and mast to the north of the signal cabin, which is now a rare surviving example in Queensland on the main line.
","criteria":"The Railway Signal Cabin with its mechanically interlocked signalling system and Turntable for positioning and turning steam locomotives are evidence of the development of rail transport in Queensland. As the earliest such interlocking system outside the capital, it demonstrates the importance of Ipswich as a railway centre when the establishment of a railway network was seen as the key to encouraging wider settlement in Queensland and providing reliable transport for people, goods and raw materials between the coastal cities and the productive interior regions.
|The McKenzie and Holland mechanism for controlling signals, and consequently train movements, was installed in 1883 as one of only two in Queensland, the other being at Roma Street in Brisbane and which has not survived. It is now rare in Australia, as very few signal boxes survive with mechanical interlocking systems in place, particularly of such an early date.
|The elevated signal cabin is the largest and best surviving example of its type, which is now rare in Queensland, as is the turntable and the semaphore signal. The signal frame is the second largest ever used in Queensland.
|The interlocking system, semaphore signal and the locomotive turntable are good examples of an obsolete technology that was vital to the safe operation of the railway and were technically sophisticated at the time of their commissioning. The signal cabin demonstrates the characteristics of its type well, being elevated and positioned to provide commanding sightlines for the signalman. The top level has banks of windows to provide a good view and lighting. This level houses the lever frame and the level below contains the mechanism. The turntable is a good example of its type, being operational and recently serviced, and in its original location.
The McKenzie and Holland interlocking frame represents the most advanced technology available in its field at the time of its manufacture and made a major contribution to the safety of rail travel.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19587,"place_ref":602465,"name":"Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory (former)","alternate_name":"HMAS Moreton, Colmslie | Hans Continental Smallgoods Factory | Fairmile Naval Base | Colmslie Migrant Hostel","street_address":"82 Colmslie Road","suburb":"MORNINGSIDE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-07","description":"The former Acetate of Lime Factory, now a part of the Hans Continental Smallgoods factory, is accessed from Colmslie Road. A large modern factory building occupies most of the southern part of the site. The original factory buildings are further north, and are stepped down the north face of the slope towards the Brisbane River. Elements of the Acetate of Lime Factory that still exist on the eastern side of the internal roadway include: the Lime Slacking Store and the Lime Slacking House; the Excise Office, Fertilizer House and Painters' Shop building; the Evaporator House and Alcohol Still House; the Engine Room; the Boiler House and Chimney; and a small latrine block. To the west of the internal road are: the ground floor of the Acidifier House; the Winch House, and the Engineers' Office and Fitters' Shop. To the north of the Engineers' Office and Fitters' shop are two huts that were introduced as extra migrant accommodation.
The Lime Slacking Store is an L-shaped single-storey building, built of brick with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. It has been converted into a cold room. Some of the double-hung sash windows have been bricked over, while others have been painted over. A brick-lined gutter runs along the ground on the south side of the building. Just north of the store is the small, brick Lime Slacking House, which is visually obscured by a modern metal-clad extension to the south of the Alcohol Still House. Just to the west of the Lime Slacking Store is the T-shaped single storey timber Excise Office, Fertilizer House and Painters' Shop building, which is clad in weatherboards and has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. Between the Excise Office, Fertilizer House and Painters' Shop building and the Evaporator House is a concrete retaining wall.
Further north, the Evaporator House/Alcohol Still House, Engine Room, and Boiler House are staggered down the hill towards the chimney, each constructed of English Bond red bricks. Although they are adjoined externally, they do not have an internal thoroughfare.
The interior of the two storey Evaporator House and Alcohol Still House has been refurbished for use as offices, with a mezzanine level at the eastern end of the first floor. The original timber roof trusses survive above the office cubicles, there are small vents two thirds up the walls at regular intervals, and the ends of metal bolts can also be seen, ground-off flush with the brickwork. There is an outside stairway to the mezzanine level on the east face of the building, and there is a concrete ramp to the first floor entrance near the western end. Dormer windows have been added to the corrugated iron roof above the mezzanine floor.
A modern kitchen extension, of Stretcher Bond brick, protrudes north from the mezzanine level of the Evaporator House, and a modern flat-roofed shed adjoins the north side of the Alcohol Still House. There is also a modern flat-roofed extension to the south of the Alcohol Still House, clad in metal sheeting. East of the Alcohol Still House is a small brick latrine, with bull nosed corners, that is now used for chemical storage.
The Engine Room is used as a cold store, and the Boiler House is used as a storeroom. A modern cold-store extension conceals most of the lower floor of the Engine Room and Boiler House on the eastern side. The chimney has a steel ring encircling its summit, and it has a steel door on its lower north side, which was opened by swinging it completely away along a steel track.
To the west of the internal road is the remaining floor of the Acidifier House, which appears to have been substantially modified, with modern cladding. To the north is the Engineers' Office and Fitters' shop, made with Stretcher Bond brick, of one-storey with a mezzanine floor. To its north is a skillion-roofed timber extension. Just to the east of the fitter's shop is the Winch House, also of Stretcher Bond brick. It is open on one side, and has an extended roof that serves as an entrance porch for the Fitters' shop.
Two one-story wooden barracks stand to the north of the Engineers' Office and Fitters' shop. Raised on timber stumps, each is clad in weatherboards, with a skillion roof of galvanised iron, and timber-lined eaves. Each has six doors on the southern side. The southernmost hut has six windows on the northern side, but the northernmost hut has a sliding steel door in place of one of its windows.
Any post 1970 structures and extensions on the site are not significant, nor are the post 1970 internal modifications to the factory buildings significant. The surviving ground floor of the Acidifier House is no longer significant.
","history":"The former Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie consists of a number of brick and timber buildings built between 1917 and 1920. Two timber demountable blocks were added as migrant accommodation c.1949. Since the early 1970s most of the site has been occupied by Hans Continental Smallgoods Pty Ltd, which has constructed a modern factory on the southern part of property. The remaining original buildings are used as offices and for storage. The riverfront fish markets have occupied the northern part of the original factory site since 1966.
During World War One the Australian Commonwealth Arsenal developed its own defence factories, due to disruption of the supply of manufactured goods and armaments to Australia. By 1919 the defence factories included a Small Arms Factory at Lithgow, New South Wales; a Clothing Factory in South Melbourne; an Explosives Factory (Cordite) at Maribyrnong, Melbourne; a Government Woollen Mill; and the Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie, Brisbane. The latter provided acetate of lime for cordite production at Maribyrnong.
After World War One the Australian government sought to protect the local steel, copper, chemical, and woollen textile industries, which had grown during the war, and to promote research and development. Government factories and laboratories were to provide a knowledge pool for the private sector, and the latter would then be able to help supply the country's defence needs in wartime. This policy of 'Self Containment' led to Australia being able to supply itself with light weapons and ammunition by World War Two. The Munitions Supply Board (1921 to 1939) inherited the defence factories of the Commonwealth Arsenal, and its High Explosives and Filling Factory Group in Victoria became the centre of chemical engineering in Australia. Other Munitions Supply Board assets in the 1920s included the Ordnance Factory Group, Gun Ammunition Factory Group, and Small Arms Ammunition Factory in Victoria, and the Small Arms Factory Group in New South Wales. The Munitions Supply Board thus controlled the largest and most advanced factory system in Australia, and the largest industrial research laboratories, under the Munitions Supply Laboratories organisation.
A committee from the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs selected a site for the Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie in mid 1916, after Cairns was considered and rejected. Subdivisions 2 and 3 of Eastern Suburban Allotment 22, Parish of Bulimba, County of Stanley, covering nine acres, two roods, and 29.5 perches were resumed on 21 September 1916 at a cost of £1,719. A plan drawn up by the Department of Home Affairs in November 1916, and signed 'HJB', laid out the main built elements of the factory, and their function, as designed by the bacteriologist and chemist Auguste J. F. deBavay.
Born in Belgium, deBavay had worked for a number of breweries (including Fosters, Swan, Cascade, Carlton and United), as well as working in the mining industry, and in the paper industry. He had designed the revolutionary ore-extraction technique of the 'skin' or 'film' flotation process, patented in 1905, to deal with 'the Sulphide Problem'. In 1914 deBavay was asked by the Minister of Defence to investigate the manufacture of acetone for use in cordite manufacture, and in two weeks he had developed a process to ferment and distil molasses. He was later asked to build the Colmslie factory, which had a well-equipped chemical and bacteriological laboratory. His son, Francis Xavier deBavay, became the first manager of the factory.
The cost of the factory was about £120,000. Production began in 1918, with 30 employees, and continued after the war ended, in order to lay up reserve supplies. When production of acetate of lime (calcium acetate) ceased early in 1922, about 1000 tonnes had been made; enough to produce 200 tonnes of acetone, leading to 1000 tonnes of cordite, or about 400 million rounds of .303 rifle cartridges.
The process of making acetate of lime started with molasses (from the Babinda and Mulgrave sugar mills) that had been shipped from Cairns to Brisbane. The molasses was pumped into a holding tank near the river, and was diluted with water. The liquid was then heated and cooled in the three-storey Agitator and Cooler House, to destroy foreign bacteria. In the two-storey Fermenting House yeast was added to large wooden temperature-controlled vats, with fermentation producing a dilute (8%) solution of alcohol (ethanol). The 'wash' was transferred to vats on the top floor of the three-storey Settling House, where it was allowed to settle out. The wash was then transferred to the adjacent three-storey Acidifier House, where it was repeatedly pumped through wooden vats, which contained wood shavings and Bacterium Aceti. Over several days, the alcohol was converted into acetic acid (vinegar). The new wash was heated by steam coils, and the acetic acid and water was distilled off, in the two-storey Evaporator House. The acid distillate was neutralised with milk of lime to produce acetate of lime, and this solution was concentrated for evaporation on a heated revolving drum, where it was scraped off as solid flakes. The bagged product was then sent to Maribyrnong for conversion into acetone. Acetone enabled the combination of nitro-glycerine and trinitrocellulose to form cordite.
Alcohol distillation at the factory was approved in 1919, due to shortages of certain grades of concentrated alcohol, and the dilute alcohol produced by the fermentation of molasses was distilled to produce concentrated alcohol in the Alcohol Still House, a two storey eastern extension to the Evaporator House. From early 1920 a pot still was used to produce alcohol for the ammunition factories, and in 1922 a continuous still was installed.
Due to fears that oil resources were limited, alcohol produced from molasses was also considered as an alternative fuel. 'Power alcohol' was manufactured at Colmslie from August 1924 to June 1926, before production was halted by concerns that the cost was too high. Approximately 800 kilolitres of this alcohol was made, and was mixed with benzol and ether to produce 1200 kilolitres of motor fuel. This fuel was used by the Post Master General's Department, in its postal vehicles in Brisbane and Melbourne, and by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) vehicles in Victoria.
From 1926 the factory was closed down to a reserve status, under a caretaker. In 1935 the factory's plant was moved to the Footscray and Maribyrnong factories in Melbourne, and the factory was handed over to the Department of the Interior in January 1936. In June 1936 the idea was floated that the Post Master General's Department could use a building for its frequency measuring equipment, using the chimney and water tower to mount aerials. The Department's Radio Broadcasting Branch, Wireless Experimental Section, occupied various buildings from 1937, including the Acidifier House and the Fitter's shop.
The Wireless Experimental Section's peace and quiet was disturbed when an advance party of RAAF personnel arrived at the factory on 23 May 1939. Several factory buildings were required for billeting and storage purposes while the RAAF was awaiting the completion of huts at Archerfield. The Ordnance Service also staked a claim for storage space from February 1940 onwards, and the Field Hygiene Section of the Seventh Division occupied a number of buildings in late 1940. The Engineer's Supply Service branch arrived in April 1941, and the Allied Works Council was present in 1942. The 6th Anti Aircraft battery was a resident by June 1942 and the 2nd and 14th AA batteries by August 1943.
The Post Master General, Ordnance Services, and the Anti Aircraft batteries were still using some buildings in October 1943, but from November 1942 onwards the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) gradually took over most of the complex, which became part of the Fairmile Naval Base (by 1948 the base was referred to as 'HMAS Moreton, Colmslie'). The factory's jetty became a refuelling wharf, and navy workshops and a repair slipway were built between the factory and the river.
New tenants were soon to follow. In December 1943 Prime Minister Curtin had expressed the view that, for security reasons, Australia's population had to increase to 20 million. The Commonwealth Department of Immigration was created in 1945, and in 1946 the goal was to allow 70,000 migrants into Australia each year, (roughly 1% of Australia's population at the time). The United Kingdom-Australia Free and Assisted Passage Agreements became active in March 1947. Adults would only pay £10 towards their passage, and children aged 14-18 would be charged £5. A shipping shortage handicapped the program until 1948, but from 1947 to 1958, of 457,898 migrants moving from the United Kingdom to Australia, 68% received assisted passage. In this period the British represented about a third of all migrants to Australia. The peak years of assisted British migration to Australia were between 1949 and 1952.
In order to address labour shortages, the Australian Government also decided to utilise another source of immigrants: the mass of Displaced Persons in Europe. In July 1947 an agreement was reached with the United Nation's International Refugee Organisation, which would provide the ships to deliver a minimum of 12,000 Displaced Persons per year. This was the first assisted passage scheme for non-British migrants. The migrants included people from the Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Other Displaced Persons came from Eastern and Central Europe, including Czechs, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, Hungarians and Poles. By 1951, about 170,000 Displaced Persons had moved to Australia.
In 1949 the Migrant Accommodation Centres Division was formed within the Commonwealth Department of Immigration. It was decided that Displaced Persons would go to Holding Centres, where the dependants would stay until the 'breadwinner' of the family, working in the vicinity of the Holding Centre, could afford accommodation elsewhere. However, if a worker was allocated to a Worker's Hostel that had room for dependants, the family might be able to live together at the hostel. Although the Department of Immigration administered Holding Centres, the Department of Labour and National Service administered Worker's Hostels.
In June 1949 the Department of Immigration was planning to open four Holding Centres for 'New Australians' in Queensland. Wacol opened 9 November 1949, on Army land; Stuart, on RAAF land south of Townsville [601708], opened 30 March 1950; Frazer's Paddock at Enoggera opened 14 April 1950, on Army land; and Cairns opened 19 August 1950, on acquired land. In 1952 the standard capacities of these camps were listed as: Wacol 1465; Stuart 500; Enoggera 515; and Cairns 370. At this time 13 Holding Centres were still active in Australia. By April 1960 Wacol was the only migrant Holding Centre left in Queensland.
In mid 1948 the Director of Migrant Hostels had visited the old Acetate of Lime Factory, now acting as a naval barracks, with representatives from the Department of Labour and National Service, and the Department of Works and Housing. In December 1948 the Department of Labour and National Service had asked the RAN for the use of the factory buildings for Baltic Displaced Persons, and the site was transferred from the Department of Interior to the Department of Labour and National Service. However, the land near the river would be used by the Army. In June 1949 it was reported that there would be a Worker's Hostel at Colmslie with a projected capacity of 500 persons. The existing buildings of the Acetate of Lime Factory would provide accommodation, but a number of timber huts were also added the site, as illustrated on an April 1949 map by the Commonwealth Department of Works and Housing (the huts are not present on a 1948 site map prepared by the Department of the Interior). Two of these huts, which were used as six room sleeping blocks, remain on site today, to the north of the brick Engineer's Office and Fitter's shop. By December 1949 the term 'Colmslie Migrant Hostel' was being used in correspondence.
Initial government policy was that British migrants would not be sent to Holding Centres. The Immigration Depot at Yungaba, Kangaroo Point, was remodelled to receive the first post-World War Two British migrants to Queensland, who left Britain in May 1947. In general though, Yungaba was used as transit depot for those British migrants who had their own accommodation arranged. British migrants who needed longer-term accommodation would be housed at Workers' Hostels.
In January 1952 'Commonwealth Hostels Limited' took over management of the Colmslie Migrant Hostel. Although it was policy that assisted British migrants should live at hostels, there were also non-British migrants at Colmslie in the late 1950s. According to one woman who lived there between 1959 and 1962, these included Germans, Finns, Danes, Yugoslavs, and Russians. Mr Flood, the hostel's Manager at the time, lived in a bungalow (no longer extant) surrounded by palm trees and hibiscus. This was originally the Factory manager's office and laboratory, situated south of the Evaporator House.
As part of the Colmslie Migrant Hostel, the Acidifier House was used for accommodation, and as a dining room and kitchen. The Engineer's Office and Fitter's Shop became a baggage store and the Assistant Manager's quarters, and the Winch House became a tool room. The Evaporator House was used for accommodation, ablutions and recreation, and the Alcohol Still house was also used for accommodation. The Engine Room was used for accommodation and recreation, and the Boiler House was used as a laundry. The Lime Slacking Store became an office, and the Excise Office, Fertiliser House and Painter's Shop building (extended to the south around 1949) became a store.
The desire to keep the British out of Holding Centres seems to have weakened over time, since by 1959 it was suggested that Wacol could be used for British migrants. Due to the June 1959 'Nest Egg Scheme', whereby British migrants with £500 in savings could get assisted passage without an accommodation sponsor in Australia, there was a need for emergency accommodation. Yungaba and Colmslie were to be used first, but any extra British could join the Dutch migrants at Wacol.
In November 1960 the RAN declared its remaining land near the hostel as surplus to requirements. The RAN workshops, slipway and jetty, which had been occupied by the Army's Small Boat Squadron since 1956, had been declared surplus by the Army by April of 1960. The land adjoining the Hostel was thus transferred from the Department of Interior to the Department of Immigration in March 1962, and in 1966 this waterfront area, with the workshops, slipway, and part of the hostel grounds, was transferred to the Queensland Fish Board. The two-storied Fermentation House of the Acetate of Lime Factory still stands on this land, which now contains the Brisbane Fish Markets.
In January 1963 the Colmslie Migrant Hostel had a capacity of 270, with 30 Families resident. It was closed on 31 March 1963. Those migrants who could not find new accommodation were allowed to go to Wacol, which Commonwealth Hostels was taking over from the Department of Immigration. It appears that the Hostel was briefly reactivated in 1965, before closing permanently. Hans Van der Drift, a Dutch-born chef, started Hans Continental Smallgoods in Ascot in 1960, and his company occupied the remainder of the Colmslie hostel site in the early 1970s.
Although the molasses storage tanks and Montejus pit near the river were demolished before the end of World War Two, and the Agitator and Cooling House, Settling Tank House, and Laboratory/Bungalow have disappeared since World War Two, a number of the main buildings involved in the process of producing acetate of lime are still present on the site. However, the top two floors of the Acidifier House were removed some time after 1965, and with its modern cladding the building no longer resembles its earlier form.
","criteria":"The factory buildings have a strong association with the chemist Auguste deBavay. The factory is also associated with a number of Commonwealth government and military organisations of importance, including the Commonwealth Arsenal, the Munitions Supply Board, the Royal Australian Navy, the Commonwealth Department of Labour and National Service, and the Commonwealth Department of Immigration.
|An innovative process for manufacturing Acetate of Lime from molasses was developed for the Australian Government by the noted bacteriologist and chemist Auguste deBavay, and the Colmslie factory was built to his specifications.
|The Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie was the only Commonwealth Arsenal/Munitions Supply Board Factory built in Queensland prior to World War Two, and was the only factory of its type in Australia. The two de-mountable timber huts on the site may be among the last remaining in-situ Queensland examples of the temporary accommodation provided on military properties for post-World War Two migrants.
|The remaining buildings of the Commonwealth Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie, built between 1917 and 1920 as part of the defence-factory program of the Australian Commonwealth Arsenal, demonstrate Queensland's role in Australia's early defence industry: using the products of sugar cane to contribute to Australian self-sufficiency in ammunition manufacture. Between 1943 and 1948 the factory was part of a Royal Australian Navy Base, illustrating how Commonwealth properties could be adapted for military use in a crisis. The use of the factory buildings as a hostel for migrants between 1949 and 1963, and c.1965, demonstrates the process of adapting Commonwealth defence properties to temporarily house migrants from Britain and Europe during Australia's post-World War Two period of mass immigration. In addition, the factory network of the Munitions Supply Board was related to a deliberate government effort to provide a scientific and technical knowledge base for Australian private industry.
|The Acetate of Lime Factory at Colmslie has fine industrial aesthetic qualities and its relationship with the river is also aesthetically significant. In particular the brick chimney is an important landmark in the industrial river-scape of the Brisbane River.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion F | Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19589,"place_ref":602467,"name":"Heiner Road Railway Overpass","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Downs Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-05-28","description":"The overbridge abutments are situated on the north side of the Bremer River near the abutments of the 1865 Bremer River bridge and behind the early goods store (tarpaulin store), which was part of the first Railway Workshops at Ipswich. The overbridge carries a road, but the railway track that ran between the abutments has been removed. Traces of its route can still be discerned in some places by the presence of depressions formed under sleepers and hand forged spikes
The abutments are 21 feet apart and are supported by flanking walls on each side. They are constructed of large coursed blocks of medium to coarse grained and pebbly sandstone with lime mortar. The stone has become considerably weathered, though traces of edge dressing can be seen on some blocks. Ponding and drips of poured lead are visible between and on the front surface of some blocks.
The concrete bridge over the cutting is recent and is marked LXXXX (1990). It does not cover the full width of the abutments and is finished with plain timber handrails.
","history":"The Heiner Road railway overpass was probably constructed in 1864 over the line that connected the government wharf on the Bremer River with the North Ipswich railway workshop site. It consists of a modern bridge over substantial stone abutments that are a rare survivor of the earliest railway infrastructure in Queensland and evidence for the way in which the railway network was established.
A reliable transport network was essential to allow the development of the colony of Queensland and the transport of settlers, goods and raw materials. It is very rare for a first railway to start from a provincial town, rather than the capital and the fact that it did reflects the early history of European settlement.
The first settlement in Moreton Bay had been a penal colony, established in 1824. By 1842, the colony had closed and the area was thrown open for free settlement, though two years before this, squatters had arrived on the Darling Downs and had moved sheep, wool and supplies overland to Sydney, rather than to Brisbane, as it was then was closed to civilian traffic.
Ipswich, at first called Limestone, was first used by the penal colony as a source of lime for building. Being on a navigable river, the Bremer, when free settlement began, it soon developed into a thriving trading centre. By 1843, the Moreton Bay region was represented in the New South Wales parliament and questions concerning the development of the area raised the importance of transport. In 1856, a route from the Darling Downs to Brisbane through Ipswich was surveyed. Planning continued, but in 1859, the long sought separation of Queensland from New South Wales was proclaimed. Elections for a Queensland legislature were held in 1860 and a Select Committee appointed to look into transport. By 1845 the Bremer had a regular river trade but could not take large vessels. Bridges and roads were few and subject to the vagaries of the weather. At the time however, the provision of a rail system was normally considered the province of private enterprise.
Following a failed private scheme to set up a horse drawn tramway, the Queensland government stepped in. The first Railway Bill was presented in August 1863. There was heated debate about the cost, route and construction of the proposed line. Economy was necessary as the population was small and unlikely to make a railway immediately profitable. Moreover, the terrain over the main range to the Downs was difficult. Abram Fitzgibbon, an Irish engineer with international experience in railway construction, was engaged and recommended a narrow gauge track to allow economic construction. This too was controversial but was accepted. The Queensland railway was the first in the world to be constructed as a government enterprise. Surveys for the first section of line between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp were completed by the end of 1863. It was decided to run the line from Ipswich to the Downs because Ipswich was already accessible by water. Tenders were called at the end of 1863 and that of Peto, Brassey and Betts, a well-known British firm, was accepted. Most of the materials, including locomotives in knock down form, were sent from Britain to Ipswich by river steamer and the first sod was turned at North Ipswich on 25 February 1864. The first consignment of materials arrived by steamer on 15 August 1864.
A line was laid down to the wharf to receive consignments of materials and move them to a workshops site on level ground above. Public pressure for a bridge across the river resulted in a change of plan and the terminus was moved to South Ipswich in the business centre. A bridge was constructed to carry both road and rail and was just completed in time for the opening of the first section of rail to Grandchester on 31 July 1865. Following the principles used to keep costs down, most bridges on the first line and on subsequent lines were timber. The Bremer River Bridge was the most important of four metal bridges and it, and the Heiner Road overpass had stone abutments in a similar style. The abutments of the bridge were later rebuilt and the bridge itself superseded, carrying road traffic only.
The Wharf Line continued in importance until Ipswich was linked to Brisbane by rail in 1874, following which river traffic diminished in importance. The line was later extended to Hancock's sawmill and was in use for many years. The railway workshop activities soon outgrew the area near the overbridge and a new site was chosen in 1884. Only the 1870s stores building remains on the original site.
The importance of the Heiner Road overpass diminished considerably when the new David Trumpy Bridge across the Bremer was opened in 1965 and the (1865) road bridge was demolished, leaving only its abutments. The overbridge abutments have weathered considerably and some stone from the upper section is missing. The bridge itself has been replaced at least once and the current concrete and timber bridge does not extend across the full width of the abutments. It is now surfaced with gravel. The rail and sleepers of the wharf line were subject to replacement over the years and have been removed, as has the wharf.
","criteria":"The Heiner Road Railway Overpass is important in illustrating a vital step in the development of Queensland when the first stage of the new colony's railway network was established, opening in 1865. The Wharf Line predated the construction of the main line between Ipswich and Grandchester. Because Ipswich was a river port and the majority of components for the railway were delivered by ship from Britain, the line connecting the government wharf with the workshops, where assembly took place, was laid first and was an essential part of the construction strategy. The plans for the substantial masonry abutments that carried the road connecting with the rail and road bridge over the Bremer River over the this line survive and are evidence for the importance accorded to this overpass and to the inauguration of the transport network essential to develop the colony.
|It is a rare survivor of the earliest railway infrastructure in Queensland and is also one of the very few overpass abutments in Queensland carried out in stone.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19592,"place_ref":602470,"name":"Beenleigh Rum Distillery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Distillery Road","suburb":"BEENLEIGH","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-03-06","description":"The Beenleigh Rum distillery is located on an area of level ground on the bank of the Albert River at Eagleby. It is surrounded by open land and an area between the distillery and the river has been landscaped and has plantings of palm trees. The modern buildings are grouped towards the entrance and are linked by a bitumen-paved area. There is a large dam located next to the still house and spirit store.
Most of the buildings on site have been built in the last two decades and are constructed of brick and modern metal sheeting. These comprise offices, storerooms, and a bottling plant. There are also modern storage tanks and walkways. There is a small museum in one of the brick stores.
The main distillery building, comprising a brick and timber still house and attached brick spirit stores is the oldest building on site. The spirit store is composed of two joined English bond brick buildings on concrete footings and with modern concrete floors. They have separate hipped roofs clad with corrugated metal sheeting and the interior of the roof of the smaller building has battens suitable for shingles. Both sections have high square windows fitted with iron bars and timber lintels. Large timber vats on masonry stands are still in place in both sections of the store.
The still house is built of timber with sections of wall in English bond brick and has a concrete floor. The building is clad in weatherboard over vertical studs and has timber trusses and posts. Ventilation panels have been created below the roof and at waist height by omitting sections of cladding. At the end of the building nearest the river two new higher sections have been inserted creating a tower like effect. This new section has steel trusses and has large square windows towards the river.
The distillery is equipped with modern distilling equipment including fermenting vats and column stills; however, the copper pot still remains. The upper levels of the still house are accessed by modern steel stairs and decking. To the rear of the distillery, a canopy has been erected over a steam boiler of unknown date.
Beside the distillery is a small rectangular building clad in weatherboard, which has a gabled low-pitched roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. It is used as a workshop and for some general storage. It also has a two bay garage with roller doors attached.
","history":"The Beenleigh Rum Distillery on the banks of the Albert River was licensed in 1884 and utilised molasses from sugar grown and crushed in the area. The town of Beenleigh developed consequent to the growth of sugar related industries in the area and took its name from the plantation that the preceded the establishment of the distillery.
Moreton Bay penal colony commandant Captain Patrick Logan explored the area around the Logan and Albert Rivers in 1826. Timbergetters in search of cedar and hardwoods moved into the district around 1840, but the first European settlers took up land in 1864 under the Sugar and Coffee regulations, a government scheme to encourage the growing of these potentially valuable crops in the new colony of Queensland. Leases of between 320 and 1280 acres were available for three years with an option to purchase, in order to encourage the establishment of plantations. 39 leases were granted in the first months of the scheme's operation of which 10 were in the Logan area, and at all of which it was intended to grow sugar.
Sugar cane had been first brought to Australia in 1788 but subsequent plantings at Sydney, Port Macquarie and Norfolk Island failed to be commercially viable. Captain Louis Hope grew a cane crop successfully in Queensland in 1862. By 1864 the first commercial sugar mill in Australia had been established by him at Ormiston and interest in growing sugar cane spread rapidly. By 1867 an estimated 2000 acres were under cane in the Brisbane area and by the end of the decade, cane had also been successfully established further north at Maryborough, Mackay and Bundaberg, where the warmer climate proved more suitable, and sugar was established as a major commercial crop in Queensland.
An area of land between the Albert and Logan Rivers was planted with cane in 1865 by the partnership of Francis Gooding and John Davy. The brothers-in-law had arrived in Brisbane from Devon in 1862 and named their new plantation 'Beenleigh' after their home in England. By 1866 their plantation was productive and in 1868, the Inspector of Distilleries reported that the Logan area had 802 acres under cultivation and a still was in the course of erection at 'Malungmovel', George Board's plantation. The production of rum was encouraged by the government as it brought in revenue from taxes and was a popular commodity, being easier to keep and transport than beer or wines in an era when transport was slow.
A mobile distillery also served the numerous plantations along the rivers. This was the steam operated 'Walrus', a boat which was built at Cleveland in 1864 as a sailing vessel, then sold in 1869 to James Stewart who converted it to steam and installed a still. A license to operate as a floating distillery was reluctantly granted on 14 April 1869 by the Inspector of Distilleries, although he deemed the boat unsuitable for the purpose, as there was then no other licensed distillery in the area. The boat then operated as the Pioneer Floating Sugar Mill. Its licence was not renewed in 1872 as it did not fulfil the requirement to carry cane-crushing equipment and acted solely as a distillery, producing rum from molasses. This is the thick syrup remaining after cane juice has been crystallised by boiling to produce sugar. Rum is produced from this by-product by adding water and yeast and fermenting the mixture. This is then boiled and the alcohol vapour separated out by distillation, the condensate being collected, perhaps charcoal filtered, and stored in casks to mature.
By 1869 Davy and Gooding had 55 acres under cane and were constructing a sugar mill, which was in operation by the following year. The boom in sugar in the region in the 1870s led to the rapid development of the nearby township that took its name from the Beenleigh plantation. By 1876 this was described by Bailliere's Gazetteer as a provincial centre serving an area with nine sugar mills and two distilleries within six kilometres of the township.
After the 'Walrus's' license was withdrawn it is said to have carried on its operations illegally for some years. In 1883 the boat was beached on the banks of the Albert River and Francis Gooding purchased its still, obtaining a distillery licence in June 1884. The price of sugar fell in 1884 and this may have had some bearing on the decision to include distilling in the partnership's operations The Beenleigh distillery had 9877 gallons of rum on hand by 31 March 1885. The Post Office Directory for that year lists three distilleries in the area: Ageston, Davy and Gooding, and the Loganholme Sugar Company. Many small plantations in the area failed in the 1880s due also to frosts, disease and soil exhaustion. The river flats in the Logan area where many plantations had been located for ease of transport were also prone to flooding.
In 1887 a flood washed the whole Davy and Gooding distillery, including a large stock of rum, down the river. However, it was soon re-established after the purchase of a still, said to be from Coulderey's Ageston distillery at Rocky Point. The Logansholme plant closed at this time, though Ageston kept going until the early 1890s. In 1890 a brick spirit store was constructed at Beenleigh and the building appears to have been built in two stages, though the construction is similar. The Beenleigh Sugar Mill continued in operation as well as the distillery. In 1895, the business appears in the Post Office Directory as the Albert River Milling and Distillery Co with Albert Kleinschmidt as the manager.
In the 1890s milling had become a more specialised process due to technical advances and many of the smaller plantations closed following the recession of this era. The Beenleigh distillery appears to have prospered, however, and in 1899 Beenleigh rum won a gold medal at the London International Fair. By then the brand was well known and sold as far away as Cairns.
1904, The Albert River Milling and Distillery Co Limited purchased the land on which the distillery was located and in 1908, the Beenleigh Distillery was listed separately to the mill. In 1912, a new title was issued for the land in the name of Albert Kleinschmidt and in 1917 Thomas Brown and Sons Ltd purchased the business, which operated as the Beenleigh Rum Distillery Pty Ltd. Browns made many changes including the installation of eight large kauri pine vats, remodelling and enlarging the stills and upgrading other machinery. They also used railway transport to bring in molasses from the Isis district, Bingera, Gin Gin and Woongalba. In 1936 the distillery was described as having its own landing and unloading wharf, a complete power plant, cooper's shop and all necessary facilities to make it a self-contained producer of rum. A flood in 1947 washed away the pump house and a lavatory building.
In 1969 the distillery ceased production due to falling demand. However, in 1972 Mervyn Davy and his two sons purchased the distillery and production resumed. The bottling plant was modernised and also bottled whisky, brandy, gin, vodka and ouzo. A new warehouse, office block and showroom were built. The distillery was flooded in 1974 when all records were lost. Applications were lodged with the Council for a new vat store, bottle store and two 'houses', only one of which appears to have been constructed. At that time there were two brick warehouses along the road, which are thought to have been constructed in the late 1950s or 1960s. In 1975 the buildings on site comprised the still house, tanks, a brick store and bottling room, an office, two bulk stores and a cellar. A bulk store was proposed.
In 1980 the Moran family acquired the complex. They purchased additional land adjacent to the distillery, which underwent major redevelopment and renovation works. A dam was constructed beside the distillery on the site of an earlier dam, which had existed since at least 1908. The floor of the spirit store was excavated and two higher sections were inserted into the roof of the still house, which was painted the bright red it is now. The fermentation vats were removed, but old timber vats were retained, as was the relocated copper still.
Rum may be light or darkened by the presence of caramels. The darker rums are usually distilled in 'pot stills', which are considered to be less efficient than column distillation, retaining more flavour elements, though this may be desirable in the case of sprits such as rum or whisky, where such elements provide a distinctive character. Rums may also be produced by blending pot and column distilled rums. The pot still at Beenleigh has been in use since 1887, though at least parts of it may be much earlier.
Modern continuous distillation columns were added to the still house and new fermentation vats were installed with metal walkways constructed to access their upper levels. The work was completed in 1981. A small museum was created, the exhibits mainly comprising photographs and scale models. At least one timber building was demolished in this development, as were the decorative 19th century gateposts at the main entrance.
In 1984 Tarac Industries acquired a controlling interest in the complex, which was modified and extended in a 'massive redevelopment'. The license of the Twin River Tavern at Eagleby was transferred to the new tavern. The complex had private and public bars, bistros, a restaurant, TAB, drive-in bottle shop, liquor barn, craft shop and other facilities. By 1987 it was referred to as the Beenleigh Distillery and Moran's Wharf complex and had a tourist park license. Newspapers refer to plans to 'update the technology and methods'. In 1988 the tavern complex was sold, the distillery being retained by Tarac.
A number of distillery buildings were constructed in the 1990s including a large machinery canopy (1992), a warehouse and bottling hall and offices (1994). At this time a warehouse was demolished and in 1996 a new warehouse was added.
The distillery is not currently in operation, though all equipment remains in place. In 2003 the brand name and existing supplies of bulk spirits were sold to VOK Beverages.
","criteria":"The sugar industry has been of great importance to the development of Queensland for its contribution to the economy and to the pattern of European settlement. The Logan area was the site of some of the earliest sugar plantations, mills and distilleries in Queensland. The industry in the area was distinguished from that developing further north by being on a small scale, based on farms and private mills, rather than on large central mills. The Beenleigh Rum Distillery was, until very recently, the oldest working distillery in Queensland. The main distillery buildings are evidence for a major early industrial enterprise in the Logan area, which is linked with an important phase in the development of the sugar industry in Queensland. The Beenleigh plantation, mill and distillery business was a key factor in the development of the town of Beenleigh and the surrounding area.
|The Beenleigh rum distillery is a rare survivor of the early sugar industry in south east Queensland and preserves a 19th century copper pot still which was part of the original equipment of the distillery. It is thought to be the earliest still of this type in Queensland.
|The distillery complex, particularly the main still house building, is a landmark which stands out from the river flats on which it is built and can readily be seen from the Pacific Highway and from the Albert River.
|The Beenleigh distillery is a focus of memory for many people who have worked there or whose forebears have worked there and it is closely associated with the identity of the area by the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19593,"place_ref":602471,"name":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia (former)","alternate_name":"Townsville City Council Library | Commonwealth Savings Bank","street_address":"272-278 Flinders Street","suburb":"TOWNSVILLE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-10-29","description":"The former Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Townsville is a two-storey reinforced concrete structure with reinforced concrete floors and flat roof with frontage to Flinders Street and also runs through to Ogden Street at the rear. The frontage was designed with five bays, the middle three projected slightly forward with four columns of a singular banded design flanking the three emphasised bays. These four columns have design similarity to columns of the bank's Sydney head office building though in render rather than stone. The columns have ovolo-moulded edges and the banding appears as strongly expressed recessed joints. A suggestion of art deco appears in the circular motif decoration below the top of the columns.
Windows to the building are steel framed, rectangular with the larger sashes casement and the upper sashes pivot hung. A plinth, originally plastered but now veneered in grey granite, to window sill height runs across the width of the building interrupted by two doorways. The main doorway into the former banking chamber is centrally located with a second doorway in the northern bay leading to the stairs for first floor access. The main doorway was originally flanked by two plain pilasters with entablature over that have been removed and the adjoining columns completed. The window frames either side of the main doorway incorporate an arched transom between the casements and smaller upper panes and sashes.
The two side bays of the frontage were finished as face brickwork panels initially but later were rendered over and painted. A classical cornice across the building at roof level projects forward over the three central bays and has pairs of dentils above the columns. Below the central cornice section there remains indications of the lettering of the bank signage incompletely chiselled off. Over the cornice is a panelled parapet forming a low simple pediment centrally with a tapered flagpole fixed behind.
Behind the street frontages the first floor of the building is set back from the northern boundary to gain natural light. The two-storeyed rear elevation to Ogden Street is plain and utilitarian without the decorative expression and composition of the front elevation. The rear and visible side walls are of painted render. Steel windows sizes vary according to use and plumbing is externally mounted. A single door, with roller shutter, allows access to the street.
","history":"The former Commonwealth Bank of Australia building, the third premises but first purpose build Townsville Commonwealth Bank building, was constructed in 1923 at a cost of approximately £30,000. The building was designed by Sydney architect and consultant engineering firm John and Herwald Kirkpatrick and constructed by Townsville builders Charles Hanson and Sons under the supervision of Townsville architect Walter Hunt.
The federal government's Commonwealth Bank Act 1911 established Australia's first bank empowered to conduct both savings and general [trading] bank business with the security of a federal government guarantee. On 16 September 1912 the Commonwealth Government established the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. By 20 January 1913 the general business of the Bank had commenced in Canberra, in the six state capitals, in London and in Townsville. The Townsville office was the first country branch established in Australia.
Initially the Bank operated from leased premises opposite the future site of the new building. However, following the amalgamation the Commonwealth Bank with the Queensland Government Savings Bank (QGSB) on 7 December 1920 the Bank moved its operations into the leased premises of the former QGSB near the corner of Stanley and Flinders Street. The Commonwealth Bank then purchased this property. In 1922 the site was sold to the Queensland State Government Insurance Office (now the site of the 1928 Queensland State Government Building (601385)). It is not know how long the Bank stayed in this location but it is possible it remained until 1924 when the new building was completed.
In the meantime the Commonwealth Bank purchased an allotment for £5000 in Flinders Street adjacent to the Post Office (600911). This land was first issued as a Deed of Grant in November 1922 to the State Advances Corporation. Three months later, in February 1923, the land was sold to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Sydney architect and consultant engineering firm John and Herwald Kirkpatrick, designers of a number of early Commonwealth Bank buildings including the head office in Sydney, the Melbourne, Canberra and London offices, were commissioned to draw up plans for a new building in Townsville. John Kirkpatrick, appointed architect for the Commonwealth Bank in 1912, was a friend of and cousin to the Governor of the Bank, Denison Samuel King Miller. The Kirkpatrick architectural firm remained architects for the Commonwealth Bank for at least ten years. During that time bank buildings were constructed throughout Australia, the Pacific and England.
This first purpose built Commonwealth Bank building in Townsville was constructed of reinforced concrete and brick. It is one of the earliest, if not the earliest surviving reinforced concrete multi storey building in Townsville. The supervising architect for the construction of the building, Walter Hunt, was an innovator in the use of reinforced concrete. At that time he was also designing the Dalgety & Company Building completed in Sturt Street, Townsville in December 1924.
Townsville building firm Charles Hanson and Sons secured the tender to erect the new two storied brick and reinforced concrete Commonwealth Bank building. By August 1923 the first floor walls were almost completed and the floor beams were being filled in with concrete. The builders had installed an electric dynamo to facilitate the easier handling and hauling of mixed concrete to the first floor level.
In September 1923 the Queensland Architects and Builders Journal (A&B Journal) reported that the "first floor is laid and the columns to carry the flat roof are being filled. The framings of the beams of the first floor are now being removed and it is the contractors intention to commence plastering shortly". The flat roof was made of concrete with a parapet wall.
Sub contractors Harvey & Clarke, who specialized in joinery and shopfitting, carried out the joinery work.
By February 1924 the A&B Journal reported that "... the Commonwealth Bank was housed in recently completed premises". The building occupied a quarter acre block and accommodated the banking institution on the ground floor with the offices of the Deputy Public Curator on the first floor.
The ground floor entrance led to a vestibule, to the left of which was the manager's room. The building was comprised of a two storey high banking chamber, complete with tellers and a strong room. At the rear of the building were the resident officer's room, gentlemen's lavatory and cloakroom and a ladies lavatory. A flight of stairs in the vestibule led to an upstairs landing which accommodated a cleaner's room and additional male and female lavatories at the rear. The building was said to be well lit.
On 2 February 1924 the Townsville Evening Star reported on the "... near completion of the most attractive and up to date premises in the city ... the building ... is the architecture of Messers. John and Herwald G Kirkpatrick, architects and consultant engineers, Sydney". The report said that the building was constructed on "... most modern lines, reinforced concrete being principally used, while many new features to the building trade of the North have been introduced". These new features included ventilation and lighting, and ornate plaster work on the ceilings and substantial pillars in the banking chamber. A strong room was built behind the banking chamber. It was thought to be the largest in the north and was reinforced with steel railway rails. A Montgomerie Neilsen Oxidising nonseptic toilet system was installed with a large brick tank under the building. The special windows, which appear to be similar to those installed in the Sydney Head Office building, were special Simplex patented steel framed windows which adjusted to any angle. The building was electrically wired and had fans throughout and was constructed to allow the addition of two further floors. Thirty five massive concrete foundation pillars set up to 35 feet into the soil supported the structure. There was a clearance of six feet at the rear to about three feet on Flinders Street. The rear entrance was made secure with the installation of a "Chubb" door.
Although, in the February 1924 issue of the Architects and Builders Journal, it was reported that "... the Commonwealth Bank was housed in recently completed premises" the Commonwealth Bank Archives has written a brief history of the Townsville Branch saying the new building was opened on 14 July 1924. No reference has been supplied for the 14 July 1924 opening date. The February opening date makes this the first country branch to occupy its own, purpose built office. However, if the Townsville branch opened in July then the Newcastle Branch was the first branch to open on 5 May 1924.
During World War II the Commonwealth Bank, including the Townsville Branch, became heavily involved with Commonwealth War Bonds and other forms of government fund raising activities, as well as acting as local agents for the meat and clothes rationing authorities.
Despite the financial constraints of wartime the banking chamber was refurbished in 1944. However, in the mid 1950s the thirty year old premises needed further maintenance work. Dilapidated counters and fittings required replacement, lighting needed upgrading, painting of the interior was necessary and new coverings for the floors. Consideration was also given to constructing a third floor on the building to serve as bachelor quarters. However, the whole project was deferred until 1954 when tenders were called but deferred again because of cost. In 1957 new plans were drawn up for extensive alterations and additions, including a new Teller line, installation of fluorescent lighting, painting, linoleum tiles to walls and floor, new staff amenities and storage area, new entrance doors and removal of the portico over the front door.
The work was carried out by Brisbane builders N Kratzmann Pty Ltd at a cost of £54,283.15.2 and was completed in May 1959.
During the late 1940s and 1950s the Commonwealth Bank expanded its activities Australia wide, opening hundreds of branches and agencies to cater for the increase and spread of population accompanying Australia's great post war migration influx, and reflecting the buoyant national economy of the 1950s. In December 1959 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was restructured and renamed the Commonwealth Banking Corporation.
To meet the needs of the expanding commercial centre and to overcome crowding in the branch building a sub-branch was opened at 471-473 Flinders Street in a twenty year old brick and concrete building. This sub branch became a full branch on 27 November 1967.
By 1967 staff numbers in the main bank in Flinders Street had reached 64. Existing facilities were inadequate with no storage space and no space for interview rooms. By 1969 plans for a new building were in place. A property 800 metres west along Flinders Street was purchased for £269,000. The new four storied building with a tower block of a further 14 floors was designed by Townsville architects Martin Dillon and Associates and constructed by Townsville builders JM Kelly (Builders) Pty Ltd in 1975. At the time of construction the Branch had reached 111 staff, making it "... the largest branch, apart from the capital cities ... in Australia". Operations transferred to the new premises on 10 October 1977.
The 1923 Commonwealth Bank property was subsequently exchanged for three blocks of vacant land owned by the Townsville City Council in Alfred Street, Aitkenvale where a branch of the bank was later built.
In 1978 the Townsville City Council established the Council Library in the former Commonwealth Bank building. The library continued to operate from the building until 2003 when it was moved next door into the Northtown Building.
The Townsville City Council sold the building to Aranda Park Pty Ltd in 1990 but continued to lease the property until the Library moved in 2003.
","criteria":"The former Commonwealth Bank is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as the first purpose built Commonwealth Bank building in Townsville. The construction of this major 1923 building reflects the significant role Townsville, as the leading Australian country branch for over sixty years, played in the establishment and regional development of the Commonwealth Bank.
|It is thought to be a rare surviving example in North Queensland of the commercial work of the Sydney architect and engineering consultant firm John & Herwald Kirkpatrick who were the first architects to work for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Apart from the Townsville office the Kirkpatrick firm designed the head office building in Sydney, the London and Melbourne buildings as well as a number of banks in other state capitals thus establishing a consistent architectural image for the Commonwealth Bank throughout Australia.
|The Bank building is important because of its contribution to the overall historical townscape of the city but particularly to the east Flinders Street area where it is located within a group of buildings including the former Post Office (600911), Perc Tucker Gallery (600912) and the former Aplin Brown & Company building (600919).
|The former Commonwealth Bank, built in 1923 using reinforced concrete, is one of the first multi storey buildings constructed in Townsville utilising this early twentieth century innovative technique. It is now a rare surviving example from the early period of use of this technology in Townsville
|The former Commonwealth Bank, Townsville has a special association with the work of Sydney architect and consultant engineering firm John & Herwald Kirkpatrick and with Townsville architect Walter Hunt who was known for his innovative work in designing reinforced concrete buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19594,"place_ref":602473,"name":"Albert Park (North) air raid shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-31","description":"The Albert Park (North) air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab, which is covered with bitumen, and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. The original floor slab is still evident through the bitumen cover. The shelter is unpainted, and the soffit shows evidence of hasty removal of the blast walls; some reinforcing steel is visible protruding downwards. It stands on the footpath to the northeast corner of Albert Park with the canopies of large trees overhanging the shelter.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Albert Park (north) as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Albert Park (North) were removed according to plan after World War Two. The floor slab has been covered with bitumen to form the surrounding footpath.
","criteria":"The Albert Park (north) air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located on the footpath to the north-east corner of Albert Park is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Albert Park (north) air raid shelter, now used as a shade shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19595,"place_ref":602474,"name":"Albert Park (South) Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Upper Albert Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-31","description":"The Albert Park (South) air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. The shelter stands on the footpath to the south corner of Albert Park within the boundary of Albert Park (Roma Street Parklands). It is flanked by decorative flowerbeds and accommodates a freestanding wooden seat with concrete legs in the northern bay. The shelter is unpainted, but a "rainbow serpent" mosaic design decorates the south face of the northern pier, and a rubbish-bin stand has been bolted to the northern part of the floor slab. There is evidence on the floor slab of the two entrances to Wickham Street.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Albert Park (South) as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Albert Park (South) were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. Seating has been introduced and a mosaic decoration has been applied to the south face of the north pier.
","criteria":"The Albert Park (South) air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located on the footpath to the south corner of Albert Park is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Albert Park (South) air raid shelter, now used as a shade shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19596,"place_ref":602475,"name":"King Edward Park Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"224 Turbot Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The King Edward Park air raid shelter is a rectangular stone and concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab, rear and side nib blast walls of sandstone, six sandstone piers and a flat concrete roof. The shelter is approached by two flights of concrete stairs from Turbot Street. All the stonework features a hammered finish. The concrete roof is new; there is no evidence of blast wall removal on the soffit, and there is an additional narrow course of stone between the walls and piers and the roof.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the stone shelter at King Edward Park as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The front blast wall of the air raid shelter at King Edward Park was removed according to plan after World War Two, and six stone piers were added at the front of the shelter. Evidence of the location of the wall is still visible. The original shelter roof has been removed and was replaced in 1995 by a slab roof replicating the original. Two timber benches have been added.
","criteria":"The King Edward Park air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located on the edge of the park facing Turbot Street is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The King Edward Park air raid shelter, now used as a shade shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19597,"place_ref":602476,"name":"Wickham Park Air Raid Shelters","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"330 Wickham Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Wickham Park air raid shelters are rectangular concrete structures comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by four concrete piers. The shelters stand to the treed edge of Wickham Park, overlooking the Roma Street Railway Yards, and remain unaltered. They are overhung by mature fig trees. They are unpainted, and evidence of their entrances towards Wickham Terrace is visible on both floor slabs.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelters at Wickham Park as air raid shelters in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelters in Wickham Park were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible.
","criteria":"The Wickham Park air raid shelters are important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelters located in Wickham Park are important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelters' solid construction, rectangular shape, and their siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelters.
|The Wickham Park air raid shelters, now used as shade structures, demonstrate the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelters are durable examples of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19598,"place_ref":602477,"name":"Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"34 Sword Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Woolloongabba air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. The roof and the piers of the shelter are painted green. The shelter is surrounded by shrubs and shade trees and is adjacent to play equipment. The middle bay accommodates a wooden picnic table and seats that are bolted to the floor slab. The shelter appears to have once had one entrance in each long blast wall, in opposite corners.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Buranda Playground, Woolloongabba as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or ""bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at the Buranda playground were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter roof and piers have been painted and a picnic table and seats have been added.
","criteria":"The Woolloongabba air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located in Buranda Playground is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Woolloongabba air raid shelter, now used as a shade structure, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19599,"place_ref":602478,"name":"Raymond Park (West) Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"94 Baines Street","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Raymond Park (West) air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. The piers and the roof are painted green. The shelter stands behind the Pineapple Hotel on Baines Street at the west end of Raymond Park. There is a run of cat's paw prints and woman's shoeprints across the concrete floor slab.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Raymond Park (west) as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Raymond Park (West) were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter roof and piers have been painted.
","criteria":"The Raymond Park (west) air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located in Raymond Park (west) is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Raymond Park (west) air raid shelter, now used as a park shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19600,"place_ref":602479,"name":"Raymond Park (East) Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"184 Wellington Road","suburb":"KANGAROO POINT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Raymond Park (East) air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by four concrete piers. The second, lower part of the floor slab is also visible. The piers and the roof of the shelter are painted green. There is evidence of the two entrances on the southern side of the Soffit. The shelter stands towards the Wellington Road end of Raymond Park to the east of the playing fields.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Raymond Park (east) as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Raymond Park (East) were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter roof and piers have been painted.
","criteria":"The Raymond Park (east) air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located in Raymond Park (east) is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Raymond Park (east) air raid shelter, now used as a shade shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19602,"place_ref":602481,"name":"Morningside Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"580 Wynnum Road","suburb":"MORNINGSIDE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Morningside air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab, which is now covered by concrete pebbling, and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. There is also a coloured mosaic on the western side of the floor slab. There is evidence on the soffit of the two entrances on the Wynnum Road side. The shelter stands within a vegetated road reserve, west of the Morningside Railway Station, with a canopy of mature fig trees and camphor laurels. The roof of the shelter is painted maroon and the piers are painted cream.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Morningside as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ... (unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Morningside were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter roof and piers have been painted and the floor slab has been covered with concrete pebble topping.
","criteria":"The Morningside air raid is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located at the corner of Wynnum Road and Thynne Road is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Morningside air raid shelter, now used as a road reserve shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19603,"place_ref":602482,"name":"Newmarket Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Enogerra Road","suburb":"NEWMARKET","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Newmarket air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab, rear and side nib blast walls, a flat roof and five brick piers. The original floor slab is covered with concrete topping and an outer edge of pavers, and the rear concrete wall has a mural painted to the interior while the exterior of the rear wall remains unpainted. The roof fascias are painted yellow. The original air-raid shelter timber seat is painted green and is located against the rear wall. There is evidence of the entrances to Enoggera Road on the soffit. Wiring for lighting has been introduced.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Newmarket as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The front blast wall of the air raid shelter at Newmarket was removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the wall is still visible. The original floor slab has been covered with topping and a mural has been painted on the interior of the rear blast wall. A row of five brick piers has been added and electrical wiring has been introduced. The original seat has been removed and refixed within the shelter.
","criteria":"The Newmarket air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located at the intersection of Enoggera Road and Banks Street is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Newmarket air raid shelter, now used as a bus shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19604,"place_ref":602483,"name":"Newstead Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Commercial Road","suburb":"TENERIFFE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Newstead air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab, rear blast and side nib blast walls, a flat roof and five brick piers. The rear blast wall features the original seven metal lined ventilators and two freestanding seats are located along the rear wall. The roof and rear wall are painted off-white and lighting and associated wiring is located on the ceiling. There is evidence of the two entrances visible on the soffit. It stands on the bitumen footpath at the end of Commercial Road.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Newstead as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The front blast wall of the air raid shelter at Newstead was removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the wall is still visible. The original floor slab has been covered with topping. A row of five brick piers has been added and seating and electrical wiring has been introduced.
","criteria":"The Newstead air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located in Commercial Road is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Newstead air raid shelter, now used as a bus shelter, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19605,"place_ref":602484,"name":"Nundah Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Sandgate Road","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Nundah air raid shelter stands on a small triangular wedge of grassed reserve. It is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a flat roof supported by concrete piers. Two thirds of the shelter accommodates public toilets enclosed by concrete block walls and a mural is painted around the exterior walls of the building. The concrete floor slab is topped with a concrete pebble finish and the floor within the toilet area is tiled. The piers have wall tiles on the lower ends, and a timber seat is fixed onto the floor slab outside the ladies toilet. Wiring has been introduced for lighting, and skylights have been cut though the yellow roof slab inside the toilets.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Nundah as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ... (unused shelters) ... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Nundah were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The original floor slab has been covered with concrete pebbles or tiles. The shelter has been enclosed with concrete walls to accommodate public toilets and a mural has been painted on the exterior of the walls. Skylights have been cut into the roof slab.
","criteria":"The Nundah air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located on the corner of Sandgate Road and Wood Street is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Nundah air raid shelter, now used as a public toilet, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19606,"place_ref":602485,"name":"Stones Corner Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"286 Logan Road","suburb":"STONES CORNER","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Stones Corner air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. The floor, piers and ceiling of the shelter have been painted cream. The shelter stands under the canopy of a mature fig tree and two seats and a rubbish bin have been bolted to the floor slab. Part of the floor slab has been cut into on the Logan Road side. There is evidence of two entrances on the southern side of the soffit. The shelter stands in the forecourt of the Stones Corner Library.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Stones Corner as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Stones Corner were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter has been painted and seating and a rubbish bin have been added.
","criteria":"The Stones Corner air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located on Logan Road/Old Cleveland Road is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Stones Corner air raid shelter, now used as a seating refuge near a bus stop, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19607,"place_ref":602486,"name":"Windsor Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lutwyche Road","suburb":"LUTWYCHE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Windsor air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a flat roof supported by concrete piers. It is unpainted, and the floor slab and roof slab have been truncated at the northeast corner, where the road reserve narrows to a point. An unused electricity box and wiring remains visible on the south side of the second pier from the south, and there is evidence of two earth closet partitions inside the shelter. An electrical trench has been cut and re-cemented along the centre of the floor slab. A mature fig tree stands nearby.
","history":"The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Windsor as an air raid shelter in 1942.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids.
The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150m of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the Story Bridge, for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the Howard Smith Wharves.
The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding Thursday Island, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the Department of Public Works became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the Department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
Of the 235 surface shelters built in Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the entry for the porphyry retaining wall on William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
F.G. Costello, Brisbane City Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. In an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane on February 1942, Costello noted that if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance. He added that I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war.
Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
The first of Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40'9" by 13'3" by 8'6" high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40' by 12'6" by 8'6" high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in Annerley; two at Albert Park; two at Wickham Park; one in Buranda Playground in Woolloongabba; two in Raymond Park in Kangaroo Point; and one each at Kelvin Grove, Morningside, Nundah, Stones Corner, and Windsor. Four other shelters stand on East Street and Wickham Street in Fortitude Valley. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or "bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at Newmarket and Newstead.
The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built- referred to in the Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)"- and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
Most of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built, but none of the surviving public shelters in Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
The blast walls of the air raid shelter at Windsor were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. An electricity box and conduits have been introduced, and parts of the roof and floor slabs have been truncated.
","criteria":"The Windsor air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air raid shelter located at the corner of Lutwyche Road and Stoneleigh Street is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
|The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
|The Windsor air raid shelter, now used as a shelter on a road reserve, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
|The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19608,"place_ref":602487,"name":"Acacia Ridge Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"174 Mortimer Road","suburb":"ACACIA RIDGE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-06","description":"The Acacia Ridge air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete bunker built on a rock shelf cut into the north face of the former quarry. The currently exposed part of the bunker consists of two concrete walls, with a space between the two, running along part of the quarry face and returning into the quarry wall. The outer curtain wall is lower, is buttressed with concrete props, and has rectangular openings at each end. The inner bunker wall is shorter, taller, and has no visible openings. Only the top of the curtain wall is visible above the water in the quarry, and vegetation obscures the main bunker.
","history":"The air raid shelter is built into the north face of the old Archerfield Quarry, or Carr's Quarry, in the southwest corner of the Mortimer Road Reserve, which is bounded by Mortimer Road and Beatty Road, Acacia Ridge.
Archerfield remained largely undeveloped well into the twentieth century, being used for cattle grazing, fruit trees, cotton and maize cropping. A branch railway line reached the quarry, used to extract bluestone to be used for roads and ballast for the Kyogle railway line, in 1913, but the pit was flooded at the end of that year. Although it was closed after this event, the mine may have been used during the 1920s or 1930s. In 1922 there were about a dozen houses nearby, mostly along Beatty Road and the quarry branch line. In 1929 the Commonwealth Government resumed land at Archerfield for the construction of an airfield, and Archerfield Aerodrome later became an important base for the Australian, British, American and Dutch air forces during World War Two.
On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War Two following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. Darwin was first bombed on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
While the American Forces were based at Archerfield, the area to the west of the intersection of Mortimer Road and Beatty Road was occupied by Camp Buckley, and large igloo hangers were built to the north of the quarry. A taxiway linking the igloos to the main aerodrome to the west passed close by the northern side of the quarry, and the air raid shelter was constructed to provide protection for military personnel stationed nearby. World War Two aerial photographs show that the water level in the quarry used to be below the rock shelf on which the shelter was built. They also indicate that the building was freestanding at that time, in the middle of a cleared platform. Earth has since collapsed or been moved onto the shelf around the bunker, giving it the appearance of having being built into the quarry wall. The quarry side of the bunker was protected by an outer curtain wall, which contained entrances to two tunnels leading into the main bunker. There was about a metre between the curtain wall and the edge of the rock shelf. The Allied Works Council Minutes of 8 January 1943 record that a bomb proof building for United States Air Corps Operations had been built near the American camp, and this may refer to the shelter in the quarry.
At the end of the war military debris was dumped into the quarry. In 1963 the area was purchased by the Brisbane City Council for recreation purposes, and in 1992 amateur military historians partially drained the quarry, retrieving a number of military artefacts, including World War Two machine guns, ammunition, and aircraft parts. This operation also enabled an interior inspection of the shelter, which discovered that the two entrance tunnels are 20 feet long, with doorways turning into the main bunker. The remains of four-inch thick wooden sliding doors were found, along with three one-foot diameter holes in the ceiling of the bunker. The present water level in the quarry prevents internal inspection.
","criteria":"The Acacia Ridge air raid shelter is important as part of the Air Raid Precaution activities undertaken for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection for military personnel from the Archerfield aerodrome in the event of a Japanese air attack, the air raid shelter, located on a rock ledge in the north face of the Archerfield Quarry, is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on Queensland.
|Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. As a shelter that was built for military personnel, and which still includes its outer curtain wall, the Acacia Ridge shelter is uncommon.
|The shelter's solid construction, and its siting near a military installation, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two military air raid shelter.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19609,"place_ref":602488,"name":"Central Sugar Mill Ruins","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Old Mill Road","suburb":"YENGARIE","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-12-05","description":"The Central Mill ruins are located on the banks of the Mary River about 11 kilometres southwest of Maryborough. The major visible built features on the site are:
Fig trees
Features 1a and 1b Two large fig trees 6.3 metres apart, which were planted at the entrance to the mill site.
Holding tank
Feature 5 A brick lined holding tank with a diameter of 4.7 metres.
Ruins of house 1
Feature 7 ruins of manager's house, washed away in 1893.
Mill chimneystack
Feature 11 A chimneystack, square in plan and constructed of red bricks with arched openings to the east and west at ground level. It has stone foundations.
Stone flooring
Feature 12 A section of stone mill flooring.
Underground tank
Feature 13 An underground metal storage tank, recently filled with rubble.
Metal tank
Feature 14 A rectangular juice tank measuring 1.17 x 2.47 metres constructed of riveted iron plates. Directly behind this is a section of rubble stone wall
Slagheap
Feature 15 A lime slagheap 6.3 metres wide. Beside this are the remains of a stone base, possibly from a small chimneystack or furnace. A range of metal artefacts is located in the immediate area including rings and pipes.
Tramway Cutting
Feature 16/17/22 A tramway cutting between the first river terrace and the riverbank where the jetty once was. It is currently obscured by vegetation.
","history":"The ruins of the Central Sugar Mill, overlooking the Mary River at Yengarie, are the remains of an industrial complex that was constructed in 1866 as a purpose built sugar mill and refinery. It serviced many sugar plantations in the area before closing in the late 1890s.
Sugar cane had been first brought to Australia in 1788 but subsequent plantings at Sydney, Port Macquarie and Norfolk Island failed to be commercially viable. Captain Louis Hope grew a cane crop successfully in Queensland in 1862. By 1864 the first commercial sugar mill in Australia had been established by him at Ormiston and interest in growing sugar cane spread rapidly. By the end of the decade cane was being cultivated further north at Maryborough, Mackay and Bundaberg, where the warmer climate proved more suitable for cane growing.
In 1862 John Buhot, originally from Barbados, in the West Indies, experimentally produced sugar granules from cane grown in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, demonstrating its potential as a commercial crop in Queensland. A number of farmers were interested in growing cane, but little was known about its cultivation in local conditions, or about the production of sugar. In October 1864, Buhot came to Maryborough to purchase plants from John Eaton who was growing an experimental cane crop. While there, he gave a lecture at the School of Arts on the cultivation and manufacture of sugar to a large audience. While in Maryborough, Buhot also trialled sugar production from some of Eaton's crop with promising results. Eaton and others formed the Maryborough Sugar Company in August 1865 and purchased 400 acres at Tinana for a plantation and mill. Several blocks were under cane by 1865 and the first crop was crushed by primitive methods producing a coarse yellow sugar.
Local timber millers Frederick Gladwell and Robert Greathead decided to construct a central mill that would process cane from a number of surrounding farms. Buhot was engaged to design the mill complex and supervise the production of sugar. In July 1866 tender notices were placed in the Maryborough Chronicle for the manufacture of 50,000 bricks for mill buildings and for the erection of a 'New Sugar Manufactory'. John Murray undertook the brickwork, stone flooring was quarried locally and machinery was obtained from Sydney. By September, wharves were constructed on the riverbank below the refinery in order to accommodate sugar cane punts. Vessels carrying goods to and from the Central Mill also used the wharves. A large cutting was made in the riverbank for a rail line between the mill and the river. This was operated by a rope and windlass to transport goods and equipment up and down the embankment. Written agreements were obtained from local farmers regarding the supply of cane. It was a major commitment by both the partners and the farmers producing the 'new' crop.
Unfortunately, an accident in October 1866 damaged the machinery and a boiler, which delayed crushing until February 1867. The late crush produced low sugar content and a very dark sugar. The enterprise experienced difficulties due to the small scale of the refinery, primitive equipment and inexperience. Although by September 1867 a fine light brown sugar was being produced, the problems of the business were compounded by an explosion and by a labour shortage caused by the discovery of gold at Gympie. In October the mill was operating night and day, but by November, it had closed due to financial problems.
The Australia Joint Stock Bank foreclosed on the mortgage and plant from the operation was sold at auction in Sydney in December 1867. Sale notices itemised a steam engine and boiler, evaporating pans, two large hardwood cane punts, a trolley with iron wheels with ratchet, a Cornish boiler and a tramway from the wharf.
The Central Mill was sold to John Meiklejohn who expanded the capacity of the mill and installed more modern equipment including centrifugals instead of the old-fashioned drainage boxes. He also installed a still for manufacturing rum that was in operation from July 1868. His first season produced a fine dry yellow sugar and by 1869 20,733 gallons of rum also.
In early November 1868 the Maryborough Chronicle reported that the mill's end of season production was estimated to be 70 tons of sugar and 75 hogsheads of rum. The first shipment of locally produced rum left Maryborough on 11 November when 19 hogsheads from the Central Mill and 20 tons of sugar left on board the Saxonia for Sydney. In 1869/1870 William Gibson, who had operated a sugar mill near Brisbane, purchased the Central Mill, which he ran until the mid 1880s. However, by 1877 the Central was operating only as a juice mill, crushing growers' cane and delivering the juice to the nearby Yengarie Refinery. This had been established by Tooth & Cran in 1867 and was upgraded in 1871 to be a large modern refinery producing a high quality white sugar.
The 1890s brought problems due to depressed sugar prices and major changes in the sugar industry. Central mills servicing independent white farmers replaced the big plantations run by indentured labour, licenses to recruit Melanesian workers having ceased after December 1890. A number of plantations and mills closed and, by 1892, it was reported that much of the land along the Mary River was no longer under cultivation, or was growing crops other than sugar.
Cran purchased the Central Mill in the early 1890s but a major flood in 1893 damaged plantations and farms along the river and caused severe damage to the mill and to Yengarie Refinery. This closed in 1899 and the Central Mill was taken over by the Kersnovske family, becoming the Central Plantation. The family continued to grow sugar cane and later operated the property as a dairy farm. In more recent times, up to 5000 head of beef cattle have been grazed on the property.
The Central Mill structures gradually fell into disrepair and now comprise one intact chimney and the base of another, remains of structures, vats and tanks and a dam and tramway formation.
Several other related sites survive in the Yengarie area, including the remains of the Yengarie Refinery [600970].
","criteria":"The ruins of the Central Sugar Mill are evidence for an early industrial enterprise that made an important contribution to the development of the sugar industry in Queensland. The sugar industry has been of great importance to the development of Queensland for its contribution to the economy and to the pattern of European settlement. The Yengarie area was the site of some of the earliest sugar plantations and mills in Queensland. The Central Mill was one of the earliest places in Maryborough to produce sugar and crushed cane from many small farms, foreshadowing the later importance of central mills to the development of the sugar industry in Queensland.
|The Central Plantation Sugar Mill ruins are rare as an early sugar mill, refinery and distillery in Queensland.
|The ruins of the Central Plantation Sugar Mill have the potential to reveal further information about the operation of the sugar industry in Queensland in the 19th century.
|The remains include characteristic features of a sugar mill and refinery including chimneys, underground vats, partial formations of a cane tramway and a dam which illustrate the processes involved
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19610,"place_ref":602489,"name":"St Andrews Uniting Church","alternate_name":"St Andrew's Uniting Church | St Andrews Church | St Andrew's Church","street_address":"cnr Maryborough Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-08-03","description":"St Andrew's Uniting Church at Bundaberg is a substantial brick church located in the heart of the city, at the corner of Maryborough and Woongarra Streets, opposite Buss Park.
Designed in the Gothic style, the body of the church is cruciform in shape and is positioned north-south such that the sanctuary faces north. The building is constructed of variegated and multi-coloured bricks, with decorative cement dressings on the external walls. The roof is clad with fibrous-cement tiles. The building is laid on a cement foundation and its maximum overall dimensions are 115 feet by 41 feet.
A carillon tower of 'battlement design', attached to the eastern side of the building, dominates the building. The tower measures 71 feet in height and slightly tapers toward the top. Each face of the tower has decorative arched openings and is crowned with the cross of St Andrew on the middle battlement. The tower contains a carillon, or set of bells, one of which bears the emblem of the burning bush and a dedication to the memory of members of the Pierson family. A First World War Honour Board is located in the Tower entry and later memorials have been added.
At the southern end of the church is the official main entry. Above the entry is a large stained glass window that consists of four large panels crowned by seven crosses; the whole arrangement is set within an arch. There are six stained glass windows along either side of the nave, set between the buttresses. Exposed arched trusses in dark stained pine support the roof structure and dominate the internal ceiling.
The dais contains a number of wooden furnishings have been carved from silky oak timber. The furnishings include purpose-designed furniture including three rows of seats, two elaborately carved chairs for the Moderator at Communion Services and the pulpit, the communion table, and the pulpit.
There are two vestries on either side of the dais, one for the Minister on the eastern side, the other for the choir on the western side. Behind the dais is a tracery plaster panel that screens the pipes of the organ. Above this are three small trefoil shaped stained glass windows in a triangular shaped setting.
The eastern and southern boundaries of the property are marked by a low stone fence, with a small roofed gate (reminiscent of a lych gate) at the corner where the two boundaries meet. . The gate is made of the same stone as the fence and has a fibrous-cement tiled roof.
Gardens have been established along the sides and southern end of the church. These consist of garden beds along the base of the walls, low set shrubs and a number of small trees. These help to reinforce links with the neighboring Buss Park.
The grounds also contain a former Manse (1957) and a Christian Education Centre (1968). The Manse it is a low set brick structure to the west of the Church. It has been modified in recent years for offices and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The Christian Education Centre is in very close proximity to northern end of the church; it is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"St Andrews Uniting Church, Bundaberg was erected in 1932 as St Andrew's Presbyterian Church and replaced an earlier Presbyterian church erected on the site in 1882. The land had been purchased in 1881 and was held in trust by three senior members of the congregation on behalf of the Presbyterian Church in Bundaberg.
The 1932 church was built largely with funds generated by the Bundaberg Presbyterian community. In 1925, the Bundaberg Presbyterian Women's Guild opened a New Church Fund and over the next six years worked with other Church organizations including the Committee of Management and the Girls Auxiliary to raise £3,500. Additional fund raising generated another £2,000 over a six month period in 1931. The final funds were obtained through a loan of £3,500 through the Grand Trustees of the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society.
The ability of the Presbyterian congregation of Bundaberg to quickly raise such large sums highlights the relative prosperity of the district's sugar industry during the 1920s, which was sustained into the 1930s. However, construction of the church in the early 1930s was also a local work-generating scheme during a time of economic depression. The Church adopted a deliberate policy to ensure that funds for the construction of the church were spent on local labour and materials; by completion it was estimated that 75% of the construction budget had been spent locally.
Prominent Brisbane architect Lange L. Powell designed St Andrew's Presbyterian Church. Powell had designed a number of important structures in Queensland including the Brisbane Masonic Temple and was highly regarded by the time he designed St Andrew's. Powell described St Andrew's as being designed in 'broad free gothic style that was reminiscent of the Fourteenth Century', moderated to allow for the sub-tropical climate. All the windows in the bays could be opened and the eaves were carried clear of the main supports to ensure adequate circulation of air.
The design and orientation of the church was also developed to maximize the location and setting. On a corner block directly across the road from Buss Park and the Anglican Church, Powell orientated the Church along Maryborough Street rather than facing it. This maximized the view of the lateral façade and ensured that the Tower on the Eastern side dominated.
The design was well received by the community and local headlines on the day on which the Church was dedicated read 'Latest Addition to Bundaberg Architecture'. The local press also emphasized that Powell had spent some of his childhood in Bundaberg while his father had served as the town's Methodist Minister.
The Queensland Moderator of the Presbyterian Church set the foundation Stone during St Andrew's golden jubilee celebrations on 24 October 1931. Powell supervised the construction of the church, which was undertaken by building contractor CJ Vandenberg. The Church was opened and dedicated on 3 September 1932. The total cost was reported as more than £12, 000.
Lange Powell designed some of the furniture for the Church and a drive was launched to obtain sponsors for the various pieces and fittings. Many of the internal furnishings were made from silky oak. The three rows of seats on the dais were designed for comfort and a number of variations were considered before the final version was selected. There are also two elaborately carved chairs, one for the Moderator at Communion Services, the other at the pulpit. The communion table and the pulpit itself were also of elaborate design and included panels that bore carved emblems of the Presbyterian Church. The baptismal font had been previously gifted to the community and was transferred from the 1882 Church.
The carillon tower was dedicated as a memorial to those members of St Andrew's community who died during the First World War. Such memorials were an important feature of the interwar era as communities came to terms with the loss of significant numbers of young men. This loss was compounded by the absence of graves to visit and at which to commemorate.
The Tower contains a 'Peal of Bells', the largest of which (the tenor bell) bears the symbol of burning bush. The tower bells were manufactured in Maryborough, England, and were donated by Miss Amy Ethel Maud Peirson in memory of deceased members of her family. At the time of its construction St Andrew's reputedly was the first Presbyterian Church in Australia, and one of only seven Presbyterian Churches in the world, to have a carillon. It was also believed to be the first Presbyterian Church in Australia to have a bell that bore the Presbyterian symbol of the burning bush. The bells have since become a local feature and their ring can be heard throughout the central business district and surrounding suburbs.
In the early 1970s the congregation of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church at Bundaberg considered whether to join the Union of Churches that was to become the Uniting Church. After some debate, the majority of parishioners voted in favour of the proposal, with the official Church Union taking place in 1977. A contingent of the congregation voted to continue as Presbyterian. Lacking sufficient numbers to retain St Andrew's, they relocated to a smaller former Methodist Church.
","criteria":"St Andrew's Church demonstrates the pattern of Queensland history as the scale and quality of the community-funded building highlights the relative prosperity of the Bundaberg district during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The funds for the construction were largely raised through community donation, with a substantial percentage raised at a time when other parts of Queensland were economically depressed. The expenditure associated with the construction of the Church was also deliberately focused upon the Bundaberg district to ensure its construction brought local economic benefits and employment opportunities.
It further demonstrates the pattern of Queensland history, as the carillon tower of the Church is an example of a community-based memorial for those who died in military service during the First World War.
|St Andrew's Church is an uncommon heritage place as it is believed to be the first Presbyterian Church in Australia to have a carillon. At the time of its construction it was also one of only seven Presbyterian Churches in the world to have a peal of bells.
|The place is also an intact example of a substantial inter-war brick church in Gothic architectural style. Designed by the prominent Brisbane architect, Lange L Powell, it incorporates many Gothic design features including asymmetrical massing and a tower without a spire.
|The church is aesthetically significant, both externally and internally. The overall design is imposing yet beautiful, with stain glass windows, specifically designed furnishings, and the sound of the bells all contributing. The design and orientation also consciously utilized and complimented the proximity of Buss Park and the Anglican Church.
|The Church is also significant because of its strong associations with the Presbyterian/Uniting community and Bundaberg more generally. A landmark in Bundaberg, St Andrews has been a focal point of the Presbyterian/Uniting communitys' social and spiritual events. The bells have specifically become a local feature.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19612,"place_ref":602370,"name":"Murrumba Homestead Grounds (former) | Our Lady of the Way Primary School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"38 Armstrong Street","suburb":"PETRIE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-16","description":"The former Murrumba Homestead grounds are located within the precincts of Our Lady of the Way Primary School, situated near the top of a broad hill overlooking Anzac Avenue at Petrie.
Interpretive signage or plaques have been erected: at the site of the Murrumba homestead (established c1864) near the Armstrong Street car park; at the site of the former stables beside the approach to the car park, commemorating the association of Murrumba with Cobb & Co. as a changing station and accommodation house (established 1869); and at the hoop pine forest likely seeded from trees probably planted by Tom Petrie.
The only visible remnant of the built structures associated with Murrumba Homestead is a section of early handmade brick paving that once was the floor of the bakehouse. A very large weeping fig tree (Ficus benjamina) stands close to this site, near the entrance to the school.
The extent of very mature trees still on the site, that have to have been associated with Tom Petrie¿s establishment and occupation of the site, is considerable. These include: Camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora); Kauri pines (Agathis robusta); Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii); and Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), as per the attached site plan and schedule. Many of the trees, especially the Kauris along the southern boundary and the Bunyas near the former entrance drive off Anzac Avenue, have landmark value.
The Dalaipi Forest, a plantation of Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) thought to be later re-growth, is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance, and has been excluded from the heritage boundary.
None of the school and church structures erected on the site from the 1960s and within the heritage boundary, are considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Schedule to attached site plan - early planted trees:
1,2,3,5,6,7 Kauri pines (Agathis robusta)
8,9,10 Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii)
11,12 Kauri pines (Agathis robusta)
13,14,15 Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii)
16 Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii)
17 Camphor laurel (Cinnamomun camphora)
18 Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii)
19, 20 Kauri pines (Agathis robusta)
21 Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii)
22 Kauri pine (Agathis robusta)
23, 24, 25, 26, 27 Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii)
28 Kauri pine (Agathis robusta)
29, 30 Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii)
32 Mango (Mangifera indica)
33 Weeping fig (Ficus benjamina)
","history":"The Murrumba Homestead Grounds, established by Tom Petrie in the 1860s, are situated at Petrie (earlier North Pine) on a low rise known locally as Murrumba Hill, and within the grounds of Our Lady of the Way Primary School and Parish Church. Murrumba Homestead was demolished in the early 1950s, but many early plantings associated with the occupation of this site by Tom Petrie and his family, survive - principally Bunya (Araucaria bidwillii), Hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii) and Kauri (Agathis robusta) pines and a large Weeping fig (Ficus benjamina) at the crest of the rise. These constitute one of the most extensive early (mid-nineteenth century) private garden plantings in Queensland.
The Murrumba run was established in late 1859 by Thomas Petrie (1831-1910), third son of Andrew Petrie - the first non-convict, non-military European settler in Queensland, who arrived at the Moreton Bay penal colony with his family in 1837 when Tom was six years old. As a child, Tom was allowed to mix freely with children of the local Turrbal people and learned their customs and languages, making many friends among them. He travelled widely with the Turrbal, and in the mid-1840s attended a triennial Bunya festival in the Blackall Range. His ability to converse with Aboriginal people made Tom extremely well known in Brisbane, where he was sought out by explorers (including Ludwig Leichhardt), local business men, government bureaucrats and Queensland governors alike, for his knowledge of the area and its indigenous inhabitants and to assist in locating commercially exploitable timbers and in marking roads.
Tom did not follow his father and older brother John into the construction business, but chose a life on the land. In 1857 he married Elizabeth Campbell, sister of Brisbane timber and hardware merchant James Campbell. Looking for good grazing land in the vicinity of Brisbane, Petrie sought advice on a suitable area from his friend Dalaipi, a distinguished elder of the North Pine clan. Dalaipi recommended land at the mouth of the Pine River and promised to protect Petrie, his household and his cattle. The assistance offered to Petrie was a mark of the regard in which he was held by Aboriginal people and made it possible for him to live in a place generally considered unsafe for European settlers. Several violent incidents had occurred in the district, including spearings of Europeans and Aboriginal deaths at the hands of the Native Police.
The area recommended by Dalaipi had been taken up in the 1840s by Captain Griffin as the Redbank section of the Whiteside pastoral run. Mrs Jane Griffin was willing to sell Petrie the lease to ten square-mile sections, reputedly because the frontier violence made it impossible for her to work the land effectively. The area she ceded to Petrie extended from Sideling Creek in the west to Redcliffe Point in the east, and was bounded on the south by the North Pine and Pine rivers. Petrie named his run Murrumba, meaning 'a good place'. Most of the land was open woodland of gum, ironbark, oak and bloodwood - the product of centuries of regular firing by Aborigines - with vine scrub restricted to small pockets in low-lying areas. With the help of a small group of Dalaipi's people Petrie cleared two acres and built a hut and stockyard near Yebri Creek, below Murrumba Hill.
From 1860 Tom Petrie became heavily involved in the timber industry. Since the 1840s his family had exploited the Hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) that gave the Pine River its name, and at Murrumba Creek a rafting ground was established, where pines cut from the Pine River district were rafted to Brisbane via Sandgate. In 1860, with the assistance of Aboriginal friends, Tom Petrie accompanied Brisbane sawmill proprietor William Pettigrew to Tin Can Bay, the Mary River and Fraser Island in search of commercially exploitable timbers, paving the way for the exploitation of the giant Kauri pine (Agathis robusta). Petrie also explored the North Coast between the Blackall Ranges and the sea, looking for stands of valuable red cedar (Toona australis) and reporting on the commercial value of other indigenous timbers. Working with William Pettigrew and employing Aboriginal labour, he extracted considerable quantities of cedar and hardwoods from the Maroochy area to build up capital to develop Murrumba. The Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) of the Blackall Ranges he did not exploit, even after the new Queensland colonial government in 1860 rescinded Governor Gipps' 1842 legislation prohibiting the issuing of occupation or timber licenses on Bunya lands in the North Coast district as far as the Maroochy River and west to the Great Dividing Range. Like his father Andrew, who had been instrumental in the declaration of this reserve, Tom Petrie understood that the Bunya pines and the ranges in which they were found were sacred to Aboriginal people.
To facilitate his timber operations Tom Petrie marked out several early northern roads, including a track between the Pine River and Bald Hills and a trail from Murrumba to Maroochydore, which later became the Gympie Road. He also blazed a track from North Pine to Humpybong (Redcliffe).
Petrie held the ten square mile [6,400 acres] Murrumba leasehold for less than three years. Early in 1861 the government survey office identified an area of 28,000 acres bounded on the south by the North Pine and Pine rivers, to the east by Moreton Bay (Redcliffe Point), and to the north by Deception Bay, as potential farming land. This was proclaimed on 31 May 1862 as the Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve. The square-mile pastoral leases over this area - including Murrumba - were withdrawn and the land re-surveyed as small farm allotments available for purchase or rent-purchase. To secure his improvements on Murrumba, at the first sale of Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve land held in Brisbane in July 1862 Petrie purchased portion 23 (70 acres - the homestead block) and leased the adjacent portions 24 (40 acres), 25 (43 acres), 29 (62 acres) and 30 (49 acres), to which eventually the family obtained title. Each of these parcels fronted Yebri Creek to the north. The track to Humpybong (Redcliffe) and later to Gympie passed through portion 23.
By 1864 Petrie had constructed a more substantial timber homestead at the top of the broad hill above his original slab hut - likely reflecting his recently acquired security of tenure. An 1863 report on agricultural reserves noted that portion 23 contained a house and was cultivated and fenced.
At Murrumba, Tom and Elizabeth Petrie raised a family of six daughters and three sons. Tom's interest in and love of trees - whether for commercial, aesthetic, food or healing potential - was expressed in the numerous trees he planted at Murrumba, including Hoop, Kauri and Bunya pines. The Bunyas are thought to have come from the Maroochy area as seedlings, and the Hoops from Fraser Island as seeds. In a photograph dated c1914/1915, showing the second North Pine River Railway Bridge under construction, four Bunya pines lining the entrance drive to Murrumba (off Gympie Road) are landmarks on the horizon. At this period the trees retained their distinctive conical shape. In a photograph dated c1940, taken from the Lawnton Cemetery looking across the North Pine River Railway Bridge toward Petrie, the Bunya pines lining the entrance drive to Murrumba (off Anzac Avenue) remain noticeable on the horizon, but with the more rounded domes of very mature trees. Petrie is also thought to have planted macadamias at Murrumba in 1865. A grove of hoop pine behind the house reputedly was planted at the suggestion of Dalaipi (the present plantation appears to be re-growth from earlier plantings). The place became noted for its gardens with fruit trees (including an olive grove), flowers and vegetables.
Tom Petrie's occupation of Murrumba was the catalyst for further non-indigenous settlement of the North Pine district, which in the early years he facilitated by conciliating between new settlers and local Aboriginal people. In 1869 Cobb & Co. opened a coach route from Brisbane to Gympie via the route Tom had helped mark out, and a staging post was established temporarily at Murrumba Homestead until Tom erected a hostelry on portion 29 (by 1870). This was later licensed as the North Pine Hotel. In the 1880s Petrie took advantage of the construction of the North Coast Railway through his property to subdivide part of portions 29 and 30 as the North Pine Township Terminus Estate, with 134 building allotments first offered for sale in April 1886. This became the nucleus of the township of North Pine. Tom Petrie was active on a number of local government boards and his home was the focus of local social life.
By 1884 improvements on portion 23 comprised two dwelling houses, kitchen, stables, dairy, milking shed, and two huts; and by 1888 the family held 3,000 acres in the North Pine district, closely fenced and stocked with horses and cattle. Also by 1888 an 'ornamental hedge' had been planted along the western side of Gympie Road, either side of the entrance gate to Murrumba. In 1893-1894 a second residential building was constructed close to the first Murrumba house and linked to it by steps. Also in the 1890s a commercial dairy (Yebri) was established on the eastern side of Gympie Road (later Anzac Avenue), facilitated by construction of the North Coast Railway through portion 23 in the late 1880s.
In the early 1900s Constance Petrie recorded and published her father's memoirs as Tom Petrie's Reminiscences, a book which has remained a classic of Queensland history. Tom Petrie died at Murrumba on 26 August 1910 and in 1911 the North Pine Railway Station and Post Office were renamed Petrie in his memory. He was survived by his wife and two sons and five daughters of their nine children.
For the next 40 years Murrumba was occupied principally by Petrie women. Elizabeth Petrie remained there until her death in 1926, with her daughters Catherine Jessie Petrie (1863-1954) and Idella Morrison Petrie (1865-1943). Idella (Ida) remained at Murrumba all her life, and Catherine (Jessie) left c1951. During this period little appears to have changed at Murrumba, either in the house or the garden. The place remained a centre of social activity and the gardens retained their reputation for plant and birdlife.
"From Murrumba gate to the house there is a long avenue of waving bamboos, cool and inviting and in the garden there are stately pines, bunya and poinciana trees, rows of palms 'magnificently old and gloriousy tall'. When Sir William MacGregor, our onetime Governor, paid a visit to the old Petrie homestead he remarked what a joy it was to see so many fine trees ... [Bessie Palmer "Tom Petrie's Home" in Brisbane Courier 25 January 1930:27]
In the early 1940s, the ornamental hedge along the street frontage was still a local landmark - "ten-foot hedges of duranta bushes that are well-known to all who use the Redcliffe Road"; these shrubs (Duranta repens) had delicate blue flowers followed by bright golden berries - and the grounds were still distinguished by the "great bamboos on either side of the drive", by "towering kauri and hoop pines" and by a giant weeping fig (Ficus benjamina) near the back of the house [Estelle Thomson "The Old Petrie Home, Murrumba" c1940].
In 1937, 35 acres was subdivided from the homestead block and another parcel was sold in 1947. By 1950 Murrumba was the property of Miss Catherine Jessie Petrie and her brother Argyle (Guy) Petrie. In mid-1951 they sold the property to Archbishop Duhig, on the understanding that the homestead be retained. Duhig in turn sold the property to the Presentation Sisters, whom he hoped would establish a training facility on the site. The buildings remained unoccupied for over 12 months until sold by the Sisters for removal in 1952. Funds to construct a new building were not forthcoming, and the site remained vacant until Our Lady of the Way Church and Primary School were established in the grounds in 1964. Many of the trees planted by the Petrie family survive, interspersed amongst the present school structures.
","criteria":"The grounds of the former Murrumba Homestead, established in the 1860s, are important for their association with an unusual aspect of early pastoral settlement in Queensland. The taking up of Murrumba for grazing purposes in 1859, during a period of frontier conflict between the indigenous owners of the Pine Rivers district and pastoralists, was illustrative of a rare cordial relationship that existed between Tom Petrie, explorer and pastoralist, and the people of the North Pine clan, who suggested this place for the home of a man they had considered a friend since his childhood. This level of co-operation between European and indigenous peoples is unusual in the early history of Queensland, and the early surviving trees on the site are important markers of the results of this co-operation.
|The Murrumba Homestead Grounds are important for their special association with early Queensland settler Tom Petrie, who was a member of the first free family to settle in Queensland; a friend to the Turrbal people and an important historical source of information about them; and a pioneer of the north coast district, marking roads that linked Pine Rivers to Brisbane, Gympie, Redcliffe and the North Coast. Tom Petrie, who made his living largely through timber extraction, maintained a strong interest in indigenous trees throughout his lifetime, and planted numerous Hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii), Bunya (Araucaria bidwillii) and Kauri (Agathis robusta) pines at Murrumba. Throughout the period of occupancy by the Petrie family the gardens at Murrumba Homestead were well-known throughout Southeast Queensland for their plants and bird-life, attracting many visitors (including Sir William Macgregor, Governor of Queensland from December 1909 to July 1914).
|The former Murrumba Homestead Grounds retain some of the earliest private garden plantings in Queensland. The extent of the early surviving trees is substantial, and uncommon among Queensland homestead grounds of the nineteenth century. The early plantings include a weeping fig (Ficus benjamina), Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), Bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii) and Kauri pines (Agathis robusta).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19615,"place_ref":602492,"name":"BCC Tramways Substation No. 6 and Windsor Town Quarry Park (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"356 Lutwyche Road","suburb":"WINDSOR","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-31","description":"The former Brisbane City Council Tramway Substation No. 6 and Windsor Town Quarry Park occupy an irregular block that is part of an island of land, bounded by Goodacre and Flaherty Streets and Lutwyche Road, that also contains the former Windsor Town Council Chambers [600349], the Hawkins Street road reserve and a former Energex substation on separate lots.
The quarry face to the western side dominates the park. This sheer rock wall is topped by a brilliant splash of bougainvillea, which adds to its landmark qualities. It rises abruptly from a level grassed area. A path runs throughs the park on a north south axis. Recently constructed sandstone clad gateposts mark the entrance from Lutwyche Road. Bedded out plantings edge the park along Lutwyche Road and there are also plantings of ornamental trees scattered about the park.
There is a small, asphalted car park to the south and the former tramways substation is at the northern end of the park close to Lutwyche Road. It is a two-storey building of austere appearance, symmetrical in form, and has load-bearing walls of red glazed bricks set on a concrete plinth. The roof is hipped and is clad with modern coated metal sheeting. The front of the building is divided into bays by brick pilasters and has a decorative cornice of moulded render with small square openings set below wide eaves. The front entrance is placed centrally below a square window set with multiple panes of glass. There are fixed rectangular windows of similar style in the flanking bays and on the sides of the substation. These windows are steel framed and have exterior mesh security grilles. The doors to the front and side of the building have metal roller shutters. There is a later addition in the form of a single story skillion roofed section to the rear to which a brick toilet has been added.
The interior of the substation is painted and the ceilings are clad in fibrous cement sheeting with timber battens. The floors are concrete and there is a suspended mezzanine floor accessed by a steel ladder. The internal space is divided by a brick wall, which has a doorway at the northern end and an opening adjacent to the site of the rectifier at the southern end. Marks on the rear section show where the AC and DC cubicles have been removed.
The steel gantry survives and appears to be functional. Any remaining evidence for machinery mountings on the floor are obscured by timber flooring in the transformer room and material stored in the rectifier room. Marks and fixings on walls indicated where equipment was once attached.
","history":"The former Brisbane City Council Tramways Substation no 6 was operational between 1927 and 1948 and is situated adjacent to an open parkland area created from a former quarry at Windsor.
The Quarry
A seam of Brisbane tuff, known locally as 'porphyry', forms part of the Enoggera fault line and was formed by being deposited on the shore and in the shallow waters of small Triassic lakes. This stone was found to be suitable for building in the early stages of European settlement in Queensland. The original hill of the Windsor quarry sloped across Lutwyche Road and down to Albion Road. Nehemiah Bartley acquired the land in the first land sales in 1859, though he sold it in the mid 1860s. Stone was probably removed first in the 1860s as the hill was lowered to allow development of a road, though in the 1870s it still formed a hump in the road and vehicles tended to drive around it.
The Ithaca Divisional Board was formed in 1879 and quarried stone from the hill. In 1887 Windsor became a Shire and the quarry was transferred to it in 1888. The local tuff provided an excellent source of building material for the new Shire and districts beyond and was worked by both private enterprise and the town council. In 1897, the Windsor Town Council Chambers was constructed from the stone, as were a number of local buildings, roadside kerbing and drains. The stonemason's office stood near the corner of Haddock Street at the base of the hill.
In 1904 Windsor became a municipality comprising Albion, Wooloowin, Wilston, Lutwyche, Newmarket, Swan Hill and part of Eagle Junction and Kedron. A stone crushing plant was constructed at the quarry in 1914 and the road metal produced greatly facilitated road development in the area. By the 1920s the quarry is thought to have been largely worked out and quarrying may not have continued beyond the establishment of the substation in 1927.
The Brisbane City Council works department used the quarry floor as a depot for some years before it was redeveloped as a park. It was gazetted for this purpose on 1 August 1976 and was redeveloped as a park in 1988. The quarry face that remains today displays an unconformity between the metamorphic Neranleigh-Fernvale beds of rock and the Brisbane Tuff seam and is a striking feature of the park.
The Substation
The Metropolitan Tramway and Investment Co. Ltd operated horse-drawn trams in Brisbane from August 1885. The first public supply of electricity in Brisbane was from a generator in Edison Lane, which supplied the General Post Office in 1888. Early development in the industry was in the hands of a number of private companies and the situation was complex because the metropolitan area comprised fourteen separate local authorities. After various liquidations and restructurings, the City Electric Light Company Limited (CEL) was established in 1904. Parallel development took place in electric traction. The Brisbane Tramways Company, a private enterprise formed in 1895, introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane in 1897 after purchasing the early horse car system, converting it to electric operation and expanding and extending the routes. A power station to supply current to the electric trams was constructed in Countess Street in 1897.
As the tramway system extended out into the suburbs, this power station was unable to provide all the energy needed. Two engine sets from Countess Street were transferred to a building in Logan Road to provide a feeding point for the system on the south side of the river. Supply was also fed from the tramway 550-volt DC mains to a number of establishments along the tramway routes, such as butcher shops, sawmills and factories. By 1918, the whole of the tramways public power supply equipment in South Brisbane was sold to the City Electric Light Company, which developed a supply for South Brisbane from its power station in William Street. At the conclusion of the First World War there was general support for the notion that the tramway system should be owned and operated by a public authority. In 1922, an Act of Parliament inaugurated the Brisbane Tramway Trust.
In 1925 the many small local authorities were amalgamated into the Greater Brisbane City Council, creating a single public authority that could plan for the provision of electrical services throughout the entire city. Expansion of electricity supply and the development of better public transport networks were important issues for the Council and were closely linked to suburban development. At this time energy generation and supply was chaotic. Three small obsolete power stations generated energy for trams and electricity for Ithaca and Toowong and the supply for all other suburbs was purchased in bulk from CEL under 10 year agreements.
The 1920s and 1930s was a period of tramways expansion following the Greater Brisbane Council's acquisition of the tramways system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust in 1925. In 1926 the Council, anxious to control the city's electricity supply, decided to build its own powerhouse at New Farm, under the supervision of the BCC Tramways Department. Opened on 28 June 1928, New Farm Power Station distributed 1100 KW AC power to a network of 11 suburban tramways substations erected in the 1920s and 1930s. The substations were located at strategic points throughout the system - substations No. 2 (Russell Street) and No. 6 (Windsor) came into service in 1927, No. 4 (Petrie Terrace) and No. 5 (Newstead) in 1928; Substation No. 9 (Norman Park) came on line in 1935.
Considerable attention was given to the design of the substations serving the tramway system. The architecture was marked by the stylistic preferences of individual architects, particularly the Brisbane City Architects AH Foster and FG Costello and the BCC Tramways architect RR Ogg.
Although they were robust utility buildings, generally small in scale, elegant proportions and such details as finely crafted brickwork distinguished them.
Prior to 1940, their design was the responsibility of BCC Tramways Department architect and construction engineer, Roy Rusden Ogg. In conjunction with the tramway's chief engineers Nelson and Arundell, he designed at least 10 Brisbane substations between 1926 and 1936 and the first two stages of the New Farm powerhouse. Ogg also designed the Tramways Departments Head Office building on Coronation Drive in 1929.
The former Brisbane City Council Tramways Substation at Windsor is thought to be the smallest of the substations designed by Ogg. It proved too small to accommodate the requirements of the expanding network and was replaced in 1948 by a larger substation to the design of City Architect F G Costello, located to the south of the reserve.
After it's decommissioning the building was used as a chemical store for the Department of Health and Community Services Entomological and Rodent Control Section and now accommodates an assortment of equipment and chemicals. Material related to its use as a substation was donated to Windsor and District Historical Society. The roof was re-sheeted in 1985 and new rainwater goods installed. Landscaping has been carried out around the building.
","criteria":"The former tramway substation is important in demonstrating a vital aspect of Queensland's industrial development and is closely linked to Brisbane's suburban expansion in the 1920s and 30s and with the development of the electricity supply system. The exposed face of the former quarry, now the main feature of the park between the substation and Windsor Town Council Chambers [600349], is evidence for the former industrial use of the site as a source of stone for buildings and road construction.
|The former substation is now uncommon evidence for an important mode of transport, which was discontinued in Brisbane in 1969 and for which much of the infrastructure has since been removed. The quarry wall has an inclined fault where Brisbane tuff meets phyllite, which is significant as a geological rarity.
|In design, scale and materials, the former substation is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the Brisbane tramways substations. Due to the quality of its design and materials it successfully combines function with a pleasing appearance.
As a well-conceived utility structure, the substation is important as a fine example of the municipal work of tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg.
|As the substation and the adjoining park with its landmark quarry cliff are prominently sited on a major road, they make an important contribution to the visual character of the area. The quarry face, in particular, is a landmark that is emphasised by being floodlit at night.
|As a well-conceived utility structure, the substation is important as a fine example of the municipal work of tramways architect Roy Rusden Ogg.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19616,"place_ref":602493,"name":"Victoria Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"454 Gregory Terrace","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-03","description":"Victoria Park occupies a large parkland site, divided through the centre by the North Coast Railway line (Bowen Hills – Roma Street section) and Inner City Bypass (ICB), and is located approximately 1.6km northeast of Brisbane central business district (CBD). Its undulating terrain generally falls steeply from the ridge of Gregory Terrace at the southeast, down toward the playing fields adjacent to Gilchrist Avenue at the northwest. The park is largely an open space, with turf, sporting fields, established trees, footpaths, roads, structures and buildings; and it forms an open, natural setting within its metropolitan context. The heritage boundary excludes a lot in the Southeast Park Section containing tennis courts.
\nFeatures of Victoria Park of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSoutheast Park Section:
\nThe Southeast Park Section is located south of the North Coast Railway Line, and bounded on other sides by Gregory Terrace (south), Bowen Bridge Road (east), and Brisbane Girls Grammar School (west). It contains expanses of lawn and mature plantings, the Entrance Piers and Riding Row (to its far eastern end and circumference), BCC Electricity Substation No. 4 (former) (to its far eastern end), and the Gundoo Memorial Grove (to its eastern end).
\nRiding Row Entrance Piers and Former Alignment (1936)
\nA pair of tall, stone piers mark an entrance into the Southeast Park Section. These Entrance Piers front the corner of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road, and frame the beginning of Riding Row (former) – a horse-riding track that formerly ran the circumference of the Southeast Park Section.
\nSome sections of the Riding Row’s early configuration of tree layouts is discernible.
\nFeatures of the Riding Row Entrance Piers and Former Alignment of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Riding Row Entrance Piers and Former Alignment not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBCC Electricity Substation No. 4 (1928)
\nLocated in the eastern corner of the Southeast Park Section, BCC Electricity Substation No. 4 comprises a single-storey, masonry pavilion fronting the tapered corner of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road, with a low stone wall to its east.
\nAngled parallel to the corner, with its long sides facing southeast and northwest, the building is rectangular in plan and is symmetrical. It features a hip roof with gables narrowly projecting at each end of the long elevations and at the centre of the short elevations. A narrow, central entrance porch to the front (southeast) elevation features a stepped and rendered parapet with ‘SUBSTATION.No.4’ in raised lettering. The porch frames dual entrance doors, which are topped with a lunette that displays a decorative crest bearing the lettering ‘BCC’. A number of small metal plaques are embedded in the riser of the front concrete stair, and are stamped with ‘BCC’.
\nStanding in front (southeast) of the substation is a low stone wall (c1928-44) that runs southwest-northeast along the corner of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road, and wraps around to the north along Bowen Bridge Road. Retaining earth along its park side, the wall terminates in a stone-capped pier at the northeast end. A small stair inset within the wall accesses a path that aligns with and connects to the main entrance the substation.
\nFeatures of BCC Electricity Substation No. 4 of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of BCC Electricity Substation No. 4 not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGundoo Memorial Grove (1959)
\nThe Gundoo Memorial Grove stands at the eastern end of the Southeast Park Section, between Centenary Pool [QHR601240] and BCC Electricity Substation No. 4. Originally planted in a radiating arch pattern, the grove features mature trees that resemble native bushland (some of radial planting configuration remains evident).
\nFeatures of the Gundoo Memorial Grove of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nUS Army Flag Pole (1943)
\nThe US Army Flag Pole is located at the southern end of a traffic island in the Gregory Terrace road reserve (formerly a part of the Southeast Park Section, and aligned with the entrance to the Gregory Terrace Officers’ Club Quarters). The metal pole stands on an octagonal-shaped concrete base, which features a plaque by the Rotary Club of Windsor, detailing information on the flag pole’s history and restoration in 1988.
\nFeatures of the US Army Flag Pole of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the US Army Flag Pole not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nNorthwest Park Section
\nThe Northwest Park Section is located north of the Inner City Bypass (ICB), and is bounded on other sides by Gilchrist Avenue (north and west; the avenue now terminates as a cul-de-sac); ICB off-ramp and Inner Northern Busway (east); and Victoria Park Golf Course (west). It contains large expanses of turfed sporting fields, with a stone wall adjacent Gilchrist Avenue, and a lake in the southwest corner of the site.
\nGilchrist Avenue (1930-32, and 1936)
\nGilchrist Avenue, formerly a thoroughfare running from Herston Road at the northeast end of the park to meet Victoria Park Road at the southwest end, is approximately half of its original alignment, with the road curving from Herston Road and terminating with a cul-de-sac near the Lake (York’s Hollow). Two rows of trees of varying ages and planted as part of an avenue, lines both sides of the road.
\nAlong most of the northwest side of the avenue is a stone retaining wall that curves with the alignment of the road. At the northern end of the curve is a doglegged stone stair (1936) that leads to the top of the retaining wall.
\nFeatures of Gilchrist Avenue Plantings of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of Gilchrist Avenue not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSporting Fields (1925; re-laid 1935)
\nThe Sporting Fields occupy a large, turfed area south of Gilchrist Avenue, and have been used interchangeably over time for a variety of sports including hockey, cricket, football (soccer), rugby and athletics. The early extent of the Sporting Fields has been reduced to the south by the ICB and in the northeast corner by recent temporary carparks and offices.
\nFeatures of the Sporting Fields of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Sporting Fields not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n‘Play the Game’ Wall (c1936)
\nA coursed ashlar stone wall constructed of Brisbane Tuff is located south of and parallel to Gilchrist Avenue. Tall and retaining earth along its northwest side, the wall features the words ‘PLAY THE GAME’ inset in stone in a random rubble pattern. The wall is reputably associated with use of the place for hockey.
\nFeatures of the ‘Play the Game’ Wall of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of ‘Play the Game’ Wall not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nDressing Shed & Kiosk (c1958-62)
\nThe Dressing Shed & Kiosk is located to the west of the Stone Wall, positioned at an intermediate level between the Sporting Fields and Gilchrist Avenue. The building is rectangular, with face brick walls and a skillion roof. It accommodates dressing rooms, accessed from the centre of its southeast elevation, and a kiosk with a servery at its northeast end. The roofline continues over the servery to the northeast and features curved metal posts, and exposed roof framing.
\nProviding access to the Dressing Shed & Kiosk level from Gilchrist Avenue are two concrete stairs to the northeast and southwest of the building, set into concrete retaining wall.
\nFeatures of the Dressing Shed & Kiosk of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of Stone Wall and Dressing Shed & Kiosk not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nOrnamental Lake (York’s Hollow) (1933-36, with later alterations)
\nThe Ornamental Lake (officially named York’s Hollow in 1988) is located in the southwest corner of the Northwest Park Section, with its water supplied from run-off from the ICB and nearby catchments of Kelvin Grove. The lake is surrounded by vegetation including mature trees, and its form and banks have been altered several times.
\nFeatures of the Ornamental Lake (York’s Hollow) of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Ornamental Lake (York’s Hollow) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nArchaeological Potential
\nHistorical evidence and previous archaeological investigations indicate that archaeological deposits remaining from the place’s use as a municipal dump site during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, are likely to survive, as well as brick and stone (Brisbane Tuff) drains. Likely to be found in areas that historically featured natural depressions / hollows / watercourses and within refuse trenches, there is the potential to identify these types of features and deposits through further archaeological surveys and physical investigations.
\nThere is also some potential that archaeological features and deposits may remain from 19th century gathering, camping, rifle range and brickmaking activities in the historically low-lying ‘York’s Hollow’ area, and the occupation of the place during the Great Depression and World War II.
\nWhile much of the place has the potential for archaeological finds, areas of historical use where there is potential for archaeological evidence that could yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland’s history (state-level significance) include:
\nPlantings and Lawns
\nThe Park has open, turfed recreational spaces, and comprises various areas that feature mature shade and ornamental trees.
\nFeatures of the Plantings and Lawns of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance not previously mentioned include:
\nVictoria Park covers an area of undulating land bordered by Bowen Bridge Road, Gregory Terrace, the Royal Brisbane Hospital and Breakfast Creek in the suburbs of Spring Hill and Herston. Initially part of Barrambbin and Walan, the park was gazetted as a reserve for recreation in 1875. Over the course of its history, Victoria Park’s functions have included social, cultural and sustenance grounds for Aboriginal people across the region; brickmaking and timber-felling industries; municipal rubbish dump; campsites for displaced people; military camps; and sports and recreation grounds. Despite large incursions into its land for educational and other purposes, and the construction of railway lines and roads through its centre, Victoria Park remains one of the largest parks in inner Brisbane.
\nAboriginal custodianship
\nMeanjin, the area now encompassing the Brisbane CBD, is traditionally part of Turrbal and Jagera/Yuggera country.[1] Walan or Woolan (meaning ‘bream’) and Barrambbin (meaning ‘windy place’) comprised the areas now known as Herston and Bowen Hills. Walan and Barrambbin were meeting and gathering places for groups travelling to and from the Blackall Ranges, as well as corroboree sites and hunting and fishing lands. The land was undulating, with hills punctuated by a chain of waterholes and gullies. It was an extensive camp, contact and cultural site.[2]
\nEuropean use (1820s-1840s)
\nEuropean occupation began in the 1820s, with the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal settlement at Meanjin in 1825. The Europeans used Walan and Barrambbin for industrial activities needed to support the settlement such as brick-making and timber getting. They named the area ‘York’s Hollow’, after the leader of the local clan, whom the Europeans referred to as ‘the Duke of York’, thought to be an Anglicised version of the name Daki Yakka. A small number of interactions took place between Europeans and Aboriginal people prior to, and following, the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, likely the Duke of York’s clan. The Duke of York, estimated to be in his 40s in 1836, visited the European settlement at the invitation of two Quakers, and a reciprocal visit was made by the commandant of the settlement, Foster Fyans. The clan largely avoided the penal settlement, with only a limited number of interactions reported by European sources.[3]
\nThe Moreton Bay Penal settlement was opened for free settlement in 1842. York’s Hollow, just beyond the town boundary, proved convenient for accommodating unexpected arrivals in the colony. A Chinese camp was established in 1848 following a failed attempt to employ Chinese shepherds on pastoral stations. In 1849, 253 immigrants from the Fortitude, Chaseley and Lima formed a temporary village on the York’s Hollow slopes, after arrangements for land grants fell through. Other recent immigrants to Queensland in the mid-1800s stayed in these temporary fringe camps. As Herston and the surrounding area became increasingly urbanised, these camps were deemed unhealthy. Its residents were 'moved along', and new immigration facilities were constructed elsewhere.[4]
\nThe brickmaking industry continued within the gully, and York’s Hollow bricks were reportedly used in the construction of Parliament House in 1866. The waterway along the hollow provided a water supply for the fledgling residential settlement, supplementing the tank stream within the town.[5]
\nThe Duke of York clan retained its presence in York’s Hollow despite these incursions. Gatherings continued at York’s Hollow, with clashes between different tribes occurring in June 1847 and June 1850; up to 800 people were present. Interactions between the clan and the Europeans were mixed: some members of the clan were employed in Brisbane town by Europeans, while Europeans allegedly visited the camp to collect native vegetation for their gardens, as well as for more nefarious purposes. There were also reports of European assaults on the camp. In December 1846, following the deaths of three European settlers on the Pine River, European soldiers raided the camp at 11pm, firing on the estimated 300 – 400 people sleeping there. Kitty, daughter of the Duke of York, died in the affray. In November 1849, Turrbal people at the Barrambbin camp were shot by military officers after a false report was circulated that they had killed a bullock. Three men were wounded; two police were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for the offence. Local newspapers stopped reporting on the camp after 1860, but the clan likely remained within Barrambbin and Walan beyond that date.[6]
\nColonial Queensland use (1860s-1890s)
\nWhen Queensland became a separate colony in 1859, the Queensland Government made a concerted effort to provide recreational lands for the people of Brisbane. It was believed that the fledgling society would benefit from having open spaces included in the infrastructure. At a time when industry was choking many of the large cities in Britain and Europe, the Queensland Government did not want the same fate to befall Brisbane. Terms such as 'lungs of the city' and 'breathing space' were used to describe parks established in Brisbane.[7]
\nYork’s Hollow had been proposed for a recreation reserve under the New South Wales Government, and the new Queensland Government indicated its intention to create the reserve. In 1864 the Government announced that it was ‘pleased to grant a reserve of about three hundred acres, in York’s Hollow, for the purpose of a public park and recreation ground for the citizens of Brisbane.’[8] The Brisbane Municipal Council was to be granted the deed, but the Queensland Government retained control over the site. The name ‘Victoria Park’ emerged in the mid-1860s, either in tribute to the then-monarch, or the London park of the same name. In 1866-7 the park was fenced, and the Public Lands Office leased grazing rights over the land for additional revenue. Lessees attempted to evict the brick-makers and squatters who had erected tents and temporary houses within the park. [9]
\nVictoria Park was formally gazetted as a reserve for recreation in 1875. A Board of Trustees was created to manage the 321 acres and 2 roods (approx. 130ha) of parkland; they 'expeditiously drew up a code of by-laws which provided, not only for the protection and good government of the park, but also laid down the rules for raising revenue for the improvement of the park'. The trustees, however, had limited success in fundraising for and improving the site. [10]
\nThe area referred to as ‘York’s Hollow’ had included an extensive area now covered by the Brisbane Showgrounds, Bowen Hills and parts of Herston, to what is now the Normanby Fiveways. From the 1860s, this area was reduced as land was required for other uses, including the Acclimatisation Society Gardens and the Grammar School Reserve. Despite its gazettal, the land set aside for Victoria Park was also reduced, as demands for services and facilities were met by encroachments on the undeveloped park. Land was resumed from the park for a night soil/manure depot (1866), a rifle range (1877, rescinded 1883[11]), sporting facilities for nearby schools, the Brisbane-Sandgate railway (1882), government domain (1883),[12] and children’s hospital (1883). Most of the resumptions were located on the park’s boundaries, but the railway crossed through the centre of the park, dividing it in two. By 1883, Victoria Park had been reduced to 217 acres (88ha), though it remained the largest open reserve within the immediate city area.[13]
\nAt the same time, the importance of the park for recreational use was emphasised. The residential areas surrounding the park (particularly Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley) experienced dramatic residential growth in the second half of the 19th century, becoming amongst the most densely populated areas in Brisbane by 1890. These inner urban areas were also home to a cross section of Brisbane society, from the poorest living in small cottages in the lower slopes of the hill, to the prestigious and wealthy homes overlooking Victoria Park on Gregory Terrace. The park provided an open space for residents, particularly those who lived in crowded and poor conditions at the bottom of the hill.[14]
\nRubbish dumping
\nIn 1872-3, amendments to the laws and regulations relating to public health placed additional restrictions on the disposal of refuse and led to the establishment of municipal dumping grounds.[15] The Local Board of Health, with consent from the Surveyor-General, declared that rubbish could be deposited in Victoria Park – initially ‘in the clay-holes on the side of the ridges’ and later buried in trenches.[16] By 1886, a reported 1,053 loads of rubbish had been trenched and the following year it was noted by council’s health officer Dr Joseph Bancroft that the ‘available ground on the Gregory Terrace side of the railway of sufficient depth of earth is nearly worked out’.[17] In 1899 the park trustees granted the Brisbane Municipal Council permission to deposit and bury rubbish in trenches in one of the Victoria Park gullies, near the watercourse on the western side of the railway.[18] This practice continued until 1901, while unofficial dumping continued into the 1930s.[19]
\nLand use (1890s-1930)
\nIn 1889, a large scheme of improvements was drafted for Victoria Park by William Soutter, a member of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society. Some proposals were rejected, such as selling residential subdivisions within the park, but Soutter implemented other improvements between 1890 and 1892. Much of the park was cleared and the rubbish burned. A 60ft (18m) drive with 12ft (3.6m) walkway was cut and kerbed through the park, atop the park’s excavated clay pits. The railway corridor was fenced, and trees grown in the Acclimatisation Society garden (including camphor laurels and umbrella trees) were planted along both sides of the railway. Drainage was improved, and the waterway running through the park was diverted. Extensive planting schemes were to follow, but were not carried out due to lack of funds.[20] By 1897, despite Soutter’s work, Victoria Park was considered ‘a magnificent tract of country many acres in extent, but it is literally in a state of nature. Little has been done to it’.[21]
\nThe park remained popular for recreational and non-recreational uses. In the absence of formally designed facilities, informal recreation included swimming in the ponds formed in the former brickpits, and football and cricket games on the flat ground at the centre of the park. Military drills and musters were held regularly, with the Queensland Defence Force marching to the park from the Adelaide Street drill shed. Squatters, ‘larrikins’, gamblers, drinkers and others committing undesirable activities in the park were reported. Between August and October 1890, mass meetings drew thousands to the Gregory Terrace section of the park opposite the Exhibition Building each Sunday. The ‘Park Hospital’, a tent hospital for quarantine cases, was operated in the Herston Road section from late 1890. The park also drew the attention of a University Commission as a possible site for a tertiary educational facility.[22]
\nIn 1903, Victoria Park was brought within the boundary of the City of Brisbane, and in 1908, the trusteeship of 210 acres (85ha) of the park was transferred to the Brisbane City Council (BCC). The BCC had been seeking control of the parks within its area, in place of the trustees who administered the parks. Between 1887 and 1913 it gained full control of Wickham, Observatory, Hardgrave, Babbage, Albert, Alexandra and Victoria Parks. The International Town Planning movement that existed at the time also helped to put city planning and beautification programmes on the city council's agenda. Between 1913 and 1925, Bowen, New Farm, Raymond, Newstead, Perry, Centenary and Teneriffe Parks were created.[23]
\nVictoria Park was the largest of the BCC’s new parks, but was ‘a rather difficult one to handle’,[24] due to its uneven topography, waterways and poor soil. Interest in the park for its non-recreational potential had continued, and in 1914, the BCC agreed to reserve around 100 acres of the park for the future use of the university, following extensive lobbying by the University Permanent Site League. While the park was to remain publicly accessible, it would not be developed for park purposes. Park funding was funnelled towards the newly acquired parks, while small improvements were made at Victoria Park. This included tree planting and the construction of tennis courts (1913, not extant), and the creation of rockeries along Gregory Terrace, bordering the park (not extant). In 1913, the park also became part of a worldwide experiment, as a small temporary tent was erected in the park near the hospital, to carry out measurements for the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Terrestrial Magnetism study. However, the park predominantly continued to be used for non-recreational purposes, including cattle agistment (between Gregory Terrace and the railway) and wool and grain storage (in a former quarry near Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road).[25]
\nIn 1922, 108 acres (44ha) of Victoria Park was formally reserved for university purposes under the University Site Act. The site was reserved conditionally; if the site were not to be used for the university, it would revert to the park. Four years later, funding was provided from a private donor for a larger site at St Lucia, and the reserve was set to be returned to the trustees.[26] This took some time, however, and as the land remained unused, complaints about its condition had continued. ‘[N]ot a flower has been planted in it,’ wrote a correspondent to the Brisbane Courier in 1921, ‘no improvements, except the planting of some trees, and an incompleted, unused, and miserable carriage way or road.’[27] The park was described in 1924 by the Daily Mail as both ‘a magnificent reserve’[28] and ‘a couple of hundred acres of barren land… intersected by more or less smellful drainage channels.’[29]
\nOne of these drainage channels ran through the flat section of the park used for sporting fixtures, making the land swampy and frequently mosquito-infested. Between 1923 and 1925, a 15-20 acre (6-8ha) area at the western end of the park (now between Gilchrist Avenue and the railway reserve) was sewered, levelled and graded for use as sports grounds; a shrub-rockery entrance was laid out from Bowen Bridge Road; and five sports fields were laid out. These improvements were funded by the £750 transfer of Bowen Park to the National Agricultural and Industrial Association. Amateur athletics competition held there in 1928. Football, cricket and hockey teams acquired formal leases of the grounds, and the park hosted up to 200 players each Saturday.[30]
\nBrisbane City Council (BCC) Electricity Substation No. 4
\nIn 1928-9, the BCC’s Substation No. 4 was constructed at the Gregory Terrace/Bowen Bridge Road section of Victoria Park.[31]
\nThe BCC became a public authority for the provision of electrical services across Brisbane in 1925. Electricity in Brisbane to that point had been provided by public and private authorities in a complex overlapping system. Most of the local councils in greater Brisbane arranged supply through bulk supply contracts with the City Electric Light Company. The Brisbane Tramway Company also supplied 600-volt DC power to properties along its electrified tram system, until its responsibilities were transferred to the BCC 1925. Faced with the tramway’s obsolete electricity network, and the BCC decided to upgrade its own generation capacity and infrastructure. This led to rapid expansion in the late 1920s, as a coordinated, uniform distribution system was developed. The BCC encouraged the public to connect to existing supply lines, and constructed a large powerhouse at New Farm in 1928. Substations were quickly constructed in the suburbs, supplied with bulk energy from the BCC power stations and converted for use by consumers.[32]
\nIn 1927, the BCC’s Electrical Department had established stores in the unused woolstores off Bowen Bridge Road in Victoria Park (outside the heritage boundary). The substation was constructed the following year, and served as a central station as the suburban electricity supply was gradually brought onto the New Farm powerhouse grid. It was one of four substations constructed in 1928 for the Electricity Supply Department, the first main control substations erected by the BCC. They received 11,000 volts AC from the New Farm Power Station via high tension underground feeder cables.[33]
\nElectricity substations from the interwar period were typically of masonry construction, with red-brown face brick walls and simple, render details. Most featured a parapet to the main entrance, modest Classical details, and robust material palette. The interiors housed electrical equipment, were well-ventilated, and had roller door access. Located in urban areas, the substations were generally of a domestic scale and form, in line with the council’s policy of producing substations to a domestic style and scale, so that they could fit neatly into the streetscape.[34]
\nThe building at Victoria Park was designed by the BCC's City Architect, AH (Alfred Herbert) Foster. It was located on the corner of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace, and had a tiled, hip roof with gables narrowly projecting from each elevation. Of a symmetrical design, the substation featured light-coloured rendered details and darker face brick walls, which complemented the prominent museum (Old Museum Building, QHR 600209) on the opposite side of Bowen Bridge Road. A c1944 photograph shows a stone retaining wall wrapped around the road (southeast and east) sides of the substation.[35]
\nGreat Depression
\nThe first set of large-scale improvements at Victoria Park began with the Great Depression. As funding was made available for public works under the Intermittent Relief Scheme to boost employment, Victoria Park was targeted for enhancement.[36]
\nThe largest work were two projects proposed in the mid-1920s: the construction of a golf course and a road. The Queensland Golf Association had made the proposal for a municipal golf course in Victoria Park in 1922, as similar municipal golf courses were being opened throughout Australia. With the return of 108 acres of land from the university forthcoming, the proposal was accepted in 1926. As the return of the land was delayed, however, work on the golf course did not begin until April 1931. The 18-hole golf course was opened in 1931, with a Spanish-style clubhouse designed by AH Foster built in 1935 (QHR 602034).[37]
\nIn addition to the new golf course, Gilchrist Avenue was constructed under the scheme in 1930, connecting Bowen Bridge Road to Ithaca Street, near Kelvin Grove Road at Normanby. This provided a long-sought vehicular path directly through the park, as well as access to the golf course and sportsgrounds. The avenue was named for the City Engineer EF (Eneas Fraser) Gilchrist. As part of the long-awaited beautification of the park, the avenue was lined with silky oak, crepe myrtle, flame and jacaranda trees. In 1933 an ornamental lake was created in a natural basin off Gilchrist Avenue at the western end of the sports fields. The lake was stocked with fish, its banks planted, and an island for birds created in its centre.[38]
\nImprovements were also made to the sports grounds, as lessees had complained about the rough, flood-prone surfaces of the Victoria Park fields. A new amalgamated hockey organisation, the Brisbane Hockey Association, formed in 1931, using Victoria Park as its headquarters. The Association contributed finance towards the improvements, and four new fields were formally laid out in the section fronting the newly-created Gilchrist Avenue, between 1933 and 1935. As well as hockey, these were used for cricket in summer, and hosted some football games in winter. Drainage was also improved to control flooding, and a stone wall with ‘Play The Game’ spelled out in stones was likely constructed at this time.[39]
\nIn the Gregory Terrace section of the park, a 1.5 mile (2.4km) long, 20ft (6.1m) wide horse-riding track called ‘Riding Row’ was created, and palms were planted along its route. The Row was officially opened in 1932, with a military parade and a crowd of around 1,000 people. Two stone piers, made of Brisbane tuff, were constructed to mark its entrance at the corner of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace in 1936.[40]
\nOther landscaping and reclamation work was undertaken during this time, notably as part of the beautification of the park.[41]
\nThe Depression also impacted on the use of Victoria Park, as camps for the unemployed were erected throughout the park reserve in the 1930s. An increasing number of unemployed, itinerant men travelled either on foot, or by rail, across the state looking for employment. Between 1929 and 1933 Queensland Government policy stipulated unemployed single men, not working on relief projects, would not be able to draw state government funded emergency rations from the same centre in successive weeks. This forced them to move onto the next town, often many miles away, to demonstrate they were seeking work. The term ‘swagmen’, used to describe itinerant men walking around the country, or ‘waltzing Matilda’, seeking work in 19th and early 20th century Australia, was applied to these men who were compelled to travel long distances.[42]
\nA small camp of ‘shanties, shacks, huts and humpies’[43] arose in the Gregory Terrace section of Victoria Park in the early 1930s. It remained until 1932, when the camp was ‘visited by a large policeman, and the occupants agreed that the beauties of the new riding track would be enhanced by the removal of their dwellings.’[44] Other camps within Victoria Park mostly occupied the government and university domains near Herston Road (not within the heritage boundary).
\nSecond World War
\nFurther improvements were promised for the park, including the construction of dressing-shed accommodation for the sportsgrounds,[45] but work was put on hold following the outbreak of World War II. When the war reached the Pacific in late 1941, Brisbane was transformed into a locale of intense military activity, with thousands of American troops stationed in the city before being shipped off to fight the Japanese forces in the Pacific.[46]
\nIn 1942, the BCC offered Victoria Park to the US Army as a large administrative and accommodation camp. ‘Camp Victoria Park’ provided support services for US combat troop operations in the South West Pacific. An air raid shelter was constructed behind the electricity substation. A Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery was emplaced in the golf course (not within the heritage boundary).[47]
\nCamp Victoria Park provided extensive accommodation for US and Australian forces. The camp was divided across the park, with an Officers’ Camp for Base Section 3 (Brisbane), US Army Services of Supply in the Gregory Terrace section, and an enlisted men’s camp near Herston Road (not within the heritage boundary). While most of the accommodation was canvas tents, a number of huts of fibrolite on timber stumps were constructed south of Herston Road and along Gregory Terrace. [48]
\nThe camp was gradually vacated after the end of the war, with the final occupants departing in 1946. A flagpole from the officers’ camp was left standing in the Gregory Terrace rockeries.[49]
\nPostwar
\nThe military facilities remained standing in the park for some years following the war, and were put to other uses. The vacant huts were initially used to house Australian war brides: Australian women who had married American servicemen. During and immediately after the war, between 12,000 and 15,000 Australian women married US servicemen stationed in Australia, including around 4,500 in Queensland. Some remained in Australia, but most travelled to the US to live with their husbands. Mass transportation of the war brides to the US on ‘bride ships’ was arranged from 1945, from ports in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. In September 1945, passage for over 200 brides on the Lurline was cancelled at the last minute, and a number of the women were accommodated in the empty Victoria Park buildings until new passage could be arranged for them.[50]
\nThe post-war reconstruction process heralded an era of rapid population growth in Queensland. This growth, concurrent with material shortages, led to an acute housing shortage. The Queensland Government began repurposing military facilities for temporary accommodation, establishing ‘housing camps’ in suburbs including Holland Park, Chermside, Wacol and Kalinga. Up to 100,000 Queenslanders lived in temporary housing between 1946 and 1960. In February 1947, as the last of the war brides departed, the State Government acquired buildings in Victoria Park for temporary housing purposes. The Queensland State Housing Commission made use of the military facilities in Victoria Park, creating the second largest temporary housing settlement in Brisbane. Each hut housed several families. By 1950 Victoria Park was the impermanent home for 460 families, occupying the park for up to three years while new housing was slowly constructed in outer-lying suburbs. The Victoria Park camp, being close to the city, was highly visible to Brisbane residents. In the 1950s, the camp became the subject of media coverage about the poor living conditions experienced by the ‘old and new Australian families’.[51] As residents were moved to new houses, the temporary housing camps in Victoria Park were gradually emptied in the late 1950s, closed in 1960, and the fibrolite buildings were sold or demolished.[52]
\nCentenary
\nWith the end of the war, the removal of the housing camps, and the appointment of a new Parks Superintendent, improvements to Victoria Park were planned from the 1950s. In 1959 the Centenary Pool Complex [QHR 601240] was constructed by the BCC as its principal contribution to the celebrations of Queensland’s centenary. The pool was placed at the southwest corner of Victoria Park, bordering Gregory Terrace. The complex was designed to fit into the slope of the hill overlooking the park and was designed by BCC's City Architect James Birrell. The initial design of the complex included a landscaped entrance road designed by the Superintendent of Parks and Gardens, Harry Oakman.[53]
\nOakman was one of the pioneers of landscape architecture in Australia. In 1945 he began his seventeen-year appointment with the BCC as Superintendent of Parks and Gardens, and the Director of Separate Parks Branch. One of his earliest roles was transforming many of Brisbane's parks that had been damaged by the military use during the Second World War. He also led an extensive flowering tree planting programme on the slopes and gullies of the Victoria Park golf course, and poincianas, oleanders, jacarandas and flame trees along the fairways. Oakman was recognised as a Fellow of the British and Australian Institutes of Landscape Architects and the Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation.[54]
\nAnother commemorative gesture made within Victoria Park was the planting of a grove of eucalypt trees in the southeast near Bowen Bridge Road. This area of Victoria Park had been the site of some of the Housing Commission buildings, and required beautification. Named 'The Gundoo Memorial Grove', it was planted by the students of the Brisbane Girls' Grammar School as their contribution to the celebrations. The trees were provided by the Forestry Department and comprised nine [ten] different varieties of native trees (mainly eucalypts). In a memorandum, Harry Oakman stated that ‘tree planting along forest lines in this parkland would give a unique feature to the city of Brisbane, particularly if the trees chosen are Eucalypts'. He believed that the eucalypts would provide an attractive, shady grove at low cost and requiring little maintenance.[55] In the early 1960s, the grove was supplemented by subtropical plantings in the area between the pool and Bowen Bridge Road, to beautify and create a ‘tropical atmosphere in the heart of the city’.[56]
\nLate 20th & early 21st century use (1950s-2021)
\nBeautification and improvement works were undertaken under Oakman’s supervision of the park. In order ‘to provide a pleasing view on one of the city’s outlet roads’, planter beds were installed along the Gregory Terrace frontage in 1958; two beds, flanking the Riding Row entrance piers, remain extant. The park’s main entrance was also repositioned from opposite the Museum to a new road from Gregory Terrace.[57]
\nSports continued at the sports fields, with leases to the Brisbane Hockey Association, Queensland Rugby Union and schools. The Hockey Association used up to seven of the fields during its playing seasons between the 1930s and the 1950s, holding junior and school fixtures, women’s practices and regular matches. It contributed finance for the ongoing maintenance of the fields, and hosted its grand finals at the park. The fields were also used to host archery contests, travelling circuses, military and royal parades, and parking for the annual Royal National Agricultural & Industrial Society show.[58]
\nA new brick dressing-shed, kiosk and lavatory facilities was added to the sportsgrounds from 1958. Dressing shed facilities had been provided for the sportsgrounds from 1930, but the dressing shed, a simple timber structure, burned down in 1947. When finance became available, the dressing shed was designed within the BCC and erected by 1959, being opened for the use of the sporting groups in 1960. The kiosk was leased to sporting clubs and individuals to sell refreshments during the sporting seasons. Improvements to the parking and facilities for the sportsgrounds were made in the following years, including two sets of steps from Gilchrist Avenue, flanking the dressing shed.[59]
\nNon-recreational and non-public uses also continued across the park. Small portions of land throughout the park were resumed for railway purposes, school use, hospital and temporary carparks, the Gregory Terrace road reserve and telecommunications, and leases were granted for school playing fields. In 1968 the Department of Electricity acquired land in the park and built an office building behind the substation. They also purchased a large stores building previously used by the Queensland Railway Department in the same corner of the park (not within the heritage boundary). In 1972 it was proposed to run a freeway through the park, though this plan did not come to fruition until the late 1990s.[60]
\nIn 1988 the lake area in Victoria Park was reconditioned and officially named 'York's Hollow'. In the following years, artwork and sculptures were added, including figures from Expo 88. A section of lawn near the Centenary Pool was planted with trees by the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland and named ‘Gregory Grove’ in 1989 in honour of Augustus Gregory’s 170th birthday. Sixty trees were planted in the Gregory Terrace area near Rogers Street to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012.[61]
\nIn 1999, construction on a bypass road connecting Hamilton to Milton was commenced. The bypass, called the Inner City Bypass, was undertaken to reduce traffic congestion in the central business district and Fortitude Valley. An area of 4.606ha was resumed from Victoria Park for the road, which ran through the park adjacent to the railway, exacerbating the park’s divided nature. The road was constructed in 2001, with the entire bypass completed in 2003. A landscaped pedestrian overpass was added to bridge the bypass (not in the boundary).[62]
\nArchaeological investigations undertaken by ARCHAEO Cultural Heritage Services in late 1999, ahead of the construction of the Inner City Bypass, revealed early sections of the York’s Hollow watercourse, fill associated with the construction of the 1880s railway, and refuse dating from the 1890s to early 1900s deposited in natural depressions and buried in rubbish trenches.[63] Over 100,000 artefacts were recovered, including: glass bottles and stoppers; ceramic kitchen, tableware, bottles, and doll parts; clay tobacco pipes; personal and clothing items including buttons, pins and beads; medicine, hygiene and writing implements; metal cutlery, nails, hardware, and coins; leather and textiles fragments; faunal and floral remains, and worked bone artefacts. Further municipal refuse trenches, likely dating from the 1870s and 1880s, were uncovered within the railway corridor and in the southeast section of Victoria Park, during archaeological investigations associated with the Cross River Rail Project in 2020.[64]
\nIn 2021 Victoria Park continues to provide recreational facilities including playgrounds, dog off-leash areas, walking tracks, bike paths, open space and sports fields.
","criteria":"Victoria Park, gazetted as a reserve for recreation in 1875, is important for its association with key phases of Queensland's history. Over the course of its existence Victoria Park’s functions have included social, cultural and sustenance grounds for Aboriginal people in the colonial period; brickmaking and timber-felling industries; municipal rubbish dump; campsites for displaced people; and sports and recreation grounds. Despite large incursions into its land (for educational and other purposes), and the construction of railway lines and roads through its centre, Victoria Park remains one of the largest parks in Brisbane, and demonstrates the value afforded to green recreational space from the 19th to the 21st century.
\nAs part of York’s Hollow, the site was one of Brisbane’s first industrial areas following European occupation.
\nThe park was the site of conflict between Aboriginal people and Europeans in the colonial period; the site of camps for displaced people, including Chinese and Scottish immigrants (1840s), itinerant camps during the Great Depression (1929-1932), war brides (1945-7), and families awaiting housing commission accommodation (1947-1960). As Camp Victoria Park, the park hosted Australian and US soldiers/operations during the Second World War, as well as temporary accommodation for returned servicemen and their families after the war.
\nThe Sports Fields (1925; re-laid 1935; and including ‘Play the Game’ Wall (c.1936) and Dressing Sheds & Kiosk (1959-60)) are associated with the development of sports organisations, particularly as the first headquarters of the Brisbane Hockey Association.
\nThe Brisbane City Council (BCC) Electricity Substation No. 4 (1928), is important in demonstrating the expansion of the electricity supply network in Brisbane during the 1920s.
\nGilchrist Avenue, its retaining wall/stair and its tree plantings (1930-2, and 1936), the Riding Row Entrance Piers (1936) and the Ornamental Lake (1933-6) are important as examples of work carried out under the Intermittent Relief Scheme during the Great Depression.
\nThe park contains examples of the work of professional horticulturalists Henry Moore (Brisbane Parks Superintendent 1912-1940) and Harry Oakman (Brisbane Parks Superintendent 1946-1963), including mature tree plantings, planter beds, and the Gundoo Memorial Grove plantings of native trees in 1959 to celebrate the centenary of Queensland, and remnants of the adjacent subtropical plantings in the early 1960s.
|Victoria Park has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of early urban material culture, consumption and disposal habits in Queensland, and early and evolved service infrastructure and occupation activities on the urban fringe.
\nArchaeological investigations of the extensive late-19th and early-20th century municipal refuse deposits have the potential to reveal artefacts that may provide further information on the lifestyles, diet, and health of Brisbane’s occupants, and facilitate studies of market access, consumer choice, refuse disposal patterns, and social and economic life in the late colonial period. The apparent disposal of refuse progressively across the park – from east to west – also provides an opportunity to explore change in material culture over time.
\nArchaeological investigations of areas subject to late-19th and early-20th century reclamation and drainage improvements, and in the vicinity of the interwar Brisbane City Council Electricity Substation No. 4, have the potential to reveal surface and sub-surface features that could contribute to a greater understanding of the planning, design, and construction of drainage and electrical distribution infrastructure.
\nHistorical use of the park for a variety of purposes has resulted in the potential for subsurface archaeological evidence that could inform about the nature and extent of early- to mid-19th century gathering, camping, rifle range and brickmaking activities in the historically low-lying ‘York’s Hollow’ area, and occupation of the place during the Great Depression and World War II.
|BCC Electricity Substation No. 4, located in the southeast corner of Victoria Park, is an excellent and highly-intact example of an electricity substation constructed during the interwar period in Brisbane. In its form, fabric and materials, it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, which include: its urban location; domestic scale and form with modest Classical influences; masonry construction with red-brown face brick walls and render details; parapet to the main entrance; use of robust materials with simple detailing; and open and well-ventilated interior designed to contain electrical equipment, with roller door access.
|Victoria Park is significant for its aesthetic attributes, derived from the juxtaposition of the place’s natural qualities with its metropolitan setting, and from the aesthetic contribution of BCC Electricity Substation No. 4.
\nAn extensive green site within the cityscape, Victoria Park features an arrangement of mature trees, planted along an avenue (Gilchrist Avenue), within a grove (Gundoo Memorial Grove), along the circumference of the park, and interspersed with playing fields and open grasses areas. The sloping nature of the site and open grassed areas provide expansive vistas within the park and out into the surrounding area.
\nBCC Electricity Substation No. 4, highly intact and standing prominently on the corner of Bowen Bridge Road and Gregory Terrace, has aesthetic importance for its beautiful attributes and streetscape contribution. Through its skilful use of modest Classical-style architectural features, symmetrical composition with central parapet and projecting end gables, and complementary material palette of red-brown face brick, terracotta roof tiles, and render details, the building forms an attractive, well-composed design. The building’s scale, form and design, modelled on contemporary domestic architecture, complements the streetscape of Gregory Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road.
|Victoria Park has a special association with the people of Brisbane as a popular inner-city park for organised sport and informal recreation (having served the community formally since 1875 as a valued green space for recreational purposes). It contains sporting facilities, particularly sports fields.
\nThe sportsgrounds within the park have an association with the Brisbane Hockey Association (established 1931), which used the sportsgrounds as its first headquarters and hosted its matches there into the 1970s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19617,"place_ref":600110,"name":"Telecommunications House (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"283 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-04-05","description":"Telecommunications House is located on Elizabeth Street adjacent to the grounds of the St Stephens complex. It is a four storey building with a basement, constructed of red face brick with contrasting cream rendered features on its facade.
The street facade is five arched bays wide, organised around a central bay emphasised by a ground floor entry portico, a second floor balcony, and a parapet level Classical pediment. The ground floor portico consisting of a central triangular pediment flanked by scroll-like brackets is supported by paired Tuscan columns, and the balcony above is supported on paired unfluted Composite columns. Paired brick pilasters, followed by paired, rendered Corinthian ones continue the vertical emphasis to the arch below parapet level.
On each side of the central bay the openings are all arched with keystones, and although they house windows at the ground floor level, form arcaded verandahs on the upper three levels. The arcaded upper levels have wrought iron balustrades with the initials CTA located centrally, apart from the second floor central balcony which has balustrading similar to that on the parapet.
The pediment at parapet level has an ornate central moulding of the CTA crest. Behind the facade the levels above the ground floor are recessed, previously providing a light well adjoining Hesketh House (now demolished). The northern face of the building is plainly rendered and has predominantly square openings apart from a couple of arched ones.
Internally the building was linked with neighbouring Hesketh House when it was constructed, and these links remained at the front of the building on the ground floor and two of the upper levels until Hesketh House was demolished. Some sections of ornate plaster ceiling and a pilaster capital remain towards the rear of the ground floor. Timber beams and columns are still evident on the level below the top floor. The interior is currently divided into a number of private offices.
","history":"This building was erected in 1906-07 as headquarters and clubrooms for the Commercial Travellers Association (CTA) of Queensland.
The Commercial Travellers Association of Queensland was formed in 1884. It was the fourth such organisation started in Australia, the first being in Adelaide in the 1870s. Commercial travellers were an integral part of the retailing process in early Queensland. Most businesses employed them. They travelled all over the colony, showing samples of goods to retailers in isolated towns and conveying orders to the suppliers. They saw themselves as 'advance agents', spreading 'the blessings and decencies of civilization'.
Since its inception, the CTA had met in hotels, but between 1904 and 1906 the association acquired property in Elizabeth Street for a purpose-built headquarters and club rooms. The building was designed by prominent Brisbane architect Claude William Chambers, who had established in Brisbane a respected commercial practice which was extended to Sydney in 1915. His known commercial buildings from this period include the Finney Isles Building (QHR 600142) ('The Big Block') and Perry House (QHR 600103) in Brisbane's central business district, and the first Winchcombe Carsons Woolstore (QHR 600326) at Teneriffe. Between 1901 and 1915 he was twice president of the Queensland Institute of Architects, and was president of the Australian Institute of Architects 1916 to 1918. He resided mainly in Sydney from 1915, but remained in partnership in Brisbane with Lange L Powell 1911-20 and EM Ford 1920-35.
The CTA Building was completed in mid-1907 and was opened officially by the Chief Justice of Queensland in August that year. It contained a 'handsome dining hall' and bar on the ground floor, bedrooms for the accommodation of members, and a roof garden. A mansard roof and tower were removed at a later date, possibly when increased accommodation was being constructed c1914.
The CTA ranked amongst the most prominent of Brisbane's special interest associations, although membership was not confined to commercial travellers. With permanent headquarters, the club became a focal point for member interests and business. The association provided a variety of services to its members, including in 1914-15 the provision of a purpose-built Sample Rooms Building, now demolished, on an adjacent site fronting Charlotte Street, acquired in 1913. The CTA negotiated discounts for commercial travellers at hotels throughout the state, and was affiliated with the United Travellers Association of Australasia. As well, it provided services such as mortuary funds, accident and sickness insurance funds, assistance with loans, scholarships for members' children, savings funds, allowances for needy members, and an employment register for out of work commercial travellers.
The Charlotte Street sample rooms did not prove to be as revenue-producing as anticipated. In consequence, in 1926, the CTA decided to erect as a leasing venture, a four-storeyed building (QHR 600109) on the Elizabeth Street section of the site they had acquired in 1913, which ran through to Charlotte Street between the CTA club rooms and the St Stephen's Cathedral complex (QHR 600106-108). The new building, formerly known as Hesketh House, and now demolished, replaced a winter garden, established by the CTA c1914 when the sample rooms fronting Charlotte Street were erected, and was connected with the 1906-07 building at each level. The dining room and associated facilities were moved to the basement of the new building, leaving room in the old one for additional bedrooms.
Changing retail practice, prompted by improvements in transport and communications led to a decline in CTA membership after the Second World War. In 1949 the CTA sold the 1914-15 sample rooms block and the 1927-28 building to the Commonwealth of Australia, which used them to house the Engineering Branch of the Post Master General's Department. In 1963, the CTA also sold the 1906-07 building to the Commonwealth. It was renamed Telecommunications House and occupied as offices of the PMG's marketing and commercial section. The PMG (Telecom after 1975) was located there until 1991.
","criteria":"Telecommunications House is important in demonstrating the development of retail trading practices in Queensland.
|It also demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 1900s brick commercial building in Brisbane. The building is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the commercial work of prominent Brisbane architect CW Chambers.
|Telecommunications House is important for its aesthetic characteristics including the deeply modelled facade of contrasting face brickwork and rendered classical details. The building makes a strong contribution to the streetscape, being complementary in scale and design to the GPO buildings opposite and the neighbouring St Stephens complex.
|Telecommunications House is important for its special association with the operations of the Commercial Travellers Association, a significant commercial association in Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and for its association with C W Chambers as a good example of his commercial work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19618,"place_ref":602494,"name":"Glass House Mountains National Park and Beerburrum Forest Reserve 1","alternate_name":"Glasshouse Mountains","street_address":null,"suburb":"GLASSHOUSE MOUNTAINS","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-05-03","description":"The Glass House Mountains are a group of dome shaped hills and conical peaks rising sharply above the surrounding sub-coastal lowlands. They are the remnants of rhyolite and trachyte volcanic plugs and are located in southeast Queensland 65-75 kilometres north of Brisbane and west of the townships of Glass House Mountains and Beerburrum.
Glass House Mountains National Park and Beerburrum Forest Reserve 1 covers eleven of the 16 Glass House Mountains and a small parcel of land known as Blue Gum Creek. The park is in eight sections ranging in size from 11 hectares to 291 hectares and in total cover an area of approximately 883 hectares. The eleven sections of the parks are: Mt Tibrogargan/Mt Cooee, Mt Beerwah, Mt Ngungun, Mt Coonowrin, Mt Elimbah, Blue Gum Creek, Mt Miketeebumulgrai, Coochin Hills., Mt Tibberoowouccum, Mt Beerburrum and The Twins.
Mt Tibrogargan (364m) Mt Cooee (106m) are composed of alkali rhyolite. Mt Cooee has caves and there are the remains of an old trigonometry station at the summit. It is a habitat for the peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus.
Mt Beerwah (556m) is composed of alkali trachyte. Near the top, there are large hexagonal cooling columns on its north side (the Organ Pipes). The mountain also has early timber trails and timber getters' campsites on the eastern side. It has caves and is also a peregrine falcon habitat.
Mt Ngungun (253m) is composed of alkali rhyolite. This mountain also has good examples of vertical columnar jointing and has caves. There is evidence of early 1950s quarrying activities.
Mt Coonowrin (Crookneck) (377m) is composed of alkali rhyolite. It has good examples of vertical columnar jointing and has caves. Timber and steel pitons left by climbers can be found, though the mountain is now closed to climbers. It is a habitat for the peregrine falcon.
Mt Elimbah (109m) is locally called Saddleback because of the saddle like dip between the peaks. It is composed of alkali rhyolite and right-angled trenches used for World War Two infantry training can be seen on the lower slopes
Blue Gum Creek is an area of about 11 hectares. It supports populations of the endangered swamp stringbark Eucalyptus conglomerata. It is an isolated species habitat for several vulnerable species of frogs including wallum froglet Crinia tinnula, wallum sedge frog Litoria olongburensis and Freycinet's frog Litoria freycineti and the rare green thighed frog Litoria brevipalmata.
Mt Miketeebumulgrai (202m) is composed of porphyritic trachyte and provides feeding and nesting places for the black cockatoo Calyptorhynchus lathami and the rare grey goshawk Accipiter novaehollandia.
Mt Coochin, (as known as Coochin Hills) - west hill 235m, east hill 230m, is composed of alkali rhyolite and supports an area of the endangered plant species Leucopogon recurvisepalus
Mt Beerburrum (278m) is composed of porphyritic trachyte. The mountain has complex rainforest, with some endangered plant species such as Tindal's stringybark Eucalyptus tindaliae, Pink bloodwood Corymbia intermedia and Smooth-barked apple Angophora leiocarpa. Scribbly gum Eucalyptus racemosa is locally predominant in places, with the largest tract retained on Mt Beerburrum. The mountain has a forestry fire tower with a viewing platform at the summit.
Mt Tunbubudla, also known as the Twins (west twin 294m, east twin 338m), is composed of alkali rhyolite. The majority of the mountain is covered in dry sclerophyll forest. There are also areas of exposed rock dominated by the rare Bronze-barked Tea Tree Leptospermum luehmannii, a plant restricted to the Glasshouse Mountains.
Mt Tibberoowuccum (220m) is composed of alkali rhyolite. The mountain is a dome-shaped rock surrounded by eucalypt open forest, as well as complex rainforest, although the area is not extensive. There is a small population of Narrow-leaf bitter-pea Daviesia Mimosoides present on the southern slope of the mountain. This shrub is widespread in Victoria and New South Wales, but rare in Queensland, and the Mt Tiberoocwuccum population is the most northerly known.
","history":"The Glass House Mountains are one of southeast Queensland's most impressive landmarks. They are situated 65 - 75 kilometres north of Brisbane and are a group of steep sided plugs of trachyte and rhyolite, once within volcanoes active in the early Tertiary Period, 20 to 25 million years ago. They have been exposed by wind and water erosion of the softer material of the cones and surrounding area and now rise dramatically from the flat coastal plain.
The mountains are central to the creation myths of the region and their spiritual and social importance and links to Indigenous people continues to this day.
The first European description of the mountains was by Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook, when on his voyage of discovery in the barque Endeavour up the east coast of Australia. In his log for 17 May 1770 he wrote this place may always be found by three hills which lay to the northward of it in the latitude of 26 degrees 53 minutes south. These hills lay but a little way inland and not far from each other; they are very remarkable on account of their singular form of elevation which very much resembles glass houses which occasioned me giving them that name: the northern most of the three is the highest and largest. There are likewise several other peaked hills inland to the northward of these but they are not nearly so remarkable.
Nearly thirty years later, Lieutenant (later Captain) Matthew Flinders sailed up the coast in the sloop Norfolk. In his report to the Governor of New South Wales, Captain John Hunter, dated 14 July 1799 he wrote, At dusk Cape Moreton bore west two or three miles, and the highest glass house, whose peak was just topping over the distant land, had opened around it at 3 degrees west or 4 degrees north. Two Haycock like hummocks distinct from any other land opened soon after a few degrees to the southward. On the 26 July he took two sailors and the Aborigine Bongaree and landed on the shore with the intention of climbing Mt Tibrogargan. They climbed Beerburrum before setting off for Tibrogargan, which they reached the next day, but which they did not climb.
On 29 November 1823 John Oxley entered observations of the Glass Houses in his Field Book. Cunningham also mentioned them in his report of 15 July 1829.
In 1839-42 Petrie and Simpson explored the Glasshouse Mountains and in 1848 Andrew and John Petrie climbed Beerwah and left a note in a bottle at the summit. Petrie and naturalist Dr Ludwig Leichhardt visited the area in 1843 and 1844 and made geological and botanical observations.
The Glass House Mountains have been an inspiration for artists since they were first described by Cook, including the painting by Conrad Martens Glasshouse Mountains, Moreton Bay early morning November 6th 1851. Numerous poems have been written about them and they have been the subjects of writings such as the short story, The Mountains Played, by Judith Wright.
The mountains have also been a popular subject for both amateur and professional photographers from the early years of photography to the present day. Recent musical works such as Robert Davidson's Tibrogargan and John Gilfedder's work Legend of the Tibrogargan testify to the continuing appeal of the mountains.
The proximity of the peaks to several large coastal population centres makes them attractive destinations for tourists who enjoy bushwalking, climbing and the spectacular views from the mountains.
The Glass House Mountains provide islands of natural habitat for plants and animals. They conserve regionally significant areas of rhyolitic mountain vegetation that supports 26 plants that are rare, threatened or of conservation interest. The ridges, rocky pavements, scree slopes and gullies provide a variety of habitats for vegetation ranging from Eucalypt open forest to montane heaths and shrublands. The mountains also provide a habitat for many species of fauna, some of which are rare or endangered. The area now known as the Glass House Mountains National Park was first gazetted in 1954. Gazetted areas incorporated smaller parks such as Beerwah, Coonowrin, Ngungun and Tibrogargan. These smaller parks were amalgamated into the Glass House Mountains National Park in 1994.
","criteria":"The Glass House Mountains as ancient landforms illustrate the evolution of the landscape and the geological history of volcanic activity in the area. Because of their size and distinctive form they are readily identifiable from a number of distant observation points from both land and sea and so have played an important role in navigation in connection with the European exploration of the east coast of Australia. Captain Cook sighted and named them in 1770. In 1799 Matthew Flinders also reported on the Glass House peaks and camped in the area. Other early explorers connected with them are John Oxley, Alan Cunningham, Andrew Petrie and Ludwig Leichhardt.
|The Glass House peaks are central to the creation myths of the region and have a high degree of cultural significance to Indigenous people.
The wider community also values the mountains as recreational venues and their closeness to Brisbane and major centres on the Sunshine Coast have made them readily accessible to day-trippers. The peaks have for many years been popular destinations for people wanting to bushwalk, picnic and to enjoy the volcanic scenery.
|The Glass House peaks are visually impressive, rising dramatically from a flat coastal plain and are landmarks that can be seen from as far away as the Scenic Rim on the Queensland and New South border and out to sea. Views of the mountains, and obtained from the mountains, are of high aesthetic value and have inspired countless paintings and photographs. Their majestic and eerie beauty continues to attract large numbers of visitors to the national park areas that contain them.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19619,"place_ref":602495,"name":"Coorparoo Substation No. 210","alternate_name":"Substation 10","street_address":"12 Main Avenue","suburb":"COORPAROO","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-08-01","description":"The former Coorparoo Substation No.210 faces Main Avenue. A pedestrian gate on the south side of the substation allows access to the clubrooms of the Buranda Bowls Club. The modern clubrooms occupy most of the lot on which the substation stands. The bowling club grounds surround the substation to the west and north, and palm trees screen the north side of the substation.
The modest, freestanding single-storey pavilion is constructed of 200mm cement blocks, painted white, with recessed infill panels of colonial-bond red brick. It stands on a plinth of rusticated concrete blocks, and on the street elevation the concrete floor is 600mm above ground level. The timber-framed hipped roof is clad in corrugated iron, and is truncated on the street elevation by a curved Flemish-influenced gable. Insulators protrude from the upper centre of the gable screen, and two conduit holes remain on the north side of the street elevation. Underneath the gable screen is a steel roller door, inset with a smaller door, or "wicket". Crude timber stairs have been added in front of the wicket. To each side of the roller door there is a metal-framed six-pane obscure wire-glass window, set within a recessed brick panel. The lettering "Sub-Station 210", embellished with a decorative moulded scroll and a plaque on each side, is applied in a band above the roller door.
The north and south elevations have no windows, and two recessed brick panels each. The western elevation has two recessed brick panels, each containing a six-pane obscure wire-glass window. Ventilation is provided by terracotta vents at floor level on the north and south elevations, and by meshed gaps between the top of the walls and the eaves, on three sides. Surface drains run around the base of the building.
The interior is a single volume, unceiled, and lined with a cement-plastered brick. There are the remains of fixtures and machinery mountings on the walls and floor, along with input and output cable connection points. There is a manhole near the roller door, and some hairline cracking in the wall render.
The timber stairs to the wicket in the roller door, and the garden beds on the west and north sides of the substation are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former BCC Coorparoo Substation No. 210 is located on Main Street, Coorparoo, at the southeast corner of Langlands Park, next to the Buranda Bowls Club. The small, one storey concrete block and brick utility building was designed by the City Architect's Office and was commissioned in 1930. It supplied the area's series street lighting system until some time before 1977.
The history of electricity supply and distribution began in Brisbane in 1882, with the demonstration of eight arc light street lamps, which were powered by J.W. Sutton and Company's steam engine, housed in Adelaide Street. The first electricity generating and distribution systems to supply private consumers had started operation in Britain and the United States in the same year.
In 1887 the company Barton and White was formed, and in 1888 it had a powerhouse operating in Edison Lane, behind the General Post Office, the latter becoming the first consumer to be supplied by an electrical supply undertaking in Australia. Barton and White's Direct Current (DC) dynamo produced 100 volts to power the post office's arc lights. By 1896 Barton and White had become the Brisbane Electric Supply Company. In 1904 the latter became the City Electric Light Company (CEL). After the closure of the powerhouse at Edison Lane in 1899, CEL operated a powerhouse at 69 Ann Street until 1915, and another in Williams Street from 1912 to 1930.
In 1893 Thargomindah was the first town in Queensland, outside Brisbane, to have an electrical supply. It was also the first town in Australia to use municipally owned electric streetlights, and the first to have a hydroelectric plant, supplied by an Electric Authority. Charters Towers' electrification followed in 1897, with Rockhampton in 1898, and Toowoomba in 1905. By 1914, six towns outside Brisbane had electricity.
Brisbane's first electric trams ran in 1897, and the Brisbane Tramways Company operated a power station at Countess Street between 1896 and 1929. The power station produced 600 volt DC, which was only useful for short distance transmission. As the tram routes expanded, it became necessary to build a power station at Light Street, Fortitude Valley (1913), and one at Logan Road, Woolloongabba (1915). Some businesses sited alongside the tram routes drew electricity from the tramways' DC mains. In 1922 the Brisbane Tramways Trust took over the network, and in 1925 the tramways were transferred to the new Greater Brisbane Council. At this time there were four power stations in Brisbane: the three tramways power stations, and CEL's Williams Street power station.
The three power stations that the BCC had inherited were having difficulty coping with supplying both the expanding tramways, and the suburbs of Ithaca and Toowong. Other pre-amalgamation local authorities had purchased their electricity in bulk from CEL, under ten year agreements, and the last of those agreements did not expire until 1935. Until then the BCC had to continue to purchase electricity for the areas concerned from CEL, which refused to sell its assets at a price agreeable to the BCC. CEL built the Bulimba power station in 1926, and continued to supply the central city and South Brisbane after 1935.
In 1925 the BCC was faced with an obsolete electricity network, and decided that it needed to upgrade its own generation capacity and infrastructure. This lead to rapid expansion in the late 1920s, as a co-ordinated, uniform distribution system was developed. The BCC encouraged the public to connect to existing supply lines, and promoted electrical appliances at its own showrooms. After the New Farm power station became operational in June 1928, under the BCC Tramways Department, the three obsolete power stations were closed.
The New Farm power station delivered 11,000 volt (11kV) AC to the main control substations of the Tramways Department and the ESD, via underground, paper-insulated, lead-covered, double-wire cables. Eleven tramway substations were commissioned between 1927 and 1939, including a main control substation at Ballow Street. The other stations were automated. Roy Rusden Ogg, the BCC Tramways Department's architect, designed all eleven tramway substations, which were built as large brick boxes, in an austere classical idiom. Transformers in the substations reduced the incoming voltage, while converters changed the current from AC to DC, supplying 600 volt DC to the tramways system.
Alternating Current could be easily converted from one voltage to another by transformers, which made for economic long-distance transmission. High voltage (low current) could be sent by thin wires, instead of thick copper cables, and could then be "stepped down" at load centres, to 415 volts, three phase, or 250 volts, single phase, for consumers. The adoption of AC thus enabled the electrification of large urban areas, and eliminated the need for multiple local power plants. The system of BCC substations built in the late 1920s and 1930s demonstrates this shift to AC distribution, which was an important step in the modernisation of Brisbane.
Meanwhile, Queensland's rural electrification, despite its promising start, was lagging behind the other States. In 1936 the Royal Commission On Electricity reported that, in units generated per head of population, Queensland ranked last in Australia. By 1936 there were 62 Electricity undertakings in Queensland. Of these, 51 generated power and 41 were local authorities. Production was heavily tilted in favour of Brisbane. The BCC had an installed capacity for generating 56,250 kilowatts (New Farm), and CEL could generate 37,500 Kilowatts (Bulimba). Cairns ranked next, at 4,400 kilowatts, followed by Townsville at 3,810 kilowatts, and Toowoomba at 2,400 kilowatts. Of the 152,000,000 units of electricity used in Queensland in 1935, only 30,000,000 units were used outside South East Queensland.
In Brisbane, as each local authority's ten-year agreement with CEL expired, that area's public electricity supply was sourced from New Farm, via ESD substations. The main transmission system carried 11kV AC from New Farm to the main control substations, which were built in a distribution loop. Four 11kV main control substations were built by the BCC in 1928: Victoria Park (No.4), Lang Park (No.6), Victoria street Woolloongabba (No.9), and Cairns Street, Kangaroo Point (No.11). By 1930, Balmoral (No.12), Stephens (No.13), and Hamilton (No. 5) had been added. They were all made of brick, and were designed to harmonise with existing residential buildings. One 5kV main control substation was also in ESD operation in 1930. Underground cables linked the main control substations to automated substations, the distribution being controlled from a room in City Hall.
Coorparoo Shire's electricity supply agreement with CEL ended in 1930, as did the agreements with the Balmoral, Hamilton and Stephens Shires. Coorparoo's first subdivision had occurred in 1882, horse trams reached Buranda in 1887, and the Shire of Coorparoo was formed in 1888. In 1889 there were 2500 people in area, but the 1893 flood slowed development and reduced the number of houses in Coorparoo. By 1900 the settlement was dense from Stones Corner to Kirkland Avenue, but was otherwise bush and farmhouses. The electric tramway reached Stones Corner in 1902, and Coorparoo Junction in 1915, which fuelled suburban expansion. House numbers doubled in ten years, from 1911 to 1921.
The decision to gradually change Brisbane's street lighting to the series system was taken in 1927, and the BCC decided to switch Balmoral and Coorparoo's street lighting to the series system in May 1930. In a parallel circuit system, each item receives its own full voltage from the power supply, but in the series system the current flows through each item in turn, in a loop from the power source. A series street lighting circuit usually consisted of about 100 lamps, and required a minimum of 2000 volts. If more lamps were added, a higher voltage was required to maintain the necessary current. If a lamp burnt out, two metal disks would carry the current and maintain the circuit. Incandescent street lights had become economically practical by 1917, and Brisbane developed its street lighting system using incandescent lamps, in series. The only other towns to use the series system for street lighting, since they had AC generators, were Maryborough, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns. Other towns used incandescent lights on the parallel system.
The substation on Main Avenue, Coorparoo, was seen as the initial step towards controlling the whole of the street lighting system on the south side of the Brisbane River from one source. Tenders were offered in August 1930, and A. Mason was accepted. The City Architect's Office drew up the plans. The City Architect at the time was A.H. Foster, but assistant architect Rayburn Jameson signed the plans for the Coorparoo substation. Its use of 200mm concrete blocks was unusual for City Architect's Office designs of the time, and it was the only pre-World War Two Brisbane substation to be built of such materials. The substation's brick infill panels are for decorative purposes only.
The Coorparoo substation was unmanned, and was equipped with an 11kV Oil Circuit Breaker. This was operated by a time switch, fitted with an Astronomic Dial calibrated to suit seasonal variations in sunrise and sunset. The main control substation at Woolloongabba supplied power at 11kV, which was stepped down to 5kV at Coorparoo, and fed to a bank of constant current transformers. High and low venting in the substation dissipated the heat generated by the equipment. Initially numbered as ESD substation No.10, it was renumbered as No. 210 when all substations in Brisbane were transferred to the BCC in 1963. To avoid any duplication of numbering, all existing BCC stations were prefixed with the number "2" at this time. Prior to the Coorparoo substation's construction, the ESD had three 5kV Public Lighting Substation buildings, and 11 public lighting substations on poles (seven 5kV and four 11kV). Coorparoo Substation No. 210 was the first BCC 11kV public lighting substation building. By 1940, there were three such buildings.
In 1949 CEL started constructing the Bulimba B power station, and the BCC started work on a power station at Tennyson. The new stations were commissioned in 1953 and 1955 respectively. When CEL became the Southern Electric Authority (SEA) in 1953, the BCC continued to run the New Farm and Tennyson power stations, and distributed power to the city, whereas the SEA sold power to the BCC, and distributed outside Brisbane. The New Farm power station was transferred to the SEA in 1963, while all substations were handed over to the BCC in same year. From 1963 onwards, the BCC only distributed power, which was purchased from the SEA. The year 1969 witnessed the disbandment of the tramways system, and the New Farm power station was decommissioned in 1971. On 1 July 1977, the South East Queensland Electricity Board (SEQEB) took over distribution of power in Brisbane, and the BCC's Department of Electricity disappeared.
The series system of street lighting was being replaced with the parallel system by the 1960s. In 1970-1971 there were 3135 lamps in series, and 33,951 in parallel. Since the final annual report of the BCC's Department of Electricity, 1976-77, noted that the last of the series system street lighting substations had been disconnected and dismantled during the year, Coorparoo Substation No. 210 would have been disconnected before or during 1977. For a period, the building was leased by the Buranda Bowls Club and used for storage, but it is currently empty.
","criteria":"Coorparoo Substation No. 210 was part of an integrated network of structures involved in the Brisbane City Council's modernisation of electricity supply in Brisbane in the late 1920s, and 1930s. The reorganisation incorporated the latest developments in the technology of Alternating Current (AC) generation and distribution, which enhanced domestic lifestyles, spurred business development, and aided the expansion of tram routes. The locations chosen for substations also serve as indicators of the main electricity load centres of Brisbane prior to World War Two. Coorparoo Substation No. 210 was Brisbane's first 11,000 volt street lighting substation building, and it demonstrates Brisbane's use of the series system for street lighting, which was abandoned in the 1970s.
|It was rare for the City Architect's Office to use 200mm concrete blocks in the construction of utilities structures in the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, only three 11,000-volt street lighting substations had been built by 1940, and of the three, only Coorparoo remains in Brisbane City Council (BCC) ownership.
|As part of a distinctive group of civic utility structures, Coorparoo Substation No. 210 demonstrates the characteristics of a small-scale, robust, masonry substation of the interwar period. Its open internal volume, venting, and roller door are standard features in buildings designed to contain electrical equipment.
|The substation has a landmark quality due to its picturesque design, which was the result of a decision by the City Architect of the period, A.H. Foster, to limit the visual impact of Electrical Supply Department (ESD) substations in residential areas by drawing on contemporary domestic architecture. The small industrial building reflects the prestige that the BCC associated with its electrification drive of the late 1920s and 1930s
|The substation is strongly associated with the BCC, especially its City Architect's Office, and the ESD, which attempted to rationalise Brisbane's electricity supply after the creation of the Greater Brisbane Council in 1925.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19621,"place_ref":602497,"name":"Warwick Central State School","alternate_name":"Warwick West School | Warwick West Boys School, Girls School and Infants School","street_address":"55B Guy Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-02-06","description":"The former West Warwick School is set in well kept gardens with the main entrance facing Guy Street.
School Building
The original school is a single story building, T-shaped in plan and constructed from brown sandstone blocks. The gabled roof is clad in corrugated iron sheeting and is set with pairs of dormer windows on each side of the roof. Each dormer is composed of four single paned casements.
The eastern, principal, elevation features a projecting gable with two narrow lancet windows with a small arched window above them and a centrally positioned circular air vent. A similar arrangement of vent and lancet windows is found at the western gabled end of the building. On the northern and southern gable ends there are sets of three narrow lancet windows. Above each set is a small arched window. The eastern elevation has five large square windows to both northern and southern wings on either side of the projecting gabled entry porch. On both sides of each wing are open verandahs. The southwestern section is enclosed and incorporates a timber extension now used as a tuck shop.
Internally, the building is divided into four large rooms. At the front is the gabled entry to the southern wing currently used for school administration. The northern wing houses the library and the western wing is divided into two rooms currently used for music and storage rooms.
The administration wing is lined with fibrous cemented sheeting and contains an office and staff room. The Library is open planned and the rooms in the western wing retain the original spaces though the dividing walls have been removed, presumably when the single sex schools amalgamated.
The ceiling in the main building is lined with pressed metal. Modern stained glass windows have recently been inserted into the lancet windows on the northern wall of the library wing.
Playshed
One of the original playground shelter shed remains on the southern side of the grounds. It is timber framed with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. Walls to the lower half screen the rear and end walls. A section has been enclosed at the western end and is used for storage.
","history":"The Central State School is a stone building constructed in 1875 as the second school in Warwick, but one of the earliest State-run schools in Queensland.
Education in Australia was first provided by Churches and by small private concerns. In 1848 a New South Wales Board of National Education was formed to provide public, secular education through National Schools. When Queensland separated from New South Wales in December 1859, two National Schools had been built in Queensland, the earliest in Warwick in 1850.
The Education Act of 1860 was amongst the earliest legislation enacted by the new colony. It established a Board of General Education and provided for a system of government-subsidised primary schools, similar to that in New South Wales. Under the Queensland Act, communities were required to contribute one-third of the cost of construction of new school buildings. Pupils at schools were also subject to payment of fees. At its commencement in 1860, the Board acquired four schools; 73 schools had been opened by 1868, and by 1874, 203 schools were open.
Many of the schools were conducted in buildings that were of primitive construction, the first Warwick school being constructed of timber slabs.
Warwick was settled early and soon became an important regional centre. The Warwick National School quickly became overcrowded and, as development in Warwick spread westward, was no longer centrally located. In 1873 subscriptions were opened for a new school. In August, three lots of land on the corner of Guy and Percy Streets were purchased from George Clark of East Talgai for £150. The firm of Suter and Voysey submitted plans to the Board of Education on 20 September 1873 at a proposed cost of £1800.
Architect Benjamin Backhouse employed Richard George Suter in 1865. In 1864 Backhouse had prepared a model plan for the Queensland Board of Education, to be used for country schools. Whilst employed in Backhouse's office Suter prepared designs for school buildings, which later lead to the Board commissioning Suter for the design of timber schools and teacher's residences. From the end of 1868 until 1875, Suter undertook almost all of the Board's work, which involved approximately 30 National Schools. He described the plans for the school as being draw up with 'the strictest view to economy and consistency with the accommodation required.' This accommodation provided for large classrooms with galleried seating where several classes would be taught at the same time under several teachers and pupil teachers.
The Mayor of Warwick, at a ceremony attended by 2000, people laid the foundation stone on 25 June 1874. The stonework was contracted to John McCulloch at a cost of £1055. John Keleher carried out the timber structures and joinery. The roof was originally shingled. It was completed by the end of March 1875 and was known as the Warwick Central School, the Warwick National School being renamed the Warwick East School. A dividing fence was constructed in the following year to separate the girls' and boys' sections.
Architect Richard Gailey, reporting to the Board of Education on 12 November 1875 criticised the design for its poor lighting and ventilation and commented on the ill fit of the windows. He recommended the construction of playground shelter sheds.
It was usual for parents to provide one fifth of the cost of such sheds and money was collected for them. They cost £140 each and were built by Keleher and completed by 5 February 1878.
In 1884 Johann Guntz bequeathed land adjoining the school and further land was added to the grounds in 1892 from the estate of Carl Brell.
The Warwick West School was divided by gender, the Girls and Infants School and the Boys School being conducted in identical wings of the school separated by walls and by a dividing fence down the centre of the school grounds. This division of the sexes remained in place until 1 January 1933 when the two schools where finally amalgamated to become the Warwick Central State School.
In 1909 both the main school building and toilet block required re-roofing. In 1910 a timber addition was made to the north of the main building. A report at the time also made mention of the poor lighting in the main building. In 1914 dormer windows in the main building were inserted.
In 1919 an open-air annexe was erected at a cost of £1167. While the annexe did relieve some of the over crowding its open nature was a cause of some concern with numerous reports to the Department of Education on it deficiencies as a classroom.
In 1929 Bert Mitchell planted a Bunya pine seedling at the front of the building in honour of this son, Walter who attended the school as a 5 year old.
In 1939 the school and playsheds were reported to be in bad order and the Superintendent of Works from the Education Department recommended a new brick building replace the exiting main building, but this did not eventuate.
In 1956 and 1961 two new schools were built in Warwick and they relieved the overcrowding issue at Warwick Central State School.
In 1959 a new wing with six classrooms was constructed and two further classrooms were added in 1968-1969. When the new classrooms were built, the original school building was converted to convert to administrative use, a library and music rooms.
","criteria":"As a substantial and early government primary school, the former Warwick West School demonstrates the development of the education system in Queensland. The building was constructed in 1874-5, a period of expansion for educational facilities in Queensland. It is an early example of a masonry school building designed by prominent architect RG Suter who was responsible for the design of many school buildings in Queensland from the late 1860s to the mid 1870s.
|The school is uncommon as an early and substantially intact school building and as one constructed of local stone, rather than brick or the timber later in common use.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of early schools such as the provision of large classrooms for teaching by the Lancastrian system and in its gender division, separating class and play areas for girls and boys.
|The Warwick Central State School has aesthetic value as an early example of Gothic revival school architecture and as a prominently sited building, pleasing in form and material, makes an important contribution to the character of Guy Street.
|The Warwick Central State School has provided primary education to generations of Warwick children and continues to be valued in this role.
|The Warwick Central State School is significant as an example of the work of influential architect Richard Suter, who made an important contribution to the design of schools in Queensland. It is the only stone State school building designed by him in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19622,"place_ref":602499,"name":"Ninney Rise and John Busst Memorial","alternate_name":"John and Alison Busst's Residence","street_address":"405 Alexander Drive and Esplanade","suburb":"BINGIL BAY","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Ninney Rise
Ninney Rise is located on a 1.98 hectare block just south of Ninney Point at Bingil Bay approximately 160 kilometres south of Cairns and 35 kilometres south of Innisfail. The property comprises a main residence, separate garage, and extensive grounds that include indigenous rain forest and a landscaped garden with swimming pool, walkways and driveways. The site is bounded by Clump Mountain National Park to the north, an esplanade and Bingil Bay to the east, and residential properties to the south and west.
The house is accessed via an ascending driveway which winds northward from Alexandra Drive through park-like grounds with some mature trees. Adjacent to the house and covering the northern third of the lot is lush tropical lowland rainforest. The house and grounds, including an in-ground pool at the southern end of the house, are only 20 metres from the foreshore of Bingil Bay, and provide views to the Coral Sea. About 50 metres to the west of the house there is a concrete-block, hipped-roof structure containing garage with work area and water closet. Neither the swimming pool nor the garage is considered to contribute to the cultural heritage significance of the place.
The core of the house is T-shaped in plan and is aligned roughly north-south with the long eastern side facing the ocean.
The house is low-set with a core of load-bearing brickwork walls supporting a concrete ring beam to which the timber-framed roof, clad in metal sheeting, is fixed. The hipped roof extends over the core to form the verandah roof, which is supported by a concrete verandah plate on steel posts fixed to the suspended concrete verandah floor slab. The verandah slab is supported at its edge by concrete piers. At each corner of the verandah a brick supporting walls extends diagonally from the corner of the brick house foundations to the outside edge of the verandah slab. Three sets of concrete steps lead from the verandah to the garden: two on the front (eastern side) and one on the western side. The verandah floor and stairs are finished with tiles and the verandah ceiling is lined with split bamboo.
The walls of the core are of cavity brick, laid on edge in stretcher bond with a header brick every two or three bricks. The brick work pattern is a variation of the Rat-trap or Chinese bond with the bricks laid on edge, and laid with two stretcher bricks then one header brick joining the two skins of the wall together making an approximately 50 millimetre cavity. The walls are painted on the outside and rendered on the inside. Many of the exterior window and door frames are of painted timber but some have been replaced with aluminium frames and flyscreens.
Midway along the western side of the core a single-storeyed, hipped-roofed wing joins at right angles. This has a skillion extension on the northern side. At the northern end of the core adjoining what was formerly the northern verandah, there is a two-storeyed, hipped roof structure, consisting of a ground floor former garage above which is a later addition.
The layout of the house comprises a living room at the southern end, shaded by verandah on three sides, with glassed doors opening to the verandahs on the east and west and a picture window to the south. A hallway extends north from the living room. Off this hall, facing the sea is a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, dining room, and kitchen. The dining room and kitchen also have doors opening to the east (front) verandah. The former northern verandah beyond the kitchen is now a breezeway and storage area, and a laundry has been created on the west verandah near the northern corner.
The rear (west) wing is accessed via a short hall at right angles to the main hallway. Opening off this secondary hall is a small bedroom to the south; a bathroom to the north; and a studio or bedroom to the west. This studio/bedroom has an ensuite bathroom accommodated under the skillion-roofed extension. The studio's main light comes from the south. From the secondary hall, between the two bathrooms, there is access to a small porch and beyond this to a brick-enclosed courtyard with an arched entry in the western wall.
With the exception of the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms, rooms have split bamboo ceilings with ceiling lights and fans set in patterned cane or bamboo panels. Architraves and skirtings are also of bamboo, as is the door into the studio. This use of split bamboo is a particularly striking feature of the house. A long strip of what appears to be batik is set into the studio ceiling. The interior timber-framed floor is lined generally with timber boards.
The northern two-storeyed section of the house consists of a large store room and garage on the ground floor with a living area, bedroom and bathroom on the upper level, accessed via an internal timber staircase. It is lined throughout with plasterboard.
Büsst Memorial
The Büsst Memorial is located on road reserve just below Ninney Point, close to the beach, approximately 200m north of John and Alison Büsst's former home, Ninney Rise. It comprises a small brass plaque attached to a natural rock formation, with the plaque facing the ocean. The inscription on the plaque reads:
IN MEMORY
Of
JOHN H BÜSST
DIED 5 - 4 - 1971
ARTIST AND LOVER OF BEAUTY
WHO FOUGHT
THAT MAN AND NATURE
MIGHT SURVIVE
","history":"Ninney Rise at picturesque Bingil Bay north of Mission Beach in northern Queensland was built in c1960 by artist and environmentalist John Horatio Büsst, using locally made bricks and locally sourced bamboo. He lived in the house with his wife Alison until his death in 1971. It was from here that Büsst master-minded a passionate, determined and ultimately successful campaign to protect Queensland's Great Barrier Reef and its tropical rainforests from development and mining pressures and exploitation.
Ninney Rise and its grounds are located on what had been part of a 160 acre (64.75ha) block first taken up in the name of Sidney B Cutten in 1884. The Cutten family were the area's first non-Indigenous settlers and became well known horticulturists. They built their family home, Bicton House, on the site now occupied by Ninney Rise, retaining it until the late 1930s.
Mission Beach, Bingil Bay, and Dunk and Bedarra Islands remained relatively undeveloped during the first half of the twentieth century, due to their isolation and frequent destructive cyclones. These factors ensured that the area retained much of its outstanding natural beauty which, along with idyllic accounts from Queensland author EJ Banfield, attracted artists and naturalists to the area including John Büsst and his sister Phyllis, who leased the south-eastern corner of Bedarra Island in 1940 and later purchased almost the whole island (apart from 15 acres (6ha) owned by artist Noel Wood).
John Büsst's interest in art, architecture and advocacy began in his youth, which he spent in Victoria. After attending Wesley College, he studied at Melbourne University. He then shared a house with Arthur Munday and future Prime Minister Harold Holt, before Büsst and Munday studied art with draughtsman-turned-painter Justus Jörgensen, who was influential in Melbourne art circles (according to information communicated in July 2005 by Sigmund Jörgensen, the son of Justus). In 1934 Büsst followed Jörgensen to Eltham, an outer suburb of Melbourne, which had attracted artists since the early 1900s, to help build the community of painters, sculptors, musicians and crafts-people later known as Montsalvat. Their architectural vision included the use of natural and local materials, such as pisé de terre and mud bricks. As one of Monsalvat's builders, Büsst acquired skills in creative and organic building. This artistic background and its associated philosophies influenced Büsst's building practices when he moved to north Queensland with his sister in 1940: his first house (since demolished) on Bedarra Island being constructed with hand-made mud bricks.
After 1947 Büsst subdivided his Bedarra Island land and sold 86 acres (34.8ha) of it, according to the book Discovering the Family Islands by JG Porter (1983: 43). Phyllis returned to Melbourne and John married Alison Shaw Fitchett who joined him on Bedarra in the early 1950s. In 1957 John and Alison Büsst sold their home on Bedarra Island and moved to Bingil Bay where they purchased Bicton House, the old Cutten family home, on just less than 10 acres (4ha) which extended to the beach with views over the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef. They also acquired portion 19V to the north, a 154 acre (62.3ha) block that included extensive areas of tropical lowland rainforest and the rocky headland known as Ninney Point. In the late 1950s or early 1960s the Büssts demolished Bicton House and erected a new residence on the site, according to Patricia Clare's The Struggle for the Great Barrier Reef (1971: 90).
John Büsst designed their new home to be strong enough to withstand cyclones, and utilised locally sourced materials. He employed a local builder to erect the shell of the building using bricks from the Silkwood Brickworks, and then used bamboo, an exotic that had been planted in the district in the nineteenth century, to create decorative ceiling features, architraves and fittings throughout the residence and to make furniture. Patricia Clare, who visited the Büsst's new home at Bingil Bay in the 1960s, later wrote:
"The white house stood on its own cliff, the rainforest behind it, and in front the satin shine of blue water stretching away to where the reefs of lime lay hidden. It was the traditional Australian country house, a core of rooms surrounded by wide verandahs, with a roof like a shady hat pulled down over the lot ... Büsst had built it ... [as] a fortress, built of brick and reinforced concrete to outlast the cyclones which periodically smashed into this coast... [explaining] ... 'I am not interested in making anything that won't last for a thousand years.' We stepped off the verandah ... into a room with ceiling lined in a sort of bamboo parquetry." (1971: 90.)
Büsst's artistic individualism and interest in the aesthetics of nature and in using nature in art and architecture gradually evolved into an awareness of the ecological reasons for conserving the natural world, and in the 1960s, to environmental activism.
During the late 1950s and 1960s, Queensland's coastal environments were under threat from rapid development stimulated by a boom in resource exploitation. Büsst observed large areas of rainforest being felled for sugar and banana cultivation and cattle, with subsequent wet season rain pouring topsoil out into the ocean. This resulted in pesticides, nutrients and phosphates being flushed out to sea and onto the Great Barrier Reef, which was also under pressure from unsustainable fishing practices and infestations of the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci).
Büsst was a founding member, Chairman and Secretary of the Committee for the Preservation of Tropical Rainforest. In 1965 he convinced the Federal government to engage rainforest scientists Dr Leonard Webb and Geoff Tracey to undertake the first systematic vegetation survey of north Queensland's rainforests. According to a Wet Tropics Management Authority 'Chronology of the Protection and Management of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area' (2007) and personal communication with Geoff Tracey, the 1966 survey resulted in: the first ever scientific reference to the international significance of Queensland's lowland rainforests; the first proposal for protection of the full range of North Queensland forests; and the first actual protection of lowland tropical Queensland rainforest. Webb and Tracey, who stayed with Büsst at his Bingil Bay house to do all their work on medicinal drugs from rainforest plants, were pioneers in Australian rainforest ecology and conservation. They promoted the conservation of lowland rainforest through the establishment of national parks and were joined by the Büssts in their campaign.
John Büsst's Great Barrier Reef campaign received much publicity and has been well documented in Australian ecology and conservation literature. Following public notice of a cane grower's intention to harvest coral from 84 acres (33.9ha) of supposedly dead reef (as a cheap source of agricultural lime) in 1967, Büsst lodged an objection and gathered evidence to prove that Ellison Reef was alive. The ensuing battle involved a number of influential environmentalist groups including the: Australian Conservation Foundation, Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society, the Queensland Littoral Society (renamed the Australian Marine Conservation Society), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (US). Büsst also circulated an objection (addressed to the Minister for Mines) to the Premier and the Ministers for Tourism and Conservation and the Director-General of the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau. He attracted wide press coverage for the case and enlisted the help of his long-time friend Prime Minister Harold Holt who, after being introduced to Bingil Bay by John Büsst, built a holiday home nearby. Six months after the hearings in the Innisfail Courthouse, Queensland Mines Minister Ron Camm rejected the mining application. This landmark case set a precedent for not mining the reef, brought the question of exploiting the Reef's resources into the public arena and served as a cornerstone for the conservation movement in Queensland.
Büsst's other major battle involved protecting the Great Barrier Reef from oil drilling. By September 1967 the Queensland Government had leased 80,920 square miles (nearly 21 million hectares) of the Great Barrier Reef to companies that intended to drill there for oil. Büsst wrote to both Harold Holt and Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam proposing a moratorium on drilling on the reef and their support for a tropical marine science research centre for Townsville. The ensuing campaign was highly political, with Büsst and his supporters linking the leases to the State government through the shareholdings in Exoil No Liability held by a number of ministers as well as the Queensland Premier, Joh Bjelke Petersen. The campaign broadened and pressed for the Commonwealth to wrest control of the reef from the state. Despite failing health, Büsst worked with trade unions and parliamentarians, notably Senator George Georges, to pressure the state Government and the oil companies. He planned, and widely publicized, the issue of a writ on the Queensland Government on the grounds that it had colluded with business to promote drilling. Public support grew and the 'Save the Reef' campaign attracted support from both sides of politics. The campaign became international as Büsst dispatched up to 4,000 letters around the globe. In March 1970 an oil tanker ran aground in the Torres Strait and an alarmed federal government upgraded the Inquiry to a Royal Commission into mining in the Great Barrier Reef. In the meantime legislation was drafted for sovereign control over underwater resources on the Continental Shelf.
During these hard-fought campaigns waged during the 1960s to conserve Queensland's Great Barrier Reef and its tropical rainforests, Büsst's house at Bingil Bay, Ninney Rise, became a centre for the movement. It hosted a range of influential visitors, including: politicians such as Harold Holt; noteworthy scientists such as marine biologist Dr Don McMichael, Japanese ornithologist Dr Jiro Kikkawa, rainforest ecologists Webb and Tracey, and United States marine collector and littoral zoologist Eddie Hegerl and his dive team; numerous conservation workers; and author Judith Wright. Wright, the inaugural president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland in 1962, was intimately involved in the activism and documented it in her book The Coral Battleground (West Melbourne, VIC: Thomas Nelson [Australia], 1977), which she dedicated to Büsst. In a letter to Wisenet in the 1990s Wright described Büsst as 'the man whose energy and devotion had first sparked off, and largely continued' the fight to save the reef. (Also refer to South of my days: a biography of Judith Wright, by Veronica Brady. Pymble, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1998.)
Büsst died in 1971 as he prepared his evidence for the Royal Commission. Wright composed the words for a memorial plaque at Bingil Bay overlooking the ocean just below Ninney Point, to commemorate his passionate commitment to conservation and nature. Four years later the Commonwealth took over management of the Great Barrier Reef with the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act and the world's largest marine protected area.
Alison Büsst subdivided the land around Ninney Rise at Bingil Bay in 1975 and donated the northern rainforest headland around Ninney Point to the State as Lot 115 NPW 502. Four years later she sold the house to an American conservationist, Kate Tode.
Kate Tode and friend, Jean Rentoul, moved into Ninney Rise in October 1979. Mrs Tode conserved the Büssts' home and built an additional level above the garage at the northern end of the house. During the early 1980s she also arranged for the construction of a tool storage shed and driveway, the installation of a swimming pool, and re-tiled the bathrooms and kitchen. In 1982 Tode excised 3.8 hectares of the property, which she donated to the State. This was gazetted as National Park 1828 (now part of the Clump Mountain National Park) on 17 March 1984. At her death on 22 February 1990, Tode bequeathed the remainder of the property (including the house) to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS). Ninney Rise passed to her executors in late 1993 and was handed over to QPWS in 1995.
In the early 2000s QPWS proposed to sell the property, however conservation groups successfully objected to various Queensland Ministers on the grounds that the place retained significant cultural and natural heritage values. In 2008, QPWS undertook some repairs to the building, mainly the verandah ceilings, floor and foundations. John and Alison Büsst's former Bingil Bay residence remains the property of the people of Queensland.
","criteria":"Ninney Rise, its park-like grounds within a strikingly beautiful area of coastal lowland rainforest and the property's views to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area have great aesthetic significance. The outlook from the place takes in this marine environment, which is now recognised for the outstanding natural universal values that John Büsst fought to protect during the 1960s before these values had been widely recognised and appreciated.
|Ninney Rise is significant as the base from which the artist and environmentalist John Büsst organized the 'Save the Reef' and other important environmental campaigns during the 1960s and early 1970s. Set within the landscape being fought for, it was a meeting place for the campaigners and scientists involved with him in these efforts and became a focal point for all their struggles. These deeply contentious campaigns were supported by local and international scientists and aimed to protect the Great Barrier Reef and the area's tropical rainforests from development and mining pressures. As influential in the formation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and to the eventual declaration of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, these campaigns demonstrate the history of Queensland's environmental conservation movement with Büsst's home at Bingil Bay a key place associated with this activism.
|A home and a focal point for the early environmental conservation movement in Queensland, Ninney Rise is closely associated with the artist and eco-campaigner John Büsst who designed and built it in c1960. He worked intimately with the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Queensland Littoral Society (Australian Marine Conservation Society) and the Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society in the campaign to save the Great Barrier Reef. Büsst's environmental activism illustrated his transition from being an artist interested in the aesthetics of nature to a conservationist promoting the ecological reasons to conserve the natural environment. The inscription on the memorial to John Büsst near Ninney Point reflects his appreciation for art, nature and conservation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19623,"place_ref":602500,"name":"Innisfail Court House (former)","alternate_name":"Innisfail Police Station (former)","street_address":"40 Buckley Street","suburb":"YORKEYS KNOB","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2004-12-06","description":"The former Innisfail courthouse sits on a terraced hillside block on Yorkeys Knob north of Cairns. It is an elevated timber building in two parts (the front section and rear right section or former courthouse) with encircling verandahs. It has a corrugated iron pyramid roof over the front section and a corrugated iron hipped roof, terminating in a gable and skillion verandah roof over the right rear section. A set of symmetrical steps with double dowel balustrades leads from a gabled entrance porch at the centre of the front verandah. A white picket fence frames the building as viewed from Buckley Street.
The front and side verandahs feature double slat balustrades and arched timber verandah sweeps. The verandah ceiling is lined with timber. A verandah room is enclosed on the western side with tongue and groove timber boards and double hung sash windows. The buildings have external studs and some weatherboard framing.
Former Offices
Internally the front portion of the building contains an office, a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living/dining area. A line down the center of the hallway floor indicates where the building was cut for removal to its present location. Internal ceilings are lined with timber with four lattice ventilation openings and the floors are polished silky oak. There are three timber archways within the main living/kitchen areas. A number of French doors with glass fanlights lead from the living area to the encircling verandah. The kitchen features sash windows opening onto the western verandah.
A bedroom and bathroom, separated by a fibro partition that reaches halfway to the ceiling (installed during its conversion to a police station) are on the western side of the front portion of the building. The bathroom is lined in tile and fibro cement sheeting boards and its fittings are constructed from materials salvaged during relocation of the building from Innisfail. The bedroom has three French doors, one opening north to the front verandah, one to the enclosed western verandah and one to the internal hall.
Former Courtroom
The rear right portion of the building (former court room) now incorporates a recreation room, guest accommodation, a bathroom and laundry, although its configuration remains from its conversion for police use. Ceilings are lined with timber and floors are original polished silky oak timber. Two lattice ventilation openings are visible in the unpainted ceiling, and four fans and cross bracing of painted metal poles are also evident. The recreation room contains four casement windows with fanlights, two timber doors opening onto the verandah at the rear and two timber doors opening onto the front verandah. There is also an arch door opening onto the verandah facing the street, which has been fitted since the buildings relocation. The lower wallboards on the western side can be opened for added ventilation. Many internal furnishings are original including a courtroom witness box, and prisoner's dock.
A timber door on the eastern side of the recreation room leads to a laundry and bathroom, both with tiled floors and timber walls. There are double hung sash windows with 'kosiosko' glass in the bathroom and glass louvered windows in the laundry opening to the eastern side of the building. At the rear of the recreation room there are five bedrooms, three within the enclosed rear verandah of the former courtroom, and two forming the rear of the former courthouse. All have single skin timber walls and timber ceilings. Glass louvres face south from the bedrooms in the enclosed verandah. A wall that reaches halfway to the ceiling separates the two internal bedrooms (former offices) from each other. Floors throughout are of silky oak, highly polished by the current owners. While most of the flooring timbers are original, a small amount has been replaced using timber salvaged during its relocation. The rear verandah is unpainted and faces the back garden.
A large roof ventilation fleche sits prominently on the roof of the former courthouse. It is located within an elaborate decorative casing with four arched walls and a pyramid roof with filial.
The sub floor is enclosed on three sides with mini orb, with a block wall incorporating the former Innisfail Police Station gaol cell door forming the fourth wall. It has a concrete floor and is used as a garage. A range of material retained since the relocation of the building from Innisfail, are stored under the house. The grounds with tropical plantings compliment the aesthetics of the building, but are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Former Innisfail Courthouse at 40 Buckley Street, Yorkeys Knob is a high set timber building originally constructed in 1920-21 as a courthouse and government offices on the corner of Rankine and Edith Streets, Innisfail. In 1938 the building was moved a short distance to a site in Edith Street, Innisfail. With the present Innisfail courthouse (built of rendered brick in interwar-classical style) opening in 1940, the timber building was converted to the Innisfail Police Station in 1942. The building was purchased by private owners in 1988, moved to its present location at Yorkeys Knob, Cairns and adapted for use as a private residence.
The Johnstone River area was settled by cedar-cutters, with the first major planting of sugar cane occurring in 1880 by TH Fitzgerald. In 1881 the first sugar mill was erected in the area and a town was laid out at the junctions of the North and South Johnstone Rivers. The town was named Geraldton in 1883, although in 1910 it was changed to Innisfail to avoid confusion with the Western Australian town of the same name.
The town's first official building, described by Dorothy Jones as a "long low iron structure" was erected c1881, probably on the police reserve, and accommodated a Police Station, Courthouse, unofficial Post Office, Lands Office, Customs Office, an office for the Clerk of Petty Sessions and a gaol. Tenders for a new courthouse were called in late 1887, and a timber building was built on the corner of the police reserve bounded by Edith and Rankine Streets. By the late 1900s-early 1910s the Innisfail district was attracting attention from both land speculators and settlers, with a particular focus on sugar production. The Queensland Government expressed its intention of opening up Mourilyan Harbour and of resuming, and extending the local tramline inland from the coast, which gave further impetus to development of the district as a sugar production area.
It was normal practice in colonial days for country and regional courthouses to be built of timber, often with corrugated iron elements. These buildings were usually single story and unassuming, consisting of little more than two or three rooms arranged longitudinally and surrounded by verandahs on at least three sides. Surviving examples from this period in the tropics include Port Douglas (1879) and Croydon (1887). The 1888 timber courthouse in Innisfail suffered considerable damage in the devastating cyclone of 1918, which destroyed an estimated 75% of Innisfail's buildings. It was replaced in 1920-21 with a timber building on high stumps with an iron roof and 8 foot wide verandahs at front and sides. The 35 x 25 foot courtroom at the rear was detached from the front portion of the building by a 5 foot passage. The building also housed offices for various government departments as well as shops.
In the design of Colonial and State Government buildings in Queensland, there is considerable continuity, particularly in the use of timber as the predominant material, and in details of composition. Some of the design details in common use in government buildings, particularly from mid 1880s onwards, are window hoods, eaves details, gable decorations, verandah balustrades and roof vents. While many of these elements including timber composition were common to many buildings in Queensland from early on, government buildings such as courthouses, post offices, schools, and police stations for example, can be distinguished from the common mode by the high standard of architectural composition, the careful detailing, and the attention to climate - as evidenced in the use of sun shading devices, ventilation systems, and the overhang of eaves beyond the verandah edges.
Many buildings constructed in Innisfail after the 1918 cyclone, demonstrate particular adaptations to cyclonic conditions. That many destroyed timber structures were re-built in reinforced concrete, masonry or rendered to offer some protection from the elements, poses historic inquiry of the 1920-21 timber courthouse. It is notable that at least one of the alternative schemes for the new courthouse featured plans of a grand two-story masonry structure in inter-war free classical style. Indeed, courthouse architecture of the time set out to impress and awe the unfortunate citizens who were unlucky enough to be involved in the process of the law. As a result, most surviving examples from the 20th century are more permanent and refined masonry structures such as the Cairns Courthouse (1921) and the Dalby Courthouse (1930s). Even in small country towns it was common for second-generation courthouses to be built this way, replacing an earlier and more basic timber building. The reasons for constructing the courthouse, a symbolically important building, out of timber at this time, may reflect availability of materials as well as economic factors, although further research could enlighten this debate.
Adaptations used in the construction of the Innisfail courthouse however, include the use of steel bolts to anchor the roof to the walls, and the walls to the floor beams, which were in turn bolted to the stumps. Diagonal crossbeams of hardwood timber were used to brace the walls of the building. These elements are thought to be early adaptations of construction methods to cyclonic conditions.
By 1932 some of the verandah space of the building was sacrificed for rooms, including the Police Magistrate and a jury room. The front section of the building was lengthened by 8 feet in 1933 to incorporate a Lands Office and Land Ranger's Office, and the rear of the courtroom extended 8 feet to add a verandah flanked by 2 storerooms. Then Assistant Chief Architect of the Queensland Government Harold James Parr drafted the alterations. Electricity, water and septic toilets were installed in 1933.
The vast majority of timber buildings built in North Queensland have traditionally relied on use of elevation, verandahs, and cross ventilation from windows to keep them cool. More elaborate conventions included regulating fanlights, ceiling vents and louvered openings on both sides of the roof or in gable ends. The former Innisfail courthouse incorporates these more common ventilation features with more advanced techniques.
Plans and sections showing extensions to the building in 1933 reveal an elaborate ventilation system to cope with Innisfail's hot and humid climate. The system featured latticed ventilation spaces in the ceiling that delivered hot air into pipes in the ceiling and out through a cupola-shaped ventilation fleche in a decorative casing on the courthouse roof. Although not in use since the buildings removal from Innisfail in 1988, the necessary elements of the ventilation system are still present in the ceiling. Bell (1984:178) confirms that intact examples of ceiling ventilation such as this are rare, as many have been removed or destroyed during installation of electric lights or ceiling fans. At floor level in the courtroom the lowest wallboards were hinged so they could be opened to increase airflow. Fanlights, sash windows and louvres assisted with ventilation. In 1934 a ventilation grille was installed behind the Judge's Bench and casement windows installed in the Jury's Room. Although electric fans were first installed in 1938, and by 1990 there were 18 fans in the building, these upgrades have not affected the material fabric of the system.
While it is known that similar ventilation techniques were incorporated into other public buildings such as schools and post offices or other courthouses during this period and earlier, the system within the former Innisfail courthouse now at Yorkeys Knob is rare in its survival in North Queensland. In all, the building has seven ceiling ventilation spaces attached to the ducting system and roof ventilator via metal hoods in the ceiling above them. This configuration is preserved intact and remains in the ceiling space.
Between 1920 and 1930 the total population of the Johnstone Shire ballooned from 5,549 to 18,088 people and the number of recorded dwellings rose from 700 to 3,130. The sugar districts of the north Queensland coast experienced a boom during the 1930s and it was considered necessary to expand the courthouse facilities in Innisfail to cope with the increasing amounts of official and legal business. In 1937 plans were drawn up for a new 2-storey brick courthouse, which was completed in 1939.
Timber and iron buildings are well adapted for removal and modification for re-use, and in north Queensland this has been a common response to changing economic conditions in settlements, such as mining towns. Bell considers that this was probably one of the influences on the design of timber buildings, and that it was not unusual for relocated buildings to undergo modification on re-erection, for stylistic or functional reasons, rather than be reconstructed to original forms.
The timber courthouse was moved to an excavated site at 8 Edith Street in 1938, placed on concrete stumps and adapted for use as the Innisfail Police Station, which opened in 1942. The front offices became a Day Room, CIB office, storeroom, Sub-Inspector's office and public enquiry rooms. One corner of the verandah was enclosed for a Senior Sergeant's office. The courtroom was divided into single men's accommodation, with 6 bedrooms and a recreation room. The front double stairway was lengthened and one set of steps was removed to facilitate car parking underneath the building. The room partitions were constructed from fibro cement and the side verandahs were screened with lattice.
Other changes to the building that occurred when it was used as a police station include the installation of a fibrous cement partition between the Public Office and the Enquiries Room (which subsequently become a Radio Room), removal of a partition between the storeroom and Sub-Inspector's office and its replacement with a high arch partition, enclosure of the back verandah of the court room for use as 3 offices, and installation of a toilet on the side of the courtroom building. Several of the casement windows were replaced with louvres and most of the verandahs were enclosed.
A carpark was proposed for the site of the police station in 1988, and the building was purchased by Frank Fisher and Bea Masschelein for relocation as a private residence. It was moved to its present location at Buckley Street, Yorkeys Knob, on the northern beaches of Cairns. The front section of the building was sawn in half to facilitate removal, while the courtroom was removed in one piece. To fit the building on its new block, the arrangement of its two sections has been altered. The courtroom was placed to the eastern rear of the block (to the right of its original position) and joined to the front section by a verandah at the front and rear.
The architectural elements of the building combine grand scale 'Queenslander' features and traditional courthouse architecture. While there are limited associations with government or justice in its current location, the building has become an important element of the streetscape of Buckley Street, overlooking the Yorkeys Knob Marina and Boat Club. Aesthetic features that can be appreciated from the street include the dominant use of timber as a construction material, pyramid shaped corrugated iron roof and the elaborate ventilation fleche and casing of the court room, pattern of 4 panel sash windows and vertically framed frenchlights, encircling verandahs, symmetrical double-elbow shaped front stairs, verandah entrance highlighted as a frontispiece by paired posts and gable pediment, slat balustrading, high set frame, large scale and its siting above street level.
Since its use as a private residence the building has undergone work to restore its original character, such as re-instatement of the front double steps and removal of the verandah enclosures. Internally some changes have been made for functional reasons, including construction of a kitchen in the former CIB office with a skylight in place of the original ventilation opening, construction of a bathroom in the former radio room and the use of the former Public Office as a bedroom. Some antique light fittings and fans have been installed that are similar but not identical to the originals and the former police bedrooms are now used as guest accommodation. The former courtroom is used as a recreation room and an arched doorway, salvaged from the Burns Philp building prior to its demolition in Cairns, leads from the courtroom to the verandah.
","criteria":"The Former Innisfail Courthouse is important for illustrating the pattern of Queensland's history in demonstrating the evolution of design and materials used in the construction of courthouses in regional Queensland. While most second-generation Queensland courthouses dating from the 1920s and 1930s were built using materials such as rendered brick or masonry, the former Innisfail Courthouse is notable in the interwar era for its timber construction and design along more traditional Queensland public building lines.
|The place demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as a regional example of a naturally ventilated tropical courthouse built of timber and designed for the North Queensland climate. Its sophisticated ventilation system, which has survived largely intact, features low-level hinged wall flaps to allow cool air into the courtroom and associated ducted roof vents. Although certain aspects of such systems are known of, this configuration is not common in public or private buildings in Queensland. It is an important example of this combined ventilation system in Queensland.
Although it has been relocated, and its current siting and use as a residence has no real heritage importance, the former Innisfail courthouse represents a rare and intact example of a naturally ventilated tropical courthouse built in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19627,"place_ref":602505,"name":"Austral Motors Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"95 Boundary Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-11","description":"A two-storey red face brick former motor showroom and workshop, the former Austral Motors Building occupies land on the ridge formed by Boundary Street at the north end of Adelaide Street. The site is bounded by Boundary Street on the south, Dodge Lane on the west, and adjacent allotments on the east and north.
Large fixed glass display windows (some now boarded up) in the Boundary Street shopfront take advantage of the approaching slope of Adelaide Street to feature the showroom to maximum effect. The building is also notable for the banks of windows that throw light into the showroom and workshop areas. Decorated with an applied white cement rendered panel with a dentilled cornice and a decorative central tablet, the parapet front to Boundary Street screens a double gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Tucked within the base of the tablet, a narrow rectangular rainwater head and downpipes drain the central box gutter of the roof. Banks of large timber framed casement windows with fanlights run across the upper storey of the front elevation, lighting the front of the workshop/office area of the upper storey. This fenestration is enlivened with the inclusion of a number of decorative windows with a pattern of radiating lights. A cantilevered awning projects over the footpath to Boundary Street sheltering the showroom shopfronts. Two roller door entrances provide vehicle access from Boundary Street to the showrooms. The pedestrian entrance off Boundary Street is boarded up.
The ground floor accommodates two spacious showrooms with high ceilings clad in fibrous cement panelling with timber cover strips, which are stained dark to provide a decorative contrast in the western section. The ceiling is supported by steel posts and beams clad with timber sheeting and embellished with decorative timber mouldings. The showroom to the west side is floored towards the front with red brown terrazzo, presumably to display cars to the best advantage. This area is notable for a pair of steel lattice trusses, which support the concrete floor above, and has stairs to the upper storey that are no longer in use.
Windows to the south, east and west light the upper storey, which also has a battened ceiling, though the central section is missing. This workshop level has two large entrances to each side of the building. The floor is concrete to the part of the workshop accessed by the west entrance; the balance of the floor is timber. The east opening accommodates a pair of substantial timber sliding doors. This level has offices and toilets and an enquiry counter near the rear entrance that opens on to a yard accessed from Antrim Street and Dodge Lane. The red face brick double gable parapet of the rear elevation screens the two gable roofs behind. An open lean-to-roof shelter projects out from north end of the building.
The Dodge Lane elevation in red face brick houses banks of timber framed casement windows with fanlights to both storeys. A solid timber sliding door to the middle of the elevation provides entry to the showroom level and access to the timber stair to the upper storey. A narrow rectangular fixed glass window is to the north side of this entrance. Lintels and sills are distinguished in rendered cement.
","history":"The former Austral Motors Building, which closes the vista at the end of Upper Adelaide Street, Petrie Bight, is located on the Fortitude Valley side of Boundary Street at the northern end of the Brisbane central business district. Constructed in 1924-6 for the Austral Motors Company, it has a close association with the 20th century interwar re-development of the Petrie Bight area as an important warehousing precinct and motor vehicle servicing and distribution district.
Petrie Bight is a sharp curve in the Brisbane River at the northern end of the Town Reach. The name is derived from the association of the area with early Brisbane builder Andrew Petrie, who c1838 established his workshop and residence at the corner of Wharf and Queen Streets.
Early Petrie Bight land use
Surveyor Henry Wade, on his 1844 Map of the Environs of Brisbane Town, identified the Petrie's Bight area south of Boundary Street and east of Queen Street as 'Reserved for Dry Dock'. Surveyor Galloway did the same on his 1856 Plan of the Suggested Extension of the Town of Brisbane. At this time the surrounding area was sparsely occupied, with Andrew Petrie's house and factory at the corner of Wharf and Queen Streets; Dr Hobbs' house [now St John's Deanery] a little further north in Adelaide Street; the original customs house in Queen Street, beside the Brisbane River; and a ferry jetty just north of the Customs Houses.
A c1860 map of Brisbane Town showing the new town boundaries no longer labelled Petrie's Bight as a reserve for a dry dock [no dry dock was ever established there], but the site remained unsurveyed Government land. An early track [the northern end of Queen Street] ran through this land, branching off in three directions to New Farm, Fortitude Valley and the northwest end of Spring Hollow.
Under the provisions of the Brisbane Gas Company Bill 1864 the Government granted to the Company a site bounded by what are now Ann, Boundary and Macrossan streets and a 160-metre frontage to the Brisbane River, as the site for Brisbane's first gas works. This was the northern half of the Government land at Petrie's Bight. Gas production commenced there in 1865, providing the Brisbane Municipal Council with a regular supply of gas for street lighting. By the early 1870s the demand for gas for domestic consumption was outstripping supply, and in the mid-1870s a second gasometer was constructed on the site. In 1873 the Brisbane Gas Company gained a formal deed of grant to the Petrie's Bight land, an area of 4 acres 17.5 perches [1.66ha], which the Company had purchased from the Government in May 1873 for £4,300.
An April 1873 a survey plan titled Survey of Site of Gas Works and Adjacent Crown Land Shewing Road Through Same indicates that by this date the gas works site was fenced along the entire length of its land boundaries, but that through this the government had just surveyed a 20 feet wide road between Macrossan and Boundary streets, which later became an extension of Adelaide Street. Photographs from the 1860s and early 1870s show a tall paling fence around the perimeter of the gas works, prohibiting public access. Early Brisbane resident Victor Drury, writing in the Courier Mail in 1939, recalled: "When Adelaide Street was extended to Boundary Street, there were turnstiles there, and only pedestrians could use the path as a short cut to Queen Street."
River wharfage
In the early 1840s wharfage in Brisbane was concentrated along the South Brisbane Reach of the Brisbane River, but within a decade had extended to the Town Reach further downstream, which soon rivalled South Brisbane in terms of shipping activity. An 1849 decision to locate Brisbane's first purpose-built Customs House at the northern end of the Town Reach acted as the impetus for the development of wharves on this part of the river. The Commissariat Store (600176) below William Street, which had served as Brisbane's first customs facility, was replaced in 1850 by a new customs building on the site of the present Customs House (600156) in Queen Street, at Petrie's Bight. [This in turn was replaced in 1886-89 by the current building.] During the 1850s and 1860s, a number of shipping companies and private investors constructed wharves and warehouses between the Customs House and Alice Street, near the Botanic Gardens.
Construction of a Government wharf [Kennedy Wharf] at Petrie's Bight north of the Customs House commenced in 1875 was completed in 1877 and was leased to private shipping firms. In 1880 the Brisbane Municipal Council acquired the wharf and immediately extended it northward. In 1884 the Council also constructed a wharf at the end of Boundary Street, and in the mid-1880s William Collin established his own wharf at Petrie's Bight, just downstream from the Council's Boundary Street wharf. Purchase of land from the Brisbane Gas Company in 1902 gave the Council control of the river frontage from the Customs House to Boundary Street, and between 1913 and 1916 the Council constructed reinforced concrete wharves between Macrossan and Boundary Streets, and between Kennedy Wharf and the Customs House. The whole of the Council's wharfage at Petrie's Bight was subsequently re-named Circular Quay Wharves.
Between 1900 and 1912 Brisbane Wharves Ltd established wharves at Petrie's Bight from Boundary Street to Bowen Terrace, rivalling the Council's Circular Quay facilities in importance. Principal investors in the Brisbane Wharf Company were Howard Smith and William Collin and Sons. From the late 1890s, Howard Smith and Company Ltd occupied the Council's Boundary Street Wharf at Petrie's Bight and in the early years of the 20th century leased the adjacent new wharves constructed by Brisbane Wharves Limited at the base of the New Farm cliffs, below Bowen Terrace. These wharves were extended in the 1920s, and in the 1930s were resumed by the Queensland government for the construction of the Story Bridge.
Adelaide Street widening
In the early 20th century the roads to Petrie's Bight were improved significantly by the Brisbane City Council, providing an important impetus for the construction of new warehouses in the Upper Adelaide Street area.
Under the provisions of the City of Brisbane Improvement Act 1916 and the Local Authorities Act Amendment Act 1923 the Brisbane City Council contributed significantly to the 1920s building boom, with a programme of city beautification and street improvements, including the cutting down and widening of several of the principal thoroughfares. The 1916 Act empowered the City Council, with the approval of the Governor-in-Council, to resume land simply by passing a resolution to the effect that resumption was necessary. Property rights on resumed lands were then converted into compensation rights. The 1923 Act further facilitated this process by exempting all improvements made to a property after resumption notices had been issued, from the payment of compensation.
From 1923 to 1928 the Brisbane City Council implemented its most ambitious town improvement scheme to that date: the widening of Adelaide Street by 14 feet along its entire length. . Resumptions in Adelaide Street had commenced in the 1910s, but work on the street widening did not take place until the 1920s. The work was undertaken in stages, commencing in 1923 at the southern end where the new Brisbane City Hall was under construction. Some buildings had the front section removed and a contemporary façade installed on the new road alignment. Elsewhere, earlier buildings were demolished and substantial new structures took their place. At the northern end of Adelaide Street the cutting down of the hill below St John's Cathedral in 1928 facilitated greater access to Petrie Bight, which, close to new city wharves at the end of Boundary Street, boomed in the 1920s as a warehousing district.
By 1921 Queensland was poised to resume the economic boom interrupted by the First World War (1914-18). In the period 1922-1928, Queensland experienced its first and last economic boom between the outbreak of war in 1914 and the 1950s. The benefits of the boom economy were reflected throughout the State, but nowhere more so than in Brisbane, with 29% of the Queensland population in December 1924. In physical terms the boom was expressed in a spate of building activity that transported the central business district of Brisbane into the 20th century, shedding its late Victorian image.
The take-off in the building industry was evident during 1922-23, reflected in an active central business district real estate market, and prompting the Brisbane City Council to re-assess central city rateable values in 1923. By September 1925 property in Queen Street, the principal retail and financial street of Brisbane, could be acquired only at highly inflated prices, forcing investors into more peripheral locations such as Petrie's Bight. A fall in the price of building materials, combined with the trend in using concrete, a more economical product than brick, for large construction projects, further stimulated building activity.
From 1922 the business of re-building Brisbane assumed impressive proportions. Between 1923 and 1925, an average of 50 new commercial buildings a year were being constructed in Brisbane, contrasting markedly with the 8 constructed twenty years earlier in 1903. During 1925 the value of contracts for buildings in Brisbane, either in course of erection or in contemplation, was reported at £3,000,000. The Greater Brisbane City Council meticulously monitored progress through its building approvals process, statistics for which were released monthly from October 1925 to an eager local press. Construction peaked in 1926 with £3,411,285 worth of building works [new buildings, alterations and additions] approved in the Greater Brisbane area during the year. This included a substantial residential component. In 1927 the figure was around £2,823,000 and in 1928 just over £2,810,000.
The Motor Car Industry
In the 1910s the increasing availability of motor vehicles began to revolutionise public, private and commercial transport. In Brisbane, activities associated with horse transport began to convert to activities associated with motor transport, as coach and carriage builders became motor vehicle repairers or retailers, and livery stables became parking and service stations. In this way, the Austral Carriage Works, established around 1907 by Uhlmann and Lane at 51 Adelaide St, Brisbane, entered the motor trade shortly after the First World War. Austral Motors Limited became the sole agents in Queensland and the Northern Rivers for Dodge Brothers, an American firm that had manufactured motor cars since 1914 and light trucks since 1917. They were successful and by 1924 had two branches, with the Austral Carriage & Motor Works at Stanley Street in South Brisbane, and Austral Motors Distributors at Boundary Street, Spring Hill.
Queenslanders adopted motor vehicles with enthusiasm. Of the six Australian states, Queensland recorded the third largest number of motor vehicle registrations, 31,233, in 1923-24, behind New South Wales and Victoria. At the international level in 1923-24, Australia, with approximately 274,000 motor vehicle registrations, was fifth behind France (545,000), Canada (666,000), The United Kingdom (1,085,000), and the United States (15,400,000), and well ahead of Germany, in sixth place with 211,500 registrations.
Through the daily press, Brisbanites were exposed to a barrage of advertising from the motor vehicle industry, with regular features on aspects of motors and motoring. To accommodate this explosion of public interest in, and acceptance of, the motor vehicle, the number of Brisbane motor engineers' agents, car manufacturers, car importers, and garages listed in the local postal directories increased from 89 in 1920-21, to 134 in 1924-25. This was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number of motor vehicle accessory dealers, windscreen manufacturers, tyre dealers and motorcar body manufacturers.
By September 1925, the Brisbane City Council was raising the problem of providing parking for motor vehicles in the inner city. Purpose-built privately operated parking stations began to appear in the central business district from the mid-1920s. Numerous small garages and service stations also provided motor vehicle parking and car hire.
From the mid-1920s, Australia's premier building and architectural trade journal, the Sydney publication Building, had printed articles on designing public and commercial buildings to accommodate motor vehicles. Much of the journal's reference material came from the United States, which was leading the way in this type of design. Queensland architects had ready access to this and other architectural journals, and kept informed of the latest in international design developments.
In 1923 Austral Motors Limited engaged Brisbane architects Lange L Powell and George G Hutton Powell to design a showroom and service station at Petrie Bight. The land on which the Austral Motors building was constructed was part of two larger parcels of land first alienated from the Crown in 1852 and was surveyed and subdivided, together with the adjacent lane, in April 1923. The new road, Dodge Lane, was approved in May 1923 and is believed to have derived its name from the firm's Dodge agency. Tenders for construction were let in August 1923, the successful tenderer being Blair Cunningham. The first stage, on the corner of Dodge Lane, was completed in March 1924 at a projected cost of £9,300 and occupied by Austral Motors Limited from 1 April 1924. The two-storeyed building was constructed largely of concrete and steel, with a floor space of approximately 20,000 square feet [1858m²]. Due to the slope of the land, both floors had street access. The Boundary Street level accommodated a motor vehicle show room. The upper level, accessed off Dodge Lane at the rear, was fitted out as the Dodge Brothers Service Station.
In 1925 the firm undertook substantial extensions to their premises. George Hutton, who briefly occupied the position of Queensland Government Architect in 1922 prior to joining Powell in partnership in 1922, established his own practice in 1924, and called tenders for site excavations for Austral Motors Ltd in late 1924, the contract being let by January 1925. By April 1925 WR Juster's tender for additions and alterations to Austral Motors Ltd. had been accepted, but this appears not to have progressed, for by June 1925 Blair Cunningham's tender for the additions had been accepted. In July 1925 Austral Motors Ltd obtained Brisbane City Council approval for the construction, to cost £10,230.
The location was an excellent choice for a business of this type, being close to the city's main wharves at Petrie Bight, and in a location favoured by other motor vehicle retailers and ancillary businesses. The Evers Motor Co. Ltd had established a garage/paint shop at the eastern corner of Ivory and Boundary streets as early as c1918, and by 1920 HS Simpson, motor painter, was located next door to Evers. About 1926/27 Evers constructed a three-storeyed brick motor shed, offices and workshops at the corner of Boundary and Ivory streets, and a single-storeyed brick parking and filling station adjacent in Ivory Street, known as the Super Parking Station. As warehousing activity in Upper Adelaide Street expanding during the 1920s, many buildings were occupied by firms connected with the motor vehicle trade and industry and with car hire and garaging. In 1928, Collin House, a purpose-designed parking station and garage and a four-storey brick warehouse for the Dunlop Rubber Company of Australasia Pty Ltd were constructed in the vicinity. Tyre sales, automotive electricians and spare parts suppliers formed a substantial proportion of tenants in buildings in upper Adelaide Street during the 1920s and 1930s.
In the second half of the 1920s Austral Motors expanded rapidly, due to the Queensland-wide economic boom that coincided with the increasing availability of and public interest in motor vehicles. By 1929 the company was operating from several addresses and two cities, with the Austral Carriage & Motor Works continuing at Stanley Street, South Brisbane; Austral Cars Ltd established at Adelaide Street, Brisbane; and Austral Motors Ltd located at Boundary St, Spring Hill and at Sturt Street, Townsville.
In 1939 Austral Motors Pty Ltd acquired title to the allotment along the eastern boundary of the Company's mid-1920s acquisitions.
In 1986 Austral Motors sold the property to the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland who own the adjacent All Hallows girl's school. It continues its connection with motor vehicles and is leased out as a parking station as well as being used to park vehicles of All Hallows staff.
","criteria":"The former Austral Motors Building, erected in two stages 1923-1925 as a purpose-designed motor vehicle show room and service depot, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the Queensland-wide economic boom of the 1920s which transformed the appearance of the Brisbane central business district. During this period roads were straightened, widened and levelled; motorised vehicles congested inner city roads; the 19th century building stock was replaced by substantial brick or concrete commercial premises, many of which were designed around the motor car, such as parking stations and garages and motor show rooms; and most of the vacant land in the city centre was rapidly improved with substantial new brick buildings. At this period the Upper Adelaide Street district at Petrie Bight was developed as an important warehousing precinct, the development being facilitated by early 20th century initiatives of the Brisbane City Council, which included: constructing a formal wide road network, graded for motorised vehicular transport; encouraging the establishment of service lanes and alleys to allow for pedestrian and vehicle access to commercial buildings; and providing extensive new wharfage nearby at Circular Quay.
In particular, the former Austral Motors Building is important in illustrating the strong association of the Petrie Bight district with the early expansion of the motor vehicle trade in Queensland. Most of the warehouses in the area accommodated tenants or owners associated with the motor vehicle trade (including distribution, repairs and the provision of parts) or with motor vehicle servicing and parking.
|The former Austral Motors Building is important as an early, rare surviving and remarkably intact purpose-designed mid-1920s motor show room and service station.
|The former Austral Motors Building [1923-25] remains highly intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large, state-of-the-art motor vehicle show room of the interwar period. Its role as a sales and service facility is demonstrated by the spacious show rooms and the garaging facility at the rear for the servicing and maintenance of motor vehicles.
The place is important in illustrating the commercial work of leading Brisbane architects of the interwar period, Lange Powell and George Hutton, expressing the commercial priorities of the time.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19631,"place_ref":602509,"name":"Deception Bay Sea Baths","alternate_name":"Bancroft Sea Baths","street_address":"Captain Cook Parade","suburb":"DECEPTION BAY","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"Boardwalk Bath
\nThis bath is situated within an irregular shaped sandstone formation with a maximum length of 10m and width of 5m. The formation rises to a height of about 1m above the sand. On the landward side of the formation is an elevated timber boardwalk and on the seaward side is an extensive stand of mangroves.
\nThe bath is a rectangular shape cut into the sandstone formation, 3m in length and 1.8m wide. The floor of the bath is covered with a thin layer of cement rendering. Tool marks indicate the use of hand tools to excavate the bath.
\nThe northern end of the bath comprises natural sandstone and a small brick wall. This wall has a height of 365mm (five courses of brick) and a width of 520mm. At the base of the brick wall is a small drainpipe with an internal diameter of 50mm. The internal side of the brick wall is formed into three steps.
\nFisheries Bath
\nThe bath is a rectangular shape 4.3m long and 2.7m wide, with a triangular extrusion on the eastern side. This extrusion provides access to a semicircular ledge within the bath. The sides of the bath are generally perpendicular to an average depth of 1m with the exception of the ledge on the eastern side and a sloping triangular base on the northwestern corner. The base of the bath slopes to the deepest point of 1.3m off center on the southern end.
\nBrick edging surrounds the bath on the south (3.9m), east (7.7m) and northern (3.4m) sides. This edging is offset from the bath, 1.7m from the southern edge, .8m from the eastern edge, and 1.5m from the northern edge. These bricks vary in length between 290mm to 305mm and a width of 110mm. The bricks sit is a shallow trench cut into the sandstone and fixed with a lime mortar. The height of the bricks is weathered to no more than 40mm.
\nThe southeastern and northeastern extent of the bath is demarcated by two postholes cut into the sandstone. These holes are approximately 250mm in diameter. Another posthole demarcates the extent of the bath complex on the northwest. The western side of the bath complex is demarcated by a sandstone platform 100mm higher than the surrounds of the bath.
\nOn the southern side of the bath is a shallow trough. This trough is 70mm in depth, 2.9m long and 250mm wide.
\nNotches to secure timber steps are located on the northern edge. After the 2004 survey, the remnants of the hardwood steps were left in the bath.
","history":"The Deception Bay Sea Baths are two rectangular excavations in sandstone formations on the Deception Bay foreshore. The Fisheries Bath, measuring 4.3m by 2.7m is located in the inter-tidal zone about 20m east of the Department of Primary Industries Southern Fisheries Centre. The Boardwalk Bath measuring 3m by 1.8m, is situated adjacent to the foreshore boardwalk near the intersection of Captain Cook Parade and Seymour Street. The baths were probably built by Joseph Bancroft in the 1880s or 1890s.
Closer settlement of Deception Bay commenced with the opening of the Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve for selection in March 1861. Prior to this, the area had formed part of pastoral runs. Selection of allotments at Deception Bay was slow. Access to the area was difficult because the roads were very poor and the bay was too shallow for navigation by large vessels. Moreover, much of the land was sandy and unsuitable for agriculture. Many of the first selectors soon abandoned their land. Joseph Bancroft was one of the early landholders who retained ownership and gradually expanded his holdings at Deception Bay.
Born and educated in England, Joseph had migrated to Queensland in 1864 and practised as a medical doctor in Brisbane. However, he and his son Thomas had an interest in science beyond medicine and became prominent figures within Queensland's broader scientific community. Joseph is recognised as a founder of medical research in Australia and the Bancroft Centre of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research is named in his honour. Joseph was president of many early scientific and medical organisations in Queensland including the Philosophical Society, the Medical Board, the Hygiene and Public Health section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science and the Queensland branch of the British Medical Association, which later founded a Bancroft memorial lecture and medal in his honour. He made significant contributions to the field of agricultural entomology and plant pathology and together with Thomas, made outstanding contributions to the field of parasitology. Both men were avid naturalists who discovered many new species of fauna and flora. Thirteen Australian native trees and plants bear their name. They were internationally recognised for Joseph's discovery of the Wucheria Bancrofti parasitic worm that is responsible for causing elephantiasis and Thomas's discovery that the parasite was transmitted by the Aedes Aegypi mosquito. Much of their research was carried out at their Deception Bay property.
Joseph had property at Deception Bay by the early 1880s and by 1890, owned 1500ha. He lived at Wickham Terrace and visited his Deception Bay property with his family on weekends and holidays. At the bay, he pastured cattle, established a dried beef factory and experimented with rice crops and artificially cultivating pearls. He also used the property as a research station supporting his studies of botany and zoology.
The dried beef factory became profitable after Joseph's death in 1894 when the British War Office placed an order for the Bancroft's dried beef as a supplement to their emergency rations. Thomas moved to the bay with his new wife Cecilia and assumed management of the business. While living there, Thomas also carried out scientific research. It was there that he discovered how the Wucheria bancrofti was transmitted by mosquitoes. In 1904, after the dried beef factory ceased to be profitable, Thomas moved to Alderley in Brisbane and the factory was dismantled.
The Bancroft family believe that Joseph constructed the baths. Bancroft family members state that Joseph's wife, Ann, suffered with a chronic illness and that Joseph had the Boardwalk Bath shaped for her from natural tidal pools because she found that sea bathing helped her condition. This conclusion is supported by the relatively small size of the bath.
The Bancrofts may have used the Fisheries Bath, a larger structure, for recreational purposes. Low tide at Deception Bay leaves a broad expanse of mud that needs to be traversed in order to reach the water from the shore. The memoirs of C. Hamilton who, as a child, visited the property when the Bancrofts owned it, indicate that the bath was excavated so that Joseph could bathe when the tide was out. A photograph sourced from family members provides additional evidence that the Fisheries Bath existed when the Bancrofts lived at the bay. The photograph shows a woman believed by family members to be Joseph's half sister standing with her son next to the Bath. The family believe that the photograph dates to the late 19th Century.
The Bancrofts' use of the sea baths for therapeutic and recreational uses is consistent with emerging notions about the seaside in the 19th Century. The western perception of the seaside as a place for recreation emerged between the late 18th and mid 19th Centuries. Bathing in the sea was also promoted for its health benefits and a new field of research and experimentation emerged around the therapeutic uses of the seaside. Especially near urban areas, people resorted to the seaside to escape the ills of increasingly industrialised urban living. Typically, netted enclosures and tidal baths were constructed to provide contained and safe swimming areas.
A number of artificial rock pools, dating to the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, exist in New South Wales, generally of a larger scale than the Deception Bay pools. Like the Deception Bay pools, they are formed by enhancing natural rock formations by excavation and the use of artificial walls. The Deception Bay tidal baths are believed to be the only surviving 19th Century baths of their type in Queensland.
A number of the Bancroft holdings were bought from Thomas by the Dunne brothers in the early 1900s. They pastured a dairy herd, grew some crops and established oyster leases along the foreshore. The sides of the Fisheries Bath show the remains of oysters and this suggests that the bath was used by the Dunne brothers to cultivate the shellfish.
The baths have been excavated a number of times. Due to their location within the inter-tidal zone, they fill with silt soon after excavation. In November 2004, an archaeological survey of the baths was completed in which each bath was recorded and analysed in detail.
","criteria":"The Deception Bath Sea Baths are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history insofar that they provide physical evidence of the use of the seaside in Queensland for recreational and therapeutic purposes in the late 19th century. Oral and written accounts by the Bancroft family and the local community indicate that the baths were made and used by the Bancroft family in the 1880s and 1890s for recreational bathing and to relieve a chronic ailment suffered by Anne, the wife of Joseph Bancroft.
|The baths are uncommon surviving examples of 19th century sea baths. They are likely to be the only extant examples of their type in Queensland. Excavated from the sandstone in the inter-tidal zone of the Deception Bay foreshore, they were filled by the incoming tide. The Boardwalk Bath was drained via a pipe built into the bottom of the bath.
|The baths demonstrate the principal characteristics of sea baths and have a high degree of intactness. Like tidal baths in other parts of Australia, they are formed by enhancing natural rock formations in the intertidal zone. Similar to other enhanced rock pools, the Boardwalk Bath uses an artificial wall to enclose a natural opening of the pool at one end. Both pools are filled by the natural action of the tide and the Boardwalk Bath is drained through a pipe in the bottom of the artificial wall.
|Both baths have special association with the lives of Joseph Bancroft and his son Thomas who reputedly built and used them. Joseph and Thomas were important Queensland research scientists of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. Joseph is recognised as a founder of medical research in Australia. He was president of a number of early scientific and medical organisations in Queensland. Both men made important contributions to the fields of botany, zoology and medicine. They gained international recognition for Joseph's discovery of the Wucheria Bancrofti parasitic worm that is responsible for causing elephantiasis and Thomas's discovery that the parasite was transmitted by the Aedes aegypi mosquito. The Bancroft memorial lecture and medal, founded by the Queensland branch of the British Medical Association and also the Bancroft Centre of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, are named in honour of Joseph.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19633,"place_ref":602512,"name":"Stone kerbing, channels and footbridges of Charters Towers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Various","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The early granite kerbing and channeling at Charters Towers is constructed of granite, an igneous rock of coarse grain and consisting essentially of quartz together with feldspars and a mica. Granite is an excellent building stone because of its hardness and resistance to erosion.
The early granite kerbs and channeling at Charters Towers is constructed as dry stone masonry. It is visible in a number of streets throughout the city, with the boundary being from Hackett Terrace in the north, Jardine Street in the east, Daydawn Road in the south and Oxford Street in the west.
The kerbs have been constructed to several different depths, possibly dependent on the extent of storm-water run off in specific areas. The granite stone used to construct the kerbs are irregular in size, depending upon where they are located. For the most part, within the one square mile the stone used to construct the kerbs is approximately 200 mm x 300 mm, with straight sides and a flat face. They are laid on an angle of approximately 75 to 80 degrees i.e. Deane Street, Church Street and High Street. Other kerbs on the eastern and southern side of the city have been laid on an angle of 50 to 65 degrees i.e. Marion Street and King Street. In other areas the granite stones are laid almost flat forming an early stone-pitched dish drain i.e. King Street.
In Gill Street, which has become the main centre for commercial activity within the city, most of the early granite kerbing and channeling has been removed and replaced with concrete kerb and channeling. However, there is a small section of stone kerb and channeling between High Street and Vulture Street. In these areas, the early granite kerbs and channeling has been covered with a layer of concrete, however it is still visible in places where the concrete capping has cracked or worn thin.
The granite channels vary in width throughout the town. Channels are between three to five stones in width, approximately 800 mm to 900 mm wide. The stones are more irregular in shape and have a flat face.
In some areas individual stones have been removed, either dislodged and lying in the channel adjacent or missing. For example, on the southern side of Anne Street, between Deane Street and Church Street one stone had become dislodged and was lying in the channel. At the southern end of Mosman Street, in front of St Paul's Playhouse, four stones were lying in the adjacent channel. In other areas the early granite stone channel was covered with either bitumen or a thin layer of concrete, which has cracked to expose the stones underneath.
In recent years concrete slabs have been used to provide vehicular and pedestrian access to people's homes and businesses within the city. The concrete slabs, known locally as "cross-overs", have been placed across the early granite stone kerbs and channeling. Numerous cross-overs are located throughout the city.
The channeling to the streets from the slopes of Towers Hill directs storm-water runoff down the granite kerbs and channels along Deane Street. At the intersection of Deane and Gill Street, a large stone-pitched underground drain carries the water underneath Gill Street. The storm-water then flows along a steep stone-pitched open drain the length of Deane Street to the western boundary of Lissner Park. This opens into a wide stone-pitched open drain along the northern boundary of Lissner Park, formerly Mosman Creek. This northern end of town receives a large quantity of storm-water from the elevated areas of the town and was the original confluence of Deane Creek and Mosman Creek.
On the north, east and west boundary of Lissner Park there are five pedestrian footbridges and one road bridge that provide access across the open stone-pitched drain into the Park.
A pedestrian footbridge (No 1) is located on the northern boundary of Lissner Park. The footbridge is a simple beam bridge with a pair of steel girders supporting a timber deck spanning the 10.2 m wide gap between the two concrete piers on either side of stone pitched drain, with a north-south orientation. A 15 cm thick slab of pre-stressed concrete approximately 1.13 m wide has been laid over the timber deck. Originally Mosman Creek, the drain contains the remains of the original dry stone wall on the northern side, however the southern side has been covered with concrete. There are round steel handrails on both sides of the footbridge.
A second pedestrian footbridge (No 2) is located on the north-east boundary of Lissner Park. The footbridge forms an extension of the footpath on the western side of Church Street. The footbridge is a beam bridge with a pair of steel girders supporting a 15 cm thick concrete slab spanning the 18 m wide gap between the two concrete piers on either side of the stone pitched drain. The bridge is orientated north-south. Etched into the western side of the concrete slab are the words "H.P. POOLE. MAYOR. 15.3.29". There are steel handrails on either side of the footbridge.
A third footbridge (No 3) is located on the eastern boundary of Lissner Park. The bridge provides pedestrian access through the Charters Towers City Council's Animal Enclosure, which is located on the eastern side of the Park. It is a beam bridge with steel girders supporting a 15 cm thick concrete slab spanning 29.6 m long x 1.7 m wide. The piers are constructed on concrete. The bridge is orientated east-west. Access to the bridge on the western side is via a concrete ramp. Inscribed into the concrete ramp is the date "30.10.91". Access to the bridge on the eastern side is via four concrete steps, which have small granite stones inlaid in them. A plaque inside the animal enclosure notes that the site was upgraded in 1988 and was officially recognized by the Mayor, Alderman D E Birgan on 10 June 1988.
The fourth bridge (No 4) is a road bridge located on the western side of Lissner Park, which provides access for Charters Towers City Council staff into the Lissner Park Depot. It is a beam bridge with a pair of steel girders supporting a 3.3 m wide timber deck on top of which has been laid a base of black plastic that has been covered with a 20 cm thick concrete slab. The bridge spans 4.8 m between two concrete piers and is orientated east-west. The bridge spans the Deane Street drain (originally Deane Creek), which contains the remains of the original dry stonewall on the northern side, however the southern side has been covered with concrete. There is park rail fence on both sides of the bridge. The fence is approximately 85 cm high and consists of three steel posts and two steel rails, which have been painted white.
The fifth bridge (No 5) is a pedestrian footbridge located on the western side of Lissner Park at the intersection of Mosman and Deane Streets. This beam bridge is a simple bridge constructed by placing a pair of steel girders on two concrete piers on either side of the Deane Street drain. The steel girders support a 1.5 m wide timber deck on top of which has been laid a 10 cm thick concrete slab, which is approximately 6.1 m long. The date "28.10.1940" has been etched into the concrete pier adjacent to Deane Street. There is a timber park rail fence comprising three posts and one rail (approximately 9.2 cm x 9.2 cm square posts) that have been painted white.
The sixth bridge (No 6) is a pedestrian footbridge located on the western side of Lissner Park opposite the intersection of Jane Street. The footbridge is a beam bridge that spans the Deane Street drain. It comprises a pair of steel girders on two concrete piers and supports a timber deck (timber slabs are approximately 20 cm wide x 127 cm long x 5 cm thick) on top of which has been laid a 15 cm thick concrete slab. The bridge is 5.5 m long x 1.3 m wide and is orientated east-west. There is a round iron post handrail on both sides of the bridge. They have been painted dark green and are an extension of the railing that is evident along the western boundary of Lissner Park, which is constructed of the same type and style of material and is also painted dark green.
The seventh bridge (No 7) is the 1889 Show Street Bridge, a single lane road bridge that is located on the southeastern corner of the Charters Towers Show Grounds. The original timber bridge has been replaced. Today the bridge is a beam bridge and is comprised of a 40 cm thick slab of pre-stressed concrete approximately 6 m wide and 6.6 m long on three concrete piers. The Show Bridge is orientated north-south. The original granite stone-pitched open drain and approaches are still evident underneath the bridge. A single round steel post safety rail, painted white, has been placed on either side of the bridge.
The eighth bridge (No 8) is the Mary Street Bridge, which is a pedestrian footbridge located on the north side of Mary Street between King Street and Stubley Street. It is a simple beam bridge that is constructed from a steel deck supported by two concrete piers. Inscribed into the western pier is "EAT 95". The bridge is orientated east-west. A single round steel post safety rail is located on either side of the bridge. The handrail is 104 cm high. The drain underneath the footbridge has been lined with concrete, however there are stone pitched kerbs and channels on the southern side of the footbridge.
The ninth bridge (No 9) is the Elizabeth Street footbridge, which is located on the southern side of Elizabeth Street between King Street and Stubley Street. This beam bridge has been constructed by placing a pair of steel girders on two concrete piers on either side of a stone pitched drain. The steel girders support a 1.5 m wide timber deck, which is 4.5 m long. There is a park rail fence comprising three steel posts and one steel rail. Posts and rails are approximately 7 cm x 7 cm square posts that have been painted white. The handrails are 105 cm high.
The tenth bridge (No 10) is located on the corner of Marion Street and Stubley Street. It is a pedestrian footbridge that provides access across a stone pitched drain. It is aligned east-west. The beam bridge has been constructed by placing a 15 cm thick slab of pre-stressed concrete approximately 1.5 m wide and 6.1 m long on two concrete piers. There is a park rail fence comprising three steel posts and one steel rail. Posts and rails are approximately 7 cm x 7 cm square posts that have been painted white.
The eleventh bridge (No 11) is located on the northern side of Towers Street, between Rutherford Street and Stubley Street, opposite the Charters Towers and Dalrymple Family History Library. It is a pedestrian footbridge that provides access across a stone pitched drain. It is aligned east-west. The beam bridge has been constructed by placing a slab of pre-stressed concrete approximately 6.3 m long on two concrete piers. The date "1.2.29" has been inscribed in the concrete on the northern face of the east pier. A safety rail constructed of a round steel post is located on the northern side of the footbridge.
The twelfth bridge (No 12) is located on the northern side of Towers Street at the terminus of King Street. It is a pedestrian footbridge that provides access across an earth and concrete creek. It is aligned east-west. The beam bridge consists of a pair of steel girders supporting an 11 cm thick slab of pre-stressed concrete on two concrete piers. The date "23.8.37" has been etched into both concrete piers. The concrete slab has been poured onto sheets of galvanized steel. There is a label stuck on the steel sheeting, which is visible from underneath the bridge, which states: "Bondek I1 BMT Galvanised Z350 Coating. 2/12/2002 - Delivery Date".
The thirteenth bridge (No 13) is located on the northern end of Boundary Street. It is a pedestrian footbridge that consists of a simple beam bridge over a dry creek bed. The bridge includes a pair of steel girders supporting a slab of pre-stressed concrete on two concrete and stone piers. The bridge is 7.4 m long and 96 cm wide. There are steel handrails on either side of the footbridge.
The fourteenth bridge (No 14) is a pedestrian footbridge located on the western side of Brisk Street across a dry creek bed, which is adjacent to the School of Distance Education. The bridge is orientated north-south. The beam bridge includes a pair of steel girders supporting a 16 cm slab of pre-stressed concrete on two concrete piers, which are approximately 1.5 m high. The bridge is approximately 10 m long x 1 m wide. The concrete slab contains numerous paw prints, the date "25.7.85" and other dates that are not discernable, and the names "MARC" and "HECTOR".
At the eastern end of Mexican Street there is a small granite culvert with early granite kerbing and channeling located on both sides of it.
","history":"Charters Towers was a principle gold mining centre from 1872 to 1907 and by 1901 it was Queensland's second largest town. The stone kerbs and channels are significant in highlighting the areas of the town that were settled during the town's mining hey day. Most of the early granite kerbing and channeling at Charters Towers was constructed between c1884 and c1905. Particularly fine examples of this work are evident with the original one square mile of the municipality, namely: Hodgkinson, Church, High, Lee, Bow, Anne, Mary and Deane Street.
The early granite kerbs and channeling form a unique pattern of drainage that directs water through and out of the town. The early work directed storm-water into Mosman, Deane and St George Creek. As the creeks themselves were stone-pitched to form drainage channels and then bridged, some of the the land was re-claimed and buildings were constructed nearby. The most impressive example of this is the Deane Street kerb and channeling, which directs most of the water out of the city centre.
The masonry work was carried out by either day labour or by contractors. The stone was reportedly quarried nearby, but its exact location is yet to be determined. The network of footbridges that remains in the city today provides details of how early residents of Charters Towers made their way around the city during the wet season, from house yards, across footpaths, over kerbs, channels, and streets to gain access to all parts of the city for work and pleasure.
Gold was discovered in Charters Towers late in 1871 by Hugh and Jupiter Mosman, George Clarke and John Fraser. Their claim was registered at Ravenswood in early 1872 and the Charters Towers Gold Field was proclaimed on 31 August of that year. Settlement followed quickly with the arrival of other diggers eager to peg out their own claims, millers and small business operators. As the mines burrowed deeper and deeper into the granite the small owner-operator mines were replaced by big companies employing wage miners.
Charters Towers was proclaimed a municipality on 21 June 1877 with its first Mayor and aldermen elected two months later. Only a small municipality, it embrace one square mile centred on Mosman Street. Much on the land within the municipality was unsurveyed and was occupied for residential purposes under Miners' Rights. Business life centred on the grid pattern of Gill, Deane, Bow, Ryan, Hodgkinson, Church, Aland, School and in particular, Mosman Street. In the early 1880s committees were in place to oversee council activity and make recommendations including an Improvement Committee. During this boom period many of the initial timber buildings were replaced by more substantial and impressive structures. A number of civic improvements were undertaken by the Council including the construction of a water supply system from the Burdekin River, the development of the city's drainage system (i.e. storm-water kerbs, channeling and drains), the construction of footpaths, "metalling" of roads and the erection of bridges over creeks in the city.
By January 1884 a bridge was constructed over Hospital Creek, on a road leading from Charters Towers east to the railway station at Queenton. The contract for these works was won by Mr Walker who stablised the creek with dry stone masonry and constructed a timber bridge over it. The bridge is reported to have been of great benefit to travelers on the Queenton Road.
In March 1884 the Charter Towers Municipal Council's Foreman of Works, Mr Hugh Swann, reported on the improvements works to roads in the town. Works nearing completion included: the clearing of the road in preparation for "metalling" and undertaking drainage work to the bridge and approaches near Plant's Day Dawn mine in Rutherford Street; repairing part of Elizabeth and other streets, forming part of Mary Street to carry part of the channel water and storm-water from Mosman Street; procuring material and repairing footpaths throughout the city; and repairing the Municipal's portion of Mosman Street that had been previously damaged by water from Plant's Day Dawn.
In September 1884 the Municipal Council's Improvement Committee supervised the construction of the Deane Street improvements works, including construction of a bridge at the intersection of Gill and Deane Street. The Foreman of Works, Mr Hugh Swann, initially suggested that Deane Creek should be considered the principal line for the main drain or sewer, as it drains two thirds of the municipality. However, the Council approved his second recommendation in which the creek was formed into a road with the middle of the street formed high as a carriageway, with footpaths, and stone pitched side channels pitched very wide and deep to create a large water-way. At the intersection of Gill Street a bridge was constructed across the creek that allowed the water in the two side channels to pass under it. The bridge was completed by the end of September 1884. The bridge decking was covered with metal to improve access on to the bridge. The two deep and wide channels in Deane Street were continued below the Gill Street intersection to Lissner Park. The successful crossing of Deane Creek provided for the development of the eastern end of Gill Street, which became the main street for commercial activity in Charters Towers.
There is one reported fatality involving the deep channel in Deane Street. In April 1886, an inquiry was held into the death of Ms Annie Garvan who drowned when she was washed down channeling in Deane Street. Ms Garvan apparently walked out of Jackson Lane into Deane Street where she lost her balance due to the force of the water running down the channel, reportedly two-feet deep at the time. The witness to the tragic accident, Mr Alfred Rule, reported that the woman's body was carried down the channeling along Deane Street. At the inquiry he stated that he tried three times to rescue the woman before her body passed under the footbridge leading to the yard of the Bank of Australasia then under the "big bridge" (presumably the Gill and Deane Street bridge). Her body traveled the full length of Deane Street, past the Defiance Mill, and was found about 100 yards from the main creek.
On 25 October 1884 the Charters Towers Municipality was again calling for tenders for the erection of a bridge, this time over Mosman Creek in Mary Street. Tenders closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday November 4. It is not known who won the tender to do these works.
In November 1889 the Municipal Council erected a bridge over the creek below the Show Grounds. The works were supervised by the Council's Foreman of Works, Mr Hodges. The contract was let to Mr John McCourt. The masonry work in the creek described as very solid and strong, was laid using the hard bed rock for foundation. The timber bridge was constructed of hard wood. At the time it was constructed the Show Ground Bridge was described as the best bridge ever built in Charters Towers. During the wet season the new bridge provided residents who lived on the north-west side of the Charters Towers access to the commercial centre of the city.
By 1899, the Town Clerk, Mr Henry B Walker, in his Annual Report to Council reported that a variety of civic works had been undertaken during the year to enliven the character of Charters Towers, with the priority being road and pedestrian access. At the same meeting, Mayor Benjamin reported that work undertaken by the municipality in 1899 included parts of High, Mary, Mexican and Stubley Streets being stone kerbed, channeled, and tarred and footpaths formed. He stated that this work added to previous works of the same nature that had already been undertaken throughout much of the town.
As the population of the town waned following the end of the mining boom in 1907 many areas of the town were abandoned however the stone kerbs, channels and footbridge at Charters Towers continued to be maintained by the Charters Towers City Council. During the Depression of 1929 the Charters Towers City Council conducted maintenance work on the Gill and Deane Street intersection. The date 1929 is etched in the concrete. A number of the timber footbridges in Charters Towers were also replaced at this time with pre-stressed concrete. In 1990s the Council widened Deane Street, north of Gill Street, with no effect on the nature of the open channels. A steel safety fence replaced the original timber structure. It is not known when the original timber bridge was replaced.
Over time the street level in Charters Towers has raised and some areas of stone kerbs and channeling are now barely visible underneath soil and grass cover. In recent years new areas of stone kerbing and channeling have been identified. For instance, during the conservation works at the Venus Battery in 2002 a section of early granite stone kerbing and channeling was uncovered in Jardine Street at the entrance to the Battery. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a similar section of early granite stone kerbing and channeling was uncovered at the base of Towers Hill.
In recent years the Charters Towers City Council has undertaken a program to repair the early granite kerbs and channeling at Charters Towers. For example, in 2003, a section of early dry stone granite kerbing on the northern side of Mosman Street, between Jane Street and Deane Street, was "capped" with another layer of granite stones. The stones were laid on top of the original granite kerbing using concrete. The new section of kerbing is easily distinguished from the original section as the stones have been set into concrete, similar to laying bricks, rather than using the traditional method of dry stone wall.
A section of Anne Street, between Boundary Street and Vulture Street, in which the early granite kerbing and channeling had been removed and replaced with eight concrete "Besser" blocks, was reconstructed with granite kerbing and channeling in August 2004.
","criteria":"The early granite kerbs, channels and footbridges at Charters Towers is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, especially the important role of Charters Towers, once a prosperous gold mining centre and the second largest town in Queensland, in the development of far north Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The work was initiated in the mid-1880s after the Charters Towers Municipal Council, which was declared in 1877, commenced a number of other civic improvements, including a water supply from the Burdekin River, street formation and bridge construction.
The early granite kerbs and channels at Charters Towers are important in demonstrating the development of early drainage methods in mining towns in far north Queensland in the late 19th century.
The early pedestrian footbridges at Charters Towers demonstrate the evolution of Queensland's history, in particular, the role of pedestrian footbridges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in providing access to residents and visitors at Charters Towers to their places of work, schools, churches, shops, banks, homes and recreational activities prior to the introduction and wide spread use of the motor vehicle.
|The early granite kerbs and channeling at Charters Towers is important in Queensland's history for its rarity value. Such extensive use of granite kerbs and channeling, illustrating the confidence and optimism of local business and civic leaders in the future of Charters Towers in the late 19th century, is known only in the far north Queensland town of Cooktown, where granite kerbs and channels were constructed between the period 1884 and 1910. Together they are significant as a rare and uncommon aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|The early granite kerbs and channeling at Charters Towers have the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history. As the population of the town waned following the end of the mining boom in 1907 many areas of the town were abandoned.
Over time, the street levels have been raised. There is the possibility that sub-strata kerbing and channeling exist with the potential to extend the current body of knowledge about this early civic work of the Charters Towers Municipal Council.
|The granite stone kerbs, channels and footbridges at Charters Towers contributes to the overall aesthetic quality of the historic streetscapes of Charters Towers and provides a high degree of unity to the townscape in its material and design. It contributes also to the distinctiveness of Charters Towers, and as such is valued by the local community and visitors to the historic mining town as an important element of Charters Tower's history and identity.
That the community values the early granite kerbing and channeling is evident in the actions of the Charters Towers City Council, which since the 1990s has been reconstructing areas of granite kerbing and channeling to complement the earlier work.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19635,"place_ref":602514,"name":"Gayndah Racecourse","alternate_name":"Gayndah Race Track","street_address":"Fisher Avenue","suburb":"GAYNDAH","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-12","description":"The Gayndah Racecourse occupies a large level area on the southeast side of the town. It is bounded on three sides by roads and a large block of open land adjoins it to the south.
Two gates access the racecourse grounds. One comprises timber posts supporting a tubular metal structure framing the letters G.J.C. for Gayndah Jockey Club, the other is a timber gate constructed to commemorate the Centenary of Federation and also the founding in Gayndah of Queensland's first Jockey Club in 1861 and the first Queensland Derby in 1868.
The track itself occupies most of the space and is enclosed on either side by a fence of metal posts with a white painted top rail. It is grassed and roughly oval in shape, being 17097 metres in circumference with a training track on the inside. Crops are currently grown in the centre of the course.
A mechanical starting stall is used to start each race and the straight with the winning post is set at the northwest corner of the track overlooked by a metal tower. Bougainvilleas are planted along the edge of the track in this area and to the north of the tower is a set of parallel rails coloured red, yellow and blue for the winning horses. To the rear of the paddock area and extending southwest are two parallel sets of modern buildings. The facilities closest to the track include a clubhouse and betting ring, bars, a ladies' room and a tearoom and kitchen. A second set of buildings to the northwest comprises jockeys' rooms, offices and the Totalisator office with a toilet block at the northern end. There are also 60 day stalls for horses and a swabbing stall with a washing down bay at the end of the stalls. The saddling enclosure is between the jockeys' room and the track.
All these buildings currently serving the course were constructed towards the end of the 20th century and have no heritage significance.
","history":"The Gayndah Racecourse was established in the mid 1850s to replace a track established nearby in 1852. Queensland's first Derby race was held there in 1868 and the course is still in regular use for horse racing.
Europeans in search of grazing land for sheep first explored the Burnett in the early 1840s and the town of Gayndah was founded in 1849 to serve pastoral stations in the district. The site of the town was chosen and named by Maurice O'Connell, then Land Commissioner for the area. Gayndah developed as an administrative centre, having a courthouse and police station in the 1850s, soon followed a school, post office and bank. It was at one time considered to be a contender for the capital of Queensland when Separation from New South Wales was contemplated. By the late 19th century, cattle had replaced sheep on the surrounding pastoral properties and citrus orchards had been successfully established. From the turn of the century, dairying also played a part in the providing an economic basis for the development of the area.
In 1852, the year that Gayndah was officially gazetted as a town, a public meeting was held at the Burnett Arms in Gayndah to organise the setting up of a track for horse racing. £100 was collected and a suitable area at the edge of town selected. The winning post was set up midway between two hotels, the Burnett Arms and the Corinth Arms, which were about two and a half miles apart. The first race was held on 30 June 1852. It was a three-day event with racing on the first and third days for prizes in excess of £100. This track was used for a few years before the current and more level site nearby replaced it, probably in 1855 or 1856.
A meeting was held at the Royal Hotel, Gayndah in July 1858 to mount a petition to Sir William Denison, Governor General of New South Wales (of which Gayndah was still then a part), to grant the Crown Land on which the track was situated for use as a racecourse on the grounds that the town had not been granted a recreation reserve and there was no other course closer than Ipswich, 230 miles away. There were 65 signatories to the petition, but it did not have an easy passage.
As the land on which the track was located was in an area intended to serve as future suburban allotments, the government was at first inclined to refuse the request and on 6 May 1859 asked for guidance from the Surveyor General's office. A report of 25 August 1859 recommended that as town development was in fact taking place away from this area, a reserve of between 100 and 120 acres should be granted for a racecourse. The request was approved on 11 June 1859, but Queensland was separated from New South Wales on 10 December 1859 as a self-governing colony. The racecourse reserve, of 180 acres, was surveyed in March 1862 and the land grant signed by Sir George Bowen, Queensland's first Governor, on 26 March 1863 at a quit rent of one farthing 'as a racecourse and for no other purpose'. Trustees were Berkely Basil Moreton, Alpin Grant Cameron, Robert Wilkin Smith, Gilbert William Eliott and Francis Glynn Connolly.
Horses had arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788 and the first organised horse race was run at Hyde Park in 1810. In 1842 the first racing club, the Australian Jockey Club, was formed. In Queensland, horse racing was one of the earliest organised sports following the opening of the Moreton Bay District for free settlement. The first race meeting was held at Coopers Plains on 17 July 1843 and there was a racecourse at New Farm in Brisbane by May 1846. In 1848 the towns of Warwick, Ipswich and Drayton organised race meetings. Government authorities took racing seriously as more than a sport as horses were then the main means of transport for economic, military and recreational purposes and racing was thought to help improve breeding.
In 1861, the Gayndah Race Club decided to change its name to the Queensland Jockey Club; at the time, racing at Brisbane was under the auspices of the Brisbane Race Club and at Ipswich as the North Australia Race Club. Eagle Farm Racecourse opened in Brisbane in 1863, replacing the 1846 New Farm track, and the Queensland Turf Club was formed. The Gayndah racecourse by this time had booths for hire where publicans and confectioners supplied refreshments.
Gayndah hosted the first Derby held in Queensland. This is a classic race for three-year-olds run over one and a half miles and was first held in 1780 at Epsom in England, being named for the 12th Earl of Derby. In Australia the first Derby was run in 1861 at Randwick in Sydney and in 1868 one was held at Gayndah. Bookmakers came up from Melbourne for the event, which was won by a horse named Hermit. The Derby was held at Gayndah for two more years until falling into abeyance and being revived in 1872 in Brisbane.
The race meetings were gala events attended by people from the surrounding district and from as far afield as Port Curtis, Ipswich and Nanango. Horses came from as far away as Sydney to compete and Gayndah considered itself the racing centre of Queensland, even after the Derby had moved to Brisbane. A Brisbane Cup was held in 1866 and a Gayndah Cup in 1867 quickly followed by Cup events at Gympie, Maryborough, Rockhampton, Townsville, Charters Towers, Toowoomba, Warwick and Dalby.
In spite of the early establishment of the Queensland Turf Club and the development of horse racing in regional centres during the 1860s and 1870s, it did not become popular in Queensland on a large scale until the 1880s, when there was a boom in racing and many new clubs were formed and race meetings held. A new code of rules was adopted in 1885 based on those of the English Jockey Club and a system of registration of all clubs under the Queensland Turf Club rules was instituted. The Queensland Racing Calendar was first published in 1886 and in 1890 all clubs agreed to empower the Queensland Turf Club to allot dates for meetings to prevent clashes.
In 1914 the racecourse land was gazetted as a reserve under Trustees led by the Mayor of Gayndah and on 29 October 1937 a special meeting was held by the Council to formulate by-laws. These were gazetted on 3 March 1938 under the provisions of the Local Government Land Act 1936. The Gayndah Shire Council are still trustees for the racecourse.
New service buildings were constructed at the racecourse in the 1980s. The track itself has been in use as a racecourse since its inception and the Gayndah Jockey Club still hosts regular racing meetings there.
","criteria":"As a horseracing track, established in the 1850s during the first phase of free European settlement in Queensland, the Gayndah Racecourse is evidence for the importance and early development of the sport. Horse races were amongst the first organised sporting events in Australia and served as both a recreation and for the furtherance of horse breeding. This was important in an era when horses were used for transport, industry and warfare as well as for recreation. The first Derby held in Queensland was held on this track in 1868.
The establishment of a racecourse is part of the pattern of Gayndah's development as an early town, established in 1849 as a centre for the Burnett District.
|The Gayndah Racecourse is uncommon as a mid nineteenth century horse racing track in Queensland and may have been in longer continuous regular use as a race track than any other in Queensland.
|The Gayndah Racecourse is important for its social value to Jockey Club members, trainers, owners and jockeys and with generations of racegoers from all walks of life, both in the surrounding area and from further afield.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19636,"place_ref":602515,"name":"Pomona Police residence (& former station), lock-up and courthouse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Red Street","suburb":"POMONA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-05-27","description":"The Pomona Police and Courthouse precinct, Lot 4, P50113, covers 3297 square metres and currently contains ten structures and an impound yard. The rectangular courthouse fronts Red Street, and further west the police residence (& former station) also fronts Red Street, with a side path to the office entering from Rectory Street. A new concrete block police station has been constructed between these two buildings. The 1934 lock-up lies behind the 1934 station, to the north.
The lowset weatherboard lock-up, of standard government design, consists of two cells, an oversail veranda enclosed by a steel grill, and a galvanized corrugated steel roof with lead head nails. The lock-up stands on concrete stumps. The cells have steel doors and observation ports, with barred windows above the doors, and barred rear windows, and are lined with horizontal, unpainted boards with steel tongue inserts between them. The exterior is painted a standard government colour. Judging from its construction it is possible that it pre-dates 1934, and that it was relocated to the Pomona Site.
The courthouse is highset and clad in weatherboard, standing on concrete perimeter stumps and tubular steel centre stumps. It has timber framed window hoods clad with corrugated steel, over glass louvres, and casement windows, which have been painted white for privacy. It has vented gable ends, front and rear, with fixed louvres at the apex. Its eves are unlined, with a ventilation gap at the top of the walls. It has a wooden access ramp leading to the office at the rear of the courthouse, and a front veranda. Its interior is clad in vertical board, and the courtroom contains the original wooden magistrates bench, witness stand and dock. A small storage room is at the back of the courtroom.
The 1934 police residence is also clad in weatherboard and highset on concrete perimeter posts, with the same window hoods and casement windows as the courthouse. Its L-shaped veranda has been enclosed. A front gable contains the office, reached by side stairs leading to projecting gabled portico. A rear gable contains the kitchen. The original design contained three bedrooms and a living room, and an enclosed veranda with sliding sashes between the kitchen and bathroom at the rear of the house, but we were unable to inspect the current interior. Front and rear stairs rise parallel to the house, leading to the front veranda and rear door, respectively. Externally, apart from the enclosed verandas, the removal of the 1000-gallon water tanks, and the angle of the stairs to the office, it closely resembles the original 1932 architect's plans.
There is an unused weatherboard Earth Closet east of the lock-up. In addition there is a weatherboard shed facing Rectory Street, which is possibly the old stable that was recommended for conversion to motorcycle storage around 1956, although locals suggest that the stable was a different structure, now removed. The current shed has a casement/sash window facing the street, a single pitch skillion roof, and is timber framed and lined, with a double wooden door to the rear, and a recent roller door. Half of the shed stands on concrete stumps, with half constructed on a concrete slab.
Vegetation on the property includes two large palm trees and one smaller palm in front of the 1934 police residence, and a bottle tree in front of the 1934 courthouse. A tubular pipe fence with wire mesh runs around the property, although sections have been removed from in front of the new station building, and a construction entrance off Rectory Street.
The new concrete block police station, the concrete block toilets behind the courthouse, the old chicken-pen of recycled timber and corrugated iron (1980s) to the east of the impound yard, the new aluminium shed to the west of the lock-up, and the small garage facing Rectory Street, south of weatherboarded shed mentioned above, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Police and Courthouse precinct at Pomona is bounded by Red Street and Rectory Street, and contains three significant 1930s government buildings, all of which are still in use in some form. The close spatial relationship of the wooden police residence (& former station), courthouse, and lock-up is typical of pre-World War II Queensland police precincts, and the history of the site reflects the history of the Pomona district.
In the 1850s the area was used for cattle runs, but by the 1860s timber getting was a local industry. The Unoccupied Crown Lands Act 1860, and the Crown Land Alienation Acts 1868 aided this process. Access to cheap land assisted the harvesting of kauri, cedar, hoop pine and beech, and hastened closer settlement. The discovery of gold at Gympie by James Nash in 1867 also stimulated development in the district. The main road to Gympie (1868) ran a couple of miles west of the current Shire, but an alternative route ran through Tewantin, which was surveyed in 1871. The Gympie-Cooran rail link established in 1889 was used to transport timber from the Kin Kin and Pinbarren Scrub areas, and the Emundi to Cooroy line was built in 1891. The Co-Operative Communities Land Settlement Act 1893 also led to two experimental communities being established in the shire.
Pomona was established to give settlers in the scrublands better access to the 1891 North Coast Railway. Before Pomona was surveyed in 1900, the bend where settlers hailed the train to send their goods to market was called the "Pinbarren siding". As the name Pinbarren was already taken by another settlement, Pomona, the name of the Roman Goddess of fruit, was chosen for the new town. The Pinbarren Provisional School (1897) became the Pomona State School in 1908. The current Noosa Shire was created in 1909, and covers the towns of Cooran, Pomona, Cooroy, Tewantin and Noosa, and the Shire Council office was based in Pomona until 1980.
In the first decade of the 20th century, industry in the area shifted from timber to dairying. In 1907 the Cooroy estate was resumed from a sawmiller, enabling close settlement by New South Wales dairy farmers, and fruit, sugar cane, and maize was also grown. Kin Kin was opened up for dairying after 1904, and trees were cleared for pasture. Until the establishment of a butter factory at Kin Kin (1912-1937), cream was sent by road to Cooran, and then by rail to Gympie's butter factory, established in 1898. Butter factories were also opened at Cooroy in 1915 (closed 1976), and at Pomona in 1919 (closed 1970).
However, bananas were also an important crop in the Shire after 1908, peaking in the 1920s before being decimated by "Bunchy Top" disease in the 1930s. With the decline of banana growing, dairying was the main industry in the Noosa Shire from the 1930s to the 1960s, when competition from margarine, the loss of butter markets, and pasture decline saw dairying replaced by beef cattle. By the 1990s, Pomona was relying on fruit and furniture manufacture for its livelihood.
As the district developed and evolved, so too did the system of policing in Queensland. The Police Act 1863 centralised the system under a Police Commissioner, and in 1864 the Victorian model was applied to the police force. The ranks of Chief, District and Mounted Constables were replaced with those of Inspector, Sub-Inspector, Sergeant and Constable. The Police Department was a sub-department of the Home Secretary until its 1952 move to the Health and Home Affairs portfolio. It was shifted around in the 1950s and 1960s, until the Police Act 1970 created a separate Police Department.
The Police Commissioner at the time the first Police Station was established in Pomona (1927) was William H. Ryan (January 1925 to May 1934), and he appears to have also pushed for the building of the 1934 Police Station and Courthouse. During the building of the latter in late 1934, Cecil James Carroll was Commissioner (May 1934 to July 1949). Carroll reorganised the police force, and increased its numbers, efficiency and morale.
Pomona had been agitating for a police station since at least 1910. In February of that year, the Manager of the Commercial Bank of Australia at Pomona wrote to the Home Secretary complaining that the nearest police officer was in Tewantin. The two banks at Pomona were the only permanent banks between Emundi and Gympie, and held £2000 in cash between them. Also in February 1910, Eugene Von Blanckensee, a carpenter and local Justice of the Peace, wrote that Pomona needed a police station. The only response was that the town was visited by an officer from Nambour each Monday, and by one from Gympie each Thursday. Police Commissioner William G. Cahill (April 1905 to December 1916) did not act on the recommendation of Maryborough District Inspector Marrett to temporarily station an officer at Pomona until a station was built at Cooroy. Marrett had recommended a police station in Cooroy in December 1909, giving as a reason the rapid development of the area in the preceding two years.
Pomona was persistent, however. In June 1910 a Pomona delegation consisting of A.P. Curran, J.W Napier, and J.J. Wilkinson travelled to Brisbane to see J.G. Appel, the Home Secretary, to press their case for a police station. In July 1910 Maryborough District Inspector P. Short reported that Pomona's location was roughly half way between Cooroy and Cooran, and half way between Gympie and Nambour, and that it was 12 miles from nearest policeman at Tewantin. Short noted that the Noosa Shire's population was rapidly increasing due to timber getting, and the influx of settlers and their labour; that undesirables were also passing through Pomona on their way to Gympie; and that Pomona had two banks, two butchers, two stores, a hotel, a state school and a newspaper. Short offered several potential central sites in Pomona for a police station.
However, although both Cooran and Cooroy had police stations by 1920, Pomona was still lacking. In November 1926, Maryborough District Inspector J. Mann recommended a station at Pomona, and Commissioner Ryan visited Cooran and Pomona on 15 April 1927. On 22 April 1927 Constable Howie from Cooran reported that a Mr Blanckensee was willing to build a house for the police in return for a 3-year lease. He needed 3 months notice to build it, and could rent it to the police for 27 shillings and 6p per week (by June the price was 30 shillings). The offer would stand to 1 August 1927.
The Police Commissioner recommended this offer to the Home Secretary in June 1927. On 9 July 1927, Pomona residents became indignant when the Co-op Stores and Hanlon's Store were broken into, and this may have prompted the police to accept Blanckensee's offer on 23 July 1927. Blanckensee built a four-room house with kitchen, bathroom and front and back verandas, along with a stable and feed-room, on his 34.6 perches of land at Sub 32 of allotments 1 and 2, Section 3. The house still stands behind the current police precinct, at 1 Railway Parade.
On 3 September 1927 the vacancy for an officer at Pomona was advertised in the Police Gazette, and the new police station was rented from 1 October 1927, in the name of Ivy Elizabeth Von Blanckensee, for 30 Shillings per week. On 10 October 1927 a Short Lee-Enfield rifle and revolver, baton, tools, horse tack, a lantern, pouches and other equipment was requisitioned for the Pomona Police Station, opened on 3 November 1927 by Constable Harry England Brown (stationed at Pomona until 1932).
On 27 May 1927, the Noosa Advocate reported a visit to the area by Attorney General J. Mullan and Undersecretary to the Department of Justice, G. Carter. They were deciding on a site for a Court of Petty Sessions in the Noosa Shire, and local businessmen promoted Pomona as a central location in the butter, timber and banana producing area. Both Pomona and Cooroy had lobbied for a court in 1915.
In December 1927 Constable Brown wrote that since Pomona had been appointed by the Governor on 15 December 1927 to hold Courts of Petty Sessions, starting on 2 January 1928, it would need a cell. A removable single-cell lock-up and an earth closet were built by the Department of Public Works on Blanckensee's property by 9 September 1928.
On 11 January 1928 Under Secretary G.A. Carter accepted an offer from the Pomona School of Arts, built in 1926, to permit the Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions (Constable Brown) to use the office attached to the School of Arts. The weekly rent would be 7 shillings and 6p, with free use of the hall for court sessions. By July 1930 Constable Brown was complaining that this arrangement lacked privacy, that a new station and courthouse was needed, and that the current 30 Shillings per week rent for Blanckensee's house was too high.
In August 1930 Commissioner Ryan recommended the idea of a new station and courthouse to the Home Secretary, given that Pomona was at the centre of the Cooroy, Cooran and Tewantin Divisions, and that the Court of Petty Sessions was held there. Since January 1928, 63 people had been arrested at Cooran, Cooroy, Tewantin, and Pomona, and 24 Police summons cases had been dealt with. Ryan stated that Pomona was important as a farming and dairying centre, and suggested building on the Police Reserve at Pomona. However, in October 1930 the Blanckensee lease was instead renewed for 3 years, at the reduced rate of 27 shillings and 6p; the amount first suggested by Blanckensee in April 1927.
Brown tried again in December 1932, shortly before Constable Robert H. Sabien, who was to be stationed at Pomona until 1940, replaced him. Brown argued that since the Blanckensee lease would expire in October 1933, a new police station and courthouse, a second cell, a stable and an earth closet should be built. He mentioned that the earth closet and single cell lock-up from the Blanckensee property could be reused. With regard to his current Court of Petty Sessions office, he stated he had "put up with" a lot of interruptions in the previous 5 years, because of the use of School of Arts hall by community groups during the day. It is interesting to note that the number of people appearing before Queensland's magistrate's courts fell from 30,000 to 25,000 between 1930 and 1933, only to increase to 35,000 by 1939.
On 26 April 1933 a memorandum to the Under Secretary of the Home Department reported that about 2 and a half roods of suitable land had been found 12 chains from the railway station, near the 1927 police station. The owner, L. Horrocks, wanted £100 for it. The memorandum stated that the Police Reserve on the South West of Pomona was 20 chains from the business centre, which could be a problem when moving "obstreperous" prisoners. By this time the Court of Petty Sessions office at the School of Arts was being provided at no cost to the Police.
By October 1933 Blanckensee was only willing to renew the lease on the station for a minimum of 2 years, as he claimed that other tenants were interested. However, the Police seem to have gained an extension for a year, since the final lease was set to expire on September 30, 1934.
On 13 June 1934 the Department of Public Works commenced construction of a police station/residence, two-cell lock-up, courthouse and stable. Three carpenters and one labourer were put on the job, and it was estimated that the work would take about 10 weeks. In the end, work was completed by 31 August 1934, and Blanckensee's house was vacated on 1 September the new police station being occupied the same day. In October 1934 the Department of Public Works gave Police Commissioner Carroll official notice that Job # 37537, ordered on 3 April 1934, had been completed at a cost of £1030. This notification seems to only apply to the police station/residence itself, as an identical station was erected at Mitchelton in Brisbane in 1935 for £1221. The courthouse apparently cost £524.
In July 1932 Assistant Supervising Architect of the Department of Public Works, Harold James Parr had designed the plans for the Police Station, Type Two, erected at Pomona. Records indicate that sixteen Type Two stations were built in Queensland in the 1930s. The Type Two was high-set, with wooden weatherboards, an office 12' by 11', three bedrooms at 12' by 12', a living room of 16' by 12', and a kitchen of 11' by 12'. It came with a stove recess, pantry, bathroom, open 8' verandas on two sides, an enclosed veranda to rear, two 1000-gallon water tanks on stands next to the house, and a laundry under the kitchen.
Pre-World War II police stations commonly combined an office and a residence, especially in rural areas. Accommodation problems had always been rife in the 19th century and early 20th century Queensland Police Force with the Government being slow to provide money. During the 1930s Great Depression the police were also responsible for distributing unemployed relief, and most stations needed more office space to administer the Intermittent Relief System.
Until 2004, only small changes had been made to the 1934 precinct. In 1940 Constable James Elstob (1940-1942) made a request to garage his private car under the house, noting it would be 39' from the cells, 66' from the courthouse, and 69' from the stables. In 1951 Sergeant 2/c F.S. Tapsell, (1946-1951) wrote that the buildings had been painted externally, but that the five main rooms of the residence had never been painted internally and were in sore need of it. In 1956 Sergeant 2/c P.H. Gimpel, (1951-1960) requested minor repairs and additions, for example mosquito and frog-proofing of all water tanks, an awning over the back entrance landing of the residence, and repairs to the two earth closets.
Also in 1956, the stationing of a motorcycle outfit in Pomona led to a request by Gimpel to modify the disused stable by enclosing the front of the stable, and adding a door. The bottom portion of the wall at the rear of the stable would have to be removed, a double door erected, and a concrete floor laid.
In 1965 and 1967 Senior Constable Alan Walker (1964-67) requested a septic system, and in 1968 this request was repeated by Senior Constable Luis Olsen (1968-73), who also asked that the back entrance landing be enclosed, as well as part of east veranda, where rain was beating against the doors into the main bedroom and the lounge.
Pomona was a two-man station between 1949 and 1963, and there was a second police residence somewhere in Pomona. A 1963 report on staffing at Pomona by the Maryborough Inspectors Office said that one officer had managed the station for 10 months between mid 1961 and the end of 1962 and that it was possible to reduce Pomona to a one-man station again, especially since the new Bruce Highway had bypassed Pomona in December 1962. The report also noted that Courts of Petty sessions were held at Pomona for the Police divisions of Pomona, Cooran, Cooroy and Tewantin. A Stipendiary Magistrate was stationed at Gympie, and visited when required. In 1987 the Magistrates Court moved to Noosa Heads, and the lock-up ceased its role around that time. It is now a Registered Property Point for police storage.
The courthouse is still in use 3 days per week (Tuesday to Thursday), and the Pomona Court Registrar handles civil matters such as small claims, minor debt claims and claims, pre-trail hearings and payment of court fines as well as other general government matters including Registrar-General work and business name applications. Most work is done through the mail. In 2001 the court had a civil jurisdiction of 12000 people, in Cooran, Cooroy, Kin Kin, Pinbarren, and Pomona.
In 1963 Sergeant G. Williams (1961-1963) had requested a lowset office, as the steps up to the 1934 station's office posed a problem for the elderly and the drunk. However, it wasn't until 2004 that construction began on a new lowset concrete block police station, between the old station and the courthouse.
","criteria":"The place illustrates the relationship between the evolution of the site and the history of the development of the Pomona township and the Noosa Shire. The changes to the site also reflect changes within Police and Justice Department policies and practices. In addition, the site illustrates the use of standard building types developed by the Department of Public Works as an economical means to build symbols of "law and order" in developing townships.
|This grouping of three government buildings, built in the same year, on the same site, is important in demonstrating the principle characteristics of, and is a substantially intact example of, a small town police station / courthouse group, and the work of the Department of Public Works, including the development of various building "types".
|As a substantially intact 1930s police station / courthouse group, the site is evocative of a past era of law enforcement in a small country town. The buildings including the police residence (& former station), courthouse and lock-up, although of modest intentions, are a good example of this type of work undertaken by the Department of Public Works, including attention to the requirements of the subtropical climate. The Interior of the courthouse (particularly the courtroom) is substantially intact and includes purpose built courthouse furniture for the courtroom, office, and verandahs.
|The precinct has a strong, ongoing association with the local community. Pomona went through a determined process of lobbying for a police station, and the precinct has played, and continues to play, its role of providing the essential functions of law and justice.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19638,"place_ref":602517,"name":"RSL Hall Rosalie","alternate_name":"Rosalie School of Arts Commemoration Hall","street_address":"50 Elizabeth Street","suburb":"PADDINGTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-06","description":"The RSL Hall in Rosalie straddles the southern half of three allotments which total 1131 square metres in area. To the north of the hall is a software business in a small timber house, which is clad with chamfer boards, and a carpark, accessed from Elizabeth Street. The hall faces Nash Street, is clad in weatherboards, and has a corrugated iron roof. The first floor contains the hall, while the ground floor contains three shops: two facing Nash Street, and one directly under the hall, entered from the northern carpark.
The gable fronting Nash Street is decorated with cover strips, forming a simple geometric pattern. Below this design, and above the shops, is a stepped projection that currently contains two changing rooms and a kitchen. The two Nash Street shops extend to the east of the hall on the ground floor, and their frontage is angled to conform to the angle of the road reserve. Two small stepped wings extend north and south of the hall, and stairs descend into them from the first floor of the hall. The first floor of the southern wing contains showers, while the first floor of the northern wing contains storage rooms, and has been incorporated into the entrance stairway that rises from the glass entry foyer. The ground floor of the northern wing also contains toilets, which are accessed from the tunnel that runs underneath the entrance stairway.
The main hall of the building has a stage at the western end, and on either side of the stage are stairs up to small side rooms. Stairs also descend from the stage towards toilets to either side. At the eastern end of the hall, large curtains conceal the RSL's memorabilia, which is revealed during RSL meetings. Behind the curtains, in the upper part of the eastern wall, is the open window of the projection room. The projection room is in poor condition, and access to it has been sealed. There is a small office, with open serving bays, between the two doorways at the eastern end of the hall. Near the office, at the top of the entrance stairway, is a large Ithaca Honour Board, listing those who served in World War One.
The carpark, the new entrance foyer and stairway, and the small house just north of the hall, are not of historical significance.
","history":"The RSL Hall at Rosalie, formerly the Rosalie School of Arts Commemoration Hall, is a large timber building roofed in corrugated iron. It faces Nash Street in Rosalie, a locality that is now part of the suburb of Paddington. Since opening in 1928 the RSL Hall has hosted a wide variety of community activities. The ground floor of the Nash Street frontage, below the level of the main hall, was designed to accommodate two shops.
The first major land sales in the Paddington area occurred in 1859, when country lots were sold for £2/10/- an acre. The steep terrain hampered transport, and people sought ridge-top sites, timber cutting sites, or cultivated vegetable patches on the lower ground closer to the river. The first tracks followed the ridgelines, and it was along these narrow corridors that closer development initially occurred. In the late 1870s, Paddington was known as "Ti Tree Flats", and its postal address was simply "back of the gaol", being outside the Hale Street boundary of the city. There was a village at Caxton Street, and some houses on Given Terrace. Further out, the scenery was dotted with trees, vegetable patches, goats, tents, humpies, cottages, and the odd elegant mansion. J.C. Heussler built the stately home "Fernberg" in 1865, and in 1920 the Queensland Government purchased it as a residence for the Governor. During the 1880s a pattern developed whereby shops were clustered near major intersections, the affluent occupied the highest ground, aspiring artisans occupied the slopes, and poorer citizens built in the gullies. The Ithaca Shire was created in 1887, and by 1903 Paddington was a densely populated suburb of the town of Ithaca. The tramway reached Latrobe Terrace in 1898, and Fernberg Road 1909, which spurred development.
Rosalie is a small locality within Paddington, covering about 1000 by 800 metres, on ground that slopes down towards Gregory Park. It is probably named after the station of a Darling Downs grazier, John F. McDougall, who in 1882 purchased portion 225 of the Parish of Enoggera. This portion contained the future site of the RSL Hall. The 1920s saw increased development in Rosalie, and the Rosalie Progress Association sponsored a Rosalie School of Arts Committee, for the purpose of erecting a Memorial Hall.
The first Mechanic's Institutes or Schools of Arts were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self-improvement and to promote moral, social and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no public libraries and books were expensive, so that access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important educational and recreational service. The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 with the aim of 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to establish schools of arts, and they became one of the principal sources of adult education. The buildings usually included a public hall for debates and performances, a subscription library, and a reading room. The erecting of a School of Arts in a particular community was seen as a sign that that community had "come of age".
However, the Rosalie School of Arts would also serve as a war memorial. The outpouring of grief in Australia that accompanied the deaths of 60,000 servicepeople in World War One, and the fact that the dead were buried overseas, led to a period of memorial construction across the nation. The Toowong Town Council offered the Rosalie School of Arts Committee a site in Gregory Park, next to the Milton State School, for the Rosalie School of Arts Memorial Hall. Instead, the School of Arts Committee held a fete in March 1926, raising the money to buy the current site at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Nash Street. The builder W. Moody designed the hall in 1926, but the Architectural Firm Hall and Prentice, which also designed the Brisbane City Hall and the Tattersall's Club, refined Moody's plan. At the stump-capping ceremony of 9 July 1927, official guests included the Governor, Sir John Goodwin; Brisbane's Mayor William Jolly; Colonel Donald Cameron, Member of House of Representatives for Brisbane, and a decorated veteran of the Boer War and World War One; and Edward M. Hanlon, Member of the Legislative Assembly for Ithaca. Hanlon noted that the site was preferable to Gregory Park. The latter is labelled as "Red Jacket Swamp" on an 1895 map of the area.
Built by Moody, the hall cost £2,650, plus £550 for the library and furnishings, with a mortgage of £1,500 to the Public Curator. Funds to pay off the debt were raised by selling three-year membership subscriptions, and Life Memberships at five guineas. More funds were raised by including two shops on the ground floor frontage of the hall, numbered at 16 and 18 Nash Street. The Rosalie School of Arts Commemoration Hall was officially opened on 28 June 1928 by Mayor Jolly. The purpose of the hall was to bring residents together on social basis, while the library and reading room would help in their education. In mid 1928 work was also started on the Rosalie Marist Brothers monastery and school, and the Rainworth State School was opened.
Although it later experienced some damage during the 1974 Brisbane floods, the RSL Hall has accommodated a wide range of community activities over the years. The Rosalie Kindergarten operated from the hall between 1929 and 1935, and the Ithaca Sub-Branch of the Returned Sailors' Soldiers' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA, later known as the Returned Servicemen's League of Australia, or RSL) was founded in the hall in November 1934. In 1938 an Elections Tribunal was held in the hall, during an appeal against the election of E.M. Hanlon, then Minister for Home Affairs. It was home to the Ithaca Youth Club between 1945-1950, and also hosted a Buffalo Lodge for many years. Other community activities have included public meetings, concerts, exhibitions, fancy dress balls, ANZAC Day commemorations, martial arts classes, and indoor bowls. In 1946 the library collection was sent to the Brisbane City Council library in the former Ithaca Town Hall. That same year Premier Hanlon introduced a bill that was passed as the Rosalie School of Arts and Commemoration Hall Transfer Act 1946, which transferred the property to the Ithaca sub-branch of the RSL. In 1991 an amalgamation of sub-branches formed the Ithaca-South Brisbane RSL BCOF sub-branch.
Between 1942 and 1957, on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday nights the hall became the 300-seat Beverley Theatre, with a commercial photographer showing films. Other theatres in the area included the Plaza Theatre, Latrobe Terrace (1930-1960) and the Paddington Theatre, Caxton Street (1923-1979). In 2003 and 2004 the Cine-Retro Film Society, which showed pre-1960 movies in a suitable atmosphere, briefly revived this former use.
The shops below the hall have also had various tenants. Number 16 Nash Street contained a Dressmaker in 1930, Trump Cycles from 1938 to 1942, and a sub-centre of the Maternal and Child Welfare Service from 1942, which was still open one day a week in 1978. An optometrist now occupies 16 Nash Street. Number 18 Nash Street contained a Bootmaker's business between 1935 and 1947, and now contains a hair salon. The RSL sold the property in 2004, and now leases the hall for its monthly meetings and commemorative events. The hall itself currently contains a fitness centre. There is also a computer business on the ground floor directly under the hall, accessed from the carpark on the north side. A software company occupies the small house at 52 Elizabeth Street, which sits just to the north of the hall. This house is included in a 1935 map of the site.
Some changes to the property over the years include the addition of a glass-roofed entry, and a timber passageway linking it to the original northern wing of the hall; an awning on the north side has been removed recently; the RSL renovated the interior of the hall, and the shops have been refurbished. On the northern side of the hall, one of the doorway landings has been fully enclosed, with the outside stairs being removed. The shop awning has also been simplified, losing its original mouldings and detailing. Five rotating galvanised iron vents were added sometime after 1938, projecting from either side of the ridge of the roof, and these were replaced with new vents recently. The first floor rooms above the shops now have three triple-hung sash windows, instead of the original small pane casement windows, which can be seen around the rest of the hall. A sign also projects from the middle of the front gable, which was originally decorated with the words 1928 Rosalie School of Arts Commemoration Hall.
","criteria":"The former School of Arts Memorial Hall in Rosalie demonstrates the system of adult education that functioned in Queensland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is also illustrates the practice of constructing memorials to those Queenslanders who fell in World War One.
|The RSL Hall is an excellent example of a multi-purpose World War One memorial hall. It has been used as a venue for commemoration, education, entertainment, politics, sport, and socialising, and remains remarkably intact.
|The large timber building, on its corner site, has possessed a landmark quality since its construction. Its size and multi-level stepped design makes a major contribution to the character of Rosalie's streetscape.
|The RSL Hall, through its decades of community service, has a longstanding and ongoing social and cultural association with the local community, and the Returned Services League.
|The building is associated with the notable architectural firm of Hall and Prentice, which also designed the City Hall.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19639,"place_ref":602519,"name":"Expo 88 Nepalese Peace Pagoda","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"South Bank Parklands","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-08-01","description":"The Nepalese Peace Pagoda is currently surrounded by a low stone wall and rainforest plantings, and faces northeast towards the river. From the riverside walkway two sets of steps lead up to the platform on which the pagoda stands. Two stone elephants and two stone lions, set on a stone wall, flank the steps. To either side, at the top of the stairway, are set the two smaller food-service pavilions from Expo 88. These mimic the main pagoda in style and building materials, although they have a three-tiered roof. Just in front of the northeast face of the pagoda a bronze bell hangs from a stone frame. The bell is cast with the words APAC and Association to Preserve Asian Culture.
The timber pagoda is square, with two floors and a small attic, possibly for storage. It has a two-tiered roof, clad in brass. The triple-finial is covered in gold leaf, and a long brass ribbon drapes down the tiered roof levels on the northeast face. Two of the elevations of the ground floor each have five arched openings between the carved supporting posts, with carved screens covering their lower sections. The southwest and northeast elevations have triple doorways, with carved screens in the openings to either side. Glass panels have been installed inside each opening, except for the doorways. The northwest ground floor elevation has 1986 Nepal Peace Pagoda 1988 carved above the openings, and the southwest ground floor elevation is carved with the words APAC and Association to Preserve Asian Culture on the upper right hand side. The southeast ground floor elevation has Nepalese numbers and writing carved above the openings. The exterior carvings include gods, goddesses, and mythical animals. The first floor has carved timber screens, and carved roof supports that angle outwards. The attic, between the two roof tiers, has latticed window screens.
Inside the pagoda the post, beam, ceiling, and screen timber is carved with symbolic designs and scenes. The ceiling has scenes from the enlightenment of Buddha, the walls are carved with flowers, and the inner posts and doors are carved with deities. In the southwest corner stands a statue of Avalokiteshvara, the deity of compassion, within a glass case. The ground floor also contains: a display case, containing articles about the pagoda; stairs to the first floor, which is currently sealed off; and four timber benches. Another stairway links the first floor and the attic. The ground floor is paved with clay tiles. A reflecting pool and a stone lingam (a phallus-shaped religious fertility symbol) stand to the southwest of pagoda.
","history":"The Nepalese Peace Pagoda complemented the Nepalese Pavilion at the World Exposition 1988 (Expo 88), held at Southbank in Brisbane. The square, three-level replica of a traditional Nepalese temple is built of hand-carved wood, and has a double-tiered roof of brass with brass trimmings. It proved popular with the crowds who attended Expo 88, and the Peace Pagoda is the last international exhibit remaining on the Expo 88 site. It was originally sited near the Vulture Street entrance to Expo 88. In 1991 it was moved to its current location, amongst the rainforest near the northern riverbank entrance to the Southbank Parklands.
World Expositions (or Exhibitions) become increasingly popular after the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, but their frequency, and the standard of their facilities, was not regulated until after the 1928 Paris Convention on International Expositions. The Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) was established in 1931 to administer the Convention. Under BIE rules there are two types of international exposition: the Universal/Category A/General Exposition, and the International/Category B/Special Exposition. The former involves broad themes, and participants design their own pavilions from the ground up, based on the theme.
The International Exposition, which has a narrower theme, is much cheaper to host, and is usually limited to one branch of human endeavour. Participants rent prefabricated pavilions from the host country's committee. Brisbane's Expo 88 was an International Exposition, with the theme "Leisure in the Age of Technology". Most of the structures built on exposition sites are intended to be temporary, but some sites have become parks, incorporating surviving exposition elements, including the sites of Montreal 1967, Seville 1992, Taejon 1993, and Lisbon 1998. Some structures have gone on to become landmarks in their own right, such as the Royal Exhibition Building (Melbourne 1880), the Eiffel Tower (Paris 1889), and the Space Needle (Seattle 1962).
The first bid to bring an exposition to Brisbane in 1988 began with James Maccormick , the architect who had designed the Australian pavilions at Montreal 1967, Osaka 1970, and Spokane 1974. The Brisbane Chamber of Commerce was converted to the idea, and lobbied the Queensland State Government during 1977. However, the Queensland Government was worried about the cost of a Universal Exposition, and was preoccupied with its bid for the 1982 Commonwealth Games. A second Queensland bid was made in 1981. The Australian Bicentennial Authority (ABA), under John Reid, wanted an Universal Exposition in Australia as part of Bicentennial in 1988, and the Federal Government was prepared to fund half of the cost of an exposition in Melbourne or Sydney. However, when these states turned the offer down in January 1981, Reid approached the Queensland Government with a proposal for a cheaper International Exposition. In late 1981 the State Cabinet funded a study that identified South Brisbane as the preferred site. The State Cabinet approved the study on 5 November 1981, on the condition that the Federal Government share the capital costs, but Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser rejected this notion in December 1981.
Queensland made two more attempts in 1982 for an International Exposition. Frank Moore, Chairman of the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corporation (QTTC), believed that private enterprise could fund the exposition, and that it would benefit Queensland's tourism. Queensland's Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen asked Prime Minister Fraser to get the BIE to keep a slot open for Brisbane in 1988. Fraser was willing to support this proposal, so long as there was no Federal financial commitment. However, Queensland private enterprise was not forthcoming, and Bjelke-Petersen withdrew the proposal in April 1982. November of 1982 witnessed a renewed bid by the State Government. The State would lend money to a statutory authority, which would be tasked with buying and developing the land, and managing the exposition. Brisbane's application was sent to the December 1982 meeting of the BIE in Paris, and was approved in June 1983.
The Brisbane Exposition and South Bank Redevelopment Authority (BESBRA) was established in February 1984 by an Act of the Queensland Parliament. BESBRA was soon referred to in the media as the Expo 88 Authority, or the Expo Authority. Sir Llewellyn Edwards, the Deputy Premier, was appointed as Chairman. In April 1984 the Expo 88 Authority's general manager, Bob Minnikin, claimed that Expo 88 would require $180 million to produce, including resumptions and development, and $90 million to run. It was hoped that gate takings and sponsorship would cover the running costs, and that the development cost would be recouped through selling off the site after Expo 88. Only 13 hectares of the Expo 88 site was private land, with the remainder of the 40 hectares belonging to either the State Government or the Brisbane City Council. Nonetheless, the last resumption did not occur until October 1984, as the owner of the heritage-listed residence 'Collins Place' fought a running legal battle with the Expo 88 Authority.
Grey and Stanley Streets were closed to traffic in July 1985, and demolition work began. Construction of the pavilions started in January 1986. The concept of the Expo 88 architects, Bligh Maccormick 88, included eight large shade-canopies, to protect the public from the Queensland sun. Landscaping began in March 1987, and the Monorail, which would circle the site on a 2.3 kilometre long track, was commissioned in June of that year. By January 1988, $90 million of the $136.8 million construction budget had been spent, and 7.8 million visitors were expected.
During 1987 developers had been asked to present their proposals for Southbank's redevelopment after Expo 88. In February 1988 the State Government announced that the redevelopment plan of the River City 2000 Consortium had been accepted. The Consortium, headed by Sir Frank Moore of the QTTC, had visions of a World Trade Centre on an island, and a casino. However, by early 1988 there was a growing call in the media for more of the site to be turned into public parkland. During March and April 1988 the National Trust protested the River City 2000 Consortium's scheme to move Collins Place, the Plough Inn, and the Allgas Building, three heritage listed buildings, to a historic village. Premier Mike Ahern eventually gave reassurances that this would not happen.
Expo 88 ran for seven days a week, between the hours of 10am-10pm, for six months. Between its opening on 30 April, attended by Queen Elizabeth II, and 30 October 1988, the Expo attracted 15,760,447 visitors, the majority of these being Australians. Most of the international visitors were Japanese, but 100,000 came from the United Kingdom and Europe, with 150,000 visitors from the United States. A total of 36 nations, two international organisations, 14 state and regional governments, and 34 corporations had exhibits.
The pavilions were mostly plain, modular, and temporary. However, the Nepalese Peace Pagoda is a distinctive building, and was easily noticed as the public came through the Vulture Street entrance to Expo 88. The Association to Preserve Asian Culture (APAC) commissioned the Peace Pagoda, which was built by 160 craftsmen of the Kathmandu Valley over two years, before being assembled in Brisbane. It is one of only three such temples outside Nepal, the others being at Munich and Osaka. Nepal has a long history of intricate woodcarving on buildings, and the Peace Pagoda was an attempt to showcase this skill to the world. The two small timber pavilions in front of the Peace Pagoda sold yoghurt lati, samosas, orange juice and lemon tea. Artisans demonstrated their crafts inside the ground floor of the Pagoda, and people could drink their tea and watch the Expo crowds from the teahouse on the first floor. The nearby Nepalese pavilion showcased traditional costumes, climbing dress, photographs, and artefacts.
Expo 88 was a turning point for Queensland's culture and economy, especially in Brisbane. On 30 May 1983 Joh Bjelke-Petersen had noted that if Brisbane's bid were successful, it would focus the world's spotlight on Queensland. Sir Frank Moore believed that the key to developing a major tourist industry in Queensland was a series of hallmark events, including the 1982 Commonwealth Games, which would focus attention on Queensland far better than any advertising campaign. Expo 88 was also intended to start Brisbane on a modernisation process, and towards becoming a 'global' city. The urban renewal of South Brisbane was just one aspect. In April 1984 Sir Llew stated that Queensland would never be the same again after Expo 88, and Brisbane would develop an image as a centre of trade, culture and entertainment. In April 1988 the Courier Mail claimed that Expo 88 was "bridging the yawning gap from a hayseed State to an urbane, international future". Sir Llew also claimed in April 1988 that the aim was for Expo 88 to be a catalyst for a change in lifestyle. Queenslanders had experienced extended opening hours and outdoor café dining, and had liked it.
While the crowds enjoyed Expo 88, controversy continued regarding future plans for the site. There were calls for more public input on redevelopment plans. About 4.5 hectares of land between Stanley Street and the river belonged to the Brisbane City Council (BCC), as Clem Jones Park, and had been lent to the Expo 88 Authority. In June 1988 it was decided to restore this land as parkland, and the River City 2000 Consortium lost its Preferred Developer status.
Government plans for a South Bank Development Corporation were announced, and in July 1988 an interim committee, headed by Sir Llew, was formed to oversee redevelopment. Sir Llew noted in October 1988 that more public funding was necessary to increase the parkland component of the new Southbank, as the land had been earmarked for development to repay for the cost of Expo 88. The draft redevelopment plans released in November 1988 included 12 hectares of parkland. Public submissions on the plan suggested that people wanted to be able to return to the Expo 88 site, to a public facility that had a similar combination of food, art and nature.
At the end of Expo 88, the APAC had planned to sell the Nepalese Peace Pagoda, and it appeared likely that it would be moved to Japan. However, 90,000 people had signed a petition during Expo 88 to keep the Peace Pagoda in Brisbane, and in late 1988 the BCC offered to provide land for the Peace Pagoda, if the Federal Government would pay for its cost and maintenance. A "Save the Pagoda Campaign" was active by February 1989. Public donations eventually totalled $52,000, with $30,000 coming from one couple, who wanted to "give Brisbane something to remember from Expo 88". The BCC provided $50,000, and the Federal Government supplied $100,000. "The Friends of the Pagoda Committee" also raised funds to buy several items that had complemented the Peace Pagoda, including a brass statue of the deity of compassion, a bronze bell and carved stone frame, and a stone lingam.
The Southbank Development Corporation was set up February 1989, with Vic Pullar as the Chairman. Approximately $200 million had been spent on developing the Expo site, and this money had to be recouped. The South Bank Corporation Act was passed in May 1989, and the former Clem Jones Park area was transferred to the Southbank Corporation, which was tasked with managing a new parkland precinct. In June 1989 submissions were sought from five architectural firms, and in August the "Media Five" concept of a mixed residential, commercial, and parkland development was chosen. Under Media Five's plans, the Peace Pagoda would be moved to the northern part of the parklands. The Media Five Chairman, Desmond Brooks, also suggested that Collins Place, the Plough Inn and the Allgas Building be removed to a historic village, but Vic Pullar rejected this idea. However, when the Southbank Corporation's Draft Development Plan was released in November 1989, it proposed to only keep the facades of the historic buildings. After protests by the National Trust, the State Government overruled the Southbank Corporation.
The proposed redevelopment included a waterway through the park, and a large lagoon, which was later downsized. In March 1990 the Final Plan was presented, after public submissions, and site redevelopment started in July 1990. The official Southbank Parklands opening occurred on 20 June 1992. The Waterway was later filled in and replaced with the Energex Arbour, which was officially opened in March 2000.
The transfer of the Peace Pagoda to its current site started on 24 September 1991. The deity of compassion was moved from the first floor to a glass case on the ground floor, the sides of the ground floor were encased in glass, and a display case was added inside. Access to the first floor was sealed off. The two smaller pavilions were also transferred, but their service windows were locked up. Two lion statues and two elephant statues were also relocated. The building was originally designed to be demountable, but it is currently set in a ceramic tiled floor. The Peace Pagoda was one of the best-loved exhibits at Expo 88, as visitors were able to relax in it away from the bustle of the crowds. Today it is still popular, both with tourists, and those who go there to meditate and reflect.
","criteria":"Expo 88 marked a shift in Brisbane's lifestyle, and it put Queensland on the international tourism map. The Peace Pagoda is a well-known reminder of an event that changed the way Queenslanders' view themselves and the rest of the world.
|The Peace Pagoda is rare in that it is the only international exhibit remaining on the old Expo 88 site. It is also the only example of a Nepalese temple in Australia, being one of only three that exist outside Nepal.
|As a faithful replica of a traditional Nepalese temple, it demonstrates the principle characteristics of a class of places.
|The intricate woodcarving, undertaken by Nepalese craftspeople, has created a picturesque building that is much admired and photographed.
|The Peace Pagoda has a strong association with many Queenslanders who attended Expo 88, both for its own sake, and as a reminder of Expo 88. The public effort to retain the pagoda in Brisbane is evidence of this attachment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19642,"place_ref":602522,"name":"Nambour Section of the Moreton Central Sugar Mill Cane Tramway","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mill Street, Currie Street, Howard Street","suburb":"NAMBOUR","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-02-07","description":"The cane tramway is laid directly into the centre of the roadway and runs through the central business district of Nambour. It is of a 2 foot (610 mm) gauge and travels between the road reserve in front of the former mill site in Mill Street, across the Currie Street intersection and down Howard Street to the marshalling yards.
","history":"The Moreton Central Sugar Mill opened for crushing in 1897. The tramway network that connected the mill with cane farms developed over many years and was in use until late 2003. It was a key factor in the success of the mill and the development of Nambour.
\nSugar cane was first brought to Australia in 1788, but subsequent plantings at Sydney, Port Macquarie and Norfolk Island failed to be commercially viable. Captain Louis Hope grew a cane crop successfully in Queensland in 1862. By 1864 the first commercial sugar mill in Australia had been established by him at Ormiston and interest in growing sugar cane spread rapidly, encouraged by the Queensland government. By 1867 an estimated 2000 acres were under cane in the Brisbane area and by the end of the decade, cane had also been successfully established further north at Maryborough, Mackay and Bundaberg, where the warmer climate proved more suitable.
\nWilliam Clark had experimented with sugar cane growing at Bli Bli in the 1860s, but in 1869 a group of Quakers took up land near the junction of the Mooloolah River and Sippy Creek, planted sugar cane and erected a crushing mill. This project was abandoned after severe flooding in the 1870s, but cane was grown successfully in other parts of the district including Buderim, where in 1876 Joseph Dixon, one of the Mooloolah growers, established a mill in order to process his own cane and that of neighbouring farms.
\nIn 1881 the Buderim Mountain Sugar Mill was established and also served many small farms, but both mills had failed by the end of the decade. In 1893 the Sugar Works Guarantee Act was passed. This provided capital for the erection of central sugar mills in districts with many small farms by offering loans to incorporated companies, so that growers could develop their own mills. The Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company was formed in December 1894. Land bounded by the North Coast railway on the west and Gympie Road on the east was purchased for a mill site at the small settlement of Nambour. Erection of a mill by Caskie and Thompson began in late 1895.
\nIn order for the mill to be successful, it was essential to establish an efficient means for bringing the harvested cane in from surrounding farms to be crushed. Tramway networks carrying wagons drawn by steam locomotives had been used effectively in other Queensland sugar districts since the 1880s, so possible routes for a tramway network were surveyed as part of the planning for the Moreton Mill. A two-foot (610mm) gauge was chosen for the sake of economy, speed not being an important factor in the running of the tramway, though the wagons were at first pulled by horses. In 1897 the first tramlines were constructed east to Perrin's Barn and west to the foot of the Perwillowen Range and the first harvest was crushed at the mill.
\nEstablishing tramways proved expensive due the nature of the terrain and there were consequent difficulties with the supply of cane to the mill, though by 1905, there were 26 miles of permanent tramline in use. As mortgagee, the Queensland government took over the running of the mill between 1904 and 1907. The first locomotive, a Krauss 0-6-0 tank locomotive, was purchased in 1905 although horses were still used to deliver cane to the end of the western line and over a tramline which ran over the Rosemount range and connected with the Petrie Creek line to the east of the mill.
\nIn 1911 a branch line was constructed to the Maroochy River and although the eastern section of the tramway network continued to be extended, lines on the western side were sold to Maroochy Shire in 1914. Some branch lines were dismantled and the line extended to Mapleton. The council operated this line for 30 years, before it was reacquired in 1945 by the Mill and reduced back to the foot of the range before being closed in 1970.
\nTwo short sections of line to the north were built, but a shortage of steel and labour during and after WWI caused problems with expansion. Much of the line was temporary, being laid down for the crushing season. In 1917 a lift up bridge was constructed over Petrie's Creek and in 1921 a second such bridge over the Maroochy River linking the northern cane growing areas to the tramway system. It was extended to connect with an isolated line built in 1922 between Coolum Creek and Coolum Beach. This line officially opened in 1923, though it had been in use for some time before this and was also used for the transport of passengers.
\nAlthough there had been a wharf there since 1911, the road to Coolum was poor and often boggy, making the place hard to access. The tramway terminus at the mill in Nambour was very close to the train station and passengers from Brisbane could use the tramway to either link with the launch to Maroochydore or to travel to Coolum. The mill fitted up the cane wagons with back-to-back seats and timed the movement of trams to fit in with train timetables. This service was very popular and played an important role in the development of Coolum as a seaside resort. In 1927 the Main Roads Department built a more serviceable road and the tramway passenger service continued to run to Deepwater until 1927 and to Coolum until 1935 when a bus service was provided.
\nWork on the mill and the tramway network continued through the 1930s, though during World War II operations at the mill fell because shipping was disrupted and there were labour shortages. After the war, the tramlines west of Nambour, bought by Maroochy Shire in 1914, ceased running and the mill purchased the line and locos. In 1951-2 an extensive program of repairs and line relaying was carried out. In 1961 diesel locomotives were purchased which necessitated strengthening bridges and laying heavier rail along the tramways.
\nUntil 2003, when the mill closed, during the harvesting season, wire cane bins were towed through Nambour, entering the mill via a gate on Mill Street after passing in front of the cane inspector's and engineer's cottages. These bins entered the 'full yard' from where they were progressed by hydraulic pushers into a tippler machine to discharge their cargo before returning to the fields.
\nIn 1976 the mill was taken over by Howard Smith Limited and major upgrades were carried out. In 1987, Howard Smith Limited decided to return to its core business and the mill was sold to Bundaberg Sugar who was expanding by buying more mills. In 1989 the rail line to CSR in Brisbane closed at the Brisbane end and so road transport to the refinery was used. However, the trams continued to transport cane from farms to the mill.
\nThe name of the company was changed to the Moreton Sugar Company Limited in 1991 and the British company of Tate and Lyle acquired the mill as a wholly owned subsidiary when it took over Bundaberg Sugar in 1991. The plant and tramways were overhauled in 1997. Bundaberg Sugar, including seven mills, was sold to the Belgian company Finasucre in 2000.
\nBetween 1980 and 2003 more than 1000 hectares of cane land in Maroochy Shire were lost to urban development and other uses. This meant that some cane was being brought to the mill from 60 or 70 kilometres away. As it is very important that cane is crushed soon after harvesting to maintain its sugar content, this had an adverse effect on the functioning of the mill. The price of sugar also fell and a crisis was reached in 2002. It was decided that Moreton Mill would close and its last crush took place on 3 December 2003. The majority of tramline was removed by Bundaberg Sugar as part of an agreement with landowners from whom the tramline corridor was leased. The section of line covered by this entry represents its use as a transport system for both cane and passengers and as an unusual feature of the Nambour, for which the town is well known.
","criteria":"The Moreton Central Sugar Mill operated between 1897 and December 2003. During the 20th century, sugar growing was the most important primary industry in the Maroochy district. It was a key factor in the development of Nambour and the Maroochy Shire and important in the growth of the sugar industry in Queensland. The cane tramway, which brought cane from many farms to the mill for crushing, was an essential part of the operation of the mill. The line between Nambour and Coolum was also used for passengers in the 1920s and 30s and was instrumental in the development of the tourist industry in the area, by linking the QR station next to the Nambour mill with resort areas at Coolum and Maroochydore.
|Although it is very uncommon for a cane tramway to pass through the centre of a town, as the line at Nambour does, the line otherwise demonstrates the features of its type well, being a narrow gauge (2 foot or 610mm) track laid without formation and links the site of the mill to the marshalling yards from where it fanned out in many separate lines forming a large network across farms, roadways and over the Maroochy River.
|Although it is very uncommon for a cane tramway to pass through the centre of a town, as the line at Nambour does, the line otherwise demonstrates the features of its type well, being a narrow gauge (2 foot or 610mm) track laid without formation and links the site of the mill to the marshalling yards from where it fanned out in many separate lines forming a large network across farms, roadways and over the Maroochy River.
|The section of the tramway that passes through the town is an important characteristic of Nambour. Laden cane trains travelling between Nambour's shops and commercial buildings featured on many post card views of the town; the sight was popular with tourists and was part of annual cane harvest festivals until very recently.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19646,"place_ref":602524,"name":"Sandstone Railway Culvert and Remains","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"WULKURAKA","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-06-24","description":"The original line to Bigges Camp ran via North Ipswich roughly following the north bank of the Bremer River before crossing Mihi Creek and turning southwest towards today's Wulkuraka. The original line beyond Wulkuraka is still in use, although it has been duplicated, realigned and re-graded.
The sandstone culvert, a small brick-lined drain and the remains of railway line embankments are all found on the bushland reserve. The remains of the embankments begin in the northeastern corner of the property and end just short of the southern property boundary.
The sandstone culvert is situated in the northeastern corner of the reserve close to the property boundary. The area immediately adjacent to the culvert contains a number of trees of varying ages, and is thickly covered in tall grass and other scrub. The culvert measures approximately 2 metres in width and 2.5 metres in height. The length of the culvert from the southeastern entrance to the remains of the northwestern end is 16 metres.
The base and lower half of the culvert is constructed of poor quality grayish sandstone to a height of approximately 1 metre. These sandstone blocks are heavily weathered as a result of water erosion. The curved roof is made of fired red bricks built in two overlapping layers. Both the sandstone and upper brick structures feature lime mortar, which is in poor condition and is crumbling.
The southeastern end of the culvert remains intact. Inside the culvert, the middle section is largely intact though a small amount of graffiti is present on the upper brick walls. The northwestern end has disintegrated badly. At a point 10-12m from the Southeastern end, the lower sandstone and upper brick sections have collapsed and been washed away. Some of the scattered sandstone blocks have been pecked, suggesting that this side of the culvert was dressed for aesthetic purposes.
A small brick-lined drain is located along the railway line embankment to the southwest of the culvert. This drain is made from the same red bricks as found in the larger culvert. It is difficult to determine the overall condition of the drain as it is heavily silted up, though what is visible is in an average condition.
Significant physical elements of the place include:
- The complex created by the presence of the culvert, the remaining railway line embankments and the small brick-lined drain;
- The sandstone used in the culvert, which is contemporary and probably from the same source as that used in the abutments found in the Heiner Road railway overbridge (QHR 602467).
","history":"The separate colony of Queensland was established in 1859. The few inhabitants of the new colony looked to intensify economic exploitation of the land and increase the size of the population. The building of railways was seen to facilitate both of these aims and as such was given a high priority by the new Queensland government. Consequently, the Southern and Western Railway Bill was introduced to parliament in August 1863 and the government appointed Abram Fitzgibbon, an Irish engineer with international experience in railway construction, as Chief Engineer (later Commissioner for Railways). Fitzgibbon's first task was the construction of a railway between Ipswich and Toowoomba.
Planning for the new railway meant serious economic and geographic challenges had to be overcome. Earlier railway construction in the southern Australian colonies was modelled on the railways of Great Britain and featured broad gauge, double track, easy grades, wide radius curves and substantial station buildings. It was quickly discovered that the construction costs for such a rail system were beyond the budget of the fledgling Queensland colonial government. The natural geography around the Darling Downs also precluded an easy grade, with any railway requiring a steep ascent of the eastern escarpment of the Great Dividing Range and the crossing of several creeks and streams.
Fitzgibbon proposed a radical engineering solution to these challenges through the adoption of a narrow 3 feet 6 inch (1067mm) gauge. Standard gauge at the time was 4 feet 8½ inches (1435mm) and was in itself considered narrow when compared with other broad rail gauges then in use throughout the world. By using narrow gauge, savings on construction costs could be achieved. The disadvantages of such a decision meant sharper curves on ascending ranges, lower speeds, lighter bridges and as a consequence, smaller locomotives and rolling-stock. The use of narrow gauge was largely untried anywhere else in the world, except for small-scale narrow gauge operations in New Zealand and Wales.
Substantial cost savings were also to be made through the use of standard designs for bridges, buildings, houses and yards. At this time, the quality of Queensland timber was largely unknown and little was to be used on the first railway, except for sleepers. Bridges were to be built of iron with brick and stone culverts. It was only later that Queensland became a leader in wooden bridge design, with the emergence of elaborate timber designs and later more economical timber structures.
Construction of the railway was contracted to Peto, Brassey & Betts, a firm with considerable railway construction experience worldwide. A fixed sum contract was negotiated for the construction of the first line between Ipswich and Bigges Camp (today's Grandchester), with a follow on contract for four other sections of line between Bigges Camp and Toowoomba. Lady Diamantina Roma Bowen, wife of the first Governor-General of Queensland, turned the first sod of earth for the first section of railway on 25 February 1864.
The first consignment of construction materials arrived in Ipswich by steamer on 15 August 1864. An initial line was laid down to the wharf in Ipswich to receive consignments of materials and move them to a workshops site on level ground above. Public pressure for a bridge across the river resulted in a change of plan and the terminus was moved to South Ipswich in the business centre. A bridge was constructed to carry both road and rail and was just completed in time for the opening of the first section of rail to Grandchester.
The first trial run along the line with a train was on 13 April 1865. The first section of line between Ipswich and Bigges Camp (a distance of twenty-one miles) was officially opened to traffic to great public fanfare on 31 July 1865. The line ran from the Bremer Bridge and passed the original workshops and running sheds (North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - 601526) to the west and crossed Wide Gully. Extensions to the line were later made to Toowoomba (1867), Dalby (1868) and Warwick (1871).
The building of the Sadlier's Crossing Bridge and deviation, which opened in 1875, made the old line via Mihi Creek redundant and it fell out of use except for a short section to the Ipswich workshops and to service a coalmine. The line was officially closed on 26 April 1875.
Queensland Railways demonstrated the viability of the use of narrow gauge, thereby influencing other countries including Japan, Africa and New Zealand to also adopt the technology. The construction of the Ipswich to Bigges Camp railway, of which the Sandstone Railway Culvert at Wulkuraka is a part, set the precedent for the construction and design of the many lightly constructed and sinuous narrow gauge railways that have since been built around the world.
","criteria":"The Sandstone Railway Culvert and Remains at Wulkuraka are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as a product of the first main line railway constructed in Queensland. It illustrates the unique development of the Queensland railway network and provides tangible evidence of the geographic, demographic and economic development of the fledgling Queensland colony in the 1860s.
|As physical evidence of Queensland's first railway, the place is an uncommon and endangered part of Queensland's cultural heritage. The sandstone culvert was constructed in 1864-5 and is contemporary to the abutments of the Heiner Road railway overbridge (602467) making it one of the few surviving remnants of the first railway ever to be constructed in Queensland. The Sandstone Railway Culvert and Remains at Wulkuraka are also significant as uncommon and endangered elements of the oldest surviving 3 feet 6 inch railway found anywhere in the world.
|The place has a special association with Abram Fitzgibbon, who made an important contribution as Queensland's first Commissioner for Railways and initiator of narrow gauge rail in Queensland. Fitzgibbon's use of narrow gauge revolutionized railway design in Queensland, Australia and throughout the world. Fitzgibbon also brought with him a number of well-qualified railway engineers, providing valuable expertise in railway construction and design, thereby shaping the development of the modern Queensland rail network.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19647,"place_ref":602525,"name":"Nanango Butter Factory Building","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"George Street","suburb":"NANANGO","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-06-03","description":"The main factory building is two stories high, rectangular, and runs parallel to George Street, on a north-south axis. It is constructed of concrete, with a brick extension to the north, and has fibrous cement sheeting and battens on the upper levels to the north and south. It has a gabled roof of galvanised iron with skylights, and a clerestory runs along the apex of the southern part of the roof. The western side of the building facing George Street has been stuccoed. There are four doors, a high-set roller door, and two hatches on the western side of the factory, five roller doors on the south side, and a roller door on the north side. There is a high-set loading bay with roller door on the southern end of the east side, and a concrete loading dock juts out between this and the engine room to the north. Windows are generally steel-framed with wire-covered panes, or consist of panelled glass louvres.
Internally the factory is divided into two main sections with concrete floors, and the smaller northern end currently contains an office facing George Street, with a larger open section behind. The southern end has a small office on a raised section facing George Street, and a large open area behind this, with a coldroom and storeroom on the George Street side, north of the office. A door on the east side of the southern section leads from the main space through to the engine room.
On the east side of the factory is an attached single-story engine room, with gabled roof of galvanised iron, constructed of rendered brick, with metal strapping set into the render. Steel loops are welded to the strapping at intervals. The engine room has a smaller northern section, with a roller door exiting the north side, and a double steel door exits the southern section to the east. The engine room has a concrete floor, and contains the concrete mounting pads of removed equiptment, and one small engine. A hole has recently been cut into the floor of the engine room, near the largest concrete mounting.
South of the factory, across a large concrete pad, is the old office building of the Nanango Dairy Co-operative Association. It faces George Street, and is constructed of brick with a concrete and stucco frontage. To the east of the concrete pad are two open sheds of steel and timber construction, and an enclosed timber shed. To the east of the factory and engine room are a number of other structures. Running south to north these include: a small overgrown shed, related to the factory's cooling system; a rectangular semi-underground covered concrete tank; a brick toilet block; two underground concrete tanks next to the engine room; a small open-topped semi-underground concrete water tank; and a open two-storied twin-gabled loading bay, constructed of steel and timber and clad in galvanised iron. It has raised vents at each apex, clad in curved galvanised iron sheeting.
","history":"The Nanango Butter Factory, bounded by George Street and Sandy Creek, Nanango, is closely linked to the development of the Nanango district, as well as the rise and fall of the dairy industry in Queensland. The original factory, made of timber, was built in 1905. The current factory, of concrete and brick construction, was erected in 1927, extended to the north in 1953, and retains a number of its outbuildings and structures. These include loading bays, concrete tanks, sheds, and an office building.
The South Burnett district was first settled by Europeans in the early 1840s, as pastoralists worked their way north from the Darling Downs. By 1842 the sheep station Taromeo had been established by Simon Scott. Two other sheep stations were established shortly thereafter: Nanango, by William Elliot Oliver, and Tarong, by John Borthwick. Taromeo, Nanango and Tarong had all switched to beef cattle by the 1880s. Oliver's Head Station was at a creek two miles west of the site of the town of Nanango. The latter grew around an inn established by Jacob Goode in 1848, after he was allowed to camp near a waterhole on Nanango Station. The tracks from the Darling Downs and Brisbane converged at Goode's Inn on their way to Gayndah.
Nanango is one of Queensland's oldest towns. A post office was established at Goode's Inn in 1850, and in 1857 Nanango was gazetted for Courts of Petty Session, with a Courthouse being built in 1859. In 1861 the town of Nanango was surveyed, and the first sale of town blocks occurred in 1862, between today's Henry, Appin, George and Alfred Streets. James Nash found gold seven miles southeast of Inn in 1866, and the "Seven Mile Diggings" helped to increase the population of the area. Closer settlement began after an 1875 petition, and in 1876 regulations were for drawn up for monthly land courts, the first of which occurred in Nanango in 1877. In 1879 the Barambah Divisional Board was formed, and its office was built in Nanango in 1883. The 1884 Agricultural Lands Purchase Act aided in the resumption of part of Nanango Station for selection by farmers, who produced wheat and butter for the local market. Timber getting was also an industry in the area.
Initially, local farmers kept a few cows for domestic purposes, and town dwellers paid a fee to have a house cow that could be grazed on the town common. The first commercial dairy farm was started near Nanango in 1865, but this was a small operation that had to cart its cream overland to Gympie. By the 1890s events were occurring that would lead to the rapid growth of commercial dairy farming around Nanango, such as the advent of mechanical cream separators in Australia in the 1880s; the Babcock butterfat test; government grading of butter; and the advent of refrigerated shipping from Brisbane in 1884. In the late 1880s and early 1890s the Department of Agriculture and Stock used a Travelling Dairy to demonstrate techniques and equipment to potential dairy farmers. The 1893 Meat and Dairy Produce Act, which established subsidies for dairy farmers, and the 1894 Agricultural Lands Purchase Act also aided commercial dairying. Between 1894 and 1919 a large amount of land was repurchased by the government from pastoralists, was and offered as agricultural selections. Closer settlement legislation between 1906 and 1917 also played its part in creating small agricultural service towns, as did the spread of Queensland's railway network. In 1890 there were 3,500 kilometres of rail-line in Queensland. By 1910 there was 6,300 kilometres and by 1920, 9,300 kilometres. Between 1910 and 1920, most of the lines built were branch lines for agriculture.
The Co-operative movement, where producers held shares in the enterprises that processed and sold their product, had been developed in Switzerland during the 1880s, and was transferred from Victoria to Queensland by dairy immigrants during the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1900 the South Burnett carried 3000 acres of crops, 7000 sheep, and 84,000 cattle. Dairying became a mainstay of the Nanango district between 1900 and 1914, the period of the industry's most rapid development.
In 1903, the year that the Shire of Nanango was formed, the railway reached Wondai. In December of that year a thrice-weekly cream van run from Kunioon to the railhead was organised by Mr William Selby. Four farmers from Booie had begun carting their cream to Wondai earlier that year. From Wondai, the cream travelled by train to Gympie. In 1904 meetings were called at Nanango to consider a Co-operative butter factory, and in July 1904 the Nanango Co-operative Dairy Company was formed. The company was floated in February 1905, and in October a tender to build the factory was allocated to Waugh and Josephson. A single story timber factory was built in late 1905 for £820 (a second story was later added in September 1907). Machinery and plant cost a further £929. The first Annual General Meeting of the Co-operative was held in February 1906, and 1565 shares were allotted to 152 shareholders, 115 of those being fully paid up.
Butter manufacture commenced in April 1906, and by November the factory was also supplying ice. By 1906 the railway was moving closer to Nanango, and the first consignment of three tonnes of butter was dispatched from the Kingaroy railhead (1904). Nanango butter soon developed a reputation for excellence; in June 1906 the factory's product won first prize at the Maryborough show. Catalysts for dairying occurring around this time included the 1904 and 1905 Dairy Produce Acts; a cream testing certificate for officers in butter factories, introduced in 1906; and the 1906 Closer settlement Act. By 1910 there were 100 suppliers for the Nanango factory, which produced 197,889 pounds of butter. In 1911 the railway reached Nanango from the north, and in 1913 it reached Yarraman from the south.
On 25 October 1918, a fire started by lightening destroyed the factory, which was re-opened on 15 December 1919. By 1920, there were 5,000 sheep in the South Burnett compared to 230,000 beef and dairy cattle, with 10,000 pigs and 42,000 acres of crops. The Cactoblastis cactorum insect was introduced in 1923, and its defeat of the prickly pear enabled the Queensland dairy industry to rebuild and expand during the late 1920s, leading to the 1930s dairy boom. Also during the 1920s Butter and Cheese Boards were formed to equalise market prices, and the Nanango Co-operative Dairy Company became the Nanango Co-operative Dairy Association in 1924. By 1925 there were 320 suppliers to the factory.
On 13 October 1926 the factory burned once more, shortly after an equiptment upgrade, and it was re-built in concrete at a cost of about £15,800. The Minister for Works, Michael J. Kirwan, officially opened the factory on 21 October 1927. In October 1929 a Mr W.G. Counsel of the Electric Supply Works, Warwick, recommended that the butter factory supply electricity to the town, using its engine to power a generator. Electricity was supplied from the factory to the Nanango Shire Council between March 1933 and March 1948.
By the 1930s, dairying was the most widely spread agricultural industry in Queensland, and it was the state's second most profitable export industry from 1936 to 1941. In 1938 there were five co-operative butter factories in the South Burnett: Nanango (since 1906), Kingaroy (1907), Murgon (1911), Wondai (1931), and Proston (1935). In 1940 the factory at Nanango peaked at 483 suppliers. A cheese factory was established during World War Two to feed the troops, but it only operated between January 1942 and November 1943. The building still stands to the north of the butter factory. In the 1947-48 financial year 2,806,881 pounds of butter was produced at the Nanango factory, and in 1948 the Nanango Dairy Co-operative Trading Society as created as a subsidiary of the Nanango Co-operative Dairy Association.
By 1950 the South Burnett was carrying 650 sheep, 130,000 dairy cows (ten percent of the Queensland total), 110,000 beef cattle, 70,000 pigs, and 160,000 acres of crops. However, as demand and prices for butter dropped in the 1950s, the decline of dairying accelerated. In 1953 the Nanango butter factory started producing butter milk powder, and a brick annex was added to the northern end of the factory to house the roller-drying plant. Butter consumption per capita in Australia dropped from 12.2 kg to 8.3 kg between 1957 and 1972, and Britain joining the European Economic Community provided another blow to prices. Irregular seasonal conditions and a lack of profits led many dairy farmers to drop out of the industry, and by 1975 the factory had 66 suppliers left. 1977 witnessed the end of the butter and cheese price equalisation scheme, and in May of that year butter production ended at Nanango. The factory continued to act as a depot for bulk milk tanker collections, which had begun in 1972. When the Nanango Dairy Co-operative Association closed the factory in 1986 only 37 milk suppliers remained.
The railway line that used to run alongside the western side of the factory has disappeared, as has a large water cooler that stood to the northeast of the factory. A 1929 Ruston Hornsby Model 9XHC 132 horsepower diesel engine, with a seven-foot flywheel, and a 1935 Ruston Hornsby Model VER 220 horsepower diesel of 18 tonnes, remained on site until June 2004. These engines would have been used to run the factory's machinery, as well as to generate electricity for Nanango. A gas fitting business currently occupies the northern extension of the main factory building, and a plumber uses the southern end. To the south of the factory the old office building, of late 1920s construction, is now a residence/home business.
","criteria":"The 1927 Nanango butter factory, built on a site that was used for butter production from 1906 to 1977, is evidence of the growth and decline of the dairy industry within the Nanango Shire, and within Queensland.
|The decline in the Queensland dairy industry in the 1960s and 1970s, and the resulting closure of small town butter factories, means that ex-butter factories that are relatively intact are now becoming uncommon.
|The layout of the factory, with its large internal space, loading bays, cold room, engine room, exterior water tanks, office building and other secondary structures demonstrates the principle characteristics of a early twentieth century butter factory.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19652,"place_ref":602529,"name":"Lahey's Canungra Tramway Tunnel","alternate_name":"Laheys Tramway Tunnel","street_address":"Darlington Range Road","suburb":"CANUNGRA","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-04-11","description":"The tunnel was originally meant to be 88 yards in length (80m). However, its actual overall length is 91m plus an approach cutting at each end. The tunnel is straight, unlined and rectangular in section and cut through solid sandstone. On the walls of the tunnel is etched graffiti. The majority of graffiti is concentrated near the well-lit southeastern and northwestern entrances.
Each entrance has an open approach cutting that extends from the tunnel. The northwestern entrance features two interpretive signs, one outlining the history of the tramway and tunnel, the other identifying the use of the tunnel during the Second World War.
Both entrances also feature waist high steel entrance barriers added to the site as part of the Centenary of Federation project.
Neither of the modern interpretive signs or modern entrance barriers are of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Laheys Canungra Tramway Tunnel represents part of a large scale, privately constructed and operated tramway used between 1903 and 1930. The tramway line was constructed in 3 feet 6 inch Queensland Government Railway standard gauge in the hope of future integration with the government rail network. The tramway tunnel was cut through solid sandstone, thereby negating any requirements for lining or support structures.
European settlement of the area surrounding the Coomera River commenced in 1843 with the establishment of the Tambourine holding. Early timber harvesting began in the 1860s by Hugh Mahony, who cut and hauled cedar logs to mills in Ipswich.
The Lahey family emigrated from their native Ireland to Australia in 1862. Francis Lahey, his wife and eleven children arrived in Sydney, but immediately travelled north to Brisbane. The family began farming in the Pimpama region in 1870. In 1875 Francis Lahey purchased a sugar mill and sawbench at Tygum, Waterford for his sons.
After being informed of the 'good timber' in the region, David Lahey commenced work on the construction of the first sawmill in Canungra on 2 October 1884. During the same year David, John, Isaiah, Thomas and Evangeline Lahey all applied for and were granted selections of land around Canungra totaling over 3,000 acres.
The mill at Canungra flourished during the first sixteen years of operation with timber readily obtained from the immediate area. The Lahey family expanded their business during this time, establishing an office in Brisbane in 1887, saw and planing mills at Beaudesert in 1888, the construction of a new mill at Canungra in 1897 after the original mill was destroyed by fire, and the construction of another mill at Widgee near Hill View in 1898.
By the turn of the 20th century, transportation of timber to the Canungra mill was becoming a problem. By this time the Laheys had acquired timber leases amounting to over 16,000 acres in the Canungra and Pine Creek Valleys, thereby requiring the slow and expensive bullock teams to haul logs over ever-increasing distances.
The Laheys saw mechanisation as the solution to their transportation problems. After a failed experiment with a steam traction engine, it was decided to build a tramway into the Pine Creek Valley to help keep transportation costs down. Steep grades and rugged terrain were an early problem in the design of the tramway. Various means of propulsion to cope with the steep grades and potentially heavy haulage weights were considered. A geared Climax locomotive, claimed to be capable of operating on grades as steep as 1 in 10, depending on haulage weight, was selected. A narrow gauge of 3 feet 6 inches was also chosen to match that of the growing Queensland Government Railways, as it was hoped that the government line would eventually extend to Canungra (this finally occurred in 1914).
Tom Lahey and a Mr Clark were responsible for the selection of the tramway route. George Phillips, a celebrated civil engineer, was then engaged to make a detailed survey of the route, which was completed in February 1900. A contract was then let to Mr Clark for the initial construction. An immediate problem he faced was a ridge of the Darlington Range that separated the mill in Canungra from the timber leases in the Coomera Valley. After considering an expensive long circuitous route around the ridge formation, a tunnel cutting through the ridge was chosen with an approach grade of 1 in 12½ with short radius curves. The tunnel was pierced on 1 January 1901. First use of the tunnel was in September 1903.
The grade against loaded trains heading to the mill was kept to 1 in 16½. The downhill grade from the tunnel to the mill was steeper and considered dangerously steep. To overcome this, a safety switch was laid. During actual operations, no serious accidents occurred, though there are reports of "some exciting moments", being "due to greasy rails".
The tramway was extended over time. By 1910, the main line was 13½ km long, with a branch 2 km up Flying Fox Creek and a sub-branch 500m up Little Flying Fox Creek to service a new aerial ropeway on Beech Mountain. Eventually, the total length of track laid amounted to 26½ km.
Usage of the tramway continued to increase so that during 1915 alone, 15,000 tons of logs were hauled to the mill.
With the construction of the tramway came the preservation of belts of native vegetation alongside the tracks. The line "curved among waterfalls, ferns and thick scrub", and it was used by the locals for everyday transportation needs, with reports of locals sitting atop the logs, children using the tramway for rides to school and for picnickers hitching a ride to their destinations.
By 1920 much of the timber had been removed from the Canungra area. In 1920, the War Service Homes Commission purchased the whole milling operation and before long, closed the mill. David Lahey's company Brisbane Timbers Ltd, however, took over the remaining timber harvesting operations and the tramway was used sporadically for a few more years. Trips along the tramway by sightseers are recorded up till 1930. By June 1933, the line was being dismantled. In 1935, the rails and bogies were sold for scrap. During its period of use, the tramway collectively hauled approximately 130 million super feet of timber.
During the Second World War, the tunnel was used for the storage of ammunition for the nearby Kokoda Barracks at Canungra. Following the war the tunnel fell out of use, but has since been cleared out through work conducted under a Centenary of Federation grant project. The tunnel was officially re-opened for pedestrian and visitor use on 21 January 2001.
","criteria":"The Laheys Canungra Tramway Tunnel is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as an example of a privately built, owned and operated tramway. It is also important as a product of the development of the early timber getting and milling industries in Queensland.
|The place demonstrates uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage as an early example of one of the few tramway tunnels built in Queensland not requiring lining or support.
|The tunnel is important in demonstrating the high degree of creative and technical achievement required to solve complex engineering problems associated with the construction of Queensland's early railways in challenging environments and through the use of new and untried technologies.
|The tunnel holds strong social significance for the community for its landmark values and for the contribution that the early timber industry and subsequent tramway operations had for the economic and cultural development of the Canungra region. The tunnel is also of social significance to the community as demonstrated by the installation of interpretive signing and the opening of the tunnel as a local tourist attraction.
|The place has a special association with the life and work of several generations of the Lahey family, who have been influential in the development of the timber industry in southeastern Queensland, and in the general development of the Canungra area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19653,"place_ref":602530,"name":"St Denys Anglican Church","alternate_name":"Church of St Denys | St Deny's Anglican Church | St Denys Church","street_address":"17 Trevethan Lane","suburb":"AMIENS","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-08-03","description":"St Denys Anglican Church is located on a level block that backs on to a low granite boulder strewn hill, immediately east of the church is another outcropping of boulders with some local eucalypts.
\nThe church is a small single-stored timber building, rectangular in plan, set on low, circular sectioned concrete posts. It has a steeply pitched gable roof clad in short lengths of corrugated iron. The entry porch is located at the rear of the building and has a small steeply pitched gabled roof, accessed by recently added timber steps set into a steel staircase on the left-hand side of the entry porch. The building has three small lancet windows along both sides of the building.
\nA single arched door way connects the entry to the church. The interior is simple and austere with the ceiling and floor lined with stained cypress pine. The altar is on a low platform and holds a brass cross, two candlesticks and a lectern. The sanctuary also contains a wooden cabinet and a bench seat and desk. The altar cloth included in the nomination was not present during the site inspection but is considered a significant component of the altar furnishings for its connection between St Denys Anglican Church and the battlefield Church of Le Harve.
","history":"The Church of St Denys is a small timber church built in 1923 to serve a Soldier Settlement at Amiens
\nUnder the provisions of the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act 1917, land was resumed or set aside for returned soldiers. The intent of the act was to create a 'land fit for heroes' and promote a yeomen farming class to aid in the more intensive farming and closer settlement of regional Australia. The schemes, while well intentioned, failed on the most part because block were too small to be economically viable. In the Stanthorpe shire about 17400 acres was set aside for this purpose in the parishes of Pikedale and Marsh. Over 700 returned soldiers were allocated blocks in what become the Pikedale Soldier Settlement area. At the time the area consisted mostly of a number of small railway sidings with a store and/or post office.
\nIn 1922 the Church of England Diocesan and the Soldiers' Church of England Help Society provided a grant to assist a the Reverend C D Gillman, a returned soldier, residing in Amiens to work on the Soldier Settlements. A church was built in 1923 from £335 sourced from the Soldiers' Church of England Help Society. The altar ornaments and frontal cloth came from the Australian base at Le Harve and are believed to originate from the Cathedral in Amiens, presented to the Church at Amiens, Pikedale as a token of gratitude for the part played by Australian soldiers in France during the 1914-18 war. Additionally both the altar and credence table were donated to the Church from the Ladies Guild, Palmer Green, London in 1923.
\nThe modest nature of the church matches the modest means of the area and the fortunes of those soldier settlers who moved to Amiens. The church in this respect reflects the community it serves. The link between the church in Queensland and the wartime service in France of many of the congregation is reflected in the dedication of the building to the patron saint of France, Saint Denys. This link is further reflected in the gifts made to the church and demonstrates the lasting effects of this experience on those who returned.
\nMaintenance of the church has been undertaken by the St Denys guild, volunteers, many of which are decedents of the original soldier settlers. Currently the church does not have a resident priest, but is serviced as part of the Stanthorpe parish. Church services are irregularly held via public notice in the local Stanthorpe Border Post newspaper.
\nThe church is very intact with only a new set of steps to the entry porch recently added approximately 10 years ago.
","criteria":"As a soldier settlement church with direct links to France, St Denys Anglican Church is important as evidence for the soldier settlement movement following the First World War and for the closer settlement of the Pikedale area.
The church is significant for its association with those who took up property under this scheme and their descendants. It is directly linked to Australian war service in France through the dedication of the Church to St Denys, the Patron Saint of France, but also through the frontal cloth and altar ornaments, which originate from the Cathedral in Amiens, France and used in the military church at the Australian base at Le Harve.
|St Denys Church has a strong association with the people of Amiens and the surrounding area for spiritual and cultural reasons having provided pastoral care and social contacts in the region for over eighty years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19657,"place_ref":602532,"name":"Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola","alternate_name":"Saint Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church","street_address":"50 Grove Street","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-07-12","description":"The Church of St Ignatius Loyola is a brick Romanesque building cut into a steeply sloping site on Toowong ridge. It commands a fine prospect across the city and its prominent position and square bell tower make it a landmark. It is a two-storey building with a hall on the lower level and the church proper on the upper level.
The church has an asymmetric front with a stepped parapet and is constructed of decorative polychrome brickwork in orange and brown. The roof is clad in Roman terracotta tiles. The upper level is accessed by steps to a large terrace at the eastern end. It is cruciform in plan with a long nave and short transepts terminating in small chapels, that on the northern side accessing an elaborate scagliola pulpit. Doors on the southern side are accessed by bridges that extend from a raised walkway.
The ceiling is clad in fibrous cement sheeting with lattice vents and there is a choir loft faced with silky oak panelling above the eastern entrance, which contains the organ. Below this, on either side of the entrance are altars and in the wall on each side are the doors to confessional booths, now used for storage.
Panels depicting the Stations of the Cross are set into the walls of the nave and at the western end is an apsidal chancel with vestries and a sanctuary approached through arches clad in orange veined scagliola and lined with the same material. The floors are concrete and are paved with marble in the Sanctuary.
The lower floor has separate entrances and contains a large hall with a stage at the eastern end and a kitchen. There is an arcaded verandah along the northern side.
Directly behind the church, and a few metres from it, is a brick school constructed on a similar scale, which is not considered to have heritage significance.
","history":"The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola at Toowong was opened in 1930 and is a Romanesque building designed by Sydney architect John Francis Hennessy. It was constructed as part of Archbishop James Duhig's vision for the development of the Church in Brisbane through a major building program that included several such landmark churches.
Although there was European settlement at Toowong in the 1860s, the area did not develop until the opening of the Brisbane to Ipswich railway line in 1875 made it readily accessible. A number of villa houses were constructed on large estates on the Toowong ridge, while more modest residences occupied the lower levels. The first (Anglican) church opened in 1875 and by 1878 Toowong had enough families to warrant a provisional school.
In 1879 the first Catholic Mass was celebrated at Toowong in a private home, as there was no church in the area. Catholics living in the area attended St Stephens in the city centre. In 1888 Archbishop Dunne purchased land in Holland Street below the site of the present church and on 9 April 1893 the new timber church, called St Michael and the Holy Souls, was blessed and opened there.
In 1902, the Sisters of Mercy purchased a large private home at the top of the hill and took up residence there, naming the new convent Mount St Mary's. They began teaching at the school next to the church in 1903. A tramline from the city opened in 1904 and was soon extended, contributing to the growth of the Toowong area.
In 1912 James Duhig became Dunne's Co-Adjudicator, taking on much of his administrative duties. The first Catholic Brisbane parishes were erected at Coorparoo, Kangaroo Point, South Brisbane, Red Hill and Rosalie, the parish of Toowong being later formed from part of Rosalie. Although Dunne had only encouraged the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers to establish branches of their orders themselves in Queensland, Duhig was keen to encourage other religious orders in order to expand education. In August 1915 he wrote to Father John Ryan of the Society of Jesus in Sydney in this regard. In 1916 Toowong became the responsibility of the Jesuits who purchased and enlarged a house near the church for use as a presbytery. It was opened on St Ignatius Loyola Day, 30 July 1916.
By the early 1920s, both church and school were becoming inadequate for the growing congregation and the distance between convent and school had always been inconvenient for the teaching nuns, so the Sisters of Mercy provided a solution by offering part of their land for a new building. A public meeting was held in November 1928 at which it was suggested that costs could be kept down by building a hall underneath the church and by using it as a school. John Francis (Jack) Hennessy drew up the plans at the end of 1929. His father, founder of the Sydney firm of Hennessy and Hennessy, was an ecclesiastical architect who had worked on St Patrick's, Manly and St Josephs at Hunters Hill. Duhig met the younger Hennessey when he was Bishop of Rockhampton and they had become friends. After Duhig became Archbishop of Brisbane, Hennessey received a number of commissions from him. These included the churches of St Agatha, Clayfield (1925), Corpus Christi, Nundah (1926) and St Augustine, Coolangatta (1926). He also designed the ambitious Cathedral of the Holy Name whose construction did not proceed.
The foundation stone for the church was laid on 16 June 1929. Duhig announced at the ceremony that 'the day of wooden churches are past 'and that he hoped that no more would be built in the city. His vision for the development of the Catholic Church in Queensland included plans for the building of a number of substantial churches to manifest the strength and presence of the Church. Seeking landmark sites, he chose many on hilltops.
The new church was built by Concrete Constructions Ltd and was supervised by Leo Drinan, Hennessy's partner in the Brisbane office. All materials used were of the best quality and all five altars were designed by H Credington of the Catholic Art Gallery in Melbourne and made in his studios at Carrara in Italy. Andrew Petrie and Sons erected them. Many handsome gifts were bestowed on the church, including altars, statuary and a number of stained glass windows by John Hardman of London and William Bustard, a noted local glass artist who created the 'Magnificat' and 'Christ the King' windows.
The Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland, in its May edition, predicted that 'This building should rank as one of the handsomest churches of its size in Queensland'. The Catholic Leader of 22 May 1930 thought that 'The Italian Romanesque style of architecture, with the scope for elaborate interior embellishment and bold use of colour, is eminently suitable to the climate of Queensland' and the church indeed has a high quality of interior detailing. This decorative work includes ornate main and side altars, statuary, stained glass and in particular, extensive and striking scagliola work to the sanctuary and pulpit.
Scagliola (from scaglia or scales, after the natural form of the mineral used) is an artificial stone created from gypsum plaster, glues and dyes that can be made to imitate various types of stone, though usually rare types and colours of marble. The best work is visually indistinguishable from genuine marble, though it is far lighter, so that large and complex decorative features, such as the St Ignatius pulpit, can be constructed that would be difficult and costly to create in stone. The technique was developed in Germany and Italy at the end of the 15th century and was used mainly for decorating churches, such as the Church of San Miniato at Monte. Fine early examples of it also survive in secular buildings such as the Pantheon and Syon House in England. It became popular in America in the 19th century, the work being carried out by itinerant Italian craftsmen, though much was not of good quality.
The art was revived in Australia by the Sydney firm of Melocco Brothers. In 1908 Italian Pietro Melocco arrived in Sydney and began a commission on St Mary's Cathedral, the magnificent decorated floors of which became his life's work. His two brothers joined him and their firm was responsible for most of Sydney's best mosaic and terrazzo work, though much of this has not survived. For the Government Savings Bank in Martin Place, Tony Melocco decided to use scagliola, a technique by then fallen into disuse. Finding no one in either Italy or America able to teach him, Galli Melocco moved to Brisbane in 1929 to set up a branch of the company, though he returned to Sydney a year later as the Depression reduced the demand for such decorative work. It is not known if any major scagliola project other than that at St Ignatius Church was carried out in Queensland.
The church was blessed and opened by Archbishop Duhig on the 18 May 1930 and dedicated to St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. Its cost of £16010 included excavations, seating, lighting, decoration and fittings. The old church was relocated to Graceville, where it remains.
Between 1933 and 1936 a number of works were carried out by Depression relief labour. Kensington Terrace was excavated and the land on the southern side of the church was excavated to provide better access. The spoil was used to reclaim land along the northern side of the church that is now used as a car park.
The hall under the church did not prove suitable for long-term use as a school as it was too small and could not be divided into separate classrooms. On 3 November 1946 the foundation stone of a new school was laid to the west of the church. It was opened on 18 July 1948 and has been extended in several stages in the late 20th century.
Father Leo Murphy, assistant priest at St Ignatius since 1942, died in 1957 and a fund was set up to purchase a pipe organ as a memorial to him and in accordance with the instructions of Pius XII who had ruled that a pipe organ was the approved instrument for use during the liturgy and to accompany singing. The organ was constructed by Whitehouse at a cost of £2050 and was installed on 2 February and blessed on 8 March 1959.
The Sanctuary was paved with marble in February 1963 and new lighting was installed in the church and hall. Following changes recommended by the Second Vatican Council, the first mass at St Ignatius facing the people was held in 1966. A silky oak communion table was constructed for this purpose and donated by parishioner Frank Shuttlewood and his wife. The baptismal font of carved Carrara marble has been moved from the Baptistery to the front of the church and the confessional booths on either side of the rear of the church appear now to be used for storage.
","criteria":"The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola is important as evidence for the period of expansion of the Catholic Church in Queensland during the 1920s and 30s under the leadership of Archbishop James Duhig. It is one of the churches, substantial in fabric and notable for quality of design and finish, which were intended to demonstrate and encourage a strong Catholic presence in the diocese. It is a manifestation of the Catholic ethos of selecting imposing sites to produce prominent landmarks and is a characteristic of churches built during the time of Archbishop Duhig.
|The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola is rare for its extensive use of scagliola for the sanctuary and pulpit which may be the only example of such use in Queensland.
|The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola is a particularly good example of an inter-war church, influenced by the fashionable revival of Romanesque church architecture in Australia, with its tower, picturesque massing and polychrome brickwork, a style favoured by Archbishop Duhig.
|The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola has high aesthetic value as a well designed and visually pleasing building on a landmark site. The interior is notable for the quality of its fittings and finishes, including glass, altars, statuary and the use of scagliola for wall cladding and arches to the sanctuary and the ornate pulpit.
|As a parish church and formerly a school, it has been important for several generations of Catholics in the surrounding area as a source of spiritual, social and educational sustenance.
|The Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola has special associations with the life and works of Archbishop James Duhig and the architect John Francis Hennessey and with the work of the Society of Jesus in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19662,"place_ref":602540,"name":"Railway Hotel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Station Road","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-06-12","description":"A prominent landmark standing on one of Gympie's hilltops, the Railway Hotel is a two-storeyed timber building on the corner of Station Road and Tozer Lane, Gympie. From this elevated site, adjacent to the former Gympie Railway Station, the hotel affords expansive views across Gympie and surrounding districts. A timber footbridge connects the hotel and the railway station.
The Railway Hotel is a large rectangular building sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting. The building faces northeast, is timber-framed, clad with chamferboards and stands on brick and concrete stumps on a sloping site. The front elevation is dominated by projecting end gable bays carrying panels with painted lettering RAILWAY (east bay) and HOTEL (west bay) below decorative battened, pressed metal gable infills. Verandahs to each level have weatherboard valances. The verandah to the first floor has stop-chamfered timber posts with long, elegant curved brackets and dowel and decorative panel balustrading. On the ground floor enclosed verandahs flank the main entrance. Double-hung sash windows shaded by timber awnings punctuate the side elevations.
The ground floor elevation is asymmetrical with an off-centre main entrance sheltered by a projecting gable roof crowned at the apex by a metal scroll finial. A set of low tiled concrete stairs rises to the timber floored entrance porch which is framed by oversized decorative brackets matching the pattern of the brackets to first floor verandah posts. A four-panelled timber entrance door with glazed sidelights and fanlights opens into the vestibule and a side door to the left opens onto the former sitting room off the dining room. A later metal ramp runs along the front from the west to alight at the porch. The public bar is accommodated within the east side of the building and is entered through doorways to the northeast recessed to each side of a bay window. The awning sheltering one of these entrances is recent. Northwest of the public bar, two low timber doors open from carpark level into the concrete and brick basement cellar.
The ground floor accommodates the entrance vestibule, manager's office and private quarters, dining room and former sitting room, and public bar. The ground floor plan works off the entrance vestibule from which a fine timber stair rises to the guest accommodation on the first floor. From the vestibule, the dining room is entered to the left and the manager's quarters/office to the right. The vestibule runs through to the rear verandah which accommodates toilets at each end. Partitions to the ground floor rooms are post and rail construction lined with vertical tongue and groove boards. All the public rooms, including the bay window space in the public bar, have decorative pressed metal ceilings, ceiling roses and cornices except the rear section of the public bar where the ceiling is lined with tongue and groove timber boards.
The dining room opens onto the service corridor to the rear, to the public bar through a door at the far east side of the room and receives service from the bar through an open hatch. The former lounge to the northeast of the dining room is enclosed with aluminium sliding doors and accommodates a billiard table.
The public bar is refurbished and incorporates the former parlour bar to the southeast. There is evidence of earlier partitions now removed and a window opening now infilled with vertical timber boards. Murals decorating the upper walls and bar fittings are recent.
The first floor is organised about a central corridor which is punctuated by arched openings and accommodates 12 bedrooms, a recreation room and two storage cupboards. Verandahs run to the front and rear, the narrow rear verandah accommodating bathrooms and toilets at each end. Short transverse corridors connect front and rear verandahs. The bedrooms open onto the corridor and the verandahs four-panel timber doors with fixed fretwork transom windows open onto the corridor and french windows with pivoting glazed fanlights open onto the verandahs. The partitions are of post and rail construction lined with vertical timber boards. The external walls are clad with chamferboards. The ceilings are lined with tongue and groove boards and have decorative metal ceiling roses. Double-hung sash windows terminate each end of the corridor and are installed in the end rooms.
Earlier gas light pipes and fittings remain to the upper and lower rear verandahs. Original door and window joinery and hardware remain throughout the building. The building has timber floors throughout except for the upper verandahs which are now sheeted with a thick fibre cement board. Fibre cement sheeting encloses the bathrooms to the northwest and the enclosed services corridor of the ground floor rear verandah.
A timber framed two-roomed rectangular building clad with chamferboards (some beaded to the interior), the kitchen/laundry wing stands to the rear of the main building. It is reached from the rear ground floor verandah through an enclosed service corridor and storage area. The roof to the kitchen/laundry is clad with corrugated metal sheeting with a gable to the north end and a hip to the south. A two-sided fireplace with a tall brick chimney stands to the centre. The fireplace is no longer operable and accommodates a contemporary stove within the north end. The kitchen fit-out is recent including the plasterboard lining. The laundry ceiling is lined with timber boards and has a decorative metal ceiling rose; the laundry walls are unlined.
A modern beer garden sheltered by a low pitched skillion roof stands to the northwest of the kitchen/laundry. This is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
A bitumen carpark slopes uphill towards the railway line forming a forecourt to the building. A concrete fence runs along the northeast side of the carpark from which terraced garden beds retained by battered stone and concrete walls fall to Station Road. The beds are planted with a range of shrubs and a set of concrete stairs rises within them.
","history":"The Railway Hotel at Gympie is a large, two-storeyed timber building constructed in 1915-1916 for owner Charles Caston. Designed by Brisbane architect AB Wilson, it replaced an earlier single-storey Railway Hotel erected in 1882 on the same site.
\nGympie was established after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield put Queensland on the map as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged.
\nThe early makeshift structures of Gympie gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings. The township provided a ready market for local timbergetters and the growing number of agricultural producers in the surrounding district. By the end of the 1870s, an intensive phase of underground reef mining was underway, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie.
\nThe 1880s were an important period of expansion for railways in Queensland, with new lines opening throughout the state. The economic importance of Gympie's mining industry was the key factor in the approval of the construction of a rail line between the sea port of Maryborough and Gympie. The line was officially opened in August 1881, and soon became the dominant transport artery for the movement of goods and people in and out of Gympie.
\nGympie Railway Station, located between Tozer Hill and Caledonian Hill, was erected adjacent to land owned by Walter A Compigne, Gympie's first Clerk of Petty Sessions in 1868 and registrar of the Gympie District Court by 1874. In 1882 Compigne took advantage of this proximity to the station by constructing the Railway Hotel on his land.
\nAs Queensland's railway system expanded, hotels joined other businesses in clustering around the rail stations. Use of the name \"Railway Hotel\" was common by the 1860s, a popular means of advertising proximity to the railway station. By the early twentieth century there were close to 70 \"Railway Hotels\" in Queensland.
\nCompigne did not conduct the Railway Hotel himself, preferring to lease it to licensees. Following his death in 1884 the property passed to his wife Mary Ann, who continued leasing out the Railway Hotel.
\nIn 1888 construction of the North Coast railway commenced simultaneously from Brisbane and Gympie. The southward extension resulted in further land resumptions, with the allotment on which the Railway Hotel stood being reduced in size. In May 1888, tenders were called for the removal of the Railway Hotel, possibly to reposition the hotel following the resumption.
\nThe Gympie-Brisbane rail line was opened in 1891, linking a coastal route from Brisbane to Bundaberg. The extended scope of services from Gympie Station generated more activity around the railway precinct. In 1892 title to the Railway Hotel and adjoining land was transferred to Charles Caston, a second generation Gympie mining secretary. The Caston family maintained an interest in the hotel for over 60 years. Caston continued to lease out the Railway Hotel.
\nOn the night of 1 February 1915, the Railway Hotel was almost totally destroyed by fire, except for some detached rooms at the rear. In May tenders were advertised for the construction of a new Railway Hotel, designed by Brisbane architect Alexander Brown Wilson. After working in the private practice of Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, and studying in England, Wilson began his own architectural practice in Brisbane in 1884, maintaining a long and distinguished career until his retirement in 1928. He was responsible for buildings such as the Plough Inn at Southbank [QHR 600294], Kinauld on Dornoch Terrace [QHR 600225] and Leckhampton at Kangaroo Point [QHR 600246].
\nGympie builder JJ Georges was awarded the contract for the construction of the new hotel in June 1915 and this was completed by February 1916 at a cost of £1980. The new hotel was a large two-storey timber building with first floor verandahs and a double gabled roof with a detached kitchen to the rear. Wilson's design responded to the requirements of a subtropical timber hotel, providing well ventilated rooms with high ceilings and guests quarters that opened onto front and rear verandahs. The interiors of the building were enhanced by the inclusion of pressed metal ceilings. The exterior of the hotel shared similarities with popular domestic architecture in its decorative treatment of the verandah and gables. Two earlier detached rooms were repositioned at the rear of the premises. Between 1916 and 1920 Charles Caston held the license to the hotel.
\nThe building's elevated position on a rise overlooking the station made it a prominent landmark in the city.
\nThe rebuilding of the Railway Hotel coincided with a substantial upgrading to the Gympie Railway Station between 1911 and 1915. Crew barracks for overnight accommodation were built in 1914. Other work included a new large station building, pedestrian subway, an underpass linking Station Road to Mellor Street and conversion of the platform into an island. In 1915, a large overbridge was built from the island platform linking Lady Mary Terrace and Station Road. The new bridge was a welcome development for the Railway Hotel, with pedestrians alighting from the overbridge directly in front of the building.
\nThe opening of the Mary Valley railway to Brooloo in 1915 and the connection between Cairns and Brisbane in 1924 sent more goods and people through Gympie. The Gympie district was the largest producer of bananas in Australia in the 1920s and an important pineapple growing area. Fruit trains began operating from Gympie to Melbourne and in 1923 the Gympie Fruit Growers Co-operative Association erected premises opposite the station on Tozer Street. The Wide Bay Co-operative Dairy Company also was located on Tozer Street and in 1925 built one of Australia's largest butter factories. By 1927 one tenth of Queensland's milk production was from the Gympie district. The centrality of the railway precinct to Gympie's economy offered enhanced opportunities for the Railway Hotel to generate business.
\nIn November 1928 newly formed Brisbane brewer Castlemaine Perkins Limited acquired an interest in the lease of the Railway Hotel from William English. The purchase of the leasehold by Castlemaine Perkins exemplified their practice of acquiring hotel freeholds and leases throughout Queensland. This process of vertical integration continued into the 1930s, ensuring the company's domination of the Queensland market.
\nA licensing inspection report from 1936 indicates the Railway Hotel's internal arrangement of space followed a layout typical of early twentieth century Queensland hotels. The first floor contained 12 guest bedrooms, a sitting room, one bathroom, two water closets and front and rear verandahs. On the ground floor were eight guest rooms, one sitting room, dining room, large kitchen, laundry, parlour, bar, and cellar. Four detached rooms at the rear of the premises were used by the publican and servants and a garage with space for two cars was available for guests. The Railway Hotel was a prosperous and well maintained place at this period. Used extensively by the travelling public and commercial travellers the hotel averaged fifty guests a week, mostly persons of \"good character\".
\nCastlemaine Perkins maintained an interest in the hotel until 1945, through leases and sub-leases to and from publicans. In 1953 the Caston family ended their association with the Railway Hotel and since that time a number of owners and publications have been involved in its management.
\nThe public bar was enlarged in 1966, by incorporating the parlour bar at the far end from the street entrance. The dining room has been extended into the front sitting room and kitchen capacity has been expanded by widening the original walkway. The garage and detached rooms have been removed and in recent years a beer garden has been added at the rear of the building.
\nWith the electrification of the Main North Coast line in 1989, a new railway station for Gympie was built east of the town. Since 1998, the original Gympie railway station has become an important tourist attraction for the city with the Mary Valley Heritage Railway operating steam train excursions through the Mary Valley. The Railway Hotel continues its role of providing drink, food and lodgings for visitors and locals. A regular local clientele drink at the public bar and a number of long-term residents occupy rooms on the first floor. Memorabilia throughout the building celebrates the hotel's long association with the railway.
","criteria":"The Railway Hotel at Gympie, constructed in 1915 on a site associated with a hotel since 1882, is important in demonstrating a significant pattern of urban development from the 1860s: the clustering of commercial premises in the vicinity of railway stations. The Railway Hotel at Gympie is an excellent illustration of this trend. The connectivity between the hotel and the railway station, due both to the close proximity and to the footbridge that emerges from the station in front of the hotel, is a particularly good illustration of the interdependence of commercial places (including hotels) and railways in moving and accommodating goods and people in Queensland prior to developments in road transportation. The hotel occupies a prominent and easily accessible position in relation to the former Gympie Railway Station, and for decades has offered accommodation to rail travellers and the provision of drink and food for visitors and locals.
The construction of the new Railway Hotel in 1915-1916 is associated with a period of significant growth in Gympie, during which services and facilities at Gympie Railway Station and precinct were expanded, closely linked to the increasing economic importance of the district's dairy and fruit industries.
|Situated on one of Gympie's hills, the Railway Hotel is a prominent and well known landmark in Gympie. The building's position overlooking the train station and next to the platform footbridge, reinforces its connectivity to the railway while making a strong aesthetic contribution to the railway precinct and to the Gympie townscape.
|Although some interior alterations, especially on the ground floor which contains the public spaces, can be expected in hotels that have sustained their function through many decades, the Railway Hotel at Gympie retains a high degree of integrity and intactness. It remains important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a large timber hotel of the early twentieth century, expressed in its form, exterior detail, and internal layout, fittings, fixtures and decorative detailing. High ceilings and verandahs illustrate a response to sub-tropical Queensland conditions, while the decorative elements on the verandah and gables reveal the influence of domestic forms on hotel architecture at this period. Internally, the place retains an early and fine timber staircase; extensive use of decorative pressed metal ceilings, ceiling roses and cornices in the public rooms on the ground floor; original door and window joinery and hardware; and a highly intact upper floor with early bedrooms opening off a central corridor. Earlier gas light pipes and fittings remain to the upper and lower rear veranda's.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19666,"place_ref":602547,"name":"West Burleigh Store","alternate_name":"Flectcher's Store","street_address":"33 Tallebudgera Creek Road","suburb":"WEST BURLEIGH","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-12-05","description":"The West Burleigh Store is a two-storey structure located in a retail shopping area in West Burleigh. The entrance to the building opens onto the footpath, the same being shaded by an overhanging enclosed verandah. It is about 10m wide and extends back from the footpath about 18m. The verandah is enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting and the rest of the building is clad in weatherboard. A row of timber framed sliding windows runs the full length of the verandah. Each of these comprises a single, large square light bordered with frosted glass. Four square posts support the verandah. The corrugated iron roof is hipped at the rear and gabled at the front. A separate hipped roof covers the verandah.
At the ground level, large plate glass display windows dominate the front of the store. The entrance to the shop is recessed and the plate glass windows continue around the sides of the entrance alcove. A decorative lead-light border made up of red, green and obscure glass runs the full length of the top of the windows. The rest of the shop front is clad with salmon and black ceramic tiles.
The ground floor accommodates a real estate agent's office and a health food shop. The polished timber floor of the shop comprises dark timber planks alternated with light coloured timber. A set of timber box shelves extends the full length of the shop to the ceiling along the southern side. A recently installed counter runs along the opposite side. Commercial refrigerators are positioned along the rear of the shop. The ceiling is made up of fibrous cement sheeting with painted or stained timber battens laid out in a decorative pattern.
Access to the upper storey is gained via a polished timber staircase. This part of the building accommodates offices. The floors of the upper storey are polished timber. Paneled internal doors or lighted French doors are used throughout with frosted glass or slatted wooden transoms. The original brass door and window furniture have been retained in most cases. The joinery is conservative in style and of good quality.
The store is the most prominent structure in a complex of shops and offices dispersed around the large allotment. The commercial precinct surrounding this complex contains a number of historic buildings including West Burleigh's first general store located to the south of the existing West Burleigh store.
","history":"The West Burleigh Store, constructed in 1935 during a property boom on the south coast stimulated by infrastructure development, is a substantial, timber two-storey shop house situated in a commercial precinct close to Tallebudgera Creek about 2.8km southwest of Burleigh Heads. Many of the original features of the store remain intact and it continues to be used as a retail outlet.
Timber getting, agriculture and tourism stimulated the development of the Gold Coast region. Timber getters were among the earliest European inhabitants of the south coast and as late as the 1930s, Dennis' and Woods' sawmills were the stimulus for much of the development of West Burleigh. Closer settlement began in the 1860s, initially in the form of cotton plantations. The Crown Lands Alienation Act (1868) gave further impetus to small scale agriculture and by 1869, farmers and their households, numbering in the hundreds, populated the Mudgeeraba and Tallebudgera districts. With the decline of the cotton industry after the 1860s, these farmers diversified into other crops and dairying. In the decades between the World Wars, bananas and dairying were the major farming industries in the area.
Campers and picnickers were attracted to the area as early as the 1870s by the natural beauty of the south coast beaches. Burleigh Heads was described in the Southern Queensland Bulletin in 1889 (2 March) as 'a pretty place, a nice place for a gentleman's residence and a small seaside resort'. Development of the coast as a destination for pleasure seekers was inhibited by poor access and inadequate infrastructure. This began to be remedied in 1889 with the opening of the railway to Southport and Nerang. Construction of an extension to Tweed Heads commenced in March 1901. A railway station was built at Booningba, (renamed West Burleigh in 1914) about half an hour's buggy ride from Burleigh Heads. The Oyster Bed Hotel (1901) was built close to the station to service the wants and needs of the railway workers. The town's first store (still extant) located next to the hotel is believed to have been built in 1904 by Samuel Andrews. By 1907 the storekeeper, James Herbert, was delivering supplies to campers at Burleigh Heads.
With the greater ownership of motorcars in the 1920s, road access became a key factor facilitating growth. The opening of the Jubilee Bridge (1925) and the coastal road and its extension south in 1926 promoted residential and holiday development along the coast especially at Burleigh Heads. In the 1930s, the construction of bridges over the Coomera (1930) and Logan (1932) Rivers improved car access to the coast from Brisbane and a building and property boom ensued. Development was further stimulated by the provision of basic infrastructure: electricity was connected to Burleigh Heads in 1930 and extended to West Burleigh in 1934, a reticulated water supply was provided the following year.
The West Burleigh Store and Post Office was completed in February 1935 during the boom period that followed these developments. Alf Fletcher had bought the town's existing general store business from J. Cuddihy in 1928. When the lease on the premises expired, Fletcher was required to move and the premises were taken over by another storekeeper. Fletcher built the new shop, West Burleigh's second general store, about 400m from the railway station. It was described in the South Coast Bulletin (15 February, 1935) as a 'large and up to date store' that, with its 'modern conveniences', would be a 'prominent link in the progress of the area'. For its time, the store was a modern example of its type.
Fletcher's new shop incorporated many features that were typical of general stores of the period. General stores were often large due to their profitableness and the increasingly diverse range of goods becoming available to consumers. The bi-coloured timber floor in the store was unusual and this, together with the conservative good quality of the building, reflected the prosperity of Fletcher's business and his expectation of commercial success. The large plate glass windows with a recessed entrance designed to maximize display space were a typical feature of interwar shops. The wooden box shelving (still extant) lining an inside wall was the recommended method for storing and displaying the increasing variety of packaged goods that were becoming available from the 1920s. These shelves are currently being used to display goods for sale. Counters (no longer extant) surrounded three walls and a large 'U' shaped display area was located in the middle of the space between the counters. Petrol bowsers (no longer extant) were located under the verandah on the footpath. Like many stores in the first half of the twentieth century, Fletcher's residence was located on the premises, in this case over the shop. Fletcher lived there with his parents and after they died, with his wife, Gussy, who he had employed in the shop.
Fletcher operated the shop until his death in 1963 and the store continued to be operated by his widowed wife until the early 1970s. It stocked a wide range of goods including foodstuffs, haberdashery, manchester, clothes, boots, hardware, and building material. A large shed at the rear (extant until the 1980s or early 1990s) held livestock feed. The West Burleigh post office and telephone exchange was also conducted from the store. The post office was a smaller building attached to the northern side of the shop. It is believed that it was removed when the shopping and office complex was built around the shop in the 1980s.
Alf Fletcher was a very well known local identity and his store was a focal point of West Burleigh's social and commercial life. Fletcher's customers were mainly the residents of Burleigh Heads and the farmlands of Tallebudgera, Nerang, Mudgeeraba, and Ingleside. The mailman or the cream and milk trucks that visited the surrounding dairies collected written orders and delivered boxes of goods on their return journeys. On Friday nights, local farm workers cashed their paychecks at Fletchers so they had cash to use at the local hotel. A former pupil of Ingleside State School recalls that Fletcher provided a bag of sweets for each child at the annual school break-up picnics.
The West Burleigh store continued to be operated as a general store until the 1980s when the shopping complex around the store was developed. The ground floor of the shop was divided into two, one side operating as a real estate agent's office and the other as a saddlery. The second floor continued to be used as a residence until 2001. The residence was recently converted to office space.
","criteria":"The West Burleigh Store provides physical evidence of an important stage in the development of the Gold Coast, one of the State's major tourist destinations. In the early 1930s, improved car access to the coast from Brisbane together with infrastructure development led to a building and property boom on the south coast. The store was completed in 1935 during this period. The erection of a substantial building with a good quality finish at a time when the nation was emerging from economic depression is indicative of the prosperity of the area at this time and storekeeper's expectations of future prosperity. As a substantially intact 1930s general store offering full service and a very wide range of goods and as a shop house, it is also important in demonstrating the evolution of retailing in Queensland.
|The store is uncommon insofar that intact buildings from this period are becoming increasingly uncommon in the Gold Coast region. It also demonstrates a way of life that has become uncommon, namely the practice where storekeepers combined their shop and place of residence.
|The store demonstrates many key aspects of 1930s general stores and shop houses. Considered to be a modern store for its era, many of its original fittings survive. The large display windows, recessed front entrance and the box shelves lining an internal wall are all features that were typical of general stores in the interwar period. The residence over the shop continued a long tradition in which a shopkeeper's home was combined with their place of work. This residence is also substantially intact.
|The store has special association with many former and existing residents of the Gold Coast and for the tourists who visited the area during the decades that it operated as a general store. Built and originally operated by Alf Fletcher until his death in 1963, it continued in family ownership until the early 1970s. It was a focal point of West Burleigh township. Its customers included tourists and the residents of West Burleigh, Burleigh Heads, Tallebudgera, Nerang, Mudgeeraba, and Ingleside. Fletcher and his general store were very well known in the district.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19667,"place_ref":602548,"name":"Redcliffe Fire Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"395 Oxley Avenue","suburb":"REDCLIFFE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-09-06","description":"The two-storey fire station faces east towards Oxley Avenue, with two square towers flanking its two central roller doors. Above the roller doors, at the roofline, are the words Redcliffe Fire Station 1948. The original station is constructed of multi-coloured red bricks in a stretcher bond, and a modern one-storey extension, constructed with similar materials, protrudes to the south of the station. A large V-shaped metal billboard stands just to the south of the station building, on the Oxley Avenue frontage.
The ground floor of the station contains a central two-bay garage, which is flanked on the north by three original rooms, and a stairway to the first floor in the northeastern tower. South of the two-bay garage are five rooms and an appliance garage. To the west are three rooms, and a maintenance garage, which is an extension of the main double garage. At the northwestern corner of the maintenance garage is the base floor of the original hose tower, and a side garage links the tower to the northern rooms of the station. The first floor contains four main rooms, plus a kitchen, bathroom, and toilet. Each tower also contains a small room. A stairway accesses the enclosed veranda on the west side of the first floor.
Just to the west of the main station, arranged in a row from north to south, are: a timber-clad garage, with two timber earth closets immediately to its west; a small red-brick fuel store with a curved concrete roof; and a five-storey training tower with a two-storey attachment to its west, and an attached one-storey training centre to its south, each of the components being built of red brick with a stretcher bond. The training centre is not of cultural heritage significance. The single-gabled timber garage has four windows on each of its north and south sides, and a loft door above its main entrance faces the rear of the brick fire station.
","history":"The Redcliffe Fire Station, built in 1948-1949 is a substantial brick building of two storeys. The fire station and its related structures are sited on 1.2 acres of land on the Redcliffe Peninsula, almost midway along Oxley Avenue between Woody Point and Scarborough. Although the fire engine is now housed in the 1973 southern extension of the building, the layout of both the ground floor station, and the first floor residence, remains largely intact.
For many years the Redcliffe area was known as "Humpybong", the name that the local Aboriginal people gave to the abandoned convict settlement (1824-1825) at Red Cliff Point. In 1861 23,000 acres of the peninsula and the Petrie area were declared an agricultural reserve, and from 1862 onwards a number of farm portions were sold. Very little development occurred until the 1880s, although in the late 1870s publicans and shopkeepers began to cluster on the foreshores of the peninsula. In 1878 Charles George Skinner purchased the 32 acres of Portion 196 for £22. This portion included the land on which the fire station now stands. The 1880s land speculation boom in Brisbane extended to the Redcliffe Peninsula, and the area's identity as a seaside resort solidified in that decade. The Victorians considered "taking the air" by the sea to be healthy, and agricultural portions on the peninsula were subdivided and sold as residential estates, for the building of "Marine Residences". Portion 196 was sold as "Redcliffe Point Estate".
The Caboolture Divisional Board cleared the first road on the peninsula, running from Woody Point to Scarborough, in the early 1880s, and this road later became Oxley Avenue. A Police Station, Courthouse, and Post Office were built in 1885, and the Redcliffe Divisional Board was created in 1888. However, the board's office was initially located in Brisbane, and a proper office was not built in Redcliffe until 1902, in the same year that the Redcliffe Shire Council was created. In 1895 there were still 237 farms, covering 4199 acres, at Redcliffe, and agricultural use of much of the land on the Redcliffe Peninsula continued into the 1940s. An aerial photograph taken in 1942 shows that most development had occurred east of Oxley Avenue.
The reduction of Redcliffe's isolation was a slow process, and until the late 1930s it was considered to be a good place to visit, rather than a good place to live. In 1882 a jetty was erected at Woody Point to receive a steamboat from Sandgate, and another jetty was built near Redcliffe Point in 1885. Tourist daytrips to Redcliffe, on the steamer Koopa, started in 1911. The railway reached North Pine in 1888, but was never extended to Redcliffe, despite persistent local lobbying. In 1921, when the Town of Redcliffe was declared, its permanent population was only 1,631, and it contained 432 private dwellings, six Hotels, and 28 boarding houses. An electricity supply was not connected until July 1928. Decent road access was also slow to arrive. ANZAC Avenue, running from Petrie to Redcliffe, was originally an Aboriginal track, used to access the "Kipper Ring" that was located about three miles northwest of Redcliffe. The tree-lined, bitumen-covered "ANZAC Memorial Avenue" was opened in December 1925.
In October 1935, an event occurred that would accelerate the pace of Redcliffe's development. The opening of the Hornibrook Highway Toll Bridge [601246] ended Redcliffe's isolation, and led to a burst of residential development. At 2.7 km long, the Hornibrook Bridge was the longest road viaduct over built over water in the southern hemisphere, and it shaved 35km off the return road trip from Brisbane to Clontarf Point. Many of the 1880s residential allotments were finally sold after the bridge was completed. Between 1933 and 1940 Redcliffe was one of fastest growing local authorities in Australia, with the number of dwellings increasing from 536 to 1865. Redcliffe's population in 1933 was 2,008, and this had risen to 6,000 by 1940. Wartime and post-war building restrictions hampered development until the 1950s, especially in areas viewed as tourist resorts. Redcliffe and the towns of the Gold Coast were the only Queensland towns still subject to building restrictions in 1949, but Redcliffe's population continued to increase, reaching 8,871 in 1947, and 18,000 in 1959, the year that the City of Redcliffe was declared.
In the late 1930s the Redcliffe Town Council's confidence in the future led to a rush to develop public infrastructure. In 1938 decisions were made to develop a reliable water supply, and to build a new town hall. A water storage reservoir and a concrete water tower were built at Duffield Road, but although the water main from Sandgate reached as far as ANZAC Ave by December 1940, piping for household connections was held up by wartime shortages. The official opening of the Redcliffe Water Works occurred on 3 December 1941, the same day as the opening of the new brick Council Chambers. The establishment of mains water supply in turn enabled the creation of a Fire Brigade in Redcliffe; a reliable source of water meant that the days of the "bucket brigade" were over, and a more effective means of fighting fires could be implemented.
In November 1941 the Redcliffe Fire Brigade Board was formed, and in 1942 the Fire Brigade's first Chief Officer was Frank Mayer, formerly of the MFB. Initial equiptment consisted of a Ford Truck, several hundred feet of hose, two hydrants, two branches and one "Y" coupling. Later, an International Howe fire engine, a small Coventry pump, and some fire extinguishers were added. The Redcliffe Fire Brigade was initially housed at a residence on the corner of Webb Street and Maude Street, Margate, and it won praise for its efforts at firefighting during 1943 and 1944. Mayer, who had started as a volunteer fire fighter in Windsor in 1911, died of an illness in June 1945, and was replaced by P.F. MacFarlane, who resigned in 1949. In September 1947 the Australian Loan Council had agreed to lend £8,800 to the Redcliffe Fire Brigade Board, and in 1948 land was resumed for a fire station at the corner of Oxley Ave and Mary Street, the cornerstone being laid that same year.
To help place developments in Redcliffe within the context of fire fighting in Queensland, it is useful to note events and building trends in nearby Brisbane. Brisbane's first fire station had been built in 1869, for the City Volunteer Fire Brigade, established in 1868. The Fire Brigades Act 1881 detailed a new structure for Fire Brigade Boards, and led to the creation of the Brisbane Fire Brigade. The first professional firemen appeared in 1889. In 1890 a brick Headquarters station was built on the corner of Ann Street and Edwards Street, and this was replaced in 1908 with a Headquarters at the corner of Ann Street and Wharf Street. The Fire Brigades Act Amendment Act 1902 allowed local authorities to establish their own volunteer fire brigades, and the Fire Brigades Act 1920 amalgamated the suburban brigades with the central brigade, thereby creating the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) in 1921.
The MFB operated eight fire stations in 1927, out of the 38 in Queensland. Sandgate built its own station in 1924, and joined the MFB in 1928. By 1949 the MFB operated 14 stations; 11 of these were built of timber, with five of the timber stations being two-storey. Each of Brisbane's three operational brick fire stations in 1949, Headquarters (1908), Woolloongabba (1927), and Albion (1927), had two or more floors. In 1941, Hamilton had received a two-storey timber fire station that was modelled on the Coorparoo fire station (1935), which had also been the model for Nundah (1936) and Wynnum (1938). The usual layout of these two-storey timber stations included a central appliance garage on the ground floor, flanked by a recreation room, kitchen, watch room, showers, toilet, laundry, and dormitory. A three bedroom Chief Officer's residence occupied the first floor. The Redcliffe Fire Station shares this basic layout, if not the timber construction. In Brisbane, timber had been the material of choice between 1928 and 1941, and no new fire stations had been built for the MFB between July 1941 and February 1954, when Chermside became the first of Brisbane's "modern" brick fire stations. The Redcliffe Fire Station seems to occupy an architectural niche of its own, when compared to Brisbane's brick fire stations of the 1920s, and the brick fire stations of the 1950s.
The plans for the station at Redcliffe are signed by J.R. Hughes, who is listed in an advertisement from the period as a Quantity Surveyor with the Express Building Company, in Oxley Avenue, Redcliffe. Alex Smith, a well-known local builder, built the fire station. Smith owned the Renown Theatre in Margate (built 1940), and worked on a number of building projects for the military during World War Two. Frank Nicklin, the leader of the opposition, opened the Redcliffe Fire Station, built at a cost of £11,000, on 1 November 1949. The first Chief Officer was Brian Wallace, who served in this position for 28 years.
There have been some alterations and changes to the station over time. There was a watchtower on the original plans, sited above the laundry near the southwest corner of the building, but if this was built it no longer remains. A hose-drying tower and oil store was also built to the west of the recreation room. Only the base storey remains, clad in weatherboards and used as a gym. In 1973 a single-storey red brick extension was added to the south side of the station, designed by Peninsula Architects; a locker room was added south of the kitchen, the dormitory was extended south, and a new office was extended south from the original watch room. The extension also contained a new appliance garage. In 1987 a training centre with an attached high-rise simulation / hose-drying tower was built to the west of the fire station, but the centre is no longer used because of its condition. A tennis court that used to be located in the south west of the property has been removed. Inside the station, the doorway to a toilet, at the rear of the two-bay appliance garage, has been sealed; and the pit in the rear maintenance bay has been filled in. The first floor Chief Officer's residence remains largely intact, although the bedrooms and lounge are now used as offices for the Rural Fire Service.
","criteria":"The Redcliffe Fire Station, along with its older subsidiary buildings, including the base of the old hose tower, the small brick fuel store, the timber garage, and two timber earth closets, is evidence of the development of fire-fighting services in Queensland. It is also evidence of the rapid transformation of Redcliffe from a holiday destination to a residential centre after the construction of the Hornibrook Bridge. The urbanisation of seaside resorts is a pattern in Queensland's history- one that can also be seen at Sandgate, Cleveland, Southport and Yeppoon. The development boom after 1935 was hampered by World War Two, but continued in the post-war period. The Redcliffe Fire Station was part of the Redcliffe Town Council's drive to develop Redcliffe's public infrastructure, and its existence was also made possible by another public work, the provision of a reliable water supply to Redcliffe in 1941.
|The Redcliffe Fire Station, opened in 1949, has an uncommon external architectural style, in that it resembles neither Brisbane's brick fire stations of the 1920s, nor Brisbane's brick fire stations of the 1950s. During the 1930s, Brisbane's fire stations were built with timber, and no fire stations were constructed in Brisbane between 1941 and 1954. Redcliffe thus preceded Brisbane in the move towards modern brick fire stations.
|The Redcliffe Fire Station's interior layout demonstrates the principal characteristics of a fire station of the period, which include: accommodation on the first floor for the Chief Officer; a central appliance garage on the ground floor, flanked by a dormitory, recreation room, watch room, showers, toilet, laundry and kitchen; a hose drying tower; an outdoor rear area for vehicle maintenance and cleaning; and close access to a main street. This ground floor plan is substantially intact, and resembles that of the two-storey timber fire stations built in Brisbane in the 1930s. The first floor of the original hose drying tower still remains, and the first floor Chief Officer's residence remains in near-original condition.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19668,"place_ref":602549,"name":"Wonglepong QCWA Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2779 Beaudesert-Nerang Road","suburb":"WONGLEPONG","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2005-11-11","description":"The QCWA hall is situated in a grassy paddock about 35 metres back from Beaudesert - Nerang Road at Wonglepong. It is on a small leasehold block within a forty-five hectare farm.
The hall is rectangular in plan, about nine metres long and six metres wide. There are few decorative features apart from the QCWA symbol on the gable above the entrance. The structure is timber framed and clad with weatherboard. Access at the front of the building is via a small porch and a set of double, framed doors. Each door has a square frosted glass window fitted near the top. The building has an unpainted corrugated iron gabled roof pitched at about 30 degrees. Concrete stumps have been used to replace the original timber.
The entrance porch is centred on the eastern side of the building. Access to the porch is gained via a small set of steps on the southeastern side. The external sides of the porch are partially clad with weatherboards with about two thirds of each side open to the roof.
All of the windows are centre opening casements. Each window is divided into five lights arranged as a large rectangle bracketed with two small square lights at the top and bottom.
Three windows open into the northwestern side and two into the southeastern side. Each window is covered with a curved metal hood.
Rear access is via a wooden ledged and braced door at the southwestern end of the rear elevation. A metal awning projects from the top of the door opening and the door is approached via a set of steps. A corrugated iron water tank with a timber tank stand is positioned near the center of the rear elevation.
The interior of the hall comprises a single room with a polished timber floor, lined with unpainted hardwood. The library cabinet is built into the wall to the right of the main entrance. It is made from vertical hardwood boards that match the lining of the hall. A pair of hinged doors also made from vertical hardwood boards gives access to the interior of the cabinet.
The hall is furnished with a number of tables, four wooden pews, a bench and an upright piano. A selection of photographs and printed material including the QCWA creed and motto and a World War I memorial are hung on the walls.
The kitchen cupboards, constructed in 1965 are located against the wall opposite the main entrance. These are not considered to be of Cultural Heritage significance.
","history":"Wonglepong Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) hall is a small, one roomed weatherboard structure in a rural setting. It is situated on a leasehold block in the district of Wonglepong north of Canungra in Beadesert Shire. The hall was built specifically for the Wonglepong branch of QCWA in 1935. The branch continues to use the hall and it remains largely unchanged from the time of its construction.
The decision to form QCWA was made at an open conference for country women hosted by the Brisbane Women's Club at Albert Hall in Brisbane in August 1922. At the time, Queensland was suffering severe drought and the conference was prompted by a desire to alleviate some of the problems being experienced by rural women. QCWA aimed to improve the quality of life of country women and children by providing opportunities for social interaction and recreation and by improving rural education and health. Sir Matthew Nathan, Queensland's Governor strongly supported the formation of the QCWA and accepted the position of Patron.
QCWA soon became an important part of rural communities. It grew rapidly with branches opening at Kingaroy, Warwick, Roma, Chinchilla and Allora in the four months after its foundation in August 1922. QCWA addressed specific needs of rural families with practical measures such as the provision of beachside holiday accommodation, mothers' rest rooms, bush nurse centers and student hostels. They worked to improve the knowledge and skills of rural women by hosting lectures, teaching handicrafts and home industries and maintaining libraries in their halls and meeting places. They lobbied government on a range of rural issues. Their halls were often focal points of the local community and their members were frequently active in other local organizations. QCWA was one of the most influential Australian women's organizations of the 20th Century.
In 1925 when the Wonglepong branch of the QCWA was formed, Beaudesert Shire was a prosperous district of small farmers and timber workers. Closer settlement of the district began in the 1860s after the opening of the Logan Agricultural Reserve. From the early 1900s to the 1930s, the district boomed, sustained by dairying, cattle grazing and the timber industry. Dairying and grazing continued through the mid-20th Century although restructuring of the dairy industry led to diversification and the development of larger properties.
QCWA was arguably the most significant women's organisation in the Upper Logan and Albert Rivers district. The Wonglepong branch was among the first to be formed in the area, meeting for the first eight years in the home of the founding president, Ann Franklin. By the 1930s, Ann's health problems led members to take turns hosting meetings in their homes. However, transport presented a problem for many and membership had increased so the decision was made to build a hall. A building fund was started and by 1935, £58 had been raised. The hall was built on land leased to the branch by the Franklin family on a 99 year term. The timber for the hall, believed to have originated from the Franklin's property, was milled at Geo Franklin's hardwood mill at Canungra. E. J. Franklin, the son of Ann, was the supervising carpenter and members' husbands assisted him on a voluntary basis. The hall was opened on 4 December 1935 by Mrs Buchanan, President of Central Division, QCWA. The branch started a library in the year of the hall's construction. In 1937, the hall was lined and a library cabinet was built with matching hardwood boards sourced from the property.
Members donated the furnishings of the hall. These include a number of pews that were made for the branch by E. J. Franklin. The original pattern for the pews is stored in the hall. The President's chair was donated by a member of the Franklin family in memory of his mother, Jane. The creed and motto were painted by Frank Tunley, the brother of the founding Secretary, A. G. Campbell.
The hall remains largely intact from the date of its construction and it is comprehensively documented. The library cabinet and lining of the hall have never been painted. The cabinet contains a collection of books most of which date from the period when the library was established. The only substantial changes to the hall have been the addition of a kitchen and the restumping of the hall in 1965, the painting of the exterior in 1975 and the replacement of the corrugated iron roof in 1983. The branch has preserved all of the minutes of meetings since its inception and it is one of the few QCWA branches to have preserved its records for this length of time.
From the late 20th Century, the Wonglepong area began to change from a farming community to a rural residential area and since the 1960s membership of QCWA throughout Queensland has declined. However, the Wonglepong Branch remains active and is one of only two QCWA branches that still function in Beaudesert Shire.
","criteria":"The Wonglepong QCWA Hall is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. QCWA was one of the most influential women's organisations of the 20th Century. It was formed as a response by country women to the hardships and isolation experienced historically by families in Queensland's rural districts. The organization was, and remains, an important part of the State's rural communities. The Wonglepong Branch is a typical example of a small country QCWA branch and its history is among the best documented in Queensland. It has preserved the minutes of its meetings since its inception in 1925, just three years after the foundation of QCWA. Its hall is highly intact and largely unchanged from the date of its construction in 1935.
|The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a small QCWA hall from the first half of the 20th Century. Located in a rural district, it is set well back from the road in a paddock on a small rural property. The QCWA symbol is displayed prominently above the entrance. The QCWA creed and motto are hung in frames on the walls together with a World War I honour roll. The small library in the hall is a typical feature of many QCWA branches that maintained libraries for the education of their members.
|The building has a special association with the local members of QCWA and the branch is well known within QCWA throughout the State. The land on which the hall is situated was leased to QCWA by the founding president and her son supervised the hall's construction with member's husbands assisting him on a voluntary basis. Members donated the furnishings of the hall including a number of pews made by the son of the founding president. The brother of the founding secretary painted the creed and motto.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19671,"place_ref":602551,"name":"Greystaines","alternate_name":"Greystaines Flats","street_address":"240 Kingsford Smith Drive","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-05-26","description":"Greystaines is situated on the south east slope of Toorak or Hamilton Hill, fronting Kingsford Smith Drive and has expansive views of the Brisbane River and across Bulimba, Newstead and the City centre. There is pedestrian access only from Kingsford Smith Drive, the road being cut down well below the property level. Vehicle access is via Eden Lane at the rear, which is accessed via Hillside Crescent.
The building is a substantial, three-storeyed rendered brick structure in an adaptation of Mediterranean style. It has a multi-hipped roof clad in terracotta tiles. The central bay in the front elevation has a wide gable, below which, on each level, is an arcaded verandah with barley twist columns supporting the arches. These open onto exposed balconies with balustrades. The balustrades on the upper two levels are solid masonry. The balcony on the lower level has concrete balusters and extends across the entire frontage. Either side of the central front bay there are projecting bays with bay windows with later window frames. These side bays have quoining to the edges.
Each of the two upper floors contains two suites of mirror image rooms, while the basement level has arched doorways. This lower level was at one time used as one flat and was later divided by a cement block wall, which has been removed. Modern sliding doors close off the balconies and most windows are metal-framed sashes.
No original bathrooms or kitchens survive. A timber stair and landing remains.
Detailing is spare and well executed. Cornices are plain, skirtings are simple and the same moulding has been used at picture rail height in some rooms. There is a wide plate rail in the halls. Doors have full height vertical recessed panels and the drawing rooms on the upper floors have wide doors with multiple rectangular panes of glass set in narrow cames.
Each of the suites of rooms comprised an open area to back and front, a master bedroom with a bay window, second bedroom, rectangular drawing room, kitchen and bathroom and was accessed by internal stairs. There is also a terrace and stairs to the front and a set of unsympathetic metal stairs at the rear. A metal bridge of similar construction joins the top floor to the street behind.
The front garden slopes steeply toward Kingsford Smith Drive. It is terraced but overgrown. At the rear of the site is a small, two-storey building with a steeply pitched gabled roof with a modern colour-finished metal cladding. It has two rooms on the upper level and four rooms containing toilet and laundry facilities below..
The building makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the streetscape along Kingsford Smith Drive and is prominent when viewed from the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River.
","history":"Greystaines is a substantial, three-storeyed block of flats erected in 1934 for Mr Sydney James Dove and his wife Audree Thomasina Dove. The architect was George Rae, a Brisbane-based architect who designed some of Brisbane's best interwar flat buildings.
The land along the southern slope of Hamilton Hill, overlooking the Brisbane River and with frontage to the road along the river leading to Eagle Farm was first proclaimed for sale in September 1853. Allotments 6 to 9 of portion 1 (totalling just under 32 acres) were acquired by William Robert Howe Weekes.
In 1857 access to the area was improved by the construction of a bridge over Breakfast Creek near the confluence with the Brisbane River. From the early 1860s many of the Hamilton allotments were subdivided into smaller parcels, attracting a number of prominent middle-class residents who built comfortable homes on the slopes of Hamilton (later Toorak) and Hemmant (later Eldernell) hills, overlooking the river. Weekes subdivided his land about 1865, creating much of today's pattern of subdivision and roads in the area, including Hillside Crescent, Eden Lane, Crescent Road (originally Weekes Street) and Arran Avenue (originally Robert Street). On the long strip of land at the foot of Hamilton Hill bounded by Hillside Crescent, Eden Lane and Crescent, Hamilton and Toorak roads, two substantial homes had been erected by 1883. 'Braesid' occupied the western third of the site and 'Norwood', the home of Brisbane dentist David Eden from the late 1870s, occupied the eastern two-thirds. The later site of Greystaines formed part of the Norwood Estate.
By the mid-1890s a house was extant to the east of Norwood, still within the Norwood estate and appears to have occupied the later site of Greystaines. In 1906, Eden resurveyed the Norwood estate and sold off the eastern half, with boundaries to Eden's Lane, Hamilton Road and Crescent Road, in two parcels. The site of the flats was transferred to George Longland who occupied a residence at this location from at least 1908. An aerial photograph dated c1925 shows a large house on the site.
Longland transferred his interest in this property to Jessie Jane Buchanan, as trustee, in 1918 and she transferred the property to Alan Gordon Corrie in 1923. Following Corrie's death in 1925, the property was transferred in late 1928/early 1929 to Sydney James Dove and his wife Audree Thomasina Dove, as joint tenants. In 1934 Mr and Mrs Dove commissioned Brisbane architect George Rae to design a modern block of six brick flats for the site.
The site was well chosen for the construction of a purpose-built flat building, offering a number of attractions to potential tenants. The position was high, with extensive views overlooking the Brisbane River and adjacent suburbs; the tram service along Hamilton Road (later Kingsford Smith Drive) provided regular, reliable access to the Brisbane central business district and to inner city attractions such as theatres and restaurants; and the two street frontages made for greater convenience of access. Given this prime location in one of Brisbane's premier residential suburbs, the site warranted a substantial, well-designed building that offered flats of a comfortable size and convenience attracting middle class occupants who could afford a comparatively higher rent.
George Rae was in his early thirties and one of Brisbane's most successful young architects. He had just established his own architectural practice in Brisbane (1933) after working in partnership in this city as Atkinson, Powell and Conrad 1927-31 and Lange L Powell and George Rae 1931-33. These were among the most prominent architectural firms of the day. Rae designed a variety of buildings, including new forms of architectural construction to Brisbane such as picture theatres and residential flats. His more substantial purpose-designed flat buildings are amongst the most important of their type and their period in Brisbane. They include: Carrington (corner of Warry Street and Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill) erected in 1933; Highview (on Dornoch Terrace, Highgate Hill) designed in 1933-34; Casa del Mar (44 Moray Street, New Farm) erected in 1934; Greystaines (240 Hamilton Road, Hamilton) constructed in 1934; and Green Gables [601895] (corner of Julius and Moray streets, New Farm) erected in 1935.
By April 1934 Rae had completed the design for Greystaines Flats and was calling tenders for the construction. In mid-1934 the contract was let to well-known Brisbane master builder Douglas Francis Roberts, who resided nearby at Albion. When Brisbane City Council building approval was obtained early in June 1934, the flats were priced at £4,000. This represented a substantial investment for a Brisbane flat building, where most of the better class of brick or concrete flat buildings of this period cost between $3,000 and $6,000 to construct (exclusive land costs).
In mid-1934 Mr and Mrs Dove took out a mortgage on their Hamilton Road property, which possibly financed the construction of Greystaines.
Early in November 1934 the Courier-Mail reported that Greystaines flats had been completed and published a photograph of the new building. The design was considered very modern and 'a Colonial adaptation of Mediterranean architectural style'. The flats were of a comfortable size, well appointed and finished and clearly were intended for middle-class tenants.
These flats, which command a magnificent view of the Hamilton reach of the Brisbane River, are roofed with mottled tiles. All the flats possess separate garages, which are approached from a higher level in Crescent Road [sic]. Each flat contains two bedrooms, lounge, living room, laundry, kitchen, and bathroom, also front and back balconies. The interior wall decorations are tastefully treated in paper, and the bathrooms are tiled.
Greystaines was erected during a revival of a flat building 'boom' in Brisbane in the interwar period. The first purpose-designed flat buildings had been introduced to Brisbane c1920 and were concentrated in the inner suburbs, including New Farm, Fortitude Valley, Spring Hill, Petrie Terrace, Kangaroo Point and South Brisbane. It took some time for Brisbane to accept this new form of multiple dwelling residency, but by the late 1920s flat buildings were becoming increasingly popular investments. This interest in purpose-built flat construction was curtailed by the severe economic depression of the early 1930s, but with the easing of the depression the construction of purpose-built flats led the recovery in Brisbane residential construction from 1933. In 1933-34 flat buildings reputedly were returning up to 8-12% on capital and were one of the most attractive small investments of the day.
There had been limited activity in purpose-built flat construction in Hamilton prior to this period and Greystaines, constructed in 1934, was one of the first of the larger blocks of residential flats erected in this suburb. In the second half of the 1930s Hamilton became a popular venue for purpose-built flat construction, rivalling New Farm as a focus for flat developments. Many of the larger blocks of flats erected along the southern slopes of Hamilton/Toorak and Eldernell hills in the period 1934-1941 survive. Amongst these Greystaines, with its prominent riverine presence in the townscape, makes a notable aesthetic, architectural and historical contribution.
In the 1930s there was no provision for strata title of property, so the construction of purpose-built flats tended to be a long-term investment for developers, rather than a speculative venture aimed at rapid on-selling. Mr and Mrs Dove retained ownership of Greystaines Flats until the property was transferred to Guy Dart Atherton in July 1941. Ownership changed again in 1950, when title was transferred to Thomas Keith Watson Muir, who retained the property for nearly 30 years.
Around 1950 part of the frontage of the flats was resumed to allow widening of the road. However, the building remains on a single title, unlike many other purpose-built interwar flat buildings that since the 1990s have been strata titled. It has recently changed hands and is in the process of being converted into a single dwelling.
Although changes have occurred over time, notably the addition of a metal staircase and bridge to the rear and the insertion of floor tiles and some aluminium windows in the 1970s, the building and its gardens remain substantially intact.
","criteria":"Greystaines was erected in 1934 at the onset of a boom in purpose-built flat construction in Brisbane and as such, is important in illustrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history. There had been limited activity in purpose-built flat construction in Hamilton prior to this period and Greystaines was one of the first of the larger blocks of residential flats erected in this suburb. In the second half of the 1930s Hamilton became a popular venue for purpose-built flat construction in Brisbane, rivalling New Farm as a focus for flat developments. Purpose-built flat buildings were a phenomenon of the interwar period in Brisbane. They represented a new and modern form of living and their architecture reflected fashionable modern styles of the period. The service building to the rear of Greystaines appears to be related to an earlier house on site reflects the subdivision and redevelopment of many early large estates at this period.
|Greystaines is a good and substantially intact example of its type and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built block of flats of the interwar period, aimed at attracting middle-class tenants. These characteristics include the location along a former tram service; the form, the substantial materials, the popular Mediterranean style, the quality of the design, the attention to good quality finishes and the provision of facilities such as garages and private laundries. The amenity of its elevated location with extensive views is also a characteristic of the better quality flats of this era. Greystaines is important also in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the work of architect George Rae, one of the more successful interwar architects in Brisbane, who designed a number of Brisbane's better quality, purpose-designed, middle-class flat buildings. As a group, Brisbane's surviving purpose-designed flat buildings of the interwar period contribute to our understanding of the evolution of this particular form of multiple occupancy residential building and the work of George Rae in particular makes a strong contribution to our understanding of this type.
|The building makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the Hamilton townscape along Kingsford Smith Drive and is prominent when viewed from the Hamilton Reach of the Brisbane River. It has made a significant aesthetic contribution to the Hamilton townscape since 1934.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19673,"place_ref":602555,"name":"Stone Farm Building","alternate_name":"Fleurs","street_address":"739 Fleurs Lane","suburb":"CLERMONT","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-28","description":"Fleurs is a pastoral property situated northeast of Clermont, about 6km along Fleurs Lane from the Gregory Highway. The Stone Farm Building at Fleurs is one of a number of buildings within the complex, including the homestead and several corrugated iron clad sheds. Only the stone building is included within the heritage boundary.
The building is a well-constructed, single-storeyed, masonry structure comprising three rooms and an underground cellar. Its hipped, timber-framed roof, incorporating verandahs to all four sides in a broken back form, is clad with short, corrugated iron roof sheets. The verandah roof is supported on bush timber posts and a later verandah floor exists on the south-east and north-east sides. The substantial external walls are of random rubble construction finished externally and internally with ant bed render.
Architectural historian Miles Lewis has recorded the nineteenth century use of crushed anthill clay, or ant bed, for adobe, cob, pisé de terre, earthen flooring and later the surfacing of tennis courts. Ant bed appears to have been used mainly in rural areas either due to an absence of other materials, or for its adhesive and/or insulating properties. Comparatively few ant bed structures are known to survive in Queensland. Another building described as being a dairy located in the Clermont area is Irlam's farm building, which is constructed of rammed earth mixed with ant bed.
There is brick quoining to the corners of the stone building at Fleurs and to window and door openings. To accommodate the original verandah floor joists, a brick-on-edge course set between two layers of timber planking, provided a level surface for the joist housing around the perimeter of the building. The existing verandah floor structure abuts the external walls.
All openings have brick arch lintels. There are two windows and a pair of doors with a three-paned fanlight above in the south-east (front) wall and one window in the north-west (rear) wall. A second pair of doors with three-paned fanlight above is in the north-east wall. The window openings in the south-east elevation are lined with wire mesh and each of the windows has a sliding timber panel, and a timber-lined sill and head.
The interior is divided into three rooms with exposed stud timber partition walls lined to door head height. The two smaller interconnecting rooms at the front of the building are separated by a chamferboard-lined wall. A weatherboard-lined wall separates these from the larger room at the rear. There is a timber floor throughout supported on joists housed into log bearers. Access to the cement-rendered cellar is gained through an opening in the floor in a front room via a metal ladder. The cellar is ventilated with openings formed in brickwork in each of the corners, although the exterior openings were not located. Remains of lime wash and painted finishes survive on both internal and external walls.
","history":"The stone farm building on the property known as Fleurs in the Clermont district of central western Queensland was constructed on land initially selected by William George Hatfield, the son of Thomas and Annie Hatfield. In 1880 members of the Hatfield family selected six adjoining 500 acre portions. The family's homestead was built on portion 202, where the stone farm building still stands. Although the exact date of construction is not known, the existence of a cellar indicates that the building may have been the dairy described in an 1884 inspection of the property.
The Clermont district was opened to non-Indigenous settlement following Ludwig Leichhardt's exploration of the area in 1844 when he noted its potential for pastoralists, agriculturists and miners. The discovery of gold near Hood's Lagoon in the early 1860s paved the way for a rush to the district and a settlement near the lagoon renamed Diggings Lagoon was soon established. This was surveyed by the Queensland government in December 1863 as the town of Clermont. In January 1877 the Land Commissioner's Office received a petition from the residents of Clermont requesting survey of a town common for 'depasturing stock belonging to the town'. An area for a town common was resumed from the Crispin Downs and Wena No. 3 runs and was proclaimed as the Clermont Town and Agricultural District Common on 1 March 1878. An 1879 map of the area described the town common as 'well grassed open downs'.
On 7 January 1880 a section of the Common was proclaimed open for selection, and in February William George Hatfield applied to lease portion 202, consisting of 500 acres of first class pastoral land, under the provisions of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1876. He was issued a deed of grant in July 1885. By 15 August 1884 improvements on portion 202 included: a dwelling house containing 12 rooms, an underground tank, kitchen and store, the whole valued at £1000; stables, coach house and man's room valued at £150; and a dairy with an underground tank, valued at £300. The construction material for the dairy is not stated in the list of improvements, but local history suggests that this is the surviving stone building.
William George Hatfield was the second oldest son of Thomas Hatfield. Thomas, born in Liverpool near Sydney, worked as a storekeeper and carrier in New South Wales before he decided to move to Queensland, where the discovery of gold at Peak Downs in 1863 had opened opportunities for carriers. Miners needed goods delivered from Rockhampton, and the Peak Downs Cooper Mine needed its smelted ore delivered to the coast. Thomas arrived at Rockhampton in January 1867, and he soon had teams carrying copper from Copperfield to Rockhampton, and later to St Lawrence. The Hatfield family, consisting of Thomas and Annie Hatfield and their seven children, settled in Clermont in late October 1867.
Thomas opened stores at St Lawrence, Copperfield and Clermont to sell the goods he brought in from New South Wales, and in 1868 he also opened the Commercial Hotel in St Lawrence. In 1872 he took up a lease on the Connors River, and he used this selection Yatton'to breed team horses and run cattle. As Copperfield declined during the 1870s Thomas focused more on Clermont. He became a Justice of the Peace in 1878, served as an Alderman on the Clermont Council, and was a foundation member of the Peak Downs Masonic Lodge in Copperfield in 1879.
In early 1880 Thomas, his four oldest sons (Thomas John, William George, Ernest Alfred, and Henry Herbert) and his brother John selected six adjoining 500 acre portions numbered 200 to 203, plus 207 and 210, on the former Clermont Town and Agricultural Common. These portions were collectively known as Fleurs. The local area had been named Les Fleurs, after its wildflowers, by the first owner of Wolfang Station, Oscar de Satge. Fleurs was used to breed horses, and to conduct sheep farming and dairying.
After Thomas died from typhoid on 13 December 1882, an article in the Peak Downs Telegram noted that he had recently sought to withdraw from business and devote himself to the (horse) stud farm he had recently established at Fleurs. His eldest son Thomas John took over Fleurs, running 4500 sheep and 200 cattle. Thomas John was also a JP, and he served on both the Belyando Divisional Board and the Shire Council.
In early 1909 Randolph James Wall acquired Fleurs, including portion 202. Wall also ran sheep, and some cattle, on the property. The farm is currently owned by William Fraser, the great grandson of RJ Wall. The stone farm building, which was used as shearer's quarters at one stage, is now used for storage purposes.
","criteria":"Constructed of random rubble stone with a rendered layer of ant bed and brick quoining, the stone farm building at Fleurs is a comparatively rare example in Queensland of the use of stone and ant bed to construct a well-made and permanent farm building.
|Constructed between 1880 and 1884 to service the Hatfield family's cluster of selections north of Clermont, collectively known as 'Fleurs', the stone farm building on the property remains important in illustrating how early non-indigenous settlers made use of a range of local building materials to construct homesteads in remote districts, poorly serviced by transportation and towns.
The cellar is a good example of the early practice of using cellars for cool food storage, and the building is highly intact, with its original roof form.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19674,"place_ref":602556,"name":"Second World War RAAF Buildings, Maryborough Airport","alternate_name":"WWII RAAF Buildings | World War Two RAAF Buildings","street_address":"Saltwater Creek Road","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-03-23","description":"The Maryborough Airport is located to the north west of the city centre off Saltwater Road. It has two runways; the main runway is bitumen surfaced and is 1587 metres long. The cross strip is grassed and is 885 metres long.
There are trees dotted along the entrance road, though it is unknown if any of the trees are wartime plantings. To the left of the drive is an open area. To the right hand side of the drive is a row of Second World War structures. These comprise :
Building A - the former inflammables store, is a small building, square in plan, and set on a concrete slab. It is clad in fibrous cement sheeting and has a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron and topped with a large ventilator. It is currently used for storage.
Building B, the former Motor Transport Garage, is a rectangular building with a skillion roof. Its walls and roof are clad in corrugated iron and it has six narrow roller doors along the long axis facing away from the drive. It has casement windows on the northern side, two of which have sheet metal sunhoods with scalloped edges. It is now used for storage.
Building C is a set of latrines and is a rectangular building clad in corrugated set on a concrete slab. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. There is a narrow band of glass louvres set below the eaves.
Building D is an adapted P1 hut and was the former Hospital/Sick Quarters, now used for community purposes. It is a rectangular building set on low stumps and clad in horizontal corrugated iron. sheeting. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and what appears to have been a wide front verandah is now built in with casement windows. There is an extension at the rear. There are sheet metal canopies with scalloped edges suspended over the doors.
Building E is also a P1 hut and was formerly used as a parachute-packing shed. It is now the airport terminal and has had some alterations made for this purpose, including the adding of a covered baggage area.
To the north of the terminal and near the edge of the tarmac are:
Building F, a Bellman aircraft hangar. This is a prefabricated galvanised iron structure with a concrete floor. It has a low-pitched gabled roof and large sliding doors running along channels across the front.
Building G, which is also a P1 hut and is probably the most intact. It has a wide veranda facing the runways and was formerly a Flight Office. The Maryborough Aero Club now uses it.
","history":"The Second World War buildings at Maryborough airport were constructed during the early 1940s as part of the facilities of a military aerodrome serving Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) No 3 Wireless Air Gunner School and No 3 Air Navigation School. Following the war, Maryborough City Council redeveloped the aerodrome as a civil airport retaining these buildings in use.
Maryborough was established in the late 1840s to supply sheep stations on the Burnett River and provide an outlet for their wool. It was a port of entry and during the 1860s and 1870s Maryborough flourished as the principal port of the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained its growth as a major regional centre. As such, it had a small civil airfield before the Second World War.
In 1938, in response to the threatened outbreak of war, an Australian Air Force was developed, which included the establishment of a major base at Amberley in southern Queensland. Following the First World War and the development of civil aviation in the 1920s and 30s, it had become apparent that air power would play an important role modern warfare. At the outbreak of war in 1939, urgent consideration was given not only to the construction of aeroplanes, but also to the training of technicians, pilots and aircrew. It was realised that although British factories could step up production of aeroplanes and equipment, it would not be able to train all of the aircrew needed to operate them.
The Empire Training Scheme (EATS) was set up in December 1939 and was an agreement between Britain and the Dominions, particularly Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for aircrews to be trained in those countries for service with the Royal Air Force. Australia agreed initially to provide 28,000 personnel over three years; a time span later extended, and eventually trained some 37,000 airmen. All Australian trainees did their initial training in Australia; 7/9ths completed their training here and 2/9ths doing advanced training overseas before being posted to squadrons involved in the defence of Britain and the conduct of the war in Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean. The EATS scheme was conducted through 49 airfields in Australia, Queensland having EATS units at Amberley, Archerfield, Bundaberg, Kingaroy, Maryborough and Sandgate. Maryborough was chosen as a base for a Wireless Air Gunner School (3 WAGS) and an Air Navigation School (3 ANS).
The site was secured for RAAF use in December 1940 under the provisions of National Security (General) Regulations, but the existing airfield was inadequate and the Air Board set about acquiring more land to extend runways and facilities. The aerodrome covered an area of approximately 355 acres comprising the civil aerodrome on State land vested in the trusteeship of Maryborough City Council (133 acres), several holdings owned by the Council (84 acres), land held by 15 different private owners and public roads (138 acres). The land acquired was partially developed and included a sawmill, service station and several dairies. £257,928 was allocated for buildings, construction works, engineering services, furniture and fittings. By April 1941 the land was being cleared and runways and buildings constructed. The training school was opened 18 September 1941 and the first intake was on November 16 when work was still being carried out.
On 7 December 1941 the United States of America entered the war following the bombing of American ships by Japanese aircraft at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. The EATS scheme was suspended for reassessment in response to the perceived threat to Australia. However, Australia initially had few planes and it was decided in February 1942 by the War Cabinet to continue the scheme but retain enough aircrew in Australia to crew home and Pacific based squadrons and recall some experienced aircrew. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland as plans for the defence of Australia and the conduct of the war in the Pacific were quickly implemented.
The demand on materials, services and labour was beyond the scope of local resources and manufacture. Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing, as the southern states had. The first buildings erected at the outbreak of war were 'P' series huts, pre-cut of timber and galvanised iron and assembled on site. There are three huts of this type remaining at Maryborough. A prefabrication scheme was then proposed whereby components were made in the south, shipped to where they were needed and assembled on site. Designs took into account the scarcity of labour and of some materials. Bellman aircraft hangars were such prefabricated buildings and contracts were let for the construction of two Bellman hangars for Maryborough.
The war in the Pacific quickly escalated as the Philippines and Singapore were attacked by Japan. Darwin was first bombed on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore in February 1942.
From April 1942, Maryborough's activities included Recruit Training. No 3 Recruit Depot operated at Maryborough until July 1943 and No 6 Recruit Depot from November 1944 to June 1945. These units gave basic training to about 4000 recruits. Women (WAAFs) were also stationed at Maryborough.
The strategic air bases moved north following the theatres of the air campaign. The Battle of the Coral Sea took place in early May 1942 and the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Japanese troops landed at Gona on the north coast of Papua New Guinea on 21 July 1942. Hospitals at airfields were to be readied as field hospital for expected incoming battle causalities.
Maryborough aerodrome facilities were also used for airframe overhaul and a third and fourth Bellman hangar were erected at Maryborough sometime in 1944, though on 15 August 1944 it was decided to close number 3 WAGS Maryborough and train Wireless Operators at Ballarat instead. The facilities at the base were then used by RAAF 1 Radar School. The training school closed on closed on 6 December 1944.
Following the victory in Europe in May 1945 the Royal Navy formed the British Pacific Fleet. In June 1945 HMS Nabstock unit arrived in Maryborough. This was a MONAB , a mobile naval air base for training crew and the assembly of aircraft for the British Pacific Fleet. A number of Royal Navy Air Squadrons were based in Maryborough until late 1945. The RAAF station was closed after the departure of the last of these, MONAB VI HMS Nabstock in November 1945.
Following the cessation of hostilities, control of the aerodrome was transferred to the Department of Civil Aviation on 31 July 1946. There were 127 buildings on site at its peak and all those not needed by Civil Aviation needs were processed for disposal. Civil Aviation elected to retain the hospital, motor transport garages, two hangars, a flight office, a workshop, store, inflammables store and two latrines. One of the hangars was later removed, though most of the selected buildings remain on site. Some concrete slabs and other traces of RAAF buildings can still be seen dotted about the airport. The runways have been resurfaced and the third cross strip existing during the war has gone. The tree lined entrance drive is still the main access to the airport.
The airport is owned and operated by Maryborough Shire Council. It is an active civil facility regularly used by private and chartered aircraft, crop sprayers and maintenance enterprises and by the Maryborough Aero Club.
","criteria":"The surviving RAAF buildings at Maryborough airport are important in illustrating the measures taken for the training of aircrew during the Second World War under the Empire Training School scheme. Aircrew trained at Maryborough served with the RAF in many theatres of war and with the RAAF. The base was also used for training naval pilots to serve with the British Pacific Fleet.
|The Bellman hangar and field hospital are now uncommon in Queensland as examples of their type still in their original locations.
|Although most of the buildings that were on site during the Second World War have been removed, those remaining are indicative of the types of buildings and facilities constructed and which were necessary for the operation of a wartime air base. These include a hangar, flight office, field hospital, parachute packing shed, motor transport garage, inflammables store and latrines. In conjunction with wartime records and plans these buildings demonstrate the function of the aerodrome.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19677,"place_ref":602559,"name":"Fort Cowan Cowan (Cowan Cowan Battery)","alternate_name":"Fort Cowan, RAN 3 Cowan Cowan","street_address":"30 Jessie Wadsworth Street","suburb":"MORETON ISLAND","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-10-01","description":"Fort Cowan Cowan is located at Cowan Cowan Village, Moreton Island. The area is approximately 34616.033 metres square, roughly triangular in shape and stretches along the western beach from the Cowan Lighthouse in south to the northern end of Cowan Cowan Village. Jessie Wadsworth Street forms part of the eastern boundary.
The site comprises of a number of structures, all built in 1937, including two gun emplacements, concrete paths, four magazine huts, foundations of kitchen and soldiers' mess, storage hut, engine room, underground sewerage and piping and a concrete tank.
The two gun emplacements are constructed from reinforced concrete and are comprised of an enclosed gun platform with metal blast doors and rooms beneath which are actually underground. The emplacements were originally situated behind the first dunes however as the beach has lost sand due to erosion the emplacements are now close to the tide line. Most of the walls have shifted and tilted as the erosion has undermined the gun platforms and the platforms on both emplacements have separated from the rear sections and tipped forwarded onto the beach. As erosion proceeds, the potential for ongoing collapse is high. In addition, structural timbers have become decayed, been destroyed by fires, or have been removed. The lack of structural support means that walls are not tied together and are in an advanced state of collapse.
The doors on Number 1 (northern) emplacement have been removed and placed flat on the platform however, the underground room, steps and metal doors are intact. In the case of Number 2 (southern) emplacement, the blast doors have swung open and are hanging downwards, should either the supporting wall or the door hinge fail, the door and/or attached wall will topple onto the beach. The gun platform has effectively disarticulated from the underground section. The top section of the wall supporting the southern blast door has snapped and fallen onto the foundations.
The concrete pathways lead from the gun emplacements to the magazine huts and between the huts. Although cracked, the paths are still largely intact and clearly visible.
The four magazine huts and storage hut have been converted into accommodation blocks but still retain a large degree of original appearance including the roof vents.
The concrete slab foundations of kitchen and soldiers' mess remain intact and visible.
There are visible remains of the engine room and concrete pipes from the reticulated water and sewerage system.
A concrete tank is still intact and visible.
","history":"Fort Cowan Cowan is a Second World War defence facility located on the western side of Moreton Island in Moreton Bay. The fort was commissioned by the Queensland Government in 1935 and constructed in 1937. It was operational until 1945 after which operations were scaled down and was eventually officially closed in 1960.
\nFort Cowan Cowan was part of a network of artillery installations designed to defend Brisbane and Moreton Bay from attack by sea and which were in turn part of a larger scheme begun in 1935 to upgrade coastal defences. It was completed in 1937 and contributed to the coastal defence of Queensland until the end of the Second World War. Within the perimeter of Fort Cowan Cowan, which belonged to the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) also had a presence with their RAN3 defence establishment.
\nMoreton Bay was named by Captain Cook after Lord Morton, the then president of the Royal Society in Britain. Matthew Flinders then named Moreton Island in 1799. European settlement on Moreton Island began in 1848 when the Queensland Department of Harbours and Marine built a pilot station near Bulwer on the north western side of the island to guide vessels through the passages of Moreton Bay. This was followed by the building of the Cape Moreton Lighthouse in 1857, at the northerly tip of the island and then the Comboyuro Lighthouse in 1877.
\nA telegraph office opened at Cape Moreton in August 1864, followed by a schoolroom in 1879. A telegraph line was constructed during the 1890s, to service the lighthouse. A Morse Lamp for signalling was installed at Cape Moreton c1910. The lamp is recorded as having a range of 20 miles and as being in constant use for signalling purposes. Signal flags were used for daytime communication. A post office opened at Cape Moreton in 1915, and closed in the early 1920s with the Lightkeepers serving as Post Masters during this period. Moreton Island was also the site of Queensland's only whaling station. In operation from 1952 to 1962, it closed after declining whale numbers made it unfeasible to continue. Today, Moreton Island has a small permanent population spread among three townships, Kooringal, Bulwer and Cowan Cowan and is primarily viewed as a holiday/recreational destination.
\nPrior to the 1860s, defence of the Australian colonies had been solely the responsibility of the Imperial government. Britain considered that the Imperial Navy would always provide the first line of defence in any threat to her colonial empire, but from 1863 required the Australian colonies, by then self-governing, to contribute toward the costs of maintaining Imperial garrisons on colonial soil, and encouraged the colonies to provide for their own military infrastructure such as fortifications and barracks. Queensland, which had separated from New South Wales in December 1859, could not afford to contribute to Imperial defence, and so Imperial troops were gradually withdrawn from the colony - the last leaving by 1870. In the 1860s Queensland established a number of volunteer defence units, based on the British model, but their effectiveness was severely impaired by a lack of armaments and ammunition.
\nBy the 1870s the Australian colonies were developing rapidly and were concerned with potential threats from colonial powers such as Russia and France (the latter had annexed New Caledonia in 1873). In 1877 the colonial governments of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, anxious to secure the land defence of their coastlines, jointly invited British Royal Engineers Colonel Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois and Lieutenant-Colonel Peter H Scratchley, to inspect existing defence installations and make recommendations as to how these might be improved. Scratchley's particular expertise was in the design and construction of deterrent coastal fortresses. Jervois and Scratchley identified maritime attacks as the greatest threat to Australia, and recommended that coastal defences be developed for all the mainland colonies. Despite being physically closer to the source of most threats, Queensland, with its sparse population and limited resources, was not considered to be greatly at risk. In his August 1877 preliminary report on Queensland coastal defences, Jervois identified the principal threat to Queensland security as an attack from the sea on the major ports [Brisbane, Rockhampton and Maryborough], in the form of city bombardment to secure supplies and coal, rather than for permanent occupation. This report was the first to seriously propose the defence of Moreton Bay although due to prohibitive costs the proposal was not supported at the time.
\nAs events in Europe and Asia in the 1930s moved the world towards war, various sectors of Australia's defence, including coastal fortifications, were examined. There was an increased emphasis on defence rearmament from 1935. As major cities and ports along the coastline would be exposed to damage from naval raids or attack, coastal defences were to be upgraded. Batteries were established in Sydney, Darwin and along the Western Australia coast. Invasion was not a major concern at this stage, rather the batteries were for defence against seaborne shelling or the torpedoing of ports. The defence of the Moreton Bay region was concentrated on the mouth of the Brisbane River at Fort Lytton [600248], constructed in 1880-1881, until the mid 1930s, when attempts were made to upgrade the region's defence.
\nPrior to the building of Fort Cowan Cowan, attitudes towards defence were changing. Military experts were supporting the implementation of more mobile defence forces, as opposed to fixed facilities. Technology was changing for both weaponry and shipping and as such, defensive techniques were constantly under review. The government's plan of building coastal defence forts for protection was a somewhat outdated 19th century response to a modern 20th century situation. Unlike previous wars in which sea based attacks were prevalent, the war in the Pacific in the 1940s was far more about aerial warfare. Therefore, coastal defence forts were not necessarily the most appropriate or effective defence plan the government could have implemented.
\nThe shipping channels in Moreton Bay simplified the proposed placement of batteries. The major access route into the Brisbane River was the northwest channel, which ran close to the shore near Caloundra, across the bay in a southeasterly direction towards Moreton Island, and then south westerly towards the mouth of the river, forming a Z-shaped route. This dictated the ideal positions for artillery batteries, with the most effective sites for guns being the closest points to the channel bends.
\nThere were two naval establishments within the army site of Fort Cowan Cowan, consisting of a Port War Signal Station (PWSS), also referred to as the Naval Signal Station (which pre-dated the construction of Fort Cowan Cowan) and the naval station (RAN3). The naval station was responsible for the two controlled minefields, one in Pearl Channel (called M11) and one in the main channel off Cowan Cowan (M5).
\nFort Cowan Cowan was built according to standard military plans that were modified to suit the sandy terrain. Construction of the fortifications commenced late 1936 and were completed by September 1937. Structures included the gun emplacements, command tower, observation post, engine rooms, pump house, jetty, well, mess rooms, washrooms, latrines, equipment stores and water services. The site included the installation of a reticulated water and sewerage system, which was unusual for the time considering the majority of the greater Brisbane area was not sewered until the 1960s.This seems to be related to a hygiene report on the site during construction of the fort which recommended the system for reasons of maintenance costs and adherence to modern sanitary practices.
\nFort Cowan Cowan took over the role of an Examination Battery from Fort Lytton. The function of the Examination Service was to identify and ascertain the character and intentions of vessels seeking to enter defended ports. Merchant vessels approaching a port would be met by an Examination Vessel, stationed permanently at the Examination Anchorage near the entrance to the port. If an approaching vessel could not be identified, it was directed to proceed to the Examination Anchorage under the observation of the Examination Battery, and further investigation was undertaken. The major function of the Naval Signal Station appears to have been to receive signals from the Examination Vessels and relay messages to the gunnery, rather than to send signals which would have revealed the position of the battery.
\nThe first real indication of enemy naval presence in proximity to Brisbane occurred on 24 March 1942 when a suspected Japanese submarine was sighted east of Stradbroke Island. Two 100lb bombs were dropped on it but there has never been any evidence that the submarine was destroyed. On 4 June 1942 another Japanese submarine, identified as 'I.29' was sighted off Moreton Island. This submarine was later identified as one of the vessels involved in the midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942. On 14 May 1943, the hospital ship, 'Centaur' was struck and sunk off the Brisbane coastline by the Japanese submarine, 'I.177'. Of the 332 people on board only 64 survived to be rescued by the American destroyer, 'USS Mugford'. The last attack to occur in the approaches to the Port of Brisbane, took place on 4 June 1943 off Cape Moreton when the Japanese submarine 'I.174' fired on the American ship 'MV Edward Chambers'. The submarine withdrew when return fire was given. Although there was clearly hostile activity present in the waters off Brisbane, the only recorded combat firing that took place at Fort Cowan Cowan was on 4 March 1942 when the battery fired upon the trading vessel, SS Tambar, after it failed to give proper identification. This incident resulted in the loss of three crewmen's lives.
\nFort Cowan Cowan was in operation until 1945 when instructions were issued for all coastal defences, except those in Darwin, Sydney and Fremantle, to be scaled down and kept in a state of care and maintenance. With the reassessment of Australia's defensive arrangements in the 1950s, the role of artillery batteries in coastal defence diminished. The government recognised that the nature of modern warfare had changed and fixed coastal defences were no longer considered a necessary part of defensive plans. At this time Brisbane was still a defended port but by 1960 this arrangement was redefined and Fort Cowan Cowan closed.
\nAlthough Moreton Island is primarily a tourist destination, it does have three small townships. Since closing, much of Fort Cowan Cowan has been removed, destroyed or has disappeared into the residential landscape of the Cowan township. In some cases, buildings from the complex have been converted for other uses such as holiday accommodation. Moreton Bay Boat Club (MBBC) has leased Lot 46 C9562 which comprises a number of interlinking concrete paths, the four magazine huts, the foundations of the kitchen and soldiers' mess, store hut and the concrete water tank. MBBC have converted the magazine huts and storage hut into accommodation blocks for use by club members. The two gun emplacements remain in situ on the beach although over the years the tide line has moved progressively closer to them. Their condition has deteriorated and both emplacements are listing dangerously on their foundations as the sand shifts from under them.
\n","criteria":"
Fort Cowan Cowan is representative of Second World War coastal defence batteries in Australia and is one of the first large-scale fortified installations to be constructed on a Queensland island. It has the potential to yield information that will contribute to the understanding of Queensland's history due to the extensive remnants of Second World War fortification sites, which includes both Army and Naval defences. It also has potential to yield information about the relationship between Fort Cowan Cowan and the other defence batteries in the Moreton Bay area that complete the coastal defence system.
|Fort Cowan Cowan has a strong association with military activity in Queensland, as a site for defence, training and military support and with the Australian Military Force and Royal Australian Navy.
|Fort Cowan Cowan is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Australia's Second World War coastal defence fortifications including 6 inch Mark X1 batteries modified to suit the terrain with emplacements being constructed of reinforced concrete with magazines to the rear of the gun platform rather than below.
The inclusion of a sewerage and pressurised water reticulation system, including plumbing and underground piping systems, at Fort Cowan Cowan was unusual for the late 1930s as the majority of the greater Brisbane area was not sewered until the 1960s.
|The Fort Cowan Cowan Second World War fortifications, constructed in 1937, are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being part of the preparations for the defence of Australia, in particular the Moreton Bay region, during the 1930s and the Second World War. It demonstrates the evolution of Queensland's coastal defences, which began in the 1880s with the construction of Fort Lytton at the mouth of the Brisbane River and included a signal station at Cowan Cowan prior to Fort Cowan Cowan's construction.
It is important for the intactness of the physical evidence of the Second World War defence scheme, and retains additions and alterations which illustrate the evolution of Queensland's defence planning and of military process and technology up to the 1940s. The place is significant as part of a co-ordinated system of coastal defence in Australia.
|Fort Cowan Cowan demonstrates uncommon surviving evidence of a largely intact and interpretative Second World War battery complex which incorporates a number of structures including two gun emplacements, concrete paths, four magazine huts, foundations of kitchen and soldiers' mess, storage hut, engine room, underground sewerage and piping and concrete tanks.
Fort Cowan Cowan provides rare surviving evidence of a Second War World coastal fortification in Queensland, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with gun emplacements in situ.
|Fort Cowan Cowan is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the community including a sense of place, isolation, landmark quality of the gun emplacements, particularly when viewed from the sea; a sense of discovery; and the form, scale and materials of Fort Cowan Cowan and the Royal Australian Navy Station 3 fortifications.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19715,"place_ref":602560,"name":"Former Dispenser's House, Diamantina Hospital","alternate_name":"Diamantina Health Care Museum | Dispensers House","street_address":"Cornwall Street","suburb":"WOOLLOONGABBA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-07-03","description":"The former Dispenser's House is situated close to the Cornwall Street gate to the Princess Alexandra Hospital .It is a timber building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting and is set on new concrete stumps.
There is a gabled bay with four windows to the eastern elevation and verandahs to the north and south. The southern verandah is built in with timber framed windows and the northern by glass louvres. The walls are timber lined and there are timber floors and ceilings. The rooms opening onto the southern verandah and some of the internal rooms have French doors with transom lights above. Modern toilets have been added.
","history":"The former Dispenser's House was built in 1908 as part of the facilities of the Diamantina Hospital for Chronic Diseases and is now a health care museum.
The Diamantina Hospital was established in 1901 by adapting the facilities of the Diamantina Orphanage, named for the wife of Queensland's first Governor, Lady Diamantina Bowen. This had been founded in 1864 under the committee of the Brisbane Hospital in two cottages, near the Victoria Barracks, that had been previously used as a fever hospital.
Within two years, the orphanage was caring for about 100 children and received a government subsidy. In 1882, a 20-acre block of land on Ipswich Road at Woolloongabba was purchased to allow the construction of a larger facility. In 1883 the Diamantina Orphanage opened at this new location and by 1886 was caring for more than 350 children. This number was reduced by boarding out some children and removing those with a parent able to make some contribution to their support.
In 1893, severe flooding damaged the Woogaroo Asylum, so about 40 of the quieter patients from the asylum were moved to the orphanage, and the children were dispersed. From 1898 to 1900, the facility was used as a reformatory for boys.
At that time, Queensland had no hospital to treat chronically ill patients. Tuberculosis was a major cause of death into the 20th century and 'consumptive' patients were also drawn to Queensland because of the belief that warm weather helped to cure the disease. Treatment for tuberculosis at that time consisted mainly of isolation, bed rest, good diet and exposure to fresh air and sunshine. Medical professionals lobbied for a facility to treat chronic cases. A sanatorium was opened in Dalby in 1900 and the Diamantina Orphanage, with its pleasant situation on a wooded slope, was adapted as a hospital. Its dormitories were enlarged as wards, and on 5 August 1901 it opened as the Diamantina Hospital for Chronic Diseases. It was a Public Charitable Institution under the Charitable Institution Ac. and was under the care of the Department of Health. It accepted patients from the general hospital and from the Dunwich Benevolent Institution, many of whom were suffering from tuberculosis. The Diamantina Hospital opened with 32 beds and a general staff of 19 administered by a Matron, Miss Florence Chatfield, a Superintendent, Dr F E Hare, and a Head Wardsman and Dispenser, Mr Frederick Staubwasser.
By 1903 the hospital had 72 beds and two open-air wards. The Superintendent resigned and Miss Chatfield added his duties to her own. In 1907 Mr Staubwasser, planning marriage, requested a raise in salary and a cottage within the hospital grounds. His request was strongly supported by Miss Chatfield, in a letter to the Home Secretary, stressing his value to the institution. The request was approved but the cottage was not built immediately.
Thomas Pye, Deputy Government Architect, prepared sketch plans for a dwelling of 700 square feet plus a large front verandah, to be constructed near the hospital Dispensary. Tenders were called on 9 July 1908 and that of W Chaplain for £330 was accepted. By the beginning of 1909 the house was occupied.
Mr Staubwasser served as Dispenser until 1912 when he became Assistant Superintendent. In that year another verandah was added to the cottage and a laundry in 1914. In 1923 the house was extended by adding another verandah to the south and a third bedroom to the front. The main entrance was then relocated to the northern verandah. In 1935 Mr Staubwasser was promoted to Superintendent but continued to occupy the house until his death in 1938. From then until the end of the Second World War, the house was occupied by a series of Medical Officers from the Brisbane General Hospital who were responsible for the Diamantina Hospital patients.
In 1943 the Diamantina Hospital became the South Brisbane Auxiliary Hospital and was under the control of the Brisbane General Hospital. Following the War, an intensive programme was carried out by the Queensland government to eradicate tuberculosis by screening and treatment. This reduced the need for chronic care facilities.
In 1956 a new 800 bed acute hospital was built in the grounds of the South Brisbane Hospital. In 1960 it was renamed the Princess Alexandra Hospital and had its own hospital board. The cottage, after accommodating a series of staff members, was modified for use as a Home Haemodialysis Training Centre in 1974.
In 1998 it was used by the History and Archives Committee and in 1999 by the Redevelopment Group.
In 2003 the former Dispenser's House was renovated and opened in 2004 as the Diamantina Health Care Museum.
A wall has been removed between bedrooms and an office created on the northern verandah by the construction of a partition. The building remains substantially intact and retains its domestic appearance.
","criteria":"The former Dispenser's House is important for demonstrating the former use of the site as the Diamantina Hospital for Chronic Diseases, which opened in 1901 on the site of the current Princess Alexandra Hospital. This was the first such hospital in Queensland and was important in the development of health care in the State. The former residence, constructed in 1908, also demonstrates the common practice of the time of providing on site living quarters for key personnel.
|The former Dispenser's House is now rare as the last remaining structure from the Diamantina Hospital for Chronic Diseases.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19793,"place_ref":602844,"name":"Queensland Cultural Centre","alternate_name":"(QCC) | Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) | Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) | Queensland Museum (QM) | State Library of Queensland (SLQ)","street_address":"Grey Street","suburb":"SOUTH BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-06-12","description":"The Queensland Cultural Centre is an extensive low-rise complex comprising four cultural institutions, associated ancillary facilities and spaces located on the bank of the Brisbane River at South Brisbane. Set against the backdrop of the Taylor Range skirting greater Brisbane, the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), Queensland Museum (QM), The Edge and the central services facility and connecting plazas and walkways retain a coherent architectural form. The reworked Queensland State Library (SLQ) building and the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) at the western end of the complex, are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance and are not included within the heritage register boundary.
\nThe site, stretching more than 450m along the river, is bounded by Grey, Peel and Russell Streets and bisected by Melbourne Street, a major thoroughfare connecting South Brisbane to the CBD on the north bank via the Victoria Bridge. Across the site, the components of the Centre are connected by subway tunnels, external plazas, elevated covered walkways and a spinal bridge across Melbourne Street.
\nThe complex is unified by a consistent architectural expression: repetitive cubic forms established through the use of a consistently applied and well resolved three-dimensional grid; monolithic, sand-blasted off-form concrete of superior quality; extensive use of deep shaded glazing; an elegant, expressed primary structure of rhythmic, regular elements; internal and external integrated planting and landscaping; and external public spaces with direct relationships to internal spaces.
\nPrimary circulation between entities is organised around a pedestrian spine running from QPAC across Melbourne Street, between the QM the QAG (known as the Whale mall) and joining the plaza shared by the SLQ and GOMA.
\nThe Queensland Cultural Centre is important for its:
\nLandmark
\nThe Queensland Cultural Centre is a landmark complex. The buildings, individually and collectively, provide impressive visual interest, contribute considerably to the streetscape of South Brisbane and to the panoramic view from the Brisbane River and central business district.
\nQueensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC)
\nThe largest individual component of the complex is QPAC, standing on the southern side of Melbourne Street. QPAC comprises four venues: Concert Hall, Lyric Theatre, Cremorne Theatre and Playhouse.
\nThe major elements are clearly expressed in the building form. Two courtyards provide a setback from Melbourne Street, one accommodates the large, semi-circular Cascade Court Fountain, the other is landscaped and grassed.
\nThe principal entrance is from Melbourne Street, providing access to the Lyric Theatre and Concert Hall; a secondary entrance from Russell Street accesses the Playhouse, and an entrance from the Cultural Centre Forecourt provides access to the Cremorne Theatre. The building is organised so the four venues back onto a shared, central backstage area accessed from Grey Street. The 'black box' volumes of the venues are wrapped by the main foyers overlooking Melbourne Street and secondary foyers along the sides to the river and Grey Street.
\nThe multi-level foyers comprise a series of broad stairs passing through a variety of volumes. Expanses of glazing are shaded by vertical concrete fins supporting horizontal grids of stainless steel. These elements cast a bold, graphic pattern of light and shadow into the foyer, heightening the visual drama during the day. At night, the brightly-lit foyers are strikingly-presented through the tall concrete frames, visible from the surrounding area. A large wall within the grand staircase between the two largest venues prominently displays the Lawrence Daws mural Pacific Nexus. The bars are clad with boldly-coloured marble and from the foyers there are attractive views of the river and city as well as of other parts of the QCC.
\nThe Concert Hall, an auditorium with a capacity of 1,6000 to 1,800 seats, is a long ‘shoe-box' space accommodating a stage, orchestra pit, upholstered stalls seating, a single rear balcony and long side galleries. The auditorium is designed for a long reverberation time, ideal for a big orchestral sound. The space is able to be varied acoustically to give appropriate acoustic definition to other modes of performance. Interior finishes include Johnstone River hardwood flooring and tiers, sand-blasted white concrete and veneered-plywood walls. A white plasterboard coffered ceiling incorporates theatrical lighting pods. The Concert Hall accommodates the Klais Grand Organ with its 6500 pipes arranged symmetrically as a central focus on the rear stage wall.
\nThe Lyric Theatre, an auditorium with a proscenium stage and seating capacity for 2,000, accommodates an orchestra pit, raking stalls and two upper balconies of seating. Designed for a mid-range reverberation time ideal for opera, the space is able to be varied acoustically for light opera, musicals and drama by manipulating absorptive panels in the celling. Interior finishes include: colour-graduated velour house-curtain; carpeted floors and tiers; stained, veneered-plywood wall panelling; aluminium-tube lower ceiling and plasterboard upper ceiling; and upholstered theatre seating.
\nCremorne Theatre, a flexible space with six configurations and seating capacity of 200-300, is an auditorium with a flat floor, moveable tiers of collapsible seating, moveable modular stage elements, an upper surround balcony with removable balustrade, lighting bridges, overhead props and lighting grid and control rooms. Interior finishes reflect the basic functional aspect of the space: timber floor, white plasterboard walls and ceiling, upholstered seating and dark acoustic curtains at the walls.
\nThe Playhouse, a proscenium theatre with a capacity of 850 seats, accommodates stalls, mid-stalls, a balcony and balcony boxes for patron seating. Foyers address Russell Street with a corner bias to Stanley Street, with grand staircases and expressed lifts at each end and outside balconies to both foyer levels.
\nAncillary spaces provide front and back of house facilities, dining, bars, ticket office, Green Room, dressing, rehearsal, administration and storage. Throughout, the building retains original furniture and fittings designed by Robin Gibson and Partners.
\nQueensland Art Gallery (QAG)
\nThe Queensland Art Gallery, a three-storey building with extensive landscaped plazas and gardens, stands to the north side of Melbourne Street, and northeast of the Whale mall pedestrian spine. Standing above two levels of carparking (Levels 1 and 2), the building accommodates two storeys of public exhibition galleries with ancillary administration offices (Levels 3 and 4) and a storey of administration offices, art conservation workshops, and collection store room (Level 5).
\nThe building and its plazas/gardens are integrated: large internal galleries are visibly connected to external sculpture gardens; and planterboxes are integrated into the structure internally and externally. To the riverside of the QAG stands a large landscaped plaza of flat lawns, concrete raised garden beds, and rectangular concrete pads falling to the river in a steep landscaped embankment. The plazas/gardens contain sculptures and fountains by important Australian artists including Approaching Equilibrium (Anthony Pryoro), Pelicans (Leonard and Kathleen Shillam), Sisters (Ante Dabro), Leviathan Play (Rob Robertson-Swann) and Offshoot (Clement Meadmore).
\nThe original main entry to the gallery is from the riverside plaza. An entrance to the southeast corner is the primary approach for pedestrians arriving from the city across the Victoria Bridge. The \"Robin Gibson Entry\", a curved glass structure opening from the SLQ/GOMA plaza, is now the main entrance. On entry, visitors are drawn to the key orientation space, the Watermall.
\nThe elegant, high-volume Watermall is parallel to the Brisbane River and runs the length of the building, visually connecting at each end with landscaped courtyards. The galleries are organised to flow in a logical fashion from one to another, sometimes through half-level floor changes. They have variously high, medium and low ceilings catering for the differing scale of exhibits and vary in enclosure to cater for installations, sound, light and audio-visual displays. The plan of the QAG is strictly organised according to function into long stripes parallel to the river. Long sight lines are had through many spaces, providing visitor orientation and anticipation, and a sense of openness in the large building.
\nThe colour and material palette of the gallery is muted, mainly comprising white-painted, coffered concrete slab ceilings and plasterboard walls, large expanses of sand-coloured concrete walls and travertine floors. Differing floor finishes are important to the functioning of the galleries: substantial areas in general traffic zones are finished with large travertine slabs; travertine also runs in narrow bands along walls as a deterrent to touching the paintings; timber parquetry is extensive. The building retains original furniture designed by Robin Gibson and Partners.
\nQueensland Museum (QM)
\nQueensland Museum stands to the north side of Melbourne Street, and southwest of the Whale mall pedestrian spine. It is a seven-storey building accommodating four levels of public exhibition spaces; and provision for administration and research offices, a library and collection storage.
\nThe monolithic, square-form building is a closed box providing a controlled climate for exhibits. A large, deep aperture is cut into the solid concrete wall on Grey Street and accommodates a dramatic, three-storey garden. Other elevations are generally solid. A plaza forecourt to Melbourne Street with broad concrete stairs provides the main entry to the building. A prominent, glazed, double-height escalator hall projects from the front elevation and leads up to the large, main foyer on Level 2.
\nThe plan comprises large, open floor plates either side of a broad central spine of vertical circulation, voids and service spaces. The exhibition levels step at half levels to each other either side of the spine, allowing visitors to orient themselves and for a sequential experience of the exhibits. The exhibition spaces are varied in size to cater for a range of exhibit sizes. The offices on Levels 5 and 6 access generous garden balconies on the northeastern side with views across the lower QAG to the Brisbane River.
\nAccessed from Grey Street is an open-air loading dock, shared with QAG.
\nAncillary services plant
\nAdjacent to QM stands a tall, detached ancillary building providing accommodation for a services plant providing shared mechanical services across QCC.
\nCultural Centre Forecourt
\nThe Cultural Centre Forecourt is a flat, open, landscaped plaza along the river edge to the southeast elevation of QPAC. The Forecourt provides a setting and view shed for QPAC and a direct visual connection to the Brisbane River. Stretching between Melbourne Street and Russell Street and measuring approximately 220m x 90m, the forecourt is a platform above an underground carpark. An open and flexible space, the Forecourt design responds to changing uses. The Forecourt provides access to the Cremorne Theatre and other functions of QPAC and the underground carpark beneath; the adjacent road accesses the underground carpark beneath QAG.
\nThe fabric of the Forecourt is not of cultural heritage significance, its open, flat character as setting and viewshed for QPAC is of cultural heritage significance.
\nPedestrian spine including the Whale Mall
\nA broad, concrete pedestrian concourse stretches from the Melbourne Street entrance of QPAC, bridges Melbourne Street, runs between QM and QAG, and joins the plaza shared by SLQ and GOMA. Between the QM and QAG it is a grand, axial spine known as the Whale Mall and comprises a high volume space lit by barrel-vaulted skylights, accommodates slit windows into the QAG and secondary entrances to the QM.
\nThe Edge [State Library of Queensland: Fountain Room (former)]
\nThe former Fountain Room, in 2015 known as The Edge, is a three-storey, rectangular building approximately 30m x 15m standing adjacent to the river. Pedestrian walkways link the building with the plaza shared with the SLQ to the northwest and the QAG riverside plaza to the south and provide access to the middle and upper levels of The Edge; the upper walkway is lit by square openings to the sky. The interior retains evidence of the original layout. The middle level accommodates a large, double-height auditorium; a smaller auditorium on the upper level opens onto an external gathering space. The gathering space comprises a flat lawn surrounded by a concrete planterbed balustrades and rectangular concrete pads.
","history":"The Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC), located on the south bank of the Brisbane River opposite the central business district, is the state's principal cultural venue and an important example of late 20th century modernist architecture. Constructed between 1976 and 1998, this ambitious complex, a milestone in the history of the arts in Queensland and the evolution of the state, was designed by renowned Queensland architect Robin Gibson in conjunction with the Queensland Department of Public Works, for the people of Queensland.
\nThe Cultural Centre includes the Queensland Art Gallery (1982), the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (1984), the Queensland Museum (1986), the State Library and The Fountain Room Restaurant and Auditorium (The Edge in 2015) (1988). The substantially altered State Library and the Gallery of Modern Art are part of the broader cultural precinct but are not included in the heritage register boundary.
\nSouth Brisbane before the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC)
\nBy the late 1960s, much of South Brisbane, especially along the river, was in economic decline. Prior to European settlement, the whole of the South Brisbane peninsula was known as Kurilpa, an important meeting place for the Yuggera/Jagera people. The tip of the South Brisbane peninsula was a traditional river crossing. After the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal settlement in 1825, convicts cleared the river flats to grow grain for the settlement and during the 1830s, timber from the south bank was exported to Sydney.
\nFrom the 1840s, South Brisbane developed as one of Queensland's key location for portside activity, initially advantaged by its more direct access to the Darling Downs and Ipswich. As maritime trade expanded, wharfs and stores were progressively established adjacent to the river. Over time, a range of commercial, light industrial and manufacturing activities also occurred, along with civic and residential land uses. The area prospered in the 1880s and South Brisbane became a municipality in 1888. Along with the development boom, a dry dock was opened in 1881, coal wharves and associated rail links were constructed and South Brisbane was established as the passenger terminus for suburban and country train lines.
\nBy the end of the 19th century, the area had evolved into a substantial urban settlement, with Stanley Street a major retail centre and thoroughfare. Such development however, could not arrest a gradual 20th century decline which accelerated after World War II, influenced by the reorientation of economic activity and transport networks in Brisbane. Post-war, wharves, stores and railway sidings closed and were subsequently demolished, with the progressive relocation of shipping downriver. The decline of such a centrally located area in the capital city presented an opportunity for significant urban renewal.
\nImpetus for the Queensland Cultural Centre
\nThe pressure to address the lack of adequate cultural facilities in Queensland increased in the 1960s, as public awareness of the importance of the arts to the cultural health of the community was rising. At this time, the Queensland's principal cultural institutions were located in buildings and sites in Brisbane that did not meet their existing or future requirements. The first purpose-built Museum had opened in William Street in 1879 but proved inadequate from the outset. It was converted to the Public Library of Queensland (the State Library from 1971) in 1900-02, after the 1889 Exhibition Building at Bowen Hills was converted for use as a Museum in 1900. From 1895, the Queensland Art Gallery was housed in the Brisbane Town Hall, moving in 1905 to a purpose designed room on the third floor in the new Executive Building overlooking George Street. When the new City Hall was completed in 1930, the Concert Hall at the Museum building was remodelled to house the art gallery.
\nUntil the opening of the Queensland Cultural Centre, there were no Queensland government-operated performing arts facilities. Most musical and theatrical performances were initially held in local venues such as schools of arts, church halls or town halls, of varying suitability. Purpose-built facilities were limited and only erected in major centres. By the 1880s, Brisbane had four theatres, with the Opera House (later Her Majesty's Theatre), erected in 1888, the most lavish and prestigious, with seating for 2700. The Exhibition Building was one of the first buildings specifically designed for musical performances and contained a concert hall complete with a four-manual pipe organ. It became the centre for major musical events until the opening of the Brisbane City Hall in 1930.
\nAcross Australia, the post-war era saw governments on all tiers commit to large projects related to developing the arts, including standalone and integrated landmark projects for institutions such as libraries, theatres and art galleries. Sites for such projects were often in centrally located areas, where previous uses and activities were in decline, or had become redundant. This type of urban renewal offered a blank slate for development, where the existing layout could be reconfigured and the built environment transformed. The construction of Sydney's Opera House had commenced in 1959; preliminary investigations for Adelaide Festival Centre started in 1964; the National Gallery of Australia was established in 1967; the first stage of the Victorian Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Victoria, was completed in 1969 and Perth's Civic Centre was also developed during the 1960s.
\nIn Queensland, an earlier phase of civic construction (mostly town halls and council chambers) occurred in the 1930s, often incorporating spaces for arts and cultural activities. By the early 1950s, architect and town planner Karl Langer was designing civic centre complexes for larger regional centres such as Mackay, Toowoomba and Kingaroy.
\nSeveral attempts were made to secure stately cultural facilities in Queensland's capital but each came to nothing. Construction of an art gallery and museum near the entrance to the Government Domain, on a site granted in 1863, never eventuated. In the 1890s a major architectural competition for a museum and art gallery on a site in Albert Park sought to address the need for sufficient premises. In 1934, on a nearby site along Wickham Park and Turbot Street, an ambitious urban design proposal to incorporate a public art gallery, library and dental hospital resulted only in the construction of the Brisbane Dental Hospital. Post-WWII plans to incorporate the art gallery in the extensions to the original Supreme Court Building did not eventuate. The Queensland Art Gallery Act 1959 paved the way for a new Board of Trustees to establish a gallery with public funds subsidized by Government. The proposal at that time, for a gallery and performance hall at Gardens Point, to mark Queensland's centenary, was not realised; however, an extension to the State Library proceeded and included an exhibition hall and reading rooms.
\nA proposal for a State Gallery and Centre for Allied Arts, on the former municipal markets site adjacent to the Roma Street Railway station, formed part of a government backed plan for the redevelopment of the Roma Street area. Prepared by Bligh Jessup Bretnall & Partners in 1967, this substantial development over a number of city blocks, inspired by the redevelopment of redundant inner city areas in Europe and new towns in America, incorporated a significant commercial component. The plan was abandoned in 1968 due to conflicting local and state interests, together with the lack of an acceptable tender.
\nThe following year, the Treasury Department initiated a formal investigation into a suitable site for an art gallery, led by Treasurer, Deputy Premier and Liberal Party Leader, Gordon Chalk. An expert committee, including Coordinator-General Charles Barton as chair, Under-Secretary of Works David Mercer and Assistant Under-Secretary Roman Pavlyshyn, considered 12 sites, including those from previous proposals. Three sites were shortlisted: The Holy Name Cathedral site in Fortitude Valley; upstream of the Victoria Bridge at South Brisbane; and the BCC Transport Depot in Coronation Drive. The South Brisbane site was preferred, considered to be the most advantageous for the city and the most architecturally suitable. The recommendation was accepted and work on progressing a design commenced.
\nArchitectural competition and concept (1289)
\nIn April 1973, Robin Gibson and Partners Architects won a two-staged competition to design the new Queensland Art Gallery at South Brisbane, with a sophisticated scheme considered superior in its simplicity and presentation. While this design was never realised, the art gallery that was built as part of the Cultural Centre was in many ways very similar, including the palette of materials and modernist design details inspired by the 1969 Oaklands Museum in California. The original design occupied the block bounded by Melbourne, Grey, Stanley and Peel Streets. Over Stanley Street, a pedestrian walkway connected the gallery to the top of an amphitheatre leading to sculpture gardens along the river.
\nThe development of cultural facilities was reconsidered during 1974, evolving into a much more ambitious project. In early November, Deputy Premier Sir Gordon Chalk (who had a real interest and commitment to developing the arts in Queensland) announced as an election policy, a proposal for a $45 million dollar cultural complex. While the development of the Art Gallery had been progressing, Chalk, with the assistance of Under Treasurer Leo Hielscher, had covertly commissioned Robin Gibson to produce a master plan for an integrated complex of buildings which would form the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC). The plan included an Art Gallery, Museum, Performing Arts Centre, State Library and an auditorium and restaurant. The devastating floods of January, which had further hastened the decline of South Brisbane, provided a timely opportunity to utilise more space adjacent to the river, through resumptions of flood prone land.
\nWhen the proposal was submitted to Cabinet by Chalk in late November, it was initially opposed by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. However, the support of Brisbane's Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, (who gifted council-owned allotments on what became the QPAC site); influential public servants Hielscher, Pavlyshyn; Mercer, and Sir David Muir, Director of the Department of Commercial and Industrial Development, helped the project gain momentum. After winning the December 7 election, the proposal was formally adopted by the Bjelke-Petersen government. Muir was appointed chairman of the planning committee and became the first chairman of the QCC Trust.
\nGibson's November 1974 Cultural Centre master plan differed significantly from his winning competition design for the Gallery and gave Gibson the opportunity to further demonstrate his planning principles for inner city development. Stanley Street was to be diverted under the Victoria Bridge through to Peel Street, with the Art Gallery and Museum occupying one large block. The scheme included building forms with oblique angles to the street grid, to address the main approaches. The Performing Arts building, comprising a single, multi-purpose hall, and the Art Gallery, extending from the Museum to the river's edge, were aligned diagonally around a Melbourne Street axis to address the approach from the Victoria Bridge. Pedestrian bridges provided access across the site over Melbourne Street and to the South Brisbane Railway Station over Grey Street.
\nGibson's design of the QCC sought to convey a relaxed atmosphere reflective of Queensland's lifestyle. A simple, disciplined palette of materials, and design elements was adopted and rigorously maintained throughout the lengthy construction program to unify the complex: off-white sandblasted concrete; cubic forms with deeply recessed glazing; a constancy of structural elements, fixtures and finishes; repetitive stepped profiles and extensive integrated landscaping.
\nA fundamental conceptual aspect of the Cultural Centre's design was its relationship to the Brisbane River and the natural environment. Gibson saw the Cultural Centre as an opportunity for ‘amalgamating a major public building with the river on the South Bank'. The external landscaping and built form was carefully articulated to ‘step up' from the river. The comparatively low form of the complex was consciously designed so that the profile of the Taylor Range behind would remain visible when viewed from the city.
\nRetaining the approved general placement of the individual buildings, subsequent changes to the complex plan included: the orthogonal realignment of each of the buildings; the duplication of the multipurpose hall to create separate purpose-built facilities for musical and theatrical performances; the extension of an existing diversion in Stanley Street upstream to Peel Street and under the Victoria Bridge, which was bridged by a wide plaza as a forecourt to the Gallery.
\nRobin Gibson & Partners
\nRobin Gibson (1930-2014) attended Yeronga State School and Brisbane State High before studying architecture at the University of Queensland (UQ). After graduating in 1954, Gibson travelled through Europe and worked in London in the offices of architects, Sir Hugh Casson, Neville Conder, and James Cubitt and Partners. Returning to Brisbane in 1957, he set up an architectural practice commencing with residential projects, soon expanding into larger commercial, public and institutional work. Notable Queensland architects employed by his practice included Geoffrey Pie, Don Winsen, Peter Roy, Allan Kirkwood, Bruce Carlyle and Gabriel Poole.
\nGibson's creative, administrative and diplomatic talents were widely recognised. His buildings were consistently simple, refined, and carefully executed, often comprehensively detailed to include fabrics, finishes and furnishings. Characteristically crisp, logical and smoothly functional, his works employed a limited palette of materials and were carefully integrated into their setting.
\nRobin Gibson & Partners' contribution to Queensland's built environment is significant. Other major architectural projects include: Mayne Hall, University of Queensland (UQ) (1972), Central Library, UQ (1973) Library and Humanities building at Nathan Campus, Griffith University (1975), Post Office Square (1982), Queen Street Mall (1982), Wintergarden building (1984), Colonial Mutual Life (1984) and 111 George Street (1993). Over time, Gibson and his body of work has been highly acclaimed and recognised through numerous awards including: 1968 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Building of the Year award, Kenmore Church; 1982 RAIA Sir Zelman Cowen Award (for public buildings) QAG; 1982 RAIA Canberra Medallion - Belconnen Library, ACT; 1982 Queenslander of the Year; 1983 Order of Australia; 1986 Honorary Doctorate - Griffith University; 1988 Advance Australia Award; 1989 RAIA Gold Medal for outstanding performance and contributions; 2000, and the 2007 25 year RAIA award for Enduring Architecture.
\nConstruction and completion
\nThe design development, documentation and the multifaceted construction program for the entire complex was administered by Roman Pavlyshyn, Director of Building, Department of Public Works. Pavlyshyn had previously overseen the selection of the site and had run the competition for the Queensland Art Gallery. The Cultural Centre was to continue the Department of Public Works' tradition in providing buildings of high quality in design, materials and construction throughout the state.
\nThe funding of the QCC came entirely from the government-owned Golden Casket. The revenue derived from the Golden Casket was effectively ‘freed up' from health funding after Medicare was introduced by the Whitlam government. The then annual income of $4 million was projected to fund the QCC's construction over 10 years. By the early 1980s, inflationary impacts had blown out the cost to $175 million. Under Hielscher's guidance, Treasury looked at other ways to raise revenue. In response, Instant Scratch-Its and mid-week lotto were introduced to Queensland. This successful increase in gambling revenue enabled the QCC to be built at no extra cost to the state's existing budget and without going into debt.
\nThe construction of the Cultural Centre was a complex undertaking and involved a multifaceted program staged over 11 years with a workforce of thousands, from design consultants to onsite labourers. Pavlyshyn guided Stages One, Two and Three to completion and the commencement of Stage Four, before retiring in July 1985. With the number of contractors and suppliers involved, quality control was a critical factor for a successful outcome. For example, the consistent quality of the concrete finish was achieved by securing a guaranteed supply of the principal materials, South Australian white cement, Stradbroke Island sand and Pine River aggregates, for the duration of the project and the strict control of colour and mix for each contract.
\nThe program commenced with the construction of the Art Gallery, the most resolved of the building designs. Stage One also included the underground carpark to the Gallery and Museum and the central services plant facility on the corner of Grey and Peel Streets. Contractors, Graham Evans & Co, commenced construction in March 1977 and the Art Gallery was officially opened by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen on 21 June 1982. When awarding the art gallery the Sir Zelman Cowen Award that year, the RAIA jury declared the art gallery would enrich the fabric of Brisbane for many years to come, praising: the sustained architectural expertise and masterly articulation of space; avoidance of rhetorical gestures and fussy details, noting the building would enrich the fabric of the city for many years to come.
\nA development plan for the largest component of the complex, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), built as Stage Two, was released in 1976. The project architect for the Centre was Allan Kirkwood from Robin Gibson and Partners and contributors to the development and design of the Centre were theatre consultants, Tom Brown and Peter Knowland, the Performing Arts Trust and user committees. Completed in November 1984 by contractors Barclay Bros Pty Ltd, a concert for workers and the first public performance were held in December ahead of the official opening by the Duke and Duchess of Kent on 20 April 1985.
\nThe Centre comprised three venues, each specifically designed for particular performance types. The Lyric Theatre and Concert Hall shared an entrance off Melbourne Street with shared and mimicked foyers, bars, circulation and ancillary facilities. The Studio theatre, now the Cremorne, had a separate entrance and foyer off Stanley Street with its own discreet ancillary facilities.
\nThe Lyric Theatre, (2200 seats) was designed for large-scale dramatic productions including opera, operettas, musicals, ballets and dance performances. It had an orchestra pit, stalls, two balconies and side aisles. The 1800 seat Concert Hall was designed for orchestral concerts, choral performances, chamber music, recitals, popular entertainment and ceremonies. A Klais Grand Organ, featuring 6500 pipes, was built into the stage area. Its ‘shoe box' form, designed to enhance natural acoustics, incorporated an orchestral pit, stalls, single balcony, side galleries and side aisles. The Studio Theatre was built to accommodate up to 300 seats for dramatic performances and could be configured in 6 different ways, from conventional set-ups to theatre-in-the-round. It had stalls and a balcony level with an internal connection to the other two theatres.
\nOpened in 1986, the Queensland Museum, (Stage Three), was connected to the Art Gallery by a covered walkway and to the Performing Arts Complex by a footbridge over Melbourne Street. The entrance on the Melbourne Street side of the building was accessed from street level and the Melbourne Street footbridge. Built over the Stage One carpark, the six-level Museum building had four floors open to the public, with the two top levels dedicated to offices, laboratories , library and artefact storage. The first floor was designed for a variety of uses, including lecture halls, back of house, preparatory area and workshops. Levels 2 to 4 showcased collections in galleries situated on either side of a central circulation core comprising walkways, stairs, lifts and escalators. The outdoor area contained a geological garden on Grey Street side (in 2014 the Energex Playasaurus Place). Stage Four included the State Library and adjacent restaurant and auditorium building (The Edge) completed in 1988.
\nPublic artworks
\nAs part of the construction of the QCC, several pieces of public art were commissioned from Australian artists. Five outdoor sculptures were purchased and installed in 1985, the largest commission of public sculpture at one time in Australia. Four were directly commissioned: Anthony Pryor's Approaching Equilibrium (Steel, painted. River plaza-upper deck); Leonard and Kathleen Shillam's Pelicans (Bronze. QAG Water Mall); Ante Dabro's Sisters (Bronze. Melbourne Street plaza) and Rob Robertson-Swann's Leviathan Play (Steel, painted. Melbourne Street plaza). Clement Meadmore's Offshoot (Aluminium, painted. Gallery plaza) was an existing work.
\nOther public artworks commissioned at the time of construction are located at QPAC: Lawrence Daws' large interior mural, Pacific Nexus and Robert Woodward's Cascade Court Fountain.
\nUse and modifications
\nSince opening, the institutions of the QCC have played a dominant role in fostering and enabling cultural and artistic activities of Queensland - through performances, exhibitions, collections and events. The purpose built world class facilities of the complex, with their careful consideration of both front and back of house requirements, have enabled Queensland to host national and international performances, events and exhibitions, and expand and display collections, in a way that was not possible previously. In addition to the QCC's artistic endeavours, the role of the Queensland Museum in science disciplines has also been an important activity. The QCC (as part of the larger Cultural Precinct) is a major visitor destination in Brisbane; millions of people from Queensland and elsewhere have visited the site.
\nThe successful development of the Cultural Centre was the catalyst for the broader renewal of South Brisbane along the Brisbane River. In 1983 Queensland won the right to hold the 1988 World Exposition (Expo 88). The site for Expo 88 was directly adjacent to the Cultural Centre and underwent a major transformation to host the event. Robin Gibson designed the Queensland Pavilion. Expo 88 was a highly successful for Brisbane and Queensland. After Expo, the site was again comprehensively redeveloped, opening in 1992 as the South Bank Parklands, now a major public space in Brisbane. More widely, the Cultural Centre's direct relationship with the Brisbane River influenced the way the city has come to engage with its dominant natural feature along its edges.
\nWith the exception of The Edge, each of the buildings within the QCC retains its original use. Subsequent modifications to cater for changing requirements have altered the buildings within the complex to varying degrees. The most significant of these changes were the addition of the Playhouse to QPAC and the multimillion dollar Millennium Arts Project, which provided for a refurbishment of the entire complex.
\nQPAC was well utilised from the outset and the need for a mid-sized theatre was soon realised. Plans for Stage Five, a 750-850 seat Playhouse theatre, designed by Gibson, were produced with input from the same committees and advisers as Stage Two. Completed in 1998, the Playhouse, attached at the eastern end of QPAC, incorporated stalls, balcony, mid-stalls and balcony boxes for patron seating. It had a separate entrance off Russell Street and was separated from the rest of the complex by the loading dock. The Playhouse was refurbished between 2011-12.
\nThe key features of the Millenium Arts Project (2002-2009) were: the addition of a new Gallery of Modern Art and public plaza; the major redevelopment of the SLQ including the addition of a fifth floor; a new entrance to the QAG, and refurbishment of the QM and QPAC.
\nAt the north-western end of the complex, the Gallery of Modern Art, completed in 2006 was built to house Queensland's growing art collection and is linked to the rest of the complex by a public plaza.
\nThe major refurbishment of the Library in 2006 included the addition of a fifth storey and substantial alterations to both the interior and exterior. A new entrance and new circulation patterns were established and the stepped terraces were removed, replaced by a large extension toward the river.
New entrances to QAG and QM were designed by Gibson and completed in 2009.
The new art gallery entrance provided alternative access from Peel Street and included the partial enclosure of the courtyard, a new staircase, and a lift. At the Museum, in addition to the new entrance provided on the eastern end of the Museum, a café was added to the western end, the internal circulation was rearranged and a new entrance on the Grey Street elevation was created to provide access to the Sciencentre, relocated from George Street to the ground floor of the museum in 2009.
\nIn 2009 QPAC was refurbished to meet safety standards and to improve access. A setdown area was added along Grey Street to replace the drop off tunnel which was closed in 2001. Changes to circulation included the installation of lifts and the replacement and reorientation of staircases. The lobby book shop was replaced with a bar and other bars and lobbies were refurbished, removing the salmon colour scheme in higher traffic areas. Brown carpet was installed and the red marble bar finishes were replaced with black in the Lyric Theatre foyer and white in the Concert Hall foyer. Many seats were also replaced in the Lyric and Concert Hall. The Cremorne Theatre remains largely unchanged.
\nThe Edge, operated and managed by SLQ, was reopened in 2010 as a new facility containing workshops, spaces for creative activities, events and exhibitions. The dropped restaurant floor was filled and new lifts installed. Wide scale changes were made to interior fit-out and finishes. The auditorium floor was replaced, and new openings were created in the rear and side elevations. The external structure was modified at ground level with changes to access and the loading dock which was made obsolete by changes to SLQ car park entry. The major external change was cosmetic and involved the enclosure of the open verandah with pre-fabricated steel window bays to create riverfront study and meeting spaces.
","criteria":"The Queensland Cultural Centre is of outstanding importance in demonstrating the cultural and social development of Queensland in the late 20th century. Originally built in stages from 1976 to 1988, the aggregation of one complex housing the state's principal cultural institutions was a key milestone in the evolution of Queensland's history. In its form, function and uses, the Cultural Centre demonstrates a major government undertaking in facilitating the development of the arts, on a scale and level of sophistication unparalleled in Queensland's history.
\nThe Cultural Centre is important in demonstrating the evolution of architecture in Queensland. Designed by Robin Gibson OAM (1930-2014), a prominent Australian architect of his time, it is an exceptional example of the late 20th century International Style. In its integration of building and landscape, the Cultural Centre demonstrates the evolution of landscape design in Queensland.
\nThe Cultural Centre is an important Queensland example of a major urban renewal project of the late 20th century. The development and completion of the Cultural Centre dramatically transformed the existing built environment of South Brisbane and was a catalyst for the consolidated regeneration of the entire area, most notably through the revitalisation of the adjacent Expo '88 site, subsequently redeveloped as South Bank.
|The Queensland Cultural Centre is unique as the first and only place purpose-built to house Queensland's principal cultural institutions in one complex.
\nRetaining a high degree of intactness and integrity, the Cultural Centre is an architecturally unique complex in Queensland, illustrated in its distinctive and pervasive design features, scale and size and intrinsic relationship to the Brisbane River.
|The purpose-built Queensland Cultural Centre is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a cultural complex. Easily accessible from the central business district, the Cultural Centre is located on a prominent site adjacent to, and connected with, the river. The Centre combines an art gallery, museum, performing arts complex and associated ancillary facilities on the one site, interconnected by outdoor plazas and boulevards and is notable for its functionality, planning and finishes.
\nA landmark architectural statement, its civic prominence within the capital city illustrates the Cultural Centre's function as the state's principal cultural complex. The monumental scale and form of the Centre reinforces the importance of its cultural, educational and social role as a venue for high profile cultural events in Queensland.
\nThe Cultural Centre is an exceptional, intact example of the work of Robin Gibson and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of his work. Most notably: the integration of building and setting; cohesive, simple low horizontal forms, clean lines and a limited palette of materials (high quality concrete, tinted glass and bronze metal work).
|The Queensland Cultural Centre is of outstanding aesthetic significance to the state for its distinctive, architectural qualities, monumental scale, prominent siting and its many public art installations. These attributes make it a popular tourist destination and inspiration for photographers and artists.
\nIt is a large, cohesive complex of buildings and spaces unified by its cubic forms, structural detailing and fine quality finishes, fixtures and furnishings. The restrained and sustained use of off-white sandblasted concrete throughout the complex, internally and externally, is a conspicuous and unifying element and is of a scale unique in a Queensland context.
\nThe juxtaposition of intimate spaces and large volumes, and its many contemplative and restful interior and exterior spaces, in particular the water mall extending through the Art Gallery, and harmonising of the constrained landscape design to the architectural design, make an important contribution to the Centre's aesthetic value.
\nThe Cultural Centre is a landmark within the capital city, lowset against the backdrop of the Taylor Range that skirts outer Brisbane. The open space - between the river and cultural facilities, the forecourt and plazas, contribute to the landmark quality of the complex, facilitating views to and from the river, the Victoria Bridge, the central business district and the surrounding streets in South Brisbane.
|An outstanding, distinctive and highly awarded display of architectural excellence in the International Style, the Queensland Cultural Centre demonstrates a high degree of creative achievement in the late 20th century. Ambitious in scale and sophisticated in design, the place is a successfully realized architectural vision to create a unified landmark complex for Queensland's principal cultural institutions. Unprecedented in Queensland was the integration of building and landscape, comprising vegetation and water elements, used both internally and externally to counter-balance and soften the rectilinear geometry of the buildings. The Cultural Centre retains a high degree of intactness and integrity.
|The Queensland Cultural Centre has outstanding social value to the Queensland community as the home and physical embodiment of its principal cultural institutions.
\nBuilt for the people of Queensland and visited by millions of people annually, the ongoing use as a Cultural Centre is a fundamental aspect of its significance. The strong connection between the Queensland community and the institutions of the Cultural Centre, both individually and collectively occurs through experiences of the place; its setting, interconnected buildings, internal and external spaces and venues, and the events, exhibitions, performances and activities offered at the complex. An important contributing element is the use of the Cultural Centre as a popular social space and meeting point, and the use of the outdoor spaces for public engagement.
\nAs the state's premier arts complex and as a major site for events, exhibitions, performances, activities and collections, the Cultural Centre has a special association with the arts community in Queensland.
|The Queensland Cultural Centre has a special association with the life and work of architect Robin Gibson OAM (1930-2014), who made an outstanding and influential contribution to the development of Queensland's built environment in the late 20th century. Gibson's achievements have been acknowledged through many awards including: Queenslander of the Year (1982); Sir Zelman Cowen Award (for public buildings) for the Queensland Art Gallery (1982); Royal Australian Institute of Architecture (RAIA) Gold Medal for outstanding performance and contributions (1989), and the 25 year award for Enduring Architecture (2010). Recognised as Gibson's most important project, the Centre embodies the defining modernist architectural principles he developed and employed during his architectural career.
\nThe Queensland Cultural Centre has a special association with the Queensland Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and the State Library of Queensland, institutions which have, and continue to make, important contributions to the cultural development of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19872,"place_ref":602562,"name":"Sandstone Railway Culvert","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"About 130m west of the corner of WM Hughes Street and Musgrave Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"The Sandstone Railway Culvert is located in a deep gully about 130m west of the intersection of WM Hughes Street and Musgrave Street at North Ipswich. It is contained within a large undeveloped parcel of urban land that slopes down to the edge of the Bremer River.
The culvert comprises a long tunnel, about 1.2m wide, beneath an unsealed roadway. It is lined on the floor and to about a third of its height along the sides with rusticated sandstone blocks. The blocks lining the floor are long and considerably narrower than those lining the side. There are two courses of blocks on each side of the culvert. The arched roof of the culvert is lined with bricks.
The portals of the culvert are fashioned from dressed sandstone, cut to form an arch; the brick roof of the culvert is not visible externally. At the eastern end of the culvert, the arched sandstone portal intersects with a wing wall made from rusticated sandstone blocks. Both portals are obscured by vegetation at the foot of the gully.
","history":"The Sandstone Railway Culvert (c1865) at North Ipswich is located near the north eastern corner of the North Ipswich Railway Workshops. It is one of the few surviving original components of Queensland's first section of main line railway constructed between 1864 and 1865.
Queensland's colonial government fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the State and providing social benefits. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers. An added incentive for rail development in Queensland was the very poor state of the roads. In wet weather especially, this hampered the transport of freight.
The Ipswich reach of the Bremer River was chosen as the eastern terminus of the first main line railway instead of Brisbane because of the importance of Ipswich to the Darling Downs pastoralists. The town was located at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley. It was the head of navigation of the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers and the town reach of the river was a major inland port for the pastoralists. Ipswich residents together with many pastoralists had campaigned for the town to become Queensland's capital. Eventually, Brisbane assumed that role but Ipswich remained an important regional centre.
The Chief Engineer responsible for construction of the railway was Abraham Fitzgibbon, later to be engaged as Queensland's first Commissioner for Railways. Charles Fox and Son, an engineering firm based in England, were appointed as consulting engineers and Peto, Brassey and Betts, contractors with worldwide railway construction experience, were engaged to construct the line. Several months prior to its completion, operating staff also began to be recruited.
Construction of the first section of main line between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp (Grandchester) officially commenced on 25 February 1864 with the turning of the first sod at North Ipswich by Lady Roma Bowen. The first part of the route for this section commenced in the vicinity of the present Ipswich railway station, it crossed the Bremer River at the town reach and followed the north bank from the North Ipswich Railway Workshops, across Mihi Creek and Iron Pot Creek, joining the route of the present main line at Wulkuraka. The line to Bigge's Camp was officially opened on 31 July 1865.
The culverts built for the Southern and Western Line were built to standard designs approved by Fitzgibbon in 1863. They were of masonry or timber construction: concrete was not used for culverts in Queensland until the 1880s. The North Ipswich culvert was built to the standard design for 4ft (1.2m) wide brick culverts. This design comprised a floor and sides of cut sandstone with an arched roof made from a double layer of bricks. Another extant culvert at Wulkuraka (QHR 602524) is built to the design for 6ft (1.8m) wide brick culverts. There are no known examples of intact timber culverts on this section of line.
In 1875, the first part of the route, six kilometres of line between North Ipswich and Wulkuraka including the North Ipswich culvert, was bypassed by a shorter line to the south of the Bremer River via Sadlier's Crossing. This was built as part of the main line connection to Brisbane, approved in 1872. The rail link to Brisbane rendered the river trade along the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers redundant and spelt the end of the river port at Ipswich. A portion of the old line between North Ipswich and Wulkuraka was retained to serve the Railway Workshops and a small coal mine.
The North Ipswich culvert is one of only three known culverts that belonged to the first section of main line. The other culverts (QHR 602524) are located near Wulkuraka. They are the earliest known railway culverts in the State.
","criteria":"The culvert is a highly intact example of the standard design for brick culverts on the Southern and Western Railway. The culvert follows the design approved by the Engineer in Chief for construction of the line, Abraham Fitzgibbon, in 1863 and comprises floors and sides of sandstone with an arched roof of bricks.
|As an original component of Queensland's first section of main line railway, the Sandstone Railway Culvert (c1865) at North Ipswich is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history. This section of main line, running between the Bremer River at Ipswich and Bigge's Camp (now Grandchester), marked the beginning of Queensland's rail network and was an important step in the economic and social development of the State.
As an element of the now bypassed section of main line between the original terminus at the Bremer River and Wulkuraka, the culvert provides tangible evidence of the economic and geographic priorities of the colonial government in the 1860s. The government decided to terminate the first main line at the Ipswich reach of the Bremer River because it functioned as an inland port for the pastoralists of West Moreton and the Darling Downs. This decision reflected the influence of the pastoralists in these regions and their requirements for faster, more economic transport to port.
|The North Ipswich culvert is rare as one of the few surviving original components of Queensland's first section of main line railway. The railway culverts at North Ipswich and Wulkuraka (QHR 602524) are the only original culverts belonging to the first section of main line that are known to remain intact; they are the earliest railway culverts known to be extant in the State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":19927,"place_ref":602768,"name":"Toowoomba Trades Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"19A Russell Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-10-29","description":"The Toowoomba Trades Hall is a two storey rectangular masonry building finished with face brick with rendered details, and sited prominently on the north side of Russell Street between Neil and Ruthven Streets.
Its principal (Russell Street) elevation is a symmetrical tripartite composition of dark red face brickwork dressed with contrasting painted cement Classical details. The central main entry is articulated with rendered architraves and flanking rusticated pilasters that extend the full height of the building to meet the parapet. The entry double door leaves have been replaced with modern glazed aluminium framed leaves. Above the main entry, a cantilevered concrete balcony with large decorative console brackets and a wrought iron balustrade doubles as an entry awning. Above the balcony, a glazed arch-headed aperture with rendered architrave extends to the underside of a rendered frieze below the parapet. Its detailed glazing pattern includes multi-paned margins (some panes fitted with coloured leadlights), three sashes and a door leaf (opening off the stair half landing within). The outer sections of the façade beyond the rusticated pilasters mirror each other. At ground level, walls are rendered and include a centrally placed single door and fanlight flanked by double hung sash windows. Above, smaller highlights align with the top of a heavy masonry transom. Physical evidence including decorative suspension rod brackets and cover flashings confirms the location of proposed awnings abutting these transoms. Window and fanlight sashes are original, but the door openings have been fitted with modern aluminium framed glazed leaves. Cantilevered balconies at first floor level are decorated to match the central balcony. Above the balconies, walls are finished in face brick with a rendered frieze decorated with widely spaced rosettes. French doors with fanlights are centrally placed and flanked by double hung sashes. Door leaves and upper sashes are multi paned. The elevation is crowned by a stepped rendered parapet decorated with cornices, consoles, and a central pediment.
Side elevations finished in face brickwork terminate as parapets to conceal the corrugated iron gabled roof and box gutters behind. The right hand (east) wall has original window openings at first floor level.
The rear elevation facing Olcott Lane is also finished with face brickwork and terminates at roof level as a gable end. A projecting face brick rear wing contains the ground level kitchen, and two upper floors housing male and female lavatories. A timber staircase with corrugated iron skillion roof and partially enclosed with corrugated metal sheeting connects landings at doorways to the hall, supper room, lavatories.
The main entrance from Russell Street leads directly into an entrance lobby. The original elevated timber floor has been altered to accommodate ramped access from street level. Flanking original walls are rendered masonry. At the far end, original opposing door openings fitted with original joinery (including three panelled door leaves with original hardware) lead to the adjacent tenancies fronting Russell Street. The right hand (east) wall is also fitted with an original multi-paned high light fixed window. The ceiling is lined with decoratively arranged fibre cement sheets and cover battens. The original staircase joinery survives intact. The lower flight rises from the far right to a half landing over the front door, and a second flight rises beyond (parallel to Russell Street) to the floor above. A small ticket office to the right is built into the stair under-croft. The adjacent tenancies contain original plain quad skirtings, rendered masonry walls, and fibre cement and batten ceilings. The ceiling panel pattern in the right hand tenancy provides evidence of an original partition wall, since removed. Later doorways have been cut through to spaces behind.
Beyond the entrance lobby, the original fit out has been substantially altered, and evidence of the original configurations of walls and partitions are preserved in the intact fibre cement sheet and battened ceiling linings and remnants of original timber framed fibre cement panelled walls. A central corridor is flanked by plasterboard walls with Silky Oak doors and fixed glazing, all dating from the early 1990s and located in the original wall alignment (underneath and between boxed in steel beams and columns). Office spaces either side of the corridor are separated by similar early 1990s partitions, but do not follow the set out of original meeting rooms evident in the ceiling.
The supper room at the rear of the building has also been reconfigured to provide extra office space to the right. The original staircase abutting the rear wall provides access to original high level double doors leading directly to the rear landing, stairs, lavatories and hall above. The masonry wall that originally separated the kitchen at the rear of the building has been substantially removed. The kitchen fit out dates from the 1990s. The former ground floor landing at the rear of the building has been enclosed and fitted out as an equitable access lavatory which opens to a small lobby below the stairs. There is clear evidence of an original doorway that lead from the kitchen to the former rear landing. The supper room contains large timber tables that predate the building.
The upper floor hall has been subdivided with timber framed plasterboard lined partitions to provide a smaller hall, a lounge adjacent to Russell Street, and a series of offices. The floor is clad with original narrow hardwood tongue and groove boards, exposed in the reduced hall area. Outer masonry walls are rendered. The ceiling has been recently lined with plasterboard. Original roof structure knee braces extending below the existing ceiling have been boxed in. Window and door openings and joinery at the front and rear of the building are original. Original window openings along the right hand side stripped of original joinery and in filled with rendered masonry and glass block work. The reduced hall area has been recently been fitted with an imitation VJ wainscot panelling. At the rear of the hall, the floor provides archaeology of earlier larger stage configurations. The existing stage is also a bulkhead providing headroom over the supper room staircase below. To the left of the stage is a semi-enclosed space fitted out as a kitchen c1990. The hall contains a number of timber tables that predate the building, and an early notice board containing Unions and Secretaries¿ Addresses. At the western end of the front lounge, a wall-mounted timber Honour Board lists past and present presidents, secretaries and trustees of the Toowoomba Trades Hall Board.
","history":"The Toowoomba Trades Hall in Russell Street was built in 1934 by Kell and Rigby to the design of architect MC Williamson, for the Toowoomba Trades Hall Board, a group associated with the Toowoomba Trades and Labour Council.
As collectives agitating for improved working conditions, trade unions have been present in Queensland's economic landscape since its early beginnings as a colony. By the mid 1860s, small groups of skilled workers such as bricklayers, carpenters and stonemasons had organized into unions in Brisbane. When Queensland's economy and immigrant population expanded during the 1880s, trade unionism and labour activism became more widespread, encompassing a broader cross-section of workers, including those employed in pastoral and extractive industries throughout the colony. Over time, union activity and membership has experienced marked periods of growth and decline, affected by prevailing economic, social and political factors.
Like other Queensland cities with significant industrial components to their economy, Toowoomba became a regional centre for union activity. From the 1860s notable events connected to the labour movement were occurring in Toowoomba. In November 1865 about 200 navvies on the Main Range railway working ten hour days for 7s 6d went on strike and marched into Toowoomba, to agitate for eight shillings for an eight hour day. Early in 1866 Toowoomba's carpenters celebrated the commencement of the 'eight hour system' for their trade. Although short-lived, it was at a meeting of 200 shearers in Toowoomba in March 1875 that the Queensland Shearers Union was formed, 12 years before another shearer's union was established. During the shearers strike of 1891, ten prisoners convicted of rioting at Lorne Station (some local), were railed to Toowoomba for trial, enroute to Brisbane. A large group of union supporters assembled inside and outside the Court House, cheering on the prisoners. Troops were assembled and the local magistrate read the Riot Act, before the situation was defused by allowing large numbers of unionists to attend the trial.
In the early 20th century, smaller scale manufacturing connected to pastoral, extractive, primary processing and public utilities were the dominant industrial activities on the Darling Downs, employing a workforce of some 6000 people. As its major urban settlement, Toowoomba had the largest industrial base of the Darling Downs, with a range of enterprises including engineering, coach and wagon works, joineries and furniture makers, tanneries, maltings and breweries. In the 1920s Toowoomba's biggest employers were the larger scale industrial operations of the Toowoomba Foundry, the Defiance Flour Mill, and the Darling Downs Co-operative Dairy and Bacon Factories. Queensland Railways were also a significant employer, as it was the hub of the South-western rail network.
Queensland's first Trades and Labour Council was established in Brisbane in 1885, superseded by the Brisbane District Council of the Australasian Labour Federation (ALF) in 1889. Until its demise in 1914, the ALF operated during a period in which some of Australia's most tumultuous workers' conflicts had occurred, including the maritime workers' and shearers' strikes of the 1890s. The 1910s saw the emergence of the rurally-oriented Australian Workers Union (AWU), which became Queensland's most dominant union organization and rival to other large union bodies. By 1922 a range of these such as the Brisbane Industrial Council, Trades Hall Board and Eight Hours Union had negotiated to form the Queensland Trades and Labour Council (QTLC). Within its structure affiliated provincial councils existed throughout Queensland.
From the mid-1910s, the union movement in Queensland entered into a pronounced period of expansion. In 1915 the TJ Ryan Labor government came to power, heralding the beginning of a long period of political dominance by this party, interrupted for only three years (1929-32) until 1957. The introduction of the Industrial Arbitration Act in 1916, created a system of arbitration and compulsory conciliation. The improved outcomes for workers that resulted from this system and preference for unionists informed a rapid increase in union membership from 35.3% in 1915 to 53.8% in 1918. By 1928 two thirds of Queensland workers held a union ticket. During the tenure of the Country and Progressive National Party government led by AE Moore (1929-32), union preference was eliminated, basic wages were reduced and some award protections were dismantled; and union membership fell from 68% to 45.4%. After Labor resumed power in 1932 and reintroduced earlier benefits, membership quickly recovered to 62.6% of the workforce in 1936, before peaking in 1948 at 81.1%. By 1935 Queensland also boasted more women unionists (57.1%) compared to the overall Australian average (35%). Between the 1920s and 1960s union membership in Queensland generally remained higher than the rest of Australia.
A meeting of delegates from various labour organizations met in Toowoomba in April 1911, forming an Eight Hour Anniversary Union to organize the city's first annual Eight Hour Day celebrations in May. Butchers, shearers, council workers, builder's labourers, plumbers and tinsmiths, shop assistants, saddle and harness makers, and coal miners were among those who participated in the procession, which was followed by sports events and a 'social' later in the evening. By early November it was reported that a Toowoomba Trades and Labour Council (TLC) had been established, deciding as one of their early actions to agitate for a universal Saturday half-holiday.
As the peak organization of union bodies in Toowoomba, the Trades and Labour Council (TLC) played a central role as the major advocate for the labour movement and workers rights on the Darling Downs. In this respect, it was similar to other provincial Trades and Labour Councils that existed throughout Queensland. Organizations affiliated with the Trades and Labour Councils varied in size and power and encompassed moderate to militant groups. The organization of Labour Day events in Toowoomba was an important annual activity with a range of events such as marches, football matches and dances being co-ordinated by the Council.
One of the key outcomes of the formation of Trades and Labour Councils and other larger union bodies was the establishment of trades halls, where unions and others involved in the labour movement could centrally gather for organizational activities, and to host educational and social events.
Queensland's first trades hall was established in Brisbane in 1891. While some were established in existing buildings, as occurred at Rockhampton (1914) and Townsville, others were purpose-built including those at Ipswich (1929), Brisbane (1891;1923) and Toowoomba (1934). By the 1930s fourteen regional Trades and Labour Council buildings existed in the state. Trades halls generally accommodated a large hall space and a collection of smaller rooms used for meetings and offices.
In Toowoomba, land was purchased in Bowen Street in 1916 with the intention of erecting a trades hall, but financial difficulties prevented this from occurring and the property was sold. In 1919 the Toowoomba Trades Hall Board purchased the Congregational Church in Margaret Street. A foundation stone was laid in February 1920 by Toowoomba MLA FT Brennan (Labor member) to mark the church's new use as Toowoomba's Trades Hall. By 1929 the building was deemed unsuitable for Trades Hall purposes and the property was sold. In the same year, the Trustees of the Board acquired property (subdivision 35 and resubdivision 1 of subdivision 36 of suburban allotment 11, section 6) at the east end of Russell St for £1600. Title records show that this property was previously leased by a succession of publicans who operated the Western Hotel on the nearby corner of Russell and Ruthven St, though what buildings, if any, existed, or what purpose the site served is unclear.
When the Russell St property was purchased in 1929, the intention of the Trades Hall Board was to erect a two-storey building with shop space on the street. It was not until early 1933 when the financial position of the Trades Hall Board improved, that efforts to construct the new hall moved forward. The board initially engaged architect Arthur Bligh to prepare a design for the building, but following its rejection by the Toowoomba Council during 1933, it were not proceeded with. In October 1933, the Trades Hall Board appointed Matthew C Williamson as architect. Born in 1901 in Toowoomba, Williamson was an articled pupil with FR Hall in Brisbane (1923-29) before being employed as his assistant in 1929-30. Williamson worked for himself in Toowoomba from 1931, and was responsible for numerous projects in the city during the 1930s, as well as buildings in Dalby (including its Fire Station), Miles, Crows Nest and Oakey.
The following month plans prepared by Williamson in consultation with the Board were adopted and the architect was instructed to call tenders. Contractor's conditions included preference to local men supplied through the Bureau of Industry who were financial union members; awards and conditions be strictly observed by the contractor and, where practicable, local material be used. Following approval for a loan of £2100, Kell and Rigby's tender of £3948 for the new hall was accepted in February 1934. A Sydney firm, Kell and Rigby established offices in Brisbane and Toowoomba in the early 1930s. Notable work undertaken included Toowoomba's Empire Theatre (1933) [QHR 600978], and the Masel residence at Stanthorpe (1937-38) [QHR 601552].
Shortly after the tender was accepted, the particulars of the new trades hall were outlined in the Toowoomba Chronicle. The hall was to be a two storey brick building with the front elevation dressed with cement. On either side of the central main entrance two 'rusticated piers' extending the height of the building supported a pediment. On either side of these, were spaces for tenants with provision for future shop fronts. The remainder of the ground floor contained committee rooms, supper room, kitchenette and a store room. Inside the main entrance a staircase led upstairs to the large hall space containing a specially treated dance floor of tallow wood with a platform, cloak rooms, ticket box and fire escape stairs. To improve ventilation, balconettes opened out from the hall on the building front of Russell Street. The report also outlined that the secretary of the board had devised a scheme where a voluntary levy on employed unionists of 1 pence per week would help to offset the cost of the hall.
A ceremony to mark the laying of the foundation stone of the hall occurred on March 23 (the date of 21 March inscribed on the stone is incorrect). Local Labor MLA EJ Llewelyn performed the honours, remarking that the building would be, '...a decided acquisition to the city... a memorial of working class ideals-of union activities... [and] would demonstrate that the workers of the city recognised their obligation to one another, and that they would stand shoulder to shoulder, one for all and all for one.' In conjunction with the opening, a fete was held to raise funds for the hall. By this time the building was estimated to cost £4200 with half this amount 'in hand' and the remainder sourced from the loan. Each Board member paid four shillings to have their name included on the stone, prepared by Toowoomba stonemasons Zeigler and Sons.
The Toowoomba Trades Hall was officially opened by Mr J Watson, president of the Trades Hall Board on Saturday 14 July 1934. A number of Labor parliamentarians and union delegates spoke at the ceremony highlighting the development and achievements of the labour and trade union movement in Toowoomba and beyond. For WJ Copley, Member for Bulimba, the completion of the hall 'marked another epoch in the Labour movement in Queensland', contending there was not a better trades hall outside of Australia's capital cities. As part of the opening celebrations a 'smoke concert' was held in the hall during the evening. A grand opening ball occurred in the hall the following week (17 July), the first of many dances held throughout 1934/35, as a way of raising funds to pay off the hall debts.
The Trades Hall Board formed a Rents Committee to manage the use of the hall, supper room and meeting rooms. The Toowoomba branch of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners may have been the first union to gather in the new hall, holding their regular meeting the night before the official opening. In 1934 the Board allowed unemployed workers to use rooms free of charge, on the condition 'that no Communist agitation be carried on' and that any Board member could attend a meeting. The 1930s rental ledger of the trades hall records a diverse range of unions and Labor party organizations regularly using the rooms and hall for meetings and functions. In 1950 the State Labour in Politics Convention was held in the hall.
In facilitating the gathering of various union bodies at small and large meetings, the trades hall was an important place to discuss, debate, form positions and decide on actions related to workplace issues and industrial disputes of local, state and national importance.
Tenants listed at the address of the trades hall in 1939 included the Toowoomba Ruling Company (printers), boot repairer J Manson and two taxi hire companies. During 1942 the trades hall was among a number of Toowoomba buildings that were occupied for military purposes, with tenants and other users required to relocate elsewhere following its occupation as the Headquarters Office for the No. 3 Advance Ordinance Depot of the Australian Military Forces. At this time, the Toowoomba Ruling Company occupied two rooms, the Trades and Labour Council, Toowoomba and East Toowoomba ALP branches and nine individual unions were regularly using spaces in the building, and other unions were renting on a casual basis.
In addition to its primary function of providing a central gathering place for union-related activity, the building was an important social space for numerous Toowoomba civic groups that rented rooms and the hall. From ballerinas to boxers, the Buffalo Lodge to municipal bands, a diverse range of organizations made use of the building, although local 'rock and rollers' were no longer allowed to hold dances following damage to the hall in 1959.
Since its opening in 1934, the Trades Hall Board has been responsible for the management and maintenance of the building. Over its history the board has been served by dedicated (and often longstanding) members who are commemorated by an honour board and photos in the lounge area upstairs. The board has included union delegates who went on to play larger roles in the civic affairs of Toowoomba and Queensland, most notably JE (Jack) Duggan, Secretary of the Trades Hall Board and President of TLC who was a longstanding local Labor member for Toowoomba, Minister for Transport (1947-57) and Leader of the Opposition (1958-1966). In December 1958 Duggan (then State Opposition Leader) unveiled a plaque right of the main entrance of the trades hall, to honour EH (Ted) Burrows' service to the trade union movement. Ted Burrows was a member of the Trades Hall Board for 25 years and secretary for 14 years. At the same ceremony a photo of LA (Leslie) Wood was hung in the hall. He was the former ALP Member for Toowoomba, Leader of the Opposition prior to Duggan, and had died suddenly in March 1958.
Over time, some alterations have occurred to the building. In 1954 the Board sought an overdraft for the purpose of installing a new floor in the dance hall. Further extensive work on the hall was undertaken during 1959/60, with much of it being undertaken on a voluntary basis by workers from the Carpenters Union and board members.
The Trades Hall commemorated 50 years of use in 1984 with celebrations held in December of that year. Past and present board members and delegates attended including Jack Duggan, who by this time was the only surviving original board member.
To meet the requirements of tenants, the Toowoomba Community Legal Service, and to expand the availability of office space, some internal spaces of the trades hall were reorganized and altered in 1994. On the ground floor, some office spaces were extended and linked to adjoining rooms by partitions and doorways. The fronts of the offices flanking the corridor were replaced, with an earlier arrangement of silky oak panelling topped by glass windows reversed, and a door way into the supper room was removed. On the first floor, the western side of the hall was filled with a line of offices and a kitchen recess, an earlier stage was replaced and an office space was incorporated into the east side of the hall. The ceiling was also repanelled during these alterations. Despite these changes, the earlier internal configuration of the building remains discernible and an understanding of how the trades hall has functioned over its history is readily apparent.
In 2010 the Trades Hall continues to function as a meeting place for Toowoomba's unionists. The building is believed to be the oldest surviving purpose-built trades hall in Queensland in continuous use. Earlier examples from the first half of the 20th century that existed elsewhere in the state have been demolished (including those in Brisbane, Ipswich, and Rockhampton) or are used for other purposes (Townsville).
","criteria":"The Toowoomba Trades Hall is of aesthetic significance for the valuable and prominent contribution it makes - through scale, form, materials and design - to the distinctive visual character of the city's central business district. The building is an assertive expression of trade unionism's consolidation and presence in Toowoomba, reinforced by its use of classical detailing on its facade to project the concepts of permanence and stability. The use of classical architectural elements in the façades of institutional buildings, town halls, banks and commercial buildings was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and has made a noticeable contribution to Queensland's built environment.
|The Toowoomba Trades Hall is important as Queensland's oldest surviving purpose-built trades hall, having sustained its original use since opening. Trades halls were established or built in large urban settlements throughout Queensland during the twentieth century. Since this time many earlier trades halls have been demolished or are no longer used for this purpose.
|The Toowoomba Trades Hall is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built trades hall. Highly intact externally, the building's scale and classical detailing successfully lend it civic prominence. Internally the provision of offices, meeting rooms, hall and associated spaces illustrates its primary function as a central gathering place associated with union-related activity. While some spaces have been altered over time to sustain the building's ongoing use, important evidence of earlier internal configurations remain.
|The Toowoomba Trades Hall is important in demonstrating the development of trade unionism, a movement that has made an influential contribution to the development of Queensland. The building demonstrates the growth of the labour movement and organization of workers in Toowoomba during the 20th century and illustrates the city's longstanding historical role as the industrial centre of the Darling Downs. The building has been a central gathering place for unions and the labour movement since its opening in 1934.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20026,"place_ref":602773,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Channon Street and Nash Streets","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-04-15","description":"The former Queensland National Bank, a single storey rendered masonry building, stands to the corner of Channon and Nash Streets, Gympie.
Sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting the building, at street level to the north corner, is supported on concrete stumps and stone retaining walls accommodating the slope of the site south and southwest down to Mary Street. Three rendered masonry chimneystacks rise from rooms on the eastern side. Decorative paired timber roof brackets interspersed with rectangular moulded concrete indents run around the building under the main roof. A reconstructed timber floored verandah runs around the northeast and northwest sides, sheltered by a concave roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
The main elevation faces northwest onto Channon Street and is asymmetrical about the main entrance which is marked by the projecting gable roof entrance within the concave verandah roof. The elevation is punctuated by large full pane sash windows one to the east and three to the west of the entrance, a two leaf timber door with an arched fixed light fanlight over. Plain painted concrete sills with stark moulded brackets project beneath the windows.
The northeast elevation to Nash Street is punctuated by a run of openings - a set of French windows and entrance to the former residence to the south end and a line of four large sash windows to the north matching those of the main elevation. The blank southwest elevation is partly obscured by the recent small hipped roof, weatherboard clad extension accommodating an entry porch and toilets. The southeast elevation accommodates two large sash windows with concrete sills and is supported on a random course stone wall base.
L-shaped in plan, the building accommodates the former bank in the northwest wing and the former manager's residence in the southeast wing. The bank wing is rectangular in plan and accommodates the banking chamber, accountant/clerks' office, strong room, manager's office and stationery room. Entered from the main entrance on Channon Street, the banking chamber is distinguished by a decorative pressed metal ceiling and cornice. Two flattened archways with prominent decorative keystones to the southwest mark the extent of the 1876 chamber beyond which is the accountant and clerks area also defined by a pressed metal ceiling and cornice matching that in the main banking chamber. A strong room stands to the southern corner of this space. The heavy metal door to the strong room has a maker's mark - John N Tann's Reliance Door - stamped on the front.
The former manager's office stands to the northern corner of the building and opens into the banking chamber to the southwest and the stationery room to the southeast which in turn opens to the former residence behind. The manager's office is notable for a fine decorative pressed metal ceiling and accommodates a fireplace with a decorative timber surround.
Square in plan, the core of the residence survives to the southeast of the bank. Four rooms are organised off a central hall which narrows halfway along. The main entrance to Nash Street is a four-panel timber door with sidelights and fanlights. Both front rooms have fireplaces with carved timber surrounds. Ceilings throughout the residence are plastered and plain with no cornices. The remnant of a gas light fitting remains in the room to the northwest of the entrance hall.
Recent reconstruction and renovation work includes new door and window joinery and light fittings, however, original skirtings, architraves, fanlights, and door and window joinery and hardware survive. A pine floor runs throughout, polished in some areas and covered with carpet in others.
A bitumened carpark stands to the southwest and southeast of the building.
The shed to the south-east on Lot 1 is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"This single-storey masonry former Queensland National Bank (QNB) and residence is located on the corner of Channon and Nash Streets, Gympie. It was designed by architect John Richard Hall in 1875 and opened in February 1877. Extensions designed by architect Claude Chambers were made in 1898. The bank served its original function until 1937.
Gympie (initially known as Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield turned Queensland into a significant gold producer and contributed much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced. With the change to deep reef mining from 1875, came the need for extensive capital investment through the formation of companies using foreign as well as local capital. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees.
As Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, it developed a distinctive character with an irregular street pattern amid a series of valleys and ridges. Consequently many roads run along ridgelines (such as Channon Street) with linking roads across valleys and hillsides (as does Nash Street). Gradually the early makeshift structures of 1860s Gympie gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings, including government buildings on Channon Street from the mid 1870s. A series of fires in Mary Street in 1877, 1881, 1891, 1929 and 1946 razed many of Gympie's early buildings, but left the QNB building untouched. Other extant early buildings are the former Gympie Court House and Lands Office (1876) and the first Masonic Hall in Duke Street (1869).
The Queensland National Bank was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous 19th century banks. As the colony's most powerful banking institution, the QNB dominated the Queensland economy. It was established in March 1872 by an influential group of prominent Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or inter-colonial control. It commenced trading on 3 June 1872 at its first office in Brisbane. The bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage and branches opened in quick succession. By early in 1874 the bank had 10 branches. In 1878 the Queensland National Bank opened a branch in London, while one in Sydney opened two years later. In September 1879 Thomas McIlwraith (Queensland Premier 1877-83, 1888, 1893), a director of the QNB, persuaded Parliament to confer on it the whole of the Queensland Government's banking business. By 1880 the bank held 40% of the total deposits and advances in Queensland, a higher proportion than any other bank in any Australian colony. Despite financial scandals and a brief suspension of operation during the 1890s the bank exclusively held the government's account for 42 years, until 1921.
A branch of the Queensland National Bank opened in Gympie on 11 December 1872, within six months of the bank commencing operation. In its first 21 days of trading the Gympie branch purchased 6,095 ounces of gold and in the first seven years of trading it handled 142,000 ounces of gold. By 1890 the QNB had 14 branches on the Queensland mining fields. Charters Towers and Gympie were the premier mining branches transacting more than half of the bank's mining business. Their aggregate deposits and advances exceeded £0.5 million making them highly profitable branches.
Mainly due to Queensland's three major gold mining centres - Gympie, Charters Towers and Mt Morgan - gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland's export income during the 1880s and 1890s. The value of gold output rose from £698,000 in 1883 to £2.75m in 1889, exceeding the value of exported wool. These enormous amounts of gold were purchased by banks such as the Queensland National Bank, which played a vital role in this process of wealth creation and distribution.
The architect for the Gympie branch of the Queensland National Bank and many of its other branches throughout the colony from 1872 was John Richard Hall (1835-83). Born and trained as an architect in England he migrated to the colonies by 1857. On 23 December 1859 Hall was appointed a foreman of works in the Queensland Colonial Architect's Office, but in the following May was made redundant. By 1864 Hall had begun private practice as an architect in Brisbane but little of his earliest work can be identified. From 1866 to 1872 he was Assessor for Brisbane's North Ward and in 1866 he was runner-up in a design competition for an engine house for the Citizens' Volunteer Fire Brigade. In 1868 he was appointed as a licensed surveyor in Queensland and took over superintending the outstanding work of Benjamin Backhouse, especially the completion of the Brisbane Grammar School (demolished 1911). As a private architect, Hall designed fine buildings throughout Queensland, including buildings for the Queensland National Bank; Maryborough Boys Grammar School (1881) [QHR 600697]; residences including 'Greylands' [QHR 600230], 'Langlands' and 'Pahroombin'; commercial projects; churches; and hotels.
Hall designed the QNB's Gympie bank building in 1875 and construction took place in the following year, on the site of the bank's previous timber building, which was moved to the rear of the new building and used as part of the residence.
The task of supervising the building of the Gympie branch of the QNB and residence was undertaken by local Gympie architect Hugo Durietz. The new building was mainly of brick with stone foundations and the old timber premises were attached at the rear as part of the manager's residence. Andrew Collins was appointed as the builder after his tender of £1,500 was accepted. The total cost of the building, opened in February 1877, was £2,495/13/9.
In 1898 alterations to the Queensland National Bank building in Gympie were made by architect Claude William Chambers. These widened the bank on the western side of the Channon Street elevation to accommodate the accountant, clerks and a strong room. A site plan shows the extended bank building and the location of its outbuildings on the large block of land in relation to the building. The stables and buggy shed with feed room were located along Nash Street 65 feet (19.81 m) from the nearest point of the building. A WC was located 42 feet (12.8 m) from the nearest point of the building to the south-east of the residence and a second lavatory was located 19 feet (5.79 m) to the south-west of the bank building along Channon Street.
Architect C W Chambers (1861-1947) was born and educated in Melbourne and worked in both Melbourne and Sydney before coming to Brisbane in November 1885 to work for FDG Stanley. He assisted with the plans for St Paul's Presbyterian Church, Robert Harper and Co.'s mills and D L Brown and Co.'s new warehouse in Brisbane; was honorary architect to the Brisbane gymnasium and in 1885 was instrumental in founding the Queensland Institute of Architects. In March 1889 Chambers joined the Sydney architects A L & G McCredie as their Brisbane partner, forming McCredie Bros and Chambers. He supervised the firm's new AUSN offices (Naldham House) [QHR 600133] and in December 1889 produced the firm's winning entry in a design competition for Brisbane's Trades and Labour Hall. After the partnership ended on 1 February 1893, Chambers practised in his own right as an architect and consulting engineer in Brisbane and supervised the Burns, Philp and Co. Offices in Townsville for the McCredie Brothers architects.
His practice was one of Brisbane's largest in the early 20th century. His major works include 'Drysllwyn' (later 'Raymont Lodge') [QHR 600051] home of Gympie magnate, William Davies; 'Ross Roy', Indooroopilly; additions to the Commercial Travellers Association Club, Elizabeth Street (1898) [QHR 600110]; 'The Big Block' for Finney Isles, Queen Street (1908-10) and Perry House, corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets, (1910-13) [QHR 600103]. After entering partnership with Lange Powell in 1911 as Chambers and Powell, he moved to Sydney in 1915. From 1920 to 1935 Chambers formed another Brisbane partnership with E M Ford as Chambers and Ford and practised in Sydney from 1931 to 1934 with a pioneer woman architect from Queensland, Beatrice May Hutton (1893-1990).
After the turn of the century the town's key function changed from gold mining to service town for the surrounding dairy and fruit-growing district. Accordingly, the QNB turned to commerce and agriculture to provide the Gympie branch's business. Over time the commercial centre of the town moved eastward down Mary Street in response to commercial activity centering upon the railway station. As a result the QNB Board sanctioned the purchase of premises at the corner of Mary and Monkland Streets in 1937 for its operations and approved the sale of the Channon Street bank premises. In the following year it was sold. The building was used by industrial service businesses until its purchase by the Widgee Shire Council in 1990.
Restoration of the former Queensland National Bank building by the Widgee Shire Council took place in 2000 after the shire council received funding under the Federation Community Projects Program for restoration of the building. The project was described as 'architecturally sensitive restoration works on a culturally significant building'. The work included reinstatement of the front and side verandahs that had been removed decades previously; repairs to the rear verandah, flooring, stumps, joists, windows, plaster and roof; repair and upgrading of electrical and plumbing installations and toilet facilities; polishing selected floors and laying floor coverings; and painting the building internally and externally.
The former Queensland National Bank building served as Cooloola Shire Council chambers for a number of years, but in 2011 is used as office space by the Gympie Regional Council.
","criteria":"The former Queensland National Bank (QNB) building (1877)-and the important gold-era precinct of which it is a part-is physical evidence of the vital role of financial institutions in the process of wealth creation and distribution on Queensland goldfields as it converted enormous amounts of gold into cash. Gympie's gold was a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland for approximately 60 years from 1867.
The former QNB building is set apart from other bank buildings also in the Queensland Heritage Register [e.g. QHR 602774, Royal Bank of Queensland (former)] in being one of the permanent commercial buildings that resulted from the success of shallow reef mining, an early phase of gold mining in the town of Gympie, and the expectation of further gold discovery through deep reef mining. For 60 years the building served as a Queensland National Bank branch and manager's residence. It is one of only a few known 1870s commercial buildings remaining in Gympie.
The siting of the QNB building on Commissioners Hill and its later sale when the centre of the town moved eastwards after gold production ceased also illustrate the evolution of Gympie's development.
|The former QNB building, operating as a QNB branch from February 1877 until 1937, has a special association with the Queensland National Bank. As one of its earliest and most profitable branches, the Gympie branch of the QNB was important in the QNB's growth in Queensland. By 1880 the QNB held 40% of the total deposits and advances in Queensland, a higher proportion than any other bank in any Australian colony. The bank also exclusively held the Queensland government's account for 42 years (1879-1921). As the colony's most powerful banking institution, the QNB dominated Queensland's economy during the last quarter of the 19th century.
|Sited on one of Gympie's high points in the vicinity of important government buildings such as the former Lands Office and Courthouse, the former QNB building is symbolic of the importance and permanence of the bank in one of the most economically important towns in Queensland. Along with a number of other bank buildings, including the former Bank of New South Wales [QHR 602775], the QNB building contributes to an important and substantially intact gold-era precinct in upper Mary Street area of Gympie.
The building has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities expressed in the craftsmanship and detailing of the joinery and finishes, and for its streetscape value through its form, scale and design which complement other surviving 19th century buildings in its vicinity.
|The former QNB building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, being a good example of a masonry structure combining a banking chamber, office and manager's residence. Its siting with other important institutions like the Lands Office and Courthouse on Commissioner's Hill, high above the gold diggings, illustrates the prominence of banks in the gold mining town of Gympie.
The former QNB building is the oldest extant bank building in Gympie and the only one dating from the 1870s.
Its intactness is demonstrated in its planning, room volumes, joinery, strongroom and pressed metal ceilings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20029,"place_ref":602778,"name":"Gympie Court House and Lands Office (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"26 Channon Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-07-15","description":"The site accommodates a number of buildings and structures. This description is concerned with the former court house (and extensions), strongroom and air raid shelter. A modern brick toilet block located behind the court house is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nFormer court house (and extensions)
\nA single storey, rectangular, rendered brick building in a classical idiom; the former court house stands prominently to Channon Street, Gympie.
\nOn a site sloping down to the south-west, the building is sheltered by a gable roof clad with trimdeck metal sheeting and stands level with the street at the portico/verandah entrance and is elevated above street level at the southern entrance which is approached by concrete steps. Four rendered masonry chimneys project through the roof.
\nDefined vertically by plain pilasters, the elevations are unified by employing semi-circular arched openings, decorative moulded sill strips and projecting window head cornices.
\nThe asymmetrical front elevation to Channon Street reflects the 1893 extension to the southwest. The former court house comprises a central pedimented portico flanked by open verandah bays which terminate in the end wings. The bays of the verandah are defined by engaged columns and have horizontal metal tube rails. The wings are each distinguished by a central arched window housing a pair of casement windows and fanlight. The extension to the south-west accommodates an entrance distinguished by a decorative moulded blank fanlight above a double timber door with a flat arch glazed fanlight. The adjacent bay is punctuated by two arched openings housing pairs of casement windows and glazed fanlights.
\nThe north-east elevation comprises an enclosed entrance porch flanked by the northern and eastern corner room wings with the whole crowned by a blank pediment. A modern steel awning (not of cultural heritage significance) extends from the entrance porch. The north-west elevation is dominated by the skillion roofed, brick kitchen extension notable for its banks of hopper windows to three sides. The balance of the elevation comprises the north wing, west wing and the extension to the south-west, punctuated by arched openings housing paired casement windows and fanlights sheltered by timber framed hoods. The blank south-west elevation accommodates two arched openings with paired casement windows and fanlights.
\nThe former court house area of the building is organised around a central rectangular room with square rooms offset to each corner. A verandah runs along the south-east and a later kitchen extension is to the north-west. The original western and southern corner rooms open into the central room, the northern and eastern corner rooms open to the verandah and enclosed porch which in turn opens into the central room. The central room, lit by clerestorey semi-circular lights to the south-east and rectangular hopper windows to the northwest, is notable for its coved ceiling and a vaulted timber lined alcove to the southwest end. Three arched openings to the verandah accommodate two sets of French windows and a set of paired casements, all with fanlights. Each of the corner rooms accommodates a carved timber fireplace. Throughout the building interior walls are plastered; ceilings are lined with tongue and groove timber boards; and floors are polished timber or carpeted. Original joinery (including fine panelled doors and fanlights, skirtings and architraves) is cedar and floors are of pine. Recent joinery around the building is of Malaysian cedar and floors of blackbean.
\nThe southwest extension works off a vestibule which provides access to a large rectangular room to the southwest, the original western and southern corner rooms of the court house and terminates at a square room to the rear of the lands office extension. Evidence remains of the earlier south-west court house entrance porch configuration including the infilled arched doorway into the courtroom.
\nThe kitchen, a light and airy rectangular room lit by banks of hopper windows, projects between the original northern and western corner rooms. The roof is framed with steel web trusses, the ceiling lined with fibre cement sheeting and the kitchen fit-out is modern.
\nStrongroom
\nThe strongroom is a freestanding painted brick building to the north-west of the former court house. Measuring 12 feet (3.72 m) x 10 feet (3.1 m) internally with 18 inch (457.2 mm) thick walls, the building stands on a concrete slab and is sheltered by a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A heavy metal entrance door opens into a depressed arch vaulted ceiling space and lit by a narrow rectangular louvered window to the northwest.
\nAir raid shelter
\nButting against the north-east side of the strongroom, the rectangular pill box air raid shelter has off-form concrete blast walls, a concrete slab floor and flat roof. It has entrances at the north-east and south-west ends, each with an open porch sheltered by the cantilevered roof. Only the north-east end retains its interior concrete blast wall, which forms an entrance corridor into the main space of the shelter. The floor and ceiling are coved and there are three openings to the north-west and south-east sides housing pairs of eight-light casement windows. Original toilet cubicles remain at each end of the building. The exterior and parts of the interior are painted. A metal framed communications mast sits on the roof of the shelter, but this is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The second Gympie Court House was built during 1875 and 1876 in Channon Street. The classical revival style brick and stone building was designed by the Colonial Architect's Office, and was extended in 1893 to include the Gympie Lands Office. It was the first substantial public building constructed in the town which developed at the site of Queensland's first major productive goldfield. The only known surviving earlier Queensland court houses (purpose-built) are in Ipswich (stone and brick, 1859, QHR 600575) and Toowoomba (its first, brick, 1863, QHR 601315). Other known surviving 1870s court houses in Queensland include those in: Maryborough (brick, 1877, QHR 600714), Port Douglas (timber, 1879, QHR 600465), St Lawrence (timber, 1878, QHR 601152), Toowoomba (its second, sandstone, 1878, QHR 600848) and Townsville (brick, 1877, QHR 600929). Also present on the site, behind the main building, are an 1882 strongroom and a 1942 air raid shelter.
Gympie (initially called Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in October 1867 by James Nash. Although small finds of gold had been made in the region-near Imbil, Black Snake Range, and Nanango-it was the discovery of gold at Gympie in a gully near the Mary River that suddenly changed the fortunes of the region and Queensland. The new gold field established Queensland as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. By Christmas of 1867, according to the Gold Commissioner, the Gympie field had a population of 4,000 (or over 15,000 according to James Nash). Although the alluvial deposits were quickly exhausted, from 1868 shallow reef mining occurred. From 1875 a third phase of mining began, based on deep reef mining, which marked a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie. Peak gold production occurred in 1903 but by 1927 production at Gympie had almost ceased.
As it evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, Gympie developed a distinctive character with an irregular street pattern amid a series of valleys and ridges. Existing buildings and mining homestead leases were accommodated in the first survey of the township in April 1868. Development of roads within the township of Gympie followed the terrain rather than adopting the standard grid pattern that was applied to townships surveyed for settlement, and consequently many roads run along ridgelines with linking roads across valleys and hillsides. The early makeshift structures of 1860s Gympie gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings, including government buildings on Channon Street from the mid 1870s.
The first government buildings in Gympie - the Gold Commissioner's Office, Powder Magazine and Post Office - were built in 1868. The Gympie Gold Commissioner, Henry Edward King, (also Secretary for Public Works and Mines from November 1874 to May 1876) initially conducted his court in temporary structures, and the first permanent mining court was a slab and shingle-roofed building near Cross Street, northwest of the Surface Hill Uniting Church. A Court of Petty Sessions, Commissioner's Camp, Mary River Gold Fields, was proclaimed by the Governor in Council on 20 February 1868, and by 1869 there was a court house at the corner of Duke and Channon Streets, on Commissioner's Hill (on the site of the town's third Post Office). The town's second Post Office was located just northwest of this court house. The 1876 court house (the second Court of Petty Sessions in Gympie) was built on the site of the original police lock-up and stables, on the north side of Channon Street between Duke and King Streets.
Planning for this new court house began in 1874. In December of that year EH Harries, a draughtsman with the Colonial Architect's Office, reported that a new Gympie court house of brick with stone foundations, with a court room 40 feet by 24 feet (12.2 m by 7.3 m) and offices for the Police Magistrate and Clerk of Petty Sessions, would cost around £1,500. Tenders were called on 23 December 1874 and the £1,468 tender of Andrew Collins, a builder from Red Hill, Gympie, was accepted in a Memorandum of Agreement with the Secretary of Public Works (HE King) on 13 March 1875.
The designer of the Gympie Court House is unknown. It is not attributed to FDG Stanley (Colonial Architect 1873 to 1881), although it has some stylistic touches in common with his work on the Maryborough Court House (1875-1878) and the third Gympie Post Office (1878-1880). However, it is possible that the Gympie Court House was designed either by EH Harries or by George Connolly. Connolly joined the Colonial Architect's Office in 1872. Much of his work is derivative of FDG Stanley or JJ Clark (Colonial Architect 1883-1885), and his best known designs include the classical revival style Northern Supreme Court at Bowen (1880-1881). The classical revival style was thought to be well suited to those public buildings intended to convey a sense of stability and dignity.
The new court house was finished in April 1876. The Brisbane Courier's Gympie correspondent reported that to celebrate a grand calico ball would be held there on 19 April. The building was described as a substantial, commodious brick edifice which appeared to be fitted up with every convenience suitable to the purpose for which it was designed.
However, this was not the case and inadequacies were reported. By June 1876 the building was occupied, but due to a lack of fittings the Police Magistrate had to convey his documents to the old court house. On 1 July 1876 the Brisbane Courier's Gympie correspondent commented on the bad acoustics of the alcove behind the bench, stating that 'sounds as if a multitude of voices were speaking at the one time were heard all over the building, and caused much confusion ...directly a word is uttered, it is immediately sucked into the alcove, and smashed into fragments against the walls, the pieces being hurled back at the speaker'.
Furniture was still a problem in 1881, when a letter of complaint from residents of Gympie noted that there was no provision for seating the public, jurors, suitors or witnesses, and jurors had to use the office of the Clerk of Petty Sessions to confer. A jury room was built on the rear verandah later in 1881. Expenditure on the Gympie court house, as reported by the Department of Public Works in 1891, included: £1,017 in 1875; £674 in 1876; £86 in 1877; £37 in 1881; and £220 (for a strongroom by George Caldwell) in 1882. The strongroom measured 12 feet by 10 feet (3.7 m by 3 m) internally, with 18 inch (457 mm) walls, and it is still extant behind the former court house.
In 1888, the layout of the court house included two offices at the southwest end of the building, the corner office on Channon Street being for the Police Magistrate, and the rear corner office was for Clerk of Petty Sessions. There was an area for the judge's bench between the two offices, and the three spaces each had a door leading to a verandah on the southwest elevation. The separate court and public areas took up the main rectangular space of the building. There were also two offices at the corners of the northeast elevation of the building, with a verandah between them. A portico with pediment stood in the centre of the verandah to the Channon street elevation, and the jury room took up the southwest end of the rear verandah. There were fireplaces with chimneys in each of the four offices, and there was a fleche in the centre of the roof.
In early 1891 a jury 'escaped' from the jury room, which was too small and hot for 12 men. Its timber walls were also vulnerable to eavesdropping. Two alternative plans were drawn up in October 1892, to provide a room for the use of jurors and two rooms for the Lands Commissioner. The latter had received notice to quit the offices he used at Gympie's third Post Office. The role of the Lands Department was to open up new land for settlement, and to sell, auction, or lease town, country and suburban land. It was also responsible for occupation licences, rabbit control, weed control and roads in new areas. The first applications for land lodged in the Lands Office in Gympie were in early 1869, and the Lands Office may have operated out of the second Post Office at this time.
Another plan was drawn up in November 1892, signed by Alfred Barton Brady, the Government Architect and Engineer for Bridges. This is the plan that was used, and in March 1893 the tender of Mark Doggett of Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, for £535, was accepted by Horace Tozer, Secretary for Public Works and Gympie solicitor. WT Newman carried out the painting at a cost of £35. The brick extension to the south-west included a second room for the Clerk of Petty Sessions (where the old verandah had been), a new room for the Judge and Police Magistrate at the rear, a hallway to Channon Street, a new office for the Lands Commissioner at the rear corner, and a Lands Office in the south-west corner to Channon Street. Doorways from the original south-west elevation's corner rooms onto the front and rear verandahs were sealed around this time. A small verandah was located at the rear corner of the new south-west elevation, accessed from both the Land Commissioner's office and the Judge's room. The old Police Magistrate's office was the Clerk of Petty Session's office by this time, and it was proposed that the original Clerk's office would become the new jury room. The 1893 extension includes the door and two windows at the south-west end of the Channon Street elevation of the current building.
As a result of pressure for a new court house during the mid 1890s a site on the corner of King and Channon Streets, northeast of the 1876 court house, was purchased in 1899. A new court house was built between 1900 and 1902 for a total of £5 671. Consequently, the 1876 court house became the Lands Office, and £27 for alterations to the Lands Office is noted in the Return of Expenditure on State Public Buildings for the period 1 July 1901 to 30 June 1902.
During its time as the Lands Office the former court house housed a number of government organisations, which jostled each other for office space and moved around the various offices in the building. The Geological Survey used the main room in the 1893 extension prior to 1912, and cooking classes were held by the Technical College in two rear rooms of the southwest end of the building up to 1917. The Queensland Government Savings Bank (which merged with the Commonwealth Bank in December 1920) occupied various rooms in the southwest end of the building between 1912 to 1927, competing for space with the Forestry Department, which was present in the building from c.1912 to 1921, and again from 1926. Other tenants over time included the Labour Department (prior to 1919 and again from 1927), the Department of Agriculture and Stock, the Inspector of Machinery, the Inspector of Factories and Shops, and the Agricultural Bank Inspector.
In 1919 the occupants of the north-east end of building included: the Lands Office at the northeast end of the old courtroom; the Land Commissioner in the Channon Street corner office; Land Rangers on the enclosed north-east verandah; and the Inspector of Machinery in the rear corner office. There was still a room on the rear verandah. In the south-west end of the building, the Inspector of Factories and Shops occupied the original Channon Street corner office; the Labour Agent occupied the centre office of the 1893 extension; the Forestry Branch used the old rear corner office and the 1893 extension's rear office; and the Queensland Government Savings Bank occupied the room built for the Lands Office in 1893.
During World War II a concrete air raid shelter for 50 persons was built behind the former court house. Constructed by June 1942 by the Department of Public Works, with help from the Gympie City Council, it was intended to shelter civil service personnel and any members of the public who might be nearby during a Japanese air raid.
By 1949 the timber store room on the back verandah had been demolished, and in 1950 the air raid shelter was modified for storage use by the Lands Office and the Forestry Office. An internal dividing wall (since removed) and casement windows were added. The fleche on the roof of the former court house was removed about 1951, as it had rotted and was leaking water onto the counter used by the Department of Agriculture and Stock. A new kitchen extension was added to the northwest elevation of the court house some time after 1954.
In 2002 the Lands Office building was transferred from the State to the Cooloola Shire Council, which made the building available to the Australian Institute of Country Music (AICM). The Apex Club funded the reconstruction of the Lands Office for the AICM, and this work occurred during 2008. As a result the courtroom became one open space again, and walls were reinstated between the two square rooms towards the southern end of the northwest elevation, and between the vestibule of the 1890s extension and the large room at the southwest end (now a music studio). The doorway between the remnant of the original rear verandah and the original western corner room has been reopened, and a small bathroom (c.1921) off the verandah at the rear corner of the southwest elevation has been converted into an electronic hub room.
","criteria":"The construction of the Gympie Court House in 1876 is important in demonstrating the evolution of Gympie, the site of Queensland's first major productive goldfield, from a shanty town into a permanent settlement. The alluvial gold deposits discovered in 1867 had been exhausted by the 1870s, and shallow reef mining had begun.
The former Gympie Court House is the first substantial masonry public building erected in Gympie and is one of the oldest extant buildings in the city. The place is also the third-oldest known surviving court house building in Queensland. It replaced an adjacent timber court house, and represented the growing town's need for impressive justice buildings to project an image of stability.
The World War II air raid shelter, constructed behind the main building in mid 1942, demonstrates the Queensland government's response to the threat of Japanese air raids, and its policy of building shelters for civil servants so that government could continue to function after an air attack.
|Standing within a precinct of government buildings near the corner of Duke and Channon Streets on Commissioner's Hill, and retaining major design elements of a court house (central courtroom, associated offices and separated entrances), the former Gympie Court House is important in demonstrating the layout and siting of a 19th century court house. It was extended to include a Lands Office in 1893, and ceased to function as a court house circa 1901.
A single room structure with thick, solid brick walls and a heavy metal door, the strongroom behind the main building is a good example of a secure storage vault.
Retaining its context and the major design elements of an air raid shelter (rectangular in plan, reinforced concrete roof and external and internal blast walls, two entrances to the same side and toilet cubicles), the air raid shelter is important in demonstrating the layout, operation and siting of structures in the ARP system.
|Important for its association with the Air Raid Precaution (ARP) activities undertaken for the protection of the civil service, the air raid shelter is a rare surviving example of a shelter associated with a public building and is an uncommon surviving example of an ARP structure built during World War II.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20093,"place_ref":602774,"name":"Royal Bank of Queensland (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"199 Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-04-15","description":"The former Royal Bank of Queensland is an imposing single-storey rendered masonry building with a pedimented temple front standing prominently to upper Mary Street in Gympie's central business area.
The rendered masonry front fence forms a plinth to the building which is set back from the property boundary and raised above street level. The compact front elevation is dominated by a projecting pedimented portico which is framed by fluted corner pilasters and shelters a set of concrete stairs and a landing. The plain moulded pediments of the front elevation and portico rest on decorative entablature friezes. The portico pediment has 1892 inscribed within. The front elevation is defined by fluted corner pilasters and composed of three arched openings notable for their severe rendered rusticated surrounds. The central arched entrance accommodates a narrow draft lobby which projects into the banking chamber. The lobby is lined with timber panelling and houses two sets of doors, the outer a set of solid timber panelled doors and the inner a set glazed timber doors. The flanking arched openings house timber framed double hung sash windows with masonry sills.
Garden beds sit behind the front fence separating the building from the footpath. Decorative wrought iron balustrading runs between the fence posts and a decorative wrought iron gate opens to the entry steps. A recent concrete ramp to the western end is accessed from the street through a later opening in the front fence.
The building is sheltered by a gabled roof hidden from view behind the pediment. The roof is timber-framed and clad with corrugated metal sheeting and rests within parapet walls on all four sides. Box gutters drain to two rainwater heads at each end of the northern elevation. A masonry chimney with moulded cornice rises through the roof on the eastern side of the building.
Exterior walls to the remainder of the building are rendered and finished with shallow ruled ashlar. The western elevation is punctuated by four large double-hung sash windows shaded by curved timber-framed window hoods. Verandahs wrap around the east and north. The south end of the east verandah is open and stop chamfered posts with capitals are supported on recent metal stirrups and bearers are supported on low masonry piers. The verandah roof is timber-framed and the floor is lined with wide hardwood boards. Two door openings to the east verandah flank a large double-hung timber sash window. At the south end, a timber paneled door with glazed fanlight opens into the manager's office and the northern opening houses glazed French windows which open into the vestibule to the rear of the manager's office.
The remainder of the verandahs is enclosed with concrete blockwork. The parapet wall on the northern elevation rises to follow the gabled roof shape and is capped with a simple masonry mould. Early security bars remain in place on all external openings.
The interior is organized around the banking chamber which is accessed directly from the main entrance. The manager's office opens to the right of the chamber and two smaller offices and the bank vault run along the rear. A side entrance from the east verandah opens into a vestibule to the rear of the manager's office providing discreet access to this office and to the rear of the chamber. The banking chamber has additional later partitioning that is not full height. Two decorative timber rails run at half height around the chamber. An early fireplace, located in the manager's office, is framed with a simple timber mantelpiece and has a cast iron grate and side cheeks with a masonry hearth.
The interiors generally are notable for early cedar joinery and early door and window hardware including door knobs, locks, drop bolts, porcelain finger plates and key plates, and brass door handles to inner entrance doors. There is a gaslight fitting to the left of the vault opening.
Internal openings are generous in height and house fine timber-paneled doors with tall glazed pivoting fanlights. Generous moulded plaster skirting boards and timber skirting blocks and architraves are intact throughout. All interior timber work and joinery is varnished. Walls and ceilings are lined with hardset plaster with deep moulded cornices. A single decorative plaster ceiling rose is located in the banking chamber. Floors are generally covered with recent carpet.
The early bank vault remains intact and is secured by a heavy, metal plated door with early door furnishings intact. The vault is formed with arched brickwork supported on thick brickwork walls which have a thin render finish and has metal rod cross bracing.
The site rises sharply to the north, registering Gympie's hilly landscape. A concrete retaining wall stands to the rear of the building within which concrete steps rise steeply to a flat grassed platform which accommodates a small blockwork shed which is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. An early concrete surface drain is located on the eastern side of the building.
","history":"The former Royal Bank of Queensland building at Gympie, located at 199 Mary Street, was designed by architect Hugh Durietz in 1891 and built in 1892. This neoclassical building served as the Gympie branch of successive banks for 87 years, firstly as Royal Bank of Queensland from 1892 and finally as the National Australia Bank to 1979.
Gympie (initially known as Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield turned Queensland into a significant gold producer and contributed much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced.
As Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, the early makeshift structures of the 1860s gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings from the mid 1870s. With the change to deep reef mining from 1875, came the need for extensive capital investment through the formation of companies using foreign capital. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees.
Mainly due to Queensland's three major gold mining centres - Gympie, Charters Towers and Mt Morgan - gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland's export income during the 1880s and 1890s. The value of gold output rose from £698,000 in 1883 to £2.75m in 1889, exceeding the value of exported wool. These enormous amounts of gold were purchased by banks such as the Royal Bank, which played a vital role in this process of wealth creation and distribution.
The influx of money and the resultant yield of gold at Gympie were reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s with substantial commercial buildings such as banks and company secretary and brokers' offices. Several fires - in 1877, 1881 and 1891 - razed the earlier timber buildings in upper Mary Street and accelerated this transformation. A fire in January 1891 destroyed all of the buildings between the Gympie Times offices and the Mining Exchange Hotel which lead to the construction of more permanent masonry buildings on the eastern side of upper Mary Street. The last of the new buildings erected was the Royal Bank of Queensland, located adjacent to the Gympie Times office.
Designed by Hugh Durietz in 1891, tenders were invited for the erection of the bank premises in December 1891; closing on 24 December. The bank was completed in 1892.
Hugo Durietz (1831-1908) dominated Gympie architecture and its society. He was reported as having trained as an architect in Sweden before migrating to Victoria in 1852, attracted by its gold discoveries. He joined the gold rush to Canoona (Queensland) in 1858 but by 1862 had commenced business as a builder in Brisbane. He was contracted to build the Bank of New South Wales, supervised by James Cowlishaw, in 1864-65. In 1866 he was elected as an alderman for Kangaroo Point in Brisbane's municipal election but bankrupted during the 1867 depression. After finalisation of his insolvency case in December 1867 he joined the rush to the Gympie goldfield where he became involved in many innovative business enterprises and joined community committees including those of the School of Arts; hospital; Mutual Improvement Association; Agricultural, Mining and Pastoral Society; and the Gympie Primary School. He is also attributed with introducing the mechanical cream separator to Queensland, a vital factor in the growth of the Queensland dairy industry.
By 1871 Durietz had begun his practise as an architect in Gympie and for more than 30 years he was commissioned by institutions on whose committees he served, many religious denominations and by business leaders and professionals, often on an ongoing basis. He tendered for 113 buildings during his career; projects ranging from numerous hotels, shops and cottages to public buildings like the Surface Hill Wesleyan Church, Gympie [QHR 601529], the Gympie School of Arts [QHR 601910] and the Royal Bank building, Gympie.
The Royal Bank of Queensland, established in 1885 by local investors who were finding it hard to obtain loans from sources outside Queensland, was intended as an alternative to its rival the Queensland National Bank. It was one of only three Queensland-based banks established during the 19th century. The head office opened in Brisbane in February 1886 and although it established three branches in the mining towns of Gympie, Charters Towers and Croydon, it generally avoided mining towns because they were too risky. Instead the Royal Bank concentrated on mercantile and agricultural interests near the coast, opening branches in sound agricultural districts and ports. By 1889 it had 20 branches and agencies including branches in London and Edinburgh. In 1890 the Royal Bank occupied fifth place amongst the ten banks trading in Queensland. The Royal Bank, in contrast to the Queensland National Bank, generally contented itself with timber and iron premises rather than occupying extravagant masonry buildings in the larger towns; established a more cautious lending policy instead of erratic lending due to fluctuating government deposits; and was the bank of humbler men rather than of the elite.
Initially the Royal Bank had followed a cautious banking policy acquiring £1 million in deposits by the end of 1888. This forced the bank to increasingly lend to people and industries that could not easily repay on demand, thereby following the custom of Queensland banking. Subsequently, in May 1893 the Royal Bank became one of the many banks that temporarily ceased trading at the height of the 1893 banking crisis in Queensland. By the end of May a reconstruction scheme for the Royal Bank had been announced and in early August 1893 the bank re-opened for trading.
The 20th century brought a series of mergers for the Royal Bank of Queensland. In 1917 the bank merged with the Bank of North Queensland, which had opened in Townsville in 1888, to become the Bank of Queensland. In 1922 this bank was absorbed by the National Bank of Australasia. Following the amalgamation of the Queensland National Bank with the National Bank of Australasia to form the National Bank of Australia in 1948 there were two branches of the bank in Gympie - at 33 and 199 Mary Street.
In January 1980 the National Bank amalgamated its branches at 33 Mary Street and 199 Mary Street to form a single bank of the National Bank in Gympie at 33 Mary Street, ending 87 years of banking at 199 Mary Street. The former Royal Bank of Queensland building was auctioned in March of the same year and became commercial premises.
Alterations to the bank have included the enclosure of most of the rear verandah and some of the side verandah, the addition of partition walls to form an office in the centre of the public space and removal of the banking counter. Doorways in two interior walls have been altered. A ramp has been added on the left hand side from Mary Street to the main entrance. Roofing iron has been replaced on the main roof and the rear and side verandahs.
The former Royal Bank building before 2011 was the headquarters of the Gympie Muster.
","criteria":"The former Royal Bank building has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities expressed in the craftsmanship and detailing of the joinery and finishes, and for its streetscape value through its form, scale and design. These qualities complement other surviving 19th century buildings in the street, particularly other banks also entered in the Queensland Heritage Register including the nearby former Bank of New South Wales [QHR 602775].
Its balanced classical design, often associated with banks, projects the concept of stability that financial institutions of this era sought to convey through their buildings' architecture.
Set back from the property boundary and with a prominent portico addressing the Mary Street frontage, the former Royal Bank has a striking appearance, giving it enormous streetscape presence among the upper Mary Street gold-era buildings. This important and substantially intact gold-era precinct comprises a harmonious streetscape of late Victorian commercial buildings dating from the 1880s and 1890s.
|The former Royal Bank building is a fine example of the work of architect Hugo Durietz who dominated Gympie architecture between 1871 and at least 1902 and was a highly regarded community leader. Other extant significant buildings designed by Durietz, include the Surface Hill Wesleyan Church [QHR 601529], School of Arts [QHR 601910], the organ loft of the Roman Catholic Church [QHR 601503] and the upper floor and façade of the Crawford & Co Building (former) at 216 Mary Street, Gympie.
|The former Royal Bank of Queensland (Royal Bank) building (1892)-and the important gold-era precinct of which it is a part-is physical evidence of the evolution of gold mining at Gympie, a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland for approximately 60 years from 1867. As Gympie gold production continued and evolved from alluvial to shallow reef mining to deep reef mining from 1875, this change was reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in the town centre. The Royal Bank, built during the third stage of Gympie mining, symbolised the wealth and permanence of the town.
The former Royal Bank building is important in demonstrating the vital role of financial institutions in the process of wealth creation and distribution on Queensland goldfields as it converted enormous amounts of gold into cash.
The longest serving of all the Gympie bank buildings, the Royal Bank building functioned as a bank branch from 1892 to 1979.
|The former Royal Bank of Queensland building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, being a good example of a masonry structure in a classical style combining a banking chamber and offices.
Its siting with other gold-related buildings in upper Mary Street above the gold diggings, illustrates the prominence of banks in the gold mining town of Gympie.
Its intactness is demonstrated on its exterior and in its room volumes, joinery and fittings and extant strongroom.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20097,"place_ref":602780,"name":"Crawford and Co. Building (former)","alternate_name":"Sym and Jackson Building | Caston and Davidson Building | Goldsworthy Building","street_address":"216 Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-07-15","description":"The former Crawford and Co. Building is a two storey building with basement built to the front and side alignments of a narrow allotment that extends between Mary and Reef Streets. The building is one of a group of Gympie gold-mining buildings dating from the late nineteenth century on the southern side of the upper slope of Mary Street in Gympie's central business district. It has load bearing masonry walls supporting a timber-framed roof and floors. Its gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting is concealed behind parapet walls. An elevated timber framed and clad single storey addition is located at the rear of the building and has access to Reef Street.
The former Crawford and Co. Building has an ornamental and eclectic Victorian façade featuring many characteristics of the Renaissance style of architecture including pediments, balustraded parapets and low-relief pilasters symmetrically composed around its vertical axis. Each floor space of the building is clearly articulated in the layout of the façade. The impression of strength and solidity is given by a decorative rendered finish. Rusticated quoining has been applied to each end of the building's upper floor and the lower floor has been lined out in imitation of stone ashlar. The entrance door and window opening on the ground floor are arched and feature casts of the heads (of Burns and Scott) on the key stones. A decorative string course with low-relief scrolls interspersed with rosette motifs spans the building between the upper and lower windows.
Window openings on the upper floor containing double hung timber framed sashes are rectangular and crested with pediments supported on decorative scroll brackets. A single winged acroteria remains on the corner of the eastern-most pediment. Deep reveals are created with moulded architraves and Scotch thistle motifs are etched below each window sill and framed by short low relief pilasters.
The parapet features a deep ornamental cornice supported with scroll-shaped brackets and short balusters set between moulded rails. Surmounting the parapet are raised plinths supporting symbolic statues of a kangaroo (north-western end) and an emu (north-eastern end) with shields housing Australia's coat of arms. A centrally placed monumental pediment, which may once have housed a clockface, is decorated with the British lion, scrolls, low relief pilasters, rosettes and features a carved Scotch thistle at its peak.
The rear parapet wall has a thin rendered finish through which brickwork courses are visible. Within the masonry wall are a triangular window located at the apex of the gabled section and a door and window opening at first floor level contain a sealed timber paneled and glazed door and a tall, rectangular, timber framed, double-hung window with multi-paned sashes.
From Mary Street, a pair of painted, timber paneled doors provides access into a small timber framed and lined entry vestibule which is recessed into and provides access to the building's large foyer space via another pair of timber and glazed paneled swing doors. A tall, arched window with double-hung sashes to the west of the entrance provides natural light to the foyer. The foyer contains a timber staircase to the first floor on the south-eastern wall and south-western wall contains doors to the two rear offices. The rear timber framed addition containing an office, kitchen, bathroom and access to the rear stair is accessed from the former rear door to the building located in the south-eastern office. The first floor level, accessed via a timber staircase, has a similar layout with a small former kitchen and former bedroom at the rear and a larger former living space facing Mary Street.
The internal walls on the upper two levels are lined with plaster while ceilings on both levels are lined with double-beaded tongue and groove pine boards with elaborate cornices using plaster to walls and timber to ceilings. The floors on both levels are covered with carpet. Ceiling roses remain in the upper living room (timber) and in the front foyer (plaster). Internal openings are generous in height and consist of timber-paneled doors with glazed pivoting fanlights above. The original rear door leading into the 1930s addition has patterned and obscure glass panels. The former lower level rear window is still in place and is a multi-paned double-hung timber-framed window. Generous cedar skirting boards, skirting blocks and architraves are located in many areas and the majority of the interior timber work and joinery is clear finished. Original window and door furniture generally survives.
The internal staircase consists of closed risers and treads with elaborate turned balusters and newel posts. The handrail follows the turn of the stairs and the skirting board is also carefully shaped to follow the incline. The underside of the stair is enclosed with timber paneling.
The basement level has an asphalt floor and the perimeter rock, brick and sandstone foundations are visible to the north, east and west walls. Steel posts and a new central beam have recently been added to support the existing bearers spanning the building. Herringbone struts brace the hardwood framing.
The 1930s addition is supported on brick piers and its roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A short flight of timber framed stairs provides access to the rear yard and is covered by a timber framed awning. The rear door is timber paneled with a paint finish and adjacent windows are casements with multi-paned coloured glass. A small louvred window is located to the west. Internal walls are lined with double-beaded tongue and groove board and side walls abut immediately to adjoining buildings. This addition is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former Crawford and Co. Building located at 216 Mary Street, Gympie is a two storey, masonry building with basement that was erected in two stages during the 1880s. The second storey was designed by Hugo Durietz in 1885 for James Crawford, who in partnership with Ernest Rohda, conducted his mining, commission agent and share broking business from this building until 1889. Thereafter, the building continued to be occupied by mining secretaries until circa 1924 when the mining industry in Gympie was in serious decline.
Gympie was settled after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield established Queensland as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced. Deep reef mining commenced in 1875 requiring extensive capital investment achieved through the formation of companies. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees.
As Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, the early makeshift structures of the 1860s gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings from the mid 1870s. The success of deep reef mining from 1875 was reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s with substantial commercial buildings such as banks and company secretary and brokers' offices. Several fires - in 1877, 1881 and 1891 - razed the earlier timber buildings and accelerated this transformation.
A fire in August 1881 destroyed all of the buildings between Patterson's brick store and the Bank of New South Wales (242 Mary Street) on the south-western side of Mary Street, Gympie. This included the timber building that had stood on the site of the present-day Crawford and Co. Building and which may have been occupied by Samuel Caston, sharebroker, mining secretary and commission agent. Sometime between August 1881 and 1885 a one-storey masonry building was erected.
In October 1885 the property was purchased for £650 by James Crawford, mining secretary, who commissioned architect Hugo Durietz to make additions to the building. The resultant two storey facade is in a Victorian classical style. On 2 March 1889 The Queenslander's Travelling Correspondent described the building of Messrs James Crawford and Co. as 'most conspicuous, not merely on account of its height, but principally owing to its very elegant and attractive proportions'. To him it was:
the most attractive building on the field. Two stories [sic] high with stone front, and tastily ornamented.... the keystones of the main door and window are ornamented with splendidly executed casts of two of Scotland's most popular bards, Burns and Scott; between the lower and upper windows there is a beautifully-worked scroll, the tracery of which interlaces representations of Scotch thistles; and the whole is surmounted by a parapet of bold and attractive designs. On each side of the parapet the British lion, rampant-while rising from the top are models of the emu and kangaroo with shields showing Australia's coat-of arms.
This exterior decoration of the Crawford and Co. Building represented several cultural influences - the British Empire (lions), Scotland (thistle) the nascent movement towards federation of the Australian colonies which was gaining momentum during the 1880s (kangaroo and emu) and the literary tastes of the owner (Burns and Scott).
The same Queenslander correspondent also described the interior of the building as well planned with ample room for Messrs J Crawford and Co's large broking business.
Extensive deep reef mining in Gympie during the 1880s and 1890s made Gympie Queensland's second and then third biggest gold producer (after Mt Morgan gold production overtook it in 1887). During this period gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland's export income.
However, the development of deep reef mining required enormous capital. The gold mining industry was the major capital-using sector of the colonial economy. This necessitated company formation to raise capital through sale of shares. The increase in production led to an upsurge in company formation on a massive scale. This growth in gold-mining shares led to the formation of the Gympie Stock Exchange, which specialised completely in trading mining shares.
The presence of sharebrokers engaged in share trading at the Gympie Stock Exchange and of mining secretaries involved in the administration of mines were the natural consequence. Mining secretaries, like company secretaries, ensured that the mining company they represented complied with relevant legislation and regulation, and they kept board members informed of their legal responsibilities. Mining secretaries were the company's named representative on legal documents, and it was their responsibility to ensure that the company and its directors operated within the law. It was also their responsibility to register and communicate with shareholders, to ensure that dividends were paid and company records maintained, such as lists of directors and shareholders, and annual accounts. Sharebrokers were necessary for every transaction on the Gympie Stock Exchange as transactions must be made between two members of the exchange.
James Crawford, mining secretary and sharebroker, arrived in Gympie in 1879 and quickly won the confidence and respect of investors. He was elected to the Gympie Municipal Council in 1887 and held a number of other public positions such as membership of the Gympie Hospital Committee.
However, in August 1889 James Crawford was arrested on a charge of forgery brought by William Davies, who was the director of several mining companies, and to whom Crawford was related by marriage. A Welshman, William Davies was one of the most successful investors on the Gympie goldfield. He arrived in Gympie in the early 1870s and invested in the Lady Mary line of reef, which proved successful. Thereafter he was involved in almost every mine of importance, with his chief interests being in 1 North Glanmire, 4 North Phoenix, Great Eastern and North Smithfield mines. He served on many directorates, was a member of the Widgee Divisional Board, was one of the first directors of the Gympie Gas Company and was also one of the founders of the Royal Bank of Queensland. After James Crawford fled to South Africa in 1889 to escape his trial the building at 216 Mary Street passed to William Davies to whom Crawford had mortgaged it in 1887. Thereafter, the building was rented to other mining secretaries and stockbrokers viz Caston and Davidson (circa1890-circa1914) and then Sym and Jackson (circa1914-circa1919).
Substantial changes in the Queensland mining sector occurred between 1900 and 1913. Gold production in Queensland peaked in 1903, due largely to a final burst of production at Gympie, which was followed by a 60 percent decrease in production between 1903 and 1913 as Gympie (and the other two major Queensland goldfields Charters Towers and Mt Morgan) declined simultaneously. The Gympie field passed through its most profitable period from 1901 to 1906 and in 1903 it recorded an output of 146,000 fine ounces (surpassing Mt Morgan that year). After 1906 the decline that had set in at Gympie in 1904 accelerated.
This downturn in gold production forced the closure of the Stock Exchange circa 1922. Sharebrokers and mining secretaries declined in number as gold mining companies ceased operations. Thomas H Sym whose name, with that of his partner, Jackson, appeared on the parapet of the building was a mining secretary and sharebroker who died during 1925. Thereafter, the building was occupied by optometrists, commencing with William John Hodson who purchased the building in 1924, then Joseph Tilley, followed by Arthur Carvosso (from 1933) and then Peter Goldsworthy who purchased the property in 1973. It continues in this usage.
Additions to the rear were constructed in the 1930s and the upper storey was converted from offices to living space. Also during the 1930s a partition wall between the two rear offices of the 1880s building was removed and some partition walls installed. These partitions were removed in the mid-1970s. In the late 1970s the upper storey reverted to office space with the removal of its kitchen and it has since been used for storage. In 1985 posts were added under the floor as the joists that spanned the full width of the building had sagged. During 1986-87 rotten floorboards on the ground level were replaced and loose plasterwork was repaired or replaced. Other repairs have included: reinstatement of the partition wall between the two offices; replacement of a window in the original rear wall with a reproduction; replacement of step treads in the cedar staircase; replacement of damaged and missing plaster cornice with replica cornice and replacement of the iron roof with zincalume. The building's address to Reef Street, which gave the only means of accessing the rear of the building, has been retained.
","criteria":"The former Crawford and Co. Building erected during the 1880s is important in demonstrating the evolution of Gympie gold mining, a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland for nearly 60 years from 1867. As Gympie gold production continued and evolved from alluvial to shallow reef mining to deep reef mining from 1875, this change was reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in the town centre. Erected during the third stage of Gympie mining, the former Crawford and Co. Building is indicative of the wealth and permanence of the town.
Its siting near Commissioners Hill in the vicinity of important government and gold-related buildings also illustrates the growth and evolution of Gympie's development. It forms part of the upper Mary Street gold era precinct.
For almost four of the six decades during which Gympie gold helped sustain the Queensland economy the former Crawford and Co. Building provided office accommodation for mining secretaries and sharebrokers, who played a critical role in the gold industry after capital-intense deep reef mining became the predominant method of extracting gold deposits.
|The building has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities expressed in the interior craftsmanship and detailing of the joinery and finishes, and for its streetscape value through its form, scale and design which complement other surviving 19th century buildings in the street. The unique façade of the former Crawford and Co. Building evokes astonishment and surprise. It comprises uncommon features and combinations of these features to create unusual compositional qualities.
Located on the south-western side of Mary Street, the former Crawford and Co. Building forms part of the pleasing upper Mary Street streetscape dating from the Gympie gold-mining era.
|The former Crawford and Co. Building is a good example of Victorian-era commercial offices. The original 1880s structure comprises a foyer, handsome cedar staircase to the first floor rooms, a ground floor office and a basement. The interior contains fine finishes such as plaster walls, decorative plaster cornices, pine ceilings, and handsome original red cedar joinery including windows, fanlights, architraves, skirtings and substantial doors.
|The former Crawford and Co. Building possesses a façade design that, in its individual elements and their composition, is uncommon and has always been uncommon. The use of skyline decoration - emu and kangaroo statues bearing shields, picks and shovels; an ornamental central pediment featuring lion's heads, acanthus leaves and egg; and dart mouldings upon a balustraded parapet - plus dissimilar and abundant enrichment to each storey including moulded faces on the keystones of the entrance and ground floor window arches is an idiosyncratic stylist combination.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20098,"place_ref":602779,"name":"Tozer's Building","alternate_name":"Jeffery & Cuddihy Building | Tozers","street_address":"218 Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-07-15","description":"Tozer's Building is a two storey building with basement built to the front and side alignments of a narrow allotment that extends between Mary and Reef Streets. The building is one of a group of Gympie gold-mining buildings dating from the late nineteenth century on the southern side of the upper slope of Mary Street in Gympie's central business district. It has load bearing masonry walls supporting a timber-framed roof and floors. Its roof, clad with corrugated metal sheeting, is concealed behind the parapet walls to the front and side alignments and its hipped end is visible from the rear.
Tozer's Building has a detailed, symmetrically composed facade with smooth-rendered masonry featuring elements arranged in careful proportion typical of the Neoclassical style. Openings are arched and of equal widths and are visually separated by square pilasters set in low relief and string courses. Pilasters on the lower level have capitals decorated with flower motifs while pilasters of the upper floor have Corinthian style capitals. Arches are finished with moulded architraves and keystones. The parapet comprises decorative balustrading and a deep moulded cornice.
The main entrance is located on the western side of the façade and is accessed from the street via two concrete steps with risers finished with tessellated tiles. A pair of painted timber paneled doors with an arched and glazed fanlight above provides access into a small entry vestibule which is lined with timber paneling to walls and ceilings and hardwood boards to the floor. The vestibule recesses into and provides access to the building's foyer space via another pair of timber paneled swing doors with two glazed and arched panels inset. A tall, arched window with double-hung sashes and a masonry sill is located to the east of the front entrance together with a basement window. Windows on the upper level are similar in design but are slightly shorter in height.
On the rear elevation, the upper level has two tall timber framed double-hung sash windows positioned either side of a four paneled timber door which opens onto a verandah which has been modified. The verandah has a bullnosed roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting and a dowel balustrade. A concrete blockwork addition to the ground floor and basement level extends toward Reef Street and the rear elevation houses exit doors on the eastern side to both levels.
The ground floor of the 1896 building contains three rooms: the foyer, a strongroom and a rear office. The foyer contains the original counter with robust detailing, part of which is stored in the basement and a grandfather clock on the southern wall. On the north-western wall, a half-turn stair provides access to the upper level. Paneling to the underside of the first flight houses an access door to a single flight of stairs leading to the basement. The stairs consist of closed risers and treads with turned balusters and newel posts, the basement stair is painted and the upper staircase is clear finished.
The strongroom with heavy metal door is also located on the north-western wall adjacent to a fire place to the rear office. Partial height timber framed partitions lined with plasterboard positioned parallel to the south-eastern wall, are later additions and separate the office and strongroom from a hall created to access the rear addition.
On the first floor, two offices are separated by the upper flight of stairs. The front office which has a fireplace on its south-western wall has been divided into two offices and an entrance vestibule by timber framed partial height partitions lined with plasterboard. The rear office which has access to the rear verandah has a fireplace on its north-western wall and safes set into masonry in the northern corner.
The basement of the 1896 building, has painted brickwork walls lined throughout with storage shelves. A strongroom is located beneath the ground floor strongroom adjacent to a fireplace. The ceilings are lined with tongue and groove boards and the floor is formed with concrete. The rear wall contains a central door and two full height windows with double hung sashes secured with metal grilles.
Original internal walls on the upper two levels are finished with plaster lined to imitate stone ashlar while ceilings on all levels are lined with double beaded tongue and groove boards with timber cornices. Internal openings are generous in height and consist of timber-paneled doors with glazed pivoting fanlights above. Generous timber skirting boards, skirting blocks and architraves are located in many areas. The majority of the interior timber work and joinery is clear finished though the skirting in the rear office of the ground floor has been has been painted. Original door and window furniture survives and some light fittings including gas jets above the staircase and in the rear office on the first floor.
The two storey rear concrete block extension is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Tozer's Building was designed in 1895 by noted Brisbane architect Richard Gailey as solicitors' offices for Horace Tozer (later knighted) and his partner Anthony Conwell. Practising as a solicitor in Gympie from 1868 until 1898, Tozer was noted as an authority on mining law and as a Queensland parliamentarian, minister and Agent- General. These two storey purpose-built offices with basement, designed in a classical style have been used as solicitors' offices from 1896 until the present day.
Gympie was established after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield established Queensland as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees.
As Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, the early makeshift structures of the 1860s gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings from the mid 1870s. With the change to deep reef mining during the 1880s came the need for extensive capital investment. Gympie was Queensland's second and then third biggest gold producer during the 1880s and 1890s (after Mt Morgan gold production overtook it in 1887). In this period gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland export income. Gympie's part in the production was reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s with substantial commercial buildings such as banks and mining secretaries' and brokers' offices. Several fires - in 1877, 1881 and 1891 - razed the earlier timber buildings and accelerated this transformation.
A fire in August 1881 destroyed all of the buildings between Patterson's brick store and the Bank of New South Wales (242 Mary Street) on the south-western side of Mary Street, Gympie. This included the earlier building that had stood on the site of the present-day Tozer's Building (originally Allotment 10, Section A).
Horace Tozer established a legal practice in Gympie in 1868 following his admission as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland on 7 December 1867. In 1871 he purchased, under the Goldfields Town Land Act 1869, the town lot on the north-eastern side of upper Mary Street on which he had built his business premises in the early days of the town. The Brisbane Courier reported in February 1881 that Gympie property had increased in value as a consequence of a very marked improvement in mining. Subsequently in August 1881 Horace Tozer sold his upper Mary Street property and moved to leased premises on the same side of upper Mary Street. In 1886 he went into partnership with Anthony Conwell (d 1897) as Tozer and Conwell, solicitors.
In 1891 the premises leased by Tozer and Conwell were burnt down when the north-eastern side of Mary Street, between the Gympie Times office and the Mining Exchange Hotel was razed, and the partnership suffered a loss of £5,000 in uninsured property. The solicitors moved temporarily into a building next to the Australian Joint Stock Bank (236 Mary Street) on the opposite side of upper Mary Street from January to March 1891. They then moved to offices next to Caston and Davidson, Mining Secretaries, (Crawford and Co Building, 216 Mary Street), possibly in a building that occupied the site of the current Tozer's Building (218 Mary Street).
At the time, this property was owned by Charles Campion Bunworth, a Gympie businessman, who owned a number of Mary Street properties. The property had been mortgaged to Gympie MLA and community leader, William Smyth, for £3,200 in February 1890. By April 1894 Bunworth was insolvent and the property passed to Robert Jones who sold it to Ellen Jane Smyth, the wife of William Smyth, in August 1894.
In October 1895 tenders for contractors to erect offices and strongrooms in Mary Street, Gympie were invited by architect Richard Gailey with plans available for inspection at the offices of Tozer and Conwell, Gympie. Upon its completion, the building formed part of the gold era streetscape of upper Mary Street created in the 1880s and 1890s.
Richard Gailey (1834-1924) was a Londonderry architect who had settled in Brisbane in 1864. He established his own practice here in 1865, and over the next 60 years built up a thriving business, working until his death in 1924. He designed Baptist churches including the Baptist Tabernacle, Brisbane [QHR 600175], former Ipswich Baptist Church, Ipswich [QHR 602573]; commercial buildings such as banks including the Westpac Bank, Normanton (former bank of NSW) [QHR 600394]; and many hotels including the Jubilee Hotel, Brisbane [QHR 600211], Orient Hotel, Brisbane [QHR 602122], Regatta Hotel, Toowong [QHR 600331] and Wickham Hotel, Fortitude Valley [QHR 600213]. Many commercial buildings in Brisbane designed by Gailey during the 1880s were characterised by classical idioms and details. He designed the Commercial Hotel and the Bank of New South Wales Building located in Mary Street, Gympie [QHR 602775].
Building owner Ellen Smyth was the second wife of self-made man, William Smyth, who rose from gold miner to mining speculator, making his fortune through investment in mine shares, particularly from the highly profitable Phoenix No 1 Mine. He became the largest mine owner on the Gympie field. Elected as an alderman for Gympie in 1883, Smyth was mayor from 1883 to 1884 when he resigned after election as the Member for Gympie in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, in which he served from 7 September 1883 to 11 March 1899. He was a Director of the Royal Bank of Queensland, Gympie Gas Company and One Mile Sawmill. Smyth died in 1899. His widow was involved in a number of community organisations including the National Council of Women of Queensland (NCWQ), first as a delegate and later as Honorary Vice-President.
Her lessee, Sir Horace Tozer, born on 23 April 1844 at Port Macquarie, New South Wales, was both solicitor and politician. Practising law in Gympie from 1868 and as a joint owner of mining leases, Tozer became an authority on mining law, was a member of the Gympie Mining Court and conducted two mining appeals before the Privy Council in London. He was elected as member for Wide Bay in 1871 but stood down a few months later for H E King to contest the seat in a by-election. He served as an alderman in the first Gympie Municipal Council from 1880. In 1888 Tozer again nominated for Wide Bay and won the seat, which he held until 5 March 1898. From 12 August 1890 until his retirement from parliament Tozer held ministerial offices. He served as Colonial Secretary and Secretary for Public Works until March 1893, Colonial Secretary from March 1893 to August 1896 and as Home Secretary from 1896 until 2 March 1898. From March to November 1897 he acted as Premier in the absence of Sir Hugh Nelson and in that year was appointed K.C.M.G. In London, Tozer acted as Queensland's Agent-General from 1898 to 1909 when he retired because of ill-health. During his public life he introduced significant legislation including the Public Service Act 1896, the Factories and Shops Act 1896 to regulate hours and conditions, the Election Act 1897 and the controversial Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897. In his ministerial capacity Tozer was responsible for establishing the Free Public Library in 1895 and the National Art Gallery of Queensland circa 1896. He died on 20 August 1916.
The solicitors firm established by Horace Tozer in 1868 was continued in Tozer's Building by his descendants for another 94 years, perpetuating his name, his connection with the site and his community involvement. Sir Horace Tozer's son, Vivian Hoyles Tozer, who had entered the firm, leased the building until he purchased the property in 1949 after the death of its owner, Ellen Jane Smyth. Vivian Tozer qualified as a solicitor in 1892, later was elected MLA, and served as a citizen soldier in the Queensland Defence Force. Following his death, Tozer's Building passed to descendents, Seymour Darvall Tozer and Horace Vivian Tozer in 1959, quickly passing to Horace Vivian Tozer solely in October 1959. In 1990 the property transferred to the firm of solicitors, Jeffery Cuddihy and Joyce, which currently occupies the building.
Some changes have been made to the original building. The rear upper storey verandah has been altered, a fireplace on the rear, right-hand-side wall of the ground floor has been boarded up and wall partitions have been added to create office space at the rear of the original building on the ground floor. The interior staircase to the basement, which was accessed from behind the staircase to the upper floor, has been closed off from access from the ground floor. The original strongrooms on the ground floor and in the basement are extant. In 2009 the upper floor offices were unchanged as was the staircase leading to the first floor from the foyer. The original counter in the foyer is in place but the clerk's grill with writing slope has been removed, although it remains stored in the building. An extension has been added to the rear of the original building for offices on the ground floor, with a new opening through the rear wall of the 1896 building, and staff facilities in the basement area are accessed by a new staircase. The basement retains its strongrooms, fireplace, staircase and windows, including their security bars.
","criteria":"Tozer's Building (1896) is important in demonstrating the evolution of gold mining at Gympie, a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland for approximately 60 years from 1867. As Gympie gold production evolved from alluvial to shallow reef mining to deep reef mining from 1875, the changes were reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in the town centre.
As the offices of solicitor and politician Sir Horace Tozer, a leading authority on mining law during Queensland's gold era, the building is the product of Gympie's importance as the third largest goldfield in Queensland during the 1890s and illustrates the importance of gold mining in Queensland history.
Its siting near Commissioners Hill in the vicinity of important government and gold-related buildings also illustrates the growth and evolution of Gympie's development. It forms part of the upper Mary Street gold era precinct.
|The building has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities expressed in the interior craftsmanship and detailing of the joinery and finishes, and for its streetscape value through its form, scale and design which complement other surviving 19th century buildings in the street.
Located on the south-western side of Mary Street, the former Tozer's Building forms part of the harmonious upper Mary Street gold era streetscape of late Victorian commercial buildings dating from the 1880s and 1890s.
|Tozer's Building is a good example of commercial offices designed by Richard Gailey. The original 1896 structure is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Victorian-era commercial offices. It comprises a foyer, handsome cedar staircase to the first floor rooms, a ground floor office, strongroom and a basement with its own strongrooms. The interior contains fine finishes such as plaster walls, decorative plaster cornices, pine ceilings, and handsome original cedar joinery including counter, windows, fanlights, architraves, skirtings and substantial doors.
|Tozer's Building has a special association with the life and work of Sir Horace Tozer, solicitor, member of the Queensland parliament from 1890, Queensland minister from 1893 to 1898, and Queensland's Agent-General from 1898 to 1909. Resident in Gympie from the first year of the Gympie goldfield, Sir Horace Tozer became an authority on mining law, introduced significant legislation into Queensland parliament and held influential public offices during the course of his career, thereby helping to shape the future of the Colony, and later State, of Queensland and its people.
Tozer's Building was built for [Sir] Horace Tozer and is still known by his name. The legal firm that he established in 1868 and his descendants continued was conducted from Tozer's Building for 94 years, perpetuating his name and connection with the site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20102,"place_ref":602777,"name":"Smithfield Chambers","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"235 Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-07-15","description":"An austere, two storey, rendered brick building in a classical idiom, Smithfield Chambers stands prominently on a sloping site to the northeast side of upper Mary Street, Gympie. Stables and a row of earth closets stand to the rear of the property.
The rendered and painted front elevation is symmetrical about a central bay which at street level comprises a recessed main entrance with splayed reveals forming a shallow porch opening into the offices beyond. The entrance, now housing a set of modern steel framed doors, is flanked by sash windows with projecting moulded sills and chamfered surrounds enriched with roll mouldings. Pairs of narrow, cricket bat panelled timber doors are to each side of the sash windows and the former shop fronts to the outer bays are now infilled with fixed glass lights to the uphill side and glazed sliding doors to the downhill. At the upper level the five bays, defined by pilasters, are punctuated by window openings to the offices and stairwells beyond. Unified by the depressed arched window heads running level, the four larger openings each housing three hopper windows mark the offices and two smaller full pane sash windows mark the stairwells. A heavy projecting cornice crowns the pilasters below a blank parapet screen bearing the wording 'erected / & co. / Smithfield Chambers / Ltd / A.D. 1896'. This is topped by a central decorative gable panel bearing the wording 'W.E. Thomas' below a floral enrichment. A suspended metal awning extends over the footpath.
At the rear the building sits within the excavated hillside retained by a rendered masonry wall framing narrow passageways to the sides and rear of the building. The stepped rear elevation is dominated by the projecting, curved roof steel framed balcony to the middle of the upper level. The upper and lower levels are punctuated by timber doors with fanlights and full pane sash windows. The blank southeast and northwest elevations, step back at the rear accommodating a narrowing of the building footprint.
Rectangular in plan, the building is laid out around a small two storey light well, accommodating office suites around the light well and shops to the outer edges. The light well is now enclosed but perimeter walls survive with elements including sash windows to the northwest and an arched opening to the northeast at the ground floor and sash windows opening from the boardroom and front and side offices on the first floor.
The ground floor accommodates offices to the middle separated from the former shop spaces by stairwells rising to the upper level. The light well separates the front offices, now open plan, from the rear offices which are partitioned off a central corridor. A substantial strong room, notable for its heavy metal door and concrete floor, stands to the east corner and a smaller strong room is accommodated beneath the southeast stairwell. The two roomed shop spaces are rectangular in plan, the northwest now partitioned into offices. Both shops have rear doors exiting to the narrow passageways to the sides of the building. An acoustic tile ceiling has been inserted throughout the ground floor. A recent concrete block extension accommodating toilets stands to the rear on the ground floor.
The first floor accommodates two suites of offices. The suite to the southeast is comprised of two offices and strong room working off a corridor accessed from the dedicated stair from Mary Street. This strong room is also notable for its heavy metal door and concrete floor. The office suite to the northwest comprises two rooms to Mary Street and three rooms along the northwest side working off the corridor arrived at from the stair from Mary Street. This corridor runs to the boardroom extending across the rear with a small room opening off to the west corner. On the first floor, internal masonry walls are plastered and room partitions are timber framed and lined, some also have panels of opaque textured glazing. Ceilings are lined with tongue and groove timber boards, have moulded timber cornices and decorative ceiling roses. Original cedar door and window joinery, skirtings and architraves survive throughout. The boardroom is notable for its joinery including the painted French windows with fanlight to the balcony flanked by large full pane varnished cedar sash windows and full pane sash windows to the former light well to the southwest. This room now has a lower plain plaster ceiling and a three-quarter height partition to the southeast. The hopper windows to the Mary Street side offices do not have internal sills, reflecting the removal of earlier French windows to these openings.
A small metal framed bridge travels from the rear balcony over the retaining wall to a grassed rear yard which accommodates stables to the northwest side and a row of earth closets to the northeast.
Open to the front, the stables have perimeter brick walls to three sides, rendered to the exterior and face brick to the interior. Semi-circular fixed timber louvred openings run along the northeast wall and a line of rectangular fixed timber louvres runs along the upper northwest wall. The timber framing and cladding of the four bay structure are generally in a state of collapse. The end bays have timber floors supported by timber stumps, the middle bays have timber framed and lined partitions to an earth floor, some roof framing and corrugated iron roof cladding remain.
Built on sloping ground with the cubicles stepping down, the eight earth closets are enclosed by three perimeter brick walls with rendered brick exteriors and painted brick interiors. The cubicles are sheltered by a skillion roof clad with corrugated iron and have rectangular fixed timber louvred windows with sills to the upper part of the northeast wall. The lower openings to this wall have small timber doors providing access to the pans. Some cubicles retain timber boxes and all retain timber doors.
The easement from Nash Street gives access to the rear of the earth closets and stables. There are a number of self sown trees and the ground to the easement path and yard is uneven.
","history":"Smithfield Chambers, a two storey rendered brick building in Upper Mary Street Gympie, was built in 1895 for William Evan Thomas, mining secretary and sharebroker.
\nGympie (initially called Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in October 1867 by James Nash in the Upper Mary River district. The new goldfield put Queensland on the map as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. By Christmas of 1867, according to the Gold Commissioner, the Gympie field had a population of 4,000 (or over 15,000 according to James Nash). Alluvial deposits were quickly exhausted and from 1868 shallow reef mining occurred.
\nAs it evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, Gympie developed a distinctive character with an irregular street pattern amid a series of valleys and ridges. Development of roads within the township followed the terrain rather than adopting the standard grid pattern that was applied to townships surveyed for settlement, and consequently many roads run along ridgelines with linking roads across valleys and hillsides. Existing buildings and mining homestead leases were accommodated in the first survey of the township in April 1868. By the mid 1870s, the vicinity of Upper Mary Street and Channon St was dominated by government and financial institutions. The early makeshift structures of Gympie gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings.
\nBy the end of the 1870s, an intensive phase of underground reef mining was underway, facilitated by the injection of share-holding capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. During the early 1880s, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie. The increase in production led to an upsurge in company formation on a massive scale. This growth led to the 1884 formation of the Gympie Stock Exchange, specialising completely in providing facilities for the transfer of shares of mining companies. The presence of sharebrokers engaged in share trading at the Gympie Stock Exchange and of mining secretaries involved in the administration of mines were the natural consequence.
\nMining secretaries ensured that the mining company they represented complied with relevant legislation and regulation, and they kept board members informed of their legal responsibilities. Mining secretaries were the company's named representative on legal documents, and it was their responsibility to ensure that the company and its directors operated within the law. It was also their responsibility to register and communicate with shareholders, to ensure that dividends were paid and company records maintained, such as lists of directors and shareholders, and annual accounts.
\nDuring the 1880s and 1890s Gympie was Queensland's second and then third biggest gold producer (after Mt Morgan overtook it in 1887). During this period gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland export income. The influx of money and the resultant yield of gold at Gympie were reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s with substantial commercial buildings such as banks and company secretary and brokers' offices. Several fires - in 1877, 1881 and 1891 - razed most of the earlier timber buildings in upper Mary Street and accelerated this transformation.
\nWhile major floods and the economic depression affected the Gympie goldfield in the early 1890s, a rapid expansion in mining activity occurred during 1894. At the end of 1893, 58 leases embraced an area of 892 acres (361ha) and 78,978 ounces (2.24 tonnes) of gold bullion was produced. By the end of 1894 there were 80 leases covering 1,354 acres (548ha) and 111,168 ounces of gold bullion (3.15 tonnes) was produced, the biggest year of production of the 1890s.
\nIt was within this context of growth and prosperity that Smithfield Chambers was built in 1895 by William Evan Thomas, mining secretary and sharebroker. Thomas was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1854. A builder by trade, Thomas arrived in Brisbane in 1885, where he started business as a building contractor before eventually working for Hall's Mercantile Agency. After visiting Gympie in the early 1890s, Thomas moved to the township and commenced business as a mining secretary and sharebroker. Although Thomas had no experience in gold mining he soon became a very successful operator, floating a number of new mines in the eastern portion of the goldfield, attracting investors from Australia and abroad. By the end of 1895 WE Thomas and Co. acted as secretaries for 28 of the 100 mining companies of Gympie, the largest provider of these services.
\nIn November 1894 Thomas purchased freehold land adjoining Gympie's Stock Exchange from Matthew Mellor for £1,000 cash. At this time the site featured timber buildings occupied by a chemist and fruiterer, and mining brokers. Thomas engaged Brisbane architect Leslie Gordon Corrie to design a block of offices and shops. Born in Hobart in 1859, Corrie trained as an architect in Tasmania and worked in private practice and for government. In 1886 he established a private practice in Brisbane and was appointed architect to the Queensland Deposit Bank and Building Society. In 1888-1892 he was in partnership with his former master Henry Hunter. From 1898 to 1905 he was in partnership with GHM Addison as Addison and Corrie. Corrie was a foundation member and long-time councillor of the Queensland Institute of Architects, elected a fellow in 1889 and President from 1906-08.
\nBefore construction Thomas had already decided on the name of the building - 'Smithfield Chambers', in honour of one of Gympie's most successful early mines, the Smithfield which began operating in 1867. Corrie advertised for tenders to erect the building during February 1895. By early March, William Anthony, of Brisbane (builder of the 1888 Smellie and Co Warehouse in Brisbane [QHR 600092]) was awarded the building contract for £2,500, exclusive of the strong room and doors, with a requirement to have the work completed by July.
\nThomas' proposed internal layout for Smithfield Chambers was described in the Gympie Times in late 1894. On the ground floor there were two shops, one at either side, and the centre had a suite of offices facing the street on each side of the hall, with clerks' rooms and a boardroom at the rear. On the first floor there was a suite of three offices on the eastern side, accessed by a separate staircase. The other side of the first floor was divided into five offices and a large boardroom. Each suite of offices was provided with a strong room (of the four strongrooms, three are still extant).
\nWhen completed, Smithfield Chambers, a two storey rendered brick building designed in a classical idiom was one of the largest and most prominent buildings on upper Mary Street. Thomas reinforced his commercial presence on the streetscape by prominently wording the parapet with 'Smithfield Chambers' and 'W.E. Thomas & Co., mining secretary'. The building also included a first floor verandah and street awning. Among the earliest occupiers of the building were Mr J Nicholson, who operated as a tobacconist and hairdresser in one of the shop spaces, consulting engineer Brunel Kay and mining secretaries and agents Maxey and Moodie.
\nIn 1899 Thomas sold Smithfield Chambers to JB Charlton, a stockbroker and in 1902 ownership passed to John Donovan, a mining speculator. Gold production in Queensland peaked in 1903, due largely to a final burst of production at Gympie, which was followed by a 60 percent decrease in production between 1903 and 1913 as the three major Queensland goldfields (Charters Towers, Gympie and Mt Morgan) declined simultaneously. The Gympie field passed through its most profitable period from 1901 to 1906 and in 1903 produced its peak annual output of 146,000 fine ounces (surpassing Mt Morgan that year). After 1906 the decline that began in 1904 accelerated and by 1925 the last of the big mines had ceased production, ending a 50 year phase of deep reef mining in Gympie.
\nIn 1930 Charles Bright became owner of Smithfield Chambers. The building's association with gold mining continued through its occupation by Gympie's Stock Exchange Club. The Club had moved into Smithfield Chambers from the AJS Bank building opposite in 1923, which had been used as the Stock Exchange from 1902-1922. The club initially used the ground floor, and their premises consisted of a bar, reading room, three card rooms and two offices in 1937. During the early 1930s the Gympie branch of the CWA held their meetings at the chambers. The top floor was occupied by Spirit merchants in 1957, and in 1958 the Stock Exchange Club took over three rooms on the first floor for a library, reading room and dinette. The club closed in 1963, and in 1964 Jack Cartwright, of Power and Cartwright solicitors, purchased the building. Power and Power, the firm predating Power and Cartwright, may have operated from the building from the 1950s. A photo from 1973 shows that the verandah had been removed by this time and John McCarthy Real Estate occupied the shop space to the left of the building. The current office fit-out dates from the 1970s, when an internal light well at the centre of the building was enclosed, and an awning replaced the verandah (post-1973).
\nThe rear yard of the building, which is level with the rear of first floor, contains the remains of a brick stable on the northwest side, and a rendered brick earth closet block, with eight cubicles and an access lane to the rear. While no documentary evidence has confirmed LG Corrie as the architect of the block, Corrie is known to have had a particular interest in sanitation, as Mayor of Brisbane in 1901 and as a lecturer in sanitary engineering in 1906.
\nThe Gympie Municipal Council first introduced by-laws relating to the erection and maintenance of earth closets in 1883. Initially only certain areas of the municipality (including Mary St) were required to conform to provisions. In areas where earth closets were made mandatory, pit systems were filled in and existing toilets were required to be rebuilt or altered. Each earth closet was fitted with a box or other vessel 'for the reception of nightsoil or other filth' and placed conveniently for removal. Earth closets were also required to be furnished with 'a suitable receptacle for the storage of a quantity of dry earth for deodorising purposes'. People engaged in the removal of nightsoil were required to pay an annual license fee and could only operate between eleven at night to five in the morning. From 1885 the council operated its own nightsoil service. By 1894 the whole of the municipality was under the provisions of the by-laws. In 1895, the by-laws were further extended and every nightman was required to keep a register of all premises visited, to be submitted monthly to the council inspector. Nightsoil service charges at this time were one shilling and six pence for a single pan and one shilling and three pence for additional pans.
\nSmithfield Chambers is still used by Power and Cartwright. The ground floor, including the former shop spaces, is used as offices, and the first floor is only partially utilised. The two staircases from the street level to the first floor still exist, although only the northwest one is in use. A large space at the centre rear of the first floor has been partitioned. There are still two strong rooms on the ground floor, and one on the first floor.
","criteria":"Smithfield Chambers is important in demonstrating the evolution of gold mining at Gympie, a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland for approximately 60 years from 1867. As Gympie gold production shifted from shallow to deep reef mining from the mid-1870s, this change was reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in the town centre. The building illustrates the growth, wealth and confidence of the Gympie goldfield in the 1890s. For nearly 70 years the building was intimately associated with the mining industry - from its earliest function of accommodating mining secretaries to the housing of the Gympie Stock Exchange Club from 1923 to 1963.
|Designed to stand prominently in the commercial district of a booming gold mining town and retaining major design elements, including discreet office suites, boardroom, strong rooms, stables and earth closets, Smithfield Chambers is important in illustrating the layout and operation of a mining secretaries' building.
The row of earth closets to Smithfield Chambers is a fine example of this type of sanitary facility, demonstrated by its layout and siting, and in its retention of major design elements including discreet cubicles with pan service doors, boxes and a service easement.
|The row of earth closets to the rear of Smithfield Chambers is important as a rare surviving example of an early sanitary system that was once common but is now obsolete.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20103,"place_ref":602772,"name":"Australian Joint Stock Bank (former)/Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club (former)","alternate_name":"Neilson, Stanton and Parkinson Building | Australian Joint Stock Bank | Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club","street_address":"236 Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-04-15","description":"The former Gympie Stock Exchange, a single storey (with basement) masonry building with an elegant temple front, stands in upper Mary Street in Gympie's central business area. The early part of the building stands to the front of the site and a latter addition to the rear is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance and is not included in this description. The building is built to the front property boundary.
The building is sheltered by a hipped roof clad with metal sheeting which is screened by a decorative balustraded parapet. A brick chimney with cornice banding rises through the roof on the western side of the building. The temple front comprises moulded square columns in an implied Doric order forming a timber floored entrance colonnade running across the front elevation. The columns support a plain entablature with a heavy moulded cornice. The projecting central entrance is flanked by twinned round and square columns supporting a plain entablature and crowned with a plain pediment. Decorative wrought iron balustrading runs between the square columns and a two-leaf decorative wrought iron gate marks the entrance. The front elevation is defined by square pilasters to the corners and is smooth-rendered masonry with a paint finish. The elevation is composed of three arched openings comprising a central entrance flanked by large double hung timber sash windows. A moulded cornice gives unity to the elevation.
The side elevations of the building are red facebrick and the building is separated from the adjacent buildings by narrow pedestrian lanes.
The central front entrance comprises a draft lobby consisting of a pair of exterior timber paneled doors with an arched fanlight and a pair of interior glazed timber doors on pivoting hinges. These swing doors are notable for the decorative brass, timber and glass handles. The flanking arched openings accommodate large double-hung timber sash windows.
The draft lobby opens into the banking chamber with the manager's office and the bank vault opening off this to the west. The rear section is organized off a central corridor with two rooms opening to the west and a single room to the east.
Internal openings are generous with wide timber paneled doors some with glazed pivoting fanlights. The south opening to the manager's office accommodates a glazed timber paneled door. Generous timber skirting boards, skirting blocks and architraves are throughout. Walls are lined with plaster and ceilings with fibrous cement sheeting with timber cornice and cover strips. Much early door and window hardware survives including brass door handles and plates, porcelain fingerplates, doorknobs, key plates, hinges and locks. Floors are generally lined with recent carpet but the early pine floor boards are intact below. The original rear doors are intact and consist of a pair of timber paneled doors to the east side and a single timber paneled door to the west. The foyer accommodates part of the ornate carved and paneled front counter. The thick vault door has a fine timber paneled door with original hardware including brass handle to the chamber face and is lined with a heavy brown metal plate to the inner face. The vault comprises an arch concrete roof supported by thick brick walls. The manager's office has an early fireplace with a decorated timber mantelpiece and cast iron grate and side cheeks.
The basement accommodates a storage vault where brick piers, brick foundation walls and the sandstone foundations of the vault above are visible. The timber-framed floor above is unlined. Facebrick arched brick lintels are above internal openings which accommodate pairs of timber paneled doors. Early metal bars are located on the inner face of the timber sash windows which have been sealed.
","history":"The former Australian Joint Stock Bank (AJSB)/Gympie Stock Exchange building is a single storey rendered brick building in the classical style, plus a basement. Located in upper Mary Street, Gympie, it was designed by leading Queensland colonial architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley and built in 1881-82 for the AJSB as its permanent Gympie branch. Between 1902 and circa1922 it functioned as the Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club.
Gympie (initially known as Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield turned Queensland into a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced.
As Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, the early makeshift structures of the 1860s gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings from the mid 1870s. With the change to deep reef mining from 1875, came the need for extensive capital investment through the formation of companies using foreign as well as local capital. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. The influx of money and the resultant yield of gold were reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s with substantial commercial buildings such as banks and company secretary and brokers' offices. Several fires - in 1877, 1881 and 1891 - razed the earlier timber buildings and accelerated this transformation. A fire in August 1881 destroyed all of the buildings between Patterson's brick store and the Bank of New South Wales (242 Mary Street), leading to construction of more permanent masonry buildings in western side of upper Mary Street. One new building was that of the Australian Joint Stock Bank constructed during 1881 and 1882.
The Australian Joint Stock Bank was established with the discovery of gold in southern colonies in 1852 and opened branches on Queensland goldfields as they were discovered, including a branch at the Gympie goldfield on 10 March 1868. By 1878 the AJSB wished to establish a permanent branch in the town and purchased two adjacent town allotments (allotments 5 and 6, Section A) for this purpose in late October and early November 1878. The building designed for this site by architect FDG Stanley is in the neo-classical style befitting an organisation wishing to project stability, reliability and longevity. After seeing the plans, the building was described by the Gympie Times as 'a very handsome brick building of two - or more correctly speaking - of one storey and a basement. The lower portion will be used as a record room, and the upper floor adapted for offices etc, the front being adorned with a handsome portico'. Andrew Collins was contracted as the builder and the building cost approximately £1,400.
The bank's architect, FDG Stanley, arrived to Queensland in 1861 and was employed by the Lands and Works Department in the Colonial Architect's office from 1863 until 1881. The last eight years of his service were as Colonial Architect and as such he was the longest-serving of all Queensland's Colonial Architects. His principal building in this capacity was the Supreme Court Building in Brisbane (demolished). Thereafter Stanley worked in private practice until his death in 1897. His work was prolific and he produced many important buildings including the Queensland National Bank, Brisbane [QHR 600153], Holy Trinity Church and Rectory, Fortitude Valley [QHR 600201], the Queensland Club, Brisbane [QHR 600113] and the Brisbane GPO [QHR 600148]. Among his regular clients were the Queensland National Bank, Australian Joint Stock Bank, the Union Bank, the Anglican Church and the merchants DL Brown and Co, for whom he designed substantial buildings throughout the colony. His buildings in Gympie include the Gympie Post Office [QHR 600534] and St Patrick's Catholic Church [QHR 600503]. Watson and McKay in Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century concluded that Stanley 'is the best known of all Queensland's early architects because of the quality, diversity and extent of his work'.
Although bank architecture projected stability and reliability, these could not be provided in 1893 when Queensland suffered its worst banking collapse and eight of its eleven banks temporarily ceased trading, including the AJSB. It suspended trading from April to July when it reopened as a limited liability bank, namely, the Australian Joint Stock Bank Limited (AJSB Ltd). The property at 236 Mary Street was transferred to this institution and the bank continued to operate from this building in Mary Street until its closure on 17 January 1902.
Shortly thereafter the premises were sold to the Gympie Stock Exchange which retained the premises until 1923. From its inception on 10 July 1884, with 127 members and 60 companies listed, the Gympie Stock Exchange had occupied a building on the opposite side of upper Mary Street adjacent to the Mining Exchange Hotel (now the RSL Club). At its meeting on 25 February 1902 the Committee of the Gympie Stock Exchange resolved to offer £1,600 for the AJSB Ltd premises on the following terms: £400 cash, the balance in instalments of £150 pa with 5% added for interest. The purchasers were to have the right to pay larger instalments and the Bank was to retain the deeds of the property until it was fully paid for. At its next meeting on 5 March 1902, the offer having been accepted, the Chairman of the Committee was empowered to complete the purchase of the AJSB Ltd premises. The Committee met again on 12 March to consult with architect Hugo Durietz regarding alterations to the premises.
These additions and alterations were undertaken in May and June 1902. They included the Stock Exchange call room, a separate timber building, erected by Pointer and Stewart for £229 at the rear of the former bank and accessed by a laneway on the lower (left-hand-side) of the building. The Stock Exchange offices and its newly formed club were housed in the former bank building.
The formation of the Gympie Stock Exchange had resulted from the increase in the production of gold at Gympie through deep reef mining. During the 1880s and 1890s Gympie was Queensland's second and then third biggest gold producer (after Mt Morgan gold production overtook it in 1887). During this period gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland's export income. The increase in production led to an upsurge in company formation because the industry was also the major capital-using sector of the colonial economy and so adopted company formation on a massive scale. This growth in gold-mining shares led to the formation of the Gympie Stock Exchange for their trading. Other goldfield stock exchanges were established at Charters Towers and Ravenswood. The Gympie Stock Exchange specialised completely in mining. During its existence it competed with its Brisbane counterpart (also established in July 1884) - providing facilities for the transfer of shares of Gympie mining companies. The existence of the Stock Exchange in Gympie, in the heart of the goldfield, kept many shares away from Brisbane and, in addition, aided the development of company formation in Gympie. The volume of sales of Gympie shares on the Brisbane Stock Exchange rarely exceeded that on the Gympie Exchange.
Substantial changes in the Queensland mining sector occurred between 1899 and 1913. Gold production in Queensland peaked in 1903, due largely to a final burst of production at Gympie, which was followed by a 60% decrease in production between 1903 and 1913 as the three major Queensland goldfields (Charters Towers, Gympie and Mt Morgan) declined simultaneously. A treatment process for mine tailings that used cyanide had provided Gympie a record yield in 1899. The Gympie field passed through its most profitable period from 1901 to 1906 and in 1903 recorded an output of 146,000 fine ounces (surpassing Mt Morgan that year). After 1906 the decline that had set in at Gympie in 1904 began to accelerate.
This downturn in gold production forced the eventual closure of the Stock Exchange circa 1922. Despite this closure the Stock Exchange Club continued in this location at 236 Mary Street until 1923 when the premises were sold.
On 5 July 1923 Gympie solicitor Frederick Barker Sykes purchased the Gympie Stock Exchange site for £1,000. The Gympie Stock Exchange call room was removed circa 1923. It was divided into two sections. One of these was moved to Mothar Mountain where it became the home of Professor Edward Sykes (son of FB Sykes; Professor of Law at the University of Queensland and later at the University of Melbourne) and was later destroyed by fire. The other portion was relocated to the north-west of the Cooroy railway station goods' shed, where it remains. After the sale, the Gympie Stock Exchange Club moved to Smithfield Chambers on the opposite side of Mary Street, where the Club remained until circa 1963 when its closure occurred due to a declining active membership.
The former bank and stock exchange building continued in the ownership of the Sykes family until 1976 when it was sold to Neilson, Stanton and Parkinson - another firm of solicitors. These owners report that only minor changes have been made to accommodate their firm's operations in the original building, although additions have been made to the rear of the building.
","criteria":"The former Australian Joint Stock Bank (AJSB) building (1882)-and the important gold-era precinct of which it is a part-is physical evidence of the evolution of Gympie gold mining, which was a major economic contributor to the wealth of Queensland for nearly 60 years from 1867. As Gympie gold production continued and evolved from alluvial to shallow reef mining to deep reef mining from 1875, this change was reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in the town centre. The former AJSB building was one of these permanent commercial buildings.
The former AJSB building is important in demonstrating the vital role of financial institutions in the process of wealth creation and distribution on Queensland goldfields when as a bank branch (1882-1902) it converted enormous amounts of gold into cash and later in its role as the Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club (1902-circa1922).
|The former AJSB building has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities, expressed in the craftsmanship and detailing of the joinery and finishes, and for its streetscape value through its form, scale and design. These qualities complement other surviving 19th century buildings in the street, particularly other banks also entered in the Queensland Heritage Register including the nearby former Bank of New South Wales [QHR 602775]. The important and substantially intact gold-era precinct, of which this building is a valuable part, comprises a harmonious streetscape of late Victorian commercial buildings dating from the 1880s and 1890s.
Its balanced classical design, often associated with banks, projects the concept of stability that financial institutions of this era sought to convey through their buildings' architecture.
|The former AJSB building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era, being a good example of a masonry structure in the classical style combining a banking chamber and office. Its siting with other important gold-related buildings in upper Mary Street, high above the gold diggings, illustrates the prominence of banks in the gold mining town of Gympie.
Its intactness is demonstrated in its planning, room volumes, joinery, and strong room.
Designed by the respected and prolific architect, FDG Stanley in 1881-82, the former AJSB building is a good example of Stanley's regional bank architecture.
|As the premises of the Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club from 1902 to circa1922, the former AJSB building demonstrates a building type that has always been uncommon in Queensland and remains so. It is a rare surviving remnant of one of the four stock exchanges (in Brisbane, Gympie, Charters Towers and Ravenswood) that operated during the 19th century while Queensland was a significant gold-producer.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20104,"place_ref":602775,"name":"Bank of New South Wales (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"242 Mary Street","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-04-15","description":"A compact but grand, three storey, rendered brick building in a classical idiom, the former Bank of New South Wales stands prominently to upper Mary Street, Gympie.
Built on a sloping site with frontages to Mary and Reef streets, the three bay main elevation to Mary Street is defined by the corner banded pilasters and articulated by two implied orders of pilasters, Corinthian to the upper level and Doric within a rusticated treatment to the ground level. Projecting cornices and continuous window sills to each level together with a balustraded parapet and a blind balustrade below the upper level windows give horizontal unity. Projecting banded pilasters frame the central bay which accommodates a rusticated portal entrance below a serlian inspired window. The upper level outer bays accommodate pedimented full pane sash windows framed by plain projecting architraves with base ears. The street level accommodates two full pane sash windows to the south bay and a sash window and six panel timber door with large fanlight to the north.
The Reef Street elevation is comprised of the west wing, each level of which is punctuated by a central full pane sash window, and the enclosed extension beyond the upper level verandah. The northwest and southeast elevations are partly obscured by adjacent buildings. The northwest elevation of the west wing is notable for the decorative metal awning to the upper sash window. The southeast elevation is divided into four bays by plain pilasters, is crowned by a blind parapet concealing the hipped roof beyond and is punctuated by full pane sash windows to each level. The entablature and cornice of the upper level of the front elevation continues around in the southeast elevation. A lower curved parapet screens the rear upper level verandah roof and the elevation houses a narrow rectangular louvred window. There is evidence of the removal of French windows and replacement with the sash windows to the upper level of the southeast elevation. The earlier verandah has been replaced by a suspended awning.
The building is sheltered by hipped roofs clad with corrugated metal sheeting and three rendered masonry chimneys project through the roof.
Square in plan with a projecting west wing, the building is organised over three levels. The former banking chamber is accommodated at the Mary Street level, the bank vaults and storage are housed in the basement and the former bank manager's residence occupies the upper level.
The ground floor retains the major spaces of the former bank including the main banking chamber, manager's office and strong room and accountant/clerks office and the entrance to the residence above. The banking chamber is accessed from the central main entrance off Mary Street and is notable for its decorative pressed metal ceiling. The manager's office, opening off the chamber to the northwest, has a pressed metal ceiling, granite surround fireplace and a substantial strong room to the southwest. The strong room, a painted brick rectangular space with a barrel vaulted ceiling, has a heavy metal door with the maker's plate "Milners' 212 Patent Thief-Resisting". The strong room houses a small safe with the maker's plate "John Tann's Reliance Safe". The accountant/clerks office, a large rectangular room to the southwest of the banking chamber is notable for its decorative plaster ceiling in an art deco style. The interior walls of the former banking floor spaces, except the strong room, are plaster finished and are distinguished by timber veneer wall panelling. The office in the west wing retains its fireplace cavity now housing a cupboard.
The basement, level with Reef Street, has a concrete floor and concrete and brick walls and accommodates a number of vaults and storage rooms below the banking floor. In some spaces the timber frame of the floor above is unlined. The rear office has a painted off form concrete finish to the walls and fireplace and the ceiling is lined with fibre cement sheeting.
A handsome cedar staircase with finely turned balustrades and carved newel posts rises from the corridor extending from the northern entrance off Mary Street. The upper level is organised around a central corridor incorporating a hall at the top of the stairs with two rooms to the Mary Street side and two to Reef Street. French windows to the rooms on the Reef Street side open onto a verandah, now enclosed with weatherboard cladding and casement windows, running along the Reef Street side. All interior walls are plastered and this level is notable for decorative pressed metal ceilings to rooms, hall, corridor and staircase soffits and the retention of much original cedar joinery including skirtings, architraves, doors and windows. The front rooms have back to back fireplaces with marble surrounds. Decorative arches with prominent keystones at the top of the stairs and part way along the corridor define the hall. Accessed from the rear verandah, the single room west wing is lit by full pane sash windows on three sides and has a recent plain plaster ceiling.
A concrete parking area runs to the rear of the building accessed from Reef Street.
Recent partitioning and extensions to the southwest of the building at all levels and a new wing to the southeast are not considered to be of heritage significance.
","history":"The former Bank of New South Wales building located in upper Mary Street Gympie was designed by Richard Gailey and built in 1890-91. This two storey neo-classical building was purpose-built as the Gympie branch of the Bank of New South Wales, which had been operating at the Gympie goldfield since March 1868. It comprised ground floor banking facilities, upper floor manager's residence and a basement.
Gympie (initially known as Nashville) was established after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield turned Queensland into a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced.
As Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, the early makeshift structures of the 1860s gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings from the mid 1870s. With the change to deep reef mining from 1875, came the need for extensive capital investment through the formation of companies using foreign as well as local capital. During 1881, mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. The influx of money and the resultant yield of gold was reflected in the redevelopment of upper Mary Street during the 1880s and 1890s with substantial commercial buildings such as banks, company secretaries' and brokers' offices. One of these was the Bank of New South Bank building, which opened in 1891.
The Bank of New South Wales (BNSW) was the first bank established in Australia (February 1817) but it was restricted to trading in Sydney until 1850. After restructure in that year it opened its first branch outside Sydney, at Brisbane, on 14 November 1850. It expanded rapidly thereafter with the rush of gold discoveries in New South Wales and Victoria. The bank set up agencies and gold-buying agents at every new diggings in order to spread its network and consolidate its position. Bank officers were urged on by their superiors to be the first to a new location to set up a gold-buying agency. By 1861 the BNSW had grown from a single Sydney office in 1850 to a network of 37 branches in Australia and New Zealand.
Subsequently, with the discovery of gold at Gympie the Bank opened an agency on the goldfield on 21 March 1868, less than six months after the goldfield's establishment. In the same year the bank transferred to a building owned by Merry and Davis. An 1868 photograph of lower Mary Street, Gympie shows the Bank of New South Wales operating from a weatherboard-clad building with a shingle roof.
Over the ensuing years as it became increasingly clear that the Gympie goldfield was a long-term proposition, a series of steps towards permanency were taken by the bank reflecting this longevity. Firstly, in 1872 the BNSW agency converted to a branch with the increased banking services that entailed.
Secondly, in 1879 the bank purchased the 22 perch allotment on which the current building stands and occupied the timber and tin building on the site until selling it prior to the building of the current structure. Thirdly, the decision at the end of the 1880s to build a masonry building followed the growth of deep reef mining on the goldfield and the rise in Gympie's gold output throughout the decade.
The 1880s were a decade of rapid growth and development and rising land prices in Queensland. Mainly due to Queensland's three major gold mining centres - Gympie, Charters Towers and Mt Morgan - the value of gold output rose from £698,000 in 1883 to £2.75m in 1889, exceeding the value of exported wool. Gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland's export income during the 1880s and 1890s. These enormous amounts of gold were purchased by banks such as the BNSW, which played a vital role in this process of wealth creation and distribution.
In February 1890 Brisbane architect Richard Gailey advertised for tenders to build a brick building for the Bank of New South Wales Gympie. On 24 March the old bank building on the site was sold and building of the new premises commenced.
These were opened in 1891. The two storey building comprised rendered brick walls and an iron roof. At the rear was a two-stall stable with harness room. The second storey of the building comprised the manager's residence and an early photograph shows a verandah on the lower (eastern) side of the first floor.
The building's architect, Richard Gailey (1834-1924) was a Londonderry man who had settled in Brisbane in 1864. He established his own practice there in 1865, and over the next 60 years built up a thriving business; working until his death in 1924. He designed Baptist churches including the Baptist Tabernacle, Brisbane [QHR 600175], former Ipswich Baptist Church, Ipswich [QHR 602573]; commercial buildings such as banks including the Westpac Bank, Normanton (former BNSW) [QHR 600394]; and many hotels including the Jubilee Hotel, Brisbane [QHR 600211], Orient Hotel, Brisbane [QHR 602122], Regatta Hotel, Toowong [QHR 600331] and Wickham Hotel, Fortitude Valley [QHR 600213]. Many commercial buildings in Brisbane designed by Gailey during the 1880s were characterised by classical idioms and details.
Substantial changes in the Queensland mining sector occurred after 1900. A treatment process for mine tailings that used cyanide had provided Gympie a record yield in 1899. Gold production in Queensland peaked in 1903, due largely to a final burst of production at Gympie, which was followed by a 60% decrease in production between 1903 and 1913 as the three major Queensland goldfields (Charters Towers, Gympie and Mt Morgan) declined simultaneously. The Gympie field passed through its most profitable period from 1901 to 1906 and in 1903 recorded an output of 146,000 fine ounces (surpassing Mt Morgan that year). After 1906 the decline that had set in at Gympie in 1904 accelerated, finally resulting in the closure of the last mine circa 1927.
In conjunction with this downturn Gympie evolved into a service town for the region's growing dairy and agricultural industries. Over time the commercial centre of the town moved eastward down Mary Street in response to the commercial activity centring upon the railway station. The BNSW continued to operate from its location in upper Mary Street until June 1940 when the Bank purchased a block of land closer to the commercial centre of the town at the corner of Mary and Smithfield Streets and new premises were erected. The BNSW building at 242 Mary Street was sold to the Council of the Shire of Widgee in the same year.
Alterations to the former BNSW building were made on several occasions. In 1902 'steel' [metal] ceilings were fitted in the BNSW building by Messrs Crane and son. In 1938 the BNSW made alterations and additions to the bank premises and installed a septic system. After purchase by the Widgee Shire Council in 1940 the building was used as shire chambers and office space after some changes were made for this purpose by architects Addison and McDonald who called tenders in June 1940. In February 1981, extension and alterations to the south-east of the building to provide offices facing Mary Street took place.
","criteria":"The former BNSW building, designed by Richard Gailey, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a regional bank of its era. This two-storey masonry structure in the classical style retains its banking chamber, offices, strong room, vaults and manager's residence. Its siting with other important gold-related buildings, high above the gold diggings, illustrates the significance of banks in the gold mining town of Gympie.
Its intactness is demonstrated in its planning, room volumes, joinery, strong room and pressed metal ceilings. The former manager's residence, including its ground floor entry, retains its floor plan, decorative plaster cornices, windows, doors and joinery.
|The former BNSW building has aesthetic significance for its architectural qualities expressed in the craftsmanship and detailing of the joinery and finishes, and for its streetscape value through its form, scale and design. These qualities complement other surviving 19th century buildings in the street, particularly other banks also entered in the Queensland Heritage Register including the nearby Australian Joint Stock Bank (former) / Gympie Stock Exchange Offices and Club (former) [QHR 602772].
Its balanced classical design, often associated with banks, projects the concept of stability that financial institutions of this era sought to convey through their buildings' architecture.
|The former Bank of New South Wales (BNSW) building (1891)-and the important gold-era precinct of which it is a part-is physical evidence of the evolution of Gympie gold mining, a major contributor to the wealth of Queensland for approximately 60 years from 1867. As Gympie gold production continued and evolved from alluvial to shallow reef mining to deep reef mining from 1875, this change was reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in the town centre.
The BNSW building, erected during the third stage of Gympie mining, symbolised the wealth and permanence of the town. For almost fifty years the building served as a Bank of New South Wales branch and manager's residence.
Its siting near Commissioner's Hill in the vicinity of important government and gold-related buildings, and its later sale when the centre of the town moved eastwards after gold production ceased also illustrate the evolution of Gympie's development.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20277,"place_ref":602783,"name":"Traveston Powder Magazine (former) (incorporated in Traveston Soldiers' Memorial Hall)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"7 Traveston Road","suburb":"TRAVESTON","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-06-10","description":"A modest rectangular brick building, screened to the north and east by the Traveston Soldiers' Memorial Hall extension, the former Traveston Powder Magazine stands on a sloping, grassed reserve on Traveston Road south of the Traveston railway siding.
The powder magazine stands on concrete foundations and is sheltered by a hipped roof clad with early short sheets of corrugated iron sheets. The roof of the building's eastern end, including the memorial hall extension, is largely clad in recent metal sheeting. Constructed of cavity brick walls 14 inches (355.6mm) thick, the former magazine measures 30 x 20 feet (9.1m x 6.1m) internally with a floor to ceiling height of 10 feet 3 inches (3124.2mm). The three narrow rectangular openings to each long side each measure 42 inches x 18 inches (1066.8mm x 457.2mm) and house solid timber plank and rail windows. The building has a polished timber floor and a coved ceiling lined with painted, beaded tongue and groove timber boards and accommodates a decorative ceiling rose. An opening in the west wall accommodates an escape door. The exterior south and west walls have a cement slurry finish; the north exterior and the interior walls are painted.
The stage end of the hall extends from the line of the demolished exterior east wall of the powder magazine. The original door housed to the centre of this wall now hangs to the opening in the north wall at the stage end. The kitchen wing extension runs along the north side. The hall extensions are timber framed, clad with narrow chamferboards and fibre cement sheeting and are lined with fibre cement sheeting. This part of the building has a flat ceiling lined with similar sheeting, which extends over part of the magazine.
Three honour boards commemorating soldiers from the Traveston district who fought in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War hang on the wall at the stage end of the hall. Soldiers' portraits and commemorative inscriptions and plaques also line the walls around the stage.
A water tank, toilets and a covered, open carport space stand to the east beyond the stage end of the hall, and these elements are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"An 1887 brick powder magazine, with post World War II timber extensions, is located on Traveston Road south of the Traveston railway station. The magazine was relocated from Gympie to Traveston in 1898 and became a Soldiers' Memorial Hall in 1923. The former magazine is rare surviving evidence of the infrastructure associated with Gympie's mining heyday, specifically the use of explosives in deep-reef mining. It is also evidence of the Australian practice of commemorating the sacrifices of World War I and World War II with memorial halls and honour boards.
The magazine at Traveston was initially located in the town of Gympie, which was established after the discovery of gold by James Nash, announced in October 1867. The new gold field established Queensland as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. Although the alluvial deposits were quickly exhausted, from 1868 shallow reef mining occurred. From 1875 a third phase of mining began, based on deep reef mining, which marked a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie. Peak gold production occurred in 1903 but by 1927 production at Gympie had almost ceased.
Reef mining led to the need for explosives to break up rock. For over a century control of all explosives and gunpowder imported into Queensland was the province of the Harbour Master's Department (1860-62), the Department of Ports & Harbours (1862-93), the Marine Department (1894-1928), and the Department of Harbours and Marine (1929-63). In 1964, responsibility was shifted to the Queensland Department of Health. Under The Navigation Act 1876 the master of any ship entering a Queensland port with gunpowder to be unloaded had to ensure that it was placed in a government magazine. The various harbour departments therefore were responsible for the provision of magazines and for the safe storage of explosives at Queensland ports of entry. The Act further regulated the conveyance and storage of gunpowder in any place in Queensland, not just in the ports. On the goldfields, magazines were initially administered by the Mines Department, as control of magazines outside ports was not vested in the Marine Department until 1907.
Some common magazine design features include sturdy construction, small windows and solid doors, ventilation and overhanging eaves, timber floors with copper nails or timber pegs instead of iron nails, and the provision of lightning conductors and copper earthing straps. Magazines were generally located away from population centres and were sometimes surrounded by earthworks to deflect any blast. In addition, magazine complexes were often surrounded by walls or fences to keep people out. Traveston once possessed all of the above properties except the earthworks.
The Queensland Department of Public Works built powder magazines during the 1860s at Brisbane, Maryborough and Gympie; and during the 1870s at Townsville, Ravenswood, Mount Perry [QHR 602782], Millchester, Cooktown [QHR 600425], Eagle Farm, Thornborough and Maytown. The first government magazines at Cairns (on a floating barge), Charters Towers, Croydon, Georgetown, Herberton, Normanton, Port Douglas and Rockhampton were all built in the 1880s.
Magazines were also upgraded and replaced when necessary, and several were built at Gympie, in two different locations. Gympie's first magazine was built in 1868 by the Department of Public Works, at a cost of £191, on the west side of Commissioner's Gully (just west of today's Queens Park). The Gympie Times of 27 October 1868 suggested that people use it, 'as there is as much powder stored in Mary Street as would blow Gympie out of existence. Rather a pleasant fact to dream about'.
However, the brick building proved inadequate by 1878. There was insufficient space and a timber skillion section had been added to store excess explosives. A powder explosion in a Mary Street store in 1877 made townsfolk nervous, and tenders for a new magazine were called in May 1878.
A new magazine site was chosen on Rifle Range Road, and the new powder magazine was finished, except for painting, by late November 1878. About £496 was spent on construction, and an August 1878 plan shows a timber building set on stumps, with internal dimensions of 25 feet by 18 feet (7.62m by 5.49m), sited within a cutting into a hillside and surrounded by a fence. JG Glover was appointed as magazine keeper in 1880, and in early 1885 James Nash, who had lost most of his money in poor business dealings, was appointed as the magazine keeper at a salary of £100 per annum. His daughter, Miss Amy Nash, eventually became the effective keeper of the magazine on behalf of her father.
A dynamite magazine of a similar design to the powder magazine was added to the site at a cost of £217 over 1885-86. An additional powder magazine was built at a cost of £402 over 1887-88, tenders being invited in September 1887. This third magazine was made of brick, with internal dimensions of 30 feet by 20 feet (9.1m by 6.1m) with 14 inch (355.6mm) thick walls. There were three narrow windows on each side, with a door at one end, and the roof ridge was capped with a round ventilator, on which sat a lightning conductor which was earthed by copper straps which dropped from the hipped roof to the ground and trailed away from the building.
Despite these precautions, the magazine's location was still not distant enough from the town for some people, and agitation to move it accelerated after a loud explosion in November 1897, when some old explosives from the magazine were destroyed in an amateurish manner by an explosives company representative, some 700m from the magazine.
The locality of Traveston, south of Gympie and on the North Coast railway line, was selected as the site of a new magazine, against the wishes of its residents and the Mines Department. In June 1898 the Mayor of Gympie urged the Premier to speed up the process of moving the magazines, and tenders to remove the magazine complex and keeper's cottage from Gympie and re-erect them at Traveston were called in July 1898. JC Thompson's tender for £659 was accepted in August, and the move was completed by the end of January 1899. When the magazine buildings were moved to Traveston, James Nash and his daughter went with them. When Nash retired in 1912 he was granted a government pension of £100 per annum, in honour of his services to Queensland, and Amy's husband, Joseph Moore, was appointed keeper of the magazine. James Nash died in October 1913, aged 79.
A 29.5 acre (11.94 hectare) Reserve for an Explosives Magazine (Portion 877A), located to the south of the Traveston railway station, was gazetted in April 1900. The magazine keeper's cottage was located at the northern point of the reserve. An undated plan shows the three magazines arranged in a row, facing the railway line, with the brick magazine in the centre between the two timber magazines. However, locals contend that both timber magazines were located to the north of the brick magazine, and this seems to be supported by 1914 correspondence which refers to the centre building being on stumps. After the move from Gympie, new timber loading stages were added outside the door of each magazine, to face a railway siding from the railway station, and an iron sheeted fence was constructed around the site.
In 1913 Mr Moore reported to the Portmaster of the Marine Department that the gate to the magazines had been broken by the engine during shunting operations, and in 1915 he reported that the floor of the brick magazine was subsiding. Some flooring and the timber joists under it had to be replaced, due to rot and white ants, and reference is made in 1918 to the use of copper nails in the floor.
In 1921 the magazine reserve consisted of about 29 acres (11.74 hectares), and the magazine complex is described in April 1921 as having 'three magazines, two of iron and one of brick, all in a line, with a siding and loading platform in front. Each of the two iron buildings measures 25'3" by 17'2", with 10' walls sheeted outside with iron and pine inside, pine cove ceiling and hardwood floor. Both floor and ceiling are plentifully perforated for ventilation purposes...both buildings are very old...the brick magazine measures 31' by 21', and is a thoroughly sound building...a 7' G.I. fence surrounds the three magazines.'
The Moores were evicted from the magazine keeper's cottage at the end of March 1921, and it was transferred to the Railway Department. In August 1921 tenders were invited for the purchase and removal of the magazine buildings and iron fencing and in September the tenders of LJ Macpherson (£5 for the brick magazine) and MJ Griffin (£94 7s 3d for the fence and the two iron magazines) were accepted. However, other parties were showing an interest in the brick magazine building. World War I (1914-1918), although fought in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, had a profound impact on Australia. Over 300,000 Australians out of a population of 4 million volunteered for service overseas, with approximately 60,000 of these making the supreme sacrifice. Most Australian communities, including that of Traveston, lost young men in this war. Following the war, most communities wished to erect a memorial for those who served, and particularly those who had not returned.
The Traveston and District Progress Association was formed in June 1914, but the township of Traveston was not surveyed until after the powder magazine closed in 1921. Dairying boomed in the district between the two World Wars, and there was also a thriving local timber industry, shipping out from the railway station. At a meeting of the Traveston district's residents on 13 May 1922, it was resolved to apply to the Minister of Works for the land on which the (brick) magazine building stood in order to transform the building into a Soldiers' Memorial Hall, for the use of the citizens of the growing locality. A petition was lodged that month by Harry F Walker, MLA, and the 33 signatories included E Toomey (Hon Secretary), MJ Griffin and William McVicar. In July 1922 the Department of Public Lands, which was responsible for leasing the magazine reserve for farming, agreed to survey one acre (0.405 of a hectare) for a Soldiers' Memorial Hall. Residential lots were also surveyed on part of the old magazine reserve at the same time.
At a public meeting at Traveston on 9 September 1922 John Dickson Kenman, Jens Kristian Hansen, Michael John Griffin, Walter Charles Francis, and William McVicar were nominated as trustees for the Soldiers' Memorial Hall Reserve. The residents of Traveston purchased the brick magazine from Walker by December 1922, as the latter had taken over the magazine from LJ Macpherson prior to July 1922. Local knowledge states that the magazine was purchased by five local farmers who each paid £5 and these were probably the five trustees. On 1 February 1923 an Order in Council granted a 1 acre Reserve for a Soldiers' Memorial Hall (R.767) to the trustees.
The brick magazine was used as a hall by the local community between the wars, and a photograph, possibly from this period or post World War II, shows a timber skillion extension to the east side of the magazine building. At this time the ridge ventilator, lightning rods and copper earthing straps were still in place. The lightening rod assembly reportedly survived on a local farm for some time, and consisted of a copper cylinder about 4 inches in diameter, which had holes for three copper spikes (1/2 inch thick by 2 feet long, or 12.7mm by 609.6mm) to jut out at angles, so that the tips were 2 feet apart. Two 2 inch (50.8mm) copper straps at least ¼ inch (6.35mm) thick led down the sides of the building to be earthed. In the photograph double timber doors are shown in the west end of the magazine, and these may have existed before the building became a hall. These doors are not on the 1887 plans for the magazine. Lead sheeting from under the roofing iron (of either the two timber and iron magazines or the brick magazine) were recycled by locals for stump caps and guttering.
After World War II the former magazine was extended, possibly in 1948, the year of the dedication of the World War II Honour Board. The extension involved knocking down the east wall of the magazine, and adding a timber section on stumps, with the front door being reused in the north elevation of the extension. A narrow timber dining room was also added along the north elevation of the brick magazine, so that from the road the original brick structure is not visible. However the 1887 brick magazine building is still intact, complete with its original six narrow windows and their timber shutters. A timber coved ceiling, probably original, still exists in the old magazine section, along with a decorative ventilation grille, although a new ceiling extends partway into the old magazine section from the 1940s timber extension. During the 1950s the old floor and its square copper nails was replaced.
Trusteeship of R.767 was transferred to the Widgee Shire Council in July 1989, as all of the original trustees were long deceased. In 1990 the Traveston Tennis Club sought to use part of the reserve for a tennis court, and to enable this use the reserve was redesignated in 1992 as a Reserve for Recreation and Soldiers' Memorial Hall (R.1809).
","criteria":"The former Traveston Powder Magazine, built in Gympie in 1887 and moved to Traveston in 1898, is important surviving evidence of the deep-reef mining phase of gold mining in Gympie, the site of Queensland's first major productive goldfield.
The use of the magazine as a Soldiers' Memorial Hall from 1923 is evidence of the Australian practice of commemorating the sacrifices of World War I and World War II with memorial halls and honour boards.
|As an 1880s brick powder magazine of standard proportions, retaining most of its sturdy perimeter walls and all of its narrow solid timber windows, Traveston Powder Magazine remains a good example of its type.
Its location next to a railway line, about 18km south of Gympie, demonstrates the government practice of moving explosives by rail, and keeping explosive hazards at a distance from heavily populated areas.
|The former Traveston Powder Magazine is rare as one of three known surviving 19th century government powder magazines in Queensland. It is also rare surviving mining-related infrastructure from the heyday of deep-reef mining in Gympie.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20499,"place_ref":602567,"name":"Remnants of Ipswich Town Wharves","alternate_name":"Walter Gray and Co Wharf | J & G Harris Wharf | Australasian Steam Navigation Wharf and William Collins and Son Wharf | Ipswich Town Wharves Remnants","street_address":"Bremer Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-31","description":"The wharf remains are located in the River Terraces development at Ipswich, between the railway bridge and the David Trumpy road bridge.
Site 1
The central position on the riverbank of this site is approximately 27° 36'40.41" S x 152° 45' 39.49" E. Two timber piles are extant on the site projecting out of the water at low tide. These are 3.8m apart and each average 16 cm in diameter. They stand 1.27m from the riverbed to top. They are constructed from a dark red timber, possibly iron bark.
An associated artefact field on the riverbed extends up to 18 m downstream from the downstream pile and upstream merges into the artefact field associated with Site 2. It extends up to 12m into the river channel.
Site 2
The central position of this site is approximately 27° 36'39.77" S x 152° 45' 37.48" E. Three timber bearers measuring about 30 cm in diameter project up to 2.9m horizontally from the riverbank. The outer ends are modified (scarfed) on the underside to enable them to sit onto piles or a wharf head. The timber may be turpentine. A stone wall underneath these bearers is built into the riverbank. This wall is covered at high tide.
An associated artefact field extends upstream from the site and downstream merges with artefacts associated with site 1. The field extends up to 17m into the river channel.
","history":"The remnants of Ipswich Town Wharves are an archaeological site that contains visible remains of two wharves. Horizontal timbers extending from the riverbank, together with an associated stone wall are probably the remnants of the Australasian Steam Navigation Wharf (c1867). Vertical piles projecting out of the river a short distance downstream are probably the remains of the J and G Harris landing (ca1862). The site was also the location of a wharf owned by Walter Gray & Co (1847 - c1862) and was used by William Collins and Son in the first part of the Twentieth Century. Archaeological deposits originating from the wharves also exist on the riverbed.
Ipswich commenced as a convict outstation known as 'Limestone' in 1827. After free settlement began in 1842, the township developed as an important regional centre because of its location at the head of navigation of the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers and at the junction of routes to the Brisbane Valley and the Darling Downs. Goods from these regions were channelled through Ipswich en route to the coast and this trade contributed significantly to Ipswich's rapid growth and prosperity.
The people of Ipswich, together with the Darling Downs pastoralists wielded considerable political influence and agitated for Ipswich, rather than Brisbane, to be made the colony's capital. One of the key factors in favour of Ipswich was its role as an inland port. It was argued that goods could be shipped from Ipswich directly to Moreton Bay, by-passing Brisbane.
There were sound practical reasons why this was a viable proposition. Poor road conditions meant that it was more convenient for the pastoralists to transport bulk goods from Ipswich to the coast along the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers using riverboats. This meant that goods had to be transferred from the riverboats to ocean-going vessels in Moreton Bay but this was necessary even for goods shipped from Brisbane because the Brisbane Bar prevented large vessels entering the river.
A pastoralist, James Pearce, started the first steamer service from Ipswich in 1846 using the vessel, Experiment. In 1848, a committee of townspeople was formed to upgrade the Ipswich 'landing place' to a proper wharf with improved road access. By the 1860s a wharf precinct had developed between the present location of the railway bridge and The Basin, a section of the Bremer River downstream from the town centre that was wide enough to permit steamers to turn.
River trade peaked in the 1860s and 1870s, especially after Ipswich became the eastern rail terminus. In 1860, the Port of Moreton Bay was extended to Ipswich. At least six wharves lined the south bank of the Bremer between The Basin and the bridge. The wharves were linked to large stores built along the north side of Bremer Street. Bales of wool and cotton were slid down chutes to smaller wharf-side sheds. The wharf remnants presently located on the site were once among the largest and most important in the precinct.
Walter Gray's wharf, which was located at Site One, was one of the first wharves to be established in the precinct. In 1847, Gray, a Scottish immigrant, occupied a block of land that extended from Bremer Street to the riverbank at Site One. He commenced business as a general storekeeper and agent trading in wool and other produce which he conveyed to Brisbane using Reid and Boyland's punts. His business reputedly became the largest mercantile house in the district operating extensive stores capable of holding several hundred bales of wool.
Gray became a prominent member of the Ipswich community. He was treasurer of the committee of Ipswich businessmen that built the Ipswich town wharf in 1848. He supported establishing Cleveland as the colony's main port and, in the 1850s, together with other Ipswich businessmen, bought land and signified his intention to build jetties there where punts could load and unload cargoes. Gray promoted cotton cultivation and was a shareholder and director of the Ipswich Cotton Company. In 1860 when the Port of Moreton Bay was extended to Ipswich, his facilities were licensed as the bonded store where dutiable goods could be stored.
In 1856, a surveyor described the wharf as 'not a properly built wharf, but more of an earth bank'. Associated facilities included a shed enclosed on one side with bark near the river, a slab and shingle wool store higher up the bank, a wooden slide down to the wharf from the store, and a road 'cut into the bank and made with stone'. By 1861, wool presses, at least one of which was steam powered, were located on either side of the stores fronting Bremer Street. A steam-powered cotton gin was added, probably in early 1862. Gray also had a store on the corner of Bell and Bremer Streets.
Walter Gray died in 1862 and, by 1865, John and George Harris, merchants and agents from Brisbane, had taken over the wharf site. Harris's and Gray had jointly acted as agents for at least one ocean-going ship just prior to his death. J and G Harris built a large brick store on the southern side of Bremer Street on the Bell Street corner opposite the wharf. They probably also upgraded the wharf to a more substantial timber landing with a new wharf-side shed in the early 1860s. The upstream side of the new shed was shaped in a 'v' configuration to withstand water pressure on the regular occasions that the Bremer flooded the site. In 1867 J & G Harris was paying rent for a water frontage of 130 feet (39.6m). This was the third largest frontage in the precinct. Harris's appears to have ceased operation at the site by 1878 when they applied to the Ipswich Town Clerk to remove their buildings.
The Australasian Steam Navigation Company (ASN) wharf was established next to Gray's wharf between 1856 and 1861. ASN had an interest in the Ipswich shipping trade as early as 1856 when Gray acted as their agent. In 1860 they launched a steamer, Ipswich, specifically for trade between Brisbane and Ipswich. By July 1861, the company had acquired the site next to Gray's and had completed improvements on it.
Originally formed in Sydney in 1839/40 as The Hunter's River Steam Navigation Company, ASN had become the principal shipping firm in the Australian coastal trade by the 1850s. The company commenced a regular service to Moreton Bay when it opened to free settlement in 1842 and in 1844 they established their first wharf facility in Brisbane. The company's activities contributed significantly to the expansion of settlement in Queensland.
Initially, the ASN wharf was a small timber wharf or an 'earth bank' similar to Gray's wharf. A shed was located immediately adjacent to the wharf and a store fronted Bremer Street. A slide linked the wharf-side shed and the store.
ASN rebuilt most of their wharf facilities in 1867 after a flood had destroyed their earlier buildings. A new 90 feet (27.4m) long shed was built next to the wharf. 50 feet (15.2m) of this was partitioned off for customs use. The walls were 10 feet (3m) high and the centre beam, 17 feet (5.1m) high. The structure was fastened with iron ties and braces and roofed with galvanised iron. Like Harris's shed, the upstream wall was shaped in a 'v' configuration to deflect floodwaters. A new wharf was also built at this time. In 1867, ASN were paying rent for a river frontage of 163 feet (49.7m), the largest in the precinct. ASN had probably ceased operations from the Ipswich wharf by 1874 and in 1879 their wharf lease terminated.
After 1875 when the rail link to Brisbane was opened, the period of intense riverboat activity ended. A partial revival of river trade occurred in the 1890s probably due in part to the lack of a rail link to Brisbane after the loss of the Indooroopilly Bridge in the 1893 flood. However, the economic and political motives that had stimulated the trade in the 1860s and 1870s no longer existed and it became difficult to justify expending money on keeping the river route viable.
Nevertheless, two commercial river services operated in the early 20th Century from the site. In 1903 William Collins & Son used a wharf next to the remains of Harris's wharf. Collins operated a number of vessels between Brisbane and Ipswich including the Mary, Eucalypta, Essex, Myora and Advance. A 'stiff legged' timber crane was used to unload goods at the wharf. Increasingly unable to compete with road transport, Collins ceased the river service in ca1927.
In 1932 Percy Manders commenced trading using the 40 feet (12m) cargo vessel MV Eclipse. Manders made three trips weekly carrying 18 - 20 tonnes of all kinds of merchandise. He initially used the former Collins wharf and crane.
Virtually no further development took place at the site from the time of Manders' operation until 2006 when the area was landscaped as part of the River Terraces development.
Prior to this development, in January 2006, archaeological surveys were completed at the sites. These surveys mapped the remains of the wharves and recovered artefacts.
","criteria":"The Remnants of Ipswich Town Wharves on the town reach of the Bremer River, are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history insofar that they are surviving evidence of the important early river commerce between Ipswich and the coast. Ipswich was one of the first river ports to be established in the colony. As the westernmost point of access to Moreton Bay via the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers, the town was a major port for the Darling Downs and West Moreton until the railway opened to Brisbane in 1875. During this period, the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers below Ipswich constituted one of the most important mercantile routes in the colony. The wharf remnants are evidence of this commerce and Ipswich's key role in it. The wharf remnants are also physical evidence of an important aspect of the historical rivalry between Ipswich and Brisbane. The river trade, in which the wharves played a vital role, underpinned Ipswich's rapid growth and prosperity and was the key to its viability as an alternative export port to Brisbane. The river commerce was an important factor in the town's bid to become the colony's capital.
|The Remnants are rare as surviving physical evidence of the early commerce between Ipswich and the coast along the Bremer River and Brisbane Rivers. There are no other known remains of this important early trade route. The remnants of the wharves are uncommon insofar that they constitute a largely undisturbed archaeological site in an urban setting. The site functioned as a wharf precinct from the 1840s until at least the 1930s. From that period until 2006, no significant built development took place on the riverbank or in the river.
|As an archaeological site, the remnants of the wharves have the potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the historical river trade along the Bremer and Brisbane Rivers and Ipswich's role in this. They also have the potential to contribute to our knowledge of trade to and from the Darling Downs and West Moreton, regions that made an important contribution to the development of Queensland. Most of the goods being conveyed to or from these areas prior to 1875 were channelled through the Ipswich wharves.The site has the potential to contribute to our knowledge of the Australasian Steam Navigation Company (ASN). An ASN wharf occupied the site from ca 1861 to ca 1874. ASN was the principal shipping firm in the Australian coastal trade by the 1850s. Its activities contributed significantly to the expansion of settlement in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20506,"place_ref":602568,"name":"Bremer River Rail Bridge and pylons and abutments of old bridges","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"off Bremer Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-12-11","description":"The Bremer River Rail Bridge and old bridge abutments are made up of a railway bridge that is still in use and the sandstone abutments of two bridges, now removed, that were located immediately to the east of it. On the south side of the river, the bridge and abutments are set in riverside parklands in the business centre of Ipswich. The north side of the bridge and the adjacent north bank abutments are situated in a commercial development.
1865 abutments
The 1865 abutments are physically separate from the other structures a short distance to the east of them.
Made of light coloured, rusticated sandstone blocks, they are wide, massive structures set into the banks of the river. The lower section of the northern abutment is wider than the upper section, forming a kind of plinth. On the southern abutment, the lower courses of sandstone are mostly buried. A sandstone parapet wall is extant along the eastern and western ends at the top of each abutment. Shallow buttresses project from the corners facing the river.
Narrow, horizontal sandstone mouldings running the length of each face divide the facades into horizontal sections. On both abutments a moulding runs along the top of the bottom section, the upper section and the wall.
1897 abutments and piers
These abutments form part of the abutments of the 1915 bridge. They are massive but narrower than the 1865 abutments. Like the 1865 abutments they are set into the riverbank. The 1897 abutments are made of rusticated sandstone blocks darker in hue than the blocks of the earlier abutments. A masonry cornice runs around the top of the wall.
A sandstone parapet wall runs along the eastern edge at the top of each abutment. The walls terminate in rectangular sandstone columns. These columns extend downwards to form pilasters on the eastern facades of the abutments. A narrow projecting sandstone coping runs along the top of each parapet wall.
The dark grey, cast iron cylinder piers that supported the 1897 bridge are still extant. These have wide bases that taper sharply inwards at about one third of the height of the piers. The bridge was supported at two points across the river. At each point is a pair of piers. The bridge sat atop a steel girder that is still extant resting between the tops of each pair. Narrow horizontal members and diagonal braces join each pair of piers at three points between the top and bottom.
1915 bridge
The 1915 bridge comprises three 45.7m spans of riveted, five-panel, through Pratt trusses. Truss bridges usually comprise a combination of vertical and diagonal members fixed between a pair of horizontal girders. Pratt trusses are characterised by diagonal members that slant down, inwards towards the centre of the span. A single railway line passes between the trusses of the Bremer River Bridge and timber decking fills the area between the rails and the structural members of the bridge.
The bridge has concrete abutments designed to match the adjacent sandstone abutments of the 1897 bridge. The cornicing of the 1897 abutments continues around the top of the 1915 abutments. A sandstone parapet wall similar to the one on the 1897 abutment runs along the western edge.
At each of the support points for the 1897 bridge, a third pier, identical in design to the earlier ones, was erected and the supporting beam was extended to support the 1915 bridge.
","history":"The Bremer River Railway Bridge (1915) and the adjacent cast-iron piers (1897) and masonry bridge abutments (1897 and 1865) are located on the banks of the Bremer River near the business centre of Ipswich. The 1865 abutments are the remains of the most substantial bridge on the Southern and Western Railway, the first railway to be constructed in Queensland.
Queensland's colonial government fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the State and providing social benefits. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers. An added incentive for rail development in Queensland was the very poor state of the roads. In wet weather especially, this hampered the transport of freight. Priority was initially given to providing a railway link to coastal ports for the well-established and influential pastoralists of the Darling Downs.
Ipswich was chosen as the eastern terminus of the railway because of its importance to the Darling Downs pastoralists. The township was a river port, the head of navigation, located at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley. It was a major inland port servicing the Darling Downs and Ipswich residents together with many pastoralists cherished the hope that the town might become Queensland's capital. Brisbane eventually assumed that role but Ipswich remained an important regional centre.
North Ipswich was originally chosen as the site for the terminus. However, the residents of Ipswich had wanted a high-level bridge to connect north and south Ipswich since the early 1860s. So it was decided to extend the railway to south Ipswich by building a road-rail bridge across the Bremer River. This extension added to the overall cost of the line without contributing to the efficiency of the route. Extra expenditure was needed for the bridge and the additional three kilometres of line needed to reach the new site.
Abraham Fitzgibbon, later engaged as Queensland's first Commissioner for Railways, was appointed Chief Engineer on contract and Sir Charles Fox and Son, an engineering firm based in England, were appointed as consulting engineers. Peto, Brassey and Betts, contractors with worldwide railway construction experience, were engaged to construct the line, including the Bremer River Bridge. Several months prior to the completion of the line, operating staff also began to be recruited.
The original North Ipswich railway workshops were completed in 1864 on a cramped site adjacent to the Bremer River close to the northern end of the planned bridge. It soon began to produce rolling stock for the new railway completing an engine truck in 1865 and ten wagons in the following year.
The first Bremer River bridge was designed by Sir Charles Fox and Son and pre-fabricated in Britain. This may explain the pin-jointed members, as these would have simplified the task of assembly in an economy with little skilled labour and unsophisticated manufacturing technology.
It was a deck-type iron bridge with pin-jointed lattice girders on cast-iron cylinder piers. It had substantial abutments (extant) made from sandstone, similar to that used in the abutments of the Heiner Road Bridge over the former Wharf Branch Line. The stone is believed to have been quarried locally at Denmark Hill. Comprising three spans of 150ft (45.7m), it was 67ft (20.4m) above the high tide level. 12 ft (3.7m) of the width of the bridge was reserved for rail and 23ft (7m) for general traffic. It was an uncommon example of a road-rail bridge and this explains its wide abutments.
The Bremer River Bridge was not the first iron bridge to be completed on the line. The first was completed in April 1865 and crossed Wide Gully. However, the Bremer Bridge was described in the Brisbane Courier (1 August 1865) as 'the most important structure on the first section of the line'.
By Saturday, 29 July 1865, the bridge was sufficiently complete to allow a locomotive to cross safely carrying Macalister (the Lands and Works Minister) and Fitzgibbon. On 31 July, Governor Bowen officially opened the railway at Bigge's Camp (now Grandchester), the western terminus of the line. Fitzgibbon, Hockings (the Mayor of Brisbane) and Herbert (the Colonial Secretary), also participated in the ceremony attended by a large contingent of pastoralists.
By 1866, it became evident that the northern abutment of the bridge was inadequately designed. A report in March 1867 cited inadequate foundations, poor quality masonry and lack of drainage as the cause of the problems. It had to be rebuilt following a flood in May 1867, when cracks appeared under each girder and nearly every stone in the face showed signs of fracture or damage.
In 1875, with the opening of the Ipswich Deviation, the main western line bypassed the Bremer Bridge. Nevertheless, the bridge continued to carry increasingly heavy loads. This is because it provided access to local coalmines and, more significantly, the North Ipswich Railway Workshops, Queensland's largest facility for manufacturing and maintaining steam locomotives and rolling stock. Expansion of the site took place in 1877 and in 1884 construction of new and larger workshops commenced at an adjacent site.
Given the on-going expansion of the Workshops and Queensland Government Railways' program of continually upgrading its locomotives to more powerful ones, the bridge was required to bear a growing volume of traffic including increasingly weighty locomotives en route to or from the Workshops.
In 1881 a new signal cabin and state of the art interlocking mechanism was installed at the southern end of the bridge at the junction of the main western line and the line across the bridge to the Workshops. The cabin of the signal box was unusual in being three, rather than two storeys high, so that the signalman could see over the top of the bridge and also the main line to the west. It was the only such mechanism to be installed in Queensland outside Brisbane at the time and this is indicative of the high volume of traffic passing through the junction.
In October 1893, it was found that the cross girders of the old bridge were overstrained and in many cases showed fracture of the material. A March 1894 memo to the Chief Engineer's Office stated that the bridge was no longer strong enough to carry the current traffic. Instead of recommending the bridge be reinforced, it proposed that a new bridge should be built. This was partly prompted by on-going problems that had been experienced with the Ipswich Council over maintenance of the shared bridge. It was decided to transfer the old bridge to council ownership for the exclusive use of road traffic. The contract for the new bridge was let in January 1896.
This bridge was constructed by Beatty and Walsh under the supervision of Government Engineer, F. L. Keir. The resident engineer was C. S. Graham. Messrs J. W. Sutton and Co of Brisbane cast the cylinder piers and made the girders. The 1897 Bremer River Bridge and the Indooroopilly Bridge were the first to be riveted using a pneumatic machine.
The bridge was a three-span, six-panel, through Pratt truss design resting on concrete filled cylinder piers. It is believed to have been the first bridge to use a Pratt truss on Queensland railways. Like the earlier bridge, it had masonry abutments; these, together with the piers, are still extant. The new bridge only carried a single set of rails. Its substructure was painted maroon and its superstructure French grey.
First introduced in c1890, Pratt truss bridges became Queensland Government Railway's preferred form for major spans until the adoption of reinforced concrete. Patented by Americans Caleb and Thomas Pratt in 1844, the Pratt truss was a very popular design in the United States. The design was such that lighter materials could be used in construction. The diagonal members could be thinner since they were subject to tension forces only and the trusses were deeper enabling the use of bracing across the top members. This stabilised the trusses thus allowing lighter members to be used. This resulted in a more cost-efficient design.
A major expansion of the Ipswich Workshops at the beginning of the 1900s, together with further upgrades of locomotives led to constantly increasing demands on the bridge. The first 12-ton axle load engines, the B17 locomotives, were built at the Workshops between 1911 and 1914. In 1913, the Workshops commenced building C18 locomotives. Together with their C19 derivative, these were the largest conventional locomotives ever to run on the Queensland Government's railways.
Between 1913 and 1915, the substructure of the 1897 bridge was widened and a third bridge (still extant) was built with stronger spans. Like the 1897 bridge, it was a through Pratt truss design. The new bridge was strong enough to carry all of the locomotives in use at the time but the 1897 bridge was restricted to C16/C17 locomotives and was used for shunting operations only.
In March 1967, the 1865 bridge was demolished. It had been rendered redundant in 1965 by the construction of the David Trumpy road bridge. The 1897 bridge was removed in 1987 leaving just the extant span on double track piers.
","criteria":"The earliest masonry bridge abutments (1865), adjacent to the Bremer River Rail Bridge in Ipswich, are important in demonstrating the development of Queensland's history insofar that they constitute physical evidence of the establishment of Queensland's first railway, an important step in the development of the State. They are all that remain of the first Bremer River Road-Rail Bridge, the most substantial structure on this railway. The siting of the 1865 abutments reflects the priorities that influenced the decisions of the Government of the day. Southern Queensland was chosen as the location of the State's first railway because of the priority given to providing a rail link to the coast for the Darling Downs pastoralists. Ipswich was chosen as the eastern terminus because of its importance to the Darling Downs pastoralists as a regional centre and the head of navigation. The location of the bridge within Ipswich was influenced by local demands for a high-level road bridge across the Bremer River.
As an uncommon conjunction on one site of a railway bridge and the remains of two earlier bridges (1865 abutments, 1897 abutments and piers, and 1915 bridge), the Bremer River Bridge structures, as a group, are important in demonstrating the evolution of bridge abutment design and the effect of changing locomotive technology on bridges in Queensland's rail system from its inception until the construction of the most recent bridge in 1915. Three bridges were successively built on the site because of the need to continually upgrade infrastructure as Queensland Government Railways adopted more powerful, heavier, locomotives. Together with an important railway signal cabin and turntable (602464) located at their southern end, the bridges formed important infrastructure supporting the operation of the North Ipswich Railway Workshops (601526). This infrastructure contributes to our knowledge of the operations of the Workshops, which was Queensland's largest facility for the manufacture and maintenance of steam locomotives and rolling stock. As the only rail link to the Workshops from the early 1870s, the Bremer River Bridges were a vital part of its operations and had a relationship to the weight and power of the locomotives being manufactured and serviced by the Workshops at this time.
|The 1865 abutments are rare surviving remnants of Queensland's first railway line. The only other known extant components of the line include some masonry culverts and Grandchester Railway Station.
|The 1865 and 1897 abutments are examples of masonry bridge abutments from the 19th Century and as such, are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type of structure. They are wide, massive structures set into the banks of the river. Masonry parapet walls run along the edges at the top.The 1915 bridge is important as an intact example of a through Pratt truss railway bridge from the early 20th Century. Introduced c1890, the Pratt truss became a popular design for major spans.
|As part of the first Queensland railway line, the 1865 bridge abutments are closely linked to the inception of Queensland Rail and so have a special association with this important Queensland organisation. Abraham Fitzgibbon, the Chief Engineer for the construction of the line, was also Queensland's first Commissioner for Railways. Operating staff for the new railways department were appointed just prior to the railway's opening and the line was the first to be operated by them.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":20528,"place_ref":602573,"name":"Baptist Church and Memorial Gate (former), Ipswich","alternate_name":"Central Baptist Church, Ipswich | Former Ipswich Baptist Church & memorial gates | Studio 188","street_address":"188 Brisbane Street","suburb":"IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"The former Baptist Church and memorial gate stand at 188 Brisbane Street in an area of Ipswich called Top of the Town. The former is a rendered brick building with an Art Deco-influenced front elevation comprising a series of engaged piers and a porch, and a gabled, corrugated iron-clad roof; while the gate stands a few metres to the north against the street and consists of a gable roof supported on 6 barley-twist columns. The former church is set back from the street alignment and is raised above it by the steep slope of the site. Its visual dominance of the surrounding area is further embellished by the backdrop provided by the open space behind the memorial gate.
\nEntrance to the church is gained 3 ways: up a tall flight of concrete stairs to the front porch; through the memorial gate and up to a side extension via a recent stairway, and via a ramp that runs from the street and zigzags up the slope to the extension entrance. The sloping ground behind the gate and in front of the former church - cut through by the recently constructed interconnecting stair and ramp - is landscaped with beds of low shrubs and shaded by a number of trees. A concrete retaining wall separating the former church site from that at the rear, which addresses Limestone Street, forms a striking backdrop. A driveway providing access to premises on Limestone Street runs beside the south-western side of the church and is outside the heritage boundary for this place.
\nThe Art Deco-inspired front elevation of the church is the key feature introduced as part of GB Gill's 1938 refurbishment and is made up of a series of engaged piers forming a parapet wall to the main face of the church and repeated in style on its porch. The detailing of the larger piers at each end and framing the centre, along with the smaller piers in the bays created by these, emphasises verticality, as well as solidity. The pattern of render is smooth for the piers and other built-up details, and rough cast in the bays. Double, glass-panelled entrance doors, approached by a flight of concrete steps from the footpath, provide access through the porch. A stained timber Latin cross is fixed to exterior of the door mullions. Tall, narrow windows with no arch at their heads and filled with coloured lead lights, open either side of the porch. Above it, as well in each porch side wall, there are shorter windows of otherwise similar dimensions. The central one is filled with fixed louvres. A set of stained timber, double doors open from the porch into the interior. These are high-waisted with coloured leadlight windows set into each top panel, the design of which features a narrow border, green background lights and a central arrow and torch motif. This patterning is extant in many of the early windows facing Brisbane Street.
\nThe south-western elevation of the church, facing the driveway, has changed little from that designed by Gailey: 6 bays framed with shallow engaged piers connected top and bottom, the first 5 punctuated by tall, narrow windows with round-arches and sills, and that at the rear featuring both a narrow window, shorter than the others because of the sloping land, and a timber door with semicircular fanlight. The bays are rough cast render while the frame is smooth render. The windows are filled with 4 coloured lead lights, 3 of which pivot along the horizontal centre line. The rear elevation is again Gailey's design, rendered in a similar pattern with a rough cast face framed by smooth-rendered, engaged piers at each corner curving to the top plate connecting them under the gable end. A small, narrow window with round-headed arch and fixed louvres opens high into the centre of this wall.
\nThe north-eastern elevation has a gable and hip roof extension appended to it (1994), made of rendered concrete block and timber roof framing with a suspended ceiling. A number of early windows taken from the church wall removed to make way for this extension have been in it. The extension fits generally inside the first and last wall bays of the earlier church. The leadlight glass used in all the original tall, narrow side windows features green rectangular lights inside a narrow red and then yellow border. The side entrance to the former church features a large set of double timber doors surrounded by a glazed frame.
\nThe interior of the former church comprises the extension on the eastern side of the building where front-of-house facilities have been inserted, the former worship hall, which is now the theatre, and some back-of-house facilities in the southern part of the building where the vestry and flower room had been. The theatre space has a new stage at the southern end, behind which the proscenium wall stands with former door openings behind a black curtain. The walls and ceilings feature a regular grid of steel lighting gantries and the original windows are behind coloured screens, set off the wall by approximately 10cm.
\nThe memorial gate stands on the alignment with the street and comprises a gable roof, framed in timber, lined on the ends with weatherboards, and clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The roof is supported on 6 barley-twist columns with ionic capitals and founded on a low wall.
\nA low concrete wall, styled to resemble the front elevation of the church, runs the length of the allotment boundary with the street and footpath. It opens to allow access onto the site, with short piers at the entrance to the gate, the ramp, and the stairs leading to the former church (from north to south along Brisbane Street). A sign has been installed near to the ramp entrance (2012), which is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The new stair and ramp, and the landscaping in the area of the memorial ground behind the gate are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former Ipswich Baptist Church, first designed by eminent Queensland architect, Richard Gailey and erected in 1877 on Brisbane Street, was originally a simple gabled brick building in a classical idiom. The church acquired adjacent land on Limestone Street and established a Sunday School hall and a manse there. An Art Deco-influenced refurbishment of the church was completed in 1938 under the direction of prolific Ipswich architect, George Brockwell Gill. A gateway comprising a gable roof supported on barley-twist columns was opened by the church in 1954 to honour those from the church who fought, suffered and died during World War II, and to provide an entrance to memorial grounds established next to the church on Brisbane Street. In 2004 the congregation established itself elsewhere and the church was sold to eventually be transformed into a performance venue by the Ipswich City Council in 2012.
Ipswich was one of the earliest settlements in Queensland, commencing as a convict out-station known as Limestone in 1827. From its inception as a free settlement in 1842, Ipswich was important as a port on the Bremer River located at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley.[1] Its people, together with many squatters, cherished the hope that the town might become the capital of the prospective Colony of Queensland, however, Brisbane assumed that role after separation from New South Wales in 1859. Nevertheless, Ipswich remained important as a major regional centre, being declared a municipality in 1860 and then a city in 1904.[2]
The Ipswich Baptist congregation was the second to be formed in Queensland. Initially the colony's first Baptists met in Brisbane as part of a United Evangelical Church formed in 1849 under the leadership of Reverend Charles Stewart, a Baptist Minister, and including Presbyterians and Congregationalists.[3] After the retirement of Stewart in December 1854, the Baptists separated from the union, forming an independent congregation in Brisbane in August 1855.[4]
At Ipswich, the Baptists initially held combined services with the Congregational Church from the early 1850s. They commenced meeting independently in June 1859 in a hired bowling alley and in January the following year officially formed a Baptist Church with 7 members.[5]
The congregation built its first church in August 1860: a small chapel constructed in the West Street garden of the church's first pastor, Rev. Thomas Deacon [he died shortly before the chapel's opening][6]. In the mid-1870s, after Rev. J Straughen took office, the congregation experienced a surge in numbers growing from 38 in August 1875 to 78 in December of the following year. During 1876 it became clear that the West Street chapel was too small and the decision was made to erect a new church building. The Rev. Deacon's widow generously gifted the first chapel, and its site including the house, to the church trustees on the condition that they were used by them in Ipswich. Ultimately that property was sold and another on the main street of town purchased for a new church.[7]
Tenders for the new church were invited in The Queensland Times on 7 October 1876. The firm Messers McKenzie and Co. was contracted for the brickwork and Messrs MacGregor and Brown for the woodwork.[8]
The architect responsible for the design was Richard Gailey, who was a devout Baptist and would become Brisbane's longest-practising and most prolific private architect of the colonial era.[9] Born in Ireland, Gailey trained to be an architect in Londonderry before travelling to Queensland in 1864 and deciding to settle here. He set up as an architect the following year and by 1868 was prospering to a degree that enabled him to marry a woman from Belfast. It is apparently after his wife's conversion to the Baptist faith, that he became a member at the Wharf Street church in Brisbane.[10] For most of the work he did for the Baptists, he gave his services for free; the grandest monument he created for them being the City Tabernacle on the corner of Wickham Terrace and Upper Edward Street in Brisbane, built in 1889-90 (QHR 600175).[11] His other notable works include: the Courier Building in Brisbane's CBD (1885-87, now demolished), the Regatta Hotel at Toowong (1886, QHR 600331), School House at Brisbane Grammar School (1887, QHR 600124), the Smellie and Co. warehouse opposite the Brisbane Botanic Gardens (1888-89, QHR 600097), the Bank of New South Wales (former) in Gympie (1890-91, QHR 602775), Moorlands at the Wesley Hospital site at Auchenflower (1892, QHR 600052) and the Walter Reid and Co. warehouse in Rockhampton (1892-93, QHR 600815). At his death in 1924 at the age of 90 he was described as the 'Doyen of Brisbane Architects' by The Brisbane Courier.[12]
The Ipswich church was the fourth of at least 8 churches or chapels he designed for the Baptists during their greatest period of expansion between 1865 and 1890, and is now the oldest extant one in its original location.[13] The only older church is that in Chapel Street in Nundah, which was built in 1876 to a design by Gailey but later moved from its original site on Fortescue Street in Spring Hill.[14] The simplicity of the Ipswich church design - gable-roofed brick building with engaged piers, round-arched windows filled with stained, leadlight glass (red border and green lights) and gabled porch with decorative balustrade[15] - was typical of Gailey's early work for the Baptists, which otherwise tended to be in timber. His later churches, most notably the City Tabernacle and the Baptist Church on Flinders Parade at Sandgate (1887), are more complex, reflecting the increased strength of the church and the capacity of the congregations they served.
On the Separation Day public holiday, 11 December 1876, Rev. J Straughen presided over a ceremony for laying the foundation stone of the new Ipswich church.[16] A sealed bottle containing Ipswich newspapers and clippings, and a copy of a report read at the ceremony by the church secretary, Mr J Fletcher, were put into a prepared place under the foundation stone. Mr E Gregory, a foundation member of the Baptist church in Ipswich who was also responsible for establishing the Ipswich Herald (later The Queensland Times) laid the foundation stone. He used an ivory handled silver trowel, still held by the Ipswich Baptist Church, and engraved by Mr McCuskie of the North Ipswich railway workshops.[17]
The church was officially opened just over 6 months later on 17 June 1877. It was approximately 25m by 9.8m in plan and about 5.5m high (at the top of its gable) with a corrugated iron roof and a floor of milled boards. Contemporary descriptions of the church state that it could accommodate 350 people.[18] The classical style employed in its design was common in 19th Century commercial and government buildings but relatively rare in churches. Where the classical style was used for a church, it was often by non-conforming denominations such as the Baptists.[19]
The interior of the Ipswich church followed a layout that was typical of those for a Baptist congregation: designed around a symbolic axis, a raised dais was located in the centre of the southern end with a baptismal font, a fundamental part of Baptist worship, immediately beneath it. The pews were arranged symmetrically about the axis in front of the dais and the font.
The new church was completed during a period of economic buoyancy and increased building activity in Ipswich, the colony's 'second town' according to the 1876 edition of the Australian Handbook. Queensland had experienced severe economic depression in 1866 with only gradual improvement occurring over the following decade. As the economy improved during the late 1870s, Ipswich entered a period of prosperity.[20] In July 1877, The Queensland Times noted a considerable number of buildings planned, under construction or recently completed including the Lands Office, a new benevolent asylum (QHR 601821) and the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company buildings (QHR 602572). The city' retail and commercial heart centred on Brisbane Street and the area west of Nicholas Street known as 'Top of the Town'.[21]
Baptist Sunday School had commenced at Ipswich by 1864. During 1900 a timber hall for that purpose was built facing Limestone Street on land acquired by the church.[22] This building was designed by local architect, George Brockwell (GB) Gill. Funds for the hall, together with those to enable renovations to the church also carried out in 1900, were raised from bazaars, interest free loans and donations. The Ladies Work Society played a prominent role in fundraising through the sale of their craft work.[23] In 1924 a manse was opened next to the hall and to the rear of the church.[24]
After World War I and years of depression when congregation finances were limited, a scheme to substantially renovate the church was put forward in 1937 during the pastoral term of Rev. Gray A Parker.[25] By the following year the remodelled church was complete[26], its 'futuristic and perpendicular' façade[27] in an Art Deco style that was popular between the world wars but unusual in churches. The front porch was completely replaced and fitted with stained glass, leadlight windows, with matching ones in the front wall, and all of the exterior walls were rendered. The interior alterations included a full-width polished timber vestibule with stained glass, leadlight windows (now removed, matching the design of other new windows in the facade and featuring an arrow and torch motif) and panelling of the vestry with polished timber. The design was completed by GB Gill, the architect for the Sunday School nearly 40 years previously, while the contractor was Mr HE Wildey. Dedication of the renovated church took place on 19 June 1938, when a number of pieces of church furniture were donated: a pulpit table, Communion chair, 2 pulpit chairs, oak hymn-board, crystal vases, pedestal and pulpit hymn book.[28]
Born in London, Gill emigrated to the colonies in 1886 before settling in Ipswich, taking over an existing practice[29] and establishing himself as a active member of the community for over 50 years before his retirement in 1943.[30] Gill was elected Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1904 and Fellow by 1913. He was its Vice-President from 1914-16 and President from 1918-19.
His early works include Brynhyfryd, a grand residence at Blackstone for Lewis Thomas (1889-90), and the original building of Ipswich Girls' Grammar School (1890-91, QHR 600565), for which he served as a member of the Board of Trustees and later was board Chairman.[31] Later, more outstanding works in Ipswich, include the City View Hotel (1908, QHR 600557), the Cribb and Foote department store (1911) and the Soldiers' Memorial Hall in Nicholas Street (1921, QHR 600592).[32] Of the 16 buildings and 2 memorials Gill designed that are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register, the Ipswich Club (1898, QHR 600581) and the Hotel Metropole, a block further west of the church on Brisbane Street (1906, QHR 600567), are notable examples of his skill with large timber houses and polychrome brickwork respectively.
The Art Deco-inspired refurbishment of the Ipswich Baptist Church is stylistically very different from Gill's other work, and it is plausible that he or a member of his office took inspiration from his work in supervising the construction of the Walter Burley Griffin-designed municipal incinerator (QHR 600596, now a theatre) in 1936 at Queens Park in Ipswich.[33] Early in 1937, the year in which the church refurbishment was being planned, Griffin died unexpectedly aged 60 years while working in India.[34]
The allotment adjacent to the church, purchased by the Baptists in about 1940, was dedicated as a war memorial in 1950 by which time it had come to be used informally as a park.[35] The Rev. JH Bird, who had come to the pastorate in 1947, led a group of volunteers in terracing the area and laying its grass.[36] Concrete steps were set into the terraced faces. On 25 March, the Ipswich Mayor, Alderman JT Finimore, officially opened the park as the Central Baptist War Memorial Grounds.[37]
The memorial entrance to the park, a covered gateway with a plaque and wrought iron gates, was erected 4 years after the park was opened and dedicated by Rev. H Kestell Cornish on 25 April 1954.[38] During the ceremony, the entire congregation led by ex-servicemen filed slowly through the gates.[39] The memorial plaque bore the words 'A tribute of remembrance to the men and women of this church who fought, suffered and died during the 1939-45 war' and was mounted on the front gable.
With a view to the approaching centenary of the Ipswich Baptist congregation, renovations were again undertaken in 1958. The church ceiling had to be replaced, the interior was painted and a cross (now removed) was installed in the apse on the rear wall. The refurbished church was reopened on 15 February 1959.[40]
More changes took place in 1979. The platform area in the church was improved and a larger courtyard area was provided at the entrance. A sealed parking area was also established on the top terrace at this time (between the rear of the church and Baptist buildings on Limestone Street).[41]
The final alterations to be made to the church by the Baptists were in the late 1990s. Between 1993 and 1994, a larger entrance was made into the church on its eastern side.[42] A large covered area was added to this extension in 1998.
In 2004, the Baptists sold the church complex and built a new place of worship in the Ipswich suburb of Brassall. The former church stood vacant for a number of years, becoming a target for vandals, before McDonald's Australia Limited purchased it along with the other properties that had constituted the former Baptist Complex with its church and memorial ground on Brisbane Street, and the Sunday School hall and manse on Limestone Street.
In 2009, McDonald's demolished the hall and manse, and built a retaining wall between that site and the memorial ground and church, in order to construct a restaurant and car park on Limestone Street. It transferred the memorial ground, gate and church to Ipswich City Council in 2012; council then carrying out a substantial refurbishment of the site to create a youth theatrical venue called Studio 188 that operates as an adjunct to the Ipswich Civic Centre.[43] The design for the transformation of the church and its grounds were completed by Gibson Architects, an Ipswich firm.[44]
","criteria":"Constructed in 1877 to a design by renowned architect, Richard Gailey, and given its Art Deco-inspired exterior in 1938 by prolific local architect, George Brockwell Gill, the former Ipswich Baptist Church is the oldest Baptist church known to survive in its original location in Queensland; as such it is physical evidence of the early establishment and later strength of the Baptist congregation in Ipswich. Being the church of only the state's second congregation of Baptists, it also demonstrates the importance of Ipswich as a regional centre during the late 1870s.
The war memorial gate, located adjacent to the former church, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with the nationwide movement to honour those involved in conflicts such as World War II.
|The Ipswich church is the oldest known surviving Baptist church still in its original location in Queensland.
The Art Deco elevational treatment, applied to the church in 1938 when it was remodelled to a design by Ipswich architect, George Brockwell Gill, is rare for buildings of this type in Queensland; indicative of a preference among non-conforming churches for adopting an architectural style distinct from those employed in Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.
|The former Ipswich Baptist Church is important as an example of the early work of Richard Gailey, Brisbane's longest practising and most prolific private architect of the colonial era. It was the fourth of at least 8 churches Gailey designed for the Baptists, a body of work which culminated in the City Tabernacle in Brisbane (1889, QHR 600175), the denomination's principal place of worship in Queensland. The simplicity and restraint of the Ipswich church's design is typical of Gailey's early work for the Baptists, his later churches being far more decorative.
The church's 1938 Art Deco remodelling is important as an unusual example of the work of prominent Ipswich architect George Brockwell Gill. A resident and active community member of Ipswich where almost all of his work was done, Gill's career spanned more than 50 years from the 1880s. Fourteen of his works in Ipswich alone are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register.
The memorial gate is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a commemorative structure located in a prominent place to act as a tangible and enduring reminder of those men and women from the church who fought, suffered and died during World War II.
|The former Ipswich Baptist church and its memorial gate are important for the significant aesthetic contribution they make to the streetscape of Brisbane Street, one of Ipswich's most important thoroughfares. The verticality of its Art Deco front elevation - set back and raised up from the street with the slope of the site, and standing against a backdrop of open space behind the memorial gate - is visually striking. The aesthetic of the former church and its memorial gate is in strong contrast to the area's commercial character.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21160,"place_ref":602581,"name":"James Sangster Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Downs Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"The James Sangster Memorial is constructed of sandstone and stands 4.5m high. It sits on the Downs Street boundary of Brown's Park, flanked by boundary tree plantings to each side and the rest of the park behind it. It acts as a closure to views east along Canning Lane. The memorial is capped by a broken obelisk, symbolising a life cut short with its floral wreath motifs symbolising remembrance of the dead.
The stepped base on which the memorial fountain stands is relatively plain. Above this base the pedestal carries the bowl at the front, with a column recessed into each corner. Above this is a heavy projecting label mould, which at the front, receives the shaped top of the dedication plaque and on the other three sides bears a laurel wreath. Above the plaque is a wreath, carved chiefly of roses. Dropping from the centre of the broken obelisk is another wreath and under this there is a floral motif located on each face.
The dedication on the replacement plaque reads:
Erected
By
public subscription
in memory of
Constable
James Sangster
who lost his life in
a gallant attempt at
rescue in the flood
waters of the Brisbane River
5th February 1893
","history":"The James Sangster Memorial, located at Brown's Park, North Ipswich, was dedicated on Saturday 7 May 1898 with funds raised by the people of Ipswich. It was erected to commemorate the heroism of police constable James Sangster who drowned, aged 25 years, in February 1893, whilst attempting to rescue two people trapped by floodwaters.
The 1893 floods were the outcome of the 'Mooloolah rainfall event', the highest recorded rainfall in south-east Queensland to that date, with 1715mm of rain falling in 72 hours. From 30 January 1893 the rain effects of three tropical cyclones affected south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales in quick succession. Over 889mm [35 inches] of rain in the Brisbane River catchment caused heavy flooding and extensive damage. Approximately 52,000ha were flooded as the river rose 3m or more above normal level in some places. Over a two week period from 1-14 February 1893, 35 people were killed, 500 were injured and over 5,000 were made homeless. Over 600 houses were destroyed; 150 of these were washed away, many out to sea. Several of the 35 deaths occurred as houses were swept away and others as people tried to use boats in the torrent. In Ipswich the Bremer River overflowed its banks on Friday 3 February with the water reported at being approximately two metres deep in Brisbane Street that night.
On Saturday, 4 February, the Brisbane River rose close to the Jackson family home at Blackwall, near Kholo, about 10kms from Ipswich. Mr Jackson, an engine driver on the Ipswich line, was at work at the time. Mary Jackson remained in the house with John Rowe, a farm worker, whilst Mrs Jackson and her other children, including 17 year-old Kate, rowed to shore. The plan was that, after reaching the riverbank, Kate, who was described as an excellent rower and swimmer, was to return to the house for the other two. As the boat neared the riverbank, however, it overturned. Mrs Jackson and one of her daughters sought refuge in a tree and were rescued by nearby railway workers. In spite of her swimming ability, Kate was not strong enough to hold the other three children (two sisters and a brother) and all four drowned. Their bodies were recovered the following Tuesday.
With waters rising Mary Jackson and John Rowe, who had remained in the house, climbed onto the roof. As the waters rose, the house was lifted and carried downstream crashing into a large tree. Both managed to cling to the tree and climb into branches above the water. Constable James Sangster had arrived at the riverbank on horseback, meeting a rescue party with a boat. He and another man attempted to reach the two but the boat was swamped. Sangster, who could not swim, reached a sapling as the other man swam safely to shore. Rescue attempts continued however the sapling snapped and Constable Sangster disappeared with onlookers powerless to help. His body was never recovered. Mary Jackson and John Rowe remained in the tree for 22 hours until the waters receded and they were rescued safely.
Sangster had applied for admission into the Queensland police force on 21 May 1890 and was sworn in on 4 August 1890, aged 22 years. He had been living in the colony for three years residing for some of that time in Charters Towers. Originally from Aberdeenshire in Scotland, he had no relatives in Queensland. He arrived in Ipswich in November 1890 and was based at the North Ipswich Police Station.
After the tragedy, members of the Jackson family decided to raise funds by public subscription to erect a memorial in Sangster's honour. A memorial fund committee was established to erect a monument in Brown's Park, North Ipswich. The government contributed £20 to the fund. The memorial, occupying a prominent position in Brown's Park, was completed by Messrs C Wilson & Co. and was unveiled on Saturday 7 May 1898 at a well-attended ceremony and to the sounds of the Brisbane Police Band. A marble lion's head was located immediately above the fountain's bowl.
The James Sangster Memorial is the only known monument in Queensland erected by public subscription to commemorate a police officer serving at the time of his death. The Queensland Police Museum records other police officers who have had headstones and memorials erected by police colleagues, including Senior Constable Alfred Wavell who had a memorial headstone erected "by comrades in conjunction with the government of Queensland" at Corinda, south-west of Burketown in October 1889, after being fatally shot whilst on duty. Another officer, Senior Constable William Conroy, had his headstone erected by the "Queensland government and officers and men of the Queensland Police Force" in July 1895. Senior Constable Conroy had been stabbed during a domestic dispute on Thursday Island.
The Sangster memorial was erected at a period when public memorials honouring prominent local citizens were popular expressions of public sentiment. Other Queensland public memorial drinking fountains erected to commemorate an individual include: the Eagle street Fountain, Brisbane (QHR 600087), erected between 1878 and 1880, dedicated to firefighter James Mooney who lost his life whilst fighting a fire in Queen Street in 1877; the Mary Watson Monument, Cooktown (QHR 600421), erected in 1886 by the citizens of Cooktown to honour Mrs Mary Watson, who perished, along with her infant son and her Chinese employee Ah Sam, from thirst and exposure on one of the islands of the Howick group, northeast of Cooktown, in October 1881; the Dr EA Koch Monument, Cairns (QHR 601681), erected in 1903 by the citizens of Cairns, to honour the doctor's work in tropical medicine in Cairns and district in the late nineteenth century; and the FDA Carstens Monument, Port Douglas (QHR 601053) erected c1907-1908 by his widow to honour her husband's work with the Port Douglas Divisional Board.
In 1989 conservation works were undertaken to the James Sangster Memorial by T. A. Farrell, stonemason and sculptor. At this time some of the stonework and the plaque were replaced. The stone came from Helidon with the original stone coming from Denmark Hill. The original lead-lettered, marble memorial plaque has been removed to the Queensland Police Museum in Brisbane.
The James Sangster Memorial is now the focus for the annual Police Remembrance Day service in Ipswich. Since 1989, National Police Remembrance Day has been observed in Brisbane and many regional centres throughout Queensland on 29 September, which coincides with the Feast of the Archangel St Michael who was said to have always fought evil.
The memorial was restored again in 2006 with the State government contributing $9,600 through the Community Memorial Restoration Program and $1,000 donated by the Queensland Police Service. At this time, the monument was moved 15m back from the road further into the park to accommodate widening of the street. Following the restoration the monument was re-dedicated on 4 August 2006, the same day on which Constable Sangster had been sworn in to the Queensland Police Force in 1890.
","criteria":"Dedicated on 7 May 1898, the James Sangster Memorial Fountain is significant for its symbolic association with the impact of the devastating floods of 1893 that affected south-east Queensland. Constable Sangster lost his life attempting to save lives in the floods in the North Ipswich area, his heroism being acknowledged by the community and the colonial government with the construction of the memorial fountain. The James Sangster Memorial is the only known monument in Queensland erected by public subscription to commemorate a police officer serving at the time of his death.
The memorial fountain is distinctive as it provides a tangible and poignant reminder of the impact of the 1893 floods and illustrates how one community worked through a grieving process after it was affected by one of the highest floods recorded in the colony to that date.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21286,"place_ref":602733,"name":"Malanda Falls Swimming Pool","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Malanda Falls Park Johnstone River","suburb":"MALANDA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"Malanda Falls Swimming Pool is located within the Malanda Falls Park, adjacent to the Malanda Falls Conservation Park, and is located on the western outskirts of Malanda on the Malanda-Atherton Road.
Rainforest lines the road and either side of the entrance to the reserve. Beside the highway are a series of picnic tables and barbeques and a colourful mosaic honouring the area's Aborigines for whom Malanda Falls has special significance. A large car park has been developed more recently developed along with a shelter shed and toilet block.
While the rainforest backdrop is a feature of and setting for the Falls, the river banks above the pool have been benched and mostly cleared of vegetation. The western side of the pool is highly structured with stone-walled terraces, manicured lawns, an extensive network of concrete paths, fences and steps and handrails. The terraces have three main levels that are constructed from coursed rubble stonework set in mortar with a concrete capping on top. The lower terrace has three additional concrete terraces and these are generally used as seating by visitors.
The Malanda Falls Scenic Reserve comprises the North Johnstone River flowing through dense rainforest and over the basalt rock of the Falls into a man-made swimming pool. The Falls has a height of about four metres and a width of approximately 30 metres. The long pool at its base is surrounded by concrete paths which provide easy and safe access to the pool and which allow visitors to cross the pool. At the base of the falls at the end of the concrete path on the western side, there is a metal sign affixed to the rock face with the image of a diver in red.
The concrete bridge at the north end of the pool is approximately 30 metres long. It leads to further concrete paths behind which a low coarse rubble retaining wall is located. Approximately half way between the bridge and the Falls there are pool steps and a metal handrail attached to the concrete pathway. On the north eastern bank, steps with handrails lead to the Malanda Caravan Park. Further past these steps, towards the base of the Falls, are remnant concrete foundations, piping and the remains of a vertical boiler structure. The latter is riveted steel plate and is possibly associated with the water pumping activities of the Railways Department.
","history":"Malanda Falls Swimming Pool is located on the North Johnstone River in the Malanda Falls Park, adjacent to the Malanda Falls Conservation Park on the Atherton Tableland. First developed as a local recreation area during the early 20th century, Malanda Falls became associated with organised tourism on the Tableland from the 1920s and has been important in the development of the Cairns hinterland as a major tourist region in Queensland.
Despite the focus of early settlers and investors on economic exploitation of the landscape on the Atherton Tableland, a number of tourist attractions emerged based on the very resources being exploited and were largely framed in Romantic terms. Early non-indigenous visitors to the Atherton Tableland were fascinated with waterfalls and their jungle backdrop, variously described and depicted as sublime, beautiful and picturesque. Timeless in their appeal, these natural features were and continue to be essential to the success of the region in attracting tourists.
Due to its proximity to the township of Malanda, the Falls have always been popular for local recreation and have been adapted over the last century to meet the needs of the local community and to enhance its beauty and bush surrounds as a tourist attraction.
The Malanda Falls was surveyed in 1906 when it was described as being "partly covered with water lilies, and jungle stretched to the edge of the pool, with lots of fallen trees [in the] water". With the exception of the installation of hydraulic rams in 1911 to supply water to the Malanda Hotel and to steam trains, it would appear that the Falls remained undisturbed until 1918 when the local community cleared the underwater logs from the pool. The Falls quickly became a popular venue for New Year's Day picnic day celebrations and by 1920 the Eacham Shire Council had erected a substantial wooden diving platform and signs warning against nude bathing.
Other modifications included a wire netting fence erected around an unspecified area of the Malanda Falls Reserve in 1924, possibly to keep wandering animals from damaging the area. In 1925 when a retaining wall and a "narrow turning platform for swimmers, 25 yards from the bank" were built, Malanda's first swimming club was formed. Swimming carnivals were held between Malanda, Atherton, Mareeba and Cairns clubs in the pool until 1930. By 1934 the Malanda Swimming Club and the Eacham Shire Council had both contributed to and pool and surrounding reserve, with the Council's contribution amounting to £182/19/8 in 1933. The Department of Lands approved an additional advance of £50.00 for further enhancement works in 1934, and the Council engineer was instructed to look into building a path to the bottom of the Falls which was formed with terracing and gardens.
A significant feature of early tourism in the Cairns region was its use of the increasingly sophisticated transport infrastructure to service the mining, timber and agricultural industries. Development in Far North Queensland like other regions in Queensland was hampered by a lack of basic infrastructure. The construction of the Cairns to Mareeba railway provided for the development of the Barron Falls into one of the most popular tourist attractions in Queensland in the 1890s. Malanda Falls was also to benefit from this, when in 1910 the railway was extended to Malanda and a railway bridge erected spanning the Johnstone River just above the Falls allowing excursioners from other parts of the Atherton Tableland to visit the Falls more easily. It was not until the construction of the Gillies Highway in the 1920s that it became accessible to a greater number of people, notably tourists.
Photographs of Malanda Falls appeared in tourism literature as early as 1920 and in 1925 the Falls were part of a day trip from either Herberton or Ravenshoe. This day trip was by car and also included on the itinerary were visits to Lakes Barrine and Eacham and Millaa Millaa Falls. Whitecars, a local hire-car service, commenced day tours of the southern Tableland c1926 offered two tours to Malanda Falls: one including a visit to Glen Allyn Falls and the Malanda township, and the other incorporating a tour of the Malanda Butter Factory and The Jungle, an attraction which featured Aboriginal culture and the wonders of the rainforest.
Established c1922, Whitecars was integral to the development of tourism on the Tablelands and the increased popularity of region's attractions. Initially, Whitecars owners, Les Battle and Norm Graham, developed a timetabled taxi service between Malanda, Yungaburra and Atherton, and between Malanda and Millaa Millaa, with three cars. They took advantage of the 1926 opening of the Gillies Highway, linking the southern Tableland with Cairns, to take Ned Williams into partnership as The Cairns Tableland Motor Service Ltd to capitalise on the expected influx of tourists. In 1927 the company won the tender to transport passengers between Cairns and the southern Tableland via the Gillies Highway, and to operate day tours on the Tableland out of Yungaburra. In 1934 Whitecars introduced its first bus, capable of carrying 17 passengers to the area which, by this time, was being described in tourist guides featuring the Falls as "the land of waterfalls, cataracts and cascades".
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Malanda Falls were included in the Grand Tour/Tropical Wonderland Tour itineraries promoted by the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (by then part of Queensland Railways). The Grand Tour operated during the winter months when a P & O ship would arrive at Cairns each week from Melbourne and Brisbane carrying around 200 passengers for a six day stay in the region. Upon arrival passengers could join the Tropical Wonderland Tour, which included being taken by White cars to visit the attractions of the Atherton Tableland, including not only the Malanda Falls but also the Millaa Millaa, Zillie and Glen Allyn Falls.
From 1942 a large number of Australian and American troops were stationed on the Atherton Tablelands during World War II. Malanda Falls was a popular swimming and picnic spot for service personnel and during the war years Australian troops upgraded the pool at the base of the Falls and built a three level platform diving tower.
As the tourism industry developed during the post war period, travel became easier and car ownership more commonplace and new tours were developed. Attractions such as Malanda Falls benefited from these changes and flourished. In 1961 a caravan park was established by the Eacham Shire Council, adjacent to the Falls with a capacity for 24 caravans, 30 camp sites and cabin accommodation for 20 people. Those staying at the caravan park inevitably visited the Falls and facilities were upgraded during the 1960s with the installation of a new concrete two-tiered diving platform along with a steel climbing frame allowing visitors to swing into the water, and grab rails and ladders to enter and leave the pool. In addition, the Malanda Swimming Club was reformed.
Malanda Falls was prominent in travel literature until the 1970s and continues to be identified as a tourist destination. Today the welcoming ceremony of the "Malanda Monsoon Festival" is held at Malanda Falls where traditional owners the Ngadjon Jii people invite good spirits into the town. In addition a Waterfall Ceremony is held at dusk at the Falls which includes the lighting of lanterns beside the Johnstone River.
","criteria":"Malanda Falls Swimming Pool demonstrates the evolution of tourism in North Queensland as an important example of how the Far North has utilised the natural environment to promote tourism in the region. Initially a swimming hole for locals, improvements to the site, such as terracing and gardens, transformed Malanda Falls from a natural waterhole to a more structured recreation area and swimming pool and since the 1930s has been a popular tourist destination.
|Malanda Falls Swimming Pool is valued for its aesthetic qualities and has been recognised in tourism photographs and literature since the 1920s as a picturesque destination that forms part of Far North Queensland's waterfall and picnic circuit. The manicured swimming hole is surrounded by terraced gardens and dense rainforest. Water tumbles over a basalt rock face into a structured pool below, evoking a strong sense of tranquillity and peace.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21520,"place_ref":645607,"name":"Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants","alternate_name":"Whish's Sugar Mill Remnants | 700007","street_address":"68-70 Captain Whish Avenue","suburb":"MORAYFIELD","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"The archaeological features within Lot 600 on RP804608 are most likely associated with the former Oaklands Sugar Mill operations. They are located east of Captain Whish Avenue in a small park owned by the Moreton Bay Regional Council. This constitutes Lot 600 on RP804608 which has been verified as being part of the original property that Claudius Whish acquired as a co-tenant with John Raymond Trevilian in September 1865 and subsequently named "Oaklands". This is verifiable in the historical title for this parcel of land.
Ground surface visibility on the property is good. The site has a low fence of treated pine logs delineating the site. It is suspected that archaeological deposits may particularly extend further east of this fencing.
Substantial archaeological artefacts and features are evident on site, including in-situ bricks that may be the foundations for a substantial structure or foundations for milling and crushing machinery. Four substantial depressions can be identified, with significant brick remnants adjacent to each in low mound formations. The depressions are suggestive of rooms, compartments or in-ground tanks within a larger remnant subsurface structure. Visible bricks appear to be hand-made, with a narrow rectangular frog on one face. Exotic guava trees are also growing throughout the place.
The western extent of the place is considered the edge of the road reserve abutting Lot 600 on RP804608. The eastern extent of the remnants is unclear, but potentially extends beyond the limits of the pine log fencing. The site is abutted by modern houses to the north and south and additional elements of the sugar mill may have at one time been located in those areas. However any remnants located to the north and south are likely to have undergone disturbance due to the levelling of the lot and subsequent construction work. Based on the available evidence and low potential for these areas, the boundary for the sugar mill is considered as the northern and southern extents of Lot 600 on RP804608.
","history":"The Oaklands sugar mill operated between 1865 and 1872. The mill was built and operated by Claudius Buchanan Whish, the first sugar producer to market his produce in Queensland in commercial quantities. The mill was used to process the cane harvested from fields on his Oaklands property - much of the harvesting was performed by South Sea Islander labourers. The mill ceased production in 1872 as sugar yields were poor in the mild winter climate of southern Queensland and due to the competition of larger and better yielding plantations being established in the Maryborough and Mackay regions.
By 1836, sugar cane had reached southern Queensland and was being grown in small plots in the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. Experimentation with sugar cane as a viable crop was also conducted between 1836 and 1847 by a number of enterprising citizens of the colony. Trials of suitable varieties were undertaken by John Buhot in the Brisbane's botanic gardens (QHR 600067; BHS 1995:5; Blake 2003:36).
Sugar cultivation was pioneered in Queensland by Louis Hope who established a plantation at Ormiston in 1862. Hope erected Queensland's first sugar crushing mill, supplied by Cook & Co. of Glasgow, on his Ormiston property on the banks of Hilliard's Creek in 1864. The first commercially milled sugar in Queensland was produced there in September that year (see QHR entry 600775).
Caboolture was one of the first districts in Queensland where sugar was grown on a substantial scale. George Raff, a prominent Brisbane merchant and politician, began planting sugar at his 'Morayfield' property on the Caboolture River in 1864 (Alcorn and Dunn 1997:2-3; Barter 2009:3).
One of the first to respond to the successes of Hope and Raff in growing sugar was Captain Claudius Buchanan Whish. Whish had served as an officer in the British army in India before deciding to begin a new career in Australia (Australian Dictionary of Biography Online 2008; Blake 2003:36, Tutt 1979:74). After seeing Hope's and Raff's plantations in operation, Whish selected land on the southern banks of the Caboolture River. Whish named his property Oaklands and employed Buhot to provide advice on the planting of his estate (Blake 2003:36, Barter 2009:2).
In 1865, Whish took on John Raymond Trevilian as a business partner for his Oaklands operations. Whish required a large labour force to cultivate the cane in sufficient quantities to make the operation marketable and profitable. After consulting with his contemporaries in the sugar industry, Raff and Hope, Trevilian undertook a voyage to Melanesia to find suitable labourers (BHS 1995:7). In December of 1865, 33 South Sea Islander labourers were brought to Australia and arrived at Oaklands by bullock dray after disembarking on the North Pine River. Whish is reported to have paid up to £7 for each labourer (BHS 1995:7). They were housed in the cotton house and fed milk and rice (BHS 1995:7). Whish was therefore not only a pioneer in the sugar industry but also in the use of South Sea Islander labour only two years after the first group of Islanders had been brought to Australia by Robert Towns for his cotton plantation on the Logan River.
The introduction of Islander labour on Oaklands was an initial success. With a large amount of sugar being cultivated, Whish acquired capital to build a sugar mill on Oaklands in 1865. In 1866, he purchased a six horsepower mill from Smellie & Co. of Brisbane for his new mill and installed a Wetzel pan and centrifuge. A 'single-flued boiler, mill, with three rollers' and a battery 'set in brickworks, with plain brick top and skimmings channel therein', and a boiling-room and curing room were also on site (Brisbane Courier 1867). The sugar processing operations are also noted as being located in the 'middle of the plantation, and at the top side of the present cultivation' (Brisbane Courier 1867). Whish also obtained a distiller's licence for £25 so that he could produce rum from molasses (Alcorn and Dunn 1997:2-3).
The success of the sugar operations at Oaklands and the use of Islander labour is further highlighted by Whish's replacement in 1867 of the original 33 Islander labourers with another 50 for whom he paid £150 in advance (BHS 1995:7). That same year, his homestead included a large house, manager's residence, labourer's cottages and huts. There was also a large store, blacksmith's shop, stables and carriage house, all arranged in "...a rather irregular manner" (Brisbane Courier 1867).
By 1869 Whish had approximately 90 acres of cane under cultivation on Oaklands and another 26 acres on the shores of Moreton Bay. Further evidence of Whish's belief in his Islander labour force was his construction of a building to properly house them in 1871.
The early success on Oaklands however did not last. The climate was marginally too mild for the sugar plants to grow in the winter months (Barter 2009:4). Moreover, the development of plantations further north around Maryborough and Mackay produced better yields and featured a shorter period of growth (Barter 2009:4). As early as 1870, case rum and liqueurs made at Whish's distillery were being offered for sale at reduced priced (Brisbane Courier 1870). In an attempt to continue sugar operations at Oaklands, the idea of a limited liability company was considered. The capital proposed was £12,000 in shares of £10 each (Brisbane Courier 1871). However, by 1872, Oaklands ceased sugar production. In February 1872, much of the equipment and working plant from Oaklands was offered for sale (Brisbane Courier 1872a, 1872b). Much of the equipment was purchased by the Mackenzie brothers of Ingham and moved to their operations in the Herbert River district of north Queensland (Wood 1965:9). The site of Oaklands was sold at auction in September 1873 and subsequently used for grazing and agriculture following the closure of the sugar mill until gazetted as an environmental reserve in 1990 (Brisbane Courier 1873, DERM 1863, 1964, 1967, 1977, 1979, 1990).
References
Alcorn, Berenis and Robin Dunn (1997) Moreton Sugar Mill: sweet heart of Nambour, Nambour: Berenis Alcorn and Robin Dunn.
Ann Wallin and Associates (1998) A cultural heritage analysis of Lot 6 RP158171, 67 Weier Road, Caboolture, unpublished report.
Barter, Leith (2009) The Normanby Story: creating a film history of the Normanby Distillery, paper presented at the Australian Historical Association Regional Conference 2009: Constructing the Past, University of the Sunshine Coast, 30 June 2009).
Blake, Thom (2003) Caboolture Shire Cultural Heritage Study Volume 1, unpublished report to Caboolture Shire Council.
Brisbane Courier
1867\tThe Oaklands Sugar Plantation, Caboolture River, 23 September 1867, p.3
1870\tOaklands Distillery, 19 August 1870, p.1
1871\tCommercial, 20 March 1871, p.4
1872a\tAuction Sales, 26 January 1872, p.4
1872b\tTo Sugar Planters, 31 January 1872, p.1
1873\tAuction Sales, 6 September 1873, p.8
Buderim Historical Society (1995) South Sea Islanders Came to Buderim, Buderim: Buderim Historical Society Inc.
Department of Environmental and Resource Management
1863\tSurvey Plan M32.26
1865\tCertificate of Title No.8615 19th September 1865
1964\tSurvey Plan SL4615
1967\tSurvey Plan SL115175
1977\tSurvey Plan RP158171
1979\tSurvey Plan SL8958
1990\tSurvey Plan RP804608
Claudius Buchanan Whish (1827-1890) Australian Dictionary of Biography Online: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060413b.htm?hilite=whish (accessed 28 July 2008)
Louis Hope (1817-1894) Australian Dictionary of Biography Online: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A040471b.htm?hilite=louis%3Bhope (accessed 28 July 2008)
Tutt, Stan (ed.) (1979) From Spear to Musket 1879-1979: Caboolture centenary, Council of the Shire of Caboolture: Caboolture.
Wood, C.T. (1965) Sugar Country: a short history of the raw sugar industry in Australia, 1864-1964, Queensland Cane Growers' Council: Brisbane.
","criteria":"The Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants are physical evidence of the early agricultural history of the Caboolture region, and are representative of one of the earliest developments in Queensland's influential sugar industry. These remnants are evidence of one of the earliest endeavours to produce sugar on a commercial basis in Queensland.
The remnants demonstrate attempts to develop primary industries in the Caboolture and north coast region. Though production was short-lived (1865 - 1872), the early successes at Oaklands influenced the expansion of the sugar industry into other centres of Queensland.
The remnants are associated with an important identity in the early development of the sugar industry in Queensland, Captain Claudius Buchanan Whish. Whish was one of the first sugar producers in Queensland to market commercial quantities of sugar and high quality rum. He was also to later become a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1870-72 and Surveyor of Roads.
The remnants are a rare and early surviving reminder of the use of South Sea Islander labour in southeast Queensland. South Sea Islander labourer was employed on Oaklands from 1865 only two years after Robert Towns first introduced their labour on his properties in Queensland. The Oaklands site dates from the early phase of South Sea Islander employment in the sugar industry and could provide important evidence about early practices and, in comparison with other sites, if and how those practices may have changed over time.
Oaklands has considerable potential to reveal information regarding the development of sugar production processes. The early era of sugar plantations was marked by the idiosyncratic introduction of new processes and techniques. Although initially successful, the venture at Oaklands was ultimately a failure and comparison of this site with other more successful sites may reveal important information about how producers attempted to adapt to varying environments, and ultimately, about how sugar production techniques in Queensland changed and evolved.
The place has high potential for additional archaeological artefacts. Though subdivision has occurred in the vicinity of the mill remnants, there is no evidence to suggest that Lot 600 on RP804608 has undergone any significant ground disturbance since the closure and dismantling of the mill. A number of in-situ bricks, mound features and depressions on the property are suggestive of substantial structural foundations concealed in shallow to medium depth deposits just below the current land surface.
Little documentary evidence is available that relates to the sugar processing operations on Whish's Oaklands property, other than reports on levels of production and sale. Analysis of available documentary sources combined with further archaeological investigations of the remnants has potential to answer important research questions relating to early sugar processing techniques and technologies and the working conditions experienced by South Sea Islander labourers working on Queensland sugar plantations. Archaeological investigations of the remnants may also reveal new and important information about the Oaklands Mill layout and may provide evidence on the location of other mill and plantation infrastructure not discernible from documentary sources alone.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21530,"place_ref":602839,"name":"Morayfield State School","alternate_name":"Caboolture National School | Caboolture South State School","street_address":"196-230 Morayfield Road","suburb":"MORAYFIELD","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-10-10","description":"Morayfield State School is located to the south of the central business district of Morayfield. The school site is a 16.5 hectare irregular-shaped block on the corner of two main thoroughfares, Morayfield Road on the east and Caboolture River Road on the north. The site accommodates a closely-knit complex of buildings, including a Suter-designed teaching building (1873) and a timber playshed (c. 1903). A mature fig tree that stands prominently to the east of the playshed offers shade to the school grounds.
\nThe Suter building is located at the centre of the complex. It is a small, lowset timber structure on concrete stumps, with modern timber lattice screening between the floor level and the ground. The gable roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets. Evidence in the barge boards suggests original timber shingles may survive under the existing roof sheets.[36]
\nThe building has verandahs front (east) and back (west) reached by a small centrally located set of timber stairs on either side. The verandahs have stop-chamfered timber posts, timber floor boards, and raked ceilings lined with wide, beaded timber boards. The verandah walls are single skin with externally exposed timber framing, diagonal cross bracing between studs, and a door into the interior from both the east and west verandahs. The eastern verandah has a decorative timber balustrade of crossed members and the western balustrade is bag racks. The western verandah is enclosed at the southern and northern ends to accommodate small store rooms, and some original stop-chamfered timber posts are visible within the enclosing cladding. The southern storeroom walls are clad with modern fibrocement sheeting, and the northern storeroom has internally exposed timber framing. Original timber floor boards, wider than those of the open verandah, survive in the northern store room, while the southern store room has a modern linoleum floor, as well as recent sink and louvre window additions. The eastern verandah has timber framed casement windows either side of the door and a short stair at the northern end of the verandah connects to the adjacent building, Block A.
\nA plaque that is attached to the eastern verandah wall and adjacent to the front door reads: \"Morayfield State School, Opened 4 August 1873\". The gable end walls are clad with weatherboards and have banks of modern timber-framed awning windows under horizontal hoods.
\nThe interior of the Suter building classroom is lined with horizontal, beaded timber boards on both the walls and the underside of the roof. A line within the beaded boards on the southern end of the western wall indicates a window now enclosed, and indentations in the boards underneath windows on the eastern wall indicate there were earlier, larger window sills. Moulded timber architraves frame the doors and windows of the eastern and western walls. Timber roof framing, including Queen post trusses with stop-chamfered edges, is exposed within the space. The carpet and linoleum floor linings, the fibrous cement wall cladding, the modern sink at the south of the space and the shelving underneath the northern window are modern additions and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe playshed stands to the north of the Suter building and is a 24ft x 16ft (7.3m x 4.8m) structure. The playshed is comprised of a hipped roof of corrugated metal sheets supported on six timber posts, each of which have splayed bracing to support the top plate. All roof-framing is exposed internally. The modern seats, adjacent aluminium playground fencing, and concrete slab are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nA large, mature fig tree (Ficus sp.) provides shade to the area east of the playshed. The lower limbs have been pruned, and the stump in which the fig first was planted is visible within the trunk on the northern side of the tree. The fig has landmark attributes within the school, being clearly visible from many areas and above buildings.
\nNo other buildings and structures within the heritage boundary are of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Morayfield State School opened in 1873 as Caboolture National School within a small timber building designed by architect Richard George Suter. It was built on a large site south of the Caboolture River to service the sparse but growing rural population. As settlement increased, the school expanded to have many other structures and landscape elements, including a play shed (1903) and shade trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and, as such, has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
The former Moreton Bay Penal Colony was opened to free settlers in 1842. Initially, thanks to river access, the Caboolture area was used for timber-getting, especially red cedar. In the 1860s it developed as an agricultural area, and was one of the first districts in Queensland where sugar was grown on a substantial scale. Queensland's first commercially milled sugar was produced in 1864 at Ormiston, southeast of Brisbane, by Captain Louis Hope.[1] George Raff, a prominent Brisbane merchant and politician, began planting sugar in the mid-1860s on his plantation southeast of Caboolture, and south of the Caboolture River, called 'Moray Field' (QHR 700014). Raff was successful and expanded to a substantial operation.[2] Raff's plantation produced sugar until the mid-1880s; another local sugar plantation, also south of the river and operating from the mid-1860s to 1872, was ‘Oaklands', (QHR 700007) established by Captain CB Whish. Both plantations used South Sea Islander labour.
Caboolture was initially only a stop on the road to the Gympie goldfield from the late 1860s, but growth in the area was sufficient to warrant the establishment of a government school, ‘for the convenience of the farmers' families up the river, and the children of the employees at Mr Raff's plantation'.[3] In April 1872 The Brisbane Courier advertised the government's reservation of 41 acres (16.5 ha) - adjacent to the Gympie Road between Brisbane and Caboolture - for the Caboolture National School.[4] Although the site selected was 2.5 km south of Caboolture, and south of the Caboolture River, it had the advantage of being next to a permanent water source - the lagoons on Sheep Station Creek.[5]
Caboolture National School was established as one of an expanding network of state-run primary schools. The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities.[6] The State Education Act 1875 provided for the further key initiatives of free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[7]
The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a major community focus for social interaction, a symbol of progress and a source of pride with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and halls used for community purposes reinforced these connections together with fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, polling days, sporting events, reunions, and dances, all held within the schools' buildings and grounds[8].
From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: the teaching building/s, the school yard, the sports oval, the head teacher's residence, and a variety of landscape elements such as sporting facilities or play equipment, playsheds, gardens and trees.
For the Caboolture National School (Caboolture State School from 1875), Robert Monteith's construction tender of £265 for erection of a teaching building and a head teacher's residence was accepted by the government in October 1872.[9] Both buildings were completed in 1873 and the Caboolture National School opened 4 August 1873.[10] By December 1873, 34 children were on the school roll.[11]
The Board of General Education preferred that national school buildings were single storey, but had no other architectural stipulations. Consequently, the buildings varied depending on the architect responsible. The teaching building at Caboolture National School (designated as Block C in 2014) was designed by Richard Suter (1827-94), a private architect commissioned from 1865 by the Board of General Education to design school buildings. From 1868, Suter was responsible for most of the Board's buildings. Although Suter's Brisbane school buildings were of brick construction, in rural areas he designed timber-framed school buildings. In his timber school designs, Suter incorporated an ‘outside studding' construction technique he was developing, whereby a building with timber stud framing was clad only internally, creating a distinctive exterior of exposed framing similar in appearance to half-timbered construction. Suter is credited with being the first to use this technique in Queensland.[12] Outside studding for school architecture was continued by Suter's successors for another 50 years.[13]
As in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help to ensure consistency and economy. Prior to, and during Suter's first years, schools were individually designed but conformed to the space requirements set by the Board. In 1869 a ‘recommended plan' for provisional schools was created by Suter that was generic and could be used on any site.[14] It was a lowset structure with gable roof, rectangular in plan with a small porch. An ‘improved plan' developed in 1873 addressed criticisms by Inspectors that the heat inside classrooms was ‘unbearable'.[15] It comprised a single large room with a front and back verandah, providing weather protection and sheltered play and teaching space. It was the beginning of a distinctive design, where the circulation to classrooms was via a verandah, continuing until at least the 1960s.
Although Suter did not intend this plan to be used broadly, the Board of Education, who were faced with an increasing population and limited budget, disseminated it throughout Queensland. As a result, Suter's designs had wide distribution. This had considerable impact on the spread of outside studding as a building technique in Queensland and may have been the main influence in its quick acceptance and use as a vernacular building form throughout the colony.[16]
The reuse of designs diminished the need to pay Suter additional architectural fees and the relationship between Suter and the government became strained. Suter continued as approved architect until 1875 when he was replaced.[17] Around 65 timber school buildings were constructed to Suter's standard type. Of these, only three (Waterford State School [QHR 602672], Morayfield State School, and Mutdapilly State School) are largely intact.[18]
The classroom building at Caboolture National School was typical of Suter's improved plan. It was a lowset timber building with outside studding. It faced east with a verandah on the east and west sides and accommodated one large room 30ft x 16ft (9.1m x 4.8m). The gable roof was clad with hardwood timber shingles and the interior was lined with pine tongued and grooved timber boards.[19] The timber roof framing was exposed internally and the windows were small and few in number.
Suter's standard designs were continually refined by his successors in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Suter's designs were not without problems - in particular, they were criticised for lack of ventilation. Later school architects focussed intently on improving climate control, lighting, and ventilation and were particularly innovative in their responses.
During the 1870s and early 1880s the Caboolture/Morayfield area continued to develop as an agricultural region with a gradual increase in population. The Caboolture Divisional Board (later Shire Council) was established in 1879. In 1876 and 1885 there were unsuccessful calls to have the school moved north of the river to Caboolture, which was now more populous than Morayfield.[20] This may have been because a wharf was located on the north bank of the river.[21] In 1888 a rail line to Brisbane was constructed, with its terminus in North Caboolture, leading to the establishment of North Caboolture State School in 1889. Caboolture was chosen as the terminus, rather than Morayfield, because the water supply at Lagoon Creek was considered more suitable for locomotives.[22] The Caboolture State School was renamed Caboolture South State School in 1889 and later Morayfield State School in 1907.
Building work continued at Caboolture South State School. By c1900 the rear verandah of the Suter building had been part-enclosed to form a hat room, a typical alteration to school buildings. Both ends of the rear verandah were semi-enclosed hat rooms by 1933.[23]
In 1903 the school committee applied to the Department of Public Instruction to build a playshed and it was completed later that year. The local community contributed one third of the cost.
The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as well as classrooms, they provided plans for playsheds; free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and were often used for unofficial teaching space when needed. They were timber-framed structures, generally open on all sides, although they were sometimes partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets. The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron and they had an earth or decomposed granite floor. Fixed timber seating ran between the perimeter posts. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s. They were built to standard designs that ranged in size relative to student numbers. School sites were typically cleared of all vegetation and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. The playshed at Caboolture South State School was built to a standard design by builder Thomas Heron for £44.10.[24] It was a timber framed, open-sided structure, 24ft x 16ft (7.3m x 4.8m), with 6 posts supporting a hipped roof and was built to the north of the Suter building.
The growth of Morayfield remained limited until well into the late-twentieth century, so only minor increases in student accommodation were needed. In 1930 local industries included citrus growing, poultry farming and dairying, and Morayfield railway station was fairly isolated, with only a sawmill and a few residences nearby. At this time Morayfield State School had 40 pupils.[25] In 1933 a new highset timber building, comprising one classroom, was constructed just north of the Suter building.[26] This building (Block A) was originally 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.5m) with 8ft (2.4m) wide verandas to the east and west, and was later extended to the east in the 1950s and 1960s.[27]
Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators. After 1900 the virtues of maximum natural ventilation and controlled, high-levels of natural light in teaching buildings were extolled and became central to the design and layout of all school buildings.[28] Windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room. Desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students would be right-handed. The change in philosophy often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educators.[29] This was a noticeable new direction and the better lit and ventilated form became a characteristic of Queensland schools.
During the 1920s and 1930s alterations were made to the vast majority of older school buildings to upgrade their lighting and ventilation. On a 1933 plan of the Suter building at Morayfield, casement windows are shown in the eastern verandah wall. These would have been added to increase the lighting and ventilation of the interior and were consistent with this education philosophy.
The grounds of the school were developed over time to accommodate outdoor play. The provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment by the state government to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Across Queensland, trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890 and were occurring at Caboolture South State School by 1891.[30] Educationalists believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.
An Arbor Day report of Morayfield State School in 1958 stated that an old and very fine narrow leafed fig growing in the stump of a tree[31] was an extraordinarily good specimen and provided shade all the year.[32] A class photograph from 1959 and aerial photographs from 1956 and 1973 show the fig as a mature tree within an almost treeless playground.[33] Some mature trees visible north of the fig in 1956 were removed by 1973. The topsoil of Morayfield State School is very shallow over clay, meaning most trees do not grow well or quickly. Therefore, the age of the fig might be greater than its size suggests.
Alterations to the Suter building occurred over time but were relatively minor. Bag racks as verandah balustrades became a characteristic design element of Queensland schools after World War II and the Suter building had its rear verandah balustrade replaced by bag racks. As a result of further changes in education philosophies and consistent with alterations of other school buildings across the state, in 1955 the Suter building had its fenestration altered again to increase the amount of light into the classroom. This involved replacing the narrow windows in the gable end walls with modern awning style windows.
Between the 1960s and the 1980s Queensland education was reformed and the teaching buildings at Morayfield State School were altered as a result. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved requiring new architectural responses. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. With new educational philosophies, government policies and functional requirements combined with new architectural styles, materials and technologies, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design with inspiration drawn from new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly highset.
Beginning in the 1970s, Morayfield experienced sharp population growth.[34] Between 1971 and 1976 the population of the Caboolture Shire increased 65.5%, and the number of dwellings increased by 60.5%.[35]
This building boom was repeated at the Morayfield State School. Between 1970 and 1990 new classroom buildings, modular classrooms, toilets, a library, covered areas, a pre-school, an administration block, and a resource centre were constructed. The Suter building received minor alterations in c1977 to convert it for use as a staff room; this involved removing the windows in the western verandah wall and enclosing the southern end of the western verandah to form a cleaners' room. By 2014 the Suter building was utilised as a Student Behaviour Room.
In 2014, the school continues to operate from the site and retains the Suter building, the playshed, and the shade tree. The school is important to the town and district having operated since 1873 and having taught generations of Morayfield students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Morayfield community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time. The Suter building is also ‘Site 1' on the local Caboolture River Road Heritage Drive.
","criteria":"Morayfield State School (established in 1873 as Caboolture National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education, and its associated architecture, in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. The teaching building (1873), designed by architect Richard Suter, is an early standardised design; and the playshed (1903), demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum.
Reserved for school purposes in 1872, the place demonstrates the establishment and development of settlement in the Caboolture/Morayfield area, an early agricultural and sugar growing centre in Queensland.
|Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. Morayfield State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Morayfield community. It was established in 1873 through the fund-raising efforts of the local community and has educated generations of Morayfield children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Morayfield and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events, with widespread community support.
|Morayfield State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools, including standard building designs by the Queensland Government.
The Suter building retains the characteristics of its original design. It is single-skin timber-framed and lowset, with front and rear verandahs and a single classroom that is well ventilated and day-lit. Changing philosophies in state primary education are evident in the modifications made to this building, including enlarged windows and verandah bag racks.
The playshed is open sided, with a hipped timber-framed roof form supported on braced timber posts.
The Fig tree (Ficus sp.) is a fine example of the shade trees planted in Queensland school grounds.
|The Suter building at Morayfield State School is rare as one of three known surviving intact examples of the approximately 65 buildings of this type constructed.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21548,"place_ref":645614,"name":"Morayfield Plantation | 700014","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Nolan Drive","suburb":"MORAYFIELD","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-05-13","description":"The area covered by the heritage boundary for Morayfield Plantation occupies the north-eastern corner of 1SP266287. While use of the area has changed over time (cotton - sugar - dairying - pine plantation - proposed business park), the nature of these activities may have had limited impact on the integrity of the archaeological record. While the visible, above ground archaeological artefacts lack integrity as evidenced by their ruinous state, the soil profile of the former plantation area (i.e. deep alluvial soils) suggests that the area has potential to contain subsurface archaeological deposits with the possibility of some stratification, especially due to proximity to the Caboolture River, the low-lying nature of the surrounding lands, and a history of flooding (BOM 2009, n.d.). Soils closest to the river are generally sands and mud and areas close to the river generally have a deep alluvial soil profile, while those areas on higher ridgelines are likely to be shallower.
\nArchaeological remains which relate to Raff's occupation and use of the area are located in the northern portion of Lot 10, close to the Caboolture River and around the margin of a lagoon. While information on the full layout of the complex is incomplete, it is possible to identify several key elements from the results of previous field investigations and historical and aerial photograph interpretation, including the location of Raff's residence, exotic gardens and plantings, two wells, stores, stables, a fence line, the sawmill site, and part of the tramway formation.
\nA set of 13 steps (rendered stone base with later brick additions) and the remains of a brick and sandstone wall with patches of render still visible are found at approximately (MGA94 Zone 56) 499685E, 7001805N. These steps are associated with the Morayfield Plantation homestead. The site is approached from the south-west by an indistinct roadway at 499585E, 7001789N whose furthest extent is marked by a camphor laurel tree at 499485E, 7001737N. Unmarked and handmade bricks, sandstone pieces and blocks with render are scattered in the vicinity of the steps. A brick-lined well is also found behind the house site and connected by a brick-paved floor. Exotic plantings, including two groves of bamboo and two palm trees, evenly spaced to either side of the set of stairs, as well as bunya trees are located in the immediate vicinity.
\nA timber post and rail yard is located close to the Caboolture River and the north-east extent of the lagoon. The yard is likely related to the dairying activities on the property in the early 20th century. The site is known to have featured a tin and timber dairy building up to 1960. However the yard remains do overlie earlier structures. This is evidenced by the presence of a closely packed brick surface underneath cracked sections of concrete.
\nA second brick-lined well, filled with sediment, is located on the north-eastern side of the yards. It is not known when this well was constructed, but size and construction pattern are similar to the well located near the former Morayfield Plantation homestead. The well is also located in close proximity to the location of the former bond stores, stable, wharf and tramway which are known to have been constructed sometime before 1873.
\nPossible remains of the 'commodious wharf' noted by Lang in 1868 are found above the waterline include a single large in situ timber post at 499893E, 7002031N and numerous metal artefacts, including horseshoes, circular collars, heavy straps and bolts) which are eroding out of the river bank at at 499886E, 7002022N. Based on an 1873 historical photograph of this area and aerial photography (DERM 2002, 2009b, 2009c), the wharf is thought to be located adjacent to these finds. Archaeological investigations at other historic wharf sites in Queensland and interstate have revealed rich archaeological deposits at such locations, even in the absence of structural remains above the waterline, and also significant archaeological deposits in maritime zones where dredging has occurred (Coroneos 2004; Cosmos Archaeology 2006, 2009; Illidge 2006). There is therefore good potential for archaeological artefacts that were lost overboard or discarded from ships, or the wharf deck itself, to be situated in the vicinity of the former wharf area and within the riverbed out to the mid-channel of the Caboolture River.
\nThe remains of a post and rail fence line cross the lagoon immediately east of the main house ruins. This fence line is also visible in the 1873 photograph and therefore is considered to be physical evidence of Raff's operations on the site. Adjacent to this is a vehicle access track located near the southeast extent of the lagoon. Handmade bricks and a rusting boiler (unknown make) which is located in the vicinity of the former sawmill site and tramway are located adjacent the track. A slightly raised and linear area immediately east of the track is interpreted as remnants of the tramway line that once ran from the mill to the wharf area. The area around the former sawmill site and this tramway formation is considered an area of high archaeological potential.
\nTo the north and northeast of the former sawmill site in the vicinity of the cattle yards at 499892E, 7001981N and in a nearby small grove of bunya pines at 499955E, 702058N are two metal rails which may have formed part of the former tramway. Also concealed within the bunya pine grove is a rendered brick machinery foundation and a rusted metal tank - similar to a ship or steam engine's water tank, but also possibly an artefact relating to the early sugar manufacturing processes at the site. Nearby, a feature of unknown function is set into the ground and is partially filled with concrete, forming a bowl with a surrounding metal rim.
\nThe lone grave of Levi Walker is located on the southern bank of the Caboolture River at 499218E, 7001824N. The headstone reads 'Sacred to the memory of Levi Walker, son of James and Rachel Walker, who was drowned whilst bathing in the River Caboolture, October 10th 1869, in the 28th year of his age.' While it is not impossible that additional graves exist on the property, no physical evidence of such graves survives though any unmarked graves would be of archaeological potential and importance.
\nPotential exists across the area for archaeological evidence associated with the Morayfield Plantation. It is reasonable to assume that archaeological potential also exists for evidence relating to Islander and white labourer accommodation, the remains of the sugar mill and distillery and additional tramway infrastructure.
","history":"In 1866, the Morayfield Plantation was established on the southern bank of the Caboolture River, approximately 40 kilometres north of Brisbane. The plantation was owned by George Raff, a former member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, prominent Brisbane businessman and supporter of the use of indentured South Sea Islander labour in the sugar industry. Cane was grown at Morayfield for the production of sugar, rum and molasses between 1866 and 1889. Raff employed many South Sea Islander labourers in the cane fields during this period. Cane cultivation (and all related production) ceased around 1885-6. Raff died in 1889, with the plantation eventually sold for conversion to dairying in 1901.
\nIn 1861 the Cabulture Cotton Company was formed by a group of settlers including George Raff, William Hobbs, Shepherd Smith, Robert Douglas and John Bramston. Raff was a prominent business identity in mid to late 19th century Queensland and was very active in public affairs. Born in Morayshire, Scotland in 1815, he emigrated to Australia in 1839 arriving in Sydney aboard the Earl Durham. In the 1840s he worked in the pastoral industry and as a merchant before moving to Brisbane in 1851 (Hall 1976). In Brisbane he soon established George Raff & Co., a shipping company with wharves on the Brisbane River situated adjacent to Customs House (Hall 1976; Laverty 2009:20). Raff also founded the Queensland Mercantile and Agency Co., and became a director of the Queensland Steam Navigation Company in 1861 (Hall 1976). He strongly believed in separation from New South Wales and was one of the 26 members of Sir Robert Herbert's first Queensland Parliament. In 1860 Raff was appointed as a member of the Board of Education (Davies 2003:24). He handed in his resignation as Member of the Legislative Assembly to the speaker of parliament in April 1864 (Brisbane Courier 1864). He was re-elected and served again from November 1865, including a period as minister without portfolio in the Herbert and later Macalister ministries until November 1866. He again resigned from parliament in June 1867, only to go on and unsuccessfully contest the seat of Moreton in 1870 (Hall 1976; Waterson 1972).
\nIn June 1861, the founders of the Cabulture Cotton Company sailed in the Breadalbane to explore the shores and rivers of Moreton Bay with the intention of selecting land for the purpose of growing cotton (Davies 2003:26). The land selected became Portions 10 and 26, Parish of Caboolture, County of Stanley. After three unsuccessful seasons growing cotton, the Cabulture Cotton Company put the property up for sale (Brisbane Courier 1865). George Raff purchased Portion 10 in 1866 for £1000 (Brisbane Courier 1868, DERM 1866). Raff purchased additional land immediately adjacent to Portion 10. Portions 24 and 25 to the east were purchased in April 1867 (DERM 1867a, 1867b), and Portion 26 to the west in May 1868 (DERM 1868). Raff named his new property 'Morayfields', which was later referred to as Morayfield in the early 1870s. Raff switched primary production to sugar cane, but between 1865 and 1868, the plantation continued producing some cotton. In 1868 it was reported that 5 bales of 'New Orleans' variety cotton were shipped from Morayfield Plantation to London (Tutt 1973:11).
\nBy 1867 Raff's sugar cultivating, processing and distilling operations were well established. On 19 October of that year, the Brisbane Courier reported in detail the size and scope of his endeavours. Morayfield Plantation then consisted of 2,500 acres of land, the soil being described as 'pretty deep' black alluvial, with cultivation on 'one great plateau'. The whole cultivation of sugar took up an area of 150 acres (60 acres more than on the adjacent Oaklands operation of Claudius Whish), and was chiefly of the 'Bourbon' variety of cane. Living quarters were described as
\n...consisting of a large mansion, manager's house, house for married workmen and their families, laborers' [sic] huts, stockyards, stables, sheds, carpenters' shops, blacksmiths' shop, stores, saw mill, and an innumerable number of other buildings (Brisbane Courier 1867).
\nAdditional housing for workers was also provided a little distance from the homestead complex.
\nA substantial sugar processing works is also described at this time. The works was situated about 200 yards from the river and close to a large reservoir. The main building measured '120 feet square, 20 feet to the eaves, with a pyramidal roof rather than steep'. The works were centred around a 30-horse beam engine worked from a large 'multitubular boiler, fitted with a patented injector' (Brisbane Courier 1867).
\nA distillery was also operating by 1867. It was described as being situated on one side of the main sugar processing works building, and being of 'Shears' patent, 600 gallons, with three rectifying or condensing boxes above the still head, producing a strong spirit by one operation' (Brisbane Courier 1867).
\nIn 1866, Raff constructed a 3ft gauge private tramway to transport cane harvested from nearby fields to the mill, and sugar to the wharf (McKillop and Browning 2000). Cane was loaded by hand onto railway trucks, which held, on average 1 ton each. Two trucks formed a train. In October 1867, all hauling was performed by horse, though a small Aveling and Porter locomotive was in use in the saw mill. At that time, the railway was measured at ½ mile in length from the fields to the sugar works, and described as 'very well formed', on cross heavy logs, with longitudinal sleepers under the plates', and the gauge was three feet (Brisbane Courier 1867).
\nAnother visit was made to the plantation one year later by John Dunmore Lang and published in the Brisbane Courier in 1868. He described the total land under cultivation as being 160 acres, though this could have been increased to 300 acres if desired. The majority of cane was still of the 'Bourbon' variety though 60 acres of 'Rattoon' cane (stems or shoots from the second years' growth of a sugar cane plant) and an unknown quantity of 'Ribbon' cane (a subtropical type of cane) was noted. Lang described the tramway as being 'an eccentric elipse [sic], traversing the whole plantation.' The railway measured 2 miles in length, had cost £2,000 to build, but still relied on animal power (Brisbane Courier 1868). By 1870, the line was described as 2-3 miles in length and Raff had run his 8-ton locomotive engine over it (Brisbane Courier 1878). Raff is believed to be the first to use a locomotive driven tramway on a Queensland sugar plantation (McKillop and Browning 2000).
\nLang notes the presence of South Sea Islander labourers at Morayfield Plantation in 1868. South Sea Islanders-also referred to as Kanakas at the time-made a major contribution to Queensland's early sugar industry, with between 55,000 and 62,000 individuals being brought here between 1863 and 1904 as indentured labourers usually bound to a three-year contract (Australian Human Rights Commission c2011). George Raff was a prominent supporter of the use of an Islander labour force, as was his immediate neighbour at Oaklands, Claudius Buchanan Whish. Raff was considered one of the 'masters' of the trade and a very large employer of Islander labour. He became prominent as one of the abettors of the system in his testimony before a Parliamentary Committee (Morrison 1888:183- 184). Islanders provided cheap manual labour, but were also considered essential in a climate considered too harsh for white manual labourers. Most came from eighty islands in Melanesia, mainly those included in present day Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands (Hamilton 1994:34). The method of recruitment involved some instances of kidnap and deception, while the numbers of Islander people brought to Queensland by these illegal means is a matter for debate. (Multicultural Affairs Queensland c2000).
\nIt is unclear how many Islanders were present at Morayfield Plantation or when Raff first employed them. Lang noted during his 1868 visit the presence of 65 Islanders speaking 5 different languages, working and living on the plantation. Other sources claim about 70 people in total employed on Morayfield Plantation in 1868, of which 15 to 20 were Islanders (Caboolture Historical Society in Davies 2003:31; Tutt 1979:76).
\nLang provides descriptions of the contrasting European workers' accommodation and that of the South Sea Islander labourers (Brisbane Courier 1868). The European workmen and their families were provided with 'a row of comfortable brick cottages', while the Islander labourers were supplied with a large single timber structure with corrugated iron roof measuring 'upwards of eighty feet by forty' and painted on the outside. Sleeping accommodation was described as consisting of
\n...a raised platform stretching along each side of the building, like the berths in the steerage of a ship, each of the inmates sleeping on his blanket on the boards, the fire for cooking their provisions being on the floor in the centre of the building, around which they congregate in the evening, after the labors[sic] of the day, as in their native isles (Brisbane Courier 1868).
\nOne other description of the Islander accommodation was that is consisted of a 'circular structure' located close to the river bank. By 1925 this structure was used by share farmers for housing and feeding young calves (The Queenslander 1925).
\nLang also notes the presence of an additional brick building on the plantation, a 'commodious wharf' on the river for landing or embarking goods and people, and a schoolhouse which doubled as a church (Brisbane Courier 1868). Lang described the conduct of a Presbyterian service at the schoolhouse, at which a number of the South Sea Islanders attended, were literate, and read a portion of scripture in their own language (Brisbane Courier 1868, Saunders 1982:116). These Islanders were described as being from the Island of Maré, the southern most island of the Loyalty Island Group (New Caledonia).
\nIt was not uncommon for Islander labourers to abscond from their employers when conditions were poor. They were commonly provided with insufficient and poor quality food and inadequate clothing (Saunders 1982:132). This was particularly the case on those properties located in the more temperate areas of southern Queensland where the cooler temperatures in winter were completely foreign to many of the Islander labourers. In early 1869, eighteen men, originally from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and then employed at Morayfield Plantation, fled the plantation for Brisbane. Raff sought a court order in an attempt to force them back to work, which they refused (Saunders 1982:132). At their court appearance in January 1869, three Maré men by the names of Tarbucket (alias Kichelho), John Bull and Louis, claimed the reason they left was that Mr Raff was not providing them with enough food or 'ki-ki'. They also expressed the belief that their agreements had expired after one year, even though Raff explained that they had agreed to three year work agreements, and that they wanted to return to Maré. The court ruled in Raff's favour and forced the men to return to Morayfield (The Queenslander 1869a).
\nLang, however, reports that Raff treated his Islander labour force 'well', paying them at the rate of 10 shillings a month with rations, and under engagements of 3 years. Each man received a pound of beef per day and worked until 6pm in the evening (Brisbane Courier 1868). Raff purchased much of this beef from the local area, particularly from the McConnels of Durundur station, near Woodford (McConnel n.d.).
\nAt the end of 1868, the Chief Inspector of Distilleries reported that the Morayfield Plantation had 190 acres of land under cultivation with cane, of which 60 acres had been crushed. The total amount of rum distilled since the commencement of operation in October 1867 was 18,431 gallons. The amount of sugar manufactured in 1868 was 100 tons, and molasses 12,000 gallons (Tutt 1973:11).
\nOn 10th October 1869, Levi Walker, a labourer from Heap, near Bury in Lancashire, England, drowned in the Caboolture River (QRG 1869). Walker arrived in Australia just 5 weeks earlier on 6 September 1869 aboard the Star Queen (QSA 2009). No additional information on Levi Walker has been located and his grave is marked with a headstone erected on the southern bank of the Caboolture River.
\nSugar cane cultivation and processing continued on Morayfield Plantation throughout the 1870s (Brisbane Courier 1872, 1877, 1885). In the 1870s, sugar was being regularly shipped from its wharf to Brisbane via small steamers such as the Tadorna Radjah and the Gneering, both owned by William Pettigrew (ANSDB, Brisbane Courier 1870, The Queenslander 1869b, Pettigrew n.d.). In 1877, it was reported that 60 acres of cane was present, about 40 acres under prairie grass, and the remainder of the estate (3,000 - 4,000 acres), in pasture for cattle and horses (Brisbane Courier 1877).
\nIt is unclear, however, the amount of time Raff and his family actually spent on the plantation, as he maintained a separate residence in New Farm, Brisbane, called 'Moray Bank'.
\nDuring the 1870s, South Sea Islander workers were progressively returned to their home islands as their work agreement expired, and were replaced with others from different islands, including three boys from the Island of Sandwich (Rockhampton Bulletin and Central Queensland Advertiser 1871). From 1884 the use of Islanders as labourers was progressively restricted through legislation, starting with an amendment to the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act 1880, which banned them from a range of work and constrained their employment to menial agricultural jobs. Concerns had been and were being voiced by humanitarian and church groups, as well as unions regarding the use and conditions of this labour force. Further legislation sought to end their employment entirely; however this was not finally achieved until after Federation with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and the Pacific Islander Labourers Act 1901, the latter of which required deportation of Islanders to begin after December 1906. Of the more than 9000 Islanders in Queensland in 1901, only 1654 were given permission to stay. The last deportation took place in July 1908 (Multicultural Affairs Queensland c2000).
\nThe valuation register of 1880 noted a number of improvements to Morayfield Plantation though there is no indication as to where on the property such improvements were made. The improvements listed include a dwelling, mill house, two bonded stores, bone house, carpenters' shop, cotton shed, stable, octagon building, Kanakas' outhouse, bakery, managers' dwellings, store, Kanakas' house, eight cottages, hayshed, schoolhouse, kitchen and stables (Tutt 1979:201).
\nThe Morayfield Plantation continued cultivating cane and producing rum until the mid-1880s (Brisbane Courier 1885; Tutt 1979:76). The Chief Inspector of Distilleries, in his annual report of 1885, noted that there was no work at the Morayfield Plantation distillery that year (Brisbane Courier 1885). The Inspector of Distilleries in Morayfield during 1887 reported a flood on the Caboolture River, but no damage to distillery (The Queenslander 1887). In August 1889 however, it was noted that the Morayfield distillery had closed and in May 1891 tenders were invited for the purchase and removal of the sugar mill (Brisbane Courier 1889, 1891).
\nGeorge Raff died on 28th August 1889 at his 'Moray Bank' home in New Farm (The Queenslander 1889). Ownership of the Morayfield Plantation transferred to three of his surviving sons - Alexander, Robert and Harry.
\nThe land on which the Morayfield Plantation was built has changed ownership several times since Raff's death (DERM 1866). Subsequent owners of the property used the land mainly for dairying purposes, including share farming. William Henry Jackson purchased the land from the Raff family and trustees in 1901. A 1903 description of the former plantation area states:
\n'traces of the old sugar mill, Kanakas' huts, rum bonds and the miles of furrows and drains still show here and there and the great sheet of water known as 'the Dam' still exists; but since the 'sixties' the old place has seen so many changes that what may be termed relics of those way-back times only remain (Davies 2003:32).
\nBy 1903, the property was divided into 19 paddocks, 6 of which were cultivated, with the rest used for dairy cattle. A dip had been built and 400 head of cattle (250 for dairying) were being grazed. A dairy shed was also erected on the site of the plantation-period horse stables, close to the Caboolture River. Associated dairying infrastructure was also installed, including a turbine steam engine and 'de Laval' 150 gallon separator (Davies 2003:32).
\nThe property was sold again in 1909 to James Buchanan, in 1947 to William George Currant, to Douglas Ashe and James Rowe in 1948, and in 1951 the whole of Portion 10 was sold to Charles Thomas Williams (DERM 1947, 1951).
\nIn 1960, Portion 10 was again sold to the A.P.M. Forests Pty Ltd and a pine plantation established across the property (DERM 1960). Much of the surviving infrastructure from the plantation period is believed to have been removed during that period of ownership. Some equipment, particularly several boilers dating from the plantation-period are allegedly still buried on the site. A.P.M. later sold the land and most of the pine was sold to a local mill or chipped on site. The land has since been sold to Northeast Business Park Pty Ltd for redevelopment as a commercial centre (Cardno 2008, DERM 2009a).
","criteria":"The Morayfield Plantation is representative of one of the earliest developments in Queensland's influential sugar industry, dating from the earliest phase in southern Queensland.
\nThe Morayfield Plantation contains important archaeological artefacts associated with George Raff's ownership of the property, beginning in 1866 until his death in 1889. George Raff was a prominent early citizen in Queensland who made a major contribution to the development of the sugar industry and notably used South Sea Islanders as indentured labourers.
\nSeveral artefacts and ruins have been located above ground and are considered important in-situ elements - i.e. remnant stairs, wells, handmade bricks, brick-paved floors, exotic plantings, structural foundations and remnant wall features. There exists potential for subsurface deposits of archaeological artefacts, especially additional building foundations, footings and domestic refuse, to be located in the locality of these above-ground elements. Any archaeological artefacts found at this place have potential to provide important information on key aspects of Queensland history, particularly the development of early sugar growing, cultivation, processing and distilling operations, and the role of South Sea Islander peoples in Queensland's sugar industry. The identification of domestic refuse has potential to provide important insights into the everyday lives of those people who lived and worked on the plantation; lives that are not well documented elsewhere. Archaeological investigations of such artefacts would help illustrate the differences in living conditions between Islanders and other labourers who worked in Queensland's early sugar industry.
\nArchaeological investigations at the place could provide important comparative material culture evidence about the processes, practices and techniques of early sugar production. Archaeological evidence may reveal important insights into methods that are undocumented and no longer practiced. Evidence of this nature has potential to provide an important insight into early sugar practice in southeast Queensland and provide rare comparative information for our understanding of other early sugar producing places, particularly the nearby Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants (QHR 645607).
\nArchaeological investigations around the plantation wharf area and within the adjacent riverbed may reveal structural elements and archaeological artefacts relating to plantation operations, the working life of the wharf and the economic development of the region. Remains may consist of materials associated with the construction, repair and maintenance of the wharf itself. As objects were often deliberately or accidentally dropped from wharves during loading and unloading operations, archaeological artefacts relating to the shipping of cargo to and from the plantation and the greater Caboolture area have potential to survive submerged in the vicinity. The study of such archaeological artefacts may reveal important information on primary production in the area, consumption choices and patterns in material culture, distribution networks for goods coming to and going from the plantation, and the nutrition and diet of the people living on the plantation and in the broader region at the time.
\nFew places associated with early indentured labourers from the South Sea Islands have survived in Southern Queensland (see particularly Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants at Morayfield and Ormiston House Estate QHR 600775 in Ormiston, Redland Shire). The potential for archaeological artefacts associated with these labourers makes the Morayfield Plantation an important source of information about the use of indentured labour in Queensland and an important comparative place for the analysis of South Sea Islander heritage places found in Southern Queensland and across the state. Potential for archaeological artefacts belonging to plantation owners, managers, and the South Sea Islander labour force exists, enabling important research questions to be posited, particularly in relation to status and class, the use of power, control and resistance to that control, the exploitation and organisation of labour, and adaptation to new environments.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21573,"place_ref":602583,"name":"La Societe Fransaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant (former)","alternate_name":"Former French Company Rare Metal Treatment Plant Site Upper Wolfram","street_address":null,"suburb":"DIMBULAH","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-04","description":"The site of the former La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant is across six levels excavated from the side of hill on the eastern bank of Bulluburrah Creek.
The principal extant remains are on Levels 3 and 4 (see attached diagram). Level 3 is a levelled area of approximately 50 x 25 metres. It includes a concrete lined hole, 6 x 8 metres and 5 metres deep. A row of 5 concrete fan blocks of varying sizes are adjacent to the excavated area, on the south side. The largest fan block is 4.4 x 3.2 metres and stands 4 metres high, with a round opening of 1.6m in diameter. There are three smaller concrete blocks of 1.4 to 1.8 metres high between the largest fan block and another large fan block that measures 4.3 x 2.9 metres and stands 2.7 metres high. It also has a round opening of 1.6m diameter. Two rows of skip track anchor posts, standing 400mm high and set in concrete blocks, run north-south on the east and west edges of Level 3.
Level 4 consists of a concrete floor (23 x 5 metres) and a concrete bed (16 x 6 metres) with a complicated arrangement of concrete pits, trenches and platforms. There two parallel rows of bolts standing upright in a line for 3.5 metres, as well as a number of other bolts indicating where the engine was bolted to the floor. A concrete floor with dimensions 23 x 5.1 metres is 8 metres south of the machine site.
Level 5 is the highest level on the site and consists of a flat clay floor approximately 25 x 10 metres. Some small pieces of metal fragments are present. Two more excavated levels are evident to the south of Level 5. The first, which appears to be hand excavated, is 50 x 25 metres. Another appears machine excavated and measures 25 x 25 metres.
Level 6 is a smaller excavated area to the north of Level 3. A mullock heap extends 40 x 20 metres above Level 6. It consists of quartz, molybdenite, sandstone and wolfram.
Level 1 and 2 are the lowest levels and the closest to Bulluburrah Creek. Level 1 has a concrete block with a small pulley wheel. A number of cement canister retaining strips can be seen on this level.
Level 2 is above and to the north of Level 1. It contains a few archaeological remains, including part of a steel cable and cement canister retaining strips.
The northern boundary is a straight line starting at a point on Bulluburrah Creek at 144degrees58'21"E, 17degrees04'25"S and finishing at Bulluburrah Creek at 144degrees58'14"E, 17degrees04'25"S. The western boundary is Bulluburrah Creek to a point at 144degrees58'12"E, 17degrees04'30"S. The southern boundary is from this point on the creek to a point on the top of the hill above Level 5 at 144degrees58'21"E, 17degrees04'34"S. The eastern boundary runs from the point on the top of the hill to the north-eastern most point on Bulluburrah Creek.
","history":"The former La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant operated between 1911 and 1913. The plant used an unusual dry blowing treatment process for the rare mineral, wolfram.
Wolfram was discovered in 1894 in the headwaters of the Hodgkinson River scattered over the surface as bunches in quartzose boulders or in drifts interdispersed with coarse gravel. In 1899 when wolfram was at its highest price, 240 tons were sent away for £38 per ton.
The township, Wolfram, named after the mineral, formed on the banks of the Bulluburrah Creek in two parts, Upper Wolfram or Top Camp, and Lower Wolfram or Bottom Camp.
In 1900, 91 pounds of molybdenite was discovered at Wolfram. This was said to contain some of the finest specimens of molybdenite discovered in Australia. There were 100 men working at Wolfram by late 1900, on wolfram, molybdenite and bismuth. The Irvinebank Mining Company invested at Wolfram in 1900, appointing Alexander Gillan as manager.
Demand for high grade wolfram, after the development of tungsten as a lamp filament in 1904, and for molybdenite for use in patent alloys, led to an earlty interest in rare minerals by British firms, the most prominent being George G. Blackwell and Sons of Liverpool. Prices in 1904 for both metals were high- up to £200 a ton for molybdenite and £140 a ton for wolfram - and attracted many goldminers. Of the 1,136 people on the Hodgkinson by 1904, 700 were miners working at Wolfram. By 1909 wolfram was returning £41,820 compared to the value of gold at £7,089. But the rare metals industry was unstable - there was insecurity in the unknown overseas markets where demand fluctuated erratically and local miners were never sure of their returns. So a Wolfram Co-operative Association was formed to arrange advances and shipments through intermediaries such as the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency and WJ Lempriere and Co, but generally the local industry was poorly organised (Kirkman 1982: 189-190).
The workings extended without a break from over 3 kms along the contact of the intrusive granite with older porphyries and slates from high rugged slopes down to the valley of Bulluburrah Creek (QGMJ 15 Jan 1913: 4). Initially settlement was concentrated on the higher slopes at Top Camp.
From 1904, 2,500 tons of wolfram valued at £250,000 were produced at Wolfram Camp, half of which went through Moffatt's Irvinebank Co. Mill. The Irvinebank Mining Company set up a battery on Bullaburrah Creek in the lower valley. This battery was a stabilising influence on Wolfram Camp, although it was closed for long periods throughout 1909 because of strikes over the 44 hour week. It operated again from 1910 to 1912 and was closed in the rationalisation of Irvinebank Mining Company's assets at the end of that year.
The area around the mill in the lower valley became the main settlement after 1907. The township, clustered on a ridge north of the battery, was at its peak during WWI. The wolfram mining industry passed through a depression for several years from 1910 chiefly because of the exhaustion of the residual surface accumulations of ore, thus ending the days of the gouger.
La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares was registered in Queensland in 1911. That same year Frenchman, Mr Poulet, took over a number of mine dumps and tailing heaps on behalf of French syndicate. The objective was to extract wolfram, molybdenite and bismuth from the lowest grade mixed-metal ore using a specially designed treatment plant.
The crushing plant was delivered in August 1911 and the Queensland Government Mining Journal (15 Jan 1913: 4) reports that earthworks were underway in July 1912 for installation of the plant above Bulluburrah Creek in Upper Wolfram. The power plant imported by the company included an early 240 horsepower MAN diesel engine, type A4V49, weighing nearly 35,000kg that was coupled axially to a DC generator. An extensive system of overhead wire ropeways to collect ore from mullock heaps and a dam in Bulluburrah Creek were some of the proposed constructions. The cost of installation was expected to be considerably over £50,000 and required constant employment of 50 people, mostly skilled mechanics.
After a few short and unsuccessful trial runs, the process plant was liquidated in 1913 because of the health hazards associated with the dry blowing process.
The diesel engine was sold to Cooktown syndicate, and transported to the Louisa mine on the Palmer Goldfield. It now resides at the Great Extended Mine, Totley.
Many of the mines were closed during WWI. The Thermo-Electric Ore Reduction Corporation plant built near the site of the Irvinebank Company Mill at Lower Wolfram, sustained the district through the war years with the government paying fixed prices. After slumps in metal prices after the return of free market forces in March 1920 the Thermo Co. failed to survive. Wolfram Camp was almost deserted within weeks of its shutdown.
In 1926 Queensland Rare Metal Company erected a new battery on the site of the Irvinebank Mining Company's 10 head battery. As the prices of wolfram and molybdenite were declining there was little hope of success and the plant worked intermittently, with no crushing in 1934. Increased wolfram prices in 1935 attracted miners back to Wolfram and in 1937 the Pepper mine was dewatered and 200 men working in the area.
During WWII 3 tributers worked mines at Wolfram: Larkin, Lansky and Forget-me-Not. In 1946 the contract price for wolfram between the British and Australian governments expired, no further prices were quoted and operations ceased. There were small scale workings at some of the mines in 1947. There was a brief rush after the outbreak of the Korean war in 1951. However, as the price of wolfram fell many mining activities ceased.
The Mount Arthur Molybdenite Company NL worked several mines in the Wolfram Camp area in the 1970s until they sold their equipment by tender in 1989.
In 2006 there is renewed interest in mining wolfram, molybdenite and bismuth at Wolfram, and an open cut mining operation approximately 1km south of the site of the former La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares plant, is proposed.
","criteria":"The former La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland mining history. One of four processing plants in the Wolfram area, the treatment plant provides physical evidence of an important shift in milling practices and employment in the Hodgkinson River area, from gold to other mineral mining and processing. The treatment plant represents an uncommon milling practice in north Queensland, that of the mineral, wolfram. The scale of the treatment plant foundations demonstrates the scale and economic importance of wolfram mining in north Queensland in the years prior to WWI.
|The former La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the different processing methods used in the treatment of wolfram, prior to WWI. The relatively high value of the mineral led to the experimentation with different processing methods such as the dry blowing process used at La Soceite de Francaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant.
|The former La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares treatment plant is important because of its aesthetic significance. As an abandoned industrial ruin complex in a secluded dry bushland setting, the place evokes a strong aesthetic response. The remains of the treatment plant, over 6 terraced levels, exhibit a 'sense of remoteness' enhanced by the place's isolation, landscape, scale and setting.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21735,"place_ref":602828,"name":"Woody Point Memorial Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Hornibrook Esplanade","suburb":"WOODY POINT","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-03-14","description":"The Woody Point Memorial School of Arts (former) stands on a 2008m2 wedge-shaped allotment on the corner of Hornibrook Esplanade and Oxley Avenue in Woody Point. It is a modest building at the southern end of a fenced yard, facing south to the street intersection.
The T-shaped building is a low-set, one-storey, timber-framed structure, comprising a large hall at the front and a stage with projecting side wings at the rear. It is clad with timber chamferboards, the boards of the front facade are stuccoed with a rough render. The hip and gable roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets. The two periods of construction (1921 and 1955) are discernible; the original, front part is set on short concrete posts with a timber battened perimeter skirt and the later, back part is set on concrete perimeter walls.
The front of the hall is symmetrical, featuring a gable with a bargeboard supported by decorative timber brackets. The entrance is central, sheltered under a gable roofed porch. A flagpole stands near the front, centred on the elevation. Either side of the front porch are windows with decorative timber hoods. These have modern aluminium-framed sliding sashes below original timber-framed fanlights.
Along both sides of the hall are further windows with timber hoods. The projecting wings generally have aluminium-framed, sliding sash windows. On either side of the building is a timber-framed deck providing access to the hall interior via original timber braced and board double doors with glazed fanlights. Across the rear elevation is a timber-framed verandah providing access to the back of the stage. The rear elevation has a door to the understorey.
Entered from the front porch via double timber board doors, the hall is a large, well-proportioned space with a high coved ceiling. It has a timber floor and v-jointed timber board walls to plate rail height, above which the walls are clad with sheet material with timber cover strips. The ceiling at the front of the hall is lined with v-jointed timber boards, changing to sheet material and timber cover strips for the remainder. Adjacent to the front door are timber cupboards.
Mounted on the northeast wall of the hall is a timber World War I honour board. It features decorative timber mouldings, including a curved and scrolled timber top with painted crossed Australian and British flags. It lists servicemen and war workers.
Under the raised stage floor is a storage area accessible from the hall. A proscenium arch is flanked by doors onto the stage reached via timber stairs and a timber board door opens from the stage into the wings on both sides.
The layout of the wings comprises a change room and a large, modern kitchen in the eastern wing and toilets, a small store room and a change room in the western wing. The kitchen and bathroom fitouts are modern and are not of cultural heritage significance.
At the northern end of the hall grounds part of the adjacent croquet club's building extends into the heritage boundary, this is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Woody Point Memorial School of Arts (former), now known as the Woody Point War Memorial Hall, is a timber building located at the corner of Hornibrook Esplanade and Oxley Avenue, Woody Point. It was officially opened on 4 March 1922 and contains an honour board listing 94 men from the Redcliffe Peninsula who enlisted in World War I (WWI), along with the names of three war workers. The hall, which initially included a library and reading room, is a product of both the school of arts movement, and post-WWI efforts in Queensland to commemorate those who served and those who died in WWI. It demonstrates the ‘utilitarian' approach to war memorials, and continues to be used by the local community for multiple purposes, including WWI commemoration.
\nFor many years the Redcliffe Peninsula was known as Humpybong, the name that the local Aboriginal people, the Ningy Ningy (Ningi Ningi), gave to the abandoned convict settlement (1824-25) at Red Cliff Point. In 1861 23,000 acres (9308 hectares) of the peninsula and the Petrie area were declared an agricultural reserve,[1] and from 1862 onwards a number of farm portions were sold. Land at Woody Point was first sold in 1864.[2] Very little development occurred on the Redcliffe Peninsula until the 1880s when the land speculation boom in Brisbane during this decade extended to the peninsula, and the area's identity as a seaside resort solidified at this time.[3] However, agricultural use of much of the area continued into the 1940s.
\nA small township sprang up at Woody Point, principally because it was the closest point to Sandgate - to which a railway line opened in May 1882. A jetty was completed at Woody Point by March 1882, allowing ferries, carrying both passengers and goods, to arrive from Sandgate. The Woody Point jetty was extended in 1889-90; a new jetty opened in 1922, and a third incarnation opened in 2009.[4] A number of vessels, including the Redcliffe, Pearl and Garnet, and later the Emerald, Olivine and Beryl, ran regular services between Sandgate and Woody Point. Ferry services continued until 1930.
\nAlthough the Redcliffe Peninsula was popular with holiday makers, residential development was hindered for many years by the peninsula's isolation. The Caboolture Divisional Board cleared the first road on the peninsula, running from Woody Point to Scarborough, in the early 1880s, and this road later became Oxley Avenue.[5] A jetty was built near Redcliffe Point in 1885. The railway reached North Pine in 1888, but was not extended to Redcliffe, despite persistent local lobbying.
\nHowever, holiday visitors prompted the expansion of facilities at Woody Point, including a Post and Telegraph Office, general stores, a bakery, a butcher and a garage. The St Leonard's Hotel opened in 1883 (now the site of Palace Hotel), and the Belvedere Hotel opened in 1901. Boarding houses such as Lorneleigh, Bay View House, and Cambridge House were also built to cater for holiday makers. Fishing was a popular pastime, both from the jetty and along the beaches, and oyster leases provided produce for a local oyster factory. By 1902 ‘buses and wagonettes' were travelling between Woody Point and Redcliffe.[6]
\nAnother local pastime was sailing, and from 1884 an annual regatta took place. From 1938, with the exception of war years, the Humpybong Yacht Club has also conducted sailing activities on Bramble Bay. Celebrations following sailing events were held in the Woody Point Memorial School of Arts after its construction, and the Yacht Club also organized regular fund-raising dances in the hall. [7]
\nThe movement to erect a school of arts at Woody Point was underway by 1909. In March that year the Woody Point Progress Association was formed,[8] and in October 1910 the Redcliffe Shire Council forwarded a plan to the Department of Public Lands for half an acre of land, sought for a school of arts by the Progress Association.[9] A School of Arts Reserve (223) was surveyed off Reserve 358 in 1911, but the actual desired site was further southeast; and the current school of arts site was surveyed in February 1912.[10] A Reserve for a School of Arts, Woody Point, Portion 231, of two roods (2023m2), was notified in the Queensland Government Gazette on 18 May 1912.
\nSchools of arts were a principal source of learning and instruction for Queensland adults in the 19th century and early 20th century when state secondary education was almost non-existent. Schools of arts and mechanics' institutes emerged from a wider social movement of popular education and self-improvement in 19th century industrial Britain, and the school of arts movement found a fertile field in 19th century Queensland.[11] Community organised and financed, these associations were the forerunners of government-funded libraries and technical colleges.
\nMechanics' institutes were formed initially to improve the education of working men and instruct them in various trades. Later their aims broadened and the institutes became a popular agency of adult education in general. Access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important educational and recreational service.[12] The first mechanics' institute was established in London in 1824; the first mechanics' institute in Australia was established in Hobart in 1827, while the first mechanics' institute in Queensland was formed at Brisbane in 1849.[13] In Australia, mechanics' institutes became known as schools of arts, reflecting a broader mix of educational, cultural and social roles, and the increasing influence of the middle classes in the movement. The provision of adult education, including formal classes in practical skills, was an important function of these ‘schools', but less formal activities such as debating, amateur dramatics, and the provision of a subscription library and reading room, were also encouraged.
\nAs towns and districts were settled, local committees were formed to establish a school of arts with the aim to ‘promote moral, social and intellectual growth for the community'.[14] Schools of arts established in rural districts often served a wider community purpose than those established in urban areas. Whereas every school of arts established a library as part of their charter, the rural school of arts was likely to serve an equally important function as a public hall and as a focus for district identity. To 1880, only 26 schools of arts had been established in Queensland towns, although the government encouraged the construction of schools of arts by subsidising local fund-raising efforts. The movement grew rapidly during the 1880s and 1890s; so that by federation almost every town and settlement in the colony included a school of arts, or at least a reading room.[15]
\nThe typical school of arts was a timber building consisting of a public hall and two or three rooms for a subscription library, reading room or meeting room. In larger provincial centres, substantial masonry structures were erected.[16] Although schools of arts buildings varied greatly in size, materials and style, a common element was that they were readily identifiable within the townscape. As a group, these buildings were important as symbols of progress and evidence of civilising forces at work. The construction of a school of arts in a particular community was seen as a sign that that community had ‘come of age'.[17]
\nFund-raising for the Woody Point School of Arts had begun in 1911, with a function in the Redcliffe Hall,[18] and in March 1912 a musical evening was held at ‘Evonsleigh', the home of Mr Martin, in aid of the Woody Point School of Arts, with over 70 persons present.[19] Enthusiastic residents and committee members raised funds amounting to between £80 and £90 by the outbreak of WWI.[20] At this point fund-raising ceased, and the money was placed in the name of the School of Arts committee in the Government Savings Bank.
\nAt the end of the war, planning for a school of arts was recommenced. In July 1920 a meeting was called to form a committee to take forward the construction of a suitable building. Mr HR Sykes was elected President, Mr John Henry Cox, Hon. Secretary and Mr W Henderson, Hon. Treasurer, together with a committee of seven others. Around this time locals thought that the building would form a suitable WWI memorial. On 22 November 1920 the wish of the committee to ‘make the institution a patriotic one was given effect at a special public meeting when rule 1 was amended to read \"the institution shall be known as the Woody Point Memorial School of Arts\"'.[21] The new name was adopted locally from this time but was only given official approval by the Department of Public Instruction in September 1925.[22]
\nLike all Australian communities, Woody Point was affected by the impact of WWI. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. This meant that around 69% of embarked personnel became casualties - or 21% of eligible Australian males.[23] To date, no previous or subsequent war has had such an impact on Australia in terms of loss of life; almost every community in every Australian state lost young people. Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.
\nWWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards (from 1915), stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns or urns), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland the soldier statue was the most popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states.[24] Australia's first permanent WWI memorial to honour the men from a particular community was unveiled at Balmain, NSW, 23 April 1916.[25]
\nThe argument over whether a war memorial should simply be a monument, or have a utilitarian function (the sacred versus the useful), was repeated all over Australia. The utilitarians believed that their approach was more enlightened and humane, and utility also appealed to local governments, as donations could offset the cost of needed infrastructure. However, monumentalists argued that utilitarian solutions were at the mercy of progress and would become outmoded over time. Monumentalists also believed that it was not really ‘commemoration', if a public resource that should have been built anyway was named a memorial. Post-WWI, most Australian localities decided on a monumental approach (60%), with only 22% choosing utilitarian buildings (mostly halls) and 18% choosing the compromise position of utilitarian monuments.[26] Some communities solved the problem by building two memorials: one utilitarian, and one monumental. After World War II (WWII) the utilitarian form of memorial increased in popularity.[27]
\nMemorial halls were an expensive form of utilitarian memorial, but banks were more ready to lend the money for projects with a commercial value; and subscribers knew they were providing a public resource as well as a memorial. Halls were also a common preference of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA), as they provided an amenity for returned soldiers; although some feared that using the halls for entertainment would be disrespectful of the memorial purpose.[28] Although the halls were for the use of returned soldiers, they also served multiple community functions. Early Queensland WWI memorial halls were opened in December 1919 (Coolangatta - a Methodist Memorial Hall and Soldiers' Rest) and January 1920 (Pilton).
\nOutside Victoria, no state governments made direct grants for local WWI memorials except for the building of halls, hospitals and schools which were eligible for public money whether or not they were memorials.[29] Federal assistance could include providing funds for employing returned soldiers for preparation of memorial sites; but no other assistance occurred until the Entertainments Tax Assessment Act 1916 was amended in 1924 to exempt functions held for the erection, maintenance or furnishing of war memorial halls. From 1927, payers of Federal income tax could also deduct gifts over £1 for construction or maintenance of public war memorials. However, by this time two thirds of the nation's WWI memorials had already been built.[30] Fund-raising for local war memorials was thus a voluntary community effort, as was the case at Woody Point.
\nMemorial schools of art form a distinct sub-group of utilitarian war memorials, separate from memorial halls, in that they combine the educational mission of the school of arts movement with the utilitarian war memorial movement. Although they usually included a hall, they also included the library and reading room found in a typical school of arts building. The first memorial schools of arts in Queensland opened at Bald Hills (August 1920) and Caboolture (September 1920). Other early memorial schools of arts include Wooroolin (1921); and Kumbia, Elimbah and Woody Point, (all 1922). Some memorial schools of arts were established in pre-WWI halls or schools of arts buildings, such as at Cooran and Cooroy (both 1926), and Southport (1939). The majority of identified Queensland memorial school of arts buildings were of timber construction, but some used brick or concrete, including Wooroolin, Clayfield (1925), Morningside (1926), Innisfail (1930), and Pittsworth (1930). Demolished memorial schools of arts include Caboolture, Southport, Banyo (1925), Clifton (1926), Goodna (1927), Kedron (1928), and Bulimba (built by 1938).
\nThere were some delays in the construction of the Woody Point Memorial School of Arts, in part due to fund-raising efforts for the tree-lined, bitumen-covered ‘ANZAC Memorial Avenue' [QHR 602693] - the other utilitarian WWI memorial (opened in 1925) on the Redcliffe Peninsula. All but 30 stumps of the Memorial School of Arts were capped in December 1920, but the last stumps were not capped until November 1921, by returned soldiers.[31] The Redcliffe sub-branch of the RSSILA, formed in 1920, actively assisted with the raising of the necessary capital for the building with various functions including afternoon teas, fetes, socials and dances (later the Woody Point Memorial School of Arts became the meeting place of the sub-branch). By December 1921 about £800 had been raised. The Commercial Bank of Australia had agreed to finance the scheme on securities given by seven Woody Point citizens, but sometime after the first stump capping this was changed to a private guarantee by JH Cox.[32] As well as funds, practical items such as cups and saucers were donated.
\nTenders were received by 24 September, 1921.[33] These ranged from £1000 to £1400. On the advice of the architect, Hubert Thomas, the tender of Messrs F and A Pitfield was accepted. HGO Thomas (1857-1922) immigrated to Brisbane from Wales in 1883. He practised as an architect in his own right from c.1885, and from 1898 onwards he lived and practiced at Sandgate, where he served on the local School of Arts Committee. Specialising in urban villas, Thomas became a Member of the Society of Architects, London, in 1904, and a Fellow of the Queensland Institute of Architects c.1910.[34] He was the founder of the St David's Society in Brisbane (extant by 1918), and was its President at the time of his death on the night of 1-2 March 1922, after the annual dinner of the society - two days before the Woody Point Memorial School of Arts was officially opened.[35] Examples of his work include a villa in Hendra for Edward Jones, 1888-89 (‘Dura', later ‘Glengariff') [QHR 600222]; the Bank of North Queensland, Childers, c.1900 [QHR 600616]; and 1919 additions to the Queen Alexandra Home in Coorparoo [QHR 600185].
\nThe building he designed at Woody Point consisted of a hall 30ft wide x 50ft long (9.1m x 15.2m), plus a stage area 30ft wide by 15ft long (9.1m x 4.6m). Small wings on either side of the raised stage each contained a room 12ft wide by 15ft long (3.7m x 4.6m). Verandas on each side of the hall, south of the wings, accessed both the main hall and each wing, and there was an entrance porch on the southeast (front) elevation. Decorative battens (no longer extant) ornamented the front gable and the smaller porch gable; three roof ventilators (not extant) were located along the ridge, and a large flagpole stood in front of the entrance (since replaced by a smaller version). Originally, there were also timber fences either side of the hall. At some stage the front elevation of the hall was stuccoed.
\nOn 4 October 1921, the President of the committee, Mr FW Whitehouse, and the Secretary, JH Cox, were authorized to have the building erected before Christmas. The contractors pushed on with the work and it was completed and handed over on 21 December 1921. It was originally intended to open the building on 26 January 1922, but this clashed with the schedule of the Queensland Governor, Sir Mathew Nathan. The opening was delayed so that he could open new jetties at Redcliffe and Woody Point on the same day as the Memorial School of Arts.[36]
\nThe Governor officially opened the Woody Point Memorial School of Arts, and unveiled its honour board, on the afternoon of 4 March 1922, following the inspection of a guard of honour provided by local returned servicemen. The honour board was made from a single plank of seasoned red cedar by Mr John Storie Jnr.[37] This board hangs in the hall, and lists the names of 94 servicemen who enlisted from the peninsula (of whom seven died), along with three ‘war workers'. The board was supposedly to be displayed with a captured German machine gun, allotted to the town as a war trophy.[38]
\nThe decision on who to name on a war memorial varied across Australia. While some only listed the dead, many also listed those who returned from service. War memorial committees were also lobbied to consider including people who missed the war for various reasons, including munitions workers.[39] Three workers were listed on the Woody Point Honour Board; John Tebby, George. Carpenter and CD Skene. In March 1919, The Queenslander newspaper reported the return of a contingent of 69 Queensland munition workers who had arrived home from Great Britain. The report stated the contingent comprised men who were ineligible for military service but had volunteered to undertake suitable war work. John Tebby and G. Carpenter were included among the list of the returned.[40] CD Skene's (the other listed name) involvement in the war has not been verified. Charles Donaldson Skene, (a builder and contractor who died at age 69 in 1929) became a trustee for the Memorial School of Arts and according to his obituary played a major role in its establishment.[41]
\nThe Governor spoke at length about the library in the building, and the pleasures of reading.[42] In 1922 the library had nearly 600 volumes; by 1923 it had 900 volumes, and the reading room was ‘well stocked with papers and periodicals'.[43] By 1931 there were 2035 books.[44]
\nThe Minister for Public Instruction, Mr Huxham, was also present at the opening ceremony.[45] He had apparently promised to provide a government subsidy for the fund-raising, at a rate of 10 shillings to the pound,[46] but if this ever occurred, it was not mentioned at the opening. The ‘Brisbane Courier' newspaper simply noted that the Memorial School of Arts had been ‘built by public subscription as a memorial to the fallen soldiers of Humpybong'.[47] The opening ceremony was followed by afternoon tea and a ball was held in the hall that evening.
\nAt the time of opening there was still a debt of £500.[48] Although it was made a requirement of the original allocation of land by the Department of Public Lands in 1912, it was only in August 1923 that the initial group of trustees was nominated and ratified by the Department of Lands - Robert Train; Errol Henry Cowen; Charles Donaldson Skene; John Elliott and JH Cox.[49]
\nBy November 1923 almost £1600 had been spent on the hall, and £100 was still owed.[50] The debt on the Memorial School of Arts was cleared in 1924. At this time returned soldiers paid 1 shilling per annum for membership, and Mrs O'Neill was the librarian. In 1927, membership of the Memorial School of Arts was available for 10 shillings per annum or 3 shillings a quarter. By this stage the library, still run by Mrs O'Neill, was open on Tuesday and Thursday 7-9 pm, and on Saturday 3-5 pm.
\nIn 1928, alterations to the hall were carried out to enable movies to be shown. A bio-box (projection room) was constructed above the front entrance gable, as shown in photographs of the hall from this period. Talking pictures arrived on 27 September 1930, and were shown until 1937. The movies, according to advertisements in the local paper, were invariably followed by a dance. These dances were accompanied by a Victor piano bought for £135 by the committee, initially for silent movies.
\nWith the opening of the Hornibrook Highway Toll Bridge [QHR 601246] in October 1935, residential development increased, along with the number of holiday makers, and more use was made of the Woody Point foreshore to pitch tents during the Christmas period. A bathing pavilion, designed by architect CE Plant, was built in 1937 opposite the Memorial School of Arts. During the Christmas period, when camping was popular around the peninsula, entertainment in the hall was a nightly affair.
\nBy the late 1930s management of the hall by the trustees had declined in quality from previous years.[51] A subsequent review by the Brisbane Land Agent on behalf of the Lands Administration Board recommended that the original gazettal be cancelled and the land re-gazetted under the trusteeship of the Redcliffe Town Council (established 1921). The Council having agreed to accept the trusteeship in 1938, it was gazetted as trustees in October 1943.[52] At this time the land was re-gazetted as a ‘Soldiers Memorial Hall Reserve' (R983).[53]
\nOn 26 June 1943, as requested by the Council, the name of the hall was altered by the Department of Lands to Woody Point War Memorial Hall. The school of arts function ceased, the library closed and its books were transferred to form the nucleus of the council library.[54] According to relevant by-laws gazetted on 8 May 1948, a management committee became responsible for the running of the hall.
\nOver time, a number of repairs and additions were made to the building. Minor repairs and refurbishment, for example, painting and roof repairs, were on-going. These often required fund-raising efforts to cover costs. An instance of this was an advertisement, for donations to buy bricks, which appeared in the ‘Redcliffe Herald' of April 1944. The brick fence (not extant) constructed at the front of the hall from this fund-raising effort was still visible in a photograph of the Hall taken in 1993. In 1952, the Memorial Hall was the only public hall on the peninsula.
\nIn the 1950s, extensions, financed by Redcliffe Town Council, lengthened the hall by 25 feet (7.6m) to the northwest (stage end); to a new total length of 90ft (27.4m). The extensions, which were carried out by Mr Bird at a cost of £1800, were officially opened on 5 March 1955. The Council paid for the new stage to be levelled and raised in November 1958 at a cost of £95.[55] During the 1950s, the Eildon Croquet Club opened to the north of the hall, and part of the club extends onto the Memorial Hall Reserve.
\nBy January 1964 toilets were installed in the western wing of the hall, replacing detached toilets located just northwest of the building. A small extension on the south side of the western wing, which now holds an accessible toilet, was built between 1964 and 1969.[56] In February 1967 the reserve was re-gazetted with an area of 1 rood and 39.4 perches (2008m2).
\nWhile the hall changed its appearance over the years, it continued to be used by the community. The RSSILA, which later became the Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmens Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) and is now called the Returned and Services League (RSL), held its monthly meetings in the hall until its own dedicated premises was completed in 1954. Anzac Day ceremonies have been a familiar event in the hall since its inception and even when the ceremony was moved to the Pier Theatre in the 1950s, the luncheon to conclude the day was held in the hall. Over the years, social functions have been held in the hall, for instance the RSSAILA 1949 Christmas Party for the children of Ex-Servicemen. In 2014 the RSL continue to conduct formal Anzac Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies in the hall, in which the honour board plays a significant role.
\nThe hall also hosted events for the Harmony Club, which was established in 1939 shortly before the start of WWII by Mr and Mrs W Begg, who were closely involved with the Woody Point Hall Committee. This Club held weekly dances and entertainment in the hall. During the war, the Club conducted Farewell Evenings for locals leaving to join the Forces and as time went by Welcome Home celebrations for returning servicemen. Service personnel based close by and those recuperating on the peninsula often attended the weekly dance in the hall. This Club continued to conduct dances until the 1950s.[57]
\nDuring WWII, the monthly meeting of the Welfare Work Circle of the Women's National Emergency League (WNEL) was held in the library room in the Memorial Hall, where they made camouflage netting and woollen gloves, socks and balaclavas for British bomb victims during their working meetings. This same group held fund-raisers in the hall during the war years with the first of these being advertised as ‘Petticoat Lane' in 1941. The library was still in use during the early war years when the Welfare Work Circle made use of its room.
\nLocal people indicate the importance of this hall in the social life of the area. The local community members speak fondly, the older ones almost reverently, on the broad range of activities held in the hall, which became very much a part of their lives. They talk of it as having a ‘sense of place' in the area's social memory.[58] Some examples of organisations which have used the hall include: the Order of the Eastern Star; Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes; Redcliffe Musical Arts Society; Redcliffe Eisteddfod Committee; Redcliffe Youth Club, Redcliffe Marching Girls, and the Indoor Bowls Club. The Humpybong Yacht Club, the Woody Point and Clontarf Progress Association, the Country Women's Association, Redcliffe Citizens Cultural Club, and the Pensioners League held monthly meetings in the hall. In addition, local dance schools made use of the hall, including the Sylvena School of Dancing (later became the Sharon Alback Dance School); and the Sylvia Curie Dance School. Alan and Pat Boulton still hold modern dance classes in the hall every Friday evening.
\nDuring the Christmas school holidays, church services were held in the hall to cater for those campers who came regularly to the peninsula to stay in the tent cities which sprang up around Woody Point and Clontarf. Local election campaigns, such as those of Joe Grant in 1922, and Joe Grice in 1939, were also launched in the hall. In 1924, the Redcliffe Town Council met in the hall on the last Tuesday of each month. Mr Frank Nicklin, a Queensland Premier, spoke at the hall in his State election campaign. During WWII it was a distribution point for ration cards. It has served, and continues to serve, as a voting booth for all elections. Wrestling and boxing events have also been held in the hall. Music appreciation classes were being held there as late as the 1990s. Some of the hall's tenants utilized the stage and its dressing rooms to perform plays and musical theatre. In addition, the hall has been used for many fund-raising events; for example, the Cancer campaign with a ‘Dark Night' Masquerade Ball. The Redcliffe Historical Society used the hall for fund-raisers; and fetes aimed at fund-raising have occurred, while card parties have been held during the years. Local schools have also made regular use of the hall for balls and concerts.
\nIn 2014 permanent bookings are held by the Bethesda Baptist Church; Margate, Woody Point and Clontarf Pensioners League; AA Volunteers; Legal Aid; Healing and Reconciliation outreach. The hall is used regularly for dancing groups and classes - as it apparently had the best dance floor on the peninsula - and for social occasions such as birthday parties and wedding receptions. The Lions Club of Kippa-Ring acts as caretaker.
\nThe hall continues to serve as an enduring and well-used war memorial and multi-purpose community venue into the 21st century.
","criteria":"The Woody Point Memorial School of Arts (former), opened in 1922, is a record of Queensland's involvement in a major world event. WWI memorials, including buildings with honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. Often the focus of ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies, they are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
The place is important surviving evidence of the school of arts movement in Queensland. This form of adult education flourished during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, promoting self-improvement by providing a subscription library.
|The Woody Point Memorial School of Arts (former) is an early, intact, well-utilised, and representative example of this type of utilitarian WWI memorial: a building with a dual role of commemoration and providing a community learning and entertainment space.
The building is sited in a prominent and highly visible location within its community; it provides hall space and a stage, and retains its library and reading room spaces. It has been extended and modified over time to accommodate its continuing use and changing community needs.
The honour board within the hall provides a focus for the building's memorial purpose, and its listing of local war workers is unusual.
|Commemorations held in the hall reflect the wider reverence felt for such memorials across Australia. As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies the building and its honour board is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
The Woody Point Memorial School of Arts (former) has been in continuous community service since its establishment; first as a memorial school of arts, and then as a memorial hall. A heavily utilised building, and a source of fond memories for generations, it has a demonstrated longstanding and ongoing social and cultural association with the Woody Point community, and the Redcliffe sub-branch of the Returned and Services League.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21754,"place_ref":602692,"name":"Comino's Arcade","alternate_name":"Cominos Arcade","street_address":"133-137 Redcliffe Parade","suburb":"REDCLIFFE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-03-06","description":"Comino's Arcade is located within the beach-facing shopping strip along Redcliffe Parade and overlooks Queen's Beach and the Redcliffe jetty. The three storey face-brick building incorporates a shopping arcade on the ground floor, office suites on the second floor and a double-height ballroom with small bedroom spaces on the upper floor. The arcade's wide, three-storey frontage contrasts with the low-lying beach opposite and to the other smaller scaled buildings along the Redcliffe Parade shopping strip making the building a prominent part of the streetscape.
The building is symmetrical in form and features functionalist-style influences such as the simple stepped façade of face brick, the use of casement windows and the fine concrete cantilevered window awnings running the width of the building. The Redcliffe Parade façade steps up at parapet level to conceal the hipped roof of the ballroom space beyond which is clad in 'super-6' profiled fibre-cement sheeting. Timber-framed doors open out to a centrally-placed balcony on the second level above the cantilevered street awning.
There are four shop tenancies at ground level adjacent to the entrance to the arcade. Columns on this level are finished with terrazzo and some early mosaic tiling exists on one of the shopfronts. The underside of the street awning and a portion of the original shop-front glazing have been sealed with trim-deck sheeting.
Side elevations of the building are finished with face-brick with fibre-cement cladding to the enclosed verandahs which run along the northern and southern sides of the ballroom level. The rear elevation is also finished with face brick and steps up at parapet level similar to the street façade. Both the side and rear elevations contain casement windows with high-level louvre windows to the ballroom space on the upper floor. Double doors open out to a small landing on the second level.
The arcade provides public passage through the building on ground level and internal facades are symmetrical in layout with full-height glazing to the shopfronts. Ceilings and walls are finished with painted plaster with sandy-coloured terrazzo to the floors. Shop interiors were not accessed during the assessment.
Public spaces on the second and upper levels are reached by a masonry staircase at the rear of the building. Rooms throughout the second and upper floor levels floors and stairs have been finished in colourful terrazzo tiles with a checkered border detail and walls and ceiling have been finished with painted plaster. Internal doors and windows are clear-finished timber joinery. The ballroom space features a fibre-cement ceiling and wall-mounted, half-moon shaped uplight fittings.
A 1968 rear arcade extension links Comino's Arcade to Sutton Street. This extension is not part of the listing.
","history":"Comino's Arcade is a three storey brick building on Redcliffe Parade, built by Greek businessman Arthur Comino between 1942 and 1944 to take advantage of Redcliffe's popularity as a Rest and Recreation area for American and Australian military personnel during World War II. It is a reminder of Redcliffe's past as a popular Queensland seaside holiday resort, and its lively wartime history.
Very little development occurred in Redcliffe until the late 1870s, when publicans and shopkeepers began to cluster on the foreshores of the peninsula. The Victorians considered "taking the air" by the sea to be healthy and sea bathing was considered therapeutic. Long surf beaches were not highly valued in the Victorian period, and the ideal resort comprised of a coastline of picturesque headlands with small coves and inlets offering safe swimming in smooth water. Redcliffe fit the bill, and it was also reasonably close to Brisbane. In the 1880s agricultural portions on the peninsula were subdivided and sold as residential estates, for the building of "Marine Residences", and the area's identity as a seaside resort solidified in that decade.
Rail and sea transport were the favoured means of access for holidaymakers of this period. When the railway reached Sandgate in 1882, it was possible to take a train to Sandgate, and then catch a steamer to the Redcliffe Peninsula. In 1882 a jetty was erected at Woody Point to receive steamers from Sandgate, and another jetty was built near Redcliffe Point in 1885. By 1890 steamers were bringing 10,000 day trippers and holidaymakers to Redcliffe per year. Tourist daytrips to Redcliffe, on the steamer Koopa, started in 1911.
Until the late 1930s Redcliffe functioned as a holiday destination rather than as a residential suburb. In 1921, when the Town of Redcliffe was declared, its permanent population was only 1,631, and it contained 432 private dwellings, six Hotels, and 28 boarding houses. However, improved road access eventually changed this situation. ANZAC Avenue, running from Petrie to Redcliffe, was opened in December 1925, and in October 1935 the opening of the Hornibrook Highway Toll Bridge [601246] ended Redcliffe's isolation from Brisbane, and led to a burst of residential development. Many of the 1880s residential allotments were finally sold after the bridge was completed. Between 1933 and 1940 Redcliffe was one of fastest growing local authorities in Australia, with the number of dwellings increasing from 536 to 1865. Redcliffe's population in 1933 was 2,008, and this had risen to 6,000 by 1940.
Although Redcliffe had become a residential suburb, it continued to act as a holiday destination - at least until the spread of motor vehicle ownership, and the appeal of surf beaches on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, lured away Brisbane holidaymakers during the 1950s. Public bathing pavilions were opened at Suttons Beach, Margate, Woody Point and Redcliffe jetty in 1937, and a koala sanctuary and zoo was established next to the Country Women's Association hall that same year. The Redcliffe Rollerdrome (a skating rink) was established in 1938, and Frost's private aviary and zoo opened in Joseph Street around 1939.
One businessman who saw potential in Redcliffe during the pre-World War II period was Athanasi (Arthur) Stavrou Comino, born on the Greek island of Kythera in 1880. His brother John S. Comino moved to Australia in 1901, and worked in Sydney and Lismore in New South Wales before moving to Queensland and buying a café in Bundaberg. Around 1903 John was joined by three of his brothers, including Arthur Comino. Two more brothers arrived in 1908, but in 1912 Arthur and Peter, who were still listed as Greek Army reservists, left to fight in the First Balkan War.
In 1919 Arthur married Marigoula (Mary) Comino on Kythera, and they moved back to Australia in 1921. Mary and Arthur ran the Central Café in Laidley for 25 years and raised their four children there. When visiting friends at Redcliffe in 1922 Arthur fell in love with the place and began looking for an investment opportunity. In September 1938 he purchased 1 rood and 24 perches of land on the site of the present Comino's Arcade, which at that time included the Moreton Vista boarding house. The Pier Theatre was located immediately to the south. Arthur planned to move the boarding house back from the street, and then build some shops with living quarters for the family above. However, on 26 June 1941 the Moreton Vista boarding house, the adjacent one-room Embassy fish shop, and two other shops were destroyed by an early morning fire.
Arthur Comino's presence in Redcliffe was part of the ongoing saga of the Comino family in Australia. The pioneer of Greek cafes in Australia was Arthur D. Comino from Kythera. He landed in Sydney in 1873 and within five years had established a small fish shop at 36 Oxford Street. When people heard cafes in Australia were doing well, it prompted others, mostly under 25 years old, to leave Kythera. The popular pattern was for Greek migrants to arrive in Sydney and earn some money working in existing Greek food establishments, before travelling to country New South Wales or Queensland to establish their own businesses.
In 1900 a Comino's Oyster Saloon/cafe was operating in Queen Street, Brisbane. After 1900 the Comino family moved into Bundaberg, Childers, Mackay, Cairns, and Emerald, making Comino cafes almost as conspicuous in Queensland as they were in NSW. Other Kytherians followed the Comino family into cafes in Queensland. By the 1930s there would be at least one Greek café in almost every Queensland town and city.
By the start of World War II over 10,000 Greeks had settled in Australia and the Kytherians, who by then constituted about 22% of the total, remained by far the dominant regional group. The largest group of pre-World War II Queensland Greeks were also from Kythera, the most significant being the Comino, Coronis and Freeleagus families. Although much larger numbers of Greeks would move to Australia after World War II, the earlier immigrants carved out a niche in Australian cultural history by giving rise to the institution of the Greek Café, which acted as the social hub of many country towns until the 1960s.
In 1916 a census of Australian Greeks revealed that, of the 176 Greeks in Brisbane, 140 worked in cafés and related trades. The ratio for the rest of Queensland was 168 out of 407. Other main occupations before 1920 included drapers and tailors, farmers, tradesmen, taxi drivers, cane cutters, fruit wholesalers, and travelling "picture show men". In the 1949 Queensland Alphabetical Post Office Directory, listed Comino businesses included: restaurants (10), wine sellers (1), picture theatres (1), fruit merchants (3), tobacconists (1), grocers (1), drapers (2), restaurant and draper (1), and 'mixed businesses' (2).
During the 1910s changes in café design occurred which produced the layout common from the 1920s to the 1960s: at the front was a display window, then a refrigerated milk bar, with pantry and confectionary counter, and then a dining room, with a kitchen at the rear. Cafes profited from the growth of the popularity of picture theatres as they fed patrons at intervals and after the show. In the country towns especially, the cafés depended on the business gained in the evening from the picture theatres. Arthur's decision to buy land next to the Pier Theatre was probably not accidental, and Comino's Arcade was built with a café on its southern side, immediately adjacent to the theatre.
The Great Depression caused problems for cafes, and many failed. A recovery in the late 1930s saw rebuilding and renovation occur in country cafes. Increased use was made of cubicles to separate the dining tables, and more decoration was added, as an elegant interior could be translated into increased prices. Reception halls or lounges were also added to cafes for larger functions. Greek cafes in 1930s Gympie, Innisfail, and Maryborough each had reception halls or dance floors upstairs, and this trend is reflected in Comino's Arcade at Redcliffe, which was built with a dance floor on the third storey.
Throughout World War II many cafes were forced to close or drastically curtail their business due to rationing, quotas, and loss of staff into the armed services. Conversely, those cafes located near where soldiers - particularly Americans - were camped or stationed did very well.
During World War II Redcliffe's attractions were well patronised by military personnel on Rest and Recreation leave, due to the large numbers of American and Australian troops stationed on or near the Redcliffe peninsula. They were present as part of the defence of Moreton Bay and the Brisbane region, which was an important supply and staging area for the Allied war effort against the Japanese. Military facilities on the peninsula by November 1942 included a Royal Australian Air Force Rifle Range at Scarborough, an Australian Army jungle camping area, amphibious unit, rest area, and Bren Gun Carrier unit near Redcliffe, and an Australian Army bayonet and rifle drilling area at Margate. Seabrae Guesthouse, opposite the site of Luna Park, was used by Australian Military Intelligence as a training school from September 1942, and after June 1943 it was used by United States Navy submariners on Rest and Recreation. The American Red Cross also billeted United States Army soldiers at the Scarborough Hotel from 1943.
During the war other facilities in the area around Redcliffe included an army camp and three airstrips at Strathpine, Australian machine gunners at Deception Bay, United States and Australian troops on Bribie and Moreton Islands and at Caloundra, and amphibious warfare training facilities at Toorbul Point. The jetty at Redcliffe was so heavily used by United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy vessels, such as Landing Ships (Tank), and Corvettes, that it required repairs after the war.
The Australian Comforts Fund was set up January 1940 for people serving in the military, and in 1941 its focus shifted from cakes and knitting for the troops to entertainment. The Redcliffe Australian Comforts Fund became a centre for the whole of the surrounding area. The Pier Theatre, Luna Park (established in August 1944 on the site of the current salt water lagoon), and the Redcliffe Rollerdrome were all popular components of what was a seaside entertainment precinct near the Redcliffe jetty.
With the armed forces swarming over Redcliffe, Arthur Comino was in a good position to capitalise on the situation. After Moreton Vista burned down he planned an entirely new building for the site, and his plans were ambitious for the time. From February 1942 National Security Regulations restricted civilian building, although it was possible to get a permit if construction was linked to the war effort. The construction of government buildings and private housing effectively ceased. However, Arthur arranged for a letter to be delivered by the Chairman of the Laidley Shire Council to Sir Arthur Fadden whilst the latter was campaigning in his Darling Downs electorate during his brief time as Prime Minister of Australia, from late August to early October 1941. The letter requested permission to rebuild Comino's boarding house and this request was granted.
War-related material and labour shortages made construction of the present arcade a drawn-out business. As Arthur was a stone mason, like his father and uncles, he used this experience to build the arcade. The Redcliffe Town Council checked the plans and requested changes in September 1941. Arthur began building in 1942, supervising the project and building substantial portions himself and it was not until 1944 that the shops were completed. The building itself bears lettering that claims it was built between 1939 and 1942, but this does not correspond with the 1941 destruction by fire of the previous buildings on the site.
Architects G Meek and Shaw were commissioned to plan the arcade. A conceptual drawing shows a two storey building with porthole windows on the sides and part of the first floor, glass fronted shops on the ground floor, a glass arcade cupola, and a tower in the form of a "flying bridge" on top of the second storey. The building was called "Lockyer Private Hotel" in the drawing, the name probably relating to Comino's café at Laidley in the Lockyer Valley. Commenting on the design, the Redcliffe Herald noted that the bridge and port holes imparted a marine appearance to a building which was much suitable for a seaside resort. However, during construction a third storey was added, which removed the flying bridge and the glass arcade ceiling.
The finished building, of brick and reinforced concrete with terrazzo and tiled floors throughout, had an arcade and shops on the ground floor. The four shops along the street frontage initially included a café, a dress shop, a casket agency and a photographer, and there was a hairdresser within the arcade: Joan Haycock, who was first listed in the Post Office Directory at Marine Parade (later Redcliffe Parade) in 1947. Mr Cassimatis ran the casket agency. The "Arcade Drapery...Cominos Arcade", was first listed in the Post Office Directory in 1949.
The first floor contained the family's flat along with serviced bedrooms, and the second floor contained more serviced bedrooms, set around a ballroom with a terrazzo floor. The provision of holiday accommodation was consistent with Redcliffe's history as a seaside resort, and the building was effectively a combination of a boarding house, an arcade, and a Greek café with an associated ballroom. Initially the building was named the Acropolis Building. During the war the café was packed with service personnel and soon after opening Arthur built the kitchen and was able to provide meals. The family moved into the first floor flat in 1946, having sold their café in Laidley.
In December 1946 Redcliffe's first nightclub, "The Ace of Clubs", was opened in the ballroom by the Borrowdale brothers. A 1949 advertisement for the arcade touted the "Panorama Dance Palais" for weddings, dances and parties. The Acropoly Café and Milk Bar was also advertised, along with "modern flats and rooms". The bedrooms were later rented as offices. Tragically Arthur died in December 1949 as a result of a fall while working on his arcade. From 1975 until 1982 the ballroom was leased to the Redcliffe Art Society. The arcade's extension through to Sutton Street, designed by Colin Tannett and erected by local builder Jim Fortune, was finished in 1968 and was officially opened by the Post-Master General, the Federal Member for Petrie, Alan Hulme. Members of the Comino family jointly owned the original arcade until 2003.
","criteria":"Comino's Arcade is important in demonstrating the development of the hospitality and retail industries in Queensland in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in a seaside setting, and it also demonstrates Redcliffe's role as a major seaside resort from the 1880s to the 1950s. It is an important example of a 1940s seaside tourist and entertainment venue offering a café, shops, dance hall and serviced accommodation in close proximity to a range of other popular entertainment venues. An ambitious civilian building project for its time, the building also illustrates the importance of Redcliffe as a Rest and Recreation centre for troops during World War II. The owner's intention to create a durable, high quality building is shown by the intact joinery in the accommodation areas, and by the original terrazzo and ceramic tile floor finishes throughout the building. In addition, Comino's Arcade is a product of the chain migration of Greeks from the island of Kythera into Queensland during the first half of the twentieth century; a migration which influenced the evolution of the hospitality industry in Queensland.
Comino's Arcade is also important in demonstrating the adoption of modernist architectural design principles - principles that were almost universally adopted in post-war architecture. Some of the building's features, uncommon in its time - such as its stark face brick street elevation, its undecorated parapet, and its cantilevered concrete window shades - were to become standard in the 1950s and 1960s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21770,"place_ref":602693,"name":"Anzac Memorial Avenue (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Anzac Avenue","suburb":"REDCLIFFE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"The significant elements of the listing comprise the route of the road, the vistas experienced within the route and the tree plantings noted in the description below.
\nApproximately 18 kilometres in length, Anzac Memorial Avenue travels from its intersection with Gympie Road at Petrie to its intersection with the roundabout at Redcliffe Parade, Redcliffe. It travels north-east through Kallangur, Murrumba Downs and Mango Hill to Deception Bay Road at Rothwell, then turns east through Kippa Ring and travels south-east for a further 750 metres before tracking east again and travelling as a straight avenue to Redcliffe.
\nThe present road incorporates the original route with widenings to accommodate changed traffic conditions.
\nThe Avenue incorporates culverts and bridge crossings, a memorial obelisk to Thomas Rothwell, memorials commemorating Australian participation in various war zones and a number of other public structures - these are not considered to be of heritage significance.
\nThe Avenue incorporates memorial plantings and other plantings including a number of mature trees. Notable plantings include:
\n- Two Cocos palms (Areccastrum romanzooffianum) at the entrance to the North Pine School of Arts;
\n- Eucalyptus trees east and west of Lerose Avenue;
\n- 700 metre Mango tree (Mangifera indica) avenue between the Bruce Highway and Kinsellas Road, Mango Hill;
\n- (Slash) Pines at the roundabout with Deception Bay Road and immediately west of the roundabout;
\n- Norfolk Pines (Araucaria heterophylla) along the Avenue through Rothwell;
\n- Cotton trees and Eucalyptus trees in the median strip through Kippa Ring particularly between Klingner and Bremner Roads;
\n- Slash Pines west of Bremner Road;
\n- Pine trees in the median strip from Nathan Street to the Klingner Road intersection;
\n- A Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) to the west side of the corner with Humpybong Street;
\n- Poinciana trees (Delonix regia) along the road through Redcliffe, particularly between John Street and Victoria Avenue; and
\n- The Fig tree at the roundabout terminating Anzac Memorial Avenue at Redcliffe.
\nVistas
\nIn addition to the amenity provided by the range of plantings along the road, the drive along Anzac Avenue provides many opportunities to enjoy vistas and views along and from the road including the vista east from Tilley Street to Redcliffe Parade towards Moreton Bay and towards the Fig tree terminating the Avenue at Redcliffe, and the vista west from Ashmole Street over the low area of Hay's Inlet and Pine Rivers towards Mt D'Aguilar, Mt Samson and Brisbane Forest Park.
","history":"Anzac Memorial Avenue (opened 1925), travelling between Redcliffe and Petrie, is the longest World War I memorial avenue in Queensland and was the first bitumen motor road to a seaside resort connected to Brisbane, a response to the growth in car usage in the early 1920s.
\nThe loss of lives during World War I had a profound impact upon the Australian population and memorials became a prominent feature in communities throughout the nation. Monumental memorials were the most common expressions of remembrance. Memorials with a utilitarian function, such as a hospital or hall were also erected. This practical emphasis also extended to roads, often built with the aid of public subscriptions, additionally providing work for returned soldiers. Anzac Memorial Avenue is an example, as is Memorial Drive in Adelaide (1925) and the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (begun in 1918). Over 200 Avenues of Honour were planted along roads and in parks, a type of memorial found throughout Australia from 1917. Victoria planted more avenues than any other state. While 'digger' statues were ubiquitous throughout Queensland, memorial avenues appeared to be less common.
\nAnzac Memorial Avenue was Queensland's largest planting of an avenue, an ambitious project achieved through public subscription. Most war memorials in Queensland towns and shires honoured servicemen from a specific area. Anzac Memorial Avenue had a wider memorial dedication, not only for residents of the Redcliffe and Petrie areas, but for Brisbane's population, whose support enabled the plantings to occur.
\nRedcliffe's growth as a seaside resort occurred from the late 1870s. In this era, frequenting seaside resorts became increasingly popular in Australia. Taking in sea air and bathing in saltwater were promoted for their health giving properties. The opening of the Redcliffe Jetty in 1885 enabled people from Brisbane to visit in large numbers on steamers, bringing 10,000 passengers in 1889-90. By the end of the 1880s, the Redcliffe Peninsular was the largest tourist resort area between Sandgate and Noosa. Guest houses and hotels were built to cater to the burgeoning tourist trade.
\nAnzac Memorial Avenue was originally known as the Brisbane Road. Its earliest form was an Aboriginal track, used to access the 'Kipper Ring', a bora ring located about three miles north-west of Redcliffe. A road from Bald Hills to Redcliffe was formed by the early 1860s, but by 1864 this was almost impassable. Tom Petrie guided a picnic party to the Redcliffe seashore from North Pine in 1859. He later marked a track from the Hayes Inlet crossing and in the early 1870s, assisted in surveying the road.
\nFrom 1876 a weekly mail service began to Redcliffe via North Pine (Petrie) and a passenger and goods service to Brisbane was established by 1880. By the turn of the century, coaches ran three times a week to North Pine. The poor condition of the road made the trip between Brisbane and Redcliffe difficult, impassable in wet weather. 1885 marked the first of many attempts to pressure the Queensland government for a railway branch off the North Coast line. A potential route was surveyed in 1893, but various lobbying attempts up until 1915 were unsuccessful. By the start of the 1920s, a trip to Brisbane for Redcliffe residents was by road via Petrie or a boat/train connection from Sandgate, both long journeys of up to four hours.
\nRedcliffe's future prosperity depended on reducing its isolation from Brisbane. Its small permanent population grew little between 1900 and 1921. While large steamships brought thousands of people to the area, much of their time and money was spent onboard rather than locally. The growth in motor touring soon determined Redcliffe's linkage to Brisbane.
\nThe early 1920s saw the beginnings of increasing car popularity in Queensland. The number of people driving cars between 1921 and 1923 more than doubled. Such considerable growth increased calls for adequate roads in both urban and rural areas, not only for economic purposes, but also as routes for motor tourists.
\nIn response to these pressures, the Queensland government established the Main Roads Board in 1920. Prior to this, the onus was on local shire councils to fund road construction and management. They were largely unable to provide the finances or technical skills to respond to challenges posed by increased car use. After the Board's establishment, co-operative funding arrangements occurred with local councils, who largely maintained roads after their construction. The policy of the Main Roads Board was to construct roads that operated as feeders to railway networks and aided the development of newly settled and existing districts.
\nPrior to and after the Board's establishment, the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ) occupied a central role in advocating for better roads for Queensland motorists. Thomas James Rothwell, President of the RACQ from 1921-1923, was the key protagonist in establishing the Petrie to Redcliffe Anzac Memorial Avenue. From 1914, the RACQ allied itself to the war time effort, raising funds and holding numerous benefits. Rothwell, a successful men's outfitter in Brisbane, was actively involved in such causes. During the war, he was secretary of the Queensland Patriotic Fund and coordinator of the Returned Soldiers Transport Corps, eventually awarded an OBE for his services.
\nRothwell's initial impetus in advocating for the road came from a referral of the Brisbane Motor Traders Association, who 'desired one good road in the vicinity of Brisbane', for motor touring purposes. This push also coincided with the Returned Services League's public appeal of 'Work Not Charity' in support of the large number of ex-soldiers unemployed at the time. Rothwell saw the opportunity for these causes to coalesce, by constructing a good road for motorists that would provide employment to returned servicemen. Planting an avenue of trees along such a road would also create a significant Queensland war memorial.
\nThe gazettal of the Brisbane-Gympie Rd between Kedron and Petrie as a main road informed the decision to choose the Petrie-Redcliffe road for Rothwell's proposal. By designating the Petrie-Redcliffe route as a main road, Brisbane motorists would gain a high quality motoring road from the city to a seaside resort, while reducing Redcliffe's isolation.
\nOn 21 June 1922, the RACQ presented the case for the road to Mr JH Coyne, Minister for Lands. Coyne agreed the road would likely be gazetted as a main road on the undertaking that non-government capital would be raised to begin its initial construction, while also suggesting the name of 'Anzac Memorial Avenue'. The Anzac Avenue Memorial Committee was established with Rothwell as chairman. A fundraising figure of £20,000 was set. This amount would provide for the wages of ex-servicemen employed on the road, while the Main Roads Board would bear the cost of construction.
\nPublicity for the fundraising appeal for the Anzac Memorial Avenue appeared in the Brisbane press on 1 July with the rationale for supporting the proposal:
\n'Every motorist is interested in this scheme. It is surely worth at least 5 pounds to a motorist to have one good road. Every business man is interested. It is surely worth a good deal to relieve the labour market of its unemployed. Every citizen is interested. It is surely worth something to you to have a Memorial Avenue that will at once connect one of Brisbane's beauty spots and commemorate for all time the valour of our soldiers'.
\nAs part of the public fundraising effort, a progress board was erected outside the premises of the Commonwealth Bank in Queen Street, Brisbane. A figure of a car moved forward in increments of 1000, towards the end goal of £20,000. August 8 was proclaimed as 'Anzac Avenue Badge Day' with car badges sold to raise funds. Other events included social functions at Redcliffe. By December 1922, £7000 had been pledged by public subscription.
\nThe target of £20,000 received a significant boost through government funding. In July 1922, the Commonwealth government, announced a National Main Roads Policy, allocating money to the state's road building schemes on a 4/8 federal, 3/8 state, and 1/8 local government funding arrangement. The objective of the policy was to, 'develop and open up the country, and promote land settlement, and aid temporarily unemployed soldiers'.
\nThrough this funding, the Redcliffe road was allocated £12,000, a larger proportion of funding than any other of the first roads built under this funding agreement in Queensland. The combined public fundraising (£7000) and government contributions (£12,000) meant that within six months of the appeal's inception, the goal of £20,000 pounds was close to being realised. Of the £7000 subscribed, a final amount of £6290 had been received by 1926, with the Main Roads Board making up the difference.
\nThe route was officially gazetted as the 'Redcliffe Road' on 21 October 1922. Anzac Memorial Avenue is one of the earliest examples of Main Roads Boards' involvement in facilitating car driven tourism in Queensland. The Board promoted Anzac Memorial Avenue for its dual purpose; as a road to a seaside resort that offered health benefits from a change of climate and scenic beauty, while providing developmental opportunities for the area. Until improvements to the South Coast and North Coast roads, Anzac Memorial Avenue was the premier road to a tourist resort from Brisbane.
\nBy December 1922, twenty-five returned servicemen had begun work on the road. By March 1923, this number had increased to 50. A number were engaged in clearing the road and undertaking associated earth works. Others were constructing reinforced concrete culverts and the bridge over Hayes Inlet, cutting and bending steel for the reinforcing bars and preparing timber for form work. Eleven men were working at the quarry within the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement to source road materials.
\nThe importance of the avenue was underscored by the decision to seal the road. In the early 1920s, few roads throughout Queensland were sealed, especially outside of urbanized areas. Different materials were trialled by Main Roads to determine their suitability as a top metal surface to dress with tar and bitumen. Anzac Memorial Avenue featured the use of trachyte, a fine grained igneous volcanic rock sourced from the Beerburrum quarry.
\nIn early 1923, Pine Rivers Shire Council and Redcliffe Town Council were granted control of the road's construction in their respective areas. Main Roads maintained responsibility for dressing the top surface with tar and bitumen, this process occurring through 1924 and 1925.
\nAnzac Memorial Avenue was officially opened for traffic on 5 December 1925 by the acting Premier William Forgan Smith. A floral arch was erected in Petrie for the occasion, with the Mayor of Redcliffe, JB Dunn and Chairman of the Pine Shire, W Bradley, providing welcome speeches and thanking the government for its assistance. The party, in a long procession of cars, continued on to Redcliffe which was 'en fete' for the occasion. The avenue was proclaimed as the best road to a tourist resort yet conducted in Queensland.
\nIn the week the road was opened, Rothwell wrote to the Brisbane Courier to draw attention to the tree-planting aspect of the memorial avenue. Rothwell noted the road was already utilised by hundreds of motorists on Sundays and public holidays. He called on the public to assist financially in making the road an avenue from Brisbane (Kedron Brook) to Redcliffe, 'a glorious asset to the State of Queensland'. The first plantings were to be concentrated on the Anzac Memorial Avenue section between Redcliffe and Petrie.
\nThe tree planting operations came more into focus in 1925 as the road works neared completion. An Anzac Avenue Memorial Tree Planting Committee had been established by early 1923. In December 1925, the committee comprised Rothwell, EH Bick (curator of Brisbane Botanic Gardens), EHF Swain (Director of Forestry), ET White (Government Botanist), H Moore (park superintendent of the Brisbane City Council) and Colonel DA Parsons (representing the Queensland Governor Matthew Nathan). The committee considered the types of trees that would be suitable and an estimate of the number of trees that would be required. Placing the trees 60ft apart, it was estimated 1760 trees were needed for each ten miles of the avenue and the cost of planting the trees, preparing the ground and making suitable guards would be less than £1 per tree. The committee selected a mixture of native and introduced sub-tropical species for the avenue.
\nThe inaugural planting occurred at Petrie on February 28 1925. Two Cocos palms (Arecastrum romanzooffianum) were planted at the front of the North Pine School of Arts in Petrie, by Governor Nathan. The trees were donated by Elizabeth Petrie, widow of local pioneer Tom. The palms were sourced from the extensive gardens of their nearby property 'Murrumba'.
\nDuring the ceremony, Rothwell discussed particulars of the tree-planting operations. Approximately £5000 pounds was needed for tree planting the avenue between Redcliffe and Kedron, 'but for that purpose only £50 was in hand'. Donors of trees would receive a certificate for their contribution. For a further small donation, a plaque could be attached on or near the tree with the donor's name or the name of the soldier in whose memory the tree was planted. Mrs Petrie was presented with the certificate for tree No.1, a firewheel tree (Stenocarpus sinuatus) planted on the corner of Anzac Memorial Avenue and White's Road, opposite the School of Arts. This tree has not survived.
\nOn July 7 1926, Rothwell and the president of the RACQ Mr TE Carter, led a motorcade of guests from Brisbane for the official opening of Anzac Memorial Avenue, marked by a tree planting ceremony in Redcliffe. Some one thousand invited guests, along with the general public, braved inclement weather to attend the ceremony.
\nThe Australian Governor-General, Lord Stonehaven planted the first tree, a Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) on the northern side of the Avenue, at the Humbybong Street corner. Granting local school children a holiday, Stonehaven hoped they would be 'guardians of the trees' realising that they are guarding not only a Queensland memorial, but one that will be recognised throughout Australia. Lady Stonehaven, WA Jolly, JB Dunn, W Bradley and Mr Fraser East, President of the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia also planted trees.
\nRothwell's speech highlighted the need for contributions, especially from the motoring public, to make the tree-lined avenue a reality. Rothwell also announced that the Memorial Committee had decided not to offer individual plate names to be associated with particular trees as the Avenue was considered a memorial for all the soldiers and sailors who had lost their lives, especially to commemorate 'the deeds of valour performed by the heroes who went from our state'.
\nBy mid-1927, 1000 trees had been planted, encased in triangular wooden guards. The scale of the project provided challenges for the tree planting committee. While 2000 had been planted by 1933, unsuitable species and soil conditions, bushfires, human and animal impacts, borers and white ants, had damaged and destroyed some of the original plantings. With assistance from Main Roads, the committee were employing a man 'with expert knowledge' to look after the trees. By this time, a shortage of funds meant the committee were unable to extend the planting scheme from Petrie to Kedron as proposed originally. Nevertheless, the avenue was still the largest of its kind in the state, made possible through public and private involvement.
\nThomas Rothwell died in 1928 and his involvement with the Avenue was honoured in April 1933 with the unveiling of the Rothwell monument by the Queensland governor, Sir Leslie Wilson. This stone obelisk was placed on a small triangular piece of land at the intersection of Anzac Memorial Avenue and the Deception Bay Road, later moving to a nearby park when a roundabout was placed on the site. Rothwell bequeathed the substantial sum of £1000 to the tree planting committee, which was acknowledged at the unveiling as having maintained the project.
\nThe building of Anzac Memorial Avenue reduced Redcliffe's isolation from Brisbane and consolidated its position as the city's seaside resort of choice. In 1928, the Brisbane Courier remarked, 'Petrie is today notable for the traffic which passes through it day and night'. By the mid-1930s, the Brisbane-Redcliffe bus ran five trips daily, with extra services on weekends. A 1933 tourist brochure described the recent progress of Redcliffe as 'remarkable', evidenced by the erection of new villas and cottages on the peninsula. In the same year Redcliffe Mayor AH Langdon praised the construction of the road for advancing Redcliffe 'beyond the expectations of the most sanguine'. The opening of the Hornibrook Bridge in 1935 further reduced the distance between Brisbane and Redcliffe, a catalyst for the area's permanent population growth.
\nUntil the late 1950s, when developers first began purchasing properties for subdivision, the landscape between Petrie and Redcliffe on Anzac Memorial Avenue remained predominantly rural, characterised by small mixed farms and sections of native vegetation. A number of farms capitalised on passing tourist trade by operating roadside fruit and vegetable stalls. Since this time, residential areas have extended along the avenue from both Petrie and Redcliffe, as northern commuter suburbs of Brisbane. Redcliffe's most westerly suburb was named Rothwell in 1971 by the Queensland Place Names Board in honour of the man who did much to bring the road to fruition.
\nOver time, Anzac Memorial Avenue has been widened to accommodate increased car usage. During the 1980s and 1990s, sections of the avenue were duplicated to form a dual carriageway. Some trees were removed during this time. In Pine Rivers Shire, the council and the Department of Transport adopted a design to preserve the Avenue during roadworks; however a number of trees were removed. In March 1993, Anzac Memorial Avenue was officially reopened by Queensland RSL President SW Kay and Pine Rivers Shire Chairman R Akers. Following the removal of a number of trees in 2006 for a transit lane, Queensland Transport and the Redcliffe RSL planted a memorial grove in Henry Pieper Park on the avenue at Kippa-Ring, with trees propagated from the slash pines. While originally named Anzac Memorial Avenue, the road is more widely known and signed as Anzac Avenue.
\nOther older trees have also not survived and records relating to the avenue once held by the RACQ and Main Roads Department no longer exist. The Cocos palms planted at Petrie by Governor Nathan in 1925 and the Hoop Pine planted in Redcliffe by Lord Stonehaven in 1926 still remain.
\nDespite alterations, the idea of the road as a Memorial Avenue has been perpetuated by later plantings. While not all the trees are from the original planting list, they are an intrinsic component of the avenue's overall composition. The Mango Hill section of the Avenue is notable for its 700 metre section of Mango trees (Magnifera indica). There is a substantial section of mature Slash Pines (Pinus eliottii) between Kippa Ring and Rothwell, plus smaller sections at Kallangur. The first slash pines in Queensland were grown in Beerwah and Beerburrum from 1924. Director of Forestry EHF Swain, who introduced the trees from the United States, was a member of the tree planting committee in 1925.
\nSince the 1990s, along the Pine Rivers section of the road, different memorials commemorating theatres of war since 1945 have been erected.
","criteria":"Gazetted in 1922 and opened in 1925, following an earlier route established in the 1860s, Anzac Memorial Avenue was one of the earliest roads in Queensland constructed by the Main Roads Board. The Board was established in 1920 to respond to the greater demands on the road network posed by increased motor vehicle usage in the interwar period. Anzac Memorial Avenue is important in illustrating the early stages of this phase in the development of Queensland's road network.
As the first bitumen motor road from a major urban centre to a seaside resort, Anzac Memorial Avenue is important in demonstrating the growth of car based tourism in Queensland in the 1920s and illustrates the growing importance of car access to the development of tourist resorts. Anzac Memorial Avenue catalysed the growth of Redcliffe as a major seaside resort for south-east Queensland during the interwar period.
Built under a government policy designed to promote the development of roads that opened up areas for economic development, the Avenue demonstrates the increasing importance of tourism to the Queensland economy at the time. The Avenue was allocated a larger proportion of government funding than any other of the roads built under this funding agreement in Queensland at the time.
The longest WWI memorial avenue in Queensland, Anzac Memorial Avenue is important for commemorating Queenslanders' involvement in a major world event. The avenue has maintained its role as a place of memorial by subsequent additions commemorating later twentieth century theatres of war.
As a road constructed by returned servicemen, Anzac Memorial Avenue is a good example of a substantial scheme to assist ex-soldiers following WWI. Other initiatives included the state government soldier settlement schemes and other Main Roads projects. The construction of the road is important in demonstrating the involvement of government, civic bodies and the general public in addressing high levels of unemployment among ex-soldiers after WWI.
|Anzac Memorial Avenue is important for its association with Thomas Rothwell and the Royal Automobile Club Queensland (RACQ), an organisation that has made a major contribution to the development of motoring in Queensland. As president of the RACQ from 1921-1923, Rothwell was the key protagonist in the establishment of Anzac Memorial Avenue. Rothwell's contribution to the Avenue is commemorated by a memorial cairn standing at the road edge of Rothwell Park and a nearby suburb that bears his name.
|In its route, and as an extensive tree-lined avenue of planned and evenly spaced plantings, Anzac Memorial Avenue is important in demonstrating the characteristics of a memorial avenue.
|A landmark road in southeast Queensland, Anzac Memorial Avenue is important for vistas experienced while progressing along the route and the visual delight of stretches of striking plantings including poincianas, pines, cotton trees, eucalypts and the lush mango section.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":21877,"place_ref":602584,"name":"Kalinga Park","alternate_name":"Anzac Memorial Park","street_address":"100 Bertha Street","suburb":"WOOLOOWIN","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-07-03","description":"Kalinga Park is an irregularly shaped section of open parkland bounded by Bertha, Kalinga and Lewis Streets. A natural watercourse, Kedron Brook, forms its northern boundary.
Bicycle and walking tracks run through the park and it contains a children's playground, picnic areas, a dog off-leash area and various sports fields and recreational facilities. These include tennis courts, a petanque playing area and ovals for cricket and football. There is also a fenced circuit for the Queensland Miniature Race Car Club.
A hut leased by the Kalinga Scouts is on the boundary of the park at the western end, though accessed from Bertha Street. It is a single storey timber building.
An avenue of mature eucalypts is planted along the edge of Kedron Brook and trees are scattered in clumps around the park. The railway and the airport monorail cross the western edge of the park.
Memorial Gates
The gates are at the entrance on Park Avenue. The posts are made of brown Helidon sandstone carved and topped with stone spheres. The central pair is inset with marble panels that read 'Erected by the residents of Kalinga and officially opened 23 October 1920' and 'Erected in commemoration of those of the district who served in the Great War 1914-1919.'
These posts support metal gates across the carriageway and are flanked by smaller pedestrian gates to either side. A matching wall topped by railings flanks each side of the gateway.
The drive runs from the gateway toward Kedron Brook and then along the line of the Brook to Sandgate Road. It is bitumened and kerbed and is lined by mature trees.
This area incorporates built and natural features including sculptures, shelters and picnic tables formed to resemble leaves.
","history":"Kalinga Park was opened in 1910 and is located on the southwest bank of Kedron Brook at Wooloowin.
Kalinga Park occupies a portion of the early German Mission Station established at Zion Hill in 1838, forming the first free European settlement in Queensland. The missionaries named Kedron Brook, but the mission closed in 1850 and the area was surveyed in 1851 prior to other settlers moving into the area. By the 1880s, this area was industrial and in 1884 much of the land now comprising the park was declared a water reserve. Kalinga is derived from Ngalin-nga, a phrase in the Turrbal dialect said to mean 'belonging to us.'
The area was administered as part of Toombul shire and A L Petrie, Member for Toombul of 3 September 1910, officially opened the reserve as a park though several sports clubs were already using it. It had received improvements including levelling and clearing, the erection of a pavilion and the laying down of a cricket pitch.
In 1909 and 1911 land to the south of Kalinga Park between the railway station and the reserve was subdivided and sold as residential blocks. This was an important stage in the subsequent development of the area, as was connection to Brisbane by tram in 1929.
Following the First World War, the local Ladies Patriotic Club and the Kalinga Progress Association, together with the Toombul Shire council, erected memorial gates at the Park Avenue entrance. Brigadier-General L C Wilson dedicated them on 23 October 1920. The event was well attended with a guard of honour formed by Boy Scouts and Cubs from the Albion, Clayfield, Nundah and Kalinga districts and music provided by the Brisbane Citizen's Band. The President of the Ladies Patriotic Club declared at the ceremony that the Honour Gates were erected as a witness and everlasting memory of the patriotic services of the men who enlisted from the Kalinga district. Funds were later raised to embellish the posts of the main gate with inscribed marble slabs. For a time, the park was known as Anzac Memorial Park.
After the war, the Commonwealth Department of Repatriation placed returning soldiers in jobs, but it was a slow process and many found themselves in financial difficulties. Citizens' committees were formed to raise money and to assist in such ways as founding clothing depots. Local committees were also formed to help with finding relief work. In 1922 the Kalinga Unemployed and Distressed Soldiers' Committee was formed. It arranged with the Kalinga Improvement Committee for 83 unemployed returned soldiers to be given work in road formation and drainage in Kalinga Park.
As an initiative of the Kalinga Unemployed and Distressed Soldiers Committee this work included the construction and planting of a memorial drive to those who died in the war. It ran from the gates in Park Avenue to Sandgate Road and was intended for motor traffic. The returned soldiers cleared and levelled 60 chains (1200 metres) of roadway following the curve of Kedron Brook. It was gravelled and lined with trees and was informally known as the 'Diggers' Drive'. The Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan, opened the drive on 31 May 1924. He said that he hoped that the scheme for identifying the trees with metal plaques carrying the names of deceased soldiers would be successfully carried out. However, there was difficultly at the time in obtaining some names and the project was not completed.
In 1925, with the amalgamation of the various Brisbane local government authorities, Kalinga Park passed from Toombul Council into the control of the Brisbane City Council.
Between 1943 and 1945, during the Second World War, a large army staging camp was located in Kalinga Park. As part of this development, the bandstand was sold for removal and many buildings, including a post office for soldiers at the camp, were erected. After the war, these were removed with the exception of the post office building, which was relocated to the western edge of the park, and is used by the Scouts, who have considerably altered and extended it over the years. Thiess Brothers were engaged to restore the park to its pre-war condition, though the bandstand was not replaced. In 1952 Harry Oakman, then Manager of Brisbane parks, planted tallowwoods along the memorial drive to replace trees that had died or been removed.
A block of land in Bertha Street was acquired on 21 July 1952 to extend the park. During the late 1960s considerable work was untaken in the park including filling and topsoiling of the football and cricket fields. In 1965 the Scots Presbyterian Church Fellowship Association gained a seven-year lease of the two tennis courts. The Queensland Miniature Race Car Club constructed a circular fenced track at the eastern end of the park.
During the 1990s the Kalinga Karnival based on the park was run for several years, but was discontinued in 1998.
Land at 924 Sandgate Road, Clayfield was acquired in 1991, bringing the park area to 20.4285 hectares.
An interpretive sign for the Diggers' Drive was installed and unveiled on 30 April 1993m and the name was formally gazetted in 2003.The drive is now surfaced with bitumen, though the Council has no record of the date that this was done.
In 1996 the Access Arts organisation from Nundah undertook a project in the park utilising both professional artists and community members. They created sandstone carvings and hand decorated paving.
The park also contains a popular children's playground and picnic area.
","criteria":"Kalinga Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. It follows the line of Kedron Brook and incorporates sections of the land granted to some of Queensland's earliest free settlers. It was a water reserve in 1884, then a recreation reserve, being officially opened as a park in 1910, though it was already being used for sports. It bears witness to the participation of Australia in the First World War with memorial gates and the construction of the memorial Diggers' Drive by returned soldiers. These were constructed between 1920 and 1923 and are key aspects of the park, both historically and in establishing its layout. They demonstrate the process of grieving that was occurring in the district and across Australia at that time. During the Second World War Kalinga Park was the site of a large staging camp and it continues to be a popular recreational facility.
|The memorial avenue, known as 'Diggers' Drive', is the only known example in Queensland of a memorial avenue constructed by returned solders as a relief work project.
|Given the role of the park as a memorial to the war dead of the district, its long history of use by sporting groups, and its presence as a place or resort and recreation, Kalinga Park has a strong and ongoing social value to local community.
|Kalinga Park is significant for its aesthetic values. Contributing to this value is the presence of Kedron Brook along its northern perimeter, the tree lined memorial drive and the substantial memorial gates to Park Avenue. The arrangement of groups of mature trees interspersed with open playing fields areas provides pleasing vistas within the park and contrasts with sculptural groupings and the large children's play area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22060,"place_ref":602704,"name":"Monsildale Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2532 Monsildale Road","suburb":"MONSILDALE","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"On the east side of Monsildale Road approximately 30 kilometres north-northwest of Kilcoy, Monsildale Homestead occupies undulating land within a loop of Monsildale Creek. Approaching along Monsildale Road, the view is dominated by the homestead's main house and associated outbuildings set within a backdrop of treed mountains, undulating fenced paddocks and lush river flats. The homestead complex is comprised of the main house, slab barn and shed, single men's barrack and former Aboriginal quarters. There are a number of striking mature trees in the house yard including jacarandas, silky oaks, pines and eucalypts. Monsildale Creek makes a wide loop around the property. A vehicle shed southeast of the barracks is not of heritage significance.
The property is entered by a driveway to the west of the residence off Monsildale Road.
Main house
Standing on a grassed knoll, the distinctive white-painted main house consists of the early 1870s core to the north and an L-shaped extension (c.1912) to the south. Timber framed and sheltered by hipped and gabled roofs clad with red painted corrugated iron, the house stands on low timber stumps. Once entered through the main entrance door to the north and organised around a central hall, the house now functions as a series of rooms operating off verandahs which run around the west, north and east of the house. A recently enclosed verandah to the south functions as an informal entrance.
The early house comprises a living room, two bedrooms (northeast and southwest), study/library, box room and porch. A short hall links the early house with the extension. The extension consists of a bedroom, living room, office, enclosed verandah and a service wing of kitchen, bathroom, store, toilet and laundry.
A 2.4 metres (8 feet) wide verandah runs around the west, north and east of the early house, and has a dowel balustrading with the handrail sitting on the top rail and bold Y-shaped moulded brackets to the posts. Timber steps alight from the north side and west sides. An extended verandah at the northeast corner has weatherboard infill balustrading. The west and east verandahs to the south extension have dowel balustrading, with a handrail separate from the top rail and only the west verandah has the Y-shaped brackets matching those on the early verandah. There is a batten infill to the understoreys of the early house and the extension.
The earlier part of the house is timber framed, clad with 220mm chamferboards and lined with 230mm vertical beaded tongue and groove boards in the former hall, to the ceiling of the living room and parts of the porch; and narrower unbeaded boards line the other spaces. The box room, the south wall of the south bedroom and the study in the extension are clad with weatherboards. The early main entrance is infilled with timber boards and a sash window. A doorway from the hall into the east bedroom is infilled with timber boards and infilling to the south wall of the living room indicates the location of an earlier fireplace. The coved ceiling to the south bedroom is lined with beaded timber boards. The south bedroom interior walls and parts of the porch are lined with a textured fibre board over earlier timber boards. The east bedroom has a fireplace with a polished timber surround. The early part of the house is distinguished by wide elaborately moulded skirting boards. French doors (some painted, some varnished) open out onto the verandahs and sash windows have narrow glazing mullions.
The extension is of post and rail construction lined with vertical timber boards. Mortice and tenon joints are visible in the window and door framing. Painted French doors open out onto the verandahs. The arrangement of timber boards in the ceiling indicates that the large bedroom may earlier have been two rooms. A large picture window is inserted in the west wall of the living room and a coloured glass window inserted between the living room and kitchen to the east. The kitchen has been upgraded with new joinery, stove and other kitchen equipment and appliances. A narrow verandah with a balustrade infilled with horizontal weatherboards runs along the north of the wing accommodating the kitchen and service areas.
The house yard is marked by a low horizontal timber boarded fence painted white.
Slab barn and shed
Standing to the southeast of the main house within the house yard, the slab barn and shed is sheltered by a gable roof recently clad with new corrugated metal sheeting. The timber slabs to the east and north walls are set into bedlogs and notched to take top rails. Sheets of corrugated iron cover a window opening in the east wall and an open doorway stands to the middle of this side of the building. The north elevation has two entrances and a pair of casement windows to the northwest end. The north gable is infilled with weatherboards. The west wall of the barn and shed is clad with weatherboards and has two timber door entrances and a metal tilt-a-door. The south end of the shed is open, timber framed, partly clad with weatherboards and has a timber floor. The west and south sides of the building stand on low timber stumps. The roof throughout is framed with log beams and sawn timber rafters and battens and is supported by log posts. The floor of the slab barn is dirt to the north with a concrete slab to the middle. A small room with a raised timber floor and internal slab walls to the east and south sits within the barn to the northwest corner. A timber framed skillion extension to the southeast is clad with weatherboards and accommodates a small office and storage room. The slabs are painted with a red oxide and weatherboards are white painted.
Single men's barrack
East of the slab barn and shed, the roofless remains of the single men's barrack stand on temporary props, the building having been dislodged from its stumps during a violent storm. Rectangular in plan, the barrack consists of two rooms each entered by a door from the south and separated by an internal partition with a single doorway between the rooms. The building is timber framed, has a timber floor, is clad with weatherboards and unlined except for vertical timber boards around the north window in the west room. There is a window with sunhood to each short end and to each room on the north side. Salvaged roof framing and sheeting is stacked adjacent to the propped building (one piece of roof sheeting remains caught high in a nearby tree).
Aboriginal quarters
The former Aboriginal quarters is a timber framed building, once sheltered by a gable roof with skillion roofs extending to the north and south, that stands in a paddock some 240 metres south of the main house. The roof framing and corrugated iron roof sheeting has blown off in a violent storm and lies stacked nearby. The north wall is constructed of vertical timber slabs set into a bedlog and notched to take a top rail; a concrete half wall stands to the west, and the south and east walls are clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The building has concrete floors, upstands and drains, and metal gates and fences remaining from its use as a piggery.
Structures outside the listing boundary
The cattle dip and yards once associated with the homestead are extensively altered and not included within the heritage listing boundary.
","history":"Monsildale Homestead is a grazing property distinguished by a large timber residence which stands in a picturesque setting on a knoll to the east of Monsildale Road, within a loop of Monsildale Creek. The core section of the main residence was built between 1871 and 1877 on land selected by cattle grazier James Steven during the second phase of the settlement of the Brisbane River Valley, and an extension to the south was added by the Horne family, probably during the 1910s. The property was owned by members of the Horne and Woodrow families between c.1912 and 1978, and although the original cattle station has been subdivided and deer are now farmed close to the main residence, the property still runs cattle. A slab timber combined barn and shed still stands to the southeast of the main residence, and east of the barn is a derelict two-room timber single-men's barrack. At some distance to the south of the main residence is a former quarters for Aboriginal workers, which was later used as a piggery. These structures are characteristic elements of a grazier's homestead complex.
The Brisbane River's watershed, of which Monsildale Creek is a part, was one of the earliest areas of Queensland to be settled outside of the Moreton Bay penal settlement. Pastoralists first drove their sheep onto the Darling Downs from New South Wales in 1840, and squatters moved into the Brisbane River Valley the following year. David McConnel formally established Cressbrook station in July 1841, and was the first squatter to settle with his stock east of the Dividing Range in the future colony of Queensland. He was followed in late 1841 by John Balfour (Colinton Station), the Mackenzie brothers (Kilcoy Station), the Archer brothers (Durundur Station), and the Bigge brothers (Mount Brisbane Station). Pastoralists in the Brisbane River Valley soon switched from sheep to cattle, as sheep were not well suited to the local climate.
In 1848 the northern boundary of Colinton Station was described in the New South Wales Government Gazette as running from a marked tree beyond Mount Stanley to a point on the range at the head of Mackenzie's Sheep Station Creek, and thus the site of the Monsildale property may have fallen within the boundary of Colinton Station. It is also reported that at one stage David O'Connel from Cressbrook station considered grazing at Monsildale, but decided against it. Monsildale was apparently named after the property of David's brother Henry in Derbyshire.
Little else is known about the history of the land around Monsildale until May 1871, when James Steven applied to select a homestead under the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868. James Steven is not listed in the 1868 Queensland Alphabetical Post Office Directory, nor is he listed under the Squatters or Cattle Graziers sections in the 1874 or 1876 Trades Directories. However, Monsildale is listed under 'Stations' in the 1878 to 1879 Trades Directory as being run by Swanson and Steven. Alexander Swanson apparently selected Portion 43, some distance to the south of Monsildale homestead, in partnership with James Steven in 1877.
Alexander was most likely one of the Swanson brothers who established Yabba Station on the Gympie side of the Jimna Range c.1852. Although it was originally stocked with sheep, Yabba was running cattle by the time it was transferred to the Queensland National bank in 1882. Two men named Swanson and Stevens supposedly discovered the Jimna goldfield in 1860, when the latter was the head stockman at Yabba. This goldfield was gazetted in 1868, and attracted 1500 men at its peak, although by 1871 the population had dropped to 300. It is possible that James Steven was actually the head stockman at Yabba Station in 1860, and it is also interesting to speculate whether or not he made his fortune on the Jimna gold field, given the amount of money later spent on his homestead at Monsildale.
The land Steven wanted for his homestead was surveyed by R. Atkinson as Portion 1, Parish of Mount Stanley (later parish of Monsildale), in the County of Canning. In February 1872 it consisted of 22 acres of Agricultural land and 116 acres of 1st Class Pastoral land (138 acres). During the 1870s Steven selected thousands of acres in the vicinity, including adjacent portions 2, 3, 11 12, 27 and 44, along with Portion 4 to the south, plus other portions. Donald Steven selected Portion 7 opposite Portion 1. Subdivision of the large pastoral runs to the south of Monsildale also began during the 1870s, and in 1876 the first selections at Hazeldean were excised from the Kilcoy Run. In 1877 closer settlement commenced at Villeneuve with the resumptions out of Durundur holdings.
In March 1875, in a letter to the Commissioner for Crown Lands for West Moreton, Steven requested that his homestead selection be transferred to a conditional purchase, as 'it is most likely that other arrangements may soon interfere with my personal residence on the land'. In April 1876 a letter to the Commissioner from Steven stated that, as he had spent so much money on one selection at Monsildale (Potion 1), it could be argued that he had met the requirements of the 1868 Act for improving his surrounding selections. His selections were inspected in April 1877, and a report on his fulfilment of the selection conditions regarding Portion 1 was issued in July 1877. In this report Steven's occupation was listed as 'Grazier'. Steven applied to purchase in November 1877, and a Deed of Grant was issued in February 1878.
Steven's selections were in an isolated valley, and his homestead needed to be self-contained. A list of Steven's improvements to Portion 1, as inspected in April 1877, included the following: a chamferboard house with shingle roof and verandah all round, containing seven rooms and a hall. Lined and ceiled with cedar, with two brick chimneys and spouted all round, it was valued at £800. There was also a 9000 gallon underground brick and cemented tank and pump valued at £60; and a slab and shingle kitchen containing five rooms, with verandahs front and back, built on piles and enclosed underneath, valued at £100. A slab and shingle store, meat-house, and bathroom with verandah were worth £80; and a second slab and shingle kitchen of two rooms and a verandah was valued at £30. Other outbuildings included a fowl house and piggery (£15); a blacksmith's shop (£20); and a stable with three stalls, two loose boxes, a buggy house, a harness room, a corn loft, spouting all around and a large tank (£150). In addition there were two men's huts, one of three rooms (£25) and one of two rooms (£20). Along with various fences and gates, there was also a 1.5 acre fenced garden which included fruit trees.
Yards included a horse yard, and a milking yard around a calf pen and milking bails. A stockyard enclosed 10 small yards, and included a branding lane, speying bails, a killing yard and gallows. A herding yard was attached. A map of Portion 1 in 1877 shows stockyards near the location of the current stockyards. The existing cattle dip within these yards has the dates 1903 and 1905 carved into posts and rails at the north end of the dip pit.
The history of the homestead selection from this time on can be gleaned from the land titles. Although existing titles for Portion 1 only go back as far as 1926, the ownership of neighbouring portions 2 and 12, just outside the loop of Monsildale Creek, gives a fair indication of events at Monsildale prior to 1926. Steven applied to lease Portion 2 before survey in May 1871 and again in November 1871 (as selection 2024). It was leased from January 1872, and a Deed of Grant for its 321 acres was issued to Steven in February 1878. Steven also applied to lease Portion 12 (selection 2841) before survey in July 1873, and a Deed of Grant for its 1216 acres was issued in March 1878.
Most of portions 2 and 12 were combined and subdivided in 1880 to form two new holdings. One (964 acres) was located to the north of a road leading east from Monsildale Road, and another (419 acres) was located to the south of this road. In 1882 new joint titles for these holdings were issued to James Steven and Alexander Swanson. In March 1893 both holdings were transferred to the British and Australasian Trust and Loan Company Limited. Information on the history of the district published by the Kilcoy District Historical Society notes that Thomas E. Robertson was at Monsildale in 1895, and that he was listed as property manager from 1904-1908. He was probably employed by the British and Australasian Trust and Loan Company Limited.
In 1912 the above holdings were obtained by James Horne, and the titles were transferred to Hornes Limited in 1921. James Horne was born in Newchapel, England in 1861, and he married Elizabeth Maddicks in 1888. Prior to moving to Monsildale the Hornes owned the property Fairlymeade, near Woodford. James Horne also served a term on the Kilcoy Shire Council from 1918. It has been claimed that Horne purchased the Monsildale property in 1908, but this could be confirmed from the titles examined. Portion 1 could have been purchased in 1908, but as pointed out above, the surrounding land was not purchased by Horne until 1912. James Horne is first listed at 'Monsildale' in the 1911-1912 Trades Directory of the Queensland Post Office Directory, under the Pastoral and Agricultural section. At this time he had 33 horses and 502 cattle. Horne family photographs in 1913 and 1914 show quite a large family, and the main residence was probably extended to the south soon after Horne purchased the property.
Local knowledge claims that the hut to the south of the homestead at Monsildale (visible in a photograph taken from the south before the homestead was extended) was used as Aboriginal quarters, and there were Aboriginal workers in the area. A photograph taken on Yabba station prior to World War I shows two Aboriginal workers in European dress. Due to shortages of European labour in the nineteenth century, station owners turned to Aboriginal workers, who adapted well to work in the pastoral industry whilst - initially - maintaining aspects of their traditional lifestyle, with the families of workers camping on the stations. By the mid 1880s well over half of the employees on cattle stations in North Queensland were Aboriginal. Later, after a collapse in the Queensland export beef trade in the 1920s led to the removal of non-working dependants from stations and seasonal employment of Aboriginal workers, Aboriginal labour was usually drawn from fringe camps near towns, or from Missions. European and Aboriginal workers were quartered and fed separately, and Aboriginal camps were usually located some distance from the homestead. Aboriginals who were in regular employment and who did not have a strong tie with local Aboriginals might be housed in a station hut.
Although cattle-grazing was the main activity at Monsildale, the area's timber was also a source of local economic activity. At various times between 1912 and 1961 sawmills operated on a flat part of Portion 2, just over the creek to the north of the homestead, on land rented from Horne. A small township developed on the site, between the Monsildale Road and Monsildale Creek to the west, including a store, butcher's shop and a school. When Gladys and Vera Horne attended Monsildale School in 1913, their father was listed as a 'Squatter'.
By 1920 Graham and Vera Horne (nee Hunter), and Harry and Grace Woodrow (nee Horne) were running Monsildale Station, as James Horne had retired. Harry Woodrow, born in 1885, had married Grace Horne (born 1898) in 1917. Harry worked in the Gympie gold mines between 1901 and 1911 before becoming the first cadet taken on by the Queensland Forestry Department. He then acted as a Forest Ranger in the Little Yabba area near Jimna before working at Monsildale and meeting Grace. After they married, the couple lived at Blackbutt, and then Nanango.
In 1920 Grace bought her sisters out of their land in the southern portion of Monsildale, and cleared it of timber. At this time Harry joined Hancock and Gore at Monsildale as their scrub boss, retiring from the Forestry Department. Harry and Grace had a large house of their own, across the road and to the north of the homestead, where they lived for four years. The stumps of this house are still visible. Harry helped to locate and inspect Hancock and Gore's new mill site at Foxlowe, along with Gympie Land Ranger George Carter and Boy MacDonald of Yabba station. Harry was also a Kilcoy Shire Councillor between 1933 and 1946, and was one of first three trustees of the Jimna Hall, which was built in 1934.
The Horne family continued to operate Monsildale as a large cattle property. In the 1923-1924 Trades Directory, Hornes Limited is listed at Monsildale (under the Nanango District) with 1231 cattle, and when Horne's Limited Monsildale Estate was auctioned on 16 May 1924, it consisted of 9000 acres of freehold grazing land (stretching from Portion 24 in the south to Potion 44 in the north) which had been subdivided into 17 farms. About 1000 cattle and 50 horses were also for sale. At the auction Harry and Grace Woodrow purchased a lot of the land, including the land of former Portion 1. In June 1924 Queensland Trustees Limited was appointed liquidator to wind up Hornes Limited, and the Deed of Grant for Portion 1 was surrendered to the Crown on November 1925, before being re-issued to Queensland Trustees in October 1926. However, the title was then altered to read 'Hornes Limited, its Successors'. The same sequence of events occurred for the two holdings outside the loop of Monsildale Creek.
Harry and Grace moved into the homestead's main residence after they purchased the former Portion 1. George Atthow bought a block of the Monsildale Estate, and Alf Stanton also purchased two blocks, one of which contained Woodrow's old house, which was removed in 1942. These three blocks were later sold to Harry Runge.
In November 1935 that part of the former Portion 1 located east of the Monsildale road (a total of 112 acres and 20.6 perches), was transferred from Horne's Limited to Harry Woodrow. Harry died in 1956, and the land passed to Grace in 1959. The land was transferred to Grace, James and Robert Woodrow in 1966, and finally to James Woodrow alone in 1976. This land was subdivided in 1978, and the section which contained the homestead complex and 109 acres within the loop of Monsildale Creek was sold to Peter Kurts Developments Pty Limited before being immediately on-sold to Trevor D. Hawkins in May 1978. The Hawkins used the homestead as a holiday home for children. The house, its outbuildings, and 109 acres was transferred to Dawn Evans and Ian Mac Lachlan in June 1984, and in 2007 Dawn Evans owned the main residence as part of a 611 acre farm which included parts of former portions 1, 2, 12 and 27. In 2007 the land within the loop of the creek was used to raise deer, and the rest ran beef cattle.
The remainder of the homestead land, containing 3.3 acres and the stockyards and cattle dip to the north of the homestead, was transferred to Peter Kurts Development Pty Ltd in June 1978, and then immediately transferred to new owners. Grace Woodrow died in 1983, but members of the Woodrow family still farm to the north of Monsildale at 'Cowah'.
Changes to the main residence over time include the large 1910s extension to the south of Steven's original 1870s residence, and the 1870s section appears to have been was raised off the ground on round logs and stumps, with a new balustrade, at this time. The extension's western verandah balustrade is original, but the balustrade around the original residence has lost its top rail. An extension has also been made to the east side of the verandah around the original residence.
The main door in the centre of the north elevation of the 1870s core of the residence has been replaced with a window, and the western chimney has been removed. The central north-south hallway in the core has been incorporated into the north-western room, and the core now includes four rooms (two bedrooms, one lounge, and one study), plus a small southern hall that is open to the western verandah of the 1910s extension. There is also a boxroom on the southern end of the western verandah of the 1870s residence. The southern verandah of the 1910s extension has been enclosed by the current owner, who has also expanded a part of the kitchen to the north. A large coloured-glass window has been added between the kitchen and living room in the 1910s section of the residence.
A gate in the fence to the north of house, and its associated steps, has disappeared, as has a tennis court that used to exist to the west of the house. There is no sign of the 1870s underground brick tank, and its location is not known. The south end of the combined barn and shed to the southeast of the residence was flattened by a falling tree branch in a storm in 2007, and the roof has been reconstructed. The same storm removed the roof and verandah of a two-room single men's barrack located to the east of the garage, and the barrack was knocked off its stumps and was deposited to south. The roof of the former quarters for Aboriginal workers was also lost in the storm.
","criteria":"The Monsildale Homestead is a product of the second phase of settlement in the Brisbane River Valley, an early and important area of cattle-raising in Queensland. Monsildale was settled in the 1870s, at a time when parts of the nearby large squatter's runs of the 1840s were being resumed for closer settlement under the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868.
The establishment of Monsildale run reflected both the push towards closer settlement at the time, and also the conflicting need to aggregate selections to form viable cattle runs.
The land has been in continuous use for pastoral purposes since the 1870s. Although the size of the station's land holdings has varied over the years, and the property surrounding the main residence has shrunk to 611 acres, grazing still occurs on Monsildale homestead and on its former lands to the north and south.
|Monsildale Homestead with its complex of structures and yards including the main residence (1870s, with 1910s extension), slab barn and shed (pre-1910s), single men's barracks, and Aboriginal workers' quarters (sited at a distance from the main buildings, pre 1910s) comprises elements typical of a grazier's homestead complex. The main residence in its layout and use of a range and quality of timbers and construction techniques is a good example of a substantial late 19th century grazier's home expanded in the early 20th century to accommodate a large family.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22212,"place_ref":602594,"name":"Muntapa Tunnel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Narko-Nutgrove Road","suburb":"COOYAR","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-05-03","description":"The Muntapa Tunnel is a former railway tunnel set in isolated bushland about 40km north of Oakey. The tunnel is located in a deep cutting along which the former railway line from Oakey to Cooyar ran.
The tunnel is semi-elliptical in cross-section. It is around 280m in length running from north east to south west. A section of cliff around each entrance is faced with a concrete wall which is topped with a shallow projecting ledge. The year '1912' had been embossed above the entrance at the south western end. However this has heavily worn so that only '912' remains visible. A steel gate of about 2m in height encloses the north eastern entrance.
The interior of the tunnel is formed from concrete. Away from the entrance, this has become blackened. The floor is sandy, except towards the middle of the tunnel where the base becomes coarse gravel.
The entrances to the tunnel are approached at both ends via a cutting. At the north eastern end, the cutting extends about 38m from the entrance. At the south western end, it curves towards the south and extends about 150m. The floor of each cutting is level and about 5m wide. A 22m long concrete wall extends along the eastern side of the cutting beginning about 31m from the south western entrance.
The tunnel penetrates the ridge which forms the summit of the Great Dividing Range. The terrain is rocky and sparsely vegetated, comprising open eucalypt woodland.
","history":"The Muntapa Tunnel is a concrete railway tunnel located on the route of the former branch line from Oakey to Cooyar in the eastern Darling Downs. The tunnel is one of a small number built on a branch line and it is the only tunnel in Queensland that crosses between the inland and coastal sides of the Great Dividing Range. It was opened in 1913.
Branch lines were secondary railway lines designed to connect rural districts with the main rail routes. They were constructed with the aim of supporting small-scale agriculturalists, dairy farmers and the timber industry. Branch lines were generally of cheaper construction than main lines, more frequent stops were provided and they were often built on road easements to reduce the costs stemming from land resumptions. The first branch line, opened on 12 July 1882, ran from Ipswich to Harrisville. The advent of better roads and faster road transport from the interwar period, eventually led to their demise.
The area between Oakey and Cooyar was populated by small-scale farmers, many of whom were of German origin. The lack of a viable transport route to market hindered the profitability of these small farms. Bullock transport was uneconomic and slow. When arguing the case for a branch line to Cooyar, the Commissioner for Railways, J. Thallon, noted that farms needed to be within 10 to 12 miles (16 to 19km) of a railway line to be viable.
Construction of a branch line to Cooyar had been advocated for some years. As well as improving the viability of farms and stimulating closer settlement along the route, the line would provide Toowoomba and the Darling Downs with access to much needed timber reserves at Blackbutt and Nanango. Of secondary consideration was a proposal to eventually extend the line to connect with Nanango and ultimately Central Queensland.
The line was approved by parliament in 1909 and construction began in September 1910. The principal work on the railway was the over 250m long tunnel at Muntapa. This remains the only tunnel in Queensland that passes beneath the summit of the Great Dividing Range. There are nine tunnels where the main western line from Ipswich climbs the Range en route to Toowoomba, but none of these pass underneath the summit. Tunnelling was a more economic alternative than routing the line around the summit.
The tunnel interior is formed from concrete and it has concrete portals. Concrete was first used in 1880 for the Cherry Gully Tunnel on the Warwick to Stanthorpe line. It was found to be more economical than brick or masonry.
The railway to Cooyar was one of seven branches of the Western Line that was built by day labour. Day labour construction of railways had been introduced by the conservative government in 1901. The practise continued until the mid-1920s. To carry out this work, Queensland Rail maintained a construction branch with engineers and plant and employed construction workers on a temporary basis.
Initially, the revenue raised on the branch exceeded working expenses. Transport of timber peaked in 1915 and from that year coal also began to be railed from the area of Acland. However, from 1916, the branch struggled to remain profitable due to under-utilisation and from 1926, road transport began to seriously affect the profitability of branch lines. This decline was offset, for a time, by cost-cutting measures and the introduction of rail motors. Petrol rationing forced greater use of the rail network by the public during World War II and this improved profitability while rationing remained in place. However, the cost of recovering from neglected maintenance during the War added to the ever-increasing use of motor vehicles accelerated the closure of branch lines after the War.
On 1 May 1964, the line beyond Acland was closed. The Acland to Oakey section was kept open to support the operation of the coalmines at Acland. The mines' principal customer was Queensland Rail. In the late 1960s, when Queensland Rail completed the conversion of their locomotive fleet to diesel all but one of these mines closed. On 8 December 1969, the Oakey to Acland section was also closed.
The tunnel is now contains the winter roosting site of up to 8 000 Bent-wing Bats: Miniopterus Schreibersii. A picnic table and walking track circuit starting from the picnic area passes through the tunnel.
","criteria":"Muntapa Tunnel is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history insofar that it constitutes physical evidence of a Queensland Government policy to construct branch lines as a means of developing rural districts. The tunnel was the most substantial work on a branch line that ran from Oakey to Cooyar. The railway was built to Cooyar in ca1913 to support the development of small-scale agriculture in the area and to provide Toowoomba and the Darling Downs with access to timber reserves at Blackbutt and Nanango. Hence, it is also evidence of the development of closer settlement in the eastern Darling Downs in the early 20th Century.
|The tunnel has a regular elliptical cross-section and it displays pleasing qualities of symmetry. It evokes surprise due to its unexpected location in remote bushland with no other visible railway infrastructure nearby. This response to the tunnel is heightened by its position, hidden within a deep cutting. It is only visible from within the cutting or close to its edge. The place also conveys a sense of the isolation experienced by the tunnel's builders.
|The tunnel is important as a highly intact example of a concrete railway tunnel. Concrete was first used in 1880 for the Cherry Gully Tunnel on the Warwick to Stanthorpe line. The Muntapa Tunnel has concrete portals and a semi-elliptical cross-section formed completely with concrete.
|Muntapa Tunnel is the only tunnel in Queensland that crosses the summit of the Great Dividing Range. Nine tunnels exist on the section of the main western line from Ipswich that ascends the Range en route to Toowoomba but none of these passes underneath the summit. The decision was made to tunnel under the summit at Muntapa because it was a more economic alternative than routing the line around it.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22214,"place_ref":602596,"name":"The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory (former)","alternate_name":"Dairy Farmers Factory","street_address":"57 Brook Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-04-18","description":"The Downs Co-Operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory is a complex of brick, concrete and metal buildings and other structures dating from 1929 through to the 1990s, located on a long, narrow, 1.4 hectare site squeezed between the western rail line and Brook Street, Toowoomba. The brick and concrete buildings on the site have been modified over time and internally retain much original fabric.
Structures of heritage significance on the site include:
Administration building (c1930 and extended at a later date)
The administration building is situated at the northern end of the site adjacent to Brook Street. It is a single-storey, face-brick building with rendered lintels above the double hung sash windows facing Brook Street. There is an extension to the building along the western side. The roofs of both the main structure and the extension are clad with corrugated iron. The front of the main building has the company name and date of establishment in relief on a rendered section of wall directly above the entrance.
The interior of the building contains a standard office layout with offices for the senior staff, a boardroom, a clerks' room, filing rooms, toilets and a tearoom. Most of the interior fittings are early and in situ, except for a large wall cabinet that was moved in early 2008 from the boardroom to the Darling Downs Dairy Museum. Early fixtures and fittings in this building include Art Deco-style counters, two built-in safes and a skylight.
Laboratory [Science Building] (1936)
The laboratory is situated adjacent to the administration building, facing Brook Street. It is a single-storey, face-brick building with rendered window lintels and sills and a terracotta tiled hipped roof. It has double hung sash windows, the upper sashes being multi-paned. On the Brook Street side of the building is a square section of rendered wall with the raised lettering: The Downs Co-Operative Dairy Association Ltd Science Building.
The interior of the building is divided into five small rooms that retain many early fittings and fixtures, including fume cupboards, lab benches, sinks and other equipment. Early wall vents are in place. Ceilings are of fibrous plaster or cement sheeting with timber cover strips.
Engine and Refrigeration Building (c1930s)
Situated close to Brook Street, immediately east of the Butter Factory, is a two-storey, face-brick building with gabled roof and decorative parapet to Brook Street, which functioned as the Engine and Refrigeration Building.
Internally this building is partitioned into three sections: engine room; refrigeration room; and switching room. The engine room retains a large amount of equipment. The refrigeration room has two early ammonia compressors manufactured by O'Connell and Kerr of Melbourne, one modern refrigeration compressor, and the footings for two other modern compressors since removed. The switching room has modern banks of electrical equipment and older controls for the refrigeration plant although the older distribution panels have been removed. Tracks for a wall-mounted gantry crane remain in place along the eastern wall.
Butter Factory (1929)
Located immediately behind the engine room is the Butter Factory building, which includes a store and boiler room. The building is a three-storey, rectangular face-brick building. In the centre of the parapets along the eastern and western elevations is a large rendered section of wall with the name of the company and date established in lettering across the top. On the exterior of the factory is a plaque erected at the time of extensive renovations to the interior in 1985-1986.
The building, which was used principally for the production of butter, cream and cottage cheese, has a concrete floor and minimal internal partition walls. The butter maker and butter packaging equipment have been removed but the pipes and most of the cream vats for the butter maker remain in situ. The cottage cheese manufacturing plant is still in place located on a mezzanine. The former dry room, now used for storage, is located beneath this mezzanine. More modern cheese making equipment remains in place. Two large cream vats have been removed. The building also contains a store and a small production office.
A boiler house is located at the southern end of the Butter factory. This housed two steam boilers initially, but one has been removed. Footings for the removed boiler and chimneys indicate their former locations.
Milk and Cheese Factory (late 1930s-early 1940s)
This structure comprises three connected and adjoining three-storey, face-brick, buildings located in the centre of the complex facing Brook Street, that formerly were used for bulk milk processing (pasteurising) and cheese manufacture. This structure provides an imposing street frontage for the entire factory complex. Each of the buildings is square in plan. The centre building has 'Unity' in raised lettering in the centre top of the front elevation. The southern-most building is lower than the centre building and has the raised lettering 'Unity - Pasteurised Milk' along the top of the front elevation.
The building contains an evaporator room, store rooms, cheese manufacturing rooms, cheese drying rooms, a cheese elevator, pasteurisation room and a bottle room. Almost all the fixtures and fittings in this building were installed in the 1990s. However, the early Gouda and Edam cheese drying room located at the top of the building remains mostly intact, along with a timber cheese elevator for transporting the cheeses up and down and an early and highly decorative cast iron spiral staircase used to access this room from the pasteurisation room below.
Other structures
Other post-1940s buildings and structures occur across the site, including offices, silos, loading bays, storerooms and power infrastructure. Many date from the 1970s and 1980s. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Externally, all the brick and concrete buildings from the 1920s to the 1940s are bound together with metal pipes, cable train, air conditioner ducting and other services that have been introduced into the different buildings. These services are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory, located on Brook Street, Toowoomba, is associated closely with the development of the Queensland dairy industry and with the emergence of the Darling Downs as a principal dairy producing region during the early to mid-twentieth century. The original butter factory, made of timber, was constructed in 1905. This was rebuilt in 1929 in brick and concrete, and extended at a later date. As the importance of dairying to Queensland expanded during the 1930s and 1940s, additional structures were erected on the site, including an administration building (early 1930s), laboratory (1936), an engine and refrigeration building (c.1930s), generator, sub-station, and boiler room (all c.1930s), and a milk and cheese processing factory (late 1930s-early 1940s). Further additions, extensions and renovations were undertaken post-1940s.
By the 1890s the Queensland government had identified the expansion of agriculture, especially dairying, as a key means of encouraging closer settlement and boosting the Queensland economy. The expansion of dairying as a commercial activity was made possible by a number of advances in technology in the late nineteenth century, including the availability of refrigerated shipping in Queensland from 1883; the introduction of mechanical cream separators to Queensland in the late 1880s (invented in Europe in 1878; and the development of the Babcock butterfat test. Government intervention to encourage commercial dairying took a variety of forms. In the late 1880s and early 1890s the Queensland Department of Agriculture established Travelling Dairies that toured Queensland via the railway network, demonstrating and promoting techniques and equipment to potential dairy farmers and butter and cheese producers. Government grading of butter was introduced, and a series of Meat and Dairy Produce Acts between 1893 and 1904 facilitated the establishment of co-operative butter and cheese factories. Between 1894 and 1919 land repurchased from pastoralists under the provisions of the 1894 Agricultural Lands Purchase Act was resurveyed as agricultural selections, and closer settlement legislation between 1906 and 1917 assisted in the creation of small agricultural service towns. Heavy government expenditure on railway construction in the first two decades of the twentieth century was a significant catalyst for the expansion of dairying, extending the Queensland railway network from 3,500 kilometres in 1890 to 6,300 kilometres by 1910 and to 9,300 kilometres by 1920. Between 1910 and 1920, most new railway construction was of branch lines for agriculture.
Between the 1910s and the 1960s, dairying made a significant contribution to the Queensland economy, not only with the direct sales of dairy products both domestically and internationally, but also because dairying encouraged closer settlement of the land and wide-scale crop production. During the economic depression of the 1930s dairying was the most widespread agricultural activity in Queensland, which became known as the 'dairy state'. Regular cream cheques kept many rural families on the land during these years. Between 1936 and 1941, dairying was Queensland's second most profitable export industry.
The co-operative movement, in which producers held shares in enterprises that processed and sold their product, evolved in Switzerland during the 1880s, and was transferred from Victoria to Queensland by dairy immigrants during the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1901 an initial attempt to form a Downs Dairy Co-operative was made by a handful of dairymen meeting at Wellcamp, but faltered due to lack of financial support. The proposal was resurrected in April 1904 at a meeting at Westbrook, at which it was resolved to establish a centrally located butter factory adjacent to the railway at or near Toowoomba. The committee formed to deliver the proposal determined in May 1904 that the company be formed solely of farmers or dairymen; that only new equipment be installed at the factory; and that the position of manager of the factory be advertised nationally. A prospectus offering shares at £1 each was adopted by June 1904 and received significant local support, on the strength of which a site adjoining the Southern and Western Railway at Brook Street in Toowoomba was acquired and tenders called for the construction of a butter factory. Construction commenced in 1905 and the single-storey timber structure incorporating both butter factory and refrigeration room was opened by Hon. James Tolmie in November 1905, although manufacturing had commenced in the previous month.
The co-operative adopted the brand name 'Unity' with an accompanying trade mark symbol: a bundle of sticks denoting collective strength. The factory was financial from the start, with turnover during the first year of £61,299. The Co-operative's success encouraged the formation of other dairy co-operatives and the consolidation of dairying as a principal economic activity on the Darling Downs. Following the opening of the Co-operative's Toowoomba factory in 1905 the Darling Downs dairy herd quadrupled in size from just over 20,000 head to almost 90,000, and grew to just under 220,000 by 1945. By the 1950s the Darling Downs produced over 25 pre cent of Queensland's dairy output.
The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association soon expanded, constructing or purchasing branch butter factories at Miles (1911), Clifton (1912), Dalby (1915) and Crows Nest (1918). World War I (1914-1918) stimulated cheese manufacturing in Queensland, prompting the Co-operative to establish or acquire branch cheese factories at Hodgson Vale (1915), Jondaryan (1919), Gowrie Junction (1920), Bouda (1926), Lilyvale (1926) and Wyreema (1927). However, the Toowoomba factory remained the Co-operative's flagship facility and administrative headquarters throughout the twentieth century.
In the late 1920s/early 1930s the Co-operative's success enabled it to re-build a number of its timber butter factories in concrete and brick - Dalby (1927), Toowoomba (1929), Clifton (1933) and Goombungee (1934) - but during the economic downturn of the early 1930s closed a number of its cheese factories.
In the reconstruction of the Toowoomba factory the wooden buildings were removed section by section and replaced insitu by new concrete and brick structures.
To maintain the prestige and reputation of the Unity brand of products through quality control of all aspects of butter and later milk and cheese production, a laboratory (Science Building) was constructed at the Toowoomba factory in 1936. In 1938 the Co-operative gained exclusive right to the distribution of pasteurised milk in Toowoomba, and new facilities were constructed at the Toowoomba factory to handle milk pasteurising and bottling. In 1939 the Co-operative centralised its entire milk supply at Toowoomba, enabling more efficient cheese production, leading to unprecedented growth in the region and to further extensions to the Toowoomba factory, completed in 1940.
World War II (1939-1945) placed tremendous demands on Australian primary production and with the arrival of thousands of American troops in south-east Queensland the Darling Downs experienced marked growth in butter and cheese production and in demand for whole pasteurised milk. Milk production levels were sustained in the post-war years, with milk from the Toowoomba factory transported by rail as far west as Quilpie and Cunnamulla while new bulk road transports supplied the Brisbane market. The Co-operative continued to expand and in 1953 a new plant for the concentration and drying of milk products was opened.
The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association benefited from its close association with two prominent figures in the Australian dairy industry during the first half of the twentieth century: James Purcell and James Henry Cecil Roberts. Through these men the Co-operative influenced dairying policy at state and national levels.
Purcell was a leading figure in the Australian dairy industry, serving as chairman of the Commonwealth Dairy Produce Equalization Committee between 1934 and 1950. In 1904 he helped to form the Downs Co-operative Dairy Company (later Association) and remained a director until 1932. He was chairman of the Association in 1912-1917, 1918-1919 and 1920-1932. Purcell played a major role in the formulation of state, federal and empire/commonwealth dairying policies throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Roberts was a director of the Downs Co-operative Dairy Association between 1932 and 1942 and chairman of directors for four years. He was prominent in Queensland's political and economic history, being an important anti-labor figure. He founded the Darling Downs Farmers Union in 1911 and was one of the founders of the Queensland Country Party in 1936.
In the 1960s the Co-operative moved from butter-based production to cheese and milk-based products, including subsidiary products such as yoghurt and calf food, in anticipation of the loss of its principal overseas market when Britain would eventually join the European common market (1973). The loss of the British market forced a rationalisation of the Queensland dairying industry, reducing the dairy herd and large areas of the Downs being converted from dairying to grain-growing. While the industry contracted and the smaller factories closed, the Downs Co-operative Dairy Association factory in Toowoomba remained viable and in 1985 a new milk powder factory was constructed on the site. Deregulation of the Queensland dairy industry between 1998 and 2003 ultimately resulted in a 2005 decision by the Co-operative to rationalise production, which effectively ended the future of the Toowoomba factory, which closed in 2006.
","criteria":"The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory (former) is significant in demonstrating an important aspect of the pattern of Queensland's history and is an example of a place which has made a strong contribution to the evolution of Queensland's society and environment.
The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory (former) demonstrates aspects of regional and economic development including the opening-up of land to closer settlement of the Darling Downs from 1900, the establishment of industry along rail networks, the rise of the dairy industry in southeast Queensland and its eventual decline in the late twentieth century. The site is able to demonstrate these significant aspects of Queensland's history through its location, fabric and scale.
The dairy industry made a strong contribution to Queensland's regional and economic development. The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory (former) has historic significance due to its association with the dairy industry of the Darling Downs from 1905 to 2006. The industry had a significant impact on people's lives in the region through the work of the Darling Downs Dairy Co-operative, through the co-operative's direct connections with the region's farmer suppliers and through the manufacture of products and brands important in people's daily lives (including cream and milk deliveries, school milk programs and the Unity brand).
|The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a dairy processing site. The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Limited Factory (former) comprises a complex of buildings erected in several stages from 1929 to the 1990s to process dairy products. This collection of buildings and equipment is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of dairy processing typical of dairy factories established from the early 1900s including its location adjacent to a railway line; and structures associated with the expansion of the 1930s and 1940s, a growing focus on road transport from 1940 and that reflect the continuing adaptation to new technology throughout the twentieth century.
The fabric of the Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory (former) clearly demonstrates the interconnected processes of milk, cheese and butter production in one complex and is evidence of changes that occurred in these processes for technological, economic or social reasons, throughout much of the twentieth century.
|The Downs Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory (former) has a special association with the work of the Downs Co-operative Dairy Association. The co-operative was one of the largest in Queensland and particularly productive, producing 25% of the state's overall dairy output by 1950. Through directors such as James Roberts and James Purcell, the co-operative's influence on the development of state and federal dairy production policies contributed to the success of dairying in Queensland during the twentieth century. While the co-operative operated many cheese and butter factories in the Darling Downs, the Toowoomba site was its headquarters, its largest factory and the site most closely associated with its operations. The Downs Co-operative had strong ties to the farming community, supporting farmers and encouraging the development of farming practices. The Downs Co-operative had a wide public profile through its key operations including milk distribution and high brand recognition through their Unity products.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22216,"place_ref":600388,"name":"Parson's Inn","alternate_name":"Parsons Inn","street_address":"Raglan Station Road","suburb":"RAGLAN","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2006-07-31","description":"Parsons Inn is located a little south of Raglan Creek, halfway along the old coach road between Gladstone and Rockhampton, which has been bypassed. The former inn is set parallel with the road and is a single-storeyed timber building on low stumps.
The building has a frame of bush poles and was originally clad at least partially with slabs, although most of these seem to have been replaced many years ago with weatherboards. The broken back roof is clad in corrugated iron. The front has an open verandah section in the centre and rooms on either side of this. These rooms have been extended. Behind this is a large room with lined walls and ceiling. At the rear are small rooms and a veranda which has lost most of its cladding and a section of roof.
The windows are between uprights of bush timber, as are the doors. The floors are of pit-sawn boards fastened to the bearers in places with large rectangular wooden pegs cut from pieces of pit-sawn timber. The sawpit is still visible close behind the building, though it has been filled in for safety reasons. Some sections originally open have been built in. The front wall, most interior walls and the ceilings of the main section are clad with beaded boards. The main room is lined with wide plain boards and has a stencilled dado on the end walls. The upper wall is pale blue and the lower wall pinkish grey, divided by a pink line and a grey/pink stencilled anthemion pattern above. Some boards which carried part of this design have been removed.
The former residence is a two-storeyed timber-framed building clad with weatherboards, with verandahs to both levels at each end and a galvanised iron roof. This building is now little more than a frame and is leaning precariously.
Beyond this house is a small weatherboard clad building with a pole frame standing in the remains of a post and rail enclosure. A roofed open area adjoins the building and leads into the yard section. There is a windmill and a water tank on stumps alongside.
It is thought that there are graves some distance behind the inn, but these were not located. The area around the inn is of value as an archaeological site which may yield further information on the way in which such early wayside inns were operated.
","history":"The former Parson's Inn buildings are timber vernacular structures located approximately 5 kilometres south of Raglan on the old coach road, now bypassed by the highway. The proprietor of this wayside inn from 1885 until the early 1900s was Edwin Parson and the property has remained in the possession of members of his family.
The area in which the inn is situated was surveyed for pastoral settlement in 1855 and most of county Clinton was soon taken up as runs producing wool. This included Raglan which was selected by William Landsborough and by 1857 was occupied by James and John Landsborough. By 1865 cattle were established in the district and soon replaced sheep. By 1867 there were over 180 runs in the district and a goldfield was proclaimed at Raglan, just south of Mount Holly. Miners from this field were later to frequent Parson's Inn, paying for their rations in gold. Following the Crown Lands Alienation Act in 1868, the huge early runs were broken up and resumed for selection as smaller grazing properties. The numbers of cattle being raised and transported in the Port Curtis area increased following the setting up of the Lakes Creek meatworks in 1871.
Edwin Parson's name first appears in the Post Office Directory of 1874 as being at Long Morn. He selected 517 acres at Black's Crossing, Raglan, in 1873 and an adjoining selection of 667 acres in 1874. On 5 May 1979, a mention is made in the diary of Stephen Creed of Langmorn station of an E Parsons 'in charge of 169 fat bullocks to be delivered to Brisbane by road', which may well refer to Edwin Parsons. The purchase of his selections was finalised in 1881.
Black's Crossing was the local name for a section of Raglan Creek crossed by a stock route. The places where major routes crossed watercourses were often used as camps by drovers and carriers and were excellent locations for inns which catered to travellers. These were places where one could obtain food and accommodation for people and horses, where it was usually possible to obtain the services of a blacksmith, leave or collect messages and gain information on the condition of the road ahead. The inns were also a social amenity as a source of company and conviviality on the road. Their services made the development of regular supply routes possible, which in turn made a major contribution to the way in which areas were opened up for European settlement.
Parson obtained a license for a hostelry named the Raglan Hotel at Black's Crossing in 1885. Although his name appears in most documents as Parsons, it is spelt on the hotel's signboard on a 19th century photograph without the 's'. He had not held a publican's license before and the license was in his name until 1902. It then passed to Joseph Jones and was held briefly by David Parsons in 1905, after which no further licenses were issued. It is probable that the inn operated only during the period when there was sufficient traffic on this road to support it. The route was also used for mail, a post office having opened in Raglan in 1879, although the mail was carried on horseback until 1887 when a weekly coach served the route.
It is not certain whether the building was constructed as an inn, or whether an existing building was modified, but it had both slabs and sawn boards for wall cladding at an early stage of its existence. A saw pit is still visible behind the building. In the use of bush pole frames for the building and window openings, pit sawn weatherboards, pegged floorboards, adzed slabs and other details, the inn provides examples of a range of early building techniques and demonstrates what could be achieved in a remote spot using the materials available to hand.
The hotel is described in a diary of Lady Lamington, wife of the governor of Queensland between 1896 and 1901. In 1897, while travelling privately to meet her husband at Rockhampton on his return from New Guinea, her boat encountered bad weather and it was agreed that she, her husband's secretary and his wife should hire a vehicle and driver and travel the last section overland. They stayed one night at the Raglan Hotel 'a wooden hut with some small trees nearby.' The hotel was run by a woman and her children, one of whom had recently died and who she had buried, presumably in the vicinity of the inn. Lady Lamington remembered that:
We were shown into the house, one rather small centre room with a sort of counter on one side for a bar, and behind this room were two or three bedrooms. The floor and walls were of planks which had shrunk after being put up, so we could with little effort, see what was going on in the next room, and as the floor was the same, I used to see the chickens scratching the ground under the floor between the short wooden piles on which the little Hotel!!! was built. The walls had coloured and uncoloured illustrations from different newspapers stuck on them in places, which made one's room a little more private. There was only one bedroom and a sort of press with a bed in it. We had only one very small basin between us for our ablutions. It was easy to empty it by just opening a wooden window, but not so easy to get the water to fill it again. "I have seen a good deal during my travels but sitting there in the little Bush shanty listening to this good woman's stories was very touching. Next morning I was woke up by hearing the children bringing in the cows for milking"
A photograph, which survives, was taken of the inn on this occasion by Pascoe Stuart, the Governor's secretary. Since then, rooms have been added to the ends of the building, but the simple rectangular form and open area at the front remain.
In 1904, some of Parson's land was resumed for the railway which opened in 1910. A new certificate of title was issued to him in 1904 for 491 acres giving his address as Sunnyside, Raglan. Although the inn was no longer licensed, it appeared as a hotel in the Post Office Directory until 1909 and may still have been used to accommodate travellers. The introduction of the railway no doubt cut traffic considerably on the old road and Edwin Parson was listed in the Post Office Directory as a selector before he died in 1911. The property was left to Walter Parsons who leased it to John Patrick Mitchell in 1912 for 21 years.
The Port Curtis Dairy Association was formed in 1906 and opened a dairy co-operative in Gladstone and in Rockhampton in 1928. This provided the opportunity for the development of the dairy industry in the area. For many years, until the late 1950s, the property on which Parson's Inn was located was run as a dairy farm. Walter Parsons lived in a 2 storeyed house nearby, the frame of which is still standing, while a family who worked on the farm occupied the inn. The property passed to Edwin Miles Parsons in February 1961. In 1970 it was surrendered to the Crown and a new Deed of Grant issued on 31 March 1971 for 491 acres to allow for road resumptions. The land passed to the current owner, also a family member, in 1982.
It is over 35 years since the building was occupied and it was used until recently for storing hay. A storm is said to have removed much of the cladding from the rear about 10-15 years ago. The stables behind the inn recorded in the National Trust's survey of 1981 have gone with no visible trace.
The small pole-framed building standing in yards near the house is said to have been used as a dairy. Its age is unknown, but it may be contemporary with the inn as similar construction techniques have been employed. No family documentation relating to the inn is known to survive.
","criteria":"The former Raglan Hotel, or Parson's Inn, illustrates the pattern of European settlement in Queensland as a wayside inn serving early an early route for the movement of livestock, essential supplies and mail. Such inns were an important element in the settlement of remote areas.
|The inn is rare in Queensland, as although many such travellers' inns were built, few examples using local materials, such as this one, have survived. It is thought that no other example of the technique used to peg the floor boards to the bearers has been identified in Queensland.
|The inn, its subsidiary structures and the area around them which formed part of the inn yards have the potential to reveal information about the operation of early hotels in Queensland.
|The former Parson's Inn is a good example of its kind and preserves many examples of early building techniques.
|The inn has associations with several generations of the Parsons family, who were early settlers in the area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22217,"place_ref":602598,"name":"Animal Research Institute (former)","alternate_name":"Animal Research Station (1932-1953) | Stock Experiment Station (1909-1932) | Animal Research Station | Stock Experiment Station","street_address":"681 Fairfield Road","suburb":"YEERONGPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-06-13","description":"The former Animal Research Institute is a complex of buildings, sheds and animal pens on a 12 hectare site in the Brisbane suburb of Yeerongpilly. Those structures considered of state-level heritage significance are: the Stock Experiment Station Main Building (1909), an associated Stable (1909), the purpose-built Animal Morgue (1934), and the Veterinary School Main Building and Hospital Block (1938-1940). The entire Institute site is bound on the north by King Arthur Terrace, to the east by Fairfield Road, on the south by the Tennyson Branch Railway line, and to the west by an easement shared with the Queensland Tennis Centre. Its entrance is on King Arthur Terrace on the north-eastern corner and the significant buildings are clustered on higher ground across the eastern half of the site with the remaining, lower area comprising many large, fenced yards of grass.
Stock Experiment Station Main Building
The Stock Experiment Station Main Building is a large timber-framed building comprising a central rectangular core with wings to the north (1932) and south (1950). All the building's phases feature verandahs, some of which are enclosed. The building is low-set and single-storey except for the southern wing which, in using the slope of the land, is two-storey. The roof is hipped and sheeted with corrugated metal and has three metal ventilators on the centre ridge which are not original. This building occupies the centre of the site facing east onto a large asphalted forecourt used for car parking. The view this forecourt provides of what has historically been the front façade of the earliest building on the Institute site is considered of cultural heritage significance, while the asphalt itself is not.
The different phases of construction of this building are distinguishable in its fabric. The original 1909 core is in a Federation style, the northern wing (1932) has elements typical of the interwar classical style, and the southern wing (1950) is in a post-war functionalist style. The exterior of the building is clad with chamferboards on the core and southern wing and weatherboards on the northern wing. The core is surrounded by verandahs which are mostly enclosed. The southern and northern wings are long and narrow and have verandahs on their western sides providing access to the rooms that open from them.
The composition of the eastern façade reflects the symmetrical plan of the core. The open verandah has a small, projecting central gabled entrance with decorative timber battens and arches sheltering a short timber stair. A later timber ramp provides access to its southern end, which is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Each verandah end is enclosed with glazing, weatherboards, and fibrous cement sheeting. The verandah balustrade is a timber post and rail arrangement that is not original and therefore not of cultural heritage significance. The verandah ceiling is tongue-and-groove jointed boarding on the rake and the floor is recent shot-edge boards.
The building's 1909 core comprises six rooms and a central hall leading off the east-facing front verandah to one of the rooms, a large laboratory, to the west. The hall has a decorative timber battened arch with moulded brackets and architrave. All rooms (except the laboratory) have pressed metal ceilings, pressed metal cornices, and decorative, ventilated ceiling roses some of which have evidence of gas pendant lights which are not extant. The ceiling of the former laboratory is lined with flat sheeting with no cornice. The other rooms, formerly laboratories and store rooms, have plastered walls with rounded corners which are stop-chamfered near the ceiling. The hall walls are timber, vertically-jointed boards. There are no skirtings or rails throughout and all walls and ceilings are painted. The floors are lined with non-original carpet or vinyl, coverings which are not of cultural heritage significance.
The rooms feature a number of built-in timber cabinets, shelves, work benches, and freestanding furniture that are early or original. Original internal doors are timber with stop-chamfered detailing and have early or original brass (as well as more recent) door furniture. A number of recent doors have been installed throughout the 1909 core and are not of cultural heritage significance. Timber French doors with glazing and decorative bolection moulding and timber casement windows open onto the eastern verandah. Some of these doors and windows retain original glazed fanlights with curved brass opening stays and mechanisms with ceramic knobs. Projecting from the north-western corner of the rear, western verandah are a number of smaller rooms containing toilets and a shower, a staff room, and a small laboratory. The walls and ceilings of these rooms are lined with fibrous cement sheeting and rounded cover strips, and the floors are finished with vinyl, ceramic tiles, and terrazzo. The 1909 laboratory contains equipment, cupboards, and workbenches.
The core of the Station Main Building is supported on low concrete stumps, and timber and steel posts. There is a small, timber enclosure under the core on its southern side that contains a small laboratory with shelving, workbenches, and cupboards.
The Station Main Building's northern wing comprises three rooms and a semi-enclosed, west-facing verandah. It is supported on low concrete stumps, and timber and steel posts. Tongue-and-groove jointed boarding lines the ceilings of each room and the floors are covered in vinyl or carpet. The walls of the central room are sheeted while the walls of the other two rooms have vertically-jointed boards with moulded belt rails. The rooms contain some solid timber furniture, wall-hung cupboards, and workbenches that appear original to the 1932 construction date. One original timber-boarded door remains in the southern-most room. The original windows are timber-framed and double-hung or casements with fanlights. Air conditioning units have replaced some windows however those remaining retain original brass hardware.
The southern wing comprises two levels, four rooms on the upper floor and three rooms and a toilets area on the lower, connected by a stair to west-facing verandahs. This building wing is founded on a concrete slab partially suspended and supported on brick-faced foundations. The rooms have plasterboard ceilings with a large coved cornice, plasterboard walls, a square timber skirting, and vinyl covered floors. The rooms contain solid timber built-in workbenches and wall-hung cupboards that are original to the 1950 construction date. The rooms also feature a number of solid timber, freestanding pieces of furniture. The doors are timber with a glazed panel and some have screens. The original windows are timber-framed with two layers, an inner set of double hung sashes and an outer layer of casements. Those on the eastern side have timber brackets with slots for a workbench shield. The toilet ceilings and walls are sheeted, and the floor is a vinyl composite coved to the wall. The fixtures are original.
Adjacent to the western side of the Stock Experiment Station's northern wing is a small building, rectangular in plan with a Dutch gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting, weatherboard clad walls, and a concrete slab floor. The top section of the exterior walls is in-filled with mesh to the soffit allowing ventilation of the interior. A channel in the slab drains into a drainage trough running around the base of the south-western corner. A concrete ramp leads to a door on the side of the building and a large concrete open-topped tank is positioned next to the north-eastern side. The doors are timber, one having a screen. Some windows have been sheeted up to hold air conditioning units, while others are later aluminium-framed sliders.
Stable
The Stable (1909) is located nearby to the north of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building. It is a long rectangle in plan with a hipped and gabled roof. A small secondary gable extends about three-quarters the length of the main ridge to assist ventilation. All roof planes are sheeted with corrugated metal. The stable is timber-framed, and clad in weatherboards. The floor is a concrete slab with areas of early brick flooring visible in the rooms on its eastern side. The gable end walls have ventilated weatherboards at the apex. The interior is divided into a number of rooms by a combination of vertically-jointed boarding and sheet walls. The doors are all modern and not significant. The early windows are double-hung timber sashes. Some have had air conditioning units installed in the bottom sash. Channels in the floor connect to an external concrete spoon drain that runs around the base of the building. In the largest room, facing west, meshed ventilation windows are positioned near the floor. A freestanding building which is not significant is located on the eastern side of the stable separated by a very narrow space with a concrete spoon drain.
Animal Morgue
The Animal Morgue (1934) is situated north of the Stable. The morgue is a cement-rendered concrete structure, square in plan, with a timber-framed pyramid roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A large metal ventilation fleche caps the ridge. A timber lean-to that is not significant shelters the entry doors. There are prominent stepped architraves around the exteriors of the windows. The interior walls are cement-rendered with coving to all corners. The floor is concrete, while the ceiling is white-painted cement sheet with dark-stained timber battens forming a geometric pattern. The ceiling features lattice timber ventilation panels and a skylight at the southern end made with translucent corrugated plastic sheeting. The double door is timber with multi-light glazed panels. The windows are multi-light, timber double-hung sashes and have external hinged timber-framed screens. There are small high level windows in the west wall. All glass in the building is obscured. A steel I-beam spans the width of the room from north to south. In the north-western corner is a concrete dissecting bench with drain and in the north-eastern corner is a similar bench with a ceramic sink and associated foot-operated tap. These tables drain to an integrated concrete surface gutter that runs around the western and northern edges of the floor. There is a central floor drain.
Veterinary School Main Building
The Veterinary School Main Building is located to the south-east of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building, facing east towards Fairfield Road. It is a large, single storey, U-shaped building of brick construction with a hipped roof clad with tiles. The building is notable for its Interwar Classical design and detailing, including its symmetrical plan form, high ceilings, interior colour scheme of white paint and dark-stained timber, and the rhythmic placement of its windows. The exterior of the building is glazed brick with cream-painted, cement-rendered dressings. The symmetrical front façade has a central pedimented entry and flanking wings with rhythmically placed windows terminating in projecting bays. The entry is prominent, having brick planters and metal pedestal lights with large globe-shaped shades. A metal awning shelters the door and is not significant.
The entry foyer has a terrazzo floor, rendered walls scored to imitate stonework, moulded timber picture rail, decorative plaster cornice, and stained and clear lacquered timber doors with leaded glazing panels, sidelights, and fanlights. A timber-framed reception window opens into the adjacent room. The room features timber, wall-hung display cabinet and pigeon holes, and a large amount of veterinary science paraphernalia.
The building plan is arranged around a central corridor that runs down all wings providing access to variously sized rooms on either side. The entry (eastern) wing contains laboratories, offices, toilets, and store rooms. The southern wing contains similar spaces and also a dark room and the post-mortem room. This is a large room, its floor set lower than the other rooms with coved concrete skirtings. It has a large doorway to the exterior in-filled with more recent glazing and a timber door, and a steel I-beam on the ceiling above the door. The northern wing again contains laboratories, offices and store rooms, but also a large lecture room with dais and kitchenette, and an equine operating theatre. Another large room, it has concrete floors, coved concrete skirtings, walls tiled to shoulder height, a steel I-beam and hoist trolley fixed to the ceiling above the large doorway to the exterior.
The Veterinary School building interior has sheeting and batten cover strips lining its ceilings in a geometric pattern. The ceiling ventilation panels have all been sheeted over. Walls are rendered, and floors are finished with carpet, vinyl, or sealed concrete coved to the walls. There are dark-stained and clear-finished timber skirtings, cornices, picture rails, and architraves in most rooms. Room names are painted on timber panels and fixed above doorways. The timber doors match the other timberwork in the building with circular, glass observation panels, or panels with bolection moulding. Most retain original brass hardware and some the original auto-closers. Windows are timber-framed double-hung sashes or timber-framed fixed panes; many of which have external, hinged, timber-framed screens and retain original brass hardware.
The building retains many original items of built-in and freestanding furniture including terrazzo-topped, cantilevered concrete work benches, solid timber cabinets, drawers, cupboards, ceramic pedestal basins, wall-hung timber display cases, and picture frames. The toilets retain original partitions and doors as well as many fixtures and fittings. Cupboards and store rooms retain original timber shelving.
The main facade of the building looks to the east and a grassed area where a large, circular garden bed formed by concrete edging is positioned. Its shape and extent are significant but not the edging. In its centre is a steel flagpole dating from the period of the School's occupation during WWII. The building wings facing to the west enclose a small courtyard which has large sections of concrete pathway and some plantings, none of which are significant.
Veterinary School Hospital Block
The Veterinary School Hospital Block is located to the west of the Veterinary School Main Building and its L-shaped plan completes a large grassed courtyard between the two. The hospital block is long and narrow with small stalls for animals along the western range, a two-level, brick fodder store in the south-western corner, a series of work rooms by the yard entrance on the north-west, further work rooms in the southern range terminating to the east with a blacksmith's room with forge and chimney. It combines glazed brickwork (the same as in the Veterinary School Main Building adjacent) and timber construction with a hipped roof over the fodder store and skillion roofs elsewhere; all clad with corrugated metal sheets. The interior walls of the animal stalls are painted brick with concrete floors. Enclosure on the yard side is by timber half-doors, steel mesh, and fly screens. Small, high-level windows feature on the rear wall. A timber and mesh enclosure runs along the front of the animal stalls and a concrete apron with drain extends into the courtyard. The workrooms and blacksmith's room have timber double-hung sash windows and ceilings of jointed boarding. The forge is sheeted over internally. The upper level of the fodder store is accessed by a timber stair and door on its western facade, where a large timber beam and part of a pulley is fixed to the ceiling above the doorway. There is evidence of a trap door into the lower level. The three-bay garage on the northern end of the hospital block's western range of rooms opens to the north. Adjacent to this is a small reception office, gate, and store rooms that attach to the north-western end of the Veterinary School Main Building.
Additions have been made to the western side of the Hospital Block and are not of heritage significance. Nor are the garages that were part of its original construction (1938-40).
","history":"The former Animal Research Institute at Yeerongpilly was established by the Department of Agriculture and Stock (now the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, part of the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation) in 1909 as the Stock Experiment Station. The Station was the first purpose-built, farm-based facility of Australia's first Stock Institute and its work was primarily to research and control diseases in livestock, develop vaccines and improve animal health and production. The complex was extended over time to accommodate the changing needs of the Institute, the University of Queensland's first veterinary training facility in 1938-1940 and then, between 1933 and 1967, the interrelated work of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
In 1889 an Intercolonial Stock Conference in Melbourne recommended that an Australasian Stock Institute be established to study diseases in livestock; however the various colonies could not reach agreement on the matter. The first such institute was set up in Queensland in 1893 following a deputation of stock owners to the then Colonial Secretary, the Hon. B Moreton. What was called the Queensland Stock Institute was initially set up in rented premises in Turbot Street, Brisbane, under bacteriologist Charles Joseph Pound. The premises included a laboratory and a museum.
Pound was a 'microscopist' who trained in London in microscopy, physiology and bacteriology and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in developing vaccines, then a new technology. Arriving in Sydney in 1892, he worked first for the New South Wales Department of Health before taking up the position in Queensland.
As part of his work for the new Stock Institute, in 1894 Pound proved that ticks transmitted Redwater Disease (Bacillary Hemoglobinuria), which was causing heavy losses in Queensland cattle. He conducted the first inoculation studies into this disease in Australia and established a methodology and dosage that are still used worldwide. He trained stockowners in the techniques of collecting recovered blood, defibrillating it and using this vaccine to inoculate their stock. To facilitate this, he invented the 'Pound' syringe and arranged for it to be manufactured. Backed by his lectures and published articles, this work made a major contribution to the success of Queensland's cattle industry. Pound's activities also included obtaining pathological specimens of various manifestations of diseases in stock and other domesticated animals, and items sent in by stock owners were added to the museum's collection. However, the primary object of the Institute in 1895 was to cultivate the pleuro-pneumonia virus for inoculating cattle. In 1897 administration of the Institute passed from the Colonial Secretary's Office to the Queensland Department of Agriculture, founded in 1887.
In 1899 new premises for the Institute were constructed in the Brisbane suburb of Normanby. The two-storey red brick building, located next to the Boys Grammar School residence on College Road, included rooms for Mr Pound and clerical work; a general laboratory; plus chemistry, incubator, sterilizing and photographic rooms on the ground floor, and a museum, library and lecture room on the first floor. Outbuildings included two stalls and loose-boxes, plus other facilities for stock used in experiments.
Due to the government's increased focus on human health Pound was transferred to the Health Section of the Home Secretary's Department as Government Bacteriologist and the department was renamed the Bacteriological Institute. He was the only scientist in Australia then producing tuberculin, used in diagnosing human and bovine tuberculosis, and also carrying out work on leprosy.
In 1907, due to concerns about the impact of cattle tick on the dairy industry, the Institute returned to the control of the Department of Agriculture and Stock and Dr Sydney Dodd was appointed Principal Veterinary Surgeon and Bacteriologist for three years. He continued research work on the eradication of cattle ticks and the diseases caused by them. At his suggestion, the Department acquired 23 hectares of land at Yeerongpilly for an experimental station capable of accommodating the animals needed for research and sufficient for grass and crops to make the farm self-supporting in fodder. The Yeerongpilly site was more suitable than other sites considered as it was bounded on the north by the river, on the south by the railway line, leaving only narrow frontages on the east and west to adjoining land and public roads, thereby reducing the danger that disease could spread.
The first land sales in the Yeerongpilly area had begun in the 1850s and arrowroot and cotton were initially grown, being replaced by sugar cane before the industry moved north following a series of cold winters. In 1879, the Yeerongpilly Divisional Board was formed. The development of rail links in the 1880s opened the area to residential development; but this slowed in the late 19th century following the 1893 floods, which submerged much of Yeerongpilly; and the depression of the 1890s. In the early 20th century, development increased again and most of the area was connected to electricity by the 1920s.
The Stock Experiment Station complex, designed by Dodd, opened in 1909 making Queensland the first state to possess such a facility. As well as Dodd, it employed two laboratory assistants and two farm workers. The offices and laboratories were housed in a timber building, the Stock Experiment Station Main Building, probably designed by Arthur Morry, who was then the Department's architect. It had five rooms off a central corridor that led to a large, sixth room. There were verandahs on the eastern, northern and western sides. The rooms were all airy and well-lit, with fly-proof shields to windows and doors. The main laboratory in the room at the rear was fitted-out with shelves, cupboards and workbenches, much of which remains in 2011. There were also support structures and animal yards, along with a post mortem room, sheep and pig pens and an incinerator.
In 1909 a stable was erected to the north of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building. The Department of Agriculture and Stock Annual Report for 1910 described the building:
'The stable provide four stalls, a loose-box, and feed-room, with a room for harness, tools, etc., and another room for small animals, specially ventilated. The manger fittings are of iron, with water-pots and hay-racks combined. The floors of stalls are laid with a special channelled stable brick, and a tramway is laid the whole length of the building with an overhead traveller for removing the carcasses of dead animals.'
A similar building of 12 stalls, designated as cattle byres, was erected immediately to the north but it does not survive. The total cost of the complex to October 1909 was £5,000.
In 1910 Dodd resigned and Pound was transferred from the Bacteriological Institute, taking charge of the new Station until his retirement in 1932, when the facility was renamed the Animal Health Station and a large wing was added to the northern side of the main building to provide additional laboratories. This wing comprised three rooms accessed by a verandah on the western side, part of which was later in-filled. Some original benches and bookcases have been removed. A verandah annex accommodating toilet, store, shower and dressing room on the 1909 section was extended in 1940 to include a ladies dressing room and the whole was modified in 1958 for further laboratory space and updated staffroom and toilets.
Facilities for undertaking post mortems were an essential part of the work of the Stock Experiment Station. The first detached post mortem building was erected in the 1920s and by the early 1930s a new one was required. This building, the Animal Morgue, was erected in 1934 to designs prepared by Department of Public Works architect DFW Roberts. It comprised a single room with a purpose-built concrete mortuary table in the centre and two concrete dissecting benches against the northern wall. As much as possible of the building was constructed of concrete for ease of cleaning and hygiene. It was well ventilated with ceiling vents and a Robinson's Patent ventilator on the roof. The joins between walls and floor were coved. The windows and doors were timber and fly-screens were provided to all openings. Taps operated by foot remain at the dissecting bench in the north-eastern corner.
In the 1930s, Station staff carried out the first animal husbandry research studies in Queensland with nutritional experiments on pigs and poultry. Major alterations were undertaken in 1939 to convert the Animal Health Station for use as an anatomy school by the University of Queensland's Veterinary School. In April 1935 Premier Forgan-Smith had stated the reasoning behind the government's funding of a veterinary school for Queensland - that:
'Queensland ... was a primary producer, and its problems could in large measure be solved by research; veterinary science would supplement the contribution of agriculture ... a scientific veterinary staff would enable the Department of Agriculture and Stock to deal efficiently with all aspects of veterinary problems and only a Queensland school could meet Queensland's needs ...'
The Courier Mail concurred: 'animal husbandry, sheep, beef and diary cattle supported the whole edifice of the state's economy. The need was clear ...'.
Subsequently in 1936, a faculty of Veterinary Science had been established within the University of Queensland to provide local training for veterinarians. For practical and economic reasons the faculty used the existing facilities at the Animal Health Station at Yeerongpilly and the North Queensland Stock Experiment Station at Oonoonba in Townsville (est. 1915), as it was thought that their work would complement that of the Veterinary Science Department.
A dedicated building for the School was planned for the Yeerongpilly site and its first stage - comprising part of the animal hospital and the northern wing of the main building - was completed in 1938. Facilities for anatomy were still required so the 1909 stable was altered for this purpose by infilling the door openings on the north with weatherboards and casement windows, lining interior walls with VJ pine boards, inserting a ceiling and covering the brick floor with a concrete slab. (It is not clear if all brick floors were simply covered or some removed. Some channeled brick flooring remains in the room on the south-eastern corner of the stable in 2011.) In circa 1940 a skillion-roofed, weatherboard-clad annex was erected along the stable's eastern side.
The final two stages in the building of the Veterinary School were completed by 1940 commencing with the remainder of the Hospital Block and the southern wing, and ending with the eastern (entry) wing. It contained five laboratories, offices, library, dark room, stores, toilets, locker and common rooms; the northern wing offices, lecture rooms, X-ray room and operating theatres; and the southern wing a museum, preparation room, post-mortem room and common room. The Hospital Block was L-shaped forming a courtyard at the rear of Main Building. It provided accommodation for cattle, horses, dogs, cats, and small animals receiving treatment. A two-storey fodder store was located on the south-western corner of the Hospital Block and a blacksmith shop on the eastern end of its southern wing. The construction of the Veterinary School was completed for £26,000.
The Veterinary School suspended its activities during World War II. The United States Army's 3rd Medical Laboratory arrived in Brisbane in June 1942, and its Headquarters Section moved into the new Veterinary School buildings soon after. The functions of a Medical Laboratory (on behalf of US Army medical units) included: water analyses; examination of food supplies; investigation of epidemics and epizootics; and the distribution of special laboratory supplies. The laboratories performed special serological, bacteriological, pathological and chemical examinations, and would have played an important role in safeguarding the health of US troops operating in a tropical environment.
Medical Laboratories could also furnish support for post mortem examinations. The USA Quartermaster had a morgue in Yeerongpilly by October 1943, and this was probably the morgue at the School. US military personnel who died in Australia were buried locally, including at Ipswich, and their bodies were returned to the US after the war.
The 3rd Medical Laboratory was the only laboratory in the South West Pacific Area until mid 1943, and it also functioned as a Malaria School. Apparently it did not treat any patients. A Veterinary Officer also served at the Headquarters section, to supervise the animal section of the laboratory. In August 1943 the 3rd Medical Laboratory was replaced at Yeerongpilly by the 8th Medical Laboratory, which left Australia in late August 1944. The circular garden arrangement with flagpole located in front of the Veterinary School is a typical US Army design, and probably dates from the period of US occupation. The Veterinary School was handed back to the government in excellent order, with some improvements, in September 1944. After the departure of the US Army, staff from the Stock Experiment Station Main Building moved into the Veterinary School Main Building. In 1946-7 the university moved into relocated timber buildings on site. The University of Queensland's Veterinary School remained there in temporary accommodation until February 1961 when the school moved to the St Lucia campus.
By the early 1930s, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, established in 1926 by the Federal government) were conducting research on stock in Queensland, collaborating with and complementing the work of the Department of Agriculture and Stock. This interaction saw responsibilities for certain aspects of pest control and research shift between the organizations. Over time a number of scientists involved in animal research worked for both organizations. Among these scientists, one who had a longstanding and important association with Yeerongpilly was Dr Frederick Hugh Sherston (FHS) Roberts (1901-1972). Born in Rockhampton, Roberts studied at the University of Queensland and was based at Yeerongpilly from 1933 as an Entomologist and Parasitologist. Roberts specialized in researching parasitic diseases of livestock and was sent abroad for this purpose, and additionally researched domestic animal parasites.
From 1945, CSIR were using the Stock Experiment Station Main Building. In 1947 Roberts was appointed as principal research officer and officer-in charge of the new CSIR Veterinary Parasitology Laboratory at Yeerongpilly. The CSIR announced in early 1948 that in tandem with beef production expansion, Queensland would become the Australian centre for research into the industry. In June of that year the Department of Agriculture and Stock announced that the CSIR would be granted for ten years, 'free of interest' the buildings at the State Animal Health laboratory (Cairns Post, 15 June 1948, p3).
In 1949, CSIR was renamed CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. A timber wing was added on the southern side of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building in 1950 to provide additional facilities for CSIRO's Veterinary Parasitology Laboratory. Under the leadership of Roberts, this laboratory became known internationally for its work on parasitic diseases of cattle. A number of other subsidiary buildings were also erected on the site during this period to accommodate the work of CSIRO.
In 1954, the Animal Health Station was renamed the Animal Research Institute and from 1967 State Government laboratory staff were again housed in the Stock Experiment Station Main Building, following CSIRO's departure for new laboratories at Long Pocket, Indooroopilly.
In 1952 about 21 acres (approx.8.5 hectares) of the site was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and then on to the State Electricity Authority for the development of the Tennyson Power Station, which has since been demolished to make way for riverside apartment blocks and a tennis centre.
There are several buildings on site that are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. In 1956 three buildings were erected at the rear of western wing of the Veterinary School Hospital Block - two brick buildings accommodating animal stalls and a metal-clad and framed building for stores. The c.1938 garage adjacent to the northern end of the hospital was also extended as part of these additions. In 1960 a brick staff amenities building was erected adjacent to the stores building and abutting the western wall of the Hospital Block. These buildings demonstrate the expansion of the Animal Research Institute in the 1950s and early 1960s but are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Several timber buildings erected in the early 1950s to provide additional offices and laboratory accommodation are located immediately to the rear of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building. These buildings are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Work carried out by the Institute over the years includes testing to diagnose diseases of cattle, sheep, goats, horses, deer, pigs and poultry. It is famous for its research into cattle tick fever and developing vaccines against stock diseases. Research work has been carried out on plant poisons, infectious and parasitic diseases, trace element deficiencies and metabolic disorders. Many diseases of livestock were first diagnosed and described at Yeerongpilly, leading to effective control measures being developed. The research undertaken by the Institute has been a major factor in the development of pastoral primary industries in Queensland.
Following road works in 1983 the main entrance to the Institute was relocated from Fairfield Road to Ortive Street.
In 1999 the Department of Primary Industries opened the CJ Pound Laboratory at the Tick Fever Research Centre at Wacol, in honour of a man who was described by one newspaper as the 'boffin' who 'saved the cattle industry'.
In 2011 the Institute has vacated the site which is to be redeveloped.
","criteria":"The Animal Research Institute (former) at Yeerongpilly is the oldest facility of its kind in Queensland, its work having begun with the establishment of the Stock Experiment Station in 1909 - the state's first purpose-built, farm-based animal research laboratory - and continued until its closure in 2010. The place demonstrates the enduring importance of the pastoral primary industries to Queensland's economy and the commitment of successive governments to supporting this industry through scientific research into its productivity, most particularly the diseases that threatened its profitability.
The Veterinary School Main Building and Hospital Block (1938-1940) are the first purpose-built facility for tertiary-level veterinary science training in Queensland. The buildings demonstrate the formalisation of professional training in the medical and veterinary sciences, and its physical association within professional facilities, an approach being strongly advocated by the state government at the time.
Over the course of its long history the Animal Research Institute (former) has accommodated the work of the state government's Animal Research Institute, the University of Queensland Veterinary School and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The place is associated with important scientific advances in diagnostic research into the prevention and treatment of diseases in livestock, and the development and supply of vaccines, to which all of these organisations have contributed.
The circular garden bed and flagpole at the front of the Veterinary School Main Building provide the only evidence of the occupation of it, and other parts of the site now demolished, by the United States Army during World War II. The 3rd Medical Laboratory, based there from 1942 until 1943 when the 8th Medical Laboratory took its place, played an important role in safeguarding the health of US troops operating in a tropical environment and was the only laboratory in the South West Pacific Area until mid 1943.
|The core of the Stock Experiment Station Main Building and the Stable, the earliest parts of the former Animal Research Institute, have a special association with Charles Joseph Pound (b. 1866, d. 1946), the inaugural director of the Queensland Stock Institute, the first such laboratory in Australia, and head of the facility at Yeerongpilly from 1910 to 1932 when he retired. Pound is credited with the research and development that provided a means of preventing the spread of Redwater Disease, which caused heavy losses to Queensland's vital cattle industry during the late nineteenth century. Under the auspices of the Institute Pound conducted the first inoculation studies into this disease in Australia and established a methodology and dosage that are still used worldwide.
The former Animal Research Institute also has a special association with the internationally renowned parasitologist and entomologist Dr Frederick Hugh Sherston Roberts (b. 1901, d. 1972) who began work at the Yeerongpilly research facility in 1933 when it was known as the Animal Health Station. Following World War II, he returned to work at Yeerongpilly and under his direction as principal research officer and officer-in-charge of CSIRO's veterinary parasitology laboratory (1947-1966) the Yeerongpilly institute gained an international reputation for its studies of parasitic diseases in cattle.
|The Stock Experiment Station Main Building (1909), Stable (1909) and Animal Morgue (1934) are important as a demonstration of the principal characteristics of an animal research facility, comprising research laboratories, offices, animal accommodation and handling, and facility for conducting post mortems.
The Veterinary School Main Building and Hospital Block (1938-1940) are important as a demonstration of the principal characteristics of Queensland's first veterinary school, including formally composed facades, offices, a lecture room, library, laboratories, animal operating and post-mortem rooms, animal stalls, fodder store and blacksmith.
The Stock Experiment Station Main Building, Animal Morgue, Veterinary School Main Building, and Hospital Block are substantially intact and retain original interior and exterior detailing to facilitate superior functionality, as well as built-in and loose furniture, fixtures, and fittings used specifically for performing animal research, all of which provide a clear demonstration of the original function of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22219,"place_ref":602599,"name":"Acland No. 2 Colliery (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Francis Street","suburb":"ACLAND","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-06-29","description":"The former Acland No.2 Colliery comprises virtually all of the structures and machinery associated with the mine when it was operational. Structures include the mine portals, tramway, pithead, coal handling and processing plant and most of the ancillary buildings.
The pithead structures are located close to eastern side of the main road from Acland and the other structures extend to the north and the east of the pithead. The original mine portal (number 2 portal) is located east of the pithead and the number three portal is located about sixty metres to the north.
Tramway
The underground workings of the mine were accessed by two portals, which remain extant on the site. These portals have been filled in. The tramline formations and rails connect the underground workings to the pithead and also run to the workshop. Switchgear associated with the tramway remains intact.
Metal tramway wagons, called skips, were used to carry the coal. These remain extant on the site and are currently located in the pithead structure. The skips comprise a simple metal bin mounted on tram wheels. The skips were hauled along the tramway by a cable and pulley system, which is extant except for the cable. Underground, away from the main haul road, diesel locomotives were used to haul the skips. These locomotives are extant at the mine also.
The winch house associated with the cable system is extant on the site just to the north of the pithead. This structure is a brown, chamfer board hut with a corrugated iron roof. The hut contains a large electric motor connected to a belt driven pulley system. The pulleys drive a large metal winding drum. A small section of cable remains connected to the drum. A number of operational signs remain extant on the walls of the hut together with chalked notes dating from the early 1980s.
Pithead, loading gantry and picking belt
The pithead, loading gantry and picking belt form a large, multi-level timber and corrugated iron structure that dominates the site. The structure contains most of the coal handling machinery. The tramway travels up an embankment and enters a large opening to the south of the structure, the railway siding passes underneath the western end and the loading gantry and picking belt project from the northern side. The floor of the pithead is wooden. Short wooden slats are fastened to the floor between the rails and on the northern side to provide purchase for feet when pushing the skips into position.
On entering the pithead, one of the tramlines crosses a weighbridge. A metal weighing mechanism is located on the northern side of the tracks. A curved, white graduated scale on top of the mechanism faces the track. A wooden podium stands just to the west of this mechanism. The top of the podium is flat and sloped to support an open book.
After crossing the weighbridge, the tramlines enter two tipplers. The tipplers comprise a section of track located between two metal hoops. The whole assembly pivots so when a skip is parked in the tippler, it can be tipped onto its side so the contents can be emptied. The first tippler empties via the space formerly occupied by the screening plant onto the picking belt. The second tippler, located at the western end of the pithead empties via a hopper into a wagon parked on the railway siding.
The picking belt consists of a long conveyor belt. A raised deck runs the length of the southern side of the belt. Workers stood on this deck when sorting rocks from the coal. The gear mechanism and electric motor is located at the northern end of the belt. An electric control panel for the belt is located next to the deck opposite the belt. A second belt is located underneath the picking belt. This conveys the coal back towards the pithead.
From the picking belt, the coal is carried to an elevator. The elevator consists of a chain loop to which is attached a series of metal buckets. The coal falls into the buckets and is conveyed via the chain to the top of the loading gantry. From here, the coal spills into the hopper that feeds the rail wagons parked on the siding.
Ancillary buildings
Workshops
The workshops are located to the northeast of the pithead. They comprise two gabled sheds attached to each other. A tramline runs into the western side of the mechanical workshop. This is a brown, corrugated iron building. Two large hinged doors, clad in corrugated iron, provide rail access through the western side. A wooden door opens to the south of this. A second wooden door opens on the opposite side. The building has no windows.
A smaller weatherboard shed is attached to the north side of the mechanical workshop. This is the electrical workshop. A small weatherboard alcove projects from the northern side of the building. Sash windows open into the northern and southern sides of the building. A small two-paned window opens into the alcove. The building has no external doors.
Bob's hut
A gabled, single roomed hut, clad in corrugated iron and unsealed, is located to the northeast of number three portal. This hut was formerly a miner's residence. The wooden floor of the hut is fixed to bearers that sit directly on the ground. A door opening is located on the southern side of the hut and a window opening on the eastern side. A corrugated iron car port is attached to the eastern side and a stove alcove extends from the southern end next to the door.
Mine Manager's Office
The former mine manager's office is to the east of the workshop. It is a brown, wooden, weatherboard hut with a gabled, corrugated iron roof. It is elevated on short stumps. A verandah extends the full length of the western side. The verandah does not have a balustrade. Access is via a short staircase. A panelled wooden door opens into the centre of this elevation. Two sashed windows open either side of the door. The opposite (eastern) side of the house has a similar arrangement of door and windows. A ramp provides access to the door on this side. A steel carport of recent construction projects the full length of the eastern side. A water tank is located at each end of the former office.
Recent shed
Just to the north of the former office is a corrugated iron shed of recent construction. It has a gabled roof and roller doors. A large flat roofed, open sided shed is attached to the side.
Bathroom
The former bathroom, now a residence, is east of the pithead. This is a long weatherboard building with a gabled, corrugated iron roof. Short gabled projections extend from the eastern and western elevations about half way along the building. Aluminium sliding windows open into the sides of the building and an aluminium sliding door provides access into the northern end. A hinged door opens into the eastern side, just to the south of the gabled projection.
Crib hut and lamp room
The former crib hut and lamp room is a small, white weatherboard hut with a gabled corrugated iron roof. The hut is elevated on short stumps. A wooden door provides access into the eastern end. Casement windows open into the sides. The interior of the hut contains three battery chargers used to recharge batteries used in the miners' lamps. One of these chargers still holds miners' lamps. A selection of equipment and clothing used in the mine is also contained in this building.
Machinery displays
A simple corrugated iron shelter of recent construction is located just to the west of the workshops. This covers two Jenbach, diesel locomotives. An enclosure near the number three portal contains a mechanical loader and a mechanical coal cutter.
Coal Loader
Ventilation shafts and explosives store
At the northernmost end of the site, there is a metal and concrete structure. This is the remains of the fan house that is located over a ventilation shaft into the number three mine. A similar structure is extant at the easternmost extent of the site. This marks the location of the ventilation shaft for the number two mine. A small explosives hut is located at the northeastern extremity of the site.
","history":"The Former Acland No 2 Colliery is a small underground coalmine close to Oakey on the Darling Downs. It comprises most of the above ground structures associated with the mine together with associated machinery, filled in mine portals and spoil heap.
Coal was one of the first minerals in Queensland to be commercially mined. However, development of the coal mining industry was slow. Until the 1950s, coal was produced to supply the local market only: steamships at first; followed by steam locomotives later in the 19th century.
A symbiotic relationship existed between Queensland Government Railways and the coal industry. Queensland Railways was the coal industry's largest customer since coal supplies were essential to the functioning of the rail network. At the same time rail transport was essential to the viability of coalmines: a mine could not survive commercially unless it was directly linked to the rail network. In Queensland, development of the coal industry was closely linked to the growth of the rail network.
From the late 1950s, the industry experienced major change owing to the conversion from steam locomotives to diesel locomotives by Queensland Rail, the rapid growth of the export market and the development of large-scale open cut mining. By the end of the 20th century, Queensland was the nation's largest coal producer and over 90% of the state's coalmines were open cut.
Coal exploration in the eastern Darling Downs was initially stimulated by demand for coal at the locomotive depot in Chinchilla. After a branch line opened between Oakey and Cooyar in c1913, mining commenced in the Acland region in the vicinity of the railway line. The first coalmines in the district included Sugarloaf Colliery, Kingsthorpe Mine, Balgowan Colliery, Willaroo Mine and the Acland Coal Company Limited Mine. The Acland No 2 Colliery opened in 1929.
Initially at Acland, coal mining utilised manual methods. Coal was excavated from the mine face and loaded into 'skips' using hand implements. The skips were moved manually along an underground tramline to the main underground haul road. Here, they were attached to a steam operated cable and pulley system that hauled them to the pithead.
When the skips arrived at the pithead they passed over a weighbridge. Until the 1950s, the miners' pay was based on the weight of coal that they produced. They used a tag system to identify their skips. The weighbridge and tally desk used for determining the weight of coal each miner excavated survive extant at Acland.
The introduction of electricity in the Oakey area in the late 1940s stimulated increased mechanisation of the area's coalmines. Conversion to more mechanised methods at Acland commenced in the early 1950s.
In 1951, the gauge of the underground tram rail was increased and the underground tunnels were widened to permit the access of small diesel locomotives. Two Jenbach 15 locomotives were introduced in 1952 together with larger steel skips. Mechanical tipplers (still extant) were installed at the pithead to handle the new steel skips. The tippler was a device for emptying the coal from the skips into the coal processing plant.
In 1953, a new screening plant was installed. Contamination of Acland coal with foreign material had been a source of concern to the mine's customers. The new plant ensured the production of cleaner, graded coal. The screen has now been removed from the mine site.
The new plant also included two elevators of steel construction and a 30 feet by 4 feet picking belt. The picking belt was used to facilitate the removal, by hand, of rock from the coal. Oversized pieces of coal could also be manually crushed with hammers. Elsewhere, skip haulage and hand-picking became obsolete but at Acland these methods continued to be used until the mine's closure. The elevators were used to convey the processed coal to the top of the hoppers for loading into train wagons. The picking belt and elevators survive intact at the mine.
The screening plant was driven by seven new electric motors. An electrical switchboard and switching equipment was installed to provide power to the motors.
The haulage system was converted from steam to electricity in 1954 with the installation of a 90 horsepower electric motor winch. The existing steam plant continued to be used for back-up. The steam plant has been removed but the winch room containing the electric winch and associated machinery remains intact.
Further improvements were made between 1955 and the end of the decade. These included installation of a surge bin with a conveyor feed chain under one of the tipplers and a new blacksmith's shop. The gantry was redecked and its roof was raised.
In 1955 and 1956, a new Jenbach diesel locomotive, a Sampson coal cutter and a Sampson coal loader were introduced. By 1958, the mine had a facility for servicing machinery underground. A Minesmobile Loader was purchased in 1973.
Two Jenbach locomotives and a Sampson coal loader displayed at the site were used in the mine. A coal cutter on the site was assembled from spare parts from elsewhere.
From the late 1950s, the small coal mines in the Acland area began to fall victim to the major changes taking place in the coal industry. The demand for coal to supply Queensland Rail, traditionally a major customer of the small mines, dramatically fell during the 1960s owing to the conversion from steam to diesel locomotives. Another key factor was the shift to more efficient large-scale mining leading to the dominance of open cut mines. By 1971, the Acland No 2 Colliery was the only coalmine left on the Darling Downs.
The mine continued to operate until November 1984, supplying coal to the Toowoomba Hospital. When the mine closed, the mine structures were bought by Kath and John Greenhalgh, the owners of the farm on which the mine was located. The Greenhalghs kept the mine intact and opened it as a museum. In 2000, when the Greenhalghs decided to retire from the land, they sold the mine to the Rosalie Shire Council. It ceased to operate as a museum from that time.
The mine has survived almost completely intact. In addition to the tramway system and most of the coal processing plant, most of the ancilliary buildings survive. These include the workshops, manager's office, crib room and lamp room complete with battery chargers and miners' lights, explosives store, ventilation shafts and fan rooms, bathroom, switch room and a miner's hut.
","criteria":"The mine is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of small underground coalmines of the early to mid-20th Century. Due to its high degree of intactness, the mine illustrates almost the complete mining process as it was carried out at the mine. Intact structures and machinery include the coal haulage system including the tramway and cable system; the pithead structure and virtually all of the coal processing and handling machinery; and most of the ancillary buildings. Mining machines that were used underground in the mine remain extant on the site including a coal loader, two Jenbach diesel locomotives and metal coal skips, all dating to the 1950s. Extensive documentary records and plans associated with the mine remain extant including pay books dating to the opening of the mine in 1929.
|The Former Acland No 2 Colliery (1929 - 1984) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's coal mining industry. The former Acland colliery, a small underground mine originally opened to supply Queensland Government Railways is typical, in scale and type, of coalmines that were common prior to the late 1950s. Small underground mines like the Acland Colliery became less common during the 1960s due to changes in the scale and technology of mining.
The mine is also important in demonstrating the development of mining technology insofar that it illustrates a transitional phase between hand mining methods and full mechanisation. The practise of sorting and sizing of coal by hand, commonly at the coalface, ceased with the introduction of aboveground screening plants and picking belts. These were used at Acland No 2 Colliery where the picking belt and part of the screen assembly remain intact. Picking belts, in turn, were rendered obsolete by mechanical washing plants such as jigs.
The mine also retains physical evidence of former work practises that were common in coal mining. Miners were employed under contact and paid on the basis of the weight of coal they excavated. The weighbridge and tally desk used for this purpose are intact at the Acland mine.
|The Acland No 2 Colliery is rare in Queensland for its high degree of intactness as an early small underground coalmine. It is the most intact mine site of its age and type in Queensland.
It is also a rare example of a mine demonstrating a transitional phase between hand and fully mechanised mining. The mine has an intact picking belt used to separate rock from coal and to crush oversized pieces of coal by hand before the advent of mechanical washing plants.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22226,"place_ref":602605,"name":"WWII RAN Fuel Installation","alternate_name":"World War Two RAN Fuel Installation | Second World War RAN Fuel Installation | Tank Art Centre","street_address":"Collins Avenue","suburb":"EDGE HILL","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-02-02","description":"The former WWII RAN Fuel Installation at Edge Hill is located 5 kilometres north of the original port of Cairns, in the foothills of the Mt Whitfield Range. The installation, built into the side of Mt Islay, comprises five large fuel tanks (three in concrete, two in steel), earth and concrete bunds, two pump houses, a fire station (garage), foam tank and part of a disused railway embankment, located within three non-contiguous land parcels. Associated with the installation is a fuel pipeline in Commonwealth ownership, which cannot be included in the Queensland Heritage Register entry for the former WWII RAN Fuel Installation.
Site 1: Tanks 1 and 2
(Lot 346 on RP711610)
Land parcel 346/RP711610 is located on the north side of Collins Avenue near the eastern entrance to the Flecker Botanical Gardens, on a former railway reserve. It contains tanks 1 and 2, a pump house, an earth bund and a concrete bund.
Tanks 1 and 2 are welded steel circular structures set on concrete foundations.
Tank 1 has external steel stairs and pipe fixtures have been removed. Floor panels, roof cladding and steel roof framing have been replaced. Air vents and a doorway have been cut into the side of the tank.
Tank 2 is the northern-most tank and remains relatively intact. The outlet service pipes and internal timber uprights and ceiling are intact. The primary modification is the replacement of the roofing with 'Spandex' cladding and the addition of a galvanised or Zincalume 'collar' immediately blow the roofline.
There is a bund of formwork concrete, approximately 1.5 metres in height, around Tank 1. This is topped with three strands of barbed wire strung between angled metal posts. Tank 2, which is situated on higher land than tank I, has an earth bund faced around the base with dry-stone rubble, roughly coursed.
To the west/south west of the tanks a pump house is situated close to the Collins Avenue road alignment, outside the bunds. This is a small, single-storeyed, in rendered masonry building with a gambrel roof clad in corrugated iron and steel sheeting (possibly replacing corrugated fibrous cement sheeting). The structure rests on a concrete slab. In the front wall there are windows and a pair of large double doors opening to Collins Avenue.
Site 2: Support structures
(Lot 1 on RP17796)
Land parcel 1/RP17796 is located on the south side of Collins Avenue, opposite Tanks 1 and 2, on part of the original Cairns-Herberton Railway alignment. It contains two small former support structures associated with the WWII RAN Fuel Installation: a fire station (garage) and foam tank.
The former fire station is located on the western side of this allotment close to the Collins Avenue road alignment. It is a small, singled-storeyed, gable-roofed garage clad with fibrous-cement sheeting on the walls and corrugated fibrous-cement sheeting on the roof. It has a skillion-roofed side extension, the walls of which are clad in corrugated steel and the roof in corrugated galvanised iron. The whole rests on a concrete slab. The front elevation principally comprises three sets of double garage doors -one in the gabled section and two in the skillion side extension - opening onto Collins Avenue. The former fire station was demolished in late 2006 to make way for the realignment of Collins Avenue.
Also on this land parcel, but separated from the fire station by the former railway embankment, is the former foam tank. The tank is rectangular is shape, of pressed metal with a flat galvanised iron roof supported on timber framing. The whole rests on a brick base that in turn sits on a concrete slab. At the rear the slab extends beyond the current structure, where there are the brick base remnants of other partitions. A metal pipe is connected to the top of one of the walls of the tank and extends into the ground. It has a tap and stop-cock mid-way along its length.
Site 3: Tanks 3, 4 and 5
(Lot 349 on RP715416 and Lot 402 on SP201236)
Land parcel 349/RP715416 is located on the north side of Collins Avenue approximately 500 metres west of tanks 1 and 2, on a former quarry site. It contains tanks 3, 4 and 5, a concrete bund, a former foam shed and a former pump house. This site has been redeveloped as the Tanks Art Centre.
Tanks 3, 4 and 5 are reinforced concrete structures on concrete slabs.
Tank 3 is eastern-most and is used for performing arts. Large holes have been cut into the walls of the tank, one for access and one opening onto an outside stage facing a grassed amphitheatre. Roofing materials and internal fittings have been replaced.
Tank 4 is located in the centre of the site, facing the gated entrance to the Tanks Art Centre. It is used as a gallery and has recent interior wall partitions to facilitate art displays. Doors and ventilation holes have been cut into the walls of the tank. Part of the early Trinity Wharf has been placed inside the tank as a sculptural feature. The fabric consists of heavy timber logs with oyster encrustations and industrial scale links and chain. This sculpture forms a tangible link between Trinity Wharf and the naval fuel storage tanks, reflecting the physical link via the underground pipeline.
Tank 5 is western-most and has had similar modifications to tanks 3 and 4. It has openings for ventilation and access cut into the walls and has had roofing materials replaced.
A bund of formwork concrete about 1.5 metres in height extends along Collins Avenue for the length of the Tanks Arts Centre, overgrown with vegetation such as trees and orchids. Large figs (Ficus spp.) and other tropical species contribute to the landscape within the Tanks Art Centre.
Just outside the bund, close to the Collins Avenue road alignment and just to the east of the entrance to the Tanks Arts Centre, is a former pump house of similar construction to the pump house associated with tanks 1 and 2. It is a small, single-storeyed building in rendered masonry, with a gambrel roof clad in corrugated fibrous-cement sheeting. It functions as the administration building for the arts centre.
A second foam shed is located in the south western corner of Lot 349 just outside the bund wall and facing Collins Avenue. Sharing the same dimensions as the foam shed on Lot 1 RP17796, and resting on a brick base sitting on a concrete slab, this shed has been modified over time. Double doors have been created in the western wall to allow the shed to be used for storage purposes.
","history":"The former RAN Fuel Installation at Edge Hill, about five kilometres north of the Cairns city centre, was constructed in 1943 in response to the increased military presence associated with the Pacific war effort. The installation comprised five large fuel storage tanks, earth and concrete bunds around the tanks, auxiliary buildings and an underground pipeline from the tanks to Cairns wharves. Most of these structures have been incorporated into the Flecker Botanical Gardens, a recreational precinct at the southern foothills of the Mt Whitfield range. Tanks 3-5 have been adaptively re-used as the Tanks Arts Centre, a performance and display space.
Cairns was established in late 1876 as a port to service the Hodgkinson goldfield. In the mid-1880s the Cairns to Herberton Railway was surveyed through the Mt Whitfield range and in 1885 the low swamp lands south of Mt Islay were surveyed into large suburban sections. In December 1886 four of these were gazetted as a temporary recreation reserve of over 71 acres (about 29 hectares). This was extended in 1887 to comprise an area of over 97 acres (about 40 hectares), and by 1892 contained 108.5 acres (approximately 44 hectares). The recreation reserve was gazetted permanently in 1921, as 109.5 acres (just over 44 hectares).
In 1886 an area of 31.5 acres (about 12.75 hectares) on Mt Islay, just north of the recreation reserve and adjacent to the railway, was gazetted as a quarry reserve for the Cairns Municipal Council. This was used for only a few years, the rock being considered too shaly and soft for road fill. In 1908 the gazettal was rescinded.
Cairns' position as the principal access port to the hinterland mining districts was consolidated following completion in 1891 of the Cairns to Kuranda section of the Cairns to Herberton railway. A stopping place, railway siding (for municipal quarry purposes) and shelter shed were constructed a Mt Islay at the three-mile in 1888-89, and was named Edge Hill. In 1911 the line was moved 300 metres east to the other side of Saltwater Creek where a new railway station was erected. The former Edge Hill Railway Station stood where RAN fuel tanks 1 and 2 were constructed in 1943. For some years the Cairns Town Council continued to transport quarry material from Edge Hill to Cairns via its own tramway, using the former railway alignment, but this was abandoned by 1923.
In 1940 about 10 acres (4 hectares) at Mt Islay, above the recreation reserve, again was gazetted as a municipal quarry, this time for land reclamation purposes. The base of Mt Islay lay within the recreation reserve and from 1940 the slope adjoining the gazetted quarry was excavated as part of the quarry workings.
During World War Two Cairns became an important military base in the Pacific region. From September 1942, military personnel began to arrive for deployment. Providing the infrastructure to support the allied war effort at Cairns became a priority, and the decision to build Royal Australian Navy fuel storage tanks in Cairns was given under the highest level of National Security.
Early planning positioned the fuel installation behind wharf no.8 at the dockyards on Trinity Inlet, but as both the Australian and United States navies intended to expand warehouse storage facilities in this area, an alternative site was sought. Two Australian Navy staff visited Cairns in late 1942 and approved a site at Edge Hill that could be camouflaged from the air and would be difficult for an aerial enemy force to attack. It was also sufficiently distant from the wharf precinct to be of little danger to the port if there was enemy action.
The site chosen was on the southern slopes of the Mt Whitfield Range (Mt Islay), adjacent to the recreation reserve. Part of the site was located within a quarry reserve (R.903), part within the recreation reserve (R.267 - now known as Flecker Botanical Gardens) and part on a disused railway reserve. Three large concrete and two large steel fuel tanks were built and commissioned for use by the Royal Australian Navy and the United States Navy in 1943. Up to eight tanks were planned but only five were constructed.
The Allied Works Council, established in February 1942 to co-ordinate civilian construction of Allied military defence facilities in Australia, undertook site preparation and construction of the tanks, auxiliary buildings, bunds and underground pipeline.
The first two tanks were built on the former railway reserve on the north side of Collins Avenue. This land had been leased privately prior to the war and two small buildings were demolished to make way for Tank 2, which lay on the former railway alignment. Tank 1 was constructed on the site of the former Edge Hill Railway Station. Because these tanks were intended to hold dieseline they were constructed in plate steel, sourced from Broken Hill Pty Ltd. There were significant delays during construction, with correspondence between Main Roads, Allied Works Council and the Australian Navy revealing the frustration of all concerned in a project that was considered vital to the Allied war effort. Confusion as to where the steel tanks were to be sited, a lack of graders and poor planning hindered construction. Adjacent to tanks 1 and 2 a small pump house was constructed and an underground fuel pipeline was laid from the pump house along the former Cairns-Herberton railway embankment and under the streets of North Cairns to Trinity Wharf.
South of Collins Avenue, opposite Tanks 1 and 2 and on the former railway alignment, a fire station (garage) and foam tank were constructed.
Tanks 3-5 were sited further west, on the former quarry located partly within the recreation reserve and partly within a quarry reserve. This area was already part excavated. Further excavation, including removal of a rocky outcrop, was undertaken during the second half of 1943 to create a level site for tanks 3-5.
Tanks 3-5 were sited away from the first two tanks for several reasons. Firstly the landscape was prohibitive and part of the hill had to be removed, with the core left for camouflage, before all five tanks could be constructed. Secondly, having tanks 3-5 located at some distance from tanks 1-2 decreased risk to the whole installation. Thirdly, existing mature trees and the topography could be capitalised on to camouflage tanks 3-5 (tanks 1and 2 relied on heavy steel cables and netting material as camouflage).
Because tanks 3-5 were intended for the storage of crude oil they were constructed in reinforced concrete. This was hand-poured by a team of contractors from Melbourne, with some workers inscribing their names in the concrete bunds surrounding the tanks. A second pump house was constructed adjacent to tanks 3-5, and an underground fuel pipeline was laid from this pump house south east across the adjacent recreation reserve to join the pipeline from tanks 1 and 2 along the disused railway embankment. The former fuel pipeline still runs under north Cairns.
In March 1944 the Commonwealth government requisitioned part of the quarry reserve above tanks 3-5 to establish an observation and communications post for the protection of the fuel storage tanks below.
After the war the Commonwealth removed the structures associated with the observation post on Mt Islay, but decided to retain the fuel storage tanks for their intended purpose. In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Commonwealth formalised its occupation of the land, gaining title to Lot 346 (tanks 1-2), Lot 348 (fire station and foam tank) and Lot 349 (tanks 3-5) and taking up an easement over the pipeline (Lot 95A) as far south as Little Street. The tanks continued to be used for fuel storage by the Australian Navy and private fuel companies. Tank 1 was leased to Caltex from 1957 and the Australian Meat and Grazing Company leased tank 2 from November 1958, to store molasses.
In 1964 work was undertaken on Tank 2 to repair damage from the molasses and Tank 1 was reconstructed. A new roof, supported on four extra steel poles, was constructed over the original, which is still visible from inside the tank. The original timber pole supports also survive in situ.
Tank 4 became inoperable in 1976 when it began leaking crude oil. Caltex continued use of at least one of the tanks until 1983 and the Australian Navy used the remainder until 1987.
In 1991 Cairns City Council purchased all 5 tanks, but not the pipeline, from the Commonwealth, and the land was transferred to the Council. In 1995 tanks 3-5 were refurbished as the Tanks Arts Centre, hosting art exhibitions, performing artists, children's workshops and markets.
In 1991 Cairns City Council purchased all 5 tanks, but not the pipeline, from the Commonwealth, and the land was transferred to the Council. In 1995 tanks 3-5 were refurbished as the Tanks Arts Centre, hosting art exhibitions, performing artists, children's workshops and markets.
","criteria":"The former WWII RAN Fuel Installation is important in demonstrating the impact of WWII on far north Queensland. Its construction was given the highest priority under National Security regulations. Its strategic location in the foothills of the Mt Whitfield Range, 5 kilometres from the port and with dense surrounding vegetation, demonstrates the importance of selecting a secure location for the storage of naval fuel supplies during times of war.
|The installation is a rare surviving purpose-built WWII Naval fuel storage facility associated with the Pacific war and located in an urban setting.
|The installation, which comprises five large fuel tanks, two pump houses, concrete and earth bunds and ancillary structures (including a fire station and foam tank), is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. The complex reveals information about construction techniques, materials, form, design and location of structures specifically designed for storage of naval fuel in 1943. Because of its relative intactness, Tank 2 is particularly noted for this criterion.
|The tanks in particular demonstrate elements of form, scale and material that contribute to the aesthetic significance of the site. Tanks 1 and 2 contain aesthetic value as industrial ruins in an urban environment; the scale, circular form and rusting exteriors form the main aesthetic elements. Tanks 3, 4 and 5 contain high aesthetic values as industrial ruins in a heavily vegetated urban environment. Vegetation such as Ficus spp. and orchids contribute to the aesthetic values of the place.
|The installation has a special association with the work of the Allied Works Council, which made a substantial contribution to the construction of defence facilities in Queensland, particularly in northern Queensland and often in difficult terrain, during WWII.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22228,"place_ref":602607,"name":"Marist Brothers' Monastery and Marist College","alternate_name":"Marist Brothers Catholic Monastery","street_address":"Fernberg Road","suburb":"ROSALIE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-09-18","description":"Marist Brothers' Monastery and Marist College, Rosalie are located within the inner western suburb of Paddington about three kilometres from the city of Brisbane. The north facing buildings are situated on Fernberg Road at the end of the Given Terrace ridge on a large elevated site that falls southward in a series of terraces to Beck Street and contains other structures, playing fields and sports facilities.
Monastery
Marist Brothers' Monastery is sited above Fernberg Road, adjacent to the College on the westward downhill slope. The monastery is a symmetrical, two-storeyed timber building clad in chamferboards with encircling verandahs. It is elevated on a tuck-pointed, glazed, dark brown face-brick base formed in English bond which supports rough-cast rendered masonry verandah columns on three sides. The columns, with a dark brown brick soldier course below moulded capitals, support the hipped terracotta tiled roof which has a pitch break at the line of the verandah.
The northern (front) elevation comprises a central gabled pediment over the main entrance - a large round arched opening projecting forward on decorative corbels. The arch is surmounted by a celtic cross located in front of a solid masonry balustrade to the upper floor verandah. This central bay is flanked on each side by three verandah columns between which oversized timber handrails are supported on a large timber framed balustrade/valance with fibrous cement sheet infill panels to the upper floor and on a solid rendered masonry balustrade to the ground floor.
The verandah detailing continues on the side elevations which comprise five bays. On the eastern elevation there is an opening to the garden at ground level in the central bay and the last bay in the southern corner on the first floor is enclosed with multi-pane sliding timber windows. On the western elevation, four bays on the upper floor verandah and three bays on the lower floor verandah have been enclosed with metal framed sliding windows. Door openings in the dark brick base provide access to the understorey.
The southern elevation has timber verandah posts supported on dark brick piers with an open balustrade supporting the oversized handrail to the ground floor and sliding multi-pane timber windows and fixed glazing to each of the upper floor bays. Timber battens line the understorey openings. The three storey rendered masonry addition built in the 1970s and attached by an enclosed walkway at the western end of the southern verandah has been detailed to match the existing building and houses a garage on the ground floor and bathrooms on the upper floors.
The recessed main entrance contains an entry door, detailed to resemble a celtic cross with a circular leadlight panel depicting the initials of the Society of Mary, set within sidelights and fanlights decorated with celtic patterned leadlight. The entrance foyer, with parquetry floor, decorative plaster ceiling and panelled walls with plaque rails, opens onto the reception room to the east and the study to the west. The stairwell is located opposite the entrance foyer and is separated from it by a hall that runs transversely between the two. The ground floor rooms are large and well-proportioned and have higher ceilings than the first floor rooms and fanlights over most doors. The chapel, containing original furniture, is located at the eastern end of the hall in the south-east corner, the recently refurbished kitchen is located in the south-west corner and the dining room in the north-west corner. at the western end of the hall. The housekeeper's flat was attached at the rear of the house and no longer survives.
The upper floor has bedrooms and a communal room that open off the central hall and a wide sleeping verandah to the rear that has sliding glass windows in timber frames set in the upper half of the exterior wall.
Like the exterior, the interior is largely intact. All the rooms are lined with vertical v-jointed tongue and groove boards, the ceilings are moulded fibrous plaster and the joinery is generally clear finished silky oak with a lamb's tongue profile. Multi-pane French doors with obscure glazing open onto the verandahs from most of the rooms.
Marist College
Marist College is large three-storeyed brick masonry building positioned prominently at the end of the ridge at the junction of Fernberg Road and Given Terrace at Rosalie. Situated on a sloping site, only the upper two storeys and windows of the ground floor are visible from Fernberg Road.
The building is constructed of a light coloured brick in stretcher bond and the solid, monumental, asymmetrical massing of the exterior form follows its internal function. A wide L-shaped entrance stair toward the western end of the building is concealed from view from Fernberg Road by a large solid balustrade with concrete capping. This leads to the entrance foyer which is located asymmetrically within a volume that projects forward toward the street and above the adjacent western stairwell and north facing corridor that gives access to the rooms on all three levels. Each of the volumes has low pitched metal roofs which are drained by box gutters to rainwater heads and downpipes that are concealed behind the parapet walls.
The front elevation features a strong horizontal component created by continuous concrete hoods over five bays of hopper windows to the three floors. This horizontality is accentuated with the use of continuous concrete sills, parapet copings and cappings of similar profile. There is no additional embellishment except for a simple recessed crucifix form in brown face-brick at the eastern end of the front elevation and the more recent addition of a large crucifix set against a light coloured panel adjacent to the main entrance. Metal hoods to ventilation bricks, which occur at regular intervals on all floors, are a later addition.
On the eastern elevation, narrow fixed glazing provides natural light to the north-eastern stairwell and on the projecting eastern end of the classroom wing, six louvred windows to the ground floor and six double-hung windows to the first and second floors, under continuous concrete hoods, provide natural light and ventilation to the toilets and classrooms respectively. The bays of double-hung windows and concrete hoods to the first and second floors continue to four of the five bays on the southern elevation and on the ground floor there are double hung windows and a roller shutter to the counter of the tuckshop. Later doors have replaced the roller doors to the former hall and a large roofed open area has been constructed between the college building and the library to the south. A ground-level entrance on the western elevation provides access to the rear of the tuckshop and northern corridor. Hopper windows and narrow fixed glazing provide light and ventilation to the western stairwell where chutes to the incinerator are located on the half landings.
Like the exterior, the interior of the building is simple and functional in design and finish. The first and second floors contain five classrooms separated by masonry walls and the floors are suspended reinforced concrete. The classroom interiors were rendered and the face brick corridors are now painted. The entrance foyer located on the first floor has large glazed entrance doors, sidelights and fanlights of silky oak. It has a ventilated plaster ceiling decorated with simple mouldings and a fluted cornice detail. Alterations to this floor in 1997 were extensive and included the conversion of the classrooms into offices by the introduction of an additional hallway down the centre and length of the classroom room wing and timber framed partition walls. Three of the five classrooms doors and windows to the northern corridor have been bricked in.
The stairwells and the five classrooms and corridor on the second floor are largely intact. The ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting and cover battens and the floors are carpeted. Pairs of doors and double hung windows in the northern walls of the classrooms that admit light and provide cross ventilation are intact. On the ground floor the volume of the hall survives although it has been adapted for other uses. The tuckshop has been refurbished.
","history":"The Marist Brothers' College and Monastery at Fernberg Road, Rosalie was opened in 1929 as part of Catholic Archbishop James Duhig's vision for the development of the Church in Queensland through the provision of affordable, high quality Catholic education. It was the first Queensland school of the Marist Brothers' order and has continued to provide a religious education to generations of boys over a 80 year period. The school developed into a regional college with the erection in 1949 of the Sacred Heart Memorial College, which provided for families in five adjoining parishes and other areas of the city. The school drew mostly from its local population in the suburbs of Paddington, Milton, Bardon, Red Hill and Petrie Terrace which was made up mainly of Anglo-Irish Catholic Australians, indigenous aboriginal people and waves of Catholic immigrants firstly Irish, followed later by Italians, Croatians, Polish and other post-World War II immigrants. More recent enrolments at the school have included smaller groups of Islander, South American and South-East Asian families.
The first major land sales in the Paddington area occurred in 1859, when large country lots were sold. The steep terrain hampered transport and tracks followed the ridgeline, so that it was along these narrow corridors that development initially occurred. Ithaca Shire was created in 1887, and by 1903 Paddington was a densely populated suburb of the Town of Ithaca. The tramway reached Latrobe Terrace in 1898, and Fernberg Road in 1909, which spurred development.
In 1898 the first Catholic Church in Paddington, the Church of the Holy Rosary, was built on an elevated site on the western side of Given Terrace near Fernberg Road. The early Catholic community was very small and the Sisters of Mercy travelled from All Hallows to teach catechism to the children. By 1907 the Catholic community had grown considerably and a new timber church was built at the corner of Given Terrace and Fernberg Road next to the original church which was adapted for use as a school building. Continuing growth in the parish resulted in the construction of the presbytery on the opposite corner on Given Terrace in 1914, followed by the purchase of the Herbert Estate (the present Marist site) on Fernberg Road by Archbishop Duhig.
In 1918, the 1898 building from Given Terrace was moved onto the Herbert Estate for use by the Sisters of Mercy to teach the older girls and boys. The 1907 church was adapted for use as an infant school and a new brick masonry church designed by GHM Addison was built next to it on the site of the original church. These works included the erection of brick walls along the street frontages of both properties giving them 'an appearance of stability and permanence'. The Sisters of Mercy, who had been travelling from All Hallows by tram to teach the children built their convent further north on Given Terrace at the same time.
In the 1920s Rosalie was quickly developing as a 'working men's parish', and its needs rapidly outstripped the services provided by existing schools. The Church was concerned with providing both secular and religious education and Duhig wanted to ensure that a high quality Catholic secondary education was available. The school population at Rosalie continued to grow and reached 300 students with 200 in the infant school, half of which were boys. With the Archbishop's approval it was decided to seek the assistance of the Marist Brothers to teach the boys and two new buildings were to be erected: a school for the older girls and a residence for the brothers. Both buildings were designed by the newly formed firm of architects, GHM Addison and Son and HS MacDonald, and the builder of the monastery was Dan Gallogly.
George Frederick Addison studied in Brisbane and trained in the office of his father, George Henry Male Addison. After serving in World War I he became a partner in his father's practice which had been responsible for the design of many buildings for the Catholic Church. After GHM Addison died in 1922 GF Addison continued the practice before forming a partnership with Herbert Stanley MacDonald in 1928. Their other projects included Syncarpia (601895d, 1934), a block of flats at New Farm; the former National Bank (601234, 1929) at South Brisbane; the Goondiwindi Civic Centre (600531, 1938); and a large number of hotel commissions (mostly renovations) for Castlemaine Perkins.
James Duhig was born in Ireland and arrived with his family in Brisbane in 1885. He was ordained a priest in 1896 and in 1905 became Bishop of Rockhampton, at the age of 32. In 1912, he became Archbishop Dunne's Co-Adjutor, taking on much of his administrative duties. Duhig energetically promoted the growth of the Church in Queensland. To this end, he was intimately involved throughout his career with the planning and building of over one hundred churches and schools. The first Catholic Brisbane parishes were established at Coorparoo, Kangaroo Point, South Brisbane, Red Hill and Rosalie. Although Dunne had encouraged only the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers to establish branches of their orders in Queensland, Duhig was keen to encourage other religious orders to expand Catholic education in this State. He made approaches to several teaching orders including the Marist Brothers.
The Marist Brothers, an order originating in France and expanding to 33 countries throughout the world came as missionaries to the Pacific in 1857 before arriving in Sydney in 1872 to establish their first antipodean school at St Patrick's, Church Hill, followed by several others in inner Sydney. They opened schools in Victoria and South Australia and began negotiations in 1919 to open a school in Queensland. The Marist Brothers had been invited to Manly parish but found the premises unsuitable so Archbishop Duhig negotiated an agreement to establish a school and residence for the Brothers at Rosalie which was to be their 28th establishment in Australia. The arrival of the Marist Brothers was seen as 'a red letter day' for Queensland where previously the Christian Brothers had a monopoly over the higher education of Catholic boys.
The foundation stone of the Rosalie monastery was laid on 29 July 1928 by the Most Reverend B Catteneo the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop James Duhig, and parish priest, Dean W Lee with Br Reginald Moore, the Director of Lismore representing the Marist Brothers Provincial. The site chosen for the monastery was adjacent to the school building on Fernberg Road which was renovated and remodelled to accommodate the classes of boys that the brothers would teach. In December 1928 three Marist brothers arrived to open the Rosalie boys' school which commenced on 28 January 1929 with an enrolment of 135. The official opening of both the monastery and the girls' school, which was attached to the Convent of Mercy, by Archbishop James Duhig took place on 20 February 1929 by which time the enrolments at the boy's school had increased to 175 with grades three, four and five offered. An article in the Telegraph dated January 29, 1929 reported:
The monastery, which is an entirely new building is a fine structure designed to give the maximum of comfort and convenience. On the ground floor are a study room, dining room, reception room, kitchen and housekeeper's flat in addition to a beautifully furnished chapel, equipped with an attractively finished alter, kneeling stands, brass candle sticks, sanctuary lamp etc.
Upstairs are the sleeping quarters consisting of seven bedrooms, bathrooms and community rooms.
On both floors wide verandahs run completely round the building and from these a commanding view is obtained, the monastery being situated at a high point. A feature of every room is the splendid ventilation and natural and artificial light.
The furnishings and decoration are effective without being elaborate. The building appears to be faithfully built of weatherboard, brick and cement.
In April 1929 the school was approved as a secondary school and by the end of that year five boys had won scholarships to the school and a few boarders had been taken in. The first secondary class of 1930 was accommodated upstairs in the monastery with six scholarship boys, some of the older boys, plus seven boarders. There were also 220 primary students. In 1935, a cottage was moved adjacent to the monastery from a site on Beck Street, and was remodelled and refitted for use as two classrooms and a boarders' dormitory until 1948.
With enrolments at the schools increasing to 450 in the late 1930s, the construction of a new college building was planned. During 1937-1938 a design was prepared and tenders were called for a hip-roofed, two-storeyed masonry building with basement to accommodate 400 students. The new building, which was to contain eight classrooms, two science laboratories, a gymnasium and sheltered playing area was designed by architects Cullen and Egan. The widespread economic depression of the early 1930s, followed by the impact of World War II from 1939 to 1945, and perhaps the imminent opening of a new Marist college at Ashgrove where all the Rosalie boarders and 120 day boys were transferred in 1940, caused the project to be delayed for many years.
Frank Lee Cullen, Archbishop Duhig's nephew, trained as an articled pupil with Hennessy, Hennessy and Co, first at Leo Drinan's office in Brisbane in 1928 and then in Sydney between 1929 and 1932.Cullen returned briefly to the Brisbane office in 1933 before taking up a position with the Queensland Works Department as a draftsman. After completing his architectural education in 1934, Cullen worked with Harold VM Brown of Mackay before beginning his own practice in Brisbane in 1936. Cullen had several commissions that year for the Catholic Church, including a two storey boarding school at Murgon, a brick school at Yeronga, a church at Buranda, school hall at Graceville and a presbytery at Holland Park.
In 1937 Cullen formed a partnership with Desmond Egan who had also worked with Hennessy and Hennessy in the 1920s and 1930s. The partnership received a large number of commissions from the Catholic Church as well as designing numerous hotels, residences and commercial buildings. Following the death of Egan in 1941 Cullen continued his practice as FL Cullen with new projects including several school buildings similar to the Rosalie College for the Catholic Church: St Mary's at Ipswich (1946); St Luke's at Buranda (1949); Our Lady Star of the Sea School at Gladstone (600521) (1950) and St Joseph's at Kangaroo Point (1951).
On 6 June 1948 the foundation stone for a new college building at Rosalie was laid by Archbishop Duhig at a large ceremony attended by 2,000 people including parishioners, Premier EM Hanlon and Minister for Works and MLA for Baroona, William Joseph Power. Sixteen months later, another 2,000 people attended the opening of the school on 2 October 1949. In his address, Archbishop Duhig commended the Marist Brothers on 'their struggle against adverse conditions in the matter of building and equipment'. It had only been when the former 1898 church, which was the main portion of their school, threatened to collapse that they were able to get a permit from the Catholic Finance and Building Commission to build the new school, which Duhig described as a "finely, well-equipped modern building, outstanding in every respect". Duhig also praised the exemplary sacrifice that the pastor and the parish had made and "doubted if there had ever been a working man's parish in the history of Australia that had undertaken to build a school entailing the outlay of so large a sum of money" (The Catholic Leader, Thursday 6 October 1949).
The school, a memorial to fallen Maristonians (past students) of both wars, was constructed to a new design by Cullen and was built by KD Morris and Sons for £35,000. The three storey college was built of fire-resisting construction and contained eight large classrooms and two science laboratories. The lower ground floor incorporated a large assembly hall complete with stage, a sports store, tuckshop and lavatories. The Principal's office was located on the ground floor opening off the main entrance vestibule as was the memorial library. The class rooms and science laboratories were complete with modern educational facilities and all class rooms were newly furnished with dual and single desks. An incinerator incorporated into the building served each of the floors and a public address system was installed to allow for the broadcasting of messages and programmes to all or any number of the classes. The design also provided for the later addition of an extra storey.
With the construction of the new college, the monastery became primarily a residence for the teaching brothers and continues in this function. It is also used as a meeting place for parents and students.
In 1970 Rosalie became an Archdiocesan College although it continued to be administered locally by the Marist Brothers. A Junior College was built on the north side of Fernberg Road behind the church for grades four to seven and was opened in 1971, but was phased out by 1980 due to the declining numbers in inner city parishes and the trend at the time for boys to stay at their local parish schools to complete their primary education. Its buildings and grounds became part of the Senior College.
Various other buildings and facilities were added to the grounds in the 1960s and 1970s, including a swimming pool (1965), science block (1969), library (1975) and enclosure of the basement of the college building to create a hall (1975). In 1977 a covered assembly and shelter area adjacent to the Senior block was erected.
All college buildings have been refurbished in recent years. The plaster ceilings in the monastery were replaced to match the original in recent years following water damage and ceiling repairs were carried out in the dining room. The three storey addition attached to the south-western end of the monastery verandah was built in the 1980s.
","criteria":"Marist Brothers' Monastery and Marist College Rosalie have a special association for generations of Catholic families who have sent their sons to this school since 1929 and have been important for several generations of Catholics in the surrounding area as a source of spiritual, social and educational sustenance. Past and present pupils and teachers share a strong sense of attachment to the college, the construction of which was delayed due to the Second World War and which was dedicated as a memorial to past students who died during both World Wars.
|Situated on the end of the ridge at the southern end of Given Terrace, Marist College has landmark quality for its solid, monumental asymetrical composition that is visible from a number of viewpoints.
The monastery located adjacent to the school is also valued for its landmark qualities as a well composed and visually pleasing building on a prominent site. Additional aesthetic values are derived from the integrity of the buildings architectural qualities and workmanship both internally and externally including its generous planning and proportions and restrained yet effective detailing and finishes, its oversized verandah elements, its symmetrical planning, the proportions of its rooms, the detailing of its joinery.
|The monastery and college have a strong, special and continuing association with the Marist Brothers, the order that founded the boys' school at Rosalie in 1929 and for whom the monastery was purpose-built.
|Marist Brothers' Monastery and Marist College Rosalie are important as evidence of the period of expansion of the Catholic Church in Queensland under the leadership of Archbishop James Duhig. The Marist Brothers' Monastery and school for boys at Fernberg Road, Rosalie were opened in 1929 as part of Duhig's vision for the development of the Church in Queensland through the provision of affordable, high quality Catholic education.
The monastery and college occupy a prominent site in the inner western suburbs of Brisbane and are a manifestation of the Catholic ethos of selecting imposing sites to produce landmarks which is characteristic of buildings erected for the Church during the time of Archbishop Duhig.
Marist Brothers' Monastery and Marist College Rosalie were the first Queensland residence and school of the Marist Brothers' order, which has made a significant and influential contribution to the education, particularly secondary education, of Catholic boys in Queensland. At Rosalie, the Marist Brothers have continued to provide a religious education to generations of boys over an 80 year period. The school developed into a regional college with the erection in 1949 of the Sacred Heart Memorial College, funded largely by the endeavours of the local community.
|The monastery is important as the first commission of the newly formed partnership of architects, GHM Addison and Son and HS MacDonald which continued the association of GHM Addison's practice with the Rosalie parish. The monastery is an excellent example of a residence purpose-built for the accommodation of a religious order. The building and some early furnishings including original chapel furniture remain intact and illustrative of its original and continued function as the home of the Marist Brothers with chapel, reception room, study, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor and bedrooms and communal room on the upper floor set on a hilltop adjacent to the school where the Brothers taught.
The college is a good representative example of the work of architect Frank Cullen, Archbishop Duhig's nephew, who was responsible for the design of many Catholic schools, churches, presbyteries and halls during the 1930s-1950s. Its simple yet functional design and solid monumental asymmetrical massing are typical of the style of school building that Cullen was designing in the 1940s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22233,"place_ref":602610,"name":"Logan Village State School and Teacher Residence (former)","alternate_name":"The Village of Logan Provisional School","street_address":"24-32 Wharf Street","suburb":"LOGAN VILLAGE","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-03","description":"The Logan Village State Primary School and Teacher Residence (former) consists of two buildings, the earliest (the Teacher Residence) was built in 1894, the other in 1900. The buildings are situated a block from the Logan River and are surrounded by community sports grounds, children's play grounds and landscaped gardens using native flora.
The Teacher Residence.
This building was initially built as the Provisional School in 1894. It is a low set timber framed structure. In 1904 the building, then the Teacher Residence was extended. The front stairs and veranda have recently been replaced with new timber, but replicates the original stairs and veranda.
Externally, the building has weatherboard cladding, a corrugated iron double gabled roof, and is supported by steel posts. A veranda exists at the front (north) of the building, with a corrugated iron roof, central timber stair, timber posts and timber rail balustrade. There is two wooden framed windows either side of the front door that have had security bars fixed on them. The entrance door has been replaced with a modern wooden door.
The extensions can be easily identified from the outside of the building as the original, single gable roof-line, weatherboards and windows remain in the older section of the building. The 1904 extension enclosed the rear veranda of the building; this is apparent due to the inconsistent roof line as the renovations have added an extra gable at the rear.
Two wooden framed windows with timber and iron window hoods and covered ventilation windows above are built in the original part along each side of the building. Another window with a hood and no ventilation window sits beside the first on the east side. On the west side of the original building is a wide, closed doorway with no stairs to the ground. The extended part of the building has a door on the east side with a small wooden staircase to the ground. Two more windows were built into the extended building on the side and at the back, and a small set of louvers have been placed into the east wall where the present bathroom/toilet are.
Internally, the original building consisted of two large rooms, and two smaller rooms to the rear, one for a kitchen the other a bathroom, with front and back verandas, but this changed with the 1904 extensions. These changes included adding two extra rooms at the rear of the building, enclosing the rear veranda and fitting a larger kitchen area at the rear. The renovations added an extra five metres to the length of the building.
The interior of the existing building has high coved ceilings in the front two rooms. The walls and ceilings are sheeted internally by vertical wooden boarding. The boarding on the walls sits vertically; the boarding on the ceilings follows the curve of the coved ceilings. The divide between the front and middle room has been extended to provide two large rectangular arches, lined with pine wood, placed there for the ease of movement around the library. The present library utilises all the rooms, with large bookshelves and a librarian's desk. The rear room, the 'kitchen', has a wooden partition built from the rear wall to the next wall in the direction of the front of the building, the ceiling boards slope at the corners to create an arched appearance. The west side of this partition once held the stove, and this is apparent due to the large panel of fibrolite placed over the stove culvert. On either side of this culvert are two small windows. Fibrolite panels have been used on the east wall of the rear room in contrast to the other three wooden board walls.
The State School.
The State School building was built in 1900. It is a high set, wooden building. Originally it was low set with timber stumps until raised and built under in the 1980s.
The exterior of the building has weatherboard cladding, a corrugated iron single gabled roof. At the front (north) of the building is a veranda with a central timber stair. The stair and the floor of the veranda are not original but from the renovations in the 1980s. The rail balustrade and veranda posts are timber. There is a swinging wooden gate at the entrance of the top of the stairs. The front door is not original, but of a modern type for security purposes. Above the front door sits an original swing window, to allow extra air and light into the classroom. Two large sash windows are on either side of the front door. The front wall of the veranda consists of exposed, unlined, original timbers. The ends of the veranda have wooden spandrels. The rear (south) of the building has a central wooden staircase. On either side of this staircase are two large wooden sash windows.
The interior of the school building consists of one large room and an enclosed annex at the back, originally intended for hand basins and hats and coats. The main area of the school is a large hall with high coved ceilings. The walls are sheeted internally by wooden boarding that sits horizontally; the boarding on the ceilings follows the curve of the coved ceilings. The interior is illuminated by two sets of large, timber framed casement windows with extra top lights. The set on the west of the room are built high to sit above the blackboard. The set on the east of the room are the same size but sit lower on the parallel wall. The students were originally seated facing the west wall, where the blackboard is still situated. The set of windows on the south of the building have exterior timber and iron window hoods.
The Roll of Honour for the Logan Village School has been erected on the internal south wall. The annex sits behind this wall to the back of the building. The door to the annex is an original wooden door; a swing window identical to that on the front door sits atop. On either side of this door are two sets of wooden sash windows.
The renovation to the building in the 1980s built in underneath. A set of wooden stairs was placed internally from the annex to the ground floor. The interior of the downstairs area is tiled and the walls are plaster board. A small kitchenette has been installed on the south wall. Externally the added walls have been built with wooden boards, similar in appearance to those of the original upper part. The west side of the downstairs area has three wooden windows, the south has two, and the east side has two windows and a large wooden garage door to the rear.
The grounds of the State School and Teacher Residence hold a small toilet block situated between the two buildings. The gardens are neatly landscaped with many native trees, shrubs and grasses.
","history":"The Logan Village School was built in 1900; the Teacher Residence (formally the Provisional School) is an earlier building dating from 1894. As a set, the two buildings represent the transition of educational facilities in early Queensland. The school is situated on River and Wharf Street, Logan Village. The buildings are situated a block from the Logan River and are surrounded by community sports grounds, children's play grounds and landscaped gardens using native flora.
In 1826 Captain Patrick Logan, commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony, explored the Logan and Albert Rivers. In the 1840s it was the timber-getters in search of cedar and hardwoods that moved into the district. These were the first Europeans in this area. By the 1860s, however, many Europeans from Germany, Ireland, and England had begun to establish settlement in the district. Under the Crown Land Alienation Act of 1860 settlers could purchase agricultural land for £1 per acre, this was a direct attempt by the Queensland Government to encourage agricultural and pastoral industry as a means to increase the wealth and productivity of the young colony. It was also a way to encourage immigration to the colony. In conjunction with the Land Act the government reserved large tracts of land, known as Agricultural Reserves. These areas were surveyed into small blocks, ready for sale. One of these reserves was on the Logan River. By 1862, 68 blocks had been selected by 27 selectors in the Logan Agricultural Reserve. Those farming the Logan area found it beneficial to farm several differing crops so as to help ensure a viable and sustainable food source for the farm's inhabitants as well as a means of generating income. These smaller farms grew cotton, some sugar, maize, arrowroot, vegetables and many moved into dairying in the early twentieth century.
The Village of Logan, as it was then known, was a closer settlement that began to prosper due to successful farming and its access to the Logan River. Logan Village was considered an important commercial settlement by its surrounding stations and settlements as far away as the southern border (New South Wales). Supplies were delivered to its wharf. By 1882 the village had a ferry, a hotel, a store and a church. It also had a reserved area for the future school.
Early education in Queensland was privately conducted and at Separation from New South Wales in 1859 there were only two National Schools, located at Warwick and Drayton, and churches ran most schools. The Education Act of 1860 created a Board of General Education for Queensland and new schools were built, local communities contributing to the cost. In 1869, provisional schools were introduced to economically solve the problem of educating children in thinly populated areas. Under this scheme, the parents of the pupils provided a simple building and the authorities paid for a teacher and books.
From 1875 Logan Village used the local church for school. As enrolments were below 30 pupils, the Queensland Government recognised this school as a Provisional School. In the same year The Education Act was passed in the Queensland Parliament providing free (and compulsory) secular education, for all children. A major problem faced by the Logan Village Provisional School, and not an uncommon one in rural areas in Queensland at this time, was attendance. Many of the enrolled students would often spend many of their days working on the family farms.
Limited Government assistance was given, such as salary assistance for a teacher and the supply of state approved books. The community had to provide the school building as well as accommodation for the teacher. By 1882 the conditions within the Provisional School classroom had become crowded and unproductive for the children. In a report from the School Inspector the small school was described in this period: 'Honest work is being done in the school and work of a reliable kind, considering the unsuitable school-room and antiquated furniture'. The community realised that a new school was needed; children's education was seen as extremely important to the residents of Logan Village.
An important development for the Village was the railway link from Bethania to Logan Village, completed in 1885, this brought added prosperity to the Village due to an increase in traffic and trade to the area. It also provided a direct link to Brisbane other than the often unreliable waterway. With added prosperity the Village could afford to build a brand new school building.
By 1882 the condition of Provisional Schools was an embarrassment to the Department of Public instruction and measures were introduced in an attempt to improve their standard. In some cases, such as Logan Village, the government agreed to provide half the construction costs and a recommended plan and specifications were prepared by the Department of Public Instruction. These schools could not be built within four miles of another school; this was the case with Logan Village.
In 1882 a new school was requested by the Logan Village School Committee, comprised solely of community members; J. Powell, T. Bishop, J. Downman, H. Watson, I. Seymor, W. Drynan, and M. Hinchcliffe as Chairman. A petition was compiled to request permission from the Department of Public Instruction to build a new school building on Crown Land situated in Wharf Street. After constant campaigning from the School Committee to the Department of Public Instruction, in 1894 permission was finally granted and the community built the wooden school building for £116, half of which was paid for by the community, the other half by the Government. The wooden building was built under the Plans and Specifications detailed by the Department of Public Instruction. By 1899 enrolments in the Provisional School reached 43 students.
In 1899 plans were drawn to build another new school building and to convert the existing one into the Teacher Residence. Enrolments had increased and more room was needed for the children. The request was submitted to the Department of Public Instruction. To have the school approved as a State School meant that the government would essentially run it, with minimal cost to the community. The Logan Village School was gazetted as a State School in September 1900, and had an attendance of 43 pupils.
The Logan Village Hotel had previously been the afforded accommodation for the teacher. Departmental policy was to provide married male head teachers in country areas with residences, thereby securing a resident caretaker and cleaner for the school in the person of the headmaster's wife. The requirements laid out by the Queensland Government in relation to the Teacher Residence specified a residence have no less than two rooms and a kitchen. What had been the Provisional School was converted to the Teacher Residence in 1900.
The new school building was built from the standard plans set forth by the Department of Public Instruction. These plans had been designed by R. Ferguson, Superintendent of School Buildings. The building was to be a low set, timber framed, single skinned building. Design features included were to provide the required minimum area of eight square feet per pupil, a wide veranda at the front, a level floor throughout, lining of the walls, improved ventilation, larger and higher set windows.
At the time of the transition from Provisional to State School in Logan Village changes to the school syllabus were put in place by the Department of Public Instruction. Increased writing, drawing and activity which required more space, greater detachment and privacy for the student were being taught in Queensland schools. Educationalists recommended that 'an allowance of 18 inches per scholar at each desk and bench should be some multiple of 18 inches'. These specifications were met within the new State School building in Logan Village.
In 1901, the Queensland State Primary School system comprised of six classes, each extending over one and a half years. The school year was divided into three terms called 'half-years', with two holidays, five weeks in summer and one week in winter. The school day was eight hours. Lesson contact time was 4 hours and 50 minutes. The core subjects were reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, elementary mechanics, vocal music, drill and gymnastics and, for girls, sewing and needlework. The rest of the time was spent in neatness inspections and marching.
In 1904 the Teacher Residence was further extended to accommodate the large family of the then teacher, Mr. Cooke. The price of the extensions was £59. In 1909 the underpart of the school building was asphalted. The river reserve was added to the school grounds in 1916, adding waterfront land to the school boundary.
To commemorate past students killed and wounded in the First World War an Honour Board was erected in 1918 and was placed on the south wall inside the school building.
The Logan Village State School (former) was closed in 1981. The school building was raised and built under to accommodate a two level use of the building for community purposes. The Teacher Residence was converted into a local library. The two buildings retain their use as educational facilities. The river front land is now privately owned residential blocks.
","criteria":"The Logan Village State School and Teacher Residence (former) has a long association with the community of Logan Village and the surrounding areas as an important component of a public educational facility for many years.
|The Logan Village State School and Teacher Residence (former), that opened in 1900, reflects the development of, and changes in, Primary Education in Queensland. As a public building the school is a record of the development of the Logan Village area and the growth of, and changes to, the Logan Village Community. As a set of buildings it is an example of the successful transition that occurred in many areas of early Queensland as the Government's education policies succeeded, from Provisional School to State School.
|As well proportioned and detailed timber buildings built in a traditional style, the former Logan State School and Teacher Residence makes a substantial contribution to the built character of Logan Village.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22250,"place_ref":602612,"name":"Warroo Shire Hall","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Cordelia and William Streets","suburb":"SURAT","lga":"MARANOA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-05-08","description":"The Warroo Shire hall is located prominently on the corner of two major streets in the centre of Surat. It is a rectangular timber building with its long axis at right angles to the street. It is set on low stumps and has a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting and ventilators along the roof ridge. There is an awning supported on plain timber posts to the pavement and recessed verandahs along both sides.
The front (eastern) elevation has a square central clock tower with clock faces to the north, south and eastern sides. Letters spelling out 'Alex J Simpson' have replaced the numerals. Below the clock is a square window and a small balcony jutting out over the street awning.
The windows form a distinctive decorative feature of the building, being square, circular or arched with unusual glazing patterns and decoratively placed glazing bars. A 1930 photograph of the shire offices shows the square windows opening on a central, horizontal pivot. They can no longer be opened, but the hall windows are still operational. The windows to the sides of the offices at the front have individual sun hoods.
The front entrance is recessed and opens onto a short hallway between two large square rooms. The projection room is over the hall and is accessed by a staircase inside the hall. The large hall is lined with fibrous cement sheeting and triangular brackets between high-level windows support the roof. The windows have round arched tops and open on central pivots. The floor is timber and there is a stage flanked by dressing rooms to the rear.
The separate supper room is a simple rectangular timber building with a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. It runs parallel to the hall and is linked to it by a covered way and a courtyard area. It contains a dining area, kitchenette and a small bar to the rear.
There is a block of masonry toilets to the rear of the hall.
A high fence of tubular metal posts and metal mesh surrounds the site.
","history":"The Warroo Shire Hall was built in 1929 in Surat as an administrative and social centre. Surat is the administrative hub of the Warroo Shire and is situated on the Balonne River some 80 kilometres south of Roma.
The Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell mapped the area in 1846 and the District of Maranoa was proclaimed in November 1848. The new Commissioner of Lands arrived with several police in 1849 and set up camp on Yambougal station, moving slightly up river a few months later. This was the site selected in 1849 by surveyor James Burrowes for a service township on the Balonne River. He called the township Surat, after his former home in Madras, India.
A Court of Petty Sessions at Surat was gazetted in 1850 and a police building was erected. The Lands and Post Offices were soon represented and in 1859 a hotel was built. By the time that the town site was surveyed for land sales in 1863, a number of buildings had already been erected. Although Surat was superseded by St George as an administrative centre for the district in 1865, it continued to serve the surrounding area, which became Warroo Shire. Surat gained a school in 1874 and its first church in the late 1870s. In 1879 Cobb and Co set up a coach service from St George to Surat and on to Yuleba, constructing a staging post and store at Surat. This service was run until 1924, when it was the last coach route to be run in Australia.
The site of the shire hall was acquired in 1882 by the Warroo Divisional board. Tenders were called for the construction of a simple building, which was extended over the years. In 1903, the Divisional Board became Warroo Shire Council. In 1920 a second small building was constructed on the site as council offices. This building was later removed. The current hall was constructed in 1929 by builders K O'Brien and C Turnbull to the design of Harry Marks of the firm of Harry J Marks & Son of Toowoomba.
James Marks, who arrived from England in 1866, founded the firm. He moved to Toowoomba in 1874, working as a contractor before setting up an architectural practice in 1880. In the late 1880s his eldest son, Henry James (Harry) joined the firm to train with his father. In 1892 the firm became James Marks & Son. The office designed a wide range of residential, institutional and commercial buildings. Harry's brother Reginald joined the practice in 1906 when James retired. Harry's son Charles also worked in the practice, though he joined the Defence Forces in 1915. In 1917 Reginald moved to Sydney. When Charles joined the practice in 1924, it became Harry J Marks and Son.
Harry Marks was an innovative and idiosyncratic designer who introduced a number of his inventions into buildings he designed, including the patented Austral window. On a number of occasions Marks designed windows especially for a commissioned building and the windows in the Warroo hall are a distinctive feature of the design. They pivot to improve ventilation, a particular interest of Marks'.
As a photograph published in November 1929 shows the hall almost complete, it is assumed to have been finished soon afterwards and was in use in 1930.
The new building combined offices and a meeting room for the Shire Council with a large open hall to be used for a variety of public and private functions and events and which contained a stage and projection booth.
Surat was connected to a reticulated water system in 1952 and electricity was laid on in 1953. The three clock faces in the tower are a memorial to Alex J Simpson who was Chairman of Warroo Shire from 1925 to 1946 and who was killed in a car accident in 1947. On each clock face, the letters of his name replace the usual numerals. The clocks appear to have been installed in the 1950s, possibly after electricity became available. It was decided to illuminate them in 1961.
The original hall was retained on site as a supper room, at first alongside the new hall, then to its rear, before being destroyed by a storm in 1962. A new civic centre was constructed in 1963 and the Shire Council has since used this venue for its meetings and offices. The hall continues in community use and has a new supper room, constructed in 1961, to its southern side. This building has no heritage significance, nor does the modern toilet block constructed to the rear of the hall.
The hall is very intact and appears to have been painted in a version of the existing colour scheme since at least 1955.
Part of the northern verandah has been enclosed and fitted with a small kitchenette, probably in the 1960s. This may be the 'Gentlemen's Dressing Room' referred to as being fitted with casement windows in 1957.
The former Council Meeting Room and Shire Offices are currently used for community craft activities.
","criteria":"The Warroo Shire Hall is a rare and intact surviving timber shire hall, of which many were constructed, but few now survive.
|The Warroo Shire Hall has a long connection with the people of Surat and the surrounding district as a focus for a range of important community services and social events. These have been as varied as wedding receptions and professional concerts by visiting performers.
|The Warroo Shire Hall is an important public building in a prominent location and in form, scale and materials makes a strong visual contribution to the townscape and character of Surat. Its central clock tower forms an important part of its landmark quality.
|The Warroo Shire hall was designed by H J (Harry) Marks and is associated with his life and work as a member of the important Toowoomba architectural practice which encompassed the work of three generations of the Marks family.
|The Warroo Shire Hall demonstrates the way in which much of western Queensland was settled by means of small service towns on supply routes. They provided a scattered population with essential goods and services, administrative facilities and the social structure to develop a sense of community. The Warroo hall provided a meeting place for the Shire Council and a venue for formal and informal social events and still serves the community.
|The Warroo Shire Hall is a fine and intact example of a timber shire hall of its era, catering for both administrative and social functions in its design. It has rooms for shire offices, with a large hall, stage, projection booth and small kitchen to the rear. Its toilets and separate supper room are now modern structures.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22361,"place_ref":602781,"name":"Burns Philp Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Landsborough Street and Caroline Street","suburb":"NORMANTON","lga":"CARPENTARIA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-10-14","description":"The former Burns Philp building, situated on the north-eastern edge of the town of Normanton at the corner of Landsborough (Burke Development Road) and Caroline Streets, is highly visible from the northern approach to the town and positioned in close proximity to the Norman River. The building aligns with both street frontages, occupying the southern corner of its large site, providing it with a generous open area to the north-east and river, where loading platforms are located.
The former Burns Philp building is a large timber-framed structure elevated on masonry and timber stumps and clad in vertically fixed corrugated iron sheeting. Behind a distinctive curved triple-fronted parapet facing south-east to Landsborough Street, the building is divided into three bays of varying width, each with a gabled roof and valley gutters running the length of the building. Two roof ventilators are positioned along the ridge of the middle bay. A timber-framed corrugated iron clad awning with ogee eaves gutter supported on posts (one early timber post survives) extends over each footpath. Two entrances are located on Caroline Street accessed by stairs and a connecting ramp. The kerbing to both streets is made from local stone and cast iron gutter covers inscribed with the words 'Normanton Municipal Council' span the channel between the asphalt concrete road surface and concrete path to the footpath.
On the south-eastern elevation to Landsborough Street, the decorative parapet is lined with flat metal sheeting with the words 'BURNS PHILP & Co LTD' painted to follow the upper curves of the parapet above the words 'GENERAL MERCHANTS, SHIPPING, FORWARDING AND COMMISSION AGENTS'. Below the awning, the three bays are distinguished by different openings. The south-western bay (Bay 1), has two large curved arch windows with half round mullions and the southern window has the remnants of the words CADBURY'S COCOA painted on the upper sash. Security grills secure both windows. Between the windows, fixed glazing, with a pair of tall centre pivoting fanlights above, has replaced a pair of doors and has a recent security grill fixed over the lower section of the opening. The centre bay (Bay 2) has three double hung windows, with two light sashes, mesh head vents and security grills, separated by a four panel door with fanlight over. A recently installed steel-framed panel of steel mesh has been fixed over the door. Centred in the north-eastern bay (Bay 3) is a large ledged and braced sliding door. There is no apparent evidence of stairs, providing access to any of the doors along the Landsborough Street elevation, which are located approximately one metre above ground level.
The south-western elevation to Caroline Street comprises four double hung windows with two light sashes, mesh head vents and grills similar to those on the south-eastern elevation. Vertical louvred metal vents are located at floor level below each window. Two pairs of four panel doors with fanlights separate the windows and provide entry to the building.
On the triple gabled north-western elevation all openings are protected by timber framed corrugated clad awnings and each apex houses a pair of centre pivoting sashes: two light sashes to Bay 1 and four light sashes to Bays 2 and 3. Bay 1 comprises a central pair of doors with tall centre pivoting fanlights above, between two double hung windows, covered by an awning supported on steel posts which provides protection for the air conditioning units positioned against the wall. Bay 2 comprises a row of three pairs of centre pivoting sashes above a large awning supported on four timber posts. Under the awning, a single four panel door and three small windows to the toilets are separated by a pair of four panel doors (with centre pivoting fanlights over) accessed by a set of stairs. Bay 3 contains a large, central, sliding ledged and braced door with a braced and ledged door adjacent to the north.
Along the north-eastern elevation there are two large ledged and braced sliding doors, one opening onto a loading ramp and a double hung window with six-light sashes at the northern end.
The interior of each bay varies in finish and the use of a variety of early linings suggests second hand materials, perhaps from the earlier store, may have been used in Bays 1 and 2. Arched openings between the bays provide transverse access from the Caroline Street entrance doors in Bay 1 to the large sliding doors in Bay 3. The openings between Bays 1 and 2 are in-filled with later doors and fixed panels.
Bay 1 is currently used as a tourist information centre and library. The south-eastern wall of the information centre has exposed framing lined externally with wide chamferboards (behind the corrugated iron to the façade). The remaining walls are lined with flat sheeting except for a section of the north-east wall where the horizontal tongue and groove board lining has been left exposed. A ceiling of tongue and groove boards is fixed between the bottom chord of the trusses with a section of double beaded boarding over the entrance to the middle bay. The library walls and ceiling are lined with flat sheeting and the timber floor throughout is lined with carpet. There are two later offices in the library that are not of cultural significance, one in the western corner and one in the eastern corner which has a raised floor level.
Bay 2 has unfinished timber floors, unpainted timber wall linings except around the arched door openings, and king post trusses that have a painted finish. Small areas of acrylic roof sheeting provide natural light. Some early shelving survives at the south-eastern end along with unpainted vertical beaded tongue and groove boards. On the south-western wall (west of the door way from the information centre), a small section of wall is lined internally with horizontal beaded boards. The remainder of the south-western and north-eastern walls are lined on the outside only with horizontal beaded tongue and groove boards except for a section of chamferboard lining at the western end of the south-western wall. The north-western wall is lined with wide, unpainted, vertical beaded tongue and groove boards. Toilets and a kitchen area of more recent construction are located in the south-western corner of this bay and have no cultural significance.
Bay 3 is an open space with no fixtures. The king post trusses are unpainted and the timber floor has been lined with hardboard. The north-western, north-eastern and south-eastern walls are unlined and the horizontal beaded boarding to the south-western wall is unpainted.
In the grounds at the rear of the building behind Bay 3 is a detached rendered masonry strong room with a heavy metal door and a curved concrete roof clad in corrugated sheet metal surmounted by a roof ventilator. Later additions sheeted in asbestos cement planking and metal cladding with skillion roofs abut the north-western and north-eastern walls of the strong room. To the west of the strong room, a toilet block constructed of concrete blocks with skillion roof is located behind Bay 1. The additions to the strong room and the toilet block are not of cultural significance.
","history":"The former Burns Philp building in Normanton is located on the corner of Caroline and Landsborough streets (Burke Development Road), on a site close to the former town wharves and opposite the site of the former Customs House. This locality was strategically important for a store, because all goods and services were transported by boat along the Norman River. The large timber-framed and metal-clad warehouse-style building, built in 1884, occupies around one third of its 5,900 sqm allotment and is a dominant feature of the town, being visible from the air when flying into Normanton, and from the river when entering the town from the northern port of Karumba.
\nNormanton arose as the principal service town and port for the pastoral district of Burke, in lieu of Burketown, which was declared a port in 1864. The Burketown population was beset by a typhoid fever outbreak in 1866, leading to the abandonment of the settlement, and its relocation to Sweers Island, [1] where a port was declared in March 1867. [2] The search for an alternative gulf port led to the January 1867 exploration conducted by William Landsborough and Government Surveyor George Phillips. They chose a site for a township on the western bank of the river which they named the Norman, in honour of Captain Norman, the Commander of the HMCS Victoria, which had accompanied Landsborough's brig Firefly to the gulf in his earlier 1861 quest to find Burke and Wills. The town site was on an ironstone ridge, which was thought to be above flood and high tide levels. [3] The Town of Norman was gazetted in August 1868, and became the most important centre in the Gulf, known as Normanton. [4] Cattle stations throughout the area, from as far south as Cloncurry and Georgetown, procured their supplies from Normanton. Its importance was further entrenched with the opening of the overland telegraph line from Cardwell in January 1872, linking Normanton and Kimberley (now Karumba) to the main line between Brisbane and Townsville, which had been completed in 1869. [5]
\nThe Burns Philp Company evolved from the business that James Burns established in Townsville in 1873 from which he supplied goods to the mining towns of Charters Towers, Etheridge, Ravenswood, Hodgkinson and Palmer River. Burns suffered from recurring bouts of malaria, and was advised by doctors to move to Sydney. [6] By October 1877 he had transferred his Townsville interests to Robert Philp, [7] who had been managing the store in his absence. [8] Philp expanded the business, building new wharves and warehouses along Ross Creek. Burns began a new business based in Macquarie Place in Sydney, establishing a fleet of sailing vessels plying their trade between Sydney and Townsville, while Philp expanded his operation by establishing bases in Cairns and Charters Towers.
\nThe growth of towns servicing the grazing and mining industries in the Gulf led to the development of the combined business and shipping interests of Burns and Philp in that area. By March 1879, James Burns was running the schooner the Dawn between Thursday Island and Normanton. He established a store at Normanton in July 1879 [9], serviced every two months by it and the Rover. [10] This store was reputedly relocated from Burketown, being the former store of Robert Towns. [11] Within two months of opening this store, Burns had received £2,000 worth of orders for goods to transport to graziers in the district. [12] The manager of the store issued one and five pound notes for use as change, in an environment where 'legal tender' was hard to come by. The notes were used in Normanton and Thursday Island for a period of around ten years between 1880 and 1890. [13]
\nBurns initiated his monopolisation of trade in the Gulf, [14] with the takeover of his major competitor, Clifton and Aplin, in May 1880. [15] It had been a pioneering mercantile firm in Townsville and the Gulf, establishing a store in Normanton around 1871 and one in Burketown in 1879.
\nBy January 1881, James Burns was operating the steamer Corea between Sydney and Normanton, sometimes calling in at Burketown. [16] The steamship Truganini was purchased in June 1881 to run between Thursday Island and Normanton. [17] Along with the Corea, it soon became part of the fleet of the Queensland Steam Shipping Company, a London Corporation in which Burns and Philp jointly held £5,000 in shares. The deal also included ships of the British India Steam Navigation Co., which had the mail contract from Britain, Singapore, and Batavia to Brisbane via Thursday Island and North Queensland ports. The Truganini operated the mail contract between Thursday Island and Normanton, which Burns had procured for £2,000 a year for three years. He further cemented his local monopoly by including clauses in the mail contracts, prioritising Burns and Philp cargo at cut rates. Burns then bought out the store of Theodore Amsden and Co. in Normanton, keeping Amsden on as manager. Also in mid-1881, Burns bought out a Thursday Island storekeeper, with Philp owning a share in that business as well. [18] The new Burketown store of James Burns was opened by the end of March 1883. [19]
\nIn early 1883, the businesses of James Burns of Normanton and Sydney were amalgamated with that of Robert Philp of Townsville. [20] Burns Philp & Company Limited was incorporated under New South Wales law with its registered office in Sydney. The nominal capital of the firm was £250,000, with 90% of the capital coming from Australian sources. The amalgamated company had assets in Sydney, Townsville, Normanton, Thursday Island, Cairns and Charters Towers, which included 22 vessels of all kinds, from ships to lighters, which were used to ferry goods and passengers from larger ships to the wharves. The company adopted a flag of red, white and blue, with a Scotch Thistle in the centre. [21]
\n\n
By September 1884, Burns Philp had taken over a number of small businesses in Burketown, [22] and in October, builder Andrew Murphie was engaged in building a large warehouse for Burns Philp in Normanton which was claimed to be the company's largest in Queensland outside of Brisbane. [23]
\nNormanton was thriving at that time. The foundation stone for the hospital, also built by Andrew Murphie, was laid on 1 December 1884; several new shops were under construction in the main street, including a large general store for JA Marshall and Company near the post and telegraph offices. [24] Murphie successfully tendered for additions to the Post and Telegraph offices in December 1885. [25] Profits generated in Burns Philp's Normanton store in the 1884-5 and 1885-6 financial years were greater than that of Townsville. The Gulf stores of Normanton, Burketown and Thursday Island, were together far more profitable than the stores in the major towns of Townsville, Cairns and Charters Towers which at that time were managed by Philp. [26] He was elected to Parliament in 1886 as the member for Musgrave, and from 1888 represented Townsville.
\nThe discovery of gold at Croydon in 1885, soon led to further growth in Normanton, as it became the supply base for miners. At that time the government was proposing to build a railway linking the Cloncurry copper mines and Normanton. By the end of 1886, the population at Croydon had reached 2,000, so the decision was made to divert the railway construction to Croydon utilising the materials that had been already delivered to Normanton. Tenders were called in July 1887, and the line to Croydon completed in July 1891 (QHR 600396, Normanton to Croydon Railway Line). [27] The rail line featured innovative steel sleepers, designed by George Phillips. Burns Philp was the shipping agent for the steel sleepers, manufactured in Glasgow and transported to Normanton. [28] The growth of the Croydon goldfield provided wealth for Burns Philp during the somewhat brief time it operated.
\nCompetition in local shipping activities led Burns Philp to form the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company in 1887, which evolved from the Australasian Steam Navigation Company. It was in financial difficulties, because of fierce competition from the largely Burns Philp-owned Queensland Steam Shipping Company. [29] To further shore-up the company's business interests in the Gulf, Burns engineered the pooling of three companies' resources which supplied lighter services to Burketown and Normanton in 1888. These included boats operated by Burns Philp, the Australian United Steam Navigation Company and lighters owned by Captain P Robinson. Lighters were needed because the bar of the Norman River had continually silted up, making it inaccessible to larger vessels. [30] The new company, the Carpentaria Lighterage Company was registered in Brisbane in December 1900. [31] Burns Philp also had a shipping agreement with Howard Smith and Sons Ltd for the operation of a Queensland service, terminating in Normanton, commencing on 1 January 1891, with Burns Philp holding dual agencies at the far northern ports. The lease for the municipal wharf at Normanton which had been held by Theodore Amsden was transferred to Burns Philp in April 1891. [32] Burns Philp became known as the 'octopus of the North' because of its extensive business interests. [33]
\nFrom late 1889 until about 1895, there was a depression in Queensland. North Queensland suffered especially, due to a significant downturn in sugar production, and a drought, which peaked in 1889. This had a severe impact on the regional mining industry because the crushing mills needed water. Charters Towers and Croydon were affected and this had a flow-on effect for Burns Philp. Robert Philp had speculated on mining and real estate and had to sell his company shares and resign from the Board in 1893. [34] It suffered a substantial decline in profitability, which in 1893 James Burns blamed on 'insane overstocking of Normanton five years ago' with mining supplies. [35] This included 300 pairs of bellows [36] which are used in the dry-processing of gold. Despite the downturn, approval was given for the addition of a strongroom to the Normanton building, in late 1892. [37] In January 1893 Burns Philp wrote to the Normanton Municipal Council requesting kerb and gutter be installed adjoining their store on Landsborough and Caroline Streets. The tender of £24 from local contractors Copeland and Cant for stone and concrete kerbing was accepted in February. It was installed ten feet past the side entrance to the Burns Philp store in Landsborough Street and to the end of the veranda in Caroline Street. The Council then requested the installation of spouting and gutters on the Burns Philp store. [38] The cast iron gutter coves on the kerb were not tendered for at this time, and presumably were added later, reportedly manufactured at the Croydon foundry, [39] operated by Messer's Stuart and Mackenzie between 1891 and 1912. [40]
\nThe fading fortunes of the Croydon gold mines in the early twentieth century had significant impact on the economy of Normanton, as did the construction of a railway between Townsville and the copper mines of Cloncurry in 1908. This settlement had been previously served by Normanton, and despite the best efforts of a former Burns Philp Normanton manager, and now Member of Parliament, James Forsyth, to build the Cloncurry to Normanton railway, it did not proceed. [41] By 1920 the Carpentaria Lighterage Company withdrew from the Gulf trade and two lighters, the Atlas and Hercules were sold to the Shire Councils of Normanton and Burketown. The Lighterage Company was liquidated in 1926. [42]
\nBurns Philp as a company had expanded its interests and its ports of call. By 1914, apart from the Sydney and London offices, there were 23 branches; 13 in Australia, three in the Solomon Islands, two in Papua, two in Java and one each in the New Hebrides, Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand. There were also sub-branches in Fiji and the Gilbert Islands, as well as a pearling fleet in the Torres Strait. Between 1890 and 1910 all the company's existing timber and iron buildings were replaced, with the exception of Normanton. The only extant buildings from this rebuilding exercise in Queensland are the Charters Towers store, built in 1891 and later incorporated into the adjoining store, now known as Bartlam's Store (QHR 600409) and the 1895 Townsville building (QHR 600914). The only other known Burns Philp building remaining in Australia is the Sydney office in Bridge Street, built between 1899 and 1900. (NSW Heritage Register: 00347). Burns Philp chroniclers Buckley and Klugman described the unaltered Normanton store as:
\n'fossilised in a stagnant community...an example of an old kind of structure supplying a wide range of goods to a motley collection of isolated people' no longer typical of Burns Philp's operations in Australia by 1914; but the company still ran such stores at overseas branches.' [43]
\nDespite this critique, the manager of the Normanton store was able to increase the profits during 1914-15, by marking-up the prices of existing stocks in anticipation of wartime shortages. [44] However, by 1923-24, the Normanton branch recorded a loss of over £2,000. [45] During the 1930s, Burns Philp interests included copra plantations in Java and New Guinea, goldmining in New Guinea, and the establishment of retail stores, including the Penneys chain across Queensland and northern New South Wales (taken over by Coles in the post-war era.[46]) Despite the Depression, profits were still realised. [47]
\nWhile passenger services had always been part of the company's business as a means of supporting the cargo trade, James Burns realised the tourism potential of the South Pacific while he was in Java securing the importation of copra in 1908. The Burns Philp Tour and Travel Department was established soon after, and the company published the Picturesque Travel magazine from 1911 promoting travel destinations world wide. [48] Burns Philp had a monopoly on shipping passenger services in Melanesia prior to WWI. By the mid 1920s, Burns Philp World Tour and Travel Department became agents for QANTAS. [49] The Winton-based company which had formed in 1920 established a mail route from Charleville to Cloncurry in 1925, which was extended to Camooweal in 1925 and to Normanton by 1927. The inaugural run to Normanton was piloted by one of the company founders Hudson Fysh. [50] The first paying passengers on the mail run arrived in Normanton on 17 April 1929 after a fifty-one hour flight over three days. [51] Burns Philp travel manager Mr Harman promoted the town as a sportsman's paradise, rich in wild fowl and alligators, fifty pound barramundi, groper, diamond fish and swordfish, with well priced accommodation available at the local hotels. [52] Air transport became an integral part of business in the Gulf, even improving the local fishing industry, allowing fish caught at Normanton in the morning, to be sold at Longreach the same evening. [53] By 1930, winter trips to Normanton were being promoted by Burns Philp travel office in Brisbane. [54]
\nBy the late 1940s the population of Normanton had declined to 234. [55] The development of the prawn fishing industry at Karumba during the 1950s led to its population increasing into the 1970s, as it became the centre of the Gulf fishing industry. The prawn and barramundi fishing industries generated around $130 million in 2010. [56] Tourism and amateur fishing are also major industries in the region.
\nBurns Philp and Company continued to expand and remained a blue-chip mainstay of the Australian Stock Exchange throughout the 20th century, and by the 1980s it was an international empire of more than 200 companies involved in a range of industries from toy manufacture, perfume production, pharmaceuticals, car sales and the BBC hardware chain. It had been involved in insurance and banking, backing the formation of the North Queensland Insurance Company, which later grew into QBE.
\nBoth Burns and Philp had served in the parliaments of Queensland and New South Wales. Robert Philp was Premier of Queensland between 1899 and 1903 and again from 1907 to 1908. He had entered parliament in 1886, managing various portfolios up until 1908 before moving to the back bench, and his retirement in 1915. He was knighted that year. [57] James Burns, based in Sydney, was a Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly between July 1908 and August 1923. He was knighted in 1917. [58]
\nFollowing the exit of the last family member from the management board in 1984, the new CEO began rationalising the smaller companies and consolidated the hardware and food ingredient businesses. It acquired Goodman Fielder in 2003, extending the company's operations across 30 countries. [59] However, Burns Philp was deregistered on the stock exchange in December 2006 following a disastrous attempt at controlling the world yeast and spice market. [60] Despite the folding of the company it was inducted into the inaugural Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in September 2009. [61]
\nThe Normanton property was sold to the Delta Pastoral Company Pty Ltd in July 1983. It was further transferred to Normanton Mai Aboriginal Corporation in May 1985, when it was renamed Normanton Traders. It was again transferred in 1987 [62] and 1999, but continued to operate as a general store. [63] The Carpentaria Shire Council acquired the property in mid-2000. [64]
\nThe structure comprises three gabled sections, each divided by walls, running parallel to Caroline Street. Former employee Robyn Merrin, who worked in the store from 1978-86, stated that the first section along Caroline Street was dedicated to sales, the second and third sections for the stocking of goods, with the back section devoted to produce such as hay, feed and molasses and some farm machinery. [65] In October 2008, the section of the building along Caroline Street opened as a tourist information centre and library. The central section included some interpretation panels, and was used for storage. The northernmost section remains vacant and has been used for local social events. The concrete block toilet facilities at the rear of the building in Caroline Street and the additions to the strong room have been more recently constructed.
","criteria":"Built in 1884, the Burns Philp Building (former) in Normanton is important as the oldest surviving store of the company which dominated shipping and mercantile trading in Australia and the South Pacific from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. Its construction and success in generating a greater income for Burns Philp than the larger centre of Townsville in the mid-1880s, is indicative of Normanton's regional importance as the major port in the Gulf at that time, servicing the mining and grazing industries.
|As the earliest surviving store of Burns Philp and Company, constructed shortly after its formation, the building has a special association with its founders, the pioneering businessmen Sir James Burns and Sir Robert Philp. The company became one of the largest mercantile providers in Australia and the South Pacific, known as the 'Octopus of the North' by the 1890s, and during the 20th century was involved in shipping, travel, retail stores, car sales, hardware, pharmaceuticals, perfume manufacture and insurance.
Burns Philp and Company was inducted into the inaugural Queensland Business Leaders' Hall of Fame in September 2009, in recognition of its significant contribution into the economic success of Queensland and Australia.
|The Burns Philp Building (former) is an excellent and rare example of an early store which provided goods and services to a geographically diverse community for a period of more than 120 years. The building with its decorative parapet is highly intact and demonstrates its function through the layout of spaces, including the retention of interior shelving and its detached strong room, as well as through the loading access points at the sides and rear with door openings at truck bed height. Its prominent location the main street's highest point, close to the former town wharves, was strategically important to the success of the company's business both locally and within Queensland.
|The former Normanton store of Burns Philp is a rare surviving example, and the oldest of the company's nineteenth century structures in Queensland which included those in Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns, Bowen, Charters Towers, Burketown, Cooktown and Thursday Island. This building was left untouched by a major rebuilding exercise undertaken by Burns Philp at all of its Australian mainland stores between 1890 and 1910, and therefore it operated continuously as a general mercantile store and agency office for more than 120 years. Only Charters Towers, built 1891 (QHR 600409) and Townsville built 1895 (QHR 600914) remain.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":22365,"place_ref":602616,"name":"Montville Memorial Precinct","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Razorback Road and Main Street (Montville-Mapleton Road)","suburb":"MONTVILLE","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-28","description":"The Montville Memorial Precinct is a leafy area centred on a small park known locally as the 'Village Green'. As well as this park, it comprises a short street called Memorial Close, memorial gates, a row of memorial fig trees (Ficus sp), a large community hall known as Montville Hall, and a smaller community hall known as the Montville Memorial Hall, St Mary's Church Hall and Community Centre. The precinct is located in the commercial centre of Montville, a village in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast.
Montville Hall
Located at the northern edge of the precinct, Montville Hall is a weatherboard hall. The core of the building has a gabled corrugated iron roof with three ventilators; a wide extension along the eastern side has a skillion roof. A rear extension has a lower narrower gabled roof. The hall is sited on land that slopes gently to the rear so that the front is at ground level and the rear is elevated on stumps.
The wide gable of the roof is the most prominent feature of the front elevation. The apex of the gable is in-filled with slatted boards. Access through the front of the hall is gained via a small porch with a gabled, corrugated iron roof. Doors open into either side of this porch. Sash windows open into the hall, one on either side of the porch and a third in the front of the side extension.
A row of horizontally hinged timber framed windows opens from the long eastern elevation. A short ramp running parallel to the side of the building leads to a double timber door located approximately in the middle of the elevation. A metal hood shades this door.
The long western elevation is broken at the rear by a short projecting extension. A row of tall sash windows are spaced evenly along the elevation in front of this and a double wooden door shaded with a metal hood opens towards the front. The extension has high, small square windows. A short staircase to a landing provides access to a wooden door into the north elevation of the extension. The door is shaded by a metal hood.
Most of the interior of the building is taken up with a large hall. At the end of this hall is a stage recessed into the rear wall. The hall has a coved ceiling. The walls are lined with vertically jointed boards and the ceiling is lined with boards running the length of the hall. Photographs and honour boards are arranged around the walls.
A large World War I honour board made of dark stained timber with gold lettering is mounted on the eastern wall near the front of the hall. The top of the board is surmounted with ornate scrolled work. On this top section are the words: 'For King and Country. Roll of Honour.' The main part of the board is divided into three sections in each of which is listed the names of those who enlisted for World War I. Across the top of this section are the words, 'Montville District'.
The slightly larger World War II honour board is located next to the World War I board. It is also made of dark stained timber and has gold lettering. It is square in shape and less ornate than the World War I board. It is divided into a rectangular top section and a much larger lower section listing the names of the enlisted in three columns. The words 'Montville and District, Roll of Honour, World War 1939-1945' appear in the top section. The four dead are listed at the top of the centre column of names in the lower section. The names are surrounded by a wreath and surmounted with the words 'Lest We Forget'. The centre column also lists local women who served in World War II.
The eastern extension takes the form of a long narrow room running the length of the building. A sliding timber door opens into the main hall. One end of the room is partitioned to form a commercial kitchen. The room is ceiled with sheeting.
The small rear gable-roofed extension houses a room and corridors that provide access to the stage. The room and corridors are ceiled with sheeting.
Memorial Gates
The memorial gates are located at the front (southern end) of the hall. The gates and associated fences form a semi-circle around the front of the main part of the hall. They comprise four sandstone pillars supporting wrought iron fences and a wrought iron gate. The two pillars supporting the gates are larger than the others. A flag pole is located at each end of the structure.
Each pillar comprises a cube-shaped base with a narrower square sectioned shaft topped by a pyramid. A projecting ornamental moulding surrounds the shaft near the top and the pyramid has a single step at about mid height.
Rectangular marble slabs containing the names of the enlisted and also the names of those rejected for service are mounted on the front of the pillars supporting the gates. The lettering is dark grey in appearance. The left pillar contains the words 'Erected by the residents of Montville District in appreciation of those residents who enlisted in the Great War 1914-1919'. Beneath this are the names of the six men who died. A list of thirty three names is inscribed on the right pillar under the heading 'Enlisted'. Beneath this is a list of a further six names under the heading 'Rejected'.
A small garden is cultivated inside the semi-circle formed by the gates. To the right of the gates in front of the eastern extension of the hall is another small garden edged by rocks. Four short pillars are arranged in a row along the front of this garden.
The 'Village Green' and memorial trees
The 'Village Green' is a triangular park formed by Memorial Close (north), Razorback Road (south) and Main Street (west). Memorial Close is between the park and the memorial gates. The six memorial trees are evenly spaced in a row along the northern edge of the park opposite the gates.
The memorial trees are tall spreading figs (Ficus benjamina) that overhang Memorial Close and much of the park. Other smaller trees and shrubs grow in the park (including three Ficus obliqua on the south-west side) and together with the memorial trees create an extensive green shady area. The park is covered with lawn except under the trees and where there are small garden plots along the Main Street edge. A low stone wall runs at intervals along this edge. There is a flagpole at the north western corner of the park.
Each of the memorial trees bears a small brass plaque inscribed with '1914-1918', the name of one of the dead from World War I, and 'Lest We Forget'. A series of four picnic settings are spaced at regular intervals in a row underneath the trees.
The picnic settings and a modern brick amenities block in the north-east corner of the park are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Montville Memorial Hall, St Mary's Church Hall and Community Centre
The Montville Memorial Hall is located at the rear of the 'Village Green'. It is a small gable-roofed, weatherboard hall with the long axis, containing the front verandah and entrance, facing Main Street. There is a skillion roofed extension at the northern end.
A verandah with a corrugated iron roof and a small gable in the middle runs the length of the front (western) elevation except the extension. Entrance is gained through a double set of wooden doors. Double sets of casement windows open either side of this door. The verandah has short balustrades at each end, but none across the front.
Four plaques are fastened to the front wall, two on either side of the door. Left of the door, one plaque commemorates the arrival of the Salvation Army at Montville in 1897. The other commemorates the addition of the verandah in August 1995. To the right of the door, a plaque commemorates the construction of the hall during World War II and the donation of the hall to St Mary's Church in 1978. Another plaque, dated 2002, commemorates those who served and died during World War II and the "'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' who supported them in the Milne Bay and Kokoda campaigns, 1942".
Two sets of casement windows open into the southern elevation, which otherwise is devoid of notable features. Two sets of casement windows open into the opposite elevation. The window nearest to the front is a double set. There is a wooden door between these windows. A double wooden door approached by a long ramp provides access in the middle of the rear (eastern) elevation. Double sets of casement windows are located either side of this door. A corrugated iron tank on a tank-stand is located at the northern end.
The interior of the hall comprises two rooms: a large hall and small kitchen. The kitchen is housed in the skillion roofed northern extension. It is lined with painted vertical boards and fitted with built-in cupboards and a sink. A door and a wide servery open into the kitchen from the main hall. The hall is undecorated except for a picture of the Queen and an Australian flag that are hung at the southern end. A built-in cabinet is fitted to the northern wall next to the door into the kitchen. The walls, ceiling and floor of the hall are lined with unpainted light-coloured timber boards.
","history":"The Montville Memorial Precinct is located in the village of Montville in the Blackall Ranges west of the Sunshine Coast. Each element of the precinct has a war memorial function and the place is the setting for annual Anzac Day ceremonies. The memorial gates (1921), commemorating World War I servicemen, form an entrance into Montville Hall (1903) from Memorial Close. The hall contains two memorial honour boards commemorating servicemen from both world wars. Opposite the memorial gates and abutting the Close, a park known locally as the 'Village Green' contains six memorial trees (1923) and a former Soldiers' Memorial Hall (1941) (now Montville Memorial Hall, St Mary's Church Hall and Community Centre). The precinct is located at the intersection of Main Street (Montville-Mapleton Road) and Razorback Road.
The men from Montville who served in World War I came from a community of about fifty-five farmers and dairymen and their families. The settlement had developed some twenty years earlier at the head of Razorback Road which, at the time, was the main means of access from Palmwoods into this part of the Blackall Range. From 1891, when the North Coast Railway came to Palmwoods, it provided a route to the railhead for the fruit growers, dairymen and timber getters of the district. A school was established at the head of the road in 1896 and nearby properties were subdivided into small blocks. By World War I, Montville village had a School of Arts Hall (now Montville Hall), a guesthouse and two stores.
About forty men enlisted from Montville's small community; of these six died. Like most communities throughout Australia during the 1920s, Montville erected memorials to its servicemen after the war. As well as honouring those who had volunteered for service, war memorials provided an important focus for collective grieving especially at annual memorial services such as Remembrance Day and Anzac Day. They served as a local expression of patriotism and national identity.
Montville's memorial gates were unveiled on Armistice Day, November 1921. They comprised four Helidon stone pillars supporting wrought iron gates and a fence. Lead filled inscriptions of the names of all the local men who enlisted were engraved on marble slabs mounted on the gate pillars.
The gates were made by AL Petrie and Son, Queensland's most prolific maker of memorials during that period. Andrew Lang Petrie, was a grandson of Andrew Petrie, Superintendent of Works during Moreton Bay's penal period, and a son of John Petrie, Brisbane's first mayor. He was a leading citizen of Brisbane who held a seat in the Legislative Assembly for thirty three years. Other monuments in southeast Queensland made by the company include war memorial gates at Kalinga Park (1920) (QHR 602584), Kallangur (1923) and Chermside (1924) and other types of memorials at the Ipswich Railway Workshops (1919, QHR 600605), Graceville Memorial Park (1920, QHR 602443), and Toowong Memorial Park (1922, QHR 602459).
Montville's memorial gates are rare in Queensland and in Australia in that they include the names of those who volunteered for service but were rejected. War memorials often recorded the names of both those who returned from service during war and those who died. By the absence of names on a monument, these memorials also identified those who did not volunteer for service. This was especially true in small towns like Montville where everyone in the community was known. To avoid unfair public disapprobation, associations of rejected volunteers often petitioned to have their names included on memorials, usually without success. While the names of volunteers who were rejected do appear on a number of honour boards, it is rare for them to appear on monuments as they do at Montville.
The memorial gates are the focal point of annual Anzac Day services at Montville. The adjacent Memorial Close, memorial trees and Montville Hall perform functions in these services as well as being important elements in the setting of the gates. The close, shaded by the memorial trees, provides a wide, open area where members of the community gather to participate in the dawn ceremony. Afterwards, Anzac biscuits and refreshments are served in the hall, where veterans may also play the traditional 'two-up' game. Rolls of honour for both world wars are mounted on the wall.
Montville Hall, completed on 23 February 1903, predated World War I by more than ten years but it was a logical choice for the site of the gates since, together with the 'Village Green', it was the centre of community activities; a role it continues to play. It was built by Robert Whitecross to plans and specifications prepared by William Skene, a local farmer.
A number of alterations have been made to the hall since its construction. Between 1915 and 1921 it was lengthened by about one third. A supper room and verandah incorporating a kitchen annex was added to the eastern side during the 1950s. In 1999, a large rear extension was built incorporating a dressing room, stage lighting, store-room, toilets and an upgraded kitchen.
Opposite the hall and memorial gates, a line of six memorial trees grow on the 'Village Green' along Memorial Close. They are in the tradition of memorial avenues. The first of these in Australia were planted in Victoria. During the war, the State Recruiting Committee in Victoria recommended that each intending recruit should be given the assurance that his name would be memorialised in an avenue of honour. By 1918, Ballarat was committed to nearly 4,000 plaqued trees. In southeast Queensland there are a number of memorial avenues including Anzac Memorial Avenue between Petrie and Redcliffe, Diggers Drive at Kalinga Park (QHR 602584), and memorial avenues in Graceville Memorial Park (QHR 602443) and at Eumundi (QHR 601122).
Montville's memorial trees were planted by children from the nearby Montville State School as an Arbour Day project in September 1923. The school had been planting Arbour Day trees since before World War I and by the 1920s available room within the school grounds was becoming restricted. This prompted the decision by Arthur Suthers, Head Teacher of the school in 1923, to arrange for six figs (Ficus benjamina) to be planted as a memorial opposite the memorial gates. Each of the trees bears a plaque naming one of the six local men who died during World War I.
The former Soldiers' Memorial Hall is located on the opposite side of the Village Green to the memorial trees. Memorial halls were a popular form of utilitarian memorial. They were often used as a clubroom for returned soldiers and sometimes also functioned as a community hall.
The Soldiers' Memorial Hall was built in 1941 under the auspices of the Montville sub-branch of the Returned Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA, now RSL) by veterans of World War I as a club room for returned soldiers. In seeking a grant of crown land on which to build the hall, the builders cited the need to provide support for World War II servicemen when they returned. As home to the local sub-branch of the RSL, it functioned as a clubroom for local veterans until 1978 when it was donated to St Mary's Church of England and renamed Montville Memorial Hall, St Mary's Church Hall and Community Centre. Since construction, a kitchen has been added. The verandah was built in August 1995.
It is not unusual for a number of war memorials to be sited in close proximity. The best-known example is Anzac Square in Brisbane (QHR 600062), where a number of monuments are located in proximity to the Shrine of Remembrance. Memorial gates are also often found in juxtaposition with memorial avenues in parks, where they often form the entrance to the avenue. Examples of this type include Kalinga Park (QHR 602584) and Toowong Memorial Park (QHR 602459). However, the Montville Precinct, containing memorial gates, trees, hall, close and honour rolls, is unusual for the variety of memorial types in close proximity.
","criteria":"The area is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of war memorials. Designed for commemorative ceremonies, it contains a prominent monument: the memorial gates, which display the names of the local enlisted and dead and forms the centre-piece of memorial services. Memorial Close forms an open space in front of the monument that accommodates the people who participate in these services. The memorial trees display the names of the dead as well as providing a leafy canopy over the whole area. Behind the gates, the Montville Hall, containing honour rolls, provides for activities after the services.
|Visually dominated by the spreading memorial fig trees (Ficus benjamina), the Montville Memorial Precinct with its well composed stone memorial gates, rustic timber and iron buildings and green lawns displays strong picturesque qualities. In a busy commercial area frequented by tourists from all over Australia, it forms a leafy, peaceful enclave.
|The Montville Memorial Gates (1921) are rare in Queensland insofar as they include the names of men who volunteered for service in World War I but were rejected. Associations of rejected volunteers often petitioned for their names to be included on memorials. However, while they appear on a number of honour boards, it is rare for them to be included on monuments.
The Montville Precinct, containing memorial gates and trees, Memorial Close, a soldiers' memorial hall, and honour rolls, is uncommon for the variety of memorial types located in close proximity to each other.
|The Montville Memorial Precinct is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being associated with Australia's involvement in two world wars and with the national expressions of grief that followed. The World War I memorials at Montville (1921 gates and 1923 memorial trees) reflect a period of strong and widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism when most Queensland communities erected a public memorial to honour local participation in the war.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":23750,"place_ref":602702,"name":"Bankfoot House","alternate_name":"SEQ-1E 38","street_address":"1998 Old Gympie Road","suburb":"GLASS HOUSE MOUNTAINS","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-12-11","description":"Bankfoot House occupies 3.4 acres of a flat-topped rise on Old Gympie Road approximately 200 metres south of the intersection with Coonowrin Road and about 4.5 kilometres west of the township of Glasshouse Mountains. It is within a short strip of residential properties on the east side of Old Gympie Road extending from Coonowrin Road to Marshs Road and opposite the Australian Teamsters Hall of Fame and camping grounds. The property has commanding views east to the Glasshouse Mountains and generally across surrounding paddocks and bushland.
The property accommodates a number of structures including a house, dairy/laundry, wagon shed, farm shed/garage, vehicle ramp, water tanks and trellis within a grassed yard with trees and scattered plantings. A commemorative cairn with plaque stands in the front yard. The west side of the property and road reserve have mounded areas and evidence of wheel tracks.
A range of equipment, tools, furniture, fittings, pictures and objects are found throughout the site.
The House
A timber-framed and -clad building supported by low timber and concrete stumps and sheltered by a hipped corrugated galvanised iron sheeted roof, the house faces west onto Old Gympie Road. A decorative iron and wire entrance gate opens from the boundary on Old Gympie Road onto a concrete path that leads to the house. The house has open verandahs to the west and part of the south and enclosed verandahs to the other sides.
The building extends around the 1878 house at its core and incorporates a range of timbers. Marks, joints and cuts in the timber indicate that some timber has been reused from elsewhere and may have come from previous structures on the site. The internal partitions and ceilings are beech and door and window joinery is cedar.
The exterior is clad with weatherboards which infill the balustrading to the west and south verandahs. Part of the south verandah is protected by louvred timber shutters and timber blinds. Verandah ceilings are unlined to the open verandahs and battened and sheeted in the enclosed areas.
The walls are single-skin with exposed studs to the east and west verandahs. The west wall is lined with 140mm horizontal beaded tongue and groove boards. The south wall is clad to the exterior with rough sawn beaded tongue and groove boards with joins at the junctions of the stud framing and the internal partitions. The north wall is clad with horizontal beaded tongue and groove boards.
The plan is organised around a central corridor with bedrooms opening off to the south and lounge, bedroom and dining to the north. A verandah runs around this core with a kitchen and stove alcove built into the northeast corner and bathroom and storeroom to the southeast. The north verandah is enclosed with hopper windows (casements fitted to open horizontally) and lined with plywood and fibrous sheeting.
The post to the southwest corner of the house has the mortice and tenon joints that were part of the earlier 1878 verandah structure.
The internal partitions are post and rail framed and lined with vertical beaded tongue and groove boards. The ceilings are lined with beaded tongue and groove boards.
French doors open onto the verandahs from the southwest and north bedrooms and from the lounge and dining rooms to the north.
The walls between the north bedroom/dining room and middle/east southern bedrooms have window openings now boarded over, although the sills remain. Two horizontal casement windows have been placed in a high window opening in the north bedroom.
Floor coverings include vinyl and carpet. The house is painted outside and in, but the verandah boards are unpainted. Distinctive vertical stripes are painted into a number of doors.
The house contains equipment, furniture, fittings, pictures, objects, clothing, textiles, crockery and utensils dating from 1800s to the late 20th century. It contains documents and photographs associated with the Grigor families and the occupation of the site as a staging post, guesthouse, residence and farm. Important items include the post office letterbox, lounge room furniture, a pianola, a range of everyday domestic objects (lamps, irons, etc.), a large table and a kitchen dresser. A horse shoe hangs over the front door. A full inventory of the items in the house is being compiled by the Caloundra City Council.
Dairy and laundry
A short covered walkway connects the dairy and laundry to the north verandah. The dairy is a small rectangular timber-framed weatherboard clad building sheltered by a hipped shingle roof. Supported on low timber stumps, the dairy has a fixed timber louvred window to the north, a timber door opening on the south and a timber floor. The dairy accommodates a range of equipment and objects including dairying equipment and saws.
The corrugated galvanised iron clad skillion-roofed lean-to laundry stands to the east of the dairy building on a concrete slab floor. It has doors opening to the north and south and the remains of a fireplace for the copper stand outside the northern door. The laundry accommodates two concrete tubs and an assortment of equipment and other objects.
Wagon shed
The open, rectangular wagon shed stands in the northeast corner of the yard. The low-pitched skillion roof, supported on round timber posts with round log roof framing, shelters a bullock wagon and other equipment and objects.
Garage/shed
A timber framed and clad (weatherboards to the west, south and east and palings to the north) garage/shed stands to the south of the house. It consists of a rectangular hip roofed portion with a skillion roofed lean-to abutting this to the south. The roofs are clad with corrugated galvanised iron. There is a concrete slab at the doors to the west and dirt floors throughout. The shed floor is a step above the garage, reached by a concrete step. An internal partition of vertical boards separates the two sections. Hinged hatches open from the garage side into the shed once accessing chicken nesting areas. A range of timbers has been used to construct the garage/shed. Marks on the timber indicate they have been reused from elsewhere.
Other
A timber machinery ramp stands to the south of the garage/shed. Two concrete water tanks stand to the south of the house and a septic tank stands to the east.
A variety of timber posts with threaded wire fence the property except for a stretch comprised of hollow metal pipe with threaded wire to each side of the entrance gate.
The yard accommodates a timber trellis, a Hills hoist clothes line, posts from an earlier clothes line and a memorial cairn and plaque.
There are three prominent bunya pines to the north and two to the south. The yard contains a scattering of other vegetation including a large fig adorned with elkhorns to the east of the house and eucalypts and fruit trees.
The west side of the yard contains a number of mounds and depressions that may indicate locations of previous buildings. The road reserve to the west and northwest edge of the property has a number of depressions that may indicate routes of earlier wagon tracks.
Associated sites (outside the heritage boundary)
The remains of a sawpit and rubbish dump that may have been associated with the Grigor families are located in the grounds of the Australian Teamsters Hall of Fame property across the road.
A number of graves lie within the property at 1970 Old Gympie Road where David, Margaret and Robert Grigor and an aboriginal playmate are buried. Locations have not been determined. A plaque on the footpath commemorates these burials.
","history":"The core of Bankfoot House, a timber homestead on the Old Gympie Road to the southwest of the township of Glass House Mountains, was built in 1878 by the first European settlers in the area, the Grigor family. The house, probably the oldest surviving building in the Glass House Mountains district, was part of a coach stop first established in 1868 on the first Brisbane to Gympie Road, and it was occupied by the Grigors and their descendents until 2002. It is the only surviving coach change station element on the Cobb and Co. Brisbane to Gympie route, and it is aptly located opposite the Australian Teamsters Hall of Fame and Spirit of Cobb and Co. complex.
The Glass House Mountains were named by Captain Cook in 1770, but it was to be another century before Europeans actually settled near the iconic volcanic plugs. The area between the Mooloolah and Maroochy Rivers was closed to settlement prior to 1860 as part of a Reserve proclaimed by Governor Gipps in 1842. The aim of the reserve was to protect the bunya trees that were highly valued as a food source by the Aboriginal people. After Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, Gipp's proclamation was rescinded by the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, which allowed for post-survey selection, and timber-getting licenses. It was this early activity in today's Maroochy Shire, along with the discovery of gold at Gympie in 1867, which led to the first white settlement at the Glasshouse Mountains further south.
William Grigor and Mary Fenwick both arrived at Moreton Bay on 19 January 1855, on the sailing ship William Miles. Mary had been born in Bankfoot, Perthshire, Scotland, in 1834, and had met William, also from Scotland, during her voyage to Australia. She worked as a governess to the children of Captain Wickham, the Government Resident for the Moreton Bay settlement, at Newstead House, and later as governess to the McConnel children on Durundur station (near Woodford), prior to marrying William in August 1863 at Eagle Farm.
William worked in various timber-related industries after his arrival in Moreton Bay, and became friends with another Scotsman, James Low, at Moggill. It has also been claimed that he worked at Eagle Farm, the Pine River, and Burpengary during these early years. In 1862 or 1863 Grigor and Low formed a partnership with William Pettigrew, who had opened a sawmill on William Street in Brisbane in 1853. Low and Grigor may have been timber getting in the Mooloolah River area as early as 1862. In the first half of 1863 the three partners converted the sailing ship Granite City into a stern paddle steamer named Gneering, which was to transport cut cedar from Pettigrew's depot near the Mooloolah River to his sawmill in Brisbane. Grigor would organise the timber getting, Low would supervise its transport, and Pettigrew would handle the sawmilling. The partnership had dissolved by 1868, and the Gneering was eventually wrecked in 1893.
Grigor and Low moved to the mouth of the Mooloolah River some time in 1863, to operate a store and timber depot. Various histories refer to either 'Low and Grigor's depot' or 'Pettigrew's depot' near the mouth of the Mooloolah River, but they may have been the same place. In 1865 Low and Grigor were timber getting on the Mooloolah River and lower Maroochy River, and Low also operated on the upper Maroochy. Mrs Low was the first white woman in the Maroochy district, arriving at the Mooloolah River several months after her son John was born in Spring Hill in December 1863. The Grigor's first four children were born at Mooloolah between October 1864 and January 1869. Grigor and Low also obtained adjoining allotments in Gloucester Street in Spring Hill in 1867, and built a pair of semi detached stone houses. The Grigor house (QHR 600308) stayed in the family until recently, and was rented out for most of their period of ownership.
Grigor and Low had established another timber depot, along with a store and post office (the first post office between Brisbane and Gympie), on the north bank of the Maroochy River opposite Dunethin Rock by 1867. In October of 1867 James Nash discovered gold at Gympie, and Low and Grigor promptly cut a track north to Gympie from their Maroochy River depot, providing an alternative route to travelling by steamer from Brisbane to Maryborough, and then travelling overland south to Gympie. Instead, travellers could ship up the Maroochy River to Dunethin Rock before travelling north overland to Gympie. The other main land route to Gympie from Brisbane at this time was a track via Durundur Station, over the mountains to Conondale, then along the Mary River to Gympie.
Although the two men operated the Dunethin Rock depot, the men's families probably continued to reside near the Mooloolah River, as there are references to Grigor and Low moving from Mooloolah in 1868, to take up their selections at Glass House Mountains and Yandina respectively. However, another source claims that Grigor resided at Mount Buderim for a time before he moved to the Glass House Mountains. The men's decision to relocate during 1868 was prompted by the government's attempts to form a proper road from Brisbane and Gympie, and the two timber getters' realisation that there was a living to be made out of accommodating travellers on this road.
Tom Petrie was contracted by the government to blaze a more direct route from Brisbane after the gold discovery. As Cobb and Co. had announced its intent to run a service when a proper road was completed, Petrie was accompanied by the Cobb and Co. driver Hiram Barnes. The resulting track was sufficient for people walking or riding to Gympie, but in May 1868 the government allocated £2,700 for the construction of a road trafficable by carts and wagons. Work on the road, which followed Petrie's track, progressed slowly due to inclement weather and the defection of employees to the goldfields. A letter from Pettigrew in the Queenslander, 1 August 1868, noted that the section of the road from Gympie from Yandina was complete, and stated that from there to the head of navigation (on the Maroochy River) was three miles. If the road was as first rate as reported, the letter continued, Low and Grigor would shift to the head of navigation without delay. Early in October 1868, Cobb & Co.'s representative, Mr Hoyt, accompanied by a government road engineer, Frederick Byerly, took 28 hours travelling time to traverse the new road from Gympie to Brisbane in a two-horse buggy.
The Alienation of Crown Lands Act 1868 allowed for selection of Agricultural, First Class Pastoral, and Second Class Pastoral land (at decreasing prices and increasing acreages respectively), and cheap Homestead leases of 160 acres. Low secured a selection near today's Yandina, on the south bank of the Maroochy River at the point where it was forded by the new Gympie road, and moved his depot and post office upstream from Dunethin Rock to this new location. He soon built a hotel, called 'Maroochie House'. Low later died at Bankfoot House in 1883, after falling sick while travelling.
Grigor in turned selected the 160 acre Homestead Lease where Bankfoot House was built. He selected Portion 1, Parish of Beerwah, on 16 October 1868, for £9.16s including the survey fee, and a Deed of Grant was later passed in January 1875. The western boundary of this portion was described in the application to lease as being the east side of 'the main road leading from Brisbane to Gympie'. Grigor also took out leases on nearby Portions 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 between 1874 and 1878, with the leases on Portions 2 and 3 being transferred from Edmund Lander in May 1878. Portion 6 was purchased by James H. Pleace in 1884, and was briefly owned by John Grigor from September 1912 to November 1913 before subdivision began in 1914.
The original Bankfoot House, named after the home village of Mary Grigor, was most likely built between 16 October and 12 November 1868, by a ship's carpenter named Mewitt. There has been some speculation that it was built prior to October 1868, possibly even in late 1867, although it would have been bold of Grigor to start building before he had selected the land, or before he was sure that the new Government road would be passing by his doorstep.
The original building sat on the eastern side of the road, and was designed to provide accommodation for travellers. A dressed log foundation was laid on the ground, and local hardwood was pit-sawn for its framing and weatherboards (the site of the sawpit is across the road from the existing Bankfoot House). It was a narrow building about 60' long, with bedrooms and a hall on the northern end, and a dining room at the southern end. The 9' by 4' red cedar table, seating 16 guests, that was used in this dining room is still stored in the current Bankfoot House. Beech was used for the internal walls and cedar for the doors and windows was obtained from present day Peachester. The shingled roof was gabled with incorporated verandahs, the rear verandah being enclosed. Bankfoot House also acted as a post office and as a lunch stop and horse change station for Cobb and Co. coaches. The timber post office box is still extant and is stored at Bankfoot House. Other buildings at the change station eventually included a butcher's shop; the 1878 family homestead, a dairy/laundry; stables; feed shed; and Cobb and Co.'s Stables.
The site selected by Grigor, on a flat topped rise just north of Coonowrin Creek, was roughly halfway between the Caboolture River and Edmund Lander's homestead on the Mooloolah River (today's town of Mooloolah), both of which also became Cobb and Co. coaching stages. The landmark quality of the nearby Glass House Mountains, the fresh water available from Coonowrin Creek, and the elevated site of the accommodation house were all probably considerations in the siting of Bankfoot, especially the availability of water for horses. The top of the rise was level enough for horse-drawn vehicles to pull up in front of the building, and it had a long enough road frontage to accommodate stables and a feed shed next to the house. There was also a layer of stone about 600mm under the soil surface, which might have been useful in preventing wheels bogging below a certain point when the ground was sodden after rain.
When Cobb and Co. commenced its first coach run on 12 November 1868, Bankfoot provided the lunch stop. The coach, driven by Hiram Barnes, had left Brisbane early that morning, and a second coach, driven by Robert Martin, had left Gympie for Brisbane at the same time. The two coaches met at the Maroochy River (Low's depot) on Thursday night, and both successfully completed their journeys on Friday evening, 13 November. Hiram Barnes received a hero's welcome at Gympie. The fare for the journey was £3 10s, and it had taken two days to complete the distance of about 117.5 miles (189 kilometres).
In late November 1868 the change stations between Brisbane and Gympie were: Petrie's (North Pine River); the punt over the Caboolture River; Glass House (Bankfoot); Lander's (Mooloolah); Cobbs Camp (Woombye); Maroochy (Yandina); Wards (en route to Tuchekoi); and Traveston. Approaching Bankfoot, coach drivers would blow a bugle when half a mile away, so meals would be laid when the coach rolled in. The distance between change stations varied from about eight miles to 16 miles. Later, a wet weather route travelled from the Maroochy River to Gympie via Yandina Cattle Run, Cooroy, and Six Mile Creek. During 1868 and 1869 the coaches departed Brisbane and Gympie twice weekly. Although the first trip's overnight stop was at Low's depot, Cobbs Camp was soon completed and was also used for overnight accommodation. The coaches would switch passengers and return to their original starting points the following day. Cobb and Co. also held the contract for Mail Service No.7 from 1868 to 1879. The contract then went to McCallum Coaches, who lost it to the railways after the line from Brisbane to Landsborough opened in February 1890.
The road from Brisbane to Gympie became the best known Cobb & Co. route in Queensland, and the most rugged section was from the Maroochy River to Traveston, which is reflected in the greater distance covered from Brisbane to the Maroochy River (76.5 miles) in the same time that it took to get from Gympie to the Maroochy River (41 miles). The road degenerated quickly however, and in 1871 the English Novelist Anthony Trollope was warned against travelling by coach because of the terrible state of the Gympie road. He went regardless, and wrote that 'There is often no road, and the coach is taken at random through the forest. Not infrequently a fallen tree blocks the track...But the great miracle is the sudden pinches, looking as though they were almost perpendicular, down which the coach is taken - and then the equally sharp ascents...' In 1876 Cobb and Co. ended its passenger service, and it eventually sold its mail run as well, since the mail coach could take up to six days to reach Gympie.
By 1874, improvements on Grigor's Portion 1, as noted on a 'Certificate of Fulfilment of Conditions by Selector' included: fences, a dwelling house, stables, stockyards and other outbuildings, with seven acres under cultivation, to a total of ¿600 value. In March 1878, two months before Portion 2 (on the opposite side of the road to Bankfoot) was transferred from Edmund Lander to William Grigor, it was noted that Lander's improvements included a slab humpy with a bark roof, a five stall stable and a shed. It has been stated that Cobb & Co. had their own stables on Portion 2, and that the groom used to board at Bankfoot House. His tasks included unhooking the horses, hitching up a new team, and leading the old team away to be washed down while the passengers were having lunch. The horse feed was purchased from Grigor, who grew oats on his property.
Apart from being a coach change station, and providing overnight accommodation and stabling for miners and other travellers, the Grigor family also had their own dairy herd, and ran a butcher's shop and store to supply miners on their way to Gympie. Their closest neighbour between 1871 and 1878 was Isaac Burgess at Mellum Creek (later Landsborough). Prices for meals, a bed, and horse feed were each one shilling, so that for five shillings a traveller could get dinner, bed and breakfast, two feeds for one horse, and overnight stabling.
In 1878, business was so good that a new building (the core of the current house) was added behind the original accommodation house. This seems to contradict reports that the road was no longer fit for coach travel by the late 1870s, but there may still have been plenty of travellers on foot or horseback. For example, in 1884 James Whalley and his son walked from Tingalpa to Petrie's Creek, a journey that took three and a half days, with overnight stops at South Pine, Bankfoot, and Cobbs Camp.
The 1878 building provided bedrooms for the expanding Grigor family, and a kitchen for the accommodation house, and was connected to the 1868 building by a covered walkway. It was built on timber stumps, out of pit-sawn timber. The eastern, southern and western external walls used beech, with exposed studs on the east and west sides under the two verandahs. Hardwood weatherboards were used on the north side, which also had an attic window. Beech was also used for the internal walls and ceilings, and cedar was used for the doors and windows. The high-pitched gabled roof was clad in corrugated iron.
As there was no school in the area until 1906, Grigor's sons had to ride down to Morayfield on Monday morning with their sister Clementina. Clementina boarded with the school master while the two boys lived by themselves in a little hut Grigor built on the side of the Caboolture River bank. They used to look after themselves from Monday to Friday. On Friday the boys, with their sister, would ride back to Bankfoot House. A fig tree and pine tree were planted by the boys soon after Bankfoot House was constructed.
The Grigors ran the post office from 1868 until 1907. After the train line arrived, William Grigor (senior) used to take the outgoing mail to the station, and returned to Bankfoot House with mail from the train. William Grigor is listed as the Postmaster at Glass House Mountains in the Queensland Post Office Directory from 1892 to 1907. After he died in 1907 Clementina carried on service to about 1910, when the Post Office agency was transferred to the railway station. Although the railway reduced trade at Bankfoot, its role as a post office kept Bankfoot busy. Accommodation was still available, including for parties who had come to climb the Glass House Mountains. Around 1911 a group climbed Coonowrin after staying at Bankfoot House, and then cycled back to Brisbane that afternoon, reaching home at 10.15am.
Portion 1 was transferred to Clementina in December 1905, although William Grigor continued to live at Bankfoot until he died. Clementina was William's youngest daughter, and she married William Burgess in 1902. The couple continued living in the house after the death of William Grigor. Mary Grigor had died at Albion in 1900. William and Mary Grigor had nine children between 1864 and 1878, but three died young: David died in April 1874 aged 11 months; Margaret (Clementina's twin sister) died in September 1878 age 2 months; and Robert Henry died in October 1879 aged 4 years and two months. The unmarked graves of these three children and of an Aboriginal playmate are located just inside the fence line of a property to the south of Bankfoot House. A plaque was erected in 1988 just outside the fence line.
William and Mary's oldest son, John Grigor, became a Councillor on the Caboolture Shire Council (established 1903) in 1906, and served on the Landsborough Shire Council after 1912. John's brother William and his brother-in law William Burgess were also Landsborough Shire councillors. William Grigor (Junior) developed a sawmill at Maleny, and later moved to Peachester, and the Grigor family has continued its links with the timber industry in Peachester.
The 1868 building's log foundations eventually suffered from termites and rot, although a 1926 article in the Brisbane Courier referred to the 'remains' of the old accommodation house, whose walls and ceilings were 'in a splendid state of preservation'. As the Great Depression reduced the funds available for repairs, in 1930 it was decided to pull down the 1868 dwelling and to use the timber to construct two extra rooms, a bedroom and dining room, at the rear of the 1878 dwelling. Most of the work was work done by William Burgess and a helper. The roof-line was lowered to form a hipped corrugated iron roof, and a new kitchen was added, along with an incorporated verandah on all four sides, complete with a weatherboard clad balustrade. Later, Jack Ferris would construct a bathroom for Clementina on the southeast corner, and in the 1960s he enclosed the northern and eastern verandahs, and added a storeroom to part of the southern verandah. Electricity was connected in 1952, and the roof was replaced in 1982.
Clementina died in 1963, having lived at Bankfoot her entire 85 years. Title of Portion 1 had been transferred to her son William Isaac Burgess in 1952. Clementina's daughter, Mary, and her husband, John (Jack) Ferris, bought the house and two acres from William in December 1964, and became the third generation of the family to live there. Mary, who was born in the house, lived there until her death in 1987. Jack died in 2002 aged 102 years old, and the house and all its contents, representing generations of family history, was purchased by the Caloundra City Council in 2004.
","criteria":"The place is a landmark on Old Gympie Road and stands in a picturesque setting occupying an area of level ground on a rise along the road with views out to the Glasshouse Mountains to the east (particularly Mt Tibrogargan) and surrounding paddocks/bushland generally. Prominent bunya pines in the garden stand as a distinctive element in the landscape.
|Bankfoot House with its range of elements and structures (including farm house, dairy, sheds and equipment) is a good example of a rural property that has adapted and changed over time in response to opportunities and demands - the structures were built using new and recycled materials and extended using timber from previous structures as the family took on new businesses and extended existing enterprises.
The siting of Bankfoot House on a flat ridge easily visible to travellers on the road, and near fresh water, is a good example of a favourable siting for a changing station on a coach route.
|Bankfoot House is rare as the only known surviving coach change station on the Brisbane-Gympie coach route. The place is also a rare example of a place owned and occupied by several generations of the one family from 1860s to 2002.
Indications of recycling and reuse of materials on the property provide evidence of the living conditions and demonstrate a way of life based on resourcefulness that was once common and is now rare.
|The oldest known surviving building in the Glasshouse Mountains district, Bankfoot House is important in demonstrating the pattern and nature of pioneering settlement in the region, and in demonstrating the pattern of land use and occupancy in rural Queensland during the late 19th century and 20th century. As well as providing a staging post for Cobb and Co between 1868 and 1879, operating a guesthouse for travellers until the 1910s or later, and running the local post office from 1868 to 1907, the Grigor family were also engaged in timber-getting, had their own dairy herd, and ran a butcher's shop and store to supply miners on their way to Gympie. The range of activities conducted on the property as responses by the family to changing markets, industries and opportunities, provides evidence of the economic development of the region.
As a coach change station on the original Brisbane to Gympie road, which was a vital transport link between 1868 and 1891, Bankfoot House was part of the most famous Cobb and Co. run in Queensland. It is important in illustrating the impact of the establishment of transport and communications links between Brisbane and Gympie on the pattern of settlement of the region.
|Documentation (including correspondence, commercial documents, photographs and paintings) associated with the place and physical evidence (including built structures, materials, furniture, fittings and objects) on and beneath the ground have potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the place and the settlement of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":24286,"place_ref":602735,"name":"St Patrick's Church and Graveyard","alternate_name":"St Patricks Catholic Church | St Patricks Church and Graveyard","street_address":"Rosewood - Aratula Road","suburb":"ROSEVALE","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-12-11","description":"St Patrick's Church and graveyard is located approximately two kilometres north-west of the small township of Rosevale, in a farming district to the south-west of Ipswich. Built in 1889 at the instigation of the local Catholic community, this small timber building - with gabled roof, porch and simple gothic windows - has changed very little on its exterior. The church, graveyard and all other associated features are found at the cleared, eastern end of a long, rectangular block that slopes down towards the Rosewood-Aratula Road, which forms the eastern boundary of the property. A gate here provides vehicular access. The remainder of the property is covered in ironbark scrub and fenced off by a timber post and barbed wire fence. The northern boundary is defined by Dawson Road (unsealed) and lined with trees, while the southern boundary adjoins open farmland.
The church is a simple, single-storey timber building measuring approximately fifteen metres long by nine metres wide, raised on timber ant-capped stumps. Orientated north-south, it has a gable roof and a small, gabled porch on the northern façade. It is positioned approximately one third of the way up the slope of the cleared area adjacent to two cypress (possibly Cupressus sempervirens or Italian Cypress) trees, a pine tree (possibly Pinus elliottii or Slash Pine) and a small, timber outhouse behind it to the west and south-west. The middle third of the site is open grass with no visible features, while the western third at the top of the slope contains the grouped, marked graves of the burial ground and three separate graves in the far south-west corner. The only other tree within the fenced churchyard is a mature ironbark, near the northern boundary.
The church is timber-framed and clad with painted weatherboards. The gable roof is clad in corrugated iron with the ridge at each end having a simple wooden cross attached to it, one of the few decorative features found on the exterior. The church sits on a regular grid of timber stumps which, due to the slope of the site, vary in height so that the western edge of the building sits closest to ground level. The main entrance is through a small timber porch on the northern façade. A third timber cross, Celtic in style, decorates the top, outer end of the porch gable.
The main northern facade has few decorative features, apart from the small porch addition, which has a single window with a fixed, pointed-arch top light in the centre of its north-facing wall. The east and west façades are identical, featuring four sets of tall, paired casement windows spaced equally along their length. Each window has four rectangular lights and a fixed, pointed-arch top light. The south (rear) façade has two doors at each end that are accessed by timber steps with timber handrails. A recent PVC water tank sits on an old timber tank stand between these two doors.
The entry porch has openings facing east and west, accessed by timber steps. A timber pew has been placed along the northern wall as a seat. The large main door into the church itself is made from red cedar boards. Opening inwards, its two leaves have tops that form a pointed arch. Beyond this door, the central aisle runs through the nave towards the altar at the far end and is formed by rows of pews placed on either side. Two small rooms (a vestry and a sacristy) have been enclosed by timber-framed partitions on either side of the altar, with a pointed-arch ceiling spanning between them and forming a canopy above the sanctuary. Floors throughout are lined with timber boards with a single strip of red carpet running down the central aisle.
The ceiling over the nave is lined with wide, beaded timber boards painted white. Various members of the timber roof trusses project through the lining, including the tie beams and scissor braces. Brackets on the walls and black stains on the underside of the scissor braces that extend to meet the walls indicate the former use of kerosene lamps to light the church. Light fittings now hang from overhead tie beams. Wall linings in the nave date from the 1922 renovation. From floor level to waist height, they are lined with narrow vertical boards, topped with a dado rail. All are stained. Above this, they are lined with plywood sheets with cover strips, stained an orange-brown. Framed Stations of the Cross are spaced along the east, north and west walls, each with a small plaque naming the family that donated it. In the north-west corner is a stand-alone confessional made from dark-stained silky oak. In the north-east corner is a small timber pedal organ (no longer in use) that was manufactured by Mason & Hamlin, Boston, U.S.A. The early timber pews are made from pine and stained a dark brown.
The altar sits upon a raised platform in the sanctuary in the centre of the southern wall. Made from polished silky oak, intricately carved with floral patterns and religious motifs in relief, the altar was adapted to the liturgical changes brought about by Vatican II in the mid to late 1960s by being cut in two; allowing the priest to face his congregation using the front half shifted forward. The communion rail was also removed and is stored in the eastern side room (sacristy). Attached to the wall behind the rear portion of the altar is original wall ornamentation, namely a timber pointed arch surmounted by a plain cross, painted in white. A small statue of St Patrick sits on a narrow ledge at the front of the altar. The lower, arched ceiling over the altar is made from plywood sheets with cover strips and was added in 1922.
Facing the sanctuary on either side are doorways that open into the vestry and sacristy. Both rooms have doors to the exterior in the rear wall of the building. Their walls are clad in vertical timber boards (single-beaded for the vestry walls but narrower and without beading for the sacristy) and have an open frieze of vertical battens above door height. Semi-circular alcove shrines are built into the northern walls of both these rooms, facing the congregation. The western alcove houses a statue of the Virgin Mary. The eastern alcove contains a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, while next to it is a statue of St Joseph on a separate triangular shelf.
Most of the marked graves in the church graveyard are grouped together in rows and aligned east-west. Approximately 68 names are recorded and dates range from the earliest in 1887 (an infant, Willy Hogan, whose name is included on a headstone with other family members) to the most recent in 2009. Dates on the headstones indicate that burials were taking place consistently from when the graveyard was first opened, peaking in the 1920s and 1930s, before declining in use after World War II; however since the 1990s burial numbers have been increasing. Headstones are made in a variety of styles and materials, some elaborate. Of note are an elaborately carved Celtic cross and several plots enclosed with wrought iron fencing. Older headstones tend to be made from marble and several have been broken. Families are generally buried together in a family plot or adjacent separate plots. Stone masons recorded on some of the headstone include Ziegler of Toowoomba and F Williams of Ipswich. Recent burials are located along the western edge of the graveyard or in reserved family plots, and are usually marked with sandstone or concrete blocks with a granite plaque attached.
In the far south-west corner of the fenced churchyard are three graves marked by timber crosses and iron grave markers, said to be members of the Quirk family. The graves were once enclosed by a timber fence which has since collapsed leaving only the vertical corner posts.
Extensive and picturesque views of farmland and distant mountain ranges to the east and south are obtained from all over the site. The church itself, fronted by sloping grass lawns and set against a dark background of trees, also has picturesque qualities, especially when glimpsed in passing along the Rosewood-Aratula Road.
","history":"St Patrick's Church, a modest timber building in a picturesque rural setting, was opened in November 1889 to serve the small farming community of Rosevale, south of Ipswich in south-east Queensland. The adjacent graveyard was blessed at the same time as the church. Both remain in use, although church services are now restricted to an annual mass.
The Rosevale district was taken up c1846 as part of John Ross's sheep run (known variously as Rosa Ville, Rosa Vista, Rose Valley, Rose Vale, or Rosevale) during the earliest phase of free settlement and pastoral occupation in Queensland. The run extended over the lightly timbered plains of the Bremer River, with the head station situated near the present township of Rosevale. By 1848, when the lease was taken up by G John Brewster, Rosevale (Rosa Vista) comprised an estimated area of 25,600 acres with a grazing capability of 3,700 sheep. Franklin Valley (later Franklyn Vale) and Laidley runs to the north and north-west of Rosevale were owned by Joseph Robinson and together covered an area of 150,000 acres. In 1849, the Laidley and Franklyn Vale runs were acquired by partners Henry Mort and James Laidley.
Between 1848 and 1865, Rosevale was leased by a variety of early figures in Queensland history (including Charles Rolleston and Patrick Leslie in 1856, Charles Macarthur King in 1858 and Patrick Mayne in 1862) until acquired by Henry Mort in the mid-1860s to counter impending resumptions on his Laidley and Franklyn Vale properties.
The first farm blocks resumed from the Rosevale run were offered for sale in 1868, but were cancelled and re-offered in 1876. Most of these blocks were situated between the Bremer River and the road from Grandchester to Rosevale Station. In 1882, Henry Mort and partner surrendered the remainder of their Rosevale property in exchange for freehold land at Mount Mort, and this land also was subdivided into farms.
Selections on the resumed Rosevale land were taken up rapidly during the second half of the 1870s and first half of the 1880s, selectors being attracted by the rich alluvial farmland and promise of a future railway line from Rosewood through the Bremer River Valley to Rosevale and on to Warwick. The first wave of selectors comprised mainly Irish immigrants, followed within a few years by German settlers.
In the 1880s development of Rosevale as a community gathered momentum. A school was erected on a central site (approximately 500m north-east of the later site of St Patrick's Church) and opened in late November 1884 with 42 students. In July 1885, portions 83 to 86, Rosevale old head station, were reserved for township purposes. Although a town survey was never made, some businesses were attracted to the district, including a general store, butcher, baker, blacksmith, and in the 1890s a cheese factory and the Rosevale Co-operative Dairy Company.
As settlement in the Rosevale district expanded, the community's spiritual needs were met with the construction of a number of denominational buildings, including a Catholic church, Anglican church and Lutheran church.
In the 1870s, Irish Catholic families were among the first to take up agricultural land in the Rosevale district. Here they created a 'little Ireland' centred on St Patrick's Church and the Catholic faith, which was sustained well into the 1930s.
Initially the Rosevale district was part of the Catholic parish of Ipswich established on 1 January 1849 within the Diocese of Sydney. This was a vast parish extending from Brisbane west to Warwick, south to Tenterfield and the Clarence and Richmond rivers districts, north to Maryborough, and north-west to Gayndah. In August 1852 the first parish priest, Father William McGinty, arrived and was stationed at Ipswich. In the 1850s and early 1860s he held masses in the Rosevale area in private homes. In December 1859 the colony of Queensland separated from New South Wales and the Catholic Diocese of Brisbane, covering the whole of Queensland. The parish of Ipswich was reduced at this time but was still a vast area extending from near Brisbane to the foot of the Great Dividing Range in the west and north to Nanango. Later, many smaller parishes were excised from the parent Ipswich parish.
The expansion of facilities in the Ipswich parish in the last quarter of the nineteenth century is closely associated with the 44 years of service by Father Andrew Horan as parish priest (1873-1917). Andrew Horan and his brothers Matthew and James - respectively parish priests of Gympie (1868-1923) and Warwick (1876-1905) - were nephews of James Quinn, first Bishop of Brisbane (1861-1881). All three closely identified with Quinn's desire to encourage Irish Catholic immigration to rural Queensland, and to establish Catholic churches, schools, convents and presbyteries throughout the Diocese of Brisbane.
Andrew Horan served the Ipswich parish during a period of rapid immigration to Queensland and extensive agricultural settlement. All the pastoral runs in the Ipswich parish that had been taken up in the 1840s were subdivided into smaller grazing and agricultural blocks between the 1860s and the early 1900s, populated by small farming communities served by tiny rural towns. In encouraging the establishment of rural churches throughout his parish and initiating construction of the very fine St Mary's Church at Ipswich (opened in 1904; QHR 600577) and St Brigid's Church at Rosewood (opened in 1910; QHR 600736), Father Horan ensured that Ipswich gained renown as one of the best equipped parishes in Australia. He chose prominent, elevated, extensive sites in the belief that a Catholic display of solidarity and capability would do much to elevate the social standing of Irish Catholic immigrants. By 1904 he had encouraged construction of 14 timber churches in the districts surrounding the city of Ipswich, some of which he designed (including St Brigid's at Rosewood and St Patrick's at Rosevale).
Prior to construction of a Catholic church at Rosevale, Father Horan travelled by horseback or buggy (a journey of about five hours from Ipswich) to conduct mass in the homes of local farmers, including Patrick Quirk, Michael Kelly and Hugh Ahearn. As the Irish Catholic community at Rosevale became more established, Father Horan encouraged his parishioners to erect a local church. A block of 26 acres (10.5ha) (portion 79, parish of Rosevale, county of Churchill) selected by William O'Niell in 1878, was acquired in Andrew Horan's name in mid-1888, having cost about £80. The site was centrally located among the earliest Rosevale selections. Surrounding blocks were held by local parishioners, including Patrick, Michael and John Quirk, Hugh and Julia Ahearn, James Tierney, and James and Patrick Hogan.
The foundation stone for the new church was laid by Father Horan on 18 November 1888. The building was erected by Ipswich contractor John Madden and his son, to plans prepared by Father Horan, and was completed by early November 1889 when church and altar were blessed by Archbishop Dunne, who had replaced Bishop Quinn in 1882 and who in 1887 was appointed Archbishop of Brisbane and head of the Catholic Church in Queensland. About 200 persons attended the opening ceremony and the luncheon that followed.
Built on a slight rise west of the Bremer River and on what was by then the main road to Ipswich (now the Rosewood-Aratula Road), the church overlooked farming flats from Mt Wright to the Dividing Range. It was a hardwood weatherboard building, 48ft (14.6m) long by 28ft (8.5m) wide and 12ft (3.65m) from floor to ceiling, set on stumps, and with a galvanised iron roof. The floor was four-inch wide tongue-and-groove hardwood boards. The building was ventilated by four pairs of lancet windows along each side, two doors in the rear wall, and the front entry doors. Simple pine forms served as seating, and there was a 'very pretty' altar at the sanctuary end of the nave. There was a small vestry in the south-west corner of the interior, near the altar, created by timber partitions lower than ceiling height. The building had cost over £400 to erect and furnish.
At the opening the Archbishop also blessed the adjacent graveyard within the churchyard. In the nineteenth century it was not unusual for denominational graveyards to be established within churchyards, particularly in south-east Queensland, where a number of Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran communities consecrated graveyards alongside their church buildings. A number of these are entered in the Queensland heritage register, including St Matthew's at Mitchelton in Brisbane (1869; QHR 600256); Christ Church Tingalpa (1868; QHR 601799) and the Lutheran Cemetery at Carbrook (1875; QHR 601660).
With the opening of a local church, regular masses were conducted at Rosevale by visiting clergy from Ipswich. From at least the mid-1880s, Father Horan had the assistance of a number of young curates. Most prominent was James Duhig (1897-1905), who succeeded Dunne as Archbishop of Brisbane in 1917. Duhig's biographer, Father TP Boland, later wrote:
'Rosevale was the scene of Duhig's happiest associations. He enjoyed the feel of a community both Catholic and Irish growing into being Australian. All his hopes were in such a community. He wanted to recreate it everywhere. Here was the Irish race, immemorial and Catholic, emerging from the shadows into bright prosperity. The brilliant Australian sunlight on flourishing farms seemed to figure the future. The Irish were stirring and Duhig was getting the feel of their movement. Consciously or unconsciously, he was preparing to be their leader.'
When the parish of Rosewood was formed in 1915, Rosevale was included as part of the new parish, in which it remains.
At an unknown period a small porch was added to the front of St Patrick's Church at Rosevale and in 1921-1922 the building was renovated with the construction of a lancet-arched sanctuary canopy and a sacristy within the building. At the same time the interior was lined, and the linings and pews were stained and varnished. The work was carried out by a local parishioner, Mr Dwyer. The renovations and additions were blessed in late January 1922 by His Grace, Archbishop James Duhig, who as a curate of the Ipswich parish at the turn of the century had conducted mass often at the Rosevale church.
Archbishop Duhig also attended St Patrick's golden jubilee celebrations in 1939. Despite some of the early Irish families having moved to other centres by this time, the celebrations were well attended.
Some small changes to the interior of the church were made in the 1960s following Vatican II, when the communion rail was taken up and stored elsewhere in the building and the decorative timber altar was cut lengthwise in half, so that the front could be moved forward for the priest to stand behind and face the congregation.
The number of local parishioners gradually declined through the twentieth century, but at the time of assessment in 2009, the place was still being maintained by families descended from the original Irish Catholic settlers.
In the early 1990s the church land at Rosevale was subdivided, creating a local road through the property. The land north of this road was sold off, the church retaining 2.562ha south of the newly created road. This subdivision did not affect the churchyard, which was located in the south-east corner of the original portion.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Church and Graveyard remains highly intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a modest, late nineteenth century rural church complex comprising a simple timber church building, a separate outside earth closet, fenced churchyard with wide grassed areas and some trees, and graveyard. Set picturesquely on a slight rise overlooking a farming district, the place retains its early setting, extent, form, fabric and function, and is an excellent example of its type. The interior of the church building retains most of its early fixtures, fittings and furniture (1880s-1920s).
|St Patrick's Church and Graveyard, established in 1889 at Rosevale in south-east Queensland, is of particular significance for its association with a strongly Irish Catholic community which, at the turn of the nineteenth century and twentieth century, inspired in Ipswich curate Father James Duhig, later the influential Archbishop of Brisbane and head of the Catholic Church in Queensland (1917-1965), a vision for the future of Irish Catholic settlement in this State. Although this largely Irish community was established as early as the 1870s, unlike many other Irish groups which by the twentieth century had dispersed into the wider community, Rosevale's sense of being an Irish enclave and a successful 'little Ireland' transplanted to Queensland was sustained well into the 1930s. According to his biographer, for James Duhig the Rosevale Catholic community, centred on its simple timber church, epitomised the successes and possibilities of rural Irish Catholic enterprise. The church and its accompanying graveyard remain strong testimony of early Irish rural settlement in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":24320,"place_ref":645612,"name":"Mount Elliott Mining Complex","alternate_name":"Selwyn | Mount Elliott Smelter | 700012","street_address":"Selwyn, via Cloncurry","suburb":"MOUNT ELLIOTT","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-09-16","description":"Mount Elliott Smelter
Mount Elliott Smelter is located in Cloncurry Shire, approximately one kilometre south of the former township of Selwyn, and 95 kilometres south of Cloncurry (MGA94 Zone 54 448390E, 7618080N). The main processing infrastructure and remains are centralised on the northern side of the low hill known as Mount Elliott.
Immediately north of the main processing complex is a shallow basin formed by natural rises in ground. Within this basin lay the powerhouse and boiler house machinery beds, ore tunnel, beehive kiln, the lower condenser area and railway embankments.
To the east of the central complex are the remains of an assay office, furnaces, one possible and one identifiable explosives magazine, the upper condenser bank, tank stands, and the remains of a substantial residence.
To the south-west, on the central low hill, are the remains of a winder engine machine-bed, a square brick stack that served the boilers of the winder complex, and the single remaining bed and footings of the primary ore crusher.
Further west on low ridges are the remains of a strong room, office, stone tank stand and smithy.
Selwyn Township
The Selwyn Township is located at the northern end of a valley running south to Mount Elliott Smelter which is about 1.5km distant. All buildings have been removed and the evidence of the township now comprises garden plots, cement surfaces and corrugated iron water tanks.
The site of the Union Hotel remains identifiable and the timber stumps of the stationmaster's house, the railway formation and surviving timber sleepers are among the most visible remains. The railway embankment follows the eastern side of the valley between the town and smelter passing several miners' hut sites comprising rough stone walls, and benched surfaces with stone retaining walls.
Identifiable sites in the valley include a cement surface formerly under the high-set school building, the police station site, and the original smelter site at the base of a hill on the western side of the valley.
The town cemetery, about 200m south-east of the town, contains about fifteen headstones in separate sections for Catholics and Protestants. All but one headstone are from Melrose & Fenwick of Townsville. The grave sites include three women, a returned Anzac accidentally killed in the mine, a man who died of injuries in the local hospital, and a miner from Mount Cobalt who was buried in 1925 after Selwyn was almost deserted (Lennon and Pearce 1996:653).
","history":"The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909-10. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert (QHR601629) and Kuridala (QHR700004) smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
\nMount Elliott Smelter
\nThe existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time (Blainey 1960:32-3).
\nPlentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse (Kerr 1992:4).
\nIn 1906-07 copper averaged £ 87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905-06 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on 1 August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
\nMount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on 13 July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908 (Kerr 1992:4).
\nThe railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on 21 April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
\nBy 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
\nThe second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across' (Hore-Lacy 1981:148). Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
\nCorbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region (Nexus Archaeology & Heritage 2009:48). In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district (Burke and Grimwade 2001:3).
\nWalkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters (Hore-Lacy 1981:151-3). An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine (Kerr 1992:4).
\nThe new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912 (Hore-Lacy 1981:159-61).
\nCorbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No.3 level, the smelter was closed for two months (Hore-Lacy 1981:154, 157-9). Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time (Kerr 1992:4).
\nTroubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year (Hore-Lacy 1981:163).
\nAt the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men (Hore-Lacy 1981:165). For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size (Hore-Lacy 1981:169).
\nAfter the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year (Hore-Lacy 1981:171). The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions (Hore-Lacy 1981:173).
\nThe new furnace commenced on 16 January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain (Kerr 1992:4). Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery (Hooper 1993:259). The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off (Hore-Lacy 1981:173).
\nFor much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953 (Hore-Lacy 1981:174-5).
\nIn 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing (Kerr 1992:4).
\nProfitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
\nSelwyn Township
\nIn 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter (Hooper 1993:259).
\nMany of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations (Hooper 1993:259). Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart (Hore-Lacy 1981:146). Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
\nBy 1910 the town had four hotels (Hooper 1993:259). There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912 (Hooper 1993:259). The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining (Hooper 1993:259).
","criteria":"The Mount Elliott Mining Complex, incorporating the remnants of the Mount Elliott Mine, Smelter, a range of associated infrastructure, scattered archaeological artefacts, the abandoned town of Selwyn and its associated cemetery, has the potential to provide important information on aspects of Queensland's history particularly early copper smelter practices and technologies, the full range of activities peripheral to those base operations and, importantly, the people who lived and worked in this complex historic mining landscape.
\nThe Mount Elliott Mining Complex has sufficient archaeological integrity and diversity in its assemblage to facilitate detailed studies which would reveal the largely undocumented social and cultural aspects of the occupation and use of the mine, smelter and Selwyn Township areas. Important research questions could focus on, but are not limited to, cultural identity and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, individual and collective living conditions, and individual adaptations to the remoteness and harshness of the local environment.
\nArchaeological investigations within the Mount Elliott Mining Complex have potential to reveal specific details about the function and use of the area that complement and augment archival records. Investigations of the remnant mining and smelting infrastructure may help answer important research questions relating to mining and smelting operations including, but not limited to:
\nThe Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an important component of a broader historic mining landscape as operations at Mount Elliott helped initiate extractive and primary processing industries in the Cloncurry region and north-west Queensland generally. The remnant infrastructure, mining artefacts, and the remains of the mining township of Selwyn have potential for important comparative material to other mining sites in the region, particularly the nearby Hampden Company Smelter at Kuridala (QHR 645604) and Mount Cuthbert Township and Smelter near Cloncurry (QHR 601629). Archaeological investigations at the Mount Elliott Mining Complex may reveal new information that expands our understanding of such enterprises and on the everyday lives of the people living and working at such sites across Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":24995,"place_ref":645606,"name":"Ormiston Fellmongery","alternate_name":"Fellmonger Park | 700006","street_address":"101-131 Sturgeon Street","suburb":"ORMISTON","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"The site is situated in Fellmonger Park which consists of mown grassed areas, and an undulating land surface with several mounded areas with mulched tree plantings on top. The land drops to low lying flats towards Hilliards Creek which become flooded after heavy and prolonged rain. The park's vegetation includes eucalypts, cassia and other species in planted gardens and as isolated specimens. Melaleuca (ti-tree) occur along the creek banks and on the creek flats.
The obvious physical remains of the fellmongery are surrounded by low treated log fencing. There are two fenced areas. The first contains brick foundations 5.05m x 4.15m with an opening at either end. The foundations are two bricks high above the ground surface in an English Bond pattern. One of the bricks displays a frog with 'Campbells Redbank'. The foundation continues below the ground surface. A compacted layer, possibly a floor, occurs at approximately 50cm below the surface. The foundations are situated on the side of a mounded area about 15m from the creek.
The second fenced area is diagonally adjacent to the first. It is grassed on the surface with no obvious surface remains. A subsurface deposit of bricks and brick fragments approximately 5cm below the surface was revealed through test probing. The deposit appears to occur across the entire fenced area. This deposit occurs at the top of the mounded area.
The remainder of the top of the mounded area consists of leaf litter and mulch and tree species including eucalypts and cassia trees. The mulched area on the top of the mound is likely to conceal further archaeological remains.
A causeway across the creek which forms part of the modern bike/walking track is situated to the west of the brick foundations. The lower levels of the causeway consist of rough stone and rubble and appear of an early construction. The stone has been subsequently overlaid with concrete and bitumen.
","history":"A fellmongery was first established on the site in 1853, by Thomas Blacket Stephens, operating for around 10 years before ceasing operations. A second fellmongery was commenced on the site by Thomas Alford in 1894 which continued operations until the early 1920s. The land was subsequently used for farming before being resumed by the Redland Shire Council in the 1970s for use as parkland.
After the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was closed in 1839 areas around Moreton Bay were progressively surveyed to be opened up to free settlement. The year 1840 saw the arrival of pastoralists in the Moreton Bay District and by 1844 there were 17 large squatting runs, and by 1849 some 290,000 sheep (BCC 2003).
Brisbane and its port thrived because of wool production and the processing of wool operated throughout Brisbane and its surrounds. The early method of sheepwashing in Queensland began to be replaced by woolscouring - the treatment and cleaning of wool after shearing - from the late 1840s and was almost completely replaced by the 1890s (Blake 1992:563)
The process of fellmongering appears in the early 1850s in the Moreton Bay region. A different process to wool scouring, fellmongering processed sheepskins in order to remove the wool in preparation for tanning. The wool was washed and dried, and the skins were processed into leather.
Woolscouring and fellmongering were sometimes located within the same operation, or tended to be clustered in close proximity, along with tanneries. Slaughteryards were also sometimes run in conjunction with fellmongeries. They tended to be located alongside a creek to enable a good supply of clean, fresh water - a key element in the processing of the skins and wool. A number of such operations occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries in Brisbane, including along Bulimba Creek in the vicinity of Carindale and Belmont, at Ekibin on Norman Creek, and Newmarket and Kelvin Grove on Enoggera Creek (BCC 2003; Murphy 1992).
Fellmongery operations commenced at Cleveland relatively early. In 1851 Cleveland was proclaimed as a township, including the area which was later to become known as Ormiston (Ryan 2005:5). The allotments along Hilliards Creek were surveyed in 1853 and Thomas Blacket Stephens established a fellmongery shortly afterwards, under the management of Mr Beattie, on sections 100 and 101, Parish of Cleveland (MBC 1853:2; QSA 1853). Stephens commenced business at the time when efforts were being made to establish Cleveland Point as the port for Moreton Bay, and he may well have set up his establishment on Hilliards Creek to service the wool trade expected to travel from Ipswich to Cleveland Point (Ryan 2005:7). Stephens moved his operations to his property 'Ekibin' near South Brisbane in the early 1860s, at about the time when attempts to establish a port at Cleveland ended (Ryan 2005:7). It is not known when the fellmongery at Cleveland ceased operations, and it may have continued until the late 1860s under the management of Andrew Holden, who originally worked at the fellmongery for Stephens (Ryan 2005:7). Stephens was a well known figure in the early colony becoming owner of the Moreton Bay Courier in 1861, and member for South Brisbane in 1863. Between 1867 and 1870 he was colonial treasurer, colonial secretary, postmaster-general, and secretary for public lands in the Lilley and Macalister ministries (Reid 1976:196-7).
It was some 30 years before the site was again proposed for use as a fellmongery. Thomas Alford obtained a permit from the Cleveland Divisional Board in July 1894 to erect a wool scouring and fellmongering works on allotment 4 of section 100, the site of Stephens' earlier fellmongery (QSA 1894a). Although situated on the site of Stephens' earlier fellmongery, just a small section of his original holdings were taken up by Alford.
Prior to establishing the fellmongery at Cleveland, Alford had been refused a fellmongery permit by the Bulimba Divisional Board due to its by-laws regarding 'noisome and offensive trades'. The Bulimba ratepayers were unhappy with this decision and convened a public meeting. They were concerned that Cleveland had welcomed Alford, given him dinner at the Brighton Hotel and granted him the permit, leading to the generation of £70 a week in wages that would be spent in Cleveland and not Bulimba. They demanded that the Bulimba Divisional Board revise their by-laws (BC 1894b).
Construction of Alford's establishment commenced in early August 1894 with a full range of fellmongering facilities being established (BC 1894a). The building material was brought in by rail and dray and stumps were obtained from the bush. Timber was obtained from Gilbert Burnett's sawmill located on the Fernbourne Estate at Wellington Point (see Whepstead 600776) (BC 1894a). The construction was expected to take six weeks to complete, and included the following:
- Wool shed, 40 x 18 feet, fronting the road, including eight wool bins, sorting tables and a wool press;
- Soaks;
- Sweathouse;
- Sorting sheds;
- Engine shed, including engine, pump and washing machine, supplied by Messrs A. Overend and Co.; and
- Drying shed, for use in wet weather when drying ground not usable (BC 1894a).
The fellmongery was supervised by Mr T. Sefton who was experienced in the industry in both England and the colonies (BC 1894a); although it appears Alford maintained an active role. Alford approached the Railway Commissioner in late 1894 to request construction of a siding at Ormiston Station. The Commissioner agreed subject to a range of conditions which Alford chose to decline. Finally deciding to construct the siding at Ormiston in 1895, Alford in the meantime had to cart all the skins and wool from Wellington Point Station and back again (BC 1895). Alford constructed a dam across Hilliards Creek in 1901 in order to improve the control of water, a vital resource for the fellmongery operation (Ryan 2005:7).
The fellmongery operation (which also included a wool scour and slaughteryard) operated until the early 1920s (Ryan 2005:7). The land was transferred to Jessie Ferguson by 1932, followed by George McLeod Ferguson in 1951 (DERM 1932, 1951). Allotment 4 was subdivided into Lots 1 and 2 in 1969, and the lots resumed by the Redland Shire Council for park and recreation purposes in 1970 and 1975 respectively (DERM 1969, 1970, 1975). The site appears not to have been used for any further industry or development, with Fellmonger Park now being at the location of the site.
References
Brisbane City Council
2003\tWool: Brisbane's Forgotten Industry. A Discovery Trail. Brisbane City Council, Brisbane.
Blake, T.
1992\tWoolscouring in Western Queensland. Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, vol 14 (13), pp.563-560.
Brisbane Courier
1894a\tFellmongery at Ormiston, 7 August 1894, p. 4.
1894b\tNoisome Trades By-Law, 8 September 1894, p. 3.
1895\tRailway Siding at Ormiston, 24 April 1895, p.6.
Department of Environment and Resource Management
1932\tSurvey Plan, M33.1969.
1951\tSurvey Plan, C.6.70.
1969\tSurvey Plan, RP123669.
1970\tCertificate of Title, Vol. 4502 Folio 88, Title Ref. 14502088.
1975\tCertificate of Title, Vol.5445 Folio 127, Title Ref. 15445127.
Moreton Bay Courier
1853\tDomestic Intelligence: Cleveland, 3 September 1853, p. 2.
Murphy, P.
1992\tThe Productive Years of a Creek of Gold. P.F. Murphy, St Lucia.
Queensland State Archives
1853\tLetter from J.C. Burnett to Survey Office, 17 March 1853, QSA Item ID9514, Letterbook.
1894\tCleveland Divisional Board Minutes, 2 July 1894, QSA Item ID869236, Minutes.
Reid, E.
1976\tStephens, Thomas Blacket (1819-1877), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 6, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Ryan, T.
2005\tPlaces of the Redlands: Ormiston. Redland Shire Council Local History Publications, No. 8, Cleveland.
","criteria":"The remains of the Ormiston Fellmongery are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as remnant evidence of the important secondary industry of wool processing. Physical evidence of wool scouring, fellmongering and tanning is today rare, despite the importance of the wool industry and the processing of wool to Queensland's history. The processing of wool was commonly undertaken in and around Brisbane in locations conveniently situated to fresh water sources and transport networks yet the remains of the Ormiston Fellmongery are the only known surviving elements in the region.
Archaeological evidence of a fellmongery which spanned two time periods at the one location (the 1850s to 1860s and then again between 1894 and the 1920s) provide rare and potentially important comparative information about fellmongery practice in Queensland, including change through time.
The extant structural remains and adjacent subsurface deposits are most likely related to the second phase of operations from 1894 to the 1920s and have the potential to reveal important information about the organisation and layout of a fellmongery operation from this period. The analysis of this archaeological evidence may also provide an insight into the broader trade networks of the region through the presence of materials from other parts of south-east Queensland and further afield.
Additional subsurface archaeological deposits and features may potentially occur across the site, including evidence of the earlier fellmongery operations between the 1850s and 1860s. This period of operations is associated with Thomas Blacket Stephens, an important identity in Queensland's history and former owner of the Moreton Bay Courier and later the second mayor of Brisbane. Stephens was well known for his radical politics and social and moral views that often ran in opposition to popular thinking at the time. Archaeological evidence of his early fellmongery operations may reveal important insights into how Stephens' non-populist views were expressed in the material cultural associated with his work and particularly his fellmongery practices.
The remains of an early causeway across Hilliards Creek are likely to be associated with operations at the fellmongery due to its close proximity and the requirement to access rail transport at Wellington Point on the north side of the creek prior to 1895. Archaeological investigation of the causeway has the potential to provide information on early road construction techniques and may provide more accurate dating of the age of its construction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":25109,"place_ref":602769,"name":"Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"on Bundulla off Bundulla Road","suburb":"TAROOM","lga":"BANANA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-05-13","description":"The site of the former Taroom Aboriginal Settlement is located east-northeast of the township of Taroom, about 6 hours drive northwest of Brisbane. The site is contained within the rural property known as Bundulla and is bounded to the north by a meander of the Dawson River. Archaeological evidence of the former settlement is situated in the northern part of the easternmost segment of Lot 83 on FT625 and comprises six main areas the - Main Settlement Area, Hill Top Cemetery, Lower Cemetery, Settlement Camps, 'Home' Orchard, and Communal Sub-Settlement.
\nMain Settlement Area
\nThe main settlement area is located immediately to the south and west of the Old Bundulla Homestead and is bounded to the south be a small gully / creek line. A dam has been built to the east of Bundulla Road and across the gully. Bundulla Road passes by the settlement area entering across the gully to the south then heading north and northwest towards the Dawson River. An access track to fields and the Old Bundulla Homestead spurs off Bundulla Road and approximately follows the main street of the settlement. The one lane mentioned in literature can also still be seen in the most recent air photos bordering the old homestead fence line to the south. The area to the east of the access track is fenced and has been previously blade-ploughed. Ground surface visibility in the area is low with average visibility of less than 5% across the settlement area.
\nThe current access track through the Main Settlement Area, from Bundulla Road to the site of the Old Bundulla Homestead, and the area immediately adjacent to the Old Bundulla Homestead, have limited potential for evidence relating to the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement. This is due to extensive track realignment and grading and the construction of the homestead building and associated farming infrastructure in this area following the closure of the settlement. No artefacts were located along the current access track and artefacts that are located within the fenced section of the Old Bundulla Homestead complex are unlikely to be related to the settlement period. The current access track through the main settlement area and the Old Bundulla Homestead complex are therefore not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe area around the Main Settlement Area includes a number of fence lines erected after closure of the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement. These fence lines are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThirty-two (32) find spots were recorded across the Main Settlement Area. A range of ceramics, bottle glass and metal artefacts were recorded. Small scatters of white creamware ceramics dominated the artefact assemblage across the survey area. Notable exceptions included a small number of printed ceramics, include one piece of green cable pattern, another with green lion maker's mark (possibly off the same item), and one with green floral pattern.
\nHill Top Cemetery
\nLocated about 300 m east of the Old Bundulla Homestead, the Hill Top Cemetery is accessible via an access track from the homestead and is situated on a gently inclined slope and covered by thick but low level grasses. The cemetery area is marked by large white-painted rocks placed at each corner and along the northern and southern margins, with its western extent marked by a small line of trees. Within the cemetery area are exposures with patchy ground cover. A memorial stone with two plaques listing the names and dates of those people who died at the Aboriginal Settlement stands near the southwest corner of the cemetery.
\nOral history evidence collected by L'Oste-Brown et al. (1995) and the results of ground penetrating radar survey suggest up to 22 grave sites, including four trench graves with multiple interments. Only two of these graves were once marked with headstones. Graves were also noted to have been commonly covered with piles of stones and then surrounded by bottles and/or rows of stones. Two easily discernible stone arrangements are located in the lower half of the cemetery. Arrangement 1 measures approximately 2 m long x 1.5 m wide and Arrangement 2 measures approximately 3 m long x 2.5 m wide and is marked by large rounded stone cobbles. At least two other possible arrangements and one mound feature were also noted though it was not possible to determine whether these are naturally occurring or of cultural origin.
\nWithin the cemetery and in the areas immediately west beyond the tree line is a low density artefact scatter including bottle glass fragments of blue, green, dark green and purple colours. A small amount of decorated and undecorated ceramic was also noted. Small timber fence pickets and wire found within the cemetery also suggest that it was once fenced. The remains of a marble headstone and cement headstone base were located under the tree line marking the western edge of the marked cemetery area.
\nLower Cemetery
\nThe Lower Cemetery is located about 200 m northwest the Hill Top Cemetery on a low sandy ridge, just above the inundation zone of the Dawson River, and on a gentle slope into an ephemeral channel feeding the Dawson River. At the head of this channel is a small dam in the vicinity of the Settlement dam site identified by L'Oste-Brown et al. (1995). The existing dam's date of origin is unclear, and it is thought to have been used as a dump for materials, during the occupation period of Old Bundulla Homestead.
\nThe cemetery area is situated adjacent to a vehicle access track running northeast from the Old Bundulla Homestead towards the Dawson River. There were 72 deaths on the settlement while this cemetery was in use between 1918 and 1920. The ground penetrating radar survey by L'Oste-Brown et al. (1995) identified 24 possible graves including some trench graves probably associated with the 1919 Spanish influenza epidemic which struck the settlement. All graves were recorded to maximum depths of 1.1-1.2 metres. The cemetery is marked by a sign and its perimeter defined by white-painted rocks and star pickets. The area is heavily grassed affecting ground surface visibility across the cemetery area and beyond. Small exposures are located across the site giving some visibility in small patches with reasonable ground surface visibility on exposures. There are no marked graves.
\nThe cemetery area and surrounds features a low to medium density scatter of archaeological artefacts including glass fragments and some low densities of ceramics on the lower slopes between the east edge of the marked cemetery and the ephemeral creek/channel. Bottle glass includes fragments of clear, blue, purple, dark and light green materials. The small number of ceramic shards found at this site was limited to white unprinted wares of a fine nature, probably associated with small vessels such as cups and saucers rather than larger plates or bowls. The scatter of artefacts on the gentle slopes to the east between the marked cemetery area and the ephemeral channel suggest that either materials have been eroding down the slope into the channel or materials disposed of in the dam upstream for the cemetery are the actual source.
\nSettlement Camps
\nThe area immediately north of the Old Bundulla Homestead, between it and the Dawson River, was once the location of several 'camps' of Aboriginal people living at Bundulla. Five sub-camps have been documented representing the different groups who lived there:
\n- Gulalee, Burnett and Mixed people
\n- Cooktown
\n- Western people
\nThese camps are bordered by two access tracks running from the homestead to the Dawson River. The Settlement Camp area includes a number of fence lines erected after closure of the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement. These fence lines are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nIn general the camp area has been disturbed by subsequent land use for agricultural and pastoral purposes.
\n(1) Gulalee, Burnett and Mixed peoples' camps
\nFifty-two (52) find spots were recorded during the survey of these camp areas, with investigations focusing predominately on areas marked as being related to the 'Mixed peoples' camp. Ground surface visibility across the former camp was mixed with several small exposure areas providing good visibility of surface artefacts. Ground cover included grasses up to 50 cm in height and some prickly pear bushes. Artefacts located in the camp area included a large number of printed and decorated ceramics; undecorated white wares were the most common ceramic type. Decorations included standard blue 'willow' pattern designs. Other ceramic items included a white porcelain tea cup handle, and two dolls - one being the torso/belly section of a small to medium sized ceramic doll, the other being a 6 cm long piece, possibly part from a doll house collection.
\nGlass fragments were found at numerous locations across the survey area, with dark green, blue, purple and some clear fragments being the most common. Some brown bottle glass was also located. Several metal artefacts were also recorded, including a tin button, parts of a harmonica and a metal spoon. Other metal artefacts found in this area are yet to be identified in terms of function.
\n(2) Cooktown peoples' camp
\nThe location of the 'Cooktown' or north Queensland Aboriginal peoples' camp is located west of an access track to the Dawson River which commences at the northern end of the main settlement area and off the Old Bundulla Homestead access track. The area is covered by extensive shrubland impeding any survey attempt.
\n(3) Western peoples' camp and Goona Gully
\nThe Western peoples' camp was located immediately east of the Old Bundulla Homestead and is defined to the west by the access track running north along the old fenceline from the homestead to the Dawson River. Goona Gully, which once was used for 'ablutions' prior to the construction of toilet facilities for camp residents, is located in the northern half of this area.
\nWhile only a small portion of the total area of the camps has been systematically surveyed for archaeological artefacts (<10%), the number of archaeological artefacts that were found on the surface indicates that a low - medium density surface scatter of artefacts is likely to occur across all the former camp areas. The area features a broader range of artefact types and the artefact assemblage is indicative of a domestic area with evidence of tableware, some storage vessels, a broad range of bottle glass types and uses (beer bottles were common but a condiment bottle was also recorded), personal items of clothing including a tin button, toys such as the two dolls and the parts of a harmonica. The areas of the former camps have high archaeological potential with good evidence of the occupation of the settlement area on the surface and also potentially subsurface.
\n'Home' Orchard
\nThe location of the settlement orchard is west of an access track to the Dawson River which commences at the northern end of the main settlement area and off the Old Bundulla Homestead access track. A small fig tree sapling survives from this orchard.
\nThe only structural elements to survive in situ from the settlement period are elements of the settlement windmill. The windmill base supports are made of iron and are located 60 m west of the fig tree in the orchard area.
\nCommunal Sub-Settlement
\nThe sub-settlement is located approximately 1 km east of the main settlement area along a vehicle access track. The area is used for grazing cattle and features a low thick grass cover and scatters of large pebbles and cobbles of local stone. The area contains the remains of at least two 'huts' - one evidenced by the stone alignments to the southwest of a lime tree grove with the other located immediately northeast.
\n'Hut 1' - Willy Tobane
\nL'Oste-Brown et al. (1995) identified the remains of one structure which was delineated by rows of stones placed next to each other and apparently forming the base of walls. Internal wall placements could also be discerned. Oral history conducted at that time identified this as being the remains of a hut occupied by Willy Tobane and his family. The hut site measured approximately 10.5 m x 4.1 m and is delineated by additional stone alignments. Thick grass obscures the stone alignments but the dimensions and shape correspond to that recorded by L'Oste-Brown et al in 1995. To the southwest of the hut are scatters of tin and other metal artefacts, including a hatchet head and hinge.
\nThe area investigated is likely to represent one of the grants of land to those living in the communal sub-settlement area. The area contains a number of archaeological artefacts which provide insight into the lives of those living in this part of the reserve, lives and activities which are otherwise undocumented.
\n'Hut 2'
\nImmediately adjacent to the hut site to the northeast is a small grove of lime trees and shrubs. On the other side of this vegetation was a second hut/house pad and suspected hearth/fireplace. The house pad is a small levelled area covered by grasses but identifiable by an extant timber support and scatter of metal artefacts. Artefacts included a door bolt and hinge, metal barrel hoop, horse mouth-bit and U-frame and hook - possibly used to hang cooking pots over an open fire.
\nOther artefacts are found scattered across the general area, with several recordings to the northeast of the hut sites; the lid of a tin matchbox; flattened kerosene cans (probably used as sheeting/roofing for huts); a 'billy can'; hatchet/axe head; other riveted storage containers of unknown purpose; and several barrel hoops.
","history":"The Taroom Aboriginal Settlement, also known as Taroom Aboriginal Reserve, was established as a government-operated reserve on a site on the Dawson River, east of the township of Taroom in 1911. The settlement was established under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, which enabled direct government control over the lives of Aboriginal people in Queensland, including forced removals to designated reserves. Under the direction of a Superintendent, the settlement housed Aboriginal people from different language groups and regions of Queensland, who lived within a highly regulated and tightly controlled institutional environment until its closure in 1927.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt led the first European exploration of the upper Dawson River district during his expedition north from the Darling Downs to Port Essington in 1844-46. Pastoral settlement in the area commenced soon after, with squatters attracted by Leichhardt's reports of its rich grazing land. By November 1845 Taroom Station had been taken up, and by the time the Leichhardt pastoral district of 40,000 acres (16,187 ha) was proclaimed in 1854, most of the country had been taken up for pastoral purposes. The township of Taroom developed at a crossing point on the Dawson River at the junction of several tracks from Juandah, Gayndah and Roma, and developed slowly as a staging post between Roma and Rockhampton. A post office was established there in 1853, a courtroom gazetted in 1857, and the town was officially surveyed in 1860 (QHR 602075; QHR 600835).
The spread of the pastoral frontier and its associated violent disruption of traditional Aboriginal lifestyles and land use inevitably caused conflict between traditional owners and settlers along the Dawson River. Conflict escalated rapidly following a retaliative attack at Hornet Bank homestead in 1857, resulting in the death of eleven European inhabitants of the station. In the following months a vigilante 'squatter's crusade', supported by sections of the colonial press, was waged throughout the Dawson and Burnett districts by small bands of squatters and Native Police. It has been estimated that several hundred Aboriginal people were indiscriminately killed during this period. Sporadic warfare continued in the Dawson River area to 1870, by which time numbers of local Aboriginal people had been significantly reduced (QHR 602075; Evans:2007:74-75). By the beginning of the twentieth century, surviving Aboriginal people living in the district were residing in fringe camps around Taroom or on surrounding rural properties (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:6).
From the 1870s a small number of sites were reserved for the use of Aboriginal people by the Queensland government. Most of these were never formally managed and were generally short-lived. The first mission settlement set up by a religious organization was the Zion Hill mission established in present day Nundah in 1838. These types of settlements increased in number during the 1880s, particularly in north Queensland. The removal of over 300 Aboriginal people from more than 50 localities to the Deebing Creek mission (near Ipswich) from 1894 heralded the beginning of a more systematic removal process (State Library of Queensland: 2010:1-30; Evans: 2007:139).
In 1895 self-styled 'expert' Archibald Meston provided the Queensland government with a plan to address the improvement and protection of the colony's Aboriginal people. Meston contended the reason earlier reserves operated by missionaries and others were unsuccessful all over Australia was poor management and control. Further, the location of such places had not adequately isolated Aborigines in a way that prevented their exposure to the vices and diseases contact with white people occasioned. A follow up report on Queensland missions for the Home Secretary reaffirmed Meston's belief that the government should be taking a direct role in establishing and maintaining reserves and effectively segregating Aboriginals from white people. Meston ultimately recommended the establishment of three reserves to serve southern, central and northern Queensland; the appointment of a Chief Protector; and stronger government controls, including the power to remove Aboriginal people to these places and keep them there. Meston's proposals, and their influence in shaping subsequent legislation and its administration, marked a significant change both in Queensland and Australia in relation to government control of Aboriginal peoples lives (Blake: 2001:1-3).
Meston's recommendations were brought to fruition in the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, the provisions of which gave the government substantial control over many aspects of the lives of Aboriginal people and extended its authority to establish, and then forcibly remove people to and keep them within reserves. Superintendents were in charge of these places (a title also given to those in charge of missions), and were responsible to the Chief Protector of Aboriginals. The realities of 'living under the Act' were to profoundly impact upon the lives of Queensland Aboriginal people. Queensland's legislation influenced other parts of Australia, becoming the model for similar legislation adopted in Western Australia (1905), the Northern Territory (1910) and South Australia (1911), the three places with the highest Aboriginal populations at this time (National Archives of Australia:2011).
Settlements at Durundur (near Woodford, re-opened 1900), Whitula in western Queensland (briefly in operation in response to the 1902 drought) and Fraser Island (1897) were beset by a range of problems and did not last, with the latter experiencing a very high death rate among inmates. From 1905 the Barambah Aboriginal Settlement (from 1934 Cherbourg) in the South Burnett, first established in 1901, came under complete government control and operation. It was considered a more successful venture and gave the government confidence to establish more Aboriginal settlements (Evans: 2007:139; Donovan: 2002:121,132; Blake: 2001:9,17-18).
In the post-Barambah phase of direct government operation of settlements on reserves, the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement was the first to be established in Queensland. It was followed in the 1910s by Hull River in north Queensland (1914-1918, destroyed by cyclone) and Palm Island in 1918. The site of the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement, located 14 km east of the town along the Dawson River was surveyed and gazetted as a Reserve 'for the use of Aboriginal inhabitants of the State' in 1909. Previously the reserve area was within the boundaries of Markland Station, a pastoral run that had been established by 1860, parts of which had been abandoned in the early 1900s due to prickly pear infestation. Originally encompassing an area of 1509 acres (686 ha), the reserve area was increased to 3164 acres (1438 ha) in 1912 and further enlarged by another 3486 acres in 1915 (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:7-8; Moreton Bay Courier: 7 December 1860:3; Rechner: 2005:48).
In May 1911 Taroom Settlement's first Superintendent GR Addison arrived at the reserve with the basic materials for establishing the place. Addison's first action was to 'persuade natives in camps near Taroom to take up quarters on the reserve' (QPP:1912:3:1016-1017). In the early months of the reserve the Aboriginal population drawn from the vicinity of Taroom was about 70. The arrival of groups of people removed from Bell and Roma and 'a few from the north' boosted numbers, and by December 1911, 155 people were drawing rations at the settlement (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:6; QPP:1912:3:1016-1017). In May 1912 'about 300' people were reported to be living on the settlement (Brisbane Courier: 9 May 1912:6).
Over time, Aboriginal people from areas throughout Queensland (and a number of G/Kamilaroi people originally from northern New South Wales) were forcibly removed or 'deported' to Taroom. (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:6-10,98-101; Evans:2007:172). Archival government correspondence regarding proposed removals to Taroom reveal the distribution of locations from where Aboriginal people were sent. Such places included towns and pastoral stations in south west and central Queensland, the Darling Downs and the Wide Bay-Burnett, jails at Brisbane, Roma and St Helena Island and other Aboriginal settlements and missions (Mackett:1998; L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:89-97). In 1913, 45 men and 14 women had been removed to Taroom for 'having given trouble in other districts, loafing about, or for being in a destitute condition' (QPP:1913:1025). While operating, the settlement housed an average population of about 250-300 Aboriginal people.
By segregating Aboriginal people from the rest of the community, the removals process was highly effective in fulfilling the government's objectives of increased control and regulation of the state's Aboriginals, enforced on settlements through a range of administrative and disciplinary measures. While humanitarian concerns were used as a justification for removal by advocates of the reserve system, Aboriginal people were forcibly removed for a wider range of reasons including illness; lack of employability or refusal to work; old age; as punishment; and after a jail sentence had been served (Blake:2001: 36-49). While many groups had already been moved off their traditional land and were residing in fringe camps at settlements and stations, the removals program further severed many Queensland Aboriginals' capacity to maintain connections to country and traditional customary practices. Social and family networks were also profoundly altered, with children taken from their parents, wives from husbands and families split up and sent to different reserves.
By 1912, a 400 acre (161.87 ha) paddock had been enclosed, a vegetable garden, storage sheds, stockyards and temporary quarters for the Superintendent and his family had been constructed at Taroom (QPP:1912:1016-1017). In this initial establishment phase, the reserve was 'laid out in a simple system of streets and a small area of ground allotted to each family'. Inmates purchased galvanised iron from the settlement store and were building huts with bark and slabs (QPP:1912:1016-1017). Throughout the early years of the reserve, Aboriginal people largely lived in humpies, increasing in size over time and assembled with a range of materials including bark, branches, felled timber, flattened kerosene tins and corrugated iron. Internally these dwellings were divided into three sleeping compartments with raised beds for parents, boys, and girls and external fireplaces (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:63).
Economically, the Queensland government supported the view advocated by Meston that the first duty of reserves was 'that they be self-supporting institutions' (Blake:2001:18). The labour of inmates as directed by the Superintendent focussed on grazing and agricultural production. Ringbarking and vegetation clearing, fencing, prickly pear cutting and tending to stock (initially sheep for wool and later beef cattle) were ongoing tasks throughout the life of the reserve. A range of crops were grown with varying degrees of success, with the reserve vulnerable to the extremes of flooding and droughts. Crops included cotton, potatoes, pumpkins, corn and melons, and stock fodder. An orchard of seven acres had been established by 1918 with 500 citrus trees. Between 1918 and 1922 another 9 acres (3.64 ha) is thought to have been used for orchard purposes and other fruits were grown. A 260 ft (79.25m) bore, capped by a windmill and connected to pipelines, tanks and stock troughs was sunk near the orchard for the reserve's water needs in 1916. The water's excessive iron content meant that it could not be used as effectively as hoped. Other infrastructure known to have been constructed included extensive fencing, horse yards, a woolshed in 1913, dams, a butcher's shop, new yards and a dip in 1919, a milling shed for a small sawbench and engine, and a bridge over the Dawson River (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:20-25; QPP:1914:1028; QPP:1918:1:1678; QPP:1920:2:234; QPP:1921:2:562).
While farming activity was undertaken on the reserve, Taroom also developed as a labour depot, as had happened at Barambah. The services of suitably aged and able-bodied inmates were made available to property owners seeking cheap labour in the local district and beyond. Males were generally engaged in manual work on pastoral and agricultural properties and females worked as domestic labourers in rural and urban areas. The Chief Protector's Annual Report of 1914 recorded a steady demand for labour and 'ample employment' in a range of farm work and during that year 37 males and 13 females from Taroom had entered work agreements offsite (QPP:1915: 3:1019).
By 1916, the government intended to lay out the main settlement area, 'with regard to proper alignment and model village design' and by 1918 a 'village square' planted with shade trees had been established (QPP:1918:1:1678; QPP:1916:1691; L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:58). Building and construction work was undertaken incrementally over the life of the reserve in this main settlement area. Many of these structures were rudimentary and inadequate with Annual Reports repeatedly drawing attention to the need for new and improved structures. Better quality timber buildings were constructed for administrative purposes and as staff quarters, with some timber sourced from Barambah's sawmill. The buildings reported to have been constructed between 1912 and 1923 included: a permanent Superintendent's residence (1912), quarters for the Assistant Superintendent and a Superintendent's office (1916-17); a lockup (by 1913) hospital (described as 'slab walled' in 1919), nurses quarters (1917) two weatherboard cottages used as officers' quarters (1921); and in 1923, isolation quarters and combined office and store accommodation (QPP:1912:1016-1017; Chief Protector's Annual Report:1913:32; QPP: 1916-17:3:1739; QPP:1918:1:1678; Brisbane Courier: 1919: August 16:4; QPP:1922:2:475; L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:71-72).
A distinctive phase of building activity occurred from 1921 following the introduction of mud-brick manufacturing and construction techniques to the reserve. The technique was thought to have been introduced by two former inmates of the Purga mission (near Ipswich). The bricks were composed of a mixture of sand, clay and lucerne hay and were used to form walls. Squared and adzed 'bush timber' was used for framing and corrugated iron was used for roofing (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:74-75). Buildings mentioned in Annual Reports from 1922 to 1924 constructed by this method included a 'native courthouse', dairy, soup kitchen, isolation ward, sewing room, boiler house, old men's dining room, new lock-up, school, 'an extra dormitory, 60ft x 20ft' (18.29m x 6.1m), a number of mudbrick cottages (for inmates) and other 'unidentified buildings' (QPP:1922:2:475; QPP:1923:1:1072; QPP:1924:1:982).
While official visitors were often impressed by a sense of progress and the care provided to inmates at Taroom and other government-run Aboriginal settlements, most experienced life on the reserve in far harsher terms. Within the main settlement area, buildings that directly impacted on the restricted lives of inmates included the Superintendent's office, the lock-up, retail and rations stores, schools, and the boys' and girls' dormitories. The tenor of the day-to-day management of the settlement and control of inmates' activities was created by the strict enforcement of the reserve's rules and regulations directed through the Superintendent's office. A small 'police force' comprising Aboriginal inmates was established on the reserve and the lock-up was used to incarcerate inmates at the Superintendent's discretion (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:38-39).
Inmates were not passive recipients of the government control that dominated their lives. Among the acts of resistance by Taroom's inmates were frequent escapes from the settlement and the lock-up and a short-lived strike in 1916, led by former champion middleweight boxer Jerry Jerome. Jerome, who had opposed his removal to the settlement, 'incited all others to refuse to work unless paid cash for it' (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:38-41;Tatz:1995:48-49; Watson:2010:109).
For their basic food supply the inmates of Taroom were dependent on the distribution of rations obtained from the ration or 'free' store. They were also allocated blankets and basic calico clothing. The rations of government Aboriginal settlement-allocated in a sliding scale to working men, non-workers, women, children and dormitory occupants and comprising flour, sugar and meat and supplementary products such as dried peas, rice and treacle-varied little for decades (Blake: 2001:105). The withholding of rations as a punishment is one example of the disciplinarian measures that were enforced at many reserves (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995: 38).
At Taroom, rations were also supplemented by garden produce (when available), and through sourcing game and native plants found on the reserve and surrounding properties. (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:26-31). Other items could also be purchased through the retail store (an important revenue generator for government settlements), where inmates used their own money to buy additional food and domestic items. By 1913 a soup kitchen had been established to provide meals for older inmates and in 1918 hot meals were also being supplied for school children (Chief Protector's Annual Report:1913:32; QPP:1918:1:1678).
A temporary school was under construction by the end of 1912 and by 1914 the school roll numbered 43 students. In the first few years, basic teaching duties were undertaken by the reserve's nurse, as no quarters were available for a qualified teacher. Until the construction of the mud-brick school in 1922, schooling was carried out in a very basic slab building and for a short while in the 'native courthouse'. A better quality separate school was built for the children of settlement staff during 1920-21 (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:68-69; QPP:1912:1016-1017; QPP:1914:1028; QPP:1915-16:1691; QPP:1918:1:1678; QPP:1922:2:475; QPP:1923:1:1072).
In the years that the Taroom settlement was operating, JW Bleakley was Chief Protector of Aboriginals in Queensland. His ongoing concerns regarding mixed blood and the 'half caste problem' were expressed in his prioritisation of 'the rescue and care of young women and children', which determined a greater role for dormitories on Aboriginal reserves in Queensland (Blake:2001:70). It was within the highly-ordered, institutional structure of the dormitory system that young inmates' Aboriginal identities, connections to family and maintenance of many traditional cultural practices were most seriously impacted. Contact with other inmates and movements around other areas of the settlement were restricted and were subject to the Superintendent's approval (Blake:2001:70-84).
A concerted effort was made to move children from settlement camps into dormitories. A girls' dormitory was in operation by 1919. Following a visit to the settlement, Anglican Bishop Le Fanu described the girls moving into a 'special compound' after reaching the age of 12 (Brisbane Courier: 16 August 1919:4; QPP:1920:2:234). Former inmates recalled all young girls living in the dormitory at Taroom during the 1920s. It was mud-brick and a low built building, internally white washed with rows of three-tiered wooden bunks. Another mud-brick building was used for the dormitory kitchen. Like other girls dormitories on government Aboriginal reserves, the former inmates recalled the perimeter of the dormitory bounded by a six foot fence topped with barbed wire. New 'quarters for boys' were reported as completed by 1925 (QPP: 1925:1 :1094; L'Oste-Brown et al: 1995:68; Sutton: 2003:81-84).
The spatial division between the administrative and Aboriginal areas of the settlement became more formally defined over time as more Aboriginal people arrived from areas throughout Queensland. Buildings associated with the administration of the reserve remained concentrated within a well defined area of the main settlement and stood in contrast to the larger, less distinctive area just north of the administrative area where inmates lived in camps organised around regional, tribal and kinship affiliations. During the 1920s, the inmates in this area lived in 5 broad groups; Cooktown people (a generic term for north Queensland Aboriginals); 'Gulalee' people mostly from south-west Queensland; people from the Burnett district; western Queensland people; and a mixed camp with scattered groups of individuals or couples without children. While inmates were subjected to the discipline and control associated with life in an institution, some traditional customary practices continued at Taroom (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:58-63).
From 1922, a new experimental sub-settlement was established approximately 1 km to the east of the main settlement and camp areas, away from the flood prone river flats. Twelve five acre blocks had been allotted to 'industrious families' by late 1923 to establish dwellings (some of which were of mud-brick construction) and to grow cotton, maize and other vegetables. The Tobane and Richards families are two families known to have lived at the sub-settlement during its existence (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:21-22,65; QPP:1923:1:1072; Brisbane Courier:1923: December 4:7).
Two cemeteries were established on the settlement. Over the course of its existence, there was a high mortality rate among inmates, attributed to the generally poor living conditions, inadequate health services and Aboriginal susceptibility to European diseases. A total of 268 deaths were recorded between 1911 and 1927. A mix of European and traditional burial customs and rites were performed during funeral ceremonies. The first cemetery was located about 300 metres east of the main settlement area. The usual burial practice was to cover graves with piles of stones and edge them with stones or bottles. Only two of the graves had formal headstones; portions of which are extant. The second cemetery was located about 200 metres north-west of the former on a low sand ridge. This cemetery is thought to have been used as a burial site from the late 1910s and contains the remains of people who died during the 'Spanish' influenza epidemic of 1919, some of whom are thought to have been interred together in trench graves. Over 200 people were affected by the epidemic and at least 27 deaths (31 deaths were reported) occurred, including that of the then Superintendent, CA Maxwell (QPP: 1920: 2:231; L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:43-50).
The Taroom Aboriginal Settlement was closed due to the Dawson Valley Irrigation Scheme, which threatened to inundate the low-lying land along the river. The proposal to move the settlement came in 1922, initially to higher land, but in 1926 land had been secured near Duaringa, west of Rockhampton. This property of 25,000 hectares was named Woorabinda, and clearing and fencing began there in September 1926. All buildings and equipment were moved from Taroom to Woorabinda in a process which took 18 months and was completed by early 1928 (L'Oste-Brown et al:1995:79-84).
Gazettal of the Taroom Reserve was rescinded on 31 May 1928. Since this time the property has been used by a number of owners for grazing and cropping purposes. The current name of the property, Bundulla, was in use shortly after the reserve had been removed and does not appear to have any historical link with it. In 2010, little surface evidence remains at Bundulla to indicate the former existence of a government-controlled Aboriginal settlement.
In 1992 and 1994 three former inmates of Taroom, Ted Mitchell, Vera Tyson and Gordon Henry, in collaboration with staff from the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage, contributed to an oral history project (informed by site visits) that greatly added to the recorded knowledge of life at and the spatial organization of the settlement. During this process, white stones and pickets were placed around what were thought to be the cemetery perimeters. Related archaeological investigations, including ground penetrating radar surveys of the cemeteries, added further knowledge about the site.
Descendants and extended families of people who lived and died at Taroom continue to maintain a special connection to the site. In more recent years, collaborative efforts between the owners, Aboriginal groups and government bodies has resulted in the erection of signs and a memorial stone and plaque listing those who died on the settlement. The current owners of Bundulla, which in 2011 included the site of the former Aboriginal Settlement, have played an important role as custodians of the place.
","criteria":"The site of the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former) is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, as a place associated with the organisation of Queensland Aboriginal reserves established under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897. This legislation enabled direct government control over the lives of Aboriginal people in Queensland, who could be removed by the government to designated reserves and kept within gazetted reserve boundaries. Established in 1911, the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former) is significant as an early Aboriginal reserve established and run from the outset by the Queensland government as an Aboriginal Settlement, always an uncommon aspect of the state's cultural heritage; providing a model for other Aboriginal settlements in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia.
|The site, and the archaeological artefacts, of the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former) are important to Aboriginal people, groups and families across Queensland, particularly those groups removed from their own lands to the reserve, including those considered as traditional owners of the area. As a place operated by the Queensland government as an Aboriginal Settlement from 1911-1927, the place represents a distinctive phase of Queensland's history in a way that no other place can. The archaeological artefacts relate to and may potentially be used to illustrate events which have had a profound effect on Queensland Aboriginal people's lives and that of their communities. The relatives and descendants of those who lived on the settlement retain a strong and special association with the place, especially the two cemetery areas.
|The site of the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former) has potential to contribute new knowledge about Queensland's history, particularly a greater understanding of government-run Aboriginal settlements in Queensland. Extensive surface scatters of archaeological artefacts are evident across the site and there exists potential for subsurface archaeological evidence within and below the plough zone (c.300mm below current ground surface levels) particularly in the vicinity of the five historically documented Aboriginal 'camps' and within the main settlement area.
The results of archaeological investigations within the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former) may challenge written histories and other historical sources that document the effect of government control on Aboriginal people, groups, communities and cultural practices. Important archaeological research questions will relate to social organisation (including relations between people on the Reserve and culture contact generally), adaptations to life within a regulated and controlled community, the effects on families and the structures of households on the Reserve including subsistence strategies, consumption choices and patterns, and reciprocity and other informal economies.
Archaeological artefacts within Taroom Aboriginal Settlement (former) are illustrative of endangered and rare aspects of Queensland's history, specifically the customs, processes and functions of government-run Aboriginal settlements from the early 20th century. While the place has undergone substantial disturbance by agricultural and pastoral activities since original artefact deposition, analysis of the spatial distribution of archaeological evidence will result in an increased understanding of the actual layout of the reserve.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":25779,"place_ref":602762,"name":"Elgin Vale Sawmill","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Manumbar Road","suburb":"ELGIN VALE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-09-17","description":"The Elgin Vale sawmill complex stands at the end of a short access road east of the intersection of the Manumbar-Nanango Road and the Goomeri-Elgin Vale Road, Elgin Vale (approximately 80 kilometres southwest of Gympie). The complex comprises a large open mill shed, detached office, remnants of the former mill township, two cottages and a toilet shed.
Mill shed
The milling operation is accommodated in a large, rectangular open sided timber framed shed standing on a site sloping down to the northeast. It is sheltered by a gabled roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting with the roof line notable for two small decorative projecting gable roofs to the southwest side. The milling operations are organised around the main floor of the shed which has narrow platforms running along the short sides, a workshop standing to the east corner and the boiler/engine room standing to the north. The northwest platform, workshop and boiler/engine room are sheltered by skillion roofs. A small rectangular enclosed office stands within the shed to the south.
An elevated hardwood timber floor supported on round timber stumps provides a platform for the milling plant with the drive shafts, belts and pulleys accommodated below connecting to the steam driven flywheel. A line of large round logs perpendicular to the mill floor is along the southwest side of the shed forming a log ramp feeding logs to the breakdown saw bench. The milling plant comprises benches, rollers, saws and other milling plant (all retain pulleys and belts), winches, a gantry crane and tramways (timber and steel rails) with trolleys. A winch stands in the yard to the southwest of the log ramp The traverser rails and trolley run along the southeast side on a narrow timber platform lower than the main floor. A set of timber stairs descends to the northwest from the timber floored walkway along the northwest side. Two boilers, a steam engine and a large flywheel stand at ground level to the north corner with a corrugated iron water tank on a tall timber standing further to the north. A tall metal stack projects from the boiler. Two timber framed and clad shutes between the workshop and boiler room discharge to the waste/sawdust and boiler/furnace areas to the northeast.
Office
The mill office is a small rectangular timber framed and weather board clad building supported on low timber stumps and sheltered by a corrugated iron clad gable roof standing up the slope to the southeast of the mill shed. An open rectangular entrance porch is accommodated to the east corner from which two solid timber doors (northwest and southwest) open into the office. Other openings include a solid timber door to the centre of the southwest side and small windows to the northwest and northeast sides.
Township
The remains of the township are on land that slopes up gently to the south of the mill shed. Approached along a dirt track south of the mill office, the remnants include timber stumps, concrete slabs, pieces of metal sheeting, small piles of debris, timber and barbed-wire fencing and three electrical poles, most lying to the west side of the track. The area is now grassed and has a scatter of vegetation.
Cottages and toilet shed
Two timber cottages and a small timber shed accommodating toilets stand to the southwest of the mill shed. The interiors of these cottages are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Elgin Vale sawmill, an open-air timber structure containing a steam operated mill, was built in 1944 by Wilson Hart Limited of Maryborough, replacing an earlier sawmill established in 1927.
Queensland's pastoral frontier and its associated disruption of traditional Aboriginal lifestyles spread throughout the Wide Bay-Burnett district during the 1840s. In 1847 John Mortimer selected Manumbar, a 64 000 acre (26 000 hectares) holding between Nanango and present day Goomeri, which included the site of the Elgin Vale sawmill.
When land was resumed from the Gallangowan run of Manumbar in 1878, 400 acres were set aside for a Camping and Water Reserve (R.81) at the confluence of the Gallangowan and Moonda-Waamba Creeks. It was on Mortimer's recommendation that this area was gazetted, as it was the only permanent source of water in the locality. The following year Messrs J & A Porter took up much of the surrounding land, constructing a homestead 'Elgin Vale' in close proximity to the reserve.
By the 1870s, timbergetters were working in the South Burnett, servicing the small local markets of Nanango and Kilkivan and hauling logs to Queensland's 'timberopolis', Maryborough. The construction of the branch railway to Kilkivan from Theebine in 1886 enabled logs and sawn timber to be sent to Maryborough and Brisbane more efficiently, creating conditions for a viable and larger scale timber industry in the South Burnett. Timber revenue provided the chief justification for the extension of the Kilkivan branch line and after extending through to Goomeri (1902), Murgon (1904) and Kingaroy (1904), the timber industry was a major contributor to the initial growth of these settlements. In townships and in close proximity to forested areas, numerous steam operated sawmills were established to process timber.
The first sawmill located on Camping and Water Reserve 81, (also known as Scrubby Paddock), was established by Ross and Company in 1908. This operation is thought to have moved to Goomeri in 1914.
While the softwood vine forests of the South Burnett contained a variety of millable trees, it was the abundance of hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), in towering stands on the ridges and ranges, that provided much of the district's timber. Easily worked, with a fine, uniform grain, the pale cream to light yellow-brown wood of the hoop pine was widely used in the construction of timber buildings throughout Queensland, as well as for decorative and other purposes. The hilly terrain immediately south of Camping and Water Reserve 81 was dense with hoop pine and in 1914 an area of 7660 acres was gazetted as State Forest R.154. Just outside of Kilkivan, about 77 km north of the Elgin Vale site, Mudlo National Park currently protects one of the area's few remaining stands of native hoop pine vine forest, which illustrates its attraction for the timber industry.
In 1926, TH (Harry) Spencer began negotiations to establish a new mill at Elgin Vale, with the intent of shifting his sawmill at Sefton (north of Kilkivan) to the reserve. Spencer had previous involvement in timber industry of the Wide Bay-Burnett and came to play a prominent role in civic and business interests in the (former) Kilkivan Shire.
In March 1926, the year Queensland began to formally regulate the amount of timber that could be cut in State Forests and Timber Reserves, Spencer negotiated with the Queensland Provisional Forestry Board to procure 10 million super feet of hoop pine timber from State Forest Reserve 154, adjacent to Reserve 81. In conjunction with this agreement, Spencer received permission from the Lands Department and Kilkivan Shire Council to establish a large sawmill at an estimated cost of £12 000, with a special lease of five years. In September 1926, Spencer's lease was extended to seven years, while the area of land under lease was enlarged to encompass the whole of the reserve.
The need to extend the area of land under lease was determined by the need to provide accommodation for employees. The development of small self-contained 'timber towns' in relatively remote locations occurred throughout the Wide-Bay Burnett. Other examples existed at Wengenville, Manumbar and Eel Creek. At Elgin Vale, two houses for the manager and tally clerk, a number of smaller family cottages, a boarding house, and barracks for single men were constructed. A small school was also built on the reserve, which remained in operation until 1977 (later adapted to a QCWA meeting room and regazetted to form a separate reserve). When a new set of barracks were later built (circa 1930s), the earlier building was converted into a community hall, which became an important social space for the settlement. In 1961 two houses, seven cottages, a set of barrack's and community hall (in addition to the sawmill and detached office) were recorded on-site.
During 1926-27, Spencer moved all of the machinery and building materials from the mill from Sefton to Elgin Vale, with commercial processing of timber underway by late 1927. After expending considerable effort to establish the milling operations and provision for workers, Spencer owned the mill for a very short period. At the end of 1927, Wilson Hart Company Limited, a long established timber company of Maryborough (1866), had taken over operations. After relinquishing ownership, Spencer operated the mill on behalf of Wilson Hart, maintaining the logging contract to provide timber and to haul milled timber to Goomeri railway station into the 1940s. During his operations at Elgin Vale, Spencer was responsible for introducing modern forms of transport in the district to obtain and transport timber, in the form of Linn caterpillar tractors (the first in Queensland) and motorised trucks.
During operations between 1927 and 1930, the mill's output included 150 000 butter boxes for the Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Association, linking what were then two of the region's most important industries. The effect of the Depression caused periods of closure at the mill during the 1930s, a common occurrence at this time at sawmills across the state. The 1934 burning of Wilson Hart's sawmill at Maryborough saw the relocation of a large number of staff to Elgin Vale. This was a particularly active period at the mill, with three shifts worked over a 24 hour day and the timber town's small population temporarily swelling to accommodate the extra workers.
During World War II, the heavy demand for timbers, for defence and other 'essential uses' made Queensland's timber industry a protected trade. In this period, the Elgin Vale mill was sending sawn timber to Wilson Hart's Maryborough mill for the production of ammunition boxes. A fire in May 1944 completely destroyed the 1927 Elgin Vale sawmill, with only the sawn timber in the yard saved. By October of that year, Wilson Hart had constructed a new mill, probably in the same position as the previous structure.
The position and internal layout of the Elgin Vale mill followed the basic design principles for steam powered softwood sawmills of the era, to maximise efficient movement of logs through the mill. The sloping foreground on the southern side of the mill, inset with a series of large logs ramp-assisted the movement of large logs onto the rolling (Canadian) bench, where they were split by the breaking down saw. From here the flitches (long lengths of timber), were transported across wooden skids to the 'number one bench', to be cut into boards. If required, boards and off-cuts were then resized at the 'number two bench'. Both the 'one' and 'two' saws had docking benches for further cutting of required lengths. Waste timber, used for the boiler's furnace and for fruit cases was sent down a chute close to the number two bench.
Narrower logs were also processed through the frame saw. Vertical saws contained within the frame cut a number of boards simultaneously, with the feed grips of the frame adjusting automatically to the taper of the log. A planing machine for further processing was originally located in the north-eastern corner of the mill, but was later removed. Once cut to the desired specification, the sawn timber was transported on trolleys aligned to rail lines into the holding yard at the eastern end of the mill to season.
The mill was positioned close to the banks of Moonda-Waamba Creek to procure water for the boiler. Situated below the main floor, in the north-west corner were the boiler, engine and drive equipment. The engine, manufactured by T Robinson and Son of England, is thought to have been originally used at a sawmill in Drayton in the early 1900s before being moved to Elgin Vale. Water (which required chemical treatment because of 'hardness') was pumped up to a water tank from Moonda-Waamba Creek and heated by the boiler's furnace, fed on the mill's by-products of sawdust and off-cuts. The steam generated from the boiler powered the engine. A drive belt set over the engine's flywheel was attached to the main drive shaft, and pulleys attached to the shaft drove the various saws on the main floor. Also below the main floor was a workspace for maintenance and sharpening saws, situated near the main engine. Another area was set aside to cut waste timber into fruit cases, which would then be parcelled up and sent away for assembly, with two men generally working at this task.
By the end of the 1940s, the State Forests and Timber Reserves of the South Burnett provided just over 20 percent of Queensland's pine. There were around forty sawmills in the district and during 1947-48, nearly 50 000 tons of timber was loaded at South Burnett railway stations. At this time, the Elgin Vale sawmill was thought to be one of the state's largest.
Although electricity became available at Elgin Vale in 1965, the steam driven operations of the mill were maintained, with electricity only used for lighting. Between 1968 and 1979, the mill's daily operations varied from 5000 to 23 000 superfeet a day, dependent on various factors such as availability of timber, weather and machinery problems. In 1971, Elgin Vale's licence allowed for the production of 642 000 superfeet of timber a year.
While Elgin Vale may not have been the most modern mill in its latter decades, it continued to be a viable operation into the 1970s. The quality of the hoop pine sawn at Elgin Vale ensured a constant demand and a ready market for its product. Because of the relative remoteness of Elgin Vale from its parent company in Maryborough, the mill was largely self-contained, with the staff largely responsible for maintaining and conducting necessary repairs to the steam operations and other components of the mill.
In 1978 Wilson Hart was brought out by the Carrick's Group. Following the acquisition, Carrick's disposed of a significant portion of Wilson Hart's assets and the Elgin Vale mill was placed in the Wood Product's division, separate from other former Wilson Hart operations.
By 1986, the Elgin Vale sawmill had exhausted its allocation of timber in the district. Elgin Vale's use of superseded steam-driven technology, in an era when sawmills throughout the Wide Bay-Burnett region were becoming increasingly larger and modernised, coupled with a downturn in the building industry, increased its vulnerability to demise. During its final year, the mill resorted to purchasing timber from elsewhere to supplement its operations. At this time, an average of 20 cubic metres was processed daily, with 11 men employed on-site. The Elgin Vale sawmill ceased operating as a commercial venture on 16 March 1987, with manager Bob Mercer running the last log through the mill.
Following the closure of the sawmill, the Kilkivan and Nanango Shire Councils purchased the mill and remaining buildings, with the intent of maintaining the site as a museum. The original boiler was replaced with one formerly located at Kingaroy Hospital. A large store room, 2 six-roomed dwellings, 3 five-roomed dwellings and other miscellaneous items were all sold for removal from the site. The manager's and tally clerk's houses were retained, renovated and a caretaker was established on-site.
In 1993, Nanango Shire Council ended their involvement with the Elgin Vale sawmill. Kilkivan Shire Council retained responsibility for the mill, publishing a book on its history in 1997. Following council amalgamations in 2008, ownership of the mill was transferred to Gympie Regional Council. As recently as 2006 the steam driven operations of the Elgin Vale sawmill were operated for visitors, offering an insight into a now rare, but once common practice throughout the Wide Bay-Burnett/Queensland region.
","criteria":"The remains of the Elgin Vale township, established in 1927 to accommodate workers and their families associated with the sawmill, have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the organisation and domestic life of timber settlements that existed in twentieth century Queensland.
|The Elgin Vale sawmill is important in demonstrating the development and subsequent decline of steam driven sawmilling operations in the Wide-Bay Burnett region, an important region associated with Queensland's timber industry. Built in 1944 to replace an earlier mill established in 1927, it was thought to have been one of the state's largest sawmills by the late 1940s.
The Elgin Vale sawmill, in its retention of original fabric and layout, is exceptional for its ability to demonstrate the process of using steam technology to mill the natural resource of hoop pine, historically one of Queensland's principal building materials.
The Elgin Vale sawmill is important in demonstrating the pattern of establishing softwood sawmills in close proximity to naturally occurring stands of hoop pine, while the remains of the township, constructed from 1927, demonstrate the associated provision of accommodation for workers and their families in relatively remote timber milling locations in Queensland.
|The Elgin Vale sawmill is a rare example in Queensland of a steam driven softwood sawmill in operating condition, demonstrated in its substantial level of intactness and high degree of integrity. Steam driven sawmills were once common throughout Queensland with around 40 operating in the Wide Bay-Burnett district alone in the 1940s. There are no known sawmills in Queensland comparable to the Elgin Vale sawmill in terms of retention of original layout, fabric and operating ability.
|The Elgin Vale sawmill site is important because of its aesthetic significance. The place possesses evocative qualities, generated by the strong visual impact of a tough industrial aesthetic of weathered timber and corrugated galvanised iron, juxtaposed with its quiet rural setting. The remains of the township evoke a sense of isolation and decline of a self contained way of life that has largely vanished in Queensland.
|The substantially intact Elgin Vale sawmill is an exceptional example of a steam driven softwood sawmill, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. Located adjacent to a creek for water and in close proximity to well timbered areas, the mill is positioned below sloping ground to assist the movement of logs. Internally, the layout and the sequence designed to maximise the efficient movement and cutting of logs within the sawmill remain: the long open-sided tin and timber shed, log ramp, breakdown saw, number one and two saw, frame saw, docking benches, waste chute, rails and trolleys. Below the main floor are the boiler, engine and attached drive equipment that provide the power for the operations on the main floor.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":25912,"place_ref":602819,"name":"Pettigrew's Cooloola Timber Tramway Complex","alternate_name":"Pettigrew's Tramway | Pettigrew's Railway | SEQ-5N 22 | Cooloola Railway | Pettigrews Tramway","street_address":"Cooloola Recreation Area Great Sandy National Park","suburb":"COOLOOLA","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-07-12","description":"Pettigrew's Cooloola Timber Tramway Complex is located within the Cooloola Recreation Area, of the Great Sandy National Park, which lies between the coastal towns of Noosa Heads and Rainbow Beach. The first section of the tramway ran from the entrance of Cooloola Creek to a site near the former Forestry Department's Camp Milo. It was later extended into Broutha Scrub and the coastal terminus was changed from Cooloola Creek to Poverty Point.
\nTramway route
\nThe complete route of the tramway is currently unconfirmed.
\nThe tramway route is aligned with the Poverty Point firebreak, located on a slightly elevated ridge, for at least a portion of the firebreak. The site of the sawmill and windmill referred to in an article of Maryborough Chronicle[135] may be located at a depression in the firebreak, just over 1 mile (1.61km) from the Cooloola Creek terminus site. It is believed the windmill was located near the low-lying swampy area north of the Poverty Point firebreak, and the sawmill on the high ground south of the firebreak. Several stumps (possibly building stumps) have previously been located to the south-west of the firebreak, potentially marking the sawmill site.
\nA route thought to be the continuance of the tramway begins east of the termination of the Poverty Point firebreak at Rainbow Beach Road and continues through vegetation to the entrance of the Eastern Firebreak (Pettigrew's Road). The route is particularly discernible in certain sections due to a clearly visible depression along the firebreak; the absence of regrowth along the track, and the way in which surrounding trees have arched over the track. Other portions of the route are harder to identify, with heavy regrowth and fallen branches. This route provides a smooth and direct line for the tramway from where it would have crossed Rainbow Beach Road to the Camp Milo area, the location of the first inland tramway terminus prior to its extension into the Broutha Scrub.
\nFollowing the eastern firebreak past the site of Camp Milo, a series of cuttings and an embankment are evident. The presence of these features indicates that this portion of the firebreak aligns with Pettigrew's tramway route. It has been used as a road since the tramway closed and the engineering features are still very recognisable. Along the cuttings, the firebreak track is 3.3m wide. The portion of embankment is 4.9m wide with a slope of 9.5m at an angle of 45 degrees. The height of the embankment is approximately 5m. Beyond the cuttings and an embankment, the firebreak heads down into a more densely forested area.
\nThe tramway line is believed to have deviated from the Eastern firebreak at some point after the cuttings, as the firebreak becomes winding and steep and not suitable for the course of a tramway. A likely deviation of the tramway from the firebreak is located approximately half-way between Camp Milo and the site of the stationary winding engine. This route would have continued through the scrub, eventually climbing the incline and crossing the eastern firebreak to stationary winding engine. A route is clearly visible through the scrub with trees having grown around the track.
\nAt the top of the ridge above Broutha Scrub is the original site of the stationary winding engine. It is marked by a sign with the words \"Site of steam engine and winch\". The remains of this operation, including large bedlogs and metal fittings, are buried here.
\nBroutha Scrub
\nFrom the site of the stationary winding engine, the tramway descended south-east into Broutha Scrub. The tramway route into the scrub is still visible as an embankment approximately 4m wide. This continues into Broutha Scrub to the tramway's second inland terminus.
\nInvestigations in Broutha Scrub have identified some wooden rails of the line still intact and in-situ, used to identify where the route of the tramway through the scrub ran. Other artefacts previously found within this area include bolts, a broken wheel, a grease tin and a knife.
\nPoverty Point
\nAt Poverty Point, the site of the second coastal terminus, are the remains of a set of timber skids. Sawn logs were offloaded from the trams and rolled along these skids out into the bay for rafting. These skids are likely to relate to the later Hyne and Son timber-getting operation but may also overlay Pettigrew's use of the site. The eastern section of the skids is located on higher land towards the scrub. Substantially submerged, the lengths of three sizable logs are still visible, orientated from south-west to north-east. The south-western extent of the skids is the most exposed due to grading of this area by a 4WD track. The log lengths vary the northern log is 26m long; the middle log is 23.3m; and the southern one is 3.6m. The visible extent of the southern log is much shorter than the other two and is almost completely submerged under vegetation. The logs run almost parallel to each other with a variation of less than 5 degrees. The distance between the northern and middle logs is 2.4m and 2.69m between the middle and southern ones. The mean diameter of the logs is 33cm.
\nThe western section of the skids is located within the intertidal zone. Nine logs, predominantly orientated at 230 degrees towards the bay, were visible at low tide. Only a small portion of these intertidal logs are visible above the sand and it is likely they extend even further into Tin Can Bay.
\nCooloola Creek
\nA timber bridge is located at the point where the Poverty Point firebreak crosses Cooloola Creek. The bridge has been constructed with 4 layers of logs. The top layer has 6 longitudinal log beams; the second layer consists of 2; the third layer consists of 2 cross beams; and the fourth layer consists of 2 longitudinal log beams. The bridge measures 8.6m x 3.7m. No bolts have been used in its construction; it appears to have been repaired over time. While this bridge would have been used by bullock teams post-dating Pettigrew's operation, the lower layers of the bridge, earthworks and inlaid timber on either side of the crossing may comprise part of a crossing used by Pettigrew and Sim.
\nJust north of the Cooloola Creek timber bridge, a likely deviation of the tramway leading to Poverty Point has previously been identified, evident as a distinct cutting that follows an orientation of 280 degrees.
\nThe first tramway terminus site is located on the northern bank of Cooloola Creek. One cross beam, positioned against the bank, with 2 logs running perpendicular to it, relates to the use of this site as a terminus. A narrow strip of higher ground which extends to the east of the bank has previously been identified as a possible route for the tramway from the terminus site.
\nTin Can Bay Inlet (between North Cooloola Point and Cameron Point)
\nA corduroy crossing is located within a north facing inlet of Tin Can Bay. Its location and orientation suggests it would have provided access to the Seary's Creek rafting ground. A series of logs have been laid parallel to each other, in a north-south orientation, each approximately 3m long, to create the crossing which is 90m in length. Some sections of the crossing remain intact with logs 10cm apart.
\nImmediately north of the corduroy crossing is a feature previously identified as a wagon. All that remains are 2 sawn pieces of timber, approximately 32cm at their widest point, partially submerged, with only 25cm of the feature exposed above the ground. The feature is 1.94m long. The western of the 2 pieces of timber has an iron bolt through it.
\nBeyond the purported \"wagon\" are 2 wheels (previously identified as wagon wheels). Both are submerged in the sand, however the diameter of the first wheel (the northern most of the two) could be discerned as 2.1m. The second wheel is located 60cm from the first.
\nThe corduroy crossing may have been re-laid over time and as such surviving remnants may relate to Pettigrew's operation or a later timber-getting operation.
\nSeary's Creek
\nThe feature identified previously as a rafting ground is located on the northern foreshore of Seary's Creek. Fourteen hardwood logs are laid out from the bank into the creek. Unlike the skids identified at Poverty Point, this ramp features logs running perpendicular to each other, orientated in either a north-east to south-west or north-west to south-east direction. The north-east to south-west logs run perpendicular to the shore, towards the creek. The north-west to south-east logs have been positioned under the more inland set of north-east to south-west logs. It appears that this has been done to add height to the inland section of the ramp, enabling sawn logs to better slide down into Seary's Creek.
\nAlong the north-western extent of this feature, the timber orientated north-west to south-east terminates with a stepped cut, allowing a log to sit securely underneath.
\nThe rafting ground may have been re-laid over time and surviving remnants may relate to Pettigrew's operation or a later timber-getting operation.
","history":"Pettigrew's Cooloola timber operation began in the 1860s with the extraction of timber from Woolann (the area around Lake Poona). Bullock teams were used to drag Kauri pine logs to the mouth of Seary's Creek. The sandy nature of the terrain and lack of feed for horses and bullocks made traditional forms of timber transport unfeasible and Pettigrew had to find a solution to access the rich timber of inland Cooloola. The answer was the construction of a tramway: Cooloola Tramway opening in October 1873 as Queensland's first major private railway.[1]
Of all Queensland's natural resources ‘timber was the most visible and abundant to the first Europeans'.[2] Early European accounts of Queensland frequently refer to the extensive stands of timber which lined the coast and river banks. In south-east Queensland the dominant timber species were softwoods such as Hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii) and Kauri pine (Araucaria robusta).[3] When Moreton Bay was opened up to free settlement in 1842 the colony did not have a sawmill and logged timber was either pit sawn and used locally, or sent south for milling and/or export.[4]
The timber industry played a vital role in the economic development of Queensland and William Pettigrew was instrumental in this process.[5] He was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1825 and came to Moreton Bay in 1849 as one of Dr Lang's immigrants on board the ‘Fortitude'.[6] Pettigrew was engaged as a surveyor and land agent by Lang. When Lang's immigration scheme collapsed, Pettigrew worked with Assistant Government Surveyor, James Warner.[7] In this role he gained ‘first-hand knowledge of the local timber resources and the need for a sawmill to facilitate the expansion following the transformation of Brisbane from convict settlement to free society'.[8]
Pettigrew established Queensland's first steam sawmill on land adjacent to the Brisbane River, at the western corner of William and Margaret streets, in 1853.[9] According to Kerr,[10] Pettigrew's sawmill was arguably Queensland's first major industrial enterprise. With the establishment of this sawmill, Brisbane became the key local market for timber.[11] William Sim, an experienced timber worker from Nairn, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, began working at the Brisbane Saw Mills in August 1854. With Sim in charge, the quality of product improved and production increased.[12]
The first sawmill to be opened in Maryborough was Gladwell and Greathead's Union Sawmill in 1861, which established the city as a timber-getting town. Pettigrew was anxious to retain his monopoly in Queensland and began to explore the Maryborough area, looking for new sources of timber and a site for a sawmill to supply the northern ports of Gladstone, Rockhampton and Bowen.[13] In August 1862, Pettigrew explored the Mary River with Tom Petrie[14] and in October decided on the site for his sawmill - 10 miles (16.09km) downriver from Maryborough.[15] On Pettigrew's return to Brisbane, he established a partnership agreement with Sim, who paid £200 for a quarter share in the new firm of Pettigrew and Sim.[16] The new sawmill was called Dundathu and began operating in August 1863.[17]
The Maryborough timber industry industrialised and grew rapidly during the 1860s. In 1876 more timber (mainly sawn pine) was produced in Maryborough than had been exported from Queensland in the preceding 10 years.[18] A number of firms were established including Wilson, Hart and Bartholomew; and James Fairlie.[19] Despite early competition from Gladwell and Greathead's Union Sawmill, Dundathu Sawmill quickly proved profitable, shipping timber to Sydney, Gladstone, Rockhampton and Bowen.[20]
Pettigrew continued to seek out timber resources which could be milled at Dundathu. In September 1863, he set off in the paddle steamer Gneering to search for stands of timber that were reported to exist in the Noosa area.[21] On his return Pettigrew concluded that the timber was disappointing and inaccessible.[22] However, others did not agree and by the end of 1863, timber-getters were operating in the lower Noosa area.[23] Pettigrew turned his attention to the north, and in late June 1865 Pettigrew landed at the head of Tin Can Bay to examine the area further.[24]
His discovery of Kauri pine in the Woolann area of north Cooloola provided the main source of timber for the Dundathu Sawmill.[25] By 1865, Pettigrew's men were using bullock teams to drag Kauri pine logs from Woolann (the area around Lake Poona).[26] Early timber-getters are recorded as using a corduroy crossing of tea-tree branches and saplings to cross the tidal flats in the northern Cooloola area.[27] Pettigrew's men dragged the logs to the mouth of Seary's Creek, tied them into large rafts and towed them through the Tin Can Bay Inlet, Great Sandy Strait and up the Mary River.[28] Tugs were then used to haul the rafts of timber to Dundathu.[29]
The sandy nature of the terrain and lack of feed for horses and bullocks made the use of draught animals for transport very difficult.[30] Pettigrew needed to develop a more expedient alterative. In July 1865 Pettigrew noted in his diary that 5½ or 6 miles (8.85km or 9.66km) of railway, the majority of which would cross flat, ‘barren' sandy country, would enable the timber to be taken out of inland Cooloola to Tin Can Bay.[31] Pettigrew had previously written to Arthur Macalister-the Minister for Lands and Works-about a railway between his operations on the Maroochy and Mooloolah rivers, and was told that the government would not fund railways, and therefore they must be private.[32] In 1863 Pettigrew had begun to experiment with horse-drawn wagons on timber tramlines in the yard of Dundathu[33] and installed wooden-railed lines and turntables to transport the timber around the large sawmill.[34]
By 1864 Pettigrew had become concerned that the ‘unbridled competition' permitted by the Timber Regulations was causing quarrels among timber-getters and encouraged over-cutting and waste. Pettigrew wrote to Macalister in April 1864, ‘setting out arguments for protecting timber-getters who made improvements such as roads for the extraction of timber, but could not then prevent others from using them'.[35] In response, Macalister introduced special timber licences in 1864 which gave their holders exclusive rights to cut and remove timber from specified areas where ordinary timber licences did not apply.[36] The Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868 opened up the Noosa area for selection.[37] By April 1869, Pettigrew was concerned that the new selection laws might override his Special Timber Licences and allow selectors to take over his Kauri pine forests in northern Cooloola.[38] As a result, he sent Surveyor Byrne to survey his land at Woolann, which became Portions 1 and 2, Parish of Cooloola.[39] On 3 May 1869, Pettigrew applied for the selections in the name of his partner William Sim.[40] By this time, Pettigrew had lost the best timber at Noosa, the Kin Kin Creek timber, to merchants and sawmillers McGhie, Luya and Co.[41]
The forests of Cooloola were physically difficult to exploit and remote from the settlements at Brisbane, Maryborough and Gympie,[42] however, the extent and quality of the resource first attracted independent cutters and later sawmillers to the area.[43] Sawmillers operating in the area included Wilson, Hart and Co. of Maryborough; Hyne and Son of Maryborough; Ramsay and Co. of Mungar, Ferguson and Co. of Gympie; and Dath, Henderon and Co. of Tewantin.[44] However, the 2 firms that dominated the trade in Cooloola were Pettigrew and Sim at Tin Can Inlet in the north, and McGhie, Luya and Co. on the Noosa River in the south.[45] After the Gympie gold rush of 1867, demand for timber increased exponentially and the timber industries of Maryborough and Cooloola boomed.[46]
In October 1872, Pettigrew and Sim arrived at Cooloola and began surveying a route for a tramway.[47] By this time their men were extracting timber from Thannae Scrub (located to the south of Woolann), and taking it out through Cooloola Creek.[48] Pettigrew located a suitable terminus on Cooloola Creek and commenced surveying a tramway towards Thannae Scrub.[49] Its construction was underway by January 1873.[50] Pettigrew planned the technical details of the line and ordered materials, and Sim supervised the laying of the track.[51] Sim contributed some of the funds for the tramway by purchasing a further quarter-share in Pettigrew and Sim for £3,750 in September 1871.[52]
The locomotive for the tramway was built especially for the line by John Walker and Co. of Maryborough.[53] According to Pettigrew, it was ‘the first locomotive built in Queensland'.[54] The locomotive was named ‘Mary Ann' after the daughters of Sim and Pettigrew: Mary Ann Sim, born 21 February 1856, and Mary Ann Pettigrew, born 25 December 1865.[55] The design of the engine was described as:
... a compact little affair, of peculiar make, the cylinder, boiler, and working parts being upright, not horizontal, as in most ordinary locomotives. The reason for this arrangement is found in the necessity for placing the wheels at as short a distance from each other as possible in order to admit of the locomotive working smoothly round the sharp curves that must necessarily occur on a line rudely laid down in an unsettled and often rough country.[56]
The locomotive made a test run on wooden rails laid down Bowen Street on 30 June 1873.[57] According to the Maryborough Chronicle[58] ‘many of the inhabitants, both old and young, spent a pleasant hour in riding to and fro on the novel conveyance'. Pettigrew was proud of their accomplishment and ordered 7 copies of a photograph of the engine, sending them with explanatory letters to: Governor Normanby, the Minister for Works; the editor of The Courier; politician Charles Lilley; journalist TP Pugh; architect FGD. Stanley and engineer John Sinclair.[59] After the trials the ‘Mary Ann' was immediately shipped to Tin Can Bay.[60]
In July 1873 Pettigrew joined Sim to inspect progress and try out the ‘Mary Ann' on the tramway.[61] The rails were sawn at Maryborough, and taken by steamer to the tramway.[62] The ‘Mary Ann' itself was used to saw the Cypress pine sleepers for the tramway as the line progressed.[63] Pettigrew explained the process in his letter to the Governor dated 5 August 1873[64]:
It is now at work preparing its line from Thannae to Tin Can Bay. On side of framing is seen a pulley. This is for driving a circular saw bench for cutting up the sleepers. The bench is mounted on two trucks, and is taken along the line as required...The country is barren sandy ground, and the line...is over pretty even ground, requiring no cutting or banking at least as far as yet made. Steepest gradient is about 1 in 18. Gauge 3 ft 3 in; rails are off spotted gum 4" x 3" but are found to be rather light for weight of engine which is about 6 tons. They are now being made of 4 ½" x 3". The cross sleepers are of Cypress pine 7" x 4 ½" and are notched to receive the rails, and are fastened together by wedges....The ends of the rails require to be bolted or pegged to sleepers but has not yet been done. We estimate that the engine will be able to bring 400 cubic feet of Dundathu pine logs at a trip and at a speed of from 6 to 8 miles per house. The two miles already laid has cost about £200 per mile.
The line was opened on 29 October 1873[65] after 3½ miles (5.63km) had been laid.[66] An official opening and celebratory picnic hosted by the Sim family was held on 30 October with a number of Maryborough's leading citizens attending.[67] Guests travelled up and down the line and were given a parbuckling demonstration (the lifting of timber onto the train).[68] Pettigrew could not attend, but Sim told the gathering that ‘Mr Pettigrew was at one with him in all these works'.[69]
Pettigrew's tramway was Queensland's first major private railway.[70] According to Kerr[71] ‘the early adoption of tramways for hauling logs, and its influence on the development on the railways system in Queensland, centres on one man, William Pettigrew'.[72] The success of the Cooloola Tramway in drawing logs from inaccessible places and over difficult terrain encouraged other sawmillers to build light tramways.[73] For example, in the mid-1870s McGhie, Luya and Co. constructed a tramway system across their property on Lake Cootharaba to their sawmill at Mill Point to overcome swampy, low-lying and poorly drained ground conditions.[74] Pettigrew's influence on railways spread beyond the Cooloola area.[75] In 1874 and 1879, he provided advice on the construction and use of tramways.[76] He used his own tramway to demonstrate that a railway could be built for less that £1000 per mile; only a fraction of the cost of government railways, and critics began to condemn government extravagance.[77] ‘The fact that Pettigrew's and other private tramways were never designed to perform the haulage tasks required of government railways was not mentioned by the critics',[78] however the cheap construction of the former did force a reduction in Government standards.[79]
Less than 3 weeks after the opening of the Cooloola tramway, William Sim was killed. Sim and a man named Cooper were unloading a log 5 feet in diameter when the log fell off the truck before the men were ready and crushed Sim.[80] Cooper was injured but not killed.[81] According to the Maryborough Chronicle, William Sim was ‘one who has, in no small degree, contributed towards raising Maryborough to its present position of industrial and commercial prosperity'.[82] Pettigrew's close relationship with Sim is evident in a statement he made in 1900: ‘Till I got William Sim, nothing worth speaking of was done'.[83]
After the death of William Sim, Pettigrew continued an association with the Sim family, and the Maryborough firm became known as Pettigrew and Company.[84] During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Pettigrew's Maryborough interests were managed by William Menzies (the husband of Mary Ann Sim) and William Sim's sons; James Sim Tertius and William Simpson Sim.[85] As time passed, members of the Sim family increased their shareholdings in the firm Pettigrew and Co., until they owned more than two-thirds of the business.[86]
William Sim's death and the destruction of the Brisbane Saw Mill by fire for the second time in 1874 postponed extensions to the Cooloola Tramway.[87] At the time of Sim's death a little over half of the planned 7 mile (11.27km) tramway had been constructed,[88] however, on 25 May 1875 Pettigrew ordered 2 tons of 23lb (10.43kg) railway iron from Smellie and Co. which was enough for approximately 100 yards (91.44m) of rail.[89] The planned extension of the tramway was in 2 directions: from the inland terminus (near what later became the site of the Forestry Department's Camp Milo) to a new terminus in the Broutha Scrub; and 1 mile (1.61km) from Cooloola Creek (the original coastal terminus) north-west to a new coastal terminus at Poverty Point.
In late October 1875, Pettigrew began to survey the extension from the first inland terminus into the Broutha Scrub.[90] On a survey map dated 1876, timber-getter camps are recorded at the Broutha and Thannae waterholes with several structures relating to these camps.[91] The Broutha and Thannae scrubs lay within a 1000-acre selection, Portion 274, which was held in the name of William Sim.[92] Pettigrew carried out surveys and James Sim Tertius supervised the laying of the track. In November 1875, Pettigrew negotiated with Walker and Co. for a second locomotive for £550, and a boiler (6 x 3 ft) for £22 (which may have been used to operate the winding engine).[93] The new engine was called Dundathu and began running on 21 September 1876.[94] The design of the locomotive Dundathu differed to the Mary Ann in that it had a neat cab with iron stanchions and a corrugated roof which protected the driver from all weather. All the gearing for starting, braking and reversing the locomotive were connected so as to be immediately under the driver's hand.[95]
Pettigrew had to overcome a number of obstacles in the construction of the tramway extension. Blocking the planned route were 2 ridges to the east of the original inland terminus and a third ridge which led into "the hollow" (or Broutha Scrub). To overcome the first 2 ridges, Pettigrew cut 2 steep-sided passes through them and filled the gully between them with the sand removed from the cuts, to ensure a gentle gradient.[96] This formation was the only substantial earthworks carried out by Pettigrew on the route of the railway. The third ridge rose steeply over 200ft (60.96m) to a height of 484ft (147.52m), followed by a descent of 182ft (55.47m) into Thannae Scrub.[97] After persistent survey work, Pettigrew decided on 20 November 1876 to abandon the attempt to survey a conventional line down into the Broutha Scrub and opted for a balanced incline tramway.[98] This entailed positioning a stationary winding engine on the top of the ridge. The tramway track came up the ridge on a side cut, crossed it and ran down into the Broutha Scrub on an embankment.[99] A loaded wagon was kept on top of the ridge at all times so that ‘the effort of raising the loaded wagons, one at a time, was counter-balanced by the weight of the descending wagon', creating 2 isolated systems for locomotive purposes.[100] The ‘Mary Ann' was used within Broutha Scrub to haul loaded wagons to the foot of the ridge, and the ‘Dundathu' took them from the other side of the ridge to the coast.[101] The railway line was completed to its final inland terminus past Broutha Scrub in 1878.[102]
The residence of Robert Black, who managed Pettigrew and Sim's Cooloola operations, was located behind the Cooloola Creek landing place.[103] It is likely that other timber-getters or workers on the line may have had residences within this area.[104] A sawmill named ‘Kaloola' was constructed along the line.[105] It was erected for the purpose of sawing up hardwood, principally for renewing the rails,[106] consisted of a shed which measured 60ft (18.29m) by 30ft (9.14m), and was described as high and airy and roofed with sheet iron.[107] A windmill was installed at the site of the sawmill to water the engine.[108] The water used for this purpose was pumped from a waterhole.[109]
In July 1877, Pettigrew went with James Sim Tertius to the Cooloola Railway and surveyed the coastward extension.[110] The original terminus on the eastern bank of Cooloola Creek was proving unsatisfactory, and Sim decided to extend the line across the creek and north-west to Poverty Point.[111] The completed line was between 8 (12.86km) and 9 miles long (14.48km).[112]
In 1874, Pettigrew told the Tramways Select Committee that he expected his tramway to last at least 10 years.[113] Ten years later the operation did cease, and in March 1884, Pettigrew paid 2 final visits to the tramway and the timber-getters' camps at Broutha and Thannae waterholes.[114] With the closure of the Cooloola tramway and increased competition from the other Maryborough sawmills, Dundathu lost the pre-eminence it had held since the 1860s.[115] The locomotives ‘Mary Ann' and ‘Dundathu' and the stationary steam engine were sent back to Dundathu Sawmill and put up for sale.[116] Pettigrew notes in his diary in March 1884 that 2 locomotives of 3ft 3ins (99.06cm) gauge were up for sale, as well as truck wheels, axles, a windmill and pump, wheels and pinion.[117] The engines were not sold, possibly due to their unusual gauge[118], and in January 1885 it was reported that the engines were being held in a shed at Dundathu.[119]
During the 1890s the timber industry in Cooloola entered a period of decline.[120] As a result of the competitive and aggressive extraction of timber, the resource became depleted and most of the timber-getters and sawmillers were leaving the area.[121] In the late nineteenth century, William Pettigrew, Richard Hyne and Abraham Luya spoke in the Queensland Parliament about the need for forest conservation. Although parts of Cooloola had been gazetted as Timber Reserves from the mid-1880s, it was not until the State Forests and National Parks Act 1906 created the Queensland Forest Service that proper forest management was employed.[122]
The Dundathu Sawmill was damaged in the February floods of 1893 and then completely destroyed by fire in December the same year.[123] The combination of the Brisbane floods in 1893 and 1898, the destruction of the Brisbane Saw Mills in 1874 and the Dundathu Sawmill by fire in 1893, and the enveloping economic depression brought Pettigrew's sawmilling empire to an end.[124] On 26 July 1898 Pettigrew signed a petition of insolvency.[125] Pettigrew died in Bowen on 28 October 1906 owning few assets.[126] The obituaries described Pettigrew as ‘the pioneer sawmiller of Queensland'[127] and the ‘father of the Queensland timber industry'.[128]
Pettigrew's contribution to Queensland extended beyond his influence on the timber industry. He served as an Alderman on the Brisbane Municipal Council from 1863-66, 1868-73 and 1878-85 as Mayor in 1870-71; as a member of the first Caboolture Divisional Board from 1880-83 (being Chairman in 1881), and was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1877 (resigning in 1894). Pettigrew was also a member of various boards, including the North Brisbane School of Arts, the National (Agricultural and Industrial) Association and the Philosophical Society (Royal Society from 1883) of Queensland, and boards of health. He was a founder of the Caledonian Association, and a trustee of the Paddington and Toowong cemeteries. Pettigrew was an elder and trustee in Presbyterian congregations and helped to establish a theological college, Divinity Hall, and the Queensland Evangelical Standard newspaper.[129]
In 1912 and 1924 surveyors assessed Cooloola's remaining timber resources, and the extraction of timber (mainly hardwoods) continued.[130] Areas associated with Pettigrew's nineteenth century operations, including the Poverty Point terminus site and the former tramway route were utilized during the twentieth century. The Poverty Point firebreak which is believed to follow the tramway route in part was widened in the 1960s.
In the 1960s a conflict over sand mining, forestry and future development in the region began.[131] In 1970, environmental conservationists successfully fought to preserve Cooloola from sand mining.[132] Queensland Titanium Mines, a subsidiary of American National Lead, was the principal mining company involved in the Cooloola controversy.[133] In 1975, the Cooloola National Park was gazetted. The western catchment of the Noosa River and the high dunes of northern Cooloola were later added to it.[134]
","criteria":"Pettigrew's Cooloola Timber Tramway Complex is important in demonstrating the early expansion of Queensland's timber industry and the development of private railways in the State in the late nineteenth century.
The Wide Bay-Burnett region was historically one of Queensland's most important timber producing regions. The remains of the Seary's Creek rafting ground and related corduroy crossing, and the Cooloola tramway complex provide rare surviving evidence of the earliest period of the timber industry in this region.
The Cooloola tramway constructed by Pettigrew and Sim, in operation from 1873 to 1884, was the first major private railway in Queensland. Its success encouraged other timber-getting operations to utilise tramways to access remote timber resources and influenced the Queensland Government's construction of cheaper railways.
|Pettigrew's Cooloola Timber Tramway Complex has strong aesthetic values derived from a picturesque setting incorporating beaches, inlets, creeks, scrubs and forests. Remaining evidence of the tramway set against the otherwise natural environment, elicits an appreciation of the tenacity required to construct the tramway in such a remote area and across such inhospitable terrain.
|The ephemeral nature of extraction activities and regrowth of vegetation has left little apparent evidence of timber-getters' activities during the earliest period of the timber industry in Queensland. Archaeological investigation into Pettigrew's Cooloola Timber Tramway Complex has the potential to reveal important information that will contribute to our understanding of the development of Queensland's timber industry.
Further investigations into the tramway may help determine the exact route, construction and operation of the tramway. Sub-surface investigations have previously revealed artefacts relating to the operation of the line.
Archaeological investigation may also reveal material relating to the camps and settlement which were established in relation to the tramway. This material has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the organisation and domestic life of remote timber settlements that existed in late nineteenth century Queensland.
|The Cooloola Tramway has a special association with William Pettigrew. Under the business partnership of Pettigrew and Sim, the tramway was constructed to supply timber to their Maryborough sawmill Dundathu. While the influence of Sim occurred mainly in the Maryborough area, Pettigrew made an important contribution to the development of the state's timber industry, and in turn the economic development of Queensland.
Pettigrew, an important and influential pioneer of the Queensland timber industry, established Brisbane's first steam sawmill and conducted extensive timber-getting and processing operations between Brisbane and Maryborough during the colonial period.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28495,"place_ref":602624,"name":"Tallebudgera Post Office (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"17 Trees Road","suburb":"TALLEBUDGERA","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-10-01","description":"The former Tallebudgera Post Office is located at 17 Trees Road, Tallebudgera.
The original building is a small, single roomed structure with a verandah at the front. It is constructed from timber in the style known as 'board and batten'. The building is elevated off the ground on timber stumps with the front of the building being approximately 0.5 metres above the ground and the rear of the building being approximately 1.5 metres above the ground. The roof is corrugated iron. Inside the building there are timber shelves attached to the rear and right walls. The inside of the roof was originally lined with wood panels and a small portion of this remains.
A 'lean to' extension at the rear of the building has been added at a later, unknown date. The extension has been built from sheets of corrugated iron. It sits on the ground with the bare earth as the floor.
The original building (excluding the extension) measures approximately 5.10 metres in width by 6.0 metres in length, inclusive of the verandah which is 2.30 metres. The extension adds another 4.0 metres to the length of the building.
The building contains mostly original materials. Any new timber used in the restoration process has been date stamped and where possible other new materials, such as rose-headed nails, duplicate those of the original building.
A mature camphor laurel tree (Cinnamomum camphora) is located on the left side of the building with its branches spreading over the roof of the building. An early photograph of the building from 1917 also shows the camphor laurel tree.
","history":"The former Tallebudgera Post Office was officially opened in 1878 and was in operation until March 1958. It was a privately owned and built building. Tallebudgera was located along the main stock route between Queensland and New South Wales and was a stopover point for the Cobb and Co. Coaches. In 2002 the deteriorating property was purchased and restored by the Gold Coast City Council (GCCC). The GCCC now maintains the site as a museum piece for educational and historical purposes.
Settlement of the Gold Coast area by Europeans began in the hinterland with the harvesting of cedar timber which was shipped south to Sydney or north to Brisbane. Timber getters began moving through the heavily forested Tallebudgera area in the mid 1840s opening the way for the early settlers who came when land runs began to be granted from the 1850s. By the early 1870s, the Tallebudgera area was permanently settled. The population mainly consisted of timber getters and small crop farmers with dairy farming becoming important in the area from the 1890s.
Tallebudgera's location along the main stock route between Queensland and New South Wales, which became the early coach road between Nerang and the border, led to it becoming a convenient stop and changeover point for Cobb and Co. coaches. To serve the coach road traffic, and the wider farming community, a small village began to develop near the intersection of the Old Coach Road and Trees Road. During the 1870s a number of businesses and services began to appear including an accommodation house for travellers, the Rose and Crown Hotel, a general store, blacksmith, wheelwright, stables and school. Expansion continued in the 1880s with the establishment of a police station, a Presbyterian church, Catholic church and further construction and trade.
The establishment of a post office was an important element in the development of rural communities, providing both access to a communication network and a focal point where the community could share information. They became an integral part of the social system, providing a link to friends and family who were often many years distant. They also provided a link to the authorities of the colonies, becoming the principal symbol of civil governance in the most isolated areas. Particularly where communities were in remote rural or outback areas, the post office became a symbol of the presence of civilisation. Post offices were nearly always the first government service of facility established in towns, and often the first government building.
The post office was one of the main agencies of the government in the nineteenth century and nearly always also included a telegraph office in the same building. The buildings constructed for post and telegraph office use were, as a result, usually sited in prominent locations, and were among the more important government buildings in the town. In small towns, or when a town was first established, existing businesses often agreed to provide post office facilities and then, when the town grew, the government replaced these facilities with purpose built post offices. Privately owned and built post offices were unusual in Queensland.
The site of the post office was part of an area of land acquired by Stephen Tobin through a Deed of Grant in 1870. In 1872 a mail receiving service office was opened and in 1878 the Tallebudgera Post Office offically opened with Stephen Tobin listed as the first Post Master.
Although the post office provided an official government service, there is no documentary evidence to suggest the Tallebudgera building was ever owned by the government. The size of the post office, consisting of just one room, suggests that it was privately owned and built as even the smallest post offices built by the colonial government in the late nineteenth century period had floor areas larger than one room and often combined office space with living areas. That this building was never replaced by a more permanent, government building suggests, that in the eyes of the government, Tallebudgera was not deemed to be large enough to warrant a government facility.
With Federation in 1901, postal and telegraph services became a Commonwealth responsibility. All administrative functions of the Tallebudgera Post Office were transferred to the Commonwealth, but the building remained privately owned. The post office provided a number of services including a trunk line and telephone exchange, postal services, cash-on-delivery parcels, money order and savings bank services, payment of old age and war service pensions and telegraph by telephone. However, in the years after the Second World War the range of facilities gradually declined and by the post office's permanent closure in 1958, only basic postal services were being provided.
The ever growing landscape of the Gold Coast has left little evidence of its somewhat humble beginnings. Most early buildings have been demolished or relocated to other sites as development spreads throughout the area. The former Tallebudgera Post Office, as one of the Gold Coast's earliest, surviving buildings, vividly demonstrates the area's history and development.
","criteria":"The former Tallebudgera Post Office has important aesthetic significance. It is an intact structure which is an evocative reminder of late nineteenth century village life in the Gold Coast hinterland. The setting of the building with the adjacent mature camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) tree enhances the rural nature of the building and the entire site.
|Established in 1878, the former Tallebudgera Post Office, is one of the earliest surviving buildings on the Gold Coast and is important in demonstrating the evolution of postal services in Queensland, the early history and development of the Tallebudgera area and the small rural towns that comprised the hinterland area.
|The former Tallebudgera Post Office is a rare example of a privately owned and purpose built post office. Few other post offices like this are known to survive in Queensland. Its construction history, ownership, and uncommon building form are all significant. With a single room and verandah, the former post office has value as an unusual building form of the late nineteenth century. It is also one of the oldest and one of the few remaining timber post office buildings in Queensland erected c1869 - c1885.
|The former Tallebudgera Post Office has a strong association with the general community of Tallebudgera for the crucial role it played in the provision of essential postal and telecommunication services.
|The former Tallebudgera Post Office is an important example of late nineteenth century building techniques. The building contains evidence of early construction methods and finishes and is interesting as a transitional example in the manner in which it is elevated high above the ground at a time when most buildings were set upon the ground or only just above. It is constructed of timber in an early 'board and batten' system, predating the later light timber construction that became known as the Queenslander style. Although the structure has been restored, most of the original building is still standing. It is one of few remaining timber structures from the late nineteenth century left in the Gold Coast area.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28596,"place_ref":602690,"name":"Alfredson's Joinery, Pre-Cut House Workshop and Sawmill (former)","alternate_name":"Alfredsons Joinery","street_address":"28 King Street","suburb":"COORAN","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"A long, rambling timber and corrugated iron building sheltered by a combination of gable, sawtooth and skillion roofs, the former joinery complex steps down the slope from a ridge along King Street at the northwest end of Cooran. The property is set against a backdrop of treed mountains and grassed paddocks to the south, has small scale domestic/commercial buildings adjacent and overlooks the railway to the north. The building now accommodates an antique shop at street level and a joinery workshop and timber working areas below.
Approximately 65 metres long and 13 metres wide with a truncation to the northeast, the building is organised over three levels - the former joinery workshop at street level, the former pre-cut house fabrication workshop to the middle and the sawmilling area at the lower level. The former joinery complex is notable for the range of timbers used in the construction of the various parts of the building ranging from sawn and dressed timbers to logs retaining their bark.
The joinery workshop is sheltered by a large gable roof clad with corrugated iron and has a small barrel roofed rectangular lantern along the ridge towards the rear. The workshop is timber framed, clad with a single skin of oiled weatherboards and supported on high round timber stumps set into the dirt floor below. The main entrance is through wide double timber doors off the truncated side to King Street. A sign above the main entrance says 'Alfredson's'. A smaller double timber door opens off the north corner of the building. There is a rear exit at a set of timber stairs descending from the southeast corner. Exposed timber trusses support the roof and the workshop has a fine tongue and groove timber floor. A line of single skin timber partitions divides the space along the west side. The workshop is lit from each side by a range of window types and styles including sash and casement. A lathe from the early joinery workshop stands to the centre of the space and is supported on a concrete base rising up from the dirt floor below. There is a small projecting alcove to each of the long elevations. Sprinklers are installed within the roof framing. The understorey has a dirt floor and is enclosed with vertical timber boards and sheets of corrugated iron. It accommodates storage areas, timber storage racks, a range of tools and equipment and the concrete base of the lathe.
A grass and dirt driveway sloping down the property along the west side gives access to the middle and lower levels of the complex. This driveway is also part of the easement shared with the adjoining property. A lean-to garage/loading dock and office stands approximately 15 metres down the slope and extends down this side of the building to the end of the former pre-fabrication workshop which it opens into. Sheltered by a skillion roof, timber framed and standing on tall round timber stumps, the loading/office area is partly enclosed to the west with a range of cladding materials including weatherboards and corrugated iron sheeting. A single-skin weatherboard clad partition separates the loading/office area from the pre-fabrication workshop. The pre-fabrication workshop is sheltered by two roofs - a sawtooth roof throwing southern light into the northern end of the space and a skillion roof to the balance. Timber framed, the workshop has exposed dressed timber trusses, sawn timber framing to the skillion roof, rough log beams and a steel beam across the south end. Rows of round timber posts support the roofs and the workshop stands on high round timber stumps. Enclosed to the east with vertical timber boards and open to the south, the workshop has a fine timber tongue and groove floor with a set of timber rails running along the centre of the floor to the narrow loading platform to the south. A trolley with metal wheels runs on the rails. Two sets of timber stairs descend to the sawmilling area to the rear of the complex. The understorey of the pre-fabrication workshop houses various pieces of equipment and timber storage and is enclosed to the southeast by corrugated metal sheeting.
The sawmilling area, which includes timber storage/loading and log working sections, is level with the driveway on the west side and has an elevated platform to the east. It is sheltered by a metal trussed skillion roof and houses a log carriage and breakdown saw sheltered by a low narrow barrel roof to the upper level. The log carriage and saw are operational and the carriage has rails and a trolley. A small timber shed houses the recently introduced four-sider machine.
The timber loading area, log working area, understoreys to the loading/office, pre-fabrication workshop and the joinery workshop now accommodate various pieces of timber working equipment introduced by the present owner and are used for storage of timber, joinery items and a range of equipment and parts.
","history":"The former Alfredson's joinery, pre-cut house workshop and sawmill complex at 28 King Street Cooran is evidence of the long history of timber-based industry in the Noosa Shire and North Coast region. The business was also involved in efforts to address the post-World War II housing shortage. The multi-level timber building, built on a sloping site with a combination of gabled, saw tooth and skillion rooflines, provides intact evidence of a timber-based family business premises that was operated, expanded and adapted between 1933 and 1990.
Timber was the stimulus for the development of Noosa Shire. Development of the area was underway by the mid 1860s with timber getters active along the Noosa River and Kin Kin Creek. Around 1870 the township of Cooran began as a coach stop on the road from Tewantin to Gympie. This road was formed after a sawmill was established c.1870 at Mill Point, Lake Cootharaba, to supply the Gympie goldfield with timber. Logs from the mill, owned by McGhie, Luya and Co, were towed down the Noosa River to a depot at Tewantin. The railway arrived at Cooran from Gympie in June 1889, which helped the district to develop as an agricultural and timber centre. Shops were built along King Street in Cooran opposite the railway line, and the town became an important centre for loading local goods, freight, timber and produce onto the train. However, after the North Coast Railway between Gympie and Brisbane was completed in July 1891 the town of Cooroy, further south, became the main rail centre for access to Tewantin.
Timber continued to be important to the economy of Cooran. Albert Doyle was sawmilling at Cooran by 1907, and other sawmillers operating in the town prior to World War II included Renshaw and Loseby, George Renshaw, and Straker and Company. Dairy farming also grew as an industry in the Noosa Shire, and butter factories were opened at Kin Kin (1914), Cooroy (1915), Pomona (1919) and Eumundi (1920). During the 1920s the Shire boomed, and a 1926 newspaper report on a typical load of goods dispatched from Cooran by train included: bananas, beans, gooseberries, pigs, butter, case timber and log timber, cream, and opossums.
Mervyn William Henry Alfredson, born in Nambour in 1912, started his apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker with Page Furnishers in Pomona, and completed it in Gympie. He then returned to Cooran, where his father, Thorvald P Alfredson, was the railway station master. In May 1933 Mervyn Alfredson purchased 37.7 perches of land opposite the railway station from Alice McIlwraith and set up a woodworking shop. In 1937 he married Mavis Miller, and for about six months they lived under the woodworking shop, placing timber from glass packing cases around the stumps to enclose the area. No evidence of this habitation remains under the present joinery. They then moved into a house at number 7 Henry Street, which has been occupied by the Alfredson family from c.1938 to the present day, except for a period in the 1950s.
Alfredson, MA (sic) is first listed in the Queensland Country Post Office Directory of 1939, as a 'Joinery & Cabinet Maker'. Although he was rejected for defence service during World War II, as he was in a reserved industry, his workshop supplied the Army with tent floors, tent pegs and other items. In September 1942 Alfredson purchased an additional three roods and 11 perches of land from Alice McIlwraith, to the south and west of his original workshop. In July 1944 the Widgee sawmill near Gympie was purchased to supply timber to Alfredson's operation, and M.W. Alfredson & Company was also formed that year. In October 1944 title for a one quarter share in the total landholding of one acre and 8.7 perches went to Robert R. Brown, with the other three quarter shares being held by Mervyn Alfredson.
Alfredson's joinery complex appears to have been extended to the south and west, and given a skylight, in the late 1930s; and it was extended again to the south by the 1960s. By the mid 1960s the front (north) elevation of the joinery was truncated at an angle on the eastern side, as earlier photographs of this elevation do not display the current angle. The pre-cut house workshop and sawmill to the south of the joinery seem to post-date 1946. According to archived Forestry Department correspondence, in November 1946 Alfredson was seeking advice on the design of a timber seasoning yard, and was intending to erect a drying kiln and a boric acid treatment plant "in conjunction with his furniture factory and sawmill". A sketch from this time appears to show the joinery and a sawmill to its south and west. Apparently Alfredson's did have a sawmill on the western side of the joinery during the 1940s and 1950s, but they then lost the forestry license for this sawmill, and had to rely on the Widgee sawmill thereafter. However, there is still a sawmilling section at the south end of the pre-cut house workshop.
By the early 1950s Alfredson had devised a system, based on ideas he had read about in journals, of pre-cutting morticed and tenoned house frames. In partnership with Queensland Pastoral Supplies (QPS), a company which sent mail order catalogues to country customers and with whom Alfredson had worked previously, he started manufacturing pre-cut houses. The houses, their timber bundled together and stencilled for ease of assembly, were despatched on rail cars from Cooran station. They were delivered with all their components from the stump caps up, with quantity lists and plans, mouldings, doors and windows, hardware and roofing.
Pre-cut houses are sometimes referred to as "prefabricated", but more advanced forms of prefabrication involve whole walls, sections, or the complete house being manufactured off the building site, before transportation and assembly on site. Although prefabricated houses represent an attempt to bring the time and cost efficiencies of the factory assembly line to the building sector, they have never been popular, other than in times of absolute necessity.
However, pre-cut (or kit) houses have been commercially successful in Australia since at least the early 20th century, perhaps because they provided an answer to labour shortages in rural areas without carrying the stigma of being fully prefabricated. One of most successful Queensland firms supplying pre-cut houses (to country districts only) in the early 20th century was Brisbane's James Campbell & Sons Ltd; Campbell Redicut Homes was established in 1903. A Campbell's catalogue c.1920 announced that all frame timber was cut, shaped and finished to set plans. The frame was erected at Campbell & Sons' Albion mill yards to test the fit, and the timbers were marked before disassembly. All materials, including cladding and joinery (doors, window sashes, railings, steps, and mouldings) were then despatched to their destination by steamer or train.
Brown and Broad Ltd also operated in the pre-cut house market in Queensland prior to World War One, under the trade name of 'Newstead Ready-to-Erect Homes', while Rooney and Co of Townsville provided pre-cut houses to North Queensland rural areas. However, the do-it-yourself trend grew after World War II, and pre-cut houses provided one answer to the high demand and high labour costs of the 1945 to 1960 period. For example, by 1952, there were about 15 local companies manufacturing pre-cut houses in Sydney. Although pre-cut houses increased in popularity, they were still only a small fraction of total Australian housing starts, and demand peaked in the early 1950s, before falling away in the late 1950s.
Queensland Pastoral Supplies does not appear to have entered the pre-cut house market until after World War II. In October 1935 the QPS catalogue had advertised building material, tools, furniture, house wares, and joinery, but no complete houses. By August 1940 houses were being advertised at prices of £150 and £205, but the timber was supplied in random lengths rather than being pre-cut. However, the 1954 QPS catalogue advertised Cooran Pre-Cut Homes, and included two articles from the 9 August 1953 edition of the Truth newspaper.
The first Truth article noted rising housing costs, and claimed that after months of planning, QPS had tackled the problem, offering a 740 square foot house for just over £800. The article also claimed that the QPS had only been manufacturing the 'Cooran' home for a short period, and that a display house had been built at Dell Street in St Lucia for Exhibition Week. The materials were entirely pre-cut, so that an amateur could build the house. The 'Cooran', priced at £808 in August 1953, had six rooms (including two bedrooms), and could easily be extended. The framework consisted of hardwood, the floorboards were hardwood, and the exterior was clad with hardwood weatherboards. The interior walls were clad with V-jointed pine, the ceilings with Durabestos, and the roof with English corrugated iron. The same house design clad externally with Durabestos was offered for £690. Two smaller pre-cut houses were priced at £495 and £350, and a larger 'Hibiscus' home was offered for £1080. The second article in the Truth noted that every part of a Cooran home was marked, making it impossible to make a mistake during erection, and that every part of framework was morticed and tenoned where necessary.
The 1954 QPS advertisement went on to add that that since Cooran homes had been introduced over 800 had been supplied. Specifications on the Cooran homes noted that the wall studs were tenoned to fit into the morticed top and bottom plates and interior sheeting could be either four and a half inch tongue and grove V-jointed pine (hoop pine), or fibro cement. The floor was made with tongue and groove seasoned hardwood, and mouldings were Queensland pine (hoop pine). Joinery could be made with cedar, oak, or maple timber. The price of a Cooran No.3 home (timber clad, either seven inch weatherboard or four inch chamferboard) was now £835; a Cooran No. 4 (Durabestos clad) was £720; and the frame alone could be purchased for £310. The two smaller one-bedroom models still sold for £350 (24' x 12'), and £495 (24' x 20' including verandah) respectively. A 'Lazy Dayser' skillion-roofed weekend cottage was also advertised.
A number of models of house were produced over the years, the known ones including: Hibiscus models number 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10; Cooran models 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 17 (model No.3 being the most popular); Tropical 1 and 2; plus garages, the one bedroom models, and the Lazy Dayser weekend cottage. There were also variants within the models - for example, models 3a to 3e.
The marketing of Alfredson's pre-cut houses through QPS catalogues reflected the housing shortage and concurrent building price increases that occurred in Australia after World War II. Thanks to a lull in house building during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was an undersupply of houses even before World War II. National Security Regulations issued in February 1942 limited private building to projects linked to the war effort. The undersupply of houses was exacerbated after the war by returned servicemen starting families, and also by strong post-war immigration.
Prices were also driven upwards by a shortage of skilled labour, and the legislation of the 40 hour week in 1948. Another inflationary pressure was the lack of a ready stockpile of building materials. In 1939 the average five room brick house cost £1200 pounds. By 1946 this had risen to £1800; by 1951 it was over £3000. Although wages were rising, the price of an average house also increased, from three times the average pre-war income, to five times the average income by 1950.
When cost increases were combined with the Australian Government's decision to limit the area of new houses to 1200 square feet for timber and 1250 square feet for brick until 1952, the result was 'Austerity' housing, and the increased use of functionalist design. Functionalism viewed the house as "a machine for living", where form followed function and efficiency was more important than ornamentation. After the war functionalism would be widely adopted out of the necessity to reduce building costs.
Austerity houses were small, with an eye to the future addition of bedrooms as families expanded. To save on the cost of building materials and labour, living rooms and dining rooms were combined into one space, entrance halls disappeared with the arrival of the 'L' shaped house, and verandahs shrunk to small cantilevered porches over the front door. People made do with one chimney, and pretentious ornamentation was dropped. Building materials increasingly included asbestos cement (sold by Wunderlich as 'Durabestos' and James Hardie as 'Fibrolite'), and compressed fibre boards such as Masonite and Cane-ite, as well as Timbrock hardboard. In the southern states a brick veneer over a timber frame became more popular.
The emphasis was also on do-it-yourself building, as labour counted for about 50% of the cost of a house by 1948. Magazines such as "Australian Home Beautiful" catered for the proliferation of owner-builders in the 1950s, and newspapers featured stories on the housing issue and possible solutions, as can be seen by the Truth articles on Cooran homes. Between July 1951 and March 1955 around 140,000 Australian houses were owner-built; more than one third of the total.
A government response to the housing shortage was the 1945 Commonwealth State Housing Agreement, and the Queensland Housing Commission (QHC) was formed that year, tasked with building houses for rent or purchase. By 1959 the QHC had built nearly 23,000 state houses, and about 96,000 state houses were built in Australia between 1945 and 1956. The housing shortage had ended by 1960.
In response to the housing shortage, M.W. Alfredson & Company produced at least 1,200 pre-cut houses by the mid 1960s, when marketing through QPS ended. These included five houses built in Cooran, for Alfredson's staff, at 4, 5, 6 9 and 11 Henry Street; and four houses built in Cooran in the 1950s for the QHC. In 1965 a total of 62 houses were delivered to the Presbyterian Church's Weipa Mission at Cape York. Pre-cut houses had been delivered as far north as New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and as far south as Casino, New South Wales. Western Queensland station properties might order up to five houses over a period for their workers.
Up to Mervyn Alfredson's death in 1973, about 120 houses were also custom designed, supplied and built locally, including several extant examples in Pomona: at the corner of Exhibition Street and Pavilion Street; at 7 Pine Street; and behind the Catholic Church. Alfredson died after he was hit by a falling limb from a cypress tree at Inskip Point near Rainbow Beach. Mervyn's share of the land was transferred to Mavis in 1982, and Brown's quarter share was transferred in 1985.
Mervyn and Mavis's daughter Jeanette had worked at M.W. Alfredson & Company from the time she finished school, becoming proficient in all aspects of joinery and manufacture as well as doing office work. With her mother's health failing, she gradually assumed control of the business, which concentrated on the production of specialist timber joinery and cabinet making for custom orders. Government tenders were won, especially for schools. Doors and windows were also supplied for the Public Works Department in Queensland. Over the years a large number of people from Cooran and nearby towns were been employed by M.W. Alfredson & Company. At its peak the business employed 32 men, plus logging contractors, carriers and subcontractors, and over 60 apprentices learnt their trade in the factory.
A weatherboard clad building at 32 King Street, with folding garage doors and a saw tooth roof, was constructed in 1962 as an office for Jeanette Alfredson, and was known as the "front office" of the joinery. Behind the office was an area for sharpening tools, and underneath were quarters for the single men. Part of the building was used as a garage, and it still has a maintenance pit in the floor under a trapdoor. This building is not included within the heritage boundary.
After Jeanette retired, the land was sold to Kesselwood Pty Ltd in March 1991 and to Kidman's Pty Ltd shortly thereafter. In 1997 the 37.7 perches of land purchased by Mervyn Alfredson in 1933 (allotment 38) was split 50-50 between Kidman Pty Ltd and Marbelle Pty Ltd, while Kidman Pty Limited continued to hold all of Lot 41 (Alfredson's 1942 land purchase). In 1998 the total acreage previously owned by Alfredson was subdivided into its current configuration. Alfredson's complex now stands on lot 42, a combination of former lots 38 and 41 that has been fully owned by Marbelle Pty Ltd since 1998.
In 2007 Alan Guymer operates a traditional joinery workshop on the former pre-cut house workshop (underneath and to the south of the former joinery), although his main business is building and demolition. The current machinery within and under the pre-cut house workshop, and most of the machinery in the sawmill section, was introduced by Alan. An original log carriage and its metal rails is still in situ in the rear sawmill shed, and original timber rails survive running north-south along the floor of the pre-cut house workshop, along with some metal gantry rails running east-west across the ceiling.
The top level of the building, the former joinery, is now called the Cooran Trading Post and Second-Hand Dealers (furniture). The shop still contains a lathe which is supported on concrete piers under the floor. There is no internal stairway between the former upper and lower workshops. Many of the building's stumps have been replaced by Alan over the years, and since 1990 he has also enclosed parts of a skillion roofed extension to the building west of the pre-cut house workshop.
","criteria":"In the first half of the 20th century, the milling of timber and the manufacture of timber products was an integral component of the North Coast timber industry, a major industry for Queensland. Alfredson's Joinery complex is a rare surviving example of the pre-World War II era of sawmilling and joinery operations on the North Coast, and is also a rare example of a post-World War II pre-cut house workshop. The lathe and log carriage are important as rare surviving equipment from those operations.
|Alfredson's joinery, pre-cut house fabrication workshop and sawmill (former), built and expanded between 1933 and the 1950s, is important surviving evidence of the timber industry in the Noosa Shire and the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) region. The timber industry played a major economic role in the history of the North Coast region, which from the 1860s was one of the most important timber producing regions in Queensland. Alfredson's is important evidence of the manufacturing aspect of the area's timber industry from the 1930s to the 1980s. Its location at Cooran was close to timber supplies, and the adjacent railway facilitated the shipment of the joinery's products.
The establishment by Alfredson's of a pre-cut timber house fabrication workshop in the early 1950s is representative of the response of timber firms to the Australia-wide post-World War II housing shortage.
|In its layout the Alfredson's Joinery complex is important in demonstrating the linear operation of a timber manufacturing process. This is evident in the planning and organisation of the sawmilling and pre-fabrication workshop where timber was unloaded and worked in the sawmilling area and then moved by trolley to the fabrication area where the timber passed through a number of bench and cutting processes. The finished fabricated components were then dispatched through the western loading dock. The construction of sawtooth roofs to the prefabrication workshop and lantern to the joinery workshop are good examples of the standard design practice of introducing as much daylight as possible into workshop spaces, particularly southern light in the case of the sawtooth roofs.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28659,"place_ref":602631,"name":"Kairi Maize Silos","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"30 Godfrey Road","suburb":"KAIRI","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-08-08","description":"The Kairi Maize Silos are located on the southern boundary of Lot 7 RP901633, at its midpoint, which faces Godfrey Road.
The Silos are constructed from reinforced concrete and are not adorned with any decorative elements.
The place comprises of a group of four separate silos arranged in a cluster. A corrugated galvanised iron, timber framed, multi-level skillion structure containing the receiving shed, office, toilets, elevators, conveyors and drive shafts, and engine room, abuts the southern walls of two of the silos.
A galvanised corrugated iron, elongated maize elevator tower straddles the roofs of the four silos. The tower is accessed through a passageway under the silos which is still present, and this leads to a ladder attached to the exterior wall. This passageway also houses the elevators for carrying the maize to the top of silos. The entrance to this passageway is located inside the maize receiving shed and is accessed via a wooden ladder. The subsurface areas and passageway were not accessed.
Internal infrastructure which remains at the place includes the facility's plant consisting of an engine connected by a drive wheel to the drive shaft and all associated elements to attach it to the ceiling of the receiving shed. Not inspected but also present are the elevators and conveyor belts (housed in the shed but in a largely disassembled state) and the intact maize sorting / grading machine, regarded as remnant machinery circa 1920s, and located on the mezzanine floor of the grain receiving building, approximately 5 metres above ground level and its camel haired conveyor belt. The truck despatch and receiving entrance is also extant. The access ladder used to enter the underground passageway, was extant although unusable located inside the maize receiving shed.
On the exterior of each silo are hatches / manholes located around 5 metres from the base of the silo. These are made of cast iron and are hinged at the bottom of the base plate. They are secured shut by two simple catches. Ventilation shafts are located at the base of each silo. It is likely that these shafts traversed the base of each silo allowing a fan to pump air through the silo thereby controlling mould and moisture build -up.
","history":"The Kairi Maize Silos are a complex of 4 concrete silos located approximately 10 kilometres east of Atherton near the outskirts of Kairi Township on the northern side of the Tolga/Johnstone railway line.
Maize production began purely as a response to a local demand, and grew rapidly as the dominant agricultural industry of the southern Atherton Tablelands up until the Second World War. Although some of the crop was exported to the south and overseas, its main market was and remains regional. Chinese settlers were instrumental in setting up the industry during the late 19th century, and returned soldiers from the First World War continued the industry in the early 20th century. The maize industry has experienced mixed fortunes over its 110 year history and has been subject to government intervention at every stage of its evolution. It now remains as a small section of the local economy, no longer monocultural, or as the dominant crop.
During the early 1920s, pricing problems and the region's climate impacted on the area's ability to store grain. This led to the formation of the Atherton Tableland Maize Board, which became responsible for storage issues and marketing the crop. In 1924, the Atherton Tablelands Maize Board erected three storage cluster silo complexes at Kairi, Tolga and Atherton. Only the Kairi Maize Silos remain as evidence of the region's significant maize industry.
Agriculture in the Atherton Tablelands followed mining and grazing. Although timber drew many settlers to the area, the maize industry was pivotal in opening up the Atherton Tablelands to agriculture. Maize initially fulfilled the requirements for stockfeed for the mining communities around Herberton and Irvinebank and later, further west.
Realising that it would be difficult to prosper only from planting maize crops, the farmers attempted to find alternate crops. The Atherton Farmers' Associated lobbied the Minister for Agriculture to establish a State Farm to provide research and advice on the growing of different strains of maize. As a result the Kairi State Farm was established in 1912 and was responsible for much of the experimental work carried out within the maize industry. The Kairi State Farm remained in operation until closed by the Government in 1935 despite the closure being disputed by the farming community which pointed out to the Government the desirability of having such a facility in a tropical environment.
White maize farmers resented the successful Chinese maize growers and with the inception of the Soldier Settler Scheme in 1917, Chinese farmers were displaced.
The area of land planted to maize steadily declined from 1919 to 1923 due to a series of difficulties experienced by small farmers under the Soldier Settlement Scheme despite attempts by the Government to relieve problems and allocate abandoned farms to remaining settlers to increase the size of their land. However at the time available varieties of maize were not suitable for the climatic conditions and were subject to various fungal and bacterial conditions. This resulted in an inferior product for the market and a push to resolve the problem by growing resistant strains of maize, and by erecting proper storage.
Farmers experienced difficulty in drying their crops and protecting it from pests while in storage. Treatment for pest eradication in the stored grain was costly, requiring an investment in drying and storage facilities for each farm. Failure to dry the grain to the required 14% of moisture also resulted in mouldy grain which was difficult to sell and added to the poor reputation of the Tablelands crop. Initially farmers stored their maize in barns but rodents and weevils soon encouraged the more affluent farmers to erect 1,200 gallon galvanised tanks for storage. They tried to overcome grain moisture problems by sun drying their maize on canvas tarpaulins before storing it in the tanks. Carbon bisulphate was then added to the top of the sealed tanks to kill the weevils. These efforts had variable results.
The Department of Agriculture and Stock recognised the difficulties and advocated for a modern plant for the drying, treatment and storage of the grain as early as 1921. It identified the need for a centralised, modern drying and storage facility, but recognised that the financing of such a facility was an insurmountable obstacle for the farmers. This difficulty, as well as the problems inherent in the marketing of the crop, was overcome by the introduction of legislation which was part of the complete reorganisation of agriculture in Queensland.
During the interwar period, the Queensland Government introduced five critical pieces of legislation which fundamentally affected the maize industry on the Atherton Tablelands. The Cooperative Production Act of 1914-19 allowed farmers to borrow money from the Government for centralised storage. The Primary Producers' Organisation Act of 1922 provided for the political organisation of agriculture. The Primary Producers' Cooperative Association Act of 1923 made possible the formation of cooperative companies to deal with the marketing of primary produce. The Primary Products Pool Act of 1923 enabled the establishment of pools of primary produce which allowed all the farmers to be placed on an equal footing, with one selling agent to handle the marketing of the crop and the Agricultural Bank Act of 1923 provided for cooperatives to borrow money for advance payments on crops before the sale of the commodity.
By 1923, as a result of the introduction of these pieces of legislation, the farmers had the means to form themselves into a Cooperative Company, raise money for suitable grain handling facilities, and market the crop as a whole, with returns guaranteed to each grower. The maize farmers after much acrimonious debate, took advantage of the legislation, and formed a pool, administered by the Atherton Tablelands Maize Marketing Board by authority of the Primary Producers' Organisation and Marketing Act of 1922-1926.
Thus, the inaugural Atherton Tableland Maize Growers Board negotiated a loan of £70,000 from the Government and built storage facilities at Tolga and Kairi, and a storage and drying plant at Atherton. Each had a working capacity of about 650 tons, barely enough to process the anticipated delivery of about 20,000 tons. The Board began operations in 1924, in time to handle the harvest of that year.
Each cylindrical concrete structure was constructed to 25 feet (7.6 metres) in diameter and 70 feet (21 metres) high.
The silos were designed, constructed and equipped with elevators, cleaning plant and driers by a Sydney based firm Henry Simon Ltd.
Constructed using 'sliding form' concreting (later known as slip-form concreting) the Kairi Maize Silos is one of the earliest applications of this technique in the construction of maize silos in Australia. The construction of the Kairi Maize Silos was overseen by a British engineer, Mr. C.P. Kinninmonth. The facility cost £7,000 which was financed by the State Treasury, and was repaid through levies on maize sold by the Board. The silos were opened by the Honourable W.N. Gillies on the 15 November 1924.
The complex was initially powered by a single cylinder 20 horse power Ronaldson Brothers & Tippet horizontal engine. In a measure of efficiency the engine was fuelled by burning corn cobs after they had been shelled. It powered the grain elevator and the fans to dry the maize. This engine was replaced in the 1930s, and may have incorporated an electrically driven system.
A small axial flow fan was constructed in the base of each silo. This was attached to perforated ducting, which sat on the floor of the silo. When in operation, the fan blew cool dry air, which was distributed via the ducting throughout the bin. This reduced the temperature of the maize within the structure to a level at which insect and mould development could not occur. A combination of drying and cooling using this method enabled the maize to be maintained in a sound and fresh condition for long periods. Cleaning equipment was located at each silo complex, while a drying plant was established at the Atherton silos to process maize with a moisture content exceeding 14 percent.
When the maize was received at the silos it was discharged from the truck through a grate in the timber floor of the grain receiving building, into a bin. From sub-surface level the maize was lifted by an elevator about 5 - 6 metres to the mezzanine floor above, which housed the sorting / grading machine. The sorting machine removed foreign matter from the shelled maize.
Using a system of electrically driven conveyor belts and elevators, grain in the silos was directed around the cluster of silos for cleaning, re-cooling or back through the underground tunnel to transport it from the site.
The elevator, located in the inter-silo space, carried the maize to the maize elevator tower which straddles the roof of the four silos. The maize then was conveyed through one of four chutes, into a designated silo. This part of the process was performed manually and access to the maize elevator tower was via a ladder attached to the exterior wall of one of the silos. Provision for access to the tower was incorporated by installing a passageway under the silos, which led to a ladder attached to the exterior wall. The silos could be fully emptied of its maize by the incorporation of inspection hatches located at the base of the silo.
The silos were an example of the socialisation of agriculture practiced by the Queensland Labor government following World War One. It based its practice on Union organisation principles, with the aim to organise the farmers in order to cut out the middleman and market co-operatively. Bolstering these organisations would be State-provided infrastructure such as transport, agricultural education and research.
The system of organised marketing and pooling of the crop certainly gave the farmers some surety of income, but instead of eliminating the 'middleman' it imposed another layer of bureaucracy, for which the farmers had to pay. The Government experiment with agrarian socialism during the establishment of the maize industry on the Atherton Tableland resulted in a highly regulated industry which produced high levels of debt for the cooperative entity and local government. The system did not meet expectations and was not an outstanding success on the Atherton Tablelands.
In the years following the construction of the silos the costs associated with the production of maize dropped and remained fairly stable, rising and falling as a percentage of grower returns, but remaining in the region of 20% to 25% of total returns. In spite of being the only maize growing area in Queensland to take advantage of legislation which allowed farmers to take control of the collective marketing of the crop, the industry struggled until the Second World War. The small size of farms forced farmers to grow maize as their only crop resulting in weed infestations, pests, and erosion gradually depleting the soil and grain yield. This often reduced farmers to a state of grinding poverty.
The years of the 1930s Depression followed by the Second World War affected many of the people involved in the maize industry on the Atherton Tablelands. Decline in farm values meant that immigrant farmers were able to acquire more land, albeit run down, as the debt-ridden soldier settlers and other settlers left the industry. Gradually the farms were taken over and enlarged, in many cases by migrant farmers from Italy, Albania, and Yugoslavia, some of whom were interned during the Second World War as 'enemy aliens.' The state of the industry improved when the Maize Board in 1936 began manufacturing poultry rations, and the 'Athmaze' brand of stock and poultry feeds was introduced. This activity consumed around 21% of maize produced on the Atherton Tablelands in the 1930s and 1940s.
After the Second World War advances in technology allowed farmers to increase production and efficiency but it was not until the 1960s that government sponsored research produced high yielding maize varieties, introduced rotation of crops, and established weed, pest and conservation management programmes. However, a monocultural approach to cropping had led to loss of the soil fertility which originally had been caused by nutrient recycling in the long-gone rain forest. It had also caused wide-spread erosion and thousands of tons of top-soil had been washing into the Barron River for decades. Realising that action had to be taken, farmers agreed to a compulsory levy of 1s. per ton on all maize produced in order to set up research projects on erosion and soil fertility, pest management and weed control. In 1946 this led to the reopening and redesignation of the State Farm at Kairi as a Regional Research Station. This Government action proved to be of enormous benefit to the maize farmers and the agricultural lands of the Atherton Tableland.
By the early 1970s the whole of the industry's maize production was absorbed by the dairy, poultry and pig industries of the Tableland and coastal areas including Mossman to Tully. The economic climate of the 1980s had been a very difficult time for the maize industry. Therefore, the industry entered the 1990s in a state of uncertainty and ferment, with poor returns, and an economy which made management of farms and businesses very difficult. The affairs of the Atherton Tableland Maize Marketing Board and of Athmaize, the milling and stock-feed operation, had been merged since the inception of Athmaize in 1936. In 1993 the Queensland government introduced deregulation to the maize industry and with the introduction in 1993 of a permit system with a fee of $16.00 per tonne led to the dissolution of the Board. The Boards assets and liabilities were transferred to the Athmaize Producers' Cooperative Association on 1 March 1994. Athmaize went into liquidation in 2002 thus ending 75 years of the Board's control of the maize industry on the Atherton Tablelands.
","criteria":"The Kairi Maize Silos with a height of 21 metres and a diameter of 7.6 metres, tower above the flat topography of the town and surrounding agricultural landscape of Kairi and the Atherton Tableland. The Silos are topped with an elongated corrugated iron elevator tower which adds further to the Silos as a landmark in this landscape.
|The Kairi Maize Silos are largely intact and significant for their potential to reveal further information about early 20th century concrete silo construction, technology and layout.
|The Kairi Maize Silos demonstrate a high degree of technical achievement as they were constructed using slip form concreting. This represents one of the earliest applications of this technique to the construction of maize silos in Queensland.
|The Kairi Silos complex demonstrates the principal characteristics of a bulk storage system associated with the Maize industry. It is a rare and largely intact complex incorporating elements of a bulk maize storage system which includes the sorting/grading machine, electric engine, elevators and conveyors. The Kairi Maize silos are the only surviving cluster silo complex on the Atherton Tableland.
|The Kairi Maize Silos, a cluster of four silos and incorporating associated structures to form a complex, are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's agricultural history where maize was a major long standing industry in Far North Queensland. They are the last surviving example of three silo complexes erected on the Atherton Tableland to store maize and service the industry.
The Kairi Maize Silos are an important example of the regulation of agriculture in Australia during the interwar period, and particularly the regulation of the maize industry under the Maize Marketing Board.
|The Kairi Maize Silos are a rare aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage. They are the only extant example of a maize silo complex in North Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion C | Criterion F | Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28739,"place_ref":602635,"name":"Australian Inland Mission Hospital (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Adelaide Street","suburb":"BIRDSVILLE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-07-17","description":"Located at the eastern end of the main street of Birdsville, Adelaide Street, the former Australian Inland Mission Hospital site comprises the hospital building, former Aboriginal ward, 'billiard room', water tanks, shed and new padre cottage. Of these, the hospital building, former Aboriginal ward and above ground corrugated iron tank and the in-ground concrete water tank are significant.
The north-west facing hospital building is a rectangular structure with a gabled hip roof and is surrounded on three sides by enclosed verandahs. It is constructed on a steel frame with corrugated iron external walls, ripple iron verandah linings, Oregon pine joists and rafters, masonite and tilux internal walls, and caneite ceilings. The foundations and floors are concrete, with linoleum covering most internal floors.
The hospital was designed especially for the inland. Ceilings are well insulated and low to afford maximum space between the ceiling and the iron roof, while air vents in the gables provide roof ventilation. Verandah ceilings have a gap at the eaves to permit air flow. The building is equipped with a cool storage cellar under the kitchen, an underground tank for rain (drinking) water and an above ground tank for town water, which was previously drawn from the Diamantina River and now from an artesian bore. On the roof at the rear of the building is a communications aerial.
Entrance is central, via a covered walkway from the front gate onto the enclosed verandah that is built-in at both ends. Central French doors lead into a chapel. On the chapel's left hand side are two wards, both with single door access onto the front verandah. On the right hand side of the chapel are a pantry and an L-shaped kitchen. From the kitchen, stairs lead to the cellar. Double doors through a partition wall lead from the kitchen to the central pavilion. At the eastern end of the pavilion are three rooms designated as nurses' quarters with a common lounge room on the southern side of the pavilion. Western and southern verandahs have been enclosed to accommodate bathrooms and cupboards, while a cold room is located near the kitchen on the northern end of the western verandah. On the eastern end of the northern verandah a bathroom has been added.
The former Aboriginal ward is located at the rear of the former hospital near the property's south-east boundary. This corrugated iron-clad, steel-framed, gable-roofed building consists of an open verandah, two wards and an enclosed rear verandah along the long axis of the building, approximately east-west. Hinged, corrugated iron shutters cover the window openings.
Other buildings on the site include a separate gabled building on the north-west corner of the former hospital, now used as a billiard room; a new Padre Cottage; and an iron-clad shed used for storage and containing toilet facilities. These are not regarded as significant being relatively new structures. Other outbuildings have been demolished.
","history":"Located in Adelaide Street, Birdsville, the single-storeyed, prefabricated steel, Australian Inland Mission Hospital building was erected in 1952-1953 on the site of its predecessor, which burnt down in November 1951. An Australian Inland Mission bush nursing home or hostel was established at Birdsville in 1923 in the former Royal Hotel building [QHR600459] the first mission hostel in Queensland and the seventh in Australia. It was replaced by a purpose-built, pre-fabricated hospital opened in 1937 on land purchased by the Presbyterian Church.
Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, this semi-arid region was not occupied until the mid-1870s when a number of pastoral runs were established. In the early 1880s the towns of Birdsville and Bedourie developed to service the newly taken up pastoral holdings of the Diamantina. Birdsville, known originally as the Diamantina Crossing, is reputed to have sprung up around a rough depot constructed by general merchant Matthew Flynn in the late 1870s on the stock route from Boulia south to Adelaide. It became the headquarters of Diamantina Shire when the shire was established in 1883. The township was officially surveyed by mid-1885 and the name Birdsville adopted in reference to the profuse bird life of the district. Located over 1,000 miles west of Brisbane and seven miles north of the Queensland-South Australian border Birdsville developed as an administrative centre for police and border customs. Nearly all the trade of the town was with Adelaide, and it became an important marshalling point for cattle being driven south to markets in South Australia. Due to the lack of local timber, the town's remoteness and the lack of good access by roads or rail, which created prohibitively high transportation costs, almost all the town's early buildings were built of local sandstone. The population peaked in 1895 at 220.
The Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission (AIM) leased the Royal Hotel buildings (erected from circa 1883) from 1923 to 1937 as their first bush nursing home, or hostel in Queensland. At that time the AIM was headed by its founder Rev. Dr John Flynn, who was working toward establishing a flying doctor and air ambulance service for remote central Australia. Such a service could only operate efficiently if it could be contacted quickly, which became possible in 1929, with Alfred Traeger's invention of the pedal radio. In August 1929 Traeger installed at the AIM's Birdsville Hostel one of six experimental pedal radios, the others being placed at four head stations in far western Queensland and at the Aboriginal Mission at Mornington Island, with base station VJI established at Cloncurry. The system revolutionised outback communications. Importantly, Birdsville became reliably connected to the station properties in the Diamantina district and with the new Aerial Medical Service, established by Flynn in 1928 under the auspices of the AIM and based at Cloncurry.
By 1930 the Royal Hotel building needed extensive repairs and the AIM decided to erect a purpose-built hospital - more modest than the masonry hospitals erected at Victoria River Downs (circa1923), Innamincka (1923) and Alice Springs (1926). AIM hospitals, previously intended to become district hospitals, changed in purpose after the advent of the flying doctor. Their function changed to that of first-aid posts, with serious cases being evacuated to larger centres. The Birdsville Hospital took years to eventuate. It was not until April 1937 that the purchase of land for the project at the eastern end of Adelaide Street, the main street of Birdsville, was completed. Flynn decided on a pre-fabricated building, designed for the arid conditions, to function as a community house and public hall as well as a hospital. The hospital opened in December 1937, and a separate Aboriginal ward, a simple transverse gabled building with corrugated iron cladding and roof over a steel frame, was added between before 1951.
On 10 November 1951 the AIM Hospital at Birdsville was destroyed by fire thought to be caused when a kerosene refrigerator blew up. Only the Aboriginal ward was spared, but no lives were lost. Within days of the disaster the Charleville Flying Doctor Base flew out medical supplies and rigged an emergency transceiver and aerial to restore communications, while Rev. Les McKay of the AIM Western Queensland Patrol drove from Burketown to begin salvage operations. The ruins of the burnt building were dismantled and temporary accommodation erected out of salvaged material so that services could continue. An emergency hospital was set up in the two small rooms of the Aboriginal ward and a bough shed was constructed adjoining it.
Local people started a subscription for a replacement hospital and a re-building fund appeal was organised. Donations of £100 came from each of the Kidman cattle stations in the area and many other donors Australia-wide. Queensland's Minster for Health promised a pound for pound subsidy, thereby ensuring the project proceeded.
In February 1952 a prefabricated steel building was ordered from the Sidney Williams factory in Sydney. The materials were transported from Sydney by road to Birdsville via Broken Hill, Marree and the Birdsville track a two thousand mile journey. The Rev. Les McKay spent a year in Birdsville assisting with the re-building.
Ben Hargreaves, builder of the 1937 AIM hospital at Birdsville, came out of retirement to undertake construction of the 1952 buidling. A skilled cabinetmaker with outback experience, he constructed the building and made most of the original furniture and fittings, such as cupboards and tables on site, using North Queensland silky oak. Other furniture was of tubular steel, regarded as ideal for bush conditions, while canvas deck chairs lined the front verandah. These were used by outpatients and also for open-air movie shows, church services and other gatherings. Some of the furnishings and equipment were donated for instance, the dispensary was equipped by the Society of St Andrew, Brisbane and the Adelaide pharmaceutical company, Fauldings, gave £100 worth of drugs.
The new hospital was opened on 5 August 1953, having cost £15,000. The opening was a community event for the Diamantina Shire and beyond. The gala event was accompanied by a two-day race meeting and a dance, and attracted the largest crowd the town had ever seen. The opening and dramatic events preceding it were recorded in the movie Diamantina Drama, one of several films produced by the AIM. A reporter from Brisbane's Courier-Mail attended and the ABC broadcast the event in their news the next day, referring to it as 'the miracle at Birdsville'.
As with the former building, the plan incorporated a large central room (pavilion) suitable for public gatherings. The plan and footprint generally followed that of the former building, except that a central entrance has replaced two former front porches. Other rooms include a dispensary, two wards men's and women's, the latter used by the sisters or visitors when not needed for patients; a wireless room-cum lounge with an open fireplace, that once housed the transceiver and a circulating library for the use of local people; a large kitchen with floor to ceiling cupboards and an adjoining pantry; bathrooms, toilets and sisters'accommodation.
Sidney Williams & Co, which prefabricated both the 1937 and 1952 AIM hospitals, was a well-known steel fabrication business. Originally based in Rockhampton, it was active in the prefabrication of metal buildings from the 1890s. The Company began to expand rapidly around the time of the development of its Comet Windmill (c1910) with branches established in Brisbane and Townsville. In 1922 the Company opened a new factory in Sydney which led to the closure of the Brisbane and Rockhampton Works. During World War II the company prefabricated large numbers of 'huts' for the Defence Forces. The Company also established hundreds of offices and agencies throughout Australia to distribute and service its product. A subsidiary of the Company, BOWAS, was established in 1950 as a result of the significant building component of the Company's operations. This company ceased trading in 1976.
From as early as the late 1890s the Company was involved in designing, manufacturing and erecting steel-framed buildings for many purposes including rural and town uses. The Company promoted their buildings as being white ant proof, fire proof, hygienic, long lasting and easily dismantled and erected on another site. Their so-called 'ordinary buildings' were those individually designed to meet the specific client's needs. The whole of the frame was erected in the factory yard with all the joints being marked. The structure was then dismantled and packaged for shipment to the site for re-erection. There was extensive use of their locally-manufactured, prefabricated metal buildings throughout the hot, sparsely populated areas of pastoral Queensland and the Northern Territory. Buildings prefabricated by this company included: hangars; Sidney Williams Huts; the Supreme Court complex in Darwin; Christ the King Catholic Church at Tennant Creek; dormitory and school accommodation on Croker Island; and AIM hospitals at Tennant Creek (pre-1937) and at Dunbar on Cape York (circa 1953).
Additional buildings were added to the Birdsville Hospital site over time. The main building was surrounded by a series of detached buildings, including the Aboriginal ward, laundry, electric light plant house (the later two made from materials salvaged from the former hospital building), goat pen, chook house and Old Timers' cottages. These cottages were built in 1963, to accommodate elderly bushmen who wanted to spend their final years in retirement in the precincts of the town. One of these Old Timers' cottages was named the Francis Cottage after Grace Francis, one of the first AIM nurses in Birdsville. Towering behind the building was a tall radio aerial and a windmill, the latter used to generate electricity.
Following the creation of the Uniting Church in Australia in the 1970s, the work of the Presbyterian Australian Inland Mission, the Methodist Inland Mission and the Home Mission of the Congregational Church, was amalgamated as the Uniting Church in Australia Frontier Services. From 1977 to 2005 the Birdsville AIM Hospital was operated by Frontier Services.
Like all AIM hospitals, Birdsville's was intended eventually to be handed over to local control. In 2005 the Australian Inland Mission Hospital at Birdsville closed, after serving as a hospital for 53 years. Its function was taken over by the Diamantina Shire Council, which built a clinic on adjacent land provided by the Uniting Church Frontier Services. The former AIM Hospital remains the property of The Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Qld), which holds the land and buildings in trust for Frontier Services, but is now open to the public as the 'Old Birdsville Hospital historical display'.
","criteria":"The former AIM Hospital, Birdsville is a rare example of the AIM hospital service that was established to provide medical aid to the people of remote inland Australia. Of the AIM hospitals built in Queensland at three different locations - Birdsville, Dunbar and Coen, only the Birdsville and Coen hospitals remain.
|The former Australian Inland Mission (AIM) Hospital at Birdsville, demonstrates the continued presence and importance of the AIM to inland Queensland from the establishment of its first Queensland hospital in Birdsville in 1923 (the seventh of its hospitals Australia-wide). The services provided by the Birdsville Hospital were an important component of the AIM's objective of providing a 'mantle of safety' for residents of inland Australia, and this ensured that after a fire destroyed its predecessor in 1951 this hospital replaced it.
|The former AIM Hospital, Birdsville demonstrates the principal characteristics of an AIM hospital viz. a simple building designed for life in inland Australia that comprised wards for patients, a dispensary, kitchen, bathrooms and toilets, and quarters for two nurses including a living room. Under the kitchen was a cellar/basement. Near the hospital were the Aboriginal ward and Old Timers' accommodation and structures necessary to the hospital's operations such as water tanks and communication equipment.
The building is a good example of a Sidney Williams and Co prefabricated building and the company made at least two other AIM hospitals. These buildings were considered ideal for use in remote inland Australia because of ease of transportation and erection, and durability.
|Located in remote south-western Queensland, the former AIM hospital, Birdsville was a place of essential community function upon which people relied, leading to special attachment not only for the Diamantina Shire community but those living beyond Queensland's border. The significance of its community association is evidenced by the Australia-wide fund-raising campaign and subsequent attendance and interest in the building's opening in 1953. The opening was witnessed not only by shire residents, but also by media from Brisbane and filmed by Fox Movietone for the documentary 'Diamantina Drama'. The hospital served as a health facility for 52 years.
|The former AIM Hospital, Birdsville has a special association with the Presbyterian Church's Australian Inland Mission founded by the Rev. Dr John Flynn, which has made an important contribution to the development of medical and community services to inland Queensland since 1923. For 52 years this hospital provided medical services to remote Queensland communities in conjunction with the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28760,"place_ref":602637,"name":"Yimbun Railway Tunnel","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Sinnamons Lane","suburb":"HARLIN","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"Yimbun Railway Tunnel is located between 59 miles 24 chains (95.43km) and 59 miles 29 chains (95.53km) from Wulkuraka station along the former Brisbane Valley Branch Line formation and is sited beneath a saddle between two knolls. Yimbun Railway Tunnel is a semi-elliptical, concrete-lined, straight tunnel that is 110 yards (100.58 metres) long and has a gradient of 1:165 against north-bound traffic. It has an earthen floor and is approximately six metres high at its apex. Both portals feature the date '1910'. The cuttings that form the approaches on the north and south sides of the tunnel extend for approximately 100m and approximately 50m respectively.Yimbun Railway Tunnel is located between 59 miles 24 chains (95.43km) and 59 miles 29 chains (95.53km) from Wulkuraka station along the former Brisbane Valley Branch Line formation and is sited beneath a saddle between two knolls. Yimbun Railway Tunnel is a semi-elliptical, concrete-lined, straight tunnel that is 110 yards (100.58 metres) long and has a gradient of 1:165 against north-bound traffic. It has an earthen floor and is approximately six metres high at its apex. Both portals feature the date '1910'. The cuttings that form the approaches on the north and south sides of the tunnel extend for approximately 100m and approximately 50m respectively.
","history":"The Yimbun Railway Tunnel, located 96.19km from Wulkuraka station, is a concrete-lined tunnel built between 1909 and 1910. It is the only railway tunnel on the Brisbane Valley Rail Line. This line was developed as a branch line from the main Brisbane-Toowoomba rail line. It was constructed from Wulkuraka near Ipswich to Lowood (1884) then extended to Esk (1886) then Toogoolawah (February 1904), Yimbun (September 1904), Linville (1910), Benarkin and Blackbutt (1911) and finally to Yarraman (1913). Originally intended that the line would eventually meet the Gympie to Nanango rail line to serve as a rail connection to Gympie and a shorter route between the South Burnett and Brisbane, the final linking section was never constructed.
The Upper Brisbane Valley was settled by squatters in the 1840s and the timber industry in the Brisbane Valley also dates from this period. Closer settlement began in the 1870s. The timber industry quickly developed thereafter as land was rapidly cleared by selectors and the increased population of Brisbane and Ipswich from the 1870s demanded timber for housing and fuel on a continuing basis. The first sawmills in the Brisbane Valley, established in the 1870s, were located at Rosewood, Dundas and Colinton.
Closer settlement of the Brisbane Valley had progressed sufficiently by 1877 for the country from Walloon via Esk and Nanango to be examined as a possible route for a railway to Gympie. In 1879 Premier McIllwraith approved the building of several branch lines, including one to Esk. However, the original plans for these branch lines were withdrawn from parliamentary consideration in 1880 on the recommendation of FT Gregory, MLC. In spite of this opposition, in 1881 the Queensland parliament approved the building of the Brisbane Valley branch line from Wulkuraka to Esk. The contract for the first section was let to O'Rourke and McSharry in October 1882 with Henry C Stanley acting as Chief Engineer. This section to Lowood, a place that scarcely existed before the railway, opened on 16 June 1884. The Brisbane Valley Branch Line was the second branch line in Queensland after the Fassifern Line, which opened to Harrisville in 1882. Within weeks an extension of the line from Lowood to Esk was approved in August 1884 by Premier Griffith. HC Stanley remained as Chief Engineer but HA Brigg was appointed as the contractor. The second section to Esk opened on 9 August 1886 and remained the terminus for more than 17 years, becoming an important centre and livestock loading point.
During the 1880s closer settlement of the Brisbane Valley intensified. Land from Cressbrook Station was resumed and settled. In 1889 James McConnel began selling off small parcels of land from his property Cressbrook to his workers for dairying. The railway, which provided rapid and cheap transport to Brisbane, fostered the timber industry's development. Over the next 30 years sawmills were established at Lowood, Esk, Toogoolawah, Moore, Linville, Harlin, Blackbutt, Monsildale and Perseverance as well as a number of portable sawmills operating in stands of timber.
In the late nineteenth century four dairy factories operated in the Brisbane Valley and utilised the railway for transporting milk and its products. Lowood dairy factory opened in 1890. Toogoolawah dairy factory (managed by Cressbrook Dairy Company) and Colinton Dairy Factory (managed by Standard Dairy Co Ltd) opened in 1898, while the Esk dairy factory opened in 1904. Circa 1898 Cressbrook Condensed Milk Factory, owned by James McConnel and owner/manager Colin Munro, opened on the banks of Cressbrook Creek. The factory and seven dairy farms that supplied it were purchased by Nestlé in 1907 and remained in operation until 1930 with local dairy farmers supplying its milk.
In 1900 a parliamentary inquiry was conducted to determine the best route for a proposed rail line to Nanango. James McConnel of Cressbrook stated that an extension of the Brisbane Valley Railway Line would enable selectors to pursue dairying rather than grazing and to cultivate the land. The inquiry subsequently recommended a 45km extension of the Brisbane Valley Branch Line to Moore, which was approved in December of the same year. The first section, to the new township of Toogoolawah, which was the site of the Cressbrook Condensed Milk Factory, opened on 8 February 1904. On 1 September 1904 the extension to Yimbun was opened and remained the terminus until 1910.
To access the vast timber resources beyond Yimbun a further extension of the line to Blackbutt was considered. The Blackbutt Tableland was notable as a rich farming district, that the railway was expected to expand. On the ranges hoop and bunya pines were already being exploited, and with conservation it was expected that freight for the railway would be supplied for many years. At Moore there were two sawmills operating and there were two more in the Blackbutt area. Plans for the 28 miles [45km] of rail line from Yimbun to Blackbutt were approved at a Committee meeting on SS Lucinda on 9 January 1907. They were introduced into Parliament on 13 March 1908 and passed on 1 April 1908. In early 1909 Queensland Railways purchased materials for the construction of this line.
The Yimbun Tunnel, located between Harlin and Yimbun, was designed by Resident Engineer, Hugh Fraser and built by day labourers between February 1909 and May 1910. Relative to their length, tunnels are the most costly of all forms of railway engineering and their problems include hazards such as rock falls. Material must be removed from the bore itself and disposed of. Few types of rock are sufficiently hard to be allowed to remain after excavation without a lining of masonry or concrete. Yimbun Tunnel was constructed as a 110 yard (100.58m), concrete-lined, straight tunnel with a 1 in 165 gradient rising towards Yarraman. Material from its bore was deposited into Banks Number 14 and 15 on either side of the tunnel's approaches.
The section of line that included the Yimbun Tunnel opened on 22 November 1910 and the extension to Blackbutt was completed during 1911. The next section of the Brisbane Valley Rail Line, to Yarraman, was approved by parliament in December 1910 and opened on 1 May 1913. The last section required to complete the loop to Gympie was approved by parliament on 30 October 1918 but was never built.
This section of the Brisbane Valley Rail Line was built under the 1895 Railways Guarantee Act which provided for local authorities to request construction of a railway by guaranteeing to meet any losses and the interest on capital borrowed for construction. The Railways Department was also required to share any deficit equally with the guarantors. The guarantee ended after 14 years unless a profit was made for three consecutive years, at which time it ceased. The cost to the residents in the benefited area served by the rail line including the Yimbun Railway Tunnel in the financial year 1913-1914 was £3389. Of this amount the Esk Shire Council paid £2000, Crow's Nest Shire Council £194, Nanango Shire Council £490 and Treasury £705. The nett revenue of the Brisbane Valley Branch Line was positive until the 1917-18. The line experienced a period of losses until 1932 after which it again returned substantial nett revenues.
Passenger services were a feature of the Brisbane Valley Line from the commencement of the service. From 1913 a passenger service ran from Yarraman to Ipswich three days a week, taking six hours. In 1928 rail motor services commenced on the Brisbane Valley line and when new rail motors were introduced. The Brisbane Valley line, together with the Fassifern line, was the first to use them. Although limited to 48km/hour and averaging no more than 30-35 km/hr they were faster, smoother, more comfortable and more reliable than road transport or mixed trains.
By 1920 much of the forest timber had been cut out of the Brisbane Valley and the major industry was dairying. Accordingly, in the 1920s, the railway was transporting cream to the butter factories along the Brisbane Valley line - Colinton until 1921, Toogoolawah, Esk and Lowood. Whole milk was transported to the Nestle and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Factory at Toogoolawah until its closure in 1930. However, on the Blackbutt Range timber was still being cut and transported via rail. In 1934 The Courier-Mail reported increased timber haulage from railway loading centres between Benarkin and Yarraman. The amount was more than 1,500,000 super feet per month over the prior 12 months and formed the biggest proportion of freight on the Brisbane Valley railway line. All the timber was being cut from Crown reserves as privately held land was practically cut out. Most of the timber was sent to Brisbane for milling.
During the 1930s revenue from the Brisbane Valley line was greater than expenditure on the line and by 1938 revenue exceeded expenditure and interest on the capital for its construction. In the 1930s and 1940s the Brisbane Valley Line to Esk handled a large volume of passengers and goods due to the construction of Somerset dam on the Stanley River for flood mitigation and water storage for Brisbane, Ipswich and the lower Brisbane Valley. From 1935 the Brisbane Valley Rail Line handled construction material for the site. Esk became the transhipping depot equipped with cranes for heavy loads. Goods were then transported to the dam site along 18 miles of bitumen road that the Stanley River Works Board, in conjunction with the Mains Road Commission, constructed for this purpose. Somerset dam was completed in 1959 after a period of abeyance from 1942 to 1948 due to World War II. Post-war, as road transport replaced rail for both goods and passengers, usage of the Brisbane Valley rail line declined.
After flood damage in the 1974 the Brisbane Valley Branch Line was threatened with permanent closure but re-opened after several months. Nevertheless, the last Yarraman rail motor ran on 6 October 1988. Afterwards a passenger service operated from Ipswich to Toogoolawah until March 1993 when the Brisbane Valley Branch Line closed. The steel track, many of the bridges, most railway signage, station platforms and goods sheds have been removed. Many of the station buildings on the Brisbane Valley Rail Line have been re-used on other lines or sold for removal. The only remaining buildings are at Yarraman, Linville and Lowood (now serving as railway museums) and Toogoolawah, Esk and Coominya. Much of the railway infrastructure from Blackbutt to Moore and from Wulkuraka to Lowood has been removed.
There are now only three large engineering structures left on the Brisbane Valley rail line. These are the steel and timber railway bridge over Lockyer Creek at Clarendon (QHR 600495) designed by Chief Engineer HC Stanley; the steel and concrete rail bridge over Maronghi Creek at Harlin; and the Yimbun Railway Tunnel. Approximately two dozen timber rail bridges are still intact, although their condition varies greatly.
","criteria":"The Yimbun Railway Tunnel is important surviving evidence of the Brisbane Valley Branch Rail Line. Development of Queensland's branch rail network, which began in the 1880s, was vital for the development of the colony through opening land for closer settlement and freighting produce and resources to Queensland's major towns and ports.
The Brisbane Valley Rail Line, when commenced in 1882, was the second of Queensland's branch lines. Over the next 30 years it was extended several times to facilitate the transport of timber, livestock and agricultural produce and was intended to become an alternative, shorter route from the South Burnett to Brisbane.
In contrast to other branch lines, revenue from the Brisbane Valley Branch Line was greater than its expenses for the majority of the period from 1902 until the outbreak of World War II when reporting by the Commissioner of Railways on the profitability of individual lines ceased.
The Yimbun Railway Tunnel, constructed in 1910 on the section between Yimbun and Blackbutt, is the only tunnel constructed along the entire Brisbane Valley Branch Line and one of only three remaining intact major rail structures on the Brisbane Valley Rail Line, the others being the Lockyer Creek Bridge at Clarendon (QHR 600495) and the Harlin Rail Bridge. Of the 55 railway tunnels constructed in Queensland between 1865 and 1931, only nine are recorded as located on branch lines.
|The Yimbun Railway Tunnel is significant as a highly intact example of a concrete-lined railway tunnel constructed for Queensland's narrow-gauge railway lines. Concrete was first used as a tunnel lining in 1880 and since then has been used for approximately two dozen railway tunnels constructed in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28821,"place_ref":602789,"name":"Gympie Town Hall Reserve Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2 Caledonian Hill","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-08-12","description":"The Gympie Town Hall Complex comprising Town Hall, Garage, former Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic and Men's Toilet Block is located at the top end of Nash's Gully on a large wedge-shaped site at the fiveways intersection of Caledonian Hill, Calton Hill, and Mary, Lawrence and Mellor Streets, and is bound to the north by Alma Street in Gympie's central business area.
\nTown Hall
\nThe Gympie Town Hall is a stately two storey masonry building with part basement and a grand bell tower. The building is prominently located on a busy intersection and has a two street frontage to Caledonian Hill and Mellor Street. Its elevated bell tower together with its high quality of design gives it considerable aesthetic appeal.
\nThe Town Hall, constructed in two stages, has an asymmetrically composed exterior form with Neo-classical characteristics which include the use of columns, a dominant pediment and decorative cornicing and quoins at the buildings corners to give the building a sense of solidity and robustness. Its exterior is carefully detailed and finished with smooth cement-render ruled to imitate ashlar. The bell tower is positioned over the main public entrance into the building and the surrounding roof, clad in corrugated metal sheeting is hipped over the circa 1890 portion and gabled over the circa 1938 portion.
\nThe building's south-facing Caledonian Hill façade has two major components reflecting its staged construction.
\nThe circa 1890 western end features a cantilevered street awning over the western entrance detailed with decorative cornicing and circular motifs. Horizontal banding visually distinguishes the building's two floor levels. Tall, rectangular windows puncture the western end of the elevation while a circular porthole style window is centrally located above the western entrance. From here the bell tower rises and features tall, rectangular windows and clock faces to all four sides. It is capped with a pyramidal roof and a scalloped parapet wall forms a solid balustrade allowing access to the bell chamber. Access into the circa 1890 end of the elevation is via timber paneled doors which open onto an octagonal-shaped and timber-lined entrance vestibule. A decorative leadlight fanlight is located above the entrance. Another pair of glazed and paneled swing doors on pivoting hinges provides access into the lower vestibule. Floors in the entrance vestibule are terrazzo with a central motif pattern.
\nThe circa 1939 eastern end is a symmetrical composition with large stucco quoins and capitals visually supporting the raked moulded cornice to the gable. The centrally placed entrance is framed by a projecting balcony with a wrought iron balustrade supported on Doric-style columns. A tall, arched doorway with ruled stucco keystone and reveals opens onto the balcony and is framed by tall rectangular windows with timber framed casements. Windows on the lower level are timber framed and recessed into the masonry façade and ornate wrought iron bars secure the openings. The entrance door has been replaced with an aluminum hinged door.
\nThe elevation facing west to Mellor Street has similar detailing to the main elevation. It is symmetrical in layout with stucco quoins emphasizing the corners while horizontal banding visually distinguishes the building's two floor levels. A false balcony runs along the upper floor level with decorative wrought iron balustrading and art nouveau style lights at each end. A large arched window framed with ruled stucco reveals, lintel and keystone rises from the lower level and is finished with a shallow awning formed from masonry supported on oversized decorative brackets. On the upper floor three tall rectangular windows with timber-framed double-hung sashes are sheltered by a timber framed window awning supported on pairs of carved timber brackets. Eaves gutters to the main roof and the upper window awning are formed from metal and are quad-profiled.
\nThe northern elevation where tall rectangular windows and a large arched leadlight window are located is simpler in detail. A lean-to roofed structure containing amenities is located on the lower level while a more substantial circa 1939 timber-framed verandah is located on the upper level accessed by timber-framed service stairs. The land is retained at the building line to allow access and light into a basement level and service yard. A lean-to structure has been recently constructed to the eastern end of the elevation.
\nThe symmetrical eastern elevation comprises stucco quoins at each corner. Large arched windows are located on the upper floor. A gable roofed side porch projects towards a service area on the lower floor and features a large arched window flanked by smaller timber-framed casement windows. Decorative square pilasters are located at the corners.
\nRectangular in plan with projecting wings to the east and northeast corner, the building is organised over two levels. The ground floor houses a foyer space, a former public office and clerk's office, a former post-office space, a former post-masters office together with several other offices to the north. Located on the first floor are the council chamber and vestibule, a former mayor's reception room and office, a kitchen and enclosed verandah.
\nThe ground floor foyer space has generous internal openings consisting of pairs of timber-paneled doors with lead-light glazed pivoting fanlights above. Walls and ceilings are plaster with decorative paneling formed by plaster cornicing with some areas lined with timber paneling. Timber joinery is intact throughout with varnished finish. At the base of the public staircase is a memorial board enclosure with decorative timber screens. Floors are lined with terrazzo. A single pendant light hangs centrally from the ceiling.
\nOther rooms on this level have similar though simpler detailing. In the former public office to the west, walls are hard plaster with elaborately moulded cornices. Timber joinery including architraves, window sashes and skirtings are painted though some timber joinery in the former public office has a varnished finish. Full-height partition walls have been erected in the former post office public space. Floors are lined with recent carpet. Door furniture has generally been replaced though some china and brass door handles remain.
\nAccess to the first floor is via an elegant timber staircase with walls and balustrades of paneled timber. A round handrail is fixed with brackets to the balustrade and follows the curve of the staircase. Treads and risers are lined with carpet. Natural light enters the stairwell through the large arched leadlight window which is framed by wall mounted Art Deco light fittings. The vaulted ceiling over the stair is simply detailed and forms an archway to the upper vestibule. The upper level vestibule has walls lined with hard plaster and timber-paneling. Plaster ceilings have moulded plaster cornices. Timber skirting boards, architraves architrave blocks are intact throughout the room and all interior timber work and joinery has a varnished finish. Internal openings are generous in height and doors feature tall glazed pivoting fanlights. The first floor offices have varnished joinery including doors, architraves and picture rails and unusual decorative pelmets. Skirtings in these rooms have been painted.
\nThe council chamber is a finely detailed room with timber-paneling to the perimeter of the room including columns. Early glass, wall-hung pendant lights remain. Floors are carpeted.
\nThe tower is accessed from the first floor via a narrow timber staircase and by timber ladders within the tower itself to the clock and bell chamber. The clock is in working order with faces, featuring Roman numerals, housed in each elevation. Above the clock, a bell chamber contains a bell and hammer. The bell is formed from cast metal and both the bell and the hammer are painted - the crown and yoke are hidden behind a fibrous cement soffit. The bell chamber is screened in each corner by louvred timber panels.
\nFew early furnishings remain in the building apart from honour boards, framed portraits and timber seating in the upper vestibule.
\nEarly brick foundations are visible in the basement along with the timber floor boards, joists, posts and beams. Rock formed retaining walls also remain. Walls to the eastern end of the basement are rendered and have concrete slab floor.
\nTo the east of the Town Hall is an asphalt carpark where a 1938-39 garage is located. The double garage with gabled roof clad in pre-painted corrugated metal sheeting is contemporary and sympathetic to the Town Hall addition. It has a masonry façade to Caledonian Hill with other walls timber framed and clad in fibrous cement sheet, all with a painted finish. Mown lawns and trimmed hedges address the fiveways intersection which is separated from the building by wrought iron picket fencing and a stand of palm trees. The setting to Caledonian Hill is more utilitarian with a wide paved footpath abutting the building at the boundary line.
\nThe building's bell tower can be seen from various hillside locations within the town and as such symbolises and reinforces the importance of civic leadership and is a significant landmark in Gympie. The building dominates its site and together with its tall bell tower has a powerful presence in the streetscape. It is a landmark within Gympie and forms part of a majestic group of late 19th century buildings in the town.
\nMaternal and Child Welfare Clinic
\nThe former Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic faces north-west onto Mellor Street and is flanked by the entry to the council car park on the northern side and the Town Hall on the southern side. With its symmetrical form and portico derived from a classical temple it displays elements of an Interwar Classical style. It is a single storey reinforced concrete structure with a painted roughcast finish, a multi-hipped roof clad in pre-painted square-fluted sheeting with battened eaves and an original fleche centred along its main ridge.
\nTwo concrete steps and a recessed concrete paved portico flanked by four Tuscan columns form the entrance to the building from Mellor Street. Original exterior joinery generally survives to all elevations with original obscure glazing to all fanlights and doors. Windows generally comprise single or paired six-light timber casements with two or four-light fanlights above respectively and timber sills. The bathroom in the south-east corner has a smaller pair of four-light casements. Original doors comprise a six-light french entrance door, a six-light high waist rear door and a four-light high waist female public toilet door, all with four-light fanlights above. Some fanlights have been removed to accommodate air conditioning units with fixed aluminium louvred awnings over and the single casement toilet window on the north-east elevation has been infilled.
\nThe building, which in 2011 is the office for Gympie Regional Council's Youth and Community Development, is generally square in plan and symmetrical in layout retaining its original partition walls with rooms opening off each side of the former waiting room and rear corridor. To the left, from front to back, are the former doctor's room and treatment rooms; and to the right are the former mother's retiring room, external female public toilet, nurse's bedroom/bathroom and kitchen. The former retiring room has been adapted as a store and the toilet remodelled. The nurse's bedroom incorporates a large storage cupboard. The kitchen retains its 1960s fitout and the former nurse's bathroom with raked ceiling is now used for storage. Most internal doors have been replaced with sliding doors but borrowed lights with obscure glazing remain. Ceiling are lined with fibrous cement sheeting.
\nThe ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting and cover strips, decoratively placed. All ceilings retain lattice ventilation panels with some partially concealed by later fluorescent light fittings. Interior walls are a combination of rendered concrete and fibrous cement sheeting .with cover battens Ceilings are fibro with decorative placement of the cover strips, as defined by the original architect's plans.
\nThe former clinic is flanked at the front by a rendered concrete fence with metal balustrade and metal gate on Mellor Street. Entry to the female public toilet is via a timber ramp and landing, accessible through a timber gate from Mellor Street. This ramp is supported by timber posts. A privacy screen of lattice has been erected around the landing. An original enamelled cast iron sink is situated on the landing for hand washing. Under the landing there is access to a storage space under the building. The landing outside the back door also has a lattice screen. Four timber steps descend to a concrete slab. The building retains a cylindrical galvanised iron water tank on a concrete stumped tank stand, located external to the bathroom and kitchen area.
\nArt Deco Toilet Block
\nThe Art Deco Men's Toilet Block is located in the northern corner of the reserve and fronts Mellor Street amid an elevated garden bed of native shrubs to the rear and sides at the corner of Alma Street. To the rear of the building is the Town Hall public carpark, the entrance of which is west of the toilet block.
\nThe Art Deco Men's Toilet Block is a small masonry T-shaped building with a stepped parapet concealing gabled roofs clad in corrugated pre-painted metal sheeting. It is constructed of mid-brown face brick on a concrete base and with painted cement rendered banding at shoulder height extending across the parapet at the front and continuous around the building to the fascia board.
\nThe Mellor Street elevation comprises two simple entrances at each end beneath a continuous rendered masonry hood. Above the hood, three centrally located vertical fins extend to the top of the parapet between a simple string course above which a short stretcher course of brick is featured in the parapet on either side of the fins. A fluorescent light is located centrally on the horizontal hood below the decorative fins.
\nOpenings in the side elevations are limited to two high-level terracotta vents and the rear elevation has a projecting gable with a central vertically aligned window. Each side of the projecting gable is a window of the same dimensions but with a concrete block and breeze block infill. The gable to the main roof has flat sheet cladding with three vertical, decorative timber cover strips.
\nThe toilet block comprises two rooms, with both entrances opening into the larger which houses a stainless steel urinal fixed along the front wall of the building. On the opposite wall, to the left of stainless steel hand basin, is the entrance to a single lavatory stall. The lavatory window opening is fitted with a small profile steel window grille providing light and ventilation together with a ventilation screen located above the door head along the length of the stall wall. A box fluorescent light is sited above the hand basin. The interior has painted brickwork walls, a battened fibrous cement sheeted ceiling and a tiled floor. The interior fittings are not regarded as significant.
","history":"Gympie Town Hall
\nGympie Town Hall was opened in 1890 on land reserved for this purpose in 1883. It was designed by Clark Brothers, which won competitions for proposed town halls for Brisbane and Gympie in 1884 and Warwick in 1885. Of the Clark Brothers' prize-winning designs for Queensland town halls, only that for Gympie may have been realised, and its construction was supervised by H W Durietz in the late 1880s. It was extended in 1938-9 by Brisbane architect C H Griffin.
\nGympie (initially Nashville) arose after the discovery of gold in the Mary River district in October 1867. The new goldfield established Queensland as a significant gold producer and contributed much needed finances to the young colony. Thousands of people arrived at the Gympie goldfield in the months after the discovery and a fledgling settlement emerged. In a year the alluvial gold had been exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced, followed from 1875 by deep reef mining. During 1881 mines began yielding large amounts of gold marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie as an intensive phase of underground reef mining began, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees.
\nAs Gympie evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, the early makeshift structures of the 1860s gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings from the mid 1870s. Gympie was gazetted as a town on 26 January 1880 and in 1883 a reserve for a town hall was created. A competition for the design of a Gympie Town Hall was conducted and in 1884 Clark Brothers (comprising John James Clark, architect and his brother George, an engineer) were named as the winners. Other buildings designed by Clark include the Treasury Building, Brisbane [QHR 600143], Central Railway Station Tower, Brisbane [QHR 600073] and Townsville Railway Station [QHR 600906]. Clark had a long career, won many design competitions and produced many other notable buildings in Victoria, New South Wales, West Australia and New Zealand.
\nGympie Town Council proposed to erect its town hall on land at Nash's Gully bounded by Mellor Street and Caledonian Hill which was to be reserved for this purpose. In July 1888 the Council requested that the Department of Public Lands grant them the Deed of Grant for the land as they proposed to erect a Town Hall upon it, but the Department of Public Lands agreed to issue the Deed of Grant only after the erection of a town hall on the site. In August 1888 a proposal that Gympie Town Council borrow £5,000 for the erection of a Town Hall was defeated by 40 votes. Subsequently the Municipal Council erected a portion of the Town Hall, namely the left wing and tower, built of brick at a cost of £1,266. Its construction was supervised by local architect, Hugo Du Rietz and its builder was Joseph Jew. The town hall was opened by William Smyth MLA on 4 March 1891 and the first council meeting held in the new chambers took place on the same day. In June 1891 a Deed of Grant to the Council of the Municipality of Gympie for 3 roods 22 perches 'as a site for a town hall and no other purposes whatsoever' was granted.
\nFollowing its continued growth, Gympie was declared a city in 1905. As gold production declined to cessation in circa 1927, Gympie transformed into the service centre for its highly productive agricultural district noted for dairy and fruit-growing. As part of this evolution, the town centre shifted from upper-Mary Street near Commissioners Hill to lower Mary Street closer to the railway station, butter factory and fruit cooperative.
\nBy the mid- to late-1930s the Gympie City Council was considering completion of its town hall. Concurrently, a post office located closer to the centre of town was sought. During 1937 the Gympie Chamber of Commerce called for a branch office in a central position in Gympie as the current post office located at the top of Commissioner's Hill was quite removed from the main business centre. The Gympie City Council wanted the branch located in the Town Hall where adequate accommodation for the purpose could be made available in the proposed extensions to the building. The federal member for the Gympie area, B H Corser made representations to the Commonwealth's Posts and Telegraphs Department. Additionally, the acting Prime Minister, the Right Hon Dr Earle Page, also discussed the establishment of a branch post office in Gympie with the Postmaster-General in June 1937. Subsequently tenders for the lease of a building for a branch post office were advertised in the Gympie Truth and Gympie Times. Two tenders were received that were regarded as unsatisfactory so approval was given for the lease from the Gympie Town Council of premises at Gympie for a period of 10 years with an option for renewal of five years.
\nConsequently, when additions to the Gympie Town Hall were designed by C H Griffin in 1938 the design incorporated a new post office for Gympie on the ground floor. The addition included a reception hall on the first floor and additional offices on the ground floor. An original drawing by J J Clark shows that Griffin used the Clark Brothers' plan as the starting point for his design of the town hall extension in 1938. Griffin's plan provided for new vestibules on both floors and a new staircase. The upper floor houses a reception hall to the east of the upper vestibule. The existing frontage was remodelled in harmony with the new section. Instead of the Victorian ornamentation originally specified he gave the building's exterior a more modern appearance. A garage located adjacent to the town hall on the Caledonian Hill frontage was also designed as part of the project. The tender to construct was won by Marberete Company Pty Ltd of Brisbane and the work took seven months to complete. In addition to the town hall building a free-standing garage was built to the east of it on the town hall reserve.
\nThe Gympie Town Hall's additions were officially opened by the State Treasurer (Mr F A Cooper) on 21 October 1939. The cost of the addition and renovation was £9,668. This amount was covered by a loan of £7,235 with a Government subsidy of £1,463 plus £970 advanced from general rate revenue.
\nThe completion of the Gympie Town Hall in 1939 was part of a wider pattern of civic building that took place during the second half of the 1930s when numerous town halls were constructed across Australia as an expression of civic pride when the economy was once again on a more secure foundation after the Great Depression. Many Queensland country towns erected or remodelled civic buildings. The Queensland government played an important role in facilitating many of these projects, by subsidising expenditure by shire councils on new buildings or remodelling their existing premises. As a result, more than 20 shire and town council buildings were erected during 1938-39 and six shire halls were remodelled. In the last two years of the 1930s, more than £177,000 was spent on new shire and council halls and nearly £20,000 was outlaid on alterations to existing buildings.
\nTown halls of varying design and dimension are landmarks of Australia's cities and suburbs, shires and towns. They have been important as social venues and focal points for their communities and also for the administration of local government. The Gympie Town Hall was such a venue. The accommodation of the Gympie East Post Office on the ground floor of the new section of the Gympie Town Hall between 9 May 1939 and 26 July 1967 gave it further important social function.
\nBetween 1977 and 1982 internal alterations to the Gympie Town Hall were undertaken with money obtained through a debenture loan approved by the Queensland Treasury. These included architectural work (probably new joinery); mechanical and electrical alterations to the auditorium; internal telephone extension relocation and switchboard installation; internal painting of the ground floor; reconstruction of the WWI remembrance alcove; new floor coverings; office equipment; and glass and timber panel partitions.
\nIn 2009 the Gympie Regional Council recommenced meeting in the Gympie Town Hall, after many years of meeting in the former Queensland National Bank building in Channon Street. The remainder of the building continues to be used as office accommodation for council staff.
\nMaternal and Child Welfare Clinic
\nThe former Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic is located in the Town Hall Reserve, facing Mellor Street in central Gympie. It is a concrete rendered building, with an entry portico flanked by four columns, with a rib and pan profile iron roof, including the original fleche. Designed and built by the Department of Public Works, and opened on 24 April 1926, the building is one of ten regional clinics built to a standardised design, of which, only nine remain.
\nThe establishment of baby clinics throughout Queensland following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922 was part of a national and international movement to improve the health of mothers and babies. The Act also initiated the establishment of a network of free maternity hospitals throughout Queensland, managed under the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund. Financed through the profits of the state run lottery, the Golden Casket, established in 1920, the Act sought to decrease the death rate for mothers and babies; to increase the birth-rate; to expand outback settlement and to train mothers how to care for children and essentially develop a healthy population.
\nThe first baby clinic in Brisbane was established in 1908 and attended by paediatrician Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner, who saw up to 100 babies a week, free of charge. Dr Jefferis Turner was the first resident medical officer of the Brisbane Children's Hospital, appointed in 1889. He made a significant contribution to the development of a diphtheria antitoxin and identified lead in paint as a significant factor in lead poisoning in children. These advances impacted on the reduction of infant mortality rates, but Dr Jefferis Turner was aware that diarrhoeal disease was still a major factor the demise of many babies. There was a higher death rate during the summer months, which could be attributed to poor infant feeding and he embarked on a public health campaign to educate mothers in the hygienic preparation of food, particularly for those infants not breast fed.
\nFollowing a conference on child welfare in Sydney in 1916, representatives of women's organisations, benevolent societies and the Crèche and Kindergarten Association lobbied the Home Secretary, John Huxham to establish a network of baby clinics in Queensland. In August 1917 he announced that three clinics would be built, which was later expanded to four. At that time the first baby clinic had just been built in Victoria, while New South Wales already had eleven. All were based on the philosophy of New Zealand Doctor, Frederick Truby King, which promoted breast feeding, the training of nurses in maternal and infant welfare and the education of mothers in domestic hygiene.
\nA national agenda for public health and social reform was implicit in the growth of the town planning movement. The second Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane in mid 1918 included a display illustrating the proper care of babies. The organiser of this conference was Charles Edward Chuter, an officer of the Home Secretary's Department, who was to have a significant impact on local government and on the health system in Queensland. He had managed the finances of the Brisbane General Hospital from 1917, and sought the means to implement the social policies of the recently elected Labour government of T J Ryan. Chuter established the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund, which was financed through the Golden Casket Lottery. He also had significant input into the drafting of the Maternity Act. The decision to operate a regular lottery from 1920, with the profits deposited into the Hospital Trust Account, financed a major building program in maternity hospitals and baby clinics.
\nThe first government baby clinic opened in a rented cottage in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley on 8 March 1918, managed by Matron Florence Chatfield of the Diamantina Hospital. Three more clinics opened shortly after at Woolloongabba, Spring Hill and West End. Nurse Chatfield travelled north in October 1920, seeking suitable sites to build clinics in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton, preferring a central location, close to the shopping areas and close to public transport. She also sought support from at least one doctor in each town to act as the Honorary Medical Officer, attached to the clinic.
\nBetween October 1923 and November 1924, new baby clinics were erected at Rockhampton, Townsville, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Cairns, Maryborough and Bundaberg. The Fortitude Valley Clinic, which opened in 1924, included a training school for nurses. The training centre staff had been educated in both New Zealand and Sydney and the centre produced eight graduates in 1924 and eleven in 1925. Thirty-five maternity wards were built in hospitals across the state at this time. Between 1926 and 1930 clinics were erected at Gympie, Mackay, Charters Towers and Warwick, with new substantial brick clinics built at Woolloongabba and Herschel Street in the city. Another large clinic was planned for South Brisbane but was never built.
\nTen regional clinics were based on a standard plan produced by the Department of Works. These included: Rockhampton, Townsville, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Gympie, Mackay, Charters Towers and Warwick. The Rockhampton clinic was the first to be opened on Saturday 27 October 1923. It was described in the 1924 Queensland Parliamentary Papers Report of the Department of Public Works as:
\nA compact tile-roofed one-storey reinforced cement plaster building of attractive design, containing waiting hall 16 ft by 16 ft; a doctor's room 12 ft by 11 ft; treatment room 13 ft by 11 ft; retiring and nurses rooms 11ft by 10 ft with water closet, lavatories, store, press etc. Modern fittings and furnishings have been installed throughout and a septic system provided for conveniences.
\nThe Cairns clinic which opened in January 1924 was not of the standard design, being a larger high set timber structure, built on part of a railway reserve fronting Martyn Street.
\nThe selection of a site for a baby clinic for Gympie occurred during the early part of 1925 with regular correspondence between the local MLA, Tom Dunstan, the Assistant Minister for Works and the Home Secretary James Stoppard. The Under Secretary George Chuter and the Mayor Alderman George Thomas undertook a site inspection on 7 March and agreed that part of the Town Hall Reserve facing Mellor Street was the best location. The council agreed to allocate a site within the Town Hall reserve, because the clinic would be of benefit to the district. It passed the resolution on 19 March 1925, and verbal agreement was made by the council that it would provide fill for the site. The architect William Ewart visited in April and assured the Town Clerk that the plans and specifications were in hand and the building would be completed as soon as possible. The proposed building was specified as a concrete one storey structure with a Marseilles tiled roof and Doric pillared entrance, including a waiting room for mothers, infant's treatment room, kitchen, bathroom, ladies' retiring room and day room for the nurses. The standard design baby clinics were all founded on the same plan drawn up in January 1923, with some amendments to suit each individual site. The Gympie Clinic was built with two toilets; one accessible from within the clinic, and one with an external door, adjacent to the Town Hall, accessible to the public. (A separate men's toilet was located nearby.) Two nurses were appointed to the clinic, with one stationed at the clinic and the other largely devoted to visiting mothers in their own homes within the district.
\nThe building, which cost £2,355, was opened on Saturday 24 April 1926 by the Minister for Works, James Kirwan. He referred to the clinic as the 'Temple of the Babe', an analogy first used by the Assistant Home Secretary Mr Brennan at the opening of the Toowoomba Baby Clinic in December 1923. Kirwan reiterated the government policy promoting motherhood and child welfare, indicating that the clinic had already begun operation prior to the official opening. Nurse McGrath had already begun her rounds of the district, visiting 83 babies, and 25 mothers had consulted the clinic. He said the building, was a beautiful structure which was an architectural adornment to the city of Gympie. When the Director of Infant Welfare, Dr Jefferis Turner wrote his first annual report in June 1927, he indicated that the Gympie Clinic had a good relationship with the local maternity nurses, and it had outperformed some older ones in the state, in terms of the numbers of new born babies visited by the clinic sisters.
\nIn 1933, the Gympie Town Clerk advised the Department of Works that a large amount of spoil had been generated in the process of excavating for a new sewer. This had been used to fill the Town Hall Reserve, but had in fact filled part of the lower flight of steps at the rear of the baby clinic. It advised that the landing would be extended to provide easier access to the clinic and the remainder of the lower steps would lead to the yard. During the early 1930s the clinic sister experienced difficulties sleeping because of the constant noise from the public toilet in the clinic building adjacent to her bedroom. At that time it was agreed to lock the female toilet at 11.00pm.
\nThe back landing was enclosed with lattice in 1936. By 1941, heavy rain had caused subsidence of this and earlier fill, causing damage to the back steps and requiring the installation of a 6 foot (1.8m) square concrete slab at the foot of the stairs.
\nThe Gympie Town Council wrote to the Department of Public Works in June 1950, indicating that the town hall was being repainted and suggested that the baby clinic be painted at the same time. Tenders were called in September and the exterior painting proceeded. Some interior painting was also carried out at this time with repairs to the front stairs and front gate, and painting of exterior Venetian blinds. In 1956 the interior walls and furniture was painted.
\nThe connection of sewerage in May 1964 led to further alterations and additions to the interior including a complete internal and external repaint, in pastel shades. The bathroom was upgraded with a new bath and hand basins. New cupboards were built in the kitchen and new linoleum was laid throughout. The furniture was also repainted.
\nPlans for further additions to provide living accommodation were drawn up in April 1964. The proposed 22' by 21' (6.7m by 6.4m) extension was to comprise two bedrooms, a bathroom, laundry, WC, dining room and new street access. However the Gympie City Council was in opposition to any extensions to the clinic because it would partly encroach on recent improvements to the car park, and new access roadways within Town Hall Reserve. The council wrote to the Secretary of Lands Administration enquiring as to the original agreement reached in relation to land allocated prior to the construction of the baby clinic. The Land Administration was unable to present any formal documentation of the initial allocation of the site, as it had been the product of a verbal agreement between the MLA at the time, the Hon T Dunstan, the Mayor, Aldermen and Town Clerk of Gympie. While the council passed a motion approving the erection of the baby clinic on the Town Hall Reserve, it appears that no formal agreement was made on land allocation for the clinic. The planned extensions did not proceed.
\nIt is unclear when the tile roof was replaced with iron, but a number of clinics had experienced problems with the tiled roof, with the Townsville clinic's replaced by 1927.
\nThe Maternal and Child Health Clinic services were transferred to the Gympie Hospital in 1992. The former baby clinic building was then occupied by the State Emergency Service (later the Gympie Regional Emergency Management Team) for fifteen years. This team was transferred to Caloundra in 2007. The Cooloola Family and Community Development Workers then mounted a petition to request a lease of the building to re-establish a clinic providing maternal and child health services, collaboratively run by the Cooloola Community Hub staff and the Gympie Child Health Services. It appears that no action was taken on this proposal. The Gympie Regional Council's Youth Development Unit now occupies the building.
\nArt Deco Men's Toilet Block
\nThe Art Deco Men's Toilet Block in Mellor Street and sited on Gympie's Town Hall Reserve was erected circa 1920s. It is one of only two known toilet blocks in this architectural style in Queensland, the other reported to be at Mareeba.
\nPublic toilets in Mellor Street were in existence in 1925 as Council minutes reveal that the Chamber of Commerce requested the provision of a light at the public lavatory in Mellor Street. However, the toilet block does not appear on a partial site plan for the reserve drawn in 1925 when the Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic was being planned for the site. The Art Deco toilet block does not reflect the architectural style of the nearby Gympie Town Hall (designed 1938), which leads to the conclusion that the toilet block was constructed before 1938.
","criteria":"As the product of Gympie's gold mining and later agricultural settlement, the Gympie Town Hall Complex is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history. The Town Hall, designed in the mid-1880s and opened in 1890, represents the endurance and continued importance of Gympie to Queensland as a highly profitable gold mining town. The Gympie Town Hall's extension in the late 1930s reflects Gympie's evolution into the major service town of an economically important dairy and agricultural district for Queensland.
The former Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic (1926) is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland history concerned with improving maternal health, which was part of the Australia-wide movement to educate mothers in infant and domestic hygiene. It is one of ten standard design baby clinics constructed in regional Queensland that resulted from implementation of the Maternity Act 1922, which used funding from the state-operated lottery, the Golden Casket.
The Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic, which served the Gympie district for 66 years, is representative of Queensland's response to the Australia-wide endeavour to reduce infant mortality and improve maternal health during the 1920s.
|The Gympie Town Hall Reserve Complex forms a harmonious group around the Gympie Town Hall with the smaller classically inspired Maternal and Child Welfare Building and Art Deco Toilet Block adding visual interest as the group extends along Mellor Street and Caledonian Hill.
The elegant, classically inspired Gympie Town Hall stands prominently at the five-ways that terminates Mary Street and the main business district of Gympie. In Gympie's hilly terrain and irregular road layout, towers such as those of the Gympie Town Hall and Gympie Court House [QHR 600533] stand as important navigation aids around the city centre. The Gympie Town Hall has aesthetic significance for its classical composition and detailing and for its fine interiors including extensive timber joinery; and decorative plaster work, glazing and terrazzo floors.
The Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare building has aesthetic significance as a well-designed building with a domestic scale and character appropriate to its function. Notable for its classical temple front, the building makes a pleasing contribution to the streetscape.
|The Gympie Town Hall demonstrates the principal characteristics of a regional town hall. Located in a prominent position near the centre of the town, the Gympie Town Hall is a substantial two-storey building with a dominant clock tower. Its interior includes the council chamber, meeting room, staircase, honour roll and original offices.
The original design of the Gympie Town Hall was by Clark Brothers and it is specifically the work of noted architect John James Clark.
The former Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic demonstrates the principal characteristics of the Queensland Department of Works standard design for regional baby clinic buildings in the 1920s. These include a spacious waiting room, doctor's room, treatment room, nurse's room, bathroom and toilet. Also, the building's central location in Gympie is typical of the siting of early regional clinics. The integrity of the building has been retained including the original room layout, along with most of the interwar features of the building.
|As one of only two known examples, the Art Deco Men's Toilet Block built in Mellor Street on the Town Hall reserve in the 1920s is a rare example of Art Deco design used for a public toilet block in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28839,"place_ref":602643,"name":"Mareeba Uniting Church (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"189 Walsh Street (cnr Rankin Street)","suburb":"MAREEBA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2021-06-25","description":"Mareeba Uniting Church (former) (1960) is a single-storey church standing near the town centre of Mareeba, between a residential area and the main commercial area. Located on a corner site, with Rankin Street to the north and Walsh Street to the west, the church’s main entrance faces northwest to the intersection. Surrounding properties are a mixture of low-rise commercial, residential, and civic buildings in a flat landscape. The building is highly intact, designed in a bold mid-century Modernist architectural style and, viewed from the intersection across its open front church ground, it makes a strong contribution to the immediate streetscape.
\nFeatures of Mareeba Uniting Church (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nStanding adjacent to the church are the earlier former Methodist church hall (to the south) and the manse (to the east), which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nChurch
\nThe church comprises a square structure with a gable roof that features a sloping ridgeline. A face brick memorial tower rises above the front entrance, topped by a large cross.
\nThe building has a Modernist style with bold forms and high-quality construction techniques, including finely-constructed brickwork and joinery, minimal and colourful material palette, and triangle and diamond motifs throughout, found in features such as the shape of the roof, fascia ornamentation, integrated external flower beds, glazing panels, and fixed and movable furniture.
\nThe front street-facing elevations comprise full-height glazing with closely-spaced timber framing, forming a striking ‘screen’ to the street. The screens incorporate operable ventilation and cast patterned shadows within the church interior during the day and create a dramatic visual effect when the church is lit up at night. The building corners and tower are face brick and feature protruding interlocking regular bricks at the acute/obtuse corners. Non-street-facing elevations have single-skin, weatherboard-clad walls that angle outwards from the base with a band of timber-framed casement windows. These windows have sashes that have an angled top so that each pair of sashes has a triangular fanlight.
\nThe church has a symmetrical square plan with a diagonal central axis from the front entrance in the northwest corner, into a large and broad nave, to the chancel, and the vestry behind it in the southeast corner. The front entrance has a small recessed landing and two double doors into the nave. Inside the front doors is a V-shaped wall shielding the entrance doors and forming the base of the tower above. It holds a small war memorial shrine comprising wall-hung timber shelves. Nearby is a marble foundation stone set into the brick wall. Above the nave and extending over the chancel is a kite-shaped lowered ceiling lined with clear-finished stained timber boards. The ceiling faces slope gently down to form a peak above the nave. The chancel is raised by one step from the nave and its V-shaped rear wall is lined with diagonal timber boards matching the ceiling. The wall has a large, plain cross made from roughly-finished timber, and a diamond-shaped, cantilevered ‘holy table’ similar to that of the war memorial shrine. The small vestry contains a cantilevered table and light trough in the south-east corner, similar to the shrine. Two plain timber doors lead into the church on either side of the rear chancel wall.
\nInterior finishes in the church are generally minimal, with face brickwork exposed and joinery either stained and clear-finished, or painted brown-orange. The nave has a raw concrete floor, carpeted in some sections, and the building retains original light fittings.
\nThe church retains a considerable amount of original furniture designed by Oribin, which match the church’s geometric decorative features.
\nFeatures of the Church also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Church not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nChurch Setting
\nThe Church’s setting comprises open space on its street-facing sides which blends with the open space of the footpath to form a modest and informal civic space partially within the church’s allotments and partially within the road reserve. The space has minimal landscaping of grass with a concrete footpath. A Wayside Pulpit (c1960) stands to the southwest side of the church and includes a case for display signs.
\nFeatures of the setting of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the setting not of state-level cultural heritage significance includes:
\nViews
\nViews of the church of state-level significance include:
\nFeatures within these views not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMareeba Uniting Church (former) was built in the town of Mareeba on the Atherton Tablelands in 1960 and is one of a series of innovative buildings designed by Queensland architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin (1927-2016). Originally established as Mareeba Methodist Church, it was built during a period of Christian modernisation and growth, and served as its congregation’s place of worship from its dedication in August 1960 until January 2021.
\nThe Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns in far north Queensland, was named after squatter John Atherton, who was the first person to establish a cattle run in the area in the late 1870s.[1] In the 1880s the Atherton family established a wayside inn and store at the crossing of Granite Creek, supplying goods to traffic passing between Port Douglas to the north and the new tin mining township of Herberton to the south.[2] A settlement developed on the southern side of Granite Creek, on the traditional lands of the Muluridgi People, and was surveyed by EB Rankin as the town of Mareeba in 1891.[3] In 1893 it became a railhead when the Cairns to Kuranda line was extended, and by 1919 Mareeba was the district’s most important town.[4] Owing its prosperity to a diverse agricultural economy, post-World War II (WWII) Mareeba grew to become the largest tobacco growing centre in Australia, and in 1954 the town’s population reached 3369.[5]
\nThe earliest church services in Mareeba were conducted by visiting clergymen in the 1890s, from temporary premises such as the Mareeba State School (completed in 1893). The first church built in Mareeba was a United Protestant Church, constructed in 1896 on Walsh Street and shared by the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations for more than 60 years.[6] In 1954 the combined population of Methodists and Presbyterians in Mareeba was 752, of which just over half (388) identified as Methodist.[7]
\nMethodism arose as a group movement within the Church of England in the early 18th century during the industrial and agrarian revolutions.[8] It spread rapidly throughout the United States of America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries through itinerant preachers and later throughout the world through Methodist missionaries.[9] The term ‘Methodism’ arose from the methodical way the Christian faith was approached and included an emphasis on preaching, evangelism, a love for singing, and social activism.[10]
\nThe 1950s were a period of substantial change and reform within the Methodist and other Christian denominations throughout Australia, as they sought to become more relevant to modern society. Developments in theology and liturgy, coupled with an expansionary building program, led to a radical departure from established architectural traditions. Reflecting international trends, church designs moved away from historical revival styles and became increasingly influenced by Modernism.[11] However, it was expected that a church would still be recognisable as such, resulting in a wide range of variations combining traditional church elements, symbols, and functions with new construction techniques, materials, and forms.[12] A new flexibility in the spatial organisation of modern churches resulted in an immense variety of plan arrangements that broke away from the traditional cruciform or rectangular plan. These altered church interiors reflected the community celebration of worship, without distance between clergy and people.[13]
\nMany new Methodist churches, Sunday school halls, and parsonages were constructed throughout Queensland in the 1950s, replacing older buildings and meeting demand in new suburbs and growing regions. In addition, the church constructed new buildings to support its various charities and organisations including aged-persons homes, hostels, Young People’s Department (YPD) Camps, and Kings College at the University of Queensland St Lucia campus (opened 1955).[14]
\nMethodist optimism in the post-WWII period was demonstrated in ‘a series of nationalistic [sic] evangelistic campaigns, which climaxed in the “Mission to the Nation”’.[15] Carried out between 1953 and 1957, the Mission was the largest attempt ever made by the Methodist Church to reform the nation, emphasising the Christian faith as the only answer to social and industrial problems. Meetings were held in capital cities and main provincial centres throughout the country, conducted by campaign leader Reverend Alan Walker. Attracting large crowds, the crusade received wide newspaper and radio coverage.[16] During his Queensland tour in 1954, Rev. Walker visited the Atherton Tablelands on Sunday 4 July, where a massed service was held in Atherton in a WWII igloo (Merriland Hall, QHR 602016).[17]
\nAfter this event, the decision was made to progress with building a separate Methodist Church at Mareeba. The minutes of the Mareeba Circuit quarterly meetings note that in October 1954 a letter from the Northern Commission requested that steps be taken towards the building of a Methodist Church in Mareeba as soon as possible. To help finance the construction of new buildings, the Methodists arranged to sell their half of the United Church property to the Presbyterian Church for £2300, which was paid by the Mareeba Presbyterian Church in early 1957. Donations and legacies from parishioners also contributed to the church Building Fund. [18]
\nA Memorial Fund was established in July 1958 for the proposed new church and by October that year, more than £508 had been raised for this purpose.[19] Utilitarian war memorials in post-WWII were popular and many public buildings, including memorial churches, were funded with the assistance of the Commonwealth government’s tax deduction scheme for donations to war memorial funds.[20] In the case of the Mareeba Uniting Church, the memorial was an incorporated tower, rather than the whole building.
\nThe site for the proposed new Methodist church was on the corner of Walsh and Rankin streets, towards the southern end of town. The church had purchased two lots there in 1940 as the site for a manse, which was completed in early 1941.[21] In 1942 the church purchased a third adjacent lot to the south.[22] In preparation for relocating to the new site, a church hall was constructed on this lot in 1956-57, leaving the corner of the property vacant.[23] Over the next few years, fundraising continued and Cairns-based architect E H Oribin was engaged to design the new church.
\nEdwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin was born in Cairns in 1927. As a teenager during WWII, he lived in Brisbane where he obtained work with the Allison Aircraft Division of General Motors, rebuilding aircraft engines at Breakfast Creek in an early example of an Emil Brizay-designed igloo (demolished). Returning to Cairns in 1944, Oribin commenced architectural training with Sid G Barnes, Chief Architect of the Allied Works Council for North Queensland, whose training gave Oribin a solid grounding in structural design and construction. In 1950 Oribin moved to Brisbane to work and study, and on 10 February 1953 he obtained his registration as an architect in Queensland, returning to Cairns the following month to begin a partnership with Barnes. This partnership lasted until Barnes’ death in 1959, after which Oribin continued on his own until 1973 when he closed his full-time practice.[24] Oribin passed away in 2016.
\nOribin undertook a wide range of work in north Queensland between 1953 and 1978.[25] Throughout his career, he was devoted to experimenting with different structural and aesthetic ideas, drawing inspiration from a wide variety of Australian and international publications. Characteristics of Oribin’s work included meticulous detailing, structural creativity, and concern for the modulation of light.[26] He was also known for his model-making skills and superb craftsmanship, often creating objects himself.[27]
\nDuring the 1950s Barnes and Oribin were well known architects in Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands as well as further afield, receiving numerous commissions for a range of small and medium scale projects, such as fire stations, shops, and hospital facilities.[28] In 1956 Oribin designed the Mareeba Shire Hall (former; QHR 601553), which was constructed at a nearby site in Walsh Street in 1960-61.[29]
\nBy December 1959 plans for the Mareeba church were completed.[30] To be constructed primarily from brick and timber, the design had a square floor plan with its main entrance at the corner facing the intersection, full-height glass front walls with timber fins, and a brick tower. The interior was laid out on the diagonal, with the chancel and a small vestry in the southeast corner. This arrangement allowed the congregation to fan outwards around the altar, and was a type that had been successfully employed in Europe in the 1950s.[31] The choice of a square plan for the Mareeba Methodist Church took advantage of both the remaining space available on the site and its corner position.
\nThe contractor employed was Les Tinsley, a local builder who had worked with Oribin previously, having just constructed St Paul’s Anglican Church at Proserpine (QHR 601589, 1959).[32] A ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone was held on Saturday 2 April 1960, attended by Methodist church representatives from the Northern District. The stone was set by senior circuit steward Mr Andy Smith and an address delivered by the Reverend R W Moreton (of Cairns). During the ceremony, an inscribed silver trowel was presented to Smith by Oribin.[33]
\nThe church was completed within five months and was dedicated by the President of the Methodist Conference, Rev. Cyril A Read, on 6 August. It cost £9000. The tower was dedicated as a memorial to those who had served in World Wars I and II, with a small continuously lit red lamp intended to signify the people’s remembrance.[34] A wayside pulpit was added south of the building soon after the church’s opening, using funds raised on that day.[35]
\nThe unique design of the church attracted attention from both the Methodist and wider community. Articles about the building appeared in the Methodist Times, and the architectural journal Building Ideas, while an article in The Courier-Mail about modern churches, described it as ‘one of the most unusual design[s] with its sloping, wedge-shaped roof and louvred grill’.[36] Two years after its completion, a Tablelands Advertiser article described the church as already a landmark in the district.[37] The church was also photographed during the 1960s by noted architectural photographers Richard Stringer (1968) and Peter Wille (c1960). Oribin was named as an innovative architect in a study of significant 20th century building in 1988 and the building has since featured in articles and architectural theses.[38]
\nThe Mareeba Methodist Church was the second completed of three unique churches designed by Oribin in the late 1950s, the others being St Paul’s Anglican Memorial Church, Proserpine (1959, QHR 601589), and St Andrew’s Presbyterian Memorial Church, Innisfail (1961, QHR 602332). Each of these churches is distinctive in design, having directly responded to the needs of the clients, and experimented with construction and design ideas.[39] The Mareeba Methodist Church illustrates Oribin's use of angular motifs, similar to St Andrew’s Church in Innisfail,[40] Oribin’s first house (1958) and his Studio (1960, QHR 602825) in Cairns.[41]
\nOribin was particularly influenced by the mid-20th century work of American architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), particularly Wright’s ‘organic’ architecture.[42] Like Wright, Oribin’s architecture follows organic principles. His buildings are compatible with their environments, closely integrated with the site, and have regard for the processes of nature and the forms they produce.[43] Oribin’s buildings use local materials, respond to the topography and climate to produce comfortable conditions, and have highly organised layouts. Oribin’s first house was included in a 1969 journal article, which detailed organic architecture and its wide variety of forms, materials, and interpretations employed by Australian architects, with features such as clearly expressed timber structure, textured brickwork, free massing, and complex geometries that complemented natural elements of their site.[44]
\nThe Mareeba Methodist Church design shares many similarities to Oribin’s studio in Cairns (designed during the same year), which emulates the form and structure of one of Wright’s most important American works, the Unitarian Meeting House (1947-51) in Wisconsin.[45] Some of the studio’s features, such as the peaked gable roof form and angled timber side walls with triangular fanlights over casement windows, were reused and adapted by Oribin to suit the site and scale of the church.
\nThe church used ordinary materials in a highly creative way. Brick walls anchor the corners of the large angled roof, which is pierced by the brick tower. The timber and glass front screen walls incorporated operable ventilation panels and their repeated patterns cast a changing dappled light effect on the interior during the day and made an impressive display of the church when illuminated at night. ‘Natural’ finishes, which emphasised the inherent beauty of the base building materials, were used throughout. A contrast between light and dark materials was used for dramatic effect on the interior, where a central lower ceiling of stained and clear-finished timber boards appeared to hover over the seated congregation and formed a background wall to the chancel and its large cross. Triangle and diamond motifs were used for ornamentation.
\nDesigned to seat 200 people, the pews (custom-designed by Oribin) were laid out so that the congregation was grouped around the preacher, the furthest seat being only 9m from the pulpit.[46] Original plans show that a 2.8m high screen was to divide the entrance lobby from the church, however, no evidence of it having been built was found.[47] The church furniture, both fixed and movable (pews, removable communion rails, pulpit/lectern, stand for baptism font, moveable plant pots), was designed by Oribin to reflect the overall design of the church, with sharp angles and triangular ornamentation.
\nThe Mareeba church design includes triangular garden beds projecting from the brick ends of the front elevations. Oribin also designed movable timber plant pots for the church interior.[48]
\nOriginally set within the front entrance doors were four triangular glass panels featuring the Methodist Church emblem that were designed by Oribin and imported from England. After three of the panels were damaged, the fourth was removed and all were replaced with plain red glass.[49] In 2021, the surviving pane is displayed within the church, mounted on a wall.
\nVery few other changes have been made to the building in its lifetime. They comprise: installation of modern guttering and drainage; and removal, during the 1970s, of a carillon electronic bell used to signal religious ceremonies, after it malfunctioned.[50]
\nThe church became the Mareeba Uniting Church in 1977 after the amalgamation of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches to form the Uniting Church in Australia.[51] In 2010 the congregation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the church building.[52]
\nOribin’s contribution to Queensland architecture was recognised by the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2000, when the new ‘Building of the Year’ award for the Far North Region was named in his honour.[53] In 2013, two of Oribin’s other works, the first Oribin House and the Oribin Studio received the ‘Enduring Architecture Award’ at the Australian Institute of Architects’ Queensland Architecture Awards.[54]
\nIn 2021, the former Mareeba Uniting Church remains highly intact and is an excellent example of the design work of E H Oribin. It is no longer used for church purposes. Following 10 months during which the church was not used for services, initially due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Presbytery of Carpentaria of the Uniting Church in Australia, at the request of the Mareeba congregation, agreed to close the site. The reported reasons were: the church’s reduced and aging congregation, the cost of its ongoing maintenance, its location, and traffic issues. The last service held in the church took place on 31 January 2021.[55]
","criteria":"Mareeba Uniting Church (former) (1960) is important in demonstrating the growth and expansion of the Methodist Church and the evolution of church architecture in Queensland in the post-World War II (WWII) period. Its Modernist design reflects the post-war mission of the Methodist Church to become more relevant to modern society through liturgical change and extending its services across the state.
\nThe church, in its form, scale, materials and details, is an outstanding example of the contribution of renowned architect Edwin Henry (Eddie) Oribin (1927-2016) to the evolution of Queensland architecture through his range of innovative and unique buildings produced in northern Queensland from 1953. His contribution to Queensland architecture is recognised by the Australian Institute of Architects’ Eddie Oribin Building of the Year Award for the Far North Queensland region.
\nIncorporated in the church is a mid-20th century memorial tower dedicated to those who served Australia during World War I (WWI) and WWII, which is important in demonstrating the community’s involvement in these major world events. War memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland towns and cities and are important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Mareeba Uniting Church (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a post-WWII Modernist church in Queensland. Highly intact and an exceptional example of its type, it retains its: bold Modernist architectural style; incorporation of traditional Christian spaces (nave, chancel, vestry), configurations, and motifs in non-traditional forms; minimal material palette; tower; and original church furniture (holy table, pulpit, lectern, baptismal stand, presiders chairs, communion rails, pews, and plant pots).
\nThe place is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Oribin’s work. Embodying architectural concepts Oribin developed and refined over his career, Mareeba Uniting Church (former) is remarkable for its complex architectural simplicity, incorporating: the use of a rational plan grid and geometry; unconventional roof form; a high degree of craftsmanship and attention to detail; triangular decorative motifs; screen walls of glass and timber; simplified building forms and spatial arrangements; minimal material palette; creative manipulation of natural light and ventilation; and custom-designed, hand-crafted furniture.
|Mareeba Uniting Church (former) is important for its aesthetic significance as a building of exceptional architectural quality. Prominently located on a corner site and highly intact, it possesses beautiful attributes derived from its symmetry, form, scale, materials, detailed and meticulous assembly, careful manipulation of light and shadow, and cohesive Modernist style. The all-encompassing decorative aesthetic of the place includes coordinating original furniture.
|Mareeba Uniting Church (former), in its highly intact form, scale, materials, and details demonstrates a high degree of architectural excellence, employing standard building materials and elements in a highly-creative and carefully-detailed manner, achieved with a high-quality construction finish. The high architectural quality of the church was recognised in contemporary published reports on the building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":28859,"place_ref":602765,"name":"Atherton War Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cnr Kennedy Highway and Rockley Road","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-11-19","description":"The Atherton War Cemetery is located within the Atherton Cemetery Reserve on the south-eastern outskirts of the town. The war cemetery occupies the north-western corner of the triangular shaped 3.9 ha reserve which is bounded by Rockley Road to the north and the Kennedy Highway to the south-west.
The main entrance to the war cemetery is at the eastern end of the northern boundary which is formed by a brick pier and four-rail concrete fence. Wrought iron gates secure the entrance which is incorporated into a shelter constructed of brick columns with a concrete lattice roof. The shelter houses a bench, and a register box for a visitors' book and cemetery register. Bronze plated plaques attached to the shelter are inscribed as follows:
THIS WAR CEMETERY IS MAINTAINED
ON BEHALF OF
THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES
COMMISSION
BY THE
OFFICE OF AUSTRALIAN WAR GRAVES
Another bronze plaque reads:
DURING THE LAST 3 YEARS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR,1942-45, THE ATHERTON TABLELANDS AREA SERVED AS A MAJOR BASE AND TRAINING AREA FOR AUSTRALIAN TROOPS INVOLVED IN ACTION IN NEW GUINEA, BOUGAINVILLE AND THE LATER LANDINGS AT AITAPE - WEWAK, TARAKAN, LABUAN AND BALIKPAPAN. AUSTRALIA'S 6TH, 7TH AND 9TH DIVISIONS WERE BASED IN THE ATHERTON REGION, AND FROM HERE THE AIR FORCE STRUCK AT THE JAPANESE PRESSING DOWN FROM THE NORTH AND NORTH-WEST. MANY OF THE SERVICEMEN BURIED AT THIS SITE DIED IN LOCAL MILITARY HOSPITALS FROM WAR-RELATED WOUNDS, ACCIDENT OR ILLNESS.
THE ATHERTON WAR CEMETERY CONTAINS 164 BURIALS, COMPRISING 151 AUSTRALIAN ARMY, 12 RAAF AND 1 YMCA MEMBER.
A secondary service entrance for site management is located at the western end of the northern boundary fence with the remaining boundaries enclosed with mesh panel fencing.
The Atherton War Cemetery contains 164 uniformly marked and spaced graves and a Cross of Sacrifice set within a manicured lawn and gardens. Each of the graves is marked by a white marble headstone, rectangular in shape with a rounded top, carved military insignia, name, and rank of each soldier buried. Some headstones bear an epitaph. The headstones are evenly arranged in 11 rows, set into a concrete strip footing. Ten of these contain 16 headstones each, the final row has four.
The Cross of Sacrifice is located approximately 7.5 metres from the middle row of the headstones and stands about 4 metres high, set on a 3 metre square base. The cross is made of sandstone with bronze swords mounted on two sides. The plinth, base, stem and cross are octagonal.
While the arrangement of garden beds at the perimeter of the cemetery is of cultural heritage significance, the plant species within them are not and are replaced and upgraded from time to time to the standard required by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and specified in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Horticultural Manual.
","history":"The Atherton War Cemetery established in 1942, is situated within the Atherton Cemetery Reserve on the Kennedy Highway on the outskirts of Atherton. It contains a Cross of Sacrifice and 164 graves and headstones for soldiers and airmen killed during World War II. The Atherton War Cemetery is an example of the way in which the Imperial War Graves Commission's design principles, which were developed and implemented after World War I, were applied in a region that is significant for its World War II history and associations.
The Imperial War Graves Commission (which became the Commonwealth Graves Commission in 1960) was established in Britain by Royal Charter on 21 May 1917. The Commission's founder and vice chairman, Sir Fabian Ware, had submitted a memorandum to the 1917 Imperial War Conference outlining his concern for the upkeep of graves and sites of commemoration. During the conflict, Ware had used his mobile British Red Cross Unit to register and care for graves, and had received countless requests from bereaved families for information regarding their loved ones.
Once the Commission was formed, it resolved to create lasting memorials to those who lost their lives in battle and those families who had lost their loved ones.
To fulfil this aim, the Commission engaged eminent British architects to design the cemeteries and memorials. Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield were the first three principal architects of the Commission and the Director of the British Museum, Sir Frederic Kenyon, drew their recommendations into a set of key principles regarding the development and management of the cemeteries. These principles determined that each of the dead should be commemorated by name on the headstone or memorial; headstones and memorials should be permanent; headstones should be uniform; and there should be no distinction made on account of military or civil rank, race or creed.
The principles were then applied to three experimental cemeteries at Le Treport, Louvencourt and Forceville in France. Of these, the last was considered the most successful. In consultation with renowned garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, a walled cemetery was built there with rows of uniform headstones set in narrow garden beds within a lawn in a symmetrical layout with a centre aisle between Blomfield's Cross of Sacrifice on the western boundary and Lutyens' Stone of Remembrance on the eastern boundary. After some adjustments, Forceville became the template for the Commission's building program.
The Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves cemeteries thus incorporated the following key elements (although some were contingent on the number of burials):
Cross of Sacrifice
The central focus of war cemeteries with over 40 burials is the Cross of Sacrifice. It was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, an Imperial War Graves Commission architect who fought in the First World War. He created a tall, finely proportioned stone cross, with a symbolic downward pointing sword of bronze attached to its face, thus emphasising both the military character of the cemetery and the religious affiliation of the majority of the dead. It was designed to represent the faith of the majority and generally ranges in height between 4.5m and 9m depending on the size of the cemetery.
Stone of Remembrance
Sir Edwin Lutyens also fought in the First World War and was responsible for designing a general monument to be placed in war cemeteries called the Stone of Remembrance. It is suggestive of an altar and yet abstract and non-denominational, with horizontal lines and curved surfaces. The design was based on complex geometry derived from the Parthenon, giving an impression of majesty and tranquillity. Inscribed on the stone is the quote 'Their name liveth for evermore', taken from the Ecclesiasticus and chosen by Rudyard Kipling. The Stone of Remembrance is present in cemeteries where there are more than 1,000 burials and occasionally elsewhere although not at Atherton.
Headstones
Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission cemeteries contain headstones of a standard pattern, usually set in perfectly straight rows. At the top of each headstone is engraved the national emblem or the service or regimental badge of the dead person, followed by their rank, name, unit, date of death, age and often an appropriate religious emblem. At the foot of the headstone there is, in many cases, an inscription chosen by the person's relatives. Some cemeteries, for climatic reasons, use low pedestals with bronze plaques instead of headstones.
Horticulture
Creating a garden setting for war cemeteries, in an effort to make them places of quite contemplation, beauty and soothing to the bereaved, was one of the earliest ideas generated by the War Graves Commission. These ideas were put into practice by the architects involved, in particular Sir Edwin Lutyens who worked closely with the renowned garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. Her ideas about traditional cottage garden plants, particularly flowering ones, and their placement greatly influenced the appearance of war cemeteries.
Soon after the Commission completed its program of World War I cemeteries in 1938, World War II began and the Commission realised that their efforts would be needed in many more countries. As that war progressed in the Allies' favour, the Commission began restoring its WWI cemeteries and memorials and commenced the task of commemorating 600,000 Commonwealth casualties from WWII. It built 559 new cemeteries and 36 new memorials and changed its name to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in the 1960s as the construction program of WWII cemeteries drew to a close.
The Atherton War Cemetery
The Atherton War Cemetery was created on land adjoining the Atherton General Cemetery (1928) in 1942, the year before the Tableland's Base Area was established as part of the Atherton Project (when the Australian Army Headquarters moved from Townsville to the Tablelands) and at the same time that the Australian General Hospital (2/2 and 2/6) at Rocky Creek commenced operations. The area between Atherton and Cairns was used extensively as a training ground during World War II for Australian troops involved in action in New Guinea, Bougainville and the later landings at Aitape-Wewak, Tarakan, Labuan and Balikpapan. The Tablelands Base Area created a constant flow of Army traffic through Atherton's main street, as camps were set up to train troops in jungle warfare before their being sent to the islands north of Australia. Australia's 6th, 7th and 9th Division were based in the Atherton region. Wounded soldiers were taken to the Rocky Creek World War II Hospital Complex as well as to the station hospital at Mareeba State School.
The first burial in the Atherton War Cemetery took place following the death on 4 January 1943 of Gunner AM Hemsworth, of the Royal Australian Artillery (Grave AC1). In 1944 the cemetery was resurveyed and redesigned by members of the 7th Graves Registration and Environment Unit. Plans reveal a symmetrical design that comprised a grid of three equal sized plots A, B C in an east-west orientation with 11 evenly spaced rows containing 10 rows of 16 and one row of four headstones. The plots were separated by gravel paths. To the south of the plots an expanse of lawn divided into three with gravel paths, contained a Cross of Sacrifice at its centre. The whole was surrounded by a gravel roadway with gardens/lawn between it and the perimeter fencing. The burials were arranged chronologically with 1943-1944 burials occurring in Plot A, 1944 burials in Plot B and 1945-46 burials in Plot C. The last burial took place following the death of Lieutenant Frank Stuart-Boyle, Australian Army Ordnance Corps on 1 December 1946 (Grave CC4). Graves in the Atherton War Cemetery were initially marked by white wooden timber crosses and later replaced with the marble headstones although there are no documentary records that specifically state when this occurred. Photographic records held at the Australian War Memorial indicate the change occurred between 1944 and 1949.
Early images depict a flag pole in the cemetery, which was the focal point for each burial service. The flagpole has been replaced by the Cross of Sacrifice, in keeping with Commission policy that cemeteries with more than 40 graves have a Cross of Sacrifice. In total, there are 164 graves in the cemetery, representing 19 different Australian regiments including: Infantry, Army Service Corps, Air Force, Volunteer Defence Corps, Medical Corps and Engineers. One grave belongs to a member of the Young Men's Christian Association.
A formal agreement was made in 1948 between the Shire of Atherton and the Imperial War Graves Commission (Anzac Agency) to hold Atherton War Cemetery in perpetuity for use as a war cemetery and granted rights to the Commission regarding use of the land.
There are 14 war cemeteries and plots in Queensland, including the one at Atherton: Lutwyche War Cemetery (386 burials) and Cremation Memorial, Bundaberg War Cemetery (35 burials), Ipswich War Cemetery (68 burials), Kingaroy War Cemetery (22 burials), Maryborough (10 burials), Rockhampton War Cemetery (36 burials), Toowoomba War Cemetery (44 burials, QHR 602718), Townsville War Cemetery (222 burials), Cairns War Cemetery (98 burials), Charters Towers War Cemetery (33 burials), Gympie War Cemetery (5 burials), Warwick War Cemetery (21 burials, QHR 602152), and Woombye War Cemetery (26 burials). In addition there are a number of individual war graves in civil cemeteries throughout Queensland. The war cemeteries and individual graves in civil cemeteries are maintained by the Office of Australian War Graves, a branch of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. The Office of Australian War Graves is the agent of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Norfolk Island.
References
Cohen, Kay, Margaret Cook, Howard Pearce, and Queensland. Environmental Protection Agency. Heritage Trails of the Tropical North: A Heritage Tour Guide to Far North Queensland. Book, Whole vols. Brisbane: Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, 2001.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Information Sheet: The Structural Maintenance of the Commission's Cemeteries and Memorials Commonwealth War Graves Commission, [cited 3 July 2007]. Available from www.cwgc.org/admin/files/cwgc_structural.pdf.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. A History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, [cited 3 July 2007]. Available from http://www.cwgc.org/.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Website http://www.cwgc.org/content.asp?menuid=1&id=1&menuname=Who%20We%20Are&menu=main & http://www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_details.aspx?cemetery=2022502&mode=1
http://www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_plans.aspx?cemetery=2022502&mode=1
","criteria":"The Atherton War Cemetery is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being a product of Australia's involvement in World War II. North Queensland in general and the Atherton Tablelands in particular were important military sites during this country's involvement in the war in the South-West Pacific between 1941 and 1945. The Atherton War Cemetery is important as a memorial site to Australian soldiers and airmen who fought and died during the conflict, particularly in New Guinea.
The Atherton War Cemetery is closely associated with the Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, established by Sir Fabian Ware in 1921 to commemorate all individuals killed during war and to provide their families with a dignified and lasting memorial.
|The Atherton War Cemetery is important in illustrating the principal features drawn from the design guidelines that were established after World War I by the Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission to ensure war cemeteries of this size suitably commemorated the fallen. These include uniform headstones in regular rows, the Cross of Sacrifice and manicured gardens; aspects of which appear in the 2,500 war cemeteries constructed in approximately 150 countries around the world and serve to make a dignified and reverential memorial site. These key characteristics and the aesthetic quality they create have strong associations with four internationally significant architects: Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker, Sir Reginald Blomfield and Charles Holden.
|The Atherton War Cemetery is an evocative site that conveys the distinctive aesthetic qualities and solemn ambience essential to all Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission cemeteries. The formality of the War Cemetery - with its Cross of Sacrifice and uniform white marble headstones arranged in a regular pattern within a manicured lawn and horticultural border - make it a prominent feature distinguishable from the less formalised layout of the general cemetery.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29020,"place_ref":602648,"name":"Moreton Central Sugar Mill Worker's Housing (former)","alternate_name":"Mill Workers Housing","street_address":"17 & 19 Mill Street, and 14 & 16 Bury Street","suburb":"NAMBOUR","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-05-16","description":"The former Moreton Central Mill staff houses stand immediately east of the former mill site on elevated ground at the western ends of Mill and Bury Streets, Nambour. The mill manager's residence stands on sloping ground on Bury Street and the two staff cottages stand on level ground on Mill Street directly north of the manager's residence.
Former mill manager's residence
The planning and exterior and interior fabric show the extent of the early house and reflect changes made, particularly those of the 1930s and more recently.
The form of the early rectangular-plan house and projecting rectangular kitchen wing is evident in the external walls and the verandahs to the west, south and east and sunroom to the north. The house is timber-framed, clad with tongue and groove boards to the south and fibrous cement sheeting to the enclosed east and west verandahs. The kitchen wing, projecting to the north, is clad with weatherboards and has a later small skillion extension and back stairs to the east. The early house is sheltered by hipped roofs clad with corrugated metal sheeting and stands on a combination of concrete and steel post stumps infilled with timber palings. A chamferboard-clad rectangular extension to the north incorporates the earlier north verandah, is sheltered by a gabled roof and has banks of obscure clear and coloured glass casement windows to the east and north sides. Concrete block walls enclose a subfloor area at the northeast corner.
At the front of the house a projecting gable entrance to the west end opens onto the front verandah. The south wall onto the front verandah is of post and rail construction with a single-skin of vertical tongue and groove timber boards. A door from the enclosed west verandah, a central entrance door and two sets of french doors from the bedrooms open onto the front verandah. An opening for earlier french doors east of the central entrance doorway is infilled with vertical timber boards.
The central entrance door opens into a large living room off which the main bedroom opens to the west, a smaller bedroom to the east and sunroom extension to the north. The kitchen is at the northwest corner of the house opening off the sunroom. Enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting, the verandahs to the west and east accommodate a study and laundry to the west and an ensuite bathroom and part of a bedroom to the east.
There is a range of wall and ceiling treatments, floor coverings and joinery through the house. Reflecting a typical 1930s interior treatment, the walls and ceilings of the living room, main bedroom and parts of the smaller bedrooms to the east are lined with battened fibrous cement sheeting. A simple arch springing from tapered narrow posts divides the living room. These rooms have doors and architraves typical of the 1930s. Dividing partitions and linings in the sunroom and the fitout to the kitchen and bathrooms are recent. Other walls and ceilings are lined with fibrous cement sheeting. Floors are carpeted throughout except for tiles to bathrooms, kitchen and laundry.
The house stands in a large garden with a number of mature trees and shrubs and plantings within concrete-edged garden beds. The earlier tennis court is evident as a raised area to the west side. A hillshoist stands to the north east. Three concrete steps cut into the grassed footpath to Bury Street lead to a decorative metal entrance gate that is framed by two tall shaped timber posts. A timber side gate within the west side fence opens to the former mill site and a decorative metal gate opens to the easement and cottages to the north. Timber fences and hedges run around the boundaries.
Cottage No. 1 : 19 Mill Street
The planning and exterior and interior fabric show the extent of the early cottage and reflect changes made over time, some more recently.
Standing on low steel posts, the cottage at 19 Mill Street is timber framed, clad with weatherboards and sheltered by a pyramid roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The cottage has a partly open front verandah to Mill Street and a hipped roof kitchen wing extension to the rear southeast corner. The north wall onto the verandah has exposed timber studs with a single skin of horizontal chamferboards. Elsewhere the cottage is clad with weatherboards except the north end of the enclosed western verandah, which is clad with a battened fibrous cement sheeting.
The plan works off a central corridor from the front entrance to the living room which incorporates the enclosed rear verandah. Bedrooms open off the corridor and living room. A front room to the west of the corridor opens onto the living room. An early window frame and sill opens from the front room to the west verandah. The verandah side of this wall is lined with battened fibrous cement sheeting. The kitchen wing has a contemporary fitout. Other interiors are lined with fibrous cement sheeting. Joinery and aluminium sliding windows are recent as are the front and rear timber steps, the skillion roof to the south and the balustrading to the front verandah.
The cottage stands in a small garden with grassed areas, garden beds, trees and shrubs. A set of concrete steps cut into a high retaining wall to Mill Street climb to a concrete path leading to the front entrance. The property is bounded front and back with a hollow metal pipe and chain wire fence.
Cottage No. 2 : 17 Mill Street
The planning and exterior and interior fabric show the extent of the early cottage and reflect changes made over time.
Lowset on concrete and brick stumps, the 17 Mill Street cottage is timber-framed and clad with weatherboards. The main part of the cottage is sheltered by a pyramid roof truncated on the west side and clad with corrugated metal sheeting. There are two hipped roof extensions to the south.
A steep flight of concrete steps cut into the retaining wall to Mill Street alight onto a concrete path that finishes at a set of low timber steps to the open front verandah. The verandah balustrade is infilled with weatherboards and the floorboards are painted. Notches for mortise and tenon joints to the verandah posts may indicate the location of earlier balustrading. The front entrance door opens from the verandah into a central living area which is divided by a partition lined with vertical timber boards.
The plan works off the central living area which flows through to the southern extensions which accommodate dining, kitchen, laundry and bathroom. The north part of the living space opens through two sets of french doors onto an enclosed east verandah and through four-panelled timber doors to each of two bedrooms to the west. The walls and partitions to the north part of the living area and partitions to the bedrooms are of single skin post and rail construction with vertical tongue and groove timber boards. The west wall of bedroom two and part of bedroom one are lined with horizontal boards. A notch in the rail on the east side of bedroom one and the horizontal lining to the west may indicate the location of a previous partition. The ceilings of the bedrooms and living room are lined with narrow timber boards and have timber-framed sash windows with obscure patterned glazing. The partitions to the dining room and the kitchen and the east side of the south end of the living room are lined with vertical timber boards. The other partitions are lined with fibrous cement sheeting. The ceilings to these areas are lined with timber boards.
The east verandah is lined with fibrous cement sheeting and has a sloping painted timber floor. The bathroom and kitchen have contemporary fitouts. There is a single skin exposed stud framed partition between the laundry and kitchen. The rear door from the laundry opens onto a painted concrete ramp which descends to a concrete slab and shed to the southwest.
There is a range of joinery through the cottage, some typical of a 1930s idiom and others more recent. Floors are covered with carpet or vinyl.
The garden has grassed areas, garden beds, trees and shrubs. A hillshoist stands in the southeast corner.
Walkway between cottages
A narrow walkway runs between the cottages. A timber and chainwire fence runs to each side of a concrete path and there are metal gates to the north and south entrances.
Assorted sheds
There are a number of timber and corrugated iron sheds scattered across the cottage sites.
Easement
A vehicle easement runs to the west of the manager's house and turns east terminating at the rear of the cottage at 17 Mill Street.
Retaining wall
A high, battered rock and concrete retaining wall runs along the front of the two cottages to Mill Street. Three sets of steep concrete steps run within the wall accessing each cottage and the walkway between them.
Signal
A metal pole with signals and two signs CANE TRAIN MOVING is bolted to the footpath at the northeast end of 17 Mill Street.
Moreton Central Sugar Mill Cane Tramway [602522]
Part of the Nambour Section of the Moreton Central Sugar Mill Cane Tramway [602522] runs along Mill Street in front of the cottages at 17 and 19 Mill Street.
","history":"The two timber cottages at 17 and 19 Mill Street, built sometime between 1897 and 1917, and the timber house with its extensive garden and mature trees on Bury Street, built between 1907 and 1911, provide rare surviving evidence of the sugar industry that powered the economy of Nambour and the Maroochy Shire from 1897 to 2003. The cottages on Mill Street are the former residences of senior staff of the Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company, and the house on Bury Street was formerly the residence of the mill's manager.
Although timber was a vital part of the early economy of the Sunshine Coast region, sugar eventually became the primary agricultural activity of the Maroochy Shire. However, efforts to grow sugar cane in the area were isolated and sporadic between 1865 and 1880. In 1880 sugar prices rose and this, along with speculation about a future North Coast Railway between Brisbane and Gympie, encouraged further selection and small scale sugar growing in Maroochy.
The best hope for cane growers in the Maroochy Shire was the establishment of a central sugar mill. Although the first half of the 1880s was a golden era for those Queensland sugar producers who operated by the plantation system, under which large areas of sugar cane were worked by South Sea Islander labourers, Premier Samuel Griffith sought to promote closer settlement via small-scale cane farming by white settlers. Small sugar mills on individual plantations would be superseded by a series of large central mills, each processing the sugar cane of a group of small farmers.
Queensland's first central mill opened at North Eton near Mackay in 1888, and in 1893 the Sugar Works Guarantee Act provided for government loans to local companies to build central mills, secured by mortgages over the lands of their shareholders (the cane farmers). Fifteen year loans would be made to incorporated companies where there was enough suitable land, already farmed by small canegrowers, to supply a mill. The company's freehold land (the mill site) would also be mortgaged to the government, and all building contracts would have to be approved by the Department of Public Works.
The Maroochy region was well suited for a central mill site as it was a region of small farms. By the mid 1880s there were 116 people employed in mixed farming, 70 in sugar, 52 in timber, and only 15 in grazing. The Maroochy Shire developed into Queensland's largest fruit growing area between the 1880s and 1915, with bananas being grown from the 1880s, and pineapples from the 1890s. Dairy farming would also play an important part in the local economy from the 1890s. However, after the early 1890s Depression, and the 1893 floods, many farmers were considering quitting the area, and sugar offered an alternative source of income to mixed food crops.
In early 1894 some farmers met at Rosemount School on Petrie's Creek, to discuss a central sugar mill. A committee was formed and applied to have land in the area assessed by the government for its viability, and similar applications were made by farmers at Dulong and Yandina. In mid-1894 R.W. McCulloch, from the Department of Agriculture, assessed the potential sugar-growing land in the district, and concluded that there was sufficient acreage to support a mill. McCulloch also believed that Nambour would be the best site for a central mill, with its site on the railway, and cane-growing land to its east and west.
The town of Nambour had begun with the building of a hotel by Mathew Carroll in the 1880s, and had developed in anticipation of the arrival of the North Coast Railway. After the Brisbane to Yandina section of the railway opened in January 1891, the town of Petrie's Creek (formed by the subdivision of freehold land, rather than by Lands Department survey) was renamed Nambour. Sugar became the sole crop of most farms in the Nambour district, and the mill ensured that Nambour became the commercial centre of the Shire.
The Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company was registered on 21 December 1894, the first meeting of the mill's Board of Directors took place in January 1895, and tenders for the mill were called in February. In December 1895 eight acres 1 rood and 24.9 perches of Lawrence Cusack's estate, being liquidated by the South Australian Land Mortgage and Agency Company, was transferred to the company at the site of the future mill and its housing. By this time the population of Nambour was about 150 people. During 1896 the mill was constructed, and a low dam wall was built at a waterhole on Petrie's Creek, with a pump mounted on the bank to supply water to the mill. The first season's crush took place in 1897, when 752 tons of sugar was produced from 7553 tons of sugar cane. Pipes from the dam to the mill had been laid under the railway tracks that year, with the water being pumped into elevated tanks at the mill. To increase the volume of water, a series of sandbag weirs were also built across the creek.
The mill's finances were not in good shape in its early years, due to problems with maintaining a steady supply of sugar cane to the mill. Firstly, these problems were linked to the tramway system, and a tendency to prioritise the building of tramline routes on the basis of the self-interest of the mill directors, rather than the most cost-effective ratio of tramline mileage to acreage of sugar cane accessed. Speed of delivery was another issue. Until the purchase of a Krauss engine in 1904, the cane trucks were towed by horses, due to the government's reluctance to authorise the purchase of locomotives. The Federation drought which culminated in 1902 also reduced the supply of cane available for crushing.
In 1899 the government took over the mill's management and its financial liabilities, at the suggestion of the mill's directors, but by 1904 the mill was still a 'non-earning enterprise', unable to repay its government loan. Rather than foreclose on the mill, the State Treasurer took over the company's affairs and worked on increasing the supply of cane to the mill. In 1906, to forestall foreclosure, money was borrowed from the London Bank of Australia to pay off the government, with the growers' land once more used as security. In January 1907, the Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company was handed back as a private enterprise.
The London Bank was paid off by 1914, due to the sale of the mill's western tramline to the Maroochy Shire Council after cold weather had convinced cane farmers to the west of Nambour to convert to dairy farming. Experiments in 1909 by the Moreton mill had shown that cane tramlines could be used for public transport, and the Shire Council extended the two foot gauge tramline to Mapleton in 1914.
From this time forward the mill's fortunes improved. In 1915 the Sugar Cane Prices Act, and the Commonwealth War Precautions Act effectively nationalised the sugar industry, and the 1923 Commonwealth-State sugar agreement guaranteed a market for sugar. There were bumper sugar crops in Maroochy in 1924 and 1925, and the mill was expanded and electrified in the mid 1920s. Around 1934 to 1935 a weir was built on Petrie Creek, and in 1935 a new 20,000 gallon tank was built in the mill yard. The sewer that was constructed for the Nambour CBD in 1912 was flushed out daily with 500 gallons of water from the mill's tanks, through a filter bed of sand and ashes, and water was supplied to both hotels in Nambour by 1937. From 1962 the water supply of the town was supplemented from Wappa Dam. In 1969 the level of weir was raised 300mm (12 inches), and in the 1980s the weir wall was again raised.
Soil erosion had pushed sugar off the Blackall ranges by the early 1950s, but sugar boomed in this period. By the 1970s sugar was Maroochy's biggest industry, and the mill was purchased by the Howard Smith Company in 1976. Depression hit the sugar industry in 1984, thanks to competition from European beet sugar, and by 1985 tourism had overtaken sugar as Maroochy's largest industry. In addition, between 1980 and 2003 more than 1000 hectares of sugar land in the Maroochy Shire was lost to urban development and other uses. The mill was sold to Bundaberg Sugar in 1987, which was taken over by the British company Tate and Lyle in 1991. The Belgian company Finasucre acquired the mill in 2000, and it was closed in December 2003, after over 100 years of operation. Although the mill was demolished in 2004, tram tracks along Mill Street and Howard Street, the staff houses next to the mill site, and the weir on Petrie's Creek still exist as reminders of the industry that was once the economic lifeblood of Nambour and the Maroochy Shire.
From the outset of the Central Mill system, it was usual for the company to provide accommodation for senior staff and for some mill workers, since many mills were in isolated areas or in new towns that were short of accommodation. At a meeting of the mill directors on 14 May 1897 it was proposed that tenders be called for two buildings to accommodate senior mill staff - the manager (1896 to 1900), John A Malcolm, and the secretary (1896 to 1904), John R Isgar. The houses were to comprise four rooms, with a hipped roof, the two front rooms of each to be ceiled, with studds (sic) outside. Their size would be 7.8m x 6.6m (26 feet x 22 feet), with 1.8m (6 feet) front verandahs. They were to have an iron chimney, and an iron roof, and would be built with hoop pine boards. A tender was also called for bachelors' quarters, sized 12m x 4.8m (40 feet x 16 feet). At the meeting of directors on 11 June 1897 the tender of Thomas Cusack for the cottages was accepted, at £125.18 shillings each, with six weeks to complete the contract.
It has been claimed that the two dwellings at 17 and 19 Mill Street are the cottages constructed for the manager and secretary in 1897, but there is insufficient evidence to substantiate this claim. Cusack was contracted to build two identical structures, and although the two Mill Street cottages were originally similar in size and plan, with four room cores and L-shaped verandahs, they may have been built as late as 1917. By 1926 a line of staff residences faced Mill Street.
Documentary evidence indicates that the chief engineer from 1911 to 1913, Sam Baildon, was refused a company house in 1912, which means that there was no dedicated chief engineer's cottage before that time. However, in 1914 Samuel Glass, cane inspector, was living in a cottage of four rooms and a kitchen in Mill Street, and in 1917 Albert Shearer, a locomotive driver, requested a company house, and a cottage was erected for him "to the same plans as the chief engineer's cottage". In addition two residences were moved to Mill Street, from close to the mill, during the 1925 and 1926 mill expansion. In 1926 the cottages in Mill Street used by the chief engineer, secretary, and second engineer were extended and painted. In 2003 one of the authors of a the book Moreton Sugar Mill: Sweet Heart of Nambour stated that 17 Mill Street was the chief engineer's cottage (pre-1915), that 19 Mill Street was the cane inspector's cottage (1914), and that a house at 21 Mill Street (demolished some time after 1966) had been the chemist's cottage (1917).
Regardless of the actual build dates of the surviving two cottages, and which staff member lived in them at any particular time, it is clear that they are surviving examples of the houses erected for senior staff by the Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company between 1897 and the late 1930s. The Mill Street cottages stand on part of the Moreton Central Sugar Mill's original 1895 land purchase, and although they have been extended and modified since their construction they have been an integral part of the mill site and the mill's operations.
The cottage at 19 Mill Street was constructed as a modest timber cottage of a lesser scale than the manager's residence in Bury Street. Changes have been made, but the original form and planning are evident. It was originally of single skin construction, with 200mm horizontal cladding and hardwood external studs. It had three bedrooms, a dining room, hallway, and verandahs to the front, west and part of the rear. Additions and changes have included weatherboard cladding to most of the exterior, enclosure of the western and rear verandah, and removal of internal walls to the dining room and the wall between the dining room and the back verandah. Internal walls and ceilings have been lined, and some doors have been removed. A kitchen wing was added, possibly in the 1920s. There has been a bathroom addition to the southern end of the western verandah, and aluminium framed windows have been added throughout.
The cottage at 17 Mill Street was constructed as a modest timber cottage, with a timber frame and using 100mm vertical tongue and groove boarding and hardwood weatherboards. Changes have been made but the original form and planning are evident. Changes include enclosure of the eastern verandah, and extensions to the rear for a kitchen and bathroom post-1925.
The residence on Bury Street was the second manager's residence built by the company. Evidence suggests that it was built between 1907 and 1911. After John Malcolm, mill managers had included Drummond McPherson (1900 to 1902), John Lunn (1902 to 1904) and RW McCulloch (several months in 1904). Wilfred Desplace was manager from May 1904 to 1907, when he was replaced by William Lyle, for whom a cottage with "two rooms and a verandah" was erected. This may refer to the house on Bury Street, although it originally comprised a core of four to five rooms. James Edwards was appointed mill secretary in 1907, and he moved into the cottage that had been built for the manager before the government takeover.
In 1908 Walter Lanham constructed £44 worth of alterations and additions to the manager's cottage, and this may refer to the kitchen wing to the rear of the Bury Street house. In 1912 George Greathead moved into the manager's residence, which had been occupied by Edwards during 1911. Greathead was employed by the company as a chemist from 1909, and after acting as combined chemist and manager in 1911 he became the general manager of the mill in 1912, holding this position until 1932. When Greathead moved into the Bury Street house Edwards moved back into the 1897 manager's cottage, which had become known as the secretary's cottage. Edwards soon resigned and was replaced by George F. Scott, who was the mill's secretary between 1912 and 1940.
A photograph taken from the street in 1914 shows the original house and its southern and eastern verandahs, and view from the mill's chimney in 1925 shows the kitchen extension on the northwest corner of the house. A tennis court also existed in the garden between the house and the mill, as George Greathead was fond of tennis. During World War II the tennis court was excavated to build an air raid shelter. After Arthur Thorp became the manager in 1937, he commissioned repairs and alterations that transformed the manager's house in a "very nice home". This work included relining and remodelling the main rooms; realigning some internal walls, including infilling of one set of French doors to the verandah; replacement of the French doors; and removing part of the rear verandah and replacing it with a sunroom on the northeast corner. The front steps were relocated to the southwest corner, and given a gable entrance. During the 1950s and 1960s the eastern verandah and part of western verandah were enclosed, and in the 1990s the bathroom and kitchen were refurbished, an en-suite was built on the eastern verandah, part of sunroom was relined, and the balustrade on the southern and western side was repaired. During Thorp's tenure, the house became known as "Moreton House". Mill managers continued to use the house until the mill closed in 2003.
","criteria":"As rare surviving evidence of the Moreton Central Sugar Mill, the mill staff housing is important in illustrating the development of the sugar industry in Queensland, and the impact of the sugar industry on the settlement of the North Coast region. The sugar industry influenced the pattern of growth of Nambour as a prominent mill town and regional centre, and influenced the pattern of settlement of the associated farms and townships of the region during the twentieth century.
|As a group the houses are good examples of purpose-built staff accommodation. The houses demonstrate the practice common to a number of industries of providing housing to encourage workers to an area especially in isolated areas or new towns where accommodation is not readily available. Provision of accommodation for senior staff and some of the mill workers was the usual practice for the company or co-operative within the central mill system in Queensland.
In form and setting, the houses illustrate the practice of providing a hierarchy of size and amenity in housing corresponding with seniority within the company, e.g. the manager's residence is more substantial and set in a larger garden reflecting its function as accommodation for the manager in comparison to the cottages which were for less senior staff. In their close proximity to the mill site, the houses illustrate the practice of constructing staff accommodation close to the mill or place of work or within an associated precinct.
|The sugar industry was an important and vital part of the economy of the region and very little physical evidence survives of the industry particularly the mill and its associated infrastructure. The mill staff housing is rare surviving evidence of the sugar industry in the region illustrating a way of life that was once common but has now vanished.
It is known that Moreton Central Sugar Mill constructed a number of staff houses and a bachelors' quarters. These three surviving dwellings remain as the only evidence of staff housing purpose-built by the Moreton Central Sugar Mill within the mill precinct.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29021,"place_ref":602649,"name":"The H2 HINDE TREE (Macadamia integrifolia) on Colliston","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"926 Gilston Road","suburb":"GILSTON","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"A single H2 Hinde tree survives from the small macadamia orchard originally planted on Colliston sometime in the 1920s (another H2 tree on the site was planted after grafting trials conducted in the 1950s). What remains of the farm is an almost 11.5 hectare parcel of land situated between the Nerang River and Gilston Road, within 500 metres of the Hinze Dam wall and Advancetown Lake in the Gold Coast hinterland. The town centre of Nerang is approximately nine kilometres to the north-east.
The H2 Hinde (Macadamia integrifolia) tree is situated in a corridor of trees running north to south that divides the block in two in this area. It is approximately eight metres tall and has a metal tag painted with orange over one of its main branches, apparently put there by JM Wills during his survey work for the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock in 1948 and identifying it as a parent tree. The H1 and H3 macadamia trees were located between five and ten metres to the south. None of the H3 Stevenson trees survive. The remaining H1 Colliston is located about two metres to the east of the outhouse.
","history":"The H2 Hinde tree is located on Colliston, a former farm in the Gold Coast hinterland about nine kilometres south-west of Nerang in the Gilston district. It is the parent of a variety(1) of the species Macadamia integrifolia and was probably planted in the 1920s. It was registered by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock in 1960 as a scion wood,(2) and in the two decades after that time, a significant number of commercial orchards in the State propagated trees using material from this tagged parent tree, it being one of only two Australian-developed varieties to have then achieved such a status. The macadamia nut industry is the largest based on an indigenous Australian food crop and since the mid-1990s this country has become the world's largest exporter of the nuts.
Colliston was selected by Michael James Hinde in 1879 when land along the upper reaches of the Nerang River was being opened to closer settlement. In 1882 he married Alice Batten, the daughter of a Crown Land Ranger living at Pimpama. According to family lore, it was while he was walking to visit her before they married that he came across some native macadamia nut seedlings, uprooted them and re-planted them on Colliston. Otherwise he practiced small-scale farming and eked out a difficult living for himself and what was to become a large family of eight children, his enterprise emulating the nature of many other farms in the Albert Shire. He was resourceful in his efforts to cultivate new crops and test their worthiness as saleable products. Some of his crop choices reflected those made by many other farmers in the area, including maize and arrowroot in the early years, and turning to oranges in the early twentieth century. Like many others he established a small dairy. In lean times he harvested fruits growing wild on his property, such as raspberries, gooseberries and tomatoes, and caught fish in the river and fowl in the scrub. He planted a vineyard, and practiced apiary. Following his death in 1937 Colliston passed to his eldest son, who engaged a niece and her husband, William Hill, to manage the farm.
Also according to family lore, when his orange trees began to decline (probably in the 1920s), MJ Hinde started to cultivate macadamia trees between them, using material from the native trees he had planted in the early 1880s. A member of the Proteaceae family, series Folliculares and tribe Grevillea, which includes hakea and banksia, the genus Macadamia is divided into tropical and subtropical species. The three main varieties of subtropical macadamia - M. tetraphylla, M. integrifolia, and M. ternifolia - are indigenous to the coastal rainforests of south-eastern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Of these only the first two bear edible nuts.
There is some dispute as to which explorer, Cunningham or Leichhardt, was the first to encounter macadamia trees in the wild; however none disagree that it was rediscovered in 1857 in the form of a single tree without fruit by Dr Ferdinand Von Mueller, Royal Botanist at Melbourne, and Walter Hill, Superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, in forest growing along the Pine River. After Mueller returned south, Hill continued to collect samples from the wild, and it was only by accident that he discovered that one species in his collection produced edible, flavoursome nuts. In 1858 Mueller named the new genus in honour of John Macadam, MD, then Secretary of the Philosophic Institute of Victoria to which he presented its discovery; and in the same year Hill planted the first cultivated macadamia at his Botanical Gardens. Hill actively promoted the species throughout Queensland and the world, distributing material wherever he could. However, the proper distinction between the two species that bear edible nuts - M. tetraphylla and M. integrifolia - was not scientifically established until 1954.
According to historical research conducted by Ian McConachie,(3) following the 1857 'discovery', early settlers were discussing and cultivating macadamias for the quality of the nuts, despite the fact that their scrub-felling practices were destroying many native tree stands. From this time, botanical interest, as well as the delicacy of flavour and texture of the nut, meant seedlings and nuts were rapidly being removed from their native habitats, often to other parts of the world. For example, material was taken from the Mount Bauple area to Hawaii in the 1880s, and specimen trees were being grown at the University of California by the late 1870s and in France by 1890. Along with private individuals and enthusiasts, the New South Wales and Queensland governments distributed macadamia seed widely.
Macadamia trees, or their nuts, had many different names during this period: in New South Wales they were called Bush Nuts or Mullimbimby Nuts; further north they were called Queensland Nuts or Bauple Nuts (or Bopple and Popple); and in all areas they were known as Australia Nut, Poplar and Nut Oak. Aboriginal groups in each of the localities where the nuts were found wild had named them: boombera was common in New South Wales, the Pine River groups called them burrawang; and in most of Queensland they were called kendel or kindal kindal.
The first Australian commercial macadamia orchards were established in New South Wales from the late 1870s. It was not until 1910 that the first small orchard was planted in Queensland near Coolum. Others in the North Coast hinterland followed. During the first twenty years of the twentieth century both State Departments of Agriculture were actively acquiring knowledge about the crop and assessing its commercial potential, however the issue of cracking the generally thick shells enclosing the edible kernels thwarted development of the industry.
A fledgling cottage macadamia industry emerged in Queensland during the 1920s and 1930s; as a June 1923 article from the Queensland Agricultural Journal suggests: "a considerable acreage has recently been placed under nuts in the State". Around this time a small orchard of approximately 30 macadamia trees, including the tree under discussion here, was established at Colliston, although some experimental plantings may have occurred earlier. The general public was greatly interested in the nuts, evidenced by a 1930s estimation of the large number of trees being grown in backyards; 20,000 in Brisbane and 30,000 between Grafton and Maryborough.
From 1931 the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock began to promote macadamia tree cultivation as an adjunct to other farming activities. By November 1933 south-east Queensland growers were having success planting macadamia trees between banana plants, in anticipation that the macadamias would become commercially viable when the bananas began to decline. Reflecting this surge in the industry, the Australian Nut Association was established in 1932 to foster the wider growing of macadamia nuts, although it failed after ten years. Notably for the H2 Hinde macadamia trees growing on Colliston, in 1939 William Hill, then manager of Colliston, and MJ Hinde's brother George, provided assistance with a Queensland Agricultural Journal article identifying where the trees grew wild in the Gilston district and discussing their potential for commercial growing. This was to begin a long association between the managers of Colliston and the author of the article, John McGregor Wills, the State's Senior Advisor in Horticulture who became a great supporter of the commercial potential of the nut.
After World War II the commercial cropping of macadamia trees in Queensland was given renewed attention by its Department of Agriculture and Stock through the methodical survey, selection and experimental propagation of scion and stock material. In 1948 Colliston was visited again by JM Wills to assess the trees growing there. He tagged the trees and took away a range of material, which was investigated in trials, some of which were conducted at the Maroochy Horticultural Experiment Station outside Nambour from the 1950s and into the 1970s. The macadamia varieties Wills identified at Colliston were among other scion woods discussed in an Advisory Leaflet (No. 614) issued by the Division of Plant Industry and published in the Queensland Agricultural Journal in July 1961. The three types of trees that were growing on the property were assigned cultivar names and registered in 1960 as scion wood with the Department of Agriculture and Stock, as follows: H1 Colliston, H2 Hinde and H3 Stevenson. H1 and H3 were of the M. tetraphylla rough-shelled variety, H1 being thin-shelled and H3 hard. H2 Hinde was of the M. integrifolia variety, the shells of which are smooth and of medium thickness. One of its chief distinguishing features is a small indentation in the shell casing.
The H2 Hinde tree is the sole surviving of the three macadamia trees on Colliston that were tagged in 1948 by JM Wills, and finally registered as scion wood and assigned cultivar names in 1960. Of the three originally tagged trees, only the H2 variety was used for commercial purposes. The H2 Hinde tree on Colliston is the parent from which all other clones of this variety have been propagated.
Concerted efforts had been made to develop a viable macadamia nut industry in Hawaii, and it was these successes that spurred developments in the Australian industry. During the 1950s and early 1960s visits to Australia were made by a number of leading US macadamia scientists through the auspices of the California Macadamia Society and Colliston's H-series trees were visited and sampled for testing in Hawaii. Australia did not develop a reliable grafting method until 1958.
During the initial surveys and trials of the 1940s and 1950s, when both Queensland and News South Wales government agriculture departments were visiting Colliston, the H2 Hinde proved itself to be a heavy-bearing Australian variety. When commercial interests began to invest in the industry during the early 1960s, led by the Colonial Sugar Refining Co Ltd (later CSR Ltd), the H2 Hinde, only one other Australian cultivar, and a number of Hawaiian cultivars were deemed most suitable for commercial cultivation; the H2 being most appropriate for locations with a temperate climate. From the 1960s and into the 1980s the H2 Hinde as an Australian variety was widely cultivated in the country's commercial macadamia orchards, most notably in New South Wales, and to a lesser extent in Queensland where CSR and its preferences for Hawaiian cultivars predominated. This situation did not change until it was determined that the Hawaiian cultivars did not yield as highly in Australia and further research had to be done to develop more home-grown varieties. This work was led by the Australian Macadamia Society, which was formed out of Queensland in 1974, under the auspices of its Technical Advisory Committee (established in 1980), and the monies it levied from members. A survey of Australian growers revealed that the H2 Hinde was still considered a major variety in 1983. And when varietal performance trials were being conducted a decade later, the H2 Hinde was deemed an industry standard. Currently the two States equally share Australia's world-dominating macadamia export market, but large plantings in Queensland will ensure it becomes the major future producer.
When the commercial orchard trees of the H2 Hinde variety had reached the end of their economic or bearing lives (as distinct from their natural life spans) in the 1980s, they were replaced with trees grown from other scion woods that had been extensively trialled and found to possess a number of desirable characteristics, most notably imperviousness to certain fungal infections. However over the past twenty years the H2 Hinde has been the dominant variety kept by nurseries, with probably 90% of all grafted trees for commercial purposes using it as rootstock. It was its vulnerability to fungal disease that destroyed the small orchard of which the remaining, tagged H2 Hinde tree had been part. Of the two other macadamia cultivars grown on Colliston and registered with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock in 1960, only the H1 Colliston survives.
(1) The horticultural use of the term 'variety' refers to selected clones usually propagated by grafting. A parent tree is a genetically unique plant that is selected for specific traits, in the case of macadamias these include: strong tree growth, low incidence of pests and diseases, low incidence of stick-tights and premature germination of nuts, reduced years to bearing, high kernel quality and desirable market requirements (Wilkinson, J. 2005 Nut Grower's Guide: The Complete Handbook for Producers and Hobbyists. Canberra: CSIRO Publishing, p. 145.).
(2) The term 'scion wood' refers to the part of a tree that is grafted onto the roots or stem of another, known as the rootstock. This grafted branch or bud transmits the flowering or fruiting characteristics of the variety from which it is taken. With macadamia trees grafting is the only method, reliable and speedy enough by commercial standards, of growing a plant that will exhibit the sought after nut bearing characteristics, as they do not always grow true-to-type when propagated from seeds or seedlings.
(3) Ian McConachie was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2006 for his contributions to the macadamia industry as a grower and exporter. He has also had a long involvement with the Australian Macadamia Society Ltd, particularly with its Technical Advisory Committee and has been instrumental in furthering knowledge of the genus and establishing the Macadamia Conservation Trust, which aims to protect remaining native trees.
","criteria":"The H2 Hinde tree (Macadamia integrifolia), c1920, which survives on Colliston is significant to the commercial development of the Australian macadamia nut industry, particularly its establishment phase from the 1960s to the 1980s. Only two Australian-grown varieties of macadamia received official endorsement and gained popularity with commercial orchards throughout this State, as well as New South Wales, following extensive experimentation on a range of scion and stock material conducted by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. The H2 Hinde at Colliston is the parent tree of one of these two varieties. Since World War II, due to determined efforts on the part of government and commercial groups, the macadamia nut industry has become Australia's largest bush foods industry and dominates the world macadamia export market. The H2 Hinde tree cultivated at Colliston has played a key role in this success, first as scion wood, and in the last twenty years, as the parent of most rootstock used to propagate the large majority of commercial orchard macadamia trees in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29022,"place_ref":602650,"name":"Townsville Showground","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"72-104 Ingham Road","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-16","description":"The Townsville Showground is located on the southern side of Castle Hill and adjacent to Ingham Road approximately 5kms from the city centre: it is bounded by Ingham Road, Kings Road, Woolcock Street and Parkes Street with the main entrance accessed from Parkes Street off an access easement which runs alongside the railway line. Two purpose built sub surface stormwater drains traverse the grounds: one in a north-south direction and the other east-west.
Encompassing a total area of over 14.38 hectares, the Townsville showground comprises a collection of purpose-built buildings, yards, ticket booths, gates, turnstiles, additional seating and open space. These are eclectic and utilitarian in form with many examples of additions, re-location or building materials recycled within the precinct. Elements of particular significance include the stud cattle pavilions (circa 1890s), central show ring arena (est.1882), Grandstand (1901), Heatley Hall ( circa.1940), Poultry Exhibition pavilion (circa 1920 ), Exhibition pavilion, (circa 1920) ticket boxes, main entrance and side entrance (c 1946), as well as mature Banyon Trees within the grounds. For the purpose of description, the showground has been divided into two sections. Individual building numbers mirror those identified in the Draft Townsville Showground Management Plan prepared by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines 2005.
Section 1. The showground is divided into two main areas with the first area including the main show ring arena, surrounding grandstands and exhibition pavilions located at the northern side of the showground running along Ingham Road. Principal elements of cultural heritage significance include:
20. Tunbridge & Tunbridge Grandstand: (1901):
The roof is hipped with eaves overhang of corrugated steel sheeting on timber framing and timber trusses. The rear wall of the upper level retains the original timber louvres designed for ventilation. Two aisles provide access to the three banks of bench seating with the rear six rows including timber lumbar support. The grandstand has a timber floor in the grandstand seating area. Tall hardwood columns with mouldings and a decorative timber bressumer to the front and sides create nine separate bays. Most of the original decorative brackets are missing. Access to the Grandstand is achieved via two pairs of introduced steel stairs constructed in the 1970s when the building was relocated to its current location. Underneath the grandstand is exhibition/storage space with a concrete floor which is accessed from the sides and rear wall. An additional open shaded area has been added to the rear with a gabled roof.
21. Interwar Toilets: (c. 1920-1940): Located next to the Grandstand the toilets are timber framed with chamferboard external cladding and high level timber louvred ventilation. The roof is hipped with corrugated steel sheeting and unusual semi-circular steel ridge and hip flashing.
Un numbered: Central Show Ring: (est. 1882):
The central ring consists of a grassed centred arena encircled by an elliptically-shaped track with the two long straights covering a distance of approximately 600 metres with a perimeter gravel track and inner track of sand loam. The inner fence is fabricated from welded piping with small steel sections and a top rail. This incorporates a mechanical 'lure' facility used for greyhound racing. The outer fence is constructed of concrete block with a decorative triangular motif at regular intervals. The outer ring follows the fall of the land and is strengthened via concrete buttresses. Posts constructed of steel pipes are spaced at regular intervals and filled by a steel cyclone mesh infill with a metal handrail on top. The whole outer fence is painted white. Access to the ring is achieved though regular access points, some which are concrete ramps. The Show ring and arena provide a central focal point by which the Exhibition buildings, liquor stands, amenities are constructed around. The ring along with the grandstands, poultry shed, Heatley Hall and a former Army Hall are located on the northern end of the precinct, with the main showground entrance and office area located on the north eastern corner.
23. Exhibition building/ Poultry and Bird Fancier Pavilion: (c. 1920)
The Poultry and Bird fancier pavilion is a long rectangular building measuring approximately 30 X 9 metres and running parallel to Heatley Hall and the Townsville Greyhound Racing Club. The building has a hipped corrugated steel roof incorporating King post trusses with 10 skylights at regular intervals. The interior floor has timber deck flooring supported on timber stumps. The building is clad with painted corrugated steel sheeting which is not full height and chicken wire infill provides ventilation. The place has two rows of purpose built poultry coops constructed in the mid 1940s that run full length of the building. Another two rows of coops are located along the perimeter interior walls. Three aisles, one central aisle and two side isles provide viewing access to the displays. Access to the building is gained through entrances on each end as well as through two side entrances on the western side. Each entrance has a decorative steel gate with cyclone mesh infill.
25. Heatley Hall: (1939):
This is the largest Exhibition pavilion on the site approximately 58 X 20 metres and 5.5 metres high with twin gabled roofs, each with three hipped roof lantern lights at a length of approx. 5 metres which run along the two ridges. The lantern lights incorporate two fixed windows one at each end and six hopper windows which push out to provide additional ventilation. Timber buttresses provide additional strengthening to the high external walls which are clad in galvanised corrugated iron sheeting painted green. The corrugated iron cladding does not extend the full height of the wall instead infill to the rafters is provided via timber lattice panels which also provide additional ventilation. Horizontal timber slat panels conceal the underfloor area.
Access is achieved through three large sliding doors on each side with an additional door on the interior Showground end. The original decorative facade with parapet end, providing street access [Ingham Road] has been modified to a flat sheeted wall. Internally there is a central row of columns supporting timber trusses and a box gutter. Hardwood tongue and groove flooring is laid throughout and supported on timber framing on top of concrete piers.
34. Kiery Hall/No 4 Bulk Store: (c. 1942):
Keiry Hall has a single low pitched roof of corrugated galvanised steel sheeting over hardwood purlins on open web steel girders spanning the building width. The building measures approximately 56 X 12 metres. The eastern wall of the hall is original comprising a row of concrete columns with walling of timber stud framing and painted corrugated galvanised sheet cladding infill. The rebuilt western, northern and southern walls (post cyclone Althea) are constructed with steel columns, recycled timber purlins and painted corrugated galvanised sheet cladding. A lower height skillion roofed external addition has been built onto the western wall between pairs of roller doors. The addition is sheeted with painted corrugated galvanised steel to roof and walls.
Two pairs of large timber framed and vertically boarded roller doors are positioned in both eastern and western walls of the hall whilst a pair of smaller hinged doors is located off-centre in both the northern and southern end walls. The building is unlined with a paint finish generally remaining on most of the internal walls. The internal floor is of concrete pavers laid to a fall.
64, 65, 66. Entrance gates and Ticket box and turnstiles: (c. 1940s):
Located on the corner of Ingham Road and Parkes Street, the main entrance gates are constructed of welded steel bars in decorative geometric design incorporating the Townsville Pastoral Association logo. A pair of identical constructed entrance gates are located at the Ingham Road 'Besser' entrance.
The ticket booth has a hipped corrugated steel sheeted roof supported on a timbered framed building and clad with chamber board wall. Steel mesh secures the ticket box opening counter. Most of the turnstiles have been removed with only three remaining turnstiles located adjoining the ticket booth.
3. Security building: (c 1940s)
The timber framed building clad with weatherboards has a gabled roof, sheeted with corrugated steel and supported on concrete piers topped with termite caps. Entrance to the building is achieved up three moulded concrete steps through a single wooden door located on the southern side of the building. Two pairs of casement windows are located on each side of the building.
13. Police Building: (c 1940s)
This is a small rectangular building approximately 8X 5 metres clad in small panels of fibre cement sheeting at the front and larger panels on the sides. The building is accessed via a single door located on the right hand side and a small fixed window with security grill on the left. The small front panels extend up to form a small parapet and the front incorporates a small awning over the window and door. The building has a skillion roof, clad with corrugated steel and the building is based on a concrete slab which extends out the front of the building to form a small patio. This has been extended at some point to run across the front of buildings 13 & 14.
Unnumbered Landscape and grounds: The showground precinct has a number of substantial shade trees including Banyan Trees (Ficus benghalensis) (c. 1900), Weeping Figs (Ficus benjamina), and Albizia ( Albizia julibrissin ). (c. 1970s). The trees are predominantly located at the livestock area at the south western side of the Showground with the exception of two. One is located at the entrance adjoining the caravan park and other behind the Keiry Hall exhibition hall.
Unnumbered: Curley Bells (1920s-1930s): These spectator stands named after their designer/builder are the original pre-fabricated seats constructed from welded piping and small steel sections. Seating is provided by 8 levels of hardwood board seats bolted to the framing and used as both steps and seats.
Unnumbered: stone pitched and concrete stormwater drains: (c 1910-mid 1920)
Two identified systems of stormwater drains measuring approximately 1.6 high and up to 2.5 metres wide in some areas are located within the showgrounds. These drains are constructed of a variety of methods including predominately large stone pitched and mortar walls with a ceiling of concrete with imprint of timber large planked formwork for square ceiling and small narrow boards for the barrel vault ceiling. More recent sections are concrete block with steel planked formwork imprint. One drain begins at the base of Castle Hill and runs on a north-south axis to traverse a portion of the Show ring from behind the poultry pavilion and exiting into the large stormwater canal near the cattle yards. The second stormwater drain runs on an east-west axis from Kings Road near Keiry Hall and runs between the Stud Cattle pavilion and caretakers cottage to exit into the large stormwater canal from the bottom of Payne street.
Additional structures in Section 1. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance and include:
22. Exhibition Hall/ Boxing facility (c1970s):
The building has a gabled roof, clad with corrugated steel supported on a simple prefabricated sectional lattice girders of welded angle iron bolted together. The eastern side has a skillion extension and a concrete floor is laid throughout. Access is gained from the southern Show ring side up a concrete ramp.
24. Exhibition building/greyhound pavilion (est. 1920)
Substantially altered in the 1970s the Townsville Greyhound Racing Club Building is an elongated pavilion measuring approx 49 X 8 metres and running parallel in-between Heatley Hall and the exhibition / Poultry and Bird Fancier Pavilion. The walls are constructed of concrete blocks and the place has a dominant concrete block front façade entrance wall. The front entrance wall has a decorative triangular motif which is also used as a decorative feature in the outer Show ring wall. Evidence of the earlier pavilion is apparent by the original single gable roof and rafters.
17. Main Complex Grandstand (c. 1980s)
Large contemporary concrete block building consisting of two levels with exhibition space on the ground level accessed through six steel roller door shutters located on the northern side and grandstand on part of the upper level accessed from the southern show ring side. Spectator seating of coloured moulded plastic seats is located on the north western side of the stand with wooden plank seating incorporating timber lumbar support on the north-eastern end. Enclosed function rooms are located behind the spectator seats with separate access stairs located into the upper level on the eastern end of the building. A large cantilevered corrugated steel roof on tapered steel beams provides cover over the seats.
18. Town & Country Club Function area and bar (c. 1980s)
Large contemporary three storied concrete block building incorporating ventilated exhibition space on the ground level, and enclosed first floor function area and second floor bar.
Unnumbered Spectator Stands: Numerous spectator stand of varying determinate age are positioned around the showground site. Noted for their movability, the stands are constructed primarily with steel frames with hardwood boards for seats. Seating is provided by usually 4-6 levels of hardwood boards bolted to the framing and used as both steps and seats.
Other buildings in this section include:
1. Administration - Concrete block building incorporating decorative concrete blocks in circular pattern along 1/3 of the front façade which is complete by aluminium framed glass window and entrance door. The building incorporates a low gabled roof sheeted in steel.
2. First Aid Building - Concrete block building with skillion roof and concrete planter boxes at the front. The building has a central access patio to two doors which can be secured via a single double iron gate.
4. Ross River Apex Club Building - Small rectangular concrete block building with low skillion roof and overhanging eave on one end. It has a roller shutter at the front and the building is situated on a concrete slab.
5. Rotary Club Townsville Central Building - Small rectangular concrete block building with low skillion roof and overhanging eave on one end.
6. Building known as "The Feed Lot" - Medium sized concrete block building with prefabricated sectional lattice girders of welded angle iron bolted together. Two full height roller doors are located on the right hand side of the building with a small access door to the kitchen located on the southern side. The public food service area is stepped back under a skillion roof and three roller shutters provide access to the servery counters.
7. Building known as "Sea FM Rock Shop" - Concrete block building with flat roof and roller door at the front as well as fixed pane window. Access is via a door on the western side.
8. Building known as "Benson Show Bag Arena" - Large concrete block building with skillion roof sheeted in profiled steel. Three full length roller shutters provide access to the building.
9. Building known as "Pauls for Life" - Small concrete block with curved concrete corners at front with a central servery window incorporating roller shutters. The building has a flat roof and curved feature signage above the shutters and two cut out tin icecreams fixed to the curved side corners.
10. Vacant building - Small concrete block building with gable roof and windows along the front..
11. Rotary Club building - Double storeyed concrete block building with roller door at the front on ground level. The upper level has a smaller room with access to the small verandah via a sliding glass door. The building has a flat steel roof.
12. Vacant building - Concrete block building with skillion roof and shutters at the front. Three glass louvre windows are set into the western wall which also includes a shutter roller door.
14. Vacant building - Concrete block building with skillion roof and shutters at the front.
16. Toilet block - Concrete structure with a skillion roof.
26. Shed-Large industrial shed with gable roof clad in corrugated steel and incorporating two vents.
27. Shed- Large open steel framed shed with skillion roof.
28. Toilet block - Small concrete structure with a skillion roof.
30. Port of Townsville Rotary Club Building¿ Concrete structure with flat roof.
31. Open shed - Bush pole open structure with gable roof.
32. Bar Facilities - Concrete block structure with a gable roof sheeted in profiled steel with awning overhang.
33. Rotary Club Building - Two small adjoining buildings; 1 x concrete block with flat roof ; 1 x rectangular small building clad in panels of fibre cement roof sheeted in profiled steel.
63. Toilet block - Concrete block structure with a gable roof.
Unnumbered: Arts and Craft Pavilion - Large open exhibition pavilion constructed of concrete block with a low gable roof sheeted in profiled steel. Entrance to the building is via a door in the eastern wall which can be secured via pair of steel gates.
Un numbered: Two memorials, 1 x large rock with brass plate set on a red painted concrete pad; 1 x steel drinking fountain, set on a red painted concrete pad.
Section 2. The second area is largely associated with agricultural and stud stock breeding programmes with display areas and exhibition pavilions located at the southern side of the showground adjacent to Woolcock Street. Principal elements of cultural heritage significance include:
50 & 53. Stud Cattle Pavilion (c. 1890s): The Stud Cattle Pavilion (70 x 9 metres) comprises of a long building (45.7 metres) and a shorter building (18.3 metres) separated by an open area (6 metres) with a small parade ground outside the northern entrance which is shaded by a mature Albizia ( Albizia julibrissin ). Both buildings are of similar rural vernacular construction with inner and outer bush timber pole columns supporting a gable roof of corrugated galvanised steel sheeting on sawn hardwood rafters and beams and are painted white internally. The side walls are clad in painted corrugated galvanised steel on timber rails fixed to the outer bush timber poles with openings, for light and ventilation, covered in an open steel mesh spaced along their length. Bolted along the rails are various styles of forged iron and steel rings for tethering cattle. A skillion roofed storage area has been added to the southern side of the longer building.
The main public access to the longer building is via a central entry through the northern wall to a central aisle and through the eastern end. This end has a high opening of about 4 metres. The gable end is horizontally boarded with spaced vertical boards up to about 2.5 metres completing the end wall. The pavilion has two enclosed tack rooms in a central location on either side of the pedestrian corridor. These small rooms are sheeted in painted corrugated galvanised steel of one sheet length height. Extending above the corrugated iron and up to the rafters are timber slats. Both small rooms have double timber doors. One set of doors is painted with barnyard motifs in a naïve style.
The open area between the buildings accommodates two wash down stalls, and a drinking trough. This open area provides the main access into the shorter building and minor access into the long building. The shorter building has an overhead deck constructed at approx 2 metre height on hardwood joists and pine flooring on both sides of a central way. The pavilion has two enclosed tack rooms at the eastern end of the pavilion on either side of the pedestrian corridor at the point of entry. A concrete floor runs through the full length of the Stud Cattle Pavilion.
44. The Dairy Pavilion (c. 1939): A gable roofed building with skillion additions to both sides roofed with corrugated galvanised steel on simple bolted hardwood trusses to the gable and hardwood rafter construction to the skillions all supported on steel pipe columns. The gable end, southern sidewall and rear wall are clad in corrugated galvanised steel whilst the northern side of the building is open. The front wall has vertical hardwood slabs to either side of two central vehicle access openings and a central placed sign indicating the pavilion.
Internal dividing partitions are of vertical corrugated steel sheeting with livestock pens framed in steel piping to either side of the building. The smaller (poddy calf) pens are along the northern side. The building is unpainted and has a concrete floor.
On the right hand side of the dairy pavilion are a series of open air blue painted steel pipe livestock stalls which run the full length of dairy and long the northern side of the cattle yards and end at the cattle ramps located at the Cattle Sales Arena.
39. Cattle yards (c. 1970) Extensive cattle yards are contained in 8 sections which include over 100 cattle stall partitions. Fence post are former rail track sections with a top plate and middle rails of steel piping, with welded infill of galvanised reinforcing mesh. Each stall is serviced by a water trough with water reticulated from a raised central water system with intermittent taps. Six aisles allow pedestrian inspection of the yards and each aisle has a concrete pavement with a square paved pattern and laid to a fall. Several shade trees are present in the cattle yard area. All trees are introduced species.
39. Cattle Sales Arena (c.1970): Adjoining the cattle yards is a part open purpose designed stand for the auction of cattle and horses. The arena has U shaped plan of tiered seating around the sales pen and a raised auctioneers platform over the gate entry to the sales pen. The construction is steel pipe framing with an aluminium roof sheeting on hardwood rafters. The tiered seating is of hardwood boards fixed on angle iron supports in a slat style. Adjoining the sales arena are two loading ramps constructed of concrete and steel pipe rails. Two timber carved cattle heads adorn two posts to indicate the cattle area.
51. Horse Stalls (c. 1970): Located on the left hand side of the dairy pavilion the horse stalls are constructed from former rail track sections used as fence posts with stalls created by steel pipe horizontals in-between the columns. The skillion roof has steel pipe rafters and is sheeted with corrugated steel roof sheeting. The horse stalls provide an ambulatory link between the former dairy pavilion and the Stud cattle pavilion. Ample shade is afforded to the horse stalls by least two Weeping Figs (Ficus benjamina).
52. Caretakers House (c. 1920): Located near the Woolcock Street boundary fence, the house has a hipped roof, sheeted in corrugated short sheet steel with skillion awnings to the enclosed verandahs. The house is raised above ground level with access stairs from within the Showgrounds.
38. Toilet & shower amenities (post 1950): Timber framed separate male and female toilet and shower facilities sheeted with painted corrugated galvanised steel to skillion roof and walls. Facilities are located at the south eastern end of the Show ring near the cattle sales arena.
Additional large structures in Section 2: These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance and include:
41. Shearing Shed pavilion (post 1970) Nestled between mature Banyan trees (Ficus benghalensis), the Shearing Shed pavilion is a part open building measuring approx 10 x 6 metres. The pavilion has a gable roof constructed of corrugated galvanised steel on timber trusses supported on hardwood beams. The columns are painted timber poles and the building has hardwood flooring. The walls are clad with of corrugated galvanised steel on the south and western walls as well as part of the rear eastern wall. The remainder of eastern elevation and the north elevation is open for practical shearing demonstrations to be easily viewed. The building is raised approx 1.5 m from the ground with a mesh fenced area below. Underneath and at the front of the building is as series of low constructed sheep pens with dividers to separate the animals. A timber ramp with timber slats is located on the eastern end giving access for livestock to ascend into the building through an animal access door. The shearing deck has steel framed sheep pens and access gates with an opening to a steel slide down for the shorn. An electrical motor is suspended under the roof framing and a steel framed wool press stands unattached on the floor
Located in front of the Shearing Shed pavilion are up to five freestanding spectator stands constructed of steel pipe framed and hardwood boards for seats fixed to light steel angle sections.
48 Workshop: The workshop is a large workshop shed with central wall under double gable roof and skillion attached to the southern end. All walls are clad with corrugated galvanised steel sheeting. A formed concrete livestock ramp incorporating welded pipe adjoins the workshop
54 Stables: Purpose built single stall stables constructed of steel pipe framework with a prefabricated sectional lattice girders of welded angle iron bolted together. Steel pipe horizontals are in-between the columns and the southern wall is partly clad to provide weather protection of stalls. The skillion roof is clad with corrugated steel roof sheeting and the floors are concreted throughout.
58 Stables: Double bay horse stalls with a central wall constructed of concrete block with prefabricated sectional lattice girders and columns of welded angle iron bolted together. The gable roof is clad with corrugated steel roof sheeting and the floors are concreted throughout. A second single stall stable is located adjacent to the perimeter fence and constructed similar of stables 54. It runs parallel to the double bay stable with a grass exercise area in-between the two.
40. Liquor pavilion: (post 1970) The building has a gabled roof, clad with proformed corrugated steel roof supported on simple prefabricated sectional lattice girders of welded angle iron bolted together. The walls are constructed of concrete block and internal floor is concrete. A row of louvre windows on the northern side enables public viewing of events in the Show ring. Additional lighting is achieved through a series of hollow concrete blocks set into the wall. Access to the liquor pavilion is gained from the eastern end of the building and the building forms part of a cluster of exhibition pavilions near the livestock section of the showground which includes 42, 43, 45, 46 & 47.
43. Cooking pavilion: The building has a gabled roof, with the exterior clad with corrugated steel with a concrete floor laid throughout. Access is gained from the southern showground side.
42. Cat & Cavy pavilion: A skillion roofed infill building clad in horizontally applied corrugated steel sheets the pavilion adjoins both the liquor pavilion, 40, and the cooking pavilion, 43.
45. Pavilion: recent prefabricated modern garage structure with double roller doors and access ramp.
46. Open shed: recent prefabricated steel shed
47. Sharks Touch Football Club House: - The building has a gabled roof and the exterior is clad with corrugated steel with a concrete floor laid throughout. Access is gained from the southern showground side through three doors, two which incorporate access ramps.
Un numbered: Goat pavilion - Located between the workshop and stables 54 & 58 the goat pavilion is constructed from small sections of former railway rail track used as part columns and with stalls created from steel pipe horizontals in-between the columns with reinforcing mesh infill. The construction has timber rafters and covered with corrugated steel roof sheeting.
Other structures in Section 2. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance:
55. Toilet Block - recent concrete structure with a skillion roof shaded by adjoining large Banyan Tree.
57. Lions Bar facility: - Concrete structure with flat roof.
59 & 60. Swabbing stall, Stewards rooms, Announcers Stand: - Small rectangular adjoining buildings with one divided into two rooms and both clad concrete block masonry. An announcer's stand is above the swabbing room and adjoining the show ring and access is provided via a small flight of stairs.
Unnumbered large shed: (2008) Large corrugated steel sheeted building with gable roof adjacent to the perimeter fence located in-between stables 56 and the caretakers cottage 52.
Unnumbered: Perimeter fence: Three quarters of the showground is contained behind a perimeter fence which is largely constructed of timber and corrugated steel sheeting with the exception of the Ingham Street side which incorporates concrete block masonry and the caravan park side which is not fenced at all. Cyclone mesh fencing also secure certain areas of the showground.
","history":"The Townsville Showground was established in 1882 by the North Queensland Pastoral and Agricultural Association [P & A Assoc.] which later became known as the Townsville Pastoral Agricultural and Industrial Association [TPA&I]. It remains in use as one of Queensland's premier showgrounds and continues to provide an important regional venue for the showcasing of North Queensland industrial, pastoral and agricultural products and businesses, and for athletics events and community and entertainment events. It retains a variety of structures erected between the mid 1890s and 1970s that have been important in the functioning of the showground. These include: exhibition halls, 1901 grandstand, show ring, poultry and livestock pavilions, a dairy, stabling and marshalling areas, gates, turnstiles, and Curley Bell stands.
Encouraged by a boom in settlement due to an expansion of the pastoral and goldmining industry, and in response to the formation of the National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland in 1875 and up and coming inaugural Exhibition to be held in Brisbane in August 1876, Townsville's civic and business leaders called for the establishment of the North Queensland Pastoral and Agricultural Association [P & A Association], at a meeting held in June 1876. Before a suitable site could be secured, the first Townsville Show was held in 1880 with agricultural and pastoral products displayed in the Botanical Gardens reserve and industrial and horticultural exhibits at the School of Arts.
From its inception, the Association was reflective of regional interests. In 1880, office bearers included country delegates from Hughenden, Lilliesmere, Towerhill, Woodstock, Herbert River, Charters Towers, Bluff Downs, Greenvale, Woodhouse, Mount Stuart, Dotswood, Dalrymple, Reedy Springs, Lyndhurst, Wandavale and Herbert River.
In the late 1870s the P & A Association applied to the colonial government for 16 acres (6.47 ha) at West End to be set aside as a reserve for show purposes. In January 1881, a deed of grant was issued to the Association trustees for 10 acres (4.04 ha) of Crown Land to be reserved for a showground on Flinders Street West, later known as Ingham Road. At the time the new showground adjoined several reserves including the Defence Force Reserve, the Pound Reserve and the Manure Depot. This later provided room for expansion of the grounds as well as setting up establishing a long relationship between the defence force and Show Association in regards to usage of the defence drill hall for exhibition space.
The first show was held at the new showground in 1882, and it was quickly realised by the P & A Association at the time that the area was an insufficient to service the showground events with no dedicated show exhibition space or to provide a flexible sporting venue for the growing community. As a result the showgrounds were expanded in 1888 to take in the Manure Depot and the Pound Reserve covering a total area of over 30 acres (12.14 ha).
From the beginning the Townsville showground precinct was a venue where the community could meet, showcase its pastoral and agricultural produce; introduce new agricultural ideas and technology; and provide a much anticipated meeting place for the community to gather, meet relatives, and socialise. Prominent North Queensland pastoralists and agriculturalists used the venue to showcase their horses, promote their interest in breeding stock and encourage future growth in the region. In addition to stud stock, exhibitions reflected the major influence of wool, timber reserves, coffee, horticulture and minerals indicative of the pastoral, agricultural, and mining industries throughout the region. It also provided an outlet where the products of women's labour associated within the domestic environment were exhibited including displays of cookery, needlework, millinery, arts and taxonomy. In addition children were encouraged to enter events which displayed their prowess in the execution of schoolwork. Events attracted both professional and amateur participants and contributors travelled from west beyond Hughenden to take advantage of the opportunity to restock provisions, network and get together. Between Shows sporting groups took advantage of the broad even grounds with the Townsville Rugby Football Club playing regular games from July 1889.
In 1890, keeping with the principles to hold a premier regional event, the P & A Assoc. passed a motion to select country judges for the pastoral classes from around Queensland rather than select locally to ensure that the events retained a competitive edge. Successful competitors with prize exhibits from the Townsville Show were forwarded by the P & A Assoc. Committee for entry into the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland Show (RNA) in Brisbane. The RNA encouraged the Townsville exhibits to be showcased at the Brisbane Exhibition, to attract interest and investment in the north. Some events such as horse competitions worked on an accumulated points system across various regional events and shows. Those with the highest points at the end of the Townsville Show were able to enter into the RNA competitions.
Freight concessions to assist the Show circuit came from a range of transport providers including the shipping company Howard Smith & Sons, and the Railway Department provided free livestock exhibit freightage for Show exhibits from and between local and regional show centres and for Show Champions sent to the RNA
An increasingly strong attendance and event participation at the Townsville Show resulted in a shortage of exhibition space. Up until this point the exhibitions were held in the Drill Hall named the "Norman Hall", but this remained unsatisfactory as it was not always available and the alternative arrangement of using the School of Arts separated exhibition contributors from the showgrounds. In 1891 the Society committee borrowed bank finance for the erection of purpose-built exhibition buildings and pavilions. However, the upgrading of the showground coincided with a severe national economic downturn. This, combined with a devastating drought in North Queensland, impacted so greatly on the regional community that the Show was cancelled for the next two years due to lack of funds as well as exhibits.
In order to boost attendances following the recommencement of the Show in 1894, the Association made a request to the Railway Department to expand it benevolent contribution and run Show excursion trains from Hughenden to Townsville and Ravenswood to Townsville. It was noted 'District residents took the opportunity to visit the town on these festive occasions and in a very short time were prominent amongst the successful exhibitors. Continued staunch support from the surrounding districts has played a big part in the success of the Townsville Pastoral and Agricultural Society Association.'
As other pastoral and agricultural associations were established in emerging North Queensland towns in the late nineteenth century, the name of the Townsville-based association was changed to the Townsville Pastoral and Agricultural (TPA & I) Association. A circuit pattern of show days was developed in consultation with towns across North Queensland, culminating in the Townsville show held each year in July. Goodwill between local businesses and the TPA& I Association provided an excellent reciprocal arrangement with many businesses contributing substantial event prizes which encouraged good participant rates. In turn, businesses benefited economically from the free advertising in the months leading up to the Show. Co-operation between local businesses, event organisers and the TPA& I Association extended well beyond the gazetted Show day with the Townsville Showground precinct used regularly for sports and athletics as well as for Trotting events.
Following the devastation of Cyclone Sigma in January 1896, a major thrust of expansion and upgrade to the showgrounds was proposed including the provision of 30 new iron cattle pens, enlargement of the ring (which also included plans for the addition of an outer show ring) and a 400 seat grandstand. While exhibition pavilions and dairy and livestock facilities had continually improved since the first show, the lack of a grandstand did not reflect the prestige of the Townsville Show. In particular, since a new grandstand was planned to be constructed at the Cluden Racecourse in late 1896, discussions had been underway to make provision for one at the Showground.
Tunbridge & Tunbridge, one of Townsville's principal architectural firms and designer of the Cluden Racecourse grandstand [QHR 600924], were requested to submit an estimate for the upgrade. The Tunbridge brothers [Walter Howard and Oliver Allan] had entered into partnership in Townsville in 1887, and soon developed a substantial North Queensland architectural practice with offices in Charters Towers and later Rockhampton. Tunbridge and Tunbridge designed many Townsville hotels, including the Metropole [1887], Victoria Park [1896], Lowth's [1897], Victoria Bridge [1900], Empire [1901], Sovereign [1904] and Carriers Arms [1906]. Over the course of 1897 discussions were held as to the best grandstand location for superior Show ring views. A totalizator was also planned to be incorporated into the structure to service the Trotting events.
Tenders for the grandstand were called in February 1901. The grandstand, 96ft in length and 47ft deep [approximately 29.2m x 14.3m] was to be erected on a mound 176ft long and 40ft deep. The gentle rise to the building was designed to have no steps with seats rising in tiers from the ground in front of the grandstand. In the centre was a stair well leading down below the stand and giving access to the luncheon room below. A bar, kitchen, lavatories and rest room were accommodated in this sub-floor. Bricks were used to support the foundations and retaining wall of the building with timber and iron used for the superstructure. To make good use of the prevailing breeze it was proposed the building face east-west and incorporate louvres on the top tier to the roof. Incorporating a decorative balustrade, the structure was designed to accommodate up to 1000 persons.
With the addition of a new grandstand, the Townsville Showground was complete as a dedicated showground facility offering numerous exhibition halls, substantial cattle yards, horse and dairy buildings and poultry sheds with the show ring neatly encompassed by a white picket fence.
In early 1903 Cyclone Leonta crossed the coast causing widespread devastation to Townsville including the showground. Three months later in a show of public unity the community held a grand opening of the Show to welcome the officiating Vice Regal party including the Governor Sir Herbert and Lady Chermside, and Premier Hon. Robert Philp. The official party and record crowd of over 3500 people were entertained by a display of horse events staged by station owners taking the prime opportunity to show their purpose bred remounts with a view of securing trade overseas.
In 1913 the Showgrounds grounds were again the central venue where the community could gather. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Townsville a Jubilee carnival was promoted by the Townsville and District Development Association. Nearly all major celebrations and community events finished at the Townsville Showground, which provided a fitting venue for the community to enjoy the fireworks display after the opening torchlight procession from the centre of town. Over the next week the community and region enjoyed a number of sporting and novelty events, including bicycle races, athletics, children's sporting events and music contests bringing in competitors from Cairns, Mareeba and Charters Towers and attracting state of the art mechanical entertainment in the form of a steam powered merry-go-round.
In the 1910s the Townsville Municipal Council began a series of drainage works programme in the West End area. From 1913 onwards substantial stormwater drains were constructed to direct the flow of water from Castle Hill to counter the effects of tropical downpours. Consisting of large concrete and stone pitched storm water drains and with at least two drains traversed the Showgrounds and the scope of the drainage programme was not fully completed in the mid 1920s. These works enabled a review of the Showground facilities with low lying areas of the grounds built up, boundary fences extended, new turnstiles installed and the popular poultry and bird fanciers pavilion extended.
In absence of a major exhibition facility, the adjacent military drill hall had long been used as the major exhibition hall. The special relationship between the Defence Force and TPA & I Association was reinforced though Memorial Day sports and demobilisation events in support of the returned local men who had fought during World War I. To acknowledge their efforts the Association Committee resolved to admit free of charge any soldiers in uniform, with no charge for machinery exhibits for returned soldiers engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1918, Alfred Barton Brady, Government Architect for Queensland, oversaw the design of the Defence force Drill Hall. The name of Andrew Irving - a successful architectural draftsman with the Queensland Public Works Department - appears on the drawings. The new Drill hall was constructed around 1919 within the former defence force reserve of four acres. To be used '... for horticulture, preserves, arts and crafts, children's section, caged birds and district exhibits.' An open parade ground was located between the show ring and the Drill Hall.
In 1924 the show circuit in North Queensland encompassed Mackay, Proserpine, Bowen, Ayr, and Charters Towers, and as far west as Hughenden, with the Townsville show being the premier event in the circuit.
Sideshows were discouraged from the Townsville show prior to the 1920s, as it was felt that they attracted an undesirable class of people who might disrupt the 'respectable' show proceedings. The fractious relationship between the sideshow men and the Queensland Chamber of Agriculture spilled over in the early 1920s with the sideshow men in Townsville staging a protest march, complete with a procession of ponies and posters, advocating a boycott of the TPA&I Show. When eventually admitted, the sideshow men were confined to a small area between the butcher shops and the poultry pavilion. One of the first sideshows to gain access to the Townsville show was the Sharman and Staig Boxing Troupe in 1924. Within 15 years the Showmen's Guild played an integral role in the Townsville Show.
By 1929 the showground improvements included a grandstand, exhibition hall, secretary's office, committee room, fat cattle yards, stud and dairy cattle stalls, dog shed, poultry pavilion and pavilions erected by various firms. The grounds were enclosed by an 8ft high iron fence and the show ring by a picket fence, and "at intervals along the boundary, magnificent trees give a cool and picturesque appearance to the surrounds" (Brisbane newspaper article cited in Thuringowa Library Heritage Services Information Sheet Number 12).
During the severe economic depression of the early 1930s a flood of public support resulted in a range of planned fundraisers and benefits which ensured that the Show continued throughout the Depression The Depression also gave rise to other community activities staged at the Showground, including a soup kitchen to cater for the large number of itinerant workers or for those just down on their luck, and as a camp ground for the 9th and 49th Battalions' reunion held in conjunction with the 1933 Townsville Show week.
An increase of grounds use led to improved event facilities with additional seating offering trackside viewing provided via a series of eight-tiered stands. Constructed by local manufacturer Curley Bell during the late 1920s and early 1930s and later modified to incorporate safety rails, the viewing stands became affectionately known as the 'Curley Bell's'. The new stands provided better views of trotting events, which were reintroduced in 1939 with competitors and spectators from far and wide. By 1939, the Townsville Show was described in the popular Cummins & Campbells Monthly Magazine as the 'Show Window of the North; but it is more than that.' The precinct was regarded as a community facility, as evidenced from the expanding repertoire of events throughout the 1930s including a Gymkhana, motor cycle racing, a rodeo and greyhound racing.
In the late 1930s concerns were raised at each TPA&I Association committee meeting about the Showground's ability to provide adequate exhibition space. The overcrowding of exhibits made it evident that a larger exhibition hall was necessary if the Townsville Show was to continue to attract ongoing competitors and exhibitors as well as businesses and suppliers of goods and services. Local architectural firm W & M Hunt were approached to design an exhibition hall on the brief that it could also fulfil the additional roles of dance hall and rentable picture theatre. However, the final design was based upon a commercial warehouse that belonged to Heatley and was being constructed at the time in Ogden Street. To accommodate the new hall the dairy pavilion was removed and reassembled closer to the stud cattle pavilion in the south-eastern end of the grounds, and was upgraded with new milking pens and additional iron fencing. New horse stalls were constructed along the Parkes Street fence line to make up for the shortage of stabling accommodation for visiting horses.
Messrs Hanson & Sons successfully tendered £6130 for the construction of the new Exhibition Hall in late November 1937. When completed in 1939 the hall provided ample floor space for exhibits and for dancing purposes, being one of the largest dance venues in North Queensland. Three large sliding doors along each side of the hall and another at each end offered ample ventilation. Lighting was achieved by three lantern lights running along the ridge of each of the two gable roofs. Access to the dance hall was through the main entrance fronting Flinders Street (Ingham Road). After World War II this hall became known as Heatley Hall, in memory of Mr TL Heatley, one of the longest serving members and former president of the TPA&I Association.
In April 1942 the Australian Army seconded the showground for military purposes and the annual Show was suspended for three years. The advance parties of HQ 5 Division and 29 Infantry Brigade had arrived in Townsville and the Divisional HQ personnel were accommodated in the Showgrounds. Additional prefabricated warehouses were constructed at the showground in 1942-1943 (including the No.4 Bulk Store, later known as Keiry Hall).
Regular Saturday night dances were held in the Heatley Hall to provide entertainment for local citizens and troops alike. Many local couples met and courted here during the war. During the three raids on the city by Japanese flying boats operating out of Rabaul in late July 1942, West End residents took advantage of the large concrete and stone-pitched storm water drains (approximately 1.6 high and up to 2.5 metres wide in some areas) at the Showground as unofficial air raid shelters. When WWII was proclaimed officially over the Victory Parade procession marched from the central business district and ended at the Townsville Showground where sideshow entertainment was provided for the crowd.
At the completion of the war the annual pattern of Show planning and activities recommenced and the northern circuit reformed. Local and regional show-goers travelled to attend the premier event and dressed up to enjoy a day 'at the show'. For many it was the annual opportunity to meet relatives, socialise with friends, and have a photograph taken in their best clothes. For some it was the only opportunity to have a photograph taken.
By 1951, through the incorporation of former Army buildings, the showground facilities had expanded to include three exhibition halls, a grandstand, extended agricultural and pastoral stalls for cattle and horses, dairy stalls and milking shed, as well as poultry and dog enclosures, a caretaker's office, association offices, a Pacific Ice cream booth, re-positioned entrance and side gates, as well as ticket offices and the Curly Bell stand. During this period the North Queensland pastoral industry renewed its breeding effort to produce a breed of cattle resilient to northern climatic conditions. As a result, the Townsville Show hosted the Brahman cattle breed for the first time in 1952 and the Santa Gertrudis in 1953. Both breeds were received by an enthusiastic crowd.
In 1969 the North Queensland regional Show circuit included: Rockhampton, Mackay, Proserpine, Home Hill, Charters Towers, Bowen, Ayr, Townsville, Ingham, Malanda, Atherton, Innisfail, Cairns, Mossman, Collinsville, Tully with a broader show circuit to Brisbane. Townsville Show competition categories were either 'District' or 'Local'. District events embraced any area North of the 24th parallel (app. Gladstone) and west to the Queensland border. Local entries were drawn from Townsville, Thuringowa, Ayr, Dalrymple, Charters Towers and Hinchinbrook. The Railway Department continued to provide free livestock exhibit freightage for Show exhibits from and between local and regional show centres and for Show champions to the RNA. Excursion tickets were available for outlying towns and this practice continued into the 1970s. Road freightage was subsidized under The State Transport Act 1960 for the movement of livestock, machinery and produce to and from the Show.
In 1971 the new cattle yards incorporating water troughs and a cattle sale arena complete with auctioneers platform were made available to the North Queensland Livestock and Property Brokers Produce Association for cattle sales. The Townsville Show also encouraged regional charities and organisations such as the Queensland Bush Children's Fund, H.M. Prison Farm and Rural Youth Clubs to exhibit and raise money.
The impact of cyclone Althea in 1972 provided the impetus for a major expansion and modification program to cater for changing Showground requirements. Every building sustained damage. Those that incorporated cyclone bracing survived relatively intact - such as the current Poultry Shed and Heatley Hall; others - such as the betting shed, caretaker's cottage, pig pavilion and Keiry Hall - were severely damaged or collapsed such as the Drill Hall (known as the Garbutt Hall). The show ring track was extended to its current elliptical shape to better cater for racing interests such as harness racing and motor cycle and bicycle races, and an officials' box was constructed to oversee the greyhound racing. The ring was enclosed by a new fence constructed of concrete block with cyclone mesh fencing. The fence, incorporated a decorative triangular pattern which was also used in the upgrade to one of the oldest Exhibition pavilions adjoining the Heatley Hall.
When the show ring was extended the main grandstand was dismantled and relocated to its current position. Without the advantage of the earth mound and front spectator seats, two new steel access stairs were added. A second grandstand was constructed to provide additional seating and exhibition /office space. The Showground continually changed from the mid 1970s with nearly all of the substantial shade trees along Ingham Road removed, and smaller buildings constructed. Around the back of the ring where the cattle yards had previously stood, a large liquor booth was constructed as well as a Cat and Cavy pavilion, a kitchen, additional ablution blocks, additional horse stalls, and various smaller buildings.
The Townsville Show remains popular with the local and regional community and continues to enjoy record attendances. In 2007 over 59,000 show attendees were registered over the three-day and four-night event while in 2008 this number expanded to approximately 63,300. The contemporary range of entertainment and cultural activities conducted at the Showground have expanded to cater to extreme sports events, public rock concerts and providing a venue for motor homes and motor bike clubs while maintaining a strong emphasis on attracting use by local community clubs and not-for-profit organisations.
","criteria":"In use as a showground since 1882, the Townsville Showground is integral to the important Queensland showground circuit that culminates in the annual Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland [RNA] Exhibition in Brisbane. It remains one of the longest-running showground facilities outside Brisbane and is one of North Queensland's premier showgrounds.
The place provided an important venue for showcasing and facilitating the expansion of pastoral, agriculture and industrial production and innovation in North Queensland during the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century.
|The Townsville Showground, developed between the 1880s and the 1970s, is an intact regional showground facility which demonstrates the principal elements characteristic of its type. These include: exhibition halls, grandstands, the Curley Bell stands, show ring, poultry and livestock facilities, dairy sheds, stabling and marshalling areas, as well as gates and turnstiles.
The 1901 grandstand at the Townsville Showground is one of two major grandstands designed and constructed in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century by Tunbridge and Tunbridge, one of Townsville's principal architectural firms and designers. The other grandstand is located at Cluden Racecourse (1896) [QHR 600924]. It is important in illustrating the quality of their design work.
|The place has a strong social significance for generations of Townsville and North Queensland families who have attended the annual pastoral and agricultural exhibitions since 1882. The 1901 grandstand and Heatley Hall have particular social significance as the place where families enjoy watching events and where couples court.
The place remains important as a venue for major regional community and entertainment events.
The place is important as one of the few venues where the products of women's and children's labour associated with the domestic and educational environments has been exhibited regularly since the late nineteenth century.
|Townsville Showground has a strong and special association with the important work of the Townsville Pastoral, Agricultural and Industrial Association in fostering the expansion of pastoral, agriculture and industrial production and innovation in North Queensland since 1882.
|The Townsville Showground incorporates elements that are aesthetically significant including the Tunbridge & Tunbridge grandstand (1901), interwar amenities blocks, Heatley Hall (1939, the Stud Stock pavilions (c.1890s), entrance gates, ticket boxes, Curley Bell stands (1920-30s), poultry pavilion, show ring and mature Banyan trees.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29044,"place_ref":602652,"name":"Mt Spec Road and Little Crystal Creek Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mt Spec Road","suburb":"CRYSTAL CREEK","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-30","description":"The Mt Spec Road, Crystal Creek stretches approximately 18km from its junction with the old Bruce Highway to the western outskirts of Paluma, north Queensland. It includes the bridge over Little Crystal Creek, which is located about halfway along the Mt Spec Road.
Although originally a gravel road, the Mt Spec Road now has a bitumen surface and rises some 885m up the Range. The road is two way. It has never been widened, and the original route and character of the road has been retained.
The Little Crystal Creek Bridge comprises a single span arch, constructed of concrete but faced with stone. It spans the Little Crystal Creek Gorge in Paluma Range National Park. The Bridge has an aesthetically pleasing design, and is particularly photogenic, being in a very scenic location.
The original Little Crystal Creek Main Roads campsite that was used for the construction of the Bridge is now a car park developed by Queensland Parks and Wildlife in the 1990s. The car park at Little Crystal Creek is located on the left-hand side of the road for visitors to Little Crystal Creek Bridge and swimming hole, and part of this lies outside the heritage boundary, which is restricted to the road reserve. There is a large interpretive historical sign, including photographs, which was erected by Thuringowa City Council and Queensland Parks and Wildlife several years ago. Although a large part of the original dry stone wall in this location was removed during development of the car park, some sections still remain within the road reserve. Many of the stones of the wall were taken away and reused to build the walking track to Witt's Lookout at Paluma, although a pile of unused stones remain adjacent to the Witt's Lookout track.
There are several smaller concrete arch culverts, similar in construction to the bridge over Little Crystal Creek, and sections of dry stone walling (battering) and stone-paved gutters at various points along the full length of the road. The sections of stone guttering range from 10m to 140m in length and were constructed only where needed to divert run-off into pipe culverts. Most of the stone guttering occurs on the left-hand side of the road on the drive up the range, although one section of guttering survives on the outside of the slope, some 2.8 km from the beginning of the road. Over 200 reinforced concrete culverts, or 'pipe culverts', occur along the road.
Although it is now difficult to determine where many of the campsites used by the road workers during construction of the Mt Spec Road were situated, the location of The Saddle Campsite, some 10.3km from the beginning of the road, is marked by three ship's water tanks located within the road reserve. The tanks are about 1.2m square and about 1m deep (approximately 1000L capacity each).
There is a Main Roads Commission Benchmark tree located 265m ASL, some 4.8km from the start of the road. The tree is above the sealed road but within the road reserve, and although now dead, the blazed benchmark is very clear, and includes a broad arrow with "MR 51/2" marked on it.
At Paluma itself, some of the original white-painted round timber Main Roads guideposts still exist, for example, on the turnouts to Lennox Crescent. Although there were similar timber guideposts along the full length of the Mt Spec Road until a few years ago, most of these have been removed and replaced with modern metal/ plastic guideposts. One section of timber guard rail, however, remains at a location about 16km from the beginning of the road, providing evidence of the original post and rail construction.
There are spectacular views of Halifax Bay and the coastal plain as the road twists and turns up the Paluma Range.
","history":"Mt Spec Road and Little Crystal Creek Bridge, Crystal Creek, are situated in north Queensland, 61km north of Townsville. Mt Spec Road stretches some 18km from its junction with the old Bruce Highway to the western outskirts of Paluma. It provides access from the coastal plain, just 5km wide in this area, to the Paluma Range, which rises some 1000m above the Big Crystal Creek floodplain. The concrete arch bridge over Little Crystal Creek is a prominent feature of the landscape in this area, and is located about halfway along the Mt Spec Road. The bridge is a very common subject for photography by locals and visitors, and Little Crystal Creek is one of the most popular natural destinations for residents of the twin cities of Townsville and Thuringowa.
\nLobbying to build the Mt Spec Road took place over some 30 or so years, against a background of philosophical ideas of 'progress' and 'settlement' and the need for access to the areas west of Paluma for tin miners, timber cutters and farmers ('farmers access roads'), to the Paluma/Crystal Creek area itself for tourists and as a water supply for Townsville. This lobbying and the prolonged debate over the eventual location and construction of the road were also linked with the need to preserve features of the natural landscape. It took place amongst considerable controversy.
\nThe earliest European access to what is now Paluma probably followed Aboriginal pathways, and there were six tracks in the Herbert district in the 1880s and 1890s that provided direct access to Mt Spec. However, only a few of these tracks were suitable for horses; most were foot tracks, and the easiest access to the forest in this area of broken topography was from the west.
\nIn 1875 tin was discovered west of Paluma. It was soon realised that a good access road was required not only for the tin miners but also for visitors to the ranges, as the scenic beauty and temperate climate of the Paluma Range had been noted since the early 1900s. The Paluma Range area had been promoted for tourism and as a health resort from as early as 1902, when a correspondent from the North Queensland Herald visited the Mt Spec tin mines. The North Queensland Register of 28 July 1913 suggested that a township be gazetted at Cloudy Clearing, the original name for the site of Paluma, that a sanitarium be established in the ranges, and that 'the scrub' be protected.
\nSuccessful Townsville businessman, REA McKimmin, wrote in 1913 of the scenic attractions of Mt Spec:
\n\"...I have seen most of the Southern Beauty Spots...and have no hesitation in stating that Mt Spec would surpass them all in every way if properly opened up...the wonderful change of climate compared to Townsville during the summer months is difficult to describe...\".
\nSimilarly, Phillip Foxlee, a Mt Spec tin miner, wrote to Queensland Premier Theodore in 1925:
\n\"All the water comes pouring through this Gorge in one channel at the mouth...this Gorge [is] two miles wide for almost its entire length...and [is] crammed full of waterfalls on every side...I think eventually we will have people from all parts of the world through that Gorge and circle round back to Mt Spec...it is likely to be a National Park.\"
\nPublic interest in mountain retreats had endured from colonial times, when the summer's heat was to be avoided and recuperation at higher, cooler altitudes was prescribed for diseases such as tuberculosis, a trend which continued during World War II, when patients of the disease were still privately recuperating in Paluma. Mt Spec had become a popular weekend destination for visitors from Townsville and Ingham after World War I, and a series of 'ranches' and guesthouses had appeared long before the road was constructed. Most of these visitors walked in on foot, just as the tin miners had done.
\nBy 1920, the need to provide all-weather roads was a priority for Queenslanders - a response to the increased number of motor vehicles on the roads, and to the need to provide suitable infrastructure for an expanding economy. Queensland roads were in a deplorable condition, the result of haphazard planning by the then responsible but under-funded local government authorities. In the development of a road network, Queensland lagged far behind the other States. In response, the Queensland Government established the Main Roads Board in 1920 to oversee the construction of connecting roads and bridges and to provide funding to the local authorities involved. In 1925, the Main Roads Board became the Main Roads Commission under JR Kemp as Commissioner and continued the overseeing of road and bridge construction throughout Queensland. The Main Roads Board quickly realised that road and bridge specifications and other standards were urgently required to improve the quality of construction and establish a uniformity of practice. Road standards were therefore established, introducing three classifications of roads in 1925 and a single standard bridge design in 1922-1923. Two years later alternative designs were added to cater for different loadings, labelled First Class (later A Class) and Second Class (B Class). These standards did not change significantly over the next 80 years.
\nThe Main Roads Act 1920 provided that responsibility for roads and bridges be shared between local and state authorities, ensuring that road planning and building was coordinated beyond the scope of individual local authorities. Under the Act, roads could be gazetted as Main Roads outside towns if they were trunk roads joining towns which were not yet connected by railway; feeder roads linking farming areas to the existing rail network; and developmental roads, which were to open to closer settlement new areas of Crown Land. Under amendments to the Main Roads Act 1920, several new categories of declared roads were added, including in 1929-1930 Tourist Roads, which were intended to open up areas to tourist traffic. Seven Tourist Roads had been declared by June 1930, although limited work had been carried out on them, and these included the Mt. Spec Road, which therefore is one of the earliest declared Tourist Roads in Queensland. The inclusion of Mt Spec Road as a Tourist Road was largely due to influential Townsville businessmen, who with varied commercial, political and personal motives had brought together the various stakeholders to lobby for the construction of the road.
\nThe newly formed Main Roads Board and subsequent Commission were anxious to make a mark, a factor exploited by the various lobby groups around Townsville. These included organisations such as the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ), which arose from the growth in motor vehicle traffic and had a particularly active membership in Townsville in the late 1920s, and the Townsville and District Development Association, which had been campaigning since the early years of the twentieth century for the State Government to open Mt Spec to settlement.
\nTownsville City Council was a powerful advocate for the construction of the Mt Spec Road. Mayor WH Green saw the potential of Mt Spec as a water catchment for Townsville, because in the 1920s Townsville's water supply could not meet demand, and access to a guaranteed supply was required for the growing population. Although the motivation to improve access to the ranges was both the quantity and quality of the water at Mt Spec, financial constraints and the location of the area outside Townsville City Council's jurisdiction within the Shires of Thuringowa and Hinchinbrook resulted in an unwillingness to commit Townsville City's own funds to the construction of the road. Many of Townsville City and neighbouring Councils¿ concerns over financial responsibility for the proposed road were, however, relieved by its gazettal as a Tourist Road in October 1929. Nevertheless, Mayor Green's vision for Mt Spec as a water supply for Townsville was not met until the end of 1954, with the official opening of the first pipeline from Big Crystal Creek to Townsville and later with the construction of the Paluma Dam in the 1960s.
\nThe construction of the Mt Spec Road finally came down to the State Government's need to deliver unemployment relief during the Great Depression and to provide quick scenic access to the proposed township at Cloudy Clearing in the ranges, for which Townsville branches of the Country and Progressive National Party had lobbied the Minister for Lands in 1931. There was otherwise mixed support for the road and its perceived benefits compared to its potential costs, particularly following the release of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Development of North Queensland in 1931. The purported economic benefits of the road were not clearly demonstrated. For example, potential timber reserves could be accessed by the road, a point made forcefully by state foresters to the Royal Commission, but logging areas within the Mt Spec State Forest had only been gazetted in the 1920s, the full extent of the timber reserves was unknown and the timber industry was only just beginning. Furthermore, tin mining was suffering a downturn, and the possibilities for farming on the tableland around Mt Spec that had been promoted by the Townsville and District Development Association were not readily apparent, with the only evidence that it was viable being fruits and vegetables grown in miners¿ clearings.
\nFinally, after an expedition into the ranges in 1924 by Townsville City Council and the RACQ, a motion was passed to request the Main Roads Board to undertake a survey of a road to Mt Spec, which was eventually carried out between 1929 and 1931. In November 1930, construction of the Mt Spec Road began with the clearing of about five miles of track from the railway line to the base of the Paluma Range. The new Main Roads Commission was responsible for surveying, designing and supervising the construction of the road. Apart from a few contractors, the only permanent staff were Commission employees. Labour was mostly unskilled and drawn from the region's unemployed men under Unemployment Relief Scheme funds that the Government insisted the Main Roads Commission deploy as a way of easing unemployment. The construction of the Mt Spec Road was the largest Unemployment Relief project in the region.
\nThe project was labour-intensive took five years to complete. Working conditions were hard and isolated. Initially, all workers were located in one large camp near the base of the range, No. 1 Camp, where a pipeworks was erected on Ollera Creek. There were four major campsites throughout the duration of the project, but it is difficult to determine the total number of camps accurately because, as work progressed, smaller satellite campsites were established near where significant work, such as the construction of concrete arch culverts, was being undertaken. Mango and lemon trees and passionfruit vines previously marked the locations of these campsites, but these have mostly been removed, so that it is now difficult to determine where the campsites were situated on the ground. The campsite at The. Saddle, some 10.1 km from the start of the road, was quite large, housing over 100 workers and being maintained over a period of three years. The camp was on level ground below the road on the right-hand side, and included the Main Roads Commission site office, a tool shed and a telephone. Three large ship's water tanks now mark the location of this campsite. These tanks stored water for the camp, being fed by a nearby creek. Water was transported to fill the tanks in dry weather.
\nSand was dug from the creek bed near No. 1 Camp for the hundreds of concrete pipes forming most of the culverts under the road. The eucalypt forest and then the rainforest, marked on Main Roads working drawings as 'vine scrub' or 'jungle', had to be manually cleared. Initially, the only mechanical aids were a few trucks, two tractors and two air compressors, with cuttings being blasted through the granite with gelignite and most work being done with picks and shovels. After the trees were cleared, horse-drawn ploughs broke up the softer earth, while horse-drawn scoops, wheelbarrows or mining trolleys on portable lengths of track removed the overburden. 'Tumbling tommies', small scoops that were towed behind the crawler tractors, were used later on.
\nThe significance of the project to Queensland's unemployment relief efforts was so great that the Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson, even visited for lunch, viewing progress on the road at No. 3 Camp, after travelling by train to Moongobulla and then up to the site.
\nIn keeping with one of the main purposes of the road and as construction continued, a series of guesthouses and camping grounds were established along its length due to the beauty of the scenery, with Barrett's Guesthouse providing for the single male workers and visitors to the construction site.
\nAs visitation to the Paluma Range increased, lobbying for the gazettal of a township continued, and with the head of works on the road still two miles from Paluma, the first auctions of lots were held in December 1934. The establishment of a township at Cloudy Clearing, now known as Paluma, had begun.
\nThe Mt Spec Tourist Road was opened by JG Jesson MLA on 18 July 1937, sponsored by the Townsville and District Development Association and some twelve months after the full length of the road had become trafficable by car.
\nThe Main Roads Commission also assumed responsibility for the provision of a range of tourist facilities, and in conjunction with the construction of the Mt Spec Road, built picnic areas and shelter sheds at Little Crystal Creek, The Saddle and at the top of the range; surveyed and built a network of walking tracks, some of which formed the basis for the present National Parks track system; and constructed scenic lookouts at The Saddle, The Loop (now McClelland's Lookout in honour of the Officer-in-Charge of construction), Star Valley and Widt's Lookout. Another innovation was the establishment of a 'motor camp' at Paluma in 1937, possibly the first motel in Australia, which continued to be managed by Main Roads for another twenty years.
\nIt is clear from the available evidence that the aesthetic appeal of the road was considered by the Main Roads Commission throughout its construction. The aesthetically pleasing design of the concrete arch bridge across Little Crystal Creek constitutes the best example of this. The final design of the bridge also illustrates the long-term thinking of the local Main Roads overseer and engineers, who had successfully lobbied Main Roads' head office in Brisbane for a radical change from the more usual second-class timber bridge to a first-class concrete bridge. On 8 June 1931, the District Engineer Townsville had written to the Secretary Main Roads Commission in Brisbane that \"from the aesthetic point of view a masonry arch should be considered, as it would harmonise with a rather picturesque spot.\" This variation was approved in January 1932 and contributed to an escalation in the final constructions costs of the project. Four stonemasons were employed during the construction of the Little Crystal Creek Bridge. Wages for the stonemasons and \"too much work dressing stone\", as noted by the District Engineer Townsville in June 1933, contributed to the excessive cost of the bridge. However, overall approval of the final result using unskilled labour as well as that of the stonemasons is apparent in the words of the Commissioner of Main Roads, who wrote in 1933 that the bridge was \"an illustration of the high quality of work which can be achieved by such labour skilfully directed.\" The Little Crystal Creek Bridge is reportedly the only concrete arch road bridge in Queensland that remains in service.
\nOther examples that illustrate the way in which the final aesthetic appeal of the road was taken into account during construction include the several smaller concrete arch culverts that still exist along the full length of the road, which are similar in construction to the bridge over Little Crystal Creek, and the sections of stone battering and stone-paved gutters that have survived despite subsequent road improvements and maintenance and natural weathering.
","criteria":"Mt Spec Road, which stretches approximately 18km from its junction with the old Bruce Highway to the western outskirts of Paluma and includes the concrete arch bridge over Little Crystal Creek, is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of North Queensland's history. The road was constructed between 1930 and 1936 and before the northern highway from Townsville to Ingham, at a time when Main Roads were still a new concept. It was constructed at the height of the Great Depression, using mostly unskilled labour and with the application of Unemployment Relief Scheme funds. Construction of Mt Spec Road was the largest Unemployment Relief project in the region. It was a difficult and ambitious project that eventually took six years to complete and is significant as a long-term regional project employing hundreds of men.
\nThe place is also important in demonstrating transport and communication patterns in North Queensland, and in particular the opening up of the Paluma Range to tourists, tin miners, timber cutters and farmers. The place is one of Queensland's earliest declared Tourist Roads, a new category of Main Road established under 1929-1930 amendments to the Main Roads Act 1920, and constructed under the auspices of the newly formed Main Roads Commission, whose responsibility was to guide the planning and construction of roads in Queensland.
|Mt Spec Road remains substantially intact throughout the 18km of its length and demonstrates an extensive and now uncommon use of concrete arch culverts, dry stone walling and stone-paved gutters.
The Little Crystal Creek Bridge on Mt Spec Road is the only identified Main Roads concrete arch bridge dressed with stone remaining in service in Queensland.
|Mt Spec Road is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early declared Tourist Road designed to open scenic locations to tourist traffic and constructed in hilly terrain by a large depression-era labour force using limited mechanical assistance. These characteristics include the extensive use of concrete arch culverts, dry stone walling and stone-paved gutters; the inclusion of a substantial concrete arch bridge over Little Crystal Creek rather than a less substantial timber structure; and the facing of the bridge and the arch culverts with stone.
|The concrete arch bridge over Little Crystal Creek is an aesthetically pleasing design in a picturesque location along the Mt Spec Road. The bridge spans the Little Crystal Creek gorge in the Paluma Range National Park, and has become representative of this scenic part of the landscape, being a very prominent feature commonly photographed by locals and visitors. The aesthetics of the stone-faced concrete bridge are repeated in the several smaller concrete arch culverts that are located along the full length of the road. The road affords spectacular views of Halifax Bay and the coastal plain.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29110,"place_ref":602654,"name":"Selector's Hut (former)","alternate_name":"Marks' Hut | Selectors Hut | Marks Hut","street_address":"20 Upper Camp Mountain Road","suburb":"CAMP MOUNTAIN","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2007-12-03","description":"The former selector's hut at Camp Mountain is located on the west side of Upper Camp Mountain Road approximately one kilometre southwest from the intersection with Camp Mountain Road. It stands on a gentle ridge in an open grassed paddock to the west side of the road. The hut has expansive views to hills beyond particularly the D'Aguilar Range which acts as a picturesque backdrop when viewing the hut from easterly points.
A single room with a projecting alcove to the northeast corner, the hut is sheltered by a rectangular gable roof and has a skillion roofed verandah to the northeast. The hut is clad with vertical and horizontal hardwood slabs and partly lined with horizontal timber boards. Grass and soil obscure the perimeter of the hut but the vertical slabs appear to stand directly into the ground and attach to the perimeter roof beams. Some timber elements have markings and notches that may indicate a recycling of timber from elsewhere. The roofs are clad with corrugated iron sheeting.
The short end elevations are clad with vertical hardwood slabs and the gables are infilled with horizontal timber boards. On the northwest elevation, a gap left by an earlier brick chimney is concealed by wide vertical and horizontal slabs. At the opposite end of the hut, a corrugated iron sheet covers a rectangular window opening.
The long elevation to the rear (southwest) accommodates a rectangular opening cut into the slabs midway along the elevation. A hinged timber framed and boarded window is fitted to this opening.
The front of the alcove is clad with vertical timber slabs and a gap in the wall is patched with a sheet of corrugated iron. The northeast corner is strapped with wire. The wall to the verandah is clad with chamferboards and a timber framed and boarded door opens onto the verandah. The verandah roof is supported by round timber posts and the verandah has a grassed/dirt floor. The verandah elevation of the hut is clad with vertical hardwood slabs and a hinged timber door opens into the hut.
A large area of the interior of the hut is lined with horizontal timber boards which have remnants of newspaper adhering to them. The roof is unlined. The roof framing includes slender log beams and sawn timber members. The dirt floor has loose timber boards laid to the southeast end.
The immediate surrounds of the hut are secured by a fence constructed of timber posts threaded through with barbed wire with narrow metal pipe top rails.
There is stone flagging to the southeast side of the hut.
A tall eucalypt stands to the southwest of the hut and there are scattered clusters of trees and shrubs in the surrounding grassed paddock.
Timber stockyards stand to the northwest of the hut and a hollow in the slope to the north of the yards accommodates an earlier storage area.
","history":"The Former Selector's Hut, Camp Mountain, is a small single roomed cottage located in a rural setting near the township of Samford north of Brisbane. It is constructed of slab and sawn timber and was built circa 1870 by selector George Atthow.
Land settlement in rural Queensland began with a pastoral phase where squatters occupied large tracts of Crown land on which they ran sheep or cattle. Over time, the Crown surveyed these runs and enforced lease arrangements with the squatters. Closer settlement of rural land began in the 1860s, when the government enacted legislation to encourage small scale farming. Crown land began to be made available in small allotments for selection. The 1868 Crown Lands Alienation Act, enabled government to resume substantial portions of leasehold runs for this purpose.
Like most areas close to Brisbane, the Samford valley experienced a fairly short pastoral phase. The earliest known pastoralist to occupy the valley was Archibald Young. Young had probably already occupied the area when he applied to lease land in 1854. His lease became known as the Samford Run. Closer settlement commenced from March 1865 with the first sale of 49 farm allotments excised from the Samford Run. Initially, the farm allotments sold very slowly but the process accelerated after the passing of the 1868 Act. By 1871, there were about 71 people living in the area. The farmers grew small crops and operated dairies. A provisional school opened in 1872.
Grazier and entrepreneur, George Atthow (1828 - 1891), selected portions 42 to 45 in the Parish of Samford on 17 April 1869. It is likely that he built the extant cottage and some nearby cattle yards soon after. An alternative view has been put that the hut was built by surveyors. If this is true, the hut would have been built prior to selection of the land by Atthow. However, this is considered unlikely for two reasons: first, it is unlikely that surveyors would have built accommodation as substantial as the cottage and second, a Commissioner of Crown Lands report dated 1873 notes that the dwelling on the property was completed by the selector. Atthow grazed cattle on the property and on other land he later selected in the Samford and Albany Creek areas. A bailiff was living on the Samford block from January 1870. By 1875, Atthow himself was living there.
The cottage is typical of the relatively primitive dwellings built by selectors when they first occupied their land. Built largely of undressed timber slabs, it initially comprised two rooms and a front verandah. An 1875 Bailiff of Crown Lands report noted that it had a shingle roof. By 1887, a further two small rooms had been added under the verandah and, if the roof had originally been clad with shingles, these had been replaced by corrugated iron. It is possible that one of the new rooms was used as a consulting room by Dr Keighly Marks who occupied the cottage from 1887 to circa 1894 and practised medicine from there. It is believed that a pit close to the cottage may have been used for storing cream, milk and other perishables it may also have been used as a dump. The Duranta and Oleander located near the cottage may be relics of a 19th century garden.
A number of changes have occurred to the cottage since this time. The cottage has lost one of the rooms under the verandah, internal walls, the rear skillion kitchen and chimney, and the living room chimney. The traces of Bulletin pages on the wall probably date from the interwar period. Stone flagging to one side of the hut supported a tank (no longer extant) that was installed during the same period. The remaining front verandah room was originally clad with horizontal boards. These were replaced by slabs during repairs carried out in 1976. At this time, slabs taken from old horse stalls and a collapsed hut located elsewhere in the area were used on repairs to the main part of the cottage. The slabs from the hut are broader that those from the horse stalls. A ship's tank near the cottage was placed there in 1979.
The original cattle yards (no longer extant) were noted in the 1873 survey report. A sketch map included with an 1875 report by the Crown Lands Bailiff indicates that they were north of the hut and further from the boundary than the existing yards. It is believed that the existing yards, just northwest of the hut, were built by the Marks family in the 1950s.
From 1877, the property was owned for short periods of time by various owners until 1887 when it was purchased by Charles Ferdinand Marks and it remained in Marks family ownership for well over a century becoming the nucleus of their 'Cushleva' farm. Dr Keighly Marks lived in the cottage until circa 1894. From this time it was let by the Marks family to various tenants until about 1945. The property was still in Marks family ownership at the death of Pat Marks in 2002.
The Marks family were prominent in Brisbane's medical and scientific communities. Charles Marks was a medical practitioner and politician, based at Wickham Terrace. He was a member of the Central Board of Health and the Queensland Medical Board. He was president of the latter organisation between 1910 and 1912. His son, Edward Oswald (Ted) Marks, was a geologist and ophthalmologist. Another son, Alexander Hammett Marks, was a distinguished medical practitioner and soldier. Ted Marks' daughter, Elizabeth (Pat) Marks, was one of Australia's leading entomologists and malaria experts. Pat Marks took a close interest in the cottage. In recent years, the area around the cottage has experienced another phase of settlement as the Samford Valley has developed into a rural residential area.
","criteria":"The hut is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a selector's timber slab dwelling of the 19th century. The design and construction techniques reflect the limited resources available when constructing a dwelling on a selected block during the initial stages of closer settlement. The hut is small in scale and simple in design. Timber elements are set directly into the ground and the hut is mostly clad with hardwood timber slabs.
|Sited on a gentle ridge, surrounded by lightly wooded pasture with the backdrop of rolling hills including the D'Aguilar Range, the humble slab hut in its picturesque setting evokes the sensibilities of a rustic idyll. Modern elements are minimised in many of the important view lines, and this is effective in conveying a sense of the early form and setting of the hut.
|The hut is a rare example of a 19th century selector's dwelling and a good example of a slab hut. It is uncommon in southeast Queensland for its earliness. Its austerity, modest scale and construction techniques are important in demonstrating a way of life and a building type once common but now rare.
|The Former Selector's Hut, Camp Mountain, built in circa 1870 or earlier, illustrates an important phase of settlement that was occurring throughout the colony of Queensland at the time. From the 1860s, Crown land began to be divided into allotments and made available for selection in line with a government policy to encourage the growth of small scale farming. The Camp Mountain hut was built by a selector during the early stages of this process in the Samford Valley.
The storage pit and stockyards are important evidence of farming activities associated with the changing uses of the hut, the property and land use in the Samford since 1870.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29133,"place_ref":602756,"name":"Clermont Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cemetery Road","suburb":"CLERMONT","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Clermont Cemetery occupies the southern portion of a roughly triangular, ten hectare block of land located approximately two kilometres north of the town centre of Clermont in central Queensland. Access to the cemetery is via several entrance gates off Cemetery Road, which runs along the southern boundary. Perpendicular to this is the eastern boundary, which lies adjacent to Old Showground Road and privately owned land. The third boundary is formed by Sandy Creek, which crosses from the south-west to the north-east corner of the property. The northern portion of the site, separated from the cemetery by a fence line running east-west, is not in use and remains covered by what appear to be native trees. This portion of the site is not included within the heritage register boundary.
Graves within the cemetery are arranged in a rectangular grid layout divided by dirt or gravel driveways and walkways, with headstones facing toward the east. The earliest graves are located towards the western end of the site, while the most recent burials and a lawn cemetery are found at the eastern end. Identified burials date from 1867 to the present, with a variety of Victorian, Edwardian and twentieth century monument styles featured throughout.
The graves associated with the 1916 flood are located within the older, western half of the cemetery that lies closest to Sandy Creek. In this area, surviving headstones from pre-1916 are made from sandstone, marble and cast iron, many of them substantial headstones of good quality design and craftsmanship.
The mass grave containing the victims of the flood is enclosed by a low fence, made from tubular steel posts with chain slung between them. Two marked grave plots containing flood victims are also enclosed by the fence. One belongs to Richard Hooper. The inscription states he 'was drowned in the great flood of Clermont'. The grave also contains his wife Elizabeth Jane Hooper who died in 1956 aged 85. It consists of a marble plaque attached to a granite headstone, with a low concrete grave kerb surrounding a concrete slab covered in black and white tiles. Four immortelles sit on top of the slab and a marble plaque with the words 'Mother Father' are attached to the kerb at the foot of the grave. The other marked grave, located further to the south, has a concrete headstone with marble plaque, concrete grave kerb and gravel infill. The three names listed on this plaque are: John Thomas Wicks, Peter Olsson and Evelyn Olsson. The inscription states that they 'were drowned in the flood of Dec 1916.'
A memorial dated 1991 is also located within the fenced enclosure. It comprises a granite block on a concrete base with small bronze plaques, naming individuals and family groups who lost their lives in the 1916 flood, attached to the eastern face. A larger plaque in the centre bears the words: 'ERECTED BY LIONESS CLUB ON 13. 4. 1991 IN MEMORY OF KNOWN VICTIMS OF DEC. 1916 FLOOD.' Next to the granite memorial on the right hand side is a tall timber post, painted white, with a small timber cross member marking the presumed level of the flood. Words painted on this cross member are: '1916 FLOOD LEVEL, approximately.'
Other flood victims' graves are found in the eastern half of the cemetery. A memorial to 34 year old Margaret Davidson (nee Healy) was erected by her siblings and consists of a marble angel on top of a marble pedestal. The grave itself is surrounded by iron fencing, painted white. Another monument is a large marble Celtic cross bearing the names of five members of the Carsten family. The inscription states that it was erected "In loving memory of my dearly beloved wife, little son, mother and sisters who lost their lives in the flood at Clermont, 28 Dec. 1916." The names listed are those of Maud Margaret Carsten (aged 30), Simon Henry Carsten (14 months), Kate Carsten (50), and Gretta and Eva Mary Carsten (22 and 26 respectively).
Throughout the rest of the cemetery, a wide variety of monumental forms are found including sarcophagi, obelisks and columns. Headstones range from simple upright slabs to those featuring elaborate ornamentation such as angels, cherubs, bibles, urns, crosses and broken columns. Materials used include marble, sandstone, iron, granite and concrete. Of note are some cast iron monuments with filigree iron lacework borders. Included amongst the early twentieth century monuments is the work of Brisbane monumental masons AL Petrie and J Petrie and Sons, and A & G Ballantine of Melbourne. J Simmonds of Brisbane is identified on an 1894 headstone.
Monuments from the mid to late 20th century are predominantly of the slab and desk type, made from materials such as concrete, granite and sandstone with some marble features and plaques. Many grave surrounds and concrete slabs are clad in ceramic tiles.
The lawn cemetery consists of wide, rectangular strips of ground surrounded by concrete kerbing, one of which features a row of flowering shrubs or small trees down the centre. Brass plaques marking individual graves are either set into concrete at ground level or attached to a continuous, inclined concrete strip.
The main entrance archway, located towards the centre of the southern boundary fence, features an arched metal sign supported by tubular metal posts on top of stone pylons and reading 'CLERMONT CEMETERY'.
The western and northern sides of the cemetery are screened by mature trees growing beyond the boundaries. A row of trees including Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) planted along Cemetery Road have a partial screening effect yet still allows views into the cemetery. A scattering of other stand-alone trees are also found growing within the cemetery. Fencing along the front boundary is made with metal post and cyclone wire and with three vehicular and four pedestrian gates spaced along its length. This fence is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. A number of sheds within the cemetery reserve are recent and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Views over surrounding countryside and farmland are obtained to the east and south of the cemetery. Through trees along the western boundary are views towards Sandy Creek and the countryside beyond.
","history":"Clermont Cemetery was established in 1866 to service the early Queensland mining town of Clermont in central Queensland. The place has functioned as Clermont's only public cemetery since the town's inception in the 1860s and it contains graves dating to this period. In December 1916 Clermont experienced the greatest recorded loss of life during a flood in Queensland, and the Clermont Cemetery contains the graves of at least 36 of the flood victims.
Establishment of Clermont
Clermont, in the Peak Downs area of the former Leichhardt Pastoral District, was one of the earliest inland towns established in central Queensland. Pastoralists took up land in the area in the early 1850s but the town of Clermont owes its existence to the discovery of alluvial gold near Hood's Lagoon circa 1861. With the resultant rush of miners to the site a tent town was established and a licensed hotel, the Diggers' Retreat, was opened in 1862. In late 1863 the area around the lagoon was surveyed as the town of Clermont, and in December that year the town was appointed a place for holding Courts of Petty Sessions. In 1863 the Peak Downs Copper Company opened the first copper mine in Queensland - a rich copper lode about five kilometres south of Clermont - and the township of Copperfield developed around the mine.
The progress of the Clermont-Copperfield district was widely reported in colonial Queensland. Charles Buzacott established the Peak Downs Telegram and Queensland Mining Record at Clermont in 1864 and in 1865 Pugh's Almanac identified Clermont as "one of the most promising townships in the interior", with a bank, hospital, court-house, newspaper office, workshops, stores, three hotels and several boarding houses. In January 1865 the Clermont Electoral District was proclaimed and in November that year the township of Clermont and the adjacent mining district was proclaimed as the Provisional Council District of Clermont - the first under the District Councils Act of 1864. In mid-1866 the residents of Clermont petitioned for municipal status which resulted in the proclamation of the combined municipality of Clermont and Copperfield in January 1867. At the time of the Queensland census of 1868, Clermont, with a population of 821, was the ninth most populous town in the colony, after Brisbane, Rockhampton, Ipswich, Maryborough, Toowoomba, Warwick, Dalby and Bowen, and had a greater population than Drayton (807), Gayndah (746), Roma (506), Gladstone (377), Townsville (346), Mackay (341), Allora (292), Leyburn (279) and Springsure (277).
In the early years Clermont was sustained by gold and copper mining and the surrounding pastoral industry. However, by the time Clermont and Copperfield each gained municipal status in May 1872, payable alluvial gold in the district was declining. The town survived largely due to the completion in 1884 of a branch railway linking Clermont to Emerald and Rockhampton. From the 1890s, coal at Blair Athol replaced gold and copper as the principal mining interest in the district. By the late twentieth century, Clermont had evolved into a medium-sized town serving coal mines and agricultural holdings in the area.
Clermont Cemetery
In late 1865 the colonial government approved a grant of 10 acres (4ha) for a cemetery at Clermont, although when surveyor Charles F Gregory made his survey early in 1866 he included a cemetery extension, bringing the total area to 15 acres 2 roods (6.27ha). In the tradition of locating public cemeteries on the outskirts of a town, the Clermont cemetery reserve was located on the banks of Sandy Creek about one kilometre north-east of the township. It was in use by April 1866 when the town buried one of its first residents, Dr WS Smith, who had been practising in the town for nearly four years. The earliest registered burial in the cemetery was that of a two year old child, David Kilpatrick, who was interred in 1867. Around 20 per cent of over 3,000 known burials in the cemetery pre-date 1900.
Under the Cemetery Act of 1865, which provided for the regulation of cemeteries throughout Queensland, trustees for the Clermont Cemetery were appointed in August 1868. They represented the Church of England, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan and Presbyterian denominations. Burials for all Christian denominations and non-Christians were received in public cemeteries, which usually were laid out in denominational sections.
Clermont Cemetery is among the earlier surviving public cemeteries in central Queensland, others being located at St Lawrence (earliest burial 1857), South Rockhampton (established 1860 - QHR 601131), Marlborough (earliest burial 1860) and Nebo (earliest burial 1866).
Early cemeteries are important records of the pattern of non-Indigenous settlement in Queensland. The Clermont Cemetery is particularly important for its association with early mining in Queensland. New goldfields typically attracted fortune seekers from all over the world and the birthplaces of those buried in the Clermont Cemetery in the nineteenth century reflected the varied origins of the town's inhabitants during the peak period of mining activity in the area. Birthplaces other than Australia and the British Isles included: China (most numerous), Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, France, and single burials each of an Austrian, Swiss, South Sea Islander, Japanese, Canadian and an American. Many of these nationalities, and others, are represented also in later graves.
Despite the renewal of trustees in 1878, by the mid-1880s the cemetery had fallen into disrepair: "The Clermont cemetery is one of those institutions which are left to manage themselves as best they may. God's Acre is all untidy and uncared for; the fences are going to ruin, and the management seems almost entirely to rest upon an irresponsible undertaker and sexton." (Brisbane Courier Friday 26 March 1886:3:4)
In 1887 the cemetery area was expanded and proclaimed as a permanent reserve of 25 acres (10.1h) for cemetery purposes. A late 1886 survey plan shows the cemetery occupying the south-western corner of the reserve, closest to the town and fronting Cemetery Road, and enclosed with a two-rail timber fence. Another two-rail fence separated the southern third of the reserve from the remainder, which was largely unimproved.
By 1901 a substantial lychgate-cum-shelter shed had been constructed at the main entrance off Cemetery Road, in the south-western corner of the cemetery reserve. This was a timber-framed structure, three or four bays in length, open-sided, with a gabled roof.
Historically during the summer months, central and north Queensland has been prone to extreme weather conditions and periods of heavy rain associated with tropical lows and cyclones which have caused major damage and loss of life. In addition to the destruction caused by high winds, torrential rain created by degenerating cyclones has caused rapid flooding of rivers and creeks, inundating large areas of land with fast flowing water.
Clermont had long experience of damaging floods - such as that of February 1870, when the town was inundated to a depth of four to five feet (1.2m to 1.5m) and four persons were drowned (15 in the wider district) - but nothing on the scale of the flood of late December 1916. During the morning of 27 December 1916 a cyclone crossed the coast between Bowen and Mackay bringing torrential rain and high wind. By 4.00am on 28 December it was located about 35 miles (56km) north-west of Clermont. Heavy rain fell into the small catchments of Sandy and Wolfang creeks. An accurate determination of rainfall was impossible as rain gauges overflowed but it was estimated that up to 30 inches (760mm) of rain fell in the area during the period of the storm which lasted around 18 hours.
An eye witness described the "wall of water" that flowed rapidly down the creeks sweeping away the low lying areas of the town of Clermont and inundating the town cemetery beside the river. In the wake of the flood the press reported: "The cemetery is merely a mass of holes. The coffins have been washed out and carried downstream, and the headstones have been wrecked, or where they were of wood have been borne long distances." (Adelaide Advertiser 9 January 1917:7) The sexton's house was washed away and the sexton was drowned.
It is estimated that the river flats were submerged under 12 to 14 feet (3.6m to 4.3m) of fast-flowing water. People sought refuge on roofs and in ceilings but the debris-laden flood waters destroyed many houses and lifted others from their stumps to be carried downstream. Other people were drowned in the flood waters while attempting to escape to higher ground. Over 60 people died, with the disaster reported throughout the country and in the London Times.
Many flood victims were buried close to where they were found, but at least 36 are known to be buried in the Clermont Cemetery. All except one of these were buried within three days of the disaster. The burials included entire families of up to seven persons, with the age of victims ranging from two to 70 years. Most were interred in a mass grave located to the east of the earlier burials.
A meeting of surviving residents soon after the flood resolved to move the town from the flats to higher ground close by. The government enacted special legislation, the Clermont Flood Relief Act 1917, to enable the town to re-establish at the new site. Some buildings were moved to the new location by traction engine.
Descendants of the flood victims still live in Clermont. In 1991, a memorial to the victims was erected in the cemetery by the Lioness Club of Clermont, on the site of the mass grave. A white cross shows the approximate height of the flood waters. Another memorial is located at the site of the original township.
The cemetery is now managed by the Isaac Regional Council and remains the main public burial ground for Clermont.
","criteria":"Clermont Cemetery, established in 1866 and still in use, is an early public burial ground in central Queensland. It is associated with the establishment of Clermont as one of Queensland's earliest mining towns; is important in demonstrating the wide ethnic diversity of an early Queensland mining community; and is an important source of unique historical information about a community that has serviced a mining, pastoral and agricultural district since the 1860s.
The place is important for its association with the great flood of December 1916 which swept away the lower areas of Clermont with the loss of over 60 lives - the worst flood in terms of loss of life in Queensland's history - and which brought about the relocation of the town from the flats around the Clermont Lagoon to higher ground nearby. At least 36 of the flood victims were buried in the Clermont Cemetery, most in a mass grave, providing emotive evidence of the human cost of Queensland's harsh climatic conditions. The cemetery itself was flooded and a marker at the mass grave shows the depth of the flood waters.
|Clermont Cemetery is important for the aesthetic values generated by the evocativeness of the monuments and memorials, particularly those associated with the 1916 flood victims; and by the workmanship displayed in many of the early monuments, many of which were crafted in other centres and transported to Clermont.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29134,"place_ref":602727,"name":"East Gordon Street Sewerage Works","alternate_name":"Pump Stations","street_address":"38 East Gordon Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-07-10","description":"The 1936 Sewerage Works is located on a level allotment in East Gordon Street, Mackay. The two principal early structures on the site are the pump house and chlorinator building. These are small, white, concrete buildings with castellated parapets. The larger is to the rear and the smaller to the front of the block.
The buildings are constructed from off-form concrete with a horizontal, wide-board pattern showing. Vent stacks are built as miniature towers at some corners of the structures; other corners have matching engaged buttresses. They sit on concrete tanks, their floors about 1.5m above the ground.
The smaller building (chlorinator) is rectangular in plan with the longer elevations facing south-west and north-east. Two square, metal-framed windows, covered with metal shutters open into both of these elevations. A square window into the north-west elevation is also covered with sheeting. The entrance to the building, in the south-east elevation, is via a concrete stair which ascends parallel to the wall finishing at a concrete landing. A wooden door opens from the landing. This is secured with a knob and a more recent lock. The top of the tank under the smaller building forms a raised semicircular concrete plinth which extends to the south-west. The tank contains a chamber with a tapered floor.
Internally, the building comprises a single room with unpainted concrete walls. It contains two large items of early machinery. One of these has a small brass name plate bearing the words 'Filtration and water softening system'.
The larger building (pump house) is also rectangular in plan with the long elevations facing south-west and north-east. Access to the building is via a concrete stair to the narrow, south-east elevation. The stair ascends at right angles to the wall finishing at a long landing. At the top of the landing, a double metal door opens into the interior. It has a curved handle and is secured by a barrel bolt. A plaque above the door commemorates the commissioning of the works on 25 January 1936. The opposite elevation has a single small, metal-framed glass window with nine panes.
The south-west elevation has three square, steel-framed windows. These pivot around a horizontal axis at mid-height. The top of the tank attached to the side of the building projects to form a rectangular plinth. A steel stairway ascends at right angles to the south-eastern side of the tank finishing close to the wall of the building. Four metal shafts project from the top of the tank. Three of these have metal wheels fitted to the top; threaded lengths of rod extend above these wheels. Hinged, steel panels provide access into the tanks.
The opposite (north-east) elevation has two square windows and a narrow hatchway around 1.5m in height. The windows are covered with sheeting which is boxed out from the wall a short distance. Two metal plates are bolted over the hatchway; a large square plate above a smaller rectangular one. Both plates have curved handles at each end.
The top of the tank forms a rectangular plinth extending from this elevation. There are small rectangular and arched openings into the base of the north-eastern end of the plinth.
Internally, the larger building is painted light grey on the lower part of the wall and pale green above, separated by a black band. The floor comprises a series of steel plates with a metal ladder descending to a sub-floor area that is now disused. The building contains a grey cabinet housing electrical equipment. This is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The building also contains a manually operated overhead crane. Transverse movement of the crane is achieved by means of a simple chain and wheel mechanism. A similar chain and wheel raises and lowers a hook. This mechanism comprises a pulley and two back-to-back hooks. One of the hooks secures the mechanism to the overhead cross beam of the crane; the other dangles downwards for holding the load.
","history":"The sewerage works in East Gordon Street, one of the first in Queensland, was opened by George Moody, mayor of Mackay, on 25 January 1936. The consulting engineer was AE Harding Frew.
Mackay began as a settlement on the south bank of the Pioneer River serving pastoral holdings. By 1863 it had been surveyed and the first lots of land sold. It was gazetted as a port of entry and a customs house was opened. Sugar was introduced in 1865 and by the mid-1880s this was the major industry in the area. Mackay prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre.
From the end of the nineteenth century until well after World War II, basic services in regional Queensland were progressively upgraded. Reticulated water supplies, sewerage systems and electricity were introduced into regional towns beginning with the major centres. Planning for Brisbane's sewerage system was underway by 1909. A scheme was introduced at Toowoomba in 1925, and development of a sewerage scheme at Rockhampton commenced in 1936. Most other regional centres did not have sewerage systems provided until after World War Two, with some local government areas waiting until the 1960s-1980s. Mackay's sewerage system, opened in January 1936, was among the first in regional Queensland.
The system was introduced at a time when Mackay was undergoing a major public works program to improve the infrastructure of the town and upgrade the harbour. A number of factors prompted this program. Through the 1920s and 1930s, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth, even during the period of financial hardship and unemployment caused by the Depression. It was the fastest-growing town in Queensland, with its population almost doubling between 1923 and 1940. This was largely due to the linking of Mackay by rail to Rockhampton in 1921 and to Townsville in 1923. This improved access to markets and reduced transport costs, boosting not only the sugar industry, but also the developing dairy and tourist industries.
Another contributing factor was that the local Member of Parliament, William Forgan Smith, was Premier between 1932 and 1940 and he supported the growth of the region. It was hoped that the public works program, including the Outer Harbour scheme, would make Mackay one of Queensland's most frequented beauty spots and that, as an attractive modern city, it would become a base for those visiting Eungella and the islands.
The city council commissioned a town plan from Ronald McInnes in 1934. It was based on Britain's Town Planning Act of 1932 and was the first town plan designed for an existing city in Queensland, serving as a model for other cities for many years. The Mackay City Council undertook an ambitious plan for the beautification and modernisation of the city. The scheme included the provision of new parks, kerbing and channelling, new water mains, a new powerhouse and the establishment of the sewerage system.
At the opening of the East Gordon Street Sewerage Works on 25 January 1936 the chairman of the Mackay Harbour Board, CF Bagley, paid tribute to the city council for its initiative in carrying out the scheme and to the consulting engineer AE Harding Frew who designed it.
Alison Eavis Harding Frew (1883-1952) was a prominent Queensland civil engineer. Harding Frew's designed about 80 bridges throughout Queensland during his career. He was a consulting engineer in Melbourne during the 1920s and on the Pyrmont Power House at Sydney in the early 1940s. He was a consultant on the 1926 Brisbane Cross River Commission and was the designing engineer for the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane, from November 1926 to 1932. From 1932 to 1935 he was the engineer for bridge construction on the Hornibrook Highway project, the bridge linking Sandgate and Redcliffe. Frew's design for the fully automated pump houses at Mackay, featuring castellated parapets, encompasses one of the basic principles of civil engineering, which is to design creative solutions that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
At the opening of the works Bagley reiterated the view of the day that, with the completion of the sewerage works and the Outer Harbour Scheme, Mackay would become even more important, and the Government Medical Officer, Dr E Chenoweth, emphasised the public health advantages of the new sewerage scheme.
Sewage was pumped to the site via concrete or glazed pipes, where it was held in a well and treated with chlorine before being pumped out to sea at high tide. The main elements of sewage treatment included the separation of solids from fluids by screening and allowing the solids to settle in a tank. The solids were drawn off and disposed of, and the fluids were often treated before being discharged into a waterway or the ocean. Chlorine was used as a disinfectant.
By December 1933 a total of 68,123 feet (about 22 kilometres) of sewer main, including a main crossing at Sandfly Creek near the East Gordon Street site, had been pegged out. Tenders had also been let for the construction of the pump well and pump house, the supply and installation of pump machinery, and the construction of the chlorinator.
The smaller building (the chlorinator) toward the front of the site is now used for storage. The larger building is still in use as a pump station with a submersible pump external to the structure and a switchboard inside the building. A modern deodoriser has been installed next to this building. Sewage is pumped from the station at East Gordon Street to a pump station in Sydney Street.
The East Gordon Street works now forms part of a major network of 135 pump stations throughout Mackay and they are associated with a sewer main of more than 630km, which ultimately connects to one of three waste water treatment plants in the city. Mackay Water, a business unit of Mackay City Council, is responsible for the management of Mackay's sewerage scheme.
","criteria":"The East Gordon Street Sewerage Works in Mackay, opened in 1936, was one of the first in regional Queensland. As such, it is important in demonstrating the progressive upgrading of basic infrastructure in regional Queensland, in particular the provision of sewerage schemes, which took place in regional towns and cities from the interwar period. Most other regional centres did not develop such schemes until after World War II, with some local government areas not constructing sewerage infrastructure until after 1960.
As one of the first sewerage works in regional Queensland, it is tangible evidence of the importance of Mackay as a regional centre in the 1930s and the influence the city enjoyed through their local Member of Parliament, William Forgan Smith, who was Premier at the time. During the 1920s and 1930s, Mackay was the fastest growing town in Queensland.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a sewage treatment works of the interwar period. Characteristics include pump house, chlorination plant building, and the deliberate attempt to visually disguise the true purpose of these structures through the stylistic treatment of the exterior walls with their castellated parapets, which is unusual for such utilitarian structures.
The place also is important in demonstrating the work of prominent civil engineer AE Harding Frew, who designed the scheme. Frew made a substantial contribution to civil engineering infrastructure in Queensland including designing the William Jolly Bridge [QHR601694] in Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29178,"place_ref":602730,"name":"Collinsville Cemetery","alternate_name":"Coinsvile Scotville Cemetery","street_address":"Collinsville-Scottville Road","suburb":"COLLINSVILLE","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"The Collinsville Cemetery is accessed via a long lane from Collinsville-Scottville Road between the townships of Collinsville and Scottville. It contains a headstone section, a lawn section and a columbarium. There is a small shelter in the grounds.
The lawn section of the cemetery contains a series of inclined concrete strips. These bear plaques showing the details of the deceased. Flowers and other ornaments are placed on the concrete strips close to the plaques. A line of foxtail palms (Wodyetia bifurcate) are planted along the western side of this section.
The columbarium is located in the lawn section. This is a brick wall containing a series of cavities some of which contain urns. Three rows of cavities in the middle of the wall are larger than the two rows above and three rows beneath. White concrete coping on top of the wall projects some distance from the sides and ends.
The shelter shed is located immediately opposite the front gate in the headstone section of the cemetery. This structure has a gable roof supported on one side by a wall constructed of concrete blocks and on the other side by two wooden posts. There is a wooden bench against the inside of the wall. The shelter is shaded by a mid-sized native tree.
There is a range of monuments within the cemetery including headstones, sarcophagi, obelisks, altars and columns. They are constructed in a variety of styles and materials and feature a wide range of inscriptions. The headstones are made of materials including marble, granite, concrete and terrazzo, and vary from simple rounded or pointed tablets to elaborate memorials ornamented with angels, bibles, and crosses.
The miners killed in the 1954 accident are buried in two rows of graves, five in one row and two in the other. From left to right, the graves are of Alexander Parkinson, Peter S Miller, James Reid Logan, Herbert Bernard Ruff and Arthur Henry Shrubsole. In the second row the graves are of Frederick Ernest Walker and H. Peterson.
Parkinson's grave plot is covered with a low concrete plinth topped with pale blue ceramic tiles. It has a plain, concrete headstone bearing a dark coloured plaque with white lettering.
Miller's grave plot is covered with a low, stepped concrete plinth with a patterned top. It has a plain, concrete headstone. The inscription is in silver metal lettering on a marble tablet. There are small concrete urns on either side of the headstone holding artificial flowers.
Logan's plot is surrounded by a low concrete grave curb. The headstone comprises a central section with a curved top flanked by two pilasters. A dark coloured terrazzo tablet fixed to the front bears the inscription in white lettering.
Ruff's plot is covered by a low concrete plinth. It is topped with small, mid-blue, ceramic tiles; a white tiled cross is located to the right near the head. The inscription, in black lettering, is on an inclined, heart-shaped light coloured tablet. Small concrete urns are located at the two corners of the head of the grave.
Shrubsole's plot is surrounded by a low concrete grave curb. The headstone is light coloured terrazzo with the inscription in black lettering on a square inset section.
Walker is buried in a double plot; both plots are covered with a single unpainted concrete plinth. The headstone comprises a terrazzo bevel marker. It has an embossed bronze plaque with exposed bronze lettering against a black background.
Peterson's plot is surrounded by a low concrete grave curb. The headstone is concrete with a tablet shaped like an open book; the inscription is in black lettering on the left page.
Three pencil pines (Cupressus sempervirens) flank a short track that leads from the front gate to the shelter shed. The wide vehicular and narrower pedestrian gates are located next to each other and are flanked by wooden posts. The cemetery is surrounded by a chain-wire fence and is set in the midst of bushland.
","history":"
The Collinsville Cemetery was gazetted in 1927, to serve the mining townships of Collinsville and the smaller Scottville. It was the second cemetery in Collinsville. The first proved unsuitable because of the hardness of the soil. Buried within the Collinsville Cemetery are the seven miners killed in the major accident at Collinsville State Mine on 13 October 1954.
The town of Collinsville was originally named Moongunya; a name that is said to be an Aboriginal word meaning 'coal'. This name was given to the town by the Railway Department when Moongunya was comprised of bag humpies, bark huts, corrugated-iron shacks and canvas tents. In 1918 the site for the Collinsville State Mine site was chosen and in March 1919 the mine began operations. As the Queensland State Government decided that the town would service the State Coal Mine and that it would be a model of a good contemporary township it was renamed Collinsville in 1921 for the MLA of Bowen, Charles Collins who represented Bowen from 1915 until his death in 1936.
By building a model township it was the Government's intention to eliminate the huts, tents, humpies and shacks from the townscape. The government subsequently commissioned the Town Planning Association to advise on the layout of the town. The administration of the town became the responsibility of the Department of Mines.
By 1922 almost 100 lots had been sold and Collinsville comprised 20 miners' houses, a store, police station, butcher shop and a school. By 1925 the town boasted a population of approximately 800 and had a licensed hotel, picture show, dance hall, bowling-green, a number of shops and a hospital under construction. Two large tanks provided the town with water, with electricity being generated by the mine. The rents paid by the miners covered all their water, electricity and insurance needs.
A cemetery was established to the north of Collinsville but being situated on very hard ground explosives had to be used to excavate each of the gravesites. In 1925, because of the difficulties in excavating gravesites, The Bowen Independent advocated that the current cemetery be abandoned and a new cemetery be identified and gazetted 'that will not necessitate a person qualifying to becoming a corpse giving two days notice of demise'.
In late 1925, at the request of the shire council, a public meeting was called by the Collinsville Australian Labour Party for the purpose of appointing trustees for the Collinsville Cemetery. Trustees appointed included Messrs. D. Malcolm, G. Ogg and C. Hearn, all of Collinsville, and Messrs J. Nolan, J. Duncan and R. Natrass, who would represent Scottville.
The Collinsville Cemetery was gazetted on 3 March 1927. It comprised 20 acres (about 8 ha) between the sanitary reserve and Corduroy Creek. The earliest grave in the cemetery is that of Agnes Ramage who died on 11 September 1927, aged 33 years.
The Collinsville Cemetery is also the burial place of the seven miners killed in the Number One Tunnel of the Collinsville State Coal Mine at 5.50pm on Wednesday 13 October 1954. At the time, about 40 miners were working underground. The cause of disaster was attributed to a gas outburst in which the carbon dioxide gas said to be almost pure at 98 percent filled the mine shaft and the miners asphyxiated.
Two other men were badly affected by the gas and subsequently hospitalised. These miners were Robert Munro and J.A. Baker. Mining personnel and the local Collinsville District Hospital Superintendent, Dr M.J. McEniery rallied together to rescue those still alive and to recover the bodies of those killed in the disaster. By 11pm on the night of the disaster the bodies of the miners killed had been recovered.
News of the disaster prompted widespread expressions of sympathy. Messages were received from miners across the country, many of whom held work stoppages, including miners at the two state-owned mines of Mount Mulligan and Styx Number Three, to allow them to honour their colleagues killed in the disaster. A total of 38 officials representing various unions signed a Queensland Trades and Labour Council telegram of sympathy and the Red Flag was flown at half mast at the Brisbane Trades Hall. Condolence messages were also received from waterside workers, seamen, meatworkers, building and railway workers, the Australian Workers Union, the State Parliamentary Labour Party, the Communist Party, the Eureka Youth League, the Union of Australian Women and the Royal Australian Air Force at Townsville.
The funeral for the seven miners was held on Thursday 14 October 1954 in Collinsville. The funeral service was held in ANZAC Hall and was conducted by Mr E. Finch, a local storekeeper who read the sermon every Sunday at the church. He was assisted by the Reverend A. Angel, a Methodist Minister from Bowen. The service was held at 4pm and the funeral procession set off for the cemetery at 4.30pm. The cortege was led by a procession of miners as was the traditional mining custom, with the wives and children of the deceased miners following in cars. About 2000 people attended and took part in the 2.4km procession to the Collinsville Cemetery.
At the funeral there was a large representation of union officials which included the Miners' Federation general president Idris William and Queensland officials Tom Miller, Pat Conway and Jack Pocock. The Waterside Workers Federation national industrial officer Norm Docker attended as did numerous representatives of other unions.
Following the disaster, mineworkers from far and wide contributed to a fund to help the bereaved families and the Brisbane Telegraph set up a fund to receive contributions from the general public.
The disaster had come after a protracted dispute between the miners and the state government. In 1951 the state government had appointed Athol Lightfoot as general manager of State Coal Mines and Coke Works. Lightfoot subsequently targeted the Collinsville State Mine for mechanisation with his plan to mechanise Tunnel Number One despite opposition from the miners because of its steep grades and constant leakage of carbon dioxide. However, mechanisation of Tunnel Number One went ahead despite the mining union having recommended that if mechanisation were to occur it should be implemented in Tunnel Number Two. The union had also requested that the government allow Miners' Federation NSW Northern District's check inspector Jack Barrett, with his considerable experience in underground mines both in New South Wales and internationally, to make an inspection of the Collinsville State Mine. The Government refused the request. However, in the month before the disaster Lightfoot, who had planned and implemented the mechanisation, resigned from his position as general manager of State Coal Mines and Coke Works.
Initially, following the disaster, the Gair Government agreed to hold a Mining Warden's Inquiry in which miners would be able to give evidence. An initial sitting of the Mining Warden's Inquiry was held on the 15 November 1954 with an adjournment to 22 November 1954. But the Gair Government then scrapped the inquiry after hastily putting through parliament a Bill which prevented any further proceedings.
The government then decided to hold a Royal Commission after initially refusing the Miners' Union request for such a commission. This turnaround caused the unions to suspect the government had an ulterior motive and a 24 hour stoppage was held at Collinsville and 30 other mines.
The mining union then requested that a union representative be included on the Royal Commission but this was refused. On 2 December 1954 the Royal Commission was set up. Its members were Judge Sheedy, Walter Scott and Septimus Flowers with Solicitor-General W.E. Ryan being appointed to assist. The first session of the Commission was held 7 December 1954 and continued into 1955 with 13 days of hearing in Bowen and 66 days in Brisbane.
The report of the Collinsville Royal Commission was delivered in early 1956. The findings were that:
'The actions of the Minister for Mines throughout were wise and correct. There are no grounds for criticism against the Government, any Minister for mines, the Department of Mines or any officers who played any part in the procedures and decisions to mechanise the mine'.
Reaction by the unions to the findings of the Commission were that the Commission was 'falling over backwards to whitewash the Government for its obvious responsibility for the conditions that developed at Collinsville'.
The Collinsville State Mine continued to operate until May 1961 at which time the Nicklin Country Liberal Party Government closed it.
Over the years that the Collinsville State Mine and the Bowen Consolidated Colliery were in operation, from the early 1920s to the early 1960s, a total of 24 miners (including the seven miners killed in the disaster of 1954) have been fatally injured working. Four miners were killed at the Bowen Consolidated Colliery while the remaining 20 were killed at the Bowen/Collinsville State Mine. Many of the miners killed in the mines are buried in the Collinsville Cemetery.
Mining disasters such as the 1954 accident at Collinsville usually led to improvements in mine safety. The Mount Mulligan accident (1921), resulting in the deaths of 75 men and boys, led to the introduction of the Coal Mining Act (1925) which included at least seven new safety provisions. Similarly, the Collinsville accident led to the addition of new safety provisions in the Act. These required Mine Deputies to undertake statutory examinations and to carry flame safety lamps and gas detectors during inspections. Subsequent disasters have led to additional legislative changes.
To commemorate the lives lost in the 1954 disaster the Collinsville and Scottville communities hold a memorial service each year on October 13. In 2004 the 50th anniversary commemorations were held in Collinsville with the families and friends of all seven miners killed in attendance. The commemorations were held at the Collinsville Coal Face Experience in the United Mineworkers' Club. The Coal Face Experience pays tribute to all who worked in the mines 'in particular memorialising the seven who died' in 1954.
The victims of the Collinsville tragedy continue to be remembered by the state's coal miners together with those of the Mount Mulligan disaster, the Box Flat explosion (1972) and the three major accidents at Moura (1975, 1986 and 1994). The Collinsville accident is often referred to at memorial events held by the industry including the inaugural Miners Memorial Day held in Brisbane on 19 September 2008.
","criteria":"As the burial place of the seven miners killed in one of the state's worst mining accidents, the cemetery has an association for mining industry workers throughout the state with all miners who have lost their lives at work. Together with other major mining accidents, the Collinsville accident is frequently mentioned in memorial ceremonies commemorating accidental deaths in the industry.
|As the burial place of at least 23 miners killed between 1928 and 1954 at Bowen Consolidated Colliery and at the Collinsville (Bowen) State Mine, the cemetery provides tangible evidence of the dangers of underground coal mining in the first part of the 20th century and so demonstrates an important aspect of Queensland's mining history.
The cemetery contains the graves of the seven men killed in the October 1954 accident at Collinsville State Mine, Queensland's worst mining disaster for over 30 years. As such it is closely associated with an event that brought the issue of mine safety to public attention throughout the state and prompted legislated changes to mine safety practises.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29194,"place_ref":602683,"name":"Strathmore Homestead","alternate_name":"Strathmore Station","street_address":"Strathmore Road","suburb":"SPRINGLANDS","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"Strathmore Homestead is located on a 41,000 hectare land lease on Strathmore Road at Springlands, about 27 kilometres by road north-west of Collinsville. The complex, situated to the north of Strathmore Road, comprises a homestead, laundry, slab hut (used to accommodate the kitchen and dining room for station personnel), office, stables, meat houses, swimming pool complex, various cottages, homestead gardens, sheds, former school, former zoo, weir and private cemetery.
Main residence
The main Strathmore residence is situated on a rocky rise adjacent to and south of Crush Creek. It is a large house of single-skin exposed timber-framed construction with wide verandahs on three sides and is elevated above its sloping site on a combination of timber stumps and steel posts. Attached on its western elevation is a hip-roofed, single-skin timber cottage, which houses the kitchen and utility rooms.
The large hipped corrugated galvanised iron roof is a feature of the homestead. It has ogee guttering and acroteria and is encircled by a veranda roof with quad guttering and acroteria. The ridge is defined by finials and diagonally battened, louvred gablets. At the southern end of the house, transverse roof vents with louvred projecting gables are decorated with finials and cresting. The gable on the southern elevation over the entrance contains a louvred vent.
The main entrance to the homestead is off the avenue lined with phoenix palms (Phoenix canariensis) and is accessed via a set of concrete stairs with decorative pillars to the timber stairway with handrail, and a trellis with trailing vines straddling the stairs. Additional entrances are located on the east and west sides.
A verandah encircles three sides of the building and is enclosed with matchstick timber blinds, some of which are fixed to the verandah framework externally with vertical battens. Ripple iron awnings provide weather protection to the eastern side of the building and rear northern verandah which is very wide and has parquetry flooring. French doors with fanlights lead from the veranda into the rooms of the homestead. The west section has been utilised for bathroom facilities and entry to the kitchen and utility section.
The main entrance comprises a four-panelled clear-finished timber door with fanlight and sidelights. All glazing panels including the arched panels in the sidelights and pairs of arched panels in the door are decorated with leadlight in an Art Nouveau inspired pattern. The entrance opens onto the central hallway which provides access to the living room, dining room and several bedrooms.
The walls and ceilings are lined with tongue and groove boards and the hallway ceiling has a small fretwork rose in its centre. Picture rails can be found in each of the rooms and a brick fireplace in the living room is encased in fibrous cement sheeting with cover battens.
Kitchen and utility section wing
The attached cottage housing the kitchen and several utility rooms is highset on a combination of timber stumps and steel posts. It is a single-skin timber-framed building with exposed studs and has a hipped roofline clad in corrugated galvanised iron with quad guttering. Windows are three-paned casements with metal window hoods along the southern and northern elevations and French doors leading off the verandah on its western elevation. Toilets and storage areas lined with ripple iron are located under the building.
Laundry and toilet block
The laundry and toilet block is a small timber framed building clad with fibrous cement sheeting with a corrugated-iron gabled roof with no guttering located to the north-west of the homestead. It is a timber-framed building clad with fibrous cement. A concrete path leads from the homestead to the laundry.
Office (former schoolhouse)
The building currently used as Strathmore's office and storage area was formerly the schoolhouse. The office is in the room at the east end of the verandah. The building is low-set with exposed studs along its frontage which is covered by a verandah, chamferboards lining its sides and ripple iron at the rear. It has a hipped roof of corrugated galvanised iron with guttering. There are two sets of casement windows and several rooms are entered from the veranda. Each of the rooms is fully lined with vertical jointed tongue and groove boarding.
The rear section houses several rooms and is timber-framed with a combination of timber and ripple-iron cladding. The windows comprise sashes of nine panes.
The office houses the records of the workings of Strathmore from about 1903 onwards and a wide range of memorabilia in the form of photographs, awards, maps and books relating to Strathmore, and in particular to the Cunningham family.
Additions to the building include a small skillion-roofed extension at ground level adjacent to the verandah on the west with a small built-in room, formerly the school office when the school was conducted on the property, on the east end of the verandah.
Slab hut and additions
Purported to be the oldest building on the property, the slab hut (with later additions) is situated west of the main homestead. The hut is lowset on timber stumps and has a steep, gabled, corrugated galvanised iron roof with no guttering. Its external walls comprise vertical timber slabs with battens covering the joints and horizontal boarding forming the gable ends. A small louvred ventilator is located in each gable. A timber-framed verandah with corrugated galvanised iron roof is attached along one side of the building and an addition attached along the opposite side. The addition is timber framed with chamferboard cladding on a suspended concrete slab on a concrete block base and a skillion roof of corrugated galvanised-iron. Windows comprise casements with eight pane sashes, casements with three pane sashes and louvres. The central section of the back wall is screened and has a screen door opening to the dining section.
The internal walls of the hut are formed with horizontal slabs and each of the small rooms opens onto the verandah and into the addition at the rear. A central hall leads from the verandah to the addition that is accessed by a small set of timber stairs. The building accommodates staff sleeping quarters and storage in the slab hut section. The addition houses the dining room and kitchen.
Staff quarters (former school teacher's residence)
The former school teacher's residence is situated east of the office and west of the garage. It is a small timber-framed building set on concrete flooring. It has a hipped bungalow roofline clad in corrugated galvanised iron. The core of the cottage is single skin with exposed studding lined with vertical jointed tongue and groove boarding, the ceiling dropped with battens. The cottage has casement windows with decorative window hoods and glazed and metal louvres.
The lean-to housing the current kitchen is clad with chamferboards and has concrete flooring and a skillion roof of corrugated galvanised iron. A small concreted verandah fronts the building with the eastern end enclosed with two rows of concrete blocks, above which there is ripple iron.
The residence is used (in 2007) as staff quarters. It has a wide range of memorabilia relating to the Cunningham family, especially trophies won by their Poll Devon cattle when shown at various events.
Staff quarters
Immediately to the south of the main entrance to the homestead complex is the former head stockman's residence, which is currently used to house contractors. This building was not available for an internal inspection.
The building is timber-framed, primarily clad with chamferboards, and is elevated on concrete stumps with timber batten infill panels. Timber stairs with no handrails are located at front and rear. The building has a corrugated, galvanised-iron, hipped roofline that extends across the front and rear verandahs. The verandah is partially enclosed with shutters and open areas are shaded by timber blinds and awnings of flat metal sheeting. The west end of the rear verandah is built-in with chamferboards along its side and fibrous-cement sheeting on the rear. The house has casement windows and a brick chimney.
Meathouses
Several meathouses remain within the Strathmore Homestead complex. Two are not in use. A third was adapted for use as a museum but is currently used for storage. Each of the meathouses has a pyramidal roof of corrugated galvanised iron and none have guttering. The meathouse used for storage has partial walls of corrugated galvanised iron with boarded infill above. Its ceiling is lined with fibrous cement sheeting and cover battens. Shelving remains in place from its days as a museum. This meathouse is situated close to the homestead.
The two other meathouses are south-west of the homestead and are located adjacent to one another on different levels. Both are of timber frame and slab construction. The low-set meathouse has vertical timber slabs with wire netting infill above, while the high-set meat house is of drop-slab construction. Numerous artefacts from the days when the meathouses were in constant use remain within the two buildings, including chopping blocks, hooks for hanging meat, and wooden draining tables. Some of the cracks between the slabs have had flat iron sheeting fixed over to prevent the meat becoming fly-blown.
Cottages
A cottage situated north-west of the slab hut is a simple timber-framed building clad in painted corrugated galvanised iron set on low timber stumps. Paving from local stone off Strathmore provides flooring adjacent to the stairs leading to the front of the cottage. The broken-back roof is clad in corrugated galvanised iron and is steeply pitched across the main section of the cottage. Internally the cottage is lined with fibrous-cement sheeting and cover battens. The cottage contains several rooms with louvred windows, both glass and metal. Stairs lead down to the rear area, which has concrete flooring. A small timber and wire netting fence surrounds the cottage.
Another cottage is east of the slab hut. It is a timber-framed building set on rough bush timber stumps. The core of the cottage is single-skin with exposed studs and has a hipped roofline with guttering. Some of the interior walls are lined with wide v-jointed tongue and groove boarding and the ceiling is lined with fibrous cement sheeting with cover battens. Additions to the core of the cottage are of timber framing clad with fibrous cement sheeting to the front, and fibrous cement sheeting and ripple iron to the rear and louvred windows. Elevated on steel posts the building has a partially enclosed patio on the east side with timber and steel framing set on concrete flooring. The west side has been sheeted with ripple iron.
A third cottage is next to the stables, south-east of the homestead. It is a low timber-framed building with a hipped roof and a projecting end hip clad in corrugated galvanised iron with guttering. The building is lined in chamferboards and has casement windows. No internal inspection was undertaken.
Station oven
A disused brick oven is near the two disused meathouses. Set on a concrete slab, the oven is constructed entirely of orange coloured bricks with a chimney on its south-east corner. Stabilisation work has included bars affixed to the oven's length and cement above the oven doorway.
Station sheds and outbuildings
The mechanic's shed is a timber-framed, corrugated-iron clad shed west of the main residence. It has a gable roof, no guttering and an earthen floor. Outside the shed is a hand-pump petrol bowser that is no longer in use.
Other sheds and utility buildings scattered throughout the site serve a variety of purposes. The majority are of timber-framed construction with gabled rooflines clad in corrugated iron, while others are of obviously recent construction built of concrete block with roller doors. Not all the sheds are fully enclosed, dependent on the purpose for which they are being used.
Garage
The garage between the former school teacher's residence and the zoo is a timber-framed, corrugated galvanised-iron clad structure with a pyramidal roof. It has concrete flooring and the north elevation opens outwards to provide vehicular access.
Cattle yards
Strathmore has an extensive network of cattle yards constructed of rough bush timber that are west of the buildings within the homestead complex. Recently part of the yards were dismantled and relocated to the central business district of Bowen for inclusion in the movie set for the film 'Australia'.
Stables
The stables and their accompanying yards are south-west of the main residence and adjacent to Strathmore Road. Corrugated galvanised iron sheeting and vertical boarding clad the rough bush-timber framing of the stables. The yards and gates are also of rough bush timber; all are painted in the traditional white of Strathmore. These stables and yards once housed the racehorses and Poll Devon cattle for which Strathmore was renowned.
Swimming pool
The swimming pool is located east of the main residence and overlooks the creek from the high bank along its southern side. It is of concrete construction with a set of stairs in the north-west corner at its deep end. A concrete platform reached by a set of stairs is enclosed on three sides at the northern end by a wall comprising concrete posts and balustrade and pipe railing. Another concrete platform is located at the southern end adjacent to a steel framed shade structure with metal roof in the south-east corner. The pool is currently disused.
Strathmore private zoo
The zoo has a variety of enclosures. The enclosures are primarily constructed of metal posts and chain-wire mesh. Some of the enclosures are topped with barbed wire, others completely enclosed with wire mesh, while others have roofs of corrugated iron, depending on the inhabitant. Each of the enclosures has concrete flooring, some with ponds set into the floor others with small pools on top of the flooring. A number of the enclosures retain signage. The crocodile enclosure is away from the rest of the zoo and is adjacent to the swimming pool. Animals known to have been housed in Strathmore private zoo include buffalo, deer, monkeys, a camel, numerous bird species and a crocodile.
Weir
A small concrete weir extends across Crush Creek to the north-east of the swimming pool.
Cunningham family cemetery
The Strathmore family cemetery is on the southern bank of Crush Creek several hundred metres east of Strathmore Homestead. It has three marked graves all of which are of members of the Cunningham family over three generations.
Grave 1
The grave of Margaret Cunningham has a cambered concrete headstone set between two fluted pillars with a tablet of black granite with white lettering set between the pillars. The grave has kerbing and is completely concreted over. The inscription reads:
'Sacred to the memory of Margaret Anne Cunningham Born 10th March 1945 Died 21st April 1945'.
Grave 2
This grave is that of Edward Cunningham and has a black granite headstone set on a concrete plinth. This headstone has two figures either side of the inscription, one is of a horse the other is of a bull, with both figures in black on a white background. The headstone is inscribed in gold lettering and reads: 'In Loving Memory of Edward Cunningham 2-12-1914 - 21-12-1993 Don't fence me in'.
Grave 3
The grave of Wyatt Cunningham has a Gothic style headstone of black granite on a concrete plinth with the inscription in white lettering. The grave is surrounded by a white decorative metal fence on a concrete base. The inscription reads: 'In Loving Memory Of Wyatt Cunningham 19-11-1995 ~ 20-2-1999 Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep my brave boy, do not cry And I will sing a lullaby. Thomas Dekker'.
","history":"Strathmore Homestead is located on the north side of Strathmore Road at Springlands, about 27km by road north-west of Collinsville.
First established in the early 1860s Strathmore Homestead has evolved to comprise a large number of buildings, structures and yards constructed from possibly the earliest establishment of the site through the nineteenth century to the latter part of the twentieth century. Structures include a slab hut (currently used to accommodate the kitchen and dining room for station personnel), main homestead, laundry, office, stables, meathouses, swimming pool complex, various cottages, homestead gardens, former school, former zoo, sheds, weir and a private cemetery.
Strathmore was leased in 1862 by PF Selheim who was connected in partnership with CW Touissant until September 1865 when new lease claimants were William Tucker and William Duncan Stewart. Tucker was still at Strathmore in 1870. In 1872 Leopold De Salis leased Strathbogie which was to form part of what was consolidated into Strathmore in 1885. De Salis had leased Strathmore by 1875 in partnership with A Macdonald. This began a business partnership that was to continue until 1890 when the Union Bank acquired the lease. De Salis was a pastoralist and politician and began acquiring properties in New South Wales in the mid-1840s.
In 1885 De Salis petitioned to consolidate a number of runs into Strathmore. However the consolidation did not occur until 1890 when De Salis, with his brother Henry, re-applied for a consolidation. In July 1890 the Strathmore runs included Strathmore, East Downs, Binjee, Mullar, Dirrill, Tullick, Glenking, West Downs, Mount Wickham, Harvest Home, Boundary, Strathbogie and Wengeur. These were divided between the settled and unsettled districts within the North Kennedy Pastoral District.
By October of the same year the De Salis brothers and Henry Fane De Salis transferred the Strathmore brand to the Union Bank of Australia. With debts of over £100 000, Leopold De Salis returned to New South Wales and was declared insolvent in 1898. The Union Bank held the lease to Strathmore for a number of years with managers on the property.
The year 1902 saw the beginning of a partnership between William Oswald Gilchrist, William Holden Watt with Arthur Henry Wickham Cunningham. This partnership was the beginning of an association of the Cunningham family with Strathmore that exists to the present day. William Oswald Gilchrist was the eldest son of John Gilchrist, a Scottish merchant, and his wife Isabella née Wilson. William Holden Watt was the son of Ernest Alexander Watt and his wife, Mary Jane née Holden.
Gilchrist followed his father, John Gilchrist, in the family firm of Gilchrist Watt and Sanderson Ltd. The firm tended not to invest directly in land but rather in advancing money to graziers, who in turn, bought their stores and had wool shipped through the firm. William Watt's father, Ernest, was a director of Gilchrist Watt and Sanderson Ltd. Ernest Watt did have an interest in the acquisition of pastoral properties and, besides Strathmore, his other cattle stations in Queensland included Glenprairie, outside of Rockhampton.
The Cunningham family is one of the oldest pastoral families in North Queensland. In April 1861 Edward Cunningham, father of AHW Cunningham, left Port Denison with four other men to explore the country west of Bowen in search of good pastoral runs. Cunningham took up Burdekin Downs, an area of 140,000 acres [56 656 hectares]. He did not reside on the property, living at Woodhouse Station, outside Ayr, until his death in 1898. AHW Cunningham was born in June 1879 and spent most of his life in North Queensland. At the age of 19, following his father's death, he took over the management of Woodhouse for Gilchrist Watt and Cunningham.
In 1902, following a devastating season for Woodhouse when 85 percent of the herd was lost, AHW Cunningham set about acquiring new land for re-stocking purposes. On his recommendation Gilchrist Watt and Cunningham purchased the lease for Strathmore Station at a cost of £50,000. Cunningham took up residence on Strathmore where the family has remained since.
A list of improvements dated 1906 values the main house at £1,000. One secondary source states that the homestead was constructed in 1903. This date is possible as the architectural style, including its ornamentation along the roof ridge, timber louvred gablets decorated with diagonal battens and the gabled pediment detailing on the south elevation marking the front entrance, indicate a late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century construction date. The year 1903 is also the year after the start of the Gilchrist, Watt and Cunningham partnership and the construction of a suitable residence may have been a priority for AHW Cunningham. Cunningham married Nellie Maud Wharton in May 1910 and the marriage produced four children: a daughter and three sons, one of whom was Edward Snr, born in 1914 and father of the present lessee, Edward Thomas Cunningham.
The 1906 list of improvements indicates that two kitchens existed on the property and the slab hut, for which a definite construction date has not been determined, may have been one of the kitchens. It is now used as staff sleeping quarters and storage with a later addition containing a dining room and kitchen. It is of slab construction and has a steeply pitched gabled roof over an original one-room-wide core, suggesting it may date from the mid-nineteenth century. Oral histories date the building as c1860s.
Other structures listed by July 1906 were shed and saddle room, stable and yards, men's hut, cottage, store and office, beef house, kitchen, kitchen no.2, blacksmith's shop, stockyards, 56 miles [90km] of fencing, four wells and troughs. Stockyards and horse yards were also listed at Mount Wickham, one of the Strathmore paddocks at the time. The blacksmith shop may have been demolished as there is no building on the property which, through its form or fabric, suggests a blacksmithing use. Further construction on the site since 1906 includes two more meat houses, another cottage and a swimming pool. The 1906 list provides a good indication of how the head station on a large pastoral property functioned at this period.
On behalf of the partnership, AHW Cunningham controlled three properties: Strathmore (with its outstations of Strathbogie, Strathalbyn, Hidden Valley and Castleview), Woodhouse and Glenprairie. The combined area of these properties was 4 000km² with over 50,000 head of cattle.
AHW Cunningham was a member of the Queensland Turf Club, the Civic Club at Charters Towers, and the North Queensland and Tattersalls Club, Townsville. In the early years he established a thoroughbred stud and the Strathmore colours of green and orange were a regular sight at North Queensland race meetings. Cunningham was a foundation member of the North Queensland Amateur Turf Club in 1910. He succeeded the late JHS Barnes as president in 1912 and held the position until his death. He was also a committee member of the North Queensland Racing Association for many years.
Cunningham was keenly interested and involved in public and pastoral matters in the Bowen district. He was a member of the Wangaratta Shire Council for 39 years from August 1903, serving as councillor until he was elected chairman in February 1916, a position he held until his death on 8 January 1942. At the outbreak of World War I he had volunteered his services and, like a number of other pastoralists, was rejected on the grounds that he was working in an essential occupation.
Cunningham's son, Edward, started work on Strathmore following his schooling in Sydney. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he and his two brothers John and Henry enlisted in Townsville. Edward was recalled to assist with the management of Strathmore a short time later when his father fell ill and was discharged from the services as he worked in an essential occupation. Like his father, Edward Cunningham devoted a portion of his time to public affairs. He was chairman of the Bowen Shire Council from 1960-1966 and was on the board of directors for the Collinsville Coal Company. He was a member of the Queensland Cattleman's Association, founder of the Poll Devon Breed of cattle in Australia, founder of the Queensland Branch of the Devon Breeders Society in 1968 and its president until his retirement in 1985.
On 1 July 1959 a 53-year lease commenced on Strathmore that expires on 30 June 2012. This lease was transferred to Edward Cunningham, his brother Henry Keith Cunningham and his sister, Nellie Macmillan, wife of Murdoch Campbell Macmillan, on 15 July 1965. On 21 December 1993 Edward Cunningham was killed tragically. The lease was transferred to his son Edward Thomas Cunningham on 10 April 1996 and the Cunningham family connection with Strathmore continues.
Three members of the Cunningham family are buried near the main complex in a private cemetery: Edward Cunningham (2 December 1914 - 21 December 1993), Margaret Cunningham (10 March 1945 - 21 April 1945, daughter of Edward Cunningham) and Wyatt Cunningham (19 November 1995 - 20 February 1999, son of Edward Thomas Cunningham).
","criteria":"Strathmore Homestead is significant as it retains evidence of early building types such as the slab hut (c1860s), the core of which is now used as a living quarters for staff. As an example of a very early slab structure in this part of Queensland the building would be particularly important as an uncommon example.
|Strathmore Homestead is important for its historical significance illustrating the opening of the Kennedy District in northern Queensland for pastoralism. Established in 1862 Strathmore is of exceptional significance in Queensland's history as one of the earliest pastoral properties established in the region and for its continuous use as an operating pastoral station since its establishment.
|Strathmore Homestead is particularly important for its association with the Cunningham family, one of the oldest pastoral families in North Queensland. The Cunninghams have been connected with the Bowen area since the early 1860s and with Strathmore since 1902, an association that continues to the present.
|Strathmore Homestead is significant as it demonstrates typical characteristics of a large pastoral station complex that has evolved over time in a regional area of Queensland. The complex contributes to our understanding of how a regional Queensland pastoral station functioned and demonstrates the way of life of a homestead from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
The principal built elements of Strathmore include the main homestead (c1900), a slab building now used as a staff kitchen and dining room, staff quarters/cottages, school room and school house, office, stables, meathouses, swimming pool complex, former zoo, a weir, sheds and yards. The buildings are set within landscaped grounds and there is a small cemetery nearby. The phoenix palm-lined main entrance to Strathmore is notable particularly as phoenix palms (Phoenix canariensis) are not common in North Queensland.
|Strathmore Homestead is important for its aesthetic significance. The complex including the main homestead building and the avenue of phoenix palms leading to the entrance, the composition of elements including the slab building, cottages, stables and yards, and the patina of age provided by the variety of materials and forms, contribute to the picturesque qualities of the site.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29196,"place_ref":602744,"name":"World War II Volunteer Defence Corps, Cairns Control Room","alternate_name":"Cairns Scout Shop | Cairns Scout Hut","street_address":"Grafton Street","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-04-16","description":"The former World War II communication centre and civil defence control room is located on a 122 square metre State Lease (A/SP 152633) near the corner of Florence and Grafton Streets, at the south-eastern corner of Munro Martin Park. The park is a 2 hectare reserve, rectangular in shape with its boundaries defined by Sheridan, Florence, Grafton and Minnie Streets.
The octagonal concrete building is now painted in scout colours of green and yellow and has eight scout badges painted on the exterior walls representing the various scouting levels. Sitting on top of the concrete roof is a fibreglass structure in the shape of a traditional scout hat, painted brown. The 'brim' of the hat, which overhangs the roof of the former control room, has 120mm wide metal edging.
The front entrance to the former control room faces south-east towards Florence Street and has a timber door. Each of the eight walls measure approximately 3.9 metres long by 3.4 metres high and are off-form concrete 300mm thick. The five southern-most walls have had window opening created and fitted with steel louvres. Each window opening measures approximately 1.5 x .9 metres and is fitted with 80 x 50mm steel mesh covered with a steel grill that is bolted to the walls. There are sets of three air vents on six of the eight walls each vent 120 x 80mm. The front and rear walls do not have air vents and the rear door entrance is boarded closed.
The interior contains one main room and two smaller rooms to the rear with a central corridor leading around the rear interior blast wall to the rear entrance. The interior walls are 150mm thick concrete. The rear section is exposed concrete and in an unpainted state. The main room has painted walls and a tiled floor and has had a ceiling lined with gyprock over the front section of the main room. There is a 300mm square concrete post 2.5 metres inside the front entrance and there is evidence of the removal of a wall between the post and the eastern wall.
","history":"After declaration of World War II a national Volunteer Defence Corps, founded under the banner of the Returned Soldiers League, was taken over by the Army in 1941. In north Queensland VDC units were established in Townsville, Cairns and other larger towns in the region. At Cairns the local VDC used the council chambers as headquarters, but with Japan's entry in the war a more substantial building was required for a civil defence control centre in the event of air raids. In February 1942 it was decided that the Public Works Department would build a reinforced concrete control room in Norman Park for use by the VDC, police and ambulance service to coordinate emergency services in the event of air raids. Construction of the building commenced in March 1942. The building survived post war demolitions and during the mid 1950s was handed over to the Scouting Association of Queensland for use as the organisation's local headquarters.
On 7 December 1941 Japanese aircraft made a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. At the same time Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. Three days after Pearl Harbor, two capital ships of the Royal Navy were sunk off the coast of Malaya. This gave the Japanese almost total control of the seas to Australia's north. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 with the rapid, unchecked Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies raised fears of the invasion of Australia. The devastation and high loss of life caused by Japanese air raids on Darwin and Broome early in 1942 underlined the inability of Britain to defend Australia.
A 1941 Queensland Parliamentary report by the Secretary for Health and Home Affair's the Honourable E.M. Hanlon, M.L.A. identified the three potential forms of enemy attacks, air raids, bombardment from the sea or invasion. The commonwealth was the responsible authority in combating and preventing enemy attacks and the state government was responsible to 'maintain the activities of the community during the emergency and to provide for the safety and care of the civilian population and the protection of property'. Air Raid Protection Committees were formed along the Queensland coast. These committees included the local mayor, inspector of police and the government medical officer. The police, local authorities, hospitals, fire and ambulance services were responsible for the safety of the civilian population. Other state government bodies such as railways, main roads, harbours, electricity and gas providers would also be required to maintain those services during the war.
To safeguard the community, six areas were identified where measures would need to be implemented. The training of key personnel in air raid precautions; air raid warnings; the provision of shelters for those people in the streets; safety of people in their own homes; possible removal of non-essential population from vulnerable areas; and closure of schools and removal of school children from vulnerable areas. Air Raid Precautions were introduced in January 1942 and the Air Raid Wardens had the responsibility to ensure compliance with the regulations within the community. Black-out curtains and slit trenches became part of every home in the Cairns area. Air raid practice drills were held on a regular basis both in the daytime and evenings, and during drills people on the streets were required to move to the nearest air raid shelter. The Cairns City Council constructed seven public air raid shelter around the city for the population. The shelters were of reinforced concrete, 300 mm thick and could hold fifty people seated.
Norman Park, now known as Munro Martin Park, was Cairns' first recreational reserve being gazetted in 1882. Tenders were let to clear the reserve at the end of 1887 and sporting groups lobbied the council to fence the reserve so they could hold sporting events. In 1888 the Cairns Cricket Club obtained permission to build a cricket pitch and in 1889 Council received applications for the construction of a running track and tennis courts. The reserve was named Norman Park at a Council meeting on 8 May 1890, after the then governor of the colony of Queensland, Sir Henry Wylie Norman who had just visited Cairns. Over the years the park has played an important part in the daily life of the Cairns community. After conflict between sporting groups regarding access to the park, in 1909 the park committee recommended that sporting bodies move their activities to other venues and that the park be laid out as a garden. In the past Norman Park has served as an important community venue for activities other than sporting events. A circus was held in the grounds in 1891, a memorial service on the death of King Edward VII in 1910, and school children assembled there in 1935 to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. Brass band contests were held there regularly.
During World War II Norman Park became a focal point for military activity with various military units using it. The council at a meeting on 10 July 1941 gave permission for 'C' Company 15th Garrison Battalion to erect a hutted camp on the park. Over the course of the war over fifty building were constructed on the park. Records indicate that there was a hall on Norman Park prior to its use as a hutted camp and a US Navy store at the southern end of the reserve. The Army erected a timber radio tower on land leased from the Council at the southern end of the reserve in 1944. Elements of the 17th Battalion Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) were one of the units to occupy the park. The VDC was a 'Dads Army' raised under the banner of the Returned Services League and taken over by the military in 1941. VDC members consisted of men between the ages of 17 and 65 who for various reasons were not suitable for regular military service. Their service consisted of assisting in the defence by guarding important military and civilian places, evacuating civilians if required and in an emergency assisting with the demolition of strategic facilities. The Cairns VDC battalion consisted of about 600 men. Another volunteer unit was the Women's Emergency Corps (WEC) which was raised for the emergency transport of the civilian population if required. Recruited under the umbrella of the 51st Infantry Battalion, local women that wanted to contribute to the war effort could assist in a number of areas from motor transport, horse transport, first aid, cooking or signals.
In early 1942 the local civil defence organisation was housed in the Cairns Council Chambers and the Controller P.A. Anthony stated in a letter to the council that the chambers building provided insufficient protection in the event of an air raid and requested that a control room be built in park land. He also suggested that a band rotunda could be built on top of it and the control room could later be used for storage. The estimated cost was £750 plus another £100 for furnishings. The public service commissioner in a minute dated 23 February 1942 announced that a decision had been made for the erection of a control room as a matter of urgency. It would be constructed in Norman Park by the Queensland Department of Public Works. In addition to its civil defence role, it would also be used by police, fire brigade and ambulance services and functioned as an air raid post, first aid post, and an emergency and essential services post. In discussions with the mayor it was agreed that the fitting and furnishing of the control room would be borne by the Cairns Town Council. A work order for the construction of the control room was issued to the district Supervisor of Works on the 3 March 1942 for an immediate start. The building was designed as a reinforced concrete structure, octagonal in plan with two entrances, each protected by internal concrete blast walls. There were no windows. On completion the building was fitted out with telephones and was used to coordinate air raid warden duties for the Cairns area.
Around 1950 Florence Street was realigned so that it ran in its original position through Norman Park in a straight line from the Esplanade to Mulgrave Road, thereby separating the park with a roadway. After the US Navy store (which had housed the Cairns and Regional Electricity Board since 1946) was removed in 1964 the southern section of Norman Park on the opposite side of Florence Street was used as a children's playground until 1974 when the Civic Theatre was constructed on the site. In 1954 the Cairns City Council proposed redevelopment of the northern end of Norman Park using funds from the estate of half-sisters Janet Taylor Munro and Margaret Hart Martin who died in 1945 and 1948 respectively, and dontated by their niece, Margie Hart Martin for the purpose of beautification of Norman Park. In 1956 the park with its new garden beds and pathways was renamed the Munro Martin Memorial Park.
The former civil defence communications centre and control room survived the post war demolition and removal of public air raid shelters but it wasn't until the mid 1950s that it was given a new role when it was handed over to the Scouting Association of Queensland for their use. The Scouting Association initially used the building as their headquarters for the district which included the Atherton Tableland, Mossman and Cairns scout troops. Later the building became an area headquarters for scouts from Cardwell northward. Some of the early renovations to the building involved the removal of an internal blast wall from the front entrance on the south side of the building and cutting windows into five of the eight walls and fitting steel louvers and security grills. Two other walls had windows partly cut out but were never completed and can only be noticed from the interior of the building.
In September 1980 the Scouting Association started a major renovation program of the Control Room, which involved tiling the floor in the front (southern) section of the building and installing a ceiling. Windows were reconstructed and the exterior of the building was sand blasted and repainted. District and area scout badges were painted on the exterior of the building. On the 6 October 1980 renovated building was the venue for an evening campfire in the park, attended by the Chief Scout of Australia Sir Zelman Cowan and Lady Cowan. By 1982 arrangements had been made with local firm, Rogers Fibreglass, to construct a giant scout hat that would fit over the roof of the building. It was lowered into place at a ceremony on 22 February 1982 with the Mayor of Cairns, Alderman Ron Davis officiating and has given the building a distinctive landmark quality. The building became the Scouting Association's Area Headquarters and Scout Shop. The Scouting Association of Australia, Queensland Branch, hold a special State Lease over the building. The current lease expires on 13 February 2023.
","criteria":"The WWII Volunteer Defence Corps Control Room in Cairns is important in demonstrating some of the principal characteristics of a World War II civil defence control room, including 300 mm external reinforced concrete walls and roof and an internal concrete wall that offered protection from the effects of bomb blast.
|The WWII Volunteer Defence Corps Control Room in Cairns demonstrates an unusual design for a civil defence control room, being purpose built to protect air raid wardens during World War II and to later serve as the base for a band rotunda.
|The WWII Volunteer Defence Corps Control Room in Cairns is important in demonstrating the urgent measures taken for air raid protection and the conditions in which the air raid wardens worked, and is reminder of how close World War II came to Queensland and in particular the State's northern region.
The place is significant evidence of the important role played by volunteers in the pattern of Queensland's history, particuarly the Volunteer Defence Corps operating during WWII.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29199,"place_ref":602749,"name":"Habana Tramline Causeway and Wharf Site","alternate_name":"Habana Wharf Road","street_address":"Between Habana Wharf Road and Constant Creek","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-05-14","description":"The start of the 1km causeway route is in a field at the north end of the metalled Habana Wharf Road. The causeway, marked by an avenue of paperbark (Melaleuca) trees, is visible to the left as Habana Wharf Road bends to the right towards a private residence.
For its initial section the causeway is stone pitched, low-lying, and prone to flooding. It heads west north west and the avenue of trees ends at rising, cleared ground. The route crosses this higher ground before changing direction several degrees to the north. The route then continues as a stone and gravel causeway, standing more than 30cm above the surrounding salt marsh. During its course it makes two slight turns to the west, until it is heading almost due west through bush. There are no visible relics of the tramway on the causeway. At one point the causeway intersects a track heading north to a clearing that was the site of a residence. Soon after this point the causeway ends at a sandy beach.
A tramway alignment, marked by loose stones and multiple fragments of corroded tramway line of various lengths, continues across the sand towards a line of mangroves. There are several large posts near or within the mangroves, both standing and laid flat. Various other corroded metal artefacts are scattered about. There are two narrow gaps in the line of mangroves by which the creek bank can be accessed.
To the south of the rail-alignment is a raised platform of stones, with more fragments of corroded railway line and other metal artefacts. On the other side of the mangroves is the steep muddy bank of a tributary of Constant Creek. No wharf remnants are visible on the creek bank.
","history":"The stone and gravel causeway near the end of Habana Wharf Road was built during 1882 with South Sea Islander (Melanesian) labour, to provide tramline access to a wharf on the bank of Constant Creek near to where it empties into the ocean about 14 kilometres north-west of Mackay. The wharf was built in late 1882 or early 1883, to service the Habana sugar plantation, owned by Edward Maitland Long and William Robertson.
The history of the Mackay district is closely linked to the sugar industry. The City of Mackay is named for John Mackay, who entered the valley of the Pioneer River in 1860 and established a pastoral run there the following year. In 1862 a settlement was begun on the south bank of the river and by 1863 Mackay had been surveyed and the first lots of land sold. It was gazetted as a port of entry and a customs house was opened. The first sugar plantation was established near Mackay in 1865 and the first small sugar mill was opened in 1868.
South Sea Islanders (referred to at the time as Kanakas) made a major contribution to Queensland's early sugar industry. Between 1863 and 1904, some fifty thousand Islanders were brought to Queensland as indentured labourers usually bound by a three year contract. The Islanders provided cheap manual labour, but were also believed to be essential in a climate that was considered too harsh for white manual labourers. Most came from eighty islands in Melanesia, mainly those included in present day Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. The method of recruitment remains a matter of debate, but it seems that at least some of the recruiting during the initial phase was by kidnapping and deception.
Islanders made a vital contribution to the sugar industry, performing virtually all of the field work connected with the industry during its first phase of development. Only a minority stayed on; most returned to their islands at the conclusion of their contract period.
The Pioneer Valley, one of Australia's largest sugar producing areas has always had the largest South Sea Islander population in Queensland. They began arriving in the Mackay district from 1867, and by 1875 there were about 1700 in the area, comprising 45 percent of the total population. Over two thousand Islanders still reside in the Mackay region.
Although an 1875 outbreak of the crop disease, rust, caused some foreclosures and sales, by 1876 the Mackay district had 18 sugar mills and 5568 acres of land were under sugar cultivation. The sugar industry boomed in the early 1880s and Mackay prospered as a port and as a commercial and administrative centre, drawing business from nearby pastoral holdings and the sugar plantations being developed along the river.
The period 1881 to 1884 also marked the zenith of the plantation system of growing sugar cane. This system was characterised by large land holdings that were worked with indentured South Sea Islander labour. Each plantation built its own sugar mill to crush its cane. Twelve mills opened near Mackay during the early 1880s, including at Habana, on the plantation of Long and Robertson. The Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR) opened a large mill at Homebush in 1883, and in the Mackay district 19,320 acres of cane were being cultivated under the plantation system by 1884. However, this system depended on the importation of South Sea Islander labour, and it soon suffered a number of blows.
A drop (of a third) in the price of sugar in 1884, and increasing numbers of small selectors and farmers in the area, began to challenge the plantation system. Small farmers did not like having to crush their sugar crops at plantation mills, where they were a secondary consideration. Sir Samuel Griffith, Queensland's Premier between 1883-1888 and 1890-1893, sought to break the plantations into small farms. This accorded with the preferred model for the development of the State: small yeomen farmers working their own land with the help of their families.
Legislation aimed at applying this model, together with humanitarian and union concerns, as well as racism, ultimately formed the basis for opposition to and brought about the eventual cessation of the trade in South Sea Islander labour. Church and mission groups opposed it on ethical and humanitarian grounds. And labour unions, exclusively white, felt threatened by cheap non-European labour and were concerned that employers would use Islanders to undermine working conditions.
From 1884, Islander labour was progressively restricted. In 1884 an amendment to the Pacific Islanders Labourers Act 1880 banned South Sea Islanders from a range of work, and restricted them to menial jobs in agriculture. The Pacific Islanders Act of 1885 sought to end the recruitment of South Sea Island labour by 1890; this was repealed in 1892 on economic grounds. However the Pacific Island Labourers (Extension) Act 1892 further barred them from construction work on plantation roads and tramways. Finally after Federation in 1901, two pieces of Commonwealth legislation put an end to the trade: the Immigration Restriction Act (1901) and the Pacific Island Labourers Act (1901), the former being where the various policies that came to be termed the 'White Australia Policy' began. It aimed to exclude all non-European immigrants; the latter legislation required an end to recruitment of South Sea Islanders from March 1904 and their deportation after December 1906. From 1904 to 1908, around 7000 people were deported. About 1200 were granted residency, and an estimated 1000 others stayed on illegally in Australia.
Large central mills operated by groups of small farmers eventually supplanted the plantation mills, offering them economy of scale in allowing them to crush their crops at a large and efficient mill. The first two central mills in Queensland were opened near Mackay in the late 1880s, with government financial assistance. The Sugar Works Guarantee Act of 1893 extended the scope of government support to farmers wishing to establish central mills, and thus by the 1890s the small plantation mills on large estates were giving way to small farms and large central mills. The last of the Mackay district's plantation mills, Palms, closed in 1924.
From 1870 to 1876 EM Long owned the Branscombe Estate south of the Pioneer River near Walkerston, in partnership with GN Marten. A mill operated here from 1871 to 1884. In addition, Long and Marten owned the River Estate from 1871, with its mill being active from 1873 to 1891. During the 1870s Long also selected multiple blocks of land in the Habana area, north of the Pioneer River, or took over the leases of other selectors. William Robertson did the same, and the two men usually applied to buy their various selections several years after gaining a lease, to obtain deeds of grant.
The causeway and wharf site is to the north-east of the current settlement of Habana, and although the causeway begins on the former land of Henry Braby, his selection was an exception in the area in the 1880s, which was by then dominated by the landholdings of Long and Robertson.
Braby obtained the lease of selection number 640 in February 1881, for 10 years dating from January 1880, and he was issued with a deed of grant in 1886. A sugar engineer, Braby grew fruit on his selection until about 1894. An August 1880 survey of Braby's selection does not show a causeway, although a road (later Habana Wharf Road) was surveyed in the middle of his selection, terminating near where the start of the causeway would later be located.
In January 1882 Long requested, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary, the lease or purchase of a wharf frontage on Salt Water (Constant) Creek, 'Upon which I am ancsious (sic) to erect a wharf for shipping purposes'. An August 1882 letter from the Lands Office in Mackay, to the Under Secretary of Lands, Brisbane, noted that it was a good wharfage site, and that Long 'has already incurred great expense in forming by embankment and drainage a long causeway (to carry a tramway) to this spot'. A Special Lease, number 169, was granted in September 1882, for 14 years from 1 October 1882, and consisted of a 5-acre wedge of land, rental of £1 per acre per annum. However, the wharf site was not surveyed until February 1884, and a formal Lease for Special Purposes, under the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1876, was issued in July 1884, for a period of 14 years from 1 September 1882.
The official 1884 survey shows the causeway route, identical to its route in 2010. The causeway began on Brady's selection 640, and then crossed an area of salt marsh, before entering the wharf site. The documentary evidence suggests that the causeway was built between January and August 1882, and that the wharf was built after September 1882. By 1884, a wharf and store were extant at the site. It appears that Long initially used the causeway for horse drawn transport before installing a tramway.
South Sea Islander oral histories state that the Habana wharf and the built-up road (causeway) were constructed using South Sea Islander labour. Edward Long relied heavily on South Sea Islander labour to develop his plantations. In a Sydney Morning Herald article dated 27 August 1884 he was quoted as stating: 'The work of a sugar plantation could not be carried on without kanakas. We have them for three years and during that time they are a constant and reliable labour. If you have whites and there should happen to be any disagreement, say at crushing time, they may leave you and your produce will be left on the field.'
Oral tradition also asserts that many South Sea Islanders were hurt or killed working with horses at this time, as they were unfamiliar with the animals. The graves of those killed on the project are reportedly on a hill about 1km from the wharf site.
During early 1883 all the machinery for the Habana mill was transported through the Habana wharf, then across rough terrain some 4.5 miles (7.2km) to the mill site. The mouth of Constant Creek was navigable for steamers up to 80 tons. Apparently both the Habana and Plane Creek (1896) mills used tramways, leading to their own wharves on convenient creeks, to avoid the cost of carting sugar to Mackay. Rails purchased from Long by the Racecourse Mill, for a rail extension at Cattle Creek, were also shipped out through the Habana wharf in 1904.
On Saturday 21 July 1883 the Mackay Mercury reported that there had been a ceremonial first cane crush 'last Thursday' for the opening of Long and Robertson's mill at Habana, which afterwards was celebrated with a ball held at the School of Arts in Mackay.
The Habana mill operated from 1883 to 1901. Long applied for a local school and a provisional school was opened c.1883. Long appears to have accepted the end of the plantation system, and from 1884 he pioneered the concept of leasing land to small farmers in order to supply his mill. By 1891 one quarter of Habana's crush came from farmers renting land from the company. Long also encouraged British migration, especially after 1889, and he was an early advocate of Japanese labourers, the first of whom arrived at Habana c1893.
By 1893 there were 85 whites working at Habana mill, with 315 Islanders employed. The farming population consisted of 100 white men and women, and 82 Islanders. By 1896 Long and Robertson had 1300 plantation acres under cane, with 17 miles of tramway, and 26 farmers were supplying Habana Mill. That same year Long applied to renew the lease on the wharf site, and this was granted for ten years, at £2 per acre per annum.
In 1896 Long was also the managing director of the Pleystowe Central Mill Company, which illustrates his attempt to straddle the two main systems of sugar production. However, controversy surrounded the dealings between Long and the Government over the establishment of the Pleystowe mill; specifically, over the timing of his land purchases and the granting of government financial assistance for the mill.
By 1900 Long had a high, if controversial, public profile. He was the first chairman of the Mackay Harbour Board, (1897-1903), and was a Pioneer Shire councillor between 1880-1881 and 1897-1900. In 1901, the year of the last crush at Habana mill, he was the acting chairman of the Central Sugar Millers' Association of Queensland.
A government inquiry into the Pleystowe mill's affairs was announced in February 1902, due to growers' complaints. Long, in hospital in Brisbane at the time, was exonerated of any major misdemeanour. However, the government foreclosed on Pleystowe Central Mill in 1903. It continued to operate, but Long was replaced as manager. Early in 1905 Long fell ill again, and he returned to England for a year's holiday. He died on board ship in the Thames Estuary, 4 August 1905, aged 63.
The Habana Provisional School closed in 1906, and in 1907 Robertson decided not to renew the lease on the wharf site. The Land Commissioner, in a letter to the Under Secretary for Public Lands, noted that it was not likely the wharf would be required by anyone for some time to come.
In 1908 a tramline reached Habana from Pleystowe Central Mill. The Habana area increased its population in the 1910s and 1920s, through small scale cane farming and dairying. A state school was opened in 1917; immigrants arrived from Malta, Italy, Russia, Greece and India to provide farm labour. By the mid-1920s, there were seven central mills operating around the Mackay area, in contrast to the 30 plantation mills that had been operating in the mid-1880s.
The Habana wharf remained as a popular fishing spot for some time, and still existed in the 1930s; however, nothing remains visible of the wharf structure today. To the south of the tramway route across the sand to the wharf site there is a large raised area of stones, about one foot above the surrounding terrain, which may have served as a turn-around point for the trams, and as a work area. Some large decaying posts near and within the mangroves along Constant Creek may be from boat launching activities post-dating the wharf's commercial use. Vehicle access along the causeway has been blocked.
","criteria":"The substantially intact Habana Tramline Causeway provides rare surviving evidence of a large construction project undertaken with South Sea Islander labour before the Pacific Island Labourers (Extension) Act 1892 barred them from construction work on plantation roads and tramways.
The route of the causeway across salt marsh to a wharf site on a navigable creek, the raised profile of the causeway, and the remnants of the tramline, provide uncommon evidence of key transport infrastructure associated with a nineteenth century coastal Queensland sugar plantation.
|The Habana Tramline Causeway and Wharf Site, developed ca1882, is a product of the 1880-1884 sugar boom in the Mackay district, and is important in demonstrating an early phase in the evolution of Queensland's sugar industry when the plantation system dominated. The causeway and wharf were built by South Sea Islander labour to serve the Habana Sugar Mill (1883-1901), a plantation mill owned by well-known public and sugar industry figure Edward Maitland Long. The plantation system, dependent on South Sea Islander indentured labour, peaked in the early 1880s, after which it was gradually supplanted by the central mill system serving small cane farms worked by white labour.
|The Habana wharf site, with its numerous metal tramway artefacts and raised stone work platform, has the archaeological potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the operation of a nineteenth century sugar plantation wharf.
|The Habana Tramline Causeway and Wharf Site are important and now rare evidence of the significant contribution made by South Sea Islanders to the establishment of a viable sugar industry in colonial Queensland, including the establishment of its transport infrastructure. With a number of deaths of Islander labourers said to have occurred there during its construction, the place has a symbolic association with these people and the difficult lives they led while indentured to work in Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29200,"place_ref":602731,"name":"Mackay Masonic Temple","alternate_name":"Masonic Temple Masonic Hall","street_address":"57 Wood Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-08-14","description":"The Mackay Masonic Temple is located in the Mackay central business district on the corner of Wood Street and Ninth Lane. It is a two storey masonry building, rectangular in plan form, with parapets concealing a gabled roof clad in metal sheeting. The Temple and a single storey addition at the rear cover the majority of the allotment. A low red brick fence with rendered detailing and a pipe rail between engaged piers fronts Wood Street and a short forecourt lies between the fence and building facade.
The most striking feature of the Temple is the west facing portico formed by four massive columns and entablature in the Doric Order. Its pediment contains the masonic compass and square symbols fixed to a brick lined typanum, and above the pediment, a brick parapet detailed with string coursing and engaged piers projects forward over the portico.
From Wood Street, three concrete steps between the inner columns provide access to the portico behind which the main wall of dark red, salt glazed bricks is flanked by pairs of rendered masonry pilasters. Centrally located in this wall are pairs of six-panel timber doors with fanlights above at ground level, providing entry to the building and at first floor level providing access to the balcony. Wide moulded architraves surround the openings.
The concrete balcony to the first floor spans the space within the portico and is detailed with a moulded concrete balustrade containing urn shaped balusters.
The south elevation is more simply detailed and is rendered and finished with an ashlar pattern. There are seven square metal framed windows to the upper level and four rectangular metal framed windows lower level. The north and rear elevations are similarly detailed. Extensions on the north side of building include a shop fronting Wood Street and a meeting room for the Masons, with two kitchens (the main kitchen and an ancillary kitchen) and toilets. The extensions to the rear of the building incorporate offices occupied by other organisations or businesses. The extensions to the north and rear are not of cultural heritage significance.
On the lower level, the double doors open into a foyer with a small storage room to the right and stairs at the left leading to the upper level. Double, glass panelled doors lead into the main hall. The Masonic compass and square symbol is etched into each of the upper panels. There is a frosted glass, rectangular fanlight above the door. A wide moulded architrave surrounds the door and fanlight.
The main hall has polished timber floors and high timber lined ceilings. The walls are lined with sheeting and are detailed with a dado. Cupboards line the walls either side of the entrance doors. A door and windows to the north wall of the hall have been blocked by the extensions.
The first floor is accessed by a timber L-shaped staircase with carved balustrade. The risers are carpeted and the treads are lined with a dark rubberised material. A rail for a chair lift is fitted to the stairs along the wall.
The lodge room is located on the upper level. This is a large room with a black and white tiled floor laid in a chequerboard pattern. The walls are lined with sheeting and there are pilasters at regular intervals. The windows on the southern and northern walls are covered with dark curtains.
There are raised platforms at the middle of the eastern, southern and western walls. They are at varying heights. The highest and largest is on the eastern side, it is three steps high, the second highest, two steps high, is on the western side and the lowest, one step high, is on the southern side. All contain a pediment and at least one chair. For each of the pediments, a wooden column bearing a metal Masonic symbol is located to the right from the perspective of a person seated in the chair.
The eastern platform occupies the whole of the end of the room opposite the entrance. A central section is higher than the rest of the platform. Across the front, two steps provide access to the top; a third step provides access to the central section. Five ornate chairs are arranged across this section with the pediment located in front of the centre chair. The symbol of a carpenter's square is depicted on the front of this pediment. On either side of the central section, on the lower part of the platform, is a row of benches. Another pediment is located a short distance in front of the centre of the platform; a circular symbol is depicted on the front.
At the western and southern sides, the platforms are occupied by only a single chair and the pediment. On these sides only, a cube-form masonry block with a metal ring fitted in the top is located on the left side of the pediment from the perspective of a person seated in the chair.
There is a row of padded wooden benches against the southern and western walls. Immediately in front of these is a row of plain wooden benches similar to church pews.
In the middle of the floor is a rectangular pattern of black and white tiles in chequerboard pattern separated from the rest of the floor by a wide margin with a stylised rope tassel at each corner.
The pressed metal ceiling is coved and ribbed. Ribs along the sides and at each end mark the transition between the coving and the flat portion of the ceiling. The ceiling is divided into equal, rectangular sections by ribs running across its width. The ribs extend down the coving to the cornice. There is a decorative pattern along the top of the ribs and inside each of the rectangular sections. A letter 'G' suspends from a hook in the centre of the ceiling.
On either side of the platform on the western wall are panelled wooden doors. A wide architrave surrounds the door openings and the rectangular, red glass lights. The lights are etched with the Masonic compass and square emblem. The door to the north of the platform has a small peep-hole with a sliding cover.
The southern door opens into a small room with a varnished wooden dado. Padded benches line the walls. The windows are covered with dark blue curtains similar to the lodge room.
The northern door opens into a smaller room. This has a varnished timber architrave. There is another wooden, panelled door opposite the doorway into the lodge room.
","history":"The Mackay Masonic Temple (1924) was built during a period of rapid growth in Mackay, the administrative centre of a thriving sugar industry. The fine and substantial temple was built as a joint venture between three local Freemasonry lodges.
Freemasonry was established in Queensland in 1859 when dispensation was granted by the Provisional Grand Lodge of New South Wales (English Constitution), authorising what was then the most northerly lodge in Australia: the North Australian Lodge of Brisbane.
The Mackay Lodge first met in the Oddfellows' Hall in Wood Street on 24 June 1875. On 23 February 1880 it moved into the original two-storey timber Masonic Hall, using this hall until January 1918 when it was destroyed by the cyclone that devastated much of Mackay.
Following this disaster, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth through the 1920s and 1930s, even during the period of financial hardship and unemployment caused by the Depression. It was the fastest growing town in Queensland, its population almost doubling between 1923 and 1940. This was largely due to the linking of Mackay by rail to Rockhampton in 1921 and to Townsville in 1923, which improved access to markets and reduced transport costs, thus boosting not only the sugar industry, but also the developing dairy and tourist industries. The local Member of Parliament, William Forgan Smith, was Premier between 1932 and 1940 and supported the growth of the region. In the 1930s major public works were undertaken in Mackay to improve the infrastructure of the town and upgrade the harbour.
The development of Mackay in the 1930s also owed much to its mayor, Ian Wood. Becoming mayor in 1930 at the age of 29, he energetically promoted the area, opening a travel agency in the early 1930s. Wood was instrumental in developing an airport and Eungella National Park and served as mayor or alderman for most of the period between 1927 and 1973. He was a senator between 1949 and 1978 and was also a member and president of the Chamber of Commerce
After the destruction of the original hall, the local lodges met again in the Oddfellows' Hall until three lodges (Mackay 24, Temple 31 and Caledonia 34) combined in a joint venture to build a new temple on a grander scale. The Mackay Masonic Trust was formed and the foundation stone for the temple was laid on 8 March 1924. The temple was consecrated on 13th June 1925 by the Most Worshipful Deputy Grand Master Brother R.W.F. Quinn.
Masonic temples (also known as lodges) all follow a similar layout designed to accommodate the Masonic rituals. The main ceremonies are held in a rectangular room called the lodge. It has a tiled central mosaic pavement with tessellated border. Seating is arranged around the room so that all members are able to observe ceremonies conducted in the centre of the room. An elevated seat is located at the eastern side of the room for the Worshipful Master. Elevated seats are also provided at the western and southern sides for the Senior Warden and the Junior Warden. The room usually contains an altar with three candles and two pillars supporting globes. The architecture, furniture and decoration of lodges are rich in symbology. Among the most prominent symbols are the compass and square and the letter 'G'. Lodges often also contain social rooms, dining rooms and other spaces.
The building's architect, F.H. Faircloth, died before its completion. He was born in Maryborough in 1870 and was a pupil of German trained Bundaberg architect Anton Hettrich. He set up his own practice in Bundaberg in 1893 and was very prolific, eventually being responsible for the design of almost every major building in Bundaberg. He also made a major contribution to the appearance and character of Childers after a fire devastated the main street in 1902. His designs in Childers include the Isis Masonic Lodge [QHR 602123]. Other examples of his work include the Bundaberg War Memorial [QHR 600364], Woodstock House in Maryborough [QHR 600694] and St Patricks Church at Mount Perry [QHR 600764].
The temple was built by brothers Frank & William Guthrie at a cost of £6500. The Guthries, from Bundaberg, originally planned to stay at Mackay for 12 months to complete the National Australia Bank. Instead, they stayed in Mackay a further 36 years and constructed many other local buildings including the Daily Mercury building, and the Ambassador, Australian, Metropolitan, Prince of Wales, Shamrock, Taylor's and Wilkinson's hotels.
In 1959 the temple was extended, with a shop fronting Wood Street added to the north side. Also added to the north side were a meeting room for the Masons, with two kitchen areas (one being the main kitchen the other an ancillary kitchen) and toilets. The extensions to the rear of the building incorporate offices that are leased to other organisations or businesses. To enable these extensions to proceed, the original (1925) kitchen and toilet area were demolished.
The building was renovated in 1985 and painted inside and out. A further $351,000 was spent on extensions and renovations in 1994. Mackay firm Sanders, Turner & Ellick were the architects for the project and the builders were T.F. Woollam & Sons.
Lodges currently meeting at the temple are Mackay 24, Temple 31, Caledonia 34 and Star of the North 401.
","criteria":"The Mackay Masonic Temple has a strong and special association with several Masonic lodges in the Mackay region as their principal meeting place since 1924.
|As a well composed, landmark building that is an excellent example of the Doric classical temple tradition, the Mackay Masonic Temple is important for its aesthetic significance. The building is visually pleasing for its regularity and symmetry, the contrast between exposed brick and stucco finishes on its façade, and the integration of Masonic symbolism into the design.
|As a fine and substantial building, the Mackay Masonic Temple (1924) is important in demonstrating the prosperity enjoyed by Queensland's sugar-growing districts at the time of its construction. During the 1920s and 1930s, Mackay was the fastest growing town in Queensland.
The temple is also evidence of an important phase in the development of this regional centre. Replacing an earlier temple that was destroyed by a devastating cyclone in 1918, it was built during a period of reconstruction and rapid development in Mackay that included a major civic program of beautification and modernisation of services.
|The building is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial Masonic Temple. These include the front facade with its Doric order columns, the lower level function area, and the upper level lodge room. The lodge room follows a standard plan with central mosaic pavement, elevated seats for the Master and principal officers, seating arranged around the perimeter of the room for members and the prominent display of Masonic symbols.
The temple is also important in demonstrating the work of F.H. Faircloth, a prolific regional architect who practised in the late 19th and early 20th century. Faircloth was responsible for the design of many major buildings in Bundaberg and Childers including the Isis Masonic Lodge at Childers [QHR 602123] and the Queensland National Bank and residence at Mackay [QHR 600672].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29257,"place_ref":602661,"name":"Tomahawk Creek Huts","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"RUBYVALE","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-16","description":"Tomahawk Creek is an area of about 2340 hectares of undulating bushland, reached at 17 km on an unsealed road, the Reklaw Park track, which leaves the Clermont Road 27 km from Rubyvale. Tomahawk Creek forms the north-western boundary. Mount Hoy is a prominent basalt peak in the south-western area. When the sign-posted entrance is reached a number of tracks run through the area, but the main one runs roughly parallel to Hut Creek where most huts are located.
There were 21 huts in the area in 2006, five of which are now abandoned, ranging from five to 50 years old. Most were built around caravans with canvas annexes and roofs and walls of galvanised iron, supported by poles of bush timber, tied with wire, and recycled materials. Some are partly built of 'billy boulders', especially the lower walls and outdoor barbecues. Open areas provide ventilation and cooling, with some innovative solutions to the summer heat. Three of the huts within the nominated boundary area are within about 250 metres of each other.
A stone hut known as The Lodge, on lot 17, is the most substantial building in the area. It is 12-sided, a dodecahedron. The walls are made of 'billy boulders', above which are horizontal logs between windows of various types using recycled materials. Around the base are air vents made from barrels with caps which can be opened to the exterior. Further ventilation is provided through the roof with slats of galvanised iron which can be opened from the inside, around the water tank that sits on the top of the roof, supported by a central pole. The roof is of galvanised iron. The hut has an electricity generator and a solar panel which charges 24 and 12 volt batteries. Inside is a wooden stove, its fireplace made from a fly wheel, and a conventional wood burning fuel stove. Similar to other huts in the area, any internal divisions are made of insubstantial materials, of hessian, scrap timber and iron.
An A-frame building, known as 'Camp David ' on Crystal Hill, on lot 8, was built off-site and re-erected in Easter 1984. It measures approximately 9m. in length, 6m. in width and is 6m. high at its apex. A Trimdeck roof is supported by steel struts. It has a mezzanine sleeping area and a staircase. The floor is laid with brick pavers. Power is provided by a generator. The front wall, facing east, is made of pieces of coloured glass held in place by aluminium strips.
A hut built largely of 'billy boulders' and bottles occupies lot 4. Three caravans are on the site and incorporated as annexes to the hut.
A hut known as 'Tomahawk Heights' occupies lot 9. Building began after 1969 where the occupant had previously camped. The walls are largely of 'billy boulders' but it contains the remnants of a previous building. Power is provided by a solar panel and batteries. It has a stone fireplace and barbecue.
","history":"Tomahawk Creek Fossicking Area, about 25 kilometres west of Rubyvale, north-west of Emerald, is the most remote part of the Central Queensland Gemfields. It is about 2340 hectares in area, excised from a Grazing Homestead Perpetual Lease. The first huts were built in the 1960s on mining claims or under Miner's Right but in 1986 under the Mining (Fossicking) Act 1985 the area was designated a fossicking area and the huts made illegal and their residents squatters.
Fossicking areas are areas where the government has negotiated access for fossickers in advance and no commercial mining is allowed. On designated fossicking lands the government has negotiated the land owners' permission in advance but some commercial mining under the appropriate legislation may occur. There are 11 designated fossicking areas in Queensland, five of them in Central Queensland, where camping with a permit for a maximum period of three months is allowed. No camping is permitted on the fossicking areas in south-east and north Queensland and there are no known huts in these areas. On the fossicking lands in western and south-west Queensland, out from Winton and Quilpie, camping with a permit is allowed for periods up to three months. There are also 'general permission areas' where special conditions may apply, including Swipers Gully fossicking area near Stanthorpe, where camping is not permitted. .
Houses and huts in the several townships on The Gemfields, but not at Tomahawk Creek, are now on regular titles and provided with town facilities. Tomahawk Creek is the largest fossicking area in the Gemfields.
The first sapphires were found on The Central Queensland Gemfields in 1870 and attracted hand miners. Archibald John Richardson, Government Surveyor and his partner Frank Fisher, erected a treatment plant but profit eluded them. In the 1890s interest from the nobility of Tsarist Russia and from German buyers stimulated the market for sapphires and a period of prosperity ensued, but these markets were lost with the onset of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Government assistance to the market kept miners on the field, with limited recovery in the 1940s. Through the years gemstone miners have lived in tents, and built huts of tin and poles, recycled materials and caravans. Small townships grew at Anakie, Sapphire, Rubyvale and The Willows.
In the 1960s the price of gems increased and more tourists and gem collectors worked the fields. In 1965 machine mining began, with the first use of a bulldozer on the Gemfields. Thai buyers began visiting the fields in 1971 and output increased as heavy machinery mining became dominant, in competition and conflict with hand miners for whom some richer areas were reserved. In the late 1970s activity slowed but a core of machinery miners and hand miners remained. The Gemfields become a popular holiday destination for campers and caravanners during the cooler months.
Fossicking at Tomahawk Creek was active in the late 1960s, when the earliest extant huts were built, on occupation under Mining Claims, Leases and Permits to Occupy. Most occupants stayed during winter and holiday periods; there were 13 non-permanent huts and six permanent huts in January 2007. Most of the huts began as caravans to which annexes and lean-tos were added, with walls and roofs of galvanised iron and 'billy boulders' (large irregular-shaped stones of had siliceous material) and other light materials, on frames of poles. Toilets and showers usually were built some metres distant from the hut.
Designated as a fossicking area, and remote from the townships, Tomahawk Creek has not been machine mined but has been explored and mined by hand miners and tourists. The last Mining Claim expired about 1991, when two occupants applied for Permits to Occupy. There is no legal tenure of the other huts.
The hut known as Tomahawk Heights is on lot 9. It is a structure basically of galvanised iron, built after 1969 on a former camp site. There are four occasional occupants.
The most substantial hut in the area was built before 1984 on lot 17 by Hans and Eva Hendrickson who used a section as a shop. Known as The Lodge, it is now occupied as a holiday place.
An A-frame hut known as Camp David was built at Mackay, transported to Tomahawk Creek and re-erected in Easter 1981, on Crystal Hill on lot 8. The front wall is made of coloured glass.
A hut of 'billy boulders' and bottles, with three caravans, occupies lot 4. Its former permanent occupant (in April 2008) was relocating to a township.
The regular occupants of these huts function as a community, meeting regularly and sharing services such as shopping trips and medical visits to the towns. They have a strong sense of ownership of the place and its huts, and residents care for huts when their 'owners' are absent.
","criteria":"The huts at Tomahawk Creek are important as part of the evolution of Queensland's history and particularly of the Central Region Gemfields. They illustrate a way of life associated with fossicking with minimal technology and building with recycled materials.
The huts date from the 1960s with additions made in the 1980s.
|Tomahawk Creek illustrates a way of life that has become endangered as land use that once was common has been regulated, and the solutions evident in the huts for living in difficult hot, dry climates have become rare.
Camping is confined under the Fossicking Act and Regulations to fossicking areas in Central Queensland and to three fossicking areas in remote western and south-west Queensland, for periods up to three months.
State government abolition of the Miner's Right on fossicking areas has resulted in a decrease in the occurrence of huts similar to those at Tomahawk Creek, and they are now rare and possibly the only survivors of an endangered tradition.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29312,"place_ref":602757,"name":"Innisfail Water Tower","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mourilyan Street","suburb":"EAST INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Located on the top of a hill in Mourilyan Road on the east side of the Johnstone River, the Innisfail Water Tower is a prominent feature on the skyline, its stylistic influences strongly reflecting the art deco character of a number of other buildings in Innisfail. Surrounded by palm trees and a low masonry fence with iron railing, the reinforced concrete structure comprises a circular tank supported on a central cylindrical tower and eight rectangular section columns.
The tank wall is embellished with a continuous parapet moulding and recessed panels. Beneath the tank, arched reinforced concrete splays span between the columns. The columns are accentuated at the springing line of the splays with two rows of rectangular moulding forming decorative capitals and with plinths at their base. The current paint scheme distinguishes various components of the exterior using pale yellow as a base colour detailed with a teal blue, terracotta orange and red.
Having originally incorporated a lookout, the Innisfail Water Tower still offers spectacular views over the region. Within the central tower, a half-turn stair with equal flights, constructed of concrete with a tubular metal handrail and balustrade, provides access to the tank. Three eight-light fixed metal-framed windows provide natural light to the stair landings. The concrete interior surfaces are unpainted.
The balustrade around the edge of the tank top is made of tubular metal and currently supports aerials for local telecommunications companies. A frame of similar materials covers a central circular opening where a ladder from below provides access to the dome. The concrete on the dome is largely unpainted.
","history":"The Innisfail Water Tower was built during 1933 and 1934 and was part of a significant infrastructure project in one of Queensland's most important sugar-growing regions. Designed by the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department of the Queensland Lands Department, it is situated on Mellick's Hill at East Innisfail from where it is visible from all parts of the town making it an important landmark.
In the early 1930s Innisfail was the principal town in the Johnstone Shire and an important regional service centre in one of its major sugar-producing districts. Thomas Henry Fitzgerald is credited with the town's establishment, attracted to the area because of its potential for growing sugar. With financial backing from Brisbane, he selected his Innisfail Estate in June 1880 along the Johnstone River where the present town is located. News of Fitzgerald's venture attracted other sugar companies and within four years there were three mills operating in the district. Although Fitzgerald's venture was unsuccessful, his role was recognised when in 1883 a town was surveyed and named Geraldton. The name was changed to Innisfail in 1910.
By the turn of the century clearing for the town was continuing and new buildings were being erected, often in timber and iron to replace older ones. Lodges and societies were established, as were businesses including an aerated water factory, two bakers, a butcher and three new hotels. The waterfront was lined with wharves, two sawmills were established on the banks of the river and there was a ferry service across the South Johnstone River, it being the only effective way in and out of town.
While the sugar industry was fuelling the growth of the area, the greatest impact on Innisfail's landscape came from the major floods and cyclones of the period. A 1918 cyclone was particularly severe and destroyed most of the buildings in the town. A large proportion of the rebuilding which took place during the 1920s and 1930s - a period of prosperity - was done using reinforced concrete to prevent such levels of destruction during future cyclonic events.
Investigation and planning for a water supply scheme for Innisfail commenced in 1926. Up until this time the community relied on tank water and water vendors, and despite being one of the wettest towns in Australia in terms of rainfall, there were water shortages during the dry months of the year. In 1930 the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department of the Queensland Lands Department explored options and prepared designs for a gravity scheme relying on supply from Fisher's Creek; however the Shire did not pursue funding for it until 1932 when they renewed their application. Councillor SK Page, Chairman of the Johnstone Shire Council and Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at the time, was a strong advocate for the scheme, which he argued would allow the formation of a fire brigade, improve public health, allow drains and streets to be flushed as well as providing water for households and public gardens. The local newspaper, the Johnstone River Advocate, reported in August of that year that a prolonged dry spell had resulted in motor traffic causing "... miniature desert storms on the dusty roads".
Council's new funding application for a water supply scheme resulted in the Queensland Treasurer approving a subsidy of £15,500 plus a loan of £30,750. This new application precipitated debate about the extent of the scheme, and alternative sources of water, dissent about these matters being aired at a public meeting at the end of 1932 where alternative schemes were recommended and a petition was started. These alternative schemes were based on the opinion of a former shire engineer and some people within the community who thought savings could be made by tapping into natural springs rather than pumping from the North Johnstone River, thereby reducing the size of the some of the piping. The need for a filtration plant was also questioned. The Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department formally responded to the criticisms of the scheme: confirming that the estimated daily consumption and cost of the scheme were comparable with water supply schemes elsewhere, and explaining that the Johnstone River would provide the most reliable water source.
The Innisfail Water Supply Scheme formed part of a State government town water supply program funded through the Lands Department's works for unemployment relief effort. The scheme was conditional on the use of local labour and materials and the transportation of materials by rail. The Minister for Lands reported on the success of the government's employment initiative, which had provided loans and subsidy of £210,673 to fourteen local authorities for the installation of town water supplies, and meant that in January 1934 there were 525 men directly employed. The initiative was also indirectly helping those firms supplying the materials needed for the construction of town water supply schemes.
The scheme for Innisfail differed from its proposed scheme of the 1920s in that it supplied a larger area and incorporated a filtration plant, which was considered best practice and important for preventing bacterial disease. It also comprised a low level pumping plant with two electrically powered vertical centrifugal pumps located at Stoter's farm on the Johnstone River, a filtration plant with two horizontal pumps located half a mile from the pumping plant, a 100,000 gallon water tower on Mellick's Hill at East Innisfail and a reticulation network to distribute water throughout the town. The scheme included provision of electricity to both the pumping and filtration plants from the Shire's power station.
By February 1933 tenders had been invited for construction of the Innisfail pumping station and reticulation network. These were just two components of the total system which for construction purposes was divided into a number of separate tenders. With the arrival of supervising engineer Mr Mulholland in late April, the ceremonial turning of the first sod to commence construction of the scheme was held on Saturday 22 April 1933 at Stoter's Farm. Councillor Page proclaimed in Johnstone River Advocate the commencement of the scheme as a positive step in the district's progress and possibly the biggest project the district had ever seen.
Work on the pumping station and laying pipes was already underway when eight tenders were received for contract No. 7, involving the construction of the 100,000 gallon reinforced concrete water tower at East Innisfail. Tenders ranged between £6898 and £5100 and were received from as far away as Bundaberg. In June 1933 the Van Leeuwen Bros were awarded the contract with a tender of £5186/16/-, having arrived in Innisfail from Baarn in Holland in 1918. They went on to become one of the most successful construction companies in the town, being responsible for construction of the National Bank, Hotel Grand Central, Queens Hotel, Bank of New South Wales, Commonwealth Bank, Shire Hall as well as the water tower.
Over the next thirteen months the progress of the water tower was regularly reported in the Johnstone River Advocate. In December 1933, a total of 19 men were employed, 14 full time and 5 part time. The columns had been concreted to a height of 14 feet (4.27 metres), the central tower to 21 feet (6.4 metres), with the 27 feet (8.23 metres) high second staging in preparation of a second lift of the columns. In January the columns were raised to a height of 29.5 feet (8.99 metres), the central tower to 35 feet (10.67 metres) and the pipes and valve pit in the tower had been set in place and tested. Despite being affected by heavy rain in April, the final concrete pour had been made to the top of the splay under the bottom of the tank, and the floor of the tank, consisting of 200 tons of concrete, was put down in a continuous pour that lasted for 19 hours. On 18 May 1934, 21 local men concreted the wall of the tank (13 feet [3.96 metres] high with a circumference of 134 feet [40.84 metres]) in a process that took 27 hours. By 6 June the dome of the tank was completed, again in one continuous pour. At 42 feet (12.8 metres) in diameter, it was one of the largest reinforced concrete domes in Queensland. All that was required to finish the job was coating the inside with bitumen and completing the parapet walls and lookout. It is not known if the current paint scheme matches the tower's original exterior finish.
During the early stages of construction there was some discussion about taking advantage of the visual prominence of the structure. Advertising and a town clock were suggested, however the Shire Council decided on a lookout, the guard rail for which was erected shortly after the dome on the tank was completed. The tower was painted but the Council decided it would be too costly to illuminate.
Although construction of the filtration plant had only just commenced, on Monday 27 August 1934, following testing of the system, the first property - Oroya Private Hospital in Rankin Street - was connected to the system. The availability of a reticulated water supply system also meant that the Volunteer Fire Brigade was also able to commence.
Construction of the filtration plant continued into 1935 as did connections to properties. It was not until 16 December that the water supply system was officially handed over to the Johnstone Shire Council. At which time there were 548 properties connected to it pumping 200,000 gallons per day supplying 2500 people.
The annual report of the Water Supply Branch of the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department for the year 1933-1934 reported that "...the Water Tower forms a dignified structure of imposing appearance overlooking the town. Throughout the construction of the scheme particular care had been taken to obtain concrete structures of pleasing appearance."
The Water Supply Branch was very active during the 1930s. In 1933-1934 they funded 41 projects, 22 of these being for town water supply schemes. During the 1930s, 15 of the schemes constructed included an elevated reinforced concrete water tower. Tanks were predominantly 60,000 or 100,000 to 120,000 gallons in size (272,765 litres or 454,609 litres to 545 531 litres), with Innisfail being the first 100,000 gallon (454,609 litres) tank as reported in the 1930s annual reports. The increase to this size appears to correspond to a transition to using supporting columns as well as the central tower. The tower at Emerald constructed in the early 1930s consisted of a concrete cylindrical tank on a central tower while the Gordonvale tower built in 1934 consisted of a cylindrical tank on columns; both were 60,000 gallon (272,765 litres) tanks. The towers at Gatton, Innisfail, Longreach and Ingham have both a central tower and surrounding columns. The taller of these towers also have bracing between the columns at mid height, which is not present on the Innisfail tower. The towers at Innisfail and Ingham have capitals on the columns, while the Innisfail tower also has decorative panels around its tank walls.
","criteria":"The Innisfail Water Tower is a good and intact example of a 1930s reinforced concrete water tower, one of 15 constructed in Queensland during that period. Designed by the Irrigation and Water Supply Sub-Department of the Lands Department, it incorporates both central tower and surrounding support columns which were used on larger towers from the mid-1930s. As well as being one of the first towers with both a central tower and columns, at the time of construction the dome top on the water tank was one of the largest in the state.
|Constructed in 1933-1934, the Innisfail Water Tower is associated with the early development of Innisfail's water supply infrastructure and is important in demonstrating the era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the north Queensland sugar industry during the 1920s and 1930s and the success of the Queensland government's town water supply programs funded by the Lands Department under the auspices of its unemployment relief scheme during the 1930s. Civic projects - including water supply schemes, shire and town halls, offices and chambers, community swimming pools, roads, bridges, and street and park beautification schemes - were undertaken throughout Queensland at this period as a result of the scheme, and as a group these places are important in illustrating: a particular historical period; the impact of State government initiatives to combat the economic depression; and design concepts popular at the time.
|The Innisfail Water Tower is a distinctive landmark visible from all parts of Innisfail. At the time of construction it was described as a dignified structure of imposing presence overlooking the town. Through the unemployment relief schemes, a conscious effort was made to produce concrete structures of pleasing appearance and the Innisfail Water Tower well illustrates the design elements, reflecting interwar Modernist concerns with functional simplicity, believed to impart this value.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29433,"place_ref":602668,"name":"Aldborough","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"25 Deane Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-08-14","description":"Aldborough occupies two allotments at the intersection of Deane and Hodgkinson Streets, within the original one square mile of the town of Charters Towers.
Aldborough is set back from the corner of Deane and Hodgkinson Streets, and faces north-west towards the intersection and a small entrance gate at the corner. The ground rises to a terrace between the road frontage and the house. There is no definable entrance path although there is a small set of concrete steps up to the terrace. The main house entrance comprises a set of wide stairs with steel railings (not original) and a projecting gabled porch, which has metal acroterions and a decorative finial at its apex. The porch has a decorative pediment with a name board below, and is supported by double timber columns with decorative timber brackets.
The ground to the south-west of the house steps up via two stone retaining walls, and there is also a derelict chicken shed on the southern boundary of the property, with the remains of a possible pond circled by stones nearby. At the rear of the main house, in the angle formed by the kitchen wing, there is a fernery made of rough bush timber framing, covered over the top with wire mesh. There are also two corrugated iron rainwater tanks at the rear of the house, and two corrugated iron sheds along the rear (eastern) edge of the property. Access to the understorey of the house is through a metal gate next to a retaining wall beside the north-east elevation of the house. Access from the road is via a bridge at the north-east corner of the property, over the stone stormwater channel [QHR 602512] along Hodgkinson Street.
Aldborough is a large, single-storeyed timber villa that is lowset on a mix of thick timber stumps and round steel stumps. There is a corrugated iron generator shed under the house, with a concrete mount in situ. Aldborough has a corrugated iron pyramid roof with some surviving metal acroterions and a large roof ventilator. The roof extends to cover the verandahs on all four sides. The exterior walls of the main house are single-skinned, with vertical timber boards and exposed timber studs to the verandahs. The hip-roofed, semi-detached kitchen wing, located at the southern end of the south-east verandah of the main house, is clad with horizontal timber boards, with the timber studs exposed inside the rooms, except for the walls along the wing's verandah, which extends south-east from the south-east (rear) verandah of the main house. These walls have the studs exposed to the verandah. The same construction occurs in the former bedroom built at the corner of the north-east and south-east verandahs of the main house.
There are decorative iron balustrades with timber railing on the north-west verandah, with a mix of timber lattice-work and timber-slat blinds above, while the north-east verandah has the same balustrading with timber-slat blinds above. There is also a timber partition with a door towards the eastern end of the north-east verandah, and a small timber toilet room. The south-west verandah has balustrading, but only a small section of lattice and no timber blinds. The south-east verandah has no balustrading and is screened by timber latticework. The narrow verandah that runs along the north-east elevation of the kitchen wing past the bedrooms and bathroom to the kitchen, has timber balustrading, and a lattice partition and door towards the north-west end. Hedged plants grow to the height of the top balustrading rail in front of the north-west, north-east and south-west verandahs of Aldborough. They are supported by a double galvanised steel pipe frame that is attached to the side of the house.
A central hallway is entered by means of a large door surrounded by sidelights and an opening fan light, and the hall exits through a similar door to the rear verandah. To the north-east of the hall are three bedrooms. The western-most bedroom is larger than the other two, and has a bay window with three large double-hung windows that can be opened from floor level, overlooking the north-west verandah. This master bedroom also has a set of French doors to the north-east verandah. The centre bedroom also has a bay window set with French doors narrowly protruding onto the north-east verandah, with another set of French doors adjacent to the bay. The eastern-most bedroom has sets of French doors to both the north-east and south-east verandahs.
The south-west side of the hallway comprises one large living and dining room, with a middle archway dividing the room into two spaces. Each space has a large ceiling rosette and its own door to the central hallway, and the dining space to the south-east has a set of French doors to the south-east verandah. There is a decorative frieze in both rooms, which appears to be pressed metal. The bay window at the north-west end of the living space has three large double-hung windows, as in the master bedroom. Two sets of French doors provide access to the south-west verandah from the two spaces.
A free-standing pantry/larder is accessed off the south-east verandah of the main house. It is about two metres square, has the same proportioned pyramid roof with metal acroterions and ventilator as the main house, and is reached by stepping over a narrow gap between it and the verandah. The pantry's walls adjacent to the verandah comprise a light fly-screen mesh attached to a timber frame while the outer-facing walls comprise chamferboard topped with fixed louvres. The pantry stands on low concrete stumps which are set inside small concrete water wells, as protection from ants.
The kitchen wing comprises three bedrooms, a bathroom that was remodelled in the 1950s or 1960s, and a large kitchen at the rear. The western-most bedroom in the kitchen wing has a set of French doors opening onto the east end of the south-west verandah. The kitchen has a large brick fireplace at its south-west end. There is an outside laundry under a skillion roof to the south-east of the kitchen. A built-in copper shares the same brick chimney as the fireplace in the kitchen.
All rooms in the main house have 13'6" (4.1 metre) high ceilings. There is early linoleum flooring on the floors of all rooms except for the middle bedroom in the main house and the storeroom and bathroom in the kitchen wing. There are a number of original and early fittings in the house, including light switches, decorative metal coat hooks, window catches, rods for opening fanlights above doors, and an electric bell on the wall of the kitchen wing.
","history":"Aldborough, a large timber residence at the corner of Deane and Hodgkinson streets, one block south of the main business street of Charters Towers, was built in 1896 for the successful draper and merchant Alfred Edwin Daking-Smith. The house is a well-known landmark in the town. Aldborough demonstrates characteristics typical of housing in Charters Towers, and is a good example of a house built for a successful Charters Towers businessman. Between 1872 and 1917 Charters Towers was one of the most important goldfields in Queensland. At its peak in 1899 it accounted for more than a third of Queensland's entire gold production, and by 1901 it was Queensland's second largest town.
Gold was discovered at the foot of Towers Hill in December 1871, the find was reported to Warden WFCM Charters at Ravenswood in January 1872, and the Charters Towers Goldfield was proclaimed on 31 August 1872. Charters Towers was proclaimed a municipality on 21 June 1877, and the town embraced one square mile, centred on the intersection of Gill Street and Mosman Street. The gold was found in reefs of gold-bearing ore, and as the mines deepened the smaller mining operations were replaced by larger companies. A heightened phase of prosperity was entered after the great wealth of the Day Dawn reef was discovered in 1878. The completion of a railway line from Townsville to Charters Towers in December 1882 also boosted the town's prosperity, by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials.
Charters Towers boomed throughout the 1880s, overshadowing all other mining centres in North Queensland. A display of Charters Towers Gold in the Queensland Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886 in turn led to an influx of capital from English speculators, and in 1889 the famous Brilliant Reef, the richest on the field, was discovered. During this time many of the 1870s timber commercial buildings on Mosman and Gill Streets were rebuilt in brick. Charters Towers continued to prosper throughout the depressed economy of the 1890s with a peak production of 319,572 ounces of gold in 1899, and a population of around 26,500 the same year. At the turn of the century Charters Towers, with its multi-cultural population, was known colloquially as 'the World'.
After 1899 there was a steady decline in gold production. In 1912 the Warden reported that the extreme depth for profitable mining had been reached, and most mines had been abandoned by 1916. The last of the big mines, the Brilliant Extended, closed in 1917, but small mining operations continued to be serviced by the Venus battery, which was owned by the Queensland government from 1919. By 1921 Charters Towers' population had decreased to 5,682, and many timber buildings were moved to Townsville after World War I. Some villas were reused as schools as Charters Towers adapted to becoming an educational centre for North Queensland.
When Daking-Smith arrived in Charters Towers in 1891 the town was still booming. Born in 1866, he had lived with his grandmother at Aldeburgh on the coast of Suffolk, England, after the deaths of his parents. At the age of 21 Alfred Daking-Smith decided to seek a new life in Australia, and he arrived in Melbourne in 1887, before moving to Brisbane. He was employed by the drapery firm Overell and White as a departmental manager in Brisbane, and he later opened and managed a branch for the firm in Laidley. In 1891 Daking-Smith moved to Charters Towers in North Queensland and established himself as a draper in his own right in 'humble premises' in Mosman Street. He moved into larger premises on the corner of Gill and Mosman around 1895. This building was described in 1898 as a two-storeyed warehouse with prominent window displays with a staff of thirty-five working in eight departments.
Daking-Smith built his home Aldborough, named in honour of his years with his grandmother, close to the main business street of the town. In June 1896 three allotments at the south east corner of Deane and Hodgkinson streets were transferred from Louis Hamann to Daking-Smith.
On 21 October 1896 ‘The North Queensland Register’ reported that Daking-Smith’s new residence, one of the finest in the town, was approaching completion. The position of the building, facing the corner, was apparently designed to secure an expansive outlook, while increasing privacy. The building’s style – the bungalow – was seen as the most suitable for the local climate, and features mentioned at the time included: a handsome flight of front steps; a spacious verandah with cast iron railings; glass front and rear doors, both with sidelights; an arch in the hallway and one between the dining and drawing rooms; cedar cornices and an embossed stamped paper frieze in the dining and drawing rooms; two floor-to-ceiling bay windows to the front verandah; varnished interior woodwork; three large bedrooms in the main building; ventilation tubing from the ornamental panels in each ceiling, with an iron ventilator on the roof; and bedrooms on either side of the latticed back verandah, separated from the main building. There was also a separate pantry, on piles set in vessels of water, off the rear verandah; and the kitchen wing included the kitchen, a bathroom and three bedrooms (counting the bedroom on the south end of the rear verandah). The contractor for the residence was TB O’Meara, the architect was WHA Munro, and the plumber was Charles Fraser.
Part of the site was fenced off for a stable (three stalls with stone floor, carriage shed, harness and feed room) and a bulk store, the latter being a two storey building measuring 40 feet by 20 feet (12.2m by 6.1m). This store fronted Deane Street, and was later retained by Daking-Smith when he sold Aldborough.
The Queensland Post Office Directory (QPOD) first lists Daking-Smith as living on the site in 1900. In 1901 the Charters Towers City Council Valuation Register listed Alfred Daking-Smith, draper, as occupying allotments one, two and three of section eleven with a capital value of £600. Initially he is listed in the postal directories on Deane Street, and then from 1906 he is listed on Hodgkinson Street.
Aldborough is aligned to the northwest, facing the corner, which is also roughly in the direction of the intersection of Gill and Mosman streets, where Daking-Smith had opened his 1895 shop. The most common houses in Charters Towers were two or four-room timber cottages, and in plan Aldborough is an expanded version of these simple buildings, many of which were prefabricated to standardised plans. Aldborough's style and fabric, including the light timber stud frame, reflect construction techniques common in Charters Towers. In a technique well-suited to the climate of North Queensland, the walls of houses in Charters Towers were lined with horizontal boards, and the timber frame was left exposed externally. From circa 1900 vertical boards were more likely to be used.
Aldborough shares other features in common with Charters Towers housing, such as sheet metal acroterions on the corners of its guttering; a sheet metal ventilator at the crown of its roof; and shades and screens around its verandahs to reduce the effect of the hot climate - such as latticework, timber louvres, canvas blinds and drop-down timber blinds. Aldborough's extended verandah eaves are also characteristic of Charters Towers housing.
In 1906 Alfred Daking-Smith married Beryl Maud Hooke, and the couple soon moved to Sydney, where Daking-Smith attained even greater wealth. He built the mansion Berith Park at Wahroonga, North Sydney in 1909. That same year Daking-Smith erected the Daking-Smith Building [QHR 601259] as a purpose built department store in upper Gill Street, Charters Towers. Although Charters Towers already had a number of drapery stores, Daking-Smith believed that a more modern, 'genteel' shop was needed. Between 1860 and 1920, with the industrialised world's rising level of affluence and leisure time, the 'art of shopping', once the prerogative of the wives of the wealthy, was adopted eagerly by the wives of the emerging middle classes. The impressive architectural style of the brick Daking-Smith building was unique for a remote North Queensland town. From his new building Daking-Smith advertised himself as a draper, furnisher and boot merchant. Through this business activity, he made an important contribution to the commercial development of Charters Towers.
In 1913 Daking-Smith built the office block Daking House in Sydney. He also purchased, rebuilt and re-equipped the old Parramatta Woollen Mills in 1913, under the name of the Sydney Woollen Mills. He became a director of the Automatic Breadbaking Co. of Sydney, and The Jungle Ltd of lnnes Springs. His mining investments and interests were extensive as were his active memberships of many public institutions. By now Alfred's preferred name was Dakingsmith. He lived for some time after 1923 at the Astor, Sydney's first co-operatively owned residential flats, but he retired to his country home Beraldor in Bowral. He died in Sydney on 7 August 1943 aged seventy-seven years.
Although living in New South Wales from 1909, Dakingsmith maintained his business in Charters Towers, and he returned on regular visits for some years. He was an unsuccessful National candidate for the seat of Queenton in the Queensland elections of March 1918. From 1909 Dakingsmith rented out Aldborough before it was sold in 1919 to a medical practitioner, Thomas Roy Edmeades, on a reduced parcel of land.
At the time of the 1919 sale allotments one and two were resurveyed into subdivisions one and two. Dakingsmith retained subdivision two (20.6 perches just southwest of Aldborough, facing Deane Street) while Edmeades took possession of the land on which Aldborough stood, subdivision one of allotments one and two (one rood 20.4 perches) and allotment three (1 rood). Dakingsmith continued to operate his store on subdivision two, and "D Smith and Co. Stores" is listed at this location in the postal directories from 1912 to 1923 inclusive.
Dr Edmeades used Aldborough as a surgery and residence, the bedroom at the corner of the north-east and south-east verandahs reputedly serving as his waiting room. Edmeades became a highly respected and long serving medical practitioner to the people of Charters Towers. The park beside City Hall in Mosman Street is named in his honour.
In October 1922 Aldborough was transferred to Jessie Mary Beach, from Muttaburra. Jessie's husband had drawn a selection at Julia Creek in a land ballot, but Jessie lived in Aldborough so that their three children could be schooled in Charters Towers. Jessie died in September 1954, but the property remained in the Beach-Steele family until auctioned in 2008. Local interest in the fate of this landmark building attracted 300 people to the auction, and the sale made the front page of The Northern Miner.
Sometime in the 1920s or the 1930s the main section of the house was painted internally, with stencilled patterns over the base colours. Accounts differ as to whether it was painted during the ownership of Edmeades, or the Beaches. As the paint was applied over the varnished timber walls and ceilings of the hallway, living room and dining room, it soon cracked into a crazed pattern, which remains a feature of Aldborough's interior to this day. In the bedrooms, which did not have varnished walls, the stencilled designs are more intact. The house was also reputedly the first in Charters Towers to have electric lighting, run by a 32 volt generator under the house.
When Dakingsmith wound up Daking-Smith & Co. in 1925 his property and store in Deane Street, adjacent to Aldborough, was transferred to bakers Herbert Powell Jones and William John Lang in January 1926. After their business folded the land was sold to Jessie Beach in 1947.
","criteria":"Aldborough is a very intact example of a large, fine quality house designed for the North Queensland climate, complete with single-skin timber walls, high ceilings, a central hallway, extended eaves, roof ventilator, and verandah shading in the form of lattice work, timber slat blinds and hedge plantings close to the house. It contains pre-World War II stencilled paintwork, early fittings and early linoleum floor coverings. Its semi-detached kitchen wing, complete with servants' rooms, illustrates the social stratification that existed between the master and servant classes prior to World War I. A freestanding pantry/larder just off the rear verandah demonstrates early means of keeping vermin and insects away from food stores, and the open laundry to the rear of the kitchen still contains its copper and fireplace.
|The large timber residence Aldborough was constructed in 1896 for Charters Towers businessman and draper Alfred Daking-Smith. Aldborough, in conjunction with the former Daking-Smith Drapery Store in Gill Street [QHR 601259], is important in demonstrating the prosperity of Charters Towers at that time. Charters Towers was an extraordinarily rich goldfield which made a major contribution to the economy of Queensland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Aldborough is a product of the wealth generated by a successful retailer in what was then Queensland's second largest town.
|Aldborough stands on a large and highly visible corner block of land close to the main business street of Charters Towers. It is highly intact. Of note are the timber lattices, timber slat blinds and hedge plantings that provide shade in a sub tropical climate. The impressive entrance porch, decorative iron balustrading, roof ventilator, and acroterions also enhance the visual impact of the residence.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29442,"place_ref":602741,"name":"WWII RAAF 220 Radar Station","alternate_name":"Bones Knob Radar Station","street_address":"Bowcock Road Bones Knob","suburb":"TOLGA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-05-14","description":"The former WWII RAAF 220 Radar Station stands at the summit of a timbered hill called Bones Knob, which is located about 3km west of Tolga. There is farmland to the west, south and east of the hill, and a steep cliff is located northwest of the radar station.
The former military complex at Bones Knob comprises two concrete igloo buildings, a smaller concrete igloo for the station power plant, and concrete and steel footings of one radar tower. Recent additions include a steel bow-roof dwelling, a large on-ground water tank and an earth dam. Attached to one igloo is a small lean-to containing an alternative power plant. Entrances to both igloos are sheltered under bow-roof verandahs. None of the post-WWII improvements to the site are of heritage significance.
Concrete Igloos
Two igloo buildings with semi-circular reinforced concrete roofs are the principal structures. Their design, layout and dimensions are identical with those of the Charlies Hill ACO radar station near Home Hill. Each igloo is 11.20 metres in length and 7 metres wide, and spaced 55 metres apart in parallel alignment.
The Bones Knob igloos have been adapted as a studio and a storeroom respectively, and recent timber floors cover concrete recesses and raised platforms for electrical cables and the securing of radar equipment.
A smaller reinforced concrete igloo is located about 250 metres south of the transmitter and receiver igloos. This concrete igloo is similar in size and construction to those that housed generating plants associated with radar stations at Paluma and Horn Hill (an LW/AW radar station on Horn Island).
Tower Base
A 40.2 metre (132 foot) high timber tower was originally located alongside each igloo. Only the base of the northern tower was observed. Because of conditions at the time of survey, no evidence of the base of the southern tower could be seen. The tower footings comprise four 1 metre square concrete foundations, each containing two steel members about 1.5 metres in height to which the timber base of the tower was attached with bolts. No timberwork survives. The surviving steelwork is severely corroded. A shallow circular concrete pit about 2 metres in diameter, is located under the centre of the tower. The base of the tower occupies an area of about 12 metres square.
","history":"RAAF 220 Radar Station was one of five British-designed Advanced Chain Overseas (ACO) radar stations constructed in Queensland during World War II: four being completed (Benowa, Toorbul Point, Home Hill and Bones Knob) and a fifth not completed (Paluma). Early British wartime radar technology evolved rapidly and the ACO system was already outdated when introduced in Australia in 1943. ACO radar stations were built to the design of the Directorate of Works for the British Air Ministry and were very conspicuous through their two 40 metre high timber towers and two reinforced concrete radar transmitting and receiving shelters. RAAF 220 Radar Station, located at Bones Knob near Tolga on the Atherton Tableland, became operational in September 1943. It played a role in the protection of the large concentration of ammunition, ordnance and stores depots established on the Atherton Tableland as part of the assembly and training of Australian troops for the final phase of the New Guinea and island campaigns. Operation of the Radar Station at Bones Knob ceased in December 1944 as the South West Pacific frontline moved further north.
Radar in Australia
By the late 1930s Britain had become concerned with defence against aerial bombing and the development of radio direction finding systems for air warning and interception was receiving top priority. By contrast Australia's defence strategy was focused on preventing attacks on coastal targets by enemy warships. Air Warning (AW) radar had low priority in Australia and if the need arose, so went the argument, AW sets could be obtained from Britain.
The British Committee of Imperial Defence first shared their technical radar knowledge with Australian, New Zealand, South African and Canadian scientists in a top secret meeting in London in February 1939. It was anticipated that the commonwealth countries would commence their own research and use the new technology for defence developments. Australia was represented at the meeting by Dr David Martyn who ordered a substantial quantity of British radar equipment including six high frequency (HF) transmitters, designated MB (Mobile Base). With appropriate aerials on high towers, broad coverage patterns were being produced by the new British CH (Chain Home) stations. These stations gave long-range warning of high flying aircraft. However, transmitter/receivers for an air warning system against low flying aircraft (CHL or Chain Home Low Flying) were still being developed in Britain. Sets were ordered for delivery to Australia when completed, but delivery times were uncertain.
In August 1939, just weeks before the outbreak of World War II, the Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research approved the creation of the Radiophysics Laboratory (RPL) within the University of Sydney. Scientists at RPL, led by Dr David Martyn and Dr John Piddington, were concerned that sooner or later AW radar would be needed in Australia to warn of aerial attack and that existing air defence policy was too complacent.
During the first months of the war the Australian defence forces were without anyone specially trained in the tactical operation of radar and in March 1940 each service selected an officer to be sent to Britain for this purpose. The RAAF candidate was Pilot Officer Albert Pither who had previously completed an RAF signals course in England. In September 1940 he was posted to Britain for a two-month course in the tactical uses of radar including inspection of equipment in each of the British services. Pither was in Britain when the technology was put to use during the Battle of Britain. He returned to Australia by way of radar centres in Canada and the United States of America. In May 1941 Pither was promoted to Wing Commander in charge of the Radar Section of the RAAF Directorate of Signals. He began developing a plan to surround Australia with a chain of radar stations based on his experience with the British Chain Home system which relied on fixed transmitter and receiver towers. He also established a Radio (radar) School at the Richmond RAAF Station near Sydney. In early November 1941, one month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the RAAF was given full responsibility for Australia's early warning radar operations and adopted Pither's radar defence strategy.
The delays that Australia experienced in acquiring British radar equipment spurred an innovative period of radar development by Australian scientists. Distance, competing demands and lack of material resources made it likely that Australia would not receive its first shipment of radar equipment until the middle of 1942. As a result, when news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor broke, Dr Piddington and his colleagues at RPL set about modifying the electronics of an experimental British set which was available. Reportedly within five and a half days they produced the first Australian-made AW set. The AW employed an innovative switching circuit developed by Dr Joseph Pawsey of RPL and aerials engineered by J.G. Worledge at the New South Wales Railway's Eveleigh workshops. The set was operational by 12 December 1941 and provided Sydney's only air warning for some months. The transmitter and receiver were comparatively light in weight and were subsequently modified to provide the electronics for Australia's principal air warning radar the LW/AW MkI and MkII. The radar equipment was manufactured in Sydney by HMV (His Master's Voice) also known as The Gramophone Company. By the time the British ACO (Advanced Chain Overseas) radar system was installed at Bones Knob in September 1943, features of its design had already been superseded by the Australian LW/AW radar, especially its conspicuous twin towers.
ACO Radar
Nine British ACO radar stations were installed in Australia in 1943, although the original intention was to erect 32 TRUs (Transportable Radar Unit) - a similar unit which differed in the type of aerial towers. However, the British government decided to terminate the Australian contract for the provision of TRUs so that these sets could be used in Africa. Instead Australia was supplied with nine ACO units. This meant that the RAAF had to provide timber for the fixed 40.2 metre (132 foot) towers, instead of the collapsible and transportable ones used in the TRU. The result was long delays in the erection of some ACO stations.
Of the nine Australian ACO stations, four were erected in Queensland at RAAF 209 Radar Station at Benowa (since demolished), RAAF 210 Radar Station at Toorbul Point, RAAF 211 Radar Station at Home Hill (QHR 601716), and RAAF 220 Radar Station at Bones Knob near Tolga. An ACO station was started at Paluma, and igloos were built that still exist on Lennox Crescent, but the towers were never built, as the ACO program was cancelled in late 1943. While the ACO unit was popular with operators, it was unpopular with the RAAF for a number of reasons. When compared with other sets in use the ACO was expensive, sophisticated and complex. Installation was measured in months rather than days with further delays in matching and phasing the aerial system. Also, the fixed nature of the two massive timber towers and their 40.2 metre height made camouflaging them almost impossible.
The ACO electronics were the second generation of the British CH (Chain Home) type of radar, a 'floodlit' system operating on the VHF band. The British electronics contained panels and features not used in other radars or deemed necessary in the Pacific.
The igloos were built to house the radar electronics and two tonne consoles for the transmitter and receiver. The buildings were intended to be earth covered and were designed with a small tower at one end which was equipped with a ladder and served as a ventilator and escape passage. Entrance doorways at the other end were large enough to accommodate the radar consoles.
The transmitter was a British MB3 model which put out 250 Kw of power at 42.5 MHz. The frequency was in the VHF band which would later become common for use in television transmission, but in 1943 this short wave-length was unfamiliar technology. The transmitter aerial system was in two parts set at different heights (at 37.2 and 14.3 metres high) to enable height finding using the floodlit system. Each part had four elements to cover four sectors of 120 degrees.
The receiver was a British RF7 (receiver fixed location) built in four vertical racks held in a frame of 2 x 2 x 0.6 metres. The receiver detected radio echoes from all directions simultaneously. The receiver compared the strength of an echo from within a radius to identify the direction from which the signal was originating. The receiver had two parts on the tower (at 40.2 and 14.3 metres high) plus crossed dipoles used for the height finding of an aircraft by comparing the echoes from the higher and lower sections of the tower.
The towers were of pre-cut and prefabricated construction, the timber used being Australian oak. One tower was for transmitting and the other tower for receiving radar signals. The transmitter tower was equipped with a three-stack array at the 37.2 metre level and a two-stack Gap Filler at the 14.3 metre level. The receiver tower array comprised two crossed dipoles at the 40.2 metre and the 14.3 metre level.
The towers did not rotate like those commonly used in other radar models. The ACO radar installation consisted of 14 switches on the receiver tower and more on the transmitter. These had to be constantly relayed from on to off, lower to higher, and to between different directions. The switches were controlled by the radar operators from the radar consoles located within the concrete igloos. Aircraft activity was monitored from an eleven inch cathode ray tube screen. Using the goniometre consisting of switches and controls of the direction and height finding components, the operator would monitor the screen and make comparisons to decipher the direction, elevation and distance of the aircraft.
In essence the ACO was totally unsuited to the fluid nature of war in the Pacific and was not used in the region, except in Australia, although intended for Singapore and Malaya. However in a fixed situation it had some advantages over the more portable British COL (Chain Overseas Low Flying) and Australian LW/AW mostly in use, including better penetration of thunderstorms and better height-finding ability. Ranges in excess of 320 kilometres were recorded on high flying aircraft and ACOs fulfilled the secondary role of assisting navigation of Allied aircraft.
Operation of 220 Radar Station
RAAF 220 Radar Station was formed at Camden, New South Wales, on 7 July 1943. The unit moved to Mascot for further training on 13 August 1943 and arrived at Tolga on 23 September, moving to Bones Knob the following day. The initial strength of the radar station was two officers and 34 airmen. A site plan for the installation at Bones Knob had been prepared by the Department of the Interior, Townsville, on 2 September 1942. Therefore, work may have already begun on construction of two concrete transmitter/receiver igloos, a smaller concrete igloo power house and two transmitter/receiver towers, together with a camp area and water storage tanks.
During the early months of 1943 the headquarters of the Australian Army in north Queensland was transferred from Townsville to the Atherton Tableland. Installation of a radar station at Bones Knob reflected the strategic importance of the planned concentration of ammunition, ordnance and stores depots in the Atherton district as part of the assembly and training of Australian troops for the final phase of the New Guinea and island campaigns.
ACO radar stations were built to the design of the Directorate of Works for the Air Ministry in Britain. In Australia, their construction was supervised by the Allied Works Council. The timber towers for 220 Radar Station were prefabricated by the Civil Construction Corps in Sydney from Australian oak supplied by the timber merchants Codey and Willis of Glebe, New South Wales. The firm was employed by the Allied Works Council and had the contract for the prefabrication and erection of the transmitter and receiver towers for the ACO stations. The timbers were cut to specifications, marked, and then shipped to the nearest port, in this case Cairns. In some instances the timber had shrunk when the builders started to construct the towers and it was necessary to re-drill the bolt holes on site. The timber towers were attached at the base to steel members set in four concrete footings. The towers were designed to withstand cyclone-strength winds in the Far East.
Electronic radar equipment for the station was installed and calibrated by specialist RAAF personnel. 220 Radar Station was a unit of RAAF 42 Radar Wing with headquarters in Townsville. Headquarters was responsible for the establishment of 2 RIMU (Radar Installation and Maintenance Unit) which provided specialist installation, calibration and maintenance support for RAAF radar stations in north Queensland. Radar mechanics regularly were required to climb the towers to service relay switches and aerials.
War-time radar operators played a significant role in saving the lives of airmen, but manning a remote radar station in northern Queensland was a routine and mostly uneventful task. To alleviate the boredom, the men of 220 Radar Station regularly travelled to Tolga, Atherton and Mareeba to the picture shows. A tennis court was constructed at the station during 1944 and cricket matches and table tennis tournaments between RAAF and Army units also helped to pass the time.
Operation of 220 Radar Station ceased on 7 December 1944 and during the month the unit commenced packing for its move to Townsville. By early January 1945 half the personnel of the unit had departed for Townsville leaving the remainder to assist with packing and dismantling the receiver and transmitter. The unit completed the move to Townsville on 18 January 1945 and was disbanded on 13 February 1945.
","criteria":"The remains of the former RAAF 220 Radar Station at Bones Knob are significant evidence of Queensland's participation in the network of air warning radar stations established at strategic locations throughout Australia during World War II. The place also has historical associations with the early introduction and development of British air warning radar technology during the war, being one of nine British-designed Advanced Chain Overseas (ACO) radar stations built in Australia during World War II, and one of five constructed in Queensland: at Benowa (no longer extant), Toorbul Point (extant), Home Hill (extant - QHR 601716), Bones Knob (extant) and Paluma (extant but never completed).
In addition, 220 Radar Station at Bones Knob demonstrates the strategic importance of the concentration of ammunition, ordnance and stores depots on the Atherton Tableland as part of the assembly and training of Australian troops for the final phase of the New Guinea and island campaigns.
|220 Radar Station demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage being one of four extant examples of British designed Advanced Chain Overseas (ACO) radar stations in Queensland.
|220 Radar Station is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type through its: elevated location; standard design reinforced concrete igloo shelters with escape towers, for housing radar transmitting and receiving equipment; and concrete and steel footings for timber radar towers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29688,"place_ref":602672,"name":"Waterford State School (Block A and Play Shed)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"40 Nerang Street, cnr Jordan Street","suburb":"WATERFORD","lga":"LOGAN CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-16","description":"The original Waterford State School building stands on Nerang Street, which was the major street in the township of Waterford at the time of construction of the school. The new school complex to the north and east is accessed from Jordan Street at the side.
The early school, now block A, is a low-set, gable-roofed, timber structure of two rooms with an open verandah at the front and an enclosed verandah at the rear. The north-western room is the 1871 section and the south-eastern room is the 1888-1889 extension.
The studding is exposed on the verandahs of both sections and with the stud layout and cross-bracing typically associated with Suter designs on the north-western part.
The 1871 room is 30ft [9.1m] x 16ft [4.9m] wide with exposed Queen post trusses and a diagonal boarded ceiling and 140mm horizontal beaded boards on the walls. The windows are narrow horizontal pivot windows placed with two low (although sill heights are high) and one high on the gable walls. The windows in the verandah walls are casements with fanlights over and lower sills and are possibly a modification.
The 1888-1889 section is 22ft [6.7m] long and has a coved timber ceiling with lattice ceiling vents and exposed timber tie beams. The gable vent, visible from outside, has been closed off. The gable wall was possibly originally unlined; the dividing wall is the original gable wall of the 1871 school and retains its high level windows. The windows in the 1888-1889 section are tall vertical pivot in banks of three and have higher sills than those in the verandah walls of the 1871 building. The pairs of doors probably date to 1888-1889 and have stop-chamfered frames with flush-beaded panels to those in the 1888-1889 section.
The play shed is a typical hipped-roof, 10-post type with an enclosure at the south-west end facing the road. The roof framing is painted.
A palm tree on the Nerang Street boundary may be early. The residence has gone but frangipani trees mark the location of the north-west boundary.
The new school buildings, dating from 1968, are located to the north-east of the original school. They are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register.
","history":"Waterford State School Block A is a single-storeyed timber building located at the corner of Nerang and Jordan streets, Waterford. The earliest section was erected in 1871 from local ironbark and pine and was designed for the Board of Education by Brisbane architect, Richard George Suter. It was the first national school opened on the Logan Reserve, which was among the earliest and largest of the agricultural reserves established in Queensland in the 1860s when the government was seeking to encourage agricultural immigrants to settle in the new colony. Extensions to the building made in 1884 and in 1888-1889, when a second school room designed by the Department of Public Instruction's architect John Ferguson was added, created the present form of the building. The play shed was erected in 1898.
The Waterford district was opened to closer settlement from the early 1860s, following proclamation on 2 January 1861 of the Logan Agricultural Reserve - 20,000 acres to the north and west of the Logan River, about 17 miles south of Brisbane. The first allotments were offered for selection in April 1862. The reserve was more than doubled in 1863, with an extension of 25,000 acres south and east of the river proclaimed on 7 August 1863. The Reserve then encompassed the districts of Loganlea, Waterford, Logan Reserve, Logan Village, Buccan, Chambers Flat, Stockleigh and parts of Maclean and Park Ridge. On 18 October 1864, a further 8,000 acres extension to the Logan Agricultural Reserve was proclaimed - north of the Logan River, around Loganholme.
Many of the settlers who first took up land on the Logan Agricultural Reserve in the 1860s were Irish immigrants who had come to Queensland under the auspices of the Queensland Immigration Society, established in 1861 by the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr James Quinn. Between 1862 and 1865 approximately 6,000 Irish were encouraged to emigrate to Queensland under this scheme. At Waterford they formed a distinctive community. In the 1870s many of these Irish settlers moved from the Logan Reserve to take up selections at Tamborine Village, Kerry and Rathdowney, as the pastoral runs along the Upper Logan and Albert rivers were opened for selection. As the Irish moved off the Reserve, German immigrants who had taken up land around Bethania (German Pocket) from 1864, moved to the Waterford and Logan Village districts. In the 1860s and early 1870s colonial government encouragement of German immigration to Queensland resulted in a large influx of German settlers into the Logan district from the mid-1860s.
The first schools in the Upper Logan and Albert rivers district were associated with the opening of the Logan Agricultural Reserve in the 1860s. A few private schools appeared briefly, but were soon absorbed into the public education system.
The Education Act of 1860 created a Board of General Education in Queensland administered by the General Inspector of Schools. Until 1875 the Board was responsible for administering and assisting existing national (state), denominational and private schools and for constructing new national schools.
Prior to 1869, the only government-assisted school on the Logan Agricultural Reserve appears to have been the Logan River Non-Vested School, established by the Irish Catholic community at Logan Reserve, north of the river on portion 44, in 1865. The lack of national schools on the Reserve reflected the failure of the early selection Acts and of the Education Act of 1860, which imposed school fees and required still-struggling farming communities to raise one-third of the cost of providing school premises and to guarantee a minimum average attendance of 30 pupils.
In 1869, to facilitate primary education in the new agricultural districts, the colonial government introduced a system of provisional schools for smaller communities that could guarantee a student population of 15 (later reduced to 12). Provisional schools were generally temporary structures on non-government land. The government supplied the teacher and school books but did not fund building construction. Many provisional schools were conducted in slab huts and barns - often an existing structure offered by a local farmer. As the community became more established and a larger school population could be guaranteed, provisional schools were upgraded to national schools (later state schools).
The Waterford State School was established as the Logan Provisional School, which opened on 29 June 1869 in a barn belonging to Charles Wilson on the east of the Logan River, south-east of the current Waterford State School. Of an initial enrolment of 22, over 75 per cent were from German families.
In late 1869 the Waterford community petitioned the Board of Education for the establishment of a permanent national school, taking advantage of the colonial government's decision to abolish school fees, which came into effect in January 1870. After some debate as to the most accessible location, a site was selected in the centre of the town of Waterford, which had been surveyed in 1866 on the eastern side of the Logan River. This remains the site of the Waterford State School. Students who lived to the north and west of the Logan River attended school via the ferry, until the first Waterford Bridge opened in 1876.
Tenders for a national school at Waterford were called in late 1870, the contract being let to Robert Hardy and John Ford of Beenleigh with a price of £140. The community would have contributed one-third of the cost of construction. The building was constructed of locally milled timber and opened in mid-1871 as the Waterford Primary School. It was the first national school constructed on the Logan Reserve. (Beenleigh National School, which opened on 7 February 1871, lay outside the Reserve.) Even so, the Waterford school was closed during parts of 1872 and 1873 due to lack of pupils and apparently to disagreements between the teacher and the local school committee. After a teacher's residence was erected in late 1873, the situation stabilized.
At this period the colonial government engaged private architects to design new school buildings within planning and design parameters set by the Board of General Education. Waterford Primary School was designed by Brisbane architect Richard George Suter, who from 1868 to 1875 was responsible for most Queensland school designs, building mostly masonry schools in urban areas and developing a design for economical, simple-to-construct timber schools in rural areas. This design formed the basis of school planning for the next 50 years. The early Suter timber schools were low-set, gabled structures, rectangular in plan with a porch and no verandahs, and utilised external studding to the walls. After 1873 Suter introduced an 'improved plan' adding front and rear verandahs to provide hat rooms and additional play and classroom space. The minimum size of a school was 480 sq feet [44.6m²] accommodating 48 pupils. Some plans show the floor slightly stepped to form a gallery. Suter's 'improved plan' was used throughout the colony.
In 1876 David Ewart, General Inspector for the Department of Public Instruction, described the Waterford school building as measuring 30ft [9.1m] by 16ft [4.9m], with an entrance porch and no verandahs. It had exterior ironbark studs, pine tongue and groove walls, pine floor boards, and a hardwood shingled roof. The porch had narrow hardwood floorboards and a pine roof.
Play sheds were introduced to Queensland schools in the 1870s to provide covered play areas adjacent to low set schools, and about 1874 an open-sided play shed of hardward posts and wall plates and a roof of boughs, was constructed to the south-east of the Waterford Primary School. This structure is no longer extant.
The Education Act of 1875 instigated compulsory, free, secular primary education throughout the State. Under this Act the system of provisional schools was retained, but the government no longer funded non-vested schools (denominational and private schools), and the government-owned national and primary schools became known as state schools. The Act also abolished the Board of General Education, which had been responsible for the design of schools in Queensland, and created the Department of Public Instruction. The Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, was given responsibility for school design and established new standard plans for timber schools.
In 1879 responsibility for school design passed from the Colonial Architect's office to the Department of Public Instruction, which engaged the architect Robert Ferguson until 1885, when he was replaced by his brother John. Robert Ferguson developed new designs, which remained in use until 1893, after which responsibility passed back to the Department of Public Works. Ferguson also favoured single-skin construction, but with studs exposed inside rather than outside. In their designs the Ferguson brothers incorporated roof flèches or vents at high level in the gable walls.
By the 1880s the Waterford district was more established, and the Waterford State School population was expanding. In 1884 a 10ft [3m] wide verandah was added to the back of the school building, providing additional classroom space. By 1888 enrolment had risen to around 100, and in late 1888-early 1889 the building was extended to John Ferguson's design, with the addition of another classroom measuring 20ft [6m] by 16ft at the south-east end of the building, and construction of front and rear verandahs along the full length of the extended building. At this time the front porch was removed, to accommodate the 7ft 8in [2.3m] wide verandah. The whole of the building was roofed with corrugated iron. Drawings show that the second classroom was of single-skin construction with studding exposed externally on the verandahs and internally on the new gable end. Walls were 12ft [3.6m] high. There was a high level vent in the gable and the ceiling was raked with a vent. There was a three bay window of tall, central pivoting windows with a central sill and a hood on the gable end and 3 pairs of narrow, central pivoting windows in the side walls. The double doors from the front verandah were off centre. The whole of the work, plus additions to the teacher's residence, was undertaken by John Fortune of Coomera, at a cost of £320.
In 1898 a new play shed was constructed to the north-west of the school building, at a cost of about £49. It had a gravel floor, which in early 1900 was replaced with hardwood flooring (which in turn was replaced with asphalt in 1954). In 1901 the south-west end and 14ft [4.2m] along each side were enclosed with timber boards in 3ft [.9m] sections, so that they could be removed during hot weather. In 1911 this boarding was replaced with corrugated iron sheeting.
In 1910 the north-west gabled end of the school building was clad with weatherboards, covering the exposed stud framing, to prevent water damage where the original pine lining had shrunk.
In 1939 the raised gallery with fixed seats in each classroom was removed and level flooring provided.
From the 1960s the Waterford State School experienced a substantial increase in enrolments, reflecting the expansion of semi-urban settlement in the district. The rear verandah was enclosed to provide extra classroom space c1967, and in 1968 a new school building (block B), with three classrooms and a storeroom, was erected behind and to the north-east of the original school, fronting Jordan Street. When this was occupied in 1969, the early school building was used as a library (accommodated on the enclosed rear verandah) and a tuckshop.
In the 1970s school facilities expanded to the north-east on the school reserve and the original building was repaired in 1976 with the replacement of guttering, flooring, verandah railing and steps. It still functions as a classroom for individual music tuition and a space for learning support. The teacher's residence is no longer extant.
","criteria":"The place has aesthetic significance for its scale and the visual qualities derived from the materials, the exposed framing and high ceilings, its grassed setting, and its prominent location at the front of the school grounds on one of the main roads through Waterford.
|Waterford State School (Block A) is a rare and early national school built of timber to the standard design of RG Suter and extended in 1884 and 1888-1889 during the period when the architects Robert and John Ferguson were preparing designs for the Department of Public Instruction. Both parts of the building are unusually intact.
Suter schools are significant for the development of exposed framing in Queensland which became a building form of State importance. They were an early standardised form of school design which was to be a model for managing the construction of schools in Queensland's developing rural communities. Suter's designs for timber schools were widely distributed but few survive. Only two other substantially intact Suter timber schools have been identified: Morayfield (1873) and Mutdapilly (1874). Schools from the Ferguson period also have become rare.
|Waterford State School, comprising Block A (1871 with 1884 and 1888-1889 additions) and Play Shed (1898 with later modifications), is set within a grassed school front yard. The place remains substantially intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a small late nineteenth century rural school. The play shed at Waterford is an important adjunct to the early school building and is typical of the designs produced in the 1890s.
The two classrooms in Block A are very intact, retaining most of their early linings, joinery and hardware. As a consequence they are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early school design under RG Suter (1868-1873), and changes to school design under Robert and John Ferguson (1879-1893) to incorporate requests by educationalists for more windows, greater ventilation, and wide verandahs. The differing approaches to school design demonstrated in the early Waterford school building include: the different window layouts in the two rooms; the exposed roof timbers in the 1871 room compared with the ceiling lining in the 1888-1889 room with battened ceiling vent leading to a gable vent (now blocked up); the exposed framing inside the gable end of the second classroom (now enclosed with fibrous sheeting); and the differences in window pivoting arrangements. The external framing also is laid out differently in the two building parts.
|Waterford State School (Block A and Play Shed), established in 1871 as Waterford Primary School with extensions made in 1884 (rear verandah), 1888-1889 (second school room, front verandah and extension of rear verandah) and 1898 (play shed), is important in illustrating the provision of state primary education in early Queensland agricultural settlements, following the passing of the Education Act of 1860, the abolition of school fees in 1870, and the introduction of compulsory secular education under the 1875 Education Act.
In particular, the place is significant for its association with the agricultural settlement of the Logan River district. It was the first national school established on the Logan Reserve (one of the earliest and most extensive agricultural reserves in Queensland), and remains in situ and in use as part of the present-day Waterford State School.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29689,"place_ref":602817,"name":"Bowen State School","alternate_name":"Bowen National School","street_address":"29 Kennedy Street","suburb":"BOWEN","lga":"WHITSUNDAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-03-21","description":"Bowen State School is located on the northern perimeter of the central business district in the town of Bowen. The school site is a level, two-hectare block bound by Gregory, Kennedy, Poole and Herbert streets. Centrally located on the site, the school complex comprises a number of high-set, timber-framed buildings, some forming a U shape around a central parade ground. The open space at the ends of the block includes the sports oval to the west and tennis and basketball courts to the east. The school site also encompasses land and buildings across Poole Street with the road partially closed to provide pedestrian access between the two sites. School buildings are built to Departments of Public Instruction and Public Works designs.
\nBuildings (refer to site plan following)
\nBlock D, 1884 (former boys' school building) - identified as standard type B/T4[22]
\nBlock D retains important fabric that identifies it as an 1880s Robert Ferguson design. It is a rectangular high-set, timber-framed building with a northern verandah and a gable roof. The walls are clad with weatherboards with ventilated gable ends, and the roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The verandah has stop-chamfered posts and, although the roof space was not inspected, it is likely that the coved ceiling and timber roof trusses survive behind the later suspended ceiling. Important surviving evidence of the 1922 conversion of the 1884 building to reflect the Sectional School ideal are the high-set form, verandah on the northern side, windows in the southern wall (the windows themselves, not being original fabric, are not of cultural heritage significance), and the timber-framed window hood with timber brackets. The verandah has a balustrade of bag racks typical of the designs introduced in the 1950s. Formerly a single large space, the school room is partitioned into small rooms for administration use. These partitions are not of cultural heritage significance. The glass louvres in the northern verandah wall are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nBlock C, 1917 (The Big Room) - identified as standard type C/T2
\nBlock C retains important fabric that identifies it as an early Department of Public Works design. It is a high-set, timber-framed building with a northern and southern verandah and a gable roof. Four sets of timber stairs provide access to the verandahs and the northern verandah is connected to Block D to the east. The walls are clad with weatherboards and the roof with corrugated metal sheeting. Both the gable end walls have a panel of ventilating weatherboards. The verandah walls are single-skin, lined internally, with chamfered stud framing exposed externally. The verandah walls have a ventilation flap at floor level and retain original double leaf doors with pivoting fanlights. The southern verandah retains a hat room enclosure at its southern end. The interior is partitioned into two rooms connected by a large opening; this partition is not of cultural heritage significance. The interior walls and ceiling are lined with v-jointed tongue and groove timber boards. The ceiling is coved and has a latticed ventilation panel. Timber tie beams at cornice level are exposed in the space. The fenestration pattern remains intact with windows only in the eastern and western walls sheltered by original timber hoods with timber brackets and battened cheeks. The northern verandah is enclosed at the western end. A small teacher's room projects from both verandahs. A small enclosure of the northern verandah accommodates a store room that is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nBlock E, 1914 moved to Bowen State School 1930-31 (former technical college/high top) - not a standard type
\nBlock E retains important fabric that identifies it as an individually-designed technical educational building from the 1910s. It is a rectangular high-set, timber-framed building with a gabled hip roof and a verandah on the eastern and southern sides. The external walls are clad with weatherboards and the roof with corrugated metal sheeting. The eastern verandah ceiling is lined with timber v-jointed boards. An area of more recent lining indicates the position of a now-removed entry gable. Timber verandah posts and scalloped timber valance are original. At the southern end of the verandah is an intact hat room from the 1930-31 conversion for High Top use. The verandah balustrade is a later bag rack form. The building does not retain original windows or doors. The interior retains its original technical college layout with internal partitions dividing the space into classrooms accessible from the verandah. The walls and coved ceilings are lined with v-jointed tongue and groove timber boards. Timber roof framing beams are exposed within the classrooms.
\nResidence, 1932 - identified as standard type D/R3
\nThe school residence retains important fabric of an interwar Department of Public Works teacher's residence. It is a high-set, timber-framed building with a hipped roof. It has a verandah wrapping around the eastern and northern sides, enclosed on the northern side with windows. An enclosed sleepout is on the southern side. The verandah walls are single skin with stop-chamfered framing exposed externally. The external walls are clad with weatherboards and the roof, which is continuous over the verandahs, is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. Some windows retain original fanlights and original timber hoods with battened cheeks. The interior layout is intact accommodating three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen with pantry and stove recess, toilet, and bathroom. The walls are single-skin, vertical, v-jointed timber boards with moulded timber belt rails. The ceilings are lined with v-jointed, tongue-and-groove boards. Original internal timber panelled doors with glazed fanlights and glazed French doors with glazed fanlights open onto the verandahs. The understorey retains some original timber perimeter battening and a small laundry enclosure under the kitchen. The house is located within a fenced yard separating it from the school grounds. The house yard is grassed and contains trees.
\nBlock F, 1937/1957 (former vocational building) - identified as standard type E/T3
\nBlock F retains important fabric that identifies it as a standard interwar vocational building. It is a high-set, timber-framed building in two parts linked by an enclosed raised walkway.
\nThe 1937 building is clad with weatherboards and has a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The understorey is enclosed with corrugated metal sheeting. The windows on both levels are timber-framed casements or double-hung sashes, both with fanlights and original hardware. Some windows are sheltered by large timber awnings with timber brackets and battened cheeks. Two projecting stove recesses are on the northern side. Timber stairs provide access to the upper level as well as to the connecting walkway linking the two building parts. The walls and ceilings of the upper level are lined with v-jointed, tongue-and-groove boards with moulded architraves and timber splay skirtings. It has high-waisted, panelled timber doors with fanlights and original hardware. The main room has a latticed ventilation panel in the ceiling and in 2012 the building houses various items of early school furniture and school equipment.
\nThe later extension to Block F is clad externally on both levels with weatherboards and the gable roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. At the apex of the gable end walls are ventilated weatherboards. The building has timber-framed, awning windows with fanlights and simple hoods without brackets. A steel-framed lean-to awning is attached to the southern side of the understorey and is not of cultural heritage significance. The upper level interior walls and ceiling are lined with fibrous sheeting material.
\nBlock A, 1940 (former infants' building) - identified as standard type D/T1, Sectional School
\nBlock A retains important fabric that identifies it as a standard Sectional School type. It is a long, narrow, timber-framed building, high-set, with a western verandah and a gable roof. The walls are clad with weatherboards and the roof with corrugated metal sheeting. The verandah has a balustrade of bag racks and the verandah ceiling is lined with fibrous sheeting with cover strips. Verandah doors are original double leaf timber doors with original fanlights. The verandah wall has glass louvres that are not of cultural heritage significance. The eastern wall windows are sheltered by a timber hood with timber brackets and battened cheeks. The eastern windows are timber awning windows with fanlights. The fanlights are not original. The interior layout is somewhat intact with some partitions between classrooms containing later concertina doors.
\nThe Hall, 1954 - not a standard type
\nThe Hall is a rectangular, high-set, timber-framed building with a gable roof. The walls are clad with weatherboards and the roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The windows are a mixture of modern aluminium-framed sliders, timber-framed awning windows, and double-hung sashes. All have louvred fanlights. The interior contains one large room and is lined with v-jointed, tongue-and-groove boards on the coved ceiling and some walls. Other walls are lined with plasterboard sheeting. Timber tie beams are exposed within the space.
\nOther school buildings on the site have not been assessed for their heritage significance.[23] See site plan.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe buildings are separated by landscaped areas containing gardens and trees or by hardscaped areas with shade structures. This space is integral to the cultural heritage significance of the buildings by allowing for the intended air movement and daylight into the buildings.
\nThe western end of the site is a grassed sports oval and a steel rocket-ship playground structure is nearby. At the eastern corner of the site near Herbert and Poole Street intersection are two tennis courts. Steel-framed shade structures are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nA simple arched entrance is located in the Poole Street fence aligned with Block C. Called the Centenary Gate, it is formed from galvanised pipe and bears the school name in large metal letters. [24]
","history":"Bowen State School was established in 1865 on a large, central site within the town of Bowen. It comprises a variety of education buildings and landscape elements constructed and altered over a long period. It has been an important place of education for the Bowen community since its establishment.
Port settlements were established along the Queensland coast to serve inland pastoral districts to their west. In 1859 a site for the (then) most northern settlement of Queensland was found on the excellent natural harbour, Port Denison, to service the growing Kennedy pastoral district. It was declared a Port of Entry and Clearance in March 1861 and settlers began arriving immediately. The town of Bowen was officially proclaimed in April 1861, but by the time the town was surveyed in 1862 settlers were already pushing further north and looking for new sites for settlements.[1]
Bowen grew quickly into a thriving commercial port. Initially, optimism for Bowen's future was high and it was thought the town would be the 'capital of the north'. Its population grew from an estimated 120 in May 1862 to 1192 in October 1865. Rudimentary or temporary buildings were built quickly and important institutions were established, often for the first time in North Queensland. A temporary courthouse was built in late-1860, a Church of England and a Roman Catholic Church in 1863 and 1864 respectively, a permanent jetty was begun in mid-1864, a Freemasons' Lodge was established in 1865, and stores and hotels were built to serve the populace. Bowen was the first North Queensland town to have a mayor and an alderman (1863).[2]
By August 1862, one hectare of land was granted by the Department of Lands for the construction of Bowen National School. Several small private schools were already operating in the town. While the people of Bowen raised the £750 construction cost and built the school, a temporary school operated within a local store from 3 April 1865. The school relocated to the new school building by the end of 1865.[3] This was a brick building facing Poole Street and containing one large classroom.
Bowen's regional prominence ended in the 1870s when Townsville emerged as the principal settlement of North Queensland. Bowen's population decreased by a third between 1868 and 1871 and did not reach its former size for nearly 50 years. The decision to build a railway in 1877 from Townsville inland to service Charters Towers and the pastoral districts ensured the further decline of Bowen. Townsville became the premier business centre of North Queensland and the Northern Supreme Court was removed from Bowen to Townsville in 1889. Nevertheless, Bowen continued as a service town to its hinterland and retained its various civic facilities including its school.
Colonial governments played an important role in the provision of formal education. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.
The provision of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early Queensland communities. The formal education of Queensland children was seen as integral to the success of a town, the colony, and the nation. Land and construction labour was often donated by the local people and schools frequently became a major focus within the community as a place symbolising progress, for social interaction, and as a source of pride. Also, the development and maintenance of schools frequently involved donations and work by teachers, parents, and pupils. Because of their significant connections with the local community, schools have occasionally incorporated other socially important elements such as war memorials and halls used for community purposes. They also typically retain a significant enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers. Social events involving a wide portion of the local community have often been held at schools, utilising the buildings and grounds - such as fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, sporting events, reunions, and dances.
As in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. This helped to ensure consistency and economy. The standard designs were continually refined by government architects in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in their approach to climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Until the 1960s school buildings were predominantly timber framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: the teaching building/s, the school yard, the horse paddock that was often later configured into a sports oval, the teacher's residence, and a variety of features such as sporting facilities or play equipment, shade structures, gardens and trees.
On 30 January 1884 a cyclone damaged the brick Bowen National School building so badly it had to be demolished. School resumed in temporary accommodation while new teaching buildings were built. Previously, boys, girls, and infants (children aged 4 and 5 years old) were taught within the same classroom, although they sat separately. For the new school it was decided to separate the students and create two new schools in two separate buildings - Bowen State Boys' School and Bowen State Girls' and Infants' School. The buildings were located either side of the remnant foundations of the former brick building. The girls and infants were to the east, the boys were to the west, and a fence ran through the grounds to separate them. The boys' school building survives on the site and in 2012 is named Block D.
The new buildings were to a standard design that had been introduced in 1880 and constructed across the colony until 1893. Employed by the Department of Public Instruction, Robert Ferguson was responsible for school building design between 1879 and 1885 and he was the first to give serious consideration to the ventilation of interiors.[4] Into the low-set, timber-framed buildings Ferguson introduced a coved ceiling and vented the roof space, improving internal temperatures. The number of windows and their size was increased; however, they were few in number and sill heights were typically over 4'6" (1.3m) above floor level, well above eye level of students. Modestly-decorative timber roof trusses were exposed within the space. Built to this standard design, the two new school buildings at Bowen were low-set, timber-framed structures with gable roofs, verandahs front and back, and modest 'carpenter gothic' timber detailing. An undated but early site plan indicates they contained one large classroom each. The Girls' School was extended at some time to accommodate a separate room for infants and an additional classroom.
Dramatic reform of the Queensland Education system began around 1909 and continued until the beginning of World War I. During this period a high school system was introduced, technical education was expanded, the University of Queensland was inaugurated, a teachers' training college was established, the requirement for a local contribution of construction costs for new schools was abolished, and the leaving age was increased from 12 to 14 years.[5] Although technically compulsory since 1875, school attendance was not enforced until 1900. Subsequently, student numbers rose across Queensland during the first 15 years of the twentieth century.
Control of building design was transferred to the Department of Public Works in 1893 and the department's architects trialled a number of technical innovations. Queensland's education architecture became markedly more advanced and the range of standard building types increased. The most noticeable change in Queensland school architecture was the introduction of high-set buildings. This provided better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play space underneath. Also, windows were rearranged and enlarged and sills were lowered to approximately 1m above floor level. By 1909 windows were altered so that the maximum amount of light came from one direction and desks were rearranged so that this light fell onto the left hand side of students. Since students were forcedly right-handed, no shadow would be cast onto the page. The wall supporting the blackboard had no windows. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing older buildings. Dormers were sometimes added to the roof to provide better light and ventilation and the larger classrooms favoured in earlier designs were partitioned to create smaller ones with better lighting. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. This type was introduced around 1909 and was constructed until approximately 1920. Significantly, Dr Eleanor Bourne was appointed the first Medical Inspector of Schools in 1911 and under her instruction the relationship between classroom environment and child health was given prominence. Accordingly, school architecture evolved through iteration and experimentation to improve interior light and ventilation.
Such design innovations were included in a new building for the Boys' School at Bowen, constructed in 1917 to the west of the 1884 boys' building. Called the Big Room, it was a high-set timber building with a gable roof and a northerly and southerly verandah. It had a large number of windows in the gable end walls with sill heights approximately 1m from floor level. It incorporated a hinged board, ceiling vent, and large roof fleche for ventilation. The roof fleche was removed at some time prior to 2006. This building survives and in 2012 is named Block C.
In 1919 an Honour Board memorialising 70 past students who served in World War I was installed in the Big Room and unveiled by the mayor in the presence of a crowded audience. The board took the form of a Grecian temple facade decorated to represent marble. It was claimed to be the largest in a North Queensland school, measuring 5ft 6in wide by 6ft high (1.67m x 1.82m).[6] This board was moved to the Bowen Historical Museum some time after its installation although no evidence has been discovered as to when or why it was moved.
Attention to improving light and ventilation to achieve an optimum classroom culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School type. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, and satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs. Most importantly, it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time. By late 1914, after the principles and virtues of providing natural light from the south had been espoused by Dr Bourne, buildings were preferably oriented to receive maximum natural light from the south. The Sectional School type was a high-set timber structure on timber stumps. It had only one verandah typically on the northern side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the western wall was removable. As the school grew, the western end wall could be detached and the building extended in sections, hence the name. This lead to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms - an overt, characteristic form of Queensland schools.
From at least 1915 the school committee and some of the Bowen community were calling for the amalgamation of the Boys' and Girls' and Infants' schools. It was believed this would give the students a larger facility and a better step into secondary education.[7] In 1923 the department approved the request and amalgamated the schools to form Bowen State School. The outdated 1884 buildings were remodelled in accordance with the most recent educational ideals to emulate the Sectional School type. The Girls' and Infants' School building was moved on the site to the western side of the Big Room. Both 1884 buildings were raised and had their southern verandahs removed. The large rooms were partitioned to create three classrooms in each building. The interiors were lined with boards, new large casement windows were inserted in the southerly wall, and all other windows were removed. Desks were rearranged to face west, ensuring the ideal direction of light onto the students' page. Being more recently built, the Big Room was less altered. A projecting teacher's room was added to both the southerly and northerly verandah but otherwise it remained unaltered. The fence dividing the school was removed. Although the remodelling thoroughly updated the school buildings it did not increase the accommodation significantly.
In 1928 a large timber Dux Board was installed in the school, recording the names of the boys, girls, and junior dux of the high school. This was used until 1958[8] and as of 2013 is held within the school.
During the 1930s student numbers at Bowen State School grew steadily. This reflected the moderate population growth in Bowen over the 1920s and 1930s as local agriculture and mining developed. Significant policy changes were instituted by the Department of Public Instruction, expanding the provision of education to include new modes and new building types. Consequently, at Bowen State School the 1930s was a period of expansion that saw several new buildings constructed.
The Bowen Technical College had been established in 1916 in Brisbane Street, approximately 750m east of Bowen State School, due to the Queensland Government's greater emphasis on vocational and technical education in the early 20th century. Construction money was donated by the people of Bowen and the college opened in a new high-set timber building. The school provided day and night classes. It came under the control of the Department of Public Instruction in 1924, and was then called the Bowen Technical College High School, thereby establishing state secondary education in Bowen. [9]
In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities. As a small agrarian town, Bowen had a relatively lesser demand for secondary education. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II when secondary education was generally accepted as essential and was more widely provided for.
Students from Bowen State School had been using the technical college building from at least 1924, walking between the two sites. As a result of six years of agitation by the Bowen State School Head Teacher, the Bowen State School Committee, and through the representation of Mr C Collins MLA to the Department of Public Instruction and Public Works, the technical college building was moved during the 1930-31 school vacation onto the Bowen State School site.[10] The technical college continued to operate from the school site but the building was now primarily utilised for the Bowen High Top classes. The Bowen High Top provided education to a Junior Examination level. From this, students could apply for entrance into tertiary or other further education. Subjects included science, geography, and commercial and vocational subjects. The building was positioned to the north-east of the school at right angles to the other buildings. It was connected to the verandah of the 1884 boys' school building by a raised covered walkway. The building remains on the site and in 2012 is named Block E.
Another building added to the school grounds in the 1930s was the Head Teacher's residence. Most Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers and it was Queensland Government policy to provide accommodation for Queensland teachers from as early as 1864. This was as partial recompense for a low wage, as an incentive to increase teacher recruitment in rural areas, and to provide an onsite caretaker. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation. Following World War I there was a teacher shortage and the Teachers' Union suggested this was aggravated by the inadequacy and shortage of teachers' residences. In 1930 a teachers' conference requested that residences be built at all rural schools with a student population over 40. Consequently, in 1933 a residence was constructed at Bowen State School. As with all educational buildings of the time, it was a standard design by the Department of Public Works, introduced in 1929 and constructed extensively across Queensland until 1950. It was a high-set, timber-framed structure on timber stumps with a wrap-around verandah. It accommodated three bedrooms, kitchen, and bathroom. It was located on the northern edge of the school, away from the existing teaching buildings. A sleepout was added onto the eastern side in 1939.
The Queensland Government had a distinct focus on vocational education as a way of ensuring the state's economic prosperity in primary industries. This was strengthened after World War I and evolved to provide a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and grew to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated.[11] Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced in 1928. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity. In 1937 a vocational building was constructed at Bowen State School to a standard design, introduced in 1931 and constructed until 1940. It was a high-set timber building accommodating girls' domestic science classes in the upstairs portion and boys' manual training classes in the enclosed understorey. It was built free-standing within the playground to the north of the other classrooms. In 2012 this building is named Block F.
The growth of Bowen State School through the 1930s culminated in the construction of a new building in 1940. Through the efforts of the School Committee and representations made by the Member for Bowen, Mr EJ Riordan MLA, the Department of Public Instruction agreed to erect the new building to accommodate the high growth in student numbers. It was of a Sectional School design, constructed to the west of, and connected to, the earlier buildings. It was a high-set, timber structure with western verandah. In 2012 this building is named Block A.
With the construction of this wing the school complex formed a U shape connected by raised walkways and verandahs around a large parade ground. The placement of the buildings organised the grade structure from infants in the west, the middle years at the south, and secondary education (the high top) in the east.
The grounds of Bowen State School were also upgraded in the 1930s to provide better play facilities. In 1932 the Bowen Town Council sent relief workers to the school who levelled an area near the corner of Herbert and Poole Streets, creating two tennis courts. The provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools Inspector AJ Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of the addition of shade trees in the playground. Arbour Day plantings began in Queensland in 1890 and were occurring at Bowen State School by the 1940s. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educationalists believed gardening and Arbour Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and self activity; improved classroom discipline; developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors. Over time Bowen State School accumulated a variety of play and sports facilities including the sports oval at the western end of the site. After years of slowly grading the natural slope of the western horse paddock to achieve a large flat sports oval, work ceased in 1945 and an official opening ceremony was held.
During World War II, Bowen State School was short staffed (five teachers being on active service) and student numbers were down from 530 in 1939[12] to a little over 400. Many older students left school to seek employment and the population of Bowen declined as parents and their children evacuated to safer centres inland or further south. School hours were reduced and classes were staggered so that only a portion of the remaining students were on site at any time. In January 1942 the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools[13] including Bowen State School with the intention to reopen them when it was safe again. Sections of the school were occupied by Royal Australian Air Force personnel and teachers were reassigned to other government departments.[14] While formal classes ceased, other school functions continued. Students and members of the staff grew flowers, fruit, and vegetables within the school grounds for donation to the local hospitals and donated money and useful items to Australian soldiers on active service. Also, student sport competitions were held and the sizeable task of levelling the sports oval continued. When school resumed its full operation after the end of World War II, enrolment rose again gradually, reaching 575 students in 1953.[15] By then a new era of education philosophy was beginning.
The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the 'baby boom'. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.
In the early 1950s Bowen Harbour was very busy and Bowen was becoming more prosperous due to development of Collinsville mine in the Bowen hinterland.[16] Due to population growth spurred by the increase in coal mining and industries,[17] school enrolment was reaching record numbers. In order to accommodate the increase, between 1953 and 1960 accommodation at Bowen State School was almost doubled. This included the extension of the high top for a science classroom, extension of the former girls' school building by two classrooms, extension of the infants' wing with three classrooms, extension of the vocational training building, enclosing verandahs for further accommodation, and building new toilets within the grounds. By 1954 a new building was on the school site, the Hall. The history of this building is unclear and it appears older than the 1950s.
Bag racks as verandah balustrades became a characteristic design element of Queensland schools after World War II and this occurred generally at Bowen State School. As a result of the changes in education philosophies and consistent with the alterations of other schools across the state, many of the buildings at Bowen State School had their fenestration altered to increase the amount of light into the classrooms, and many older windows were replaced with modern awning style windows.
Application for a 'proper' high school had begun in 1928[18] but it was not until 1961 that Bowen State High School was established on a different site and all secondary education was removed from Bowen State School. The High Top building was made available for the primary students.
In 1965 the school held a Centenary celebration and unveiled a Centenary Gate at the Poole Street entrance.[19]
A rocket-ship playground structure standing in the grounds of the Bowen State School was probably built in the 1960s but it is not known when it was erected on the school site. The earliest evidence of it is in a 1985 aerial photograph.[20] Rocket-ship climbing frames were once popular in playgrounds in Australia and elsewhere in the world. Most playgrounds have now been updated with newer equipment. It is not a typical inclusion in state school playgrounds and the Bowen rocket-ship is the only identified example in a school playground in Queensland.
Between the 1960s and the 1980s a modernisation of Queensland education occurred. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved with new architectural responses needed. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. Due to new materials, technologies, educational philosophies, government policies, architectural styles, and functional requirements, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than 'improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design on a relatively clean slate, inspired by new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly high-set.
After the 1960s Bowen State School continued to expand and new buildings were added to the grounds over time. Block G containing general teaching classrooms was built in 1973 and was extended in 1980 and again by 1993. A library (Block H) was built in 1973, a pre-school in 1974, and a dental clinic in 1979; these new buildings served specific functions and resulted from expansions in Queensland education provision. These buildings were a typical addition to schools across Queensland in the 1970s. A demountable classroom building was added in 1979 and another in 1991 representing a type of prefabricated and transportable education building that was widely employed across the state. In 1997 the former Girls' and Infants' School building of 1884 was demolished and replaced with a larger, modern building (in 2012 named Block B). New toilets were built in 2006. The school grounds were extended in the 2000s to occupy a part of the neighbouring, southern block, across Poole Street. This land accommodates an oval and hall built in 2011. Poole Street was closed to traffic for a part of its length in front of the school to create a safe crossing for children. The hall across Poole Street as well as an extension of the library in 2011 was constructed as part of the nationwide Building the Education Revolution economy stimulus, a typical addition to schools across Queensland. Extensive shade structures have also been constructed over outdoor areas including one of the tennis courts.
In 2012, the school continues to operate from the site and is the principal state primary school in Bowen. The school retains a complex of significant buildings constructed between 1884 and 1958 that have been altered over time in accordance to evolving educational requirements. The school is important to the town and district having operated since 1865 and having taught generations of Bowen students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Bowen community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time.[21]
","criteria":"Bowen State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools. The site planning (U shape of buildings around a parade ground) demonstrates the education grade structure and the buildings are good examples of standard government designs - architectural responses to the prevailing government educational philosophies. In particular, the standard designs represented at Bowen are Block C (C/T2), the residence (D/R3), and Block F (E/T3). Significant elements or features include; high-set timber framed and clad structures, verandahs, passive ventilation techniques (hinged wall flap, operable windows and fanlights, ceiling and wall vents), and passive day lighting consideration (large areas of windows, one room wide floor plans).
|Bowen State School has a strong, special, and ongoing association with the Bowen community. It was established through the efforts and funds of the people of the town in 1865 and has taught generations of Bowen children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Bowen and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
|Bowen State School (established in 1865 as Bowen National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education in Queensland and the associated evolution of government education architecture. One of the oldest public schools established in Queensland, Bowen State School retains a significant complex of buildings and landscape elements that illustrate the development of government education philosophies from the 1880s to the 1950s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":29857,"place_ref":602675,"name":"Fassifern Homestead","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1008B Boonah-Fassifern Road","suburb":"KALBAR","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-13","description":"Fassifern Homestead on an allotment of approximately 6 000m² is sited on an area of slightly elevated land on the western bank of Reynolds Creek, approximately 2km south of where it joins Warrill Creek. About 1.5km to the west of the homestead, the Boonah-Fassifern Road branches off from the Cunningham Highway, very near to where the town of Fassifern had been surveyed in 1856. The small extant townships of Kalbar and Boonah lie to the north-east and east respectively. To the south-east the escarpment of Mount French and the volcanic landscape of the northern section of the Moogerah Peaks National Park overlook the site.
Built to an L-shaped plan the outer faces of which are oriented to the north and west, Fassifern Homestead has a bungalow-style hipped roof clad in corrugated iron. The southern projection of the L ends in a half-hip centred beneath which is a small gabled porch with timber framing, later lattice infill, and timber stairs. Two brick chimneystacks (one of which is a double chimney) pierce the roof ridge running parallel with the north-facing wing of the house. Four decorative sheet metal roof ventilators straddle the two roof ridges, two along each line. They consist of two cylinders surmounted by an overhanging low-pitched cone with a highly decorative edge and capping piece. Timber-framed, with exterior walls clad variously with two widths of chamferboard and weatherboards, the house is raised off the gently sloping ground on ant-capped timber stumps. The spaces between the perimeter stumps have been in-filled with painted, slatted timber screens.
The earliest discernible plan of the homestead provided for two perpendicular wings of single rooms bordered by verandahs approximately two and a half metres wide. Over time the verandahs were enclosed at various locations. A small room was enclosed on the southern corner of the north-facing wing on its western end opposite what is known as the maid's or governess' room; leaving a narrow gap to allow access between the remaining verandah spaces, which are accessed by timber stairs and bounded by balustrades consisting of top and bottom rails and dowel balusters. The verandah on the western side of the southern projection was enclosed; making what is now a laundry and bathroom that are separated from the original outer face of the house by a narrow corridor less than a metre wide. Extensive changes have been made to the north-facing wing of the house. Its two rooms focused on each fireplace are now one long room and the entire corresponding length of verandah is enclosed.
The patchwork of exterior wall cladding also gives some indication of how the house has been altered over time. The larger chamferboards, approximately 20 centimetres wide, mostly line what were the exterior wall faces and are visible on the eastern verandah looking to Reynolds Creek, on the southern facade under the half-hip, and to the corridors created by the partial enclosure of the west-facing verandahs. Narrower, more recent, chamferboards clad the enclosed verandah on the north-facing wing of the house. Elsewhere there are a number of facades finished with weatherboards: on the exterior walls of the small room on the westernmost projection of the north-facing wing of the house, along the western elevation of the wing projecting south, and to the kitchen on the eastern side.
A number of original exterior French doors and windows remain in the house; these were timber-framed double doors with low waists and upper lights, and timber-framed double-hung sashes. The double doors opening out onto the length of enclosed verandah facing north have been removed and replaced with timber-framed sliding doors with large single lights. The double doors at either end of this space have been removed, the openings widened and similar timber-framed sliders inserted. Original double doors open out of the two central rooms sandwiched between the north-facing wing and the end room of the southern projection of the plan, but there is evidence that some have been moved from their original locations. Over the remaining double-hung sashes are a number of decorative curved hoods, the sides of which are formed by timber boards with rounded ends pierced with small holes.
Inside there are three rooms where the original beaded tongue-in-groove timber wall and ceiling lining is visible: at the end of the southern projection of the plan and beside this to the north, as well as in the small room formed at the joint of the two wings of the house. The first two rooms are painted, while the third is not. It is reputed to be the lumber room and would have provided access between the western length of verandah and the formal living and dining rooms of the north-facing wing. Where the original lining remains there are simple timber cornices and picture rails, however later lengths of timber beading have replaced the skirting boards. The wall and ceiling linings are largely fibrous cement sheeting in the private and utilitarian rooms, with an area of more recent vertical timber tongue-in-groove boarding to the west-facing laundry and bathroom. The rooms changed during the 1970s renovation are lined with unpainted sheeting held within a framework of flat metal. The floors are lined with carpet, vinyl or tiles. Only on the unenclosed verandahs is the original timber boarding visible. The ceilings in these locations are unlined.
The homestead is centrally located within the allotment, the boundary of which is marked on all sides except the northern one with a low, painted post-and-rail fence. The block is grassed and features a number of mature trees, as well as more recent shrubs, mostly around the perimeter, and a number of garden beds close to the house, most particularly in front of the east-facing verandah. In the garden bed adjacent to the northern elevation of the house is an early grape vine, which possibly dates to the early 1900s. On the northern edge of the site, toward the western corner of the block, is a Bunya pine [Araucaria bidwillii], which is one of three visible in a number of photographs dating from the late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries. In the south-west corner is the grave of Patrick Dwyer marked with a stone/concrete memorial and surrounded by a number of trees. There are two garages sited at the edges of the allotment: one entered off the easement near the grave and another near the south-eastern corner of the house accessed from the east. Both have gable roofs; one is clad with vertical timber boarding and the other with vertical steel cladding. The latter garage is later and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. There is a fenced pool in the north-east corner of the site [also not of cultural heritage significance]. Four painted iron gates open through the perimeter fence line: a wide double one near the north-western corner of the site, two single ones that align with the doors opening out of either end of the north-facing wing of the house and the respective verandah stairs, and another that aligns with the south-facing porch. The single gate that opens through the eastern boundary fence sits near a large stand of mature bougainvillea, which is on an adjoining allotment. The 1846 grave of Margaret Coulson, marked with an engraved headstone, is located approximately 15m to the south of the single gate that opens through the southern boundary fence, again on a separate allotment to the homestead block.
","history":"Fassifern Homestead is a single-storeyed timber residence erected c1880 to replace an earlier homestead on the same site. The Fassifern run, first taken up by John Cameron in 1841-1842, was one of the earliest licensed runs in the Moreton pastoral district, which was proclaimed on 10 May 1842. In 1857 Fassifern became part of the Wienholt family's complex and ultimately extensive Queensland pastoral empire and in 1869 was amalgamated with the adjacent runs of Moogerah and Tarome as the consolidated Fassifern run. Although from the 1870s used principally to fatten cattle from the Wiehnolt family's western Queensland properties, Fassifern was renowned also for its Clydesdale horse stud.
The Fassifern district is located in south-east Queensland, south of Flinders Peak, between the Great Dividing Range and the Teviot Range. In late 1841/early 1842 John Cameron occupied about 50,000 acres [20 234 hectares] here centred on the junction of Warrill and Reynolds creeks and which he named Fassifern. In 1844 his brother-in-law Robert Coulson took up Kingbah (later Moogerah) - about 46,800 acres [18 939 hectares] on the Reynolds Creek watershed, to the south of Fassifern; and in 1845 another brother-in-law, William Turner, took up an adjacent run to the west, which he called Cunningham's Gap (later Tarome) - about 41,500 acres [16 795 hectares] on the Warrill Creek watershed. On each run a head station and a number of subsidiary out-stations were established. By May 1848 John Cameron had transferred the lease of Fassifern to William Kent.
In the mid-nineteenth century four young Wienholt brothers , sons of a wealthy London merchant, arrived in Australia: Arnold c1847, Edward and Arthur in 1853, and Daniel c1854. In 1849, backed by family money, Arnold Wienholt purchased the lease to Strathmillar run (which he re-named Maryvale) on the Darling Downs. In 1852 he acquired the neighbouring run, Gladfield, which he incorporated into Maryvale. These runs were situated on the southern Downs on the western side of the Great Dividing Range (Main Range). In 1853 Edward and Arthur Wienholt acquired Moogerah Station south-west of Fassifern, on the eastern side of the Dividing Range from Arnold's Maryvale run. The two Wienholt runs were linked via the new road over Spicer's Peak that the Downs squatters had constructed following Henry Alphen's 'discovery' of a gap in the Main Range in 1847. In the early 1850s this was the preferred route between Ipswich and Warwick for teamsters.
In 1857 Edward and Arthur Wienholt acquired the Fassifern lease from William Kent, establishing a connection between Fassifern and the Wienholt family and their substantial Queensland pastoral empire, which was sustained for over half a century.
In 1859 Edward relinquished his interest in Fassifern and entered into partnership with William Kent in Rosalie Plains run on the Darling Downs. About this time, or possibly as early as 1858, Kent and Edward Wienholt also leased Jondaryan station from Robert Tooth, and in February 1863 purchased both the leasehold and the freehold. Jondaryan became the showpiece of the Kent and Weinholt/Wienholt family pastoral acquisitions. By 1876, 48 Queensland pastoral runs were leased by Edward Wienholt, Wienholt Brothers, J W E A & A Wienholt ,or Kent and Wienholt. By 1877, Edward Wienholt and the trustees of William Kent were the largest owners of freehold land in Queensland and Jondaryan was the largest freehold run. Edward Wienholt further took advantage of the Exchanged Land Act 1879 whereby pastoralists could exchange agricultural land taken up as pre-emptive right for twice the amount of pastoral country.
Edward Wienholt, who served as MLA for the Western Downs 1870-1873 and for the Darling Downs 1873-1875, is generally recognised as the driving force in the creation of the family's pastoral empire. By 1888 he and his partners held 289,966 acres [117,345 hectares] in the Moreton and Darling Downs districts alone, and in 1889 The Wienholt Estates Company of Australia Ltd was formed to manage the Wienholt family's Queensland acquisitions. Their land dealings were complex, extensive, and largely managed from outside Australia. Arnold Wienholt retired to Switzerland in the late 1870s. Arthur Wienholt returned to England with his family in the 1870s, as did Edward Wienholt with his family in 1880. However, Edward continued to make regular trips to Australia to oversee the family's property interests.
In 1860 William Kent and Edward Wienholt re-purchased Fassifern Station from Arthur Wienholt but Arthur soon entered into partnership with John Hardie as lessees of Fassifern, Moogerah and Tarome runs. In November 1861 they acquired a pre-emptive purchase of 53 acres [21.5 hectares] around the Fassifern head station on Reynolds Creek. Hardie was the senior partner, and in the early 1860s appears to have been resident at Fassifern, where he accrued substantial debt. In 1864 Hardie and Wienholt were declared insolvent, with the liquidation of their assets resulting in Fassifern Station (including about 1300 acres [526 hectares] of freehold) being acquired by their mortgagees, the Bank of Australasia. In January 1865 title to the pre-empted Fassifern head station passed to the Bank.
In June 1868 the Bank applied for the runs of Fassifern, Moogerah and Tarome to be consolidated under the provisions of The Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868, the consolidation to be known as Fassifern. At this period most of the improvements were located on the original Fassifern run, and comprised the Fassifern Head Station and adjacent cultivation paddocks, four out-stations, a wash pool, wash pool paddock, and bull paddock. The Tarome improvements comprised a head station and two out-stations; and on Moogerah improvements included the head station, three out-stations, and an inn near Spicer's Peak.
The nature of the association between the Bank of Australasia and the Wienholt family in connection with Fassifern is not clear. Arthur Wienholt and his family appear to have been residing at Fassifern in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Early in 1873 the Bank transferred the lease of the consolidated Fassifern run to William, John, Edward, Arnold and Arthur Wienholt. Title to pre-emptive portion 1a, the Fassifern Head Station, was issued to the Wienholt brothers in March 1874.
From 1875 the Queensland government began resuming land for closer settlement from the consolidated Fassifern run, and during the 1870s and 1880s the Wienholts took advantage of this to gradually transform Fassifern into a freehold estate of about 44,000 acres [17 806 hectares], stocked with shorthorn cattle, including a stud herd, and a stud of Clydesdale horses. In 1889 Fassifern was included among the Wienholt family's pastoral properties floated as The Wienholt Estates Company of Australia Limited with a company capital of £500,000. Other properties in this conglomerate included Maryvale near Warwick, Warenda near Boulia, and Saltern Creek and Katandra in south-west Queensland.
From at least the late 1880s and until his death in March 1893, Fassifern was managed by the Wienholt's cousin, Henry Edward Hill. A sketch of the Fassifern Station Homestead, which appeared in the 1889 Brisbane publication The Jubilee History of Queensland, shows the homestead in the same form as its present L-shaped configuration with its two chimneys, but with what appears to be a shingled roof, and separately-roofed verandahs. Whether the residence was erected for HE Hill has not been established, but the core fabric suggests a c1880 construction date.
Photographs of Fassifern Homestead dated c1899 and c1903 indicate that by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the residence had been renovated but the essential form had been retained. The earlier roof had been replaced with the present hipped, bungalow-style roof of corrugated iron, extending over the verandahs. The southern end of the roof of the north-south wing had been truncated as a half-hip, and a small covered porch had been created centrally in this elevation. All the present stairs to the verandahs were extant by this period, as were the curved window hoods with the decorative timber infill to the sides, over the double-hung sashes.
Following HE Hill's death in 1893 John Daniel Wienholt (only son of Daniel Wienholt) took over management of Fassifern, residing at the head station. Renovations to the main residence may have occurred during his occupancy in the late 1890s.
In the late nineteenth century the Wienholt family began to rationalise its Queensland interests. Arthur had died in England in 1892 and Arnold in Switzerland in 1895. By this period the huge freeholds that pastoralists such as the Wienholts had amassed under earlier selection Acts (via various 'peacocking' and 'dummying' practices), and which tied up much valuable agricultural land, were proving expensive to sustain. Under the provisions of the Agricultural Lands Purchase Act 1894, pastoralists were encouraged to relinquish land through repurchase by the government for re-sale as farm selections. By 1902 the Wienholt Estates Company of Australia Ltd retained Fassifern, Katandra, Maryvale and Stamfordham stations, and the Jondayran Estates Company of Australia Ltd had been formed to hold Degilbo, Jondaryan, Rosewood and Tarampa.
From early 1902 to mid-1904 Daniel Wienholt (eldest son of Arthur Wienholt) took on the management of Fassifern, taking up residence at the head station. He left in mid-1904, prior to the Fassifern freehold of 41,406 acres [16 756 hectares] being offered for sale by public auction on 8 August 1904. At this time the Fassifern freehold comprised 3 blocks: Kent's Lagoon (2,361 acres [955 hectares]); Fassifern (37,351 acres [15 115 hectares]); and Moogerah (1,694 acres [686 hectares]) - the whole divided into 32 paddocks 'with a good homestead and out Station, besides outbuildings and yards' (Dalgety & Co. Ltd auction map, 1904). Like Maryvale, for many years Fassifern had been used for fattening cattle from the Wienholt family's western stations, and was noted for its Clydesdale horse stud.
Very little of the Fassifern freehold was sold at the August auction and in September 1904 the Wienholt Estates Company offered the Fassifern Estate to the Queensland government for repurchase. The Land Commissioners who inspected the property in May 1905 found the estate well-suited to agricultural settlement, being close to the railway, with good soil, the fences in good repair, well watered, and free of noxious weeds and ticks. The manager resided in a 'good building' (ie. Fassifern Homestead) seven miles from the rail head at Munbilla.
Despite the favourable report the State government took no action. In January 1906 the Wienholt Estates Company again put up the Kent's Lagoon and Moogerah paddocks for sale at auction, and offered the balance of the estate to the government at £3 per acre. Again, the estate proved difficult to sell at auction to farmers who believed that the bulk of the estate would be repurchased soon, and again the government took no action in this matter. Finally, in December 1908 a deputation of MLAs in support of the Fassifern repurchase approached the Minister for Lands (Digby Denham), but in January 1909 the Queensland government wrote to the Wienholt Estates Company firmly rejecting the offer.
In 1908 the Queensland government did repurchase the Wienholt's Maryvale estate and the manager of Maryvale for nearly 40 years, Edward Ormond Waters Hill, then took up the management of Fassifern. EOW Hill was another Wienholt cousin and brother of HE Hill who had managed Fassifern in the 1880s and early 1890s; he was also a shareholder in and director of The Wienholt Estates Company.
Also in 1908, Arnold Wienholt (son of Edward Wienholt) and his cousin Daniel Wienholt (son of Arthur Wienholt) were appointed respectively General Manager and Company Secretary of The Wienholt Estates Company of Australia Ltd, with instructions to oversee the winding up of the Company's estates in Queensland. In September 1909 they offered the bulk of the Fassifern estate for sale at auction, at which time EOW Hill acquired the Fassifern Homestead on 457 acres [185 hectares], together with about 3,000 acres [1 214 hectares] of grazing land.
In 1916 the homestead, located on Reynolds Creek about 4 miles from Engelsburg (later Kalbar), was described as having 'replaced the original house some years ago' and as 'a comfortable wooden building, with water and gas laid on. It is surrounded with lawns and flower-beds, and has an orchard, vineyard, and vegetable garden attached' (Fox 1919:325).
EOW Hill resided at Fassifern Homestead until c1921. In 1927 title to the homestead on about 316 acres [128 hectares] was transferred to Timothy Dwyer. Changes to the homestead made during Mr Dwyer's occupancy include the removal c1930s of an adjacent early kitchen and staff building and the extension of the south-east corner of Fassifern Homestead to accommodate an internal kitchen. Following Mr Dwyer's death in 1939, the property passed to his son, Patrick Francis Dwyer, who ran a grazing farm from Fassifern Homestead until his death in 1980. Patrick was buried in the Fassifern Homestead yard. In 2008 the house, on a substantially reduced parcel of land of just over 6 000m², remained the property of his widow, Joie Elwyn Dwyer (a former long-term Boonah Shire Councillor).
During the 1970s changes were made to the north-facing wing of the house. The timber arch dividing its two rooms was removed to create one long room and the entire corresponding length of northern verandah was enclosed. The french doors opening out onto this verandah were removed and replaced with timber-framed sliding doors with large single lights. The interior spaces were lined with fibrous-cement sheeting, but the original timber linings were retained beneath this. Other changes to the house made by Patrick and Joie Dwyer include later linings to other rooms in the house; the enclosure of part of the western verandah on the north-south wing as a laundry; the enclosure of the north-east corner of the verandahs as an office; and the insertion of an ensuite in one of the bedrooms.
","criteria":"Fassifern Homestead, constructed by the late 1880s with late 1890s renovations, is important in demonstrating the pattern of pastoral consolidation in Queensland as pastoral lessees gradually gained freehold title to large blocks of prime grazing and agricultural land, especially in southern Queensland. The simply-adorned but substantially-constructed timber residence replaced an earlier Fassifern Homestead on the same site (established by 1846) and demonstrates the transformation from the mid-1870s of the consolidated Fassifern run, established under occupation license in the 1840s as the runs of Fassifern, Moogerah and Tarome, into a substantial freehold of approximately 44,000 acres [17 806 hectares].
|From 1857 the Fassifern run was associated with the prominent Wienholt family (pastoralists, business persons and politicians) and became an integral element in a chain of Queensland pastoral properties acquired by them and their business partners from 1849. From the 1870s the consolidated Fassifern run was used principally to fatten cattle from the family's western Queensland properties, and along with the neighbouring Maryvale run on the Darling Downs (the first of the Wienholt acquisitions in Queensland), was renowned for its Clydesdale horse stud. As the principal residence on an extensive freehold estate, Fassifern Homestead has a special association with the Wienholt family's consolidation of their wealth in Queensland. Of the 48 Queensland runs held by the family by 1876, Fassifern was situated closest to Brisbane, and was home to a number of the Wienholt family over two generations, and to their cousins, Henry Edward Hill and Edward Ormond Waters Hill, who managed Fassifern and Maryvale stations for many years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30101,"place_ref":602678,"name":"Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Anzac Avenue","suburb":"BEERBURRUM","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-10-16","description":"Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees at Beerburrum comprise 13 trees - one pine, seven camphor laurel and five fig trees planted in alignment along the centre of Anzac Avenue. The spaces between these trees range from 5 metres to 18.4 metres indicating that original trees have died or been removed, including all the palm trees shown in photographs circa 1920-1921. Two turning points across the median strip exist near the centre of the plantings linking the northern and southern surfaces of Anzac Avenue, although only one existed originally.
Most of the trees are mature and probably date from the original planting while three camphor laurels in the centre of the row are smaller and may have replaced trees that died. Located between trees 3 and 4 from the western end of the avenue is a cluster of 11 trees of younger appearance that were planted on 13 December 1968 to commemorate the Beerburrum State School Golden Jubilee.
Signage to commemorate the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement was installed in 2008. This consists of three signs - one located on the eastern end of the median strip and two located centrally.
","history":"Memorial Trees were planted in the main street of the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement in 1920 and the street renamed Anzac Avenue in honour of the fallen comrades of the soldier settlers. This occurred in conjunction with the widening and metalling of the roadway due to building development on the southern side of the street.
As early as 1915 the Queensland government was looking for vacant land suitable for settlement by returned soldiers. The Department of Lands stated that Queensland's vast areas of crown land and varying climates provided more opportunities than any other State for the settling of returned soldiers, both Australian and British. It was envisaged that the land would be suitable for lighter farming activities such as fruit and vegetable growing, poultry-raising and bee-keeping.
The first land chosen for soldier settlement in Queensland was 53,000 acres (21,448.34 hectares) near the Beerburrum railway siding on the North Coast line. This mostly dry sclerophyll forest and wallum heathland had been leased to the Federal government in 1910 as a military reserve for 30 years at a peppercorn rent. From 1913 the Federal government paid an annual rent of £1 subject to the right of resumption by the State if required for State purposes. In 1916 the area was returned to the State government for soldier settlement. The area eventually opened for this purpose stretched from Beerburrum to Glass House Mountains in the north, southwards to Elimbah and eastwards to Pumicestone Passage. Beerburrum Soldier Settlement was first and largest of the approximately two dozen Soldier Settlements established in Queensland. Over the course of the scheme (1916-1929) approximately 2,500 returned soldiers were settled on the land in Queensland, including at least 400 at Beerburrum.
Work began immediately on analysis and surveying of the land. Beerburrum was chosen as the centre of the soldier settlement because of satisfactory soil tests, water availability and the existing railway siding. Surveyor Muntz was given the task of dividing this large area into portions of suitable land varying in size from approximately 20 to 40 acres. To ensure that each settler received a fertile selection, the surveyor was to mark his boundaries so that each portion would be equally productive. By November 1916, 11,600 acres had been surveyed into 310 portions. Joseph Rose, an experienced pineapple farmer, was placed in charge of the settlement. An experimental State training farm (portions 859, 860, 861, 862) was cleared and planted with pineapples for training returned soldiers in the growing of tropical crops.
Under the provisions of Queensland's 1917 Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act after having received a qualification certificate from the Land Settlement Committee of the War Council, or from a Land Commissioner, applicants balloted for available selections and, if successful, were expected to pay one year's rent. This could either be paid in full at the time of occupation, or by ten equal instalments after taking up residence, in which case interest was added at the rate of four percent per annum. They were also expected to remain on the selection for a minimum period of five years, exceptions only being made in extreme cases of "illness, accident, or misfortune". From five to ten years the lease could only be transferred to another returned serviceman. After ten years the soldier settler was finally free to transfer the lease to any other applicant. The Queensland legislation was extended so that all honourably discharged Australian, British, Dominion and Allied ex-servicemen could apply for land.
The first land ballots were drawn on 6 November 1916 by the Governor's wife, Lady Goold-Adams. At this time the experimental farm had been in operation for six weeks training nine invalid soldiers. By July 1917, 28 returned soldiers had been allotted an area of 760 acres and 54 acres had been cleared, ploughed and planted with pineapples. One acre was similarly planted with oranges. Altogether 145 acres had been cleared, 11 houses had been erected and 17 farms had been fenced. Ringbarking had been completed on a further 100 acres. Two huts and eating facilities for 24 men had been erected, as well as a storeroom and quarters for the supervisor at the State Farm. In addition, several wells had been sunk, yielding good water. The area for township purposes had been reserved and a general store erected.
By January 1919, 96 soldier settlers were residing on the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement, increasing to 175 in July. With dependants, the total population was estimated at 400. The number of farms had increased to 379 comprising 14,896 acres and 181 houses had been erected, although 323 portions remained unallotted. The State Government had built administration buildings, blacksmith shop, school, school of arts, two stores, two butcher's shops, a barber, bakehouse, six residences for employees, an accommodation (boarding) house, depot store, kitchen, barracks and hospital. A branch store had been set up in Glasshouse Mountains township as well.
In April 1919 the Beerburrum branch of the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League related the intention of the settlers to plant "an avenue of trees" on the main road from the station, with the object of forming a permanent memorial for Anzac Day.
The outpouring of grief in Australia that accompanied the deaths of 60,000 service people in World War I, and the fact that the dead were buried overseas, led to a period of memorial building across the nation. Memorials took many forms both functional and commemorative. Functional types included Anzac memorial parks, honour drives, heroes avenues and trees dedicated to soldiers. The siting of memorials considered their focal importance to the community with the concern being to find a prominent, spacious site to enable crowds and processions to converge at the memorials on Anzac Day. War memorials in Queensland were usually surrounded by a fence. This denoted a special commemorative area and provided some protection for the memorial. If a fence was not erected by the time of the unveiling or planting, it was added soon afterwards. Flagstaffs, which were needed for ceremonial occasions, were usually positioned behind or in proximity to war memorials.
Some time after 24 May 1920 and before the end of July 1920 the main street of Beerburrum was metalled on its southern side to the width of 24 feet to match the metal roadway on the north side of the street, forming a divided. In the middle, a 27 foot wide strip was ploughed and planted with trees in memory of the fallen soldiers of World War I. The Week newspaper reported on 21 May 1920 that the first tree (a camphor laurel) had been planted by General Birdwood, who also named the street Anzac Avenue. The Brisbane Courier stated on 5 August that the Beerburrum State School pupils had completed the planting of Anzac Avenue with 17 weeping figs, 16 Washingtonia palms and 4 pine trees. However, early photographs show the avenue plantings to be weeping figs, palms and presumably camphor laurels. This project was completed in time for the visit of the Prince of Wales to Beerburrum on 3 August 1920.
The cost of this improvement for the Lands Department was approximately £170. The Beerburrum Sub-Branch of the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) raised £80 to fence around the trees. The memorial was dedicated to their fallen comrades. In the centre was a flagstaff.
The Beerburrum Soldier Settlement reached it zenith in 1921 with a population of 1,200 people. Thereafter settlers rapidly departed as the poor soil and low pineapple prices made it impossible for them to make a living as pineapple growers. Many wished to transfer to other settlements but the government would not approve this. In the 12 months to June 1923, 200 men, women and children left Beerburrum. The town began to suffer and businesses closed, and in January 1924 the government began reducing its administrative staff at Beerburrum. In August that year there were still 214 returned servicemen on the settlement. Of this number 127 had applied for and been granted adjoining land forfeited by their neighbours. In November a further 82 settlers requested transfer to other settlements.
The Revaluation Board of Soldiers' Settlements set up by the Queensland Government released a confidential report in October 1924 that advised there was very little prospect of the Beerburrum Settlement ever proving even a moderate success. By June 1928 only 75 soldier settlers remained in occupation at Beerburrum. Diversification into egg production, vegetable and watermelon growing had been the most profitable adjuncts that the farmers tried in order to survive financially. When the scheme was officially terminated in 1929, there were only 69 soldier settlers remaining at Beerburrum.
Of the original 38 trees reportedly planted in Anzac Avenue at Beerburrum only 13 trees remain. Eleven of the total of 24 trees on the road reserve are Australian native trees, some of which were planted on Friday 13 December 1968, to commemorate the Beerburrum State School Golden Jubilee and others to commemorate the bi-centenary of Matthew Flinders' ascent of Beerburrum Mountain on 26 July 1799. The original timber fence that surrounded the memorial plantings, which had short stout posts supporting a diamond cut rail and demarcated a turnaround in front of the State store, is no longer extant.
","criteria":"The planting of memorial trees and the re-naming of the main street at Beerburrum as Anzac Avenue in 1920, in honour of the Beerburrum Soldier Settlers' fallen comrades, demonstrates the widespread social movement expressing Australian patriotism and grief that commenced in the year following the Anzac Day landing at Gallipoli. Communities across Queensland and Australia responded to the losses of World War I soldiers by creating memorials to the fallen.
The Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees are remnant evidence of the Beerburrum Soldiers' Settlement, which was the first and largest of approximately two dozen soldier settlements established throughout Queensland. Operating from 1916 the Soldier Settlement Scheme in Queensland settled approximately 2,500 returned soldiers on the land, with at least 400 of them at Beerburrum. Although part of the Australia-wide initiative to assist returned World War I servicemen, in Queensland the Soldier Settlement Scheme was also part of the government's attempt to further closer settlement of Queensland's vast, unalienated areas of land.
While many memorial avenues were planted by Queensland communities, the Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees are the only identified memorial created by returned servicemen of a soldier settlement scheme in honour of their fallen comrades. Its main street location highlights its importance to the soldier settler community.
|The Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees have a special association with the Beerburrum Soldier Settlers who proposed and created the memorial in honour of their fallen comrades. Commencing in 1916 at least 400 returned servicemen took up land around Beerburrum in the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement, the first and largest settlement in Queensland, and attempted to establish themselves as pineapple farmers with government support through training, land clearing, house building and loans.
|The Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees are part of the class of functional memorials created to remember the impact of World War I through plantings dedicated to the memory of the fallen. Like other memorials throughout Queensland, the Anzac Avenue Memorial Trees were sited in a prominent position - the main street of Beerburrum Soldier Settlement - indicating their focal importance within the life of the local community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30110,"place_ref":602743,"name":"Babinda Air Raid Shelter","alternate_name":"Babinda Public Toilet Block","street_address":"109 Munro Street","suburb":"BABINDA","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-04-16","description":"The former air raid shelter is located in Anzac Park, Munro Street, Babinda, where it remains accessible to the public.
It is an above ground reinforced concrete structure with 300mm thick walls and a 150mm thick roof. It has entrances at both the northern and southern ends. In form, the exterior of the structure has changed little from its original design. The 1992 mural on the exterior walls is not considered to be of State cultural heritage significance.
The structure retains the internal blast walls that were provided just inside the entrances, and next to each entrance a closet, although these are no longer in use and have been sealed.
The interior has been converted into female and male toilets, with a dividing concrete wall erected through the centre of the structure. Apart from the addition of fixtures for water, power and lighting the only other apparent changes have been alteration to the offset ventilation vents to a more open style.
","history":"Babinda air raid shelter was one of 57 public air raid shelters constructed between Mackay and Cairns during early 1942. A Government Gazette notice issued two weeks after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in early December 1941, required Queensland local authorities to provide public air raid shelters. The air raid shelter at Babinda was built to a standard design with 300 mm thick reinforced walls and provided seating for 50 people. As the threat of air attacks receded the building was turned into a public toilet and remains today for this purpose.
The township of Babinda was established about 1912 as a small settlement on the Mulgrave railway. Between 1914 and 1915 the population of the town rose rapidly due to the construction of the Babinda Central Sugar Mill. Government facilities were established to serve the local community including a post office, court house, police station and state school. The town continues to service the surrounding sugar-growing industry and its economy is heavily reliant on the Babinda Mill, which dominates the entrance to the town. Until 1995 Babinda was administered by the Mulgrave Shire Council, before amalgamation with Cairns City Council. The town is now included within the Cairns Regional Council boundaries.
Until 1927 the land that is now occupied by Anzac Park was the Babinda sports ground. The land was later subdivided and partly sold off and the remaining property retained as public parkland. A war memorial to honour those from the district who served in World War I (1914-1918) was originally erected in Munro Street nearer the centre of the town. The memorial was moved to the park in the 1930s, when it is believed that the area was named Anzac Park.
With the declaration of war in September 1939, the Queensland Premier's Department, as the agency responsible for co-ordinating civil defence works in the state, began implementing home security policies outlined in the Commonwealth War Book. Air Raid Protection Committees were formed along the Queensland coast. These committees usually consisted of the local mayor, inspector of police and government medical officer. Air raid precautions were organised and all schools in north Queensland were required to provide slit trenches for pupils. As the threat of war with Japan increased, construction of public air raid shelters was planned in main centres considered vulnerable to air attack. The Queensland government undertook to finance the shelters on behalf of the local authorities with the adjustment of costs deferred. Special legislation was passed enabling local authorities to obtain loans from the state government for the purpose of air raid shelter construction and to levy special rates to meet interest repayments.
On 7 December 1941 Japanese aircraft struck the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. At the same time Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. Three days after Pearl Harbor, two capital ships of the Royal Navy were sunk off the coast of Malaya. This gave the Japanese almost total control of the seas to Australia's north. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid, unchecked Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies raised fears of air attacks on Australia. The outlook during the first six months in 1942 looked very grim and the possibility of Japanese air raids and invasion was considered likely.
The Public Works Department was responsible for the enforcement of orders issued under the National Security (General) Regulations, relating to the provision of air raid shelters for the protection of the public. Local authorities were responsible for the construction of public air raid shelters, as well as for enforcing orders relating to the provision of shelters by building owners. Hotels, flats and boarding houses occupied by 15 or more people, or buildings in which 30 or more worked, were required to provide air raid shelters for those people. Local authorities were responsible for the construction of public air raid shelters and in the event that this was not possible the Public Works Department would supply the men and materials required. However in most circumstances the local authority carried out the works. A list of public air raid shelters required for construction by local governments was published in the Government Gazette on 23 December 1941.
The Babinda public air raid shelter was ordered for construction by the Public Works Department on 16 January 1942. It was the only public air raid shelter ordered for the town. Other public air raid shelters ordered to be constructed in neighbouring towns in far-north Queensland in January 1942 were: Cairns (9), Innisfail (3), Gordonvale (2) and Atherton (1).
The Babinda shelter was constructed by Mulgrave Shire Council during 1942 to the same standard design as the public air raid shelters constructed in Cairns, for which drawings have been located. Public shelters at Cairns, Babinda and other centres in north Queensland were designed to accommodate 50 persons seated. They were above-ground structures with 300mm reinforced concrete walls and 150mm thick roof. Where there was the possibility of debris falling on top of the shelter the thickness of the roofs was increased to 300mm. The shelters contained an open entrance at either end protected by an internal blast wall. A small room at each entrance, referred to on a drawing of Cairns Air Raid Shelter as a closet, may have contained male and female toilets (water closets). The interior comprised one large room with a timber bench along the western wall between the two internal blast walls, which could accommodate up to 20 persons seated; and a long, double timber bench positioned north-south in the centre of the room, which could accommodate a total of 30 persons seated. An alcove for a lamp was provided at the end of each blast wall. Eighteen offset open air vents around the building provided ventilation while protecting the occupants against direct blast from a near miss.
As the threat from air attacks lessened, the shelter was turned into a public toilet by Mulgrave Shire Council during 1944-1945 and remains today for this purpose. The building was last used as a public shelter during Tropical Cyclone Larry which passed through Babinda on 20 March 2006 causing severe damage in the town. The building remains effective as a cyclone shelter for public use.
","criteria":"Babinda Air Raid Shelter is important in demonstrating the urgent measures taken by State and local authorities for protection of the public from attack by hostile forces during a time of war, and is a reminder of how close World War II came to Queensland and in particular the State's northern regions.
|The Babinda Shelter is the most intact example of a public air raid shelter in north Queensland and demonstrates now rare and uncommon evidence of the civil defence role in the Babinda and the Cairns area during Word War II.
It is the only known public air raid shelter in north Queensland with intact internal blast walls within each entrance.
|Babinda Air Raid Shelter demonstrates the principal characteristics of a World War II Air Raid Shelter built for public safety. The extant features demonstrate the design, construction and dimensions of a public air raid shelter of the World War II period. Surviving characteristics include: the reinforced concrete floor, walls and roof; internal blast walls; the wartime closet cubicles (now sealed); and the public park location.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30129,"place_ref":602755,"name":"Banfield Memorial Reserve and Grave","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"DUNK ISLAND","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"Banfield's Grave is located within a clearing on a memorial museum reserve on Dunk Island, a small island which lies four kilometres off the east coast of far north Queensland opposite South Mission Beach. The grave and its cairn are situated on elevated ground approximately 500 metres north-east of the main resort complex on Brammo Bay, between the current resort staff quarters and Goor-tchur Creek (an Aboriginal place name translated as Trumpet Shell and listed in Last Leaves from Dunk Island).
Promoted as an historic attraction, the grave site is accessed from the resort via a narrow inclining concrete path with supporting directional signage. The path, lined with dense vegetation, leads to a rainforest clearing that is roughly square-shaped in plan with the grave, marked by a cairn, situated in the centre. An old mango tree (which is evident in early photographs) is located to the south of the western approach. Earlier approaches from the north and east are no longer accessible. Within the clearing are four large ceramic plant pots in each of the corners, and two timber seats, which are not of cultural heritage significance.
The cairn is constructed of random rubble and mortar in the shape of a rudimentary triangular prism with oyster and other shells embedded in the mortar. It is orientated east-west, with the apex inclined to the east. Two marble tablets are embedded in the eastern face.
The tablet memorialising Edmund Banfield is rectangular in shape with a convex upper edge and is inscribed with his name, birth place and date, death place and date, and a quote from Henry David Thoreau, as follows:
Edmund James Banfield
The Beachcomber
Born Liverpool, England, 4th September 1852
Died Dunk Island, 2nd June 1923
If a man does not keep pace with his companions
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears.
Beneath this a rectangular memorial tablet for Bertha Banfield is inscribed as follows:
Also Bertha Banfield
Dearly beloved and honoured wife
Born at Liverpool 19th JanY 1858
Died 6th August 1933
Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest
I will lodge ---- where thou diest, will I die and
There will I be buried.
Aligned with the eastern face of the cairn, and surrounding it on its north, south and west sides is a bed of white quartz pebbles contained within an edging of granite rocks. Adjacent to the eastern face of the cairn are two objects - a giant clam shell and a stone bowl. The bed and objects are not evident in early photographs and therefore not of cultural heritage significance.
Beyond the clearing in which the cairn is located, the reserve is covered with dense rainforest re-growth.
","history":"Situated on Dunk Island in far north Queensland, the grave was made in 1923 for the remains of the renowned author and naturalist, EJ or Ted Banfield. The cairn erected over it soon after and the memorial reserve established around it in 1971, honour the man popularly known as 'The Beachcomber' for his set of internationally successful books about its native flora and fauna. In the early twentieth century Banfield made a significant contribution to the conservation of not only Dunk Island but the entire Family Islands group situated off the coast from Mission Beach, of which it is a part, as well as popularising a particular kind of tourism in this part of the Great Barrier Reef that would later be termed eco-tourism.
Edmund (Ted) James Banfield was born on 4 September 1852 in Liverpool, England. His family emigrated to Australia in 1858 after his father found a job printing a news-sheet on the Ararat goldfields in Victoria. Ted Banfield eventually followed his father into journalism, but his particular passions were the study of nature and reading. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862), an American philosopher, essayist and poet whose most famous book was Walden or Life in the Woods published in 1854 and whose best known essay was On the Duty of Civil Disobedience first published in 1849. Thoreau became well known for his ideas about living close to nature and developing self-reliance within it, as well as those pertaining to the deficiencies of state power. Banfield later credited his reading of Thoreau's work with giving him the impetus to search out new experiences.
In 1882, after working at newspapers in Melbourne, Sydney and Penrith, Banfield accepted a job as sub-editor of the Townsville Daily Bulletin. This position bought him into contact with prominent north Queensland separationists such as Robert Philp, Thomas Hollis Hopkins and Thankful Willmett. He became a passionate supporter of the separation movement and dedicated much of his own time to writing supportive editorials. In 1884 he travelled to England to seek specialist medical treatment for an eye injured in childhood. To pay for his fare with the British-India Steam Navigation Company he wrote a series, entitled 'Homeward Bound', of seven articles promoting the northern sea route to England via the Torres Strait. While in England Banfield met Bertha Golding, who in 1886 emigrated to Townsville where they married.
Banfield continued his support of the north Queensland separation movement through the organisation of fund-raising functions; however during the 1890s his health deteriorated. To aid his recuperation, in 1896 the Banfields camped with friends on Dunk Island, the most northerly of the Family Islands group off Mission Beach. His renewed strength from this experience inspired him to look for a home among the Family Islands group, finally settling on Dunk Island where in September he leased a small area for 30 years at a nominal annual rental.
Diagnosed as tubercular and suffering nervous collapse, Banfield resigned from the North Queensland Newspaper Co. and he and his wife moved to the island on 28 September 1897, initially for a six month trial. They and a manservant were the only Europeans in residence on the island; camping in tents and later clearing a small portion of land for a prefabricated hut and a plantation.
With greatly improved health Banfield settled into improving the property, constructing a home using timber obtained from the Cutten Brother's timber mill at Bingil Bay on the mainland, and planting sprouting coconuts to form a long avenue of palms from the house down to the beach. On 4 January 1900 he applied for and was granted a selection of 320 acres on the western side of Dunk Island. When the selection was surveyed in mid-1899 improvements already comprised a house within a fenced yard, overlooking Brammo Bay to the north-west, and five other structures including a hut and fowl house. To the south of the house was a large swamp; to the north and surrounded by dense scrub there was a cleared cultivation area with coconut palms. In 1905 improvements to the property were valued at £390, and comprised: an iron-roofed, timber-clad house with wooden floors and detached kitchen with thatched roofed; a laundry clad and floored with hardwood; an iron-roofed storehouse with a hardwood frame and flooring; a stockyard; a goat and fowl shed; an extent of post and wire fencing and wire netting; 95 citrus trees; and six acres of land cleared for cultivation.
From early 1898 Banfield kept a daily record of his life on Dunk Island. He observed the rhythms of the island, paying particular attention to the indigenous flora and fauna and to the way the local Aborigines interacted with the environment. The Bandjin and Djiru people were the traditional owners of the Family Islands, and Banfield developed a close relationship with them, observing their customs and way of life, and learning from them about the island habitat. He also recorded the Aboriginal names for various features, places, flora and fauna on the island and commissioned a survey plan of the island marked with this nomenclature. His recording of these details was particularly timely, as the local Aboriginal population was removed to missions in the early twentieth century (possibly the Hull River Settlement before 1918, and then to Palm Island).
Sir Matthew Nathan, Governor of Queensland from December 1920 to September 1925, took an interest in Banfield's work on Dunk Island. Nathan had a particular interest in the study of the Great Barrier Reef, as well as local history and the origin of place names in Queensland and was involved from 1922 in the planning, organisation and financing of the British Great Barrier Reef expedition of 1928 to 1929.
Banfield began to focus on protecting distinct bird habitats and this concern for birds prompted him to write to Robert Philp, premier of Queensland from 1899 to 1903 and from 1907 to 1908, and propose that the Family Islands be declared a sanctuary for them. He offered to support this proposal by assuming the role of Honorary Warden of the Isles in order to uphold the aims of the Native Birds Protection Act 1877, as discussed in the 1983 book A Different Drummer: The Story of EJ Banfield, Beachcomber of Dunk Island by M Noonan. The islands were proclaimed a Reserve for the Protection and Preservation of Native Birds on 10 May 1905, and Banfield was gazetted as Honorary Ranger on 24 June 1905.
Banfield maintained a steady writing schedule, documenting his experiences and observations, and selling publications to supplement his meagre income. In addition to articles promoting the separation movement, he also wrote Within the Barrier: Tourist Guide to the North Queensland Coast which was commissioned by the Queensland Government and published in 1907 by Thankful Willmett and Sons. In 1908 he published Confessions of a Beachcomber which proved to be his most successful work and was translated widely (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1994). Part diary, anthropological study, natural science notebook and homage to the island, Confessions was dubbed a 'classic for naturalists' by Nature magazine and Banfield became widely known as 'The Beachcomber'. He wrote three other books that focused on Dunk Island: My Tropic Isle (London: Fisher Unwin, 1911); Tropic Days (New York: Brentano's, 1919) and Last Leaves from Dunk Island (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1925), which was published posthumously in 1925 and edited by naturalist Alexander Hugh Chisholm, publisher and author of many books on Australia's flora and fauna between 1922 and 1966. Last Leaves contained detailed observations about the impact of the devastating 1918 cyclone on the island and surrounding area. Many of the writing contained in these books had been published as articles in the Townsville Daily Bulletin, the North Queensland Register and the Queensland Geographical Journal.
At the time of his death due to appendicitis in 1923, at the age of 70, Banfield was a well known author, his passing being reported in The Argus and the Sydney Morning Herald. At the 1929 Australian Writers Festival, Chisholm noted that Banfield's work had 'won a chorus of posthumous approval from every part of the world'. His writings captured the imagination of artists, naturalists, recluses and tourists both in Australia and internationally - many of whom visited the island both during his lifetime (including the Australian Governor-General Ronald Munro Ferguson and his wife Lady Helen Munro Ferguson in 1920), and after his death.
Spenser McTaggart Hopkins, the son of separationist Thomas Hollis Hopkins, buried Banfield on his Dunk Island selection, on elevated ground north of the house, and erected a cairn over the grave. He also commissioned a marble tablet for the cairn, inscribed with a quote from Thoreau. Bertha Banfield lived for another ten years, spending her time between Townsville and Victoria. When she died in 1933, Spenser Hopkins placed her ashes by her husband's grave and added a second tablet to the cairn. The grave has remained intact on Dunk Island despite changing ownership and land use.
After Banfield's death his Dunk Island property was transferred to his wife Bertha Banfield, then in 1931 to her and Spenser McTaggart Hopkins as tenants in common, and after Berth's death, to Hopkins as sole owner. During this period a manager was installed to oversee the increasing number of tourists visiting the island. Photographs from the 1920s indicate that the land between the house and the beach had been cleared; tent accommodation had been erected in the grounds; and cattle were being run on the property.
In 1936 the non-alienated parts of Dunk Island or about two thirds of its area, which Banfield had worked passionately to protect, was proclaimed as a reserve for national park and is now part of the Family Islands National Park.
The remaining part of Dunk Island focussed on Brammo Bay to the north was developed as a tourist resort from the 1930s. Apparently a Captain Robert Brassey purchased the Banfield property in 1934 and by 1937 a number of small, prefabricated, low-set, fibrous-cement clad cottages had been constructed by the family on the grassed area between the Banfield house and the beach.
Close to the beach a modest, semi-enclosed timber structure with a hipped roof of corrugated iron served as the hotel bar. During World War II the Royal Australian Air Force used these facilities and also constructed an airstrip, a radar station and swing bridge on the property. Title to 107 acres (43ha) at the northern end of Banfield's selection was transferred to Hugo Brassey (son of Capt. R Brassey) in 1948. From 1946 he had leased out the resort. In 1957 title to the property was acquired by Gordon and Kathleen Stynes, who refurbished the resort and upgraded the airstrip. In 1963-64, Avis Rent-A-Car took over the resort and began marketing the island to international tourists. During the 1970s P&O Resorts, through their company Great Barrier Reef Hotels Pty, and Trans Australian Airlines (TAA, later to become Australian Airlines) purchased and redeveloped the resort. The only structure known to survive from Banfield's time on the island is the cairn marking his grave and that of his wife.
On 28 January 1971, an Order-in-Council gazetted a block of 47.9 perches (1212 sqm) of land surrounding Banfield's grave as a Reserve for Museum (Banfield Memorial) Purposes, with the University College of Townsville, later James Cook University, appointed as trustee. Mr Eric McIlree, Chairman and Managing Director of Avis Rent-a-Car had surrendered the land to the Crown, having had it surveyed in October 1967. Although various proposals to establish a museum as a tribute to Banfield's contribution to Australian literature and nature conservation were discussed, nothing has eventuated. The reserve remains under James Cook University trusteeship.
","criteria":"The memorial reserve and grave has a special association with EJ Banfield (1852-1923), who contributed significantly to our understanding of tropical environments and habitats between 1897 and 1923, as well as regarding the Aboriginal Traditional Owners of the Family Islands before they were removed to various Queensland mission settlements in the early twentieth century. His published accounts of Dunk Island's natural and cultural environment established his reputation as a committed naturalist who contributed to the development of early nature reserves in far north Queensland, and became texts celebrated by romantics, escapists, naturalists and scientists. His work inspired national and international naturalists, artists and authors to travel to north Queensland, particularly to the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, and to work or conduct further research in the area.
|Banfield Memorial Reserve and Grave is located on Dunk Island, which lies within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The place memorialises Queensland naturalist Edmund James Banfield (1852-1923), the first European settler on Dunk island and a nationally and internationally renowned author whose work to protect the indigenous flora and fauna of the Family Islands group (of which Dunk Island is a part) is important to the early evolution of nature conservation in Queensland. His contribution to what today may be called early 'eco tourism' is equally valuable. Both his grave (1923), marked by a cairn made of local stone, and the reserve around it (created in 1971), which was part of his former selection and now supports the rainforest habitat he so eloquently recorded in his renowned books, are memorials to Banfield and his drive to protect the natural environment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30229,"place_ref":602688,"name":"Cooroy Lower Mill Site Kiln","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Lower Mill Road Cooroy","suburb":"COOROY","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-12-11","description":"Structures remaining from the drying kiln complex operated by sawmillers Wilkinson and Sons Pty Ltd and Straker and Sons Pty Ltd stand on the Cooroy Lower Mill site in an open grassed paddock to the east of Lower Mill Road on the north side of the town of Cooroy. They are within a larger industrial estate of modern sheds. To the southeast of the kiln complex a grassed track crosses the creek and connects the site back to the former Cooroy Butter Factory now operating as an art gallery and community centre.
The kiln complex consists of a boiler shed with a prominent tall stack, hopper and chutes, control room, reconditioning chamber, a four chamber drying kiln and associated equipment, fixtures and fittings including a steam engine and electric generators in the boiler shed.
Drying kiln
An in-situ concrete structure with a flat roof, the drying kiln consists of four discrete chambers 19.5m long and 4m high. Each chamber is open at the north end and accessed by a hatch door from the control room at the south end. Trolley rails run within each chamber between narrow concrete platforms. Fans are fixed to and pipes, ducts and conduits run along the ceilings. Rails for a transfer line run across the north entrances to the chambers. Four sets of twin wheels and belts are fitted to the top third of the exterior west wall beneath the overhanging eaves. A projecting timber walkway with a timber balustrade runs along beside them.
Reconditioning chamber
A hollow in-situ concrete channel rectangular in section, the reconditioning chamber stands to the east of the drying kiln. Trolley tracks run within the chamber between narrow concrete platforms. The lower third of the north opening is concreted and the south end is sealed with a small opening for the air duct.
Control room
The control room comprises a narrow corridor running between the boiler shed and the kiln. It is sheltered by a skillion roof off the south side of the kiln chambers, clad with corrugated galvanised iron. The room contains pipes, valves, gauges and other equipment that regulates the functioning of the kiln chambers. Each chamber has a viewing window and hatch door access from the control room.
Boiler shed
A tall rectangular, single-skin, timber framed shed clad with chamferboards and sheltered by a gable roof clad with corrugated galvanised iron, the boiler shed is dominated by the boiler. Standing on a concrete slab floor, the metal encased boiler is supported on a brick base. A timber framed and clad chute feeds into the boiler from a hopper in the northeast corner of the shed and an exhaust stack projects from the boiler through the roof. Metal ladders are fixed to the north and south sides of the base of the stack. The tall chimney stack is secured externally with metal ties.
Direct current and alternating current generators stand to the north of the boiler and each has a maker's plate from the English Electric Company Ltd London.
A tall timber framed tank stand stands to the west of the boiler shed. There is no tank.
Hopper
A rectangular box tapering from base to top, the hopper has an external stud frame and a single skin of weatherboards. Twin fibreglass exhaust ducts project through the flat timber roof. A narrow hinged door opens out on the north side and a metal pipe runs up the northeast corner turning into the hopper near the top. A narrow timber platform to the northwest accommodates a small motor and a set of timber stairs at the southwest end descend from the roof of the hopper to flat roof of the reconditioning chamber. A timber chute runs from the base of the hopper up into the hopper in the boiler shed.
Adjacent to the kiln site
East of the kiln site, remnants of a former sawmill lay scattered about including trolleys, rails and concrete plinths. The site is presently used as an open sawmilling area. This area is not included in the listing boundary.
","history":"The Cooroy Lower Mill Site Kiln, located in the Sunshine Coast township of Cooroy, was a timber drying kiln built in late 1956 by the prominent South Queensland sawmillers, J Wilkinson and Sons Pty Ltd and Straker and Sons Pty Ltd.
South Queensland produced the largest amount of timber in the State by the middle of the 20th century: in the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) region, timber was one of the most important industries in the 1950s. As late as the 1980s, a hardwood mill operating at Nandroya near Cooroy was claimed to be the largest in the State.
The kiln at Cooroy was the product of a post-World War II trend in the sawmill industry towards centralisation and larger operations to enable economies of scale. One of the motivations for this trend was the need to acquire technology like drying kilns in order to remain competitive. The amalgamation of sawmills made greater funds available for this equipment. Improvements in road transport, which enabled timber to be transported from a wider area, made the trend towards bigger centralised operations feasible.
By 1956, Straker and Sons and J Wilkinson and Sons already owned several milling operations on the North Coast. The Strakers owned the Cooroy Sawmilling Company located next to the kiln together with mills at Cooran and Gympie. J Wilkinson and Sons owned sawmills at Yandina and Conondale. The two organisations partially merged in 1956 to form Kiln Dried Timbers Pty Ltd, the company that operated the kiln and an adjoining planing mill (no longer extant). The kiln enabled the partners to accelerate the process of seasoning hardwood from their mills including flooring and chamfer boards and to expand their market to include far western Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne. These markets demanded lower moisture content than could be achieved by air drying. The kiln was claimed to be the first built on the North Coast.
As built in 1956, the kiln comprised a steam heated, cross shaft internal fan design that was common in Australia at the time. The design was obtained by the company from CSIRO. It consisted of four double chambers 64ft (19.5m) by 48ft (14.6m) each with a height of 13ft (4m) and a capacity of 9000 super feet. They were fabricated from concrete. Carefully stacked timber was transferred into the kiln using trolleys on rails. Heat was generated by a 100hp (74.6kW) boiler and transferred to the kiln chambers by a series of tubes. Hot air radiating from the tubes was circulated in the chambers by internal electric fans. The temperature in the kiln was designed to reach around 120°F (49°C).
The boiler was fuelled by waste from the adjacent sawmill via a hopper and chutes (all extant). As well as providing steam for the kiln, the boiler powered a steam engine and electric generator (extant). Electricity from this was used to power the electrical plant including the fans.
Also extant on the site is a reconditioning chamber adjacent to the kiln. This chamber was used to treat a condition called 'collapse' brought about by abnormal and excessive shrinkage. The collapsed timber was steamed in a closed chamber with saturated steam at atmospheric pressure for a period of about six hours. Steam was injected into the chamber via a single perforated steam pipe.
By the 1970s, an increasingly challenging timber industry made it necessary for Strakers and Wilkinsons to undergo a further amalgamation. They were also joined by the Lutton family's sawmilling operation and together they formed North Coast Sawmills Pty Ltd. The new company opened the large hardwood mill at Nandroya. This enabled the use of more efficient modern machinery and logs were sourced from a wider area.
North Coast Sawmills' Cooroy mills were bought by Quintex in the 1980s and subsequently Boral Timber. Boral used the kiln and planing plant to produce and dry boards for flooring and decking. The kiln was closed in the early 2000s under the terms of the Regional Forests Agreement. In 2007, the kiln and adjacent sawmill sites were undergoing redevelopment as a public recreational precinct.
","criteria":"The kiln is a highly intact example of a steam heated, cross shaft internal fan design. This design was once common in the industry. All of the operating elements of the facility remain intact including the fuel system, boiler, steam engine and electric generator, most of the heating tubes, fans, kiln chambers and reconditioning chamber.
|The Cooroy Lower Mill Site Kiln (1956) is important in demonstrating the development of the State's timber industry insofar that it is a rare example of a timber drying kiln established on the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) when the region was recognized to be one of the State's most important timber producers.
As the first drying kiln to be built in the region, it demonstrates the trend from the mid-20th Century towards improving efficiency using more scientific methods. As the product of a joint venture between major sawmilling companies, it also demonstrates the trend, at the time, towards centralizing operations to finance shared capital equipment. The drying kiln enabled timber to be seasoned more rapidly and it enabled timber to be sold to markets that demanded lower moisture content than could be achieved by air seasoning.
|The kiln is the only known example of a timber drying kiln in the Sunshine Coast region and it remains in a highly intact condition. A large number of sawmills and associated facilities were once located in this noted timber producing region. However, owing to economic and environmental factors, intact facilities have become increasingly uncommon since the middle of the 20th century.
|Dominated by the tall rusting stack of the boiler, the surviving elements of the drying kiln complex are a monumental presence in the landscape. The place has an arresting impact as an industrial ruin - the concrete hulk of the kiln chambers, the rusted galvanised iron and weathered timber, the slowly decaying remnants of machinery, equipment, fixtures and fittings - all combine to evoke a tough industrial aesthetic.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30230,"place_ref":602685,"name":"Jimna Single Men's Barracks (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"4 Tip Road Jimna","suburb":"JIMNA","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"On the Jimna Range, in the northern part of the Jimna State Forest, the Single Men's Barracks and cookhouse site is approximately 1.5 kilometres north from the turn-off to the Kilcoy-Murgon Road and approximately 1.5 kilometres east of the Jimna Fire Tower (601814), which is permanently entered in the Queensland Heritage Register. The barracks building and its associated cookhouse occupy the eastern end of a 5408 square metre allotment in Tip Road on the northern edge of the remnant township of Jimna. At the western end of the long, rectangular allotment are a collection of other timber buildings, two of which are reputed to be married quarters shifted from another location within the settlement. They include at least one permanent dwelling, a shed and attached carport, and a fenced chicken run built around a mature bunya pine. Access to the site is from the adjacent allotment to the south. The line of the barracks and cookhouse sits perpendicular to the slope of a grassed hillside that falls to the north and a valley line that would connect with Yabba Creek to the east.
The Single Men's Barracks is a gable-roofed structure, approximately 30 metres long and 5 metres wide, which is raised off the ground on steel columns except at the eastern end where a set of understorey rooms, taking advantage of the slope of the ground, have been enclosed in concrete block and founded on a slab. The cookhouse sits approximately 2 metres away at the barracks' eastern, short end, its floor about level with that of the understorey rooms. To the south-east of this there is a timber-clad shed, caravan and rough-sawn timber-framed shelter with corrugated iron roof. Amidst these structures stand three mature bunya and hoop pine trees. Between the southern facade and site boundary is a grassed and fenced yard with maintained garden beds that, according to photographic evidence has been formed after 1984. The boundary fence is timber and parts are reputedly made of reclaimed cedar posts. To the south in the adjacent allotment the remains of the sawmilling town's ant-bed tennis court are visible.
The barracks
The gable roof of the barracks is clad in corrugated iron; however its ridge line is not symmetrically disposed over the building, being approximately 1.5 metres from the northern façade. The pitch of both roof faces is approximately 11 Degrees. The walls are clad in weatherboards. A semi-enclosed verandah stretches the full length of the building on its southern side. To the height of the timber handrail, which is approximately 1 metre, it is clad in weatherboards, while above this it is partially enclosed with a variety of windows, including timber-framed casements and aluminium-framed sliders. The verandah can be accessed at two points: via a small, timber ramp on the western façade and from timber stairs, approximately 1.2 metres wide, positioned in the centre of the southern façade. A recent metal roof shelters these stairs, and a set of timber-framed, 10-light double doors open into the verandah at the head of them; while a high-waisted timber door provides access from the ramp.
A corrugated iron tank on a low, timber-framed tank stand is positioned adjacent to the door on the western façade. Between these two features a series of cuts in the weatherboards correspond to the internal width of the verandah. The eastern façade to the cookhouse has no openings, although it also has a series of consecutive cuts, which have been covered by metal plates, in an upper section of the weatherboard cladding. What these cuts in the weatherboarding means is unclear, as there are no close-up photographs of the building taken prior to 1984.
There are twelve openings on the northern façade. The original rhythm of six sets of two has been maintained, although the fourth from the west has been formed into a door to give access to a small timber deck. This door and the two windows toward the west belong to a set of later additions, the former being timber-framed and painted white and the latter two being aluminium-framed casements. The remaining windows are merely openings that are sealed with flyscreen and can only be closed by bringing down the timber awning shutters, which are propped open with pieces of timber dowel.
Running off the verandah, on the northern side of the barracks building, the demarcation of twelve small rooms can still be easily discerned, despite a number of openings being made to allow access between them. These rooms are approximately 3 metres deep and 2.4 metres wide, and all except one have a floor to ceiling height of 2.8 metres. The verandah has been partitioned by a wall with a board door, the western end serving the first four rooms and the eastern end the remaining eight. The outer walls in both sections are unlined, while the opposing ones are clad in weatherboards. The floors are made with wide timber boards that are carpeted in places, and the ceiling is unlined.
The first room at the westernmost end of the building is used as a laundry and the framing of the walls, and the roof as there is no ceiling, is visible here. The wall studs are housed or notched directly into the end rafter and there is a ridge beam and widely spaced battens. Openings have been made into the shared walls to allow Room Numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 (refer sketch plan drawing below) to operate as a flat for the owner of the barracks building, containing bath, bed, and living rooms as well as a kitchen. The walls and ceilings of all twelve rooms in the barracks are clad in fibrous cement sheeting. Those on the northern and southern sides have timber cover strips. Those shared are single-skin, with exposed timber framing decorated with rounded cover strips, on each face. Any later openings between rooms have been kept within this framing grid, where the single horizontal rail is approximately 1.8 metres from the floor. Room Numbers 10, 11 and 12 have been joined in a similar way with a small store room having been installed at the easternmost end of the verandah. In addition Room Numbers 8 and 9 have been joined. The internal linings, rails and cover strips have been painted.
In the understorey rooms, at the eastern end of the building, the floor framing is visible, revealing that the wall studs are housed or notched into the bearers, requiring the floorboards to be fitted around them. Much of the timber framing and cladding in the barracks building bear the marks of a circular saw. The studs to the internal partition walls bear on the floorboards.
There are two types of timber casement window, which are likely to be original. The only close-up photograph of the barracks was taken in 1984 when the property was purchased by its current owner. It is after this time that changes have been made to suit their personal requirements. The first window type is divided by mullions into four equal lights of mottled glazing. The second is divided in half, and then the upper section has two narrow lights in its lower half. These are clear glazing while the other two are mottled.
The cookhouse
The cookhouse is rectangular in plan, approximately 4.5 metres to the east and west, and 6.5 metres in the opposite direction. It is clad entirely in corrugated iron, which on the walls is fitted between large undressed timber posts and continues to the underside of the ceiling joists, leaving a narrow gap. The eaves are unlined. The corner posts at the eastern end are notched to take horizontal timber wall members. A narrow section of roof, approximately 4 metres from the ground and running along the cookhouse's eastern end, projects approximately one metre above the remaining skillion roof to form a chimney for the range inside. A large sliding, corrugated iron-clad door takes up the entire western façade to the barracks to a height of approximately 2 metres. It runs on a metal head track, and when open, projects past the northern façade of the structure. There is a timber-framed awning window in the southern façade. There are no openings on the eastern façade. To the north, there is a single board door and narrow fixed window. A set of logs and large rocks form a number of steps away from this door. A large corrugated iron tank and timber-framed stand sits adjacent to the cookhouse to the north.
On the interior, the cookhouse is a single room with unlined walls. Along the eastern wall are two Crown cast-iron ranges, the one in the middle being used when the sawmilling township was operational, having been moved from the boarding house. It is supported at each end on half-height brick walls. A tubular, metal flue sits at its rear. The floor is brick with some patchy carpeting. Around the walls a concrete edge-beam that rises above the floor level by approximately 20 centimetres is visible. The walls, particularly those on the east where the range is situated, are covered in blackened grease and smoke residue.
","history":"Jimna Single Men's Barracks in Tip Road constructed at Jimna, 40 kilometres north of Kilcoy, demonstrate the development of the timber industry in southern Queensland. The Jimna Single Men's Barracks is a remnant of the accommodation for workers in this privately-operated timber town. The barracks provided accommodation in a remote location for timber workers and demonstrates the principal characteristics of workers' accommodation. It has a strong association with the Hancock and Gore Ltd, a major Queensland timber firm, which operated the timber town of Jimna from 1922 for approximately 50 years while milling timber obtained from native forest, then forestry plantations, around Jimna.
By the turn of the 20th century the most desirable timbers in the easily accessible coastal areas of southeast Queensland were heavily depleted and the main focus of activity was moving inland. The opening of a branch line between Caboolture and Woodford in 1909, which was extended to Kilcoy in 1913, stimulated more timber-getting and sawmilling along its route and in forested areas within travelling distance of the railhead.
The siting of Jimna conformed to a number of criteria for establishment of sawmilling townships. Jimna is situated on the Jimna Range approximately 1690 feet (515.11 metres) above sea level on the western side of Yabba Creek about 40 kilometres from Kilcoy. Proximity to the Kilcoy branch line made timber-felling and sawmilling there viable. According to E.S. Hancock of Hancock and Gore Ltd. bush sawmills were set up because royalties for the timber were assessed on the basis of the cost of extraction of logs to the nearest railway siding plus freight to the market, which was either a provincial city or Brisbane. When the logs were converted to timber in the country there was a saving in freight because, in the case of pine, there was a loss of approximately 25 per cent in sawdust and edging, and in hardwood a 50 per cent loss. Consequently, the saving in freight costs to market by railway, although not equivalent to the sawdust reduction was attractive. Furthermore, sawmill settlements were placed close to well-timbered forests on a site with a good water supply.
Hancock and Gore Ltd evolved from the firm Hancock Brothers Ltd sawmillers and timber merchants, established at North Ipswich in 1872 by Thomas Hancock. Born in Cornwall in 1816, Hancock came to Queensland via Sydney with his three sons and one daughter. He started a steam sawmill at the Rosewood Scrub and later opened a timber yard in North Ipswich and a small mill in Canning Street, Ipswich. When Thomas Hancock retired in 1884 the firm was taken over by his sons, Josiah and Thomas, jnr. The firm of Hancock and Gore was established in 1898 and converted to a limited liability company in 1904. Under the managing directorship of Josias Henry Hancock, grandson of the founder, the company expanded rapidly. It built mills at 13 rural centres in Queensland, five locations in Brisbane and at Rosebery and Lismore in New South Wales. In 1911 the firm moved to its Ipswich Road, Brisbane headquarters. In this period, sawmilling commenced at Monsildale in the Upper Brisbane Valley where in 1912 Hancock and Gore Ltd built a new mill on land rented from James Horne. The company's business interests expanded to include a case mill in Ipswich Road, Brisbane c1920, a ply mill and a hot press for plywood manufacture in the 1930s. The company became Australia's largest producer of plywood by 1945. Hancock and Gore continued to grow and expand to include the businesses: Brown & Broad, the Timber Corporation Ltd, The Rosebery Sawmilling Co, Cypress Timbers Ltd, Burts Transport Ltd, and Hancock and Gore Homes Ltd; forming the largest timber organisation in Queensland circa 1955. In 1981 the company was taken over by Takone Pty Limited.
Established in 1922, Jimna resulted from the relocation from Monsildale (seven miles away) of the sawmill, 16 houses, shop, store and provisional school. In 1922 the Jimna area was called Foxlowe the name purportedly given by George Byrne who had selected land along Yabba Creek in 1878. It was renamed Jimna by the GPO Department when naming the post office of the township between 1924 and June 1926. The removal and relocation of buildings from Monsildale occurred over a period of a few months. The first residents arrived to occupy the houses in August 1922. By November the mill was in working order and commenced cutting timber to be used for the construction of new houses and repairs to the old ones brought from Monsildale. In the same month, the store and butcher's shop were removed from Monsildale to Foxlowe and opened for business immediately.
Growth of Jimna township ensued over the next few decades. The population in 1924 was about 150 including 65 children, of whom 35 attended the provisional school. This school was replaced by a state school in 1934. Jimna expanded to a population of over 300 after re-forestation around Jimna commenced in the 1930s. Its population was at its highest when both pine and hardwood mills operated at Jimna, after 1943. The settlement had its own tennis and cricket club and a local hall was the venue for dances and religious services. The township was self-contained with Hancock and Gore supplying meat from their own fattening paddocks and slaughter yards.
The entire Jimna operation including timber cutters was controlled by Hancock and Gore Ltd. Once re-erected in 1922, the mill at Jimna was enlarged and in 1924 it was capable of turning out 80,000 super feet of sawn pine weekly. Initially the mill cut only hoop pine using steam-driven saws. In 1933 the Architect and Building Journal of Queensland reported that Jimna Mill milled approximately 23,000 feet of logs into wide boards and building timbers each day while the top logs were milled into case timber. At Brisbane the building timbers were planed on Hancock and Gore's planning machines and manufactured into all kinds of building timbers including lining boards and flooring. The case timbers were re-sawn and manufactured into butter boxes, jam cases, fruit cases, kerosene cases etc. Specially selected logs were transported to Brisbane for manufacture into "Bull-dog" plywood and Hancock and Gore Ltd high class joinery. Bringing timber to the mill were 15 bullock teams and 11 lorries, while five lorries delivered the sawn and seasoned timber to Kilcoy railway station for transportation to Hancock and Gore establishments in Brisbane. The record for the greatest daily output of pine was 48,000 super feet in 8 hours and for 10 hours work on the same day the cut was 64,500 super feet.
The area around Jimna was predominantly rainforest, thick with hoop pine when the Hancock and Gore mill commenced operations in 1922. This valuable resource was eventually cut out. Jimna became the site of reforestation experiments circa 1935 when a Forest Ranger was sent to Jimna to establish a nursery located on the site of the present forestry administration building. The establishment of hoop pine plantations in the region began in 1938.
Concerns about the depletion of native timbers in the period leading up to the 1930s led to the establishment of plantation forestry in south-east Queensland. As early as the late 19th century, it had become clear that the logging of native timbers at its current rate was unsustainable. The Acclimatisation Society and sawmillers such as William Pettigrew were among those calling for better management of the colony's forests. Various attempts to regulate timber-getters proved unsuccessful and by 1906, cedar was virtually extinct in south east Queensland. In 1897, in a bid to improve forest management, amendments were made to the Crown Lands Act which allowed for the proclamation of State Forests and in 1900 a Forestry Branch was created in the Department of Public Lands to continue reservation of well-timbered lands where necessary. From 1905, a policy of setting aside land for managed forests began to be pursued on the recommendations of the Forestry Branch. However, tension continued to persist between the advocates of forest conservation and interests associated with agriculture, pastoralism and timber industries both inside and outside of government.
Progress was made when N.M. Jolly, appointed as Director of Forests in 1910, recognised the urgent need for regeneration of native forests and for plantations of native and exotic timbers. He established a number of experimental stations and conducted experiments with the natural and artificial regeneration of hoop, bunya, cedar and exotics. Plantation forestry began in earnest during the tenure of Jolly's successor, E.H.F. Swain (1918 - 1932). Swain established the State's first commercial plantations in 1920 to 1921, planting native seedlings in the Mary Valley, Atherton and Fraser Island. An independent Forestry Department was created in 1924, with much of its workforce supplied from returned soldiers employed under a Federal Government subsidy. A comprehensive survey of remaining forests was conducted by the Forestry Department in the 1920s. It was clear that more State Forests would be needed and also substantial plantations of exotic pines. With the exception of hoop pine, native timbers did not do well in plantations.
During the 1930s and 1940s upgrading and expansion of the Jimna sawmill continued. In 1935 when an electric planing machine was installed, a generator was used as the power source. It was also utilised to supply homes and streetlights with power. The planer was closed in 1942 to concentrate on timber for the war effort. In 1943 a hardwood mill was started. When the pine mill burned down in 1947 it was immediately re-built with much more modern machinery. Thinnings from the Forestry Department's hoop pine plantations were first milled at Jimna in 1947 or 1948. The Forestry Department maintained a presence in the area thereafter. Upgrading of machinery and power sources continued into the 1960s.
The Jimna mill closed in the early 1970s when it became more economical for the company to transport logs to mills on the coast than keep the sawmill operating. The mill was dismantled in the mid-1970s and thereafter the store, butcher and baker shops and post office closed as the workforce left. Where houses were occupied the Forestry Department offered to transfer the occupation leases to the occupants. Unoccupied houses were demolished or burned and almost half the buildings in the town disappeared. In 1984 the Forestry Department offered to freehold property and most residents purchased their houses.
In 2007, the remaining evidence of the town's 50 year history as a timber-milling settlement are the Single Men's Barracks with associated cookhouse; some houses for married workers in Dingo Parade, which was previously known as Honeymoon Avenue; the store, which has been altered significantly; the provisional school and state school buildings; the community hall; married men's quarters that date from 1957 or 1958 and have been relocated; and the concrete slab and mountings of the generator that powered the mill.
Some changes to the Single Men's Barracks have occurred over time. The original verandah is now only partly enclosed with windows, has been divided in two with a wall and door, and has had a store room erected at its eastern end. Openings have been made between a number of single rooms to allow them to operate as flats. A small, northern deck has been added and can be accessed from one of the newly-created flats or suite of rooms. Underneath, steel support columns with individual pad footings have been installed; except for at the eastern end the building where concrete block has been used to enclose a number of wet service rooms. The cookhouse does not appear to have been altered significantly, other than to have the original range removed and another installed. The garden and fence to the southern façade of the barracks building has been altered since 1984, as the only close-up photographic evidence reveals.
Without any evidence from historical records, dating the building by its fabric alone is difficult, but it is most likely to have been erected between late 1922 when the sawmill began operation and the beginning of WW II. This estimate is based on its overall form, which features an enclosed verandah and a single roof over the entire structure; and the use of a single skin of fibrous cement sheeting on internal partition walls; as well as a number of elements believed to be original: the style of the casement windows with a number of lights and a predominance of mottled glazing, and the dark brown Bakelite electrolier light fittings (lights and adjacent cord-operated switch fixed to ceiling on timber board). Such a estimate would place the construction of the barracks at a time when the mill's operations was expanding in the 1930s and 40s.
","criteria":"Jimna Single Men's Barracks (c1930) is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland history relating to the timber industry in southern Queensland, which was the most productive timber-getting region in the State. Jimna demonstrates the phase of inland timber-getting after the easily accessible coastal softwoods were depleted in the 19th century. Dating from 1922 Jimna was one of the sites of timber retrieval facilitated and intrinsically linked to branch rail line development.
Jimna Single Men's Barracks demonstrates the practice by private companies involved in the removal and milling of Queensland timbers from native and later plantation forests of providing the infrastructure, in particular accommodation, of inland timber towns built around mill sites.
|The Jimna Single Men's Barracks has a strong association with the company, Hancock and Gore Limited, once one of Queensland's largest timber firms, which established the township at Jimna in 1922 for the express purpose of timber retrieval and milling, and which also provided accommodation and services for its employees; functions which continued for approximately 50 years.
|Jimna Single Men's Barracks is representative of the infrastructure of private timber towns. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the accommodation that was created for the express purpose of housing unmarried timber workers in remote locations. Its features include: a long, gable-roofed timber building containing a row of single rooms serving as men's sleeping quarters and opening onto a building-length verandah, and an intact and distinctively formed cookhouse framed with timber and clad in corrugated iron.
|Jimna Single Men's Barracks, is a remnant of a privately-operated timber town, a form of settlement which was once common but has been almost entirely dismantled. The barracks is a rare example of workers' accommodation provided by a private timber company.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30231,"place_ref":602686,"name":"Kin Kin Sawmill","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Sister Tree Creek Road Kin Kin","suburb":"KIN KIN","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-11-27","description":"Standing against the backdrop of the surrounding hills on Sister Tree Creek Road west of the town of Kin Kin, the Kin Kin Sawmill occupies a flat open area to the east of Kin Kin Creek. The structures associated with the sawmill operations comprise the large open mill shed, a small timber office building, a number of timber and corrugated iron sheds and the sawdust/waste area. The site also accommodates timber storage areas and forklift and other vehicle parking.
Sawmill shed
Standing close to the road at the southeast corner of the site, the heart of the mill operations is an open timber framed shed with corrugated iron clad roofs. The main part is sheltered by a gable roof the north side of which extends west over the docker area and northeast with a small skillion roof over the number two bench. The shed is framed with sawn and unsawn timber, the roof supported by round posts. The compact milling operation is organised around the sequence of saws and the accompanying benches, motors, trolleys and rails accommodated within the shed. The saws stand in a line from the breakdown saw (Canadian saw) to the south to the number two bench saw to the north. Timber logs are stacked by forklift at the southwest, rolled onto a trolley where they are secured with a dog and run through the breakdown saw for the half cut. The cut logs then roll across to the number one bench saw where the bark is stripped and the half logs are cut into 2" (50mm) or 2.5" (62.5mm) width planks. The cut planks are stacked north of the number one bench and taken across to the number two bench saw where they are cut into thinner 1" (25mm) boards which are stacked to the west and taken across to the docker where they are cut into shorter lengths (mostly 6 metres). From here the boards pass to the groover where the sides are grooved before being placed in the pallet stack west of the log stack. A number of trolleys on rails take the offcuts and waste from the various bench areas out to the west side of the shed.
The original hand operated winch for moving logs through the breakdown saw stands to the east of the trolley rails for the breakdown saw and the early electrical insulators trace the original path of the cabling along the underside of the roof.
","history":"The Kin Kin Sawmill, established in 1948 by Arthur Hempsall and his son Lionel, is located midway between Gympie and Noosa in the Sunshine Coast township of the same name. The Hempsall family owned the mill until 1991 when it was sold to Geoff Ellis. It continues to operate as a small mill with much of its original machinery and layout still intact.
South Queensland produced the largest amount of timber in the State by the middle of the 20th century: in the North Coast region, there were some 122 sawmills in 1949, the largest number in the State. The quantity of logs cut on the North Coast in 1947-48 was over 40000, the third largest in the State behind Brisbane and Atherton.
The Kin Kin sawmill was originally established to produce wooden packing cases for the local fruit growing industry. The North Coast was an important fruit growing region and during the first half of the 20th century, Kin Kin was one of the State's most productive banana growing areas. The sawmill produced cases for bananas, pineapples, beans, apples and plums. Cases were railed from Pomona railway station to destinations as far afield as Brisbane and the fruit growing areas near Stanthorpe.
Case milling was an important industry associated with fruit growing. It was valued because it provided a useful outlet for timber which would otherwise have no economic value. There was a high demand for fruit and vegetable cases in the immediate post-War period with case milling peaking in 1949. 45% of cases were manufactured for packaging fresh fruit but they were also used for a range of other foodstuffs and manufactured goods. By the early 1950s, corrugated fibre board containers, developed during World War II, began to compete with the traditional wooden cases and the latter experienced a steady decline in use. By 1955 - 56 there were still some 58 wooden case manufacturers in the State comprising mostly small firms. Some 40% of the case millers in Queensland also milled timber for other uses.
Although not dissimilar in layout to other types of sawmills, case mills were typically smaller in scale owing to the smaller size of the logs that were milled and the smaller size of the end product. A three person mill, comprising a single circular saw bench (number one bench) and a docking saw, could produce up to 500 cases per day. Logs were broken down at the number one bench into longitudinal lengths of timber (flitches). The flitches were cut to required length at the docking saw. Waste material from the initial breaking down process (including edging) was cut down for firewood at the docking saw or disposed of. The lengths of timber ready for assembly as cases were known as 'shooks'.
Larger, general purpose mills typically comprised three circular saws and a docker. The initial break-down of the log was usually carried out at the Canadian bench (the largest circular saw). Further sizing was carried out at number one and two benches and the planks were cut to length at the docker.
When initially erected, the Kin Kin mill comprised only the number one saw bench and a docking saw. Both of these saws are still extant, but the docking saw has been relocated within the shed. The saws were powered by a tractor. Probably from the early 1950s after the mill was connected to electricity, a Canadian Saw, and number two bench were added and the docking saw was moved. The mill layout has remained largely unchanged since then. In its present form it resembles a typical sawmill layout of the 1950s. The original hand operated winch for moving logs through the breakdown saw remains extant and also the early electrical insulators tracing the original path of the cabling along the underside of the roof.
The mill originally cut soft wood timber for cases. This was cut to the required lengths and then packaged for delivery to the farmers who assembled the cases. The mill subsequently moved into cutting timber for pallets, and hardwood milling for electricity pole cross-arms and railway sleepers. In 2007, the mill was cutting softwood for assembly into packing cases for glass. It is one of the few sawmills of its era that is still operating on the North Coast.
","criteria":"The sawmill is uncommon in the region as an intact example of a small saw mill originally established to produce timber for fruit packing cases. Mills of this type were common in the fruit growing areas of the State until the late 1950s when the use of wooden packing cases declined.
The mill is also uncommon in the region for its continuity of operation since the 1940s. The basic layout of the shed remains largely unchanged since the 1950s and original items of machinery continue to form key components of the operation. Economic and environmental factors have meant that sawmills of this era have become increasingly rare.
|The Kin Kin Sawmill (1948) is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland's timber industry insofar as it was established when the North Coast (now the Sunshine Coast) was one of the most important timber producing regions in the state. During the period that the mill was established, the North Coast contained more sawmills than anywhere else in Queensland.
As a sawmill originally established to produce timber for fruit packing cases, it is also important in demonstrating the evolution of the State's fruit growing industry. At the time, the North Coast was among the most productive fruit growing regions in the State. It is also indicative of the former use of timber as a material for packing cases. By the 1950s, timber was being superseded by corrugated fibre board as the preferred material for packaging.
|The sawmill is a highly intact example of a small sawmill originally established to produce timber for packaging cases. The layout and all of the components typically found in a small mill of the 1950s remain including: the characteristic open-sided shed, early electrical insulators tracing the route of the original cabling, breakdown (Canadian) saw, number one and two saw benches, docking saw, original hand operated winch, rails and trolleys. The milling operation continues to follow the traditional packing case sequence of initial cut at the breakdown (Canadian) saw, sizing at the number one and two benches and cut to lengths at the docker.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30232,"place_ref":602691,"name":"North Pine Pumping Station","alternate_name":"Dayboro Road Pumping Station","street_address":"Lake Kurwongbah-Dayboro Road","suburb":"KURWONGBAH","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-01-28","description":"Tucked into a bend in Dayboro Road southwest of Lake Kurwongbah, the North Pine Pumping Station backs onto the North Pine River. From Dayboro Road the pumping station is seen as a discreet single-storey orange facebrick building sheltered by a tiled hip roof. This part of the building houses the control room.
The main components of the pumping operation are the river inlet, basement and chamber, and the control room. The operations are computer controlled allowing the station to function unmanned.
Arranged over two levels, the building is organised around a compact plan meeting its functional program of drawing water from the river and pumping it to the nearby water treatment plant or to Lake Kurwongbah dam. The building rises approximately 20 metres as a concrete shaft from its base on the riverbank to four tapered concrete beams supporting the concrete floor of the control room.
Approached across a concrete driveway from Dayboro Road, the building has two entrances - the main entrance which is defined by recessed brickwork is a timber door shielded by a decorative metal door and the other is a roller door defined by a projecting surround in darker brick. Lettering over the main entrance doorway identifies the building as 'Pine Shire Council Pumping Station' and a plaque commemorating the turning of the sod ceremony is fixed between the main and roller door entrances. A bank of narrow louvres sits over the roller door. The long elevations contain five bays defined by plain projecting pilasters with a six-light frosted wire-glass steel framed window to the middle of each bay. The river elevation is divided into three bays by projecting pilasters with the end bays accommodating sets of windows matching those found on the long elevations. The window to the south bay accommodates a metal exhaust vent to the upper half. The sets of six-light windows have a fixed tilted lower middle light.
The entrance level contains a foyer, small office and control room. The foyer accommodates a timber shelf, cupboards and a hand basin and leads into the enclosed office with a built-in timber desk below a glazed window which allows surveillance of the control room. The concrete floor of the control room has six removable metal grates for access to the chamber and basement below. A portable tubular steel frame safety barrier sitting in the room is placed around the hole when a grate is removed. The control room accommodates a number of metal cabinets housing the computerised controls for the pumping plant. A gantry crane travels on rails along the length of the room. The gantry rails are carried by concrete beams supported by concrete columns with corbelled capitals. The interior is plastered and painted. Concrete steps from the control room descend down to the basement winding down along the inner northeast wall.
Evidence of the early manual operation of the station survives. The wheel handle valve controls are now gone but marks on the control room floor indicate the locations of their footings. The steel frame within the chamber accommodates the fixings for the shafts that ran down from the wheel handles to the pipes at the basement level. The original Kemp hydraulic controls machine now stands near the roller door. It once stood on the raised concrete pad at the river side of the control room. Associated with this is the lever control mounted on a small pedestal which stands in the middle of the control room. The lever control opened and shut the valves which when they were too tight had to be manipulated by hand. This hydraulic control mechanism is no longer operational. Dotted lines on the control room floor near the lever pedestal indicate that the river valves are to the southeast and the dam valves to the northwest. Three original pressure gauges are housed in a timber panel below the middle window on the northwest wall. These were connected to the pumps.
Below the control room a three to four storey volume chamber drops to the pumps, pipes, valves, drains, pits and motors housed at the basement level. There are six raw water variable speed pumps (these replaced the original four single speed pumps). The cantilevered concrete stairs winding down along the northeast wall of the chamber rest at a number of open metal grate gangways which run around the inner perimeter. The concrete stairs and metal gangways have tubular metal rails. The metal gangways, steel frame that housed the shafts, various conduits, conduit platforms, rising pipes and plant are contained within the chamber. There are two windows to the middle of the chamber wall on both the river and southwest sides just below the control room.
One flight down from the control room a door to the northwest opens onto external metal stairs which lead down to the river intake facility. The river intake facility is housed below the pumping station beneath a concrete platform at the edge of the river. Metal grille screens run across the inlet. A block and tackle is fitted to the hook on the steel frame at the end of the concrete platform to pull the screens up for cleaning. The intake draws water from the river and through the pumping station by a series of valve controlled pipes power by electric motors housed in the basement level from where it is pumped via two mains to the water treatment plant in Monaro Drive, Petrie or into the Lake Kurwongbah dam. Water is also pumped from the dam to the water treatment plant.
Additional pits, pipes and valves are located beneath the external metal stair and the front concrete driveway.
A small brick toilet block stands to the southeast of the station.
Wunderlich clay tiles in a Marseilles pattern which were removed from the station roof lie in piles behind the toilet.
The pumping station is set within grassed and treed paddocks. A barbed wire fence runs around the property.
","history":"The Pine River Pumping Station is located on Dayboro Road opposite Lake Kurwongbah dam near Petrie. It is an important component of the North Pine Water Supply scheme constructed in the late 1950s to supply water to the former Pine Rivers Shire, Redcliffe and the Amcor carton board mill at Petrie.
A scheme to supply water to the (then) townships of Strathpine, Lawnton, Petrie and Kallangur was first proposed in 1946. Water was to be obtained from Brisbane City Council via the South Pine River Bridge. However, before this proposal could be acted upon, Pine Shire Council (now Pine Rivers Shire Council) was approached by Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM) (now Amcor) and the Coordinator General's Department who advised them of the future water needs of APM's planned carton board mill at Petrie. The cardboard making process requires large quantities of water and so an adequate water supply was a vital part of the required infrastructure for the mill.
Soon after the initial approach, APM presented the council with a proposal for a scheme supplying water from the North Pine River. In 1949, council undertook to proceed with this scheme and to act as the constructing authority. Acting on advice from the Local Government Department, council modified the scheme so that water could also be drawn from a dam on Sideling Creek if needed. By 1954, the planned scheme was expanded to also supply water to Redcliffe Town Council.
The APM mill at Petrie was the largest industrial undertaking in southern Queensland during the immediate post-war period and probably the largest individual industrial unit to be constructed by the private sector in Queensland to that date. It made an important contribution to the post-war development of Queensland's secondary industries. Prior to World War II, Queensland lacked secondary industries of any note and from the 1950s the Queensland government encouraged their growth. The State assisted APM to establish the mill and assisted with financing the water supply scheme by granting a 50% subsidy and helping with raising loans. In 2004, the Petrie Mill was the only coated carton board manufacturing plant in Australia, producing about thirty different carton board products and with production exceeding 140,000 tonnes per annum.
The agreement that ultimately formed the foundation of the project was signed by Pine Shire Council, Redcliffe Town Council and APM at a ceremony attended by the State Premier on 29th June 1955. Under its terms, Pine Shire Council was to supply APM and Redcliffe Town Council with specified quantities of water at cost price for a period of 60 years.
Under the agreement, Pine Shire Council was responsible for constructing the scheme that consisted of three major components: the pumping station, a dam on Sideling Creek and a filtration works. The council's consulting engineers, John Wilson and Partners, designed and managed the project assisted by Scott and Furphy, consulting engineers of Melbourne.
The pumping station was the first major construction of the project. A sod turning ceremony was held at the pump house site on 18 February 1956 to mark the commencement of the project. The State treasurer, who officiated at the ceremony, noted that the pump house was the nucleus of the scheme.
Construction of the pump house by Brisbane firm KD Morris & Sons Pty Ltd reached completion in mid-1957. The pumps were installed by Alfred Snahall Anthon Pty Ltd. When built, the station housed two 100,000 gallons (454,609 litres) per hour and two 50,000 gallons (227,304.5 litres) per hour pumps together with ancillary equipment. Water could be drawn from the adjacent North Pine River or from the dam to be constructed nearby on Sideling Creek. Water was conveyed from the dam, later to be known as Lake Kurwongbah, via a tunnel containing a 30 inch (76.2cm) main that passed under the Petrie to Dayboro Road. The station could also be configured to top up the dam by pumping water from the North Pine River. The pumping station cost around £86,000.
In its essential elements, the station building follows standard design principles for pump stations of the time. For cost and maintenance reasons, the pumps are located below the river level. This means that although the station presents as a single storey building from the road, the floor of the building, where the pumps are located, is over 20 metres below the entrance. The electrical control mechanisms and offices are above river flood levels on the same floor as the entrance.
The completed water supply scheme was officially opened by the Honourable HW Noble (State Minister for Health and Home Affairs) in April 1961, though it had first supplied water to the APM mill in 1957. When opened, it was Queensland's third largest water supply scheme outside of Brisbane; the cost of construction was around £1,000,000.
Subsequently to its construction, the pump station has undergone a number of changes. Externally, the roof tiles have been replaced. Inside the station, the pumps have been upgraded from single speed to variable speed units and the operation, originally manual, has been computerised.
The establishment of the mill and the construction of the water supply created a surge of development in the Pine Shire. By 1961, when the scheme was opened, the Pine Shire Mayor noted that houses were being built in the shire at the rate of one every two days and that property sales in the previous year had reached a record figure. The villages of the shire which had existed for decades as tiny rural settlements were beginning their transformation into urbanised outer suburbs of greater Brisbane.
","criteria":"In a grassed and treed setting overlooking the North Pine River and Lake Kurwongbah, this robust utility building designed in a discrete classical idiom is a picturesque treatment of a utility structure. From the river the building is a surprise, rising dramatically as a soaring concrete shaft.
|The North Pine Pump Station (1957) formed an integral part of the infrastructure for Australian Paper Manufacturers' (now Amcor's) Cartonboard Mill at Petrie (1957). This was reported to be the largest industrial undertaking in southern Queensland during the post-war period. Prior to World War II, Queensland had few secondary industries; the pump station is important in demonstrating the post-war expansion of this sector of the State's economy.
The pump station was also part of the North Pine Water Supply Scheme, Pine (now Pine Rivers) Shire's first water reticulation scheme and important infrastructure contributing to the growth of the shire in the 1950s and 1960s. As such, it is important in demonstrating the development of Brisbane's outer suburbs during the post-war period. The establishment of the mill and the water supply scheme in the late 1950s marked the beginning of the transformation of the small rural settlements of Pine Shire into commuter suburbs of the State's capital.
|The pump station formed part of important infrastructure for Australian Paper Manufacturers' Mill. As such it has close association with the largest post war undertaking in Southern Queensland and a company that continues to be of national importance.
|A well-conceived utility structure, the North Pine Pumping Station is a small scale industrial building designed to accommodate the operations for water pumping. Although now computerised (no longer manually operated), the station retains much original plant and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this building type. In its essential elements, the station follows the standard design principles for pumping stations. It presents from the road as a single storey building with the bulk of the structure housed below. The intake pumps are located below river level and draw water into the mains for pumping through a series of pipes and valves to the water treatment plant. The basement contains the main plant for the pumping operations including pipes, valves, drains, pits and motors. The control room sits safely above flood level and houses the equipment that operates and monitors the plant. This room is connected to the basement by a chamber.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30255,"place_ref":602706,"name":"Noosa River Caravan Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Russell Street","suburb":"NOOSAVILLE","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"Occupying 2.98 hectares of waterfront land off Russell Street at Noosaville, the Noosa River Caravan Park is a green and leafy site with grassed areas and scatterings of trees, shrubs and hedges on the sandy river front at Munna Point. Bounded by the Noosa River to the northwest and Weyba Creek to the northeast, the park offers expansive views up and down the Noosa River and across to Noosa Sound.
The park offers powered and unpowered van and tent sites, river front beaches and a day picnic area. Facilities include a large open camp kitchen shed, a boat ramp access to Noosa River and two masonry amenities blocks. A caretaker's residence and office stand near the entrance off Russell Street. There are a number of parking spaces along the northwest side of the spine road.
The park is organised off a spine road which runs the length of the site with finger roadways running off to the southeast. The powered van sites each front a finger roadway and have a concrete slab to accommodate a van. There are a number of unpowered van sites to the northeast end off the circular roadway that terminates the spine. Running along the river side of the spine road from the park entrance there are the day picnic area, boat ramp and an unpowered tent area terminating at the beach at the north end. A number of powered tent sites are located to the rear of the park at the northeast and south ends. The grassed and treed day picnic area fronts the sandy edge of the Noosa River and accommodates picnic tables, BBQs and a fish gutting table.
There is no permanent accommodation offered (maximum stay is three months) and the park does not offer on-site cabins or vans.
","history":"Noosa River Caravan Park is located between Russell Street and the Noosa River at Noosaville at a site known as Munna Point. It was established in 1956 as a reserve for camping and recreation under the trusteeship of the Noosa Shire Council. Previously the land had been reserved for public purposes from 1884 and camping on the site is recorded from circa 1929. As motorised transport became dominant and leisure time increased, particularly post-World War II, this site was established as a caravan park to meet the needs of the growing number of caravanning holiday-makers whose destination was the North Coast. Its still-water river-side location, easily accessible by car from the major Tewantin to Noosa road, and its range of accommodation and amenities, which have evolved over time, demonstrate all the features of a typical caravan park.
This site was originally part of a Reserve for Aboriginal Mission Purposes that extended from a point east of Tewantin to Noosa Heads following the Noosa River, and south along the coastline, as shown on an 1871 cadastral map. One early settler in the area recorded that Munna Point was a favourite camping place and fishing spot for indigenous people and a corroborree site. The Aboriginal Mission Reserve was cancelled in 1878 and a Noosa Heads township was gazetted in the following year. In 1884 an 80 acre Reserve for Public Purposes, which incorporated all of Munna Point including the future site of the Reserve for Camping and Recreation, was declared.
The North Coast region began to develop as a holiday destination at the end of the 19th century but poor access inhibited its growth. Tewantin, Maroochydore and Caloundra developed as recreational destinations from the 1880s. This reflected the preferences of the Victorian era for a calm shallow stretch of river or still-water seaside location which allowed safe bathing, boating and fishing. Camping along rivers and on reserves occurred especially over the Christmas-New Year period.
All three settlements remained small before World War I, used mainly by their small hinterland populations rather than visitors from Brisbane. North Coast tourists arrived by train at stations between Landsborough and Cooroy before using local forms of motorised transport to reach coastal destinations from railway stations between Landsborough to Cooroy. Tewantin was the largest of the three owing to its pre-existing role as a port settlement serving Gympie and the local timber industry.
As transport networks improved accessibility, the resort settlements became more popular. During the interwar period Tewantin remained more prominent than its neighbouring settlement at Noosa Heads and it continued to be important even after vehicular access was opened to Noosa Heads in 1929. Tewantin was the commercial centre and most holiday facilities were located there. A wooden swimming enclosure was located in the river adjacent to the wharves on the western bank at Tewantin from as early as 1915. The Parkyn family had a jetty, boat hire and bait business upstream from the later site of the Lake Doonella Bridge.
North Coast tourist development was fostered by substantial improvements to the region's road transport network during the interwar period. From the early 1920s, road works by local councils and the Main Roads Commission improved connections between inland and coastal settlements. Improved road access from Brisbane and inland towns during the 1930s increased the popularity of the North Coast as a resort. During the 1930s most of the Bruce Highway to Nambour was bituminised. The construction of the bridges and road linking Tewantin and Noosa boosted the latter's prospects and the settlement was gazetted as a township in 1930.
The opening in 1929 of the Doonella Bridge at Tewantin over Lake Doonella and the Weyba Creek Bridge instigated development at Noosaville and Munna Point. Tewantin businessman Jack Parkyn, who owned the launch Miss Tewantin, diverted the boat from her previous major use as a down-river ferry to carrying tourist groups on cruises as far up the river and its lake system as Boreen Point. He purchased land at the more easterly section of Noosaville, known as Munna Point, where he developed a holiday complex. Additionally, he bought other individual allotments in the Noosaville area where he constructed holiday houses and flats. On a block of allotments in Russell Street, Munna Point, he erected a complex consisting of a row of six holiday homes, which proved to be very successful, and a general store to provide items needed by local residents and the holidaymakers who were staying in his houses. Fishing was a very popular pastime on the Noosa River and Jack Parkyn encouraged visitors holidaying in his houses to participate in this sport by providing a rowing boat with each holiday house he let an entrepreneurial action that was well received by his patrons. The advent of personal motor transport increased in interest in camping and caravanning by holidaymakers in the downstream reaches of the river. On the side of Russell Street opposite his holiday house complex in Munna Point, Jack Parkyn began clearing the existing reserve to open it for these purposes. Undergrowth was cleared to prevent the breeding of midges. With the establishment of the Munna Point venture, visitor numbers to the facility continued to increase.
With the considerable growth of car ownership during the interwar period caravans began appearing on Queensland roads. Caravans offered freedom for the affluent motor tourist, without sacrificing comfort. As a 'home away from home', fitted with modern conveniences, caravans were markedly different from the simplicity of camping under a canvas tent. Caravans were an alternative to local hotels and guesthouses, the latter being in high demand during peak seasons, and providing varying levels of quality.
Post-World War II the popularity of caravans became more noticeable as the tourist industry resumed its pre-war expansion predicated on improved roads. In 1946, the Road Ahead was noting the numbers of motor tourists from Victoria and New South Wales holidaying in Queensland. There was estimated to be 12,000 caravans on Australia roads by 1948/49. The Caravan Club of Australia was formed in 1948 and a Brisbane branch had been established by 1951, offering advice to visitors.
The RACQ fostered the popularity of caravanning in Queensland by pushing for changes to restrictive road laws and improved caravanning facilities. The 1950 Queensland Traffic Act limited cars towing caravans to 25 miles per hour, compared to 50 for cars. By 1960 this speed had been lifted to 40. From 1949 when increasing numbers of caravans were appearing on North Coast roads the RACQ was urging local authorities on tourist routes to provide 'well equipped camps 'to prepare for the boom'. In 1954, RACQ Secretary Len King drew attention to the poor state of Queensland's caravan parks, noting that the average caravanner spent £5 in the local area in which they stayed. King accompanied the Club's vice-president J.M Marshall on a tour to north Queensland, with the objective of demonstrating to local authorities and the press the lack of adequate provisions for caravanning tourists. The club published Modern Caravan Parks offering advice to local authorities and others interested in establishing caravan parks.
The growth of motor tourism during the 1950s was stimulated by the lifting of petrol rationing by the Menzies government, the increased affordability of cars for the wider population and longer paid holidays. Other factors that influenced the development of tourism on the Sunshine Coast were the popular taste for beach holidays and population growth in South-east Queensland. This in turn influenced the number of caravan users and development of caravan parks. Development of the Noosa area was boosted by the opening of the coastal road (David Low Way) in 1960 linking the main resorts at Caloundra, Maroochydore and Noosa.
Intrinsically linked to the rise of motor transport and improved roads were caravan parks. From the late 1930s, private developers were the first to offer caravan parks with modern facilities and structured layout. By 1960, a mix of public and private parks had been established on what was becoming known as the Sunshine Coast.
The site of Noosa River Caravan Park (about 2.98ha) was reserved as a Reserve for Caravan and Camping Purposes in 1956 by its excision from the 80 acre Reserve for Public Purposes at Munna Point. This early reservation of the Noosa River Caravan Park as a caravan and camping reserve places it at the vanguard of the caravanning period. Queensland caravan registration figures increased substantially from 2320 in 1953 to 5406 in 1961. Caravan manufacturers and saleyards (at least 18 in Brisbane by 1960) took their place on outer suburban commercial strips. Rental and second hand vans were common.
In the early 1950s, relatively few sites in Queensland offered the necessary infrastructure to accommodate caravanning needs. Calls for improvements to sites and facilities accompanied increased caravan usage. Advocates looked to the United States and the United Kingdom for examples of best practice in caravan parks. Caravanning guides and journals offered suggestions for layout and features. These were a more formal arrangement of space than camping, characterised by grid or circular layouts and landscaped grounds.
Features common to caravan parks include location near a main road, a prominent entrance, on-site caretakers/proprietors, recreation room, levelled concrete slabs, landscaped grounds, hose connections, electricity, large amenities block with washing machines and hot showers. Many parks offered on-site vans for rental. Park listings in 1961 record 'tradespeople' calling to parks, to deliver essentials like bread and milk.
Continual updating of facilities in caravan parks has also been a common trend. Development of private and public caravan parks expanded during the 1960s. An inspection by RACQ club officials in 1962 of the state's caravan and camping grounds noted the progress through local government efforts, especially advancements by privately owned parks. Many council camping grounds became known as 'caravan parks' as site facilities became more geared to their use. Over time, investment in facilities at Council-operated caravan parks increased as tourism came to play a greater economic role in the region. In 1966 a new amenities block was finished at Munna Point and it was decided by the Noosa Shire Council to bring rates for use in line with those of Noosa Heads and Tewantin 'in view of campers using additional electrical appliances there was a necessity to review scale of charges' according to Shire Health Inspector. On the coastal strip between Noosa and Caloundra in 1968, there were 24 sites operating as caravan parks and five out of the six council camping reserves offered facilities for caravans, including power. This was a significant increase since 1960, marking the decade as a high point for caravan park development on the Sunshine Coast.
By the 1970s, caravanning was a well established and common leisure practice. A self-contained holiday in a caravan became an annual ritual for many campers, often returning to the same park year after year, members of a holiday community linked by shared experiences of place.
After private houses, caravans were the most popular form of holiday accommodation in Australia in 1976. They were significant contributors to local economies in tourist regions, through accommodation fees and flow on effects to other local businesses.
During the last 25 years development on the North Coast has been especially rapid with the population of the Sunshine Coast growing at around twice the rate of the State as a whole. The Sunshine Coast is now Queensland's third largest tourist destination in terms of holiday accommodation after the Gold Coast and Cairns. This has meant that although there is still strong demand for caravan park accommodation, there is also increased pressure for these strategically and attractively located, relatively undeveloped sites to be utilised for other accommodation types or returned to parkland. The closure of caravan parks in coastal areas began in the 1970s as more intensive commercial and residential development occurred in the region. In 2007, there are 16 caravan parks remaining on the coastal strip and no council camping reserves. At Munna Point the bulk of the 80 acre Reserve for Public Purposes adjacent to the Noosa River Caravan Park was cut up for development in 1980 and this land has subsequently become the site of apartment blocks.
Noosa River Caravan Park has continued to operate as affordable riverside holiday accommodation amidst the extensive development on the Sunshine Coast. Future land use of caravan park sites, particularly on Crown land, remains a contentious topic. Local communities and visitors have come to attach special significance to caravan parks as places of leisure as has been demonstrated by their efforts to protect council-operated caravan parks on Crown land. The significance of this site as a social space and place of leisure for visitors and the local community has a long history. As a site intrinsically linked to the development of tourism in Noosa Shire since the 1920s at least, it is an important part of Queensland's cultural heritage.
","criteria":"The Noosa River Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of the Sunshine Coast, an important region for the development of seaside tourism in Queensland. Originally designated as part of an 80 acre reserve for public purposes in 1884, the Noosa River Caravan Park has sustained its land use as a camping/caravan park from at least the 1920s and is important evidence of the pattern of development of the tourist industry on the Sunshine Coast. The Noosa River Caravan Park illustrates the policy of colonial governments of reserving Crown land for public camping and recreation purposes in prime waterside areas, a practice which was common, but is now rare.
The Noosa River Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the evolution of tourist accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, an historically important region for the development of caravan parks in Queensland. It does this through its beginnings a riverside camping ground dating from the 1920s, then as a caravan park created at the vanguard of the boom period for caravanning and later through periodic updating of its facilities in response to contemporary demands. The site was intrinsically linked to the phenomenon of caravanning that resulted from the rise of mass motoring Australia-wide in the second half of the 20th century.
|The Noosa River Caravan Park represents a land use and custom that has made a strong contribution to the pattern and evolution of Queensland's tourism history. It is an excellent example of a camping and caravanning site that has been used by Queensland holiday-makers since the 1920s. Located adjacent to an area of quiet water allowing easy access for swimming, boating and fishing activities, Noosa River Caravan Park is important in illustrating the essential characteristics of early camping reserves.
Noosa River Caravan Park demonstrates the principal characteristics of a waterside caravan park. On a prime waterfront location with immediate access to still water, the place offers opportunities to interact with, and appreciate the natural beauty of its setting. Easily accessed by motor vehicles, and organised around a simple grid of streets and landscaping, the Park offers a range of accommodation types, which are served by a range of facilities that include ablutions blocks, barbeques and picnic areas. The range of accommodation and amenities has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of its clientele, while remaining low-scale and relatively affordable for holidaymakers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30257,"place_ref":602696,"name":"Majestic Theatre","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"3 Factory Street","suburb":"POMONA","lga":"NOOSA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"At the south end of Factory Street on the east side of the railway line, the Majestic Theatre stands prominently in the streetscape of the Pomona.
A long rectangular cream-painted building, with a striking red trim picking out a number of element (posts, window sills, fascias and cover strips), the theatre is sheltered by a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting crowned with a barrel-roofed ventilation ridge. The roof is concealed from the street by a three-part timber framed parapet with curved fibreboard panels. A bull nosed awning supported by bevelled timber posts with decorative Y-shaped brackets projects out from the building sheltering the footpath. The building is clad with chamferboards and stands on low concrete stumps. Metal screens run on rails along the north side of the building shading the large web lattice screen to the restaurant.
A gable roofed bio-box projects from the building over the central entrance, within the awning. Clad with fibreboard fixed with batten cover strips, the bio-box has two pairs of casement windows overlooking the street. The underside of the bio-box forms a ceiling to the entrance and is lined with fibreboard with cover strips formed into decorative diamond patterns.
Timber steps rise from the footpath to the timber floored entrance porch, the sides of which funnel in towards the pair of large timber entrance doors. The walls to the porch are clad with vertical timber boards. The early ticket booth window, now boarded up, is to the right hand side of the entrance porch.
The theatre is organised around the central auditorium, with flanking sides accommodating a restaurant and toilets to the north; and a cafe, commercial kitchen, organ room and storage to the south. The small foyer has a plain battened fibreboard ceiling sloping towards the auditorium and accommodates a recently fitted bar and ticket booth. It opens to the sides to the restaurant and cafe. A timber framed partition lined with fibreboard separates the foyer and auditorium. A dress circle sits above the foyer and is reached by a set of timber stairs to the left of the doorway from the foyer into the auditorium. The dress circle has a sloping timber floor and accommodates several rows of moveable seats. The bio-box standing to the rear of the dress circle is newly lined with plasterboard and accommodates the electronic console controlling the film projection.
The auditorium has a flat (not raked, as often found in theatres) floor of fine crow's ash boards and a coved ceiling newly lined with plasterboard with plain batten cover strips. Timber vents run around the perimeter at skirting level. A raised, timber-floored stage with a decorated proscenium arch stands at the east end of the auditorium. The proscenium arch has decorative scrolls to the overhead centre panel and painted landscape scenes to the horizontal side panels. A round framed landscape painting sits to the centre of decorative scrollwork. A white painted Compton organ console stands in the auditorium to the left of the stage. A timber fretted screen to the right side wall allows the projection of sound from the plant room of the organ housed in the room adjacent. The plant for the organ includes pipes, various sound effects mechanisms, wiring and other apparatus.
Remnants of an earlier decorative paint scheme remain to the side walls of auditorium presently covered by long red serge curtains. The scheme is notable for a decorative wallpaper dado frieze. Recent moveable metal framed and fabric upholstered chairs made by Page Furnishers of Pomona can be arranged in rows within the auditorium or stacked when not in use.
The stage opens externally to the rear by sliding doors onto a narrow timber floored dock running across the exterior the building.
The two flanking shopfronts each have large two-light clear glass windows with six small patterned lights above and a narrow timber entrance door. Valentino's Restaurant is accommodated within the north side shop space. The interior decorative scheme includes a copy of the early decorative dado motif and paint scheme found in theatre auditorium.
The roof framing is strengthened with steel sleeves to the timber trusses.
A plaque indicating the theatre is part of the Pomona heritage walk is fixed to the front of the building. A newly concreted footpath has metal stars set within it recognising those who have contributed to the ongoing success of the theatre, including Ron and Mandy West.
","history":"The Majestic Theatre at 3 Factory Street Pomona, which was originally built as a social hall with attached shops in 1921, has been promoted as the oldest authentic silent movie theatre in the world, and the longest continuously operating movie theatre in Australia. Although the building's fabric was extensively refurbished recently, the timber and fibrous cement sheeted building is still a rare, and functional, example of a pre-World War II country hall that was converted into a picture theatre.
By the 1860s timber getting was the main local industry in the Pomona area. The Co-Operative Communities Land Settlement Act 1893 led to two experimental farming communes being established in the Noosa Shire, and although the Protestant Unity Group near Pomona only lasted from 1894 to 1896, some of the group's settlers stayed on the land as individual selectors. The North Coast line from Brisbane to Gympie was completed in 1891, and the bend where local settlers hailed the train to send their goods to market was called the Cooroora railway siding, after the nearby mountain. The name was later changed to the Pinbarren siding, but when a town was surveyed in 1900, the name of Pomona, the Roman Goddess of fruit, was chosen. The Pomona Hotel was licensed in 1906, west of the railway line, and this was followed by the Railway Hotel in 1911, east of the railway line on today's Factory Street. Noosa Shire was created in 1910, and the Shire Council office was based in Pomona until 1980.
In the first decade of the 20th century, industry in the area shifted from timber to dairying and horticulture as land was cleared. Until the establishment of a butter factory at Kin Kin (1914), cream was sent by road to Cooran, and then by rail to Gympie's butter factory, established in 1898. Butter factories were also opened at Cooroy in 1915 and at Pomona in 1919. Bananas were also an important industry in the Shire after 1908, booming in the 1920s before declining in the early 1930s. Dairying remained as the main industry in the Noosa Shire from the 1930s until its decline in the 1960s. By the 1990s, Pomona was relying on fruit, and furniture manufacture for its livelihood.
Errol and Myra Osborne became licensees of the Railway Hotel in 1921, and that year they decided to build a hall to the south of the hotel to augment their facilities, and to attract commercial travellers, who needed space to display their wares. The land on which the Majestic Theatre stands was purchased in January 1921 by Myra Osborne's mother, Clara McDonald, who also financed the building of the hall. In August 1921 Errol Osborne supplied plans for the hall to the Noosa Shire Council, and in October 1921 R. McTackett requested permission to erect an awning in front of the hall he was erecting. In December 1921 Mrs McDonald requested that the Council make up a footpath in front of the newly erected Majestic Hall, offering to pay half of the cost. The Council agreed, so long as the job did not exceed ¿10.
The hall was designed to serve several functions: to show silent movies, for vaudeville productions, and to act as a social centre for the town. Over time it served as a venue for dances, balls, concerts, and wedding functions, roller skating, boxing, and church services. Constructed of unseasoned milled hardwood, the hall was about 12 metres wide by 18 metres long, with seating for 198 people. It included a sprung dance floor of ¾ inch crow's ash timber, still extant today, and was raised on stumps to avoid flooding. The roof sagged inwards within several years of construction, and this profile remained until renovations during 2006 and 2007.
On either side of the entrance to the hall were small shops. On the left hand side was the Majestic Café, which also served as general store before being used for storage from the 1930s, and the right hand side's shop accommodated at various times a dentist, radio shop, and a mechanic. In the mid 1920s a supper room was added to the long southeast elevation of the hall, and this section was later extended to the northeast.
Travelling Picture Show Men initially called at the Majestic Hall to show silent movies, but in 1923 the hall was leased by Mrs Osborne to Harold 'Picture' Page, who obtained a theatre license that year. Herbert Page (unrelated), of Page Furnishers, was called 'Blue Shirt' Page, to distinguish him from Picture Page. Reportedly, the early silent films in Pomona were accompanied by a schoolgirl playing random music on a pianola. On 28 April 1931 the first talkie, or movie recorded with its own soundtrack, was shown at the hall, and around 1933 the hall's lease was transferred to Ernie Bazzo, who upgraded the hall to a theatre by adding a small gallery and a bio box. A number of local social functions were shifted to the new Pomona Memorial Hall during this decade. In the late 1930s Bazzo used seating from the Princess Theatre in South Brisbane to replace the existing canvas sling seating.
The Pomona Talkie Company was registered on 1 October 1935, and involved Errol Osborne, Ernest Bazzo, and Charles S. Thomson. Bazzo also owned the nearby Central Garage, and worked as a mechanic during the day, operating the theatre at night. The Majestic Theatre, Pomona is first listed under Theatres and Picture Shows in the Queensland Post Office Directory, (Trades), in 1940, and the land on which the theatre stands was transferred to Bazzo in October 1948.
The development of the Majestic Theatre in Pomona reflected wider trends in Queensland's society. Moving pictures became a popular form of entertainment in Queensland soon after the first films were exhibited in Brisbane in the late 1890s. Hotels were often associated with early picture shows, especially in rural areas, where films might be shown in an adjacent hall or garden. Initially, travelling picture shows in rural areas were screened in halls, with the Picture Show Men travelling regular circuits, but later dedicated theatres were built in small towns, with a local resident - sometimes the local motor garage proprietor - working the projector.
Many theatres were built with attached retail spaces, including a café or milk bar for patrons, and a cantilevered street awning. As an alternative to purpose-built theatres, halls were regularly converted into picture theatres by erecting bio-boxes, installing a gallery, or adding new seating and sound equipment. Halls usually contained a supper room along the length of one side, for light meals during balls and other social functions.
From the 1910s until the advent of television rural theatres provided an important social service to people in the surrounding area, including stimulus for the imagination, relief from isolation, and a link with the wider community in Australia and with United States' popular culture. Local picture theatres were also used as social venues for school concerts and dances, and many had level, sprung dance floors. Most small theatres were independently owned, with Queensland having more independent theatres than any other state in Australia. In the 1930s there were about 200 theatres in QLD, and 75% of these were located outside Brisbane. However, post-war social, economic and technological trends would eventually spell the end for most small rural picture theatres. Almost half of the theatres exhibiting in 1960 and 1961 (388 in Queensland) had closed by 1971.
The Majestic Theatre was operated by Ernie Bazzo until he suffered a stroke in 1973. Its busiest period was during World War II, when a Tank Attack (anti-tank gun) Regiment was stationed near Pomona. The troops had priority for seats, and local civilians were irate when they could not get in. Often, people would watch from outside, standing in the middle of the road, which was then the original Bruce Highway. The theatre remained popular after the war, and throughout the 1940s to the 1960s films were shown on Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoon, with a cartoon and two movies for four shillings and sixpence. In 1956 the original projector equipment was replaced with equipment from the Tivoli Theatre in Brisbane. At the interval between movies, patrons adjourned to the Kia Ora Café next door for pies. This building, later known as the Majestic Café, was located north of the theatre, and burnt down c.2002.
In 1973 Ron and Mandy West introduced the Travelling Film Festival, which featured first-release and avant garde films, to the Majestic Theatre, and the festival screened at Pomona until 1994. The Wests purchased the theatre in 1974, although title to the land on which it stands was not transferred until January 1979. The Majestic remained the Noosa Shire's only picture theatre until 1984. The film projection equipment was replaced in 1980, and a DVD system was installed in 2003.
Ron West was raised in New Zealand, where he worked in picture theatres as an ice cream boy and a projectionist, and he also worked in theatre stage management, and as a musician or conductor in orchestra music pits. During 13 years as a sound engineer for the Commonwealth Film Unit in Sydney, he ventured into film production and photography. Ron's late wife Mandy shared his interest in the theatre, and during the 1980s she directed an amateur theatrical group, The Majestic Players, in pantomimes and plays on stage at the Majestic, the stage having been enlarged in 1979. Classical concerts were also held on Sunday afternoons by visiting musicians. Around April 1985 Judith Durham (of The Seekers) and her husband Ronald Edgeworth gave concerts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for five weekends. In the early 1990s school plays were performed at the Majestic.
During the 1980s the theatre also operated as a video hire outlet to help keep it viable. In 1987 West was asked to show a silent movie to a group of travel agents, and since he possessed a print of the 1926 film The Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolf Valentino, he ran the film and accompanied it with his restored Wurlitzer pipe organ, making up the music as he went along. Word got around, and after several months the Wests decided to only show silent movies at the Majestic, which gained world-wide recognition as a silent movie house. Six days a week, the Majestic was open to school visits and coach loads of Australian and international tourists. The most popular silent films shown since 1987 include The Son of the Sheik, the original Raymond Longford production of Dad and Dave in On our Selection, and Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Cooper in The Kid. In 2004 West received the premier Noosa Shire Australia Day Award for his services to culture and the community.
West has an interest in pipe organs, and he has used them to accompany the silent films at the Majestic. The current organ console, the only one in a Queensland theatre, is located to the left of the stage and is an electrical 1936 Compton from the Regal Cinema in South Shields, England. It was rebuilt during 2006 and 2007 by West and John Brooks. The pipe chamber, which also contains a bank of 1930s electrical organ switches from the Theatre Royal in Halifax, is located within the former supper room extension on the south east side of the theatre. Three ranks of Christie pipes in the chamber were originally from a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand, and were owned by a church in Sydney before they were acquired by West in 1985. Other ranks of pipes have been obtained, with the hope of eventually having 12 ranks.
West did not just collect pipe organ parts - the timber organ grill that separates the organ room from the auditorium is made of Oregon pine, and comes from the Roxy Theatre in Parramatta. In the past West has also salvaged stage drapes, furnishings and equipment from the Regent, Wintergarden, Her Majesty's theatres in Brisbane, and the Wintergarden in Ipswich. The former office of the Pomona Butter Factory (since incorporated into the Page Furnishers' factory complex) was given to the Wests and now stands behind the theatre.
In late 2006 the land on which the theatre stands was transferred to Pomona Progress Art Tourism Inc, a community group which intends to run the Majestic Theatre as an all-purpose entertainment venue. Ron West stayed on to manage the theatre and to play the organ during silent movies. In September 2006 the first team of SkillCentred Community Jobs Project workers (whose wages were paid by the Queensland Government), began an upgrade of the theatre, which reopened in mid 2007. Grants were also provided by the Noosa Shire Council and the Federal Government.
Upgrades included restumping the building with steel, replacing the roofing iron and correcting the roof's sag with steel reinforcement, bracing walls, refixing much of the exterior cladding, and replacing interior linings and the ceiling. Asbestos boards used in the building were replaced with modern materials. The fixed seating was removed and was replaced with moveable seating built by Page Furnishers, and the organ chamber was rebuilt and extended. The roof of the stage was raised to match the roof of the auditorium, the floor of the dressing room was raised to stage level, and new sliding doors were installed at the rear of the building. The former Majestic Café was refurbished for use as Valentino's Restaurant, while the former shop space to the right of the main entrance was refurbished as a modern kitchen. The sprung dance floor was sanded back and oiled, the toilet area was modernised, and a snack and beverages bar was installed in the foyer. New paths and ramps have been added around the building's exterior.
","criteria":"The Majestic theatre is rare as one of the few pre-World War II picture theatres remaining in Queensland that have not been demolished or adapted to other uses. It is also Queensland's longest continuously operating picture theatre.
|Although the Majestic Theatre was recently refurbished, its floor plan and design still illustrates the characteristics of a small rural picture theatre that has been adapted from a local hall. These characteristics include the hall's original retail spaces and the supper room section on the southeast elevation. The installation of a bio-box and gallery was also a typical means of converting a hall into a picture theatre.
|Over the last 20 years the Majestic Theatre has developed a following of silent film enthusiasts, and its popularity ensured that the theatre's refurbishment during 2006-2007 received financial support from private individuals and businesses as well as from the Local, State, and Federal governments.
|The Majestic Theatre in Pomona, a venue that has shown films continuously since 1921, is important in demonstrating the development of picture theatres in Queensland and the part that picture-going played in the life of rural Queenslanders from the 1920s to the 1950s. The Majestic Theatre, constructed as the Majestic Hall and modified in the 1930s to show "talkies", also demonstrates the evolution of film exhibition venues in Queensland, whereby community halls were often used to show pictures, prior to converting the hall into a picture theatre, or constructing a purpose-built cinema. In addition, it demonstrates the practice of independent film exhibition by owner-operators in rural Queensland towns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30281,"place_ref":602684,"name":"Castlemaine Perkins Ltd Building (former)","alternate_name":"Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd/Castlemaine Perkins Ltd Building (former)","street_address":"418-420 Adelaide Street","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-03-06","description":"The former Castlemaine Perkins Building, a substantial brick and stone warehouse and office building of the early twentieth century, is located at the corner of Adelaide Street and Clark Lane on the northern periphery of Brisbane's central business district. It occupies a rectangular site cut into the hill below the St John's Cathedral precinct.
The footprint of the building takes up most of the site, being constructed to the street alignments along Adelaide Street to the front and Clark Lane along the north-eastern side, and to the property boundary with Webber House at the rear. The south-western side is set back about one metre from the hill that rises to St John's Deanery to permit light and ventilation to the interior of the building. In plan the building sits about five metres from this side boundary.
The front two-thirds of the building is three-storeyed with mostly load-bearing brick exterior walls resting on a substantial stone base, but incorporates elements of an earlier, two-storeyed stone warehouse (c1900) at the corner of Clark Lane and Adelaide Street. The stone structure extends about two-thirds the depth of the site, but less than half the width, with the side and rear walls surviving within the later structure. The two stages of the building (c1900 and 1918-1919) are delineated by separate gabled roofs, hidden behind a front brick parapet. These roofs are clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The north-east wall of the stone building, along Clark Lane, remains an exterior wall but has been rendered externally. A third floor in brick has been added to the stone structure.
The rear third of the site, where the land slopes up from Adelaide Street, is occupied by a two-storeyed brick and concrete section that appears to have been constructed in at least two stages (1918-1919 and 1928-1929). This has a gabled roof on the earliest section and a gambrel roof on the 1928-1929 section. Both roofs are clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The rear wall to the building may have been added as part of the 1928-1929 work.
The external south-west side wall is of unpainted, light-coloured mottled brick; the brickwork along the north-east side fronting Clark Lane has been painted; and the brickwork in the rear wall is of a light reddish unpainted brick.
The structure is unified by the 1918-1919 brick façade to Adelaide Street, designed in a free classical idiom. The face-brickwork in this front elevation is a mottled, deep red, broken by a rendered ashlar base with exaggerated keystones to the windows, a central vertical rendered ashlar bay and pediment, and a rendered cornice and parapet. The central pediment is decorated with a garland of vine leaves and bunches of grapes, symbolizing the business of the firm that commissioned the construction in 1918, and bears the date 1871 (the year in which Quinlan, Donnelly & Co. was formed). The original fenestration pattern remains intact. The lettering "Castlemaine Perkins Limited" can just be made out on the front parapet.
The interior of the building is divided into a centrally positioned public access space toward the front of the building; large open areas formerly used as offices (in part early open plan) and warehousing; and rear storage and dispatch areas. The detailing in the public areas, especially the joinery, demonstrates a high level of design and craftsmanship.
The centrally positioned entrance off Adelaide Street has a pair of painted, panelled timber doors opening directly from the street into a tiny entrance vestibule. This has a varnished, panelled timber ceiling and highly-glazed early ceramic tiles lining the walls to door height. A fine varnished timber screen and double-leaf door with bevelled glass panels and carved timber wreaths separates the vestibule from the central foyer. Both sets of entrance doors have metal handles in Art Nouveau designs. Early marble steps lead up to a central foyer with later stone and tile flooring. Wide openings, one off each side of the foyer, have detailed timber architraves. The opening to the left leads up a couple of steps to the 1918 brick section; the opening at the right leads down a couple of steps, through a stone wall (formerly the south-west exterior wall of the c1900 building) to the earlier structure. The different floor levels reflect the slope of the land down toward the north-east corner of the site. At the end of the front foyer is the central public staircase, which accesses all three floors of the building. This has a well-detailed and crafted varnished timber balustrade with substantial timber newels.
Flooring throughout is of timber boards supported on a substantial framework of timber beams, joists and posts, all of which appear to be part of the 1918-1919 construction. The top floor is largely free of the internal timber posts that are a conspicuous feature of the lower levels. Here, the double-gabled timber roof structure is exposed. Ceilings throughout are unlined, exposing the floor framing to the spaces above.
On the ground and first floors there are recent openings in the stone wall that had previously divided the c1900 and 1918-1919 sections. Most of the stonework in this wall remains exposed; the side wall to Clark Lane and most of the rear wall of the c1900 building is rendered or painted.
The interiors of all levels in the three-storeyed section are lit and ventilated via early windows in the front and side elevations. Window frames are mostly original, but there is later double glazing in the ground floor front windows to Adelaide Street.
Each floor of the three-storeyed section currently accommodates mostly open-plan offices. Some partition walls, exposed air conditioning ducts and an open staircase are later additions. Towards the rear of the stone building is a stairwell enclosing later steel stairs. An early brick elevator shaft is located towards the front of the building. Another elevator shaft appears to have been added at a later date. There is a concrete walk-in safe on the ground floor in the centre of the building, behind the front stairwell.
Due to the slope of the land the building becomes two-storeyed at the rear. Internal access to the ground floor of this section is via the first floor of the three-storeyed section. This rear area contains a two-storeyed brick building (1918-1919) along the south-west side of the site, extended in 1928-1929 in brick and concrete, to occupy the whole of the rear third of the site. The earlier section has a gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The ground floor of this section retains a number of elements associated with its former function as a dispatch area - three large goods doors (two in timber and one of fire-proof steel construction) and front loading docks. Internally, concrete posts and steel beams supporting the floor above appear to be associated with the c1928 re-construction of the rear areas. Historical evidence suggests that the reconstruction involved an extension of the 1918 rear section to the rear boundary and removal of the upper level of its north-east brick side wall.
The loading area in front of the 1918 dispatch area is floored in concrete and enclosed with brick walls along the rear and side. Vehicle access is off Clark Lane. As in the earlier section, concrete posts and steel beams support the upper floor.
The upper levels of both rear sections now function as a single large open space. Walls in this space are exposed brick with a painted finish and floors have been lined with later sheeting. Ceilings are lined with a suspended ceiling system. Banks of steel-framed hopper windows remain, but in the rear wall have been bricked over externally.
","history":"The building at 418-420 Adelaide Street was constructed in a number of stages between c1900 and 1928-1929. The main section - a two- and three-storeyed brick warehouse, bond store and office building - was erected in 1918-1919 for The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd (later Castlemaine Perkins Ltd). The designer, Brisbane architect TR Hall, incorporated an earlier (c1900) two-storeyed stone warehouse into the structure. In 1928-1929 a new bulk store was added at the rear.
The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd manufactured Queensland's famous "Fourex" beer and imported wine and spirits. The origins of the firm dated to 1871, when Michael Quinlan and N Donnelly entered into partnership as Quinlan, Donnelly and Co., general business and shipping agents, Brisbane. In late 1873 Donnelly relinquished his interest in the partnership and Quinlan continued to trade as Quinlan and Co. In 1874 the company's office and stores were re-located from Mary Street to Queen Street, opposite the Customs House and close to the new wharves being developed at Petrie's Bight, establishing a long connection with the Petrie's Bight district. Following Michael Quinlan's death in July 1878 his widow took control of the company and in August 1878 entered into partnership with George Wilkie Gray, the firm's principal manager, as Quinlan, Gray & Co.
Prior to Michael Quinlan's death the company had entered into negotiations with Edward and Nicholas Fitzgerald, owners of the Castlemaine Brewery in Victoria, to establish a brewery in Brisbane. In 1877 the firm of Fitzgerald, Quinlan & Co. was formed and the Queensland Distillery at Milton was acquired and developed as the Castlemaine Brewery. The first Castlemaine XXX Sparkling Ale was sold in late 1878. In 1887 The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd was formed to acquire the assets of Fitzgerald, Quinlan & Co. (owners of the Castlemaine Brewery at Milton) and Quinlan, Gray & Co. (general merchants and importers). In addition to the brewing business the firm supplied wine, spirits, groceries and general merchandise to hotelkeepers, storekeepers, and graziers throughout Queensland.
The firm continued to occupy premises in Queen Street near the Customs House through the 1890s and early 1900s, and in 1901 also took up the lease of 385-391 Adelaide Street as a bond store. In 1909-1910 the company purchased two nearby allotments, at the corner of Adelaide Street and Clark Lane, with the object of constructing their own building on the site.
These allotments were part of a larger parcel of land bounded by Wharf, Adelaide and Ann streets alienated in 1853 by Dr William Hobbs. In the late 1870s the Brisbane Municipal Council formed the north-east end of Adelaide Street and in the process Adelaide Street was cut down in front of Dr Hobbs residence to better link with Queen Street at Petrie's Bight. By 1881, when Dr Hobbs placed his property on the market, a right of way existed over what is now Clark Lane. In subsequent years much of Dr Hobbs' property was acquired for the St John's Cathedral precinct, and his former residence is now St John's Deanery.
The allotments at the corner of Adelaide Street and Clark Lane remained unimproved until George Bowser and George Montague Bowser (trading as George Bowser & Co., quarrymen, asphalters and general contractors), acquired title to the allotment adjoining Clark Lane in late 1899. Bowser & Co. were the proprietors of the Bowen Park Quarry opposite the Exhibition Grounds, supplying porphyry (Brisbane tuff) for both building and asphalting purposes, and appear to have been responsible for the construction of a two-storeyed stone warehouse at the corner of Clark Lane and Adelaide Street c1900. The hill was heavily cut into to accommodate this building but may have been partly excavated from the late 1870s when Dr Hobbs, in an attempt to create better access to his property after the cutting down of Adelaide Street, sold fill from his land to the Municipal Council for road works.
From October 1900 the Salvation Army held a five year lease over Bowser & Co'.s building, which they conducted as a Workmen's Metropole providing low-cost temporary accommodation to itinerant working men. After the Salvation Army vacated this building it was occupied by various businesses, including the Queensland Motor Agency, WF Turk & Co. electrical engineers and machinery agents, and JW Walker, clothing manufacturer. In April 1909 title was transferred to The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan Gray & Co. Brisbane Limited, which also acquired title to the adjacent unimproved allotment in April 1910, providing the firm with a total of 52.6 perches (1330m²) with a frontage of 99 feet (30.2m) to Adelaide Street.
Work on construction of a new building had not commenced prior to World War I (1914-1918), which interrupted trade and had a detrimental impact on the company's activities. In 1916 the directors made three significant decisions: to withdraw from general importing and to specialise in brewing and in the distribution of wine and spirits; to introduce Castlemaine XXXX Sparkling Ale; and to proceed with the construction of the Adelaide Street building.
Construction commenced about September 1918 and was completed in 1919 at a total cost of £22,950. The architect was TR Hall and the contractor GA Baumber, who was a shareholder in the company. The new structure more than doubled the footprint of the existing building on the site, necessitating further cutting into the rocky outcrop adjacent to St John's Deanery.
The new building was considered a 'landmark'. It was of three storeys, brick on a stone base, which could support construction of a further three storeys if required; a two-storeyed brick section at the rear also appears to have been erected at his time. The new building accommodated the firm's town office, a warehouse and a bond store, and in effect was the company's signature building. The main office was arranged on the "American 'open' system" and was finished with Queensland timbers and tessellated floor tiles. On an upper floor a rest lounge with reading and cooking facilities was provided at the front of the building, overlooking Petrie's Bight, for the use of female staff members. A separate lunch room was provided for male staff, and another for the firm's travelling salesmen.
The architect for the project, Thomas Ramsay Hall, had established his practice in Brisbane in 1907. His larger commissions had included the Sandgate Town Hall (1911-1912, QHR 601566), the McDonnell & East department store on George Street (1911-1913, QHR 600120), and work for the Catholic Church. In 1919 he took into partnership his former articled pupil, George Prentice, and in that year their design for the new Brisbane City Hall (QHR 600065, opened 1930) was accepted.
In the interwar years The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd expanded production significantly. The introduction of Castlemaine XXXX Bitter Ale in 1924 proved highly popular and became the basis for future brews; then in October 1928 the firm consolidated its position as a leading Queensland brewing company with the purchase of a controlling interest in Perkin's & Co. Ltd, acquiring the Toowoomba maltings and brewery (established in 1866), sections of the City Brewery plant, the trade of 19 freehold hotels for a period of 25 years, and the trade of 50 leasehold hotels until each lease expired. As a result of the acquisition/merger, the name of the firm was changed to Castlemaine Perkins Ltd; the former Perkins City Brewery in Mary Street was closed and some of the plant taken to the Castlemaine Brewery on Milton Road; an extensive program of refurbishment of the Milton and Toowoomba breweries was commenced; 418-420 Adelaide Street was retained as the company's head office; and a new brick and concrete bulk store was erected at the rear of the Adelaide Street building in 1928-1929, at a cost of around £8,000.
The new bulk store was designed by Brisbane architects Addison and Macdonald, who undertook most of Castlemaine Perkins' hotel refurbishments and brewery expansion work at this period. The principal contractor was GA Baumber, who had constructed the company's 1918-1919 building.
The company's capital increased more than 13 times in the period 1919 to 1937. Despite the impact of the economic depression of the early 1930s, Castlemaine Perkins Ltd was able to consolidate its holdings, taking advantage of the slump in the property market to purchase further hotel freeholds and leaseholds.
After construction of bulk store in 1928-1929 further additions and alterations to 418-420 Adelaide Street were comparatively minor. Additional office fit-outs, designed by Addison and Macdonald, were made to the building c1930 and c1935. In 1961 additional offices were erected on the third floor and a passenger lift was installed.
418-420 Adelaide Street remained the head office of Castlemaine Perkins Ltd until the early 1980s when a new office was constructed at the Castlemaine Brewery at Milton, severing Quinlan, Gray & Co.'s connection of nearly 110 years with the Petrie's Bight district. The Port of Brisbane had moved downstream and the Castlemaine Perkins building was one of many Petrie's Bight warehouses that subsequently became redundant.
In 1980 Castlemaine Perkins Ltd and Tooheys Brewery in New South Wales merged to form Castlemaine Tooheys Ltd, which in turn was acquired by the Bond Corporation in 1985. Late in 1985 title to the former Castlemaine Perkins building at 418-420 Adelaide Street was transferred to film distributor Birch, Carroll & Coyle Limited, which occupied the building as its Queensland headquarters until c2000.
","criteria":"The building at 418-420 Adelaide Street is closely associated with the work of The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray and Co. Brisbane Ltd (later Castlemaine Perkins Ltd), a major Queensland brewing company. Designed as the firm's signature building, the front elevation incorporates symbolic elements in the façade associated with the work of the company.
|The building has aesthetic significance generated by the rhythm and detailing in the façade, including exaggerated keystones, decorative elements in the central bay and parapet, and the play of the brick against the render. Internally, the public spaces have finely detailed timber work.
|The former Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Building (1918-1928) / Castlemaine Perkins Building (1928-early 1980s) is a substantial, well designed, substantially intact early twentieth century warehouse and office building important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. These characteristics include:
-\tthe scale of the three-storeyed building, with a large two-storeyed section at the rear;
-\tthe robust design and materials (including substantial hardwood posts, joists and roof structure);
-\tthe clear division of the building into public areas, warehousing and despatch sections;
-\tthe decorative facade to Adelaide Street, creating a strong and aesthetically pleasing street presence and designed to impress;
-\tthe use of symbolism associated with the business of the firm for which the building was commission in 1918 (a garland of vine leaves and bunches of grapes in the central pediment);
-\tthe use of detailed and finely crafted joinery in the public areas of the building (entrance vestibule, foyer, and front staircase);
-\tthe provision of natural lighting and ventilation to each level via windows to both side and front elevations.
The building is important as an excellent example of the early work of Brisbane architect TR Hall prior to his joining GG Prentice in partnership in 1919. The designer has skilfully utilised a substantial earlier stone structure within the 1918 brick structure.
|This three-storeyed brick warehouse and office building, erected in 1918-1919 with a 1928-1929 addition and incorporating a c1900 two-storeyed stone building within its structure, is associated with a major Queensland twentieth century brewer and wine and spirits dealer: The Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan, Gray & Co. Brisbane Ltd (Castlemaine Perkins Ltd from 1928). The location at the north-east end of Adelaide Street is important in demonstrating the development and consolidation of Petrie's Bight as one of Queensland's principal warehousing and port districts prior to the move of the port of Brisbane downstream.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30333,"place_ref":602694,"name":"The Big Pineapple (former Sunshine Plantation)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Nambour Connection Road","suburb":"WOOMBYE","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-03-06","description":"The Big Pineapple complex is located on the rise of a hill on the northern side of the Nambour Connection Road at Woombye. The original Sunshine Plantation area (the Big Macadamia and the Nut Factory are not included within the heritage boundary) comprises approximately 22.86 hectares of pineapple plantations, sub-tropical rainforests and orchards. Major structures on the site include a replica pineapple (the Big Pineapple), an entrance pavilion and two large, two-storey restaurant and retail buildings, with a cottage to the west. Associated structures to the east include tram tracks, two tour stations, and a ticket office for the plantation train; a machinery shed, an animal nursery, a lagoon, and a koala enclosure. There is also a Nutmobile/Rainforest Tour station to the north of the restaurant building.
The Big Pineapple structure and retail and restaurant buildings are strikingly visible from the approach road from the east. The entrance to the plantation, the Big Pineapple and the main buildings are located at the top of the hill and overlook the pineapple plantation, animal nursery and wild fowl lagoon. The entrance pavilion is an open gabled pavilion over framed with round timber poles and houses the entrance ticket booth and information centre. It has a corrugated iron roof.
Big Pineapple Structure
The Big Pineapple, adjacent to the entrance pavilion, is a hollow structure, 16 metres in height and cylindrical in shape. The shell of the main body is formed in fibreglass supported internally on a steel frame. The fibreglass has been moulded to replicate the skin texture and colour of a pineapple and has been formed in several pieces which are rivet-fixed together. The stalk of the pineapple and the surrounding viewing platform are formed in steel which has been painted.
Internally the shell of the Big Pineapple is unlined and the texture of the moulding is visible on the inside. It is divided into two levels for the purpose of exhibiting displays and for accessing the viewing platform above. Each floor is supported on exposed round steel posts which are painted. A central steel post extends up through the structure to provide additional support to the two floor levels and to support the viewing platform and the stalk of the pineapple above.
The first level is accessed via external steps. The ceiling and central core are lined with fibre-cement which has been painted to resemble the flesh of a pineapple. The floor is lined with linoleum tiles. The second floor is accessed via an open-riser, curved staircase with steel stringers, unpainted timber treads and a curved steel balustrade.
The second floor is similar to the first with exposed steel posts supporting the viewing platform above and a linoleum-tiled floor. The central steel post is encased behind a display and the ceiling is lined with fibre-cement and flat timber cover strips fan out from the central post. The viewing platform is accessed from this level via an angled two-flight staircase. It has steel stringers, timber treads and a steel balustrade. The viewing platform sits within the uppermost part of the pineapple shell and wraps around the stalk of the pineapple which is visible overhead. It is lined with painted sheet metal and has a spray-aggregate finish to the platform deck.
Perspex-encased displays of tropical fruit and the pineapple manufacturing process dating from 1971 are arranged within the Big Pineapple. On each of the two floors there is a hand-painted landscape diorama of pineapple plantations with model factories, trucks and cane trains. Display cases of model pineapples are also located on the perimeter walls on the stairs between level one and two. On level two there is an arrangement of Golden Circle Cannery products including cans of pineapple pieces and bottles of cordial and fruit juice. Early photographs of aspects of the tropical fruit manufacturing process and formal photographs of past employees are also on display. A painted steel ring beam which supports the pineapple shell is visible behind the displays.
Retail and restaurant buildings
Turnstiles lead from the ticket booth to the restaurant and retail buildings, which display Polynesian architectural influences. The retail building to the south is sited at a right angle to the larger restaurant building beyond. Both have concrete-tiled, hipped roofs with gablets infilled with glazing at each end. Both are two-storeyed and have deep overhangs and verandahs on the eastern side with the restaurant building's verandah returning on the northern side. The upper floors are suspended concrete slabs and steel portal frames support the roof.
Walls to the east on the retail building are glazed with fibre-cement infills to the lower half. The verandah has a tiled suspended concrete floor, brick balustrades and timber rafters supported on blockwork piers. On the lower level the piers are round concrete and walls are infilled full-height glazing and painted blockwork.
Walls to both the upper and lower levels to the restaurant building are infilled with full-height glazing and blockwork. The verandah to the restaurant building has a timber-framed floor supported by round timber posts and timber lattice balustrades.
The two buildings are linked with a low-pitched gabled roof with translucent sheeting. Amenities and some service areas are located in this area. External concrete stairs lead from the upper floor towards the train station.
Internally, the first floor of the retail building is on open space with the steel portal frame exposed to the inside. Ceilings and columns are lined with bamboo and the floor is tiled with linoleum. Various retail counters and souvenir displays are set out within the space. Two painted aluminium air conditioning ducts run along the length of ceiling aside a suspended motorised fan system (a punkah). Pendant lights and fluorescent tubes hang from the ceiling. A central staircase leads to the lower level which was inaccessible at the time of assessment.
The interior of the restaurant building is an open space similar to the retail building but larger in scale. The steel portal frame is exposed on the inside and ceilings are lined with bamboo. The northern side of the space has been fitted with servery counters and kitchen rooms. The floor is lined with carpet. The steel columns are lined with plasterboard and painted. Air conditioning vents, ceiling fans and pendant lights are suspended from the ceiling.
Plantation train
To the east of the main buildings is the plantation train ticket office and paved, concrete access platform to the plantation train. A ramp leads from the concrete station platform through painted metal exit gates punched through with the big pineapple logo. The train, painted with the name Sugar Cane Train No.4, has variously been described as a former sugar cane train, or as a former quarry engine. The tracks are two foot gauge tram tracks which run through a train station/machinery shed and form a circuit around the pineapple plantation, the orchard, wild fowl lagoon, and animal nursery. The koala sanctuary and rainforest walk lie to the east of the circuit. Along the eastern side of the train circuit the land becomes steeper and a low, random rubble wall retains the slope beside the track.
Pineapple Plantation
The pineapple plantation lies on a north-east facing slope within the train circuit. The pineapple crop is cultivated in rows of raised beds following the lie of the land.
Machinery shed/train station
The train tracks lead from the platform down a slope to the simulated old-style train station (not one of the official stops) and machinery shed. This is a brick building with a low pitched gable roof sheeted with corrugated iron. It has two curved openings, one for the train to access the train station and the other for road vehicles and machinery.
The Orchard
Beyond the train station/machinery shed is the orchard which lies inside the train circuit on a north-facing slope. Fruit trees grown in the orchard include star apple, custard apple, miracle fruit and varieties of citrus trees.
Nutmobile/Rainforest station
The Nutmobile/rainforest station is located to the north of the restaurant building. It is an open, timber-framed pavilion with round posts and a gabled, corrugated iron-clad roof.
The Big Pineapple complex is partly fenced to the south boundary with a timber-framed flat-top paling fence and a low three-rail fence to the east which is painted white. A bitumen car park fronts the entrance pavilion area which is paved in terracotta-coloured pavers. The animal nursery and koala sanctuary were not inspected.
","history":"The former Sunshine Plantation tourist attraction, now known as The Big Pineapple, is located on the north side of the Nambour Connection Road (former Bruce Highway), just to the west of the current Bruce Highway. It holds a fond place in the memories of many domestic and overseas tourists who drove or were driven north of Brisbane on holiday road trips after 1971. Apart from the iconic value of the Big Pineapple structure itself, as a roadside attraction of the Big Thing variety, the entire 40 hectare complex, with its retail and restaurant spaces, train ride and Nutmobile, crops, rainforest, Macadamia Nut Factory, Big Macadamia, Tomorrow's Harvest greenhouse, Farm Show, Wildlife Gardens, and Animal Nursery, represents an early attempt at agri-tourism in Queensland.
Big Things are large advertising objects, usually in the form of the item they are advertising, and are loosely defined as being at least twice the size of the object they represent and at least twice human size. Big Things have been called outdoor cultural objects which serve to construct and assert the identity of a town or area, and they have also been described as one of Australia's most distinctive home-grown forms of folk art. (The term 'outdoor cultural object' was coined in the 2004 publication 'Monumental Queensland: Signposts on a Cultural Landscape' by Lisanne Gibson and Joanna Besley.) The Big Pineapple appears to be the most widely recognised Big Thing in Queensland.
The first pineapple plants in Queensland were landed at the new Redcliffe settlement by the brig Amity in 1824, and in 1829 the Colonial Botanist Charles Fraser listed 34 pineapple plants amongst the crops flourishing in the 15 acre government garden at Brisbane that he had laid out in 1828. In the 1870s and 1880s experiments in pineapple growing occurred in what would become the Maroochy Shire, but the first commercial pineapple crop in the area was at Thomas Davey's Woombye farm in 1895.
The area between the Mooloolah and Maroochy Rivers was closed to settlement prior to 1860 as part of a Reserve proclaimed by Governor Gipps in 1842. Gipp's proclamation was rescinded by the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, which allowed for post-survey selection, and timber-getting licenses. In the early 1860s Edmund Lander leased the Mooloolah Back Plains run around the future site of Nambour, and timber getters started to exploit the area, working inland along waterways. The Alienation of Crown Lands Act 1868 also stimulated settlement, and by 1871 the census recorded 104 people living and working in the Maroochy region, although only 31 were permanent settlers. At this time there were about 180 acres under pineapples in Queensland, mostly near Brisbane.
Maroochy developed as a region of small farms, and by the mid 1880s the region had 116 people employed in mixed farming, 70 in sugar, 52 in timber, and only 15 in grazing. The Maroochy Divisional Board was created in 1890 (becoming the Maroochy Shire in 1902), and the Maroochy Shire would develop into Queensland's largest fruit growing area between the 1880s and 1915, thanks to its climate and rainfall, with bananas being grown from the 1880s, and pineapples from the 1890s. It was possible for small farmers to make a living out of pineapples as thousands of plants could be cultivated in each acre. Other crops grown in the Maroochy Shire included coffee, ginger, strawberries and citrus. Dairy farming also played an important part in the local economy from the 1890s.
The fruit industry in the Maroochy Shire was stimulated when the North Coast Railway was constructed northwards from Brisbane after 1886. The railway reached Woombye in 1890, and met the line from Gympie at Cooroy in July 1891. By 1900 the Blackall Range was a successful fruit growing area, and in 1901 Woombye was promoted as the fruit growing area in Queensland with the greatest potential. Around this time pineapples were overtaking citrus as the crop of choice in the area, especially at Woombye, with its well-drained soil and rolling hills. In 1914 the Brisbane district still produced most of Queensland's pineapples, while rising pineapple districts included the North Coast Line (North-Pine to Gympie), the Tiaro and Mt Bauple district, Maryborough, and the Pialba district.
In 1916 unused Crown Land near Beerburrum's railway siding was surveyed into portions for returned soldiers to grow pineapples. Some land at Woombye and Palmwoods was also resumed under the Soldier Settlement scheme. Beerburrum was the largest soldier settlement area in Australia by 1921, but it had failed by 1932, and helped to produce a glut of pineapples in the process. Queensland production of pineapples doubled between 1932 and 1942, and doubled again between 1952 and 1956, to a total of 12,316 acres by the latter date.
In 1947 the Northgate Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing Cannery (later Golden Circle), owned and controlled by growers, began operations. Although pineapples boomed in the post war period, marketing issues led to the first Golden Pineapple Week in 1955, along with Miss Golden Pineapple, to promote Maroochy pineapples. In the mid 1950s the vast majority of Queensland's pineapple growers were in South East Queensland, and two thirds of South East Queensland's production came from three main zones: the Palmwoods-Woombye-Nambour area; the Mary Valley; and the Glasshouse-Beerwah area.
In South East Queensland in the financial year from 1955 to 1956 the larger pineapple growers (those producing over 2,500 cases per year) grew a smaller percentage of the region's total crop than in Central Queensland. Large producers also grew less of the crop around Palmwoods than in the Mary Valley and Glasshouse areas, which reflected the trend towards small farms in the Maroochy Shire. The average South East Queensland pineapple grower had 10.6 acres under pineapples, on a 109 acre farm, and of the top six South East Queensland production areas, Woombye and Palmwoods had the smallest average farm sizes, with the greatest percentage of the farm used for pineapples. In the mid 1950s Woombye ranked third of the top six South East Queensland areas by number of growers, and second of the top six South East Queensland areas by production. In the 1970s pineapples were Maroochy's third largest agricultural industry after sugar and dairy farming.
Meanwhile changes were taking place in Australian culture that would impact on tourism. After World War II the use of cars increased, and during the 1950s Australia was second only to the United States in car ownership per head of population. More car travel also led to more garages and fuel stops, and motels and caravan parks were built to accommodate those families taking to the roads for their ever-lengthening holidays. Annual leave increased from one week in 1941 to two weeks in 1945, three weeks in 1963 and four weeks in 1974. Roads were improved, and access was opened up to previously isolated natural attractions. The Bruce Highway was finally surfaced with bitumen all the way from Brisbane to Cairns by 1962, and the Pacific Highway was fully surfaced with bitumen by the late 1960s, which helped bring more New South Wales tourists north into Queensland.
In the Maroochy Shire, the immediate post war period saw a shift in emphasis from traditional agricultural pursuits to coastal tourism. This shift was marked by David Low's election as Maroochy shire chairman in 1952 on a tourism platform. The late 1950s witnessed the first use of terms "Sunshine Coast" and "Gold Coast" to market Queensland's beach culture, and by 1960 the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau was promoting "The Sunshine State".
Development on the Sunshine Coast was less intense than on the Gold Coast, and until the 1960s development remained low-key and family oriented, dominated by foreshore and riverside camping grounds, and flats and motels. In many parts of the Sunshine Coast there was a conscious reaction against the style of development that had taken place on the Gold Coast. Like the Gold Coast, on the Sunshine Coast the seaside entertainments of an earlier era have evolved into large scale tourist attractions. However these have developed in a style that is characteristic of the Sunshine Coast hinterland. Here, the focus has been on education and the agricultural heritage and ecology of the region. Attractions besides the Big Pineapple have included: the Big Cow; the Ginger factory at Yandina; Australia Zoo; Forest Glen Deer Park; and the Superbee.
Related to tourism developments is the advertising phenomenon of the Big Thing. Big Things were used in California from the 1920s to lure customers off the highways to stop at food stalls, and they first appeared in Australia in the 1960s. The earliest Australian Big Things included: the Big Scotsman, advertising a motel in Adelaide (1963); the Big Banana, promoting a roadside banana stall at Coff's Harbour (1964); and the Big Stubby, a bottle museum at Tewantin (1966). Big Things were usually built by entrepreneurs or by the local community, and almost all featured something that the town or district was famous for, usually flora or produce. Steel framing and fibreglass appear to be the most common building materials.
Lists of Big Things around Australia vary regarding the number of objects in each state, and what is included, but a 2004 book on the subject listed 118 Big Things, or groups of Big Things, in Australia, with Queensland having the most at 41, followed by New South Wales with 32. Of Queensland's Big Things, 23 were purely private commercial efforts - advertising shops, service stations, motels and caravan parks, restaurants, museums and the like - and six others were aimed at drawing people to a private tourist attraction. Eight places were structures that could be entered, including the Big Pineapple and the Big Macadamia at the Big Pineapple complex.
It was within this context of pineapples, tourism and Big Things that Taylor Family Investments Pty Ltd purchased a 23 hectare pineapple farm southeast of Woombye in January 1971, from Gordon Ollett. Bill Taylor had worked at the United Nations for 20 years and had been head of the Development Finance Section, and Lyn Taylor was an interior designer in New York. They returned to Australia in 1970. In 1971 Bill and Lyn Taylor embarked on what was then a new concept in agri-tourism, using Maroochy's agricultural heritage to attract tourists. The pineapple farm became an agri-tourism project showcasing over 40 varieties of fruits, nuts, spices and sugar cane: the Sunshine Plantation. The Maroochy Shire Council and the State government supported the venture, and on 15 August 1971 the plantation was opened by the State Minister for Labour and Tourism, John Herbert. Mr Herbert claimed that the attraction was unique for the Queensland tourist industry, combining the specific promotion of tourism with the promotion of the area and its tropical production as a whole. A 1980 promotional booklet for the Sunshine Plantation claimed that in 1971 the concept and design was original and unique in the world.
At the opening the Maroochy Shire Council chairman, Eddie de Vere, drove a gold spike into the Plantation Train Ride, a one kilometre two-foot gauge track which still has the steepest incline and sharpest bend of any Queensland passenger rail track. A crane placed the leaves on top of the 16 metre steel-framed fibreglass pineapple that became the symbol of the plantation. Lyn Taylor was responsible for much of the design and layout of the project. The Big Pineapple could be entered, and its interior included a curved staircase, along with an audiovisual story about the pineapple industry and other tropical fruits. Local agricultural producers and co-operatives participated in the development of the displays, most notably the Golden Circle Cannery. A shop and restaurant building was located just north of the Big Pineapple structure, and a cottage was located nearby.
The capacity of the facilities was tested from the opening, and modest expansions of the restaurant, market and sugar cane train occurred in the early years of operation. One product which proved popular was the range of tropical fruit jams which were made on site. In 1972 demand for these jams outgrew the production kitchen and the Taylors entered into a joint venture with local passionfruit farmers Bill and Noelene Hughes to form Sunshine Tropical Fruit Products.
The Sunshine Plantation provided visitors with an opportunity to learn about the growing, production and consumption of various tropical agricultural products, and a 1978 information booklet stated that the crops grown at the plantation were representative of over half the agricultural production in Queensland. A central feature of the attraction continues to be the sugar cane train which takes visitors on a guided educational tour of the plantation. In the Big Pineapple structure visitors see displays and gain an understanding of the production and processing of various tropical fruits, nuts and cane; in the restaurant visitors can sample various fresh tropical fruits, and in the market they can purchase fresh fruit and fruit jams.
Authenticity was demonstrated by the plantation being a working farm, and by its links to and partnerships with local grower co-operatives, industry associations and significant institutions such as the Moreton Central Sugar Mill, the Golden Circle Cannery, the Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing (COD), the Sugar Board, CSR limited, Buderim Ginger Factory, and the Australian Macadamia Nut Society.
The Big Pineapple was soon followed by other Big Things in the area. In October 1971 another 16 metre-high pineapple was opened, this time at a Gympie service station, by the Queensland Director General of Tourist Services, John Wilson (Gympie's pineapple was demolished in 2008). In 1976 a Big Cow was built north of Nambour for a farm park.
As acknowledgement of the Taylors' achievements, on 12 March 1972 the Australian National Travel Association presented the Sunshine Plantation with the first annual award for tourist development in Queensland. In 1982 the Taylors were invited to build a similar project in Hawaii, and in 1984 they developed and operated the "Hawaii Tropical Plantation" in partnership with two Hawaiian companies.
The Sunshine Plantation expanded in 1976 when Taylor Family Investments Pty Ltd purchased eight hectares of land from Keith and Ailsa Heinrich, to the west of the original attraction. On 11 September 1978 an early morning fire completely destroyed the building which housed the tropical market and restaurant next to the Big Pineapple. However, two months later on 19 December the Governor General, Sir Zelman Cowan, opened a new Tropical Village complex, which now had a separate restaurant building to the north of the rebuilt retail building. In February 1979 the 10.2 hectare future site of the Nut Factory and the Big Macadamia was purchased from the Heinrichs by Sunshine Land Nominees Pty Limited. Part of this land was leased to CSR Limited in 1979, and the lease was later transferred to Macadamia Nuts Pty Ltd. By 1980 the Sunshine Plantation included the newly opened Macadamia Nut Factory, operated by CSR Limited, and the Nutmobile tour.
By 1980 visitors could shop in the Tropical market, and eat in the two storey Tropical Restaurant. The top floor was known as the Polynesian Restaurant, with bamboo ceiling lining and thatched counter decorations, and the bottom floor was the Hibiscus Room. The Nutmobile tour started just north of the restaurant building and ran westwards to the Macadamia Nut Factory, the largest in Australia, where tourists could view displays, observe the sorting room, or buy macadamia products. At this time there was a large carpark on the site of the present Tomorrow's Harvest greenhouse. Starting to the east of the market building, the train tour travelled past a variety of tropical crops, including: pineapples; avocados; exotic fruits, nuts, tea, coffee, and ginger; sugar cane (by the rainforest on the eastern side of plantation); and then papaws, bananas, and passionfruit. Within the train track was the Children's Farm (with the current mansard-roofed barn) and Animal Nursery. A tunnel under the train track led to a rainforest walk.
In its first 10 years the Sunshine Plantation grew in popularity with attendance of 250,000 visitors in 1972 to over 1,000,000 in 1980. During the 1980s a number of changes occurred. In 1981 the Taylor's sold the Sunshine Plantation to Lanray Holdings, although the titles for their 1971 and 1976 land purchases remained under the name of Taylor Family Investment Pty Ltd until August 1993, when Sunshine Securities Pty Ltd became the registered proprietors. A lower retail area for the market building was opened in 1982, and in 1984 the Nutcountry Tour was extended to include a section of rainforest. That same year verandahs were added to compliment the upstairs restaurant (now called Sunshines Restaurant); Troppo's Restaurant (later the Plantation Restaurant) was opened downstairs, and Queensland's Hidden Treasures was opened to display Queensland gems and minerals. In 1985, by which time tourism had overtaken sugar as Maroochy's biggest industry, Queensland Press Limited became the new owner.
In 1986 more properties were purchased, including land south of the current Nambour Connection Road, and in 1987 new car parking facilities were built, along with a pedestrian bridge above the road. Also in 1987 the Sunshines Restaurant was doubled in size (the restaurant building seems to have been expanded to the west), and a new reception area and Tourist Information Centre was added. The Big Pineapple structure was refurbished and moved about 15 metres east at this time. There are indications that the Big Pineapple's skin was also replaced. 1988 witnessed the construction of the Tomorrow's Harvest hydroponics farm, a large greenhouse which displayed innovative technology, and RAPS Night Time family restaurant opened in June that year. In 1989 the 16m high Big Macadamia, known as the Magic Macadamia was opened. From 2000, the Big Macadamia housed the Rainforest Creatures of the Night display, but by mid 2007 this attraction was closed, as was the Tomorrow's Harvest greenhouse. The original Macadamia Nut Factory is no longer open to visitors, although the current Nutmobile Tour passes by a more recent factory building further to the north.
In 1990 the Bruce Highway was realigned, bypassing the Big Pineapple along with Woombye and Nambour, but the tourist attraction continued to attract the public, and it was upgraded further during the 1990s. In 1991 a mini tornado damaged the Tomorrow's Harvest attraction, and that December the Rainforest train stop was opened. In 1992 an Arts and Crafts Gallery opened in the lower retail area beside the train station. In 1993 the roof of Tomorrow's Harvest was replaced, Plantations Restaurant received a colonial-themed makeover, and Punkahs (mechanical fans) were added to the upstairs retail area. During 1994 Sunshines Restaurant was refurbished, and the servery counters were rebuilt. However, RAPS restaurant closed in September that year. The Farm Show was added to the Train Tour in September 1995, and guided tours of the Macadamia Nut Factory, when it was not processing, started in December. Roughend Pineapple Party Ltd became the new owner of the complex in July 1996, and a Wildlife Garden featuring koalas and other native animals had opened in April that year.
In 2006 the Big Pineapple was one of 12 Queensland icons, including the Cane Toad, Macadamia Nuts, and the Great Barrier Reef, selected from nominations received by the National Trust of Queensland. Another 24 icons had been selected between 2004 and 2005. According to the National Trust of Queensland, the items selected "inherently represent an important part of our history or will have contributed to our cultural identity and will have won a lasting place in our minds and memories." In June 2007 Australia Post issued five stamps celebrating Australia's Big Things, and the Big Pineapple was one of the five Big Things selected - along with the Big Golden Guitar at Tamworth, the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour, and the Big Merino at Goulburn (all in New South Wales), and the Big Lobster at Kingston SE (South Australia).
The Big Pineapple attraction went into receivership in 2009 and was closed in October 2010. The Nutmobile was sold in July 2011 to the Bromet family, to promote macadamia nuts and tourism at the town of Bauple. In late August 2011 The Big Pineapple complex and its surrounding farmland was sold to a consortium that has maintained it as a tourism attraction and market hub for Queensland produce.
","criteria":"Positioned on the crest of a hill overlooking the motorway, the Big Pineapple structure is important as a landmark, strikingly visible to passing traffic and provides sweeping views of the surrounding landscape. Within the Big Pineapple complex the plantation's sloping terrain, rainforest and selection of crops provide pleasing vistas for visitors as they tour the place.
|The Big Pineapple complex, including the iconic Big Pineapple structure and associated tramway, train, nut mobile, attractions, activities, plantations and buildings, is important in demonstrating the development of agri-tourism and roadside attractions in Queensland.
The establishment of the Sunshine Plantation and its continued operation as the Big Pineapple combines the operation of a tourist attraction and the promotion of tourism in the Sunshine Coast with the promotion of the area's tropical fruit production. The uniqueness of the project was well documented in the contemporary local press and other promotional and tourist material as well as in the newsletters and annual reports of various agricultural industry associations.
The working plantation sections of the complex provide visitors with an opportunity to learn about the growing of various tropical agricultural products in Queensland, especially pineapples and sugar cane, which used to be the predominant agricultural crops in the area.
In addition, the complex reflects a response to the increased use of motor cars for family holidays in Australia since World War II and the associated development of tourist attractions to cater for this. Important in accommodating one of the earliest "Big Things", the complex also reflects the growth of the phenomenon of the Big Thing as a tourist attraction and destination in Australian tourism.
|As a popular and landmark tourist attraction and through representation in tourist guides and brochures, the Big Pineapple complex is a highly identifiable and recognised place, both nationally and internationally. The Big Pineapple tourist attraction has a special association with thousands of tourists who have experienced road trips on the old Bruce Highway and have enjoyed a stop at the iconic tourist attraction.
The Sunshine Plantation also attracted support from the local community, and had close associations with key regional and state agricultural industry associations.
The Big Pineapple structure has iconic and landmark status as one of Australia's most well-known Big Things. Its most recent recognition is inclusion in a special stamp issue of Big Things by Australia Post.
|The Big Pineapple complex is important in demonstrating the characteristics of an agri-tourism attraction combining the entertainment of tourists with the promotion of the features, facilities and industries of the region.
Accommodating a nationally recognised iconic "Big Thing" the complex combines leisure and retail activities and attractions with educational displays and experiences. The plantings of many varieties of fruits, nuts, spice and cane provide a place for visitors to see and learn about tropical agricultural production. The panoramic layout of the plantation is designed to show visitors from vantage points around the main building complex the diversity of crops grown in the region.
The Big Pineapple structure is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an outdoor cultural object or "Big Thing" in its fabric and setting. Big Things represent flora or fauna, are larger-than-life size, are constructed from materials like fibreglass and steel, are associated with a tourist attraction and occupy a roadside location to entice tourists to visit the attraction. Big Things often advertise the produce of the area in which they are located, and the Big Pineapple is located on a working pineapple farm, in a region were the pineapple industry once predominated. This authenticity contributes to its enduring appeal.
As one of Queensland's first Big Things, the Big Pineapple structure is generally intact and retains its interior displays, internal staircase and distinctive fibre-glass shell. The associated retail and restaurant buildings and the plantation setting remain.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30334,"place_ref":602695,"name":"Dunethin Rock","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Dunethin Rock Road","suburb":"MAROOCHY RIVER","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"Approximately five kilometres southeast of the township of Yandina, the beauty spot of Dunethin Rock stands on the south bank of the Maroochy River to the east edge of Lake Dunethin. North of the Yandina-Bli Bli Road at the termination of Dunethin Rock Road, the rocky outcrop provides opportunities for taking in sweeping panoramas from the Blackall Range to the coast. Features within these panoramas include the mountains of Ninderry, Coolum and Cooroy, areas of lush vegetation, sugar cane fields and farmland and the winding course of the meandering Maroochy River.
The flat area below the rocky outcrop runs along the river bank and beside the lake and accommodates a concrete boat ramp, small timber jetty and adjoining timber framed picnic shelter with concrete slab floor, concrete picnic tables, and a toilet block - these structures are not significant. A steep gravelled road climbs to the east from the flat and travels around to the south of the outcrop. A timber picnic shed is perched to the edge of the road and offers teasing glimpses of the expansive views available from the summit.
This timber framed picnic shed is sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron. The east and west sides are infilled to the lower half with weatherboards and the other sides are open. The shed has a concrete slab floor and accommodates two timber tables with bench seats to their long sides. A rainwater tank stands to the east. (This picnic shed is significant).
A rough path from the road edge is shaded by a range of mature trees and leads to a plateau at the summit, a natural viewing platform. This area of the outcrop is bare except for the occasional rogue vegetation struggling for a foothold and coverings of moss, lichen, dry leaves and twigs.
Note: the only significant structure is the picnic shed near the summit of the rock.
","history":"Dunethin Rock, a scenic reserve on the southern bank of the upper Maroochy River, is an important site associated with the development of tourism from the early 1900s on the Sunshine Coast, a major tourist region in Queensland.
The two earliest pastoral leases on the northern bank of the Maroochy River were the Canando and Yandina runs leased by Daniel and Zachariah Skyring in 1853. Dunethin Rock, a prominent monolith on the southern bank of the river marked the shared southern boundaries of these runs. Land on the southern side of the Maroochy River was opened for grazing after 1860. In 1861 Edmund Lander leased the Mooloolah Back Plains, a run of 26,500 acres with an outstation near Lake Dunethin, an inlet of the Maroochy River just north of Dunethin Rock. This outstation was abandoned by 1868. In 1862 John Westaway took up land east of Lander, known as Moolooloo Back Plains. Similar to the Skyring stations, the boundaries of the southern runs terminated on the Maroochy River in the vicinity of Dunethin Rock.
During the 1860s the economy of the Maroochy region became increasingly geared towards extraction of the bountiful timber in the area. Brisbane timber merchant William Pettigrew, highly influential in the timber trade throughout south-east Queensland established a presence in the region, with depots on both the Maroochy and Mooloolah rivers later establishing a sawmilling complex near the Maroochy's mouth. In the mid 1860s Pettigrew transferred his Maroochy timber lease to James Low. Low established a timber depot opposite and slightly upstream from Dunethin Rock on the site of the wharf of the original Yandina run, opening a post office in 1868. The word Dunethin is of Aboriginal origin meaning the place of swimming trees, (dhu trees, yungathin, swim), a reference to the logs transported on the river in the area during this period. Until 1970, when Dunethin became the official name, the locality was often referred to as Dunethim.
An early overland track from the depot to the Gympie diggings was built by Low and other timbergetters, accessed by a journey up the Maroochy River. The depot was closed after a new Brisbane-Gympie road opened in late 1868. Low moved his operations close to where the new road crossed the Maroochy River, near present day Yandina.
Following the 1868 Crown Lands Alienation Act, the earlier pastoral runs on the Maroochy River were divided for closer settlement for agriculture. In November 1873, James Campbell applied for selection of approximately 180 acres of second class pastoral land surrounding Dunethin Rock. Campbell's application was cancelled because the government had decided not to open up the land, surveyed as Portion 28 Parish of Maroochy, for selection. However, some sections of this land parcel were excised for selection from the mid 1870s until 1900.
In January 1901 a group of local residents petitioned the Lands Department to have the remainder of Portion 28 and vacant Crown land in Portion 55, which included both Dunethin Rock and the Lake, set aside as a reserve for public purposes. The petitioners contended the land was the only unselected parcel on the Maroochy River above flood level and should be set aside for retreat for residents and stock and for township and other purposes. Consequently a Reserve for Public Purposes of 520 acres (R.236) was proclaimed.
After 1906, the reserve was incrementally reduced for a mixture of private selections and public purposes. An esplanade facing the river was retained to allow for access to the water. The Maroochy River State School was opened in June 1911, with a School Reserve gazetted in 1913. This school operated until 1972, servicing families settled along the river, with students arriving by a boat service to the Dunethin wharf sited between the rock and the lake. A School of Arts reserve was also gazetted in 1913. The Maroochy River School of Arts opened in 1914 and was a centre for social functions until its closure in 1963. The Maroochy River School and School of Arts were sited northwest of the rock, opposite the southern bank of the lake.
A Scenic Reserve of approximately 5 acres which encircled the rock itself was gazetted in 1923 and was placed under the control of the Maroochy Shire Council. The remainder of the original 1901 reserve was renamed a reserve for camping and scenic purposes in 1924, further reduced in 1935 with a recreation and sports ground reserve, extending along the river to the junction with Lake Dunethin. The scenic reserve and the recreation and sports reserve connected Dunethin Rock and the Lake via the river bank, the central locations for tourist, leisure and social activities.
The lower reaches of the Maroochy River began to develop as a place of resort in the 1880s. On the southern bank, a 215 acre wharf and water reserve was gazetted in 1873 near the river's mouth. Holiday makers camped on the reserve among the native cotton trees. From the 1890s the Salvation Army established an encampment over the Christmas period on the reserve, a popular annual event held until 1929. The use of this calm, shallow stretch of the river as a watering place for swimming, boating and fishing reflected the seaside preferences of the Victorian era. Similar locations for resort on the North Coast were developed in the same period at Caloundra and Tewantin.
Local visitors predominated until after World War I. Brisbane surveyor Thomas O'Connor acquired what had been Pettigrew's sawmill complex near the reserve in 1903, with the intent of developing a riverside resort. Part of this land was subdivided and sold at an auction in Nambour in 1908, signalling the beginning of more intensive development in the area. Further development and expansion of Maroochy's tourist industry was fostered with the subdivision and auction of most of the reserve into the Township of Maroochydore in 1915.
As with Maroochydore, the use of the Dunethin Rock locality as a place of leisure began with the local population. From the early 1900s it became a popular destination for picnics, fishing and enjoying the view from the rock summit. The Yandina-Maroochy Progress Association celebrated its first anniversary on the lake in 1905 and a held a 'Grand Aquatic Sports' event on Easter Monday 1907. The Maroochy River School functioned as the community hall from 1911 until the School of Arts was built in 1914, providing a permanent structure for community occasions and fundraising events. During 1915 the Maroochy District Patriotic Sports meeting was held with land and water events that included wood chopping, sawing, running and motor boat races. A 'Grand Excursion' to Dunethin Lake in aid of the Wounded Soldiers Fund was held in 1916. In the same year, a team of Brisbane swimmers visited Dunethin rock to launch the Maroochy River and District Swimming Club.
From the early 1900s the attractions of the seaside and mountain resorts of the North Coast, as the Sunshine Coast area was then known, began to receive wider exposure. Publications by Queensland Railways and the Queensland Intelligence and Tourist Bureau drew attention to the scenic features of the natural environment, such as rainforests, rivers and waterfalls. At the instigation of Thomas O'Connor and the Maroochy River Progress Association, a tour of the Maroochy region's beauty spots was conducted with representatives of the Intelligence and Tourist Bureau, the Lands Department, leading banks and metropolitan journalists in early 1910. The objective of the tour was to protect Maroochy's beauty spots 'for all time'. The itinerary included a climb to the summit of Dunethin Rock to highlight the extensive panoramic views of cane fields, farms, the river and the mountains between the coast and ranges. From the 1910s Dunethin Rock became much frequented as a place to take important dignitaries and representatives visiting the Maroochy Shire.
From 1909, the Moreton Central Sugar Milling Company was making use of cane trams to convey passengers from Nambour Train Station to Cedar Tree on Petrie Creek, extending its service to Deepwater at Bli Bli in 1911. From these points, motor launches took passengers to the jetty at Cotton Tree. In 1923, a tram line to Dunethin Rock was completed to transport sugar cane from nearby farms. The Nambour Chronicle records the use of the line to transport tourists from Nambour in October of that year. It is undetermined how long this practice continued. The line was extended to Lake Dunethin in 1946, however all passenger transport on the tram network had ceased by 1936.
Until the late 1920s, when the Main Road between Nambour and Maroochydore was constructed, the Maroochy River was the key transport route for visitors to the growing tourist settlements of Maroochydore and Cotton Tree. The number of commuter boats increased after the Moreton Mill began its passenger carrying operations. Motor launches transporting passengers from the 1910s included Charles Thiedke's Vera I and Vera II, William Evans' M.V. Favourite and Thomas O'Connor's M.V. Alexandra and M.V. Hazeldean. William Coulson operated the mail service on the river between Yandina and Maroochydore during this period and was transporting passengers from Yandina Railway Station by 1916.
Outside of commuter services, many of the motor launches were also available for hire and charter along the Maroochy River. The wharf near Dunethin Rock was an obvious destination for these operators as it provided the most convenient access for excursionists to the locality and for social events at the School of Arts. In 1916 the boats Vera and Hazeldean ferried passengers to Dunethin Rock for the Wounded Soldiers Fund excursion. In 1923 a Nambour Chronicle correspondent drew attention to the potential of the upper reaches of the Maroochy River for touring purposes including the 'outstanding natural feature' of Dunethin Rock.
Percy Evans, son of William Evans had purchased O'Connor's motor launch business in 1919. During the 1920s Evans began offering weekly cruises from Cotton Tree jetty to Dunethin Rock. The 1927 edition of From Noosa to the Tweed recommended Dunethin Rock and Lake as 'picturesque spots well worth visiting'. Following the opening of the Nambour-Maroochydore road in 1927 demand for passenger transport declined and Moreton Mill suspended their Maroochydore service in 1929. Thereafter, boat owners increasingly concentrated their operations on recreational activities on the river.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Dunethin Rock continued to grow in popularity as a destination, with facilities for visitors gradually improving. After the opening of the first section of the Bruce Highway in December 1934, motor vehicle access to Dunethin Rock began to receive more attention. In 1937 the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland, who provided many of the earliest road signs in the state, responded to a request by the Maroochy River Progress Association to have a sign placed at the Dunethin Road turn off at Yandina. By this time the Association had begun lobbying the Main Roads Commission to connect the separate Yandina and-Bli Bli roads that provided access to the area. From 1938, the Association appealed to Maroochy Shire Council for a shelter shed to be constructed at the wharf, eventually completed in 1940 at a cost of £20. As part of Arbor Day celebrations in 1939, an avenue of trees was planted on the Dunethin reserve by the Maroochy River School Committee.
A 1940 meeting of the Association noted the increasing popularity of motor boat cruises to the reserve during the holiday season and advocated installing beacons to warn boats of submerged rocks near the jetty. In the same year the Maroochy Shire Council carried a motion to have a road cleared by voluntary labour to the top of the rock, as the improved road from Nambour-Bli-Bli had increased the potential to for the site to become 'one of the most attractive tourist centres in the district'. It is uncertain whether this work was proceeded with. The wharf originally built by local residents, was replaced by Council in June 1944. In December of that year over 300 people visited for the Moreton Mill Welfare Club picnic.
An estimated 700 people visited over January 1945. The Queensland Tourist Bureau and Railway Department's official photographer, Mr. S.G. Wardle visited Dunethin Rock and other scenic locations on the North Coast in February 1946 to take photos for inclusion in a new issue of tourist booklets published by the Bureau. After the 1945/1946 holiday season, councillors within Maroochy Shire Council pushed for construction of conveniences, in light of its continuing growth as a picnic resort and the large bus and boat contingents frequently visiting the reserve. Despite protests by Percy Evans, who was transporting the majority of tourists to Dunethin Rock, a landing fee of 10 shillings towards maintenance was imposed by Maroochy Shire Council. The conveniences were eventually built in 1948.
David Low, who was the local member of State parliament in the late 1940s, recognised the potential for the growth in coastal tourism, advocating improved facilities and better promotion of the area. During 1948 Low, on behalf of the Maroochy River Progress Association made an unsuccessful representation to the Main Roads Commission to have the road between Dunethin and Bli Bli declared a tourist road. In 1949 Low attended the Arbor Day tree planting ceremony at Maroochy River School. Low stressed the importance of planting trees in the locality as he was of the opinion that Dunethin Rock would one day become one of the 'chief tourist places on the North Coast' and was the 'most beautiful spot he had seen'.
In the early 1950s Dunethin Rock continued to be popular for tourists arriving by motor launch. However, as petrol rationing ceased and car ownership increased more visitors began arriving by road. In 1952 Low was elected Chairman of Maroochy Shire Council resulting in increased expenditure on tourist infrastructure and transport linkages serving the coastal area as well as inland rural districts in the shire. During the 1953-54 financial year Maroochy Shire Council allocated £500 for tourist development at Dunethin Rock and at Wappa Falls, further upstream. However this money was not spent and was reallocated in the 1954-55 budget. In August 1955, Council began work on constructing the long advocated link that connected the Yandina and Bli Bli roads to Dunethin Rock. This road was completed by December 1955 in time for the summer holidays. The road provided a scenic circuit drive between Nambour, Bli Bli, Dunethin Rock and Yandina. During this period a gravel road providing access to the summit of the rock was completed. A small simple wooden picnic shelter and water tank was also built near the summit for visitors.
During the 1950s, the Maroochy River began to silt up and for a number of years Percy Evans used a shallow draft boat, M.V. Miss Maroochy to transport passengers to Dunethin Rock. After more than forty years of service Evans sold his business in 1967. A number of operators have since continued to operate cruises up the Maroochy River to Dunethin Rock.
Dunethin Rock and its surrounds appear to have remained relatively unchanged since its mid-20th century visitation heyday. The site currently receives a smaller percentage of visitors compared to more prominent scenic locations on the Blackall Range. The buildings of the Maroochy River School of Arts and State School, closed in 1963 and 1972 respectively, are no longer in existence. While native vegetation surrounding the summit has obscured some southerly views, an extensive panorama can still be appreciated from Dunethin Rock. The area below the rock along the river remains a popular picnic site for locals and for those who make use of the boat ramp near the junction with Dunethin Lake built by Maroochy Shire Council in the 1990s.
","criteria":"Situated on a tranquil stretch of the upper Maroochy River, viewed from land and river Dunethin Rock is the dominant feature of this place, long valued for its natural beauty. From its summit, Dunethin Rock offers a fine panorama extending from the Blackall Ranges to the coast, offering expansive views of the mountains Ninderry, Coolum and Cooroy, sugarcane fields, native vegetation and the winding Maroochy River. The esplanade between Dunethin Rock and Dunethin Lake offers the opportunity for relaxation in a river setting.
|As a popular picnic spot and destination for excursionists, Dunethin Rock was associated with North Coast (now Sunshine Coast) tourism from as early as 1910. Gazetted as a scenic reserve in 1924, when the North Coast was emerging as a holiday destination for outside visitors, Dunethin Rock's increased popularity as a tourist destination from this period was enhanced through the provision of access by motor launches on the Maroochy River and Moreton Mill tram line, key components of Maroochy Shire's early tourist transport network. Road access to Dunethin Rock was improved during the 1950s in response to the rise of motor transport that occurred Australia-wide in this period.
|Dunethin Rock illustrates the principal characteristics of an early beauty spot primarily accessed by means of a river cruise from a seaside resort, including scenic amenity and opportunities for leisure and relaxation.
Accommodating picnic tables and seats within a robust timber framed and clad structure, the picnic shed near the summit of the rock is a fine example of this shelter type designed in the 1950s and commonly found in picnic areas in south-east Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30336,"place_ref":602698,"name":"North Coast Roadside Rest Areas","alternate_name":"Wyllie Park | Petrie Road Rest Area | Jowarra Road Rest Area | Paynter's Creek Rest Area","street_address":"Steve Irwin Way","suburb":"GLENVIEW","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-02-05","description":"Petrie
The Petrie Road Rest Area is a wooded park located in the outer Brisbane suburb of Petrie. It is a triangle of land bounded on the east by Gympie Road, the west by the North Coast Railway Line and the south by the North Pine River. Access is obtained from Gympie Road.
The entrance is marked by two tall green wooden posts. A bitumen road bordered by wooden bollards runs in a small circuit through the park from the entrance. Just inside the entrance, a granite monument set amongst low shrubs commemorates Frederick Stanwell Parkes, an engineer with the Main Roads Department.
The access road loops around a formal garden which forms the setting for a shelter shed, barbeque and playground. A table and seats are located next to the electric barbeque towards the west of this area. Slightly east of this is the playground. The shelter shed, hexagonal in plan, is located towards the other end of the area.
The northern end of the park and an area west of the barbeque is set aside for campers and caravans. This area is grassed and shaded by mature trees. A cream coloured, masonry lavatory block is located west of the barbeque area.
The southern section of the park comprises a lightly wooded, grassy expanse. Picnic settings and another shelter shed, similar in design to the one at the centre of the park, are located here. Concrete paths run through this area. At one point the path crosses a shallow gully via a small wooden bridge.
Jowarra
To the northwest edge of Steve Irwin Way just south of the Caloundra Road Off Ramp of the Bruce Highway, Jowarra Road Rest Area sits to the edge of the Beerwah Forest Reserve. An access road runs parallel to Steve Irwin Way with turns into a bitumened carpark (accommodating approximately 50 vehicles) to the north end of the park and into the gravelled van bay area (accommodating 9 bays) to south. There are also parking spaces along the access road. A small sign at the entrance to the van area indicates that 'this area is provided for the convenience of the travelling public, maximum stay 20 hours'.
Distinguished by tall mature trees, the park provides a shady retreat for travellers off the busy highway. The grassed area between the carpark and the van area accommodates a picnic shelter, toilet block, concrete water tank, a scatter of concrete picnic tables and seats and the entrance to the Jowarra Walking Tracks.
The picnic shelter consists of concreted coursed rubble stone walls with projecting piers to each corner and the doorways. Standing on a concrete slab floor, the shelter is protected by a timber framed gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The timber fascia to the northwest carries the words 'MRD Jowarra Park 1960'. Recent steel framed timber topped picnic tables and seats stand within the shelter which has doorways to the long sides. Open windows with concrete sills sit between the piers. An information board (about the Great North Road) sheltered by a small barrel roof stands to the northeast of shelter.
The entrance to the walking tracks is flanked by two piers of concreted random rubble stone. An information board sheltered by a gable roof stands nearby.
Paynter's Creek
Paynter's Creek Road Rest Area is a narrow park well shaded by mature trees set below the west side of Nambour Connection Road approximately three kilometres south of Nambour. Bounded by Cobbs Road to the north, a private property to the west, Paynter Creek to the south and Nambour Connection Road to the east, the park is accessed from Cobbs Road.
A bitumened road edged with timber posts supporting timber cross boards forms a U-shape track through the park. Grassed areas to centre and verges of internal road accommodate timber picnic tables and seats - one set sheltered by a gabled roof. There is a discreet camping area to the northwest and a carparking area off the internal road to the west.
","history":"The roadside rest areas, constructed by the Main Roads Commission (MRC) from the early 1950s on the old Bruce Highway and on roads feeding onto the highway (at Petrie; Jowarra, Landsborough; Paynter's Creek, Woombye) represent a pattern of development of the tourist industry in Queensland intrinsically linked to the rise of motor transport Australia-wide in the second half of the 20th century.
The early 1920s heralded the beginnings of increasing car ownership in Queensland. In 1921, the year registration was introduced in Queensland, there was estimated to be approximately 8,000 motor vehicles in the state. By mid-1923 nearly 17,000 cars were registered. While the demographic of ownership was broadening, it was still very much confined to the affluent. Nonetheless, as more people took to the car, the need for serviceable roads for motor vehicles became apparent.
The State government responded with the establishment of the Queensland Main Roads Board in 1920. Prior to this, the onus was on local shire councils to fund road construction and management. They were largely unable to provide the finances or technical skills to respond to challenges posed by increased car use. After the Board's establishment, co-operative funding arrangements occurred with local councils, who generally maintained roads after their construction. The initial policy of the Main Roads Board was to construct roads that operated as feeders to railway networks and aided the development of newly settled and existing districts. By the end of 1921, the Main Roads Board were surveying and designating main roads throughout the State.
Improvements to road networks during the interwar period strongly influenced the development of the tourist industry on the North Coast. During its first decade of operation, a number of key roads were built with Main Roads assistance on the North Coast. The road to Maleny from Landsborough, built in 1921, was the earliest, described in the 1925 edition of From Noosa to the Tweed, 'as good as any in the state'. Other projects included the road from Palmwoods to Montville and coastal roads to Tewantin, Maroochydore, Coolum and Caloundra.
After many years of agitation by the Great North Coast Road Committee, local authorities and the RACQ, the first declaration of the Bruce Highway, between what is now Rothwell and Eumundi was officially opened in December 1934. By this time, there were nearly 92,000 vehicles in Queensland, mainly concentrated in the south-east corner of the state. The potential for the tourism at North Coast seaside and mountain resorts had been a key factor in the decision by Henry Bruce, Minister for Public Works to allocate Main Roads funds for the road. When first opened, the highway was classified as a 'tourist' road. The Main Roads Annual Report of 1937 commented on the 'remarkable' progress of North Coast seaside resorts, particularly Maroochydore and Caloundra, since the development of the highway and recorded increased traffic on both the highway and connecting roads.
While pressure was exerted for the construction of the through route connecting northern and southern Queensland, it was resisted on the grounds that the railway serviced the needs of land tourists and business travellers and funds were better spent on development projects throughout the state. Gradually however, the Bruce Highway extended further north. By 1942, the route was bitumen sealed between Brisbane and Eumundi.
During World War II the resources of the Main Roads Commission were concentrated on defence projects through the operations of the Allied Works Council. While Queensland gained over 3,000km of defence related roads during this period, including sections that became the Bruce Highway, work on the whole route was delayed. For the first few years after the end of the war in 1945, Main Roads resources were scarce. It wasn't until the 1950s that a more concerted effort on the highway could be undertaken. The highway developed incrementally, by 1962 bitumen sealed between Brisbane and Cairns.
The lifting of petrol rationing by the Menzies federal government, the increased affordability of cars for the wider population and longer paid holidays were catalysts for the growth of motor tourism during the 1950s. By the end of the decade, Australia was second only to the United States in terms of car ownership per head of population. In Queensland, car ownership rose from near 100,000 to over 240,000 between 1950 and 1960. It was during this period that provision of 'off the road' areas, later known as roadside rest areas, became an important aspect of Main Roads Commission operations. The 1951 Penrods Guide to North Coast Shore and Mountain Resorts listed areas at Petrie on the Pine River, Burpengary Creek, and Paynter's Creek between Woombye and Nambour. For motorists travelling from Brisbane to the North Coast and beyond, the Bruce Highway was accessed at Rothwell, via the Hornibrook Bridge or from the Gympie Rd, via Petrie. The rest area located just south of Petrie township catered for those using the Gympie Road.
In 1952, Main Roads noted the areas were 'a factor much appreciated' by motorists. The provision of rest areas was connected to tree planting operations undertaken throughout the state along roads, in towns and at off the road areas. Up to 1952, expenditure on tree planting and 'off the road' facilities, was less than one percent of all Main Roads expenditure. The tree plantings and rest areas can be seen as examples of Main Roads moving beyond pure road building objectives, to enhancing journeys for travelling motorists.
Use of rest areas increased during 1953. Motorists wrote letters to Main Roads to thank them for providing areas. The areas were meant for daylight use, although some had begun to be used as overnight camping places by travellers. On-site concrete or stone fireplaces were provided for travellers to 'boil the billy', while containing the threat of bushfires that could be caused by makeshift roadside fires. Parks close to the fringes of Brisbane were especially popular. One hundred and ninety-two cars were counted at Petrie Park one Sunday, evidence of their high level of patronage. The following year, the Petrie and Burpengary parks were considered to have reached their carrying capacity on weekends.
Main Road's provision of rest areas expanded as their popularity grew. The 1955 Main Roads Annual Report noted the constant use of areas and their 'extreme' popularity, especially with interstate and long-distance travellers. By 1955 a 'fairly comfortable' journey could be made from Brisbane to Cairns in five days. The report also drew attention to the positive effects of the areas after a number of years of observation. Drivers were using the areas for breaks during hot weather 'thereby increasing their driving efficiency'. There was less roadside grassfires and littering. At a national conference of State Road Authorities, other states expressed their interest in Queensland's development of off the road areas, as they were considered to have had made the most progress in this field. The types of land used for these rest areas were divided into four categories; areas severed by resumptions for road works, considered too small to add to adjoining properties purchased by the state; land resumed for road widening, suitable areas on creek and river banks and suitable areas where fine views could be obtained.
Amenities available for travellers at areas were dependent on their size. Smaller areas offered a table and seat and a fireplace, sufficient to stop, eat, drink and continue. Larger areas provided tables and seats in the open and under 'rustic' shelters, fireplaces, water tanks (unless on creeks), 'swinging' rubbish bins and toilets. A number of areas were extensively planted with trees to make them more attractive.
Rest areas rapidly became a popular roadside accommodation option for a growing type of motorist, the caravan tourist. While caravans were appearing on North Coast resorts by the late 1930s, it wasn't until the 1950s that numbers increased substantially. In the early 1950s, relatively few sites in Queensland offered the infrastructure considered as necessary to accommodate caravanning needs. In 1952, the Nambour Chronicle commented on the lack of caravan parks, noting 'several rest areas throughout the North Coast have gone a long way as substitutes' and are well patronised'. These rest areas included Paynter's Creek, constructed by the MRC on approximately ½ acre (0.61 hectare) in 1951, between Woombye and Nambour; Pine River near Petrie (an MRC picnic, caravan and camping area with water and conveniences) available in 1951; Jowarra Rest Area, between Landsborough and Caloundra, and Nadroya, south of Cooroy. Photographic evidence from 1954 shows that the Paynter's Creek Rest Area was used by caravanners. It wasn't until late 1954 that the first caravan park opened on the North Coast section of the Bruce Highway, the Bamboo All Electric at Forest Glen. By 1953, there were increasing numbers of caravans seen on Queensland roads, mostly originating from Victoria and New South Wales. At this time there were 2,320 registered caravans in Queensland. The basic facilities at rest areas combined with the relative self-sufficiency of caravans meant the need to stay in a town could be avoided. The high usage of particular rest areas by caravans by 1955 led Main Roads to restrict stays to 48 hours to ensure facilities were available for casual users.
High use of rest areas led to continual maintenance, undertaken by Main Roads gangs and in some instances local authorities. At Paynter's Creek in 1954 toilet and rubbish facilities were on site and new tree plantings were also in evidence. Four years later minor improvements to Paynter's Creek Rest Area were noted in the 37th Annual Report of the Main Roads Commissioner. By the early 1960s, MRC had upgraded the rest areas, 'Jowarra' on the Bruce Highway-Caloundra intersection, erecting a substantial shelter of concrete and stone; 'Nadroya', just south of Cooroy; and Belli Park on the Mary River road, near Kenilworth. A report on the unveiling of a memorial plaque at Matthew Flinders Park by the Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, the Honourable D.E.Nicholson, M.L.A on 27 July 1963, noted that the Main Roads Department cleared and prepared the site for the memorial 'which will later be developed as a Rest Area, thus providing an amenity for road travellers at a place of great historical interest to Queensland'. This park near Glasshouse Mountains had been the site of a basket picnic for the Bruce Highway's official opening by the Hon H.A. Bruce, the Minister for Works on 15 December 1934 and was the site of a cairn and plaque erected in commemoration of this event in 1934.
Between 1957 and 1970 an ongoing reconstruction of the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and Nambour was undertaken. A 'spectacular' increase in traffic between Nambour and Brisbane occurred during this period, with 1970 volumes three to four times 1957 figures. A number of new concrete bridges and realignments were completed and a major bypass was completed between Burpengary and Beerburrum. A four lane section of roadway was built between Paynter's Creek Bridge and the Maroochydore turn-off and the townships of Beerwah, Glasshouse Mountains and Eumundi were bypassed between 1973 and 1975. From its beginnings in 1934 as a virtual service road to North Coast resorts, the Bruce Highway had by the 1970s become increasingly oriented to through traffic heading north.
By 1971 there were 130 Main Roads rest areas in Queensland. A progressive upgrading of roadside amenities was initiated. New structures were planned for several areas and additional sites were under consideration. Three acres was deemed an acceptable minimum size, while design features needed to be flexible to respond to variable topography and environmental conditions throughout the state. Main Roads considered the most important facilities to be septic toilet blocks, water supply and covered rubbish bins.
Upgrading of rest areas gradually continued throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Main Roads further developed policies to deal with rest area establishment and the implications of increasing demand and usage of these places. Information was gathered to determine rest area characteristics to assist their development to a standard sufficient to attract motorists to pull of the road for rest and relaxation. The 48 hour restriction introduced in 1955 remained in place in 1980, except in some local shires that forbade overnight stays. In 1980 Main Roads distributed its first brochure detailing rest area locations and facilities available on principal roads throughout Queensland.
Between 1980 and the mid 1990s the old Bruce Highway route between the Beerburrum exit and Cooroy was progressively replaced. By 1985 the four lane roadway between the turn offs to Beerburrum and Caloundra was completed. Construction extended northward eventually by-passing Nambour, Yandina and Cooroy. The original sections of the highway between the Beerburrum and Caloundra exits and Tanawha-Forest Glen have since become tourist drives, a return to their original designation.
Service station food courts and 'Driver Reviver' outlets operating in holiday periods now provide the only opportunities for roadside breaks on the current alignment of the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and Gympie. While the old highway no longer carries the same volume of traffic, the rest areas along the route remain well patronised. While up-dating of facilities has occurred at rest areas, the Main Roads rationale for their provision has remained much the same since the early 1950s. Rest areas provide the motorist with an 'attractive park-like area' off the road to take a break from driving, especially long-distance travellers in cars and those with caravans and trailers, with the aim of reducing fatigue related accidents and improving the total travel experience.
In 2008, only the Petrie, Matthew Flinders, Jowarra and Paynter's Creek road rest areas survive. The Matthew Flinders road rest area has been resumed for the Beerburrum to Landsborough Rail Upgrade Project and is scheduled for demolition.
","criteria":"The old Bruce Highway (and feeder road) Rest Areas [Petrie, Jowarra and Paynter's Creek] (1951-1960) are among the earliest known places of this type associated with a highway that was, at the time, Queensland's most important tourist road. As such, they demonstrate an important phase in the evolution of the State's road network and tourist industry. The early 1950s saw a major increase in medium to long-distance car travel and tourism. The road rest areas were developed to accommodate this trend by providing places at convenient locations where motorists could rest or camp.
The rest areas are also evidence of the early development of caravanning. When caravanning became popular from the early 1950s relatively few sites in Queensland offered the appropriate infrastructure and rest areas throughout the North Coast became important as short term caravanning sites.
|Shady havens, these road rest areas are valued as restful spaces providing travellers with opportunities to relax and enjoy picnicking and other informal leisure activities in pleasant surroundings.
|Petrie, Jowarra and Paynter's Creek road rest areas are fine examples of this place type. Designed to provide a place for travellers to stop to rest, eat and drink before continuing on their journey, they are located in road reserves and/or scenic spots, being easily accessible from a roadway, providing convenient parking for vehicles and accommodating picnic tables and barbeque facilities. Petrie and Jowarra also provide camping and van parking spaces and toilets.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30338,"place_ref":645601,"name":"Mungana Archaeological Area","alternate_name":"Girofla Mine | Eclipse Limeworks and Cemetery | Lady Jane Mine | Mungana Township | Old Mungana Township | Mungana Prospect | 700001","street_address":null,"suburb":"MUNGANA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-12-11","description":"The Mungana Archaeological Area consists of eight discreet areas of variable size spread over 6.5 Km2.
Mungana Cemetery: Commenced in the early twentieth century and located within a gazetted reserve on the northern side of Burke Development Road, away from the main Township. Only a small number of graves are clearly marked with headstones, but physical evidence such as remnant grave furniture and east-west aligned depressions indicate the presence of numerous other graves. The area is clearly marked with a wire and post boundary fence and the entrance gate is signed.
The Main Township and Cattle Yards: This is the largest area and is located just south of the Burke Development Road. It includes many features such as the Eclipse Quarry and Lime Kiln, the railway and embankment and remnants of domestic and commercial properties, the second school, the cattle railway siding and the cattle yards. The area around the town and kiln is covered in heavy vegetation in places and many historical features are obscured. The cattle yards have been damaged through termite activity, decay and fire, but the surviving hardwood fencing is still reasonably solid and can be easily read and interpreted. The site also includes the concrete spray race and a slab for a now absent building. The associated railway line is still extant as are other pieces of railway infrastructure (e.g. signal light and track changing lever). However the tracks immediately adjacent to the yards have been heavily undermined by erosion.
The Hospital: Located near the top of a hill to the south of the main township, remnants includes structural elements such as concrete drains and wooden posts, plus many artefacts including but not limited to bed frames, kerosene tins and a bath.
Girofla Mine: This site is located to the west of hospital and directly adjacent to the southern side of the Mungana Branch Railway Line. The site includes the main mine shaft, remnants of the pump arm, a large brick and concrete tank stand, wooden posts, numerous concrete foundations, pipes, and a riveted metal chimney that has collapsed. The geography of the area is varied and includes both natural features, such as a large limestone karst above the main shaft where machinery was established, and cultural features, such as large mullock heaps. The main shaft area is fenced off for safety reasons.
Girofla Smelter: Located to the south of the Mine and at the base of a steep ridge, this area consists of substantial foundations, a stone wall, slag spoil and domestic dwellings. The ruined domestic dwelling is located on a hill to the south of the smelter and consists of a stone foundation platform with a thin concrete slab floor. Immediately adjacent to the floor area is a large depression in the ground that probably represents a water soak. A light scattering of surface domestic artefacts are found around the house area including bottle and ceramic fragments.
Lady Jane Mine: Located to the east of the Girofla Smelter and adjacent to the southern edge of the modern access road to Red-Dome, this is another large and complex area consisting of both mining and domestic features. The large main shaft is directly adjacent to the aforementioned road and is fenced off for safety. All around the shaft are numerous mining artefacts and features including machinery foundations, metal pipes, and a tramway with remnant wooden sleepers, kerosene tins and numerous bricks/brickwork. To the south-west of the mine shaft are two ruined domestic dwellings. These are associated with light artefact scatters and the most eastern has a Frangipani tree immediately adjacent to the concrete floor. This dwelling is also located near large U-shaped winding foundations made of concrete.
Old Mungana or Girofla Township: Located to the north of Lady Jane Mine on the other side of the modern road, this site consists of series of features and artefact scatters associated with the early township. Artefacts consist of ceramics and glass and date from the late nineteenth century to the mid 1930s, possibly indicating continued use of the area for a considerable period after the township moved in 1901.
Mungana Magazines and Access Route: Located within the National Park to the north of the old Mungana/Girofla Township, this area contains the only extant buildings within the archaeological area. The two magazines are different in size and are located immediately adjacent to each other. The smaller structure measures 2040 mm width, X 2100 mm breadth X 2270 mm height and was used for housing detonators. The larger building measures 4100 mm width x 5370mm breadth X 2650 mm height and was used for housing explosives. Both structures are of a similar design, with a corrugated iron gabled roof and whitewashed exterior walls. Both are constructed of a single course of hollow blocks, which are believed to have been handmade locally. The missing roof on the explosives magazine was replaced in 2000 with a free standing metal framed roof. The magazines are located away from the former township and behind a series of limestone karsts. Access is via a road between two of the line karsts. The road still exhibits scars from the blasting and drilling required during the construction process.
","history":"The Mungana Archaeological Area is an aggregation of the remnants of mining and associated community infrastructure that commenced during Queensland's mining boom in the 1880s. The area was both geographically and commercially linked to the development of the nearby township of Chillagoe, which was originally settled and named in 1887 by William Atherton, the son of the famous North Queensland Pioneer, John Atherton. William established a large homestead on the banks of the Chillagoe Creek in 1888 with the intention of supplying beef to the expanding mining operations of the area. The far north Queensland Mining magnate, John Moffat, buoyed by reports from Atherton and others of the discovery of payable mineral deposits, visited the area in October 1888 and subsequently acquired the mineral rights over a considerable amount of the Chillagoe/Mungana area. He consolidated his position by establishing a number of smaller mining operations, including a smelter at Calcifer in 1894.
\nMining at Mungana commenced in 1893/4 when John Moffat employed 70 men to prospect the Girofla load. Full scale operations commenced in 1896 when Moffat instructed 20 men to sink a shaft at Girofla, prepare a dam and construct a smelter site. A calico township quickly grew near the mine, and was also called Girofla. The settlement soon expanded to include a small number of buildings, including three hotels. By 1897 the copper smelting machinery from Muldiva had been transferred to Girofla and the latter's population had grown to 158. Although the Girofla mine was principally a lead/silver producer, the smelter also processed other ore from a series of nearby mines associated with Moffat, including the Griffith, Dorothy, Red Dome and Lady Jane.
\nAs mining operations in the area expanded, John Moffat, and his business partner James Smith Reid, sought to restructure their holdings in an effort to establish more manageable portions and raise capital for infrastructure investment. They initially formed the Chillagoe Proprietary Company, which acquired Moffat's leases and negotiated with the colonial government. By late 1897 the Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act had been passed which enabled the construction of a private railway network, ensured 1800 acres of mineral leases, waived labour conditions on the mines, and provided the government with the option to acquire the enterprise after fifty years. A new company was subsequently formed called the Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited, which had a million pounds nominal capital. They then set about constructing the railway and the smelter, although the latter project encountered difficulties and was eventually located at the less preferred location of Chillagoe Smelters (QHR 600675).
\nJust as the rail network was nearing completion in 1901, Moffat and Reid floated the Mungana group of mines as a separate company; the Mungana (Chillagoe) Mining Co. Ltd. This company included the Girofla, Lady Jane, Griffith and Dorothy mines and their associated infrastructure. The completion of the railhead to Mungana in 1901 had a substantial impact upon the town. The township was moved from its original location opposite the Girofla mine to a newly surveyed site either side of the rail head, and was officially renamed Mungana. The Girofla smelter was closed in 1902 as ore could be easily railed to the new large smelting facility at Chillagoe.
\nThe new township of Mungana quickly grew and had a cricket club, turf club, Progress Association, court house, library and reading room. At its peak in 1920 Mungana had six hotels, three stores, bakery, butcher, confectionary shop, drapers, post office, church, school and livery.
\nAt the railway terminus, on the southern side of the railway formation, a stone embankment was built in 1902 by the OK Copper Mines Development Syndicate NL. The OK Mine, smelter and township complex was located to the north of Mungana and made good use of the latter's new railhead. The OK Company used the siding to unloaded coke (for its smelter) and stores (for the town), and load refined copper for export. At first horses did the carrying from Mungana to OK, but in 1905 the OK Company arranged for 400 camels to take over the carriage, managed by Abdul Wade's 'Bourke Carrying Company', which was also a shareholder in the OK Company. Within months Abdul Wade quickly replaced the camels with traction engines to overcome labour problems and because camels were too expensive to feed and were poisoned after eating native bushes. The six traction engines each capable of hauling eight tons cost 7,000 pounds. The embankment was still being used in 1913 after the OK smelters closed and miners had to cart the ore in to Mungana themselves for railing to the Chillagoe smelters.
\nDespite a series of financial scandals associated with the parent Chillagoe operation and the temporary closure of its smelters, Mungana continued to develop. The Lady Jane Mine was regarded as 'promising' and in 1909 new plant was installed including a Babcock boiler. The Mungana Mining Co. installed a pumping plant at Girofla in 1911 that was one of the largest in Queensland at the time and required considerable supporting infrastructure. It consisted of a beam pump with a 39 foot sweep, a tandem compound engine with an 18 foot long crank shaft and a 9 ton weight fly wheel 18 foot in diameter.
\nLike many of its contemporaries, Mungana had a reputation as a wild frontier township. The large number of men, physical isolation and tough living conditions resulted in frequent fights and drunkenness. In October 1901 a domestic servant named Hannah Treacy was murdered by a drunken miner, Richard Henderson, who soon after committed suicide. The offender is believed to occupy one of at least three graves rumoured to exist at the end of Main Street. A formal cemetery was established approximately two kilometres from the Township in the early twentieth century, consisting of both marked and unmarked graves. The oldest know burial is dated 1904. The town racetrack was also located in this area and one of the cemetery fence posts was the fourth furlong marker.
\nDespite the infrastructure investments, the Mungana Co. struggled and eventually collapsed. An underground fire forced the partial closure of the Lady Jane in 1909, resulting in the loss of considerable paying ore. The entire Mungana Company went into liquidation by 1914 and all the mines closed; the Lady Jane completely filling with water. The Mungana operation was subsequently purchased by the Chillagoe Company even though it was also continuing to experience financial difficulties, and the Mungana mines remained closed until they were purchased by the State in 1919.
\nState Government ownership of the Mungana Mines was to represent the Town's civil peak, but also made it the centre of a great political scandal. When the State Labor Government took over operations in 1919, E.G. Theodore was Treasurer and his close friend William McCormack was Home Secretary. Theodore and McCormack had been founding members of the Australian Workers Association (AWA), which was to merge with other labour organisations in 1913 to form the powerful Australian Workers Union. They had both been active in the Chillagoe area from 1908 onwards and succeeded in establishing branches in places such as Mungana, when earlier attempts by others had failed. In 1909 the AWA initiated industrial action at Mungana resulting in pay loading concessions by the Company. Theodore was later the state member for Chillagoe.
\nWhen the state purchased the mines in 1919, it reopened the Girofla and Lady Jane Mines. Fred Reid, a local miner, purchased the leases for both sites while debate about their future was being discussed in Parliament. When the purchase was settled in 1922, Reid was paid in a mixture of cash and royalties. The government also spent a considerable sum dewatering and timbering the mines. It is also believed that the extant powder magazine and detonator shed were constructed during this time.
\nHowever, in 1926 the mines again closed and accusations were made that the government had spent considerably more than originally tabled in both royalties and improvements, plus it emerged that McCormack held shares in Mungana Mines Ltd. Questions were being raised about the legality and ethics of the purchase and a change of government eventually led to a Royal Commission in 1930 that was critical of Theodore, McCormack, Reid and the Chillagoe Mine Manager, Goddard. Theodore and McCormack had both served as the Queensland Premier in the years after the purchase, and the former had since become the Federal Treasurer. Theodore resigned as Treasurer and both he and McCormack were forced to stand trial. Although eventually cleared of fraud and conspiracy charges, the Mungana Affair ended both their political careers. The Chillagoe Smelters still provided a focus for regional mining activities, however by 1943 the dearth of payable ore and the loss of workers to the war effort finally also saw its permanent closure.
\nAfter the closure of the mines Mungana struggled on as a service centre and cattle railhead. The cattle trucking yards had been built along a separate rail siding near the town in 1901. Since the establishment of Chillagoe station by the Atherton family in 1886, cattle had been an expanding industry and the Mungana trucking yards serviced not only local producers but also stations from the Gulf and Lower Peninsula, which initially droved and later trucked their stock to the rail head. Water for stock was a constant issue, especially after the closure of the mining operations. 'Underground' water tanks had been established at the yards but water had to be brought in from Smelters Junction by the locomotives and then emptied into the tanks. The yards had a Buffalo Fly spray plant installed in the late 1930s or early 1940s and the water from the tanks was used primarily for its operation. An old collapsed limestone well near the yards was cleaned out in 1949 but failed to provide a reliable source. The situation grew so desperate that the Courier Mail reported on 29 November 1949 that cattle trucked from Mungana to Cairns had been without water for two days and the future of the practice had to be considered.
\nRegular rail services to Mungana ceased in 1958 and only extended beyond Chillagoe when they were required for cattle. The end of rail services was the final blow to Mungana and by 1959 it had shrunk to a hotel, store, post office and seven residents. A new metal cattle holding yard for road haulage were built in the 1970s and the old wooden cattle yards became derelict. Today the Mungana Township is completely abandoned and has become a tourism destination, although some mining leases have been recently reactivated over parts of the site and a new 'drive' zinc mine is being established. The powder magazine and detonator shed are the only extant buildings but substantial remnants of the rail network, building foundations, stock trucking yards, and mining operations and cemetery survive.
\n","criteria":"
The Mungana Archaeological Area is important in demonstrating the role of the mining industry to the development of far north Queensland and the settlement of the area by non-indigenous people. The peak in its economic life occurred with John Moffat's Chillagoe Company and the State run enterprises of the 1920s. It struggled on for another five decades serving the cattle industry in the Gulf.
The former Mungana Township and railway terminus situated within the Mungana Archaeological Area are important in Queensland's history as a major development associated with the Chillagoe Mineral Field. The Mareeba to Mungana Railway line was the only successful large-scale state/private partnership in railway development between 1860 and 1900. The Girofla and lady Jane Mines were substantial operations, forming an important part in the network of mines that provided ore to the Chillagoe Smelters. The pumping plant installed at the Girofla Mine in 1911 was one of the largest of its type in Queensland at the time and represented an important attempt to deal with the ground water issues that plagued the district.
Despite extensive searches, only limited archival records concerning the activities at Mungana survive. The archaeological record of Mungana has the potential to answer a range of important research questions about Queensland's history through its material remains, especially potential for providing a rare opportunity to examine a complete community for its entire duration. All aspects of the town and mining operation survive in some form. Identifiable areas of archaeological interest include the mining infrastructure foundations and ruins, boilers, railway and tramlines, culverts, bottle dumps, domestic remains, a lime kiln, explosives stores, blasted access roads, a cemetery, a school, wells, a hospital site (including associated artefacts), cattle yards and public venues such as hotels. Artefactual material has been identified in a variety of environments throughout the area, including surface and subsurface deposits and natural depressions. Although there has been some disturbance of the site, its size and relative isolation has ensured a high degree of overall archaeological integrity.
The Mungana Archaeological Area has the potential to answer important research questions associated with how the community developed, interacted, traded and survived. Information about the history of the township and the lives of its occupants would therefore be substantially enhanced through future research. For example, preliminary archaeological analysis demonstrates that although the township of Girofla was officially moved to the current site of Mungana in 1901, artefactual evidence suggests the former continued to be occupied into the 1930s.
The Mungana Archaeological Area has the potential to answer important research questions about the collective experiences of isolated mining communities in far north Queensland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are many abandoned mining townships across Queensland and the far North in particular. The archaeological artefacts and potential artefact deposits within the Mungana Archaeological Area provide a strong basis for comparative analysis with other townships and mining operations, even if they are not as comprehensively preserved, to establish a better understanding of behaviour processes and industry norms in such communities.
The Mungana Archaeological Area has additional research potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history, including questions associated with gender, class, demographics, health, industry the labour movement and entertainment. Such questions could potentially be further refined in terms of the townships' periods of free enterprise and state ownership.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30372,"place_ref":602759,"name":"See Poy House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"134 Edith Street","suburb":"INNISFAIL","lga":"CASSOWARY COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-11-19","description":"See Poy House is located on the western outskirts of Innisfail's central business district on a large level block on the southern side of Edith Street, the main thoroughfare through Innisfail and part of the Bruce Highway. It is a substantial, high-set timber dwelling with multiple gables set in a garden with concrete-edged beds and lawn. The orientation of the house to match that of Edith Street places it at a slight angle to the side allotment boundaries and means its south-western corner stands on or near to the western side boundary.
See Poy House is clad in chamferboards and supported on timber stumps with timber lattice panels fixed between those on the perimeter. Its gabled and hipped roof, which accentuates its asymmetrical room layout, is clad in corrugated metal sheeting with eaves lined with timber battens. The gable ends feature flat sheet panels, timber brackets and timber batten trim.
On the northern (Edith Street) elevation, the entrance at the eastern end is emphasised with a small gable projecting from the corner of the L-shaped verandah. A recent timber and steel stair provides access to the entrance doors in the verandah's western wall, which comprise one and a half leaves with leadlight glass in the upper panels. (These stairs are not considered of cultural heritage significance.) The verandah openings above balustrade height have been filled with banks of leadlight casements, some six-light casements and fixed glazing. There is a centre-pivoting porthole window to the entrance hall and a bay window below the central gable. All leadlight in this elevation is of a matching design.
The western elevation largely comprises a verandah enclosed following a similar glazing scheme to that on the front elevation incorporating some louvre banks. The hipped roof has a louvred gablet at its apex, a scheme mirrored on the eastern elevation. The eastern elevation has a similar fenestration pattern determined by the enclosure of the verandah.
A transverse gable roof at the rear of the house extends across the southern elevation, with six-light casements under each gable end facing the east and west. Beneath a wide awning supported on timber battened brackets and attached to the southern wall is a five-light casement, louvres, a semi-enclosed stair with solid balustrade and the stove recess.
The house, the footprint of which is roughly square, has an asymmetrical layout. It contains a core of rooms comprising entry hall, lounge and dining rooms opening onto the now enclosed north-eastern verandah with the large main bedroom and a smaller second bedroom separated by a bathroom opening onto the enclosed western verandah or sleepout. A short hall separates the main living and dining room from the bedrooms. At the rear of the house, a kitchen occupies the south-east corner and is separated from the study in the south-west corner by the enclosed southern verandah that now serves as a long informal living area.
Throughout the house, walls and ceilings, including the raked verandah ceilings, are generally lined with painted v-jointed tongue and groove timber boards and clear finished skirtings and architraves, except in the formal living and dining rooms and the rear informal lounge where there is flat sheeting. The timber floors throughout have been clear finished. In wet areas vinyl tiles have been laid. The joinery of the core rooms is generally clear finished with early brass hardware, while the verandah joinery is painted.
In the formal living and dining rooms decorative features include picture rails, metal and glass pendant light fittings and an early chair and silk floor rug. A pair of early sliding leadlight doors separates these rooms. The leadlight pattern described above is carried through in the french doors opening into the eastern enclosed verandah; however leadlight casements opening from the dining room into this space and the rear informal living area are of a different design. The servery door from the kitchen is split horizontally into two sections: the top slides up into a wall cavity while the bottom swings open on a hinge. The top leaf of the door has a leadlight panel with a similar pattern to the other dining room windows.
The central hall opens off the living room and runs to the informal living room at the rear of the house providing access to the main and second bedrooms, the bathroom and the dining room along the way. The hall has a 3.5 metre high ceiling and various high-waisted three-panel doors, with timber fretwork fanlights above, open off it. A clear finished cupboard in the hall contains the original silky oak telephone stand.
The main bedroom has an early pendant light fitting and two early brass wall lights in the north-east corner. The bay window contains the original bench window seat and brass window hardware. The second bedroom mirrors this decoration scheme. The enclosed western verandah serves as a third bedroom. Eight-light french doors open onto this space from the main and second bedrooms.
The bathroom retains many original finishes including: green faux-marble panelling to the walls with black faux-marble jointing and skirting strips, and rubber tile flooring. Above the height of 2.4 metres painted timber boards line the walls and ceiling. The bathtub and washbasin are early fixtures, as are the towel rails. There appears to be a hidden cupboard between the bathroom and hallway.
The kitchen also retains many original features including: a sink with legs, sideboard, the serving hatch and stove recess, and the linoleum floor covering with its cardboard backing. Metal bracing for a hot water service is mounted high on a wall. Similar panelling to that used in the bathroom lines the stove recess and the splashback between the sink-top and window sill.
Flat sheeting lines the walls of the enclosed rear verandah to a height of about 2.5 metres above floor level. Above, the timber framing is exposed to the northern side while timber boarding lines the southern wall. Beyond this lounge is a narrow verandah with a skillion roof that incorporates a toilet, the rear stairs, and the kitchen pantry and stove recess.
A slab has been laid throughout the under-croft of the house which is used for storage. Round timber stumps support the house.
The front boundary is delineated by the original fence which has a rendered masonry base and posts with square caps. Attached to the posts are frames made from tubular steel that are filled with chainmesh.
The yard comprises various garden beds with concrete edging set within areas of lawn. These beds wrap around the front and both sides of the house and line the front fence, parallel to it. They are generally rectangular, one metre wide and four to six metres long. A curving concrete path leads from the gate on Edith Street to the landing of the front stairs, dividing the front yard roughly in half with the garden beds arranged symmetrically either side. Midway between the front fence and the house are two circular beds, two metres in diameter, either side of the path. In line with the rectangular beds set off from the western elevation is a circular one at the rear. Similar beds break up the area of lawn on the eastern side of the house. There is also a narrow rectangular bed located at the rear of the lot about 15 metres behind the south-east corner of the house. A recent swimming pool and entertaining area have been constructed at the rear of the house and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The original garage of the south-eastern corner of the house is timber-framed and has a gabled roof. Both its roof and walls are clad in corrugated sheet steel.
","history":"See Poy House, located on one of the main streets of Innisfail, is a substantial, high-set timber home constructed between 1929 and 1932 for Johnstone and Theodora (Dora) See Poy, second generation Chinese Australians from the prominent Innisfail-based See Poy family. The intactness of the house and its garden setting, and the association with the family's social and commercial history, are evidence of Chinese migrant prosperity and success in early twentieth century regional Queensland.
\nWith the discovery of gold on the Palmer River in 1872, Chinese men, including Taam Sze Pui (Tom See Poy, an anglicization of his name that he came to adopt), migrated to work on the Palmer goldfields, but many also established market gardens and set up businesses catering for new arrivals (Ref. 1). Chinese migrants moved between settlements and lived throughout the north on the Hodgkinson goldfields, on the Tablelands working in the timber industry and in the small settlements of Smithfield and Cairns in 1876. In 1880 the Johnstone River district was identified as suitable for agriculture and opened up for settlement and sugar production. Workers came from around the north, including Tom See Poy and other Chinese men. By 1886, the Chinese community at Geraldton (later Innisfail) had grown rapidly, almost matching the Chinese population at Cairns (the largest outside Brisbane). They worked in the sugar and banana industry, the latter rivalling sugar as the region's primary economic activity. Many Chinese men were involved in the banana industry, including Tom See Poy and Tam Sie whose early success with bananas saw them become leading businessmen investing in property and farming.
\nIn July 1883 Tom See Poy and two other Chinese men set up the Kam Who store at Mourilyan and then moved to Innisfail. A few years later, Tom bought out the others and was still operating the Innisfail store when it was damaged in the 1918 cyclone. Although Tom See Poy's initial business activities were modest, See Poy & Sons grew rapidly under the management of his children by the 1920s. Tom See Poy retired in 1925 and died the following year leaving an estate of £32 576. All but the youngest of his five children played a role in the store during their adult life. Eldest son Johnstone became the company director but his two sisters also had a significant role in the business as well.
\nSee Poy and Sons became the largest department store in north Queensland, with international connections. It catered for a wide clientele in Innisfail and beyond, selling everything from toys and shoes to groceries, furniture and cars. Under the directorship of Johnstone See Poy the business extended its floor area and increased its range of merchandise, and in 1929, purchased a car dealership (Ref. 2). The following year the firm embarked upon a significant upgrade of its existing timber store and built Innisfail's biggest department store (Ref. 3). The new two storey building was constructed of reinforced concrete - a popular modern material being increasingly used at the time because of its ability to withstand cyclones and floods. The new store was the equal of similar establishments in other parts of Queensland, and also of the Chinese Australian owned and operated emporia that dominated the skylines of Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shanghai between 1907 and 1931. [The emporia owned by the Chinese Australian Guo and Ma families are two examples of those operating in Hong Kong and China (Ref. 4).] At its peak See Poy & Sons was one of the foremost department stores in north Queensland (Ref. 5). The firm enjoyed significant customer loyalty and successfully withstood mercantile competition from the mail order service of McWhirters in Brisbane, from Penney's variety store, from other Innisfail stores, and from department stores situated in the large cities throughout north Queensland (Ref. 6). It continued to operate until the early 1980s, the whole See Poy family being honoured by the Queensland government in 1981 with a commemorative plaque for its contribution to retailing.
\nDuring the interwar period, which was one of business expansion for See Poy & Sons, members of the See Poy family also built private residences in close proximity to their department store which was located one block east of 134 Edith Street on the north-eastern corner of the intersection of Edith and Ernest Streets. Dora See Poy's family, the See Hoe's, lived on the western side of See Poy House. In addition, two adjoining houses were built for See Poy daughters on the opposite side of Edith Street from See Poy House. See Poy House is the only residence in this former enclave of family residences that survives intact. The adjacent See Hoe house and one of the daughter's houses has been demolished while the other daughter's house has been significantly altered. See Poy House is clear evidence of the firm's success and, with the demolition of the department store, it is now the last remaining intact structure that reflects the success of this major mercantile enterprise and its Chinese Australian directors.
\nSee Poy House was constructed sometime between 1929 and 1932, with Johnstone Tom See Poy being registered as owner of the land on 15 July 1929 (Ref. 7). It originally stood on at least 0.4 ha (1 acre) of land between Glady and Charles Streets. There were no fences separating numbers 132, 134 (Johnstone See Poy's residence) and 136 (where Dora's family, the See Hoe's, resided) on Edith Street.
\nThe street elevation of See Poy House was typical of an interwar Queenslander house; however its materials and special features reflect the wealth and standing of the family (Ref. 8). It was noticeably larger than a standard house at 670 m² in area and featured specially selected timbers (black bean, white hickory and silky oak), brass fittings and leadlight windows. During construction, rough sawn hardwood timber was transported from Maryborough and dressed on site. The use of mortised joints and anchor bolts cyclone-proofed the house. Leadlight windows and 12 ft (3.65 m) high ceilings were notable features of the interior of the house. It comprised a typical room format for a large interwar house being formal dining and lounge rooms, main bedroom, bathroom, second bedroom, study and kitchen. Verandahs were located on both sides and at the rear of the house. Balustrades were solid, other than decorative timber batten panels centred beneath timber bracket arches with side openings. The battening pattern used was consistent throughout: below arched openings and on the front stair balustrade in the infill latticework. The house cost between £1 200 and £2 000.
\nThe house was the venue for family and formal events. The formal dining room with its rectangular table was generally reserved for entertaining guests such as service personnel during World War 2. For family meals, the See Poy and See Hoe families usually ate on the rear verandah.
\nThe symmetrical formal garden with concrete edged garden beds was created by Johnstone See Poy who was an enthusiastic gardener, and was also the setting for many family and community activities that gave it a profile in the community. Most of the See Poy residences on Edith Street became venues for community functions and social events, which reflected the family's standing within the community and their inclusive and multicultural approach to staffing See Poy & Sons. Their success and high social profile enabled them to play a leadership role within the Innisfail community and traverse racial boundaries. With Johnstone at the helm of See Poy & Sons, the firm participated in local sporting activities and events. This sustained sporting interest serves as yet another illustration of the family's involvement with mainstream Queensland community life. The firm sponsored its own cricket and tennis teams to compete against staff teams from other firms in the north (Ref. 9). Although the firm did not field a football team, it donated a trophy, known as the See Poy Cup, for senior rugby league matches (Ref. 10). Keeping pace with many businessmen, Johnstone and his brother-in-law, William Sue Yek, became members of the local golf club (Ref. 11).
\nJohnstone See Poy was a member of the Rotary Club and his wife Dora was admitted to the Inner Wheel (a subdivision for the wives of Rotary members) according to information from an interview with descendant, Herbert Sue Yek. Consequently, their home became a venue for gatherings of the members of the latter group. In 1931, Johnstone and Dora's only child died accidentally. Although they did not become parents again, they made a commitment to host the Baby Show for the local Anglican Church according to another descendant Tiger See Hoe. For many years, 134 Edith Street was the venue for this annual event. Innisfail's children gave performances within the grounds of the house entertaining a large assembled audience and presumably mothers exhibited their babies. This was a major community and charity event providing members of the Innisfail community with a further means of relating to the See Poy family.
\nThe matriarchs of the Sue Yek and Quong Chong families were See Poy daughters and their homes stood directly opposite 134 Edith Street, forming what could be described as a See Poy enclave of beautiful houses. From the 1930s onwards, the homes of the Sue Yek and Quong Chong families were frequent scenes of hospitality and conviviality for the wider community. The Sue Yek family, for instance, played host to the staff, family and friends of the See Poy Staff Club (Ref. 12). The Quong Chong family provided musical entertainment for the Chinese Consul-General during a formal visit to north Queensland, whilst the See Poy men held formal discussions with the Chinese delegation (Ref. 13). The community activities of the See Poy family continued for several decades. Johnstone's brother, Herbert See Poy's dedication to advancing the cause of the Warrina Home for the Aged was recognised with an MBE in 1980 (Ref. 14).
\nThe See Poy family made some alterations to the house over time, such as lowering some ceilings and enclosing some verandahs with windows. Dora See Poy carried out minor alterations to the living room, including the removal of a section of decorative arch.
\nFollowing Johnstone's death, ownership of the house in Edith Street transferred to Dora in September 1984. Following her death in 2001 it passed out of the ownership of the See Poy family.
\nThe demolition of the See Poy & Sons department store and the alteration and demolition of the other family houses leaves See Poy House as the last remaining intact structure that reflects the success of this major mercantile enterprise and its Chinese Australian directors.
\nReferences
\n1. May C. See Poy, Tom (1853?-1926). In: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988;562-563. [Online version viewed August 2010 at <http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110574b.htm>.]
\n2. Johnstone River Advocate (JRA). 7 June 1929.
\n3. JRA, 7 February 1930.
\n4. Fitzgerald J. Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia. Sydney: University of NSW Press, 2007;156.
\n5. JRA. 7 February 1930.
\n6. Cairns Post. 23 April 1994;8.
\n7. Innisfail Advocate. 12 April 2007;7.
\n8. Evans I & The National Trust of Queensland. The Queensland House: History and Conservation. Mullumbimby, NSW: Flannel Flower Press, 2001.
\n9. JRA, 25 September 1928 & 23 April 1929.
\n10. JRA, 28 June 1929.
\n11. JRA, 28 June 1929.
\n12. JRA, 23 May 1930.
\n13. JRA, 26 May 1931.
\n14. JRA, 26 May 1931.
\nFurther Reading
\nRains, K. J., 2004, 'Intersections: The Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese Social Landscape of Cooktown, 1873-1935,' PhD thesis, School of Social Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia.
\nRobb, S., 2007, Chinese Settlement in Far North Queensland, unpublished thematic history report prepared for the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency's State Wide Survey.
\nWong Hoy, K., 2006, 'Becoming British subjects 1879-1903: Chinese in north Queensland,' MA thesis, Asian Studies Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.
","criteria":"See Poy House (1932), the home of Johnstone See Poy, who for more than 50 years was the general manager of Queensland's only Chinese Australian owned and operated large department store, See Poy & Sons, is important in demonstrating an aspect of the pattern of Queensland's Chinese migration history. It illustrates the way in which early Chinese migrants achieved monetary success, social standing and integration with the wider community, and contributes significantly to the understanding of a prominent Chinese Australian business family's way of life in regional Queensland.
|See Poy House has a special association with the See Poy family, particularly Johnstone See Poy, general manager of the firm See Poy & Sons, and his wife Theodora. The See Poys were an important Chinese Australian family in north Queensland history, operating See Poy & Sons, a major department store, for approximately 100 years following its establishment by Taam Sze Pui (Tom See Poy). They were important members of the north Queensland community, involved in many social, sporting and philanthropic activities, many of which Johnstone and his wife hosted in this house during the more than 50 years they resided there.
See Poy House - a symbol of the family's success and its desire to participate in the Innisfail community - is the last remaining link to the prominent role these Chinese Australians played in the social and economic development of north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30433,"place_ref":602701,"name":"Linville War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"George Street","suburb":"LINVILLE","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2008-12-11","description":"The Linville War Memorial is a timber structure on a stone and concrete base. It is located in the road reserve and situated parallel to the railway fence, 1.4m from the fence. It is 4m wide and 2.7m deep. The pagoda-style roof is clad in terracotta shingles and has terracotta ridge capping. The timber support posts have been set diagonally to allow for four decorative brackets on each corner. The two southern posts appear to be replacements as they are set on metal saddle brackets, whereas the northern posts are set within the curved concrete supports. These supports sit on a concrete slab which then sits on an exposed stonewall footing. Small gardens border the north and south of the footings.
The honour board is copper attached to a timber backing board with the roll of honour facing the street (east). A second plaque below this honours those who made the supreme sacrifice. On the western side facing the railway line, back to back with the honour board is a shield - 'Linville's tribute to the memory of the brave'. Also on the western face is another plaque describing the machine gun which is set in concrete at base of the memorial: 'German machine gun captured on the Western Front by the 9th Battalion AIF 11-4-1918'. The timber supports for the honour board backing board are also in poor repair and in need of remedial work. The machine gun is set in a concrete block painted to resemble sandstone.
","history":"The Linville War Memorial is a small timber structure with a terracotta-tiled roof, prominently located in road reserve adjacent to the railway reserve, opposite the store, hotel and Progress Hall. It was designed by Linville photographer, cartoonist, artist and World War I veteran, Tom Cross, and constructed in the early 1920s by his brothers Frank and Jim, with materials donated by the community. The memorial commemorates all local volunteers who served in World War I including eight young men from Linville who did not return.
The Town of Linville is situated on what was earlier part of Colinton Run, taken up by the Balfour Brothers in 1841. Colinton lands were opened for selection in 1897, and closer settlement around what is now Linville intensified following the announcement in 1900 that the Brisbane Valley Branch Railway was to be extended to Moore. The line to Toogoolawah opened on 8 February 1904. Yimbin became the terminus in September 1904 and a further 45k extension was authorised on 1 April 1908, including a 300 metre climb to Linville. Colinton School was established in 1901, but was renamed Linville in 1906. The Town of Linville was surveyed privately c1909 and offered for sale, with the first land transfers occurring from April 1910. The railway line reached the town later in the year. This further cemented the dairying industry in the region allowing easier access to local dairy factories. A sawmill opened in the town in 1912.
One of the first selectors in the district was William Cross of Ipswich, who took up Portion 106V in February 1897. In 1898 some of his family moved to the new property, which they named Crossdale. Son Tom was 15 at the time. When his older brother Ben came to live on the family property in 1906, Tom decided to relocate to Ipswich to pursue his artistic interests, taking a job in a photographic studio and producing artworks in his spare time. He later moved to Sydney to study art, while continuing to work in photography.
During the Great War (1914-1918) twenty-four Linville men - some as young as 18 - volunteered for service overseas. Eight of them never returned. For the small community of Linville this was a significant loss.
Ben and Tom Cross joined the services in 1915. During the war years, Tom became well known for his cartoons and drawings depicting life aboard the troop ships, training in Egypt and scenes of the battlefields of France and Belgium. Some were reproduced as postcards, and he reportedly sold six thousand of these. Others were published in Punch magazine. Many are now held by the Australian War Memorial. Tom suffered from 'trench feet', a form of frost bite, which was to plague him for years after he returned home in 1919. Ben gave his life in the service of his country.
During and immediately after the Great War, local communities across Australia began working towards the erection of memorials to those who had served in the war. The impact had been significant with 60,000 men lost from a population of about four million, representing one in five men of those who served. Many were not buried in cemeteries. The construction of a local memorial was often the only tangible reminder of servicemen who lay in graves and battlefields across Europe and the Middle East, and the memorials were considered sacred.
Australian War Memorials are unique in that they generally honour all who served, not just those who died. Australians were proud that their first great national army was composed entirely of volunteers. All who served were considered worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. This evidence is not readily available from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit. Linville is one such memorial.
Tom Cross designed the Linville War Memorial, which was built by his brothers Frank, a cabinetmaker, and Jim. Frank managed the project in which all of the materials, labour and construction were donated by local people. It would seem that the memorial was not completed for ANZAC Day in 1921 as a newspaper article indicates that Linville residents attended the unveiling of Toogoolawah's machine gun trophy on Sunday 24 April 1921.
In May 1921, the Linville community was allocated a war trophy. The collection of war trophies was coordinated through the Australian War Records Section and was initially carried out in accordance with the British War Office regulations. The British government assumed it would select the best trophies for the British National War Museum, but the Australian Government objected, insisting that the trophies claimed by their troops should be made available to them. In 1919 it was decided that the Australian War Museum (later the Australian War Memorial) should retain the larger trophies and the smaller ones be distributed to Australian towns according to the size and population of the town. Small towns with a population of between 300 and 3,000, such as Linville, were allocated a machine gun. Consideration was given to allocating trophies captured by units raised in a particular area. Linville was allocated a German machine gun captured in April 1918 by the 9th Battalion to which 5 local men had been attached.
The procurement of a war trophy may have expedited the process of building the Linville memorial, because the Queensland State War Trophy Committee specified that a war trophy was to be an integral part of the local memorial. The design of a memorial became contentious also, with New South Wales establishing a War Memorials Advisory Board attempting to influence the design process to stem the tide of 'inartistic' memorials being erected. While Queensland did not regulate design and construction, the Queensland Institute of Architects regretted the 'deplorable artistic character of many war memorials recently erected in Queensland'. The design for the Linville War Memorial, prepared by local artist Tom Cross, would have adequately appeased this desire for quality public memorial design.
The memorial remains in its original location in the centre of Linville. Repair work to the memorial was commissioned by Somerset Regional Council in 2008.
","criteria":"The memorial in its setting is of aesthetic significance for its quality of design, workmanship and use of materials.
|War memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of periods of turmoil and loss that affected communities throughout the State. They provide evidence of an era of widespread Australian patriotism and nationalism, particularly during and following World War 1. The war memorial at Linville, recording the names of the 24 local men who served during the war, one-third of whom did not return, illustrates the impact of this war on one small Queensland rural community, and is indicative of a pattern that occurred throughout the State.
|The monument manifests a unique and enduring documentary record of the involvement of the Linville community in an international event.
The place is important in demonstrating an uncommon aspect of Queensland's history, being designed by local returned serviceman Tom Cross. The design of the Linville War Memorial is uncommon in Queensland, and being designed by a returned serviceman for his local community was equally uncommon. War memorials of this era were more likely to be the work of a commissioned architect or stone mason.
|The Linville War Memorial has a strong association with the local community as evidence of a major historic event and a focal point for the remembrance of that event.
|The Linville War Memorial demonstrates the principal characteristics of a World War I memorial: the inclusion of a memorial plaque to local residents who served in World War 1; the integration of the machine gun war trophy into the design; and the prominent location.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30452,"place_ref":602703,"name":"Remnants of former acclimatisation society gardens at Lawnton","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bray Road","suburb":"LAWNTON","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-05-08","description":"Some 15 mature pecan trees (Carya sp) remain from the Acclimatisation Society plantings along the river flats of the North Pine River northeast of Bray Road, Lawnton. The pecan trees stand in Stephen Lawn Park and in the backyards of properties bounding the Park. Formed in distinct rows, six mature trees stand in the Park and a further nine trees stand in the backyards. There are a number of less mature trees scattered across the area that may have seeded from the original grove.
","history":"The remnant pecan nut grove in the former Queensland Acclimatisation Society Gardens at Lawnton, a residential suburb north of Brisbane, contain a number of mature trees which are all that remain of a dense grove planted by the society between 1915 and World War II. They are dispersed around Stephen Lawn Park and a number of adjacent, privately owned properties.
Acclimatisation in the nineteenth century was scientifically understood to mean the process by which animals and plants gradually adapt to climatic and environmental conditions different to those that prevailed in their original habitats. The interest in acclimatisation derived from early theories that the environment could bring about evolutionary change in species. In Australia, however, scientific theory was not a primary motivation and acclimatisation came to represent simply the exchange of plants and animals with other countries.
Acclimatisation societies were established in all of the Australian colonies in the mid to late 19th century. These societies formed part of an international network of other acclimatisation societies and botanical gardens, including Kew in the United Kingdom, which exchanged plants and animals. Imported fauna and flora was kept in the societies' gardens and distributed to their subscribers and other interested parties. At times, exotic plants and animals were released into the wild.
From its inception in 1862 at the instigation of the Governor of Queensland, Sir George Bowen, the Queensland Acclimatisation Society focussed on contributing to the development of Queensland's fledgling agricultural industry. It imported plants that had commercial potential and conducted experiments to determine if they could be adapted to Queensland's tropical and sub-tropical climate. Plants researched included sugar cane, bananas, cotton, apples, pineapples, pasture grasses, maize, olives, mangoes, pecan nuts and macadamia nuts. Many of these became important agricultural crops in Queensland.
The society fulfilled a supporting role to the sugar industry from 1863. In that year, the Queensland Acclimatisation Society began importing cane from Mauritius and New Caledonia and distributing it to growers. Until well into the 20th century, they continued researching into the crop, importing and distributing new varieties and experimenting with propagating cane from seed and artificially cross-fertilising canes. They produced a popular variety of sugar cane, Q813, which was known for its resistance to disease and was still in use as late as 1926.
Before the establishment of the Department of Agriculture, the society acted as a government advisory body on agricultural matters. Until at least 1888, it was dependant on government funding and regarded itself to all intents and purposes as a government institution. The society contributed to the establishment of the Queensland Herbarium, the Kamerunga State Nursery, and the State Forestry Department.
Between 1914 and 1915, the society closed its first gardens at Bowen Park and moved its operational base to a 100 acre property on the south bank of the North Pine River at Lawnton. The society had begun to lose Government support after the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1887 and this, together with the expansion of the adjoining National Association grounds (the present Exhibition Grounds), meant that Bowen Park was no longer viable. No buildings associated with the Queensland Acclimatisation Society remain extant at the Bowen Park site.
The Lawnton site already contained an old house (no longer extant) on the banks of the river. This was raised and repaired. In March 1915, tenders were requested for the construction of a new cottage (extant but altered) including a "roomy office" for storing the society's books and papers. A tender for £306 was accepted and the cottage was completed by August 1915. During the 1920s, further structures were built including propagating houses, a tool house and a fumigating plant. Between 1935 and 1936, ornamental trees were planted along the entrance driveway.
During some thirty years of operation at Lawnton, the society continued to assist the State's agricultural industry. In its research, the society worked with the Department of Agriculture and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (now the CSIRO). Plants introduced and researched at Lawnton included cotton, castor oil plants, avocados, pecan nuts, citrus fruits, macadamia nuts, custard apples, mangoes, pineapples, soy beans and fodder canes. The society contributed to making avocados, pecan nuts and grape fruit commercially viable crops in Queensland. The Allsopp variety of avocado, named after the society's overseer, was developed at the Lawnton gardens. The Pecan Nut grove was located at the northern end of the gardens on the present Bray Road. It was still flourishing when the gardens were sold.
Pecan Nuts are now a commercial crop in Australia with in excess of 100 growers in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. It is difficult to establish a direct link between the Acclimatisation society's work on Pecan Nuts and the present commercial crop. The society was probably only one of many organisations and individuals who contributed to the commercial development of the crop. However, the Pecan Nut trees at Lawnton are the only pre-World War II Acclimatisation Society plantings, known to be extant, that are related to commercial crops. They are therefore important in illustrating the society's work in supporting the State's agricultural industries.
The society sold its Lawnton gardens between 1941 and 1942 and moved to a ten acre property at Redcliffe. This move was prompted by land degradation at Lawnton. The land was subsequently operated as a dairy farm until its subdivision for residential purposes commenced in 1959.
","criteria":"The remnant grove has a special association with the work of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society, an organisation that made a notable contribution to the development of Queensland's agricultural industries. The pecan nut grove was an important component of its Lawnton gardens between 1915 and 1941.
|The remnants of the pecan nut grove at the former Queensland Acclimatisation Society Gardens at Lawnton are physical evidence of the process of adaptation by the non-indigenous settler society to Queensland's environment during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Acclimatisation societies experimented with adapting plants and animals from other countries to Australian conditions. The Queensland society focussed on finding and importing plants that could be adapted for use as commercial crops in Queensland's tropical and sub-tropical conditions.
The remnant grove is also evidence of an important aspect of the development of Queensland's agricultural industries. Through its work of adapting plants with commercial potential, the society made a notable contribution to these industries. As the only pre-World War II Acclimatisation Society plantings, known to be extant, that relate to commercial crops, the remnant grove is important in illustrating the society's early work in supporting the State's agricultural industries.
|The pecan nut trees are among only a few known extant trees at the sites of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's pre-World War II gardens. The main focus of the society's activities was economic botany. Pecan nuts are now a commercial crop in Queensland and the trees at Lawnton constitute the only known plantings related to the society's pre-World War II work in economic botany. Remnant vegetation at Bowen Park, the site of the society's earlier gardens, is ornamental in nature.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30453,"place_ref":602705,"name":"Peachester Public Dip","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Peachester Road","suburb":"PEACHESTER","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"The Peachester Public Cattle Dip with remnant yards is located amongst dense scrub to the north-west of Peachester on the northern side of Peachester Road.
Rectangular in plan, the narrow concrete formed cavity runs east/west with the stepped exit ramp at the west end. The long sides of the dip are lined with vertical, half-height timber boards fixed to sawn timber rails. The dip is sheltered by a gable roof supported by round timber posts, framed with sawn timber and clad with corrugated iron sheeting.
Timber posts standing adjacent to the dip remain from the holding yards.
The site is bounded by a low barbed wire and timber fence.
","history":"Peachester Public Dip is a concrete formed cattle dip framed with slab posts and a sawn timber roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting. It dates from 1915 when it replaced an earlier timber dip built by Landsborough Shire Council on the site, which had been reserved as a Stock Dip Reserve in November 1910. These dips were erected in response to the spread of cattle tick into Queensland which threatened the cattle industry throughout the State and dairying in south-east Queensland.
Cattle tick, Boophilus microplus was probably introduced into Darwin with cattle from Indonesia in the early 1870s. The tick spread south into other parts of the continent and became a major problem for the cattle industry. In 1891 cattle tick reached Queensland bringing with it tick fever caused by three types of blood-born bacteria. By the mid-1890s the tick had spread quickly to the south causing heavy losses among herds. This heightened the need for stock inspection and by the end of the century there were more than 30 inspectors stationed at 28 locations throughout Queensland.
The means of combating tick-fever caused by cattle-tick resulted from research by Charles Joseph Pound who began investigating 'redwater disease of cattle' in the gulf district in 1894. He established that redwater or tick fever was confined to bovines and that the disease was readily transmissible by ticks and identified the genus of tick vector Boophilus. In the mid-1890s, Pound, as Queensland Government Bacteriologist, undertook tick fever inoculation studies. These, the first such trials in Australia, established a methodology and dosage that is still used worldwide. A cattle dip was built at the former Indooroopilly Sheep Quarantine Grounds in 1898 and until 1905 was used by the Department of Agriculture to establish a suitable dipping preparation and procedure for the destruction of cattle ticks.
The Queensland government's response to cattle tick-born tick fever was dipping cattle in infected areas and creating designated tick-free zones with restricted movement of stock from tick-affected to tick-free areas. The Stock Act 1915 regulated the movement of cattle and empowered Stock Inspectors to enforce tick control measures. Government cattle dips were established at the entry points between tick-infested and tick-free zones. Tick gates were located at various points on the New South Wales-Queensland border.
Between the late 1880s and the 1900s the dairy industry in Queensland grew rapidly. Queensland's total number of dairy cattle in 1898 was 80,000; by 1910, this had grown to 350,000. Initially, dairying was concentrated in south-east Queensland and by the mid-1900s it was emerging as the principal rural industry of the North Coast area. Major areas of development were along the fertile valleys of the main rivers and tributaries.
At Peachester, dairying became the major occupation in the early 1900s. From 1907 all Peachester cream was transported to the Beerwah railway station and railed to the Caboolture Butter Factory. Before that the small amount of cream produced went to the Silverwood Butter Factory in Gympie.
Following World War I, dairying in Queensland entered a boom period. By the 1930s, when dairy production peaked, it had emerged as the second largest primary industry in Queensland accounting for 20% of primary production. Dairying was regarded as the principal primary industry in the southeast and continued to expand.
At the local level, in response to a request from Peachester dairy farmers, the Landsborough Shire Council built a wooden dip at the site of the Peachester Stock Dip Reserve. This was replaced by a concrete one built circa 1915 by a Landsborough man who built several other dips on private properties in the area.
A caretaker was appointed to oversee the dip. He was responsible for 'charging' the dip with the mixture of arsenic and soda that was used. Water was carted from the nearby Stanley River to keep it filled. One day per week, usually Saturday, was set aside for dipping and a fee of two pence per head was charged. As more farmers built their own dips the Peachester Public Dip fell into disuse.
Although the older, smaller public plunge dips such as Peachester have fallen into disuse, large public dips along the line between the tick-infested and tick-free areas in Queensland are still operational. From 1935 tick resistance to arsenic led to the use of other chemicals in dips; initially DDT, then organo-phospates, and carbamates. Research undertaken by C.J. Pound and later the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), led to the development of various tick vaccines and antibiotics to treat infected animals. With the development of a successful anti-tick vaccine, inoculation against ticks became available from the 1990s. Today farmers and graziers in tick-susceptible areas often use spray- rather than plunge dips, in conjunction with tick-resistant cattle breeds, pasture rotation and vaccination to control cattle ticks.
","criteria":"Peachester Public Dip is important as rare surviving evidence of the practice of plunge dipping cattle at locally-developed, small public dips that was common in the first few decades of the 20th century. This practice has been largely superseded by large public dips at the borders of tick-free areas and technological innovations in the treatment of cattle tick infestation.
|Peachester Public Dip (built 1915) is important in demonstrating the evolution of the Queensland government's response to the threat to its cattle-based industries that the spread of tick fever caused from the 1890s by providing public dips on reserved land.
Peachester Public Dip was an important component in the management of dairy cattle within the North Coast region, one of the major dairy production areas in Queensland.
|Peachester Public Dip demonstrates the principal characteristics of a plunge cattle dip used to combat cattle tick in the early part of the 20th century. These characteristics include the rectilinear dip formed in concrete with a stepped concrete ramp up from the dip; a timber-framed, gabled roof clad in corrugated iron sheeting and posts of the associated holding yards.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30454,"place_ref":602707,"name":"Cotton Tree Caravan Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cotton Tree Parade","suburb":"COTTON TREE","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"The Cotton Tree Caravan Park occupies a large, flat parcel of land (almost 9 hectares) on the southern bank of the Maroochy River mouth and is bounded to the east by the northern end of Maroochydore Beach; on the south by Cotton Tree Parade and The Esplanade; and to the west by Cotton Tree Park. Highly dynamic in response to prevailing coastal, tidal, cyclonic and flood conditions, the position of the river channel and its associated beach has historically shifted from north to south, most recently breaking through to the south of Pincushion Island in 2002. Efforts to mitigate the negative effects of this cyclical shift are evidenced in a number of sand-filled geo-textile groynes all along the Caravan Park's beach and the placement of two reinforced concrete piers extending from Cotton Tree Park into the estuary. From the northern edge of the Park above the coastal plain there are spectacular views that encompass the high-rise development of Maroochydore, the Conservation Parks of the coastal plain, as well as the volcanic features of the Ninderry Range, Mt Coolum, and Mudjimba Island off the coast.
The Park is organised around a simple arrangement of bitumen streets with curbing and landscaping, unfinished pathways, cabins, caravan lots and camping places; offering over 400 accommodation sites in differing styles. Accommodation types include: grassed caravan sites or those with a concrete slab (approximately 278), camping sites (approximately 136), cabins (6), and a two-storey beach house. There is a mixture of powered and unpowered caravan and camping sites. Where the grid of streets meets the Maroochy River beach it is more organic in form, while the remaining areas are orthogonal. The camping area occupies a well-treed area of land in the north-eastern corner of the Park, on a small headland where the Maroochy River meets the ocean and looking out over the beach to Pincushion Island. The cabins are located in two groups of three, one near the end of the entrance road by the river beach and another next to the exit. The beach house is also adjacent to the Park's exit.
Vehicular entrance to the Caravan Park comes off the intersection of King Street, Cotton Tree Parade and The Esplanade and is marked by two stands of mature Cotton trees (Hibiscus tiliaceus): one to the right on a small parcel of the Caravan Park's property and another, containing possibly the site's oldest specimens, occupying the easternmost tip of Cotton Tree Park. Proceeding from this intersection, to the left are an amenity block (No. 1 marked on site diagram below) and the Caravan Park's office and site manager's residence. The street continues toward the river beach before branching out to the right and left. On the left, in the western corner of the Park are located about 14% of the Park's caravan sites. The remainder of the Park's sites are located to the right. Vehicular exit is at the corner of Cotton Tree Parade and Alexandra Parade, approximately 65 metres to the east of the main entrance.
Five amenity blocks are positioned around the site providing ablution and laundry facilities. The earliest of the amenity blocks appears to be No. 2, which is single-storey and dates from the 1962/63 Council renovation of the Park. It has butterfly and skillion roof sections clad in corrugated fibrous cement sheeting and incorporates a palette of materials in its wall construction including brick, painted concrete block and breeze block infill. It is founded on a large concrete slab. There are three BBQ places with shelters provided in the Park, all in the north-eastern corner.
A number of permanent caravan dwellings occupy lots in the Park. These caravans are most often decorated or extended in various ways to facilitate year-round occupation. These embellishments include: small gardens, paving, air-conditioning, verandah and patio additions, a second roof layer built over the top of the caravan to prevent heat gain, and infill materials fixed around the edges to hide under-caravan spaces.
The cabin accommodation provided by the Cotton Tree Caravan Park comprises small, single-storey structures, raised off the ground on steel columns. The vaulted roofs clad in corrugated iron extend over a front verandah. Walls are clad in weatherboards. The beach house is a two-storey building with walls clad in chamfer boards and main hipped roof in corrugated iron.
Other vegetation types on the Caravan Park site include a variety of squat and tall Palm trees (possibly of the Archontophoenix or Dypsis genus, along the river beach and along the western Park boundary), young Norfolk Island pines (toward the Maroochydore Beach end), Cotton Trees (in the camping area and against the ocean beach) Horsetail she-oaks (Casuarina equisetifolia) in the camping area and shielding the Park from the ocean beach, and some mature Paper-barked Tea Trees (Melaleuca quinquenervia, particularly in the area to the north and west of Amenity Block No. 3).
","history":"The lower reaches of the Maroochy River began to develop as a place of resort in the 1880s. On the southern bank at its mouth, where Cotton Tree Caravan Park is sited, a 215 acre Wharf and Water reserve was gazetted in 1873. Holiday makers informally camped on the reserve among the native Cotton trees (Hibiscus tiliaceus). The use of the reserve, adjacent to a calm, shallow stretch of the river, reflected the preferences of the Victorian era for seaside swimming, boating and fishing. Similar locations for resort on the North Coast developed in the same period at Caloundra and Tewantin.
The Salvation Army established the area as a well known resort location. A yearly 'Maroochy Heads encampment' was organised over the short break between Christmas and the New Year. The encampment provided a range of religious and leisure activities for local settlers and South Sea Islanders working on sugar cane farms at nearby Buderim, with alcohol, gambling and dancing prohibited. The first reported encampment was in 1896, when over 200 people stayed on the reserve. Later advertising by the Salvation Army suggests the encampment may have begun as early as 1888.
The encampment became a popular annual event. Over Christmas 1905, 400 people camped on the reserve. The surf beach immediately south of the river mouth gradually became more popular for swimming and in 1908 a life saving reel was installed. While the resort charms of the Maroochy region gained wider exposure in the 1900s and outside tourists became more common, campers were predominantly from the Blackall Range and districts surrounding Nambour until the interwar period.
By the 1910s, the encampment, advertised as 'Nature's Pick Me Up', had extended to two weeks duration. Tents were available for hire, erected for a small fee. Meals were offered in the dining tent and a large marquee was used for gatherings, while a kiosk operated by the Salvation Army sold bread, soft drinks, lollies and fruit. Two other private kiosks were in operation on the site by 1913. Wells were sunk in the sand to source fresh water and Maroochy Shire Council erected a new jetty and bathing sheds in 1912.
In 1908, the Queensland government included much of the 1873 reserve within its survey of the Township of Maroochydore (which included Cotton Tree). The potential loss of public land attracted strong resistance from campers and the Maroochy Shire Council, and land sales did not proceed immediately. A second attempt in 1914 to sell Maroochydore town lots also met with strong public resistance. On Boxing Day 1914, over 500 people voiced their opposition at a public meeting held on the reserve in the Salvation Army marquee. In early 1915 the new TJ Ryan Labor government announced their intention to proceed with the sales. While objections were lodged with the Lands Department and protestors criticised the 'bartering of people's heritage for money', the government proceeded with auctioning the allotments under perpetual lease from December 1915.
Seventeen remaining acres of the original reserve was re-gazetted for Camping and Recreation in September 1916. This north-easterly portion of the reserve was not submitted for sale because it was considered tidal. Following the land sales, the number of seasonal campers on the reserve appears to have declined, until 1926, when more 'canvas houses' than in previous years were noted. The Salvation Army's involvement with the site decreased, replaced by a Methodist mission over summer 1919/20. The last reported Salvation Army encampment took place in 1929, with 100 tents on the reserve.
The Maroochy Shire Council's involvement in managing the Cotton Tree reserve gradually increased during the interwar period. A new jetty was constructed in 1923 and new bathing sheds were constructed in 1929. Sanitation was an important concern for the increasing number of visitors to the site, with Health Inspector's ensuring the wells and cabinets at Cotton Tree were cleaned before holidays. Under its Seaside Improvement Scheme, the council improved access to the reserve during 1940, with camping fees introduced by this time. New camping areas were also established on the beachfront extending south to Mooloolaba. In 1941, the reserve was re-gazetted, with Maroochy Shire Council as trustee.
During the interwar period, coastal resorts to the south and north of Brisbane (today's Gold and Sunshine Coasts) became more reliant on the provision of adequate roads and bridges to attract and deliver the growing amount of motor-driven tourists. Improvements to road networks during this period strongly influenced the development of the tourist industry in the Maroochy area. Until the late 1920s, the Maroochy River was the key transport route to Maroochydore, with most visitors arriving by motor launch at the Cotton Tree jetty, via Nambour Railway Station and the Moreton Mill tramway. In 1922 the Maroochy Shire Council began work on a road suitable for motor vehicles between Nambour and Maroochydore. By 1927 the route was upgraded to a Main Road, effectively ending the Maroochy River's role as the key transport artery for Maroochydore.
The first section of the Bruce Highway, between what is now Rothwell and Eumundi, was opened in December 1934. For the first time, motor tourists from Brisbane had reliable access to the North Coast, with a trip to Maroochydore taking approximately two hours. The potential for tourism growth at North Coast seaside and mountain resorts had been a key factor in the decision to allocate Main Roads funds to this project, and when first opened, the highway was classified as a 'tourist' road.
The Main Roads Annual Report of 1937 commented on the 'remarkable' progress of North Coast seaside resorts, particularly Maroochydore and Caloundra, following construction of the highway, and recorded increased traffic on both the highway and connecting roads. A bitumen road between Maroochydore Post Office and Cotton Tree was completed by January 1937.
The improvements to the road network fostered the beginnings of caravan tourism on the North Coast. Caravanning, essentially another version of camping, developed as a result of increased car usage during the interwar period. The earliest versions of caravans were more like motorhomes; cars with bodies modified by their owners to include a rear compartment for sleeping and storage. Australian manufacturers of towed caravans had appeared by the late 1920s, some moving into the industry from building car bodies. Self-built caravans were also popular, with manuals published on their construction and fittings. By 1937, Australian enthusiasts had their own journal and motoring supplements in newspapers were devoting column space to caravans. Caravans were reported alongside tents at Maroochy seaside camping grounds by the end of 1937, with the region's earliest private caravan accommodation, Tooway Park near Caloundra, under construction in the same period. By 1939, 169 caravans were registered in Queensland.
For the affluent motor tourist who holidayed at seaside camping grounds, caravans offered freedom and flexibility, without sacrificing comfort. As a 'home away from home', fitted with modern conveniences, caravans were markedly different from the simplicity of camping under a canvas tent. They were an alternative to local hotels and guesthouses, which were in high demand during peak seasons and offered varying levels of quality.
Camping numbers at Cotton Tree steadily increased during the late 1930s, and continued to do so following the end of World War II. Summer 1945/46 attracted record crowds to Maroochy and by summer 1950/51, an additional water well was necessary for campers. Police were stationed on the reserve during holidays and there was a daily attendance of officers from the Maroochy Shire Health Department. A new ranger's office was built in time for Christmas 1953, when an estimated 4000 people camped on the waterfront between Maroochydore and Mooloolaba.
The popularity of caravans became more noticeable by the end of the 1940s with an estimated 12,000 caravans on Australian roads by the end of 1948. In 1949, increasing numbers of caravans were noted on North Coast roads. The RACQ urged local authorities on tourist routes to provide 'well equipped camps' to prepare for the boom'. Over the 1951/52 season, the number of interstate caravans at Maroochy campgrounds was noted and calls continued for more sites for caravans.
The lifting of petrol rationing by the Menzies Federal government, the increased affordability of cars for the wider population and longer paid holidays were catalysts for the growth of mass motor tourism during the 1950s. In turn, this growth influenced the number of caravan users and the associated development of caravan parks. Queensland's caravan registration figures grew rapidly during the decade from 2320 in 1953, to 5406 in 1961.
In the 1950s relatively few sites in Queensland offered the infrastructure considered desirable for accommodating caravanning needs. Caravan advocates looked to the United States and the United Kingdom for examples of best practice in caravan parks (also known as trailer parks and auto camps). Caravanning guides and journals offered suggestions for layout and features. These involved a more formal arrangement of space than camping, characterised by a grid or circular design and landscaped grounds. Features to consider included a location near a main road, a prominent entrance, recreation room, brick amenities block, levelled concrete slabs, landscaping, hot showers and electricity.
The Maroochy Shire Council played a key role on the Sunshine Coast in developing caravanning facilities. One of its earliest responses was in 1939, when it established a short-lived "auto-camp' in Nambour. In August 1952, the Alexandra Headland Caravan Park was opened" by the local State member Mr G. Nicklin. Mr A.E. Docherty of the Caravan Club of Australia congratulated Maroochy Shire in their 'pioneering venture,' on what was thought to be the first council sponsored Caravan Park to be officially opened in Australia. This park was closed in 1972.
By 1951, the Maroochy council had allocated 30 sites for caravans at Cotton Tree, although this was a fairly small amount compared to the 450 tent sites on offer. A decade later, attention was being drawn to the poor state of the Cotton Tree campground for growing caravanning needs, as demonstrated by the small number of caravans on-site. The area was still informally laid-out and uneven, with little in the way of clearly marked camp sites or permanent tracks.
Over 1962/63, the Maroochy Shire Council undertook substantial improvements to the site, including the construction of a new amenities block and a more organised east-west grid arrangement of sites for caravans and tents. The scale of the upgrading was recognised in 1964, when Cotton Tree was rated as one of the top 'holiday parks' in Australia. More caravans were on-site, coupled with an increase in length of time stayed. In 1966, local division Councillor L. Pierce claimed the Cotton Tree reserve was Maroochy Shire's greatest asset, an acknowledgment of the importance of tourism to the region's economy.
In 1968, there were at least nine council and 20 privately operated caravan parks on the Sunshine Coast. This was a significant increase since 1960, when the Australian Caravan and Touring Manual listed nine in total, marking the decade as a high point for caravan park development on the Sunshine Coast. The Cotton Tree reserve was by this time operating under the name of Cotton Tree Caravan Park. Conveniences included town water, a septic system, washing machines, irons, bottled gas and ice.
By the 1970s, caravanning holidays were a common leisure practice in Australia. A self-contained holiday in a caravan was an annual ritual for many campers, often returning to the same park year after year, members of a holiday community linked by shared experiences of place. After private houses, caravans were the most popular form of holiday accommodation in Australia in 1976. Caravan parks were recognised as significant contributors to local economies in tourist regions, through accommodation fees and flow on effects to other local businesses. By 1978, there were 300 powered sites at Cotton Tree, the largest caravan park on the Sunshine Coast.
The process of periodically updating facilities of caravan parks, while retaining their low scale and relative affordability, is a common feature of their development. In 1975, a major redesign of Cotton Tree Caravan Park was prepared by Maroochy Shire Council's Design Department. The number of sites was reduced to lessen crowding and to provide more individual space, and concrete slabs for caravan annexes and sewerage were installed. Maroochy Shire Council announced further upgrades to the site in 1979, at an estimated cost of $105,000. Among the works were new water, sewerage and power connections to sites, sealing and kerbing of internal roads and additional concrete slabs for caravans. The council intent was to make the site one of an 'international standard', that would continue to generate income for the Shire. Photographic evidence reveals that between 1975 and 1985, the internal streets and adjacent sites were realigned on a predominantly north-south orientation.
The position of the Cotton Tree reserve on the mouth of the Maroochy has resulted in fluctuations in its size, and has exposed the site to extreme weather events such as king tides, cyclones and floods. At various times, sand has been deposited and reclaimed at the northern end of the site. When the reserve was re-gazetted in 1941 the area was almost 17 hectares, more than double its 1916 size. By 1976 it was approximately 7.44 hectares, changing again in 1994 to 8.72 hectares.
During the 1990s, the park was divided into two separate entities, Cotton Tree and Pincushion. Pincushion, at the eastern end of the reserve, was less formally organised than Cotton Tree and mainly catered to campers in tents. The two operations were amalgamated in 2004, with the manager's residence at Pincushion converted into the 'beach house' accommodation. The park has continued to update facilities, with a number of cabins, amenities blocks and barbeques built. Near the entrance to the park, 'the Cotton Tree', a remnant of the earlier cotton trees on the reserve, remains a landmark feature of the site.
Over the last 25 years, development on the Sunshine Coast has been especially rapid, with the residential population growing at around twice the rate of the State as a whole. The Sunshine Coast is now Queensland's third largest tourist destination in terms of holiday accommodation after the Gold Coast and Cairns. Along the waterfront, a landscape increasingly dominated by medium to high rise buildings, an intensive amount of development has occurred for a range of retail, residential and tourist uses. Against this trend, Cotton Tree Caravan Park has sustained its use as a low scale, relatively affordable option for waterfront tourist accommodation. The park remains a popular destination, especially over traditional holiday periods.
","criteria":"Cotton Tree Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of the Sunshine Coast, an historically important region for the development of seaside tourism in Queensland. Originally gazetted as a Wharf and Water reserve in 1873, re-gazetted for Camping and Recreation purposes in 1916, Cotton Tree Caravan Park has sustained its use as a seaside camping ground since the 1880s. It illustrates the policy and practice by early Queensland governments of reserving Crown land for public purposes in prime waterside areas, which was common, but is now rarely practiced.
Cotton Tree Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the evolution of tourist accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, an historically important region for the development of caravan parks in Queensland. The Park's reconfiguration in 1962/63 during the boom period for caravanning (late 1950s and 1960s) and subsequent periodic updates to its basic facilities, were a response intrinsically linked to the rise of mass motoring Australia-wide in the second half of the 20th century.
|Cotton Tree Caravan Park is important in illustrating the essential characteristics of an early seaside reserve used for recreational camping, a land use and custom that has made a strong contribution to the development of seaside tourism in Queensland. The Park's setting, adjacent to the mouth of the Maroochy River is a location typical for 19th century seaside camping grounds and demonstrates the preference at the time for still water bathing and recreation.
Cotton Tree Caravan Park demonstrates the principal characteristics of a seaside caravan park. On a prime waterfront location, with immediate access to both still water and surf, the place offers opportunities to interact with, and appreciate the natural beauty of its setting. Easily accessed by motor vehicles, and organised around a simple grid of streets and landscaping, the Park offers a range of accommodation types, which are served by a range of facilities that include ablution blocks, barbeques and picnic areas. The range of accommodation and amenities has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of its clientele, while remaining low-scale and relatively affordable for holidaymakers.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30455,"place_ref":602708,"name":"Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park","alternate_name":"Caloundra Waterfront Holiday Park","street_address":"Bowman Road","suburb":"CALOUNDRA","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-04-03","description":"Screened from the road by rows and clumps of leafy trees and shrubs, the Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park stands on the busy four-laned Bowman Road opposite the large Stockland shopping complex at the south end of Caloundra. Nestled into the cove at the north end of the Pumicestone Channel, the caravan park has expansive views across to Bribie Island, views southeast to Bulcock Beach and southwest to Golden Beach. The caravan park terminates a strip of high-rise apartments to the east and is separated by a drain from Leach Park to the south.
Pumicestone Creek runs through the property dividing it into two sections -Tripcony to the east and Hibiscus to the west.
The main entrance is from Bowman Road where there is a skillion roof, two-storey, concrete block and fibro office and a number of temporary car parking bays. A boom gate south of the Bowman Road entrance marks the entry to the Hibiscus side of the caravan park and the Tripcony side is entered from the east off Tripcony Lane.
Both parts of the caravan park are organised around a grid of bituminised roadways. Both grids have the main roadways running north/south. Hibiscus has a circular section off grid to the southeast and the east/west roadways on the Tripcony side are slightly off the perpendicular.
The park offers a mix of temporary and permanent accommodation sites. The temporary sites include on-site vans and single-storey cabins, concrete slabs to take vans brought on site and grassed areas for tent camping. The permanent sites accommodate a variety of structures including vans, cabins and sheds with a range of extensions and personalising elements like gardens, low fences, outdoor areas and decorative features.
Both sides of the park have a large masonry ablutions block.
A grassed strip runs around the south and southeast end of the Hibiscus side and accommodates seats, a barbeque area and a concrete slipway boat ramp. Pine and pandanas trees are prominent along the waterfront and a range of vegetation including palms and cotton trees is scattered across the park.
","history":"Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park is located between Bowman Road and Pumicestone Passage on a site long recognised as the entrance to Caloundra. The caravan park has two sections separated by Pumicestone Creek. Tripcony is located on the coast guard (eastern) side of Pumicestone Creek while Hibiscus is situated on the Leach's Park (western) side of the Creek. The whole of this land (20 acres) was reserved for wharf purposes by 1877, demonstrating the importance of transportation to the early township. It was later re-designated as a camping reserve in 1912 as the settlement's popularity as a seaside resort increased. As motorised transport became dominant and leisure time increased, particularly post-World War II, this site was converted into a caravan park to meet the needs of the growing number of caravanning holiday-makers whose destination was the North Coast (later Sunshine Coast). Its still-water seaside location in close proximity to a major road with easy access for cars, and its range of accommodation and amenities, which have evolved over time, demonstrate all the features of a typical caravan park.
The North Coast region including Caloundra began to develop as a holiday destination at the end of the 19th century. Caloundra and other sites in south-east Queensland such as Tewantin, the Redcliffe Peninsula and Southport developed as resorts. This reflected the preferences of the Victorian era for a calm shallow stretch of river or still-water seaside location which allowed safe bathing, boating and fishing. Camping along rivers and on reserves occurred especially over the Christmas-New Year period. These resort settlements became more popular as accessibility was improved.
The history of the Tripcony Hibisicus Caravan Park site is linked to the development of transport to this region. Originally 20 acres of land, it was set aside as a wharf reserve by 1877. Shortly afterwards in 1879, the Pumicestone Passage was surveyed and beaconed by the crew of the Shadow for Thomas Tripcony, oystergetter, of Cowie Bank. Initially all stores were brought from Brisbane and passengers for Caloundra arrived via Bribie Island making this site (known as Black Flat or Tripcony Flat) an important entry-point for Caloundra. Passengers from Brisbane arrived at Bongaree Jetty on Bribie Island on the steamer Koopa. From there the Tripcony boat brought visitors to Caloundra. The first store in Caloundra, located at Black Flat near the wharf reserve, was started by family member, Andrew Tripcony in about 1912.
In 1912 the Wharf Reserve was gazetted as a Camping Reserve and functioned as this for the next four and a half decades. It was referred to by various names including Black Flat Camping Reserve, Tripcony Camping Reserve and South End Reserve. The Landsborough Shire Council erected a windmill and tank to provide a water supply for campers.
Initially North Coast tourists arrived by train at stations between Landsborough and Cooroy before using local forms of motorised transport to reach coastal destinations from railway stations between Landsborough to Cooroy but the interwar period saw substantial improvements to the region's road transport network. From the early 1920s, road works by local councils and the Main Roads Commission improved connections between inland and coastal settlements. Subdivision and sale of the Bulcock Estate to the north of the Camping Reserve circa 1917 brought settlers and holiday-makers to Caloundra. Guesthouses opened and by the 1920s, several boat hire businesses were operating, and the township had a general store, butcher and baker.
Continued improved road access from Brisbane and inland towns during the 1930s increased the popularity of the North Coast as a resort. Development accelerated after the new road to Caloundra was built in 1935 and most of the Bruce Highway to Nambour was bituminised during the 1930s. With improved access for visitors from Brisbane, it was not unusual to see 600 or 700 cars parked on Caloundra's foreshores. Building activity reflected this popularity and included: a new subdivision of housing allotments at Moffat Head; the Amusu picture theatre (1935) in Bulcock Street; the Kings Beach Pavilion with kiosk and changing sheds (1937); the Queensland Governor's Curramundi House at Dicky Beach (1936); and the Semloh, café, store and guesthouse (c1937). Land was resumed from the Bulcock Beach Esplanade in 1935 for recreational purposes and a camping ground was established in the water reserve.
In the immediate post-war period the Landsborough Shire Council intended to improve the Black Flat Camping Reserve. It proposed in its post-war plan to level, drain and grass the camping reserve and in 1947 the Shire Council applied for a £1000 loan for improvements to the camping areas at Black Flat and Kings Beach. During the summer of 1949-50 it was observed that Black Flat (South End) Reserve could be improved. It was capable of accommodating more campers if campsites were better organised. Traffic on a dirt road on the eastern side churned up dust that went throughout the camp area. Improvements were made to the camping area in subsequent years. Trees were planted in 1952 and an additional water supply to Black Flat reserve was requested in March 1953.
The popularity of the site was evident in the early 1950s. The Assembly of God ran a 'Camp and Campaign' in 1953 at Black Flat. In the following year the Nambour Chronicle noted that Black Flat was popular among caravan owners who were enthusiastic black fish anglers.
With the considerable growth of car ownership during the interwar period caravans began appearing on Queensland roads. Caravans offered freedom for the affluent motor tourist, without sacrificing comfort. As a 'home away from home', fitted with modern conveniences, caravans were markedly different from the simplicity of camping under a canvas tent. Caravans were an alternative to local hotels and guesthouses, the latter being in high demand during peak seasons, and providing varying levels of quality.
Post-World War II the popularity of caravans became more noticeable as the tourist industry resumed its pre-war expansion predicated on improved roads. The growth of motor tourism during the 1950s was stimulated by the lifting of petrol rationing by the Menzies government, the increased affordability of cars for the wider population and longer paid holidays. In 1946, the Road Ahead was noting the numbers of motor tourists from Victoria and New South Wales holidaying in Queensland. There was estimated to be 12,000 caravans on Australia roads by 1948-1949. The Caravan Club of Australia was formed in 1948 and a Brisbane branch had been established by 1951, offering advice to visitors.
The popularity of caravanning in Queensland was fostered by the RACQ which pushed for changes to restrictive road laws and improved caravanning facilities. The 1950 Queensland Traffic Act limited cars towing caravans to 25 miles per hour, compared to 50 for cars. By 1960 this speed had been lifted to 40. From 1949 when increasing numbers of caravans were appearing on North Coast roads the RACQ was urging local authorities on tourist routes to provide 'well equipped camps 'to prepare for the boom'. In 1954, RACQ Secretary Len King drew attention to the poor state of Queensland's caravan parks, noting that the average caravanner spent £5 in the local area in which they stayed.
The increasing number of caravan users in turn stimulated development of caravan parks. Private developers were the first to offer caravan parks from the late 1930s with modern facilities and structured layout. However, in the early 1950s, relatively few sites in Queensland offered the necessary infrastructure to accommodate caravanning needs. Calls for improvements to sites and facilities accompanied increased caravan usage. Advocates looked to the United States and the United Kingdom for examples of best practice in caravan parks. Caravanning guides and journals offered suggestions for layout and features. The publication Modern Caravan Parks offered advice to local authorities and others interested in establishing caravan parks. Suggestions included a more formal arrangement of space than camping required, characterised by grid or circular layouts and landscaped grounds. Features of caravan parks became a location near a main road, a prominent entrance, recreation room, brick amenities block, levelled concrete slabs, landscaping, hose connections, hot showers and electricity. They also had on-site caretakers/proprietors. Many parks offered on-site vans for rental. 'Tradespeople' called to deliver essentials like bread and milk. A common characteristic of public (and private) camping grounds and caravan parks has been the continual updating of their facilities.
Requests for development of the Black Flat site as a caravan park started as early as 1950. In October that year a formal application from E.G. Sinclair of Sydney to the Landsborough Shire Council to develop Black Flat Camping Reserve as a modern caravan park and holiday area was considered, but did not proceed. In 1955 the Caloundra Development Association suggested that Black Flat camping area be developed by private enterprise as a camping and caravan park thus saving expense to ratepayers. The Landsborough Shire Council advised that the area was reserved and could not be leased. In 1957, G.F.R. Nicklin, MLA and Leader of the Opposition, presented the Lands Department with a request to develop a caravan park at the entrance to Caloundra, on behalf of Caloundra public bodies. The request was granted and this reserve became Hibiscus Caravan Park.
By 1960, a mix of public and private parks had been established on the North (Sunshine) Coast. Development of these caravan parks expanded during the 1960s. An inspection by RACQ club officials in 1962 of the state's caravan and camping grounds noted the progress through local government efforts, especially advancements by privately owned parks. Many council camping grounds became known as 'caravan parks' as site facilities became more geared to their use. Names of parks could evoke the exotic history of caravanning, while others, like Hibiscus, highlighted natural features.
By the 1970s, caravanning was a well established and common leisure practice. A self-contained holiday in a caravan became an annual ritual for many campers, often returning to the same park year after year, members of a holiday community linked by shared experiences of place.
After private houses, caravans were the most popular form of holiday accommodation in Australia in 1976. They were significant contributors to local economies in tourist regions, through accommodation fees and flow on effects to other local businesses.
Over time, the affordability of caravan park accommodation has attracted more long term residents. This has included retirees, people experiencing economic hardship and seasonal or temporary workers. In accordance with this trend, the Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park moved into this sphere of accommodation and currently has about 80 permanent residents on the Hibiscus side of the caravan park.
During the last 25 years development on the North Coast has been especially rapid with the population of the Sunshine Coast growing at around twice the rate of the State as a whole. The Sunshine Coast is now Queensland's third largest tourist destination in terms of holiday accommodation after the Gold Coast and Cairns. This has meant that although there is still strong demand for caravan park accommodation, there is also increased pressure for these strategically and attractively located, undeveloped sites to be utilised for other accommodation types or returned to parkland. In 1979 the Reserve for Camping (106) was divided into two portions with the establishment of portion 566 (Hibiscus) and Leach Park, while portion 764 became the remainder (Tripcony).
The closure of caravan parks in coastal areas began in the 1970s as more intensive commercial and residential development occurred in the region. On the coastal strip between Noosa and Caloundra in 1968, there were 24 sites operating as caravan parks and five out of the six council camping reserves offered facilities for caravans, including power. In 2007, there are 16 caravan parks remaining on the coastal strip and no council camping reserves.
In the late 1980s the Hibiscus Caravan Park lease was obtained from the Caloundra City Council by a private developer. The Caloundra City Council requested that the Queensland Government cancel the Reserve for Camping for the land on which the Tripcony Caravan Park was located as it did not require, and would not in the future, require the land for public purposes. This was approved by Cabinet and a lease for the land issued to the land developer who already held the Hibiscus Caravan Park lease. Later the development company became insolvent and the company's creditor, the Bank of South Australia, sold the lease to SEQ Properties. This company requested a lease to continue operating the caravan park. Subsequently the Department of Natural Resources and Water issued a lease to SEQ Properties for 15 years from 1993. Since then the company has upgraded and operated it a tourist caravan park comprising 190 sites with a selection of waterfront ensuite units, cabins, backpackers units, powered sites and tent sites. Today the Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park is one of only four remaining caravan parks in Caloundra.
In 2009, future land use of caravan park sites, particularly on Crown land, remains a contentious topic. Local communities and visitors have come to attach special significance to caravan parks as places of leisure, which has been demonstrated by their efforts to protect council-operated caravan parks on Crown land along the Queensland coast. The current lessee of the Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park site, SEQ Properties, has been offered a new 30-year lease of the site for caravan park purposes. This followed an exhaustive investigation into options for the future use of the site culminating in the announcement by the Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, that the continuing use of the site as a caravan park demonstrated her Government's commitment to retaining caravan parks on State-owned land for low-cost tourism.
","criteria":"Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park represents a land use and custom that has made a strong contribution to the pattern and evolution of Queensland's tourism history. It is an excellent example of a camping and caravanning site that has been used by Queensland holiday-makers since 1912. Located adjacent to an area of quiet water allowing easy access for swimming, boating and fishing activities, Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park is important in illustrating the essential characteristics of early camping reserves.
Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park demonstrates the principal characteristics of a waterside caravan park. On a prime waterfront location with immediate access to still water, the place offers opportunities to interact with, and appreciate the natural beauty of its setting. Easily accessed by motor vehicles, and organised around a simple grid of streets and landscaping, the Park offers a range of accommodation types, which are served by a range of facilities that include ablutions blocks, barbeques and picnic areas. The range of accommodation and amenities has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of its clientele, while remaining low-scale and relatively affordable for holidaymakers.
|Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of the Sunshine Coast, an important region for the development of seaside tourism in Queensland. Originally gazetted as a Wharf and Water reserve in 1877 and re-gazetted for Camping and Recreation purposes in 1912, Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park has sustained its use as a seaside camping ground. It illustrates the policy of colonial Queensland governments of reserving Crown land for public purposes, a practice which was common but is now rare.
Tripcony Hibiscus Caravan Park is important in demonstrating the evolution of tourist accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, an historically important region for the development of caravan parks in Queensland. It does this through it beginnings as a seaside camping ground dating from 1912 to its reconfiguration as a caravan park in 1957 at the vanguard of the boom period for caravanning (late 1950s and 1960s), and later through periodic updating of its facilities in response to contemporary demands. This development was intrinsically linked to the phenomenon of caravanning that resulted from the rise of mass motoring Australia-wide in the second half of the 20th century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30492,"place_ref":602739,"name":"Charters Towers Airfield Bore Sight Range and Compass Swinging Platform","alternate_name":"Charters Towers WWII Airfield Gun Firing Range and Compass Swinging Station","street_address":"Corinda Avenue","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-05-14","description":"The Charters Towers Airfield is located on the northern outskirts of Charters Towers, about 1km north of the suburb of Richmond Hill.
Bore Sight Range
Aligned approximately east-west off the northern end of the wartime north-south runway, the place includes an aircraft hardstand in the form of a raised concrete platform approximately 15 metres square. A steel tie down shackle is set into the concrete surface. An adustable metal plate, which can be raised or lowered, is set at the front of the raised hardstand to carry the nose wheel of aircraft fitted with tricycle undercarriages. A cleared range extends east about 360 metres from the hardstand to the original earth butt, in front of which a recent display target is set.
Compass Swinging Platform
The Compass Swinging Platform is located about 850m south-east of the Bore Sight Range's hardstand, on the northern side of the wartime NE-SW runway, near its central point. It comprises a circular concrete slab 120 feet 6 inches (36.7 metres) in diameter with a compass rose inscribed on the surface.
","history":"Charters Towers Airfield was constructed for the United States Army in early 1942 to provide dispersal facilities for the main Townsville air base at Garbutt, in the event of Japanese air raids. During 1942 the US 3rd Bombardment Group was based at Charters Towers while undertaking strikes against Japanese bases in the south-west Pacific. From 1943 the airfield served as a US aircraft replacement and training centre. Facilities constructed during this period included a gun firing range and compass swinging station, which remain.
The site of Charters Towers Airfield is said to have been selected about December 1941, by a Mr Pettus who was attached to the US Army with the honorary rank of Colonel. As a civilian with the US firm of Sverdrup and Parcel, engineering consultants to the US forces, Pettus was involved in a contour survey of the town for the placement of three runways each 7000 feet (2133 metres) in length and 150 feet (45.7 metres) wide, which it was optimistically thought would blend in with the Charters Towers street grid and be invisible from the air.
As early as July 1941 the Royal Australian Air Force had ordered a survey of the Charters Towers vicinity to identify sites for airfields to accommodate heavy bombers and combat aircraft and an initial survey was undertaken during September. This survey resulted in the selection of suitable airfield sites at Corinda (Charters Towers), Sandy Creek (Breddan) and several locations near Sellheim.
On 7 December 1941 Japanese aircraft made a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands. At the same time Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. Three days after Pearl Harbor, two capital ships of the Royal Navy were sunk off the coast of Malaya. This gave the Japanese almost total control of the seas to Australia's north. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid, unchecked Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies raised fears of the invasion of Australia and aerial attacks on Queensland bases.
Charters Towers was the closest inland centre that could provide strategic support and aircraft dispersal facilities for the main North Eastern Area air base at Garbutt, Townsville, which was considered vulnerable to Japanese attack.
The RAAF ordered commencement of preliminary work on the Charters Towers town aerodrome during January 1942, with the grading of three temporary landing strips for use while the main aerodrome was under construction (two landing grounds were cleared on football fields and one near the cemetery).
By early February 1942 the airfield project had been accorded priority by the RAAF with a request that the NE-SW runway be graded first followed by the north-south runway. To get the project underway while awaiting the original plans, the airfield site was resurveyed by Main Roads Commission (MRC) engineers at Charters Towers and the layout was amended slightly.
Construction of Charters Towers airfield began in earnest on Monday 16 February 1942. Deadline for completion of the first strip was 14 days. Hundreds of men and all available earth-moving plant were brought in from Townsville and the first gravel strip was completed in 17 days. Grading of the second runway was completed soon after.
To speed base construction and foil Japanese aerial reconnaissance, all houses in the vicinity of the airfield were taken over so that personnel could be housed as inconspicuously as possible.
The airfield became operational during March with arrival of the first of four bombardment squadrons of the US Army Air Force 3rd Bombardment Group (Light), equipped with A-24 Dauntless dive bombers which had been intended for the Philippines. The group was later equipped with A-20 Boston medium bombers. These aircraft were followed by the arrival of B-25 Mitchell bombers that had been intended for use by the Dutch in the Netherlands East Indies, but were taken over by the Americans.
At Charters Towers, the cost for construction of runways, taxiways, hardstands, dispersal areas and all buildings and facilities was the responsibility of the US Army Services of Supply, Base Section Two. Works were ordered by the US Army through the federal Co-ordinator-General, Department of Public Works and contracted through the Department of Interior and Allied Works Council to the MRC for supervision.
In July 1942 the NE-SW runway (known as Runway 45, later Runway 56) was sealed and the north-south runway (known as Runway 7, later Runway 9) was metalled. The MRC used local mine tailings for the runways prompting a US press report that they were 'paved with gold'.
During 1942 Charters Towers airfield became instrumental in the development of the B-25 'Strafer'. Experimentation began with the replacement of four fixed 30 calibre machine guns in the nose section of the A-20 Boston, with heavier 50 calibre machine guns which were found to be more effective for low level ground and shipping attack. This led to conversion of the B-25 Mitchell 'bombardier nose' to a 'gunnery nose'. The B-25 conversion involved the fitting of eight fixed forward firing 50 calibre machine guns. The early B-25 'Strafer' conversions were carried out at Eagle Farm, Brisbane, on aircraft of 3 BG(M) operating from Charters Towers in low level strikes against Japanese shipping in Rabaul Harbour and airfields and bases in New Guinea. The B-25 'Strafer' conversion, initiated in north Queensland, was quickly adopted in all US theatres of World War II.
Following the transfer of 3 BG(M) to New Guinea in November 1942, Charters Towers airfield served through most of 1943 as a US Fighter and Bomber Command Replacement Training Centre.
During mid-February 1943 the Department of Public Works received a requisition from the US Army for construction of a gun firing range, or bore sight range, platform at Charters Towers airfield to test the accuracy of aircraft fixed armament. The work order was lodged with the superintending engineer, Department of Interior, Townsville. The concrete gun firing platform was designed with an adjustable metal plate set in front of the concrete block to take the nose wheel of aircraft with tricycle undercarriages, such as the B-25. A steel gantry frame with a sling was positioned on the platform to lift the tail of fighter aircraft with tail wheels such as the P-40. The bore sight range extended about 360 metres to an earth mound, or butt, in front of which a target was set.
It was probably during this early period of 1943 that a compass swinging station, or platform, was constructed on the northern side of the NE-SW runway near its central point. No record of the date of construction has been located. The platform was a circular concrete slab, 120 feet 6 inches (36.7 metres) in diameter with a compass rose inscribed on its surface. Aircraft were pushed onto the platform and aligned with each of the 16 main cardinal points of the compass, starting with north. Variations in aircraft compass bearings were noted and compass magnets were adjusted.
The RAAF resumed responsibility for the maintenance of the airfield in May 1944. The US withdrawal was signalled in June 1944 when the Charters Towers Airfield was classified as a 'reserve airdrome'. Most of the US facilities at the airfield were turned over to the RAAF in December 1944. The Department of Civil Aviation was advised by the Department of Air in January 1946 that the RAAF planned to retain responsibility for Charters Towers airfield in the post-war period. RAAF responsibility has long since lapsed and today the airfield is operated by the Charters Towers Regional Council.
","criteria":"The Bore Site Range is the only known example of its type in Queensland with an adjustable nose wheel platform to accommodate aircraft such as the P-39 Airacobra, A-20 Boston, B-25 Mitchell 'Strafer', and B-26 Marauder.
|
The Charters Towers Airfield Bore Sight Range and Compass Swinging Platform remain substantially intact and are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of their types. The bore sight range retains its concrete hardstand, cleared range and earth butt. The circular concrete slab of the compass swinging platform remains adjacent to the wartime runway, and retains its compass rose inscription.
|Charters Towers Airfield Bore Sight Range and Compass Swinging Platform are significant as surviving evidence of a major United States Fifth Air Force Aircraft Replacement and Training Centre developed for the Townsville region during World War II.
The Bore Sight Range and Compass Swinging Platform are significant for their role in the operation of the US Replacement and Training Centre and in the conduct of the air war in the South West Pacific Area in association with the nearby RAAF aircraft repair and salvage installation at Breddan Airfield.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30493,"place_ref":602745,"name":"Breddan Airfield","alternate_name":"Breddan WWII Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Salvage Depot","street_address":"Gregory Developmental Road","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-04-16","description":"Breddan Airfield is located about 13km north of Charters Towers on the Gregory Developmental Road. The place contains a number of component areas associated with its wartime operation.
Runways and Duty Pilot's Tower Base.
The bitumen sealed east-west Runway 60 degrees extends east of the Gregory Developmental Road for about two kilometres in length. The unfinished north-south Runway 20 degrees, remains evident as a regrowth area and former wartime taxiway running parallel with the road. Other taxiways extend north and west from Runway 60 to workshop sites of the Airframe Repair Section, General Engineering Section and Engine Repair Section. The duty pilot's tower is located at the western end of Runway 60. The site comprises a concrete slab, possibly an office floor, with four concrete tower footings at each corner, each containing two steel members to which the base of the tower was attached with bolts.
Airframe Repair Section
The Airframe Repair Section, located to the west of the Gregory Developmental Road, contains the concrete floors of at least seven workshops and hangars including the base of a cantilever hangar. An earth butt for gun testing is located near the cantilever hangar. Other workshop surfaces were designed for Bellman hangars. Several concrete tie down blocks for aircraft remain.
General Engineering Section
The General Engineering Section, located between the east-west Runway 60 and the unfinished north-south runway, contains concrete floors of at least seven workshops and hangars. Three Bellman hangar floors are evident, including an instrument repair shop and a lathe workshop. An electroplating workshop can be identified by two concrete channels running the length of the floor surface. The GES also included an armature winding shop.
Engine Repair Section
The Engine Repair Section, located north of the GES, contains concrete floor surfaces for six workshops including a number of Bellman hangars. From south to north the six ERS workshop slabs are identified as: Receipt and Despatch Shop, Engine Inspection and Dismantling Shop, Stripping and Cleaning Shop, Blacksmith Shop with Retort Furnace, Final Assembly Shop, and Propeller Maintenance Shop. Two other ERS workshop floor surfaces, including an engine running shed with steel tie down bolts, are located on the west side of the Gregory Developmental Road.
Motor Transport Section
The site of the Motor Transport Repair and Engine Overhaul Section is located south of Runway 60, at the entrance to the airfield. At least three MT workshops are shown on a wartime plan of the base. The site of No.2 Camp is located nearby.
Torpedo Maintenance Unit
The Torpedo Maintenance Unit stores are located apart from the engineering workshops in the south east sector of the airfield complex. The TMU stores consist of ten reinforced concrete igloos of two types. Seven torpedo maintenance stores are spaced apart over about a kilometre forming a rough oval. These reinforced concrete buildings, 16 metres in length by 6.8 metres in width, are designed with two entrances at one end and a semi-circular formwork concrete roof reaching about 4 metres in height. The roofs contain ventilation holes and steel bolts for securing camouflage nets. Three reinforced concrete torpedo warhead stores are spaced apart in gullies further to the south east of the maintenance igloos. The warhead stores are designed with a single entrance at the centre of the buildings with a reinforced concrete portico above. The stores are about 7 metres in length, 6.50 metres in width and 3.5 metres in height. All are equipped with ventilation holes in the roofs, bolts for securing camouflage nets and contain evidence of wartime ochre and green camouflage paint.
Torpedo Maintenance Unit Camp
The Torpedo Maintenance Unit camp, located at the north east end of Runway 60, contains a small reinforced concrete igloo building which served as a generator shed. The camp area also includes the concrete floor and oven base of a mess and kitchen, and a small stone structure thought to have been a water heater or incinerator.
Power House and Hospital
A power house and hospital sick bay are located south of Runway 60 near the southern boundary of the airfield. The power house is constructed with 5.5 metre high reinforced concrete walls. The internal concrete floor surface contains footings and channels for a diesel engine, alternator and cabling to a distribution board. A reinforced concrete switching room is attached at one end of the building which totals 16.2 metres in length and 6 metres in width. A reinforced concrete inground cooling tank is situated at the north west end of the building. The hospital foundations comprise concrete floor surfaces and concrete footings that may have supported a timber floor surface.
Reinforced Concrete Building and No.1 Camp
North of Runway 60 at its eastern end is a reinforced concrete building of seven rooms covered with a flat concrete roof. The building is 10.90 metres in length by 8 metres in width and includes a toilet. An eroded earth traverse wall once protected the entrance doorway. The purpose of the building is uncertain. It may have been constructed as a signals station or a medical aid post, and may have later been used for secure storage.
The site of No.1 Camp covers an area of the airfield extending north from the east end of Runway 60. Archaeological evidence of an open air picture theatre includes concrete lined post holes for a projection box and a scatter of metal slide holders. Several large concrete floor surfaces of former stores buildings are located north of the runway, nearby.
","history":"Breddan airfield, located about 13 kilometres north of Charters Towers, was initially constructed as a dispersal field for Charters Towers airfield during April 1942. In August 1942 Breddan was occupied by two squadrons of the US 38th Bombardment Group. On the departure of the US squadrons Breddan was chosen for development as a major aircraft repair and salvage depot under RAAF control. The construction program which took place during 1943 involved the erection of maintenance hangars, engineering workshops, torpedo stores, personnel camps, a power station and medical facilities. The base was abandoned after 1947.
As early as July 1941 the Royal Australian Air Force had ordered a survey of the Charters Towers district to identify sites for airfields to accommodate heavy bombers and combat aircraft. An initial survey was undertaken during September resulting in the identification of suitable airfield sites at Corinda (Charters Towers), Sandy Creek (Breddan) and several locations near Sellheim.
On 7 December 1941 the Japanese made a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. At the same time Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. Three days after Pearl Harbor, two capital ships of the Royal Navy were sunk off the coast of Malaya. This gave the Japanese almost total control of the seas to Australia's north. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid, unchecked Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies raised fears of the invasion of Australia and attacks on Queensland bases.
Charters Towers was the closest inland centre that could provide strategic support and aircraft dispersal facilities for the main North Eastern Area air base at Garbutt, Townsville, which was considered vulnerable to Japanese attack. The RAAF ordered commencement of preliminary work on an aerodrome at Charters Towers during January 1942. By early February Charters Towers airfield had been accorded high priority and Main Roads Commission engineers were engaged to supervise the clearing and construction of two gravel runways. The work was completed during March in readiness for the arrival of the United States Army Air Force 3rd Bombardment Group (Light).
Arrival of the US 3 BG(L) at Charters Towers saw the need for dispersal strips in the vicinity and the revival of the earlier investigation of the Sandy Creek airfield site north of the town. A second dispersal strip was planned at Southern Cross, a gold mining area to the west of the town.
Under MRC supervision, clearing and construction of an airfield at the Sandy Creek location on the northern inland road connecting Charters Towers with the Atherton Tableland, began on 10 April 1942. The new airfield was named Breddan, however the origin of the name remains uncertain. Completion of a gravel east-west runway was the priority, with clearing of a second north-south runway to follow. Dauntless dive bombers of 3 BG(L) arrived at Charters Towers in late March 1942 and some aircraft may have been dispersed to Breddan during April.
On 26 May, after discussions with the RAAF North Eastern Area Command, the USAAF decided that a heavy bombardment role proposed for Charters Towers airfield, would be transferred to Breddan, with torpedo workshops established between Charters Towers and Breddan. It was initially planned that when the US bombardment squadrons vacated Charters Towers, the airfield facilities would be occupied by a RAAF aircraft repair and salvage unit. With the US victory at Midway Island in early June, much of the proposed airfield construction program west of Charters Towers was abandoned. For Breddan the plan became one of completing both runways to gravelled stage and the erection of workshops and camp facilities.
By June a major construction program had commenced at Breddan with the erection of approximately 40 buildings which by July were noted to be urgently in need of camouflage painting. The buildings included an aircraft repair section workshop, a motor transport workshop near the southern entrance and camp facilities (No.1 Camp). The Allied Works Council (AWC) was responsible for contracting the building program. By late July Breddan was occupied by the RAAF No.12 Repair and Salvage Unit and ground crew of the USAAF 38th Bombardment Group (Medium).
On 22 August the 71st and 405th squadrons of the US 38 BG(M) arrived at Breddan after leaving Hawaii on 25 July and flying their B-25 Mitchell bombers across the Pacific Ocean. Their aircraft were combat ready on arrival and reunification with the ground crews who had reached Australia by sea. The main east-west Runway 60 was bitumen sealed by 22 August when most of the B-25 bombers arrived. The north-south second runway running parallel with a straight section of the northern inland road, was not completed.
The AWC contracted the construction of a USAAF camp at Breddan which was in the course of erection by 22 September when the US Base Section ordered that no further work be done on the camp. The Base Section also ordered that the main runway facilities be completed, but that all work on the second runway should be abandoned. The second runway later served as an aircraft taxiway for the northern repair and maintenance workshops.
By early October the 71st and 405th squadrons of the US 38 BG(M) had been posted to Townsville and Breddan was chosen for development as a major aircraft repair and salvage depot under RAAF control, based around No.12 Repair and Salvage Unit and No.6 Aircraft Repair Depot, RAAF. For this reason winding dispersal taxiways were considered unnecessary. The facilities required would include engineering workshops.
RAAF No.1 Torpedo Maintenance Unit was established at Breddan on 18 November 1942 and an order was placed with the AWC for construction of facilities for the unit including reinforced concrete igloo shelters for the storage of torpedos and torpedo war heads. Ten reinforced concrete storage buildings for No.1 TMU were completed by June 1943 when provision was made for their camouflage.
RAAF No.6 ARD departed from Breddan during December 1942 and arrival of an advance party of No.13 ARD marked the beginning of a significant building program. RAAF No.13 ARD found a number of important building works were outstanding on their arrival at Breddan and the advance party were given the role of erecting their own workshops and stores as their first major task at the base. On 20 January 1943 the AWC was asked to proceed with construction of 11 buildings as part of the Breddan ARD Scheme. Buildings ordered comprised: salvage hangar, propeller testing building, armament hut, electroplating shop, battery hut, motor transport store and office, and four headquarters buildings. The workshops included a number of prefabricated steel frame Bellman hangars. Up to six Bellman hangars may have been erected at Breddan by the end of World War II.
AWC minutes for 18 February 1943 include an approval to proceed with the fabrication of four 'American Type Hangars' 95 by 45 feet (28.9 by 13.7 metres) galvanised iron covered steel workshop buildings which had been reconstructed in Melbourne. These buildings were also erected by the advance personnel of No.13 ARD. Throughout this period units of No.12 RSU, RAAF, continued operating from Breddan.
During 1943 the AWC were asked to organise an intensive program of building construction at Breddan which received a substantial allocation of funds to cover the works. The following works were ordered during the first half of the year: a hospital sick bay near the No.2 Camp, with a treatment room and medical officer's hut; a barracks store and officers' mess for No.1 TMU; motor transport engine repair and body chassis workshops; aircraft dismantling hangars; gun firing platform and test butts.
Work on No.1 Camp to hold 350 personnel was completed during May by which period work was also nearing completion on No.2 Camp to hold 400 men. The building construction work was undertaken by Civil Construction Corps labour. During June orders were lodged by the Department of Air for construction of a post office, canteen, ethylene glycol reclamation hut, WAAAF camp, dental clinic, squadron air depot, cool room and duty pilot's tower. Orders were also placed for the sealing of taxiways and supply of an air conditioning unit for the instrument repair workshop. By October 1943 provision of hutted camp accommodation for WAAAF personnel had been accorded priority for construction.
To avoid dependency on power supply from Charters Towers a reinforced concrete sub-station building was commenced about June to hold a 25 KVA diesel electric generating plant. The power station was scheduled for completion in September.
Workshops and barracks were sufficiently established by August 1943 to allow the main contingent of No.13 ARD to make the move from Tocumwal (NSW) to Breddan. In December 1943 No.12 RSU departed from Breddan for Kiriwina in New Guinea. No.6 Central Recovery Depot, RAAF, was established at Breddan in June 1944.
RAAF units based at Breddan airfield during World War II were No.12 RSU, No. 10 RSU, No.6 ARD, No.13 ARD, No.1 TMU and No.6 CRD. At its largest in late 1943 a total of 1200 personnel were accommodated on the base. The RAAF continued to operate from Breddan after World War II and the last unit, No.13 ARD, departed in November 1947. The base was closed by 1948. All workshop and camp facilities were later removed and the property turned over to pastoral use.
","criteria":"Breddan Airfield demonstrates rare and uncommon aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage with the only known structural evidence of a World War II Torpedo Maintenance Depot, containing 12 reinforced concrete igloo stores for the storage of torpedos and torpedo war heads.
|Breddan Airfield has potential to yield archaeological information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history with particular regard to the layout of camp and workshop surface elements that remain comparatively undisturbed.
|Breddan Airfield is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a major World War II maintenance, repair and salvage base in north Queensland, containing structural and archaeological evidence including workshop and hangar concrete floors, wartime sealed runway and taxiways, camp installations, reinforced concrete buildings, and torpedo maintenance facilities.
The place is important in demonstrating the pricipal characteristics of particular types of World War II structures, including a power house, propeller maintenance workshop, electro plating workshop, cantilever hangars, torpedo maintenance and torpedo war head stores.
|
Breddan Airfield is significant as a major World War II maintenance, repair and salvage base, being developed as one of the largest RAAF aircraft and motor transport engineering repair facilities in north Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30518,"place_ref":602711,"name":"Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse","alternate_name":"Gladstone Yacht Club","street_address":"1 Goondoon Street","suburb":"GLADSTONE","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-26","description":"The Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse marks the northern end of Goondoon Street, Gladstone's main street, where the land slopes towards Gladstone Harbour. It forms part of a series of maritime structures at the mouth of Auckland Inlet including the Port Authority boat ramp, the O'Connell Wharf to the north, the Volunteer Marine Rescue Gladstone building and a recently constructed Customs building. It is located on largely flat ground overlooking the boat ramp towards the harbour.
The Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse is a timber-framed structure which has been altered and extended since its completion in 1959. The 1950s structure forms the core of the existing building and various extensions have taken place around its perimeter. The building has a large hipped roof clad with galvanised metal sheeting with the main ridge finishing at gablets at either end. At the north-western end the hipped roof extends lower to form a balcony space. A two storey section has been added along the main north-eastern elevation. On the opposite side of the building a large deck with a curved roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting has been added. A two-storeyed kitchen wing has also been added behind the new deck space.
The main elevation, which faces to the north-east, features a protruding entry area and a parapet wall which extends for most of the length of the building. These are formed from timber sheeting. Narrow lengths of corrugated metal sheeting have been fixed to form column-like details within the parapet wall, framing each end and the entry area. The exterior is clad with chamferboards at the base with fibre-cement sheeting with timber cover strips to the remainder. A cantilevered street awning is located above the entry area with 'Port Curtis Sailing Club' in lettering fixed along its front edge and 'Gladstone Yacht Club' in lettering adjacent to the entry door. Narrow window hoods cover each of the window bays. Timber casement windows are located above the street awning. A verandah space on the upper level has exposed steel posts and balustrades with a small enclosed area clad with fibre-cement sheeting. Recent aluminium windows are located adjacent to the entry on the second level and on the lower level.
On the north-west elevation which overlooks the boat ramp and Auckland Inlet is a recently added enclosed balcony space supported on cantilevered tapered steel beams. The balcony is roofed with a skillion roof which extends from the hipped main roof and is enclosed with fixed and sliding glass panels. Adjacent to the balcony space is a recent outdoor dining area with a steel framed curved roof. The undercoft area below the outdoor dining area is open.
The lower level of the building is enclosed with fibre cement sheeting with chamferboards at the base. Openings are varied throughout the building and include metal roller-doors, aluminium framed sliding and hopper windows, louvre windows. A recent kitchen extension has been added to the rear south-western corner of the building which has a hipped roof and is clad with fibre cement on the upper floor and enclosed with blockwork on the lower level.
The building consists of various dining and bar areas on the upper floor with storage for boats and catering equipment on the lower level. The two levels are linked by an early stairwell which remains largely intact and is reached from a small foyer/entry area adjacent to the main entry. A new office has been constructed in the foyer area. The upper floor has been divided into a central lounge bar, balcony dining area and function room. The verandah space to the north-east has been enclosed to form a games room. A new outdoor dining area is located behind the lounge bar to the west.
The lower floor of the building is largely open for storage with early timber stumps visible. A training room has been enclosed in the north-east corner and a catering storage area formed by blockwork in the southern corner.
The upper floor has walls lined with vertically fixed painted chamferboards and plasterboard sheeting. The ceiling is lined with plasterboard with some recessed ceiling panels visible. Floors are lined with recent linoleum strip sheeting with carpet in some areas. The internal stairwell has walls lined with long lengths of chamferboards and fibre cement sheeting with cover strips. The staircase has treads and risers of polished timber and balustrades with timber cappings. The balcony space has walls and ceilings lined with plasterboard. On the lower floor walls and ceilings are generally unlined with some early louvre windows visible which are hidden behind cladding on the outside.
The grounds include lawned boat-rigging areas adjacent to the concrete boat ramp to the north of the clubhouse and bitumened carparks in front of the building (fronting Goondoon Street) and at its rear to the west. A white, painted steel flagpole is located to the north. There is a recent pontoon extending into Auckland Inlet, but this sits outside the heritage boundary.
","history":"The Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse was constructed between 1949 and 1959 by members of the Port Curtis Sailing Club. The club was formed in 1941 by the sailing fraternity of Gladstone to provide facilities and support for the sport, as well as a venue for social functions. While renovations were undertaken to the building in recent years, the core of the post-war building remains as a landmark on Auckland Inlet. The clubhouse evolved from an initial concept as a single-storeyed boat storage facility to a double-storeyed building with boat storage underneath and an entertainment and dining venue above. The clubhouse is known Australia-wide for its association with the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race, the finish of which is hosted by the Port Curtis Sailing Club. This race has been a highlight of the Australian sailing calendar since its inauguration in 1949 and was the first ocean race held in Queensland.
Sailing clubs for both recreation and competitive sport have been active in Queensland since the late nineteenth century, including: Brisbane Sailing Club (established 1885), Fitzroy Sailing Club at Rockhampton (1895), Sandgate Yacht Club (1897), Townsville Yacht Club (1901), Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron (1902), Oxley Sailing Club (1902), South Brisbane Sailing Club (1903); Cleveland Yacht Club (1904), and Cairns Yacht Club (1908). New clubs formed after World War Two and many new and existing clubs began building clubhouses at this time. The Townsville club credits the post-war Olympic Games for a renewed interest in sailing, while others suggest returned servicemen seeking adventure and camaraderie led to the formation of new clubs. In terms of social regattas, it is likely that the improved economy, growth in car ownership and improved roads allowed sailors to tow their boats to compete in regattas around the State. It is clear that many clubs utilised remnant war-time buildings to create clubhouses and most, like Port Curtis Sailing Club, took advantage of member's skills, enthusiasm and business contacts in the construction process.
Sailing and rowing were popular activities on the Gladstone harbour (Port Curtis). Regattas were often held on Separation Day (10 December) in the 1870s. By 1890 regattas were held annually on Easter Monday. These were the forerunners of the more recent Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race held over the Easter weekend. Rowing was also popular on the harbour. Twenty four people with an interest in rowing or sailing met on 3 April 1941 at Feros' Paramount Café and formed the Port Curtis Aquatic Club. Shortly after that the club sought permission from the Gladstone Harbour Board to place a set of rails in Auckland Creek for launching and retrieving boats. The war led to a downturn in sailing activities, but the club reformed in 1946. Members quickly realised that sailing was the main interest so on 3 September 1947 it was renamed the Port Curtis Sailing Club. Fund raising to build a clubhouse commenced and the club asked the Gladstone Harbour Board for a site. In July 1948 the Gladstone Town Council agreed to grant the remainder of the Reserve for Baths (between the baths and Auckland Inlet) to the Gladstone Harbour Board, provided the council could continue to access the drainage pipes for the baths. The baths which had been built by the council in 1936 were situated at the corner of Goondoon and Lord Streets. By granting the remainder of the reserve to the Harbour Board, the council was in essence, providing a site for the sailing club on the harbour front.
In 1948 the Queensland Cruising Yacht Club (QCYC) approached the Port Curtis Sailing Club with a proposal to establish a race between Brisbane and Gladstone. This was to be the first ocean racing event in Queensland. Gladstone Mayor Jack O'Malley was enthusiastic about the proposal, although he had little local support initially. The sailing club began planning for the event, with a particular focus on the finish of the race which was to be at the Auckland Point Jetty. Six weeks prior to the event, Gladstone was hit by a destructive cyclone. The sailing club still wanted to proceed with building a club house and wrote to the Harbour Board in March 1949 seeking clarification of the dimensions of the land it intended to lease to the club for its clubhouse. In April 1949 the club made a request to the Gladstone Town Council for number of substantial trees knocked over by the cyclone on Council land. Council agreed and these trees were used in the construction of a clubhouse.
The inaugural Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race was held at Easter 1949. No Gladstone yachts participated in the race although a number of locals crewed on the winning boats. Despite particularly heavy weather, the race was deemed a success and plans were made by the Port Curtis Sailing Club and the QCYC to ensure it was an annual event. As local interest in sailing grew, so did the need for a Gladstone club house. In 1950 a resurvey was undertaken of the Gladstone baths (R.270, Portion 22) and the land between the baths and Auckland Inlet. The latter was to be the site of the Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse, but vested as a Reserve for Harbour Purposes (R.301, Portion 119).
Club members continued to procure more trees felled during the 1949 cyclone, this time from local graziers with family interests in the club. Members were involved in the long process of milling the logs. In 1953 land was reclaimed for a clubhouse. The fill came from Auckland Hill, which had been successively excavated for fill over the years, particularly in the 1950s. Locals drew up a basic design for the clubhouse, initially for a single-storeyed boat and gear shed. When extra timber was procured, architect Phil Hanman refined the plans to include two storeys with a dance hall on the top floor. While the initial funds were raised through debentures, the construction of the dance hall was specifically to provide an income stream for the club. Other fundraising means included art unions, dances, socials and door knocking for donations.
The Gladstone Port Authority lent the club a pile driver and timber piles were driven into the reclaimed land to depths ranging between 8 and 15 feet. In 1954 the piles were capped with concrete and the construction of the frame work began. All work was done by volunteer labour and supervised by professional tradesmen. Building materials were sourced through a number of means including donations from local businesses. Construction was inhibited by post-war building material regulations, in which all available materials were destined for housing. At first, permission was only granted to build and roof the lower storey, with the upper floor waiting until material shortages eased. One section of the building was completed by 3 May 1955 and club members were able to move in.
In November 1957 the Gladstone Harbour Board wrote to the local Land Commissioner stating that the Sailing Club Building was in fact 2 feet (0.6m) beyond the official boundary of the reserve, towards Auckland Inlet. The boundaries were then extended by an Order in Council on 19 June 1958, without re-surveying. The sailing club building was completed by the chairman of the Gladstone Harbour Board, local councillor and builder, Mr W R Golding MBE. The official opening was held on the evening of 28 March 1959 in time for the Easter Regatta.
The Port Curtis Sailing Club's clubhouse was erected during a period of expanded interest in amateur sailing in Queensland after World War Two. At least eleven clubhouses have been identified as being constructed for Queensland sailing/yacht clubs in the 1940s and 1950s and like Port Curtis Sailing Club premises, most utilised donated materials and labour: Sandgate Skiff Club (1944), Southport Sailing Club (1946), Sandgate Sailing Club (1948), Townsville Sailing Club (1948), Maryborough Sailing Club (1950), North Queensland Cruising Yacht Club (1952), Oxley (1953), Bulimba (1953), South Brisbane (1956), Darling Point (1958) and Port Curtis (1959). Sandgate Skiff Club relocated a former church hall to its Cabbage Tree Creek site, near to where the Sandgate Yacht Club had reconstructed old army huts into the Sandgate Memorial Boat Shed in 1948 (later handed over to the Queensland Cruising Yacht Club). Maryborough Sailing Club initially used an old World War Two Navy boatshed and built a clubhouse beside it in 1950, using new and recycled materials. The North Queensland Cruising Yacht Club in Bowen relocated a former WRAAF Mess Hall and like Port Curtis, raised money through debentures for the 1952 project. The Oxley Sailing Club had been given a parcel of riverfront land. Timber was donated in 1951 for the first boat shed which was completed by club members in June 1953. Bulimba Sailing Club volunteers built its clubhouse in 1953 and raised the building later to accommodate boat storage. South Brisbane Sailing Club was given a lease in Orleigh Park at H, and the clubhouse was built by volunteer labour in 1956. Darling Point was built by club members in 1958.
Only six of the eleven post-war clubhouses remain: Oxley, South Brisbane, Darling Point (relocated to Manly Breakwater in 1978), Sandgate, Bulimba and Port Curtis. It appears that Port Curtis Sailing Club is the only extant clubhouse from the 1940s and 1950s to have used an architect in its design. Architect Phil Hanman, who designed the upper floor, had served with club vice president Doug Patrick in the Middle East during World War Two.
At Gladstone, the Harbour Board continued to reclaim land and in February 1967 the boundaries of R.301 (which included the sailing club site) were amended to reflect this reclamation. On 14 December 1967, R.301 was cancelled and Portion 119 was vested with the Gladstone Harbour Board. The sailing club then negotiated with the Gladstone Harbour Board for a lease on the clubhouse site for up to 75 years.
To gain a liquor licence during the mid 1970s an association was formed between the sailing club, the Port Curtis Air Sea Rescue, and the Gladstone Power Boat Club, to create the Gladstone Yacht Club as an entity. The air sea rescue and boating club are no longer associated with the yacht club which is now the trading name for the Port Curtis Sailing Club Inc.
The Port Curtis Sailing Club installed a pontoon sometime in the 1980s. In the 1990s the clubhouse was extended and upgraded including the addition of an open veranda on the north-east side, an extension on the north-west, and a new licensed bar area in part of the original ball room facing Auckland Creek, which was opened up with a glass front. A large verandah was added to the western side which included a restaurant. The project was designed by architect Allan Jeffery who assured the club that the original 1950s building would last for many more years and was a credit to the local volunteer builders. These new extensions were formally opened on 13 September 1997.
The Port Curtis Sailing Club has been proactive in organising a number of significant sailing activities and events in Queensland. In 1960 the club commenced 'learn to sail' classes for local children and in 1961 it purchased ten sabots and initiated the South Queensland Sabot Association. It then negotiated with the Gladstone State High School to run the first sailing classes in Queensland High Schools. The Port Curtis Sailing Club provided the boats and the expertise. 1961 was also the year of the first Harbour Festival which was organised by the club to entertain spectators waiting for the yachts to arrive in the Brisbane to Gladstone race. The festival continues to be an annual event, though now organised through the local council. The club has also organised a wide range of ocean racing events including the Gladstone to Bowen, Gladstone to Bundaberg, Gladstone to Cairns, Gladstone to Great Keppel and Gladstone to Hamilton Island. Another first was claimed by club member Lesley Barker who was sailing mistress for the first all girl crew in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1975. Club stalwart and foundation member Noel Patrick won the Brisbane to Gladstone on five occasions in his boat Wistari. He also published the first sailing directory for the Port Curtis region Cruising the Curtis Coast in 1986.
The Port Curtis Sailing Club has always been part of the organisational team involved in managing the finish of the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race. Other organisations involved include the Gladstone Volunteer Marine Rescue, Gladstone Harbour Festival Committee, Gladstone Port Corporation, Gladstone Marina, Gladstone Mayor's office and interested local citizens. While the formal trophy presentations have been held at various locations over the 60 year history of the race, including the Town Hall, O'Connell Wharf and the clubhouse, the social activities have always occurred at the Port Curtis Sailing Club. The Club is open 24 hours a day during the Easter weekend in order to welcome sailing crews as they arrive. A plotting room is set up in the sail training room on the ground floor providing public access to the progress of the race. Electronic monitoring is managed at the adjacent Volunteer Marine Rescue headquarters.
In November 2008 the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race was awarded the first prize in the 'festival and events' category at the Queensland Tourism Awards. The race now generates festivals in Redcliffe (Festival of Sails) and Gladstone (Harbour Festival) and is recognised as a significant ocean racing event in Australia, second only to the Sydney to Hobart race. For race participants, it is known as 'the friendly race', and the camaraderie amongst participants is what draws competitors back annually. The clubhouse was also awarded the Best Small Social Club in 2007 and 2008 in the Clubs Queensland Achievement Awards. The importance of the clubhouse to the race was summed up in 1983 by the Commodore, Julian Walker, who commented prior to the race: 'Port Curtis Sailing Club is gearing up to make you feel welcome and give you an atmosphere in which to swap yarns and tall stories.'
","criteria":"The Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse is significant for its special association with the Australian sailing community as the principal venue for the celebration of the end of the annual Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race, and as a past venue for the presentation of race trophies.
|The Port Curtis Sailing Club Clubhouse, constructed between 1949 and 1959 on Auckland Inlet at Gladstone, is important in illustrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history, namely the development of the sport of sailing in Queensland.
The place is important for its close association with the annual Easter-weekend Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race, inaugurated in 1949 and second only to the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in terms of significance in Australian ocean racing. The race was awarded first prize in the 'festival and events' category at the Queensland Tourism Awards in 2008. The Port Curtis Sailing Club has played an integral role in the management of the race since its inception, and its clubhouse remains an iconic venue for end-of-the-race celebrations by participants, organisers and spectators alike. A plotting room set up in the sail training room on the ground floor of the clubhouse provides public access to the progress of the race, and the clubhouse has been the venue for the presentation of race trophies.
The Club also has been credited with initiating the South Queensland Sabot Association and being the first in Queensland to offer sail training as a high school subject, activities that were based at the clubhouse.
The clubhouse remains one of the earlier sailing club facilities on the Queensland coast. The 1950s core of the clubhouse survives, with undercroft boat storage and sail training room, and a former dance hall on the upper level.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30538,"place_ref":645602,"name":"Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex","alternate_name":"Laheys Sawmill | 700002","street_address":"10-26 Finch Road","suburb":"CANUNGRA","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-03-06","description":"The archaeological remains of Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex are located within the western half of Lot 2 on RP200758, located north of Christie Road and west of Finch Road, in the township of Canungra. Remnants of the tramway embankment exist in the southern edge of lot 1 on RP200758 covered by the heritage boundary. The land on which the site is situated has been cleared and is an undeveloped paddock. Evidence of recent use includes worn down walking and bicycle tracks as well as modern rubbish. An abandoned caravan park occupies the eastern portion of Lot 2 on RP200758. There are also a number of temporary enclosures, presumably for horses, consisting of wire and star-picket fences. Any remains of the abandoned caravan park and remaining wire and star-picket fence lines within the heritage boundary are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe main sawmill remains are concentrated in the centre of the western portion of the lot. Numerous concrete machinery foundations are present across this area, including the supporting pillars for the mills steam engine and concrete steam water pits. A 7m x 7m concrete slab located in this area may also be the base for the crane used to lift logs from the trams bringing logs to the mill. The terminal end of the old tramway line is evident in the form of the cut ends of the rails embedded in a large concrete foundation. A number of broken bricks were recorded on the surface, including those from Campbell's Brickworks, Brisbane or Redbank, as well as other elliptical frogged but unlettered types possibly used as insulation for the two boilers known to have been on site. There are a limited number of metal artefacts visible, including the remains of a metal storage bin. Potential exists for substantial and extensive subsurface archaeological deposits in the vicinity of these surface remains as it was noted that the area shows limited subsurface disturbance, except for two easements which dissect the site. A services pipe (Easement A on RP150196) is exposed in the south-west of the lot adjoining the bowls club, and runs underground diagonally across the lot to the north-east towards Canungra Creek. A second easement (Easement B on RP181573) also runs from the south-west corner of the lot to its northern boundary with Canungra Creek.
\nA second concentration of concrete machinery and building foundations is located in the northern section of Lot 2 on RP200758. These remains straddle a wide intermittent creek which runs from the south-west corner of Lot 2 on RP200758 and terminates on the northern boundary of the lot, and Easement B on RP181573. These foundations are located immediately adjacent to the remains of the former Lahey's railway siding and are interpreted as part of the infrastructure used to load timber onto trains heading from the mill on the government Canungra-Logan Village branch line and also possibly related to the later Standply Timber Company veneer and plywood operations. There are potentially substantial subsurface archaeological deposits located in the vicinity of these surface remains as the area shows little evidence of recent subsurface disturbance though it may have been affected by works associated with the construction of Easement B on RP181573.
","history":"The Canungra Sawmill operated between 1884 and c.1935. The mill was wholly owned and operated by the Lahey family until 1921. Timber from throughout the Canungra region was brought to the mill from the company's timber stands via a private tramway and transported out of Canungra on the Government railway line. The mill was rebuilt after major fires in 1897 and 1906 and modernised with new milling equipment and updates to processing techniques were made regularly. The mill and all associated equipment, infrastructure and timber stands were finally sold by the Lahey's in 1921. The mill changed hands twice more (in 1923 and 1933) as the viability of the timber industry in the region waned, before closing for a final time c.1935.
\nEuropean settlement of the area surrounding the Coomera River commenced in 1843 with the establishment of the Tambourine holding. Early timber harvesting commenced in the 1860s by Hugh Mahony who cut and hauled cedar logs to mills in Ipswich.
\nThe Lahey family emigrated from their native Ireland to Australia in 1862. Francis Lahey, his wife and eleven children arrived in Sydney, but immediately travelled north to Brisbane. The family began farming in the Pimpama region in 1870. In 1875 Francis Lahey purchased a sugar mill at Tygum, near Waterford, for his sons. Francis expanded the operations at Tygum to include sawmilling, an industry that would dominate the working lives of the next generation of the Lahey family.
\nAfter being informed of quality timber in the region, David Lahey commenced construction of a sawmill at Canungra on 2 October 1884 (Kerr 1998:226; Lahey 1996:1). During the same year David, John, Isaiah, Thomas and Evangeline Lahey all applied for and were granted selections of land around Canungra totalling over 3,000 acres. Lahey's Canungra Sawmill was established on Portion 61, Canungra on land leased from Robert Christie and beside what is now known as Christie Street (Lahey 2003:96). With the construction of the mill, David Lahey also had a number of small cottages built on site for mill workers while others were established in and around what would become the township of Canungra.
\nMachinery for Lahey's Canungra Sawmill was brought up the Logan River by steamer to a location near Logan Village, and hauled to the sawmill site by bullock teams (Kerr 1998:226; Lahey 1996:6). Production at the mill steadily increased from 1885 onwards. Much of the timber produced was used for the construction of housing throughout southeast Queensland.
\nThe Lahey family was hard working, innovative, and often experimental, eager for change and mindful of market forces and demands. During the 1880s, the Lahey family expanded their business, establishing an office in Brisbane in 1887, additional saw and planing mills at Beaudesert in 1888, and another mill at Widgee near Hill View in 1898. The economic downturn of the 1890s forced the Lahey's into stave-shaping and casking to provide enough income to keep the business alive. Staves are narrow strips of wood placed edge to edge to form the sides, covering, or lining of a vessel or structure.
\nOn the night of 9 July 1897, the Canungra mill burnt down and 20,000 super feet of sawn and dressed pine in the mill yards was destroyed. The mill was re-built but at a larger scale and was more modern in layout than the original mill, with the planing machine and other machinery separated from the main milling activities (Kerr 1998:226).
\nBy the turn of the twentieth century, transportation of timber to Lahey's Canungra Sawmill was becoming a problem. By this time the Lahey's had acquired timber leases amounting to over 16,000 acres in the Canungra and Pine Creek Valleys, thereby requiring the slow and expensive bullock teams to haul logs over ever-increasing distances. The Lahey's viewed mechanisation as the solution to their transportation problems and it was decided a tramway be built into the Pine Creek Valley. A narrow gauge of 3 feet 6 inches was chosen for the tramway to match the gauge of the growing Queensland Government Railways, as it was hoped that the government line would eventually extend to Canungra (this finally occurred in 1914).
\nLahey's Canungra Sawmill was again badly damaged by fire in the early hours of 13 January 1906 (Kerr 1998:226). The main building which housed the sawing operations was completely destroyed. Up-to-date equipment recently imported from the United States of America was lost, including a broom handle machine, sand-papering machine and butter box printing machine. Several new additions to the mill operations, including a new drying kiln and planning machine shed were, however, saved. The fire forced the closure of the mill for three months.
\nThe rebuild following this fire was complemented by improvements between 1907 and 1908. Electric log-hauling machinery was installed. The tramway servicing the mill was extended over time and by 1910 the main line was 13½ km long with a branch 2 km up Flying Fox Creek and a sub-branch 500m up Little Flying Fox Creek to service a new aerial ropeway on Beech Mountain (Morgan 2000; Lahey's Canungra Tramway Tunnel QHR 602529). Eventually, the total length of track laid amounted to 26½ km. Usage of the tramway continued to increase so that during 1915 alone, 15,000 tons of logs were being hauled to the mill along the tramway.
\nIn 1913, Tom Lahey left Australia on an inspection of milling operations in the United States of America. The Lahey's were interested in purchasing new milling machinery and keen to stay abreast of the latest trends in sawmilling practice. A range of new equipment was purchased, and once installed, the capacity of the mill doubled and the cost of labour greatly reduced. The introduction of an eight foot band mill and steam log turner made the Lahey's Canungra Sawmill the biggest softwood mill in Queensland. In its heyday, the mill was producing Australia's largest output of softwood timber. In the process, the township of Canungra was established because of the presence and success of the mill.
\nBy 1920 much of the timber had been removed from the Canungra area. The War Services Homes Commission, established at the end of World War One, purchased the milling operation from the Lahey family, taking possession of the site on 1 January 1921 (Kerr 1998:226). Timber processed at the mill was to be used in the construction of housing for returned World War One servicemen. The mill, however, closed three months later due to a change in policy by the Commission for their acquisitions of timber (Kerr 1998:226) and was put up for sale. In 1923, Brisbane Timbers Ltd (part of which was owned by the Lahey family) purchased the mill by tender (The Argus, Friday 23 November 1923). The sale included all plant equipment, 10,412 acres of freehold land of which 4,393 acres carried pine, the timber tramway and branch lines totalling 16 miles of track, the locomotives and all rolling stock (The Argus, Wednesday 25 July 1923). In 1933, the Standply Timber Company purchased the mill and added an advanced veneer and plywood plant. The timber industry in the Canungra area had largely collapsed, however, by c.1935. That same year the last of the tramway rails and equipment was sold to a milling venture in Cardwell, north Queensland and the mill was dismantled.
\nReferences
\nThe main source of historical information was Shirley Lahey (2003) The Lahey's: Pioneer Settlers and Sawmillers, Taringa, Queensland: Shirley Lahey, unless referenced otherwise.
\nKerr, John (1998) Forest industry heritage places study: sawmills and tramways South Eastern Queensland, Unpublished report to the Queensland Department of Environment.
\nLahey, Shirley (1996) David Lahey 1858-1942: His background and his life, Taringa, Queensland: Shirley Lahey.
\nMorgan, R.K. (2000) Laheys' Canungra Tramway, Melbourne: Light Railway Research Society of Australia.
\nQHR 602529 Lahey's Canungra Tramway Tunnel, entry in the Queensland Heritage Register
\nThe Argus, Wednesday 25 July 1923
\nThe Argus, Friday 23 November 1923
\n","criteria":"
Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex is important in demonstrating part of the pattern of Queensland's history as remnant evidence of an early, substantial and enduring timber processing operation between 1884 and 1921, and again from 1933 until c.1935. Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement and land use in south-east Queensland. During its peak period of operation after 1913, the mill was the largest softwood mill in Queensland and the largest processor of softwood timber in Australia.
\nArchaeological investigations of the Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex have potential to reveal important aspects of Queensland's history, including early and long enduring timber processing practices, influences on the development of Queensland by a prominent family in its history - the Lahey family, and the daily lives and conditions faced by workers in late 19th and early 20th century timber industry.
\nThe Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex provides an opportunity to examine, through its archaeological remains, an important early and long enduring timber processing operation. Although timber processing operations were widespread across Queensland by the late 19th century, archaeological investigations into the mill layout and composition have potential to yield additional information on the changing and often innovative workplace practices that occurred at the Canungra Sawmill. The archaeological remains at the Canungra Sawmill provide important comparative information on sawmilling practices, mill layouts and configurations for other sawmill sites found across Queensland.
\nArchaeological investigations at Lahey's Canungra Sawmill Complex provide a rare opportunity to examine issues of continuity and change to milling operations in late 19th and early 20th century Queensland. The complex has historical associations with the influential Lahey family, who ran the milling operations at Canungra until 1921. Analysis of subsurface archaeological deposits may provide new information on previously unknown or little documented timber manufacturing processes, particularly as the Lahey family were well known for embracing change and for innovative workplace practices.
\nAdditional archaeological artefacts are anticipated to occur across the site, especially within the area of the main sawmill site and the concentration of building and machinery foundations adjacent to the former Lahey's siding.
\nAnalysis of archaeological features at the Canungra Sawmill site will develop our understanding of the Lahey timber operations throughout the Canungra area, and provide comparative and supporting information for other related timber heritage places across the state.
\nArchaeological investigations of subsurface archaeological materials will help in our understanding of working conditions and daily life within the mill and possibly the life of the mill's first employees through potential relocation of artefacts and features associated with the first workers cottages for the mill.
\nThe mill complex has the potential to help us answer a range of archaeological research questions including, but not limited to, early timber-processing practices in Queensland, life at an early mill operation in Queensland, the material culture of the Lahey family and their impact on timber getting practices, processes and operations in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30539,"place_ref":645603,"name":"Range Hotel, Burial Ground and Camping Reserve","alternate_name":"700003","street_address":"Page Road (old Hervey Range Road)","suburb":"HERVEY RANGE","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-03-06","description":"The camping reserve comprises some 464 hectares in the Hervey Range, approximately 36 km southwest of Townsville. The topography of the reserve is relatively flat. However, to the west of the reserve the gradient increases dramatically immediately to ascending the Hervey Range. The reserve is bisected by the former Hervey Range Road (now renamed Page Road), the Hervey Range Developmental Road, and more recently by high voltage electricity transmission lines.
\nNative and introduced vegetation dominates the area, with Moreton Bay ash (Eucalyptus tesselaris), Poplar gum (E. platyphylla), Blue gum (E. tereticornis) and narrow leaved ironbark (E. crebra) being the most common species. There is a thick cover of grasses in the woodland understorey, comprising Black spear grass (Hetetopogon sp.) and kangaroo grass (Themeda spp.). Cocky apple (Planchonia careya) and native Gardenia (Kailarsenia ochreata) are common woodland species in the area. Introduced species include Lantana sp., mango trees (Mangifera sp.) and Agave sp.
\nThe former Hervey Range Road cuts through the reserve and continues to the top of the Hervey Range to Thornton's Gap. The route of the road is still clearly visible, particularly in the largely intact steep sections. There are some washed out sections on the climb up the range. The course of the road has changed little since its construction.
\nThe Range Hotel is no longer extant. Archaeological artefacts, including late 19th century bottle glass and ceramics indicate the likely location of the hotel. Agave plants at this site may have been part of the hotel garden. A small burial ground is located some 150 metres south of the former Hervey Range Road and Range Hotel site. The graves are overgrown with lantana and spear grass. There are three ornate sandstone headstones of a type often found in North Queensland burials dating before c.1880. No maker's names are present although it is likely the headstones were imported from Brisbane with the inscriptions added locally. The lettering on the headstones has weathered and one is lying horizontal on the ground. Each grave is encircled by white-painted stones. The graves have been identified as follows:
\n1. Francis Earl, a local squatter who died of fever at the Range Hotel on 12 March 1866. The inscription reads:
\nSacred to the Memory of
\nFrancis John Earl
\nDied at the Range Hotel
\nOn the 12th March 1866
\nAged 25 years
\nIn the midst of life we are in death
\n(verse illegible)
\n2. Mary Langton, a mother of three small children under 4 years old, who committed suicide by taking poison at the age of 28 years. Her husband, John Langton, carried goods from Townsville to Dalrymple Township. The inscription reads:
\nSacred to the Memory of
\nMary Langton
\nWho departed this life
\n6th December 1873
\nAged 28 years
\nThe Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away
\nBlessed by the name of the Lord
\n3. John Henry Bell, a child of 4 years, who died of inflammation of the lungs in May 1879. His father, Charles, was a carrier and lived at Bellgrove on the Hervey Range Road. The inscription reads:
\nIn loving memory of
\nJohn Henry
\nSecond son of
\nCharles & Mary Ann Bell
\nBorn 14th January
\nDied 11th May 1875
\nThe Langton and Earl headstones are aligned north-south about 8 m apart, with the Bell headstone between them, about 5 m northwest of the Langton headstone. The layout of the graves suggests that there may have been as many as five plots between the Langton and Earl burials and three rows of grave plots. The positions of the graves imply a possible original layout of at least 21 grave plots in three rows of seven. The graves were likely marked with wooden grave markers which have since been destroyed by fire, termites or fungal decay.
\nA dense concentration of archaeological material is located south of the former Hervey Range Road and the power transmission lines on the high bank of a creek. Some material is eroding into the creek bed. The surface artefacts are visible in a 20m2 area, although low visibility due to vegetation cover obscures the full extent of the site. Artefacts include glass bottle fragments and patterned ceramic fragments datable to the 19th century. This may be associated with a potential second hotel situated at the site. An old softwood tree (possibly Terminalia sp.) situated in the middle of this area bears a rectangular-shaped blaze on its trunk, measuring 60 cm x 30 cm.
\nThe remains of the Theiss Brothers camp in this area comprise wooden stumps, posts, concrete slabs, an old telephone line and a concrete explosives magazine. These remains represent another phase in the history and development of the camping reserve.
","history":"The Range Hotel, Burial Ground and Camping Reserve includes a section of the original route of the Hervey Range Road to Thornton's Gap, archaeological artefacts and a small burial ground associated with the former Range Hotel which was built in 1866, but is no longer extant. The Hervey Range Road was established c.1865-6 and extended from present day Townsville to Hervey Range at Thornton's Gap. At the base of the Hervey Range, at least one hotel was established in 1866 to service the increasing number of people and stock travelling along this early inland transportation route, and as a result a small community developed. In 1872, a camping reserve was also gazetted around the Range Hotel site to provide additional accommodation options. By the early 1880s, the introduction of the railway to Charters Towers resulted in a reduction in traffic along the road. The Range Hotel closed in 1884 and the adjacent sections of the Hervey Range Road became obsolete and fell into disrepair following construction of a deviation to the south in the 1970s.
Settlement in north Queensland occurred comparatively late in the history of European occupation of Australia (Allingham 1978:5). The Kennedy District was the first region opened for settlement in north Queensland, and was officially proclaimed from 1st January 1861 (Allingham 1978:1). The district comprised 51,000 square miles, extending to the north beyond present day Cardwell, west to the Great Dividing Range, and south beyond Mackay (Allingham 1978:1, 204).
The year 1861 witnessed a rush of settlers and squatters to the new district to secure pastoral runs. By the end of the year, the best runs were selected with 454 applications lodged for over 31,000 square miles of land (Allingham 1978:27). The rapid expansion west into inland Queensland necessitated the development of suitable transportation routes. The first inland road was surveyed by John Melton Black and built by employees of Black and Co. (later Towns and Co.) under the supervision of Andrew Ball, with a subsidy of £500 from the Government. The road was blazed in 1865 and ran due west from the present day Townsville across the Bohle and Alice Rivers and up what was then known as the Dalrymple Range (later Hervey Range) at Thornton's Gap to places further west and to the gulf. It was the only access to inland areas during the early years of settlement in the region.
The road was just a track, with the only steep part being the pull up to Thornton's Gap. Despite the steepness of this part of the route, it was still the easiest road from the northern parts of Kennedy District to the sea then blazed. The roads in this period were hazardous, rough, potholed and boggy during the wet season.
Hotels and wayside inns appeared along the major routes, and licensed hotels were established along the Hervey Range Road. As it could take up to four days for a bullock team and wagon to travel from Townsville to the foot of the Hervey Range, and then a further day to climb the range to Thornton's Gap to the Eureka Hotel, a market for accommodations was identified. At least one hotel and inn was established at the foot of the range, the Range Hotel, which was erected in 1865-6. There may have also been another at the foot of the range, called The Gate Hotel, possibly built close to The Range Hotel (Gibson-Wilde nd.:8), although little is known about this second hotel. Another hotel, the Eureka Hotel QHR 600923), was built at the summit of Thornton's Gap in 1865 at the time of the road construction.
The Range Hotel was built by James Edward Mead in c.1866. He is believed to have been the same person who tendered for the Heidelberg run on the Bowen River at Rockhampton in 1861, but never stocked it. Mead had originally applied for a licence for the Royal Oak, 25 miles from Cleveland Bay, but the hotel was named the Range when it was advertised in 1866 as being 20 miles from Townsville with two sitting rooms and six bedrooms (Gibson-Wilde 1984:218). The Range Hotel was a long single storey timber structure with a gable roof and front rooms opening onto the verandah (Illustrated Sydney News 1882). The hotel was 'very pleasantly situated' and the proprietor has added to the natural beauty by planting some Leichhardt trees around the house which looked very graceful' (Townsville Herald 13 November 1878).
The second proprietor, Robert Williamson, was also a carrier and is said to have been the first person, along with John Melton Black, to have taken wagons through Thornton's Gap. A small community grew up around the hotel, which is known to have included a blacksmith shop owned by John McNeill, and a small burial ground (Gibson-Wilde 1984:218).
In March 1866, a government gang started improving the road, although nothing was done to lessen the steepness of the ascent to Thornton's Gap. By December 1866, the road was being heavily used by carriers and travellers, and at times there could be 100 or more wagons strung out along the length of the road. In an attempt to recoup some of the cost of the road, the Department of Public Works installed a toll gate at the foot of the Range in 1867, adjacent to the Range Hotel (Gibson-Wilde and Gibson-Wilde 1988:86). The cost to carriers regularly using the road was high - 3 shillings for a two-wheeled dray or wagon, drawn by three or four horses, or four bullocks - prompting teamsters to find an alternate route inland. By the following year, the toll on Hervey Range Road had been removed altogether, and it was again being used by carriers, teamsters and travellers journeying inland and on to the Gulf of Carpentaria. It became known as the Georgetown Road, and it remained the main road from Townsville to Georgetown into the 20th century.
Gold was discovered near Charters Towers in late 1871 and in August 1872 the Charters Towers Goldfield was officially proclaimed. Following these discoveries, the Hervey Range Road also became an important transportation route for people journeying to and from these goldfields. In 1872, the area of land surrounding the Range Hotel and the road was also gazetted as a camping reserve (QGG 25 May 1872). The camp is marked on Robert L. Jack's Geological Sketch Map of the District between Charters Towers Goldfields & the Coast produced in 1878 as "Camp III" and it shown situated adjacent One Mile Creek, a branch of the Black River. Although the introduction of the railway from Townsville to Charters Towers reduced traffic on the Hervey Range Road in the 1880's, it remained a vital link with cattle stations in the inland and northern regions of the district (Gibson-Wilde and Gibson-Wilde 1988:218). The Range hotel finally closed in about 1884 (Gibson-Wilde and Gibson-Wilde1988:218).
In the 1930s, the road up the Hervey Range was upgraded using funds under a major unemployment relief scheme, allowing motor vehicle access to the top of the range for the first time since its construction in the 1860s. Thuringowa Shire Council regularly maintained the Hervey Range Road from the 1930s until it became obsolete with the construction of the Hervey Range Developmental Road in the 1970s.
During the construction of the Greenvale Railway Line in the 1970s, the camping reserve was used as a camp site for Thiess Brothers workers employed on the line.
References
Main source for information is the National Trust of Queensland entry THU 1/7 unless referenced otherwise.
Allingham, Anne (1978) Taming the Wilderness: the first decade of pastoral settlement in the Kennedy District, Studies in North Queensland History No.1, Townsville: James Cook University.
Gibson-Wilde, Dorothy (nd.) The Eureka Hotel - The Best Country Stand in North Queensland.
--- (1984) Gateway to a Golden Land: Townsville to 1884, Townsville: James Cook University Press.
Gibson-Wilde, Dorothy M. and Bruce C. Gibson-Wilde (1988) A Pattern of Pubs: Hotels of Townsville 1864-1914, Townsville: James Cook University.
Illustrated Sydney News 1882
Queensland Government Gazette, 25 May 1872
Townsville Herald, 13 November 1878, From Townsville to Dalrymple by "a Traveller"
","criteria":"The Range Hotel, Burial Ground and Camping Reserve have potential to reveal important information on aspects of Queensland's history, including early road construction techniques, early transport and communications, the development of a small, isolated community, and the earliest residents of the region. Features identified within the place include a section of the original Hervey Range Road to Thornton's Gap, the remains of the former Range Hotel, one of the earliest hotels and inns established in the region (c.1866), and an historical burial ground.
\nThe old Hervey Range Road is important in demonstrating early communication patterns in the Townsville region. The road is one of the few surviving examples of a roadway dating from early European settlement in the region and was the initial route inland from the port of Townsville to the hinterland areas. The camping reserve provided a resting place for travelers and livestock using the road between 1864 and the 1970s. The route of the road remains clearly identifiable within the camping reserve and beyond where it climbs up the Hervey Range.
\nArchaeological surveys of the section of the old Hervey Range Road (now known as Page Road) have the potential to reveal important information about early road construction techniques. The remains of the original route comprises one of only a few surviving examples of a roadway from the earliest European settlement period in north Queensland. The route of the road is still clearly identifiable in parts though additional archaeological investigations will aid the documentation of previously poorly understood changes to this once important transportation route.
\nThe Range Hotel, Burial Ground and Camping Reserve have potential to reveal important information relating to the development and survival of a small community during the period of early settlement in north Queensland. There is archaeological potential for substantial remains of the former Range Hotel and an associated settlement to be located near the site of the identified bottle dump and burial grounds. Little is known of the composition of this small, ad-hoc settlement, other than that it also included a blacksmith.
\nArchaeological investigations of the former hotel sites within the camping reserve have potential to reveal important information relating to the operation of, and custom of, early frontier hotels and lodgings. Analysis of materials from the former Range Hotel, and the speculated existence of a second hotel called The Gate Hotel, will help comparative analysis with other early frontier hotels situated along this and other important transport and communications corridors. Analysis of archaeological artefacts will help inform on the former Eureka Hotel (QHR 600923), which is situated at the top of Hervey Range and linked to this place by the old Hervey Range Road, and provide important comparative data for the artefacts recovered from other early hotel sites across Queensland.
\nThe burial ground adjacent to the former Range Hotel features one of the oldest extant headstones in the region, the grave of 24 year old Francis Earl, a local squatter who died of fever at the Range Hotel on 12 March 1866. The Range Hotel burial ground contains sandstone headstones that are highly characteristic of nineteenth century cemeteries in this region, with relatively ornate decoration typically found on graves dating from before c.1880. There is potential that the recorded burial ground contains additional graves (possibly as many as 21) which also date to the earliest European settlement of the Townsville region. Consequently, there is potential to provide new and important information that will contribute to our understanding of the early history and demography of settlement in the region, including but not limited to why burial grounds are found associated with hotels, why people were buried there and not in formal cemeteries, the patterning of burial grounds in the region.
\nThe Range Hotel, Burial Ground and Camping Reserve have potential for archaeological deposits associated with travellers journeying to and from the Charters Towers Goldfields and inland pastoral properties. Analysis of these archaeological remains will provide important insights into the materials being transported and used by the diverse range of peoples transiting to and from the area since 1865, but especially to the Charters Towers Goldfields from 1872.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30560,"place_ref":602715,"name":"Landsborough's Blazed Tree, Camp 69","alternate_name":"Landsboroughs Tree | Landsborough Tree","street_address":"Mitchell Highway","suburb":"BAKERS BEND","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-18","description":"The blazed tree that marks Landsborough's Camp 69 is a Coolibah (Eucalyptus coolibah) located near a tributary of the Warrego River system on a grazing leasehold of just under 684ha, about 29 km south of Charleville off the Mitchell Highway near Bakers Bend.
The blaze on the trunk reads:
V.+Q. EXPN
L.C.69
MAY 16
1862
The lettering varies, perhaps evidence of one person starting the blaze and another completing it, with the 'V+Q' being broader lettering than the remainder.
The blaze appears to be made on an existing Aboriginal scar, which Landsborough's party likely enlarged and cut to suit their needs.
","history":"The blazed tree at Camp 69 south of Charleville was marked during William Landsborough's 1862 expedition south from the Gulf of Carpentaria in search of cross-continent explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills.
\nBuke and Wills, who had set out from Melbourne on 20 August 1860 to cross the continent from south to north, were reported missing in June 1861. Four official relief expeditions were soon organised to search for them: Alfred William Howitt's party formed in Melbourne; John McKinlay's party formed in Adelaide; Frederick Walker's party formed in Rockhampton; and William Landsborough's party formed in Brisbane (appointed by the Victorian and Queensland governments). The Victorian government appointed Captain Norman of HMCS Victoria as Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Expedition Parties (the Walker and Landsborough expeditions).
\nHowitt early ascertained the fate of Burke and Wills in September 1861, but the other expeditions had left before news could reach them.
\nWilliam Landsborough, the son of a Scottish clergyman, was an experienced bushman, explorer and part owner of Bowen Downs station in northern Queensland. In the mid 1850s he was in partnership in a station on the Kolan River in the Burnett district and from 1856 had undertaken much private exploration in search of new pastoral land. He explored and named Mount Nebo in 1856, the Broadsound district in 1857, the Comet and Nogoa Rivers in 1858, and the Bonar (Bowen) River in 1859. From Rockhampton he and Nat Buchanan then traced Aramac Creek and the Thomson River to the Plains of Promise. In 1861 he applied for 15 runs of 100 sq. miles (259 km²) each on the Plains of Promise and with Buchanan and Edward Cornish formed the Landsborough River Co. to stock these runs, which he named Bowen Downs. He was recommended to lead the Brisbane expedition in search of Burke and Wills by the Queensland Surveyor-General, AC Gregory.
\nOn 26 August 1861 Landsborough's expedition left Brisbane in the brig Firefly for the Gulf of Carpentaria, where Walker and his party, who had proceeded overland from Rockhampton, was to rendezvous with Norman and Landsborough at the Albert River. On 4 September 1861 the Firefly was wrecked in the Gulf but the expedition was rescued three days later by Commander Norman in the Victoria.
\nA depot was established on the Albert River and during October, Landsborough explored the surrounding district, marking numerous trees with a distinctive broad arrow before the L.
\nLandsborough had instructions from the Royal Society of Victoria to search for Burke and Wills south-west from the Albert River. If that failed, he also intended to search for them along Cooper's Creek and then make for Brisbane or Rockhampton. As instructed, from mid-November 1861 to mid-January 1862 he explored south-west towards Central Mount Stuart, discovering and following the Gregory River, until near the site of later Camooweal he found desert with a network of dry channels. On 30 December 1861 he reached the furthest extent of his search. Realising that rain could flood the country and isolate his starving party Landsborough struggled back to the Albert River depot, having found no trace of Burke and Wills. During this journey Landsborough named the Gregory and Herbert (later Georgina) rivers, Lake Frances, Lake Mary and the Barkly Tableland and on his return reported the area well-suited for sheep raising.
\nLandsborough's explorations in this area contributed to the extension of Queensland's western boundary. At the time of separation from New South Wales in 1859, this had been set at longitude 141° East. In September 1860 AC Gregory had recommended to the Queensland government that the border, which passed through the Plains of Promise, be moved to 138° East to provide the district with access to a port in the Gulf. A year later, realising that the northern relief expeditions in search of Burke and Wills would increase knowledge of the area, Governor Bowen wrote on 5 September 1861 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies advising that Queensland legislature would protect any settlers who moved into the area, provided the western boundary of Queensland was extended to 138° East to include access to the Gulf. This was agreed to, and the boundary was altered on 12 April 1862, placing the Albert, Gregory and Herbert (Georgina) rivers and much of the Barkly Tableland, within Queensland.
\nOn his return to the Albert on 19 January 1862 Landsborough discovered that Walker, who had reached the depot and reported finding tracks on the Flinders River to the south-east, had replenished his supplies from the Victoria and had left again to resuming the search. Landsborough had the option of returning south on the Victoria or proceeding overland. As provisions were now limited, Norman was opposed to Landsborough heading south, but the explorer ignored his advice, hoping to augment his provisions at new pastoral stations along the way.
\nThe southern expedition comprised: Landsborough (commander), George Bourne (second in command), W Gleeson (a sailor by trade, but groom and cook to the expedition), Jemmy (a Queensland Native Police trooper originally from Deniliquin in New South Wales), Jacky (an Aboriginal guide from the Wide Bay district) and Fisherman (an Aboriginal guide from the Brisbane region). At 4pm on 10 February 1862 they commenced their journey south, taking 14 pack horses and 6 horses for riding. The party followed the river systems southward, averaging just over 20 miles per day, and rarely travelled on a Sunday. For most of the journey they travelled through well-watered, grassed land, and the horses fared well for most of the journey.
\nIt was Fisherman's job to mark the trees at each campsite. In an 1866 publication describing his experiences on this expedition, Landsborough commented:
\n\"The importance of marking trees properly cannot be overrated. The marks should be made only on strong, healthy trees, and at conspicuous points; and the directions should be unmistakeably clear and accurate.\"
\nDuring February and March they followed the Flinders River south-east looking for traces of Burke and Wills. They traversed the Plains of Promise and named the isolated hills visible from the Flinders River: Fort Bowen, Mount Brown and Mount Little. By early April 1862 the party was on the Thomson River, which Landsborough had explored before, following this south. Having not found a station in this area, and with rations running low, Landsborough decided to leave the Thomson and on 10 April headed east via creeks to the Barcoo River/Cooper's Creek in the 'known' districts. He relied heavily on the Aborigines in his party, who obtained the assistance of local Aboriginal guides for much of the distance. By 22 April the party was working down the Barcoo, and on the night of 22/23 April experienced their first and only attack by local Aborigines. Jemmy, the Native Police trooper, was on watch and raised the alarm, which saved their lives, the explorers frightening off their attackers with gunfire.
\nIn late April 1862 Landsborough left the well-watered pastoral country along the Barcoo heading for the Nive River to the south-east, and on 1 May found old dray tracks - evidence that they had entered known country.
\nOn 9 May Landsborough's party reached the upper reaches of the Warrego River, having found pastoralists' marked trees and deep horse tracks en route but no sign of an out-station, and that evening established Camp 67 on the left bank of a creek that they believed was the head of the Warrego. By this stage the party was starving and the next day (10 May) Landsborough made the decision to leave the Warrego and head south-south-east for the next river system in a more settled district. He had no local Aboriginal guides and for much of the time was without Jacky and Jemmy, who had backtracked to look for a missing pistol. After travelling about 50 miles without finding water he decided to return to the Warrego. The horses became terribly distressed during this journey, being without water for 72 hours and travelling 120 miles before water was found near the Warrego on 13 May (Camp 68). Here the party rested the next day, in part to refresh the horses and also to allow Jemmy, who had suffered a severe burn to his back after having rolled into a fire on the night of 10/11 May, to regain some strength. On 15 May the party left Camp 68 and in the evening established camp 69 on the west bank of a creek that fed into the Warrego River.
\nOn the morning of 16 May the party left camp 69 to follow the Warrego downstream south-south-west. As Fisherman had to take Jemmy's place in rounding up the horses in the morning, he and Landsborough stayed behind the rest of the party to mark trees at the camp, catching up with the others in the evening.
\nOn 21 May 1862, having continued to follow the Warrego downstream, Landsborough's party reached a station occupied by Williams and Neilsen, and learned that Burke and Wills had perished. Both Landsborough and George Bourne in their later accounts of the expedition expressed surprise on hearing that Burke and Wills had perished, having found the country well-watered for most of their journey.
\nFrom Williams and Neilson, Landsborough was able to re-provision the expedition before continuing south. His party arrived at Bunnawaunah on the Darling River, a settled district, on 1 June, and continued along well-known tracks via Menindie to Melbourne, which they reached in October 1862. In Melbourne Landsborough was fêted as the first explorer to cross the Australian continent north to south, and a gold-mining town in Victoria was named in his honour.
\nLandsborough's reports on the valuable pastoral land he had encountered during the expedition sparked a rush for land in the Gulf country. However, the comparative ease with which his expedition had crossed the continent soon prompted rumour that he had been more interested in looking for new pastoral country than in searching for Burke and Wills. This he strenuously denied, and never applied for the lease of any of the pastoral country he had discovered during his crossing of the continent.
\nThe success of Landsborough's 1862 expedition was due largely to his reliance on indigenous knowledge of the terrain he traversed. His journal reveals that he rarely travelled without Aboriginal guides; there are constant references to local Aborigines leading Landsborough's party to water or to showing them the best route, or to Jemmy, Jacky or Fisherman finding water. When he lost access to this local knowledge, as in his attempt to head south-south-east from the Warrego in May 1862 (camps 67-69), his party came close to perishing.
\nLandsborough later became a controversial police magistrate and commissioner of crown lands in Carpentaria, based at Burketown on the Albert River. Towards the end of his life he was awarded £2,000 for his Gulf country discoveries, which he used to purchase a property at Caloundra, just north of Brisbane, where he died in 1886.
\nWilliam Landsborough has long been recognised for his contribution to the opening of western Queensland to non-Indigenous settlement: he has been included in Australian biographical dictionaries since the 1880s; both Queensland and Victoria have a town named in his honour; there is a Landsborough Creek south of Hughenden (a tributary of the Thomson River); the former Shire of Landsborough (later Caloundra City, and more recently Sunshine Coast Regional Council) was named after him; and numerous Queensland roads commemorate him, including the Landsborough Highway in western Queensland (linking Cloncurry, McKinlay, Kynuna, Winton, Longreach, Barcaldine, Blackall, Tambo, and Augathella with the Warrego Highway east of Charleville) and at least 15 other Landsborough roads and streets throughout the State.
","criteria":"The blazed tree at Landsborough's Camp 69 just south of Charleville was marked on 16 May 1862 and is important for its association with the first official crossing of the Australian continent from north to south. Between February and May 1862 explorer William Landsborough left a trail of blazed trees from the Albert River in the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Warrego River near later Cunnamulla, demonstrating a practical route for driving livestock overland to north-western Queensland. Comparatively few of the blazes survive, either having grown over or trees destroyed through past clearing practices, fire, flood, termites or harsh environmental conditions. Surviving blazes associated with this expedition remain important markers of a major event in Queensland history, which precipitated a rush for pastoral land in western and north-western Queensland in the early 1860s. There are only two known surviving examples of blazed trees from the 1862 Landsborough expedition in the Charleville district, at Camp 67 and Camp 69. The lettering on these blazes remains extremely well preserved.
|The blaze at Camp 69, which remains highly visible, is rare tangible evidence of a remarkable feat by Landsborough and his party as the first exploration expedition to cross the Continent from north to south, in the process opening much of western and north-western Queensland to pastoral settlement.
|The place has a special association with the work of William Landsborough (1825-1886) in exploring the western and north western districts of Queensland in 1861-1862.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30561,"place_ref":602716,"name":"Landsborough's Blazed Tree, Camp 67","alternate_name":"Landsboroughs Tree | Landsborough Tree","street_address":"Mitchell Highway","suburb":"CHARLEVILLE","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-18","description":"The blazed tree that marks Landsborough's Camp 67 is a Coolibah (Eucalyptus coolibah) located on a levee in a small local creek that feeds into the Warrego River system, on private freehold about 10km south of Charleville, off the Mitchell Highway.
The girth of the tree measures 3.7m at 1m above ground level, and the canopy extends to 13.5m from the trunk.
The blaze is on the southern side of the trunk (orientation 193¿) and is now close to ground level, the result of sedimentation deposited over nearly 150 years of seasonal flooding. It reads:
+Q EXPN.
L. C. 67
MAY 10
1862
The chiselled lettering is broad and has been painted to increase visibility.
The blaze appears to be made on an existing Aboriginal scar, which Landsborough's party enlarged and cut to suit their needs. The scar is 700mm in width, with a visible heath of 740mm and maximum regrowth of 260mm. There is distorted regrowth on the upper lateral margins of the scar, the result of successive chainsaw cutting into the regrowth to maintain the blaze's visibility.
The tree has another scar on the opposite side of the trunk to the blaze, which is most likely the result of Aboriginal people removing the bark.
","history":"The blazed tree at Camp 67 just south of Charleville was marked during William Landsborough's 1862 expedition south from the Gulf of Carpentaria in search of cross-continent explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills.
Buke and Wills, who had set out from Melbourne on 20 August 1860 to cross the continent from south to north, were reported missing in June 1861. Four official relief expeditions were soon organised to search for them: Alfred William Howitt's party formed in Melbourne; John McKinlay's party formed in Adelaide; Frederick Walker's party formed in Rockhampton; and William Landsborough's party formed in Brisbane (appointed by the Victorian and Queensland governments). The Victorian government appointed Captain Norman of HMCS Victoria as Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Expedition Parties (the Walker and Landsborough expeditions).
Howitt early ascertained the fate of Burke and Wills in September 1861, but the other expeditions had left before news could reach them.
William Landsborough, the son of a Scottish clergyman, was an experienced bushman, explorer and part owner of Bowen Downs station in northern Queensland. In the mid 1850s he was in partnership in a station on the Kolan River in the Burnett district and from 1856 had undertaken much private exploration in search of new pastoral land. He explored and named Mount Nebo in 1856, the Broadsound district in 1857, the Comet and Nogoa Rivers in 1858, and the Bonar (Bowen) River in 1859. From Rockhampton he and Nat Buchanan then traced Aramac Creek and the Thomson River to the Plains of Promise. In 1861 he applied for 15 runs of 100 sq. miles (259 km²) each on the Plains of Promise and with Buchanan and Edward Cornish formed the Landsborough River Co. to stock these runs, which he named Bowen Downs. He was recommended to lead the Brisbane expedition in search of Burke and Wills by the Queensland Surveyor-General, AC Gregory.
On 26 August 1861 Landsborough's expedition left Brisbane in the brig Firefly for the Gulf of Carpentaria, where Walker and his party, who had proceeded overland from Rockhampton, was to rendezvous with Norman and Landsborough at the Albert River. On 4 September 1861 the Firefly was wrecked in the Gulf but the expedition was rescued three days later by Commander Norman in the Victoria.
A depot was established on the Albert River and during October, Landsborough explored the surrounding district, marking numerous trees with a distinctive broad arrow before the L.
Landsborough had instructions from the Royal Society of Victoria to search for Burke and Wills south-west from the Albert River. If that failed, he also intended to search for them along Cooper's Creek and then make for Brisbane or Rockhampton. As instructed, from mid-November 1861 to mid-January 1862 he explored south-west towards Central Mount Stuart, discovering and following the Gregory River, until near the site of later Camooweal he found desert with a network of dry channels. On 30 December 1861 he reached the furthest extent of his search. Realising that rain could flood the country and isolate his starving party Landsborough struggled back to the Albert River depot, having found no trace of Burke and Wills. During this journey Landsborough named the Gregory and Herbert (later Georgina) rivers, Lake Frances, Lake Mary and the Barkly Tableland and on his return reported the area well-suited for sheep raising.
Landsborough's explorations in this area contributed to the extension of Queensland's western boundary. At the time of separation from New South Wales in 1859, this had been set at longitude 141¿ East. In September 1860 AC Gregory had recommended to the Queensland government that the border, which passed through the Plains of Promise, be moved to 138¿ East to provide the district with access to a port in the Gulf. A year later, realising that the northern relief expeditions in search of Burke and Wills would increase knowledge of the area, Governor Bowen wrote on 5 September 1861 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies advising that Queensland legislature would protect any settlers who moved into the area, provided the western boundary of Queensland was extended to 138¿ East to include access to the Gulf. This was agreed to, and the boundary was altered on 12 April 1862, placing the Albert, Gregory and Herbert (Georgina) rivers and much of the Barkly Tableland, within Queensland.
On his return to the Albert on 19 January 1862 Landsborough discovered that Walker, who had reached the depot and reported finding tracks on the Flinders River to the south-east, had replenished his supplies from the Victoria and had left again to resuming the search. Landsborough had the option of returning south on the Victoria or proceeding overland. As provisions were now limited, Norman was opposed to Landsborough heading south, but the explorer ignored his advice, hoping to augment his provisions at new pastoral stations along the way.
The southern expedition comprised: Landsborough (commander), George Bourne (second in command), W Gleeson (a sailor by trade, but groom and cook to the expedition), Jemmy (a Queensland Native Police trooper originally from Deniliquin in New South Wales), Jacky (an Aboriginal guide from the Wide Bay district) and Fisherman (an Aboriginal guide from the Brisbane region). At 4pm on 10 February 1862 they commenced their journey south, taking 14 pack horses and 6 horses for riding. The party followed the river systems southward, averaging just over 20 miles per day, and rarely travelled on a Sunday. For most of the journey they travelled through well-watered, grassed land, and the horses fared well for most of the journey.
It was Fisherman's job to mark the trees at each campsite. In an 1866 publication describing his experiences on this expedition, Landsborough commented:
"The importance of marking trees properly cannot be overrated. The marks should be made only on strong, healthy trees, and at conspicuous points; and the directions should be unmistakeably clear and accurate."
During February and March they followed the Flinders River south-east looking for traces of Burke and Wills. They traversed the Plains of Promise and named the isolated hills visible from the Flinders River: Fort Bowen, Mount Brown and Mount Little. By early April 1862 the party was on the Thomson River, which Landsborough had explored before, following this south. Having not found a station in this area, and with rations running low, Landsborough decided to leave the Thomson and on 10 April headed east via creeks to the Barcoo River/Cooper's Creek in the 'known' districts. He relied heavily on the Aborigines in his party, who obtained the assistance of local Aboriginal guides for much of the distance. By 22 April the party was working down the Barcoo, and on the night of 22/23 April experienced their first and only attack by local Aborigines. Jemmy, the Native Police trooper, was on watch and raised the alarm, which saved their lives, the explorers frightening off their attackers with gunfire.
In late April 1862 Landsborough left the well-watered pastoral country along the Barcoo heading for the Nive River to the south-east, and on 1 May found old dray tracks - evidence that they had entered known country.
On 9 May Landsborough's party reached the upper reaches of the Warrego River, having found pastoralists' marked trees and deep horse tracks en route but no sign of an out-station, and that evening established Camp 67 on the left bank of a creek that they believed was the head of the Warrego. By this stage the party was starving and the next day (10 May) Landsborough made the decision to leave the Warrego and head south-south-east for the next river system in a more settled district. He had no local Aboriginal guides and for much of the time was without Jacky and Jemmy, who had backtracked to look for a missing pistol. After travelling about 50 miles without finding water he decided to return to the Warrego. The horses became terribly distressed during this journey, being without water for 72 hours and travelling 120 miles before water was found near the Warrego on 13 May (Camp 68). Here the party rested the next day, in part to refresh the horses and also to allow Jemmy, who had suffered a severe burn to his back after having rolled into a fire on the night of 10/11 May, to regain some strength. On 15 May the party left Camp 68 and in the evening established camp 69 on the west bank of a creek that fed into the Warrego River.
On the morning of 16 May the party left camp 69 to follow the Warrego downstream south-south-west. As Fisherman had to take Jemmy's place in rounding up the horses in the morning, he and Landsborough stayed behind the rest of the party to mark trees at the camp, catching up with the others in the evening.
On 21 May 1862, having continued to follow the Warrego downstream, Landsborough's party reached a station occupied by Williams and Neilsen, and learned that Burke and Wills had perished. Both Landsborough and George Bourne in their later accounts of the expedition expressed surprise on hearing that Burke and Wills had perished, having found the country well-watered for most of their journey.
From Williams and Neilson, Landsborough was able to re-provision the expedition before continuing south. His party arrived at Bunnawaunah on the Darling River, a settled district, on 1 June, and continued along well-known tracks via Menindie to Melbourne, which they reached in October 1862. In Melbourne Landsborough was fêted as the first explorer to cross the Australian continent north to south, and a gold-mining town in Victoria was named in his honour.
Landsborough's reports on the valuable pastoral land he had encountered during the expedition sparked a rush for land in the Gulf country. However, the comparative ease with which his expedition had crossed the continent soon prompted rumour that he had been more interested in looking for new pastoral country than in searching for Burke and Wills. This he strenuously denied, and never applied for the lease of any of the pastoral country he had discovered during his crossing of the continent.
The success of Landsborough's 1862 expedition was due largely to his reliance on indigenous knowledge of the terrain he traversed. His journal reveals that he rarely travelled without Aboriginal guides; there are constant references to local Aborigines leading Landsborough's party to water or to showing them the best route, or to Jemmy, Jacky or Fisherman finding water. When he lost access to this local knowledge, as in his attempt to head south-south-east from the Warrego in May 1862 (camps 67-69), his party came close to perishing.
Landsborough later became a controversial police magistrate and commissioner of crown lands in Carpentaria, based at Burketown on the Albert River. Towards the end of his life he was awarded £2,000 for his Gulf country discoveries, which he used to purchase a property at Caloundra, just north of Brisbane, where he died in 1886.
William Landsborough has long been recognised for his contribution to the opening of western Queensland to non-Indigenous settlement: he has been included in Australian biographical dictionaries since the 1880s; both Queensland and Victoria have a town named in his honour; there is a Landsborough Creek south of Hughenden (a tributary of the Thomson River); the former Shire of Landsborough (later Caloundra City, and more recently Sunshine Coast Regional Council) was named after him; and numerous Queensland roads commemorate him, including the Landsborough Highway in western Queensland (linking Cloncurry, McKinlay, Kynuna, Winton, Longreach, Barcaldine, Blackall, Tambo, and Augathella with the Warrego Highway east of Charleville) and at least 15 other Landsborough roads and streets throughout the State.
","criteria":"The blaze at Camp 67, which remains highly visible, is rare tangible evidence of a remarkable feat by Landsborough and his party as the first exploration expedition to cross the Continent from north to south, in the process opening much of western and north-western Queensland to pastoral settlement.
|The blazed tree at Landsborough's Camp 67 just south of Charleville was marked on 10 May 1862 and is important for its association with the first official crossing of the Australian continent from north to south. Between February and May 1862 explorer William Landsborough left a trail of blazed trees from the Albert River in the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Warrego River near later Cunnamulla, demonstrating a practical route for driving livestock overland to north-western Queensland. Comparatively few of the blazes survive, either having grown over or trees destroyed through past clearing practices, fire, flood, termites or harsh environmental conditions. Surviving blazes associated with this expedition remain important makers of a major event in Queensland history, which precipitated a rush for pastoral land in western and north-western Queensland in the early 1860s. There are only two known surviving examples of blazed trees from the 1862 Landsborough expedition in the Charleville district, at Camp 67 and Camp 69. The lettering on these blazes remains extremely well preserved.
|The place has a special association with the work of William Landsborough (1825-1886) in exploring the western and north-western districts of Queensland in 1861-1862.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30579,"place_ref":602717,"name":"Graceville Railway Station","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"110 Long Street","suburb":"GRACEVILLE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-12","description":"Graceville Railway Station is situated between Chelmer and Sherwood stations on the Brisbane-Ipswich line, just over eight and a half kilometres on from Roma Street passenger station. It comprises two island platforms with dimpled concrete coping and six structures: a brick and concrete station building, four steel-framed platform awnings and a subway system accessed via ramps leading off both Honour Avenue and Appel Street. From Richlands Park in the north to Sherwood Road in the south, these two roadways run parallel to the generally north-west to south-east oriented rail corridor, which contains four tracks. The local terrain is flat, with the Brisbane River only about half a kilometre to the west and just over one kilometre distant to the east. The adjacent intersections are with Rakeevan Road and Verney Road West where there is a small shopping precinct, and Connors Street and Verney Road East, which is residential except for a timber shop building.
The station building, completed in 1959, sits on the easternmost island platform serving tacks 1 and 2, about half way between each platform end. A long, thin rectangle in plan, oriented with the platform and tracks, the building has a butterfly roof formed with a reinforced concrete slab and supported on pre-cast, reinforced concrete beams which cantilever off a deep, continuous white-painted lintel that itself rests on ten brick piers, almost two and a half metres tall. The roof and its integral beams cantilever by approximately two metres to provide shelter to the platform along each track. The edges of the roof slab are lined with fibrous cement boarding, which is not original. The ten brick piers and associated maroon-painted concrete beams occur at about three and a half metre intervals with a range of materials filling the gaps in the north-eastern and south-western facades: from orange-coloured face brick to screened openings, some small sections of render at each end, to various aluminium-framed windows and doors. On the north-western façade are two banks of aluminium-framed louvre windows with sills approximately two metres off the ground. 'GRACEVILLE' is lettered in maroon-painted timber across the white-painted lintel above these windows. This lettering also features on two similar bulkheads on the south-western façade, as well as at the south-eastern end. This last façade has more depth with the walls stepping back from each corner leaving brick columns. In the centre is a single door to a small room facing the trains coming from the south.
The wide stairs leading from the subway land in the southern third of the building at a ticket hall and waiting area, which is open on both sides. A painted steel mid-rail runs the length of these stairs. Opposite the stair void the gaps between the piers are filled with screens made with a metal frame and grill panel bolted to the brick surrounds and resting on low brick walls. The internal faces of the piers are rendered and painted. The ticket windows are directly opposite the stair landing. Only the western one is currently in use, the other now hidden behind a freestanding automatic ticket machine. A number of timetable wall-boxes line the available wall space, one being an early timber example. One of the original chrome-plated ticket rails in front of the operating ticket window remains. The floor is lined with a chequered pattern of black and white terrazzo tiles, while the ceiling is made with fibrous cement sheeting. A stainless steel downpipe marks the top of the stairs and the endpoint of the middle handrail. There were four downpipes in the original design, one next to what had been the telephone box on the south-eastern façade, another between the office and store and another between the toilet and waiting area. How many still exist is unknown as three were enclosed in various walls along the centreline of the building and could not be viewed. It is likely that some if not all remain.
To the north of the ticket hall is an office and service room for the station manager. Parts of the timber framing to the ticket windows are visible on its south-eastern wall. The floors are carpeted and the walls and ceiling are lined with fibrous cement sheeting. The windows are double-hung sashes with interior sills made with a terrazzo different from that on the floor in the ticket hall. Adjacent to these rooms to the north is the semi-enclosed waiting area. Its floor has a terrazzo tile pattern to match that in the ticket hall. Its southern wall is face brick, while the remainder are plastered. On each side wall, there are two banks of the same double-hung sashes as in the office, with interior terrazzo sills. There is also some solid timber shelving here. The seating, which lines three walls, is made with timber slats and framing on shaped concrete legs. Two timber-framed and screen-infill doors, with matching surrounds provide entry from each side of the platform. At the northernmost end of the building are the toilets, which consist of two toilet cubicles and wash areas accessed by timber doors on the south-western and north-eastern sides. Metal framed louvres open off all three exterior walls at two metre sill height. Approximately one and a half metres from the north-eastern face of the building stands a cast iron drinking fountain. A number of timber and concrete seats, the same as those used in the northern waiting room, sit against the building on its long facades.
Set off from the main building by approximately 13 metres to the north-west and south-east are two wide butterfly-roofed, steel-framed shelters with built-in seating that faces both tracks. Four steel T-shaped components support steel perforated purlins, which inturn support the corrugated metal roof sheeting. The former divide the seating lengths. Set about four and a half metres apart, they are made with two cantilevered, tapering I-beams bolted to a rectangular hollow steel column (made with two C-sections welded together) which is founded in a concrete upstand. A perpendicular upstand runs the length of the shelter along the midline. Welded to the steel columns and beams are lighter steel frames. The infill panels of glass have been removed, as have some of the steel ones, while others are corroded. The seating is made with painted timber slats supported on timber studs and some steel framing. The downpipes taking water from the box gutter continue the rhythm of the columns, piercing the timber caps that join the two sides of seating at the centre of each gap.
Two more narrower butterfly-roofed, steel-framed shelters are situated on the island platform serving tracks 3 and 4 to the west and Honour Avenue. They are of similar construction but with two seating bays at each end and a central section clad with a ribbed sheeting product that closely resembles the zincanneal that featured prominently in the standard design for these awnings. Surrounding the stairway opening in this platform is some metal railings bolted to a concrete upstand.
The subway connects Honour Avenue with Appel Street, is approximately three metres wide and formed with reinforced concrete retaining walls, ceiling and floor slabs. The walls are lined from the concrete floor to approximately two metres with ceramic tiles, dark green bands at the top and bottom and white inside. A number of heavy steel grille covers mark the drainage system. To the west, two ramps going in opposite directions take pedestrians to Honour Avenue. To the east there is one ramp. All are made with reinforced concrete retaining walls and slabs. Where the subway walls join the ramp walls the corners are rounded. There are uncovered drains made in each side of the concrete ramp slabs. Lining the tops of the ramp walls are some painted metal railings, the same as those around the stairway opening on the platform serving tracks 3 and 4.
The tracks, overhead power traction equipment, and railways signalling system within the heritage boundary at Graceville Railway Station are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.
","history":"Graceville Railway Station is located approximately nine and a half kilometres outbound on the Brisbane-Ipswich line (completed in 1875), one of seven rail lines radiating from the Brisbane central business district to serve the passenger, coal and freight markets of south-east Queensland. The station was established in 1884 to service new residential subdivisions, and had gained its current format by 1958-1959. It services the south-west commuter suburb of Graceville and comprises two island platforms with a butterfly-roofed station building of brick and concrete, four steel and timber platform awnings and a subway system linking the leafy suburb on both sides of the tracks. It was one of a suite of station fit-outs carried out from the early 1950s and into the 1960s in anticipation of the electrification and quadruplication of the rail lines between Nundah and Corinda, and stands out as the first one completed, the most successful resolution of the design themes explored by the Railway Department's architects, and the most intact.
\nThe passing of the Railway Act in 1863 initiated the era of state government owned and operated railways. The first such rail line between Ipswich and Grandchester was built in 1865, being part of a four-stage project that linked to Toowoomba in 1867, Dalby in 1868 and then to Warwick in 1871. In August 1872 Parliament approved the construction the Brisbane railway, but only from Ipswich to Oxley. A survey was required to select the appropriate site for a bridge over the Brisbane River and Oxley Point (now Chelmer) was chosen. On 5 October 1874 the line from Ipswich to Oxley West (now Sherwood) opened. It was extended to Oxley Point early the following year with a ferry transporting passengers across the river until the Albert Bridge, named after Queen Victoria's Consort, was opened on 5 July 1876 allowing a connection to the newly completed Indooroopilly line.
\nThe areas now known as Chelmer, Graceville, Sherwood and Corinda had been part of Boyland's Pocket, a colonial leasehold estate running sheep and cattle. After 1859 the area was subdivided into farms where various crops were grown. Cotton was attempted in the 1860s and sugar cane was grown in the 1860s and 1870s. When the railway was completed to Oxley Point in 1875, the only station between the river and Oxley was Oxley West (Sherwood). The suburban subdivision of Oxley Point began in the building boom of the 1880s and by November 1884 a railway station was operational at Graceville. The Railways Department had asked Samuel Grimes, the MLA for Oxley at the time, to name the station and he suggested one incorporating that of his baby daughter, Grace.
\nThe process of expanding the function of the western line began in 1884. Duplication from Indooroopilly to Oxley was completed in June 1886 and extended to Ipswich by 28 March 1887. A shelter shed was constructed at the Graceville Station c1892. Land adjacent to the station was subdivided and auctioned on 21 November 1895 as Oatlands Estate; it comprised 16 perch allotments to the north of Verney Road on either side of the rail line. In 1897 a contract was let to build overbridges to Sherwood, Chelmer and Graceville Stations.
\nA further suburban subdivision known as Graceville Estate was offered for sale in 1911 on the eastern side of the station along Verney Road. By January 1916 the level crossing dividing this roadway was eliminated and a new station was constructed in March incorporating overhead bridge access. Graceville continued to grow as a small suburban community through the interwar years. Its recreation reserve, which had been gazetted in 1904, became the site of the Graceville War Memorial, unveiled in 1929 (QHR 602443). Electricity was connected in 1920 and a picture theatre opened the following year near to the station on Honour Avenue. A Progress Association formed, and the first Agricultural Show was held in 1921. In 1924, six shops were built by Walter Taylor on Honour Avenue between Verney Road West and Rakeevan Road. He was also a driving force behind the building of the pre-cast concrete Uniting Church building on Oxley Road in 1930 (QHR 601584). A state school opened in 1928 and a Catholic school in 1937.
\nIn 1946 a Commission of Enquiry into the Electrification of the Brisbane Suburban Railway System was held and its 1947 report recommended the installation of a similar electric rail system to Sydney and Melbourne. It was argued that electrification would provide a faster, cleaner service and would eventually lead to the settlement of the outer suburbs. In February 1949 approval was given to electrify the Brisbane suburban railway system at an estimated cost £5,888,000. Planning began in February 1950. The project included an upgrade of stations, platforms, the signalling system between Corinda and Northgate and the provision of subways at some stations. Subways were installed to avoid overhead bridges in the vicinity of power lines. The quadruplication of the line from Corinda to Virginia was necessary, with or without the electrification process, because both incorporated important freight lines; Virginia on the main northern line and Corinda on the main western line. The survey between Virginia and Corinda was completed by June 1950. The quadruplication was later extended to Zillmere.
\nIn 1957 Queensland's new Country-Liberal government under Frank Nicklin commissioned consultants Ford, Bacon and Davis to report on the Railway Department's efficiency, facilities and operations. Their recommendations were numerous, and included a total abandonment of electrification in favour of dieselisation, and steam engines were phased out from 1960.
\nThe quadruplication project, however, was continued. Track layouts were produced by the Permanent Way and Works team, Graceville being drawn in 1955. To accommodate the new works at this station, a number of partial resumptions were undertaken in Appel Street, where two houses and the house/shop on the corner of Verney Avenue were moved east on their allotments. Railway plans indicate a very busy shopping precinct along the opposite roadway, Honour Avenue. The new station layout allowed for one wide suburban island platform, on which a new station building and two awnings with integral seating were to be built, and one narrow main-line island platform, which was to house two awnings with more integral seating. The station structures were designed to fit the layouts.
\nDuring this time the Queensland Railways architect's office was experimenting with modernist designs for the department's buildings and awnings, being influenced by architectural trends coming from Britain, Europe and the United States. There had been not only an influential pre-war migration of European architects to Queensland - professionals like Karl Langer who occupied a role with the railways from 1939 until 1946 - but also a post-war flow of architects from Britain and Europe who came to the State in search of work and brought with them the architectural ideas and training that were driving forward the large task of post-war reconstruction and housing provision being undertaken in their countries of origin.
\nUnder Principal Railway Architect John Sydney Egan, new station designs were prepared for the quadruplication project. An overall concept for the form and structure of the station buildings was established, but the designs were non-standardised, and took account of platform width, which varied from station to station. Architect Jan Kral was responsible for the Graceville and Chelmer designs and signed-off on the drawings for Sherwood station as Acting Principal Architect. He was born in Poland and studied at Stuttgart University after the war. He came to Australia in 1950 and was employed by the Queensland Railways the following year, initially as a draftsman, becoming a Senior Architect by 1958. While the designs were all somewhat different, they shared a form derived from a long, thin building, rectangular in plan and made with a regular procession of columns, surmounted by a butterfly roof that cantilevered over each platform side to shelter waiting and alighting rail passengers. A number of standardised plans for Railways Department butterfly-roofed awnings were developed and used between 1949 and 1960, many having been designed by Bevis Thelwall. A common palette of materials including reinforced concrete, steel and exposed brickwork was used. The steel work was all prefabricated at the Northgate workshops. Graceville Station was the first of these station fit-outs to be completed within the quadruplication project between Corinda and Roma Street.
\nThe main building at Graceville had a butterfly roof formed with a reinforced concrete slab lined with bituminous felt and supported on ten pre-cast, reinforced concrete beams that cantilevered off a continuous lintel resting on ten brick piers. A range of materials were used to fill the gaps between the brick frame: including orange-coloured face brick, screened openings, some small sections of render and various aluminium-framed windows. On either side of this building, two wide butterfly-roofed, steel-framed shelters with built-in seating were erected. Each was made up of four sets of steel columns and cantilevered steel tapering I-beams bolted together. The seating, made with timber slats and a steel and timber frame, was placed back-to-back facing each track. Dividing each row of seating were metal ribbed screens. Fitted to each steel column and under each beam were panels framed in steel and filled with glass above the seat level and sheet steel below. The other narrower platform necessitated smaller butterfly-roofed awnings be built there. They were essentially the same construction as the larger ones with only three bays, two of which were given over to seating. The subway system with its street ramps and stairs to both platforms was constructed with reinforced concrete.
\nIn June 1958 the Commissioner reported that new concrete and brick station buildings were under construction at Sherwood, Graceville, Chelmer, Indooroopilly and Auchenflower, and subways were completed or under construction at Graceville, Chelmer, Taringa and Nundah. The Graceville complex of station building, awnings and subway, and enlarged and raised platforms at a cost of £16,686, was the first of these new stations to open in mid-1959. Chelmer, with an identical layout of one building and four awnings, all butterfly-roofed, opened shortly afterwards. Milton, also drawn by Jan Kral was built in 1960.
\nAt the time of its completion in mid-1959, Graceville Station featured in a number of local newspaper articles where it was described as one of the most modern in Australia. The Commissioner also chose to feature a photograph of it in his annual report. Architect John Egan published an article on the new station designs in the Architecture in Australia journal in June 1961.
\nAll the new station buildings constructed in the 1950s and early 1960s for the quadruplication and electrification projects employed a Modernist idiom, but only the platform stations at Graceville (1959) and Chelmer (1959) on the Corinda line, and at Nundah (1960) and Eagle Junction (1963) on the northern line, were designed with butterfly roofs. Similarly designed, but with flat roof profiles were Sherwood (1960), Indooroopilly (late 1950s), Toowong (c1960) and Milton (1960). Taringa (mid-1950s), Toombul (c1960) and Wooloowin (1960) were butterfly-roofed overhead stations; Corinda (1960) was a flat-roofed overhead station; and Auchenflower (c1960) was a skillion-roofed overhead station. A standard plan was drawn up for Nundah and Graceville in 1955, but only Graceville and Chelmer were later constructed with the same pitch to their butterfly roofs. Nundah was given a flatter roof made with steel framing rather than reinforced concrete.
\nIn September 1960, the quadruplication project was suspended on the northern line. Work continued between Roma Street and Corinda as the signalling contract had been already let. The northern line stations of Nundah and Toombul were constructed within this time frame, and Eagle Junction shortly after. The quadruplicated Corinda to Roma Street line opened on 1 December 1963, providing greater flexibility in the provision of peak hour suburban services and allowing the passage of long distance goods and livestock trains which travelled through these suburban networks to the main western line.
\nDuring the 1960s a number of rail lines were decommissioned as government funds were geared towards the provision of better roads, but by the end of that decade it was clear that public transport also needed to be upgraded. A report delivered in 1970 recommended the electrification of the suburban railway network, the construction of the Merivale Street Bridge and a range of operational improvements, including the creation of a separate public transport authority. By 8 May 1979 the overhead lines between Corinda and Roma Street were switched on as part of the electrification project between Darra and Ferny Grove, which was the first section of the suburban network to be completed.
\nAlterations to the various elements of Graceville railway station have been minimal since its completion in 1959. Changes to the building include carpeting of the office floor, the addition of safety screens to the openings above the stairway and further enclosure of what was the telephone booth at the southern end. The steel-framed awnings originally had ribbed panels dividing the two sides of the timber seating, which have now been removed, as have those panels which divided the various seating bays. Graceville, Chelmer and Sherwood stations were repainted in 1998 with only the former being painted the corporate Queensland Rail colours of maroon and grey. Various ticket machines, a telephone and other signs have been added.
\nOf the thirteen stations designed and built in the 1950s and early 1960s as part of the original Queensland Railways electrification and quadruplication projects, Graceville, which remains substantially intact, best exemplifies the Modernist-influenced design concepts employed. It is the most intact of the four butterfly-roofed platform stations, with Chelmer having been altered somewhat, and Eagle Junction and Nundah altered substantially. Of the four flat-roofed platform stations Sherwood has been altered partially, Milton has been altered substantially, and Indooroopilly and Toowong have been rebuilt. Of the five over-head stations, Auchenflower and Taringa remain the more intact, Corinda and Wooloowin have been altered substantially, and Toombul has been rebuilt.
\n","criteria":"
The reconfigured platforms and new station building, platform awnings and subway at Graceville Railway Station, built between c1952 and 1959, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a suburban railway station embodying Modernist post-World War Two architectural ideas. As part of what was a large suite of similar but individually-designed station structures, Graceville stands out as a significant example of the type, being the first constructed and described at the time as the most modern in Australia. The Graceville and Chelmer railway stations are the most aesthetically successful examples of the butterfly-roof typology adopted for station building and awning design at that time, utilising new materials and technologies to perform the tasks of sheltering passengers, selling tickets and outfitting rail staff. Through a high degree of intactness, the Graceville station complex maintains the integrity of its original design, and is greatly complemented by the standardised butterfly-roofed platform awnings, also largely intact, that accompany it. Significant elements include the platforms, station building, platform awnings, and subway, and fabric of particular note includes: terrazzo tiles to the waiting room and ticket hall floors, the painted steel balustrade to the stairs leading from the subway, the terrazzo windows sills and the early aluminium double-hung window sets, the tiles to the subway walls, the timber and concrete seating throughout, the cast iron drinking fountain adjacent to the northern façade of the building, and the lettering on the southern and western facades of the building.
|The Graceville Railway Station, including the platforms, station building, platform awnings and subway system installed between c1952 and 1959, is important in demonstrating the era of post-World War Two enhancement of Queensland railways, being designed and built by the Queensland Railways Department as part of the quadruplication of the northern and western freight lines and the planned electrification of the metropolitan suburban network.
The design of the structures at Graceville Railway Station was part of a new wave of Modernist architecture being experimented with throughout Queensland as post-war austerity gave way to economic prosperity. It represents a deliberate departure from Queensland Railways Department traditional railway station design and from the standardisation of building designs. Graceville is considered an exemplar from a suite of Modernist railway buildings constructed between Corinda and Nundah in the 1950s and early 1960s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30615,"place_ref":602734,"name":"The Curtain Fig Tree","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Curtain Fig Tree Road","suburb":"YUNGABURRA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-12-03","description":"The Curtain Fig Tree (Ficus virens) is situated on Curtain Fig Tree Road approximately one kilometre north of the town of Yungaburra, in the Curtain Fig National Park within the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. The vegetation type indigenous to the area is mabi rainforest (complex notophyll vine forest), now classified as endangered.
The Curtain Fig Tree is approximately 50m high with a trunk circumference of 39m. The canopy extends in a radius of approximately 30m from the trunk of the tree. Extensive aerial roots, which are now thick and interwoven, drop 15m to the forest floor, forming a curtain oriented north-west to south-east over approximately 7m. The host tree has since rotted away and the fig is now a free standing tree.
Access to the Curtain Fig Tree which is approximately 50 metres from the road is via a 2m wide timber boardwalk from the roadside car park. At the beginning of the boardwalk there is a sheltered interpretation board that outlines the importance of the mabi rainforest and the history of the Curtain Fig Tree. The boardwalk then encircles the Curtain Fig. This boardwalk is easily accessible to wheelchairs and is raised above the forest floor (approximately 800mm) which also ensures visitors have minimal impact on the surrounding rainforest. Another interpretation board outlining how the tree was formed is located towards the end of the boardwalk, near the western face of the tree.
At the base of the Curtain Fig are timber posts and stones, remnants of a previous boardwalk that once passed much closer to the base of the tree. The boardwalk and interpretative signage are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Far North Queensland's famous Curtain Fig Tree (Ficus virens), located in a national park about one kilometre north of the town of Yungaburra on the Atherton Tableland, is estimated by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to be at least 500 years old. Associated with organised tourism on the Tableland since the 1920s, the tree has been important in the development of the Cairns hinterland as a major tourist region in Queensland.
Since the 1890s the tropical vegetation of the Atherton Tableland has been known variously as scrub, jungle and more recently, mabi rainforest. The term 'rainforest' was coined in 1898 but it was not a descriptor applied to the tropical vegetation of the Cairns region until the 1970s. Mabi rainforest was classified in the 1960s by ecologists, based on its physical characteristics and species composition. The name 'mabi' is derived from a local Aboriginal word for the rare Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo, the largest mammal found in this rainforest. Logging, agriculture and urban development on the Tableland has resulted in significant loss of mabi rainforest and it is listed as endangered under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Early non-indigenous visitors to the Atherton Tableland often viewed the scrub in Romantic terms, fascinated by the dense and luxurious vegetation, especially the enormous trees covered with vines, and delicate and unusual ferns and orchids. A number of early twentieth century tourist attractions in the region, such as Fairyland (1907) and the Maze (1923) at Kuranda developed reflecting this view of the scrub. Other early commentators saw the fecundity of the scrub in a less favourable light, referring to it as gloomy, dank, and swarming with insects.
Ways of seeing the rainforest began to shift in the 1920s from the Romantic view of nature as a collection of fascinating curiosities and grand and sublime landscapes, to an ecological paradigm which views nature as a systemic interrelationship between all living things including humans, and their environment. In the 1930s the North Queensland Naturalists' Club lobbied for language change, seeking to replace 'scrub', often used in a derogatory manner, by 'jungle', in a bid to change community attitudes to the rainforest. Valuing the rainforest gained momentum with the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
Giant strangler figs such as the Curtain Fig Tree were considered to be wonders (if not 'freaks') of nature. Strangler figs are a parasitic species of tree that develop when the seed of a fig germinates on the top of another tree and then tries to plant its roots in the ground. Once the root system is established, the fig grows vigorously, finally killing the host tree and then growing independently. The unusual formation of the Curtain Fig Tree was created when its vertical roots strangled the host causing it to fall into a neighbouring tree on a 45 degree angle. The extensive aerial roots of the strangler fig then dropped from the oblique angle of the fallen tree 15m to the forest floor, forming a 'curtain'. North Queensland strangler figs were portrayed photographically in the Queenslander from as early as 1896 and on postcards soon after 1900.
Descriptions of unusual tropical vegetation such as the giant strangler figs began to appear in tourist guides from the 1920s. The Curtain Fig Tree was well known as a tourist attraction by the 1920s when Whitecars, a local hire-car service, commenced day tours of the southern Tableland c1926, stopping to view the giant tree. Prior to this the only comfortable travel available to visitors to the southern Tableland was by train via the Kuranda Railway. Whitecars was established c1922 by Les Battle and Norm Graham, who developed a timetabled taxi service between Malanda, Yungaburra and Atherton, and between Malanda and Millaa Millaa, with three cars. They took advantage of the 1926 opening of the Gillies Highway, linking the southern Tableland with Cairns, to take Ned Williams into partnership as The Cairns Tableland Motor Service Ltd (known locally as Whitecars), to capitalise on the expected influx of tourists. In 1927 the company won the tender to transport passengers between Cairns and the southern Tableland via the Gillies Highway, and to operate day tours on the Tableland out of Yungaburra. In 1934 Whitecars introduced its first bus, capable of carrying 17 passengers. The development of Whitecars was integral to the development of tourism on the Tablelands and led to the increased popularity of attractions such as the Curtain Fig Tree.
By the 1950s the Curtain Fig Tree was included in the Grand Tour/Tropical Wonderland Tour itineraries promoted by the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (by then part of Queensland Railways). The Grand Tour operated during the winter months when a P&O ship would arrive at Cairns each week from Melbourne and Brisbane carrying around 200 passengers for a six day stay in the region. Upon arrival passengers could join the Tropical Wonderland Tour, which included being taken by Whitecars to visit the attractions of the Atherton Tableland, including the Curtain Fig Tree.
As tourism diversified and private car ownership became more commonplace in the 1960s, tourism numbers to the Cairns hinterland increased, as did numbers visiting the Curtain Fig Tree. More tours became available and the tree was included on the itinerary of the Tableland Circular Tour in 1966. The popularity of the tree continued unabated and it was included in more tours during the 1970s including the Atherton Tableland Tour.
The Curtain Fig Tree remains a tourist attraction, but advances in science and a greater understanding of the natural environment mean the tree is now seen and portrayed in ecological terms. Since the 1970s the area surrounding the Curtain Fig Tree has changed considerably: undergrowth has been trimmed back; interpretative signage educates tourists about the formation of the tree; and a boardwalk guides visitors to the tree. In December 1988 the Curtain Fig became part of the newly created Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, which consisted of 8,990 square kilometres of Far North Queensland rainforest.
A boardwalk was constructed in 2001 to allow wheelchair access for the disabled and to provide further protection for the tree and its surrounds, while permitting visitors to view it from all angles. Large numbers of tourists continue to visit the Curtain Fig Tree every year independently or as part of an organised tour. In 1994, 58,000 people arrived in commercial vehicles and 123,000 in private vehicles.
","criteria":"The Curtain Fig Tree is an imposing and distinctive tree set within rare mabi rainforest. It is valued for its immense size and the curtain effect that has resulted from the thick and interwoven vertical root system. The tree's verdant and luxuriant growth has been valued by locals and tourists from the 1920s, and evokes a sense of awe, wonder, amazement and curiosity.
|The Curtain Fig Tree (Ficus virens), a 500-year old strangler fig that has been associated with organised tourism on the Atherton Tableland since the 1920s, is important for its association with the evolution of tourism in Far North Queensland, demonstrating the attraction of the North Queensland natural environment for tourists. Its popularity is associated with the impact of the motor vehicle on Far North Queensland tourism. As an unusual natural phenomenon, the tree evoked a sense of wonder and curiosity amongst settlers on the Atherton Tableland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and has been one of the most tourist-visited large trees on the Tableland since the 1920s. It remains a popular tourist destination.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30635,"place_ref":602760,"name":"St David's Anglican Church and Raintrees (Samanea saman)","alternate_name":"St Davids Church | St Davids Anglican Church and Raintrees | Samanea saman","street_address":"3 Foxton Avenue","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"St David's Church is located north of the centre of Mossman in a park setting on a triangular site between the Captain Cook Highway (Foxton Avenue), which it addresses, and Mossman Street. It is set approximately four metres back from the street and is aligned at an angle of approximately 60° to the course of the street. When approached from the south and the centre of town it sits at the northern end of a grassed area behind an avenue of large, mature raintrees (Samanea saman) that dominate this section of Foxton Avenue.
From the church looking west there are views over George Davis Park with cane fields behind, and distant views of the Main Coast Range (part of the Great Dividing Range) and the Daintree National Park. The church behind the avenue of raintrees is an important aspect of the view from George Davis Park.
St. David's is a small church with a terracotta tile-clad roof and walls built of stone, concrete blockwork and detail sections of render. It is aligned on an east-west axis with a nave and small porch at the front and western end, a chapel and vestry to the south and north sides of the crossing respectively, and an apse on the eastern end of the nave.
The four stages in which the church was constructed are discernable in differences in its fabric. The fabric of the first three stages is critical to the cultural heritage significance of the church, while the fourth stage is important for its form but not for the materials used.
The first stage of construction is represented in the stonework up to floor level in the nave and apse, comprising random rubble to about one metre above ground level.
The second stage comprises the walls of the nave and apse above floor level, including the rounded archways and the coloured concrete block quoins, and reflects the Byzantine influence in the original design. The walls of the nave are approximately 8m high and it is approximately 12m long by 6m wide. There are four round arch openings on the exterior elevations of the nave: two on the north elevation and two on the south elevation. The round arch openings near the porch are about 1.5 metres wide. The eastern arched openings are much wider - about four metres. The polygonal apse begins in a round arched opening almost the width and height of the east wall of the nave. The apse has narrower round arch openings taking up most of each of the five sides. The walls of the nave and apse are constructed of random rubble. There are alternating red and blue coloured concrete block quoins to the corners and the edges of the arched openings.
The third stage comprises the porch, including the west gable parapet wall surmounted by a Latin cross at its apex, the gable parapet wall to the nave also with a Latin cross, and the tiled roofs of the nave, apse and porch. The porch is to the west of the nave, its walls also constructed of random rubble with uncoloured concrete block quoins. The western porch facade has a rectangular window with three lights, the outer casements of which open outwards while the central light is fixed. There is a narrow, upright slit in the stone wall above the window. The western façade of the nave has a circular window in-filled with fixed louvers and topped by a stone drip moulding. Both gable parapets have moulded block-work coping. The northern elevation of the porch features a doorway now accessed by a ramp with a bell mounted to the right-hand side of the doorway that is framed in bevelled concrete.
The roofs of the nave and porch are gabled, pitched at a 45° angle and have ridges running east-west. The roof of the apse abuts the wall of the nave and has a three-faceted hip. All roofs are clad with terracotta tiles.
The fourth construction stage corresponds to the additions undertaken in c1982 that installed a chapel centred on the southern side of the crossing and a vestry on its northern side. The walls of these additions are constructed of concrete block: rendered quoins and infill panels of textured blocks. The roofs of the chapel and vestry abut the wall of the nave, have three-faceted hips at each end, and are clad with coloured concrete tiles. Each of the three facets of the chapel southernmost end has a narrow window with rounded top. On the northern side the c1982 vestry addition mirrors that of the chapel opposite. Like the chapel the vestry has windows in the three of the end wall facets. There is a door in its western facade.
A small building housing toilets is immediately adjacent to the northeast corner of the nave.
Random rubble stonework is largely exposed on the interior of the church, as are the blockwork quoins. The porch, nave and apse have unpainted timber ceilings. There are panels of painted timber under the window sills in the apse.
The porch (4m x 2m x 3m high) has a carpeted floor, unpainted, rendered walls and a stained timber ceiling. The window in the northern wall of the porch has stained glass depicting a scene of Christ and children. The concrete frame above this window features the Christogram IHS (derived from the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus).
The nave has concrete floors and a ceiling of stained timber panelling with six pendant light fittings and two fans hanging from it. The windows in the round-arch openings on the southern side of the nave contain stained glass depicting the Madonna and Child flanked by St Margaret and St Hilda. On the northern side Christ is depicted as a shepherd, flanked by St Andrew and St David. Between these windows and the arches leading into the chapel and vestry the stonework has been rendered.
The archways between the nave and chapel and vestry either side of the crossing are in-filled with stained timber boarding, to the south to the spring-line of the arch and to the north to door head height. The chapel is open to the main body of the church and its ceiling corresponds to the lower line of the in-fill panel, while the vestry is separated by a stained timber panel wall and a central door. The chapel and vestry have concrete floors, unpainted concrete block walls and stained timber ceilings.
Two concrete steps lead through a wide round-headed arch at the east end of the nave to the apse, which has unfinished random rubble walls and timber paneled ceiling similar to the nave. The concrete floor is covered with red carpet. There is a mosaic depicting Christ in the archway directly behind the altar.
Raintrees (Samanea saman)
An avenue of raintrees (Samanea saman) is located along a section of Foxton Avenue (Captain Cook Highway) to the south and west of the church. Six are located on the eastern side of the road with another five on the western side, and make an emotive setting for St David's Church particularly on the approach out of the centre of town to the south. The interlocking canopies that stretch over the road create a tunnel of shade beyond which stands the church in the sunlight. The large volume of space protected by this canopy stands above a carpet of grass on the triangular lot between Foxton Avenue and Mossman Street, and effect which also highlights the positioning of the church.
Samanea saman generally grow to between 15m and 25m tall with a broad dome-shaped canopy typically 30m in diameter. The trees leading to St David's Church are substantial and mature; some about 15m tall with canopies of about 30m in diameter. Some of the trees have multiple trunks, the circumferences of which being between 6m to 10m. Ferns and other epiphytes grow from the trunk and branches of several trees.
","history":"St David's Church is a small stone and masonry building constructed in three stages between 1912 and 1952 to encompass a porch, nave and apsidal sanctuary, with a vestry and chapel added c1982. It replaced an earlier Anglican church on the same site, which was destroyed by a cyclone in March 1911. The original design, as influenced by the architectural traditions of the Byzantine Empire, was completed by the long-serving rector, Reverend Edward Taffs, who drove the project to fruition over the course of his career in charge of the Mossman/Port Douglas Parish of the Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria (1900-1996). The current church and its evocative setting behind an avenue of mature, fern-clad raintrees (Samanea saman) are situated to the north of the town centre, on the road to Daintree.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70 km north of Cairns. George Elphinstone Dalrymple's North-East Coast Exploring Expedition of late 1873 had brought attention to the resources around the Johnstone, Mulgrave, Russell, Daintree and Mossman Rivers and from 1874 cedar stands on the later were being logged extensively. Behind the coastal river plain the Hodgkinson goldfield was proclaimed on 15 June 1876. Initially accessed via Cairns, in 1877 an alternative route to the coast was found and Port Douglas was established as the field's new port, about four miles south of the mouth of the Mossman River.
By 1878 the most readily accessible cedar stands in the Mossman River district had been exhausted, although logging in more difficult-to-reach areas continued into the 1880s. Agricultural settlers followed the timber getters from the late 1870s, one of the earliest on the Mossman being Daniel Hart, an immigrant from Jamaica and a former timber getter. In 1878 he selected land along the river, calling the property Coolshade, and in 1885 subdivided part of it, which became the western half of the town of Mossman. The town was first called Hartsville in his honour.
Excessive rain and poor soil productivity resulted in most of the region being planted out with sugarcane from the 1880s. In 1883, Brie Brie Sugar Plantation established Mossman's first mill but this was unsuccessful and largely inoperative by 1886. This did not deter Commissioner WO Hodgkinson from assessing the flat land around the Mossman River as having great potential for cane production during his investigation of sites for central sugar mills conducted in 1886. The impetus for more extensive sugar cropping in the district came with the establishment of the Mossman Central Co-operative Mill in the mid-1890s under the provisions of the 1893 Sugar Works Guarantee Act.
As the Mossman River community consolidated, religious denominations established a presence in the district. Prior to the formation of a separate Port Douglas and Mossman Parish, missionary chaplains from the Church of England's Diocese of North Queensland, based in Townsville, travelled to Port Douglas to conduct services. In 1898 the separate parish was created after parishioners subscribed ¿100 per year to support a minister. A church was built in Mossman on land that had been part of Daniel Hart's 1885 subdivision (and part of which he donated to the church in 1898).
The first St David's Church at Mossman was a simple gable-roofed timber structure, dedicated on Trinity Sunday on 29 May 1899. It took the name of the Welsh patron saint, St David, reputedly because Mr RD Rex, a local farmer and parish secretary during construction had been christened in the new cathedral of St David's in Hobart in 1874. The Bishop of North Queensland agreed to the name. The link with the Tasmanian cathedral was again made in 1955 when a fragment of the stone cross at St David's Cathedral was presented to the Mossman church, where it was set in cement at the entry.
From 3 August 1900 the Port Douglas and Mossman Parish was incorporated into the newly created Church of England Diocese of Carpentaria, which encompassed the Torres Strait, Cape York Peninsula, the Southern Gulf of Carpentaria and the whole of the Northern Territory, with the Bishop's seat located at Thursday Island. The Queensland boundary of the diocese extended to south of Port Douglas, with Cairns remaining in the Diocese of North Queensland. Church historians, including Keith Rayner is his 1962 doctoral thesis The History of the Church of England in Queensland, argue that the formation of a new diocese "came at a time of economic and commercial depression, and [when] its European population was markedly declining." The new diocese faced significant challenges due to its size, isolation, lack of resources and the cultural and linguistic diversity of its parishioners. It struggled to be self-supporting, and lacked sufficient internal support to accomplish its missionary goals.
Despite these challenges, the Port Douglas and Mossman Parish initially thrived. In January 1902 The Carpentarian noted that the church had resolved to raise £150 for a rectory at St David's, which was constructed in 1903; and in 1904 Mossman became the centre of the parish. The shift away from Port Douglas reflected the decline of the latter as an early port and regional centre, the ascendancy of Cairns as the region's premier port, and the emergence of Mossman as the centre of the Mossman River district.
In 1904 the Reverend Edward Taffs took up duties as rector at Mossman and remained there for the next 46 years until his death aged 90. Taffs had migrated from England to Victoria in September 1889 and was ordained a minister in St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne in 1901; his first appointment being in South Gippsland. He opened the Holy Trinity College at Kew, occupying the position of headmaster while continuing as a minister. In mid-1904 he left Victoria with his family and moved to Mossman to take up the position of rector. He and his wife Mary worked throughout the parish, travelling to Mount Molloy, Mount Carbine and Port Douglas on horseback. Taffs' time in Mossman was an unusually long commitment for an Anglican clergyman at this period in such a remote part of the state. His missionary commitment and principles, as well as his dogged determination, were pivotal to the development and construction of the second St David's Church.
On 16 March 1911 a severe cyclone caused extensive damage to buildings at Port Douglas and Mossman. The Carpentarian of Easter Eve 1911 reported that the facilities lost included the churches at Port Douglas and Mossman, the Port Douglas house belonging to the Bishopric Endowment Fund (used as a rectory), a church hall at Mossman that Taffs had erected at his own expense, and a small church at Mount Molloy. A flood two weeks after the cyclone swept away the remaining debris.
The paucity of church finances, often reliant upon contributions from English church societies, meant that raising funds for building projects was a constant challenge. For the Parish of Port Douglas and Mossman, available funding was first directed toward re-erecting the Mossman parish hall. Prolonged difficulties in raising further funds, and a commitment to building a new church debt-free, resulted in this hall serving as the temporary church until 1952.
The impact of the 1911 cyclone convinced local parishioners of the need to rebuild St David's in stone, a more expensive undertaking than erecting a timber structure. Reverend Taffs reputedly prepared the design for the new church which, in contrast to the simple, gabled timber churches that dominated the area, drew from the architectural traditions of the Byzantine Empire or that of the Romans during the Middle Ages. The culmination of Early Christian architecture, the style that came to be associated with this empire began after AD 330 when Emperor Constantine established the Imperial Roman capital at Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople. From its palette the design for St David's originally incorporated a series of domes and barrel vaults over the nave and apse, a dome on a windowed drum, and rounded arches of coloured stone. The planned church was modest in size - 44 feet long by 25 feet wide (13.41m x 7.62m) - and designed to seat 120 persons. Construction commenced in 1912 after suitable stone was found at Bonnie Doon, a local cane farm on the Mossman River. Kerr reports in his Northern Outpost report of 1995 that stones were transported from the property with the help of the Mossman Mill which agreed to supply half a mile of tramline to enable it to be hauled from the quarry to the construction site. A contract for the nave stone was let for 850 tons at three shillings a ton and Mossman Central Mill railed it to the church site. To withstand potential flooding, substantial foundations were laid by parishioners under the supervision of a stonemason. These were completed in 1915, but further work was delayed by World War I (1914-1918). A decoratively painted timber panel intended for the sanctuary was crafted during this time for use in the temporary church and later transferred to the stone building.
After the war the Ladies Building Committee raised money for construction of the chancel and one bay window in 1919, but further obstacles slowed the building program. The price of cement escalated and then in February 1920 another cyclone damaged the rectory and temporary church, and building funds set aside for the new church had to be channeled into repair of the temporary church/hall and rectory.
During the 1920s, fund raising waned and in the early 1930s progress remained slow due to the depressed economy. Concerted efforts to complete the church did not resume until the late 1930s after modifications to the plan were made by firms of architects and engineers, Hassall and Redmond, both of Cairns, who called tenders in January 1937. As the prices submitted were more costly than the committee had anticipated, construction of the stone walls did not commence until 1940, with most of the work undertaken by Reverend Taffs and his two grandsons. Further delay followed while funds were raised for the roof. With the start of World War II (1939-1945), voluntary fund-raising, building materials and skilled labour were diverted to the war effort, delaying construction even further.
Reverend Taffs died in 1950, just two years before St David's Church was completed. His replacement, Father Ware, considered that his first task was to complete the church. In 1951 the design was revised by Cairns architect Edwin R Orchard to incorporate a simpler and less expensive gabled roof and parishioners arranged a loan with the National Bank. Tenders were called in October 1951 and the contract was awarded to Baker and McMaster of Cairns. The work cost £7,586 and was completed in August 1952. On 27 September 1952 Bishop Hudson finally dedicated the stone church, 40 years after construction had commenced.
St David's Church suffered structural damage to its sanctuary during a cyclonic storm in 1979. In the same year a building fund was established to construct a vestry. In 1980 a cruciform design was accepted, with small transepts to accommodate a vestry to the north and a chapel to the south of the crossing.
The tender was awarded to R and J Carroll in 1982. The new chapel and vestry were consecrated in 1984, completing the building that was started in 1912 under the guidance of Rev. Taffs. Parishioners have since installed leadlight windows designed by artist Chris Oswald (donated in memory of Dorothy Louise Kieseker) and a tile mosaic depicting the risen Christ.
In 1996 the Diocese of Carpentaria was dissolved and the Parish of Port Douglas and Mossman, among other Cape York parishes, was returned to the responsibility of the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland.
Raintrees (Samanea saman)
An avenue comprising about eleven mature raintrees grows either side of Foxton Avenue (the Cook Highway) from its intersection with Mossman Street to the church porch. This avenue contributes substantially to the setting of St David's and the aesthetic experience of it, which is considered to be of State-level cultural heritage significance.
The raintree is native to a range stretching from southern Mexico into northern South America and its accepted botanical name, as included in the Australian Plant Census and established in 1916, is Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr. A plaque outside St David's states that the avenue of trees was planted by Rev. Taffs using seeds obtained from Jamaica by Daniel Hart, one of the area's earliest selectors to whom the land (portion 35) originally belonged; however no evidence has been uncovered to substantiate this account or resolve the incongruity it contains between the year of Hart's death, 1900, and when Taffs become rector at Mossman in 1904. A recent arborist's report estimates the trees are between 80 and 100 years old making the date range in which they were planted between 1908 and 1928. No trees appear in a parish photograph of the timber church destroyed by cyclone in 1911 and apparently built on the site of the later stone church.
Interestingly the first record of the raintree species being introduced outside its native habitat comes from the Caribbean Islands, and since then it has become naturalized and widely planted in pastureland for shade and forage on most of these islands, including Jamaica from where Hart immigrated to Australia. In the second half of the nineteenth century the trees were introduced into many tropical countries as street and shade trees, most extensively in India, southern Asia and the Pacific. The species has been known by a number of other common names including guango (in Jamaica), monkey pod and saman.
Raintrees are now common in coastal north-east Queensland, including around Mossman and Port Douglas. Flora of Australia (2001) reports that the trees are naturalized along the Stewart Creek south of Daintree, about 24 km north of Mossman, with other naturalized populations occurring at South Johnstone and Dingo Beach on Cape Gloucester (near Bowen). A mature tree (estimated to be 125 years old) has been identified near the weighbridge on Mossman's Mill Road. In 1907 they were reported as growing in the main street of Ingham and in Townsville. At the opening of the Cook Highway from Cairns to Mossman in late 1933, The Courier Mail of 19 December 1933 described already established raintrees lining part of the Port Douglas to Mossman stretch of the road.
The key to the early renown of the raintree stemmed from the apocryphal story that it was a panacea for drought stricken districts through the ability of its leaves to condense moisture out of the air, retain it in large quantities and then expel it through its leaves and trunk. This story, and how it had been disproved, was discussed in two 1911 articles from the Port Douglas and Mossman Record. Otherwise it was seriously considered as a useful crop for the fodder its large seed pods provided for cattle.
It appears that in late nineteenth century Queensland the raintree was known by one of its botanical synonyms, an alternate spelling of Pithecellobium saman. In an August 1879 article in The Queenslander, recounting the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Acclimatisation Society of Queensland, this species is discussed and a report tabled from the director of the Botanical Gardens in Jamaica, from where seeds had been obtained by the Queensland Colonial Office. The Chairman reported that the tree was known to the Society, which had a few strong plants in stock. Later in the same year it was reported that the chairman had distributed large quantities of seed in the northern districts of the colony. A letter-to-the-editor published in a June 1884 Sydney Morning Herald issue and received from Fred Turner - who worked at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens from 1874, before becoming Curator of the Acclimatisation Society's Bowen Park and then moving to the Sydney Botanic Gardens in 1880 - reveals that the Brisbane Gardens had sometime previously received seeds of the raintree. An article in a December 1932 issue of The Queenslander describes a substantial raintree growing there.
From late 1877 Hart was an active member of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society, based in Brisbane, and at Coolshade he established a fine orchard with European and Mediterranean fruits, Chinese fruits, mangoes, and coconuts using material obtained almost exclusively via the Society. In April 1884 The Brisbane Courier reported on a visit to agricultural properties in the Mossman River district, the foremost of which was Coolshade. In December 1887 the agricultural reporter for The Queenslander newspaper described Hart as an enthusiast in horticulture, and his garden a experimental station. In both articles the extensive range of plants described as growing at the property did not include the raintree.
When Hart died in 1900 he left Coolshade and its orchard - located on just over 10 acres (4.12ha) on the Mossman River to the north of the site of St David's and the raintree avenue - to his half brother. In 1907 the title for the triangular parcel of land over which the canopy of the eastern line of raintrees spreads was transferred by this brother to Edward Taffs, Hart's brother died in 1915, leaving Coolshade to a daughter of Taffs.
","criteria":"St David's Anglican Church is set behind an avenue of substantial, fern-clad raintrees (Samanea saman) forming an archway along part of the Captain Cook Highway (Foxton Avenue) that takes road travellers out of the centre of Mossman toward Daintree. These trees and the beautiful arbour they make, as well as the unusual use of stone and Byzantine-influenced design details in the church, make an important aesthetic contribution to the town of Mossman.
|St David's Church, constructed in stages between 1912 and 1952, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history related to the spread of the Anglican Christian denomination. The lengthy construction period combined with the perseverance and dedication of the local minister, Reverend Taffs, exemplifies the pattern of the development, establishment and resilience of the former Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria (1900-1996) in far northern Queensland. The church embodies its ongoing struggle to establish a presence and raise funds for building projects during the first half of the twentieth century. Also the self-reliance that many ministers and their parishioners displayed is reflected in the idiosyncratic nature of the design and materials of St David's Church at Mossman.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30677,"place_ref":602718,"name":"Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr South Street and Anzac Avenue","suburb":"HARRISTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-08-14","description":"The Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery occupies a site of over 30ha situated north of Drayton and south-west of Toowoomba, at the intersection of Anzac Avenue and South Street, Harristown. The heritage boundary for the cemetery follows existing perimeter fencing that encloses the principal burial ground but excludes vacant cemetery land bounded by Karina Street to the west and Alderley Street to the south set aside in 1957 and 1987 for cemetery purposes. A water pumping station fronting Anzac Avenue, which sits on a small parcel of land excised in 1998 from the cemetery reserve, is not included within the heritage boundary.
Approaches and views
The main approach is from the direction of Toowoomba, heading south along Anzac Avenue. The north-eastern corner of the cemetery, at the intersection with South Street, has a curved brick wall with a modern metal sign (lettering: Drayton & Toowoomba Cemetery) with trees on either side, whilst an angle in the road along South Street directs the eye towards the ornamental gates of the main entrance. Now almost surrounded by predominantly industrial development, the cemetery stands out due to its green and park-like nature, with mature trees and shrubs screening it from the busy traffic along Anzac Avenue. From the less densely screened sides of the cemetery to the south and west, the gentle slopes covered in grave memorials and monuments are clearly visible, whilst the long straight avenues of trees provide a sense of the size and scale of the cemetery layout. From within the cemetery, the distant landscape of hills to the west provides a picturesque backdrop to the memorials.
Entrances and perimeter fencing
The principal access is via gates on South Street, opposite Hampton Street. The gates are set into an ornamental wall, constructed of brick with cement rendered ledges along the tops and decorative end posts. The metal gates are made of thin strips bolted together to make a pattern inside an outer frame. Two large gates in the middle are for vehicular access and have cattle grids, and the two smaller gates on either side are for use by pedestrians.
The only other entrance is off Anzac Avenue and is more subdued, with one large double gate flanked by thick timber posts and also possessing a cattle grid. The gates are of the same style and construction as those found at the South Street entrance.
Perimeter fencing along the northern and eastern boundaries consists mainly of low cyclone-wire and metal post fencing that is sometimes concealed by large Cotoneaster hedges. The rest of the cemetery is enclosed by barbed and netted wire fencing with metal posts. None of this fencing appears to be early.
Cemetery layout
The layout of the cemetery demonstrates a composite of styles reflecting changing attitudes towards memorialising the dead and managing burials since the mid-Victorian era. Expanding outwards from the early grid-like core (established 1850) to more informal lawn and memorial garden areas (from the 1960s), and set within a park-like setting established from the 1870s, this evolution of layout styles results in a variety of experiences for visitors.
Most of the cemetery west of the main entrance drive is laid out in a formal grid arrangement with burial sections separated by walkways and driveways (avenues), some lined with mature trees on one or both sides. The main roadways running east-west are labelled 1st Avenue through to 6th Avenue, and burial sections consist of rectangular blocks of varying size. Each block has discrete modern signage at the eastern corners identifying denominational sections: Church of England (Anglican), Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and a number of smaller sections in the centre, including Salvation Army, Church of Christ, Seventh Day Adventist, Old Baptist and Congregationalist, Public, Infant, War Cemetery, Jewish, Other Protestant Religions and Moslem.
There are a number of lawn cemeteries established at the northern end of the site, either side of the main entrance drive. These contain both denominational and non-denominational sections. Within the north-eastern lawn cemetery is a Memorial Gardens and Memorial Lawn. The western lawn cemetery includes a Forest Lawn.
The cemetery office block, with nearby public toilets, is located on the eastern side of the main entrance drive, just north of the Anzac Avenue entrance. There is also a utility shed in this area. These are recent structures and are not of cultural heritage significance.
South of the Anzac Avenue entrance, occupying the eastern edge of the cemetery, is a park-like section that contains no burials or monuments. Many varieties of trees are planted here either in rows around the edges or randomly in the centre.
On the northern edge of the cemetery property facing South Street is a timber building that was moved onto the site in the early 2000s and currently houses the Family History Society. This building is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland Heritage Register.
Avenue trees and other plantings
The trees and plantings throughout the site are an important part of its design, due to their screening effect that assists in creating an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity within the cemetery grounds. The main entrance drive off South Street runs north-south and extends for approximately half the length of the cemetery, to 3rd Avenue. Along the entire length of this drive are equally spaced mature trees - alternating Camphor Laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) and London Plane (Platanus acerifolia). The first half of this drive has a dual road carriage, separated by a grass island with a central row of mature Queen Palms (Arecastrum romanzoffianum). The second half of the drive has a row of Queen Palms along the western side.
Several other avenues of mature trees are located throughout the cemetery. South of the intersection with Third Avenue, the trees along the drive change to Cypress (type unknown), Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens stricta) and Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani). The far southern boundary is defined by Queen and Jelly Palms (Butia capitata) to the east and Cypresses to the west. There are various trees planted along the western north-south roadway, including Italian Cypress. 1st Avenue has a magnificent row of large Kauri Pines to the east and some Italian Cypresses. The War Cemetery is encircled by rows of Cypress (type unknown) and large Pines (most likely Monterey Pines, Pinus radiata). 4th Avenue possesses a variety of species along its length, whilst 5th Avenue is densely lined with Cedar of Lebanon, Camphor Laurel and Cypress. Other distinctive trees in the cemetery include a very large Eucalypt in block PRES5, and a mature Cook Island Pine in the middle of a family plot in the Old CE1.
The park-like section of trees along Anzac Avenue contains Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), Cook Island Pines (Araucaria columnaris), Monterey Pines, Italian Cypress, Cypress (unidentified), a Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis, south of the pump station), Camphor Laurels (an avenue from the entrance drive to the Anzac Avenue gate), Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia) and a single Kauri Pine (Agathis robusta).
In the eastern lawn cemetery there are various rows and avenues of Camphor Laurels, Cypress, Italian Cypress and Golden Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa brunniana aurea). Placed along the perimeter fencing are London Plane trees and Cedar of Lebanon. A double row of Hoop Pines also exists south of the Memorial Lawn. The western lawn cemetery and Forest Lawn contains mostly gum trees (various species) and a row of Italian Cypresses that edges the eastern side of the Forest Lawn.
Graves, monuments and memorials
The many different styles of monuments and memorials found throughout the cemetery reflect the fashions of the eras in which they were created. Many of these are excellent examples of the design work and craft skills of monumental masons. The majority are constructed from sandstone or marble. Some have been affected by erosion from weather and staining from rust, dirt, mould or lichen. There are also many granite monuments, both modest and grand, that have less weathering. Combinations of two or more of these materials are a common occurrence (for example, a sandstone headstone with marble or granite plaque attached). Grave surrounds such as concrete curbing and/or slabs are commonly used throughout the cemetery, occasionally decorated with ceramic tiles or painted. Other materials used to surround or fill a grave include bricks, stones and gravel. Larger enclosures, such as the numerous family plots, are often delineated by low fences of cast or wrought iron, some of which are ornate. Others have low concrete posts with chains slung between them or connected by metal poles. Several have had trees planted within their enclosures which have grown over time, sometimes affecting the position of the monuments around them.
The more elaborate types of monuments found in the cemetery, particularly in the Victorian and Edwardian sections, demonstrate a variety of monumental forms including vaults, mausoleums, ledger stones, obelisks, tables, sarcophagi and altars. Some of the more distinctive are tempietto-style monuments and twin-column memorials. A vault and a mausoleum found in the south-east corner of the Old Roman Catholic section are particularly eye-catching. The 1937 vault, constructed of sandstone in a neo-classical style, is dedicated to the Coorey family and includes four marble statures of figures such as the Virgin Mary and a young boy. The early 1930s McColdrick family mausoleum houses a large and intricately carved angel statue in marble, surrounded by three stained glass window panels supported between sandstone columns.
A wide range of Victorian and Edwardian era memorial symbols are also on display throughout the cemetery, including Calvary crosses, Celtic crosses, draped urns, broken columns, broken chain, mourning angels and cherubs, carved garlands, flowers (passion flowers, roses, poppies), ivy, grapes, and clasped hands. Each of these has a particular symbolic meaning. Some ornamentation references the deceased's occupation, hobby or sporting interest - such as a diver's helmet, tools, weaver's apron, tennis racquets and balls, cricket bat and stumps, motor cycles, and a camera. There are also a variety of grave ornaments, including many immortelles and urns for holding flowers, and some graves are decorated with sea shells. Several graves and family plots have symbolic plantings, such as Olive trees (Olea europaea) and Cypresses.
Headstone inscriptions demonstrate a range of languages other than English, including Chinese, Hebrew and German, illustrating the early presence of non-British immigrant populations in the Drayton-Toowoomba district. Some inscriptions include interesting biographical information about the person's life or the circumstances that caused their death.
Monuments in the mid to late twentieth century sections tend to be more modest, with mainly upright slabs with concrete grave surrounds or slab and desk monuments. Two modern mausoleums and an elaborate arched granite monument housing marble statues can be found in RC9 and RC10.
The War Cemetery section contains a seating area, flagpole, brick columbarium, lawn cemetery, and a gravelled area with simple, uniformly-designed marble headstones placed around two memorials.
Each grave in the lawn cemeteries is marked by a simple plaque set in a concrete block at ground level. The Memorial Lawn has rows of small headstones set into a single concrete footing. Both types of graves often have small pots and vases for flowers, set into the ground. The Memorial Gardens are for scattering or storing ashes and there is a brick columbarium, surrounded by garden beds planted with rose bushes, located in one corner. Other flowering bushes and small trees, often associated with particular graves, are found throughout the lawn cemeteries.
Cemetery structures
There are three shelter sheds (c1930) within the cemetery grounds. These are simple square timber structures made to the same design and all orientated with the doorway facing north. Each has a hipped roof of Marseilles tiles, sides in-filled with timber lattice, a dirt floor and two timber benches inside the northern corners. One is located in the northern part of the cemetery, on the north-east corner of block CE6. The shelter in the centre, at the south-east corner of the War Cemetery, is currently used to store iron grave markers which are stacked up against the southern wall. The southernmost shelter sits in the middle of cemetery block PRES3 on 5th Ave.
There are several timber posts within the cemetery grounds which may be remnants of earlier fences. Two are painted white with evidence of fixings (now removed) and decorative tops, one of which is located south of the main office, the other in the middle of the road along 5th Avenue.
","history":"The Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery, surveyed in May 1850, was the first official burial ground for the Drayton-Toowoomba district, and the second on the Darling Downs (the Warwick cemetery was surveyed two months earlier). The site was expanded to close to its present extent in the early 1870s. It is a large cemetery with over 45,000 burials, illustrative of the first phase of non-Indigenous settlement on the Downs, and of the consolidation of Toowoomba as an important regional centre from the mid-nineteenth century.
As one of the earliest surviving public burial grounds in Queensland, the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery can be compared with the Nundah Cemetery (established in the 1840s by German missionaries and surveyed as a public cemetery in 1862, QHR 600271); Dunwich Cemetery (earliest identified burials date to 1847, although possibly not surveyed until 1850, QHR 600773); and the Warwick General Cemetery (surveyed in March 1850, earliest identified burial 1853, QHR 602152). It pre-dates a number of other early and historic surviving public cemeteries in Queensland, including those at South Rockhampton (1860, QHR 601131); West End at Townsville (1865, QHR 1475); South Brisbane (1866, QHR 602406), Ipswich (first recorded burial 1868), and Toowong (established 1866, formally opened 1875, QHR 601773).
Early cemeteries are important records of the pattern of non-indigenous settlement in Queensland. Prior to 1856 there was no provision for the civil recording of deaths in New South Wales (of which Queensland was still part), and often no churches in newly settled districts to keep this record. For example, along with a brief newspaper notice, the earliest identified headstone at the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery is the only other public record of the death of Michael Gorry, a young Drayton storekeeper who died on 25 March 1852, aged 28.
Drayton evolved after Thomas Alford opened a store and inn at a place called The Springs on Westbrook Creek in 1843, to service travellers and the newly established pastoral runs of the Darling Downs. Located at the intersection of two tracks leading from the south and west to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps in the Main Range, the site soon attracted other trades and stores. The Alfords named their home Drayton, and in 1845 this became the official name of the settlement. Many considered Drayton would emerge as the premier township on the Downs, and its survey took priority over other village settlements. In 1849 government surveyor JC Burnett prepared a design for the town of Drayton and chose a site three to four miles (4.8-6.5kms) to the north-east for suburban allotments of 27-40 acres (10.90-16.2ha). Located where two swampy creeks converged as the headwaters of Gowrie Creek, this area was known as The Swamp/s or the Drayton Swamp, and later as Toowoomba.
When preparing the detailed survey of Drayton in 1850, Burnett added a cemetery to the north of the village, mid-way between Drayton town and the Drayton Swamp suburban allotments, on slightly elevated land close to the road connecting the two settlements. Prior to this, persons who died at Drayton had been buried near their homes along Westbrook Creek, and behind Dr Hopkin's hospital near the centre of the township. Burnett set aside 8 acres (3.2ha) divided into denominational sections: Roman Catholics were allotted 2 acres (0.8ha) in the north-east quarter; Episcopalians (Church of England) 2 acres in the south-east; 1 acre (0.4ha) each was set aside in the western half for Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and Congregationalists; and the north-west corner was divided into 2 roods (0.2ha) each for Jews and Pagans. During the 1850s each denomination was expected to maintain its own section of the Drayton burial ground, but it became neglected, with cattle and pigs roaming across.
By March 1851 the population of Drayton had reached about 200, and concern was being expressed about the adequacy of the water supply obtained from Westbrook Creek to serve the growing community. From this period the Drayton Swamp, with its greater water supply, became a more attractive proposition for an urban settlement. A bridle track had been formed through the swamp and along the route over the Range that later became the toll road, and in the early 1850s William Horton of Drayton began subdividing land at the Swamp, constructing a bridge and a public house to encourage buyers. In August 1852 Thomas Alford of Drayton opened the first general store at Drayton Swamp, which he called the Toowoomba General Store. In response to public demand, from late 1852 the New South Wales government began the survey of smaller parcels of 1-2 acres and the laying out of streets and town sections. By the time Queensland separated from New South Wales in December 1859, Drayton Swamp had become the town of Toowoomba, with municipal status granted on 19 November 1860. At the time of the 1861 census, it was clear that Toowoomba, with a population of 1183 compared with Drayton's 320, had become the principal settlement.
With Toowoomba becoming more established there was a correspondingly greater use being made of the cemetery, as evidenced by a number of surviving headstones from the early 1860s. By September 1863, Toowoomba Anglicans were contemplating construction of a mortuary chapel and a new fence to their section of the burial ground, as soon as funds could be obtained. In July 1864, the Queensland government issued a deed of grant to Church of England trustees for the 2 acres of the cemetery set aside for Episcopalian use in 1850, although a survey office sketch plan of the cemetery drawn in October the same year makes it clear that Anglican burials were taking place in the north-east quarter of the cemetery, and Roman Catholic burials in the south-east - the reverse of Burnett's 1850 layout.
Following the introduction of The Cemeteries Act of 1865, which provided for the regulation of cemeteries throughout Queensland, seven trustees from Toowoomba (representing the principal religious denominations in the district) were appointed in November 1866 to manage the whole 8 acres of the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery. Two of these trustees - William Henry Groom (first Mayor of Toowoomba) and Samuel George Stephens - remained on the board for almost 40 years and both are buried in the cemetery. The new trustees immediately prepared cemetery by-laws, which were approved by Governor-in-Council in January 1867, and the first recorded burial was made on 16 December 1866. In 1867 the first sexton was appointed, and only he could open a grave in the cemetery.
In 1868 a mortuary chapel was erected by the Anglican community of Toowoomba and Drayton. This was located just north of the Church of England burial ground, technically outside the cemetery reserve at the time. The timber building, which could seat 60 to 70 persons, had been removed from Ballard's Camp on the Main Range Railway, gifted by Samuel Wilcox, agent for railway contractors Peto, Brassey and Betts, after the railway was completed and the camp disbanded. A belfry and bell were erected adjacent to the chapel in 1871. None of these structures has survived.
Toowoomba grew rapidly during the 1860s. By the census of September 1871 its population had reached 3,543, compared with Drayton's 792. Between September 1870 and August 1873 the cemetery reserve was extended to close to its present size, creating a total area of just under 67 acres (27ha) and gaining extensive frontages to the Drayton Road (now Anzac Avenue) and South Street. Through the 1870s cemetery improvements included surveying, clearing and fencing new sections of the cemetery; forming, gravelling and turfing walks and paths; and planting trees and shrubs. No burials were made in the land fronting the Drayton Road. This area contained the sexton's residence and with ornamental trees planted, acquired a park-like appearance. A central entrance road was made through this new eastern section of the cemetery, from the Drayton Road to an earlier north-south access road off the Drayton Road that ran north past the original reserve to South Street. In 1882 a small parcel of land between the south-east corner of the burial ground and the Drayton Road was formerly incorporated into the cemetery reserve, creating a total area of nearly 67.75 acres (27.4ha). In 1905 the L-shaped road through the cemetery off South Street and the Drayton Road was officially closed and in March 1906 this also was incorporated into the cemetery reserve, which now encompassed just over 69.5 acres (28.1ha).
At least three sexton's cottages have been constructed on the reserve, but none survive. The first probably was erected in 1867, when the first sexton was appointed. This was re-built in 1869-1871. A third sexton's lodge was constructed in 1892, designed by the Toowoomba architectural firm of John Marks and Son. It was located in the north-east section of the cemetery reserve, just east of the South Street entrance, with a private drive off Drayton Road.
In March 1875 John Devine was appointed sexton, initiating 86 years of continuous service by three generations of the Devine family as sextons of the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery: John from 1875 to 1898; his son William John from 1898 to 1934; and William's son James Robert from 1934 to 1961. William and James planted most of the trees surviving in the cemetery grounds, including the avenue of trees along the entrance driveway from South Street. About 1930, William planted 14 Norfolk Island pine trees along the drive leading from Anzac Avenue west towards the sexton's residence, each tree representing one member of his family. Following James Devine's retirement the sexton's residence was removed, and in 1965 a lawn cemetery was established on the site.
In the interwar period (c1930) three timber-framed shelter sheds with terracotta-tiled roofs and lattice in-fill panels to the sides, were erected in the cemetery. A larger, earlier shelter shed has been removed from the site.
In the early 1950s a survey of the cemetery anticipated that the existing reserve would be fully occupied within 20 years, and in 1957 just over 31 acres (12.62ha) adjoining the western boundary of the cemetery was granted to the cemetery trustees. However, little of this has been utilised for burials, reflecting the rise in popularity of cremations in the late twentieth century. A private crematorium was opened in Toowoomba in 1966 and a columbarium established in the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery in the early 1990s.
About the mid-1950s part of the ground set aside in 1850 for 'Jews' and 'Pagans' was made into a cemetery for ex-military service personnel. An annual service is still held here on the Sunday before Anzac Day (25 April).
Toowoomba monumental masons have been associated with the design and construction of most of the headstones and other monuments in the cemetery since the 1850s. These include: Walter Bruce from 1871 to 1968 (by 1915 the firm was known as Bruce Brothers); Ernest S Hunt in the1880s and 1890s; Henry Bailey in the 1890s; John H Wagner from 1896 (this firm still operates as JH Wagner and Sons); and Rudolph C Ziegler from c1912 (this business became RC Ziegler and Son in the 1920s and still operates). Other monumental masons who left their mark included: W Colcombe, Swamp, 1854; Whitfield, Toowoomba, mid-1860s; and J Cameron, Toowoomba, 1873.
The cemetery was neglected during the 1960s and by the 1970s the earlier graves were overgrown with grasses, weeds and trees, and many headstones and grave surrounds had been vandalised or allowed to deteriorate. In October 1974 administration of the cemetery passed to the Toowoomba City Council, which cleared the overgrowth and transformed the cemetery into a community asset. In 1987 an additional 12.62ha along the southern boundary of the cemetery was transferred to the Council for cemetery purposes, but has not been used.
By 2008 there were more than 45,000 burials in the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery. In addition to the original sections, designated areas for paupers, stillborn babies and Moslems have been established. All sections of the cemetery remain in use.
Many of Queensland's early and prominent citizens lie buried here, including: pastoralists William Kent of Jondaryan and William Beit of Westbrook; politicians such as Gilbert Elliott (first Speaker of the Queensland Parliament), James Taylor (member of the first Queensland parliament), and William Henry Groom (first mayor of Toowoomba and Queensland's first representative in the Commonwealth parliament); surveyor and explorer Francis Thomas Gregory; Brisbane's first Town Clerk, William Boyce; and notable personalities such as John Moffat of Irvinebank and George Essex Evans, the 'Poet of Federation'. Also buried in the cemetery are Thomas and Elizabeth Alford, who gave the names to both Drayton and Toowoomba.
The cemetery is also the final resting place of Darling Downs station workers who helped establish some of the earliest pastoral empires in Queensland - such as stockman John Hill, speared by Aborigines on Eton Vale Station in 1843, whose remains were transferred to the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery in 1909; of railway navvies who gave their lives constructing the Main Range Railway; of Aboriginal people, who between 1868 and 1911 were recorded simply as 'Aboriginal' plus an English first name, as in 'Aboriginal Billy'; of Chinese persons buried in the 'pagan' section; and of persons executed at Toowoomba Gaol and buried without headstones. The early pattern of immigrant settlement in the Drayton-Toowoomba district is reflected in the numerous Scottish, English, Irish and German names found on the headstones.
","criteria":"The place has strong aesthetic value generated by: the extent, quality of workmanship and harmony of materials of the memorials; the patina of age to the earlier headstones; the formal grid layout of the earlier sections of the cemetery; the impressive avenues of tall trees and other plantings that frame and enclose discrete spaces and focus views both within and outside the cemetery; the picturesque memorial gardens and lawn cemeteries; the modest timber and terracotta-roofed shelter sheds; the ornamental trees along the Anzac Avenue frontage; and the picturesque backdrop of low ranges to the west. The whole creates an atmosphere conducive to repose and reflection that was, and remains, an essential part of the ritual of honouring and remembering the dead.
|As the Toowoomba district's earliest and foremost public cemetery, the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery has been an important focus of public ritual and sentiment since the 1850s.
|In its extensive collection of memorials and monuments dating from the 1850s to the present the place provides a unique historical record that is an important aspect of Queensland's cultural heritage.
|Many of the monuments display a high level of creative achievement and are important for their excellence of design and craftsmanship, and emotive impact. The 1937 Coorey family vault, the 1930s McColdrick family mausoleum, the numerous twin columns distinctive of the work of monumental mason Walter Bruce and later copied by others, and the c1904 tempietto-style Sheedy monument designed by Toowoomba architects Marks and Son and executed by monumental mason JH Wagner, are outstanding examples of funerary art and architecture.
|The Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery, established in 1850, is one of the earliest surviving public cemeteries in the State and is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history. It is illustrative of the first phase of non-Indigenous settlement on the Darling Downs, and of the consolidation of Toowoomba as an important regional centre from the mid-nineteenth century. The cemetery provides important evidence of the social, demographic and cultural history of Toowoomba and district and is the burial place of individuals from all walks of life, including persons of importance in regional and Queensland history.
|The Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a large nineteenth century public cemetery that has evolved over time to reflect changing community attitudes to providing for the dead. It retains its nineteenth century extent and grid pattern of denominational sections, walkways and drives; memorials from the 1850s to the present; substantial tree plantings; and early twentieth century shelter sheds. The progressive layering, development and diversity of styles of memorialisation contained within this extensive cemetery, including the establishment of lawn cemeteries and memorial gardens in the late twentieth century, document changing attitudes to death and fashions in funerary ornamentation since the 1850s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion B | Criterion F | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30699,"place_ref":602719,"name":"Ross River Meatworks Chimney","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Stuart Drive","suburb":"IDALIA","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-08-14","description":"The Ross River Meatworks Chimney stands on the south bank of the Ross River approximately 150 metres downstream from the south abutment of the Ross River Bridge in the suburb of Idalia in south Townsville. In 2009, the chimney stands in the north of a large, vacant residential subdivision, part of the Fairfield Waters development in south Townsville.
The chimney is a brick structure with an outer skin of red facebrick. It comprises a base and a tapering stack. The base is expressed as a plinth, square in plan and approximately 8.6 metres high. The stack, approximately 31 metres high, flares out at the top to take a plain, splayed, concrete crown.
The plinth is distinguished by a plain oversized cornice and the northwest, northeast and southeast faces are relieved by an indented rectangular mid-panel defined by a bevelled cement perimeter band. The plinth corners are tapered to take a decorative concrete moulded roll. The southwest face accommodates the arched opening to the base. This can be covered by a dropping counter-weighted heavy metal door. The northwest face of the plinth has bricks punched out about two-thirds the way up.
A lightning strap is dislodged at the top of the stack but remains fixed to the southeast face of the stack and plinth, terminating at the ground. Metal straps wrap around the stack at regular intervals. A 400mm wide concrete drain runs along the southeast side of the plinth.
Two circular (5.6m diameter) concrete upstands, 300mm thick and 400mm high, stand in line to the northwest.
A public walking/cycling track winds along the south bank of the Ross River and as it passes the chimney it is about 20 metres from the face of the plinth.
","history":"The Ross River Meatworks was established by the Queensland Meat Export and Agency Company during 1891-1892 as the first purpose-built meat freezing works in Queensland. Located on the banks of Ross River in suburban Townsville, the 130 foot (39.6m) high brick chimney remains the principal surviving evidence of an important meatworks in Queensland during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The only Queensland meatworks from this era still in operation is at Lakes Creek, near Rockhampton, established in 1871 for the production of canned beef before shifting to frozen beef for export in the 1880s. Its early brick chimney has not survived.
Although the wool industry was the impetus for early pastoral activity in Queensland, cattle soon proved better suited to the wetter conditions in northern areas. However, early development of a Queensland cattle industry was hindered by the lack of a sufficiently large market for fresh beef. In the 1860s excess stock were disposed of by selling to other graziers or to boiling down works.
Ports to service the new pastoral runs being taken up in northern and far north-western Queensland in the early 1860s were established at Port Denison (Bowen) in 1861 and Cleveland Bay (Townsville) in 1864, with Cleveland Bay declared a Port of Entry in 1865. Entrepreneur and businessman Robert Towns (after whom Townsville is named) and his business partner John Melton Black founded the settlement at Cleveland Bay to supply their pastoral leases in the hinterland.
By the mid-1860s, drought and recession had led to a collapse in the pastoral industry in north Queensland. In order to salvage some profit, squatters turned to the boiling down of sheep and cattle for tallow (for candles and soap). Hoofs and horns were utilised for oil, and hides for leather. In 1864 a number of small-scale boiling down works were established on pastoral properties in the Kennedy and gulf districts, but the boiling down industry became more professional in 1866, when Towns & Co. opened a boiling down plant at Cleveland Bay, and Morehead & Young, partners in the Scottish Australian Pastoral Company, opened a similar operation on the Albert River where the settlement of Burketown had been established in 1865. Neither of these establishments survived for any length of time. At Cleveland Bay, the Queensland Meat Export Company established a meatworks south of Townsville on Alligator Creek in 1879, using some of the equipment from Towns' factory.
Following the discovery of gold at Charters Towers in 1871, a railway from Townsville to the goldfield was constructed between 1879 and 1882. The first trains carried both gold and wool from local graziers back to the port of Townsville. Demand led to the approval of a western extension to Hughenden to service the cattle grazing industry. The Northern Railway opened in 1887 and soon became the most profitable in Queensland as graziers took up land along its route. During the 1870s the increase in population at newly opened Queensland gold fields, particularly on the Palmer River, provided a ready market for beef. By the end of the decade there was an oversupply. Following the drought of 1884-1886 cattle were driven overland to southern markets, but droving costs led to a huge reduction in profitability. There was a need to establish a processing industry in north Queensland to supply meat for an export market. Frozen meat proved to be the solution.
Australian experimentation with meat-freezing works and the fitting out of refrigerated ships to carry frozen meat to Britain was initiated in Sydney and Melbourne, with mixed results. Refinements in processing and shipping led to a successful shipment in 1880. The Central Queensland Meat Export Company's works at Lakes Creek installed freezing equipment in 1883, but was burnt down shortly after. A meat freezing works was established at Poole Island off Bowen in 1884, but its first shipment was lost in a tornado. In 1889 the North Queensland Meat Export Company re-started the Alligator Creek works, initially for boiling down and preserving, and later utilising the freezing equipment from Poole Island.
In November 1890 the Queensland Meat and Export Agency Company formed with the intention of establishing purpose-built meat freezing works at Townsville and in Brisbane. By February 1891, following the subscription of shares, it was decided to proceed with construction of a meatworks at Townsville. Plans were made for a second works at Eagle Farm in Brisbane mid year. A contract was entered into with the British India Steam Navigation Company to transport the meat to Britain.
Six acres (2.43ha) of land on the banks of Ross River were acquired from the Idalia Land Company in August 1891 and twenty-five acres (10.12ha) of crown land were allocated nearby for drafting yards. A short branch line to the railway linked the works with the wharves. Construction began in September 1891 under the supervision of contractor William McCallum Park. By late September the site was laid out, concrete foundations were in place and construction of workers cottages had commenced. A light tramway was built to haul sand for the concrete from the riverbank. The works was to be steam-driven, necessitating the construction of a huge brick chimney. The foundations for the chimney consisted of a square of concrete built 5 feet (1.5m) deep to support the 130 foot (39.6m) tall brick superstructure. The bricks were baked on site.
The Ross River Meatworks Chimney was one of at least 30 nineteenth century industrial brick chimneys in the Townsville region (extending north to Ingham, south to the Burdekin River and west to Cloncurry), marking the sites of steam-driven pyrites works, batteries, mines, sawmills, brick works, water works, soap works, breweries, meat works and sugar mills. Most were the work of highly skilled bricklayers. The chimneys took a variety of forms, including square, round and hexagonal. Some round or hexagonal chimneys were constructed on square plinths, as at the Ross River Meatworks. They were markers of the steam age in nineteenth century Queensland. The Ross River Meatworks Chimney is the only surviving nineteenth century brick chimney in the immediate Townsville area. Regionally, the 1889 brick chimney at the former Burdekin River Pumping Station at Charters Towers (QHR 601081) also survives.
Despite on-going industrial action by carpenters and bricklayers, the Ross River Meatworks began operation on 28 June 1892. The plant was coal powered, with six Babcock and Wilcox 96-horsepower safety tubular boilers supplying steam for the various engines. Cattle and sheep were processed separately. An overhead tramway transported the carcases to a cooling room, then into the freezing, canning or preserving rooms. In the freezing room, the two compound engines could produce 400 horsepower each and each machine could circulate 170,000 cubic feet of air per hour. The freezing and cold storage building was about 100 feet square and two storeys high. The refrigeration machinery was a combination of Bell-Coleman and Haslam machines, which circulated cold air and removed moisture and impure air at the same time. Electric lighting powered by a Crompton dynamo was installed by Barton and White electrical engineers - 31 years prior to the provision of public electric lighting in Townsville. In August 1892 the Ross River meatworks was inspected by New Zealand industry experts, who described the works as 'superior to any in the colony - actively engaged in the meat export trade'.
The company had a difficult time in its first year of production and initial shipments of meat from Townsville were unsuccessful. Transport from Ross River was problematic with the meat taken by rail to the Townsville wharf, then loaded aboard a lighter, and reloaded for shipping to London. It is unclear which part of the process failed, but the first shipment arrived in London in early December 1892 in a putrid state. At the same time the directors had taken out further loans because of numerous unforseen expenses in the construction of both meatworks. The next shipment to reach England in mid-January included meat from the company's recently opened Eagle Farm meatworks, but was partially spoilt. The 1893 Brisbane floods silted up the Brisbane River inhibiting coastal shipping and halting production from both meatworks for some time. Another shipment of Townsville meat which arrived in London in May was also found to be tainted. The company overcame its early problems and appointed a new director, William Forrest in January 1893. He soon became Chairman of the Board and is credited with turning the company into a successful enterprise.
The Meat and Dairy Produce Encouragement Act 1893 provided loans for meat and dairy works funded through a tax on sheep and cattle. The Queensland Meat and Export Agency Company applied for funds to duplicate and upgrade both the Townsville and Eagle Farms works. The agents for Linde British Refrigeration, J Wildridge and Sinclair Ltd, were contracted to undertake the extension projects. The £30,000 extension at Ross River doubled the freezing capacity. The four new store rooms could hold 200 tons each and the chilling room could hold 120 bullocks. Other additions included new engine and boiler houses, a fresh water reservoir and pumping station and additional slaughtering yards and pens. By the time the extensions were completed in April 1895, the meatworks was reported to have processed 50,000 head of cattle and 13,000 sheep since opening. An international study of the frozen meat trade, published in 1912, stated that the Townsville works of QME&A was the most up to date freezing works in existence in either hemisphere. It also had the largest capacity of any meatworks in Australasia at this time.
Ongoing upgrades ensured the best and most economic equipment and methodologies were employed. Even during the drought and the problems associated with ticks in the early 1900s, the Ross River Meatworks was producing more meat than any other establishment in Australasia. In 1901 the company purchased the works of the Burketown Meat Export Co. which operated as a canning works. In 1903 it began purchasing significant grazing properties in north Queensland to engage in fattening cattle and breeding. It contracted to supply beef to American forces based in the Philippines in 1898 and established a cold-storage warehouse in Singapore in 1903. Evidence given by the Eagle Farm manager Charles Ross to the Royal Commission into the Meat Industry in October 1912 indicated that Ross River was at that time processing 3000 cattle a week and new cold storage facilities were under construction. By 1915 the company restructured, forming two organisations - the Queensland Meat Export and Agency Co Ltd (QME&A) and Australia Stock Breeders Company Ltd.
During 1918-1919 there was a series of protracted strikes at the Ross River and Alligator Creek meatworks, which began with the workers' rejection of compulsory arbitration in favour of direct bargaining. They staged ongoing wildcat strikes and go-slow campaigns to achieve their aims. At the same time the companies wanted to remove a clause from employment contracts giving preference to union members, which they achieved for a short time, hiring returned servicemen in place of industrial activists. Support was then offered by the Queensland Rail Union and the Waterside Workers Federation and the strikes continued. By July 1919 the ongoing dispute degenerated to the point where riots occurred in Townsville with police firing shots to disperse the crowd of 1000 people who were protesting the imprisonment of strike leaders. This strike is regarded as one of the most ferocious in Australian history. In 1920 the Arbitration Court restored a modified union preference clause into the employment contracts.
By 1921, the beef export trade had collapsed because it was no longer receiving preferential treatment from the British government. Also the Navigation Act of 1921 prevented international ships from being used to carry local goods. The QME&A recorded its biggest loss of £80,000. The Eagle Farm works was mothballed in 1933 in the hope that beef prices would improve. It was demolished in 1938. In 1933, Ross River began exporting chilled beef. The establishment of the Australian Meat Board (AMB) in 1936 regulated the flow of meat to the overseas market and licensed suitable ships to ensure that the best quality meat reached the market. In 1937 the AMB allocated 82.25 per cent of the total Australian export of chilled meat to Queensland abattoirs.
While the Ross River meatworks had been the largest and most up to date during the 1910s, it was surpassed by other establishments in the following 40 years. Lakes Creek and the Brisbane Abattoirs had larger capacities by the 1950s. Ross River works were run down by then and suffered considerable losses in 1951 and 1954, due to prolonged industrial disputes, increasing wages, drought and government controls on exports. In 1955 the Vestey company bought the meatworks and began replacing old dilapidated buildings and introduced new killing and processing mechanised operations, reducing staff. In the late 1950s the works changed from coal-fired to oil-fired boilers with Lightfoot ammonia compressors. The change from coal to oil also negated the need for coal handlers. In 1961 a partnership was formed with the Angliss Group. Export markets changed from the United Kingdom to America during the 1960s and in more recent times to Japan, Korea and South East Asia. The meatworks remained the major employer in Townsville and by 1990 had a record year, processing 93,601 beasts, handling 27 percent of the north Queensland production. This result was achieved despite industrial action during 1990. However, a further downturn occurred as a consequence of the 1991-2 recession.
In 1992 Vestey sold the meatworks to Smorgon Consolidated Industries. During the early 1990s the Australian meat trade began exporting live meat but unions argued that the planned export of 500,000 head of cattle in 1995 was akin to exporting 150,000 jobs. Despite an unusual alliance between the union and animal liberation activists aimed at stopping the live meat trade, they were unsuccessful. Smorgon announced the closure of the Ross River meatworks in February 1995 arguing that the business was no longer profitable because of drought, live cattle exports and the falling Australian dollar, and it was part of a general divestment of company assets at the time. With the exception of the chimney and an office building, all other buildings and structures on the site were demolished in 1997.
In 1999 a scheme was proposed for a housing estate on the site, with the chimney a feature of planned parkland. At that time $58,000 was spent on sandblasting the chimney and stripping and restoring the metal strapping. The developer had planned to include the establishment of a small brewery alongside the chimney in the old office building, but this part of the project did not proceed and the former office building has been demolished.
","criteria":"The Ross River Meatworks Chimney is important surviving evidence of the link between north Queensland pastoralism and the development of frozen and chilled meat as an important export industry for Queensland. The landmark structure is associated with the first purpose-built meat freezing works in Queensland, which operated for over a century from 1892 to 1995, producing frozen and later chilled meat for the export market. In the early 1900s it had the largest capacity of any meatworks in Australasia. Proclaimed by independent observers as 'superior to any in the colony' in 1892, and 'the most up to date freezing works in either hemisphere' in 1912, the Ross River meatworks processed cattle and sheep from across northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and the Kimberley Ranges of Western Australia and exported meat world-wide. The meatworks was a major employer in Townsville, an important Queensland regional centre.
Located on a former railway line less than 5km from a major port, the chimney remains important evidence of how nineteenth century export industries were dependent on Queensland's early network of railways linked to ports and shipping that connected with world markets. It is also surviving evidence of the reliance of early Queensland industry on steam-driven power.
|The 39.6m high structure is prominent in the landscape of the Ross River floodplain as it has been since its construction in 1892. Through its intactness, integrity and magnitude, the chimney remains a landmark along the Flinders Highway (Stuart Drive).
|The Ross River Meatworks Chimney consists of an 8.6m high firebox with a 31m high chimney stack, constructed from bricks made on site and mortar made with sand from the Ross River. It demonstrates a substantial level of intactness and a high degree of integrity. As the only remaining nineteenth century meatworks brick chimney in Queensland and one of few early industrial brick chimneys surviving in the Townsville region, it is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30719,"place_ref":602720,"name":"Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28 Tomewin Street","suburb":"CURRUMBIN","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"The Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife park and tourist attraction located in Currumbin, a beachside suburb of the Gold Coast. The wildlife sanctuary is located along Flat Rock Creek and straddles the Gold Coast Highway which divides the place into East and West halves, connected by a tunnel underneath the highway. The area of the wildlife sanctuary gifted to the National Trust of Australia, Queensland by Alex Griffiths in 1976 is substantial, extending from the southern and eastern slopes of Currumbin Hill at its west to two sites on Tomewin Street at its eastern extent, approximately 300m from Currumbin Beach.
\nCurrumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is set amongst bushland along a bend in Flat Rock Creek. Both the bushland and the creek are an important part of the wildlife sanctuary’s animal habitat and setting.
\nThe eastern half of the wildlife sanctuary consists of two sections, a car park on the north side of Tomewin Street and The Sanctuary section on the south. The Sanctuary section is the principal visitor entry to the place and contains many of the built features related to Alex Griffiths management of the Sanctuary.
\nThe western half of the wildlife sanctuary consists of The Reserve, a large area of sloped bushland that is now the setting for many of the wildlife sanctuary’s more recent displays and attractions. A miniature railway line loops around both the Sanctuary and the Reserve sections of the place.
\nThe place also includes a portion of bushland in the Currumbin Valley, known as Coolamon.
\nFeatures of Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBushland Setting and Flat Rock Creek
\nCurrumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is set amongst protected and revegetated bushland, providing animal habitat and a natural landscape setting for the place. Small areas of vegetation have been cleared and regrown over time as the sanctuary has changed, however the majority of the place has significant tree cover and dense vegetation.
\nFlat Rock Creek is an important part of the habitat and setting of the wildlife sanctuary. The place includes a bend in the creek which enters the sanctuary from the southwest, forming a long lagoon which continues east under the Gold Coast Highway. On the Eastern side of the highway, the creek bends to the south forming a second, larger lagoon. At the southern end, the creek bends to the east, flowing through Alex Griffiths Park to the coast.
\nFeatures of bushland setting and Flat Rock Creek of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of bushland setting and Flat Rock Creek not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Sanctuary
\nThe Sanctuary section of Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is located on the southern side of Tomewin Street. This area is where the sanctuary was established and contains many of the built features related to Alex Griffiths’ establishment and management of the place.
\nOn the northern boundary of the area is a large octagonal entry kiosk (1972), providing the principal visitor entrance to the place from Tomewin Street. East of the kiosk along the boundary are a series of later buildings providing an exit, shops, seating and toilets. The northeastern corner of the site contains an open lawn area and a house with attached shop.
\nImmediately beyond the entrance kiosk is the first wildlife attraction, the bird feeding arena, the same area used for feeding wild birds since 1947. To the Southeast of the arena and entry kiosk are an early aviary, a former Rock Shop, and its annexe.
\nA ticketing gate near the centre of the sanctuary site separates the free attractions from the remainder of the wildlife sanctuary. The southern half of the site contains mostly later attractions and facilities including wallaby enclosures, koala enclosures, Sir Walter Campbell Centre (1990), the Repturnal Den (Former Playground, 1989), Forest Fringe Aviary, train maintenance shed, and toilets. A former bird hospital is located at the southeast corner of the site.
\nFeatures of The Sanctuary of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of The Sanctuary not of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBird Feeding Arena (in use since 1947)
\nThe bird feeding arena is located at the northern part of the sanctuary section, near the Tomewin Street boundary. Located adjacent to the entrance kiosk, the bird feeding area is the first wildlife attraction visitors arrive at on entering the park.
\nWhile most of the fabric of the arena has been replaced over time, the characteristics of this attraction have remained consistent. The arena is rectangular with rounded corners in plan, approximately 25m long and 14m wide. A low fence encloses the arena and metal perches and stands to hold feeding plates are located near the fence line. The arena is a generally flat open lawn area and over time has had several structures added for birds to perch on, currently two metal wheels (early wheels mounted to new stands), and some small trees. The arena is entirely surrounded by an open, flat area for visitors to participate in the bird feeding shows. Garden beds, pavement and signage has been added within the arena. To the north of the arena is recent terraced seating, a shelter structure and sculptures have been added to the area around the arena.
\nFeatures of the bird feeding arena of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the bird feeding arena not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEntry Kiosk (1972)
\nThe Entry Kiosk is located at the Tomewin Street boundary and is the principal visitor entrance to the Sanctuary. The large building is octagonal in plan and three stories including its basement and first floor level within the roof space. Each floor contains rooms arranged around a central octagonal core containing an elevator and stairwell.
\nVisitors enter the kiosk at its northern side, via a ramp from the street through wide glazed doors. Inside the kiosk, visitors arrive at an open plan cafeteria space which wraps around the western side of the octagonal core of the building, opening again on the south to an outdoor deck overlooking the sanctuary. The western half of the ground floor contains function rooms and a bar which open on to another deck on the northeastern side. A large mural painted by Hugh Sawrey for the Sanctuary in 1975 hangs on one wall of the function space. A smaller painting by the same artist hangs on an opposite wall in the function space. At the ground floor, the core of the building contains a kitchen serving the cafeteria and function spaces.
\nThe basement contains storerooms, workshops and offices around its northern side. The southern side is a loading dock access from a sloping driveway on Teemangum Street to the east and another driveway on the western side, allowing vehicle access to the Sanctuary.
\nThe first-floor level can be accessed from the core lift and staircase and a second door and staircase at the front entry of the building. The first floor has been enclosed and partitioned to form offices and meeting rooms with a smaller mezzanine above. The original raked ceiling and exposed roof beams are visible and dormer windows and a roof lantern, both later additions, provide natural light to the offices.
\nWhile the general form and layout of the kiosk remains the same as when constructed, there have been many changes to the building. These changes include the addition of dormer windows and a roof lantern; a shop and exit extension, visitor services extension, decks and a toilet block extension; mezzanine; new partition walls on all levels; addition of ceiling to ground floor level; recent fitouts including floor finishes, flat sheet walls, faux stone and tree finishes.
\nFeatures of the Entry Kiosk of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Entry Kiosk not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAlex Griffiths Aviary
\nThe Alex Griffiths Aviary is a small domed aviary located immediately southeast of the entry kiosk. The aviary can be viewed externally from the entry kiosk’s southern terrace. The structure consists of a metal pipe frame supporting metal wire mesh. The aviary is entered from its southern side, through a double gate system, the outermost gate opening to a small chamber and the second gate opening to the aviary.
\nInternally, the aviary contains a water feature, gardens and perching structures. The water feature consists of a rock waterfall at the northern side which falls into a small stream flowing around a footpath to a small concrete pond at the southern side of the aviary. Garden beds with small ferns and trees surround the water feature. Perching structures made of tree limbs stand in the garden beds.
\nFeatures of the Alex Griffiths Aviary of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Alex Griffiths Aviary not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nformer Rock Shop and Annexe (1964, annexe added 1965)
\nThe former Rock Shop and Annexe are located south of the Entry Kiosk and Alex Griffith Aviary.
\nThe former Rock Shop is a single-storey building, octagonal in plan. The building is of slab on ground construction and its external walls are masonry with a rock facing. The roof is pointed and supported by external columns at the corners. There are two entrances to the former rock shop, one on the northern side through a wide doorway with a roller door, and the second on the southern side which has a later automatic sliding door. Internally the rock shop is a single open space with a column at its centre. The ceiling is raked and lined by flat sheets with clear finished timber cover strips and cornice. The remainder of the interior fit out of the former rock shop is not original.
\nThe annexe is a smaller, rectangular building, immediately south of the former Rock Shop. It is of similar slab on ground construction and masonry walls with rock facings. The annexe’s roof is skillion. The annexe’s original glazed doors and windows have been removed and the openings infilled with timber board lined walls with high, narrow windows. The interior of the building is not original.
\nFeatures of the former Rock Shop and Annexe of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the former Rock Shop and Annexe not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Bird Hospital
\nThe former Bird Hospital is a small building located at the southeast corner of The Sanctuary. The hospital is octagonal in plan form with a gable roof clad in flat fibre cement sheets. The building is timber framed and the walls are clad in fibre cement flat sheets, the external windows have been boarded over. In 2023, the building is no longer in use, and the interior was not inspected.
\nFeatures of the former Bird Hospital of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Reserve
\nThe Reserve section of Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is located on the western side of the Gold Coast Highway. A large portion of land, the Reserve is heavily treed and extends between the southern and eastern slopes of Currumbin Hill and the western banks of a stretch of Flat Rock Creek. Although fenced around its perimeter, the reserve was intended to show animals in their natural habitat, attractions are laid out in a less formal arrangement than those of The Sanctuary section.
\nThe Reserve is entered by visitors on foot or miniature train via the tunnel under the highway. To the north of the tunnel is a gently sloping clearing, which houses larger native species such as Kangaroo and Emus. The terrain slopes more steeply to the north and west forming a gully where a large aviary and enclosures for exotic species of animal are located.
\nTo the south of the tunnel entrance is Flat Rock Creek which features a small beach area used for feeding water birds and eels. Flat terrain along the western bank of the creek holds many of the most recent attractions such as an Aboriginal cultural show, wild Island playground and extinction trail. Near the centre of the Reserve are food kiosks, toilets and an outdoor dining area. The western slopes of the Reserve provide the setting for a treetop high-ropes course, smaller enclosures for native animals, and bird aviaries.
\nAt the southern end of the reserve is another small gully with a chain of ponds, a focal point of the reserve. Flat areas to the south of the ponds hold several recent attractions including a free flight bird show, sheep shearing pavilion, and ‘Conservation HQ’. These flat areas also hold most of the back of house and service buildings including quarantine and recovery enclosures for animals, workshop buildings, and a work yard.
\nUnder Alex Griffiths management, the Reserve section was primarily used as an open range enclosure for animals. Since that time, many attractions and features have been added to the Reserve, however the setting and some of the features of its earlier use remain.
\nFeatures of the Reserve of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Reserve not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMiniature Railway
\nA miniature railway line runs through both The Sanctuary and The Reserve sections of the wildlife sanctuary, forming a large loop line. The alignment of the miniature railway begins in The Sanctuary area, single tracks loop around the southern half of the site, meeting north of Flat Rock Creek where the two tracks merge and continue to the tunnel below the Gold Coast Highway. On the western side of the tunnel, the tracks curve to the south toward the food and drink kiosks at the centre of the reserve, where the tracks split again forming another single-track loop. This loop runs along the western bank of flat rock creek where a siding leads to workshops. The main line loops around the ponds at the southern end of The Reserve, crossing small streams and ponds via metal truss bridges. The loop returns along the foot of Currumbin hill to meet near the food and drink kiosks.
\nWhile the alignment of the railway is generally the same as when gifted by Alex Griffiths, some changes have been made to accommodate more pedestrian traffic and changing exhibits. The loop around the Sanctuary area has been made smaller by moving the northern extent approximately 35m southeast, the location of the station on the sanctuary site has also been moved and new stations have been added to the reserve section.
\nFeatures of the Miniature Railway of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Miniature Railway not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nCoolamon
\nAs observed in 2009, Coolamon comprises four allotments, totalling almost 18ha of land, located in the Currumbin Valley about half way between the headwaters of Currumbin Creek and the ocean into which it drains, where Currumbin Creek Road turns toward the Queensland and New South Wales border about one and a half kilometres from the site to the south. Nicoll Scrub National Park adjoins the southernmost allotment to the south-east. There are two gated access points, one to the north, which follows an easement to the main body of the site, and another, the main entrance adjacent to a picnic ground in the south-west. The latter entrance is signed and comprises a steel-framed gate with chain-wire infill set within two tall steel posts and panels of ribbed metal sheeting, which provides access to a section of bitumen roadway. Elsewhere the site is fenced by chain-wire. Adjacent to this gate to the north-west is a toilet block overgrown by vegetation. Opposite this structure and across the roadway a grassed picnic area stretches toward the south. Beyond this are the remains of a timber bridge. A caravan sits at the southern end of the grassed area.
","history":"The Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was established by beekeeper and floriculturist Alex Griffiths in 1947 as a small-scale tourist venture featuring lorikeet feeding displays in which tourists could participate. By at least 1953 it was known as the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary and by the mid-1950s had become an iconic tourist attraction on the Gold Coast. The place had evolved by the early 1970s to offer visitors a variety of experiences, including: the chance to see numerous bird and animal species and learn about their part in the regional natural environment; take a miniature train ride around the large site; purchase souvenirs; and enjoy a meal. In 1976 Griffiths gifted the Sanctuary to the National Trust of Queensland (the Trust), and the terms of this exchange and its ongoing operation are set out in the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary Act 1976. The place was re-named the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in 1995. It continues to be operated by the Trust as a nature-based tourism enterprise and is recognised as one of the oldest of its kind to remain in operation in the state.
\nThe Sanctuary lands gifted by Alex Griffith to the Trust encompassed four main areas: the original Sanctuary site on the southern side of Tomewin Street and three contiguous properties in Teemangum Street, including a house occupied by Alex Griffiths from 1971 until 1998; a car park and a picnic ground on the northern side of Tomewin Street; 18.728ha of heavily treed land on the western side of the Gold Coast Highway, known as the Western Reserve; and a 17.8ha property that Griffiths had named Coolamon, located on the Currumbin Creek-Tomewin Road in the Currumbin Valley just over nine kilometres to the west of the main venue. The Trust also took over the leasehold of swampy land on either side of Flat Rock Creek formerly leased by Griffiths for sanctuary purposes; and of a tunnel that Griffith had constructed under the Gold Coast Highway, linking the Tomewin Street site and the Western Reserve.
\nThe Currumbin area was taken up as timber leases in the 1860s and 1870s, with some gold fossicking in the creek in the late 1870s. The coastal strip was subdivided into housing allotments in 1886, but was slow to develop. Access to the area at that time was via a coach service that used the beach as a roadway. Bananas were a successful crop from the late nineteenth century and became a key industry in the Currumbin Valley in the twentieth century. In 1903 a rail line between Nerang and Tweed Heads was constructed, and a siding built at Currumbin in 1908 to cater for timber getters and dairy farmers. The Currumbin School opened the following year. During the 1920s and 1930s a rapid rise in private motor vehicle ownership, the construction of a new coastal road (the Pacific Highway) between Brisbane and Southport, and the opening of the Jubilee Bridge over the Nerang River, led to the subdivision and sale of many estates between Southport and the New South Wales border including Currumbin, especially after the final section of the Pacific Highway, between Currumbin and Coolangatta, opened in December 1933.
\nIt is ironic that the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary, a nature-based venture, emerged from the post-World War II development boom that saw the Gold Coast establish its present iconic identity as Queensland's premier tourist destination. In the 1950s a greater capacity to pursue leisure, increasing ownership and usage of private motor vehicles, and a growing preference among holidaymakers for American-style resorts and tourist entertainments, resulted in changed accommodation styles on the Gold Coast and increased patronage of 'tourist attractions' other than the natural attractions of surf beaches and estuary bathing and fishing. With the lifting of war-time building restrictions in 1952, an intense period of building development and property speculation at the South Coast followed, attracting entrepreneurs focussed largely on the tourism potential of the place. The term 'Gold Coast' was coined in response to this promise of prosperity and wealth, and was embraced by locals. The South Coast Town Council officially changed its name to Gold Coast Town Council in 1958, and in 1959 the municipality was declared a city.
\nThe Currumbin Bird Sanctuary evolved from the flower-farming and bee-keeping activities of Alexander Morris Griffiths. Born in New Zealand in 1911, his family moved in 1927 to Norfolk Island, where they grew bananas for the Sydney market. His parents retired to Currumbin in 1941, acquiring two adjoining parcels of land comprising two and a half acres (1.01ha) in Tomewin Street in February 1944. Alex joined them and at their Currumbin property established bee hives, planted gladioli, and ran a small road-side stall selling honey and flowers. However, local lorikeets proved problematic, destroying the marketability of the flowers and eating the honey from the hives. The diversionary solution Griffiths devised to protect his flower crop was to feed the birds honey and bread from a plate. The birds increased in numbers to a point where visitors would come to witness the afternoon feedings. Around 1947 Griffiths erected a small kiosk on Tomewin Street to sell his honey and Devonshire teas. The lorikeet-feeding spectacle continued to gain renown and was included in South Coast tourism promotional material. Griffiths did not charge admission fees to his Sanctuary but left a donation box near the exit. He also became the unofficial wildlife carer of the district, caring for fauna in his home and utilising small structures in the Sanctuary for sick and recuperating birds and animals.
\nSoon after Griffiths established his nascent bird sanctuary, another nature-based tourism venture commenced in nearby Tallebudgera Valley in 1951 with the establishment of David Fleay's Wildlife Park (QHR 601389). Fleay had a similar philosophy to Griffiths arguing that fauna should be kept in conditions as close as possible to the natural environment, and was critical of modern zoos; however Griffiths began as an entrepreneurial amateur while Fleay was a naturalist with scientific training, and before moving to Queensland, when still in Victoria, had been responsible for the first successful captive breeding programs of a number of Australian indigenous animals.
\nDuring the early 1950s Griffiths expanded his bird sanctuary with the acquisition of more land on the southern side of Tomewin Street, and utilised the adjacent public reserves along Flat Rock Creek. When an application was made for a dredging lease in the Scenic Reserve (R.579) along the creek in January 1956, Griffiths wrote a letter to the editor of the Courier-Mail protesting against the proposed sand mining because he had spent years encouraging wild birds to Flat Rock Creek. He received widespread public support and petitions against the sand mining were lodged. The Land Commissioner inspected the creek and noted that it contained a permanent waterhole frequented by wild ducks, pigmy geese and black swans. He also reported that the South Coast Town Council valued the bird sanctuary as an important tourist attraction and endorsed Griffiths' actions in preserving wildlife. A number of conservation organisations, including the Queensland Naturalists Club and the Save the Trees Campaign, also objected to the sand mining, arguing that, in the wake of other recent sand mining operations on the coast that had caused the loss of many native trees, Currumbin Sanctuary provided alternative food and shelter to displaced birds. The dredging application was withdrawn. This early example of a conservation battle waged on the South Coast occurred twelve years prior to Fleay's battle to save Tallebudgera Creek from canal development.
\nThe Sanctuary had gained such a level of renown that in October 1956 the (American) National Geographic sent top-ranking nature photographer and journalist Dr Paul Zahl to document the lorikeet-feeding phenomena. He described a scene of expectant lorikeets and tourists waiting for Alex Griffiths to fill pie tins with a mixture of bread, water and honey, and the delight of tourists when allowed to feed the birds. By this time Griffiths had other indigenous wildlife on the property and was well known as a wildlife carer of sick and injured animals and birds. No bird was kept in captivity if it was able to fly. Zahl reported that the Sanctuary already had a national profile, attracting 2000 visitors on holiday weekends, but the publication of his article gave it an international profile that enhanced its tourism potential and that of the South Coast.
\nThe 1960s was a significant period of expansion for the Sanctuary. In 1963 Griffiths was given a licence to enclose the road between the Sanctuary and the creek, and a lease on the Scenic Reserve on the banks of Flat Rock Creek contiguous with the road. Around this time he installed a neon sign within the road licence area facing onto Flat Rock Creek, which was visible to travellers along the main road. In June 1964, a miniature train was introduced. Built in Brisbane by James Jackson, the train hauled six passenger cars and operated on an eleven inch gauge rail loop for 300 metres around the Tomewin Street site. Other elements of this expansion scheme included the construction of an octagonal-shaped Rock Shop (now known as the Spirit of the Outback shop), for which planning approval was given by the Gold Coast City Council in April 1964; and a butterfly display which is no longer extant. Both projects cost £1500. The Rock Shop showcased Griffiths' passion for rock collecting and included the production of jewellery on site. He claimed it was the first of its type in Australia. The octagonal form of the Rock Shop was replicated in most of the buildings constructed at the Sanctuary during the 1960s and into the 1970s, although the Rock Shop Annex constructed in 1965 did not adhere to this precept. Griffiths formed a number of companies during this time and began acquiring additional lands around his Sanctuary under company title, including parcels in Tomewin Street opposite the Sanctuary for car parking.
\nIn the past, Queensland tourist attractions featuring animals and birds were mostly limited to zoos, such as those established at the Queensport Aquarium (1889-1895); Koombul Park near Cairns (early 1900s), Brisbane Botanic Gardens (early 1900s-1952); Rockhampton Botanic Gardens (established 1905 and extant in 2009, QHR 601819); and Hartley's Creek Crocodile Farm north of Cairns (1934 and still operational in 2009). One of the earliest nature-based tourism ventures was The Jungle near Malanda on the Atherton Tableland in far north Queensland, which showcased indigenous flora and fauna and Aboriginal culture from 1920 until the 1970s. In south-east Queensland, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was established in 1927, in response to the last open season on koalas, which had yielded 500,000 skins.
\nOn the South Coast, Alex Griffiths' serendipitous establishment of the Currumbin Sanctuary in 1947 was the first tourism venture to showcase fauna in an essentially natural setting. Animal attractions at the Gold Coast have tended to concentrate on their entertainment or curiosity value - such as the small zoo and aquarium established at the rebuilt Surfers Paradise Hotel in 1936. The 1950s saw the establishment of Natureland Zoo at Coolangatta and Jack Evans' erroneously named Pet Porpoise Pool at Snapper Rocks, featuring performing dolphins kept in captivity. Evans relocated to Tweed Heads in 1961. Marineland was established on The Spit at Southport in 1966 and Keith Williams' Ski World relocated from Carrara to The Spit in 1970. In 1972 Williams re-named the attraction Sea World, introduced dolphins and Californian sea lions, and built a marine stadium, chairlift and other attractions. He purchased Marineland in 1976 and transferred marine life displays to Sea World. He also purchased Jack Evan's Porpoise Pool business at this time. Marineland then became Bird Life Park. The only venture similar to the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary on the Gold Coast was David Fleay's Fauna Reserve at West Burleigh, which had a greater focus on scientific research.
\nIn April 1968, Griffiths announced that in the next two years he planned to develop the Sanctuary into a substantial wildlife attraction utilising 18.728 hectares of land on the western side of the highway, to which he acquired title in October 1968. The site was part of a former dairy and banana farm, and retained a number of artificial ponds or dams at the southern end, patches of subtropical rainforest in the north-western corner, and some transitional forest. Griffiths' plans for the property included a two mile extension of the miniature railway, and a large aviary encompassing mature trees for birds unable to survive in the wild. The chain of lagoons and ponds along a secondary watercourse to Flat Rock Creek would provide a habitat for water fowl. He also planned a new three-storeyed Kiosk on the Tomewin Street site and employed architect Stephen Trotter of the firm Fulton Collin Boys Gilmour Trotter & Partners to prepare a design. He was also negotiating with the Main Roads Department to build a tunnel under the planned new four lane highway to link the two properties. In the late 1960s the Gold Coast City Council demonstrated its support for Griffiths' work by constructing an illuminated fountain in Flat Rock Creek adjacent to the Sanctuary, visible at night to passers by on the highway. It is understood that this structure is no longer extant.
\nThe new Kiosk opened in March 1972, at a cost of about $120,000. It was a three-storey building made around a concrete frame with some stone wall facings, brick infill and large sliding doors, in an octagonal plan that reflected the approach taken to earlier structures on the site. The architect recalls that this plan geometry was intended to reference the individual chambers of a beehive (although these are hexagonal). With a central lift and stairs, the building had a basement housing service facilities; a main kiosk level that opened to both the street and to the lorikeet-feeding arena; and a mezzanine level used as a VIP lounge. The concrete tiled hipped roof had exposed timber framing on the interior and a large skylight at its apex.
\nIn 1972 Hugh Sawrey (1919-1999), a Queensland-born artist who in the 1970s and 1980s developed a national reputation for his paintings depicting Australian outback life, was commissioned to paint a large mural in the main level of the Kiosk. By 1972 Sawrey kept a successful horse stud at Coomera on the Gold Coast, which he moved that year to Boonah and to Victoria in 1978. His was the inspiration behind of the establishment of the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre at Longreach, which opened in 1988, and he was a strong supporter of Alex Griffiths' work at Currumbin.
\nGriffiths' parents' house and a neighbouring property, the former Currumbin Tea Gardens, were demolished for the construction of the new Kiosk. Griffiths then moved to another property that he owned in adjacent Teemangum Street - a small, early 1950s fibro cottage with an attached shop.
\nDuring the early 1970s negotiations continued on the construction of a tunnel under the Gold Coast Highway linking the existing Sanctuary to the new Western Reserve. This was built in conjunction with the construction of a four lane highway and new Currumbin Creek Bridge, which opened in November 1974. Leases on the reserves on either side of Flat Rock Creek were secured and eventually a new Reserve for Parks and Recreation (R.579) was gazetted in December 1977. The road reserve between the Sanctuary and the Flat Rock Creek leased land was closed in 1993, formally enlarging the Sanctuary.
\nBetween 1969 and 1973, Griffiths also acquired 17.8 hectares in the Currumbin Valley that he named Coolamon, an aboriginal word for carry basket, and also the name of the tree which is the floral emblem of the neighbouring Tweed Shire. Coolamon was used as a release area for rehabilitated fauna. It was also considered a possible venue for further educational purposes as it retained remnants of indigenous vegetation.
\nBy the early 1970s facilities on the formally laid out site on Tomewin Street included: the original kiosk and fernery, the lorikeet-feeding arena, the Rock Shop and its annex, the new Kiosk, the miniature railway and its butterfly-roofed station shelter, a number of aviaries (including a Rainforest Aviary), a bakery, a mini-cars course, an aquarium, a collector's corner, and a children's playground called Fairyland. This area was complemented by the more informally laid out Western Reserve which housed an array of indigenous fauna, some free ranging. One loop of the miniature railway existed around the southern part of the Western Reserve, travelling along Flat Rock Creek and crossing a chain of lagoons in order to showcase the water birds that frequented the site. There was a small siding (no longer extant) near the current Koala Junction Station. Visitation in 1973 was estimated at 600,000 per annum.
\nAround this time Griffiths sought to find an organisation to take on the management of the Sanctuary, stating: \"I wanted to make sure that on my death the Sanctuary would continue its work as a haven for wildlife... As you can see, I had to ensure that these creatures always had a safe place to come, even after I am gone.\" He began negotiations with the National Trust of Queensland with a view to gifting the Sanctuary to them. This necessitated the drafting of legislation to allow the Trust to take over the property, which was assented to on 3 November 1976. The Currumbin Bird Sanctuary Act 1976 made provision for the Trust to wind up the companies set up by Griffiths to manage various aspects of the Sanctuary. These were dissolved early in 1977 so that the Sanctuary could operate as a commercial undertaking in its own right. The gifted properties were formally transferred to the Trust between 9 and 15 March 1978. As part of the new management structure, a Board of Advice was established to which Alex Griffiths was appointed Chairman for life. He stepped aside in favour of retired Governor of Queensland Sir Colin Hannah, who was then succeeded by Sir Sholto Douglas. In 1980 the Trust produced a comprehensive development plan with ambitious ideas for the redevelopment of the park, aimed at removing all unserviceable or outdated structures, particularly old aviaries, and adapting existing serviceable buildings. In late 1980 the Trust discontinued the Board of Advice, effectively negating Alex Griffith's role as an advisor to the Sanctuary.
\nBoth the Trust's need to operate the Sanctuary as a commercial venture and Alex Griffith's desire to keep it as a fauna and flora reserve were embodied within the 1976 Act, but Griffiths became increasingly estranged from the Trust and its management of the Sanctuary. There were philosophical differences between his layman's perception of conservation, and the scientific approach which opposed artificial feeding of wildlife and the maintenance of exotic species. Griffiths had always kept exotic species at the Sanctuary and continued to house peacocks at Coolamon, where he moved to live in a caravan from around Christmas 1982. During the 1980s he continued to invest in this property, installing three landscaped dams, a concrete weir and spillways, and a hardwood vehicular bridge.
\nThe Trust pursued an active program of site development through the 1980s with the construction of a children's playground (1985-1986), refurbishment of the Rainforest Aviary as the Rainforest Pool Aviary (1987), and construction of a Sub-Tropical Aviary (1988). In the 1990s a number of new facilities were constructed, including the Sir Walter Campbell Environmental Education centre, a new koala exhibit, the Koala Junction Kiosk, a freshwater crocodile display, a Tasmanian Devil enclosure, four new cockatoo aviaries, and Flora Gully (which included rare and endangered species of plants). None of these elements is considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register. At this period the Trust also made major renovations to the main administration building, extended the Kiosk to incorporate a shop and the nearby Honey House, and renovated two aviaries.
\nIn 1995 the Trust adopted a long term goal for the place: Currumbin Sanctuary was to be recognised nationally and internationally as a pre-eminent institution in the preservation and presentation of Australian indigenous fauna and flora, and in sustaining and promoting heritage-related values and ideas. The name was changed to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary to reflect this objective. 1996 visitation statistics showed 82,000 local, 96,000 interstate and 340,000 international visitors.
\nAlex Griffiths died on 29 July 1998. He had received numerous awards during his life: he became a Member in the Order of Australia in 1976; was awarded the Order of the White Cross for protection of wildlife in 1977; along with fellow Gold Coast environmentalist David Fleay was given 'Freedom of the City' of the Gold Coast by Mayor Lex Bell in 1989; and received an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University in 1995. In 1999 Gold Coast City Council named a nearby open space in Teemangum Street, Alex Griffiths Park.
\nThe significance of the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary within its local context was recognised in the 1997 Gold Coast Urban Heritage and Character Study which stated: \"The Currumbin Area is one of a particular character... Generally the area contains more natural vegetation that other areas of the coast due in part to the difficulty of building on the steep hillsides and in part to the presence of the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary - a long standing icon and landmark of the Gold Coast.\" Its significance in Queensland has been recognised in 2009 through its inclusion in the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland's \"150 must do's\" as well as being voted one of the top 15 iconic Queensland locations as part of the State's sesquicentenary celebrations. The Sanctuary continues to draw tourists from around Australia and internationally, visitation statistics for 2021-2022 indicate 253,083 domestic and 8,088 international visitors during a period when the COVID-19 pandemic impacted international and state borders [1]. International visitors accounted for 57% of visitors to the sanctuary in the year before the pandemic [2].
\nIn 2013, ownership of Coolamon was transferred to the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (in 2024 the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation). Prior to the transfer of ownership, Coolamon had provided picnic facilities for visitors but in later years was only used as a release area for birds and other native animals treated at the Sanctuary's hospital (the latter is not located within the heritage boundary).
\nOf the facilities existing at the time of Alex Griffiths' gift to the Trust in 1976, the Entry Kiosk, former Rock Shop and its annexe, miniature railway (particularly its original circuit on the Tomewin Street site and its southern most circuit on the Western Reserve), the refurbished Alex Griffiths Aviary, Bird-feeding arena, and former bird hospital remain. All of the properties retain significant remnant native vegetation, which Griffiths retained as part of the concept of a flora reserve, and as a sheltering and breeding place for fauna.
","criteria":"As an iconic Queensland tourist destination, Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary has had a strong association as an attractive nature-based tourism experience for the large community of Queenslanders who have visited the site since 1947, when the afternoon lorikeet-feeding spectacle was established by Alex Griffiths. The strength and endurance of this association are powerfully demonstrated by its featuring in tourism advertising since 1953 or earlier; by the widespread community support for the Sanctuary demonstrated in 1956 when hundreds of people signed a petition objecting to proposed sandmining adjacent to it; by inclusion in the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland's "150 must do's" in Queensland in 2009; and being voted by the community as one of the top 15 iconic Queensland locations during the 2009 State sesquicentenary celebrations.
|Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary has a special association with the life work of Alex Griffiths who established the Sanctuary in 1947 and remained involved in its ongoing management into the early 1980s, after gifting the Sanctuary to the National Trust of Queensland (the Trust) in 1976. Important surviving elements of Griffiths' pre-1976 tourism venture include: the Kiosk; the Spirit of the Outback Store (former Rock Shop) and its annex; an aviary; an early bird hospital; the site of the lorikeet-feeding arena; the concept of the miniature railway circuit and much of the original railway on both the Tomewin Street site and the Western Reserve; the tunnel beneath the Gold Coast Highway; the informally laid out Western Reserve; the bird habitat along Flat Rock Creek; and the bird-release property known as Coolamon.
|The Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, established by Alex Griffiths in 1947 as the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary, is important in demonstrating the evolution of nature-based tourism in Queensland. It is an early surviving attraction at the Gold Coast, Queensland's premiere tourism destination, and one of the earliest nature-based tourist facilities established in Queensland, evolving from a site of local interest and the public spectacle of lorikeet-feeding to an internationally-recognised nature-based tourism attraction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion H | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30727,"place_ref":645604,"name":"Kuridala Township, Hampden Smelter and Mining Complex","alternate_name":"Friezeland Township | Kuridala Smelter | Hampden Township | 700004","street_address":"Located about 65km south of Cloncurry. Access by the Cloncurry-Dajarra Road","suburb":"KURIDALA","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-12","description":"Town area
The township site, with surviving foundations and archaeological evidence of commercial and residential buildings and activities, covers an area of approximately 1.5km (north-south) by 1.2km (east-west). The surveyed town site runs roughly parallel with, and on the eastern side of, the Hampden line of reef. Evidence of commercial buildings is present in the south-west corner of the town site between a stock bore east of the Hampden Consol chimney and an early town well. Foundations and concrete surfaces remain for the bakery, hotel/store, and butcher's shop and other unidentified premises (RCS 1989:7-8; JLA and Pearce 1996:563). The skating rink, police station, mine manager's house and hospital have also been identified archaeologically (RCS 1989:7-8). Residential sites generally appear as cleared earth surfaces with ironstone or white quartz edging. The hospital site is located on a small hill to the east and contains a large iron water tank base and cast iron oven (JLA and Pearce 1996:563). A wide range of domestic artefacts are in evidence across the town area. These include food containers such as glass bottles, ceramic tableware, and metal tins for products from kerosene and matches to sardines and tobacco (RCS 1989:appendix 1).
Cemetery
The cemetery is situated towards the southern end of the site, west of the Hampden line of reef. The cemetery is clearly marked and was re-fenced in 1988-89. There are two gazetted cemetery reserves adjacent to the township (Lots 3SW23 and 5SW25). The actual cemetery is located 400m east of Lot 5SW25, and is not located within the boundaries of either of the gazetted cemetery areas. There are over 360 graves which can be identified in the cemetery consisting of 18 rows with 20 graves per row. Many graves have headstones with 40 being marked and dating from 1909 to 1920. Most headstones are by Melrose and Fenwick, Townsville. Some graves have railings but lack identification of the person buried. Many grave boundaries are marked by early 20th Century cast iron beds with full or half testers. Smaller framed beds denote children's' or infants' graves. Several grave crosses have been fashioned from kerosene tins. Several graves were noted in 1989 as having dilapidated wooden surrounds. Other graves are visible only from soil disturbance, while it is possible there are still others which are not so clearly visible (RCS 1989:8; Grimwade 1995:19; JLA and Pearce 1996:563).
Railway Station and Railway Line
The railway station site is immediately north of the cemetery at the junction of the smelter spur line. The station office is identified by a cement rendered surface with other foundations and tank bases within a 30m radius. Timber sleepers are still in place along sections of the railway formation (JLA and Pearce 1996:563). Embankments and cuttings still identify the route of the Cloncurry-Kuridala railway line and there is a wide range of archaeological material associated with the station and the line still present (Grimwade 1995:19).
Other settlement and industrial sites
A wide range of other settlement sites outside the confines of the planned township occur across the landscape. There is an apparent randomness to the sites however it is likely that there was far more method in site selection than is presently apparent. Examples of these sites include deposits of bottle glass, ceramic vessel fragments, metal artefacts, bricks and other domestic material.
Smelter
The remains of the smelter-works includes a blast furnace, concrete engine mounts and an iron chimney. A large, well-formed slag dump extends northward from the smelter (RCS 1989:6; JLA and Pearce 1996:559). Adjacent to the furnace is a second iron chimney, powerhouse foundations and roasting furnace (JLA and Pearce 1996:559). The steel plate chimneys and parts of the smelter are all heavily rusted and the foundations are showing signs of heavy cracking (RCS 1989:5-6).
Mine areas
Foundations and remnants of four early mines occur along the north-south line of the Hampden reef. Northern-most is the Hampden No. 2 containing a multi-tube boiler, beam pump and waster material (Grimwade 1995:23; JLA and Pearce 1996:559). Logs remain at the former sawmill site south of Hampden No. 2. Further south and about 200m east of the smelter is the Hampden No.1 mine and plant foundations at the base of a high tailings dump. This mine contains the largest group of foundations including crusher and winch mounts. A beam pump arm is located at the collar of the main shaft (JLA and Pearce 1996:559). Further south, at the Hampden No. 3 shaft, remains include a headframe, winder house, waste heaps and boiler on a brick mounting. The bricks are manufactured from slag demonstrating an innovative and rare use of recycled slag (Grimwade 1995:234; JLA and Pearce 1996:559). The Hampden Consol mine to the south retains an iron chimney on a rendered brick base which is inscribed AD 1913. Evidence at the site includes engine house remains, foundations and waste heaps (Grimwade 1995:24; JLA and Pearce 1996:559). Other shafts and underground operations are likely to remain where there is the existence of shafts and levels. These remnants are likely to provide useful information on tunnelling techniques, the use of pit props, and design of ore hauling mechanisms (Grimwade 1995:25).
","history":"Copper was discovered at Kuridala in 1884 and the Hampden mine commenced during the 1890s. A Melbourne syndicate took over operations in 1897 and with increasing development of the mine in 1905-06 the Hampden Cloncurry Limited company was formed. The township was surveyed as Hampden in 1910 (later called Friezland, and finally Kuridala in 1916). The Hampden Smelter operated from 1911 to 1920 with World War I being a particularly prosperous time for the company. After the war the operations and the township declined and the Hampden Cloncurry company ceased to exist in 1928. Tribute mining and further exploration and testing of the ore body has continued from 1932 through to the present day.
\nThe Kuridala Township and Hampden Smelter are located approximately 65km south of Cloncurry and 345m above sea level, on an open plain against a background of rugged but picturesque hills.
\nThe Cloncurry copper fields were discovered by Ernest Henry in 1867 but lack of capital and transport combined with low base metal prices precluded any major development. However, rising prices, new discoveries in the region and the promise of a railway combined with an inflow of British capital stimulated development. Additionally, Melbourne based promoters eager to develop another base metal bonanza like Broken Hill led to a resurgence of interest, especially in the Hampden mines (Kennedy 1980:221-3).
\nThe copper deposits at Kuridala (initially named Hampden) were discovered by William McPhail and Robert Johnson on their pastoral lease, Eureka, in January 1884. The Hampden mine was held by Fred Gibson in the 1890s and acquired in 1897 by a Melbourne syndicate comprising the 'Broken Hillionaires' - William Orr, William Knox and Herman Schlapp. They floated the Hampden Copper Mines N. L. with a capital of £100,000 in £100 shares of which 200 were fully paid up (Kennedy 1980:223). With this capital they commenced a prospecting and stockpiling program sending specimens to Dapto and Wallaroo for testing. Government Geologist, W.E. Cameron's report on the district in 1900 discouraged investors as he reported that few of the lodes, other than the Hampden Company's main lode at Kuridala, were worth working (Kerr 1993).
\nA world price rise in copper in 1905 combined with a government decision in 1906 to extend the Townsville railway from Richmond to Cloncurry, stimulated further development. The Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited was registered in Victoria in March 1906 to acquire the old company's mines. However, the company only had a working capital of £35,000 after distributing vendor's shares and buying the Duchess mines. During this period there were over 20 companies investing similarly on the Cloncurry field (Kerr 1993).
\nThe township was surveyed by the Mines Department around 1910 and was first known as Hampden after the mines discovered in the 1880s. By 1912 it was called Friezland, however was officially renamed Kuridala in October 1916 to minimise confusion with another settlement in Queensland. The reason for this change was considered to be linked to German names being unpopular at the outbreak of World War I (Hooper 1993:251).
\nHampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited and its competitor, Mount Elliott, formed a special company in 1908 to finance and construct the railway extension from Cloncurry through Malbon, to Kuridala and Mount Elliott (Kerr 1993). The company reconstructed in July 1909 by increasing its capitalisation, and concluding arrangements for a debenture issue to be secured against its proposed smelters (Kennedy 1980:229). Its smelters were not fired until March 1911 and over the next three years 85,266 tons of ore were treated with an initial dividend of £140,000 being declared in 1913 (Kennedy 1980:230). In one month in 1915 the Hampden Smelter produced 813 tons of copper, an Australian record at that time.
\nConcern over the dwindling reserves of high grade ore led to William Corbould, the general manager of Mount Elliott mines, negotiating an amalgamation with Hampden Cloncurry to halt the fierce rivalry. But the latter was uninterested having consolidated its prospects in 1911 by acquiring many promising mines in the region, and enlarging its smelters and erecting new converters (Kennedy 1980:230). In 1913, following a fire in the Hampden Consol's mine, Corbould convinced his London directors to reopen negotiations for a joint venture in the northern section of the field which still awaited a railway. Although Corbould and Huntley, the Hampden Cloncurry general manager, inspected many properties, the proposal lapsed (Kennedy 1980:233).
\nThe railway reached the township by 1910. A sanitary system was installed in 1911, after a four month typhoid epidemic, and a hospital erected by 1913, run by Dr. Old (Hooper 1993:251). It was described as the best and most modern hospital in the northwest. At its height the town supported six hotels, five stores, four billiard saloons, three dance halls and a cinema, two ice works and one aerated waters factory, and Chinese gardens along the creek (Blainey 1970:50). There were also drapers, fruiterer, butcher, baker, timber merchant, garage, four churches, police station, court house, post office, banks and a school with up to 280 pupils. A cyclone in December 1918 damaged the town and wrecked part of the powerhouse and smelter (Blainey 1970; Hooper 1993:251).
\nA comprehensive description of the plant and operations of the Kuridala Hampden mines and smelters was given by the Cloncurry mining warden in the Queensland Government Mining Journal of 14 September 1912 (QGMJ 1912:470-1). Ore from other company-owned mines (Duchess, Happy Salmon, MacGregor and Trekelano) was railed in via a 1.2km branch line to the reduction plant bins, while the heavy pyrites ore from the Hampden mines was separated at the main shaft into coarse and fine products and conveyed to separate 1,500 ton capacity bins over a standard gauge railway to the plant.
\nA central power plant was installed with three separate Dowson pressure gas plants powered by three tandem type Kynoch gas engines of 320hp and two duplex type Hornsby gas engines of 200hp. Two Swedish General Electric Company generators of 1,250kw and 56kw running at 460 volts, supplied electricity to the machines in the works, fitting shops and mine pumps. Electric light for the mine and works was supplied by a British Thompson-Houston generator of 42kw, running at 420 volts. The fuel used in the gas producers was bituminous coal, coke or charcoal, made locally in the retorts (QGMJ 1912:470-1).
\nThe reduction plant consisted of two water-jacket furnaces, 2.1m by 1m and 4.2m by 1m, with dust chambers and a 52m high steel stack. There were two electrically driven converter vessels, each 3.2m by 2.3m. The molten product ran into a 3.7m diameter forehearth, while the slag was drawn off into double ton slag pots, run to the dump over 3 foot gauge, 42lb steel rail tracks. The copper was delivered from the forehearth to the converters. A 1.06m gauge track ran under the converters and carried the copper mould cars to the cleaning and shipping shed, at the end of which was the siding for railing out the cakes of blister copper (QGMJ 1912:470-1).
\nThe war conferred four years of prosperity on the Cloncurry district despite marketing, transport and labour difficulties. The Hampden Cloncurry Company declared liberal dividends during 1915-18: £40,000, £140,000, £52,500 and £35,000 making a total disbursement since commencing operations of £437,500. Its smelters treated over a quarter of a million tons of ore in this period, averaging over 70,000 tons annually. The company built light railways to its mines (e.g. Wee MacGregor and Trekelano) to ensure regular ore supplies and to reduce transport costs (Kennedy 1980:239-41). In order to improve its ore treatment, Hampden Cloncurry installed a concentration plant in 1917 (Kennedy 1980:249). In 1918 an Edwards furnace was erected to pre-roast fine sulphide concentrates from the mill before smelting (QGMJ 1918:106).
\nThe dropping of the copper price control by the British government in 1918 forced the company into difficulties. Smelting was postponed until September 1919 and the company lost heavily during the next season and had to rely on ores from the Trekelano mine. Its smelter treated 69,598 tons of ore in 1920, but the company was forced to halt all operations after the Commonwealth Bank withdrew funds on copper awaiting export (Kennedy 1980:239-41).
\nCompanies and mines turned to the Theodore Labor Government for assistance but they were unsympathetic to the companies, even though they alone had the capacity to revive the Cloncurry field (Kennedy 1980:242). More negotiations for amalgamation occurred in 1925 but failed, and in 1926 Hampden Cloncurry offered its assets for sale by tender and Mount Elliott acquired them all except for the Trekelano mine. The company was de-listed in 1928 (Kennedy 1980:243-4).
\nThe rise and decline of the township reflected the company's fortunes. In 1913 there were 1,500 people increasing to 2,000 by 1920, but by 1924 this had declined to 800. With the rise of Mount Isa, Kaiser's bakehouse, the hospital, courthouse, one ice works and picture theatre, moved there in 1923 followed by Boyds' Hampden Hotel (renamed the Argent) in 1924 (Hooper 1993:251; Blainey 1970:150-1). Other buildings including the police residence and Clerk of Petty Sessions house were moved to Cloncurry.
\nIn its nine years of smelting Hampden Cloncurry had been one of Australia's largest mining companies producing 50,800 tons of copper (compared with Mount Elliott's 27,000), 21,000 ounces of gold and 381,000 ounces of silver. A more permanent achievement was its part in creating the metal fabricating company, Metal Manufacturers Limited, of which it was one of the four founders in 1916. Much of the money which built their Port Kembla works into one of the country's largest manufacturers came from the now derelict smelters in north-west Queensland (Blainey 1970:54).
\nIn 1942 Mount Isa Mines bought the Kuridala Smelters for £800 and used parts to construct a copper furnace which commenced operating in April 1943 in response to wartime demands (Blainey 1970:187-8). The Tunny family continued to live at Kuridala as tributers on the Hampden and Consol mines from 1932 until 1969 and worked the mines down to 15.25m (Fitton 1989:9). A post office operated until 1975 and the last inhabitant, Lizzy Belch, moved into Cloncurry about 1982 (Hooper 1993:251).
\nFurther exploration and testing of the Kuridala ore body has occurred from 1948 up until the present with activities being undertaking by Mount Isa Mines, Broken Hill South, Enterprise Exploration, Marshall and James Boyd, Australian Selection, Kennecott Exploration, Carpentaria Exploration, Metana Minerals, A.M. Metcalfe, Dampier Mining Co Ltd, Newmont Pty Ltd, Australian Anglo American, Era South Pacific Pty Ltd, CRA Exploration Pty Ltd, BHP Minerals Ltd, Metana Minerals and Matrix Metals Ltd (RCS 1989:app 3).
\n\n
References
\nBlainey, G. 1970 Mines in the Spinifex: The story of Mount Isa Mines. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
\nFitton, A. 1989 Chronology of Events in the Kuridala Area, 1867-1988, Appendix 3, in Resource Consulting Services Pty Ltd (ed.), Environmental Impact Study, Archaeology, MLA9357 Cloncurry. Unpublished report to Metana Minerals N.L., Cloncurry.
\nGrimwade, G. 1995 Kuridala: Heritage Assessment. Unpublished report to Majestic Resources N.L., Brookfield.
\nHooper, C. 1993 Angor to Zillmanton: Stories of North Queensland's deserted towns. Mundingburra: Colin Hooper.
\nJane Lennon and Associates and Howard Pearce 1996 Mining Heritage Places Study, Northern and Western Queensland: Identification, assessment and documentation of cultural heritage significance; Volume 4: Mount Isa District. Unpublished report to Department of Environment, Brisbane.
\nKennedy, K.H. 1980 The Cloncurry Copper Companies, in K.H. Kennedy (ed), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, Vol 1, pp.221-250. Townsville: James Cook University.
\nKerr, R. 1993 Queensland Historical Mining Sites Study, Vol 4. Unpublished report to the Department of Environment and Heritage, Brisbane.
\nQueensland Government Mining Journal
\n15 May 1911, pp.214-215
\n14 September 1912, pp.434-5, pp.470-1
\n14 March 1918, p.106
\nResource Consulting Services Pty Ltd 1989 Environmental Impact Study, Archaeology, MLA9357 Cloncurry. Unpublished report to Metana Minerals N.L., Cloncurry.
\n","criteria":"
The Kuridala Township, Hampden Smelter and Mining Complex has the potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history including a better understanding of copper mining practices and the pattern of settlement in North Queensland. The Kuridala complex was one of the first of a cluster of significant copper mining interests in the rich mineral field near Cloncurry.
\nKuridala Township, Hampden Smelter and Mining Complex features extensive archaeological evidence relating to a wide range of mining activities. The early smelter works are the most complete works of this type in North Queensland. The Hampden Smelter is equipped with a rare, early water-jacket blast furnace, which is now unique as the only surviving example of its type in Queensland. A large, intact and well-formed slag dump at the site is second only in size to the dump at Chillagoe Smelters (QHR 600675). Archaeological examination of the smelter works will provide an understanding of the technology and practices in early copper processing in Queensland.
\nArchaeological investigations of the township area of Kuridala will provide answers to a range of questions relating to the social dynamics of the community and its establishment, development, interaction, and decline. Analysis of the archaeological artefacts particularly in domestic contexts will provide information on issues such as ethnicity, gender and the daily lives of the residents of Kuridala. The remains of the township will provide information on the pattern and spatial organisation of the settlement, and have the potential to answer questions about the isolation and integration of communities and of community identity. An understanding of the collective experiences of isolated mining communities may also be gained through further research into the site, particularly given the level of intra-site complexity.
\nThe cemetery, one of the largest with mining associations in North Queensland, has the potential to provide further information about the community. Analysis of the types and styles of burials and grave markers, the layout and organisation of the cemetery, and the information from the grave markers about those individuals buried, has the potential to reveal information on such research questions as ethnicity, religion and social division within the community. Archaeological analysis of the remains of those buried in the cemetery also has the potential to reveal details of the health and living conditions of the residents of the township.
\nGiven the isolated nature of the community and its distance from established centres of regulation, examination of the archaeological evidence may shed light on disparities between what was regulated or documented and what actually occurred at the site. For example, as identified during previous archaeological surveys of the site in 1989 and 1995, the town plan shows neat streets to the east of the mines and smelter and southwest of the Hampden consol, but the archaeological evidence shows domestic settlement extending to the south, in isolated pockets to the north of the smelter and west of the mines.
\nThe association of the township and industrial areas at the Kuridala complex also provides for comparative and complementary research into other copper mining operations with associated township remains in North Queensland, including Mount Cuthbert Township and Kalkadoon Mine (QHR 601629) and Mount Elliott Mining Complex (QHR 645612).
\nArchaeological investigations at the former Kuridala Township, Hampden Smelter and Mining Complex also have potential to answer important research questions including but not limited to labour relations, class, and capitalism.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30728,"place_ref":645605,"name":"Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex","alternate_name":"Golden Gate Mine | Croydon Consols Battery and Cyanide Plant | Golden Gate Cemetery | Golden Gate No.10 North Mine | Croydon Consols Pump Shaft | Golden Gate Township | 700005","street_address":"Normanton (Gulf Development) Road","suburb":"CROYDON","lga":"CROYDON SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-08-14","description":"The Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex is located approximately 8km northwest of Croydon, adjacent to the heritage-listed Normanton-Croydon railway line (QHR 600396) and the Gulf Developmental Road. The site includes remnants of the Rogers' No. 1 Mine, No. 3 and 4 South Golden Gate Mine and Mill, Morgan's Shaft, Golden Gate Consols Mine, Croydon Consols Battery and Cyanide Plant, Croydon Consols Pump Shaft, Golden Gate No.10 North Mine, Golden Gate Township, and Golden Gate Cemetery.
\nRogers' No. 1 Golden Gate Mine
\nThe mine is located in the vicinity of the Gulf Developmental Road approximately 500m to the south of the Golden Gate Consols Mine. A brick flue, Cornish boiler and winding engine foundations were recorded as remaining on site in 1992 (Kerr 1992).
\nNo. 3 and 4 South Golden Gate Mine and Mill, and Morgan's Shaft
\nLocated towards the south end of the complex, this site retains a boiler, engine remains, boiler and mill foundations, winding engine, tanks, shaft and mullock heaps (Kerr 1992).
\nGolden Gate Consols Mine
\nThis mine is located about 200m north of the Gulf Developmental Road, on the east side of Golden Gate Creek, and over 500m southwest of the Croydon Consols Battery and Cyanide Plant. The place comprises a shaft, mullock dump, retaining walls, winding plant, boilers, chimney base and ship's tanks (JLA and Pearce 1996:171-2).
\nCroydon Consols Battery and Cyanide Plant
\nThe main component groups are a battery site and a cyanide plant. The battery site includes boilers, concrete and stone mounts and foundations, and steam engines. An earth formation for a tramway runs southward from the battery, past an earth reservoir site, to two small tailings dumps (JLA and Pearce 1996:177-8). The cyanide plant is centred 150m south of the battery, with a recent tailings dump extending some distance to its west and covering the site of most of the former Golden Gate Township. Sections of a chain of tailings buckets (not in situ) are located at the battery end of the cyanide plant. The surviving remnants include tailings bucket chains, a boiler, an engine, timber stump foundations and concrete ponds (JLA and Pearce 1996:178).
\nCroydon Consols Pump Shaft
\nThe Croydon Consuls Pump Shaft is located about 150m north-west of the Croydon Consols cyanide plant, between the western end of the tailings dump and the eastern bank of Golden Gate Creek. The place contains a high mullock dump, which extends on the west to the bank of the creek. The site includes remains of a shaft, pump arm, concrete and log mounts, engine parts, a winding unit and a boiler (JLA and Pearce 1996:181).
\nGolden Gate No. 10 North Mine
\nThis mine is located on the western bank of Golden Gate Creek about 150m north of the Croydon Consols pump shaft and about 200m west of the Croydon Consols battery site. The remains include the mine shaft, steam engines, winding unit and boilers (JLA and Pearce 1996:174-5).
\nGolden Gate Township
\nThe centre of the township is on the northern side of the railway. Parts of this are now destroyed by the Gulf Developmental Road and farm tracks. The central tailings dump associated with the mines along the Golden Gate reef, also now covers much of the former Golden Gate Township. Evidence of township habitation is located at the southern end of the Golden Gate Consols mine site. No extant structures survive but the remains of dwellings are found throughout the re-growth savannah woodland. These include earth floors, some stone footings, vertical sections of corrugated iron walls (possibly 'rat walls') set into the ground, and associated scatters of broken bottle glass, bricks, stove remains, sheet iron, tins and domestic ceramics. There are also some minor surface workings in and around the township site. There are further signs of habitation on the southern side of railway, connecting with the Golden Gate Cemetery.
\nGolden Gate Cemetery
\nThe Golden Gate Cemetery is located to the southwest of the railway and the former Golden Gate township, approximately 230m west of the Gulf Developmental Road. There are believed to be 19 graves in the cemetery (Grimwade and Ginn 2000:20). Only two graves have iron railings and two have sandstone surrounds. One of the graves with a metal railing has been subject to an exhumation. A further eight possible graves have been identified from soil disturbance and concentration of rocks.
\nOther Domestic Remains
\nArchaeological evidence of domestic habitation occurs outside the township area. Examples occur at the southern end of the listing boundary on the west side of the railway line where there is a large scatter of domestic artefacts including glass bottles, bricks, ceramics and metal items. There is also some structural evidence consisting of stone and concrete which may be steps.
","history":"The Golden Gate reef on the Croydon Goldfield, northwest of the town of Croydon, was first worked in 1886 but abandoned in 1887. Work recommenced in 1891 with production continuing until a decline in 1915. The Golden Gate proved to be the most productive reef on the field, attracting commercial interest and capital in mines such as Golden Gate No.1, Croydon Consols (which distributed £20,000 in dividends in 1896), No. 7 North, Nos. 3 and 4 South (which distributed over £72,000 in dividends in 1900), and No. 5 South (Wegner 1995:75). The township was surveyed in 1893, although buildings were established before this. The population of the township declined until it was deserted in 1922.
Croydon Goldfield
The earliest gold finds in the Croydon district were made by pastoralist William Brown and two of his station hands, who discovered a reef in mid-1883 (Wegner 1995:52). Additional finds soon followed, mostly around the developing township of Croydon. On 18 January 1886 the area was declared the Croydon Goldfield and by the end of the year the population had grown to approximately 2,000. During 1887 the field boomed, the population trebling to around 6,000. At this period, gold yields from the Croydon field were second only to those recorded from Charters Towers.
Some mines close to Croydon township failed around 1890 when the ore was found to be cut by a wall of granite. However, rich discoveries in 1891 at the Golden Gate reef to the northwest compensated for this (Wegner 1995:73). The 1890s proved to be the most productive years for the Croydon Goldfield, despite increasing competition from emerging mining enterprises in South Africa and Western Australia. Most mining companies on the field were local concerns and Croydon brokers established a local stock exchange in 1892. The bank crash of 1893 was a setback for local capital and economic activity on the field waned temporarily (Wegner 1995:74).
The township of Croydon, which emerged as the social, administrative and commercial centre of the field, was declared a municipality in 1892, under the control of the Croydon Divisional Board. In 1907, administration passed to the Croydon Shire Council. From the mid-1880s satellite communities were established at many of the outlying reefs, with townships being formed at Golden Gate, Tabletop, Gorge Creek, Golden Valley, Goldstone, Carron and Twelve Mile, and campsites at Homeward Bound, Croydon King, Mark Twain, Lower Twelve Mile, Mulligan's, Flanagan's, Morning Light, Moonstone and Alluvial Springs.
Golden Gate reef
The first claim on the reef, the Golden Gate PC, was taken up by Joseph Hardy and James Fulton in April 1886. However, yields from the Golden Gate claims were meagre until 1891, when a rich ore chute was discovered in Rogers' No. 1 Golden Gate mine. The large, well defined, north/northwest bearing Golden Gate reef contained gold-bearing quartz with abundant sulphides and was mined over a total length of 2.5km. Records suggest that payable ore was limited to a vertical depth of approximately 90m. Its most productive years, between 1886 and 1911, showed a yield of 483,000 ounces of gold from 244,364 tons of ore. This production totalled more than one-third of the entire Croydon yield.
Important reefs in the area included the Golden Gate, Nancy Lee, Banner of Freedom and Winning Post. Mines in the area included Golden Gate Nos. 5, 7 and 10, Golden Gate United, Golden Gate Consols, Tracey's Block, Morgan's Block, Roger's No.1 and Plant's Block.
In 1900 the Golden Gate was still producing prodigious amounts of gold, but despite this, the profitability of the Croydon Goldfield was in decline. Despite extensive efforts to secure new payable lodes, it was the lack of success of deep exploration that spelled the end of mining at Croydon. Gold production declined during the years leading up to World War I and by 1915 most mining activities had ceased.
Rogers' No. 1 Golden Gate
Rogers' No. 1 Golden Gate mine was one of the three major mines on this line along with the Golden Gate Consols and Golden Gate Nos. 3 and 4 South. James Rogers, an Irishman who came to Croydon in 1889 from Charters Towers owned and developed several mines on the Golden Gate reef and was also mayor of Croydon. The largest shareholder on the Golden Gate, Rogers obtained a government subsidy for deep sinking in 1894, which paid off with a rich find at 120 feet in 1896, with 3,800 ounces of gold obtained. The reef had been traced to a width of ten feet in 1897 and produced 12,560 ounces of gold that year from 8,393 tons of quartz. This provided an excellent advertisement for selling the Golden Gate No. 1 on the English market. An English company completed the purchase and Rogers received one fifth of the shares. The company intended to spend £25,000 on machinery and development and on changeover in 1899 they immediately proceeded with a further deep sinking project (Kerr 1992).
Further development work was required to enable the mine to be worked systematically and the Rogers' Golden Gate produced 3,295 tons of quartz yielding 3,947 ounces of gold in 1900. The mine was worked with two stem engines of eight and ten horsepower, two sets of double winding gear, one steam pump, and one whip, valued at £850. In 1902 additional plant was erected including three steam engines with a total of 51 horsepower, one single and two sets of double winding gear. The straight shaft was done to 510 feet and the underlie of the extended shaft down to 531 feet. The mine kept 15 head of stamps at the Golden Gate mill constantly employed. The mine was partly tributed in 1904 with the tributers doing well. In 1906 Rogers' Golden Gate was the Golden Gate line's largest producer - 2,000 tons for 10,527 ounces by the tributers (Kerr 1992).
No. 3 and 4 South Golden Gate Mine and Mill Site
This mine was one of the most successful on the field and went to a depth of approximately 400 feet. In the two years after its establishment in 1898 they produced 9,673 tons of quartz for a yield of 36,296 ounces of gold valued at £96,927. The mine was known as Cashman's and the private syndicate of owners was preparing in 1900 to work the mine towards the Golden Gate United reef end on an extensive scale. The ore from the mine was crushed at the Enterprise mill and in March 1900 James Davis had purchased the whole of the tailings of Golden Gate No. 3 and 4 South to be cyanided at the new Station Creek cyanide treatment works. F.W. Cuthbert, a well known Croydon mining agent, purchased the No. 3 and 4 Golden Gate South and profited handsomely in 1902 (Kerr 1992).
The mine produced a total of 31,960 tons of quartz yielding 91,917 ounces of gold bullion valued at £238,984, the largest of any of the Golden Gate mines. Gold production quickly dwindled at the mine after 1905, down to 292 ounces in 1908 (Kerr 1992).
Golden Gate Consols Mine
This mine was known initially as Golden Gate No.8 North and is located at the western end of the Golden Gate complex, between Rogers Gully and Golden Gate Creek. A 4 feet 6 inch (1.3m) reef, located at 86 feet (26m) in 1893, produced 363 ounces of gold that year.
In 1894 the mine was sold to an English company, Croydon Consols Limited (nominal capital of £100,000 in 400,000 shares), for £16,000, to be paid in instalments. The new company managed the mine well, straightening and timbering the shaft, erecting a headframe and introducing steel buckets in place of greenhide. In 1896 the main shaft was sunk to 380 feet (116m), making Golden Gate Consols the deepest mine on the field. In that year the mine produced 22,815 ounces of gold, which enabled the company to declare a dividend of £28,000 - in excess of profits obtained from any mine on the Croydon goldfield to that date. The following year the company undertook further sinking and produced 11,390 ounces of gold from 2,871 tons of quartz (Kerr 1992).
In September 1900 a rich leader was discovered, which sent shares up to a shilling (Kerr 1992). A new underlie shaft sunk in 1900 was equipped with winding plant (engine and boiler) made locally by Messrs Stuart and McKenzie of the Union Foundry, Croydon (QGMJ 1903). During the next decade this mine was one of the leading producers on the Croydon Goldfield, yielding 81,629 ounces from 32,877 tons of stone (an average of 2.48 ounces per ton) or 19% of the total gold produced from Croydon field quartz crushing in the period (Kerr 1992).
Croydon Consols Battery and Cyanide Plant
Ore from the Golden Gate line of reefs was crushed initially at the Enterprise battery on Station (now Belmore) Creek. Owned by the Golden Gate Milling Company, the Croydon Consols battery (also known as Richardson's mill) comprised one 18 horsepower steam engine, 15 stamps weight nine hundredweight, six Berdan or Wheeler pans, and one pump and was valued at £3,000 in 1900. The mill was effectively double in size the next year with one 32 horsepower steam engine, 30 stamps weighing ten hundredweight, 12 Berdan and Wheeler pans, three Whifley concentrators, and four pumps valued at £6,000. The following year another steam engine was obtained and a dam was constructed brining the value to £7,000. The mill's production declined rapidly after 1906, however it was still employing 16 hands in 1913 and had five or six others employed obtaining lime from Sweers Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria (Kerr 1992).
Cyanidation of tailings commenced on the Croydon Goldfield in 1894 (Hooper 1993:163). The Croydon Consols cyaniding plant operated between 1897 and 1904, during which period 9,500 tons of tailings were treated for a yield of 7,000 ounces of gold bullion. In 1897 the plant comprised one 12hp steam engine, ten vats each of 50 tons each, two sumps each of 50 tons, two solution vats each of 50 tons, four recovery boxes and six pumps, the whole valued at £3,000. It was reduced in 1901 to a 6hp steam engine, four 40 ton vats, two sumps each 3,960 gallons, one solution vat of 4,000 gallons capacity, two recovery boxes and a pump, valued at £1,500 (Kerr 1992).
Croydon Consols Pump Shaft
Continued exploitation of the Croydon reefs required deep exploration, which proved difficult: as the mines became deeper and were interconnected for ventilation or prospecting, water in one would mean water problems in all (Wegner 1995:75). This difficulty was partially solved in 1898 by the construction of a large pump at the Croydon Consol mine.
Following a huge and costly inundation of the Golden Gate Consols mine in 1898, then the deepest mine on the field, the owners let a contract for £3,000 to Walkers Limited of Maryborough for pumping equipment. The plant was installed by Emslie Limited of Croydon in the first six weeks of 1899 and commenced operation in February that year. In 1901 the plant incorporated both single and double winding gear, three steam engines of 54hp, six pumps, an air compressor and a rock drill, valued at £7,000. It was by far the most valuable pumping equipment on the goldfield and technically the most up-to-date. The pump also delivered water to the Golden Gate Milling Company mill in 1900. The pumping equipment remained in use until the closure of the mine in 1911 (Kerr 1992).
Golden Gate No.10 North Mine
It is not known when the Golden Gate No.10 mine on the northern edge of the Golden Gate reef commenced operations, but it is marked on Rands' 1896 map. At the northern end of the line of reef, at varying distances from Golden Gate Creek, a number of prospecting shafts were sunk to try and find a continuation of the reef, which had proved so productive further south. No.10 North was at the northern end of the field and here the reef became well defined, although there was a convergence of faults. Mining operations were conducted on a large scale in exploring the reef up to 1906 (QGMJ 1906).
In 1923 there is again record of the Golden Gate No.10 North mine being worked. By August that year Messrs. Hayman and Ah Foo, supported by a strong local syndicate, had de-watered the mine and were sinking a monkey shaft in the No. 2 North level in the hope of picking up the reef (QGMJ 1923).
In 1923 Golden Gate No. 10 North was the only mine working in the Croydon district, but efforts to locate the continuation of the reef past the fault were disappointing. A shoot at the 34m level yielded 55 ounces of gold from a crushing of 16 tons (Mines Department 1924:9). There are no further records after this time.
Morgan's Shaft
H.F Morgan, an old speculator of the field, formed the local Golden Gate United Block and 98 block Gold Mining Company Limited in 1899 on striking the reef at Golden Gate No. 4 and 5 South Block. The shaft, commenced in 1899, continued to be sunk through 1900, before striking water and having to constantly bail in 1901. A powerful pump was installed. In 1902 the shaft cut the Golden Gate reef at 480 feet and they sunk an underlie for 142 feet however the reef was not payable and the straight shaft was the outlet for the water. Surrounding mines contributed to the sinking and bailing as their mines would eventually be flooded otherwise (Kerr 1992).
The 98 Block Gold Mining Company Limited registered as the Golden Gate Amalgamated Blocks Limited in 1904 and used the Morgan's Shaft to test the deep ground in Golden Gate Consols mine and Golden Gate Gold mines. However water continued to be an issue. The shaft continued to serve the Golden Gate No. 8 and No. 10 lines up until 1914 when despite two shifts a day bailing water from the shaft, the flow could not be contained (Kerr 1992).
Township of Golden Gate
The township of Golden Gate, approximately 8km northwest of Croydon, was surveyed by W. A. Irwin in April 1893, comparatively late in the history of the field, although there were buildings constructed well before this. Along with other 'satellite' communities established at outlying reefs, Golden Gate developed around the main administrative and commercial centre of Croydon. Members of the outlying communities would visit Croydon on Saturday nights to shop, conduct their business and socialise (Pike 1981:158). The Chinese community of Croydon provided essential support to the surrounding communities through their market gardens. Mines serviced by Golden Gate included Golden Gate Nos 1 to 10, Golden Gate United, Golden Gate Consols, Tracey's Block, Morgan's Block, Rogers No. 1, and Plants Block, the deepest mine on the Croydon goldfield.
A railway station was opened at Golden Gate when the Normanton to Croydon railway commenced operation in 1891, and was relocated over a mile to the west in 1892. By 1894 the small township boasted a population of 250, which had risen to 600 by 1900, supporting 11 hotels, one billiards saloon, over a dozen stores, a blacksmith, three churches, three butchers and several carters, carriers and coach proprietors. A school operated from 1896 to 1921, and a post office from 1891 to 1919. Production declined during the years leading up to World War I, and the population of the township similarly declined, particularly after the closure of Forsythe's Pioneer Mill in 1922 (Hooper 1993:167).
Golden Gate Cemetery
Golden Gate Cemetery is one of at least ten cemeteries which served the Croydon area after it was declared a goldfield in 1886. It is situated adjacent to the Golden Gate Township on the western side of the Normanton to Croydon railway. It does not appear to have been gazetted and was probably in use from the establishment of mining settlement in the mid-1880s until a new cemetery at Station Creek was surveyed in 1899 and gazetted in 1900. The heritage-listed Station Creek Cemetery, surveyed in 1899, was known initially as the Golden Gate Cemetery. Located midway between the Golden Gate group of mines and the Sunset group of mines, it appears to have served both communities.
REFERENCES
Grimwade, G. and G. Ginn 2000 Conservation Plan: Croydon Cemeteries. Unpublished report to Croydon Shire Council.
Hooper, C. 1993 Angor to Zillmanton: Stories of North Queensland's deserted towns. Mundingburra: Colin Hooper.
Jane Lennon and Associates and Howard Pearce 1996 Mining Heritage Places Study, Northern and Western Queensland: Identification, assessment and documentation of cultural heritage significance; Volume 2: Georgetown Mining District. Unpublished report to Department of Environment, Brisbane.
Kerr, R. 1993 Queensland Historical Mining Sites Study, Vol 3. Unpublished report to the Department of Environment and Heritage, Brisbane.
Mines Department 1924 Annual Report. Queensland Government, Brisbane.
Pike, G. 1981 The Golden Days: Life in North Queensland in the Gold Rush Era. Mareeba: Pinevale Publications.
Queensland Government Mining Journal
15 October 1903, p.524
15 September 1923, p.345
Rands, W. H. 1896 Map No. 1, Geological Map of the Croydon Goldfield, to accompany 'Report on the Croydon Goldfield', Queensland Government, Brisbane.
Wegner, J. 1995 Croydon: Technology Transfer on a North Queensland Goldfield. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of History and Politics, James Cook University, Townsville.
","criteria":"The Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex, which contains remnants of mine workings, battery, cyanide plant, township and cemetery, has the potential to provide information on important aspects of Queensland's history, especially early gold mining practices and treatment processes, and patterns of settlement in North Queensland. The Golden Gate Reef was the most productive on the Croydon goldfield and the complex demonstrates the pattern and development of gold mining on this important field.
\nThe complex features extensive archaeological evidence relating to a wide range of gold mining and processing activities. The place contains the largest surviving assemblage of early boiler and steam engine power plant recorded in North Queensland. The cyanide plant is amongst the earliest and most intact recorded in North Queensland and the tailings bucket chain and stumps and supports for the vats are now rare remains. The site contains a very rare undertype semi-portable steam engine and winching unit and a 4.5m high vertical boiler which is the largest of this type recorded in North Queensland. The pump shaft contains the only surviving beam pump arm recorded in the Georgetown-Croydon district.
\nArtefactual material has been identified in the former town site and surrounding areas in surface and subsurface deposits. This material includes domestic refuse such as glass bottles, bricks, domestic ceramics, stove remains, tins and sheet iron. Due to the extensive size of the identifiable archaeological materials a high degree of archaeological integrity remains. The cemetery at Golden Gate retains substantial physical evidence including iron railings, sandstone surrounds and soil disturbance.
\nThe mine workings, battery, and cyanide plant at Golden Gate provides a rare opportunity to examine, through archaeological remains, a wide range of gold mining and processing activities and technologies. The spatial organisation and layout of the complex's extensive archaeological evidence including shafts, machinery and other physical remains has the potential to reveal information about early gold mining operations and provide an understanding of the continuity and change in gold mining practices. Archaeological investigation of the Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex also provides for comparative and complementary research into other gold mining operations on the Croydon goldfield, including Enterprise Battery, Content Mine (QHR 602243) and the Homeward Bound Battery and Dam (QHR 600439).
\nArchaeological investigations at the Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex have potential to answer important research questions about the community's establishment, development, interaction, trade and decline. The archaeological evidence will provide information on the spatial organisation and pattern of the site, and of the interrelationships between mining, residential and commercial activities. The use of a cultural landscape approach to the archaeological investigation of Golden Gate will enable the examination of the network of satellite communities and their association with Croydon as the social and administrative centre. Physical and social connections can be investigated archaeologically through an examination of roadways, railways, domestic material culture and industrial technology. An understanding of the collective experiences of such communities may be gained through further research into the site, particularly given the level of intra-site complexity.
\nArchaeological research into the cemetery at Golden Gate has the potential to provide information on social aspects of the isolated community. Analysis of the types and styles of burials and grave markers, and the layout and organisation of the cemetery, have the potential to reveal information on such research questions as ethnicity, religion and social division within the community. Archaeological analysis of the remains of those buried in the cemetery also has the potential to reveal details of the health and living conditions of the residents of the township. Such research provides for comparative and complementary investigations at other cemeteries related to mining communities, including nearby Station Creek Cemetery (QHR 602375).
\nThe Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex provides the potential to examine social and ethnic groups not present or well represented in the historical record. Archaeological investigations have the potential to examine the presence and involvement of Chinese people in mining operations and in support economies through examination of domestic material culture and mining technologies. The presence and interaction of Aboriginal people with members of the Golden Gate community has the potential to be revealed in the archaeological evidence. Archaeological examination of the ethnic groups within the mining community, such as Irish, Cornish or Scottish, also has the potential to increase understanding of the social dynamics of such groups in mining communities in Queensland.
\nGiven the complexity of the Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex a wide range of additional archaeological research potential exists, including but not limited to examination of gender, labour relations and class.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30790,"place_ref":602758,"name":"Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"8-14 Mill Street","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) is a large rendered concrete building located on a level site in the centre of Mossman at the intersection of Mill Street (the main street of the town), Junction Road and the Captain Cook Highway. The building is orientated east-west extending along Mill Street. Its western end comprises two storeys with its principal south-west elevation truncated to face the intersection and giving it prominence as a civic building in the centre of the town. Retail premises (originally four shops) are located on the ground floor with offices (originally the council offices) on the first floor. The hall and its ancillary facilities including supper lounge, stage and fly tower occupy the remainder of the building and are located east of the shops along Mill Street.
The shop fronts are protected by a cantilevered awning which has early pressed metal edge detailing; the western-most shop has an entrance in the principal (south-west) elevation, and the remaining three shop fronts have entrances off MiIl Street. Three of the four shop fronts retain large metal framed display windows with recessed timber entrance doors and fixed panels (originally glazing) above. Walls surrounding the display windows have a dado of dark green glazed tiling decorated with geometric glazed tile patterns in pale green, red and black. The eastern shop front (to the former café) has been replaced with aluminium-framed glazing and entrance door and alternate tiling.
Above the awning, the north-west, south-west and southern elevations to the offices have been articulated with classical detailing including pilasters and entablature. To the north-west and southern elevation the pilasters are paired with smaller pilasters of the Corinthian order. Eight multi-light steel-framed casement pairs with fanlights provide natural light and ventilation to the offices; one on the north-west elevation, three on the south-west elevation and four on the southern elevation. The gabled roof over the offices is concealed behind a parapet which steps up along the south-west elevation and to which three flagpoles are fixed.
The cantilevered awning extends east over the entrance to the first floor offices, the entrance to the hall and the ticket office. A pair of three panelled timber doors provides access to the first floor offices and a roller door has replaced earlier entrance doors to the hall. The parapet above this section of the building is articulated with pilasters and a simple cornice and conceals a skillion roof to offices that are a later addition between the former council offices and hall.
East of the hall foyer the building line steps back from the street alignment. The hall floor is approximately 600mm higher than street level and has two pairs of doors reached by pairs of stairs. The doors are set within concrete block walls which have replaced lower level banks of louvres that extended to the ceiling of the hall. This southern façade of the hall has a skillion-roofed verandah which is a later addition. The gabled roof to the hall is partially concealed behind a parapet along the southern elevation and has two clerestory lights along both sides.
The walls to fly tower and southern dressing room are featureless apart from four small high level multi-light casements to the dressing room and a single window to the rear of the stage. The fly tower has a gabled roof, while the rear of the stage, a skillion roof. A parapet conceals a skillion roof over the dressing room.
The eastern elevation of the building is largely featureless with three high level multi-light casements, a fourth casement at the back of the fly tower and a window to the rear of the dressing room. Three openings on the eastern elevation give access to the basement below the stage. The opening at the southern end has a pair of ledged doors, while the other two openings have been altered with infill panels and later doors.
Adjacent to the north-east corner of the building is a small toilet block which is a later addition and partially conceals the early rear wall of the dressing room. The northern elevation of the supper lounge is clad in patterned board sheeting which appears to be a later addition. The kitchen adjacent to the supper lounge is clad in timber weatherboards. The northern elevation of the office and shop components has been substantially altered with concrete block additions.
Commercial premises
Interior partitions between the shops are of rendered concrete and the partition between the shops at the western end of the building has been removed, to form one larger retail space. Despite this change, the four former shop volumes are apparent and each retains early decorative cornices and ceiling roses. The third shop from the west was a former chemist and retains early timber cupboards and shelving. Alterations and additions have been made at the rear of the shops.
First floor Chambers (former council offices)
The stair hall leading to the first floor offices from Mill Street consists of 25 treads in a single flight with timber handrails fixed to the walls. The early office layout has been altered with additional partitions added and openings made in early walls. Some v-jointed tongue and groove partitions and early ceilings and geometric patterned cornices remain under later wall linings and above suspended ceilings. The timber cabinets at the enquiry counter appear to be early.
The Hall
The overall fabric of the hall is intact, although a few alterations have been made. The ceilings retain features such as decorative ceiling roses and cornices with geometric designs. The proscenium arch has elaborate mouldings with abstract geometric designs. Pairs of eight-light french doors opening to the north into the supper lounge are intact (although a few lights have been replaced), as is the timber floor. The walls at the rear of the hall are clad in later perforated acoustic corrugated steel sheets. The southern side of the hall has concrete block infill between structural concrete pillars with banks of louvres above the walls. Female toilets at the rear of the hall are an addition. The supper lounge and kitchen area retains its original form but appears to have no original features.
Stage area
The timber stage is approximately one metre above the hall floor. It has a raked floor and has been extended and possibly covers a former orchestra pit. The dressing rooms at either side of the stage have concrete walls, remain largely intact and follow the original plan. Steps lead down from this level to toilets which also can be accessed from the hall. One bathroom has been refitted. Underneath the stage are storage rooms accessed from outside.
","history":"The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former), constructed 1936-1937, is a substantial civic building that reflects the importance of the sugar industry to north Queensland during the interwar period and is associated with the ascendancy of Mossman as a commercial and administrative centre and the decline of Port Douglas as an early regional centre. The hall also demonstrates the pattern of construction of civic buildings for local government purposes during the 1930s using funds from the Queensland Government Unemployment Relief Scheme.
The town of Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70 kilometres north of Cairns. Port Douglas was established in 1877 as an alternative to Cairns as a service port to the Hodgkinson goldfield, which had been proclaimed on 15 June 1876. With the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line in 1882-1891, Port Douglas gradually declined as a town and port. The Mossman district, although initially taken up as homestead selections supplying fodder, maize and tropical fruits to the goldfields, converted to sugar-growing in the 1890s and prospered in the early twentieth century. During these formative years, the region was part of the Douglas Divisional Board (established in 1880) but was replaced by Douglas Shire Council on 30 March 1903 after the Local Authorities Act 1902 abolished divisional boards.
The township of Mossman was created from a private subdivision made following the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill on the Mossman River in 1894-1895 under the Sugar Works Guarantee Act 1893. Sugar production in the Mossman district expanded rapidly from this time. Despite this, in 1910 the township comprised little more than the Exchange Hotel, a store, butcher's shop, hall and timber church, clustered around the sugar mill. These buildings and most of nearby Port Douglas were severely damaged by a cyclone on 16 March 1911. In the aftermath, and with the continued increase of both transient and permanent workers in the sugar industry, businesses at Port Douglas gradually gravitated to Mossman. In the 1920s the Court House and banking facilities moved from Port Douglas to Mossman, and by the end of the decade Mossman was the administrative centre of Douglas Shire.
Despite the growing population in Mossman, Douglas Shire councillors continued to meet in Port Douglas. In 1932, however, the Queensland Government amended the Local Authorities Act so that governments-in-council could subdivide shires into divisions for election purposes. As a result, the Douglas Shire was divided into five divisions and all but one of the new divisions had one council member. Division three (Mossman River to South Mossman River) had two council members which gave residents of Mossman greater council representation and influence. A new council was elected in 1933 and RD Rex was elected Chairman. Moves to improve town facilities began immediately, with the Mossman Chamber of Commerce requesting that Mossman be declared a municipality so that water services could be upgraded and street lights electrified. While Mossman never became a municipality, it did become the administrative and commercial hub of Douglas Shire, and from 1937, the seat of the Douglas Shire Council.
In August 1934 Rex proposed council borrow £4,250 and use subsidies from the Queensland Government's Unemployment Relief Scheme to build a new shire hall and council offices at Mossman on a 1 acre (0.4ha) site in the centre of the town, to which council had held the title since 1903. The Unemployment Relief Scheme was part of the Forgan Smith Labour Government's strategy to support employment. Many civic buildings and infrastructure projects were established across Queensland using this scheme, the Intermittent Relief Work Scheme, and projects managed by the Bureau of Industry. Other extant shire halls in Queensland that were constructed during this period include Gladstone Town Hall (1933-1934, QHR 601333), Gayndah Soldier's Memorial Hall and Council Chambers (1935, QHR 602124), Bowen Shire Council Offices (1935-1937), Johnstone Shire Hall (1935-1938, QHR 601579), and Goondiwindi Shire Hall (1937-1938, QHR 600531).
In Mossman, a special meeting was convened to discuss Rex's proposal. His vision to construct a hall, shire offices and commercial shops (to make the venture viable) was supported by other councillors and the proposal went to tender in October 1934. The council was split regarding the choice of design but eventually selected plans by well-known Cairns architects Richard Hill and AJH Taylor. Hill & Taylor, in partnership from 1927 to c1940 and then 1945 to 1952, designed a number of prominent north Queensland civic buildings between the first and second world wars, including the Cairns City Council Chambers (1929-1930, QHR 601576), Cairns Post Office (1930), Johnstone Shire Hall in Innisfail (1935-1938, QHR 601579) and a number of country hospitals, including Mossman District Hospital (c1930, QHR 602713) and Proserpine Hospital (1939-1940, QHR 601573).
However, the process of finalising the design and layout was protracted. Continued deliberations regarding building components, style and plans caused delays and friction within the council, and between council and the architects. The final proposal stipulated that the new shire hall complex would comprise four commercial shops, council offices upstairs, a hall, supper lounge and ample stage accommodation. Costs were not to exceed £8,500. Three additional sets of plans were submitted before they were sent to the Public Works Department for approval. Its report outlined a range of issues that required attention and the architects were asked to amend plans and get their representative in Brisbane to liaise with them. Although tenders for the construction of the hall were called in July 1935 it was not until November 1935 that builders Arthur Zillfleisch and Tom Booth were nominated. Further problems saw the tender to build the hall eventually being awarded to Messrs Tarmey & Euhus, the firm that had submitted the lowest tender price of £9,896.17.6. Despite continued problems during the construction period, the building was finally completed in 1937 and officially opened on 9 June 1937.
The new shire hall had four shops on the lower floor, including a chemist and café. The incorporation of retail spaces into public halls, theatres and large civic buildings was popular during the 1920s and 1930s - a means of maximising the income that could be derived from these large and expensive projects. The shire halls and council offices at Goondiwindi, Innisfail and Bowen, for example, all had ground floor, street-accessed retail spaces included as part of the design. If the building contained a public hall or theatre, one of the shops inevitably was occupied by a café.
The Mossman Shire Hall, with its drop screen, stage and orchestra pit and dressing rooms, was subsequently used for a range of community events and functions. In 1938, alterations and additions were made by Hill & Taylor. These included: extending the awning to the pavement from the hall, a new area for storing chairs on the northern side of the building, new kitchen facilities in the commercial premises, and renewing flashing and box guttering on the southern side of building. During World War II, the hall was used by troops as a dance hall.
In the 1970s, additions and alterations to the hall included enclosing the louvred wall on Mill Street with concrete block to reduce the noise from the tram line (which passes within two metres of the building) and to block out natural light.
In 1996 Douglas Shire Council moved into new offices in Front Street, Mossman and vacated the offices on the upper level of the 1937 building. In 2008 Douglas Shire, Mulgrave Shire and Cairns City were amalgamated under the Cairns Regional Council, with one representative from the former Douglas Shire. The former Mossman Shire Hall is still used for a variety of community events, while the commercial premises on the ground floor are occupied as shops or by community project groups. In June 2008 the entire former Douglas Shire was declared an iconic place under the Iconic Queensland Places Act 2008. In the gazetted declaration (No. 52, 20 June 2008) the built environment values listed as being notable and worthy of preservation include those related to Mossman being the administrative centre of the Shire.
","criteria":"The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the construction of civic buildings during the 1930s assisted by funding from relief and job-creation schemes. Civic projects - including shire and town halls, offices and chambers; community swimming pools; roads; bridges; and street and park beautification schemes - were undertaken throughout Queensland at this period as a result of these schemes, and as a group these places are important in articulating a particular historical period, the impact of State government initiatives to combat the economic depression, and design concepts popular at the time.
The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) is a substantial building for a small administrative centre, and in this it is important in illustrating the era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the north Queensland sugar industry during the 1920s and 1930s, and the shift during these years of the administrative heart of Douglas Shire from Port Douglas to Mossman in the State's northern-most sugar-growing district.
|The former Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) building is a good representative example of a regional civic complex. It remains substantially intact and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a 1930s civic building located in the centre of town on the corner of Mossman's principal streets, combining council offices and meeting rooms, retail spaces, and a large public hall with entry foyer, stage, fly-tower and dressing rooms. Early features include: steel-framed, multi-paned casement windows to the former offices; a cantilevered street awning with decorative metal edging; shop fronts with decorative ceramic tiles; timber cabinetry in the former chemist's shop; decorative plaster work to the ceilings of the former council offices; clerestory lights/ventilation panels in the roof of the hall; and timber floors throughout.
The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) is significant as a building designed by the architectural partnership of Hill and Taylor, prominent local architects in north Queensland during the interwar period, and contributes to our understanding of their portfolio of work across this part of the state.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30934,"place_ref":602803,"name":"Daintree Inn/Former Exchange Hotel","alternate_name":"Exchange Hotel Mossman","street_address":"2 Front Street","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The Daintree Inn (former Exchange Hotel) is located on a prominent corner site of the main fiveways intersection of Mossman, a small town approximately 75 km north of Cairns in far north Queensland. Bounded by Mill Street to the north and Front Street to the west, the building has an L-shaped plan and is built to the street boundaries, with multiple entrances from both streets. A driveway runs from Front Street along the southern side of the building to a rear courtyard and outdoor bar area, separating the hotel from a two-storey commercial building. An easement from Mill Street runs along the eastern boundary of the hotel site, dividing it from a long, gable roofed building on the adjacent property.
\nThe hotel is a large, two storey timber building, truncated at the corner, with wide verandahs to both streets over the footpaths and to the rear. The street elevations are surmounted by decorative timber parapets with simple triangular pediments, behind which a timber framed roof slopes to the rear, clad in metal roof sheeting. External walls are clad in timber chamferboards and the first floor verandah walls are single skin with exposed studwork and cross bracing. On the ground floor, there is a section of diagonal boarding and evidence of an enclosed former doorway on the west elevation. The eastern wing has a timber framed floor, while the remainder of the building sits on a concrete slab and ground floor verandah posts have raised concrete footings.
\nThe location of the main entrance to the former ground floor lounge, now a dining room, is indicated by a gable feature in the northern verandah roof. The main entrance door is set back within a small alcove with elaborate timber surround, comprising square pilasters and a shallow triangular pediment. The double timber door with large glass windows is divided into four lights on each leaf, surrounded by fan and sidelights made of multiple rectangular panes of textured glass (sidelights sheeted over). Other early doors and windows on the street elevations have similar fanlights above, and early windows are timber framed four-light casement windows with textured glass. The rear first floor verandah is enclosed by a continuous band of casements and some side windows retain metal window hoods.
\nOrnamentation is modest, featuring a diamond motif evident around the main entrance doorway; in the feature panels of the first floor verandah balustrade; and underneath the painted verandah signage, where there are traces of diamond shapes that had been formed by attached timber battens (now removed). Verandah posts are chamfered with decorative timber capitals on both floors. Recent signage with the words \"Daintree Inn\" and \"Est 1896\" have been attached to the parapet - these and other modern signage boards are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building comprises public spaces on the ground floor and accommodation on the first floor. The main bar occupies the prime position in the front corner of the building, with a shop occupying the remainder of the Front Street (southern) wing. The Mill Street (eastern) wing comprises a small private bar and a large dining room containing the main staircase to the first floor. Behind the dining room, a passage below the rear verandah contains a second staircase and connects the main bar, staff and service areas, the dining room, the rear courtyard and a kitchen at the far eastern end. The first floor has a central corridor running the length of the two wings with rooms on either side and passages connecting the front and rear verandahs. At the end of each wing, rooms have been converted into staff accommodation and a manager's residence. Shared toilet and bathroom facilities adjoin the rear verandah - female amenities in the centre of the eastern wing and male amenities at the south end of the southern wing.
\nThe main bar is a large open room with three entrance doors - one each to Mill and Front streets and one at the truncated corner. Large windows provide views to the surrounding streetscape. Having undergone many alterations, the bar layout, furniture and finishes are not early or original and do not have cultural heritage significance. At the southern end of the room there is evidence of the location of early internal walls, and an early ceiling with two fibrous plaster ceiling roses remains. A doorway at the southern end of the bar area connects through to the adjacent shop. Doors in the eastern wall lead to the rear passageway and to the private bar.
\nThe shop (operating as a bottle shop in 2012) has also undergone many alterations, with evidence of a central wall having been removed to form one large area from two smaller shops. The ceilings feature circular plaster ceiling roses and decorative cornices. The remaining shop fit-out, furniture, shop-front glazing and entrance doors are recent and not of cultural heritage significance. A modern cold room has been installed at the rear of the northern shop area, while the rear of the southern shop area has been extended to the east, with timber verandah posts visible in the structure of the eastern wall.
\nThe private bar is a narrow room with the bar along the western wall. Apart from the ceiling, which has two ceiling roses and decorative cornices, the fit-out, furniture and finishes of this bar are recent and not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe dining room occupies most of the ground floor area of the eastern wing. It retains many original and early features, such as joinery, a decorative plaster ceiling with delicate floral border and cornices, and ceiling roses matching those in the private bar and southern main bar. A wall with a large opening divides the space; with traces of a former folding door system evident in the floor and lintel (doors have been removed). The main entrance door from Mill Street opens into the western half of the room, and in the south-west corner is the main staircase, constructed from dark-stained silky oak with a small cupboard beneath. A door with fan and sidelights opposite the main entry door leads to the rear passageway. Walls throughout the room are lined with vertical V-jointed tongue and groove boards up to picture rail height and plastered above. Timber skirtings and architraves have a simple chamfered detail. The southern wall has been modified at the eastern end, to provide a doorway and two servery windows into the adjacent kitchen. The floor is polished timber floorboards, with a section of bare concrete flooring adjacent to the kitchen.
\nThe rear passageway features timber verandah posts along the southern side and a secondary timber staircase to the first floor. The underside of the first floor verandah structure remains visible. The kitchen and storage areas constructed at the eastern end of the passageway are not of cultural heritage significance. Built up against the rear verandahs, the rear service area consists of a series of single storey blockwork structures with overlapping timber-framed roofs clad in metal sheeting. They contain loading and storage spaces, toilets, a staff office and a small outdoor bar. None of the structures with modern fabric are of cultural heritage significance.
\nThroughout the interior of the first floor, floors are polished timber and walls are vertical timber tongue and groove boards finished with chamfered timber detailing - picture rail, architraves and wide skirtings. Generally, flat sheeting with timber cover battens line the walls between bedrooms and the ceilings. Internal doors are high-waisted timber panelled doors with early door hardware. All unaltered bedrooms have a timber built-in corner cupboard and small basin. At the intersection of the two wings there is a lounge room with built-in cupboards along two walls.
\nA number of internal modifications have been made in order to provide staff accommodation including: enclosure of the end of the central passageway, alterations to walls and doorways, enclosure of verandah space and installation of facilities such as kitchens, bathrooms and a laundry room. These modifications are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe front verandah is approximately 3.6 metres wide with a two-rail slat balustrade. Two narrow fire escape gates remain in the balustrade structure (one each in the centre of the north and west verandahs). Bedroom doors opening on to the verandah are low-waisted timber French doors with four lights per leaf and retaining early door hardware. Two sash windows are located adjacent to the diagonal north-west corner of the building. All doors and windows opening on to the verandah have textured glass. The southern end of the west verandah has been screened off from public access, and the eastern end of the north verandah has been enclosed to form a communal kitchen (not of cultural heritage significance). The toilets and bathrooms off the rear verandah have undergone some internal alterations and upgrades.
\nThe courtyard area in the south-east corner of the hotel grounds contains an in-ground swimming pool, garden beds, palm trees and covered areas. None of these features are of cultural heritage significance.
\nViews to surrounding mountains and landscapes are obtained from the first floor verandahs of the Daintree Inn, as well as views of the town and the Mossman Mill chimney stack. As one of the largest buildings in the centre of town, the hotel has a strong landmark presence within the Mossman streetscape, and overlooks a triangular grassed area formed by the unusual and picturesque configuration of roads at the heart of Mossman - where five roads and a tramway intersect. The style of the hotel is complimented by other 1930s buildings in the vicinity, including the Mossman Shire Hall [QHR 602758] opposite on Mill Street, the former Jack and Newell building (occupied by Mossman Hardware in 2012) on the corner of Junction Road and Mill and Mossman Streets, and the former National Bank of Australasia in Mill Street [QHR 601542].
","history":"The Daintree Inn, formerly known as the Exchange Hotel, is the second timber hotel to stand on the prominent site at the corner of Front and Mill streets in Mossman, a sugar town located about 75 km north of Cairns. Built in 1934-35 to replace the first Exchange Hotel (c1896), which was badly damaged in a March 1934 cyclone, the second Exchange Hotel was designed to appeal to a tourist clientele. Tourism to the district increased after the opening of the Cook Highway in 1933, with road trips to Mossman and the town of Daintree among the local attractions promoted to visitors to far north Queensland.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast. Cedar stands on the Mossman River were logged from 1874 and agricultural settlers followed the timber getters from the late 1870s, supplying fodder, maize, rice and tropical fruits to the Palmer River (1873) and Hodgkinson (1876) goldfields. [1]
Port Douglas was established in 1877 as a port for the Hodgkinson goldfield and Mossman was founded in the mid 1880s with the subdivision of land, located south of the Mossman River, owned by Daniel Hart and Thomas Wilson. The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel stands on part of Portion 72, selected by Wilson in 1879. Although early selectors attempted mixed agriculture, poor soil and high rainfall meant that the land around Mossman was more suited to sugar cane cultivation.
Initially, Queensland sugar cane was grown on large plantations, using indentured South Sea Islander labour, and nine sugar plantations (each with their own mill to crush sugar cane) were established in far north Queensland between 1878 and 1891. However, six of these had closed by 1891. [2] The Brie Brie sugar plantation near Mossman operated a sugar mill between 1884 and 1888.
Several factors influenced the decline of the plantation system and its replacement by small farms supplying large central sugar mills. A drop in sugar prices in 1884, progressive restrictions on the use of non-European labour in the sugar industry from 1885, and government promotion of closer settlement by European ‘yeoman' farmers (owners of smaller landholdings), led to an end in the trade in South Sea Islander labour. The 1893 Sugar Works Guarantee Act provided loans to groups of farmers who mortgaged their land to the government, formed a company and built a co-operatively owned sugar mill to process their cane.
In far north Queensland, government funding was provided for the Mulgrave Central Mill (Gordonvale, first crush 1896) and the Mossman Central Mill (first crush 1897). The Mossman Central Mill Company, which was formed in 1894, purchased 20 acres of Wilson's Portion 72 in 1896, and Mill Street, which ran east to the mill from the main north-south road, became the commercial heart of Mossman.
The sugar industry spurred Mossman's development. Two galvanised iron hotels were moved to Front Street from Craiglie in 1894, to become the Royal Hotel and Mossman Hotel, and the Queens Hotel was built in 1896. [3] Mossman was linked to Port Douglas by a tramway in 1900 (sugar was shipped from Port Douglas from 1897 to 1958), and a tramway depot was located at the corner of Mill and Front Streets, near the Mossman Triangle. [4] The town had five hotels by 1910, including the Exchange, Mossman, Royal, Post Office and Queens. [5] After the 1911 cyclone damaged buildings in both Mossman and Port Douglas, businesses and government buildings located at Port Douglas gravitated to Mossman. [6]
One of the early sugar suppliers to the Mossman Central Mill was Denis O'Brien, whose wife Teresa ran the first Exchange Hotel. O'Brien operated a hotel in Cooktown with Teresa from 1874, moved to Port Douglas in 1877 and opened the North Australian Hotel (now the Central Hotel). [7] In 1893 O'Brien selected land near Mossman. [8] He grew sugar and was a director of the Mossman Central Mill, with his son Edward Joseph O'Brien (one of eight children) later serving as chairman of directors for many years.
FW Buchanan built the first Exchange Hotel for the O'Brien's c1896, [9] and Teresa O'Brien is listed in the 1897 Pugh's Almanac as running the Exchange Hotel in Mossman. In 1904 the eldest O'Brien daughter, Kate, married Daniel J Kirwan, who became the licensee of the hotel in 1905, the year Denis O'Brien died at his property ‘Finlayvale'.
The Exchange Hotel was originally one storey, but had a second storey by 16 March 1911 when a cyclone destroyed the upper floor. The hotel was repaired and continued to serve the town, despite being damaged again in a 1920 cyclone. Licensees of the hotel between 1914 and 1932 included EJ O'Brien, Sarah Ann Agnew, William Hyslop, Ellen Maud Petersen, Helena Norman McKenna, Teresa Nugent (nee O'Brien) and Ellen Constance O'Brien. [10]
Meanwhile, government encouragement of the sugar industry meant that there were 4238 small canegrowers in Queensland by 1911. [11] Most of Queensland's existing sugar mills were established by 1925, and an influx of cane-cutters, including southern Europeans, before and after World War I boosted the population and economy of far north Queensland. Many of the cane-cutters went on to operate their own farms. The Queensland sugar industry flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, due to government subsidies. When combined with the Forgan Smith Labor Government's Unemployment Relief Scheme (civic building and infrastructure projects), a burst of building activity resulted in Mossman and other far north Queensland sugar towns.
In the 1930s economic activity in Mossman was further increased with the opening of a new hospital (previously located in Port Douglas) in 1930; the completion of the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in 1933 (as part of the Unemployment Relief Scheme); and the opening of a new Shire Hall and Offices [QHR 602758] in 1937. Mossman was by now the administrative centre of the Douglas Shire (established in 1903 to replace the Douglas Divisional Board).
During this period of prosperity for Mossman a cyclone on 12 March 1934 once again heavily damaged the top storey of the Exchange Hotel, but this time the whole building was replaced, with the timber sourced from the Daintree Mill. [12] In April 1934 tenders were invited for the erection of a hotel in timber and concrete at Mossman, for Mrs T Nugent, the architect Vibert McKirdy Brown of Atherton. Tenders were also called for the removal of the old Exchange Hotel. [13] Teresa Nugent was the daughter of Denis and Teresa O'Brien, and along with her sisters Anne Kenny and Bridget Fynn, assumed ownership of the land on which the hotel stood in August 1934.
VM Brown was a well known local architect who practiced in Far North Queensland from the 1920s to 1940s. Born in South Africa c.1887, [14] by 1916 he was living in north Queensland where he enlisted and served in the army during World War I, listing his pre-war trade as ‘contractor'. [15] From 1925 Brown advertised himself as an architect in Atherton [16] and over the next two decades he completed a wide variety of buildings throughout the Cairns and Atherton Tablelands area. Characteristics of Brown's works include art deco and simplified classical style ornamentation, particularly raised banding on facades.
Brown had a long association with the Atherton District Hospital Board, and was responsible for many of the Atherton Hospital buildings constructed in the 1920s and 30s. Brown also designed many buildings for the Catholic Church in the region, including St Augustine's Church School and Convent at Mossman (1934). He also designed several buildings for the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia, including their club rooms on the Esplanade in Cairns (1938). [17] In his home town of Atherton, Brown designed many civic and commercial buildings, including the Tinaroo Shire Council Chambers (1928), various shops, and the Grand Hotel (1933) on the corner of Main and Vernon streets. In Mossman, he designed the former Jack and Newell Building (1936), which stands opposite the Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel on the corner of Mossman Street, Mill Street and Junction Road. Other notable works by Brown include an extension to Boland's Department Store in Cairns (1936, included within QHR 602536), the Rex Theatre in Cairns (1938), and Mareeba Fire Station (1939). [18] Brown ceased practicing as an architect in the late 1940s and died in 1957, aged 70. [19]
The new Exchange Hotel capitalised upon the existing far north Queensland tourist trade, which had been increasing since the 1880s. During the 19th century far north Queensland was seen as a romantic, exotic and tropical destination, with visitors mainly interested in the natural beauties of the area, such as landscapes, numerous waterfalls and the Chillagoe Caves. The health benefits of the spa at Innot Springs, and the coolness of mountain locations of Herberton and Kuranda, were also attractive. [20]
However, transport infrastructure was limited to rough tracks and railways constructed to access mining, timber and agricultural resources. It was not until the 1920s, with the rise of the motor car and the construction of tourist roads by the Queensland Government, that tourism accelerated in the region.
In the 1920s and 30s, Cairns was the major entry point for visitors to far north Queensland, and had an established reputation as a tourist centre and ‘tropical winter resort.' [21] Arriving by the boat load, the number of tourists needing accommodation in Cairns often exceeded the number of ‘first class' hotel rooms available, with those missing out having to sleep on board their ships. [22] The completion of the Brisbane-Cairns railway link in 1924 (called the ‘Sunshine Route' from 1929) opened another option for reaching Cairns. By 1925, the Hides Hotel and the Strand Hotel were the only two first class accommodation houses in Cairns, and the need for a greater number and higher standard of accommodation options to foster the tourist trade, on the Atherton Tablelands as well as Cairns, was becoming more widely recognised. [23]
From 1891 tourists could access the Atherton Tablelands by rail, but the construction of the Gillies Highway (Gordonvale to Yungaburra) in 1926 enabled the White Car Line to transport tourists by road, increasing access to attractions like Lake Barrine, Lake Eacham, the Hypipamee crater and the Curtain Fig Tree [QHR 602734] at Yungaburra. Other popular attractions in the region in the interwar period included the Barron Falls, the Maze, Fairyland Tea Gardens, and Dodd's butterfly collection at Kuranda, the ‘Jungle' at Malanda, and Paronella Park [QHR 602017] south of Innisfail. Favoured seaside resorts in the 1920s included Double Island Beach, Yorkey's Knob, Turtle Bay, Second Beach, False Cape, and Browns Bay, while visitation to the Great Barrier Reef occurred with launch trips to Green Island. [24] The Palmerston Highway (Innisfail to Ravenshoe) opened in 1935 and allowed road access to the southern tablelands.
As more places became accessible, tourist hotels were constructed to attract and accommodate visitors. Two of the largest hotels in far north Queensland were constructed at Yungaburra and Malanda. The Lake Eacham Hotel at Yungaburra [QHR 600473], originally built in 1910 after the arrival of the railway line from Cairns, was considerably extended and refurbished in time for the opening of the Gillies Highway, assisting the town to develop as a tourist destination and a gateway to the Tablelands. [25] The Malanda Hotel had its major phase of construction in 1911 after the arrival of the railway line, but it too benefited greatly from the increased tourist trade brought about by the Gillies Highway. Already a large, two storey timber hotel, it underwent an expansion in 1928 that increased the number of bedrooms to 60 and included the addition of a ‘tropical lounge'. [26]
Apart from refurbishments and extensions, many new hotels (or total rebuilds of existing hotels) of various sizes were constructed throughout far north Queensland in the late-1920s and 1930s, including: the Tully's Stratford Hotel (1926, now Barron River Hotel); Ravenshoe Hotel (1927); Criterion Hotel at South Johnstone (1930); Hambledon Hotel at Edmonton (approx 1930); several hotels in Cairns, Innisfail and Gordonvale; the Grand Hotel in Atherton (1933); the Silkwood Hotel (1938); plus the Royal Hotel (1932) and the Post Office Hotel (1932) in Mossman. [27]
The Mossman area‘s scenery was promoted as an attraction in the 1920s. It was accessed from Port Douglas by road or tramway, and cars and drivers could be hired in Mossman. [28] However, in 1931 work began on the Cook Highway, a scenic coastal road from Cairns to the Daintree. When the section from Cairns to Mossman opened in December 1933, [29] the Cook Highway replaced the Bump Track as the land route from Mossman to Cairns, and enabled tourists to travel on the White Car Line from Cairns to Port Douglas and Mossman and back within a day. [30] Prior to the Highway's completion the Minister for Public Works, Henry Adam Bruce, stated that it ‘should prove to be one of the finest tourist roads in Australia'. [31] From Mossman, tourists could take a bus to the dairying centre of Daintree, or pay for car trips to the beach at Port Douglas, Mossman Gorge and Mt Demi, and other scenic spots. [32]
By 1935 the Mossman Chamber of Commerce noted that the Cook Highway had been responsible for great business activity and building in Mossman, and that ‘the Exchange Hotel (damaged by the cyclone last year) has been entirely rebuilt, and is now one of the largest, finest, and most up-to-date in appearance and has done much to improve the look of the town'. [33] An advertisement for the hotel that year pronounced ‘This newly-erected Hotel is one of the most modern in North Queensland. All rooms open on to [sic] spacious balconies. Running water in every room. Septic systems. Commodious Lounges and delightful ball-room'. [34]
On 10 April 1935 the Cairns Post noted that the Exchange Hotel bar was open, with the building being put in order to accommodate boarders, ‘and [it] will supply a long felt want during the tourist season'. [35] Soon afterwards it was reported that the ‘new, modern' Exchange Hotel would be open for the Easter holidays, and that ‘this magnificent building is one of the most up-to-date hotels in North Queensland and offers something absolutely new in accommodation and service.' [36] In June that year the same newspaper commented that ‘with implicit faith in the great expansion of Mossman and the stability of this wonderfully fertile district, the owner, Mrs D. O'Brien, has had erected this really palatial hotel'. It was also claimed that the hotel was the ideal rendezvous for tourists, who could by car view ‘some of the finest scenery in Australia'. [37]
The June 1935 article reported that the hotel had 12' (3.7 m) verandahs to the front and rear, with ladies' and gentlemen's bathrooms and showers on the rear verandah (Mill Street wing and Front Street wing respectively), along with lavatories (water closets) connected to a septic system. The remainder of the rear verandah was enclosed with casement windows, while the front verandah offered scenic views, including of the Good Shepherd, a rock formation on Mount Demi. The ground floor possessed a bar of large dimensions, with an Amatice refrigerator of ‘heroic' size in the centre, encircled by counters. There were parlours to the rear of the bar and also two small alcoves for cards. There was a ‘very roomy' downstairs lounge, separated from a coffee room by folding doors. These doors could be folded back to create a dance floor which occupied two thirds of the Mill Street frontage. A main stairway ascended to the first floor corridor from the lounge. Also on the ground floor were a dining room and kitchen opposite the coffee room (in a rear wing, since demolished, off the east end of the Mill Street wing), and a billiard room and shops (a hairdressing salon and a drapers shop according to a c1935 Licensing Inspector's report; these were located at the south end of the Front Street wing). The staff quarters were in a separate detached building (a cottage, extant in 1975 but since demolished).
There were reportedly 31 bedrooms (1940 plans of the hotel show 30) located on the first floor, which were roomy, well ventilated and lit, with a built-in corner wardrobe and corner wash basin, with running water ‘if necessary'. There was a different colour scheme in each bedroom, and a central upstairs lounge had built-in cupboards for linen. Each bedroom opened onto both a central corridor and a verandah. A power house containing a Ruston-Hornsby engine and a generator provided electric lighting and also powered a pump for well water. Lock-up garages were provided. At this time the hotel was under the care and supervision of a company - Mesdames Kenny, Nugent and Fynn. [38]
The Exchange Hotel was part of a pattern of increased hotel luxury in the 1930s. Hotel designs of this decade in Queensland employed a variety of modern styles, including Spanish Mission, Functionalist and Art Deco. Often on corner sites with features such as rounded facades, sweeping horizontal or vertical ornamentation, cantilevered awnings and hipped, tiled roofs, these new hotels offered a higher standard of accommodation and comfort for patrons and guests than older establishments.
Changes to legislation in 1935 completely changed the administration of the liquor laws, which became entrusted to a Licensing Commission, with the immediate objectives of a better distribution of licences throughout the state, and of raising the standard of accommodation both for the requirements of the general public and for tourist traffic. [39] A campaign for the remodelling of licensed premises spread through the state, resulting in the improvement of accommodation offered by both country and city hotels. [40] Typical hotel layouts included a bar (or multiple bars), cold rooms and storage, lounges and parlours, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor, with bedrooms, lounge and shared guest bathroom facilities on the first floor. Large function spaces were made possible by the use of folding doors or partitions between the lounge and dining rooms, and separate entrances for guests and bar patrons continued to be a requirement. [41] The Commission insisted on the provision of services such as running water to all bars and bedrooms, hot and cold if possible. [42]
In both major cities and small towns, the timber hotels of the preceding decades were gradually being renovated or replaced by brick and masonry structures, often after a devastating event such as a fire or cyclone. Particularly in smaller towns, these new hotels were seen as a sign of progress and confidence in the future. It was reported that £500,000 was spent on new hotels and hotel modernisation between November 1935 and May 1938. [43]
The Exchange Hotel in Mossman was completed just prior to the introduction of the 1935 legislation, but incorporated all of the features required of a modern tourist hotel. The style of the building, however, is closer to that of a 1920s hotel, combining older, familiar features (such as timber construction, wide double storey verandahs, single skin verandah walls and French doors) with restrained modern detailing. It bears a resemblance to architect VM Brown's earlier hotel design, the Grand Hotel in Atherton (1933), which was constructed from concrete with timber verandahs. Another similar 1930s hotel is the Hotel Charleville (1932), constructed from brick.
The Exchange Hotel hosted a variety of guests. Despite its more traditional design, it was sufficiently upmarket to be used for civic dinners for the Minister for Public Works, HA Bruce, and later for the Governor General Lord Gowrie and Lady Gowrie, during July 1936. A civic reception was also held for the State Premier, W Forgan Smith, in October 1937, and a civic luncheon was held for the Queensland Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson and Lady Wilson, in June 1939. The hotel also provided accommodation for visiting doctors, bankers, public servants, business people, graziers and other upper-middle class visitors. As an important part of the town's social life, the Exchange Hotel was utilised for dances, Melbourne Cup parties, weddings, World War II fundraising events, and Rotary Club meetings. Commercial travellers also displayed their wares at the hotel, and consulting rooms were let to visiting professionals.
In 1953 the Exchange Hotel was still the ‘best hotel in town' according to the Licensing Inspector, and hotel garages existed on the land south of the Front Street wing by 1957. In 1964 it was reported that the hotel had a mixed clientele, with some travellers and some permanent boarders (sugar mill workers). Licensees at the second Exchange Hotel (after Teresa Nugent, from 1934-1950) have included Domingo Lombarte (1950-52), Minnie Martinez (1952-1957), Albert John McKenzie (1957-58), Angelo Papas (1958-60), Minnie Martinez, Ronald Desmond Neary, and Frederick James Dobbins during the 1960s, and Brian S. Geeves, Luigi Venturato, and Mary Susan Bryen during the 1970s. [44]
Meanwhile, the land on which the hotel stands changed hands, and reduced in size. From the initial one acre owned by Teresa O'Brien, 2 roods, 17 and 6/10ths perches was transferred to Teresa Nugent, Anne Kenny and Bridget Fynn in 1934, with a reduced frontage to Mill Street. Some land at the east end of the Mill Street frontage was sold to Lorenzo and Minnie Martinez in 1956, and they then purchased the land on which the hotel stood in 1957. [45] Land at the south end of the Front Street frontage was sold to the Commonwealth Bank in 1963, leaving the current 1 rood, 16 and 87/100ths perches (1438m2), which was then transferred to Samuel Allen and Sons Limited in 1966; to Ashwick (QLD) No 148 Pty Limited in 1985; to Exchange Hotel Pty Limited in 1987; and to Port Balcombe Pty Limited in 1988. Part of the ground floor was leased to the Totalisator Administration Board (TAB) of Queensland from 1989, and in 2009 the land was sold to Lance Sutton and Melynda Harding.
Along with changes in licensees, hotel owners and land owners, the hotel has been altered on the ground floor since 1935, including expansion of the main bar area. However, the ballroom and retail spaces survive and the parlour spaces are still readable. By the early 1950s the room on the Mill Street side of the main bar contained two parlours, while there was a wet store and another parlour on the Front Street side of the main bar, with a passage to the south; then a billiard room with barber shop, and a shoe store at the south end of the Front Street wing. [46] The parlours on the Mill Street side of the main bar were converted into a private bar c1952 (this was referred to as the Ladies lounge by 1969, and was called the ‘Blue Moon Bar' by 1978), while the Front Street parlour became a bottling room by 1959, a bottle shop (with incorporation of the adjacent passage) c1980 and then an extension of the main bar with a wall demolition c1987.
In 1978 plans were approved for the removal of most of the kitchen and dining wing and its replacement with a smaller kitchen (completed by March 1979), the former coffee room becoming the dining room. In 1987 the bottle shop was moved southwards to the site of the original billiards room, and later a TAB operated from the southernmost shop space. New male and female toilet blocks (plus a dry store) were built to the centre rear of the ground floor in the early 1980s, and in 1988 the existing private bar counter configuration was formed, with the doorway to the street being replaced by a window. Since 1988, the TAB has been replaced by an extension of the bottle shop, for which the wall between the two original shop spaces was removed. The main bar counter, which used to form a deep ‘U' into the room, has been reduced in size.
The first floor has seen fewer changes between 1940 and the present: on the Front Street wing, the end of the corridor plus the four southernmost bedrooms have been converted into the manager's unit, with wall removals and enclosures of parts of the front and rear verandahs. One intact adjacent bedroom is also used by the manager. At the east end of the Mill Street wing, the end of the corridor and two bedrooms have been converted to the owner's unit, with wall removals and a bathroom addition. Two other bedrooms are intact as staff bedrooms, another bedroom (along with part of the rear verandah) is now a laundry, and parts of the front and rear verandah have been enclosed. Eighteen bedrooms were available for public use in 2012. The two original toilet and shower blocks still exist off the rear verandah, although the former ladies' bathroom is now a staff bathroom. The upstairs lounge, main internal stairway and stairway to the rear verandah are also intact. 1940s plans indicated fire escape ladders to the front verandah of each wing; these no longer exist, except for the gates in the balustrade.
Shifts in tourism and transport patterns in the late 20th century led to a decline in demand for accommodation in Mossman, as improvements to the Cook Highway and resorts at Port Douglas meant that tourists were more likely to stay overnight in Cairns or Port Douglas. Although the Bruce Highway was finally bitumened all the way from Brisbane to Cairns in the early 1960s, facilitating faster trips north in the family car, by 1965 it was noted that tourists were passing through Mossman without staying the night. [47] As eco-tourism increased in the Daintree and Cape Tribulation area, Mossman's appeal as a scenic destination in its own right was reduced while Port Douglas evolved as the accommodation centre for the region's tourism.
In 2012 the Exchange Hotel is called the Daintree Inn and it now caters for the family and backpacker market. Two other hotels survive in Mossman: the Post Office Hotel and the Mossman Hotel.
","criteria":"The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel, built in 1934-35 after a cyclone damaged its predecessor, capitalised on the 1933 completion of the Cook Highway. It is important in illustrating the growth and prosperity of the north Queensland tourism and sugar industries during the 1920s and 1930s and the associated development of Mossman as the administrative heart of the Douglas Shire.
The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel also demonstrates a wider pattern of hotel building, rebuilding and modification in Queensland during the 1930s, undertaken with the support of the Queensland Government to encourage tourism.
|The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel is a good regional example of a large timber interwar hotel that demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. Built to provide comfortable accommodation for tourists, its original form and layout is legible and it retains many features including its lounge and coffee room (ballroom) space and evidence of its bars, parlours and retail facilities on the ground floor. On the first floor it retains: largely intact bedrooms, each with wash basin, opening off a central hall and onto wide verandahs; separate male and female bathroom facilities off the rear verandah; and a central guest lounge. Decorative features include ornamental plaster ceilings in the public ground floor spaces, battened sheet ceilings to the first floor rooms and generously sized timber joinery including built-in cabinets.
|Situated on a prominent corner site, and as the largest of Mossman's three hotels, the place has landmark presence. It also contributes to a streetscape of 1930s buildings, including the Mossman Shire Hall [QHR 602758], the former Jack and Newell building, and the former National Bank of Australasia in Mill Street [QHR 601542].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31071,"place_ref":602729,"name":"Memorial Park","alternate_name":"Gympie Memorial Park","street_address":"River Road","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-09-18","description":"Gympie's Memorial Park is located just south of the central business district along Mary Street, on a low-lying triangle of ground that occupies the whole of the block bounded by Reef Street to the north, Young Street to the south-east and River Road to the south-west. Linked with Mary Street via a walkway that contains the State heritage-listed Gympie and Widgee War Memorial Gates (QHR 600535), the park is an attractive green space in the heart of town. Consisting of lawns, circular and oval rose garden beds, paved walkways and a wide variety of mature trees, it retains much of its original form and continues to accommodate many of the functions carried out there since its establishment. A 1920 memorial timber bandstand in the centre of the park is the most visually dominant structure on the site. More discretely placed is a 1950s brick fernery building, built into the steep bank along the Young Street boundary, which appears to contain elements of an earlier brick structure. A number of other memorials have been placed throughout the park, including a large sandstone monument dedicated to James Nash, which occupies a prominent position near the corner of Reef Street and River Road. Recent signage, bench seating, picnic tables, garbage bins and two children's playgrounds are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The park retains much of its original layout design, the key elements of which are the bandstand, walkways, garden beds and trees. The bandstand is located close to the centre of the park and orientated to the north-west. From this central feature, walkways branch out to the south, east and north-west, the latter connecting to the Memorial Gates walkway from Mary Street. At least two of these walkways, those branching to the north-west and south, were part of the 1920 design and have avenues of trees on either side. The walkway to the east also may be part of the original design, and is lined with trees. A later walkway crosses the park north to south, linking the Memorial Gates walkway with River Road. All the walkways through the park are paved.
Despite their recent concrete and block edging, four garden beds in the park (one elliptical shaped, three circular) appear to be of the same dimensions and in the same positions as the garden beds established in 1920. Three are placed in a line parallel to the River Street boundary in the western half of the park, with circular beds at either end and the elliptical bed in the centre. The fourth and largest circular garden bed sits to the north of the bandstand near the Reef Street boundary. All four beds are planted with roses in 2009.
The variety and number of planted mature trees is a distinctive characteristic of the park. These include trees planted around the park perimeter, creating a green screen that varies in density depending on the tree species used. Some, such as several Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) appear, by their size, to be very mature and may date from the earliest planting schemes. Apart from Hoop Pines, perimeter plantings consist mainly of Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Brown Pines (Podocarpus elatus), Crows Ash (Flindersia australis) and Kauri Pine (Agathis robusta). Early trees can also be found in the avenues planted along walkways that exist from the original park layout. The avenue linking the bandstand to the Memorial Gates walkway has Queen Palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana), Cabbage Palms (Livistona australis) and Chinese Fan Palms (Livistona chinensis), some of which appear to be evident in early photographs. The avenue running south from the bandstand to the corner of River Road and Young Street contains paired Bumpy Ash (Flindersia schottiana) trees, alternated with various species of palm. Lining the walkway heading east from the bandstand are paired Jacarandas and other trees including a large Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina). Other individual and grouped specimen trees are found throughout the park. Some notable examples are a large Slash Pine (Pinus elliottii (P.caribaea)) west of the bandstand, a line of Silky Oaks (Grevillea robusta) through the eastern lawn area and a mature Illawarra Flame tree (Brachychiton acerifolius) in the north-west corner of the park.
The 1920 bandstand is a free-standing, elevated, timber-framed pavilion. The square, broken-back hipped roof has small gable projections on all four sides and is clad in concrete tiles. Each gablet has a bargeboard and decorative timber screens. The roof is supported by square timber posts that have decorated tops and ornamental brackets. A timber frieze (featuring a harp and a crossed horns motif) sits under the roof, running between each post. The timber board-lined ceiling, consisting of four triangular panels joined with cover strips, falls gently towards the centre of the pavilion. The bandstand plan is essentially square, with fixed timber corner benches and narrow, rectangular bays projecting out from all four sides. A timber balustrade encompasses the whole, in-filled with a combination of timber balusters and some metal replacement sections. The platform floor is timber board-lined and accessed by concrete steps to the north-west and south-east. The steps on the main (north-west) façade are narrower and have a marble memorial plaque attached to the concrete piers on either side. The one on the left states 'In Memory of F. T. Percival, Bandmaster, 1902 - 1907' while the other is inscribed 'In Memory of Fallen Comrades, The Great War, 1914 - 1918'. The structure stands on concrete piers that are connected by panels of honeycombed brickwork. The ground immediately around the bandstand is paved and linked to the three paved walkways that branch out from here.
The 1950s fernery building is constructed from orange bricks and consists of an enclosed storage room at the south-east end and a long, open air enclosure used for growing ferns and other plants. The storage shed at the south-west end has a timber framed gable roof, clad in corrugated iron. The walls are brick and appear to encase remnants of an earlier brick-on-edge structure with decorative lintels above the north-west-facing openings, made of bricks standing on end and angled. The fernery enclosure has a skillion roof with steel truss framing, clad primarily with steel caging panels and shade cloth. The fernery walls are solid brickwork up to waist height with brick piers supporting the roof structure. Window openings between the piers are in-filled with steel caging panels. Two doorways open onto the park, one at either end. The north-east end of the fernery has small, flat roofed, block work extension.
Of the other memorials positioned around the park, the sandstone and marble monument to James Nash is the most prominent. It stands in the north-west corner of the park, facing the intersection of Reef Street, River Road and Monkland Street. Designed in a classical style, it has a square base, Corinthian-order pilasters at each corner, a wide cornice, and is topped by a sandstone block ornamented with a carved wreath. Marble panels are fixed between each pilaster; two have projecting marble basins and one is inscribed with the words 'Erected to the Memory of James Nash, who discovered the Gympie goldfield, 16th October 1867. Born at Beanacre, Wiltshire, England, 5th September 1834. Died at Gympie 5th October 1913.' West of the bandstand is a 'Peace Pole' memorial that has one plaque attached to a decorated timber pole and another on a rock at its base. Aligned with the bandstand to the south-west is a 1988 War Memorial, which consists of a large sandstone boulder with a small cross carved in relief, a large granite plaque and a small brass plaque below it. A low, semi-circular concrete masonry wall surrounds the boulder and has two brass plaques on its inner face, commemorating the deaths of individual soldiers. A nearby flagpole associated with this memorial stands to the north-west.
The low-lying position of the park and the density of trees planted around its edge focus views within and through the park, rather than out from it. Glimpses of the park in its treed setting can be obtained from a number of surrounding streets to the north and from Calton Hill adjacent to the south-east.
","history":"Gympie's Memorial Park was established in 1919-1921 as the Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Park, with a landscape design prepared by Brisbane's Parks Superintendent Henry (Harry) Moore and a focal timber bandstand designed by Brisbane City Council's architect Alfred Herbert Foster. The park was opened on 20 April 1921 but the first official function in the park was an address to His Royal Highness Edward, Prince of Wales, during the Prince's visit to Gympie on 3 August 1920. Funded largely by community subscription and built on land donated by the Henderson family, owners of Ferguson & Co.'s Union Sawmills, the memorial park was intended as a lasting tribute to the citizens of the city and its district who had died for their country during the Great War of 1914-1918 and the Boer War of 1899-1902. The bandstand erected in the park in 1919-1920 is also a memorial to a former and much-respected local bandmaster, Mr Frederick Thomas Percival.
The park is located in Nash's Gully in central Gympie, on the northern side of the Mary River. A little further up the gully, near the later Gympie Town Hall, James Nash had found alluvial gold in 1867, sparking Queensland's first major gold rush in October that year. The Nashville Goldfield was proclaimed and a township was established on the field to support the miners. By mid-1868 the name of the field had been changed to Gympie, reputedly an Aboriginal word for the stinging trees found in the district. The alluvial gold was worked out within 12 months, but reefs on Caledonian Hill, the Hilton, One Mile, Monkland and Two Mile were being worked from early 1868 and by the mid-1870s the township of Gympie had become the centre of one of the richest goldfields in Queensland. About 50 mining companies were still operating at Gympie in 1909, but by the 1920s output was waning. The town of Gympie acquired city status in 1905 and at the outbreak of war in 1914 was the centre of a well-populated timber-getting, sawmilling, dairying and agricultural district.
Although fought in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the Great War had a profound impact on Australia. In 1914 the nation retained strong ties to the 'motherland' and had no hesitation in entering the war in support of Britain. Over 300,000 Australians from a population of four million volunteered for service overseas, and approximately 60,000 of these died. Almost every community in every Australian state lost young men in this war. No previous or subsequent war has had such an impact on the nation in terms of loss of life.
Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died during this international conflict. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites. With British policy decreeing that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell, war memorials became substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries overseas. Great War memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards, stone monuments, tree-line memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland the soldier statue was a popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states.
On 9 January 1919 a group of prominent citizens met to establish the Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Fund and to discuss how best to honour the community's war dead. Several alternatives were proposed, including a garden, a park, a scholarship and a stone 'digger' monument. On behalf of his family - and as a tribute to his father William Henderson, who was one of the founders of Ferguson & Co.'s Union Sawmills in Gympie in 1868 - Mr Arthur Henderson offered as a site for a memorial park, a triangular parcel of land bounded by River Road and Reef and Young streets in Nash's Gully, in the heart of Gympie. This was Machine Area 12, occupied by the Union Sawmills until they moved to Nashville on the outskirts of Gympie in 1917.
There were two main difficulties with the site offered by Mr Henderson: there was no direct access from Mary Street (Gympie's principal commercial thoroughfare); and it lay below the flood mark. Gympie had a long history of severe inundation from the Mary River, with flood levels having reached 25.45m in 1893 and 22m in 1898. The meeting suggested that Brisbane City Council's Parks Superintendent, Mr Harry Moore be asked to advise. A horticulturalist and landscape gardener, Moore had been appointed as Brisbane's first Parks Superintendent in September 1912, a position he held until the early 1940s, and in 1914 had created the much-admired New Farm Park in Brisbane. In annual Mayor reports, Moore was thanked for his work in beautifying the parks and gardens of Brisbane, and his services were lent to Stephens Shire in 1916 to prepare a design for the Yeronga Memorial Park (constructed 1917-1921).
By early February 1919 Moore had visited Gympie and reported on a number of proposed sites for a park or garden. He favoured the former sawmill site if access from Mary Street could be arranged, and if he could be assured that no serious damage from flooding would result.
Public debate over the nature of the memorial to be established, and whether to accept the Henderson family's offer, continued in the local press and at public meetings for well over two months. The Gympie Sub-Branch of the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) supported the sawmill site, if access from Mary Street could be obtained. After the Henderson family made available an additional strip of land between Mary and Reef streets, with a 31ft (9.45m) frontage to Mary Street, their offer was accepted at a public meeting held on 26 March 1919. A park in the centre of the city would be a permanent memorial to the district's fallen soldiers; of benefit to the community; and an attraction to visitors.
By mid-July 1919 work on clearing and levelling the site had commenced. Over the next months buildings and fences associated with the former sawmill were dismantled and money received from the sale of the timber in these structures was put toward forming and improving the park. Over the following year open concrete drains at either end of the site (along Young Street and near the intersection of Reef Street and River Road) were domed, and a perimeter fence of iron-bark timber and fabric wire was constructed. The Memorial Committee employed local returned servicemen for the ground works whenever possible.
Harry Moore's services were also made available to prepare a design for the park, which he had completed by mid-July 1919. Moore had a distinctive style of layout and planting choices. He rarely used straight paths and formal, classical designs, preferring the fluidity of gently curving gravelled pedestrian walkways radiating from a few entrance points. He favoured the use of raised, dry-stone walled rockery beds with dramatic displays of flowering annuals, perennials and shrubs (roses were a particular favourite of his) in bold, massed-planting arrangements. Moore would use rockeries to line walkways, or as distinctive circular or elliptical features in open grassed lawns. For shade trees, he favoured a bold mix of palms, pines and dramatic flowering species such as poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) and jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia).
In laying out the Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Park at Gympie, Moore provided a pedestrian link from Mary Street through to the southern corner of the park and River Road: "Mr Moore's idea is to continue the entrance roadway from Mary street right through to River road on the one grade, the entrance from Mary Street to the Park to be flanked by ornamental rockeries ..." (Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette 15 July 1919:3). The gravelled access lane off Mary Street formed the official entrance drive to the park, with memorial gates at the Mary Street end. Vehicles could pass through the Mary Street entrance gates along the lane to Reef Street on official occasions, but at other times access to the laneway was restricted to pedestrian traffic. At the park, Moore laid out a scheme of gently curving gravel walkways leading from perimeter gates toward a central bandstand. There were at least three perimeter gates: in Reef Street opposite the laneway leading from Mary Street; at the corner of Reef Street and River Road; and at the corner of Young Street and River Road. There may have been a fourth gate toward the eastern end of Reef Street. Access through the park to River Road was restricted to pedestrian traffic.
A 1922 photograph shows that early park plantings included an avenue of Cabbage Palms (Livistona australis) along the main walkway leading from the Reef Street entrance opposite the laneway off Mary Street, to the bandstand. The walkway leading from the bandstand to the corner of Young Street and River Road appears to be lined with an avenue of possibly Cabbage Palms alternating with pines (Conifer spp.); and the walkway from the gate at the intersection of Reef Street and River Road, which followed the River Road boundary before turning east toward the bandstand, was lined with what appear to be pine trees. Four raised, circular or elliptical garden beds were set out within open grassed areas of the park - three along the River Road side and one north of the walkway leading from Reef Street to the bandstand. Unlike the laneway rockeries, they do not appear to have been edged with stone. A few perimeter shade trees had been planted, but much of the area east of the bandstand remained an open grassy space, where seats were set out when band concerts were being performed.
In August 1919 Gympie City Council rescinded a 1917 resolution to endow the construction of a bandstand in the city's Queen's Park as a memorial to local band master FT Percival (who died in 1907), and resolved instead to provide a similar endowment for the construction of a bandstand in the Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Park. The stand was built to the same design as that prepared by AH Foster for New Farm Park, but modified to accommodate a second set of steps. Foster, an architect who joined the Brisbane City Council in 1913 as assistant to the City Engineer, was appointed City Architect in 1925 and held this position until his untimely death in 1932. His park works included bandstands at Bowen Park (1914), New Farm Park (1915), Wickham Park (1917) and Newstead Park and kiosks at Moora Park (Sandgate) and at New Farm Park (1915). The park structures he designed provided a focus and elegance that complemented Harry Moore's fluid landscape designs. Together, Moore and Foster created Brisbane's most beautiful and popular parks and gardens of the early twentieth century.
Foster's design was for a timber-framed bandstand resting on brick piers set on a concrete base. The structure had a pyramid roof clad with fibrous-cement tiles (a very new product in Australia at that time) and was simply but effectively decorative with gablets to each side of the roof (these had shaped timber in-fills); a finial at the roof peak and at the end of each gablet; timber balustrades and valances with fretwork panels around the pavilion sides; and honeycomb brick infill between the piers. The contract was let in September 1919 to Mr TJ Dale of Gympie, who tendered with a price of £550/13/-. Work was completed in time for the Prince of Wales' visit on 3 August 1920, when a civic address was presented to him from the bandstand. Foster also designed a lighting scheme for the park, using 1000 cp (candle power) lights at the Mary Street entrance gates and in the park, and eight lights of 130 cp each in the bandstand. At a later date, an additional set of concrete stairs was added to the east side of the bandstand, and still later (late 1960s or 1970s), the roof was re-clad with terracotta tiles.
In 1919 the Queensland Institute of Architects, on behalf of the Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Fund, held a design competition for memorial gates in Mary Street. George Rae, a young draftsman in the Brisbane office of Lange Powell, won the competition. The gates cost close to £1000 and were completed about August 1920. Plaques on the gateposts recorded the names of 167 local men who died during service in the Great War (1914-1918) and of the two who fell in the Boer War (1899-1902). [The memorial gates and laneway are the subject of a separate entry in the Queensland heritage register (600535) and are not included within the Memorial Park heritage boundary.]
The Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldier's Memorial Park was handed over to the Gympie City Council on 9 February 1921 and was opened officially on 20 April 1921 by senator Major-General Sir Thomas William Glasgow, KCB, CMG, DSO, formerly of Gympie, who had led the Australian re-capture of the French town of Villiers-Bretonneux from German troops on the night of 24 April 1918 and turned the war in favour of the allies. The opening coincided with a 'carnival and continental café' in the park conducted by the RSSILA to raise funds for improving their hall in nearby Reef Street, and attracted a crowd of over 2,000. The memorial park, bandstand and gates had cost just over £5,500 and was opened free of debt.
The status of the park was formalised when on 2 December 1921 an area of 3 acres 2 roods 20 perches [1.47ha], comprising former Machine Area 12 and adjacent parts of Reef Street and River Road, was proclaimed as a Reserve for Soldiers' Memorial Park, and the Council of the City of Gympie proclaimed as Trustee on 24 December 1921.
In the 1920s the Gympie City Council spent a further £660 on the erection of a fernery and public lavatories in the park. Neither of these facilities survives.
During World War II (1939-1945) the Gympie City Council constructed underground air-raid shelters in the memorial park, adjacent to the band rotunda. These shelters had timber walling, like mine shafts, and a timber roof over which about half a metre of soil was laid, and each could accommodate 20 to 30 people. After the war, the shelters were dismantled.
In the 1950s the Council constructed a brick nursery and fernery along the Young Street side of the park. This may have incorporated an earlier brick structure on the site.
Reef Street became the principal vehicular access to the park. In 1938 an attempt was made to retrieve sections of the former Reef Street road reserve that had been incorporated into the memorial park in 1921, for car parking purposes. The local sub-branch of the RSSILA took an active interest in protecting the site as a memorial and initially viewed any reduction in the area of the park to be a 'violation', but in late 1944 agreed to Council's plan to remove the fence along Reef Street to provide additional car parking, ease traffic congestion along the street, and create 'an open and more attractive boundary to the park on this side' (Gympie Times 5 December 1944). Eventually all the perimeter fencing to the park was removed, although that along Young Street was still in existence c1959. From 2004 a number of small excisions along the boundaries of the park were made for road widening purposes, the area of the park in August 2009 being 1.394ha.
Other memorials have been placed in the park since its establishment as a World War I memorial. Circa 1939 the sandstone and marble memorial fountain honouring the discoverer of gold at Gympie, James Nash, was relocated from near the Town Hall to the memorial park, close to the intersection of Reef Street and River Road. At this time the drinking fountain function was lost, and the upper section with sandstone urn and finials was removed. On Armistice Day 1988, a memorial stone in the park was dedicated to the citizens of Gympie and Widgee Shire who had served in military campaigns in Korea (August 1950-July 1953); Malaya/Malaysia (June 1948-July 1960), Borneo (February 1964-August 1966) and Vietnam (July 1962-January 1973).
The Soldiers' Memorial Park (now generally referred to simply as the Memorial Park) remains a focus for annual Anzac Day (25 April) and Remembrance Day (11 November) events and a popular local pedestrian park, especially during weekday lunch hours.
","criteria":"The park possesses beautiful and picturesque attributes, due to: the careful composition and intactness of early elements (such as the bandstand, walkways, garden beds and trees) associated with the original park layout; sightlines and views through the park (with the bandstand as the central focus); the avenues of mature trees containing a variety of species; and the sense of enclosure and calm created by perimeter plantings that screen the park from commercial development surrounding it.
|The Memorial Park was established in 1919-1921 as a lasting tribute to citizens of Gympie and its district who had died for their country during the Great War of 1914-1918 and to the two who had fallen during the Boer War of 1899-1902. As part of a spontaneous outpouring of national grief at the loss of 60,000 Australians during the Great War of 1914-1918, the Memorial Park contributed to the nation-building of Australia in the early twentieth century and remains important in demonstrating a significant aspect of Queensland's history.
|The place has a strong and special association for Gympie and district as the focus for public commemorative events at annual Anzac and Remembrance days.
|The Memorial Park at Gympie remains among the most intact of the early twentieth century collaborative efforts of landscape designer Henry (Harry) Moore and architect AH Foster, in creating popular and much-admired public parks and gardens. As employees of the Brisbane City Council and associated principally with Brisbane, the fact that Moore and Foster were invited to design the park layout and bandstand at Gympie is testament to the popularity and wider influence of their work at this period.
The best Brisbane examples of the work of Moore and Foster survive at New Farm Park (1914) (QHR 602402) and in elements of the 1914 re-design of Bowen Park (QHR 601523). Neither remains as true to Moore's design concept as the Memorial Park at Gympie, which retains early design elements including: the connection between the laneway off Mary Street and the Memorial Park; the arrangement of the main walkways radiating from a central focal point occupied by a decorative timber bandstand; the circular and elliptical raised garden beds; and early tree plantings. The substantially intact, timber bandstand designed by AH Foster is an excellent example both of a park bandstand of this era in Queensland, and of Foster's design abilities.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31211,"place_ref":602748,"name":"The Leap Cane Lift","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bruce Highway","suburb":"THE LEAP","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The Leap cane lift is in the road reserve on the north side of the Bruce Highway about 20km north west of Mackay. It stands between a ditch adjacent to the southern side and a tramline a short distance to the north.
Standing between 7m and 9m high, it comprises two upright timber poles supporting a horizontal cross piece. The cross piece comprises double wooden beams fastened either side of the top of each upright. Diagonal wooden braces are fixed to each end of the cross piece.
Pulley wheels are fixed to the top of the cross piece so that the wheels turn between the two beams. Two wheels are fitted to the centre of the cross piece and a single wheel at the southern end. Steel cable runs through the pulley wheels. A hook is suspended at the end of the cable.
The other end of the cable is attached to a geared steel winch near the southern leg of the lift. A long handle extending from the side may be for a brake or a clutch mechanism. A stake next to the southern leg has an electrical insulator fitted to it.
The lift is located in an area where there are extensive fields of sugar cane. The road reserve which forms the setting of the lift comprises a wide strip of mown grass. There is a patch of dense bush located to the east of the lift.
","history":"The Leap cane lift is situated near the locality of the same name in a rural area west of the city of Mackay. Mackay is the regional centre of one of Queensland's main sugar cane growing areas. One of the top two sugar producing regions in the state, it produces about a third of the sugar in Queensland. Sugar cane is a major crop in Queensland; the state produces most of the nation's sugar. The cane lifts formed part of the process of transporting bundled whole stalks of harvested sugar cane from the farms to the mill. They were rendered obsolete by the universal adoption of 'chopper' harvesters from the 1960s.
Sugar cane was first introduced to Australia in 1788 with the arrival of the first fleet. In 1821, Port Macquarie under the command of Captain Allman became Australia's first cane-growing area. In Queensland, the successful cultivation of sugar cane was established in 1864 at Redland Bay by Captain Louis Hope who erected Queensland's first sugar-crushing mill on the banks of Hilliard's Creek about 25km south-east of Brisbane.
Cane growing was tried at Bowen in the Whitsunday region in 1864 but continued there only until 1869, when it became clear that the climate was too dry. In the Pioneer Valley the first grower in the Mackay region was John Spiller. He arrived in Mackay in 1865 as a would-be squatter without capital but with cane brought from Java which he planted on the north bank of the Pioneer River. In June 1867 he produced the first sugar in the region.
The incipient cane growing industry was given impetus in 1864 with the enactment of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations, introduced by the government to encourage northern settlement. This enabled lessees to obtain plots of up to 1,280 acres (about 518ha) at a reasonable cost. Spiller and John Crees selected two blocks that became the Pioneer Plantation and built a primitive mill. T H Fitzgerald began a commercial plantation, Alexandra, in 1866 and with J Ewen Davidson set up a steam-powered mill that produced 110 tons (about 100 tonnes) of sugar in 1868. With these facilities a sugar boom began: small growers brought their cane for crushing to the Alexandra mill and acreage under cane expanded rapidly. Cane growers pushed back the graziers and by 1870 five mills were established.
By 1872 Mackay mills produced 40 per cent of the total Queensland sugar production and 37 per cent of its rum. Seventeen mills were established along the Pioneer River before 1875, most in 1872 and 1873. Another 12 including Farleigh, Habana, Homebush, and Marian were established between 1881 and 1885, then North Eton and Racecourse in 1888, Plane Creek began at Sarina in 1896 and in 1906 Cattle Creek Mill at Finch Hatton started operations.
Where crops were near the main railway line, cut cane was transported from field to mill via rail wagons. However, in cases where the crops and mills were remote from the railway, many mills established extensive tram networks for transporting harvested cane. The railway and tram networks continue to be used together with road transport.
From at least as early as the 1890s, cane lifts at tram or railway sidings were used to transfer bundles of cane onto rail or tram wagons. Cane was initially harvested as whole stalks by hand and, later, by wholestalk mechanical harvesters. The cane was cut close to the ground and then the top foliage was cut off. It was transported to the mill as whole stalks. A frequent practise was to lay temporary tramlines into the field so that tram wagons could be loaded with cut cane close to where the harvesting took place. Where this practise was not followed, the cane was loaded onto a horse drawn wagon or motorised vehicle. This was done by hand until the introduction of mechanised loaders in the mid-20th century. The wagon or vehicle transported the cane to the nearest siding where the bundles of cane were transferred onto a tram or rail wagon using the cane lifts.
Many lifts were on private property, others on railway land at sidings. In many cases sugar mills paid for the construction of the lifts and cane farmers repaid the money at a predetermined cost per ton of cane sent to the mill.
The lifts took different forms. F W Bolton, the manager of Farleigh Mill, is credited with introducing the 'traverser' type by 1891. This consisted of an overhead travelling winch which traversed a horizontal beam supported by two posts. The cane was laid flat on a sling in a dray which was driven under the winch. The winch was used to hoist the bundle of cane which was traversed about two metres and lowered into a tramway wagon parked next to the dray. The lift was praised at the time for greatly reducing loading times and enabling the cane to be packed more densely. Apparently this type of lift was widely adopted but there are no known examples extant in the Mackay area.
A similar configuration, possibly a modification of the traverser type, comprised two posts supporting a horizontal beam with a fixed pulley. These were predominantly used with tram wagons. As with the traverser the tram track passed under the horizontal beam. The wagon or truck containing the cane stalks was driven along the tram tracks to a position beneath the horizontal beam. The bundle of cane was hoisted, then the truck was driven out and its position taken by the tram wagon into which the cane was then lowered.
A third or 'derrick' type consisted of a boom fixed by a pivoting coupling to the bottom of a mast. It was held in a diagonal attitude to the mast by a hinged horizontal beam extending from the top of the mast to the end of the boom. The boom swung in an arc and the lifting hook was lowered from the end of the horizontal beam. Derrick type lifts were in use by 1893. They were used mostly to load cane into main line railway wagons.
Albert John Wellman Fudge, a carpenter, is credited by some with inventing the derrick type lift. Fudge was a British immigrant who moved to Mackay in the 1890s. It is claimed that Fudge built over one hundred cane lifts for most district mills. His work was said to have been carried on by Harry Penny until the introduction of chopper harvesters.
A variety of methods were used to power the hoist. It was common to use a horse hitched to a pole fixed to a rotating drum. This system was later adapted for use with a motor. From World War II, trucks were also used. Power was transferred via a set of rollers positioned in the ground so that they would engage with the wheels of the the truck carrying the cane.
The Leap cane lift is associated with the extensive tramway built to serve Farleigh Mill. The section of tramway from Farleigh to The Leap was built c1893 during Bolton's tenure as manager. Bolton announced the proposed construction on February 9, 1893 at a meeting of local growers at The Leap hotel. At this meeting, he promised to erect traverser type cane lifts at the end of the line. The extant lift is configured in a similar way to a traverser type, comprising a horizontal beam supported by two posts. However, the pulley is fixed, not traversing. The hoist winch is extant and it may have been powered by an electric motor.
Cane lifts became redundant after the widespread introduction of chopper mechanical harvesters. Mechanical harvesting was attempted with little real success from the late 19th century. The development of mechanical harvesters accelerated from World War II. The first harvesters cut the cane as whole stalks. This meant that the labour intensive task of bundling whole cane stalks and loading them continued. From the early 1950s, mechanical loaders alleviated this problem to some extent.
The introduction of chopper harvesters solved the loading problem. These harvesters chop the cane stalks into short lengths or billets. The billets are ejected from the harvester directly into bins towed by motor vehicle alongside the harvester. The bins are towed to the rail siding where they are transferred onto tram or rail wagons. Alternatively, the billets are tipped into bins on the wagons. By the mid-1960s, chopper harvesters had almost completely superseded wholestalk harvesters. The extant cane lifts probably all predate this time and some could date to the late 19th century.
","criteria":"The Leap cane lift is one of a group of lifts in the Mackay region, one of Queensland's oldest and most productive sugar cane growing areas. Historically, sugar has been one of the State's most important agricultural commodities. The lifts are important in demonstrating the evolution of the industry in that they provide evidence of how harvested cane was transported before the introduction of mechanical chopper harvesters. Sugar cane was originally harvested and transported to mills as whole stalks. The lifts were used to hoist bundles of stalks into tram or train wagons. They became redundant after the universal adoption of chopper harvesters from the 1960s. Cane lifts were used at The Leap from the 1890s.
|The Leap cane lift is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. The lifts took two basic forms: a derrick with a swinging boom, and a horizontal beam supported by two upright posts. The lift at The Leap is a highly intact example of the latter type and includes pulley wheels, cable, hook and winch. Its location near a cane tramway reflects the predominate use of this type of lift for loading tram wagons. The derrick type was used predominately for loading main line railway wagons.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31231,"place_ref":602751,"name":"Carmila Cane Lift","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"49 Hindles Road","suburb":"CARMILA WEST","lga":"ISAAC REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The Carmila cane lift is located on the southern side of the Carmila West Road, approximately 5km west-south-west of the township of Carmila. Carmila is located on the Bruce Highway 100km south of Mackay.
Standing between 7m and 9m high, the lift comprises two upright poles supporting a horizontal cross beam. The beam comprises an unfinished wooden log. The upright poles are covered with a climbing vine.
A pulley wheel is loosely fitted to the top of the cross beam with a metal clamp and lengths of heavy duty wire. Steel cable runs through the pulley wheel and a hook is suspended at the end of the cable. Set into the ground beneath the horizontal beam are two sets of roller mechanisms each set comprising two steel rollers and a steel cog. These project slightly from the ground.
The lift is located in an open grassy area containing some low scrub and a few trees.
","history":"The Carmila cane lift is situated near the locality of Carmila West south of the township of Sarina in the Broad Sound area. Sugar cane is a major crop in Queensland; the state produces almost all of the nation's sugar. The cane lifts formed part of the process of transporting bundled whole stalks of harvested sugar cane from the farms to the mill. They were rendered obsolete by the universal adoption of 'chopper' harvesters from the 1960s.
Sugar cane was first introduced to Australia in 1788 with the arrival of the first fleet. In 1821, Port Macquarie under the command of Captain Allman became Australia's first cane-growing area. In Queensland, the successful cultivation of sugar cane was established in 1864 at Redland Bay by Captain Louis Hope who erected Queensland's first sugar-crushing mill on the banks of Hilliard's Creek about 25km south-east of Brisbane.
Cane growing was tried at Bowen in the Whitsunday region in 1864 but continued there only until 1869, when it became clear that the climate was too dry. In the Pioneer Valley the first grower in the Mackay region was John Spiller. He arrived in Mackay in 1865 as a would-be squatter without capital but with cane brought from Java which he planted on the north bank of the Pioneer River. In June 1867 he produced the first sugar in the region.
The incipient cane growing industry was given impetus in 1864 with the enactment of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations, introduced by the government to encourage northern settlement. This enabled lessees to obtain plots of up to 1,280 acres (about 518ha) at a reasonable cost. Spiller and John Crees selected two blocks that became the Pioneer Plantation and built a primitive mill. T H Fitzgerald began a commercial plantation, Alexandra, in 1866 and with J Ewen Davidson set up a steam-powered mill that produced 110 tons (about 100 tonnes) of sugar in 1868. With these facilities a sugar boom began: small growers brought their cane for crushing to the Alexandra mill and acreage under cane expanded rapidly. Cane growers pushed back the graziers and by 1870 five mills were established.
By 1872 Mackay mills produced 40 per cent of the total Queensland sugar production and 37 per cent of its rum. Seventeen mills were established along the Pioneer River before 1875, most in 1872 and 1873. Another 12 including Farleigh, Habana, Homebush, and Marian were established between 1881 and 1885, then North Eton and Racecourse in 1888, Plane Creek began at Sarina in 1896 and in 1906 Cattle Creek Mill at Finch Hatton started operations.
Where crops were near the main railway line, cut cane was transported from field to mill via rail wagons. However, in cases where the crops and mills were remote from the railway, many mills established extensive tram networks for transporting harvested cane. The railway and tram networks continue to be used together with road transport.
From at least as early as the 1890s, cane lifts at tram or railway sidings were used to transfer bundles of cane onto rail or tram wagons. Cane was initially harvested as whole stalks by hand and, later, by wholestalk mechanical harvesters. The cane was cut close to the ground and then the top foliage was cut off. It was transported to the mill as whole stalks. A frequent practise was to lay temporary tramlines into the field so that tram wagons could be loaded with cut cane close to where the harvesting took place. Where this practise was not followed, the cane was loaded onto a horse drawn wagon or motorised vehicle. This was done by hand until the introduction of mechanised loaders in the mid-20th century. The wagon or vehicle transported the cane to the nearest siding where the bundles of cane were transferred onto a tram or rail wagon using the cane lifts.
Many lifts were on private property, others on railway land at sidings. In many cases sugar mills paid for the construction of the lifts and cane farmers repaid the money at a predetermined cost per ton of cane sent to the mill.
The lifts took different forms. F W Bolton, the manager of Farleigh Mill, is credited with introducing the 'traverser' type by 1891. This consisted of an overhead travelling winch which traversed a horizontal beam supported by two posts. The cane was laid flat on a sling in a dray which was driven under the winch. The winch was used to hoist the bundle of cane which was traversed about two metres and lowered into a tramway wagon parked next to the dray. The lift was praised at the time for greatly reducing loading times and enabling the cane to be packed more densely. Apparently this type of lift was widely adopted but there are no known examples extant in the Mackay area.
A similar configuration, possibly a modification of the traverser type, comprised two posts supporting a horizontal beam with a fixed pulley. These were predominantly used with tram wagons. As with the traverser the tram track passed under the horizontal beam. The wagon or truck containing the cane stalks was driven along the tram tracks to a position beneath the horizontal beam. The bundle of cane was hoisted, then the truck was driven out and its position taken by the tram wagon into which the cane was then lowered.
A third or 'derrick' type consisted of a load bearing boom fixed by a pivoting coupling to the bottom of a mast. It was held in a diagonal attitude to the mast by a hinged horizontal beam extending from the top of the mast to the end of the boom. The boom swung in an arc and the lifting hook was lowered from the end of the horizontal beam. Derrick type lifts were in use by 1893. They were used mostly to load cane into main line railway wagons.
Albert John Wellman Fudge, a carpenter, is credited by some with inventing the derrick type lift. Fudge was a British immigrant who moved to Mackay in the 1890s. It is claimed that Fudge built over one hundred cane lifts for most district mills. His work was said to have been carried on by Harry Penny until the introduction of chopper harvesters.
A variety of methods were used to power the hoist. It was common to use a horse hitched to a pole fixed to a rotating drum. This system was later adapted for use with a motor. From World War II, trucks were also used. Power was transferred via a set of rollers positioned in the ground so that they would engage with the wheels of the the truck carrying the cane. These lifts were known as 'Tracey' lifts.
The Carmila lift is a Tracey lift. It is configured in a similar way to a traverser type, comprising a horizontal beam supported by two posts. A pulley fitted to the horizontal beam is loosely held in place with a metal clamp and lengths of heavy wire. The rollers that form part of the lifting mechanism for this type of lift remain extant in the ground beneath the horizontal beam.
The lift is located on the route of the former Plane Creek Mill tramway (no longer extant). The Plane Creek Mill commenced operations in 1896 and the tramway at Carmila was present by the mid 1920s. Therefore the lift dates to between the 1920s and the 1960s when cane lifts were no longer used.
Cane lifts became redundant after the widespread introduction of chopper mechanical harvesters. Mechanical harvesting was attempted with little real success from the late 19th century. The development of mechanical harvesters accelerated from World War II. The first harvesters cut the cane as whole stalks. This meant that the labour intensive task of bundling whole cane stalks and loading them continued. From the early 1950s, mechanical loaders alleviated this problem to some extent.
The introduction of chopper harvesters solved the loading problem. These harvesters chop the cane stalks into short lengths or billets. The billets are ejected from the harvester directly into bins towed by motor vehicle alongside the harvester. The bins are towed to the rail siding where they are transferred onto tram or rail wagons. Alternatively, the billets are tipped into bins on the wagons. By the mid-1960s, chopper harvesters had almost completely superseded whole stalk harvesters. The extant cane lifts probably all predate this time and some could date to the late 19th century.
","criteria":"The Carmila cane lift, located near Sarina, is one of a group of lifts in the Mackay/Whitsunday region, one of Queensland's oldest and most productive sugar cane growing areas. Historically, sugar has been one of the State's most important agricultural commodities. The lifts are important in demonstrating the evolution of the industry in that they provide evidence of how harvested cane was transported before the introduction of mechanical chopper harvesters. Sugar cane was originally harvested and transported to mills as whole stalks. The lifts were used to hoist bundles of stalks into tram or train wagons. They became redundant after the universal adoption of chopper harvesters from the 1960s. The Carmila lift is located on the route of the former Plane Creek Mill tramway, established by the mid 1920s.
|The Carmila cane lift is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Tracey lift. Cane lifts took two basic forms: a derrick with a swinging boom, and a horizontal beam supported by two upright posts. The Tracey lift took the latter form and was powered by a truck backed under the lift so its back wheels engaged with rollers set into the ground. The lift at Carmila is an intact example of this type and includes the roller mechanism, pulley with cable and a hook.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31232,"place_ref":602750,"name":"Mount Martin Cane Lift","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Mirani Mount Ossa Road","suburb":"MOUNT MARTIN","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"The Mount Martin cane lift is situated at the locality of the same name on the southern side of the Mirani Mt Ossa Road. Mount Martin is located 45km west of Mackay. The lift is near a tram track in an area where there are extensive fields of sugar cane.
The lift stands between 7m and 8m high. Its main components are a single upright wooden mast, a wooden boom and a horizontal beam assembly. The horizontal beam assembly consists of two coupled timber beams. The boom is fixed via a hinged coupling to the bottom of the mast. The horizontal beam is fixed via a hinge to the top of the mast and the end of the boom, holding the boom in a diagonal attitude to the mast.
Pulley wheels are fixed to the horizontal beam assembly so that the wheels turn between the coupled wooden beams. A wheel is fitted to each end of the beam. Steel cable runs through the pulley wheels. A hook is suspended at the end of the cable. A steel ladder is fitted to the side of the mast and a safety rail runs almost the full length of the horizontal beam.
The lift is located in an open grassy paddock adjacent to a cane field.
","history":"The Mount Martin cane lift is situated near the locality of the same name in a rural area west of the city of Mackay. Mackay is the regional centre of one of Queensland's main sugar cane growing areas. One of the top two sugar producing regions in the state, it produces about a third of the sugar in Queensland. Sugar cane is a major crop in Queensland; the state produces nearly all of the nation's sugar. The cane lifts formed part of the process of transporting bundled whole stalks of harvested sugar cane from the farms to the mill. They were rendered obsolete by the universal adoption of 'chopper' harvesters from the 1960s.
Sugar cane was first introduced to Australia in 1788 with the arrival of the first fleet. In 1821, Port Macquarie under the command of Captain Allman became Australia's first cane-growing area. In Queensland, the successful cultivation of sugar cane was established in 1864 at Redland Bay by Captain Louis Hope who erected Queensland's first sugar-crushing mill on the banks of Hilliard's Creek about 25km south-east of Brisbane.
Cane growing was tried at Bowen in the Whitsunday region in 1864 but continued there only until 1869, when it became clear that the climate was too dry. In the Pioneer Valley the first grower in the Mackay region was John Spiller. He arrived in Mackay in 1865 as a would-be squatter without capital but with cane brought from Java which he planted on the north bank of the Pioneer River. In June 1867 he produced the first sugar in the region.
The incipient cane growing industry was given impetus in 1864 with the enactment of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations, introduced by the government to encourage northern settlement. This enabled lessees to obtain plots of up to 1,280 acres (about 518ha) at a reasonable cost. Spiller and John Crees selected two blocks that became the Pioneer Plantation and built a primitive mill. T H Fitzgerald began a commercial plantation, Alexandra, in 1866 and with J Ewen Davidson set up a steam-powered mill that produced 110 tons (about 100 tonnes) of sugar in 1868. With these facilities a sugar boom began: small growers brought their cane for crushing to the Alexandra mill and acreage under cane expanded rapidly. Cane growers pushed back the graziers and by 1870 five mills were established.
By 1872 Mackay mills produced 40 per cent of the total Queensland sugar production and 37 per cent of its rum. Seventeen mills were established along the Pioneer River before 1875, most in 1872 and 1873. Another 12 including Farleigh, Habana, Homebush, and Marian were established between 1881 and 1885, then North Eton and Racecourse in 1888, Plane Creek began at Sarina in 1896 and in 1906 Cattle Creek Mill at Finch Hatton started operations.
Where crops were near the main railway line, cut cane was transported from field to mill via rail wagons. However, in cases where the crops and mills were remote from the railway, many mills established extensive tram networks for transporting harvested cane. The railway and tram networks continue to be used together with road transport.
From at least as early as the 1890s, cane lifts at tram or railway sidings were used to transfer bundles of cane onto rail or tram wagons. Cane was initially harvested as whole stalks by hand and, later, by whole stalk mechanical harvesters. The cane was cut close to the ground and then the top foliage was cut off. It was transported to the mill as whole stalks. A frequent practise was to lay temporary tramlines into the field so that tram wagons could be loaded with cut cane close to where the harvesting took place. Where this practise was not followed, the cane was loaded onto a horse drawn wagon or motorised vehicle. This was done by hand until the introduction of mechanised loaders in the mid-20th century. The wagon or vehicle transported the cane to the nearest siding where the bundles of cane were transferred onto a tram or rail wagon using the cane lifts.
Many lifts were on private property, others on railway land at sidings. In many cases sugar mills paid for the construction of the lifts and cane farmers repaid the money at a predetermined cost per ton of cane sent to the mill.
The lifts took different forms. F W Bolton, the manager of Farleigh Mill, is credited with introducing the 'traverser' type by 1891. This consisted of an overhead travelling winch which traversed a horizontal beam supported by two posts. The cane was laid flat on a sling in a dray which was driven under the winch. The winch was used to hoist the bundle of cane which was traversed about two metres and lowered into a tramway wagon parked next to the dray. The lift was praised at the time for greatly reducing loading times and enabling the cane to be packed more densely. Apparently this type of lift was widely adopted but there are no known examples extant in the Mackay area.
A similar configuration, possibly a modification of the traverser type, comprised two posts supporting a horizontal beam with a fixed pulley. These were predominantly used with tram wagons. As with the traverser the tram track passed under the horizontal beam. The wagon or truck containing the cane stalks was driven along the tram tracks to a position beneath the horizontal beam. The bundle of cane was hoisted, then the truck was driven out and its position taken by the tram wagon into which the cane was then lowered.
The Mount Martin lift is an example of the derrick type. This type featured a boom fixed by a pivoting coupling to the bottom of a mast. The boom was held in a diagonal attitude to the mast by hinged horizontal beam extending from the top of the mast to the end of the boom. The boom swung in an arc and the lifting hook was lowered from the end of the horizontal beam. A ladder was typically fitted to the mast to permit access to the top of the derrick for maintenance purposes. Ladders could be wooden rungs fastened directly to the side of the mast or complete ladders with steel rungs and side rails. Derrick type lifts were in use by 1893. They were used mostly to load cane into main line railway wagons.
Albert John Wellman Fudge, a carpenter, is credited by some with inventing the derrick type lift. Fudge was a British immigrant who moved to Mackay in the 1890s. It is claimed that Fudge built over one hundred cane lifts for most district mills. His work was said to have been carried on by Harry Penny until the introduction of chopper harvesters.
A variety of methods were used to power the hoist. It was common to use a horse hitched to a pole fixed to a rotating drum. This system was later adapted for use with a motor. From World War II, trucks were also used. Power was transferred via a set of rollers positioned in the ground so that they would engage with the wheels of the the truck carrying the cane.
The Mount Martin lift was located close beside the railway branch line to Kungurri, opened in 1911. It was designed to transfer cut cane onto rail wagons. Several lifts originally existed at this location and a number of other derricks were erected at other sidings along the line. The extant lift dates to prior to 1939. In 1968, Marion Mill, the main user of the line, shifted to road transport because of the high cost of rail transport relative to road. This led to the closure of the branch line in 1970 and the lifting of the rails. A cane tramway presently runs along the old rail easement close to the lift.
Cane lifts became redundant after the widespread introduction of chopper mechanical harvesters. Mechanical harvesting was attempted with little real success from the late 19th century. The development of mechanical harvesters accelerated from World War II. The first harvesters cut the cane as whole stalks. This meant that the labour intensive task of bundling whole cane stalks and loading them continued. From the early 1950s, mechanical loaders alleviated this problem to some extent.
The introduction of chopper harvesters solved the loading problem. These harvesters chop the cane stalks into short lengths or billets. The billets are ejected from the harvester directly into bins towed by motor vehicle alongside the harvester. The bins are towed to the rail siding where they are transferred onto tram or rail wagons. Alternatively, the billets are tipped into bins on the wagons. By the mid-1960s, chopper harvesters had almost completely superseded whole stalk harvesters. The extant cane lifts probably all predate this time and some could date to the late 19th century.
","criteria":"The Mount Martin cane lift is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. The lifts took two basic forms: a derrick with a swinging boom, and a horizontal beam supported by two upright posts. The lift at Mount Martin is a highly intact example of the derrick type and includes pulley wheels, cable, hook and access ladder. The ladder is a typical feature of this type of lift and was fitted to permit access to the top of the derrick for maintenance purposes.
|The Mount Martin cane lift is one of a group of lifts in the Mackay region, one of Queensland's oldest and most productive sugar cane growing areas. Historically, sugar has been one of the State's most important agricultural commodities. The lifts are important in demonstrating the evolution of the industry in that they provide evidence of how harvested cane was transported before the introduction of mechanical chopper harvesters. Sugar cane was originally harvested and transported to mills as whole stalks. The lifts were used to hoist bundles of stalks into tram or train wagons. They became redundant after the universal adoption of chopper harvesters from the 1960s. The Mount Martin lift dates to before 1939.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31331,"place_ref":602738,"name":"Floriana","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"183-185 The Esplanade","suburb":"CAIRNS","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-04-30","description":"Located on the Cairns Esplanade facing east towards parkland and ocean views stands Floriana, a large, double-storey former family house of the interwar period, which has been converted into multiple-residency holiday accommodation. It stands on a rectangular-shaped block of land between a set of 1930s Spanish Mission style flats (which form part of the same holiday accommodation complex) and a recent high-rise apartment building. The former house is set back from the street and is partially concealed by a front garden containing palms, ferns, shrubs and small trees. It is constructed from a variety of materials, including rendered brick and timber, and has a multi-hipped roof clad with corrugated fibrous cement sheeting. The former family home now houses ten residential accommodation units and an administration office.
In form the building comprises two main rectangular sections, each incorporating different materials and standards of workmanship: a front section addressing the Esplanade, and a slightly smaller section to the rear. The front section, the long side of which runs across the block, has a wide entrance bay projecting from the centre of the eastern (front) façade. The lower level of the front section is constructed of rendered masonry, with some chamferboard sections along the north and south sides. The upper floor is timber-framed and clad entirely in chamferboards. A single hipped roof sits over the main portion of the front section, with a separate hipped roof over the entrance bay. A skillion-roofed timber extension attached to the northern side of the house is the only major exception to the symmetry of the front façade.
The smaller rear section, which is stepped in on the north and south so that it is not as long as the front section, has the same chamferboard cladding continued around the upper floor, and a partially enclosed verandah area located in the centre of the western (rear) façade. The ground floor, originally an open area with an enclosed bathroom in the south-west corner, is now a combination of enclosed rooms (with chamferboard-clad walls) and semi-enclosed spaces with either vertical batten or diagonal lattice screens. A rear timber staircase ascends from the north-west corner of the house and along the western façade. The roof over the rear section is made up of two parallel hipped roofs extending at right angles from the roof of the front portion of the house. Attached to the end of these hipped sections is a narrower skillion extension over the partially enclosed stair and verandah area. Apart from this skillion section, which is clad in corrugated iron, the main roof is clad in fibrous-cement sheeting.
The front (eastern) façade of the house is divided into three bays by a central projecting bay which houses the main entrance on the ground floor and an enclosed balcony on the upper floor. The brick walls on either side of the entrance bay are ornamented by raised stripes in the render work. The main entrance has a later timber double door, flanked by early timber louvred panels that extend from waist height to lintel height. Immediately below these panels are narrow, rendered brick garden beds. Above the doorway is a narrow concrete ledge with a patterned edge detail and above this the name Floriana is set in relief into the render. Decorated square pillars stand at each corner of the entrance bay, extending up to window height on the first floor and containing small flower boxes on top. The enclosed front balcony on the upper level of the entrance bay has early timber-framed casement windows on all three sides. These double windows open outwards with three lights in each leaf, two of which (the top and bottom) are patterned art glass.
A single large window sits on either side of the entrance bay on both floors. The ground floor windows are semi-circular in shape, timber framed with a decorative masonry detail around the edge. The left hand window is unaltered, with the centre leaf a casement window that open outwards, while the right hand window has been altered to contain a glass-paned door opening out onto an enclosed area (a recent fence around this enclosed area is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance). The upper floor has cantilevered bay windows with flared chamferboard skirtings. Each one has four six-light casements.
The north façade has extensions added to the upper floor. The largest is an early timber extension supported on diagonal brackets. It houses a small bathroom and a verandah that faces the street. Next to this is a smaller semi-enclosed area with a lower floor level (function unknown). The area beneath these projecting extensions is in-filled with screens and used for storage. The west or rear façade has a cantilevered flat profile polycarbonate roofing with a bullnose edge, attached to the northern side below the level of the upper floor, supported by metal tie rods from above (not considered to be of cultural heritage significance). Beneath this awning the ground floor area is semi-enclosed with lattice screens. The upper floor has a semi-enclosed verandah area in the centre screened by a timber balustrade and louvered panels. Along the south boundary, a low skillion roof clad in transparent corrugated polycarbonate sheeting creates a covered walkway between the house and a high block work wall for part of the length of the house. Accommodation units on the ground floor are accessible via exterior doors.
The front entrance doors open into a short vestibule, which then opens into a central foyer with curved, timber-panelled side walls. Stained a dark brown, these walls separate the foyer from accommodation rooms on the south side of the house and an office on the north side. A semi-circular hole has been cut into the north wall to create a reception area counter. The foyer floor is polished timber ornamented by a central square formed by different types of in-laid timber in the centre of the room (part of the early ballroom floor). Other ornamental features include decorative plaster cornices and borders around entranceways. The main staircase occupies an alcove at the far end of the foyer, opposite the entrance. The winding half-turn staircase retains the original carved handrails and timber treads and is the dominant feature of the interior. Accommodation units and public areas (such as a laundry) occupy the remainder of the ground floor on the southern and western sides.
On the upper floor, six doors lead off the landing that wraps around three sides of the top of the staircase. Five of these lead into accommodation units and one leads via a small public sitting room to the rear verandah and staircase. Four of these doors appear to be early and in their original position and one appears to be the original front door relocated to the upper floor. The rooms in the former central core of the upper floor, which contained the dining room, sitting room and front balcony, have been divided by additional partitions in order to create accommodation units. Each unit consists of one or two rooms and an ensuite bathroom, and most have a kitchenette. Despite these alterations, many features such as ceiling roses, cornices and bay window seats remain in situ. Two further units are accessible via the rear verandah area and have share kitchen facilities.
Ground surfaces around the house are generally paved and the front garden is landscaped with recent garden beds. The front fence has a low concrete base with rounded concrete posts, each topped by a sphere. Between each post runs a tubular metal top and bottom rail. Low hedges are planted immediately behind the fence line. A driveway runs between Floriana and the Spanish Mission units to access a rear yard which contains a swimming pool, barbeque area and a small, single storey building along the southern boundary (use unknown). These features, as well as modern signage and shade structures found within the front garden and attached to the front façade, are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Floriana at 183 The Esplanade, Cairns (now known as Floriana Guesthouse) is the former city residence of Maltese migrants Paul and Paulina Zammit and their family. The two-storey rendered brick and chamferboard house was constructed in 1939 and originally comprised five bedrooms, a sitting room, dining room and kitchen on the upper floor; and a bathroom on each level; with the whole of the ground floor occupied as a large ballroom, which was converted into two flats and an entrance foyer in the late 1940s. Aspects of its design related to the prominent, central entry with a wide bay projection above and the building's address to the street were influenced by traditional Maltese housing. It stands adjacent to a set of Spanish Mission-style flats, also built by Zammit only a few years previous employing the same architect, Edwin Roy Orchard, and establishing a proud presence on the Cairns Esplanade.
Paulus Franciscus Michael Antonius Zammit was born in Birkirkara, Malta circa 1889. About 1911, at the age of 22, he married 19 year old Paulina Modesta Angela Aquiline from the same town. This small British Crown colony in the Mediterranean Sea had prospered through the nineteenth century, its population expanding but its economy dependent on British military spending, particularly in the development of the port at the capital Valletta. When military funding ceased in 1907 unemployment and poverty ensued. The Daily Malta Chronicle, which became the vehicle for discussion on emigration due to a lack of government action, campaigned for an emigration program and promoted Australia as a land of opportunity.
An earlier attempt at organised migration from Malta to Queensland in 1883, when 69 labourers were sent to the cane fields of the lower Burdekin, had not proven successful. Overcrowding of the ship Nuddea and subsequent dissatisfaction with working conditions on the cane farms had deterred further emigration until the early twentieth century, when the Maltese government, unable to fund an emigration scheme, nonetheless concluded that its people would be welcomed by the Australian government in solving the problem of labour shortages in its developing northern territories. Between 1905 and 1919, 2248 Maltese arrived in the southern states, many of whom moved north.
Paul Zammit immigrated to Australia in 1912 in the early phase of its renewal, ahead of his wife. He arrived in Melbourne in April and travelled on to Sydney before heading to north Queensland, where he worked in the Chillagoe mines and then cutting cane near the coast, before settling in Mooliba near Bartle Frere around 1919.
Paulina Zammit had arrived in Queensland by December 1913, with the couple's first child. Over the following 20 years they had nine more children, all born in Queensland. The Post Office Directories list the Zammits as farmers at Mooliba (later known as Pawgilly) from 1919, and nearby Bartle Frere from 1927. When the Bartle Frere State School opened in 1922, the elder children were on the attendance record and Paul Zammit was on the school committee. All of the Zammit children attended this school, the youngest being enrolled in 1936.
Once established in Queensland Zammit used his growing prosperity to support numerous migrants from Italy and Malta, either through sponsorship or provision of various forms of assistance. From 1919 to 1929 just over 3000 Maltese men immigrated to Australia. The Orvieto, the first ship carrying Maltese migrants here following the end of WWI, arrived in 1920 reuniting a number of pioneering families in the Mackay and Innisfail areas. One such man was Joe Brincat who was later given employment by Paul Zammit cutting cane at Babinda, having initially worked at the Chillagoe smelters, as Zammit had done when he first arrived in Queensland. Family information has indicated that at least five other families were sponsored and assisted by Zammit over the course of his life.
Zammit's success and his community efforts were being recognised widely. In 1933 a branch of the Maltese Farmers and Settlers Association was formed in North Queensland during a visit from Dr Charles Mattel, a former AIF medical officer who was touring Queensland, meeting with Maltese migrants, forming the association, and drawing attention to the fact that the Maltese were law abiding British citizens after the unrest that occurred in the wake of the 1927 strike at the South Johnstone Sugar Mill. During his Cairns visit Dr Mattel noted that Paul Zammit of Bartle Frere was one of the most successful sugar farmers in North Queensland, with property reputedly worth £65,000. In the 1934 Australia Day Address given by the Maltese Commission for Labour, Captain Henri Curmi, in Malta, his achievements were cited as a source of inspiration to prospective Maltese emigrants. He was further praised by the Bishop of Far North Queensland, Bishop Heavy, at a 1936 function held at the Catholic Club Rooms in Babinda, where Paul was the president, for the work the family had done for the church in the region both financially and in facilitating pride in Maltese heritage. At this time he was also Far North President of the organisation that produced bi-lingual The Voice of the Maltese in Australia and Farmers' Advocate Weekly.
Paul Zammit had begun investing in residential property in Cairns, although the family was still resident on their Bartle Frere cane farm. In December 1932 two parcels of land at 183 and 185 The Esplanade (which included the later site of Floriana) were transferred to Paulina Zammit. These blocks were located on one of Cairns' premier streets, overlooking Trinity Inlet. According to family information, in 1934 the Zammits built the Spanish Mission-style flats, designed by former Sydney architect Edwin Roy Orchard, which are still located at 185 The Esplanade today. In mid-1935 they acquired 67 The Esplanade (later the site of the Continental Hotel, which Zammit also built). They also acquired another block of flats on The Esplanade in about 1935 (later known as Hayles Flats but no longer extant).
In October 1938 Orchard completed plans for a city residence for the Zammit family, which was to be built at 183 The Esplanade, adjacent to the c1934 flats. Orchard was an established Sydney North Shore architect who is credited with designing the earliest Californian Bungalow-influenced houses in New South Wales between 1913 and 1915 (three of his Sydney designs have been entered in the New South Wales Heritage Register). He relocated to Mareeba during the Depression and was involved in the tobacco industry until 1933, when he established an architectural practice in Cairns. He registered with the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Society of Architects in 1936. Orchard's other projects in the Cairns region included: Tobruk Memorial Pool (in partnership with Jack McElroy), St David's Anglican Church at Mossman, motor showrooms and a hotel in Atherton, the Tinaroo Dam lookout shelter, the Great Northern Hotel at Mareeba, the remodelling of the Courthouse Hotel in Cairns, and the Australian Hotel in Mackay. Much of his north Queensland work was influenced by the work of Dutch-born modernist architect Willem Marinus Dudok, whose use of dramatic massing, asymmetry, and overhanging eaves achieved international recognition and influence in the 1920s and 1930s. Orchard returned to live in Sydney in 1963 and died within a week aged 72.
In his design for the Zammit Cairns residence, Orchard tempered the use of modern materials, hipped roofs with wide eaves, and the demands of the tropical north Queensland climate, with elements of traditional Maltese house design. The building was double-storey, with the ground floor constructed of rendered brick and the upper level timber-framed and clad with chamferboard. The multi-hipped roof was clad in Durasbestos. Internally the public rooms (sitting room, dining room, front balcony and rear verandah) occupied the core of the upper level, with five bedrooms and a kitchen encircling it on the northern and southern ends of the building. Most of the ground floor was one large, timber-floored ballroom. By elevating the main living spaces, maximum advantage was taken of views to Trinity Inlet and banks of casement windows opened to sea breezes.
A large, decorative, half-winding internal staircase, handcrafted by a Maltese timber sculptor Mick Farrugia, ascended from the centre of the ballroom to the upper level. Behind the staircase on the ground floor, doors led to an undercroft space with washing facilities and another plainer stair leading to the rear verandah on the upper level. A bathroom and toilet, enclosed with chamferboards, was located in the south-west corner on each level. The timbers used inside included maple, silky oak, and Johnstone River hardwood. Farrugia and his family were sponsored immigrants nominated by the Zammits. Apart from the staircase and curved walls installed in the entry when the ballroom became small flats, he also custom-made furniture for the main and guest bedrooms.
The key elements of traditional Maltese design employed in the Zammit house included the composition of the street façade dominated by a centrally-positioned, street-level entry consisting of glass louvers either side of a door, a projecting bay above imitating the Maltese stone balcony; and then internally a decorative winding staircase leading off an entry vestibule, inside the front door and leading to the public spaces on the upper floor; and a public ballroom occupying the whole of the ground floor.
The Zammits moved into their new Cairns home around the time of the declaration of war in Europe, in September 1939, naming it Floriana, after a portside suburb of the Maltese capital Valletta.
From 1942 North Queensland became the base from which allied forces fought the war in the Pacific and south-east Asia. Cairns was inundated with American and Australian soldiers, who were accommodated in the city's hotels and guesthouses and in a camp established in 1943 along the seaward side of the Esplanade, from Kerwin Street to the end of Minnie Street and just over a block to the south-east of Floriana. Gun emplacements were installed along the Esplanade and a Catalina flying boat base was established near the hospital, almost adjacent to the south-east of the house.
The Zammit family, who were all proficient at a variety of musical instruments, regularly entertained top visiting US and Australian Army show bands and the ground floor ballroom hosted many social and fundraising events. Two of the Zammit daughters married American servicemen and left as war brides to live in the United States, and another married an RAAF serviceman. The wedding celebrations were held in the family home.
In 1946 the Zammits converted the southern part of the ground floor ballroom into a flat for one of their married daughters, and the northern half was similarly converted soon after. Curved timber-panelled partitions, constructed by Mick Farrugia, created a central foyer just inside the entrance vestibule and sandwiched between the new flats, from which the staircase rose to the upper level. The flats only ever accommodated visiting relatives and friends.
Both during and after the war Paul Zammit continued to run the cane farm at Bartle Frere. In 1947 he funded the construction of a small concrete church there, the Church of St Paul, which was opened on 31 August by the Catholic Bishop of Cairns, the Most Rev. J Heavey. Its concrete blocks were made on Zammit's farm by his cane-cutters in the off-season, and the small local community funded the furnishings. Paul was awarded the Bene Merenti Medal by Pope Pius XII in January 1948, in recognition of his work for the Catholic Church in Queensland.
At this time an article in the Maltese News, a publication of the Maltese Social Society in Melbourne, discussed Zammit's reputation as the biggest sugar cane farmer in the Cairns district and acknowledged the unfailing support he had given to Maltese settlers in the area over the years. In addition to the friends and family he had assisted, he also financially supported Father John Camilleri through his studies at the Capuchin Seminary in Italy during the 1950s. Camilleri was to go on to serve the Diocese of Cairns for more than forty years until his death in 2006.
From the late 1940s Paul Zammit expanded his business interests in north Queensland. Between 1948 and 1953 Zammits Prospecting Pty Ltd, in partnership with the Fisher brothers, held five mining leases in the Batavia Gold Fields. The family also owned a number of rental houses around Cairns, as well as the two blocks of flats, and constructed the 65-room Continental Hotel at 67 Esplanade, which opened in 1956 and was one of the first high-rise buildings in Cairns. Zammit sponsored his wife's niece and her husband, Joe and Catherine Gatt, to come to Australia to work in this hotel. When they first arrived they lived in one of the ground floor flats in Floriana. The Zammits owned a holiday home at Yorkey's Knob.
Paul Zammit died in 1959, family sources attesting to the fact that he had achieved great success in business and engaged in much community work while being unable to write or read English and being only a tentative speaker of it. Ten years later Paulina transferred Floriana and the adjacent Spanish Mission flats to their son Salvatore and his wife Jean. She died in December 1979. Salvatore Zammit and his family lived in Floriana until 1981. In March 1982 the house and the adjacent flats passed out of the Zammit family and were converted into the Floriana Guesthouse and Hotel, offering a total of 24 guest rooms. Alterations to the house included the conversion of the upper floor into self-contained flats, and reconfiguration of the two downstairs flats into three. It is likely that at this time the semicircular hole was cut in the northern timber-panelled wall of the central entrance foyer to create a reception window, and timber louvered sliding doors were installed on the southern side of the entrance foyer.
In December 2006 an expensive and extensive renovation was completed, transforming the former Spanish Mission flats from a budget hotel to an upmarket Mediterranean-style complex with one and two bedroom villas and a pool, which were marketed as Floriana Villas. The original Floriana, known as Floriana Guesthouse, retains the early 1980s layout and currently comprises 10 ensuited rooms and self-contained bed sits.
","criteria":"Floriana, a two-storey brick and timber house located on the Cairns Esplanade overlooking Trinity Inlet, was constructed in 1939 as the city residence of Paul and Paulina Zammit and their family. The place demonstrates the contribution that Europeans have made to the evolution of Queensland as a multi-cultural society. It demonstrates how in the early part of the 20th century some immigrants to North Queensland were able to advance financially and socially. The house is a clear marker of the success of the Zammit family in Queensland which is announced to both the North Queensland community and the Maltese diaspora. It does so by explicitly blending features of Queensland and Maltese design.
Mr Zammit was an immigrant from Malta in 1912 who became one of the most successful sugar farmers in North Queensland with a property near Bartle Frere serving the Babinda Mill. He subsequently became a major investor in gold mining and property development. Maltese immigrants were a significant part of the development of the sugar industry and Mr Zammit became a leader of the Maltese community throughout Queensland.
The place is significant because the Zammits selected a site in the best residential street in Cairns, employed a notable architect (Edwin R Orchard) and erected a substantial two-storey house that incorporated a number of traditional Maltese elements within the overall format of a Queensland house of its era. The design is unique in that it incorporates the principal characteristics a modern interwar house - multi-hipped roof, wide overhanging eaves, enclosed balconies and Art Moderne (Art Deco) decorative interior detailing - with the elements of traditional Maltese housing. These elements included: the provision of a prominent, centrally positioned ground floor entrance emphasised by a semi-enclosed balcony above the entrance vestibule and louvred timber panels either side of the main door; the whole of the ground floor taken up by a large ballroom; and at the core of the house, a substantial and decorative winding staircase which is of aesthetic value in its own right. Maltese timber sculptor, Mick Farrugia, crafted both the central stair (1939) and the 1946 ground floor vestibule walls.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31351,"place_ref":602746,"name":"Caloundra Lighthouses","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"6 Arthur Street and 3 Canberra Terrace Kings Beach","suburb":"CALOUNDRA","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-02-05","description":"At the highest point of the coastal town of Caloundra, located approximately 80km north-east of Brisbane at the northern end of Pumicestone Passage, the two former Caloundra lighthouses stand side by side in a small park. Located close to the heart of town and behind Kings Beach, the site is now surrounded by suburban and medium-rise development, yet maintains extensive views over the city of Caloundra to the ocean, Moreton Island, Pumicestone Passage and the Glasshouse Mountains. The views obtained from the top of both lighthouses are even more extensive, with glimpses of Point Cartwright possible from the top level of the Signal Station. The two lighthouses are clearly visible from many vantage points around Caloundra, particularly in the vicinity of Kings Beach.
\nThe rectangular-shaped site, as encompassed by the heritage boundary and corresponding almost exactly with the 1896 extent of the lighthouse reserve, covers an area of 868 square metres and is orientated north-south. It is divided into two lots - the present day (2009) Lighthouse Reserve at the southern end (1/RP135230) and Lions Park at the northern end (2/RP135230). The western boundary is defined by Canberra Terrace, which leads down into the main commercial spine of Caloundra, Bulcock Street. The northern boundary is made by Arthur Street, a long straight road descending steeply from the intersection with Canberra Terrace at the north-western corner of the park. Single residences occupy the allotments to the east of the site, while a number of medium-rise residential unit blocks have been built from the adjacent property to the south down Canberra Terrace.
\nLighthouse reserve
\nThe Lighthouse Reserve (1/RP135230) is an open grassed area, sloping down to the east and south. It contains the 1896 lighthouse (currently known as the Old Caloundra Head Lighthouse), 1968 lighthouse and signal station (currently known as the Caloundra Signal Station) and a c1968 brick generator shed, all clustered together near the Canberra Terrace boundary. A concrete slab from a previous auxiliaries building and some concrete footings (possibly from the original signals mast) are also located within the allotment.
\na. 1896 Lighthouse
\nThe 1896 lighthouse is a timber-framed structure clad in corrugated iron, standing twelve metres high and capped with a domed lantern. The tower is conical in form with a base diameter of approximately 4.3 meters reducing to a top diameter of 2.26 metres. It has been reinstalled at its original location on a round concrete slab placed over the top of the original 1896 footing when it was returned from Golden Beach in 1999. Corrugations in the iron sheeting taper inwards for the full height of the tower. Most exterior sheeting is early, slip-sheeted in places with zinc sheeting to repair rusted sections. A small timber-framed entry projects from the northern side, clad in corrugated iron with an arched corrugated iron roof. The door is made from tongue and groove boards on a timber frame. Four small, rectangular windows provide daylight to the interior - two at ground level and two corresponding to the level of the central interior platform. They are vertical sliders, framed with cedar and weather-proofed on the exterior by lead flashing. The exterior of the tower is painted white, with the exception of a red border on the entry door.
\nInside there are two platforms above ground level, accessed by near-vertical timber steps and hatchways in the floors. The tower framework features original components, including: 140mm x 100mm timber stud work; circular girts made from beech; a combination of diagonal timber bracing and steel spiral strapping; timber floor joists on each level supported on a circular steel angle; and floors lined with wide tongue and groove boards. A small number of timber components were replaced after the 1999 move when the tower was damaged, and some steel bracket work was installed. The steel, angled bottom plate and tie-down brackets bolting the structure to the slab also date from c1999, with some original brackets remaining as examples. Some early timber shelving remains, as well as some of the 1940s electrical conduit, wiring and switches (no longer in use). Signage and a safety strap on the top ladder have been introduced since restoration of the structure in 1999.
\nThe lantern room with hemispherical dome roof sits on top of the tower and is accessed via a hatchway in the floor which is lined with lead. All optics have been removed from the lantern, but a pedestal similar to the original has been recently installed. The cylindrical lantern base is constructed from 4.5mm thick steel plates, with a hatch door on the northern side to allow access to the exterior gallery. Its middle section consists of eight trapezoidal frames, five of which are glazed. The remaining three frames (on the western side) are filled with galvanized sheeting with diagonal bracing. The dome is made from eight steel segments bolted together with additional bar stiffeners. It is painted red on the exterior and topped with a ventilator cowl. The narrow gallery that encircles the lantern has a hardwood timber floor supported by cast iron brackets, and a lightweight tubular balustrade, also painted red.
\nb. 1968 Lighthouse and signal station
\nThe 1968 signal station stands approximately four metres to the north-west of the 1896 lighthouse. It consists of a square concrete tower supporting a multi-faceted, D-shaped observation room with a lantern mounted on the roof. The overall height of the structure is approximately 14m and the rounded side of the observation room faces east. The tower base measures 2.7m² and features a rectangular window on each face (at various heights in line with the internal staircase). Angled, reinforced concrete beams cantilever out from the tower base and support the overhanging concrete floor slab of the observation room and its balcony. The observation room features a continuous band of windows around its eastern sides, while four individual windows pierce the straight concrete western wall.
\nFrom the ground level entrance door on the western side of the tower, a spiral concrete staircase with steel tubular handrail winds around a central service duct before arriving in the near-centre of the observation room. Apart from an enclosed toilet in the north-west corner, the observation room is an open space with a central pillar that contains cavities for services that link to the roof level. Fixed angled glazing wraps around the north, east and south sides. A set of recent laminated cabinetry sits below the observation windows along the north-east. Original metal window frames on the western wall are a mixture of mid-point pivoting and fixed panes, while more recent aluminium-framed windows are found in the toilet. Floors are lined with linoleum and a system of suspended ceiling panels conceals the underside of the concrete roof slab. A recent sink and cupboard sits up against the southern wall of the toilet. All original communications equipment has been removed. Access to the external balcony, which wraps around all sides except the straight, western edge, is through a single door in the south-west corner. This timber door retains the original separate screen door. The narrow balcony has a concrete floor and a balustrade made from two tubular steel rails and widely separated balusters covered in asbestos cement sheeting rendered with pebble-dash on the exterior face. The steel balusters pierce the concrete floor slab and are fixed on the underside.
\nAt the far north-west end of the balcony is a steel ladder with safety grille, which provides access to the flat concrete roof of the observation room. A waist-height, tubular metal balustrade, with fibre cement panels attached, runs around the edge of this area, with the lantern that once housed the 1968 sealed beam array light located in the centre. Constructed from concrete with a flat concrete roof, the lantern is a multi-faceted, circular room, narrower at the base than the roof and glazed around the eastern half of its circumference. The trapezoidal window panes are fixed within a steel frame and a door on the south-west side allows access inside. A metal ladder on the north-west side provides access to the roof of the lantern, where radar equipment and aerials are mounted.
\nc. circa 1968 generator shed
\nThe former generator shed (c1968) is a single-storeyed, orange brick building located close to both lighthouses (south of the concrete signal station and east of the old lighthouse). Entrance to the building is through a roller door on the northern façade. The flat concrete roof overhangs on the north and south sides to form a narrow awning, and a projecting brick sill runs around the building beneath high windows. The interior contains two rooms: a larger room housing a generator, remnant equipment and a workbench; and a smaller room in the north-west corner, accessed by an internal door.
\nLions Park
\nThe main feature of Lions Park is a series of long terraces, formed by boulder walls and garden beds that descend the steep slope falling from Canberra Terrace. A number of trees are planted throughout this area, including wind-stunted endemic Eucalypt species and Grevillea robusta. Along the Canberra Terrace boundary is a small car park with a garden bed at the southern end. A sandstone block in this garden displays a plaque containing historical information about the lighthouses. To the east of the garden bed is a boulder set in a round concrete footing with a memorial plaque dedicated to World War II servicemen attached (erected 1991). With the exception of the memorial, none of the remainder of these elements is considered to be of state-level cultural heritage significance. It is the extent of the largely undeveloped site (part of the original lighthouse reserve) that is significant, rather than the elements that comprise the park.
","history":"The Caloundra Head Lighthouses played an integral role in Queensland's system of coastal navigation aids from the 1890s to the 1970s and remain prominent landmarks from Moreton Bay and in the Caloundra district. From construction of the first lighthouse in 1896 through to the decommissioning of the second (1968) lighthouse in 1978 the lights on Caloundra Head guided mariners to the northern entrance to the North West Channel - the safest, most reliable and consequently the most used entry channel to the Port of Brisbane. Despite no longer operating as lighthouses, community support for the conservation of both structures has ensured their survival, while the image of the 1896 lighthouse, Caloundra's oldest surviving structure, has endured as one of the most significant symbols of the town.
When Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859 the new colony had only one lightstation: Cape Moreton (QHR 600257) on Moreton Island, which had a stone lighthouse erected in 1856. (The Raine Island Beacon (QHR 600432) constructed in 1844 by the British navy was no longer in use.) This situation was untenable for a colony that relied heavily on coastal shipping. In the 1860s and 1870s the expansion of pastoral and mining activity in northern Queensland led to the establishment of new coastal ports to service the developing hinterlands and the provision of coastal navigation aids became essential.
In 1864 the Queensland government appointed a select committee to investigate the state of harbours and rivers in the colony. A direct outcome of this inquiry was the construction of the Bustard Head Lighthouse south-east of Gladstone in 1867-1868 and a lighthouse at Sandy Cape in 1870 - the first lighthouses built by the Queensland colonial government. These were prefabricated iron-framed structures with bolted or riveted cast-iron plate cladding and internal iron staircases, the whole imported from England.
By 1873, the year of the inaugural Intercolonial Coast Lighthouse Conference in Sydney, Queensland had 39 lights along its coastline. The conference was the first attempt to coordinate coastal lights and signals around Australia. Recommendations included the need for more coastal lights in Queensland. Although there was general agreement on the recommendations, there were no moves by any of the colonies to cede their control of lighthouses and other coastal signals to a centralised body or to adopt standardised designs for coastal lights. Lighthouse design continued to take into account local conditions and readily available building materials. Often the local materials were augmented with specialised fittings such as stairways, lantern rooms, lenses, and clock work mechanisms from overseas companies.
For the third lighthouse built by the Queensland colonial government (erected on Lady Elliott's Island in 1872-1873), Colonial Architect FDG Stanley designed a structure which utilised readily available local timber, specifying a hardwood frame clad with plated iron sheeting. This reduced the cost of construction, and despite problems of termite infestation and rusting, this type of construction, or its derivative, a wooden frame with corrugated galvanised iron sheeting, became the standard for subsequent nineteenth century Queensland lighthouses. Between 1873 and 1901, 14 lighthouses were constructed in Queensland using hardwood framing and plated iron sheeting, and another 7 were constructed with hardwood frames and corrugated iron cladding. The latter were associated mostly with harbour entrances and included: Little Sea Hill (1876 - relocated); Grassy Hill (1886 - active, QHR 601241); Goods Island (1886 - active); Bay Rock (1886 - inactive - relocated); Caloundra Head (1896 - inactive); North Point Hummock (1899 - demolished); Gatcombe Head (1900 - demolished). An eighth lighthouse of this type was constructed at Bulwer Island in the Brisbane River in 1912, but is now inactive has been relocated.
From 1846, when declared a port of entry, Brisbane/Moreton Bay had been the principal port of Queensland. By the late 1850s the main northern channel lay about half a nautical mile west of Moreton Island and was marked by Cape Moreton Lighthouse, the lightship Rose, and covered lights at Comboyura Point, North Point and Cowan Cowan. In 1879 George Poynter Heath, Portmaster of Queensland 1862-1890 and Chairman of the Queensland Marine Board 1869-1890, sounded a new channel from Caloundra Head along the eastern shore of Bribie Island to provide a deep water entry to the Port of Brisbane. This North West Channel quickly proved to be the safest and most reliable deep water entrance to the port, but remained unlit until 1896 when two leading lights on Bribie Island and a lighthouse at Caloundra Head (marking the entrance to the channel), were completed.
A 25 acre (10ha) Lighthouse Reserve had been proclaimed when the town of Caloundra was surveyed in 1883 but was never used. Instead, in the mid-1890s a site of little over half an acre (0.275ha) was chosen on land owned by Robert Bulcock, where he had built an observation platform on the highest portion of his property during the early 1880s, reputedly to keep watch for enemy ships during the 'Russian Scare'. Early photographs show that the first Caloundra Head Lighthouse was built close to Bulcock's observation platform, which stood to the south-west on what is now Canberra Terrace.
The lighthouse reserve was formally transferred to the Crown in 1896-1897 and early in 1896 the Department of Harbours and Rivers called tenders for the construction of two lighthouse towers and cottages on Bribie Island and a lighthouse tower and cottage at Caloundra Head. Materials were shipped by barge from Brisbane and department officers supervised the erection of the lightstations using day labour. The Caloundra Head Lighthouse was a hardwood-framed structure, clad with corrugated iron. A fourth order dioptric apparatus, which operated by concentrating light by refraction, was imported from Chance Bros & Co. near Birmingham. The towers for the two leading lights on Bribie Island were of a much simpler construction: open timber frames that could be moved as the channel changed.
The first light keeper at the Caloundra Head Lightstation was appointed when the light became operational in September 1896. One room of his cottage functioned as a postal receiving office, complete with telegraph facilities, with the light keeper appointed as the receiving office keeper. In 1910 the telegraph service was discontinued but was replaced by a telephone service in 1912. The post office remained at the lighthouse until 1934 and as a result, a rough track along the ridge was created by a steady stream of local residents, helping to foster closer settlement around the lighthouse in the immediate years after its erection. This rough track eventually became Canberra Terrace. As a married man with a large family, the arrival of the first lightkeeper also led to the establishment of the first Caloundra School, which for several months in the late 1890s was conducted at the light keeper's cottage.
An incandescent vapour light, the first of its kind in Queensland, was purchased from Chance Brothers and installed in 1910 and by 1912 its 1400 candle power was visible at least 22-25 miles out to sea. Many mariners considered it the best light on the Queensland coast and the key to successfully traversing Moreton Bay. As a result, by 1920 all vessels entering and leaving the Port of Brisbane at night had to use the North West Channel.
Following the passage of the 1912 Commonwealth Navigation Act, from 1 July 1915 Queensland handed over responsibility for its 30 manned lights and 37 unattended lights, beacons, and buoys to the Commonwealth Government. The Commonwealth constructed additional lightstatons and made substantial upgrades to existing lights, with many lighthouses converted to unattended acetylene lights. The bulk of the expenditure was concentrated north of Cooktown where seven new lighthouses were constructed to guide ships through the Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef. Manned lighthouses were phased out in favour of less expensive, utilitarian-designed, unmanned structures.
Caloundra Head Lighthouse continued to signal the entrance to the North West Channel to the Port of Brisbane and by 1929 investment in new navigation marks and dredging to increase the depth of the channel ensured that most of the larger ships entering Brisbane used this channel.
The lighthouse also played an important role in the development of tourism on the North Coast (now Sunshine Coast). From as early as the 1880s holiday makers were travelling to Caloundra by boat or by rail to Landsborough then overland to Caloundra and staying in one of the early guesthouses or camping grounds. 'Lighthouse Hill' became well known as a lookout and beauty spot, a place to which tourists and visiting dignitaries alike were taken to see the view, and take a photograph from Bulcock's observation platform (which still existed in the early 1900s). The image of the lighthouse became a symbol of Caloundra, used on promotional material, estate maps, tourist brochures and postcards. With the improvement of roads in the 1930s, Caloundra became more popular as a tourist destination and underwent a period of rapid expansion.
With the advent of hostilities in south-east Asia and the Pacific in 1940 the operation of all Australian coastal lights was controlled by the Royal Australian Navy. With Brisbane becoming a major disembarkation point for soldiers and supplies for the war effort, the North West Channel through Moreton Bay became the only entrance to the Port making it a well used and vital route. For security purposes ships entering and leaving the channel had to travel in convoys and it was a common sight to see a host of vessels waiting off Caloundra Head to form a convoy before continuing to the Port of Brisbane or their next destination. For security purposes the channel was moved further east, away from the Bribie Island coast.
For the greater part of World War II the Royal Australian Navy set up an observation post within the grounds of the Caloundra Head Lighthouse reserve. Twenty-four hour watches were kept, and display of the light to shipping was controlled. The light was converted to 240 volt mains power in 1942 and a petrol standby engine was added. The lighthouse no longer needed to be manned, so the Coastal Artillery occupied the lightkeeper's cottage and oversaw the operation of the light.
After the war the Caloundra Head Lighthouse remained unmanned. The lightkeeper's cottage, no longer needed, was sold to a private owner and moved down the hill to Upper Gay Terrace in 1946 (this building was extant in 2009, but greatly modified). Canberra Terrace was widened and underwent a number of improvements, and by 1950 the unused northern portion of the lighthouse reserve had been opened as a public park, with the area around the lighthouse fenced off. The lighthouse image continued to be used on tourist brochures, pamphlets and postcards. Caloundra Primary School (and later the High School) adopted the lighthouse as its school crest with the motto 'Giving Light'. Various clubs and societies, such as the Caloundra Bowls Club, also adopted stylised versions of the lighthouse in their logos.
In 1950 the North West Channel was still the most used entrance to the Port of Brisbane. During the 1960s change and development in Australian industry and trade had a marked influence on the shipping industry. With the advent of road and rail transportation many of the smaller coastal ships became obsolete but the increase in large container ships meant that passages such as Moreton Bay's deep North West Channel became even more important.
In May 1966 the Commonwealth, responding to the changing nature of international shipping, granted permission for the Queensland government to construct a composite structure comprising lighthouse, signal station and radar station, on the lighthouse reserve at Caloundra Head. The new structure was part of a pilot station scheme based at the Mooloolah River, and was to serve as a guide to the North West Channel and a signal light for Caloundra Harbour. Fully completed and operational by 1968, the new lighthouse was erected close to the 1896 lighthouse and for a time the two towers stood side by side. Constructed in reinforced concrete, the new lighthouse resembled an airport control tower. A new light that used a revolving table and comprised two stacks of sealed beam lamps was designed and installed. It was manned 24 hours a day and four houses were built outside the reserve to accommodate the staff and their families. A similar signal station tower was constructed at Lytton Hill, making the Caloundra tower one of only two of this type built in Australia. With the Lytton Hill tower being demolished in the 1990s, the Caloundra tower remains the only surviving example.
In Queensland, the Commonwealth constructed seven concrete lighthouses between 1964 and 1979: Cape Capricorn (1964); Caloundra Head (1968); Point Danger (1971); New Burnett Heads (1971); Fitzroy Island (1973); Point Cartwright (1978); and Archer Point (1979). In the 1980s, as lights became unmanned and automatic, the emphasis shifted to less expensive structures with shorter lifespans.
The new light at Caloundra Head had a relatively short working life, with nearby high-rise residential unit development obscuring views of the light from sea and rendering it ineffective. Downgraded, the 1968 light was transferred on a reduced area of land (868m²) to the Queensland Treasury in 1974 and it continued to operate as a harbour light and signal station. A new tower constructed at the mouth of the Mooloolaba River at Point Cartwright in 1978 took over the role of lighting the North West Channel. In 1992 the function of the Caloundra Signal Station was replaced by an automatic radar/microwave link unit on the roof of units at Wickham Point to the east, resulting in the station being de-manned. In the late 1990s the light was replaced by a beacon on Wickham Point. Some radio equipment was left in operation at the Caloundra Signal Station, which is still used by local emergency services.
Upon completion of the new lighthouse and signal station in 1968, the 1896 Caloundra Head Lighthouse had been threatened with demolition. To save the structure it was moved in 1970 by the Golden Beach Power Boat Club to Woorim Park, adjacent to their new clubhouse site, where it was hoped it could continue as a tourist attraction. Some attempts were made to conserve the exterior, but, over the decades, continued deterioration and lack of a viable use for the structure meant that its future was threatened again. Several options for relocating the lighthouse were put forward, however the closure of the Caloundra Signal Station in 1992 meant that the option of returning the 1896 lighthouse to its original position on Canberra Terrace became a possibility. After years of lobbying, especially by the Lions Club of Caloundra, and a $50,000 grant from the Caloundra City Council, an attempt to re-locate the lighthouse on 22 March 1999 saw the timber frame give way when the lighthouse was being positioned on a truck. After repairs, the lighthouse was successfully re-positioned on its original site in Canberra Terrace on 11 June 1999. The tower and lantern were restored, including strengthening of the timber structure, replacement and repairs to the cladding, repair of the lantern roof and repainting of the exterior. In late 2007 the Friends of the Caloundra Lighthouses was formed to assist in the conservation of both lights, which were leased to the Sunshine Coast Regional Council in 2010.
","criteria":"The 1896 Caloundra Head lighthouse has a strong association for generations of tourists who have visited Caloundra, as a symbol of the town and a vantage point from which to survey the coast and hinterland. Located on a prominent site in a town that developed largely due to tourism, the old lighthouse on the hill was one of the most visited and most photographed early tourist attractions in Caloundra.
The 1896 lighthouse also has strong social significance for Sunshine Coast residents. As the only town on the Sunshine Coast to possess a lighthouse, it was a source of pride for the community and helped to distinguish Caloundra from other coastal settlements. Both the symbolic and functional nature of the 1896 lighthouse contributed to Caloundra's sense of identity as a popular seaside resort with a role in navigating the North West Channel into Brisbane. The symbolic nature of the lighthouse is evidenced by its depiction on tourist brochures, logos and crests throughout the twentieth century.
|The Caloundra Lighthouses on their hilltop setting remain a physical and aesthetic marker of Caloundra.
|The 1896 lighthouse structure remains substantially intact, and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a type of lighthouse construction - a conical, timber-framed tower clad with corrugated iron - unique to Queensland. Less than a dozen of this specific type of lighthouse were constructed in Queensland in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Two of these have been demolished; three have been relocated and are no longer active; one remains in situ but is no longer active (Caloundra Head (1896) which, although removed from the site in 1970, was returned to its original location in 1999); and two are known to remain active and in situ: Grassy Hill (1886, QHR 601241) at Cooktown and Goods Island (1886) in the Torres Strait.
The 1968 lighthouse and signal station is one of only two constructed to this design in Australia, the only one to survive, and one of a small number of concrete lighthouses built in Queensland. In the combination of lighthouse, signals and radar functions in the one structure, the 1968 lighthouse and its ancillary generator shed are important in demonstrating the range of lightstation structures designed for particular locations.
Together, the two lighthouses on Caloundra Head, which are both substantially intact examples of their type, are important in demonstrating the evolution of lighthouse design in Queensland between the 1890s and 1970s, and offer a rare opportunity for close comparison.
The lighthouse surrounds (reserve and public park) correspond to the 1896-1974 lighthouse reserve, and are important in demonstrating the area needed for a manned lightstation.
|In their location, materials and design, the Caloundra Lighthouses (constructed in 1896 and 1968) are important in demonstrating aspects of the evolution of marine navigation along the Queensland coast. The first Caloundra Head Lighthouse (1896) marked the entrance to the North West Channel in Moreton Bay, which proved to be the safest, most reliable and consequently the most used entry channel to the Port of Brisbane, Queensland's premier port since the 1840s. It played an important role in Queensland marine navigation for over 70 years. The second lighthouse (1968) marked the entrance to the main channel for only a decade, but remains important in illustrating the evolution of lighthouse form and function in Queensland. The surrounds correspond to the 1896-1974 lighthouse reserve.
The 1896 lighthouse at Caloundra Head is important for its association with the development of Caloundra as a coastal settlement and early tourist destination.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31371,"place_ref":602747,"name":"King's Boarding House (former)","alternate_name":"Kings Boarding House","street_address":"Maidenwell-Cooyar Road","suburb":"MAIDENWELL","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-09-17","description":"King's Boarding House (former) is located on an elevated parcel of land overlooking the Maidenwell-Cooyar Road, Maidenwell. It is comprised of two structures connected by a covered walkway. The structure to the east overlooking the road is the original boarding house while the structure to the west is the original kitchen.
The landscape around the coach house is scrubby with the only established plantings being a large Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) to the north of the kitchen and a palm tree to the north of the boarding house. Located in the southern courtyard of the complex bounded by the kitchen, walkway and boarding house are the remains of a stone lined well. A mound of spent carbide is located at the southern end of the kitchen building.
The coach house complex including the boarding house, kitchen and walkway are all equally elevated above the ground. The boarding house is comprised of a simple rectilinear planned core with an enclosed verandah to the west and semi enclosed verandah to the east. A gable roof form covers the main core of the building while simple lean-to roofs cover the verandahs.
The kitchen structure is also comprised of a central rectilinear planned core covered by a gable roof. A simple lean-to roof covers the semi enclosed verandah space to the west. No verandah exists to the east of the structure; however remains of floor framing indicate that such a structure may once have existed on this side of the kitchen. A fire place and associated chimney constructed from stone bonded with lime and loam adjoins the northern end of the kitchen.
The walkway between the boarding house and kitchen is covered by a curved roof. All roofs to the coach house complex are clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
The coach house complex is established on a floor framing system comprised of hardwood stumps, rough sawn hardwood drop log bearers, pit sawn hardwood joists and floor boards. Exterior walls to both buildings are timber framed with the dominant wall construction for both structures being a system of vertically expressed hardwood posts housed into bed log bearers and extended up to meet a hardwood top plate. Smaller twin sections of timber are fixed to posts to create rebates running the length of the post. Pit sawn timber slabs are stacked horizontally into these rebates to create the wall membrane.
Wall construction differs across the coach house complex. In the kitchen building the wall to the semi enclosed southern verandah is constructed from rough sawn vertical timber slabs spanning from the ground to the pitching point of the lean-to roof. In the boarding house the southern end of the east facing verandah has been enclosed with butt jointed pit sawn hardwood boards spanning vertically from floor level to the pitching point of the lean-to verandah roof. The eastern exterior wall to the boarding house is clad with dressed tongue and groove timber boards.
At the gable and lean-to roof ends of both the boarding house and kitchen timber framing is extended from wall top plates to the under side of the timber framed roof structures. These wall areas are externally clad with hardwood weatherboards. Remnant painted signage that reads 'King's Boarding House' is just visible on the southern gable end of the boarding house building.
Some windows to the coach house complex are now missing, those extant include a combination of double hung timber framed windows to the boarding house and timber framed fixed and casement windows to the kitchen. Windows to the northern, western and eastern elevations of the boarding house are protected from the weather by timber framed awnings sheeted with corrugated iron.
Internally both buildings reveal clear evidence of the manner in which they were originally configured despite sections of internal wall and ceiling linings being removed.
In the boarding house remnant hardwood partitions indicate that both the central core of the building and the enclosed southern verandah were broken up into a number of rooms. The enclosed section of the northern verandah accommodated the post office. Surviving fabric indicates that the ceiling and internal partitions were lined with timber tongue and groove boards while internal surfaces to external walls remained unlined revealing the timber post and slab style of construction.
The kitchen building includes an open plan central core complete with stone fireplace for cooking and a semi enclosed western verandah and sub floor cellar. An intact high level partition indicates that the core of the building may once have been divided into two rooms. The verandah is set at ground level and has an earth floor. Similar to the external walls of the verandah the cellar walls are constructed of vertically stood timber slabs set in between timber stumps and spanning from ground level to meet bearers above. This cellar is accessed via a set of timber framed doors.
The timber framed roof structure is exposed in the core of the kitchen building and it is not clear if the ceiling was lined. There is no evidence of internal linings to the external walls of the kitchen building and as with the boarding house the timber post and slab wall construction is expressed internally as it is externally.
","history":"The former King's Boarding House, a gabled building of horizontal slab construction with a detached kitchen was built in 1889 by selector John King, on the Maidenwell-Cooyar Rd, Maidenwell.
The area encompassing present day Maidenwell, close to the Bunya Mountains and on the Cooyar Range, was first settled in the post-contact era following the establishment of Tarong Station [QHR 600759] by James Borthwick in 1842. It was a vast holding of approximately 250 sq miles (168.35 sq km) comprising four runs; Tarong, Kunioon, Tureen and Neumgna.
The creation of large holdings such as Tarong played a key role in the development of Queensland's transport network, with mail routes often following tracks and stock routes connecting pastoral properties. By 1849, pastoralists in the Burnett district were petitioning the Postmaster General to establish mail services to their regions. In 1859, the Postmaster-General advertised for tenders for two mail services to Nanango: one via 'North Brisbane' and another via Drayton. The Drayton route was operating by 1860 and connected the Rosalie, Cooyar and Tarong pastoral stations before terminating at Nanango.
The establishment of the railway network throughout Queensland from the mid 1860s realigned the way goods and services were transported between destinations, with routes feeding into the railway assuming greater importance. The railway from Toowoomba reached Jondaryan at the end of 1867, with a mail service between Nanango and Jondaryan established soon after, replacing the Drayton-Nanango service while still using much of the earlier route. By 1877, the Nanango correspondent for the Brisbane Courier named Jondaryan Railway Station as 'the chief depot from where goods arrive to this township'.
Under the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1876 approximately 35 square miles (56.33 sq km) of the Neumgna run of Tarong was resumed in 1878, to open the area for conditional selection. On 10 April 1883, John King applied to lease Portion 194, a 640 acre (258.99 ha) block. King along with his brother James and William McConnell were the first closer settlers in the district.
John King was born in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, England in 1853, later immigrating to Australia with his parents. While the date of his arrival is undetermined, family history records King working on the Main Range railway and later in a brick factory, after his arrival. King married Mary Chalklin in 1875 at Ipswich and by 1879 had taken out a brand registration in the Parish of Greenmount, Warwick, indicating an involvement with agriculture prior to his selection of land in the South Burnett. Following the death of his wife Mary in 1895, King remarried in 1898 to Caroline Rutsch. Both spouses had two children from their first marriages, and five more children were born at Maidenwell.
After Portion 194 was surveyed in early 1884, John King objected, as the eastern boundary cut off his property's direct access to the Jondaryan-Nanango road. This issue was resolved by excising 84 acres (33.99 ha) from adjoining Portion 193, the former selection of James King, who had forfeited his lease to take up another selection nearby. Consequently, John King's selection was increased to 724 acres (292.99 ha), with a frontage along the road.
The conditional selection inspection of 1890 lists among the improvements, a house and outhouses, fencing, ringbarking of 100 acres and nine acres of land under cultivation. A well of 26ft depth was also noted, the structure behind the name of 'Maidenwell'. Initially used by King for his own property, the name Maidenwell later assumed a wider use for the district and subsequent township in the early twentieth century.
The house listed in the 1890 inspection is believed to have been built in 1889, replacing an earlier slab hut that was built some 400 metres in from the Nanango road. The building, constructed of horizontal hardwood slabs and weatherboards, had a front verandah, was sheltered by a gabled roof clad in shingles and included a detached kitchen to the rear, connected via a walkway. King utilised stone bonded with lime and loam to construct a fireplace and chimney, and an underground water tank adjacent to the walkway. The space underneath the kitchen was used as a cellar, to store home made wine, jam and preserves, from produce grown on the property. A large mound of spent carbide close to the house indicates the use of this material for lighting.
The Kings capitalised on their residence's close proximity to the road and its location suggests that a commercial use may have been intended for the building when constructed. By at least 1899, and possibly earlier, the Kings were operating a boarding house, the Pinpinbugie Receiving Office and a store from their residence.
The precise date coach services were established between Nanango and Jondaryan is unclear. By 1893 Michael Collins operated the Nanango-Jondaryan mail service twice a week by buggy and a coach run was operating between the townships by 1897. Coach routes were broken up into 'stages' or 'posts', and the amenities offered to travellers at such places, were a critical component of road infrastructure throughout Queensland. While the size and range of services offered at coach stops varied, essentially they were places where horses were changed and where establishments offered food, drink and accommodation.
Coach stops were important spaces for travellers to socialise, shelter from inclement conditions and obtain information on the condition of the road ahead.
The setting of King's Boarding House, above a water crossing and on level ground highly visible and in close proximity to the road, follows the pattern found at similar coach stops at Bankfoot House, Glasshouse Mountains [QHR 602702] and the 'Stonehouse' at Moore [QHR 601626]. Addressing the road on its east facing gable, the name 'King's Boarding House', can still be faintly made out on the building.
Although John King was listed as the Receiving Office Keeper, his wife Caroline is thought to have been responsible for duties attached to the office, with about 120 letters received and despatched each month. In 1906 the office was renamed the Maidenwell Receiving Office. Part of the front verandah of the homestead was enclosed to form the office, with a mail slot inserted into the verandah wall.
The King's store operated from the cellar beneath the detached kitchen and serviced the local settler population, which increased as further land was made available for selection in the Parishes of Neumgna and Tureen, from 1903 to 1914. An interesting detail of the former store area is the inscription of 'Big Druth (sic) 1902' together with a date and the initials 'J.K.', which appears to a record of the devastating drought that occurred throughout Australia in the early years of the twentieth century.
Branch railway line extensions to Nanango (1911), Cooyar (via Oakey, 1913) and Tarong (1915) ended the role of Jondaryan station as the railhead for the district. In 1906 and 1907 King selected Portions 50 and 52, adjoining the north-western boundary of his property, and it was here that the small settlement of Maidenwell came to be established in the 1910s. The services that King had offered for travellers and local settlers at his original selection were eventually transferred to this new location. In 1913 King built the Maidenwell Hotel, opening in early 1914. The Maidenwell Receiving Office remained at King's original premises until 1918, when John Castree, who was operating a store first established by King in 1914, became the mail receiving officer.
John King passed away in 1934, with Portion 194 left to his sons Walter and James. Walter King assumed full title in 1939, later building a residence near the boarding house, and was involved in farming and dairying on the property. In 1970 Portion 194 was subdivided into two lots, with the former boarding house and later residence included within the boundary of Lot 1. In 1972, Walter's son Donald became the titleholder of both lots, retaining ownership of Lot 1 until 2000, when it was bought by the present owners.
While the roof is now clad in corrugated metal sheeting and some alterations have occurred internally and to the exterior verandah wall, the former King's Boarding House remains relatively intact and is currently used for storage.
","criteria":"King's Boarding House (former) is important for its strong aesthetic appeal. Located in a quiet rural setting, the place has been a prominent roadside landmark on the Maidenwell-Cooyar Rd for well over a century.
|King's Boarding House (former) is important as a once common, now uncommon surviving example of a coach stop established on a historically important travel route. Coach stops/changing stations and the services they provided were a critical component of road infrastructure throughout Queensland, prior to the emergence of the motor vehicle in the twentieth century. While some alterations have occurred over time, the place is relatively intact and retains sufficient fabric in its layout and materials to demonstrate its functions as a boarding house, mail receiving office and store.
|King's Boarding House (former) is important for its potential to contribute to our understanding of horizontal timber slab construction, and to assist in the comparative analysis of similar places built in 19th century Queensland.
|The former King's Boarding House is an important surviving example of a coach stop established on a historically important travel route. Its setting, along a flat section of a predominantly hilly road, easily visible to travellers and near a water crossing, is a good example of a favourable site for a coach stop/changing station on a coach route. While some alterations have occurred over time, the place is relatively intact and retains sufficient fabric in its layout and materials to demonstrate its functions as a boarding house, mail receiving office and store.
|The former King's Boarding House (1889) is important in demonstrating the pattern of development in the South Burnett associated with the beginnings of closer settlement in the region from the 1880s. In addition to being a family residence, by 1899, the place operated as a boarding house for travellers on the Jondaryan-Nanango route, and as a mail receiving office and store for the growing settler community, until the establishment of the Maidenwell township in the 1910s.
King's Boarding House (former) is important in illustrating the evolution of transport and communications links in the Wide Bay-Burnett district. Located on a road in use as mail route by the 1850s, the provision of a boarding house for travellers, and a receiving office and store demonstrates the expansion of roadside services along the route in response to the establishment of coach services and increased closer settlement in the district during the 1890s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31391,"place_ref":645610,"name":"Mihi Creek Complex","alternate_name":"Mi Hi Creek | Mihi Junction | 700010","street_address":"Mihi Junction","suburb":"BRASSALL","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-07-16","description":"The Mihi Creek Complex is located at North Ipswich in a grassy expanse of broken, undulating land that slopes down to a bend in the Bremer River. Identifiable remains of coke manufacturing are concentrated in the area north of Mihi Creek in Lot 5 on AP3320. The remnants of the railway are located on both sides of Mihi Creek but particularly evident in Lot 34 on SL4200 and Lot 1 on RP146565.
The route of Queensland first main line railway is featured in original plans held by Ipswich Railway Workshops Museum for the railway. The former railway embankments comprise two sets of raised embankments on Lot 1 on RP146565 (the 1864 alignment) and on Lot 34 on SL4200 (the 1867/8 alignment) and are visible either side of Mihi Creek. Both sets of embankments run in arcs which are roughly parallel to the curve of the bank of the Bremer River to the south.
The larger of the two embankments (the 1867/8 alignment) runs in a gentler curve and is located furthest from the river. The embankments terminate at steep slopes on either side of Mihi Creek where the bridge abutments once stood. On the western side the embankments are readily discernable, rising in height to the edge of the creek. To the east the embankments tend to merge with rising ground and are less identifiable. At the tops of the embankments where the soil is thin, unformed sandstone blocks are visible. The tops of these blocks are at ground level. A number of blocks are also located at the south western corner of the site near where the smaller embankment crosses a gully. A block bearing pick marks is also located in this area.
The remains of an unknown number of broken bridge piles from the 1867/8 bridge remain in situ in the bed of Mihi Creek on Lot 34 on SL4200. Six piles have however been removed to allow the installation of foundations for a new bridge crossing the creek at the same point. From the piles removed, it was noticed that these had sharpened ends reinforced with strips of cast iron and matched the description given for the bridge in the original design drawings.
Dressed sandstone blocks were also identified on the western approaches of the 1864-5 bridge as was a suspected buried sandstone culvert (or the remains of one) on the 1864 line west of Mihi Creek within Lot 1 on RP146565. These remains consist of several cut sandstone blocks, embedded in the side of the 1864 embankment. Later build up of solids on top of this spot, including the installation of garden beds, may conceal more remains from the culvert. A culvert is shown at this location on early plans for the railway. Additional culverts of this style still exist in the nearby area - at Wulkuraka to the west (QHR 602524) and directly east of the site across Mihi Creek at North Ipswich (QHR 602562).
The first battery of beehive ovens, the 'Mihi Ovens' built c.1884 by John Wright and Brydon and Jones & Coy, then owners of the Mihi Mine, is located on Lot 5 on AP3320 immediately north and west of the Klondyke Coke Ovens. The ovens were recorded by Whitmore (1983) and re-located by DERM (2010). In 1987 Whitmore (1991:228) noted a programme of tipping and re-contouring in this area which threatened to engulf the ovens. This fill event has been verified by DERM test excavations (DERM 2010a:1-2). The entrances of three ovens from this original bank of ovens are now partly exposed on the slope situated between the upper and middle terraced areas to the immediate west of the Klondyke Coke Ovens. The full extent and dimensions of the ovens remains unclear, though this battery has been described as consisting of 12 ovens (Whitmore 1983:30). Their orientation is most likely similar to other beehive ovens on the Ipswich - West Moreton field, being either back-to-back or in a stagger pattern. The space between each oven would be filled with earth or rubble for insulation, and evidence of compacted orange clay was recorded in DERM during test excavations in the area (DERM 2010a:1-2). Evidence of a stone retaining wall surrounding the ovens has not been re-located, but sections may still survive.
The remains of a two small brick structures of unknown function are situated immediately north of the oven sites. Unknown Structure 1, located closest to the ovens and immediately above their adjacent rail spur cutting, is constructed of mortared orange bricks and measures approximately 2m x 3m. Metal artefacts of unknown function remain in situ within the structure, and efforts to identify these artefacts may provide information on the function and use of this structure. Unknown Structure 2 is situated 5m north of the first structure. It is constructed of roughly made though well mortared together cement bricks and measures 2m x 2m and is 2m in height. A cement 'capping' has been fitted over the structure, with later bricks added above. The southern elevation features a small cement brick return. The function of this structure remains unknown, though the Unknown Structure 2 may be a capped ventilation shaft installed for one of the two tunnels dug during operations of the Francis Mine on this site between 1908 and 1923.
The 'Mihi Ovens' and adjacent Klondyke Coke Ovens were fenced and partially cleared of pest vegetation by DERM under the supervision of DERM heritage officers between February and April 2010. Stumps and root structures of all large trees and plants remains to help maintain the structural integrity of the surrounding soils and the ovens themselves. The alignment of the fence follows the topography of the area and encompasses the predicted extent of the oven battery, the two unidentified brick structures located above the oven batteries, a section of low retaining wall on the lower terrace area to the south of the ovens, and a number of other elements thought to relate to the coke manufacturing operations. The 'Mihi Ovens' fence is an extension of the existing fencing for the Klondyke Coke Ovens erected by DERM in 2009. It runs adjacent to Parker Lane in the north, then downhill in a southerly direction before running in a southeast direction to rejoin the Klondyke Coke Ovens fence (DERM 2010b:13).
A short section of rail line of unknown date or origin and passing through a small cutting is extant in the vicinity of the coke manufacturing site on Lot 5 on AP3320. This line may represent the spur line constructed sometime between 1884 and 1890/1 while the coke manufacturing operations were owned by John Wright, but would have served the nearby coke ovens (built in the 1940s) and possibly the original battery of 12 ovens located immediately west.
A small bridge, probably originally used as a trolley/tram bridge for the coke or mining operations, was located in the northern section of Lot 5 on AP3320 and is now used as a pedestrian bridge across creek to Clem Street.
Brick debris, coal and coke is strewn across Lot 5 on AP3320 as are metal remnants of machinery including skips, crushing machinery, trammel screens, conveyor buckets and trolley parts.
","history":"The Mihi Creek Complex is a cultural landscape created as a result of mixed within the area since the early 1860s. Past use of the area is divided into two distinct though connected historical phases - the use of the area by Queensland Railways for Queensland's first main line railway, and then as an evolving coal mining and coke manufacturing operation in 1871, concluding around 1960.
1. Railway Operations (1865 - 1875):
Queensland's colonial government fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the State and providing social benefits. It was argued that rail would reduce freight costs and save travel time for passengers. An added incentive for rail development in Queensland was the very poor state of the roads. In wet weather especially, this hampered the transport of freight.
The Ipswich reach of the Bremer River was chosen as the eastern terminus of the first main line railway instead of Brisbane because of the importance of Ipswich to Darling Downs pastoralists. Ipswich was becoming a major inland port and was located at the intersection of important transport routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley.
The Chief Engineer responsible for construction of the railway was Abraham Fitzgibbon, later to be engaged as Queensland's first Commissioner for Railways. Charles Fox and Son, an engineering firm based in England, were appointed as consulting engineers and Peto, Brassey and Betts, contractors with worldwide railway construction experience, were engaged to construct the line.
Construction of the first section of main line between Ipswich and Bigge's Camp (Grandchester) officially commenced on 25 February 1864 with the turning of the first sod at North Ipswich by Lady Roma Bowen. The original route followed the north bank of the Bremer River crossing Mihi Creek and Iron Pot Creek and joining the route of the present main line at Wulkuraka. The line was officially opened on 31 July 1865.
The first bridge over Mihi Creek was one of four bridges constructed on the line between Ipswich and Grandchester. The embankment of the Mihi crossing was exposed to flood waters from the Bremer River and Mihi Creek and began to subside after a flood in April 1867. The crossing was notorious for the sharp reverse curves in the approaches to the bridge. In May 1868, the Mihi deviation was completed at a cost of about £6350 and opened for traffic. This crossed the creek above the flood level about 200m further up stream and it followed a gentler curve. The old line was removed and the bridge was dismantled and stored.
The line was used until 1875 when a new line was opened to the south across the Bremer River, cutting out the original first six kilometres from the Ipswich Railway Workshops and through Wulkuraka. However, a portion of the line between North Ipswich and Wulkuraka was retained to service the Ipswich Railway Workshops and also for the use of coal mining and coke manufacture that were then occurring at Mihi Creek.
2. Coal Mining and Coking Operations (1864 - c1960)
The discovery of coal in Queensland dates from 1825 when outcrops were observed by Major Edmund Lockyer on the banks of the upper Brisbane River. Two years later, when Ipswich was settled as a convict outstation, known as Limestone, the presence of coal was noted between the convict settlement and Brisbane by Captain Patrick Logan. The following year, explorer Allan Cunningham also marked several outcrops on the Bremer River on his survey map for Governor Darling.
Coal was one of the first minerals in Queensland to be commercially mined. Mining originally commenced at Goodna in 1843 with the West Moreton Coalfield at Ipswich following in the early 1850s.
Primary sources of historical information for coke manufacture in the West Moreton field, and across Queensland generally, are scarce as the early regulation of Queensland's mining industry was focused mainly on gold mining. Coal mining was not regulated until the 1880s with the passage of the Mines Regulation Act 1881, the Mineral Lands Act 1882 and the Mineral Lands (Coal-Mining) Act 1886. The Mines Regulation Act allowed the appointment of mines inspectors and the first was appointed in January 1882. While these inspectors reported regularly on the operations of coal mines, coke manufacture was not covered by the definitions of the Act and therefore not considered officially part of the mining industry and went largely unreported (Whitmore 1983:5). Coal mining was not covered by specific legislation until 1925, and these regulations also made no mention of coking (Whitmore 1983:5). This has led to no systematic record keeping of coke manufacture in Queensland - especially concerning production numbers, value, equipment used, people employed, or any other detailed characteristic (Whitmore 1983:5). Information contained in Queensland government records is fragmentary - except for State owned enterprises such as that at Bowen and Mount Mulligan in northern Queensland (Whitmore 1983:6).
A by product of coal mining, coke was usually regarded as a somewhat unimportant side industry to the actual mining of coal. Coke is used as both a fuel and as a reducing agent in smelting ore and is produced from baking bituminous coal in ovens at temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 degrees Celsius). Coke manufacture became an important extractive industry from the late 1860s with the introduction of mechanically driven transportation, such as steam-powered ships and trains. Sites for coking of coal were most often located adjacent to transport systems, road, rail or water.
In 1871, the Eastwood Mine opened at Mihi Creek and was named after its owner, John Eastwood. The Eastwood Mine was worked during the 1870s and into the early 1880s. Due to the owner's interest in other mines it then laid idle for several years until it was sold to John Wright and Brydon, Jones & Coy in 1884 who renamed the site to Mihi Mine (Whitmore 1983:30). A short rail spur-line was built, connecting their mining rail/tram infrastructure to the Ipswich railway (presumably to the 1868 main line alignment of the Ipswich - Grandchester rail line).
Twelve coke ovens, known as the Mihi Ovens, were soon constructed on the hillside above Mihi Creek (Whitmore 1983:30). Coke ovens erected on the West Moreton Coalfield were exclusively of the beehive type, so called because of their domed appearance. Beehive coke ovens consisted of a brick dome with a small circular opening (an exit flue) at the apex, and a larger arched opening at one side to permit charging and drawing. They were usually constructed in double rows known as batteries. The space between ovens was usually filled with rubble and earth to provide insulation and the whole battery surrounded by a stone retaining wall to resist the outward thrust of the brick domes. The Mihi Ovens remained in use until 1890/1 when Wright's attention was diverted a new coal development at the New Bishop Mine located nearby (Whitmore 1983:30).
It was 1908 before the site was mined again, this time by Paul Francis, a Cornish miner who had been working in the Ipswich area since the 1870s (Whitmore 1991:224; QHR 602566). He named his venture the Francis Mine, constructed a horse whim for hauling loaded coal skips out of his tunnel, sank an air shaft to the workings and erected bunkers of '60-tonnes capacity' (Whitmore 1991:224). The exact location of Francis' first tunnel is not known but in 1917 a second tunnel was driven into the hillside probably below Viking Street (Whitmore 1991:224, 228). A siding was also laid which connected to the railway workshops which terminated below the tunnel.
In 1923 Francis sold the site to a partnership of miners and a barrister who created and floated the company, Klondyke Collieries Limited. As Klondyke Collieries Limited, coke production at the site flourished. The horse whim was replaced by an electric winder, and air shaft sunk to the workings and fitted with an electric propeller fan, a screening and crushing plant was erected, and power supplied by the Electric Supply Company Limited (Whitmore 1991:225).
The ovens were used throughout the 1930s (Bryce 2009:2). By 1942 several new beehive ovens had been constructed to meet the increased demand for coke for smelting purposes though the actual market for this coke remains unknown (Whitmore 1983:11) (see also QHR 602566 - Klondyke Coke Ovens). In 1945 and 1946, Klondyke and Bowen in northern Queensland were the only coke producers in Queensland, with Klondyke turning out approximately a sixth of Queensland's coke production (Whitmore 1983:30).
In 1948 the site changed hands again and was renamed Moreton Colliery and worked until the early 1950s when the pit's supply was exhausted. Bryce (2009:5) recalls that the ovens were still being used as late as 1960. After the closure of the site, coke production was taken over by the nearby Haighmoor site which remained in production for a further 15 years as southern Queensland's only coke works (QHR 602566).
References
Bryce, Ian. (2009) Interview with Margaret Cook.
Department of Environment and Resource Management (2010a) Klondyke Coke Ovens Vegetation Clearing and Test Excavations, 16 March 2010. Unpublished report for Heritage Branch, Department of Environment and Resource Management.
--- (2010b) Klondyke Coke Ovens: Maintenance Work Report, June 2010 [Draft], Unpublished report for Heritage Branch, Department of Environment and Resource Management.
Queensland Heritage Register
601526\tNorth Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex: entry in the Queensland Heritage Register
602524\tSandstone Railway Culvert and Remains: entry in the Queensland Heritage Register\t
602562\tSandstone Railway Culvert: entry in the Queensland Heritage Register
602579\tMi-Hi Creek Railway Bridge Approaches: Nomination to the Queensland Heritage Register.
Whitmore, R.L. (1983) Coke Oven Technology in the Ipswich Area, Report to the Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Queensland
-- (1991) Coal in Queensland: From Federation to the Twenties, University of Queensland Press: St Lucia.
","criteria":"The Mihi Creek Complex provides physical evidence and has potential for additional evidence relating to the early development of the Ipswich area, with archaeological artefacts associated with Queensland's first main line railway, early coal mining and coke manufacture.
Archaeological artefacts associated with the early railway are rare surviving remnants of Queensland's first section of main line railway and provide tangible evidence of the priority placed on the development of the Ipswich region in the formative years of the Queensland colony. The very need for the railway reflects a government desire for faster, reliable and more economic transport to and from the region to promote commerce, industry, growth and settlement.
The remnants of coal mining and coke manufacture are important in demonstrating important industries in the region's and Queensland's history. Coke manufacture played an important though under-recognised role in early coal mining and related industries over an extended period of time (1870s - c1960). The Mihi Creek Complex includes archaeological artefacts which illustrate early examples of processes and activities relating to the increasing demand for quality coke for use in early Queensland industry in the late 19th century (particularly for rail and maritime industries and coal-powered engines generally).
Archaeological investigations within the Mihi Creek Complex have potential to answer a range of research questions about late 19th Century railway construction and design, and Queensland's late 19th and early 20th Century coke manufacturing industry.
The area immediately adjacent the former rail line embankments have high potential to contain further structures and archaeological evidence associated with Queensland's first section of main line. This area has potential to provide further information about the construction of rail formations and embankments at the inception of the State's railway development. Comparative analyses of elements of the line within the Mihi Creek Complex area with other known previously recorded features (e.g. QHR 602562, 602524, and 601526) have potential to shed new light on this important development in Queensland's history.
The paucity of primary documentary material relating to coke manufacture in Queensland makes archaeological evidence the primary source relating to coke manufacture. Subsurface remains would feature high integrity due to lack of disturbance since the cessation of coke manufacture in c1960. Archaeological investigations within the Mihi Creek Complex could produce evidence which would confirm or challenge contemporary understandings of the coke industry in Queensland, particularly about coke manufacturing processes, coking infrastructure, coke plant layout, organisation and evolution through time.
While the colliery and coking operations at Mihi Creek were one of a number of the type within the West Moreton Coalfield, they were also one of the longest running (1870s - c1960) and underwent significant change over time, including owners and potentially equipment and production techniques. Archaeological investigations have potential to reveal important information about specific operations at Mihi Creek, particularly the full extent of coal mining and coke manufacture, the types of equipment used (other than beehive oven type and probable number in the original battery), and the precise location of key features.
Coke manufacture at Mihi Creek went through several phases and intra-site analyses into changing work practices and inter-site comparisons with other coke manufacture sites would provide insights into the degree of change and/or continuity in coke manufacture practices on the West Moreton Coalfield and potentially across the State.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31411,"place_ref":645609,"name":"First Brisbane Burial Ground","alternate_name":"Skew Street Cemetery | 700009","street_address":"18 Eagle Terrace","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-07-16","description":"The first European burial ground in Queensland is located beneath unnamed open space bounded by and including Skew Street, Eagle Terrace and North Quay, Brisbane. Although there is no surface evidence of the burial ground, the documented history and an understanding of the previous usage of the area, particularly a lack of major development, indicates potential for both human remains and archaeological artefacts to exist within the place.
The former burial ground is believed to have comprised the majority of today's Lot 1 on RP177960. In April 2010, this was public open space. None of the installed bollards delineating the open space area, vehicular access barriers or plantings and gardens are of archaeological importance or potential.
The physical limits of service easements ARP165780, BRP165780, CRP165780 and DRP165780, which cross the middle of the open space area from near the intersection of North Quay and Skew Street northwest across Eagle Terrace to Quay Street, are excluded due to previous subsurface disturbance, notably in November 2009, which would have destroyed any surviving archaeological remains within the limits of those easements.
The site includes parts of Eagle Terrace and Skew Street. Subsurface areas below the base construction layer of the current road surface are of potential archaeological importance.
","history":"The cemetery at Skew Street was established in 1825 with the relocation of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement to Brisbane. It operated until the North Brisbane Burial Ground opened in 1843. During that time 265 people died in Brisbane and most were buried in the cemetery. The cemetery land was converted to freehold and auctioned in 1875. The Helidon Spa Water Company operated a factory on the land and several cottages were built. The construction of Eagle Terrace and Skew Street in the late 1800s and construction of the Grey Street Bridge in the 1920s will have had some impact on the site.
In May 1825 Lieutenant Henry Miller moved the Moreton Bay Settlement from the Redcliffe Peninsula to its present site on the northern bank of the Brisbane River. This was an elevated location with water holes and cooling breezes. The southern bank was a cliff of rock, suitable for building material, and a fertile flood plain. The settlers faced hardship and privation and the paucity of resources combined with thick sub-tropical vegetation made settlement difficult (Evans 2007:35). Between 1826 and 1829, the number of prisoners in the settlement rose from 200 to 1000 and the plight of the convicts whose labour was to establish the settlement was dire.
The site of Brisbane Town was an on-going cause of disquiet, with Commandant Logan proposing that the settlement be moved to Stradbroke Island. However, the difficulties of crossing the bay saw this plan abandoned. Logan continued to seek alternative sites, establishing a number of outstations including Eagle Farm and Oxley Creek (Johnston 1988:25). Despite the continued uncertainty about the future of Brisbane Town, building had continued under Commandant Logan, who is given credit for laying out the earliest permanent foundations. Logan was responsible for the building of Brisbane's only surviving convict-constructed buildings, the Commissariat Store and the Tower Mill (Johnston 1988:28).
Convict numbers fell 75 percent between 1831 and 1838 by which time the area under cultivation shrank from 200 hectares to only 29 (Evans 2007:47). On 10 February 1842 Governor Gipps declared Moreton Bay open for Free Settlement (Evans 2007:48).
The cemetery was established early in the convict period and operated until the opening of the North Brisbane Burial Grounds at Milton in 1843. During the 18 years of its operation there were 265 recorded deaths in Brisbane, including 220 convicts. Most of these people were buried in the First Brisbane Burial Ground. Probably the most famous person buried in the cemetery was the surveyor G. W. Stapylton who it was believed was killed by Aborigines near Mt Lindsay in May 1840. Two Aborigines were later hanged for this murder at the Tower Mill.
Following the closure of the cemetery in 1843 the area remained as unalienated crown land and in 1848 the Moreton Bay Courier described the cemetery:
It is a disgraceful fact that, notwithstanding the repeated complaints in this journal of the exposed condition of the old burial ground, it is now as bad as ever. The temporary fencing which was placed around has almost entirely disappeared (MBC 11 November 1848).
Four years later it was described:
Six years ago, nearly a hundred tablets, headstones, &c., stood in the old burial ground: now a bare dozen can be counted, and many of these are dilapidated or overturned. The fence is torn down, carried away or burnt..What hands have taken so many monumental stones away none can tell (MBC 16 October 1852).
Between 1864 and 1875 Skew Street was constructed through the cemetery land to provide vehicle access between Roma Street and North Quay. It had not been constructed by October 1864 as the Surveyor General wrote to the Secretary of Lands on 21 October 1864 that:
The arrangement of the portion including the cemetery be deferred until some future time when the relatives and friends of those who have been interred in the cemetery may be less likely to object to the locality being appropriated as a public thoroughfare (Surveyor General 64/2690)
In October 1875 the cemetery land was divided into 7 town allotments varying in size from 12 perches to 27.5 perches and sold at public auction as Section 41. The sale of the land was specifically to raise funds for the provision of drainage facilities within Brisbane. The purchasers were F. Giles, J. Carmody, Dr J. Waugh and H. Morwitch. Section 41 was described as:
The triangular reserve (formerly a burial ground) between the North Quay, Eagle Cliff (or Terrace), and Skew Street (running from opposite the old entrance to the gaol to the North Quay) (BC 13 October 1875).
Dr John Waugh arrived in Brisbane in the early 1860s and originally practiced in Stanley Street but later moved his practice to the brick cottage he constructed on this newly acquired land. He was president of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland for many years.
In 1881 at least three burials were exhumed from the cemetery and removed with their monuments to the Toowong Cemetery. These were all the remains of children who had died at the convict settlement. They were William Roberts, 5 years 2 months old son of Charles Roberts of the Commissariat Department who died in 1831, Peter Macauley, 15 years and 8 months old son of Private Peter Macauley of the 17th Regiment of Foot who died in 1832, and Jane Pittard the 12 month old daughter of Colour Sergeant John Pittard of the 57th Regiment of Foot who died in 1833 (Gill 1960).
By the 1890s the Helidon Spa Water Company had established a factory on the allotments at the North Quay end of Section 41. Construction of the Grey Street Bridge in the 1920s resulted in resumption of properties and the realignment of roadways at the northern access to the bridge.
References
Brisbane Courier
1875 Sale of Town Allotments, p.3 Wednesday 13 October 1875
Department of Environment and Resource Management (2009) Brisbane City Central Business District Archaeological Plan, November 2009.
Evans, R. (2007) A History of Queensland, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.
Gill, J. (1960) Some Investigations into the Site of Brisbane's Earliest Burial Ground, The Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal 6(2):388-418.
Johnston, W. (1988) Brisbane: The first thirty years, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane.
Moreton Bay Courier
1848 The Old Burial Ground, p.2 Saturday 11 November 1848
1852 Colonial Extracts Moreton Bay, p.4 Saturday 16 October 1852
University of Queensland Cultural and Heritage Unit (2009) The Brisbane City CBD Archaeological Plan: Phases 2, 3 and 4, The University of Queensland Cultural and Heritage Unit Report No.432b, unpublished report to the Department of Environment and Resource Management.
","criteria":"The First Brisbane Burial Ground is an important aspect of Queensland's history as the first European burial ground in Queensland. At least 220 convicts, soldiers, women and children are known to have been interred in the burial ground, accounting for most of the people who died in the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement between 1825 and 1843.
Physical evidence of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement is now rare. Human remains and associated material culture, including personal items, have potential to survive subsurface at the First Brisbane Burial Ground. Development on the site beginning in the 1870s (construction of Skew Street and subdivision has been low impact and unlikely to have had a major detrimental impact on the preservation of human remains and material culture or their potential for survival. The capping of the site by road construction from the 1870s and residential and commercial development (single storey cottages and the Helidon Spa Water Company) in the 1880s is likely to have had a positive effect on site preservation.
The archaeological integrity and potential for site preservation of the First Brisbane Burial Ground is high. Excavations at the nearby North Brisbane Burial Ground (1843-1875) in the early 2000s demonstrate that burials and their associated material culture survive in the Brisbane clays close to the river. The First Brisbane Burial Ground has not been subjected to the extreme levels of post-depositional contamination that occurred at the North Brisbane Burial Ground.
The site has been assessed in the Brisbane City CBD Archaeological Plan (DERM 2009; UQCHU 2009) as being 'exceedingly rare' given its association with the penal settlement phase of Brisbane. The level of disturbance has been designated as 'intact' given the minor nature of road and other activities undertaken, and the lack of any major building construction work at the site. This combination of being designated 'exceedingly rare' and 'intact' leads to the categorisation of the site as having 'Exceptional Research Potential' in the Brisbane City CBD Archaeological Plan.
Archaeological investigations on the site have the potential to answer important research questions about Queensland's history relating to the importation of materials, decay processes, colonial burial practices, gender, class and denominational differences, differential treatment of officers, soldiers, convicts and civilians, and health, nutrition and causes of death in the early colony.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31551,"place_ref":645611,"name":"Early Streets of Brisbane","alternate_name":"700011","street_address":null,"suburb":null,"lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-07-16","description":"The Early Streets of Brisbane includes Lot 12 on SP180752; 206 on SP289468, 207 and 209 on SP289465 (former Queens Wharf Road); 204 on SP289461 (former William Street); and the following road reserves (1 ROAD0):
\n- Adelaide Street, between George and Albert Street, excluding Albert Street intersection
\n- Albert Street, between Margaret and Alice Streets, excluding Margaret Street intersection
\n- Alice Street, between William and Albert Streets including Albert Street intersection
\n- Burnett Lane
\n- Charlotte Street, between George and Albert Streets, excluding Albert Street intersection
\n- Elizabeth Street, between George and Albert Streets, including George Street intersection
\n- George Street, between Adelaide and Queen Streets, including Adelaide Street intersection
\n- George Street, between Queen and Elizabeth Streets, including Elizabeth Street intersection
\n- George Street, from Charlotte Street to end, at boundary with QUT campus, including all intersections
\n- North Quay, between Ann and Queen Streets, including Adelaide Street intersection
\n- Margaret Street, between William and George Streets, including intersections
\n- Queen's Wharf Road, between Margaret and Elizabeth Street alignments
\n- Part of William Street, between Queen and Elizabeth Streets, excluding the extent of Lot 300 CP966930, the road surface situated directly above it, and intersections
\n- William Street, between Elizabeth and Alice Streets, excluding Elizabeth Street intersection
\nThe Early Streets of Brisbane excludes the volumetric parcels, being Lot 42 SP145288, Lot 587 SL10897, and Lot 588 SL10897.
\nAll roads are modern bitumenised surfaces with white and yellow line markings. All roads are kerbed and channelled with either concrete or porphyry stone blocks in the kerbing, and concreted gutters. The road reserves include the footpaths which consist of a range of surfacing materials including brick paving, concrete and bitumen.
","history":"In May 1825 Lieutenant Henry Miller moved the Moreton Bay Settlement from the Redcliffe Peninsula to its present site on the northern bank of the Brisbane River. This was an elevated location with water holes and cooling breezes. The southern bank was a cliff of rock, suitable for building material, and a fertile flood plain. The settlers faced hardship and privation and the paucity of resources combined with thick sub-tropical vegetation made settlement difficult (Evans 2007:35). Between 1826 and 1829, the number of prisoners in the settlement rose from 200 to 1000 and the plight of the convicts whose labour was to establish the settlement was dire.
\nThe site of Brisbane Town was an on-going issue, with Commandant Logan proposing that the settlement be moved to Stradbroke Island. However, the difficulties of crossing the bay saw this plan abandoned. Logan continued to seek alternative sites, establishing a number of outstations including Eagle Farm and Oxley Creek (Johnston 1988:25). Despite the continued uncertainty about the future of Brisbane Town, building had continued under Commandant Logan, who is given credit for laying out the earliest permanent foundations. Logan was responsible for the building of Brisbane's only surviving convict-constructed buildings, the Commissariat Store and the Tower Mill (Johnston 1988:28).
\nConvict numbers fell 75 percent between 1831 and 1838 by which time the area under cultivation shrank from 200 hectares to only 29 (Evans 2007:47). On 10 February 1842 Governor Gipps declared Moreton Bay open for Free Settlement (Evans 2007:48).
\nThe Moreton Bay Penal Settlement during its 15 years of operation consisted of a range of buildings including barracks for convicts and troops, officers' quarters, dwellings for the Commandant, chaplain, Commissariat officer, surgeon, Commandant's clerk and engineer, a military and convict hospital, the Commissariat Store, and various stores, barns and sheds. The settlement also included a wharf, wells, a flagstaff, gardens and a lumber yard.
\nThe Commandant's cottage was constructed in 1825 on the site of the present Old Government Printery building (Public Service Club) [QHR 600114] between William and George Streets. It was a timber building with brick chimneys. In 1826 a detached brick building was built to the rear of the Commandant's house (Steele 1975:46-47). A line of buildings ran from the Commandant's house to the first military barracks along present-day William Street. These buildings included the Engineer's cottage on the corner of William and Elizabeth Streets in what is now known as Queen's Gardens [QHR 600112]. The cottage was associated with the first lumber yard on this block, which also contained engineer's stores and workshops (Steele 1975:47).
\nThe first military barracks were constructed in 1825 as two slab huts for the sergeant, corporal and 12 privates, and separate huts for the married couples on the corner of Queen Street and North Quay, site of the present Brisbane Square. The barracks were later moved to the other side of Queen Street and replaced by the second lumber yard in 1831. The first prisoner accommodation also consisted of slab huts, probably at the intersection of Queen and Albert Streets; stone barracks were constructed in 1829. The first Commissariat Store was constructed as a long, low slab building near the corner of Elizabeth and Albert Streets and was later used as a barn, after the stone Commissariat Store [QHR 600176] was built in 1829 (Steele 1975:47-48). The first Commissariat Store appears to have been situated within the alignment of the present day Elizabeth Street.
\nThe only entry point into the settlement was via the wharf on the Brisbane River. Initially known as the King's Wharf, or King's Jetty, it was constructed by 1827 when the boat crew's hut and boat builder's shed were first occupied. A crane was constructed on the end of the wharf in order to transfer goods from the arriving ships to the shore (Steele 1975, illustration 36). The wharf was situated on the river bank opposite the Commissariat Store on Queen's Wharf Road. The main thoroughfare into the settlement was up the steep river bank following the present day alignment of Queen's Wharf Road (Steele 1975, illustration 59). Pedestrians were able to enter the settlement through the vacant land immediately northwest of the Commissariat Store, in what is today known as Miller Park (Kennedy 1998:19).
\nA hospital was completed in 1827, after much government bungling over plans and approvals, on the current site of the Queensland Supreme Court on the block bounded by North Quay, Adelaide, George and Ann Streets, with the buildings extending into the current alignment of Adelaide Street. The windmill tower [QHR 600173] which still stands on Wickham Terrace was likely completed in late 1828, with a treadmill added before September 1829.
\nThe Prisoners' Barracks were constructed between 1827 and 1830 to house up to 1000 convicts and was the largest stone building in the settlement at the time. The barracks were situated with the frontage along present-day Queen Street, on the block surrounded by Albert, Adelaide, George and Queen Streets. The barracks consisted of a multi-storey stone building with a central archway and a large walled yard to the rear. Several smaller buildings were situated in the yard on the far side of what would become Burnett Lane (Steele 1975:87-88).
\nThe dominant archway of the Prisoners Barracks extended approximately 10 metres through the building from the Queen Street frontage towards Adelaide Street opening into the large walled yard. The yard was the site of Moreton Bay's first public execution in 1830. Within the archway itself, strategically situated for all incoming and existing convicts to see, was the flogging triangle. Records indicate that in the period between February and October 1828 alone, over 11,000 lashes were inflicted on 200 convicts; this included 128 sentences of 50 or more lashes. The average in New South Wales was 41 lashes per sentence. The barracks were used from 1860 to 1868 as the court house and for Queensland's first Parliament. The barracks were demolished in 1880 with commercial redevelopment of the area in the early to mid-1880s particularly the buildings along Queen Street backing onto Burnett Lane, many of which are still extant [QHR 600136, 600137, 600138, 600139, 600160, 600161, 600162] (Evans and Ferrier 2004; de Vries and de Vries 2003; Steele 1975:118).
\nBeside the Prisoners' Barracks, along the Queen Street alignment towards the river, a row of single-storey brick buildings were erected. The functions of the six apartments of these buildings changed over time including use as the Commissariat Officer's residence, school room, guard house, Superintendent of Convicts' residence, gaol room, solitary cells, married soldiers' residences, and a military school (Steele 1975:87-88).
\nThe Chaplain's house was constructed in 1828, halfway between the Commandant's house and the Engineer's cottage, on the site now occupied by the former Lands Administration Building (now Conrad Hotel) [QHR 600123] between William and George Streets. Described in 1829 as a handsome brick house, it was later divided into two dwellings, and occupied at various times by the Assistant Surgeon and the Commissariat Officer (Steele 1975:96, 117).
\nThe Government Gardens were established in 1828 to the southwest of the settlement on the site of the present day City Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067] on Alice Street. The garden was under the charge of the Superintendent of Agriculture and produced a wide range of vegetables including cabbage, cauliflower, peas, beans, potatoes and pumpkins, as well as fruit trees and plants such as banana, pineapple, citrus, and apple. The Gardener's house, octagonal in shape and consisting of three rooms surrounded by verandahs, was also situated in the gardens (Steele 1975:112-113, 118). The route of the roadway along the western end of the settlement from the Prisoners' Barracks to the Government Gardens overlaps with the current Albert Street on the block between Margaret and Alice Streets (Steele 1975: illustration 129).
\nThe new Commissariat Store [QHR 600176] was constructed in 1828 and 1829, on its site between present day William Street and Queens Wharf Road. The two story utilitarian building was constructed of local porphyry and sandstone, with its ground and second floor doors opening towards the river and the wharf (Kennedy 1998:13). Used for various stores and government purposes over its history, it is one of only two extant structures from the convict period.
\nOne of the major thoroughfares of the settlement, taken by Allan Cunningham in his 1829 survey, ran along the rear of the Prisoners Barracks towards a pathway up to the windmill tower and to the Kangaroo Point Road. The alignment of this pathway follows the current alignment of Adelaide Street, from George Street to Albert Street, where the original pathway crossed Wheat Creek (Steele 1975:116, illustration 59).
\nAdditional hospital accommodation was erected in 1830-31 adjacent to the existing hospital, situated between present day North Quay and George Street. This included a cottage for the Medical Officer and a building to serve as the Military Hospital (Steele 1975:153). The new Military Barracks were also constructed in 1831. Designed for 100 rank and file, the barracks compound also included a guard house and a dwelling for two subaltern officers. The barracks were constructed on what is today the Treasury Building (Treasury Casino) [QHR 600143] while the former barracks site (situated at Brisbane Square) was converted to the lumber yard (Steele 1975:154).
\nIn 1839, in preparation for the opening of Moreton Bay to free settlement, surveyors were sent from Sydney to draw maps of the district and prepare town plans so the land could be put up for sale. The town plan undertaken by Robert Dixon (Plan MT3, DERM 1840) is based on an earlier 1839 plan but superimposes the proposed street plan for the free town of Brisbane with square blocks of 10 chains (Steele 1975:264, illustration 118; Hadwen et al. 2005:5). Additional features depicted in these plans include a well situated in what is now George Street, near the intersection with Burnett Lane; a flagstaff in the centre of what is now William Street, close to the northwest boundary of Miller Park; and a range of gardens. The garden areas included military gardens and Dixon's garden behind the Military Barracks in the block bounded by Queen, George, Elizabeth and Albert Streets; Whyte's garden to the northwest of the Prisoners Barracks, through which Burnett Lane now runs; Handt's garden and Kent's garden to the rear of the Chaplain's house and Commandant's house, today overlain by parts of Elizabeth, George and Charlotte Streets; the Commandant's garden adjacent to the Commissariat Store along William Street and down towards Alice Street; and Paget's garden and Dr Ballard's garden adjacent to the Hospital, in the location of George and Ann Streets. Barns and a piggery indicated on Dixon's 1840 plan appear to have been situated within the current alignment of Charlotte Street.
\nOn 10 February 1842 Governor George Gipps declared the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement closed and the district open for free settlement (Steele 1975:303-304). A number of revised plans for the town were made, particularly after a visit by Governor Gipps, with the 1843 plan by surveyor Henry Wade (Plan MT8, DERM 1843) being the one adopted as the present day plan of the Brisbane CBD (Steele 1975:307-308, illustration 129).
\nOnly three other places within the Brisbane CBD dating to the penal settlement period are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register:
\n- The Tower Mill [QHR 600173];
\n- The Commissariat Store [QHR 600176]; and
\n- The Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067].
\nArchaeological investigations at the Commissariat Store, Tower Mill and 40 Queen Street (Brisbane Square) have identified archaeological remains dating to the penal period. The original cemetery site at Skew Street is also well known as is the children's burial site at North Quay. The remnants of the original Commandant's House were also unearthed in the mid 1980s without any archaeological investigation.
","criteria":"The Early Streets of Brisbane have the potential to contain archaeological artefacts that are an important source of information about Queensland's history. Potential subsurface remains will demonstrate the establishment, evolution and pattern of settlement of early Brisbane as a penal colony. Evidence of this first European occupation of Brisbane is extremely rare given the substantial development into a modern city. Archaeological remains associated with the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement will provide evidence and understanding of a particular type of place - that of colonial penal settlements - this being the first and only example of its type in Queensland.
\nSurvey plans of the initial settlement overlaid with the proposed (and current) street plan exist, enabling the clear identification of locations of the early settlement structures. Although the current alignment of Queen Street remains substantially the same as its original, the current street plan alignment overlaps with allotments from the penal settlement period. This leads to a high potential for the remains of buildings being situated within the current street alignments. The construction of Brisbane's streets has seen a deposition and build-up of layers rather than being cut down and removed, thereby preserving earlier cultural deposits. This was evident during work undertaken for the construction of Queens Plaza on the corner of Queen and Edward Streets in 2003 which clearly demonstrated the build up of layers in the stratigraphic profile of Queen Street. The streets therefore are the least disturbed areas in the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD) with the most potential for the presence of the earliest remains of Queensland's European settlement.
\nThe Streets have the potential for subsurface remains of the full range of activities occurring in the penal settlement related to the Prisoner's Barracks, Commandant's House and Office, Commissariat Store and Office, Officers' Quarters, and Military Barracks, Military and Convict Hospitals, other dwellings, gardens, stores and barns. The archaeological investigation of the Early Streets of Brisbane has the potential to provide information about unmapped buildings and features, and to provide information about the use of mapped structures whose purpose is historically unknown. The remains of buildings, features and other artefacts have the potential to provide insight into the material culture and life ways of the convicts, soldiers and administrators of the penal settlement. They also have the potential to provide an insight into the social divisions between these groups, and the social development of early Queensland. This will contribute information to the collective understanding of convict sites around Australia and the place of Queensland in the system of forced migration and punishment of the 18th and 19th centuries.
\nGiven the accumulation of material from the initial European settlement of Brisbane to the present day, there is also the potential for archaeological remains from subsequent periods to be recovered. This will contribute to the full history of development of Queensland's capital city of Brisbane.
\nThe Early Streets of Brisbane have been assessed as part of the Brisbane City CBD Archaeological Plan (DERM 2009, UQCHU 2009) as being 'Exceedingly Rare' given their association with the penal settlement phase of Brisbane. The level of disturbance has been designated as 'Intact' given the minor subsurface works undertaken and the tendency for accumulation of deposits when constructing or renewing road surfaces. This combination of being designated 'exceedingly rare' and 'intact' leads to the categorisation of the Early Streets of Brisbane as having 'Exceptional Archaeological Research Potential'.
\nBeing the least disturbed areas of the Brisbane City CBD with high potential for the earliest remains of the colony's establishment, archaeological investigation of the Early Streets of Brisbane has the potential to answer important research questions critical to Queensland's history. Such questions could focus on but are not limited to the identification of the locations and purposes of previously undocumented penal settlement buildings, questions of social status, individual and collective living conditions, and an understanding of the processes of forced migration and punishment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31791,"place_ref":602761,"name":"St Columba's Convent (former)","alternate_name":"Iona | St Columbas Catholic Convent (former)","street_address":"169 Cunningham Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-12-09","description":"St Columba's Convent (former) occupies a corner block in the south-western part of Dalby, 80 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba on the Darling Downs. Addressing Cunningham Street to the north-west and Edward Street to the south-west, the two storey brick and timber building has a commanding presence on the street. Opposite it along Cunningham Street are the Dalby Ambulance Station and several residences; whilst further to the north-east are St Joseph's Catholic Church and the adjacent Presbytery (not original). The flat allotment covers approximately 2.7 hectares, with the proposed heritage boundary encompassing only its north-western part.
The former convent's plan is H-shaped with a south-western wing extended further to the rear than the north-eastern one. The two storey building stands on concrete footings with various brick piers and timber stumps supporting the verandahs; its core made from reddish bricks laid in English bond, with white render bands at sill and head height decorating the main façade. The brick lintels over the windows and external doors are arched, with either two or three rowlock courses. Throughout the building extensive cracking in the masonry walls is visible both on the exterior and interior.
Some of the building's timber verandahs were originally enclosed with weatherboarding, while others have been more recently enclosed with flat sheeting or chamferboards. Original timber verandah decoration, including stop chamfered posts, decorative post capitals and brackets, and solid timber valances, remains in many parts of the building, particularly on the façade addressing Cunningham Street. The ground floor verandah ceilings are lined with ripple iron sheeting, whilst those on the first floor are raked and have v-jointed timber board linings. Areas of unenclosed verandah have exposed timber floors. An early timber tank stand remains at the rear of the north-eastern wing.
Original timber doors are either single-leaf or French with rectangular fanlights. The former are low-waisted with four solid panels, while the latter are low-waisted with single solid panels at the bottom and two rectangular panes divided by a narrow glazing bar at the top. Some doors appear to have been relocated within the building.
The main roof, clad in corrugated iron sheeting, consists of two parallel long gables over the north-eastern and south-western wings connected by another gabled section over the central building range. The gable ends are decorated with moulded bargeboards and partial timber batten infill. The roofs over the verandahs are broken-backed. Two brick chimneys, painted white, are located above the inner face of the south-western wing, and several metal vents pierce the roof ridges. Celtic crosses adorn the ends of the main gables.
The Cunningham Street façade is largely symmetrical, with a central portico formed in timber and verandahs running behind it between the brick walls of the two main gabled wings. The verandahs here have original cast iron balustrades, painted white, set into timber top and bottom rails. The portico is supported on double posts and topped by a pediment with ornamentation forming a gothic pointed arch. The western gable end has three lancet windows on each floor, with pink and green patterned glass; while the eastern gable end is slightly narrower, with two lancet windows on the upper floor and a projecting bay on the ground with three lancet windows (one filled with sheeting). It has a corrugated iron gable roof and timber gable ornamentation. Under the adjacent verandah a sacristy is formed in brick with lancet windows.
The north-eastern façade retains many of its open verandah areas. A recent timber staircase provides access to the first floor verandah, the southern end of which is clad in weatherboards. At the northern end of this floor the first two bays of the verandah are enclosed with chamferboards and banks of louvered windows. On the south-western façade only a small portion of the ground floor verandah remains unenclosed. A double storey brick section with three original windows divides the façade and houses an original internal staircase. Various window types feature including three-light casements, aluminium sliders and louvers.
The rear façade is dominated by the two projecting wings forming a courtyard. The areas of enclosed verandah are variously clad in weatherboards or chamferboards. A multitude of window types feature, including original timber-framed double-hung sashes, four-light timber casements, and aluminium-framed sliders. There is an original external timber staircase in the verandah area of the central building range. The brick gable ends of both wings feature small ventilation openings.
The interior fabric of the building is largely intact. Unless noted, all internal ceilings are lined with pressed metal, in a variety of patterns, including ceiling roses and cornices, although modern fluorescent lights and ceiling fans have often been fitted over the roses. All interior masonry walls are plastered and painted; and most rooms and corridors have a timber picture rail positioned either in line with the top of the fanlights or just below ceiling level (rooms without picture rails include the former nuns' cells and the kitchen). Wide timber skirtings line the base of most walls, and timber floors are largely carpeted.
The ground floor layout of the former St Columba's Convent remains substantially intact, with only one interior wall removed (in the kitchen). Entry is from Cunningham Street, off the verandah and into a small lobby with reception rooms either side. The elaborate front door is timber-framed and set into an arched opening; with patterned glass lights (green, red and yellow) surrounding the central, low-waisted double door. Some original door hardware remains. On the far side of the entrance lobby is an elaborate doorway into the central corridor. Topped by an open timber-framed fanlight containing the top of a pointed arch and two timber quatrefoils, the doorway has two fixed and two opening leafs, each glazed with five arctic glass lights.
Beyond this a central hallway runs parallel to the main façade, linking the north-eastern and south-western wings. This has a carpeted floor and stop-chamfered edges around openings. Rooms on the southern side of the corridor are the former nun's refectory, a small office (formerly work room) and the main staircase. This features a polished silky oak balustrade. At the south-western end of the former nun's refectory is a fireplace with a carved silky oak mantelpiece. The north-eastern wing houses the chapel, with adjacent brick sacristy. The sanctuary is located in the bay projection at the northern end, separated from the main space by an arched opening and two steps. The stained glass of the sanctuary features flowers and symbols such as alpha and omega, whilst all other windows contain leadlighting in various shades of green. A door leads into the small sacristy and the one connecting to the central corridor has a flashed glass border. The Stations of the Cross are in timber frames surmounted by a small cross.
The south-western wing contains two large rooms at the northern end, with original bi-fold timber doors made of eight panels, approximately 2.7 metres high, dividing the former boarder's study from the refectory. At the southern end is a kitchen, with an adjacent cold room and pantry inserted where the music rooms were. The kitchen is recently fitted out; however an original stove alcove remains. The floor is covered with linoleum. These rooms contain original doors, windows, timber-lined walls and a corridor leading to the western verandah. The amenities area on the eastern side of the enclosed verandah contains some original fabric, such as doors and board lined walls. The brick enclosed staircase in the north-western corner of this wing has a simple, painted timber balustrade, carpeted stairs and pressed metal on the underside of the upper landing.
On the first floor, the core of the former convent on either side of the central corridor consists of six small rooms, formerly nun's cells, and a large room (former infirmary) currently divided in two. Five of the cells run along the northern side of the corridor, with the sixth adjacent to the main staircase. The enclosed verandah to the rear of these rooms contains a kitchen, dining area and bathroom. The timber floor here is lined with linoleum and the exterior brick walls are unpainted. The north-eastern wing houses a meeting room at the front of the building, three former nun's cells and amenities at the southern end. The south-western wing was formerly a single long dormitory room but is now divided into five rooms by plasterboard-lined partitions and areas of ceiling. The original coved ceiling runs the entire length of the former dormitory and is visible in three of the five rooms, with low plasterboard ceilings in two of the rooms. The former boarder amenities are located in the verandah at the southern end of this wing. Rooms here, which include a large amenities room, retain some original doors, windows and board-lined walls and ceiling. Floors have been lined with linoleum and modern bathroom fixtures installed.
In the former nuns cells there are sections of likely recent wallpaper remaining on the walls. A fireplace with timber mantelpiece identical to the one on the ground floor features in the largest room. The rear external staircase has been enclosed on this level. The meeting room at the front of the north-east wing has two filled doorways on the north-east wall. The three former nun's cells are divided from each other and from the corridor by timber walls lined with vertically-jointed, tongue and groove boards. They each have a recent double door opening on to the north-east verandah. The amenities and store room at the southern end of this wing have recent fixtures and linings.
Though largely open lawn, a variety of trees and shrubs are planted along the edges of the St Columba's property and throughout its grounds. Some mature trees as remnants of early planting schemes are significance, such as several mature bottle trees (Brachychiton rupestris) in the front and north-east lawn areas. There is an informal parking area at the rear of the building. The main feature of the front fence is a gateway marked by two original brick pillars. Two later brick pillars flanking the original gateway are not of significance, neither are the garden beds laid out in front of the building, edged in orange brick and arranged around a central circular garden feature.
Other features not considered to be of significance are a small fenced enclosure at the rear, south-west side of the building and a small garage and carport near the south-east corner. Near the north-east boundary is a brick pavilion, housing a crucifix statue on a raised platform. It has a gabled, tiled roof and round arches spanning between the corner pillars, some of which are topped by a small cross. Larger crosses sit at the gable peaks and the flat ceiling is lined with pressed metal. On the north-east side of the building, near the sacristy, is a grotto made from stone with a garden in the centre. A statue of the Virgin Mary stands in an alcove in the rear wall and a marble plaque, dedicated to a Sister Mary Agatha who apparently died in 1917, is attached to a sandstone block. The pavilion and grotto are both considered to be significant.
A brass plaque in the front garden area commemorates 113 years of the Sisters of Mercy in Dalby. A marble plaque is attached to the northern corner of the main façade commemorating the laying of the foundation stone but is unlikely to be original. Next to the main door is a large brass plaque, commemorating the blessing and reopening of the building as St Joseph's Parish Hostel in 1991.
","history":"The former St Columba's Convent was built in 1913 for the Sisters of Mercy from a design by local architect George Bernard Roskell, to provide accommodation for the nuns and the boarding students in their care. At that time, the town of Dalby and its surrounding rural districts were experiencing economic growth. The Sisters of Mercy occupied the convent until 1990, after which it was purchased by the Dalby parish and used as a student hostel, before being leased as a youth and community centre.
Dalby evolved as part of the expansion of one of the most significant pastoral regions in Queensland, the Darling Downs. The township was first laid out by Surveyor EO Moriaty in 1852. Due to an error in flood levels, Captain Perry, the Deputy Surveyor General of NSW resurveyed the township in 1853, naming it Dalby after a location on the Isle of Man. The Town Reserve was declared in the New South Wales Government Gazette in August 1855. Dalby soon had a range of government services, including a post office in August 1854, the declaration of the Dalby Police District in 1855, and the establishment of a National School in 1859. The first urban land sales were held in 1857 and the town gazetted as a municipality on 29 August 1863. The extension of the western railway line from Toowoomba to Dalby in 1868 led to a boom in the town which only diminished when the line was extended further west in 1877.
At the time of the appointment of James Quinn as the first Bishop of Brisbane in 1861, the population of the Colony of Queensland was 30,059, of whom 7,696 (39%) were Catholics. The proportion of Catholics in the main towns of the Darling Downs was: 18% in Warwick, 22% in Toowoomba, 28% in Dalby and 32% in Drayton. Initially Catholic pastoral care in Dalby was irregular; visiting priests had to celebrate mass in local hotels like Josiah Milstead's Plough Inn Hotel from 1855. The first Catholic school in Dalby was established in 1864.
Dalby's first Catholic church, St Joseph's was opened by Bishop Quinn in August 1866. In 1876 Quinn instructed Father Denis Byrne, curate of Dalby, to establish a convent in the town, using £400 that the Sisters of Mercy of All Hallows Convent in Brisbane had allocated for the purpose. The Sisters of Mercy, having initially travelled to Queensland with Bishop Quinn in 1860, were integral to the expansion of Catholic schools across the state.
A new commodious version of the Plough Inn Hotel, built in 1863, was sold as part of the estate of pastoralist CC Macdonald. A half share of the property - lots 14, 15 and 16 (originally lots 2, 3, and 4) of section 16 - was transferred to Bishop Quinn in 1876. A small group of Sisters of Mercy arrived in Dalby on 8 August the following year, from the Toowoomba convent established in 1873; and this new Plough Inn became the order's eleventh school in Queensland known as St Columba's. A new timber church designed by Toowoomba architect James Marks was opened in September 1886. By that time, Catholics comprised one third of the population of the Darling Downs.
Dalby's regional prosperity was spurred by a number of legislative processes aimed at rural development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the creation of smaller land holdings and the construction of new railways. The Dalby-to-Bell line opened in 1906, followed by the Tara line in 1908. Dairying and wheat cultivation expanded. A butter factory and a flour mill were established in Dalby in 1906, while the wool industry continued to underpin the rural economy of the area. Despite the dramatic effects of the Federation drought which peaked in 1902, the market for cattle improved in the 1910s, while the price of wool more than doubled between 1900 and 1915.
The growth of the area and the general expansion of the network of boarding schools led to the planning of a new, purpose-built Catholic convent for Dalby. In 1910, 3½ acres (1.4 ha) on the corner of Cunningham and Edward Streets were transferred to the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Rockhampton, James Duhig came in November 1910 to lay the foundation stone of the convent there. In November 1911 local architect George Bernard Roskell called for tenders for its construction. Born in India, Roskell migrated to Sydney in 1881, having previously been articled to EW Pugin in Dublin. (Pugin and his father AW Pugin were responsible for the design of a large number of Gothic Revival ecclesiastical buildings in Britain and Western Europe.) In Sydney, Roskell worked in partnership with John Bede Barlow between 1885 and 1891. (The 1887 Church of St Canice in Rushcutters Bay and the 1889 St Francis of Assisi Church in Paddington, designed by the practice are both on the Sydney Local Heritage Register.) Roskell then went to New Zealand, working for two firms known for their ecclesiastical projects. He relocated to Queensland as an employee of the Department of Public Works in 1907. Living in Dalby from 1909, he worked as clerk of the Dalby Town Council and also ran an architectural practice responsible for the Dalby National Bank (1910), the Dalby Hospital (1914) and the Wambo Shire Council offices (1916).
St Columba's Convent was opened by the recently appointed coadjutor, His Grace Archbishop Duhig on 8 June 1913, the eve of the feast day of St Columba of Iona. (St Columba had been exiled to this island off Scotland in 563 and later established his ministry there.) A crowd of around 500 visitors attended the ceremony. Father Nolan, the Parish Priest indicated that the convent had cost £7,267 and he needed a further £2,600 to clear the debt. A collection was then taken up, which yielded around £1,600. Speakers praised the efforts of the builder, John Draney and the Clerk of Works, Michael Kelly, as well as the fund raising efforts of the ladies committee. It was expected that subsequent fund raising would focus on building a new church and presbytery for Father Nolan. Michael Kelly departed Dalby the following week to take up the position of Clerk of Works for St Brigid's Church at Red Hill (QHR 600284).
The Dalby Herald described the new convent as Gothic in style, standing on a large site, on solid foundations four feet deep, reinforced with rolled joists, bolted together under all the walls of the structure, creating a singular solid frame. Entry to the property was through ornamental iron gates composed of crosses with the name St Columba's Convent emblazoned on them in brass. A gravelled path led to the central main entrance, which had a simple gabled portico again lettered with the name of St Columba's. The front verandah featured sections of cast iron balustrade and all were ten feet wide. Flooring throughout was crows ash.
The convent's entry doors opened to a hall, flanked on each side by reception rooms, with passageways leading to both wings. To the right was a boarders' study which was separated by 9' (2.7 m) high folding doors from a boarders' refectory. Three French doors led to the western verandah, along which were located four music rooms. A nearby staircase led up to the boarders' dormitory. Directly behind the entrance lobby was the nuns' refectory, which included a fireplace and mantle. To the left of the entrance lobby, a grand timber staircase with turned silky oak balustrade ascended to the upper floor. Beyond the staircase was the 63' by 14' (19.2 by 4.3 m) chapel. The sanctuary was lit by arched stained glass windows illuminating the altar. A soft shade of green was used in the glass and in the interior paint scheme. The altar, which no longer remains, was designed and built by Trittons Furniture in Brisbane, donated by Mother Patrick of All Hallows in Brisbane and made as a copy of its altar.
The first floor boarders' dormitory occupied the entire western wing and had 16' (1.8 m) high coved ceilings. A lavatory and bathroom, with enamelled baths and showers adjoined the dormitory at the rear of the building. The dormitory opened onto front, rear and side verandahs. A corridor led from the boarders' dormitory to an infirmary for smaller children, which had a fireplace. Six nuns' cells 12' by 8' (3.6 by 2.4 m), painted in French grey were also located here. The upper floor of the eastern wing housed three more cells and a large community room, the nun's bathrooms and toilets, and linen room. Water was supplied from a bore and from four 2 000 gallon tanks and three smaller rainwater tanks. The convent was one of the earliest buildings in Dalby to have a septic system, the local firm Downs Plumbing and Manufacturing supplying and executing all the plumbing work. Pressed metal ceilings were by Extons.
Ongoing development of Catholic facilities in Dalby included a locally-designed school (1916) to the rear of the convent towards Jimbour Street, and a new church (1921) a block to the north-east on Cunningham Street and an adjacent presbytery (1930), both designed by Sydney architects Hennessey and Hennessey. Also in Cunningham Street, St John's Church of England, designed by Toowoomba architect Harry Marks, opened in 1935 (QHR 602399).
Father Nolan was honoured by the Pope in November 1930 and invested as a Monsignor in St Joseph's Church, when he was praised for the beautiful church buildings erected in Dalby - the convent, church and school. Within the Parish of Dalby, Nolan was responsible for the construction of new churches in Bell (1912), Warra (1913) and Jandowie (1917), Catholic communities which all would have sent children to school in Dalby. In 1930 and 1932 two further churches - at Cecil Plains and Kaimkillenbun respectively - were opened, both under his direction. The well-respected Nolan remained in the parish until his death in 1950. His church building scheme formed part of Duhig's overall program, which produced over 400 buildings in Queensland, including religious, educational and charitable institutions and hospitals.
The chief towns of the Darling Downs - namely Toowoomba, Warwick and Stanthorpe - became, along with Dalby, centres of education with the establishment of a number of day and boarding schools by different Christian denominations. With regards Catholic convents predating St Columba's, of the four built only the Sisters of Mercy Convent of the Assumption built in 1893-94 in Warwick is extant (QHR 600953 - Cloisters). Around the time of the construction of the convent at Dalby, other Christian boarding schools were established in Toowoomba and Warwick but were not overseen by an order of nuns or brothers. These generally remain in operation with early buildings often having become part of co-educational colleges formed through a process of school amalgamation, such as in Warwick where the Presbyterian Ladies College (1918) and Scots College for boys (1919) merged in 1970 and now operate as Scots PCG College over two campuses. A brick and timber convent built in Goondiwindi in 1911 and similar in scale to that at Dalby has been demolished. A number of smaller convents and schools were established on the Downs after 1913, including at Allora, Clifton, Crows Nest, Oakey, Miles, Chinchilla and Yarraman. Of these only the Sisters of the Good Samaritan convents at Clifton (1917) and Yarraman (1946) are known to remain, while a number of the schools continue in operation.
Boarding was phased out at St Columba's during the 1960s, while the school continued to expand on land behind the convent along Jimbour Street. In 1963 St Mary's Christian Brothers College was established in Nicholson Street, near the Dalby airport, to educate boys from grades 5 to 10. St Mary's College became co-educational for grades 8 to 10 in 1980, with St Columba's operating as the co-educational primary school. In October 1990, the Sisters of Mercy departed Dalby, as part of the trend towards co-educational colleges staffed by lay teachers and managed through Diocesan Education Offices. In 1991, the Dalby Parish Finance Committee purchased the convent from the Sisters, upgraded its facilities and established a non-denominational rural student hostel, known as St Joseph's, servicing the regional community. St Columba's school to the rear of the convent was extensively fire damaged in 1998 and the decision made to begin a process of relocation to Nicholson Street. The last of the significant school buildings remaining on the site was moved elsewhere. St Columba's and St Mary's formally merged in 2008 to form Our Lady of the Southern Cross College based at the Nicholson Street campus.
A decline in the Dalby region's rural prosperity led to the closure of St Joseph's Hostel in 1999. The former convent became known as Iona after the relocation of the school. It was then used by a number of community and educational groups. In May 2006 the Myall Youth and Community Network Centre (MYCNC) moved into the former convent, however in mid-2010 it was awaiting completion of purpose-built facilities in Diplock Park opposite Dalby High School.
","criteria":"The former St Columba's Convent is an elegant architectural composition with great aesthetic merit, with its triple-gabled front façade, walls of face brick with cement rendered bands, and a perimeter of timber verandahs. The cohesive design and scale realised in the convent gives it a commanding visual presence on the south-western end of Cunningham Street, Dalby's main thoroughfare, a quality that it shares with two other ecclesiastical buildings in the block to the north-east - St Joseph's Catholic Church and St John's Church of England (QHR 602399).
|St Columba's Convent (former) is an outstanding and highly intact example of a Sisters of Mercy convent and boarding facility built to serve the prosperous Darling Downs town of Dalby. On Cunningham Street the former convent retains its commanding presence, while its exterior displays further principal characteristics of a building of this type: triple-gabled street façade employing Gothic motifs and a perimeter of timber verandahs. In terms of layout and interior finishes, the former convent is also highly intact and therefore strongly illustrative of this type of cultural place: including ground floor chapel and sacristy, stained glass and leadlight windows, decorative timberwork, refectory and reception rooms and first floor nun's cells and boarders' dormitory with a coved, pressed metal ceiling.
|St Columba's Convent (former), a substantial brick and timber building constructed and opened in 1913 almost debt-free because of the donations made by parishioners, strikingly demonstrates the prosperity generated through pastoralism and agriculture on the Darling Downs, one of the most productive rural areas in Queensland.
St Columba's, designed by local architect George Bernard Roskell and constructed for the Sisters of Mercy, demonstrates the spread of the Catholic Church in regional Queensland, and in particular the significant contribution played by this order of nuns in the spiritual and educational development of the state through its establishment of convents, schools and boarding accommodation. The order served the Dalby parish for 113 years, occupying St Columba's for 77 of these until 1990.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31831,"place_ref":602850,"name":"Irvinebank State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"High Street","suburb":"IRVINEBANK","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-05-01","description":"Irvinebank State School stands on a 1.28ha site in the centre of the small town of Irvinebank. The school is approached from the southwest by an unsealed road off Herberton Petford Road. The teaching building stands on the centre of the site, facing southeast down the steep slope with rock wall terraces behind forming level platforms for the tennis court and playshed.
\nTeaching Building
\nThe teaching building, comprising three classrooms, is an L-shaped timber-framed and clad building with a corrugated metal-clad gable roof. The natural slope has been terraced so the building is lowset at the rear and highset at the front. The exterior is clad with weatherboards and the roof with corrugated metal sheets. The 1889 and 1899 classrooms form the long wing with the 1906 section branching off at a right angle.
\nThe 1889/99 wing is intact. Verandahs on the front (southeast) and rear (northwest) have stop-chamfered posts and timber post and rail balustrades. Original hatroom enclosures survive at the centre and at both ends. The wing retains original tall, narrow windows with high sills in all walls, sheltered by hoods with latticed cheeks in the gable end walls. Louvred panels in the gable end wall apexes vent the roof space and an original metal fleche stands on the centre of the ridge, venting both classrooms. From the verandahs, timber French doors with stop-chamfered frames and tall centre pivot fanlights open into the classrooms which are separated by a beaded tongue and groove board lined partition with a half glazed door. The interior walls are unlined, with timber wall framing and tie-beams exposed internally. The coved ceiling is lined with boards and has central lattice ventilation panels. Solar panels mounted on the roof and the metal shade structure attached to the southeastern elevation are modern additions and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe 1906 wing has a verandah on the southwest side with square timber posts and an original hatroom enclosure at the southeastern end. Packed weatherboards at the apex of the gable end walls vent the roof space. Original window hoods with latticed cheeks are retained on the gable end walls, sheltering windows with lower sills. The sashes and fanlights are all later replacements within the original openings, comprising timber-framed awning sashes or steel louvres. A large area of windows has been inserted into the verandah wall, however, the original timber French doors survive. The southwestern verandah has been enclosed with later weatherboards (external) and flat sheeting (internal). The interior walls are lined with later flat sheeting and the coved ceiling is lined with boards and has ventilation panels, which have been sheeted over. Timber tie-beams are exposed within the space.
\nSome early school forms (long bench seats) and a school bell are retained in the building.
\nThe understorey stumps of the building are later replacements in steel and concrete and small enclosures have been made – none of which is of cultural heritage significance. The solar panels on the roof, metal walkway covers at the south, and the external window-shade louvres on the south western elevation of the 1906 wing are also later additions and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nTennis Court
\nA tennis court stands immediately behind the teaching building, retained by rock walls.
\nPlayshed
\nA ten-post, timber-framed playshed stands on higher ground immediately northwest of the tennis court. It has open sides and a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The timber roof framing is exposed and the floor is concrete.
\n","history":"
Irvinebank State School opened in 1889 in the small, private mining town of Irvinebank. As the town prospered, the teaching building (1889) was extended in 1899 and 1906, and other structures and landscape elements were built, including a playshed (1891). The town declined after 1907. In 2015 the school buildings remain remarkably intact. Irvinebank State School has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nTraditionally the land of the Bar Barrum people, European settlement at Irvinebank began in the 1880s. Irvinebank’s existence is due to John Moffat (1841-1918), whose mining enterprises drove much of the economic activity in north Queensland between 1884 and 1914.[1] In 1883 tin lodes at Gibbs Creek were purchased by Moffat’s partner in the Glen Smelting Company, George Young, while Moffat was overseas.[2] In 1884 Moffat had a dam constructed at Gibbs Creek, above which he built his residence, Loudoun House, and the locality was named Irvinebank.[3] A battery and smelter, the Loudoun Mill [QHR 600679], was constructed and commenced operations in December 1884.[4] A School of Arts building was erected in Irvinebank in 1885, and the first sale of allotments in the town occurred in February 1886.[5] Irvinebank became the centre of Moffat’s business empire, and Loudoun Mill was expanded between 1886 and 1904.[6]
\nIn June 1886 a public meeting was held at Irvinebank to elect members of a building committee to establish a provisional school.[7] Irvinebank Provisional School opened on 18 October 1886,[8] in a building south of Jessie Street.[9] By the end of December 1886, enrolment had reached 16 pupils.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the governments of Australia. After introducing the Education Act 1860 the number of public schools in Queensland grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[10] The State Education Act 1875 instituted free, compulsory, and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction.[11] The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[12]
\nIrvinebank soon had the population to support a state school, thanks to increased tin production. The economy of the town experienced two peak periods of prosperity – 1888-90 and 1899-1904 – boosted by the opening of the Vulcan tin mine in 1889, and by expansion at the Loudoun Mill.[13] At its peak in the early 1900s, the Loudoun Mill was the largest tin battery and smelter in Australia.[14] In 1888, the School Committee sought to upgrade Irvinebank Provisional School to a state school and raised 20 percent of the cost of a new building, as the Department of Public Instruction refused to allow the existing facility to be used.[15] A new site, steep but closer to the centre of town than a surveyed school reserve further northeast, was reserved in May 1889; comprising 2 acres, 1 rood, and 19.8 perches (0.96ha).[16] Construction tenders were called in May 1889,[17] and the new school buildings (teaching building and teacher's residence) were completed soon after. The upgrade to a state school was officially approved on 25 July 1889.[18]
\nThe teaching building at Irvinebank was built to a standard design by architect John Ferguson. The government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help ensure consistency and economy. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[19]
\nIn 1879 the Department of Public Instruction appointed its own Superintendent of Buildings to be responsible for the design of all government schools, the first appointee being the builder-architect Robert Ferguson. Ferguson immediately revised the design of schools to address deficiencies in ventilation and lighting. This period of school design was pivotal in this regard. Ferguson introduced tall and decorative ventilation spires to the roof and louvred panels to the gable apex to vent the classrooms. Additional and larger windows were incorporated with high sill heights that did not allow draughts and sunlight to enter the room. The overall form was lowset on brick piers. In larger schools, multiple classrooms were arranged symmetrically around a parade ground. The designs remained single-skin to eliminate 'receptacles for germs and vermin' but were lined externally rather than internally to address the previous weathering problem. Importantly, Ferguson's buildings were decoratively-treated with a variety of elaborate timber work and were heralded by educationalists as 'far superior in design, material and workmanship to any we have before built'.[20] In 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother’s designs until John’s death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[21] The Ferguson period (1879-1893) is distinct and marked by extensive redesign of school buildings including associated structures and furniture.
\nThe original teaching building at Irvinebank State School was a lowset timber-framed building with 8’ (2.4m) verandahs front and back, clad externally with weatherboards, and had a gable roof. It was single-skin with louvred panels in the gable apexes to ventilate the interior and tall, highset windows on all sides. It accommodated one large classroom 34' x 18' (10.36m x 5.49m) and the rear verandah accommodated a hatroom and lavatory enclosure at either end.[22] The classroom had a coved ceiling and the building was attractively-decorated with modest ‘carpenter gothic’ timberwork.
\nIn 1891 a playshed was built at Irvinebank State School.[23] The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were originally cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when needed These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[24] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds that ranged in size relative to student numbers.[25] The playshed at Irvinebank was typical of the standard designs. Standing at a distance behind of the teaching building, it was a timber-framed, 10-post open-sided shelter, 30' x 20' (9.1m x 6m) with a hipped roof and perimeter seats.
\nIrvinebank continued to prosper throughout the 1890s. Moffat formed the Irvinebank Mining Company in 1890[26] and Irvinebank was booming by 1899, assisted by the 1890s decline of the nearby silver mining town of Montalbion. A new School of Arts building was erected in 1890, to be replaced by another School of Arts building [QHR 601619] in 1900.[27] The office of the Walsh Divisional Board was transferred from Montalbion to Irvinebank by 1898, at which point there were 107 children attending Irvinebank State School.[28] By the end of the 1890s ’the townscape comprised two-roomed timber-framed galvanised iron cottages … Shops and hotels straggled along both McDonald and Jessie Streets. Jack and Newell’s store, Hales’ Royal Hotel and the adjacent Orient Hotel were on the Herberton Road’.[29]
\nAs the town grew, the school expanded. In July 1895 additional land to the northeast was added to the school reserve, comprising one acre (0.4ha).[30] To cope with the growth in student numbers, the teaching building was extended in 1899 to a design by the Department of Public Works. Under the stewardship of the Department of Public Works, which retained the responsibility for school design until 2013, and through the involvement of some of Queensland's most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced and diverse. This was the outcome of years of systematic reform and experimentation.[31]
\nFrom 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings.[32] For timber-framed buildings, single-skin construction was favoured for its heat dissipation ability and economy. Often the building was lined on the interior rather than exterior, providing a smooth, cleanable surface that provided better interior light. The resulting externally-exposed stud framing was protected from the weather by wide verandahs. The introduction of highset buildings began in the late 1890s, providing better ventilation and additional teaching and covered play space underneath.
\nA notable technical innovation introduced at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. To increase ventilation and lighting and decrease building cost, a return to only having a verandah on one side of the classroom (with generous eaves overhang on the other) occurred during this period, quickly becoming the form most commonly constructed across Queensland.[33]
\nIn September 1899, the tender of T Gordon for £365 10s was accepted to extend the teaching building at Irvinebank, doubling its size.[34] The new section replicated the existing building and added elements for providing better lighting and ventilation that were characteristic of the new direction in school design. Accommodating one classroom 34' x 18' (10.36m x 5.49m), the lowset extension was made to the northeast by removing the existing northeastern gable end wall (including rear hat room and lavatory enclosure) and refixing it as the gable end in the new work.[35] Originally only having three window sashes, the gable end window was widened to seven sashes. A new hatroom enclosure was added to the rear verandah and a metal ventilation fleche to the roof at the junction between old and new, to better ventilate both classrooms. Divided from the earlier classroom by a single-skin partition with glazing and a connecting door, the interior of the new classroom had unlined walls, a coved ceiling, and tall, highset windows in all walls.
\nIrvinebank State School reflected the town's continued prosperity into the 1900s. Enrolment was 221, with an attendance of 193 for March 1905.[36] The town’s population also increased, from 619 in 1901 to 1264 in 1911.[37] Tin prices were high between 1900 and 1907, and by 1907 Herberton and Irvinebank were the centre of Queensland’s base metal industry.[38]
\nDue to a need for more space, another extension was made to the teaching building, also to a design by the Department of Public Works.[39] F Ohnesorgen's tender of £527 5s was accepted in December 1905 and construction was completed in 1906.[40] Attached to the end of the 1899 classroom, the extension was similar to the earlier building but was oriented at right angles and introduced further lighting and ventilation methods. It was a single-skin timber-framed building clad with weatherboards and had a gable roof. The gable end walls had packed weatherboards in the gable end apexes to vent the interior. Accommodating one classroom 34' x 18' (10.36m x 5.49m), it had a coved ceiling and tall, highset windows on all sides. The teacher’s residence was also extended in 1906.
\nIrvinebank's prosperity began to decline from 1907. Moffat’s (and therefore, Irvinebank’s) fortunes fell due to factors such as the cost of a private tramway built between Stannary Hills and Irvinebank, industrial action, a steep drop in assays at the Vulcan mine, and a fall in tin prices.[41] Due to excessive debt, Moffat was forced to retire as director of the Irvinebank Mining Company in 1912, and his business partner John Reid became manager.[42] In 1919 the Loudoun Mill was purchased by the Queensland Government and was reopened as the Irvinebank State Treatment Works.[43] The population of Irvinebank dropped sharply to 607 by 1921 and 147 by 1933.[44] After a long period of government ownership and declining fortunes, the mill was leased to a private operator in 1983.[45]
\nAfter 1906, the Irvinebank State School teaching building remained relatively unaltered.[46] Over time, earthworks have occurred to flatten the sloping terrain around and under the Ferguson building, which included replacing all understorey posts and making enclosures under the building. Minor changes occurred in 1961 when the 1906 classroom interior was lined with sheet material and the windows were altered to have lower sills and timber-framed awning sashes.[47] In 1969 another school reserve was gazetted 700m to the southwest of the school, for a sports field, and a new school residence was constructed there in 1979.[48] The original residence was later removed. In 1992 part of the southwest end of the 1889 school reserve was reconfigured as road reserve.
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from the site and the Ferguson teaching building, with its 1899 and 1906 extensions, and the 1891 playshed, remain intact. The state school is important to the town and generations of Irvinebank students have been taught there.
\n","criteria":"
Irvinebank State School, established 1889, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government school building designs that were an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe erection and extension of the school’s teaching building and playshed between 1889 and 1906 is a result of Irvinebank’s growth and prosperity over this period, when the mining town played an important role in north Queensland’s economy.
\n|
Irvinebank State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools. These include: generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees; playshed and assembly/play areas; and timber-framed teaching buildings of standard designs that incorporate verandahs and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation.
\nTogether, the three classrooms of the teaching building (1889, 1899, and 1906) illustrate a marked period of experimentation in school design (c1879-1914) and illustrate an evolution in modest, timber-framed school buildings for small communities.
\nThe Ferguson building (1889) and the extension designed by the Department of Public Works (1899) are highly intact, which is rare. They are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of these two types, retaining: a lowset form with a gable roof; single-skin, timber-framed and clad construction; wide verandahs to the front and rear of large, lofty classrooms; high-quality, modest timber decorative detailing; and effective natural lighting and ventilation features.
\nThe 1906 extension designed by the Department of Public Works is also intact and is important in demonstrating the characteristics of this type, including: high-set form with gable roof; verandah to one side only of a large, lofty classroom; and effective natural lighting and ventilation features.
\nThe playshed (1891) is important in demonstrating this type. It retains its open-sided, timber-framed form with a hipped roof.
\n|
Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nIrvinebank State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Irvinebank community. It was established in 1886 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Irvinebank children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Irvinebank.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31875,"place_ref":602771,"name":"Colonsay Farm (former Doolong Farm)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"125 Doolong Road","suburb":"KAWUNGAN","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-03-11","description":"Colonsay Farm is located on Doolong Road, at Kawungan in the southern portion of the City of Hervey Bay, and the farm buildings are accessed by a track that runs south from Doolong Road. The 1940s dairy sits about 170 m north of the c1909 house. The separator shed is about 20 m south-east of the house, under a large tree. The slab barn is about 60 m south-east of the house, and two piggeries are located just to the south of the barn.
The 1940s dairy is a rectangular timber building, partly open to the east. It has single-skin walls clad with weatherboards and a gabled roof clad with metal sheets which extends to cover a small verandah to the north-east. The building is divided into three sections by two internal walls lined with vertical boards. From north to south these include: a hay storage room with a doorway to the east, and corrugated iron cladding to part of the west wall; a 'walk-through' style bail section open to the yards to the east, with four bails and four exit doors in the west wall, along with stainless steel milk lines above the bails; and the milk room, containing a cream separator, milk cooling equipment, power board, electric motor and other machinery, two benches, wash trough and doors to the east and south. Floors are formed in concrete. Yards lie to the northeast and north of the dairy and are enclosed with timber post and rail fences. There is a concrete water tank to the south of the building.
The c1909 house is highset on timber stumps, with an understorey screened with timber battens. The basic plan of the house, which faces to the northeast, consists of a pyramid roofed central section which houses three bedrooms and a lounge, and a kitchen/bathroom wing which extends southwest from the northern rear corner of the house. There are verandahs to the northeast, southeast and southwest. The northwest end of the northeast verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards and timber louvres, and the southeast verandah is enclosed with weatherboards and casement windows to form several small rooms. The L-shaped southwest verandah is enclosed with fibrous cement sheeting, and the section of this verandah along the southeast side of the kitchen wing has become a dining room. There is a stove recess clad with corrugated metal sheeting at the southwest end of the kitchen. An internal stairway runs from the enclosed southwest verandah down to the understorey. Internal walls are lined with vertical timber boards.
The separator shed/cream house is a small, windowless, timber-framed structure clad with weatherboards. It is located under a large fig tree, stands on a concrete slab and has a steeply pitched roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. There is a doorway on the south side and ventilation gaps with wire netting at the top of each wall. Inside the shed are some timber shelves fixed to the wall studs.
The slab barn is a gable roofed structure with two skillion roofed side rooms, to the east and west. Large round timber posts form the frame of the building, and the walls of the central gabled section are clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The walls of the skillion side sections to the east and west are constructed with vertical timber slabs and some corrugated metal sheeting. The eastern skillion section contains four cow bails formed by timber posts and rails. At the head of the bails small hatches are cut into the wall, enabling the cows to be fed chaff prepared in the centre section of the barn.
The two piggeries stand south of the slab barn, with timber yards and low shelters consisting of timber frames with skillion roofs clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
Structures on the site which are not considered to be of heritage significance include: a vehicle shed located between the slab barn and the house; and two open vehicle sheds located south-east of the house, just east of the separator shed.
","history":"'Colonsay' (formerly known as Doolong Farm) at Kawungan in Hervey Bay stands on 62.9 hectares (155.4 acres) of a former 80.9 hectare (200 acre) farm selected by a Danish immigrant in 1879. The existing structures were built during the first half of the 20th century, the high point of dairying in Queensland, and they illustrate past dairy farming practices in the Wide Bay region. The farm complex includes a c1909 residence, a slab barn with early hand milking dairy, a separator shed/cream house, two piggeries and a 1940s walk-through electrified dairy with yards.
European settlement at Hervey Bay began with the establishment of the pastoral run Dalgaroom (16,000 acres) in the mid 1850s, and timbergetting commenced in the district in the mid 1860s. Under the Crown Lands Alienation Act (1868) the entire Wide Bay region was declared a settled area and large land holdings were no longer permitted. Dalgaroom run was reduced to 14,000 acres and renamed Toogoom, while the balance of the land was set aside for a railway reserve. From 1870 the Toogoom run was resumed and cut into blocks for sale. Many selectors around Hervey Bay were Danish immigrants, arriving from 1871 as part of an assisted migration scheme. Farms in the Pialba area grew fruit, maize and potatoes, but they did not prosper beyond a subsistence level until the railway from Colton to Pialba opened in December 1896.
Another crop grown by local selectors was sugar. Four small sugar mills operated at Pialba in the 1880s, including a mill opened in 1883 by Hansen and Jorgensen, just southeast of Colonsay farm. Although all the Pialba mills had closed by 1889, following the opening of the railway to Pialba the district became a major supplier of cane to the Maryborough Sugar Factory, Mount Bauple Central Mill, Doolbi Mill and Isis Central Mill.
Besides sugar, a potential source of income for local farmers was dairy farming, which did not develop as a major industry in Queensland until the early 20th century. Initially, Queensland pastoralists or local farmers kept a few cows for domestic purposes, and small dairy operations supplied milk and butter to limited local markets. However, a combination of introduced grass species, technological advances, improved transportation networks and government encouragement through legislation encouraged the rise of commercial dairy farming in Queensland.
The advent of mechanical cream separators in Australia in the 1880s, the Babcock butterfat test in the 1890s, government grading of butter and the start of refrigerated shipping from Brisbane in 1884 also helped to encourage dairying. In addition, the spread of Queensland's railway network meant that some cream could be easily transported to butter factories and butter could be carried from the factories to ports for export. A further impetus for dairying was the Co-operative movement, where producers held shares in the enterprises that processed and sold their product.
In 1926 about 78% of Queensland's milk production went into making butter, and in 1928 about 10% of Queensland's population was largely dependent on the dairy industry. By 1929 the Wide Bay district (of which Hervey Bay was a part) was the second highest milk producer after the Moreton District. However, when the dairy industry declined in Queensland from the 1950s onwards, due to increased competition, a loss of butter markets and higher overheads, many farmers either switched to bulk milk production or left the industry. While some old dairies were upgraded by those farmers who remained in the industry, the rest were demolished, used for storage or left derelict.
In the Pialba district in the 1890s cream separators were too expensive for individual farmers to buy, and as a result a creamery opened at Aalborg (named after the town in Denmark). Creameries separated the cream from milk, so the cream could then be sent to a butter factory, and the farmers could take the remaining skim milk home to feed to their calves or pigs. Due to this process pig farming became a common adjunct to dairy farming. In 1901 a butter factory opened at Maryborough and Pialba farmers were able to buy their own cream separators from the factory, on credit against future payments for their cream.
Both sugar and cream have been produced on Colonsay, a farm which was first established by Anders Jensen. Born in Aalborg, Denmark in 1848 Jensen had fought in the Second Schleswig War of 1864. He arrived in Queensland on 4 March 1871 on the ship Reichstag out of Hamburg, along with 328 other immigrants, mostly Danes and Germans. Of the 6400 Danes in Australia by 1891, about half lived in Queensland, and as skilled farmers they played an important role in the Australian dairy industry.
Jensen married Magdalena (Madeline) Mortensen in Maryborough in 1872 and in January 1879 he applied to lease land in the parish of Urangan, County of March, under the Crown Lands Alienation Act (1876). Jensen resided on this selection, located about 4.5 km northeast of Aalborg, from March of 1879 and Portion number 1212, of 200 acres, was surveyed in May of that year. The survey map indicated that the land was covered with 'heavy forest' in the north and 'scrub' in the south.
Portion 1212 was inspected in June 1883, and a rough map produced from this inspection shows that Jensen's house was situated in the south-east corner of the selection. This was a four roomed house, built with pine palings and covered with pine shingles. Other structures included a kitchen, fowl house, stable, pig house, and underground tank. Out of a total of 10 acres of scrub cleared and burnt, five acres of land were planted with sugar cane, and the rest was planted with corn, potatoes and fruit trees. The uncultivated land was used for cattle and horses.
Jensen applied to purchase his selection of 2nd Class pastoral land in November 1883. A Deed of Grant was registered to Jensen in February 1884, and later that month the farm was transferred to James Buchanan. Jensen repurchased the farm from Buchanan's widow early in 1902, and later that year he sold 40 acres of the farm (in the southeast corner, which included the site of his first house) to Hans Jorgensen. Anders Jensen is listed in the Queensland Post Office Directory as a farmer at Pialba from 1900 to 1910 and when his wife Magdalena died in June 1906 Anders is listed on her death certificate as living at Doolong Farm, Urangan. Anders died in 1923.
Doolong farm was sold to Alexander Macpherson, a railway guard, in late 1909. According to the Macpherson family the current farmhouse was built around this time, using timber from the property. While the current house was being constructed the Macphersons lived in another house (built by either Buchanan or Jensen) located very close by, but this later burnt down. A joint title for Alexander Macpherson and his son Alexander Macpherson junior was registered in February 1913, and the latter received full title to the land in February 1925. Both men and their wives lived in the c1909 house for several years prior to the younger Macpherson's sole ownership of the farm, and louvres were added to the front veranda to form a sitting area for the younger couple. At this time sugar was grown on the southern part of the farm, while the front 100 acres was used for grazing. The slab barn southeast of the house, with its handmilking bails at its east side, was most likely built by the Macphersons.
Alexander Macpherson junior died in April 1944, and the farm was transferred to Harold Spall in 1945 and then to Heinrich Steinhardt in 1949. Steinhardt grew sugar cane, ran a small dairy herd, and grew some small crops and melons. The paling fence in front of the house may have been built during his occupation, and the 'walk-through' electrified dairy north of the house was probably built in the 1940s, either by Spall or Steinhardt. The old walk-through style of dairy has now been superseded within the dairy industry by herringbone or rotary-style dairies. Later owners of the farm included Herbert and Marjorie Dunn (1952) and Thomas and Rose Cornwell (1954). Walker and Jean Redman owned the farm briefly in 1968, and moved the dairy cows to another property, before the farm was resold to Marshall John McFie and Mavis Joan McFie, who moved in later that year.
After the McFies purchased the farm (which they named after the McFie clan's ancestral home, an island off the west coast of Scotland) they made some changes to the house, including enclosing the southeast verandah with casement windows and weatherboards, and relining the walls of the enclosed southwest verandah adjacent to the kitchen. Small residential blocks were subdivided off the farm for the McFie's children in 1984, 1986 and 1994, along with some land for road purposes, and by 2008 the farm covered 155.4 acres (62.9 hectares). It is now used for beef cattle, and is slowly being enveloped by new housing estates as the urban area of Hervey Bay expands.
","criteria":"Colonsay Farm demonstrates a way of life, a function and a land use that was once common but is now uncommon. Small scale dairying was once a common means of earning regular income for farmers in rural areas of Queensland, particularly in the Wide Bay and Burnett region. After dairying declined in Queensland, many older dairy buildings were destroyed, abandoned or adapted for storage as farmers either left the industry or upgraded their buildings.
Farm complexes such as Colonsay, which still contain all the intact main elements of a pre-1950 dairy farm, such as a house, walk-through dairy, piggery, and separator shed or cream house, are increasingly uncommon.
|Colonsay Farm is an intact example of a small, family-operated dairy farm, developed in the early 20th century. Comprising a c1909 house with a fenced front yard, an early 20th century slab barn with cow bails, a 1940s walk-through dairy with yards, a separator shed/cream house under a large fig (ficus) tree and two piggeries, it includes many of the principal characteristics of an early dairy farm.
|Colonsay Farm is an intact example of a small, early 20th century family dairy farm. It provides important evidence of the development of dairying in the Wide Bay District, a region which became the second highest milk producing area in Queensland. Dairy farming was once an important and widespread agricultural activity in Queensland, with about 10% of Queensland's population being largely dependent on the dairy industry by 1928.
The two types of dairy sheds on the farm, the handmilking bails in the slab barn, and the later 'walk-through' dairy with electrically operated milking machines, demonstrate two phases in the evolution of dairy farming technology in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31876,"place_ref":602811,"name":"South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Association Factory (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Macalister Street","suburb":"MURGON","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The former Murgon Butter Factory stands to the corner of Macalister and McLucas Streets in the southern outskirts of Murgon, adjacent to the formation of the Kilkivan/Kingaroy railway line. The site is a complex of buildings and structures tightly assembled with the main entrance from Macalister Street arriving to a rectangular bitumened yard from which the loading dock of the factory worked. The site is notable for the buildings and structures surviving from the various eras of the dairy processing business including the relocated former Tiaro Butter Factory, main building (1929), plant room, boiler shed and stack.
Main building (1929)
Fronting the loading yard to Macalister Street, the main building is a rectangular concrete shed distinguished by decorative stepped parapets which screen a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The north-west elevation is divided into seven bays each housing recessed blind panels to the upper level and openings within the recessed panels to the exterior loading dock. Two dock level bays accommodate nine-light casement windows and the balance have either large timber doors or fixed timber panels. The decorative stepped parapet to this elevation contains the lettering "The South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd" framed by moulded decorative scrolls to each side. The north-east elevation is divided into three bays, one of which has a large timber door opening onto the dock which extends through the space joining the main building and the earlier Tiaro building. This elevation is distinguished by a glazed semi-circular window within the stepped parapet. The south-west elevation has three blind bays and a blind semi-circular window within the parapet. The south-east elevation is part concrete and part timber framed clad with corrugated metal sheeting and houses a large modern roller door.
The roof is framed with steel trusses and the ceiling is lined with a particle board sheeting joined with cover strips. The shed has a concrete floor throughout and a raised concrete dock (parts covered with red tiles) runs around the north-east and north-west sides. A narrow roof vent with fixed glazed windows and timber louvres runs along the ridge.
A concrete loading dock sheltered by a metal awning supported by metal posts runs along the north-west side of the buildings to the Macalister Street yard, from the southern corner of the main building (1929) to the northern corner of the earlier former Tiaro butter factory building. Siding railway tracks from the nearby Kilkivan/Kingaroy line run parallel to the dock.
Former Tiaro butter factory structures
Timber framed and clad and sheltered by gable roofs clad with corrugated iron, the two rectangular structures surviving from the former Tiaro butter factory stand to the Macalister Street yard of the complex south-east of the modern besser block shed standing to the north corner. Facing north-west, the northern building is distinguished by a narrow blind roof vent running along the ridge while the southern building has a narrow ridge roof vent with fixed timber louvres. These structures accommodate a number of spaces associated with dairy product processing including cold and salt rooms and are comprised of brick and concrete partitions and posts, timber floors, and concrete floors and ceilings. Some rooms have coved ceilings of a particle board sheeting joined with cover strips.
Modern cold rooms and laboratory facilities occupy the northern part of the former external dock to Macalister Street.
The space between the earlier Tiaro buildings and the main building (1929) is sheltered by a skillion roof and is open to the dock.
Other earlier structures
Other earlier structures associated with butter and milk product processing include a rectangular timber shed to the McLucas Street side and a small timber shed with twin gable roofs standing south of the stack.
Plant Room
A rectangular steel framed and concrete shed sheltered by a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting, the plant room stands to the middle of the site. The south-west wall is concrete with a corrugated iron gable infill; the concrete block north-east wall has a fibrous cement sheet gable infill and the side walls are concrete to half height, the balance clad with corrugated iron. The interior concrete walls are plastered and painted, a dado line separating the upper and lower portions. A concrete floor runs throughout and low concrete upstands accommodate various pieces of machinery. The timber framed roof is unlined and accommodates a narrow ridge vent with fixed glazed windows and timber louvres. Two large 20-light steel framed windows punctuate the north-west wall and a double timber door opens to the south-east. A later cold room extension sheltered by a skillion roof sits off the south-east side.
An array of plant including engines, pulleys and belts, pipes, gauges, valves, exhaust fans and equipment associated with the ammonia chilling process is accommodated in the shed.
Boiler shed and stack
Two cylindrical metal boilers with brick fireboxes framed with steel strapping are housed in a rectangular timber framed shed sheltered by a hipped roof and clad with corrugated iron. The fireboxes have metal fronts with a number of hatch openings. Each firebox connects by a brick tunnel to the stack standing to the south-east.
A concrete floor runs throughout the shed and there is a short run of trolley rails adjacent to the fireboxes. The south-west elevation is relieved by three large unglazed window openings. The shed accommodates plant and equipment associated with the boilers including ladders, gantries, pipes and valves.
The tall brick stack is square in plan, tapers to the top, and is bound by metal strapping. The stack is distinguished by stepped cornices to the plinth and crown.
Modern structures not considered to be of heritage significance
Three later besser block buildings associated with the dairy processing business - one to the north corner of the site and two south-east of the former Tiaro structures - are not considered to be of heritage significance.
The site accommodates a number of recent structures that relate to the present wine making business including tanks and storage and cold rooms which are not of heritage significance.
","history":"The former South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory Murgon, incorporating a range of structures dating from 1908 onwards, was built for South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Association, and is an important site associated with the manufacture of dairy products in the region from 1913 to 1995.
From the late 1800s, a number of critical factors enabled the expansion of the dairy industry into one of Queensland's principal primary industries by the interwar period. These included: government resumption and repurchase of land from pastoralists for the purpose of agricultural selection; the introduction of mechanical cream separators in the 1880s; Babcock testing to accurately measure cream content in milk; The Meat and Dairy Encouragement Act 1893 which made provision for government loans to construct butter and cheese factories; and the Department of Agriculture and Stock's use of a ‘Travelling Dairy' to demonstrate techniques and equipment to potential dairy farmers throughout Queensland. This period also saw the introduction of sown pastures such as paspalum and Rhodes grass and the cultivation of fodder, to improve milk yields and to provide adequate feed during the less productive months of winter.
Effective transport infrastructure was essential for dairy products to reach their desired markets. The extension of Queensland's rural railway network enabled more efficient transportation of dairy produce, facilitating the establishment of local butter and cheese factories in close proximity to railway lines. The first shipment of butter to Britain occurred in 1895 and from 1903, government subsidisation of a fortnightly shipping service to the United Kingdom improved Queensland's butter exporting capabilities.
The arrival of the Kilkivan branch railway to Murgon in 1904 was the impetus for the establishment of the township and a catalyst for the rapid expansion of dairying in the surrounding district, then an emerging but relatively small scale industry in the South Burnett.
By the early 1900s, co-operatives, where groups of local producers banded together to establish factories, were becoming the dominant form of ownership of cheese and butter factories, a pattern that defined the Queensland dairy industry for much of the twentieth century. In 1908 Tiaro Dairy Co-operative Company was established, with a butter factory built of timber opening in the township in the same year. A significant number of cream suppliers to the factory were from the South Burnett, from areas such as Goomeri, Kilkivan and Murgon. A cream receiving depot was established in Murgon, where cream was forwarded to Tiaro by rail. By 1912, 84 percent of the Tiaro butter factory's cream supply was sourced from the South Burnett and a correspondingly large number of the co-operative's shareholders were from the region. A meeting of shareholders in August 1912 voted to move the factory's operations to Murgon.
A site was acquired along Macalister Street, close to Murgon Railway Station in August 1913 and following the relocation of the Tiaro factory to Murgon, operations commenced in September. Mr George Wood was the builder of the factory while Waugh and Josephson were contractors for the machinery. The capacity of the factory increased from 12 tons at Tiaro to 40 tons of butter per week. In early 1914 the co-operative adopted the name of the South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Company Limited (SBCDC). During the latter half of the year, a railway siding was completed to the factory at a cost of £608/8/1.
Following the establishment of the Murgon butter factory, operations progressively expanded, reflecting the suitability and productivity of the South Burnett district for dairying. This growth is illustrated by the increase in the number of suppliers from 250 in 1913 to 800 by 1929, and in butter production from 252 tons in its first year at Murgon, to 1644 tons in 1928. By 1929, the Wide Bay district, in which the South Burnett was included, was second only to the Moreton district in Queensland milk production.
The growth of the South Burnett Co-operative's processing activities necessitated the expansion of the factory in 1929. In order to increase production capacity, the South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Company commenced the construction of a new unit of 35 tons capacity to work in conjunction with the existing unit, and a power plant capable of running both components together or independently. The objective behind the dual factory system was to apply the churning capacity of both factories to the manufacture of butter before noon, with the remainder of the day geared towards the handling and treatment of cream deliveries from suppliers. The Murgon butter factory increased the overall production capacity to 64 tons of butter a week, or 128 tons using double shifts. The dual factory system, driven by a common power plant, was claimed at the time to be ‘unique in the history of butter production in the Commonwealth'.
Brisbane architect George Hutton, supervised building plans and construction and Mr H. Taylor (also of Brisbane) was the builder. The cost of the remodelling was reported as exceeding £25,000. The largest of the new buildings, built to receive, process and churn cream, was constructed of reinforced concrete with a tubular truss roof, crowned by a lantern roof. The engine/plant room was built to the rear of the larger structure. The new buildings were officially opened on 9 March 1929 by William Forgan Smith, Minister for Agriculture and Stock, with over 1000 invited guests and the township ‘en-fete' for the occasion.
The building of the new Murgon factory occurred during a period of modernisation for butter manufacturers. By the end of the 1920s most Queensland butter factories had been remodelled or were new buildings of brick and concrete, replacing earlier timber structures. The emphasis on producing high grade butter saw the need for more churns within factories, as the lower temperatures necessary meant churns were turning longer than previously. In addition to upgrading buildings and equipment, greater attention was paid to ensuring butter was of a high standard, through stricter grading and modern processes of pasteurisation and neutralisation. Increasing numbers of trained staff were also working in factories.
The manufacture of butter followed a fairly typical process at factories throughout Queensland. Once cream cans were received and weighed, the cream was tested to determine its grading (choice, 2nd or 3rd), before the cans were emptied into vats and cleaned for return to the supplier. The cream was then pasteurised, cooled and pumped to storage vats, before being sent to the churns. The butter was refrigerated, parcelled into butter boxes and forwarded by rail for export.
The interwar period saw the dairy industry expand greatly in Queensland. Between 1927 and 1937 the total number of dairy cattle rose by 50 percent. By the 1930s, dairying was Queensland's most widely spread agricultural industry and the state's second most profitable export industry from 1936 to 1941, accounting for 20% of primary production. By the late 1930s, around one in eight Queenslanders were living on dairy farms. In 1938 there were five co-operative butter factories in the South Burnett: located at Nanango, Kingaroy, Murgon, Wondai and Proston. While butter factories enabled the production and export of dairy products, numerous small farms, reliant on family labour to milk herds twice daily for generally modest returns, were the backbone of the industry.
With its increased productive capacities, Murgon butter factory, had by 1931, become Queensland's fourth largest butter producer. Production at the factory reached its peak in 1934, when 2873 tons was manufactured. The opening of the South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Company's branch factory at Proston in 1934 meant a significant number of suppliers west of Murgon sent their cream to the new factory. During 1938-9, a record year, almost 1/3 of all Queensland's butter was produced in the Wide Bay-Burnett, with Murgon the seventh largest producer in the state.
By 1950 the farms of the South Burnett carried 130,000 dairy cows, ten percent of the Queensland total. However, as demand and prices for butter dropped in the 1950s, the decline of dairying accelerated. Butter consumption per capita in Australia dropped from 12.2 kg to 8.3 kg between 1957 and 1972 as margarine increased its market share. The downturn worsened in the 1960s, with a reduction in cream suppliers diminishing output. The transition towards the production of milk rather than cream, requiring larger herds and new equipment, saw many smaller scale farmers leaving the industry. Export opportunities also became restricted, culminating with the end of preferential trade agreements with Britain following its entry into the European Common Market in 1973.
The late 1960s saw the beginning of closures of butter factories in the Burnett region. The Proston Butter Factory, a branch of the SBCDA, closed in 1967. The Maryborough Co-operative Dairy Company closed their branch factories at Wondai and Biggenden in February 1969. By 1976 dairy farmers in the South Burnett numbered under 400 and of these, 211 were bulk milk suppliers. The average age of a dairyman was 55 and two dairy producers were leaving the industry per week.
The Murgon butter factory's diversification into dairy products other than butter from the 1940s enhanced the longevity of SBCDA operations compared to other factories which became increasingly vulnerable to closure from the 1960s. Cheese making commenced at the factory in late 1942 in response to wartime demand, as occurred at the Kingaroy, Nanango and Wondai butter factories. While cheese making ended during or shortly after the war at most of these places, Murgon maintained this production until the 1990s. In 1948 pasteurised bottled milk sales commenced and in 1953, the earliest part of the complex was remodelled and a modern pasteurisation and bottling plant was installed. In 1950 the office was re-established in new brick and concrete premises opposite the factory in Macalister St, with the former office building operating as the co-operative's trading arm from 1951. This was followed in 1952 with the construction of a dairy research laboratory, staffed by members of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, adjacent to the new office. In 1960 a new building was constructed for the production of buttermilk powder, produced from the liquid by-product of butter churning.
With the closure of the Nanango and Kingaroy butter factories in 1977, all cream supplies were diverted to Murgon factory, the last remaining dairy factory in the South Burnett. 1978 saw the opening of new milk processing facilities, followed by the manufacture of skim milk from 1979, and later, the production of flavoured milk drinks. In 1983, 2.7 million litres of milk was processed through the Murgon plant, and 813 tonnes of cheese and 250 tonnes of butter were manufactured on-site.
During 1989-90 the milk processing component of the operation was sold to Queensland United Foods (QUF), resulting in local milk supplies being sent to Nambour. The SBCDA (later changed to Burnett Valley Ltd) were able to procure milk from QUF, which allowed for Murgon cheese to be continued to be manufactured, albeit in a much reduced capacity. By 1995 butter production had ceased, and a decline in demand for the cheddar cheese forced the closure of the Murgon factory, marking the end of dairy processing at the site.
The former Murgon Dairy Factory was purchased in 1998 by Clovely Estate and since this time has been utilised for wine making, an industry that has developed in the South Burnett since the early 1990s.
","criteria":"The South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Association Ltd Factory (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics and processes of a dairy factory. The place is situated adjacent to a railway line, formerly served by a siding to enable transportation of its products. The internal arrangement of interconnected buildings incorporate loading areas for receiving dairy supplier's produce, large rooms used at different periods of its history to manufacture butter, milk and cheese products, and cold storage and packing areas. The 1929 engine room and its remaining fittings (ammonia compressor and piping), and other extant elements of the factory's plant (large brick chimney, boilers, sheds) demonstrate the industrial requirements of the complex over time.
|The South Burnett Co-operative Dairy Association Factory (former) in Murgon, a site used for dairy production from 1913 to 1995, is important in demonstrating the growth and evolution of the Queensland's dairy industry during the twentieth century. The factory was one of Queensland's largest butter producers during the dairying boom of the interwar period and throughout its history was one of the Wide Bay-Burnett's largest and most important dairy manufacturing outlets.
The remaining fabric of the Tiaro butter factory (1908) shifted to Murgon in 1913, reflects the rapid increase in dairy farming in the South Burnett region in the early 1900s, while the 1929 extension of the factory, illustrates the response to the ongoing expansion of cream production and the adoption of modern manufacturing processes in Queensland butter factories during the interwar period. Adaptations and additions to the factory from the 1940s onwards reflect the shift from concentrating on butter manufacturing to processing cheese and milk products, in response to the changing market requirements of Queensland's dairy industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31912,"place_ref":602776,"name":"JM Johnston's Sawmill (former) Steam Plant","alternate_name":"Johnstons Sawmill","street_address":"cnr of Santowski Crescent and the Peninsular Development Road","suburb":"MOUNT MOLLOY","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-07-15","description":"The remnant steam plant from JM Johnston's sawmill is located at the southern entrance to Mount Molloy on the corner of Santowski Crescent and the Peninsular Developmental Road (Mulligan Highway), on a grassed site above the road level. The land rises to the west and falls away to the south.
The Stirling water tube boiler is the largest component of the steam plant, located at the northeast side of the group of objects, nearest the street intersection. The boiler's surrounds and the flue and chimney are made with brick, with metal framing. It is a 'W' type boiler, with three metal steam drums at the top and two metal water drums at the bottom, joined by metal tubing; plus an extra steam drum on top. The top drums are supported on the metal frame, while the bottom two drums are free to move with expansion of the tubes. The maker's name is cast onto the metal access doors to the tubing: 'The Stirling Boiler Co Ltd, Edinburgh & London'. The furnace doors are located at the southeast end of the boiler, while the brick flue and chimney base are located at the northwest end. The main steam pipe is still extant. Vegetation is currently growing out of the boiler's brickwork.
The metal blowdown tank, a cylindrical device with a vent pipe, is connected to the boiler, located about 7 metres west of the southernmost corner of the boiler. The blowdown tank was used to flush sediment out of the boiler under pressure, by allowing the steam to flash off up the vent pipe while the hot water drained away.
About 7.6 m south-west of the boiler, to the west of the blowdown tank, is a Walkers Ltd (Maryborough) steam winch, which was used to power a stiff leg derrick crane for moving logs. The winch is a twin-cylinder horizontal reversing single-drum second-motion steam winch; its steam cylinders are 8 inches (203mm) in diameter, and the stroke is 14 inches (356mm).
About 7.6 metres south of the boiler is the Marshall steam engine. There is no manufacturer's name on the engine, but it has the characteristics of a Marshall, Sons & Co. (Gainsborough, England) engine, specifically their class C model, which was fitted with a Hartnell's Patent automatic expansion gear governor. An example of the latter is still present on top of the engine next to the flywheel.
The engine is a horizontal (the cylinders are horizontal) cross-compound (high pressure plus a low pressure cylinder, side by side) stationary steam engine. It was once fitted with a tailrod extension on the low pressure cylinder, and the tailrod crosshead casting has since been broken off. The high and low pressure cylinders were originally lagged with timber strips held on by brass bands, but most of the timber has rotted away. The high pressure cylinder bore is about 15 inches (381 mm) in diameter while the low pressure cylinder bore is about 24 inches (610 mm) in diameter. The stroke of both cylinders was 36 inches (914 mm), while the flywheel is 10 feet (3048 mm) in diameter, and 21 inches (533 mm) wide. The engine is mounted on a concrete base, with a concrete trough for the flywheel.
Some timber relics, plus metal objects such as piping and laddering, also survive on the site.
","history":"John Michael Johnston's Sawmill (former) Steam Plant, comprising a brick-encased Stirling water tube boiler with flue and chimney base, Marshall steam engine, Walkers steam winch and boiler blow down tank is located in a prominent position at the corner of Santowski Crescent and the Peninsular Developmental Road (Mulligan Highway) in Mount Molloy. A small sawmill owned by the Mount Molloy Copper Mining Company appears to have operated on the site c.1908, and JM Johnston's larger sawmill was operational between 1914 and 1963.
\nThe township of Mount Molloy was initially called 'Smelter Town', one of two settlements that grew up around a copper mine and its related copper smelter built near Rifle Creek, northwest of the mine. Copper had been discovered in 1885, [1] either by teamster Pat Molloy or by Dan Cuddihy, one of his bullock drivers. Molloy worked the lode intermittently, making about £500 before he abandoned or sold the mine, [2] which was taken up by successful prospector James Venture Mulligan and businessman James Forsythe in the early 1890s. Mulligan and Forsythe made about £3000 from the ore before attracting the attention of a Melbourne syndicate, which purchased the mine in 1898 for £6000. [3] The company failed to find payable copper ore, the mine was abandoned and the mining lease forfeited. Forsythe regained possession of the mine, which he soon sold to JS Reid. It became part of John Moffat's holdings in 1901. [4] Between 1880 and 1914, much of the economic activity of North Queensland was driven by the railways and mining towns created by John Moffat's enterprises, and his Chillagoe Company built private railways between Mareeba and Chillagoe during 1898-1901, and from Almaden to Forsayth during 1907-1910. [5]
\nTo avoid carting ore from Mount Molloy to the government railway at Biboohra (the railway had reached Biboohra from Cairns in 1893), a smelter was built near Rifle Creek at Mount Molloy. The smelter manager's residence was located on the hill just above the smelter, which commenced operations on 25 November 1904. A small sawmill existed on the flat north-west of the smelter by early 1905, [6] to produce timber for mine shaft supports and buildings. A two foot (.61 metre) gauge tramway linking the mine and the smelter was also completed by 1905 - the peak year for copper production at Mount Molloy. At this time the Mount Molloy Copper Mining Company Limited was floated, with John Moffat as Chairman.
\nAs the smelted copper matte still needed carting by road to Biboohra and copper prices were high in 1906, Mount Molloy Ltd started constructing a 19 mile 65 chain (31.9 km) private railway from Biboohra to the Mount Molloy smelter in 1907. However, the expense of this railway, combined with a slump in copper prices in late 1907, meant that by the time the railway opened on 7 August 1908 the company was already in financial trouble. The smelter had suspended operations while waiting for the railway to be completed, and a short smelting campaign was conducted in late 1908.
\nAlthough mining operations were no longer profitable in Mount Molloy, an alternative source of income existed in timber. The rise of sawmilling in the Cairns region was part of the evolution of the industry in Queensland over time. Although there was timbergetting in the far north from the 1870s, South East Queensland's (especially Maryborough's) sawmills supplied a substantial portion of central and north Queensland's sawn timber needs until sawmilling in the Cairns district from the 1880s reduced dependence on the south. [7] By 1888 there were three sawmills in the Cairns district, including the Union Saw and Planing Mills at Stratford (E Martin and Son), and a steam powered sawmill was also established at Carrington in 1889. [8]
\nThe first steam powered sawmill in Queensland had opened in Brisbane in 1853 and prior to World War II most sawmills on the Tablelands used steam engines. A reliable source of water was required for the steam boilers which powered the engines, and the latter were commonly equipped with a large flywheel, as the energy stored in the flywheel enabled the saws to make major cuts with a minimum loss of speed. Power was transferred to the saws via belts, pulleys and shafts. However, most machinery was sold, relocated and reused when a sawmill closed, leading to paucity of relics at most sawmill sites.
\nThe fact that Mount Molloy Ltd was building a railway towards a timber source made the company's shift to timber viable, as logs could be efficiently transported to sawmills located along the railway network. The Queensland sawmilling industry was initially located in major towns, close to the markets for sawn timber. As the industry evolved there was a tendency to locate mills near the resource only if there were sufficient supplies to last during the life of the investment. Sawmills were also initially sited by rivers and creeks, where logs could be rafted or moved by ship, but when railways were established, sawmills were sited on or near the railway.
\nThe spread of railways in the Cairns region thus facilitated the timber industry. The Cairns railway reached Mareeba in 1893 and Atherton in 1903, enabling Tableland timber to be transported to the coast, and railway extensions over the next two decades made the Cairns region the main sawmilling district outside South East Queensland. Major sawmilling enterprises in the Far North region included Cairns Timber Limited, Lawson and Sons, and JM Johnston. [9]
\nThe timber industry was accompanied by closer settlement, as farming usually commenced after land was cleared by logging; although before the 1884 Crown Land Act introduced royalties on timber, it was easy for timbergetters to select land, extract the timber and then forfeit the selection. The forestry industry was second only to mining as a cause of settlement in the Far North. In Mount Molloy, the dairy farming that followed timber extraction enabled the town to survive the failure of mining.
\nDue to Mount Molloy Ltd's new found interest in the timber industry, in December 1907 Anthony Linedale, one of the directors of the company, corresponded with the Director of Forests, Queensland Department of Public Lands, about the activities of Mount Molloy Ltd and its timber requirements. He noted that the company employed 173 men at the mine, 124 men at the smelters and refiners, 17 officers, 18 teamsters, 10 wood-getters, 19 men at the Biboohra railway yard and 320 men building the Molloy railway. That month the Director of Forests recommended that 10,000,000 superficial feet (1 super foot is a volume of timber representing 2360 cm3) be sold without competition to Mount Molloy Ltd, over 5 years, with a minimum removal of 30,000 super feet per month; the royalty to be a 25 per cent advance on the minimum royalties prescribed by the timber regulations for that district. [10] The timber concession covered 16,000 acres (6474.97 hectares) of Crown land north of Mount Molloy. On 6 March 1908 an agreement on the concession was made between Mount Molloy Ltd and Alexander Patrick Cameron, Land Commissioner for the district of Cairns, with royalties to be paid each month from June 1908. One condition, which Mount Molloy Ltd later regretted, was that all timber cut had to be sawn within Queensland. The inability to export logs later led to kauri logs being stockpiled at Mount Molloy.
\nHowever, the right to cut timber meant that the new railway at least had something to transport, as the smelters had closed by the end of 1908 for lack of ore, and the mine itself closed in late 1910. [11] The 5 year timber concession allowed Mount Molloy Ltd to stay afloat, and in the company's report for the half year to 31 December 1908, presented in April 1909, it was stated that contract teamsters were hauling timber from the company's concession. In addition, a bullock team, two horse teams and a traction engine were under company control. The timber extracted included hickory, cadagi, kauri pine, and red cedar; over 2 million super feet of logs were delivered to the depot, while 882,574 super feet were despatched by rail during the half year.
\nThe report also noted that the Rifle sawmill (probably the small sawmill near the smelter) had been working intermittently on local orders. As it was not located on the railway, it was not suitable for cutting accumulated stock. A sleeper mill (for producing railway sleepers) had also been put down 'on a branch line of 10 chains (200 m), leaving the main line near the western point of the triangle, and traversing the south easterly end of the Works Site Ridge'. [12] As the turning triangle (and the town's first railway station) was once located just east of Vains Close in Mount Molloy, and a 1914 survey map shows a siding running to the site of Johnston's sawmill, the sleeper mill was probably located where Johnston built his sawmill.
\nIt was also reported in April 1909 that the company had acquired the Granite sawmill at Mareeba, with the plant taken on lease for one year, with the option of purchase or an extended lease of 4 years or more. According to the company's next half-yearly report (presented October 1909), the Mareeba sawmill drew nearly all its log supplies from Mount Molloy.
\nAs timber felling and sawmilling had provided the capital to continue the company's mining operation, the approaching end of Mount Molloy Ltd's 5 year timber concession meant that the company went into liquidation on 3 March 1913. Despite the expiry of the original timber concession the liquidators (including John Moffat from December 1915) were allowed to continue cutting timber (excluding cedar) from December 1913, up to the 10 million super feet agreed to in 1908, or until the government purchased the railway to Mount Molloy. [13]
\nA government purchase of the railway from Biboohra to Mount Molloy had been looming for some time. In 1910 Moffat had approached the Queensland Government, asking for £40,000 (the line had cost about £46,600); and in late March 1913, a deputation of Mount Molloy locals to the Railway Commissioner pointed out that if the line was torn up as a result of the company's liquidation, it would be disastrous for those who had already settled in the vicinity. In the end, Moffat received £17,500, the government taking over the line on 1 March 1917 under the Mount Molloy Railway Act 1917. At this time the extension on the timber concession ended. The government also took over the Chillagoe Company and its assets in June 1919.
\nAlthough Mount Molloy Ltd had failed, another enterprise based on timber saved Mount Molloy from extinction. John Michael Johnston, born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1884, had worked in sawmills in Northern Europe, Canada and New Zealand before he moved to North Queensland. After a period of prospecting, he returned to sawmilling, first at Innisfail, then Tolga, before going into business on his own behalf at Ravenshoe. [14] On 15 January 1914 the Cairns Post announced that Messrs Polentz and Johnson (sic-Johnston) had purchased the Mount Molloy sawmills, and intended 'to start operations shortly'. Advertisements later that year for the Mount Molloy Saw and Planing Mills of Johnston and Polentz noted that sawn hickory was their speciality. Some years later it was reported that Johnston had taken over what remained of the sawmill machinery in the town and had renovated it. [15]
\nAs the sawmill was only very small when Johnston took it over, [16] the surviving boiler and steam engine equipment at the site of Johnston's sawmill was probably installed between 1914 and 1938. A photograph from circa 1938 shows that the surviving equipment was already in place: the Marshall steam engine and boiler were under separate open-sided sheds, the boiler's brickwork was painted white, and the Walkers steam winch was operating a stiff leg derrick crane. At this time the brick chimney base was shorter and located closer to the boiler. [17] The chimney appears to have been in its current position by 1954.
\nThe Marshall steam engine was the main driving engine for the saws in the mill, running a flat belt from its flywheel. It, along with the other steam engines in the mill, was powered by the Stirling boiler, which was fed with timber off cuts. The Stirling boiler was a water-tube boiler, in which the water to be heated was contained within tubes, with fire passing around the outside-in contrast to fire-tube boilers, which had fire passing through tubes which were surrounded by water. The water-tube type was favoured for larger boilers for safety reasons. Stirling water tube boilers were at their most popular in the early 1900s; many of the 30 or so installed in Victoria between 1904 and 1912 were large boilers for electrical power generation or larger manufacturers. Most activity regarding Stirling boiler installation in Queensland, based on newspaper advertising, appears to be between 1900 and 1914, and the Agent for Queensland in 1903 was Norman M Bell.
\nThe Mount Molloy boiler is of the 'W' type, with three steam drums at the top and two water drums at the bottom, joined by tubes. However, the additional steam drum at the top is not a standard feature; nor is the metal furnace area at the front. The additional steam drum was un-fired (not directly connected to the steam-raising part of the boiler), so the boiler could still be considered to be of the five-drum type; the extra drum may have been necessary to maximise steam to the engine while a cut was being made along a log. The boiler's dimensions are 8 feet 10 inches (2700 mm) wide; 20 feet 11 inches (6300 mm) long and 19 feet (5790 mm) tall. This corresponds with the Stirling boiler size 1W.
\nIn September 1916 the Cairns Post reported that Johnston had his new hardwood mill going, and that sawn timber was being despatched on the railway. In 1917 the paper reported that the sawmill was the 'mainstay of the place [Mount Molloy] as regards employment'. [18] However, logs could not be hauled to the sawmill in the wet season, and a railway extension to the north was required to keep the mill working all year. By late 1917 two sawmills were operating in the district, cutting timber from Crown lands. [19] The second sawmill was probably also Johnston's, as it was reported in May 1918 that he had a sawmill 8 miles from Mount Molloy, on the edge of the scrub. [20]
\nIn 1920 the government began a 7 mile extension of the railway to the north, to facilitate further timber felling and closer settlement (the land north of Mount Molloy being better quality than that between Biboohra and Mount Molloy). A new railway station was built at Mount Molloy, to the north-east of the old station, and the old line towards the smelter site was left as a spur line for the use of Johnston's sawmill. The railway was opened to Rumula in December 1926, but it was never extended to Port Douglas, as some settlers had hoped. This could have provided an alternative route to the coast if the Kuranda section of the Cairns railway was again blocked, as it had been in early 1911.
\nBy March 1930 Johnston's sawmill ran 12 months of the year and enjoyed 'practically a monopoly' in the supply of butter boxes and fruit cases in the north of Queensland. [21] Johnston added to the Mount Molloy sawmill up to 1926, around which time he moved to Stratford, [22] where he had built another sawmill in 1921. In the late 1920s the workforce at the Mount Molloy sawmill dropped from about 100 men to 60.
\nAfter Johnston moved to Stratford, WJ Colley became the manager at Mount Molloy and he purchased three trucks and several caterpillar tractors for use in the bush. This may have offended somebody, as on the early morning of 17 September 1930 the front end of one 5 ton timber hauling Benz Mercedes lorry was blown apart with explosives, damaging nearby houses.
\nIn 1931 the Minister for Lands, WA Deacon, visited Mount Molloy and expressed surprise at finding such an up-to-date sawmill situated behind the poor land that lay between Biboohra and Molloy. However, early on 14 June 1932 a fire near the boiler spread away from the engine and main block, damaging the repair workshop at the mill. In August 1932 the mill employees were notified that their jobs were terminated, and that they had to apply to Mr WJ Colley to be re-engaged. A new private company, Molloy Sawmills Pty Limited, was registered under the directorship of JM Johnston, W Marlay and WJ Colley. Johnston still owned the mill, but leading employees were given a share in the business so they would have an incentive to look after its interests.
\nJohnston was still the owner of the Mount Molloy sawmill when it burnt down on 31 January 1934, William J Santowski being the manager at the time. It was reported that 'One 350 h.p. boiler was in the destroyed building, also one Sandycroft steam engine; one twin circular log breaking down plant, four saw benches, one planing machine, saw-dust carriers, belting, shafting and pulleys and other tools of various descriptions, 29 circular saws, one log rolling winch, two saw sharpening machines, three cross-cut sawing machines'. [23] However, the employees were able to protect the boiler, main engines and pumping plant from serious damage. There were also two other planing machines in a separate building that was not destroyed. Prior to the fire Johnston had purchased machinery for a new sawmill at Shipton's Flat near Cooktown, and after the fire he placed some of the machinery at Mount Molloy. He claimed that the latter was a paying proposition and a very essential part of his organisation. It was also essential to have the mill at Mount Molloy, as most hardwood supplies came from there.
\nYet another fire occurred on the night of 12 September 1938, in the planing building. As a result, Johnston used the planing facilities at his Stratford sawmill until the sawmill at Mount Molloy was repaired. After Johnston died in Cairns on 1 May 1943, it was stated that he was 'one of the best known men in north Queensland'. [24] After his first sawmill at Ravenshoe, he had developed a string of Johnston mills, including at Mount Molloy, Stratford, Mareeba, Millaa Millaa, Bloomfield River and Shipton's Flat.
\nBunning Bros purchased Johnson's Stratford and Mount Molloy mills in the late 1940s or early 1950s (although a 1991 Deed of Grant for the land on which the sawmill steam plant stands was made out to JM Johnston Pty Ltd) and Rankine Bros purchased the Mount Molloy sawmill in the early 1960s. Electricity from the grid had arrived at Mount Molloy in 1956, and from 1968-86 Rankine Bros operated an electric sawmill at Mount Molloy, close to Johnston's original sawmill site. In 1988 the World Heritage Listing of the Wet Tropics area between Townsville and Cooktown terminated logging on Crown land, forcing timber workers to seek alternative forms of employment. The electric sawmill, minus its machinery, still stood in early 2011, along with a small office building which may have been relocated from elsewhere on the old Johnston sawmill site (both outside the heritage boundary).
\nA final fire destroyed Johnston's sawmill in 1963, and this time it was not rebuilt. The railway to Mount Molloy closed on 30 April the following year. In 1973 a timber shed still existed around the boiler, along with a small shed over the Walkers steam winch, and the derrick crane was still extant. Another shed existed to the southeast of the steam engine, set at a lower level. The buildings and the crane have since been removed. Two other steam engines that were present in 1973 are no longer on site - a Tangye, Birmingham single cylinder vertical engine and a Thompson & Co., Castlemaine, Victoria, single cylinder horizontal engine no.242 (earlier used by Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company). A Pickering type governor was also present in 1973 on top of the Marshall steam engine, but this has since been removed.
\nAlthough Johnston's Mount Molloy sawmill buildings no longer exist, the sawmill's steam plant survives as a highly visible and evocative reminder of the time when the timber industry was a mainstay of the North Queensland economy.
","criteria":"Steam engines were once a common form of power generation in Queensland sawmills, and in-situ examples of stationary steam engines and their associated boilers on sawmill sites are now rare throughout the state.
The Stirling water tube boiler and its blow down tank, the Marshall steam engine and Walkers steam winch are substantially intact and still demonstrate the arrangement of this type of equipment within a steam powered sawmill.
The use of large Stirling water-tube boilers and stationary compound steam engines was also rare in sawmills, which generally used single-cylinder steam engines or portable steam engines, and this example may be unique in Australia.
|During his lifetime JM Johnston, whose businesses were active during the early 20th century expansion of the timber industry in the Cairns region, was a well-known figure in the North Queensland sawmilling industry. He established mills at Ravenshoe, Mount Molloy, Stratford (Cairns), Mareeba, Millaa Millaa, Bloomfield River and Shipton's Flat near Cooktown.
|The remaining plant of the JM Johnston sawmill is a highly visible landmark, located on a raised corner on the main road into Mount Molloy from the south. The evocative relics are often photographed by passing tourists.
|The steam plant at the site of JM Johnston's sawmill in Mount Molloy, as part of a large and long-lived sawmill operation, is important in demonstrating the existence of the timber industry in North Queensland prior to World Heritage listing of the Wet Tropics in 1988. The presence of large tracts of rainforest and the spread of railways in the Cairns hinterland ensured that in the early 20th century the region became the main sawmilling area outside South East Queensland and the timber industry was second only to mining as a driver for North Queensland's economic development.
Johnston's sawmill, built on the site of a smaller sawmill linked to the earlier copper mining activities at Mount Molloy, operated from 1914 to 1963 as a permanent town-based mill, which enabled the town of Mount Molloy to survive the failure of mining.
The place also demonstrates the importance of steam power to sawmilling operations in Queensland, prior to the widespread availability of electricity.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion H | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31913,"place_ref":602782,"name":"Mount Perry Powder Magazine","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Sandy Camp Road (north of Magazine Road)","suburb":"MOUNT PERRY","lga":"NORTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-06-10","description":"Located to the east of Sandy Camp Road, between Magazine Road in the south and Drummers Creek in the north, the powder magazine stands alone in a paddock. In late 2008, two trees were growing inside the roofless structure.
The magazine is 6.9m long (south-western and north-eastern elevations) and 5.4m wide, its walls being 50cm thick. It is constructed of random rubble brought to courses, with rendered quoining to the corners of the building and around the exterior of the windows and the door. There are brick arches above some of the windows with timber lintels. There is a door and two windows in the south-western elevation, plus two windows in north-eastern elevation.
The interior walls on the south-western and north-eastern elevations have recesses for floor joists, but the timber floor no longer exists. Wall vents are set below the floor level, about level with the joist holes; with two vents in each of the long elevations, and one in each of the short elevations. There are some small holes in the wall set with copper plates, and some copper piping juts out of a wall. Some timber framing survives in one of the window interiors.
","history":"The stone gunpowder magazine located in a paddock to the east of Sandy Camp Road, about 3.5 km north of the town of Mount Perry, was constructed in 1874 to safely store the explosives used in copper mining at Mount Perry and is the oldest known surviving government powder magazine in Queensland.
The Mount Perry area was explored from 1846, and early runs in the district included Yenda and Tenningering (1849) and Mt Perry (1851). Copper was discovered at Mount Perry in mid 1869. On 2 June 1871 the Queensland Surveyor-General directed John C Thompson to complete plans for a township to be known as Perry, later changed to Tenningering. The government town site was ignored by those who wished to live closer to the Mount Perry copper mine, and a town called Fife-Barnett was surveyed on private land half a mile from Tenningering. The government's post and telegraph office had to be moved to Fife-Barnett, which later became known as the township of Mount Perry.
Mount Perry prospered for most of the 1870s, a period when the price of copper was high and mining in general was experiencing rapid growth in Queensland. In 1872 the first churches were built, there were 25 hotels, and mail services commenced. By May 1872 furnaces were operational, producing a regulus (impure metal) consisting of 80% copper, smelted from the poorer ores. Richer ores were dispatched in their crude state. By 1873 the population of Mount Perry was estimated to be 3000, and a refining furnace was opened that year so that pure copper could be shipped.
The process of construction of the magazine at Mount Perry began in September 1873, when tenders were called by the Department of Public Works. By Christmas 1873 the material for the magazine was being assembled, with erection to begin in a fortnight. Expenditure on erecting the magazine during 1874 amounted to £432 2s 10d. Jason Walsh was appointed as the Powder Magazine Keeper at Mount Perry on 13 January 1875, at a salary of £100 and on 22 February 1875 notice was given in the Queensland Government Gazette that the powder magazine at Mount Perry was approved as a place where gunpowder could be stored. The rate for storing 50lbs or more for six weeks was 1 shilling, plus 2 pence for every week thereafter.
The magazine was located on the road to Fortunatus (now Sandy Camp Road) on a 60 acre reserve for a Gunpowder Magazine declared in the Queensland Government Gazette of 18 December 1875. The western boundary of the reserve was the road, the northern boundary was Drummers Creek, and the southern boundary ran along the northern boundary of portion 65 (Magazine Road). The eastern boundary was an extension of the line of the eastern boundary of portion 65.
For over a century, control of all explosives and gunpowder imported into Queensland was the province of the Harbour Master's Department (1860-62), the Department of Ports & Harbours (1862-93), the Marine Department (1894-1928), and the Department of Harbours and Marine (1929-63). In 1964, responsibility was shifted to the Queensland Department of Health. Under The Navigation Act of 1876 the master of any ship entering a Queensland port with gunpowder to be unloaded had to ensure that it was placed in a government magazine. The various incarnations of the Harbours Department were responsible for the provision of magazines and for the safe storage of explosives at Queensland ports of entry. The Act further regulated the conveyance and storage of gunpowder in any place in Queensland, not just in the ports. On the goldfields, magazines were initially administered by the Mines Department, as control of magazines outside ports was not vested in the Marine Department until 1907.
Some common magazine design features include sturdy construction, small windows and solid doors, ventilation and overhanging eaves, timber floors with copper nails or timber pegs instead of iron nails, and the provision of lightning conductors and copper earthing straps. Magazines were generally located away from other buildings, and were sometimes surrounded by earthworks to deflect any blast. Magazine complexes were often surrounded by walls or fences to keep people out.
The Queensland Department of Public Works built powder magazines during the 1860s at Brisbane, Maryborough and Gympie; and during the 1870s at Townsville, Ravenswood, Mount Perry, Millchester, Cooktown [QHR 600425], Eagle Farm, Thornborough and Maytown. The first magazines at Cairns (on a barge), Charters Towers, Croydon, Georgetown, Herberton, Normanton, Port Douglas and Rockhampton were all built in the 1880s. The magazine at Mount Perry is the earliest government-built magazine known to be surviving in Queensland.
The powder magazine's use was closely tied to the success of mining in the town. Low copper prices meant that the Mount Perry copper mine closed in the second half of 1877. The town stagnated, and the population was only 500 by 1883. At this time the copper mine was being worked on a small scale on tribute (miners working a mine themselves, while sharing profits with the owners), with limited smelting. The owners of the mine eagerly awaited the arrival of the railway from Bundaberg, which would lower the cost of bringing in firewood for the smelters, and taking out copper.
In August 1877 the Queensland government approved three railways to connect mining towns to their principal ports: Townsville to Charters Towers; Bundaberg to Mt Perry; and Maryborough to Gympie. However, when the railway reached Mount Perry in 1884, the anticipated mining boom did not occur and copper prices remained low. The mine closed by April 1885, but it reopened in 1888 as prices rose. Mount Perry enjoyed a short revival and by October 1888 the smelting furnaces had been rebuilt and the shafts re-opened by the Mount Perry Copper and Reid's Creek Gold Mining and Smelting Company. After copper prices slumped in April 1889, the mine closed once more. The Mining Warden's Report for 1891 stated 'the cessation of the copper works has virtually killed the place [Mount Perry]. All, or all who can obtain employment elsewhere, have left, or are leaving it'.
The magazine reserve was cancelled in 1891 (during the mining slump in Mount Perry and a period of economic depression in Queensland in general) along with a 44 acre timber reserve to the north of Drummers Creek, and in 1892 both reserves became part of the 500 acre Agricultural Farm 848 (Portion 5v, later Lot 194).
Within a decade of the closure of the magazine, things had changed. In 1901 the Queensland Copper Company commenced large scale operations at Mount Perry, which boomed in the early 1900s, and the population on the field was about 2000 in 1904, including 25 Chinese. During this period copper was a major source of mining income for Queensland, and the largest producers included Herberton, Mount Perry, Mount Morgan and Cloncurry.
Between 1900 and 1914, 15,272 tons of copper were produced in the Mount Perry area, along with 25,472 ounces of gold and 767,285 ounces of silver. However, the final crash came before World War I; the mine was closed for the holidays at the end of 1913, and in January 1914 the Queensland Copper Company announced that it would not re-open. Although some mining activity continued under the tribute system, Mount Perry's glory days were over.
After mining at Mount Perry collapsed, there was another dwindling of the town's population and many buildings were demolished or removed. The copper smelter site is now a ruin, with the main surviving feature being the large slag heap. In contrast, the powder magazine north of the township is a rare surviving element of built mining infrastructure from the 1870s boom period at Mount Perry. In 1940 the Deed of Grant for Portion 5v was issued to Edith FE Walsh, the wife of John P Walsh, as Executrix of and sole Legatee under the will of Joseph William Mooney. The farm passed to MW Mooney in 1964 and to its current owner in 1982.
Like the Cooktown powder magazine, which was constructed in 1875-76 for the Department of Ports & Harbours to designs prepared in the office of the Queensland Colonial Architect (FDG Stanley from 1873 to 1881), the Mount Perry powder magazine is a rectangular building with a single doorway and narrow window openings with brick arches. The magazines were also similar in size, Mount Perry being 6.9m long by 5.4m wide, and Cooktown being 7.9m by 4.6m. However, the Cooktown magazine is built of brick, on a stone plinth.
Both magazines also had timber floors, although only the joist-holes in the lower walls remain at Mount Perry; and both have wall vents to the sub-floor area. Although Mount Perry no longer has a roof, it is likely that it had overhanging eaves, as was the case at Cooktown. It is also possible that, like Cooktown, its timber door and window shutters (no longer extant) were faced in copper. The Cooktown magazine received a new roof in 1996, and in 2009 it qualified for a Q150 grant of $150,000 for restoration work.
","criteria":"The Mount Perry Powder Magazine, built by the Queensland Government in 1874, is a rare surviving relic of the Mount Perry copper mining boom period of the 1870s. This decade was a period of rapid expansion of mining in Queensland, and Mount Perry was an important mining centre during most of the 1870s, and then again between 1901 and 1913.
The economic importance to Queensland of mining at Mount Perry was illustrated by its selection in 1877 as the destination of one of three mining-related railway lines approved by the Queensland Government.
|The Mount Perry Powder Magazine is rare as one of three known surviving 19th century government powder magazines in Queensland; and it is also the oldest known example. In addition it is a rare surviving example of built mining infrastructure from the heyday of Mount Perry.
|Despite its incomplete state, lacking floors and roof, the solidly constructed walls of the 1874 Mount Perry Powder Magazine, its narrow windows and remnant copper fittings, are all standard features of Queensland government powder magazines of the 19th century; and its isolated location demonstrates the practice of locating gunpowder at a safe distance from population centres.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":31935,"place_ref":602784,"name":"Little Sea Hill Lighthouse","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Sea Hill Point","suburb":"CURTIS ISLAND","lga":"GLADSTONE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-08-12","description":"The Little Sea Hill Lighthouse stands on Little Sea Hill, Sea Hill Point, the north-westernmost point on Curtis Island overlooking Keppel Bay off the Central Coast of Queensland. It is in a remote location, approximately 17 kilometres by sea north-easterly from Port Alma, the port of Rockhampton located on the Fitzroy River. The sites of the pilots' houses and post office are immediately southeast of the lighthouse and the site of the first lighthouse is to the northwest.
\nThe lighthouse is a composite structure measuring approximately 12 m high with a 4.3 m diameter base reducing to a 2.24 m lantern floor. The timber framed tower and lantern base are clad with corrugated iron sheeting, fixed vertically and tapered to suit the conical form of the tower. A band of slip sheets approximately 300mm high has replaced the original sheeting around the base. The lantern has flat trapezoidal glazing panels supported in a cast iron frame bolted to the lantern base below and gutter ring above. Four of the landward side panels are infilled with flat sheet metal and a layer of wire mesh has been fitted across all panels. The lantern roof is a hemispherical dome consisting of a cast iron radial rib frame clad with a single skin of metal sheets, lapped and riveted. Attached to the roof are: a central ventilator with drip tray fixed internally; a secondary horseshoe-shaped metal gutter feeding an internal water tank; and a lightning conductor.
\nThe balcony fixed to the exterior of the lantern room is supported on cast iron brackets. Hardwood plank flooring spans between the brackets to which the gallery railing is also fixed. The railing is made of solid wrought iron stanchions with wrought eyes for top and middle rails of iron gas pipe. Two timber light screens, attached to the gallery flooring are supported by steel brackets fixed back to the lantern gutter.
\nThe tower frame is round in plan and tapered in profile, forming a truncated cone which is fixed to a concrete base. A concrete screed covers the base to the top of the bottom plate. The battered tower walls comprise main studs, bands of horizontal battens and lightweight diagonal braces between bottom and top plate. A steel angle ring beam supports the intermediate floor joists which are lined with unpainted pine tongue-and-groove floor boards. There are two windows to both ground and intermediate levels, each of which house a vertically sliding sash. The sash in the intermediate level windows retains clear glazing, the sashes in the ground level windows have been sheeted externally with flat iron sheeting and contain some remnant 10 mm glazing.
\nTwo concrete steps provide access to the entrance door which projects from the western side of the tower. The projecting walls are clad in flat iron sheeting and the barrel vaulted roof in corrugated iron. The timber framed and lined entrance door is a recent replacement.
\nThe timber framed gas cylinder stand with concrete base, the manifolds and main gas riser pipe from the 1933 conversion to acetylene gas are housed in the tower at ground floor level. Other parts of the acetylene system survive in the lantern, including the filter attached to the optic pedestal, and the bracket and pipework for the sun valve. The sun valve, burner, flasher and gas cylinders have all been removed.
\nFixed ladders provide access between the ground, intermediate and lantern floor levels.
\nA perforated timber trap door covers the access hole in the lantern floor. The cylindrical lantern base wall is lined with vertical beaded tongue-and-groove boards and four small round copper alloy regulators in the wall vent the space through cylindrical flues fixed to the exterior. In the centre of the lantern room, a Tideland Max Lumina ML-300 Series E self-contained marine beacon is fixed to the 1895 cast iron optic pedestal and table. The beacon is powered by batteries enclosed in a box in the lantern, charged by photo-voltaic panels on the balcony. The lantern also contains a freestanding timber cupboard.
\nAll elements, externally and internally (with the exception of the intermediate floor level floor boards) have received a painted finish.
","history":"The Little Sea Hill Lighthouse is a timber-framed, corrugated iron-clad lighthouse, erected in 1895, standing on Little Sea Hill at Sea Hill Point on the northwest corner of Curtis Island. When built it was an important aid to navigation from Keppel Bay into the Fitzroy River. From 1858 a system of navigation aids, including buoys, beacons, lightships and lighthouses, along with a pilot service, guided vessels into and up the Fitzroy River; and this system was progressively upgraded. Little Sea Hill has been used for navigation purposes since 1877 or earlier, and the current lighthouse is still active as a solar-powered landfall light with a modern lens.
The timber-framed design of the lighthouse on top of Little Sea Hill (the locality is referred to as Sea Hill, after the hill to the east of Little Sea Hill) is a Queensland innovation. The design was part of the late 19th century effort to improve maritime safety along Queensland's long coastline within a limited budget. When Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859 the new colony had only one active light station (a complex including a lighthouse and support buildings): Cape Moreton (QHR 600257) on Moreton Island - with a stone lighthouse erected in 1856. This situation was untenable for a colony that relied heavily on coastal shipping.
In 1864 the Queensland government appointed a select committee to investigate the state of harbours and rivers in the colony. A direct outcome of this inquiry was the construction of the Bustard Head Lighthouse south-east of Gladstone in 1867-68 and a lighthouse at Sandy Cape in 1870. [1] These were prefabricated structures built of cast-iron segments bolted together, wholly imported from England.
By 1873, the year of the inaugural Intercolonial Coast Lighthouse Conference in Sydney, Queensland had 39 lights (including lighthouses and beacons) along its coastline. The conference was the first attempt to coordinate coastal lights and signals around Australia and recommendations included the need for more coastal lights in Queensland.
Around this time a new Queensland lighthouse design was implemented. For the lighthouse erected on Lady Elliott Island in 1872-73, Colonial Architect FDG Stanley designed a structure which utilised readily available local timber, specifying a hardwood frame clad with curved wrought iron plating. [2] This reduced the cost of construction, and despite problems of termite infestation and rusting, this type of construction, or its derivative, a timber frame with corrugated galvanised iron sheeting, became the standard for subsequent 19th century Queensland lighthouses.
Between 1873 and 1901 approximately 14 lighthouses were constructed in Queensland using hardwood framing and plated iron sheeting, [3] and another six were constructed with a conical timber framed tower enclosed with light gauge galvanised iron with corrugations tapered from bottom to top. The latter were associated mostly with harbour entrances and included: Bay Rock (1886 - inactive - relocated to the Maritime Museum of Townsville); Grassy Hill, Cooktown (1886 - active, QHR 601241); Goods Island (circa 1886 - active, Commonwealth Heritage List 105458); Little Sea Hill (2nd) (1895 - active); Caloundra Head (1896 - inactive, QHR 602746); and Gatcombe Head (1900 - demolished). A seventh lighthouse of this type, and the tallest, was constructed at Bulwer Island in the Brisbane River in 1912 (inactive - relocated to the Queensland Maritime Museum in Brisbane, QHR 600301). The first Little Sea Hill lighthouse (1886 - inactive - relocated to the Gladstone Maritime Museum) has not been included in the above list of lighthouses, as although it used corrugated iron over a timber frame, unlike the others it had a hexagonal tower design. This had more in common with earlier timber-clad lighthouses built in Queensland.
The current lighthouse at Little Sea Hill is one of only four known corrugated iron Queensland lighthouses still standing at their original sites (and one of three still active at the time of writing).
The Little Sea Hill lighthouse's location resulted from the rise of Rockhampton as a port, and the need to guide ships into the Fitzroy River. The Archer brothers arrived in the district in 1853 and established a small wharf at the highest navigable point on the Fitzroy River to load wool from Gracemere station.
Although Rockhampton existed by 1856, its development as a port stemmed from the short lived Canoona gold rush of late 1858, with Rockhampton declared a Port of Entry in October that year. In 1867 the Central railway opened west from Rockhampton, but the local railway system was not linked to Brisbane until 1903.
The 1880s witnessed a building boom in Rockhampton, due to the commencement of goldmining at Mount Morgan. The Rockhampton Harbour Board was established in 1895 and an impressive customs house [QHR 600817] was built in 1899, but the Port of Rockhampton was eventually eclipsed by Port Curtis (Gladstone Harbour). As Rockhampton was initially the main outlet for goods produced in Central Queensland (and for goods and immigrants arriving) it was the second most important port in Queensland after Brisbane between 1860 and 1899. Rockhampton handled between 86% and 99% of the port trade of Central Queensland in this period. However, in state importance as a port Rockhampton fell behind Townsville from 1895, and it was also surpassed by Cairns and Gladstone between 1925 and 1939. By 1939 Rockhampton only handled 55% of the port trade of Central Queensland. [4]
One reason for the decline of Rockhampton as a port was because the tidal Fitzroy River required constant dredging to keep its channels open to shipping; and as ships became larger over time they required deeper water. Broadmount and Port Alma were developed as deep water options to the town wharves in Rockhampton. A railway line opened to a new wharf at Broadmount in 1898 (this railway closed in 1929), and to Port Alma in 1912 (where a wharf had been built in 1884), but neither port was a success. Port Alma supplanted Broadmount during and after World War I [5] but was in turn overshadowed by bulk handling facilities at Gladstone from the 1960s.
In the early days of the Port of Rockhampton, the main concern was the safety of shipping. The surge of vessels up the Fitzroy River in 1858, and the wrecking of some of them, meant a pilot was needed. Pilot Robertson was initially appointed by the NSW government, but in June 1859 he was replaced by Captain Matthew S Rundle.
Newspaper reports indicate the presence of a pilot station on Curtis Island by December 1858, [6] but the first permanent pilot station on Curtis Island was built at Cape Capricorn (where a lighthouse was constructed in 1875) in 1861-1862. The pilot station was then moved to Grassy Hill (near Station Point, between Cape Keppel and Sea Hill) c.1864. [7] At this time the only navigation aid in Keppel Bay was a black buoy off Timandra Bank (between Sea Hill and Keppel Rocks).
To assist with night navigation in Keppel Bay and the Fitzroy River, in 1865 two lanterns were placed at the Grassy Hill Pilot Station, to point to the position of the Timandra buoy, and lightships were placed at the entrance to the river (at a bend in the channel known as 'the elbow') and at the Upper Flats soon after. By this time there was also an anchorage off Sea Hill. [8]
In June 1873 Sea Hill was chosen as the site for a quarantine station, in anticipation of the arrival of the 'Countess Russell', an immigrant ship suffering from an outbreak of typhoid fever. A number of the ship's passengers lie in the Keppel Bay Cemetery, located northwest of the lighthouse. In early 1877 over 500 Chinese people were quarantined at Sea Hill due to a smallpox outbreak, but by 1878 the Quarantine Station was moved to Mackenzie Island, due to serious problems with mosquitoes and sandflies.
As well as acting briefly as a Quarantine Station, Sea Hill increased its role in maritime navigation with the erection of a signal mast for Customs in 1875. [9] There were also two lights at Sea Hill Point by early 1877, [10] which worked in conjunction with the lights at Grassy Hill to indicate the Timandra buoy.
Further changes followed. By 1881 there were six pairs of lights in the lower reaches of the Fitzroy, and plans were made to adjust the leading lights at Sea Hill to assist vessels of heavy draught to Port Alma. In August 1885 it was announced that a tide surveyor and three boatmen would be stationed at Sea Hill, [11] and a cottage was built for the tide surveyor in 1886. [12] In March 1886 the Department of Ports and Harbours announced there would be a lightship at the Timandra buoy, and the northern light (on the beach) at Little Sea Hill and the two leading lights at the Pilot Station would be discontinued. One light was to remain at the Pilot Station and the high light at Little Sea Hill would have a red sector. Ships could take on pilots from the lightship, the Pilot Station, or Sea Hill. [13]
The first of two lighthouses erected at Little Sea Hill was lit in late 1886 during the annual tour of inspection by Captain GP Heath (appointed Portmaster in 1862 and responsible for opening new ports, lighthouses and lightships). After lighting the Bay Rock (near Magnetic Island) and Grassy Hill (Cooktown) lighthouses, Captain Heath made sure the new light at Sea Hill was in working order. He reported that in consequence of the lightship being moved from the Elbow to the Timandra buoy, the northern leading light at Sea Hill was removed and the upper light on the hill was 'improved by a more powerful apparatus placed in a small tower'. [14]
The newspapers initially referred to the light as being one of the Fifth Order, [15] replacing the two lanterns at Sea Hill, but later it was reported as a light of the Fourth Order 'exhibited from a light-house that has only recently been completed', which would light vessels from the sea to the Balaklava Island line of lights, clearing them of the east and centre banks, and lighting them up the Narrows as far as Deception Creek. [16]
By 1886 the Lightkeeper was a Mr Aird, and near the beach northwest of the lighthouse the Golden Shore Hotel provided accommodation for passengers landed at Sea Hill and awaiting the tender to Rockhampton. [17]
Sea Hill assumed even more importance over the years; the lighthouse became a boarding station for Customs officers in 1887, [18] and by 1894 Sea Hill possessed a telegraph station, signal station and light station. The Lightkeeper's cottage and telegraph station were illustrated in The Queenslander 17 November 1894, and these appear to be on the flat where the Pilot Station was later built. A building in the foreground may be the schoolhouse which was built circa 1886. [19]
By November 1894 the Queensland Marine Department planned to erect a new lighthouse at Sea Hill, and in February 1895 the tender of Mr A Lind, of Brisbane, for £113 5s, was accepted. [20] A Queensland Marine Department plan of the lighthouse was signed on 16 January 1895 by the Engineer EA Cullen and by the Portmaster TM Almond (1 February 1895). This plan shows the timber framing for a two-storey truncated cone tower, about 25 feet 10 inches (7.87m) in height between the base plate and the bottom of the lantern and its surrounding gallery (balcony). The base diameter was 14 feet 1 inch (4.29m), with a 7 feet 4 inch (2.24m) diameter at the top of the tower. Little Sea Hill lighthouse was taller than the 1886 Bay Rock (8m), Grassy Hill (6m) and Goods Island (5m) lighthouses. The plans are basically identical to the 1899 plans for the Gatcombe Head lighthouse, [21] and the 1896 Caloundra Head lighthouse is a similar size.
The Little Sea Hill lighthouse was almost finished by the end of April 1895, but the illuminating apparatus did not arrive until July 1895. The light was exhibited on 7 August and was visible for 16 miles (25.7km) in clear weather. [22] A May 1895 plan shows a Fourth Order Fixed and Condensing Apparatus, by Chance Brothers and Co Ltd. [23] The light had a 250mm focal radius, used a three wick Trinity [House] burner (for paraffin oil, or kerosene), and had red and white sectors. The new lighthouse and apparatus reportedly cost £500. [24]
The original 1886 lighthouse remained on site adjacent to the taller new lighthouse, but was listed as 'disused' on a 1920 survey plan. It was moved to Grassy Hill to replace the flashing light there between October 1947 and June 1948, [25] and was later moved to the Gladstone Maritime Museum.
The Commonwealth took over the 1895 lighthouse, along with Queensland's other major lighthouses, in 1915. Following the passage of the 1912 Commonwealth Navigation Act, from 1 July 1915 Queensland handed over responsibility for 30 manned lights and 37 unattended lights, beacons, and buoys to the Commonwealth Government. The Commonwealth constructed additional light stations and made substantial upgrades to existing lights, with many lighthouses converted to unattended acetylene lights.
In 1913 only one family, that of Mr Gray, the Lightkeeper and Postmaster, lived at Sea Hill, while the Pilot Station at Grassy Hill had 8 families. [26] However, this situation changed when the Pilot Station was moved to Sea Hill in 1918-1919. The best of the old housing material from Grassy Hill was reused at Sea Hill, and the old Lightkeeper's cottage and the old school building at Sea Hill were renovated. [27] At this time the flagstaff was moved to the top of the hill and the small lighthouse was altered for watch purposes. [28]
Two Pilots' houses were located on top of Little Sea Hill behind the two lighthouses, and a small building located between the houses was used as a post office/telephone exchange. By October 1924 the second (spare) Pilot's house was occupied by the Lightkeeper, as the old Lightkeeper's cottage was beyond repair. The latter cottage was removed by August 1925.
The Lightkeeper's cottage at Sea Hill was maintained by Queensland's Marine Department both before and after the transfer of the lighthouse to the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth's Lighthouse Service (CLS) paid for the services of a Queensland Marine Department Lightkeeper. The location of the pilot station at Sea Hill was referred to as a 'coast light station' in 1922. [29]
A June 1925 inspection of the lighthouse listed a three wick trinity burner, two oil reservoirs and two oil pipes; there was provision for 10 panes of glass, but two bays were blocked with timber. The dome was of galvanised sheet metal, the gutters were cast iron, and the lantern's interior was lined in cedar. The tower had 19 hardwood uprights and was sheathed with corrugated iron. [30]
In 1932 the Lightkeeper's surname was Ralston, but his services were dispensed with after the Commonwealth automated the 1895 lighthouse (still referred to as a coast light at this time), converting it from kerosene to acetylene gas operation on 10 August 1933. The fixed lens with white and red sectors was retained, and the kerosene burner was replaced by an acetylene burner and flasher, to show two flashes every six seconds. The candlepower of the light was increased from 1,000 to 1,500 candles, although it was reported that the new light was not as powerful as the old. [31] A June 1933 CLS plan for the conversion of the lighthouse to gas shows gas cylinders located inside at the base of the tower. At this time the tower had a total height (including the 2 foot (.61 m) concrete base) of 40 feet, 11+3/8 inches, (12.48 m) to the top of the vent on top of the dome. The focal plane was at a height of 34 feet 1+3/8 inches (10.4 m). [32]
After 1933 the Little Sea Hill was listed as an 'unattended' light. The second Pilot's residence was unoccupied by 1934, and is not mentioned in correspondence after 1938. It was apparently moved to Gatcombe Head, [33] leaving only one residence on top of Little Sea Hill.
The position of Pilot at Sea Hill was abolished in 1961 and the remaining Pilot's residence and the post office on Little Sea Hill were removed soon after. Three residences from the Pilot Station survive, located between Little Sea Hill and Pacific Creek, where the former stables are used as a boatshed.
Rockhampton's river port closed in the mid 1960s, and all shipping had to terminate at Port Alma. A change in port limits brought the Little Sea Hill lighthouse within the limits of the port, and the lighthouse reverted to state control in December 1976, with settlement on 6 April 1977, at a cost of $5,000 (lighthouse and 2.185 hectares of land). [34] By 1977 it was converted from gas light to electric power, [35] and around 1984 it was upgraded as a lead structure for Port Alma. [36] It currently has a Tideland ML-300 electric beacon powered by batteries replenished by solar panels, is operated by Maritime Safety Queensland and acts as a landfall light for ships traversing the mouth of the Fitzroy River.
","criteria":"The Little Sea Hill Lighthouse is one of only four timber framed and corrugated iron clad lighthouses, built to aid coastal navigation, which are still in situ. This is a type unique to colonial Queensland. The other surviving examples are those at Grassy Hill, Cooktown (QHR 601241); Caloundra Head (QHR 602746) and Goods Island, Torres Strait (Commonwealth Heritage List 105458).
The Little Sea Hill Lighthouse retains the main elements of its type, including the braced hardwood timber framing, tapered corrugated iron cladding, timber doors and windows, and locally-designed and made lantern room.
The lighthouse provides important evidence of the evolution of the light sources used by Queensland lighthouses, retaining evidence of its use of kerosene (1895-1933) through its roof top vent and four wall vents in the lantern; and of its use of acetylene gas (1933 to 1977) through the surviving gas cylinder stand and gas pipes. It now operates a solar-powered electric light.
|The lighthouse demonstrates the classic lighthouse form and architectural qualities (truncated cone tower, lantern room, balcony and domed roof) which are celebrated and photographed by enthusiasts across Australia.
The white tower, on its elevated site above the Golden Shore, stands in dramatic contrast to the colours of the surrounding natural landscape and acts as a monument to human endeavour in an isolated environment.
|Through its location, material and design the Little Sea Hill Lighthouse, constructed in 1895 on Curtis Island, is important in demonstrating the Queensland government's policy of installing visual navigation aids on the Queensland coast. During its working life it has been an integral component of safe navigation from Keppel Bay to the Rockhampton town wharves and to the deepwater ports at Broadmount and Port Alma.
The lighthouse is also surviving evidence of the past importance of the Port of Rockhampton to Queensland. Between 1860 and 1899 Rockhampton was the second most important port in Queensland after Brisbane, handling between 86% and 99% of the port trade of Central Queensland.
The lighthouse stands on an elevated site which has been used to assist navigation in Keppel Bay since the 1870s. The location continues to function as part of the navigation system for Port Alma.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32240,"place_ref":602791,"name":"Imbil Railway Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Over Yabba Creek","suburb":"IMBIL","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-10-14","description":"The Imbil Rail Bridge is a high level steel and concrete bridge over Yabba Creek, located 22 miles 4 chains (35.42 kms) from Monkland on the Mary Valley branch line.
Its total length is 393 feet (119.8 m) and its maximum span is 60 feet (18.3 m). The bridge has five steel eight-panel half-through Pratt trusses and is supported by two concrete abutments and nine concrete piers.
The bridge comprises (North to South):
2 x 3 x 31 foot (9.5 m) rolled steel joists, decking, concrete abutment, common concrete pier on cylindrical base (piers 1 and 2);
5 x 60 foot (18.3 m) riveted 8-panel half-through Pratt trusses, decking, common concrete piers with octagonal ends with capping on cylindrical bases (piers 2 to 7);
2 x 3 x 31 foot (9.5 m) rolled steel joists, decking, common concrete pier on cylindrical base, concrete abutment (piers 7 and 8).
It retains its rails and timber sleepers.
","history":"The Imbil Railway Bridge over Yabba Creek is located near the town of Imbil on the Mary Valley branch line 22 miles 4 chains (35.42 kms) from Monkland station on the North Coast line. The Mary Valley railway line between Monkland station and Brooloo in the upper Mary Valley was constructed between 1911 and April 1915 to facilitate closer settlement of the Mary River valley. The Imbil Railway Bridge remains as evidence of the economic importance of the Mary Valley to Queensland agriculture during the 20th century. This half-through Pratt truss (or Pony truss) bridge, completed in January 1915, is one of only six bridges of this kind known to be remaining in Queensland.
European settlement in the Mary Valley commenced when squatters took up pastoral leases there in the1850s. Closer settlement in the Mary Valley started after half of Imbil station land was resumed for settlement under the Crown Lands Act 1868 and made available for selection. The gradual opening of the large pastoral holdings of Amamoor, Imbil and Traveston in the Upper Mary River Valley for closer settlement from the late 1870s was a catalyst for the development of small cropping and dairying activities in the region. The changing patterns of land use and settlement in the Mary Valley occurred while nearby Gympie evolved from its beginnings as a makeshift settlement and alluvial field of late 1867 into an important regional town and major deep reef gold producer by the 1880s. The township provided a ready market for the growing number of agricultural producers in the surrounding district. In the Mary Valley, maize and potatoes were the dominant early crops, although experimental plantings of tobacco, rice, sugar cane, peas and pineapples were also undertaken.
At the beginning of the 20th century the Queensland government promoted the construction of branch railways in rural areas to assist growth in population and agricultural production. In the 1880s a Mary Valley route had been among the proposals for the line from Brisbane to Gympie, but was rejected. Local agitation for a Mary Valley branch railway (with varying proposals for the route's alignment) increased during the 1900s. The Railway Commissioner investigated and surveyed a proposed line for the Mary Valley in 1910, with the accompanying report contending 'considerable traffic in agricultural produce, timber, livestock and dairy products' would eventuate. Subsequently, a route deviating from the North Coast line at Monkland (south of Gympie) and extending to Brooloo was approved, a decision aided by the availability of timber for freight and construction, and Gympie City Council's offer to fund 1/3 of construction costs. Work commenced in June 1911 and by 1913, 550 men were working on the project. The Mary Valley Railway Line included four major (concrete and steel) bridges and one tunnel at Melawondi. The line reached Kandanga in February 1914 and the terminus of Brooloo in April 1915, the month the whole line was officially opened for passenger and goods traffic. Along the line, subdivisions of a number of larger holdings into farm and town allotments near rail stops increased the availability agricultural land for settlers and led to establishment of small townships at Kandanga (1912), Brooloo, Imbil and Amamoor (1914) and Dagun (1917).
The Imbil Railway Bridge illustrates the evolution in the principal characteristics of steel railway bridges around the turn of the century, especially the change to the through and half-through Pratt trusses from 1908, which increased the structural strength of rail bridges. Early rail bridges in Queensland were half-through or deck-type lattice girders with through hogback central spans until the 1893 after which the Whipple truss (double intersection through Pratt truss) was used for strength until the introduction of the through Pratt truss in 1897. For the next two decades many of Queensland's rail bridges were of the through Pratt design, including the half-through Pratt for lighter loads (introduced 1909), which features top and bottom chords connected by vertical and diagonal members but no portal or lateral bracing between the two parallel trusses on either side of the rail deck. The Warren truss was introduced later.
During the interwar period the rapid increase in production in the Mary Valley made a significant contribution to the Gympie region's status as one of Queensland's most productive dairy areas. In response to cream supply outgrowing production capacity, the Wide Bay Co-Operative built what was claimed as Australia's largest butter factory in 1925, and was receiving cream from 2,000 suppliers by 1935. By 1927 the Gympie district was responsible for 10% of Queensland's milk production, the majority of which was used for butter making. In 1929 the Wide Bay district (of which Gympie was a part) was the second highest milk producer after the Moreton district, and by 1939 the 12 butter factories in the Wide Bay Burnett region (not including Cooroy), produced almost 1/3 of Queensland's butter. In the same year, 4,500 cream cans were forwarded from Kandanga alone.
In 1952 the Gympie district produced 15% of Queensland's butter, and 1953 was the Wide Bay Co-Operative's record year for payment to its suppliers. However, a downturn began in the 1950s, which reflected changes occurring across the industry in Queensland. Butter consumption per capita in Australia dropped from 12.2 kg to 8.3 kg between 1957 and 1972, and a major butter market was lost in the early 1970s, after Britain joined the European Economic Community. Changing to milk production rather than cream, required larger herds and new equipment, and resulted in many small-scale farmers leaving the industry or switching to beef cattle. Stricter regulations for the running of dairies, lower prices, foreign imports and competition from margarine producers all took their toll. Between 1973 and 1976 28% of the Wide Bay Co-op's farmers left the industry. As milk production increased, farm storage in vats and road transportation by tankers became the norm. The last butter was churned in Gympie in May 1978, ending nearly 80 years of production at the site.
While fruit continued to be transported on the Mary Valley railway following the demise of cream production, the line became increasingly unprofitable during the 1970s. By the late 1980s, the future of the line was increasingly precarious. In 1988 station masters/mistresses were removed from Imbil, Amamoor and Dagun and a number of railway buildings such as goods sheds, waiting sheds and residences were sold for removal.
The reduction of infrastructure and services on the railway made it increasingly apparent that the line was to close. Strong protests by the district's pineapple growers helped to delay any final decision on the line's future. However, the last goods train ran to Kandanga in 1995 and thereafter pineapple growers took their produce to Traveston station on the Brisbane-Gympie North line. Despite this, the line was not formally closed and in 1996 the Mary Valley Heritage Railway Board negotiated to conduct tourist train services on the line. The Mary Valley Heritage Railway commenced operations on the former Mary Valley branch on 23 May 1998. The 'Valley Rattler' steam train tours and rail motor rides have since become a major tourist attraction for the region. A large group of volunteers and trainees contribute to the operation and maintenance of the line, rolling stock and buildings between the (former) Gympie Railway Station and Imbil.
The Imbil Railway Bridge remains as evidence of the economic importance of the Mary Valley to the Queensland dairy industry during the 20th century. The Imbil Railway Bridge is a rare intact example of a half-through Pratt truss railway bridge, a style of bridge used by Queensland's Railway Department in the first three decades of the 20th century. The half-through Pratt truss structure, which differs subtly from the more widely used through Pratt truss bridge, in that its girders are not high enough to allow cross bracing at the top between the trusses on each side of the bridge. Half-through Pratt truss bridges were designed to carry a smaller load than through Pratt truss bridges. Other intact bridges of this type that are extant are: Harlin Rail Bridge, Harlin (1912) [QHR 602636]; Sleeper Log Creek (1915); Saltwater Creek (1915); Crystal Creek (1916) and Murray Creek (1923).
","criteria":"The Imbil Railway Bridge is a good example of a half-through Pratt truss railway bridge designed by the Department of Railways and Public Works. This bridge type differed subtly from the through Pratt truss in that its girders are not high enough to allow cross bracing at the top of the truss, which is a feature of through Pratt truss bridges.
The bridge comprises nine concrete piers, two abutments, five steel eight-panel trusses, rolled steel joists, decking, timber sleepers and steel rails.
|In its setting the Imbil Railway Bridge is picturesque, making a dramatic visual statement and evoking a strong aesthetic response through the juxtaposition of its man-made materials-tall concrete piers and steel trusses-against its natural backdrop of mountains and grassy fields, trees and river. Views that place the bridge in this setting are accessible from road, rail and water.
|The Imbil Railway bridge, opened in 1915 as a major engineering work on the Mary Valley Branch Railway Line, is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government's policy of establishing branch railway lines to promote closer settlement. Establishment of this branch railway accelerated the settlement of the Mary Valley for agricultural purposes and contributed to the production that made the Wide Bay Burnett district a major agricultural region of Queensland during the first half of the 20th century.
The bridge is highly intact and provides physical evidence of early 20th century railway bridge design and construction in Queensland. The Imbil Railway Bridge illustrates the evolution in the principal characteristics of steel railway bridges around the turn of the century, especially the change to the through and half-through Pratt trusses from 1908, which increased the structural strength of rail bridges.
|The Imbil Railway Bridge is a form of railway bridge that has always been uncommon. It is one of 11 half-through Pratt truss bridges that were built by the Queensland Department of Railways and Public Works during the first three decades of the 20th century. Of these only six remain. The structure is intact and retains a high level of integrity. Other intact railway bridges of this type that are extant are: Harlin Rail Bridge, Harlin (1912) [QHR 602636]; Sleeper Log Creek (1915); Saltwater Creek (1915); Crystal Creek (1916) and Murray Creek, North Coast line (1923).
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion B","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32241,"place_ref":602792,"name":"Mary Valley Railway Cream Sheds","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Kandanga; Amamoor; Melawondi Stations; Mary Valley Branch Railway","suburb":"MARY VALLEY","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-10-14","description":"Amamoor
The railway cream shed sits within the southern end of the Amamoor railway station yard, facing west adjacent to the Mary Valley branch railway line. The cream shed is a square timber structure, set on low timber stumps and sheltered by a gabled corrugated iron roof. The shed is timber framed and is clad and lined with horizontal hardwood boards separated by open spaces, with the interior boards offset to cover the outside spaces. Double timber doors open out to towards the timber platforms on either side of the shed. A set of low timber steps with a concrete block base lead up to the northern end of the platform facing the railway. A guard log is positioned in front of the northern elevation. The recent mural adorning the external timber boards of the shed is not of heritage significance.
Kandanga
The railway cream shed is located within the Kandanga railway yard. The building sits to the west of the station building, facing north adjacent to the Mary Valley branch railway line. The cream shed is a square timber structure, set on low timber stumps and sheltered by a gabled corrugated fibro roof. The shed is timber framed and is clad and lined with horizontal hardwood boards separated by open spaces, with the interior boards offset to cover the outside spaces. A number of (readily reversible) metal panels and shelves have been mounted internally for storage purposes. Double timber doors open out towards the timber platforms on either side of the shed. A set of low timber steps lead up to the eastern end of the platform facing the railway. The front platform extends to the west onto an earth loading bank retained with horizontal timber boards and vertical steel posts. The recent mural adorning the external timber boards of the shed is not of heritage significance.
Melawondi
The railway cream shed is located within the Melawondi railway yard facing east adjacent to the Mary Valley branch railway line, and is the only remaining structure within the yard. The cream shed is a square timber structure, set on low timber and concrete stumps and sheltered by a gabled corrugated iron roof. The shed is timber framed and is clad and lined with horizontal hardwood boards separated by open spaces, with the interior boards offset to cover the outside spaces. Double timber doors open out to towards the timber platforms on either side of the shed. The front platform is missing some timber boards.
","history":"The Mary Valley branch railway cream sheds, located at Amamoor, Kandanga and Melawondi, were built between the 1920s and 1940s by Queensland Railways, in response to the strong growth of dairying in one of Queensland's most important dairy producing regions and the reliance on rail to transport dairy produce during this period.
The gradual opening of large pastoral holdings of Amamoor, Imbil and Traveston (established 1850s) in the Upper Mary River Valley for closer settlement from the late 1870s was a catalyst for the development of small cropping and dairying activities in the region. The changing patterns of land use and settlement in the Mary Valley occurred while nearby Gympie evolved from its beginnings as a makeshift settlement and alluvial field in late 1867 into an important regional town and major deep reef gold producer by the 1880s. The town provided a ready market for the growing number of agricultural producers in the surrounding district. In the Mary Valley, maize and potatoes were the dominant early crops, although experimental plantings of tobacco, rice, sugar cane, peas and pineapples were also undertaken.
From the late 1800s, a number of critical factors aided the expansion of the dairy industry into one of Queensland's principal primary industries by the interwar period. These included: the introduction of mechanical cream separators in the 1880s; Babcock testing to accurately measure cream content in milk; The Meat and Dairy Encouragement Act 1893 which made provision for government loans to construct butter and cheese factories; and the Department of Agriculture and Stock's use of a 'Travelling Dairy' to demonstrate techniques and equipment to potential dairy farmers throughout Queensland. The introduction of pastures such as paspalum and Rhodes grass and the increased cultivation of fodder also occurred, to improve milk yields and to provide adequate feed during the less productive months of winter.
Hugo Du Rietz, a Swedish born architect, made an important contribution to the development of the dairy industry in the Gympie district by his introduction of the first mechanical cream separator into Queensland in 1882. The Queensland government's travelling dairy visited Lagoon Pocket, in the Mary Valley, in September 1890. By 1894 there were 120 dairies in the Gympie Land Agent's district, although most production was milk for town supply. In the Mary Valley, Frank Chippindall was transporting butter produced by local settlers into Gympie around 1885-1886, as was Peter Meyers in 1893.
By the early 1900s co-operatives were becoming the dominant form of ownership of cheese and butter factories, a pattern that defined the Queensland dairy industry for much of the 20th century. In 1897, Gympie's first dairy co-operative for butter production, the Gympie Central Dairying Company was established. By 1897 the Silverwood Dairying Company had taken over the factory and in 1906 the Wide Bay Co-Operative purchased the operations. In the year ending June 30 1907 there were 322 suppliers to the Wide Bay Company, who were paid a total of £20,973 for their cream. Metal cans containing the cream produced by dairy farms surrounding Gympie was carted into the Wide Bay Co-operative's factory by contractors. In the Mary Valley, some cream was also sent from the Traveston railway station on the North Coast line to butter factories further south.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the Queensland government was promoting the construction of branch railways in rural areas to assist growth in population and agricultural production. In the 1880s a Mary Valley route had been among the proposals for the line from Brisbane to Gympie, but was rejected. Local agitation for a Mary Valley branch railway (with varying proposals for the route's alignment) increased during the 1900s. The Railway Commissioner investigated and surveyed a proposed line for the Mary Valley in 1910, with the accompanying report contending 'considerable traffic in agricultural produce, timber, livestock and dairy products' would eventuate. Subsequently, a route deviating from the North Coast line at Monkland (south of Gympie) and extending to Brooloo was approved, a decision aided by the availability of timber for freight and construction, and Gympie City Council's offer to fund one third of construction costs. Work commenced in June 1911 and by 1913, 550 men were working on the project. The line reached Kandanga in February 1914 and the terminus of Brooloo in April 1915, the month the whole line was officially opened for passenger and goods traffic. Along the line, subdivisions of a number of larger holdings into farm and town allotments near rail stops increased the availability agricultural land for settlers and led to the establishment of small townships at Kandanga (1912), Brooloo, Imbil and Amamoor (1914) and Dagun (1917).
While timber freight was initially the main income generator for the Mary Valley Railway, cream was transported on the line from its very beginnings. Transportation by rail was a far more efficient way of delivering cream to butter factories, with contractors and individual farmers able to deliver their cream direct to the nearest railhead. Following delivery and washing of the cans at the factory, they were returned by rail, with each can inscribed with the name of its owner for identification.
In its first four weeks of operations following the opening of its station in 1914, two tons of cream was sent from Kandanga. After the disruption of World War I, dairying and agricultural activity increased rapidly, with a corresponding increase in the transportation of produce on the railway. In 1921 there were 93 dairies located between Dagun and Brooloo, milking 2,900 cows (an average herd size of 31) and producing 586,016 pounds of cream. In October of that year, a combined total of around 350 cans were sent from Kandanga and Imbil railway stations each week. In January 1922, 118,000 pounds of cream, equal to around 27 tons of butter, was sent to the Wide Bay Co-operative Factory at Gympie from suppliers between Brooloo and Amamoor.
The expansion of dairy production during the early twentieth century led to the construction of cream sheds by Queensland Railways at stations and sidings throughout the state. Cream sheds were built to a standard design; measuring 10 ft x 10 ft (3.05 x 3.05 m), clad and lined with horizontal hardwood boards separated by open spaces, with the interior boards offset to cover the outside spaces. The spacing of the boards improved air circulation, resulting in a cooler storage space, reducing the risk of the cream spoiling before reaching the butter factory. Double doors opened out to platforms on either side of the shed for placement and retrieval of cream cans. Sheds were set on low stumps and were sheltered by a gabled roof.
By 1921, the heavy handling needed to load cream cans and their exposure to heat at Kandanga station was noted. The Railway Commissioner's inspection of the Mary Valley Railway in late 1924, noted the ongoing increase in 'cream traffic' along the line and the arduous work involved for guards who were lifting the cans from platforms on rail level. The Commissioner agreed to cream sheds being provided at Amamoor and Dagun stations and Lagoon Pocket siding. The construction of the cream shed at Amamoor as well as a shed at Imbil was approved in February 1925 at a cost of £80 and £96 respectively. The following month the cream shed at the Lagoon Pocket siding was approved at a cost of £83. A shed at Dawn siding was built sometime after this date and a shed at Melawondi was built in 1946.
The provision of cream sheds along the length of the line demonstrated the extent and expansion of dairying in the Mary Valley. Cream supply was generally at its highest during the wetter summer months and this was when cream sheds were most heavily utilised. The lower output that occurred during winter is reflected in the returns for the week ending August 24 1931, when 207 cream cans were forwarded to Gympie and 11 cans were sent to Pomona from Kandanga, Imbil, Amamoor and Dagun. The Mary River was subject to serious flooding during the wet season and the railway crossing near the Dawn often became impassable. The importance of cream freight was evident on these occasions, with a special train organised to pick up cans from the cream sheds until it reached the river crossing, from where the Wide Bay Co-op boat would ferry the supplies over the river.
The interwar period saw the dairy industry expand greatly in Queensland. Between 1927 and 1937 the total number of dairy cattle rose by 50 per cent. Dairying was geographically Queensland's most widespread agricultural industry in the 1930s and the state's second most profitable export industry from 1936 to 1941, accounting for 20 per cent of primary production. By the late 1930s, around one in eight Queenslanders were living on dairy farms.
The rapid increase in production in the Mary Valley during the interwar period made a significant contribution to the Gympie region's status as one of Queensland's top dairy producing areas. In response to increased cream supply outgrowing production capacity, the Wide Bay Co-Operative built what was claimed as Australia's largest butter factory in 1925, and was receiving cream from 2,000 suppliers by 1935. By 1927 the Gympie district was responsible for 10 per cent of Queensland's milk production, the majority of which was used for butter making. In 1937 the Petty Sessions District of Gympie was Queensland's largest milk and butter producer, with the greatest number of dairy cattle in milk. By 1939 the 12 butter factories in the Wide Bay-Burnett region (not including Cooroy), produced almost a third of Queensland's butter. In the same year, 4,500 cream cans were forwarded from Kandanga alone.
In 1952 the Gympie district produced 15 per cent of Queensland's butter, and 1953 was the Wide Bay Co-Operative's record year for payment to its suppliers. However, a downturn began in the 1950s, which reflected changes occurring across the industry in Queensland. Butter consumption per capita in Australia dropped from 12.2 kg to 8.3 kg between 1957 and 1972, and a major butter market was lost when Britain joined the European Economic Community in the early 1970s. The transition towards the production of milk rather than cream, requiring larger herds and new equipment, saw many smaller scale farmers leaving the industry or switching to beef cattle. Tougher regulations for the running of dairies, lower prices, foreign imports and competition from margarine producers all took their toll. Between 1973 and 1976, 28 per cent of the Wide Bay Co-op's farmers left the industry. As milk production increased, farm storage in vats and road transportation by tankers became the norm. The last delivery of dairy produce to Wide Bay Co-op's Gympie factory in a can (from Miva, west of Gympie) occurred in 1973 and the last butter was churned in May 1978, ending nearly 80 years of production at the site.
The decline of cream production and the realignment of transport arrangements for dairy producers saw the removal of some cream sheds on the Mary Valley railway, while those that remained were used for storage. The cream shed at Lagoon Pocket was removed in 1965 and at Dawn in 1968. In 1963 Dagun's cream shed was incorporated into the north corner of the goods sheds (erected 1938). At least one other example of a combined goods and cream shed is known to have been built in Queensland - at the Summit (near Stanthorpe).
While fruit freight (predominantly pineapples) continued to be transported on the Mary Valley railway following the demise of cream production, the line became increasingly unprofitable during the 1970s. By the late 1980s, the future of the line was increasingly precarious. In 1988 station masters/mistresses were removed from Imbil, Amamoor and Dagun and a number of railway buildings such as goods sheds, waiting sheds and residences were sold for removal. Queensland Railways opted to retain the cream sheds at Kandanga, Amamoor, Melawondi Dagun and Imbil (later removed) for storage purposes.
The reduction of infrastructure and services on the railway made it increasingly apparent that the line was to close. Strong protests by the district's pineapple growers helped to delay any final decision on the line's future. The last goods train ran to Kandanga in 1995 and thereafter pineapple growers took their produce to Traveston station on the Brisbane-Gympie North line. The line however, was not formally closed and in 1996 the Mary Valley Heritage Railway Board negotiated to conduct tourist train services on the line. The Mary Valley Heritage Railway commenced operations on the former Mary Valley branch on 23 May 1998. The 'Valley Rattler' steam train tours and rail motor rides have since become a major tourist attraction for the region. A large group of volunteers and trainees contribute to the operation and maintenance of the line, rolling stock and buildings between the (former) Gympie Railway Station and Imbil. The cream sheds at Melawondi, Kandanga and Amamoor remain as evidence of the growth and economic importance of the dairy industry to the Mary Valley during the twentieth century.
","criteria":"The Mary Valley railway cream sheds are important in demonstrating the growth of the dairy industry in the Wide Bay-Burnett, one of Queensland's most important dairy producing regions during the twentieth century. The construction of the branch railway (1911-1915) and the associated increase in closer settlement in the Mary Valley was a catalyst for the expansion of dairying in the district. The provision of cream sheds along the length of the line during the 1920s to 1940s demonstrates the extent of this expansion. More widely, the cream sheds illustrate the historical importance and role of railways in transporting dairy produce in Queensland.
|The highly intact Amamoor, Kandanga and Melawondi cream sheds demonstrate the principal characteristics of railway cream sheds built alongside Queensland railway lines to facilitate the transport of dairy produce during the twentieth century. Located adjacent to the railway line in station yards and built to a standard design, the small square sheds are clad and lined with horizontal hardwood boards separated by open spaces on both the interior and exterior, with those on the interior offset to cover the spaces on the exterior. The boards are spaced to improve air circulation, resulting in a cooler internal storage area. The sheds stand on low stumps, are sheltered by gabled roofs and have double doors that open out to platforms on either side of the shed for placement and retrieval of cream cans.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32244,"place_ref":602794,"name":"Gympie Ambulance Station (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"17 Crown Road","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-09-16","description":"The former Gympie Ambulance Station complex, including the ambulance station, garage and superintendent's residence, occupies a corner site bound by Crown Road and Stanley Street in a quiet residential area in the south of Gympie. The site slopes away to the west with the ambulance station and residence fronting Crown Road and the maintenance shed down the slope and accessed from Stanley Street.
The ambulance station, a timber-framed and clad building, is sheltered by a gabled roof with a lean-to to the south. A large street awning shelters the wide entry doors facing the street. A concrete driveway slightly wider than the front of the building extends to the road crossover. The ambulance station is planned around a large garage space facing Crown Road with smaller scale rooms to the south and rear. A lean-to roofed annex runs along the southern side of the building. The roofs are clad in recent corrugated metal sheeting. Eaves are unlined and eaves gutters are quad-profile.
Wide entry doors consisting of two pairs of hinged ledged doors with strap hinges open out from the main volume to the street which is accessed via a wide driveway. The front opening is sheltered by a timber-framed footpath awning which is supported on timber posts and clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Decorative elements in the main elevation include a circular vent and a simple finial on the gable end. The main building is clad in chamferboards and the lean-to annex to the south is clad in weatherboards.
Multi-paned windows sheltered by recent timber framed window awnings are located along the south elevation. A paneled door opens from the upper level leading out to recent timber framed staircase that run along the side of the building and provide access to the lower level. External walls are clad in weatherboard.
The rear end of the gabled roof is visible on the western elevation where a temporary balcony has recently been constructed. The gable end is clad in chamferboard and features a square vent. Multi-paned windows are also located on this elevation together with a recent timber-framed window awning. The lower level of the building where the land slopes away has recently been enclosed with blockwork. This recent work is not considered to be of heritage significance.
The northern elevation of the ambulance building adjoins the adjacent former ambulance superintendent's residence. This elevation is clad in weatherboards and is linked to the residence with a timber-framed deck platform. A multi-paned double-hung window with a timber-framed awning opens from the main volume internally. A recent entry door and temporary screens have been added. This recent work is not considered to be of heritage significance.
The garage within the ambulance station is a lofty space with the ceiling partly lined on the rake with v-jointed boards laid horizontally. The floor is mostly lined with tongue and groove boards. Two sections underneath where vehicles park is lined with unsealed hardwood shot-edge boards. A large archway frames an opening into the adjacent annex. Quad-profile trims are featured on the ceiling panels and trim the wall junctions. Simple pendant lights hang from the ceiling where a single ventilation inlet in-filled with fretwork is located.
The annex has similar finishes to the main garage room with ceilings lined on the rake with horizontally laid v-jointed boards. Walls are also lined with horizontally laid v-jointed boards. Rooms to the rear of the ambulance building have been lined with asbestos cement sheeting to both walls and ceilings. Ceilings to these rooms are lower and flat. Tongue and groove boards are visible on the floors in some of the rear rooms with some floors lined with carpet and linoleum.
The former maintenance shed is a timber-framed structure with a gabled roof. It is clad in weatherboards and has a corrugated metal roof. A decorative metal roof ventilator is located on the ridge. A small ledged entry door is located on the north elevation and a pair of large ledged doors opens to the street to the south. Three shuttered windows are located on the east elevation while an awning window and a small ledged door is located on the west elevation where a timber-framed lean-to roof has been added. Simple timber finials adorn each gable end. Internally walls and ceilings are unlined and un-painted and the floor is formed from concrete.
The former superintendent's residence is a single-skin, timber-framed cottage sheltered by a pyramid roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A decorative roof vent crowns the peak of the roof. Verandahs run to the east and north. A range of work has been undertaken to the building including enclosure of the western part of the north verandah, addition of lattice to the east verandah, insertion of new openings, linings to partitions and verandah ceilings and an extension to the rear. As a consequence, the building contains a mix of new and early fabric. The interior and the rear extension are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The significance of this structure is in its presence on Crown Road along side the ambulance station.
The ambulance complex buildings are located in a lush suburban garden shaded by semi-mature street trees and boundaries are fenced with recent timber pickets.
","history":"The Gympie Ambulance Station (former) (1904), comprising a timber ambulance station, garage and superintendent's residence, is located in the former mining town of Gympie. The place is important in demonstrating the establishment of ambulance services in regional centres throughout the state in the early 20th century and is the earliest known example of a timber ambulance building in Queensland.
\nGympie (initially called Nashville), part of the traditional lands of the Kabi Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi people, was established after the discovery of gold in October 1867 by James Nash in the Upper Mary River district. The new gold field put Queensland on the map as a significant gold producer, contributing much needed finances to the young colony. By Christmas of 1867, according to the Gold Commissioner, the Gympie field had a population of 4,000 (or over 15,000 according to James Nash). Although the alluvial deposits were quickly exhausted, from 1868 shallow reef mining occurred.
\nAs it evolved from a hastily established mining settlement, Gympie developed a distinctive character with an irregular street pattern amid a series of valleys and ridges. Development of roads within the town followed the terrain rather than adopting the standard grid pattern that was applied to townships surveyed for settlement, and consequently many roads run along ridgelines with linking roads across valleys and hillsides. Existing buildings and mining homestead leases were accommodated in the first survey of the township in April 1868. The early makeshift structures of Gympie gradually gave way to more permanent and substantial public and private buildings.
\nBy the end of the 1870s, an intensive phase of underground reef mining was underway, facilitated by the injection of share-holding capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. During the early 1880s mines began yielding large amounts of gold, marking a new era of wealth and prosperity for Gympie. The Gympie goldfield passed through its most profitable period from 1901 to 1906 and in 1903 produced its peak annual output. After 1906 production declined and by 1925 the last of the big mines had ceased operations, ending a 50 year phase of deep reef mining in Gympie.
\nCommunity based ambulance services first appeared in Queensland from the 1890s. In 1892, concerns regarding the lack of adequate medical aid for accident victims led to the establishment of the City Ambulance Transport Brigade in Brisbane, the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade (QATB) from 1902. The objective of the brigade was to provide first aid and to transport sick and injured people to hospital. During the early 1900s, ambulance brigades were established in regional centres throughout Queensland - Charters Towers and Townsville (1900), Rockhampton, Warwick and Ipswich (1901), Ravenswood, Gympie and Toowoomba (1902), Mackay (1903), Cairns (1904) and Bundaberg (1907). While some were affiliated with the QATB, others were established independently. The goldfields of Charters Towers, Ravenswood and Gympie, with large working populations of miners, were among the first to establish ambulance services in the state.
\nThe earliest provision of ambulance services began in Gympie in 1890, with the establishment of the Wide Bay Gympie Ambulance Corps, a volunteer arm of the Wide Bay and Burnett Division of the Queensland Defence Force. In addition to their military based activities, the corps also provided a civic service. In 1898, the corps was disbanded. Subsequent efforts by former members to establish an ambulance service, including an attempt to have Gympie's miners subscribe were unsuccessful until a public meeting in September 1902 resolved to 'form a local Ambulance Brigade Hospital'. A Gympie Ambulance Transport Brigade Committee (GATBC) and subscription list were established by the end of proceedings. By the end of September, Superintendent Fred Roffe had attended to his first case (a fractured forearm).
\nInitially the ambulance service was conducted from a room in the Atlantic Hotel in Mary Street. Later, the service moved its plant of one first aid kit and a stretcher to a room at the Gympie Fire Station in Bligh St. Prior to the brigade establishing their own premises, the personnel grew to include 16 honorary bearers while the plant increased to four stretchers.
\nIn April 1903, the provisions of the Hospitals Act were extended to include the Gympie Brigade, meaning that community subscriptions were matched by government funding. By early 1904, the Gympie Ambulance Transport Brigade (GATB) had acquired unoccupied land on Crown Road to build an ambulance station and superintendent's quarters. In March, the tender of Messrs Stuart and Poynton to erect a station for £133 was accepted. The architect is unknown. The station was officially opened on May 18 1904, with Gympie Mayor Gilbert Garrick raising the Red Cross flag and handing out St John's Ambulance Association training certificates to brigade members.
\nThe new station building was a simple rectangular gable ended timber structure with an office, lecture room and plant room (used to store stretchers and equipment) facing the entrance off Crown Road. The superintendent's residence was located next to the station. Many early ambulance buildings in Queensland followed the station layout first established at the 1897 Wharf Street headquarters of the QATB; a two-storey building incorporating ambulance service facilities at ground level and living quarters at the upper level, and large ground floor openings with bi-fold doors to allow ready access directly to the street for quick exit. While the Gympie building included the ground-floor provisions of a large front entrance, plant and other rooms for staff facilities, its single storey timber construction and detached superintendent's residence differed from other early stations. Early stations in Warwick and Ipswich also shared these characteristics.
\nThe station's location was an important consideration for the Brigade when first established. The building now sits in a quiet suburban area, but when built was in close proximity to some of Gympie's largest mine headworks, and was conveniently positioned between the CBD and the One Mile and Monkland mining areas. In 1904 there were 1723 miners employed in Gympie. Accident data from the Department of Mines from the early 1900s amply demonstrates the range of occupational hazards (including defective explosives, rockfalls and machinery accidents) which led to injury or death for men working in Gympie's gold mines. In the period where the ambulance station attended to mining related cases there were 37 mining deaths and numerous accidents on the Gympie goldfield. The Gympie brigade used a special 'Scott Tracy' stretcher, fitted with leather straps to vertically raise miners from underground. In 1910 the Queensland Governor Sir William McGregor visited the station and was treated to a demonstration on how the stretcher was used. A 1911 photo shows the Gympie Brigade formally posed outside the station with the stretcher.
\nOn 1 June 1905, the Ambulance Brigade's Crown Road site (Portion 8 Gympie Gold Field) was formerly gazetted as an Ambulance Brigade Reserve. In its first year of operating from their new premises the GATB attended to 655 patients. After receiving first-aid at the station, patients were either taken home, to a doctor's residence or to the Gympie hospital if further treatment was required. Bearers also transported patients who arrived to Gympie by rail from outlying areas such as Wondai and Cooroy. Demand for the service grew steadily during its first decade.
\nGympie's earliest ambulance bearers walked or ran to attend to cases, carrying patients on stretchers and later on litters (two-wheeled stretchers) to the station or hospital for treatment. Bearers often travelled long distances on shifts, especially when attending to cases in rural areas outside of Gympie. While the use of a horse and sulky from mid-1912 made travelling to callouts easier, patients were still transported by litter into Gympie. 1912 was also the year a second paid officer began working for the brigade. A building to house the sulky and litters and a horse stable were erected behind the station at this time. The brigade acquired its first motor ambulance in 1917 and an awning had been added to the front of the station building by 1918. The purchase of a second car in 1920 effectively rendered the horse and sulky service obsolete. In 1920-21, the Brigade pulled down the 1912 litter shed and replaced the 1904 superintendent's residence with a single-skin, timber framed cottage with a pyramid roof, connected to the ambulance station by a walkway.
\nIn early 1922 further improvements were undertaken to the station building. By September 1921, the brigade was in possession of three cars, and a lack of storage space in the front plant room determined the decision to add an annex to the station. The brigade's use of the plant room at this time to store cars indicates that by 1921 the original front office space had been removed and replaced by an entrance door. The Brigade's monthly meeting in January 1922 resolved to extend along the length of the south end of the station, with a frontage of 12 ft (3.66 m), and a roof carried out on the same pitch as the 1904 building. Construction was underway by February and completed by May at a cost of £93. In 1923, the brigade began considering the purchase of an additional car and the construction of a new maintenance shed. In January 1924, the tender of AC McKennan of £143/10 for the erection of the maintenance shed, a simple gable roofed timber structure, was accepted.
\nFollowing a deputation from the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade in late 1922, the GATB voted to affiliate with the state body from 1 Jan 1923. By this time the QATB was composed of 44 centres across the state, with 17 centres opening in the previous two and a half years. Under a mutual transfer system, Gympie ambulance staff went to QATB headquarters in Brisbane for further training in first aid, mechanical and business skills. Lewis Dean succeeded Frederick Roffe as Superintendent from August 1921 and continued to hold the position until 1969 (thought to be a world record in ambulance service).
\nThe wives of Superintendents who lived on-site at the residence fulfilled important duties related to the ambulance service, remaining on-call when other members of the brigade were out, answering telephone calls and providing basic first aid when injured people called at the station.
\nBy 1941 calls had begun for a modern ambulance station for Gympie. In 1943 the Brigade Committee investigated building a new station on the Crown Road site, but financial restrictions prevented this from occurring. Subsequently, a building fund was established for a new station and the brigade began looking for suitable sites.
\nIn 1948, the ambulance station measured 36 ft x 48 ft (13 m x 16 m), indicating the rear of the building was extended 18 ft (6 m) sometime after 1922. Internally, the building included the plant (front) room and four other rooms - a first aid/casualty room, superintendent's office, staff bedroom and a larger multi-purpose room.
\nAs late as 1954 the brigade were intending to pull down the station building at Crown Rd and erect a new station and living quarters. However, by November 1955, the brigade had acquired land on Nash Street in Gympie's CBD to build the new station and residence and requested the Crown Road reserve be rescinded. While this occurred in December 1955, the brigade remained at the site for another four years. The new Gympie Ambulance Station was opened in 1959, ending 55 years of use of the original station at Crown Road. By this time the Gympie Ambulance service had attended to 11,735 patients and had travelled over 1.85 million kilometres.
\nSince the removal of the ambulance service in 1959, the station building and house have been used for residential purposes. Over this period some alterations have occurred to the former station building. The front entrance bi-fold doors have been reconstructed. To mark the Gympie Ambulance Service centenary celebrations in 2002, the front awning and finial were reconstructed, replacing the originals that had been removed. In the rooms at the rear of the building, some walls and ceilings have been lined with asbestos cement sheeting. Following a mine capping excavation project in 1992 a besser block understorey was installed beneath the building. On the northern side of the building a window has been replaced by a door and a (temporary) external balcony has been added to the rear. Alterations that have occurred to the former superintendent's residence include room and kitchen reconfiguration and verandah and rear deck extensions. A lean-to has been added to the maintenance shed.
\nWhile some changes have occurred, the station building survives as important evidence from the early period of expansion of ambulance services in Queensland. Only two other stations from this period-at Charters Towers (1903) and Ravenswood (1904) [QHR 600445]-are known to exist.
","criteria":"The Gympie Ambulance Station (former) is important in demonstrating the development of ambulance services in Queensland. The establishment of civic ambulance services in regional Queensland centres began in the first decade of the 1900s, a pattern of development that continued during the 20th century. The purpose-built 1904 station building is among the earliest known surviving ambulance stations from this initial phase of establishment. Only two other examples, at Charters Towers (1903) and Ravenswood (1904) [QHR 600445] are still in existence.
Additions undertaken during the building's use as an ambulance station (1904-1959) including the annex (1922), maintenance shed (1924) and rear extensions (pre-1948) provide important evidence of the evolution of Queensland ambulance services, illustrating the transition from the use of foot travel to motorised transport and growth in demand of the service.
The Gympie Ambulance Station (former) is important in demonstrating the early role of gold mining towns in developing ambulance services in Queensland. Established during the peak years of Gympie's gold production, the station's historical setting, close to large mine headworks and centrally positioned between the centre of town and the One Mile and Monkland areas, illustrates the influence of mining in determining its location.
|The earliest known surviving timber building of its type, the Gympie Ambulance Station (former) is important in demonstrating the evolution of the principal characteristics of purpose-built ambulance stations during the twentieth century. The building's provision of large front entrances with ready road access from the plant room to facilitate quick exit and internal rear rooms for staff facilities illustrate the functions of the station.
Additions undertaken during the building's use as an ambulance station (1904-1959), including the annex (1922), maintenance shed (1924) and rear room extensions (pre-1948), and the detached superintendent's residence (1920-21), are important in illustrating the changing requirements of ambulance services over time.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32286,"place_ref":602796,"name":"St Patrick's Convent","alternate_name":"St Patricks Convent","street_address":"45 The Strand","suburb":"NORTH WARD","lga":"TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-02-03","description":"St Patrick's Convent, a two-storey timber framed building, stands within the St Patrick's College complex bounded by The Strand and Fryer and Oxley Streets, Townsville. Facing The Strand, the building is notable for its steeply pitched gable roofs to the north and south wings.
\nThe building is symmetrical around a central core flanked by projecting wings to the north and south. Verandahs are provided to the north, east and west; the north and east now enclosed with louvres and asbestos cement sheeting. The west and part of the north verandahs retain decorative balustrading, lattice and valance. The exterior of the north and south wings have asbestos cement sheeting applied over chamferboard and weatherboard cladding. Generally the building is constructed of single skin walls; the mid-west wall is clad with chamferboards and lined with beaded vertical boards; some internal partitions are lined to each side.
\nThe main entry is from the east verandah through a timber panelled door with coloured glass sidelights. The ground floor is organised off a central entrance hall, flanked by the visitor parlour to the north and vestry to the south. The entrance hall is screened from the central stairwell by a three-quarter height partition accommodating a door with brightly coloured glass panels. Two rooms flanking the stairwell mirror the east rooms and open into them. The room to the south accommodates the office and the priest breakfast room is to the north. A community dining room runs the length of the north wing and a former chapel occupies the south wing. Two decorative timber arches span the community room at the west end. The chapel ceiling is lined with decorative pressed metal and a decorative timber arch defines an alcove to the east. Ground floor partitions and other ceilings are lined with beaded tongue and groove boards. The ground floor west verandah retains its decorative screening, valance, lattice and criss-cross balustrading. The ground floor east and north verandah are enclosed with asbestos sheeting and banks of louvres and each has added partitioning.
\nThe upper floor works off a central corridor running north-south accommodating eight bedrooms to the west and six to the east. Timber arches mark the transition between the earlier central core and the wings. One west bedroom is partitioned into two bathrooms; one houses a lift and another has a partition removed and functions as a small sitting room. To accommodate built-in wardrobes in the east bedrooms one partition has been removed. The upper east rooms to the north and south wings have added partitioning providing additional bedrooms. Corridor partitions are post and rail lined with vertical boards to the corridor, the east wall single skin exposed frame is lined with horizontal boards to the rooms and the west wall is a combination of exposed frame single skin to the wings and chamferboard cladding to the 1883 core. Openings in the rooms at the north and south end of the 1883 core are boarded. The upper north verandah is enclosed with asbestos sheeting and louvres and accommodates bathrooms and an informal kitchen. The middle part of the west verandah is enclosed to provide a utilities room.
\nLawns with garden beds run from the front of the convent to the street. A perimeter fence comprising concrete piers and decorative wrought iron balustrading runs along The Strand and Fryer Street. Decorative wrought iron gates provide entrances from The Strand and Fryer Street. A concrete path runs from the pedestrian gate on The Strand to the front entrance.
","history":"St Patrick's Convent, the oldest known surviving purpose-built convent in Queensland is a timber framed two storey building, located on The Strand at Townsville. It was built for the Sisters of Mercy during 1883 and was a substantial improvement on an earlier one built for the Sisters of St Joseph. They had worked in the parish since 1872, establishing a school and convent, before leaving Townsville early in 1878. The Sisters of Mercy arrived later that year. This representative convent building has been the base for the Sisters of Mercy mission in North Queensland for almost 130 years.
Townsville was established as a port to service the pastoral lands of inland North Queensland. Founded in 1864 by John Melton Black and Robert Towns, after whom the city is named, it boomed following the discovery of gold in the late 1860s and early 1870s at the five nearby towns of Capeville, Ravenswood, Georgetown, Gilberton and Charters Towers. By the 1890s Townsville was the main port in North Queensland, superseding Bowen which was founded as Port Denison in 1861. Townsville's location provided a sheltered port in Cleveland Bay and Ross Creek, with road access to the interior. [1] This was complemented by the growth of railways to the west, the first stage of which was built to Charters Towers in 1882. [2] Early industries included wool, cattle grazing and mining. Townsville was, and continues to be, the main commercial centre supporting the inland settlements and the growth of the sugar industry along the coast.
Catholicism in Queensland expanded following separation, and the creation of the Diocese of Queensland. Newly appointed Bishop James Quinn arrived in Queensland, accompanied by five priests and five Sisters of Mercy, in May 1861. At the time the population of the Colony of Queensland was 30,059, with 7696 (39%) of these being Catholics. From 1866 both Anglican and Catholic visiting clergy held services in the courthouse in Townsville. In October 1868, Quinn acquired two adjoining parcels of land on the corner of Fryer Street and The Strand. [3] Father James Connolly was sent to Townsville in 1871, and St Joseph's Church and presbytery were built shortly after. The Anglicans built St James' Church in 1873 and established a school in 1877, predated by the National School, established in 1869. [4]
The Sisters of St Joseph, the order founded by Saint Mary MacKillop, arrived in Townsville in 1872, initially living in a couple of rooms at the rear of the presbytery. [5] In 1873 a small low-set shingle-roofed timber convent was built behind the church, and a school was established. The sisters taught around 100 students at that time, and it was the first convent school in North Queensland. [6] In 1876 tenders were called for the erection of a school house, and the following year, tenders were called for the removal and enlargement of the convent. [7] In 1877 the convent was relocated on the site and enlarged to eight rooms to accommodate orphans and boarders. [8] As a consequence of an argument between the sisters and the parish priest Father Connolly, the Sisters of St Joseph departed Townsville in March 1878, accompanied by 15 orphans, and then resided at the South Brisbane Convent. [9] By October 1879, the Sisters of St Joseph relocated to their Adelaide motherhouse, having been driven out of Queensland by Bishop Quinn. [10]
Father Connolly's successor in Townsville, Father William Walsh, who was to serve the parish for almost 30 years, arrived in August 1878. He reportedly requested the services of the Sisters of Mercy to resume the operation of the school, although this is likely to have been initiated by Bishop Quinn. Walsh quickly organised a bazaar to fund a new convent. [11] Prior to their arrival, Father Walsh had arranged for the existing convent house to be renovated and repainted and a shed was built to house the school and was being furnished.
The Sisters of Mercy arrived in November 1878. [12] The order had been founded in Ireland by Catherine McAuley in 1831, with a mission to improve social justice through educational, religious and social services to women and children who were at risk of homelessness, exploitation and entrenched poverty. In essence their commitment was in the service of the poor, sick and uneducated. [13] They were the preferred order of Bishop Quinn who when replacing the Sisters of St Joseph with the Sisters of Mercy in Mackay in 1879 stated: 'I want first class education given in all leading places'. [14] After Father Walsh acquired allotment 3 on Mitchell Street, [15] a boarding school known as St Patrick's, was re-established on this site during 1880. [16] The non-vested primary school remained named St Joseph's, situated in Fryer Street.
Bishop Quinn died in September 1881, and Italian priest Dr Cani became his temporary replacement. Robert Dunne was inducted into the role of Bishop of Queensland. However, in December Dr Cani was appointed to a new diocese of Rockhampton, created to service central and north Queensland. The Rockhampton Diocese was extensive, beginning just north of Bundaberg and reaching up to Halifax, west to the Northern Territory border, with its northern border just south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. [17] Far North Queensland was served by the Pro-Vicarate of North Queensland, established in 1876, which encompassed the area north of Halifax and included Cape York. [18] In 1881 the Sisters of Mercy in Townsville were teaching 130 girls, 87 boys and 188 infants. [19] During the following decade, the Sisters of Mercy took over schools in Charters Towers (1882) and Bowen (1885).
In the meantime, a new dormitory was added to St Patrick's boarding facilities by local architects and builders, Rooney Brothers. It opened in October 1882 and provided room for a further 18 beds. [20] The only other boarding school to have operated in Townsville prior to this was a small private establishment operated by Mrs Deakin O'Reilly in 1875. [21] The longevity of this establishment is unknown. Three other short- lived schools operated in the late 1870s through to the mid 1880s. The last of these, Dr Thomatis's grammar school operated briefly between 1881 and 1886. Townsville Grammar, established in 1888 [22] housed boarders, as did St Anne's Anglican girls' school, which started with six boarders in 1917 [23] thereby making St Patrick's the oldest operational boarding school in Townsville.
Construction commenced on the new St Patrick's Convent after Father Walsh acquired another allotment on The Strand [24] to the north of the church in 1882. The foundation stone for the convent was laid by Dr Cani on 21 January 1883. The ceremony included the admission of four novices into the convent and the initiation of the building fund. [25] The exact date of the building's completion is unknown. Photographs of this building depict a two storey timber colonial structure with verandahs to the front and sides and a small central gable. St Patrick's is the oldest extant purpose-built convent in Queensland. [26]
Rapid expansion in the region led to a growth in ecclesiastical buildings to service the population. Between 1876 and 1891, Townsville was the fastest growing region of Queensland with the town's population more than doubling from 5 410 in 1881 to 11 454 within the five years to 1886. [27] A second storey was added to St Patrick's boarding school in 1887. [28] During 1888 another church, St Mary's (QHR 600879) was established at West Townsville, as well as a school managed by the Sisters of Mercy, who travelled every day from The Strand.
The expansion of buildings in Fryer Street and on The Strand was not without setbacks. St Joseph's Church was dislodged from its foundations during major flooding in January 1892 and had to be demolished. Water also entered the convent grounds to a depth of six feet, partially undermining one corner of the building, as well as washing away some stumps of the home of architect Matthew Rooney in Fryer Street. The recently erected church belfry was left standing but listing at a 45 degree angle. [29] The flood resulted from a two-day rainfall of over 32 inches (81 cm). [30] After the flood, Mass was held in the school for many years. Fr Walsh resolved to build a church on higher ground and began planning for a large new church situated in Stanley Street, at the foot of Castle Hill. A design competition was held in 1894 and the resultant Church of the Sacred Heart, which opened in 1902, became known as the Townsville Cathedral (QHR 600939). At the time there was a perception that Townsville was soon to become the seat of a new diocese of North Queensland, excised from the northern part of the Rockhampton diocese. Despite the fact that there were 3000 Catholics in Townsville at the turn of the century, [31] the new diocese was not created until 1930.
The Sisters of Mercy initiated what is now the oldest operational high school for girls in Townsville. Early in 1892, they advertised the commencement of a University Class at St Patrick's Convent on The Strand. At the end of the year, it was reported that four students had passed their junior examinations. [32] By 1900 junior and senior examinations were offered, as well as teacher registration examinations at St Patrick's. [33] These exams were set by Sydney University until 1910 when Queensland University began setting its own papers based on the Sydney model. [34] At this time in Queensland, only private high schools such as Townsville Grammar existed. Established in 1888, it accepted its first female student in 1893 and became co-educational in 1905. Grammar Schools provided the only government-subsidised secondary education available in Queensland prior to 1912 when state high schools were established. While the Thomatis's Grammar School did offer high school places for girls, it was a short-lived operation (1881-1886). [35] St Patrick's preceded Townville Grammar by one year in providing high school education for girls.
In response to continued growth in the region St Patrick's Convent was dramatically extended and renovated in 1900 by local contractor Mr William Dawson. The original gable roofed 1883 core of the building had verandahs to the front and sides on both levels. Wings were added to the north and south ends of the structure altering the building's appearance from The Strand. It was then dominated by the two prominent steeply pitched gable roofs sheltering the end wings and a tall pyramidal roof marking the central entry porch. The alterations included decorative treatments of the carpenter Gothic style to the front elevation and verandahs, including quatrefoil windows to the gable infills and to a decorative panel to the tower, pointed arch windows with hood moulds, pointed arch valances and decorative screens.
A newspaper article published in the North Queensland Herald in November 1900 described the newly renovated building: The ground floor of the south wing comprised a chapel for the Sisters of Mercy, being 40 ft by 16 ft (12 m by 4.9 m), which boasted a highly ornamental ceiling, paintings on the walls and an ornate altar. The chapel opened onto both front and rear verandahs of the building, and also led to the high school room in the north wing. Its size replicated that of the chapel with 14 ft (4.2 m) wall plates and included similar decorative features. The rear verandah was 90 ft (27 m) long and 9 ft (2.7 m) wide and was enclosed with lattice. The first floor housed a community room above the chapel with views across the harbour. The 80 ft (24 m) corridor had bedrooms on either side. The upper floor on the northern wing contained five rooms. The front balcony was 130 ft (39.6 m) and 9 ft (2.7 m) wide. [36] No architect has been identified, although it is possibly the work of the Rooney Brothers, who had undertaken previous work for the Sisters of Mercy; or possibly the work of WG Smith and Sons who designed St Mary's convent in Charters Towers for the Sisters of Mercy in 1891-2 and are know to have been Catholics, with WG Smith's daughter' wedding ceremony held at St Patrick's convent in 1898. [37]
In late nineteenth century convent design, the convention was to distinguish between public and private uses and spheres within the building. The plans for St Patrick's demonstrate this: the room to the north of the entry hall was the visitor parlour; the room to the south was the priest's vestry; the room to the west of the visitor parlour was the priest's breakfast room; and the internal stairwell rising to the bedrooms above is screened from the entrance hall. These planning arrangements demonstrate the law of enclosure regulating life within the convent. Public access to the chapel was generally limited to the celebrations involving the induction of novices. Some convents also provided boarding facilities, but St Patrick's already had separate boarding accommodation, so boarders were not accommodated in the convent.
Townsville's location in the tropical north meant it was regularly impacted by significant weather events. Cyclone Leonta struck on 9 March 1903, and the deaths of seven patients in the wrecked hospital may be attributed to it. The brick Grammar School was partially demolished. The roof was torn from the Sacred Heart Cathedral. There was little impact to St Patrick's Convent although the school buildings sustained some damage. [38]
A number of administrative changes occurred to the Sisters of Mercy around the turn of the century, with ongoing building projects occurring into the early twentieth century. Bishop Cani died in March 1898 and was replaced by Bishop Higgins. He invited the Josephite nuns to return to Queensland and they opened a school in Clermont in 1900. [39] In 1901 the Sisters of Mercy severed their links with the Rockhampton Community, of which they had been part since 1873.
A new era began for the Sisters of Mercy in North Queensland, continuing throughout the twentieth century. Many new convent and church buildings were constructed as part of the ongoing development of the region. Mary Benigna Desmond became the Mother Superior of the Townsville community from 1901, making St Patrick's the Motherhouse. At the time the sisters had branches in Bowen, Ravenswood, and Winton, with 36 nuns teaching 800 children. An important component of the growth of the order in North Queensland was the establishment of a Novitiate, or training house, in 1901 in the grounds of St Patrick's. The Sisters of Mercy opened another school in South Townsville in 1904. [40] In December 1905 Bishop Higgins was transferred to Ballarat and James Duhig was consecrated as Bishop of Rockhampton. Duhig dedicated St Patrick's High School [41] adjacent to the convent on The Strand in Townsville costing £3100 in October 1911, reputedly designed by Mother Bernadine. On the same day he dedicated a new altar to Father Walsh, who died in 1908, at the Sacred Heart Church. [42] In 1917, the Sisters of Mercy opened a new convent at St Mary's at West Townsville, in a house relocated to the site for the purpose (QHR 600879). A new St Joseph's Church was built in Fryer Street in 1921 (QHR 602130). A hostel known as St Rita's was opened in an old house relocated to The Strand to the north of the convent, reputedly in the early 1900s. It provided accommodation for young women from country areas working in Townsville. [43]
The interwar years saw ongoing expansion of the church's activities in North Queensland. A submission was made to Rome in 1927 to create the new diocese of Townsville. At the time there were 22,000 Catholics in the proposed diocese, 6000 of them being in Townsville. Catholics in this region comprised 24 per cent of the population, compared with 18.9 per cent as the national average. [44] The diocese was created on 25 May 1930 under Bishop Terence McGuire. [45] This event had been preceded by the celebrations of the golden jubilee of the Sisters of Mercy in August 1929, attended by 60 sisters. At that time they were educating around 2000 children in the North Queensland towns of Bowen, Ravenswood, West End (Townsville), South Townsville, Ingham, Proserpine, Halifax and Home Hill. [46]
The existence of the Novitiate was integral to this growth with 50 Australian-born women entering St Patrick's Convent from 1901 until 1990 and the motherhouse continuing to receive sisters from Ireland. In 1926 there was a massive intake of 35 Irish sisters. [47] The chapel was the site of ritual celebration and ceremony for the induction of postulants, and newspaper articles described the events in great detail including the attire of the newly blessed novices and the chapel's floral arrangements and the attendance of their friends and relatives. [48]
Further expansion of educational facilities occurred during the 1930s. A new catholic school was built at Garbutt's Siding in June 1933. [49] Rosario Infants School opened on The Strand in 1935, pioneering the Montessori Method of infant teaching in North Queensland. [50] In 1936 the Little Flower Academy, a concrete and timber building, opened on the site of the old St Rita's hostel, the operations of which were relocated to the presbytery. The Bishop vacated the old presbytery and moved to Stanley Street near the Cathedral. [51] The Little Flower Academy was a commercial and domestic science building designed by JG Rooney and built by W Hammond. [52] According to Bishop Maguire, these subjects would equip a young lady with the education she needed to exert and influence good in the world. [53] St Patrick's Convent remained the home from which the Sisters of Mercy went out to conduct the core activities of their mission. Other convents were added to Townsville during 1936, including those for the Sisters of St Joseph, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan and a Sisters of Mercy convent at Railway Estate. [54] Bishop McGuire also found ways of financing holidays for the sisters to Bowen or a similar seaside retreat, and St Patrick's in more recent years has served that purpose for sisters from throughout the diocese.
During World War II many buildings on The Strand were used by the military including St Patrick's Convent, St Rita's, the school and the Little Flower Academy-all occupied by the Women's Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF). The sisters were vacated to other convents, day students were taught at West End and the boarding students were relocated to Ravenswood and Winton. The WAAAF vacated the buildings in June 1945. In July, the church advertised in the local press that the buildings were undergoing painting, repairs and renovations and were expected to be ready for occupation in September. [55] The exact nature of the renovations is unknown. The fibro cladding on the exterior of the building was installed between the late 1950s [56] and 1964, [57] and included the enclosure of the front verandahs, reusing existing sash windows on the upper floor and installing louvres on the lower floor. The central spire was removed and replaced with a gabled entry porch at the ground level.
A new bishop, Dr Hugh Edward Ryan, was appointed to Townsville in 1938. Shortly before the end of the war, he was able to fulfil the dream of his predecessor Bishop McGuire, in establishing a Catholic hospital in Townsville. In February 1945 local doctor, Dr Halberstater handed over his small private hospital, 'Lister', to the Sisters of Mercy. [58] The establishment of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital fulfilled another aspect of the mission of the Sisters of Mercy: serving the sick. In April 1954, fundraising began for a new Mater Hospital. The 50 bed hospital was opened in Fulham Road, Pimlico in 1962. Another wing was added in 1967, and further extensions in 1979 and 1983. In the meantime the sisters also ventured into aged care with the establishment of Villa Vincent in the suburb of Gulliver in 1964. Villa McAuley retirement accommodation was established nearby in 1979 and was extended in 1980 and 1982. [59] Bishop Ryan retired in 1967 having overseen dramatic changes in the Townsville Diocese since 1938, including a doubling of the population of Catholics, which was reflected in the number of priests, brothers (from 15 to 38) and nuns (from 143 to 211) in the community.
The most dramatic changes to the Sisters of Mercy site on The Strand occurred during the late twentieth century. New buildings were added including a chapel on the site of St Rita's (the old presbytery) in 1959, a new science block and classrooms in 1963; another new building for St Patrick's high school and the Loreto Infirmary in 1968 which provided aged care for nuns. In December 1971, Cyclone Althea damaged St Patrick's Convent, tearing off part of the roof of the north and south gables [60] causing internal water damage. [61] Some cladding was broken on the front enclosed verandah on the first floor. The sash windows were replaced with louvres sometime after the cyclone. In 1978 Commonwealth funding allowed for the upgrade of boarder's facilities and another science block. [62] The 1911 high school building adjacent to the convent was demolished and replaced with a brick dormitory building of a similar style in the mid 1980s. [63] The Little Flower Academy developed 'concrete cancer' and was replaced by a new administrative building which opened in 1991, retaining the name St Theresa's. [64]
St Patrick's College on The Strand in Townsville operates as the Mercy Catholic Secondary Day and Residential College, adjacent to St Joseph's Church and primary school. A dramatic fall in the number of religious staff generally in Catholic schools occurred during the late twentieth century, with numbers of brothers and nuns in the Townsville diocese dropping from 99 to 50 between 1967 and 1971, and down to 31 religious teachers in 1983. In September 2008, St Joseph's Church hosted the Jubilee celebrations of ten sisters serving the diocese. Eight had served for 50 years, one 60 years, and Sister Mary Pius Carrol, 70 years. In 2011 the convent housed the last remaining sisters, having also served as a place of retreat and relaxation for nuns of the Townsville Diocese for many years.
A decorative fence with concrete pillars and metal palisade panels is located on the boundary with The Strand and along Fryer Street to St Joseph's Church. It may have been built at the same time as the church in 1921. Photographic evidence indicates it pre-dates 1933. Two gates are retained in Fryer Street which would have provided access to the old presbytery; one a pedestrian gate and a vehicle access gate. Three more pedestrian gates are situated along The Strand accessing the convent and the other buildings to the north.
","criteria":"St Patrick's Convent is the oldest known surviving purpose-built convent in Queensland. The convent, home to Townsville's Sisters of Mercy since 1883, is important in demonstrating the way of life of a religious order that has made a significant contribution to the development of Queensland, particularly in relation to the provision of education and health care. It also serves as a place of retreat for sisters ministering elsewhere in the diocese.
St Patrick's Convent is a product of the establishment phase of Catholic primary and secondary education in North Queensland when its institutions spread out from Brisbane to newly emerging settlements around the colony. From 1892 the convent accommodated classes for St Patrick's high school, now the oldest operational high school for girls in Townsville.
St Patrick's Convent illustrates the pattern of development of Townsville, the major commercial centre of North Queensland. The region's wealth, initially generated through mining, pastoral and agricultural pursuits, led to the establishment of the port of Townsville and numerous schools, to serve the population. The ongoing development of the school site is evidence of the growth and prosperity of the city.
|The building has had a special association with the Sisters of Mercy since its construction in 1883, and was the Motherhouse for the order in the Townsville region from 1901. The Sisters of Mercy have provided education in the region since 1878, building many schools across the Townsville diocese including establishing the oldest operational high school for girls in St Patrick's. The chapel in the southern wing regularly received novices into the order, and the ritual celebrations at these events attended by the sisters' friends and families served to publicly acknowledge and promote the role of the Sisters of Mercy in Queensland in the upkeep of Catholic traditions. The sisters established the Mater Hospital in Townsville, as well as aged care facilities, to fulfil their mission of providing for the poor, the sick and the uneducated. The convent occupies a prominent position within the campus of St Patrick's College, Townsville, demonstrating the ongoing commitment of the Sisters of Mercy to their mission in Queensland.
|St Patrick's Convent demonstrates the principal characteristics of a convent, built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries including an internal separation of private and public spaces and having a dominant street presence on a prominent site in the town. The convent plan includes a chapel, community room, dining room, visitor parlour, priest breakfast room, vestry and bedroom cells. The small and austere bedroom cells on the upper floor are representative of the vow of poverty taken by the sisters, as are the modest and functional spaces and restrained use of decorative treatments throughout the convent, reflecting the philosophy of the Sisters of Mercy in their mission to serve the poor, the sick and the uneducated.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32294,"place_ref":602797,"name":"Drill Shed, Caretaker's Cottage and Orderly Room (former), Water Street","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"342 Water Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2011-12-02","description":"The former Water Street drill shed, caretaker's cottage and orderly room are collected at the rear (at the north-east) of a large mixed-use development site bounded by Water Street to the south and Brunswick Street to the west. In 2014 the heritage place is surrounded by medium density residential and office developments. The ground plane slopes up from Water Street towards the rear boundary on the north-western side, where the former drill shed, caretaker's cottage and orderly room are located. Facing south-east, these buildings overlook the site from the highest point.
\nDrill shed
\nThe drill shed is a single-storey, weatherboard-clad, timber-framed building standing on concrete stumps at the front and slab-on-ground at the rear. Situated close to the rear boundary, the long axis of the building is aligned approximately north-east to south-west. The main gable roof is clad in corrugated metal sheeting and has a gable-roofed ventilating ridge running nearly its full length. The north-west side of the building has a skillion roof attached to the main roof. Two skillion-roofed additions on concrete stumps are attached to the north-east and south-west sides of the building. A modern verandah of timber construction runs along the south-east and north-east façades - this structure is not of heritage significance.
\nThe main entrance is through the centre of the south-east façade, now accessed by the modern verandah. This doorway consists of two large sliding timber ledged-and-braced doors. A small hatch door is built into the eastern panel and the western door panel has had a modern doorway cut into it. Rows of timber-framed casement windows on either side of the main entrance occupy openings that once housed timber awning shutters.
\nThe north-eastern and south-western facades each retain a single window opening with casements that match those on the main façade. A single timber-battened door with hood is located at the rear of the south-western façade, while a modern flush door is located at the rear of the north-eastern façade. The north-eastern addition is mostly clad in weatherboards with modern French doors opening onto the verandah. Its rear wall is clad in corrugated metal sheeting with a timber hood over a small window. The south-western addition is clad entirely in corrugated metal sheeting, with timber framed double hung sash windows. It has a timber battened door with fanlight on the south-eastern side. A small timber staircase with portico provides access to this door. Windows along the rear north-west facade are timber-framed, eight-light awning windows grouped in five pairs with one solitary window. A concrete spoon drain runs along the base of this wall.
\nThe layout of the drill shed consists of a large hall with a series of five rooms along the north-west side. Eight doors lead to these rooms however only three are operational. Doors in the north-east and south-west walls lead to the two side additions. A ceiling has been installed in the hall area, attached to the bottom chord of the timber roof trusses but with diagonal timber supporting members protruding through it along the north-west and south-east sides. The walls are lined with timber tongue-and-groove boards; vertical v-jointed boards on the north-east, south-east and south-west walls; and wide horizontal beaded boards on the north-west wall. A timber belt rail and timber skirting run around the entire hall. The floor is lined with narrow polished timber boards. Of the eight doors along the north-west wall, six are matching timber-battened doors, some with early door hardware. The door at the western end is of a similar style but made from narrower timber boards, while the door at the eastern end is a modern double door.
\nWall linings in the rooms along the north-west side of the hall retain some original wide beaded boards, while other areas have v-jointed boards or fibre cement sheeting. Openings have been cut into the dividing walls between four of the rooms however the layout and size of each of the rooms is still apparent. Several of the doors into the hall have been sheeted over on this side.
\nThe two side additions are single rectangular rooms. The interior of the north-eastern addition has been relined with modern materials and a kitchenette installed at the northern end. The south-western addition is lined with v-jointed boards on the walls and ceiling.
\nCaretaker's Cottage
\nThe cottage is a high-set, timber-framed building with weatherboard cladding and a hipped roof. Located close to the northernmost corner of the site, it has two skillion-roofed additions to the rear - a corrugated iron clad shed (formerly the laundry) and a modern extension clad in fibre cement sheeting. These two additions are not of heritage significance.
\nWindows along the south-west façade of the cottage are two-light, timber-framed sash windows. An extension along the north-east side of the building was once a verandah but is now enclosed with fibro sheeting. The front verandah, accessed by a central timber staircase, has been enclosed with fibre-cement sheeting and sliding windows but retains the single skin verandah wall, a double-hung sash window, timber verandah posts and balustrade. The core of the house consists of four rooms with a corridor running between the two front rooms. Most walls are single-skin lined with vertical v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards. Some internal doors are high-waisted interwar style. The rear verandah, now enclosed, separates the core from the former kitchen in the north-east corner, now used as office space with doors leading into the modern extension on the northern side. A bathroom at the eastern end of the verandah leads through to a room in the north-east extension. A built-in cupboard made from timber v-jointed boards remains near the entrance to the bathroom.
\nOrderly room
\nThe former orderly room is a timber-framed, weatherboard-clad building standing adjacent to the south-western side of the drill shed. It is single-storey, has a corrugated metal-clad gable roof, and is set off the ground on timber posts. Parts having been demolished, a range of temporary measures have been employed to support and enclose the building. The building retains a short section of verandah running along its southern side. The verandah has stop-chamfered timber posts and the ceiling is lined with wide, beaded timber boards. Two six-light double-hung sash windows feature on the building's eastern and northern elevations. A single, flat-sheeted door opens onto the south-facing verandah, as do two double-hung sashes above a narrow timber counter mounted with simple timber brackets against the wall. The interior of the building contains two rooms. Sections of the interior of the building have been lined with modern materials.
","history":"The large timber drill shed located between Water Street and Gregory Terrace, Fortitude Valley, was originally erected in 1884 in Boundary Street, Fortitude Valley, for infantry units of the Queensland Volunteer Force, prior to the creation of the Queensland Defence Force. The drill shed is the oldest known surviving drill shed in Queensland and the only one with a gable-roofed design. It is also the last survivor of Brisbane's pre-Federation drill sheds. It was transferred to the Commonwealth in 1901 and was moved to its current site in 1925, along with its adjacent timber caretaker's cottage and an orderly room built in 1885 for the Moreton Mounted Infantry. The orderly room was the core of an office building south of the drill shed until its twentieth century additions were demolished and the remaining structure moved next to the drill shed in 2013. As a group, the three colonial era defence buildings are uncommon, and as a pair the drill shed and its accompanying cottage may be a unique surviving example in Queensland.
Upon separation from New South Wales in 1859 Queensland had no military defence, as Brisbane's British garrison (a detachment of the 11th Regiment) had been withdrawn in 1850. The first Governor of the new colony of Queensland, Sir George Bowen, lobbied for a company of British regular soldiers, but it was not until January 1861 that Brisbane received a detachment of the 12th Regiment. A larger unit was not available until a company of the 50th Regiment arrived in October 1866, fresh from campaigning in southern Taranaki, New Zealand. [1] A detachment of Royal Marines was also located at Somerset, Cape York, from 1864 to 1867. The 50th Regiment departed Brisbane in March 1869, and the last of the British regiments left Australia in 1870.
During the 1860s the small number of British regular soldiers in Queensland was supplemented by local forces and Governor Bowen accepted the services of local volunteers in a number of Queensland towns from 1860. The Brisbane Troop, Queensland Mounted Rifles, existed from February 1860 to May 1863. Also in Brisbane, No. 1 and 2 Companies, Queensland Volunteer Rifle Brigade (QVRB) began training in September 1860 (disbanded in 1865). The Queensland Volunteer Artillery was gazetted in Brisbane in August 1862.
More units were raised in Brisbane in 1867, including the Brisbane Volunteer Rifle Corps (later 'A' Company of the 1st Regiment of Queensland Infantry from June 1879, and then 'A' Company of the 1st Queenslanders (or Moreton) Regiment from February 1885); and the Spring Hill and Fortitude Valley Rifle Corps, which later became 'B' Company, 1st Queenslanders Regiment. No. 7 Company (South Brisbane) of the QVRB was raised in 1870, but only lasted until 1872. [2]
The volunteers' training was supervised by members of the 50th Regiment during the late 1860s. However, limited interest and funding continued to hamper the volunteer movement until the late 1870s, when tensions between Britain and Russia raised concerns regarding the vulnerability of Britain's overseas colonies. Colonel Sir William Jervois of the Royal Engineers, assisted by Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Scratchley, toured the Australian colonies to make recommendations for defence arrangements and the pair visited Queensland in August 1877. In order to deal with the perceived Russian naval threat to Brisbane, they recommended small naval vessels, a coastal fort at Lytton (built 1881), and a field force of infantry and engineers with artillery.
Another recommendation was to form a permanent staff to train the volunteers. The Volunteer Act 1878 established a permanent staff of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs), the latter to act as drill instructors, and a professional Commandant was appointed in April 1878. By 1880 the staff included 10 officers and 6 NCOs in Brisbane, plus 2 NCOs in Ipswich, and one each in Toowoomba, Warwick, Rockhampton and Maryborough. [3]
During the late 1870s more volunteer units were formed in Queensland. In Brisbane these included the Queensland Rangers Volunteer Corps, No. 12 Company (1877); and 'D' Company, formed in 1878 as part of the new Metropolitan Administrative Battalion (later part of the 1st Queenslanders). The Queensland Volunteer Artillery Brigade, formed in June 1879, included No.1 Battery Brisbane, No. 2 Battery Ipswich, No. 3 (Garrison) Battery Brisbane, and the Brisbane Engineers.
Jervois' defence scheme came closer to fruition in January 1882, when a Military Committee of Enquiry was appointed in Queensland. The committee recommended a mixed force, with a permanent staff based in Brisbane, a volunteer militia centred on Brisbane, plus country and coastal units as (unpaid) volunteers. This hybrid force of professionals, militia and volunteers was given legislative form by the Defence Act 1884, after the instigation of Scratchley's pay scales for militia under an October 1882 regulation. An experienced Imperial officer was also appointed Commandant in mid 1883, namely, Colonel George French, Royal Artillery. [4]
When the Defence Act was gazetted in February 1885 the Queensland Volunteer Force became the Queensland Defence Force (QDF). That month, 'A' Battery of the artillery was created as a permanent unit, intended to instruct the militia artillery, engineers, plus officers and NCOs of other units. Although permanent staff existed outside 'A' battery, including HQ staff and Sergeant Instructors, the latter could be attached to 'A' Battery for accommodation purposes. [5]
As a result of these reforms the QDF had a four tier system until 1903. This consisted of a small permanent force of paid professionals (officers and instructors), while the bulk of force was militia (paid to drill and train, provided with uniforms, weapons ammunition and instruction); the third tier were volunteers who were unpaid and who paid for own uniforms while receiving weapons, ammunition and instruction; and a fourth tier consisted of the police, cadets, and rifle clubs. Another war scare, this time over Russian-British tensions over Afghanistan in April-May 1885, provided a timely boost to recruitment for the QDF's militia and volunteer units.
The 1st Queenslanders (or Moreton) Regiment (militia) was established February 1885 from the existing four companies of the former 1st Regiment of Queensland Infantry, an Ipswich company of the former 2nd Regiment, and a new Brisbane company. In the 1880s the Moreton Regiment was one of Queensland's largest militia infantry formations. By 1889 Queensland's militia regiments included the Moreton Regiment, the Wide Bay Regiment, the Kennedy Regiment, and the Darling Downs Regiment. Of the Moreton Regiment's units, 'A' Company was located in Fortitude Valley, 'B' in Spring Hill, 'C' in North Brisbane, 'D' in South Brisbane, and 'E' in Kangaroo Point. In 1903 the Moreton Regiment became the 9th Australian Infantry Regiment, which later served in World War I (as the 9th Battalion, Moreton Regiment) at Gallipoli, Pozières, Ypres, and opposing Germany's Operation Michael, at a total cost of 1,094 killed and 2,422 wounded. [6]
Other infantry units in Brisbane included the Brisbane Volunteer Rifle Corps (including various volunteer companies from 1885, becoming the Queensland Volunteer Rifles (QVR) in 1891); the Queensland Scottish Volunteer Corps (in 1885-86 three companies were formed in Brisbane and two survived to be incorporated into the QVR in 1896); and the Queensland Irish Volunteer Corps (two companies formed in 1887, absorbed into the QVR in 1896).
As well as infantry and artillery units, mounted units were formed in Brisbane during the 1880s. These included the short-lived Brisbane Mounted Volunteer Rifle Brigade, and the Brisbane Company Mounted Infantry. The latter was formed in March 1884, became the Brisbane Mounted Infantry (militia) in February 1885 and was renamed the Moreton Mounted Infantry in May 1885. The Moreton Mounted Infantry was the largest of Queensland's militia mounted infantry formations. It became part of the Queensland Mounted Infantry (QMI) in 1897 and part of the 13th Australian Light Horse (QMI) Regiment in 1903. This was later redesignated as the 2nd ALH (QMI), and members of this unit enlisted in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment to serve during World War I at Gallipoli and in Palestine.
Accompanying the burgeoning number of military units in Brisbane and the rest of Queensland was a need for places where the permanent force, militia or volunteers could assemble, store their weapons, and practice military drill. Drill sheds had existed in Brisbane from at least the 1870s, with an artillery drill shed in George Street by August 1876, [7] and an infantry drill shed at the (Roma Street) railway station by 1879. [8] Tenders for a brick artillery drill shed (located between Adelaide Street and Ann Street opposite today's Central Railway Station) were received in August 1878, and it was completed by February 1880. [9] In the late 1870s drill sheds were also built at Ipswich, Rockhampton, Maryborough and Toowoomba, with a rented building in Warwick. A stone drill shed was also built at the Victoria Barracks on Petrie Terrace in circa 1887.
The Boundary Street drill shed, the last survivor of the pre-Federation Brisbane drill sheds, and the oldest of the seven Queensland pre-Federation drill sheds known to exist, was built in 1884 to replace the late 1870s drill shed near the Roma Street Railway Station. [10] It is the only surviving drill shed built prior to the creation of the QDF in 1885, and it is the only gable-roofed pre-Federation example to survive. All the other surviving pre-Federation drill sheds in Queensland have a curved-roof design. The latter may have been built to a standard design introduced in 1884, and used iron roof trusses. [11] In December 1885, Queensland's Colonial Architect, John James Clark, resigned and was replaced by George Connolly, who held that position until 1891.
The Defence Act 1884 resulted in a burst of construction of drill sheds until 1891, when the economic depression of the early 1890s reduced defence spending. New drill sheds were constructed in Brisbane at Peel Street (South Brisbane) and at Woolloongabba. Elsewhere in Queensland new or replacement drill sheds were erected in Cairns, Townsville, Ravenswood, Charters Towers (1886, extant, Church Street), Bowen, Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg (1889, extant, west of Maryborough Street), Gympie (1885, section still extant, moved to Everson lane), Ipswich (1891, extant, Milford Street), Bundamba (1891, extant, moved to Boonah in 1899), Southport (1891, extant, Queen Street), Dalby and Warwick. In the late 1890s drill sheds were built at Gatton, Roma and Thursday Island. A submarine mining drill shed was built at Alice Street, Brisbane in 1900, and a naval drill hall was built in Maryborough in 1901. [12]
In some locations, caretaker's cottages were built near the drill sheds, probably to provide security for weapons stored in the buildings. Such cottages were built at Mackay, Peel Street (South Brisbane), Woolloongabba, Victoria Barracks, Ipswich, Maryborough and Warwick. At least some of these cottages housed the local drill instructor; for example in Ipswich until early 1901 the caretaker and infantry drill instructor was Quarter-Master Sergeant Hoare. [13] Other caretaker's cottages were built near rifle ranges.
An October 1883 plan of the drill shed eventually built at Boundary Street was signed by the contractor, William Watson, and by Henry [Charles] Stanley, Chief Engineer [for Railways]. This plan show a 75 foot by 45 foot (22.9 m by 13.7 m) gabled hall, with a 15 foot (4.6 m) skillion roofed extension along the rear elevation, comprising six rooms entered by eight doors. These probably included an orderly room, as well as armouries for the weapons of various infantry companies. This layout, of an open hall with smaller rooms arranged along one or more elevations, seems to have been a standard arrangement for drill sheds. [14] A small room is sketched on the plan on the left hand side (from the front) of the building, and this room exists as an office on an 1921 plan of the Boundary Street site; but by the time the drill shed was at Water Street this office was on the right hand side.
It appears the original intention was to erect the drill shed in Turbot Street, behind the Ann Street School of Arts, but in December 1883 the latter's members were concerned that the military band might annoy those taking classes - not to mention the mothers at the adjacent lying-in hospital! [15] Another rejected proposal was a site at the corner of Ann and Creek Streets, (now the Central Railway Station), which was close to the Adelaide Street artillery drill shed.
By March 1884 John James Clark had completed plans for a parade ground and drill shed on the Industrial School Reserve on the north side of Boundary Street near Petrie's Bight, to the east of St James's School. The Brisbane Courier of 20 March 1884 noted that 'The design is very plain, but the building will be in every respect suitable for its purpose'. The parade ground of 4 chains by 2.5 chains (80 m by 50 m) was located between today's School Street and Barry Parade and was accessed by a lane from Wickham Street.
The drill shed, completed by November 1884, was located at the rear (north) of the parade ground and was described as 'large, commodious, and well ventilated by means of shutters and a fine lantern roof'. [16] It originally had a shingle roof, although the roof was replaced with iron in two stages, between 1900 and 1908. [17]
In May 1884 there were also requests for an orderly room, armoury, saddle room and stalls on the land reserved for an infantry drill shed at Boundary Street, for the Brisbane Company Mounted Infantry (later the Moreton Mounted Infantry). [18] Tenders were called for a mounted infantry shed in August 1884, but this was not built until mid 1885.
In January 1885 the tender of George Bowser was accepted for levelling and fencing the parade ground, and infantry and mounted infantry were mustering at the Boundary Street drill shed by March 1885. [19] The main units using the Boundary Street site in 1885 were the 1st Queenslanders (Moreton) Regiment and the Moreton Mounted Infantry. Other units that later used the drill shed included the Queensland Irish Volunteer Corps, who were using a room by 1891; and the Brisbane Cyclist Company of the 6th Infantry Regiment, Queensland Rifles, who were present in early 1901. The 6th Regiment and its Cyclist Corps were formed in November 1900, and passed into Commonwealth service in 1901. By July 1903 the drill shed was also used by 'A' Company of the Queensland Volunteer Rifles. [20]
A plan of the site dated late 1884/early 1885 and signed by George Bowser shows the stables occupying the southern boundary (Boundary Street end) of the parade ground, with a harness and orderly room to the west of the stables. The drill shed was located at the west side of the north end of the parade ground, with the sergeant's quarters and a 'new' detached kitchen to the east of the drill shed. [21]
The sergeant's quarters was erected for Staff Sergeant-Major Patrick Joseph Gubbins, who was the caretaker for the drill shed and also a drill instructor for the infantry. It was decided that, as the Railway Department had 'taken the [former] infantry drill shed for their offices, and put up another instead in old Boundary Street', [22] then the Railway Department should either take over the cottage adjacent to the old drill shed and build Gubbins a new residence at Boundary Street, or move the old cottage.
In November 1884 figures were given for moving Gubbin's cottage to Boundary Street, lining and painting it and building a new kitchen and it is likely that this occurred, rather than a new cottage being built. [23] In 1893 the cottage at Boundary Street was referred to as being 'very old'. [24] The cottage was erected at Boundary Street after May 1885, when the officer commanding the 1st Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Mein, noted that a caretaker's residence was urgently required at Boundary Street, as until a responsible person was resident on the spot, it would be unsafe to allow the rifles to remain in the drill shed. [25]
Gubbins, born in Ireland, served with British 80th Regiment (Staffordshire Volunteers) in the Burmese War of 1852-53 and the Bhutan expedition of 1865. He arrived in Queensland in 1875 and joined the Volunteer Force, acting as instructor to the Grammar School Cadets and then the 1st Queenslanders and other corps. During the late 1880s he drilled Companies 'A', 'B' and 'C' of the 1st Queenslanders. In 1889 he was one of the 17 NCOs who were paid instructors of the QDF, and in February 1899 he received long service (39 years) and good conduct medals. He died on 18 August 1901, aged 70, while serving as Staff Paymaster-Sergeant, and his military funeral travelled from the cottage at Boundary Street to the Toowong Cemetery. [26]
A bathroom was added to the cottage in 1907, on a concrete floor next to the kitchen, and by 1921 the cottage had been extended back to the kitchen. [27] However, when it was moved to Water Street in 1925 a new rear area and kitchen appear to have been built. [28] Despite this, the front four rooms and front verandah of the current cottage at Water Street date from at least 1885, and possibly the late 1870s.
After the Boundary Street buildings and Queensland's other defence assets passed to the Commonwealth in March 1901, some changes were made to the orderly room, which by June 1902 served 'A' and 'B' Squadrons of the 1st Battalion, Queensland Mounted Infantry. The orderly room (actually a building comprising three rooms, including an office, store and orderly room) was extended c.1905, with the addition of a Quartermaster Sergeant's store at the east end, which required a truncation of the adjacent stables, and a new front verandah with two sets of steps. [29] By this time the orderly room was used by the 13th Australian Light Horse Regiment. The partition between the two westernmost rooms had been removed by 1921, meaning that the orderly room consisted of three rooms when it was moved to Water Street in 1925.
Other buildings at the Boundary Street site prior to the relocation to Water Street included corrugated iron clad, skillion roofed machine gun and harness rooms built in 1907 just north of the orderly room, [30] and a machine gun room and storage room built 1909-10 within the west end of the stables.
The Boundary Street drill shed became a training base for the newly created militia forces of the Commonwealth. The Defence Act 1909 (in force January 1911) introduced compulsory part-time military training for all males 12 and over. After World War I, the Commonwealth Government re-introduced compulsory military training.
By the 1920s the Boundary Street site was considered unsuitable for military training, as it was small and surrounded by urban development. An exchange of land between the Commonwealth and the Queensland Governments was first proposed in 1923 and the Boundary Street drill shed, caretaker's cottage, orderly room, and both sets of machine gun rooms and harness/store rooms were relocated and re-erected at the Water Street site around the end of 1925. Throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century, drill sheds were often moved to meet immediate needs.
At Water Street, the drill shed was again placed to the rear, left hand side of the parade ground, with the caretaker's cottage to the right. By 1925 the drill shed only had five rooms at the rear, a partition having been removed, and these rooms had a tar-paved floor, while the main hall had been raised on stumps due to the slope of the ground. [31]
In November 1929 the Commonwealth abolished compulsory military training. Water Street was used as a training depot for infantry militia companies, often known as the Australian Military Forces (AMF), rather than for permanent Army personnel. The drill shed was the Regimental Headquarters of the 9/15th Battalion (Moreton and Oxley Regiment) from at least 1932. [32] In addition to the depot's purpose as a training venue, its drill shed was, in particular, used regularly for dances and other regimental social functions by the Battalion officers' mess.
In 1934 the office on the right (northeast) elevation of the drill shed, by then a mess room, was extended to the front of the drill shed, and in 1935 a sergeant's mess was added to the left (southwest) elevation. Verandahs have been added to the southeast and northeast elevations of the drill shed since 1990, and partitions have been partially removed between the four easternmost rooms to the rear of the hall.
Additions to the cottage have also occurred. By 1948 the cottage had a verandah added to its northeast elevation. In 1951 it was occupied by Captain TE Hayes, Camp Commandant, Northern Command. [33] A new, larger laundry existed by 1962, and the cottage has since had a modern extension added to the rear of the kitchen. In 2011 it was being used as offices by the Endeavour College of Natural Health.
The orderly room appears to have been initially set on the north-east boundary of the site (with a single set of steps to the verandah), before being shifted to the south-west boundary by 1934. [34] A new wing was added to the north-west end of the orderly room before 1946, forming an 'L' shaped building, and another extension occurred at the south-east end post 1962. [35] In 1963 it was occupied by a Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps (RAANC) training unit, and in 2011 it was used as offices by the Endeavour College. In 2013, as part of approved demolition, the twentieth century extensions were demolished and the building relocated adjacent to the south-western side of the drill shed, set off from it about two metres.
The two sets of machine gun rooms and harness/store rooms from Boundary Street were erected on the north-east boundary of the Water Street site near the cottage, but these were replaced circa 1948 with a garage and workshop. After 1925 there were toilets along the south-west boundary of the site, between the drill shed and the second location of the orderly room, but these were replaced by a new toilet block in 1953.
After the outbreak of World War II on 3 September 1939, the drill shed was one of just three AMF depots in Brisbane selected by the Federal Government to accept and process the volunteers enlisting as part of Queensland's contribution to the new 2nd Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF). At the same time, the depot continued to accept new recruits wishing to join the militia, which could serve only within Australian territory. In June 1940, after the fall of France, compulsory home service (militia) training was introduced for unmarried men and widowers without children between 18 to 35 years of age. Many men went to the Water Street Depot with their call-up papers where they were processed for service with the AMF.
On 15 July 1941 a home-guard force entitled the Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) began to be raised across local districts. At least one company of No. 1 Battalion, Post Office Volunteer Corps, later incorporated into the VDC, trained at the Water Street Depot during World War II. The Water Street Depot was also one of the principal Brisbane sites providing medical examinations and enlistments for Civil Constructional Corps (CCC) workers. New members of the Allied Works Council (AWC) staff were also sent to the depot.
As a result of the above activities, during World War II a number of huts were added to the Water Street site, within the parade ground and along the Water Street boundary. Most of these have since been removed, although in 2011 two huts still survived along the north-east boundary, and were used as a residence and an acupuncture clinic. A smaller World War II hut was moved to between the orderly room and the 1953 toilets, to be used as an office.
After World War II the drill shed continued its pre-war tradition of hosting social events including in late 1945, fund-raising functions for the 'Miss Australia' contest. Reunions of service units, in particular the 2/1st Australian Tank Attack Regiment which held its first reunion at Water Street in 1946, and the 2/15th Battalion AIF, occurred in the post-war years. Former members and veterans of the 2/14th Light Horse and of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment also commenced meeting at Water Street. [36]
The Australian Regular Army was created in September 1947 and in 1948, the Royal Australian Regiment was formed from full-time soldiers. As a result, the AMF was renamed the Citizen Military Forces (CMF). The CMF comprised part-time soldiers recruited into state-based units. Locally, these units became components of the Royal Queensland Regiment (RQR).
In July 1949, approval was given for the establishment of a CMF armoured car squadron to be known as 'A' Squadron 2/14th QMI. The headquarters of this unit were located at the Water Street Depot. In 1951, the National Service Scheme was introduced that required all 18-year old males to register for six months compulsory military training together with a further period of part-time service. Some 'Nashos' would have undergone their military service at the Water Street Depot.
The depot was used for other purposes by the military. It was revamped in 1955 and became the base for a number of health associated CMF units and their training facilities. A new hut at the south-east corner of the site was erected in 1955 as a lecture hut and Quartermaster's store for No. 1 Dental Unit. [37] A World War II hut on the north-east boundary (the northernmost of the two remaining in 2011) was converted into a 'Model Ward' in 1955 presumably for either No. 1 Casualty Clearing Station or No. 4 Preventative Medicine Company. By the late 1970s, the Water Street Depot held Army Reserve (a redesignation of the CMF) units. The Commonwealth disposed of the Water Street Depot in 1988, after which it was adapted for use as the Endeavour College of Natural Health.
In January 2004 the Brisbane City Council entered the former Water Street Army Depot site in Schedule 1 of the Heritage Register Planning Scheme Policy of the Brisbane City Plan (City Plan Heritage Register). The site was included in the Bowen Hills Urban Development Area (UDA) as designated by the Urban Land Development Authority (ULDA) in 2009. The ULDA prepared a Development Scheme for this UDA that acknowledged the nature and extent of the heritage listing of the depot site by the City Council. Then in 2011 the site was sold and the process was begun to transform it and a neighbouring Brunswick Street site into a mixed-use development. In December that year, after receiving an application, the Queensland Heritage Council decided to enter parts of the depot site encompassing the drill shed, cottage and orderly room building in the Queensland Heritage Register.
A series of development applications have been lodged with and approved by the ULDA (now Economic Development Queensland) over the former Water Street depot site. As part of these development approvals the drill shed, cottage and orderly room will be retained and incorporated into the staged development taking place over the entire site. In February 2014 these approvals have meant partial demolition of twentieth century elements of the former orderly room and its relocation within the site.
","criteria":"The drill shed is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a pre-Federation Queensland drill shed, retaining its large hall area with office and armoury rooms arranged along one side. The hall and the rear rooms of the drill shed continue to illustrate how the building functioned, with spaces for drilling, weapons storage and administration.
|The 1884 drill shed at Water Street is the oldest known surviving drill shed in Queensland, built prior to the formation of the QDF in February 1885.
Of the seven known surviving pre-Federation Queensland drill sheds, it is the only one with a gable-roofed design, and it is also the last remaining pre-Federation drill shed in Brisbane.
Along with its accompanying caretaker's cottage and the former 1885 orderly room of the Moreton Mounted Infantry, both also moved from Boundary Street to Water Street in 1925, the drill shed is part of an uncommon group of colonial era defence buildings. As a pair, the drill shed and the cottage may be a unique surviving example in Queensland.
|The drill shed, caretaker's cottage and orderly room (former) are part of Queensland's response to perceived external threats in the 1870s and 1880s, and are important in demonstrating the resulting military training and support infrastructure constructed during the pre-Federation period in Queensland.
Constructed in 1884-1885 at Boundary Street, Fortitude Valley, and moved to Water Street, Fortitude Valley in 1925, the three colonial-era buildings served a number of Brisbane-based units of the Queensland Defence Force (QDF), and later the Australian Military Forces, the 2nd Australian Imperial Force, the Citizen Military Forces and the Army Reserve.
The QDF and its drill sheds and parade grounds, taken over by the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, facilitated the development of Queensland's military units which later went on to serve in World Wars I and II.
|The three buildings have a special association with the QDF, an organisation regarded as the first line of defence for colonial Queensland and whose units became part of the Commonwealth forces of Australia after Federation. The drill shed, cottage and orderly room served as military training, accommodation and administration facilities for over 100 years, from 1885 to 1988.
In particular, the buildings have an important association with the 1st Queenslanders (Moreton) Regiment and the Moreton Mounted Infantry, two important QDF militia units, and their post-Federation incarnations, the 9th Australian Infantry Regiment and the 13th Australian Light Horse Regiment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32314,"place_ref":602798,"name":"Fantome Island Lock Hospital and Lazaret Sites (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Fantome Island","suburb":"PALM ISLAND","lga":"PALM ISLAND SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-06-08","description":"Fantome Island, also known by its Aboriginal name of Eumilli, is one of 13 islands that form part of the Great Palm Island group. It has an area of just 7.8 sqkm. It is located 65 km north-north-west of Townsville. The historical occupation of the site is centred on two sections of the island - the lazaret is located on the low lying coastal areas at the northern end of the Island; and the lock hospital site is located 3 km south-east of the lazaret, at the centre of the Island (Figure 2). The archaeological remains of the sites have been interpreted according to historical research conducted prior to the site visit. [85]
\nLazaret
\nThe remains of the lazaret are located on the low lying coastal areas on the south-west and north-eastern sides of the northern peninsula of the island. The two sides of the low saddle area are connected by the main lazaret pathway. The north-eastern side of the low saddle contains the remains of the administrative buildings: such as the church, presbytery, hospital, sisters' quarters, visitors' quarters and grotto. On the south-west side of the saddle are the women's, men's and married couples' quarters, the supply centre and surrounds (including the open air cinema, sewing room and butcher), school house, dispensaries and cemetery (the most southern site of the lazaret complex). On the hill north of the men's quarters are the remains of two reservoirs and the overseer's house (Figure 3).
\nMain Lazaret Pathway
\nA pathway traverses the island in the low saddle area of the lazaret. It is 5 m wide and commences at the edge of the northern beach, extending in a south-south-west direction for 120 m.
\nChurch
\nThe remains of St Mary's Catholic Church are located adjacent to and immediately west of the main lazaret pathway. The remains include a large concrete pad. A low wall with a small square recessed section on the outer side, presumably for the placement of a plaque, is located on the end of the pad. In line with and south of the church building pad is a circular concrete feature with a rectangular plinth at its centre. The plinth features a shallow arched recess on each side with a Christian cross motif. A recent plaque sits on the plinth and is dated 31st May 2010. It commemorates the patients, Sisters of Our Lady Mary of Christians Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, and staff that lived, worked and died on Fantome Island.
\nPresbytery
\nImmediately west of the church remnants are the scattered remains of the presbytery. Little survives except one timber building stump, a concrete step at the western and southern ends of the site and a small concrete pad with septic access grate. The site also contains a scatter of demolition rubble including asbestos fibro fragments, corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) sheets, metal louver frames, and metal ant caps. An overgrown garden of exotic flowering plants is on the western side of the presbytery. Behind the presbytery and extending up the gentle slope to the adjacent ridge is a light scatter of artefacts, including the remains of a porcelain urinal or toilet, an in situ septic downpipe, and numerous glass bottles and fragments.
\nHospital
\nThe remains of the lazaret hospital are located 53 m west of the main lazaret pathway. The beginning of the complex is marked by a low dry stone and coral wall extending perpendicular to the beach front. The remains of the hospital buildings include: numerous timber building stumps and a rectangular concrete pad which was part of the hospital's septic system. Two concrete sets of stairs survive - one set climbs to the north, suggesting that these were rear access stairs to the hospital complex and the second set is located towards the far west of the hospital complex and climbs to the east to a position that closely corresponds with the known location of the laboratory. At the rear of the hospital complex are two concrete pads. One pad contains the remains of a stove, fridge, and concrete wash tub. These pads are possibly remnants of the hospital laundry and medical sample collection site. The area is covered by building debris particularly asbestos fibro fragments. Fragmented iron bed frames are located across the site.
\nSisters' Quarters
\nThe remains of the sisters' quarters are situated parallel to the north beach front and immediately east of the main lazaret pathway. An extensive scatter of building rubble is found across the site, particularly asbestos fibro fragment, CGI sheets, galvanised iron, steel pipes, and some bricks. The most intact remains are those associated with the nuns' changing rooms. The site is marked by a concrete pad which is recessed into the ground, with raised concrete surrounds. Internal spaces can be read through the presence of the bases of room dividers, marked by concrete strips. Two iron bath tubs are situated side by side in the centre of the floor area. Adjacent to and east of the changing rooms pad, is a CGI water tank and timber stumps representing a collapsed tank stand. An iron pipe runs from this tank and parallel to the beach front towards a second set of concrete pads. These pads contain the remains of an iron stove and system of concrete spoon drains. Their location set back from the access track and behind another, since-removed building suggests an ancillary use such as a kitchen or laundry.
\nA small solid roofed structure constructed entirely of cement is located adjacent to these remains. It has a doorway (the door itself is missing) but no windows. Its function is unclear but internal wall markings suggest use as either a meat locker/safe or possibly a fumigation shed.
\nVisitors' Quarters
\nThe remains of the visitors' quarters are located immediately east of the sisters' quarters. Little remains of this building except for a large scatter of demolition rubble containing significant amounts of asbestos fibro and metal pipes and fittings. A set of three concrete stairs survives leading up into what was once the western end of the former structure. Also evident are three timber building stumps, a rectangular concrete block with septic access grate, an iron bath tub and two CGI water tanks to the east of the visitors' quarters.
\nGrotto
\nLocated east of the visitors' quarters are the remains of the grotto. The grotto is accessed by a stone-lined path that leads off the main path in front of the remains of the visitors' quarters. The grotto contains a large shrine consisting of a tall mound of local stone. The shrine features a statuary platform close to the apex though a statue is no longer present. Adjacent to and to the north-west is a concrete altar. The face of the altar is marked with three arched shallow recesses. The largest central arch features a rough outline of Australia that has been constructed of small shells applied to the surface. The path to the grotto terminates at the site of a small steep pyramid-shaped shrine constructed of stone. The shrine has a flat concreted top section probably for a statue, though a statue is no longer present.
\nPalm Island Workers' Huts
\nLocated 180 m east of the grotto are the four concrete platforms aligned north-south at the base of a slope. All of the concrete platforms are of similar dimensions and built upon a mound of local stone. Each platform features a set of 3-4 steps on its western end and a small square extension to the rear where there are the remains of iron stoves and cooking implements (tin kettle, bowls and pans). Adjacent to and to the rear of each platform are the remains of water pipes and tap connections. The platforms are covered in building debris, with fragments of asbestos fibro and some CGI sheets and the remains of iron bed frames. Behind all the platforms are artefact scatters of metal (mostly iron) cooking implements and equipment and some glass bottles and fragments, some dating from the mid-20th century.
\nSignal Hut
\nLocated 275 m west-north-west of the main lazaret pathway, close to the crest of the hill which overlooks the lazaret from the north-west, are the remains of a timber-framed signal hut. The walls and roof have fallen onto the concrete pad floor. The roof, although collapsed, is largely intact. It is a timber-framed pyramid sheeted with CGI on two sides. Positioned immediately down slope to the south-west of the hut lies an iron ‘I' beam which may have been a radio aerial or mast. Surrounding the hut and the mast are scatters of artefacts including numerous large black Dunlop brand batteries, CGI sheets, white ceramic fragments, timber posts, wire cable, window glass, and window latches. Extending down the ridgeline from the hut to the main lazaret pathway are collapsed power poles.
\nSingle Women's Quarters
\nLocated on the south-west side of the northern peninsula of Fantome Island, and to the south-west of the main lazaret pathway, are the remains of the single women's quarters. The site consists of concrete pads of former huts, communal kitchens, dispensary, toilet and shower blocks, and laundry. There are five rows of concrete pads representing individual huts, with three pads per row (a total of 15 huts). The pads are rectangular in shape and are roughly the same size (5 x 6 m). The pads have markings indicating a 1 m wide, open veranda on one side with an outwardly sloping floor. The veranda is oriented to the south-east or the north-west alternately so that verandas face each other. The pad has an edge lip of varying width defining the position of the former walls. Low density artefact scatters are associated with each hut. According to an oral history of a former patient, the most westerly hut in the single women's quarters was later modified for use as a ‘lock-up' for women patients. There are pads relating to two communal kitchens. Both are situated at the northern ends of the huts and between two rows. At the north end of kitchen 1 and kitchen 2 are projections which suggest the location of a stove or oven. Additional features of note include a track leading to the single men's quarters from the north-west and the nearby supply centre. Located 30 m west of the last row of hut pads are the remains of a pit toilet.
\nSupply Centre and Surrounds
\nLocated at the southern end of the main lazaret pathway are the remains of multiple structures that comprised the supply centre for the lazaret. The supply centre complex consists of a cluster of attached concrete pads comprising: office and store, sewing room, oil room, butcher, and open-air cinema (between the sewing room and the office/store). Immediately east of this complex are the remains of a vehicle garage. Remnants include a concrete pad with a short ramp on the northern end. East of the garage are the remains of the lazaret's school. The building collapsed in 2011. The remains include a concrete pad covered in rubble, timber framework, CGI sheeting and a 44 gallon metal drum. These remains have been partially burnt. A concrete wash tub and basin is located on the eastern side of the pad. Abandoned and partially deconstructed machinery (generator) is bolted to school building pad. East of the school are the remnants of a recreation hut, comprising a concrete pad with four timber posts. The pad is surrounded by a scatter of CGI sheets and building rubble.
\nPalm Island Workers' Dining Hut
\nFifty metres north-east of the supply centre complex is a largely extant timber-framed structure on a stone and concrete pad. The walls are clad with CGI sheets. The northern wall has two awning windows. The southern wall has one timber-framed window. The remains of a small set of steps made from local stone and mortared with concrete is located on the south-east corner of the pad. A makeshift stone fireplace has been constructed in the lean-to with a reused iron stove top. The eastern wall of the structure is missing, as is part of the roof structure at that end and almost all of the CGI roof sheets.
\nAdjacent to the Palm Island workers' dining hut is a concrete pad representing an old generator room. In the north-east corner of the pad is a smaller raised concrete pad with six mounting bolts embedded around the edges and adjacent is a concrete tank stand base.
\nOverseer's Quarters
\nThe remains of the overseer's quarters are located on steep, rocky ground immediately north of the single men's quarters and the supply centre. The remains include a dense scatter of building rubble, including bricks, CGI sheets, two inch steel water pipe, iron bath tub, sink, and two iron bed frames. A small levelled concrete pad is located to the rear of the building rubble and next to the iron bath tub.
\nReservoir 1
\nThe remains of a reservoir are located immediately to the northeast the overseer's quarters. Remains include a rectangular concrete pad with metal framing. Artefacts include piping, bolts and screws. A substantial section of hill face has been cut to create a level platform with a sloping concrete retaining wall measuring over two metres high in the highest corner. A CGI scatter is found to the west of the pad.
\nWater Tanks and Reservoir 2
\nThe remains of a second reservoir and two water storage tanks are located on steep, rocky ground above the single men's quarters and supply centre and east of the overseer's quarters. The reservoir consists of a rectangular concrete pad with collapsed metal framing on site. Artefacts include bolts and screws. Pipes are visible along the exposed corner of the concrete pad. The hill face has been cut to create a level platform. Features in this area include the remains of a track and tramway leading up the hill, two large water storage tanks (south-west of reservoir 2) and a stone-lined path leading down the hill away from the two storage tanks.
\nSingle Men's Quarters
\nThe single men's quarters are located on generally flat and cleared land to the south-east of the single women's quarters and the supply centre complex. A track leads to the single men's quarters from the north-west and the nearby supply centre. The area is bordered by a steep rocky slope to the north-east and a sandy beach to the south-west. The site consists of concrete pads of the single men's quarters, communal kitchens, dispensary, toilet and shower blocks, laundry and Anglican Church.
\nThere are five rows of concrete pads representing individual huts, with three pads per row (a total of 15 huts). The pads in the single men's quarters are of the same configuration of those in the single women's quarters. Low density artefact scatters are associated with each hut. Within the single men's quarters are pads relating to two communal kitchens. The partial remains of kitchen 1 are a concrete pad and a concrete path located on the south-west corner, leading away towards the huts. At the north end of the kitchen is a projection of the pad with the remains of a stove. Kitchen 2 is similar to kitchen 1. It has the remains of a path to the single men's huts that crosses a small gully and the north end of the pad also has a pad projection. There is a modern rubbish dump behind kitchen 2.
\nThe Anglican Church remains comprise a rectangular concrete pad with entry steps. The slightly elevated north-east end of this pad (originally holding the altar) has a small rectangular CGI shed constructed after the lazaret occupation. Immediately adjacent to the church pad is a platform floor made from concrete pavers. More recent domestic rubbish and materials scattered about the site suggest the paved platform is the location of a post-lazaret occupation camp site.
\nA concrete pad located between the single men's quarters and the married quarters and in front of the Anglican Church are the remains of a dispensary.
\nMarried Quarters
\nThe married quarters are located immediately adjacent to the single men's quarters and include huts, two communal kitchens (one later converted into accommodation), a garden area, cess pits, a midden, and general laundry buildings. Former structures are marked by concrete pads. At least five huts in this section may have been occupied by single patients and follow the same pattern as that seen in the other single patients sections. Generally, the hut pads in the married quarters differ from the single patient's hut pads by an extension of the pad for a personal kitchen. Each hut pad has an edge lip (of varying width) that runs three sides of the hut pad and along the inner side of the veranda (where they exist) but not on the outer side of the veranda. Iron bed frames are scattered in the area. A 35 sqm garden area is located behind the second, more southerly, kitchen. At the south-eastern extremity of the married quarters and adjacent to a tidal creek are two possible cess pits and two rectangular concrete pads (probably general laundry building remains). There is a midden on the creek bank which contains shells of clam and oyster, brown bottle debris, ceramic fragments, metal, and assorted domestic artefacts.
\nPump House and Lazaret Wells
\nEast of the married quarters and 160 m along a small creek line, are the remains of several wells and pumping equipment. The area includes four circular concrete wells, one rectangular timber-lined well, the remains of a single piston water pump, and a scatter of steel water pipes. Ten metres east of the timber-lined well are several concrete machine mounts though the machines have been removed.
\nCemetery
\nThe cemetery is located on the southern bank of a tidal creek 60 m from the married quarters. Positioned within a small bend of the creek, the cemetery is bordered by water to the north and east with resulting erosion problems, particularly at the northern end. The cemetery is marked on the east side by an incomplete line of timber fence posts. The individual graves are orientated east-west and are organised into six rows running north-south. The total number of marked graves is 120. Many of the graves are lined by stone surrounds, however, according to the oral history of a former patient these are possibly later additions and may not accurately reflect the number, size and/or location of all the graves. There are some timber crosses marking graves but none of the extant markers retain the name of the deceased; many of the timber crosses now also lack the horizontal member. A possible eroded grave is located east of the main concentration and is marked by a partial stone arrangement near the edge of the eroded creek bank. It is unclear if the site is an eroded grave but it is certainly in a quite separate and distinct area to the main concentration of graves. There is no evidence of human remains or a grave cut within the soil profile of the eroded bank.
\nWilfred and Rachael Obah's Cottage
\nLocated at the southern end of the mangrove zone and 200 m south of the lazaret cemetery, are partial remains of a small structure, comprising a small section of fractured concrete pad and a small alignment of local stones to the west.
\nLock Hospital
\nThe lock hospital is located in the central part of the Island. Like the lazaret complex the remains of the lock hospital stretch across the two sides of the Island. The remains of the administrative complex, including the hospital itself, are located on the eastern side of the Island and adjacent to the eastern beach. Other elements, including living quarters and cemetery, are located on the western side adjacent to Juno Bay. The eastern and western elements are divided by a narrow ridge with a small saddle area allowing access across the site (Figure 4).
\nHospital Complex/Eastern Beach
\nThe hospital complex is located on the eastern beach area which comprises a low coastal flat with adjacent sandy beach. Physical evidence from this complex includes remnants of buildings, particularly concrete building pads of varying sizes, concrete spoon drains, timber stumps and CGI water tanks. A network of stone-lined pathways also criss-cross the area. Other notable features include a concrete plinth, an engine block base, brick furnace remnants and the remains of an iron oven and stove (Figure 5).
\nBordered by the creek bank to the north, the beach to the east, and a stone-lined path to the south is a diffuse scatter of the remains of a large timber on stump building or series of buildings. This is believed to be the main hospital site. Adjacent to the path are five small concrete pads. To the north-east of these is a large area with a scatter of CGI sheets, broken ceramics, small medicine bottles, and other glass fragments including small glass ampoules.
\nAdjacent to the central beach area and south of the probable main hospital site is a triangular configuration of three small concrete blocks. One features an iron ring. These are located 12 m apart and the arrangement suggests supports for a central flagpole or mast.
\nLocated inland from the beach are the remains of a large timber on stumps building or complex of buildings. Archaeological evidence includes alignments of timber stumps and two concrete pads representing the bases of stairs. Two sections of 2 inch steel water pipe are also located immediately adjacent to and to the south-west of the building stumps, suggesting connection to a mains water supply. A large CGI water tank with concrete base is situated south of the stumps.
\nThe extreme southern end of the eastern beach area features two small tidal creeks. At the mouth of one creek are the remnants of a small stone dam wall. The wall measures 8 m in length and has been breached.
\nCentral Ridge
\nThe central ridge area is situated between the eastern beach and Juno Bay (western beach) sections of the lock hospital site. The area is a saddle ridge extending roughly north to south.
\nArchaeological features include a series of dry stone walls, the remains of the superintendent and assistant superintendent's quarters, a cairn, and a reinforced concrete reservoir.
\nThe dry stone walls are constructed from local stone and form a complex configuration of pens and paths. The walls are separated into two sections (hereafter referred to as the northern and southern pens) by a track which crosses the lowest point of the saddle area and connects the two sides of the Island. The southern pens surround remnants of living quarters and include low stone alignments outlining former structures and pathways. Small rock garden beds, collapsed timber posts, a septic pipe, an oven and stove are located within this enclosure. Two oven features are also identifiable. The northern pens are flanked by the track to the south and a cutting into the hill face for a platform. The stone walls are approximately 1.3 m in thickness and 1 m in height across the area.
\nLocated immediately to the north-west and adjacent to the northern dry stone wall pens, is a concrete pad. These are possibly the remnants of the assistant superintendent's quarters.
\nA cairn of unknown origin is located 30 m north-north-west of the assistant superintendent's quarters. The feature is marked by a rectangular arrangement of stones measuring 4.2 x 2.0 m.
\nA large bare rocky pad is located 40 m north-north-west of the cairn site. The pad is surrounded on the east, south and western sides by drainage diversions lined with local stone. These are possibly the remnants of the superintendent's quarters.
\nA rectangular reinforced concrete reservoir is located 150 m north-north-west of the possible superintendent's quarters. The reservoir is situated high up in a steep gully at the northern end of the saddle area. It measures 12 m wide and is 10 m in length. The easternmost corner includes a 1 m wide overflow outlet which leads north-east and into the adjacent creek. Located 90 m to the west of the reservoir and over the crest of the saddle is a small section of exposed 2 inch steel water pipe. This pipe continues underground and down the slope to the west towards the northern end of the lock hospital married quarters.
\nLock Hospital Married Quarters
\nA series of twelve raised concrete pads of former huts are located at the base of the steep western slope of the saddle/ridge. Eleven of these pads are aligned adjacent to a south-east to north-west stone edged track. The first pad is located on the eastern side of the track and at the extreme northern end of the alignment. Each raised pad is of a similar size (5 x 5 m) with a discernable veranda on the south-west side. Depending upon the topography, the veranda has a small set of up to three entry stairs. Only a light scatter of domestic artefacts is found in association with the pads. Artefacts include metal fragments, bottle glass and ceramic fragments.
\nApproximately half way along the alignment of married quarters' pads is a concrete pad that was probably the communal kitchen as it features a projection in the north-west corner with the remains of an iron stove.
\nSouth of the lock hospital married quarters and adjacent to the main access track is a concrete pad, possibly a laundry building.
\nThe access track which runs adjacent to the married quarters huts continues north past the northern-most pad and up the ridgeline through a shallow cutting. This track may be the track that connected the lock hospital complex with outlying villages to the north and in the vicinity of the later lazaret.
\nLock Hospital Cemetery
\nThe lock hospital cemetery is located 80 m south-west of the lock hospital married quarters on the Juno Bay side of the Island. The site contains four clearly marked graves and six other possible unmarked graves. All the known and potential graves are concentrated within a relatively small area near the middle of the dune. Of the four identified graves, three have headstones. The first is made of concrete with a Christian cross on top. The second grave has a cement rendered surround with a marble headstone on a concrete base (this is the only headstone which still has a discernable inscription). The third grave with a headstone has a small concrete cross studded with imbedded bivalve mollusc shells and decorated with synthetic fabric flowers. There are potential unmarked graves scattered around the marked graves and they have been identified on the basis of unusual stone arrangements, remnants of dressed timber and discrete fragmentary concentrations of grave furniture.
\nNew Farm and Inland Pads
\nLocated immediately west of the dry stone wall enclosure complex is a large lightly treed area with low grasses and black loam to sandy soils. This area has a small complex of four concrete pads in the south. The largest and southernmost concrete pad features crisp notches on the pad margin that held wall frames giving good information of the construction techniques of the now-missing timber wall structure.
\n","history":"
Fantome Island, located north of Townsville approximately 22 km off the coast of Queensland near Ingham and 6.5 kilometres north-west of Palm Island in the Great Palm group of islands, was the site of a lock hospital between 1928 and 1945 and a lazaret (or leprosarium) between 1939 and 1973. Both facilities were used for the isolation of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and South Sea Islander patients or inmates. [1] The archaeological remnants on the island are representative of the responses of former Queensland governments to the public health issues of sexually transmitted infections (STIs, previously known as venereal diseases, or VD) and Hansen's disease (leprosy) as they affected Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and South Sea Islander people. The island has a long history as a site of segregation and as an example of the working of the Aboriginal Protection Acts.
In February 1925 the Home Secretary's Department proposed a lock hospital on Fantome Island in conjunction with the Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement. The traditional owners of Fantome Island (also known as Emulli) are the Manbarra people, while those removed from elsewhere in Queensland to Palm and Fantome islands are known as the Bwgcolman people. Fantome Island was declared a Reserve for the use of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the State (R.297, or Reserve 3771) in the Government Gazette of 17 October 1925. [2] The trustees were the Under Secretary of the Home Department (WJ Gall) and the Chief Protector of Aboriginals (JW Bleakley). Prior to this Fantome had been held as Occupation License 297 and there was a small area of cleared land at its northern end. Apart from a well, fires had destroyed any other infrastructure and the island was unoccupied by 1925.
A lock hospital enforced isolation to prevent the spread of STIs. In 1868 the Queensland Government enacted the Prevention of Contagious Diseases Act, which enforced the compulsory examination of prostitutes for STIs and their housing in the Brisbane lock hospital at Herston until ‘cured'. Failure to submit to these requirements was a jailable offence.
During the first decade of the 20th century a number of developments in the diagnosis and treatment of STIs occurred. In 1905 the cause of syphilis (Treponema pallidum) was identified. In the following year the Wasserman test for identification of the syphilis infection was created. From 1909 the Wasserman test was used at Queensland's public health laboratories, while the first effective treatment (Salvarsan) was developed in 1910. [3]
These steps coincided with an increase in the incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea in Australia, and with increased public awareness of this rise. New health legislation - the Health Act (Consolidated) 1911 - required compulsory notification of cases to the Commissioner of Public Health; prohibited treatment by unqualified persons; provided free treatment, irrespective of condition or gender; distributed advice leaflets; and enabled compulsory examination, and segregation where necessary, of persons of either gender known or suspected to be suffering from STIs and liable to convey them to others.
The idea of creating island lock hospitals for Aboriginal people with STIs arose in the first decade of the 20th century. During 1908 the first island lock hospital for Australian Aboriginal people was established in Western Australia on the islands of Dorre and Bernier. [4] In Queensland, Aboriginal STI patients were initially sent to Aboriginal reserves, including Barambah, and White Cliffs on Fraser Island, but planning for the establishment of an island-based lock hospital in Queensland for Aboriginal people commenced in 1914. The Chief Protector of Aboriginal's Office proposed constructing such a facility due to the belief that isolation was the best method of managing STIs in Aboriginal people. Initially, a facility was planned for Fitzroy Island near Cairns, but World War I disrupted this scheme and it never went ahead. [5]
This concept of isolation and control of Aboriginal people was already accepted as Queensland's method of dealing with the Aboriginal population. In 1895 Archibald Meston provided the Queensland Government with a plan for the welfare and protection of the colony's Aboriginal people. Meston contended the reason earlier reserves operated by missionaries and others had been unsuccessful all over Australia was poor management. Further, the locations of such places were ill-suited for agriculture (to allow adequate food production) and had not adequately isolated Aboriginal people in a way that prevented their exposure to vices and diseases brought by contact with European people. Meston ultimately recommended the establishment of three reserves to serve southern, central and northern Queensland; the appointment of a Chief Protector (Meston later became one of two regional Protectors, under a Protector for all districts); and stronger government control.
Meston's proposals, and their influence in shaping subsequent legislation and its administration, marked a significant change both in Queensland and Australia in government control over Aboriginal people. Meston's recommendations were brought to fruition in the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, the provisions of which gave the government substantial control over many aspects of the lives of Aboriginal people and extended its authority to establish reserves, to which they were forcibly removed. [6]
Superintendents were in charge of these places (a title also given to those in charge of missions), and were responsible to the Chief Protector of Aboriginals. The realities of 'living under the Act' were to profoundly impact upon the lives of Queensland's Aboriginal people.
Settlements at Durundur (near Woodford, c.1897), Whitula in western Queensland (briefly in operation in response to the 1902 drought) and Fraser Island (1897) were beset by a range of problems and did not last, with the latter experiencing a very high death rate among inmates. From 1905 the Barambah Aboriginal Settlement (from 1934 called Cherbourg) in the South Burnett, first established in 1901, came under complete government control and operation. The Taroom Aboriginal Settlement was established in 1911 [QHR 602769].
By segregating Aboriginal people from the rest of the community, the removals process was highly effective in fulfilling the government's objectives of increased control and regulation of the state's Aboriginal people, enforced on settlements through a range of administrative and disciplinary measures. While humanitarian concerns were used as a justification for removal by advocates of the reserve system, Aboriginal people were forcibly removed for a wider range of reasons including illness; lack of employability or refusal to work; old age; as punishment; and after a jail sentence had been served.
Aboriginal people were removed to Fantome Island under the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, unlike European STI patients who were detained on the mainland under health legislation. This was despite the fact that none of the three main STIs - gonorrhoea, syphilis and the less common ulcerative granuloma - could be easily diagnosed by the methods available at the time. Bacteriological testing was not applied to non-European suspected STI cases; clinical diagnosis was deemed sufficient. The tropical disease of yaws, which caused skin lesions and produced a positive Wasserman reaction, could also be mistaken for syphilis. [7] Not only were some people sent to lock hospitals unnecessarily, those that were actually infected had little chance of a cure until antibiotic therapy became available in the 1940s. [8] Penicillin was introduced for the treatment of gonorrhoea in 1943 but was only generally available from 1944. [9]
The Protection of Aboriginals and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Amendment Act 1934 extended the provisions of the 1897 Act and the powers of the Chief Protector. It enabled compulsory medical examinations, and also allowed for ‘uncontrollable' Aboriginal people or ‘half-castes' (the definition of this term was changed to include South Sea Islander people) to be sent to an institution. [10] The latter enabled the incarceration of people at the Fantome Island lock hospital for non-medical reasons.
With policies of isolation and control for both STI patients and Aboriginal people already established in Queensland by the 1920s, the construction of a lock hospital on Fantome Island proceeded. By June 1927 there were three Aboriginal settlements in Queensland under direct Home Department supervision: Barambah, Woorabinda (replacing Taroom during 1927), and Palm Island, plus 11 mission stations. The Palm Island settlement had opened in 1918 after a cyclone destroyed the Hull River settlement (established 1914) on the mainland. The primary reason for the government's decision to establish a lock hospital at Fantome Island was its close proximity to Palm Island. This allowed the medical officer on Palm Island to also treat the Fantome Island inmates. [11]
A 66,000 gallon (300,042 litre) water reservoir was completed behind (west of) the lock hospital site, which was located at the narrow, central portion of Fantome Island, facing Curacoa Channel, by November 1926. However, a cyclone in February 1927 caused serious damage, delaying the completion of the hospital's other buildings by Palm Island workers.
The lock hospital was completed and equipped by December 1927 and the first patients arrived in early 1928. Frank Hambleton Julian, who lacked medical training, was the wardsman. Dr CR Maitland Pattison was the visiting medical superintendent, and buildings included male and female wards, irrigation chambers, laundries, ‘native officials' cottages, wardsman's quarters, a store and kitchens. A vegetable garden was cultivated to supplement food supplies and provide ‘some light occupation for the convalescents'. [12] The sea also provided additions to the diet, including fish, crabs, oysters and turtles.
An influx of patients resulted in the approval of extensions and additions to the lock hospital in 1931, and two cases of suspected Hansen's disease were also tested and found to be positive. During 1932 a number of cases of STI and Hansen's disease contacts were sent to Fantome Island for observation after Dr Raphael West Cilento, the Federal Director of the Division of Tropical Hygiene for Queensland, had inspected coastal camps between Townsville and Cairns and on the Atherton Tablelands. In 1934 Cilento became Director-General of Health and Medical Services within Queensland's Department of Health and Home Affairs (DHHA); a position he held until 1946. He was knighted in 1935 and later wrote Queensland's official centennial history ‘Triumph in the Tropics'. [13]
During 1932 the number of patients in the lock hospital increased from 73 to 156, with 128 men, women and children admitted, four births, four escapes and 17 discharged. However, the year had a high death rate amongst patients - 28 people, representing 13.65% of the total population under treatment. [14]
The number of patients at Fantome Island continued to increase as a result of the government policy of isolating STI cases, as well as the policy of removing Aboriginal people to reserves. Palm Island went a step further than other reserves by removing people from the mainland. In 1933 Cilento reported that the health of Aboriginal people in North Queensland was poor and that they were undernourished. Cilento believed that mainland Aboriginal people living near towns would be better off on Palm Island (and by extension Fantome Island), where their health could be improved before being returned to the mainland for assimilation into the general community. Cilento also sought to have any ‘coloured' people living under ‘native' conditions under the control of the Chief Protector of Aboriginals, as he viewed such groups as a health threat. [15]
By December 1933 there were 227 patients on Fantome Island, and a village had been established for elderly married chronic STI patients at the northern end of the island, on a flat area adjacent to the beach, in huts with grass walls and iron roofs. [16]
Around this time, the government expected those patients who had some savings to contribute to the cost of their treatment on Fantome Island, even though European STI patients in Australia were not charged. The idea was mentioned in December 1931 by the Chief Protector of Aboriginals (Bleakley) and in April 1932 money was withheld from the estate of a deceased patient. By March 1933 approval was given by Bleakley to charge those with sufficient funds two shillings per day, but this practice appears to have stopped in early 1941. [17]
In another cost-saving measure, the lock hospital attempted to achieve self sufficiency in food production, reflecting the earlier view of Meston that the first duty of reserves was 'that they be self-supporting institutions'. [18] By 1934 there were 40 patients dispersed in villages, and these were being fenced, along with agricultural land. Three acres of upland rice was planted, and horses and pigs were brought to Fantome Island. A Catholic Church was also erected. On the 13 September 1934 Wardsman Julian was appointed deputy superintendent (under the superintendent on Palm Island) in charge of the lock hospital on Fantome Island, and he stayed in this position until 1945.
By 1935 there were over 60 people living in two farm villages at the north end of the island, and a timber Anglican Church (St Martin's) was under construction on the western side of the island near the hospital. The water scheme for the hospital now included a windmill (later replaced by a pump in 1937) supplying the 1926 reservoir, and a pump supplying a 10,000 gallon (45,461 litre) galvanised iron concreted tank near the northern farm villages. The first rice crop had failed, but the dairy herd continued to increase.
Despite the building programme the death rate for the lock hospital's patients remained high. Between 1935 and 1939 the monthly total of patients at the lock hospital, taking into account admissions, discharges, births and deaths, fluctuated between 186 and 276, while the death rate ranged between zero to six patients a month during this period. Causes of death recorded included tuberculosis, chronic VD, pneumonia, influenza and heart disease. [19]
In 1936 vegetables and fruit trees were being grown on the island. That year, as well as admitting patients from Palm Island and elsewhere in Queensland, Fantome Island became the health clearing station (quarantine station) for all those being sent to Palm Island.
By September 1938 the northern area of Fantome Island was under consideration as a tubercular settlement, while a leper settlement was proposed for nearby Curacoa Island. A map of Fantome Island at this time indicated that ‘farm villages' (for chronic STI cases) existed along the western side of the northern point of the island, and an early 1939 map included two villages roughly where the lazaret male and female compounds were later built; and a ‘vegetable growing area' at the east end of the small valley just south of the 10,000 gallon water tank. [20]
The search for a lazaret site in northern Queensland followed a succession of other attempts to segregate Hansen's disease patients. The first case of Hansen's disease in Queensland had been discovered in 1855. [21] During the following two decades there were isolated cases identified mainly amongst Chinese and South Sea Islander people and the patients were either isolated on coastal islands or returned to their homelands. The disease sparked little interest until the 1880s when there was a notable increase in awareness of it, despite the lack of an increase in cases. [22]
In 1889 a leprosarium was established on Dayman Island in the Torres Strait for the reception of non-European lepers, principally Chinese people. In conjunction with ongoing Australian fears about non-European migrants, and a perceived association of Hansen's disease with non-Europeans, Chinese and South Sea Islander people in particular were blamed as a source of the disease. [23] The Dayman Island facility, which abandoned patients to their own devices, [24] closed after the enacting of the Leprosy Act 1892, which was prompted by the diagnosis of the first European with Hansen's disease in 1891.
The 1892 Act, among other things, allowed the establishment of lazarets, required the reporting of Hansen's disease where it was suspected and permitted the removal of a patient to, and detention in, a lazaret. As a result, two new lazarets were established: one on Stradbroke Island south-east of Dunwich for male European patients, with a building of 14 bedrooms by 1895; the other on Friday Island in the Torres Strait for non-Europeans, with four corrugated iron huts for patients and two cottages. [25] Both lazarets experienced considerable difficulties and in the early 1900s the government decided to close them and establish a multi-ethnic lazaret on Peel Island. [26]
Peel Island had briefly been used to house Queensland's first female European with Hansen's disease, between 1896 and 1898. [27] The new lazaret on Peel Island, opened in 1907, was designed and organised on the principle of isolation. Patients were housed in individual huts grouped in three separate compounds - male, female and 'coloured'. The huts for European patients were small single roomed, timber buildings, while the huts for the non-European patients were more rudimentary structures of bush timber clad with tea tree bark. The durability of the bark cladding was short-lived, and in 1909 the huts were reclad with corrugated galvanised iron.
However, the Queensland Government eventually abandoned the idea of housing non-European patients on Peel Island. By January 1939 several suspected Hansen's disease cases from Thursday Island and Cooktown had been sent to Fantome Island, while further cases were present on Palm Island. In March 1939 the farm village area of Fantome Island was chosen for the lazaret site, instead of Curacoa Island, after a visit to the Palm Island group by Cilento and Bleakley. Also present were Deputy Superintendent Julian; Dr Geoffry Charles Palliser Courtney, Medical Superintendent of Palm Island; and Dr Graham Croll, a Hansen' disease research investigation officer appointed under a Commonwealth grant. [28] Julian was given control of the lazaret, and the Commonwealth provided £1000 to build a laboratory for inquiry into Hansen's disease amongst Aboriginal people.
Cilento had been pushing for a segregated lazaret from the early 1930s. [29] In March 1939 he stated that the non-European patients on Peel Island could readily be transferred to Fantome Island, with a considerable saving in annual costs to the government for their care. He pointed out that treating an Aboriginal leper at Peel Island cost about £70 per annum; whereas this could be reduced to £12-15 at Palm [Fantome] Island. He also noted that the difficulty of finding staff willing to work with Hansen's disease or STI patients could be dealt with by using nuns from the nursing branch of a religious body. [30] However, rather than focusing on monetary savings, Cilento's public argument for moving non-European Hansen's disease patients from Peel Island to a segregated lazaret on Fantome Island was that a majority of the patients in question were from North Queensland, and had been moved away from their relatives to a colder climate. He stated that EM Hanlon, the Minister of Health, had decided to move them to a suitable spot closer to their ‘tribal associations'. [31]
The site for the lazaret and laboratory already possessed a reticulated water supply, and the grass huts of the chronic STI cases could provide accommodation for 60 people (the previous occupants were later moved to Wallaby Point on Palm Island).
Tentative arrangements had been made to construct huts, set on concrete floors with fibrolite walls and galvanised iron roofs, for the Hansen's disease patients by 20 March 1939. Fantome Island was declared a lazaret in May 1939, and thereby came under Cilento's control, under section 51 of the Health Act 1937. [32] This Act allowed Cilento as Director-General of Health and Medical Services to force the detention in a lazaret of people with Hansen's disease. The proposed lazaret was intended to include a laboratory with offices and wards, quarters for four sisters of a religious sisterhood, a European wardsman and Palm Island staff, plus huts for 100 patients, with kitchen, store and dining buildings and lavatories. By 21 September 1939 twelve huts were erected, with six already occupied by Hansen's disease patients from North Queensland.
In December 1939 the laboratory was completed, but the hospital ward building was not. That month the media reported that four young nuns of the Australian Missionary Order (Our Lady Help of Christians) in New South Wales had arrived at Peel Island, and would later accompany ‘black' patients from that location to Fantome Island, leaving 26 ‘white lepers' on Peel. Home Secretary Hanlon stated that improvements could then be made for the white patients, ‘which obviously could not be undertaken while mixed races were there'. [33]
The Order of Our Lady Help of Christians (OLHC) had been established in 1931, and had already undertaken work on Palm Island. The nuns sent to Fantome Island comprised Mother Peter, and Sisters Agnes, Bernadette and Catherine, who undertook some medical training in Sydney, before receiving training in the treatment of Hansen's disease on Peel Island. [34]
On 10 January 1940, 49 Aboriginal patients from Peel Island arrived on Fantome Island to join the 26 local patients already there. They had left Peel Island early on 8 January, been towed on the Dunwich barge to Pinkenba, and then travelled by rail in sleeper carriages to Cardwell, arriving at 3.40am 10 January, before travelling by boat to Fantome Island that day.
They were accompanied by three policemen, plus a wardsman and Matron Avonia O'Brien from Peel Island. In March 1940 O'Brien wrote a report on the trip north, in which she notes she clashed with Julian over feeding the patients after arrival and also over unloading the train. In addition, she complained that the food at Fantome Island was ‘of the very poorest class', with very rough corned beef, potatoes, onions, rice, tea, sugar, oatmeal and very bad bread, initially ‘supplied very sparingly'. She claimed the patients did not receive any greens from the time they arrived until she left the island on 3 March 1940. [35] The four nuns had arrived in Townsville on 13 February and they stayed with the Sisters of Mercy at the Strand Convent before travelling to Fantome Island on 1 March 1940.
Although Julian admitted that there were difficulties in obtaining fruit, green vegetables and fresh milk, he insinuated that the Peel Island patients had been treated too well previously and had become fussy. Dr Charles Arthur Courtney, the acting Medical Superintendent, echoed this view, noting the patients were fed more than the usual government ration; that the North Queensland leprosy patients who had been on Fantome Island since 1939 had never complained; and that a lot of food was wasted by the newcomers. Although the Department of Native Affairs was responsible for supplying the lazaret, Bleakley blamed the Health Department for not requesting a special diet for the Peel Island patients, as the lazaret was under the control of the latter department. [36]
Meanwhile, the construction of facilities at the lazaret had continued. By February 1940, using Fantome Island labour, 24 huts were completed. These were divided into sections of six huts, each section with a sanitary block (two earth closets either side of a shower) and a combined kitchen/dining room. There were also two laundry blocks. A fifth section was commenced in February. Initially, male and female patients were not segregated, much to the nun's dismay, but later separate male and female compounds existed. [37]
The timber-framed hospital wards at the lazaret were completed by the end of February 1940 and these were used as a residence by the nuns until their quarters were completed by the Department of Public Works in April. By May 1940 there were plans for a bath and change block, attached to the nuns' quarters by a covered way, and a kitchen and laundry addition to the south of the hospital wards.
Dr David William Johnson, the Medical Officer at Peel Island, visited Fantome in mid March 1940. He reported to Cilento that the diet was unsatisfactory for at least a month after arrival of the Peel Island patients, as the Palm Island authorities were unaware of importance of a good diet in the treatment of leprosy and poor weather prevented delivery of fresh produce. The 12 cows on Fantome Island were producing fresh milk for the lock hospital, but not the lazaret. Johnson also noted that Dr CA Courtney was not visiting Fantome Island regularly, partly owing to the weather, but he would visit weekly in future. However, Johnson noted that Courtney had no previous experience in leprosy, and further regular visits from medical officers were desirable. Tellingly, the standard Hansen's disease treatment of the time (chaulmoogra oil) had not been given to the patients since they left Peel Island. [38]
Later in 1940 Dr Johnson and CD O'Brien, as Public Service Inspectors, reported that Dr CA Courtney was leaving the treatment of the lock hospital's patients in the hands of Julian and Matron Brumm; and that neither Dr CA Courtney, nor Dr GCP Courtney before him, had filled out the paperwork required under the Health Act 1937, regarding notification of STIs. [39]
Whether through poor diet or lack of medical attention, the patients at the lazaret suffered a high death rate during 1940. After the death of one patient there were 74 patients at the new lazaret by 6 February 1940; 41 male and 33 female. [40] In March 1940 O'Brien inferred that the two deaths to that date were due to the food issue, and by 12 December 1940 a total of 14 lazaret patients had died that calendar year. [41] It has been claimed that 40 former Peel Island patients died in the first five years of the Fantome Island Lazaret, from Tuberculosis. [42] The official death toll at the Fantome Island Lazaret between 10 January 1940 and 30 June 1943 is 31, although the number of patients on the island was maintained with new admissions. [43] The Annual Report on the Health and Medical Services of the State of Queensland for the year 1964 listed 49 deaths at the Fantome Island Lazaret for the years 1940 to 1945 inclusive. [44]
Total deaths at the lock hospital were even higher than those at the lazaret. At the lock hospital during 1940, 162 patients were admitted for treatment; 184 were discharged cured, 34 died and 198 were still under treatment at the end of the year. [45] In the period between 1940 and 1945, the lock hospital's population ranged between 190 and 214 patients. [46] The high death rate at the lazaret and lock hospital means that many people living on Palm Island have at least one family member buried on Fantome Island. [47]
In August 1940 Cilento complained to the Under Secretary of the DHHA (CE Chuter) about the ‘very grave deficiency in medical attention' at both Peel Island and Fantome Island. Cilento claimed that there was a lack of knowledge about leprosy amongst the staff on Fantome Island, since Dr Croll's services had ended due to illness, and Dr Geoffry Courtney had been called up. Further training of the nuns had thus far not occurred. Cilento even claimed that having Julian (now officially appointed Superintendent of the lazaret) in charge, given his lack of experience with leprosy, was both ‘ridiculous' and ‘illegal'. [48]
While Cilento was unhappy with the lack of medical expertise on Fantome Island, water was another ongoing cause for concern. By October 1940 the water supply for the lock hospital was from two wells. The water supply at the lazaret involved water being pumped from a well on the edge of a low lying flat, up to the galvanised iron storage tank, and then gravitated to the lazaret. [49] Whenever drought conditions occurred on the island, water supplies ran very low, and this problem continued into the 1950s.
Along with efforts to meet the patients' physical needs, attempts were made to meet their spiritual needs. Foundations were laid for a weatherboard and fibro cement Anglican Church at the lazaret in October 1940, and St Lukes opened in January 1941. A Catholic Church and presbytery at the lazaret, first approved in 1940, were proceeded with from mid 1944.
During April 1941 houses for married couples employed at the lazaret were under construction (four were built, located east of the nuns' quarters) and Julian recommended a similar design for married staff at the lock hospital (three were built by mid 1942).
The Fantome Island Lock Hospital was transferred within the DHHA from the Department of Native Affairs to the Department of Public Health in June 1941. Earlier that year, after a medical survey of the lock hospital, Dr Johnson had discovered that the majority of the inmates showed no signs of STIs, and a number were discharged. [50]
To reflect the dual use of Fantome Island, in September 1941 it was divided into two reserves. The northern portion became R.435 (Reserve 7117), a Reserve for Health Purposes (for ‘the reception and medical treatment of lepers'); while the central and southern portion became R.436 (Reserve 7118), a Reserve for Health Purposes, (for ‘the medical treatment of Aboriginals suffering from venereal disease').
Development in the northern part of the island proceeded, and in late 1941 plans were afoot for electric lighting at the lazaret. A sketch map from late 1941 included four sections of huts to the south, and two sections of huts to the north, in the patients' housing area. The Anglican Church was located adjacent to the southern set of huts.
The issue of the marriage of patients at the lazaret was discussed in October 1944, and it was stated that any babies would need to be immediately removed from their mothers to avoid infection. [51] Marriages between Hansen's disease patients were allowed in 1946. [52] By early 1945, it was also policy not to allow children of patients to visit the lazaret, and any other visitors (two per month per patient) were not allowed into the lazaret proper, having to meet the patients at the rear of the hospital, under strict no-contact guidelines. [53]
Due to internal church politics, the OLHC nuns on Fantome were replaced in December 1944, when seven nuns of the Order of Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) arrived, six from Canada and one from Malta. Two were qualified nursing sisters and one a pharmacist. [54] Two of the nuns were trained in dentistry during 1945, in a six week course on Fantome Island, by the retired former superintendent of Brisbane Dental Hospital, CC Vidgen.
By March 1945 many buildings on Fantome Island urgently required repair. However, the lock hospital had outlived its usefulness. An inspection of the facility by Dr GS Hayes in early 1945 discovered that most of the suspected gonorrhoea patients tested had clean smears, and therefore had been cured; and in addition some had never had gonorrhoea. Dr Hayes stated that suspect cases were sent to Fantome Island from various settlements (the majority from Cherbourg), and were treated as if they had gonorrhoea, whether they did or not. The syphilis cases were mostly in a non-infectious stage, and could be returned to the settlements, with weekly injections. Hayes believed that suspect cases could be isolated and treated on the mainland, as there was no STI specialist to evaluate the cases as they arrived on Fantome Island. [55] Upon the closure of the Fantome Island Lock Hospital on 31 August 1945, 13 patients were transferred to the existing hospital on Palm Island, and some buildings were later removed to Palm Island for a new lock hospital and other purposes. Julian's role on Fantome Island ended at this point.
In November 1945 six patients at the lazaret were selected as working men and received their first wages, while five women were assigned to cook in the five kitchens, also on wages. That same month two men took charge of the cows, with horses put at their disposal, and three patients were assigned as uniformed policemen. [56] Patients who had unapproved contact with members of the opposite sex were sometimes locked in the hospital or confined to their huts under guard. [57]
After World War II there was a burst of building activity at the Fantome Island Lazaret. In 1946 funds were allocated for a septic system and additions to the nuns' quarters, a septic system for the hospital, a new school, new island telephone system and a new well. By October 1946 a visitors' quarters was under construction and another 10,000 gallon water tank was provided by June 1947. By June 1948 radio communication with Palm Island was installed, along with a 16 mm movie plant for entertainment of the patients.
The women's huts at the lazaret were in a bad condition after the war, notwithstanding the poor design of all of the 1939-40 patients' huts. By September 1946 there were 38 women in 15 huts, when there were supposed to be two people per hut. The skillion-roofed 12' by 15' (3.7 m by 4.6 m) huts were also uninhabitable in heavy rain. [58] As the wall framing was on the outside of the fibro sheeting, water easily penetrated the structures. The concrete floors were also rough and breaking up.
New externally-sheeted two-room 12' by 20' (3.7 m by 6.1 m) huts with verandahs on two sides, some with an attached bathroom, were recommended by the nuns and the Superintendent of Palm Island, Mr Sturgess. The District Supervisor of Works in Townsville for the Department of Public Works, M McAndrew, supported the new design and considered the current huts, which had no verandahs and became ovens in the sun, to be very unsuitable. ‘After all, these unfortunates are human beings and entitled to a reasonable standard of comforts the same as whites'. [59] A total of 27 huts of the new design, including six for married couples, were approved by Cabinet in June 1947. However, as the Superintendent of Palm Island said he lacked skilled labour, and the Department of Public Works claimed it was unable to find European labour willing to go to Fantome Island, by November 1949 a decision was made to repair the old huts instead. [60]
Although attempts to improve patient accommodation on Fantome Island failed, medical advances were occurring in the treatment of Hansen's disease. The drug sulphetrone was introduced at Fantome Island in December 1948 in the treatment of 40 selected cases. [61] Sulphone drugs such as dapsone and sulphetrone had side effects including anaemia, gastro-intestinal complaints and ‘dapsone syndrome' which could include dizziness, nausea, swelling of limbs and face, nodules under the skin and shivering attacks. [62] However, in most cases the drugs worked. In July 1949 it was reported that sulphetrone had ‘already resulted in a remarkable improvement among patients' on Fantome Island. [63]
There were 63 patients on Fantome Island in October 1949, and with the introduction of the new treatments, the death rate fell and discharges increased. There had only been three discharges of Hansen's disease patients from Fantome Island from 1940 the end of 1948; compared to 22 discharges from 1949 to the end of 1952. [64] In March 1950 Abraham Fryberg, Cilento's successor as Director-General of Health and Medical Services, recommended that Peel Island patients be moved to the mainland, and Queensland's Premier, EM Hanlon, noted that the disease of leprosy would now be known as Hansen's disease.
About the same time that Hansen's disease patients were finally receiving effective treatment, there was increased public pressure to end the policy of isolation. Fantome Island was singled out by the Australian Leprosy Campaign Committee. In 1950 their publicity officer, FG Gladen, claimed that the history of management of the disease in Queensland was ‘one long record of neglect, indifference and departmental ineptitude'. He stated that Fantome Island had no permanent medical officer, clinical records had never been kept, adequate medicine stocks were not maintained and there were no surgical, X-ray or pathology facilities. He added that the diet was so bad that patients were unable to assimilate the meagre medical treatment given. Gladen also claimed that administrative neglect on Fantome Island had resulted in 80 deaths in 10 years and only five cures. [65] His claims about clinical records and diet were rejected by the DHHA, which stated that Gladen had never visited Fantome Island. [66]
Another organisation critical of the treatment of Fantome Island patients was the Relatives and Friends Association. Dedicated to improving the rights and conditions of patients with Hansen's disease, the Association became particularly active around 1950, donating packages of food, toys and other items to the patients, writing letters to the Queensland Government demanding better lazaret conditions or an end to isolation, and publishing a newsletter, the Moreton Star. [67]
In April 1951 the population of the Fantome Island Lazaret was 70 patients and six nuns. EH Hinton, the Honorary Secretary of the Relatives and Friends Association, visited Fantome Island on 12 December 1951. In a report on his visit he dismissed claims of mistreatment and beatings, and noted that there was plenty of good food and hospital equipment, and the patients were well dressed; but he criticised the design of the patients' huts and the fact that the Medical Officer only visited once a fortnight. Although he praised the nuns for their work, he also pointed out that there was no occupational therapy; and the rate of pay the patients received for their work on the island - 7/6 per week - was insufficient. He concluded that the facility should be moved to Kenmore near Brisbane. [68] In response to the last suggestion, Fryberg stated ‘It is obvious that Mr Hinton does not know anything about aboriginals because if they were on the mainland, even though they were five or six hundred miles away from their homes, they would soon find their way back. Isolation on an island is the only sure way'. [69]
In May 1953 Hinton and the Relatives and Friends Association presented Fryberg and the Director of Native Affairs with a list of complaints made by patients of Fantome Island, alleging a lack of supervision of cooking, no treatment on Sundays or public holidays, overly strict supervision of visits by friends and relatives (two hours every three months), sick patients being neglected in their huts, and a ‘work or starve' regime. [70] Dr Gabriel, Acting Medical Superintendent, denied the accusations, although he did note that the visiting situation could be improved.
Gabriel had visited Fantome Island in April 1953, when he noted that sulphetrone was working well for most patients, although he recommended that the dose be doubled. However, some patients had an intolerance to the drug. He recommended trialling some patients on dapsone, and others on thiacetazone. He stated that all patients were in a good state of nutrition, but there was a need for more potatoes, fresh greens, and fresh milk. Activities included weekly picture shows in an open-air theatre, occasional concerts (including a concert party from Palm Island), plus fishing, boating, gardening, poultry farming, and preparing exhibits (hand crafts) for the Fantome Island Show.
At the time of Gabriel's visit, there were 67 patients on Fantome Island (22 female), along with six nuns, a Mr H Stewart (Department of Native Affairs, in charge of stores, police, buildings and technical issues), and 12 workers from Palm Island. Daily dressings occurred at the dressing stations in each compound, and the medical superintendent from Palm Island visited for three hours every Wednesday. However, as this officer changed every eight weeks, Gabriel stated that there was no time for any one Medical Officer to become ‘even superficially conversant with the specific Sulphone or other treatment for Hansen's disease'. [71] There were 10 women in the female compound, and 35 men and 10 married couples in the male compound. Another married couple, Wilfred and Rachael Obah, lived in a cottage built by Wilfred's father (known as ‘Obah's Corner Hut') on the foreshore south of the lazaret.
The ceilings of the huts were still unlined at the time of Gabriel's visit, with recently renewed roofs. They had one door and six windows with flap-type shutters, and Gabriel requested that they be ceiled and have their floors repaired. Although they were not waterproof, were very hot in summer and very cold in winter, the single-skin walls apparently reduced cockroach infestations. He claimed that ‘housing, diet, hygiene and conditions generally were infinitely superior [to Palm Island] on Fantome Island and I am not surprised that the patients at Fantome are not anxious to be discharged to Palm Island'. [72] Other reasons that patients eligible for discharge remained on Fantome Island included ulcers on their feet; their spouses not being eligible for discharge; having nowhere to go; or no means of continued therapy at their place of discharge.
Gabriel also had to dodge patient's questions about equal treatment. ‘Much information was sought from me concerning the white patients at Peel Island…I replied as truthfully as I could without drawing attention to the rather different requirement of white and coloured patients'. [73] He was also asked whether, if the Peel Island patients were moved to the mainland, the Fantome Island patients would also be moved; his answer was that he knew of no such intention.
In the meantime, patient facilities were upgraded during the 1950s. Two Braithwaite pressed steel 100,000 gallon (454,609 litre) water tanks were erected, on concrete bases, over 1951-52. An electrical system was close to completion by June 1953, at which time there were 60 patients. [74] Lighting and power points were installed in the buildings during 1951, electricity poles and street lights were also erected and diesel-powered generating sets for DC current were installed in a powerhouse. Converters had to be brought in to provide AC power to the picture theatre, radio telephone and public address system.
A radio telephone was installed on Fantome Island by June 1955, when the number of patients had decreased to 36, and patient numbers had fallen to 26 by 1956. At this time a home for ex-Hansen's disease patients was being built on Palm Island. By 1958 it was accepted that Hansen's disease patients could be released from isolation without risk to the community after three consecutive negative monthly smears. [75] The European patients at Peel Island were moved to the new Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane in 1959; yet 22 patients remained on Fantome Island. Although the success of Sulphetrone drugs in treating Hansen's disease led to hopes in the early 1950s that Fantome Island could close, [76] this did not occur until 1973. [77]
The delay in closing the Fantome Island Lazaret prompted Dr Gabriel, in September 1965, to recommend to the Director-General of Health and Medical Services that the Fantome Island patients be moved to an isolation ward at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. ‘In view of the fact that completely new legislation has been enacted to give aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders equal status [with Europeans]…it may well become increasingly difficult to justify different isolation areas and different discharge conditions for white and coloured Hansen's disease patients'. [78] He added that some of the active cases on Fantome Island were eligible for immediate discharge - assuming the conditions applied to Europeans were used.
There were other issues on Fantome Island in the late 1960s, at least according to Reverend Maurice Malone, who lived at the lazaret. He complained to the Department of Aboriginal and Island Affairs about supplies and mail not being delivered from Palm Island, delays in repairing refrigeration units, a lack of a morgue, a lack of water in the two large water tanks, and wild bulls frightening the nuns, who rarely left the island. He also claimed that some visiting nuns were refused a boat ride to Fantome Island from Palm Island. The nuns distanced themselves from Father Malone's claims about a campaign of persecution and ‘bureaucratic sadism' by Palm Island officials, and he had been removed from Fantome Island by March 1969. The Director of the Department of Aboriginal and Island Affairs, PJ Killoran, suggested that Father Malone's complaints were due to his ‘medical condition'. [79]
Meanwhile, by 1969 the electricity system at the lazaret needed rewiring and conversion to AC supply to power the modern appliances the patients hoped to use- such as electric guitars and television sets. The huts, which by now had caneite ceilings, were suffering from rot and whiteants. However, the cost of fixing the system, or replacing the whole complex, was seen as prohibitive, especially since all special hospitals for Hansen's disease had been phased out by 1970, and there was no medical reason to rebuild at Fantome. However, it was claimed that some former patients were staying on as staff on Fantome Island to avoid the temptations of alcohol. [80]
On 5 October 1970 the Queensland cabinet decided to close the Fantome Island facility once there was alternative accommodation on Palm Island. It was argued that Fantome Island had outlived its usefulness, as continuous dosage with sulphone drugs for three months or more rendered the vast majority of Hansen's disease patients non-infectious. [81] At this time there were 12 patients on Fantome Island, including nine readmissions.
A report by Medical Superintendent David Bowler in February 1971 criticised the state of the buildings on Fantome Island and the lack of any training or rehabilitation programme for patients, and claimed that ‘the problem of Fantome Island is social and definitely not medical'. [82] Bowler argued that, with regard to the treatment of patients as individuals, Fantome Island was a disgrace.
The Fantome Island facility did not last much longer. A six-bed isolation ward was built at the Palm Island Hospital by mid 1973, by which time there were three nuns, five patients and two ex patients still at Fantome. The patients were reportedly reluctant to move, as they feared a loss of freedom on Palm Island. However, the lazaret closed on 3 August 1973 and in mid August the complex was burnt by the Health Department. [83] In October 1973 the Bishop of Townsville reported that the former Catholic Church and some other buildings were still standing and were being used by visitors to the island, and requested that they be burnt by the Department of Aboriginal and Island Affairs; but vandalism had apparently achieved this aim by November 1973. [84] The two large Braithwaite steel water tanks were disassembled in 1974 and taken to Townsville.
In June 1975 the two existing reserves on Fantome Island, R.435 and R.436, became R.722 (Reserve 15826), a Reserve for Departmental and Official Purposes under control of the Aboriginal and Island Affairs Department. In 1986 R.722 was rescinded and Fantome Island was transferred to the Palm Island Aboriginal Council by a Deed of Grant in Trust. The island is currently uninhabited, although there is some evidence of recent camping. Palm Islanders make regular visits to the island to fish.
","criteria":"The remains of the Fantome Island Lock Hospital are evidence of Queensland's only island-based lock hospital.
The remains of the Fantome Island Lazaret provide evidence of one of only two lazarets built in Queensland for non-European patients.
|Fantome Island has a strong and special association with former patients and staff, and their descendants, as a place which had a profound effect on their families. Most people on Palm Island have at least one family member buried on Fantome Island.
The place also has a special association with surviving members of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary who served on Fantome Island.
|The lock hospital and lazaret sites are important in demonstrating the characteristics of Queensland medical facilities for non-European Hansen's disease and STI patients. These include: segregation on an island; the further segregation of European staff accommodation from non-European staff and patients; cemeteries; the existence of administrative/store building precincts, medical treatment facilities, separate accommodation for unmarried male and female patients, and attempts at food self-sufficiency through gardens and livestock.
|The extensive archaeological remains of the former lock hospital and lazaret on Fantome Island have the potential to yield, through further investigation and comparative research, new information on the administrative, medical, domestic and agricultural activities of patients and staff. This will contribute to a greater understanding of Queensland's history - particularly the accommodation, treatment and isolation of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and South Sea Islander Hansen's disease and STI patients.
Few documentary sources are available that describe the layout and operation of the lock hospital, which closed well before the lazaret, or record the lives of the people who lived there; making the remains of what was Queensland's only purpose-built island lock hospital an invaluable resource for further study.
Similarly extensive are the archaeological remains of the lazaret; an important record of Queensland's largest and longest-serving island facility for the treatment of non-European Hansen's disease patients.
|The visual contrast between the remnants of the lock hospital and lazaret and their picturesque but isolated tropical island setting elicits a strong aesthetic response from visitors. This contrast, considered alongside the history and associations these remnants represent, makes Fantome Island a powerfully evocative place.
|Fantome Island is important in demonstrating past control and discrimination suffered by Aboriginal, Torres Strait Island and South Pacific Island people under former Queensland legislation.
The Fantome Island Lock Hospital (1928-45) demonstrates, through its location on an island, the response of past governments of Queensland to non-European sexually transmitted infection (STI) patients; in contrast European patients were treated on the mainland.
The lazaret on Fantome Island (1939-73) demonstrates that non-European Hansen's disease (leprosy) patients were kept at different facilities from European patients. It also provides evidence of the significant work undertaken by religious orders with non-European patients in Queensland, including the Order of Our Lady Help of Christians, and the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary.
The remnants of both the lock hospital and the lazaret demonstrate the minimal financial commitment and concern of past governments towards non-European patients.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion D | Criterion C | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32439,"place_ref":602820,"name":"Weemalla","alternate_name":"Steele House","street_address":"62 Ruthven Street","suburb":"CORINDA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-08-09","description":"Weemalla is a detached timber house in a suburban area of Corinda, located 11 kilometres south-west of the centre of Brisbane. It is on a corner comprising two allotments totalling 2516m2 with Ruthven Street to the north and side access from Dewar Terrace to the west. The surrounding allotments are of similar size and have houses of similar age and scale. Weemalla is located centrally on its land with large trees, an in-ground swimming pool, and carport.
The house, approximately 14m x 24m, is timber-framed and clad, set on timber stumps with a large hipped and gabled roof. It is in an Arts and Crafts style. The roof is conspicuously large and clad with corrugated metal sheets with a ventilated ridge cap. There are two brick chimneys of red face brick with bands of maroon brick and cement rendered cappings. The wide eaves have soffits either of fibrous sheet material or spaced timber battens, the latter being the original condition. A timber verandah with over-scaled posts and a battened balustrade wraps the north and east sides. The walls are clad with weatherboards that also enclose the majority of the understorey.
The north-facing front elevation is flanked by small projecting gables with decorative awnings and timber dentil work. The roofs of the awnings are clad with pan-and-rib metal sheets. A narrow verandah runs across the front of the house between these gables, widening at the north-eastern corner to form a generous verandah piazza. Entry is via a wide timber stair onto the piazza under the north-eastern gable. The stair balustrade and entrance feature timber battens, large brackets, and other over-scaled timber elements. The north-western gable shelters a projecting room (the bathroom) and has a bay window supported on large timber brackets.
The western elevation, facing Dewar Terrace, has a verandah enclosed with aluminium-framed, sliding windows and weatherboards. At the southern end of the verandah is a small lattice-enclosed entrance into the back hall.
The rear elevation has a wide verandah enclosed with aluminium-framed, sliding windows and a large projecting gable at the eastern end containing the kitchen and service zones. Below the kitchen, the understorey is enclosed to form a laundry. A large painted, brick chimney breast is at the centre of the gable and is flanked by windows.
A verandah runs the length of the eastern (side) elevation and is enclosed at the southern end by weatherboards and timber-framed casements.
The main entrance timber door has bolection moulded panels and glazing surrounded by fan and side lights forming an unusual semi-circular feature. The glazing is clear and green leaded glass and the fanlight is operable, retaining an original brass mechanism. The door opens into a small foyer with a bay window with built in timber seat. The foyer ceiling is plaster with decorative mouldings.
The house layout is organised off a central hall with rooms either side; bedrooms are to the west and living rooms are to the east. At the back of the house the hall ends in a wider back hall adjacent to a kitchen/service zone including a pantry and servant's room. A lattice-enclosed external stair connects the back hall with a laundry enclosure under the house. A bathroom is located at the north-western corner, accessible from the western verandah and from the master bedroom. Two small toilets are accommodated within enclosures on the western verandah.
Generally, the rooms have timber board floors, timber tongue-and-groove board walls and ceilings with moulded timber skirtings, architraves, belt rails, and cornices.
The ceilings are generally 3.3m high with a lower ceiling (2.7m) in the hall. The principal rooms (drawing and dining rooms) are connected by a large square opening with an elaborate architrave. These two rooms have larger and more elaborate skirtings and cornices than other rooms and the dining room has a fireplace with a decorative fire surround of painted timber panelling including a small amount of white marble.
Internal doors are timber with moulded panelling and operable timber panelled fanlights that retain original brass opening mechanisms. Timber French doors with fanlights have fine, moulded glazing bars and clear glass lights and open onto the verandah from most rooms. One set of French doors has been modified into one large sliding door and another set has been relocated to enclose the verandah nearby. Other windows are double-hung timber sashes or timber casements with fine, moulded glazing bars and clear glass. Much of the original door and window furniture is retained. The house has several built-in storage cupboards with timber shelves. The opening between the foyer and the hall has an arched and battened fanlight. An early bell system survives with buttons in the main bedroom and the drawing room connected to bells in the back hall.
The kitchen, servant's room, pantry, and large storage cupboard open from the back hall. The kitchen has a fireplace with a painted brick chimney breast.
The laundry under the kitchen has a concrete floor. The room retains early or original fixtures including a concrete washtub and a copper tub built into the chimney breast.
A small, timber-framed building is connected by a covered walkway to the south-western corner of the main house. The building has a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, weatherboard clad walls and accommodates a bedroom and bathroom. It is not of cultural heritage significance.
The garden includes a large Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora), and Macadamia (possibly Macadamia tetraphylla). An early timber fence post is located at the north-west corner of the yard. It bears two different sets of post notches suggesting the Dewar Terrace fence was post-and-rail and the Ruthven Street fence was more finely crafted. The grounds contain a carport and swimming pool.
The north-eastern piazza has views to the north-east of the surrounding suburbs and distant horizon. It is well positioned to receive the cool summer breezes from this direction as well as winter sun.
","history":"Weemalla, located at 62 Ruthven Street, Corinda, a south-western suburb of Brisbane, was built in 1908-09. This single-storey timber house was designed by acclaimed architect Robert Smith (Robin) Dods as the suburban home of Robert Moore (RM) Steele, Queensland manager of the Victorian Insurance Company Ltd. It is an excellent example of Dods' residential designs for prosperous clients.
\nLocated 11 kilometres from the centre of Brisbane, Corinda, initially part of a leasehold from 1851, opened for selection in the 1860s and a number of farms of between 25 and 70 acres were established. The opening of a railway bridge at Indooroopilly in 1876 reduced the area's isolation and encouraged subdivision. During the Brisbane land boom of the 1880s, when Brisbane's population doubled, many allotments were sold and residential building commenced. Corinda in the 1890s was one of Brisbane's sparsely settled new suburbs where the scattered estates of the wealthy, often set on hills, merged with small farms.[1]
\nTypically, Brisbane's elite resided in spacious properties located on hilltops or beside the river away from the polluted air, noise and commotion of the city, where breezes could counteract the summer heat.[2] Members of Brisbane's elite ‘society' at the beginning of the twentieth century, which may be described as upper middle class, comprised pastoralists and wealthy merchants and those in managerial positions,[3] such as Weemalla's first owner, RM Steele. Weemalla, located on Corinda Hill, a popular site for the homes of members of this echelon from the 1880s[4], was appropriately sited for an elite residence.
\nBy comparison to its southern counterparts Brisbane, by the 1890s was not a wealthy city and had few notably rich merchants or financiers. It was the location of headquarters for Queensland organisations and branch offices for interstate firms in the finance sector. None of the 87 insurance companies with offices or agents in Brisbane during the 1890s had its head office in Queensland.[5]
\nAs manager of the Queensland branch of the Victoria Insurance Company Ltd from 1901[6], Steele was a member of this upper echelon of Brisbane society. He was a member of the Brisbane Club, an exclusive men's club, and an early member of the Toowong Bowling Club (established 1904), which at the time was a sport with elite connotations.[7] Accompanied by his wife and son, Steele arrived from South Australia where he had opened and managed the Victoria Insurance Co. in Adelaide.[8] Initially they lived in Toowong then Indooroopilly; both middle-class residential areas of Brisbane.[9]
\nIn April 1908 Steele purchased two blocks of land, comprising 2 roods 19.5 perches (2516m2), as the site of a new house for his growing family. In the following month local architecture firm, Hall & Dods advertised a tender for its construction. The job was won by Hall & Mayer and the house was completed during 1908-09 for £953.[10]
\nHall & Dods was a partnership between architects Francis Richard Hall and Robin Dods. Dods (1868-1920) was a New Zealand-born architect who lived briefly in Britain before coming to Brisbane in the 1870s. He later trained as an architect in Scotland and England under a number of esteemed architects who were working in the Arts and Crafts idiom. His architectural career began in Edinburgh in 1886, articled with architects Hay & Henderson. He attended evening classes at the Edinburgh Architectural Association until 1890 and formed a lasting friendship with (Sir) Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), eminent Scottish architect and fellow proponent of Arts and Crafts. In 1890 Dods moved to London, where he worked with the Fortifications Branch of the War Office and in the office of notable architect (Sir) Aston Webb. In 1891 he was admitted to the Royal Institute of British Architects and travelled in Italy. In 1894 Dods visited his mother in Brisbane and while there won a competition for a nurses' home at the Brisbane General Hospital [QHR 600223]. He returned to Brisbane in 1896 and started in practice with architect Francis Hall as Hall & Dods. Dods has been acknowledged as ‘one of the most significant early 20th century Australian architects'[11] and as a rare practitioner of the Arts and Crafts style in Queensland.
\nArts and Crafts was an international design movement flourishing between 1860 and 1910, its influence continuing into the 1930s. It was led by artist and writer William Morris and architect Charles Voysey and was inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and Augustus Pugin. The style championed traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often applied medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. Importantly, it valued local variations in traditions so that good design would have relevance within its context. Arts and Crafts architecture is characterised by solidity and heaviness through well-proportioned solid forms, wide porches and prominent steep roofs. The texture of ordinary materials is expressed in the detailing and building composition is asymmetrical.
\nThe practice of Hall & Dods was the most influential source of modern design in Brisbane, producing a wide range of accomplished buildings, and was credited with achieving an 'architectural revolution' in Brisbane.[12] Dods was responsible for most of the design within the firm, integrating contemporary British design philosophies with the traditions of Queensland housing and the requirements of a subtropical climate, and producing practical, attractive, and finely-detailed houses. The partnership ended in 1913, when Dods left to practice in Sydney. Dods died prematurely in 1920.
\nDods' residential work employed local building techniques combined with a sophisticated discipline and a common-sense response to climate. Dods' houses were mostly built of timber with detailing that was a celebration of craftsmanship. The most noticeable characteristic of his Queensland houses (built between 1896 and 1917) was a general feeling of solidity and substance. This was the result of a number of design decisions, including designing a generous roof (often the largest element) continuous over the verandah and over a lower, rear washhouse. The roof was always simple in geometry and often finished with terracotta tiles, flat shingles or pan-and-tile profile, flat iron sheeting with a prominent rolled joint. Corrugated iron was used only as cost-saving measure. Generally low-set, the houses often had an enclosed or screened understorey to give the house a visually solid base. Individual elements were oversized to appear substantial as if under heavy loads. Bold, dark, earthy colours, darkly-stained timber, rough-sawn weatherboards with mitred corners, roughcast rendering and face brickwork in dark colours were used to give the house a weighty gravity. The building materials and finishes were chosen to allow the building to mellow over time, providing it with a well-established appearance.
\nThe house designs take a formalist approach to planning including formal entry halls and traditional planning arrangements. The plans were generated through a consideration of aspect, with living spaces well-oriented and internal layouts permitting cross ventilation. They are also notable for their informal spaces, a particular feature being the inclusion of generous verandah piazzas[13]. The plans respond to the social needs of the clients in an honest and functional way. The houses were often provided with generous, considered service spaces including back halls and wash houses. The health and comfort of the occupants were major considerations. Ventilation devices included wide window and door openings, ventilated gables and ridges, and ventilation fleches. Piazzas were generous, allowing comfortably-furnished, semi-outdoor living. Operable shading and enclosure of the piazza was sometimes achieved by adding timber vertical louvres above the verandah handrail, creating a room habitable in most weather. Interiors included fine decorative timber joinery and panelling. Fireplace surrounds and built-in cupboards were also a feature.
\nThe composition of facades and circulation routes is a more nuanced element of Dods' houses and highlights his originality and artistic skill. Facades often only implied symmetry. Entries were often off-centre or perpendicular, emphasised by wide and expressive entry stairs. Projecting bay windows and corner fireplaces were recurrent elements.
\nDods designed gardens as a setting for the house, a practice more common in Britain than in Queensland. They featured formal parterre gardens, terraces and walls, flower beds, tennis courts, hedges, topiaries, flowering ornamental trees, and geometric path and lawn layouts. Garden furniture and structures were designed including seats, pergolas, trellises, fences and gates.
\nWeemalla bears Dods' architectural signature fully. The house was a low-set, detached, timber structure with a large, carefully modelled roof. The house front faced north and the land sloped to the north-east providing ideal orientation. The front facade had an implied symmetrical composition with a small gable at either end, although in reality the plan was not symmetrical. Under the eastern gable were the wide entry stairs with emphatic, large balustrade. The western gable was enclosed and a hexagonal bay window projected from the centre. The entry stairs led to a wide piazza that took advantage of the north-eastern corner with views to the distant horizon. Entry into the house was at 90 degrees via a small, square entry hall that had a projecting bay window with built-in timber seat. The entry hall was centrally placed but access to it was from the side through a glazed front door with an over-scaled, semi-circular fanlight. A central corridor ran from front to back with living rooms on the east and bedrooms on the west. The lounge and dining room were the principal interior spaces and opened onto the front piazza. The dining room had a large chimney breast with a timber mantle and surround. Verandahs ran around all sides of the house, connecting with a large back hall/verandah at the rear. The western verandah, which faced Dewar Terrace, was semi-enclosed above the balustrade to provide privacy to the adjacent bedrooms as well as sun control. The northern end of the western verandah was enclosed to form a bathroom. The service spaces were at the rear of the house, with a semi-enclosed rear stair leading to a laundry under the kitchen.
\nThe house sat centrally within the yard; if Dods designed a garden scheme evidence of it has not been located.
\nIn 1916 ownership of Weemalla was transferred to Steele's wife, Beatrice.[14] Steele was resident at Corinda and served as the Queensland Manager for the Victoria Insurance Co. Ltd[15] until July 1928 when he was transferred to Sydney as the New South Wales manager of the company. In September 1937 Weemalla was advertised for auction and described as a sound, commodious bungalow with a north-eastern aspect set on 99.5 perches (approx. 2500m2). It was well built, with extra wide verandahs, four bedrooms, a maid's bedroom, a hall, large dining and lounge with an arch and brick fireplace. It had gas and fuel stoves, enamel bath, basin, and geyser. Its laundry had set-in tubs on a concrete floor. There was car accommodation and beautiful grounds with space for a tennis court.[16] The house was not sold, however, and in September 1939 Steele's elder son William and his family moved into the house and resided there for the next two decades.
\nRM Steele died in Sydney in August 1940, aged 74, only a month after his retirement from more than 58 years service with the Victoria Insurance Co., during which he had represented it in Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney. He was survived by his widow and two sons.[17] Beatrice Steele passed away in 1960 leaving Weemalla to son William who subsequently sold the house in 1963.
\nWeemalla remains largely unchanged since construction. It has been sold several times since 1963 and minor modifications have occurred including the enclosure of parts of the verandahs with glazing, the erection of a carport at the western side c1989 by Riddel Architecture, and the construction of an in-ground pool on the eastern side. In 1964 an extension accommodating a bedroom and bathroom was added to the rear (south-western) corner of the house. The design for the small extension was by Brisbane architecture firm Job & Froud, well-known for their design of Torbreck [QHR 610256] completed in 1960. Consistent with their other work, the extension at Weemalla was designed in an International style.[18] This extension has been refurbished and reconfigured several times including in c1989 by Riddel Architecture when the entrance stair was rebuilt and the bathroom and kitchen refurbished.
\nIn 2013 Weemalla remains a family residence.
","criteria":"Weemalla is a fine, intact example of the high-quality residential work of Dods that is characterised by a pervading sense of tradition, solidity, and an honest use of materials. Designed in an Arts and Crafts idiom, the low-set timber house has deliberately oversized timber elements and openings; verandah piazza; steep dominant roof; finely-detailed, built-in timber furniture; a well-considered service zone; and an interior layout that optimises cross ventilation and solar orientation.
|Weemalla (1909) is important in illustrating the contribution of notable architect, Robert Smith (Robin) Dods, to the evolution of Queensland architecture.
Weemalla is important for providing evidence of the lifestyle of Brisbane's prosperous elite in the outer suburbs in the early twentieth century. Built for the manager of a national insurance company, it also reflects the development of Brisbane as a commercial centre from the 1890s, not only as headquarters of Queensland companies but also as a branch centre for overseas and interstate companies.
|Standing on a rise within a leafy suburban landscape, the low-set house with dominant roof and generous garden is important for its Arts and Crafts aesthetic. Notable for its fine craftsmanship, it features a skilful arrangement of informal and formal living spaces. A sense of simple elegant suburban domesticity is engendered by its generous verandahs and piazza and spacious living rooms.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32440,"place_ref":602821,"name":"Wyambyn","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Tabragalba House Road","suburb":"TABRAGALBA","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-08-09","description":"Wyambyn is a large timber homestead with garden surrounded by lightly wooded land in the Albert River valley, approximately 6.5 kilometres east of Beaudesert. The house sits on a rise, approached from a long, unsealed drive from the north-east curving around to the rear of the house and continuing on to Nindooinbah homestead, 2.5 kilometres south. It sits in a house yard containing large specimen trees and a grass tennis court. The front of the house faces east and affords striking, panoramic views of the surrounding valley and ranges.
Wyambyn is a single-storeyed, timber-framed, low-set building encircled by wide verandahs. It comprises a main section, a northern wing, and a western service wing. The hipped roof is large and clad with corrugated metal sheeting with a ventilated ridge cap and two face brick chimneys with cement rendered moulding. The verandahs have ceilings of v-jointed timber boards lined on the rake, large timber posts with timber brackets, timber balustrades, and Crows Ash, shot-edge floor boards, painted on the outside perimeter. The verandah walls are single-skin, timber v-jointed boards with stop-chamfered timber framing exposed externally. Other external walls are weatherboards. The understorey is enclosed by timber lattice (front) and timber battens (elsewhere).
The house is designed with minimal decorative elements, in a scale and form sitting low and securely within the landscape. The front elevation of the main section is symmetrically composed around a generous, projecting verandah piazza sheltered by a large gable with a battened gable end. The piazza balustrades and soffits show evidence of previous enclosure. The ceiling of the piazza is lined with flat, v-jointed boards and the roof space is ventilated in the gable end by spaced weatherboards to the apex.
The verandah wraps around the house on the remaining elevations with some corners enclosed to form small rooms. The verandah is accessed by timber stairs, to either side of the piazza. The central front entrance door is flanked by large bay windows with double-hung timber sashes of many small panes. The entry door is timber with six panels and bolection moulding, sidelights, a semi-circular fanlight, and moulded timber architrave.
The main section of the house has a central hallway with living rooms on the south and bedrooms on the north. Generally, the interior has clear-finished, timber board floors; single-skin timber board partitions with moulded timber skirtings, belt rails, picture rails, architraves and cornices; and v-jointed, timber board ceilings. The cornices of the principal rooms are wider and more elaborate. Much of the timber in the house is stained dark. The drawing and dining rooms are connected by a pair of large timber doors and the dining room has a large brick fireplace with a panelled timber fire surround. The house has built-in timber cupboards with timber shelves and a built-in timber book shelf with moulded architraves in the hall. Large, glazed French doors with moulded panels and hinged fanlights open onto the verandah from all rooms. Interior doors are panelled timber with operable timber fanlights.
The northern wing rooms are accessed from the verandah. One room contains a fireplace with a carved and moulded timber surround and an adjacent built-in timber seat and cupboard. Some doors of this wing retain early timber framed flyscreen doors. There are large built-in timber cupboards on the verandah.
A verandah walkway connects the rear of the main section of the house to the service wing. On one side of the walkway is the dairy, a small flyscreen and timber lattice-enclosed room with timber shelving.
The service wing comprises an enclosed eastern verandah, a kitchen and large pantry with timber shelves, a living space, and a laundry. The laundry is at ground level with a rear door into the yard and a small timber stair up to the kitchen. The laundry windows are corrugated metal, top-hung shutters.
Throughout the house, original brass door and window furniture survives.
The garden contains mature trees, lawns, and garden beds. To the east of the house are a large Jacaranda and a tennis court, both positioned on axis with the front of the main section of the house. The court has brick retaining walls with a set of brick steps. It retains an early timber net post with metal winder. The flat grass court sits within the sloping landscape and the distant mountains form a backdrop creating a dramatic and scenic setting.
","history":"Wyambyn (1909), located 6.5km east of Beaudesert, was designed by eminent architect Robert Smith (Robin) Dods as a large homestead for pastoralist and businessman De Burgh Bannatyne Bentinck Persse.
\nMoreton pastoral district, in present day south-east Queensland, was settled in 1841 as part of the pastoral expansion from the south that had resulted in the occupation of the Darling Downs in 1840. Early runs included Nindooinbah [QHR 600027] and Mundoolun on the Albert River. The Moreton and Darling Downs pastoral districts, with sufficient rainfall, nutritious natural pastures and nearby markets, were the most viable of Queensland's pastoral districts.[1] Both were opened for selection of small agricultural and pastoral blocks from the 1860s. This resulted in the progressive freehold purchase, after resumption, of large pastoral properties, often by their lessees as well as other selectors.[2]
\nEarly pastoralists in the Beaudesert district, the Collins and the De Burgh Persse families, selected land in this manner. The Collins family took up Mundoolun station in the 1840s and became wealthy pastoralists with many properties throughout Queensland including Tamrookum and Nindooinbah near the town of Beaudesert.[3] De Burgh Fitzpatrick Persse purchased the nearby Tabragalba station in 1865 and by the late 1880s had freeholded an extensive tract of land.[4]
\nBoth the De Burgh Persse and Collins families were important in the development of Queensland. They were active in public life, serving in the Queensland Parliament and in local government, and held positions on important company boards, many with a pastoral influence. The families had mutual interests and, over time, friendship and intermarriage created an interconnected and influential dynastic pastoral empire.
\nWyambyn was built on land selected in Jane Collins' name, approximately halfway between the De Burgh Persse and Collins homesteads. The land, comprising 419 acres and 20 perches (169.61ha), was purchased in June 1908 by De Burgh Persse in anticipation of his marriage to Fannie Martin Collins on 21 April 1909.[5] The design of Wyambyn commenced soon after the land purchase and in July 1908 a tender notice was placed by Dods for its construction; a job won by local builders, Warren and Morgan.[6]
\nDods (1868-1920) was a New Zealand-born architect who lived briefly in Britain before coming to Brisbane in the 1870s. He later trained as an architect in Scotland and England under a number of esteemed architects who were working in the Arts and Crafts idiom. His architectural career began in Edinburgh in 1886, articled with architects Hay & Henderson. He attended evening classes at the Edinburgh Architectural Association until 1890 and formed a lasting friendship with (Sir) Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), eminent Scottish architect and fellow proponent of Arts and Crafts. In 1890 Dods moved to London, where he worked with the Fortifications Branch of the War Office and in the office of notable architect (Sir) Aston Webb. In 1891 he was admitted to the Royal Institute of British Architects and travelled in Italy. In 1894 Dods visited his mother in Brisbane and while there won a competition for a nurses home at the Brisbane General Hospital [QHR 600223]. He returned to Brisbane in 1896 and started in practice with architect Francis Hall as Hall & Dods. Dods has been acknowledged as ‘one of the most significant early 20th century Australian architects'[7] and as a rare practitioner of the Arts and Crafts style in Queensland.
\nArts and Crafts was an international design movement flourishing between 1860 and 1910, its influence continuing into the 1930s. It was led by artist and writer William Morris and architect Charles Voysey and was inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and Augustus Pugin. The style championed traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often applied medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. Importantly, it valued local variations in traditions so that good design would have relevance within its context. Arts and Crafts architecture is characterised by solidity and heaviness through well-proportioned solid forms, wide porches and prominent steep roofs. The texture of ordinary materials is expressed in the detailing and building composition is asymmetrical.
\nThe practice of Hall & Dods was the most influential source of modern design in Brisbane, producing a wide range of accomplished buildings, and was credited with achieving an 'architectural revolution' in Brisbane.[8] Dods was responsible for most of the design within the firm, integrating contemporary British design philosophies with the traditions of Queensland housing and the requirements of a subtropical climate, and producing practical, attractive, and finely-detailed houses. The partnership ended in 1913, when Dods left to practice in Sydney. Dods died prematurely in 1920.
\nDods' residential work employed local building techniques combined with a sophisticated discipline and a common-sense response to climate. Dods' houses were mostly built of timber with detailing that was a celebration of craftsmanship. The most noticeable characteristic of his Queensland houses (built between 1896 and 1917) was a general feeling of solidity and substance. This was the result of a number of design decisions, including designing a generous roof (often the largest element) continuous over the verandah and over a lower, rear washhouse. The roof was always simple in geometry and often finished with terracotta tiles, flat shingles or pan-and-tile profile, flat iron sheeting with a prominent rolled joint. Corrugated iron was only used where it was necessary to reduce the cost. Generally low-set, the houses often had an enclosed or screened understorey to give the house a visually solid base. Individual elements were oversized to appear substantial as if under heavy loads. Bold, dark, earthy colours, darkly-stained timber, rough-sawn weatherboards with mitred corners, roughcast rendering and face brickwork in dark colours were used to give the house a weighty gravity. The building materials and finishes were chosen to allow the building to mellow over time, providing it with a well-established appearance.
\nThe house designs take a formalist approach to planning including formal entry halls and traditional planning arrangements. The plans were generated through a consideration of aspect, with living spaces well-oriented and internal layouts permitting cross ventilation. They are also notable for their informal spaces, a particular feature being the inclusion of generous verandah piazzas[9]. The plans respond to the social needs of the clients in an honest and functional way. The houses were often provided with generous, considered service spaces including back halls and wash houses. The health and comfort of the occupants were major considerations. Ventilation devices included wide window and door openings, ventilated gables and ridges, and ventilation fleches. Piazzas were generous, allowing comfortably-furnished, semi-outdoor living. Operable shading and enclosure of the piazza was sometimes achieved by adding timber vertical louvres above the verandah handrail, creating a room habitable in most weather. Interiors included fine decorative timber joinery and panelling. Fireplace surrounds and built-in cupboards were also a feature.
\nThe composition of facades and circulation routes is a more nuanced element of Dods' houses and highlights his originality and artistic skill. Facades often only implied symmetry. Entries were often off-centre or perpendicular, emphasised by wide and expressive entry stairs. Projecting bay windows and corner fireplaces were recurrent elements.
\nDods designed gardens as a setting for the house, a practice more common in Britain than in Queensland. They featured formal parterre gardens, terraces and walls, flower beds, tennis courts, hedges, topiaries, flowering ornamental trees, and geometric path and lawn layouts. Garden furniture and structures were designed including seats, pergolas, trellises, fences and gates.
\nWyambyn is an example of the homesteads built by the more successful pastoralists of south-east Queensland. As funds became available over time, they built comfortable, architect-designed homes or extended their earlier homesteads into residences more befitting their status.[10]
\nBetween 1901 and 1913 Dods designed and built six homesteads for rural properties - Langlo Downs, Augathella (1903, destroyed by fire); extension to Nindooinbah [QHR 600027], Beaudesert (1908); Ringsfield, Nanango (1908); Wyambyn, Beaudesert (1909); Myendetta, Charleville (1910); and Kengoon, Kalbar (1913).[11] These were large dwellings that often formed the centre of groups of outbuildings. Their garden layouts were also an important feature.[12]
\nRural homesteads built in Queensland in the early part of the 20th century were large homes, often on elevated (flood-free) sites with a scenic outlook, surrounded by gardens. As well as those listed above, Marshlands near Hivesville (1910) designed by Hall & Dods (but not believed to be Dods' design) was built during this period, as was Hidden Vale near Grandchester (Eaton & Bates, 1903).[13]
\nThe Collins family knew Dods and his work. He had supervised the building of the Buckeridge-designed St John's Church [QHR 601082] at Mundoolun station in 1901, which commemorated the lives of their parents, John and Ann Collins. In 1906 Dods designed additions to Nindooinbah homestead for William Collins that were completed in 1908.[14] Dods and the Collins and Persse men may have met through their membership of the Queensland Club: Dods became a member in 1898, William Collins from 1877, Robert M Collins in 1895, and John G Collins in 1897, while DBB Persse joined in 1907 and his father in 1874.[15]
\nDods also designed Wyambyn's extension, which was completed by 1912, to accommodate the growing family.[16] The extension comprised a northern wing that included a nursery and extra bedrooms.[17] It was later used as additional bedrooms and a school room.[18]
\nIt is possible that Dods also designed the tennis court at Wyambyn. It appears in early photographs and is in harmony with the overall design; the entry stair and net are aligned with the piazza and a large Jacaranda.
\nInitially, Wyambyn operated as a cattle property. However, in the mid-1920s De Burgh Persse re-introduced sheep to the district as did other properties in the Beaudesert area run by family members, namely, Mundoolun (DM Fraser) and Tabragalba (Charles de Burgh Persse) owing to the decline of beef returns and the rise of wool prices at this time.[19]
\nDe Burgh Bennatyne Bentinck Persse was not purely a pastoralist dependent on the land. Like his father, he was involved in business enterprises and took over most of his father's directorships.[20] He served as chairman of directors of the Raub Australian Gold Mining Company; the Queensland Meat Export Company; and the Australian Stockbreeders' Co. He was also a member of the advisory board of the National Bank of Australasia.[21]
\nAfter D B B Persse's death on 10 December 1947 Wyambyn with its 419 acres (170ha) passed to his second son, Burton Persse. He resided there with his family, operating a dairy from soon after his return from World War II service until the late 1970s. The property then changed to beef cattle production.[22] In 1981 Wyambyn was sold, and subsequently used for farming and grazing purposes.[23] However, following the Queensland Government's Glendower Dam proposal in 1990, which would inundate Nindooinbah, Tabragalba and Wyambyn land, Wyambyn was compulsorily acquired by the South East Queensland Water Board. After acquisition, the land was leased for use as an organic dairy, then for cattle grazing.[24]
\nVarious assessments of Wyambyn have been made. The Land Court judgement in the case Vadoog Pty Ltd verses South East Queensland Water Board stated: ‘A feature of the property is its imposing homestead, constructed in about 1908 and maintained in excellent order'.[25] Three architectural studies and assessments between 1971 and 2002 have occurred, culminating in its inclusion and assessment in a doctoral thesis on the significance of Dods' architecture to Australia.[26]
\nFurthermore, the architectural importance of Wyambyn is supported by its inclusion in two documents assessing Dods' work and 20th century Queensland architecture. The homestead was proposed by the Queensland sub-committee of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) Heritage Taskforce on Significant 20th Century Queensland Architecture as being of national importance and included in a draft list of nationally significant places produced on 17 September 2007.[27]
\nSome changes to the homestead have occurred. In October 1936 a fire started in a chip heater chimney in the homestead's ceiling and destroyed the ceiling and rafters of the bathroom on the western wing.[28] There is evidence of a more recent fire in the laundry.[29] The kitchen was changed from a wood stove with marble bench tops to a modern stove plus laminated bench tops in the 1960s. The small verandah in the service wing was enclosed as an eating area for Burton Persse and his family. The two original bathrooms have been altered; one was modernised and the other stripped and converted to an office by 1971. The wall between the former cook's room and the kitchen has been removed. In 1996 the roofing was noted as corrugated iron. However, Dods favoured flat iron roofing and this appears to be the roofing in a photograph taken in 1919. The vertical timber blinds around the piazza, apparent in early photographs, have been removed.[30]
\nThe homestead has been depicted in promotional material for the region and featured as the setting for the movie ‘Unfinished Sky' in 2007. The Glendower Dam proposal has not progressed and in 2013 the property is leased for grazing purposes and administered by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines.
","criteria":"As one of only six Queensland homesteads designed by acclaimed architect Robin Dods, Wyambyn is a rare and intact example of his homestead designs.
|Standing on a rise within an extensive pastoral landscape, the low-set house with dominant, steeply-pitched roof; generous verandahs; garden; and tennis court, has majestic valley and mountain views to the east, north and south. The relationship between the built elements and the natural landscape is vividly scenic.
A sense of gracious rural domesticity is engendered by its wide verandahs and piazza and spacious living rooms.
Highly intact, Wyambyn is important for its Arts and Crafts aesthetic, notably for its fine craftsmanship, high quality materials and skilful arrangement of informal and formal living spaces.
The aesthetic significance of Wyambyn has been recognised in film and used in promotional imagery for the region.
|Wyambyn is a fine, intact example of the high-quality residential work of Dods that is characterised by a pervading sense of tradition, solidity, and an honest use of materials. Designed in an Arts and Crafts idiom, the low-set timber house has deliberately oversized timber elements and openings; verandah piazza; steep dominant roof; finely-detailed, built-in timber furniture; a well-considered service zone; and an interior layout that optimises cross ventilation and solar orientation.
|Wyambyn (1909) is important in illustrating the contribution of notable architect, Robert Smith (Robin) Dods, to the evolution of Queensland architecture.
It also provides evidence of the affluent lifestyle enjoyed by pioneer pastoralists of south-east Queensland who were able to freehold much of their land and erect substantial homesteads.
|Wyambyn is important for its association over more than 70 years with the De Burgh Persse and Collins families, who are notable for their contribution to the pastoral industry and public life in Queensland over more than 150 years. Not only pioneer pastoralists of the Beaudesert district, the families have also served in the Queensland Parliament, initiated Queensland's National Parks system, promoted beef exports as directors of the Queensland Meat Export Co., and controlled pastoral empires extending to the Northern Territory and South Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion E | Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":32441,"place_ref":602816,"name":"Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College, Indooroopilly","alternate_name":"Chapel of St Peters Lutheran College | Chapel of St Peter's College | Chapel of St Peters","street_address":"66 Harts Road","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-12-07","description":"The Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, is a fan-shaped building with a bell tower and large concrete paved forecourt terminating a tree-lined plaza. The plaza runs generally from west to east along a high ridge of land within the College campus. The tall bell tower is surmounted by a cross which can be seen from across the area.
The gently-curved, temple front entrance faces west. Three concrete steps lead up to a tall portico running across the face of the building. Four slender square columns divide the front into five bays. The portico is clad with marble presenting a high-quality face to the building that glows strikingly in the setting sun.
At the southern end of the front a tall bell tower made of three concrete fins squats over a small round drum of the meditation chapel, attached to the building by a slender covered corridor. The bell is mounted at the base of the tower and has raised letters, ‘ST. PETERS 1967'.
The rear wall of the portico reveals the concrete structure infilled with panels of yellow face brick. The portico ceiling is lined with dark-stained timber battens. Aluminium framed glass doors open from the portico into the chapel. High level aluminium framed awning windows light the interior choir loft.
The north and south elevations are yellow face brick and comprise a series of stepped blade walls with west facing windows. Secondary entrances to the nave are located along both sides and the low form of the vestry and consultation rooms project out of the south face. The eastern (rear) elevation has no windows and the field of yellow face bricks features a pattern of crosses made of projecting header bricks. The land falls away at the rear and long and narrow openings provide ventilation into the understorey and then up into the chapel via floor louvers behind the altar.
The nave is a wide fan narrowing to the altar at the east end. The floor slopes down to the altar. The wide balcony choir loft is tiered and overhangs the entire west end of the nave forming a low-ceilinged entry zone supported on slender square concrete columns. The balcony balustrade is dark-stained timber battens and forms a sweeping curve. The balcony is reached via timber stairs at both ends of the entry area. The body of the chapel is a large space, brightly lit and uncluttered. The high white ceiling curves seamlessly into the east wall behind the altar where a large timber cross that appears to float on the white field is mounted.
The north and south walls are yellow face brick and the windows are positioned so they are shielded from the nave and their light is directed eastward onto the altar. The pews are darkly-stained timber and are crafted to sit on the sloping floor, progressively shorter towards the altar to suit the reducing width of the nave. The floor of the nave is clear finished timber under the pews and russet coloured carpet in the entry, aisles and sanctuary. The sanctuary is reached by two steps and a third step supports the altar. The altar is made of large thick slabs of Helidon sandstone with the front carved with the Greek letters alpha and omega.
At the southern end a short stair leads down to a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor into the round meditation chapel. The floors of the corridor and meditation chapel are paved with glazed dark bricks and the walls are of yellow bricks. The ceiling of the meditation chapel is rough textured stucco. A large timber cross is fixed to the wall and the room contains timber kneelers and pews. Three long narrow windows light the small dark room.
The chapel contains timber furniture, sandstone font, framed portraits, metal candlesticks and a variety of liturgical items.
The forecourt is paved with concrete tiles in a stretched hexagonal pattern. It is approximately 40m square. The plaza has a concrete surface and is flanked on both sides by grass planted with Poinciana trees at regular intervals. This outdoor furniture and other plantings are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
On the southern side of the forecourt is a WWII memorial, a large sandstone monolith, standing within garden beds and grass and flanked by two steel flagpoles. The stone is carved with a cross and a Roll of Honour listing Queensland Lutherans who died in WWII. This is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
A corner of Luther House and the cafe extension to the dining hall encroach into the forecourt and plaza. They are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, built in 1968, was designed by architect, Dr Karl Langer as the centrepiece of the school grounds, complete with a tree-lined plaza, forecourt, bell tower, and reflecting pool. The chapel is used regularly by the school and the local Lutheran parish for liturgical and general assembly purposes and remains central to the school community.
\nThe area now known as Indooroopilly was surveyed in 1858 and first settled in 1860. The area was subdivided into farms and later into residential allotments. Prior to 1870 there were few houses built in the area but settlement of the district received impetus from the opening of the Brisbane to Ipswich railway in 1875. During the 1880s and 1890s Indooroopilly developed as a fashionable suburb. Many substantial, architect-designed residences were built on large allotments.
\nIndoocombe was a large brick house built in Indooroopilly in c1897. It became the home of the Munro family who renamed it Ross Roy and the house and its substantial grounds became a centre of high society life. Photographs from this time show the grounds immediately surrounding the house to be landscaped and well maintained and the remainder of the property being native growth with a cleared and grassed understorey. The Munros lived at Ross Roy until their deaths. After the finalisation of the estate, Ross Roy was sold to the Lutheran Church in December 1944 for £16,000.[1] The villa occupied 16 acres (6.5ha) and was established as St Peter's Lutheran College opening 25 February 1945.
\nLutheranism is a major branch of Christianity and places a strong emphasis on education. In 1838 the first Lutherans arrived in Australia from Prussia and established communities in South Australia and Moreton Bay. That year a group of German Lutheran and Presbyterian missionaries established Zion Hill (at present day Nundah), a mission for Christianising aborigines, on the outskirts of Moreton Bay Penal Colony. It was not considered successful and was abandoned in 1848. In 1857 Lutheran Pastor Carl Franz Alexander Schirmeister came to Moreton Bay and established congregations at North Brisbane, South Brisbane, Ipswich, and Toowoomba. He obtained Government grants of land for church use and the first church was built in North Brisbane in 1861, followed quickly by churches at the other locations. Over the following decades Lutheranism was spread across Queensland. Around 1859 the newly-formed colony of Queensland launched a vigorous immigration policy that continued for over 40 years.[2] It attracted many Germans who formed distinct communities amidst the essentially-British nation. Although only a minority of these Germans were Lutheran, across the state Lutheran congregations grew and some established Lutheran schools.
\nWith the introduction of the state school system at the turn of the century, Queensland Lutheran schools disappeared as the state school system grew. By 1914 there were no operational Lutheran schools in Queensland[3] and a period of low activity of Lutheran education followed during the interwar and World War II (WWII) period partly due to anti-German sentiment.
\nA gradual resurgence of independent schools began in the last half of the twentieth century with government financial assistance in the late 1960s. This resulted in a Lutheran school boom in Australia between the 1970s and the 1990s[4] and in 2012 Queensland had 27 Lutheran schools educating over 20,000 students.[5] This resurgence of Lutheran schools in Queensland started in 1945 with the establishment of St Peter's Lutheran College at Indooroopilly. The Courier Mail described it as ‘the first Lutheran secondary school in Queensland'.[6] The school was co-educational and attendance was open to boarders and day school children of all denominations. The school was intended to be a northern adjunct and feeder to Immanuel Seminary in Adelaide where they would be prepared to serve as pastors and in other ministries.[7] On opening day the school received £226/14/8 in donations, ear-marked for the addition of a chapel.
\nA Chapel Fund was established and fundraising activities began. In February 1948 a temporary chapel was dedicated in a former officers' mess building of the Australian Women's Army Service camp. The AWAS camp had occupied part of the Munro estate and the school moved the mess building to the centre of the school campus. In September 1948 the school completed Luther House, a two storey building of classrooms. The upper storey temporarily housed the chapel until a permanent chapel could be built.
\nThe 1950s and 1960s was an era of religious vitality in Australia. During this period the nation was in a sustained economic boom, was lead by conservative governments, and was experiencing high population growth. The congregations of major religions expanded and church attendance and religious society membership rose with accompanying financial improvement.[8] Suburban churches regularly reported record congregation attendances for major holy days. Membership of the Lutheran church also increased after WWII with the major influx of European migrants. In the early to mid 1960s a number of the major Christian religions altered the way they ministered to their congregation in order to re-establish themselves within the modern world. With increased incomes, increased congregations, and an increasingly modern approach, considerable building programs began. Spacious brick churches were built in a modern style, often replacing smaller timber churches.[9]
\nIn 1966 the Chapel Fund had raised $59,995 and borrowed $70,000 for the construction of the chapel. Brisbane-based architect and town planner Dr Karl Langer was engaged as architect.
\nDr Karl Langer (1903-1969) was born on 28 July 1903 in Vienna, Austria. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under the directorship of pioneer German modernist designer Peter Behrens and in 1928, the year of his graduation, he was employed by Behrens to run his office in Vienna. In 1933 he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis entitled Origins and Development of Concrete Construction.
\nDr Langer immigrated to Australia with his wife, Dr Gertrude Langer, in 1939, bringing direct experience of the European Modern Movement to Queensland. He gained temporary employment with architects Cook and Kerrison in Brisbane and from 1940 Dr Langer lectured part time in architecture and architectural design at the University of Queensland, publishing Sub-Tropical Housing in 1944. This booklet explored issues related to house design and town planning in a sub-tropical climate and influenced many architects working in the post-WWII era.[10]
\nIn 1944 Dr Langer was employed as an assistant town planner in the Brisbane City Council. From 1945, he was commissioned to work on a range of town planning projects for Darwin, Ingham, Toowoomba, Yeppoon, Kingaroy, Mount Isa, Mackay and for the National Capital Development Commission, Canberra. Concurrently, he completed numerous architectural projects of a wide variety including small, economical domestic work and large commercial and institutional work.
\nAs an architect and town planner, Dr Langer had a pronounced impact upon the built environment of Australia, especially in Queensland, from the 1940s until his death in 1969. Along with numerous cultural pursuits, he was active in the Royal Australian Institute of Architects; first president (1952) of the Queensland division of the Royal Australian Planning Institute; a founder and chairman (1966-68) of the Queensland Association of Landscape Architects; and a member (1963-69) of the National Trust of Queensland. Important examples of his architectural work include the Langer residence at St Lucia [QHR 600317] (1950); Mackay Sugar Research Station [QHR 602642] (1953); St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg (1960); Kingaroy Town Hall and Civic Square (1963); Assembly Hall at Ipswich Girls Grammar [QHR 600565] (1964); Main Roads Department Building, Spring Hill (1966); Lennon's Hotel Broadbeach (1957); and Lennon's Hotel Toowoomba. His body of work is a clearly distinguishable exploration of a sub-tropical modernism that culminates in the Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, his last built work.
\nModernism developed in pre-World War I Europe and gained popularity in Australia post-WWII. It was more than a design style and is notable for a rationalising of planning emphasising clarity and simplicity of form and detailing.[11] American and Scandinavian influences were strong in Australia.[12] During the 1950s and 1960s a similar rationalisation occurred within Christian religions in an effort to modernise approaches to religious practice. Churches became brighter and simpler in form and decorative treatments. They used new materials and forms while incorporating many traditional elements and symbols. Design responses included variations on the medieval church with simple massing, a rectangular nave stripped of apses, aisles and chapels, a dramatically lit sanctuary rear wall and simple belltower.
\nInfluenced by the architecture of classical Greece and the modernist ideas of contemporary European architecture, Dr Langer developed a sophisticated hybrid of classical and modern principles of design bridging modern and traditional architecture.[13] Typically, Dr Langer explored the idea of the conjunction of landscape and landmark and his designs often involve a designed landscape incorporating the building. At St Peter's, Dr Langer proposed a fan-shaped chapel with a very tall bell tower and a round concrete reflecting pool behind a paved forecourt at the end of a tree lined plaza. The front of the chapel was a crisp, curved colonnade-a stylised temple front-clad in marble. The other walls were yellow face brick with a projecting pattern of crosses on the east wall exterior.
\nLanger's design for the Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College was in a modernist style and typical of his architectural concepts. Langer's exploration of modernism was heavily influenced by context. He studied the local fauna and flora in Queensland and the climate and his work interprets this in a Modernist manner. Dr Langer integrated native planting into his schemes; at St Peter's he proposed hedges of lemon scented tea trees for the plaza. He typically exploited passive lighting and ventilation in intelligent and uncomplicated ways; at St Peter's his design includes simple methods of passive ventilation and a naturally lit interior.
\nBy 1966 when the design of the chapel was nearing completion, Dr Langer had a strong connection with the Lutheran community of Queensland and with St Peter's Lutheran College. He had previously designed and had constructed St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg (1960) and St John's Lutheran Church, Ipswich (1961). At St Peter's College, he had completed a chaplain's residence (1954), a dormitory block (1954-55), a dining hall block (1966), and a concrete footbridge (1966-67). The dormitory block and a 12 ft tall sandstone monolith was a memorial to Queensland Lutheran servicemen killed in WWII. The monolith was a gift by Langer to the school and, at the time, was believed to be the largest stone in Brisbane. A cross was carved on one side with servicemen's name son the other. Langer went on to complete a science block (1967-68) and the entrance fence and gates (1968). The plaza and forecourt connected some of these buildings in a coherent, ordered manner, e.g. the stylised temple fronted dining hall addressed the plaza and forecourt, referencing classical Greek town centres, suggesting Dr Langer had a masterplan for the site. In lectures for architecture students at the University of Queensland he referenced the design of St Peter's chapel and its context (the forecourt/plaza and surrounding buildings) as an example of applying the European model of a functional town square to the College campus.[14] Importantly, the design was symbolic of the essence of Lutheran education-an axis with theology (the chapel) at one end and learning (the library) at the other.[15]
\nDr Langer carefully incorporated Christian symbolism within the design of the chapel. The fan shape concentrates the gaze to the altar; lights are hidden from the nave to remove any distraction from this focus. The curved east wall is plain and dominated by the Cross (a symbol of the resurrection), seemingly floating in a strong light symbolising the rising sun. References to the Holy Trinity can be seen in the altar (constructed of three pieces), the three-finned bell tower and the three windows in the mediation chapel.
\nTenders for the construction of the chapel were called in February 1967. Local contractor WW Groom's tender of $123,938 (the lowest of nine) was accepted on 6 February 1967. Groom had also won the contracts for other Langer buildings at St Peter's. The foundation stone was laid 17 September 1967 and the chapel was opened and dedicated 14 June 1968 with Dr M Lohe, President General of the Lutheran Church, as guest speaker. Dr Langer and Groom attended and were involved in the ceremony.
\nA large timber crucifix was commissioned for the wall within the small round room of the meditation chapel. It was carved by Alfred Schubert, a Czech-born woodcarver from Melbourne who had trained in Bavaria. Schubert had previously carved a crucifix for Langer's St John's Lutheran Church at Bundaberg. The crucifix was dramatically lit and loomed large within the room.
\nThe chapel bell was donated by Pastor Franz Finger who was closely associated with the establishment of St Peter's and in its ongoing ministry and served on the College Council.
\nDr Langer died in 1969 and his funeral service was conducted at the chapel. It has been said that Dr Langer considered the chapel to be his favourite building.[16] He was cremated at Mt Thompson Crematorium, where he had designed the east chapel built in 1962.
\nThere has been little alteration to the chapel over time. Aluminium blade sun shades have been added to some windows and the crucifix in the meditation chapel has been removed. The reflecting pond in the forecourt has been removed. A wide concrete ramp has been added in the forecourt probably replacing a wide stair.
\nAt some time, the large sandstone WWII memorial monolith was moved from its earlier position on the northern side of the boys' dormitory to the southern edge of the chapel forecourt.
\nThe chapel has been the only local Lutheran church in Indooroopilly since 1968 and services for the Lutheran parish are conducted weekly. The chapel, forecourt and plaza have acted as the physical and spiritual centre of the campus and continue to do so. The chapel is regularly used as an auditorium for the College and hosts performances, ceremonies and general assemblies. Larger assemblies and ANZAC day commemorations are held in the forecourt.
","criteria":"The Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, constructed in 1968, is important in demonstrating the growth and changing practices of Christian liturgies in Queensland between the 1950s and the 1970s, in particular of the Lutheran church, a religious denomination of importance in Queensland since 1838. The chapel in its setting is a strong symbolic gesture embodying the essence of Lutheran education with theology (the chapel) visually linked to learning (the library).
The chapel is important in demonstrating the strong influence of European modernist architecture in Queensland. As a highly intact modernist church, the chapel is important in representing modernist ecclesiastical architecture in Queensland during a period of significant re-evaluation and modernisation of Christian religions worldwide.
|The place, designed by Dr Karl Langer, has a special association with his life and work. It is the culmination of his architectural career and embodies the defining architectural principles he developed and employed. Dr Langer is an architect of importance to Queensland and was one of the earliest architects to promote a local variation of modernist architecture. His work, particularly on climatic design, inspired and influenced contemporary and later architects.
|The chapel is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics and qualities of a modernist church in Queensland. Highly intact, the chapel is notable for incorporating a dominant bell tower, large, well-lit nave shaped to focus to the sanctuary, a choir loft, vestry and stark, dramatic meditation chapel. The Chapel is notable for its subtle incorporation of Christian symbolism including the positioning of the Cross floating on a strongly lit curving wall as a symbol of the rising sun and the use of three elements in the design of features like the bell tower, altar and meditation chapel.
The place is an exceptional example of the work of architect, Dr Karl Langer, embodying architectural principles he developed and refined over his career. Most notably, it incorporates classical architectural devices including a processional plaza, forecourt and stylised temple front; features characteristic simplified forms and spatial arrangements and a restrained use of good quality materials; and incorporates natural light and ventilation.
|Notable for its high quality design, materials and construction, the place is important for its aesthetic significance. The monumental bell tower is visible across the College and surrounding suburbs giving the chapel strong landmark qualities. The forecourt and plaza provide for views to and from the chapel, especially important for the symbolism in the visual link between the chapel and the library. The sculptural qualities of the austere chapel interior-including the seamless curving east wall with floating Cross; use of white plaster finishes complementing timber panelling and pale brickwork; natural lighting from the west facing clear glazing in the bladed side walls and from glazing in the west wall-evoke feelings of awe and reverence. The main chapel is a dramatic contrast to the cave-like small meditation chapel which evokes sensations of introspection and contemplation.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33098,"place_ref":602804,"name":"Bank of New South Wales (former)","alternate_name":"Wherry House","street_address":"34-36 Gill Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The former Bank of New South Wales is a substantial building in the heart of the commercial district of Charters Towers and is an important element in a largely late 19th century townscape. Facing north, the bank is located on Gill Street where it rises to meet Mosman Street. The bank is a dominant element in its immediate setting amidst smaller, less pretentious buildings and has a visual relationship with other former banks and important civic buildings in scale and style, including Charters Towers Post Office and the former Queensland National Bank (now the City Hall).
\nThe rendered brick building with timber framed floors and large hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting has an elaborate, classically detailed two-storey masonry arcade fronting Gill Street. Behind, timber verandahs on the east and west sides of the first floor shelter the core of the building and provide access lanes at ground level to the rear of the site.
\nThe building comprises the former bank on the ground floor approached from Gill Street; the former residence on the first floor accessed from the eastern lane, and an attached single-storey service wing at the rear with access from Powell Lane to the south. The former Bank of New South Wales retains a large proportion of its early fabric and displays a high standard of craftsmanship and detail. The principal interior spaces are spacious and highly decorative, contrasting with the simplicity and practicality of the service spaces. Notable features include the generous ceiling heights, substantial and handsomely detailed cedar joinery, ventilated plaster cornices and ceiling roses and hand-pressed brick walls and barrel-vaulted ceiling in the strong room.
\nThe original layout of the building is clearly discernible. Approached from the footpath, the centred main entrance opens from the arcade into the spacious banking chamber. The manager's office and accountant's alcove are located to the left along its eastern side and strong room, toilet and stationery room along the rear to the south. A door in the rear of the western wall leads out to the lane. The dining room is located in the south-east corner. Adjacent, at rear of the bank, is an impressive stair hall which provides separate external access to the first floor manager's apartment together with through access from the service wing to the dining room. There is a storage room under the stair and linen store on the first floor. Opening off the stair hall, the apartment has an L-shaped hall leading to the western verandah where there are bathrooms clad with chamferboards located on the south-western corner. Two large principal rooms across the front (originally the drawing room and principal bedroom) and four smaller rooms (dressing room and three bedrooms) toward the rear open off the hall. The former, connected by bi-folding doors, have substantial joinery and all rooms opening onto the front and side verandahs have French doors.
\nAttached by a secondary, timber-framed stair hall to the rear of the apartment stair hall is a single-storey service wing. A rendered brick building with hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting, it comprises two rooms (originally a servant's bedroom and kitchen) separated by a pantry with verandahs on its eastern and western sides. A brick chimney is located in the south east corner of the kitchen which has a coved ceiling lined with flat sheeting and at the rear of the kitchen is a bathroom housed in a timber-framed, skillion roofed structure. The stair from the service wing to the mid-level landing of the main stair has been removed.
\nPublic toilets are located beside the former banking chamber at the end of the western side lane. One is a detached structure of concrete blocks that is not of cultural heritage significance. The other is a timber-framed lean-to. The interior fittings and fixtures are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe rear yard is surfaced with concrete and contains a number of structures including steel framed carports (that are not of cultural heritage significance) and a timber-framed garage with flat sheet walls and a gabled roof of corrugated metal sheeting.
","history":"The former Bank of New South Wales was built in Gill Street, Charters Towers in 1889, replacing a number of earlier timber bank buildings on other sites in both Charters Towers and nearby Millchester. This two-storey masonry building addressing Gill Street also has a number of additions to the rear which demonstrate the evolution of the banking industry in the town over time. It complements other significant bank buildings in nearby Mosman Street, including the former Australian Joint Stock Bank (QHR 600407), now The World Theatre and the former Queensland National Bank building which now serves as the City Hall.
Charters Towers' gold was first discovered in December 1871, by an Aboriginal boy named Jupiter who tended the horses for prospectors Hugh Mosman, George Clarke and John Fraser. A storm frightened the horses into a gap in the hills, and while retrieving them, Jupiter found a rich vein of gold laden quartz. [1] Mosman travelled to Ravenswood in early January 1872 to register the claim which he named Charters Towers, honouring the Gold Commissioner for the Broughton gold fields. By March 1872, Commissioner Charters had issued 25 prospecting area permits in the vicinity of Mosman's claim, and the rush began. [2]
The earliest settlement grew around diggings at the confluence of Buchanan's Gully and Gladstone Creek and was known as Millchester. A few miles west of Millchester, another settlement evolved which became Charters Towers. It included a number of stores, hotels and a butcher shop along a track that was to become Mosman Street. The population of Charters Towers was reputedly 3000 by August 1872. [3] There was rivalry between the two settlements, particularly after the courthouse was erected at Millchester in 1873. [4]
In the meantime, it had become evident that the procurement of gold from the deep seams of Charter Towers required substantial machinery to crush quartz and sink shafts. This required working capital to finance machinery and to pay the wages of workers employed on these time consuming processes. The Queensland Gold Fields Act 1874 and Gold Mining Companies Act 1875 allowed for combinations of leases, claims and syndicates in order to work their leases at great depths. The legislation also underpinned the establishment of permanent settlement which would attract capital investment to the field. [5] The influx of money and the resultant yield of gold were reflected in the growth of the township and the establishment of banks, mining companies and mining agencies and exchanges. Two banking companies, the Australian Joint Stock Bank and the Bank of NSW established offices on the goldfields by July 1872, only six months after the registration of the first claims. [6]
The Bank of New South Wales (NSW) was the first bank established in Australia (February 1817) but it was restricted to trading in Sydney until 1850. After restructuring, it opened its first branch outside Sydney, in Brisbane, on 14 November 1850, also being the first bank established in Queensland. It continued to expand rapidly with the rush of gold discoveries in New South Wales and Victoria. The bank set up agencies and gold-buying agents at every new mining venture in order to spread its network and consolidate its position. Bank officers were urged on by their superiors to be the first to a new location to set up a gold-buying agency. By 1861 the Bank of NSW had grown from a single Sydney office to a network of 37 branches in Australia and New Zealand. [7]
The expansion of the Bank of NSW into North Queensland was driven by Robert Towns, one of its directors. Bank establishment followed both pastoral development and mineral discoveries. Port Denison, established to serve pastoralists, became the municipality of Bowen in 1863. By 1864 there was Bowen branch of the Bank of NSW, followed by one in Townsville in March 1866, where Towns and his partner John Melton Black had established a boiling down works. Another branch opened on the Ravenswood goldfields in 1870, one at Cardwell, (the terminus for the gold escort) in 1871 [8] and in Charters Towers and Georgetown in 1872. The Cooktown branch, servicing the Palmer River fields opened in 1876, then Thornborough in 1877 on the Hodgkinson goldfields, followed by Cairns and Port Douglas. The Charters Towers Bank of NSW had opened only two days after the Australian Joint Stock Bank, which had opened on 2 July 1872. [9] Then in October 1872, both banks relocated to nearby Millchester. [10]
In Millchester, land on the northern corner of Jardine and Macdonald Streets was formally transferred to the Bank of NSW in April 1875, but the actual sale is likely to have occurred prior to the title documentation. The Joint Stock Bank owned land opposite in Macdonald Street, and the Queensland National Bank opened in 1873 adjacent. [11] Then in July 1874, a cottage was reported to have been relocated to Mosman Street, Charters Towers, to be used as an agency of the Bank of NSW. Presumably the main branch remained in Millchester. At the time Charters Towers was described as: ‘solidifying rapidly and is giving undeniable proof that it means to stand. New shops and stores are going up. Buildings are being renovated and painted...' [12]
Charters Towers soon dominated. A town survey was undertaken in November 1874, and marked out allotments in a ‘T' formation, [13] with the mines and provision stores of Mosman Street on one axis, and the road to Millchester marked by Gill Street on the other. In January 1876, the Bank of NSW was relocated to Charters Towers, with Millchester becoming the agency office. [14] This relocation was touted by the Northern Miner newspaper, as ‘the beginning of the end' for Millchester. [15] Charters Towers was declared a municipality in 1877 encompassing one square mile centred on Mosman Street. [16] It included new churches, the Oddfellows and Good Templar Lodges, and 21 hotels and 57 shops. The Bank of NSW moved into new premises in March 1877, described as a five roomed banking house, bringing solidarity to the top end of Mosman Street. [17]
The wealth of the Charters Towers goldfields grew in the following years, particularly following the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London where specimens of Charters Towers Gold were featured. Almost immediately English investors seized the opportunity to be part of the Charters Towers gold riches. Mining companies were formed, managed by Charters Towers' mining agents and share-brokers, and while some shares were held by English interests, many local people prospered through their investments, which then led to an expansion of banking facilities and mining exchanges. Banks and gold buyers purchased the gold, minted it into sovereigns in Australia and England, which were held in the vaults of banks in Melbourne, London, Berlin, and New York and then shipped to pay international debt. [18] According to the Northern Miner newspaper, there were five banks in Gill Street in mid 1887: the Bank of NSW, Bank of Australasia, London Chartered Bank, Union and Royal Banks. The Queensland National and the Australian Joint Stock Bank remained in Mosman Street. [19]
The Bank of NSW gradually improved banking facilities during the 1880s when many new branches opened in Queensland. Most directors were keen for bank premises in country towns to emphasise dignity, size and solidity in the design of their buildings demonstrating the bank's capacity to survive and consolidate. Consequently, well known architects were employed to design bank buildings in New South Wales, and throughout Australia and New Zealand. [20]
This was the case in Charters Towers. The Bank of NSW purchased an allotment in February 1887, diagonally opposite the post office in Gill Street, on which to erect a new substantial brick building. [21] Architects Eyre and Munro called for tenders in the local newspaper in April 1888. The firm had offices in Townsville and Charters Towers. [22] The Charters Towers office was run by William Henry Allan Munro, who had been previously employed in Townsville by architects and builders Rooney Brothers. After winning a competition for the design of the Queensland Hotel, he was taken into partnership with Walter Morris Eyre. In 1887 he became the junior partner, managing the Charters Towers office. Eyre, brother-in-law of architect FDG Stanley, had managed Stanley's Maryborough office between 1882 and 1885 before relocating to Townsville, where he supervised the construction of the Bank of NSW in Flinders Street (QHR 600890). The Eyre and Munro partnership designed many north Queensland buildings including the 1889 Holy Trinity Church of England in Herberton (QHR 600538), the 1890 Bank of North Queensland in Cooktown (QHR 600422), the 1890-1 Townsville School of Arts (QHR 600925), and the 1892 Burns Philp Building, now part of Bartlam's Store in Charters Towers (QHR 600409). They also designed the building on the corner of Deane and Gill Streets for auctioneers Ackers, Wilson, Ayton and Ryan, built in 1888 which later housed the Royal Bank of Queensland. [23]
Construction of the new bank was by contractor Mr Kelleher under the supervision of Eyre and Munro. It opened for business on Monday 13th May 1889, [24] and was described as ‘handsome and very pleasing, an imposing structure, superior to anything north of Brisbane' and overshadowing the adjacent Bank of Australasia (no longer extant). While the Northern Miner newspaper reported the cost at £9,000, the bank's archives indicated £6,040. The new building was seen as the way forward in both structure and location. [25] The inclusion of a commodious manager's private apartment was usual for regional banks.
On the ground floor the building comprised banking chamber, fitted handsomely in polished cedar, the upper part of the various partitions being in ornamental ground glass...ample room for the public in front of the counter for the transaction of business, and a table... placed there for the accommodation of those who may desire to fill in deposit slips, requisitions for drafts, &c; a counter...14 ft long by 4ft 6 in [4.2 x 1.4m] wide, with the bill department on the right, and the exchange clerks' office on the left; ledger desks...placed at the back of the counter. To the left of the main entrance to the public hall is the manager's room, ...and opening out of that is the accountant's office... which has a raised floor, so that the official, by simply standing up, can get a good view of all that is going on. There is a passage leading from the manager's room to the dining-room, which, with the exception of the kitchen and servants' offices is the only one of the private apartments on the ground floor. At the rear of the ledger-desks are the strong room (fireproof), a lavatory and a stationery-room. Leaving the dining-room, we come to the private hall, which is approached from the passage to the left of the building. The upper floor is reached by a staircase from this hall...and contains a handsome drawing room...communicating by folding doors with another large room...which will be used by Mr Beattie for his own bedroom. There are three other bedrooms and a dressing room, all of large dimensions, with linen closet and a bathroom. The upper part of the building has a balcony running around three sides...and the internal passages are all proportionately spacious. The servants' quarters on the ground floor comprise kitchen, pantry, wash-house and sleeping apartment, and are furnished with the usual appurtenances for cooking and washing. Stabling has yet to be erected. Gas is laid on in every room and provision is made: for the Burdekin water supply when that scheme is complete. In the meantime there are three 1000 gallon [45 litres] tanks all full. The chimney-pieces and other fittings are in cedar, and are in excellent taste. All the rooms are ceiled, with mouldings, &c., of elegant design, and ventilation and drainage have been specially attended to.' [26]
An economic downturn occurred in 1888, during the construction of the bank, due to a decrease in overseas investment and a continuing drought which led to the closure of crushing machines due to lack of water. The slump was short-lived after the development of the Brilliant Reef, [27] which when mined to a depth of 3000 feet (914 m), became the biggest producer in the field.
Charters Towers was at its economic peak in the late 19th century. According to Government Geologist Robert Logan Jack, Charters Towers was the third largest gold producing area in Australia, after Ballarat and Sandhurst (Bendigo). [28] Many new buildings were completed in this period in Charters Towers. The ‘T' junction of Mosman and Gill Streets became the financial district of Charters Towers. For one block to the east, north, and south were eight banks, the post and telegraph office, two assaying offices, and four solicitor's offices. Share-brokers occupied the Royal Arcade, and other offices were located in Mosman and Bow Streets. The Royal Arcade was built in 1888 for Alexander Malcolm and by 1890 the Stock Exchange (QHR 600406) operated from the building. Other significant buildings of this era include the1887-92 Masonic Lodge (QHR 600411) and the 1892 Post Office (Commonwealth Heritage List 105523). Banks of this era include the 1881 (lowset timber) Bank of Australasia, the London Chartered Bank (which purchased the two-storey masonry building from local builder Hugh Ross in 1887), the former Australian Joint Stock Bank (QHR 600407) and the Queensland National (QN) Bank, both designed by FDG Stanley and both built in 1891. The Union Bank then occupied the former QN Bank premises in Mosman Street. [29] All of these buildings remain, apart from the Bank of Australasia. The Bank of NSW was considered the first financial institution to erect premises worthy of the town and the business conducted there. The North Queensland Register claimed it was the largest banking institution in Australasia in the 1890s. [30]
The banking crisis of 1893, when the Queensland National Bank and the Australian Joint Stock Bank, both suspended trading, led to an increase in business for the Bank of NSW in Charters Towers, when successful mining companies transferred their accounts. [31] At that time there were eight banking businesses operating in Charters Towers; the Australian Joint Stock Bank, Bank of Australasia, Bank of NSW, Bank of North Queensland, London Chartered Bank, Queensland National Bank, Royal Bank and the Union Bank, and all were still operating after the crisis had passed. [32]
In 1899, Charters Towers was the second most important city in Queensland with a population of over 26,000, and an internationally noted goldfield. [33] The gold yield for the state rose dramatically following the development of the Brilliant Reef, and in 1891, rose from 123,000 ounces (3487 kg) to 218 000 ounces (6181 kg). It reached its all time peak of 319,572 ounces (9059.7 kg), yielding over £2,000,000 by 1899. [34] Gold production contributed between 21.61 and 35.53 percent of Queensland's export income during the 1880s and 1890s. These enormous amounts of gold were purchased by banks, which played a vital role in this process of wealth creation and distribution.
Gold production had been the mainstay of the Queensland mining sector in the 1890s, amounting to 85 per cent to 92.8 per cent of mining production during the decade. Apart from a brief spike in production at Mount Morgan in 1888-9, Charters Towers consistently out-produced the other major gold mining areas of Ravenswood, Gympie and Mount Morgan between 1880 and 1913. [35] While Gympie peaked between 1901 and 1906, generally figures for all centres declined in the early 20th century. Charters Towers' production of 96,046 oz (2723 kg) in 1912, fell to 42,777 oz (1213 kg) in 1916 and was reduced to 8095 oz (22.9 kg) by 1919. [36]
Despite Charters Towers being declared a city in 1909, the downturn in mining from 1914 and its virtual cessation by 1917 contributed to a steady decrease in population during this time. A town that had boasted a population of 25,000 in 1900, when it was the second largest in Queensland, was reduced to just 13,000 by the end of World War I (WWI). Between 1914 and 1918 more than 900 homes and business premises were removed from Charters Towers. Many were dismantled and transported by train to Townsville or Ayr where they were re-erected. Others were relocated to various places in Western Queensland. [37] Nevertheless, banking institutions remained in town to service the regional rural economy and included the Bank of NSW, Bank of Australasia, London Chartered Bank, Queensland National Bank, Union Bank and the Bank of Commerce in the early 1920s. [38] The Bank of NSW took over the Western Australian Bank in 1927, and then absorbed the Australian Bank of Commerce in 1931. [39]
The Bank of NSW occupied the building in Gill Street until 1970 and during this time a number of repairs and small modifications were made. Renovations were undertaken in 1910 included plastering, painting and general repairs, [40] with further unidentified alterations occurring in 1921 and 1940. [41] A post-1900 photograph of the rear of the bank shows rendering to the face-brick walls of the bank core and service wing; lattice panels fixed to the western verandahs of the manager's apartment and service wing; horizontal battens on the wash house and stables and a lavatory in the far south-western corner. It is likely that the female toilets attached to the northern western corner of the bank were built during WWI when women were employed to make up for the shortfall of men. [42] Following the 1931 merger with the Australian Bank of Commerce, the amalgamated business was carried on in the Bank of New South Wales premises in Gill Street. The former Bank of Commerce building (originally the Joint Stock Bank) was used as accommodation for bank officers. It was sold in 1937.
The Charters Towers Bank of NSW played an important role in the Pacific Campaign of World War II, as the New Guinean Bank of NSW branches in the towns of Wau, Samrai, Rabaul and Port Moresby were successively evacuated in January and early February 1942, due to bombing or threat of bombing. The transportable business effects including records, cash and bullion were taken by boat to Townsville, and a custodian branch was set up in Charters Towers, while the reconstruction of the business was undertaken in Brisbane. [43]
The Charters Towers City Council acquired the Queensland National Bank building in 1949 and relocated its administrative operations there. The building was then known as the Town Hall. A library was established in the old town hall building. The Charters Towers City Council acquired the former Bank of Commerce (AJS Bank) in 1992 and converted it into The World Theatre (QHR 600407).
In 1967 a property exchange was made with the Charters Towers City Council, whereby the Bank of NSW acquired the old town hall site owned by the council. The old timber Town Hall was demolished in August 1968. [44] The bank continued to occupy its original building during the construction of a new building on this site, which opened on 16 March 1970. The Bank of NSW acquired the Victorian based Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd in 1982 and then changed its name to Westpac, reflecting the Western Pacific region in which it now operated. [45]
From 1982, the former Bank of NSW building was used as the council library and child care centre. The property was formally transferred to the Council in 1984. [46] The council erected women's toilets to the rear of the western side of the building sometime prior to 1980. During the 1980s a restaurant occupied the first floor of the building. In the 1990s it housed the offices of Skill West and Skill Share, as well as school support services provided by Education Queensland. The semi-detached building at the rear has undergone a number of renovations over time. The library was relocated in 2003 and the day care centre ceased operation. The former Bank of NSW building has had a number of tenants since that time including a real estate agent and a Bendigo Bank Agency. The Australian Association of Distance Education Schools utilised space on the first floor for training purposes in the 2000s, however it has been vacant since 2010. [47] The building was renamed Wherry House in 2006 to honour a former mayor Paul Wherry and his wife Molly who served the city from 1952 to 1964. [48] Plaques commemorating their community work were installed in the building in November 2006.
","criteria":"Designed by prominent North Queensland architects Eyre and Munro, the Bank of New South Wales (former), Charters Towers is an important example of their major commercial work. Highly intact, it is an exceptional demonstration of a substantial, regional 19th century bank - its two-storey masonry construction; elaborate classical styling make it a prominent element in the streetscape of the central business district and its large elaborate banking chamber; strong room; offices; discreet, commodious manager's residence; and semi-detached service wing are key features. The building retains its original layout illustrating the interrelation between the functions of the rooms.
|The Bank of New South Wales (former) is important for its expressive attributes, conveying the concept of financial stability and permanence sought by financial institutions of this era through its imposing, classically detailed arcaded façade. Finely composed, it is a major contributor to the streetscape and one of a suite of large masonry bank buildings in the central business district in Charters Towers, a largely intact and important nineteenth century gold era town.
It is notable for the variety of high quality decorative treatments and interior joinery illustrating the hierarchy of the former functions within the building and demonstrating the tastes of the nineteenth century.
|The Bank of New South Wales (former) in Charters Towers is important in demonstrating the history of gold mining, a major contributor to Queensland's wealth. Built in 1889, the bank symbolises the vital need for the provision of financial services to the burgeoning deep reef gold mining industry of Charters Towers, the largest gold producer in Queensland and the third largest in Australia by the 1890s.
It contributes significantly to our understanding of the important operations of the bank, the first banking institution in Australia, and the first in Queensland, which expanded its interests in north Queensland concurrently with the growth of pastoralism and mining from the 1860s. It was the second banking organisation to establish a branch on the Charters Towers gold field, providing financial services since 1872.
The 1889 Bank of New South Wales (former) was the first substantial two-storey masonry bank building in Charters Towers, and served as bank and managers' residence for over 80 years. It symbolises the desire of bank management to have buildings in regional towns demonstrating the dignity, size and solidity of the bank's wealth and prosperity in a prime location in the business centre of town.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33358,"place_ref":602806,"name":"Cameron Corner","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"South-west Queensland, at the border corner with New South Wales and South Australia.","suburb":"CAMERON CORNER","lga":"BULLOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"Cameron Corner is the southernmost of Queensland's three south-western corners and is the westernmost point of the Queensland-New South Wales border. It is located approximately 335 km south of Haddon Corner [QHR 602817], 450 km south-east of Poeppel Corner [QHR 602808] and 1400 km from the east coast in an arid environment comprising ochre coloured dirt and sand with some native vegetation. The confluence of 141 degrees E and 29 degrees S (with no official marking) is located approximately 112 m to the south-east.
\nNearby are: Cameron Corner Store; a shelter shed with information boards on the NSW side of the border; a road and road signs on the Queensland side of the border.
","history":"Cameron Corner, marked in September 1880 during the first official survey of the western section of the border between Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) undertaken in 1879-81, defines the westernmost extension of the Queensland-New South Wales border. Its marking was a surveying feat of its time.
After debate about a suitable southern boundary for the proposed new colony to the north of New South Wales (NSW), letters patent were issued by Queen Victoria in June 1859 which separated the new Colony of Queensland from NSW. They described the border between the two colonies as having three components - the watershed from Point Danger (28º8"S) west to the Dumaresq River; a river section formed by the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon Rivers to latitude 29 degrees South; and along latitude 29 degrees South to the 141st meridian of East longitude, which was the eastern boundary of South Australia.[1] The eastern and western sections of the border required surveying but the central river section did not.[2]
The eastern section was surveyed between 1863 and 1866.[3] In 1863 surveyors Francis Edward Roberts from Queensland and Isaiah Rowland from New South Wales were chosen to survey the boundary line from Point Danger west to the Dumaresq River. Starting in June, two separate surveys were carried out, and although in many instances both surveyors used the same tree to mark the border, Rowland and Roberts defined the border in different positions. At the direction of the Queensland Surveyor-General, Roberts deviated from the definable position of the watershed in order to increase the accuracy of the survey. Subsequently, the New South Wales and Queensland governments essentially adopted the survey of Roberts.[4]
Marking the river section formed by the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon Rivers to 29 degrees South took place in 1865. Queensland and New South Wales arranged for the fixing of the 29th parallel of latitude, at the intersections of the Barwon, Mooni, Bokhara, Narran, Biri and Culgoa Rivers, to enable the colonial governments to adjust the rents of leases of several pastoral runs in the vicinity, some of which were partly in both colonies. In addition, about 450,000 acres of land on the Queensland border could not be leased until its position was determined.[5] Augustus Charles Gregory, Queensland Surveyor-General and NSW District Surveyor of the Northern Rivers, William Albert Baylesford Greaves, conducted this initial survey of latitude 29S. The marking of the border was done with steel [iron] pins one inch in diameter and two feet long, driven a few inches below the surface, radial reference bearings being taken to adjacent trees.... This process was repeated at each of the above named rivers, and the work was completed in five or six weeks.[6]
That left surveying of the western section of the border at latitude 29 degrees S to be completed. Pastoral occupation of south-west Queensland began in the 1860s. In July 1862 Sir Charles Nicholson[7] had reported to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that: ‘On the west, the whole of the basin of the ‘Barcoo' for several hundred miles, as far as the 142nd meridian of East longitude, is becoming rapidly occupied by squatters, and the authorised possession of the greater part of it has already, I believe, been secured under pastoral licenses...'.[8] Pastoralists began settling the Cooper and Bulloo country and the adjacent portion of South Australia in 1864 with Bulloo Downs being the first run in the Bulloo area. By the end of the decade the Cooper country was also settled.[9]
During the 1870s, settlement extended west to the Diamantina, Mulligan and Georgina areas. In 1873, the pastoral districts were named - Gregory South comprised the Bulloo and lower Cooper area and the remainder became Gregory North. Initially runs in both districts were stocked with cattle and sheep.[10] By 1885 all available land in Queensland's far south-west had been claimed. This land, comprising the floodplains of the Mulligan, Georgina, Diamantina and Bulloo Rivers and Cooper Creek, which form part of a vast inland drainage system originating in Queensland's central west and north-west and eventually reaching Lake Eyre, became known as Channel Country. During floods, the semi-arid region becomes a network of channels, watering vast grasslands suitable for cattle-fattening.[11]
Another factor in the determination of the Queensland-NSW border was the collection of customs duties at the border and establishment of border customs offices. Inter-colonial border duties were introduced in Australia in the 1850s, after the Murray River became the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria. Their introduction demonstrated that the Australian colonies were developing in divergent and independent ways. As each new colony was declared, it established its own Customs administration, which was responsible for the collection of lucrative custom duties and the prevention of smuggling.[12]
In mid-1862, the Queensland government assented to the provisions of the New South Wales Border Customs Act, introduced to provide for a mutual Queensland-New South Wales system of collecting customs duties payable on goods crossing their shared border. At first, the flow of goods into Queensland through the inland routes was not sufficient in either quantity or value to warrant the cost of collecting customs duty in remote areas. However, as settlement expanded, the Queensland government became concerned at the amount of revenue being lost in this way (estimated in 1870 at between £12,000 and £15,000 per annum, with approximately 340 pastoral stations, stores and public houses along the southern Queensland border being supplied primarily from New South Wales). Not only did more goods travel north than went south into New South Wales, but duty on such everyday commodities as tea and tobacco was twice as high in Queensland and a considerable amount of smuggling across the border took place.[13]
As the western regions of the colony developed and internal trade routes were established, custom facilities were required along the borders with New South Wales and South Australia. The Customs Duties Act 1870 provided Queensland with independent legislation to regulate the collection of duties on goods imported from other colonies. A small Customs Border Patrol consisting of a police inspector, sub-inspector and four constables was appointed with powers to collect duties from 1 January 1871. They travelled along the Queensland-New South Wales border, collecting duties and keeping careful records regarding the type and value of goods and the amount of monies collected. They also recommended 11 sites where Custom offices could be established. It was soon reported that the effect of increased vigilance on the border was to deflect the importation of goods to Brisbane, reducing the amount of such trade through inland centres.[14]
Finally in June 1879 the surveying of the remainder of the Queensland-NSW border along the 29th parallel of south latitude extending into the Channel Country was undertaken. Survey parties from both colonies met at Barringun, near the border, and WJ Conder, superintendent of the trigonometrical survey NSW, undertook preliminary work to fix the latitude of the border town on the Warrego River using astronomical observations.[15] Having determined the position for the border and the longitude of a point on it and the direction of the true meridian found, surveyors John Brewer Cameron from NSW and George Chale Watson (Commissioner for Crown Lands for the Warrego and Gregory South) representing Queensland, started to survey westerly on 15 September 1879 from a point on the east bank of the Warrego River where they had erected a zero obelisk [QHR 600763].[16] The two surveyors divided their work with Watson being responsible for chainage and Cameron for the astronomical work required to undertake this geodetic survey.[17] After marking the first 5-mile chord and offsetting the mileposts from this chord to the arc the work continued in this manner.[18]
Very soon the surveyors struck floods. Cameron wrote ‘Had great difficulty in crossing creeks with the whole camp. The Irarah, Cuttaburra and Warrego being flooded... I had to construct two boats one of planks and the other of Canvas and frame: ... ferried eight tons ... in one afternoon including instruments.[19] After crossing these swollen watercourses, they encountered the usual arid conditions of the south-west. In March 1880 after reaching the 100-mile post on the Paroo River, Surveyor Watson withdrew from the survey party, having written ‘As I believe Mr Cameron capable of working within great precision and he is evidently a painstaking officer over his professional duties, I have no reason to doubt but that the work would be precise enough for all the purposes of scientific accuracy as Mr Cameron, added to his other qualifications, has a supreme regard for his own reputation'.[20] According to Kitson, Watson had other reasons for withdrawing - he resented having to continue his duties as land commissioner while working on the border survey as it meant he was unable to fully participate and made him ‘the laughing stock of the NSW contingent'.[21]
This left Cameron to complete the task of surveying the 29 degree latitude of S over remote and desolate country. Cameron wrote that ‘At the 235-mile post we nearly lost all our horses in one night (32) owing to ... being unable to find the waterhole ... Having 100 gallons of water in camp I divided 50 gallons among the 32 horses with a little oatmeal which enabled them to travel to "Warri Warri" Creek. I was obliged to give the horses a week's spell to recruit their strength.'[22] Cameron identified the corner between Queensland, NSW and South Australia with a timber post marked with the government arrow and LAT 29.[23] The survey of 285 miles from Barringun to the South Australian border had taken a total of 12 months and 15 days.[24]
After reaching the South Australian border and marking the corner, Cameron returned to Barringun to survey the easterly section of about 200 miles to the Barwon River, completing the entire border survey in October 1881. Cameron reported that his line passed 68.5 links north of Gregory and Greave's steel pin in the Culgoa River and that its greatest distance from Gregory's 29th parallel was about three chains on the Macintyre River. He marked the end of the survey to the east with a one-ton post [QHR 600014] on the west bank of the Barwon River.[25]
John Brewer Cameron was born in Scotland and migrated to Victoria with his family in 1853. After going to the Victorian goldfields and then New Zealand, he returned to Victoria and joined a government geodetic surveying party working in the Mount Baw Baw area. This experience led him to take up a career in surveying. He went to Fiji as a surveyor in 1869 returning to Victoria in 1872 where he specialised in surveying and geodesy. By 1879 he was a First Class Surveyor in the Trigonometrical Branch of the NSW Lands Department and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of NSW. He undertook the surveying of the Queensland-NSW border between 1879 and 1881. In 1883 he moved to New Guinea, acquired a plantation and later guided the Government Resident, Sir William MacGregor, on journeys of exploration. In 1896 Cameron became Government Surveyor of New Guinea. On 31 December 1897 he died suddenly from malaria while visiting Brisbane and was buried in Toowong cemetery.[26] Afterwards, his former colleague in marking the NSW-Queensland border, George Watson, stated ‘and so passed away an energetic spirit worthy of classification as a man of genius. His boundary marks on the Queensland boundary will remain an imperishable monument of his skill as an astronomer.'[27]
Given the enormous difficulties Cameron faced in the task, his survey of the Queensland-NSW border was impressive. Today, we have the Global Positioning System (or GPS) to pinpoint place by longitude and latitude more accurately. It is now apparent that the intended corner between Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia at 141ºE, 29ºS was not achieved. The corner surveyed by Cameron was actually 140º59'57.4"E 28º59'56.7"S.[28] This is the location of the original corner post at Cameron Corner, which was replaced by the current concrete pillar, unveiled by the Ministers for Lands from NSW, Queensland and South Australia on 6 June 1969. The position of Cameron Corner as per Queensland's Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB), however, does not correlate with either the concrete pillar or the intended border corner. The DCDB places Cameron Corner 20 m to the east of the concrete pillar and 112 m north-west of its intended position of 141ºE, 29ºS. The DCDB corner location that can be listed is that on Lot 1 AP21535. This variation in the intention and reality of the border corner shows the continued difficulties of surveying remote regions. This would be resolved by re-survey of Lot 1 on AP21535.
The Queensland Boundaries Declaratory Act 1982 confirmed ‘that each land boundary of the State ... as ... defined in the Letters Patent ... by reference to a parallel of latitude or a meridian of longitude is and always has been the boundary ... permanently fixed by marking it upon on the surface of the earth before 1900...'.[29]
The corner post as a survey mark is protected under the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003 and the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Regulation 2004 whereby a person must not interfere with a survey mark unless certain conditions are met.[30]
Today, Cameron Corner is a well-known tourist destination.
","criteria":"Cameron Corner is important to the Australian community as a geographical and cultural landmark, and is a well-known tourist attraction.
|Cameron Corner (1880), marking the westernmost extension of the first official survey of the Queensland-New South Wales border, is important in demonstrating the priority placed on clear border demarcation by the governments of Queensland and New South Wales. Set borders were an important part of colonial economic and administrative development, providing certainty for governments and pastoralists, and enabling the collection of customs duties.
Cameron Corner is the result of early cooperation between Australian colonies and provides lasting evidence of the feat of endurance necessary to complete the Queensland-New South Wales border survey.
|Cameron Corner has an important association with the life and career of John Brewer Cameron (1843-97) as a commemoration of one of his most notable accomplishments.
|Cameron Corner represents the culmination of a difficult feat of geodetic surveying and results from an early application of this branch of surveying in Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33359,"place_ref":602807,"name":"Haddon Corner","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"South-west Queensland, on the border corner with South Australia","suburb":"HADDON CORNER","lga":"BARCOO SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"Haddon Corner is in south-western Queensland, adjacent to the Queensland-South Australia border, at the north-eastern corner of South Australia. It is located approximately 335 km north of Cameron Corner [EHP application reference no. 602806] and approximately 300 km east of Poeppel Corner [EHP application reference no. 602808]. The area is on a gentle divide of poorly coordinated drainage between Cooper Creek (to the east) and the Diamantina River (to the west). The wider region is part of Channel Country. The degree confluence 26 degrees S 141 degrees E (with no official marking) is found several hundred metres mainly south (and a little east) of the Corner post. Like Queensland's other borders, there is discrepancy between the specified latitude or longitude and the border fence or post.
","history":"Haddon Corner, marked in 1880 during the official survey of the western section of the border between Queensland and South Australia undertaken in 1879-80, defines the north-eastern corner between Queensland and South Australia. Its marking was a surveying feat of its time.
Letters patent issued by Queen Victoria in June 1859 separated the new Colony of Queensland from New South Wales (NSW). They described Queensland's border as the watershed from Point Danger (28º8"S) west to the Dumaresq River; the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon Rivers to latitude 29 degrees South; and along latitude 29 degrees South to the 141st meridian of East longitude, which was the eastern boundary of South Australia.[1]
Although legal opinion advised that the 141st meridian was the western boundary of Queensland, Surveyor-General Augustus Charles Gregory believed otherwise. In a memorandum of 28 September 1860 he wrote ‘the western boundary ... appears to be the 141st meridian; but it is probable that it was not described in the Letters Patent erecting the Colony, with greater distinctness, expressly with a view to a future adjustment, when more certain information should have been collected as to the natural features of the country... It is now submitted that the 141st meridian passes through the tract of country known as the ‘Plains of Promise' and that the Eastern shore [of the Gulf of Carpentaria] possesses no harbours. It would therefore be desirable to adopt the 138th meridian as the boundary; as that line would pass through a barren tract of country, and bring ‘Investigator's Road' [an anchorage] within the limits of Queensland.'[2]
Furthermore, expeditions in 1861-62 funded by the South Australian, Victorian and Queensland governments to rescue the missing explorers Burke and Wills, who had failed to return from a journey from Cooper Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria, led to the exploration of an enormous area of the inland and were predicted to stimulate interest in this previously unknown tract of land beyond Queensland's western boundary. Writing to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 5 September 1861, the Queensland Governor George Bowen indicated his colony's willingness to protect any settlers so attracted, provided that the western boundary could be extended to include the Gulf. The proposal was accepted on condition that the additional territory could be reclaimed later should another colony be formed in northern Australia.[3]
In response, a despatch dated 14 December 1861 from the Secretary of State for the Colonies advised that the proposed annexation to the 138th Meridian of longitude should be revoked under Act 24 and 25 Victoria, c.44. This immediately provoked a despatch from Sir George Bowen, dated 18 January 1862, stating that Queensland had taken provisional control of this area. Subsequently, on 12 April 1862 Letters Patent were issued describing the accession of ‘so much of our Colony of New South Wales as lies to the northward of the 26th parallel of south latitude and between the 141st and 138th meridian of east longitude...".[4] Thereby two more corners in Queensland's western boundary were created and the colony acquired part of the Barkly Tableland and the area which later became the Mount Isa mineral field.[5] A revised definition of the extent of Queensland was subsequently proclaimed on 23 June 1862.[6]
In July 1862 Sir Charles Nicholson[7] reported to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that: ‘On the west, the whole of the basin of the ‘Barcoo' for several hundred miles, as far as the 142nd meridian of East longitude, is becoming rapidly occupied by squatters, and the authorised possession of the greater part of it has already, I believe, been secured under pastoral licenses...'.[8] Pastoralists began settling the Cooper and Bulloo country and the adjacent portion of South Australia in 1864 with Bulloo Downs being the first run in the Bulloo area. By the end of the decade the Cooper country was also settled.[9]
During the 1870s, settlement extended west to the Diamantina, Mulligan and Georgina areas. In 1873, the pastoral districts were named - Gregory South comprised the Bulloo and lower Cooper area and the remainder became Gregory North. Initially runs in both districts were stocked with cattle and sheep.[10] By 1885 all available land in Queensland's far south-west had been claimed. This land, comprising the floodplains of the Mulligan, Georgina, Diamantina and Bulloo Rivers and Cooper Creek, which form part of a vast inland drainage system originating in Queensland's central west and north-west and eventually reaching Lake Eyre, became known as Channel Country. During floods, the semi-arid region becomes a network of channels, watering cattle-fattening grasslands.[11]
Agitation by pastoralists in the Cooper region for surveying of the border because of uncertainty as to its position began in the 1870s. In 1877 James McLeod, the new owner of Cullamurra run, applied to the South Australian Commissioner of Crown Lands to have the colony's border surveyed urgently, after finding himself in dispute with his eastern neighbour John Conrick of Nappa Merrie over their station boundaries.[12]
Another factor in the determination of Queensland's borders was the collection of customs duties at the border and establishment of border customs offices. Inter-colonial border duties were introduced in Australia in the 1850s, after the Murray River became the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria. Their introduction demonstrated that the Australian colonies were developing in divergent and independent ways. As each new colony was declared, it established its own customs administration, which was responsible for the collection of lucrative custom duties and the prevention of smuggling.[13]
As the western regions of the colony developed and internal trade routes were established, custom facilities were required along the borders with New South Wales and South Australia. In mid-1862, the Queensland government had assented to the provisions of the New South Wales Border Customs Act, introduced to provide for a mutual Queensland-New South Wales system of collecting customs duties payable on goods crossing their shared border.[14] Queensland's Customs Duties Act 1870 provided the colony with independent legislation to regulate the collection of duties on goods imported from other colonies. A small Customs Border Patrol consisting of a police inspector, sub-inspector and four constables was appointed with powers to collect duties from 1 January 1871. They travelled along the Queensland-New South Wales border, collecting duties and keeping careful records regarding the type and value of goods and the amount of monies collected. They also recommended 11 sites suitable for custom offices and these were later established. Those near the South Australian border were at Beetoota, Birdsville and Oontoo.[15]
The marking of the Queensland-South Australian border was undertaken in 1879-80 by the South Australian Government as the final section of a survey of its border on the 141st meridian, which had started at the Murray River.[16] The surveyor chosen to undertake the border survey was William Barron, who had recently accompanied an expedition to South Australia's western districts. In May 1879 Barron, accompanied by a survey team with horses and camels, set out from Mulligan Springs, 24 km east of Mt Hopeless in north-east South Australia. After checking the border line north to the end of the completed survey at the 29th parallel (Fort Grey), he began working towards the 26th parallel. The work was difficult and tedious, involving trudging over sand ridges and claypans, and marking the line by mileposts recording the distance from the survey starting point at the Murray River.[17] William Barron marked the border from Cameron Corner 90 miles north to Cooper Creek, where his health failed and he was forced to return to Adelaide.[18]
Surveyor Augustus Poeppel took over the survey in January 1880, assisted by Lawrence Wells. Arriving at the survey camp at Innaminka on 3 February 1880, Poeppel spent the following month taking observations and preparing rations and equipment. On 5 March, with two months' rations and the animals in good condition, the survey team returned to work. They continued the line to the 26th parallel where they met their Queensland colleague Alexander Hutchinson Salmond. Together the surveyors took star observations for latitude to fix the position at 26 degrees S and 141 degrees E (now known as Haddon Corner, named after the nearby pastoral lease). The corner was marked with a willow post, 12 feet (2.4 m) long, sunk over an iron bar flanked by rock trenches following the angle. The survey line was marked by mileposts still recording the distance from the surveying starting point at the Murray River.[19]
The party continued on to survey to the next corner at 26 degrees South 138 degrees East.
Augustus Poeppel was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1839, the son of an architect. Emigrating with his family in 1849, he settled in South Australia before moving to Victoria to become a mining surveyor and architect. In 1878, after short periods in New Zealand and Western Australia, Poeppel joined the South Australian Lands Department and was soon appointed to the border surveys. During the Queensland-Northern Territory border survey, from the 142-mile post, he suffered from trachoma and lost 13 kg in weight, forcing his withdrawal in July 1885. His health was broken and he later lost sight in one eye. He retired to Melbourne where he died in 1891 aged 52.[20]
Lawrence Wells, born in 1860 in South Australia, entered that colony's Survey Department in 1878. In the following year, at the age of 23, he joined the border surveys, eventually assisting with almost the entire survey of the Queensland-South Australian-Northern Territory borders, which was completed in 1886. Later Wells became a well-known explorer, known as ‘the last of the great inland explorers'. In 1891-92 he accompanied the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, which discovered the East Murchison goldfield; in 1896 he led the Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition, investigating northern Western Australia; and in 1903 he led South Australia's North-West Prospecting Expedition. Later Wells held administrative positions in the state and federal public services, and was appointed Order of the British Empire in 1937.[21]
Alexander Hutchison Salmond was born in Scotland in 1850. He acquired navigational skills as a cadet in the British merchant navy before arriving with his family in Rockhampton in 1864. His career was spent working in the remote Australian inland. Salmond became a licensed surveyor in 1876 and was based in Cunnamulla until lured to the Western Australian goldfields in the early 1890s. Thereafter he worked in Kalgoorlie and in Carnarvon in the northwest. In 1903 he lead an expedition into the Kimberley region and one of its rivers is named after him.[22]
Following the completion of the Queensland-South Australian border survey in 1880, there was renewed interest in the land along the border as well-watered country had already been taken. Dependent for its water supplies on a scanty rainfall and the sinking of wells, this land had been ignored in favour of land further west on the Diamantina flood plains. In 1880 William and John Hastie Howie, who already held land on the Queensland side of the border, took up Haddon Downs, the north-eastern corner of South Australia which gave the border corner its name. Haddon Downs is now part of another early holding, Cordillo Downs.[23]
Given the enormous physical difficulties which the surveyors faced in the task, their survey of the Queensland-South Australian border was impressive. Today, we have the Global Positioning System (or GPS) to pinpoint place by longitude and latitude more accurately. It is now apparent that the intended corner between Queensland and South Australia at 26 degrees S 141 degrees E was not completely achieved. However, The Queensland Boundaries Declaratory Act 1982 confirmed ‘that each land boundary of the State ... as ... defined in the Letters Patent ... by reference to a parallel of latitude or a meridian of longitude is and always has been the boundary ... permanently fixed by marking it upon on the surface of the earth before 1900...'.[24]
The corner post as a survey mark is protected under the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003 and the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Regulation 2004 whereby a person must not interfere with a survey mark unless certain conditions are met.[25]
The original timber corner post has been replaced by a concrete pillar.
Haddon Corner is a well-known tourist destination today.
","criteria":"Haddon Corner has an important association with the life and career of Augustus Poeppel (1839-91) and Lawrence Allen Wells (1860-1938), who later surveyed Poeppel Corner and the Queensland-Northern Territory border.
|Haddon Corner represents the culmination of a difficult feat of geodetic surveying and is an early application of this branch of surveying in Queensland.
|Haddon Corner is important to the Australian community as a geographical and cultural landmark, and is a well-known tourist attraction.
|Haddon Corner (1880), marking the north-eastern extension of the Queensland-South Australia border, is important in demonstrating the priority placed on clear border demarcation by the governments of Queensland and South Australia. Set borders were an important part of colonial economic and administrative development, providing certainty for governments and pastoralists, and enabling the collection of customs duties.
Haddon Corner is the result of early cooperation between Australian colonies and provides lasting evidence of the feat of endurance which marking the Queensland-South Australia border involved.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion F | Criterion G | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33360,"place_ref":602808,"name":"Poeppel Corner","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"South-west Queensland, on border corner with South Australia and Northern Territory Simpson Desert National Park","suburb":"POEPPEL CORNER","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"Poeppel Corner is the westernmost of Queensland's three south-western corners located at the intersection of the Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory borders, near Lake Poeppel - a salt lake. It is approximately 300 km west of Haddon Corner [EHP application reference no. 602807] and 450 km north-west of Cameron Corner [EHP application reference no. 802806]. The site is within the Simpson Desert, a vast region in which linear dunes[26] are the main landscape feature. The confluence of 26 degrees S 138 degrees E is between Lake Poeppel (immediately to the west) and a linear dune that trends SSE-NNW a little over half a kilometre to the east. There is a discrepancy of several hundred metres between the specified latitude and longitude and the officially mapped border.[27]
\nLand on the Queensland side of the border is in the Simpson Desert National Park while the South Australian land is part of the Simpson Desert Conservation Park.
","history":"Poeppel Corner, marked in 1880 during the official survey of the western section of the border between Queensland and South Australian undertaken in 1879-80, defines the most westerly corner between Queensland and South Australia. Its marking was a surveying feat of its time.
Letters Patent issued by Queen Victoria in June 1859 separated the new Colony of Queensland from New South Wales (NSW). They described Queensland's border as the watershed from Point Danger (28º8"S) west to the Dumaresq River; the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon Rivers to latitude 29 degrees South; and along latitude 29 degrees South to the 141st meridian of East longitude, which was the eastern boundary of South Australia.[1]
Although legal opinion advised that the 141st meridian was the western boundary of Queensland, Surveyor-General Augustus Charles Gregory believed otherwise. In a memorandum of 28 September 1860 he wrote ‘the western boundary ... appears to be the 141st meridian; but it is probable that it was not described in the Letters Patent erecting the Colony, with greater distinctness, expressly with a view to a future adjustment, when more certain information should have been collected as to the natural features of the country... It is now submitted that the 141st meridian passes through the tract of country known as the ‘Plains of Promise' and that the Eastern shore [of the Gulf of Carpentaria] possesses no harbours. It would therefore be desirable to adopt the 138th meridian as the boundary; as that line would pass through a barren tract of country, and bring ‘Investigator's Road' [an anchorage] within the limits of Queensland.'[2]
Furthermore, expeditions in 1861-62 funded by the South Australian, Victorian and Queensland governments to rescue the missing explorers Burke and Wills, who had failed to return from a journey from Cooper Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria, led to the exploration of an enormous area of the inland and were predicted to stimulate interest in this previously unknown tract of land beyond Queensland's western boundary. Writing to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on 5 September 1861, the Queensland Governor George Bowen indicated his colony's willingness to protect any settlers so attracted, provided that the western boundary could be extended to include the Gulf. The proposal was accepted on condition that the additional territory could be reclaimed later should another colony be formed in northern Australia.[3]
In response, a despatch dated 14 December 1861 from the Secretary of State for the Colonies advised that the proposed annexation to the 138th Meridian of longitude should be revoked under Act 24 and 25 Victoria, c.44. This immediately provoked a despatch from Sir George Bowen, dated 18 January 1862, stating that Queensland had taken provisional control of this area. Subsequently, on 12 April 1862 Letters Patent were issued describing the accession of ‘so much of our Colony of New South Wales as lies to the northward of the 26th parallel of south latitude and between the 141st and 138th meridian of east longitude...'.[4] Thereby two more corners in Queensland's western boundary were created and the colony acquired part of the Barkly Tableland and the area which later became the Mount Isa mineral field.[5] A revised definition of the extent of Queensland was subsequently proclaimed on 23 June 1862.[6]
In July 1862 Sir Charles Nicholson[7] reported to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that: ‘On the west, the whole of the basin of the ‘Barcoo' for several hundred miles, as far as the 142nd meridian of East longitude, is becoming rapidly occupied by squatters, and the authorised possession of the greater part of it has already, I believe, been secured under pastoral licenses...'.[8] Pastoralists began settling the Cooper and Bulloo country and the adjacent portion of South Australia in 1864 with Bulloo Downs being the first run in the Bulloo area. By the end of the decade the Cooper country was also settled.[9]
During the 1870s, settlement extended west to the Diamantina, Mulligan and Georgina areas. In 1873, the pastoral districts were named - Gregory South comprised the Bulloo and lower Cooper area and the remainder became Gregory North. Initially runs in both districts were stocked with cattle and sheep.[10] By 1885 all available land in Queensland's far south-west had been claimed. This land, comprising the floodplains of the Mulligan, Georgina, Diamantina and Bulloo Rivers and Cooper Creek, which form part of a vast inland drainage system originating in Queensland's central west and north-west and eventually reaching Lake Eyre, became known as Channel Country. During floods, the semi-arid region becomes a network of channels, watering cattle-fattening grasslands.[11]
Agitation by pastoralists in the Cooper region for surveying of the border because of uncertainty as to its position began in the 1870s. In 1877 James McLeod, the new owner of Cullamurra run, applied to the South Australian Commissioner of Crown Lands to have the colony's border surveyed urgently, after finding himself in dispute with his eastern neighbour John Conrick of Nappa Merrie over their station boundaries.[12]
Another factor in the determination of Queensland's borders was the collection of customs duties at the border and establishment of border customs offices. Inter-colonial border duties were introduced in Australia in the 1850s, after the Murray River became the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria. Their introduction demonstrated that the Australian colonies were developing in divergent and independent ways. As each new colony was declared, it established its own customs administration, which was responsible for the collection of lucrative custom duties and the prevention of smuggling.[13]
As the western regions of the colony developed and internal trade routes were established, custom facilities were required along the borders with New South Wales and South Australia. In mid-1862, the Queensland government had assented to the provisions of the New South Wales Border Customs Act, introduced to provide for a mutual Queensland-New South Wales system of collecting customs duties payable on goods crossing their shared border.[14] Queensland's Customs Duties Act 1870 provided the colony with independent legislation to regulate the collection of duties on goods imported from other colonies. A small Customs Border Patrol consisting of a police inspector, sub-inspector and four constables was appointed with powers to collect duties from 1 January 1871. They travelled along the Queensland-New South Wales border, collecting duties and keeping careful records regarding the type and value of goods and the amount of monies collected. They also recommended 11 sites suitable for custom offices and these were later established. Those near the South Australian border were at Beetoota, Birdsville and Oontoo.[15]
The marking of the Queensland-South Australian border was undertaken in 1879-80 by the South Australian Government as the final section of a survey of its border on the 141st meridian, which had started at the Murray River.[16] William Barron was the surveyor chosen to undertake the border survey, but after surveying from the Murray River to Cameron Corner then 90 miles north to Cooper Creek, his health failed and he was forced to return to Adelaide.[17]
Surveyor Augustus Poeppel took over the survey in January 1880, assisted by Lawrence Wells. He arrived at the survey camp at Innaminka on 3 February 1880, spent the following month taking observations and preparing rations and equipment, then on 5 March, with two months' rations and the animals in good condition, the survey team returned to work. They continued the line to the 26th parallel where they met their Queensland colleague Alexander Hutchinson Salmond. Together the surveyors took star observations for latitude to fix the position at 26 degrees S and 141 degrees E (now known as Haddon Corner, named after the nearby pastoral lease). After marking the corner they continued the survey line marking the border with mileposts recording the distance from the surveying starting point at the Murray River.[18]
Then on 30 June 1880 Poeppel and his survey party began the westward survey along the 26th parallel, running a series of 10-mile chords and setting the mileposts on the arc of the parallel by calculated offsets. They experienced many hardships on this section of the survey traversing Australia's most inhospitable country - the vast waterless plains of the Sturt Stony Desert and the salt lakes and sand hills of the Simpson Desert. Their diet was salt beef and damper causing all to develop scurvy. They relied on Aboriginal people to guide them to wells as water was so scarce. They reached the final corner at 26 degrees South 138 degrees East, marking it with a timber post by the end of 1880. Drought forced them to return to Adelaide. Later the South Australian Triangulation Survey reached the border and on checking the mileposts, discovered an error in chainage and the corner post was relocated from the salt lake, Lake Poeppel, to its foreshore. Starting in 1883 Poeppel and Wells began the survey of the Queensland-South Australian border along meridian 141 degrees E.[19]
Augustus Poeppel was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1839, the son of an architect. Emigrating with his family in 1849, he settled in South Australia before moving to Victoria to become a mining surveyor and architect. In 1878, after short periods in New Zealand and Western Australia, Poeppel joined the South Australian Lands Department and was soon appointed to the border surveys. During the Queensland-Northern Territory border survey, from the 142-mile post, he suffered from trachoma and lost 13 kg in weight, forcing his withdrawal in July 1885. His health was broken and he later lost sight in one eye. He retired to Melbourne where he died in 1891 aged 52.[20]
Lawrence Wells, born in 1860 in South Australia, entered that colony's Survey Department in 1878. In the following year, at the age of 23, he joined the border surveys, eventually assisting with almost the entire survey of the Queensland-South Australian- Northern Territory borders, completed in 1886. Later Wells became a well-known explorer, known as ‘the last of the great inland explorers'. In 1891-92 he accompanied the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition, which discovered the East Murchison goldfield; in 1896 he led the Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition, investigating northern Western Australia; and in 1903 he led South Australia's North-West Prospecting Expedition. Later Wells held administrative positions in the state and federal public services, and was appointed Order of the British Empire in 1937.[21]
Since the nineteenth century, various explorers of the Simpson Desert have included a visitation to Poeppel Corner. In 1883 the corner was visited by another South Australian surveyor, Charles Winnecke who, after departing from Farina in northern South Australia, headed north-west to Poeppel Corner, later exploring the south-eastern and north-eastern sections of the desert to assess its pastoral potential. Although disappointed with his findings, he travelled deeper into the desert than anyone before him. The next explorer to visit Poeppel Corner came many years later. In 1936, Edmund Albert (Ted) Colson, a pastoralist of Blood Creek Station, near Abminga, in northern South Australia, became the first European to cross the Simpson Desert. Colson crossed from west to east, travelling along the 26th parallel from Mt Etingambara, hoping to locate the Poeppel Corner post and then follow the border mileposts to Birdsville. However, on his eastward journey, Colson missed the post by 300 metres, but located it on his return journey. To record his passing, he photographed it and nailed a tin plate to it bearing the date and his initials. Other explorations across Simpson Desert, notably those by David Lindsay in 1886 and Cecil Madigan in 1939, came close by Poeppel Corner but did not actually visit it. So, it was not until the 1960s that it was visited again, in a series of vehicular crossings made by Dr Reg Sprigg of Geosurveys Australia. By that time the original corner post had deteriorated due to white ants and dry rot, prompting Sprigg to take it to Adelaide for conservation treatment.'[22]
The area was opened up to scientific investigation and tourism by the Sprigg expeditions, together with a well-publicised crossing made in 1966 by the Leyland Brothers which proved that the Simpson Desert was accessible to four-wheel drive vehicles. In 1967 a large part of the desert became protected with the proclamation of South Australia's Simpson Desert Conservation Park and Queensland's Simpson Desert National Park; the latter being extended in 1983. By this time, interest in the desert was increasing, with many people visiting Poeppel Corner. In 1986 the Friends of the Simpson Desert Conservation Park was formed in South Australia to assist with the park's conservation. In 1989 the group erected a replica of the original post at Poeppel Corner.[23] Poeppel Corner is a well-known tourist destination today.
Given the enormous physical difficulties which the surveyors faced in the task, their survey of the Queensland-South Australian border was impressive. Today, we have the Global Positioning System (or GPS) to pinpoint place by longitude and latitude more accurately. It is now apparent that the intended corner between Queensland and South Australia at 26 degrees S 138 degrees E was not achieved. The Poeppel Corner post does not correlate with the confluence of 26 degrees South 138 degrees East as was originally intended. However, the Queensland Boundaries Declaratory Act 1982 confirmed ‘that each land boundary of the State ... as ... defined in the Letters Patent ... by reference to a parallel of latitude or a meridian of longitude is and always has been the boundary ... permanently fixed by marking it upon on the surface of the earth before 1900...'.[24]
The corner post as a survey mark is protected under the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003 and the Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Regulation 2004 whereby a person must not interfere with a survey mark unless certain conditions are met.[25]
","criteria":"Poeppel Corner (1880), marking the south-western extension of Queensland's border with South Australia, is important in demonstrating the priority placed on clear border demarcation by the governments of Queensland and South Australia. Set borders were an important part of colonial economic and administrative development, providing certainty for governments and pastoralists, and enabling the collection of customs duties.
Poeppel Corner is the result of early cooperation between Australian colonies and provides lasting evidence of the feat of endurance which marking the Queensland-South Australia border involved.
|Poeppel Corner represents the culmination of a difficult feat of geodetic surveying and is an early application of this branch of surveying in Queensland.
|Poeppel Corner has an important association with the life and career of Augustus Poeppel (1839-91) and Lawrence Allen Wells (1860-1938), who later surveyed the Queensland-Northern Territory border and whose work contributed to the opening-up of outback Australia for European settlement.
|Poeppel Corner is important to the Australian community as a geographical and cultural landmark, and is a well-known tourist attraction.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion F | Criterion H | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33398,"place_ref":602810,"name":"Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Haly Street","suburb":"KINGAROY","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The Kingaroy Council Chambers, a single storey masonry building with Art Deco decorative features, is located on Haly Street directly opposite Kingaroy's towering peanut silos [QHR 602764]. In 2012 it forms part of the Kingaroy Visitor Information Centre and is linked to the former power house (now the Kingaroy Heritage Museum) via a connecting building to the east. Its decorative Art Deco styling with vertical banding, geometric motifs and stepped parapet gives the building a strong streetscape presence.
The front elevation is symmetrical about a central entrance and has a stepped parapet finished with a decorative moulding. The façade, finished with a smooth cement render, is divided into three bays by projecting pilasters with vertical banding. The central entrance way is flanked by single rectangular windows with concrete-formed architraves. The windows are metal-framed with multi-paned leadlight glazing incorporating the Kingaroy Shire's original logo and a pivoting central window panel. Large decorative diamond-shaped motifs are above the windows. The entrance way is sheltered by a horizontal, concrete awning with a moulded profile and supported on tapered masonry columns with a decorative vertical banding pattern. The entrance door is recent and is accessed via splayed concrete steps. Lettering 'KINGAROY SHIRE COUNCIL CHAMBERS' is above the entrance and is framed with a simple decorative moulding and flanked by two stylised classical columns with fluting protruding from the facade. Flag poles rise from the roof behind the parapet.
The west elevation is a rendered masonry wall with little decoration. It consists of a central service door flanked on each side by two windows. Decorative treatments similar to the front elevation are used including the moulded capping to the wall and around the window frames. Small hooded vents are set into the wall above each of the windows.
The building's hipped roof is hidden behind parapets on all but the rear elevation and overhangs by approximately 40 centimetres. The roof is clad with red corrugated metal sheeting. Gutters are quad profile and soffits are lined with timber battens. Window and door treatments on the rear elevation are similar to the western and front elevations. The eastern elevation is mostly concealed by an adjoining building. A parapet wall with a single multi-paned window is visible.
Inside, The Council Chambers comprises a large open space (formerly the public office) at the front of the building incorporating a former strong room and the meeting room at the rear of the building. Hallways run down each side of these two large rooms providing access to several (former) offices.
The front central space, formerly the public office, features a crows ash and ironbark timber floor forming a striped pattern. Walls are finished with hard-set plaster. Ceilings are also finished with plaster and are adorned with ornate plaster cornices and panels featuring geometric designs. Multi-paned skylights with coloured glass have been inserted where early pendant lights remain. Skirting boards and architraves are varnished silky oak. Several internal windows and openings are located in this room. One is a timber framed opening to the teller's booth set into the wall and features a metal grille. Others are leadlight glazing.
The meeting room at the rear of the building features walls panelled in silky oak and floors finished with tulip and rose gum parquetry. A dais (seating the shire chairman and clerk) overlooks a solid U-shaped table furnished with drawers and accommodating 12 chairs including six swivel oak chairs. Silky oak public seating and timber screen are also located in the room. A vertical map cabinet is built into the wall panel on the west wall. Ceilings are formed from plaster and are raked near the wall junctions which are finished with a decorative plaster cornice. A central plaster panel adorns the ceiling from which early pendant lights are hung. Panelled doors, architraves and skirtings are silky oak. All timberwork including the furniture is similarly detailed.
Offices are more simply detailed with plaster cornices and some feature decorative plaster ceiling panels. All rooms have silky oak architraves, panelled doors and skirtings. Floors are lined with hardwood boards though some have been covered with carpet. Some pendant lights remain but some have been replaced with recent fittings.
The strong room is formed with thick masonry walls finished with plaster and has a solid metal door featuring brass door hardware. A small brass plaque with the words Ajax Manufacturing Co. is fixed to the door. Some early shelving remains together with an early timber rolling ladder.
Entry into the adjacent museum is via a recent covered area accessed through a new opening formed in the eastern wall of the chambers building.
Plantings in garden beds around the building are not considered to be of heritage significance.
","history":"Built in 1938, the Kingaroy Shire Chambers (former) demonstrate the growth, prosperity and consolidation of Kingaroy as an important regional centre in the Wide Bay-Burnett.
The arrival of the Kilkivan branch railway to the ‘56 mile peg' in 1904 was the impetus for the establishment of the township of Kingaroy, as a rapid expansion of closer agricultural settlement occurred in the surrounding region. Town lots were auctioned in that year and public and commercial interests soon clustered around the railhead. Earlier settlements such as Booie (1882), Taabinga Village (1892) and Coolabunia (1879) could not compete with Kingaroy's proximity to the railway. By the time the railway extended to Nanango in 1911, the township was replacing its older counterparts as the dominant service centre for the South Burnett.
Initially, timber was the main product transported from Kingaroy Railway Station, with loggers capitalising on the abundant stands of hoop and bunya pine that existed in the softwood-vine forests of the region. Increasing land settlement saw large amounts of the existing scrub, eucalypt forests and brigalow cleared for agriculture, exposing a range of soil types, including the rich red soils, for which the region has since become known. By the 1910s, maize cultivation and dairy farming were replacing the timber industry as the key components of the local economy, while the region's peanut industry was in its nascent phase of development.
The Shire of Kingaroy was established in 1912 by excising former areas of the Nanango, Wambo and Weinholt Shires and later increased in size with the addition of land from Wondai Shire. Kingaroy's first council chambers, a modest timber structure was built in 1913, with the first council meeting held in the building in June of that year.
During the interwar period, a rapid expansion of agricultural activities occurred in the Kingaroy Shire. Dairying was the principal primary industry in the shire, with the Kingaroy Butter Factory one of the largest producers in the region, the outlet for the numerous dairy farms engaged in the production of cream. Kingaroy Shire was the centre for Queensland's burgeoning peanut industry, boasting over 550 growers and 11,500 acres (4653.88 hectares) under cultivation by 1928, with the town's first timber silos built in that year. The district was one of the state's most important for corn growing, with the Manneum Maize Company farm the largest of its type in Australia in 1927. As the surrounding area's service centre, Kingaroy benefited from this growth in primary industry.
By late 1937 the Kingaroy Shire Council had outgrown its small chambers. The four officers employed by the Shire were located in the chamber's small board room, and were forced to relocate to a shared counter during council meetings. Additionally, engine smoke from the adjacent power house periodically entered the shire chambers. In September 1937 a council meeting moved that a committee be instructed to proceed with the arrangements for the erection of new council chambers. To enable construction, vacant land adjacent to the existing chambers was purchased by the Council in mid-1938.
The construction of the new chambers in Kingaroy was part of a wider pattern of civic building that occurred in Queensland in the 1930s. This period saw the construction of numerous council chambers, town and shire halls, and other public buildings in settlements throughout the state. While some were Depression-era relief projects, others were built in the latter part of the decade, when economic conditions had improved. In the South Burnett, examples of this pattern included the Nanango Council Chambers (1934-35), (demolished), Murgon Civic Centre (1938) and the Wondai Town Hall and Library (1938-39). The Queensland government played an important role in facilitating many of these projects, by offering low interest loans and subsidised labour costs, as a way of generating employment. However, this process did not occur at Kingaroy. After adopting the decision to build new chambers, Kingaroy Council applied for a loan of £5000 to fund the construction of the building. The council felt it was uneconomical to pursue the path of State assistance, as by this time, government subsidies only covered around a third of actual labour costs, while the interest rates of a shorter term government loan were thought to be too high.
Many shire chambers and town halls of the 1920s and 1930s are fine examples of the influence of modern architectural styles in Queensland townscapes. Incorporating elements of the jazz influenced Art Deco and machine-age vision of the Moderne, these buildings were built as expressions of confidence in a bright and modern future. Stylistic elements of Art Deco and Moderne include decorative treatments like geometrical motifs, decorative vertical banding and a streamlining of the building form. These features are evident in many prominent civic buildings throughout the state including the Goondiwindi Civic Centre [QHR 600531] and the Southport Town Hall [QHR 601649].
Initial plans were prepared for the building by local builder Mr C Gill, who later collaborated with council engineer GW Barlow in the final design of the building. The construction of the chambers was undertaken by Sydney building firm Kell and Rigby of Sydney, Brisbane and Toowoomba. Established in 1910, Kell and Rigby's work in Queensland during the 1930s included Toowoomba's Empire Theatre [QHR 600978], Stanthorpe Hospital and the Masel residence [QHR 601552]. The 1913 council chambers were relocated from their position between the new chambers and the powerhouse, to face the street directly behind.
The building of the Kingaroy Council Chambers coincided with a number of major projects in the Shire that collectively reflected the progress and confidence of the district. During 1938, the South Burnett's first radio station 4SB, opened its studio in the township and construction began on a new Kingaroy Hospital, regarded at the time as Queensland's most ‘modern'. A new district office was established by the Department of Agriculture and Stock, an acknowledgment of the area's importance for primary production. The Peanut Marketing Board significantly expanded their operations by erecting large concrete silos on their processing site opposite the shire chambers. Kell and Rigby also constructed these agricultural skyscrapers, completing both the silos and shire chambers within a short time of each other.
The Kingaroy Shire Chambers were officially opened on 1 December 1938 by the Minister for Agriculture and Stock, FW Bulcock. Prior to the ceremony at the chambers, Bulcock officially opened the new silos. Conducting both of these ceremonies on the same day symbolically expressed the Shire's confidence and its progress since formation, while acknowledging its dependence on agriculture to deliver its future prosperity.
The new chambers were a single storey building of brick and concrete. Silky oak timber was used extensively throughout the interior for the fittings, doors and furniture, the work of RV Rogerson's local joinery firm. Ornate plaster work adorned the ceilings while leadlight windows incorporating the Shire's logo were included in the main elevation. A detached toilet block was constructed at the rear of the building.
A description written at the time of opening outlined the internal arrangement of space and features of the new chambers. The front central space, featuring a crows ash and ironbark timber floor, contained the public office for business and other transactions, incorporating the strong room. The left hand side of the building contained the health inspector and engineer's offices and records room, while the right side provided rooms for the accounting office, clerks and shire chairman.
The centrepiece of the new chambers was the boardroom at the rear of the building. The room was panelled in silky oak, with parquetry floors of tulip and rose gum timber. A dais with seating for the shire chairman and clerk overlooked a ‘U' shaped table for twelve councillors, furnished with drawers and swivel oak chairs, and oak seating was provided for the public gallery.
The Kingaroy Shire Council continued to operate from the chambers for over forty years. In 1979, new administrative offices for the council were built alongside the Kingaroy Civic Centre, as envisioned in architect Karl Langer's original plan of the complex. In December 1983, the former chambers were officially reopened by local state member and Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, as the Kingaroy District Development Board Tourist Information Centre.
The former Kingaroy Shire Chambers is currently an art gallery, a component of the Kingaroy Visitor Information Centre, which opened in 2005. As part of this complex, a new building was built between the chambers and the former power house (Kingaroy Heritage Museum). To provide a connection to the new building, part of the chamber's right wall was removed. The vestibule screen and original counter of the chambers had previously been moved to the museum building when it was operating as the art gallery. Despite these alterations, much of the Kingaroy Shire Chambers, especially its meeting room, remains highly intact. In 2008, Kingaroy Shire was amalgamated with Wondai, Murgon and Nanango Shires to form the South Burnett Regional Council.
","criteria":"The Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers (former) are important in demonstrating the growth, prosperity and consolidation of Kingaroy as an important regional centre in the Wide Bay-Burnett. It illustrates the pattern that occurred in Queensland after towns on branch railways developed as service centres for regions transformed by the interconnected processes of government-initiated closer settlement and increased primary production. Built and opened in 1938, the Shire Chambers are a tangible expression of a pronounced period of prosperity in the township, resulting from the rapid expansion of dairying, peanut production and other agricultural activities in the surrounding region.
The Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers (former) are important in demonstrating the widespread pattern in Queensland of expressing civic pride through building council chambers and town halls during the 1930s. Many of these buildings, including the Kingaroy Shire Chambers, are important in demonstrating the influence and spread of modern architectural styles in Queensland townscapes during the interwar period, illustrated by its use of decorative vertical banding and geometrical motifs.
|The Kingaroy Shire Chambers (former) are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of shire council chambers. The building is prominently positioned on a principal thoroughfare of the township. Internally, the place features a front central space for public transactions, flanked by a small number of rooms, with the rear of the building housing the highly intact and finely crafted meeting room and record storage area. This spatial arrangement illustrates the requirements that facilitated the day-to-day operations of a shire council. Finely crafted interior joinery remains intact including the meeting room's table and chairs, dais, public seating and map cabinet.
Externally, the building's vertical banding and geometric motifs on its main elevation demonstrates the use of such architectural elements in Queensland shire chambers and town halls of the 1930s.
|The Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers is important because of its aesthetic significance. It is a modest but elegant and well-proportioned building. These qualities are in contrast to its setting with the monumental peanut silos opposite forming a dramatic counterpoint.
The building's prominent position on a principal thoroughfare of the township expresses the centrality and importance of local government to the community, while its design expresses civic pride and the confidence of Kingaroy Shire at the time of construction.
The Kingaroy Shire Council Chambers is also significant for the outstanding craftsmanship of the meeting room. The chambers contains many finely crafted elements and timber joinery including walls panelled in silky oak and floors finished with tulip and rose gum parquetry, dais, meeting table, swivel oak meeting chairs and public seating and map cabinet.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33399,"place_ref":602813,"name":"Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter","alternate_name":"St Peter's Anglican Church | St Peters Anglican Church","street_address":"cnr Drake Street and Wondai Road","suburb":"PROSTON","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter is located on the corner of Drake Street and Wondai Road, Proston. The church occupies a parcel of land which falls gently toward Drake Street and includes a number of established trees to the street frontages and a concrete pathway, none of which are considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
An architectural anomaly in an otherwise rural townscape, the church stands as a very austere composition of four simple architectural forms, each accommodating one of the principal interior areas of the church: the entry/bell tower; nave; chancel and vestry. The cavity brick wall construction is exceptional and features pale, sandy coloured cavity face bricks, with flush vertical and recessed horizontal mustard coloured mortar joints, skilfully laid in a combination of English bond and Flemish garden wall bond with brick-on-edge and soldier course detailing. All openings feature stepped reveals externally and stepped mitred reveals internally.
The double height nave of the church is essentially rectangular in plan and runs in an east-west direction under a low pitched gable roof clad with red concrete roof tiles. The eaves are lined with timber boards above exposed decorative rafters that carry half round gutters. A series of long, narrow, high level, arched windows punctuate its northern and southern elevations and contain fixed, nine pane, steel framed windows glazed with randomly set yellow, blue, green and uncoloured obscure glass. Located beneath these windows and of equal width are a series of square, recessed, hit-and-miss brick ventilation panels that reveal the symbol of the cross in their patterning. These baffled ventilation panels, similarly expressed on the interior in metal, are part of the church's passive cooling system, allowing air to be drawn into the church. The western elevation includes a circular timber vent above a single centrally positioned high level window with arched head housing a fixed, thirty two pane, steel framed window glazed with the same palette of coloured glass. Located below the window is the marble foundation stone of the church commemorating benefactor Charles Shepherd.
The square-planned bell tower on the southern elevation contains the entry to the church reached by a set of brick stairs with integrated brick planter boxes. The belltower has a flat concrete roof concealed by parapet walls and is surmounted by a bell enclosure comprising a circular colonnade of eight columns which support a faceted metal clad lantern roof and a weather vane in the likeness of a rooster, the symbol of St Peter. The soffit of this lantern roof is lined with timber boards and the door and window openings are detailed similarly to the nave.
The semi-circular planned chancel with truncated low pitched metal clad roof adjoins the eastern end of the nave of the church and is similarly detailed with narrow windows on the north and south elevations. The sub floor area of the altar accommodates a mortuary chamber in which the late Charles Shepherd, benefactor of the church, is entombed. Enclosing the chamber at the eastern end of the chancel, is a dressed timber panel decorated with a timber cross.
The vestry is expressed as a simple single storey cubic volume with parapet wall adjoining the north elevation of the nave. Centrally positioned steel-framed casement windows punctuate its northern and western elevations. Concrete stairs enclosed by a low level wall lead to a timber-panelled door located in the eastern elevation of the vestry where it adjoins the nave of the church.
Internally the simple plan that gives rise to the austere exterior form of the church is clearly evident.
The bell tower accommodates the entry to the church as well as a first level choir loft above and a second level platform accessed by a timber stair and ladder respectively. The choir loft is expressed directly above the main entry as a small balcony with curved solid balustrade overlooking the nave. Opposite the entry, adjacent to the northern wall of the nave, is a cast concrete baptismal font located between the rows of pews which line each side of the central aisle and are crafted from local hardwood. A brass plaque on the front northern pew states that benefactor, Charles Shepherd, is buried opposite that pew, under the aisle, however, he is entombed under the sanctuary of the chancel. The aisles are covered with carpet, the timber floor under the seating, exposed. The ceiling is coffered and lined with Cane-ite sheets painted dark red with expressed joints and perforated ventilation panels. A system of wall lights on decorative metal brackets, mounted between the windows may be a more recent addition.
The chancel contains two platforms covered with carpet, stepping up to the sanctuary and altar. A large opening in the eastern end of the nave frames the sanctuary beyond and a curved brick wall with centrally suspended curtain creates the backdrop to the sanctuary and altar. Low level, angled brick walls create the altar rail and the elevated pulpit is located in the south-east corner of the chancel behind a curved face brick wall. Both walls are finished with a dressed timber capping. The sanctuary ceiling is lined with Cane-ite and painted light blue.
Notable chancel furnishings crafted from local hardwood include the priest's chair and kneeler, the sanctuary altar piece, secondary chair and kneeler, lectern and wall mounted hymnal boards. The figure of a rooster, symbol of St Peter, is carved into the timber facing panel of the priest's kneeler. Integrated brick shelving in the walls of the chancel accommodate a timber cross and other ceremonial vessels.
A timber panel door on the northern side of the lower altar provides access to the vestry which contains a storage cupboard and a sink area. The timber floor is covered with vinyl and the ceiling is sheeted with masonite finished with cover battens.
","history":"The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter (St Peter's Church), on the corner of Drake Street and Wondai Road, Proston was designed by architects, Fowell, McConnel and Mansfield, supervised by Brisbane architects Lucas and Cummings, and built between December 1937 and July 1939 by LGW Smith, using local bricks. This Scandinavian-influenced church was funded by a bequest from grazier Charles Shepherd of ‘Aston' near Proston.
The town of Proston is sited on land that was originally part of the pastoral lease Wigton, which dated from 1850. In 1910 the Queensland government opened the land for closer settlement and offered agricultural blocks by ballot. Those who were successful and settled on the land struggled against prickly pear, little reliable water and small returns.
Growth of the township of Proston was therefore slow until a branch railway line from Murgon opened in 1923 facilitating growth. A public hall, school, general store, bulk store, hotel, shop and banks were erected thereafter. Eradication of prickly pear in the late 1920s and the opening of a butter factory by the South Burnett Dairy Cooperative in June 1934 and its pre-war expansion again boosted Proston's development. As part of the Wide Bay district, Proston dairy farmers contributed to the district's standing as the second largest milk producer in Queensland during the interwar period. By 1939 Proston possessed many services including a railway station complex with cattle yards, police station, postal department and a school with 102 pupils. A small private hospital, the Boondooma Private Hospital, operated in the region from 1934 to 1940. Numerous small businesses had been established, such as garages, billiard rooms, hairdressers, bakers, plumbers, a restaurant, the Proston Electric Light Company and the CG Baldwin and Sons' sawmill. A telephone service had been installed and main roads construction was progressing.
It was during this period of Proston's growth (in 1934) that survey for subdivision of the land on which the Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter's is sited took place. The foundation stone of the St Peter's Church was laid by the Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr JC Ward, on 30 May 1937. Transfer by Deed of Grant of allotments 1, 17 and 18 to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane occurred in October 1938. In the meantime, the church was constructed on allotment 1. Its dedication took place on 3 July 1938 and its consecration by the Archbishop of Brisbane occurred on 31 July 1939.
Funding for the church was provided by the will of Charles Shepherd, who passed away at the Boondooma Private Hospital in Proston on 7 June 1935, aged 70 years. Leaving neither wife nor offspring, he appointed his bank manager as his executor when making his will two months prior to his death. Charles Shepherd's will made two bequests of £50 each to his doctor and the matron of the Boondooma Private Hospital. The remainder of his estate, which totalled £8,687 4s 4d was left to the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane of the Branch of the Church of England in Queensland; to be held in trust for the Proston and Wondai District (at the time in Kingaroy parish) to be applied in or towards such religious, charitable or educational purposes in the district as the Corporation should think fit. Furthermore, he directed that £3,000 must be used for the erection and furnishing of a church in Proston by the Church of England. Later, his body was exhumed from the Proston Cemetery and placed under St Peter's Church in a mortuary chamber shown on the architects' foundation plan. A plaque on the front right-hand-side pew states that his body lies opposite and beneath the aisle.
St Peter's Church was built using locally-made cream-coloured Wondai bricks. The Wondai Brick and Tile Company made several thousand specially moulded bricks for the door and window reveals and the arched heads. In the words of the architects, ‘the building is "a symphony in brick"'. The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter was the first major tender won by the Wondai Brickworks, a business commenced by seven local shareholders with a capital of £350. Their successful tender for St Peter's Church led them to discover a suitable clay deposit opposite the Wondai Hospital in Bramston Street, Wondai and establish a factory nearby. After interruption during World War II when the brickworks were taken over by the Army, the business went on to supply bricks throughout southern Queensland, including the former Princess Alexandra Hospital (demolished), Kingaroy Hospital and Wondai Town Hall, as well as houses in the region.
St Peter's Church has been recognised as an important 20th century building. The church's design was influenced by European and Scandinavian styles with high walls and a low-pitched tile roof and wide moulded eaves. Of particular note is the ventilation system which uses exceptionally high walls to give a large air space in proportion to the seating capacity of 100. There are both windows and ventilators but the windows do not open. The ventilators are designed to be opened at night to store cool night air in the roof space. The air heated by the congregation rises through grilles into the roof space and out through the gable ends allowing the cooler air to flow downwards.
An article in Architecture magazine in 1943 described the building as ‘of locally made cream bricks with a tile roof. The plan is a long rectangle with an apse at the east end and a vestry off one side. The entrance is on the south, towards the west end; it is marked by a square tower with a colonnaded lantern at the top surmounted by a weathervane carrying the symbol of St Peter. The organ gallery is above the entrance, whence it is approached by a stair, and opens on to a gallery overlooking the nave. The font is placed immediately opposite the entrance in a gap in the seating, which leaves a few seats between it and the west wall for use at christenings. The pulpit is in brick, and is placed in the south-east corner... The windows have steel frames, and are glazed with heat-resisting glass with a slightly greenish tinge, which helps to give a cool appearance to the interior. The ceiling is of wall board, set out in panels, the sides of the recesses being brilliantly coloured to tone with the windows and the ceiling of the eastern apse.' The furnishings, altar, pews and other fittings, designed by the architects, were made from local hardwood. The cost of building was £2,755 19s 5d.
The Archbishop of Brisbane (the Most Reverend John William Charles Wand) stated in his opening and consecration of the church that it ‘is a distinct departure from the usual design of churches in the diocese'. The Archbishop, (enthroned in St John's Cathedral Brisbane on 5 September 1934) had stated that more churches were required to serve the needs of the congregation, as the church building programme had stagnated because of severe financial problems caused by the Depression of the 1930s. Archbishop Wand urged that churches be constructed in stone and brick and compare favourably with the better class of public buildings being erected in the state. Concerned about the standards of ecclesiastical architecture he insisted that he approve the plans before building projects were undertaken. He reminded the clergy of the factors that should be kept in mind when planning churches and urged the desirability of moving away from the old Gothic styles. His primary motive for this, however, was to avoid obscuring the view of the altar by pillars, not concern for climatic conditions. Despite Archbishop Wand's comments, the majority of church buildings erected in the 1930s were small wooden structures - pseudo-Gothic with steep roof and high lancet windows - but frequently they were designed to become parish halls when permanent churches could be erected. It was not until the 1950s that church buildings in Queensland, and indeed Australia, moved away from traditional church building types that employed historical revival styles such as Gothic or Romanesque. The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter was a notable exception.
St Peter's execution also reflected the ‘low church' or more Protestant form of Anglican worship rather than the ‘high church' (Anglo-Catholic) form that became discernible in the Anglican church from the mid-19th century. Generally, Queensland was more ‘high church'. In this form the sanctuary, associated with the chancel was the most important and therefore most decorated part of any high church. Balconies were not permitted and a south porch, a humble entry, was desirable. ‘Low church' forms have always existed in Queensland, particularly in the south of the state. Churches following this form of Anglicanism were generally plainer in form and additional rituals such as the use of incense were not practised in them. ‘Low church' forms of Anglican worship demonstrate more reliance on Biblical teaching.
In 1940 the firm Fowell, McConnel and Mansfield were awarded the Queensland Meritorious Architecture - Country Division - Award: 1940 in the Ecclesiastical and Institutional (including Educational Buildings and Hospitals) Class by the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. War conditions prevented the presentation being made until 1943.
Both the South Burnett Times, in 1937, and Architecture, in 1943, attributed the church's design mainly to Kenneth Hamlyn McConnel of Fowell and McConnel Architects (1927-1938). McConnel was a member of the well-known family of Queensland graziers associated with ‘Cressbrook' in the Brisbane Valley. After his World War I service he was an early graduate of Professor Leslie Wilkinson's School of Architecture at Sydney University where he was awarded a University Medal. Fowell and McConnel formed a partnership in 1927 to enter a competition for the design of Tamworth War Memorial Town Hall, for which they were awarded second place. In the following year they were successful in winning the competition for the British Medical Association Building in Sydney's Macquarie Street, for which they won the first Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) medal to be awarded in Australia. In 1935 Fowell and MConnel received the Royal Australian Institute of Architects' Sulman Award for St Anne's Church at North Bondi, which is in the New South Wales Heritage List. It also features a ventilation system using stored cool air to circulate throughout. The partnership went on to design many Catholic churches in Sydney and some New South Wales country towns. McConnel left the partnership of Fowell, McConnel and Mansfield (1939), due to ill health in 1939. After World War II he formed McConnel and Smith, later becoming McConnel, Smith and Johnson. This firm was responsible for the Sydney Law Courts, Queens Square, Sydney Water Board headquarters, and the University of Sydney's law school and faculty of architecture buildings.
In 1969 a church building was transferred from Tingoora to the Proston site to serve as the St Peter's Church Hall. This is located behind the church on a different allotment.
On 3 July 1988 St Peter's celebrated its 50th anniversary with the Bishop of the Western Region, Adrian Charles, a former Wondai minister, leading the commemorative service and planting a memorial tree to mark the occasion.
Few changes have been made to St Peter's Church. The ceiling of the nave and the sides of the recesses are no longer brilliantly coloured. The nave's ceiling is painted a brick red and the ceiling above the chancel is blue. Originally the church was intentionally set amongst eucalyptus trees, however, in the intervening years these have been removed and the site is planted with exotic species.
","criteria":"St Peter's Church has strong aesthetic value. Its scale and austere fabric and form have been influenced by Romanesque massing principles and twentieth century Scandinavian architectural detailing. The modernist aesthetic of the church juxtaposed with the rural townscape of Proston evokes extreme surprise.
It is significant for its high quality workmanship in particular the face brickwork, which shows the influence of the Modern Movement popular in the 1930s.
The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter is an outstanding example of church design for its period and location. Its massing and high quality brickwork are features of the design which show European and Scandinavian influences. The church is also significant for the way it was designed for the climate, through the use of an unusual ventilation system.
|St Peter's Church demonstrates a high level of creative achievement. Its architectural excellence and exceptionality is illustrated by its winning the 1940 RAIA Queensland Chapter Award for Ecclesiastical and Institutional Buildings including Educational Buildings and Hospitals - Country Division, which was awarded every five years.
|The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an Anglican Church in its form and liturgical furniture, while its simplicity and interior treatment represent the ‘low church' form of Anglican worship.
The church is rectangular in form and comprises a nave which seats a congregation of 100, an east chancel, square tower with a colonnaded lantern, an entrance and an organ gallery above, and on the north side, a vestry.
Both externally and internally St Peter's Church remains substantially unchanged since completion of construction in July 1939.
|The Shepherd Memorial Church of St Peter (St Peter's Church) (1939) is important in illustrating closer settlement of Queensland through the development of agricultural settlements and establishment of their service towns in rural Queensland until World War II. These towns were the result of the Queensland government's policy of closer settlement of the land and its use of branch railway lines to facilitate this objective.
St Peter's Church demonstrates the establishment phase of town development during which permanent places of worship were built. The church was designed and built during a boom period in Proston's development when the town and region were significant producers of dairy products in Queensland.
St Peter's Church, is important as an early example of modernism in Queensland church architecture, an architectural style which did not become popular for this application until after World War II.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33400,"place_ref":602814,"name":"Fallon House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Maryborough Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-12-07","description":"Fallon House is a small brick building accommodating a hall and offices on a corner lot in a central location in Bundaberg. The building fronts onto Maryborough Street to the east providing access to the offices and the garage. It has a secondary access on the north from Quay Street which provides access to the hall behind. The building sits on the eastern half of a rectangular 933 m2 allotment with a grassed yard occupying the remainder of the site.
The building is one-storey cavity brick with pale orange face brick sheltered by a terracotta tiled roof (hipped over the offices and gabled over the hall). It is designed in a functionalist style with a cubic form with horizontal continuous cantilevered concrete window hoods, and minimal decoration.
The Maryborough Street elevation is asymmetrical around a projecting central entrance bay. The entrance is reached by a short flight of concrete stairs and sheltered by a cantilevered concrete awning. The exterior walls have short parapets topped with cement rendered coping. A large flagpole is above the entrance bay and a band of decorative brickwork runs below the coping. Attached to the face and awnings of the building are large letters FALLON HOUSE, A.W.U., and AUSTRALIAN WORKERS UNION. The front door is a modern aluminium-framed glazed double leaf and is not of cultural heritage significance.
The Quay Street entry to the hall is sheltered by a concrete awning over a short flight of concrete steps. Generally, the windows of the offices are timber framed double hung sashes. The bottom sashes contain obscure rippled glass and the windows on the north and east are shielded by fixed aluminium blades. The windows of the hall are large banks of steel-framed, awning windows with horizontally-ribbed glazing. The building has metal rainwater downpipes surface mounted to the face of the building with large, prominent rainheads. The garage is separated from the main building by a narrow concrete floored alley. Attached to the rear of the garage is a ladies toilet. Behind this is a concreted area and further back is a detached gents toilet block with a skillion roof. The toilets and garage are the same face brick as the main building.
The office consists of a small entry foyer with reception desk, three offices, a kitchen, and a strong room. Rooms have vinyl tile floors, sheet wall linings with timber skirtings, picture rails and architraves, and the ceiling is fibrous plaster sheets with moulded plaster cornices. The strong room has a concrete floor and rendered concrete walls and ceiling. The rooms retain original built-in cupboards with original hardware, some original light fixtures and light switching plates, and the strong room retains original locks and timber shelving. Internal doors are timber with original hardware. Some windows have internal wind deflecting glass shields at sill level and some partitions have ribbed glass windows at a high level. The foyer retains the original timber veneer reception desk in front of a timber veneer partition with ribbed glazing. The kitchen retains original joinery including cabinet handles, sink and tapware, benchtop, and green splashback tiles.
The hall is accessed from both Quay Street and the rear of the office via a small foyer with double silky oak doors that open into the large hall. The hall floor is timber and the walls are sheeted and have a timber skirting. Acoustic sheets are attached at a high-level of the back wall. The coved ceiling consists of a grid of large, square sheets with timber cover strips, hanging fluorescent lights, and a long central feature panel ventilation grille. At the western end of the hall is a raised stage with proscenium accessed by stairs at either side. The stage is flanked by a small room either side; one contains a kitchen with original joinery, benchtop, sink, tapware, and tiled splashback, the other is a small backstage room with a set of timber stairs and provides access to the stage wing. The doors in the hall are clear-finished silky oak and the paint scheme throughout the hall appears to be original. Doors at the western end open out onto a short flight of concrete stairs into the concreted yard.
The toilet blocks have polished concrete floors, fibrous plaster sheet walls and ceilings, with timber coverstrips and cornices. The rooms have square timber framed windows of obscure glass louvres. The cubicle partitions are terrazzo and the walls are lined with green square ceramic tiles. The toilet blocks retain original fixtures and fittings including toilets, urinal, basins, and light fittings.
","history":"Fallon House, the Central District office of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), is situated in Maryborough Street Bundaberg, on the corner of Quay Street. The building was designed by Brisbane architects DB Goodsir and HJ Carlyle, built by L Edwards, and opened in 1953. It is a low set brick modernist style structure comprising offices addressing Maryborough Street and a hall at the rear accessed from Quay Street. It was named in honour of former central branch secretary and state secretary of the AWU Clarence Edward Fallon.
\nBetween the years of 1918 and 1957, the Queensland Branch of the AWU was the largest branch of the largest union in Australia, with the Central District Office (Bundaberg) one of six offices of the union in Queensland. This period of domination of the union also coincides with the career of Clarrie Fallon, a temporary organiser in Bundaberg from 1921 who rose to the pinnacle of power in the union at a time when the Queensland Parliament ministerial team comprised mostly AWU members.
\nThe economy of Bundaberg, initially based on timber, quickly evolved into sugar production as foundation settlers selected land in 1867-68 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' stemming from the Crown Lands Alienation Act of the 1860s which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement. The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed in 1869. Coastal traffic grew, and copper was first mined at Mt Perry in 1871, which enabled Bundaberg to develop as a port and supply centre. Sugar plantations were established in the surrounding area and were to become the basis for the city's wealth as the industry boomed from the 1880s.
\nColonial Queensland workers formed loosely based organisations in an effort to improve working conditions. One such union was the Eight Hour Day movement, which was initiated in Queensland in 1858 by stone masons working for John Petrie in Brisbane. The movement remained strong throughout Australia into the early 20th century. Most unions were small locally based organisations with no legal status. A Trades and Labour Council was established in Brisbane in 1885, followed by the Trade Union Act 1886 which legalised unions as organisations. Trade unions then took on a more permanent character as the Queensland economy consolidated and grew. Queensland workers recognised the value in a strong united union movement and formed the Australian Labour Federation (ALF), a combined industrial and political organisation. The ALF replaced the Trades and Labour Council in 1889. Its secretary, Albert Hinchcliffe a printer by trade, and journalist William Lane established the ‘Worker' newspaper in 1890 as the official newspaper of the union. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) formed at the first provincial council meeting of the ALF in August 1890.[1]
\nThe Amalgamated Workers Union formed in Queensland in December 1891, from a merger of the Queensland Shearer's Union and the Queensland Labourer's Union, during the pastoral strike. Following the economic downturn and decline in unionism later in the 1890s, the Trades and Labour Council reformed in 1904.[2] In 1905, three western branches of the Amalgamated Workers Union, in Longreach, Charleville and Hughenden,[3] joined with the southern pastoral Australian Workers Union (AWU) to form a new union in Queensland. Its origins were in the Shearer's Union, which formed in Ballarat Victoria in 1886. Registered through the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1905, this merger established a branch of the AWU in Queensland.[4]
\nAnother new union, the Amalgamated Workers Association (AWA) was formed by miners on the Atherton Tableland in 1907. Membership comprised unskilled and semi-skilled workers.[5] In 1908 the Bundaberg District Workers Union and the Mackay Sugar Workers Union became affiliated with the AWA. Union secretary Edward Granville (Ted) Theodore then embarked on a political career, entering parliament in 1909. In December 1910 union vice president William McCormack recruited the Amalgamated Sugar Workers Union into the AWA, and instigated a general sugar strike in 1911.[6]
\nThe 1911 general sugar strike occurred after the phasing out of South Sea Islander labour, with workers claiming that many plantation owners had substituted black slaves with white ones. Workers sought better accommodation, wages and conditions, including an eight hour day and a minimum weekly wage of 30 shillings, including food. The mobilisation of unionists from Bundaberg to Mossman was a major achievement, with the 1911 strike lasting over seven weeks in Bundaberg where the town's economy was largely based on the sugar industry.[7] The end result of the strike was a Commonwealth Royal Commission into the sugar industry in 1911-12, which had been initially requested by Harry Hall, a Bundaberg AWA organiser in 1908 with a petition signed by 1500 Bundaberg sugar workers.[8] The Royal Commission, with ALF Secretary Albert Hinchcliffe as secretary, concluded the AWA demands had been justified. The union victory was a watershed in organised labour in Queensland and Australia.[9]
\nThe success of the AWA's 1911 sugar strike, led the ALF (reformed from the TLC in 1910) to initiate the general strike of 1912, the first of its kind in Australia. The ALF called all 42 of its affiliated unions to support dismissed tramway workers in Brisbane. The strike was quashed by armed police on ‘Black Friday', 2 February 1912. McCormack, who had been chairman of the Townsville strike committee, could see that the failure was due to the inability of the ALF to co-ordinate state-wide action and conciliatory negotiations. He was keen to re-align unions in Queensland.[10]
\nAs a precursor to the formation of the Australia-wide Australian Workers Union, McCormack and Theodore attended the AWU national conference in Sydney in 1912, and sought out interstate amalgamations. This resulted in the merger of the AWA, of which Theodore was president, with the essentially southern based Australian Workers Union (AWU). Other unions which also joined forces at this time included the Rural Workers Union, the Carriers Union and the Rabbit Trappers Union.[11] In Queensland the three AWU branches were consolidated into one and the state divided into six districts. The amalgamation was formalised on 1 July 1913. The AWA had held a virtual monopoly in North Queensland and the new organisation led to the national membership of the AWU reaching 62 000; 22 321 of whom were Queenslanders,[12] making it the largest branch of the largest union in Australia at the time.[13] This amalgamation spelt the end of the ALF. McCormack and Theodore were convinced that the AWU model of the amalgamation of smaller unions into One Big Union (OBU) was the way forward.[14] EG Theodore was the first president of the Queensland branch of the AWU. The political affiliations of the AWA and subsequent AWU contributed to the election of the Labor government in Queensland in 1915, remaining in power for almost 40 years.
\nRecognising the need for a formal meeting place for unionists, the Bundaberg Eight Hour Day committee approached the Lands Department in July 1919 for a site for a Trades Hall. At the time, union meetings were held outdoors on the corner opposite the School of Arts.[15] An informal lease (No. 453) was drawn up by the Lands Department to the union trustees, for the northern half of the allotment on the western corner of Quay and Maryborough Streets, allowing a building to be erected on the site.[16] [17] In March 1922 the Eight Hour Day Anniversary Committee was granted a three year lease on the property.[18]
\nThe Bundaberg Trades and Labour Hall opened on the corner lot on 8 May 1922. An Eight Hour Day Parade was held followed by a sports gathering and dinner in the hall presided over by the president of the Bundaberg Trades and Labour Council.[19] When the District Land Officer inspected the property in July 1923 he indicated that it comprised a five roomed timber building (the Trades Hall) and offices adjoining occupied by the Australian Workers Union built of wood with two large rooms.[20] By January 1924 the Bundaberg Trades and Labour Council had purchased the Perpetual Town Lease No 6087, of the corner allotment and the improvements on it i.e. the Trades Hall and adjoining offices. The lease document was drawn up in November 1924.[21]
\nThe Trades and Labour Council reformed in Brisbane in April 1922, coinciding with a renewed fervour for the establishment of One Big Union. A meeting in May at the Brisbane Trades Hall, addressed by the Queensland AWU Branch President AW Riordan, sought support for a union representing the whole of Australasia.[22] The process had commenced in New South Wales, initiated by the miners' unions, which formed the Workers Industrial Union of Australia (WIUA) in 1918. At that time it did not have the support of the AWU, and since the WIUA was intent on dismantling the existing industrial and political system,[23] this threatened the status quo of the AWU in Queensland which survived through its mutually beneficial relationship with the ALP and the sitting Labor government, making the OBU concept unpopular.
\nBundaberg was a starting point for many AWU officials, including Clarrie Fallon after whom the Bundaberg AWU building is named. He began his working life driving a parcel delivery van,[24] and became a representative of the Australian Carrier's Union in the Gladstone district in his youth. Becoming a member of the Bundaberg and District Sugar Workers and General Labourer's Union around 1908, he then worked on the railways. Fallon's father had been a shearer, involved in the great strikes of the late 1880s and his mother was a shearer's cook, and both had strong interests in the labour movement.[25] Fallon's AWU career began as a temporary organiser in Bundaberg in 1921, where he initiated some of the union's work for better conditions for sugar workers, and pioneered the union involvement with the cattle industry.[26] Two years later he was appointed manager of the central district's Rockhampton office. By 1928 he was northern district secretary, based in Townsville.[27] In 1933 he was elected state secretary of the AWU Queensland Branch, managing director of the Queensland Worker and chairman of directors of the Labor Daily Newspaper Co. Ltd. By February 1938 he was president of the Queensland central executive of the ALP and was elected federal ALP president in July that year. In 1940 he was elected general secretary of the AWU. He resigned from this role for health reasons in February 1943, and resigned the ALP federal presidency in 1944. The same year he was appointed to the University of Queensland Senate.[28] By 1946 he was again the Queensland branch secretary, fighting for a 40 hour week for shearers in Queensland.[29]
\nAWU memberships were fairly evenly spread throughout the state in the 1920s, although a slightly larger membership existed in the Northern region, with the South West the smallest. For example, in 1924 the Northern Region had 5723, Central and Far Northern had over 5300, Southern 4728, Western 4493 and South Western had 3619.[30]
\nThe AWU dominated the ALP in Queensland where between 1920 and 1950, four out of six labour premiers came from the AWU ranks: EG Theodore, W McCormack, F A Cooper and W Forgan Smith. Membership of the ALP declined during the Depression years and the organisation came to rely on the AWU's organisational support. AWU membership in Queensland was 53 000 in 1936, compared with 6 600 in New South Wales.[31] Labor lost power in 1929. Following its re-election in 1933, the partnership of Premier Forgan Smith and Secretary of the AWU Clarrie ‘the red terror' Fallon, emerged as one of the most powerful political teams in Queensland history. The ministry included nine officials of the AWU, while the brother of the only non-member, Ned Hanlon, was the editor of the ‘Worker' and a member of the Worker Board of Trustees.[32] Even during the Depression years, the AWU continued to dominate in terms of trade union membership and by 1939 AWU membership had risen to 57,856, which was 50,000 more members than the nearest sized trade unions in Queensland.[33]
\nThe growing strength of the union, led Central Branch Secretary Clarrie Fallon to write to the Minister for Lands in 1945 seeking to purchase part of the Bundaberg property of the Trades and Labour Council to establish an office for the AWU. A mutual agreement with the TLC initiated a resurvey of the corner allotments and removal of the old timber buildings.[34] A new lease for the property (Lot 14) was drawn up in January 1947 under the names of the executive of the TLC, and then transferred to the AWU Branch Trustees, Clarence Edward Fallon, James William McCarter and John Alfred Moir on 21 March 1947.[35] Clarrie Fallon died in January 1950 on the eve of an AWU convention in Sydney.[36]
\nThe Bundaberg Office of the AWU was built when the union was at its peak in Australia. In 1950, a record state membership of the union of 66 353 was achieved.[37] The AWU was largest union in Australia in 1950, with almost half of the national membership being in the Queensland branch. At its meeting of 9 May 1950, the central district committee moved to proceed with building a new district office in Bundaberg. Architects David B Goodsir and Harold J Carlyle were consulted to provide a design for the building in February 1951.[38]
\nCarlyle had won the student medal at the Central Technical College in 1933, and had been articled to R Ashley Shaw, who later took him into partnership.[39] Carlyle and Goodsir were in partnership from 1946, sometimes still working with Shaw. The firm designed the new Innisfail hospital and the Maryborough Fire Station in 1949, Emmanuel College at the University of Queensland in 1950, the Queensland Spastic Welfare League building at New Farm in December 1953, and the Bureau of Sugar Experimentation on Gregory Terrace in 1958.[40] The firm later evolved to become Goodsir, Baker and Wilde.
\nThe architects called tenders for the Bundaberg AWU building[41] and the contract awarded to L Edwards in May 1952.[42] Goodsir and Carlyle were part of a group of modernist architects producing functionalist designs often found in hospitals, schools, and offices in the 1950s. Governments and councils preferred this style, as its association with progress, innovation, efficiency and economy, made it an appealing choice in the post-depression era. Characteristics of the functionalist style in Australia include asymmetrical massing, simple geometric shapes, clean lines, steel framed corner and strip windows, undecorated brick walls, curved external corners, flat cantilevered concrete awnings and low pitched or flat roofs concealed behind parapets. Buildings constructed in Bundaberg at this time include: extensions to the hospital and a new state high school at Kepnock in 1964,[43] a new fire station (1950), the Canegrowers Building (1957), the 1957 Radio 4BU building (QHR 601284) a new courthouse in 1958 and the Civic Centre built in 1960.
\nThe Bundaberg News Mail reported in December 1952 that the £16,000 AWU building was under construction and was the largest non-government building project in Bundaberg at the time. When completed it was to be named Fallon House. According to the newspaper, the city had experienced a ten percent growth in the construction of industrial and commercial buildings during the 1952 calendar year, including fourteen new factories, a foundry, a number of auto maintenance businesses and eighteen new shops. The sugar industry remained the biggest employer in the district with almost half engaged in sugar growing and manufacture.[44] The building appears to have been completed by April 1953, as the new structure was inspected by Branch President J Bukowski and Branch Secretary Harold Boland at this time.[45] The completion of the building was a landmark for the union, which now owned all of its offices.[46] These included Longreach (1922), Mackay (1926), Townsville (1936), Cairns (1938), Charleville and Ayr, both completed in 1940.[47] Fallon House honoured the memory of Clarrie Fallon, whose death, according to the ‘Worker' newspaper, ‘was a loss to the Australian Worker's Union, the Labor Party and indeed the Commonwealth of Australia'.[48]
\nAt the time of construction of Fallon House, the AWU represented workers from a range of industries including; cane cutters and sugar mills, Golding's sawmill in Gladstone, railway labour gangs employed on a project basis, Gladstone City Council and other local government employees, Carrick's Sawmill Rockhampton, Bundaberg foundry, Gladstone Butter Factory, Bundaberg Distillery, Mt Morgan mines, the Peanut Board in Rockhampton, Walkers Ltd in Maryborough, Biloela Butter Factory, Gladstone Harbour Board, Maryborough Hospital and other local hospitals.[49] The inclusion of a garage in the design of the new offices is evidence of the necessity for union representatives to travel. For example, District Secretary Gerry Goding travelled to Monto, Eidsvold, Cracow, Theodore, Biloela and Mount Perry in early November 1954.[50]
\nFallon House provided a reception area staffed by union organisers where members to pay their fees and acquired union tickets, office space for union administrative staff, including a district secretary's office, bookkeeper's office, a kitchen and strong room within the main building, while the hall at the rear, served as a trades' hall where stop work meetings were held. The ALP also convened meetings here. The hall featured a stage and dressing rooms, and a small kitchen area, demonstrating the intent to derive income from its rental. The provision of a hall for public use was common in this type of building, and other AWU buildings in Townsville, Mackay, Ayr and Charleville included hall or dance halls,[51] as did the Toowoomba Trades Hall, (QHR 602768) and other trades halls like Rockhampton, Brisbane and Ipswich. The local council used Fallon House Hall as an immunisation clinic during the week and in the late 60s, dances were held on weekends, as were other functions such as wedding receptions. In most recent years the hall has been used by a local dance school for lessons, performances and examinations.[52] The property remained leased until the early 1970s when the land was converted to freehold. A Deed of Grant for the land was issued to the Trustees of the Australian Workers Union of Employees Queensland on 22 November 1972.[53]
\nThe fortunes of the AWU ebbed and flowed in the subsequent years. The ten month long shearer's strike of 1956 was ended by a declaration of a State of Emergency by Labor Premier Vince Gair. While the proposed cuts to shearing rates were restored and the strike was generally seen as a victory for shearers, it was followed by a breakdown in the relationship between the AWU and the ALP, the expulsion of Gair from the ALP in April 1957 and his formation of the Queensland Labor Party. It later formed a coalition with the Democratic Labor Party (DLP).[54] Ted Walsh became the deputy leader of the QLP following the split, but by 1960 ran as an independent. His strong personal local following saw him retain his Bundaberg seat until his retirement in 1969.[55] At the same time the management of the Central Branch of the AWU in Bundaberg rested with district secretary Gerry Goding from 1942, who is credited in healing the rift between the ALP and the AWU in later years.[56] Goding guided the union membership through the transition from a labour intensive agrarian economy to an increasingly diverse one, particularly after increased mechanisation in the sugar industry, and the merger of mill operations. New ventures evolved, including the production of sugar harvesting and other agricultural machinery, which led to a decline in AWU memberships as the role of canecutters diminished. However there has been a growth in employment by local government undertaking sewerage and water supply schemes. Workers employed in these industries, and those employed in hospitals, water supply and forestry were members of the AWU.[57] The union was involved in a number of major industrial issues during the 1960s including the Mt Isa mines disputes of 1961 and 1964 and the 1967 Collinsville power station construction dispute, in which the AWU recruited the contractors employed as strike breakers. The Mt Isa and Collinsville disputes continued the union's somewhat controversial reputation at that time.[58]
\nThe AWU continued to represent a range of occupations through the 1980s, becoming involved in disputes related to environmental issues, particularly in its support of workers employed in ventures such as forestry and sand mining on Fraser Island, uranium mining, and logging in the rainforests around Cairns. It also supported the construction of the Gordon below Franklin Dam in Tasmania in the early 1980s, which did not proceed following the election of the Hawke Labor Government in 1983. In 1993 the AWU merged with the Federation of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering Employees (FIME) giving it greater membership in the mining industry, supporting jobs growth despite environmental concerns.[59] During 2009 the sugar industry again dominated the union's activities in Bundaberg, with members shut out of the Bingera and Millaquin mills after striking to protect leave entitlements.[60] In 2011, a former National Party, now independent politician called on the AWU to fight the closure of the Babinda Sugar Mill, owned by a joint venture of foreign owned Bundaberg Sugar and Maryborough Sugar Factory.[61] The union celebrated the 125th anniversary of its inauguration in Ballarat in 1886 with a national conference on the Gold Coast in February 2011,[62] and in 2013 will celebrate the centenary of the formal amalgamation of smaller unions into the AWU in July 1913. Fallon House continues to operate as the Central District office of the union.
","criteria":"Fallon House demonstrates the principal characteristics of a purpose-built district union office, which has continually served members since its construction in 1953. The internal layout of the building illustrates its function, with office spaces for union organisers, administrative staff and district secretary. The attached hall functioned as an Australian Worker's Union and Australian Labor Party meeting place and a venue for local community activities. Its highly in-tact modernist style reflects the dynamism of Bundaberg in the post-war era when a range of similarly styled functionalist public buildings were erected to symbolise progress, innovation and optimism for the future.
|Fallon House in Bundaberg (1953), as the Central District Office of the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), is a product of the growth of the union in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of workers' history in Queensland and the influential contribution that the union movement has made to the development of the state. The construction of a purpose built AWU office and hall in 1953 occurred at a time when the union was at its peak, with the Queensland Branch having been the largest branch of Australia's largest trade union for 40 years.
The site is associated with significant early union activity to improve workers' conditions in Bundaberg and Central Queensland, including the Eight Hour Day movement and the AWU from 1923.
|Fallon House in Bundaberg has a strong association with the membership of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), an organisation that has played in important role in the union movement in Queensland. From the inauguration of the AWU in July 1913, until 1957, the Queensland Branch was the largest branch of Australia's largest union. Constructed at the time the union was at its peak in Queensland, the place demonstrates the work of the AWU in providing a purpose-built district office to serve their members.
In continuous use since 1953 as the AWU's Central District Office, the building was named in honour of Clarrie Fallon, Bundaberg organiser from 1921, who became state secretary of the union by 1933, and was vice-president of the executive of both the ALP and the AWU by 1950.
|Fallon House exhibits aesthetic characteristics of a well composed modernist building, highly intact both internally and externally, contributing to the streetscape of Quay Street Bundaberg.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion H | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33401,"place_ref":602815,"name":"St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg","alternate_name":"St Johns Church","street_address":"30 George Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-12-07","description":"St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg stands prominently on a corner site in a quiet, residential area of Bundaberg. The church stands at the centre of the site bounded by George Street to the north, Boundary Street to the west, Bell Street to the south and St John's Lutheran Primary School to the east.
The church is rectangular in plan, 41 m long and 17 m wide, with the entrance front facing north. It is set back from George Street fronted a small, grassed forecourt with palms and shrubs. The building has a box-like body sheltered by a large, gable tiled roof. A tall, slender, square-based spire sheeted with copper rises to almost 44m above the ground. The copper cross atop extends a further 2.7 m and is lit by fluorescent tubes. The northern and southern sides of the spire have fixed copper louvres at the level of the hanging bell.
The external walls are orange face brick laid in English bond with projecting headers creating a repetitive pattern and texture-the lower part of the walls are without projecting bricks and are painted. Projecting bricks form large Christograms on the side walls of the tower - ihs on the east and xp on the west. The east and west walls of the body of the church are divided into six bays by full height recesses containing copper rainwater downpipes with detailed copper heads and straps. The bays each have a fixed, steel framed glazing to full height above a double-leaf, glazed, timber framed door. An architrave of projecting headers defines the openings. Beyond the southern-most bay the chancel is lit by fixed, steel framed glazing with deep reveals. The vestries project beneath these windows. The rear wall is windowless and has a field of projecting headers with a large central cross formed by projecting bricks. The vestry walls do not have projecting bricks and are rendered and painted.
The church entrance is a simple, open, painted concrete portico. Above the portico the north elevation of the tower is treated to suggest an open bible with raised, white cement rendered letters two feet high on dark grey textured concrete pages reading:
GOD
SO LOVED THE WORLD,
THAT HE GAVE HIS
ONLY BEGOTTEN SON,
THAT WHOSOEVER
BELIEVETH IN HIM
SHOULD NOT PERISH,
BUT HAVE
EVERLASTING LIFE.
JOHN III.16
and
BELOVED
IF GOD SO LOVED US,
WE OUGHT ALSO
TO LOVE
ONE ANOTHER,
IF WE LOVE
ONE ANOTHER.
GOD DWELLETH IN US
AND HIS LOVE IS
PERFECTED IN US.
1. JOHN IV,11-12
The portico floor is unpainted concrete and on the painted and rendered portico walls are two circular panels of mosaics approximately 1m in diameter. One depicts St John's eagle and the other Luther's Seal. Two sandstone plaques are fixed to the wall, which read:
IN MEMORY OF
EMILIE LOVGREEN
WHOSE GENEROUS GIFT
MADE THIS TOWER POSSIBLE.
"THANKS BE TO GOD."
and
THIS STONE WAS LAID ON 24TH MAY 1958 BY
PASTOR F.H. SCHMIDT, PRESIDENT, U.E.L.C.A. QLD. DIST.
"UNTO GOD BE GLORY IN THE CHURCH BY CHRIST JESUS
THROUGHOUT ALL AGES, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN"
EPH. 3, 21.
The portico opens into an entry vestibule through large, bi-folding, steel gates embellished with the notation ‘1960'. The vestibule has a low ceiling of stained and varnished timber battens and a floor of grey vinyl tiles with contrasting white tiles in a cross shape in two places. Within the vestibule are three steps up onto the level of the nave.
From the vestibule there is an office to the left and a rest room area to the right. The rest room area accommodates a toilet, cleaner's room, and a crying room (a room to retreat to with children during the service) which has double-glazed fixed window into the nave and acoustic sheeting to one wall. The office and the rest room contain built- in benches, cupboards, tables, chairs and fittings such as wall-hung speakers which are original elements.
The vestibule opens to the nave through large, timber-framed glass sliding doors. The body of the church is a large space, brightly lit and uncluttered. The walls and flat ceiling are painted white complimenting the stained and varnished timber elements. The floor is plain concrete squares with a red and gold carpet running the length and width of the aisle. The pews are silky oak, carved with a version of Durer's ‘Praying Hands' at the aisle end; some have memorial plaques, eg. Donated by Mr and Mrs A.T. Thompson in memory of Mr and Mrs Hermann Rehbein. The perimeter of the ceiling features a wide band of timber battens emphasising the length of the nave and drawing the eye to the sanctuary. Twelve large windows light the nave. They contain panels depicting scenes from the Gospel of St John in stained and painted glass including portions of older glass from the earlier church, some feature dedications, e.g., In Memory of Mr and Mrs h. Pressler from their children within the glass and on plaques. The nave is electrically lit by wall sconces with glass shades and by fluorescent lights recessed between the ceiling battens. A cast plaster baptismal font (from the earlier church) with painted leaves and inscription stands to the west side of the sanctuary.
The sanctuary is framed by decorative timber battened screens to the height of the nave, a timber battened pulpit stands to the left and a timber battened lectern on the right. The sanctuary has a red and gold carpet and three steps lead to the altar area which has a low altar rail of timber and steel. The concrete altar cantilevers from the rear wall and is decorated by red, gold, yellow, black, and white mosaic tiles with borders, crosses and the word HALLELUJAH picked out in tiles. A plaque fixed to the altar reads, Donated by The Children of MR AND MRS. J.A. ZUNKER In Honour of their Parents.
Fixed to the wall above the altar is a large, stained and varnished timber crucifix flanked by timber Greek letters alpha and omega.
On the east side of the sanctuary is the main vestry and on the west is the server's vestry. The rooms also contain timber tables and chairs that appear older than 1960.
The choir loft over the vestibule is supported by twin, canted, timber columns and is accessed via a small stair on the east side. The loft is open to the nave and has a tiered, timber floor. Timber battens line the rear wall which angles into the ceiling forming a shell-like space for the projection of sound into the nave. A fixed organ console stands near the front and its screened pipes are located at the rear of the loft. The loft contains timber pews and chairs.
The church has a variety of movable paraphernalia including candlesticks, framed portrait photographs, timber flower stands, timber crucifixes and crosses, lecterns, tables, bookcases, carved timber panels with leadlight, a scale model of the preceding St John's church of 1892, a framed, inscribed marble plaque, a wardrobe, cabinets, fabric hangings and books. Some of these were commissioned as part of the church construction or are from earlier churches.
The gardens consist of grass areas and shrubbery with some established palms. Unpainted concrete paths and stairs surround the base of the church.
A large timber hall stands to the south of the church and is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg, built in 1960, was designed by architect, Dr Karl Langer as the primary Lutheran church for the Bundaberg community. It is used regularly by the congregation and the adjacent Lutheran school.
\nThe settlement of Bundaberg began on the northern banks of the Burnett River in 1867 but an official survey was undertaken in 1869 and the town was re-sited onto the higher, southern banks. The first land sale held in Bundaberg occurred on 22 August 1872, although two previous sales of Bundaberg land had taken place in Maryborough. The area developed as an agricultural and port town. Initially a number of the early settlers exploited the timber on their selections but as a result of the incentives of the Sugar and Coffee Regulations 1864, sugar became a major component in Bundaberg's development from the 1870s. German farmers settled in Woongarra Scrub, south-east of Bundaberg in 1871, bringing Lutheranism to the area.
\nLutheranism is a major branch of Christianity and places a strong emphasis on the Bible. To Lutherans, the Bible is the only source of divine knowledge and the basis for their faith. In 1838 the first Lutherans arrived in Australia from Prussia and established communities in South Australia and Moreton Bay. That year a group of German Lutheran and Presbyterian missionaries established Zion Hill (at present day Nundah), a mission for Christianising aborigines, on the outskirts of Moreton Bay Penal Colony. It was not considered successful and was abandoned in 1848. In 1857 Lutheran Pastor Carl Franz Alexander Schirmeister came to Moreton Bay and established congregations at North Brisbane, South Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba. He obtained Government grants of land for church use and the first church was built in North Brisbane in 1861, followed quickly by churches at the other locations. Over the following decades Lutheranism was spread across Queensland. Around 1859 the newly-formed colony of Queensland launched a vigorous immigration policy that continued for over 40 years.[1] It attracted many Germans who formed distinct communities amidst the essentially-British nation. Although only a minority of these Germans were Lutheran, across the state Lutheran congregations grew.
\nLutheranism in Bundaberg was established in 1873. Lutheran Pastor Carl Hellmuth of Maryborough visited Bundaberg to preach, administer Holy Communion, and baptise - the first formal Lutheran services in Bundaberg. In 1877 monthly services commenced in a shop in Bundaberg and in 1882 Bundaberg's first Lutheran church was built in Tanitha Street. This was the first St John's church and was a simple timber building. It was inundated by flood waters several times so higher land was purchased in 1890 at the corner of George and Boundary Streets and the second timber St John's church was built here in 1892.[2]
\nBundaberg overtook Maryborough as the regional centre of the Wide Bay-Burnett during the interwar period and growth continued post-World War II (WWII)[3] with the city council promoting major revitalisation of the city. Many large building programs were completed including new hospitals, schools, court house, customs house, civic centre, and port, transforming Bundaberg. The population of the town rose from 18,000 in 1952 to 27,000 in 1967.[4]
\nThe 1950s and 1960s was an era of religious vitality in Australia. During this period the nation was in a sustained economic boom, was lead by conservative governments, and was experiencing high population growth. The congregations of major religions expanded and church attendance and religious society membership rose with accompanying financial improvement.[5] Suburban churches regularly reported record congregation attendances on major holy days. Membership of the Lutheran church increased after WWII with the major influx of European migrants. In the early to mid 1960s a number of Christian religions made alterations to the way they ministered to their congregation in order to re-establish themselves within the modern world. With increased incomes, increased congregations, and an increasingly modern approach, considerable building programs were undertaken. Spacious brick churches were built in a modern style, often replacing smaller timber churches.[6]
\nIn June 1940 the serving minister of St John's Lutheran Church, Pastor M Reuther received an anonymous letter from ‘a Progressive Lutheran' (who was later revealed to be his wife) which included a donation of £1 toward a new and larger brick church. In 1947 Emilie Lovgren bequeathed £6,000 for the constructing a tower or steeple of a new church.[7] In the following nine years pledges from church members brought the total available for construction to £32,000.[8] In 1955 Brisbane-based architect and town planner Dr Karl Langer was engaged as architect for the new church.
\nArchitect, planner and landscape architect, Karl Langer (1903-1969) was born on 28 July 1903 in Vienna, Austria. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under the directorship of pioneer German Modernist designer Peter Behrens and in 1928, the year of his graduation, Langer was employed by Behrens to run his office in Vienna. In 1933 Langer was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis entitled Origins and Development of Concrete Construction.
\nLanger immigrated to Australia with his wife, Dr Gertrude Langer, in 1939 bringing direct experience of the European Modern Movement to Queensland. He gained temporary employment with architects Cook and Kerrison in Brisbane and from 1940 lectured part time in architecture and architectural design at the University of Queensland, publishing Sub-Tropical Housing in 1944. This booklet explored issues related to house design and town planning in a sub-tropical climate and influenced many architects working in the post-WWII era.[9]
\nIn 1944 Langer was employed as an assistant town planner in the Brisbane City Council. From 1945, he was commissioned to work on a range of town planning projects for Darwin, Ingham, Toowoomba, Yeppoon, Kingaroy, Mount Isa, Mackay and for the National Capital Development Commission, Canberra. Concurrently, he completed numerous architectural projects of a wide variety including small, economical domestic work and large commercial and institutional work.
\nAs an architect and town planner, Langer had a pronounced impact upon the built environment of Australia, especially in Queensland, from the 1940s until his death in 1969. Along with numerous cultural pursuits, Langer was active in the Royal Australian Institute of Architects; first president (1952) of the Queensland division of the Royal Australian Planning Institute; a founder and chairman (1966-68) of the Queensland Association of Landscape Architects; and a member (1963-69) of the National Trust of Queensland. Important examples of his architectural work include the Langer residence at St Lucia [QHR 600317] (1950); Mackay Sugar Research Station [QHR 602642] (1953); Kingaroy Town Hall and Civic Square (1963); Assembly Hall at Ipswich Girls Grammar [QHR 600565] (1964); Main Roads Department Building, Spring Hill (1966); Lennon's Hotel, Broadbeach (1957) (demolished); and Lennon's Hotel, Toowoomba. His body of work is a clearly distinguishable exploration of a sub-tropical Modernism culminating in the Chapel of St Peter's Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, his last built work.
\nModernism developed in pre-World War I (WWI) Europe and gained popularity in Australia post-WWII. It was more than a design style and is notable for a rationalising of planning emphasising clarity and simplicity of form and detailing.[10] American and Scandinavian influences were strong in Australia.[11] During the 1950s and 1960s a similar rationalisation occurred within Christian religions in an effort to modernise approaches to religious practice. Churches became brighter and simpler in form and decorative treatments. They used new materials and forms while incorporating many traditional elements and symbols. Design responses included variations on the medieval church with simple massing, a rectangular nave stripped of apses, aisles and chapels, a dramatically lit sanctuary rear wall and simple belltower.
\nInfluenced by the architecture of Ancient Greece and the Modernist ideas of contemporary European architecture, Langer developed a sophisticated hybrid of ancient and modern principles of design bridging modern and traditional architecture.[12] Typically, Langer explored the idea of the conjunction of landscape and landmark and his designs often involve a designed landscape incorporating the building. At St John's, Langer proposed a building with a simplified traditional form consisting of a box-like church with a very tall spire set back from the street by a plaza with reflecting pool, palms and colonnade. The plaza elements were not constructed. Langer designed the front of the church to appear as an open bible with bible passages in large letters, legible from a distance. This represented the authority of scripture within the faith. Further, side walls of the tower featured large Christian motifs in raised brickwork.
\nLanger's exploration of Modernism was heavily influenced by context. He studied the local fauna and flora in Queensland and the climate. His work interprets this information in a Modernist manner. He typically exploited passive lighting and ventilation in uncomplicated ways; at St John's his design includes simple methods of passive ventilation and a naturally lit interior.
\nLanger had developed a connection with the Lutheran community of Queensland by 1960 and went on to strengthen the connection through his repeated work for the church. This work includes St John's Lutheran Church, Ipswich (1961) and at St Peter's College, Indooroopilly a chaplain's residence (1954), dormitory block (1954-55), dining hall block (1966), concrete footbridge (1966-67), science block (1967-68), entrance fence and gates (1968), and chapel (1968).
\nTenders for the construction of the new St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg were called in 1957 and a tender of £35,140 from Brisbane-based J Hutchinson and Sons was accepted. A ground breaking ceremony took place 19 January 1958.[13] A large portion of the work was carried out by volunteer church members[14] including digging the foundations by hand, carting bricks, tiles, sand, and gravel, mixing and pouring concrete, and donating and milling timber. Construction was completed in 1960 with the total cost at £61,000 including the organ, pews, and all furnishings. A dedication service, led by the Queensland District President FH Schmidt, was witnessed by 1400 worshippers on 3 April 1960.[15]
\nA 4.5 m long timber crucifix was commissioned for the wall above the altar. Made in Queensland of Queensland silky oak, the cross holds a 2.4 m long figure of Christ carved from Tasmanian King William pine, the work of Alfred Schubert, a Czech-born woodcarver from Melbourne who had trained in Bavaria.
\nA number of items and fixtures were kept from the earlier church and installed in the new church including: panels of stained and painted glass inset into the new windows; the baptismal font donated to the church in 1883; the pipe organ originally installed in 1899 and largely rebuilt in 1938 incorporating the old pipes and bellows; the church bell cast in Maryborough in 1892; a leather bound German bible with silver clasps presented by the Empress Augusta Victoria of Germany to St John's Lutheran Church Bundaberg in 1911; and various other religious paraphernalia.
\nThe old timber church was moved prior to 1960 to join the old Sunday School hall behind the new church. Both were extensively remodelled to become a kitchen and supper room and a hall. The understorey was enclosed to form ten classrooms by 31 January 1960. As a Centenary project in 1977 it was decided to establish a Christian Day School on the site and the hall was extended to accommodate two more classrooms. Eventually, the school, now St John's Lutheran Primary School, grew to cover almost the entire block adjacent to the church and to occupy many buildings.
\nLittle alteration to the church has occurred over time. Around 2009, the sanctuary plinth was extended into the nave to form a larger sanctuary area. Externally, the projecting bricks on all elevations were sheared flat from ground level up to the level of the lintel of ground floor windows and these areas were rendered and painted. The pulpit had its original timber canopy removed and stored in the choir loft.
\nThe site of St John's Lutheran Church has been the focus for worship within the Lutheran community of Bundaberg since the construction of the first St John's Lutheran Church in 1892. The adjacent St John's Lutheran Primary School has grown into a large school from its establishment in the church hall in 1977 and the school uses the church regularly. The church is prominent within the low-scale surrounding development and remains a landmark within the area. It has featured in Bundaberg City Council promotional material, praising its architectural and artistic merits. The church has been in continuous use since construction and has seen baptisms, marriages, funeral services and regular worship services for generations of Lutherans.
","criteria":"St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg, constructed in 1960 on the site of a previous Lutheran church built in 1892, is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement in Queensland, particularly, the closer, agricultural settlement in the Bundaberg area by immigrant Lutherans from the 1870s.
As a highly intact Modernist church, it is important in representing Modernist ecclesiastical architecture in Queensland during a period of significant re-evaluation and modernisation of Christian religions worldwide. Designed to be a literal expression of the Word of God, it expresses the essence of the theology underpinning Lutheranism.
|Notable for its high quality of design, materials and construction, the place is important for its aesthetic significance. Featuring a prominent spire supported by monumental representations of biblical verses and Christograms, its symbolic features and landmark qualities have a strong dramatic effect in the landscape. The sculptural qualities of the high volume, austere interior evoke feelings of awe and reverence affected through the use of white plaster finishes complementing fine timber screens and panels; long coloured glass windows flooding the nave with light; and finely crafted timber furniture, including sculptural elements like the praying hands carved to the end of each pew.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics and qualities of a Modernist church in Queensland. Highly intact, the building is a simple arrangement of forms and spaces using a restrained palette of fine quality materials and finishes. The church is notable for including a dominant bell tower, a large, well-lit nave focussed on an impressive sanctuary, a choir loft, a crying room, and a vestry.
The place is a fine example of the work of architect, Dr Karl Langer, featuring characteristic simplified forms and spatial arrangements, incorporation of natural light and ventilation and employing a restrained use of good quality materials.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33458,"place_ref":602822,"name":"Myendetta","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Myendetta Station Quilpie Highway","suburb":"CHARLEVILLE","lga":"MURWEH SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-12-02","description":"Myendetta is a substantial timber homestead on a large property (15981.036ha) of flat, lightly wooded land, 30 kilometres south-west of Charleville.
The house sits within the remnants of a house garden that in 2013 is defined by a lawn. The front of the house faces south-east onto a flat grassed area, once a tennis court. It is a single-storeyed, low-set timber-framed building with an encircling verandah and a semi-detached service wing to the north.
The house has a very large, steep hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, a ventilated ridge cap, and a decorative ventilating fleche. Under the roof cladding is a layer of insulating timber boards. The roof is continuous over the verandahs but at a shallower pitch. The verandahs are without balustrade and the rectangular timber verandah posts are turned on their side to present the larger dimension to the elevation, thereby creating a robust visual impression with the posts supporting overscaled brackets. The verandah walls are single-skin, v-jointed boards with exposed, stop-chamfered framing. The verandah floor is wide timber boards. The verandah ceiling is unlined in places, leaving the timber board roof insulation visible, and in others the ceiling is lined with a further layer of timber boards.
The south-east-facing entry is prominent, sheltered under its own projecting hip roof and is reached by short flight of concrete stairs. The verandah width is generally six feet six inches (approx. 2m) but enlarges to 12 feet (approx. 3.6m) wide in two locations - at the entry and along the front of the sitting and dining rooms; and on the south-west outside the school room.
The house layout is divided into quarters by a central, cruciform hallway. At the juncture of this hallway is an octagonal hall with four semicircular archways of decoratively moulded timber, one over each of the corridors. The house has only two windows - fixed casements in the sitting room. All rooms have wide French windows with broad fanlights opening onto the verandah with timber framed flyscreen doors.
Generally, the interior has clear finished timber board floors, single-skin timber partitions with moulded timber skirtings, belt rails, picture rails, architraves, and cornices. The ceilings are v-jointed boards. There are built-in timber cupboards throughout the house. The interior retains an original light fitting in the dining room and an original electricity board survives.
The service wing is attached to the north-eastern verandah of the main house. It was extensively renovated both externally and internally in recent years and now contains a large commercial scaled kitchen. It has a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a ventilated ridge cap. The verandah is shielded from the north-western sun by timber battens fixed in a chevron pattern.
A detached building immediately north of the service wing is the dairy/butcher. It is a timber building with a steep, hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets and a ventilated ridge cap. The walls are clad with weatherboards. There is no documented evidence to suggest Robin Dods was the architect.
Other alterations to the original building include:
-\tupdated bathroom fittings and fixtures;
-\treplacement of original timber stumps under the main floor structure with steel posts and concrete footings; and
-\tnew sewerage system.
Other outbuildings are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Myendetta (1910), located 30 kilometres south-west of Charleville, was designed by eminent architect Robert Smith (Robin) Dods for grazier Charles Decimus Edmund Francis.
\nPastoral settlement of the Warrego district in which Myendetta is located commenced in the early 1860s when large pastoral leases were taken up. Survey of the town of Charleville occurred in 1867 and Murweh Divisional Board was established in 1879. The town's growth and importance in the Warrego district increased when it served as the terminus of the western railway from 1888 until 1898, before the rail line was extended to Cunnamulla. The town developed as a major service centre for the surrounding pastoral industry and Cobb & Co. established stables and a factory there for the construction of mail coaches. On 21 March 1894 the town of Charleville was proclaimed a separate municipality.
\nCharles Francis, born in 1860, was the youngest son of a prominent Cambridge legal family and was educated at Eton and Oxford. He migrated to South Australia circa 1880 following an elder brother and worked his way north to the Charleville area.[1] The first evidence of Francis in the Charleville district is in September 1887 when two selections on the road from Charleville to Roma were transferred to him from Keyran Ryan.[2] In 1890 Francis was the lessee of Portion 18v, parish of Dillalah, county of Palmer (later Burrandilla). In the ensuing years he aggregated a large grazing property by taking over the leases of surrounding blocks of land and selecting land.[3] Over time he built up a holding of 10 contiguous blocks totalling almost 46,000 acres (approx. 18,600ha) which were bounded by the Warrego River at its conjunction with the Ward River on the east.[4] The land was used for sheep and cattle raising. In 1901 Francis married Marian Anne Challacombe and a daughter and son were born in 1904 and 1907 respectively. He became a leading member of the community and served as a Justice of the Peace and Magistrate from circa 1915. On the death of CDE Francis in 1929 the property passed to only son Clement Edmund Francis and remained in the family's ownership until 2010.[5]
\nFamily lore tells that Francis received an inheritance of £3,000 following his mother's death, which ‘enabled him to build something of quality'.[6] Circa 1906 Francis decided to build a new homestead on his large property, away from the flood-prone Warrego River, and chose Dods as the architect. To enable the new construction, a 1890 foot deep artesian bore was sunk in 1908 near the future homestead and around the same time a woolshed and shearers' quarters were erected.[7]
\nThe reason for the selection of Dods as the architect for Myendetta is unknown. Francis would have been aware of Dods as he designed a homestead at nearby Augathella in 1903 and in 1906, as Anglican Diocesan architect, he designed the alterations to All Saints Church, Charleville, as well as the new church hall, built in 1910.[8] Dods' working drawings for Myendetta date from March 1908.
\nDods (1868-1920) was a New Zealand-born architect who lived briefly in Britain before coming to Brisbane in the 1870s. He later trained as an architect in Scotland and England under a number of esteemed architects who were working in the Arts and Crafts idiom. His architectural career began in Edinburgh in 1886, articled with architects Hay & Henderson. He attended evening classes at the Edinburgh Architectural Association until 1890 and formed a lasting friendship with (Sir) Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), eminent Scottish architect and fellow proponent of Arts and Crafts. In 1890 Dods moved to London, where he worked with the Fortifications Branch of the War Office and in the office of notable architect (Sir) Aston Webb. In 1891 he was admitted to the Royal Institute of British Architects and travelled in Italy. In 1894 Dods visited his mother in Brisbane and while there won a competition for a nurses home at the Brisbane General Hospital [QHR 600223]. He returned to Brisbane in 1896 and started in practice with architect Francis Hall as Hall & Dods. Dods has been acknowledged as ‘one of the most significant early 20th century Australian architects'[9] and unique as a rare practitioner of the Arts and Crafts style in Queensland.
\nArts and Crafts was an international design movement flourishing between 1860 and 1910, its influence continued into the 1930s. It was led by artist and writer William Morris and architect Charles Voysey and was inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and Augustus Pugin. The style championed traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often applied medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. Importantly, it valued local variations in traditions so that good design would have relevance within its context. Arts and Crafts architecture is characterised by solidity and heaviness through well-proportioned solid forms, wide porches and prominent steep roofs. The texture of ordinary materials is expressed in the detailing and building composition is asymmetrical.
\nThe practice of Hall & Dods was the most influential source of modern design in Brisbane, producing a wide range of accomplished buildings, and was credited with achieving an 'architectural revolution' in Brisbane.[10] Dods was responsible for most of the design within the firm, integrating contemporary British design philosophies with the traditions of Queensland housing and the requirements of a subtropical climate, and producing practical, attractive, and finely-detailed houses. The partnership ended in 1913, when Dods left to practice in Sydney. Dods died prematurely in 1920.
\nDods' residential work employed local building techniques combined with a sophisticated discipline and a common-sense response to climate. Dods' houses were mostly built of timber with detailing that was a celebration of craftsmanship. The most noticeable characteristic of his Queensland houses (built between 1896 and 1917) was a general feeling of solidity and substance. This was the result of a number of design decisions including: designing a generous roof (often the largest element) continuous over the verandah and over a lower, rear washhouse. The roof was always simple in geometry and often finished with terracotta tiles, flat shingles or pan-and-tile profile, flat iron sheeting with a prominent rolled joint. Corrugated iron was only used where it was necessary to reduce the cost. Generally low-set, the houses often had an enclosed or screened understorey to give the house a visually solid base. Individual elements were oversized to appear substantial as if under heavy loads. Bold, dark, earthy colours, darkly-stained timber, rough-sawn weatherboards with mitred corners, roughcast rendering and face brickwork in dark colours were used to give the house a weighty gravity. The building materials and finishes were chosen to allow the building to mellow over time, providing it with a well-established appearance.
\nThe house designs take a formalist approach to planning including formal entry halls and traditional planning arrangements. The plans were generated through a consideration of aspect, with living spaces well-oriented and internal layouts permitting cross ventilation. They are also notable for their informal spaces, a particular feature being the inclusion of generous verandah piazzas[11]. The plans respond to the social needs of the clients in an honest and functional way. The houses were often provided with generous, considered service spaces including back halls and wash houses. The health and comfort of the occupants were major considerations. Ventilation devices included wide window and door openings, ventilated gables and ridges, and ventilation fleches. Piazzas were generous, allowing comfortably-furnished, semi-outdoor living. Operable shading and enclosure of the piazza was sometimes achieved by adding timber vertical louvres above the verandah handrail, creating a room habitable in most weather. Interiors included fine decorative timber joinery and panelling. Fireplace surrounds and built-in cupboards were also a feature.
\nThe composition of facades and circulation routes are a more nuanced element of Dods' houses and highlights his originality and artistic skill. Facades often only implied symmetry. Entries were often off-centre or perpendicular, emphasised by wide and expressive entry stairs. Projecting bay windows and corner fireplaces were recurrent elements.
\nDods designed gardens as a setting for the house, a practice more common in Britain than in Queensland. They featured formal parterre gardens, terraces and walls, flower beds, tennis courts, hedges, topiaries, flowering ornamental trees, and geometric path and lawn layouts. Garden furniture and structures were designed including seats, pergolas, trellises, fences and gates.
\nMyendetta is an example of the homesteads built by Queensland's most successful pastoralists. As funds became available over time, they built comfortable, architect-designed homes or extended their earlier homesteads into residences more befitting their status. Most of these grand homesteads were built in the prosperous settled districts of south-east Queensland - Darling Downs, Moreton and Wide Bay Burnett districts, where pastoralists held freehold title; relatively few were built in the far west where land was leasehold.[12]
\nBetween 1901 and 1913 Dods designed and built six homesteads for rural properties - Langlo Downs, Augathella (1903, destroyed by fire); extension to Nindooinbah, Beaudesert [QHR 600027] (1908); Ringsfield, Nanango (1908); Wyambyn, Beaudesert [QHR 602821] (1909); Myendetta, Charleville (1910); and Kengoon, Kalbar (1913).[13] These were large dwellings that often formed the centre of groups of outbuildings. Their garden layouts were also an important feature.[14]
\nRural homesteads built in Queensland in the early part of the 20th century were large homes, often on elevated (flood-free) sites with a scenic outlook, surrounded by gardens. As well as those listed above, Marshlands near Hivesville (1910) designed by Hall & Dods (but not believed to be Dods' design) was built during this period, as was Hidden Vale near Grandchester (Eaton & Bates, 1903).[15]
\nMyendetta was built by Gibbs Brothers, Charleville builders and contractors who also constructed the FDG Stanley-designed Charleville School of Arts. Myendetta Station's vegetation was Mulga scrub, unsuitable as a building material, so all building materials had to be brought in. Weatherboards and framing were hardwood while the v-jointed walls, floors and ceilings were Hoop Pine.[16]
\nWhen completed in 1910 Myendetta was a ‘state of the art' home complete with electricity generated by its own generator powered by water flow from the artesian bore.[17] Hydro-electricity powered by artesian flow was a new technology pioneered at Thargomindah in 1898 (the first town in Australia to have hydroelectric power). This preceded the electrification of Charleville by 13 years. The house was flyscreened and well ventilated. An outbuilding was equipped with a cold room, insulated with charcoal and sealed with a layer of cork then cooled by air forced through water-soaked hessian curtains by an electric fan.[18]
\nThe house was approached from the west along a curve around the south to an entry porch on the south-east. It was rectangular in plan with a six feet (1.8m) wide cruciform corridor separating four banks of rooms 14 feet (4.27m) wide. The house accommodated a large dining room, sitting room, drawing room, sewing room, a master bedroom with ensuite bathroom, four other bedrooms, a second bathroom, and a school room. At the juncture of the cruciform hallways was a central octagonal hall with four semicircular archways, one over each of the corridors. A verandah encircled the house and was generally six feet six inches (1.98m) wide. It widened to 12 feet (3.66m) to create piazzas in two locations: outside the sitting and dining rooms, and outside the school room. The entry projected to form an even larger verandah space, approximately 16 feet wide (4.8m). The house had few windows (only two fixed casements to the sitting room); rather, it had pairs of six feet (1.8m) wide French doors with glazed fanlights and gauzed timber-framed flyscreen doors to the exterior.
\nLinked by a covered verandah to the north-eastern end of the house was a semi-detached service wing that accommodated a kitchen, a wash house, and a servants' room or large store room. The wing had a north-western verandah approximately 8 feet wide (2.4m) accessed from the large kitchen via French doors. The wash house was at ground level reached via a short stair. The wash house was open on one side to the yard. Six water tanks were located nearby. Early photographs show that the service wing was largely screened from the entrance view.[19]
\nIn an almost featureless landscape, the roof, which was the largest element with a massive 40 degree pitch that flattened to 25 degrees over the verandah made a powerful visual statement. Under the roofing iron, the roof framing was sheeted with one inch (2.5cm) thick pine boards giving the structure great strength as well as a degree of insulation. The roof apex had a decorative ventilator and elsewhere the roof had ventilated ridges. The verandah posts and beams were oversized and held large brackets. The composition of large roof and oversized structural elements imbued a robust nature to the homestead. The verandahs were without balustrade, giving an air of relaxed habitation and a strong connection between the house and the landscape. The whole composition was further enhanced by the placement of water tanks on stands of varying height that were fed from either the bore or rainwater from the roof.[20]
\nAnalysis of Myendetta reveals Dods' deft architectural response to the harsh, variable climate of Charleville, which is relatively dry and hot with large temperature variations annually and diurnally. The plan layout is determined by the position of the sun at the time of day that the room would be used. Used primarily in the morning, the school room and adjacent piazza are on the south-western corner of the building, away from the north-eastern, morning sun. Conversely, the dining room and adjacent piazza, primarily used in the evening, are on the north-eastern corner of the building away from the south-western afternoon sun. The entire main building is surrounded by a verandah, sheltering all external walls from the sun and the vast, ventilated roof space, almost twice the height of the interior rooms, provided a huge sun shield. The wide, straight halls funnelled breezes through the house. All rooms opened onto the hall on one side and the verandah on the other with doors and operable fanlights to allow access to any breeze regardless of its direction.
\nDods' colour scheme for the house was dramatic, consisting of large areas of dark, rich colours contrasted by feature elements in bright, light colours. The scheme also included sophisticated painting techniques and stencilling internally.
\nMyendetta included other elements designed by Dods. To the north-east of the service wing was a small, detached building containing a dairy and butcher shop, to the south-west of the house was a grass tennis court, and to the south-east was a rose garden and orchard.
\nMyendetta was altered very little after construction. After the bore ceased to flow in 1971 the power supply was replaced by a diesel generator and by 1976 power was obtained from the mains. Some time after 1950 the tennis court was moved from the south-western side of the house to the south-eastern, replacing the rose garden and citrus orchard. At the same time a timber-battened fern house was added between the house and the service wing.[21] In 2002 early colour schemes were found to survive under the existing paint scheme. In 2003 Myendetta was open for tours displaying historic household items and explaining the history of the station. In 2007 the service wing was renovated, including the addition of reverse cycle air-conditioning.
\nIn 2010, the Australian Institute of Architects added Myendetta to its list of nationally significant 20th century architecture, namely the Institute's National Register of Significant Twentieth Century Architecture. It is one of sixteen 20th century residential places which form the Institute's nomination to the International Union of Architects' (UIA) World Register of Significant 20th Century Australian Architecture and to the Australian Government National Heritage List.[22]
\nThe property was purchased by the current owner in 2010 and in 2013 the homestead is used as a manager's residence.
","criteria":"Myendetta is a fine, intact example of the high-quality residential work of Dods that is characterised by a pervading sense of tradition, solidity, and an honest use of materials. Designed in an Arts and Crafts idiom, the low-set timber house has deliberately oversized timber elements and openings; verandah piazza; steep dominant roof; finely-detailed, built-in timber furniture; a well-considered service zone; and an interior layout that optimises cross ventilation and solar orientation.
|The low-set house with dominant, large roof, generous verandahs and garden stands dramatically in the extensive, flat landscape.
A sense of robust, rural domesticity is engendered by its wide verandahs and piazzas without balustrade; spacious, well-ventilated living rooms; and the use of oversized elements, such as the hunkering roof, large, closely-spaced verandah posts and large openings.
Highly intact, Myendetta is important for its Arts and Crafts aesthetic, notably for its fine craftsmanship, high quality materials and skilful arrangement of informal and formal living spaces.
|As one of only six Queensland homesteads designed by acclaimed architect Robin Dods, Myendetta is a rare and intact example of his homestead designs.
|Myendetta (1910) is important in illustrating the contribution of notable architect, Robert Smith (Robin) Dods, to the evolution of Queensland architecture.
The homestead is also important in demonstrating the evolution of climatically adapted timber housing in Queensland. It is an exceptional example of design responses to extreme climatic conditions and originally incorporated hydro-electric power.
It is a highly intact, representative example of the substantial homesteads built on pastoral land.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion B | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":33999,"place_ref":602842,"name":"Aramac State School","alternate_name":"Aramac Provisional School","street_address":"69 Porter Street","suburb":"ARAMAC","lga":"BARCALDINE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-10-10","description":"Aramac State School is located on a level site on Porter Street on the southern side of township, near the intersection of the Barcaldine-Aramac Road and Aramac Creek. The complex comprises significant early school buildings and residence, as well as a secondary school and later facilities with grounds extending between McWhannell and Drury Streets that incorporate an oval and cricket pitch.
The three early school buildings are linked by verandahs to form a U shape. Fronting the school but concealed by a heavily vegetated western boundary is the original 1880 Stanley teaching building. Behind and perpendicular to it is the 1928 Sectional School to the south and the 1935 Vocational building to the north. The 1919 residence is separately fenced and located a short distance to the north of the school along Porter Street, while the secondary school and other structures are located to the south.
The Stanley teaching building is a timber framed building, highset on concrete stumps and clad in weatherboards, with a metal clad gable roof and verandahs to the west and east. Attached to the centre of western verandah, which has a sheeted raked ceiling and weatherboard balustrade, is the 1928 teacher's room addition, which is of similar construction with a hipped roof and original joinery. The eastern verandah with bag racks forming the balustrade, extends to the north and south connecting to the verandahs of the Sectional School and domestic science buildings. The understorey is open, except at the southern end, where a workshop area is located. There is a set of stairs leading from the eastern verandah with one of two sets of stairs from the western verandah remaining. The interior walls of the school building are lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards and the coved ceiling with wider beaded boards contains a lattice ceiling vent. A timber cover strip conceals the junction between the original building and its 1900 addition. The gable end windows have been infilled with lining boards and there are two pairs of French doors between two large windows housing four fixed lights above eight banks of louvres in both the east and west elevations. The original door opening has been enclosed with weatherboards.
The Sectional School is a timber framed, weatherboard clad building, highset on concrete stumps with a corrugated metal clad gable roof, north-facing verandah, large window openings in the north and south walls and an open understorey. Fixed glazing is located above the windows in the northern wall where double hung sashes have been replaced with sliding aluminium. Door openings retain their fanlights above single-light flush panel doors which have replaced French doors. Windows in the south wall have sheeted-in fanlights over four banks of sliding aluminium sashes which have replaced timber casements. The school building comprises two rooms interconnected through a large opening in the partition wall. Walls and the coved ceiling are lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards, and the verandah and internal partition wall are single-skin. Lattice ceiling vents and metal bracing ties are located in the centre of each room.
The domestic science building is a timber framed, weatherboard clad building, with a corrugated metal clad half-hipped roof, highset on concrete stumps with a partially walled, open understorey. Its south facing verandah is enclosed at its eastern end to form a library and the western end has a bag rack balustrade. The entrance to the domestic science room from the verandah has a fanlight over a pair of panelled French doors. The interior is lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards, and a lattice ceiling vent and metal bracing tie are located at the centre of the coved ceiling. Original cupboards are located in the southeast and across the southwest corner and the workspaces have a c1960s fitout. Flanking rooms to the east and west, house a sewing room and laundry respectively. Both have raked ceilings and are accessible from the domestic science room. Window sashes in both these rooms have been replaced with aluminium sliding windows. The laundry retains an early cupboard across the northeast corner and early door joinery to the verandah. There are later access stairs to the eastern elevation and southern verandahs.
The teacher's residence is highset on concrete stumps with later panels of wide horizontal battens enclosing the understorey. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting without soffits and its verandah is supported on timber posts with recent lattice panels above a dowel balustrade. The external walls are clad in weatherboards and the verandah and internal partitions are single-skin lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards. Original joinery includes four panel doors, three-light low waisted French doors onto the verandahs with fanlights (external walls) or fixed fretwork (internal walls) and double hung windows with recent hoods. The interior layout comprises three bedrooms, living room and hall in the central core, with verandahs to the west and north and a dining area, bathroom and kitchen on the eastern verandah. The timber frame is generally lined on one side with vertical v-jointed tongue-and-groove board. The living room ceiling, rear verandah and kitchen are lined with flat sheeting. Original front and rear stairs have been replaced.
The other buildings and structures on the site are not of State cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Aramac State School (1880-), established as a Provisional School in 1878, is located in the rural town of Aramac, in central western Queensland. It is important as a school complex which includes significant pre-World War II buildings - a Stanley teaching building (1880), a teacher's residence (1919), a Sectional School (1928), and a domestic science building (1935).
\nWilliam Landsborough and Nathaniel Buchanan explored the area around Aramac in 1859 and established pastoral leases in the district from 1862. The town of Aramac arose after John William Kingston erected a store in 1867, and later a hotel, beside Aramac Creek. The settlement was declared a town site in 1869 and surveyed in 1875.[1] Thereafter, Aramac acted as a service town for the sparse but growing rural population of the district.
\nSchooling commenced at Aramac with a temporary provisional school conducted in a rented building, between January and December 1878, with an average attendance of 20 children.[2] In August 1878, the Department of Public Instruction decided to establish a state school at Aramac.[3] Contractors McMahon and Cowper commenced construction of the teaching building and separate teacher's residence on a five acre (2.02ha) site in 1879. After delays obtaining materials the school finally opened on 14 June 1880.[4]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for the further key initiatives of free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[6]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a major community focus for social interaction, a symbol of progress and a source of pride with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and halls used for community purposes reinforced these connections together with fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, polling days, sporting events, reunions, and dances, all held within the schools' buildings and grounds.[7]
\nFrom the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: teaching building/s, school yard, sports oval, head teacher's residence, and a variety of landscape elements such as sporting facilities or play equipment, playsheds, gardens and trees.[8]
\nThe new Aramac state school comprised a timber school room and separate residence, built to a standard design by Colonial Architect Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, who was then responsible for all government school designs. During his prolific career he was also responsible for many important government and private buildings. For his schools, Stanley became the first to develop standard designs and produce ‘classes' of buildings that would later evolve into ‘types'. The vast majority of subsequent school buildings in Queensland were built from standard ‘type' designs.[9]
\nStanley's school designs remedied the weatherproofing problem of preceding single-skin school designs by cladding the exterior with chamferboards or weatherboards as well as providing an interior lining.[10] Other distinguishing Stanley design characteristics were: classroom width; the location, size and detailing of windows and central stairs to the verandah aligned with the central entrance door. These were employed throughout the colony as the first deliberately ‘standard' plans. Although many Stanley school buildings were constructed, few remain and extant examples are rare.[11] Known examples survive at the former Carbrook State School (QHR 600661), Tallegalla State School (QHR 601687), former Hemmant State School (QHR 602382), Kalkie State School (QHR 600971) and Petrie State School.
\nThe Stanley teaching building and residence were both lowset timber framed buildings on stumps with gable roofs and verandahs, front and back. The school room, with two three-tiered galleries measured 34 x 18ft (10.36 x 5.49m) with an 11ft 9in (3.58m) high coved ceiling and a tie beam 10ft (3.04m) above the floor. Three narrow windows were housed in each gable end with a door and four pairs of windows to each side elevation.[12] The residence contained two rooms separated by a hall. Its gable ends were clad in corrugated iron and its weatherboard front wall contained a large double-hung window, either side of the front door.[13]
\nUnder the stewardship of the Department of Public Works which retained responsibility for schools until 2013, and through the involvement of some of Queensland's most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced and diverse. This was the outcome of years of systematic reform and experimentation.[14]
\nAchieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators. After 1900 the virtues of maximum natural ventilation and controlled, high-levels of natural light in teaching buildings were extolled and became a primary determinant of the design concept and layout of all school buildings. Architects experimented with different combinations of roof, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Roof ventilators became fleches which grew larger as the experimentation continued.[15]
\nIn c1909 highset timber buildings were introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play space underneath. Windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room. Desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left-hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students would be right-handed. The change in philosophy often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educators.[16] This was a noticeable new direction and the better lit and ventilated form became a characteristic of Queensland schools.
\nAs a service town to its pastoral district, Aramac was subject to the same vicissitudes as those it served. During the 1890s it suffered the economic consequences of depression, drought, insecure markets, low wool and meat prices and the spread of cattle tick. The town's population fell from 398 in 1881, to 389 in 1891, then 361 in 1901. Aramac did however gain more reliable and rapid transportation via the Central Railway line opened in 1886, and a reliable water supply from the establishment of artesian bores.[17]
\nEven though the population was in decline, the introduction of compulsory school attendance saw the Aramac State School enlarged in 1900. The Stanley teaching building was extended by 20ft (6.08m) and included a lavatory and hat room on the southern corner of the rear verandah to a standard design by the Department of Public Works. The southern gable end wall was relocated to form the gable end of the new extension and the new interior walls were unlined. Two new windows were added to the east and west elevations and a fleche to the roof.[18] In 1916, interior walls were lined, the building painted and fly screens were installed on the verandahs and boxed out over the windows.[19]
\nIn Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for low wages; an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation. Following World War I, teacher shortages were blamed on the inadequacy and shortage of teachers' residences. Consequently, many new teacher residences were constructed across Queensland in the 1930s and again following WWII.[20]
\nFrom the outset, teachers' residences were built to standards regulated by the Board of General Education rather than to specific designs which varied according to architects responsible.[21] Initially, residences were most often attached as annexes to the classroom building, but from the 1880s were built as detached residences. These residences were very similar in design to the vernacular Queensland house with few, if any, education-specific requirements or features.
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works' architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher's residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nIn 1919 a new teacher's residence was constructed at Aramac. Plans for the new teacher's residence show a highset, timber residence with a core of four rooms under a hipped roof, and wide verandahs to three sides under a lower pitched roof, with a dining area, kitchen and bathroom on the rear verandah. The external walls were clad in weatherboards and the internal frame was single skin, lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards. Joinery included double hung windows without hoods.[22]
\nDuring the 1920s and 1930s alterations were made to the vast majority of older school buildings to upgrade their lighting and ventilation. In 1921, the fenestration at Aramac State School was altered for improved lighting and ventilation. New 18-light windows (three pairs of casements with fanlights over) replaced the gable end windows with sunshades and flyscreens retained. The gauze to the verandahs was removed to railing height and replaced with tongue-and-groove hardwood boards. In addition, the school was raised on stumps and concrete paving laid to provide additional shaded play space beneath in 1922. Part of the understorey area was enclosed in 1923 to create a domestic science room.[23]
\nAramac experienced a revival after the breaking of the Federation drought in 1903. Selection in the Aramac district resumed and the town's population increased to 639 in 1911. In 1913 Aramac Shire opened a tramway connecting Aramac with the Central railway line to Barcaldine and Longreach, which benefitted the shire and the town. Economic slow-down occurred between 1914 and 1919 due to drought, industrial unrest and the departure of men to war. Post-war, the population increased again to about 400 in 1923 but Aramac Shire continued to struggle economically until about 1933.[24]
\nImprovements to achieve an optimum classroom culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School type, a highset timber structure. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, and satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs. Most importantly, it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time. By late 1914, in accordance with the accepted principles, buildings were optimally orientated to maximise natural light from the south. Before the Sectional School, solar orientation was not a key consideration and all school buildings were positioned in relation to the street and property boundaries. The Sectional School type had only one verandah typically on the northern side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the blank end wall could be detached as the school grew and the building extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms - a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[25]
\nIn 1928, a Sectional School building was constructed at Aramac State School providing accommodation for an extra 80 pupils. It comprised two rooms, 21 x 18ft (6.40 x 5.49m), with a north facing verandah and was located southeast of, and at right angles to, the existing school. There were double hung windows in the northern wall of the classrooms and large banks of casements in the southern walls. The classrooms were lined with vertical boards and the coved ceiling was braced with metal ties. A teachers' room was also added to the western verandah of the Stanley building as part of these improvements.[26]
\nVocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; this evolved after World War I into a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated.[27] Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced in 1928. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.
\nAramac State School received its domestic science classroom building in 1935. The highset timber framed structure, clad in weather boards, with a half-hipped roof clad in corrugated iron was built to the northeast of the original school and contained a cookery and dressmaking room 21ft x 18ft (6.40 x 5.49m), lined with vertical boards, with a coved ceiling and metal tie rod. Its south facing verandah was flyscreen lined, and return wings on the east and west sides accommodated a fitting room and laundry respectively. As part of this program of works, the back verandah of the teacher's residence was also enclosed and the kitchen extended.[28]
\nBetween the 1960s and the 1980s Queensland education was reformed and the teaching buildings at Aramac State School were altered as a result. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved, requiring new architectural responses. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. With new educational philosophies, government policies and functional requirements combined with new architectural styles, materials and technologies, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design with inspiration drawn from new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly highset.[29]
\nPost-World War II, was a period of growth for Aramac with the town's population peaking in 1961 at 654.[30] Plans for enlarging the school grounds were produced by the Land Administration Board in 1948,[31] and in 1964-5 a high school opened at Aramac State School.[32] The new secondary department was built to the south of the original school in 1964 and a new general purpose classroom and commercial classroom was built in 1966. An additional classroom was as added to the eastern end of the Sectional School in 1969 and the domestic science building received a new fitout.[33]
\nOther school improvements dating from the the 1960s included the replacement of the casement windows on the Stanley teaching building with louvres in 1963 and a partition wall was added which required the removal and relocation of the door. Hat and bag racks were added to the verandah and the eastern end of the domestic science building was enclosed for a library. The Sectional School building was extended by 8 ft (2.43m) for a new staff room.
\nThe school continued to expand in the 1970s with the construction of the two storey masonry building to the east of the domestic science building in 1973. The original Stanley school building was converted to an activity centre in 1976 - the gable windows were infilled and the central partition was removed.[34]
\nAramac State School has been a focus for the local community as a place of important social and cultural activity. Centenary celebrations were held by the school between 30 March and 2 April 1978. With the general downturn in the rural economy the town's population has declined to 428 in 1981 and 299 in 2011.[35] In 2014, the primary and secondary school continues to operate from the site and the primary school retains the Stanley teaching building as an activity centre, the Sectional School building as classrooms, the domestic science building for home economics, and the residence continues to be used as teacher's accommodation.
\nThe school is important to the town and district having operated since 1880 and educated generations of Aramac students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Aramac community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time.
","criteria":"Aramac State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland state school complex, comprising: a Stanley teaching building (1880) with an extension (1900), a Sectional School building (1928); a teacher's residence (1919) and a domestic science building (1935) constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government. Standing on a landscaped site, the buildings are positioned to allow natural ventilation and daylighting of the interiors. Each of these buildings is highset, of timber framed construction, clad in weatherboards and have interiors lined in tongue-and-groove boarding.
In particular, the standard designs represented at Aramac are:
the Stanley teaching building, with its gable roof, front and rear verandahs, centrally placed stairs and coved ceiling;
the Sectional School building with gable roof, northern verandah, large south-facing windows, coved ceiling with metal tie beam and subsequent classroom duplication;
the domestic science building, an intact pre-World War II vocational building with large, airy classroom and flanking sewing and laundry rooms;
and the teacher's residence comprising a four room core, front and side verandahs and rear dining verandah with bathroom and kitchen.
Changing philosophies in state primary education are evident in the modifications made to these buildings, including attached teacher's rooms, enlarged windows and verandah bag racks.
|The Stanley teaching building at Aramac State School is rare as one of six known surviving examples of this once common type.
|Aramac State School, opened in 1880 (initially established in 1878 as Aramac Provisional School), is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education, and its associated architecture, in Queensland.
The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. The teaching building designed by architect FDG Stanley is an early standardised design; the teacher's residence resulted from a government initiative to address the state's post-WWI teacher shortage; the Sectional School building demonstrates the culmination of many years of experimental timber school design providing equally for educational and climatic needs; and the domestic science building reflects the Queensland Government's focus on vocation education as a way of ensuring the state's economic prosperity.
|Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities - as a venue for social interaction, volunteer work, and as a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers. Aramac State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Aramac community. It was established through the efforts of the local community and has educated generations of Aramac children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Aramac and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion B | Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":34218,"place_ref":602823,"name":"Wairuna Homestead and Cemetery","alternate_name":"Wairuna Station Homestead and Cemetery | Wairuna Homestead","street_address":"Wairuna Road","suburb":"WAIRUNA","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-08-09","description":"Wairuna Station, located 117 kilometres south of Mount Garnet on Wairuna Road, is a 76,500 hectare property at the head of the Burdekin River adjoining the Girringun National Park. Eighteen kilometres from the north-western boundary of the Station, the approach through the scrub opens to provide a long view of the picturesque setting of Wairuna Homestead atop a knoll surrounded by lagoons and wetlands.
\nWairuna homestead comprises the 1940 residence with attached early kitchen/store, a cottage of early construction and the 3-car garage/workshop oriented to overlook the approach from the north. Other ancillary structures located in close proximity to the south and east include: two barracks buildings; an amenities block; butchering hut; machinery shed; wash house/accommodation/generator shed and the remnants of a tank stand and oil shed and garden structures. The former stockman's house is located on another knoll to the south with the remains of the former stables, pig pen and other yards contained in the gully between. Remnants of the Aboriginal campsite are located on the flats about 200m south of the former stockman's house.
\nThe 1940 residence is a robust single storey timber-framed building clad in chamferboards. Standing on a red-coloured concrete slab on fill it is covered by a low-pitched hipped corrugated sheet roof with half round ridge tiles and quad gutters, all of asbestos cement. Verandahs located on the north and east sides are supported on pairs of 150mm square posts finished with skirtings and capitals on capped concrete upstands. Along the verandahs, projecting porches with gabled hips distinguish the entrances when viewed from the main garden and driveway. The verandah walls and interior partition walls have exposed frames lined with vertical v-jointed tongue and groove boards and ceilings are lined with asbestos cement sheeting finished with timber cover battens.
\nThe 1940 residence comprises six rooms with the former lounge and dining room to the east separated from four former bedrooms to the west by a central hall and lobby running from the front door to the kitchen at the rear. The lounge and dining room share a large double-sided fireplace of face-brick. Two of the former bedrooms retain built-in wardrobes, drawers and shelving. The walls throughout the house and onto the verandahs have a single lining of vertical v-jointed tongue and groove boards with ceilings lined in asbestos cement sheeting and finished with timber cover battens.
\nAt the rear, the existing kitchen/store/verandah to which the 1940 residence was added retains its early cladding of ripple iron under fibre cement planks on the external walls and a bathroom has been added to the south-western corner.
\nThe cottage is a single storey building on stumps with an exposed timber frame, 290mm wide chamferboard cladding and a hipped corrugated iron roof. It is a typical two room cottage with a 5 x 8m core with rooms of unequal size and symmetrically placed openings. The verandahs with lower pitched incorporated skillion roofs are later additions: those to the front and rear are of equal width, the rear with a corner room; and a wider side verandah enclosed as two rooms with 180mm wide chamferboards. A walkway with curved corrugated iron roof connects the cottage to the 1940 house.
\nThe ancillary buildings to the south and east of the homestead and cottage are generic agricultural structures of basic design and construction built and modified since 1940. Most are timber framed, clad in corrugated iron or fibre cement sheeting and generally with concrete or earth floors. The former barracks building on the southern slope has a suspended timber floor and both it and the former stockman's house are clad in chamferboards with corrugated iron roofs.
\nOther components associated with the homestead are located at some distance from the main complex. The cemetery is located on the western side of the lagoon, about 500m from the homestead and contains the graves of James and Kenneth James Atkinson. The headstones are surrounded by a fence of decorative cast iron and mild steel with the large marble headstone of James Atkinson clearly visible from the homestead site.
\nA small number of structures including the four bay shed have been erected on the property since the Atkinson occupation of the station.
","history":"Wairuna Homestead and Cemetery, located approximately 80km south of Mt Garnet in the watershed of the Burdekin River, comprises a 1940s timber residence, early cottage, head stockman's house, barracks, sheds, butchering hut and a small cemetery established in 1899. From 1881 until 1976 Wairuna station was operated by the Atkinson family, an important north Queensland pastoral family. From the 1930s Wairuna station was a centre for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) partnered research into the suitability of Brahman-cross cattle in northern Australia and later for the establishment of the Australian Brahman breed. For more than two decades it was the home of Kenneth Edward James Atkinson, a significant initiator of the Australian Brahman breed, who co-established the Australian Brahman Breeders' Association in 1946 and played an important role in the development of Brahman and Brahman-cross cattle in Australia.
The northern part of the Kennedy district in north Queensland, where Wairuna is located, was settled quickly by pastoralists in the early 1860s. By the end of 1861 the best of the country had been selected, including the entire Burdekin River frontage. During this initial rush James Atkinson (1824-1899), in partnership with Ezra Firth, attempted to establish a run on land later claimed to be part of the early station The Valley of Lagoons.[1] Subsequently, c.1863 Atkinson and Firth formed Mt Surprise station to the north.[2] Their partnership lasted for about seven years before Atkinson took up land in the lower Herbert district, where he established the cattle run and cane farm Farnham near the site of Ingham. Atkinson, the son of a linen manufacturer of Scottish descent, was born in County Armagh, Ireland in 1824. After service in the British army he migrated to Victoria in c1854, spent time on the Ballarat goldfield and farmed in the Port Fairy district. He married Kate Good in 1859. He, his wife and daughter travelled to north Queensland in the early 1860s to take up pastoral land.[3]
During the 1860s north Queensland's early pastoralists struggled to survive for a number of reasons. Within a decade they found that footrot, fluke, lung worm and spear grass made most of the area unsuitable for sheep. There was no ready market for cattle because population centres were too far away. Until boiling down works opened in Townsville and Burketown in 1866 almost the only means of disposing of surplus cattle locally was to sell them to other squatters stocking new runs. Ports were distant and getting to them difficult, the Aboriginal people were hostile, the climate was challenging and from 1866 Queensland was in financial crisis.[4]
Queensland's monetary situation badly affected squatters in the Burke, Cook and Kennedy districts. They appealed to the government for more secure and extended tenure and for rental relief. Despite new land legislation enacted in 1868 extending leases, reducing rental and giving pastoralists the option of buying one block of 2560 acres per run, four times as many runs were abandoned in 1869 as in the previous year. In the six years from 1866 no new pastoral leases were taken up in the Kennedy district and most passed out of the hands of the original owners. Few of the remainder had prospered, and the failure of sheep and unsatisfactory markets for cattle gave no promise of an early improvement.[5]
However, the 1870s brought some relief to pastoralists as the establishment of northern goldfields created a local market for fresh meat. From 1872 buyers from Ravenswood and Charters Towers goldfields provided strong demand on stations in the vicinity. The Palmer River rush in 1873 sent cattle prices up to an average of £10 a head.[6]
The new demand for beef as a result of the establishment of goldfields, the growth of the sugar industry, the establishment of ports and a run of fair seasons restarted squatting in north Queensland. This second wave of expansion, from 1874, created a demand for stores and breeders[7] not only in north Queensland but in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. While this eased the pastoralists' financial situation in the short run, it exacerbated the problem in the long term as the grossly oversupplied market caused extremely low cattle prices at the end of the 1870s.[8] By 1880 north Queensland cattle numbers were estimated at 450,000 - almost three times the 1874 figure. The Townsville boiling down works re-opened in 1880 to deal with the excess.[9]
Nevertheless, in 1881 James Atkinson sold some of his land in the lower Herbert to the Colonial Sugar Refining Co (CSR), purchased Wairuna station in the upper Burdekin and moved there with his wife, daughter, three sons and cattle herd. The Wairuna lease had been established in 1879 by Henry Stone and Duncan McAuslan while Henry Stone applied for Wairuna No 2 lease a year later.[10]
The siting of the homestead on its flood-free position enabled management of the land from then onwards. Early writers commented on the homestead's siting and the beauty of its setting. It was ‘very prettily situated on a hill overlooking a grassy margined lake of considerable size, surrounded by high hills, and when you first catch sight of it, you naturally say, "well, this takes a lot of beating". And so it does, for beauty of landscape'.[11] A second wrote, ‘This well-known station home...is beautifully situated on a rise overlooking the Herbert, just before that river takes its plunge down the scrub-clad gullies to the level of the coast'.[12]
From the 1880s north Queensland cattlemen began to participate in southern markets, especially Melbourne and Adelaide. Although growth slowed during the dry years of 1884-5 and 1888-9, in the 5 years from 1889 cattle numbers increased quickly, to reach a peak of 1,390,899 head or 19.8 per cent of all Queensland cattle in 1894.[13]
Up to 1890 the cattle industry in north Queensland struggled for profitability because the supply of cattle greatly exceeded demand, and cattle prices were depressed.[14] This appears to be borne out by the Wairuna lease being held by the Bank of New South Wales as mortgagor for James Atkinson from 26 September 1887, which was still the case in 1900.[15] However, Geoffrey Bolton states that ‘[g]radually between 1870 and 1890 most of the northern graziers achieved, if not prosperity, a modest standard of comfort. The usual type of homestead residence was represented by Gunnawarra, "a comfortable house with slab walls and floors and a very large stone and antbed fireplace".[16] Similarly, the Wairuna residence in 1900 was a modest slab house with a corrugated iron roof on the site of the current residence.[17]
Three major structural changes in the beef cattle industry took place in the 1890s. The financial crisis of 1893, combined with low cattle prices and restricted markets, caused a change in the pattern of ownership, with many large stations passing to banks and pastoral finance companies. Secondly, a new type of owner was created: grazing selectors, initially given 30 year leases on areas not larger than 20,000 acres (subsequently increased to 60,000 acres). The third major change was the successful establishment of freezing plants in north Queensland, enabling cattle producers to enter the world market. Coinciding with these changes was the severe reduction in stock numbers from c1894 due to cattle tick, which killed a third or more of the cattle herd, and from the drought of 1898-1902. Wairuna experienced a 50 per cent loss of stock from the disease in 1896 when it first broke out on the property.[18]
By the time of Aktinson's death and burial in Wairuna Cemetery in 1899 he was semi-retired and in equal shares partnership with his three sons - Henry John, Robert James and Thomas Joseph. His quarter share of the lease passed to his sons.[19] Subsequently the Atkinson brothers' partnership increased its land and stock.[20]
The partnership continued until 6 May 1914 when the eldest brother, Henry John, withdrew. Wairuna station was initially transferred to him with a number of other properties, but was later sold to his brothers.[21]
From the 1890s until the 1950s, the north Queensland beef cattle industry was hampered by a number of factors. The prevalence of cattle tick meant that dipping was required to control it, although some tick resistance in the cattle did occur. Markets fluctuated: for example, the World War I boom was followed by a collapse of the beef export trade in 1921 resulting in a long and serious depression until 1939. Additionally, during the interwar period, three new diseases in northern stock were recognised - buffalo fly, Pegleg (due to phosphate deficiency) and ephemeral fever. Drought and long dry seasons remained a problem for northern cattlemen. Markets improved again during World War II but it was not until 1953 that the herd numbers surpassed the 1894 level.[22]
In an effort to resolve some of these problems, a few northern beef cattle producers began investigating the suitability of Brahman or Zebu (Bos indicus) cattle and Brahman cross-bred cattle for their tick-resistance and tolerance of hot, dry conditions. As early as 1910 William McDowall of Christmas Creek station purchased two Brahman bulls from Melbourne Zoo. The last of these bulls died in 1921. From their progeny, the best calves were kept for bulls and crosses were bred from them with station cattle. The cross-bred progeny were subsequently sold to various north Queensland stations.[23] Descendants of these early Brahman were used by Henry John Atkinson on his adjacent Greenvale station and by his nephew Ken Atkinson of Wairuna.[24] By 1923 Henry John Atkinson on his Greenvale property was ‘demonstrating the possibility of improving the existing types of beef cattle in the North by mating Zebu bulls with shorthorn stock, his object being the production of a hardier type, ... practically tick resistant and capable of withstanding the drought conditions to which the popular strains succumb'.[25] Ken Atkinson's older brother, Robert La Mont Atkinson (1902-1986), recalled that from 1926 he determined to try and form a new breed with a Brahman base which would be better for north Queensland conditions than the British breeds and more able to cope with ticks and droughts.[26]
Parallel with these initiatives was scientific interest in developing cattle suitable for the tropics. In 1920 veterinarian and former administrator of the Northern Territory, Dr John Anderson Gilruth (1871-1937), toured Texas, USA which strengthened his conviction that ‘vigorously controlled cattle breeding experiments in north Queensland would be wise'.[27] In 1929 a Joint Commission appointed to enquire into the beef cattle industry of northern Australia reported that there should be investigation of ‘problems of animal genetics with the object of creating a new breed of tropical cattle'. Subsequently, when preparing a research program for CSIR in north Queensland, Gilruth (acting chief of the division of animal health within CSIR) included a tropical cattle breeding project which was approved by CSIR council. In 1930 money was made available ‘for an inquiry into Zebu crossbreeding experiments carried out by the US Bureau of Animal Industry and others in the southern USA'.[28]
Dr Ralph Bodkin Kelley (1890-1970) of the CSIR arrived in the USA in January 1931 to gather information about the advantages of Brahman cross-breeding in Texas. On his return to Australia, a CSIR proposal to establish a cattle breeding station for experimental mating of Brahman and British cattle breeds in north Queensland was rejected by a graziers' meeting in Rockhampton. Influential men such as James Lockie Wilson (1880-1956), an executive member of the United Graziers' Association (UGA) for 27 years, opposed CSIR's introduction of Brahman cattle.[29] The project remained dormant until 1933 when Dr Gilruth negotiated an agreement with three pastoral companies and one central Queensland grazier. They would fund the purchase and importation of USA-sourced Brahman cattle into Australia, provide the British cattle for hybridisation and maintain the cattle and their progeny. Negotiations between Winter-Irving and Alison; Meredith Menzies and Company (Millungera); Queensland Stations Ltd; and grazier, and Colin W Wright, owner of Waverley and Branxholm in the St Lawrence district in central Queensland, were completed in January 1933.[30]
This syndicate imported 18 Brahman cattle selected by Dr Kelley and shipped in 1933. The cattle, which averaged two years old, were sent to Wright's property, Waverley station, for acclimatisation and inoculation before being divided among the syndicate members for use in the CSIR breeding trials.[31]
As early as 1930 the writer, ‘Vellus', in The Queenslander, was promoting the attributes of Brahman cattle - tick resistance, heat-resistance, disease resistance and breeding efficiency.[32] However, opposition to Brahman cross-breeding from cattlemen was expressed for many years to come.[33]
At Wairuna, Ken Atkinson, grandson of James, began breeding Brahman cross-bred cattle in 1936 with 15 heifers and two bulls purchased from Greenvale Station. The cattle carried ½ to ¾ Brahman blood and were descendants of the Christmas Creek bulls procured from Melbourne Zoo in 1910. Additionally, Atkinson purchased the pure-bred Nellore (ie small eared) Brahman bull ‘Abel' from Waverley station in 1939 although the sale of progeny by syndicate members was not permitted. When CSIR learned of this purchase it invited Atkinson to join the syndicate and subscribe to its agreement; which he did.[34]
Atkinson and his mother and siblings, inherited the estate of his father Robert James Atkinson of Cashmere and Wairuna after his death in March 1939, however, Atkinson had been managing Wairuna from c1930. In 1939 the homestead comprised an early residence, dairy room, car shed, boiler shed, two Aboriginal quarters, blacksmith's shop, fowl house and stockyard. Most of these structures were replaced, many during Ken Atkinson's management of the property. Buildings added to the site during this time were the current residence, garage with school room, two sets of barracks and the head stockman's house. The rock-walled terraced gardens surrounding the northern garden of the residence were established by the 1950s.[35]
The current residence was designed and built in 1940. In March of that year Ken Atkinson ‘made plans' for the house and in August the building contractor, NW Johnston of Kairi, visited Wairuna and ‘drew plans' for the house. These included an existing kitchen in the design. Building commenced in October after the demolition of the old house on the site and building contractors Harold and Norman Johnston completed it by 21 December 1940. It cost £2500 to build. [36] The homestead residence was later described as ‘one of the most attractive in north Queensland'.[37] As well as being the family home, it accommodated guests such as purchasers of stud cattle and distinguished visitors, such as Sir George and Lady Johnson.[38]
From the residence office, Ken Atkinson organised his Brahman breeding programme and performed the duties of office-bearer in various organisations of importance to the beef cattle industry over the next two decades. He co-created the Zebu Breeders Society of Australia in 1946 (later the Australian Brahman Breeders' Association i.e. ABBA); was a foundation member of The Australian Tropical Beef Breeders' Association (1952); and helped establish the North Queensland Saleyards Pty Ltd, of which he was the chairman of the board of directors from 1947 to 1976. He also served as chairman of the Mt Garnet branch of the Northern Graziers' Association between 1946 and 1949 and was a committee member of the Graziers' Association of Central and Northern Queensland in 1949.[39] In addition to his Brahman cross and Brahman stud herds, Atkinson also conducted a Poll Hereford Stud from c1941 and a Santa Gertrudis stud from 1952. In 1955 he joined the prestigious Queensland Club.[40]
Wairuna station was described in 1943 as about 700 square miles of coastal range country situated on the tableland west of the range that runs parallel to the north-east coast of Australia. It surrounded and followed the headwaters of the Burdekin. The country principally was open forest (savannah woodland), and well-watered by creeks and lagoons. Ticks were present and it was necessary to dip British-bred cattle fairly regularly, depending on the extent of the infestation. Some paddocks were fenced off, but much of the country was ‘open'.
In 1943 the Wairuna Brahman cross-bred (hybrid) herd totalled 170 including the pure-bred bull ‘Abel' and one pure-bred female; the remainder being various cross-bred cattle. The hybrids, which were relatively few in number, were depastured with the other cattle (mainly Devon Shorthorn crosses), of which there were approximately 7000. Atkinson had inspected the cross-bred herds of three of the older members of the breeding syndicate and considered that 3/8 Brahman was the proportion most likely to serve his purpose. He had devised a breeding plan to achieve this objective and facilities for this programme were available on Wairuna.[41] By 1943, Brahman-cross bullocks had already been marketed from Wairuna.[42]
The spread of Brahman cattle across northern Australia became possible after November 1941 when CSIR permitted syndicate members to sell Brahman and cross-bred cattle outside their group. Of the original 18 Brahman and one 3/8 Santa Gertrudis bull, 16 were still alive and well in 1941. By 1943 there were 7794 progeny from these cattle.[43] Kelley reported in 1948 that ‘within a seven year period, without propaganda and without regard to all possibilities... Zebu hybridization has extended from at least Rockhampton on the south, right along the coast to Townsville and thence to the Daintree River area. It appears to have leapt the Atherton Tableland but it has penetrated into Cape York Peninsula as far north as Coen. It has also penetrated the coastal range country behind Ingham and at Townsville has extended into the basaltic country above Charters Towers and Pentland. It cannot be accidental that the expansion has taken place principally in tick-infested coastal country.'[44] Atkinson had played a role in this dispersal through selling Wairuna cross-bred cattle to properties near Mt Molloy, Georgetown, Cooktown, Tully and Coen.[45]
Atkinson increased the diversity of his herd through purchases within Queensland and overseas. During 1946 he purchased all the pure-bred Brahman from the Australian Estates Co Ltd property Millungera station, including the bull ‘Texas'. He later purchased another CSIR syndicate bull, ‘Jake 315', from Glenprairie station. These, together with the cattle he had acquired earlier, made his total of 43 pure-breds the biggest of any pure-bred herd. His objective was to maintain a study of Brahman cattle and eventually have a 3/8s Brahman herd on his property. In 1947 Wairuna had a total of 850 head of pure and cross-bred Brahman cattle.[46]
The CSIR had concluded in 1943 that any extension Brahman cross-breeding would require further importations to avoid inbreeding in the cross-bred population.[47] Post-war, Atkinson and others followed this advice with further purchases of pure-bred Brahman from overseas to develop the breed. Between 1949 and 1951 Atkinson imported two Brahman bulls and two heifers from the USA. In 1950 Waverley Station, also imported Brahman cattle.[48] By 1954, 49 head had been imported to Australia; however, importations were terminated in 1954 because of the outbreak of the disease bluetongue in the USA.[49] It was not until 1981 when health protocols changed that importation from the USA recommenced and between then and 2002 more than 700 animals were imported.[50]
Atkinson and Maurice De Tournouer of Wetherby station, Mt Molloy, established the first Brahman-related breeders association in Australia in 1946. The Australian Zebu Breeders' Society started with Atkinson as president (1946-1960) and Le Tournouer taking the secretary's position.[51] In 1953 it was reported that ‘The system of registration being adopted by the Australian Zebu Breeders' Society will fill an important need in Queensland's cattle industry.... The Australian society, comprising nine active breeder members with Mr K J Atkinson of Wairuna, Mt Garnet as president, has now applied for affiliation with the American society...'.[52]
In 1947 north Queensland graziers considered forming a syndicate to build saleyards to be worked on a co-operative basis for the benefit of pastoralists. Subsequently, the Primary Producers Cooperative was formed with Ken Atkinson as the first chairman of the board and on 2 April 1948 the company North Queensland Saleyards Co P/L (Mareeba Saleyard) was registered. The Mareeba Saleyard's first sale was held on 19 May 1948 and it continues to operate in 2013.[53]
From the 1950s cattle-raising throughout most of north Queensland underwent a transformation. The 15 Year Meat Agreement between Britain and Australia[54] provided good beef prices irrespective of market trends, which generated optimism and the confidence to embark on development work. In addition the Queensland Government began to insist on improvements as a condition of pastoral leases and took a more active role in the industry.[55]
In 1952 Ken Atkinson was a foundation member of the ‘The Australian Zebu-Cross Beef Cattle Breeders' Association' (later the Australian Tropical Beef Breeders' Association) formed by his older brother, Robert La Mont Atkinson, and other Brahman breeders who were experimenting with cross breeding. The objective of the organisation was to improve the cross breeds to a high standard, and to collect, verify and publish information relating to them.[56]
Between 1952-54, Wairuna cattle were used for a study of comparative live weights and carcase weights and grades of beef using Brahman cross and British steers carried out by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock (Dept A&S). As the four economic drivers of beef production in northern Australia are: survival, reproduction, weight gain, and carcass and meat quality, this trial was a quantitative test of three aspects of the suitability of Brahman type cattle for the north Australian cattle industry. The final weighing of the steers in the 2½ year-long weight trial took place during the first field day for north Queensland cattlemen, organised by the Mt Garnet branch of the Graziers' Association in co-operation with the Dept A&S, and held at Wairuna Homestead, in 1955. The study quantitatively showed the advantages of Brahman-cross beef compared with European breeds.[57]
From 1960 Wairuna, with its cross-bred herd, was managed by Atkinson's eldest son, Jon, while Atkinson moved his Brahman stud cattle to the property Moana at Kuranda to be more easily accessible for buyers.[58]
Industry improvements of the 1950s were followed during the 1960s and 1970s by a number of innovations higher degree of cattle control, provision of beef roads, increased emphasis on pasture management and the establishment of better adapted breeds such as Brahman and Brahman crosses including Santa Gertrudis.[59] The ABBA continued to grow during the 1960s and 1970s. Its headquarters, Brahman House, Rockhampton [AMP Building (former) QHR 600794], was officially opened on 20 August 1971 by the Association's patron Mr Edgar Hudgins of Hudgins Ranch, Texas, USA; making it the first beef cattle breed association in Australia to own its own building.[60] By 1971 there were 26,900 purebred Brahmans and 57,800 Appendix registered Brahmans in Australia.[61] During the early 1970s the ABBA's membership increased dramatically, exceeding 900 in 1972. With the increase in membership, cattle registration also increased dramatically, which in turn increased the genetic supply available to the commercial industry. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Queensland Department of Primary Industries (DPI) research underpinned the growth by demonstrating the biological basis for the Brahmans adaption.[62]
From 1958-59 the USA surpassed the United Kingdom as the principal market for Australian beef exports. Worldwide demand for beef caused Australian cattle prices to increase by 40% between 1969 and 1974. However, by 1975 world overproduction and political decisions in the USA and Japan led to the collapse of world beef prices and the decline of beef exports from Australia. Prices remained low until 1979, when new markets were established in Eastern Europe and the USSR, and new quotas were negotiated with the USA.[63]
The development of tropically-adapted Brahman stock revolutionized the beef cattle industry in northern Australia. It transformed struggling enterprises into efficient and profitable ones and contributed billions of dollars to domestic and export income. In 2000 a Meat and Livestock Australia project assessed the contribution to the Australian economy by Brahman genetics. Analysis of the economic return on investment for the Australian beef industry from 1970 to 2000 found that Brahman and Bos indicus infusion delivered an additional individual on-farm benefit of $9170 per annum. About 40,000 Australian cattle producers gained from this additional profit in each of those 30 years. Brahman and Brahman-infused cattle accounted for 90 per cent of the genetic improvement in the Australian industry. The cumulative on-farm return since 1970 from investment in Bos indicus genetics amounted to $10.2 billion of a total on-farm return to the national beef industry from all forms of technology of $11 billion.[64] In 2013 ABBA comprises over 1200 members and is the largest beef cattle breed association, by membership, in Australia. Currently, a little over 50% of the Australian beef cattle herd has Brahman blood, while about 11 per cent of the herd is pure-bred. There are about 110,000 Brahman bulls above the Tropic of Capricorn, that is, about 70% of bulls in that region.[65]
Wairuna stud played a major role in the early era of Brahman cattle breeding. ABBA claims that ‘[o]ver the years probably every stud and station herd has had bulls and or females from Wairuna, Wetherby, Burnside, Dundee and the Orient [that] have left their mark on future generations of Brahman cattle. Today, if one traces a beast's registered breeding back far enough one or more of these studs' names will come up with bloodlines back to 1933 imports’.[66]
Without the contribution to the Brahman-cross experimentation conducted by the CSIR in conjunction with Queensland cattlemen, including Ken Atkinson, and the subsequent endeavours of individuals and organisations established to promote Brahman and Brahman-cross cattle, the north Australian cattle industry would not exist in its current form. Atkinson, working from Wairuna between 1936 and 1960, played an early, on-going and important role in the creation of Australian Brahman and Brahman cross-bred cattle. Accordingly, Ken Atkinson was awarded membership of the Order of Australia on 26 January 1983 in recognition of his service to primary industry.[67] He passed away on 1 October 1990 and his ashes were interred in Wairuna cemetery beside his grandfather's grave.
Wairuna remained in the Atkinson family until 1976 when it was sold as a result of the beef cattle price collapse.[68] Since then Wairuna has had several owners. At its last sale in 2010, Wairuna was purchased by the Queensland Government for national parks purposes.
Since the Atkinson era several buildings have been added to the Wairuna homestead, namely, the shed near the head stockman's house, an aviary and a four-bay shed adjacent to the butchering hut. These are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
Two natural disasters have affected Wairuna in recent years. In 2011 cyclone Yasi, which caused considerable destruction along the Queensland coast and inland, damaged buildings at Wairuna Homestead and in 2012 fire damaged all five of Wairuna's outlying yards and dips, and boundary fences.
Wairuna Homestead, like all early pastoral properties, developed as a self-contained village with workers living on site in barracks and with buildings for self-sufficiency functions such as blacksmithing and butchering. Station employees included Aboriginal people as they were an important part of the functioning of pastoral properties in northern Queensland from the 1870s. Aboriginal people employed at Wairuna resided in barracks or lived with their families in a camp sited to the south-east of the homestead. Warrungu people have an active Native Title Land Claim over land including Wairuna.[69]
The proposed demolition of Wairuna Homestead buildings by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services in May 2013 galvanised community members to attempt to gain protection for the homestead and cemetery through its entry in the Queensland Heritage Register. Submissions, petition and comment from community members, family members, former employees (including Aboriginal workers), and the regional council resulted.
Further research will reveal more information about Wairuna's worker history, station and stud operations and the Atkinson family's role in the history of the north Queensland beef cattle industry.
","criteria":"The aesthetic value of Wairuna Homestead and Cemetery is derived from its setting and views. Located high on a flood-free knoll overlooking and almost surrounded by wildlife-filled lagoons encircled by low hills, the views to and from Wairuna Homestead evoke tranquillity and a sense of seclusion and remoteness.
|Wairuna Homestead and Cemetery is important for its association for 95 years with James Atkinson and his descendants, a family which made a significant contribution to Queensland's beef cattle industry.
Wairuna Homestead and Cemetery has a special association with Kenneth James Atkinson, who is of importance in Queensland's history through his role in the Brahman cross-breeding experimentation conducted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) (1930s-1950s); in the establishment and development of the Australian Brahman cattle breed; for his establishment of the Australian Brahman Breeders' Association of which he was foundation president (1946-1960); and for his role in the establishment of the North Queensland Saleyards Pty Ltd of which he was the founding chairman (1947-1976).
|Wairuna Homestead with its complex of surviving structures and cemetery is important in Queensland history for its role in the development of Australia's beef cattle industry through early experimentation with Brahman cross-breeding and the creation of the Australian Brahman. These breeds have made an enormous contribution to the Australian beef cattle industry.
|Wairuna Homestead and Cemetery has a special association with descendants of James Atkinson, former employees and community members as a valued place of former employment, residence and connection. This has been demonstrated by the response from former residents, employees, the regional council and members of the wider Queensland community to the threatened demolition of homestead buildings in May 2013.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":34398,"place_ref":602824,"name":"Toowoomba South State School (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"158 James Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2013-12-02","description":"Toowoomba South State School is situated on a major thoroughfare on the fringe of the central business district of Toowoomba. The 1.5ha site is adjacent to the intersection of the New England and Warrego Highways and is a neighbour to St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral (QHR 600844). The school buildings comprise: a three-storey brick building; the Wadley Wing; the Oslo Lunch Room; the open-air annexe; the playshed; a library; a covered games area; and a multi-purpose hall.
The main building (1941, rear extension 1949)
Fronting James Street to the north is an imposing three-storey classroom building designed in a Neo-Classical style with a grand character and landmark attributes. The building sits at a distance from the front boundary with a central concrete path and steps leads to the front entrance of the building.
The building is symmetrically composed and comprises an understorey at ground level and two upper levels of classrooms. The exterior is rendered and scored to imitate coursed ashlar at ground level and has fine facebrick upper levels in English bond. A projecting, central entrance bay with decorative pediment is flanked by wings with projecting end pavilions. The facade has rhythmic banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights on the first and second levels. The timber-framed hipped and gable roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets and has a prominent, decorative, metal ventilation fleche. The loadbearing structure supports a timber floor on steel bearers and concrete floors in the circulation spaces.
Entrance to the main (first) level is via a split stair with an iron balustrade to a large central door comprising two leaves with moulded panels, glazed fanlight, and rendered architrave and hood. A wide, short hall leads to the main, perpendicular corridor. The hall has moulded concrete skirtings, rendered walls, timber plate rail, and sheet-and-battens ceiling. A wall-mounted plaque commemorates the building's opening. A teacher's room is on either side of the hall.
The first and second floors comprise classrooms, teacher's rooms, store rooms, and hat and cloak rooms, accessed from a wide corridor running the length of the northern side. The corridor has rendered walls and north-facing timber-framed casement windows and fanlights that retain original brass hardware. The wall between corridor and classroom has timber-framed double-hung sashes and awning sash fanlights; all retain original brass hardware. The ceiling of the first floor corridor is concrete with moulded concrete cornice and the ceiling of the second floor corridor is sheet-and-battens with timber cornice. The classrooms have rendered walls with moulded timber skirtings, architraves, and plate rails. The ceilings are sheet-and-battens with timber cornice. The ceilings of the second level have a central timber lattice ventilation panel.
Two stair wells provide vertical circulation. The stairs are red-painted concrete with an unpainted perimeter and the balustrades are decorative iron with a moulded, clear-finished timber handrail. In the stair halls the perimeter of the concrete floor is coved to the wall and small store rooms are located under the stairs.
The understorey accommodates a large central play space and ablutions at either end, low-level bag and hat hooks, timber perimeter seats, and chalkboards. The floor is concrete and the walls are glazed facebrick rounded at corners. The toilets retain original timber cubicles, windows, and sheet-and-battens ceilings.
The Wadley Wing (1959)
Connected by a glazed, high-set corridor to the western end of the main building is the Wadley Wing. This long, narrow, timber-framed building is clad with facebrick and has a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The building is divided approximately in half into two adjoined sections, with the western section set at a lower level.
The eastern section of the building is high-set on timber trusses. The understorey accommodates one classroom and a facebrick ablutions block. The western section of the building is high-set on round concrete columns. Enclosed on the southern side by a later masonry wall and glass louvres, the understorey accommodates an open play area with a concrete floor and a timber perimeter seat.
The two sections are connected by a central stair hall. Another stair hall is located at the western end of the wing with a door out into a small yard to Ruthven Street, forming a secondary entrance into the school. The stair halls have timber stairs, unpainted timber floors, facebrick and chamferboard walls, raked ceilings lined with sheet material, and are brightly-lit by timber-framed, fixed, opaque glazing.
The upper level verandah runs the length of the northern side providing access to south-facing classrooms. The verandah is enclosed with aluminium-framed sliding windows, has a balustrade of bag racks, and a raked ceiling lined with sheet material and rounded cover strips. The verandah wall of the western portion retains chamferboard lining and banks of original timber-framed, double-hung sash windows with pivot-hung fanlights (all with original hardware), but modern doors. The verandah wall of the eastern portion has been altered by the insertion of large openings, removing all windows and doors.
The south walls of the classrooms have large banks of timber-framed awning sash windows that retain original hardware. The classroom floors are timber and the walls and flat ceiling are lined with sheet material with rounded cover strips. The partition walls of the western portion are not original nor in their original locations. The partitions of the eastern portion have large concertina doors to combine the rooms into one large space.
The Oslo Lunch Room (1945)
Located to the south of the main building is the Oslo Lunch Room, a small, timber-framed building low-set on concrete and steel stumps. It has an enclosed north-facing (front) verandah and comprises one large room. The exterior is clad with sheet material with timber cover battens. The verandah is enclosed with chamferboards and aluminium-framed sliding windows. It has a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The side and rear elevations have banks of timber-framed casement windows with awning sash fanlights.
Entry is via two sets of steel and timber stairs onto the verandah, which has a timber floor and a ceiling lined on the rake with v-jointed timber boards. The verandah has a small room at either end formed by walls of single-skin, timber, v-jointed boards. These rooms retain early timber doors with glazed panels and fanlights as well as timber shelving and a sink.
A large opening has been inserted in the verandah wall.
The room has a timber floor and the walls and ceilings are lined with sheet material with timber cover battens. The room has modern built-in kitchen furniture that is not of cultural heritage significance.
The playshed (1884)
A playshed stands in the grounds to the south of the Oslo Lunch Room. It is a timber-framed shelter with a concrete floor and a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The southern and western sides are sheeted with corrugated iron that shields a timber perimeter seat that runs on these sides.
The open-air annexe (1913)
To the south of the playshed near the southern boundary of the site, stands the open-air annexe. This timber-framed building is low-set on concrete stumps and comprises one large classroom and an enclosed western (front) verandah. The walls are clad with weatherboards that have ventilation slots in the gable end apexes. The weatherboards wrap the ends of the enclosed verandah forming the original hat rooms. The remainder of the verandah is enclosed with sheet material with timber cover battens and sliding, timber-framed windows. The other elevations have timber-framed casements, some with small timber-framed fanlights, and the windows of the gable ends have small metal hoods. The gable roof, which is continuous over the verandah, is clad with corrugated metal sheets and has timber gable fretwork. The roof has wide eaves and the soffit is lined with v-jointed timber boards with meshed ventilation slots.
Entry is at either end of the verandah via steel and timber stairs to glazed, timber doors. The verandah has a timber floor and a timber v-jointed board ceiling. The wall between the verandah and the classroom is single skin with the framing, which has chamfered edges, exposed into the verandah. The verandah wall has timber-framed colonial-hung sashes with awning sash fanlights. Original double leaf timber doors with original hardware open into the classroom at both ends of the verandah. The classroom is a large space with a timber floor and the walls and coved ceiling are lined with timber v-jointed boards. An iron tie rod is exposed within the space at ceiling level. The ceiling has a central ventilation opening. The windows retain original hardware.
To the east nearby is a timber-framed pavilion used as a tennis shed. This measures approximately 3.7m x 2.4m, is open on one side, and is clad with weatherboards. It has a timber-framed skillion roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, is unlined internally, and has two unglazed window openings. This pavilion is probably the teacher's room added to the open-air annexe in 1929 and removed in 1975.
Also on the site are a steel and concrete library building (1975), a steel and concrete covered games area (1983), and a steel and concrete multi-purpose hall (2012); none of which are of cultural heritage significance.
The Grounds
The school grounds are banked and levelled to create playing areas and incorporate long, low concrete retaining walls. Large, mature trees, including pepperinas (Schinus molle), camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), and jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) stand within the grounds. A timber seat around the base of a camphor laurel has memorial plaques mounted on it. The plaques are dedicated to past students who have died. A stone cairn with a plaque, a memorial of the 1965 centenary, stands in the garden near the front stair of the main building below a steel flagpole attached to the stair balustrade. Behind the main building is a large bitumen parade area.
","history":"Toowoomba South State School (former) was established as Toowoomba National School in 1865 on a large site in what was then the civic centre of Toowoomba. Over time it acquired a number of buildings and landscape elements, including a playshed (1884), an open-air annexe (1913), a main, three-storey brick building (1941), a timber building called the Oslo Lunch Room (1945), a concrete, brick and timber classroom wing called the Wadley Wing (1959), and mature trees. It has been an important place of education since its establishment and a social and cultural focus for students, parents, teachers and members of the Toowoomba community. Toowoomba South ceased operating as a state school in 2013
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters first occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. Near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps through the Main Range, the small settlement of Drayton (originally known as ‘The Springs') evolved from 1842 as a stopping place servicing pastoralists and travellers. From the late 1840s, the Drayton Swamp Agricultural Area (‘The Swamp'), six kilometres to the north-east, began to be considered a more desirable location for settlement. Better land for market gardening, improved water supply, the support of squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, a better route to Brisbane (The Toll Road), were all advantages over Drayton.[1]
\nIn September 1853 a government survey reserved two blocks of land in Toowoomba for important civic functions. The blocks were bound by Ruthven, Lawrence, Hume and James streets, bisected by Neil Street. The reserves were for the Toowoomba Benevolent Asylum (later hospital), Roman Catholic and Presbyterian churches and schools, Toowoomba Town Hall, a market reserve and a National School on the corner of Lawrence and Ruthven streets. The allocation of land for these purposes in this area occurred because James Street was developing as the main commercial street, the route used by people travelling to Ipswich or south and west.[2]
\nThe name ‘Toowoomba' had gradually taken over from ‘The Swamp' by 1857 and the settlement continued to expand. At the time of its incorporation into a municipality in November 1860, Toowoomba was on the way to supplanting Drayton as the principal service centre for the upper Darling Downs. Prior to 1859, Toowoomba's population was around 1500. Five years later this figure had doubled. The rapid economic and social development of Toowoomba in the 1860s was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements.[3] By 1861 local residents were agitating for the establishment of a government school.[4]
\nColonial governments played an important role in the provision of formal education. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training and facilities. The Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.
\nThe provision of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early Queensland communities. The formal education of Queensland children was seen as integral to the success of a town, the colony and the nation. Land and construction labour was often donated by the local people and schools frequently became a major focus within the community as a place symbolising progress, for social interaction, and as a source of pride. Also, the development and maintenance of schools frequently involved donations and work by teachers, parents, and pupils. Because of their significant connections with the local community, schools have occasionally incorporated other socially important elements such as war memorials and halls used for community purposes. They also typically retain a significant enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers. Social events involving a wide portion of the local community have often been held at schools, utilising the buildings and grounds - such as fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, sporting events, reunions, and dances.
\nAs in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. This helped to ensure consistency and economy. The standard designs were continually refined by government architects in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in their approach to climate control, lighting and ventilation. Until the 1960s school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: the teaching building/s, the school yard, the horse paddock which was often later configured into a sports oval, the teacher's residence, and a variety of features such as sporting facilities or play equipment, shade structures, gardens and trees.
\nWhile the school site had been reserved in 1853, it was continued lobbying a decade later that led to the opening of the Toowoomba's first state-run primary school. In August 1863, the Courier reported ‘great exertions' being made towards the establishment of a National School for Toowoomba.[5] By the end of the year the ‘Local Patrons', the committee advocating for the school, were advised the Board of Education was intending to call immediately for tenders for the erection of a brick school at a cost of £300. On behalf of the town, the local patrons guaranteed the supply of £100 towards the school's construction.[6]
\nOn 25 January 1864 the Chairman of the Board of Education, Arthur Macalister, laid the foundation stone for the school. Construction of the school, designed by architect Benjamin Backhouse and built by Mr Young, continued through 1864, a year when other important buildings for Toowoomba, including the Post Office and the Hospital, were in progress or completed.[7]
\nThe Toowoomba National School opened on 22 January 1865 on the school reserve, with James Hodgson appointed the first Head Teacher. As pupil attendance increased, the initial building soon became inadequate. Construction of a new building on the site to accommodate female and infant students was complete by October 1869. The school was remade into two separate departments, renamed Toowoomba South Boys' State School and Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School. The Girls' and Infants' school began with 98 pupils enrolled. Mary Jane Roulston was the first Head Teacher.[8]
\nDuring the 1870s Toowoomba consolidated its status as the main urban centre of the Darling Downs. The arrival of the railway in 1867 secured the town's development and subsequently made it the hub for the Southern and Western railways. The economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing outlets, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were centred on the town. Toowoomba's progress was reflected in improvements to the physical environment. Important capital works were commenced or completed including the draining of the swamps, improved water supply, gasworks for lighting, extensive tree plantings and the initial development of Queen's Park. Earlier temporary structures were increasingly replaced with more permanent and impressive buildings.[9]
\nIn 1877 the hospital adjacent to the school was vacated after a new hospital was built on the outskirts of the town. The school expanded to incorporate the hospital site and occupied the two newly-vacant hospital buildings; the boys occupied the former men's ward and the girls and infants occupied the former women's ward.
\nA playshed was constructed to the rear of the former hospital buildings in January 1884.[10] Playsheds were free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and were often used for unofficial teaching space when needed. They were timber-framed structures, generally open on all sides although were sometimes partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets. The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron and they had an earth or decomposed granite floor. Fixed timber seating ran between the perimeter posts. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s. They were built to standard designs that ranged in size relative to student numbers. School sites were typically cleared of all vegetation and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. After c1909 school buildings were high-set, allowing students to play in the understorey and playsheds were not frequently constructed. The playshed at Toowoomba was built to a standard design. The construction plans show it was 30ft x 20ft (9.1m x 6.1m) with a hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheets, generous eaves, and supported on 10 timber posts. It had timber perimeter seating and the floor was gravel (altered to asphalt in 1885).[11] The playshed is the oldest structure on the school site.
\nBy the 1890s a well-developed area in the northern area near the railway station centred on Russell Street had emerged as the commercial centre of Toowoomba, while government activities centred on Margaret Street, in the vicinity of the court house. The James Street area was considered to be the fringe. Toowoomba's municipal council had built a new town hall in 1880 but by 1898 had decided to relocate the town hall to a more central location on Ruthven Street, with a new hall completed in 1900. The site became available for redevelopment and was purchased by the State Government.[12] In 1906 the girls and infants moved to a new school building on the nearby site of the former town hall. By this time there were 300 pupils enrolled at the school. The former women's hospital ward was condemned and demolished.[13] Other school buildings were demolished or removed leaving the western side of the school site empty. This land was subdivided into many small allotments and sold.[14]
\nBy 1938 it was decided the two Toowoomba South schools would swap sites. According to the schools' centenary booklet, increasing attendances and limited playground space for the boys were both factors in this decision. The move to the girls' and infants' site meant the boys could access the large playing field of Groom Park behind the school. In December 1939 the Executive Council authorised the demolition of the boys' school (the ‘obsolescent' former men's hospital ward), and the construction of a new brick building for the girls' and infants' school.[15]
\nPlans had been drawn for a substantial, three-storey brick building in December 1938 by Department of Public Works architect Gilbert Robert Beveridge. It was one of an important group of brick school buildings built during and after the Great Depression, initially as part of the government's unemployment relief program. Unemployment relief projects at schools, in the form of grounds improvement works, were undertaken by the previous Country and Progressive National Party government (1929-1932) led by Arthur Moore.[16] The relief work program expanded considerably in 1932 when newly-elected Labor Premier William Forgan-Smith instituted a capital works program focussed on building modern infrastructure to provide relief work for unemployed Queenslanders. The ‘improvement' of schools was a primary aspect of the scheme.[17] Large new buildings at Toowoomba East State School (1936) and Toowoomba North State School (1937) were constructed during this time. The relief work program ended in 1938, transitioning into a permanent, long-term, capital works program. In accordance with government policy, the Department of Public Works maintained the use of day labour for building projects.
\nUntil the 1960s, purpose-built brick government schools were far less common than those of timber. If brick was employed, it was usually only in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly-increasing populations. Earlier government brick school buildings were individually designed with variations in style, size, and form, similar to Queensland's private schools, technical colleges and Schools of Arts. They were given comparatively generous budgets, resulting in impressive edifices. Light and ventilation was still a primary concern for the architects but compared to contemporary timber education buildings, these buildings had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.
\nThe pattern of brick school buildings in prosperous or rising suburban areas continued during the 1930s relief work scheme, in greater numbers and as a more recognisable type. The Queensland Public Works Department and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about the brick school buildings designed in the 1930s. They were considered monuments to progress, embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment.[18]
\nThe 1930s brick school buildings exhibited many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open understorey and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and exhibited neo-classical stylistic elements and a prominent central entry. They were able to be built in stages if necessary. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all brick school buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.
\nThe brick school building for Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School was prominently sited, fronting James Street, and was typical of its type. It was a three storey, symmetrical building comprising an understorey at ground level that accommodated open play space and ablutions, and two upper levels that accommodated 11 classrooms, teachers' rooms, and generous hat and cloak rooms. All but one of the classrooms faced south.
\nConstruction of the brick building had begun by March 1940.[19] It was nearing completion in early 1941 when alterations were made to accommodate infant classes; a partition was removed to combine a teacher's room and classroom on the second floor. This also involved rearrangement of the corridor windows and the blocking up of a western window.[20]
\nThe building was one of the Department of Public Works' major construction projects of 1940. Other important buildings constructed at this time include the Innisfail Court House [QHR 601578], Brisbane Dental College [QHR 601909] and the State Government Offices at Maryborough [QHR 600714].[21] The volume of work for state schools in the year ending June 1940 was high, with 11 new schools completed and additions made to 30 schools, as well as the remodelling of others.[22]
\nThe Girls' and Infants' School and Opportunity School pupils moved to the new school site on 17 March 1941, while work was still being completed. The building was officially opened 21 June 1941 by Minister for Public Instruction, Henry Bruce. It cost £16,500, accommodated 480 students and was constructed using day labour.[23]
\nBehind the new brick building was positioned an older building that had been relocated from the former girls' and infants' school site and was ready for occupation in 1941.[24] This building was an Open-air annexe, the first of its type built in Queensland. It had been opened 29 November 1913 by Under-Secretary for Education, John Story.[25]
\nOpen-air annexes were introduced as a standard design in 1913 by the Department of Public Instruction.[26] This design was developed in response to contemporary medical thought related to the need for adequate ventilation and high levels of natural light for health, coupled with the need to build cheap, portable schools. Dr Eleanor Bourne had been appointed the first Medical Inspector of Schools in 1911 and under her instruction the relationship between classroom environment and child health was given prominence. Accordingly, school architecture evolved through iteration and experimentation to improve interior light and ventilation. The Open-air annexe type achieved maximum ventilation and natural light; it contained only one large room and had only one wall, the western verandah wall. The other sides were open with only adjustable canvas blinds for enclosure. Ideally, they would be high-set, thereby increasing the ventilation and providing further shelter underneath. The design was praised by educationalists as conducive to the health of pupils.[27]
\nOn its original site, the open-air annexe was used for infants' classes.[28] It was a high-set, timber-framed building with a gable roof and comprised one large room 22ft x 44ft (6.7m x 13.4m). It had a west-facing verandah that was semi-enclosed at both ends to form hat rooms. As per the standard design, the classroom had only one wall (the western verandah wall) and the other sides were open and had adjustable canvas blinds.[29]
\nOpen-air annexes proved to be inadequate and were discontinued in 1923, although many had been constructed across Queensland in 10 years. The open sides provided limited weather protection, better climate control was needed, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. All open-air annexes in Queensland were modified to provide better enclosure.[30] By 1929 the open-air annexe at Toowoomba was enclosed; the blinds were replaced with casement windows. A small, semi-detached extension with a hipped roof was added to the centre of the western verandah accommodating a teacher's room at the classroom level and a store room underneath.[31] In 1930 the western verandah was enclosed with sliding sashes and the balustrade was replaced by cement sheet.[32] After its enclosure, minimal alterations of the open-air annexe at Toowoomba were made over time.
\nWhen the open-air annexe was relocated behind the new brick building, it was positioned so the verandah faced north. In 1952, improvements were made to the lighting and ventilation of the classroom by adding soffit vents and single hung sash windows into the verandah wall.[33]
\nAfter relocation, the open-air annexe was used for opportunity classes. Opportunity Schools (initially called Backward Classes[34]) had been established in 1923 by the Department of Public Instruction in seven Queensland schools, one of which was Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School.[35] The previous year, Minster for Education, John Huxham, said he knew of only one teacher in the state who was interested in and suitable for this form of special education; Head Teacher of Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School, Mary Deacon.[36]
\nOpportunity classes were designed to accelerate students with learning difficulties and to teach disabled children vocational skills.[37] The provision of special state education for struggling and disabled students was prompted by community agitation and was part of the wider social, medical and educational modernising reforms of the 1920s. State-funded special education began in Queensland in 1893 when government subsidy was provided to a benevolent training centre in Brisbane that taught blind and deaf children. However, it took until 1923 and the drive of District Inspector William Bevington before children with intellectual and emotional problems and other physical disabilities were included in state education programs. The establishment of special education was an important step in providing an inclusive state education system.[38]
\nOn 25 January 1960 the Toowoomba Opportunity (later Special) School moved off-site into purpose-designed premises. The open-air annexe was then used by the school for various ancillary teaching space, including music and film classes, and a library. [39]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nationwide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth, now commonly referred to as the ‘baby boom'. Queensland schools were overcrowded and to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.
\nAfter 1945, Toowoomba continued the steady growth that had largely characterised its first century of development. The city's estimated population in mid-1953 was 40,000, a rapid expansion from the 1947 census figure of 35,194.[40] Primary and secondary industries expanded, tourist numbers grew, and construction projects provided a boom for the local building industry. In 1954 alone, over £2,000,000 worth of projects were undertaken including new dwellings, commercial buildings, and other expansion projects.[41] The growth of Toowoomba was reflected at the Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School by increased enrolments and building additions to the school. At the time of the transfer of Grade 8 students to high school at the end of 1963, there were around 700 pupils at the school.[42]
\nA school lunch scheme was established at Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School in 1945, using money granted to the school by the Commonwealth Government. This money was granted to all schools in 1945 to commemorate the end of World War II and the amount was based on enrolment numbers. A meeting of mothers convened by head teacher, Aileen Wadley, had decided the funds would be used to establish the ‘Oslo Lunch Room', a tuckshop offering healthy lunches (based on the Norwegian nutritious lunch movement) that would be ‘a permanent benefit to the children of the school'. The first Oslo Lunch Room opened in 1946 within the 1941 main school building, with school mothers initially volunteering on a five day roster system.[43]
\nTemporary class room buildings were constructed at the Girls' and Infants' school between 1943 and 1951, of which one is extant - later known as the Oslo Lunch Room. This standard type was introduced as an expedient, temporary solution to the exceptional growth in student numbers during World War II and the immediate post-war period when skilled labour was scarce and materials were in short supply. They were small timber buildings, low-set on concrete piers and had skillion or gabled roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. External walls were clad with vertical tongue and groove timber boards or sheeting material and the rear wall had casements with operable fanlights sheltered by a simple hood. Accessed from a verandah, the type comprised two interconnected classrooms 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.4m), which was consistent with the department's ideal dimensions of the time. The design, materials and form were a departure from earlier types; they did not influence subsequent designs, and only a small number of temporary buildings were constructed.
\nDrawings for the construction of the temporary class room show a timber-framed and-clad building with a skillion roof, accommodating two interconnected rooms. Although the architectural drawings show a skillion roof, the existing building has a gable roof and this may have been how it was built. Similarly, while the drawings show the intention to use external tongue and groove vertical joinery for cladding, sheeting material is likely to have been used when built. The plans for the subsequent conversion of the building for domestic science in 1951 do not indicate that timber cladding was replaced by sheeting at this time. The erection of two temporary class rooms buildings, at a cost of £500, was authorized in February 1945.[44] The extant building was positioned to the west of the open-air annexe and to the south of the playshed. The building was oriented so the verandah faced north and the windows of the rooms faced south.
\nIn 1947 a three-storey extension was added to the rear of the 1941 brick building providing a further two classrooms (one on each of the first and second floors) and an understorey play space.[45] The extension was designed in 1944 by architect Thomas Robert Gladwin from within the Department of Public Works. It copied the architectural details from the original section. In order to make room for the extension, the playshed was relocated on the site further south, adjacent to the western boundary.
\nIn 1951 the temporary class room building was converted for domestic science lessons, opening in 1952. The verandah was enclosed with vertical timber boards and glass louvre windows to form a teacher's room and fitting room and a laundry. Casement windows with operable fanlights were added to the eastern gable end wall and high-level glass louvres were added to the west gable end wall. New doors and built-in sinks and joinery were added. In 1964 the building was vacated and approved for use as the Oslo Lunch Room. The 1965 centenary school souvenir page on the Oslo Lunch Room noted, ‘shortly we hope to convert the old Home Science Block into an even more modern setting’.[46] From c1965 building remained in use as a lunch room/tuckshop until the school’s closure in 2013.
\nIn 1955 two allotments fronting Ruthven Street (part of the original school site sold in 1906) were acquired and incorporated into the school grounds. Here, an infants' wing was constructed in two stages between 1957 and 1959 and opened by the Minister for Education, Jack Pizzey, in October 1959. The building was a standard design by architects within the Department of Public Works. It was a long and narrow two-storey building with open play space and one classroom on the ground level and classrooms on the upper level accessed by a verandah along the northern side. It was a brick, timber and concrete structure with a timber-framed gable roof. It had banks of timber-framed awning windows on the southern elevation, providing a high level of natural light and ventilation to the classrooms. It was connected to the western end of the main building via a ground-level covered walkway. This walkway was reconfigured in 1962 to be two storeys and include toilets, a staff room, a health services room and a store room.
\nIn March 1960 a plaque mounted on the new infants' wing was unveiled by Director of Primary Education, Arch Guymer. It dedicated the wing to recently retired Aileen Wadley, who taught at Toowoomba South Girls' and Infants' State School from 1 January 1938 to 31 December 1959. The building was called the ‘Wadley Wing'. In 1977 the verandah was enclosed with aluminium-framed sliding windows and a ground-floor extension accommodating a janitor's room was added to the southern side of the wing in 1979.[47]
\nAlterations were made to the first floor of the main building in 1960. This included removing a folding partition and inserting a new partition to create a teacher's room and a larger classroom.[48] Further alterations to this building were made in 1972 when the first and second floor hat and cloak rooms were converted for use as a staff room, a reading room, and general space.[49]
\nThe provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools inspector William AJ Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of the addition of shade trees in the playground. In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educationalists believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.
\nThe site of Toowoomba South State School has been landscaped over time to include trees, playing fields, courts, gardens, hardstand areas, shelters, and play structures. The school celebrated Arbor Day from 1890[50] and school activities have always involved the grounds, including parades, assemblies, sports days, and wider community social events like fetes and concerts. In 1958 extensive concrete retaining walls were constructed at the boundaries of the school and the earth was banked to create level areas for sports and to improve drainage.
\nOn 30 October 1965 the school celebrated its centenary and a souvenir booklet was published for the event. A fete day was held and included various entertainments, the unveiling of a memorial in the grounds by Minister for Transport, Gordon Chalk, a tree planting ceremony, and an afternoon tea for past students. The Kath Dickson Art Gallery, comprising works presented by the Toowoomba Art Society, was also opened within the brick building by MLA for Toowoomba East, Mervyn Anderson. Kath Dickson taught at the school between 1937-1941 and 1946-1950 before returning as Principal from 1960-1975. During her time at the school she actively encouraged pupil involvement in cultural activities such as art.[51]
\nBetween the 1960s and the 1980s a modernisation of Queensland education occurred. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved with new architectural responses needed. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. Due to new materials, technologies, educational philosophies, government policies, architectural styles and functional requirements, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design on a relatively clean slate, inspired by new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly high-set.
\nIn 1975 a new library building was constructed at Toowoomba Girls' and Infants' State School. This was a ‘System IB74', a standard building designed by Codd Hopgood Industrial Architects, and was a concrete slab-on-ground, prefabricated steel structure.[52]
\nThe open-air annexe was moved to make room for the library construction. It was relocated at the southern end of the site, near the western boundary. It was oriented so that the verandah faced west and was low-set on concrete stumps.[53] The teacher's room was removed from the verandah at this time and possibly became a pavilion for the nearby tennis courts.[54] The enclosed verandah was altered to accommodate a toilet at the northern end which was later removed.[55]
\nA 1975 site plan shows that between 1960 and 1975 the school grounds had expanded to include additional allotments on the western side facing Ruthven Street.[56]
\nOn 1 March 1983 the nearby Toowoomba South Boys' State School was closed and the boys were amalgamated into the girls' and infants' school, which was renamed Toowoomba South State School. Minor alterations to the toilets in the understorey of the 1941 building were undertaken during this transition.[57] A large concrete and steel covered games area was constructed to the south of the 1941 brick building.[58]
\nIn 1990 the school celebrated its 125th anniversary of establishment and an anniversary souvenir booklet was published for the event.
\nIn 1999 further alterations were made to the 1941 brick building. The western-most classroom on the second floor was enlarged by partially removing the corridor wall and this space was incorporated into the classroom.[59] At the same time, alterations were made to the Wadley Wing, including removing sections of the verandah wall, removing partitions, and inserting new partitions to create a withdrawal room and an art space.[60]
\nDuring the Australian Government's Building Education Revolution (BER) program, Toowoomba South State School received funding of $850,000 for the construction of a new Multi-Purpose hall. The BER program was the key element of the Australian Government's $42 billion \"Nation Building - Economic Stimulus Plan\", developed in response to the global financial crisis. The hall, situated along the Ruthven Street side of the school was completed in 2012.
\nEnrolment figures at the school declined to around 70 by 2013. Cultural diversity was a feature of the school, with approximately 50% of students having English as a second language or identifying with Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander cultures. The school was also the base for a Regional ESL (English as a Second Language) team who serviced schools in the Darling Downs and South-West area.[61] In May 2013 the school was publicly announced by the State Government as one of nine across the state identified for possible closure by the Department of Education as part of its ‘school viability assessment'. Community responses included the establishment of a SOS (Save Our School) Committee, protests by the school's Parents and Citizens Association, and online campaigns against the school's closure. In September 2013 Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek announced the school would close at the end of 2013.
\nThe school retains buildings that were built and altered in accordance with an evolving educational philosophy. Since opening in 1865, it has taught generations of Toowoomba students and has been a place of employment for many teachers and other staff. It has been a key social focus for the local school community with the grounds and buildings the location of many social events over time.
\nIn 2015 the property is no longer owned by the Queensland Government.
","criteria":"Toowoomba South State School (established in 1865 as Toowoomba National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education in Queensland and the associated evolution of government education architecture. One of the oldest public schools established in Queensland, Toowoomba South State School retains a significant complex of buildings and landscape elements that illustrate the development of government education philosophies from the 1880s to the 1950s.
Reserved for school purposes in 1853, the important buildings and landscape elements from the 1880s to the 1950s demonstrate the growth and development of Toowoomba as a major regional centre in Queensland.
|The open-air annexe at Toowoomba South State School, which remains relatively intact, is rare as one of the few surviving examples of this once common type.
\nThe Oslo Lunch Room, (originally temporary class rooms) which also remains relatively intact, is and has always been uncommon as only a few buildings were built to this standard design and survived subsequent periods of development and change.
|Toowoomba South State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools, comprising a complex of buildings constructed to standard designs by the Department of Public Works, and standing on a large, landscaped site with buildings positioned to allow natural ventilation and daylighting of the interiors.
\nThe place retains good, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to the prevailing government educational philosophies. In particular, the standard designs represented at Toowoomba are:
\nthe playshed with its open sides, hipped timber-framed roof form supported on braced, timber posts and fixed timber perimeter seating;
\nthe open-air annexe with its timber-framed and clad construction, west facing verandah, large single classroom that is well ventilated and daylit, timber linings and iron tie rod;
\nthe Oslo Lunch Room (originally temporary class rooms) with its timber-framed and sheet and battens clad construction, north facing verandah, south-facing fenestration and interior sheets and battens linings;
\nthe main building with its neo-classical styling, three-storeyed form, high-quality design, materials and construction, plan layout with north facing corridor, teacher's rooms, hat and cloak rooms, south facing classrooms that are well ventilated and daylit and understorey play space;
\nand the Wadley Wing with its high-set form, gable roof, composite structural system and cladding, north facing verandah, south facing classrooms that are well ventilated and daylit and understorey play space.
|The place is important for its aesthetic significance brought about by the intact main building with its neo-classical styling (including proportions, scale, composition and detail), and its high-quality design, construction and materials. The place also has landmark attributes being sited on a major thoroughfare and contributes to the townscape of Toowoomba.
|Toowoomba South State School has a strong, special, and ongoing association with the Toowoomba community. It was established through the efforts and funds of the people of the town in 1865 and has taught generations of Toowoomba children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Toowoomba and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":34898,"place_ref":602826,"name":"St Paul's Anglican Church and Columbarium","alternate_name":"St Pauls Anglican Church","street_address":"554 Vulture Street East","suburb":"EAST BRISBANE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-02-07","description":"St Paul's Anglican Church is situated prominently on an elevated site at the corner of Vulture Street and Balmoral Terrace in East Brisbane. The site comprises a picturesque brick church, timber lych gate, stone retaining walls and a brick columbarium. A toilet block and shed on the north side of the church are within the boundary but are not of cultural heritage significance.
The church is of traditional gabled form. The nave is at its north (symbolic west) end and an extended chancel with apse under a conical roof at its south (symbolic east) end. Facing Balmoral Terrace, the entrance porch is located on the north-east corner of the nave and, flanking the intersection of the nave and chancel, are two adjacent vestries and a tall bell tower. On the western side of the chancel is a high-ceilinged organ chamber, now used as a chapel.
Employing asymmetry, heavy massing, high quality brickwork, semi-circular forms and simplified ornamentation, the design of St Paul's combines characteristics of Gothic, Romanesque and Arts and Crafts styles. The church is constructed in dark-red-brown Flemish bond brickwork, with painted render dressings defining features such as string courses, copings, lintels and sills (internally and externally). Stepped and plain buttresses support the exterior walls, and arched openings are constructed from multiple rowlock (brick-on-edge) courses. The prominent roof form is clad with rib-and-pan profile metal sheeting (replaced in 1997), and features flared eaves supported on decoratively trimmed rafters with a raked soffit of tongue-and-groove boards. The nave end walls are topped with stone cross finials, and gable ends to the vestries and entrance porch are finished with basket weave patterned brickwork. The entrance porch features a radiating arch with deep angled brick jambs, rounded window openings and a boarded ceiling. The belfry atop the octagonal bell tower is enclosed with fixed timber louvres between brick piers of alternating, three-course bands of rendered and face brickwork capped by a concrete hemispherical cupola.
The interior is well detailed and executed with dark stained timber joinery throughout, except for the contrasting honey-coloured boards that line the raked ceiling. Finely detailed trusses, supported on concrete corbels, incorporate semi-circular laminated arches of three vertical layers, bolted and strapped together at intervals. Within the semi-circular apse, the ceiling boards are tapered to a narrow point to form a conical peak. Decorative timber grilles along the apex of the nave and chancel ceiling combined with metal grilles in the chancel window sills are elements of the original ventilation system.
All doors are framed and ledged, most retaining original hardware including locks, metal bolts, keyhole covers and timber reeded knobs, with elaborate metal hinges on exterior doors. Side doors open onto raised semicircular concrete balconies, with the western balcony balustrade cut back to allow access from an adjacent car park.
The nave is lit by tall, timber-framed casement windows with leaded panes of textured green glass and semi-circular fanlights. Window hardware includes ornamental latch handles with spiral end. Three large stained glass windows in the north wall depict intertwined vines, wreaths and religious symbols - the 'alpha' symbol in the western window, ‘IHS' in the central window, and the 'omega' symbol in the eastern window. Stained glass windows in the chancel depict Jesus, various saints and biblical scenes, with some including dedications to parishioners. Red cement-rendered floors, scored to form a square grid, are found throughout the church and entrance porch, except in the chancel, which has been subsequently tiled, and in the former organ chamber, where it is covered in carpet.
Church furniture is generally dark stained timber. The altar table, of carved timber panels, features gilded lettering - ‘TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-18' - across the front face. A sanctuary lamp is suspended over the altar. Various early timber items including chairs, tables, and psalm and hymn boards are found throughout the church and vestries. The timber altar rails remain within the chancel; however these and the altar table have been moved from their original positions. Other notable items within the chancel include: the foundation stone set into the eastern wall and a concrete plaque with a red Canterbury cross on the western wall, commemorating the consecration of the church in 1937. Facing the nave from the eastern side of the chancel steps is a raised octagonal brick pulpit finished with a rendered base and capping, while on the western side is a movable brass lectern topped by an eagle. The timber pews (replacing earlier chairs) are plain and stained a light colour. An octagonal, granite memorial baptismal font with timber lid is located near the centre of the nave. The organ (not original to the church) is on a raised timber platform in the north-west corner of the nave.
Non-significant additions to the church interior include a boarded lining to the chapel and northern nave walls, carpets, fluorescent lighting and ceiling fans.
The lych gate, flanked on both sides by random rubble retaining walls, defines the main entrance to the church grounds at the corner of Vulture Street and Balmoral Terrace. Constructed from heavy timbers, it has decorative cross bracing and a gable roof, clad in metal roof sheeting and lined with timber tongue and groove boards. Curved brackets on the street-facing side form an archway, above which the words ‘Seek and ye shall find' are carved in Gothic-style script. Curved red concrete steps ascend from street level to the gate, before continuing as straight steps up to a red concrete pathway leading to the entrance porch.
The columbarium in the north-east corner of the site, separated from the church by a narrow walkway, is a small, open-walled courtyard, accessed through an arched opening with a metal gate. The tall, orange brick walls, capped by concrete, contain small niches, with those containing ashes enclosed by brass name plaques. Rectangular garden beds are set into the concrete floor.
","history":"St Paul's, an Anglican brick church on Vulture Street in East Brisbane, was built in 1924 and designed by Brisbane Diocesan architects, Atkinson and Conrad. The church dates from a pronounced period of expansion for the Anglican Church in Queensland, when many new ecclesiastical buildings were constructed, especially in the Brisbane Diocese.
\nMuch of the area comprising what is now East Brisbane, traditional country of the Yuggera and Turrbal people, was purchased from the Crown in 1855 by Joseph Darragh. It was the eventual subdivision of this property, and other large estates into allotments in the mid-1880s which established East Brisbane as a residential suburb. Prior to this, it was semi-rural in character, with a few isolated families scattered through the area, and a number of elite estates along the river. The electric tramway reached Woolloongabba/East Brisbane in 1897, and in 1901 an extension through East Brisbane to Norman Park was constructed. The provision of this cheap, efficient form of public transport encouraged further settlement in the East Brisbane area. From the 1910s to the 1930s, it grew gradually.[1]
\nAnglican church services commenced in East Brisbane in 1887, when a curate from St Mary's, Kangaroo Point, began conducting services in a building owned by Charles Ewbank in Didsbury Street. A site was acquired on the corner of Vulture and Edgar Streets and a timber church, also initially used for Sunday School, was opened 1 December 1887. From 1889 St Paul's was serviced by priests from Holy Trinity parish at Woolloongabba before returning to St Mary's parish in 1895. St Paul's was then serviced by the Church Mission until 1921, when it was raised to ‘parochial district' status.[2]
\nIn 1912 the priest attached to St Paul's, Morgan Baker, and the church community began working towards the establishment of a new church. By Easter 1914 a building fund had raised over £400. Fundraising continued through the 1910s but was disrupted by World War I (WWI).[3]
\nThe election of Gerald Sharp as Archbishop of the Diocese of Brisbane in 1921 heralded an important expansion phase for the Anglican Church in Queensland. Over the next ten years 57 new churches were built in the Brisbane Diocese and over 30,000 new members were received into communion. Timber (considered temporary) churches were mainly built in new parishes, while many brick (permanent) churches replaced earlier structures at older parishes. Large-scale building projects also occurred at church schools, including the Anglican Church Grammar School at East Brisbane, during this period.[4]
\nBy 1922, renewed activity under Reverend George Neal saw a committee established to build the new church. A large meeting chaired by Archbishop Sharp was held in July to consider whether a new church should be built in timber or brick. The committee emphasised the need to act as soon as possible, as the present building was inadequate for its needs. The vote for a brick church was ‘practically unanimous'.[5] St Paul's attained the status of parish in 1923 and in June 1923 the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane formally acquired a new site for St Paul's on the corner of Vulture Street and Balmoral Terrace.[6] The elevated site, ‘nearer the tramline and in a more conspicuous position'[7], was consciously chosen to enhance the prominence of the church within the suburb. At a fundraising event in November, Canon Francis de Witt Batty commended the decision to bring St Paul's Church out of ‘comparative obscurity into the light of day', while also noting ‘Brisbane had awakened at last to its duty in the matter of church building'.[8]
\nIn January 1924 diocesan architects, Atkinson and Conrad, produced a design for the new church at East Brisbane. The firm, (operating in 2013 as Conrad Gargett Riddel) began in 1890 as the practice of Henry Atkinson (1866-1938) who had previously worked as an architect in the Queensland Public Works department. Charles McLay, a former colleague, was admitted into the practice in 1907. McLay was appointed Diocesan Architect in 1916 following the resignation of Robin Dods. The position of Diocesan Architect was passed to Atkinson in 1918 following the death of McLay. Arnold Conrad, who had worked for Atkinson and McLay since 1912 was appointed partner and the firm was renamed Atkinson and Conrad Architects. In 1922 Atkinson travelled to Europe to study church architecture. The firm (from 1938 as Conrad and Gargett), continued to provide church and school designs for the diocese over the next fifty years.[9] Other buildings designed by Atkinson and Conrad and entered in the Queensland Heritage Register (QHR) are Craigston (1928 apartment building, QHR 600165) and the Balmoral Fire Station (1927, QHR 601530).
\nThe new St Paul's church was designed as a nave with an extended semicircular-planned chancel attached to its east end, a side porch at its west end, side vestries for organ and choir, a belfry and attached buttress piers. White banding on facebrick (known as the ‘blood and bandage' style) featured both internally and externally. Up to 250 people could be accommodated within the church in addition to the choir. Provision was also made for a lych gate and rubble stone wall (at the time claimed to be the first for a church in Queensland).[10] Lych gates, sheltered gateways at the entrance of a church ground, traditionally where clergy met corpses and conducted part of a funeral service, became increasingly popular elements of Australian Anglican church design during the interwar period, often dedicated as war memorials. The ‘Seek and ye shall find' inscription over the St Paul's gateway was carved by Reverend Neal.[11]
\nThe design by Atkinson and Conrad for St Paul's was an example of the type of modern ecclesiastic architecture that was widely used during the 1920s and 1930s. While such places incorporated traditional elements and symbology, designs were broadly characterised by a more simplified and freer approach than 19th century Gothic Revival examples, and featured less complicated ornamentation, large plain wall expanses and the ‘honest' use of materials. Brick was the preferred construction material, which (as ‘permanent' churches), allowed for consecration within the Anglican Church.
\nAtkinson and Conrad produced a similar but less detailed design for the Canon Jones Memorial Church in 1923 at the nearby Anglican Church Grammar School in East Brisbane (established in 1917). Other similar churches designed by Atkinson and Conrad for the Brisbane Diocese in the 1920s include those built in Sherwood, Wilston, and St Alban's Chapel at the Southport School.
\nIn a 1929 presentation to the Church of England Men's Society, Arnold Conrad discussed a number of church design philosophies. ‘A church is a house of God', he stated, '...and all our efforts in church building should be directed to the greatest degree in assisting the worshippers to the right frame of mind. We should create the right spiritual emotion by surrounding the worshippers with beauty, and so lift men's minds that their souls may be brought into closer harmony with God'.[12]
\nArchitectural elements outlined by Conrad to achieve this goal included: brick construction over timber, with bare treatments to interior walls; large windows at the rear of the church and side windows on the chancel (rather than behind the altar); low-toned cathedral glass in simple leaded design where stained glass was not affordable, naves that were long rather than wide, and internal roofing wholly of wood, with heavy timber for open trussed roofs, stained with a dull finish to create ‘an interesting and dignified treatment'.[13] Such elements are readily apparent at St Paul's and other churches of the 1920s designed by Atkinson and Conrad. In particular, the use of substantial timber roof trussing in the nave (a word derived from the Latin word navis for ship), resembling the interior of a ship's hull, expressed the longstanding symbolism of the church as a ship, guiding its members to safe harbour.
\nThe tender of Red Hill builder J Hood, of just over £5000, was accepted for the erection of the church in late January 1924. Hood had recently completed St Matthew's Church in Sherwood. Reverend Neal and W Scott turned the first sod on 5 February, with the former laying the first brick on 14 February.[14] The foundation stone was laid on 23 March by Archbishop Sharp and construction occurred over the next 6 months. [15]
\nIncluding St Paul's, eleven new Anglican churches were constructed during 1924 in the Brisbane Diocese.[16] This boom occurred within a much wider context of surging building activity and expansion in Brisbane during the 1920s, reflecting a level of prosperity that had not been seen in the city since the 1880s. By 1929, Greater Brisbane boasted a population of 284,758 people, a substantial increase from an estimated 209,946 in 1921.[17] In early 1923 it was claimed the new buildings and improvements underway or planned constituted ‘the biggest building boom in the history of the city'.[18] Over the next few years the built environment of the city and growing suburban areas was rapidly transformed. As one of Brisbane's leading architectural firms, Atkinson and Conrad were closely involved in this process, designing numerous commercial, civic and residential buildings.
\nSt Paul's was dedicated by Archbishop Sharp on Sunday 21 September 1924. During the ceremony the Archbishop expressed his joy at dedicating the church ‘which he was instrumental in furthering' and was ‘glad of the movement which is manifestly taking place to build adequate and permanent Churches in this city and in this Diocese'.[19] Parish rector Reverend George Neal estimated the final cost of the church, together with the site, at between £6000 and £7000.[20]
\nOn its opening, the church was described as ‘embod[ying] many of the latest ideas of ecclesiastical architecture'.[21] The diocesan publication the Church Chronicle praised the ‘pleasing and dignified design' and the wider windows and roof ventilation system used to keep the building cool.[22] Other ventilation features were a pair of doorways on both sides of the nave enclosed by balustrading, and metal grilles in the chancel window sills, allowing air to be drawn in through the walls. In January 1925 the Church Chronicle published internal and external images of St Paul's, ‘in order that other parishes may be inspired to friendly rivalry with the people of East Brisbane and desire to do similar good work'.[23]
\nOn opening and in later years, a number of parishioners donated furnishings and ecclesiastical requisites to the church: Mrs J Tritton (of home furnishing firm Tritton's) purchased a bell for the belfry (in use from September 1926); Dr GWF Paul provided a font ewer (water jug) in memory of his son; Mr Rolley provided latches and handles for the main doors; Mrs D'Arcy Winten provided a silver chalice and paten (plate), and Lucy Carey and her daughter provided a hymn board in memory of her son Archibald who died in France during WWI. The parish Girls' Guild donated a timber altar (inscribed ‘To the dear memory of those who served in the Great War 1914-1918') and the lectern with a brass eagle, which came from England. In 1931 two Exton and Co. stained glass windows, dedicated to the late Ethel Hobday, were donated as a gift from her family, ‘a beautiful addition to an already beautiful church'. [24] A psalm board dedicated to the memory of Corporal Ray Diggles of the Women's Auxillary Air Force (WAAF) was donated after her death in 1942. A sanctuary lamp was dedicated in 1951 in memory of Elizabeth Hastings and Theresa Day.
\nAfter the church's completion, the parish continued to hold fundraising events to pay off the remainder of the debt. In 1935 succeeding priest Rev. John Parker made an early speech in support of ecumenism; ‘I am looking forward to the day when there will be no barrier between the denominations'.[25] St Paul's was consecrated in a ceremony on 29 August 1937, having met the requirements: permanency of building, freedom of debt, and the vesting of the property in the Synod.[26] The parish also celebrated its jubilee anniversary in that year. In 1942 an adjacent property ‘Ormside' was purchased for a rectory, following the sale of the old church and hall site in Edgar Street. Following the death of Rev. Parker in 1947, a granite baptismal font was dedicated in his memory.[27]
\nIn addition to being the focus of local worship, a number of associated groups were active in the parish, including the Girls Friendly Society, Boys Society, Mothers Union, Women's Guild and Parents Auxillary. St Paul's became a very popular wedding venue in Brisbane, with newspapers reporting weekly on the numerous ceremonies performed there.[28]
\nIn October 1949, a day of record rainfall caused part of the stone wall facing Vulture Street to be washed away, later replaced by a concrete wall. In June 1952 an illuminated cross on top of the church was destroyed by a shotgun blast fired from a car, thought by police to be the work of ‘anti-religious cranks'.[29]
\nIn 1954, a columbarium was controversially built at the rear of the church. Columbariums, walls with niches for the ashes of the dead, became more common at churches and cemeteries, in response to the increased acceptance of cremation. Australia's first columbarium was built in Box Hill in Victoria in 1929.[30] Cremation services first became available in Queensland in September 1934, when the Mount Thompson crematorium opened. The following year a columbarium was provided at Mount Thompson. By 1936, 13% of people interred in Brisbane were being cremated.[31] The increased popularity of cremation led to requests for ashes to be deposited at Anglican churches. The Archbishop of the time, Dr William Wand, publically opposed placing ashes in the main body of the church, preferring a designated annex such as a remodelled crypt or eastward extension.[32] Queensland's first columbaria within churches were built at Holy Trinity, Woolloongabba and St Mark's, Warwick in 1938.[33] The first external columbarium was incorporated into an outer wall of St Mary's Church at Kangaroo Point in 1949.[34]
\nWhen the plan to construct a columbarium at St Paul's became known, 150 local residents signed a petition presented to Brisbane's Lord Mayor Alderman Robert, ‘desiring the district to remain a pleasant residential one' and considering the crematorium or a nearby cemetery a more suitable location for storing ashes.[35] The Brisbane City Council was powerless to act, as the approval was not necessary under their jurisdiction. Contained within an area of 30 by 15 feet (10m x 5m), the columbarium, a roofless structure of four 10 foot (3.3m) high brick walls with a wrought iron gated entrance, was constructed at a cost of £1000 and dedicated on 4 July 1954. The gate was donated in memory of Margaret Pashen by her family. Speaking in defence of the columbarium, the Rector, the Rev. NR Tomlinson, described it as 'the modern version of the old church grave yard'. At the opening ceremony Archbishop Halse stated, ‘Early Christians had raised no objection to cremation, but had buried their dead because of heathen rites which used fire. It was now felt cremation was just as respectful to the dead as burial. It also conformed with the words of the burial service \"ashes to ashes\"'.[36] Since opening, the columbarium has been used to store the ashes of many former parishioners, including those of Rev. Tomlinson.
\nOver time, some alterations and additions have occurred at St Paul's. Between the church and the rectory, a brick war memorial hall (not considered to be of State heritage significance) was built after 1945. The balustrade-enclosed doorway on the western side of the nave was opened to provide access, via a timber ramp. The chairs originally used by worshippers were replaced by timber pews. A Whitehouse Brothers organ, built in 1952 for the Wynnum Baptist Church, was installed on a raised platform at the rear of the church in 1993. The original organ vestry has been converted into a chapel. The roof of the church was replaced in 1997.[37]
\nIn 2013, St Paul's continues to fulfil its essential function as a place of worship for East Brisbane Anglicans.
\n","criteria":"
St Paul's Church East Brisbane is important in demonstrating the development of the Anglican church in Queensland. It was built in 1924 during a pronounced period of expansion, when many new ecclesiastical buildings were constructed by the Anglican church, especially in the Brisbane Diocese. The church also demonstrates the wider growth of Brisbane and rapid development of the city's built environment in the 1920s.
The detached columbarium at St Paul's, built in 1954 in response to the increasing use of cremation, is one of the earliest structures of its type built in Queensland.
|St Paul's is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of 1920s Anglican church architecture in Queensland, expressed in its form, exterior detail and internal layout, fittings, fixtures and decorative treatments. Designed by eminent diocesan architects Atkinson and Conrad, the church is notable for its restrained and simplified brick treatment. The church accommodates traditional internal spaces and elements including the nave, chancel and vestries, coloured glass windows, and ecclesiastical furnishings. The lych gate and stone wall illustrate the revived use of such traditional features during this period.
The 1954 columbarium also demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type; discreetly located within the church ground, the space is enclosed with walls containing niches for ashes of the dead.
|St Paul's has aesthetic significance as a highly picturesque church, employing asymmetry, heavy massing, high quality brickwork, semi-circular forms and simplified ornamentation. The interior, with its dark brickwork and prominent timber roof trusses, evokes a sense of peace and spiritual shelter. The internal and external elements of St Paul's combine to create a cohesive and finely detailed whole.
Sited in an elevated position to express the prominence of the Anglican community, St Paul's makes an important architectural contribution to the Vulture Street streetscape and to the suburb of East Brisbane.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":34918,"place_ref":602827,"name":"Kurrowah","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"218 Gladstone Road","suburb":"DUTTON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-06-13","description":"Kurrowah is a substantial, rendered brick residence standing on a high ridge in Dutton Park. The allotment is over 1000m2 and a 'battle-axe block', with the house accessed via a long driveway from Gladstone Road. Behind the house (to the north) are ancillary buildings along the rear boundary. The one-storey house faces south-west, down the sloping yard to Gladstone Road, and has striking vistas to the southern mountain ranges.
The house is designed in an eclectic, revival style with a solid character relieved by decorative patterns with Scottish references in architectural and decorative details. The building form is dynamic with multiple projecting rooms sheltered by steep, intersecting gables. The gable ends are decorated with timber panelling or terracotta shingles and the barge boards are moulded terracotta tiles. The exterior walls are roughcast stucco painted white with bands of red facebrick outlining features of the building. The same brick is used for three carefully-modelled chimneys, which rise from sturdy bases to tall, slender stacks. It is high-set on brick piers at the front and low-set at the rear, and the understorey is accessible through arched openings in the perimeter wall. The windows are primarily two banks of small, timber-framed casements with multiple panes.
A wide verandah 'piazza' runs along the south-eastern side.
The north-eastern side is the rear of the house and the gable ends here are clad with weatherboards and are vented with timber louvres. Projecting from the southern end of this side is a timber-framed, weatherboard-clad room with a hipped roof clad with terracotta tiles. It has a hexagonal end wall and windows that include later, timber-framed casements with green lights. At the northern end of the north-eastern side is a piazza, enclosed with more recent timber-framed awning windows.
The north-western side is less articulated and shelters a small back-of-house court, reflecting its service rooms inside. A timber-framed room projects from the northern end. It has walls clad with weatherboards and a pyramidal roof clad with terracotta tiles with a terracotta finial. The windows in this room are also later, timber-framed casements with green lights. This room is set on masonry piers with roughcast stucco. In the understorey under the kitchen at the southern end of this side is a laundry.
From the front, the house looms over the drive, which passes the house on the western side to reach the garages behind. A concrete path, with impressed and coloured diamond shapes, winds up from near the road to the front concrete stair with heavy, sweeping rendered masonry balustrades. (From here, the chimney breast is conspicuous with a central, decorative diamond pattern of polychromatic bricks.) A small, gabled porch with a colourful, tessellated tile floor shelters the front entrance. At the western end of the front elevation is a later timber-framed porch, clad with sheets and battens and enclosed with more recent timber-framed awning windows.
The front door is timber with a high waist and a large glazed top panel. A small brass knocker has a portrait of William Wallace with sword and features 'SCOTLAND', 'WALLACE' and 'ANNO DOM MCCCVI' [1305, the year of Wallace's death], above which are two kangaroos holding a thistle. The fanlight of the front door and the adjacent hall window are divided into small panes by lead cames.
The layout of the house comprises principal reception rooms at the front (south-west) with discreet service rooms on the western side and a separate bedroom wing at the rear (north-east). Circulation is via a central hall divided into distinct sections, reflecting hierarchy of use: wide and decorative in the front hall; narrower and less-decorative in the bedroom wing; and less-decorative still in the service rooms. The reception rooms include a drawing, dining, and morning rooms; den; and another room, designated as a bedroom by the 1930s. The adjacent service area includes a scullery, kitchen, and maid's room. The bedroom wing includes a master bedroom with adjoining dressing room, three other bedrooms, bathroom, and toilet.
The house interior has a distinctly heavy character brought about through an extensive use of dark-stained timber wall panelling, small windows, deep-relief plasterwork on principal ceilings, and other weighty decorative treatments. A distinctive feature of the house is the use of splayed window and door reveals in the front hall and the drawing room, which serve to reduce glare and also to suggest a thicker wall, inferring a weightier construction. The internal partitions are rendered masonry with high-quality, moulded timber joinery throughout and the house retains original timber built-in wardrobes. The house retains early electrical lighting including early fittings and shades, an electrical servant bell system, and original door and window hardware. The dressing room retains an early pedestal basin. The bathroom and kitchen fit-outs are not original. The timber-framed extensions have walls and ceilings lined with sheet material with timber batten cover strips.
The south-eastern piazza is reached through timber-framed, glazed French doors from the south-eastern rooms. The piazza floor is colourful, tessellated tiles on a suspended concrete slab. Two murals depicting bucolic scenes are painted on the piazza walls. At the northern end of the bedroom wing is the enclosed piazza. Its floor is recent ceramic tiles that are not of cultural heritage significance. Doors into this room are original French doors, re-fashioned to be bi-folding.
Three ancillary buildings stand against the rear (northern) boundary. From east to west these are; the cottage, the garages, and a small timber structure of one room. The cottage is a low-set, one-storey building with a roughcast rendered masonry core, a steep, timber-framed hipped roof clad with terracotta tiles, and two banks of small, casement windows that match those of the main house, including hardware. (Later, lightweight extensions to the core are not of cultural heritage significance.) The garages comprise two attached, timber-framed structures and the construction shows the western garage was built first. The earlier garage has a timber board floor while the later garage has a concrete floor. Both are rectangular, timber-framed structures clad externally with cement sheets. Both have a gable roof with timber battened gable ends; the earlier roof is clad with terracotta tiles and the later roof with corrugated metal sheets. The small timber structure of one room is an early timber building, set on low concrete block stumps with metal ant caps. It is a one-storey, timber-framed building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The sides and rear are clad with v-jointed timber boards the front is clad with later timber chamferboards. The side and rear walls have a timber, lattice ventilation panel with a coarse metal insect screen and it retains an early timber-framed, sliding sash of fixed timber louvres.
The garden consists of exotic specimen trees and lawn with early concrete garden beds. The front fence includes early low, masonry walls of Brisbane tuff with prominent mortar.
","history":"Kurrowah, a rendered masonry, timber and tile residence on Gladstone Road, Dutton Park, in Brisbane, was designed by Lange Leopold Powell and constructed in 1915-6. It is a rare and intact example of the residential work of this noted Queensland architect. This attractive house with a beautifully designed and crafted interior is set on high ground, giving it views to the west and south.
\nThe area now known as Dutton Park developed slowly. Initially it was thickly timbered, deeply gullied land. From the 1840s farms were established near the river. Early land owners included Edward Deighton (Under-Secretary, Department of Public Works and Mines 1877-8) whose house ‘Wahcumba' was situated on a large estate off Gladstone Road. By 1883 there were about ten residences along Gladstone Road, most on the ridge overlooking the river and on large allotments. A railway station opened at Dutton Park in 1884. Subdivision of land from large land holdings, such as the Deighton Estate (between Boggo Road, now Annerley Road, and James Street, now Lochaber Street), followed during Brisbane's 1880s land boom. The first horse drawn bus service linking Dutton Park with the city commenced in 1890 and was replaced by electric tram along Gladstone Road by 1908. This stimulated rapid development of the area and almost doubled land values. In 1914 the suburb was named in honour of Charles B Dutton, Secretary of Public Lands between 1883 and 1887, and by the 1920s the area was considered fashionable.[1]
\nThe land on which Kurrowah stands was sold to Edward Deighton c1860.[2] The eastern portion of his estate adjoining Annerley Road was subdivided during the 1880s, as the Deighton Estate. Three larger blocks [totalling 2ac 2r 18.5p (1.03ha)] were also created. A new certificate for this land, which included the site of the future Kurrowah, was issued to Abraham Fleetwood Luya (timber merchant, South Brisbane Alderman and later South Brisbane Mayor and MLA) in 1888 and a house was built on the site, in which Luya was resident by 1889.[3] He sold the property in 1894 to Anna Magdalena Heinecke, wife of Frederick W Heinecke (manager of the nearby Virginia Tobacco factory), who was listed by the Queensland Post Office Directory as living at ‘Linden' on Gladstone Road, between Gloucester and James Streets, by 1896.[4]
\nDuring the 1880s Brisbane had grown spectacularly. The population more than doubled to over 90,000 in 1891, primarily due to immigration. This stimulated building activity, municipal organisation, provision of amenities and services, and cultural and leisure outlets. The number of inhabited dwellings almost doubled between 1881 and 1891, from 5,814 to 10,321. Aided by the requirement of the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885, which enforced a minimum allotment size, this population increase caused Brisbane to overshoot its boundaries, growing along the lines of transport - railway, road, tram and omnibus routes which were dictated by the hilly topography of the area - until the town coalesced with its fringe settlements transforming them into suburbs.[5]
\nBy the beginning of the twentieth century, Brisbane was the largest administrative, commercial and industrial centre in Queensland. Two-thirds of the colony's imports were unloaded onto Brisbane wharves. Administration had become centralised and risen in importance with the expansion of government services. The number of civil servants (excluding teachers) had increased, many of whom were located in Brisbane. Increasingly private organisations were established in, or relocated to, Brisbane, centralising control there. With its population of 119,428 in 1901 the city had a sophistication and diversity not found elsewhere in Queensland.[6]
\nIn February 1909 the Queensland Figaro reported that ‘Mr Frank Brodribb has purchased '\"Linden\", Gladstone Road, a handsome residence with charming grounds, occupied for some time by Mr and Mrs Pickworth. Mr Brodribb with his family will shortly take up residence there'.[7] Titles show that the 2 acre 2 rood 18.5 perch (1.09ha) property was purchased in his wife's name - Jessie Scott Brodribb - in November 1908.[8]
\nThe Brodribb family was part of Brisbane's upper stratum of society, which at this time still comprised graziers, leading businessmen and professional men.[9] Frank Kenric Brodribb was the son of Darling Downs property-owner Francis Claudius Brodribb, whose sheep station, ‘Kurrowah', was located between Millmerran and Cecil Plains. The elder Brodribb died in 1904 leaving a considerable estate, including his station, in trust for his four daughters and only son. Frank K Brodribb appears to have owned other properties in Brisbane - a house in Bower Street off Gladstone Road in 1916 and, until its sale in 1917, a commercial building in Queen Street, Brisbane, occupied by the Union Bank of Australia. Jessie Brodribb was a daughter of early Queensland settler and builder John Campbell. The couple married in September 1904 at St Andrew's Church, South Brisbane.[10] They resided in the vicinity of Dutton Park from about 1908 after moving from Toowoomba.[11]
\nBy 18 February 1909 the Brodribbs were in residence at ‘Linden'.[12] They quickly renamed the residence ‘Kurrowah' and their second son was born there in July of that year.[13] Social occasions and fund-raising events held at Kurrowah were often centred on the garden; with guest lists including the state's social elite.[14]
\nIn January 1915, architectural firm Chambers and Powell called tenders ‘for the erection and completion of [a] Brick Residence, Gladstone-road'.[15] Drawings for its construction and that of a garage with pit, man's room, workshop, washing down shed and W.C. date the design to January 1914.[16] In February 1916, the Brodribb's land was re-configured from three blocks to two with the former ‘Linden' (labelled ‘Old House') on the block to the east [Resub 2, 1ac 19.7p (4545m2)] and a ‘New House' on the block to the west [Resub 1, 1ac 1r 34p (5918m2)].[17] Construction of the new Kurrowah was completed by 1916 when it was included in the Queensland Post Office Directory 1916-17 edition.[18]
\nThe siting of the new house conforms to the preference of Brisbane's wealthier residents to site their homes on its hill tops and ridges.[19] Seeking ‘space, air, view, breeze, drainage, display... combined with a rustic home, they ... also settled ... on acreages outside the town boundaries'.[20] Initially Brisbane's social divisions, as in Australia's other capitals, were topographical - between ridge or hill and gully - but later in the nineteenth century, especially after the introduction of mass transport such as trams and trains, increasingly whole suburbs acquired class labels.[21]
\nNo description of the house appeared in the media at the time of its completion. However, newspaper articles reporting later social events reveal that the ‘wide tile piazza was utilised for dancing.... Supper was served in the lounge'.[22] On another occasion, ‘[t]he reception rooms were beautified with [flowers].... The supper table...was set in the large panelled dining room.... Dancing was enjoyed on the wide, tiled piazza'.[23] There was a concrete tennis court in the grounds from at least 1923 which was utilised for tennis and jazz parties.[24]
\nDomestic architecture in Australia in the first two decades of the twentieth century was notable for its use of popular architectural treatments characterised by a conservative eclecticism. Before the modern movement shunned the predilection for styles, English Queen Anne and Arts and Crafts influences were slowly supplanted by the Californian Bungalow and Spanish Mission styles from The United States of America in the quest for architecture appropriate for Australian conditions.[25] Another development, in the yards of affluent home owners, was the introduction of the garage in the back yard adjacent to the fence, usually in materials matching the house, to house the newly acquired car.[26]
\nThe design of Kurrowah demonstrates this evolution and these preferences of the affluent classes at this period. Architectural influences evident in the design of Kurrowah are mostly derived from England and the work of architects such as Charles Voysey, combined with some features in common with the Bungalow. Essentially romantic in style, it has steep gabled roofs with decorative terracotta tiling, tall slender chimneys and deep recessed verandahs supported on substantial masonry piers. The drama of the exterior with its contrasting exterior finishes - light-coloured roughcast walls against dark brick work, shingles, mouldings and timber detailing - was repeated in the interior with dark timber panelling, ceiling beams and battens contrasted against smooth light-coloured friezes, ceilings and heavily decorated plaster embellishments.
\nKurrowah demonstrates a progression in the evolution of domestic architectural planning and decoration. Whilst maintaining picturesque influences such as nooks and bays, a move toward functionalism in line with overseas fashion[27] is evident. The developing rationale provided rooms arranged for greater convenience, more attuned to the occupants' needs and the environmental benefits of aspect. The central hall is wider in the vicinity of the more public areas of the house to accommodate this active area; the piazzas and morning room provide outdoor living, appropriate for the climate; the kitchen is integrated as an ordinary room and features such as built-in cupboards and wardrobes are provided for greater convenience. The move towards a simpler, healthier, coherently arranged, easy to maintain interior is evident in the choice of finishes such as timber wall panelling and parquetry floors.[28]
\nKurrowah's architect, Lange Leopold Powell, was born on 2 July 1886 in Rockhampton. Educated in Brisbane, he was articled to Brisbane architectural firm Addison and Corrie. After he completed his training and gained some experience he travelled to England in 1908, where he joined the London architectural firm of Belcher & Co. Returning to Australia in 1910 he married in April 1911. In the following year he formed a partnership with Claude W Chambers - Chambers and Powell - based in Brisbane. During 1915 Chambers moved to Sydney to practise, leaving Powell working in Brisbane. In 1920 Powell began practising on his own. Between 1922 and 1924 he was in partnership with George Hutton (Government Architect). He practised on his own again between 1925 and 1927 before going into partnership as Atkinson, Powell and Conrad from 1927 to 1930. This was followed by a partnership with his senior draftsman, George Rae from 1931 to 1933; followed again by sole practice until his death on 29 October 1938.[29]
\nDuring this career Powell played a significant role in the development of the architecture profession. He served as honorary secretary (1910-15), councillor, vice-president (1923-7) and president (1927-31) of the Queensland Institute of Architects; became a member of Queensland's first Board of Architects and for many years was the Queensland representative on the Australian Institute of Architects' federal council and its president from 1928 to 1929. With Sir Charles Rosenthal he drafted the constitution of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (1930) and became its second president (1932-3). He also represented the Queensland Board of Architects on the R.A.I.A.'s board of architectural education. He became a fellow of the Queensland Institute of Architects (1918), the Royal Institute of British Architects (1929) and the R.A.I.A. (1930).[30]
\nPowell is noted for his commercial buildings and churches employing a diversity of styles. His obituary in 1938 described him as one of Brisbane's leading architects. Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, John William Charles Wand praised him saying, ‘he had done much to beautify St John's Cathedral [Brisbane, and that Powell] ‘was a genuine artist whose love of beauty was his master passion.... He delighted to use his gift for religious purposes. The great Masonic Temple in Brisbane will long remain to keep his memory green in the minds of those who admired his art.'[31] A number of Powell-designed buildings are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register namely: Austral Motors Building (former), Fortitude Valley, (QHR 602505); BAFS Building, Brisbane City (QHR 601825); Ballow Chambers, Spring Hill (QHR 600164); Holy Trinity Church, Mackay (QHR 601111); Masonic Temple, Brisbane City (QHR 600074); National Bank of Australasia Building (former), Mossman (QHR 601542); St Andrews Uniting Church, Bundaberg (QHR 602489); St Martin's House, Brisbane City (QHR 600075); and St Mark's Anglican Church, Warwick (QHR 600943). His design contributions to other churches illustrate his interest in interior decoration; such as the carved-stone reredos in Holy Trinity Church, Fortitude Valley (QHR 600202) and the altar and triptych (painted by William Bustard) for the Lady Chapel of St John's Cathedral, Brisbane (QHR 600076).[32]
\nPowell also designed about 30 houses and remodelled or made additions to another five. Of the other 29 Powell-designed houses only five are known to survive. These are: his own residence at 50 Eldernell Terrace, Hamilton, dating from 1923; 26 Thornbury Street, Spring Hill (1912); 3 Moreton Street, New Farm, built for Mr A S Huybers in 1918; Mrs O Sandel's Residence in Windemere Road, Hamilton dating from 1920; and a house for builder, George Stronach in Eldernell Terrace, Hamilton, built in 1931.[33]
\nPowell's houses, mostly for wealthy clients, were of generous proportions and located in the select suburbs of Brisbane like Hamilton and Clayfield. Kurrowah's features are characteristic of his residential work and adhered to the stylistic preference of his clients and the period. In her undergraduate thesis on Powell, Margaret Kerr noted the characteristics of his residential work: solid brickwork with a stucco finish; steeply pitched tiled roofs; gable ends; tall chimneys; roof overhangs with exposed rafters; double-hung or casement windows; a broad flight of concrete entrance stairs with a solid balustrade of sweeping curves; a timber entrance porch and often an adjoining piazza; brick porch piers with stucco finish and red brick capping detail.'[34] Features specific to his brick houses included: arches in the base wall to assist with subfloor ventilation; gable ends finished with shingles or flat sheet with wide battens for a half-timbered effect; fireplaces finished with face brickwork. His interiors included dark oak panelling in the entrance hall and living room to door head height, with papered friezes; and fibrous plaster ceilings with elaborate decoration in the more expensive homes. Built-in cupboards were common.[35]
\nAll of these features constituted the home of a well-off Brisbane family. The lifestyle of the Brodribb family, which included regular entertaining, holidays and travel, was that of members of Queensland's upper social stratum. Substantial funds generated by a trust established at Francis Claudius Brodribb's death were successfully managed by his son-in-law, Canon Thomas Pughe.[36] In 1924 part of that estate, ‘Kurrowah', a 53,504 acre pastoral property comprising, plains, river flats and open forest country with about 13 miles (20.92kms) of Condamine River frontage, which had produced good quality wool, was sold; realising a significant sum of money for the beneficiaries.[37]
\nAll of Kurrowah's extensions were built during the Brodribb's ownership. By 1923 a suspended timber verandah, accessed through the panelled drawing room had been added to the front elevation. In 1923 a timber extension was added to the master bedroom at the rear.[38] At this time a garage with attached accommodation was located where the current cottage stands.[39] Floor plans dating from after 1930, show plans for the conversion of this garage with accommodation into a cottage and use of one of the public rooms as a bedroom.[40] By 1946, but probably prior to 1938, a further extension at the rear, creating a fifth bedroom, was added.[41]
\nIn 1938 Mrs Brodribb attempted to sell Kurrowah but was not successful. The house at the time was described by Isles, Loves & Co Pty Ltd, auctioneers, as follows:
\n‘Kurrowah' occupies one of the finest sites with beautiful views of river, city and mountains, and is situated on the corner of Gladstone and Deighton Roads, containing an area of 1 acre 1 rood 34 perches. ‘Kurrowah' was designed by one of Brisbane's leading architects and is built of brick, concrete and stucco, with tiled roof in the Jacobean period of architecture and the interior is finished in a manner befitting such a fine home. The foundations were designed to carry another stor[e]y if so desired.
\nThere are 5 bedrooms, dressing room, den, music room and balcony, beautiful piazza with tiled floor to [the] Eastern side, 2 bathrooms, well-appointed laundry and all modern conveniences throughout, kitchen, pantry and maid's room, 3 separate garages, man's room, tennis court, lawns etc.[42]
\nIn December 1940 Frank Kenric Brodribb died at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital at South Brisbane, aged 71. The following June, Kurrowah was subdivided into five lots with the house occupying the large central lot while four small lots of between about 25 and 31 perches (632m2 - 784m2) were excised from the garden. These were auctioned on 28 June 1941.[43] Described as:
\n4 Magnificent Blocks being part of Mrs F K Brodribb's beautiful property, situated on the corner of Gladstone and Deighton Roads, occupying one of the finest positions. High with excellent views and on the tramline. Every convenience - gas, water, electric light and sewerage available, bitumen roads.[44]
\nThree lots were sold immediately and the fourth in 1944.[45] By 1946, two of these sites had been built upon.[46] This subdivision conforms to the trend, which The Courier-Mail reported in 1938, of renewed interest in subdivision of land in Brisbane after a long-term lull during and after the Depression.[47]
\nMrs Brodribb died in May 1951 and the property passed to her son, Kenric Colin Campbell Brodribb and Queensland Trustees Ltd. Kurrowah was sold in February 1953 to Francis Arthur Rushbrook, who in turn sold it to Robert and Mary Murray in 1955. No additions were made to the house during the Murray's ownership and its interior remains highly intact. This level of intactness is uncommon in houses that are almost a century old, and although there have been minor alterations, the quality of its interior design and decorative character is apparent.[48] Extension to the cottage and the addition of a small structure beside the double garage, used as accommodation by the Murray's gardener, date from after 1946.[49]
\nAlthough nearby houses including the former ‘Linden' (later called ‘Mangerton' by its owner, Dr Morgan Lane) were demolished for higher density housing, Kurrowah remained a family home set in a large garden, although surrounded by suburban development. The Murray family retained the property until its sale in 2013.[50]
","criteria":"Located within a garden setting in an elevated position removed from the road with views to the west and south, Kurrowah is of aesthetic significance for its attractive Romantic form and composition. Designed by notable Queensland interwar architect Lange L Powell, it features a skilful use of stylistic treatments, a striking use of decoration and generously proportioned planning. Its fine interior craftsmanship is significant for its high degree of creative achievement. The highly-intact interior displays considerable artistic value.
|Kurrowah (1915-6) is important in illustrating the contribution of notable architect, Lange Leopold Powell, to the evolution of Queensland's domestic architecture.
It is important evidence of the lifestyle of Queensland's prosperous elite in Brisbane's suburbs in the early twentieth century.
|Kurrowah is a rare and intact example of an architect-designed domestic interior from the early twentieth century.
|Kurrowah is a fine, intact representative example of the early twentieth century housing type preferred by prosperous residents. Romantic in its architectural expression and generous in its proportions, it is sited on a spacious allotment on a hill top near the river, advantageously orientated to capture views and breezes. Characteristically, these houses: were architect-designed; used quality materials; had a generous, slightly modified traditional floor plan with a distinct hierarchy of rooms; and included facilities for servants and accommodation for a motor vehicle.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35058,"place_ref":602835,"name":"Meringa Sugar Experiment Station","alternate_name":"Meringa Sugar Research Station","street_address":"71378 Bruce Highway Meringa","suburb":"GORDONVALE","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-07-18","description":"Meringa SES is in a small locality south of Cairns in Far North Queensland. The place comprises a complex of sugar research buildings and experimental cane fields on two sites adjacent to the Bruce Highway and North Coast rail line. Surrounded by privately-owned cane fields, the two sites are separated on either side of the small rural Hall Road.
\nThe site layout is determined by the cyclical operations of the place, and the scientific process of creating new cane varieties. The Photoperiod Facility initiates cane flowering, which leads to the Crossing Facility where flowering cane is cross-pollinated, pollinated cane seed is raised in the Glasshouse, and mature cane may be returned to the Photoperiod House to continue the cycle. Aspects of the process are tested in the laboratories along the way.
\nFeatures of the place of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the place not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMain Complex
\nThe Main Complex comprises two linked research buildings (the Office and Laboratory Building, and the Office Building) and the Entomologist’s Residence arranged around a looped driveway, set on flat terrain amongst mature trees and lawn. To the rear (east) of this are two early agricultural buildings – the Glasshouse, and the Implement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building.
\n\n
Commemorative Stone (1957)
\nStanding near and facing the main entrance to the site from the highway is a Commemorative Stone, a granite boulder with plaque dedicated by the Queensland Cane Growers Association to the work of the Meringa SES.
\nFeatures of the Commemorative Stone of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Commemorative Stone not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nEntomologist’s Residence (1917)
\nStanding to the north and facing west to the highway is the Entomologist’s Residence. Highly intact, it is a highset, one-storey, timber-framed and -clad building comprising a central four-room core with short, central hall encircled by a wide verandah. A kitchen wing is attached to the rear verandah that has a laundry ‘washhouse’ enclosure in its understorey. The house has a fenced front yard and is surrounded by lawn and mature trees. Some of the verandah has been enclosed and some partitions in the kitchen wing have been removed. In 2022 it remains in use as a staff residence.
\nFeatures of the Entomologist’s Residence of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Entomologist’s Residence not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nOffice and Laboratory Building (1962)
\nFronting west directly onto the looped driveway is the Office and Laboratory Building. It is a one-storey, slab-on-ground, cavity brick building with a steel-framed, gable roof. The exterior walls are red face brick, and the roof is clad with pan-and-rib metal sheets. It has a T-shaped floor plan of two perpendicular wings (originally offices in the front and laboratory behind) separated by a breezeway. The building has had many of its windows and doors replaced to new designs and its interior has been modernised with the demolition of original partitions and insertion of new ones, and new linings throughout. The interior of the building is not of State-level cultural heritage significance. In 2022 it remains in use as an office and research laboratory for the station.
\nFeatures of the Office and Laboratory Building of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Office and Laboratory Building not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nOffice, Workshop, and Lecture Building (1969)
\nThe Office, Workshop, and Lecture Building stands to the south of the Office and Laboratory Building (1962). It faces north and comprises a two-storey concrete and brick building with former workshops and lecture theatre on the ground floor and former offices and library on the first floor. It includes a ground level, open-sided covered way extending north off its front entrance to meet the breezeway of the earlier Office and Laboratory Building. The building remains externally intact; however, its interior has been modernised with the demolition of original partitions and insertion of new ones, and new linings and uses throughout. Excluding the northern porch, the interior of the building is not of State-level cultural heritage significance. In 2022 it remains in use as an office building for the station.
\nFeatures of the Office, Workshop, and Lecture Building (1969) of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Office, Workshop, and Lecture Building (1969) not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGlasshouse (1957)
\nThe Glasshouse stands to the east of the main complex. It comprises a one-storey, steel-framed, glazed structure supported on concrete half-height wall upstands and slab. It stands near other agricultural structures, none of which are of State-level cultural heritage significance. Minor changes have been made to the original fabric, including replacing the glazing with polycarbonate sheets. In 2022 it remains in use as a glasshouse.
\nFeatures of the Glasshouse of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Glasshouse not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nImplement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building (1935)
\nThe Implement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building stands east of the Glasshouse. It is a one-storey, timber-framed, slab-on-ground structure with a gable roof, and its walls and roof are clad with corrugated metal sheets. A short section of tram rails, used to move equipment and plants, runs along the north side of the building. There have been some alterations to the layout, including removing the horse stalls and replacing some doors and windows. Extensions have been made to its east and south sides, which are not of State-level cultural heritage significance. In 2022 it remains in use as an agricultural shed.
\nFeatures of the Implement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Implement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPhotoperiod Facility (from 1986)
\nThe Photoperiod Facility is a complex of sugar cane research buildings (including three large Photoperiod Houses: 1986, c1998, and 2008) and cane growing plots standing on a flat area of open land north of the Main Complex, across a small creek that runs through the site. The use and work of the Photoperiod Facility is of State-level cultural heritage significance, but no physical fabric of the facility (buildings, structures, fields, etc) is of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nCrossing Facility (from 1977)
\nThe Crossing Facility is a small group of sugar cane variety crossing sheds surrounded by thick vegetation, standing to the north of the Photoperiod Facility, north of Hall Road. The complex includes two large open-sided sheds used for cane variety crossing. The surrounding vegetation acts as a filter for windborne cane pollen from nearby fields, preventing it from contaminating the facility. The use and work of the Crossing Facility is of State-level cultural heritage significance, but no physical fabric of the facility (buildings, vegetation, etc) is of State-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Meringa Sugar Experiment Station (SES) was established near Meringa, south of Cairns, in 1917 and has made a strong contribution to the development of the Queensland sugar industry, first as an Entomological Station researching insect pests, and from the 1930s as a sugar cane breeding facility. One of a number of SES’s built in Queensland, Meringa was the most important. It became the regional centre of research for the Queensland Government’s Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations (BSES, established 1900) in the fields of agronomy, entomology, and mill technology. Still in use as a sugar research facility in 2022, the place retains early buildings from its Entomological Station operations and from its later, expanded activities.
\nEstablishment of Meringa and Sugar Industry
\nMeringa is part of the traditional country of the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people.[1] The area was first occupied by non-Indigenous people in the late 1870s, and the small locality of Meringa was subdivided into residential allotments (but not developed) in 1885 – by which time a Native Police camp had been established on the later site of Gordonvale, on the Mulgrave River about 2km to the southeast of Meringa.[2] A sugar mill, the Mulgrave Central Sugar Mill, was established on the Mulgrave River in 1896; the town of Nelson (later Gordonvale) was surveyed adjacent to the sugar mill that year, and the area developed as a sugar growing district.[3]
\nSugar was an early, profitable, and government-encouraged industry in Queensland, particularly in the north. Sugar was first crushed in commercial quantities in Queensland in the early 1860s, near Cleveland, east of Brisbane. In 1878 the Queensland Government began selling Far North Queensland land along the Bloomfield, Daintree, Mossman, Barron, Mulgrave, and Johnstone rivers. Land was secured by small farmers and larger companies, and by 1884 the sugar industry was established in the region.[4] Initially, Queensland’s sugar plantations were worked using South Sea Islander indentured labour, and sugar was processed at plantation mills; but legislation from the mid-1880s, along with later Commonwealth legislation, led to the abolition of indentured South Sea Islander labour by 1904. The Sugar Works Guarantee Act 1893 also provided government loans for central mills that, when paid off, were handed to the growers as cooperative mills. As a result of such developments, a system of large plantations with their own sugar mills and a South Sea Islander workforce was replaced, by the early 20th century, with a system of smaller sugar farms and central sugar mills.[5]
\nSugar continued to be important to Queensland’s economy. After Federation, the sugar industry was regarded as vital to Australia's economic priorities and as a means to occupy the north of Australia as part of the country’s defence strategy. From the 1910s, the Australian sugar industry became highly protected, regulated, and increasingly mechanised, receiving active support from both Queensland and Commonwealth governments through legislation. The number of small cane farms in Queensland grew from 359 in 1893 to 4,238 in 1911.[6] By the beginning of World War II, sugar was an important component of the Queensland economy, providing export earnings as Queensland's major crop and creating regional growth. As a proportion of primary production, sugar grew from less than 10% in 1910 to 18% in 1940.[7]
\nBy the 20th Century, research into cane disease resistance, farming techniques, and technological innovation was considered important and was supported by the Queensland Government, leading to the establishment of SESs where this work would occur. The world’s first SESs were established in 1885 in Louisiana, USA, and Java, Indonesia; followed by Hawaii, USA (1895), and Saint Kitts, West Indies (1899). Queensland's first SES was established in late 1900 at ‘The Lagoons', a State Nursery in Mackay.[8] By the 1890s sugar growers wanted government research into soils and new cane varieties, and a laboratory had been added at Mackay in 1898. The next year it was announced that the Mackay facility would become a SES. Walter Maxwell, Director of the Hawaii SES, was invited to Queensland, visiting in December 1899. He later accepted a job as Director of the BSES, starting in November 1900.[9]
\nThe BSES was established under The Sugar Experiment Stations Act 1900. Initially administered by Queensland's Department of Agriculture (later the Department of Agriculture and Stock), the BSES undertook research to assist growers and millers improve the breeding, planting, growing, harvesting, and milling of sugar cane. The work of the BSES was financed through a Sugar Fund, established by the 1900 Act.[10]
\nMaxwell, who headed the BSES until 1909, recommended a total of three SES be established in Queensland, but this did not occur immediately. Although a soils laboratory and director's headquarters operated in Bundaberg from August 1901 to 1910, an SES was not established in the area until a cane farm with two residences was acquired at East Bundaberg in 1913.[11] Prior to 1913, field experiments with sugar cane varieties were carried out at the Mackay SES. A third SES was established at South Johnstone (south of Innisfail) in 1917-18, located across the river from the sugar mill, and sugar cane was growing there by December 1919.[12]
\nEntomological research by the BSES began in 1911 with the appointment of the American Entomologist Alexandre Arsène Girault to work in Gordonvale (then still called Nelson) in a rented building. Alan Parkhurst Dodd was appointed assistant entomologist, and worked at Gordonvale, and later Meringa, between 1912 and 1921.[13] Girault was replaced by Edmund Jarvis in 1914. At that time the insect of most concern was the greyback cane grub, the larval stage of the native greyback cockchafer or cane beetle (Dermolepida albohirtum). Although the adult beetle ate cane leaves, the grub inflicted more damage by attacking the cane's roots.[14]
\nEstablishment of Meringa Entomological Station (1917)
\nTo further research into cane grubs, in 1916 the Department of Agriculture and Stock asked for 5 acres (2ha) of land near the Gordonvale State School for an Entomological Reserve for the BSES, but was instead offered 10 acres (4ha), thickly timbered and with good soil, of a large Camping Reserve on the east side of the North Coast Railway north of Meringa. This land was surveyed in June 1916 and gazetted a Reserve for Entomological Purposes in August 1916.[15]
\nTwo residences, a laboratory, and an insectary were constructed during 1917 on the southern half of the reserve.[16] The Entomologist's Residence was a two-bedroom house and included a dining room and drawing room on the south side; an encircling verandah; and a semi-detached kitchen and maid's room off the north end of the rear (east) verandah. There was also a bathroom in the northeast corner of the rear verandah, adjacent to the kitchen. A wash house was included under part of the kitchen. Around 1949, a toilet enclosure was added adjacent to the bathroom, on the northern verandah, and a doorway existed between the two bedrooms by this time.[17]
\nThe Entomologist’s Residence was first occupied by Dr James Franklin Illingworth, who replaced Jarvis as Entomologist in 1917. Illingworth began extensive field tests with lime, fertilizers, arsenic, and creosote as soil fumigants to see how they impacted on cane grub attacks. These experiments were not successful, but Illingworth did provide cane growers with advice on improved cultivation methods.[18]
\nThe Assistant Entomologist’s residence was located south of the Entomologist’s Residence, facing south.[19] The Entomological Laboratory, shown east of the Entomologist’s Residence in a 1916 site plan, consisted of four rooms, with a verandah to three sides, and a small laboratory enclosed at the end of one verandah.[20] By 1928, the laboratory building contained a museum, holding displays of various insect pests for the education of sugar farmers.[21] A 1935 photograph shows the buildings arranged around a large looped driveway, which entered the site from the highway to the west.[22]
\nEntomology was only one aspect of the BSES’s operations. In the late 1920s the BSES was split into four divisions: Soils and Agriculture, Pathology, Entomology, and Mill Technology. When the Pathology Division was formed, Queensland had a greater number of sugar cane diseases than any other cane-growing country.[23] By 1931 the BSES had three SESs (Mackay, Bundaberg, and South Johnstone); one entomological station (Meringa); two entomological laboratories (Mackay and Bundaberg); as well as administrative offices and laboratories in Brisbane.[24] In 1933 the Advisory Committee (later Advisory Board) of the BSES was established and its first meeting was held in 1935.[25]
\nExpansion for Cane Variety Research (1930s-)
\nAlthough Meringa SES began as an entomological station, it commenced research into cane varieties in the 1930s. The BSES transferred cane breeding from South Johnstone to Meringa from 1934, concentrating the BSES’s entomological, cane breeding and agricultural work in the north at Meringa.[26] In 1934 the BSES’s Divisions of Pathology and Entomology were combined.[27]
\nAfter South Johnstone closed, seedlings were raised at Meringa, Mackay, and Bundaberg, and glasshouses were built at all three stations in the 1930s. Cross-breeding, previously conducted at a farm at Freshwater from 1930 (all crossing being conducted there by 1935), was eventually transferred to Meringa, where 300 varieties were in cultivation by 1950.[28] Meringa was the headquarters for all the BSES’s cane breeding and became the centre for pathology, agronomy, and mill technology in the north. It was also the point of origin for all ‘Q’ cane varieties, which by 2013 comprised 98% of the sugar cane grown in Queensland.[29]
\nTo accommodate the cane breeding programme at Meringa, adjacent land was obtained. Land to the south was gazetted a Reserve for Experimental Farm on 27 August 1938. Two other reserves were added prior to 30 April 1953 (when all four of Meringa SES’s reserves were cancelled and replaced with a special lease).[30] Another block was obtained in 1959, east of the original station. After further acquisitions to the east and north, by 2014 Meringa SES covered 63 hectares.[31]
\nPrior to its official opening as an SES on 13 September 1935, by FW Bulcock, Queensland Minister for Agriculture and Stock, a burst of construction occurred at Meringa. This included building an Implement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building, which accommodated a large implement and tractor shed, fertiliser store and mixing room, and stables with four horse stalls and a feed and harness room. Also built at this time was a large timber-framed glasshouse, and a four-bedroom cottage on the block to the south (removed from site in 2003). The 1917 Assistant Entomologist’s residence was converted into a soils laboratory with a museum and library.[32]
\nCombatting the Cane Grub
\nAt this time, a special enclosure for cane toads was being used at Meringa SES. Around 100 toads (Rhinella marina) were brought from Hawaii to Meringa, arriving June 1935, escorted by Assistant Entomologist R W Mungomery. It was hoped that they would eat cane beetles (even though Mungomery wrote in 1933 that the beetles did not spend enough time on the ground for the toads to be effective).[33] After being bred in the special enclosure, 2400 toads were released at sites around Gordonvale in August 1935.[34] The retired New South Wales Government Entomologist Walter Froggatt opposed the toad releases, and successfully lobbied the Commonwealth Department of Health to ban them in November 1935. In January 1936 Froggatt wrote ‘[t]his giant toad, immune from enemies, omnivorous in its habits, and breeding all year round, may become as great a pest as the rabbit or cactus’.[35] However, Minister Bulcock soon persuaded Queensland’s Premier William Forgan Smith to recommend to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons that the ban be overturned, and the releases continued from September 1936, creating a significant ecological hazard while also failing to control cane beetles.[36]
\nWhile Meringa SES was introducing the cane toad to Australia, in 1935 the Mackay SES moved to a better site, on the Peak Downs Highway at Te Kowai.[37] A fourth SES was officially opened west of Ayr in 1954, on 90 acres (36.4 hectares) of land purchased in 1948.[38] A fifth SES was built at Tully in the mid-1970s. The BSES also operated a Pathology farm at Eight Mile Plains from c1952 to 2001, after which it was relocated to Woodford.
\nAlthough the number of SESs increased, Meringa remained the most important. During the 1940s and 1950s, annual farmers’ field days were held at Meringa, where by this time all cross pollination for Queensland was carried out.[39] Experiments on greyback cane grubs with insecticide benzene hexachloride (BHC), also known as ‘gammexane’, began at Meringa in 1945 — and this was then allowed for use by farmers from 1947.[40] In 1957 a granite boulder with plaque was installed at the entrance to Meringa SES, within the island of the looped driveway. It was dedicated by the Queensland Cane Growers Association for: ‘the major service performed by the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations to the cane growers of Queensland in initiating and carrying to fruition the research which led to the successful control of the cane grub the industry’s worst pest’. However, due to its danger to human health and the environment, the use of BHC in Australian agriculture ended in the 1980s.
\nAutonomy and Formation of the Sugar Experiment Station Board (1940s-50s)
\nSugar producers harboured concerns about the lack of autonomy of the BSES from the Queensland Government, and in the late 1940s made moves to rectify this. The Sugar Producers’ Association formed a committee to draft the constitution for a new sugar industry-funded and -controlled research institute, resulting in the formation of the private company Sugar Research Limited, incorporated 22 February 1949. Its inaugural board first met in March 1949 and decided to establish a Sugar Research Institute [QHR 602642] in Mackay. The institute, a complex accommodating offices, laboratories, workshops and the company’s administrative headquarters, was opened 22 August 1953 by the Federal Treasurer, Sir Arthur Fadden.[41]
\nWhile this was occurring, the Queensland Government took steps to separate the BSES from the public service. In 1951 the SES Advisory Board was replaced by the SES Board, a statutory corporation (body corporate created by statute) set up to administer the BSES. Its four board members were Queensland’s Minister for Primary Industries, the Under Secretary for Agriculture and Stock, a growers’ representative, and a manufacturers’ representative. All BSES property was transferred to the board.[42]
\nBuilding Expansion, Peak Staff Numbers (1960s)
\nConstruction continued at Meringa in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1956 the glasshouse was destroyed by Cyclone Agnes and was replaced in 1957 with a new Glasshouse, constructed just to its east.[43] In 1955 the original laboratory, which had been used as a residence for the previous 20 years, was remodelled as a plant breeding laboratory.[44] It was later removed from the site by 1983.[45] By 1957 a crossing facility building (not the buildings extant in 2022) existed on the northern portion of Meringa SES (across Hall Road).[46]
\nFurther infrastructure was required at Meringa to accommodate its increasing staff as plant breeding activities expanded and Meringa became the regional centre for research in the fields of agronomy, entomology, and mill technology. In response, in 1962 a new one-storey brick Office and Laboratory Building was constructed southeast of the 1917 residence, to accommodate plant breeders, entomologists, and a mill technologist. It included offices and a large laboratory. This new building was constructed on the looped driveway, blocking the eastern side of it.[47]
\nIn 1969 a two-storey brick Office, Workshop, and Lecture Building (1969) was constructed to the south of the 1962 Office and Laboratory Building, on the site of the former Assistant Entomologist’s residence, which was sold for removal.[48] At this time, staff numbers were at a peak, comprising 20 officers and six field labourers. The 1969 Office Building included a soil grinding room, a lecture theatre, dark room, and workshops for plant breeding, agronomy, and entomology on the ground floor and offices for a Mill Technologist, Pathologist, Agronomist, and Technical and Field Assistants, as well as a library, on the first floor.
\nBy 1979, the looped driveway had been reformed to allow the roadway to pass in front of the new office buildings and it was finished with bitumen.[49]
\nCrossing Facility (from 1977) and Photoperiod Facility (from 1986)
\nBy 1973, cane varieties bred by BSES made up 61% of all varieties grown in Queensland.[50] In 1977-80, a new Crossing Facility was constructed on the northern portion of the site (across Hall Road).[51] It comprised large sheds surrounded by dense vegetation, which acted as a filter for windborne pollen from the surrounding cane fields. Inside the sheds, which functioned as agricultural laboratories, fabric ‘lanterns’ were hung from the ceiling and were lowered over flowering cane to provide a closed environment for cross-pollinating to create new varieties of cane.[52]
\nIn 1986, the first of three photoperiod houses was built, which was duplicated in 1998 and 2008, forming a Photoperiod Facility to the north of the earlier buildings.[53] A major technological advancement, the photoperiod houses were large sheds that created an environment to artificially initiate cane flowering.[54] They included tram rails extending out of the shed for trolleys holding trays of growing cane, which were moved in and out of the shed. The interior environment was created and controlled through mechanical and electrical services to simulate different optimal conditions for flowering. In 2009, a seed storage freezer room was built to the east of the photoperiod houses, and in 2012 a juice shed was built east of the freezer room.
\nThese two facilities were designed to be practical workspaces, raising cane plants under scientific conditions, critical to the station’s operations. The facilities have been adapted and modernised over time to remain world-class agricultural laboratories.
\nAn Industry-owned Operation (2003-)
\nIn 2003, BSES Limited, an industry-owned company, replaced the BSES, taking over its assets and activities. In mid-2013 the assets and activities of BSES Limited were combined with those of the Sugar Research and Development Corporation (SRDC) and the milling research activities of Sugar Research Limited (SRL) to form Sugar Research Australia (SRA), a single-entity research management and research company formed to address national research, development, and experimentation priorities.
\nHeadquartered in Indooroopilly, the SRA then controlled the SESs at Meringa, Tully, Ingham (established post 1975), Brandon (Ayr), Te Kowai (Mackay), and Kalkie (Bundaberg East), and a Pathology Farm at Woodford.[55]
\nSome alterations have occurred to Meringa SES over time. In c2015, the Office and Laboratory Building (1962) and Office, Workshop, and Lecture Building (1969) were renovated, involving primarily internal changes. This included removing partitions, installing new partitions, and replacing windows.
\nIn 2022, Meringa SES continues to operate from the site. It is the major plant breeding station for the Australian sugar industry and the only location where field crosses of sugar cane varieties are made.[56] During its operation, several scientists whose work has been of importance to the Queensland sugar industry have been associated with the place. These include Edmund Jarvis (1869-1935, entomologist), James Franklin Illingworth (American entomologist), Edwin James Reuben Barke (cane breeder), Reginald William Mungomery (1901-1972, entomologist), James Hardie Buzacott (1902-1984, plant breeder), Gilbert Bates (entomologist), George Wilson (entomologist), and Alan Parkhurst Dodd (entomologist).[57] The sugar industry continues to be important to Queensland’s economy, generating $3.8 billion in economic activity in 2020-21, with around 3700 Queenslanders directly employed in sugar manufacturing.[58]
","criteria":"Meringa Sugar Experiment Station (SES), established in 1917 as the first and only entomological station of the Queensland Government's Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government's efforts to support the state’s sugar industry, an important part of Queensland’s economy since the 1860s.
\nThe surviving buildings from each phase of the Meringa SES’s development represent the evolution of the purpose of the facility, and the sugar industry’s priorities, over more than 100 years. The Entomologist's Residence (1917) is important evidence of the facility’s initial use as an entomological station; the Implement and Tractor Shed and Stables Building (1935), and the Glasshouse (1957) are products of the station’s expansion into cane variety research from the mid-1930s; while the Office and Laboratory Building (1962), and the Office, Workshop, and Lecture Building (1969) are evidence of the increasingly scientific operations of the facility from the 1960s. The Crossing Facility (current buildings from 1977), and Photoperiod Facility (from 1986) are important functions on the site that reflect more recent technological advancements in its plant breeding program.
\nThe Meringa SES is also the site of important scientific achievements and events in sugar cane agriculture, including breeding new cane varieties that became ubiquitous in Queensland; testing insecticides to control cane pests that became standard practice; and the introduction of cane toads into Queensland.
|Meringa SES is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a sugar experiment station in Queensland that has evolved over time. These include residential, office, and laboratory buildings; a glasshouse; implement and tractor shed and stables building; land for experimental crops; and other structures associated with breeding sugar cane, such as crossing and photoperiod facilities.
|Meringa SES has a long and special association (since 1917) with Queensland's Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES), and with the work of its notable research scientists, including Edmund Jarvis, James Franklin Illingworth, Edwin James Reuben Barke, Reginald William Mungomery, James Hardie Buzacott, Gilbert Bates, George Wilson, and Alan Parkhurst Dodd. Since 1900, the BSES has played a crucial role in the development of the Queensland and Australian sugar industry. Sugar Research Australia, formed in 2013, incorporates Queensland's BSES and continues this important association, with Meringa SES now the major breeding station for the whole Australian sugar industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35078,"place_ref":602833,"name":"Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark, 1878, Bessie Point","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bessie Point, off Pine Creek-Yarrabah Road","suburb":"EAST TRINITY","lga":"CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-05-09","description":"Bessie Point is located on the southeast side of Trinity Bay, east of Cairns, and is reached by the Pine Creek-Yarrabah Road. The road runs north alongside Rolling Bay before turning sharply to the southeast at Bessie Point.
The split granite boulder on which the bench mark broad arrow is chiselled stands just to the Rolling Bay (west) side of Bessie Point, at the top of the beach, close to the road. The boulder, which lies in the intertidal zone, is roughly 3 metres in diameter and about 2 metres high. The upright broad arrow is chiselled in the upper half of the northwest face of the boulder. The arrow, which is above the average inundation level, is approximately 50cm tall and 70cm wide.
","history":"A broad arrow bench mark, or datum mark, is chiselled into a large granite boulder on the Rolling Bay (west) side of Bessie Point, located on the east side of Trinity Bay. The arrow was cut in early February 1878 during a hydrographic survey of Cairns Harbour by Navigating Lieutenant Edward Richard Connor, Royal Navy (RN). The bench mark, used to indicate the datum (low water ordinary spring tides) from which the depth of water in the harbour was calculated, is surviving physical evidence of 19th century efforts to survey the Queensland coastline to assist marine navigation, and of the development of Cairns as a port.
\nWhen the Hodgkinson goldfield was discovered in 1876, Trinity Bay was chosen as its port - since Cooktown, established in 1873 as the port for the Palmer River goldfield, was too far north. The first settlers arrived in Trinity Bay in October 1876 and Cairns became a port of entry on 1 November 1876. The town of Smithfield, surveyed in late 1876 on the north bank of the Barron River,[1] was an early rival to Cairns, but it was largely abandoned after heavy flood damage in 1877.
\nThe founding of Port Douglas in 1877 almost stifled Cairns, as Port Douglas provided an easier access route to the Hodgkinson. When tin was discovered on the Wild River in 1880, the road from Port Douglas to Herberton was also preferred to the pack tracks from Cairns. However, Cairns salvaged its economy after a heavy wet season in early 1882 closed the road from Port Douglas, resulting in calls for a railway from Herberton to the coast. On 10 September 1884 the government announced Cairns as the preferred terminus for the railway, over rivals Port Douglas and Mourilyan; Cairns' future as the main settlement and port for Far North Queensland was assured.
\nAlthough ships delivered freight and passengers to Cairns from October 1876 and the town was surveyed the same year, the harbour was not surveyed for shipping until 1878. Until then, buoys were used to guide ships from the Fairway buoy (marking the channel entrance) through the channel towards Trinity Inlet, with a lantern on shore serving as a leading light at night.[2]
\nMarine, or hydrographic, surveying involves mapping the seabed and coastal features to enable safe navigation. It developed as a highly specialised branch of surveying in 19th century Britain. A triangulation network was established over the area to be surveyed, from the mainland to the sea or adjacent islands, with control points on coastal hills or headlands. ‘Coast liner' parties then conducted a land survey of coastal features; recorded high and low water lines; and took soundings to determine the depth and composition of the seabed.[3]
\nWhile the ‘mother' survey ship would take soundings in deep water, ‘chicks' (smaller boats, initially rowed and later steam powered) would run lines of soundings from the shore to deep water, using a lead line. Sounding positions were fixed by reading sextant angles between the three nearest control points, and were then plotted on a field chart. Soundings were taken at all stages of the tide, and were later corrected for the height of the tide to reduce them to a common datum (a quantity or set of quantities that serve as a reference or basis for calculation of other quantities). On completion of a survey, the tides and datum were related to a permanent bench mark for use in future surveys. [4]
\nA bench mark is a point, at a known elevation above or below an adopted datum, marked on a durable object. Bench marks such as an upward-pointing broad arrow symbol (used to denote a government survey from 1852)[5] could be chiselled on a rock - as was the case at Bessie Point. Alternatively, metal disks could be attached to a rock, or to a concrete block. Often a horizontal line was cut, balanced on the point of the arrow, although only an arrow was cut at Bessie Point. Other examples of broad arrow bench marks cut into rocks exist at Bowen (1887), and at Princess Charlotte Bay in the Flinders group of islands (1899, by HMS Dart). In the case of the Bessie Point 1878 bench mark, which is cut into the largest boulder on the shoreline, the datum was low water ordinary spring tides, calculated as being 12 feet (3.66m) below the broad arrow.[6] All water depths (in feet) on the map of Cairns Harbour made in 1878 thus represented the depth available at low water ordinary spring tides, that water level being 12 feet below the bench mark. The tidal range for spring tides in the bay was 8-10 feet (2.4-3m).
\nThe survey of Cairns Harbour in 1878 was part of an ongoing process of surveying the Queensland coastline and its harbours and rivers. In 1770 Captain James Cook in HM Bark Endeavour was the first British navigator to chart the coast of what is now Queensland, and he visited and named Trinity Bay. Admiralty surveys commenced after the establishment of the British Admiralty Hydrographic Office in 1795. Queensland's waters were charted and surveyed by navigators including Matthew Flinders (1799 in the schooner Norfolk; 1802 in HMS Investigator); Lieutenant Charles Jeffreys (1816-17 in HM Brig Kangaroo); Lieutenant Phillip Parker King (1819-21, HM Cutter Mermaid and HMS Bathurst); Lieutenant John Oxley (1823, HM Cutter Mermaid); Captain Henry J Rous (1827, HMS Rainbow); John Clements Wickham (1839, HMS Beagle); John Lort Stokes (1841, HMS Beagle); Captain FP Blackwood and Lieutenant CB Yule (1843-45, HMS Fly and HM Cutter Bramble); Captain Owen Stanley (1847-48, HMS Rattlesnake); and Captain HM Denham (1858-61, HMS Herald).[7]
\nAfter Queensland's separation from New South Wales in 1859, more accurate charts were required as the new colony developed its ports. Coastal shipping was of vital importance to Queensland's economy prior to World War II, given the size of the state, the lack of all-weather roads, and delays in completing the coastal rail link from Brisbane to Cairns. In 1860-61 Queensland entered into an agreement with the British Admiralty to split the annual costs of hydrographic surveying (then about £3000 per annum). The Admiralty would provide staff and instruments and publish charts, while the Queensland Government would provide the lodging, subsistence and ‘means of locomotion' for staff.[8] The focus was on charting a safe shipping route along the Queensland coast, but the Admiralty surveyors could also assist the Queensland Government with its river and harbour surveys.[9] In 1861 Lieutenant (later Commander) George Poynter Heath, RN, was appointed as marine surveyor to Queensland's Surveyor-General's Department, and in his first year he surveyed the Maroochy and Mooloolah rivers in the Spitfire. In 1862 he was appointed Portmaster and Marine Surveyor of Queensland.[10]
\nThat same year Master James Jeffery was appointed as Queensland's first Admiralty Surveyor. He hired a local vessel to survey the Great Sandy Strait, Hervey Bay, and the mouth of the Mary River, but soon persuaded the Queensland Government to have a surveying schooner constructed. HMS Pearl, a 60 foot 6 inch (18.44m) vessel built in Sydney by Mr Chowne of Pyrmont, came into service in October 1863. It was later lengthened by 4.27m in 1868.[11] HMS Pearl was rigged as a fore and aft schooner, was of 70 tons burden with a light draught (for use in shallow waters), and left Brisbane to complete a survey of Hervey Bay in late October 1863.[12] Between 1864 and 1866 Jeffery surveyed Moreton Bay, Keppel Bay, and the outer route to Point Danger.[13]
\nJeffery was replaced in 1866 by Master (Staff-Commander from 1870) Edward Parker Bedwell, who had joined the RN in the late 1840s and the surveying service in 1857. Bedwell was posted to Australia as chief assistant to the NSW hydrographic survey in 1864, later taking charge of the Queensland survey.[14] Bedwell continued the survey of Moreton Bay until the beginning of 1868; and from then to 1879 he surveyed the coast between Danger Point and the north end of the Cumberland Islands (near Mackay); the Brisbane, Mary, Burnett and Fitzroy Rivers to their principal townships; plus Port Curtis and Bowen. The coastal survey from Capes Townshend and Palmerston to the Percy Islands (between Rockhampton and Mackay) took four years. Bedwell was assisted by Navigating Lieutenant EHS Bray from 1867-1870; Navigating Sub-Lieutenant (Navigating Lieutenant from 1872) Edward Richard Connor from HMS Clio from late 1870 to the end of 1878; and Navigating Lieutenant Haslewood for part of 1879.[15] Navigating Sub-Lieutenant A Leeper also assisted from November 1877.[16]
\nEdward Connor joined the RN in 1861 as a Master's Assistant. From 1864 he was in the hydrographic service, working in the Mediterranean, the English Channel, the Straits of Magellan, and Queensland waters. Connor served on HMS Nassau from 1866 to 1869, and was severely wounded in an engagement with the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego in 1867. After leaving the Admiralty survey at the end of 1878, Connor appears to have returned to England c.1880 and he also spent two years with the Royal Chartered British North Borneo Company, in command of the Governor's armed yacht, before returning to Australia in the mid-1880s, where he joined the NSW Naval Brigade as a Lieutenant. In August 1900, as a Commander, he was sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion, in command of the NSW Naval Brigade. He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), gazetted 25 July 1901, retired as a Captain in 1902 and died at home in Sydney on 2 January 1903, aged 56.[17]
\nIn January 1878 Connor travelled from Brisbane to Cairns on the SS Victoria, arriving the evening of 31 January. He commenced work the next day (what vessel he used is not detailed), completing the survey of Cairns Harbour in fine weather by 9 February. He then travelled to survey Port Douglas on the SS Dugong, and returned to Brisbane on the SS Elamang on 22 February. He reported to the Colonial Treasurer, in a letter dated 24 March 1878, that Cairns Harbour, at the extreme south end of Trinity Bay, had an anchorage sheltered from ‘east by south to west'.[18] Three channels existed from the anchorage into the port, the east channel being the most direct, and at least 6 inches deeper than the other two. He noted that the ‘shoalest' water (7 feet 6 inches [2.29m] at low water springs) was found from one to two miles inside the Fairway buoy. The water then deepened gradually until there was over 30 feet (9.14m) just off the wharves (on the west side of the mouth of Trinity Inlet). He added that he had left well defined datum marks at both Cairns and Port Douglas. His report included a map of Cairns Harbour, scaled at 4 inches to the nautical mile, which indicated soundings in feet, reduced to low water ordinary spring tides. The datum mark at Bessie Point was indicated on the map as being ‘12 feet above low water ordinary Sp[ring tides]', and near the map's title it was stated that the datum mark was ‘on top of the largest boulder on Bessie Point'.[19]
\nAlthough Trinity Inlet provided a safe harbour, continuous dredging of a channel through the bar was required for larger vessels to reach the inlet, and the depths required were calculated from the datum indicated by the bench mark at Bessie Point. For example, in 1890 the bar was dredged to provide 13 feet (3.96m) depth of water in a 200 foot (60.96m) wide channel at low water ordinary spring tides, but by 1894 part of the channel had re-silted to a depth of 8 feet 6 inches (2.59m). Later the bar cutting was dredged to 15 feet (4.57m) in 1902, only to re-silt to 12 feet (3.66m) by 1905. The Cairns Harbour Board took over the port in 1906, and concrete wharves were commenced in 1910. By 1915 a 19 foot (5.79m) deep entrance channel had been dredged, and the bar cutting was 5.5 miles (8.85km) long.[20] The spoil from dredging was used for land reclamation on shore.
\nAs well as surveying Cairns harbour in 1878, and accompanying Bedwell on his missions, Connor also spent time surveying the coast of New Guinea, the Brisbane River and Cook Harbour (1873), and the Gulf of Carpentaria (1875).[21] In 1877, while surveying Broadsound in command of HMS Pearl, Connor had a severe attack of ‘acute rheumatism', and had to be let off at Mackay.[22]
\nDuring Connor's time with the Queensland survey the 39 foot (11.89m) steam launch Sabina was built in 1872 to assist HMS Pearl, and in 1878 the 195 ton screw steamer Llewellyn was chartered to replace the Pearl. The surveying staff transferred from the Pearl to the Llewellyn in July 1878.[23] Bedwell reported that the steamer could cover much more ground in less time than the schooner.[24] Other survey ships that operated in Queensland during the 1860s and 1870s included HMS Salamander, HMS Virago and HMS Basilisk.[25]
\nBy end of 1879 the Admiralty survey had reached Cape Conway north of Mackay, but Queensland decided to withdraw from the Admiralty agreement for financial reasons. Total expenditure on the Admiralty survey in 1879 was £7961 (the increase being due to the use of the Llewellyn) of which the British government only contributed £2500.[26] However, the Pearl continued survey work for the Queensland Government, under Captain CE Pennefather, surveying ports and rivers in the Gulf of Carpentaria in the early 1880s.
\nDespite the withdrawal of the Queensland Government from the project, the British Admiralty continued its own surveying of Queensland waters, and the ships involved included HMS Alert from 1881, and HMS Dart from 1883. The agreement with Queensland was renewed in 1885, although this time the Admiralty accepted the larger share of costs, and the new Queensland gunboat HMS Paluma was lent to the Admiralty for survey work, charting the coast north of Bowen. This agreement expired on 31 March 1895, but co-operation between Queensland and the Admiralty continued, as a bill was introduced in the Queensland Parliament in late 1894 to continue funding the Admiralty survey (while using a British ship) at a rate of £3270 per year, for six years from 1 April 1895.[27]
\nIn the late 1880s HMS Myrmidon assisted with surveying the Great Barrier Reef, and in 1897 HMS Waterwitch joined northern surveying operations. During surveys Admiralty crews planted edible plants, and released pigs and goats on islands for shipwreck survivors. After Australian Federation in 1901 the Admiralty continued to work off Queensland into the 1920s, using the HMS Dart, HMS Penguin, and HMS Fantome. The Hydrographic Branch of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was formed in 1920, and Australia's first naval survey vessel, HMAS Geranium, began surveying the Great Barrier Reef in 1924.[28]
\nBy the 1920s the use of Cairns Harbour was changing. The completion of the railway from Brisbane to Cairns in 1924 resulted in a decline of passenger ships travelling from the south. However, the port continued to export the produce of Far North Queensland, and was used as a naval base by the RAN and US Navy during World War II. Today the port of Cairns is mainly a cruise ship destination and fishing fleet base, although it still exports and imports goods, and continues to be used by the RAN.
","criteria":"The Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark at Bessie Point demonstrates the main characteristics of Admiralty survey marks; a broad arrow chiselled above inundation level into a large durable object.
|The Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark at Bessie Point (1878) is important surviving evidence of the work of the Admiralty survey of Queensland's coastal waters, harbours and rivers, from 1862 to the 1920s. This survey was essential for safe shipping navigation and the economic development of Queensland.
The establishment of a bench mark at Bessie Point was an important part of the development of Cairns as the main port for Far North Queensland. A survey of Cairns Harbour, including Trinity Bay and Trinity Inlet, was necessary for safe navigation and for development of the harbour.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion D | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35158,"place_ref":602830,"name":"Main Roads Department Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"477 Boundary Street","suburb":"SPRING HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-06-13","description":"The former Main Roads Department Building is a 15 storey, reinforced concrete office building in a Modernist style that stands on a prominent site on Boundary Road, Spring Hill, Brisbane. Totalling almost one hectare, the rectangular site is bounded by Boundary Street to the south, Fortescue Street to the east, and Wedd Street to the north. Small scale commercial and residential development adjoins the western boundary. The sloping terrain is terraced into large, flat platforms by concrete retaining walls. As well as a landscaped garden setting, the building comprises: a front portico; tower; service core; rear podium; and rear carpark. The building structure is a reinforced concrete grid of concrete columns supporting concrete floor slabs.
The building retains design elements characteristic of the work of its architect, Dr Karl Langer, such as: employing a hybrid of subtle Classical allusions and Modernist architectural devices including a forecourt and stylised colonnade front; simplified forms, decoration and spatial arrangements; a restrained use of high-quality materials; and careful siting and manipulation of form to achieve optimum orientation for natural light and ventilation.
The garden forecourt is a flat public space fronting Boundary Street. The garden is laid out in sharp and dynamic lines of concrete, defining contrasting flat areas of mature trees, grass, paths and water to create a bold, abstract effect. A wide entrance path from the street bisects the garden, bridging across a pond and stepping up to the front portico entrance. The Red Cube, a large metal sculpture, stands on the path in front of a marble slab engraved to commemorate the opening of the building.
The western garden is terraced into level areas, retained by concrete walls and linked with concrete stairs. It retains the original abstract layout and also contains mature trees, shrubs, grassed areas and original concrete benches. The eastern garden is narrow and defined by a series of terraced boulder retaining beds and also retains original concrete benches.
The front portico is a rectangular block attached to the tower that, on approach, gives the impression of a grand colonnade across the width of a tall ground floor. This is formed by a rhythmic series of white, smooth-rendered, rectangular concrete columns topped by a low parapet. This is in-filled with large panels of dark aluminium-framed inoperable glazing. The main elevation is symmetrical except for the entrance doors, which are placed off-centre. The windowless side elevations (east and west) of the portico are pale yellow facebrick walls in stretcher bond. The portico has a concealed flat roof clad with metal rib and pan sheeting.
The tower is the major component of the building, comprising 14 levels (B3 to L10) and a rooftop plant room and caretaker's flat (L11). The tower is a tall, narrow, rectangular block with a concealed timber-framed hipped roof clad with metal pan and rib sheeting. It is oriented with its long sides (the front and rear) facing north and south. These elevations are highly-glazed with an external grid of white-painted, concrete sun hoods forming a shading 'egg crate'. The hoods on the northern side project further than the south. The windows are large, double glazed aluminium framed casements and have spandrel panels inset with a chunky, white quartz aggregate. The window hardware has been removed from the sashes. The side (eastern and western) elevations are painted concrete, finely-articulated with off-form-patterned panels. Largely windowless in comparison to the north and south, the eastern and western elevations have four columns of small, square aluminium-framed windows with opaque glass.
The service core projects from the rear (northern side) of the tower with walls of painted concrete with off-form-patterned panels. The core fenestration is minimal, contrasting with the ample glazing of the adjacent northern elevation of the tower. The east and west elevations of the core have long, narrow ribbons of windows with high sills, and the north elevation has a column of small windows with a high sill and a spandrel panel of quartz aggregate. On the roof of the service core and the tower is a large, facebrick plant room and air-conditioning machinery.
Abutting the northern side of the tower is the rectangular rear podium, which stretches the width of the building and comprises four levels (G, B1, B2, and B3) and a roof top deck (L1). The side elevations are pale yellow facebrick in stretcher bond with rhythmically-placed square windows. The northern elevation has an egg crate of white-painted, concrete sun hoods sheltering large, aluminium-framed windows. The windows have spandrel panels featuring dark slates.
The rear carpark stands behind the rear podium, accessed from the lowest level of the building (B3) and from Wedd Street at the rear. It is one-storey with a flat, steel-framed roof clad with metal pan and rib sheeting, pierced by large, rhythmic openings to the sky. A decorative lattice wall of painted concrete breezeblocks lines the Wedd Street boundary, screening the car park.
Internally, the former functions of the building are clearly-defined, with public entry and reception in the front portico; offices in the tower; vertical circulation, toilets, and other shared facilities in the core; offices and a semi-enclosed carpark in the rear podium; and car parks and store rooms in the rear car park.
The public entry and double-height reception area are intact and feature black and white terrazzo floors, and marble-clad walls, columns, reception desk, planterbox and window sills. An original wall-mounted bronze artwork depicting the historical evolution of the wheel is retained in the entrance foyer. Within the front portico, L1 is a mezzanine level retaining original balustrades: iron near the southern glazing and battened timber above the reception area. Mounted on the end wall of the lift foyer facing the front entrance is Communications, a large artwork by Leonard Shillam.
The tower levels (L1 - L9) each comprise long, open floor plans with later lightweight partitions. Window sills are black terrazzo. Small services cores bookend each floor, on the east and west sides of the tower. These contain fire stairs, service risers, store rooms, and kitchenettes. Some levels retain original black bean veneer fire doors. The top level of the tower (L10) contains two large auditoriums. The larger of the two, named the Charles Barton Auditorium, is double-height and has a raised stage with a proscenium arch, velvet curtains, wings spaces either side, and a backstage area with changing rooms. Under the stage is a storage area accessed via original, battened timber doors. The auditoriums are serviced by a single projection room on a mezzanine between the rooms, accessed via a narrow timber stair.
On the roof of the tower is a caretaker's flat, accessed via a narrow concrete stair. It is a modest, timber-framed, three-bedroomed apartment, concealed behind the tower parapet and sheltered under the main roof. It has pale yellow facebrick walls and aluminium-framed windows with original hardware (sliding and double-hung sashes). The front door addresses a generous, north-facing, roofed patio area, paved with square concrete pavers. The layout of the flat is original; however, all ceiling linings have been removed. The kitchen, bathroom, and laundry fitouts are early and it retains early electric monitor boards used by the caretaker to supervise the building.
The service core contains service risers and shared facilities, including lifts, a fire stair, dumb waiter for office files, tearooms, and large toilet and shower rooms. The fire stair in the service core retains original finishes, including black and white terrazzo stair treads and risers, black-painted metal balustrades with black plastic handrails, textured stair undersides, and vinyl tile clad walls with contrasting inset floor numerals.
The rear podium levels (B3 - G) each comprise large, open floor plans with later lightweight partitions. Window sills are black terrazzo.
Early floodlights survive mounted to the exterior of the building.
Elements that are not of cultural heritage include: the building's ramps, awning, and doors at the main entrance portico; lightweight partitions and suspended ceilings throughout; kitchen and store room fitouts; and steel shelters of the garden and roof deck.
The former Main Roads Department Building stands prominently on a ridge of the folding terrain of Spring Hill. It is highly-visible from the surrounding suburbs and has extensive views from the office spaces within. The gardens and open spaces are conspicuous within the immediate streetscape and contribute to the character of the area.
","history":"The former Main Roads Department Building was built in 1967 to accommodate, consolidate, and modernise the department during a period of extensive expansion and upgrade of Queensland's road network. It housed the department until 2012. Designed by important Modernist architect, Dr Karl Langer, the substantial office building is an excellent, intact illustration of his commercial work and is a good representative example of a mid-twentieth century highrise.
\nIn the early 1960s the Main Roads Department (MRD) faced a major task in modernising Queensland's road network. Prior to this, the department saw itself only as a rural roads authority responsible for the provision and maintenance of main roads connecting Queensland settlements.[1] The decentralised nature of Queensland, with its scattered population and small tax base for local governments, was not conducive to systematic road building, and until the mid-twentieth century railways dominated long-distance transport. Although the Colonial (later State) Government was responsible for main roads and roads on Crown Lands open for selection, elsewhere local authorities had to finance their own roads; or where there were no local authorities, local landholders could form road trusts and receive government grants. Queensland's road system developed in a piecemeal fashion until 1920 and even after it remained a secondary government spending priority to railways, which spread rapidly in the early twentieth century to service agricultural areas.
\nAlthough railways were the priority, the rise of the motor car increased the need for an expanded and improved road network. The Queensland Main Roads Act 1920 provided for responsibility for roads and bridges to be shared between state and local authorities. The mission of the Main Roads Board, formed by this Act, was to develop a cohesive network of ‘main roads' partly funded by the state. Local authorities would fund half the cost, and would be the construction and maintenance authorities where possible.[2] The priority for road construction was to join towns not linked by railways; to link farming areas to existing railways; and to build developmental roads to open Crown Lands for closer settlement.
\nThe interwar period saw a massive increase in car registrations and the revision of the Main Roads Act. By mid-1923 nearly 17,000 cars were registered in Queensland (rising to nearly 92,000 by 1934). As more people took to the car, the need for serviceable roads for motor vehicles became apparent.[3] The Main Roads Acts Amendment Act 1925 abolished the Main Roads Board and formed the Main Roads Commission (MRC), and the board was replaced by John Kemp (formerly the Board's Chairman) as the Commissioner.
\nWorld War II (WWII) also stimulated road building efforts. During the war the MRC carried out a wide range of defence works, mostly for, and under the direction of, the Allied Works Council (AWC). Although the MRC increased its equipment during the war years, after WWII it faced resource shortages and a continued rise in car ownership, plus demands to seal more of the state's roads with bitumen.[4]
\nAfter WWII, roads increasingly competed directly with railways. Vehicle numbers rose from 129,126 in 1945 to over 282,594 by 1954.[5] By 1960, Australia was second only to the United States in terms of car ownership per head of population.[6] In 1951, the MRC became the MRD. The MRD was responsible for the planning, survey and construction of state highways and of main, developmental, secondary, mining access, farmers' roads, and tourist roads and tracks, as well as bridges and related works.[7] The department was under an increasing work load, brought about by the 'explosion' in vehicle ownership and Queensland's buoyant economic expansion.[8]
\nThe MRD's Annual Report of 1955 noted that ‘Queensland is passing out of the earlier phase of road construction ... just sufficient to keep traffic moving. The State has entered a second phase where construction must provide for the traffic of to-day and the traffic of to-morrow in such a way that roads and bridges will carry in safety bigger volumes of traffic, comprising vehicles which move much faster and carry much more heavier loads...'[9]
\nThe push for a new head office for the MRD started around 1955. In December that year the Main Roads Commissioner, AR Williams, wrote to the Minister for Transport, JE Duggan, advising that at no stage the MRD ever had a building designed and constructed for them. Williams stated that the MRD did not have close contact with the public, apart from registration, and ‘Motor vehicle registration activities require that the location be ... away from the heavily trafficked streets'.[10] Other requirements included garaging for departmental vehicles and a full size basement for record storage.
\nPrior to the construction of their new building at Spring Hill, the MRD was accommodated in buildings 'scattered throughout the city'.[11] The intention of the new building was to provide better working facilities and amenities for an increasing staff in an efficient and productive environment.[12] The department was performing a major role with private industry and commerce in Queensland's development and the new building would reflect this.[13] Not only would it be an impressive place for people to register their vehicles, it would be the co-ordinating centre for the planning, survey, design and construction work of the MRD.
\nThe Queensland Government acquired 16 allotments, totalling almost one hectare, at the corner of Boundary and Fortescue Streets, Spring Hill, between 1959 and 1961. At the time this area comprised primarily older detached housing.
\nIn June 1959 Leo J Feenaghty, Secretary of the MRD, wrote to Brisbane-based, private architect and town planner Dr Karl Langer, confirming that the government had decided to retain him as the architect for the new head office building.[14] Langer's earliest designs for the MRD's 'New Head Office Building' date to late 1959 with at least eight further iterations between 1959 and 1963. Early designs were discussed with the Acting Government Architect, EJ Weller, at the Department of Public Works Architectural Branch in September 1959. Although generally satisfied, Weller was concerned that the building would ‘include some features that will set a precedent and to that extent will have an effect upon provision in Government Buildings generally'.[15]
\nBorn in Vienna in 1903, Langer had studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and in 1928 he was employed by pioneer German Modernist designer Peter Behrens to run his Vienna office. In 1933 Langer was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis 'Origins and Development of Concrete Construction'. In 1939 Langer immigrated to Australia with his wife, (Dr) Gertrude Langer, bringing direct experience of the European Modern Movement to Queensland. He gained temporary employment with architects Cook and Kerrison in Brisbane and from 1940 Langer lectured part time in architecture and architectural design at The University of Queensland, publishing Sub-Tropical Housing in 1944. This booklet explored issues related to modern house design and town planning in a sub-tropical climate and influenced many Australian architects working in the post-WWII era.[16]
\nModernist architecture developed in pre-World War I Europe and gained popularity in Australia post-WWII. It is notable for a rationalisation of planning, emphasising clarity and simplicity of form and detailing.[17] American and Scandinavian influences were strong in the style's employment in Australia.[18]
\nFrom 1945 Langer was employed as an assistant town planner in the Brisbane City Council and also was commissioned to work on a range of town planning projects for Darwin, Ingham, Toowoomba, Yeppoon, Kingaroy, Mount Isa, and Mackay, and for the National Capital Development Commission, Canberra. Concurrently, he completed a wide variety of architectural projects including small, economical domestic work and large commercial and institutional work.
\nInfluenced by classical Greek and contemporary Modernist architecture, Langer developed a sophisticated hybrid of classical and modern design principles.[19] With his civic designs, Langer explored the idea of the conjunction of landmark and landscape and his designs typically incorporated a harmonious setting for the architecture. Inspired by Queensland's flora, fauna and climate, his designs worked with the context in complementary ways and his work on climatic design in architecture has been called 'pioneering'.[20] Fundamental to his designs, he sited buildings and outdoor spaces for optimum orientation, ensured interiors had high levels of natural daylighting and ventilation, and incorporated gardens of Australian plants for the occupation and enjoyment of the users. His designs were typified by modern, highly-functional spaces that were fit for purpose, yet, had a degree of flexibility of use. Langer set new standards for design in Queensland.[21]
\nThe work of the MRD was a major influence on the shaping and development of Queensland settlements, especially Brisbane,[22] and also on the increasing prosperity of the state during the second half of the twentieth century. In January 1960 (Sir) Charles Barton was appointed Commissioner of Main Roads. Barton made a major push to modernise the existing road network into an extensive metropolitan highway and intercity freeway network and to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the department.[23] Based on studies by leading transport specialists following American precedents, the department drafted and implemented long term programs of road upgrades and freeway construction.[24] These programs expanded and the department grew to become a primary division of the Queensland Government with considerable authority.[25]
\nOn 1 July 1963 the first Road Plan of Queensland, a 20 year plan to build and upgrade roads to ensure no town was too far from a declared main road, encouraging social and economic development of rural areas, came into effect. The plan was visionary and required a well-organised and highly-functional department.
\nFurther road planning was facilitated by Queensland Government transport studies for major centres in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Brisbane Transportation Study, jointly commissioned in 1964 by the MRD and the Brisbane City Council, and undertaken by American transport planners Wilbur Smith and Associates, recommended a series of freeways, expressways and bridges, although only some of these were built. Under Barton, the MRD was also reshaped. Through operational and attitudinal changes he introduced a 'private sector' business mode to achieve efficiency.[26] He also increased decentralisation, appointing an Assistant Commissioner and Divisional Engineer each at Townsville, Rockhampton and Brisbane, and a Divisional Engineer at Toowoomba.
\nSite preparation for the new MRD head office at Spring Hill began on 15 July 1963.[27] Approximately 15,300 cubic metres of earth was excavated and a reinforced concrete retaining wall up to nine metres high was built around three sides of the excavation to create a level platform on the sloping site.[28]
\nThe government decided that Brisbane architect Colin Tesch would be responsible for construction documentation and administration of the contract. In June 1964 Queensland's State Government Insurance Office (SGIO) agreed to purchase the land from the MRD, pay for construction, and then lease the building back to the MRD for a 40 year term. [29]
\nCP Hornick & Son Pty Ltd, the largest privately-owned construction company in Queensland at the time, constructed the building.[30] To deal with the MRD's ongoing accommodation shortage during construction of its new head office, a nearby partially-erected building on Dickens Street was purchased and completed to MRD requirements, for occupation in late 1965.
\nConstruction of the new head office commenced in July 1965.[31] By this time the number of vehicles registered in Queensland had risen from 363,878 in 1958, to 541,198 in 1965.[32] To deal with this rise in vehicle registrations, the counter section of the new head office was designed to have ten times more public space than the old Albert Street office.[33]
\nLanger's design for the MRD building, the largest of his career, expressed his architectural principles. He described it as being a 'sculptural' landmark.[34] Others described at the time as vast and imposing.[35] Yet, he employed techniques so that it would 'fit' within its context, including stepping the building back from its boundaries so that it would not cast shadow onto the adjacent allotments[36] and not overwhelm them with its scale, an extensive landscaping treatment around the building, and a 'delightful'[37] screen of custom-designed breeze blocks facing Wedd Street to conceal the basement car park.
\nThe building included an expansive public forecourt on Boundary Street, a typical characteristic of Langer's work. Approximately 21m wide by 72m long, it included lawns, gardens with Australian plants, and a large pond with fountain jets to cool the surrounding air. Langer envisioned the forecourt as an important public space for visitors to Spring Hill and to the building.[38]
\nA recurrent inclusion in Langer's works, the building featured a modern allusion to a classical, grand colonnade at the primary entrance. Across the width of the ground floor and encompassing the ground and first floors, the rhythmic verticals and lintel of the concrete structural frame was expressed, smooth finished and painted white, contrasting with the dark glazing adjacent.
\nThe building's structure and materials were modern, rational, and 'honest', consistent with Langer's principles. The structure comprised a grid of concrete columns supporting concrete floor slabs, freeing the floor plan from loadbearing partitions, which maximised the flexibility of interior layouts.[39] The vertical circulation, toilets and shower rooms, tea rooms, and other shared facilities were grouped in a central core. In this way, the floor plan was sensible and efficient and was repeated up the building. Principal materials were self-finishing, expressing their inherent character and beauty, with a noticeable use of Queensland-sourced materials for a 'natural', decorative effect. Where practical, Langer eliminated suspended ceilings from the design.[40]
\nLanger typically exploited passive lighting and ventilation in intelligent and uncomplicated ways and for the MRD building he included simple methods to achieve this. Parallel to the street, the long, narrow plan form (approximately 71m by 16m) was oriented with its long sides facing north-east and south-west.[41] These elevations were highly-glazed, comprising a grid of large, double-glazed, operable windows. A critical requirement for the drafting work of the department, this created interiors that were naturally well-lit and well-insulated, and allowed passive ventilation. The glazing was sheltered by a projecting 'egg-crate' of concrete. The northern side had a deeper projection to block direct sun, reducing heat gain and glare. The west and east elevations were predominantly windowless to occlude the harsh, low sun and were built of concrete to provide a thermal mass quality. In contrast, the photographic and computational spaces that required highly-controlled light and ventilation conditions were located in the basement levels, which had deep floor plans and limited fenestration.
\nAn upturn in the city's economy and a modernising of the building codes that included a removal of building height limits in 1964 saw a considerable increase in the construction of highrise office buildings in Brisbane.[42] Between 1950 and 1965 few office highrise buildings were constructed in Brisbane. These included: Mutual Life & Citizens (MLC) Insurance Building (1955); Friendly Society Building (1957), and; Taxation Building (1961).[43] However, by the middle of 1964, 20 highrise office buildings were in the course of construction in the Brisbane CBD.[44] The number of buildings constructed between 1965 and the end of 1970 far exceeded the previous 15 years. These included: Pearl Assurance Building, Eagle Towers, and Commonwealth Savings Bank Building (1966); Manufacturers Mutual Insurance (MMI) Building, and Main Roads Department Building (1967); Temperance & General (T&G) Insurance Building (1969), and; Westpac Bank Building, and Mount Isa Mines (MIM) Building (1970).
\nHighrise office buildings designed and constructed between c1950 and c1970 are a specific type of architecture that evolved under particular circumstances. The type clearly represents the excitement, prosperity, and vision of Australia and indicates the economic rationalism and progress in the period. Indicating their status, they were often ceremoniously opened by important dignitaries. In cities nationally and internationally, Modernist architects were unencumbered by traditions when designing this new type, challenging aesthetic and symbolic values, and the provision of public and private amenity. Their impact was unprecedented and it was not until critical analysis of tall buildings in the late 1960s that the approach to highrise development changed. Designed in a time when Australia was little concerned about the ethics of energy consumption, typical highrises exploited this abundance. Orientation and shading was generally dismissed and windows were inoperable, relying on mechanical air-conditioning. Floor plates were vast, relying on artificial light. However, some architects designed intelligent buildings that were connected to the traditions of architecture and were better attuned to their environment.[45] Sophisticated in its design, Langer's MRD Building is representative of the better designs in Queensland of the period.
\nThe principal characteristics of highrise office buildings designed and constructed in the 1950s and 1960s are: remarkable height to footprint ratio; an expressive and all-encompassing Modernist aesthetic; reinforced concrete construction; a 'glamorous' treatment of the ground floor/primary entry; an urban, public space used as setting for the building; rationalisation and repetition of the floor plan; and integration of state-of-the-art office technology and staff facilities.
\nThe new head office for the Main Roads Department possessed these principal characteristics. The 50 metre tall building comprised three large basement levels, a generously-proportioned ground level with a mezzanine, a tower of nine levels, and a roof-level caretaker's flat. The building had a huge gross floor area of 33,000 square metres and upon completion was the largest reinforced concrete office building in Queensland.[46] The principal public function of the building, vehicle registration, occupied the ground and mezzanine floors within impressive, robust, and dramatic spaces. The double-height main reception area was well-lit through 'immense' glazing onto the forecourt and featured striking marble, timber, and terrazzo surfaces.[47] Artworks commissioned for the building were prominently displayed.[48] Designed as a showplace for the Queensland Government, the building and grounds were floodlit at night.[49]
\nAs well as occupying pre-existing buildings, the Queensland Government constructed purpose-built buildings to accommodate its administration and departmental offices in Brisbane. These buildings were reflective of the circumstances of the government and illustrate its operations over time.
\nThe Main Roads Department building was purpose-designed, accommodating the Main Roads Department's diverse uses in repetitive and rationalised floor plates. Although offices and administration areas comprised the majority, the building also included: basement car parking; food facilities for the staff - a large cafeteria with kitchen, kiosk for snacks, and lunch room; staff training facilities - a large, double-height auditorium with the latest projection equipment; a technical and recreation library; a room for displaying models of major Main Roads projects, and; a large air-conditioning plant and a caretaker's flat. The building was designed to incorporate modern office technology. The department's technical and commercial electronic data processing divisions were accommodated in the basement, including their state of the art computer, the largest in Queensland at the time.[50] The computer was serviced by a special, independent air-conditioning system, designed to keep the computer room at a constant temperature and humidity[51], with the heat generated by the computer absorbed by the ornamental ponds at the front of the building.[52] A system of vacuum message tubes connected all sections of the building[53] and there were telephones and a master clock system, CCTV, a teleprinter system, a Xerox machine, and a dumbwaiter for the movement of files between floors.[54]
\nThe building was completed in August 1967. In September the MRD moved more than 1250 personnel, from eight offices, into its new $4.5 million head office. The building was officially opened on 6 November 1967 by GFR Nicklin, Premier of Queensland, who stated that ‘this new building, with its modern appointments, the latest business equipment - including a computer - research and design facilities, will greatly enhance the department's work and its world-class reputation'.[55]
\nThe new head office was commended at the time. It featured in the 7 September 1967 edition of The Queensland Master Builder, which detailed the building's construction techniques and highlighted its modern technology. According to the MRD's magazine Queensland Roads, there were hopes ‘that the construction of this building with its landscaped gardens and surroundings in the old Spring Hill area of Brisbane, [would] provide an incentive for other businesses and developers to follow the example of the Main Roads Department.'[56] Commissioner Barton viewed the MRD as ‘a giant consulting engineers and construction organisation', and stated ‘why should a department like Main Roads be any different from private business ... [W]e hope that when our officers are dealing with people they will get the idea that we are here to do business just as efficiently and effectively as anybody else in the community'.[57] The Courier-Mail added that ‘the building design, layout of office space and staff facilities, gives the Main Roads Department an air of big business, not the traditional Government department organisation', while the Mines and Main Roads Minister, RE Camm, claimed that the new building ‘would be one of the most effective ways of organising Main Roads personnel and facilities for a bolder attack on the problems of the future'.[58]
\nThe new 'luxury' head office was only part of the MRD's building program. By the end of the 1960s the department had also constructed new buildings to accommodate its new regional offices in Rockhampton, Cloncurry, Barcaldine, Toowoomba, Mackay, and Warwick, which had responsibility over their local main roads.[59]
\nIn c1969 the artwork Communications by important Queensland sculptor, Leonard Shillam, was installed at the MRD building in Spring Hill. It was commissioned for the building in 1968, made in cast aluminium over painted concrete, and depicted a bas relief map with a rural area and urban area connected by a road.[60]
\nLanger died in 1969. As an architect and town planner, he had a pronounced impact upon the built environment of Australia, especially in Queensland. Having a deep belief in community responsibilities, particularly in cultural matters, he had been active in the Royal Australian Institute of Architects; first president (1952) of the Queensland division of the Royal Australian Planning Institute; a founder and chairman (1966-68) of the Queensland Association of Landscape Architects; and a member (1963-69) of the National Trust of Queensland. Important examples of his architectural work include the Langer residence at St Lucia [QHR 600317] (1950); Mackay Sugar Research Station [QHR 602642] (1953); Lennon's Hotel Broadbeach (1957, demolished) and Lennon's Hotel Toowoomba (1957); St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg [QHR 602815] (1960); Kingaroy Town Hall and Civic Square (1963); Assembly Hall at Ipswich Girls Grammar [QHR 600565] (1964); and St Peter's Lutheran College Chapel [QHR 602816] (1968). He was responsible for notable urban ideas of the 1950s and 1960s, including choosing the sites of the Sydney Opera House and Federal Parliament House; the pedestrian shopping mall in Queen Street, Brisbane; and the first canal development of the Gold Coast.[61] After his death, both The University of Queensland and The Queensland Institute (later University) of Technology with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects established annual student prizes in memoriam. His body of work is a clearly-distinguishable exploration of a sub-tropical modernism and is important in the evolution of Queensland architecture, with Langer described as 'arguably the most influential architect of the 1950s'.[62]
\nFrom the head office, the MRD administered its important work. Motor vehicle ownership continued to rise and the highway network in Queensland was expanded substantially in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s and 2000s the department's work became more sophisticated to cope with increased traffic. By the end of the 2010s the department was responsible for the state's largest built community asset - the Queensland state-controlled road network, worth over $46 billion and carrying more than 85% of the state's traffic. Examples of major main roads projects co-ordinated from the head office include: the Southeast Freeway (1972), the Beef Roads and Developmental Roads schemes of the 1970s, the Bald Hills to Burpengary Deviation of the Bruce Highway (1977) and many subsequent upgrades and extensions of the highway, the Gateway Arterial Road and Bridge (1986), and the Pacific Motorway (2000).[63]
\nOver time the head office building was altered. In c1974 the fountain jets of the forecourt pond were altered to stacked boulder waterfalls.[64] The building was also altered internally to accommodate different office fit-outs. In 2006 the forecourt of the building was remodelled to a design by architects, BAC Group to provide building code compliant pedestrian access to the front entrance. This work included replacement of the original awning with a modern, steel and glass awning, adding two concrete ramps to the entrance bridge, altering the forecourt gardens and ponds, and installing the sculpture The Red Cube[65] at the front of the building.
\nWhile the building was being painted in 2007 it was identified approximately 6% of the render on the northern sun hoods needed repair. The hoods were investigated by structural engineers, no sign of structural distress was identified, and trial repairs of the render were undertaken in 2008.[66]
\nIn March 2009 the MRD merged with Queensland Transport to form the Department of Transport and Main Roads, which continued the control of the state's main roads. In 2012 the department vacated the MRD building. It was sold to Asian Pacific Group Pty Ltd in December 2013.
","criteria":"Notable for its landmark attributes and expressive architectural qualities, the place is important for its aesthetic significance.
The former Main Roads Department Building is highly visible from the surrounding suburb and maintains an imposing streetscape presence. Modernist in style, the building's simplified sculptural form is distinguished through a variety of treatments, including off-form textured concrete, stone spandrel panels, facebrick, egg-crate screening and breeze blocks. The abstract, graphic layout of the forecourt and side gardens, including pond and entrance bridge, and; the use of high-quality Queensland materials and artworks in the public reception areas complete the design.
|Designed to accommodate the department and to express its work, the place has a strong and special association with the Main Roads Department, which had a crucial influence on the economic and social development of Queensland during the twentieth century. It served as the head office for the department for 45 years.
|The former Main Roads Department Building (1967) is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government's response to the rise in mass motoring in the second half of the twentieth century. Purpose-built to consolidate and modernise the department's activities associated with expanding and upgrading the state's road network, it was the largest reinforced concrete office building in Queensland at the time of its construction, illustrating the importance of Main Roads operations and contribution to the state's economic advancement.
The place is also important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland architecture as a good, intact example of a substantial, architect-designed building in a Modernist style adapted to suit local conditions.
|The place is a good, intact and representative example of the work of architect, Dr Karl Langer, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of his work. Most notably, it: displays a hybrid of subtle Classical allusions and Modernist architectural devices including a forecourt and stylised colonnade front; features characteristic simplified forms, decoration and spatial arrangements and a restrained use of high-quality materials; is sited and its form is manipulated for optimum orientation for natural light and ventilation of the interior, and; is designed to be fit for purpose. As the largest commission of his career, it is a rare illustration of Langer's principles applied on a large scale.
The place is a good, intact and representative example of a mid-twentieth century highrise office building in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type, including: notable height to footprint ratio; expressive and all-encompassing Modernist aesthetic; reinforced concrete construction; refined treatment of the ground floor/primary entry; urban, public space used as setting for the building; rationalisation and repetition of the floor plan; and integration of state-of-the-art office technology and staff facilities.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion H | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35198,"place_ref":602840,"name":"Mutdapilly State School","alternate_name":"Normanby National School","street_address":"4 Mutdapilly-Churchbank Weir Road","suburb":"MUTDAPILLY","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-10-10","description":"Mutdapilly State School stands on an elevated 6.18ha site on the Cunningham Highway, Mutdapilly. The school comprises a number of small buildings, a tennis court and established trees, which are located on the 3 acre (1.21ha) portion of the site that constituted the school until 1995. Mutdapilly State School is a landmark in its rural setting along the highway.
Set well back from and facing the highway is the Suter designed building (1874 with 1880 extension), a one-storey, lowset, timber-framed building clad with weatherboards and sheltered by a gable roof lined with corrugated metal sheets. The verandahs front (west) and back (east) are accessed by one short flight of timber stairs from the front verandah and two from the back verandah. The verandahs have raked ceilings lined with v-jointed timber boards and a timber rail balustrade between stop-chamfered timber posts extends along the front and back perimeters.
The front verandah has enclosed sections at both ends: the northern enclosure is an early store room accessed from the verandah; and the southern enclosure is a 1960s library with timber-framed awning windows and is accessed from the interior. The rear verandah retains the original hat room enclosure at the southern end and a 1960s wired glass enclosure at the northern end. The front verandah retains two sets of original timber-framed casement windows (one is boarded over inside the northern store room).
The northern and southern gable ends have tall, timber-framed casement windows sheltered by a timber-framed hood with battened cheeks. Most windows have internal timber architraves and retain early hardware. Elements that are not of cultural heritage significance include the verandah doors, the large banks of glass louvre windows and security screens attached to windows in the rear verandah wall.
In 2014 it is used as an administration building. The interior layout comprises two rooms, separated by timber partitions and a small, central room. The part-height timber partition of the southern room is not of cultural heritage significance. The walls of the northern 1874 classroom are lined with wide horizontal timber boards. Vertical-jointed timber boards clad the walls of the southern 1880 extension, as well as the coved ceiling of all three rooms. Timber tie beams are exposed within the spaces.
The playshed stands south of the Suter designed building. The timber-framed shelter has a concrete floor and a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. Ten timber posts support the roof and are roughly-finished timber logs. The northern side of the shelter is open and the other three sides are enclosed with corrugated metal sheets.
The school grounds are well established and include many mature trees. Two fan palms (Livistona australis) featured on the school logo stand either side of the front entrance of the Suter building. Other established trees line the boundaries of the site. The tennis court (1925) is located northwest of the Suter building. It has a modern surface and is surrounded by a high chain wire fence.
The other buildings and structures within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Mutdapilly State School opened in 1874 as Normanby National School (Normanby State School from 1875), in a small timber building designed by architect Richard George Suter. It was built on a 2 acre (0.8ha) site, at an intersection on the main road through the agricultural settlement of Mutdapilly, to service the sparse but growing rural population. The Suter building was extended in 1880, and the school grounds were also expanded and other structures and landscape elements were added, including a tennis court (1925); a new playshed (c1928), and shade trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nTraditionally the land of the Yuggera people, closer European settlement of the Mutdapilly area began in the early 1860s. Mutdapilly State School is located on the former Ipswich Agricultural Reserve, which was formed in 1860 from 11,000 acres (4452 hectares) of land resumed from pastoral runs either side of Warrill Creek.[1] The land west of Warrill Creek was part of George Thorn's pastoral run ‘Normanby' (formerly ‘Rosebrook').[2] The first land sales in the reserve took place in April 1861,[3] and a number of German settlers arrived in the district during the 1860s. Most selectors in the reserve during this decade grew cotton, although this industry faded in the 1870s.[4] Other crops, grazing, and dairying then became the primary industries of the area. The Mutdapilly Divisional Board was established in 1879 and the Normanby Divisional Board (later Shire Council) was formed, out of part of the Mutdapilly Division, in 1890.
\nNormanby National School was established at Mutdapilly as one of an expanding network of state-run primary schools. The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for the further key initiatives of free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[6]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a major community focus for social interaction, a symbol of progress and a source of pride with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and halls used for community purposes reinforced these connections together with fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, polling days, sporting events, reunions, and dances, all held within the schools' buildings and grounds[7].
\nFrom the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber framed, taking advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: the teaching building/s, the school yard, the sports oval, the head teacher's residence, and a variety of landscape elements such as sporting facilities or play equipment, playsheds, gardens and trees.[8]
\nIn 1873, 2 acres (0.8 hectare) of Portion 20 (originally 79 acres, or 32 hectares) was donated by Joseph Denman for a school at Mutdapilly,[9] while the local community raised their share of the cost to construct a teaching building, teacher's residence, playshed and buggy shed.[10] Builder William Adam's tender of £289 was accepted in 1873 and the Normanby National School opened on 27 April 1874.[11] There were 19 students present on the first day; 35 were enrolled by June 1874, and 56 by November 1874.[12] The school grounds acted as a site for the postal service's Receiving Office from 1876,[13] and the school was known as the Normanby State School by 1877.[14]
\nThe Board of General Education preferred that national school buildings were single storey, but had no other architectural stipulations. Consequently, the buildings varied depending on the architect responsible. The teaching building at Normanby National School was designed by Richard Suter (1827-94), a private architect commissioned from 1865 by the Board of General Education to design school buildings. From 1868, Suter was responsible for most of the Board's buildings. Although Suter's Brisbane school buildings were of brick construction, in rural areas he designed timber-framed school buildings. In his timber school designs, Suter incorporated an ‘outside studding' construction technique he was developing, whereby a building with timber stud framing was clad only internally, creating a distinctive exterior of exposed framing similar in appearance to half-timbered construction. Suter is credited with being the first to use this technique in Queensland.[15] Outside studding for school architecture was continued by Suter's successors for another 50 years.[16]
\nAs in other Australian colonies, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help to ensure consistency and economy. Prior to, and during Suter's first years, schools were individually designed but conformed to the space requirements set by the Board. In 1869 a ‘recommended plan' for provisional schools was created by Suter [17] that was generic and could be used on any site. It was a lowset structure with gable roof, rectangular in plan with a small porch. An ‘improved plan' developed in 1873 addressed criticisms by Inspectors that the heat inside classrooms was ‘unbearable'.[18] It comprised a single large room with a front and back verandah, providing weather protection and sheltered play and teaching space. It was the beginning of a distinctive design, where the circulation to classrooms was via a verandah, continuing until at least the 1960s.
\nAlthough Suter did not intend this plan to be used broadly, the Board of Education, who were faced with an increasing population and limited budget, disseminated it throughout Queensland. As a result, Suter's designs had wide distribution. This had considerable impact on the spread of outside studding as a building technique in Queensland and may have been the main influence in its quick acceptance and use as a vernacular building form throughout the Colony.[19]
\nThe reuse of designs diminished the need to pay Suter additional architectural fees and the relationship between Suter and the government became strained. Suter continued as approved architect until 1875 when he was replaced.[20] Around 65 timber school buildings were constructed to Suter's standard type. Of these, only three (Waterford State School [QHR 602672], Morayfield State School, and Mutdapilly State School) are largely intact.[21]
\nThe teaching building at Normanby was typical of Suter's improved plan. It was a lowset timber building and its walls consisted of pine chamfered boards with external hardwood studding. The building faced west, with 7.25ft (2.2m) wide verandahs on the east and west sides, and accommodated one large room 30ft x 16ft (9.1m x 4.8m). There was a wash basin and hat room on the rear verandah, with a ‘shelf for dinner'.[22] The gable roof was clad with hardwood shingles, the roof framing was exposed internally and the few windows were small.
\nEnrolments grew quickly at the school, doubling to 70 in five years.[23] Around 1880 the Suter building was extended to the south by 21ft (6.4m) forming a separate classroom. The extension was similar in form and detail to the original portion but was not lined internally. Rather, it was clad externally, marking a shift in the preferred construction technique from external to internal stud framing. By 1887 the partition between the classrooms was attacked by termites and may have been removed at this time.
\nA photograph of the Suter building taken in 1896 shows the exposed stud framing of the eastern (rear) verandah wall had been lined, suggesting that all external walls may have been clad when the 1880 extension was built. This could have resulted from the need for weatherproofing or to arrest deterioration at the cross joints, recognised problems of the outside studding technique. A photograph taken c.1910 shows a similar view with sets of four horizontal pivot windows on each side of the door. Either these did not appear in the 1896 photograph because of the angle of the photograph, or they were installed at a later date. It is possible that the back wall of the Suter building did not have windows, given the seating gallery inside. A photograph of the front (west) of the school c.1915 shows the front verandah wall clad to cover up the originally exposed stud framing and no windows in the north (1874) gable.[24]
\nSuter's standard designs were continually refined by his successors in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Suter's designs were not without problems - in particular, they were criticised for lack of ventilation. Later school architects focussed intently on improving climate control, lighting and ventilation and were particularly innovative in their responses.
\nIn 1907 the Suter building at Mutdapilly had its roof shingles replaced with corrugated galvanised iron. A coved ceiling was installed in the classroom following the line of the collar tie of the rafters, leaving the tie at the top of the walls exposed, and a raked ceiling was installed in the verandahs. A drawing of this work shows the building lowset, with a gallery for desks and seating on the eastern side of the room. The front elevation had two doors from the front verandah and three windows with low sills each apparently containing two sashes. The spacing of these windows in the wall suggests that they are the original 1874 windows symmetrically arranged each side of the door and an additional matching set added with the 1880 extension.[25]
\nBesides changes to the Suter building, there were other changes at the school. In 1914-15 the school purchased one acre (0.4ha) of land to the north from Norman Joseph Denman; and the school committee eventually succeeded in having the new area fenced in 1920.[26] The school's 50th jubilee was celebrated on 28 April 1924 with a banquet and dance held within the Suter building, attended by past pupils and residents;[27] similarly, the school's 60th, 70th, and 80th jubilees were celebrated in 1934,[28] 1944,[29] and 1954.
\nThe grounds of Normanby school included outdoor play areas and structures. The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as well as classrooms, they provided plans for playsheds, free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and were often used for unofficial teaching space when needed. They were timber-framed structures, generally open on all sides although were sometimes partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets. The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron and they had an earth or decomposed granite floor. Fixed timber seating ran between the perimeter posts. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s. They were built to standard designs that ranged in size relative to student numbers. School sites were typically cleared of all vegetation and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed.
\nBy the 1920s, Mutdapilly was part of a booming dairy farming region.[30] In 1924 the original 1874 playshed was still in use,[31] but soon after (c.1928), a new playshed was erected. This incorporated some of the roof framing of its predecessor and was built to the south of the Suter building. Pat Collins and Joe [Norman] Denman donated posts for the new shed, which was built by Mr Hall and Ben Denman for $250.[32] The local community raised half the money needed for a 2000 gallon (9092 litre) tank for the shed, with the government providing the other half.[33]
\nTrees and gardens were also planted as part of beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890 and were occurring at Mutdapilly State School at least one year before 1897.[34]
\nEducationalists believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors. In 1897, Normanby School was praised by the Inspector for its well-kept grounds and in 1914 it was ‘in the small list of schools whose grounds strikingly illustrated perseverance and determination in successfully overcoming difficulties'.[35] In the Annual Prizes for School Gardens, Normanby received third place in 1916. The school has planted many indigenous and exotic trees as a result of Arbor Day celebrations.
\nThe growth of Mutdapilly remained limited, so only minor increases in student accommodation were needed. By the 1920s the verandahs of the Suter building were ceiled, and the south end of the front (west) verandah was enclosed for a library 10ft (3.05m) long.[36] In 1931 the interior of the 1880s portion was re-lined.[37]
\nA tennis court was built northwest of the Suter building, on the land purchased c.1915, and a working bee in July 1925 saw significant work completed, including carting antbed and the erection of the majority of the posts.[38] The tennis court was formally opened on Arbor Day in August 1925.[39]
\nDuring the 1920s and 1930s alterations were made to the vast majority of older school buildings to upgrade their lighting and ventilation. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and became central to the design and layout of all school buildings from 1900.[40] Windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room. Desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students would be right-handed. The change in philosophy often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educators.[41] This was a noticeable new direction and the better lit and ventilated form became a characteristic of Queensland schools.
\nAt Normanby State School, the Suter building was altered to improve lighting and ventilation in the 1920s. The two narrow windows in the northern and southern gable walls were replaced with new, larger, casement windows to improve lighting conditions internally. Then in 1931, these were replaced with a substantial area of casement windows with higher sill heights and new sunshades. Further, in 1933 additional casement windows inserted into the eastern verandah wall to increase the lighting and ventilation of the interior.
\nAlthough electricity was available in the district from the 1950s, it was not connected to the school until March 1967.[42] In 1954, the Normanby School obtained a radiogram, powered by a 6 volt battery,[43] to be used for the ABC's ‘radio-film' broadcasts, particularly valuable for geography and nature studies. In that same year, two palm trees were planted west of the school building, and the school celebrated their 80th anniversary with a luncheon and afternoon tea in the playshed, and later a dance in the school.[44]
\nBetween the 1960s and the 1980s Queensland education was reformed. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved requiring new architectural responses. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. With new educational philosophies, government policies and functional requirements combined with new architectural styles, materials and technologies, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design with inspiration drawn from new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly highset.
\nOn 1 April 1968 the school was renamed Mutdapilly State School. Prior to this, there was a large sign in front of the school reading, ‘NORMANBY STATE SCHOOL' which created confusion for visitors to the Mutdapilly area. Much of the mail addressed to ‘Normanby State School' was also often delivered to Red Hill post office in Brisbane, with postal authorities presumably thinking there was a school near the ‘Normanby' Hotel there.[45]
\nDuring the third term of 1968 the teaching building was restumped with concrete stumps. The one large room was made into two equal size rooms by the provision of large folding doors. The library/storeroom on the front verandah was expanded and had hopper windows installed. In the back verandah wall were inserted new banks of louvres and new doors. The cladding of the hat room on the rear verandah was replaced by Georgian wired glass panels and the back wall of the hat room at the south end of the verandah was removed. The school's old post and rail fence was also replaced by a tubular steel and chain wire fence.[46]
\nOn the school's centenary celebrations on 27 April 1974, a commemorative tree was planted by the oldest pupil. By this time the school had an attendance of 39 pupils - compared to the 35 in 1874.[47] The north end of the front verandah of the school was enclosed in 1977 to accommodate a store room.
\nIn 1990 a new teaching building was constructed to the east of the Suter building, and in 1995 the grounds were extended to the north and east, with the creation of a new allotment of 5.37 hectares (which incorporated the one acre c.1915 extension to the school, but not the originally donated 2 acres, which remains as a separate allotment); allowing room for a school oval. In 1999 a modular building was erected to the south of the 1990 building, and between 2006 and 2009 a Building Education Revolution hall was constructed north of Suter building. In 2009 the school had 50 pupils.
\nIn 2014, the school retains the Suter building, the c.1928 playshed, the 1925 tennis court and mature Arbor Day plantings. The school is important to the town and district, having operated since 1874 and taught generations of Mutdapilly students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Mutdapilly community, with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time.
","criteria":"Mutdapilly State School (established in 1874 as Normanby National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education, and its associated architecture, in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. The teaching building (1874), designed by architect Richard Suter, is an early standardised design; and the playshed (c.1928), demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum.
The mature trees around the school are a result of the policies of promoting school beatification, providing shade trees, and encouraging students' work ethic through Arbor Day plantings.
|The Suter building at Mutdapilly State School is rare as one of three known surviving intact examples of the approximately 65 buildings of this type constructed.
|Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. Mutdapilly State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Mutdapilly community. It was established in 1874 through the fund-raising efforts of the local community and has educated generations of Mutdapilly children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Mutdapilly and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
|Mutdapilly State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools, including standard building designs by the Queensland Government.
The Suter building retains the characteristics of its original design. It is single-skin timber-framed and lowset, with front and rear verandahs and a single classroom that is well ventilated and day-lit. Changing philosophies in state primary education are evident in the modifications made to this building, including enlarged windows, and the change in cladding at the time of the 1880 extension reflected the move away from external stud framing.
The playshed has a hipped timber-framed roof form supported on timber posts.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35199,"place_ref":602845,"name":"Toowong State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"50 Quinn Street (37 St Osyth Street)","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-11-28","description":"Toowong State School occupies a 0.86ha site on a hilltop in Toowong, bounded by St Osyth Street to the east, residential properties to the south, Quinn Street to the west, and residential properties and the end of Kate Street to the north. The school buildings stand at the eastern end of the property with a playing field, new sports hall and a lower garden area at the western end. The levelled school grounds are edged by concrete retaining walls. The main entrance is via a brick gateway from St Osyth Street with a secondary entrance from Kate Street.
The school complex comprises six long, narrow buildings, linked together by verandahs. All are timber-framed and clad, highset on concrete stumps and accessed by timber stairs. They have a variety of roof forms, all clad in corrugated metal sheeting. From east to west, the buildings are:
- the 1917 Open-air Annexe;
- the 1910 Department of Public Works building;
- the 1887 Ferguson building;
- the 1880 Ferguson building; and
- the 1924 (south) and 1927 (north) Sectional School buildings.
The understorey is partially enclosed to form toilet blocks, storage areas and additional classrooms. Constructed at different times using a variety of materials, none of these understorey enclosures are of cultural heritage significance.
1917 Open-air Annexe (enclosed 1924)
The Open-air Annexe is orientated north-south with a west verandah. An extension to the northern end (ca.1956) is not of cultural heritage significance. The building is clad in chamferboards and has banks of timber-framed awning windows in the eastern wall. The roof form is hipped-gable at the southern end and gabled at the extended northern end.
The verandah wall is single-skin with exposed timber framing, and the raked verandah ceiling is lined with timber, tongue and groove, v-jointed boards. A timber ventilation flap at floor level survives along the verandah wall. Part of the timber, three-rail balustrade has been replaced by bagracks at the northern end. The verandah doors are timber, braced and ledged double doors with fanlights above, and windows are double-hung timber sashes.
The original large, single classroom is divided by a later single-skin timber partition to form two classrooms, connected by a timber, half-glazed double door. The walls are lined with vertical, v-jointed boards. A high, horizontal timber rail marks the height of former openings in the exterior walls. The coved ceiling is lined with decorative pressed metal and metal tie rods are exposed within the room.
1910 Department of Public Works building
The 1910 Department of Public Works building is orientated east-west with a north verandah and an enclosed south verandah with a projecting teachers' room. It is clad in weatherboards and has a gable roof. The gable end walls feature triangular, louvred ventilation panels at the apex and windows sheltered by a skillion hood with decorative window brackets. These windows are later glass louvres inserted in the original window openings. The south verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards and timber-framed awning windows. The former teachers' room has early windows in the southern wall, which are individual, timber-framed, horizontally centre-pivoting windows. These retain a window hood with decorative timber brackets.
The north verandah has a raked ceiling lined with v-jointed tongue and groove boards; a single-skin verandah wall with exposed framing and a section of cross bracing (in the location of a former door); and part of its timber, three rail balustrade has been replaced by bagracks. All windows and doors are later replacements. Part of the northwest corner of the building has been removed to allow a connection between the verandah and a walkway along the southern side of the adjacent 1887 Ferguson building. The walls of the removed section are lined with flat sheeting and a half-glazed double door opens on to the walkway.
The original large single classroom of the interior is divided into two classrooms by a later partition lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. The walls and coved ceiling are lined with v-jointed tongue and groove boards. The ceiling has square lattice ceiling vents and metal tie rods are exposed in the space. Doors and windows have been removed from the south verandah wall and new doorways created, however the original window framing and sills remain.
The enclosed south verandah has a single-skin verandah wall with a section of cross bracing in the location of a former door. Rows of metal hat hooks are attached to this wall below the former windows. The raked verandah ceiling is lined with v-jointed boards. The former hat enclosures at either end of the verandah remain, indicated by the single-skin walls with exposed framing. The teacher's room is lined with v-jointed boards on the walls and coved ceiling, which has a square lattice ventilation panel.
1887 Ferguson building
The 1887 Ferguson building is aligned north-south with verandahs on its long sides. It has a gable roof and is clad in chamferboards. Extensions to the north end of the building (1960, containing a staff room), to the eastern verandah and former teachers' room (ca.1960, containing offices), and a ca.1950s walkway and awning along the south facade are not of cultural heritage significance.
The south gable end wall has a triangular, louvred ventilation panel at its apex (boarded over), eaves lined with diagonal timber boards, and decorative eaves brackets. The western verandah has a raked ceiling lined with diagonal timber beaded boards above exposed rafters, some stop-chamfered verandah posts, and a balustrade of bagracks. It connects at the southern end to the 1881 Ferguson building via a passageway with an early double door and fanlight. The eastern verandah is mostly enveloped by an extension but is discernible by its chamferboard cladding (made internal by the extension). The former teachers' room has a coved ceiling lined with timber boards.
The building retains three sets of original tall, vertically centre-pivoting windows in the side walls. Windows in the southern wall have been replaced by glass louvres with a section of awning windows above. One early, half-glazed double door with tall, vertically centre-pivoting fanlights survives in its original position in the centre of the west wall. The opposite door has a similar fanlight and a later door.
The interior walls are lined with vertical v-jointed boards, with some areas of flat sheeting. The gable end walls are only lined up to the height of the side walls, revealing the original single-skin construction above. Abutting an extension, the north gable end wall retains a louvred ventilation panel and a section of later windows despite no longer being an exterior wall. The raked ceilings are lined with diagonal, wide, beaded timber boards, and the exposed Queen post roof trusses have decorative features including stop-chamfered edges and turned timber pendants.
1880 Ferguson building
The 1880 Ferguson building has a T-shaped plan accommodating two large classrooms: an eastern classroom orientated east-west with a north verandah and enclosed south verandah; and a western classroom orientated north-south with an enclosed west verandah. The building is clad in chamferboards and the gable roof has four long dormer windows over the eastern classroom. The gable end walls of the western classroom have banks of early awning windows; skillion window hoods with decorative brackets; decorative timberwork such as eaves brackets; and small ventilation panels at the gable apex.
The north verandah has a timber balustrade; stop-chamfered verandah posts and beams; and a raked ceiling lined with diagonal wide timber beaded boards above exposed rafters. Original tall, vertically centre-pivoting windows survive at the western end of the verandah wall. Also at the western end is a former hat room enclosure with metal hooks attached to the walls. The enclosed south verandah retains stop-chamfered verandah posts and beams, and a raked ceiling lined with diagonal timber beaded boards above exposed rafters. The enclosed western verandah retains a raked ceiling lined with diagonal timber beaded boards above exposed rafters; rows of metal hooks mounted to the verandah wall; and remnant walls of a former hatroom at the northern end.
The interiors of both classrooms are lined with vertical, v-jointed, tongue and groove boards and have raked ceilings lined with diagonal beaded boards above exposed Queen post trusses. The ceiling of the eastern classroom also has dormer windows and horizontal sections lined with v-jointed boards. The gable end walls of the western classroom are only lined up to the height of the side walls, revealing the original single-skin construction above. An early glazed partition and door separates the two classrooms. Mounted on the wall next to this partition is a large cedar memorial Honour Board, listing the names of former students and teachers who served in World War I. A timber, single-skin partition has been inserted at the northern end of the western classroom, creating a passageway between the north and west verandahs.
1924 and 1927 Sectional School buildings
The Sectional School buildings are both aligned east-west with enclosed verandahs along one side, casement windows along the other, and blank end walls. They have gable roofs and are clad in weatherboards with packed boards in the gable ends walls to provide ventilation. The attached teacher's room on the north side of the 1924 building has a hipped roof, early casement windows and a skillion window hood with battened timber brackets. A single casement window is also located on the southern wall of the 1927 building where a former hat room enclosure survives.
The 1924 building, which was extended at either end in ca.1960, contains three classrooms. The walls are lined with timber, v-jointed tongue and groove boards and one early, single-skin, timber partition wall remains. The central and western classrooms have a coved ceiling lined with v-jointed boards, with exposed metal tie rods and square lattice ceiling vents. The eastern classroom has a flat ceiling lined with flat sheeting. The former verandah wall, which has had large openings cut into it, is single-skin with some sections of cross bracing. The verandah ceiling and the walls and ceiling of the attached teacher's room are all lined with v-jointed boards.
The 1927 building also contains three classrooms, with the walls and coved ceiling lined with v-jointed boards. The ceiling has exposed metal tie rods and square lattice ceiling vents. Large openings have been created in the dividing partition walls and new walls built to create a smaller room in the centre of the building and larger rooms at either end. The enclosed verandah retains its ceiling lining of v-jointed boards and early double-hung sash windows survive in the single-skin verandah wall.
The school retains a collection of early school furniture and memorabilia, including brass bells. The location of a time capsule is marked by a plaque set into the ground on the northern side of the 1880 Ferguson building.
Due to the sloping terrain, high concrete retaining walls form the perimeter of the school property. These are topped by a concrete capping with an angled top. A variety of mature trees are found throughout the school grounds, particularly along the south and west boundaries. Specimens include a sausage tree (Kigelia), Frangipani (Plumeria), Poinciana (Delonix regia), and Paperbark (possibly Melaleuca leucadendra). Views of the surrounding neighbourhood and towards the Brisbane CBD are obtained from the school buildings.
","history":"Toowong State School opened on 22 January 1880, but moved to its present site between Quinn and St Osyth Streets in 1910. The original building was an 1880 Ferguson building with an 1887 addition. At its new site, a Department of Public Works designed classroom (1910), an Open-air Annexe (1917), and two Sectional School buildings (1924 and 1927) were added. Retaining walls were constructed as relief work during in the 1930s; and mature plantings stand along the southern boundary. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nTraditionally the land of the Turrbal people, European settlement of the Toowong area began with the sale of land in the 1850s. By the 1860s the area, within three miles of Brisbane city, was noted for its detached villas on large suburban allotments along the river and on its ridges, and was favoured as a residential area by Brisbane's elite. With the extension of the railway line to Ipswich via Toowong in 1875, the settlement grew rapidly. Subdivision of large properties for residential development began and the area's growth led to the proclamation of Toowong Shire in 1880.[1]
\nWith Toowong's rising population came demand for education in the area.[2] A site in Aston Street was offered for sale to the Toowong State School Committee by architect Richard Gailey for £300 with a donation of £150. The remaining money required for the construction of a school building and a teacher's residence was raised by the local community. The new school (buildings and land), costing a total of £1162 14s, was constructed by contractor NB Headland and opened on the 22 January 1880. Pupils came from great distances, including from Indooroopilly, Milton, and across the river from West End.[3]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools were established in 1848 in New South Wales and continued in Queensland following the colony's creation in 1859. After the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland's public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[4] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[5]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[6]
\nThe first building at Toowong State School was built to a standard plan supplied by the Queensland Government. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[7]
\nIn 1879 the Department of Public Instruction appointed its own Superintendent of Buildings to be responsible for the design of all government schools, the first appointee being the builder-architect Robert Ferguson. Ferguson immediately revised the design of schools to address deficiencies in ventilation and lighting and this period of school design was pivotal in this regard. Ferguson introduced tall and decorative ventilation spires to the roof and louvred panels to the gable apex to vent the classrooms. Additional and larger windows were incorporated with high sill heights that did not allow draughts and sunlight to enter the room. The overall form was lowset on brick piers and in larger schools multiple classrooms were arranged symmetrically around a parade ground. The designs remained single-skin to eliminate 'receptacles for germs and vermin' but were lined externally rather than internally to address the previous weathering problem. Importantly, Ferguson's buildings were decoratively-treated with a variety of elaborate timber work and were heralded by educationalists as 'far superior in design, material and workmanship to any we have before built.[8]
\nIn 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced as Superintendent of Buildings by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother's designs until John's death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[9] The Ferguson period (1879-1893) is distinct and marked by extensive redesign of school buildings including associated structures and furniture. The Ferguson brothers' designs were reflective of education requirements of the time, responsive to criticism of previous designs, revolutionary in terms of internal environmental quality, technically innovative, popular and successful and provided a long-lasting legacy of good educational design.[10]
\nThe school building at Toowong State School was built to a standard Ferguson design.[11] It was constructed to accommodate 154 children, but could comfortably seat 200. An article published in the Brisbane Courier at the time praised it as a model for future school buildings in the colony.[12]
\nThe lowset teaching building was described as being 50ft x 18ft (15.24 x 5.49m), with a 35ft x 18ft (10.67 x 5.49m) cross wing at one end, and 8ft (2.44m) wide verandas. Ventilation and light was provided by windows in the side and gable end walls. Ventilators at the apex of each gable encouraged airflow. The exposed internal framework, made from ironbark, was dressed and stop chamfered to give the interiors a ‘neat and finished appearance in the absence of lining'.[13] The wall cladding was 6 x 1in (15 x 2.5cm) beech chamferboards, which were wrought and beaded on the inside. Floors, platforms and the infants' gallery, which was located in the cross wing, were constructed of white-ant resistant beech wood, supported on ironbark joists and bearers. The roof was clad in ironbark shingles, which were expected to last 25 years.[14]
\nThe school was extended in 1887 with the addition of another large classroom of a similar Ferguson design. It had the additional feature of a washroom attached to the verandah, which was later altered and enlarged to become the Principal's office. The tender of £406 for the construction of the new building was won by contractors Bromaby and Bowden in October 1886. The new classroom darkened the interior of the earlier classrooms, but this was alleviated when dormer windows were added in 1907.[15]
\nToowong experienced sustained growth into the twentieth century. On 19 August 1903 Toowong was declared a town under the provision of the Local Authorities Act 1902. In the same year, the tram service extended to the Toowong Cemetery and later along Dean Street and Woodstock Road to a terminus. By 1911 the population of the Toowong municipality was 6286, up 45% from 1891.[16]
\nThe growth of Toowong State School and the need for a more conveniently placed school for Toowong pupils, after the opening of schools at Milton and Indooroopilly, led to the suggestion that the school be moved.[17] In 1909 an elevated 2-acre site (0.81ha) in a more central location, between Quinn and St Osyth streets, was proposed as suitable for increased facilities and to accommodate 450 pupils.[18] Subsequently, in June 1910, a tender by J Macarthur for £1565 was accepted by the government for the re-erection of the school on its new site and for the construction of an additional teaching building.[19]
\nThe building constructed on the new site in 1910 was a standard design (Type C/T2) by the Department of Public Works, which retained responsibility for schools until 2013. Under the Department's stewardship, and through the involvement of some of Queensland's most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced and diverse. A period of marked experimentation in school design occurred between 1893 and 1914, with a primary focus on improving the natural light and ventilation of classroom interiors.[20] Various combinations of roof ventilators and ducting; ceiling and wall vents; and larger windows of varying sill heights and dormer windows were trialled. For timber-framed buildings, single-skin construction was favoured for its heat dissipation ability and economy. Often the building was lined on the interior rather than exterior, providing a smooth, cleanable surface that provided better interior light. The resulting externally-exposed stud framing was protected from the weather by wide verandahs, which had the added benefit of shading the building and providing makeshift teaching space. The introduction of highset buildings began in the late 1890s, providing better ventilation and additional teaching and covered play space underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools.[21]
\nThe 1910 Department of Public Works building constructed at Toowong incorporated many of these new design features.[22] It was highset with space beneath the building for a lavatory and water tank, as well as play space. It had a roof ridge ventilator and wider windows with lower sills to provide better light and ventilation. The width of the building was greater than the Ferguson buildings, 25 feet (7.6m), and hat enclosures were provided at the ends of the verandahs.
\nThe school began operating from its new site in September 1910 and all works were completed in the following year.[23] The Hon. EH McCartney, Minister for Lands, in the absence of the Minister for Education, officially opened the school in May 1911.[24] Additional land on the corner of Quinn Street and Sylvan Road was purchased in 1912, intended for playing fields, however few improvements were made to the site until the early 1950s when tennis courts were constructed.[25]
\nDuring World War I two additions were made to the school. A cedar honour board commemorating 115 former pupils and teachers who served during World War I was unveiled at the school in 1917 by Mr EH Macartney MLA.[26] For the total cost of £30, Messrs Patterson constructed the board and H Barker completed the writing.[27] Now housed in the library (the 1880 Ferguson building), the honour board was the site of wreath laying at ANZAC Day commemorations.[28]
\nSecondly, the growth of Toowong State School's enrolments to more than 500 children prompted the construction of an additional building, in the form of an Open-air Annexe, in 1917. Open-air Annexes were introduced as a standard design in 1913 by the Department of Public Instruction.[29] This design was developed in response to the contemporary medical belief, advocated by Dr Eleanor Bourne the first Medical Inspector of Schools from 1911, that adequate ventilation and high levels of natural light were necessary for child health; coupled with the need to build inexpensive, portable schools. Accordingly, school architecture evolved through iteration and experimentation to improve interior light and ventilation. The Open-air Annexe achieved maximum ventilation and natural light; it contained only one large room and had only one wall, the western verandah wall. The other sides were open with only adjustable canvas blinds for enclosure. Ideally, they were high-set, thereby increasing the ventilation and providing further shelter underneath. The design was praised by educationalists as conducive to the health of pupils.[30]
\nOfficially opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, The Hon. H F Hardacre, on 8 September 1917,[31] the Open-air Annexe was located at the eastern end of the school complex, linked to the 1910 Department of Public Works building by its verandah. It was a standard design, highset with a west-facing verandah and timber brackets supporting the wall posts of the remaining three sides. It contained a single 25 feet (7.6m) wide classroom and featured a coved ceiling of pressed metal. A ventilation flap was included along the base of the verandah wall.[32]
\nAlthough many Open-air Annexes were constructed across Queensland, they proved to be inadequate and were discontinued in 1923. The open sides provided limited weather protection, better climate control was needed, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. All Open-air Annexes in Queensland were modified to provide better enclosure.[33] Accordingly, in 1924 the Open-air Annexe at Toowong was enclosed and casement windows installed in the exterior walls.
\nDuring the 1920s, the school population continued to rise towards its 1927 peak of 895 pupils.[34] As the school could only accommodate 570 pupils and enrolment was expected to rise to 700 in 1924,[35] an additional wing and improvements to the school grounds were requested in November 1923.[36]
\nIn 1924 and again in 1927 teaching buildings were constructed at Toowong State School to a standard design by the Department of Public Works. These buildings were of a type called the Sectional School. Improvements to achieve an optimum classroom culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School type, a highset timber structure. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, and satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs. Most importantly, it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time. By late 1914, in accordance with the accepted principles, buildings were optimally orientated to maximise natural light from the south. Before the Sectional School, solar orientation was not a key consideration and all school buildings were positioned in relation to the street and property boundaries. The Sectional School type had only one verandah typically on the northern side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the blank end wall could be detached as the school grew and the building extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms - a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[37]
\nThe two Sectional School buildings at Toowong were constructed at the western end of the school complex, connected by verandahs to the 1880 Ferguson building to form a U-shaped courtyard. Due to the slope of the school grounds at that time, the buildings were lowset along the courtyard side, accessed by short flights of steps. Both contained three classrooms with a verandah along the courtyard side, however, the proportions were slightly different, with the 1927 building (north) being longer and narrower than the 1924 building (south). The 1924 building had an attached teachers' room and an additional verandah along its eastern side, and both buildings had hat room enclosures on their verandahs. Windows were banks of casements with fanlights.[38]
\nAs part of the government's unemployment relief program during the Great Depression, extensive work was carried out on the school grounds in the 1930s. This program began in 1932 when newly-elected Premier William Forgan-Smith instituted a capital works program focussed on building modern infrastructure to provide relief work for unemployed Queenslanders. The ‘improvement' of schools was a primary aspect of the scheme.[39] The relief work program ended in 1938, transitioning into a permanent, long-term, capital works program.
\nExtensive funding was given for school grounds improvement work, including fencing, and general ground levelling for play areas involving terracing and retaining walls. This work also created many large, flat school ovals within school grounds, which prior to this period, were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These then became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[40]
\nAt Toowong State School relief work included levelling the school grounds, raising the school buildings, replacing all wooden stumps with concrete, and installing sewerage. Concrete retaining walls around the school perimeter were constructed between 1932 and 1935. Dangerous trees were removed from the school grounds and replaced with shade trees under a planting programme running from the 1930s until at least 1980. These works provided the pupils with more playing and sitting areas underneath the now highset school buildings, as well as resolving the issue of massive water runoff onto neighbouring properties caused by siting the school on the crest of a hill.[41]
\nWorld War II brought the connection of electricity and the telephone to the school, when No. 53 Squadron Air Training Corps was given permission to use three school rooms, two nights a week.[42]
\nIn c1945 the teaching buildings at Toowong State School were altered to improve lighting and ventilation. The dormer windows of the 1880 Ferguson building were enlarged; windows in the gable end walls of both Ferguson buildings were widened and lowered so that the sill was 3 feet (0.9m) above the floor, with sun hoods modified accordingly; and sun hoods were added to the windows of the former Open-air Annexe. Other changes at this time included the removal of seating galleries in the Ferguson buildings, modification to some doors, and the installation of folding partitions between classrooms in the 1927 Sectional School.[43]
\nLike many suburbs of Brisbane, Toowong's population grew after World War II, as the nation experienced unprecedented population growth, and changes to the school reflected this. Two new classrooms, a health room and tuckshop were added, while the office and some classrooms were remodelled.[44] There were more improvements to the school grounds. Thirty-four perches (860 sq m) of land were purchased to extend the school ‘paddock' in 1946.[45] Two tennis courts built on the lower playing fields for £1,500 were officially opened in 1951 by Mr Michael Dury, MHR.[46]
\nDuring the 1950s and 60s, the school was enlarged by adding an extra classroom each on the northern sides of the 1887 Ferguson building and the former Open-air Annexe. These extensions were clad externally to match the original buildings and had banks of wide awning windows. Internally, they were lined with flat sheeting and the windows in the former end walls were removed. The 1924 Sectional School building was extended at both ends, its eastern verandah enclosed and the internal partitions modified to create three larger classrooms. Other modifications dating from this period include the addition of an office to the eastern verandah of the 1887 Ferguson building and the extension of its attached teacher's room, the insertion of partitions in the 1887 Ferguson and 1910 Department of Public Works buildings to create smaller classrooms, replacement of timber balustrades with bagracks, extension of verandahs and the addition and relocation of some stairs.[47]
\nThe 1970s were a time of upgrading school facilities. Between 1970 and 1974, reconstruction, drainage and grassing of the top oval occurred, as well as the levelling and grassing of the infants' play area, and the construction of gym towers, platforms and sandpits. More trees were planted and gardens created in the grounds and seats added to the playground. Electricity was installed in each classroom and the library, housed in the 1880 Ferguson building, was upgraded and extended.[48]
\nCentenary celebrations were held in 1980 with a centenary ball, walkathon, fete and reunion day and sports day, as well as the publication of a school history.[49] A new school gate to St Osyth Street was constructed, opened on 29 June 1980 by the Honourable Dr L R Edwards, MLA, Deputy Premier and Treasurer of Queensland, and a time capsule was buried on the northern side of the 1880 Ferguson building, to be retrieved in 2030.
\nOther changes to the school buildings over time include the relocation of doors and internal partitions; replacement of early windows with large banks of glass louvres or awning windows; the enclosure of some verandahs to extend classroom space; and the enclosure of parts of the understory area to create toilets, store rooms and additional classrooms. Recently, a basketball court at the western end of the school grounds was replaced by a sports hall.
\nIn 2014, the school continues to operate from the site established in 1910 and is the only state primary school in Toowong. The school retains early buildings constructed between 1880 and 1927, Depression-era landscaping and mature plantings. The school has served the community since 1880 and taught generations of Toowong students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Toowong community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. Toowong State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Toowong community. It was established through the efforts of the people of the suburb and has educated generations of Toowong children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Toowong and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events, with widespread community support.
|Toowong State School (established in 1880 but moved to its present site in 1910) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland.
With its complex of teaching buildings dating from the 1880s to the 1920s, the place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies in each period. The Ferguson designed teaching buildings (1880, 1887) are important for integrating changes to improve the practicality and comfort of school buildings and were early standardised designs. The Department of Public Works designed building (1910) illustrates the improvements made to the Ferguson school type. The former Open-air Annexe (1917) demonstrates medical and educational theories of the period which valued adequate ventilation and natural lighting; and the two Sectional School buildings (1925, 1927) demonstrate the culmination of many years of experimental timber school design, providing equally for educational and climatic needs.
|Toowong State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland state school complex, comprising a range of building types dating from 1880 to 1927 and incorporating later alterations to improve light and ventilation.
The place retains good, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to the prevailing government educational philosophies. In particular, the standard designs represented at Toowong are:
Two Ferguson buildings (1880 and 1887) with their large classrooms surrounded by generous verandahs with projecting teacher's rooms; decorative timberwork; ventilation features such as louvred gable vents and the addition of dormer windows; internal features such as raked ceilings with exposed queen post roof trusses; and original doors and windows.
A Department of Public Works designed building (1910) with its highset form; wider plan; generous verandahs with attached teacher's room and former hat room enclosures; ventilation features such as louvred gable vents; coved ceiling and early windows.
An Open-air Annexe (1917, enclosed 1924), with its highset, timber-framed construction; west-facing verandah; single-skin verandah wall with ventilation flap; timber internal wall linings, and coved, pressed metal ceiling with iron tie rods.
Two Sectional School buildings (1924 and 1927) with their gable roofs; verandah along one side; large banks of windows along the opposite side; coved ceiling with metal tie beams and ventilation panels; and subsequent classroom expansion.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion G | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35200,"place_ref":602841,"name":"Petrie State School","alternate_name":"Pine River North State School | North Pine River Provisional School | North Pine State School","street_address":"42 Dayboro Road (Brisbane Woodford Road)","suburb":"PETRIE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-10-10","description":"Petrie State School is located on the northern side of Dayboro Road (Brisbane Woodford Road), Petrie, on a sloping site that falls away from the road. The school is bounded by Tandoor Drive and residential properties to the north-west, Young Street to the north-east, and North Pine Anglican Church property to the south-east. The majority of school buildings are located in the south-western corner of the site, with the original 1878 Stanley building and 1888 Ferguson building overlooking Dayboro Road, set back in a garden setting with mature trees. Extensions to the south-east of the 1878 building (1962) and to the north of the 1888 building (1956 and 1962) are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
Joined together to form a T-shaped plan, both the Stanley and Ferguson sections are rectangular, timber-framed structures with gable roofs. Orientated to address the street, the Stanley building forms the south-eastern end of the building while the Ferguson building faces west. Due to the slope of the land, the front (south-west) sides of the buildings are lowset while the rear (north-east) sides are highset. Both sections are supported by a combination of square concrete and cylindrical metal stumps, with the underfloor area enclosed by modern vertical timber batten screens. Exterior walls are timber weatherboards and the roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting.
The Stanley building has a modern verandah enclosure on the south-west side, a 1954 extension to the south-east side (incorporating early fabric), and a partially enclosed verandah on the north-east side. The south-west facade is a recent wall with a new entrance door at the western end, accessed by a concrete ramp and a sheltered landing. None of these features are of cultural heritage significance. The south-east wall features a large bank of timber framed windows, some of which are early. The lower windows are tall, timber-framed casements of either three or four lights, while above each casement is a rectangular fanlight. The windows are sheltered by a timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad, skillion hood with decorative brackets. On the north-east side of the building a centrally located timber staircase leads to the verandah. The southern end of the verandah is enclosed with weatherboards and modern aluminium windows. The verandah has a timber floor, a raked ceiling with exposed rafters and lined with timber boards, and some stop-chamfered timber posts and beams.
On the interior of the Stanley building, the recently enclosed south-west verandah is a long space with a raked ceiling. It retains timber weatherboard cladding on the north-west and north-east walls and a section of exposed timber studwork at the eastern end of the north-east wall. All other floor, wall and ceiling linings in this space are recent and not of cultural heritage significance. Large openings in the north-east wall have replaced former windows and doors. A low-waisted, four-panel timber door with rectangular fanlight remains in the north-west wall, leading to the Ferguson building.
The main room has a high coved ceiling clad in timber V-jointed boards, with two square lattice ventilation panels and exposed timber tie-beams. The north-east, south-east and south-west walls are lined with vertical V-jointed timber boards, while the north-west wall is lined with flat sheeting. Sections of flat wall sheeting also exist at the western end of the north-east and south-west walls (where a passageway has been removed). On the south-west wall, the locations of former walls and doors are evident in places where there are horizontal breaks in the wall lining. Non-significant features include all internal openings, doors and windows, all floor linings of carpet and linoleum, a kitchen installed along the south-east wall, and the interior of the partially enclosed north-east verandah.
The Ferguson building has two visible facades: a gable end wall with tall windows on the main (south-west) side and a verandah along the north-west side. The windows in the gable end wall are tall, timber-framed, three-light casements with rectangular fanlights above. These are sheltered by a timber skillion-roofed hood clad in corrugated metal sheeting and lined on the underside with timber boards. The outer timber brackets supporting the hood are more finely detailed than the centre brackets, featuring stop-chamfered edges to all members. At the apex of the wall is a triangular ventilation panel of fixed timber louvres. This detail is repeated at the opposite end of the Ferguson building.
The north-west verandah features a raked ceiling lined with V-jointed timber boards, some stop-chamfered verandah posts and beams, and a timber floor. Alterations dating from the c.1950s include a section of the balustrade configured as bag racks and a screen of timber-framed glazing on a low brick base at the southern end. One early double door survives, located near the centre of the verandah wall (not in its original position). It is a low-waisted timber door with tall fanlights above. All other doors and windows in the western wall are modern replacements and are not of cultural heritage significance.
The interior of the Ferguson building has been divided by post-1950s partitions into three rooms and the roof framing is concealed by a ceiling of flat sheeting with cover strips. The southern room is the largest and most intact, retaining early horizontal beaded boards lining the south-east wall. The south-west and north-west walls are lined with timber V-jointed boards, and the north-east wall is lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. The walls of the two smaller rooms are completely lined with flat sheeting with cover strips, and floors throughout the building are carpeted. None of these modern linings are of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Petrie State School opened in 1879 as Pine River North State School, replacing two ‘half-time' provisional schools that had begun operating to the south and north of the North Pine River in 1874 and 1875 respectively. The state school was built on 2 acres of land donated in 1877 by early settler Thomas (Tom) Petrie. The first school teaching building, designed by Colonial Architect FDG Stanley, was erected during 1878. As settlement increased, the school expanded to have other structures and landscape elements, including an extension designed by architects Robert and John Ferguson (1888). The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nPrior to European settlement, the Pine Rivers area was home to a number of clans belonging to the Turrbal, Kabi and Waka language groups.[1] Convict timber getters were recorded in the area in the 1820s, and in the early 1840s pastoral runs were established on either side of the North Pine River. In 1859 Tom Petrie established a 6400 acre (2590 hectare) run, known as Murrumba, which extended to Sideling Creek in the west, Redcliffe Point in the east, and to the Pine and North Pine rivers in the south.[2] Petrie was also involved in timber getting, utilising the rafting ground at Sweeney's Reserve [QHR602687], south-east of the present state school site.
\nCloser settlement in the area commenced in 1862, with the sale by selection of portions in the ‘Redcliff Agricultural Reserve'.[3] Having had his pastoral leases cancelled by this reserve, Tom Petrie purchased a homestead block (portion 23, east of the school site), and leased nearby Portions 24, 25, 29 and 30.[4] A coach route from Brisbane to Gympie,[5] with a staging post at Petrie's Murrumba Homestead, was established in late 1868 by Cobb & Co. A road bridge was built next to the ford at Sweeney's Reserve in 1877, and the North Coast Railway was constructed north from Brisbane to Caboolture by 1888.[6] Tom Petrie took advantage of the railway running through his property to subdivide part of it as the North Pine Terminus Township in 1885.[7] This became the nucleus of the township of North Pine.[8] In 1877, Tom Petrie had also donated land for the establishment of the town's first state school.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. In 1848 the New South Wales Government established National Schools. This was continued by the Queensland Government after the colony's creation in 1859. The Education Act 1860 established the Queensland Board of General Education and began to standardise curriculum, teacher training, and facilities. The State Education Act 1875 provided a number of key initiatives for primary education; it was to be free, compulsory and secular. The Department of Public Instruction was established to administer the Act. This move standardised the provision of education and, despite difficulties, colonial educators achieved a remarkable feat in bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[9]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a major community focus for social interaction, a symbol of progress and a source of pride with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and halls used for community purposes reinforced these connections together with fetes, markets, public holiday celebrations, school break-up days, fundraisers, polling days, sporting events, reunions, and dances, all held within the schools' buildings and grounds.[10]
\nDuring the 1870s, the farming community at North Pine sought educational facilities for the local children. From 1869, provisional schools were the alternative to national schools if minimum student numbers (30) could not be met (which was frequently the case given that Queensland's rural population was small, scattered and often transient). Provisional schools were seen as a convenient means of providing an elementary education throughout the colony and soon became an integral part of the educational landscape. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of General Education gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local community provided a building (often slab and shingle) and found a teacher, and the Board paid the teacher's salary relative to the number of pupils. The provisional teacher was often badly trained and poorly paid, but at least some elementary education was being provided. If the local population moved on (perhaps following new gold discoveries or a railway under construction), the provisional school was closed at little expense to the Board. If the district or town developed, provisional schools were raised to national (later state) school status, with purpose-designed school buildings and teacher residences attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers.[11]
\nAt North Pine, a meeting was held on 20 April 1874 to elect a school committee, and the North Pine River Crossing Provisional School No.183 opened on 22 April 1874 in a rented room south of the North Pine River.[12] As there was no bridge, two provisional schools were planned, on a half-time basis, to avoid the hazards of children crossing the river to attend classes. The teacher would teach on the south side of the river for the morning and on the north side of the river in the afternoon, a unique arrangement in the Moreton region.[13]. The northern school (No.1831/2), a small slab hut with shingle roof, opened for the 1875 school year. The schools became known as North Pine I (Provisional) [south side], and North Pine II (Provisional) [north side]. An inspection in August 1875 recorded 16 students present (of 20 enrolled) at North Pine I, with 13 students present (of 14) at North Pine II.[14]
\nThe opening of the bridge at Sweeney's Reserve in 1877 allowed the two provisional schools to amalgamate into one state school. At a meeting in June 1877, Tom Petrie donated 2 acres (0.81 hectares) of land for the new school.[15] The site, at the south-west corner of Portion 30, was surveyed the same year, and was gazetted a Reserve for a School in 1878.[16] The new school was located north of the river, on the north side of the Dayboro Road. The community had to raise 20% of the construction cost. By November 1877, tenders had been called and £90 had been subscribed for construction.[17] The school classroom and a teacher's residence were built during 1878,[18] and the school opened for the 1879 school year as Pine River North State School.[19]
\nFrom the 1860s until the 1960s school buildings were predominantly timber framed, which took advantage of the material's abundance in the state and the high number of builders skilled in its use. This also allowed for easy and economical construction and enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Due to the standardisation of facilities, schools across the state were developed in distinctly similar ways and became complexes of typical components. These components included: teaching building/s, school yard, sports oval, head teacher's residence, and a variety of landscape elements such as sporting facilities or play equipment, playsheds, gardens and trees.[20]
\nThe new Pine River North State School building was constructed to a standard design by Colonial Architect Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley who was then responsible for all government school designs. During his prolific career he was also responsible for many important government and private buildings. For his schools Stanley became the first to develop standard designs and produce ‘classes' of buildings that would later evolve into ‘types'. The vast majority of subsequent school buildings in Queensland were built from standard ‘type' designs.[21]
\nStanley's school designs were typically low-set, timber framed structures with separate residential accommodation provided. Distinguishing characteristics include the classroom width, the location, size and detailing of windows, and central stairs to the verandah in line with a central access door. Stanley's designs also remedied weatherproofing problems of preceding school designs by cladding the exterior with chamferboards and lining the interiors.[22] Although many Stanley school buildings were constructed, few remain and extant examples are rare.[23] Known examples survive at the former Carbrook State School (QHR 600661), Tallegalla State School (QHR 601687), former Hemmant State School (QHR 602382), Kalkie State School (QHR 600971) and Aramac State School.
\nThe 1878 school building constructed at North Pine was a low-set, timber, gable-roofed building with verandahs on the south-west and north-east sides, located close to Dayboro Road at the southern end of the school reserve. A 1936 plan of the building shows a main room of 18ft x 33ft 9inches (5.5m x 10.3m), a southern verandah measuring 8ft (2.4m) wide, and a northern verandah measuring 7ft 8inches (2.3m) wide. By 1936 the northern verandah had a small enclosure at the eastern end.[24]
\nBy 1887 the school had become too crowded and needed to be enlarged.[25] Another low-set building with a main room of 40ft by 20ft (12.1m x 6.1m), and a western verandah 8ft (2.4m) wide, with semi-enclosed hat rooms at each end and a central staircase, was built in 1888 to a standard design by Robert and John Ferguson. The tender of Thomas Curry, for £319 10s, was accepted by the Education Department in December 1887.[26] The new building was added to the north-western end of the Stanley school building, connected by at least one internal door.
\nIn 1879 the Department of Public Instruction appointed its own Superintendent of Buildings to be responsible for the design of all government schools, the first appointee being the builder-architect Robert Ferguson. Ferguson immediately revised the design of schools to address deficiencies in ventilation and lighting and this period of education design was pivotal in this regard. In his designs he allowed for ventilation of the classrooms and ceiling space by providing prominent and decorative ventilation fleches to the roof. The standard Ferguson classroom was a low-set, timber-framed structure with a gable roof, verandahs front and back, and modest 'carpenter gothic' timber detailing. It included a coved ceiling; while timber roof trusses were exposed within the space. Many more and larger windows were introduced with high sill heights that did not allow draughts and sunlight to enter the room.[27]
\nIn 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother's designs until John's death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[28] The Ferguson period (1879-93) is distinct and marked by extensive redesign of school buildings including associated structures and furniture. The Ferguson brothers' designs were reflective of education requirements of the time, responsive to criticism of previous designs, revolutionary in terms of internal environmental quality, technically innovative, popular and successful and provided a long-lasting legacy of good educational design.[29]
\nThe building of a second classroom at the Pine River North State School coincided with the rise of dairy farming as the economic mainstay of the region, aided by the opening of the railway line through North Pine, which allowed local farmers to rail their cream to butter factories to the north and south. The Samsonvale Butter Factory opened to the west in 1892, later reopening in 1903 at Terror's Creek (Dayboro) as the Silverwood Butter Factory.[30]
\nIn 1896 the school was renamed North Pine State School, and retained this name after the town of North Pine changed its name to Petrie in 1911. Over the following years, changes to the school included the construction of a playshed in 1907 and improvements to the school residence.[31] By 1918 there were 112 children enrolled.[32] At some point, a World War I Honour Board, listing 44 past pupils of the school who had enlisted, was located at the school (now removed).[33] A tennis court was completed in 1934.[34]
\nUnder the stewardship of the Department of Public Works which retained responsibility for schools until 2013, and through the involvement of some of Queensland's most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced and diverse. This was the outcome of years of systematic reform and experimentation.[35]
\nAchieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators. After 1900 the virtues of maximum natural ventilation and controlled, high-levels of natural light in teaching buildings were extolled and became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. Architects experimented with different combinations of roof, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Roof ventilators became fleches which grew larger as the experimentation continued.[36] Windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room. Desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students would be right-handed. The change in philosophy often meant a complete transformation of the openings in existing buildings. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally.[37]
\nIn 1937, the fenestration of the North Pine School buildings was altered to improve lighting and ventilation. Windows were rearranged and doors were rehung in both the Stanley and Ferguson buildings. Banks of windows in the gable end walls of both buildings were lowered so that the sill was 3ft (0.9m) above the floor, and the sashes were rehung as casements with new fanlights above.[38] By this stage, the number of windows in the end walls had been increased from three to seven and window hoods had been widened accordingly.[39]
\nLittle changed at the school after 1937 and it had only 60 pupils in 1947.[40] However, growth came in the 1950s, with the opening of the Australian Paper Manufacturers' (APM) Petrie Mill, which commenced manufacturing operations in 1957.[41]
\nIn 1954, the Stanley building was extended to the east by 9ft (2.7m) and a partition was inserted to make two classrooms, while the casement windows in the north-east and south-west verandah walls were replaced with colonial hung sashes. The door into the Ferguson building was removed (it was later reinstated, off centre), and the Ferguson building was also partitioned into two classrooms.
\nIn 1956 the school was renamed Petrie State School. Around 1956 a new high-set classroom, with play space underneath, was built to the north of the Ferguson building, connected by a raised walkway extension of the latter's western verandah. In 1962 an additional classroom was constructed in the space between the two buildings, resulting in the loss of the windows in the north-east wall of the Ferguson building.[42]
\nThe district's population continued to increase during the 1960s and 1970s. By 1964, along with the construction of two classroom blocks in the western corner of the school grounds (c.1959), classrooms had been added to the south-east corner of the Stanley building and to the north-west of the Ferguson building, connected by verandahs.[43] In 1973 the partition inside the Stanley building was removed and it became a library, while the Ferguson building was used for administration. Further buildings were added to the school grounds in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The size of the school grounds also increased in the second half of the 20th century, growing from 2.4 hectares in 1957 to its current size of 4.5 hectares.
\nBy 1997, the Ferguson building had been divided into three rooms, with new door and window locations, and a passageway had been created between the Ferguson and Stanley buildings, linking the south-west and north-east verandahs of the latter. Part of the north-east verandah of the Stanley building had been enclosed and stairs to the south-west verandah had been relocated to the western end. Bag racks also lined the balustrades of most verandahs. Some doors in the Stanley building were enclosed and kitchen benches were installed along the south-east wall at that time.[44]
\nSince 2007, changes to the Stanley building have resulted in the enclosure of the south-west verandah and the removal of doors and windows in the verandah wall to create large openings. The internal wall which formed the passageway between the Stanley and Ferguson sections has been removed, with the external walls being reinstated at either end; and an additional room has been formed on the north-east verandah by the insertion of a new wall.
\nIn 2014, the 1878 Stanley building is used for the school's Special Education Program and the 1888 Ferguson building contains a reading room, meeting room and an office. The school continues to be important to the town and district, having operated on this site since 1879 and having taught generations of Petrie students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Petrie community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time.
","criteria":"The 1878 Stanley building at Petrie State School is rare as one of the six known surviving examples of this once common type.
|Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, their parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. Petrie State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Petrie community. It was established in 1879 (to replace an 1875 half-time provisional school) through the efforts of the local community and has educated generations of Petrie children. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Petrie and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
|Petrie State School (established in 1879 as Pine River North State School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education, and its associated architecture, in Queensland. The place retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
The first teaching building (1878), designed by architect FDG Stanley, and the 1888 building, designed by architects Robert and John Ferguson, are both early standardised designs.
|Petrie State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools, including standard building designs by the Queensland Government.
The 1878 Stanley building retains characteristics of its original design. It is low-set, of timber-framed construction with external weatherboard cladding, with gable roof, front and rear verandahs, centrally placed stairs to the north-east verandah, coved ceiling and tall windows.
The 1888 Ferguson building is low-set, with timber-framed construction, gable roof, wide verandah, louvred ceiling ventilation panels, and tall windows sheltered by a hood with decorated timber brackets. The building also retains one early double door with tall fanlights (not in its original location).
Changing philosophies in state primary education are evident in the modifications made to both buildings, including alterations to window type, location and size, and bag racks on the western verandah of the Ferguson building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35201,"place_ref":602846,"name":"Charters Towers Central State School","alternate_name":"Charters Towers Girls' and Infants' Central State School | Charters Towers Boys' Central State School | Charters Towers Girls' Central State School | Charters Towers Girls' School | Charters Towers State High School","street_address":"39-47 High Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-11-28","description":"Charters Towers Central State School is located on a flat site, southeast of the central business district in Charters Towers. It occupies a 2.49ha, irregular-shaped block that is bounded by Mexican, High, Aland and Boundary streets, as well as residential properties to the south. The school comprises a variety of educational buildings, primarily at the northern and western ends of the property, and includes a former infants' teaching building (1900) standing in the northeast corner, which was built to an early Department of Public Works design. In 2014, the main entrance to the school is via High Street; however, established trees mark the former main entrances to the school on Aland Street.
The former infants' teaching building stands behind a small lawn and is approached from the secondary entrance off Aland Street (originally this was the main entrance when the building was separated from the Girls' School adjacent). The building is a weatherboard-clad, timber-framed structure that is highset on concrete stumps. It comprises two gabled-roof wings, one southern and one eastern, that have verandahs front and back. The wings are linked together by the inner verandahs to form an L-shaped plan. Projecting from the verandahs are two small gable-roofed enclosures - a former hat and cloak room, and a teachers' room, enclosed at the understorey level with weatherboards - and a highset principal's room with a hipped roof. The main building's roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets and its ridges have metal ventilation fleches. The former hat and cloak room and teachers' room enclosure features packed weatherboards for ventilation at floor level, and the apexes of gable walls have ventilation panels of louvres that assist with internal ventilation.
The elevations are symmetrically composed. Original windows are timber-framed, centre-pivot windows with high sills. In the gable ends of the wings, later timber-framed awning windows have been added below. Gable end walls have wide and deep window hoods that are timber-framed with battened cheeks and are clad with corrugated metal sheets. The understory of the building is used as a covered play area and is open, with the exception of an original enclosure below the former hat and coat room and teachers' room projection, and an early corrugated metal-clad enclosure under the eastern wing.
Timber stairs provide access up to the verandahs, which are timber-framed with original lattice and batten enclosures at some ends. Balustrades are timber dowels, with some replaced by bagracks. Raked ceilings are lined with beaded boards or later fibrocement sheets; and adjacent to the hat and cloak room and teachers' room, the ceilings are flat. The verandah walls are single-skin with externally exposed timber framing and bracing. Original centre-pivoting windows within these walls are retained. French doors with centre-pivoting fanlights allow access into the classrooms, French doors lead into the hat and cloak room, and low-waisted doors provide entry to the teachers' and principal's rooms .
The east and south wing are both internally divided into two classrooms by single-skin timber partitions, which kink at 45 degree angles to allow access to both rooms from mutual exterior doors. Low-waisted doors in the partitions internally connect the rooms. The classrooms have high, coved ceilings lined with beaded boards, and central timber fretwork ventilation roses. Metal tie rods are exposed within each space and horizontal beaded boards clad the walls. At the base of the verandah walls, the lowest board is hinged to provide ventilation.
The ceiling and interior walls of the former hat and cloak room are lined with beaded boards and walls have hinged ventilation boards. The teachers' room is internally lined with flat sheeting.
Other structures within the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The school now known as Charters Towers Central State School opened on its current site, east of High Street and south of Aland Street, on 13 August 1883 as Charters Towers State School for Girls and Infants. As the town and school attendance grew, the school expanded to have new teaching buildings, other structures, and landscape elements. A highset Department of Public Works timber teaching building was added to the east of the original school building in 1900, initially as a separate school for infants. This infants' teaching building, which addresses Aland Street, was later used as a high school, and then as a separate boys school, before the girls', infants' and boys' schools on the site combined as Charters Towers Central State School in 1965. The Charters Towers Central State School has been in continuous operation since its establishment on the current site in 1883 (and from 1875 at a previous site) and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nTraditionally the land of the Gudjal people, European settlement of the Charters Towers area began when gold was discovered at the foot of Towers Hill in December 1871. The find was reported in January 1872, and the Charters Towers Goldfield was officially proclaimed on 31 August 1872. Two settlements were established; one became Charters Towers, and one 4 miles (6.4 km) distant became Millchester. There was rivalry between the two settlements, but Charters Towers soon dominated.[1] Charters Towers was proclaimed a municipality on 21 June 1877, and a heightened phase of prosperity was entered after the great wealth of the Day Dawn reef was discovered in 1878.[2]
\nThe first local state school opened in 1874 in Millchester, while Charters Towers Primary School opened on 18 October 1875,[3] on a 5 acre block, three blocks west of today's Charters Towers Central State School, on the site now occupied by a high school. However, this land was not gazetted until September 1876, after miners were seen pegging ground within the school.[4]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools were established in 1848 in New South Wales and continued in Queensland following the colony's creation in 1859. After the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland's public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[6]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[7]
\nThe Queensland government developed standard plans for its school buildings to help ensure consistency and economy. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[8]
\nThe Charters Towers Primary School initially consisted of one building, with separate play sheds for girls and boys.[9] As a result of the increasing population of Charters Towers, a separate building for the girls was constructed in 1879 at the primary school.[10]
\nOnce again, the school became overcrowded and the need for a separate school for girls was evident. In November 1880 a School Inspector's report recommended the establishment of a separate Girls' School, given both the growth in numbers and parents' moral concerns. It was also decided to locate the Girls' School on a new site.[11] A site of 1 acre, 3 roods and 17.5 perches (0.75ha) was surveyed in June 1881, and was gazetted in August that year.[12] The new State School for Girls and Infants was located to the east of High Street, three blocks east of the primary school, and adjacent to the Roman Catholic Church School Reserve.[13]
\nThe site was bound by Aland, High and Mexican Streets, but it initially excluded a small, privately owned block on the northwest corner of the site, fronting Aland and High Streets.[14] The new school site was on the crown of Mexican Ridge and was described as ‘healthy... central and airy'.[15] It overlooked the town to the west, and the railway station and the suburb of Queenton to the east. The government provided plans for a building which would cost of £1500, one fifth (£300) of which would have to be raised locally.[16]
\nTenders were advertised for a new school in September 1881 but none of the tenders received were within the anticipated budget.[17] Further calls for tenders were made in November 1881, and April 1882.[18] In 1883, after multiple years of public complaint and outcry about overcrowding at the original school site, the government constructed the new building at the new site using its own labour.[19] The Girls' School, which addressed Aland Street, was officially opened on 13 August 1883.[20] The original school site then became the State School for Boys.
\nThe new teaching building at the State School for Girls and Infants was constructed to a standard design by architect Robert Ferguson. In 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced as the Department of Public Instruction's Superintendent of Buildings by his brother John Ferguson, who continued to implement his brother's designs until John's death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[21]
\nCharters Towers continued to prosper and grow in the 1880s. In this decade it became the most productive goldfield in Queensland.[22] The procurement of gold from deep seams required substantial machinery to crush quartz and sink shafts, and by 1882 company mining became the norm in Charters Towers. The completion of a railway line from Townsville to Charters Towers in December 1882 also boosted the town's prosperity, by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials. A display of Charters Towers Gold in the Queensland Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886 in turn led to an influx of capital from English speculators.[23] Although there was a brief economic downturn in 1888, due to drought reducing the water supply for crushing machines, in 1889 the famous Brilliant Reef, the richest on the field, was discovered.[24]
\nBy January 1884, there were two state schools, a convent school, and two small private schools in Charters Towers; with a total of 924 children, including 160 at the State School for Boys, and 421 at the State School for Girls and Infants.[25] In October 1885 tenders were called for additions to the ‘Girls' and Infants' State School', and the Ferguson building was extended to accommodate infants' classes, in an additional timber wing at the south end.[26] By December 1885 the Girls' and Infants' School had an average attendance of 690 students; while the Boys' School at the original site had an average attendance of 250.[27] In mid-1889 the girls' and infants' schools were separated, although they both remained in the Ferguson building.[28]
\nCharters Towers continued to thrive throughout the depressed economy of the 1890s, with a peak production of 319,572 ounces of gold in 1899. By this time it had a population of around 26,500, and was the second most important city economically in Queensland. At the turn of the century Charters Towers, with its multi-cultural population, was known colloquially as 'the World'.[29]
\nThis continued prosperity was reflected in the schools. The State School for Boys had a new building by 1890, while in 1891 the grounds at the girls' and infants' schools were extended. A block of 1 acre 3 roods 1.5 perches (0.71ha) was purchased in 1891, extending the school site eastwards as far as Boundary Street. By 1892 the Girls' School had an enrolment of 405 (average attendance 309), and the Infants' School had a roll of 700 (average attendance 500).[30]
\nIn 1895 the term ‘Central' was added to the names of the three state schools for the first time, possibly to avoid confusion between other state schools that were constructed in Charters Towers around a similar time (in the suburbs of Richmond Hill and Queenton). The schools became known as Charters Towers Central (Boys) School, Charters Towers Central (Girls) School and Charters Towers Central (Infants) School.[31]
\nAs numbers at the girls' and infants' schools continued to grow, it was decided that a separate new building would be constructed to house the Infants' School. Tenders were invited on 19 October 1899, and a social and dance was held in the School of Arts in aid of the building fund later that month.[32] The tender of Benjamin Toll, a local builder and contractor, for £1912,13s was accepted in January 1900.[33]
\nThe 1900 Infants' teaching building was constructed to the east of the Ferguson building, to a design by the Department of Public Works. Under the stewardship of the Department of Public Works, which retained responsibility for schools until 2013, and through the involvement of some of Queensland's most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced and diverse. This was the outcome of years of systematic reform and experimentation.[34]
\nA period of marked experimentation in school design occurred between 1893 and 1914, with a primary focus on improving the natural light and ventilation of classroom interiors.[35] Various combinations of roof ventilators and ducting; ceiling and wall vents; and larger windows of varying sill heights and dormer windows were trialled. For timber-framed buildings, single-skin construction was favoured for its heat dissipation ability and economy. Often the building was lined on the interior rather than exterior, providing a smooth, cleanable surface that provided better interior light. The resulting externally-exposed stud framing was protected from the weather by wide verandahs, which had the added benefit of shading the building and providing makeshift teaching space. The introduction of highset buildings began in the late 1890s, providing better ventilation and additional teaching and covered play space underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A number of ventilating techniques were introduced at this time. One of note was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and lowered internal temperatures effectively.[36]
\nAt Charters Towers Central State School, the new infants' teaching building was built facing Aland Street, featuring a considerable number of the lighting and ventilation techniques that were being experimented with at the time. Similar to standard design type C/T1 but highset, it was an L-shaped building of two wings, each accommodating one large classroom 53ft x 26ft (16.2m x 7.9m). These classrooms each had 10ft (3m) wide verandahs front and back. Projecting from the front verandah were two rooms: a hat and cloak room and a teachers' room. The Department of Works Annual Report for 1900-01 noted: ‘The building has been kept high enough off the ground to enable the entire area underneath to be used as a playground for the children'.[37] This use of a highset building with a play area underneath was an early example of what became a standard design from 1909. An enclosure was provided underneath the building for toilets, negating the need to build a separate structure. The classrooms were lofty, well lit and ventilated by tall windows sheltered by deep window hoods, fanlights, a ventilation flap on the wall at floor level, vented ceiling roses connected via ducts to vented roof fleches, and louvred vents into the roof space. The teachers' and hat and cloak rooms incorporated packed weatherboards at floor level for ventilation.
\nAfter opening, the new building was used by infants (students between 5 and 7 years old) and the spaces previously used by the infants in the Ferguson building were converted for use as the junior girls' classrooms. When the new infants' teaching building was opened, it had 219 infants on the roll.[38] A Grand Children's Concert was held in the Theatre Royal to assist in the repayments for the new building.[39]
\nBy the time of the Infants' Schools' opening, Charters Towers was no longer a boom town. There was a steady decline in gold production after 1899, and although Charters Towers was declared a city in 1909, most mines had been abandoned by 1916. The last of the big mines, the Brilliant Extended, closed in 1917, but small mining operations continued to be serviced by the Venus battery. Many timber buildings were moved by rail to Townsville during and after World War I, and by 1921 Charters Towers' population had decreased to 5,682. Some villas were reused as boarding schools as Charters Towers adapted to becoming an educational centre for North Queensland.[40]
\nThe Infants' School's enrolments declined significantly in the early 20th century; affected by outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough, dengue fever and severe influenza between 1908 and 1909.[41] In 1907 there were 191 enrolled infants at the school, but by 1911, this number had dropped to 137.[42] By 1912 enrolment in the Infants' School was small enough for it to move back into the Ferguson building, and the girls' and infants' schools were re-united.[43] In 1912 the attendance at the Girls' and Infants' School was 512 - declining to 396 by 1921.[44]
\nThe vacant infants' teaching building was occupied by the new Charters Towers State High School which opened on 22 January 1912 as one of Queensland's first six high schools.[45] In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities. The first purpose-built high school buildings were constructed in 1917. In Queensland generally, there were few high schools until after World War II, when secondary education was generally accepted as essential and was more widely provided for.[46]
\nModifications to the former infants' teaching building c.1917 for high school use included new walls dividing each of the original teaching rooms into two classrooms; the hat and cloak room was used as a classroom, and a Principal's Office was added to the east side of the easternmost verandah.[47]
\nDespite the drop in enrolments, the school grounds were officially extended by 2 roods (2023m2) in 1923,[48] although this land appears to have been surveyed in 1913.[49] The High School eventually became overcrowded, and in 1929 it swapped sites with the Charters Towers Boys' Central State School. The Boys' School moved into the 1900 former infants' building but remained segregated from the Girls' and Infants' School.[50]
\nExisting teaching buildings at the schools were regularly altered for improved lighting and ventilation. Changes to the fenestration at the Boys' school were proposed in 1952, and hopper windows and new hoods were added to the gables, below the existing casement windows and hoods.[51]
\nIn 1965 the boys', girls' and infants' schools were amalgamated and renamed Charters Towers Central State School.[52] The 1970s was a period of substantial growth for the school. New buildings from this time included: ‘C' Block (1971), ‘D' Block (1975), the library (1977), and a dental clinic (1978).[53] In the late 1970s, two blocks of land south of Mexican Street at the corner of Boundary Street were purchased for a preschool (opened 1980). The property next door to the preschool site was later purchased to allow for the construction of a play area.[54] In 1980, an application was made to have the section of Mexican Street between the school and preschool closed off, although it was not incorporated into the school grounds until 1996.[55] Today the school grounds cover 2.49 hectares.
\nIn 2014, the school continues to operate from the site. The school retains the 1900 infants' teaching building. The school is important to the town having operated from the site since 1883 and having taught generations of Charters Towers students. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Charters Towers community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time.
","criteria":"The Charters Towers Central State School's former infants' teaching building (1900) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education, and its associated architecture, in Queensland. It is an excellent, representative example of a building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies. The former infants' teaching building is an early and intact example of a highset design by the Queensland Department of Public Works, also incorporating experimental ventilation design.
The place is important for its association with the development of Charters Towers in the late 19th century. During this period Charters Towers played an integral role, through its gold production, in the economic development of Queensland, which is reflected by the size of the school by 1900.
|Queensland schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain a significant and enduring connection with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. The Charters Towers Central State School former infants' teaching building has a strong and ongoing association with the Charters Towers community. The school has operated from its current site since 1883, (with the infants' teaching building extant from 1900) and has educated generations of Charters Towers' children.
|The former infants' teaching building is important in demonstrating the Department of Public Works' creative approach to natural lighting and ventilation c.1900. A highset school building with a play space underneath as standard, its design combined a number of existing technologies to cope with a hot, dry climate. The building also contains the earliest known evidence of the innovative ventilation technique of wall ventilation flaps at floor level.
|The Charters Towers Central State School's former infants' teaching building, constructed during a period of experimental design by the Queensland Department of Public Works, is important in demonstrating the development of standard designs in Queensland state schools.
The former infants' teaching building retains the characteristics of a standard, timber-framed, Department of Public Works teaching building constructed between 1894 and 1914, a period of diverse design united by a distinct emphasis on improved natural light and ventilation. This includes a variety of techniques: highset form; single-skin construction; wide verandahs on two sides of lofty classrooms; a lined interior; fanlights and tall windows with high sills, sunshading through lattice, battening, and broad and wide window hoods; and an assembly of ventilation techniques including packed weatherboards, hinged flaps, ceiling roses connected via ducting to roof fleches, and louvred panels in the roof space.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion G | Criterion F | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35202,"place_ref":602849,"name":"Tarampa State School","alternate_name":"Tarampa Provisional School","street_address":"18 Manthey Road","suburb":"TARAMPA","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-05-01","description":"Tarampa State School is located in the small rural township of Tarampa in the Brisbane Valley. Accessed via Manthey Road, the school occupies a rectangular 1.62ha block surrounded by open farmland and private residences. The school complex comprises a Ferguson teaching building (1886, extended 1897), a playshed (1897), a teacher’s residence (1934) and a large leopard tree (Caesalpinia ferrea, planted ca.1894) known to the school community as the ‘Dibby Dibby’ tree, as well as other mature trees.
\nFerguson teaching building (1886, extended 1897)
\nThe Ferguson building stands near the centre of the front (eastern) boundary, facing east to Manthey Road. It is a small timber building with verandahs on the east and west sides (now enclosed). It is lowset on timber stumps with weatherboard-clad walls and a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The gable end walls each have a large area of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights, sheltered by timber-framed hoods with battened cheeks. The apex of each gable has a panel of fixed timber louvres venting the roof space. The gable eaves are lined with timber boards.
\nThe enclosed verandahs retain verandah posts and beams in some locations, beneath later cladding. On the east side, the main entrance is accessed via timber steps and consists of a central, unenclosed section of the verandah with an early timber door in the verandah wall. The north end of the east verandah is enclosed with weatherboards to form a small office, while the south end is enclosed with a solid balustrade and modern aluminium sliding windows. The raked verandah ceiling is lined with timber boards, except in the small office which has flat sheeting linings.
\nThe west verandah has been completely enclosed. At the northern end is an early storeroom (possibly a former hatroom) with single-skin enclosing walls, accessed by a half-glazed timber door. Adjoining the storeroom is a recently enclosed section of verandah with a timber floor, weatherboard cladding to the verandah wall, and a raked ceiling lined with timber boards. The central and southern sections of the verandah have recent fit-outs and linings. An original doorway survives in the former verandah wall, retaining its tall, two-light, vertically centre pivoting fanlight windows. A wing wall in the southern section indicates the location of a former lavatory enclosure.
\nOriginally one large classroom, the interior of the teaching building has been divided into two rooms by a single-skin timber partition lined with vertical timber boards. An early timber door connects the two rooms. The coved ceiling is lined with beaded timber boards and timber tie-beams with stop-chamfered edges are exposed within the space. A join in the ceiling lining in the northern room likely indicates the point from which the building was extended in 1897. The walls are generally lined with vertical, v-jointed tongue and groove boards. Some windows, doors and ceiling vents have been removed or sheeted over but their locations are visible in the wall and ceiling linings. Other windows have had their sashes removed and replaced with louvres.
\nPlayshed (1897)
\nThe playshed, located to the south-west of the Ferguson building, is a small 10-post timber structure with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The posts are braced to the roof framing by brackets and the roof framing is exposed. The eastern side is partially enclosed with timber lattice screens and the southern side is enclosed with corrugated metal sheeting.
\nTeacher’s Residence (1934)
\nThe teacher’s residence occupies its own rectangular yard in the southeast corner of the site. It is a highset timber-framed building on concrete stumps, clad with weatherboards and has a hipped and gabled roof clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The building faces east to Manthey Road and contains bedrooms and living rooms along the front and south sides, the kitchen with projecting stove alcove on the west (rear) side, and the toilet, bathroom and pantry in the north-west corner. The projecting, gabled front room has packed weatherboards to ventilate the roof space and the L-shaped front verandah, wrapping the front and north sides, is enclosed. The understorey is enclosed by timber batten screens and has a laundry room enclosure in the south-west corner. Replacement tank stands occupy the original rainwater tank locations.
\nThe front and rear entrances are accessed by timber stairs and both have partially-glazed timber doors with multiple panes of textured glass. The front door (now an internal door) is high-waisted. The building has a variety of timber-framed windows, including six-light casements with fanlights, six-light casements with textured glass, and a set of nine-light sliding sashes. The enclosed verandah has banks of glass louvres and sets of three-light casements. Most windows have timber window hoods with battened cheeks.
\nThe interior layout is intact, with a central hall running from front to back with rooms either side. Internal partitions are single-skin with exposed stud framing. Walls and ceilings are lined with v-jointed tongue and groove boards. The rooms retain original joinery, including modest skirtings, cornices and architraves. Internal doors are high-waisted with fanlights and doors to the former verandah are half-glazed, six-light French doors with fanlights. All early doors have original door hardware.
\nGrounds and views
\nEstablished trees, gardens and pathways are located throughout the southern and eastern areas of the school grounds, while the northern and western school grounds remain open fields. A tennis court with a 1960s timber shelter shed is located along the front boundary on the northern side of the Ferguson teaching building. Several memorials are located within garden beds, including a cairn commemorating Australia’s Bicentenary and a plaque commemorating the 125th anniversary of the school.
\nSignificant trees are the large leopard tree (‘Dibby Dibby’ tree), which stands between the Ferguson building and the school residence,.and a large fig (possibly rusty fig, ficus rubiginosa) in the southeast corner of the residence yard. Other mature tree varieties within the school and residence grounds include poinciana (delonix regia), crows ash (flindersia australis), jacaranda (jacaranda mimosifolia), maple (acer sp.) and eucalyptus (eucalyptus spp.).
\nThe school is prominent in its location and views of the surrounding countryside are obtained from within the school grounds.
\nOther structures
\nOther buildings and structures on the site, including teaching buildings, shade structures, sheds and a recent toilet block, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Tarampa State School opened in 1880 as Tarampa Provisional School on a four-acre (1.62ha) site within the small agricultural settlement in the Brisbane Valley, to serve the sparse but growing rural population. As settlement increased, the provisional school building was replaced by a Ferguson-designed teaching building (1886) and other structures and landscape elements were built, including a playshed (1897) and a new teacher's residence (1934). The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nEuropean occupation of the Brisbane Valley dates from 1841. Tarampa Station, a large pastoral lease stretching from the D’Aguilar range to Glenmore Grove and from Prenzlau to Coominya, was established by Charles Cameron in the 1840s.[1] Agricultural settlement followed in the early 1860s on the Tarampa Agricultural Reserve, created under the Agricultural Reserves Act 1861. The settlers around Tarampa were predominantly of German origin. Primarily subsistence farmers, they raised livestock and grew mixed crops.[2]
\nTarampa Provisional School opened in a private house on 1 April 1880 with 20 children attending on the first day.[3] Construction of a school building on Lot 374, a four-acre (1.62ha) site purchased from Michael Kerlin, was undertaken by Mr Graff in 1880 for £60.[4]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. Following the introduction of Queensland’s Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[6]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[7]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[8]
\nTarampa benefitted from the extension of the railway to nearby Lowood in 1884, which provided local farmers with improved access to markets for their produce and stimulated the timber industry in the area.
\nDue to increased enrolments, Tarampa’s provisional school was upgraded to a state school in 1886.[9] In colonial Queensland, provisional schools were a convenient means of providing an elementary education for the small, scattered and often transient rural population and became an integral part of the educational landscape. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of Public Instruction gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local committee provided a building and found a teacher, while the Board paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils. If the local population declined, the provisional school closed at little expense to the Board. If the district or town developed, as Tarampa did, the provisional school was raised to state school status and provided with purpose-designed school buildings. A tender by JG (George) Schlecht for £500 was accepted in 1886 for the building of a standard, Ferguson-designed teaching building. The old teaching building was converted for use as the teacher’s residence on the site.[10] In the same year, Schlecht was also contracted to fence the school for £37, as wandering stock were damaging the paintwork and water tanks.[11]
\nThe new building at Tarampa State School was built to a standard design that was introduced in 1880 and constructed across the colony until 1893. Employed by the Department of Public Instruction as its first Superintendent of Buildings, builder-architect Robert Ferguson was responsible for school building design between 1879 and 1885, and he was the first to give serious consideration to the ventilation of interiors.[12] Into the lowset, timber-framed buildings Ferguson introduced a coved ceiling and vented the roof space, improving internal temperatures. The number of windows and their size was increased; however, they were few in number and sill heights were typically over 4'6\" (1.3m) above floor level, well above the eye level of students. Modestly-decorative timber roof trusses were exposed within the space. In 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced as Superintendent of Buildings by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother’s designs until John’s death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works. Built to this standard design, the new school building at Tarampa State School was a low-set, timber-framed structure with gable roofs, verandahs front and back, and modest 'carpenter gothic' timber detailing.[13]
\nIn 1897 plans for additions to the school and residence were drawn.[14] It is likely that the school was extended to the north at this time, increasing its length from 34 feet (10.4m) to approximately 50 feet (15.5m). At some time a central timber partition was added, dividing the building into two classrooms. The proposed residence was not built, but additions, improvements, repairs and painting of the Ferguson building were advertised for tender.[15]
\nIn 1897 a 10-post timber playshed with a hipped roof was built at the school by F Williams for £59 10s.[16] The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, the need for all-weather outdoor space. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when needed. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[17] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds that ranged in size relative to student numbers.[18]
\nThe turn of the century brought growth in the area. Tarampa run was repurchased by the Queensland Government and opened for selection by small farmers in 1903. A cream depot had been established at Tarampa in the 1890s, and in September 1903 the Lowood butter factory opened, providing a local facility for dairy providers.[19] Tarampa’s population rose to a peak of a little over 500 in 1911[20] and enrolments at its school increased accordingly. In 1919 the two-roomed Ferguson building accommodated 117 children.[21]
\nRepairs and improvements to the Ferguson building were carried out in August 1928 after the Head Teacher, George Oxley Anderson, complained to the Department of Public Instruction about its inadequate lighting conditions and lack of ventilation. Subsequently, it was lined and painted, and general repairs undertaken.[22]
\nFurther alterations to the Ferguson building to improve the lighting and ventilation were made in 1933. These were to a standard design by the Department of Public Works. They included a new door from the north classroom to the back verandah and cost £5 2s 6p.[23] Also at this time, the windows in the gable end walls may have been widened and lowered. From 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting.
\nIn 1928 community working bees erected a new school fence and repaired the disused tennis court with new posts and a new surface.[24] Photographic evidence shows tennis being played on the grass tennis court c1920s.[25]
\nIn 1930, 50th jubilee celebrations took place at the school. Approximately 1,000 people, 14 of whom were first day pupils, attended the day. £130 was raised for school improvements. A Jubilee Ball in the evening concluded the celebrations, ‘which proved to be the most successful social event in the history of Tarampa’.[26]
\nIn 1934 a new teacher's residence was constructed in the southeast corner of Tarampa State School and the old residence (the original provisional school building) was sold and removed the following year.[27] The new residence was constructed to a standard Department of Public Works design (Type D/R3) containing three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen with stove alcove, bathroom and a wrap-around verandah. The new residence was described as ‘…a well-built, modern house, replete with all conveniences, and not over-decorated. The work is a credit to the builders and a big improvement to the surroundings’.[28]
\nFrom the outset, teacher’s residences were built to a standard regulated by the Board of General Education rather than a specific design, so the form varied with each commissioned architect.[29] Initially, residences were most often attached as annexes to the classroom building, but from the 1880s were built as detached residences. These residences were similar to the vernacular Queensland house with few, if any, education-specific requirements or features.
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works’ architects were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher’s residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nThe school celebrated the 75th jubilee of its official opening on 2 April 1955, with approximately 1300 people in attendance. A photograph taken on the day shows the Ferguson teaching building with an open front verandah, balustrade with horizontal rails and paling fence. The visitors’ book was signed under the Leopard tree (Caesalpinia ferrea) believed to have been planted c1894 by then Head Teacher, Edward Doran, and ‘Johnny Tarampa, King of the Trampah tribe’ who died c1901.[30] Other mature trees grow on the site, such as Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Eucalyptus spp, and a large Fig Tree (Ficus sp) in the garden of the teacher’s residence.
\nThe provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of the beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of the addition of shade trees in the playground. In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educationalists believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[31]
\nTarampa’s population fell from c1911 to the 1960s, especially with the decline in dairying after World War II,[32] but rose again to 325 in 2011.
\nBetween the 1960s and the 1980s Queensland education was reformed and school buildings were altered as a result. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved, requiring new architectural responses. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. With new educational philosophies, government policies and functional requirements combined with new architectural styles, materials and technologies, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design with inspiration drawn from new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly highset.[33]
\nSome alterations to the school were made in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1977, the west verandah of the Ferguson teaching building was enclosed for library and health services purposes and the verandah stairs relocated.[34] In 1981 the school’s library and storeroom were remodelled. Drawings show the demountable building (T2000 on block plan) already in place with the original Ferguson teaching building used as a teaching space and a library, the front verandah used as a withdrawal area and health room, and the back verandah as a work/store room and staff room.[35] The playshed had lattice applied to its eastern side and corrugated iron to its southern side.
\nCentenary celebrations in 1980 included a published history of the school.[36]
\nIn 2011, a multi-purpose building was constructed to replace the library housed in the Ferguson Teaching Building (‘Block A’). The old library was converted for use by the school administration and as a resource centre. Other improvements to the school were also made including; bituminising the undercover area and re-cementing around that area, the installation of soft-fall in the playground and lattice work.[37]
\nIn 2015, the Tarampa State School continues to operate and retains the Ferguson building, playshed and residence. The school is important to the town having operated from the site since 1880 and as generations of Tarampa students have been taught there. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Tarampa community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
\n","criteria":"
Tarampa State School (established in 1880 as Tarampa Provisional School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government education philosophies. At Tarampa State School these standard designs are: an early Ferguson-designed school building (1886), a playshed (1897) and a teacher’s residence (1934) set within schools grounds with significant landscape elements including mature plantings and a tennis court.
|Tarampa State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, play areas and sporting facilities; and timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government. The school is a good example of a modest, regional school complex.
\nThe Ferguson teaching building (1886, extended c1897) is an excellent, intact example that retains its lowset, rectangular form, with front and rear verandahs (now enclosed), gable roof, louvred ventilation panels, coved ceiling, exposed timber tie beams and some early doors and windows.
\nThe playshed (1897) has a hipped timber-framed roof supported on braced timber posts (with two sides partially enclosed).
\nThe teacher's residence (1934) is an excellent, intact example of the residence type of its period – a highset timber-framed and clad building comprising three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen with stove alcove, bathroom and an L-shaped verandah (now enclosed).
\n\n
The mature leopard tree (caesalpinia ferrea) and fig tree (ficus sp) are fine examples of the shade trees planted in Queensland school grounds.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\n\n
Tarampa State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Tarampa community. Operating since 1880, generations of its children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Tarampa and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35398,"place_ref":602838,"name":"Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Harts Road","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2014-10-10","description":"The Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens are a public park occupying a (1.21ha) wedge of land on the southern side of Harts Road, Indooroopilly. The park consists of two distinct parts; the northern residential garden, which contains remnant features and plantings of the former residence ‘Somerset'; and the southern sloping lawn which extends south towards the Brisbane River. The park is bounded by private residential properties to the west and Indooroopilly Golf Course to the east. The park and golf course are located on the same lot and separated by a metal pole and cyclone wire fence, which follows an irregular path in a south-west direction from Harts Road. Sweeping views of the golf course and towards the river are obtained from locations in the park, particularly along the south-east boundary.
The most distinctive feature of Thomas Park is its profusion of mature bougainvilleas, which are planted in a variety of configurations throughout the park, including standalone shrubs, long hedges and climbing fences or trees. The bougainvilleas are predominantly the reddish-pink, densely flowering ‘Thomasii' variety (Bougainvillea spectabilis ‘Thomasii'), with a particularly large specimen (the parent plant) located near the former residence site. This type is also formed into long hedges marking the property boundaries and several former garden features. Red, purple, purple-pink, deep pink, white and pink-and-white varieties of bougainvillea can also be found in the park.
The northern residential garden is a triangular shaped, gently sloping plateau of land at the highest point of the site. Much of the original garden layout is evident, with remnants of an ornamental garden fronting Harts Road and service gardens along the rear (southern) edge. Linear elements such as two former driveways, a former pedestrian footpath, long hedges and avenues of mature trees form boundaries between different sections of the garden and divide the public ornamental gardens from the private service gardens, which include a former drying area, former tennis court and former vegetable garden. The sites of the former residence and the former stables are discernable as flat, open areas edged with remnant vegetation. Several individual mature trees are landmark elements in the garden design. The southern sloping lawn is an open area bordered by trees, which falls away steeply along the south-east and southern edges.
The Harts Road boundary is defined by large bougainvillea hedges (of the reddish-pink thomasii variety) interspersed with tall, regularly spaced Cocos Palms (arecastrum romanzoffianum). While there are gaps in both the bougainvillea hedges and the palm avenue, the visual effect of this planting scheme remains intact. A metal trellis archway, of narrow metal poles set in concrete footings, stands at the original pedestrian entrance to the gardens, with the bougainvillea on either side trained to grow over it. A low timber log fence along this boundary is not of cultural heritage significance.
The western boundary, which adjoins seven residential properties, has a number of mature trees along its length. At the northern end, the boundary is lined with large bougainvillea hedges and regularly spaced Cocos palms. South of this section is a very large Weeping Fig (ficus benjamina). Other mature tree species along the western boundary include Poinciana (delonix regia), Mango (mangifera indica), Jacaranda (jacaranda mimosifolia), Small-leaved Fig (ficus obliqua), and Queensland Kauri (agathis robusta). Dense undergrowth of a variety of plant species exists in places, as well as cleared areas where encroachments by neighbouring properties have occurred. None of these encroaching features, which include garden beds, fenced areas and garden ornaments, are of cultural heritage significance.
The south-east boundary approximately follows the edge of the plateau for much of its length before sloping steeply down towards the southern tip of the site. A number of bougainvilleas and mature trees are planted along its length, including an English Oak (quercus robur), a Bribie Island Pine (callitris columellaris), Cocos Palms and a large Bunya Pine (araucaria bidwillii). The north-east corner of the southern sloping lawn also features several tall, individual bougainvilleas and a large Womans Tongue Tree (albizia lebbeck).
The former ornamental garden is a triangular area of lawn bounded on its southern side by the former main driveway and the residence site, and on its western side by a former service driveway. The main driveway commences at the eastern end of the Harts Road boundary following an east-west alignment to what was once a turning circle in front of the residence. The service driveway commences at the western end of the Harts Road boundary and runs south to the site of the former stables. Both driveways retain evidence of their crushed gravel construction, and along the main driveway in particular there is a distinct raised mound in the terrain. The main driveway is bordered on each side by avenues of palms including Date (pheonix dactylifera), Dwarf Date (phoenix roebelenii), Wine (butia eriospatha) and Cocos palms. Remnants of the turning circle include a single centre palm and traces of crushed granite gravel. A modern timber archway spanning the former main driveway supports an original bougainvillea plant with reddish-pink flowers. The service driveway is bordered by bougainvillea hedges on its eastern side. Also along this driveway is a tall metal telegraph pole.
Running north-south through the centre of the ornamental garden is an avenue of trees aligned with the front trellis archway, marking the location of a former pedestrian pathway. This avenue includes Cabbage Palms (livingstonia australis) and Date Palms. To the west of the pathway is a mulched area and two Cocos palm trees which indicate the location of a former circular garden bed. To the east lies a bougainvillea shrub with purple-pink flowers (possibly a variegated bougainvillea) and a guava tree, which are all that remains of a large wedge-shaped garden bed. A Bribie Island Pine is also located in this area.
The former residence site in the south-west corner of the residential garden is a levelled lawn approximately 25m long by 17m wide with remnant concrete slabs overgrown with grass marking features such as the bottom of stairs leading to the former verandah. The large parent "Thomasii" bougainvillea that once covered the verandah stands on the northern side of the area. It has long, thick branches spreading widely in an east-west direction, supported in places by modern timber frames. Slightly further to the north, a row of mature trees running parallel to the Thomasii bougainvillea includes alternating Mango and Cocos Palm trees.
The site of the former stables, south-west of the residence site, is a flat lawn area bordered by vegetation. To the east is the former drying area, which is bounded by a row of shrub and tree plantings on the western side (including a bauhinia) and a long bougainvillea hedge on the southern side. Two large Queensland Bottle Trees (brachychiton rupestris) mark the northern edge of this area and a very large Fig tree (ficus benjamina) marks the boundary between the former drying area and the former enclosed tennis court to the east.
The former tennis court and vegetable garden are located in the south-east corner of the residential garden. Now a single open space, these consist of a long flat lawn area bordered on the northern edge by a dense bougainvillea hedge. Tangled within this hedge are the remains of what appears to be an original fence, namely weathered timber posts and sections of barbed wire. The south-east corner of the former vegetable garden has been truncated by the eastern boundary fence.
Non-significant elements throughout Thomas Park include modern signs, benches and picnic tables, a water bubbler and garbage bin holder.
","history":"The Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens, located on Harts Road, Indooroopilly, in Brisbane, were created as a large residential garden by landowner, Henry Thomas from about 1900. For four decades the gardens were a tourist attraction, bringing visitors from throughout Australia and overseas to see their spectacular display of bougainvilleas in flower. During the almost 60 years that Thomas tended the gardens he bred a number of bougainvillea cultivars, which were displayed there. Converted to a park after 1958, the garden's plan and many of its plants are retained and comprise a good example of a large urban-residential garden from the Federation period.
\nThe Long Pocket area of Indooroopilly, in which the gardens are situated, was used for agricultural purposes from the 1860s. Robert Jarrott established an orchard on Portion 67, Parish of Indooroopilly, County of Stanley (about 22 acres or 8.91ha) in 1867, which his son continued after Jarrott's death in 1879. It was subdivided into seven allotments, transferred to Jarrott snr's children and subsequently sold, between approximately 1888 and 1906.[1]
\nThomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens, or ‘Somerset', as it was originally named, comprised Subdivisions 1, 2 and 7 of Portion 67. Sub. 1 of Portion 67 was purchased by Henry Thomas in 1898 or 1899; Sub. 7 was purchased in 1900; and Sub. 2 at an unknown date.[2] The property comprised 7 acres 2 roods 22.7 perches (3.093ha) on the banks of the Brisbane River.
\nBorn in Wellow, Somerset, Thomas arrived in Brisbane on 14 September 1883, as a 19 year old, unassisted passenger on the SS Nowshera.[3] He worked as a groom for the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly in Sydney, trained racehorses for the Dangar pastoralist family in Armidale and worked as a coachman at Baroona Homestead, Singleton, NSW.[4] He returned to Queensland by 1889 when he married his first wife, who died soon afterwards.[5] At the time of his second marriage in August 1894, again in Brisbane, Thomas was employed as a gardener.[6] From about May 1897 until 1909 Thomas operated a livery stable in Adelaide Street, Brisbane.[7]
\nThomas created his gardens on the Long Pocket site around the turn of the century. The Australian Women's Weekly in 1950 reported that he had planted a purple bougainvillea 49 years previously.[8] A 1956 newspaper article stated that the mature trees in the gardens, including an 80 foot (24.38m) tall Norfolk Island Pine, a Moreton Bay fig and several bottle trees, had been planted 60 years previously.[9] This was a slight exaggeration, but photographic evidence from c1908-10 shows the garden had established palms and bougainvillea;[10] while Thomas' development of a bougainvillea cultivar named after him, Bougainvillea spectabilis ‘Thomasii', pre-dates 1905.[11] The Bougainvillea Gardens' beauty was first reported by a newspaper in 1926, implying that they had been planted quite some time before.[12]
\nThe Thomas property included a wedge-shaped residential garden to the north of the site, comprising about a third of the total area, while the remainder of the property was fenced into paddocks leading down to the Brisbane River. A large dam was situated in the top half of the property, below the residential garden.
\nLocated centrally in the western half of the residential garden was the Thomas' house. The gardens were laid out in a formal manner with the boundaries and specific areas within them (drying area, tennis court and vegetable garden to the south east of the house) defined by bougainvillea hedges.[13] This geometric formality was reinforced by linear access ways from Harts Road - a pedestrian pathway and two driveways - all of crushed gravel. The main driveway ran east-west to the house, ending in a turning circle circumscribing a staghorn-bearing palm tree. The pedestrian pathway ran north-south to the front of the residence, while a secondary driveway similarly ran north-south along the western boundary.
\nThe Harts Road frontage was fenced. The earliest known version was a picket fence (c1912), replaced later by a painted timber and wire fence (c1935).[14]
\nThe Bougainvillea Gardens comprised evergreen trees, such as palms, Ficus, mango and bottle trees; with colour provided primarily by bougainvillea, at least one of which Thomas bred himself,[15] supplemented by crotons, orange crucifix orchids, poinsettia (red and cream), and annuals planted in two garden beds centrally placed in the lawn on either side of the pedestrian footpath.[16]
\nThe pedestrian and main driveway entries were emphasised by archways covered in bougainvillea[17] and a pergola spanned the pathway near the pedestrian entry.[18] Pergola and arches, covered by bougainvillea stood along the west side of the house leading to the rear service area and stables; and steel trellises supported bougainvillea in front of the north side of the house. Large urns stood at the foot of the entry steps to the residence.
\nFrom the 1920s until at least 1958, Thomas' Bougainvillea Gardens were a popular tourist destination for locals and visitors to Brisbane from around Australia and overseas; and the site of large garden parties held for funding-raising purposes. In July 1926, Thomas' garden at Indooroopilly was already recognised as a ‘sight of Brisbane'[19] with interstate dignitaries taken there to admire the ‘wonderful bougainvillea hedges'.[20] In 1927 monies raised from visitors were donated to the Children's Hospital Fund. The first reported garden party was held in September 1929 for St Andrew's Church of England, Indooroopilly, of which Thomas was a member. This annual event continued until at least 1939. These occasions brought hundreds of visitors to the gardens.[21] One garden party to raise money for the St John's Cathedral Fund attracted nearly 3000 people to the gardens in August 1933,[22] and a fete for the Indooroopilly-Taringa branch of the Red Cross Society in 1940 raised £180.[23] By 1940, the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau conducted regular trips to the gardens during the winter tourist season.[24] Visitors included delegates from around Australia visiting Brisbane for conventions; politicians, often bringing guests, such as Mrs Curtin, wife of the Prime Minister; and notables like photographer Frank Hurley, artist Margaret Preston and actress, Shirley Ann Richards.[25]
\nIn their heyday, Thomas' Bougainvillea Gardens were reported on and featured in newspapers, magazines and books published throughout Australia. Colour spreads appeared in The Queenslander, the Australian Women's Weekly and The Land newspaper.[26] Cinesound produced a newsreel of actress Shirley Ann Richards in the Bougainvillea Gardens in 1937. Photographs of the Gardens were used in photographer Frank Hurley's post-World War II publication Australia Calling! Camera Studies by Capt. Frank Hurley: A Souvenir of Interesting Views and Scenes from All Parts of Australia and as the cover and frontispiece of DA Herbert's early book on sub-tropical gardening, Gardening in Warm Climates published in 1952. Photographs of the gardens were also included in The Queensland Calendar 1961 and the publication, Australia Land of Sunshine.[27]
\nHenry Thomas was a renowned figure in Brisbane due to his development of the Bougainvillea Gardens and a number of bougainvillea cultivars.[28] On different occasions the media called him ‘Mr Bougainvillea' and ‘the Bougainvillea King'.[29] Bougainvillea spectabilis ‘Thomasii', his most well-known cultivar, was distributed around the state and overseas.[30] As one horticultural writer stated, ‘the variety ‘Thomasii' is too well known to need description'.[31]
\nThomas' Bougainvillea Gardens influenced garden plantings in Brisbane, Queensland and overseas. Newspapers reported other gardens growing B. ‘Thomasii', e.g. at Glen Kedron and Annerley in Brisbane,[32] and at Gracemere Homestead [QHR 600508], and for road beautification on the Rockhampton-Yeppoon Road.[33] B. ‘Thomasii' was sold by nurserymen who collected cuttings from Thomas' garden. Photographs and media stories also influenced gardeners to grow bougainvillea.[34]
\nPost-World War II, as part of its programme to increase Brisbane's parkland, the Brisbane City Council (BCC) proposed the purchase of the Bougainvillea Gardens for £5000. Acquisition of the property was part of the Lord Mayor's Long Pocket riverside boulevard and park scheme.[35] Thomas agreed in March 1947, on the condition that the property be acquired for the use of the public and that he be allowed to remain in occupation, as caretaker, for as long as he desired. He also offered his ‘experience in the preparation of any further plans to beautify the site, without compensation other than full occupation of the house and the paddocks for grazing house cows'.[36] The BCC accepted this offer stating that ‘the property is ...acquired for park purposes for the use and enjoyment of the citizens of Brisbane and visitors to this City and your offer of advice in connection with proposals for the further beautification and development of the area is greatly appreciated'.[37] A newspaper report at the time said the show garden had a ‘world-wide reputation as a beauty spot'.[38]
\nAfter BCC's acquisition, the Bougainvillea Gardens continued to be used for fund-raising events such as the University of Queensland Women's College Garden Party in August 1948 and its Appeal Fete in August 1950.[39] Afternoon teas also continued to be served daily.[40] Prunings were given to visitors and to a local nurseryman for propagation.[41]
\nHenry Thomas died in April 1958, ending his curatorship of the gardens.[42] Subsequently, A E Wilson, the BCC's newly appointed landscape architect, was granted a lease of the property, conditional upon his making the Gardens available free to visitors during weekends and on holidays.[43]
\nBy 1962 the BCC had new plans for the gardens and the management of the Long Pocket land it had resumed to form the Sir John Chandler Park. During 1962-63 the Council invited tenders for the development of land forming part of the park, for golf and other recreational facilities. A lease of 20 years was proposed on the understanding that such facilities were to be made available to all sections of the public.[44]
\nOnly one tender was received - from the Indooroopilly Golf Club (IGC) - which did not fully conform to the requirements laid down by the BCC. It was approved in principle and referred for further investigation. Subsequently, in 1962, the Council Administration Board recommended that the IGC be granted a 10 year lease over that portion of Sir John Chandler Park described as Portions 67-73, 75, 77 and 78, Parish of Indooroopilly (about 86 acres or 35ha) on the southern side of Long Pocket.[45] The area known as Bougainvillea Gardens (Lots 1, 2 and 7), along with its residence, was included in the area leased by the IGC. The residence was to be used as a Club House, or for any purposes approved by the Council associated with the development of the Golf Course ‘during the first 10 years of the golf course's operation, or from 1 January 1964, whichever was the sooner',[46] conditional upon the IGC maintaining all bougainvillea propagation, along with the gardens and their surrounds. At the end of the 10 year lease, the planted area of Bougainvillea Gardens and residence were to revert to the BCC and be excised from the lease.[47]
\nBrisbane's Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, opened the Indooroopilly Golf Club Long Pocket course on 8 March 1964.[48]
\nHowever, continued use of the Thomas' residence by the IGC did not result. By October 1964 the house had been demolished, leaving only ‘a few bricks and a barren patch of ground'.[49] Alderman Greenfield was quoted in the Sunday Mail as saying: ‘We pulled the old house down because it was showing its age. Vandals were getting into it. It would have been too costly to repair. We are still negotiating with an organisation about how it will be developed.... It will be parkland and free to the public.'[50]
\nIn 1965, the IGC applied to the BCC to lease the land in the lower (southern) section of the Bougainvillea Gardens to expand its golf course.[51] However, the BCC insisted that the IGC comply with the term of its existing lease requiring construction of a football field on the land within the lease for public use, before it would consider the Club's request for an extension of its leased area.[52] The IGC agreed to construct two ovals on the eastern end of its lease for public purposes,[53] so, in early 1967 the BCC granted extension of the IGC's leased area to encompass the Bougainvillea Gardens. The IGC was to maintain the Gardens and permit public access to them between the hours of 10am and 4pm daily, provided that at all times the golf course was safeguarded.[54]
\nThe IGC immediately commenced formation of its new 9th hole on the lower section of the Bougainvillea Gardens, including filling in the Garden's dam located on Sub. 7 of Portion 67.[55] The Club took over the maintenance of the Bougainvillea Gardens from 27 January 1968.[56]
\nIn 1977 a new lease was negotiated over the land used by the IGC. As part of this process, the Long Pocket land was consolidated into two lots - Lot 1 being the land around the Long Pocket Clubhouse and Lot 2 being the remaining area leased to the IGC, comprising the developed golf course.[57]
\nFrom 1980, complaints were made to the BCC by descendants of Thomas about the council's failure to maintain the Bougainvillea Gardens and that the land was not being used for public purposes as intended because part of it was used as ‘a golf course and in the exclusive use and possession of a golf club'.[58]
\nAt some time after the agreement that the IGC maintain the Bougainvillea Gardens, this responsibility reverted back to the BCC Parks Department; where it resides in 2014.
\nThe intactness and integrity of the Bougainvillea Gardens has been commented upon by several sources. A Conservation Management Study for Thomas Park undertaken by the BCC in 2002 found that the garden was in a satisfactory condition with much of the design and plantings of the garden surviving.[59] In 2008 a Conservation Management Plan (CMP) was completed for the park by the BCC City Design Team. Original elements of the Bougainvillea Garden, including many plants from the Thomas' period were identified and were assessed as in good condition generally. This report found that the integrity of Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens was moderate.[60] A botanical survey of Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens in 2014 found that the vegetation survey report by the BCC in May 2008 was comprehensive and since then only five trees have died or been removed from the park,[61] thereby supporting the CMP's assessment of the park's integrity and condition.
\nIn 2014, the original B. spectabilis ‘Thomasii' and many other Bougainvillea plants, mature trees and palms remain in the park. The layout of Thomas' garden is easily readable after consulting the 1958 plan of the garden. The arch over the pedestrian entry is a remnant structure, as is an early telegraph pole that survives in the north west corner of the gardens.
\nRemoved from the garden are the structures and hard landscaping: house and outbuildings; the last front fence; original boundary fences; pergolas; and most archways. Obscured are all gravel driveways and footpaths. Some plants have been removed or died without being replaced. The IGC excised part of the vegetable garden and most of the lower two-thirds of the property with a six-foot high wire fence, creating a new boundary to the park, when it extended a fairway. This change of boundary disconnected the garden from the Brisbane River, to which it previously had access and views.[62]
\nIntroduced to the park have been park furniture: benches, picnic tables, a bubbler and a bin. Additionally, some new plants have been added or self-seeded.[63]
\nAlthough now a park, Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens retain sufficient of their original layout and plantings for assessment as a garden. Using the Australian Heritage Commission's classification and assessment methodology for gardens, the garden type the Bougainvillea Gardens most resemble is a Large Urban-Residence Garden in the Federation style.[64] However, they exhibit features also shared by Suburban Gardens and Homestead Gardens. These are: generous size, decorative front gardens and productive rear gardens. Like Large Urban-Residence and Homestead Gardens, the Bougainvillea Gardens had a carriage-way with turning circle. Similar to Homestead Gardens they included avenue planting, a service area and stable block; were sited on flood-free higher ground with views; and were close to permanent water (both river and dam). Common to all three garden types, the Bougainvillea Gardens had a utilitarian garden (vegetable and picking), which in Large Urban-Residence Gardens was often fenced, hedged or walled off.[65]
\nCommon features of Federation style gardens were the architectural elements which differentiated them from earlier styles: fences were varied in design and predominantly painted timber.[66] A pedestrian entry and a service entry featured, with added emphasis given to the visitors' entry by gateway planting, or a lychgate for larger houses.[67] Lattice work, pergolas, gazebos, summerhouses and rose arches were also features. Conservatories, shade houses, bush houses, greenhouses and ferneries in latticed timber and unpainted hardwood were advocated. Nationalism appeared in cut-in garden beds, with some in the shape of the Federation star and others in the shape of Australia.[68] Seats, sundials and elaborate watering equipment were characteristic of the Federation garden, but ornaments were not. The preferred plantings in these gardens were evergreen trees and colourful flowers.[69]
\nFederation style gardens ‘retained the plantsmanship of the Gardenesque style and incorporated large lawn areas, but [exhibited] diverse layout styles [from] geometric formality to the dramatized natural style of the \"Picturesque\"'.[70] Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens conforms to the Geometric Federation style. The characteristics of this style are:
\nenclosure by boundary walls, hedges and creeper-covered fences; division of the garden into rectangular spaces close to the house by using trellises, fences, walls, pergolas and hedges; designation of special areas such as the pleasure garden, the kitchen garden, the drying garden, the orchard and the tennis court; terracing, sunken gardens; planting features such as lawns, small trees and shrubs, hedges, topiary, flower beds and borders, edging plants of box and a rosary. A neat look was advocated and sometimes natural vegetation was completely removed.[71]
\nThe cultural heritage significance of Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens has been identified in several studies. The 1996 ‘Inventory of Historic Cultural Landscapes in Queensland'[72] named Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens as one of the ‘specific landscapes which were representative of historical cultural landscapes in Queensland.'[73] The BCC 2002 Conservation Management Study found the gardens to be of local cultural heritage significance.[74] In 2008 a full Conservation Management Plan found that the Gardens had cultural heritage significance under a number of criteria. In particular, it stated that ‘[a]s a historic residential garden, the Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens has the potential to increase our understanding of garden design in Queensland in the early 1900s'.[75]
\nIn 2002, the Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens recognised the significance of the Bougainvillea Gardens:
\nThroughout the 1920s and 1930s, ‘Somerset' or Bougainvillea Gardens was a favourite tourist destination, especially during bougainvillea flowering time. Thomas conducted plant breeding experiments and developed the vigorous (carmine-pink) Bougainvillea spectabilis ‘Thomasii'. His gardens featured distinctive Queensland plantings, including palms, shade trees, tropical plants (including 15 cultivars of bougainvillea) and a 25m timber trellis festooned with single specimen of B. ‘Thomasii'.[76]
\nThe gardens also featured in the journal of the Australian Garden History Society Journal[77] and in 2013, the Australian Garden History Society's report ‘Heritage Gardens in Queensland: a survey of Queensland's parks, gardens, trees and other designed landscapes' included Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens as a place of state, or potentially state, cultural heritage significance.[78]
\nIn 1996 the ‘Inventory of Historic Cultural Landscapes in Queensland'[79] concluded that the Bougainvillea Gardens were an ‘important exemplar of a private garden that has inspired or still inspires Queensland gardeners and designers'. All of the other gardens cited by this study as being important and inspiring private gardens, were entered in the QHR.[80]
","criteria":"Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens have a special association with Henry Thomas, who was a renowned figure in Queensland in the 1920s-50s because of his development of the Gardens and a number of bougainvillea cultivars. He designed and planted the garden c1900 and was responsible for creating the cultivar B. spectabilis ‘Thomasii', named after him, the original of which still grows in the park.
For almost 60 years Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens were the home of Henry Thomas, the site of his horticultural work, and recognised as a significant tourist destination during his lifetime.
|The Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens had a special association with the wider Queensland community as a recognised place of beauty from the 1920s to the 1960s, as newspaper and magazine articles, and widely published images of the gardens, show.
|The Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens, are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of large urban-residence gardens of the geometric Federation style.
These characteristics include: enclosure of the garden by boundary hedges; division of the garden into rectangular spaces close to the house using hedges; designation of special areas such as a pleasure garden, a kitchen garden, a drying garden; planting features such as lawns, small trees and shrubs, hedges and gravel paths. Other characteristics include evergreen trees and colourful shrubs; a pedestrian entry and a service entry, with added emphasis to the visitors' gateway through plantings. They have a plantsman emphasis, specialising in breeding and displaying bougainvillea.
Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens retain a sufficient degree of intactness and integrity to show the exceptionality of the original gardens.
|The Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens (c1900), with their emphasis on displaying bougainvillea species amid distinctive Queensland plantings of palms, shade trees and tropical plants, are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland garden design and planting in the early to mid-twentieth century - popularising bougainvillea as a feature plant in gardens throughout tropical and subtropical Queensland.
The Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens are important as the site of early twentieth century innovation in the development of new bougainvillea cultivars; with the parent plant of the most well-known of these, B. spectabilis ‘Thomasii', still growing in the park.
|Retaining their plan, mature trees and the bougainvillea plantings that made it a tourist attraction between c1920 and c1960, the Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens are important for their aesthetic significance. They exhibit the beautiful attributes of a well composed formal garden, which uses a single feature plant type, the bougainvillea, to unify its variety of garden elements, which include symmetrical avenues and enclosing border hedges. For decades these gardens were photographed, filmed and written about, and attracted Australian and international visitors.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion H | Criterion G | Criterion D | Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35558,"place_ref":602853,"name":"Mount Tarampa State School","alternate_name":"Mt Tarampa State School","street_address":"9 Profkes Road","suburb":"MOUNT TARAMPA","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-05-01","description":"Mount Tarampa State School stands on an elevated, approximately 2 ha site on the corner of main thoroughfares, Profkes and Mount Tarampa roads, in Mount Tarampa, approximately 40km northwest of Ipswich. The school comprises a complex of small buildings, including an early provisional school building (1906, extended 1916), teacher’s residence (1918, extended c1955), playshed (1912), tennis court (pre-1925) and established trees. The school is conspicuous in its rural setting.
\nProvisional School (1906, extended 1916)
\nSet well back from and facing east to Profkes Road, the early Provisional School building is a small one-storey, lowset, timber-framed structure; axially aligned with the school entrance. The building is clad in timber weatherboards and is sheltered by a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It has a front and rear verandah and accommodates two rooms. The northern and southern gable ends each retain original tall, timber-framed casement windows sheltered by timber hoods with battened cheeks. Stop-chamfered brackets supporting the centre of each hood are possibly original. Packed weatherboards at the gable end apexes vent the interior.
\nBoth the front (east) and back (west) verandahs are accessed by centrally located timber stairs. The front verandah has exposed roof framing, square timber posts and a timber two-rail balustrade. A join in the fascia identifies the extent of the 1916 northern extension. The southern end of the front verandah is enclosed to form a staff kitchen; and the rear verandah is enclosed for use as staff offices. The front and rear verandah walls retain early timber-framed casement windows with high sills. Access to the interior is via original braced and ledged board doors (not in their original locations).
\nOriginally one large classroom, the interior is divided into two rooms separated by a central hallway of part-height modern partitions. The interior walls and coved ceilings are lined with v-jointed timber boards. A continuous break in the ceiling boards over the central hallway delineates where the 1916 extension was attached. Timber tie beams are exposed within the spaces and timber lattice ceiling vents are in the northern and southern rooms.
\nTeacher’s Residence (1918, extended c1955)
\nThe teacher’s residence is a highset timber-framed, weatherboard-clad building that stands on concrete stumps and is protected by a corrugated metal-clad hipped roof. The building addresses Profkes Road to the east, with bedrooms and living rooms along the north and east sides, and a kitchen with projecting stove alcove at the southwest corner. The interior is accessed via central front (east) and rear (west) timber stairs that lead to verandahs. The front verandah has timber posts and a two-rail battened balustrade, and the rear verandah has been enclosed with weatherboards to form a living space. The c1955 extension on the north side comprises a living space with a bathroom in the northwest corner. Verandah walls are single-skin, lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards. The building has a variety of timber-framed windows, including original double-hung windows—those on the southern elevation are sheltered by original timber-framed hoods with battened cheeks. The understorey has timber batten screens fixed between concrete stumps; the southwest corner has been enclosed to form a utility room.
\nThe internal layout of the residence is highly intact, comprising a central corridor running east-west between the entrance doors, with two rooms to either side. The front two rooms are bedrooms, and a bedroom and kitchen are at the rear. The kitchen has a stove recess and pantry. Internal walls are single skin with exposed studwork, and most walls are lined with v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards. Ceilings are lined in flat sheeting, and modern carpet and linoleum line the floors. Skirting, cornices and architraves are narrow with simple profiles. Retaining early hardware, internal doors are low-waisted with two-light fanlights, and doors to the northern extension are half-glazed, six-light French doors, with single-light centre-pivoting fanlights. The bathroom, toilet and kitchen fitouts are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nPlayshed (1912)
\nThe playshed is located to the south of the Provisional School building. It is a 6-post, timber-framed shelter with braced posts and a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The formerly open-sided structure has been enclosed with modern part-height corrugated metal sheets. It has a concrete floor and a ceiling of flat sheet material has been inserted. Timber brackets are internally attached to the southwestern posts for storage of a wooden trestle table. Modern window and door openings are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nGrounds
\nThe grounds of Mount Tarampa State School are well established and include mature trees. These include: three well-established date palms (phoenix dactylifera) within the teacher’s residence yard; a large bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) adjacent to the fence-line separating the school and residence; a mature Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) at the front of the school near Profkes Road; and other established trees lining the boundary of the site. A tennis court, located northwest of the provisional school building, has a modern surface and is surrounded by high chain wire fencing.
\nOther structures
\nOther buildings and structures within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n","history":"
Mount Tarampa State School opened in 1906 as Mount Tarampa Provisional School on a two-acre (0.81ha) site within the small agricultural settlement of Mount Tarampa in the Brisbane Valley, to serve the sparse but growing rural population. As settlement increased, the provisional school building was extended (c1916) and a teacher's residence was built (1918). Other structures and landscape elements were added including a play shed (1912), a tennis court (pre-1925) and plantings. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nEuropean occupation of the Brisbane Valley dates from 1841. Charles Cameron established Tarampa station, a large pastoral lease stretching from the D’Aguilar range to Glenmore Grove and from Prenzlau to Coominya, in the 1840s.[1] Settlement in the Mount Tarampa area occurred when the Tarampa Repurchased Estate, comprising 17,432 acres (7054.5ha) divided into 144 properties, opened for selection in 1903.[2] All of the blocks were occupied by 1909. Farmers in the area carried out mixed farming, dairying and grazing.[3]
\nMount Tarampa Provisional School opened on 23 July 1906 with 22 children attending in the first year.[4] Construction of the Department of Public Works-designed provisional school building, on a two-acre (0.81ha) site purchased from James West, was undertaken by C Risdale for £101 10s.[5]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which standardised curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[6] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[7]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[8]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[9]
\nIn colonial Queensland, provisional schools were a convenient means of providing an elementary education for the small, scattered and often transient rural population and became an integral part of the educational landscape. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of Public Instruction gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local committee provided a building and found a teacher, while the Board paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils. If the local population declined, the provisional school closed at little expense to the Board. If the district or town developed, the provisional school was raised to state school status and provided with purpose-designed school buildings.
\nBy 1892 the condition of provisional school buildings, which formed almost half of the colony’s schools, was an embarrassment to the Department of Public Instruction.[10] A recommended plan was introduced in 1892 to try to improve matters. This standard type (B/T6) was for a small low-set timber framed and clad building with a gable roof. It accommodated one large classroom 21ft x 14ft (6.4m x 4.2m) with a front verandah, although a rear verandah was sometimes provided. The building was of single-skin construction and lined externally with chamferboards. The building had few windows and ventilation was provided by a high-level louvred vent in the gable end wall. These were often a huge improvement over the previous provisional school buildings and were constructed until c1910.[11] The Mount Tarampa building was a typical provisional school building (type B/T6) similar to the standard plan introduced by the Department of Public Instruction. It was a single room, gable roofed structure of the above dimensions, with a front verandah, 7 x 21ft (2.1 x 6.4m), and a central doorway. A water tank and outbuildings were also provided.[12]
\nMount Tarampa Provisional School was re-designated as a state school in 1909.[13] In that year, the Department of Public Instruction upgraded the majority of provisional schools to state school status by lowering the required minimum average number of pupils for a state school from 30 to 12, gradually providing these schools with new buildings designed and constructed to government standards.[14] At Mount Tarampa, a rear verandah and a new central doorway were added to the school building, with partial corner enclosures for hat rooms. The school was also painted.[15]
\nThe Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, the need for all-weather outdoor space. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[16] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[17] A playshed, constructed at Mount Tarampa School by C Risdale, was completed by March 1912.[18] The playshed was built to a standard 6-post design. It was 24ft x 12ft (7.32m x 3.66m), constructed of exposed timber framing and had a hipped roof.[19]
\nBy 1914 there were 52 children attending Mount Tarampa State School, necessitating the use of the verandahs for teaching and prompting the School Committee to request an extension to the 1906 building. These extensions completed in July 1916 at a cost of £226 comprised: addition of a northern classroom, 19x22ft (5.8x6.7m); lining of the classrooms and rearrangement of windows reusing the original windows; centring the stairs at the front (east) and rear (west) of the extended building; and installing new wash basins at either end of the rear verandah.[20] The tall, timber-framed casement windows from the eastern and western verandah walls were repositioned to the gable end walls. Sunshades protecting the gable end casement windows were extended from one to three bays wide to accommodate the additional windows. Two timber-framed casement windows were installed at a high level at the northern end of the western verandah wall, and two at the southern end of the eastern verandah wall. These alterations were designed to allow maximum natural light to enter from the left hand side of each student.[21]
\nFrom 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. From around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so the light would fall onto students’ left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[22]
\nIn 1918 a teacher’s residence was constructed for £588 and was ready for occupation by February 1919.[23] This two bedroom teacher’s residence (type C/R2) was one of three standard designs created between 1894 and 1914.[24] From the outset, teacher’s residences were built to a standard regulated by the Board of General Education rather than a specific design, so the form varied with each commissioned architect.[25] Initially, residences were most often attached as annexes to the classroom building, but from the 1880s were built as detached residences. These residences were similar to the vernacular Queensland house with few, if any, education-specific requirements or features.
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works’ architects, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher’s residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nMount Tarampa State School’s growing student population resulted in additions and improvements to the school grounds during the 1920s. The average number of children attending increased to 67 in 1925, prompting the Committee to purchase three acres of land in 1922 for additional play space and a one-acre (0.4ha) horse paddock.[26] By 1925 a tennis court had been built, which was used for school grade tennis matches.[27]
\nThe provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of the beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations was the importance of the addition of shade trees in the playground. In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educationalists believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[28] Some mature trees exist in the Mount Tarampa State School’s grounds, including a Bunya tree (Araucaria Bidwillii) and a large bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris). Three large date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) stand in the residence garden.
\nIn the post-war years, there was little change to the school. Although planned in 1937, a verandah and bathroom addition on the northern side of the teacher’s residence wasn’t completed until about 1955, to a cost of £994. With this addition, windows along the northern wall were replaced by half-glazed, six-light timber French doors.[29]
\nBetween the 1960s and the 1980s a modernisation of Queensland education occurred. The Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education’s governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved with new architectural responses needed. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the Department of Public Works. Due to new materials, technologies, educational philosophies, government policies, architectural styles, and functional requirements, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving’ on the previous designs, architects began to design on a relatively clean slate, inspired by new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly high-set. The mid-1980s brought additions to Mount Tarampa State School with a modular building and an extension to library added in 1986, while in the following year a covered play area was constructed.[30]
\nIn 1981, 75th anniversary celebrations were held on 18 July, including an official luncheon and a book printed for the occasion. In 2006 the school celebrated its centenary and produced a history of the school.[31]
\nBetween 2005 and 2014, the playshed was enclosed on all sides with part-height corrugated metal sheeting. A glass sliding door was installed on the northern elevation and sliding glass windows were added to the eastern and western walls. The timber posts are still visible on the interior, although the roof framing is concealed by a ceiling of flat sheeting.
\nIn 2015, Mount Tarampa State School continues to operate and retains the provisional school building, playshed and teacher’s residence. The school is important to the area, having operated from the site since 1906 and as generations of Mount Tarampa students have been taught there. Since establishment, it has been a key social focus for the Mount Tarampa community with the grounds and buildings being the location of many social events.
\n","criteria":"
Mount Tarampa State School (established in 1906 as Mount Tarampa Provisional School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. These are a Department of Public Works-designed provisional school building (1906), a playshed (1912), and a teacher’s residence (1918) set within school grounds with significant landscape elements including mature plantings and a tennis court.
|Mount Tarampa State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state school complex, comprising buildings constructed to standard designs by the Department of Public Works, located on a large landscaped site with mature trees and a tennis court. The school is a good example of a modest, regional school with its small, simple teaching building that has been modified over time.
\nThe Department of Public Works designed provisional school building (1906, extended 1916) is an excellent, intact example of its type that retains its lowset form with front and rear verandahs (now partly enclosed), timber-framed and -clad construction, gable roof, coved ceiling, early doors and windows, and natural lighting and ventilation features.
\nThe playshed (1912) has a hipped timber-framed roof supported on braced, timber posts (all sides are now enclosed).
\nThe teacher's residence (1918) is an excellent, intact example of the residence type of its period — a highset timber-framed and -clad building with hipped roof, comprising three bedrooms, a kitchen with stove alcove, and front and rear verandahs (rear verandah is now enclosed).
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMount Tarampa State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Mount Tarampa community. Operating since 1906 generations of Mount Tarampa children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Mount Tarampa and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35559,"place_ref":602852,"name":"Branyan Road State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Branyan Drive","suburb":"BUNDABERG","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-05-01","description":"Branyan Road State School occupies a large 4.7ha site bounded by Branyan Drive to the south and Tomato Island Road to the east in the suburb of Branyan, Bundaberg. The school is surrounded by a mixture of semi-rural and suburban residential development on the southwestern outskirts of Bundaberg City. A water treatment plant adjoins the school on the western side, with the Burnett River approximately 350m west of the site. The school buildings are mostly located in the southwestern corner of the school grounds, and an established forestry plot (1947) is adjacent to the western boundary. Set well back from and addressing Branyan Drive, the original teaching building is long and rectangular in plan and overlooks a grassed area to the south. The building comprises two connected buildings (1905, and c1892-1910, combined in the current position in the 1920s) that are of a similar style and construction. A playshed (1914) is located west of the teaching building.
\nTeaching building
\nThe teaching building is a one-storey, lowset, timber-framed building on concrete stumps, clad with weatherboards and sheltered by a gable roof lined with corrugated metal sheets. Most doors and windows are modern replacements, generally set within early openings. A clerestory window located along the north-facing roof plane of the building is a later modification that provides additional light to the interior. Windows on the eastern and western gable end walls are sheltered by timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad hoods with battened cheeks. While similar, the western hood is narrower than the eastern hood. Rectangular vents within the gable end walls ventilate the roof space.
\nThe building has verandahs to the south (front) and north (rear) sides; both accessed by two short flights of timber stairs. The verandah roofs are at different pitches to the main gable; with the side edges of the front verandah roof stepped in. The verandahs have stop-chamfered timber posts, timber floor boards, and raked ceilings lined with flat sheeting. A timber two-rail balustrade encloses the front verandah; the gates at the top of the stairs are modern additions. Most of the rear verandah balustrade has been replaced with bag racks, and its eastern and western ends have been enclosed to accommodate small store rooms. The eastern storeroom walls are clad in tongue-and-groove, vertically-jointed timber boards, with internally exposed timber framing, and the western storeroom walls are clad in flat sheeting.
\nThe interior layout comprises three rooms, separated by timber partitions. Vertical-jointed timber boards clad the partitions, walls and the underside of the roof. Timber roof framing is exposed within the space, and modern fixed, wired-glass windows — in-line with the partitions — are inset within the roof trusses. Skirtings and cornices are timber; the skirtings are of a simple profile and the cornices are stepped. Modern carpet and linoleum lining early timber floorboards are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nPlayshed
\nThe playshed stands to the west of the teaching building. The timber-framed structure has a modern concrete slab floor, and is sheltered by a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. Six, square, timber posts support the roof and are braced to the exposed roof framing by brackets.
\nGrounds
\nThe school grounds are well established and include mature trees. North of the playshed, a variety of mature pine trees, including kauri pines (Agathis robusta), hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) and slash pines (Pinus elliottii), stand within a forestry plot; sections of this plot are planted in rows. A particularly large kauri pine is located between the playshed and the forestry plot.
\nOther structures
\nSheds, covered walkways, play equipment and other structures within the school grounds are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n","history":"
Branyan Road State School, located southwest of Bundaberg, was opened in 1905 as Branyan Road Provisional School, and was upgraded to a state school in 1909. A playshed was added in 1914, while the original school building was extended with the addition of a similar building in the mid-1920s. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland, and retains excellent examples standard of government designed school buildings that were an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies. Branyan Road State School also includes an impressive kauri pine tree (Agathis robusta), planted in 1914, and a c1947 forestry plot.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[1]
\nBranyan Road State School resulted from European settlement along the Burnett River. Traditionally the land of the Kalki people, the European presence in the Burnett area began with pastoralism in the 1840s and 1850s.[2] Timber cutters arrived in the mid-1860s to work the coastal scrub near Bundaberg. By the same decade there were five pastoral stations on the lower Burnett River: Tantitha, Kolan, Barolin, Bingera, and Branyan.[3]
\nSelection of land around Bundaberg began in 1867 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, which aimed to promote agriculture and closer settlement.[4] The Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868, also designed to promote closer settlement, enabled the resumption of half of the Bingera and Branyan Runs in November 1869.[5] The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed the same year. A large farm was established by Edward Lloyd Elwood by 1871, on a large bend south of the Burnett River (upstream from today’s Branyan Road State School) on land resumed from the Bingera run.[6] This was referred to as ‘Branyan Plantation’ by 1879, by which time it was owned by EB Jeune, who established Branyan Mill.[7] The school was named after the road to this plantation.
\nBundaberg’s development as a port and service centre was boosted by growing coastal traffic and by its designation as the port for Mt Perry's copper mining from 1881. Surrounded by sugar plantations and the site of two sugar refineries, Bundaberg became an important sugar town.[8] The first South Sea Islander (SSI) indentured labour arrived in Bundaberg in 1879 and the sugar plantation system reached its peak in Queensland in the early 1880s. However, the Queensland Government, seeking to promote European closer settlement, passed legislation in 1885 to end recruitment of SSI labour. As a result, large sugar plantations with their own mills and a SSI workforce were eventually replaced by European small farmers supplying central sugar mills. In 1889 there were 202 cane farmers in Queensland; this rose to 2,610 by 1901. By 1911, over 4300 small farmers had replaced the 140 Queensland plantations that had existed in 1888.[9]
\nThe increased European population in sugar growing areas like Bundaberg meant more schools were required. In 1904 a five acre (2ha) school reserve was gazetted on Branyan Road, on part of a former quarry reserve.[10] The Branyan Road Provisional School opened 14 April 1905.[11]
\nA minimum of 30 pupils was necessary before the government would build a state school. From 1869, provisional schools could be established with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. If the district or town developed, provisional schools were raised to state school status, with purpose-designed school buildings and teacher residences attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers. By 1908, 640 provisional schools were operating compared with 461 state schools.[12]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[13]
\nHowever, early provisional school buildings were not built to standard plans and many were of poor quality. Under regulations introduced in 1892 to address this situation, if a provisional school was built according to government specifications, the government would provide up to half the cost of the building and its furniture.[14] The recommended government plan for provisional schools was for a small low-set timber framed and clad building with a gable roof. These were often a huge improvement over previous provisional school buildings and were constructed until c1910.[15]
\nThe school building at Branyan Road had a single classroom measuring 21’ x 14’ (6.4m x 4.3m), and a 7’ (2.1m) deep front verandah, stepped in from the gable bargeboard and set at a slightly shallower angle than the building’s main roof. The recommended government design normally had single skin walls, clad with chamferboards, and had rectangular louvred vents above the sash windows in the gable end walls.[16]
\nSoon after its opening, the school was affected by the aftermath of a serious industrial accident. In September 1906 a night-shift boiler explosion at the Bonna sugar mill (Bonna plantation was located adjacent to Branyan plantation) seriously injured three men. Two of the men, Frank Juel and Jack Lavery, died while being transported to Bundaberg the next morning. As a memorial to the two men, two mango trees were planted that year at Branyan Road Provisional School, but neither tree survives in 2015.[17]
\nIn 1909, by lowering the required minimum average number of pupils for a state school from 30 to 12, the Department of Public Instruction upgraded the majority of provisional schools to state school status, gradually providing these schools with new buildings designed and constructed to government standards. In 1912 the requirement for communities to contribute one-fifth of the cost of establishing a state school was abolished. With these reforms, the provisional school system became virtually redundant, although a number of these schools were maintained into the mid-20th century.
\nBranyan Road Provisional School’s conversion to a state school had occurred by August 1909.[18] Shortly afterwards a verandah was added to the rear of the school building by JT Novakoski. The 1910 plan for the addition shows casement windows, and boarding across the upper sections of the ends of the verandahs. The rear windows were also moved to accommodate a new door. The new verandah was built in line with the gable barge boards, in contrast to the original verandah, that was slightly stepped in.[19]
\nAs well as changes to buildings, the grounds were improved over time. Trees and gardens were planted as part of the beautification of schools. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days (from 1890 in Queensland) instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[20] In 1912 Branyan Road State School placed third in the Education Department’s awards (Bundaberg-Gladstone area) for state school gardens and experimental agricultural work;[21] and in 1929 the school was noted for its picturesque flower gardens and sugar experimental plot.[22] An early surviving tree planting at Branyan Road is a kauri pine (Agathis robusta), planted by school pupil Sydney Dittmann in 1914. This tree survives in 2015 as an impressive specimen to the north of the playshed.
\nThe six post playshed, measuring 24’ by 12’ (7.3m x 3.7m), was built in 1914. The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were originally clear of vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[23] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas.[24]
\nBranyan Road State School flourished alongside the Queensland sugar industry. From the 1910s to the 1980s, this industry was protected and subsidised by both the Queensland and Federal governments, and Bundaberg continued to grow steadily between the two world wars.[25] In the mid-1920s the teaching building was extended, most likely to the east, by adding an identical building, sourced from the Pine Creek area. Improvements to the grounds at this time included a tennis court, built by the school committee.[26] However, this was not on the location of the tennis courts that exist in 2015, as the site of the latter was treed in a 1965 aerial photograph.[27]
\nA pine plantation (forestry plot) was started north of the school buildings in 1947. The ground was prepared by Les Hull, and over 600 trees were planted in the following five years.[28] Forestry plots were the product of after-school agricultural clubs, introduced in 1923 at primary schools, under the ‘home project’ scheme. Curriculum driven, these clubs had a secondary commercial value as well as disseminating information and helping to develop a range of skills. The Department of Primary Industry provided suitable plants and offered horticultural advice.[29] School forestry plots were seen by the government as a way of educating the next generation about the economic and environmental importance of trees, as well as providing testing grounds for new species. Located throughout the state, the plots were a means of experimenting with a variety of tree species in different soil and climatic conditions. The sale of timber grown in school plots provided an additional source of income for the school, and the plots themselves were an attractive feature of school grounds. The first school forestry plot was established at Marburg State Rural School in 1928. Encouraged by the Education and Forestry Departments, by 1953 about 380 Queensland schools were undertaking forestry projects.[30] Different species of pine tree were planted at Branyan Road State School over time, and in 2015 the plot included kauri, hoop (Araucaria cunninghamii), and slash (Pinus elliottii).
\nIn the late 1950s and early 1960s there was unprecedented growth in the district, due to irrigation projects and the development of a deep-water sugar port near the mouth of the Burnett River (1958).[31] Many large building projects were completed in Bundaberg, including new hospitals, schools, court house, customs house, and civic centre, and the population of Bundaberg rose from 18,000 in 1952 to 27,000 in 1967.[32]
\nAlterations and additions at Branyan Road State School reflected Bundaberg’s growth and prosperity. In 1962, electric fluorescent lights were installed in the teaching building, which was altered in the mid-1960s to improve lighting, with a long clerestory window on the north elevation. This was in line with a post-World War II emphasis on aligning buildings ten degrees east of north, with verandahs protecting the northern side and classrooms facing south. This led to the construction of school buildings that were oriented in relation to the sun rather than the site boundaries.[33] In existing older buildings, verandahs were enclosed as weather protection and verandah balustrades were replaced with bag racks for improved storage. Many buildings had their fenestration altered to increase the amount of light into the classrooms, and many older windows were replaced with modern awning style windows.[34] By 1965, the ends of the rear verandah at Branyan Road State School had been enclosed to create store rooms and the balustrade had been replaced by bag racks. At this time the building consisted of a single classroom. [35]
\nFurther additions and changes to the school complex included: a two-classroom demountable block and toilet block in 1979; a covered play area and car park in 1983; conversion of the original teaching building and its extension into a library, health services, and staff room in 1984; plus construction of Stage 1 of a new teaching block that year. New buildings continued to be added between 1985 and 2001, and a new sports field was created in 1997.[36] A multipurpose hall was built c.2010 as part of the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program. The school grounds expanded to the east in the 1990s, from the original 2 ha, to a total of 4.7ha in 2015. Whereas the school was still separated from Bundaberg by about 4km of cane fields in the 1950s, recent housing development has meant that the school is now on the edge of town.
\nIn 2015, Branyan Road State School retains its original teaching building, playshed and forestry plot. The teaching building is used as a music-teaching and storage space and is featured on the school logo. The school is important to the town and district, having operated since 1905 and taught generations of Branyan students.
\n\n
","criteria":"
Branyan Road State School (established in 1905 as Branyan Road Provisional School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. The teaching building consists of two provisional school buildings of the same standard design (utilised 1892-1910) by the Queensland Department of Public Works, joined end-to-end in the 1920s. The playshed (1914), also a standard design, demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum.
\nThe forestry plot (1947 onwards) is evidence of a popular educational initiative that conveyed the economic and environmental importance of forestry to students, while creating an attractive landscape feature and income for schools.
|Branyan Road State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with later modifications. These include: buildings of standard designs, and generous, landscaped sites with mature trees.
\nThe teaching building, comprising two buildings of the same standard design by the Queensland Department of Public Works, is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland provisional school buildings. The conjoined buildings retain their lowset form; narrow width; original verandah slope, with the front verandah stepped in from the gable bargeboards; exposed roof trusses; and louvered gable ventilation.
\nThe playshed (1914) retains its open sides and hipped, timber-framed roof supported on timber posts.
\nThe kauri pine (Agathis robusta), planted by a pupil in 1914, is a fine example of the feature trees planted in Queensland school grounds. Similarly, the forestry plot is also a fine example of such plantings, containing several pine tree species.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nBranyan Road State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Branyan community. It was established in 1905 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Branyan children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Branyan.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35560,"place_ref":602851,"name":"Forest Hill State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"15 Church Street","suburb":"FOREST HILL","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-05-01","description":"The teacher’s residence and mature bunya pine trees (Araucaria bidwillii) are situated within the grounds of Forest Hill State School, in the Lockyer Valley region. The school occupies an approximately 1.8ha site bounded by Church, Kent and Dyer Streets. The school addresses Church Street, with most school buildings located in the northern corner of the site. The teacher’s residence is located at the southeastern end of the Church Street frontage, and the bunya pine trees stand along the Church Street fence line, northwest of the residence. No other buildings, structures or trees within the school grounds are of cultural heritage significance.
\nTeacher’s Residence
\nConstructed in three stages, the residence is composed of a former provisional school building (1892) which forms the core; a kitchen wing (1898) at the rear; and a side extension (c.1906) northwest of the core. The building is timber framed, clad in timber weatherboards and stands on low concrete stumps. It has a front verandah and an enclosed, L-shaped verandah at the rear. Reflecting the extensions added over time, the building has a variety of roof forms. The core has a gable roof with stepped verandah roof on the northeast side and a broken-back roof (formerly a verandah roof) on the southwest side. The kitchen wing has a hipped roof, and the side extension has a gable roof with a small hipped section over a room at the southwest corner. A projecting stove alcove and laundry addition, both attached to the kitchen wing, have skillion roofs. All roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting and eaves are unlined.
\nThe front verandah, accessed by a set of centrally located stairs, has a two-rail timber balustrade and stop-chamfered verandah posts. Balustrade posts at the top of the stairs are topped with ball finials.
\nTwo types of early windows and window hoods survive (some relocated from their original positions when the side extension was built). The earliest windows are timber-framed, six light sash windows located in the core and side extension walls. Other early windows are timber-framed, two light sashes. Windows hoods are either curved metal with patterned sides or timber skillion window hoods with latticed brackets. The southeast elevation of the core retains a rectangular louvred ventilation panel in the centre of the gable. Similar louvres provide ventilation to the projecting stove alcove.
\nThe plan of the core consists of a central corridor with two bedrooms on the eastern side and a single long room used as a living room on the western side. A doorway has been cut into the southern wall of the southern bedroom, allowing access to an adjacent storeroom. Diagonal timber brackets supporting the roof indicate where the former verandah walls were removed in the southern bedroom and the living room. Verandah posts have been re-used as additional structural support in some locations. The kitchen wing contains a single large room used as kitchen and dining room. The side extension contains two large rooms and a bathroom, which opens off the rear verandah. The rear verandah is enclosed with sliding aluminium windows and the former balustrade is clad in flat sheeting. The raked ceilings throughout the verandah area are lined with flat sheeting and some sections have cover strips. A toilet room added at the southern end of the verandah is not of heritage significance.
\nFloors throughout the residence are timber, covered in non-significant modern carpet or linoleum. Internal walls are generally single-skin, except in locations where a former exterior wall is now an internal wall. Walls and ceilings have a variety of linings but are predominantly wide beaded boards. In the core, boards are laid horizontally on the walls of the former school room and some partitions. Belt rails with beaded edges appear to be used for earlier partitions and rails with chamfered edges for partitions dating from the c.1906 extension.
\nTwo types of early doors are found throughout the residence: ledged or braced-and-ledged timber doors made from vertical boards; and four panel timber doors, some with rectangular fanlights above. Most of these doors retain original or early hardware, including locks and keyhole covers. The front door retains an early doorbell.
\nThe laundry addition, accessed by a braced and ledged timber door on the southwest side, has a concrete floor, small louvred windows, and single-skin walls. A large concrete laundry sink stands against the northeast wall. A raised water tank near the southwest corner of the residence occupies the location of an earlier water tank.
\nThe residence is set back approximately 10m from the front boundary, surrounded by a fenced yard. The scale and style of the residence makes a positive contribution to the Church Street streetscape, which consists mainly of moderately-sized timber houses and churches from the late 19th – mid 20th century on generous blocks of land. The residence is visible for some distance along Church Street, particularly from the east.
\nBunya trees
\nThe two large bunya trees are a landmark feature of the street and surrounding neighbourhood, due to their height and wide canopies (which have a radius of approximately 5.4m in 2014). Standing 8m apart and set back 1.8m from the front fence, the trees are surrounded by a recent garden bed.
\n","history":"
Forest Hill Provisional School opened in January 1893 in a small timber teaching building which was built to a standard government design. The provisional school building was constructed during 1892 on a one acre (0.4 ha) site in Church Street, in the agricultural settlement of Forest Hill. When a new state school building was constructed in 1898, the provisional school building was converted, with additions, into a teacher’s residence, with further additions constructed c.1906. Although the state school teaching buildings (1898, and c1913) have since been replaced, the former provisional school building is still used as a teacher’s residence, and two mature bunya trees (Araucaria bidwillii) mark the former entrance to the 1898 state school building.
\nThe small town of Forest Hill was once one of the busiest agricultural loading points in Queensland. Traditionally the land of the Yuggera people, from the early 1840s the area around Forest Hill was part of the ‘Rosewood’ pastoral station.[1] Some Rosewood land was later resumed by the Queensland Government as part of the West Moreton Agricultural Reserve, to enable closer settlement, and was offered for sale in the 1860s.[2] In 1868 a number of farm portions in the area around Forest Hill, including Portion 47, were purchased from Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior by Jondaryan Estates. The land was subdivided into farm and town blocks in 1886 as the Laidley Plains Estate, and Portion 47 was subdivided into town blocks.[3]
\nThe main reason for the subdivision of Portion 47 was the presence of the Southern and Western Railway along its northern boundary. The railway had been built westwards from Ipswich to serve the pastoralists of the Darling Downs. The section between Grandchester and Gatton was formally opened on 31 May 1866.[4] The first agriculturalist in the Forest Hill area, Major AJ Boyd, purchased land 6km south of the railway in 1880, and requested a siding on the line to the west of Laidley.[5] Initially known as Boyd’s siding, this was renamed after his property ‘Forest Hill’ by 1881, and in 1886 the siding was moved about a kilometre west, to the site of the current Forest Hill railway station.[6] Jondaryan Estates put more freehold land up for sale in 1889, and by 1890 there was a produce business and blacksmith in Forest Hill.[7] A hotel also operated briefly at Forest Hill between 1889 and 1891.[8]
\nThe growing town soon required a school. The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[9]
\nFrom 1869, in rural areas where there would be less than 30 pupils attending, provisional schools could be established. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. Local committees provided a building and found a teacher, and the Board of General Education (established 1860) paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils. Provisional schools were regarded as interim measures until state schools were built and were often hastily erected by voluntary labour using basic materials. By 1908, 640 provisional schools were operating compared with 461 state schools.[10]
\nIn August 1890, the Forest Hill community investigated the possibility of obtaining a provisional school, and a committee was formed in September that year.[11] Fundraising for the construction of a school was underway by this time.[12] Jondaryan Estates set aside 1 acre (0.4ha) of land on Portion 47, and in September 1890 this was given to the school committee.[13] An application for a provisional school was made after WR Burton became secretary of the school committee in August 1891, and the school was built for £98 by Mr Luder, with a government grant of £49.
\nThe Forest Hill Provisional School was based on a standard government plan. To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[14]
\nHowever, early provisional school buildings were not built to standard plans and many were of poor quality. Under regulations introduced in 1892 to address this situation, if a provisional school was built according to government specifications, the government would provide up to half the cost of the building and its furniture.[15] The recommended government plan for provisional schools was for a small low-set timber framed and clad building with a gable roof (type B/T6). It accommodated one large classroom 21ft x 14ft (6.4m x 4.3m) with a front verandah, although a rear verandah was sometimes provided.[16] The building was single-skin construction, lined externally with chamferboards. The building had few windows and ventilation was provided by a high-level louvred vent in the gable end wall. These were often a huge improvement over the previous provisional school buildings and were constructed until c1910.[17]
\nIn June 1893, it was reported that ‘The year… saw the beginning of a new practice in regard to provisional schools, the Department now… contributing, on certain conditions, towards the cost of their erection… Examples of this are afforded by the new schools at… and Forest Hill, which have been erected in accordance with departmental plans and specifications’.[18]
\nThe Forest Hill provisional school building consisted of a classroom 24.6’ by 14’ (7.5m x 4.3m), with a 7’ (2.1m) front verandah, and an 8’ (2.4m) back verandah. The building was inspected in December 1892, and Provisional School No.697 opened on 23 January 1893.[19]
\nForest Hill Provisional School became a state school in 1899, due to local population growth. The Queensland government's 1896 repurchase of 6,000 acres (2428ha) of the Rosewood Estate, comprising fertile black soil land on the northern side of the Forest Hill railway station accelerated development of the town – and that same year the Queensland Agricultural College was constructed 4km northwest of Forest Hill.[20] Between 1898 and 1906 three hotels were built in Forest Hill – the Station Hotel (1898) now the Forest Hill Hotel [QHR 600652; the Crown Hotel (1902) burnt down in 1909; and the Lockyer Hotel (1906) [QHR600650]). The town’s first bank opened in 1901 and the first police station in 1902.[21]
\nWhile a provisional school only required 1 acre (0.4 ha), state schools required a minimum of 2 acres (0.8 ha).[22] The Department of Public Instruction paid 4/5ths of the £22 required to purchase an additional 3 acres (1.2 ha) to the northwest and southwest of the provisional school grounds, from Jondaryan Estates, in early 1898, making a total of 4 acres (1.6 ha).[23] Tenders were called in mid-1898 for a new state school, conversion of the existing provisional school into a teacher’s residence, and fencing.[24] In October 1898, the establishment of the state school was authorised by the Governor, and the tender of R Hodges for a new state school at Forest Hill (£539 1s 6p) was accepted.[25]
\nMost Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation.
\nFrom the outset, teachers’ residences were built to a standard regulated by the Board of General Education.[26] Initially, residences were most often attached as annexes to the classroom building, but from the 1880s were built as detached residences. These residences were similar to the vernacular Queensland house but typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher’s residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees, and this practice was followed at Forest Hill.
\nThe new Forest Hill State School’s teacher’s residence was not a standard design, as it consisted of modifications to the existing school teaching building. As part of the conversion, a partition was added to the main classroom space of the former provisional school; two bedrooms were created on the rear verandah, and a storeroom, kitchen and servant’s bedroom wing was added to the rear.[27] The new state school was declared on 1 May 1899, after completion of the new teaching building.[28]
\nTwo bunya trees were planted either side of the front gate to the state school building by 1910,[29] both of which survive in 2015. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of schools, and Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[30]
\nForest Hill continued to prosper after the state school opened. A further 18,000 acres (7284ha) in the Lockyer Valley were subdivided and sold as farms in 1903, town blocks were sold north of the railway line in 1904, and Forest Hill emerged as a thriving township.[31] By 1908, when the Post Office moved from the railway station to its own building in town,[32] the Forest Hill railway station was despatching more produce than either of the older settlements of Gatton and Laidley, and Forest Hill laid claim to being the largest loading centre in Queensland in the early decades of the 20th century.[33]
\nAs the town expanded, so did the teacher’s residence. The first Head Teacher at the state school was James McNally, who had six children.[34] Due to the residence being too small for his family, additions were approved in June 1906, at a cost of £115 – although Mr M O’Keeffe, MLA, had described the residence as ‘a little humpy, unfit for a family to reside in’, and had recommended a new building.[35] The additions consisted of a new sitting room, dining room and bathroom on the northwest side of the residence, with a new verandah at the rear connecting to the verandah of the kitchen wing. Another partition was also added to the former classroom space, creating a central hallway.[36]
\nThe population of the town increased due to the duplication of the railway line west of Laidley from 1911, and in 1914 Forest Hill State School reached its peak enrolment – 166 pupils with 5 teachers.[37] By this time, a new room had been added to the state school building, c.1913.[38] In 1923 approval was given to enclose under the school for Vocational Classes, and by 1937 a tennis court existed southwest of the residence.[39]
\nAfter World-War II, the area’s main industries were still dairying and agriculture. However, by the 1960s road transport was replacing rail; and Forest Hill’s importance as a loading centre for agricultural produce waned, with a number of businesses moving to Gatton.[40]
\nDespite this decline, the Forest Hill State School received a new school building, which was occupied in March 1965, and officially opened in May 1965.[41] The old state school teaching buildings were sold for removal that year. A classroom was built under the new school in 1969,[42] and a library and a demountable building were later built between the 1965 school and the residence – the demountable occupying the site of the 1898 state school building. In the 1980s, suggestions to remove the bunya trees for safety reasons (falling bunya nuts) were defeated by community attachment to the trees, and a garden was formed beneath them instead.[43] An early education unit opened on the grounds in 1982, and later became a pre-school. Land to the south of the former provisional school was added to the school grounds by 1987.[44] The current grounds cover 4.5 acres (1.8 ha).
\nThe former provisional school continues to be used as a teacher’s residence. A small skillion roof toilet has been added – projecting northwest from the southern end of the kitchen’s northwest verandah – and a slab-on-ground skillion roofed laundry has been added to the rear of the kitchen. The building has been restumped with concrete stumps; the wall between the kitchen and a servant’s room has been removed to form a larger kitchen space; and the wall between the northwest end of the original school building and the former rear verandah bedroom has been removed, forming a larger living room space.
\nIn 2015, Forest Hill’s school continues to be important to the town and district, having operated since 1893 and generations of Forest Hill students have been taught there.
\n\n
","criteria":"
The Forest Hill State School residence, built in 1892 as a provisional school and converted to a residence in 1898, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It is a representative example of a standard government-designed provisional school building that was later extended to become a state school residence.
\nThe original building is a product of the Queensland Government’s policy, from 1892, of providing up to 50 percent government funding for provisional schools built to standard government plans. Its later conversion to a residence demonstrates the policies, at the time, of providing residences for married male head teachers in rural areas and of re-using provisional school buildings as state school residences.
|The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland schools, including the use of standard designs, the conversion of earlier school buildings to teacher’s residences, and tree planting.
\nThe Forest Hill State School residence is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland provisional school building converted into a teacher’s residence. It retains the school’s lowset form; narrow width; early windows and doors; front verandah with stepped verandah roof and centrally aligned stairs; and louvred gable ventilation. The 1898 additions, which include a kitchen wing and the enclosure of the rear provisional school verandah to form bedrooms, reflect the requirements of converting the school building for residential use; while the rooms and bathroom added in 1906 demonstrate the need to adapt residences over time to accommodate teachers and their families.
\nThe two bunya pines (Araucaria bidwillii), planted prior to 1910 facing Church Street, are fine examples of the feature trees planted in Queensland school grounds.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nThe Forest Hill State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Forest Hill community. The teacher’s residence was built as a provisional school in 1892 through the fundraising efforts of the local community. The school is important for its contribution to the educational development of Forest Hill. The bunya trees are a landmark feature.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35598,"place_ref":602854,"name":"Cannon Hill State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"845 Wynnum Road","suburb":"CANNON HILL","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-06-12","description":"Cannon Hill State School occupies a 2.44ha site bounded by Wynnum Road to the north, Molloy Road to the east, Princess Street to the south, and residential properties that front Narela Street to the west. Prominently positioned above the main road through Cannon Hill, the school is a landmark in the suburb. The main entrance to the school is along Wynnum Road, where the original timber school building, Block B, remains a striking feature of the streetscape. The site slopes gently to the south and east. The school buildings, parade ground, swimming pool and tennis courts are concentrated on the northern half of the site, with playing fields and a pre-school situated to the south.
\nThe school complex comprises a variety of educational buildings, amenities and landscape features of varying eras of design and construction. Of these, significant components include:
\nAll buildings are axially sited, aligned parallel and perpendicular to Wynnum Road. Blocks B, E and F are timber-framed, weatherboard-clad and highset on concrete piers, with timber-framed windows and corrugated metal-clad gabled roofs.
\nBlock G and various modern ancillary structures including toilet blocks, a dental clinic, covered play areas and a large structure adjacent to the pool, are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Other non-significant elements include modern carpet and linoleum floor linings, kitchenettes, acrylic panels to window openings, modern benches and storage cupboards, and aluminium windows.
\nBlock B - Suburban Timber School Building (1915)
\nBlock B is a large, symmetrically arranged timber school building comprising a U-shaped footprint of three main gable roofed classroom wings, connected by continuous verandahs to the north side. The building exhibits typical characteristics of a Suburban Timber School Building, Type C/T8.[53] All classrooms are 22ft (6.7m) wide and verandahs are 10ft (3m) wide. The east and west wings (formerly 2 classrooms each) are a mirror image of each other (with the exception of later modifications), with verandahs along both east and west elevations. The central wing (formerly 3 classrooms) is longer, with a verandah to the north elevation only. Two small, gable-roofed teachers rooms project diagonally from the inner junctions of the wings, with one of two original verandah cloak rooms retained opposite. Six sets of open timber stairs provide access to the verandahs, and the building is connected to Block F to the south and Block A to the west via covered verandah walkways.
\nThe north (front) elevation is symmetrically composed. Protruding gable ends of the east and west wings each feature a bank of windows, eight narrow sashes wide by three sashes high, flanked by open verandah ends. The windows to the east wing comprise casement windows to the bottom row, horizontal-pivot sashes to the middle and fanlights to the top. The windows to the west wing have been replaced with aluminium framed casements to the two bottom rows, with fanlights above. The gable end windows are sheltered by wide, terracotta-tiled window hoods with decorative timber brackets. This window and sunshade configuration is mirrored on the southern elevations of the east and west wings, and the exposed southern wall of the central wing also features a similar window configuration. Clear acrylic panels have been affixed to the inside of the majority of window openings.
\nThe building retains much of its original timber ornamentation. The wide gabled roofs have open eaves with decorative timber brackets. Exposed framing is visible to the single skin verandah walls and the raked verandah ceilings are lined with timber v-jointed (VJ), tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards. Joinery to the verandahs includes: timber posts with decorative arched brackets; two-rail timber balustrades with battened balusters; panelled double doors with fanlights; and horizontal-pivot sash windows above door height. The outer verandahs of the east and west wings are partially enclosed. The east wing enclosure retains original weatherboard cladding (with some later modifications), whilst the west wing enclosure (c1977) is more extensive and includes a passageway and external stair added at the southern end. Bag hooks are attached to the wall of the outer verandah of the west wing.
\nThe central wing is divided into two classrooms, with a small amenity area between, separated by modern concertina doors. The east and west wings are both open-plan. The original classroom layouts of all wings are evident from the bulkhead partitions retained where the original folding partitions have been removed. Internally, the three classroom wings and teachers rooms all have timber floors (lined with modern vinyl and carpet), and walls lined with VJ, T&G boards. Hinged ventilation boards survive at the base of verandah walls, although painted closed and externally sealed in some locations. The classroom wings have modern suspended ceilings and lighting, though it is possible that pressed metal ceilings remain above.
The projecting teachers rooms walls are lined with timber VJ, T&G boards and the original pressed metal ceilings and decorative air vents have been retained. The cloak room located on the verandah at the junction of the central and west wings is formed by partitions lined with single skin VJ, T&G boards, with open timber shelves. The cloak room partitions are mirrored on the east wing side; however, the construction of the doorway through to the verandah walkway to Block F has resulted in the removal of the original timber shelves and construction of an enclosed storage space.
The understorey has a concrete slab floor, is partially enclosed by vertical timber battening and chain wire storage areas, and is used as a covered seating and play area. The weatherboard cladding to the teachers' rooms extends to form storage rooms below.
\nBlock F - Suburban Timber School Building (1947), with High Set Timber School Building extension (1957)
\nSituated to the south of Block B, Block F comprises two sections: a highset, gable roofed building (1947) sited parallel to Molloy Road; and a perpendicular, gable roofed extension to the west (1957), connected by an enclosed L-shaped verandah.
\nThe 1947 section of Block F aligns with the east wing of Block B, and is similar in plan, form, fenestration and external detailing. External timber stairs provide access to the west verandah which is enclosed with aluminium-framed hopper windows. An additional bank of aluminium-framed hoppers are housed in the southern end and a casement window is located at the enclosed northern end of the east verandah (now a kitchenette). The 1957 extension is highset on concrete piers with a semi-enclosed play space underneath. The building exhibits some of the characteristics of a Highset Timber School Building with semi enclosed chairs, Type F/T4,[54] including: highset timber framed structure on concrete stumps; external cladding carried through both levels; verandah bag racks; and extensive use of hopper windows to the southern elevation. The 8ft (2.4m) wide north facing verandah is enclosed with aluminium-framed hopper windows and accessed via an external set of timber stairs. The exposed southern elevation features a large bank of timber-framed hopper windows, three sashes high.
\nExtensive interior modifications have resulted in an open-plan classroom space across the 1947 and 1957 sections of Block F. Above the large openings created in the former 1947 verandah walls, banks of original high-level horizontal-pivot windows remain, along with timber VJ, T&G board linings. The 1947 raked ceilings are also lined and feature metal tie rods, whilst the 1957 flat ceiling is lined in flat sheeting with cover-strips. The former layout of the 1947 building (2 classrooms) is evident, with some verandah doorway openings with fanlights retained, as well as VJ, T&G lined partition bulkheads where the original folding timber partitions have been removed.
\nThe understorey of the building has a concrete floor and is used as a covered seating and play area. Weatherboard cladding extends to ground level to enclose the east and south elevations of the 1957 extension, with corrugated metal sheeting enclosing the southwest corner of the 1947 building.
\nBlock E - High Set Timber School Building with Semi Enclosed Stair (1954)
\nConnected to the western verandah of Block F, Block E exhibits characteristics of a Highset Timber School Building with semi enclosed chairs, Type F/T4.[55] The building comprises three classrooms and a smaller end room, with a partly enclosed verandah to the north elevation. The verandah is accessed from the west by a set of open timber stairs. The partially enclosed understorey is used as a covered play space, with weatherboard cladding extending to form change rooms at the western end.
\nThe southern elevation features a large bank of hopper windows, 16 sashes wide by three sashes high, with an additional two-sash-wide bank of hopper windows at the western end. Windows on the northern verandah wall are double-hung sashes with fanlights. A bag rack extends the length of the verandah. Internally, the classrooms walls, partitions and flat ceiling are lined with flat sheeting with cover-strips. A large opening has been formed in one of the classroom partitions, with smaller internal ‘windows' formed in the other two original partitions. One set of original interior double doors remains in-situ.
\nBlock C - Temporary Classroom Building with T&G Boarding (c1950-51)
\nBlock C is a lowset structure (c1950-51) with vertical T&G board cladding, half-gabled roof and a partially enclosed northern verandah. A gable roofed former teachers' room projects from the northern elevation. The chamferboard clad extension (1957) to the west is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building (formerly 3 classrooms) exhibits characteristics of a Temporary Classroom Building with T&G Boarding, Type E/T5[56] including vertical T&G board cladding, north facing verandah and casement windows with fanlights. The composite structure incorporates the prefabricated panels typical of Prefabricated Timber School Buildings by the Works Department, Type F/T2[57] with conventional construction and design characteristics consistent with earlier buildings on the site.
\nAll walls are single skin, with vertical T&G board cladding on the exterior of the east, west and south walls, and interior of the northern, verandah wall. The east, west and south walls exhibit characteristics of pre-fabricated construction, comprising pre-fabricated panels set within timber framework. The south and east elevations feature banks of two-light casement windows with fanlights, whilst windows to the verandah wall are double-hung three-light sashes.
\nBlock C is accessed via a modern deck that connects with the eastern end of the verandah, from which classrooms are entered via early timber-boarded double-doors with fanlights. The verandah wall retains characteristics of earlier standard designs, including hinged ventilation boards, and bag hooks attached to the exposed wall framing. The verandah has a two-rail balustrade with battened balusters to the east of the former teachers room, and enclosed bag racks with lattice over to the west. The raked verandah ceilings are lined with VJ, T&G timber boards. A weatherboard-clad storeroom is located at the eastern end of the verandah. The projecting former teachers room is weatherboard-clad with casement windows, and the ceiling is lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. The north and east windows are sheltered by timber-framed window hoods.
\nEarly interior walls and partitions have exposed framing and are lined with VJ, T&G boards. Internal classroom arrangements have been reconfigured, with the original doors and partitions partly or fully removed. Some lintels remain to indicate the former partition layout. The ceiling is coved and flat sheeted, with metal tie rods retained. There is a large opening to the wall between the earlier building and the 1957 extension.
\nBlock A - Timber Framed School Building Incorporating Open Web Floor Trusses (1959)
\nBlock A is a long, gable roofed building sited parallel to Wynnum Road and connected to Block B via a covered walkway at its east end. The asymmetrically arranged building is stepped to respond to the site gradient and comprises two main sections: a double storey brick block to the east; and a highset timber and brick structure to the west. Block A is characteristic of a Timber Framed School Building Incorporating Open Web Floor Trusses, Type F/T7.[58] The structure is supported on tapered open web steel floor trusses, with a cantilever supported northern verandah, enabling unencumbered play space underneath. The stepped, gabled roofs are clad with terracotta tiles, with four modern (1993) roof vents visible from the south.
\nThe double storey section to the east is constructed of face brick. Glass louvres and an area of brickwork (1973) enclose the toilets and store rooms to the ground floor. A small porch covers the ground floor entry to the north and a driveway passes through the building, with a former entrance passageway with timber bench seating on the west side. The first floor has an enclosed south verandah with narrow chamferboard cladding and fixed, timber-framed glazing, with steel framed glass louvres to the verandah wall. The first floor interior contains offices and workrooms divided by partition walls. A central staircase links the two halves of the building.
\nThe west section comprises four classrooms on the first floor and an open play space beneath, with a brick-enclosed staircase at the far western end. Timber framed hopper windows, with fanlights, extend along the full length of the south elevation. The north-facing verandah is enclosed with fixed, timber framed glazing (1993), on enclosed bag racks. The verandah walls are lined with flat sheeting with cover-strips, with steel framed glass louvres above sill height. The classroom walls and raked ceiling are lined with flat sheeting with cover-strips. Folding timber doors survive in two partition walls. The understorey features open web steel floor trusses supported on concrete piers. An additional classroom is located to the east end of the understorey, enclosed by glass louvres to the north, face-brick with hopper windows to the south, and a solid brick wall to the west.
\nSetting and Landscape Features
\nThe established grounds comprise lawn areas, garden beds and numerous mature plantings, as well as various built landscape features such as pathways, terraces and retaining walls; integrated with the concentration of school buildings to the north and surrounding the open playing fields to the south.
\nThe front of the school is elevated and set back from Wynnum Road behind a fenced lawn and densely planted terraced garden beds. The axial siting of Block B is accentuated by the original (1915) concrete entrance pathway and stair layout from Wynnum Road. Mature trees including Poincianas (Delonix regia) are integrated into the front garden, with Wattle (Acacia pycnantha), Figs (Ficus), and Moreton Bay Ash (Corymbia tessellaris) scattered across the northwest corner of the site. Further mature plantings continue along the western boundary of the school including Figs, Eucalypts and various other species.
\nAreas of asphalt are located between the school buildings, including the parade ground (now covered with astro-turf) to the south of Block A which is surrounded by concrete block retaining walls. A mature Mango (Mangifera indica) tree (associated with the early private residence) is located to the southwest of the parade ground. Several shade trees of various species (Moreton Bay Ash, Fig and Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora)) form an avenue running south from Block A, in line with the driveway.
\nThe rectangular swimming pool (built in 1921) to the south of Block E comprises an in-ground concrete shell and surface surround. A large modern amenity building has been constructed to the west end of the pool and concrete tennis and basketball courts are located to the east.
\nThe site slopes downwards to the south and the level playing fields are surrounded by vegetated embankments. A retaining wall constructed of Brisbane Tuff (porphyry), with later additions in granite, defines the east and north extents of the grassed playing field. Two large figs stand on the slope between the pool and the playing field. Various mature plantings including Paperbarks and a Mango tree are concentrated to the southeast corner of the site around the Pre-School Centre (location of the former Teachers Residence) and along Molloy Road.
","history":"Cannon Hill State School opened in 1915 on a 1.62ha site in the suburb of Cannon Hill, approximately 5km east of central Brisbane, to meet the demand for primary school education in the area. Suburban development after World War II spurred the construction of additional buildings to accommodate the school's growing pupil numbers. Cannon Hill State School comprises a complex of six school buildings, including one Suburban Timber School Building (1915); a building designed to match it (1947, with 1957 Highset Timber Building extension); a Temporary Classroom Building (c1950-1), one Highset Timber School Building (1954); a Timber Framed School Building Incorporating Open Web Floor Trusses (1959); and one of the earliest state school swimming pools (1921); set in landscaped grounds with mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland's national and public schools grew rapidly.[1] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[2]
\nPrior to 1900, the development of the suburb of Cannon Hill was strongly linked to the establishment of local industries and the arrival of affluent settlers in the 1860s - including the Weedon family who, in 1867, built one of the earliest residences in Cannon Hill, known as ‘Cannon Hill House'.[3] Cannon Hill and its surrounding district were pastoral and agricultural during this time and the cultivation of sugar cane was the major local industry.[4] A brickworks operated in Cannon Hill from about 1875 and by the late 1800s the suburb had become semi-industrial, although much of the area remained open bushland. With the establishment of a slaughterhouse in 1906, and the construction of abattoirs and livestock saleyards, Cannon Hill became known as a meatworkers' area in the early 1900s.[5]
\nThe growth of the suburb was stimulated by the establishment of the Swift Company, which built a large abattoir in 1913, described as one of the largest industrial operations undertaken in Queensland at the time.[6] With the influx of residents, created by employment in the flourishing meatworks business, the demand for a local school in Cannon Hill increased significantly. The lack of a local school meant many children had to travel several kilometres to Bulimba, Norman Park or Hemmant to attend primary school.[7]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. One of the most prominent families residing in Cannon Hill in the early 1900s was the Bartlett family, who owned a significant amount of land, including the portion of land that would later become the site for Cannon Hill State School. According to oral histories, the Bartlett family was strongly associated with the establishment of Cannon Hill State School, intentionally acquiring land for a local school, and subsequently selling four acres to the Department of Public Instruction in 1914.[8] Mr W J Bartlett was a member of the 1913 committee that promoted the establishment of a state school and once the school opened in 1915, became chairman of the first school committee.
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[9]
\nCannon Hill State School, which cost £3034, was officially opened on 25 September 1915 by the Hon. HF Hardacre, Minister for Public Instruction.[10] The original school building, (Block B), is an intact example of a Suburban Timber School Building (Type C/T8), with a U-shaped plan, comprising classrooms and two teachers rooms.[11] The timber building was designed with one central and two side wings, roofed with Marseilles tiles, and metal ceiled. Each wing was divided into 22ft (6.7m) wide classrooms, divided by folding partitions. Ventilation features included hinged ventilation boards to floor level and prominent roof vents, or fleches, centrally mounted on the roof atop a system of metal ducts that ventilated the roof space.[12] The functional and decorative fleches appear to have been removed between 1971 and 1974[13] (possibly in association with the replacement of the terracotta roof tiles with corrugated metal sheeting). Battened gable infills were also visible in the original design documents and early images of the school. [14] This building type solved many of the problems of light, ventilation and classroom size that plagued previous school designs as well as providing what was considered the ideal, modern education environment.[15] A significant feature was the construction of large windows, along with a particular classroom arrangement designed to maximise natural light from the left; a strategy developed by the Department of Works between 1894 and 1914.[16]
\nUnder the stewardship of the Department of Public Works, which retained responsibility for schools until 2013, and through the involvement of some of Queensland's most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced and diverse. This was the outcome of years of systematic reform and experimentation.[17] The Suburban Timber School Building demonstrates these advances in school architecture, especially in lighting and the building layout. Visiting Cannon Hill State School in 1915, the Hon. HF Hardacre (Minister for Public Instruction) praised Cannon Hill State School as ‘best in the state on grounds of health and economy' and suggested it was a high-water mark in school architecture.[18] JV Story (Under Secretary, Department of Public Instruction) termed the school ‘the most scientific building yet erected' in Queensland and maintained that ‘it lent itself in every way to the healthy education of the children'.[19]
\nIn 1916, the school's sports ground was established at a cost of £45, marking the start of a number of landscape modifications to Cannon Hill State School.[20] The provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of the school. In the 1870s, schools inspector, William Boyd, was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[21] On Arbor Day 29 April 1916, 120 trees and shrubs were planted in the school grounds.[22] The Minister of Education, visiting the school in September 1919 to open a tennis court, noted the school grounds had been transformed by two beautifully laid out gardens including rose bushes, sweet peas and carnations.[23]
\nSchools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[24] On 23 September 1919, a war memorial comprising an avenue of various trees was planted in the grounds.[25] In 2007, a war memorial plaque was added to the school, next to a mature rosemary bush.[26]
\nIn 1921, one of the earliest state school swimming-pools was built at Cannon Hill State School by the school community, volunteers and parents, at a cost of £496. There was minimal funding from the Department of Public Instruction and construction relied on donations from Kelly Brickworks at Murrarrie.[27] The pool, noted on the 1915 site plan, was the fourth state school pool in Brisbane, with school baths already established at Junction Park (1910), Wooloowin (1916) and Ascot (pre-1921).[28] The construction of the pool, a concrete shell with concrete paved areas adjacent (18.3m x 6m), was a community response to a near drowning tragedy in a local waterhole. Despite the lack of funding, the Cannon Hill community succeeded in building the pool, necessary change sheds and amenities by hosting working bees at weekends.[29] The commitment shown in the construction of the pool strongly highlights the significant relationship between Cannon Hill State School and its local community. The pool, which retains the dimensions noted in a 1946 drawing, has been in continuous use since its official opening on 9 December 1922, demonstrating its important function to the local community over the past century.
\nEnrolment numbers remained steady over the following three decades - largely due to the establishment of Morningside State School in 1926[30] - until suburban growth after World War II spurred a building program. Like other state schools across Brisbane, Cannon Hill State School experienced a rapid increase in pupil numbers post-1945 which, in conjunction with a shortage of building materials, causing drastic overcrowding.[31] In December 1949, The Courier Mail reported that Cannon Hill State School expected 90 to 100 new enrolments in the coming year, on top of its 420 existing pupils.[32]
\nThis was a nation-wide occurrence and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[33] At Cannon Hill State School, a new building, Block F, was added in 1947 and connected to Block B via a raised verandah walkway. Block F shares many features with Block B: its classroom width, use of folding partitions, its verandah layout and external detail; however, it also clearly demonstrates features typical of its period: boarded ceilings with metal tie rods and lack of ventilation flaps.[34]
\nA Temporary Building (Block C), was constructed at Cannon Hill between 1950 and 1951 to accommodate increasing enrolment numbers.[35] This building combined the conventional construction techniques and design characteristics of earlier buildings on the site, with aspects of the Department of Public Works prefabricated buildings constructed for the commencement of the 1951 school year.[36] A factory at Hamilton was established to construct these temporary school buildings, with extensive pre-cutting under way in 1951. Panels for external walls were prefabricated from tongue and groove (T&G) boarding.[37]
\nTemporary buildings were constructed in Queensland schools between 1943 and 1951. This standard type was introduced as an expedient, temporary solution to the exceptional growth in student numbers in the immediate post-war period when skilled labour was scarce and materials were in short supply. They were small timber buildings, lowset on concrete piers, with skillion or gabled roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. External walls were clad with vertical T&G timber boards and the rear wall had casements with operable fanlights sheltered by a simple hood. Accessed from a verandah, the type comprised two classrooms 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.4m), which was consistent with the department's ideal dimensions of the time. The design, materials and form were a departure from earlier types, did not influence subsequent designs, and only a small number of them were constructed.[38] While the classroom sizes differ, strong similarities exist between this Works Department temporary classroom (Type E/T5) and Block C, especially its gabled roof (introduced after 1949), casement windows with fanlights and vertical boarding. The timber building, comprising three classrooms as well as a teachers room by 1952, is a modification of a standard plan with the addition of a hat room as a verandah annexe and hinged ventilation boards to the verandah wall. Few buildings of this type survive.[39]
\nFrom 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings. These new standards were based on conventional construction yet incorporated concepts derived from the imported prefabricated systems including large banks of glazing and a 4ft (1.2m) design module. These buildings were highset timber-framed structures and the understorey was used as covered play space. Introduced in 1950, the principal type (F/T4) was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[40] A Highset Timber School Building (Type F/T4) with a Semi-enclosed Stair, comprising three classrooms, and a library, (Block E), was constructed at Cannon Hill in 1954. This building runs east-west, with a verandah protecting the northern side. This was a contemporary Works Design practice that evolved from the sectional school design.[41] A 1957 extension to the east of Block F followed the same design principle. Educationalists argued that the ideal orientation of classroom buildings was 10 degrees east of north, with verandahs protecting the northern side and classrooms facing south. This led to the construction of school buildings that were oriented in relation to the sun rather than the site boundaries.[42] This orientation was approximately consistent with the existing axial siting of the majority of existing buildings at Cannon Hill State School.
\nIn 1954 the type was improved by replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that spanned the width of the classroom and provided an unimpeded play space. This concept was further refined in 1957 by replacing the timber truss with a steel open-web joist that spanned further and removed more understorey stumps. This structural system was employed with reinforced concrete piers to support large loads at minimal cost.[43] This particular concept was applied in the 1959 construction of Block A, a two storey brick and timber building (Type F/T7) stepped in section to link with Block B by a walkway. This structure was supported on concrete columns and steel open web joints with a cantilevered portion supporting the verandah. The understorey of Block A was left open for playing until the design was modified to add another classroom on the lower level.[44] The use of brick in the construction of Block A follows a structural scheme typical of 1950s school architecture.[45] It was partially constructed on land acquired in 1957 after the Department of Public Instruction purchased a property, to the west of the school on Wynnum Road, for future extensions to the school.[46]
\nOther modifications to the school included: the construction of Block G (one classroom) in 1951 and Block D in 1955 (four classrooms); an extension to Block C in 1957; the removal and subsequent rebuilding of Block G in 1970 (three classrooms on two levels); the addition of a toilet block in 1970; the construction of a retaining wall to the north and east of the sports ground in 1972; the removal of the teachers residence and the subsequent construction of a pre-school centre in 1974; construction of a tuckshop in 1981 (since removed); the removal of Block D in 1987 following arson damage;[47] the construction of a new toilet block; and the 1988 conversion of the southern toilet block to a covered play area, stores and Janitor's room.[48] The pool dressing sheds were demolished and replaced after 2009.[49]
\nLandscape features still visible at the Cannon Hill State School include mature trees. Numerous mature fig trees grow in the school grounds, with two notable trees located along the path leading from the pool area to the sports ground. Two mature mango trees survive - one near the parade ground north of Block C, which survives from the original private residence gardens, and another from the former teachers residence garden, located near the southern end of the sports ground. During the 1916 Arbor Day, the Hon. HF Hardacre (Minister for Public Instruction) was present when the first Anzac tree, a silver wattle, was planted at Cannon Hill State School.[50] A silver wattle, located just outside Block A facing Wynnum Road, may represent a continued landscaping practice. The front gardens retain the original 1914 pathway and terracing layout,[51] and an avenue of trees, including a mature palm tree, lines the pathway from Block A to Block C.
\nIn 2015, Cannon Hill State School celebrates the school's centenary, with a provisional museum already established at the school, honouring Cannon Hill State School's significant history and community efforts. [52]
\nConsidering the school's continuous operation since 1915, the school has played an important part of Cannon Hill's history, teaching generations of students. The school has been a key site for social meetings and activities since its establishment, including school dances, held there as early as 1916; May fairs and fetes, agricultural shows, welcoming soldiers home from the First World War, and school concerts, each one bringing together the school and local community over the past century. It retains an array of representative Department of Public Works-designed buildings and an early swimming pool set in landscaped grounds with mature shade trees.
","criteria":"Cannon Hill State School (established in 1915) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent and representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building (1915) represents the culmination of years of experimentation with light, classroom size and elevation, by the Department of Public Works. This was replicated in a similar building (1947) with modifications typical of its period.
\nThe Temporary Classroom Building (c1950-1) demonstrates a transitional period where standardised designs of conventional construction were combined with prefabricated systems to provide basic classroom accommodation in response to the increased post-war demand on schools.
\nTwo Highset Timber School Building extensions (1954, 1957) demonstrate new standard designs that evolved after World War II, incorporating concepts from prefabrication systems.
\nThe Timber Framed School Building Incorporating Open Web Floor Trusses (1959) demonstrates the change to steel truss supports and cantilevered verandahs to create uncluttered understorey play space.
\nThe early swimming pool (1921) reflects the growing popularity of children learning to swim for health and safety reasons.
\nThe large, suburban site with mature trees and landscaping features demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Cannon Hill School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a suburban Queensland state school complex. These include: generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, assembly/play areas and sporting facilities; and a range of timber-framed teaching buildings constructed between 1915 and 1959. The large school complex retains good, representative examples of standard Queensland government designs that were architectural responses to the prevailing government educational philosophies, and non-standard features such as a swimming pool (1921).
\nThe large Suburban Timber School Building (Block B, 1915) is a good, intact example of its type, comprising: a symmetrical plan of three gable-roofed wings connected via continuous verandahs; highset timber framed structure with play space beneath; projecting teachers rooms; verandah cloak rooms and hat hooks; and continuous operable vents at floor level.
\nAn adjacent classroom building (Block F, 1947) is of similar design to the earlier Suburban Timber School Building, comprising a rectangular plan with consistent classroom width, verandah layout and external details, but without the hinged ventilation boards.
\nThe Temporary Classroom Building (Block C, c1950-51) is a rare, intact example of its type, with lowset timber framed structure, north facing verandah, vertical tongue-and-groove cladding and banks of casement windows with fanlights over.
\nExtensions to the east (Block F, 1957) and west (Block E, 1954) of Block F are good examples of Highset Timber School Buildings, with external cladding carried through both levels, extensive use of hopper windows to southern elevation, and double-hung sash windows to the northern, verandah wall.
\nThe Timber Framed School Building Incorporating Open Web Floor Trusses (Block A, 1959) is a good, intact example of its type, combining face brick construction with a highset timber framed structure supported on open web steel floor trusses, enabling unencumbered play space underneath.
|Cannon Hill State School is of aesthetic significance for its picturesque architectural qualities and contribution to the streetscape. Highly-intact, the Suburban Timber School Building (Block B, 1915) has considerable architectural value as a building of high-quality materials and construction with well-composed features. The symmetrical front elevation, with projecting gabled wings, features decorative elements of finely-crafted timber work. The Suburban Timber School Building is prominently sited, elevated and set back from the road behind open grassed areas and landscaped gardens; it is an attractive feature along Wynnum Road and is a landmark for the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
Cannon Hill State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Cannon Hill community. It was established in 1915 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Cannon Hill and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
Wilston State School occupies the whole of a 2.84ha block within the hilly terrain of the Grange, a residential suburb of Brisbane. The site is bounded by Primrose Street to the south, Inglis Street to the east, Thomas Street to the west and Carberry Street to the north. The school comprises a large complex of buildings on a sloping site, with the earliest school buildings located on the high ground at the southern end of the site, more recent development in the centre, and playing fields on the low ground at the north end. In addition to the early buildings are entrance gates on the Thomas Street boundary (1935) and a swimming pool (1923) with dressing shed (1924) in the southwest corner. Other site features include concrete busts of historical figures (1923 and 1932), balustrade walls (1933 and 1935), retaining walls (c1940s), stone pitched walls, an east-west driveway, pathways, and established trees and landscaping.
\nThe six significant buildings within the school complex are all timber-framed and clad, and orientated on an east-west axis. These buildings are:
\nEvidence of early site planning of the school grounds remains, with all significant buildings (except for Block G) positioned symmetrically in relation to Block C, the original 1920 building, which occupies a central position in the southern school grounds. Blocks A and D lie to the northwest and northeast of Block C respectively, positioned in line with each other with a former parade ground in between. Blocks B and E (a matching pair of buildings added to the site in c1949) are positioned in line with Block C at its west (Block B) and east (Block E) ends. Block B stands close to Block C due to the limited space available between it and the swimming pool in the southwest corner of the grounds, while Block E had sufficient space around it to be extended at either end in c1953. Block G is located to the southeast of Block C and its north-facing main entrance is aligned with the gap between blocks C and E.
\nWith the exception of Block G, all of the significant school buildings are weatherboard-clad, highset on either brick or concrete piers, and have corrugated metal-clad roofs. Blocks C, A, B and E are rectangular in plan and have north-facing verandahs; large banks of glazing on the southern elevations to provide maximum natural light to the interiors; and a range of early timber joinery. All buildings have timber floorboards and timber skirtings of a simple profile. In general, eaves, verandah ceilings, and internal walls and ceilings are lined with timber v-jointed (VJ) tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards, with flat sheeting used for some 1950s classrooms. Blocks C, A, B and the central portion of block E have coved ceilings, exposed metal tie rods and square ceiling ventilation panels (most now enclosed). Elements not of cultural heritage significance include lifts, modern carpet and linoleum floor coverings, inserted partitions, kitchenettes, modern benches and storage cupboards, and aluminium windows.
\n1920 Suburban Timber School building (Block C)
\nBlock C is a large, symmetrically-arranged block comprising a central wing (formerly 4 classrooms, now used as offices), two end wings (containing 2 classrooms each), and a projecting teachers room (extended c1973) on the north side of the central wing. The wings are connected by continuous verandahs along the northern sides, sections of which are enclosed. The wings have gambrel roofs and the teachers room has a gable roof. Four sets of stairs and a modern lift provide access to the verandahs and a recent covered staircase is attached to the south side of the central wing.
\nBanks of windows in the south walls of all wings have casements in the bottom row and horizontally centre-pivoting windows above. The east and west wings retain a top row of fanlights that are top-hinged and set within inclined frames (sheeted over on the exterior). Each end wall has three small, high, centre-pivoting windows. The teachers' room has modern aluminium casement windows in timber framing with early square timber fanlights above, shaded by timber-framed, skillion-roofed hoods on the north elevation.
\nThe central wing verandah has a two-rail slat balustrade, curved timber arches between verandah posts, a raked ceiling and a single skin verandah wall. Early timber joinery includes tall, horizontally centre-pivoting fanlights over doorways and later sash windows with fanlights. Verandahs to the east and west wings have been partially enclosed by weatherboards. The interiors are lined and large openings have been cut into the verandah walls.
\nClassrooms in the east and west wings are separated by original timber partitions with fixed glazing, and walls have picture rails. Multiple new partitions have been added to the central wing but original partitions survive under modern linings. All partitions in the central wing have high-level fixed glazing. The teachers' room has a flat ceiling and partitions have been relocated.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and is partially enclosed by timber batten screens and brick infill walls. The piers are glazed brown bricks with rounded edges. The understorey accommodates several toilet blocks dating from the 1930s and 1950s. These have brick external walls and timber partitions of vertical timber boards. Beneath the west wing a large room and two store rooms have been constructed at different periods from various materials, including wide vertical timber boards. Several long timber benches are located beneath the central wing.
\n1926 Sectional School building (Block A)
\nBlock A is a long building with a projecting teachers room attached to the verandah. It has a gable roof with vertical batten gable infill, and raked eaves. The east and west walls are windowless. Access is via two timber staircases to the verandah.
\nThe verandah has a timber, two-rail slat balustrade, a raked ceiling and a single skin verandah wall. Former hat room enclosures of single-skin weatherboard walls survive at either end, and bag hooks are attached to the verandah wall.
\nThe building retains much of its original timber joinery. The south wall has five banks of casement windows with fanlights. The projecting teachers' room has pairs of casement windows with fanlights above, protected by skillion-roofed hoods. The verandah wall has five sets of double doors with fanlights alternated with five pairs of three-light sash windows with fanlights.
\nThe interior comprises two large classrooms and one smaller classroom. Two single-skin partition walls survive, and the location of a removed partition is evident in the ceiling of the western room. The former teachers room has been enlarged by the removal of its southern wall to incorporate a section of enclosed verandah.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and is partially enclosed by timber batten screens and brick infill walls. The piers are glazed brown bricks with rounded edges. A 1930s/50s toilet block with brick external walls and timber dividing partitions is at the eastern end and the western end has been enclosed for store rooms.
\n1933 purpose-designed former classroom and hall building (Block D)
\nThe 1933 purpose-designed former classroom and hall building (‘Block D') stands on brick stumps and walls. The building is rectangular in plan, with a projecting, central porch on the western side and projecting stair landings at the eastern end of the north and south sides; the building and western porch have gable roofs with vertically-battened timber gable-ends. A prominent fleche and spaced eaves-cladding along the northern and southern elevations ventilate the roof space. Most windows are timber-framed casements with (now fixed) fanlights, sheltered by corrugated metal hoods with timber brackets. There are four sets of timber stairs; two to the eastern end projections, and two to the west.
\nThe interior comprises a large central space; with an enclosed western porch; and an eastern raised stage and kitchenette (formerly one space) flanked to the north and the south by hallways and former teachers rooms. Most walls and ceilings are lined with T&G VJ timber boards; stud framing is exposed in sections of the teacher's rooms. Bulkhead partitions in the central space are in the locations where original folding partitions have been removed (one in the centre of the space and one at the stage opening). Beams in this space are expressed and clad in VJ timber boards. Ceiling vents remain in their original positions and high-level, timber picture-rails run around the perimeter of the space. Original timber panelled doors with fanlights provide access to the teachers rooms and hallways.
\nThe understorey has rounded brick stumps, brick walls, and a concrete slab floor. There is an early timber door to the space below the western porch, and early windows include timber-framed sashes.
\nc1922 Sectional School building (Block B) (relocated c1950)
\nBlock B has an L-shaped verandah along the north and east sides (enclosed on the east side), a gable roof with vertical batten gable infill, and raked eaves. The building stands on concrete piers and the understory is enclosed with timber batten screens. Access is via a staircase to the north verandah and a recently installed lift and platform connecting the verandah to the pool area to the west.
\nThe verandah has a timber, two-rail dowel balustrade, a raked ceiling and a single skin verandah wall with bag hooks. Fabric from a former hat room located in the northeast corner of the verandah has been incorporated into the verandah enclosure.
\nEarly windows include timber sashes with fanlights in the verandah wall, and two large banks of timber-framed windows on the south wall, consisting of casements on the bottom row, horizontally centre-pivoting windows in the middle and fanlights at the top. Doors in the verandah wall each have two tall, horizontally centre-pivoting fanlights. A double door at the western end of the verandah is the only early door and retains its original handle.
\nThe interior comprises two classrooms divided by a single-skin partition, and the enclosed verandah contains a modern kitchen area and office.
\nc1922 Sectional School Building (Block E), extended c1953
\nThe c1922 sectional school building with 1953 extensions to the east and west ends (‘Block E') stands on concrete and steel stumps. It has gable roof with battened gable-infills. Windows in the south wall are associated with the different construction periods; banks of tall, timber-framed, sash and horizontally centre-pivoting windows with fanlights to the central 1922 section; and banks of dual, timber-framed casement windows with awning fanlights to the 1953 end sections.
\nThe verandah has a raked ceiling, single skin verandah wall and bag-racks between square timber posts. Part of the ceiling is flat over the 1953 verandahs. A line in the ceiling lining at the western end marks the position of the original verandah roofline. The west end of the verandah has a hat room enclosure with exposed stud framing (repositioned from the 1922 verandah), and a small section of early two-rail dowel balustrade is retained at the eastern end. Verandah windows are double-hung with timber sashes and awning fanlights. Timber low-waisted doors with early hardware are retained. Doors to the 1922 section have tall, centre-pivoting fanlights, while doors to the extensions have awning fanlights.
\nThe interior is divided into three classrooms, with the extent of the western classroom overlapping both the 1953 and 1922 sections. Although openings have been cut into original walls, the early layout is readable. The walls and ceilings of the 1953 sections are lined with flat sheeting with square cover-strips to the walls and curved cover strips to the ceilings.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and a modern enclosure at the southwest end. Remnants of the original, VJ timber verandah lining are attached to a notched bearer, indicating the western extent of the 1922 building. The joists supporting the 1922 section are narrower than those of the extensions.
\n1954 former Visual Education Centre and Library (Block G)
\nThe 1954 former Visual Education Centre and Library (‘Block G') is a purposed-designed, two-storey, chamferboard-clad structure, with a facebrick projecting porch and verandah on the northern side. It has a terracotta-tiled hip roof with flat-sheet eaves linings and ventilated soffits. The primary entrance to the building is through 5-light French doors within the porch, with secondary entrances from the northern verandah, western staircase and southern patio. Windows are generally timber-framed awnings and there are double-hung windows with timber sashes at the upper level of the porch projection. The porch entryway is flanked by circular concrete columns and low, brick planter boxes. The verandah has a terracotta-tiled hip roof, circular concrete columns, a concrete slab floor and a ceiling lined in flat sheeting.
The interior layout of the building is highly intact. The ground floor comprises a foyer with store rooms and a main staircase to the east; and a hall, stage with store rooms, and back-of-house staircase to the west. The upper floor has a singular open space (former library), with a small service room at the western end and a former office space within the northern porch projection. Walls and ceilings of both levels are lined with flat sheeting. The timber handrail of the main staircase is of a geometric design and early 5-light timber French doors between the foyer and hall are retained. Beams expressed within the hall are lined with flat sheeting.
1923 Swimming Pool and 1924 Dressing Shed
\nIn the southwest corner of the site is a rectangular, in-ground, concrete swimming pool with a timber-framed, weatherboard-clad dressing shed along the west side. The shed stands on a low brick plinth, has a corrugated metal-clad gable roof with circular roof vents, and decorative ridge-caps at the gable-ends. The primary entrance is in the centre of the eastern elevation, with secondary entrances at the ends. High-level louvred windows run the length of the eastern elevation and a long, high-level window is located in the southern wall. Louvered vents are spaced along the western and eastern elevations. Early tiered, timber seating is attached to the eastern side of the shed.
\nGrounds and trees
\nThe grounds are well established with many mature trees, including a variety of fig and other shade trees along the Inglis, Carberry and Thomas street boundaries. The terraced nature of the sloping site provides opportunities for views of the surrounding area to be obtained from within the school grounds and the school buildings. Stone pitched walls are in various locations around the site - to the west of Block E; to the north and east of the swimming pool; and to the south of Block C. Gardens at the Primrose Street entrance provide an attractive setting for the school, and are an important connection between Block C and the street. Included in this area are pathways, concrete busts of William Shakespeare and Captain James Cook, established garden beds, a timber pergola structure and lawn areas.
\nOther elements within the grounds are primarily arranged on two axes: an east-west axis from Inglis Street to Thomas Street (north of Block C); and a north-south axis on the western side of the site (in line with the centre of Block A).
\nThe east-west axis comprises a driveway beginning at the decorative, wrought-iron Thomas Street gates. The gates stand between rendered concrete piers and have an archway featuring ‘WILSTON STATE SCHOOL' lettering welded to iron latticework. Emphasising the east-west axis is a concrete balustrade (1933) that tops the retaining walls, forming the south and west edges of the former parade ground (north of Block C). The balustrade, which steps with the contours of the terrain, has large square piers and decorative concrete balusters. Rounded stairs, located in a break within the balustrade, are aligned with the centre of Block C. A timber bell tower with a gable roof and decorative timberwork is located at the east end of Block A and houses an early school bell. Sets of low, c1930s concrete steps are located along the south edge of the driveway, with one set leading to the pool and others on the north side of Block C.
\nThe north-south axis links Block A with the northern oval. It is defined primarily by a footpath that begins at a set of curved, concrete stairs with low edge walls at an intersection with an Art Deco-style balustrade (1935). This balustrade has concrete piers linked by tubular metal handrails and stands on an ash-brick retaining wall that wraps around the southern and western edges of a lower playground. The axis pathway continues north to a second set of concrete stairs with low edge walls, providing access to the oval.
\nThe generous oval and its established shade trees enhance the school's prominence in its location, provide a picturesque setting for the school and generate a strong sense of place.
\nThe streetscape of the area is beautified by mature perimeter trees; terraced embankments; and the provision of ornamental points of interest, including entrance gates and busts of historical figures.
\nOther Structures
\nAll other buildings and structures within the heritage boundary are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance
","history":"Wilston State School opened in 1920 in the Brisbane suburb of Wilston (now the Grange), to serve the growing suburban population in the Wilston-Grange area. Due to suburban development during the interwar period and after World War II, additional buildings were added to serve the school's needs. Wilston State School has a range of standard and purpose-built timber and brick buildings dating from 1920 to the 1950s, set in landscaped grounds. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. Following the introduction of Queensland's Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland's public schools grew rapidly.[1] Queensland's State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[3]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[4]
\nEuropean settlement of the area around Wilston State School began when William Wilson, a city merchant, took up 300 acres of land and built a stone house c1876, which he called ‘Wilston' after his birthplace in Ireland. The later suburb, located between Newmarket and Windsor, took the name of Wilson's house. During the 19th century, Wilston remained a predominantly rural area.[5]
\nSuburban growth intensified with the arrival of the railway at nearby Newmarket in 1897. In 1899 the railway line was extended to Enoggera and the town of Windsor, incorporating Wilston, was proclaimed in 1904. The suburb, near the Newmarket saleyards (1877-1931), was at first regarded as an outlying district of Newmarket, and was used for agistment, tanneries, fellmongering, dairying and extractive industries.[6] The train line to Newmarket station had a stop at Wilston, and settlement spread northwards from there to the desirable elevated slopes of Eildon Hill.[7] The population of Wilston increased further following establishment of the Grange electric tramway along Days Road in 1928.
\nLobbying for a new school at Wilston began in 1912. The neighbouring schools of Bowen Bridge (Windsor) and Newmarket had resisted the establishment of another school, fearing it would decrease resources for existing schools in the area. In 1914, a further effort was made to have a school erected in the district, pointing out that the steep nature of the area was difficult for small children; and crossing the railway and passing cattle saleyards were added dangers. By 1917 two potential sites for a new school had been selected. Coronation Park, a recreation area, was selected after a secret ballot of parents.[8]
\nSubsequently, Wilston State School opened on 14 August 1920, comprising one Suburban Timber School Building (Type C/T8) (now known as Block C) on 4 acres of land (1.62ha).[9] The building was centrally positioned on the higher ground at the southern (Primrose Street) end of the site. A newspaper report described the building as timber on brick piers with an asbestos slate roof and ornamental fleches. There were 8 classrooms with verandahs and two teachers rooms on the north side. Particular reference was made to good lighting and ventilation. The concreted area under the building was used as play space, with conveniently placed toilets nearby.[10] The school had an initial enrolment of 320 pupils, which rose with the progress of the district.[11]
\nThe school gained a reputation for success in the arts and music, due largely to the efforts of the first head teacher, Walter Collings. His influence played an important role in the development of the school and its grounds. He is recognised for his public stance in opposing corporal punishment in schools and Wilston was reputedly the first school in Queensland to ban corporal punishment.[12] By the late 1920s, the school possessed its own orchestra.[13] Reflecting the school's arts focus, in 1923 a bust of William Shakespeare, located in a garden bed on the north side of the 1920 building, was unveiled by the Governor, Sir Matthew Nathan.[14]
\nCollings also promoted sport. One of the first swimming pools at a state school in Queensland was established at Wilston State School in 1923, located in the southwest corner of the grounds. The school committee raised its £650 cost and undertook preliminary work on the site before its construction by MR Hornibrook.[15] Opened on 10 November 1923 at a large public gathering, the reinforced concrete pool was 23 metres long and 7.6 metres wide with a varied depth of 1-2.1 metres.[16] Earlier pools were opened at Junction Park (1910), Wooloowin State School (1916), Ascot State School (pre-1921) and Cannon Hill State School (1921).[17] In 1915, the Hon HF Hardacre, Minister for Public Instruction, regarded swimming as ‘preferable to other physical drill during the hot summer months' and that he ‘would like to see a swimming pool in every school ground in Queensland'.[18] A year later at the opening of the Wooloowin State School pool, he emphasised the value of swimming to children's physiques.[19] However, water safety was also a motivation for the establishment school swimming pools.[20] A year after the opening of the Wilston State School pool, a long timber dressing shed with a brick base, weatherboard walls and a gable roof was built to the west of the pool and was officially opened in October 1924.[21] In August 1929, tennis courts were officially opened by the Minister for Education, RM King.[22]
\nThe provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment by the Department of Public Instruction to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and among his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds.[23] In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[24] Following construction of Wilston State School, its grounds were terraced and gardens with bush houses were created. Principal Collings expressed the importance of school gardens in July 1932 at the opening of the latest part of the school's beautification scheme, which had commenced 12 years previously, when he said ‘a beautiful garden was better than the best teacher'.[25] Shade trees inside the school boundary near the buildings on Inglis Street (Fig trees) and Thomas streets (two Camphor Laurels and one Fig tree) were planted prior to 1946. Fig trees around the oval, along the Inglis, Carberry and Thomas streets' boundaries, were planted prior to 1964.[26]
\nAttention to improving light and ventilation to achieve optimum classroom conditions culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School type, a highset timber structure. This design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. It was practical, economical, and satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs. Most importantly, it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time. Before the Sectional School, solar orientation was not given priority and all school buildings were oriented in relation to the street and property boundaries, often resulting in poor lighting. The Sectional School type had only one verandah typically on the northern side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the blank western wall was removable. As the school grew, the western end wall could be detached and the building extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms - a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[27]
\nIn 1926 a Sectional School building (Type D/T1),[28] was constructed to the northwest of the 1920 school building as a kindergarten wing (now known as Block A). It contained three standard-size classrooms and one double-size classroom and was intended to accommodate 300 children. Typical of the sectional school type, it was highset with blank end walls, a north-facing verandah, large banks of windows in the southern wall, and a projecting teachers room.[29]
\nThe commitment of the school principal, Collings, to the development of music and the arts was the likely motivation behind the construction of a new, multi-purpose classroom and concert hall building that was not a standard Queensland Government type. Plans were prepared by architect AGF Greenaway in 1933.[30] Working for the Department of Works at the time, Greenaway, who was born in Ipswich in 1894, had previously worked with Brockwell Gill in Ipswich and the Brisbane City Council, and registered as an architect in 1929.[31]
\nThe Governor of Queensland, Sir Leslie Wilson, opened the new purpose-built building (now known as Block D) on 23 September 1933.[32] Located to the northeast of the 1920 building, it was more like a church hall than a school building in form, with a porch at the west end, two double classrooms in the body of the building, separated by a partition, and a classroom on a platform at the east end with a teachers room and lobby each side. There were no verandahs. The roof was gabled with a fleche and windows were standard school casements with fanlights. The classrooms were 12.1 metres wide with a trussed roof.[33]
\nDuring the 1930s changes and additions to the grounds occurred. Around 1934 new toilets were constructed under the original 1920 building and the 1926 infants wing, and two acres of additional land was acquired from Coronation Park to the north for a sports oval in 1937.[34] Landscaping works, including a terraced lawn, concrete stairs, garden beds and a pergola at the main (Primrose Street) entrance, were undertaken by relief labour in 1932 as part of an ongoing school beautification scheme. This stage included the unveiling of a bust of Captain Cook, the work of Mr JA Watts, in a garden bed next to the pergola on 2 July 1932.[35] Further landscaping included a concrete retaining wall and balustrade around the parade area north of the 1920 building in 1933.[36] In 1935 a set of gates, constructed on the Thomas Street boundary, were funded through community fundraising and a donation from the noted manufacturer and philanthropist, George Marchant, who lived in the vicinity.[37] These gates consisted of concrete pillars with iron gates and an archway. They were officially opened on 21 September 1935.[38] In the same year, art deco-style balustrading was added to retaining walls north of the infants wing.[39]
\nFor most Brisbane suburbs, the immediate post-World War II period was one of development with the consequent rise in school populations; as was the case for Wilston State School. After World War II the overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible. Queensland schools were faced with enormous overcrowding and a lack of resources as the Queensland Government gave education a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget. At the same time, skilled labour was scarce and materials were in short supply. [40]
\nIn this immediate post-war period two 1922 Sectional buildings (now known as blocks B and E) were relocated c1949 to the site from Kelvin Grove Boys School, to accommodate Wilston State School's growing population.[41] Each contained two classrooms with an L-shaped verandah, and were positioned to the west and east of the 1920 building (Block C).[42] In c1953 the eastern building (Block E) was extended at either end. The original eastern wall was relocated to the eastern extent of the extension and fabric from the original, western verandah was reused in the extensions. The original hatroom was relocated to the western corner of the new verandah. The extensions had large banks of timber casements in the southern walls, with timber sashes in the verandah walls. A curved pathway running between blocks C and E was repositioned to accommodate the extension.[43]
\nIn 1954 another purpose-designed building (now known as Block G), was constructed near the Primrose Street boundary, southeast of the 1920 building. School fund-raising for it had begun in 1941 and by 1953, a plan for a £6250 new Visual Education Centre and Library was published in The Courier Mail. Half of the building cost was funded by the school's fund-raising efforts and half by the Queensland Government.[44] Designed by Brisbane firm, Blackburne and Gzell Architects, it was a two-storey timber building with a terracotta roof and a two-storey brick entrance porch.[45] The building was officially opened in 1954 by Queensland Premier, Mr Gair.[46]
\nFrom the 1950s various alterations and additions occurred and more buildings were added to the southern school grounds. In the period 1951-5, a lowset, single-room classroom (Block F) was constructed to the south of Block E, on a diagonal axis.[47] In 1956 the building was extended by two classrooms to the west, and after 2006 it was raised and moved to its present position along the Primrose Street boundary.[48] In 1956 additional toilets were constructed beneath the 1920 building (Block C) in a style similar to the existing 1930s toilets.[49] A highset classroom building was constructed next to the pool in 1970 (Block H), on the site of a former terraced lawn.[50] The 1933 purpose-built building (Block D) was converted into a library in 1983.[51]
\nIn 1970, as the school's Jubilee project, the swimming pool was widened to six lanes and lengthened to 25 metres. At the time, the pool represented 48 years of swimming history at the school and the pool update was considered a suitable commemoration to all who contributed to it. This project was funded jointly by the Wilston State School P & C and the Queensland Government. [52]
\nIn the 1990s several buildings were refurbished and altered to suit new uses. In 1993, the central wing of the 1920 building (Block C) was refurbished for administration purposes, with some modification to joinery and new partitions inserted. The top level of windows on the south-facing walls were either removed or sheeted over. A new staircase, landing and door were added to the southern wall of the central wing, creating a new main entrance to the building. The internal layout of the former teachers room, which had been extended in 1973, was altered to create offices, a store room and a sick bay.[53] In 1997 the verandahs of the east and west wings were enclosed and large openings cut into the verandahs walls.[54] Also in 1997, part of the verandah of the 1926 Sectional School building (Block A) was enclosed and the teachers room and classrooms were refurbished, including the removal of a classroom partition.[55]
\nAdditions and changes to landscape elements have also been made. From the 1950s stone pitched walls were constructed in various locations as retaining walls, including the bank to the north of the 1933 purpose-built building (Block D). The wall to the oval was partly stone pitched by 1959. [56] A bell tower housing the school bell beside the Sectional School building (Block A) dates from before September 1939.[57] Alterations to pathways and gardens between the 1920 building (Block C) and Primrose Street took place in the 1990s, including the realignment of the main entrance gate and pathway.[58]
\nThe importance of the school to the local community has been demonstrated by the support given by parents in the development of buildings, the beautification of the grounds, and continuity of attendance, with several generations of local families attending.[59]
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains standard and purpose-built timber and brick buildings dating from 1920 to the 1950s, set in landscaped grounds. The school is important as a focus for the surrounding community and generations of students from the area have been taught there. Since establishment, it has been a key social focus for the community with the grounds and buildings being the site of many social events.
","criteria":"Wilston State School (established in 1920) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent and representative examples of standard government designed school buildings that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building (1920) represents the culmination of years of experimentation by the Department of Public Works (DPW) with light, classroom size and elevation.
\nThree Sectional School buildings (c1922, c1922, 1926) demonstrate the evolution of DPW timber school designs to provide equally for educational and climatic needs.
\nTwo purpose-built school buildings (1933, 1954) demonstrate a broadening of the curriculum at some schools to incorporate music and the Arts.
\nAn early swimming pool (1923) and dressing shed (1924) reflect the growing popularity of children learning to swim for health and safety reasons.
\nThe large school site, with mature trees and landscaping features in a large suburban setting, demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Wilston State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: timber-framed teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government, and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, assembly/play areas and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a large suburban school complex, comprising a range of standard and purpose-built timber buildings dating from 1920 to the 1950s, and including non-standard features such as a swimming pool and dressing shed (1923, 1924), entrance gates (1935), bell tower (pre-1939), and busts of historical figures (1923, 1932).
\nThe large Suburban Timber School (Block C, 1920) is a good, intact example of its type, with its symmetrical plan of three wings, highset form with play space, toilet blocks and bench seating beneath, gambrel roofs, continuous northern verandahs, large banks of south-facing windows, projecting teacher's room, single-skin verandah walls, early joinery, and internal features such as glazed classroom partitions.
\nThree Sectional School buildings (Block B, c1922; Block E, c1922 with c1953 extensions; and Block A, 1926) are good examples of their type and Block A is very intact. Characteristics include their highset form with play space beneath, gable roofs, blank end walls, northern verandahs, large banks of south-facing windows, projecting teacher's room (Block A), hat room enclosures, single-skin verandah walls, and early joinery and internal linings.
\nThe purpose-built buildings (Block D, 1933, hall and classroom building; and Block G, 1954, hall and library building) are good examples of individually-designed state school buildings constructed in regions with large urban populations to meet the specific needs of the school. Designed to accommodate multiple functions, both buildings remain largely intact.
|Wilston State School is important for its aesthetic significance as a well-composed complex of buildings unified by their consistent form, scale, materials and orientation. The original symmetrical layout of these buildings remains intact and demonstrates a continuation of site planning ideals initiated by the siting of the first building in a prominent, central position at the top of the sloping grounds. The school's setting is beautified by mature trees and formal landscaping elements such as axial pathways, retaining and balustrade walls, stairs, gardens, and ornamental points of interest, such as entrance gates and busts of historical figures.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nWilston State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1920 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been educated there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its suburban district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35600,"place_ref":602856,"name":"Prenzlau State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"357 Prenzlau Road","suburb":"PRENZLAU","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-06-12","description":"Prenzlau State School occupies a 0.92ha site in the rural locality of Prenzlau in the Lockyer Valley. Surrounded by hills and paddocks, the site slopes gently down towards Prenzlau Road, which forms the western boundary. The school buildings are set well back from the road, grouped together on the highest point of the site in the southeast corner. Standing approximately in the centre of this group is the Department of Public Works (DPW) teaching building (1900, used as the school office in 2015). Orientated west to address the road, the former front verandah has been enclosed and access is now via staircases to the north and south sides. The playshed (1910) stands to the north of the DPW teaching building. The grounds contain open lawns, mature shade trees, and a tennis court in the southwest corner.
\nDepartment of Public Works teaching building (1900)
\nThe DPW teaching building is a highset, timber-framed building on concrete stumps with a timber floor. The walls are clad in weatherboards and the front and rear verandahs have been enclosed. An annexe is attached to the rear (east) verandah. The north and south end walls each have large banks of early timber windows protected by timber hoods with decorative brackets. The roof is hipped, clad in corrugated metal sheeting and has an original metal ventilation fleche in the centre. A section of the roof overhangs the end walls, designed to shade the original high windows. The eaves are unlined and the exposed rafter ends are moulded.
\nEarly windows throughout the building consist of a bottom row of casements with horizontally centre-pivoting windows above, and an additional top row of centre-pivoting fanlights in the end walls. Windows to the annexe retain their early framing but have been replaced with glass louvres.
\nBoth verandahs have a raked ceiling lined with wide beaded boards and a single skin verandah wall with externally exposed studwork and cross-bracing. Doorways and windows occupy their original, symmetrical positions in the verandah walls, except for the northwest window which has been recently converted into a door. The eastern doorway retains a two-light fanlight and four-panelled, double timber door. The northern end of the rear verandah is enclosed by a partition wall lined with vertical, v-jointed tongue-and-groove boards and is accessed by a half-glazed timber door.
\nThe former annexe has been converted into a store room. The ceiling is coved and lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. The west wall is lined with horizontal beaded boards and all other walls are single-skin with exposed studs. The windows retain their sill and the framing has beaded edges. A batten screen separates the north end of the room.
\nWalls in the former classroom are lined with wide, horizontal timber boards that have a chamferboard profile on the rear (verandah) side and are flat with beaded edges on the classroom side. The coved ceiling is lined with beaded boards and has exposed metal tie rods and square ventilation panels (now enclosed). The floors are lined with modern carpet or linoleum (not of cultural heritage significance).
\nThe World War II honour board is a flat, painted timber board, currently framed and protected under glass. In 2015 it hangs on the eastern wall of the classroom.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and the concrete stumps have chamfered edges. The area is partially enclosed with corrugated metal sheeting around the western, southern and eastern perimeter. The southeast corner has been further enclosed to form a store room. Doors in the south wall and into the storeroom are braced-and-ledged timber doors.
\nPlayshed (1910)
\nThe playshed is a small six-post timber structure with concrete slab floor and a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The posts are braced to the roof framing by brackets and the roof framing is exposed. Notches in the posts along the western side and corrugations in the edge of the floor slab indicate that an enclosing wall of corrugated metal sheeting has been removed from this side.
\nGrounds and views
\nThe sloping site, open lawns, trees and gardens of the grounds form an attractive setting for the early school buildings. The main entrance from Prenzlau Road is ornamented by a metal archway displaying the dates \"1894-1994\". Mature trees are located around the perimeter of the school site, around the former teachers residence yard in the northwest corner, and in a forestry plot of 17 hoop pine trees (Araucaria cunninghamii) near the north boundary. Significant tree species' include Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Leopard Tree (Caesalpinnea ferrea), Crow's Ash (Flindersia australis), and She-oak (Allocasuarina).
\nThe school is prominent in its location and picturesque views of the surrounding countryside are obtained from within the school grounds.
\nOther buildings
\nOther buildings and structures on the site, including teaching buildings, shade structures and sheds, are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Prenzlau State School opened in 1894 as a provisional school on a 0.71 ha site within the small agricultural settlement of Prenzlau in the Lockyer Valley, to serve the sparse but growing rural population. As settlement increased, the provisional school building was replaced by a Department of Public Works-designed teaching building (1900) after the school was designated as a state school in 1899 and a playshed was added in 1910. In 1923 the school was moved to its current site. An honour board in the teaching building commemorates those from the district who served during World War II. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nTraditionally the land of the Jagera people, European occupation of the Lockyer Valley for pastoral purposes began in the 1840s. Prenzlau's establishment, as Back Plains, dates from the 1870s, when the area was settled by German immigrants from the Uckermark near Prenzlau in Brandenburg, Germany. The name Prenzlau replaced Back Plains in the 1890s.[1]
\nPrenzlau Provisional School opened after its school committee formed and fulfilled the requirements for the opening of a provisional school. Tenders for its construction were called in 1893 and the school opened on 24 January 1894.[2] The school was located on a hilly, north-facing site surrounded by farmland.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. Following the introduction of Queensland's Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland's schools grew rapidly.[3] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[4]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[5]
\nDue to increased enrolments, Prenzlau Provisional School upgraded to a state school in 1899. Tenders were called for constructing a new teaching building and converting the provisional school building into a teacher's residence. The estimated cost was £590, of which the School Committee was required to raise £118.[6]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[7]
\nThe new building at Prenzlau State School was built to a standard Department of Public Works design (C/T1) by Charles Wilson for £618 and was ready for use in March 1900.[8] Prenzlau State School is characteristic of one of the Department's early timber school designs. It was a lowset, timber-framed and clad building containing a single classroom, with verandahs front and back and an enclosed annexe attached to the rear verandah, used as a hat room and lavatory. The classroom was vented by a roof ventilator in the centre of the hipped roof and square, latticed panels in the coved ceiling. The interior was lit by windows in the verandah walls and banks of high windows in the end walls.[9]
\nThe Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[10] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[11] In 1910, a six-post timber playshed with a hipped roof was built at Prenzlau State School by C Ridsdale of Rosewood for £36.10s. Pupil numbers in this period averaged more than 50 per day.[12] The playshed was a characteristic example of a six-post type, with light timber framing.[13]
\nDevelopment of the Prenzlau area was steady. The Queensland Post Office Directory in 1911 recorded 27 farmers at Prenzlau and the census recorded a population of 55. Between 1906 and 1913, the Back Plains Dairy Company and the Hillside Cooperative Cattle Dip Company Limited operated in the area.[14]
\nIn 1921, after several years of lobbying by the School Committee about the unsuitability of the school's hilly site, and despite declining pupil numbers, the Department of Public Instruction, through the Lands Department, resumed land for a new school reserve. The owner, Mr Ruhl, was paid £30 as compensation.[15]
\nSubsequently, in 1923, the school building and playshed were moved to the new site about 300 metres to the northeast for £367. The removal of the buildings was completed in July 1923 and the school re-opened on 9 July 1923. A photograph of the opening shows the existing school building, now highset on timber stumps, with its roof ventilator, weatherboard walls, dowel balustrade and lattice corner panels.[16] The Department of Public Works had greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors over time, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. Existing lowset teaching buildings, like at Prenzlau State School, were raised for increased ventilation with the added benefit of providing a covered play space in the understorey.[17] Reflecting these changes in education standards and philosophy, the key modifications to the Prenzlau teaching building on its new site included elevating it to become highset, lining the interior walls and enlarging the area of windows in the end walls.[18]
\nRepairs and improvements to the school took place periodically. In July 1927, the Education Department authorised repairs to the school and teacher's residence - undertaken by Messrs Profke and Hohnke of Marburg.[19] Prenzlau School Committee formed a working-bee on 5 October 1937 ‘to level off and put down an ant-bed cricket pitch in the school ground'.[20] The following month another ‘working bee to level the ground under the school and make drains to divert the water that usually runs there' occurred.[21] Meanwhile, in October 1937, August Luther of Coolana, was the successful tender for ‘walling-in of the basement of the Prenzlau State School building and the draining of the tank overflows'.[22]
\nWorld War II affected many schools. Typically, they were a focus for civilian duty during wartime,[23] and Prenzlau State School was no different - acting as a Ration Book Issuing Centre in June 1942.[24] The Golden Jubilee of the school's opening was celebrated in a low-key manner in 1944.[25]
\nThe immediate post-World War II years were a time for improvements. Estimates for the erection of a tennis court of £40-50 were received in 1946, but it was not until a working bee in April 1951 that the tennis court was completed.[26] Meanwhile, on 31 July 1948, an honour board with the names of those from the district who served in WWII was unveiled. Constructed by Frank Olkers of Lowood, the honour board was erected by the School Committee and funded by Prenzlau Progress Association.[27] A report of the unveiling event stated that all those listed on the board were past scholars of the Prenzlau School. In 1949 the exterior of the school was painted.[28] Electricity was connected to the school in September 1952.[29] The roof was replaced after cyclonic winds unroofed the school in June 1954; and the northern portion of the east verandah was enclosed to house a library in 1959.[30] In this year also, a new teacher's residence was built (removed post-2005) and the old residence demolished.[31] In 1962 at a cost of £40, alterations to the school included resurfacing of the tennis court.[32]
\nThe provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of the beautification of schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[33]
\nPrenzlau State School's grounds retain a number of mature trees of significance. Arbor Day was celebrated at the school until at least 1961. Plantings included ‘an \"Anzac\" tree to ‘commemorate the gallantry of our Gallipoli heroes'[34] at the former school site. In February 1924 the head teacher planted several native trees, mainly Crow's Ash (Flindersia australis) in the new school grounds; and in October of the same year, a tree planting ceremony was held for Arbor Day.[35] In 1934, a Leopard tree (Caesalpinnea ferrea), presented by the Head Teacher of Tarampa School, from that school's forestry plot, was planted in honour of the late Squadron-Leader Bert Hinkler. Two coral trees, a Queensland nut (macadamia) and a Leopard tree were planted by members of the school committee at a Jubilee Arbor Day in May 1951; two mango trees, one leopard tree and one macadamia tree were planted in the following year; and in 1953, two pines and a jacaranda were planted.[36] Remaining on site in 2015 are two Crow's Ash (Flindersia australis) to the west of the playshed, which date from pre-1944; the row of Crow's Ash and a She-oak (Casuarinacece) along the southern extent of the western boundary; and one Leopard tree (Caesalpinnea ferrea) near the southwestern corner of the school grounds. The two Jacaranda trees (Jacaranda mimosifolia) onsite appear to have been in-situ by 1959.[37] There are other mature shade trees on the site, which cannot be dated from the historical records.
\nThe school grounds retain remnants of a forestry plot, established between 1970 and 1982, planted in the northeast corner of the school grounds.[38] Seventeen Hoop Pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) remain.
\nIn 1973, the School Committee was asked to show cause why the school should not be closed because there were only 9 pupils enrolled. A deputation to the Education Department argued that within a few years the number of primary school children in the district would markedly increase. The decision to close the school was postponed.[39]
\nCentenary celebrations in 1994 included a centenary publication and entrance gates.[40]
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its 1923 site. It retains the Department of Public Works teaching building, the playshed and mature shade trees. The school is important to the area, having been a focus for the community, and generations of Prenzlau students have been taught there. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Prenzlau community with the grounds and building having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Prenzlau State School (established in 1894 as a provisional school) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains excellent examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. At Prenzlau State School these standard designs are: a Department of Public Works-designed teaching building (1900) demonstrating the evolution of timber schools buildings to provide adequate lighting and ventilation; and a playshed (1910), which demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum; set within school grounds containing significant mature shade trees.
\nThe World War II Honour Board located in the teaching building is important in demonstrating the school community's involvement in a major world event. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Prenzlau State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, play areas and sporting facilities. The school is a good example of a modest, regional school complex.
\nThe Department of Public Works-designed building (1900) is an excellent, intact example of a regional timber school and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. It retains its hipped roof with ventilation fleche; early timber joinery; single large classroom with generous verandahs (now enclosed); rear annexe; coved ceiling; and single skin verandah walls. Changing philosophies about improving ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors are evident in the modifications made to the building, which include its conversion to a highset form and enlarged areas of windows.
\nThe playshed (1910) retains its hipped timber-framed roof supported on six, braced timber posts.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nPrenzlau State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Prenzlau community. It was established in 1894 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Prenzlau children have been educated there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Prenzlau and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":35601,"place_ref":602857,"name":"Lake Clarendon State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"35 Lake Clarendon Road","suburb":"LAKE CLARENDON","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-06-12","description":"Lake Clarendon State School occupies a flat, 3.7ha site on the corner of the main thoroughfares of Lake Clarendon Road and Lake Clarendon Way in the town of Lake Clarendon, approximately 8km northeast of Gatton. The school comprises a number of lowset, timber-framed buildings with corrugated metal-clad roofs, which are set well back from the road and are positioned at the northern end of the school site. At the northern edge of these buildings and addressing Lake Clarendon Road, are the weatherboard-clad, concrete-stumped Department of Public Works (DPW) teaching building (1901-2, extended 1977-8) and DPW school residence (1901-2, extended 1936). Constructed as a matching pair with similar architectural features, the northern elevations of these two buildings are aligned. Two out-buildings, a garage and laundry, are located to the east of the residence. An open-air school building (1914, moved onto the site c.1974) and playshed (1906) are located southwest of the DPW teaching building. The school is conspicuous in its rural setting, with well-established grounds that contain several mature trees.
\nDepartment of Public Works School Residence (1901-2, extended 1936)
\nThe DPW school residence is highly intact. The building has a hipped-roof core (1901-2) with a verandah at the front (north) and a dining room at the rear (south, former verandah), a gable-roof kitchen wing (1901-2), and a western enclosed sleep-out (1936). An original, metal roof fleche is featured on the roof of the core. Packed weatherboards are in the gable ends of the kitchen wing and end walls of the stove-alcove for ventilation. Corrugated metal-clad, timber-framed hoods shelter windows on the eastern side.
\nThe building retains most of its early timber joinery. Windows include two-light sashes in the core, and six-light casements in the sleep-out. Early doors within the core include low-waisted doors (internal) and half-glazed French doors (front verandah wall and to the sleep-out space); and most doors have early hardware and centre-pivoting fanlights. Other doors within the sleep-out space comprise high-waisted doors with early hardware. Original braced-and-ledged doors of wide beaded boards access the kitchen wing and storeroom.
\nThe front verandah features stop-chamfered timber posts and a three-rail balustrade, clad externally with modern flat sheeting. Its verandah wall is single-skin with chamferboard cladding and externally-exposed stud framing and cross-bracing.
\nInternally, all ceilings are clad in vertically jointed (VJ), tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards. Skirtings and cornices are narrow timber with simple profiles. The core is centred on a hallway that runs north-south; with a bedroom and living room to the east and two bedrooms to the west. Its exterior walls are internally lined with wide, horizontal beaded-boards; and the interior partitions are single-skin with post and belt rails supporting vertical beaded-boards. Square ceiling vents within the core are sheeted over. The southern dining room's walls are lined with VJ boards and modern flat sheeting, and the space retains a stop-chamfered timber post from the original verandah fabric. Lightweight modern partitions form a small store room at the western end of the space (not of cultural heritage significance). The kitchen wing, on the southern side of the dining room, contains a generous stove alcove in the kitchen (now a pantry), a bathroom and a storeroom. It is internally lined in VJ boards, with wide beaded-boards in the store room. The sleep-out is lined with VJ boards; the eastern wall retains formerly exterior, weatherboard cladding. The sleep-out is a long space, with a small room and modern toilet enclosure at the south end.
\nResidence Out-Houses - Garage (pre-1974) and Laundry (pre-1951)
\nThe garage and laundry are both single-skin, north-facing structures with skillion roofs and internally-exposed stud framing and cross-bracing. The larger and northernmost building, the garage, is clad in VJ boards and has a concrete slab floor. The laundry is clad in weatherboards and has a timber floor. Both buildings have unlined eaves and louvred windows in timber frames.
\nDepartment of Public Works Teaching Building (1901-2, extended 1977-8)
\nThe DPW teaching building is accessed via timber stairs to the front (north) verandah. It also has a rear verandah (now enclosed), to which an annexe is attached. The roof is gabled and has an original metal ventilation fleche in the centre, matching that of the residence. The roof overhang over the western end wall has spaced eaves to ventilate the roof space, and a triangular ventilation panel is in the gable apex. The western gable end wall has a large bank of high-level, stop-chamfered timber window frames (containing modern louvres), protected by a timber hood with decorative brackets and battened cheeks. The modern, eastern extension (1977-8) is not significant.
\nBoth verandahs have raked ceilings with the front verandah retaining its original beaded board lining. The front verandah has a single-skin verandah wall with exposed studwork and cross-bracing, stop-chamfered timber posts and a small surviving section of its early three-rail balustrade. The rear verandah is enclosed with modern flat-sheeting. Doorways and windows in the verandah walls are modern replacements, but occupy their original, symmetrical positions; with the exception of a large, modern opening in the rear wall. The entry door retains its 2-light fanlight.
\nThe interior is comprised of a large, single classroom with a coved ceiling and stop-chamfered timber tie-beam. Skirtings, cornices and architraves are all narrow with simple profiles. The ceiling and walls are lined in modern flat sheeting, and the timber floors are lined with modern carpet and linoleum.
The annexe has been converted into a teacher's room and has a coved ceiling lined with beaded boards. A small section of beaded board cladding is retained in the northern wall, while the remaining walls are clad in modern flat sheeting. A bank of early, vertically centre-pivoting windows (now fixed) in stop-chamfered timber frames remain in the southern wall.
Open-air School Building (1914, moved onto the site c. 1974)
\nThe open-air school building is a small, single-room, hipped-roofed structure on low timber stumps. It has single-skin walls with internally-exposed studs and cross-bracing, and VJ, T&G timber cladding - the boards are narrower on the eastern half of the building. Sliding windows with timber sashes have replaced blinds on the east, south and north sides. Access to the interior is via stairs on the north and south elevations, through braced and ledged, VJ timber doors. The hipped ceiling is lined with VJ, T&G timber boards, and a large timber tie beam is exposed within the space. Modern linoleum covers the timber floorboards.
\nPlayshed (1906)
\nThe playshed is a large 10-post timber structure with a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The posts are braced to the exposed roof framing by brackets. It is partially enclosed with vertically mounted, corrugated metal sheets, and has a modern, concrete slab floor.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are established and include mature trees and plantings. Of particular importance is a large shade tree (pre-1933) in front of the DPW teaching building - the last surviving evidence of early plantings that emphasised the axial arrangement of the school entrance. The front gate and concrete pathway leading to the staircase of the DPW teaching building indicate the original north-south entry axis.
\nThe DPW residence and DPW teaching building are linked visually by their similar scale, orientation and architectural features; in particular their metal roof fleches, north-facing orientation, construction materials, and alignment of their front verandahs.
\nThe school is prominent in its rural setting and views of the surrounding pastoral areas are obtained from within the school grounds.
\nOther Structures
\nOther structures within the cultural heritage boundary, including modern teaching buildings, shade structures, sheds and tennis courts are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Lake Clarendon State School, located about 8km northeast of Gatton, opened in 1902. The timber school residence and teaching building were erected in 1901-2 (the latter was extended in the late 1970s), and a playshed was added in 1906. An open-air school building (c1914) was also moved to Lake Clarendon from Glen Cairn State School c1974. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland, and retains excellent examples of standard government designed school buildings that were an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nTraditionally the land of the Jagera people, the Lake Clarendon area was once part of Lake Clarendon Station - previously part of the Grantham pastoral run,[1] which was reduced by government resumptions in the late 1860s and 1870s.[2] Although the Lake Clarendon area was opened to selection around 1870, William and Walter Vanneck, who had taken up Grantham Station, took an interest in Lake Clarendon after the resumptions, and brought out the initial Lake Clarendon selectors to form a grazing property.[3] The 14,000 acre (5666ha) Lake Clarendon Estate was repurchased from Walter Vanneck for £2 an acre by the government in 1899, and farm blocks were sold from November that year.[4] The better agricultural land sold for £5 an acre, and the rich flats, after some initial hardships caused by the Federation drought, were soon growing lucerne, maize, onions, potatoes and pumpkins.
\nA state school was a natural result of successful closer settlement. In 1899 a school reserve of 9 acres, 2 roods and 12 perches (3.87ha) was surveyed just south of the lake reserve.[5] The provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia, and the establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school's construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[6]
\nAt Lake Clarendon, a Building Committee was elected at a public meeting at the school reserve in August 1900, and soon applied for a state school. Local fundraising, which included dances, raised almost £90, out of the £120 required, by November 1900.[7] The Minister for Education approved a state school at Lake Clarendon in January 1901, the land was granted to the Secretary of Public Instruction in June 1901, and tenders for the new school's buildings (school room and residence) and fencing were sought by August 1901.[8]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland, with complexes of typical components.[9]
\nIn 1893 the Department of Public Works took over the design of schools from the Department of Public Instruction. Plans were at first based on earlier designs by architect Robert Ferguson - simple, lowset timber schools, with improved ventilation features, gabled roofs and front and back verandahs. The Works Department experimented with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Lake Clarendon's teaching building was one of the earlier designs of this period (Type C/T1, built from 1897-1909).[10] It was built as a pair with the residence, and had exposed internal stud framing, verandahs front and back, high window sills, and an enclosed hat and lavatory annexe off the rear verandah.[11] Ventilation features included the distinctive fleche on the roof - a feature shared with the residence - and louvres at the apex of the gables. The school room's dimensions were 31' by 20' (9.4m x 6m); verandahs were 8' (2.4m) wide, and the hat and lavatory annexe was 12' by 7' (3.7m x 2.1m).[12] The residence (Type C/R3)[13] had three bedrooms and a living room to either side of a central hallway, with front and rear verandahs, and the semi-detached rear kitchen wing included a bathroom and storeroom.[14]
\nMost Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation.[15] The more spacious residence used at Lake Clarendon, with a wide dining verandah between the house and kitchen wing, was a response to complaints about earlier designs having narrow verandahs.[16]
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works' architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher's residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nContractor P Fagan had finished the school buildings, at a cost of £783 16s, by 1 June 1902.[17] The school opened in early June 1902, with an enrolment of 31 boys and 24 girls,[18] and the Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser soon reported that the teaching building and residence were splendid buildings, and ‘beyond a doubt for architectural style and finish they rank foremost in the Lockyer district'.[19] The teaching building was utilised for a welcoming social and dance for the new head teacher, WJ Walton, and his wife. The area's first telephone was located at the school residence, which served as a post and receiving office from 1903, and a post office from 1906. The area's first public telephone for the district was installed on the verandah of the teaching building in 1911.[20]
\nThe School Committee (which replaced the Building Committee in 1904)[21] was soon raising money for additions to the school. Arbor Day 1905 included an evening social to raise funds for a ‘weather shed' (playshed).[22] The locals initially expected to only have to raise one-fifth of the cost of the playshed, but they were upset when told the government expected half the money to be raised locally.
\nThe Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[23] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although were less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas.[24] Lake Clarendon State School finally obtained a ten-post 30' by 20' (9m x 6m) playshed in 1906, following the acceptance of John Doyle's tender for £60 that April. It was enclosed on the west and south sides in 1911, and was moved to its present position in 1951, from its original position 100 yards (91.4m) behind the school.[25]
\nAn Arbor Day planting of trees in front of the Lake Clarendon teaching building is shown in a 1909 photograph,[26] and the mature tree in front of the teaching building appears to be the last survivor of four trees, planted between the teaching building and the road and forming an avenue, visible on aerial photography from 1933.
\nFrom 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the lighting of classroom interiors. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. From around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students' left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[27] At Lake Clarendon, casement windows were added just below the existing gable windows of the school room c1924.[28]
\nThe residence was also modified to meet changing requirements. In 1936 a sleep-out and extra room were added to the northwest side. French doors replaced the original bedroom windows on that side, and new doorways were added from the front and rear verandahs into the addition.[29] A small toilet enclosure was later added to this space. The laundry on the southeast side of the residence existed by 1951, and the garage on the southeast side of the residence existed by 1974.[30]
\nOther alterations occurred at Lake Clarendon State School. In c1954 the hats and lavatory annexe at the rear of the original teaching building was converted into a small library.[31] A tennis court, originally located just northeast of the school residence, was moved to its current site northwest of the teaching building c1964.[32] During the late 1960s the teaching building was refurbished to improve light and ventilation, and the pupils were taught in the playshed for 5 months.[33] In 1970 an old school building (Block B) was moved from Atkinson's Lagoon State School (operated 1885-1968), for grades 4-7.[34] This building is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nIn the mid-1970s the school's Parents and Citizens' (P&C) Association bought a former open-air school building (Block C) from Glen Cairn State School (operated 1926-72).[35] This now rare building (Type C/T7, 1914-20)[36] was originally built for Ropeley East State School (operated 1915-55) before it was moved to Glen Cairn. Constructed by Alec MacDonald c1914, it measured 24' by 12' (7.3m x 3.7m), and initially had canvas blinds instead of wall cladding along two sides, and part of the third side; while the remainder of the walls were clad with 4\" by 1\" (10.2cm x 2.5cm) vertical tongue and groove boards.[37]
\nOpen-air school buildings had been introduced as a standard design in 1913.[38] This design was developed in response to contemporary medical thought related to the need for adequate ventilation and high levels of natural light for health, coupled with the need to build cheap, portable schools. The open-air type achieved maximum ventilation and natural light; it contained only one large room. Some had only one wall, the western verandah wall. The other sides were open with only adjustable canvas blinds for enclosure.[39] Open-air school buildings proved to be inadequate and were discontinued in 1923, although many had been constructed across Queensland in 10 years. The open sides provided limited weather protection and climate control, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. All open-air school buildings in Queensland were modified to provide better enclosure.[40] At some point the canvas blinds on the open-air building at Lake Clarendon were replaced with timber cladding and sliding windows.
\nIn the late 1970s a pre-school was added at Lake Clarendon. The original teaching building was extended to the southeast for a new classroom, and then a kitchen and staff room, in 1977-8.[41] Since 1991, new structures have been added to the school; in front of the older school teaching buildings (shaded play areas), as well as to the rear (southwest) and to the west. In 2012 part of the school grounds became a car park, and the remaining grounds cover 3.7ha.
\nSince establishment the school has been a key social focus for the local community, with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events over time. The first Arbor Day at the school occurred in 1904, and the event attracted the largest gathering yet seen in the district: 500-600 people, with ample food and a brass band supplied.[42] Large community events occurred for the school's Golden Jubilee in 1952, and its 75th Jubilee in 1977. The school was also used by the public for various events until a CWA Hall became available nearby.[43]
\nIn 2015, Lake Clarendon State School retains its original teaching building, residence, and playshed, and the rare open-air school building. The school is important to the town and district, having operated since 1902, and generations of Lake Clarendon students have been taught there.
","criteria":"Lake Clarendon State School (established in 1902) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a collection of good representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThese standard designs are: the Department of Public Works-designed teaching building (1901-2), which demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings to provide adequate lighting and ventilation; and the highly intact residence (1901-2), which provides evidence of Departmental policy to provide accommodation for married male head teachers as an inducement to teach in country areas and to provide a resident caretaker on the site. The playshed (1906) demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum; and the open-air school building (1914, relocated to Lake Clarendon c1974) demonstrates medical and educational theories of the period, which valued fresh air. All these buildings are set within school grounds containing mature shade trees, including one early tree in front of the teaching building.
|Surviving small, lowset, open-air school buildings are rare, as are intact Department of Public Works-designed large teacher's residences.
|Lake Clarendon State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, play areas and sporting facilities. The school is a good example of a modest, regional school complex.
\nThe Department of Public Works-designed school residence is an excellent, intact example of the residence type of its period - retaining its lowset, hipped roof, weatherboard-clad form with early joinery; and comprising three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen with stove alcove, a front verandah and rear dining room, and natural ventilation features, including its ventilation fleche. The 1936 sleep-out addition is a good example of alterations that were commonly made to school residences to meet changing spatial requirements.
\nThe Department of Public Works-designed teaching building is a good example of a regional timber school and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. It retains its gable roof with ventilation fleche; some early timber joinery; single large classroom with generous verandahs (rear verandah now enclosed); rear annexe; coved ceiling; and single skin verandah walls (only retained at the front).
\nThe open-air school building is a good example of its type, retaining its lowset design, with single-room classroom and hipped roof. The enclosures of the former canvas screen sections demonstrate typical modifications that were made to the type with changing educational philosophies.
\nThe playshed is a good example of its type and retains its hipped timber-framed roof, supported on 10 braced timber posts.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nLake Clarendon State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Lake Clarendon community. It was established in 1902 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Lake Clarendon children have been taught there.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650001,"name":"Atherton Performing Arts Theatre (WWII Igloo)","alternate_name":"ARMCO Hut ex Tolga Ordnance Depot","street_address":"6 Silo Street","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-10-09","description":"The Atherton Performing Arts Theatre (WWII Igloo) occupies part of a 1098m2 allotment on the western edge of Atherton’s central business district in the Tablelands Region of northern Queensland. The allotment is bounded by Silo Street to the southwest, Hopkins Road to the southeast and car-parking for the Silo Central Shopping Centre to the northeast and northwest. The buildings face southwest and comprise a steel-framed, igloo-style ARMCO hut, and a gabled-roof workshop (former) on the northwest side of the igloo. The two buildings are separated by a concrete surface drain. A low, skillion roof shelters the doorways that connect the two structures. Additional car-parking for the shopping centre is located in the southeast section of the allotment.
\nARMCO igloo (State heritage significance)
The ARMCO igloo is a long, steel-framed structure that is semi-circular in section, has profiled and corrugated metal-clad end-walls, a corrugated metal-clad roof and a concrete slab floor. The metal wall and roof cladding is modern. The building is approximately 38ft 9in (11.81m) wide x 98ft 9in (30.10m) in length. It is primarily accessed via the front (southwest) elevation, with secondary entrances from the other three elevations. All doors, windows and external awnings are modern additions or replacements; with most moved from their original locations.
The steel framing structure is exposed to the interior. It is comprised of 21 D-shaped arches aligned at 1.5m intervals; with the feet of the arches set into the concrete slab. Each arch has eight 7ft 5in (2.26m) long, heavy gauge steel members of an 8x2in (20x5cm) channel (C)-section. The members are fastened to each other by a cleat and interlock at an angle – creating the overall, semi-circular form. The interlocking joints are each secured by nuts and bolts. Metal battens connect the external cladding to the arches.
\nThe interior is divided into areas established by the building’s functioning as a performing arts hall. These areas include: a foyer, kitchen and office space at the southwest end; an auditorium and stage area in the centre; and a backstage area with dressing rooms at the northeast end. Separated from the external structure, modern lightweight partitions define each of the spaces. The floor of the auditorium is lined in modern carpet, and the modern stage area is raised with a timber structure.
\nGabled-roof workshop (former) (not of state heritage significance)
The gabled-roof workshop has a corrugated metal-clad gable roof and a concrete slab floor. The interior comprises a single, open space that is two-storeys in height. At the rear of the workshop is a later skillion-roofed section, which includes a corrugated metal-clad passageway from the igloo, and a toilet wing with concrete block walls and a concrete slab floor.
The steel-framed ‘igloo’ located in Silo Road, Atherton, currently used as a theatre by Atherton Performing Arts (APA) Inc., is an American Rolling Mill Company (ARMCO) hut,[1] erected c1943 at the 13th Australian Advance Ordnance Depot, Tolga. In 1947 the ARMCO hut (referred to from this point on as the ARMCO igloo) was purchased by the Atherton Tableland Maize Marketing Board and was moved to its current location for use as a workshop, and the neighbouring gabled-roof workshop building was probably built at this time. The buildings later functioned as an Atherton Shire Council Depot from c1958 to 1979, before the igloo was refurbished as a theatre in 1982-3. The ARMCO igloo is rare surviving built evidence of an important military facility, and helps demonstrate the impact of World War II (WWII) on the Atherton Tablelands, when the area was a major training and rest and rehabilitation centre for the AIF during the Pacific Campaign of World War II (WWII). The igloo’s original steel segmented-arch frame is also a rare surviving wartime example of its type.
\nAtherton, the main centre on the Tablelands, was originally known as Prior's Pocket after Thomas Prior, a timber getter who was the first European to camp there permanently. The town, surveyed in 1885, was a staging post for Cobb and Co. coaches between the tin fields of Herberton (established 1880) and Port Douglas, and the railway arrived from Cairns in 1903.[2] Although timber drew many settlers to the area, the maize industry opened up the Atherton Tablelands to agriculture, and was the dominant agricultural industry of the southern Atherton Tablelands up until WWII. Chinese settlers were instrumental in setting up the industry during the late 19th century, but with the inception of the Soldier Settler Scheme in 1917, they were displaced by European farmers.[3]
\nThe Atherton Tableland Maize Board was constituted on 31 August 1923 under the Primary Products’ Pools Act 1922.[4] In 1924, the board erected three storage cluster silo complexes at Kairi, Tolga and Atherton (the latter included a drying plant); but only the Kairi Maize Silos [QHR 602631] survive.[5] Despite the silos, the industry struggled. The state of the industry improved somewhat when the Maize Board in 1936 began manufacturing poultry rations, and the 'Athmaize' brand of stock and poultry feeds was introduced.[6]
\nThe Atherton Tablelands was disrupted by a massive influx of military forces during WWII. United States Army Airforce (USAAF) units were based at Mareeba from mid-1942, along with a US hospital and US Anti-Aircraft units.[7] From December 1942 the headquarters of the Australian Army in north Queensland transferred from Townsville to the Atherton Tablelands, and the main administrative base was established around Atherton and the nearby settlement of Tolga.[8] The terrain and climate of New Guinea meant that Australian troops had to be regularly rested and rehabilitated. The Atherton Tablelands was chosen for this purpose as it was close to New Guinea, near the port of Cairns, was suitable for jungle warfare training, and was mostly malaria-free.[9]
\nThe troops resting and training on the Tablelands had to be housed and supplied, and so, as an important part of Australian wartime strategy, a huge schedule of construction work (the ‘Atherton Project’) commenced, to accommodate units from the 6th and 7th Divisions of the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) returning from New Guinea – and the 9th Division (AIF) returning from the Middle East – plus other fighting units. The project constructed tent encampments, hutments, mess kitchens, hospitals and storage sheds, under the direction of the Allied Works Council (AWC),[10] which formed in February of 1942 to co-ordinate and facilitate the needs of Australian and US military forces in Australia during the war.[11] The AWC’s work on defence projects in Queensland, including roads and airfields, was carried out by US Army engineers, the Queensland Main Roads Commission (MRC), and contractors drawing on conscripted civilian labour from the Civil Constructional Corps (CCC), established in April 1942.[12]
\nUp to 100,000 troops were present on the Tablelands. Units of the three AIF infantry divisions camped at Danbulla, Kairi, Millstream, Ravenshoe, Tinaroo, Wondecla and Wongabel between early 1943 and 1945, and all three divisions were on the Tablelands at one time in late 1944.[13] In Atherton, the Barron Valley Hotel briefly acted as a headquarters for General Blamey, commander-in-chief of the Australian Military Forces,[14] and in November 1943 a large timber-framed igloo warehouse (now the Merriland Hall [QHR 602016]) was erected at the Atherton Showground for the Australian Army Canteen Services (AACS).[15]
\nThe Atherton Performing Arts theatre was constructed as part of the 13th Australian Advanced Ordnance Depot (13 AAOD) at Tolga, the largest Australian Army storage and repair centre on the Tablelands. Built to supply equipment and weapons to the troops, 13 AAOD was established on the west side of Tolga early in 1943.[16] In February 1943, a schedule of Atherton Tablelands projects included ten 100ft x 40ft (30.5m x 12.2m) ‘ARMCO huts’ at Tolga.[17] According to a report on an October 1944 visit to 13 AAOD by the Joint Parliamentary War Expenditure Advisory Committee, by then the installation consisted of about 170 buildings, including 18 large igloo stores about 200ft x 100ft (61m x 30.5m),[18] 10 steel-framed ARMCO buildings and 22 steel-framed Sidney Williams buildings.[19]
\n13 AAOD was divided into four depots, including a Returned Stores Depot (RSD).[20] It also included a salvage area, a vehicle park; and workshops.[21] Just to the north was 7 Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot.[22]
\nThe ARMCO igloos at 13 AAOD were probably built in Australia. The American Rolling Mill Company (ARMCO Steel Corporation from 1948) was formed in 1899, to produce rolled steel. The company’s first factory was in Middleton, Ohio, and its first overseas factory opened in 1914 in Brazil.[23] In 1936 the Australian Government announced that ARMCO would join with Lysaght to establish a £1,000,000 company in Australia. This decision was touted as a success for the government’s ‘trade diversion policy’, which aimed to encourage car manufacture in Australia, as ARMCO and John Lysaght Ltd would manufacture steel motor body panels.[24] An ARMCO works was constructed at Port Kembla in 1938, and opened in January 1939.[25]
\nDuring WWII, ARMCO (Australia) Pty Ltd manufactured circular corrugated steel pillboxes, and large culvert pipes for use by the Australian armed forces.[26] In addition, ARMCO ammunition storage huts, with a curved structure of heavy gauge corrugated steel designed to be covered in earth, were constructed at Darra and Mount Coot-tha (Brisbane) and Burua (Gladstone).[27] ARMCO also produced igloo-style huts, with a 100ft x 40ft (30.5m x 12.2m) floor area. These were advertised for use storing wool, wheat, farm produce or general merchandise, with the claim that ‘ARMCO pre-fabricated huts are weather and vermin-proof, economical and durable’.[28] ARMCO also produced gable-roofed huts, and these – plus the ARMCO igloos – were advertised well into the post war period, in various spans and lengths.[29]
\nWhile ARMCO huts could be purchased new after the war, civilians also purchased and removed used buildings from former military facilities. All the igloos at 13 AAOD were removed after the closure of the depot in 1946, including the 10 ARMCO igloos, and the area reverted to farm and grazing land, although many of the slabs of the large timber-framed igloos are still visible.[30] An advertisement for a February 1947 auction of 55 buildings at 13 AAOD and 7 Australian Ordnance Vehicle Park at Tolga, by the Commonwealth Disposals Commission, listed six Sidney Williams buildings of various sizes, five 200ft x 100ft igloos, (61m x 30.5m) two 100ft x 60ft (30.5m x 18.3m) igloos, and ‘five ARMCO All-Steel Igloos, overall 101ft x 40ft, approximately half terne and half black iron’.[31] Another four ARMCO igloos, 100ft x 50ft (sic), were advertised for auction in April 1947.[32]
\nOne of the ARMCO igloos from 13 AAOD was purchased by the Atherton Tableland Maize Board, which had been renamed the Atherton Tableland Maize Marketing Board by January 1947.[33] The Maize Board had been considering obtaining a steel framed igloo since September 1945, to expand its mash manufacture.[34] Such an igloo at Tolga was soon inspected by board members and deemed suitable, and at the October monthly meeting of the board the acquisition of a nearby site, for relocation of the igloo, was discussed.[35] Although an application from the Maize Board for a government loan to purchase the igloo was withdrawn in early 1946, due to the cost of disassembly and re-erection,[36] the purchase later went ahead, and by June 1947 the ARMCO igloo purchased at Tolga was being erected in Atherton ‘for a workshop and storage for the field working plants’.[37]
\nSurvey plans reveal the ARMCO igloo’s current site in Silo Road, Atherton, was part of a larger allotment obtained by the Atherton Tableland Maize Board during 1946.[38] This allotment was subdivided in 1949, and the igloo site was later occupied by the Athmaize Workshop Co-op Association Ltd.[39]
\nThe relocated ARMCO igloo began its new life as part of a workshops complex for farming equipment. The workshops were opened on 8 October 1947 at an annual meeting of maize growers. It was noted that the ‘workshops were ‘installed under cover of a reconstructed igloo and are adjacent to the Board’s offices’.[40] The manager of the Board (WJ Brett) said the workshops had been equipped with modern machinery and competent staff; charges on repairs to grower’s machinery would be kept to a minimum, and the onus was on maize growers to ‘use the shops for all their repair work’.[41] No mention is made of the adjacent gabled workshop building on the northwest side of the ARMCO igloo, but it may have been erected at the same time the ARMCO igloo was re-erected.[42] Another metal-clad, gable-roofed building, adjacent to the igloo on the southeast side, was constructed on the site between 1949 and 1951,[43] but was demolished after 2013. The workshops complex was used by the Maize Marketing Board for almost 11 years.
\nBetween approximately 1958 and 1979 the site was used by the Atherton Shire Council as a depot.[44] A Reserve for Local Government Purposes was gazetted in September 1958,[45] and again in 1973, after the northeast corner of the site was excised.[46]
\nThe current use of the ARMCO igloo and the attached gabled building, as a theatre and props store respectively, resulted from the formation of the Atherton Performing Arts (APA) group in June 1979, when the Atherton Choral Society and Atherton Players combined.[47] APA was granted a lease of the workshops c1981.[48] The igloo was cleaned and refurbished, with removable additions, lighting and internal fixtures. A stage was built inside the igloo in 1982, and plans from that year include an office and kitchen (taking up half of the igloo’s floor-to-ceiling space) at the front (southwest end) of the igloo, either side of an entry foyer, with a lighting gallery above. The stage area in the rear (northeast) half of the igloo had a backstage area behind it, with two dressing rooms in the rear corners. Apart from new double doors at the front and rear of the igloo, a new exit to the northwest side of the front half of the igloo passed over a drain and between the rear of the adjacent gable roofed building and a ‘future toilet block’.[49] An exit is also shown on the northwest side at the rear of the igloo. A roller door was later added on the southeast side, at the rear of the igloo, about 1997.
\nIn the 1982 plan, new sliding glass windows were to be added to either side of the rear doors, and new glass louvre panels above the doors (to supplement the existing two windows); while the front elevation was to be re-sheeted, with two new sliding glass windows to be added either side of the front doors, and one sliding glass window above the doors (replacing the original two windows). Neither of these configurations match the existing window arrangements in 2015 at either end of the igloo. The 1982 plans do not show the ventilators that currently exist along apex of the igloo.
\nThe additions indicated on the 1982 plan were implemented in stages. In 1983 the roof metal was replaced at the front of the igloo, and a mezzanine floor for lighting was added at the front, while theatre lighting and auditorium carpet were later added. The kitchen was installed in the late 1980s;[50] dressing rooms, a makeup area and upstairs wardrobe areas were added in 1998, and a new backstage area was opened in 1999. New interlocking theatre seating was installed in 2009, and new carpet in 2011.[51] In its ongoing role, the ARMCO igloo has been used for youth theatre, concerts, plays, musicals, poetry, play readings and musical instrumental events, as well as regular Eisteddfods (festivals of literature, music and performance, originating in Wales).
\nOf the 10 ARMCO igloos erected at 13 AAOD, the APA theatre igloo is the last known surviving example on the Atherton Tablelands. The segmented-arch frame profile differs from the other steel-framed igloo types erected in WWII Queensland, such as Nissen or Quonset huts. Another ARMCO igloo, of the same size and framework structure, survives at Dutton Street in Cairns, and this may also have been moved from 13 AAOD.[52] Two other 100ft x 40ft (30.5m x 12.2m) ARMCO igloos, located at Ergon Energy’s McLeod Street Depot, Cairns were demolished in 2007. [53] A third igloo at the McLeod Street depot (frame type unconfirmed) survives, measuring 100ft x 60ft, (30.5m x 18.3m).
\nOther WWII igloos survive on the Tablelands at the Malanda Showgrounds (former theatre igloo, from Danbulla);[54] Rocky Creek (theatre igloo, timber frame) [QHR 601815]; and Wondecla (theatre igloo, timber frame); along with larger timber framed igloos at Mareeba (Beck’s aero museum); and Atherton (Merriland Hall) [QHR 602016]. There is also a steel-framed igloo at Malanda (a Mitre 10 store in 2015), which is possibly a larger (100ft x 60ft) ARMCO, but it was purchased post-war in a kit form;[55] and a steel-framed igloo (purchased in kit form, post-war)[56] exists on Railway Lane in Atherton (about 120ft x 90ft [136.5m x 27.4m]).
\nThe ARMCO igloo and the adjacent gabled roof former workshop building are the last remnants of the Atherton Tableland Maize Marketing Boards’ complex in Atherton, as the silos and office were demolished between 2002 and 2010. The theatre buildings are now surrounded on three sides by car parking for the Silo Shopping Centre, located on the opposite side of Silo Road.
","criteria":"The Atherton Performing Arts Theatre (WWII Igloo) (1943), a rare surviving building from the 13th Australian Advanced Ordnance Depot (13 AAOD) at Tolga, is important in demonstrating the role of the Atherton Tablelands as the principal Australian base for all three Australian Imperial Force (AIF) infantry divisions during the Pacific Campaign of World War II (WWII). The concentration of Australian Army units on the Atherton Tablelands from early 1943 was an important part of Australia’s military strategy, and 13 AAOD was the largest supply depot for those units.
\n
The igloo’s relocation to the site of the Atherton Tableland Maize Marketing Board’s workshops in 1947 illustrates the common post-war practice of selling ex-military buildings for removal and civilian reuse.
The igloo is rare as one of two known surviving examples of an igloo-style 100ft x 40ft (30.5m x 12.2m) ARMCO hut, erected and used in Queensland during WWII. In retaining its steel segmented-arch frame in its original form, it is important in demonstrating the prefabricated and portable framing system of an igloo-style ARMCO hut.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":602860,"name":"Virginia State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1690 Sandgate Road","suburb":"VIRGINIA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-08-28","description":"Virginia State School occupies the whole of a levelled, 4.72ha block within Virginia, an industrial and residential suburb of northern Brisbane. The site is located on the corner of Sandgate Road, the major thoroughfare through Virginia, and Jefferis Street; and is bound by Brickyard Road to the southwest, parkland to the west and north, and a railway line to the northeast. The school buildings are primarily located at the southern end of the site with the earliest, a Sectional School Building, approximately in the centre of the group. The school complex also comprises a sports oval at the northern end of the site, a tennis court (1925) in the southwestern corner, and a variety of mature trees and plantings that are mostly positioned along the site boundary, sports oval perimeter, and north and east of the tennis court. The school and its large, leafy grounds are conspicuous in their suburban setting.
\n1920-1933 Sectional School Building (3 wings: Blocks B, C and D)
\nThe Sectional School Building is set well back from Jefferis street and is orientated on a southeast-northwest axis – perpendicular to Sandgate Road. It is comprised of three Sectional School wings (Block B, east; Block C, centre; and Block D, west) that were constructed in five stages between 1920 and 1933.
\nThe building is a highset, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure with corrugated metal-clad roofs, timber floors, and tall, rounded-brick (Block B and C) and concrete (Block D) stumps. The building’s three wings are linked by northeast-facing verandahs which are accessed by timber stairs; and teachers rooms are attached to the verandahs of the east and west wings. The understorey is partially enclosed with a variety of brick, flat-sheet and weatherboard-clad partitions that form toilet blocks, a tuckshop, storage areas and additional classrooms – none of which are of cultural heritage significance.
A range of early timber joinery is retained throughout the building including the large banks of casement windows with horizontally centre-pivoting fanlights in the southwestern walls (fanlights in the eastern block are modern); and double-hung sashes with centre-pivoting fanlights in the verandah walls (installed in the 1950s). Most doors are modern, but retain early centre-pivoting fanlights.
All verandah walls are single-skin, with tongue-and-groove (T&G), vertically-jointed (VJ) timber board linings and externally-exposed stud-framing. The verandahs have square timber posts and raked ceilings lined in T&G, VJ boards. Bag-racks have replaced most of the timber balustrading.
\nEarly interior wall and ceiling linings are T&G, VJ boards. Original coved ceilings survive in most classrooms; and exposed metal tie rods and square ceiling ventilation panels are retained in these spaces. Skirtings are timber and of a simple profile.
The eastern and the western wings each have two teachers rooms; most of which retain their original coved ceilings and T&G, VJ board wall and ceiling linings. Their early casement windows with centre-pivoting (eastern wing), awning and fixed (western wing) fanlights survive and some retain early window hardware. Marks within some northeastern wall linings indicate the former locations of window banks (now removed).
Elements not of cultural heritage significance include modern carpet and linoleum floor linings, kitchenettes, modern benches, storage cupboards, stage platforms, modern verandah enclosures, flat suspended ceilings, modern light-weight partitions and flat-sheet wall linings. Extensions northeast of the Sectional School Building, Block A and Block E, and alterations to accommodate the southeast walkway linking to Block F, are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n1920-2 Eastern Wing (Block B)
\nThe eastern wing has a gable roof with a Dutch-gable at the western end and flat-sheet eaves linings. The southeastern end-wall features a bank of high-level, centre-pivoting windows that are sheltered by a wide, corrugated metal-clad hood with decorative timber brackets. An early, low-waisted timber door provides access from the verandah to the easternmost classroom and retains some early door hardware.
The lowest board of the classrooms’ verandah wall is hinged at the base. The verandah has modern enclosures at either end that form additional classroom and storage spaces.
Internally the wing is divided by timber partitions into three large classroom spaces (formerly five classrooms). Two original partitions at the eastern end of the wing have been removed, although their locations are identifiable through protruding marks in the flat, suspended ceiling lining. Partitions at the western end of the wing remain in their original locations, although they have been lined with flat-sheeting from floor to wall height. An opening has been cut into the westernmost partition to combine two classrooms into one large space.
1924-8 Central Wing (Block C)
\nThe central wing has a gable roof with battened timber eaves linings ventilating the roof-space. Its southeastern gable-end features a bank of high-level, centre-pivoting windows; sheltered by a wide, corrugated metal-clad hood with decorative timber brackets.
The verandah has been partially enclosed by modern louvres at the inner junction of the central and western wings.
The interior is divided into three spaces: an eastern classroom; a western classroom; and a large, central performance space. Remnants of the original partitions survive as bulkheads in the western classroom and the central performance space, demonstrating the original six-room layout. Early, low-waisted, timber folding doors with central glass insets divide the western classroom and central performance space – the retention of these doors is rare. Aligned with a remnant partition bulkhead, east of the folding doors, are hinge marks in the wall lining that indicate the position of an additional set of folding doors (now removed).
\n1933 Western Wing (Block D)
\nThe western wing has a gable roof, with an southeastern Dutch-gable and VJ timber board eaves linings. The northwestern gable-end and the western teachers room gable-end have timber battening.
\nThe verandah retains an early hatroom enclosure at the southeastern end, with exposed timber framing and metal hooks. The northwestern end is enclosed with a weatherboard-clad, single-skin wall that houses casement windows.
\nThe interior is divided into three classroom spaces. The partitions have been moved from their original locations, although timber lattice ceiling vents and window locations in the southwestern wall are indicative of the early four-room layout.
\nLandscape Elements / Grounds
\nThe grounds are well-established with many large, mature trees including figs (Ficus spp.), camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), slash pines (Pinus elliottii), tipuanas (Tipuana tipu), poincianas (Delonix regia) and paper-bark tea-trees (Melaleuca quinquenervia). The generous sports oval north of the school building complex and its mature perimeter shade trees enhance the school’s prominence in its location and provide a picturesque setting for the school.
\nA tennis court is located in its original position in the southwestern corner of the site.
\nForestry plots are located along the northern edge of the sports oval (established by 1952), and north and east of the tennis court (established by 1958). In each of these locations, slash pine trees are planted in uniform rows; those east of the tennis court are bounded by timber log seating.
\nThe school grounds are beautified by mature perimeter trees, planted along the Sandgate Road and Brickyard Road boundaries. A large fig tree on the Jefferis Street boundary, east of the tennis court, is encircled by timber seating.
\nMature shade trees are planted in various places throughout the school site. Particularly large camphor laurel specimens are located north of Block B and north of the tennis court; and a mature Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhina sp.) is east of the tennis court.
\nA plaque commemorating the opening of the school is positioned north of the Sectional School building.
\nOther Structures
Other buildings, structures, sheds, footpaths and roads within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
Virginia State School opened in 1920 in the northern Brisbane suburb of Virginia to serve the growing population in the area. Due to suburban development during the interwar period and after World War II, extensions were made and buildings added to the site to serve the school’s growing pupil numbers. Virginia State School has a highly intact three-wing Sectional School Building (Blocks B, C and D) that was constructed in five stages between 1920 and 1933, and is set in landscaped grounds with mature shade trees, forestry plots and sporting facilities. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. After the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875. The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[1]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[2]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[3]
\nOriginally the land of the Turrbul people, the land in the vicinity of the later Virginia State School was surveyed in 1864 and country portions sold by 1878. The area became known as ‘Virginia’ after the opening of the Virginia railway station on the North Coast railway line in 1888. The railway made the area more accessible and stimulated growth. The Virginia Brick Company was established nearby about 1892. Between the 1890s and 1910s a small village formed around the railway station and by 1911 the area’s population was 167.[4]
\nThe community petitioned the Department of Public Instruction in 1909-10 for the opening of a state school at Virginia and by 1915 a plan of the area showed a school reserve on the site of a former recreation reserve. In 1918 the Minister for Public Instruction advised that the new school at Virginia would proceed and that its estimated cost was £3000. The Queensland Government subsequently approved expenditure of £1,784 on establishing the school. In January 1920 The Queenslander reported that the new state school at Virginia was nearing completion. The previously-gazetted school reserve (R1066) was increased in size to 8 acres 31.5 perches (3.37ha) through the inclusion of land to the south and west of the initial reserve, after closure of a road leading to the adjacent Virginia Brickworks.[5]
\nThe school was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction on 31 January 1920 and teaching commenced on 2 February. It comprised a highset, three-classroom, Sectional School Building running approximately east-west, with a north-facing verandah and a teachers room centrally positioned off the verandah (this building is the eastern end of the current Block B). Stairs to the east of the teachers room gave access to the verandah, and the base of the verandah wall had operable ventilation boards. The final cost according to the Department of Public Works was £2276 2 shillings (s) 10 pence (p).[6]
\nAttention to improving light and ventilation to achieve an optimum classroom culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School (type DT/1), a high-set timber structure. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs and allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time.[7]
\nBefore the Sectional School, all school buildings were generally aligned with street and property boundaries, regardless of aspect. By late 1914, after acceptance of the principles and virtues of providing natural light into classrooms advocated by Dr Eleanor Bourne, (appointed as the first Medical Inspector of Schools in 1911), buildings were being preferably orientated to receive maximum indirect southern light. The Sectional School type was designed to have an unobstructed wall of windows on its southern elevation and verandahs, typically to the north but sometimes to the end elevations, allowing for linkages to other and future buildings. Its blank end walls were also detailed to be removable, so that as the school grew, the building could be easily extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms – a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[8]
\nAt Virginia State School, rapid growth in student numbers over the next 12 years resulted in four additions, constructed to the west of the original Sectional School building, and ultimately forming three connected wings. Pupil numbers in the first two years grew from 165 at opening to 252 by December 1921 resulting in the first enlargement of the school in 1922. Two classrooms were added to the western end of the Sectional School Building (the classrooms now form the western end of Block B) at a cost of £1,271 9s. However, by June 1923 a deputation from Virginia State School was requesting the Minister for Public Instruction to duplicate the existing accommodation, provide a retiring room for the female teachers, and to board-in parts of the school’s understorey.[9]
\nBefore any action was taken, disaster struck in January 1924 when a severe storm blew the school building off its brick piers and almost split it in half. The Department of Public Works dismantled, re-erected and enlarged the building at a cost of £4110 12s 3p. The reconstructed and extended building was re-positioned away from the boundaries and did not address the street. Instead, its verandahs were oriented to the northeast. The additions comprised a three-classroom wing (now forming the eastern end of Block C) attached via a verandah from the western side of the earlier wing, and linked to the northeastern verandah of the new wing. A second teachers room was also added to the 1922 classroom wing and a stairway added beside it. The verandah corners were enclosed to form hat rooms. [10]
\nThe student population at Virginia State School continued to grow and further additions were made to the school. In May 1926 the School Committee approached the Department of Public Instruction for increased accommodation, but additions to the school were not approved until August 1927. By then the school’s enrolment figure was 530 and there was only accommodation for 320 pupils. In the meantime children were taught on the verandahs and under the school building. The then western wing (current Block C) was extended by three classrooms and an additional staircase in 1927-28. The new classrooms were separated by timber partitions.[11]
\nThe most westerly wing (current Block D) was added in 1933 at a cost of £1781 10s 8p, and opened on 1 July 1933 by F A Cooper, the Minister for Public Instruction. This wing was connected by verandah to the northwestern end of the 1927-28 additions, making the building more symmetrical. Erected on high concrete piers, the area underneath was concreted. This wing (a Sectional School) comprised four classrooms, each 21ft by 18ft (6.4 x 5.5m); two teachers rooms off its northern verandah, both 15ft by 12ft (4.6 x 3.7m); and a staircase near the northwestern corner. The classrooms were lined with tongue and groove timber boarding, and were divided by fixed timber partitions with central connecting double doors. Their ceilings were coved, with metal tie rods and latticed ceiling vents. This wing provided additional accommodation for 160 pupils, which, together with the existing classrooms, accommodated a total of 560 pupils. Provision was made for an additional room for 40 pupils, which would have made the building symmetrical; but this was never built.[12]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline and developed aesthetic tastes.[13]
\nFrom the 1920s, the Virginia State School community implemented plans to improve the school’s grounds. Arbor Day plantings were undertaken in the 1920s and trees were planted on the Sandgate Road boundary at that time. In April 1925 a tennis court, located in the southwestern corner of the grounds was completed. In the following year, further work on the tennis court and grounds was undertaken by community members during a working bee. In 1926, the School Committee supplied trees for Arbor Day planting and decided to approach the Department of Public Instruction for materials to construct seats under those shade trees large enough to warrant seats. In the next year, the School Committee instituted a grounds improvement fund to finance improvements, while in May 1930, it decided to repair the tennis court and proceed with other improvements to the grounds. Subsequently, the Committee held a balloon carnival in October 1930 to raise funds to improve and beautify the school grounds. Drainage work to the ‘cricket pitch area’ was also undertaken in 1930.[14]
\nAfter World War II, the Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[15]
\nAt Virginia State School, increased student numbers resulted in a number of buildings being added to the site during the 1950s; some of which were connected to the Sectional School Building, resulting in modifications. Block A, containing three classrooms, was constructed as a northern extension to Block B in 1953. In July 1957, Block E was constructed as a highset, two-classroom building with an understorey play area. Its east-facing classrooms were accessed from a western verandah, which connected to Block D. Consequently, the eastern teachers room of Block D was altered, with its northeastern windows moved to the northwestern wall and new windows added to either side of the original window in the southeastern wall.[16]
\nIn 1958 alterations to Blocks B, C and D took place. After Block A burnt down in 1957, it was rebuilt in the following year as a highset building with a verandah to the west giving access to the three east facing classrooms of Block B. The eastern teachers room of Block B was rebuilt to the original dimensions with new hopper windows to the east and a double-hung sash to the west. The high-level windows in the verandah wall were removed from Blocks B and C and replaced with three double-hung sashes with fanlights. In the verandah wall of Block D, the number of windows was increased from one to three. To the three eastern classrooms of Block B, a flat suspended ceiling was installed. Glazed screens replaced a store room at the eastern end of the verandah of Block B and a storage space was added under the western teachers room.[17]
\nAfter World War II, further improvements to the school grounds were undertaken. By 1958, a second tennis court had been added. Rows of pine trees to the north of the oval date from the 1950s. In 1959, the school grounds were enlarged to 12 acres 1 rood 13 perches (4.99ha) with the addition of 3 acres 6.5 perches (1.23ha) to the north and west of the school site; despite excision of land to the east for Sandgate road widening. The school’s swimming pool was built in 1970.[18]
\nIn 2015, the school grounds retain three distinct forestry plots to the north and east of the tennis courts and along the northern edge of the sports oval. Forestry plots were the product of after-school agricultural clubs, introduced in 1923 at primary schools, under the ‘home project’ scheme. Curriculum driven, these clubs had a secondary commercial value as well as disseminating information and helping to develop a range of skills. The Department of Primary Industry provided suitable plants and offered horticultural advice. School forestry plots were seen by the government as a way of educating the next generation about the economic and environmental importance of trees, as well as providing testing grounds for new species. Located throughout the state, the plots were a means of experimenting with a variety of tree species in different soil and climatic conditions. The sale of timber grown in school plots provided an additional source of income for the school and the plots themselves were an attractive feature of school grounds. The first school forestry plot was established at Marburg State Rural School in 1928, where 275 exotic and indigenous trees were planted. Encouraged by the Education and Forestry Departments, by 1953 about 380 Queensland schools were undertaking forestry projects. A forestry plot at Virginia State School was established by 1952, at which time it included pine and cypress trees planted.[19]
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains the Department of Public Works Sectional School Building set in landscaped grounds with tennis courts, sports oval, mature shade trees and forestry plots. The school is important to the area, having been a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. Since establishment, Virginia State School has been a key social focus for its community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Virginia State School (established in 1920) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent, representative example of a standard government designed school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Sectional School Building, comprising three wings (1920-33), is important in demonstrating the evolution of Department of Public Works (DPW) timber school designs to provide adequate lighting and ventilation; equally recognising educational and climatic needs.
\nThe large suburban site with mature trees, landscaping features and sporting facilities demonstrates the Queensland education system’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Virginia State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school with later modifications. This includes a highset timber-framed teaching building of a standard design that incorporates understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; on a generous, landscaped site with mature shade trees, play areas and sporting facilities.
\nThe Sectional School Building (1920-33) designed by the Department of Public Works is very intact and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type and its evolutions. Characteristics include its highset form with play space beneath, gable and Dutch-gable roofs, blank end walls, northern verandahs, large banks of south-facing windows, projecting teachers rooms, hat-room enclosures, single-skin verandah walls, early joinery, coved ceilings and early internal linings.
\nThe forestry plots at Virginia are good examples of their type, containing pine trees (Pinus spp.) planted in uniform rows.
\nThe mature camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), tipuanas (Tipuana tipu), poincianas (Delonix regia), paper-bark tea-trees (Melaleuca quinquenervia), and fig trees (Ficus spp.) are fine examples of shade trees typically planted in Queensland school grounds.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nVirginia State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Virginia community. It was established in 1920 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Virginia children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its suburban district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":602861,"name":"Moorooka State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Sherley Street","suburb":"MOOROOKA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-08-28","description":"Moorooka State School occupies a 5.1ha site (Lots 595 SP118822 and 594 SP118821) bounded by Sherley Street to the north, Beaudesert Road to the west, Alexander Park to the south, and residential properties that front Blomfield Street to the east. However, the registered boundary encompasses the northern 1.3ha of the school (Lot 595 SP118822 only), consistent with the 1927 school reserve. The main entrance to the school is along Sherley Street, where the timber school buildings (Blocks A, B and C) and mature trees along the boundary contribute to the suburban streetscape. The site slopes downwards from northeast to southwest. The school complex comprises a variety of educational buildings and landscape features of varying eras of design and construction. Of these, significant components are concentrated to the north and include:
\n• Block B – Sectional School Building (1929);
• Block A – Sectional School Building (1933);
• Block C – Sectional School Building (1946);
• Block D – Brick and Concrete Building (1956); and
• Landscape features – Mature trees and retaining walls.
Elements within the registered boundary that are not considered to be of cultural significance include: Blocks E, F, and I; the Library; various modern ancillary structures; modern landscape features such as pathways and paved areas; and the swimming pool. Where the register boundary extends into road reserve, the road and footpath fabric is not considered to be of cultural significance.
\nSectional School buildings – Blocks A, B and C
\nThe three Sectional School buildings are timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structures on concrete piers, with corrugated metal-clad Dutch-gable roofs and verandahs along the north, east and west sides. The buildings are symmetrically arranged in a U-shaped plan, with Block A and Block C connected to either end of the northern verandah of Block B. The buildings range from lowset to highset, reflecting the slope of the site. From east to west: Block A is lowset; Block B is highset; and Block C is highset, though set lower than Block B and connected via verandah stairs.
\nThe buildings retain extensive early timber joinery. Southern windows comprise large banks of casements with horizontal centre-pivot fanlights. Windows to the northern verandah walls vary, with banks of high-level horizontal centre-pivot windows to Block B, and double-hung sash windows with horizontal centre-pivot fanlights to Blocks A and C. Windows and doors retain early fittings and hardware. The interior walls and ceilings are lined with timber v-jointed (VJ) tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards. The ceilings are coved, with exposed metal tie rods and square lattice ceiling vents. Skirtings and architraves are timber of a simple profile.
\nVerandah walls are single-skin, lined with VJ, T&G boards with exposed external framing. Verandah floors are timber, and ceilings are raked and lined with VJ, T&G boards. Joinery to the verandahs includes square timber posts and two-rail timber balustrades with battened balusters. Classrooms are accessed from the northern verandahs via flush-panelled doors with fanlights. Hat / bag hooks are attached to the verandah walls of Blocks B and C.
\nTeachers rooms are attached to the north and east sides of Block B, and to the north of Block A; they are gable-roofed and weatherboard-clad, and feature skillion window hoods with timber brackets. The north-facing teachers rooms have battened gable infills. The interior walls and flat ceilings are lined with VJ, T&G boards.
\nElements of the Sectional School buildings not considered to be of cultural significance include additions and alterations such as: modern extensions; carpet and linoleum floor linings; sheeted and glazed partitions; ceiling fans and air conditioning units; understorey enclosures; modern joinery, fixtures and fittings; and aluminium framed windows.
\nBlock B (1929) - Centre
Block B contains an open plan classroom space (formerly five classrooms). The lintels and bulkheads of the four original classroom partitions remain, with a modern concertina door inserted into one opening.
An early hat room enclosure (1946) is retained on the southwestern corner of the verandah, along with a connecting stair to the northwest. The northern verandah is accessed via two sets of external stairs. Additional stairs (c1959) have been inserted into the east and west verandahs, providing covered access to the understorey. The east verandah stairs are enclosed with a combination of modern fixed glazing and louvres.
\nThe eastern teachers room (c1946 - 1950) is lowset on timber stumps; and connected to the 1929 building via a small verandah extension. The door is panelled and the windows to the north, east and south are narrow, double-row casements.
\nThe northern teachers room is highset on concrete piers. floor. The window on the eastern wall is an original casement, while the fixed northern window and verandah door are modern. There is a lowset weatherboard-clad extension to the west (added c1946-50).
\nThe understorey of Block B combines open areas for play, and enclosed areas for storage and a workshop (former modern tuckshop). The southern side has been partly enclosed with facebrick, which also formed the tuckshop counter area. Other areas are enclosed by either concrete, corrugated metal or timber battens. The understorey of the northern teachers room is enclosed with weatherboard cladding.
\nBlock A (1933) - East
Block A contains two classrooms, separated by an original partition with part-glazed double-doors. Part-height modern partitions form a small office space within the western classroom.
The east and west facing Dutch-gable ends feature battened infills. The lowset understorey is also enclosed by timber battens.
The verandahs are partially enclosed with modern sheeted and glazed partitions on the northern side between the teachers room and classrooms, and in the southeast corner for a store room (former hat room). The original semi-enclosed hat room is retained in the northwest corner.
\nTwo sets of timber stairs access the northern verandah either side of the lowset teachers room. The teachers room retains a casement window to the north, while the eastern window has been replaced.
\nBlock C (1946) - West
Block C is primarily highset, with a lowset eastern verandah that is supported by a concrete retaining wall (1946). The building contains an open plan classroom space (formerly two classrooms – larger than those in Block A). The former layout is discernable from partition bulkheads that remain.
The original semi-enclosed hat rooms are retained in the northwest and northeast corners of the verandah. The western verandah (now enclosed) is clad externally with weatherboard and lined internally with flat sheeting, and has with timber-framed hopper windows. Timber stairs provide external access to the north and east verandahs. The understorey is enclosed with corrugated metal, timber battens and concrete panels, and used as a storage area.
\nBrick and Concrete Building – Block D (1956)
\nBlock D is a three-storey, brick and reinforced-concrete building with a low-profile hipped roof. The building has rectangular massing and the elongated form comprises three distinct sections: full height facebrick enclosing concrete stairwells and amenities at the east and west ends; and first and second floor classrooms with north-facing verandahs to the centre.
\nThe north elevation features vertical and horizontal concrete fins forming ten bays to each of the upper floors. The verandahs are painted concrete and the end bays are enclosed with fixed, metal-framed glazing. The south elevation features a continuous, flat reinforced-concrete hood over the lower windows.
\nThe building retains much of its original timber-framed joinery. Windows to the east-end section are hoppers with rendered projecting jambs, and the west-end section has mostly casement windows. Classrooms have banks of south-facing hopper windows with fixed timber shelves to sill height. Windows to the verandah walls are double-hung sashes with horizontal centre-pivot fanlights. Some verandah windows on the second floor have been replaced with aluminium-framed sliders. Classroom doors are low-waisted timber with glazed inserts. Classrooms at the western end have sliding doors.
\nThere are three (formerly four) classrooms on both the first and second floors. The fixed classroom partitions have timber doors at the southern end. Original folding partitions have been removed; however, the fixed partition bulkheads and doorways remain. Walls and ceilings are lined with flat sheeting.
\nThe west end section has lavatories to ground floor, and open meeting spaces (former cloak rooms) and toilets to the first and second floors. The east end section has a glazed entrance lobby to ground floor, and a combination of offices, storage and toilets to the first and second floors. The stairs in both end sections have metal balustrades with timber handrails. A ramp at the eastern end of the first floor connects with the understorey of Block B to the east.
\nMuch of the ground floor (formerly open play space supported by concrete piers) has been enclosed with fibrous-cement sheeting to form modern office spaces. Open areas have been retained adjacent to the east and west stairwells. These thoroughfares have fixed timber bench seats.
\nLandscape Elements / Grounds
\nThe established school grounds comprise mature trees and garden beds, as well as various built landscape features.
\nThe sloping site is terraced with embankments and retaining structures. The school is set slightly below Sherley Street, with earth embankments along part of the northern boundary. There is a flat parade ground to the north of Block B, surrounded by garden beds. A concrete retaining wall (1946) with stairs aligns to the north of Block C, and a similar set of concrete stairs (pre-1950) are located north of Block A. A curved retaining wall (c1955), finished with Brisbane Tuff, extends from northwest of Block C around to southeast of Block D. The wall is stepped and incorporates planter boxes.
\nMature trees including figs (Ficus spp.) and camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) are concentrated along the northwest boundary of the school and contribute to the streetscape. Further mature plantings of various Eucalypt species (Eucalyptus spp.) are concentrated near the eastern boundary of the school.
Two mature pencil pines (Cupressus Sempervirens) are located adjacent to the entrance on Sherley Street.
Memorial plaques have been placed adjacent to one of the pencil pines. One memorial is an ANZAC Day commemoration from 2008, the other is in commemoration of the opening of the Outdoor Learning Centre in 2004.
","history":"Moorooka State School opened in January 1929 to accommodate the growing population of a previously rural district on the southern outskirts of Brisbane. The first Sectional School building was extended in 1933 and 1946 with further Sectional School buildings to its northeast and northwest corners. In 1956 a three-storey brick and concrete classroom block in a modernist style was added, as post-war housing construction in Moorooka continued to increase the local population. The standard and purpose-built school buildings are set amongst terraced, landscaped grounds with mature trees. Apart from a brief hiatus during World War II (WWII), the school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nOriginally part of an area called ‘Boggo’, which ran from Dutton Park to Rocky Water Holes (later Rocklea, c1884), and which was part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal people, Moorooka’s development was spurred on by transport improvements. Predominantly an agricultural area until the early 20th century,[1] the coming of the Logan railway in 1885 increased the attraction of the district for residential development. The Moorooka railway station was established in 1887 and the Moorooka Railway Station Estate was advertised in 1889,[2] but flooding in 1893 deterred settlement of the area for some time.[3] By 1900 Moorooka was still primarily rural, with most residents living between Ipswich Road and Beaudesert Road.[4] The house ‘Greenloaning’, built for Robert Bell in 1904, was on land which later became the Moorooka State School’s Infant School, and his family lived there until WWII.[5]
\nResidential development occurred to the west and north of the school site in the early 20th century, assisted by the extension of the tramline to Yeronga Park in 1915.[6] In the 1920s the area east of Ipswich Road, to the south of Yeronga Park, was used for war service housing.[7] The tram line was extended from Yeronga Park, down Beaudesert Road as far as Mayfield Road, in 1937.[8] However, the area around Moorooka State School (east of Beaudesert Road, between Mayfield and Evans Roads) remained largely undeveloped before WWII, apart from some housing between Bracken Street and Sherley Street.[9]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of growing communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.
\nIn 1911, the population of Moorooka was 350, rising to 791 by 1921.[10] Pressure for a state school at Moorooka occurred from around 1912, when the Moorooka Progress Association presented a petition to the Education Department.[11] Moorooka children either attended Rocklea State School, or Yeronga State School (established 1867 as Boggo State School).[12] A site for a new school at Moorooka, consisting of 3 acres, 1 rood and 2 perches (1.3ha), was purchased from Charles Robert Parish by the Department of Public Instruction in December 1927.[13]
\nThe first building constructed for the school, during 1928, was a standard Public Works design. To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.
\nAttention to improving light and ventilation to achieve an optimum classroom environment culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School (Type DT/1), a high-set timber structure. [14] This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs and allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time.
\nBefore the Sectional School, all school buildings were generally aligned with street and property boundaries, regardless of aspect. By late 1914, after acceptance of the principles and virtues of providing natural light into classrooms advocated by Dr Eleanor Bourne, (appointed as the first Medical Inspector of Schools in 1911), buildings were being preferably orientated to receive maximum indirect southern light. The Sectional School type was designed to have an unobstructed wall of windows on its southern elevation and verandahs, typically to the north but sometimes to the end elevations, allowing for linkages to other and future buildings. Its blank end walls were also detailed to be removable, so that as the school grew, the building could be easily extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms – a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[15]
\nThe Sectional School building at Moorooka was aligned approximately east-west, being lowset at the east end, and highset at the west end (due to sloping ground), and consisted of five classrooms 21ft by 18ft (6.4m by 5.5m), with an 8ft (2.4m) northern verandah which wrapped around the east and west sides. A teachers room projected off the northern verandah, and the northeast and northwest verandah corners were enclosed.[16] The 1928 plan indicated possible future expansion through the addition of buildings off each corner of the first building, linked by their verandahs;[17] an expansion approach that accommodated the sloping site. The building (known as Block B in 2015) had a Dutch-gabled roof and was set on concrete piers. About two thirds of the understorey play area, on the west side, was floored with concrete. Three of the classrooms were linked by folding partitions, which could be opened to create an assembly hall. The remaining partitions were fixed, with centred doorways.[18] It was reported that there was room for 200 pupils, with ample light and ventilation provided by large windows on the southern side. The completed cost was £2,607.[19]
\nMoorooka State School opened in January 1929 with 139 children and 6 teachers. By the end of the year, enrolments had increased to 230.[20] At the school’s official opening on 16 March 1929, T Wilson, the Minister for Education, noted that the school, built on the elevated part of the site, had a beautiful view to the west, and was positioned to allow for future expansion.[21]
\nEfforts were made to improve the school grounds and its facilities. The Ladies Committee worked to provide a piano, a sewing machine and a library, and to install electric lights at the school. In late 1929 a concert was held in the Ideal Picture Theatre in Yeronga to raise funds.[22] The uneven parade ground between the school and Sherley Street was levelled by government relief workers, and boys at the school helped remove tree stumps from the grounds.[23] In 1931 two tennis courts were opened, southwest of the school building, with money raised by the School Committee, the Ladies Committee, and teachers.[24]
\nThe continued increase in daily attendance (averaging 260 by 1933) also led to a new two-classroom wing for 100 children (known as Block A in 2015) officially opened on 27 May 1933 by FA Cooper, the Minister for Public Instruction.[25] Connected to the northeast corner of the 1929 block, the addition was another Sectional School building, with the same proportions and features as the first.[26] The south wall had casement windows with fanlights, while the northern windows were double-hung sashes.[27] There was a teachers room off the north verandah, and semi-enclosed hat rooms at the northwest and southeast verandah corners. Inside, the building had coved ceilings, with exposed metal tie rods.
\nWWII affected the functioning of Moorooka State School. In 1942, a Staging Camp (Camp Moorooka) was constructed for the US Army between Mayfield Road and Bracken Street, extending south to the east of Medina Street, and west to the southeast corner of Moorooka State School.[28] The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in late January 1942,[29] but while most state schools resumed on 2 March 1942, some, such as Moorooka, remained closed for ‘special reasons’.[30] The US Army took over Moorooka State School from 24 February 1942,[31] and as a result, most of Moorooka’s pupils went to Junction Park State School. However, Moorooka’s students were allowed back to their own school on 13 July 1942.[32]
\nSubstantial housing development also occurred south of the school towards the end of WWII. In 1944-45 the Moorooka War Workers Housing Estate was built between Scherger Street and Evans Road, for married workers at the Rocklea Munitions Works. This complemented the hostels built for single workers, located to the west of Beaudesert Road, south of Hamilton Road,[33] and the hostels’ area was later used for housing ex-servicemen.[34] After the war, the business centre of Moorooka shifted to Moorvale, at the junction of Beaudesert and Mayfield Roads.[35]
\nMoorooka State School continued to expand after WWII, as a result of housing development and an increased local population. In 1947 the combined population of Moorooka, Rocklea and Salisbury was 8,364, and this rose to 12,163 in 1954, and 17,246 by 1971.[36] In late 1946 a new wing for infants (known as Block C in 2015) was added to the northwest corner of the original building.[37] Another Sectional School design, this was highset (although lower than the 1929 building) with the understorey floor concreted. Plans also show a concrete retaining wall between the 1946 building and Sherley Street.[38] The roof was Dutch-gabled, and the northern verandah wrapped around the east and west sides. The southern side was lit by casement windows and the northern by double-hung sash windows. The two classrooms were larger than in the previous blocks, being 26ft by 23ft (7.9 by 7m) and divided by a folding partition. Ceilings were coved, with exposed metal tie-rods and latticed vents. Hat rooms were located at the south end of the west verandah, and the northeast corner of the verandah of the new building; while the connection to the 1929 building, by steps rising up between the verandahs, required the relocation of an existing hatroom to the south end of the latter’s western verandah.[39] It is claimed that the windows on the verandah side of Block C improved ventilation, and that these rooms were popular.[40]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[41] At Moorooka State School, a former Camp Moorooka store building to the south of the school was converted into four classrooms in 1946.[42] Between 1946 and 1950 a new teachers room was attached to the east verandah of the 1929 block, as well as a single-storey extension to the west of the existing northern teachers room. Concrete stairs to the northwest of Block A, similar to those adjacent to Block C, were also added around that time. Two temporary classrooms blocks (totalling five classrooms), were built between 1948 and 1951, on 0.7ha of land added to the south side of Moorooka State School in 1943.[43] Such temporary buildings were constructed in Queensland schools between 1943 and 1951, and were introduced as an expedient, temporary solution to the baby boom and post-war shortages of labour and materials. The remainder of the school grounds, to the south, were added by 1950.[44]
\nWhile the majority of school buildings were built to standard plans, as in other periods, some buildings were also constructed to a purposed design. These were typically constructed in areas of stable, suburban and urban populations and can be seen as an evolution of the urban brick school buildings of the early 1900s and depression-era brick school buildings. They were generally substantial structures of brick and concrete that introduced many innovative ideas that later found their way into standard plans. For example, brick was progressively used more frequently in high schools as standard.[45]
\nIn 1953, new brick primary school buildings were planned for Moorooka, Townsville and Walkervale (Bundaberg), as part of a school-building program at that time that was reportedly a record for the state.[46] Moorooka State School’s new brick and concrete three-storey classroom block (known as Block D in 2015) was approved in 1953, at a cost of £43,635,[47] and the building was opened in 1956.[48] The building was designed by Frederick George Kirkegard,[49] a student architect with the Department of Public Works, in a modernist, austere style popular at the time.
\nModernist architecture developed in pre-World War I Europe and gained popularity in Australia after WWII. It is notable for a rationalisation of planning, emphasising clarity and simplicity of form and detailing.[50] Distinguished by their extensive use of steel, reinforced concrete and glass, Australian buildings in the modern or ‘International’ style were heavily influenced by American and European examples. Characteristics included rectangular massing, plain smooth walls with areas of contrasting textures, and selective expression of structural systems, such as concrete framework. In Queensland, architects sought to create climatically responsive modernist buildings by combining careful building orientation, sun-shading devices and natural ventilation methods. This design approach was consistent with the requirements espoused by UK and NSW educationalists at the time, who advocated for schools that were climatically responsive with diffused natural light, and constructed of modern materials that were durable, washable and attractive.[51] Education in the 1950s was embracing the modern, and media reports at the time espoused the virtues of bright and attractive school buildings for encouraging student attendance, stating that ‘Brisbane’s modern new State schools should make for happier, healthier learning’.[52]
\nThe new building at Moorooka was anticipated to ‘provide classrooms and other facilities of the most modern character’.[53] Kirkegard’s design comprised an elongated form of rectangular massing, with contrasting areas of facebrick (enclosing the east and west ends) and painted concrete (verandah and shade elements). There were open verandahs on the northern side, with large concrete fins that contributed to sun control, and a concrete balustrade. The building had timber-framed hopper windows on the southern elevation with a long flat concrete hood, and double-hung sash windows with fanlights on the northern elevation. Constructed to the southwest of Block C, the new building contained an open play area for most of the ground floor, with a health services room, glazed entry lobby and stairwell at the east end, and a stairwell and boys lavatory at the west end. The first floor included four classrooms, a store and cloakroom at the west end, and a head teachers room, with associated lobby and bathroom, at the east end; while the second floor had four classrooms, with a store and cloak room at the west end and a utility room at the east end.[54] A curved, Brisbane Tuff (commonly known as porphyry) retaining wall with incorporated planter boxes, was also built to the north and east of Block D at this time[55] (with concrete block extension in the late 1960s).
\nThe school continued to expand from the 1950s onwards, with new buildings and some changes to existing buildings. New tennis courts were built by 1955, further south on the east side of the school, after Block D was built north of the original tennis courts. In 1958 Blocks J and K were built for an Infant’s School (opened 1959). In 1959 Block C’s western verandah was enclosed as a store and hat room, new stairs were built at each end of Block B (on the verandahs, leading down to the understorey), and a boys’ toilet was added inside the Head Teacher’s room in Block D.[56]
\nThe 1960s was a period of growth at the school. Enrolments rose from 700 to 1000 between 1967 and 1970, although later fell back to 700 by 1976.[57] Further buildings were added to the school during the 1960s and 1970s, along with a swimming pool in 1963. An east-west retaining wall was built south of Block A in the late 1960s, and the retaining wall to the northwest of Block A was extended to Sherley Street at the same time.[58] Staff toilets were added to the west end of the ground floor of Block D c1968, and a library (Block L) was built south of the east end of Block D in 1977. Meanwhile, the converted army hut was removed from the grounds c1958, and the temporary classrooms blocks between 1972-4. [59]
\nThe population of Moorooka in 1976 was 9,639, but the late 1970s saw a decline in student numbers, due to an aging population. In 1983, the Junior and Primary Schools were combined.[60] In December 2006, Blocks J and K were destroyed by an arson attack,[61] but were replaced with a multi-purpose hall that opened in 2009.[62] Moorooka’s population was 8,609 in 2001, rising to 9,984 in 2011.[63] The arrival in the suburb of immigrant families from culturally diverse backgrounds is reflected in the current student body at Moorooka State School.
\nThe school grounds now cover 5.1ha, and include mature plantings, some of which were planted by students on Arbor Days. The provision of outdoor play space was a result of the early and continuing commitment by the Department of Public Instruction to play-based education, particularly in primary school. Trees and gardens were planted as part of beautification of schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and among his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds.[64] In addition, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Landscape elements were often constructed to standard designs and were intrinsic to Queensland Government education philosophies. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline and developed aesthetic tastes. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors.[65] Mature trees currently along the northwest boundary were evident in aerial photographs from 1946.[66] Memorials commemorating ANZAC Day (2008) and the opening of the Outdoor Learning Centre (2004) have been placed adjacent to one of two pencil pines (Cupressus Sempervirens) to the northeast of Block C.
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains standard timber and purpose-built brick buildings dating from 1929 to the 1950s, set in landscaped grounds. The school is important as a focus for the surrounding community and generations of students from the area have been taught there. Since establishment the school has been a key social focus for the local community. The grounds and buildings have been the location of many social and community events over time, including as a meeting place of the Moorooka Branch of the Australian Red Cross during WWII,[67] and for fetes to raise funds for the school.[68]
","criteria":"Moorooka State School (established in 1929) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of a standard government design that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, and a non-standard design that reflects the specific needs of the school.
\nThree connected Sectional School buildings (1929, 1933 and 1946) demonstrate the culmination of many years of experimental timber school design by the Department of Public Works (DPW), providing equally for educational and climatic needs.
\nA three-storey brick and concrete building (1956) demonstrates the post-war construction of larger and more permanent school buildings in areas of established populations. The building reflects mid-20th century architectural and educationalist movements through its modernist, climatically responsive design and materials.
\nThe grounds retain mature trees and landscaping features, representative of suburban school sites, and demonstrate the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Moorooka State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school with later modifications. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising: timber-framed teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; a non-standard brick and concrete building; and a landscaped site with mature shade trees, retaining walls and assembly / play areas.
\nThe three connected Sectional School buildings (1929, 1933 and 1946) are fine, intact examples of their type, comprising: timber framed structure; Dutch-gabled roofs; highset form with play space beneath (1929 and 1946 buildings); blank end walls; northern verandahs, with linkages between buildings; large banks of south-facing windows; projecting teachers rooms (1929 and 1933 buildings); hat room enclosures; single-skin verandah walls; coved ceilings with metal tie- rods and latticed vents; and early joinery and internal linings.
\nThe brick and concrete building (1956) is an excellent, intact example of an individually-designed state school building, typically constructed in areas with large urban populations to meet the specific needs of the school. Designed in a mid-20th century modernist style, the building combines rectangular massing, walls with areas of contrasting textures and climatically responsive design elements such as concrete fin sun-shades. The efficiently planned and well composed building comprises an elongated form, with facebrick and metal-framed glazing enclosing stairwells at the east and west ends, north-facing concrete verandahs along the first and second floors, and a glazed entrance and lobby to the east.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMoorooka State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1929 through the efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its suburban district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650002,"name":"Marburg State School","alternate_name":"Marburg Rural School","street_address":"Louisa Street","suburb":"MARBURG","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-10-09","description":"Overview
Marburg State School occupies the whole of an approximately 4ha, sloping block within the small rural township of Marburg in the Brisbane Valley. The school complex is accessed via Louisa Street and is surrounded by agricultural and residential properties. Visible from the school entrance and at the highest point of the site is a Sectional School Building (1922). East of the Sectional School Building, a Teachers Residence (1926) faces south to front the entrance driveway. The landscaped grounds are well-established and include an avenue of mature fig trees along the length of the curved driveway that provides an attractive entrance to the school. The layout of the grounds is clearly divided into areas based on use, including: a teaching area with playing field at the southern end; a residence with garden area to the east; a mature forestry plot in the northeastern corner; and a former horse paddock in the northwestern corner. The school is prominent in its rural location and is clearly visible from the adjacent, Warrego Highway.
1922 Sectional School Building (Block A)
The 1922 Sectional School Building is a highset, timber-framed structure that is clad in weatherboards and stands on combination of timber, concrete and metal stumps. The building is long and narrow, running on a northeast-southwest axis, and has a corrugated metal-clad, Dutch-gable roof with circular roof ventilators and additional gablets on the southeastern side. The teachers annexe on the northwestern side has a hipped roof. The building has timber floors and access is via timber stairs to the northern verandah (now enclosed).
An early timber-framed casement window with a horizontally centre-pivoting fanlight is retained in the southwestern wall of the teachers annexe. Recent additions that are not of cultural heritage significance include: modern windows; verandah wall openings; flat sheet wall and ceiling linings; and linoleum and carpet floor linings.
\nThe northern verandah has a raked ceiling clad in v-jointed (VJ), tongue and groove (T&G) timber boards. A small section of early VJ, T&G wall lining is located within the verandah wall of the teachers annexe.
\nThe interior is divided into four classrooms by modern partitions, although timber lattice ceiling vents and metal tie rods indicate the original five-room layout. The coved ceiling is hipped at the end-walls and is lined with VJ, T&G timber boards.
\nThe teachers annexe comprises four administration and storage rooms organised around a central hallway. The two northwestern-most rooms are a modern extension. All walls and ceilings are lined with modern flat sheeting, and the timber floor is lined with modern linoleum.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and is partially enclosed with timber battening and corrugated metal sheeting. It is used as a shaded play-space and has storage rooms at the southwestern end, enclosed with corrugated metal sheeting – some sections of the corrugated metal sheeting have early Lysaght stamps.
\n1926 Teachers Residence
The 1926 Teachers Residence is highly intact. The building is highset on tall concrete stumps, clad in weatherboards and has a corrugated metal-clad hipped roof. It is comprised of a core of bedrooms, with a verandah (now enclosed) at the front (south) and a dining verandah (enclosed) at the rear (north), and a rear wing attached to the northern side of the dining verandah. Timber stairs provide access to the front and rear verandahs. Wide, timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad window hoods shelter windows on the eastern and western sides, and rounded metal hoods shade the northern windows. Early timber joinery is retained throughout the building including: low-waisted French doors with 2-light fanlights from the core to the front verandah and dining room; low-waisted timber doors with fanlights to the core’s central hallway; VJ timber-clad doors to the pantry in the rear wing and to the understorey washhouse enclosure; and a double-hung timber sash window to the pantry. Other windows are modern, set within original openings. The entry landing (including toilet) on the eastern side of the building is modern and not of cultural heritage significance.
The front verandah retains its single-skin verandah wall, with post and belt rails supporting VJ, T&G timber boards. Its raked ceiling is lined with modern flat sheeting.
\nThe core is comprised of three bedrooms and a living room, centred around a short hallway. The rear wing includes an eastern kitchen with stove alcove, a central bathroom and pantry, and an eastern former servant’s room. All interior walls and ceilings are lined with VJ timber boards; the north and south walls of the dining verandah are single-skin with post-and-belt-rails exposed. The walls of the stove alcove are lined in flat sheeting. A small window seat built into the western wall of the dining room is lined in VJ, T&G timber boards. Skirtings and cornices throughout are timber and of a simple profile. The building’s timber floors are lined with modern carpet and linoleum.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and is enclosed with timber, battened screens. A washhouse at northeastern end is enclosed with flat sheeting.
\nGrounds and Views
The school grounds are established and well laid-out. The school is prominent in its location and the sloping nature of the site provides opportunities for views of the surrounding, rural area to be obtained from within the school grounds and the school buildings.
The driveway, running approximately northwest from the school entrance toward the Sectional School Building, features an avenue of established small-leaf fig trees (Ficus spp.), with one large leaf-fig tree (Ficus sp.) at the southern end. The avenue enhances the school’s prominence in its location, provides a picturesque setting for the school and generates a strong sense of place upon entry to the school.
\nNorth of the Teachers Residence, a variety of hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), Norfolk pines (Araucaria heterophylla) and kauri pines (Agathis robusta) stand within a forestry plot; sections of which are planted in rows. The forestry plot is accessed from the southern end via a gateway with a metal sign featuring the words, ‘Environmental Park; QLD’s 1st School Forestry Plot; est. 1928’.
\nIn the northwestern corner of the grounds is the horse paddock – a fenced, grassed area that slopes down to a northern creek-bed and features several shade trees.
\nOther structures
Sheds, play equipment, walkways, tennis courts, the multi-purpose hall, and other structures within the school grounds are not of cultural heritage significance.
Marburg State School opened in 1879 as Frederick State School (renamed Marburg State School in 1888) on a small site within the small agricultural settlement of Frederick, to serve its growing rural population. In February 1920, Marburg Rural School commenced in rented buildings until the rural school and primary school moved to the current school site in June 1922. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nEuropean occupation of the Rosewood Scrub and nearby Sally Owens Plains for pastoral purposes dates from the early 1840s.[1] Frederick’s (Marburg’s) establishment, as an agricultural settlement, dates from the 1860s when the area was settled, primarily by German migrants.[2]
\nThe original state school opened on a small sloping site in Edmond Street on 18 March 1879. The school, comprising a classroom and residence, was constructed by J Byers and had an average daily attendance during the first year was 31.8 pupils.[3]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. Following the introduction of Queensland’s Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[4] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[5]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[6]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[7]
\nDuring the 1880s Marburg grew as a commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural area and as an administrative centre for Walloon Division (1879-1903).[8] In 1888 the school was renamed Marburg State School to reflect the town’s change of name, and it continued to grow – with additions in 1888, reroofing in 1904, and repairs and improvements in 1908.[9]
\nGrowth of the town continued in the new century. Marburg gained rail connection to Ipswich and Brisbane when the railway line was extended from Rosewood in 1911, but the siting of the railway station reduced the grounds of the school.[10] Additional land on the western side of the school reserve was added but was steep and unsuitable for a playground.[11]
\nThe idea of rural schools, to educate country children in practical subjects, arose in the early 20th century following the establishment in 1897 of the Queensland Agricultural College at Lawes near Gatton to train young men in agriculture and related sciences.[12] The college, administered by the Department of Agriculture and Stock, was part of a wider scheme of introducing ‘scientific agriculture' to the colony, which included experimental farms and travelling model dairies.[13] Within the school system, a limited form of rural instruction was introduced in syllabus changes made in 1905 and 1915.
\nJohn Douglas Story, Under-Secretary of Public Instruction from 1905, believed like many others, that Queensland’s future depended on agricultural development. Between 1914 and 1916 he finalised a plan for three tiers of agricultural education – rural schools, state high schools, and University Agricultural Department. In 1910, to provide expert guidance from within the Department of Public Instruction, Story appointed James Clement Stubbin as Queensland’s Teacher of Agriculture. Stubbin promoted the notion of a scientific approach to agriculture by writing a textbook on the school garden, agricultural bulletins, and constantly touring schools to give lessons on topics such as milk and cream testing, planting and pruning. In 1917 Queensland’s first rural school was established as an adjunct to the Nambour State School. [14]
\nWith the success of the Nambour Rural School, the Department of Public Instruction decided to open three more rural schools in 1920, one of which was at Marburg.[15] Consequently, a 10-acre (approximately 4ha) lot in Louisa Street, about half a mile (805m) to the northwest of the first school site but close to the Marburg town centre with its railway station, was purchased from A Beutel for £250 on 30 August 1920 as the future site of the Marburg Rural School.[16] This proximity to the railway station was important because ‘pupils aged between 12 and 14 years and ex-pupils to 17 years were eligible for free rail travel and free tuition at a Rural School one day per week’.[17] Pupils from Rosewood, Minden, Tallegalla, Lark Hill. Glamorgan Vale, Haigslea and Walloon were allotted a day for attendance at Marburg Rural School.[18]
\nRural school classes were held in rented buildings in the Marburg Show grounds until 1922, when the former school buildings were transported to the new site and repurposed as vocational classrooms.[19]
\nThe purpose of rural schools was to educate children to enable them to develop rural areas and to provide a means of extending country children’s education beyond the compulsory years with an additional year of agricultural and domestic studies.[20] Altogether 30 rural schools opened in Queensland between 1917 and 1939. Each was located in prime fruit-growing, dairying or agricultural areas and functioned ‘as a central school for the surrounding district schools, teaching domestic, commercial, agricultural and vocational classes’.[21]
\nThe new Sectional School Building at Marburg State School was built to a Department of Public Works (DPW) standard design (D/T1), with some modifications, for £2990 and was ready for use on 29 January 1922.[22] A 1921 plan of the Sectional School Building shows it as a long, weatherboard-clad structure, highset on tall stumps, with a Dutch-gable roof and two circular roof vents. A teachers annexe was attached to the verandah on the northern side, and included one space for the head teacher and another for the assistant teachers. Stairs either side of the teachers’ annexe provided access to the verandah, which was enclosed at the western end for hat and coat racks, and at the eastern end for use as a store room. Large banks of windows spanned the southern wall. The interior was divided into five 21ft 6in (6.55m) wide classrooms of varying lengths, and a science room was located at the eastern end. Three western classrooms were connected via folding glass doors and each classroom featured a ceiling vent.[23]
\nTwo vocational training buildings were constructed from the former school building, which was cut in half and moved to the site.[24] Reconstruction and fitting out of the vocational building was supervised by a Mr Ash, for £215/10s, and was completed by 5 March 1923.[25] This included enclosing under the buildings with sheet metal. Its total cost was £718.[26]
\nThe layout of the school grounds was designed by William Ernest Bick, curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. His 1922 report stated that:
\nI found it difficult to make a good approach from street to school buildings owing to [the] sports ground. The roadway is 16ft (4.88 m) on plan and swings around flagpole. The trees on drive and on boundarys [sic] are 33ft (10.06 m) apart.
\nIn the Forestry plots I have provided for about 144 [trees] and proposed to plant 1 of each 6 kinds of soft and 6 kinds of hardwoods. The fruit trees are put down at 25 ft (7.71 m) apart this will give plenty of room for cultivation, it will depend of course on what kind of tree you wish to go in for, and the distance apart can be arranged to suit small growing trees. The space for garden plots I have left for your own design.[27]
\nA meeting of the school committee in 1925 decided the horse paddock in the northwestern corner of the site would be fenced off. The work was to be completed through working bees and the government would supply the wire. During the same meeting, arrangements were made to plant shade trees on the northern side of the school grounds and it was noted that the Department of Public Instruction advised of its intention to construct a new Teachers Residence.[28]
\nMost Queensland state schools incorporated a teachers residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Refinement of the standard residence design occurred over time, with each modification responding to teacher complaints and Teachers' Union agitation. Following World War I, teacher shortages were blamed on the inadequacy and shortage of teachers' residences. Consequently, many new teacher residences were constructed across Queensland in the 1930s and again following WWII.[29]
\nResidences designed by the DPW’s architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached Teachers Residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nA new Teachers Residence was built at Marburg Rural School in 1926 for £1145.[30] It was located on the eastern side of the site and faced south toward the entry driveway. The 1926 plan shows the residence as a highset structure, with an 8ft (2.44m) front verandah and a 10ft (3.05m) rear verandah – the rear verandah was enclosed with weatherboard cladding and casement windows. Southern and eastern stairs accessed the front and rear verandahs, respectively. The interior comprised a core of three bedrooms and a dining room arranged around a central hallway; and a rear wing included a kitchen with stove alcove, pantry, bathroom, and servant’s room. The understorey housed a wash house (below the kitchen).[31] In the same year, a fence was constructed around the residence and the understorey was enclosed with battens.[32]
\nThe school retains a forestry plot in the north-east corner of the site, which was the first established in Queensland in 1928.[33] Forestry plots were the product of after-school agricultural clubs, introduced in 1923 at primary schools, under the ‘home project’ scheme. Curriculum driven, these clubs had a secondary commercial value as well as disseminating information and helping to develop a range of skills. The Department of Primary Industry provided suitable plants and offered horticultural advice.[34] School forestry plots were seen by the government as a way of educating the next generation about the economic and environmental importance of trees, as well as providing testing grounds for new species. Located throughout the state, the plots were a means of experimenting with a variety of tree species in different soil and climatic conditions. The sale of timber grown in school plots provided an additional source of income for the school, and the plots themselves were an attractive feature of school grounds. At Marburg State Rural School 275 exotic and indigenous trees were planted initially. Encouraged by the Education and Forestry Departments, by 1953 about 380 Queensland schools were undertaking forestry projects.[35] An account in the school’s 125th Anniversary Book recalls that the trees were ordered from the Department of Forestry, planted in rows, and spaced two metres apart.[36] Trees planted include: Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii), Kauri Pine (Agathis robusta), Crows Ash (Flindersia australis), Mexican Cedar (Taxodium mexicanum), Pinus longiflora, Pinus radiata, Pinus insularis and Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta). Ongoing planting occurred. The trees remaining include Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), Kauri Pine, Silky Oak and Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla).
\nIn addition to the usual school subjects, farm-craft, leatherwork, blacksmithing and domestic science were taught.[37] Other activities at the Marburg Rural School were a calf club; a forestry nursery germinating seeds of selected hardwoods and softwoods, and planting the seedling tubes around Marburg; an orchard of citrus and nut trees; pasture renovations using grasses, legumes and fertilizers; potato growing; milk and cream testing; pig raising on the school farm; room competitions; and meal preparation.[38]
\nAs well as the forestry plot, other landscaping and tree planting took place in the school grounds. An orchard was created on the site of the current pre-school; an ant-bed surfaced tennis court was added by the school community in 1927, to the west of the Teachers Residence, after levelling of the site; and paths and gardens were laid out between the school buildings by the early 1930s. Eighteen fig trees (17 small leafed and one with large leaves) lining the driveway from the entrance gate to the school buildings were planted in the 1930s.[39]
\nThe rural school scheme was phased out between the 1940s and 1960s due to a move to larger farms by the late 1940s and the consequent decline in government emphasis on closer settlement; as well as the transfer of domestic, vocational and commercial subjects to the curriculum of the growing number of state high schools.[40] Marburg Rural School reverted to a state school in 1963 after the cessation of vocational and domestic science training at the school. In 1959 the vocational building burnt down and classes were transferred to Ipswich. Domestic science classes ceased in 1963 and the building was sold for removal.[41] This change coincided with a decline in Marburg’s population towards its lowest level in the late 1960s.[42]
\nAdditions and alterations to the school continued in the post-World War II period. In 1959 improvements to the lighting of the Sectional School Building were made for £855.[43] Also at this time, the eastern store room was removed from the verandah of the Sectional School Building. Hat and bag racks were added, and louvres were inserted into the building’s verandah walls.[44] A 1969 plan indicates the extension of the teachers annexe by 16’ (4.88m) to the north to accommodate a staff-room and services-room. At this time, the building’s internal partitions were also altered to accommodate four larger classrooms; and the southeastern and northwestern walls were replaced to include new openings.[45]
\nMinor alterations have been made to the Teachers Residence since its construction. The front verandah has been enclosed with weatherboard cladding and most external windows have been replaced with aluminium frames (the openings remain in their original locations).[46] A 1966 plan shows the addition of a weatherboard-clad toilet extension on the eastern side of the rear verandah, and to accommodate this, the repositioning of the eastern set of stairs.[47]
\nIn 1966 a new toilet block north of the Sectional School Building was installed.[48] A modular pre-school building was added in 1978 southeast of the Sectional School Building, on the former orchard site, and replaced in 1990-1 by a new building southeast of the residence.[49] The modular pre-school building, adjacent the Sectional School Building, was removed from the site between November 2014 and March 2015.[50] The tennis court was relocated to the southwestern corner of the site between 2005 and 2009; and in 2015 the location of the original tennis court is used as a car-park.[51] In 2009 Marburg State School was granted $250,000 for the construction of a multi-purpose hall as part of the Building the Education Revolution project (Primary Schools for the 21st Century (P21) component).[52] This multi-purpose hall was constructed by January 2012 and is located southeast of the Sectional School Building.[53] The flagpole on site in the 1920s is not extant in 2015.[54]
\nCelebrations of the school’s 75th Jubilee were held in 1954, its centenary in 1979 and its 125th anniversary in 2004. The latter two events included publication of the school’s history.[55] The school’s bell, which had been stolen, was replaced in 1979 and is located northwest of the Sectional School Building in 2015.[56]
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its 1922 site. It retains its Sectional School Building, Teachers Residence, forestry plot and horse paddock, as well as its landscaped grounds. The school is important to Marburg, having been a focus for the community and generations of Marburg and district students have been taught there. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Marburg community with the grounds and building serving as the venue for many social events.
","criteria":"Marburg State School, established in 1879, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains good examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. At Marburg State School these standard designs are: a Sectional School Building (1922), which demonstrates the evolution of Department of Public Works (DPW) timber school designs to provide equally for educational and climatic needs; and the highly-intact Teachers Residence (1926), which provides evidence of Departmental policy to provide accommodation for married male head teachers as an inducement to teach in country areas and to provide a resident caretaker on the site.
\nThe school is important surviving evidence of the establishment of rural schools in Queensland, a popular initiative to provide a practical education for rural students and encourage them to stay on the land.
\nThe forestry plot (1928), the first established in Queensland, is important surviving evidence of a movement to convey the economic and environmental importance of forestry to students while creating an attractive landscape feature and income for schools.
|Marburg State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees and play areas.
\nThe Teachers Residence is an excellent, intact example of its type – retaining its highset, hipped roof and weatherboard-clad form with early joinery; and comprising a core of three bedrooms and a living room, a front verandah (now enclosed), a rear dining verandah (enclosed), and a rear kitchen and bathroom wing.
\nThe Sectional School Building is a good example of its type, retaining its highset form with play space beneath, gable roof, blank end walls, northern verandah, large south-facing windows, projecting teachers rooms, and internal features such as coved ceilings lined in tongue-and-groove boards.
\nThe forestry plot at Marburg is an excellent example of its type, containing several pine tree species planted in rows.
|Marburg State School, with its grounds designed by William Ernest Bick (horticulturalist, landscaper and curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens 1917-40), is important for its aesthetic significance. It possesses beautiful attributes due to the intactness of its well-composed original layout, which includes: a Fig-lined driveway that gracefully sweeps from the entrance, uphill around the school oval and to the school buildings; a forestry plot; a horse paddock; mature trees; and expansive rural views. The sloping grounds are divided into areas designated for specific uses, creating a harmonious park-like landscape within a rural setting.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMarburg State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Marburg community. It was established in 1879 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Marburg children have been educated there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Marburg and district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650003,"name":"Murgon State School","alternate_name":"Murgon Rural School","street_address":"91 Gore Street","suburb":"MURGON","lga":"SOUTH BURNETT REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-10-09","description":"Murgon State School is located on the northern side of the small town of Murgon in the South Burnett region. The gently sloping, 3.8ha site is bounded by a railway reserve to the west, Gore Street to the southeast, Dutton Street to the northeast and Krebs Street to the northwest. A former road reserve (now part of the school grounds) runs through the centre of the site, with most school buildings located within the triangular-shaped area to its south. The Teachers Residence is located in the far southern corner of this area; Blocks A and C in the centre; and the former Domestic Science Building, former Blacksmith’s Shop and Playshed along the northern edge. The former Court House is located on the north side of the former road reserve. The remainder of the northern school grounds contain playing fields and are not included within the heritage boundary. The school is accessed by several entrances from Gore Street and a secondary entrance from Krebs Street.
\nAll of the significant buildings are timber-framed with roofs clad in metal sheeting. With the exception of the Playshed and former Blacksmith’s Shop, all buildings have been re-stumped, so that they now stand upon a combination of square concrete piers and round metal posts.
\nTeachers Residence (1914)
The Teachers Residence occupies a wedge-shaped yard and faces southeast to address Gore Street. It is highset, clad in weatherboards, with a front verandah and a hipped roof. It contains: a four room core of three bedrooms and a living room, connected by a short hallway; a former dining verandah (now enclosed); and a rear wing containing a kitchen, bathroom and former servants bedroom. The understorey is enclosed by timber batten screens and has a laundry room enclosure at the northwest end.
The eaves have exposed rafters and are lined with v-jointed (VJ) tongue and groove (T&G) boards. A side staircase and landing are later additions and not of heritage significance. All windows are modern replacements; however skillion-roofed timber window hoods are retained on the southwest and northeast sides.
\nThe front verandah has a timber floor, a single-skin verandah wall, a two-rail balustrade with vertical rail infill, and a raked ceiling lined with VJ boards. It is accessed by a set of centrally-located timber steps. Two sets of half-glazed French doors opening on to the verandah have had the door leafs replaced, however they retain their early framing and two-light fanlights above. The main entrance has a low-waisted, four panel timber door with original hardware and a single-light fanlight above.
\nThe internal layout has remained largely unchanged, apart from the enclosure of a doorway between the dining verandah and the northwest bedroom; the addition of a toilet and cupboards to the northern end of the dining verandah; and the demolition of the former pantry to create a larger bathroom. The kitchen retains its projecting stove alcove in the western corner.
\nWalls and ceilings are lined with VJ, T&G boards, and round ceiling vents with decorative grilles are located in the centre of each room. Internal partitions are single skin and have belt rails with beaded edges. The rooms retain original joinery, including modest skirtings, cornices and architraves. Internal doors are generally four-panel timber doors with rectangular, horizontally-centre pivoting fanlights. A low-waisted, half-glazed French door connects the dining verandah and the living room, and doors to the former servant’s room and the toilet are braced and ledged board doors. All early doors have original door hardware.
\nNon-significant features include modern linoleum and carpet flooring, flat wall and ceiling linings, and the kitchen and bathroom fit-outs.
\nBlock A (1917, extended 1935-36)
Block A is a long, rectangular building, clad in weatherboards, with enclosed verandahs on the northeast and northwest sides and two projecting teacher’s rooms. The building was constructed in two phases – the southern end in 1917, and the northern end in 1935-36 – with some differences in joinery and interior detailing.
The gable roof has raked eaves lined with VJ, T&G boards. Gable end walls to the main building and teachers rooms have vertical batten gable infill and packed weatherboards at the gable peak. Two sets of timber stairs access the northwest verandah. A third staircase (c.1972, not significant) is located within the verandah space at the southeast end, linking Block A to the adjacent Administration building.
\nEarly joinery includes five large banks of windows in the southwest wall; casement windows to the teachers rooms; and two surviving sets of casement windows in the northeast verandah wall. Windows from the 1917 building are generally single-pane casements or vertically centre-pivoting windows with two-light fanlights above, while windows from the 1936 additions are tall, two-light casements with three-light fanlights. The 1917 teachers room has tall, three-light casements. Timber-framed, skillion-roofed window hoods shield the northeast-facing windows of the teachers rooms.
\nThe enclosed northeast verandah has a single skin verandah wall and a raked ceiling lined with VJ, T&G boards. Ventilation boards run along the base of the 1917 section of the verandah wall, and sections of bag hooks survive in places. The balustrade has been replaced by bag racks or modern kitchen cabinets. All doors have been removed from the verandah wall, however the openings remain with tall, two-light, horizontally-centre pivoting fanlights above. Additional doorways have been created in the location of former windows.
\nThe enclosed northwest verandah has been turned into a store room. The southwest corner contains fabric from a 1917 hat room which was relocated there during the 1936 extension.
\nThe teachers rooms are the same size and have similar design features and ornamentation. Both are accessed by a single door from the northeast verandah. The 1917 room is clad in weatherboards on the verandah-facing side, while the same wall on the 1936 room is single skin. Internally, both are clad in VJ, T&G boards on the walls and on the ceiling of the 1936 room. The 1917 room has a pressed metal ceiling.
\nOriginally containing five classrooms, a portion of the central classroom has been turned into store rooms by modern partitions. The boarded bulkheads of the original classroom partitions survive, with modern partitions and folding doors installed beneath. The 1917 classrooms have pressed metal-clad hipped ceilings with centrally-located, square ventilation panels. The 1936 classrooms have VJ board-lined coved ceilings with metal tie rods and square lattice ventilation panels. All classrooms have VJ board-lined walls.
\nThe understory has a concrete slab floor and is partially enclosed, with: weatherboard-clad walls along the southwest side; a weatherboard-clad room beneath the 1917 teachers room; and a former toilet block at the northwest end (now a storage area).
\nBlock C, southeast classroom (1935-36)
The significant portion of Block C is the southeast classroom, a highset building with a gable roof and enclosed southeast verandah. Adjoining classrooms to the northwest and a verandah to the northeast (added in the 1960s) are not of cultural heritage significance.
The southwest wall is clad in weatherboards, with vertical batten gable infill and packed weatherboards at the gable peak. It retains a bank of early windows, comprising two-light casements with three-light fanlights above, shielded by a timber, skillion-roofed window hood.
\nThe northeast wall has been re-lined below the verandah roof and early joinery removed, however above this level it retains its weatherboard cladding, vertical batten gable infill and packed weatherboards.
\nThe verandah retains its timber posts with decorative, arched brackets; raked ceiling lined with VJ boards; and single skin verandah wall. The balustrade has been replaced with bagracks. An early four-panel timber door with two-light fanlight and original hardware survives in its original position in the centre of the verandah wall.
\nThe interior is lined with VJ boards on the walls and ceiling (except for the northeast wall, which has been relined in flat sheeting). The ceiling is coved with a metal tie rod and central, square lattice ventilation panel. A four-panel timber door remains in the location of an original door at the southern end of the northwest wall.
\nThe understorey is partially enclosed with weatherboard-clad walls and has a recent concrete slab floor. A small section of corrugated metal sheeting-clad wall is located beneath the walkway to Block A.
\nPlayshed (1927)
The playshed is a 6-post timber structure with a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. It is enclosed on the northwest and northeast sides with vertically mounted, corrugated metal sheeting. The earth floor is paved in the northwest bay. Notches in the posts possibly indicate the location of a former balustrade around the southeast and southwest sides. The purpose and former location of a corrugated metal-clad shelving unit, standing in the centre of the playshed, is unclear.
Former Blacksmith’s Shop (1930, extended 1936)
The former Blacksmith’s Shop is a timber-framed, skillion-roofed shed of four bays with a corrugated metal-clad roof and an earth floor. Open along the southwest side, it is enclosed by timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad walls on the remaining three sides, with the whole structure resting on round concrete stumps.
Former Domestic Science Building (1935-36)
The former Domestic Science Building is a lowset timber building, clad in weatherboards and orientated to face southwest. It has a gambrel roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting, with louvred ventilation panels in the gablets. Access is via by two sets of timber steps with timber handrails.
The building is divided by single-skin partitions into three rooms – a large room in the centre and narrower rooms (one an enclosed verandah) at either end. Walls and ceilings are lined with VJ boards. The main room has a picture rail and a flat ceiling with square lattice ventilation panel in the centre. The end rooms have raked ceilings.
\nEarly windows, including two-light casements and three-light fanlights, survive in the southwest and northeast walls and in the northeast verandah wall. Internal doors have been removed, but two-light fanlights survive above the doorways. Windows and the former stove alcoves in the side walls have been replaced by large banks of awning windows. Two external doors survive – a high-waisted, part-glazed door in the southeast wall and a boarded door in the centre of the southwest wall.
\nFormer Court House (1940)
The former Court House is a lowset, timber building with a hipped and gabled roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. T-shaped in plan and surrounded by wide verandahs, it is orientated to face southwest, with a gable-roofed entrance portico located in the centre of the main façade, accessed by timber steps.
A single row of six rooms (former offices) forms the front of the building and the large former court room is located at the rear. Rooms are accessed via the front and rear verandahs, with internal doorways connecting the central two rooms with the court room (doors leafs have been removed and a larger opening created in one wall).
\nThe verandahs have a two-rail slat balustrade, raked ceilings lined with VJ boards, and single skin verandah walls. Timber verandah posts along the southwest verandah are paired and feature decorative cornices.
\nThe building retains nearly all of its original timber joinery, including six-light double-hung sash windows with three-light fanlights, and half-glazed French doors with four-light fanlights. The northwest and southeast end walls are clad in weatherboards and have six-light casement windows with fanlights protected by skillion-roofed window hoods with battened brackets.
\nInternally, walls and ceilings are lined with v-jointed tongue and groove boards. Skirting boards are stepped with bullnose edges. The former offices have flat ceilings while the former court room ceiling is coved with a central square lattice ventilation panel. Non-significant internal features include modern carpet and linoleum floor linings, flat sheeting re-lining some partitions, windows in partition walls, and post-1970s fit-outs including a kitchen and former children’s bathroom (now a store room).
\nThe understorey has been partially enclosed with weatherboard-clad walls at the northern end, where the slope of the ground allows for enough head height. A separate storage area is enclosed with battened screens.
\nGrounds
A variety of mature trees survive within the school grounds, including eucalypts, jacarandas and elms (species unknown). Two mature Pepperina Trees (Shinus Molle) are remnants of an early planting scheme. One is located to the south of the former Blacksmith’s Shop, and the other to the east of the former Domestic Science Building.
Murgon State School opened in 1908 as Murgon Provisional School (changing to Murgon State School in 1909) within the small agricultural settlement of Murgon, to serve its growing rural population. A new teaching building replaced the original provisional school building in 1917 and shortly afterwards, in 1925, the school began operating as a Rural School. By the mid-1930s the school complex had grown to include a range of vocational teaching buildings, including a Blacksmith’s Shop (1930, extended 1935-36) and Domestic Science Building (1935-36). Due to the loss of the southern portion of the original school reserve in 1915 for the construction of the Murgon-Proston Railway line, school expansion occurred to the north between 1959 and 1972, resuming part of Fryar Street and acquiring the former Murgon Court House (1940) for educational purposes. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nThe first European settlers arrived in the Murgon area, the traditional land of the Wakka Wakka people, in the 1840s, taking up land which is now known as Barambah Station [QHR 600644].[1] In 1901 part of Barambah pastoral station became the Barambah Mission Station – known as Cherbourg from 1932.[2] The nearby town of Murgon, about 6km to the north, grew around the location of an unattended timber loading siding, which opened in 1903 on the railway line from Kilkivan to Kingaroy. The railway, which facilitated the transport of local produce - maize and pumpkins, pigs, cattle and dairy products - to markets, spurred an influx of selectors who took up land excised from Barambah Station in 1902 and again in 1913.[3] Murgon was surveyed and the sale of town lots took place in 1906. Murgon's development was stimulated by the creation of the Shire of Murgon in 1914, with Murgon as its administrative centre; and the construction of a railway line from Murgon to Proston (commenced 1916, completed 1923), with a branch line to Windera (1925).[4]
\nThe early basis for the prosperity of Murgon was the dairy industry. During the interwar period dairying expanded greatly in Queensland, and by the 1930s it was the state’s most widely spread agricultural industry. While butter factories enabled the production and export of dairy products, numerous small farms, reliant on family labour to milk herds twice daily for generally modest returns, were the backbone of the industry.[5]
\nCream from Murgon’s dairy farmers was initially railed to the Tiaro butter factory, which relocated to Murgon in 1913. Murgon’s butter factory [QHR 602811] was extended in the late 1920s, and by 1931 it was Queensland's fourth largest butter producer.[6] By the mid- to late-1930s Murgon was rapidly expanding as a service centre for its surrounding agricultural community, and a new and impressive Art-Deco style civic centre was built in 1938 [QHR 602812].[7] In 1911 Murgon’s population had been 706;[8] however by 1941 it was the second largest centre (after Kingaroy) in the South Burnett, with a population of 1091.[9]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[10]
\nSteps towards the establishment of a school in Murgon began in 1906. In September of that year George Arnell, president of the Murgon Progress Association, wrote to the Minister for Education about opening a school in Murgon. A Building Committee was later formed and a site for the school reserve was selected on the north side of town.[11] The reserve of 10 acres, bounded by Gore, Fryar, Bell (now Krebs) and Stephens streets, was proclaimed in August 1907.[12] Contractors McKewan and Woods were the successful tenderers for the erection of the school at Murgon, and it was completed in November 1907. Located in the southern quarter of the school reserve, the school building comprised a single classroom with verandahs front and back.[13]
\nThe school opened as Murgon Provisional School on 24 February 1908 with an enrolment of 40 pupils, increasing to 67 pupils by the end of March.[14] Provisional schools, which could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils, were regarded as interim measures until state schools were built. If the district or town developed, provisional schools were raised to state school status, with larger, purpose-designed school buildings and teacher residences constructed, attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers. Murgon Provisional School became a State School in 1909, only a year after opening. Over time the building was enlarged and raised, with space underneath used for classes and later partially enclosed.[15]
\nIn 1914 a teachers residence was added to the site, fulfilling “a long felt need”[16] Most Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers.[17] From the 1880s they were built as detached residences and were similar to the vernacular Queensland house. Designed by the Department of Public Works and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, teacher’s residences were typically of a higher-quality than most similarly-scaled private residences. The residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard. Residence designs varied in size and evolved to keep up with modern needs and styles.
\nIn May 1914, W Bytheway was announced as the successful tenderer for the construction of the teacher’s residence at Murgon State School, for a cost of £686.[18] A standard Department of Public Works design,[19] the residence was timber-framed and –clad with a hipped roof. The layout comprised: a front verandah with central staircase; a four room core containing a sitting room, dining room and two bedrooms; an internal semi-enclosed dining verandah (running the full width of the residence); and a rear wing containing a kitchen, pantry, bathroom and servants bedroom. The residence was located northeast of the teaching building, facing Gore Street.[20]
\nThe following year, confirmation that the route of the proposed Murgon to Proston railway line would pass diagonally through the centre of the School Reserve meant that major changes were needed at the school. The newly completed teacher’s residence could remain in place; however the teaching building was now partly overlapped by the railway reserve. A new School Reserve was surveyed in 1915 and assented to by the Department of Education. Now triangular in shape, it occupied the north-eastern half of the block, on the corner of Gore and Fryar streets, with the main entrance from Fryar Street. Construction of the Proston to Murgon Railway line began in 1916.[21]
\nPrior to the removal of the original teaching building,[22] a new State School building of a standard government design was constructed in 1917 within the new school reserve. To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in their response to climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[23]
\nFrom 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. High-set buildings, introduced c1909, provided better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures.[24]
\nAchieving an adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. From around 1909 windows were arranged to provide gentle, southern light into the room and desks positioned so that the light would fall onto students’ left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed.[25] In 1914 the suburban school type was introduced, combining these new features and providing an ideal, modern education environment.[26]
\nThe new Murgon State School building (now Block A) was a standard suburban school type.[27] A highset timber building with a gable roof, it comprised: three classrooms divided by glazed, folding partitions; a northern verandah with hat room enclosures at each end; and an attached teacher’s room. The arrangement of windows and desks ensured that left-hand light entered the classrooms, with large banks of casements in the end walls and in the centre of the southwest wall. The interior walls were lined with v-jointed (VJ), tongue-and-groove (T&G) timber boards and the ceiling with pressed metal. Classrooms were vented by a continuous hinged ventilation board at floor level and ceiling vents which linked to a prominent roof fleche. A concrete play area was provided beneath the school with lavatories battened off under the hat rooms.[28]
\nConstructed by day labour for an estimated cost of £1560, the building was opened on 18 October 1917. It was located northeast of the teacher’s residence, facing Fryar Street.[29]
\nLess than two years after opening, in May 1919, the school was closed temporarily due to a local outbreak of the worldwide influenza pandemic. The school building was converted for use as an isolation hospital and a kitchen erected, at a cost of £30. In early June there were over 17 patients at the hospital, with the doctor also affected. By the end of June the epidemic was abating.[30]
\nMurgon continued to prosper in the 1920s, with dairying and pig rearing the mainstays of the district. In August 1923 the chairman of Murgon Shire Council met with the Minister for Education and asked that a Rural School be erected at Murgon. The Minister responded that if the district raised sufficient money a rural school would be built. A committee of shire councillors was formed to raise the necessary funds.[31]
\nDespite the importance of the rural sector in the Queensland economy, rural education and training was slow to develop, with no significant action taken until the 1890s.[32] In 1897 the Queensland Agricultural College was established at Lawes near Gatton, providing agricultural and related scientific training for young men.[33] Under the control of the Department of Agriculture and Stock, the college was part of a wider scheme of introducing ‘scientific agriculture' to the colony that also included experimental farms and travelling model dairies.[34]
\nWithin the school system, a limited form of rural instruction was introduced in syllabus changes made in 1905 and 1915. However, the success of ‘Nature Studies’ in state schools was dependent on the enthusiasm of individual teachers. A new approach, utilising central agricultural primary schools, staffed with trained experts and drawing students from nearby state schools, was envisaged. The purpose of rural schools was to educate children to enable them to develop rural areas and to provide a means of extending country children’s education beyond the compulsory years with an additional year of agricultural and domestic studies.[35]
\nJohn Douglas Story, Under Secretary of Public Instruction from 1906,[36] believed that Queensland’s future depended on agricultural development, and between 1914 and 1916 he finalised a plan for three tiers of agricultural education – rural schools, state high schools, and a University Agricultural Department.[37] In 1910 Story appointed James Clement Stubbin to provide expert guidance as Queensland’s Teacher of Agriculture. Stubbin promoted the notion of a scientific approach to agriculture by writing a textbook on the school garden, agricultural bulletins, and constantly touring schools to personally give lessons on topics such as milk and cream testing, planting and pruning.
\nThe first rural school was established as an adjunct to Nambour State School in 1917. The success of this venture prompted the expansion of rural schools and courses in Queensland.[38] Altogether 30 rural schools opened in Queensland between 1917 and 1939, with three, including Murgon, opening in 1925. Each was located in prime fruit-growing, dairying or agricultural areas and functioned ‘as a central school for the surrounding district schools, teaching domestic, commercial, agricultural and vocational classes’.[39]
\nVocational training subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated – for example, woodwork, metalwork and leather work classes for boys, cooking, sewing and laundry classes for girls.[40] Many rural schools were opened in Sectional School buildings, however it was not always possible to construct new vocational buildings, with some schools altering or converting existing buildings.[41] Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced in 1928. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.[42]
\nThe Murgon community raised the necessary funds for a Rural School by January 1924.[43] In order to accommodate the rural school classes, the understorey of the 1917 teaching building was enclosed and divided into three spaces. The external walls were clad in weatherboards, with casement windows providing light and ventilation. Domestic Science was taught in the southeast room, and had a stove alcove and a sink installed along the southeast wall. The remaining two rooms were dedicated to leather and wood work and sheet metal work.[44] Murgon Rural School was officially opened by Undersecretary McKenna on 30 March 1925, and began operating, with 160 pupils, from 1 April. [45]
\nThe new Rural School was praised as an immediate success. The school was well equipped by the Department of Education with tools and materials, and pupils were charged a few pence each week to attend.[46] The boys produced useful articles from scrap, while the girls provided a well cooked meal every day, which pupils could buy at lunchtime. As the rural school operated in conjunction with the state school, overcrowding soon resulted.[47] Transport was often an issue for those pupils who travelled to Murgon from other state schools, as train timetables did not necessarily match the days their classes were scheduled. Various attempts between 1925 and 1929 to provide a bus service for children to attend Murgon – from Boat Mountain, Windera, Merlwood and Cloyna – did not last, and for the more remote schools branches of Murgon Rural School were set up and staff were sent out to teach vocational and domestic science classes; including at Kingaroy from 1926, and Kilkivan from 1927.[48]
\nIn 1927 a playshed was constructed in the school grounds, fulfilling a ‘long-felt want’.[49] The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. Built to a standard design and ranging in size relative to student numbers, these structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[50] The usually hipped roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical school addition between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas.[51]
\nFundraising for the playshed had been undertaken by the Murgon School Committee, who sent away for copies of plans in 1926. It was constructed by contractor J. Krebs, and an official opening was held during Arbor Day celebrations on the 5 August 1927.[52]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890, and trees and gardens were regularly planted to shade and beautify schools. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[53]
\nArbor Day celebrations in the early years of Murgon State School included activities such as tree planting, gardening lessons, picnics and games.[54] The school grounds were greatly improved in the early 1920s. By 1924, 12 large experimental vegetable plots, covering about a quarter of an acre, had been laid out, with flowers planted around the edges and rose beds in the centre. An experimental plot of cotton plants had also been established, as well as seed bed boxes for vegetables. A school tennis court, ‘one of the best in Murgon’, had also been constructed by this time.[55] At some point prior to the 1940s several Pepperina trees (Schinus molle) were planted in the northern school grounds, two of which survive.[56]
\nBy April 1929 the inconvenience of holding the rural classes beneath the main teaching building, where the noise from tin-smithing and carpentry was a distraction to children studying above, prompted calls for new facilities to be constructed. The Department of Education promised that the matter would be speedily remedied, and in October 1930 two new buildings were opened – a Blacksmith’s Shop and a Manual Training Building.[57]
\nDesigned by the Department of Public Works, the Blacksmith’s Shop was a rectangular, timber-framed shed (21ft x 10ft, 6.4m x 3m) with a skillion roof and earth floor. Access was through two large double doors on the southern side, while the remaining walls were clad in corrugated metal sheeting.[58] The Manual Training Building was a standard government design.[59] It was lowset, timber-framed and -clad with a front verandah and gambrel roof, containing a large room for woodwork and a smaller room for sheet metal work. The Manual Training Building was located at the corner of Gore and Fryer streets but the original location of the Blacksmith’s Shop is unclear.[60] At the opening ceremony, the Minister for Education, RM King, said that the school was extremely lucky that the work was done, as financial difficulties within the Department meant that no more work of this class would be undertaken for some time.[61]
\nFurther additions to cope with growing student numbers were needed, however, particularly as classes still held beneath the main teaching building were ‘most uncomfortable’ due to the concrete floor and insufficient natural daylighting. In 1935-36 a major building program was undertaken, which included the extension of the 1917 teaching building (Block A), the construction of an additional teaching building (part of Block C) and a Domestic Science Building, and the relocation and extension of the Blacksmith’s Shop. Construction began in mid-1935, with the work being carried out by day labour under the supervision of the Department of Public Works.[62]
\nAdditions to Block A included two extra classrooms at the northwest end, additional verandahs to all but the southwest side, and a second teacher’s room. As part of the process of remodelling the building, banks of windows in the 1917 building were removed from the end walls and installed along the southwest wall, so that all classrooms now had southern light. This modification brought the building closer in form to the popular Sectional School type. Other alterations included relocating the hat rooms on the verandahs and removing the stove alcove from the former domestic science room beneath.[63]
\nThe Sectional School type was introduced to Queensland schools in the 1920s. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. Practical and economical, it proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. Its most important features were that it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time (due to removable end walls), and that its strict east-west orientation, with large areas of glazing along the southern wall, provided maximum natural light from the south. Before the Sectional School, solar orientation was not given prominence and all school buildings were oriented in relation to the street and property boundaries.[64]
\nThe additional teaching building (now part of Block C) comprised a single classroom with verandahs on the southeast and northwest sides and windows in the end walls. A Small Timber School,[65] this type of building was constructed between 1930 and 1946 and was a continuation of earlier types of country schools. Unlike Sectional Schools, they were not designed for expansion.[66] The building was linked to the northwest end of Block A by an extension of its south-eastern verandah, which featured decorative timber brackets.[67]
\nThe Domestic Science Building, like the Manual Training Building, was a standard vocational building type.[68] It was a lowset timber building with a gambrel roof and a northern verandah. Internally it comprised two rooms – a large room with two stove recesses projecting from the northwest wall, used for dressmaking and cookery, and a narrow room along the southwest side used as a laundry and ironing room. The building was located along the Fryer Street boundary, northwest of the Manual Training building. In 1937 the verandah was enclosed and a corner cupboard constructed.[69]
\nThe extension of the Blacksmith’s Shop doubled the length of the structure and replicated the framing and materials of the 1930 section, including double doors along the southwest side. Its new location was between the playshed and the Domestic Science building, along the Fryar Street boundary.[70]
\nThe new buildings, which cost a total of £2500, were officially opened by the Minister for Education, Mr Cooper, on 21 February 1936. As part of the celebrations afternoon tea was served by the domestic science teacher and pupils. Mr Cooper was presented with a leather pocket wallet produced by the rural schoolboys, and Mrs Cooper with a ‘beautifully iced cake’ from the domestic science class.[71]
\nOn the opposite side of Fryar Street, a new Court House was completed in 1940. The court house was built to replace a 1914 combined court house and police station, which stood to the east of the new court house until being removed in the mid-1970s.[72] The 1940 court house, like most early timber court houses in Queensland, was built in a T shape, with a single courtroom as the base of the T, and offices arranged along the crossbar. From 1912, court house design included gabled and hipped roofs over the courtroom and offices.[73] Unlike the similar Nanango Court House (1936 [QHR 601571]),[74] Murgon’s courtroom was at the rear, and the portico entrance led to a veranda running along the office wing. The Murgon Court House had six offices, including offices for a veterinary surgeon, dairy inspector, Police Magistrate, Court of Petty Sessions, and a general office.[75]
\nBetween the 1940s and 1960s the rural school scheme was phased out due to a move to larger farms by the late 1940s and the consequent decline in government emphasis on closer settlement, and the transfer of domestic, vocational and commercial subjects to the curriculum of the growing number of state high schools.[76] Murgon State School ceased to be a Rural School in 1959, coinciding with the opening of Murgon High School.[77]
\nDairying declined as a major industry in Queensland after World War II. Butter consumption per capita in Australia dropped from 12.2 kg to 8.3 kg between 1957 and 1972 as margarine increased its market share. The transition towards the production of milk rather than cream, requiring larger herds and new equipment, saw many smaller scale farmers leaving the industry. Export opportunities also became restricted, culminating with the end of preferential trade agreements with Britain following its entry into the European Common Market in 1973. The late 1960s saw the beginning of closures of butter factories in the Burnett region, and with the closure of the Nanango and Kingaroy butter factories in 1977, all cream supplies were diverted to Murgon factory, the last remaining dairy factory in the South Burnett until its closure in 1995.[78] However, although local dairy farming declined, beef and pork production continued. The South Burnett Meat Works operated just outside Murgon between 1962 and 2007.
\nThe decline in Queensland dairying also coincided with the closure of most of the small state schools in a 10-15km radius around Murgon, between the 1940s to the 1970s, including a burst of closures in the 1960s.[79] Conversely, the school buildings at Murgon were extended during the 1950s and 1960s, as remaining students from the closed schools travelled to Murgon, aided by a school bus service (referred to as the ‘Monkey Bus’).[80]
\nAfter the closure of the Rural School the vocational buildings continued to be used and adapted for other purposes. In 1959 the Domestic Science Building was converted into a library. At some point the stove alcoves in the northwest wall were removed and large banks of awning windows installed in the northwest and southwest walls.[81]
\nAlso in 1959, the Manual Training Building was moved, raised, and its structure incorporated into a new linear block of classrooms (now Block B). During this process it was extensively altered, with all original linings and joinery removed. Linked by a high level walkway to Block C and extending in an easterly direction, Block B forms a courtyard area with Block A.[82]
\nBlock C, which originated with the 1936 single classroom linked to the western end of Block A, was extended to the west in stages between 1966 and 1969. In the process, features such as the northwest verandah and windows in the northeast wall were removed.[83]
\nThe south-eastern verandah of Block A (constructed in 1936) was enclosed in 1960 to form a staff room. In 1973 this verandah was removed for the construction of a new brick administration building adjoining Block A. Toilets beneath the verandah were removed and a staircase installed in the northeast corner of the 1917 verandah. In 1981 Block A was upgraded, which involved the partial removal of internal partitions and the insertion of two store rooms in the central classroom. The northern verandah was enclosed and most windows in the verandah wall removed.[84]
\nIn the early 1970s the school reserve was expanded to approximately 3.8ha. Fryar Street was closed in two stages – the western end in 1959 and the remainder in 1972, when the whole school reserve was resurveyed to include most of the land north to Dutton Street. The new grounds were landscaped to create a playing field and tennis courts.[85]
\nA new court house was built elsewhere in Murgon in 1967,[86] and the 1940 Court House building on the north side of the former Fryar Street was included within the expanded school reserve. The building was used as an Opportunity School until it was renovated to become a preschool in 1981.[87] It remains in its original location and in 2015 houses many school and community functions, including a play group.
\nToday, Murgon continues to be a service centre for the surrounding area, with a population of 2496 in 2011.[88] Murgon State School celebrated its centenary in 2008, and commemorated the event by publishing a revised school history book. Recent additions to the school grounds include the construction of ramps to improve accessibility. The school is important to the area, having been a focus for the community, and generations of Murgon students have been taught there. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Murgon community with the grounds and building having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Murgon State School (established in 1908 as a provisional school) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Suburban Timber School building (1917, extended 1935-36, Block A) demonstrates the evolution of timber school building designs to provide adequate lighting and ventilation; while its 1930s modifications, in particular the rearrangement of windows to provide southern light, illustrate the adaptability of timber schools and the influence of the highly successful Sectional School type upon Queensland school designs from the 1920s to 1950s.
\nThe Teachers Residence (1914) demonstrates the Queensland Government’s policy of providing residences for married male head teachers in rural areas.
\nThe Playshed (1927) demonstrates the education system's recognition of the importance of play in the curriculum.
\nThe Domestic Science Building (1935-36) and Blacksmith’s Shop (1930, extended 1936) are important surviving evidence of the establishment of rural schools in Queensland, a popular initiative to provide a practical education for country students and encourage them to stay on the land. They demonstrate the Queensland Government’s focus on vocational education as a way of ensuring the state’s economic prosperity.
|The former Blacksmith’s Shop and Domestic Science Building are rare and important surviving examples of building types that were once common, and demonstrate the emphasis placed on vocational training in Queensland Schools in the early-20th century, particularly in rural communities.
\nThe former Blacksmith’s Shop (1930, extended 1936) is a very rare and intact example of its type. No other surviving Queensland example with this level of intactness has been identified to date.
|Murgon State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: highset timber-framed teaching buildings of standard designs that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees and assembly/play areas. The school is a good, intact example of a regional school complex comprising a range of standard and vocational teaching buildings.
\nThe Suburban Timber School building (1917, Block A) with its later additions (1935-36) is a good, intact example of its type, retaining its highset form with play space beneath, timber-framed and -clad construction, generous verandahs (now enclosed), gable roof, teachers rooms, surviving early joinery, coved ceiling lined with pressed metal sheeting, and natural lighting and ventilation features.
\nThe Small Timber School building (1935-36, part of Block C) retains its gable roof, southeast verandah (now enclosed), some early joinery and decorative timberwork.
\nThe teacher’s residence (1914) is an excellent, intact example of the residence type of its period, retaining its hip-roofed, timber-framed and -clad form and comprising a front verandah, a four room core, large dining verandah and rear wing containing a kitchen, bathroom and former servant’s room.
\nThe former Domestic Science Building (1935-36) is a rare, intact example of a vocational building built to a standard plan, retaining its lowset form, gambrel roof, and large, airy classroom flanked by a former laundry room and an enclosed verandah.
\nThe Blacksmith’s Shop (1930, extended 1936) is a very rare and intact example of its type, retaining its skillion-roofed and corrugated metal-clad form, earth floor, and its location away from the main teaching building to minimise noise disruption.
\nThe Playshed (1927) retains its hipped, timber-framed roof form supported on timber posts, and two walls enclosed with corrugated metal sheeting.
\nThese buildings are set within landscaped school grounds with mature plantings, including Pepperina trees (Schinus molle).
\nThe former Court House (1939-40) is an excellent, intact example of a regional timber court house, retaining its T-shaped plan of former offices and courtroom, hipped and gabled roof, generous verandahs, and early joinery and decorative features.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMurgon State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Murgon community. It was established in 1908 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Murgon children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Murgon and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650004,"name":"Maroon State School and Maroon War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"2772 Boonah Rathdowney Road","suburb":"MAROON","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-10-09","description":"Maroon State School occupies an approximately 0.8ha (7993sqm) rectangular site in the rural locality of Maroon, southwest of Beaudesert and south of Boonah, near the border with New South Wales. Surrounded by paddocks at the foot of Mt Maroon, the site slopes gently down towards Boonah to Rathdowney Road, which forms the northern boundary. A War Memorial is situated in the northeast corner, adjacent to the entrance gate. The school buildings are set back from the road and orientated approximately north-south, with the Teacher’s Residence (1937) located in a fenced yard in the southwest corner and the teaching building, a Small Timber School Building (1938), to the east. The playshed (1910) stands to the southeast of the teaching building. The grounds contain open lawns and mature shade trees, and the teaching building is approached from the road via a sealed looped driveway.
\nElements not of cultural significance include additions and alterations such as: modern extensions and enclosures; carpet and linoleum floor linings; sheeted partitions; ceiling fans and air conditioning units; modern joinery, fixtures and fittings; metal shutters and aluminium framed windows and screens.
\nTeachers Residence (1937)
The Teachers Residence is timber-framed, weatherboard-clad and highset on concrete stumps. The building has a hipped roof, with a projecting gable to the northeast corner and an enclosed L-shaped verandah to the northwest corner. Timber stairs provide access to the front verandah and an enclosed landing to the rear.
Early timber joinery is retained throughout the building including: casement windows with four-light fanlights and corrugated metal-clad hoods to the north, east and south elevations; a high-waisted panelled front door with glazed inserts and fanlight; and low-waisted French doors with four-light fanlights opening onto the front verandah. The enclosed verandah is weatherboard-clad with casement windows. A section of battened timber balustrade remains to the north. The verandah wall is single-skin with external post and belt rails supporting v-jointed (VJ) timber boards.
\nThe interior layout comprises three bedrooms accessed via a central hallway at the front, with a living room, kitchen and bathroom to the rear. The kitchen retains its stove alcove. Interior walls and ceilings are lined with VJ timber boards, with simple-profile timber skirting and cornices.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and is enclosed with timber battened screens. A laundry in the southeast corner is enclosed with flat sheeting and has a boarded door to the east. Early corrugated-metal water tanks on timber platforms, set on concrete stumps, are located to the east and south of the residence.
\nSmall Timber School Building (1938)
The teaching building is a highset, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad building. The roof is gabled, with timber batten infills, and is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The north and south end walls each have large banks of casements with horizontal centre-pivoting fanlights, protected by hoods with battened timber brackets.
The walls and ceiling of the classroom are lined with VJ boards. The coved ceiling features an exposed metal tie rod and a latticed vent. The east and west facing verandahs have been enclosed (with weatherboard and aluminium framed windows) and are accessed by timber stairs. Both verandahs have raked ceilings lined with VJ boards and the verandah walls are single-skin with externally exposed studwork, except for the southern end of the west verandah, which is lined with flat sheeting. Doorways occupy their original positions in the verandah walls – slightly north of centre – and align with the modern external verandah doors. Most of the east verandah is used as office space, and the hat room enclosure at the south end of the verandah has been adapted for use as a store room. A modern partition divides the western verandah, with the hat room at the south end of the verandah converted to office space. An early school bell hangs by the western external door.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor and concrete stumps, some of which have been replaced with metal posts. The area is enclosed with corrugated-metal sheeting and modern aluminium-framed mesh screens. A storage room clad with vertical boards is located in the southwest corner.
\nPlayshed (1910)
The playshed is a small six-post timber structure with a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The posts are braced to the roof framing by brackets and the roof framing is exposed. Metal stirrups at the base of each post are set into a modern concrete slab. The posts retain evidence of where the original timber seat fixtures were located (now removed).
Grounds and Views
The sloping site, open lawns, trees and gardens of the grounds form an attractive setting for the early school buildings.
A mature hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) is located near the northwest corner of the site, south of the levelled lawn of the former tennis court. Another mature tree is located in the northwest corner of the grounds. Various plantings are located along the eastern boundary, and several mature gums (Eucalypt sp.) are positioned along the southern boundary, behind the 2011 building. A jacaranda (Jacaranda sp.) surrounded by timber bench seats is situated to the northeast corner of the fenced residence yard.
\nPositioned at the foot of Mt Maroon the school complex is prominent in its location and, combined with the War Memorial in the northeast corner, has picturesque qualities when viewed from Boonah to Rathdowney Road. Attractive views of the surrounding countryside and Mt Maroon are obtained from within the school grounds.
\nWar Memorial
The Maroon War Memorial is located within a small enclosure just inside the grounds of Maroon State School. The memorial is a tall structure comprised of a sandstone pedestal, column and 'digger' statue, resting on a stepped concrete base.
The sandstone pedestal is substantial. It has a two-tiered lower section on which rests a narrower 4-sided shaft with decorative flanking scrolls. Tall leaded marble plaques are attached to the front (north) and back (south) faces of the shaft. The front plaque contains an honour roll bearing the names of the 42 local men who served in World War One. Beneath this, on the lowest tier of the pedestal, is another plaque bearing the names of the 42 local men and women who served in World War Two. The plaque on the back face of the shaft bears the inscription: 'This memorial was erected by the residents of Maroon as a tribute of gratitude and respect to the local volunteers in the Great War 1914-19.'
\nAttached to the lowest tier of the pedestal, on separate faces, are two small oblong marble plaques with the inscriptions: 'Unveiled by General Sir William Birdwood, May 21, 1920' and 'Time capsule placed 21-9-91 commemorating the Maroon State School centenary 1891-1991'. With the exception of the latter, the other commemorative inscriptions are leaded.
\nThe pedestal cornice bears raised lettering 'King & Empire' on the front face. Above is a tall, plain column which in turn supports a half life-sized statue of an Australian infantry soldier or 'digger', standing at ease in the distinctive pose used by sculptor Frank Williams for his 'digger' statues.[48] A carved tree stump immediately behind the left leg, often seen in such statues, was added to give the statue stability at the base.
\nWithin the enclosure there is a concrete path leading toward the memorial and some tree plantings. Two small but mature trees, possibly Cupressus sp, flank the path and frame the approach to the memorial. Pines or Cypresses traditionally are associated with First World War memorials, symbolising the August 1915 battle of Lone Pine Ridge, one of the most savage in the Gallipoli campaign.
\nA tall metal flagstaff is located directly behind the memorial, within the enclosure. A perimeter fence of extruded galvanised iron pipe has replaced an earlier timber fence and is not of cultural heritage significance. Mt Maroon towers in the distance to the southeast and forms a dramatic visual background to the memorial.
\nOther buildings
Other buildings and structures on the site, including modern classroom and toilet blocks, shade structures and sheds, are not of cultural heritage significance.
Maroon State School, located south of Boonah, near Queensland’s border with New South Wales, opened in 1891 as Maroon Provisional School, soon after closer settlement commenced in the district. The school was transferred to Department of Public Instruction ownership in 1898 and became Maroon State School in 1909. A playshed was added in 1910, and a Teachers Residence was constructed in 1937. The original teaching building was replaced with a Small Timber School Building in 1938. The school buildings are set amongst mature trees, and the district’s 1920 War Memorial stands at the front (northeast corner) of the school grounds. The result is a picturesque view from the road, past the War Memorial to the school, with Mt Maroon as the backdrop. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nEuropean occupation of the Maroon district commenced in the 1840s. Maroon Station, initially called Melcombe, was taken up by William O’Grady Haly in 1843, and the lease was eventually obtained by Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, well-known pastoralist and politician, in 1864.[1] Some local farming began in 1870,[2] but closer settlement began in earnest from 1887, the year the Fassifern Railway was extended to Dugandan, just south of Boonah.[3] Blocks of 160 acres (65ha) were taken up to the south and east of Maroon Station.[4] Local farming included dairying, pig rearing, and crops (including lucerne, maize and cotton), and timber-getting was also a local industry. In the locality of Maroon, two shops existed by 1887, a creamery (later a cheese factory until the 1900-1902 drought) was opened in the mid-1890s, and a School of Arts was built in 1903-04. A Church of England was dedicated in 1907, and a Methodist church in 1914.[5] Early local government was provided by the Goolman Divisional Board, (1879), then the Goolman Shire Council (1903) which became Boonah Shire Council in 1937.
\nCloser settlement at Maroon was soon followed by calls for a local school. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[6] A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of General Education gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local committee provided a building and found a teacher, and the Board paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils.
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[7]
\nIn Maroon, a provisional school was opened in 1891 due to the efforts of the local community. A school building committee was elected at a meeting on 31 January 1891, and a written application for a provisional school was made in late May, when the building was almost finished.[8] Materials were donated by committee members; and the school, built with volunteer labour, was furnished and equipped by 30 May, and opened on 15 July 1891, at no cost to the government.[9] The building was also used by the community for public meetings, religious services and music lessons, and as a library (before the School of Arts opened).[10]
\nThe school was built on land (just under 2 acres, or 0.8ha) donated by local landowner Thomas de Montmorenci Murray-Prior, chairman of the committee, who had inherited maroon Staion from his father, and was later transferred to the Crown in 1898 – the year that the Department of Public Instruction took over the school at the request of the school committee.[11]
\nThe low-set teaching building, although hailed as ‘one of the prettiest in West Moreton’,[12] soon proved inadequate for growing student numbers. Enrolment was 36 in 1896,[13] and in 1906, with enrolment at 54, the committee asked for it to be enlarged. The additions, consisting of a second 24 x 12ft (7.3 x 3.7m) classroom and an additional verandah, were completed by June 1907, the community paying one fifth of the cost.[14] By 1908, the school bell was mounted on a free-standing timber frame adjacent to the provisional school building.[15]
\nIn 1909, the school became Maroon State School. That year, by lowering the required minimum average number of pupils for a state school from 30 to 12, the Department of Public Instruction upgraded the majority of provisional schools to state school status. By 1967, any remaining provisional schools either had been converted to state schools or had closed.[16]
\nThe Maroon State School’s grounds were improved in 1910 by the addition of a playshed. The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[17] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although were less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers. [18]
\nIn 1910, the Department of Public Instruction approved a 24 x 12 foot (7.3 x 3.6 metre) hip-roofed timber playshed to cater for Maroon State School’s students.[19] The playshed was constructed by B Green at a cost of £49,[20] and was a characteristic example of a six-post type, with light timber framing and a corrugated metal-clad roof. Each of the corner timber posts were ‘silled and strutted’ below ground level, and timber seats were fixed to the posts on the two longer sides of the shed. [21] A tank and spouting were added the following year, at a cost of £18.[22]
\nIn 1917 the school committee requested a new teaching building, as the 1891 building was too narrow, had small windows, was not ceiled or lined, and the shingles leaked. Instead, the shingles were replaced with corrugated iron in 1924,[23] and larger windows were later added to deal with the increased internal heat.[24]
\nIn 1938 Maroon State School finally received its new teaching building; a standard design Small Timber School Building (Type E/T1). This type of building was constructed in Queensland between 1930 and 1946 and was a continuation of earlier types of country schools. The roof span was generally 18ft (5.5m), and the building was highset, with two verandahs. The type was not designed for expansion, being built for a set number of students – either 24, 40, 60 or 80.[25] The new building, for 60 pupils, was constructed by JW Schultz of Boonah for £472, and was completed during the 1937-38 school holidays, opening for use on 24 January 1938.[26]
\nPlans from 1937 indicate that the single room building was a timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure, highset on tall timber stumps, with a gabled roof and verandahs on the east and west sides. [27] The class room was 18ft x 30ft (5.5 x 9.1m). Timber stairs provided access to the 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs, which had enclosed corner hat rooms at the southern ends. Banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights and skillion sunshades were centred on the north and south gable end walls. Doors from the verandah to the classroom were positioned slightly north of the centre, to accommodate two classes in the one room: a smaller, east-facing class to the north; and a larger, west-facing class to the south. This allowed for natural light to enter from the student’s left, an optimum arrangement espoused by educators at the time. The ceiling was coved with an exposed tie rod and an off-centre latticed ceiling vent between the doors. The understorey provided sheltered play space and was partly enclosed with timber battens and corrugated metal; timber seats ran along the south wall and into the southwest corner.[28]
\nBy the time the new teaching building was in use, the school’s teacher was occupying the school’s first Teachers Residence, built during 1937.[29] This was constructed by JET Speer of Moorooka for £649.[30] Most Queensland state schools incorporated a Teachers Residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Following World War I, teacher shortages were blamed on the inadequacy and shortage of teachers' residences. Consequently, many new teacher residences were constructed across Queensland in the 1930s and again following WWII.[31]
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works’ architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teacher’s residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees.
\nPlans for the residence at Maroon show a typical 1930s Teachers Residence (Type D/R3). [32] Built from 1929 to 1949, [33] this type was a highset timber-framed structure, with a hipped roof with projecting gable at the front, and an L-shaped verandah to the northwest corner. The interior comprised a core of three bedrooms and a living room arranged around a central hallway, with a rear wing that included a kitchen with stove alcove, pantry and bathroom. French doors opened onto the verandah; and the six-light casement windows had skillion hoods on the north and east sides. The understorey was enclosed with timber battens and a laundry was located in the southeast corner. Corrugated metal water tanks on timber platforms were located on the south and east sides of the residence.[34]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[35]
\nThe grounds at Maroon State School contain a number of mature trees. The school had project clubs from 1912, which, amongst other horticultural and agricultural activities, planted fruit trees, a Cape Chestnut tree (Calodendrum capense) and a pepperina tree (Schinus molle);[36] plus Arbor day plantings over time have included silky oak (Grevillea robusta), camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora), silver wattle (Acacia dealbata), wych elm (Ulmus glabra), pine (Pinus sp.), jacaranda (Jacaranda sp.), and bauhinia (Bauhinia sp.) trees.[37]
\nThe school grounds also contain the Maroon War Memorial. Like all other Queensland communities, Maroon was affected by World War I, when 17 men of 42 enlisted from the district died. In September 1919 a committee (primarily the school committee) formed to raise funds for a war memorial wrote to the Department of Public Instruction asking permission to erect a memorial and honour stone, flagpole and avenue of trees in the school grounds.[38] The memorial was unveiled by General Sir William Birdwood on 21 May 1920, and the school children planted flowers and shrubs in the memorial plot.[39] Later, a plaque was added to the memorial, honouring the 35 men and 7 women who enlisted in World War II (2 men did not return).
\nThe Maroon area is still agricultural and pastoral; so the school has experienced relatively little growth or change over the years. Aerial photographs in 1955 and 1970 confirm that the school consisted of the Teachers Residence, playshed and Small Timber School Building; with two earth closets (EC’s) south of the latter, the Maroon War Memorial in the northeast corner of the school grounds, and a tennis court in the northwest corner.[40]
\nIn September 1958, part of the teaching building’s verandah was reportedly enclosed for use as a library.[41] Photographs taken in 1995 show the northern end of the east verandah enclosed with weatherboards, while the northern end of the west verandah was open at that time. Other modifications to the teaching building in recent years include the installation of air conditioning units, security screens to the inside of the banks of casement windows, the replacement and reconfiguration of the eastern timber stairs, and the enclosure of the northern half of the western verandah – first with security screens, and later with metal shutters. This resulted in the relocation of the school bell from the north end of the verandah to the western eave.[42] The southern end of the west verandah (incorporating the former hat room) has been enclosed and lined internally. Modifications to the understorey include a kitchenette to the southeast corner and the enclosure of the north and east sides with aluminium-framed fly screens. There is a storage room in the southwest corner.
\nSome minor changes have also been made to the Teachers Residence. By 1974 the western half of the corner verandah had been enclosed with weatherboard cladding and timber-framed casement windows on the north and west sides.[43] A wall between the kitchen and bathroom passageway had also been removed. In 1991 the timber posts under the residence were replaced with concrete, and the concrete under the teaching building was also replaced at this time.[44] Other alterations include: replacement of the timber battened enclosure and door to the laundry with flat sheeting and a boarded door; and the addition of several water tanks on timber platforms. In recent years, security mesh has been installed to the northern side of the verandah and to some of the windows.
\nThe playshed was moved to its current location by 1961.[45] To facilitate the move, the timber posts were severed at ground level and re-fixed into metal stirrups set into a concrete slab. The early timber seats have also been removed and the tops of the posts have been braced.
\nIn the remainder of the grounds, the ECs were replaced with a toilet block c1977.[46] A storage shed was built northeast of the residence c1988,[47] and a covered play area existed east of this shed by 2006. More covered play areas, and covered walkways, have been added to the grounds since 2006, and in 2011 a new library building was erected. In 2015 this library is used as the teaching building, while the Small Timber School Building is used as a library and administration offices. The Maroon War Memorial remains the focus of annual ANZAC Day commemorations.
\nWar Memorial History
The Maroon War Memorial was constructed and unveiled in the grounds of the Maroon State School in 1920, to honour and memorialise the men from the Maroon district who had served in the armed forces during World War One (1914-1918).
At the outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914 Maroon was a small, isolated agricultural community without an urban focus, engaged principally in dairying. Forty-two men from the 35 families resident in the district enlisted and of these, 17 made the supreme sacrifice. This represented a mortality rate for the Maroon community of approximately 40%, compared with the average nationally of 20%.
\nMaroon was not alone in experiencing the devastating impact of this war. Australia-wide, over 300,000 volunteers from a national population of 4 million served overseas and one fifth, approximately 60,000, made the supreme sacrifice. Virtually every community in every state was affected in some fashion by the 'war of attrition' in Europe and Asia Minor.
\nIn the aftermath of the war, and in some instances prior to the cessation of hostilities, memorials honouring those who served in the war were erected in nearly every city, town and community in Australia. They were the expression of a grateful and grieving nation. Maroon was no exception. In 1919 a local committee (again chaired by Thomas de Montmorenci Murray-Prior and comprised principally of the local Maroon school committee members) was formed to raise funds by public subscription for a memorial and honour stone to express the community's gratitude to the men from the district who had served during the Great War. In September 1919 the committee requested permission from the Department of Public Instruction to erect a memorial, flagstaff and honour avenue of trees within the Maroon State School grounds.
\nThe memorial committee commissioned the Ipswich firm of F Williams & Co., sculptors and stonemasons, to design, sculpt and construct the memorial. This firm was established at Ipswich in 1901. Its founder, Frank Williams, promoted the use of local marble and became noted for his ecclesiastical marblework in the Ipswich and Darling Downs areas. In the wake of the Great War, Williams designed a significant number of war memorials in southeast Queensland, including 'digger' statues at Ipswich's Western Suburbs (1917), Mount Alford (1918), Booval (1919), Bundamba (1919), Boonah (1920), Maroon (1920), Oxley (1920) and Toombul Shire (1921). Williams also designed the mausoleum and weeping mother statue at Gatton (c1922), obelisks at Toogoolawah (1917) and West Ipswich (1917) and a stone honour board at Colinton (1918).
\nThe design for the Maroon War Memorial comprised a 'digger' statue atop a tall column, which in turn rested on a substantial pedestal and plinth. The whole was executed in sandstone, with Queensland marble inscription panels, and stood 17 feet 6 inches (5.35 metres) in height. The cost of the monument (£130) plus foundations and extras, totalled £300. A surrounding timber fence was constructed by voluntary labour.
\nAfter the war General Sir William Birdwood, who had commanded the Australian Imperial Force during the war, toured many Australian and New Zealand communities, honouring both those who had made the supreme sacrifice and returned soldiers. During his tour General Birdwood unveiled the Maroon War Memorial on 21 May 1920 and presented Maroon Patriotic Committee medals to 14 of the district's returned servicemen.
\nAt a later date a marble plaque was added to the memorial to honour the 42 men and women of the district who served during World War II.
The Maroon War Memorial remains the focus for annual Anzac Day commemorations and maintenance of the memorial and enclosure is undertaken by local volunteers. Repairs are funded by an Anzac Day collection.
On 21 September 1991 a time capsule was placed at the base of the memorial to celebrate the centenary of the Maroon State School, 1891-1991.
","criteria":"Maroon State School (established in 1891 as a provisional school) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a collection of good representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThese standard Department of Public Works-designed buildings include: a Teachers Residence (1937), which is evidence of the Departmental policy of providing residences for married male head teachers in rural areas, as an inducement and to provide a resident caretaker on the site; and a Small Timber School Building (1938), demonstrating the evolution of timber school buildings in providing adequate lighting and ventilation, and the provision of small teaching buildings in regional Queensland.
\nThe playshed (1910), and large grounds with mature trees, demonstrates the Queensland education system’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
\nThe Maroon War Memorial (1920), located at the front of the school, is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event, and its size and presence in the landscape is a reflection of the magnitude of the loss suffered by the district. War memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia. The Maroon War Memorial also exemplifies the work of Ipswich stonemason and sculptor, Frank Williams, who designed and constructed a significant number of southeast Queensland World War I memorials.
|Maroon State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with their later modifications. These include: timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees and play areas. The school is a good example of a modest, regional school complex.
\nThe Teachers Residence is a good, intact example of the residence type of the interwar period – retaining its highset character, hipped roof with projecting gable, weatherboard-clad form, three bedrooms and early joinery.
\nThe teaching building is a good example of an interwar Small Timber School Building and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. It retains its gable roof; early timber joinery; single large classroom; generous verandahs (now enclosed) with hat rooms; coved ceiling with latticed vent and tie rod; VJ board linings; and single skin verandah walls. An early school bell hangs from the eaves of the western verandah.
\nThe playshed is a good example of its type and retains its hipped timber-framed roof, supported on six braced timber posts.
\nThe Maroon War Memorial is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural places, being a substantial and highly intact commemorative structure erected as an enduring record of a major historical event. This is achieved through the use of appropriate materials and design elements.
|Maroon State School is of aesthetic significance for its picturesque attributes. Set against the backdrop of Mt Maroon and surrounded by open pastoral land, the complex of timber-framed school buildings with generous grounds and mature trees, combined with the War Memorial, offers an attractive juxtaposition of natural beauty and built elements in a tranquil rural setting.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
Maroon State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Maroon community. It was established in 1891 through the fundraising efforts of the community and generations of local children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Maroon and district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
The Maroon War Memorial is of social and spiritual significance for the local community, having a strong and continuing association with that community as evidence of the impact of a major historical event and as the focus for annual remembrance of that event in local Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650005,"name":"Mount Morgan State High School","alternate_name":"Mount Morgan Technical College","street_address":"4 Central Street","suburb":"MOUNT MORGAN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-12-04","description":"Mount Morgan State High School occupies the southern end of a 5.213ha corner block within the town of Mount Morgan; approximately 32km southwest of Rockhampton. Facing east, the site is approximately 0.85ha, and slopes gently down towards the eastern boundary of Central Street (Burnett Highway), the main thoroughfare through Mount Morgan. The site is also bounded by Bedsor Street to the north, Carlton Lane to the west, and Dee Street to the south. It comprises a complex of buildings, with the earliest structure, the former Technical College Building (Block A) (1908), in the southeastern corner of the site; and the former Science Block and Workshop (Block B) (1913, extended 1918) approximately in the centre of the site. The former Technical College Building, which prominently fronts the Burnett Highway and Dee Street intersection, is a landmark in its setting and makes an important visual contribution to the streetscape. Other significant elements on-site include: a facebrick fence along the eastern and southern site boundaries; tapered entry steps to the former Technical College Building; a rendered masonry retaining wall along the eastern boundary; a concrete retaining wall in the centre of the site; and a mature fig tree.[51]
\n1908 Former Technical College Building (Block A)
\nThe former Technical College Building is a two-storey, masonry structure, with a corrugated metal-clad hipped roof and roof lantern concealed from the street by tall facebrick parapets. It is L-shaped in plan and has a strong street presence derived from its simple and regular massing, grand proportions, and symmetrical composition. An L-shaped ground-floor verandah and first-floor balcony wrap around the rear (northwest) side of the building, providing circulation and access to the interior spaces. A timber-framed, weatherboard-clad former scullery flanks the northwestern end of the verandah and stands on low brick stumps.
\nThe building is elegantly composed of red facebrick walls and pilasters, and sandstone dressings. Its red brickwork is English bond with a light mortar. The street-facing elevations are divided into symmetrical bays by tall facebrick pilasters. The parapets of the central bays on both street-facing elevations are tallest; with the parapet in the centre of the eastern, Burnett Highway elevation featuring the words ‘TECHNICAL COLLEGE’ in render. The building’s primary entrance is aligned with this parapet and comprises timber panelled doors with a two-light arched fanlight. It has decorative sandstone surrounds and a keystone inscribed with the date ‘1908’. A secondary entrance is located in the southern, Dee Street elevation. Further access is gained via the rear verandah and balcony.
\nMost original windows have been replaced with modern aluminium frames. Windows on the eastern and southern elevations are generally casements with two-light fanlights, positioned between brick pilasters; however the central bay windows have arched fanlights, with arched sandstone lintel cappings. Timber-framed, double-hung sashed windows survive in the rear verandah and balcony.
\nThe rear verandah has square timber posts, timber floor boards, a timber battened valance and a decorative timber balustrade of crossed members. The floor-framing of the balcony above forms its ceiling. The balcony has square timber posts with decorative brackets and capitals, timber floor boards, and a raked ceiling with exposed timber structural framing. Most of the balcony’s balustrade has been replaced with modern bag-racks, and the timber and metal stairs on the northern and northwestern elevations are recent additions.
\nInternally, the ground floor layout comprises a central foyer with long, narrow classrooms (formerly cookery and typewriting spaces) to the north, administration spaces and classrooms (formerly secretary and board room, and classroom) to the south, and a large classroom (formerly two classrooms) to the southwest. This southwestern classroom retains an early, glazed bulkhead partition in the centre of the space, supported by a cast iron column.
\nThe first floor is reached by a central cedar staircase with a decorative balustrade. This is flanked on the first floor to the east by office space (formerly library), to the north by long and narrow classrooms, and to the south and southwest by classrooms (formerly machine drawing classroom, dressmaking room and classroom). The south and southwestern classrooms retain early partitions that are half-glazed and lined with tongue-and-groove (T&G) timber.
\nMost interior spaces have plastered walls with v-jointed (VJ) timber board ceilings with early fretwork ceiling vents. The first floor lecture room retains its coved ceiling, and the roof lantern is visible in the space. A pressed metal ceiling is featured in the foyer space. Skirtings, cornices and architraves are generally early and of timber. Most skirtings are wide and have a detailed profile. Many early, four-panel doors survive, some of which retain early fanlights. Modern lightweight partitions and recent carpet floor-linings are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n1913 Former Science Block and Workshop (extended 1918, Block B)
\nThe former Science Block and Workshop is a two-storey, masonry structure, with a corrugated metal-clad, Dutch-gable roof. The roof gablets are louvred and a row of masonry chimneys survive on the western (rear) and northern sides. The building has a facebrick lower storey and a facebrick and rendered upper storey – the colour of the facebrick changes between the two storeys, indicating the 1918 first floor addition. A modern steel ramp has been added at the rear. The front (eastern) stair has been replaced in steel and is sheltered by a wide, modern awning.
\nThe majority of modern doors and windows are modern, although most remain within early openings. Several early, multi-light fanlights survive. All window hoods and modern awnings are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe interior of both the ground and first floors are primarily divided into two large spaces by a central, brick wall (now painted). Most walls are painted brick or are lined in flat sheeting. The ceilings of the ground floor level are plaster and those on the first floor are T&G timber boards. Square lattice ceiling vents survive on the first floor. Skirtings are generally simple timber of a simple profile, and cornices are rounded plaster. Lightweight modern partitions and modern carpet floor-linings are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nGrounds and landscape features
\nThe school grounds are well established with a variety of mature trees. A large, mature fig tree (Ficus sp.) is located north of the former Science Block and Workshop.
\nA red facebrick fence (c1924-54) surrounds the former Technical College Building on the south and east sides. It is comprised of pillars, linked by walls and metal bars – both the pillars and walls have concrete caps. The fence frames the main entrance of the school; running adjacent to a tapered stair that leads to the eastern entrance of the former Technical College Building. Early cast iron lamps are located on two pilasters either side of the stair.
\nA rendered masonry retaining wall (1924) adjoins the northern end of the brick fence, and runs along the eastern boundary. Stone and concrete retaining walls (pre-1954), with a central stair, also survive east of the former Science Block and Workshop.
\nThrough its prominent corner location, large scale and limited material pallet, the former Technical College Building has landmark attributes and makes an important contribution to the Burnett Highway streetscape.
\nExpansive views to both the Mount Morgan Mine Site [QHR 600751] and the surrounding townscape are obtained from within the school grounds and from the school buildings.
\nOther structures
Other structures, sheds, play equipment, roads and walkways within the school grounds are modern and not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"
Mount Morgan State High School was established in the central Queensland mining town of Mount Morgan in 1912, as one of Queensland’s first high schools. It commenced operating on the Mount Morgan Technical College site, which the two institutions shared until 1964. The former Technical College Building (1908) and Science Block and Workshop (1913, extended 1918), both masonry buildings, are important in demonstrating the growth of technical colleges in Queensland and the establishment of state high schools. These purpose-designed buildings are excellent examples of technical college and Department of Public Works buildings. The Technical College Building has aesthetic significance for its composition and materials, and as a landmark in the town. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nEuropean settlement commenced at Ironstone Mountain (Mount Morgan’s initial name) when mining of gold began there in 1882. In 1888 Mount Morgan's population was 4000 people scattered in a series of settlements located close to the Dee River and the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company mine. In time, the town centre developed around Morgan and East Streets.[1] Mount Morgan Municipal Council was established in 1890 and in the two decades after its creation most of the town's infrastructure was established. From 1898 the town was linked by railway to Rockhampton over the steep Razor Back Range, reducing the town's isolation. According to the 1901 census the population of the area was 8486, with 6280 living within the Mount Morgan municipality. By 1903 the town had a wide variety of facilities and amenities.[2]
\nAfter achieving a record annual gold output in 1889 (the highest in the colony), the Mount Morgan mine was the second largest gold producer in Queensland between 1890 and 1909. During the last five years of the 19th century the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, which operated the mine, trebled its annual output of ore, employing an army of new men who increased the town's population to 10,000. The highest production of gold was achieved during the period from 1887 to 1897, after which production fell. From 1906-7 the production focus of the mine changed from gold to copper, but falling copper prices impacted adversely on this.[3]
\nTechnical education classes started in Mount Morgan in 1900 to meet the growing need for skilled labour for the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company. Classes were initially held in the School of Arts building in Morgan Street, starting with an enrolment of eight. The Technical College was overseen by a committee, which commenced fundraising for a building in 1905.[4]
\nTechnical education in Queensland grew and evolved after the first technical college was established in Brisbane in 1882. Technical education developed out of the Mechanics Institute and School of Arts movements which arose in Great Britain in the early 19th century, initially ‘to instruct artisans in the scientific principles of arts and manufactures’.[5] In 1902, the 17 technical colleges in Queensland established a Board of Technical Education to advise the Minister for Public Instruction. In 1905, this Board was abolished and a separate branch of the Department of Public Instruction created to oversee technical education.[6] The total number of technical education students enrolled in Queensland in 1905 was 4171 and the state subsidy for technical education was more than £6204.[7]
\nIn 1906, the Mount Morgan Technical College Committee realised that a new building for the expanding college would be costly, so the institution should be responsible to the Queensland Government rather than the School of Arts. The Committee drew up a constitution that was adopted by the School of Arts Committee on 31 May 1906 and subsequently by the government. The college’s new board comprised 12 members – three appointed by the government; four appointed by Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company; two elected by subscribers of 5s and over; two elected by students of certain standing; and one appointed by subscribers of £250 or more.[8]
\nQueensland’s private schools, technical colleges and schools of arts were not built to a standard plan, but were individually designed with variation in style, size and form.[9] Plans for the Technical College Building (now known as Block A) were prepared in the office of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company. The design was approved by the college’s board and the Department of Public Works, and the contract for erection of the building was awarded to J K Evans of Rockhampton in November 1907, with Arthur Jenks appointed Clerk of Works.[10] By 1908 enrolments in the Mount Morgan technical education classes had increased to 323 and classes were conducted in various building around the town, attesting to the need for a site dedicated to the technical college.
\nThe Mount Morgan Technical College Building, located on the corner of Central and Dee Streets, was completed at the end of 1908. Wherever possible, the building was constructed from materials obtained in Queensland. The bricks were supplied by the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company and made at the company’s brickworks (known locally as Gunthorpe’s brickworks after its long-term manager, Robert Gunthorpe),[11] situated behind the Mount Morgan Railway Station. The stone came from G Sanderson’s quarry at Stanwell, while all the timber used in the building was Australian. The furniture was specially designed and manufactured in Rockhampton by W A Lawson.[12]
\nAfter the building’s completion, The Capricornian newspaper praised the new building and the community:
\nThe people of Mount Morgan are to be warmly congratulated on the splendid Technical College which has now been completed and will be opened in the course of the next few weeks. With the exception of the College in Brisbane and the School of Mines in Charters Towers it is by far the finest college in the state, and as a building it certainly surpasses the Charters Towers institution. The cost is over £6000 and the college will be opened free from debt, a remarkable achievement. The Government … assisted … by a contribution of well over £4000, and the Mount Morgan Company directly and indirectly subscribed £800, besides presenting the land…. The people of Mount Morgan … provide[d] …. [s]omething like £800 in hard cash…[13]
\nMoney collected from the community to build the Technical College Building was raised from functions, ‘brick-selling’ donations, donations from individuals and businesses, plus £250 from Walter Russell Hall, Director of the mine. The Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company donated land for the site of the Technical College (worth £800); the Secretary’s house; another house for the Principal; as well as the Manual Training Building.[14]
\nQueensland’s prosperity from mining and agricultural pursuits in the first decades of the 20th century enabled the government to implement a campaign of construction of large public buildings.[15] This was the case for the Mount Morgan Technical College which received £4 from the State Government for every £1 raised by community.[16]
\nThe technical college was officially opened by the Hon William Kidston, Premier of Queensland, on 24 April 1909.[17] The Capricornian printed the following description of the building at its opening:
\nThe outside of the building… shows only pure materials – brick and stone and timber. No stucco has been allowed in any shape or form, the only plaster being on the inside of the walls of the rooms to ensure … smooth surfaces for the purposes of light and cleanliness. The question of lighting the rooms both day and night has had especial study and we consider the desired result has been achieved. The main building contains seven classrooms – four on the ground floor and three on the first floor – and in addition, a board-room and library combined, a main entrance hall or vestibule and a museum, besides passages and verandah balcony. The rooms have all been designed to suit present and future conditions and include a demonstration theatre, where demonstrations in physics, chemistry and cookery are held. In additional to the main building, practical classes are held in plumbing in what is called the malthoid building and in practical mechanical engineering and carpentry in the workshops of the Mount Morgan Goldmining Company. The total amount spent on the building is £4301 and on equipment £1699, making a total of £6000.’[18]
\nA plan marking the early layout of the Technical College Building shows it as an L-shaped, two storey structure, with the primary entrance facing east and a secondary entrance to the south. An L-shaped verandah, sheltered by a skillion roof, wrapped around the rear (northwest) of the building at ground level, and a roof lantern provided natural light to the southern classrooms on the first floor. The eastern and southern elevations were each approximately symmetrical and were divided into bays by tall pilasters. The parapets of the central bays were taller than those of the other bays; and the parapet in the centre of the eastern elevation featured the words ‘TECHNICAL COLLEGE’.[19] At the time the Technical College Building opened, Mount Morgan's population was approaching its peak of 13,000 reached in 1910. [20]
\nDramatic reform of the Queensland education system began around 1909 and continued until the beginning of World War I. During this period a high school system was introduced, technical education was expanded, the University of Queensland was inaugurated, a teachers' training college was established, the requirement for a local contribution towards construction costs for new schools was abolished, and the school leaving age was increased from 12 to 14 years.[21] Although technically compulsory since 1875, school attendance was not enforced until 1900. Subsequently, student numbers rose across Queensland during the first 15 years of the 20th century.[22]
\nIn Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering it to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II.[23]
\nThe first high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings. This was the case in Mount Morgan when, on 12 February 1912, Mount Morgan State High School opened in the Technical College Building as one of the six first state high schools in Queensland. Opened by Norman F White, Chairman of the Board and Chief Engineer for the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company Limited, the high school initially enrolled 87 pupils.[24] The Technical College continued to operate in the building.[25]
\nTo accommodate the transition from a technical college to a shared facility, the interior of the Technical College Building at Mount Morgan was altered. A 1912 plan, signed off by Thomas Pye, the Deputy Government Architect at the time, shows these changes. Ground floor alterations included: a new partition of glazed shutters and centre-pivoting fanlights added to a southern classroom; a new screen added to the northeastern classroom to accommodate a classroom and ‘Typewriting and Shorthand Classroom’; and the ‘Hat and Cloak Room’ was converted into a corridor. On the first floor a gangway was constructed over the staircase; the museum adjacent to the stair landing was partitioned off and converted into a library; and the southern, main lecture hall was divided by partly-glazed partitions to create a classroom, dressmaking room and machine drawing classroom. The plan also shows a timber-framed domestic science scullery and ladies cloak room added to the northern end of the rear verandah, and an L-shaped balcony added to the first floor.[26]
\nFrom their introduction, the design of high school buildings was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works. The first purpose-built high school buildings were constructed in 1917 and were large, elaborate buildings that were variations of a standard design introduced in 1914, as well as vocational buildings built to standard designs.[27]
\nThe Government Technical Schools Act had been passed in 1908, allowing for the establishment of vocational education-based studies in Queensland schools.[28] Mount Morgan State High School reflects this integration of technical education into the state school system. A Workshops Building (later Science Block and Workshop and now known as Block B), constructed in 1913, had this purpose.[29] The Workshops Building, a single-storey, masonry structure with a Dutch-gable roof, was constructed in the northwestern corner of the site and was primarily accessed from the east. Its interior was divided into two spaces – a blacksmith’s shop to the north and a machine shop to the south – which were connected by a set of dual doors. Each space had a western teachers room that flanked the central dividing wall, and a chimney protruded from the northern end of the building.[30]
\nBy 1913, the school site included the Technical College Building, the Workshops Building, a residence, a large shed and a reservoir.[31]
\nIn February 1918 the Department of Public Works decided to add another story to the Science Block and Workshop. The estimated cost was £2550 and the work was performed by day labour.[32] The ground floor was converted from a machine shop and blacksmiths’ shop to a drawing room and classrooms. The first floor addition provided a lecture room, a classroom, a physics laboratory, a chemical laboratory and offices. It was accessed via a set of exterior stairs, in the centre of the eastern elevation, and the original Dutch-gable roof was refixed atop the addition.[33]
\nIn 1923 plans were drawn for extension of the domestic science scullery to its west to include a laundry. The locations of some lightweight interior partitions within the Technical College Building were also altered. Also at this time, the library was moved to the southern end of the first floor; and its former location was converted into a principal’s room.[34] In conjunction with this work, completion of ‘improvements to the frontages of the college’[35] comprising ‘brick and iron fence, steps, gates, etc’,[36] designed by a Mr Johns, and a reinforced concrete retaining wall, running north along the Central Street (Burnett Highway) boundary, were constructed in 1924.[37] The brick fence runs along the site boundary, in the southeastern corner of the site. It frames the Technical College Building and flanks a set of tapered stairs that lead to the building’s eastern entrance.
\nThe late 1920s brought unemployment to Mount Morgan. The Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company went into voluntary liquidation in 1927 and its machinery was sold.[38] However, former mine manager, Adam Alexander Boyd, raised sufficient funds to register a company, Mount Morgan Limited, in June 1929, to exploit the Mount Morgan ore reserves. Initially income was derived from recovering copper from water in the mine, but falling copper prices and a lack of finance, combined with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, meant that liquidation again looked certain.
\nIn the same period, educational changes occurred. In December 1928, the Mount Morgan Technical College was brought under the control of the Department of Public Instruction,[39] and in 1929 Mount Morgan Intermediate School opened on the site of the high school and technical college.[40]
\nMount Morgan Mine began open-cut gold mining in 1932. In that year the Queensland Government decided to subsidise the gold mining industry as part of a scheme to increase employment. This government initiative came at a crucial time for the future of Mount Morgan Limited. So successful was the mine that, within eight months, the initial loan of £15,000 was repaid and further government assistance was not required.[41]
\nThe re-opening meant there was demand for skilled labour again, so classes resumed at the Technical College and the institution became known as the Mount Morgan High and Intermediate School and Technical College. In 1937, Mount Morgan High School celebrated its Silver Jubilee. [42]
\nThe Mount Morgan campus continued to add vocational buildings. By the 1950s the site had acquired: an assay laboratory at the northeastern end of the site; and a carpenters and trade shop located between the Science Block and Workshop and the residence. A 1954 plan shows the location of various concrete retaining walls – one along the northern end of the eastern boundary and another through the centre of the site, between the Technical College Building and the Science Block and Workshop.[43]
\nThe 1960s brought more change to educational opportunities in Mount Morgan. The Intermediate School closed in 1963 and the Technical College closed in the following year.[44] 1968 marked the end of the Mount Morgan High School Past Pupils Association, established in 1924, which had played an important social role in the community and raised funds for improvements to the high school.[45]
\nCelebration of Mount Morgan State High School’s Diamond Jubilee took place on 15 April 1972 coinciding with the official opening of a new classroom block built by the Education Department.[46]
Changes at the Mount Morgan mine, affecting employment, took place from the 1970s. In February 1976, staff numbers at the mine were reduced to below 500. In 1981 open cut mining ended when the ore body was exhausted. Smelting ceased in 1984 but extraction of gold from 28 million tonnes (Mt) of tailings took place from 1982 until November 1990.
During the mine's 108-year life approximately 262 tonnes of gold, 37 tonnes of silver and 387,000 tonnes of copper were mined at Mount Morgan from underground and open cut operations.[47]
\nChanges on the school site by 1997 included: the demolition of the residence and large shed, and the construction of a sports storage shed and games area in their place; the construction of various teaching buildings – one over a section of the central concrete retaining wall, and three others at the northwestern end of the site; and a toilet block added to the northeastern corner of the site.[48]
\nThe school grounds have also increased in size. Between 1972 and 1980 land to the west of the Science Block and Workshop was added. A large lot north of Bedsor Street was incorporated in the school site by 1954 and in 2015 it is primarily used for sporting facilities. Part of Bedsor Street was closed in 1985 and the school site was reconfigured into one lot in 2011.[49]
The Mount Morgan State High School’s centenary was commemorated in 2012, recognising its importance to the town.
In 2015, the former Technical College Building (Block A) is used for administration and teaching purposes, and the former Science Block and Workshop (Block B) is used as a library and resource centre.[50] The Mount Morgan State High School is important to Mount Morgan, having been a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. Since establishment it has been a key social focus for the Mount Morgan community with the grounds and buildings serving as the venue for social events.
","criteria":"Mount Morgan State High School is important in demonstrating the evolution of state and technical education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains: an excellent example of a purpose-designed Technical College Building (1908), which was erected to facilitate the training of a skilled workforce for Mount Morgan’s mine; and a Department of Public Works-designed Science Block and Workshop (1913, extended 1918), which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nConstructed during the first two decades of the 20th century, Mount Morgan State High School is also important in demonstrating the significance of mining in colonial and early 20th century Queensland. Mount Morgan was a major mining area, which is reflected in the quality and size of the Technical College Building and the Science Block and Workshop.
\nMount Morgan State High School, as one of the first six state high schools in Queensland, is important in demonstrating the pattern of development of secondary education in Queensland. The school also demonstrates the way secondary and technical education were interlinked in the early 20th century, with secondary classes often established at technical colleges.
|Mount Morgan State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland technical college complex from the early 20th century, with later modifications. Technical college complexes were custom-designed, and typically featured separate buildings for specialist departments. Significant buildings at Mount Morgan State High School are a substantial Technical College Building (1908) and a former Science Block and Workshop (1913, extended 1918). The buildings are set within a landscaped site that includes mature shade trees and retaining walls.
\nThe Technical College Building, designed in the office of the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, is an excellent, intact example of a Queensland technical college building from the early 1900s. It is a large, masonry structure with contrasting decorative capping and lintels; built in a confident and stripped classical style; with grand and imposing street-facing elevations; and sited in a prominent location within the grounds. The interior layout is functional, with a variety of classroom configurations designed for specialist classes.
\nThe former Science Block and Workshop is a good example of a vocational workshop building constructed for a specialist technical college department. Located away from the main Technical College Building to minimise noise disruption, the building is of masonry construction, has plainer finishes than the Technical College Building, and features chimneys that were associated with workshop furnaces.
|Highly intact, the Technical College Building at Mount Morgan State High School is important for its aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, landmark presence and streetscape contribution.
\nThe building’s symmetrically composed design, ordered street elevations, contrasting high-quality materials (stone and red facebrick), and assertive massing denote a place of learning and stability. Through its size, symmetry, form, materials and siting on a prominent corner along the Burnett Highway, it asserts a landmark presence in the townscape.
|Schools and technical colleges have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMount Morgan State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Mount Morgan community. Established in 1908 with the fundraising efforts of the local community, generations of Mount Morgan students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Mount Morgan and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650008,"name":"West's Furniture Showroom (former)","alternate_name":"Wests Showroom","street_address":"620 Wickham Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-12-04","description":"West’s Furniture Showroom (former) occupies part of a 344m2 urban block on the northeast edge of Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. Addressing the major thoroughfare of Wickham Street to the southeast, the building is bounded to the northwest by Knapp Street, and to the northeast and southwest by commercial properties of a similar scale. The terraced block is divided into three distinct sections, with the showroom occupying the southeast end. Buildings to the rear of the showroom are outside of the heritage boundary and are not of cultural heritage significance. A cantilevered awning projects from the showroom, over the Wickham Street footpath.
\nThe showroom is a long, lowset, masonry and timber structure with a narrow street frontage. Primary access to the building is via a door at the northeast end of the main shopfront. A pedestrian arcade, running part way along the southwest side, allows access to the rear of the showroom via a secondary entrance. The shallow-pitched roof, constructed of deep timber trusses, is clad in metal sheeting.
\nThe Wickham Street shopfront is largely transparent and sheltered by a large, cantilevered awning that has a tongue-and-groove, v-jointed timber board-lined soffit with a stained finish. The timber entrance door is painted yellow and set within a timber and glass frame, adjacent to a masonry wall clad in random rubble stone. The shopfront comprises reconstructed floor-to-ceiling, steel-framed angled windows, standing on concrete and rubber pads and supported by timber mullions. Angled at 60 degrees, these windows reduce the reflection of light from the glass to pedestrians on the exterior footpath, and reflect the sky from a distance. An irregular-shaped shallow pond with a raised concrete kerb forms the base of the shopfront, with the bottom edge of the glass panels set just below the water’s surface. The pond continues around at a right angle to follow the base of a reconstructed glass wall that defines the side pedestrian arcade. The pedestrian arcade has an exposed concrete floor and rectangular ceiling voids which allow light to enter the space. It is partly enclosed by the adjacent property’s masonry wall, which is painted in a contrasting colour to distinguish it from original walls.
\nShopfront features added as part of the 2008 reconstruction works that differ from the original design include: a metal entrance gate to the pedestrian arcade; a wide glass door at the end of the arcade; metal grates set below the surface of the pond; and a signage display outlining the building’s reconstruction. These features are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe showroom comprises a large, open space with plasterboard-lined walls and ceilings, and a polished concrete floor. A single row of hardwood timber columns, stained dark brown and standing on metal pin-joints, runs from the front to the rear of the space. These align with plaster-lined pilasters along the northeast wall. The space is naturally spot-lit by skylights: a row of three small, oval-shaped skylights are located just inside the shopfront windows; and three large, rectangular skylights with a curved southwest edge run the length of the showroom along its central axis. The lower portion of the rear wall of the showroom acts as a retaining wall, with banks of aluminium-framed awning windows above. In the centre of this wall is a steep concrete stair with tubular steel handrail, which leads to the rear building. Separating the showroom and the rear building is a wide, earth-floored void and a second retaining wall. This void is protected by a roof overhang, and access is gained from the stair, through openings in the walls. The showroom roof overhang is set at a steep angle to allow natural light to enter the space, and louvres within its soffit are part of the original ventilation system for cooling the roof space.
\nShowroom features that are not of cultural heritage significance include: partition walls at the rear of the showroom; a curved partition at the front of the space that defines an entry foyer; recent fit-outs and joinery; and air-conditioning units and vents.
","history":"The former West’s Furniture Showroom, completed in early 1953, was commissioned by Laurence (Laurie) West (1918-2013) as a Modern, purpose-designed furniture showroom. Located at the northeast end of Fortitude Valley, one of Brisbane’s busiest shopping centres at the time, it was designed by renowned architect Dr Karl Langer (1903-1969) to attract attention and provide a unique setting for West’s cutting-edge modern furniture. As the only Australian business licenced to make and sell Knoll furniture between 1956 and 1962, West’s Furniture Showroom supplied some of the country’s most prominent architects with modern furniture for their buildings, and promoted Modern design both within the design community and to the general public. Sold by the West family in 1964, the building had several owners until its purchase by architect Robert Riddel, who in 2008 instigated and managed award-winning restoration and reconstruction works.
\nFortitude Valley, located on the north side of the Brisbane central business district (CBD), developed over several stages to become one of Brisbane’s most successful shopping centres, concentrated in Ann, Brunswick and Wickham Streets. A major building boom took place there in the 1880s, reflecting the widespread economic and population growth typical of the decade. Old timber buildings were replaced with larger, more impressive buildings, marking the growing sophistication, confidence and population of the suburb. Access was improved by the introduction of public transport in the form of horse-drawn trams (replaced by electric trams in the 1890s). By the close of the 1880s the Valley had become intensively settled and was beginning to grow rapidly as a secondary retail centre to the city centre. In 1891 the train line from the city was extended to Fortitude Valley, fuelling the growth of industry in the area, with large factories and warehouses established beyond the retail centre, close to workers’ dwellings.[1]
\nIt was during the 1880s and 1890s that three major retailers were established in the Valley – Overell’s drapery (est. 1883), TC Beirne’s drapery (est. 1891) [QHR 601395], and McWhirters (est. 1898) [QHR 600214] – whose ongoing expansion reflected the wealth and optimism of Valley retailers, and attracted further activity and capital to the area.[2]
\nAnother building boom took place throughout Brisbane in the 1920s; and the Valley in particular, with its success as a commercial and industrial hub, expanded even further. Connection to the city was improved, and electric trams, which passed the busy corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets, brought thousands of shoppers to the Valley. In 1949, the year that Fortitude Valley celebrated its centenary of European settlement, the turnover of Valley retailers alone was estimated at £15m each year, of which the three biggest firms, McWhirters, T C Beirne and Overells, accounted for more than a third.[3]
\nIn the early 1950s the Valley underwent a facelift, with investment of more than £1m in expanding and modernising buildings in order to compete with ‘uptown’ Queen Street, bringing a ‘modern slickness’ to the area. Old shopfronts were replaced with stainless steel and plate glass, dozens of shops were renovated inside and out, and larger stores were constructed, with new features such as escalators proving very popular with customers. Unlike Queen Street, the Valley had ample room for expansion and plenty of parking space, making it a desirable location for a ‘shopping centre of the future’.[4]
\nIn addition to the major stores, the Valley was home to hundreds of medium and small-scale businesses, including numerous furniture manufacturers and retailers. In the post-World War II (WWII) period, a growing percentage of goods sold in the Valley were coming from factories in close proximity to the main shopping centre, including printing, textiles, timber, domestic machinery, motor car assembly, hardware and furniture factories. Fortitude Valley was one of the main hubs for furniture retailers in Brisbane, along with Woolloongabba, South Brisbane and the CBD. The 1951-52 Brisbane Metropolitan Trade and Business Directory lists 18 ‘furnishers and furniture dealers’ in the Valley, most concentrated at the southwest end of Wickham Street. The types of retailers ranged from the large department stores, to shops selling mass-produced furniture at affordable prices, to more specialist retailers who designed and/or made furniture to order.[5]
\nThe most important feature of furniture shops were their showrooms: large, flexible spaces where the furniture was displayed, often in room-like configurations so that customers could visualise the furniture in their own homes. Most furniture showrooms at that time were housed within a variety of commercial or warehouse-type buildings; many in older buildings adapted for display purposes. Showrooms also ranged in size, from single-storey shops to multi-storey complexes of adjoining buildings.[6]
\nOne of the Fortitude Valley furniture businesses was West’s Furniture Emporium (West’s) at 132-134 Wickham Street, established in 1937 by Frank Presnell West (father of Laurence West). Frank West had purchased the property in 1922 and in 1927-28 a 4-storey building was constructed on the site for Crafti & Co. Ltd, well known furniture retailers. After Crafti & Co. experienced financial difficulties in the mid-1930s and moved out, the building was occupied by West’s. Advertisements from the 1930s and 40s show that West’s sold a wide variety of furniture, in both ‘period’ and ‘modern’ styles, and their motto was ‘West’s for the Best’. Promoting themselves as a small family concern, their furniture was made in a chain of small factories, each specialising in varied classes of furniture.[7]
\nBy the early 1950s, Frank West’s son Laurence (Laurie) West had joined the family furniture business. Born in 1918, Laurie became well known in musical circles as a fine baritone singer, and performed in many concerts and singing competitions as a young man in the 1930s and 40s. During WWII he served in the Australian army, attaining the rank of sergeant. After his discharge in April 1946, he and his wife Mary (nee Quine, married in 1943) moved into their new, architect-designed residence at Fairfield. While still active in performing and musical circles, Laurie spent a short time studying architecture at the Brisbane Central Technical College. During his studies Laurie was struck by the lack of local consideration given to the ‘world scene,’ especially in terms of interior design. Extending his own knowledge of this field through ‘extensive reading in libraries and [of] purchased books’ - including subscriptions to journals from America, Sweden and Europe - and contact with like-minded individuals, including the architect Karl Langer in Brisbane and Harry Seidler in Sydney, Laurie developed a desire to supply Brisbane (and Australia) with modern furniture. This desire grew in ambition and scale, and in the early 1950s he began planning a new purpose-designed showroom for displaying and selling modern furniture.[8]
\nThe site chosen for the new showroom was at the northeast edge of Fortitude Valley, in a predominantly residential and industrial area. Frank West sold his property at 132-134 Wickham St in 1951 and in the same year purchased 618 Wickham Street (now known as 620 Wickham Street). At the time, the property consisted of an old timber residence with a shop at the front, and had rear access from Knapp Street. In 1951, Laurie West himself drew up some concept plans for a modern showroom on the site, which included a fish pond inside the front display window, a side arcade and entrance, an open-plan showroom with regularly-spaced posts painted bright primary colours, and a flat roof with rooftop garden.[9]
\nThe architect engaged to design West’s new furniture showroom was Dr Karl Langer, who had designed Laurie and Mary West’s house at Fairfield.[10] Born and educated in Vienna, Langer immigrated to Australia with his wife, artist and art critic Dr Gertrude Langer, in 1939; bringing direct experience of the European Modern Movement to Queensland. In addition to working as an architect, Langer lectured part-time in architecture and architectural design at The University of Queensland from 1940, publishing his influential booklet ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ in 1944.[11] From 1945 Langer was employed as an assistant town planner by Brisbane City Council and was also commissioned to work on a range of town planning projects around Australia. Concurrently, he completed a wide variety of architectural projects ranging from small, economical domestic work to large commercial and institutional work.[12]
\nLanger had a pronounced impact upon the built environment of Australia and set new standards for design in Queensland until his death in 1969. His body of work is a clearly-distinguishable exploration of a sub-tropical Modernism and is important in the evolution of Queensland architecture.[13] Langer’s designs were typified by modern, highly-functional spaces lit by high levels of natural daylight, naturally ventilated, and incorporated gardens and water features for the occupation and enjoyment of users. They were fit for purpose, while having a degree of flexibility of use.[14] Other important examples of Langer’s architectural work include: the Langer residence at St Lucia [QHR 600317] (1950); Mackay Sugar Research Station [QHR 602642] (1953); St John's Lutheran Church, Bundaberg [QHR 602815] (1960); St Peter's Lutheran College Chapel, Indooroopilly [QHR 602816] (1968); and the Department of Main Roads Building (former), Spring Hill [QHR 602830] (1967).[15]
\nLanger’s design for the new West’s showroom comprised a modern display area at the front of the site, with a workshop at the rear housed in the existing residence. This followed the pattern of a new type of small, combined showroom/industrial building which emerged in Queensland in the 1950s. Located in inner city areas on small sites, and built up to the street alignment to match adjacent buildings, these showrooms were usually a single structure of two to three storeys, with large expanses of glazing to the front elevation acting as showcases. They had a clear division between public and private space, with the ground floor area fronting the street housing display and administration areas, while production and storage areas were located to the rear or on upper levels. Detailed attention was given to the design of entry ways, as access to the building was directly off the footpath; and features such as controlled illumination levels, climatic control features and sheltered street frontages reflected a sense of responsibility to the public to provide a comfortable environment.[16]
\nCompleted in early 1953, West’s Furniture Showroom was ‘designed with the utmost economy in the contemporary manner’.[17] The showroom comprised a rectangular 64’ by 34’ (19.51m by 10.36m) space with a cantilevered, upswept awning that extended over the Wickham Street footpath. The building was predominantly of masonry construction, with a glass shopfront, a concrete floor, and a shallow-pitched, asbestos- and bitumen-lined roof constructed from timber trusses. The roof-top was used as garden area for displaying outdoor furniture and some furniture assembly operations.[18] The existing timber residence was relocated to the rear of the site and converted for use as a workshop for the assemblage and storage of furniture. The workshop enabled access to the roof-top display area, and was level with Knapp Street for the loading of goods to transport vehicles. Its ground floor consisted of a woodwork shop, and the upper floor was designated for polishing and inventory storage.[19] Public access to the showroom was through a single timber door at the northeast end of the Wickham Street shopfront, adjacent to a random rubble stone wall. Projecting from the angled shopfront, the door frame was supported by glass, so that it appeared to float.[20]
\nAs the furniture showroom was located on the edge of the Fortitude Valley shopping area, the shopfront was designed to be dramatic and striking, to catch the attention of potential customers. Supported by timber beams, three floor-to-ceiling windows, measuring 11ft 6in high by 8ft wide (3.51m by 2.44m), angled in toward the interior at 60 degrees. They were designed to eliminate the reflections of traffic, adjacent buildings and the sky onto footpath pedestrians; while simultaneously attracting the eye of passing traffic by catching reflections of the sky. Along the southwest side of the building, vertical plate glass walls returned into the site and created a pedestrian arcade. This arcade, combined with the absence of a building at the front of the adjacent property, meant that West’s furniture collection was noticeably visible when approached from the city and the potential customer had a clear view of the showroom. A concrete-edged, serpentine fish pond meandered around the base of the angled windows and glass return. Supported below the water-line by concrete pads with rubber cushions, the glass appeared to float atop the pond. The pond was decorated with water-plants and fish; and, through its half-interior, half-exterior location, it conveyed the notion of easy access to the furniture inside.[21]
\nThe interior of the showroom comprised a large open space, with a steep set of concrete stairs in the centre of the rear wall through which furniture was transported from the workshop. Hardwood timber columns supported the ceiling – five of which stood in a row, exposed within the showroom and just outside the shopfront. The columns were supported on metal pin-joints, and their timber was crafted to hide cables that led to power outlets at their base. A 1953 article in the publication Architecture Building Engineering explains that there were no fixed partitions or obstructions within the showroom to allow complete flexibility in arranging the displays. Aquariums were planned to flank the rear staircase, set within the rear wall, although it is unclear whether these were ever constructed (new windows line the rear wall in 2015, of similar proportions to those shown in a 1952 plan). Despite the length of the showroom, it was designed to be lit by natural light during the day by three large, rectangular light-wells (featuring a curved southwest edge, and running the length of the showroom), as well as three oval-shaped ventilator-skylights (arranged parallel to the shopfront windows). Both the light-wells and the skylights were covered by corrugated, transparent plastic roofing.[22] The deep roof trusses were designed to ventilate the ceiling space, and Laurence West recalls that the showroom was kept cool by air movement in the large space above the curved plaster ceiling (within the rectangular light-wells).[23]
\nConstruction work for West’s Furniture Showroom was carried out by Ajax Builders (concrete and brick works), H Packman (timber), and G McKinnon (skylights and fibrous plaster, ceiling work). West’s completed the timber joinery themselves.[24] Installation of the glass within the sloping display windows proved to be a technical challenge. Ten men were required to ease each of the three panes out of their frames and into position, and two panes were broken in the process.[25]
\nBoth the design and function of the Showroom demonstrated the shifting tastes and values of post-war Queensland and the strong desire within the design community and beyond to move the state towards new and modern ways of living.[26] Modernist architecture, which developed in pre-World War I Europe and gained popularity in Australia after WWII, was notable for rationalised planning and simplicity of form and detailing.[27] Distinguished by their extensive use of steel, reinforced concrete and glass, Australian buildings in the Modern or ‘International’ style were heavily influenced by American and European examples. Characteristics included sleek, glossy, prismatic forms, cubiform shapes clad with curtain walls and selective expression of structural systems.[28]
\nSharing the ideals of the Modernist movement, both international and Australian furniture designers of the mid-20th century sought to revolutionise the contemporary interior.[29] Mid-century Modern furniture turned away from traditional, ornate and ‘over-stuffed’ designs that had previously been fashionable, and instead opted for pieces that were lightweight, practical, comfortable, easily rearranged, and scaled to fit within post-war houses.[30] A 1954 article in Home Beautiful advocated that Modern furniture met the needs of the day and rejected the use of ornamentation.[31] Modern furniture was designed to be pared-back and sculptural, and was ideally suited to Modernist architecture.[32]
\nInfluenced by international furniture trends, Australian contemporary furniture designers of the post-war period also promoted a philosophy of innovative ‘good design’ that was both functional and beautiful.[33] An influx of European immigrants introduced specialised skills and knowledge in fine furniture making to Australia; and production techniques developed in war-time manufacturing industries encouraged experimentation in furniture design. Post-war furniture designers, both in Australia and internationally, became innovative in their use of materials, due to an increased availability of some materials and a shortage of others.[34] This experimentation led to the use of unconventional materials in furniture design, such as: curved plastics, fibreglass and aluminium; bent and laminated plywood; spot welding that joined timber to metal, rubber and plastics; sleek and narrow steel rods; cast aluminium; polyester resins; acrylics; and foam rubber.[35] These materials were durable, lightweight and maintenance-free, reducing the burden on everyday living.[36] They were manipulated to create minimalist, clean lines and, following the Bauhaus principle of ‘form follows function’, framing elements were often showcased.[37]
\nWhen the new West’s Furniture Showroom began operating in 1953 it stocked a wide variety of high-quality, designer Modern furniture, including those from prominent Australian designers: Douglas Snelling (architect, designer of the ‘Snelling Line’, which utilised parachute webbing),[38] Clement Meadmore (industrial designer and sculptor, known for his simple and economical designs that used readily-available materials)[39] and Grant Featherston (designer of the ‘Contour’ line that used bent plywood, which was moulded to the human form).[40] The work of these designers was heavily featured in home-decorating magazines throughout the 1950s.[41]
\nAs well as stocking Australian designers, West’s was the first known retailer in Australia to obtain the licence to manufacture and sell the furniture of Knoll Associates (1938-present). Established by Hans Knoll (1914-1955) in New York as the Hans G Knoll Furniture Company, the first Knoll furniture manufacturing plant was opened in Pennsylvania in 1941. Florence Schust (1917- ), a space planner and designer who had befriended and studied under prominent Modernist architects Eliel Saarinen, Charles Eames, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, was employed by Knoll in 1943. In 1946 Hans and Florence married, and the company changed its name to Knoll Associates. A wide range of prominent architects, designers and artists were engaged to design furniture for their company, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Harry Bertoia, Eero Saarinen, Jens Risom and Marcel Breuer. Influenced by Bauhaus ideals,[42] their furniture was technologically innovative, exceptionally designed, made of high-quality materials and easily mass-produced.[43]
\nIn 1946, Florence established the Knoll Planning Unit – a revolutionary department which designed interior spaces for corporate clients; and later designed Knoll showrooms to allow the customer to experience their furniture and test potential purchases. The showrooms were distinctively modern, open-planned and generally featured bright interiors of primary colours. The first Knoll showroom opened in New York in 1951 with a coloured ceiling grid, artificial pond, and open layout that allowed for a changing layout of products. As Knoll Associates continued to expand, showrooms were opened in eight other locations throughout America. A subsidiary of the company, Knoll International, was established in 1951 and set about opening Modernist showrooms around the globe in places such as Paris, Stuttgart, Stockholm, Madrid, and Milan.[44] A c1956 index released by Knoll Associates lists West’s as the only retailer with a license to sell genuine Knoll furniture in Australia, and as one of only 13 stores selling Knoll furniture outside of America. West’s remained the only known licenced manufacturer and retailer of Knoll products in Australia until William Latchford and Sons, a Melbourne firm, obtained a licence in 1962.[45]
\nFollowing its opening, West’s was featured in various periodicals, including a 1953 Cross Section article, a 1954 issue of Architecture (the Royal Australian Institute of Architect’s journal), and on the front cover of Queensland publication Architecture Building Engineering. The showroom was radically different to any other retail building in Brisbane at the time. It was described as having a striking street presence and it’s planning embraced unique solutions to display problems.[46] Accounts from the West family recall the building being so eye-catching that tourist buses would regularly stop outside, and that the Duke of Edinburgh briefly stopped the Royal Cavalcade to view the building during the Queen’s visit in 1954.[47] A few years later, the Queensland Art Gallery showcased furniture from the showroom in their contemporary living room display in the 1958 exhibition, Interiors Past and Present.[48]
\nWest’s was “…instrumental in introducing mass market designer furniture into Brisbane”[49], and sold high-quality furniture not available elsewhere in Australia to a range of prominent architects and well-known personalities. Notable clients included: architects Harry Seidler, Robin Gibson, James Birrell (for the Chermside and Annerley Libraries), Karl Langer (Broadbeach Hotel) and David Bell (Chevron Hotel); interior designer Langdon Badger; federal politician Harold Holt; and institutions including the Queensland Government, the Canadian Embassy, and the University of Queensland (Student Union Building).[50] At the time, licencing restricted imports to a few sample pieces of furniture, so West’s organised a large group of skilled sub-contractors to make parts, which were assembled at the showroom workshop. High quality Australian wools and yarns were used to upholster the furniture made, including those from Ipswich manufacturer, Morrisons.[51]
\nWest’s operated from the building until the business closed in November 1963.[52] This was due to a variety of factors, including the loss of its exclusive licence with Knoll in 1962.[53] In 1964 the property was sold to Arthur Walter Barrs, who owned the adjacent building (then 620 Wickham Street, now 622 Wickham Street) from which he ran a car radio business. The former West’s showroom remained in the ownership of the Barrs family until the late 1970s, and was at one point leased to Philips Industries Holdings, an electrical products company. Between c1988 and 2008, Queensland Used Appliances, now Queensland Appliances, occupied the building (listing their address as 616 Wickham Street).[54]
\nOver time, the Wickham Street facade of the showroom was converted into a more conventional shopfront – the sloping, front display windows were removed, and new vertical windows that spanned the full width of the site were installed. The pond was concreted in, the glass walls removed, a section of the front awning’s ceiling painted over and the light-wells roofed over (although their locations were still visible). The workshop at the rear was demolished between 1974 and 1986, and a skillion-roofed shed was constructed in its place.[55]
\nIn 2008, architect Robert Riddel purchased the building and carried out extensive renovations and conservation work.[56] This was completed with the guidance of Laurence West himself, contemporary documentation, and the evidence provided by original fabric remaining within the building. Marks in the front stone wall and the ceiling lining enabled Riddel to reconstruct the front window at the original angle. A new front door was also installed, replicating the original design. The side pedestrian arcade was re-established with new glass walls, and a new wide glass door and metal ramp were added to the end of the arcade to provide a secondary entrance and equal access. Concrete that had filled the serpentine pond was removed, revealing some early edging and concrete pads. The pond was waterproofed, with the edging reconstructed, and it was once again filled with water. Light-wells were uncovered and re-glazed, with the original arched framing re-sheeted. Paint was removed from the hardwood timber posts and front awning’s soffit cladding, and the showroom ceiling was sheeted with new plasterboard.[57] The shed at the rear of the site was gutted, re-lined and its roof was raised; and a new carport was added facing Knapp Street.[58]
\nConstruction was carried out by John Speare Builders and was completed in 2009.[59] In early 2010, the building was converted for use as an office through the addition of lightweight partitions, and was occupied by Riddel Architecture until 2012.[60]
\nRiddel’s restoration and reconstruction of West’s Furniture Showroom received both national and international praise and recognition. In 2009 it was awarded a Gold Medal award at the National Trust Heritage Awards, and in 2010 it received the Australian Institute of Architects State and National awards for Heritage.[61] The Jury Citation for the National Award for Heritage praises the Showroom as ‘…a rare example of the restoration of a mid-century modernist commercial building’, and that the reinterpretation and rebuilding process was ‘…painstaking but practical and economical. The architects have helped to demonstrate the economic and environmental benefits of preservation over new build. This is not a museum frozen in time. The spirit is faithfully captured; details restored with rigour, energy, affection and wit; and the building revitalized as viable commercial premises.’[62]
\nThe project also appeared in publications including IndesignLive (12 August 2009), Brisbane Modern (Issue 3, 2009), Architecture Australia (vol. 99, Jan-Feb, 2010), Feminity (6 August 2010) and Architecture and Urban Design in Brisbane (vol. 1, 2012).[63] Brisbane Open House, an event launched in 2010 to promote the ‘hidden wealth of architecture, engineering and history in buildings and places around Brisbane city’[64], featured West’s Furniture Showroom in 2011, 2012 and 2013.[65] The building was also included in the 2014 exhibition Hot Modernism: Building Modern Queensland, 1945-75 at the State Library of Queensland, along with furniture pieces from the Wests’ collection.[66]
\nAfter a short period of vacancy, in September 2015 the former West’s Furniture Showroom is being renovated for use as a retail tenancy, with the rear additions converted into living quarters.
","criteria":"West’s Furniture Showroom (former) (opened in 1953) is important in demonstrating the evolution of architecture and design in the 1950s in Queensland. Purpose-designed as a showroom for Modern furniture, it was influential in the promotion of contemporary design both within the design community and to the general public. It is a distinctive example of a 1950s showroom in Queensland, reflecting Modern design principles and aspirations.
\nAs a result of award winning reconstruction and conservation works in 2008, which revealed and reinstated the original design intent of the building, the Showroom is an excellent and representative example of best practice conservation methods.
|West’s Furniture Showroom (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 1950s showroom, with its carefully detailed shopfront and entrance; large display windows; well-lit, open-plan interior; and clear division between public and private space, with functional and storage spaces located at the rear of the building. It is a fine example of a purpose-designed furniture showroom designed in a bold, Modernist style that complemented the furniture it sold.
\nThe place is a good example of the work of architect Dr Karl Langer, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of his work. Most notably, it features an open, functional plan; the expressive use of simplified, angular forms to create a dramatic main shopfront; the manipulation of the effects of natural light, both within the showroom and from the perspective of the viewer outside; a restrained use of high-quality materials, including stone, concrete, glass and timber; and the integration of the interior with the exterior by utilising the effects of glass, water and reflections.
|West’s Furniture Showroom (former) has aesthetic significance as a distinctive building of exceptional architectural quality. In its extensive use of concrete and glass complemented by simple primary colours, stained timber and stone, the showroom illustrates the honest use of materials and minimal aesthetic that characterises the mid-20th century Modern movement. This is further complemented by the transparent shopfront with subtle framing, open plan interior supported by a single row of columns, and the emphasis on natural lighting.
\nThe main shopfront, with its bold composition of slanted display windows, curvilinear concrete pond and large angled awning, makes an important contribution to the streetscape, standing out dramatically from the adjacent commercial buildings.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650009,"name":"Ambulance Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"157 Gill Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2015-12-04","description":"The Ambulance Building, Charters Towers (former) occupies the southwest corner of a level, 0.158ha, rectangular allotment; approximately 1km east of the central business district in Charters Towers, North Queensland. The site is bounded to the south by the major thoroughfare of Gill Street, to the west by a lowset modern ambulance facility (setback from Gill Street), to the north by residential properties, and to the east by a vacant lot. The Ambulance Building (1903) is positioned at the front (southern end) of the allotment, facing Gill Street, and is an eye-catching feature in the townscape. An access driveway runs along the eastern boundary.
\nAmbulance Building (1903)
The Ambulance Building is a two storey, rendered brick structure, designed in a classical idiom, and sheltered by a corrugated metal-clad gable roof that is hipped at the rear. The building is approximately rectangular in plan, with its front elevation angled to align with Gill Street and its long axis running north-south. The building’s roof has circular metal vents along its ridgeline and a tall, rendered brick chimney protrudes from the northeastern corner. The building has pedestrian and vehicular access from Gill Street, with additional pedestrian entrances on the north and west sides. Various items relating to Queensland’s ambulance history are retained in a museum display within the building.
The front elevation is symmetrical around a central pediment, arched window and front entry aedicule. A stepped parapet concealing the roof is terminated at each end by octagonal pilasters, projecting prominently above the roofline and topped with domed caps and ball finials. Other applied ornamentation to the front elevation includes: the former logo of the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade (QATB) (a Maltese cross encircled by the letters Q, A, T and B) and the date ‘1900’ in raised letters within the pediment; acanthus leaf motifs and the word ‘AMBULANCE’ raised within the entablature; fluted arch spandrels; ivy leaf motifs; and moulded horizontal bands. A foundation stone, set within the wall at the eastern end of the elevation, commemorates the foundation date of the building, 29 March 1903, and the name of the person who laid the stone, PJ Allen.
\nIn plan, the former ambulance service facility rooms are housed on the ground floor, and the former living quarters occupy the first floor. The ground floor is divided into two sections: front and rear. The front section comprises a large Plant room, with servicing rooms along the eastern side, including (running south to north): a former casualty room, a former radio room and, underneath the timber stair, a former kit room. The stair features an early metal handrail, and memorial plaques dating back to at least 1934. The kit room houses built-in, timber-framed bunk beds and timber lockers. A corridor, beginning at the Plant room and terminating at a rear entrance door, divides the rear section – to the west is a recreation (rec) room (former workshop), with a northern store room, toilet and bathroom; and to the east is a laundry and kitchen. The first floor contains a large boardroom in the southwestern corner, with two bedrooms flanking the eastern side. North of the boardroom, a hallway runs north through the centre of the building. Three bedrooms and a northern bathroom are west of the corridor, and a southern bedroom, stairwell, former kitchen and northern former laundry are to the east.
\nEarly timber joinery is retained. Most windows have deep reveals and wide sills. The front elevation contains a tall, timber-framed casement window (ground floor) and double-hung windows with timber sashes (first floor). The window in the centre of the first floor is arched. On the ground floor, the central entrance door and wide, vehicular access door are recent reconstructions – render and brick arches above these doors indicate their lowered height. The openings on the side and rear elevations remain in their early locations, with the ground and first floor openings generally aligned. Doors to the northern elevation are ledged and boarded with v-jointed (VJ) timber. A doorway on the eastern elevation and an archway in the northern elevation are now enclosed. Aligned with the northern archway, a large, internal arched opening is set within a wall separating the front and rear of the ground floor. Most interior doors are panelled timber and those at the southern end of the ground floor have decorative timber fanlights.
\nMost early interior linings are intact. The brickwork of the exterior walls is painted internally. Partition walls are generally single-skin, timber-framed and lined with wide, horizontal, VJ timber boards. Those at the rear of the ground floor are lined with flat sheeting (some with cover strips), indicating their later installation. Notches within partitions in the boardroom are evidence of the location of early picture rails. Large concrete pavers line the floor of the Plant room, which slopes from the north down to the south. The floors of the first level are lined with timber boards; and a mark within the floor lining of the boardroom is indicative of the location of a later partition (now removed). Pressed metal ceilings of various patterns are featured throughout the building – those at the front end of the ground floor and in the first floor boardroom are of a more decorative style. The first floor features a range of decorative ceiling roses. A section of narrow floor boards at the southern end of the first floor corridor, and a circular hole within the ceiling lining, denote the former location of a pole which accessed the ground floor. The underside of this floor lining is visible within a recessed section of the ground floor ceiling. A hole in the ceiling lining of the laundry is indicative of a chimney connection’s location. Cornices and architraves are timber of a detailed profile.
\nRecent elements that are not of cultural heritage significance include: the carpet, tile and linoleum floor linings; kitchen and bathroom fit-outs; external, northern stairs; aluminium-framed windows; sheeting enclosing openings; the door connecting to adjacent, modern ambulance facilities; reconstructed doors within the front elevation; paint covering window panes; and light fittings.
\nLandscape Elements
A driveway remains in its original (c1903) location along the eastern edge of the site and allows access to the rear of the Ambulance Building. It has a recent surface.
Other Structures/Elements
Other structures, sheds, footpaths, walkways and roads within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
The former Ambulance Building, Charters Towers (1903), is a two-storey masonry structure, located in the former mining town of Charters Towers. As the second purpose-built, and oldest surviving ambulance building in Queensland, it is important in demonstrating the establishment of ambulance services in regional centres throughout the state in the early 20th century. It is an excellent example of an early 20th century ambulance building, makes a strong aesthetic contribution to the townscape, and has a special association with the Queensland Ambulance Service (formerly QATB).
\nCharters Towers was established after gold was discovered at the foot of Towers Hill in December 1871, leading to the proclamation of the Charters Towers Goldfield on 31 August 1872.[1] The settlement began with a number of shops and hotels along a track, which became Mosman Street, with the population reputedly 3000 by August 1872. In 1877 the one square mile comprising Charters Towers, centred on Mosman Street, was declared a municipality.[2]
\nIn the 1880s Charters Towers continued to prosper and grow, becoming the most productive goldfield in Queensland. The completion of a railway line from Townsville to Charters Towers in December 1882 boosted the town's prosperity, by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials. An influx of capital from English speculators from 1886 funded further mining. In 1889 the famous Brilliant Reef, the richest on the field, was discovered, boosting the goldfield’s fortunes.
\nCharters Towers consistently out-produced all other Queensland goldfields between 1880 and 1913, apart from a brief spike in production at Mount Morgan in 1888-9, coinciding with a brief economic downturn at Charters Towers due to drought reducing the water supply for crushing machines.[3] According to Government Geologist Robert Logan Jack, Charters Towers was the third largest gold producing area in Australia, after Ballarat and Sandhurst (Bendigo).[4] From 1883 to c1909 gold was Queensland’s second largest or largest export by value.[5]
\nAt the turn of the century, Charters Towers had just achieved peak production (1899), comprised a multi-cultural population of around 26,500, was Queensland’s second largest city, and was known colloquially as 'the World'.[6]
\nDuring the field’s period of high production, its mines were dangerous places to work. Death and injury figures between 1890 and 1901 for Charters Towers ‘were consistently higher, in proportion to the number of miners employed, than for the colony in general’.[7] The whole community was affected by accidents, poor mine sanitation (resulting in typhoid and other enteric disease) and ‘miners lung’. The causes were poor health and safety due to inappropriate managerial practices, and the field’s geology. In addition, there were the usual injuries such as fractures, contusions, gunshot wounds, cuts, burns, bites and drownings.[8]
\nAn ambulance service for Charters Towers was proposed in 1900, as an initiative of the City Ambulance Transport Brigade (CATB), which had operated in Brisbane from 1892, due to concerns about the lack of adequate medical aid for accident victims. Prior to its establishment, the sick and injured were required to make their own way to medical services, at times, worsening injuries. The objective of the brigade was to provide first aid and to transport sick and injured people to hospital.[9]
\nElsewhere in the world, ambulance services had commenced earlier. In the United States of America, the Commercial Hospital in Cincinnati started the first public, hospital-based ambulance service before 1865. Britain’s first hospital-based ambulance, for transportation of fever and smallpox patients in London, commenced in 1867. The Red Cross formed in Europe in 1870 and St John’s Ambulance Association commenced in England in 1877. Wheeled litters were used in London from 1880 with police taking responsibility for transportation of the injured. In Australia, Sydney’s Board of Health formed the first recorded ambulance corps in 1881, for transportation of patients with suspected infectious diseases to the Coast Hospital. Thereafter, other Sydney hospitals replicated this service.[10]
\nIn 1900 the CATB instructed Superintendent R Nye Stevens to report on extending an ambulance service to the Colony’s larger towns and cities. He visited Townsville and Charters Towers to discuss the establishment of ambulance services. A public meeting, organised by Mayor JA Benjamin, for those interested in the commencement of an ambulance and transport brigade in Charters Towers, was held on 12 October 1900. Superintendent Stevens informed the meeting that an Ambulance Brigade Centre in Charters Towers would require at least two paid officers, who would be paid £3 per week, while 20-30 honorary staff would be required (at a cost of £6 per head for uniform, badge etc.). The necessary equipment would be three improved Ashford Litters,[11] and associated gear. The headquarters for Charters Towers could be anywhere in the centre of town. The management costs would be met by the public, aided by government subsidy and the first year’s expenditure could be covered by £200 from locally-raised subscriptions plus the government subsidy.[12] As a result of this meeting, a local committee was formed to establish the Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade.[13]
\nThe Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade, operational in December 1900 was the first regional centre opened in Queensland. It operated from the fire station in Bow Street under the superintendence of TW Treacy of the CATB.[14] Later the centre moved to a six-roomed house on the corner of Deane and Ann Streets, with its stable and Plant room located on an adjoining allotment.[15]
\nIn 1902, the CATB was renamed the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade (QATB), to reflect the expansion of its operations in regional centres throughout Queensland. Ambulance brigades were established in Charters Towers and Townsville (1900); Rockhampton, Warwick and Ipswich (1901); Toowoomba (1902); Ravenswood and Mackay (1903); Cairns (1904) and Bundaberg (1907). While most ambulance services were affiliated with the QATB, others such as Gympie (1902) were established independently. The goldfields of Charters Towers, Ravenswood and Gympie, with large working populations of miners, were among the first to establish ambulance services in the state.[16]
\nRecognition of the need for a permanent centre in Charters Towers, and action to achieve it, soon followed. As early as December 1901, the Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade Committee discussed the need for a permanent centre. It wished to purchase land and erect its own premises at the cost of about £1200 and the Chair, JA Benjamin, thought it should be located near the suburb of Queenton, to the east of the city centre.[17] An advertisement requesting details of land for sale in Charters Towers, in a central position and suitable for building the new ambulance brigade quarters, was placed in The Northern Miner in July 1902 by TW Treacy, Superintendent.[18] Subsequently, land was purchased in Gill Street, Queenton, just beyond Boundary Street, for £625 from Joseph Hopper. On the site was a seven-room house and store.[19] The property was located between the city centre and the railway station, and close to the hospital (one block to the west on Gill Street) and to the principal mines of the goldfield (the Brilliant and Queen reefs to the east); therefore, near transport, medical facilities and potential patients.[20]
\nFundraising for the Ambulance Brigade Fund was necessary, but attracted criticism. The North Queensland Register newspaper criticised the Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade for spending too much on its new premises, claiming the two-storey masonry building would be costly and take money from hospital fundraising. There was also resistance to the ambulance service from the hospital, which believed that ambulance subscriptions disadvantaged its own fundraising activity. Nevertheless, fundraising continued, with an ambulance sports day attended by the Governor, Sir Herbert Chermside, and musical performances at Charters Towers’ Theatre Royal.[21]
\nLocal architect Walter Hunt was appointed to design the building. A Mr Reid was contracted for its construction and a Mr Walker carried out the brickwork for Reid, under Hunt’s supervision.[22] Walter Hunt was born in Kiama, New South Wales (NSW) in 1870 and trained in NSW. From 1902 he was a Fellow of the Institute of Architects NSW and from 1912 a Fellow of the Queensland Institute of Architects. He practised as an architect in Charters Towers from 1899-1910. During that time, as well as the Ambulance Building, he designed the Charters Towers Swimming Baths (1900); the Commonwealth Fountain in Lissner Park (1900); the 1901 extension to the ED Miles Mining Exchange (QHR 602801); cottages; villa residences; and the Northern Miner Newspaper Building (1903).[23] In 1911 Hunt formed a partnership with Charles Dalton Lynch – CD Lynch and Walter Hunt, Architects, Northern Queensland – located in Townsville. During that partnership the firm undertook diverse projects.[24] Hunt practised as an architect and surveyor in Townsville from 1921 to 1931 and from 1923 taught architecture at Townsville Technical College. With his son, Maurice, Hunt operated Maurice and Walter Hunt, Architects, Townville from 1931 until he retired to Sydney in 1932.[25]
\nOn 29 March 1903, 1500 people witnessed Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade Committee member, PJ Allen, lay the marble foundation stone of the Ambulance Building, the second purpose-built ambulance centre in the state.[26] Less than three months later, on 13 June 1903, the building was officially opened by JA Benjamin, Chair of the Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade Committee.[27] The property, building and fixtures had cost £2600, of which, £1000 had already been repaid.[28] The building was described by the Charters Towers Mining Standard newspaper at this time:
\nThe ground floor being paved with concrete blocks … consists of a large room where the sulky and stretchers are kept, the harness being suspended over the shafts of the sulky ready to drop on the horse at any time… Wunderlick [sic] ceiling has been used on the ground floor…[29]
\nThe front and stable doors opened by electricity, so that when the alarm bell is rung – and the horse is trained sufficiently – the doors will open and the horse will walk into position ready for the men to come sliding down the pole from the upper storey.[30]
\n[Upstairs] is the large boardroom, two lavatories and bathrooms and six bedrooms for the staff.[31]
\nAt the Ambulance Brigade’s Annual Meeting in January 1904, the Committee’s purpose in erecting such a building was given:
\nThe building is of brick and most substantially erected, consequently the cost of repairs will be practically nil and should meet the requirements of this district for all time.[32]
\nA 1905 photograph shows the building as a two storeyed, rendered structure with a symmetrical front elevation that featured an eclectic mix of classical motifs, such as pediments with entablature, pilasters, an aedicule, arched openings and rendered ornamentation of acanthus and ivy leaves. The exception to the elevation’s symmetry was a large opening at the western end of the ground floor which allowed for horse-drawn vehicle access. The logo of the QATB (a Maltese cross encircled by the letters Q, A, T and B), the date ‘1900’ and the word ‘AMBULANCE’ were also incorporated into the elevation’s ornamentation, and a stepped parapet concealed the roof structure from the street. Moulded horizontal bands spanned across the elevation and each level of the stepped parapet.[33] The building was erected close to the western boundary of the allotment, leaving space to the east of the building for access to the rear of the block.[34]
\nThe superintendent resided in a timber house to the rear of the ambulance station, on the same allotment.[35]
\nAlthough the Charters Towers Mining Standard concluded that the building ‘really represents a Sydney fire station, adapted to the use of the ambulance brigade’,[36] the layout of the Ambulance Building mimics that used in the Wharf Street headquarters of the CATB in Brisbane in 1897 (since demolished), which established a precedent for subsequent ambulance station designs as the service expanded throughout Queensland. The Wharf Street building comprised two storeys with plant and staff facilities on the ground level and accommodation on the first floor. Large ground floor openings allowed ready access directly to the street for horse and sulky to quickly exit the building.[37]
\nThe first year of operation was busy for the Charters Towers Ambulance Centre. In 1901 it attended 1165 cases: 388 attended outside, 175 transported to hospital and 602 transported to the ambulance centre, showing that the organisation and its service had been very much needed.[38]
\nProduction at all Queensland gold mining centres declined in the early 20th century. Charters Towers experienced a rapid downturn in mining from 1914, leading to its cessation in 1917.[39] Consequently, the city’s population decreased steadily to 13,000 by the end of World War I, and more than 900 homes and business premises were removed between 1914 and 1918.[40] However, Charters Towers remained a regional centre providing services to its surrounding community; one of which was the ambulance service.
\nDespite the decline in the town with mining, the ambulance brigade’s work did not lessen, as the use of motor vehicles extended its area of service into outlying rural areas. In 1915, the Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade ‘installed a new motor car for bush work’,[41] and in 1918 the QATB converted from horse-drawn vehicles to motorised ambulances. This greatly increased, by number of cases and mileage travelled, the Charters Towers Ambulance Brigade’s work as it increasingly assisted the community beyond Charters Towers.[42]
\nA number of changes to the Ambulance Building were made over time; primarily for operational purposes. In 1916 a Wunderlich ceiling was added to the first floor of the ambulance station by contractor Ben Toll.[43] In 1946 the top floor of the building was converted into a residence for the Superintendent and the former detached residence sold for £200 for removal. This change ‘cut down maintenance costs’[44] and converted the Ambulance Building to the standard layout for ambulance buildings which the QATB had developed by 1921. This included a space for vehicles with easy street access, a casualty room, a meeting room and a sleeping room for ambulance bearers on the ground floor and residential quarters for the superintendent above.[45] In the following year, one of the doors to the Plant room was sheeted over; there was ‘installation of [a] septic system, bathroom and laundry for use of the bearers; levelling of the old workshop floor; and the erection of a partition between that workshop and Plant room which became ‘a much need room for the bearers’ use.’[46]
\nFurther operational changes took place in the ensuing years. Sometime after 1956, the timber-doored opening to the Plant room from Gill Street, which was designed for horse drawn vehicle access, was widened to accommodate motor vehicles, but its height lowered and a cantilevered awning added.[47] Air-conditioning was installed prior to 1994, using modern single air-conditioning units fitted within windows on both floors, primarily on the eastern side of the building;[48] but has since been removed.
\nExpansion of the Charters Towers facilities was planned when the QATB purchased additional land adjacent to the existing site. In 1983 a block of land to the west of the Ambulance Building was purchased and two more blocks were purchased, again to the west, in 1988.[49]
\nIn 1995 there were major changes to the Charters Towers ambulance service when a new, lowset ambulance building was added, to the west of the original building, on land purchased during the 1980s. Alterations made to the former Ambulance Building at that time probably included the covered passage on its western side; from the ‘rec room’ (former workshop) to the new ambulance station building.[50]
\nIn April 2003 in preparation for the re-purposing of the Ambulance Building to a museum display, the awning over the Plant room’s vehicular entrance was removed and the Gill Street elevation rebuilt to its 1903 specifications, including the re-creation of the middle doorway, but with the vehicular entrance lower than its original height.[51]
\nIn 2015 the Ambulance Building, Charters Towers retains a strong presence in the streetscape of Gill Street, the principal street of the city. The building houses a museum display including a collection of vehicles, uniforms, ambulance paraphernalia and log books recording cases treated by ambulance officers.[52] Some of these are objects associated with the Charters Towers QATB, while others have been donated from elsewhere.[53]
","criteria":"The former Ambulance Building, Charters Towers (1903) is important in demonstrating the development of civic ambulance services in regional Queensland centres, a pattern of development commencing in the first decade of the 1900s and continuing during the 20th century. It is the earliest known surviving, purpose-built ambulance building in Queensland.
\nBuilt during the peak period of gold mining in Charters Towers, the most productive and dangerous goldfield in Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Ambulance Building, Charters Towers, is important in demonstrating the early role of gold mining towns in developing ambulance services in Queensland.
|The former Ambulance Building, Charters Towers is important in demonstrating the evolution of the principal characteristics of purpose-built ambulance stations during the 20th century. The building is a two-storey structure, incorporating ambulance service facilities at ground level with ready-access to the street; and living quarters (and boardroom) at the first level. It is positioned in a central location, in close proximity to a hospital, transport and its patients. The earliest surviving ambulance building in Queensland, it is substantially intact and has a high degree of integrity.
\nAlterations undertaken during the building's use as an ambulance building (1903-95), including widening of access doors and alterations to the ground floor for motorised vehicles, provide important evidence of the evolution of Queensland ambulance services – illustrating the transition from hand litter and horse-drawn to motorised transport, and growth in demand for the service.
|The former Ambulance Building, Charters Towers, through its substantial form and eclectic design, is important for its contribution to the Charters Towers townscape. The building is an eye-catching feature at the eastern entrance to Charters Towers’ central business district; and its substantial massing and detailed ornamentation express the importance of ambulance services to early mining areas.
|The former Ambulance Building, Charters Towers is important for its association, since 1903, with the Queensland Ambulance Service (formerly the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade and initially the City Ambulance Transport Brigade), an organisation of enormous importance to Queensland in providing ambulance services throughout the state since 1900.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650011,"name":"Willard's Farm (former)","alternate_name":"The Pines | Willard's Farm and Lot 2 on SP146445 | Willards Farm","street_address":"302 & 362-388 Old Cleveland Road East","suburb":"BIRKDALE","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2022-03-08","description":"Willard’s Farm (former) is a farm complex situated on Old Cleveland Road East, Birkdale, approximately 21km southeast of Brisbane central business district (CBD). It occupies a large site that slopes gently to the west from the road and includes a house yard and part of an adjacent paddock. The farm complex is located close to the road and comprises a residence with several associated outbuildings, structures and landscape features.
\nFeatures of Willard’s Farm (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nResidence (c1860s-c1910)
\nThe residence consists of three timber structures connected by covered walkways and verandahs: a gable-roofed Main House facing the road to the east; a Hip-roofed Wing to the northwest; and a low-profile skillion-roofed Kitchen to the southwest.
\nMain House
\nThe Main House is located a short distance from the entrance gate which aligns with the front stairs. The house is a single storey building, rectangular in plan with open verandahs to the east (front) and north, and an enclosed verandah along the west (rear). The front verandah features a gabled pediment centred over the front door and timber steps; and there is a faceted bay window to the north verandah. Recycled materials are evident, including a (former) stair stringer incorporated as a verandah floor beam at the southern end.
\nThe earliest portion of the main house is supported on a grid of large log bearers half-notched over stumps and adzed square on top to carry pit-sawn floor joists and flooring. The extension to the south has square rough-hewn transverse bearers, supporting mill-sawn joists and flooring. The front and north verandah floor height appears to have been altered, joists replaced and floor boards overturned.
\nThe house core is rectangular in plan and comprises three front-facing rooms under the gable roof, and two rooms on the rear enclosed verandah separated by an enclosed porch. In the central front room, the front door aligns with the rear door and the northern wall has a large opening into the adjacent room. Doors at the north and south ends of the house connect the front rooms to the rear enclosed verandah rooms.
\nFeatures of the Main House also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nHip-roofed Wing
\nThe Hip-roofed Wing is highset and aligned at right angles to the Main House and Kitchen. There are open verandahs on the north and west sides, and covered walkways to the south and east.
\nThe interior layout comprises two rooms of unequal size, with the western room larger than the eastern room. The eastern room has been converted for use as a bathroom, and there is evidence that the western room has been enlarged (c1941-46) (marks in the ceiling and floor linings, and change in the sub-floor frame details). Both rooms have coved ceilings.
\nThe sub-floor structure comprises early hand-sawn bearers and joists, supported by a combination of recent posts and stumps. Recent fabric partly-enclosing the understorey is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Hip-roofed Wing also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nKitchen
\nThe Kitchen is a highset, timber-framed, and skillion-roofed structure that is aligned approximately north-south (parallel to the Main House). It is connected to, but set lower than, the Main House and Hip-roofed Wing.
\nThe interior layout comprises a single room, with a pantry addition to the northwest corner, and a small porch with a stair in the northeast corner.
\nThe sub-floor structure comprises recent timber stumps supporting square adzed perimeter bearers and log floor joists adzed square top and bottom.
\nFeatures of the Kitchen also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Residence not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMilking Shed (c1860s-1880s)
\nThe milking shed is a long (approximately 24m x 7m) slab timber, gable- and skillion-roofed structure situated to the south of the Residence and aligned approximately north-south. The main shed section has a gable roof, and a skillion roof runs along the western side where the floor level is at a lower (approximately 550mm lower) level. The south and north walls are open below a tie beam, with timber weatherboard wall cladding and centred doorways above. The north elevation features a half-height door and the wall under the skillion is clad with timber slabs and weatherboards.
\nThe interior layout reflects the functional requirements of the milking process. The milking bails, comprising 11 stalls, are located along the eastern wall and occupy approximately two-thirds of the main shed section. This section has a concrete slab floor that slopes down to the west toward a drain running along the length of the shed. Timber posts, some with two-rail balustrades between, align along the western edge of the concrete slab and support the junction of the gable and skillion roofs. A concrete ramp accesses the main shed section from the western skillion-roofed space. A room at the north end of the western skillion-roofed space has a concrete slab floor with an up-stand.
\nThe milking bails retain fabric from various phases of construction and use. The bails comprise an alignment of 11 timber log posts (offset from the eastern wall by approximately 550mm and set at 1600mm centres) supporting a square adzed top rail. The top rail has slots where vertical timber battens (two remaining) slide across (to keep the cow’s heads in place) and are secured / released by round timber pegs. Posts along the eastern wall (also spaced at approximately 1600mm centres) have two mortices, which indicate the location of previous stall division rails.
\nFeatures of the Milking Shed also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Milking Shed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCream Shed (c1904)
\nThe Cream Shed is a lowset, gable-roofed, timber-framed structure to the northwest of the Milking Shed. Its north (front) elevation features an off-centre door (its small access stair has been removed, however a timber stump indicates its former location). To the east and west elevations are centred casement windows, and low-level ventilation openings.
\nInternally, the shed comprises a single room (approximately 3.5m x 2m). It has a flat ceiling and a concreted timber floor.
\nFeatures of the Cream Shed also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Cream Shed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nGarage / Shed (c1860s-1880s)
\nThe Garage / Shed is a long (approximately 11.5m x 4.5m) timber-framed, gable-roofed structure sited to the northwest of the Residence and aligned approximately north-south. Timber slabs cladding to the east and west walls, and a loft at the southern end of the structure (including its timber floor) have been removed.
\nThe interior layout comprises a single open-plan space, with timber framing exposed to the roof space. The shed is open to all sides (originally only to the north and south ends).
\nFeatures of the Garage / Shed of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Garage / Shed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nWater Tank and Stand (by 1947)
\nLocated between the Residence and the Milking Shed, the water tank is set on a 5-6m high timber stand. The base of the stand is enclosed to form an outdoor shower.
\nFeatures of the Water Tank and Stand of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Water Tank and Stand not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nIn-ground Water Tank (by 1947)
\nSouth of the Residence (Kitchen) is a cylindrical In-ground Water Tank that is approximately 4m in diameter. Constructed of brick, with concrete render to the upper section and in patches to the lower section, it is deep with its walls extending approximately 500mm above the ground level.
\nFeatures of the In-ground Water Tank of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the In-ground Water Tank not of cultural heritage significance are:
\nGrounds and Setting
\nThe established grounds, comprising lawn areas and mature plantings, provide an understanding of the place’s landscaped, rural setting. Early perimeter fences and gates define the front (Old Cleveland Road East) boundary, and other built features within the site contribute to the interpretation of its historical functions as part of a working dairy farm.The buildings and mature vegetation are largely concentrated on the eastern side of the site, while the western and northern sides generally comprise open areas of lawn with scattered mature trees and adjacent areas of former cultivation, pasture and delineation of paddocks.
\nFeatures of the Grounds and Views of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Grounds and Views not of cultural heritage significance are:
\nFormer Wells and Windmill Remnants (by 1947)
\nHistorical documents indicate two wells and a mill were extant in the vicinity of Tingalpa Creek by 1947, with water pumped to the elevated metal storage tank near the residence. The likely Former Wells and Windmill Remnants are located approximately 200m west of the Residence, on a level site above the steep eastern banks of Tingalpa Creek. The remnants comprise timber posts arranged around a depression in the ground, and various metal components visible on and in the ground.
\nFeatures of the Former Wells and Windmill Remnants of cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Former Wells and Windmill Remnants not of cultural heritage significance are:
\nWillard’s Farm (former) is a farm complex comprising a timber-framed, timber-clad farmhouse. Located in the now-suburban, but formerly agricultural, area of Birkdale within the boundary of Redland City Council, the former farm was built in phases from the c1860s, as shown by its construction materials and methods, as well as associated farm elements (slab milking shed, former cream shed, storage shed (garage/shed) and water supply infrastructure), which also demonstrate early construction materials and methods. It occupies a large site that slopes gently to the west from the road and includes the house yard and part of an adjacent paddock. It has mature trees and plantings, and original fencing. It is rare early evidence of government-promoted agricultural settlement in Queensland.
\nPrior to European settlement, the Birkdale area was part of the traditional land of the Quandamooka People.[1] One of the first places in the Moreton Bay district where country land was sold soon after Separation was the locality of Capalaba. Situated about 14 miles (22.5 km) southeast of Brisbane, but close to Cleveland, the once-favoured port for the colony, it included fertile agricultural land.[2] A mail service from Brisbane to Cleveland commenced in 1861 and the town of Tingalpa was surveyed on the Brisbane side of Tingalpa Creek in 1863.[3]
\nJames Willard, the original owner of the property, arrived at Moreton Bay from Plymouth on the ship Ascendant in June 1858, aged 22 years, with his younger brother, Stephen, aged 18 years. Both were labourers from Sussex. They had followed their brother, Edward, who arrived in Brisbane in August 1857, aged 19, on the Mary Pleasants. All were assisted immigrants, sought by employers to fulfil the shortage of labourers in the future Colony of Queensland. According to family history, James worked at Kedron Brook splitting timber and fencing; and took various jobs in bushwork before purchasing land.[4]
\nOn 19 May 1860 James Willard married Margaret Jones at St John’s pro-cathedral in Brisbane. Margaret, a domestic servant, from Kilteagan in County Wicklow, Ireland, had arrived from Ireland on the British Empire in February 1859, aged 20 years. Her occupation was also sought after in the region and the focus of immigration initiatives. Their marriage resulted in 11 children between 1861 and 1881.[5]
\nWhen Queensland became a self-governing colony in 1859, it had a population of about 25,000 people, no financial support and no money in its treasury. The government needed to generate income, so did this through the leasing and sale of land. Among the first actions of the inaugural Queensland Parliament when it met in May 1860 was the creation of four land acts to regulate the leasing and purchase of Crown land. The Alienation of Crown Lands Acts 1860 governed the sale of Crown lands, establishing the means of selling town, suburban and country land, and land in agricultural reserves.[6] It also allowed for European settlers to legally dispossess Traditional Owner groups from their ancestral land.[7]
\nEntrenched in this government legislation was the policy of promoting closer settlement of the land by suitable migrants, creating a class of yeoman farmers (farmers who owned and operated small farms), first in the Moreton Bay district and later throughout Queensland. This concept had been championed by Dr John Dunmore Lang in the 1840s and practised by David McConnel when he subdivided and sold land from his Bulimba estate to his farm workers in the 1850s. As an agricultural labourer, James Willard was an immigrant who fitted the desired profile of this yeoman ideal and was one of the many men who came to the colony for this purpose.[8]
\nThe land on which Willard’s Farm is sited was purchased by James Willard and Mark Blundell of Brisbane, as tenants-in-common on 17 August 1863, after it failed to sell at auction. This land, Portion 46, comprised 45 acres (18.2 ha) bounded by Tingalpa Creek on the west and by the Cleveland road on the east. The Deed of Grant (Land Purchase Certificate) was dated 31 December 1863.[9] Evidence suggests that James Willard was living in the Capalaba area in the 1860s, after the land purchase. Family history reports that Willard built a hut near the creek and lived there until he built a house using timber removed from the block.[10]
\nWhen Europeans first arrived in the Redlands district in the mid-1800s there were approximately 5000 Aboriginal people living there. The Quandamooka people camped and fished along Tingalpa Creek. It is unknown when the Quandamooka people were dispossessed from Willard’s Farm, however, oral history accounts note that ‘each night the South Sea Islanders would sing in their slab and shingle-roofed shed in the small paddock behind the house, and the large Aboriginal population who lived in the dense surrounding bushland were quite mesmerised by the nightly concerts, and the property was surrounded by their glowing campfires’.[11]
\nIn the second half of 1865 he and his brother Edward applied for timber licences which were granted for hardwood removal in January 1866. Local history states that the Willard’s bullock wagons took timber from Capalaba to the sawmill at Cleveland Point; which was operating from c1860s.[12] In August 1866 transfer of the whole of Portion 46 to James Willard was recorded, and the following month Willard mortgaged the land to the Queensland Building Society for £50.[13]
\nWillard’s house was constructed in stages and some of the techniques employed are a variant of conventional vernacular methods. Willard is likely to have built some of his growing family’s new house himself, with assistance from his neighbour, Daveson, possibly as early as the late 1860s.[14] Willard had bush carpentry skills, materials readily available through his timber licence and on his property, and a steam sawmill operating at nearby Cleveland.
\nElevated on stumps, the first stage of the house appears to have comprised two rooms with an enclosed back verandah and a detached kitchen at the rear and possibly a front verandah. This early core of the house is supported on a grid of large log bearers, half-notched over large timber stumps and adzed square on top, with pit sawn floor joists and flooring. The perimeter bearers also function as wall plates upon which the wall cladding sat within a frame of large adzed squared posts.[15]
\nSimple two-room cottages such as this were a very common house form throughout Australia in the second half of the 19th century. One room was made slightly larger than the other, with a centred front door opening into it, and was used as a living room. The other was the bedroom. Verandahs were located across the front, and sometimes across the back or around the house. Kitchen and washing areas were housed in separate detached structures at the rear and sometimes linked to the rear verandah by a covered walkway.[16]
\nThe milking shed and garage/shed were also constructed using materials and techniques consistent with vernacular construction techniques and Willard’s bush carpentry skills. Both of these early outbuildings were constructed of timber slab, with adzed top and bottom plates. Tie beams and structural posts combined substantial square-adzed and rough-hewn timbers, and the longevity of these structures reflects their solid construction. Later modifications such as weatherboard cladding to gable ends, milled-timber roofs with corrugated metal cladding and various phases of cow bails in the milking shed, facilitated the continued use of these structures as part of the farm complex.
\nBy the late 1880s Willard’s farm was a successful operation, which was praised in a contemporary source. A biography of James Willard in The Aldine History of Queensland states he:
\n‘purchased some land at Capalaba, on which he afterwards settled his wife and family. Here he devoted his energies, especially to the improvement of his land, cultivating farm produce to some extent, although dairy farming formed the chief element in his progress. Being very successful, and becoming more and more practically experienced with the capabilities of the land he had acquired, Mr Willard was soon in a position to increase his property.’[17]
\nThis had occurred in 1871 when Willard selected nearby agricultural land (Portion 41) to the north of his original land purchase, (fronting the Cleveland road).[18] He then purchased the adjacent subdivisions: Subdivision 2 of Portion 42, 18 acres (7.28 ha) in June 1873 and Subdivision 1 of Portion 42, 96 acres (38.85 ha) in July 1876.[19] These were located between his first two holdings, Portion 46 and Portion 41.[20]
\nDevelopment of the Capalaba-Cleveland area during the 1870s and 1880s was steady. In 1872 tenders were called to construct a bridge over Tingalpa Creek (upstream from Willard’s property), replacing the ford.[21] In 1876 Cleveland was described as a small watering place on the shores of Moreton Bay, 21 miles (34 km) from Brisbane, with a population of 250 people.[22] In 1879 divisional boards were established as a means of local government throughout Queensland, with the Tingalpa Divisional Board administering the area in which Willard’s Farm was established.[23] A branch railway line to Cleveland opened in 1889, providing access to Brisbane markets for farmers in the district. During the 1870s and 1880s, James Willard was active in the Capalaba-Tingalpa community. In 1871 he became a member of the Road Trust for the Cleveland Road, which was a local community organisation responsible for organising its upkeep. In 1879 he subscribed to the Capalaba School building fund in an effort to establish a school in the area, which occurred in July 1880; and in 1881 he was Chairman of the Capalaba Primary School Committee. In 1880 he nominated for election to the Tingalpa Divisional Board and served as a Board member in 1880 and 1881. In 1888 Willard was the successful tenderer for the forming and gravelling of 12 chains (0.24km) of the main Wellington Point Road and for erecting a guard fence for the Cleveland Divisional Board.[24]
\nIn 1881, James Willard gained title to his selection, Portion 41. At this time he had made the following improvements to his land including on Portion 46: erection of a slab house with a shingle roof (it is unclear if this is referring to the earlier slab house or the current house), clearing of 20 acres of undergrowth, excavation of a waterhole, and fencing of the whole with a two-rail fence of split posts and rails. The associated Lands Department paperwork showed that James Willard had fulfilled the requirement of continuous residence during the ten year duration of the lease from February 1871, by residing on Portion 46.[25] Further evidence suggesting the site of the house in its current position on Portion 46 is a map of the district locating the homes of potential students at the proposed Capalaba Primary School, dating from April 1879.[26]
\nWillard increased his land holdings during the 1880s, selecting 418 acres of grazing land to the south of his property, near Coolnwynpin Creek at Capalaba, in July 1881 and his eldest son, William, selected 160 acres nearby.[27]
\nThe description of the farm in The Aldine History of Queensland goes on to state,
\n…his property…gives evidence of the skilful management bestowed upon it…certainly his farm more closely resembles those in the old country than any around it for many miles. As a proof of the great results to be achieved by patient and steady industry, Mr Willard’s prosperity affords a striking instance. He...can now fairly estimate the value of his properties at over £10,000.[28]
\nIn the early 20th century, Willard’s farm included maize and sweet potato crops and a dairy herd.[29] From 1899 Willard took a leading role in the Cleveland Division when inoculation of cattle against tick fever was introduced, by serving on the Capalaba district committee and being one of the largest cattle owners who submitted stock for the demonstration of inoculation. Subsequently, Willard operated a cattle dip on his land adjacent to Old Cleveland Road (East) from 1904. A local resident recalled that ‘everybody brought their cattle to be dipped for ticks. It was always known as Willard’s dip’.[30] By 1958 dip had been filled in and by 2002 the associated structures had been removed.[31]
\nLater additions were made to the house c1910 and consisted of the construction of a rear wing, connected to the house by a covered walkway. Initially this provided two extra rooms and also connected to the original detached kitchen.[32]
\nA panoramic photograph of the property taken c1910 from the northeast, illustrates: the main wing of the house enlarged to its current form with bay window opening onto its northern verandah; the two room wing at the rear connected to the house by a covered walkway. It also reveals the absence of northern stair and northwest verandah. Most of the detailing visible in this photograph survives except for the roof shingles, front stair porch with double staircase and eastern verandah balustrade, replaced with a bench seat. Other photographs taken c1920 show the house, outbuildings and garden, including the front fence and entry gate posts.[33]
\nThe milking shed shows evidence of evolving dairying practices. The overall form of the building has remained relatively consistent since at least the early 20th century, when images show the gable-roofed timber slab structure painted white.[34] However, changes in milking practices (from hand milking to mechanisation) are reflected in the fabric and layout of the milking shed. Timber notches in posts along the eastern slab wall indicate the locations of rails for the stall divisions. The stalls were offset from the timber slab wall to accommodate feed boxes. Cows were secured / released from the hitching uprights by means of a movable timber batten that was held in place by a timber peg.[35]
\nThe concrete floor slab, which occupies the length of the main gable-roofed milking area, is possibly related to a later milking arrangement, as the concrete is formed to finish at the timber bottom plate and is clear of the feed box area. The concrete floor slab provided an impervious surface, with a drain running the length of the shed enabling washing of the milking area. Other modifications relate to the introduction of a mechanised milking system. Metal pipes run above the bails for the length of the shed. Remnant machinery remains mounted on a timber platform in the rafters at the northern end of the milking area, and a room in the northwest corner of the building - set lower than the milking area - has a concrete slab and upstand mount.[36]
\nThe addition of the gable-roofed cream shed to the complex in the early 20th century also reflects the upgrade of farm infrastructure to adapt to evolving farming practice. In 1904, the Dairy Produce Act was introduced, which regulated premises where dairy produce was manufactured and prepared.[37] In accordance with this legislation, the cream shed was constructed away from the milking shed and had a washable concrete floor. The timber-framed building was lowset on timber posts, with the concrete floor elevated on timber tongue-and-groove boards supported by rough-hewn log joists and adzed bearers. The shed had wide eaves and ventilation openings on the east and west sides to keep the cream cool. A skillion extension and decorative metal hood over the door were added later.[38]
\nThe garage/shed, originally of timber slab construction, located at the end of the unsealed driveway, also retains evidence of previous modifications and uses. The gable-roofed structure is visible in early 20th century images of the farm. In one image from c1920s, a horse and cart are standing on the unformed driveway at the northern end of the shed. The shed has an open layout and open ends to the north and south. A loft located at the southern end is constructed of logs and is lit by a six-light casement window in the gable end wall, which appears to have replaced a painted door evident in photos from the early 20th century.[39] A doorway and window on the east wall, both of later construction, are modifications which demonstrate how these functional structures were adapted to facilitate their ongoing use.
\nJames Willard died on 2 October 1914 and his property was transferred to his wife, Margaret. With her death on 15 June 1916, the property was transferred to the Willards’ eldest son, William, and their unmarried daughter, Margaret, as tenants-in-common.[40] The Queenslander in 1916 described the property:
\nfor years travellers to Cleveland during the coaching days – and more recently in increasing numbers since the advent, of the motor car – after journeying the great part of the distance through the seemingly endless bush on either side, came suddenly upon the picturesque Willard homestead, with its delightful bit of old-world-looking garden, its weather-worn outbuildings, its landmark of tall sentinel-like Norfolk pines, and, more striking still, the broad, spacious, well-grassed paddocks of some hundreds of acres, gently sloping toward Capalaba [sic] Creek, winding its course below, a welcome change of scene on this forest-shrouded road over hill and dale.[41]
\nAfter William’s death in 1923, his estate was transferred to his brother, James Willard, Jnr.[42] In early 1924, Willard’s Farm was offered for lease and its furniture and stock were offered at auction on 8 February 1924. At this time there were approximately 30 cows on the farm. From 1927 to 1937 Margaret and James Willard leased Willard’s Farm to several share farmers. The Toms family resided there during the 1930s and a newspaper report in 1933 reported the family had bought the property, but there is no title evidence for this. The name, ‘The Pines’, was adopted for Willard’s Farm by the Toms family.[43]
\nIn November 1938 Willard’s Farm (Portions 46, 42 and 41) was transferred to Herbert Clive Daniel. He is attributed with replacing the shingle roof with metal sheeting. In April 1940, all of his dairy herd, pigs and farm machinery were sold as part of a ‘genuine dispersal sale’. Daniel subsequently sold the property to Rosemary Innes Cotton in June 1941.[44]
\nWorld War II (WWII) brought dramatic change to Willard’s Farm. Most of its land, primarily on Portion 42, was requisitioned by the United States of America (US) Army during the war for the establishment of a vital radio receiving station. Constructed in early 1943 by the US Signal Corps, it became an integral part of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) Campaign General Headquarters’ communications network, under the direction of US Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur. As part of the then technologically advanced global Army Command and Administration Network (ACAN), the US Army Radio Receiving Station was one of the main centres for radio communications during the South West Pacific campaign. The station worked in conjunction with the Hemmant Transmitting Station, located 9km northwest. At war’s end, the Commonwealth’s Post Master General’s Department (PMG) took over the station. It continued to be used as a radio receiving and frequency testing facility until its closure in 2017. The Cotton family remained on the farm through the war but their farming lands were considerably reduced due to the possible interference of the radio signals as well as high-level security on the radio receiving site.[45]
\nAfter the war, the Commonwealth Government’s Postmaster General’s department acquired the approximately 159 acres (64 ha) of the former communications centre, being most of Portions 46 and 41, and subdivisions 1 and 2 of Portion 42.[46] Following negotiations between the Cottons and the Commonwealth Government, an agreement was reached which would see the Cottons compensated £4000 for the compulsory acquisition of Portions 41, 42 and most of 46 in 1951. Within Portion 46, the Cottons would retain 4 acres, 3 roods and 16 perches on which the farmhouse and auxiliary structures were located. A lease agreement for the rental of the farm land that had been acquired by the government was given to the Cottons for £170 per annum, specifically for the grazing of the dairy herd and not for other agricultural purposes, which might disrupt the radio signals at the communications centre.[47]
\nAt this time, the farm layout was indicated in a survey of the adjacent radio receiving complex.[48] The survey noted that three paddocks to the southwest had been cultivated. A narrow paddock that aligned east-west connected to the northwest corner of the farm, where water troughs and a shed were located. While these built elements are no longer extant, two substantial timber fence posts (one recently fallen) and a low stone wall remain in-place in the vicinity of where the paddock connected to the yard and indicate the former layout of the farm complex. Water infrastructure documented in the 1951 survey included the elevated tank, which operated as part of a gravity-fed system across the larger farm. Water was pumped to the elevated tank from wells closer to the creek. Likely remnants of the wells and windmill remain approximately 200m west of the farm house, close to Tingalpa Creek, as detailed in the 1947 valuation, ‘two wells have been sunk in the vicinity of the creek and water is engine pumped from them by a windmill to an elevated G.I storage tank near Residence’. The concrete (brick and concrete rendered) in-ground water tank located adjacent to the kitchen, which, at this time, provided a reserve supply of water, was described as having ‘a diameter of 13 feet [3.96m] and a depth of approximately 18 feet [5.4m]‘.[49]
\nThe Cotton family sold the remaining property in 1980. The property was described as follows: ‘The house…is divided into two sections. There are three bedrooms, a lounge and bathroom in the front section. An open verandah connects the back section where the kitchen has been built in true pioneer style. There is also a large dining room…. “The Pines” is set on two hectares of land. There is an old dairy and stables made from slab timber. They are still solid buildings and make useful storage areas’.[50] Another article stated that outbuildings included ‘a two-bedroom cottage, a maid’s cottage, a coach and harness shed and stables’.[51]
\nFrom 1957, part of the northern part of the original farm was leased as grazing land to Mrs Winifred Jean Porter, who ran a small dairy. By the early 1970s she had been residing in a caravan beside the former cattle dip site. In 1971 Mrs Porter purchased a small WWII Allied Works Council (AWC) ‘CA’ type building which had previously been located on Portion 41, and had it relocated to where she was residing along Old Cleveland Road East. This structure was part of the Department of Civil Aviation’s brick receiving station, established in 1959 to the north of the US Army Radio Receiving Station (former), and the small building was referred to as a ‘temporary equipment building’, it’s dimensions being 19ft x 15ft. Its original location is unknown, however, the hut was not located on the US Army’s receiving station during WWII.[52] This hut became Mrs Porter and her daughter, Ann’s, home, who continued to graze their herds of cattle and goats. On her passing in 2019, Ann was affectionately known in the local area as the goat lady.[53]
\nWillard’s Farm was sold again in 1985. At this time a detailed description of the farmhouse and its associated farm elements was recorded by The National Trust of Queensland. The following description is a summary.
\nThe cladding in parts is 10 inch wide weatherboard. The early origins of the building are evidenced by such things as adzed stumps, pit-sawn timbers on log bearers. Other site features include a well, a water tank on high stumps and 4 sheds… Of these items the cow bails appears to be the oldest structure with evidence of a shingled roof and adzed vertical slabs to the walls. The garden is replete with ancient mango trees and Norfolk Pines. It is probably the oldest residence in the district.[54]
\nThe land was subdivided in 2004 and the southern section (Lot 1 SP146445), without farm buildings, sold. The remaining property was purchased in March 2015 and retained the early farmhouse set in a large garden with mature trees, the slab milking shed with remnant cow bails, the former cream shed, garage/shed, an elevated stand with water tank, front fence with pedestrian and vehicle gates, and the remnant stone wall and gate posts within the property.
\nIn 2016, following community efforts to save the farm buildings from possible demolition, the Redland City Council bought the property and included Willard’s Farm (Lot 2 RP211270) in the Redland City Plan ‘Heritage Overlay’. In 2019 Lot 2 SP146445, which was in Commonwealth Government ownership was also sold to the Redland City Council.[55] In 2021 it remains in the ownership of Redland City Council.
","criteria":"Willard’s Farm (former) (established 1863), comprising a Residence (c1860s-c1910), outbuildings (c1860s-c1904) and farm and water supply infrastructure, is an early dairy farm complex in Queensland. It is important surviving evidence of the policy of successive Queensland Governments from 1860 until the mid-20th century, of raising revenue and enabling closer settlement through the lease and sale of land for agricultural purposes, a key catalyst in the development of Queensland.
\nThe Milking Shed (c1860s-1880s) and Cream Shed (c1904) are important in illustrating the evolution of Queensland’s dairy industry, as new technologies were adopted and government legislation to regulate product safety in the industry were implemented.
\n|
Analysis of fabric at Willard’s Farm (former) has the potential to contribute to information about the development of Queensland timber building construction techniques in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in particular the transition from construction techniques using slab, rough-hewn, adzed and hand-sawn timber (Milking Shed, Garage / Shed, and part of the Residence), to milled timber construction (Cream Shed, and part of the Residence).
\n|
Willard’s Farm (former), an early farm complex developed from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century in Queensland, has a high degree of integrity and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. These include: its location in a historical agricultural region; use of locally-sourced timber for construction, crafted using early carpentry techniques (slabs, rough-hewing, adzing and hand-sawing); a farmhouse (Residence); outbuildings for agricultural use (Milking Shed, Cream Shed, and Garage / Shed); water infrastructure (Water Tank and Stand, In-ground Water Tank, and former Wells and Windmill Remnants); the fenced separation of residential and agricultural functions (fence remnants); and mature trees and gardens in close proximity to the house. An understanding of the functional relationships between the farmhouse and outbuildings is facilitated by their surrounding open setting.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650017,"name":"First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"273 North Quay","suburb":"BRISBANE CITY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-03-11","description":"Approached from North Quay with secondary access from May Street, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane is located at the western end of Brisbane’s central business district overlooking the Brisbane River between the William Jolly and Kurilpa bridges. Its careful composition of simple, cubic volumes of one and two storeys, enveloped in buff-coloured brickwork with concrete parapets and continuous window hoods derives from its unconventional floor plan, which fits inside the boundaries of its irregular shaped allotment. The boundaries are defined by low brick retaining walls. In response both to its siting on a busy thoroughfare and to the introspective nature required of its interior, its limited fenestration to North Quay gives the building an introverted appearance. The building’s intactness is testament to the exceptional quality of its design and execution.
\nElevated from North Quay and accessed by a short flight of wide stairs, the main entrance to the Church is a simple, dignified triple-fronted portico lined with artificial stone. Through three pairs of tall timber entrance doors set within a bronze frame with banks of fanlights above, another short flight of stairs leads to the generous foyer from which are accessible the auditorium to the west and the Sunday School, former book room and rest room (now the clerk’s office), former cloak room (now a children’s nursery), rooms for ladies’ ushers and the stair hall to the east. The secondary entrance with ramp from May Street, together with rooms for male ushers are located at the opposite end of the foyer to the main entrance. An office (former clerk’s office), boardroom, committee rooms and a self-contained flat are located on the first floor.
\nAuditorium
\nThe building’s principal space, the auditorium, is restrained, elegantly proportioned and light-filled. A large volume, it has symmetrically arranged tall, high level windows set in lightly coloured, rendered walls above a perimeter wall lining of 2.4m Queensland Maple panels. Devoid of applied decoration, its beauty is derived from its pleasing proportions and the high quality and finish of its materials, fixings and fixtures. Its fan-shaped plan and sloping floor direct focus to the readers’ platform at the front of the room, and together with acoustic panels located on the rear wall, aid acoustics. The elevated readers’ platform has dual pulpits and, in metal relief lettering, high on the walls to each side, are brief biblical quotations. An attachable additional platform, used for meetings, is located in the underfloor area. To the north (right) of the platform, the Whitehouse Brothers organ is located in an organ pit, the rear of which is accessible from an organ room to the west, which has external access for ease of maintenance. The organ pipework is concealed behind the perforated screen above the readers’ platform. Auditorium seating comprises five banks of pews separated by narrow side, centre and transverse aisles; each pew graduating in length in response to the irregular floor plan.
\nAn inventive feature that is in working order is the mechanical ventilation system. Timber registers, located within the timber wall panels and carefully centred under each of the windows, draw air up through the walls from the plenum system located in the basement, which is then expelled through the ventilated ceiling beams and louvres in the eastern wall.
\nBeyond the readers’ platform is a secondary entrance from North Quay for readers, readers’ rooms and rooms for the soloist, organist, flowers and ancillary facilities. A passage running the length of the auditorium between the main and readers’ entrances provide an effective acoustic buffer from North Quay.
\nSunday School
\nLocated on the eastern side of the foyer and accessible from it, is the Sunday School. Its main entrance is centred in the southern wall, accessible along a short path from North Quay. The Sunday School has a generously proportioned hall with three classrooms on the northern side, girls’ and boys’ toilets on the southern side, either side of the entrance and a platform for the superintendent on the eastern end. Behind this platform are the superintendent’s room and the library.
\nFirst Floor
\nThe stair hall leads to the first floor where are located a suite of committee and literature distribution rooms and the caretaker’s flat located above the Sunday School. An administrative area, located above the main entrance and foyer, contains the boardroom, clerk’s room and treasurer’s room.
\nDetails
\nAll architectural details are well finished and include steel framed windows and balustrades; terrazzo window sills, toilet partitions and floors in the entrance lobby, stairs, stair hall and bathrooms. Original fittings, fixtures, furniture and signage are retained throughout the building. Internal walls throughout are rendered and painted in a limited palette of light colours.
\n","history":"
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane (1940) is a two-storey masonry building located on the western end of North Quay in the Central Business District (CBD) of Brisbane. Erected as the result of the growth of the church in the first half of the 20th century, it continues to serve the needs of its congregation. Designed by noted Brisbane firm, Lucas and Cummings, Architects, the building is an excellent, intact example of their work and of modernist design. In 1950, the church was awarded the ‘Medal for Meritorious Architecture for Institutional Buildings erected in Brisbane between 1940 and 1949’ by the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA).
\nThe place is located within the traditional lands of the Turrbal People and Jagera People. During the 19th century, North Quay, running along a ridge beside the Brisbane River from Victoria Bridge (Queen Street) to River Road (Coronation Drive from 1937), was a mixed commercial and residential area including a number of elite houses. Along its course were the Supreme Court Building (between Adelaide and Ann Streets); commercial buildings (Smith’s Building – later Longreach Hotel – on the corner of Queen Street and North Quay, 1877-8; Helidon Spa Co building, between Skew Street and Eagle Terrace, removed 1897; Rankin & Morrow Biscuit Factory, 1896); and villas, houses and ‘cottages’, primarily on its western extent.[1]
\nThe area transitioned from predominantly residential use to government, commercial and institutional uses commencing around the turn of the century. Aubigny (originally Rosalie Villa, 259 North Quay) and William Douglas Grimes’ house (269 North Quay) were leased by the government 1900-04, then were occupied by the first Mater Hospital 1906-10, and subsequently became Loretto Hostel for Catholic girls.[2] Large residences such as Riversleigh and Davidson’s House were converted into boarding houses; and new boarding houses were constructed.[3] Later, houses were converted into flats.[4] In the 1920s the construction of the Grey Street Bridge, a major river crossing into the CBD from West End, brought land resumptions and road changes to the western end of North Quay, to facilitate traffic flow on and off the bridge.
\nThe interwar period was a time of enormous transformation of Brisbane’s CBD despite economic downturn in the immediate post-World War I years and the Great Depression from 1929 into the 1930s. A building boom between 1922 and 1928 and a wave of building activity from the mid- to late 1930s created new landmark buildings, extended and remodelled existing premises and spread business houses and warehouses into residential areas.[5]
\nThe development of the North Quay site of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane reflected this transformative trend, when, in 1939, two allotments on North Quay, both with substantial residences, were purchased for the site of its future church.[6]
\nChristian Science is a Christian denomination which places a strong emphasis on the Bible’s teachings for healing purposes. The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America in 1879 by influential American author, teacher and religious leader, Mary Baker Eddy, who is noted for her groundbreaking ideas about spirituality and health, which she named Christian Science.
\nThe church has no clergy and each branch is self-governing and elects its own officers, but complies with the Church Manual of ‘The Mother Church’ in Boston. An informal group of Christian Scientists can form into a Christian Science society or Church of Christ, Scientist, both of which are known as branches of The Mother Church. The society or church must comprise ‘at least 16 loyal Christian Scientists, four of whom are members of The Mother Church, and at least one member is a Christian Science practitioner’ (listed in The Christian Science Journal).[7]
\nEvery Church of Christ, Scientist conducts Sunday services; testimony meetings; a Sunday School for pupils up to age 20; operates a Reading Room where information about Christian Science is available to the public; and organises lectures by Christian Science lecturers.[8] Church services are conducted by two readers. These functions of the Church of Christ, Scientist determine the form of its church buildings.
\nInterest in Christian Science teachings started in several Australian colonies during the 1890s.[9] The earliest recorded meetings began in Melbourne in June 1898 while several people met in the Brisbane home of Mrs Eliza Caroline Dutton before September 1899.[10]
\nIn February 1901, meetings were held in Mrs Helen Scott Byrne’s home, Richmond Villa in Upper Roma Street, Brisbane; initially as a Christian Science organisation but soon afterwards as the Christian Science Society.[11] Mrs Byrne’s home became too small for services when attendees reached about 20, so the fledgling Society moved to the first floor of the Edwards Building in Adelaide Street at Petrie Bight, which could accommodate up to 100 people for services in its large room and had a smaller room for a Reading Room.[12] In December 1901 the Christian Science Society formed itself into the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane with Mrs Byrne as the First Reader and Mr J H Granger as the Second Reader. Within less than a year, there were about 60 people attending services.[13]
\nBy 1909 the Petrie Bight location was inadequate, so the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane took over a floor in the Brisbane Permanent Building and Banking Co Ltd’s premises at 139 Adelaide Street, between Edward and Albert Streets.[14] In 1915, the Church of Christ, Scientist was incorporated under the Religious, Education and Charitable Institutions Act, 1861 in Queensland.[15]
\nIn 1917, the church purchased a block of land at the corner of North Quay and Tank Street for a church building designed by Thomas Wightman.[16] The cornerstone of the First Church of Christ Scientist, Brisbane building was laid and stage one of the 300-seat building erected later that year.[17]
\nThroughout the 1920s the Christian Science movement expanded, with new branches and bigger churches opening, especially in suburban Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, as well as new groups meeting outside capital cities.[18]
\nBy 1930 the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane had outgrown its North Quay building, so Centennial Hall at 104 Adelaide Street was purchased for £16,500 and converted to accommodate 1000 people for services, while the Sunday School was held in a nearby cafe.[19]
\nDue to growth of the Christian Science movement in Brisbane, the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane formed, centred on the suburb of Clayfield. It built a church building in 1938 at Vine Street, Clayfield. This modernist building was designed by Robert Percy Cummings to suit the triangular site and to meet the particular spatial needs of the congregation.[20]
\nBy the late 1930s the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane again needed a larger church for its purposes. It purchased two allotments on North Quay to the west of its earlier site in c1939 (the Grimes’ house, which was part of Loretto Hostel) and in March 1939 (Crossen-an-Oder).[21] By April 1939 the house on the Loretto site was sold at public auction for removal.[22]
\nThe planning and architectural expression of Christian Science church edifices has been the subject of considerable discourse since the Mother Church in Boston was completed in the mid-1890s.[23] Autonomy in the choice of architectural design and the departure from long accepted church types was supported by the Christian Science movement from the outset. In its formative years, and in contrast to orthodox churches, the Church of Christ Scientist adopted a Neo-Classical expression. By the early 20th century, Christian Science churches were increasingly inventive and eclectic. Excellence in design and construction and the use of high quality materials were common to all. Increasingly the principles of Modernism were adopted to create distinctive places of worship where the architectural form developed from the planning and practical requirements of the Church.[24]
\nEarly examples of this evolution in design include the 1910 First Church in Berkeley, California designed by renowned architect Bernard Maybeck. Other outstanding examples, in the United Kingdom and Europe, include the First Church (1903) in Manchester England, an Arts and Crafts design by Edgar Woods; the First Church in The Hague, a modernist design by Hendrik Berlage (1925); Salvisberg’s First Church (1936) in Basel, and Hans Hofmann’s First Church (1938) in Zurich.[25]
\nThe development of Christian Science church architecture in Australia closely mirrored its overseas counterparts. Eminent architects were selected to produce high quality buildings with characteristic operational and functional features. In the first two decades of the 20th century, Neo-Classical designs were preferred. Melbourne’s First Church in St Kilda, designed in 1914 by Harold Dumsday of Bates, Peebles and Smart, and completed in 1922, has a temple-like form, Greek Revival elements and Byzantine influences. Sydney’s First Church, opened in 1927 in Darlinghurst, was built in a Beaux Art style and is a major work by Samuel George Thorp, one of the founding partners of Peddle Thorp Walker.[26]
\nBy the 1930s, a Modern aesthetic was being adopted in response to a growing global interest in Modernism, a movement in architecture that emerged in Europe in the 1920s. Modernism embraced the ideals of Functionalism, new technologies and the rejection of ornament in an endeavour to create new and appropriate architectural solutions that reflected the social conditions of the time.[27] Characteristics of the architecture these ideas produced included asymmetrical massing, simple geometric shapes, clean lines, steel-framed corner and strip windows, undecorated brick walls, flat cantilevered concrete awnings and low-pitched or flat roofs concealed behind parapets. One of the first examples of modernist architecture in Queensland was the Masel Residence in Stanthorpe (QHR 601552), designed by Charles Fulton in 1936. It received wide publicity and architectural acclaim and introduced many features of this new and influential architectural vocabulary to Queensland. Modern architecture symbolised progress, innovation, efficiency and economy, qualities that made it appealing in the post-depression era.
\nBates Smart McCutcheon designed the 1937 Moderne-Classical Second Church of Christ Scientist in Camberwell, which is strikingly similar to the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane.[28] In Perth, the First Church of Christ Scientist, an Art Deco building, was designed by the well-known architectural firm Ochiltree and Hargrave and is one of the most notable public buildings in Western Australia from the interwar period. In Adelaide, foundations were laid in 1916 for their First Church designed by Woods, Laybourne Smith architects, but this building was not completed until 1957.
\nAs the wide-ranging architectural expression of the Christian Science movement developed around the globe, there were operational and performance characteristics common to all, with several marked departures from the planning of orthodox churches and cathedrals. To allow all members of the congregation to hear the sermon and see the rostrum, a broader nave with much narrower aisles became necessary. Domes that interfered with acoustics were phased out; and a much larger foyer for congregating after services was required.
\nThe buildings, no matter how their exteriors were expressed, were functional and innovative, and adopted advanced acoustics, lighting and state of the art ventilation systems. A stately appearance was important and entrances porches were frequently made of fine materials such as marble or terracotta with three or five entrance doors. Interiors were skilfully composed, efficient, restful, and well-lit. The substitution of established ecclesiastical symbols with plants and flowers added to the creation of a comfortable environment. [29]
\nGood acoustics were paramount, as auditoriums were for listening and speaking, and contributed to the comfort of service attendees. Churches also needed to be well insulated from outside noise and shaped to complement this aspect of services. A large portion of the Sunday services consisted of reading from a dual pulpit in fixed positions, another aspect that church designers had to take into consideration.[30] Sunday School involved opening and closing exercises, with the Sunday School superintendent standing on a raised platform followed by instruction given in rooms or alcoves around the perimeter, and reassembly in the centre of the main room at the end of the teaching period.[31]
\nThe First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane in its current location on North Quay opened on 4 August 1940 with three special services during the day.[32] The cost of the building was about £20,000.[33] At this time it was described as follows:
\nA site of unusual shape has dictated the unorthodox plan adopted by the architects (Messrs FB Lucas and RP Cummings) in order to provide for the main activities of the church organisation. The imposing entrance from North Quay opens onto the main foyer from which all important sections of the building as accessible.
\nThe church auditorium is entered from one side of the foyer. A fan-shaped auditorium has been used for three reasons. Firstly, it provides good acoustical conditions and assists in the uniform distribution of sound. Secondly, it gives…[a] seating arrangement suitable for testimony meetings and lastly it fits well on the unusual site. Readers’ rooms etc are situated beyond the platform end of the auditorium and have a separate entrance from the side of the church. They are connected to the main entrance by a corridor along the side of the auditorium The corridor also acts as a sound shield to the main body of the building.
\nAt the end of the foyer, opposite the main entrance is a small suite of rooms for men ushers and [the] Love Committee (relief). Also a secondary entrance and ramp from May Street at the rear of the site. A large cloakroom with a broad counter is served directly from the main foyer.
\nThe Sunday School is placed on the opposite side of the main foyer to the auditorium, mainly in order to avoid any possibility of interference by sound transmission from one area to the other during services. It may be entered from the main foyer but the principal entrance is from outside, close to the main church entrance. Individual class rooms, superintendents and other rooms open off the Sunday School room. Entry [is] from the main foyer to a stair hall giving access the ladies’ room, administrative entrance, literature counter and a small rest room.
\nThe staircase ascends to suite of committee rooms, literature distribution room and the caretaker’s flat, all over the Sunday School; and to the administrative section comprising boardroom, clerk’s room and treasurer’s room over the main entrance to the building.
\nA dignified exterior relies for its effect on the well-proportioned main masses of the building and suitable treatment of detail. Walls are finished in cream brick and the main entrance emphasised by a colonnade treatment in artificial stone.
\nInternally a feeling of space and restfulness is gained by handling of large surfaces of colour in light tones.
\nThe auditorium walls are panelled eight feet high with [solid vertical boards] of silver silkwood. The timber pews of special design are in similar material. The auditorium is ventilated by a forced draught system of filtered air…. diffused artificial lighting is employed in the auditorium.
\nThe pipe organ … built by BB Whitehouse and Co Ltd [local organ-makers], is housed above the readers’ platform behind a wide grille, while the console is to the side of the platform in a well, out of sight of the congregation.
\nQueensland timbers and materials are featured…. [Most] materials and labour are of Queensland origin.’[34]
\nThe new building also incorporated the cornerstone of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane’s earlier church on the corner of Tank Street and North Quay.[35]
\nArchitects Frederick Bruce Lucas and Robert Percy Cummings were key figures in architecture in Queensland before and after World War II and had an affinity with the Modern movement. Their works were characterised by meticulous detailing and thoroughness in execution. These characteristics made their selection as architects for the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane, fitting. Cummings had previously designed the Second Church of Christ, Scientist at Clayfield, a commission he may have received due to connections to Christian Science through his mother-in-law.[36] For the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane commission, Cummings was responsible for the design and Lucas was responsible for the working drawings and contract documents. Cummings’ architectural training at the Architectural Association in London and subsequent travels provided him with the opportunity to study the work of European architects such as the Scandinavians and Dutch. He had a particular interest in and affinity with the work of Dutch modernist architect Willem Dudok.[37]
\nLucas and Cummings made a significant contribution to the architectural profession, devoting a major part of their careers to its advancement through architectural education (notably as foundation staff of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Queensland); as office bearers in the RAIA; and to increasing public awareness of architecture, urban design and art in Queensland. Brought into close contact through this work they set up practice in 1936. Despite limited opportunities to practice architecture in the 1930s-40s due to the Depression, World War II and post-war shortages, Lucas and Cummings produced a number of innovative projects. Individually and as partners they designed a small number of important buildings, some of which received awards for excellence in design and which were influential in the development of the post-war vernacular in Queensland.[38]
\nIn 1950 the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane was awarded the ‘Medal for Meritorious Architecture for Institutional Buildings erected in Brisbane between 1940 and 1949’, by the council of the Queensland Chapter of the RAIA.[39] Since then, the building has been identified as being of cultural heritage significance by the study entitled ‘Significant 20th Century Architecture, Queensland’ in 1988;[40] was entered in the Brisbane City Council Heritage Register; and in 2010 was included in a draft list of nationally significant places formulated by an Australian Institute of Architects National Heritage Taskforce. It is also included in the Australian Heritage Places Inventory.[41] In 2010 and 2011, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane participated in the Brisbane Open House event.
\nThe building is notably intact, a testament to its skilful design and execution and meticulous attention to detail. Only minor changes have been implemented in over 70 years of use as a Christian Science church. On the ground floor, the former cloak room has been adapted as a children’s nursery; the book room/reading room is now used as the clerk’s office; and the rooflight in the main foyer is now artificially lit. On the first floor, the caretaker’s accommodation is no longer used for its original purpose, but for storage. The roof sheeting has been replaced and toilet suites on the ground floor have been upgraded. Glazing in many of the south-facing windows, damaged in a 2014 storm, has been replaced. Artificial stone cladding to the entrance columns has been painted.
\nIn 2024, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane remains the largest Christian Science church in Queensland. The building fulfils its purpose of providing a place of worship by Christian Scientists where Christian Science services, testimonials, Sunday School classes and lectures can be conducted.
","criteria":"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane (1940) is important in demonstrating the development of the Christian Science church in Queensland during the 20th century. Built during a period of significant growth of the Christian Science denomination in Queensland, it is both representative of that growth and a distinctive example of a Christian Science church.
\nThe First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane is an important building in the evolution of architecture in Queensland. Designed by Lucas and Cummings Architects, leaders in all aspects of the architectural profession in Queensland in the first half of the 20th century, it demonstrates the influence of modernist architectural ideas and practices that developed initially in Europe and became the dominant trend in architecture from the mid-twentieth century.
|The First Church of Christ Scientist, Brisbane, is important in demonstrating the principal stylistic and operational characteristics of a Christian Science church from the early 20th century. It features: a stately exterior, and contrasting light and comfortable interior; a portico embellished with a fine finish; an entrance comprising three doors; a large foyer to foster sociability; dual access to a light, airy auditorium designed to maximise acoustics; mechanical ventilation and employed the latest available technology. The building has a Sunday School and offices for church business and the whole is devoid of ecclesiastical symbols.
\nThe First Church of Christ Scientist, Brisbane, exhibits a high degree of intactness and integrity which make it exceptional in illustrating the key attributes of a Modernist building in Queensland. The skilful organisation of its cubic massing determined by practical demands is clearly articulated through the asymmetrical composition, simple geometric shapes and clean lines of its external form. Steel framed windows, undecorated brick walls, flat cantilevered concrete awnings and low pitched roofs concealed behind parapets, contribute to this aesthetic.
|A bold modern design, the First Church of Christ Scientist, Brisbane, has aesthetic significance for its modernist architectural qualities. Abstract monumental elevations, rectangular and cubic massing, asymmetrical composition, simplicity and clarify of form, and an emphasis on horizontal lines create particular visual appeal, delight and interest. The refined design with decorative restraint in the external and internal form, furniture, fittings and detailing, employs exceptional quality materials and construction.
|The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane demonstrates a high degree of creative achievement through its architectural excellence and exceptionality. In 1950, Lucas and Cummings Architects received the ‘Medal for Meritorious Architecture for Institutional Buildings erected in Brisbane between 1940 and 1949’ from the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects for this building. Its creative achievement continues to be recognised by the architectural profession.
|The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Brisbane has a strong association with the Christian Science church in Queensland. Since 1940, the church building has served as a place of worship, teaching and meeting, for the largest congregation of the Christian Science church in the state.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650020,"name":"Newmarket State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"320 Enoggera Road","suburb":"NEWMARKET","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-02-05","description":"Newmarket State School occupies a 3.9ha site on the corner of Enoggera Road and Banks Street in the suburb of Newmarket, five kilometres northwest of the Brisbane CBD. The school buildings are located along the southern boundary, parallel to Banks Street, at the highest point of the school grounds, which slope down from Banks Street towards the north. A steep, rocky bank separates the school buildings from a playing field, which occupies the northwest portion of the grounds. The site is bounded by residential properties to the west and north, with a small section of the northern boundary adjacent to Kate Street and an entrance from Trackson Street. A former police reserve and house occupies the corner of Enoggera Road and Kate Street (now a private residence). The most prominent building on the site is a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A, 1934, extended 1947) which fronts Banks Street. Behind Block A is a block of 1950s timber classrooms (Block B, 1954, 55, 56), of which the central pair are an imported Boulton & Paul building. The school grounds contain a number of significant mature trees, and landscaping features include earthworks, assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, and paths.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (1934, toilet block extension 1947), Block A
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is a long, two-storey building, orientated east-west and set back from Banks Street, fronted by pathways, gardens and mature trees. Asymmetrical in plan, the main entrance is located at the western end of the building, occupying a gable-roofed projecting bay. A classroom wing extends to the east with a secondary entrance in a projecting bay at the end, and a two-storey 1940s toilet block extension forms the far eastern end of the block. West of the main entrance, the original building extends the width of one classroom, with a 1970s stairwell forming the western end.
\nOrnamented with a Arts and Crafts-style decorative treatment, the building is constructed from red face brick walls at ground level, which extend up to window sill height on the first floor. Above this, the walls are rendered in stucco. The base of the building is a plinth of darker brick capped with sloped brick coping. The gabled main entrance comprises an arcaded portico with three, semi-circular arched openings. The central opening is enclosed by a pair of wrought iron gates. Above the first floor windows, the main entrance gable is ornamented with horizontal and vertical pieces of timber to create a half-timbered effect, with a triangular section of terra cotta tiles at the peak. This half-timbering effect is repeated on the three other gables of the 1934 section. A horizontal band of render wraps around the building at ground floor window sill height. Render is also used to highlight the keystones of the three arched entrances of the front portico and lintels of ground floor doors and windows. The hipped and gabled roof is clad in corrugated metal sheeting, and the raked eaves are lined with timber.
\nOn the northern (rear) elevation, sections of keyed brickwork and a filled-in doorway indicate the location of planned extensions which never occurred. An original entrance door, accessed by concrete steps, is located at the eastern end of the classroom wing. A second entrance has been created from a previously filled-in doorway.
\nWindows openings are regularly spaced and contain sets of timber, three-light casement windows with rectangular, three-light fanlights above. Ground floor windows on the southern elevation are sheltered by timber-framed hoods with hipped, corrugated metal-clad roofs and supported by solid timber brackets. Hoods are also located over one window and the original doorway on the north elevation. Original timber entrance doors are generally high-waisted with timber ornamentation and panes of obscure glass in the upper section, with the exception of the main entrance double door, which has a larger area of glazing.
\nThe hip-roofed 1947 toilet block extension is constructed from matching bricks and is a similar (though plainer) style to the original building. It has two entrances in the eastern wall, accessed by concrete steps, with high-waisted, timber board doors with four-light windows of obscure glass. It has tall windows openings fitted with glass louvres, which are divided by a central mullion.
\nThe brick stairwell extension (1974) at the western end of the building is constructed from a different type of brick (of a brighter shade of red). While it does contain some early, relocated timber entrance doors, this stairwell is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nInternally, rooms are arranged along the southern side of the building, linked by a single long corridor on each floor. Two rooms are located on the north side of the corridors at the eastern end. A hall leads from the main entrance to the corridor and an original stairwell is located in the southeast corner. The ground floor contains six classrooms, two teachers rooms (on either side of the entrance hall) and a former hat room. The first floor contains seven classrooms, a teachers room and two former hat rooms. Several classrooms have been converted for use as office space and staff rooms, and the hat rooms enclosed for storage space. The 1934 stairwell has concrete stairs, metal balustrades with timber posts and top rails, and original timber doors.
\nInternal walls are generally plaster-lined with simple skirtings, and classrooms retain timber picture rails. One set of original timber folding doors survives between two classrooms on the ground floor. The location of removed folding partitions is indicated by surviving bulkheads in other classrooms. Original ceilings are lined with flat sheeting and ornamented by timber battens forming a grid pattern. Square ventilation panels survive in first floor classroom ceilings but are now enclosed. Original timber double-hung windows and double doors with large, three-light fanlights remain in the internal corridor walls. An early school bell is fixed to a bulkhead in the ground floor corridor, and an honour board and memorabilia from the former Newmarket High School are displayed next to the 1934 stairwell.
\nThe 1947 toilet block is accessed from the eastern end of the corridors. Each level has girls, boys and teachers toilets, in generously-sized rooms with high ceilings. Walls are plaster lined and ceilings have timber battens. Most original timber partitions and doors are retained.
\nNon-significant elements include modern carpet or linoleum floor linings, ceilings relined with modern flat sheeting or covered with ceilings panels, and added partitions.
\nBoulton & Paul Building (1954) with Department of Public Works extensions (1955, 1956), Block B
\nBlock B is a long, highset, timber-framed building with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. It comprises: a 1954 Boulton & Paul (B&P) section in the centre (two classrooms); a 1955 DPW-designed section at the western end (two classrooms), and a 1956 DPW-designed section at the eastern end (two classrooms, passageway, teachers room and store room). Orientated east-west, the building has a verandah along the northern side, accessed by three sets of timber stairs (one to each section).
\nThe exterior is clad in timber chamferboards. The B&P section is clearly distinguishable from the DPW sections by the breaking up of the external cladding by the edges of vertical timber boards between each panel of the prefabricated wall units. Large areas of windows line the southern wall of each section – timber awning windows to the B&P section and western DPW section; replacement aluminium double-hung sash windows with timber awning windows above to the eastern DPW section. Angled timber brackets support the roof overhang and the eaves are unlined. The end walls of the classroom level are windowless.
\nThe verandah has timber floors and large sections of bag rack balustrades. Part of the western end of the verandah is enclosed with chamferboard-clad walls, while the full extent of the verandah to the eastern DPW section is enclosed by chamferboards and areas of louvres above bag racks. Sections of early, horizontal timber rail balustrades survive in places, including to the western and central stairs. Original timber screens with square glass panes from the B&P section survive: two panels relocated to the far western end of the verandah, and one panel at the eastern end of the B&P section. The verandah ceilings are raked and lined with flat sheeting, with bulkheads between the B&P and DPW sections. The B&P section has exposed rafters aligned with joins in the wall panels. Verandah windows are timber-framed, double-hung windows with awning windows above. Surviving verandah doors include: half-glazed, timber double doors to the western DPW section and passageway of the eastern DPW section; and a half-glazed, single timber door to the B&P section.
\nThe interior of the B&P section is lined with panels of flat sheeting, without cover strips, on the walls and ceiling. Vertical members of the structural system are evident on the north and south walls, between pairs of windows. The dividing partition has been removed to form one large classroom, with its location evident in the ceiling lining. Non-significant interior elements include added partitions, modern cupboards and floor linings, and the kitchen fit-out.
\nThe interior of the western DPW section is similar to the B&P section, but without the expressed wall structure on the north and south walls. A large opening has been created between the two former classrooms, and the door to the enclosed section of the verandah has been removed.
\nThe interior of the eastern DPW section is not of heritage significance, due to substantial alterations to the building fabric, including the re-lining of all walls and ceilings and the creation of new doorways and large openings.
\nThe understorey has a concrete floor, brick toilet blocks at each end, and an exposed, unpainted ceiling revealing the floor structure of the classrooms above. The building is supported on a variety of stumps, including round metal posts, square concrete piers and timber posts to the verandahs. Some early seating remains within the space. A concrete retaining wall runs alongside the building, adjacent to southern side of the block, and a set of concrete steps provides access to the concrete playground to the south. A ramp added to the southern side of the eastern DPW section is not of heritage significance.
\nThe southern side of the understory has been enclosed to create storage space. An early, chamferboard-clad timber partition remains between the B&P and western DPW sections. A large mural, which includes a depiction of Block A, is painted along the northern wall of the enclosures.
\nGrounds
\nThe school grounds contain mature trees, including two large fig trees (ficus, sp.) along the Banks Street boundary, in front of Block A, and a row of four large fig trees and a kauri pine north of the tennis courts (along the former police reserve boundary), some of which, according to aerial photos, were planted prior to 1936. A mature Grey Gum (E. sp.) is located to the west of Block B.
\nThe area between Block A and Banks Street includes an early layout of pathways (now relined with concrete and bitumen) and a garden area that contains several memorials. A concrete panel, broken into two pieces and set into the gardens, features the metal lettering: ‘228’ and ‘NSS’.
\nExtensive views of the surrounding suburbs and the Brisbane CBD can be obtained from Block A and within the school grounds. Block A, famed by the large fig trees, is a prominent feature in the area.
\n","history":"
Newmarket State School (established 1904), located in the Brisbane suburb of Newmarket, approximately five kilometres northwest of the central business district (CBD), is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains an early Depression-era Brick School Building (1934, extended 1947) and a Boulton & Paul Building (1954, extended 1955, 1956) set within landscaped grounds including a playing field, assembly and play areas, paths, and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Newmarket community.
\nBy 1900, the Queensland Government had achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children. Beginning with National schools and the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education, Queensland’s national and public schools had grown from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875. Further standardisation of curriculum, training and facilities occurred when the State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction.[1]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. School facilities also provided a venue for a wide range of community events.[2]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, and standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation.[3]
\nNewmarket State School opened on 4 July 1904 with 135 children enrolled, four years after its School Committee had formed and 40 years after the site was reserved for school purposes.[4] The school comprised a timber school building and a teachers residence on nine acres (3.6 ha) on the corner of Banks Street and Enoggera Road. The occupations of the pupils’ parents in the enrolment register show the rural nature of the area – timber-cutter, dairyman, farmer, grazier, drover, horse-dealer and tanner.[5]
\nEuropean settlement of Newmarket commenced when country allotments were sold as farmland in the 1860s. In 1877 the Newmarket cattle saleyards, bounded by Enoggera, Newmarket and Wilston roads and Alderson Street, commenced operations. Two years later the Newmarket Hotel opened opposite, on the (southeast) corner of Enoggera and Newmarket roads. A post office to serve the district opened in 1888. The opening of a railway line to Enoggera from Mayne Junction in 1899, with a station at Newmarket, boosted suburban development.[6] A police reserve of one acre was excised from the School Reserve in 1900, [7] signalling growth of the area.
\nNewmarket State School continued to grow in conjunction with suburban expansion in the surrounding area and suffered serious overcrowding in the early 20th century. The Kelvin Grove tram along Enoggera Road reached Newmarket Road by 1904, promoting suburban and industrial development. Local employment was offered at sawmills and the Newmarket brickworks (1912-c1985). In 1911 Newmarket’s population was 721 people but two years later there were 419 children enrolled at the school. Further extension of the tram line along Enoggera Road, to a terminus at Banks Street in 1926, brought it right to the school and a shopping centre developed adjacent to the tram terminus.[8]
\nIn 1929, the suburb of Newmarket was described by The Sunday Mail newspaper as resembling ‘a prosperous country district [with] scrub-covered spaces, large residential properties, industries, cattle saleyards, and railway [giving] it the appearance of a country township of quiet importance…. [It] comprised undulating country, gentle slopes rising from rich, high-level flats, making the district admirably suited for home-building. The breeze-swept ridges command[ed] delightful views of the outlying purple-shrouded ranges to the north and west, the picturesque Enoggera Creek flow[ed] quietly through the greater part of the district’.[9] The population of the suburb was estimated at 4000 and attendance at the Newmarket State School was about 500 children.[10]
\nThe 1930s brought changes to Newmarket and its school. Further residential subdivision was promoted by the closure of the Newmarket Saleyards when they relocated to Cannon Hill in 1931.
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme using day labour and Queensland materials, to provide impetus to the economy.[11]
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work programme by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[12] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[13] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[14]
\nThe levelling and clearing of Newmarket State School’s grounds was an ongoing project during the 1930s. Past students recalled that men were employed on the excavation of the Newmarket State School oval and filling the gully, under the Unemployment Relief Scheme. In 1932, three men were given two day’s relief work clearing lantana and stumps from the school grounds.[15] A concrete cricket pitch was completed in 1932, laid down entirely by voluntary labour and was subsequently available for hire to the public.[16] Fundraising fetes and balls for the beatification of the school surroundings took place.[17] During 1933 the School Welfare Association raised £600 for school improvements.[18] In 1939 two new tennis courts were opened.[19]
\nHowever, it was the decision by the Department of Public Instruction to address the inadequacies of the school and its need for additional accommodation, by erecting an entirely new building, which transformed the school.[20] Subsequently, between 1933 and 1934 a new brick building was constructed at Newmarket State School, facing Banks Street.
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[21]
\nMany of the programmes have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry brick school buildings across the state. Most were designed in a classical idiom as this projects the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nThe construction of substantial Brick School Buildings[22] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Department of Public Works and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about the Depression-era Brick School Buildings. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment.[23]
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical layout and prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of previous timber buildings being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah or corridor on the north side, but little concession was made for this and almost all brick school buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft, where one existed, was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[24]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School Building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and preferences, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, aesthetic treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[25] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[26] The DPW architect involved in the design of Newmarket State School was Arthur J Moase.[27]
\nConstructed in three stages, it was intended that the first section of the Newmarket State School’s new brick building would be the nucleus of a building scheme to accommodate 1038 pupils. The complete scheme was to be:
\nof brick construction, two storeys in height, having an overall length of about 288ft [87.78 m], including the attached lavatory blocks at each end. The footings will be of concrete, the walls to the height of mould sill course will be faced brick, above which the brickwork will be rough-cast externally. Floors of porches, corridors and lavatory blocks will be of concrete and also the entrance steps and staircases. The floors of classrooms are to be sheeted with crow’s ash. The main roof and roofs of sunshades will be covered with galvanised corrugated iron, and the ceilings of all classrooms finished in fibro-cement. The dividing walls of classrooms etc will be of brick with the exception of those to four classrooms on each floor, where they will be wooden folding partitions to enable these rooms to be thrown into one room for assembly purposes. All walls internally will be finished in cement plaster. The front elevation is neatly relieved by projecting gables panelled in fibro-cement, and wide overhanding eaves and sunshades added to the appearance, while also the long roof is broken by a large octagonal fleche.[28]
\nThe ground floor will have … [12] classrooms … [and] two teachers’ rooms ... while the remainder of the floor space is taken up by hatrooms, corridors, lavatories, etc. The upper floor will contain … [13] classrooms … one teachers room … also corridors etc, corresponding with those on the ground floor.[29]
\nOnly the central and eastern portions of the overall plan for Newmarket State School’s brick building were completed in 1934, and the scheme was never completed in its entirety. Keyed brickwork on the external walls indicated locations where the building was planned to be extended at a later date (still visible on the northern elevation). This situation was not uncommon, and occurred with other public buildings designed to be constructed in stages. Some examples are the University of Queensland Medical School [QHR601167], the State Government Offices, Townsville [QHR 601385] and the Depression-era Brick School Building at Ipswich North State School [QHR650021].[30]
\nNewmarket State School’s new brick school building (now called Block A) was opened on
30 June 1934 by the Minister for Public Instruction (F A Cooper).[31] It was a two-storey masonry building, constructed from red brick with a darker brick base and pale stucco treatment to the upper floor. It had a hipped roof with gables over the entrances and a prominent ventilation fleche. The main entrance was through a portico with three round arches. Gables featured a half-timbered ornamental effect, utilising timber, fibre-cement panels and terracotta tiles. The building contained 13 classrooms, a head teacher’s office, and retiring rooms on both floors. Circulation was provided by an internal staircase at the eastern end and an external timber staircase attached to the western wall. Windows on the southern elevation were protected by terra-cotta tile-clad window hoods. Landscaping in front of the new building including a row of fig trees along the Banks Street fence line (two of which survive), and the laying out of pathways.[32]
Externally, Block A adopted an Arts and Crafts-style decorative treatment, reminiscent of early 20th century brick schools such as Ascot State School (1920), Windsor State School (1915, QHR 600991) and Wooloowin State School (1914, QHR 601565), giving it a domestic quality quite different to the more imposing Neo-Classical style brick schools from the Depression-era. With its half-timbered gables, round arches to the entrance portico, and lack of undercroft play space, Newmarket State School is most similar in plan and style to Mackay Intermediate School (now Mackay Central State School, QHR 601911), also completed in 1934.[33]
\nIn 1936, the 1904 timber school building was relocated on the site, nearer to the police reserve and perpendicular to Enoggera Road. A donation of £50 was made by a local resident for the building to be re-erected as an up-to-date hall suitable for school functions. It was handed over to the School Committee for this purpose in July 1937.[34] After the former school building site was cleared of its entrance pathway and ornamental trees to build tennis courts, a row of mature trees along the southern edge of the Police Reserve, including fig trees, became the only surviving remnant of the original school planting scheme.[35]
\nWorld War II contingencies had similar impacts upon Newmarket State School as on other Brisbane schools, but during that period the school gained improvements to its facilities. School tennis courts were opened in 1941 by the Minister for Public Instruction, H A Bruce,[36] and in 1944-5 a playshed was erected at a cost of £484, as Block A had no undercroft for this purpose.[37] In August 1945, the George Taylor Memorial Library was housed at Newmarket State School and opened by K J Morris, MLA.[38]
\nThe post-World War II period was a time of enormous population growth Australia-wide and was accompanied by a shortage of building materials. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[39]
\nAfter World War II the overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible. Queensland schools were faced with enormous overcrowding and a lack of resources. However, the Queensland Government and community saw education as a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget.[40]
\nAt Newmarket State School, additional classrooms were required to accommodate the growth in pupil numbers: 728 in 1954; 837 in 1956; rising to its peak of 919 pupils in 1958.[41] Although other brick Depression-era buildings were built in stages and completed as many as 10 years later, this did not occur at Newmarket State School, despite its accommodation needs in the post-World War II period. Extension of brick buildings was made difficult by material shortages, and by the 1950s Newmarket State School had already experienced this situation. In September 1945 the addition of a toilet block to the eastern end of Newmarket’s Depression-era Brick School Building had been authorised and an order placed for common and face bricks, but these had not been supplied ten months later.[42] The toilet block was finally constructed in 1947.[43]
\nInstead, in 1954 a timber Boulton & Paul Building[44] was constructed, comprising two classrooms (now called Block B).[45] Responding to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom, the Department of Public Works imported a British prefabricated building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. Based on an 8ft (2.4m) planning and construction module, the prefabricated elements in the Boulton & Paul system included wall panels, ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1952 and 1958.[46] Boulton & Paul buildings were timber-framed and clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were orientated so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The building could be high or low-set and had extensive areas of timber framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, providing excellent natural ventilation and lighting. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[47] The flexibility of the system meant that the number of classrooms constructed could vary to suit the needs of a particular school. In some cases, Boulton & Paul classrooms were used to form long, interconnected blocks, such as at Geebung State School (1951-55), Dalby State High School (1954) and Indooroopilly State High School (1953-54).[48]
\nThe Boulton & Paul building at Newmarket State School was located to the north of the Block A, aligned parallel to it and overlooking the playing field. The access stairs and verandah, which had glazed screen walls at either end, were on the north side of the building, and a retaining wall was constructed along the southern side of the partially-enclosed understorey. The walls were constructed from prefabricated units, 4ft (1.2m) wide, with those on the north and south sides containing large areas of windows. Units were pre-clad with chamferboards, with the edge of vertical timber boards between each unit visible on the exterior. On the interior, walls and ceilings were lined with flat sheeting.[49]
\nAs the school population continued to rise, more classrooms were required. Extensions to the Boulton & Paul Building were made in 1955 with two classrooms added to its western side. This extension was designed by the Department of Public Works to match the Boulton & Paul section, and illustrates the influence that the Boulton & Paul buildings had upon subsequent school building designs. Immediately after their introduction, DPW developed a standard building which was similar to the Boulton & Paul building but was constructed in the traditional manner. This type adopted many of the Boulton & Paul design features, such as a covered play space under the classrooms and the extensive areas of glazing, but became permanent structures. These architectural features became characteristic of a class of building which was the dominant school type constructed in the 1950s.[50]
\nThe 1955 extension utilised the same plan, dimensions and construction module as the Boulton & Paul section, however it is unclear if any pre-fabricated components were also used. As the walls were not constructed from pre-clad units the external chamferboard cladding had a more traditional appearance. The glazed screen wall at the western end of the Boulton & Paul verandah was relocated to the end of the extension and a doorway was inserted to link the adjoining classrooms of the two sections. Seating was provided in the understorey, which was partially enclosed by walls with areas of louvres. The retaining wall along the south side of the block was extended and a set of concrete steps linked the understorey to the playground behind.[51]
\nIn 1956 the building was extended again, on the eastern side of the Boulton & Paul building. It comprised two classrooms, a teachers room, store room, and a passageway linking the north verandah to the playground on the southern side. This extension also matched the design and dimensions of the earlier sections. Major changes were made to the understorey at this time, including the construction of brick toilet blocks at each end and a small store room, and the relocation of seating. The ground around the block was concreted and new sets of steps constructed between the different playground levels and to the rear of Block A.[52]
\nIn spite of these new additions, further space was required, and in 1956 the playshed was enclosed and converted for use as classrooms.[53]A tuckshop was constructed beneath the Boulton & Paul Building in the 1950s.[54]
\nOver the course of the school’s history, buildings have been added and removed to meet the school’s requirements. In 1958, temporary classrooms were moved to Newmarket State School from Junction Park State School and located near the teachers residence on Banks Street.[55] Also in 1958, the 1904 timber school building, which had been used as a hall for over 30 years, was sold for removal.[56] After the establishment of the Newmarket State High School in 1963, adjacent to and west of the State School in Banks Street, the temporary classrooms from Junction Park State School were used by the high school and removed after that school’s closure in 1996. In 1977 the teachers residence was demolished.[57] The c1945 playshed, next to the tennis courts, was demolished between 1987 and 1992. A recent shelter shed now occupies its former location.[58]
\nChanges to Block A include the removal of the roof fleche between 1961 and 1969,[59] and the addition of a brick stairwell to the western end in 1974, replacing external timber stairs.[60] In the 1990s, wrought iron gates, believed to have come from the Queensland Trustee’s Building in Queen Street, were recovered from the grounds, cleaned and erected in the main entrance portico. This followed requests in 1936 and 1940 from the school to Department of Public Instruction for assistance to erect pillars at the school’s entrance from which to hang the gates.[61] Alterations to the interior include the removal of all but one set of timber folding partitions, and the insertion of new partitions to some classrooms and office areas. Former hat rooms have been enclosed to form office or storage space, and some ground floor ceilings have been relined.[62]
\nBlock B has had some alterations over the years, however the central (Boulton & Paul) and western (DPW) sections remain fairly intact, apart from the enclosure of the western verandah end and modification to some internal partitions. Having undergone a series of renovations since 1999, the interior of the eastern (DPW) section has been heavily modified and is not considered to be of heritage significance. The understory has had further enclosures constructed along the southern edge.[63]
\nChanges to the school grounds have also occurred since WWII. These included the construction of stairs to the oval (the current concrete stairs date from the 1960s, replacing an earlier set).[64] Additions made to the Newmarket School Reserve when it increased to 8 acres 13.1 perches (3.27 ha) in 1963-4 included the extension of the playing field to its west, as part of works relating to the opening of the Newmarket State High school. Much of the bank excavated during the 1930s along the southern edge of the oval was removed or altered at this time.[65] New tennis courts and a shelter shed were completed between 2002 and 2004.[66] More recent buildings added to the school grounds are located along the Banks Street boundary and around former netball courts in the southeast corner. In the area in front of Block A’s entrance portico garden beds have been created, early paths have been paved or laid with bitumen, and several memorials have been established.[67]
\nAnniversary celebrations have been held by the school to mark its milestones. In 1954 for the school’s 50th anniversary the first school principal conducted a roll call of foundation students; a fancy dress ball for students was held with an attendance of nearly 1000 children and 500 adults; and a greeting card featuring an illustration of the school by H Williams was produced.[68] The 75th anniversary celebrations in 1979 involved publication of a school history, a recreated 1904 classroom and a festive event opened by the Governor of Queensland, Sir James Ramsey. 90th anniversary celebrations were held in 1994. For the school’s centenary in 2004, a comprehensive school history was published.[69] Recently painted murals depicting Block A are located within the school grounds (beneath Block B) and on a bus shelter on the corner of Enoggera Road and Banks Street (Newmarket Air Raid Shelter, QHR 602482).
\nIn 2015, the Newmarket State School continues to operate from its original site. It retains its 1934 Depression-era Brick School Building and its 1954 Boulton & Paul Building with DPW extensions, set in landscaped grounds with tennis courts, playing field and mature shade trees. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. Since establishment, Newmarket State School has been a key social focus for its community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
Newmarket State School (established 1904) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a representative example of a standard, government designed Depression-era Brick School Building (1934, extended 1947) that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, and a Boulton & Paul Building (1954) with Department of Public Works-designed extensions (1955, 1956) that were a response to acute building shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period; set in landscaped grounds with earthworks, assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, paths, and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building and landscaping of the school grounds are the result of the State Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building, a type that was imported from Britain in the early 1950s, demonstrates the introduction and adoption of prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government during a period of rapid school expansion to cope with a large increase in student numbers. The Department of Public Works-designed extensions demonstrate the influence of Boulton & Paul buildings on subsequent Department of Public Works school designs.
|Newmarket State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising a Depression-era Brick School Building and a Boulton & Paul Building with Department of Public Works-designed extensions.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is a good, intact example of its type. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Depression-era brick schools, including: its two storey form; high-quality design with ornamental features from one of a variety of styles; face brick exterior; and prominent entrance bay. The building plan comprises a typical linear layout of classrooms, offices and store rooms, accessed by single long corridor. The toilet block extension (1947) is complementary to the 1934 building and respects the scale and design intention of the original plans.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building is a good, intact example of its type, and clearly demonstrates the characteristics of a prefabricated building through the expression of its modular construction of 4ft (1.2m) wide wall panels. Other characteristic features of this type include: its timber-framed, lightweight construction; gable roof; verandah for circulation, with glazed screens at the ends; large areas of glazing to the north and south walls; classroom size of 24ft by 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m); and flat internal wall linings.
|Through its substantial size, high quality materials, face brick exterior, elegant formal composition and decorative treatment, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Newmarket State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, which evoke the sense of progress and permanence that the Queensland Government sought to embody in new public buildings in that era.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Standing on an elevated site and framed by mature fig trees, it is an attractive and prominent feature of the area. Extensive views of the surrounding suburbs and of the Brisbane CBD are obtained from within the building.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nNewmarket State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1904 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Newmarket children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Newmarket and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650021,"name":"Ipswich North State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"9 Fitzgibbon Street","suburb":"NORTH IPSWICH","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-02-05","description":"Ipswich North State School occupies a prominent site located in the predominantly residential suburb of North Ipswich. The school is bounded by Fitzgibbon Street to the north, Downs Street to the west, the former school residence and tennis courts to the south, and residences along Pine Street to the east. The heritage register boundary encompasses the western portion of the allotment (1.32ha); an area consistent with the 1871 school reserve and defined by two level rectangular platforms surrounded by concrete retaining walls (1934-37). Facing Fitzgibbon Street, the prominent Depression-era Brick School building (Block A, 1934-37) is situated on the northern platform and makes an important visual contribution to the streetscape, and is a landmark for the area. The southern (lower) platform comprises a large playing field with perimeter shade trees.
\nDepression-era Brick School building (Block A, 1934-37)
\nBlock A is a substantial, classically-detailed, two-storey masonry structure, with an undercroft. The building is L-shaped in plan and comprises three sections: a symmetrically arranged range (1934) with projecting entrance bay to the front (north) elevation; a single storey extension to the east (1934); and a double storey wing, with undercroft, to the west (1937) that projects from the front elevation. The hipped roof is clad with terracotta tiles. A modern wing (Block B) is connected to the southeast of Block A and is not of heritage significance.
\nThe building is elegantly composed, with load-bearing face brick walls and rendered decorative elements to the first and second floors; and a rendered base finished to resemble channel-jointed ashlar. The face brick is primarily red and has contrasting pilasters of a dark brown brick, which have simple, rendered capitals. The projecting entrance bay features a gabled pediment over a central first floor doorway, which has a rendered aedicule and is accessed from a landing flanked by stairs. The pediment is supported by pilasters and a circular accent vent with rendered surround is centred on the face brick tympanum. The projecting gabled wing to the northwest features similar classical detailing but is narrower and without external stairs; as are the two pedimented bays that frame the south elevation of the range.
\nThe interior layout of the central range is symmetrical, with face brick stairwells at the east and west ends flanked by enclosed landings (former hat rooms) that are used for storage and offices. Verandahs (enclosed c1952) on the northern side access the first and second floor classrooms. There are three (formerly five) classrooms to the first and second floors, with modern concertina doors inserted to form a narrow utility space with sink on each floor. The classrooms have plaster walls with picture rails, timber-framed floors covered with modern carpet, and flat sheeted ceilings with timber battens. The classrooms retain original partition bulkheads and latticed ceiling vents, which indicate the original layout. The projecting entrance bay has a central hallway flanked by reception and a sick room to the first floor, and a teachers’ room and computer-server room to the second floor. The first and second floors of the western wing have two rooms each separated by a central hallway that is a continuation of the verandah. A vertical vent (1952) is retained in the office adjacent to the western stairwell, on the second floor.
\nThe building retains much of its original timber-framed joinery. Windows to external walls are predominately banks of tall narrow-sash casements with fanlights, set between the face brick pilasters. Windows to the face brick verandah walls are double-hung sashes with fanlights and concrete sills. Classroom doors are low-waisted panelled timber with fanlights. Joinery has been removed to form openings in the face brick walls to the first floor hallway in the west wing. The verandahs have been enclosed with banks of awning windows. The verandah floors are concrete, covered with modern vinyl. Early sinks are retained at the eastern end of the verandahs.
\nThe undercroft level has a perimeter of rendered piers and walls and is primarily open play-space. The central piers are face brick that have been painted with bright colours and murals. Bathrooms are located at the east and west ends. They retain original layouts and v-jointed (VJ) timber lined partitions. The floor is concrete and the area under the western wing has outlines for hopscotch and other games inscribed into the slab. Timber bench seats are situated between the perimeter piers.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established and the sloping site has been terraced to form two level platforms with school buildings and a parade ground to the north, and sporting facilities on the lower platform to the south. Both platforms are surrounded by Depression-era concrete retaining walls with concrete surface drains and silt pits.
\nThe northern platform (1934) is roughly square in plan and features a centenary memorial entrance gate (1967) on the corner, at the intersection of Downs and Fitzgibbon Streets. Concrete stairs, centred on the northern and western retaining walls, also provide access from the street. Block A is prominently sited on the platform, set back from Fitzgibbon Street behind a symmetrically arranged landscaped area with garden beds and a semicircular concrete pathway. A parade ground to the south of the building has a bitumen surface with line markings for a basketball court. A row mature fig trees (Ficus sp.) is situated in a grassed area to the west of the parade ground. Concrete stairs punctuate the retaining wall between the north and south platforms, which is painted with murals.
\nThe level playing field on the southern platform has a cricket pitch to the centre and shade trees to the perimeter. There is a row of mature figs on the eastern side, figs and a silky oak (Grevillea robusta) to the west, and a mature fig to the south. Concrete stairs in the southern retaining wall (1937) provide access to the former tennis courts below (outside the heritage register boundary).
\nThe school is sited on a rise, and the elevated position and terraced nature of the site affords opportunities for views to and from the surrounding area. The substantial-sized Block A is a prominent feature of the streetscape and is a landmark for the area.
\nOther structures
\nElements within the registered boundary that are not of cultural significance include: Block B and adjacent modern storage block; modern amenities and landscape features; and modern partitions and joinery.
\n","history":"
Ipswich North State School, located east of Downs Street and south of Fitzgibbon Street in North Ipswich, opened in 1867 as North Ipswich National School, to accommodate the growing population of North Ipswich. In the mid-1870s the school was divided into a Boys School and a Girls and Infants School, which were reclassified as state schools c1876. In 1935 the two schools combined to form Ipswich North State School, housed within a Depression–era Brick School Building (constructed 1934, extended 1937). The school includes terraced grounds, retained by concrete walls which were built around the Brick School Building and its parade ground in 1934 and around the lower playground in 1937. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nNorth Ipswich is an early suburb of the city of Ipswich, which was initially known as Limestone.[1] After the penal settlement closed in 1839, and free settlement began from 1842, Limestone was renamed Ipswich, and developed as a river port for pastoralists on the Darling Downs. Ipswich became a municipality in 1860, and was proclaimed a part of the port of Moreton Bay the same year.[2]
\nNorth Ipswich’s development accelerated from the early 1860s. The area north of Lawrence Street, around the later site of Ipswich North State School, was subdivided in 1864;[3] by which time an immigration depot existed on the North Ipswich side of the Bremer River.[4]
\nMany of the immigrants arriving at the North Ipswich depot were destined to work on Queensland’s first railway. Construction of the Southern and Western Railway commenced with a ceremony in North Ipswich on 25 February 1864.[5] The first section, to Grandchester, was opened in July 1865 and passed through the site of the current railway workshops in North Ipswich [QHR 601526]..[6]
\nThe development of Ipswich and North Ipswich soon led to schools being established. In pre-separation Queensland, education was provided initially by fee-charging religious schools and private academies. They catered principally for children in the main population centres of Brisbane and Ipswich.[7] A more organised approach to education commenced with Governor Fitzroy’s appointment of a National Board of Education in 1848. The Board established and administered schools where parents contributed one-third of the building costs and guaranteed an average attendance of at least 30 pupils.[8] Schools were opened in Warwick (1850), Drayton (1851) and Brisbane (1859).[9] Following separation from New South Wales in late 1859, the Queensland Government introduced the Education Act 1860, which created a Board of General Education to oversee the development and administration of schools in the colony. The number of public or national schools increased from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[10]
\nTwo national schools, each sub-divided into separate schools for boys and girls, were established in Ipswich in the early 1860s: in Brisbane Street (Ipswich); and Omar Street (Little Ipswich, now West Ipswich State School, QHR 600606). In 1864 these schools had an total average daily attendance of 201 and 103 pupils respectively,[11] and by April 1865 there was a movement to establish a national school in North Ipswich, where a building had already been hired for teaching local children.[12]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[13]
\nAt a meeting of local residents in the North Ipswich immigration depot in April 1865, a Mr Fitzgibbon moved that a primary school of the vested class be founded under the Board of General Education. Mr Hawthorne, of the Ipswich Grammar School (established 1863), stated that ‘seeing there had been such a large influx of population to North Ipswich on account of the important works [the railway] now going on, it was time a school was established.’[14]
\nThe site of the National School (No.61) at North Ipswich, on an allotment of over 2 acres (0.8ha) that was granted by the Government (the current site, east of Downs Street, and south of Fitzgibbon Street), was arranged in March 1867 by R Macdonnell, the Inspector General of Schools, and the school was later opened by Macdonnell on 1 July 1867.[15] However, the school site was not officially gazetted until 1871, when 3 acres and 30 perches (1.3ha), was gazetted a Reserve for a National School.[16]
\nThe school originally operated from a timber building, divided into separate rooms for the boys and girls, which was ‘very pleasantly situated on an eminence commanding a fine view’.[17] The initial enrolment was 26 pupils, but this rose to an attendance of 90 by September 1867.[18] In the 1860s North Ipswich was mostly thick bush, and pupils who rode to school kept their horses in a paddock fronting Lawrence Street.[19]
\nThe North Ipswich National School expanded and was reorganised in the 1870s. In the mid-1870s it was divided into the North Ipswich (or Ipswich North) Boy’s School No.61, and the North Ipswich (or Ipswich North) Girls' and Infants' School No.246.[20] In September 1875 the Girl’s and Infant’s school had 186 pupils enrolled and 141 pupils present, while the Boys School had 111 enrolled and 74 present.[21] By June 1876 the Boys School was in its own building, while the Girls and Infants School had two buildings.[22] The two schools became state schools, under the State Education Act 1875, which provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. [23]
\nEnrolment at the two schools reflected the continued development of North Ipswich. By the late 1870s, businesses in North Ipswich included a sawmill (Reilly),[24] the Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company (operational 1877, at the east end of The Terrace), and Ipswich Gas and Coke (operating from 8 The Terrace from 1878). [25] The railway workshops also continued as a major employer. A brick Railway Store Building [QHR 600604] was built in 1878-79, and in 1884 new railway workshops were built further north, two blocks northwest of the North Ipswich schools.[26] In 1887 it was reported that North Ipswich was rapidly advancing, with new houses near the new workshops, plus a police station and barracks and a Post and Telegraph Office built within the preceding year.[27]
\nThe Boys School and Girls and Infants School at North Ipswich continued to expand from the 1880s, with additional buildings added to each. [28] In 1907 a tender for a new teacher’s residence was accepted,[29] and in 2015 this was still located to the south of the school, fronting Lawrence Street.
\nIpswich also continued to grow. It was declared a city in 1904, and by 1910 it had a population of 10,000. At this time there were 22 coal mines near Ipswich, including at Tivoli, north of North Ipswich.[30] Businesses in North Ipswich by this time included Arthur Foote’s joinery works, the Pommer Brothers’ North Ipswich Ice and Butter factory (still extant, 9 The Terrace), and FE Barbat & Sons, Engineers.[31] During World War I, the railways workshops employed 1600 men.[32]
\nBy 1933 a decision was made to combine the boys, girls and infants schools into one new, multi-storey building. That year, the railway workshops had 1300 employees (down from 2400 ‘not long ago’),[33] the Boys School had an enrolment of 231, and the Girls and Infants School had an enrolment of 293.[34]
\nThe new school building was a result of a Government initiative to boost employment. The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work programme by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[35] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[36] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[37]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[38]
\nMany of the programmes have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry brick school buildings across the state. Most were designed in a classical idiom as this projects the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nThe construction of substantial Brick School Buildings (type E/B1)[39] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Queensland DPW and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about the brick school buildings designed in the 1930s. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment. [40]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all Depression-era Brick School Buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions. [41]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[42] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[43] The drawings for the new school at North Ipswich (1933) are initialled F.T.J (drawn and traced), presumably Frederick Thomas Jellet, born in 1898, trained in Victoria and employed by the Queensland Department of Works as a temporary draftsman in the 1920s.[44]
\nDuring 1934 the new Brick School Building at North Ipswich was constructed on the site of the old timber Girls and Infants school, facing Fitzgibbon Street. During the 1933-34 school holidays the northern wing of the latter was relocated to a site ‘between the main body of the girls school and the playshed’, to be used for classes during construction of the new school.[45]
\nBy April 1934 work on the new building was well in hand. Concrete retaining walls, approved in November 1933 at a cost of £1768,[46] were also nearly completed. It was stated by the Under Secretary of the Department of Public Works (G M Colledge) that the school would ‘be one of the most modern schools in Queensland, incorporating all the latest ideas for accommodation’. It was also reported that ‘a considerable amount of relief work has been used in the preparation of the site’.[47] A foundation stone was laid on 8 June 1934, by F A Cooper, the Secretary for Public Instruction.
\nThe new building at Ipswich North State School had two storeys and an undercroft, was rectangular in shape and was designed in a Neo-classical style. It had an estimated cost of £12,900, and would accommodate 432 pupils in 11 classrooms, with possible extensions to accommodate up to 752 pupils.[48] The roof was terracotta, with a prominent fleche, and a septic tank system was provided.[49] Plans from November 1933 show that most of the undercroft was a play area, flanked by stairwells, lobbies and infants’ lavatories, with one-storey lavatory blocks at each end (boys in the western block, girls in the eastern). The first floor had five classrooms, with cloakrooms and stairwells at each end, and a teachers’ room and head teacher’s office either side of the vestibule in the projecting entrance bay. The second floor had five classrooms between the cloakrooms and stairwells, with a teachers’ room and sixth classroom in the projecting entrance bay. The centre three classrooms on each floor were separated with folding partitions rather than walls, and could become large assembly rooms. The plans show that the first and second floors had an open verandah running along the northern side of the classrooms.[50]
\nConcrete retaining walls and concrete surface drains surrounded the new building, creating a platform, with proposed tennis courts at the rear corners of the platform and stairs to the north, west and south. [51]
\nThe new Brick School Building was ready for use by the 1935 school year. The Boys School and Girls and Infants School both closed at the end of 1934,[52] and moved into their new building in 29 January 1935. Ipswich North State was officially opened on 4 May 1935 by F A Cooper.[53]
\nHowever, there was still a need for further student accommodation. The second section of the school, to accommodate 160 pupils, was approved in August 1936. This had an estimated cost of £2388, and was added at the west end of the existing building by mid-1937.[54] The addition, built above and to the north of the western lavatory block, consisted of two classrooms each on the first and second floors, and a play area (north of the lavatory block) on the ground floor. The new classrooms were separated by a continuation of the northern verandah of the main building. [55] At this time the old wing from the Girls and Infants School, which had been used as a kindergarten, was moved to elsewhere on the grounds.[56] Retaining walls, approved in August 1936 for £2136,[57] were added around the lower playground and the school’s tennis courts (located at the southern end of the school’s grounds) c1936-7.[58]
\nThere were some minor changes to the school during the 1940s. In 1942, during World War II, air raid trenches were dug in the lower playground,[59] and between the mid-1940s and mid-1950s the school committee grassed the oval and planted trees along Downs Street.[60] The mature figs (Ficus sp.) along the eastern and western borders of the lower playground appear to date from this period. However, some trees extant today predate World War II, including the fig trees located just south of the west end of the Brick School Building, and one fig tree at the south end of the school, just north of the residence. [61]
\nBy 1947 the railways workshops in North Ipswich employed almost 3000 people,[62] and Ipswich North State School continued to expand in the 1950s. The northern verandahs of the Brick School Building were enclosed with groups of nine awning windows after 1951;[63] a ventilation shaft was installed from the infant boys' lavatory to the roof, through the cloakrooms, in 1952;[64] and a room (probably the front classroom on the second floor) was converted into a library in 1955.[65] A new two-storey brick and metal wing with two classrooms above a play area (Block B in 2015) was added to the rear of the eastern end of the Brick School Building (Block A in 2015) in 1957.[66] This was completed in January 1958, and was opened 27 August 1958.[67]
\nAfter 1958 the school grounds also expanded, beginning with land acquired southeast of Block B by 1969.[68] Land was also obtained in 1973, fronting Fitzgibbon Street to the east of the school.[69] By 1974 the grounds covered 2.7ha, including land east of the school residence on Lawrence Street, and land fronting Pine Street; and by 1977 the school covered 2.9ha, with additional Pine Street frontage.[70]
\nAlthough the school grounds expanded, local employment was shrinking. The functions of the railway workshops were progressively moved to Redbank between 1965 and 1995,[71] and the school’s enrolment declined over this period, falling from 600 in 1967 to 275 in 1989.[72]
\nHowever, changes continued at the school. A memorial archway and plaque was erected at the corner of Downs and Fitzgibbon Streets for the school’s 1967 centenary. In 1971 a typists’ room and staff room were established, in the projecting entrance bay of the first and second floors respectively;[73] and in 1977 the two first floor classrooms of the 1937 extension became a library and storytelling room, with the joinery removed from door and window openings onto the verandah and window openings enlarged to the floor. By this time there was a work room and store in the former western cloak room of the first floor, and a ‘work and storeroom’ in the former eastern cloakroom.[74]
\nBy 1991 a tuckshop and storeroom existed on the ground level of the projecting entrance bay;[75] and by 2000 the classrooms on the first and second floors of the 1934 section had been reconfigured to form three classrooms, instead of five, on each floor. There were also storerooms in the former cloakrooms of the second floor, and a ‘teacher aid’ area in the former eastern cloakroom of the first floor. The projecting entrance bay on the second floor contained a staff room in the original classroom, and a health room in the original teachers’ room.[76]
\nA school dental clinic opened to the east of the original school reserve, on Fitzgibbon Street, in 1978, and a Preschool building was constructed fronting Pine Street in 1991.[77] Other modern additions to the school have included covered play areas and Special Education buildings. A war memorial, consisting of a sandstone boulder and flagpole, was built between Block A and Fitzgibbon Street in 2004.
\nThe school grounds have contracted in size since 2000. Land was sold on Pine Street in 2003, reducing the school size to 2.6ha, and the tennis courts and the 1907 residence on Lawrence Street were sold in 2014. The school grounds now cover 2.3ha.[78]
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Depression-era Brick School Building and retaining walls dating from the 1930s, with terraced grounds and mature trees. The school is important as a focus for the surrounding community and generations of students from the area have been taught there. Sunday markets are held on the school’s lower playground. Enrolment in 2012 was 126; rising to 215 in 2014. [79]
","criteria":"Ipswich North State School (established in 1867 as North Ipswich National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent example of a government designed Depression-era Brick School Building (built 1934, extended 1937), which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with retaining walls (1934-37) and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building and landscaping of the school grounds are the result of the State Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression
\nIpswich North State School is also a result of the population growth of North Ipswich, which was the site of Queensland’s first and principal railway workshops (1864-1995), employing thousands of people. North Ipswich has the most imposing state school building in Ipswich, reflecting the past importance of the suburb.
|Ipswich North State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school built during the Depression era. The school comprises a Brick School Building constructed to a government design and a landscaped site that retains Depression-era retaining walls, assembly and play areas, a playing field with cricket pitch, and mature trees.
\nThe substantial Depression-era Brick School Building is a highly-intact, excellent example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. The principal characteristics it demonstrates include: its two storey form, with an undercroft; face brick exterior; high-quality design with classical influence and detailing; central range symmetrically arranged around a projecting entrance bay; and terracotta-tiled hipped roof. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed by verandahs, and an open play space and toilet facilities in the undercroft.
|Through its substantial size, high quality materials, face brick exterior, elegant formal composition and decorative treatment, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Ipswich North State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, which evoke the sense of progress and permanence that the Queensland Government sought to embody in new public buildings in that era.
\nThe building’s assertive massing, classically-influenced design, and elegant composition contribute to its dignified streetscape presence, and contrast with the surrounding small-scale residences and commercial premises. Prominently sited and set within terraced grounds comprising two level platforms articulated by Depression-era concrete retaining walls, the building is a landmark for the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nIpswich North State School has a strong and ongoing association with the North Ipswich community. It was established in 1867 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of North Ipswich children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of North Ipswich and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
\n","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650022,"name":"Ithaca Creek State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"49 Lugg Street","suburb":"BARDON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-02-05","description":"
Ithaca Creek State School occupies a large site within the hilly terrain of Bardon, a residential suburb northwest of Brisbane CBD. Facing Lugg Street to the west, the sloping site is bounded to the north, south and east by residential properties. The school is accessed from Lugg Street, with additional entrances via Dacca and Grace Streets (north) and Primrose Terrace (east). The school comprises a complex of buildings and structures, the largest of which is a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A; 1934-36), located in the northwestern corner of the site, addressing Lugg Street. Other important elements within the school grounds include various retaining walls (c1930s and pre-1960), a parade ground to the east of Block A, two tennis courts and a Tennis Shed south of the Block A, a war memorial at the northern end of the Lugg Street entry garden, a WWII Honour Board in the entry foyer of Block A, and mature trees.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (Block A; 1934-36)
\nBlock A is a symmetrical, masonry structure of two storeys, with an undercroft level. A tall copper fleche projects above the tiled, hipped roof and houses the school bell. The building is U-shaped in plan, arranged around an eastern parade ground, and comprises: a range (1935) running north-south; with two lateral wings, the northern (1934) and southern (1936), running perpendicular on a west-east axis. The ends of the northern and southern wings project from the front elevation.
\nThe building is elegantly composed with classical detailing. Constructed from load-bearing face brick walls, it has rendered decorative elements on the ground and first floors, and rendered walls and piers that resemble channel-jointed ashlar to the undercroft level. Red-brown face brick walls in a stretcher bond are relieved with brown face brick pilasters in an English bond. The pilasters have simple, rendered capitals. A two storey bay, projecting from the western side of the central range, frames the main entrance. It is topped by brick parapets – with the section over the central pediment being the tallest – and a large, rendered pediment. The pediment is supported by pilasters and two tall, painted concrete columns. It features the words ‘STATE SCHOOL’ within its entablature and a rendered circle is set on face brick within the tympanum. The centred front door is framed by rendered detailing and has “ITHACA CREEK” written in the aedicule. A stone, set within the wall north of the front door, commemorates the foundation date of the building, 19 May 1934, and the name of the person who laid the stone, Hon. FA Cooper (the then Secretary for Public Instruction).
\nThe interior layout of the building is symmetrical, with the northern and southern wings mirrored; and the ground floor layout approximately repeated on the first floor. The entrance bay comprises a ground floor foyer, centrally located between northern and southern office spaces, and two first floor offices. It is aligned with the range’s central stair, which is flanked to the north and south by storage rooms and classrooms. The northern and southern wings have three large classrooms (formerly four) on the ground and first floors; terminated at the eastern end by storage rooms and enclosed stairs. The classrooms throughout the building retain bulkheads that indicate the original layout of dividing partitions. Most classrooms and offices have plaster walls, timber-framed floors covered in modern carpet, and flat sheeted ceilings with dark-stained timber battens. Skirtings are generally wide and plastered, and most rooms retain timber picture rails. Stairs are of painted concrete and have metal and timber balustrades.
\nCorridors, along the western side of the range, and verandahs (now enclosed), along the parade ground sides of the northern and southern wings, provide access to the classrooms and offices. They have polished concrete floors and their plaster ceilings are flat, with those on the first floor featuring dark-stained timber battens. Verandahs have face brick balustrades, and early sinks are retained at their eastern ends.
\nThe undercroft level is accessed via the central stair and is largely open play-space. Toilets are located at the eastern ends of the northern and southern wings, a tuckshop (former woodwork-classroom) encloses the western end of the northern wing, and a storage room encloses the western end of the southern wing. The undercroft has a concrete slab floor. Timber framing is exposed in parts of the range’s ceiling, and some early corrugated metal ceilings within the northern and southern wings are retained. The piers are stop-chamfered.
\nEarly timber joinery is retained throughout the building, including: tall casement windows (to the exterior); double-hung sash windows (to the verandahs); and panelled timber doors. A set of early timber folding doors is retained in a classroom on the ground floor of the northern wing, which is rare. Most windows and doors retain their awning fanlights and early window and door hardware. Modern aluminium windows (1979) enclosing the verandahs are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, with sporting facilities including a generous playing field (1932) at the southeastern end of the site, and two levelled tennis courts (1939, one recently resurfaced as a multi-purpose court) with a timber Tennis Shed (pre-1946) to the south of Block A. The Tennis Shed is located south of the western tennis court; and is lowset, sheltered by a corrugated metal-clad hip roof, and clad with a single-skin of timber weatherboards. It comprises a western store room and an open eastern space, separated by a panelled timber door, set within a timber wall, which is lined with wide timber boards above door head-height, and v-jointed (VJ) boards below door head-height. Metal hooks are retained at the door head height, and a timber seat is built into the southern wall of the eastern space. Window openings have corrugated metal-clad hoods with timber brackets.
\nMany mature trees are located within the school grounds, including a large fig tree (Ficus sp.) southeast of the tennis courts.
\nThe sloping site is terraced by several Depression-era concrete retaining walls. These are located: along the Lugg Street boundary; between Lugg Street and Block A; north, east and west of Block A (including underneath a 2009 two storey brick building); at the northeastern end of the playing field (c1930s); and in between the school buildings and playing field (pre-1960). Concrete stairs (c1930s) between Block A and tennis courts provide access between the terraces. The terraced nature of the site provides opportunities for views of the surrounding area from within the school grounds and buildings.
\nThe parade ground (1934-36) east of Block A allows significant views to be obtained of the building’s eastern elevation (its recent surface of bitumen is not significant).
\nAn Honour Board (1947) is located in the foyer of Block A, listing the names of former students who served in World War II (WWII).
\nA painted concrete WWII memorial (erected after 1954) is located northwest of Block A and is dedicated to the Rats of Tobruk. It is of a stepped, art-deco design, with metal crosses fixed to the highest tier; and stands on a stepped plinth. The memorial displays the crest of the Rats of Tobruk Association, and a plaque with the words, ‘This is hallowed ground for here lie those who died for their country. “At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them” – Lest We Forget – ’.
\nOther Structures
\nOther buildings, structures, pathways, swimming pools, modern partitions, modern joinery, and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Ithaca Creek State School (established 1885), located in the inner Brisbane suburb of Bardon about four kilometres northwest of the central business district (CBD), is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains a Depression-era Brick School Building (1934-6), constructed as a Depression-era work project, which is an aesthetically-pleasing landmark in the streetscape; and landscaped grounds including retaining walls (c1936 and pre-1960), a parade ground (1934-36), tennis court (1939) with Tennis Shed (pre-1946), a playing field (1932), a World War II (WWII) memorial dedicated to the Rats of Tobruk, and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with its surrounding community.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[1] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[3]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[4]
\nLand in the vicinity of Ithaca Creek State School was first surveyed in the 1860s, but not auctioned as suburban lots until 1870. Ithaca Divisional Board, incorporating the area between Enoggera and Windsor, was established in 1880. By 1884 a country postal receiving office operated at Ithaca Creek to serve the small community.[5]
\nIn the same year, the community petitioned the Minister for Public Lands to reserve land for a school at Ithaca Creek and soon afterwards a one hectare site (Portion 826B) was reserved for this purpose.[6]
\nIthaca Creek State School opened on a sloping site fronting Lugg Street, Bardon, on 28 September 1885, with a timber school building to accommodate 60 pupils. By December of that year 103 boys and 85 girls were enrolled with, on average, 66 boys and 55 girls attending.[7]
\nThe district continued to grow and in 1887 Ithaca Shire was formed from Ithaca Division. It comprised about one tenth of the former division (11.5 sq km), included Paddington, Bardon and Red Hill, and had a population of about 10,000 residents.[8]
\nFurther growth in the area took place, resulting in the creation of the Town of Ithaca, which replaced the shire in 1903. This development was promoted by the establishment of Brisbane’s electric tram network after 1897, which extended from Roma Street to Enoggera Terrace, via Musgrave Road while a second route travelled along Caxton Street and Given Terrace. In 1925 the municipality of Ithaca was incorporated into Greater Brisbane.[9]
\nIthaca Creek State School grew in synchrony with this development, but its grounds needed work. In 1926 a school committee formed to improve the school grounds to meet modern ideas and provide better equipment for sporting activities. It created a scheme for extension and improvement of the school grounds, which at the time were under 2.5 acres (1.01 ha) and extremely rough, resulting in the children playing on the roadway in front of the school. The scheme embraced the extension of the school grounds, and the provision of septic tanks, swimming pool, gymnasium, library, tennis court, and basketball courts. The first step was the filling in of a gully in the grounds.[10]
\nOver the next six years, the committee provided over £550 and the Government provided approximately £410 for purchase of land. As a result the grounds trebled in size to create a total area of approximately 7.75 acres (3.14 ha) with purchase of land to the south and southeast of the school reserve creating access from Grace Street and Primrose Terrace.[11] This expansion was achieved despite the onset of world-wide economic depression.
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme using day labour and Queensland materials, to provide impetus to the economy.[12]
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work programme by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[13] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[14]
\nExtensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[15] In mid-1932 unemployed men working under the government’s relief scheme were employed at Ithaca Creek State School levelling its newly-purchased grounds.[16] The Hon Mr R Hill, MLA told a gathering of parents in June 1932 that Department of Public Works’ ‘expenditure on improvements to the school and its grounds, and expenditure under the intermittent relief scheme had totalled £2121, from 1929 to 1932. In addition, £800 had been approved for relief work at the school, and £126 for the purchase of additional land, making a total of £3047 for three years, or an average of £1000 a year’.[17]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[18]
\nMany of the programmes have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry brick school buildings across the state. Most were designed in a classical idiom as this projects the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nIthaca Creek State School was one of the approximately 30 schools chosen for the addition of a Brick School Building to replace its earlier timber building. The construction of substantial Brick School Buildings (E/B1) in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Department of Public Works and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about these Depression-era Brick School Buildings. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment.[19]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all Depression-era Brick School Buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[20]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were based on contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, aesthetic treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[21] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[22] Other DPW architects involved in the design of Ithaca Creek State School were Nigel Laman Thomas and Harold James Parr.[23]
\nIn 1934, stage one of Ithaca Creek State School’s Brick School Building commenced with construction of the north, lateral wing, of the planned U-shaped building comprising a range and two wings, located on the original school reserve. Construction was carried out by the Inspectorial and Construction Branch of the DPW.[24] The Department of Public Works Annual Report to 30 June 1934 reported the building as follows:
\nIthaca Creek SS, Brisbane: Erection. Estimated Cost, £9,388 (In progress) This building, which is the first section of a scheme to accommodate 1,000 pupils, is constructed of brick with concrete foundation and fibrolite slate roof. The portion of building which is now under construction is of two storeys with basement under. Each floor provides for four classrooms of (40) pupils, giving a total accommodation for 320 pupils, also for cloakroom, and connecting 8ft 6in corridors and concrete staircase. The basement floor [undercroft] comprises lavatory recommendation for girls for the whole school and has play area, fitted with seats and drinking taps. A sewerage system will be installed.[25]
\nThe foundation stone was laid by the Minister for Public Instruction, F A Cooper, on 19 May 1934.[26] The first section was occupied in October 1934 and the next two stages constructed in 1934-5 (range) and 1935-6 (southern wing); both works supervised by the Inspectorial and Construction Branch of the DPW.[27] Concrete retaining walls to the north, south and east were built by the DPW in conjunction with this work.[28]
\nA photograph dated 30 June 1935 shows the Depression-era Brick School Building, with the first two stages – the northern wing and range – completed, and a prominent roof fleche projecting from the centre of the range. Housing the main entrance to the building, a symmetrical, two-storeyed entrance bay projected west from the range, and featured a stepped parapet, and a pediment supported by large columns and pilasters. Pilasters on the elevation had simple, rendered capitals. Casement windows were located between pilasters in the western elevation of the range and in the entry bay, and had awning fanlights.
\nWith all three stages completed, the Depression-era Brick School Building (now called Block A) was officially opened on 21 March 1936 by the Minister for Public Instruction (F A Cooper) who commented that:
\nthe building was part of an undertaking to supply the best possible facilities for education, which were so necessary if Queensland was to keep pace with the rest of the quickly progressing world…. The cost of the building to date is £28,663. It has three wings, providing room for more than 1000 children. Some 800 to 900 pupils are on the present roll. The school is installed with all modern conveniences, broad corridors, spacious, airy, and well lighted classrooms and offices and a septic tank system.[29]
\nA bell was installed in the roof fleche after June 1936.[30]
\nImprovements to the school grounds continued after completion of Block A. The Ithaca Creek State School Committee in March 1936 was raising money for improvement of the sports oval and the laying down of two tennis courts, two basketball courts and other improvements to the 7.5 acres (3.04 ha) of school grounds.[31] In March 1938 The Courier-Mail newspaper reported that the committee had spent £700 on ground improvements.[32] The Minister for Health and Home Affairs (E M Hanlon) opened a tennis court at Ithaca Creek State School on 3 June 1939, commending the school committee for buying adjoining land to provide a cricket and football oval for the boys; and ‘congratulated the relief workers who had done much to improve the school grounds’.[33] A hipped-roofed Tennis Shed, with an eastern opening, existed on the site by 1946 to the south of the western tennis court.[34] A further 8879sqm of land, located to the south of the Lugg Street school reserve, was purchased c1950 (Lot 889 SL1899).[35] The parade ground was sealed in 1969. [36]
\nBlock A underwent modifications in 1949 to convert part of the first storey for use as domestic science classrooms, a visual education room, and teachers room. A manual training room was built in the understorey and later converted into a tuckshop.[37] In 1979 the verandahs of Block A were enclosed with aluminium windows.[38] A metal-framed, concrete walkway was added as a connection to the southern wing of the Block A when a two storey brick building was constructed in 2009. To facilitate this connection, an aluminium-framed door replaced a north-facing window of Block A.[39]
\nOver the school’s history, a number of buildings and structures have been added and removed from the site. These include: the original timber school building (1885, extended 1886, 1888, 1900, 1928, removed 1968); a teachers residence (c1885, removed 1915); a playshed (1889, removed pre-1946); an Open-air Annexe (1915, removed after 1924); a Tennis Shed (pre-1946); a Hawksley Building (1953, demolished c2008); a swimming pool to the east of Block A (1964); grandstands and night lighting for the pool complex (1971) a pre-school centre (1975); a hall (2005, enclosed 2009) with attached outside school care building (2011); a two storey brick building with undercroft (2009); a one storey brick teaching learning centre with undercroft (2010); and a one storey classroom building (2013).[40]
\nIthaca Creek State School has a long history of community involvement – from social dances in the 1930s; to fundraising for the school pool from the 1930s to the 1960s, with lamington drives, ‘brick’ cards and penny miles; to the present day’s functions and events.[41]
\nThe school community’s involvement with world events is also acknowledged. An Honour Board (1947) commemorating those who served in WWII (1939-45) hangs in the foyer of the Block A. A WWII Memorial (erected after 1954), commemorating the Rats of Tobruk, who during WWII defended Tobruk in North Africa against the Axis powers between April and December 1941, stands to the northwest of the front (west) lawn of the school.[42] Constructed as a small replica of a monument built in 1941 by Australian Divisional Engineers in the Tobruk Cemetery, Libya, the memorial is of a stepped, art-deco design and stood on a stepped plinth. Metal crosses feature at the highest tier of the memorial, with the Rats of Tobruk Association’s crest above a plaque on the lowest tier.[43]
\nIthaca Creek State School has marked the anniversaries of its establishment with three school histories published conjunction with: its 75th anniversary, its centenary, and its 120th anniversary. The Ithaca Creek school community also celebrated this latter milestone by building a new hall and holding an anniversary weekend.[44]
\nIn 2015, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains the Department of Public Works Depression-era Brick School Building set in landscaped grounds with tennis (multipurpose) courts and Tennis Shed, playing field and mature shade trees. The school is important to the area, having been a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. Since establishment, Ithaca Creek State School has been a key social focus for its community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
\n","criteria":"
Ithaca Creek State School (established 1885) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent example of a government designed Depression-era Brick School Building (1934-36), which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with retaining walls, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building and landscaping of the school grounds are the result of the State Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nA World War II (WWII) Honour Board (1947) located in the foyer of the Depression-era Brick School Building and a WWII Memorial commemorating the Rats of Tobruk (post-1954) sited in front of the school building are important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in WWII. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Ithaca Creek State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. The school comprises a Depression-era Brick School Building constructed to a government design and a parade ground used as an assembly and play area. These elements are set within a generous, landscaped site that retains mature shade trees, Depression-era terraced retaining walls, and sporting facilities including a playing field and tennis courts with a Tennis Shed.
\nThe substantial Depression-era Brick School Building is a highly-intact, excellent example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type, including: its two storey form, with an undercroft; symmetrical, high-quality design that features classical detailing; loadbearing face brick construction; hipped roof; and prominent and central roof fleche. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed by verandahs and corridors, and an undercroft used as an open play space. Typical of this building type, the Depression-era Brick School Building was located in a growing suburban area at the time of its construction.
|Through its substantial size, high quality materials, face brick exterior, elegant formal composition and decorative treatment, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Ithaca Creek State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, which evoke the sense of progress and permanence that the Queensland Government sought to embody in new public buildings in that era.
\nThe building’s assertive massing, classically-influenced design, and elegant composition contribute to its dignified streetscape presence, and contrast with the surrounding small-scale residences.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nIthaca Creek State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1885 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the community and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650023,"name":"Junction Park State School","alternate_name":"Thompson Estate State School (former)","street_address":"50 Waldheim Street","suburb":"ANNERLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-05-06","description":"Junction Park State School occupies a 2.2ha levelled site within the residential suburb of Annerley, approximately 4km south of the Brisbane CBD. The site faces, and is primarily accessed from, Waldheim Street to the south; and is bounded by Gowrie and Harewood streets (north), residential properties (north, east and west) and the Annerley Library (fronting Ipswich Road, west). The school comprises a range of buildings and structures; with the most prominent being a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A; 1936), located at the southeast end of the site. A complex containing two early swimming pools (1910 and 1929) and timber stands (pre-1944) is located to the northeast of Block A, as are three brick toilet blocks (1934). Other important elements of the school include various Depression-era retaining walls at the west end of the grounds (c1935), an oval west of Block A, and mature trees.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (Block A; 1936)
\nBlock A is a symmetrical, masonry structure of two storeys, with an undercroft. A tall fleche projects above the tiled, hipped roof. The building comprises a range, running west-east, with two short lateral wings at the eastern and western ends, running south-north. A two storey bay (with undercroft) projects south from the centre of the range and frames the main entrance to the building. It is accessed by two sets of L-shaped stairs leading from the Waldheim Street to an entrance loggia, which has three brick archways and a concrete balustrade of large square piers and decorative balusters. Additional entrances of concrete stairs diagonally project from the northern elevation at the junction of the range and lateral wings. These stairs have metal balustrades and enclosed, one-storey, face brick landings.
\nThe building is elegantly composed with classical detailing. Constructed from load-bearing face brick walls, it has rendered decorative elements to the first and second floors, and a rendered base that forms the undercroft level. The red-brown brick walls of the first and second floors are laid in a stretcher bond, and are relieved with pilasters – rendered on the front elevation and English-bonded, brown face brick on the northern elevation. The pilasters have simple, rendered capitals. Along the front elevation, tiled window hoods with decorative timber brackets shelter the first storey windows; and two face brick projections protrude from the eastern and western ends of the range. The projections and entry bay are topped with rendered parapets, and rendered string courses run the length of the elevation. A foundation stone is set within the wall east of the entry bay, at the understorey level. Rendered detailing on the entrance bay includes ornamental scrolls, and the words ‘JUNCTION PARK STATE SCHOOL’ in raised lettering. A gabled pediment on the northern side of the range has a face brick tympanum, which is rendered at its apex and has a centred, rendered accent circle.
\nThe interior layout of the building is symmetrical. The ends of the range are terminated by stairwells and store rooms (former cloak rooms), and are flanked by toilets and store rooms (also former cloak rooms) and classrooms in the lateral wings. Aligned with the entry bay and in the centre of the range is a first floor foyer, centrally located between eastern and western office spaces, and a second floor classroom and office. Leadlight fanlights are located in the foyer; featuring the words ‘JUNCTION PARK’ below the school’s crest, with the school’s house symbols to either side. A timber board listing the names of the school’s principals since 1888 is also located in the foyer.
\nThe remainder of the range, on both the first and second floors, comprises classrooms. Most classrooms throughout the building retain original partition bulkheads, which indicate the original layout, and latticed ceiling vents are retained on the second floor. Most classrooms and offices have plaster walls, timber-framed floors covered in recent carpet or linoleum, and flat-sheeted ceilings with timber battens. Skirtings are generally wide and plastered, and most classrooms retain picture rails. A raised timber stage has been constructed in a classroom at the eastern end of the first floor.
\nA timber honour board (1915) is located in the same classroom. It is stained dark brown and has a decorative frame that is stained in a lighter brown and has turned vertical supports. Featured at the head of the board is a photograph of a soldier, surrounded by the words, ‘1915; HONOUR BOARD; OUR BOYS SERVING AT THE FRONT; JUNCTION PARK STATE SCHOOL,’ and leaf patterns painted in gold. Below this are the names of 86 former students who served in World War I, also painted in gold.
\nStairs are of polished and painted concrete, and their balustrades have timber handrails and metal balusters with timber posts. At the landing level between the undercroft and first floor, there are decorative metal screens in the openings to the stairwell.
\nVerandahs along the northern side of the range provide access to the first and second floor classrooms and offices. They have painted concrete floors and their ceilings are flat, with those on the second floor featuring timber battens. The brick balustrades have rendered copings, with concrete drains channelled along their base; the central sections are plastered and enclosed with early windows. Recent lightweight partitions enclose most ends of the verandahs to enlarge the lateral wings’ classrooms, and are not of cultural heritage significance. A large, metal school bell is attached to the western balustrade of the first floor verandah. Its bracket is marked with ‘JPSS, 1888’ in raised letters.
\nThe undercroft level comprises open play-space, a modern tuckshop and storage space, with enclosed classrooms and storage spaces in the lateral wings. It has a concrete slab floor, with floors in some enclosed spaces covered in recent linoleum and carpet. Most ceilings are of flat sheeting, and timber framing is exposed within the range and the western wing. The piers are stop-chamfered, and timber seats supported by metal brackets are attached to some piers.
\nEarly timber joinery is retained throughout the building, including: tall casement windows (to the exterior); double-hung sash windows (to the verandahs); arched casement windows (to the eastern and western range projections); panelled doors on the first floor; low-waisted French doors with arched fanlights (to the entrance bay); a high-waisted timber panelled door (to the tuckshop, 1953); and an interior French glazed door (between classrooms on the second floor). Most windows and doors have early awning fanlights; and most windows retain their early hardware with winding mechanisms. All rendered elements have been painted.
\nSwimming Pools (1910, 1929) and Timber Stands (pre-1944)
\nThe swimming pool complex includes two rectangular, in-ground, concrete swimming pools and timber stands. The 1929 pool has slightly rounded corners. The complex is enclosed by early face brick and perforated concrete block walls to the south and east, a corrugated metal-clad timber-framed fence to the north, and a recent, face brick, changing room structure (2003, not significant) to the west. The oldest and smallest pool is the 1910 swimming pool, which runs on a north-south axis, measures 13m x 4.9m, and is located west of the perpendicular, 1929 swimming pool, which measures 23m x 7.6m. Both pools have tiled edges and concrete pavers around them. The stands comprise tiered, timber-framed seating that allow for the viewing of the 1929 swimming pool. The stands are sheltered by a metal-framed roof (1989) that is not of cultural heritage significance.
\n\n
Toilet Blocks; Boys, Girls and Infants (former, 1934)
\nThe boys, girls and infants toilet blocks are all one storey, rectangular, face brick structures that have corrugated metal-clad Dutch-gable roofs, V-jointed (VJ) timber soffits, and long axes running east-west. Triangular, timber ventilation panels are located within the gable apexes. Entrances to the blocks are from the northern and southern sides, and are screened by facebrick walls that have rounded corners at the entry points. Variance in brickwork colour indicates where some of these screens have been extended; in some cases, both in length and height. The brickwork of the exterior walls is exposed internally (some have been painted). The floors are concrete (with modern linings) and the ceilings are lined in VJ timber. Window openings are timber-framed and have tall sill heights. Most internal partitions have been altered and toilets have been replaced by modern units – these are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, and the formerly sloping site has been terraced to the west of Block A by several Depression-era concrete retaining walls that form levelled platforms. These retaining walls are located: west of Block A (running north-south), along the west, northwest and southwest boundaries of the oval, and along the western boundary of the site.
\nMany mature trees which appear to predate 1936, including some large figs (Ficus spp.), are located within the school grounds along the southern boundary of the site and the northern edge of the oval, plus individual mature trees are located south of the 1929 swimming pool, and north of Block B and the former infants toilet block.
\nOther Structures and Elements
\nAn early concrete plinth is set on a square concrete base south of the swimming pool complex.
\nModern partitions, joinery, buildings and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Junction Park State School opened on its present site in 1891 as the Thompson Estate State School, to accommodate the growing suburban population of a previously rural district on the southern outskirts of Brisbane. Junction Park State School retains two early swimming pools (1910, 1929) and a Depression-era Brick School Building (1936) with associated concrete retaining walls (c.1935) and brick toilet blocks (1934). Set in landscaped grounds with mature shade trees, the school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nThe Junction Park State School is today located in the suburb of Annerley, part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people. Annerley was originally part of an area called ‘Boggo’, which ran from Dutton Park to Rocky Water Holes (later Rocklea).[1] The Junction Hotel, established at the junction of Boggo (now Annerley) Road and Ipswich Road in 1866, was the beginning of a township at that location, known as Boggo until being renamed Annerley in 1892.[2] Local farms, surveyed in the late 1850s, were replaced by suburbs from the late-19th century, due to the area’s proximity to South Brisbane. Development was facilitated by construction of the Corinda-South Brisbane railway in 1884 and the extension of an electric tram service from Woolloongabba to Dudley Street (south of the Junction Hotel) in 1899. The tramline was later extended south to Cracknell Road (north of Yeronga Park) in 1914.[3]
\nThe sale of suburban allotments in the Thompson Estate, east of Ipswich Road and west of Norman Creek, between O’Keefe Street in the north and Victoria Terrace in the south, from 1881, led to calls for a local school.[4] By the mid-1880s the nearest schools were at Yeronga (opened as Boggo Primary School in 1871), Coorparoo (1876), and Dutton Park (1884).[5]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[6] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[7]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[8]
\nFrom 30 April 1888 the Thompson Estate Provisional School No. 514 was conducted in a rented four-room cottage in Oxford Street (now between the Pacific Motorway and Norman Creek). A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of General Education gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local committee provided a building and found a teacher, and the Board paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils. If the district or town developed, provisional schools were raised to state school status, with purpose-designed school buildings and teacher residences attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers. The school, under Mrs Kathleen Barry, initially had 52 pupils, rising to 173 by December 1888. In January 1889 James Joseph Dempsey (head teacher of the school until 1923) replaced Mrs Barry, and upon reaching 200 pupils the school was moved to a hall in Regent Street (west of Oxford Street) in August 1889.[9] The school became Thompson Estate State School in January 1891.[10]
\nWhile pupil attendance was rising, a permanent site for the school was being sought, alongside community fundraising to obtain one-fifth of the cost of a school as required by the government. In mid-1888, William Stephens (1857-1925), MLA, and chairman of the Thompson Estate school committee, asked the Stephens Divisional Board if it would object to the Queensland Government resuming some land for a school. As a result, five acres (2ha) of land east of Ipswich Road (not including land adjacent to Ipswich Road, which remained a recreation reserve) was donated by the Stephens Divisional Board, although there was some disagreement from a rival school committee over the location.[11] The land was reserved for state school purposes on 19 July 1890.[12]
\nBetween October 1890 and March 1891 a teacher’s residence was built at the west end of the school reserve, and a timber school building was constructed further east, on the site of the current brick school building. Between the residence and the school were two small lagoons, on the site of today’s oval.[13] At this point Waldheim Street was only a track, which was included in the school grounds until the grounds were properly fenced in 1923.[14]
\nThe new school and residence cost £1818. The high-set timber school building was occupied on 31 March 1891.[15] The school had been designed to accommodate 280 pupils, but 425 turned up on the first day.[16] Several extensions to the building followed between 1893 and 1900.[17] The name of the school also changed to Junction Park State School in 1892.[18]
\nThe grounds at Junction Park State School were initially rough and unfenced. The first Arbor Day was celebrated at the school in May 1891, and 12 of the trees planted were supplied by the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.[19] Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[20]
\nAlong with built additions and tree planting, the area of the school also increased. The school grounds were expanded northwards from the 1890 school reserve, largely thanks to the efforts of Dempsey. Residential allotments along Gowrie Street (formerly Ferndale Street), between Harewood Street (formerly Alfred Street) and the eastern end of the school reserve, were gradually acquired.[21] A residence on Lot 117 became the school caretaker’s residence (removed by 1941). A tennis court was opened in 1908 near Gowrie Street, on some of the recently acquired land, and a second court was added in 1913.[22] By 1934 all but three residential allotments – the two closest to Harewood Street (lots 106, 107) and one between B Block and the 1910 pool (lot 115), had been purchased.[23] Lots 107 and 115 were later incorporated into the school grounds, which reached its maximum size of 7.2 acres (2.9ha) by 1982. This included the addition of 23.3p (589m2) of land to the east end of the original reserve in 1958.[24]
\nAs well as tennis courts, other sports facilities were constructed at the school. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. A cricket pitch was created on the school grounds by 1894, after previously being played on a paddock south of the school reserve. In 1908, the school’s military cadets benefited from the establishment of a miniature rifle range at the east end of school grounds. The targets were on the other side of the creek, with the shots passing over the heads of Chinese market gardeners on the creek flats.[25]
\nAnother sports facility constructed was a swimming pool, the first of its kind in a Queensland state school. Junction Park State School was already involved in swimming as a sport, using a local waterhole and a dammed section of Ekibin Creek, until a case of typhoid led to a change of venue from the creek to the Peel Street Baths in South Brisbane. Once a water main was extended to Gowrie Street, it was possible to have a swimming pool in the school grounds. Work commenced on a concrete pool in October 1909. By this time the school had an average attendance of 615, out of an enrolment of 700 pupils.
\nMeasuring 43ft by 16ft (13m by 4.9m), and 3ft 6in to 4ft 3in (1m to 1.3m) deep, the pool was built by Messrs Wells and Bennett of Woolloongabba, and was opened by WH Barnes, the Minister for Public Instruction, on 5 February 1910. One end of the galvanised iron enclosure around the pool was roofed and partly enclosed as dressing rooms. Most of the £175 cost was raised by the school committee, with £80 provided by the government for a ‘recreation shed’ (since it was not policy to fund swimming pools). JJ Dempsey, writing 10 years after he had finished as head teacher at the school, considered the pool to be a memorial to four young students of the school (boys aged 6 and 7) who had drowned at Baynes’ Paddock (Stones Corner) in a flooded waterhole in February 1890.[26]
\nAs enrolments continued to climb, a new building for infants was opened on 22 June 1911, northeast of the main school building. A King Poinciana was planted as a ‘coronation tree’ the same day, to commemorate the coronation of King George V.[27] In October 1913, when the school had an average daily attendance of 800, a two storey infants school building was added to the southeast of the 1911 building. This was named the ‘Denham Infant School’, after the Premier, DF Denham (who was also chairman of the school committee).[28] That year the school was also connected to the main sewerage system, with toilets to the north of the main school building.[29]
\nSoon after, World War I affected Junction Park State School. By December 1917 the school’s honour board (possibly multiple boards) listed 300 former pupils who were ‘serving at the front’, with 30 having died.[30] An honour board, dated 1915 and located in the former assembly room on the first floor of the Depression-era Brick School Building in 2016, has 86 names.
\nChanges continued at the school, to accommodate the educational needs of the growing suburb. Annerley became a thriving business precinct in the early 20th century, and between 1911 and 1921 its population grew from 1203 to 2642.[31] By 1923 a housing estate stood immediately to the south of the school. A new timber block of three classrooms (Block B) was built north of the main school building, near Gowrie Street, c1924.[32] There are references to a ‘new wing’ being opened at the school in 1925 (when there were nearly 1000 pupils in daily attendance), and this may refer to Block B.[33]
\nOther changes in the 1920s included a new, larger swimming pool. The school committee raised funds from c1926, and the new pool, located just east of the 1910 pool, was built by Hornibrook and Co, who had tendered for £690, from December 1928. Completed in early February 1929, the concrete 75ft by 25ft (23m by 7.6m) pool, with 7in (18cm) thick reinforced walls, ranged in depth from 3ft to 7ft (0.9m to 2.1m). A fete was held at the school grounds in September 1929, to liquidate the remaining debt on the pool. The old pool was retained for infants and non-swimmers. [34] By 1934 there was a brick wall around the pool and by 1944 tiered seating had been constructed. The concrete blocks on top of the brick wall post-date 1944.[35] A small concrete plinth south of the 1929 pool is of unknown date and purpose, but may be a flagpole base.[36]
\nThe 1930s brought major changes to the built fabric of the school. The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[37] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[38] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[39]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building program included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[40]
\nMany of the programs have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry brick school buildings across the state. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nThe construction of substantial brick school buildings[41] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Queensland Public Works Department and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about the brick school buildings designed in the 1930s. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment.[42]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all Depression-era Brick School Buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[43]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[44] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[45]
\nA brick school building (Block A in 2016) for Junction Park State School was requested by the school committee in June 1934, approved in December 1934, and completed by June 1936. The central wing of the old timber school building was removed, while two other wings remained in place to the north and south of the new building, to allow teaching to continue during construction.[46] Three new brick toilet blocks – one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants – plus a septic system, were constructed in 1934, for £3400, to complement the new brick school building.[47]
\nIn June 1935 the building ‘in progress’ had an estimated cost of £20,560. It would contain twenty-one classrooms to accommodate 860 pupils, with the possibility for future extensions to provide for 1,020 pupils. The building was to be constructed of brick with an asbestos cement slate roof. The basement comprised a concreted play area and secondary entrances. The ground floor contained a main entrance portico to the south, entrance porches to the northern façade, ten classrooms, cloakrooms, a head teacher’s office and a male teachers’ room; and the first floor contained eleven classrooms, cloakrooms and a female teachers’ room. Three classrooms on each floor were provided with folding partitions, to enable them to be converted to large assembly rooms.[48] The building plans were drawn by Frederick Thomas Jellett, who had been articled with the Victorian Public Works Department and engaged by Queensland Public Works as a draftsman in 1920. Jellett’s name also appears on drawings in the 1930s for extensions at New Farm and Ascot, and for Ayr and Ipswich North Schools.[49]
\nThe symmetrical building, with classical detailing, addressed Waldheim Street, with a range running east-west, terminated by stairwells (and cloak rooms on the first and second floors), with more classrooms in the lateral wings at either end of the building. The classrooms were accessed by a rear (northern) verandah and all but four had windows to the south. The remaining four classrooms projected to the rear in the lateral wings, and had north windows. Classroom ceilings were battened with lattice vents on the second floor. Three classrooms to the east of the entrance bay on both the first and second floor were divided by folding doors. The remainder were divided by solid masonry walls with connecting double doors. Verandah floors were concrete. Entry was via a two storey bay (with undercroft) that projected south from the centre of the range and framed the main entrance to the building. The bay was accessed by two sets of L-shaped stairs leading from Waldheim Street to an entrance loggia, which had three brick archways and a concrete balustrade of large square piers and decorative balusters. To the rear, two stairs with porch landings projected diagonally from the junction of the range and lateral wing on the first floor. The roof was tiled and was provided with a fleche. It appears that terracotta tiles rather than asbestos cement tiles were used.[50]
\nA low concrete retaining wall with two sets of steps was built as part of the levelling of the grounds, to the west of the brick school building, and was constructed by 1935.[51] The school residence had also been removed by 1935, and the land at the west end of the school was terraced by this time, as was the east end of the school. The concrete block retaining walls at the west end of the school may have been built between 1935 and World War II.[52]
\nBlock A was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, FA Cooper, on 17 October 1936, with the cost reported as £28,000, and the remaining wings of the old school were sold for removal around this time.[53] Some of the timber from the demolished wing was used to build dressing sheds and showers over the 1910 swimming pool, which remained covered until the sheds were demolished in 1955.[54]
\nLike World War I, World War II also affected life at the school. The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. The closed schools were sometimes occupied for defence purposes, and some schools remained closed ‘for special reasons’ after the rest had reopened.[55] Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff. Zig-zag trenches were dug at Junction Park State School, skirting the oval.[56] Junction Park also hosted students from Moorooka State School, who were displaced by US Army use of their own school between February and July 1942.[57]
\nAfter World War II, enrolments at the school continued to climb. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[58]
\nIn 1947 enrolments at Junction Park State School reached 1477, and for a few years Junction Park State School was Brisbane’s largest attended state school. In May 1948, the administration of the infants school separated from that of the primary school.[59] In order to accommodate increasing student numbers at the primary school, Block B was extended at either end in 1953, and in 1955 Block C was added just west of Block B, on the site of the 1908-13 tennis courts.[60] Two new tennis courts had been formed at the west end of the school by 1951, on the terrace that was previously the site of the school residence.[61]
\nA new infants school complex opened at the east end of the school reserve in April 1958.[62] Later, as infant enrolments fell (from 774 in 1952 to 320 in 1966) it was decided in 1974 to re-amalgamate the primary and infants schools. Meanwhile, the primary school had 1523 enrolled in 1958, dropping to 785 by 1965, as the baby boom ended and Grade 8 was transferred to secondary school in 1964. [63]
\nOther changes have been made to the school over time, including partition and entrance alterations to the brick toilet blocks. The brick school building has had some internal changes, with some new partitions added to the first and second floors, and some classroom walls removed. In the summer of 2015-2016 the ceilings on the second floor were replaced. The southern side of the undercroft was enclosed between the piers with doors, fixed glass panels and louvres c1953; a tuck shop was added c1978 as an enclosure in the east side; and the lateral wings of the undercroft have been enclosed for classrooms and store rooms.[64]
\nIn 1964 a new entrance from Waldheim Street was created east of the brick school building, leading to a paved area.[65] Some bitumen was removed from the playground behind the brick school building in 1995, to create a grassed area, and a forest of native trees (sclerophyll forest) was opened in the southeast corner of the grounds in 1997.[66]
\nThe site of the 1950s infants school complex was excised from the east end of the school grounds in 1998, leaving the school grounds at their current size of 5.4 acres (2.2ha), and the infants school buildings were demolished between 1997 and 2000.[67] Some new buildings were added to the school in 2003 and 2009.[68]
\nThe school celebrated the centenary of the opening of the Thomas Estate Provisional School in April 1988, with a banquet for 600 people at the Hilton International Ballroom,[69] and a history of the school was also published that year. Another history was published in 2015.
\nIn 2016 the school continues to operate from its original site, and retains its early swimming pools, Depression-era Brick School Building, toilet blocks, and retaining walls, set in landscaped grounds with mature shade trees. The school remains important to the Annerley community. Since establishment, generations of students have been taught at Junction Park State School and it has been a key social focus for its community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Junction Park State School (established in 1891) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent example of a government-designed Depression-era Brick School Building (1936), which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies and is set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building, toilet blocks and landscaping of the school grounds demonstrate the State Government’s building and relief work programs that, during the 1930s, stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe two swimming pools (1910, 1929), the earliest of which was the first built in a Queensland state school, reflect the growing concern in the early 20th century to teach children to swim for health and safety reasons.
\nThe World War I Honour Board (1915) located in the Depression-era Brick School Building is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event.
|Junction Park State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school built during the Depression era. The school comprises a Depression-era Brick School Building, and brick toilet blocks (1934), constructed to a government design. These are set within a generous, landscaped site that retains mature shade trees, Depression-era retaining walls (c1935), and sporting facilities, including the early swimming pools and an oval.
\nThe substantial Depression-era Brick School Building is an intact, excellent example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type, including its two storey form, with an undercroft; symmetrical, high quality design that features classical detailing; loadbearing, face brick construction; hipped roof; and prominent central roof fleche. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed by verandahs, and an undercroft used as open play space. Typical of this building type, the Depression-era Brick School Building was located in a growing suburban area at the time of its construction.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size, face brick exterior and high quality materials, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Junction Park State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building’s elegant composition, assertive massing and classically-influenced design contribute to its dignified streetscape presence, and contrast with the surrounding small-scale residences.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nJunction Park State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Annerley community. It was established in 1891 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Annerley children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Annerley and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
\n","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650024,"name":"Toowoomba North State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"139 Mort Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-05-06","description":"
Toowoomba North State School is located in the Darling Downs city of Toowoomba, northwest of the central business district. It occupies a long, two hectare site along the northern side of a block bounded by Mort Street to the east, Taylor Street to the north, and Kingston Street to the west. To the south, the school is bounded by Gilbert Street, Dunster Lane and private properties. School buildings are located in the northeast portion of the site, with playing fields to the south and west, and numerous mature trees lining the school perimeter. A 1938 Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A) is the largest building and stands at the eastern end of the site. To the west is a 1950s Timber School Building (Block B) which comprises a classroom wing and a former Vocational Training Building.
\nBlock A - Depression-era Brick School Building (1938, 1949 addition)
\nBlock A is a substantial, classically-detailed, two-storey masonry structure, with an undercroft. The building is symmetrically arranged and orientated east-west, addressing Taylor Street to the north. The main entrance is demarcated by a central projecting bay, accessed by a T-shaped staircase. The building has a hipped roof clad with concrete tiles and has a prominent ventilation fleche in the centre. Recently-constructed external stairwells attached to the east and west ends of the building are not of heritage significance.
\nThe building is elegantly composed, with load-bearing face brick walls and rendered decorative elements to the first and second floors; and a rendered base finished to resemble channel-jointed ashlar. The red brick exterior is relieved with contrasting pilasters of a dark brown brick with simple, rendered capitals. The projecting entrance bay features a pediment over a central first floor doorway, which has a rendered aedicule. The pediment is supported by pilasters and a circular accent vent with rendered surround is centred on the face brick tympanum. Beneath the pediment, the words ‘TOOWOOMBA NORTH STATE SCHOOL’ and ‘1938’ are engraved. Smaller pediments are centred on the classroom wings on either side of the entrance bay and over the projecting bays housing the main staircases and former cloakrooms on the southern (rear) side of the building. A secondary entrance leading to the undercroft is located at the base of the eastern bay, with additional entrances at the western end of the building (one each on the north and south facades) and various openings leading to the undercroft.
\nWindow openings are regularly spaced and contain sets of timber, three-light casements with fanlights above. Four bays of windows at the west end of the north façade, which now contain louvres, appear to be the only major replacements. Double-hung sash windows are located on either side of the southern entrance, and grated openings provide light and ventilation to play space in the undercroft. The main entrance doors are large, panelled timber double doors with fanlights above. Other early entrance doors include a half-glazed, boarded door to the girls toilets and half-glazed double doors to the northwest entrance.
\nThe interior layout is approximately symmetrical, with classrooms arranged along the southern side of the building connected by corridors along the north side. Originally comprising the manual training rooms, boys’ toilets and play space in the undercroft; five classrooms, domestic science rooms, entrance hall, two teachers rooms, girls toilets and a store room on the first floor; and seven (later nine) classrooms and two teachers rooms on the second floor, the layout of the building remains generally intact. Alterations to the layout include the removal of original folding partitions between classrooms, resulting in some double-sized rooms, and the insertion of partitions in places. The manual training room and domestic science rooms, located at the eastern end of the building, have been converted into classrooms. The first floor corridor has been extended to run the full length of the building; the location of former walls is indicated by changes in the floor surface and small bulkheads across the ceiling. Former cloakrooms, located adjacent to the internal staircases, have been converted for use as staff rooms or other functional spaces.
\nThe classrooms and teachers rooms/offices have plaster walls with picture rails, chamfered skirting boards, and flat-sheeted ceilings with timber battens arranged in a square pattern. Bulkheads run north-south across the ceilings and in some instances indicate the location of former folding doors between classrooms. One set of timber folding doors with original door hardware survives in the westernmost classroom on the second floor. Brass plaques commemorating the official opening of the school are located in the entrance hall.
\nCorridors have plastered walls, concrete floors (coloured red with uncoloured, coved concrete edging), and bulkheads between different sections of the building. The second floor corridor ceiling retains its flat-sheeted ceiling with batten cover strips, however the ground floor ceiling has been replaced. Internal corridor windows are generally three-light, double hung sashes with three-light fanlights above. Classroom doors are panelled double doors with three-light fanlights above. A variety of other early internal timber doors survive, including half-glazed double and single doors and four-panelled doors. The internal staircases have red concrete steps (matching the corridor floors) and metal balustrades with timber posts and top rails.
\nThe male and female toilets have concrete floors and similar plaster walls and battened ceilings to the classrooms. Both retain early cubicle partitions with panelled timber doors.
\nNon-significant internal features include replacement or inserted doors and windows (including louvres and windows with textured glass panes), modern carpet and linoleum floor coverings, suspended ceilings, and kitchenettes.
\nDue to the slope of the land, the undercroft is partially underground at the western end and inaccessible past the western internal staircase. The central area of the undercroft is largely open play space, punctuated by rectangular columns of brown brick with rounded corners. The floor is concrete and steel I-beams support the timber framing of the floor above. Early timber benches survive along some walls. Beneath the entrance bay, the space has been enclosed with partitions and boarded timber doors to form a tuck shop and storage space. Further storage areas have been fenced off at the western end of the play space. The former Manual Training rooms at the eastern end of the undercroft continue to be used as classrooms and storage space.
\nBlock B - 1950s Timber School Building (1951, 1953, 1956, 1957)
\nBlock B is a T-shaped timber building comprising a former Vocational Training Building (1957) at the western end (orientated north-south) attached to a classroom wing (1951, 53, 56) of six classrooms (orientated east-west). Both sections of the building have gable roofs clad in corrugated metal sheeting. Due to the sloping site, the building is lowset at the western end and highset at the eastern end, with play space beneath five of the classrooms. A verandah along the north side of the classroom wing is linked by a passageway through the centre of the Vocational Training Building to an enclosed western verandah.
\nThe classroom wing is clad in chamferboards and has large banks of windows along the southern wall. From east to west, the dates of construction for the classrooms are: two classrooms in 1956; one classroom in 1953; and three classrooms in 1951. The different stages of the building’s construction are evident by the joinery used: the 1951 and 1953 classrooms have banks of three-light casement windows and fanlights in their southern walls, while the 1956 classrooms have timber awning windows. The westernmost classroom stands on round timber stumps, and the remainder of the classrooms are supported by a combination of round metal poles (modern), square timber posts, square concrete stumps, and timber-framed perimeter and bracing walls.
\nWindows and fanlights to the north verandah have been replaced with sliding aluminium windows, however the openings and timber mullions remain. All classrooms are accessed by timber double doors, most with modern hardware, however those accessing the 1956 classrooms are half-glazed board doors with no fanlight and one retains early hardware. The north verandah has a timber floor, bag rack balustrades and a raked ceiling lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. Original glazed screens survive at the far eastern corner. Three sets of stairs provide access – two sets attached to and running parallel with the verandah, and one set added at the eastern end which comes up through the verandah floor, surrounded by a timber rail balustrade.
\nAll classrooms measure 21ft by 24ft (7.3 by 6.4 metres) and have flat internal wall and ceiling linings. Sections of early linings are distinguished by the use of batten or curved cover strips. In the 1956 section, a large opening between the classrooms remains, however folding doors (shown on the original plans) have been removed. Early, half-glazed double doors survive in the centre of the wall between the 1953 and eastern 1951 classrooms. Between the 1951 classrooms, one connecting door has been enclosed, and the other has been removed and a large opening created in its place.
\nThe Vocational Training Building is clad in weatherboards and stands on square concrete stumps. Windows are predominantly timber awning windows, with double-hung sash windows in the passageway and verandah walls.
\nThe interior of the Vocational Training Building generally has flat wall and ceiling linings with cover strips. The layout of original rooms – domestic science rooms to the south and manual training rooms to the north – is largely intact, although later partitions have divided up the two larger training rooms. A series of rooms, formerly used for storage and as smaller training rooms, remain in the verandah space. Alterations to the building include the full enclosure of the verandah, installation of a bathroom off the south side of the passageway, the removal of the fitting room partitions in the southeast corner of the domestic science room, and the insertion of additional doors and openings. The building has a variety of doors, most of which are modern, with early examples including half-glazed double and single doors. The verandah has a raked ceiling, and both the passageway and verandah have chamferboard cladding to the walls.
\nThe understorey of the classroom wing has a concrete floor and low, off-form concrete retaining walls surround the western end of the space. Timber bracing walls beneath the 1956 classrooms are lined with diagonal timber boards. A store room with chamferboard-clad walls and timber board doors is located in the southwest corner.
\nGrounds
\nThe school grounds contain mature trees, including rows of camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) along the western and northern boundaries, and individual feature trees, including camphor laurels, pines, eucalypts, a flame tree (Brachychiton acerifolius) and maples (Acer, sp.) adjacent to other boundaries and south of Blocks A and B. A swimming pool (1959) is located at the western end of the grounds. Set back from the streets and surrounded by gardens, pathways and a playing field, Block A is a prominent feature and makes an important contribution to the streetscape.
","history":"Toowoomba North State School (opened in September 1869 as the Mort Estate National School) is located to the northwest of Toowoomba’s CBD. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains a Depression-era Brick School Building (1938, 1950), constructed as a Depression-era work project; a 1950s Timber School Building with extensions (1951-57, including a Vocational Training Building addition); set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Toowoomba community.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. Near the boundaries of Westbrook, Gowrie and Eton Vale runs and at the junction of two routes to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps through the Main Range, the small settlement of Drayton (originally known as ‘The Springs') evolved from 1842 as a stopping place for pastoralists and travellers. Six kilometres to its northeast, was an area known as ‘The Swamp’, later named Toowoomba, which was first surveyed in 1849 as 12 suburban allotments of Drayton. Further survey and auction took place in 1853 for 1-2 acre allotments. Toowoomba grew rapidly due to its better land and water supply, support from squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, an easier route to Brisbane via The Toll Road. It was declared a municipality in July 1860 and continued to develop rapidly during the 1860s with strong promotion of the town by local residents, and successful lobbying for government funding for civic improvements by political representatives.[1]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[2] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[3]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers.[4]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[5]
\nToowoomba North State School opened as the Mort Estate National School on 6 September 1869 on land donated by pastoralist and politician, James Taylor, MLA. The population of Toowoomba at the time was 3000. The school was opened as a Boys School, with an enrolment of 141 boys, and a Girls and Infants School, with a commencing enrolment of 113 pupils. Both were housed in a brick building facing Mort Street.[6] Within a year, the school’s enrolments had doubled to 286 enrolled at the Boys School with an average attendance of 140, and 261 enrolled at the Girls and Infants School with an average attendance of 130.[7]
\nLater the Girls and Infants School was housed in a separate masonry building facing Taylor Street on one acre, donated by James Taylor in 1874, and located behind the Boys School, which faced Mort Street.[8]
\nToowoomba continued to grow throughout the remainder of the 19th and the early 20th century. By the 1870s Toowoomba had consolidated its status as the main urban centre of the Darling Downs. The arrival of the railway in 1867 secured the town's development and subsequently made it the hub for the Southern and Western railways. The economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing outlets, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were centred on the town. Toowoomba's progress was reflected in improvements to the physical environment. Important capital works were commenced or completed, including the draining of its swamps, improved water supply, gasworks for lighting, extensive tree plantings and the initial development of Queen's Park. Earlier temporary structures were increasingly replaced with more permanent and impressive buildings.[9]
\nIn the first two decades of the 20th century, the School Committee made representation to the Department of Public Instruction, through its Minister and local members of parliament, for a new school on the basis that the buildings and grounds were inadequate.[10]
\nIn c1922 Toowoomba North (Boys, and Girls and Infants Schools) was granted its request for purchase of land for school grounds to supplement its small site. ‘The Farm’, 6373 sqm of land diagonally opposite the school on the corner of Mort and Taylor Streets, which was already rented for sporting activities, was bought. One acre of the Cory Estate to the school’s west was purchased, onto which the headmaster’s residence was moved, allowing the whole of the existing Taylor Street land to be utilised for school buildings and grounds.[11] However, the opening of the Newtown State School in October 1924 reduced enrolments at Toowoomba North, making a new school unnecessary.[12]
\nBy the early 1930s the school buildings were in a state of disrepair.[13]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, had caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[14]
\nMany of the programmes have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry Brick School Buildings across the state. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project a sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nThe construction of substantial Brick School Buildings[15] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Queensland Public Works Department (DPW) and Department of Public Instruction (DPI) were extremely enthusiastic about the Brick School Buildings designed in the 1930s. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment. [16]
\nA preliminary estimate of the cost of a new Brick School Building for Toowoomba North was made in January 1936, however, funding was not available in that financial year.[17] In August 1936 a report on the material requirements for North Toowoomba Girls and Infants School recommended that construction of a new building be expedited.[18]
\nFinally, in February 1937, the Minister for Public Instruction decided that the Toowoomba North Schools’ site should be used for the erection of one combined primary school to accommodate approximately 500 children – boys, girls and infants.[19] The building was to be erected at the Mort Street end of the Taylor Street frontage and would utilise north and south lighting. Accommodation for instruction in Manual Training (woodwork only) and Domestic Science was to be provided and the building’s siting was designed to provide as much ground for playing or sports purposes as possible.[20] The work was to be carried out by the DPW using day labour.[21]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, these buildings were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. This linear design could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all Depression-era Brick School Buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions. [22]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features. Where other functions, such as infants classes or vocational training, were required, standard rooms designed to accommodate these functions were incorporated into the building plan.[23] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the DPW from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[24]
\nToowoomba North State School’s Brick School Building had an authorised cost of £22,090. Erected on the site of the existing Boys School building, the new building, with concrete staircases and asbestos-cement slate roof, was to contain 10 classrooms, providing accommodation for 400 pupils. The undercroft contained a large play area, plus lavatories and a classroom for woodwork. The first floor comprised five classrooms, plus teachers rooms, domestic science rooms, lavatories and storeroom, while the second floor had five classrooms and two teachers rooms. Three classrooms on each floor could be converted into large assembly rooms by means of folding partitions. The building was of brick construction.[25] The foreman of works was F Bentley.[26]
\nAt some point prior to the completion of the building it was decided to construct two extra classrooms at the eastern end of the second floor, above the Domestic Science rooms. This addition was constructed to match the rest of the building, and brought the total number of classrooms to 12.[27]
\nToowoomba North’s Brick School Building was officially opened by the Minister for Public Instruction (H A Bruce) on 5 November 1938 with the unveiling of the bronze tablet at the main entrance to the school.[28]
\nThe school’s 1938 souvenir magazine described the 231ft x 34ft (70.4m x 10.4m) building:
\nAn important feature of the building is that all the…corridors are enclosed with casements…. Provision has…been made in the design for…future extensions that may be required. The whole of the inside of the building, both corridors and classrooms, is painted, the predominant colours being dark red to dado line with light green above. This colour scheme has been varied in some rooms by contrasting tones of brown and cream. Ceilings of rooms are…fibro-cement painted white with contrasting cover-strips of brown. All plaster work is of light stone colour wash below plinth level, whilst the plaster has been lined out to imitate stone work.[29]
\nIn the Domestic Science Room, on the eastern end of the ground floor, the kitchen was tiled to the height of 6ft (1.8m) and had a terrazzo floor. The remaining floor was covered by linoleum.[30] The woodwork room was located at the eastern end of the undercroft.[31] The building had a roof fleche for ventilation.[32]
\nAll of the materials used were supplied from within southeast Queensland. Bricks for the building were supplied by John Brazier of Kleinton, while the timber was supplied by Filshie, Broadfoot.[33]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[34]
\nAfter completion of Toowoomba North’s Brick School Building, the formation of the school grounds and sports fields was a major task. Initially the school had to wait for demolition of remaining earlier buildings. Then, in 1939 and 1940 the School Committee repeatedly prompted the Department of Public Instruction for assistance with levelling of the site and creation of gardens and playing areas such as a vigoro pitch and basketball courts.[35]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[36]
\nAfter World War II the overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to erect school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible. Queensland schools were faced with enormous overcrowding and a lack of resources. However, the Queensland Government and community saw education as a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget.[37] Also, educationalists rejected the previous designs of school buildings, considering them outdated, and favoured ‘lighter, loosely grouped, flexible’ buildings.[38]
\nIn the immediate Post-World War II years, additions to Toowoomba North State School’s Brick School Building were made. In May 1944, the School Committee requested enclosure of an area under the school for a combined First Aid, Rest and Reading Room.[39] This was granted in September of that year and the work took place thereafter.[40] In December 1949 the Works Minister (W Power) announced additions for Toowoomba North State School[41] and two new classrooms were added at the western end of the second floor to accommodate growth in pupil numbers.[42]
\nEnrolments at Toowoomba North State School grew to such an extent that in September 1951 approval was given for a three-classroom building to be erected to the west of the existing school building.[43] From 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings. These buildings were generally high-set timber-framed structures and the understorey was used as covered play space. Introduced in 1950, the principal type was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. Stairs were often semi-enclosed, connecting the understorey to a north facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[44]
\nThe new building at Toowoomba North State School was orientated east-west and located 100ft (30.5m) from the Depression-era Brick Building. It was accessed by a single set of stairs, positioned perpendicular to the centre of the north verandah. It had hatroom enclosures at either end of the verandah and, due to the slope of the land, part of the understorey was too low to be used for play space. The building was completed in late 1951 or early 1952.[45]
\nThe building was soon extended. In September 1953, plans for a single classroom addition to the east of the 3-classroom building were drawn and the work subsequently performed. This addition matched the existing building and included a second staircase to the verandah.[46] In October 1955, plans were drawn for two more classrooms to be added to the east of the previous addition. These were built sometime in 1956 and were slightly different to the earlier classrooms. Windows in the southern walls were awning windows instead of casements; external cladding extended to ground level on the south and east sides, forming a semi-enclosed play space beneath; bag racks were built instead of verandah balustrades; and instead of a hat room, the east end of the verandah was enclosed with a glazed screen.[47]
\nIn October 1956 plans for an addition of timber vocational training rooms to the west end of the building were drawn. In 1954 the Department of Public Works had introduced a new standard design for a timber-framed vocational training building.[48] Highset with a verandah along one side, this design comprised a large 21ft by 32ft (6.4m by 9.7m) room accommodating either manual training or domestic science classes, with smaller rooms opening off it for complementary purposes (eg, a laundry room, fitting room, storage etc.). The example constructed at Toowoomba North State School comprised a long, lowset building oriented north-south, with a western verandah and a central passageway linking to the north verandah of the classroom wing. It housed a large woodwork and sheet-metal work room, a saw room and teachers room to the north, and a large cookery and dressmaking room to the south, with a laundry, store room and dining room occupying part of the verandah. Completed in 1957, this addition allowed the Domestic Science and Woodwork rooms in the Depression-era Brick School Building to be converted into four classrooms.[49]
\nThe 1950s Timber School Building ceased to be used for vocational classes from 1964 when Grade 8 transferred from primary to secondary school. The Domestic Science Room was subsequently converted into a General Purposes Room.[50] In the 1970s, the large Manual Training room was divided in two and used as a classroom and library, and the former saw room on the verandah became a janitor’s store room. The large Domestic Science room was divided into a music room and stock room, and a small health room was created adjacent to the classroom wing. At some point the western verandah was enclosed with timber awning windows.[51]
\nAdditions and modifications to the school grounds have been made periodically since the initial make-over of the grounds after the construction of the Brick School Building. The playground around the Brick School Building and in front of the timber building was bitumen-sealed in stages, commencing in 1947.[52] Around the same time, concrete garden edging was laid and shrubs along Taylor and Mort Streets planted.[53] On 10 October 1959 the school’s swimming pool opened at the western end of the school grounds.[54]
\nToowoomba North State School reached its peak enrolment of 1111 in 1963; the largest enrolment of any school in Toowoomba at the time. However, after Queensland’s Grade 8 transferred to high school in 1964, enrolment fell to a little over 900 pupils.[55]
\nFurther changes to the school grounds ensued. In 1966 the government purchased ‘Finchley’, a double-storied home with a little over one acre of grounds, which was located on the southern side of the school. The building was demolished and the grounds cleared and levelled for use as a playground.[56]The teachers residence remained on site at the Kingston Street (west) end of the school grounds until 1962 when it was sold.[57] Removal and pruning of established trees along Mort and Taylor Streets and to the south of the Brick School Building occurred in the mid-1970s.[58] A pre-school centre was added on a site opposite the school in Taylor Street in 1976.[59]
\nAlterations to the interior of the Depression-era Brick School Building since the 1960s include the removal of early folding partitions to classrooms, the conversion of the cloakrooms to offices and staff rooms, the replacement of some doors and windows, and the relining of the first floor corridor ceiling. Suspended ceilings, partitions, wet areas and kitchenettes have also been installed in some rooms. Detached fire stairs were constructed at the east and west ends of the building in 2008.[60]
\nThe 1950s building is still used for classrooms and staff purposes, and no longer serves as a vocational training building. Alterations to the vocational section of the building include the insertion of additional partitions and doors and the enclosure of the western verandah. The classroom wing remains largely intact, with internal changes including replacement of some wall and ceiling linings The verandah staircases have been replaced and an additional staircase constructed at the east end of the verandah.
\nToowoomba North State School marked the centenary of its establishment with publication of a school history in 1969 and a day of celebrations including a luncheon for early teachers and pupils, a thanksgiving service, the unveiling of a cairn, the official opening of the A E Horne Centenary Library, a march of centenary year pupils and a display of the old and the new in the school buildings.[61]
\nIn 2016, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains the Department of Public Works Depression-era Brick School Building and the 1950s Timber School Building with extensions, set in landscaped grounds with a swimming pool, playing areas and mature shade trees. Toowoomba North State School is important to Toowoomba, as a key social focus for the community, with many social events having been held in the school’s grounds and buildings; and as generations of students have been taught there since its establishment.
\nToowoomba North State School is important to Toowoomba, as a key social focus for the community with many social events having been held in the school’s grounds and buildings; and as generations of students have been taught there since its establishment.
","criteria":"Toowoomba North State School (established in 1869) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland.
\nThe place retains an excellent, representative example of a government designed Depression-era Brick School Building (1938, extended 1949) that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, and a Department of Public Works-designed 1950s Timber School Building (1951) with extensions (1953, 1956, 1957) that was a response to acute building shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is the result of the State Government’s building programme during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
|Toowoomba North State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools. These include teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising a Depression-era Brick School Building and a Department of Public Works-designed 1950s Timber School Building comprising a classroom wing and Vocational Training Building.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is a good, intact example of its type. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Depression-era brick schools, including: its two storey form with undercroft; high-quality design with classical influence and detailing; face brick exterior; and symmetrical arrangement either side of a projecting entrance bay. The building plan comprises a typical linear layout of classrooms, offices and store rooms, accessed by long corridors.
\nThe 1950s Timber School Building combines two standard DPW timber building types that demonstrate the evolution of timber classrooms in the post-war period – a classroom wing and a former Vocational Training Building.
\nDesigned to be extended over time, the classroom wing illustrates the evolution of a standard, modular classroom type, particularly through differences in window types between the earlier (1951, 53) and later (1956) sections. Characteristics of this type include its highset form with a north verandah, flat internal linings and classroom dimensions.
\nThe former Vocational Training Building retains the characteristics of its type, comprising a long timber building with verandah, and large rooms for manual training and domestic science classes, supplemented by smaller storage and training rooms.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size, face brick exterior and high quality materials, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Toowoomba North State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building’s assertive massing, classically-influenced design, and elegant composition contribute to its dignified streetscape presence, and contrast with the surrounding small-scale residences and commercial premises. Prominently sited on a corner, the building is a landmark for the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nToowoomba North State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Toowoomba community. It was established in 1869 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Toowoomba children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Toowoomba and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650025,"name":"Yeronga State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"150 Park Road","suburb":"YERONGA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-03-11","description":"Yeronga State School occupies a 6.7ha site within Yeronga, a residential suburb approximately 6km south of the Brisbane CBD. The school is located on the corner of Park Road and School Road, and is bounded to the north by Honour Avenue, and to the northeast and east by Yeronga Park and the Yeronga Pool complex. The site is divided (by a modern brick Dental School building) into two areas, with the 1920s-50s timber school buildings (Blocks B, C, D, E & F) on the northern part of the site, facing Park Road; and the brick Infants’ School building (Block L) on the southern part of the site, set back from and facing School Road. With its decorative entrance gate on Park Road, mature perimeter trees, and range of timber and brick buildings, the school makes an important visual contribution to the streetscape. The school complex also comprises a sports oval in the northeast corner of the site, the remnants of a forestry plot on the eastern boundary, and a variety of mature shade trees that are mostly positioned along the site boundary, sports oval perimeter, and to the east of the Infants School.
\n1927-33 Sectional School buildings (Blocks B, C, D and E)
\nThe four Sectional School buildings are set back from Park Road and are aligned approximately east-west. The buildings are timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structures, highset on concrete piers, with corrugated metal-clad hipped (Blocks D and E) and Dutch-gable (Blocks C and B) roofs.
\nThe buildings were constructed in three phases between 1927 and 1933 (Block C, centre; Block B, southeast and Block E, southwest; and Block D, northwest) and are connected via enclosed verandah walkways. The north-facing (Block B, C and E) and south-facing (Block D) verandahs are enclosed by bag rack balustrades (Block B, C and E) and modern awning windows, and are accessed by external timber stairs. The remodelled Open-Air Annexe buildings (Blocks B and E) have wider classrooms and verandahs than the other Sectional School buildings.
\nA range of early timber joinery is retained throughout the buildings including the large banks of casement windows with fanlights in the southern walls, which demonstrate the original five-classroom room layouts. East and west end walls are windowless. The interior walls and raked verandah ceilings are lined with timber v-jointed (VJ) tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards.
\nWindows in the former verandah walls have been removed and large openings have created an open-plan arrangement between the former verandah and classroom spaces. Classroom layouts have been reconfigured and original partitions removed; however, some partitions and bulkheads remain to demonstrate the former layout. The classroom ceilings have been lowered and lined with flat sheeting (1960).
\nThe understories combine open areas for play, and enclosed areas with a variety of concrete, corrugated metal and weatherboard-clad partitions that form storage areas and toilet blocks (1945). The concrete slab floors have perimeter surface drains.
\nElements not of cultural significance include modern additions and alterations such as: extensions and enclosures; carpet and linoleum floor linings; sheeted ceilings; added partitions; and joinery, fixtures and fittings.
\n1927 Central Block (Block C)
\nBlock C has verandahs to the north, east and west sides, all of which are enclosed. The interior contains four classrooms defined by part and full-width partitions (1960). Remnants of the four original partitions survive as bulkheads that demonstrate the original layout.
\nTeachers’ rooms are attached to the north, east and west sides of Block C; they are gable-roofed and weatherboard-clad, and feature skillion window hoods with timber brackets. The east and west-facing teachers’ rooms have casement windows with fanlights, and battened gable infills. The interior walls and flat ceilings of all three teachers’ room are lined with VJ, T&G boards. The northern teachers’ room has been extended (1958) with a staff room and hallway added, windows reconfigured and modern louvres added.
\nThe understorey of the extended northern teachers’ room is enclosed with weatherboard-clad walls (1958). The southwest corner of the understorey is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. A modern covered walkway links Block C to Block A to the north.
\n1928 Southeast Block (Block B)
\nBlock B contains four classroom spaces, with fixed partitions defining the two eastern classrooms, and the two western classrooms divided by wide-leaf folding doors (1960). One fixed partition remains in its original location between the eastern and western classrooms.
\nThe Dutch-gable roof has louvred vents in the gable ends.
\nThe western end of the understorey has been enclosed with concrete walls and glass louvres (1945) to form a toilet block.
\n1928 Southwest Block (Block E)
\nBlock C contains three classrooms divided by a fixed partition to the east and folding doors to the west (1960). One fixed partition remains in its original location between the central and eastern classrooms.
\nThe southwest corner of the understorey is clad with corrugated metal sheeting and the eastern end is enclosed with the concrete walls and glass louvres of a former (1945) toilet block. A metal extraction vent (1950) protrudes from the southwest corner of the hipped roof.
\nA covered walkway with timber screen (1954) connects with Block F to the southeast.
\n1933 Northwest Block (Block D)
\nBlock D contains three classrooms divided by fixed partitions. One partition between the central and eastern classrooms is in its original location.
\nConcrete bracing walls are located between piers at the corners and centre of the understorey. The western end has been enclosed.
\n1954-58 Boulton & Paul building and DPW extensions (Block F)
\nBlock F is a long, highset, timber-framed building with a gable roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting. It comprises: a 1954 Boulton & Paul (B&P) section at the western end (two classrooms and kitchenette); a 1954 DPW-designed section in the centre (two classrooms); and a 1958 DPW-designed section at the eastern end (one classroom, a teachers’ room and store room, and modern offices). The plan form is angled, with the 1954 sections diverting southeast from the Sectional School buildings, and the 1958 section returning to parallel (east-west). A verandah continues the length of the northern side of the building, accessed by three sets of timber stairs (1954 B&P and DPW stairs attached-to, and 1958 stairs set-within, the verandah).
\nThe exterior is clad in timber chamferboards, including the southern and western sides of the understorey. The B&P section is clearly distinguishable from the DPW sections by the breaking up of the external cladding by the edges of vertical timber boards between each panel of the prefabricated wall units on the first floor. Large areas of timber awning windows with fanlights line the southern wall of each section; timber brackets supporting the overhanging eaves are attached to the mullions. The end walls of the classroom level are windowless - the western end being clad with crimped metal sheeting. The stairs to the 1954 DWP section are clad with weatherboards and feature a glazed timber screen that is similar to the original B&P timber screen with square glass panes that survives on the western side of the covered walkway to Block E.
\nThe verandah has timber floors and large sections of bag rack balustrades that are clad with weatherboard (B&P section) and crimped metal sheeting (DPW extensions). The verandah of the B&P section and part of the 1954 DWP extension is enclosed with modern awning windows above the bag racks, and external metal-louvred screens. Double-hung sash windows, with fanlights, are retained in the verandah walls of non-enclosed sections, with the exception of the 1958 western classroom, where they have been replaced with modern louvres. Large openings have been formed in the former verandah walls of the 1954 sections, creating an open-plan arrangement between the verandah and classrooms.
\nThe interior of the B&P section is lined with panels of flat sheeting, with cover strips, on the walls and ceiling. Vertical members of the structural system are evident on the south wall, between pairs of windows. The classroom layout has been reconfigured (formerly three classrooms) and original partitions removed; however, their former location is evident in the ceiling linings. Non-significant interior elements include modern partitions, cupboards, wall and floor linings, and kitchenettes.
\nA large opening has been created in the classroom wall between the B&P and central DWP sections. The interior of the DPW section is similar to the B&P section, but without the expressed wall structure on the south wall. The southern windows are also set slightly (170mm) lower than those in the B&P section.
\nThe interior of the eastern DPW section is lined with flat sheeting, with cover strips; excluding the former western classroom, which has been substantially altered including the re-lining of the walls and addition of modern partitions to form offices.
\nThe understorey combines open play space and enclosed areas for teaching and storage; it has a concrete floor that steps down at the junction between the 1954 and 1958 sections. The floor structure of the classrooms above is exposed; the bearers of the 1954 sections are supported on concrete piers, while the 1958 section has open timber trusses. Awning windows, with fanlights and a continuous flat hood, are set between the trusses on the southern wall of the 1958 section and modern louvres enclose the northern side. The open play area under the B&P section retains original timber bracing fins either side of an opening in the southern, single-skin wall.
\n1941 Brick Infants’ School building (Block L)
\nBlock L is a symmetrical, masonry structure of one storey above an undercroft level. The building is orientated east-west and faces School Road; set back behind an open playing field with perimeter trees. The building is rectangular in plan and a projecting entrance bay, flanked by twin stairs to a first-floor landing, is centred on the southern (front) elevation. A tall fleche with decorative finial prominently projects above the Dutch-gabled roof, which has been clad with modern corrugated-metal sheeting.
\nThe building is elegantly composed and ornamented with a combination of Arts and Crafts and Art Deco-style decorative treatments. The face brick is primarily red-brown and has contrasting rendered plinth, windowsills and stringcourses. The projecting entrance bay features a stepped, rendered parapet and doorway surround, with the words ‘YERONGA STATE SCHOOL’ below. This Art Deco-style detailing is repeated on the two entrances to the undercroft, at either end of the northern (rear) elevation. The front entrance stairs have concrete treads and decorative metal balustrade with square metal posts; rendered stringers contrast with the face brick base. Along the front and rear elevations, continuous window hoods with Arts and Crafts-style decorative timber brackets shelter the first storey windows. Windows openings are regularly spaced and contain banks of timber-framed, three-light casement windows, with fanlights above.
\nThe interior layout of the building is symmetrical with first-floor classrooms arranged either side of a central corridor that aligns east-west, between two internal stairwells. A perpendicular entrance hall, flanked by a current and former teachers’ room, connects to the central landing. The four southern classrooms retain original partitions, although one large opening has been formed between two rooms and walls have been removed between the east and west end classrooms and the corridor. The northern classrooms have been reconfigured to accommodate a kitchenette and some offices but retain original partition bulkheads, which demonstrate the former layout. Modern doors are located at both ends of the corridor and hat rooms adjacent to the stairwells have been partially enclosed for storage space. The stairs are concrete and have metal balustrades with timber handrails.
\nInternal walls are generally plaster-lined with simple skirtings, and classrooms retain timber picture rails. Original timber double-hung windows and double doors with large, three-light fanlights remain in the internal corridor walls. Ceilings are lined with flat sheeting and ornamented by timber battens forming a grid pattern. All classrooms retain their original latticed ceiling vents. Original timber double-hung windows and double doors with large, three-light fanlights remain in the internal corridor walls. A bronze plaque in the entrance reads ‘Opened 26 September 1941 by HA Bruce MLA’.
\nNon-significant elements include modern carpet or linoleum floor linings, cupboards and kitchenettes, and added doors and partitions.
\nLandscape Elements, Grounds and Views
\nThe grounds are well-established and contain mature trees including figs (Ficus spp.), camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), poincianas (Delonix regia) and various eucalypts species. Large figs on the boundary enhance the school’s prominence in its location and provide a picturesque setting for the school buildings. Several mature trees are situated to the east of Block L, and plantings associated with the former school residence include a mature mango tree (Mangifera spp.) to the east of the Dental Therapists Training Centre.
\nA decorative gateway (1945), with rendered columns and metal arch that reads ‘YERONGA STATE SCHOOL’, frames the main pedestrian entrance from Park Road.
\nThe generous playing field (1927-33) to the northeast of the school buildings comprises a level sporting oval with concrete retaining walls to the western end and an earth embankment with stone-pitched drain to the southeast. Mature figs frame the northwest perimeter of the oval, including the canopies of several trees that are part of adjacent Yeronga Park.
\nA forestry plot (established 1939), situated south of the oval, contains a range of mature trees including pines (Pinus spp.) and camphor laurels.
\nOther Structures
\nOther buildings, structures, sheds, footpaths and roads within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance. Where the register boundary extends into road reserve, the road and footpath fabric is not considered to be of cultural significance.
\n","history":"
Yeronga State School opened in February 1871 as Boggo Primary School, to accommodate the growing population of a previously rural district on the southern outskirts of Brisbane. To serve the school’s growing pupil numbers, extensions were made and buildings added to the site. Yeronga State School retains: four connected Sectional School Buildings that were constructed in three stages (1927, 1928 and 1933); a Depression-era Brick Infants School Building (1941); and a Boulton & Paul pre-fabricated timber-framed building (1954) with Department of Public Works (DPW) designed extensions (1954 and 1958). The school buildings are set amongst landscaped grounds with mature shade trees, a decorative entrance gateway (1945), a forestry plot (established 1939) and sporting facilities. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nHistorically part of an area called ‘Boggo’, which ran from Dutton Park to Rocky Water Holes (later Rocklea, c1884), and which was part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people, Yeronga’s development was spurred on by transport improvements. Development of the Darling Downs made the Ipswich Road the main route to the interior, and the initial rough track was surveyed in the 1860s. The first sales of Crown land in the Yeronga area, involving 154 acres (62.3ha), had taken place in 1854. Land use in the area moved towards dairying and crops, including arrowroot, cotton, sugar, corn and potatoes.[1] To address the education needs of the predominantly rural community, Yeerongpilly School was opened in 1867 as a semi-private school. Classes took place in the Boggo Wesleyan Church.[2] Attendance varied greatly and averaged below the minimum 30 pupils necessary for the Board of General Education to build a national school.[3]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[4] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction.[5]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[6]
\nBy the early 1870s, an increasingly prosperous local community had been established in the Yeronga area, comprising predominantly farmers and merchants.[7] As attendance grew, Yeerongpilly School, which had been recognised as a provisional school in 1868,[8] achieved national school status and was re-opened on its current site as Boggo Primary School in February 1871, with over 70 students enrolled.[9] A new one-room timber school building and playshed were built for the re-opening of the school, which was located on the corner of what is now known as School Road and Park Road, Yeronga.[10] By 1876 the school was known as Boggo State School,[11] as a result of the State Education Act 1875. In 1878-79 an additional timber school building was constructed that could accommodate 80 pupils.[12]
\nWith the arrival of the South Brisbane railway (Corinda to South Brisbane via Yeronga) in 1884,[13] improved access led to increasing urbanisation in the area. Yeronga developed as a prestigious riverside suburb, with the large homes of wealthy settlers surrounded by the original farms, and Boggo State School was renamed Yeronga State School in 1886.[14] That year a head teacher’s residence was built on the west side of the school, which occupied a 20 acre (8.1ha) site bordered to the north and east by a recreation reserve (reserved 1882, later Yeronga Park). The school’s site was officially designated a Reserve for a State School in 1895.[15]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[16] Tree planting events were reported at Yeronga State School as early as April 1892, when ten camphor laurels and silky oaks were planted during a gathering of over 200 parents and children.[17] By 1894, Arbor Day was celebrated as a general holiday for Yeronga students, with entertainment organised by the Yeronga State School Committee.[18]
\nYeronga, like many riverside suburbs in Brisbane, was significantly affected by the flood of 1893. Residences were inundated and the school was used as a refuge for flood victims.[19] The flood led to a loss of confidence in the lower lying areas of Yeronga and resulted in reduced housing development until the beginning of the 20th century, when improved public transport led to further settlement and the area became predominantly working class.[20] Attendance at Yeronga State School continued to steadily increase despite the floods and the economic depression of the 1890s.[21] However, building at Yeronga State School was halted and did not resume until 1914, when a new Open-air Annexe was constructed to a standard DPW design.[22]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[23]
\nPlans for the new 1914 Open-air Annexe show it had a single 22ft x 44ft (6.7m x 13.4m) classroom and a teachers’ room off the west-facing 10ft (3m) verandah. The new hip-roofed annexe was connected to the northeast corner of the existing T-shaped timber school building, with the playshed situated to the northwest. [24]
\nEnrolments continued to increase at Yeronga State School, from 236 in 1914, to 260 in 1916, and 325 by 1917. [25] Population growth in the area was facilitated by the extension of the Ipswich Road tramway line to Yeronga Park, in 1915.[26] In March 1917, the school grounds were reduced to just over 15 ½ acres (6.3ha) when excised land to the north was amalgamated into Yeronga Park.[27] In June that year a delegation from the Yeronga State School Committee appealed to the Minister for Public Instruction for the immediate construction of an infants’ school.[28] An additional Open-air Annexe was subsequently built to the north of the playshed at a cost of £1,156 and officially opened in May 1918.[29] The new annexe had a Dutch-gable roof and was 24ft x 64ft (7.3m x 19.5m) with a 10ft (3m) wide verandah, teacher’s room and hat room, and lavatories and a play area underneath.[30]
\nBetween 1927 and 1933 four Sectional School Buildings were added to Yeronga State School, to address further increases in attendance during the 1920s, with 900 enrolled in 1927.[31] The new school buildings occupied higher ground to the north of the existing school site that had previously been used as sports grounds.[32]
\nAttention to improving light and ventilation to achieve an optimum classroom had culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School[33], a high-set timber structure. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, and satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs. Most importantly, it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time.
\nBefore the Sectional School, solar orientation was not given prominence and all school buildings were orientated in relation to the street and property boundaries, often resulting in poorly orientated buildings. The Sectional School type had only one verandah, typically on the northern side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the blank western wall was removable. As the school grew, the western end wall could be detached and the building extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms – a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[34]
\nThe first Sectional School Building at Yeronga was officially opened November 1927.[35] The building (known as Block C in 2015) had a Dutch-gable roof and was aligned approximately east-west; it consisted of five classrooms, 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.5m), with 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs to the north, east and west sides.[36] The classrooms were linked by folding partitions, which could be opened to create an assembly hall. A teachers’ room projected off the northern verandah, and the northeast and northwest verandah corners were enclosed. Additional teachers’ rooms off the east and west verandahs were evident by 1929; however, they were not documented in the 1926 plan.[37] Block C cost £2,346 and could accommodate 200 pupils;[38] it was intended as the central portion of a group of new buildings, with future extensions planned for all four corners, connected by verandah walkways.[39]
\nIn 1928 the two existing Open-air Annexes were relocated, extended and remodelled as Sectional School Buildings, and attached to the southwest (Block E – 1914 annexe, with 22ft wide classrooms and hipped roof) and southeast (Block B – 1918 annexe, with 24ft wide classrooms and Dutch-gable roof) corners of Block C. The buildings had five classrooms each, accessed via north-facing verandahs.[40] At the official opening in November 1928, it was noted that the three new buildings could accommodate a total of 650 students.[41] In 1929, overcrowding at Yeronga was further alleviated by the opening of Moorooka State School.[42]
\nA fourth Sectional School Building (Block D) was officially opened as part of belated Jubilee celebrations for Yeronga State School in May 1933.[43] Plans from 1932 show the building had a hipped roof and five classrooms, 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.5m), separated by fixed partitions with centred double-leaf doors.[44] The 8ft (2.4m) wide south-facing verandah had a hat room in the southwest corner and was connected to the northwest corner of Block C by a covered walkway.[45] The understorey had concrete bracing walls positioned at all corners and in the centre.[46] The building cost £1,723 and brought the total student accommodation of the Sectional School Buildings to 880.[47] Enrolments at the time numbered 1,100 students,[48] with the balance accommodated in the remaining buildings for infants on the old school site.[49]
\nWith the Sectional School Buildings occupying the site of the former sports grounds, efforts were made to provide alternative sporting facilities and improve the school grounds. In 1927 three acres of timber and stumps were cleared in preparation for a new oval in the northeast corner of the school grounds.[50] In 1931, Yeronga State School was granted another acre of land, which included the eastern end of the oval, to be permanently reserved for State School purposes.[51] The extended oval was officially opened in May 1933.[52] A school swimming pool was excavated to the southwest of the oval; however, it was never completed.[53] The school committee was responsible for much of the improvement works and concerts were held at the Ideal Picture Theatre in Yeronga to raise funds for Yeronga State School improvements fund.[54] Labour under the Unemployment Relief Scheme was also utilised to assist with grounds improvements.[55]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.[56] Even before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program by the DPW. This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[57] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[58] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[59]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building program including government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[60] Most were designed in a classical idiom as this projects the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nIn the late 1930s the focus of improvement initiatives at Yeronga State School shifted, to address the needs of the Infants’ School to the south. Infant classes commenced in 1893 at five Queensland Schools but development was delayed by the 1890s Depression and infant classes were usually accommodated by adapting existing accommodation. Brick infant blocks were constructed at Windsor (1933), Morningside (1936) and Yeronga (1941).[61]
\nThe construction of substantial Brick School Buildings[62] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Depression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical layout and prominent central entry. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah or corridor on the north side, but little concession was made for this and almost all brick school buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft, where one existed, was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[63]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School Building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and preferences, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; Art Deco, with monumental entrance, stylised and stepped decoration, and strong horizontal and vertical lines; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, aesthetic treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[64] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[65] The DPW architect involved in the design of Yeronga Infants’ School was Thomas Robert Gladwin.[66]
\nYeronga’s new Brick Infants School Building (known as Block L in 2015) was opened by the State Treasurer, FA Cooper, on the 26 September 1941.[67] Externally, Block L adopted a combination of Arts and Crafts and Art Deco-style decorative treatments, giving it a domestic quality quite different to the more imposing Neo-Classical style brick schools from the Depression-era. The symmetrically-arranged single-storey building, above an undercroft, had a face brick exterior with rendered decorative elements, and featured a central projecting entrance bay to the front (south) elevation that had a stepped, rendered parapet. The Dutch-gable roof was clad with Tuscan tiles and featured a decorative central fleche with finial. On the first floor there were eight classrooms accessed by a central corridor that aligned east-west: four classrooms on the north side, 21ft x 19ft (6.4m x 5.9m), separated by panelled folding partitions; and four on the south side, 21ft (6.4m) wide, separated by fixed partitions with central doorways. Hat / cloak rooms were situated adjacent to the two internal stairwells.[68] The building could accommodate 320 pupils and was approved in October 1940, with an anticipated cost of £10,139.[69] The new building was situated in the southwest corner of the school grounds, to the north of the remaining 19th century school buildings, and a forestry plot had recently been established on the eastern boundary.[70]
\nForestry plots were the product of after-school agricultural clubs, introduced in 1923 at primary schools, under the ‘home project’ scheme. School forestry plots were seen by the government as a way of educating the next generation about the economic and environmental importance of trees, as well as providing testing grounds for new species. The sale of timber grown in school plots provided an additional source of income for the school, and the plots themselves were an attractive feature of school grounds. The first school forestry plot was established at Marburg State Rural School in 1928, where 275 exotic and indigenous trees were planted.[71]
\nThe Yeronga State School Forestry Club was formed in May 1939.[72] A plot was cleared and holes were dug eight feet apart in preparation for the first Club Day on June 25th 1939, when the trees were planted.[73] In November 1939 there were 168 native trees in the forestry plot; and 200 exotic pine trees (three main varieties) by 1950.[74] Each child was assigned a pine tree to care for and had their name on a board nailed to the tree.[75]
\nLike many Queensland state schools, Yeronga was affected by the outbreak of World War II. The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. The closed schools were sometimes occupied for defence purposes, and some schools remained closed ‘for special reasons’ after the rest had reopened.[76] Yeronga Park was occupied by the US Army and Australian Army – and later, by women from the Netherlands East Indies Army – from 1942, and the Yeronga Infants School was closed to pupils and occupied by the Australian Army as part of a Bulk Issue Petroleum Oil Depot (BIPOD) in Yeronga Park from March 1942 to May 1944.[77] The Australian Army also requisitioned the southern part of the school grounds in 1945.[78]
\nSlit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff. By February 1942, 240ft (73.2m) of trenches had been fully excavated at Yeronga state school, with another 420ft (128m) half done.[79] By May 1944 the military had vacated the Infants’ School, which was subsequently prepared for re-occupation by school children.[80] Other works to the school at this time included: toilet blocks with concrete walls and metal roof vents, constructed under Block B (southeast corner) and Block E (southwest corner);[81] and a decorative gate with iron ‘Yeronga State School’ nameplate and rendered columns added to the Park Road entrance in 1945.[82]
\nThe post-World War II period was a time of enormous population growth Australia-wide and was accompanied by a shortage of building materials. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[83]
\nAt Yeronga State School, additional classrooms were required to accommodate the growth in pupil numbers. In 1954 a timber Boulton & Paul Building was constructed to the southeast of the Sectional School Buildings.[84] Responding to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom, the DPW imported a British prefabricated building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. Based on an 8ft (2.4m) planning and construction module, the prefabricated elements in the Boulton & Paul system included wall panels, ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1952 and 1958.[85]
\nBoulton & Paul Buildings were timber-framed and clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were orientated so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The building could be high or low-set and had extensive areas of timber-framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, providing excellent natural ventilation and lighting. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[86] The flexibility of the system meant that the number of classrooms constructed could vary to suit the needs of a particular school.
\nThe highset Boulton & Paul Building at Yeronga State School (known as Block F in 2016) was situated southeast of Block E, orientated at an angle to the Sectional School Buildings. Glazed screens were located at each end of the northern verandah, including along the covered walkway that connected to Block E. The walls were constructed from prefabricated units, 4ft (1.2m) wide, with those on the north and south sides containing large areas of windows. Units were pre-clad with chamferboards, with the edge of vertical timber boards between each unit visible on the exterior of the first floor. The understorey was enclosed with continuous chamferboards to the south and west, and had bracing fins. The three 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m) classrooms were separated by fixed partitions, with wide folding doors (DPW Standard) to the west and a single-leaf door to the east. [87]
\nAs the school population continued to rise, more classrooms were required. Extensions to Block F were made in 1954 with two classrooms added to its eastern end. This extension was designed by the DPW to match the Boulton & Paul section, and illustrates the influence that the Boulton & Paul Buildings had upon subsequent school building designs. Immediately after their introduction, DPW developed a standard building, which was similar to the Boulton & Paul building but was constructed in the traditional manner. DPW standard drawings included options for lowset and highset structures on piers, as well as elevated structures on floor trusses.[88] These types adopted many of the Boulton & Paul design features, such as a covered play space under the classrooms and the extensive areas of glazing, but became permanent structures. These architectural features became characteristic of a class of building which was the dominant school type constructed in the 1950s.[89]
\nThe 1954 extension was highset on piers and was distinguishable from the Boulton & Paul section of Block F by its continuous chamferboard cladding to both understorey and first floor. The glazed screen at the eastern end of the Boulton & Paul building was removed to facilitate the continuous north-facing verandah, which was accessed by enclosed stairs at the eastern end of the extension. There was extensive glazing to the north and south walls. The two 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m) classrooms were separated by a fixed partition with a single-leaf door at the southern end. [90]
\nIn 1958 the building was extended again to the east end of the DPW building, with a floor plan that diverted to align parallel with the Sectional School Buildings. This extension was similar to the design of the earlier DPW section but was elevated on timber floor trusses that provided open space underneath.[91] It comprised two 21ft x 24ft (6.4m x 7.3m) classrooms, a teachers’ room and a store room to the first floor. The 8ft (2.4m) wide verandah had a balustrade of hat and bag racks that were clad with crimped iron, and stairs at the eastern end. The exterior was clad with chamferboards and there was extensive glazing to the first floor and understorey of the southern wall, and to the northern verandah wall. The concrete slab of the understorey was set lower than the earlier sections of Block F and was accessed by concrete steps.[92]
\nOver the course of the school’s history, buildings have been added and removed, and changes made to the school grounds to meet the school’s requirements. In 1944 the playshed was demolished and in 1946 the early timber school building was sold and removed.[93] In 1959 tennis courts were opened in the northwest corner of the grounds, adjacent to Honour Avenue.[94] In 1971 a two-storey facebrick and chamferboard building (known as Block A in 2016) was built to the north of Block C and the residence was demolished; replaced by the large brick Dental Therapists’ Training Centre in 1974.[95] Other additions include: a tuckshop, covered play area and activities hall to the south of Block F; a substantial Early Childhood Development Program centre and prep-school buildings to the east of Block L; and a war memorial and gate to Honour Avenue situated northwest of the oval.
\nThe Sectional School Buildings, Blocks B, C, D and E, have been subject to additions and interior reconfigurations but remain fairly intact externally. In 1958 the gable-roofed northern teachers’ room was extended to include an additional staff room and hallway.[96] In 1960 each of the four Sectional School Buildings were reconfigured from five classrooms to four, and the verandah walls were demolished and rebuilt as louvres over shelves; existing studs were retained where possible. The stairs to Block D and E were also repositioned and bag rack balustrades were added to the verandahs, which were subsequently enclosed with awning windows sometime after 1971. Flat-sheeted ceilings were also added; however, it is possible the original coved ceilings, tie rods and latticed vents remain above. Further remodelling of the interiors was undertaken in 2000 when large openings were created in the former verandah walls and classrooms were reconfigured in Block B (four classrooms), D and E (three classrooms). An external lift was added to the east of the link between Block B and Block C in 2016.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings with DPW extensions, Block F, remains fairly intact externally apart from enclosure of the verandahs to the 1954 sections with awning windows and crimped-metal cladding to the western wall. In the late 1990s large openings were formed in the verandah walls of 1954 sections and some classroom partitions were relocated; however, boards fixed to the ceiling indicate the former partition locations. The Boulton & Paul section has been reconfigured from three classrooms to two classrooms and a kitchenette. The verandah wall windows of the western classroom in the 1958 section have been replaced with modern louvres and modern partitions have been added to form offices.[97]
\nChanges to the Brick Infants’ School Building, Block L, have been minor and the exterior remains substantially intact. Some external doors have been replaced and a room has been built in the undercroft with modern face brick. On the first floor, the former hat and cloak areas adjacent to the stairwells have been replaced with classroom and storage spaces. Original folding partitions between the northern classrooms have been removed but remaining bulkheads and returns demonstrate the former layout. Doorways have been inserted at either end of the central corridor and large openings have been created in two of the southern classroom walls to the corridor. Offices with modern partitions have been built in the former northeast classroom.
\nIn 2016, the Yeronga State School continues to operate from its original site. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. Since establishment, Yeronga State School has been a key social focus for its community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
Yeronga State School (established 1871 as Boggo Primary School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with a decorative entrance gateway, assembly and play areas, sports oval, a remnant forestry plot and mature shade trees.
\nThe four connected Sectional School Buildings (1927, 1928 and 1933) demonstrate the culmination of many years of experimental timber school design, providing equally for educational and climatic needs.
\nThe Depression-era Brick Infants’ School Building (1941) and formation of the sports oval (1927-33) are the result of the State Government’s building and relief work programs during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building (1954) demonstrates the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period. The Department of Public Works (DPW) designed extensions (1954 and 1958) demonstrate the influence of Boulton & Paul Buildings on subsequent DPW school designs.
\nThe forestry plot (established 1939) is important surviving evidence of a movement to convey the economic and environmental importance of forestry to students while creating an attractive landscape feature and income for schools.
|Yeronga State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising the following building types.
\nThe Sectional School Buildings are good examples of their type and are externally intact. Characteristics include: their highset form with play space beneath; blank end walls; northern verandahs, with linkages between buildings; large banks of south-facing windows, projecting teachers’ rooms and early internal linings.
\nThe Depression-era Brick Infants’ School Building is a good, intact example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Depression-era Brick Schools, including: its symmetrically arranged form, with an undercroft; high-quality design with ornamental features from a variety of styles; face brick exterior; prominent central roof fleche; and projecting entrance bay.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building is a good, intact example of its type, and clearly demonstrates the characteristics of a prefabricated building through the expression of its modular construction in the external cladding. Other characteristic features of this type include: its timber-framed, lightweight construction; gable roof; verandah for circulation, with glazed screens at the ends; large areas of glazing to the south walls; flat internal wall linings; and timber bracing walls to the understorey. Designed to match the Boulton & Paul classrooms, the DPW-designed extensions are good, intact examples of their type and demonstrate two iterations of the DPW standard designs for highset timber school buildings: on concrete piers (1954); and incorporating timber floor trusses (1958).
|Through its substantial size, high quality materials, face brick exterior, elegant formal composition and decorative treatment, the Depression-era Brick Infants’ School Building at Yeronga State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, which evoke the sense of progress and permanence that the Queensland Government sought to embody in new public buildings in that era.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Standing on an open corner site and framed by mature fig trees, it is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nYeronga State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established on its current site in 1871 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the community and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650026,"name":"Pialba Memorial Cenotaph","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Freedom Park, Main Street","suburb":"PIALBA","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-05-06","description":"The Pialba Memorial Cenotaph stand within a 0.82ha area known as Freedom Park, on the corner of Main Street and Charles Street in the suburb of Pialba, in Hervey Bay. The site is bounded by residential properties to the west and commercial premises with parking facilities to the south. The open park setting contains level grassed areas, mature shade trees, and various modern landscaping features and memorial structures.
\nOnly the cenotaph is considered to be of state heritage significance. The memorial hall is considered to be of local heritage significance.
\nMemorial Cenotaph
\nThe Pialba Memorial Cenotaph is located at the southern end of Freedom Park and is axially sited at the junction of modern concrete pathways from Main Street and Charles Street. The memorial comprises a decorative white marble pedestal on a light-brown freestone base, centred on a stepped, dark granite platform.
\nThe squat stone base is square in plan, with rock-faced sides and a dressed top with bevelled edges. The pedestal has moulded, stepped sections and decorative leaded panels to each face, listing 22 men from the district who fell (on the east panel) and 90 men who served (30 each on the north, west and south panels) in WWI. The decorative cornice features carved lilies and foliage, and is crowned by a plain carved aedicule with triangular pediments. A metal globe, comprised of a welded frame with the continents attached in sheet metal, has been inserted into the top of the aedicule.
\nInscriptions to the bottom of the pedestal commemorate major conflicts including the: SECOND WORLD WAR 1939-45 (east); KOREAN WAR 1950-53 (south); MALAYSIA 1950-60 and BORNEO 1963-66 (west); and VIETNAM WAR 1962-72 (north). The east face of the shaft bears the inscription ‘THIS STONE WAS ERECTED BY THE CITIZENS OF PIALBA & DISTRICT IN HONOUR OF THE MEN WHO SERVED AND FELL IN THE GREAT WAR. 1914-1919.’
\nThe modern granite platform, metal globe and stencilled concrete paths are not of cultural significance.
\nLandscape Features and Other Structures
\nMature trees, including figs (Ficus spp.), are located to the west and north of the cenotaph, and to the north of the hall. The relocated former Pialba railway station building is positioned to the west of the cenotaph. A recently dedicated Light Horse Memorial is situated to the west of the hall and various other modern memorial plaques are positioned throughout Freedom Park.
\n","history":"
The Pialba Memorial Cenotaph in Freedom Park, Pialba, in Hervey Bay, was unveiled on Sunday 17 July 1921, in honour of the men of the district who left to serve in World War I (WWI), and those who died. Originally sited near the eastern boundary of a railway reserve to the west of Main Street, in the late 1990s the marble pillar on its freestone plinth was moved about 30m westwards to its current position, where it was mounted on a modern granite platform, set amongst the paths, grass and trees of Freedom Park. The Pialba Memorial Cenotaph is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in a major world event. As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies it is highly valued by the Hervey Bay community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
\nPialba is now a suburb of the city of Hervey Bay. European settlement at Hervey Bay began with the establishment of the pastoral run Dalgaroom (16,000 acres) in the mid-1850s, and timber-getting commenced in the district in the mid-1860s. Dalgaroom run was reduced to 14,000 acres and renamed Toogoom, which was later resumed and surveyed as farming portions from 1870.[1] Farms in the Pialba area grew fruit, maize and potatoes, but they did not prosper until the railway line from Colton (on the North Coast Railway) to Pialba opened on 18 December 1896.[2] Other local industries have included sugar growing and dairy farming. In 1905 Pialba was referred to as ‘a township and favourite watering place [waterside resort area] for Maryborough’, with a population of 292 (1901 census), within a district with a population of 5000. [3] The railway, as well as transporting the produce of local farms, was utilised by seaside excursion trains and special picnic trains, generally run in conjunction with railway employee picnics, originating in Bundaberg, Gympie or Maryborough.
\nLike all Australian communities, Pialba was impacted by WWI, fought from 1914 to 1918. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war.[4] Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and died. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.[5]
\nFund-raising for local war memorials was a voluntary community effort, as no State Governments, other than Victoria, made direct grants for local WWI memorials except for the building of halls, hospitals and schools, which were eligible for public money whether or not they were memorials.[6]
\nWWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards (from 1915), stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns or urns), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland the soldier statue was the most popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states.
\nThe argument over whether a war memorial should simply be a monument, or have a utilitarian function, was had all over Australia. Post-WWI, most Australian localities decided on a monumental approach (60%), with only 22% choosing utilitarian buildings (mostly memorial halls) and 18% choosing the compromise position of utilitarian monuments (such as memorial clocks or drinking fountains). After World War II (WWII) the utilitarian form of memorial increased in popularity.[7]
\nPialba chose a monument for its war memorial, although some had preferred a memorial school of arts building.[8] In late 1918 Councillor W Whitaker and AEV Whitford, MLA, asked the Commissioner for Railways for a suitable site for a memorial ‘for fallen soldiers’, and a site was granted in Station Square, an open area between the Pialba railway station building and Main Street, by August 1918.[9] The location was apt, as many of the men would have departed via the railway station. The Pialba Farewell and Reception Committee (established c.1917) directed the movement, through a memorial committee. The memorial was to consist of a marble monument, with four panels (one on each face of the monument) listing the names of those who enlisted from the district and those who had died.[10]
\nPialba’s war memorial took several years to realise. The monument’s foundation stone, of freestone, was laid by Private Harry Aldridge on 14 December 1918.[11] By this time over £200 had been raised for the memorial by locals, but the delayed arrival of the Italian white marble for the monument’s pillar meant the finished memorial was not unveiled until 17 July 1921.[12] During the course of the campaign to erect the monument, the committee responsible met in the local shire hall.[13] The contractor for the monument was FW Webb of Maryborough, and the architect was POE Hawkes.[14]
\nHawkes, who also designed the Maryborough War Memorial, was born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales in 1882. He worked as an architect in Wagga Wagga, Perth, Melbourne and Launceston before being employed in a temporary position by the Queensland Government in 1909. He subsequently worked in Maryborough, Bundaberg and Kingaroy, forming a partnership as Hawkes and Palmer in Kingaroy and Maryborough between 1914 and 1917. In 1919 he was employed by the Commonwealth Government as District Adviser, registering as an architect (Qld) in 1930.[15]
\nThe monument’s final design included octagonal curbing, and iron posts with wrought iron rails, and these were still extant in a 1950 photo of the monument, which also shows the Pialba Memorial Hall immediately to the north.[16] The base of the marble pillar was inscribed with the words ‘This stone was erected by the citizens of Pialba and District in honour of the men who served and fell in the great war, 1914-1918’, while the panel with the names of the fallen (on the same face of the monument) was headed ‘In memory of the men who paid the supreme sacrifice in the great war, 1914-1918’. The other three panels listed the men ‘who served at the front’.[17] The names of future wars would later adorn the base of the four sides of the marble pillar: WWII, Korea, Malaya and Borneo, and Vietnam.
\nAt the unveiling ceremony, it was noted that the district had sent 120 men overseas, and 18 had made the ‘supreme sacrifice’; although the monument currently lists 112 men, of whom 22 died. Mr Huxley Taylor, who had lost two sons at the front, performed the unveiling ceremony, and a German machine gun was also presented to Pialba as a war trophy. [18]
\nIn 1941 the former Pialba Shire Hall was moved to its current location near the cenotaph by the Pialba sub-branch of the RSSAILA for use as a memorial hall. It was located on land purchased from the Commissioner of Railways by the Burrum Shire Council. The hall, which had previously been used on ANZAC Days for gatherings and refreshments,[19] was extended by the RSSAILA.
\nThe use of the land around the cenotaph and memorial hall has changed over time. The last passenger service ran to Pialba station in 1972; the railway reserve was progressively subdivided from 1990; and train services were withdrawn from Pialba in January 1994.[20] By late 1998 the cenotaph had been moved 30m west, as Railway Square was landscaped as part of Freedom Park, which in 2016 covered 0.82ha of the former railway reserve, including the former railway station building and the memorial hall.[21] The railway station building was also moved westwards, and was rotated 180° to face the cenotaph, which was rededicated on 6 January 1999. A hollow metal world globe with laurel leaves at its base, designed and built by George Pujol, was added to the top of the marble pillar at this time.
\nA memorial plinth to National Servicemen was dedicated in 2003, north of the cenotaph, and a Light Horse statue and monument was added north of the station building, west of the memorial hall, in 2014 in time for the ANZAC Centenary in 2015. The cenotaph remains the focus of memorial ceremonies.
\n","criteria":"
The Pialba Memorial Cenotaph, unveiled in 1921, is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in a major world event. World War I (WWI) memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. As the focus of ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies, they are an important element of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|The Pialba Memorial Cenotaph is a good example of a well-designed and finely crafted WWI monument, funded by public subscription, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a WWI memorial. The cenotaph, which includes panels bearing the names of those who served and those that fell, represents the empty grave of those from the district who did not return. Its design and decorative treatments include classical references symbolising sympathy and mourning.
|The Pialba Memorial Cenotaph, funded by public subscription, has a strong and special association with the people of Hervey Bay. Commemorations at the cenotaph reflect the wider reverence felt for war memorials across Australia. As a focus for ANZAC Day ceremonies the cenotaph is highly valued by the community for its spiritual, symbolic, cultural and social associations.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650029,"name":"Colinton War Memorial","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr D'Aguilar Highway and Emu Creek Road","suburb":"COLINTON","lga":"SOMERSET REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-07-15","description":"The Colinton War Memorial is located within Colinton Memorial Park, a triangular shaped 0.3ha (approx.) area on the corner of D’Aguilar Highway (to the northeast) and Emu Creek Road (to the northwest), at Colinton, in the upper Brisbane Valley. The open park setting contains grassed areas and shade trees of various species, and is bounded to the south by paddocks. Set back from the intersection, the memorial is orientated east-west and faces north.
\nThe memorial stands approximately three metres high and comprises a white marble panel framed by a carved sandstone base, columns and aedicule.
\nThe moulded, stepped base is ‘I’-shaped in plan and has bevelled corners. The square columns are stop-chamfered and flank the marble panel, which is visible from two sides. The front of the panel reads “COLINTON HONOUR ROLL” and lists the names of 43 men from the district who served in WWI, in two columns (25 on the left and 18 on the right) roughly in the order they enlisted.
\nThe decorative aedicule has a moulded cornice and is mirrored on the north and south faces. It comprises an arched pediment with the inscription “OUR BOYS” above a laurel wreath set within the tympanum, and a gabled ridge, which is capped with an edge roll and terminates with tracery infills above the columns. The aedicule is topped with an urn that has bevelled corners.
\nThe modern concrete slab, flagpole, metal posts and chains surrounding the memorial are not of heritage significance.
","history":"The Colinton War Memorial (1917), located in road reserve on the southwestern corner of Emu Creek Road and the D’Aguilar Highway at Colinton in the upper Brisbane Valley, is a sandstone and marble memorial to the men of Colinton and district who served during World War I (WWI). This stone memorial board by well-known monumental masons F Williams and Co. is the earliest WWI memorial monument known to be erected in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in a major world event and has a special association with the upper Brisbane Valley community.
\nThe upper Brisbane Valley was settled by squatters in the 1840s and was initially used for depasturing sheep, but later for cattle. Colinton Run, taken up by the Balfour Brothers (John, Charles and Robert) in 1841, included the site of Colinton War Memorial.[1] The original Colinton Station was made up of six leases: Colinton East and West, Mt Stanley East, Mt Stanley West, Diaper and Altyre, comprising covered 336,000 acres (135,974 ha).[2]
\nCloser settlement in the Brisbane Valley began in the 1870s. Colinton Run was reduced when the resumption of 94,080 acres (38,083 ha) from Colinton East and West took place in 1876.[3] As a result of land clearance by the selectors in the upper Brisbane Valley, a timber industry flourished, with one of the first sawmills being established at Colinton in the 1870s.[4]
\nSufficient settlement of the Brisbane Valley had taken place by 1877 for inspection of the land for a rail route from Walloon, via Esk and Nanango, to Gympie. The first section of the Brisbane Valley Branch Line, to Lowood, opened on 16 June 1884 while the second section, to Esk, opened on 9 August 1886; where the terminus remained for 17 years. During the 1880s closer settlement of the Brisbane Valley intensified with more land resumed from pastoral stations and settled.[5] Further reduction of Colinton Station took place in 1904 when the Colinton Estate was sold as 145 farms ranging from 100-3648 acres (40-1476 ha) in size and suitable for dairying and agriculture.[6]
\nDairy farming had commenced in the Brisbane Valley in the late 19th century, aided by the advancing Brisbane Valley Branch Rail line, which transported farm produce to dairy factories. The first of these was established at Lowood in 1890.[7]
\nAs a result of closer settlement, the township of Colinton formed as a service town for its surrounding agricultural community. In the Queensland Post Office Directory of 1900, three people were listed as residents of Colinton.[8] In 1907 Colinton Provisional School opened nearby in Emu Creek Road, and T H Moore of nearby Colinton Station helped establish the Standard Dairy Company Limited condensery, when he presented the company with its factory site at Colinton.[9]
\nThe Standard Dairy Company became a well-known condensed milk producer in Queensland early in the 20th century and played an important role in the settlement and progress of the Colinton district. It had opened a condensed milk factory at Wyreema on the Darling Downs before 1906.[10] Its second factory opened at Colinton on 15 February 1908, located on the north bank of Emu Creek beside the main road between Kilcoy and Blackbutt.[11] The company stated that ‘thousands of pounds have been invested in the building and plant [and the condensery was] one of the most complete, largest, and fully equipped in the Commonwealth… capable of treating 10,000 gallons of milk per day’.[12] The condensed milk factory made ‘Prairie’ milk from the district’s dairy produce.[13] From December 1909, nearby Nurinda railway station loaded goods to and from the factory.[14]
\nAt the outbreak of WWI, Colinton was a growing township. In that year, 27 people were listed there for postal purposes, of which 22 were dairy farmers. The 1911 census for Colinton district had recorded a population of 213. The Standard Dairy Co. Ltd’s condensery in the township received the produce of about 44 dairy farmers and provided employment at the factory for at least 40 locals. Photographic evidence of Colinton from 1914 and 1915 shows: about a dozen houses; two stores; and a School of Arts (1911-12), which was located north of Emu Creek, opposite the condensery.[15]
\nGiven its population of a little over 200, Colinton’s enlistment response was substantial. By January 1917, 44 Colinton men had successfully enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).[16]
\nThe plan to establish Colinton War Memorial to recognise their war service was initiated in May 1916. “[A] meeting was held to decide in what way to best place on record the excellent response the district has made to the call of the Empire, there having been 46 [sic] good men accepted for service from Colinton and the surrounding district. It has been practically decided to erect a marble slab, bearing the names of those who have volunteered”.[17] In August 1916 Joseph H Frisby, secretary of the Colinton Honour Board Committee, was granted permission by the Esk Shire Council to erect an honour board at the Colinton School of Arts, which was the social hub of the town and district, where meetings, dances, balls, and send-offs and memorials for soldiers were held.[18]
\nOn 18 January 1917, the Colinton Honour Board [Colinton War Memorial] was unveiled by the local member of parliament, H P Somerset, MLA. The stone honour board was located directly in front of the Colinton School of Arts, facing north.[19]
\nColinton War Memorial is the earliest WWI memorial of the monument type known to have been erected in Queensland.[20] At the time of its unveiling, the memorial was ‘believed to be the first of its kind in the State’. The stone honour board was described as follows: ‘[t]he base, pillars and crown are of sandstone, the centre being of white marble, on which are inscribed the names of the volunteers.’[21] ‘It is between 10 and 11 feet in height [3-3.3 m], the slab in the centre being marble, and the rest sandstone. The cost was subscribed by the residents of Colinton (Queensland).’[22]
\nNo state government other than Victoria’s made direct grants for local WWI memorials except for the building of halls, hospitals and schools which were eligible for public money whether or not they were memorials.[23] Fund-raising for local war memorials was thus a voluntary community effort, as was the case at Colinton.
\nThe decision about whose names should appear on a war memorial varied across Australia. While some only listed the dead, many also listed those who returned from service. War memorial committees were also lobbied to consider including people who missed military service for various reasons.[24] In Colinton’s case, the memorial was created to honour all the men of their community who volunteered to serve, and they were affectionately called ‘Our Boys’ on the memorial.
\nWWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards (from 1915), stone monuments (including obelisks, soldier statues, arches, crosses, columns, urns, or slabs – such as the one at Colinton), tree-lined memorial avenues, memorial parks, and utilitarian structures such as gates, halls and clocks. In Queensland the soldier statue was the most popular choice of monument, while the obelisk predominated in southern states.[25] Australia's first permanent WWI memorial to honour the men from a particular community was unveiled at Balmain, NSW on 23 April 1916.[26]
\nThe Colinton War Memorial was designed and executed by Frank Williams, of F Williams and Co. monumental stone masons, of East & Limestone Streets, Ipswich. Frank Williams was a well-known and respected monumental mason whose firm operated from 1901 until 1945.[27] The firm was noted for ecclesastical marble work and supplied memorials throughout Queensland. It was responsible for about 15 war memorials in southeast Queensland and was also commissioned to create 179 headstones for the graves of WWI soldiers and sailors throughout Queensland.[28] Frank Williams’ reputation as a monumental mason was such that well-known sculptor Daphne Mayo learnt the art of carving from him in 1919, prior to travelling to London on Queensland’s first traveling art scholarship.[29]
\nLike all Australian communities, Colinton was affected by the impact of WWI. Of the 330,770 Australians who embarked for overseas service in WWI, 58,961 died and 170,909 were wounded, went missing or became prisoners of war. This meant that around 69% of embarked personnel became casualties - or 21% of eligible Australian males.[30] To date, no previous or subsequent war has had such an impact on Australia in terms of loss of life; almost every community in every Australian state lost young people. Even before the end of hostilities, memorials were being erected by Australian communities to honour local people who had served and/or died. These memorials were a spontaneous and highly visible means of honouring those who served and expressing national grief; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East.
\nThe Colinton War Memorial lists 43 men who enlisted from the district, although 44 had enlisted.[31] Of these, only 13 returned to Colinton or its adjacent districts at the end of WWI and in 1922 only five of these were still working in the district.[32]
\nFollowing WWI, enormous change occurred at Colinton. The Standard Dairy Company Limited announced in December 1919 that its Colinton condensery would be moved to Nerang.[33] However, in August 1920 it was reported as still operating at Colinton.[34] The move was completed by June the following year, when Nestle and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co. (Australia) Ltd was formed to acquire the Australasian business of Nestle and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, as well as Bacchus Marsh Concentrated Milk Co. Pty Ltd, the Standard Dairy Co. Ltd (with factories at Wyreema, Wellcamp and Nerang) and Australian Milk Products Ltd.[35] The Nestle Company condensery at Toogoolawah took over the Colinton factory’s milk supply.[36]
\nThe closing down of the Colinton condensery impacted upon the township.[37] In 1919-20 there were 37 residents listed for Colinton in the Queensland Post Office Directory.[38] Despite the continuation of dairying as an important industry in the Brisbane Valley, the 1933 census showed a decline in the Colinton district’s population to 181.[39]
\nThe decline of dairy farming dates from the 1950s as factories closed and dairymen turned to cattle production.[40] After World War II dairy production in Queensland followed the national shift from cream, butter and cheese production to the supply of pasteurized bulk milk, made possible by improvements to rural roads and in road transportation.[41] Stricter regulations for the running of dairies, lower prices, the loss of the British market, and foreign imports also took their toll. Many farmers either switched to bulk milk production or left the dairy industry altogether.
\nBy the 1950s there were only a few homes and businesses left at Colinton.[42] This decline was no doubt exacerbated by the re-alignment of the Brisbane Valley Highway (now D’Aguilar Highway) in the late 1950s further to the south of that part of the township lying southeast of Emu Creek.[43] By 1971 there were no houses left in the township, although a general store operated beside the re-aligned highway.[44]
\nFollowing the 1974 flood – which did not affect the Colinton War Memorial, but did result in upgrading of the adjacent highway – the Esk Shire Council relocated the war memorial from its site near Emu Creek to its current position in the road reserve at the corner of Emu Creek Road and the D’Aguilar Highway.[45]
\nToday the locality of Colinton has a service station on the southern side of the highway and the Colinton Memorial Park, where the Colinton War Memorial stands. The Colinton area and the neighbouring town of Moore have a combined population of about 315. Colinton War Memorial, although lacking a surrounding township, is the focus of occasional community commemorations and is recognised and visited by passing motorists travelling the adjacent D’Aguilar Highway. It has been the subject of artistic rendition by well-known photographer, Richard Stringer and artist, Lyn Felman.
","criteria":"The Colinton War Memorial, unveiled in 1917, is important in demonstrating Queensland's involvement in a major world event. World War I (WWI) memorials are a tribute from a particular community to those who served and those who died. They are an important feature of Queensland's towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nThe stone honour board at Colinton is the first WWI memorial monument known to be erected in Queensland.
|The Colinton War Memorial is a good example of a well-designed and finely crafted WWI memorial. Designed and built by monumental stone masons Frank Williams & Co., its decorative treatments include classical references typical of WWI memorials and symbolising honour (columns), death (urn) and mourning (wreath).
\nIt is a rare and early example of a stone honour board in Queensland and a fine example of the work of the well-regarded Queensland firm of monumental masons, Frank Williams & Co.
|Colinton War Memorial is of aesthetic significance for its high level of workmanship, materials and design.
\nStanding alone in a rural landscape without evidence of the community that created it, Colinton War Memorial evokes a sense of loss of both the soldiers it commemorates and their township.
|The Colinton War Memorial, funded by community subscription, has a strong and special association with the people of the upper Brisbane Valley. Commemorations at the Colinton War Memorial reflect the wider reverence felt for war memorials across Australia, as a focus of reflection and tribute.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650030,"name":"Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (former)","alternate_name":"Allied Translator and Interpreter Section headquarters | Northern Command Provost Company headquarters | Witton Barracks","street_address":"9 Lambert Road","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-10-14","description":"In 2016 the former Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre occupies a 1.95ha, irregular-shaped, terraced site, located on the northern bank of the Brisbane River in the suburb of Indooroopilly, Brisbane. The property is bounded by Lambert Street (north), a railway reserve (west), the Brisbane River (south), and residential properties (east), including Tighnabruaich [QHR 600229]. The area immediately around the former defence buildings, in the southern half of the site, is terraced, stepping up from west to east; and is accessed and set well back from Lambert Street to the north. The defence buildings are organised around a bitumen parade ground (previously a POW exercise yard) and includes a southern cell block (1942-43), two western cell blocks (central, 1942-43; northern, 1942-43), a northwestern Quartermaster’s Store and Office (Q-Store; c1959-60) and an eastern Motorised Transport (MT) Cover (c1959-60).
\nCell Blocks (1942-43)
\nThe three cell blocks are of the same original design. Standing on a sloping site, the buildings step down from the southern cell block to the western (north) cell block. The buildings are all lowset, one storey, brick and timber structures, with corrugated metal-clad hip roofs, and spaced timber board eaves linings. They are approximately rectangular in plan. Most walls are facebrick, with the exception of those in the southwestern (western cell blocks) and southeastern (southern cell block) corners of the buildings, which are single-skin with external V-jointed (VJ) timber board cladding and internally exposed timber stud framing.
\nEach cell block originally comprised five cells, off a long passageway running the length of the building. On the opposite side of the passageway, and occupying almost half the length of each cell block, were two ancillary rooms – a bathroom and a (possible) guard room – and a lean-to entry porch. Most cells have brick walls, wide plaster cornices and wide concrete skirtings. The guard rooms and bathrooms generally have painted brick walls, narrow timber cornices and are free of skirting boards. Ceilings throughout all three of the blocks are recent plaster over VJ boards, and the floors are concrete slabs (some covered with recent linings).
\nTimber joinery is retained throughout the buildings, including timber-framed fixed louvre and awning windows. Most cells have a timber-framed, fixed timber louvre window, with vertical steel bars to the interior; and most windows to the guard room/bathroom sections have interior metal security grates.
\nFeatures not of cultural heritage significance include painted finishes to brickwork, tile and linoleum floor linings, flat sheeting lining some cell walls, fibre cement sheeting, modern bathroom fixtures, plywood boarding over windows and doors, wire mesh screens, and metal barred screens.
\nSouthern Cell Block
\nThe southern cell block is orientated on an east-west axis and its floor level is aligned with the parade ground. The building is accessed via a ground-level footpath to the east and from a timber stair to the west, which both open into the long central passageway.
\nThe facebrick walls of the cells have rough mortar joints, and above each cell door in the passageway is a painted number, listed from one to five (east to west). The entry porch has recently been enclosed with fibre cement sheeting (enclosing fabric is not of significance).
\nMetal grill doors secure the entrance to the building and each of the cells and retain original hardware including a locking device (lever) at the eastern entrance that connects to all the cell door locks.
\nWestern (Central) Cell Block
\nAligned on a north-south axis, the western (central) cell block stands downhill from the parade ground. It is accessed from a footpath to the south, a small concrete stair to the north and an entry porch to the northwest. A shade house (not of significance) is attached to the southern elevation.
\nMost of the cell walls and their skirtings have been painted. A large wall opening has been cut between the second- and third-most northern cells. The southern cell is lined with modern flat sheeting, which is aligned with the skirtings and has wide, rectangular cover strips.
\nThe timber cell doors have metal grill observation openings at eye level. A metal locking mechanism running above the doors is retained.
\nWestern (North) Cell Block
\nThe western (north) cell block is orientated on a north-south axis and its floor-level is slightly lower than that of the western (central) cell block. It is accessed from a footpath to the south and via the northwestern entry porch; the number 47 is painted above the entry porch’s doorway. A single story, brick, skillion-roofed annex has been added to the southwest corner of the building; and a brick, skillion roofed strong room has been added north of the cells.
\nWhile walls that separated the four northernmost cells have been removed, stubs projecting from the eastern and western walls mark their former locations, enabling the original layout to be legible. A lightweight partition has replaced the original wall separating the southernmost cells, and includes a door and a low rectangular opening. All cell walls have been lined with recent flat sheeting (aligned with the skirtings) and finished with wide, rectangular cover strips. The cell windows do not have their original bars or timber louvres. The walls of the guard room/bathroom section are lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips. The two-room annex addition has painted brick and VJ timber board-lined walls.[1]
\nVJ timber-lined boarded doors are located at the northern and southern entrances, within the annex and to the southern cell. Most cell doors are modern replacements and some have been removed completely.
\nQuartermaster’s Store and Office (Q-Store, c1959-60)
\nThe Quartermaster’s Store and Office (Q-Store) is rectangular in plan and is orientated to face northwest, with its main floor highset on the northwest elevation but level with the parade ground on its southeast elevation. The building is one-storey, cavity brick structure; supported on brick piers and sheltered by a corrugated metal-clad gable roof. All external walls are facebrick. The main entrances to the building are via a northwestern verandah, with additional access from the rear (southeast) – at ground level (eastern end) and via a concrete stair (western end).
\nInternally, the building is divided into two sections – offices to the northeast and store to the southwest – that are separated by a central Duty Room (north, entered via the verandah) and Security Office (south, entered through the store section). The office section is entered from the north through a central public corridor, which provides access to a northeastern Officer Commanding (OC) Office and northwestern Investigation Absent Without Leave (AWOL) Section Office; and terminates at a southwestern Orderly Room. A smaller corridor in the northern corner of the Orderly Room provides access to a southeastern Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) Office, and a second door to the OC Office. The store section reads as its original, singular space with a timber partition west of the entrance door, although has recent, lightweight office partitions. All external walls are internally lined with plaster, and interior walls are lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips. All ceilings are lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips, and the timber floor boards are almost completely covered in modern linings. Marks in the floor lining at the entrance to the store section are indicative of the former location of a service counter.
\nThe verandah has a concrete floor and a raked ceiling lined in flat sheets. It has metal circular posts with metal post-and-rail balustrades, and concrete stairs to the east and west.
\nThe sub-floor area is accessible from the southwest. It is divided into three sections of the same proportions as the building’s interior and verandah, with facebrick piers and walls dividing the spaces. A concrete plinth is located at the eastern end of the southwestern section.
\nEarly timber joinery has been retained and includes casement and awning windows to the exterior, sliding windows to the verandah, and louvres (glass removed) within the interior. The OC and RSM offices are connected by a small, timber sliding service window. Interior metal security grills are attached to all windows in the store section. All doors are of timber; the entry doors are partially glazed and those to the office section are high waisted.
\nElements that are not of cultural heritage significance include: lightweight partitions in the store section, linoleum floor linings, kitchenettes, plywood boarding over windows and doors, paint over external brickwork, and wire mesh and timber screens dividing the subfloor area.
\nMotor Transport (MT) Building (c1959-60)
\nThe Motor Transport Building is a brick and timber-framed structure with a concrete slab floor and a skillion roof clad in profiled-metal sheets. The building is rectangular in plan and is largely open for the provision for vehicle-parking in the centre, with brick enclosures at the northern and southern ends. A brick wall with protruding brick piers runs along the eastern side of the building and square timber posts, with timber bracing, hardwood post guards and metal feet, support the roof in the central section.
\nThe northern enclosure includes an eastern and a western office, and the southern enclosure forms a dangerous goods store. The walls of the eastern office are of painted brickwork, while those in the western office are plaster. Timber skirtings and architraves within the western office are of a simple profile. Walls in the dangerous goods store are facebrick. The ceilings within all enclosures are lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips.
\nEarly timber joinery retained in the building includes: timber-framed casements to the offices; a panelled timber door to the western office; timber-framed casements with wired glass and metal grates; and VJ-lined timber doors braced with metal strips to the dangerous goods store. External fixed timber louvre sunshades are attached to the eastern office’s windows.
\nNon-significant elements include wire mesh and corrugated metal sheets that divide the central parking area, and plywood boarding over windows.
\nFormer POW Exercise yard
\nA roughly rectangular parade ground (former POW exercise yard) is located between the cell blocks, Q-Store and MT Cover. It is a flattened surface that slightly slopes down from the MT Cover to the west. As an open area, it provides a visual link between the five buildings of cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Features within heritage register boundary
\nEarly concrete retaining walls and concrete stairs survive in various locations within the cultural heritage boundary, including: to the east and south of the MT Cover, northeast and south of the Q-Store, between the western cell blocks, and between the southern cell block and MT Store.
\nNon-Significant Elements
\nOther elements that are not of cultural heritage significance include: a metal-framed shed east of the western cell blocks and a former Provost Barracks and Mess (1967) southwest of the cell blocks.
[1] The Strong Room was locked and inaccessible during EHP’s site visit in May 2016.
Three brick and timber cell blocks (c1942-43), and their related former exercise yard, located at 9 Lambert Street, Indooroopilly, Brisbane, are the last surviving purpose-built elements of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, which was the headquarters of the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) from late 1942 to mid-1945. The facility was the only purpose-built World War II (WWII) interrogation centre for POWs in Australia. The later Q-Store and Office building (c1959-60), and a Motorized Transport Cover (c1959-60) were purpose-built infrastructure for the Australian Army’s Northern Command Provost (military police) unit that occupied the site from 1951 to c1984.
\nBrisbane became an important supply base for the war in the Pacific after Japan entered World War II in December 1941. US General Douglas MacArthur, formally appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) theatre on 18 April 1942, moved his General Headquarters (GHQ) SWPA from Melbourne to Brisbane on 20 July 1942, to prepare for a counter-offensive against the Japanese. The Imperial Japanese Navy had lost a number of aircraft carriers, and therefore much of its offensive strength, in the battles of the Coral Sea (May 1942) and Midway (June 1942); and during September 1942 the Imperial Japanese Army would be defeated, for the first time in the Pacific War, at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda Track in Papua.[1] As a result of these land battles, Japanese prisoners were sent back to Australia from September 1942. The first Japanese documents had been captured in an Australian commando raid on Salamaua, New Guinea, on 29 June 1942.[2]
\nThe Australian Military Forces (AMF, or Army) had begun Japanese language training in Melbourne in 1940, and Australian Japanese linguists were later sent to the Australian Advanced Land Headquarters, Brisbane, established by General Thomas Blamey (Allied Land Forces Commander) at the University of Queensland at St Lucia in August 1942.[3] The large two storey timber residence ‘Tighnabruiach’ [QHR 600229], on 3.8ha of land on the bank of the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly, was requisitioned by the AMF on 17 August 1942,[4] and the Australians established the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre there in early September 1942.[5]
\nThe site of the Interrogation Centre was once the estate of Henry Charles Stanley, Chief Engineer for Railways in Queensland, who built Tighnabruaich c1889-92.[6] Development at Indooroopilly was limited until the Brisbane to Ipswich railway line opened to the locality in 1875. Indooroopilly developed as an elite suburb in the late 19th century, and a number of large villas, including Tighnabruaich, were later erected on the banks of the Brisbane River. Stanley lived at Tighnabruaich until c1901.[7] A 1860s timber residence, Witton House, was moved onto the southwest corner of the Tighnabruaich estate by a later owner, Herbert Brealey Hemming, around 1915-16. After Hemming died on 8 March 1942 the estate was administered by Queensland Trustees Limited.[8]
\nOn 19 September 1942, the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), a joint US-Australian unit, was formed by MacArthur’s Chief Intelligence Officer, Brigadier-General Charles A. Willoughby, and established its headquarters at the Interrogation Centre.[9] The ATIS was one of a number of intelligence organisations developed by General MacArthur’s GHQ from April 1942 onwards, including the Central Bureau (code breaking), the Allied Geographical Section (terrain intelligence), Order of Battle Section (for information on enemy units), and the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB: propaganda, intelligence gathering, and commando raids or guerrilla warfare in Japanese-occupied territory).[10]
\nThe ATIS initially consisted of 14 Australian officers and three enlisted men, and nine US personnel. The latter included one Caucasian officer and eight Japanese American (Nisei) enlisted men who had completed a Japanese language course at the US Fourth Army Intelligence School in San Francisco on 1 May 1942; and who had arrived in Australia in June 1942.[11] The American-born Nisei, whose families were removed from the US West Coast in early 1942 due to fears about the loyalty of Japanese Americans, were to prove invaluable to the Allied War effort. ‘The Nisei learned to use their knowledge of Japanese culture and psychology to elicit information through indirect questioning. They discovered that compassionate treatment worked wonders. Their captives, expecting torture and death, were at first astonished, then grateful. Any recalcitrant prisoner needed only to hear that authorities would notify his family … that he had been captured alive. The implied disgrace could usually convince him to co-operate’.[12]
\nThe ATIS was formed into four units, with the Nisei attached to GHQ; the other sections were Allied Naval Forces, Allied Land Forces, and Allied Air Forces, and all were accommodated at the Tighnabruaich property. The Tighnabruaich residence was used for senior officers’ accommodation and offices, while Witton House became the Sergeants’ mess. The Nisei enlisted men soon moved into tents at a property directly across the river (Neilson House on Rosebery Terrace, since demolished).[13]
\nThe ATIS headquarters at Tighnabruaich became the primary interrogation centre for enemy POWs in Australia. Other POW sites in Australia were POW Camps for large numbers of prisoners, whereas the cell blocks at the Interrogation Centre were built as temporary holding cells for small numbers of POWs awaiting interrogation.[14]
\nWith a capacity to accommodate 15 prisoners, the three cell blocks, in a compound surrounded by barbed wire, were constructed in late 1942-early 1943. Each of the blocks included five cells linked by an adjacent passageway running the length of the block, and two ancillary rooms in a section on the opposite side of the passageway. Based on a 1958 inventory of room contents, the larger ancillary room (with a hot water cylinder) was probably a guard room, and the smaller a bathroom.[15]
\nThe construction of the cell blocks was kept a closely guarded secret. An Allied Works Council (AWC) meeting in early December 1942 merely noted a requisition for £2000 of alterations and additions to ‘three premises’ at ‘ATIS Indooroopilly’.[16] The work was allocated to Mr Holt, Supervising Engineer of the Bridge Board, with the order lodged on the Main Roads Commission and a time of completion of six weeks. The project ‘Indooroopilly, GHQ, 3 special buildings’ was also included in a list of requisitions to January 1943, with the handwritten annotation ‘Detailed Interrogation Centre’.[17] A Department of the Army minute paper from late January 1943 reported that ‘brick buildings of substantial design are being erected at Indooroopilly…for the Department of the Army on a site adjoining the railway station’ with a hand written annotation noting that ‘this is the ATIS GHQ project for interrogation’. A later minute paper stated that ‘the project referred to is an urgent vital operational one, comprising brick buildings erected to special designs produced by an overseas officer for the purpose of housing a GHQ Centre, and is of such a highly secret nature that only a very few senior intelligence officers were permitted to view the plans’.[18]
\nThe prisoners at the Interrogation Centre were held under tight security. The POWs in the cell blocks were guarded by troops from the Australian 1st Garrison Battalion, and were sent to the Interrogation Centre from the Gaythorne POW Transit Camp. ‘A small, dirt exercise yard was located within the barbed wire enclosure. There was only one Entry Point into the Prisoners’ Compound. POWs were marched through one barbed wire gate into a small holding pen. They remained inside this pen until one gate was closed and locked. Then the other gate was opened to allow them to either exit or enter the Prisoners’ Compound’.[19] The presence of Japanese POWs so near to Brisbane homes was kept a secret from locals. Once interrogation was completed, the POWs were returned to Gaythorne prior to being placed on a train and sent to POW Camps in New South Wales or Victoria. There was one death of a POW at the Interrogation Centre in 1943, when Private Kingo Yamashita of the Imperial Japanese Army hung himself in his cell after interrogation.[20]
\nPOWs of other nationalities were also questioned at the Interrogation Centre. These included German crew members of the blockade-runner Ramses (a cargo ship attempting to deliver rubber from Japan to German-occupied France), scuttled in the Indian Ocean on 28 November 1942; and the submarine U-168, sunk in the Indian Ocean on 6 October 1944. Interrogation of captured Indonesians, or translation of documents written in the Malay languages of the Indies, was undertaken by the Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS).[21]
\nIn its first month of operation the ATIS, which was a polyglot unit including Americans, Australians, Canadians, British, Chinese, White Russians, and East Indies Netherlanders, processed 1000 captured Japanese documents, translated 90, and interrogated seven prisoners, the first Japanese POWs (captured at Normanby Island near Milne Bay) reaching Brisbane on 30 September 1942. The ATIS released its first spot report on 1 November. By
27 December 1942, Allied units in New Guinea had sent back 1100 documents for translation, and during the war the ATIS produced research reports on various topics, including war crimes. [22]
Other important work conducted by ATIS translators at the Interrogation Centre included the breaking of the Japanese Army's codes in 1943 (after the capture of codebooks from the Japanese Army’s 20th Division) and the translation of a captured Japanese officers’ list that allowed the Allies to compile a Japanese Order of Battle.[23] In May 1944, a captured Japanese plan (‘Z’ Plan) for concentrating the Japanese Combined Fleet for a decisive final battle with the US Pacific Fleet, assisted by land-based aircraft, was translated at the Interrogation Centre just before the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944. The largest aircraft carrier battle in history, it was won by the US, with crippling losses of Japanese aircraft.[24]
\nThe cell blocks are the only remaining purpose-built elements of the Interrogation Centre. According to wartime site plans,[25] by April 1944 the complex had a prisoners’ compound, east of Witton House; four ‘Masonite huts’ south of Witton House, and eight along the boundary with the railway line, north of Witton House; an former stable just east of the prisoners’ compound, used as a QM (Quartermaster’s) store;[26] four OR (Other Ranks) quarters northeast of the prisoners’ compound, with showers and latrines to the northeast of the quarters, a mess hall and kitchen to the west, and ablutions and latrines to the south; a car ramp and petrol store further north near Lambert Road; an orderly room northwest of the circular driveway to Tighnabruaich; a translating building southeast of the driveway (built over tennis courts); plus a building just west of Tighnabruaich (possibly the interrogation building),[27] and five buildings east of Tighnabruaich and the translating building. Of the WWII buildings at the facility, only the cell blocks were made of brick.
\nMore buildings were added, and some were removed, between 1944 and 1946. The layout of the prisoner’s compound – with three cell blocks, two small buildings to the north and one small building to the southwest – is visible in a 1946 aerial. By this time the Masonite huts had gone; there was a new building south of the QM store, and there were three additional buildings east of Tighnabruaich and the translating building. The buildings of the prisoners’ compound are finally shown on a 1948 plan. The latter shows that by 1948 small lean-to porches existed at the north end of the western section of the western (north and central) cell blocks; and at the west end of the southern section of the southern cell block.[28] All of the WWII additions to the site, apart from the three cell blocks, were gradually removed by the late 1950s.[29]
\nThe Interrogation Centre was officially acquired by the Commonwealth Government on 26 April 1945,[30] and subsequently a variety of military units were accommodated there. In July, the ATIS left and until the end of the war the site was the barracks for No.2 Australian Women's Army Service (AWAS), which was transferred from St Peter’s Lutheran College on Indooroopilly Road. The site was then used as barracks for No.7 AWAS until July 1946, and was used as a personnel depot until 1949.[31]
\nThere were some changes to the use of the cell blocks in the immediate post-war period. An inventory of buildings at the former Interrogation Centre, dated December 1950, noted that the western (north) cell block was used as a Sergeants’ mess, while the other two blocks were still cells. All cell blocks were 65ft 6inches by 33ft (20m by 10m), while the western (north) block also had a small 4ft 7inch by 3ft 6inch (1.4m by 1.1m) timber annex (south of the western section).[32]
\nIn January 1951 Tighnabruaich became the official residence of the General of Command (GOC), Northern Command, Australian Army (later Commander 1st Division) – the house serving in this capacity until 1998.[33] In 1960 Northern Command, which was headquartered at Victoria Barracks in Brisbane, covered Queensland, some of northern NSW, and the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.[34]
\nThe Northern Command’s Provost Platoon was also based at the former Interrogation Centre from 1951,[35] with the WWII cell blocks being reused as a detention barracks. Instead of POWs, they would now hold Australian soldiers. Provost (military police) units supervised disciplinary regulations and also provided traffic control for other military units. After WWII the Australian Provost Corps had been reduced to one platoon in each of Queensland, Victoria and NSW, plus some units involved in the occupation of Japan. AMF military detention barracks in Queensland (including Grovely, Warwick and Charters Towers) were disbanded, and by 1948 Queensland’s Northern Command Provost Platoon only held prisoners for short periods before they were transferred to Eastern Command detention barracks in NSW. [36]
\nHowever, the re-introduction of National Service in the 1951 meant that the provost platoons were expanded to company strength.[37] Previous National Service schemes had operated from 1911-29 and 1939-1945, and the third National Service Scheme, initiated by the National Service Act 1951, was a result of the Cold War and conflict in South East Asia and Korea. The first call-up notice for compulsory military training of males turning 18 on or after 1 November 1950 was issued in April 1951. Between 1951 and the scheme’s termination in 1959, 227,000 men were trained.[38] The Provosts were kept busy dealing with offences by National Servicemen, and the Northern Command Provost Platoon was expanded to company strength in 1955.
\nA number of changes occurred to the former Interrogation Centre site during its use by the Provost Company. By 1958 the western (north) cell block was a lecture room and gymnasium, with four rooms, a passageway and the timber annex (for a water closet), while the other cell blocks retained their original layout of two ancillary rooms, a passageway and five cells. All three cell blocks were described as having hardwood and brick frames; concrete foundations and floors; walls of brick and tongue & groove vertical joint pine; caneite ceilings; and a corrugated asbestos cement roof. Linings in the western (north) cell block were hardboard and plywood; with brick, caneite, plywood and hardboard partitions; while the other two cell blocks had linings of plywood and partitions of brick and plywood.[39]
\nNew buildings were also added to the Provost headquarters at the former Interrogation Centre, the first being three prefabricated Riley Newsum residences, completed in 1952 and used as married quarters: two on the Lambert Road frontage of the site, and one on Clarence Street, east of the translating building. The married quarters buildings were later removed between 1997 and 2001.[40]
\nTwo more buildings (extant in 2016) were added to the Provost headquarters c1959-60, forming a complex around the perimeter of the former POW exercise yard, which at some point was sealed with bitumen as a parade ground.[41] The arrangement of buildings around a central parade ground is a characteristic of Australian Army barracks.[42] One building was a Q-store (Quartermaster’s store) and Office, built north of the exercise yard. This had a Q-Store at the west end, a security room (possibly a secure room for the Q-Store) and duty room (guard room), orderly room (administration office), investigation AWOL section, and rooms for the OC (Officer Commanding) and RSM (Regimental Sergeant Major) at the east end.[43] In 1961 the Q-Store, highset on brick piers, was described as being 72ft by 32ft (22m by 9.8m), with a corrugated galvanised iron roof; brick walls; hardwood and concrete floors; cement rendered lining; hardboard, brick and louvre partitions, and hardboard and FAC (Flat Asbestos Cement?) ceilings.[44]
\nThe second building was a Motor Transport (MT) Cover, constructed to the east of the exercise yard. It included an office and store room at the north end, 12 vehicle bays, and an oil store room at the south end.[45] In 1961 the building was described as being 150ft by 21ft (45.7m by 6.4m), with concrete foundations and floor; brick walls; hardwood posts; galvanised iron cliplock roof; some cement rendered lining; and some hardboard ceiling.[46] Australia’s Provost units initially used US Jeeps and Harley Davidson motorcycles after WWII, then later British Austin Champs and Land Rovers, and BSA B40 motorcycles.[47]
\nA further addition was made to the Provost headquarters in 1967, when Witton House was demolished and replaced with a new two-storey brick Provost Company barracks (extant in 2016).[48]
\nThere were other changes made to the complex in the 1960s and 1970s. Between 1961 and 1969 a new (brick) annex was built south of the western section of the western (north) cell block; and between 1969 and 1974 a new building (not extant in 2016) was located on the parade ground, running west-east near the western cell blocks.[49] On a c1983 plan this is labelled an SIB (Special Investigations Branch) office.[50] This was replaced by a steel-framed maintenance workshop, located east of and parallel to the western (north) cell block, c1986 (extant 2016).[51] By 1974 the western (north) cell block was being used as a Q-Store, with the 1959-60 Q-store being used as offices.[52] Between 1974 and 1997 a brick extension, for a strong room, was added to the north end of the western (north) cell block. Also in 1974, a timber interwar residence (not extant) was relocated from the Kelvin Grove Military Reserve to face Clarence Road to the east of Tighnabruaich.[53] By 1979 the Provost headquarters was called ‘Witton Barracks’.[54]
\nBetween 1951 and the 1980s the former Interrogation Centre had become ‘the major military police barracks in Queensland’,[55] and ‘to a large degree the area [had] been purpose-built as a military police installation’.[56] By 1979 there were two military police units based at the former Interrogation Centre, to provide support to Divisional units and the Military District, and to prevent, detect and investigate crimes within the army. The units totalled 112 personnel, 39 vehicles and 25 motorcycles, and the western (central) cell block was being used for ‘additional storage and office accommodation’.[57] There was a barrack block (the 1967 barracks) with accommodation and dining rooms for 22 all ranks, and a 16-man barrack block was being used as an office (presumably the 1970s SIB office). Tighnabruaich was now the residence of the Commander of the 1st Division, and the residence moved to the site in 1974 was used by the Commander of the 1st Military District.
\nThe use of Witton Barracks by the military police declined from 1984. In January that year the facility was occupied by the 1 Military Police Company, and 9 Military Police Company, with 110 full-time and 52 half-time staff. However, 1 Military Police Company moved to new barracks accommodation at Enoggera in April 1984, and Witton Barracks was reduced to 30 full-time staff.[58]
\nLater the Queensland University Regiment (an officer training unit of the Australian Army Reserve) took over use of Witton Barracks, occupying it until c2009-11.[59] No structures of cultural heritage significance were added to the former Interrogation Centre during this period.
\nIn 1998, a 1.2ha block of land containing Tighnabruaich, and a 2181 m2 block around the Clarence Road residence, were subdivided from Witton Barracks and sold, reducing the site to 1.97ha.[60]
\nIn 2016 the remainder of Witton Barracks was purchased by the Brisbane City Council. At that time the three WWII cell blocks survived at the former Interrogation Centre, along with the c1959-60 Q-Store and MT Cover, the 1967 barracks block, and the 1980s steel-framed workshop. The barracks block and 1980s workshop are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
The former Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (Interrogation Centre) at Indooroopilly, which includes three brick and timber cell blocks (c1942-43) and a related Prisoner of War (POW) exercise yard, is important surviving evidence of the only purpose-built World War II (WWII) facility in Australia for interrogating enemy POWs. As the headquarters of the joint United States-Australian Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) from 1942-1945, the Interrogation Centre played an important part in Queensland, Australian, and global history. Military intelligence obtained from the POWs interrogated at the Interrogation Centre played an important part in the Allied war effort against Japan and also in investigating war crimes committed by Japanese forces.
\nThe former Interrogation Centre also includes a brick Q-Store and Office and a brick Motor Transport Cover (both c1959-60) which are important in demonstrating the use, from 1951, of the site as the headquarters of the Australian Army’s Provost (military police) presence in Queensland. The 1950s expansion of the Provost Corps, and of the military police presence at the former Interrogation Centre, was due to the introduction of Australia’s third National Service scheme (1951-59).
|The three cell blocks are the last surviving buildings of the former Interrogation Centre, the only purpose-built WWII interrogation centre for POWs in Australia. They are also unique as the only cell blocks constructed in Australia during WWII for holding enemy POWs, mainly Japanese POWs, prior to interrogation by the ATIS.
|The former Interrogation Centre demonstrates the characteristics of a military detention site. The centre accommodated enemy POWs during WWII, and detained Australian soldiers from 1951.
\nThe cell blocks comprise five cells off a passageway running the length of each block, with an adjacent guard room and bathroom section. The southern cell block and western (central) cell block both retain their cell doors and barred windows, plus a locking mechanism above the cell doors along the passageway.
\nThe former POW exercise yard still exists as an open space between the buildings, and was used after WWII as a parade ground. The arrangement of buildings around the parade ground is a characteristic of Australian Army barracks.
\nThe Q-Store and Office retains all its original storage and office spaces, as does the 12-bay Motor Transport Cover. Both these buildings demonstrate the facilities (office and storage space, and vehicle garaging) required by a Provost unit to carry out its duties.
|As the WWII headquarters of the ATIS, the former Interrogation Centre has a close association with an intelligence organisation that provided valuable information to the General Headquarters (GHQ) of US General Douglas MacArthur, during his direction of the war in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) theatre.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650032,"name":"Sherwood State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"464 Oxley Road","suburb":"SHERWOOD","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-07-15","description":"Sherwood State School occupies a 7ha site within Sherwood, a residential suburb approximately 8km southwest of the Brisbane CBD. The school is located on the corner of Sherwood Road (south) and Oxley Road (west), and is bounded to the north by Hall Street and to the east by McCulla Street. School buildings occupy the elevated western half of the site, with a playing field to the east, separated by stone-pitched retaining terraces. Significant buildings, from south to north, include: a Suburban Timber School Building (Block A, 1917) facing Sherwood Road; two Sectional School Buildings (Block B, 1923; and Block C, 1937 with 1951 extension) either side of Block A, linked by verandahs; a Boulton & Paul Building (Block B, 1952 extension); a Ferguson-designed School Building (Block D; 1887, extended 1900, relocated and altered 1937); and a Timber Vocational Building (Block G; 1952). The school grounds contain a number of significant mature trees, and landscaping features include earthworks, assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, and paths. With its decorative timber school buildings facing Sherwood Road, the school makes an important visual contribution to the streetscape and is a landmark for the area.
\n\n
Suburban Timber School Building (Block A - 1917)
\nBlock A is a symmetrically arranged, highset, timber-framed building, orientated east-west, with east, west and south-facing verandahs. It contains three classrooms. The Dutch-gabled roof is sheeted with corrugated metal, and features a prominent ventilation roof fleche and battened gable infills. A gable-roofed teachers room is attached to the southern verandah and flanked by timber stairs.
\nThe exterior is clad in timber weatherboards and the verandah walls are lined with a single skin of V-jointed (VJ), tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards. The northern wall has banks of windows, which are recently installed aluminium-framed sliders, sheltered by wide eaves supported by timber brackets. There are high-level pivot windows on the eastern and western walls, and the southern wall has three large banks of casement windows with pivot fanlights and louvres above. The teachers room has casement windows to the east and the south (with battened skillion hood). The verandahs have timber floors, flat-sheeted raked ceilings, and two-rail balustrades that are battened. Verandah steps connect Block A with Block B to the northwest and Block C to the northeast.
\nThe interior layout comprises two large classrooms with a central narrow classroom / amenity area (formerly three equal classrooms), separated by modern concertina doors. Part of the verandah has been enclosed, and the verandah wall removed, to connect the central area with the teachers room. The classroom interior is lined with VJ boards and retain bulkheads that demonstrate the former layout. Former ventilations flaps are evident at the base of the verandah walls. The classroom and teachers room ceilings are coved and lined with VJ boards, and retain centred metal tie rods and vent frames; the teachers room vent is latticed. The timber floors are covered with modern carpet and other floor linings.
\nThe understorey has a concrete floor and comprises mostly open play space. The concrete stumps have chamfered corners, and the southern and eastern sides are enclosed with modern crimped sheeting.
\nSectional School Buildings (Block B – 1923; and Block C – 1937, with 1951 extension)
\nThe Sectional School buildings are both highset, timber-framed structures, aligned east-west, with partially enclosed verandahs along the northern side, large banks of windows along the southern side, and blank end walls. The Dutch-gabled and gabled (eastern end of Block C) roofs are clad with corrugated metal and have battened gable infills; Block B features a prominent ventilation roof fleche. Both have gable-roofed teachers rooms projecting north from the verandahs, flanked by timber stairs.
\nThe buildings are clad externally in weatherboards, and the verandah walls and raked ceilings are lined with a single-skin of VJ T&G boards. The walls and flat ceilings of the classrooms and teachers room are lined with VJ T&G boards; the ceiling of the western classroom in Block B is flat-sheeted. Square ceiling vent frames, centred on the former classrooms and banks of southern windows, demonstrate the earlier layouts.
\nBlock B – 1923
\nThe 1923 building contains two large classrooms (formerly three) separated by a fixed partition. Openings in the former verandah walls connect the classrooms with kitchenettes / amenity areas in the enclosed verandah corners. Steps in the eastern verandah connect with the western verandah of Block A.
\nThe southern classroom wall has three large banks of windows, which along with those in the verandah wall have been replaced with aluminium-framed sliders and hoppers. The teachers room has timber-framed casement windows on the east and northern sides; the northern being sheltered by a skillion hood with battened timber brackets. The teachers room door is panelled and the boarded classroom double-doors have fanlights.
\nThe enclosed understorey is clad with a combination of timber battens, weatherboards and flat-sheeting, and contains a number of storage rooms. Concrete paving is visible at the western end.
\nBlock C – 1937 and 1951
\nThe 1937 building contains a computer room and a two-room open-plan library (formerly three classrooms), and the 1951 classroom to the east is connected by a large opening in the former dividing partition. The eastern half of the northern verandah is enclosed with double-hung sashes and large openings have been formed in the former verandah walls. Bulkheads remain, indicating the early partition layout. The open western verandah connects via steps with the eastern verandah of Block A; it has a battened balustrade and a hat room in the northwest corner.
\nThe southern classroom wall has four large banks of casement windows (1937, 2-light; 1951, 3-light) with fanlights, sheltered by a wide eave supported by timber brackets. The remaining verandah windows are double-hung sashes, with fanlights. The 1937 teachers room has casement windows, with fanlights on the eastern side, and double-hung sashes to the west.
\nThe classroom understorey is enclosed with face brick walls, set back from the perimeter posts, and contains workshop and storage areas. The teachers room understorey has been enclosed for use as an office.
\nThe 1956 weatherboard-clad extension north of the 1937 teachers room, contains a staff room and computer room, connected to Block D by a verandah walkway.
\nBoulton & Paul Building (Block B – 1952 extension)
\nThe 1952 prefabricated Boulton & Paul extension is attached to the western end of Block B. The single classroom building is lowset, with a floor level and roofline set lower than the 1923 classrooms. The northern verandah is accessed by timber steps and features a glazed timber screen to the northwest corner; the eastern end is enclosed.
\nThe exterior is clad in narrow chamferboards and has vertical timber strips at 1.2m centres. A timber sign that reads “SHERWOOD STATE SCHOOL” is fixed high on the western wall. The southern wall has a large bank of hopper windows sheltered by wide eaves on metal and timber brackets, which are fixed to the window mullions. The verandah wall has a double-hung sash window, and glazed and boarded double-doors to the classroom.
\nThe classroom walls and ceiling are sheeted; the western wall caneite, which along with the southern wall has cover strips. Awning fanlights remain above openings formed in the wall between the classroom and enclosed verandah.
\nFerguson-designed School Building (Block D – 1887, with 1937 alterations)
\nThe 1887 Ferguson-designed School Building is highset and aligned north-south, with a verandah on its western side; the former eastern verandah has been enclosed. It is clad in chamferboards and the gabled roof features high-level gable-end vents, board-lined eaves, and east and west-facing dormer windows.
\nThe northern and southern walls have banks of timber-framed casement and pivot windows, with modern louvred fanlights, sheltered by skillion hoods with decorative timber brackets. The western verandah wall has double-hung sash windows and panelled double-doors, all with fanlights; the balustrades are three-railed and some verandah posts are stop-chamfered.
\nThe building contains two classrooms, separated by a fixed partition. Large openings connect the classrooms with kitchenette / amenity areas along the enclosed eastern verandah. The classrooms walls are lined with VJ T&G boards. The coved classroom ceilings and raked verandah ceilings are lined with beaded boards; a join in the northern classroom ceiling indicates the location of an earlier dividing partition and the likely point where the building was extended in 1900. The timber collar ties are stop-chamfered.
\nThe understorey has open playspace and is enclosed on the western side with corrugated metal and flat-sheeting.
\nAn Honour Board (1919) is mounted on the western wall of the building, listing the names of former students who served in World War I (WWI). It comprises an engraved marble board on a timber backing, and reads “SHERWOOD STATE SCHOOL - IN HONOUR OF PAST PUPILS WHO SERVED IN THE GREAT WAR. 1914-1919”. A metal plaque below commemorates the schools 125th anniversary in 1992.
\nThe 1953 Boulton & Paul extension to the east of the Ferguson building contains classrooms and an office. It is clad in chamferboards and has a large bank of hopper windows on the southern wall. The understorey is enclosed.
\nTimber Vocational Building (Block G – 1952)
\nThe 1952 Timber Vocational Building aligns east-west and is lowset at the western end and highset at the eastern end, reflecting the slope of the site. The long, gable-roofed building is clad in chamferboards and has a north-facing verandah, of which the eastern half is enclosed with awning windows. The southern wall has four large banks of casement windows, with fanlights, and the remaining verandah wall has double-hung sashes, with fanlights.
\nThe building contains numerous partitioned administration rooms to the west (former manual training unit), and central office / meeting rooms and teaching areas to the east (former domestic science unit). The northwest corner of the verandah is enclosed for toilets (former hat room), and the verandah walls of the enclosed eastern half have been demolished to form open-plan classrooms. The interior walls and ceilings are flat-sheeted; an area of early narrow VJ board linings is retained in one of the central offices.
\nEarly timber stairs are located at the eastern end, while the metal-framed stairs on the north and south sides are later replacements. The northeast corner of the understorey (former laundry and drying area) is battened and sheeted, and the northern side is enclosed with modern timber lattice.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, with sporting facilities including a generous playing field at the eastern end of the site, and school buildings positioned around a parade ground and set amongst landscaped surrounds at the elevated western end.
\nBetween the playing fields and school buildings is a series of retaining walls and stairs that form a terraced bank. The walls are faced with stone and the terrace landings are grassed. Variations in stone sizes and appearance indicate different phases of construction, with part of the northern ends possibly removed. Extensions at the top of the walls are stencilled concrete. A Multi-purpose Hall and Music Block (2010) has been built over the stone-pitched retaining terraces and stairs.
\nMany mature trees are located within the school grounds, including: a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), eucalypts (Eucalyptus spp.) and leopard trees (Libidibia ferrea) on the corner of Sherwood Road and Oxley Road; a leopard tree in the parade ground; and a grove of eucalypts to the north of the school buildings. These mature trees, along with jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), poinciana (Delonix regia) and eucalypts along the Sherwood Road boundary of the playing fields, enhance the school’s prominence in its location and contribute to its picturesque setting.
\nOther Structures
\nOther buildings, structures, pathways, modern partitions and suspended ceilings, modern joinery, and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nWhere the register boundary extends into road reserve, the road and footpath fabric is not considered to be of cultural significance.
","history":"Sherwood State School opened in 1867, as West Oxley National School, to accommodate the growing population of a rural district on the south western outskirts of Brisbane. As enrolments grew, extensions were made and buildings added to the site. In 2016, Sherwood State School retains: a Ferguson-designed School Building (1887, with 1900 extension and 1937 alterations) with a WWI memorial tablet (1919) attached; a Suburban Timber School Building (1917); two Sectional School Buildings (1923 and 1937) with 1950s extensions, one a lowset pre-fabricated Boulton & Paul Building (1952); and a Timber Vocational Building (1952). The school buildings are set amongst landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, stone-pitched terraces and mature shade trees. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activity.
\nHistorically part of an area known as West Oxley, which extended from Rocky Water Holes on Ipswich Road to the Brisbane River, and which was part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people, Sherwood was named after Sherwood Forest in England, for its heavy timber cover. Timber felling was a major early occupation in the area, which from the 1840s formed part of an extensive lease where Captain Thomas Boyland grazed cattle, sheep and horses.[1] Following the separation of Queensland from the colony in 1859, the district was divided into 30-40 acre farms. Land use in the area shifted to cultivation, taking advantage of the fertile soils; scrub was cleared and crops planted, with produce later transported to market via nearby Oxley Creek. The mail route from Brisbane to Ipswich also passed through the area along Ipswich Road. The continued importance and development of the Darling Downs made the Ipswich Road the main route to the interior, and the initial rough track was surveyed in the 1860s.[2] To address the education needs of the growing rural community, a national school was opened in West Oxley in March 1867.[3]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[4] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[5]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[6]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[7]
\nA new 45ft x 18ft (13.7m x 5.5m) school room, designed to accommodate 120 children, and a teacher’s residence were built for the opening of the West Oxley National School, which occupied a three acre (1.2ha) site on the corner of what are now known as Oxley and Sherwood Roads.[8] The picturesque buildings, designed by architect Richard Suter, were sited in the southwest corner of the grounds, with a steep slope to the east leading down to a watercourse just outside the boundary.[9] As was required for the establishment of a national school, approximately one third of the £328 building cost was raised by the local community.[10] Attendance in the first year was reportedly 64 children.[11]
\nWith the arrival of the Southern and Western Railway (Brisbane and Ipswich extension) as far as Oxley West in 1874,[12] improved access led to a population increase in the area. The land surrounding the school grounds was subdivided into smaller lots, through which roads were surveyed that would later become McCulla Street and Hall Street.[13] Enrolments at West Oxley fluctuated, from 135 in 1869, to 72 in 1873, and 160 in 1877.[14] In May 1878 the name of the Oxley West Railway Station changed to Sherwood Station, and in the same year the school became known as Sherwood State School.[15] By 1885, enrolments at Sherwood State School had increased to 180 students and the following year events were being held at the school to raise funds for school improvements.[16] In October 1887 a tender of £318 10s by A Byrne was accepted, and an additional classroom wing was built perpendicular to the original school building.[17]
\nThe new building at Sherwood State School was built to a standard design that had been introduced in 1880 and constructed across the colony until 1893. Employed by the Department of Public Instruction, Robert Ferguson was responsible for school building design between 1879 and 1885 and he was the first to give serious consideration to the ventilation of interiors.[18] Into the low-set, timber-framed buildings Ferguson introduced a coved ceiling and vented the roof space, improving internal temperatures. The number of windows and their size was increased; however, they were few in number and sill heights were typically over 4'6\" (1.3m) above floor level, well above eye level of students. Modestly-decorative timber roof trusses were exposed within the space. Built to this standard design, the new Ferguson-design School Building[19] at Sherwood State School was a lowset, timber-framed structure with gable roof, eastern verandah, and modest 'carpenter gothic' timber detailing.[20]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[21] Arbor Day plantings and associated fund raising was reported at Sherwood State School as early as 1890, and the following year, when bunyas, jacarandas, poincianas and camphor laurels were planted, it was reported that, if successful, ‘the school grounds will, in a few years, present a very pleasing appearance’.[22]
\nSherwood, like many riverside suburbs in Brisbane, was significantly affected by the flood of 1893. The school grounds, along with surrounding residences in low-lying areas, were inundated. Despite the floods and the economic depression of the 1890s, enrolments rose through the turn of the century and the school committee advocated the urgent need to extend the school building.[23] Tenders were sought in late 1899, and in 1900 the 1887 Ferguson-designed School Building was extended at cost of £182.[24] An image of the extended building around that time shows it had a roof fleche.[25]
\nBy 1914 enrolments had reached 285 students.[26] In 1915, the existing residence, closet buildings and a playshed (built 1878) were sold and removed in 1915, and in 1916 a new playshed, with various apparatus, was built for use as a gymnasium.[27] That year the original school building was sold and removed, and the 1887-1900 school building was remodelled, including the likely removal of the roof fleche and addition of dormer windows.[28] Continued requests from the school committee resulted in the construction of a new three-classroom school building in 1917 that incorporated the latest in climatically responsive design.[29]
\nFrom 1893 the Department of Public Works (DPW) greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. The years of experimentation culminated in the 1914 introduction of the Suburban Timber School Building[30] that solved many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size that plagued previous school designs as well as provided the ideal, modern education environment.[31]
\nThe 1917 Suburban Timber School Building (Block A in 2016) at Sherwood State School was a symmetrically arranged, highset and timber-framed structure with a Dutch-gable roof that featured a prominent roof fleche ventilator. The building addressed Sherwood Road and was connected to the southwest verandah corner of the 1887 Ferguson building. Block A had east, west and south-facing verandahs, and contained three 23ft x 22ft (7m x 6.7m) classrooms, separated by glazed folding partitions. Each room had a centred ceiling vent. A 12ft x 14ft (3.6m x 4.3m) teachers room was connected to the southern verandah, and the northern ends of the east and west verandahs had hat rooms. The northern elevation featured large banks of casement windows, with fanlights, sheltered by projecting eaves on timber brackets. The understorey had open playspace and lavatories. The estimated building cost was £1,595 and seating accommodation was provided for 150 pupils.[32]
\nIn December 1919 a memorial tablet, erected by the School Committee in honour of past pupils who had served in World War I (WWI), was unveiled in the new school room.[33] War memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nAfter WWI, the Sherwood district continued to grow, as did Sherwood State School. In 1920 the school grounds were extended by one acre (0.4ha) to the east, and by 1922 enrolments had risen to 661.[34] Between 1923 and 1937 two Sectional School Buildings were added, to address further increases in attendance. The new school buildings were connected to the northwest (1923) and northeast (1937) corners of Block A.
\nAttention to improving light and ventilation to achieve an optimum classroom had culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School[35], a high-set timber structure. This fundamentally new design combined all the best features of previous types and implemented theories of an ideal education environment. It proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. This type was practical, economical, and satisfied educational requirements and climatic needs. Most importantly, it allowed for the orderly expansion of schools over time.
\nBefore the Sectional School, solar orientation was not given prominence and all school buildings were orientated in relation to the street and property boundaries, often resulting in poorly orientated buildings. The Sectional School type had only one verandah, typically on the northern side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the blank western wall was removable. As the school grew, the western end wall could be detached and the building extended in sections, hence the name. This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms – a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[36]
\nPlans for the first Sectional School Building (Block B in 2016) at Sherwood show it was a highset, timber-framed structure, similar in appearance to Block A but with a north-facing verandah. Another east-facing verandah connected with the northwest corner of Block A. The new building contained three 20ft x 20ft (6.1m x 6.1m) classrooms, separated by fixed partitions, and had a 12ft x 14ft (3.6m x 4.3m) teachers room connected to the 8ft (2.4m) wide north-facing verandah. Hat room enclosures were located at the northeast and northwest verandah corners. The Dutch-gable roof featured a prominent ventilation fleche, and each classroom had a centred ceiling vent and a large bank of casement windows, with fanlights, on the southern wall. The open understorey had a floor of paved ‘concrete slabs’ with perimeter drains, and was partially enclosed with timber battens.[37] Completed in 1923, the estimated construction cost of the building was £1,886, with dual desks for 144 pupils.[38]
\nThe second Sectional School Building (Block C in 2016) was officially opened in July 1937, 70 years after the establishment of the school, and it was noted by Mr T Nimmo, MLA, that Sherwood State School was ‘now an ornament and show place of the district’.[39] The highset timber-framed structure was similar in design to Block B, with prominent roof fleche and north-facing verandah that had a teachers room attached. Connected to the northeast corner of Block A, the roof was Dutch-gabled at the western end and gabled at the eastern end (possibly to enable easier extension). It contained three 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.5m) classrooms, separated by fixed partitions with centred doors, and had banks of south-facing casements with fanlights. The partitions and verandah walls were clad with a single-skin of vertical boards. In response to the sloping site, Block C was set slightly lower than Block A, to which it was connected by a verandah with steps.[40]
\nTo accommodate the construction of Block C, the 1887/1900 Ferguson-designed School Building (Block D in 2016) was relocated to the north and remodelled for use as an infants’ wing. New steps were built to access the western verandah and a new partition was built between the larger (southern) and smaller (northern) classrooms.[41] Alterations were also made to the verandah windows of Blocks A and B, with sashes added below existing and new fanlights.[42] The authorised cost for the works was £1,475.[43]
\nWith the school buildings occupying the elevated western side of the school grounds, efforts were made to provide sporting facilities and improve the drainage of the flood-prone eastern grounds. In 1930, the City Council decided to replace the open drain that traversed the eastern end of the site with a pipe drain, with the Department of Public Instruction contributing £250 towards the cost.[44] A large embankment was formed to the east of the school buildings in 1931, along which the stone-pitched terraces were also reportedly constructed during the Great Depression.[45] In 1933 the school grounds were extended by a further three acres (1.2ha) to the north, which included a concentration of large eucalypt trees, resulting in the current seven acre (2.8ha) site.[46] Between 1932 and 1935 the tennis courts to the north of Block B were renovated (officially opened September 1932), and the playing area and sports oval to the east were extended and levelled.[47] At the opening of Block C in 1937, it was noted that ‘when the ground improvements were completed [Sherwood] would have one of the finest sporting grounds in the metropolitan area’.[48] The school committee and labour under the Unemployment Relief Scheme were responsible for much of the ground improvement works.[49]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.[50]
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program by the DPW. This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[51] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[52] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[53]
\nLike many Queensland state schools, Sherwood was affected by the outbreak of World War II (WWII). The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. The closed schools were sometimes occupied for defence purposes, and some schools remained closed ‘for special reasons’ after the rest had reopened.[54] Slit trenches, to protect students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff. At Sherwood State School trenches were dug to the northeast of the tennis courts (near the location of the current Administration Block G). A First Aid and Ambulance Post was also established under the school building – at first sand bagged but later bricked in (under Block C).[55]
\nThe post-WWII period was a time of enormous population growth Australia-wide and was accompanied by a shortage of building materials. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[56]
\nAfter WWII the overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to erect school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible. Queensland schools were faced with enormous overcrowding and a lack of resources. However, the Queensland Government and community saw education as a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget.[57] Also, educationalists rejected the previous designs of school buildings, considering them outdated, and favoured ‘lighter, loosely grouped, flexible’ buildings.[58]
\nAt Sherwood State School, additional classrooms were required to accommodate the growth in pupil numbers – from 519 in 1945 to 856 in 1955.[59] In 1951 a 24ft x 21ft (7.3m x 6.4m) classroom was added to the eastern end of Block C. Plans for the new classroom show it was formed in the Sectional School manner by moving the gable end wall and inserting a single-skin partition, with centred double-leaf door, between the existing and new classrooms. The southern wall had casement windows, with fanlights, and the north-facing verandah was extended, with the hat room relocated to the new eastern end. Double-hung sash windows were installed in both the new and existing verandah walls.[60]
\nPlans for a new domestic science and manual training building were drawn in 1951. Previously children caught the train to Milton State School one day per week to learn these skills.[61] Vocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; this evolved after WWI into a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated.[62]
\nThe Queensland Government continued its focus on vocational education during the 1950s and 1960s. New vocational centres were opened at East Brisbane and Sherwood schools in 1952, with one also planned for Eagle Junction.[63] Manual arts and domestic science classes were generally conducted in prefabricated Boulton & Paul buildings in the early 1950s, and in 1954 the DPW introduced a new standard design for a timber-framed Vocational Training Building.[64] Highset with a verandah along one side, this design comprised a large 21ft by 32ft (6.4m by 9.7m) room accommodating either manual training or domestic science classes, with smaller rooms opening off it for complementary purposes (e.g. a laundry room, fitting room, storage etc.). The exterior was clad with chamferboards and interior lined with hardboard sheeting. A mixture of hopper and casement windows were utilised.
\nThe Vocational Training Building (Block G in 2016) at Sherwood State School is not a prefabricated structure and appears to be a forerunner to the 1954 standard design.[65] The initial layout (September 1951) was amended several times, suggesting experimentation with the plan form.[66] The final plans (December 1951) show the building comprised a long highset structure, orientated east-west, with domestic science (east) and manual arts (west) training areas accessed by a north-facing verandah. Domestic science included large rooms for dressmaking and cookery, and smaller change and staff rooms, as well as enclosures underneath for a laundry and drying area. The change room extended to occupy the centre of the verandah. Manual arts included large rooms for sheet metal and woodwork, and smaller staff and store rooms on the verandah; timber racks were housed in a battened area underneath.[67] The estimated cost of the building was £6,507.[68] Interior photographs from 1955 show the walls were lined with vertical boards and the ceiling was flat sheeted with cover strips.[69]
\nIn 1952 a lowset timber Boulton & Paul Building was constructed at the western end of Block B.[70] Responding to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom, the DPW imported a British prefabricated building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. Based on an 8ft (2.4m) planning and construction module, the prefabricated elements in the Boulton & Paul system included wall panels, ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1952 and 1958.[71]
\nBoulton & Paul Buildings were timber-framed and clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were orientated so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The building could be high or low-set and had extensive areas of timber-framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, providing excellent natural ventilation and lighting. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[72] The flexibility of the system meant that the number of classrooms constructed could vary to suit the needs of a particular school.
\nThe lowset Boulton & Paul Building at Sherwood State School comprised a single 24ft 4in x 24ft 8in (7.4m x 7.5m) classroom and a 6ft 6in (2m) wide northern verandah, which had a glazed screen at the northwest corner. The floor and roof of the addition were set lower than existing Block B. The walls were constructed from prefabricated units, predominantly 4ft (1.2m) wide (with the exception of panels at the northwest and southwest corners), with those on the north and south sides contained large areas of windows. The western end of the existing Block B Dutch-gable roof was cut back, and the dividing wall was restumped and flat-sheeted to match the new interior.[73] The 1952 additions cost £1,895.[74]
\nIn 1953 Block D was extended to the east with the addition of two 24ft (7.3m) square highset Boulton & Paul classrooms, with a large bank of awning windows on the south side, a verandah on the north side; and a 24ft square library underneath. The existing Block D stairs were enclosed by the northern verandah of the addition and a new staffroom to the south.[75] In 1956 a new staff room, store and covered way were constructed between Block C and Block D; alterations to the existing Block C staff room included new windows to the east, a northern window relocated and opening infilled, and existing stairs moved slightly west to accommodate new covered way.[76] In 1957 the understorey of the early Block C staff room was enclosed to form a health services room.[77] Alterations to the western end of Block D in 1958 included enclosing the northern end of the eastern verandah to form a store room, widening of windows with the addition of casements (northern wall) and double-hung sashes (east and west walls).[78]
\nTwo highset timber-framed classroom buildings were also built to the north and west of Block D in the 1950s: Block E (north, aligned east-west) was constructed in phases between 1954 and 1956, and connected to Block D by a covered way; and Block F (west, aligned north-south) was constructed in 1957, and extended in 1958.[79]
\nFollowing a peak of 1034 students in 1959, enrolments declined through the 1970s due to demographic change in the area.[80] Over the course of the school’s history, buildings have been added, removed and altered, and changes made to the grounds to meet the school’s requirements.
\nIn 1959 the existing stone-pitched terraces were built up, with new kerb and channel above.[81] A tuckshop was built and officially opened in March 1962.[82] In 1964 one acre (0.4ha) of land was purchased on the opposite side of McCulla Street, and a swimming pool was constructed and opened there in 1967, the school’s centenary year.[83] The school grounds were once again inundated by floods in January 1974, with the ovals submerged and water reaching halfway up the posts supporting Block G, where a painted mark reportedly indicates the flood level.[84] In 1985 a new concrete retaining wall was built along Sherwood Road, and in 1990 Hall Street was widened and a new ramp and access path built.[85]
\nThe Timber Vocational Building (Block G) was remodelled for use by the Western Suburbs Education Centre and Sherwood Special Education Unit in 1976. Changes to the western half of the building included: western steps removed and new steel stairs added to northern side; northwest verandah corner converted to waiting room, with partitions and windows added and replaced; new doorway entrance with steps and landing added to the southwest corner; woodwork area reconfigured for use as a remedial classroom, store/prep room and remedial room; sheet metal area reconfigured for use as a therapy classroom, wet area, and resource teacher room in the northwest corner; and new door and tempered hardwood panels added to verandah wall.[86]
\nIn 1991-92 Block G was again remodelled for use as an administration (western half) and classroom (eastern half) block. The administration section contained the reception and waiting area, Principal’s office, staff room, therapy classroom and adjacent wet area, and staff toilets in the former northwest waiting room.[87] In the eastern half, the former dressmaking and cookery classrooms were converted to an open-plan teaching area with verandah walls removed and verandah enclosed with new awning windows above benches / sinks, and the former change room reconfigured as a withdrawal area. Interior walls were lined with plasterboard.[88]
\nBlocks A, B, C and D were also remodelled through the 1980s (Block C) and 1990s, when enrolment numbers once again rose. The Suburban Timber School Building (Block A) classroom layout was reconfigured, with existing folding partitions removed (bulkheads retained) and concertina doors installed to form a narrow central classroom / amenity space with large classrooms either side. A section of the southern verandah wall was removed and sides enclosed, to connect the central classroom with the projecting teachers room.[89] The southern windows have also been replaced with aluminium-framed sliders, with the wall below flat-sheeted.
\nThe Sectional School Buildings (Blocks B and C) both had verandahs partly enclosed, and partitions partly or fully removed to create open-plan teaching areas. Block B had its southern windows replaced with aluminium-framed sliders, classroom layout reconfigured to two rooms, verandah doors and windows replaced, verandah corners enclosed and new openings formed to create amenity spaces off the classrooms.[90] Block C was converted for use as a computer room and open-plan library, including: enclosure of the eastern half of the northern verandah; demolition of the former verandah walls; and large openings formed in the classroom partitions.[91] The roof fleche has also been removed.
\nThe Ferguson-designed School Building (Block D, western section) had its dividing classroom partition demolished and rebuilt to the south, and openings formed in the eastern verandah wall onto kitchenette / amenity areas.[92] The 1953 Boulton & Paul classrooms (Block D, eastern section) have been considerably altered with the verandah enclosed with aluminium framed windows, folding classroom partitions removed, large openings formed in the former verandah walls and the enclosed stairs removed.
\nRecent additions at Sherwood State School include the construction of a new Activities Hall (c2000), classroom Blocks I, J and K to the north and east of Block G, and a Multi-purpose Hall and Music Block (2010) built over the stone-pitched retaining terraces and stairs. Other landscape features still visible at the Sherwood State School include numerous mature trees: a hoop pine, eucalypts and leopard trees on the corner of Sherwood Road and Oxley Road; a leopard tree in the parade ground; jacarandas, poinciana and eucalypts along the Sherwood Road boundary of the playing fields; and a grove of eucalypts to the north of the school buildings.
\nIn 2016, the Sherwood State School continues to operate from its original site. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. Since establishment, Sherwood State School has been a key social focus for its community with the grounds and buildings having been the location of many social events.
","criteria":"Sherwood State School (established in 1867 as West Oxley National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, stone-pitched terraces, sporting facilities, and mature shade trees.
\nThe Ferguson-designed School Building (1887, extended 1900) demonstrates the early integration of changes to improve the practicality and comfort of school buildings, and was an early standardised design.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building (1917) demonstrates the evolution of timber school design, including experimentation with light, classroom size and elevation, by the Department of Public Works.
\nThe two Sectional School Buildings (1923 and 1937) demonstrate the culmination of many years of experimental timber school design, providing equally for educational and climatic needs.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building (1952) demonstrates the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period.
\nThe Timber Vocational Building (1952) demonstrates the incorporation of practical subjects into school curricula and the early development of post-war standardised vocational designs.
\nThe World War I memorial tablet (1919) attached to the Ferguson-designed School Building is important in demonstrating the school communities’ involvement in a major world event. War memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nThe large, suburban site with mature trees and landscaping features demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Sherwood State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs; and generous, landscaped sites with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising the following building types.
\nThe Ferguson-designed School Building retains some characteristics of its early standardised design, including: timber-framed structure with high-pitched gable roof; verandahs (eastern enclosed); decorative timberwork; gable-end windows with skillion hoods; coved ceilings with stop-chamfered timber collar ties; early internal linings; and ventilation features such as louvred gable vents.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building is a good, intact example of its type, retaining its: highset timber-framed structure with play space beneath; symmetrical plan form of classrooms and verandahs; projecting teachers room; coved ceiling and metal tie rods; early internal linings; and ventilation system including remnant vents at floor level and decorative roof fleche.
\nConnected to the Suburban Timber School Building by verandahs, the two Sectional School buildings are good examples of their type and are externally intact. Characteristics include their: highset timber-framed structure; Dutch-gable roofs; northern verandahs; large banks of south-facing windows; blank end walls, the eastern used for classroom expansion; single-skin verandah walls; projecting teachers rooms; hat-room enclosure; and early internal linings.
\nThe lowset Boulton & Paul Building is a good, intact example of its type, retaining its: modular, lightweight construction expressed in the external cladding; gable roof; glazed verandah screen; large areas of glazing to the southern wall; and flat internal wall linings.
\nThe former Vocational Training Building is an early iteration of its type and retains some external characteristics including: highset (eastern end) timber-framed structure with verandah along one side; chamferboard cladding; and banks of south-facing casement windows, with fanlights.
|The well-composed timber school buildings, with their Dutch-gable rooflines, prominent roof fleches, open verandahs and projecting teachers rooms, set amongst mature trees and landscaped gardens, are an attractive feature along Sherwood Road and a landmark for the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nSherwood State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1867 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the community and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650033,"name":"Nundah State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"41 Bage Street","suburb":"NUNDAH","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-07-15","description":"Nundah State School occupies an elevated 3.24ha site within Nundah, a residential suburb approximately 8km northeast of the Brisbane CBD. Facing Bage Street to the east, the rectangular site slopes down to the west and is bounded to the south by Buckland Road, to the west by Park Road and to the north by Boyd Road. The school complex comprises buildings and landscape features from several periods of design and construction. Significant buildings are located at the eastern end of the site and include: a prominent Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A - 1935, 1941, 1946-51), addressing Bage Street; and a Suburban Timber School Building (Block D – 1915, with 1916, 1955 & 1956 extensions) along Buckland Road. Other important elements within the school grounds include: a WWI Honour Board (1916) housed in the modern school hall; a parade ground to the west of Block A; various retaining walls (c1935, 1940); a curved entrance driveway and landscaped gardens to the east of Block A (c1943); a playing field at the western end of the site; and a variety of mature shade trees.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (Block A - 1935, 1941, 1946-51)
\nBlock A is a symmetrical, masonry structure of two storeys, above an undercroft level. The building comprises three sections: a range (1941) running north-south; and two lateral wings, the northern (1935) and southern (1946-51), projecting on an east-west axis. Three-storey projecting entrance bays are centred on the eastern (front) and western sides of the range; and flat-roofed first-floor bays at the junction of the range and the wings have diagonal stairs that access the parade ground at the rear. The building’s intersecting hipped roofs are terracotta-tiled.
\nThe building is elegantly composed with a combination of Neo-classical and Arts and Crafts-style detailing. Constructed from load-bearing face brick walls, it has rendered decorative elements on the first and second floors, and rendered walls and piers with an ashlar finish to the undercroft level. The stretcher bond walls comprise bricks in a range of hues (from orange to dark brown), resulting in a textured appearance, and retain areas of tuck pointing. Along the north, east and south elevations, continuous window hoods with decorative timber brackets shelter the first and second-storey windows. Window openings (on all sides except the western end of the wings) are framed by rendered mullions, string courses and quoins, and contain banks of timber-framed, eight-light casement windows, with fanlights above.
\nThe front projecting bay frames the main entrance and is topped by a stepped, gabled brick parapet that has rendered capping and a centred rectangular vent. Divided stairs flank a first floor flat-roofed entrance porch. The clear-finished timber double entrance doors are panelled and glazed, with fanlights above. The stairs have concrete treads, and decorative rendered stringers and metal balustrades. A commemorative stone, set within the rendered eastern wall, reads “THIS STONE WAS THE STEP OF THE ORIGINAL NUNDAH STATE SCHOOL ERECTED 1865”, with “NUNDAH STATE SCHOOL” in metal letters mounted on the brickwork above.
\nThe interior layout of the building is symmetrical, with the northern and southern wings mirrored, and the first floor layout approximately repeated on the second floor. Internal stairs are located at the eastern ends of the wings and in the central western bay of the range, flanked by offices (former cloak rooms). Corridors along the western side of the range connect with corridors on the adjacent sides of the northern and southern wings, and provide access to linearly arranged classrooms, offices and storerooms. The range has a central entrance hall, flanked by offices, and two classrooms and a medical room (formerly four classrooms) on the first floor; and three classrooms (formerly five) and a staff room on the second floor. The second floor of both wings and the first floor of the southern wing have two large classrooms each. One classroom on the first floor (southern wing) has been extended to occupy the corridor, with part of the corridor wall removed. The first floor of the northern wing contains a classroom and two large offices (formerly four classrooms); the western office retains a raised floor (former stage). Classrooms throughout the building retain bulkheads that indicate the original layout of dividing partitions.
\nMost classrooms and offices have plaster walls, timber-framed floors covered in modern carpet, and flat-sheeted ceilings with painted timber battens. Stairs are of painted concrete and have metal and timber (range and northern wing) or rendered (southern wing) balustrades. Corridors have concrete floors with coved edges and flat plaster ceilings, with those on the second floor (range and southern wing) featuring painted timber battens. Early timber joinery is retained throughout the building, including: double-hung sash windows (to the corridors); and panelled timber doors. Most windows and doors retain their fanlights and early hardware. Two sets of original timber folding doors, with glazed inserts, are retained in classrooms on the first and second floors of the northern wing, which is rare. The store room (former cloak room) on the second floor of the northern wing retains its early brown stained ceiling battens and red oxide concrete floor.
\nThe undercroft level of the range is largely open play-space. Toilets are located at the western ends of the wings; a tuckshop encloses the eastern end of the northern wing; and a storage room encloses the eastern end of the southern wing. The undercroft has a concrete slab floor. Timber framing is exposed in parts of the range’s ceiling, with the remainder mostly flat-sheeted. The piers and walls are stop-chamfered face brick.
\nSuburban Timber School Building (Block D - 1915 with 1916, 1955 & 1956 extensions)
\nBlock D is a long, timber-framed building, orientated east-west, with a north-facing verandah. Constructed in phases, it comprises a central section (1915) of three classrooms, between an eastern classroom (1955) and a western classroom (1956), with two teachers rooms (1916 with 1954 extension) attached to the verandah. The building is highset at the western end and lowset to the east, due to the sloping of the site. The gabled roof is sheeted with modern corrugated metal and has five modern ridge vents. The teachers rooms have a hipped roof.
\nThe exterior is clad with timber weatherboards. The southern wall of the central section has three large banks of timber-framed casement windows, with pivot and angled fanlights. The 1916 teachers room has two-light double hung sash windows to the west (relocated 1954) and east (which has a battened skillion hood).
\nThe verandah has a raked ceiling lined with V-jointed (VJ), tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards. Floors are timber and bag rack balustrades are clad externally with corrugated metal sheeting. Timber stairs with three-rail balustrades access the parade ground to the north. Verandah steps connect Block D with Block C to the east, and a verandah walkway connects to Block F to the north.
\nThe northern verandah walls are lined with a single skin of VJ T&G boards and have double-hung sashes, with pivot fanlights. Above the flush-panelled double-leaf doors of the central classrooms are pivot fanlights, and the surrounding wall framing retains evidence where floor-level ventilation flaps may have been positioned.
\nThe interior of the three central classrooms is lined with VJ T&G boards. Dividing partitions retain VJ boarded bulkheads, with flat-sheeting lining the openings formerly enclosed by folding partitions. All three classrooms retain highly decorative pressed-metal coved ceilings, with centred square ceiling-rose vents and metal tie-rods. The timber floors of all classrooms are covered with modern carpet and other floor linings.
\nThe understorey has a concrete floor and comprises mostly open play space. The building is set on a combination of concrete stumps and metal posts. The southern side is clad with corrugated metal, including a store room at the western end.
\nThe 1950s classrooms are detailed externally in keeping with the original building. However, the southern walls have large banks of awning windows, with fanlights, and the western wall has a single row of awnings. The western classroom extends the full width of the building. The understorey of the western classroom and the 1954 teachers room are enclosed, with vertical timber strips indicating the location of extension joins. The interior walls and ceilings are flat-sheeted. The eastern classroom contains small offices with modern partitions.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, with sporting facilities including a generous playing field (c1933) with embankments at the western end of the site.
\nMany mature trees are located within the school grounds, including large fig (Ficus sp.), jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), poinciana (Delonix regia) and leopard trees (Libidibia ferrea) surrounding the playing field. Various other mature shade trees across the site include a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), paper bark (Melaleuca quinquenervia), and a 1975 commemorative silky oak (Grevillea robusta) northeast of Block A.
\nThe eastern end of the sloping site is terraced by several Depression-era concrete retaining walls. These are located: north and west of Block A, surrounding the parade ground; and around the northeast corner of the site, along Bage Street and Boyd Road.
\nThe main entrance from Bage Street comprises a curved driveway around landscaped rose gardens that are centred to the east of Block A. The parade ground (1936) west of Block A allows significant views to be obtained of the building’s eastern elevation (its recent surface of bitumen is not significant).
\nAn Honour Board (1916) is located in the modern school hall building, listing the names of former students who served in World War I (WWI). It comprises a decorative, embossed copper plaque with a timber backing board, and reads “ROLL OF HONOR 1914-1919, NUNDAH STATE SCHOOL” above rows of individual name plaques.
\nOther Structures
\nOther buildings, structures, pathways, swimming pools, modern partitions and suspended ceilings, modern joinery, and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n","history":"
Nundah State School (established 1865 as German Station National School) is located in the suburb of Nundah, about eight kilometres northeast of Brisbane’s CBD. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains a Depression-era Brick School Building (1935, 1941, 1946-51); a Suburban Timber School Building (1915) with extensions (1916, 1955, 1956), and an Honour Board (1916); set in landscaped grounds with concrete retaining walls (c1935, 1940), a playing field, sporting facilities and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Nundah and district community.
\nNundah is the site of the first free European settlement in Queensland. Lutheran missionaries settled there in 1838 on 640 acres (259 ha) of land granted by Major Cotton, the then commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. They named their settlement Zion Hill. The group numbered 20, including 2 ministers, 10 laymen and their families, until 4 more laymen missionaries arrived in 1844. By 1849, the group had abandoned their missionary work but most remained farming in the area. They purchased land at Nundah, then called German Station, which was surveyed into blocks by the government in 1848, and a small rural community developed.[1]
\nIn the early 1860s, local citizens raised £94 towards the £390 cost for the establishment of German Station National School. The school opened on 2 October 1865 on its current 3.24ha site with 62 children enrolled.[2] The school building was located at the southeast corner of the site facing Buckland Road.[3] A teachers residence was onsite from the 1860s, located to the north of the school building.[4]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[6]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[7]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[8]
\nThe development of Nundah, and increased school enrolments, were stimulated by the opening of the Sandgate railway line in 1882, with a stop at German Station (soon renamed Nundah). Subdivision of land near the station from 1882 led to the formation of the Nundah village.[9] Enrolment at German Station State School rose rapidly from 61 pupils in 1883 to 118 by 1886, resulting in extension of the school building in the same year. When a playshed was built in 1889, the school’s enrolment was 200 pupils.[10] Another addition in 1892, connected to the northwest of the school building by a verandah, brought the classroom total to three.[11] The school’s name changed to Nundah State School in 1896.[12] A new teachers residence was built in 1897.
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[13] Arbor Day was regularly observed at Nundah State School from at least 1892, when 20 plants and shrubs were planted.[14] In 2016 a number of mature trees feature in the school’s grounds.
\nFrom the late 19th century, Nundah became the centre for the surrounding district. It served as the headquarters for the Toombul Divisional Board after its new offices and a hall were built on Sandgate Road at Nundah in 1891.[15] Similarly, Nundah State School’s population expanded and in 1909 another classroom was added to the western end of the school buildings.[16] By 1910 the school had an average attendance of 342 pupils while the Nundah and district’s population was 1675 in 1911.
\nEarly in the 20th century, accommodation for the infants of the school became a priority. In 1912 a new room was erected for the infants, to the west of the early school buildings; it was highset and had north and south-facing verandahs.[17] An infants wing (a Suburban Timber School Building, known as Block D in 2016) of ‘substantial finish and ornate appearance’, was erected to the west of the infants classroom in 1915 at a cost of £735.[18] The 65ft x 21ft (19.8m x 6.4m) building contained three classrooms and had a 10ft (3m) wide north-facing verandah.[19] The school’s enrolment was 700 when the building was opened on 17 February 1916.[20] That year, a 16ft x 12ft (4.9m x 3.6m) teachers room was added to the verandah.[21] A drawing of the building from 1933 shows it had a large roof fleche.[22]
\nThis Suburban Timber School Building, designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) in 1914, was the culmination of years of experimentation to solve many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size that plagued previous school designs as well as provided the ideal, modern education environment. [23] From 1893 the DPW had greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. In c1909 highset timber buildings had been introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively.[24]
\nDuring World War I (WWI) Nundah State School commemorated those serving in the war in several ways. An Anzac Arbor Day took place in May 1916, when five hibiscuses (Hibiscus spp.) and one Indian laburnum (Cassia fistula) were planted, the latter being given the name ‘Anzac tree’. On 14 December of that year the Nundah State School Honour Board was unveiled by the Governor of Queensland, Major Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, in honour of 59 former pupils who were serving at the front.[25] War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nAfter WWI, Nundah and district, and Nundah State School, continued to grow. In 1921 Nundah’s population was 3870. To accommodate the school’s increased population the head teachers residence was converted into classrooms in 1919. In 1924 more than 800 children attended the school. The school committee worked to improve the playing conditions for the children with swings, seesaws, swinging boats and other play equipment being provided, as well as a tennis court to the north of the site opened in October of that year.[26] Another building, of four sectional classrooms (which became Block E), was added in 1927.[27] Money was raised to pay for levelling the grounds, and Arbor Day continued to be celebrated with new plantings.[28] Alterations to the Suburban Timber School Building were made in 1933, including: the relocation of large banks of casement windows from the east and west ends to the southern wall, and lining of the openings; relocation of a verandah wall door; and replacement of the fixed partition between the central and eastern classrooms with a new folding partition.[29]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work programme by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[30] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[31] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[32] At Nundah State School, intermittent relief workers carried out improvements to the playing field in 1933 for an estimated cost of £300.[33]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[34]
\nMany of the programmes have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry brick school buildings across the state. Most were designed in a classical idiom as this projects the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.
\nThe construction of substantial brick school buildings[35] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation. The Queensland Public Works Department and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about the brick school buildings designed in the 1930s. They were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment. [36]
\nAfter years of requests by the school committee and parents for a more up-to-date school, construction of a Brick School Building at Nundah State School was approved and commenced in 1934. The building would run north-south parallel to Bage Street, with a lateral wing on either end, and would be completed in three stages: north wing (1935); the range (1941); and the south wing (1951, with the boys’ toilet block in the southwest corner evident by 1946). The scheme, of brick with concrete foundations and tile roof, was to ultimately accommodate 1000 pupils.
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah on the north but little concession was made for this and almost all Depression-era Brick School Buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, toilets and other functions. [37]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features. Where other functions, such as infants classes or vocational training, were required, standard rooms designed to accommodate these functions were incorporated into the building plan.[38] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[39]
\nConstruction of the northern wing by day labour commenced after the former head teachers residence, which stood on the building site, was sold for removal.[40] The hip-roofed wing, aligned east-west and perpendicular to Bage Street, consisted of two storeys above an undercroft. Each floor comprised four classrooms for 40 pupils, a cloakroom and connecting corridors. By means of folding partitions each floor of this wing could be converted into one large room. One classroom on the first floor was raised 600mm to form a stage. The undercroft comprised lavatory accommodation for girls and female teachers and a concreted play area. The building’s estimated cost was £9,890.[41] Temporary brick walls with lime mortar and a fibrous-cement gable infill were constructed where the range was to be connected.[42]
\nThe first stage of Nundah State School’s Brick School Building (now called Block A) was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, F W Cooper, on 5 October 1935 at the 70th anniversary of the school’s commencement.[43] Around the same time, retaining walls to the north and west of Block A were completed, followed by walls along the corner of Bage Street to the east and Boyd Road to the north in 1940. The concrete retaining walls had metal chain wire fences above and the wall to the north of Block A had steps accessing the tennis- basketball court area below.[44]
\nIn 1940, plans for completion of Nundah State School’s Brick School Building were finalised. They were drawn by Douglas FW Roberts who was also responsible for the plans for Toowoomba East School.[45]
\nOverall the building was to be a strongly axial and symmetrically arranged two-storey structure, above an undercroft, that featured both Neo-classical and Arts and Crafts-style design influences. In addition to the existing northern wing, the 1940 plans show a range that aligned north-south and a southern wing that mirrored the north. The tiled hip-roofed range, with its projecting central entrance bay and lateral hip-roofed wings, addressed Bage Street to the east. The face brick exterior featured rendered stringcourses and quoins framing the windows, and the undercroft had an ashlar finish. Exterior windows comprised banks of eight-light casements, with fanlights, sheltered by continuous tiled hoods that had decorative timber brackets. The front entrance bay had a stepped parapeted gable and a divided staircase that led to a first floor flat-roofed porch. The rear entrance bay had internal stairs, flanked by cloakrooms, and diagonal stairs from the parade ground accessed first floor flat-roofed landings at the junctions between the range and the wings.
\nThe first and second floors contained classrooms, offices and storerooms while the undercroft comprised play areas with lavatories in the northwest (girls) and southwest (boys) corners. The range had four classrooms on the first floor, and five classrooms and a teachers room on the second floor. A central hall, flanked by teachers rooms, connected the first floor entrance porch with a corridor that ran along the western side of the range. Mirroring the north, the proposed southern wing contained four classrooms on each floor, separated by folding partitions. All classrooms were 21ft (6.4m) wide. Internal stairs and adjacent cloak rooms at the eastern ends of the wings accessed corridors that ran along the southern side of the north wing and northern side of the south wing, and connected with the perpendicular corridors of the range. The corridors were 8ft (2.4m) wide and had red oxide concrete floors, six-light double-hung sash windows, and panelled double-leaf classroom doors with fanlights.[46]
\nThe second stage – the range – was authorised by Queensland’s Executive Council on
7 March 1940 and work commenced soon afterwards.[47] This stage was opened on
28 August 1941 by the Minister for Public Instruction, H A Bruce.[48] The original stone step of the 1865 school was built into the wall over the front steps of the building.[49] Ground improvements were also undertaken in 1941, with the area in front of the new school wing excavated to a level that conformed with the general scheme.[50]
Soon afterwards, World War II’s impact escalated for Australia, with the entry of Japan into the conflict. The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, including Nundah, often by parents and staff.[51]
\nTypically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[52] Nundah State School’s grounds were used by ARP wardens for drills and meetings from May 1942 until April 1944.[53]
\nGround improvements and the construction of the Brick School Building continued during the war years. By 1943 a curved front driveway and central garden bed had been formed. Drawings from 1941 and 1943 detailed the proposed undercroft boys lavatories connected to the southwest corner of the range, indicating that they were to be built in advance of the eastern end and upper stories of the southern wing. The area south of the toilet block was to be excavated and a new bank formed. Works were authorised to be carried out by day labour and the toilet block is evident in aerial photos by March 1946.[54]
\nIn the post-World War II period, enrolments at Nundah State School escalated. Considerable growth in the area, particularly of housing in the neighbouring suburb of Wavell Heights, increased the Nundah and district population to 11,234 in 1947 and the school population increased as well.[55] At the beginning of 1945 student numbers were about 800 but rose to over 1600 in 1954.[56]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[57]
\nConstruction of the third stage of the Brick School Building was completed in time for its opening on 31 March 1951 by the Minister for Public Instruction, G H Devries.[58]
\nIn the years following World War II the overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible. Queensland schools were faced with enormous overcrowding and a lack of resources. However, the Queensland Government and community saw education as a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget.[59] Also, educationalists rejected the previous designs of school buildings, considering them outdated and favoured ‘lighter, loosely grouped, flexible’ buildings.[60]
\nWith increasing enrolments at Nundah State School in the 1950s, it was necessary to erect new buildings and extend existing ones. In 1954 Suburban Timber School Building was connected to a new two-storey, gable-roofed timber building (Block F) by a verandah walkway. Alterations were also made to its teachers room, including the removal of the northern wall and relocation of the northern window to the western wall, to accommodate a new 15ft x 12ft (4.6m x 3.7m) staff room extension with a medical services / store room underneath.[61]
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building was extended in 1955 and again in 1956, sandwiching the existing 1915-16 building. The 1955 extension added a 24ft x 20ft (7.3m x 6.1m) classroom to the eastern end. It had a bank of casements with fanlights on the southern wall and the northern verandah wall had a bank of double-hung sashes with fanlights, which were also added to each of the three existing classrooms. The existing verandah was extended, with steps relocated and enclosed balustrade bag racks added.[62] The 1956 extension comprised a 28ft x 20ft (8.5m x 6.1m) highset timber classroom over a play area, at the western end of the building. The new classroom had doors opening onto the existing verandah and banks of awning windows on the northern and southern walls. The western wall had a single row of awning windows with a shade over. The weatherboard cladding extended to the north, south and western sides of the understorey, which was concreted and had hardwood seating to the perimeter.[63]
\nIn 1955 a highset, gable-roofed, brick veneer building (Block B) was built on the edge of the concrete retaining wall to the northwest of Brick School Building. The construction of a high-set brick veneer building (Block C) to the east of the Suburban Timber School Building in 1956, provided a link between it and the Brick School Building. The demolition of the adjacent 1912 infants classroom building c1965 required extension of the verandah balustrade of the Suburban Timber School Building and regrading of ground to the north.[64]
\nImprovements to the school’s sporting facilities were made post-World War II with the addition of a swimming pool in 1956.[65]
\nChanges to the Depression-era Brick School Building have occurred during its lifetime; however, the building remains substantially intact and retains a high degree of integrity. In 1962 a tuck shop was built at the southern end of the undercroft.[66] In 1977 part of the first floor northern wing was remodelled for a Remedial Resources Room.[67] Between 1998 and 2000, under the Building Better School initiative, alterations to the central range included demolition forming wide openings in the masonry walls to combine classrooms, replacement of double-leaf doors with singles, division of the northern teachers’ room to form a health room and office, and conversion of the cloak rooms to offices and kitchenettes. The classroom at the western end of the second floor of the southern wing was also extended to occupy the corridor, with the corridor wall removed and a partition and doorway inserted.[68] Cloak rooms in the wings have been enclosed for use as staff or store rooms, and folding partitions between many of the classrooms have been removed to combine classrooms. Bulkheads remain demonstrating the original layout, and two sets of early folding partitions are retained in the southern wing.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building has been subject to alterations associated with the 1950s additions, but remains fairly intact internally and retains its early three-classroom layout, decorative pressed-metal lined and coved ceilings, square ceiling-rose vents and metal tie rods. The prominent ventilation roof fleche appears to have been removed by 1974 (likely associated with re-sheeting of the roof) but the verandah wall framing retains evidence of former floor-level ventilation flaps either side of the doors. Traces of a partition that divided the central classroom from c1977 are also evident in the ceiling.[69] Modern partitions have formed small offices in the eastern (1955) classroom.
\nSince the major expansion during the 1950s, other buildings have been added to the site. A dental clinic was erected in 1975, and in the 21st century prep school buildings were constructed west of the Suburban Timber School Building (2006-14), a resource centre (2009) was built to the north of the Brick School Building, and a school hall (2011) was erected on the double tennis courts’ site adjacent to the swimming pool on the northern side of the school, which in 2016 houses the WWI honour board.[70]
\nNundah State School celebrated its centenary during September and October 1965. Celebrations included a fancy dress ball at Cloudland Ballroom; the opening of a new Centenary Library; a church service in the school grounds, an open day at the school, a concert by Infants School children, an operetta by Grade 7 pupils, an open swim at the school pool, and a procession from Nundah to the school playing field for its Centenary Fete. In conjunction with these celebrations, a centenary publication was produced.[71]
\nOther commemorative features exist at the school. A silky oak tree (Grevillea robusta) commemorating 100 years of state education in Queensland (1875-1975) was planted in the northeast corner of school grounds.[72] Set within the rose garden on the Bage Street side of the Brick School Building is a memorial commemorating those who served their country during World War II, which was unveiled in November 1995.
\nIn 2016, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains the Department of Public Works Depression-era Brick School Building and the Suburban Timber School Building with extensions, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, playing areas, retaining walls and mature shade trees. Nundah State School is important to Nundah and its district, as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
\n","criteria":"
Nundah State School (established in 1865 as German Station National School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains fine, representative examples of standard government designs, which were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building (1935-51), retaining walls and improvements to the playing field are the result of the State Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building (1915-16) represents the culmination of years of experimentation with light, classroom size and elevation, by the Department of Public Works. Later extensions (1955, 1956) represent the Department of Public Works’ response to overcrowding in schools due to population growth after World War II.
\nThe World War I Honour Board is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nThe large, suburban site with mature trees, sporting facilities, retaining walls and other landscaping features demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Nundah State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nThe substantial Depression-era Brick School Building is an excellent, highly-intact example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Depression-era Brick Schools, including: its symmetrically arranged two-storey form, with an undercroft; high-quality design with ornamental features; face brick exterior; terracotta-tiled roof; and projecting central entrance bay. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed by corridors, and an undercroft accommodating open play space and toilets.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building demonstrates principal characteristics of its type. It retains its highset timber-framed structure with play space underneath, north-facing verandah, banks of casement windows, with fanlights, and projecting teachers room. The interior, with its symmetrical plan form, coved ceiling lined with pressed metal, partition bulkheads and early wall linings, is highly intact.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size and face brick exterior, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Nundah State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Standing on an open, elevated site, it is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nNundah State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Nundah and district community. It was established in 1865 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Nundah and district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650034,"name":"Southport State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"75 Smith Street","suburb":"SOUTHPORT","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-10-14","description":"Southport State High School occupies a 13.44ha, gently sloping site within a predominantly residential area of Southport. The main entrance addresses the major thoroughfare of Smith Street (south), and the school is bounded by Brooke Avenue (west), Lionel Avenue (north), and Loders Creek (north and east). The heritage boundary covers only the significant buildings and landscape features concentrated in the elevated southwest corner of the school, and the large sports oval to their east.
\nThe school retains a two-storey 1950s Hawksley Prefabricated School Building, aligned approximately east-west (Block E, Elevate, 1957-8). A two-storey Brick and Timber Building with Open-web Truss System, above an undercroft (Block F, 1961), aligned approximately north-south and connected to the eastern end of Block E by an elevated covered link (1961), contributes to the overall significance of the site planning by enclosing the eastern side of the former parade ground.
\nFeatures of Southport State High School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nHawksley Prefabricated School Building (Block E, Elevate, 1957-8)
\nBlock E is a long, two-storey building with a gable roof and north-facing verandahs on both levels. The lower level is brick, set on a concrete plinth, and the prefabricated Hawksley ‘type F amended’ upper level incorporates open-web metal trusses that reduce the requirement for supporting elements. The Hawksley portion is aluminium-framed and clad in painted ribbed aluminium sheeting, including the eaves and first floor verandah ceilings. The upper gable-ends are flat-sheeted and have square louvred vents.
\nTimber and steel stairs on cantilevered concrete supports, with tubular steel rail balustrades, lead from both ends of the ground floor to the first floor verandahs. The ends of the first floor balustrades have timber-framed bag racks that are clad externally in ribbed metal (by 1959), and concrete-block bag racks have been added on the ground floor. The ground floor verandahs have paved concrete floors and flat-sheeted ceilings, with cover strips.
\nLarge areas of aluminium-framed awning windows line the first floor northern and southern walls; the northern with fixed lower sashes and tubular steel rails fixed at sill height along the verandah. Ground floor windows comprise predominantly timber-framed awning windows on the southern side and double-hung sashes, with louvred glass fanlights, on the northern side. Windows generally have original hardware. Original part-glazed classroom doors survive along the first floor verandah.
\nThe ground floor contains the former student recreation area and locker rooms (now two large classrooms) and toilets at the eastern end. The interior masonry walls are rendered and the ceilings are flat-sheeted, above the exposed open-web metal trusses. Enclosures on the verandah contain toilets at the eastern end and a former hat room (now a modern kitchenette) at the western end. A doorway accessing the western end of the southern side of the building, indicates the location of a former covered way (demolished 2018).
\nThe first floor retains evidence of its original layout of three classrooms and a physics laboratory (now two classrooms and a dance studio, converted c1989). The interior walls and ceilings are lined with flat aluminium sheets, with metal cover strips. One original classroom at the western end retains its angled blackboard mount, with cupboards below, and a partition with interconnecting part-glazed double-doors (now sealed and boarded). Enclosures on the verandah have been altered to connect with covered links to Block B (rebuilt 2020) via a former hatroom at the western end and to Block F (1961) via a former storeroom at the eastern end.
\nFeatures of the Hawksley Prefabricated School Building (Block E) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Hawksley Prefabricated School Building (Block E) not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBrick and Timber Building with Open-web Truss System (Block F, 1961)
\nBlock F is a long, two-storey brick and timber-framed building, above an undercroft, with the upper level incorporating open-web metal trusses, which are set on rectangular concrete columns and cantilevered to support a west-facing verandah. The northern and southern ends have full-height brick walls enclosing concrete stairwells. The ground floor is face brick on its eastern side and rendered on its western side; and the first floor is clad in ribbed metal sheeting, with large banks of timber-framed awning windows, with modern sliding fanlights, on its eastern side. The undercroft has rectangular concrete piers and is open to the east.
\nThe first floor verandah has a timber floor, square timber posts and bag racks that form a balustrade; the walls and raked ceiling are flat-sheeted, with cover strips, and the fixed timber-framed verandah windows have modern sliding fanlights. A central section of the first floor verandah has been enclosed with modern metal-framed sliding windows. The ground floor verandah has a concrete slab floor and ribbed aluminium sheet-lined ceiling.
\nThe first floor contains five classrooms and a staff room; the central two classrooms have been extended with the removal of the former verandah wall. The classroom walls and ceilings are flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips. The ground floor comprises toilets adjacent to the northern and southern stairs, separated from central offices by passageways that connect the ground floor verandah with stairs on the eastern side that access the undercroft. The open undercroft contains a tuckshop.
\nFeatures of the Brick and Timber Building with Open-web Truss System (Block F) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Brick and Timber Building with Open-web Truss System (Block F) not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCovered Link (1961)
\nAn elevated covered link connects the first floor verandahs of Blocks E and F, comprising an exposed open-web floor truss system, timber framing and flooring, and tubular steel rail balustrades. The ceiling is flat-sheeted, with cover strips.
\nLandscape Features
\nThe school grounds are well established, with school buildings at the western end, and a generously sized sports oval (pre-1964) to the east that has perimeter embankments and shade trees including various eucalypt species (spp. Eucalyptus).
\nConcrete pathways, at the base of concrete retaining walls with tubular steel rails, run along the southern sides of Block E and at the site of former Block B. Concrete steps punctuate the retaining walls, illustrating the location of the former ground floor covered ways (demolished 2018).
\nA sealed parade ground bounded by Block E, Block F to the east, and modern buildings to the south and west, retains its open character for assembly, and contains a flagpole (replaced c1997) and several modern memorial plaques.
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape features not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Southport State High School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSouthport State High School (SHS) opened at its current 13.44ha (33.2ac) site on Smith Street, Gold Coast in 1955, separating from the Southport State School, which had included a secondary department (or ‘high top’) from 1916. Southport SHS demonstrates the growth in provision of secondary education across Queensland in the 1950s on new sites with increased facilities. The school retains a rare Hawksley Prefabricated School Building (Block E, 1957-8, now named Elevate), a covered link (1961) that connects it with an adjacent brick and timber building with open-web steel floor trusses (Block F, 1961); retaining walls and railings; and assembly and sports areas; set within a generous landscaped site that exhibits organic site planning. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment.
\nThe township of Southport, located on the traditional lands of the Danggan Balun (Five Rivers People) or speakers of the Yugambeh language,[1] evolved after its survey as a marine resort on the Crown Reserve at Nerang Creek Heads in 1874. Its first allotments were sold in April 1875 and the first of its many boarding houses opened in the following year. The sale of 180 marine villa sites on 13 March 1878 further stimulated Southport’s growth as a popular resort for Darling Downs pastoralists and the elite of Brisbane and Ipswich. From 1879 visitors could reach Southport via a daily Cobb & Co coach from Brisbane and Ipswich, or via the steamer Iris from Brisbane to Southport twice weekly, or by the steamers Albert or Leonie. By the 1880s Southport had a permanent population of about 230, sufficient to justify the establishment of a primary school, which opened on 17 February 1880.[2]
\nFrom 1860 the Queensland Government played an important role in the provision of schools in Queensland, providing an alternative to church schools and private schools. The provision of schools was linked to the location and development of communities, the number of children within reach of particular locations, community expectations, and changing government policies regarding the best way to provide for the education of Queensland children.[3]
\nSouthport continued to develop as a beachside holiday resort throughout the 1880s and 1890s, becoming Queensland’s principal seaside resort. Its popularity with the colonial elite was boosted when Queensland’s Governor, Sir Anthony Musgrave (1883-8), established a holiday home there in 1884. Its popularity with all classes of Queenslanders multiplied after the opening of the railway extension to Southport from Beenleigh, in 1889, gave them easier access. By 1901, Southport’s permanent population was 1230, which trebled in the peak holiday season.[4]
\nIn Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities.[5]
\nBy 1914, Southport’s residents believed their town warranted a high school. On 21 April 1914, W Lather, the Secretary of the Southport State School Committee, requested that high school classes be established at Southport State School.[6] In the following year, a deputation called on the Minister for Education and in 1915 a public meeting was held, which elected a committee for promoting the establishment of a high school at Southport. The District Inspector visited the area at the end of 1915 and recommended that a high school be established at the Southport State School. Following an entrance test held on 25 February 1916, 30 pupils were approved for admission to a ‘High School Top’ at Southport State School. High School classes commenced on 10 July 1916 in rented premises, but classes were conducted at the school from the beginning of the following year.[7]
\nDuring the interwar period, Southport grew into a large town renowned as a popular resort and a fashionable residential and educational centre. With its population approaching 2000, Southport was proclaimed a separate town from Albert Shire in 1918.[8] By 1921 it had a permanent population of 3550 people, increasing to over 6000 residents in 1925.[9] By the 1930s Southport had ‘many modern hotels, guest houses, flats … water supply, septic sewerage systems and electric light’.[10]
\nAfter World War II, Southport continued to expand as Australia’s beach culture developed and tourism to the South Coast boomed. In 1949 Southport municipality amalgamated with that of Coolangatta to form the South Coast Town Council, extending from Labrador to Coolangatta.[11] As the commercial and administrative centre of the South Coast (renamed the Gold Coast from 1958), Southport experienced steady residential and economic growth in the 1950s, but the coastal area south of the town experienced massive growth.[12] This development inevitably led to a demand for state schools in the region.
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[13] The overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible because the Queensland Government regarded education as a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget.[14]
\nThe need for an adequate high school at Southport, to serve the whole South Coast, became a priority in the 1950s. In September 1953 there were 99 pupils attending the Secondary Department of the Southport State School. Of those, 62 resided outside Southport. As the school did not teach science subjects, students were unable to pursue any university study that required science as a prerequisite.[15]
\nIn response to this situation, the Minister for Public Instruction acted to provide adequate high school education on the South Coast. He approved the establishment of a sub-senior class at the Southport SHS from the beginning of 1955 and allocated £61,831 in the 1954-5 financial year for the erection of the new Southport State High School.[16]
\nIn Queensland, high schools remained few in number until after World War II, when secondary education became accepted as essential and was more widely provided. In the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. The grounds were large, greater than 12 acres (4.8ha) providing ample room for sports facilities. The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but high schools also included purpose-built science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums. These were also built to standard plans but were specific to their use and not a continuation of previous designs.[17] This reflected educationalists’ rejection of the previous designs of school buildings, considering them outdated and their favouring of ‘lighter, loosely grouped, flexible’ buildings.[18]
\nThere was also a focus on the fit between the school and its neighbourhood, as well as site planning for expansion. In the early 1950s, architects developed master planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[19] A few years later there was a shift away from grid-like layouts to organic layouts which provided for growth and change. Classroom wings were connected to and fanned away from a central nucleus. Master planning schemes were focussed on the ideal solar orientation of buildings as well as their relationship to the natural contours and existing vegetation, resulting in building layouts that were more asymmetrical and open. The long, narrow buildings were positioned so that the spaces captured between them created playground areas and courtyards.[20]
\nPlans for a new Southport State High School, drawn by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and approved in October 1954, demonstrate an organic planning approach, with the buildings orientated at various angles and connected by covered links.[21] Positioned in the elevated southwest corner of the new 9.6ha (23.7ac) site, which was bounded by Smith Street (south), Brooke Avenue (west), Townson Avenue (north, now Lionel Avenue), Loders Creek (northeast) and Worendo Street (west, no longer extant), the buildings were ‘specially planned to suit the natural contours of the site and also make the most use of the prevailing breezes’.[22]
\nThe site was cleared by November 1954 and tenders called for the transport of building materials from the railway to the school site.[23] Construction commenced soon afterwards. The initial teaching buildings comprised three Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings imported from Britain. All three (Blocks A, B and C) were erected by the end of July 1955 and teaching commenced there in late August 1955.[24]
\nHawksley Prefabricated School Buildings were prefabricated classrooms imported by the DPW from Hawksley Construction Co. of Gloucester, England, in response to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom.[25] Across Australia, £1.5 million worth of Hawksley prefabricated buildings for schools, offices, hospitals and bungalows had been delivered by November 1951.[26] Between 1952 and 1958, a total of 27 Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings (90 classrooms) were imported by the DPW; initially intended to provide classroom accommodation at high schools and technical colleges, they were also erected at primary and infants schools across Queensland.[27]
\nThe Hawksley system was prefabricated from aluminium structural systems and included aluminium external cladding and aluminium framed awning windows. Aluminium column sections were fixed to a reinforced concrete ring beam at floor level, and support framing was sometimes provided by rolled steel joists at 12ft (3.6m) centres and spans. The introduction of structural steel elements reduced the number of concrete piers required and provided more open area under the building.[28] Many of the prefabricated components utilised techniques developed during World War II in aircraft manufacture, including pop-riveting and the use of synthetic gaskets and sealants. As a consequence, this system had an industrial aesthetic, unique in the evolution of Queensland school architecture.[29]
\nHawksley buildings could be high or low-set, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south. The verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall had extensive areas of aluminium-framed awning windows, providing abundant natural ventilation and lighting. The classrooms were 24ft (7.3m) wide, larger than most previous classrooms.[30] A range of building lengths and layout configurations comprising classrooms, storerooms, teachers and other rooms, all accessed via the verandah, were available and identified as alphabetised Hawksley ‘types’.[31] The buildings arrived in panel form, with the internal details prefabricated in the factory and components designed to be readily handled, to enable rapid assembly on site.[32]
\nMasonry and concrete understoreys, and ancillary elements such as hat and bag racks, railings and stairs, were designed and installed by the DPW.[33] Attempts were made by DPW architects, in the adaptation of these prefabricated buildings, to use ‘sympathetic materials and … preserve the inherent lightness of the structure in the finished design’.[34]
\nAt Southport SHS, Block A, used for domestic science teaching, was a Hawksley Prefabricated School Building ‘type B less 16ft’ (4.8 m). Lowset with a gable roof and a northern verandah, it had a large number of awning windows in its southern and northern walls.[35]
\nBlock B to the north of Block A, a Hawksley Prefabricated School Building ‘type H plus additional 40ft’ (12m), was highset on a face brick substructure, with supporting concrete piers and metal posts, above a concrete plinth. The high school building had a gable roof, and was sheeted externally on the upper level with ribbed aluminium panels. The northern side had a verandah on both levels that had tubular steel balustrades, handrails, and supports, and enclosed hat and store rooms at the ends. The building contained four 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms, a commercial room (west) and principal’s office (east) on the upper level; with a science laboratory, store and lecture room (west), and lavatories (east) flanking an enclosed area for students’ recreation space (temporary library and reading room) below.[36]
\nBlock C to the east of Block A, a lowset manual training building, was a Hawksley Prefabricated School Building ‘type A plus 8ft’ (2.4m). This building had a gable roof, a west-facing verandah, and exterior walls and eaves clad with ribbed aluminium panels, awning windows and two louvred vents high in the gable end walls.[37]
\nCovered links connecting Blocks A, B and C were also constructed in 1954-5. These had concrete footings, steel round posts with struts at the ceiling, concrete paths, timber seating with steel frames, sheet ceilings and galvanised corrugated metal roof sheets and square profile guttering.[38] The covered links surrounded an assembly area to the immediate south of Block B.[39] In 2024, only one elevated covered link, connecting blocks E and F, is extant.
\nIn December 1955, soon after Southport State High School’s commencement, the South Coast Bulletin newspaper commented on the modern new high school and the change of attitude towards secondary education that had preceded its establishment:
\nStanding in 24 acres of grounds, the school consists of three blocks designed in accordance with modern standards of school architecture. Great changes were made in educational thought and practice… following two World Wars and the intervening depression. With a clear conception of the rights of the individual there came acceptance of the principle that secondary education is the birthright of every intelligent child and that his studies be closely related to his needs and aptitudes.[40]
\nFurther funding, of £9406, was allocated to building at Southport SHS in the 1955-6 financial year. Another Hawksley Prefabricated School Building (Block D) of unknown type, shown as a future administration block to the immediate east of Block A in the original school plan, was constructed on the site after December 1955. This was a lowset building with a small entry porch.[41]
\nSouthport State High School, which provided secondary education for the whole of the South Coast, was officially opened on 26 October 1957, with the unveiling of a plaque in the vestibule of the Administration building, by the Minister for Education, J C A Pizzey.[42] The flagpole proposed for the site in 1954 was on-site, located to the south of Block B, for the official opening day.[43] In conjunction with the opening, student displays and demonstrations, an art exhibition and a fete were held, while the event closed with a passing out parade of the School Cadet Corps.[44]
\nGrowth of the school population continued and more buildings were added to the site. A fifth Hawksley Prefabricated School Building (Block E), shown on the original school plan as an intermediate school building situated to the east of Block B, was constructed in 1957-8. This was a Hawksley ‘type F amended’ building, highset on a face brick lower level with a concrete plinth. Unlike Block B, the upper level incorporated open-web metal trusses that reduced the requirement for supporting elements. It had a gable roof and was sheeted externally on the upper level with ribbed aluminium panels. The northern side had a verandah on both levels that had tubular steel balustrade, handrails and supports, and enclosed hat (western ends) rooms. The upper level contained three classrooms and a physics laboratory (east); with an enclosed student recreation area and toilets (east) below. The classrooms were 24ft (7.3m) wide. A pathway with concrete paving and retaining walls was constructed along the southern side of Block E, connecting with those that existed along the southern side of Block B; and a ground floor covered link, connecting Block E with existing covered links to the south, was built at the same time.[45] Alterations to Block B were also made – with balustrades at the upper verandah ends replaced by bag racks.[46]
\nFurther additions to the school were made in the early 1960s. Plans were drawn for the addition of Block F in 1960. This two-storey building with undercroft was supported by open-web steel trusses. Ribbed zinc anneal roof sheeting and wall cladding was used. The timber-framed building had brick ends that were designed to match the existing school buildings. Western verandahs were used at both levels and awning windows on all elevations.[47] Block F was completed by May 1961. It was aligned roughly north-south and linked to the eastern end of Block E by an elevated covered link with open-web steel trusses, similar in design to a link that was also constructed between the first floor verandahs of Block B and E.[48]
\nWith the addition of Block F, a parade ground was formed to the southeast of Block E, providing a formal assembly space for the growing school.[49] Other ground improvements at Southport SHS in the 1960s included tennis courts, at the northern end of the grounds by October 1960; and a school oval with perimeter plantings to the east of the school buildings by June 1964, to the immediate south of land that had been resumed in July 1961.[50] Further resumptions (1974) and closure of Worendo Street (1975) brought the school grounds to a total of 13.44ha (33.2ac).[51]
\nAlthough more high schools were built on the Gold Coast as its permanent population continued to increase – Miami SHS (1963), Palm Beach-Currumbin SHS (1972), Keebra Park SHS (1973) and Merrimac SHS (1979) – Southport SHS continued to expand to meet secondary education needs in the region. By 1980, 14 teaching buildings plus an assembly hall and sporting facilities (tennis and basketball courts, sports oval) populated the site, radiating in an organic manner to the northeast and northwest from the original buildings.[52] A principals residence, onsite by 10 June 1964, stood in the northwest corner of the grounds.[53]
\nSome changes to the surviving 1950s buildings have been made. Alterations to Block E were made in 1988-9 reconfiguring the upper level layout to three classrooms and converting the then science laboratories to general classrooms, and refurbishing the ground floor drama room (former student recreation area).[54] In 2001 the lower level of Block E was reconfigured for a multi-media room.[55] The brick walls and concrete plinths of the lower levels of Block E have been painted.
\nBy 2000, the school incorporated 16 teaching buildings, an assembly hall and sporting facilities including a swimming pool. The principals residence was still onsite in the northwest corner of the site on Brooke Avenue.[56] A new GLA (Cultivate) Building was added to the site in 2018.[57]
\nRemoval of buildings and features from the site took place in this century. By 2009 the principals residence had been removed and in 2011 Blocks A, C and D were demolished; however, their associated 1950s covered links remained.[58] Circa 2018, all of the covered links connecting the original buildings were demolished for construction of the Cultivate Building, except those between Blocks B and E, and between Blocks E and F.[59] In October 2019, Block B was severely damaged by fire and subsequently demolished, along with the covered link connecting it with Block E.[60] In 2020, a three-storey GLA building (Generate) was constructed on the site of Block B.[61]
\nOf the few reasonably-intact Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings identified in the Queensland Schools Heritage Conservation Study, 1996, only the one at Southport SHS and five at Mt Isa SHS (1953) are extant in 2024.[62] Along with another Hawksley ‘type K plus six bays’ at Maryborough Central State School [QHR 601264], they are rare known surviving examples of the 27 original Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings imported by the DPW. Block E is the only known example of type F in Queensland.
\nThe importance of the school within the community has been acknowledged during anniversary celebrations. In 1991 Southport State High School celebrated its 75th anniversary with the production of a commemorative booklet entitled Southport State High School: celebrating 75 years, 1916-1991.[63] Centenary celebrations were held in June 2016.[64]
\nIn 2024 Southport State High School continues to operate from its Smith Street site. Its school population is approximately 2068 students.[65] The campus incorporates more than 20 buildings, plus sporting facilities. The school is important to the Gold Coast as a focus for the community and several generations of students have been taught there.
\n","criteria":"
Southport State High School (established in 1955) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent, representative example of a standard school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with a former parade ground and sports oval.
\nIt is important in demonstrating the pattern of provision of secondary education, on new sites with expanded facilities, across Queensland in the 1950s, a time of enormous growth in school-age population and demand for secondary education.
\nThe Hawksley Prefabricated School Building (1957-8) demonstrates the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period.
\nThe layout of this building, along with an adjacent brick and timber building with open-web steel floor trusses (1961), the covered link between them (1961) and associated open spaces, reflects the mid-1950s introduction of organic master planning, which responded to the existing contours of the site and provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
|Highly intact, the Hawksley Prefabricated School Building is a rare surviving example of an imported post-war aluminium-framed prefabricated school building and is the only known example of a Hawksley type F in Queensland.
|The Hawksley Prefabricated School Building is an excellent example of its type and demonstrates a variation of the standard layout configurations and support framing designs: Hawksley ‘type F amended’ (1957-8), incorporating open-web metal trusses. Highly intact, it retains its: prefabricated aluminium-framed and clad structure, mounted on a brick base; gabled roof; verandahs for circulation; 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms; and extensive banks of aluminium-framed awning windows to maximise natural light.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nSouthport State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Southport community. It was established in 1955 and generations of students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the Gold Coast and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650035,"name":"Indooroopilly State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Ward Street","suburb":"INDOOROOPILLY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-10-14","description":"Indooroopilly State High School occupies a 12ha site in the suburb of Indooroopilly, approximately 7km southwest of Brisbane CBD. The site steeply slopes down from the north, and is accessed by an entrance driveway off the corner of Ward and Turner streets to the west, and a driveway from McCaul Street to the north. The site is also bounded by Lambert Road to the south, Carnarvon Road to the west, and Magor Street and Robertson’s Park to the east. The school retains its original complex of seven timber and brick buildings (constructed 1953-59), which are centrally located on a high, flat plateau area at the northern end of the site. Between the buildings are courtyard, assembly and play spaces, and circulation is facilitated by covered walkway connections and concrete stairs, pathways and pavements. The landscaped grounds are well established, and include bushland, mature trees, planter boxes, retaining walls, tennis / basketball courts and playing fields.
\nThe seven significant buildings within the school complex are:
\nThese buildings are constructed from a range of standard materials and structural methods employed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) during the 1950s, including: prefabricated Boulton & Paul (B&P) timber units (blocks A and B); timber trusses (blocks A and C); and steel open-web trusses (blocks D and E). Building A6, Block G, and the western end of Block B are purpose-designed buildings.
\nThe early site planning of the school grounds remains intact and is typical of Queensland schools during the mid to late 1950s. The long classroom blocks are arranged organically, following the contours of the site and linked around courtyard spaces. In the southwest corner of the complex are blocks A and C, positioned parallel to each other in an approximately east-west orientation. They are linked by Building A6 at the western end and a raised, covered walkway at the eastern end; and encircle a bitumen parade ground. Branching off from the east end of Block A is Block B, angled slightly towards the north, with a brick entranceway in between. Block D, the longest block, extends northwards from near the eastern end of Block B. To the north of Block C and west of Block D is a large, flat courtyard area known as ‘Town Square’. The northwest corner of the square is defined by blocks E and G, which are positioned at right angles to each other. Block E is orientated east-west, and Block G, to its south, is orientated north-south.
\nNon-significant elements of the buildings include air conditioning units (interior and exterior); replacement windows and doors; replacement wall and ceiling linings; accessibility ramps; and modern floor linings (carpet and linoleum), suspended ceilings, kitchenettes, fluorescent lighting and ceiling fans.
\nBlock A (1953-54): Boulton & Paul prefabricated classrooms; DPW timber trusses
\nBlock A is a long, two-storey building with a corrugated metal-clad gable roof that continues over a north-facing verandah. It contains classrooms on the first floor and west end of the ground floor, and toilets at the east end of the ground floor. The first floor is constructed from timber prefabricated Boulton & Paul timber units, and the ground floor is constructed from DPW-designed timber floor trusses (west end) and brick (east end toilets and store rooms).
\nThe exterior is clad in a variety of materials including: timber chamferboards (with the edges of vertical timber boards visible between each panel of the B&P wall units); vertical profiled metal sheeting (east facade first floor, south facade ground floor); and orange face brick (toilets and the southwestern corner of the ground floor).
\nThe southern facade features large banks of timber-framed top-hung awning windows along the first floor. The raked eaves are unlined and supported by timber struts fixed to window mullions below. At the west end, the ground floor wall is set back and divided into bays by the projecting tapered edges of the timber trusses. Windows within the bays are awning windows with modern louvres above. The brick eastern end has high-level windows. The east and west walls are blank.
\nAll access is via the northern facade. Timber stairs at the western end, which also provide access to the adjacent Building A6, are semi-enclosed with single-skin walls of exposed timber studs and chamferboard cladding, and have a timber post and rail balustrade. The first floor verandah has a raked ceiling clad in flat sheeting with exposed rafters aligned with joins in the wall panels, square timber posts, and a timber floor. Timber-framed bag racks form the balustrade, and are externally clad in profiled metal sheeting.
\nThe ground floor verandah has a concrete pavement floor and corrugated metal-clad ceiling. Square timber posts and a concrete spoon drain run along the outer edge. The concrete pavement is scored to resemble square pavers and steps up toward the eastern end, in line with the brick-enclosed section. The pavement continues around the northwest corner of the building to terminate in a landing with tubular metal handrails. From here, a short flight of concrete steps leads down to a modern concrete pathway.
\nWindows in the northern wall are large double-hung timber sashes (with fanlights above the first floor windows), and original doors are single or double, part-glazed timber doors with v-jointed (VJ) panelling.
\nThe interior of the first floor comprises four central classrooms, separated from an eastern and a western classroom by two narrow store rooms. The walls and ceilings are lined with flat sheeting, and most walls have rounded cover strips. Vertical members of the structural system are evident on the north and south walls, between pairs of windows. Two sets of original bi-fold timber panelled doors between classrooms are retained, as well as single panelled timber doors between some rooms.
\nOn the ground floor, walls within the brick toilets and store rooms are generally plastered or face brick, and floors are concrete. Doors include early high-waisted or vertical board doors, both with original hardware, and some high-level windows contain fixed glass louvres. Classrooms are lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips, and the tapered legs of the timber trusses are exposed within the space. Two of the classrooms have metal floor skirtings. Vertically-sliding, timber-framed blackboards are retained in one classroom on the first floor and one on the ground floor.
\nBlock B (1954): Boulton & Paul prefabricated classrooms; Brick ground floor; Purpose-built western end (former Principal’s Office)
\nBlock B is a long, two-storey building, with a corrugated metal-clad gable roof that continues over a north-facing verandah. Most of the first floor is of prefabricated timber B&P units, containing two classrooms and a store room, and stands on a brick ground floor containing toilets and a large store room. The narrower western end is purpose-designed, containing an office and store room on the first floor and a former outdoor area on the ground floor (enclosed with modern partitions to form a small office).
\nThe exterior of the eastern end is clad in timber chamferboards (with the edges of vertical timber boards visible between each panel of the B&P wall units) vertical profiled metal sheeting (east facade first floor) and orange face brick. The raked eaves of the south wall are unlined and supported by timber struts fixed to window mullions below.
\nThe purpose-designed western end is clad predominantly in timber chamferboards. The walls of the former Principal’s Office in the southwest corner are set back and clad with vertical profiled metal sheeting and flat sheeting. The southwest corner of the office stands on a thick, rounded-rectangular concrete column, and three tall steel posts support the overhang of the roof.
\nMost of the early timber joinery has been retained, including: top-hung awning windows to the former Principal’s Office and the south wall of the B&P classrooms; double-hung sash windows to the verandah wall (with fanlights above) and ground floor store room; and fixed glass louvres to the toilets. Other ground floor windows have been replaced with metal-framed sliders. Early doors include double, part-glazed timber doors with VJ panelling, and vertical board doors, both with original hardware.
\nThe first floor verandah is accessed via timber stairs at the eastern end that are semi-enclosed with timber-framed glazed screens. The verandah has a timber floor, square timber posts and a raked ceiling lined with flat sheeting. Timber-framed bag racks form the balustrade, and are externally clad in profiled metal sheeting. A framed section of chamferboards near the western end of the verandah wall indicates a former opening to an internal stair (now removed).
\nThe ground floor verandah has a profiled metal-lined ceiling, concrete pavement floor and is edged by square timber posts and a spoon drain. The pavement, scored to resemble square pavers, extends north of the verandah line at the eastern and western ends.
\nOn the first floor, the interior walls and ceilings of both sections are lined in flat sheeting and skirtings are timber, of a simple profile. Single panelled timber doors survive between some rooms. In the B&P section, vertical members of the structural system are evident on the north and south walls, between pairs of windows. In the former Principal’s Office, the location of removed partitions is evident in the ceiling lining. A small alcove remains in the western wall, which originally contained a sink (now a kitchenette). The ground floor has a concrete slab floor, which has been covered with modern linings in various locations, and painted brick and plastered walls. Early timber perimeter seating is retained in the central store room.
\nBrick entranceway and stairs between Block A and Block B (c1954)
\nA raised covered walkway with a skillion roof links the first floor verandahs of blocks A and B. The southern side of the walkway is two-storey brick wall with a ground floor opening that forms an entranceway to the parade ground area. Fixed above the opening is metal lettering – ‘INDOOROOPILLY STATE HIGH SCHOOL’. The ground beneath the walkway is concrete pavement, accessed from the southern side by a set of steps with adjacent planter box and garden area. Projecting perpendicular to the walkway on the north side is a tall brick planter box and adjacent set of timber stairs with tubular metal handrails. A metal flag pole is attached to the north face of the planter box. The north side of the walkway is open, with a timber rail balustrade.
\nBlock C (1954-55): Timber school building with clerestory windows; Concrete columns; DPW timber trusses
\nBlock C is a long, two-storey building with a corrugated metal-clad gable roof and north-facing verandah. The first floor contains classrooms while the ground floor, formerly open play space with storage at the east end, has 1980s brick enclosures (tuck shop and former book store) that are not of heritage significance. The first floor is supported by a combination of large, round concrete posts, timber trusses (in the rooms at the east end); and round metal posts (supporting the first floor verandah). Brick walls define the ends of the building. The building is predominantly clad in timber chamferboards, with the exception of the eastern elevation first floor, which is clad in profiled metal sheeting. The raked eaves of the south wall are supported by timber struts fixed to window mullions below.
\nAccess to the first floor is via a set of semi-enclosed timber stairs at the western end of the verandah, and an internal staircase at the eastern end. The separate gable roof over the western stairs is partly supported by metal poles that are angled to form a V shape, and an early sink survives in the northwest corner of the landing. The eastern end of the verandah and part of the western end are enclosed with timber-framed glazed screens.
\nEarly timber joinery is retained throughout the first floor, with large banks of top-hung awning windows with centre-pivoting fanlights along the south facade and double-hung windows with centre-pivoting clerestory windows along the verandah wall. Early doors include double, two-light doors with VJ panels to the verandah and east stairwell, and panelled, two-light interior doors, both with original hardware.
\nThe first floor verandah has a low-pitched skillion roof, set below clerestory windows; a raked ceiling lined with flat sheeting and rounded cover strips; a timber floor and square timber verandah posts. Timber-framed bag racks form the balustrade, and are externally clad in profiled metal sheeting. Metal grills fixed above the bag racks are recent and not of heritage significance. Large rectangular vents (date unknown) are positioned below some windows in the verandah wall.
\nThe classroom interiors on the first floor are generally lined in flat sheeting on the walls and ceilings, with rounded cover strips to some walls and simple timber skirtings.
\nThe unenclosed areas of the ground floor have ceilings lined with flat sheeting (with cover strips in some sections), and a concrete pavement floor scored to resemble square pavers. Below the first floor verandah the ceiling is unlined. The rooms at the eastern end have timber double hung windows (north wall), glass louvres (south wall), internal walls and ceilings lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips, and the tapered legs of the timber trusses are exposed within the space.
\nA raised covered walkway with a flat roof links the eastern ends of blocks A and C. Constructed from timber, it is supported by square timber posts and has a three-rail timber balustrade. The floor is provided additional support by diagonal struts attached to the posts. The ceiling is lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips.
\nBuilding A6 (1955): Purpose-built (former Drawing Room)
\nBuilding A6 is a highset, masonry building with a corrugated metal-clad gable roof, and is set on a north-south axis. Smaller than the classroom blocks, it connects Block A and Block C at their western ends and forms an edge to the parade ground. It contains a single large room and a store room on the first floor, and the ground floor is open, with some sections enclosed for storage. A narrow section of the building, containing storage on the ground floor and a former corridor on the first floor, extends north to run alongside the west end of Block C, and connects with its western staircase. Walls are predominantly orange face brick with some sections of profiled metal sheeting (below window sill height) and flat sheeting. The brick end walls extend to form wing walls in line with the horizontal eaves on the eastern facade. Large concrete columns of rounded or lozenge-shaped profile support the central section of the building.
\nBanks of top-hung awning windows occupy the full length of the east facade of the first floor, while a single row of high awning windows runs along the west facade. Access to the first floor is via a small stair at the northern end of the building, and via the landing of Block A’s western stairs at the southern end. One early door survives: a high-waisted, single-light door with a VJ panel at the southern first floor entrance.
\nThe interior of the first floor has plaster walls, timber skirtings of a simple profile, and a modern fitout.
\nThe ground floor is mostly open play space, with a concrete pavement floor scored to resemble square pavers. The northeast corner has been enclosed with face brick to form a store room (former armoury) and the southern end is enclosed with face brick and metal caging to form a sports store. A brick planter box is cut into the terrain on the east side of the store room. The concrete pavement extends west beyond the building footprint, connecting with a concrete pathway and stairs along the west side of both Block C and Building A6.
\nParade Ground (1954-55)
\nThe parade ground between Block A, Block C and Building A6 has an upper level of gently sloping ground lined with bitumen, and a lower level (along the southern and western edges) of concrete pavement scored to resemble square pavers. Connecting the levels is a long, curving set of concrete stairs that run from the brick planter box at the northeast corner of Building A6 and curve around to run parallel with Block A. Modern shade structures and concrete planter boxes within the parade ground area are not of heritage significance.
\nBlock D (1957-58): Timber and brick school building with clerestory windows; Open-web steel floor trusses
\nBlock D is a long, two storey building, orientated on a north-south axis and cut into the sloping terrain, so that the upper floor of the building is at ground level on the western side. Constructed predominantly from orange brick, it has a corrugated metal-clad gable roof, with the eaves on the eastern side supported by timber struts fixed to window mullions below. The ground floor contains classrooms connected by a west-facing verandah, while the understorey, formerly open play space, has been progressively enclosed to form additional classrooms. An open-web metal truss system supports the ground floor, held up by lozenge-shaped concrete columns and a battered concrete retaining wall which forms the western wall of the understorey.
\nTimber-framed, top-hung awning windows with centre-pivoting fanlights run almost the entire length of the first floor eastern facade. Stairwells with separate gable roofs are located at each end of the building, enclosed by facebrick walls glazed with timber-framed screens with wired-glass insets. The stairs are concrete and have tubular metal pole handrails.
\nThe western verandah has a low-pitched skillion roof, with clerestory windows (glass louvres) above; square timber posts; and a concrete pavement floor scored to resemble square pavers. The verandah wall is clad in timber chamferboards, and the raked ceiling is lined with flat sheeting with cover strips. A timber-framed glazed screen is located next to the northern verandah entrance with a partially buried brick planter box in front. Timber-framed bag racks along the verandah edge have profiled metal cladding on the exterior. Windows are timber-framed, double-hung sash windows, and all verandah doors have been replaced.
\nThe ground floor level comprises seven classrooms of the same size, interconnected by single, panelled, two-light timber doors adjacent to the eastern wall. The classroom walls are lined in flat sheeting with rounded cover-strips up to dado level, and ceilings are lined in flat sheeting. Early angled hylo-boards with inbuilt cupboards are retained in each classroom.
\nThe understorey level is accessed by a 1970s covered walkway that is not of heritage significance. Enclosing walls date from different periods, with those at the eastern end, constructed from profiled metal sheeting and glass louvres, being the earliest. A number of classrooms and store rooms have been formed by internal partitions, with the open-web steel trusses remaining visible. Early doors include internal single, part-glazed timber doors with VJ panelling.
\n‘Town Square’ (1958-65) and Stairway (1960)
\nThe large courtyard area known as ‘Town Square’ comprises a large lawn encircled by bitumen driveways and blocks D (east) C (south) G (west) and E (north). Other gardens and grassed areas are located in front of blocks C and D. Two concrete pathways cross the lawn and converge at a point near the base of a wide, concrete stairway adjacent to the east end of Block E. The stairway ascends the steep slope and links to a pathway to McCaul Street. Orange brick walls form a retaining wall along the east side, terminating at a brick planter box at the base. Tall brick-enclosed garden beds form the western side of the stairway and wrap around the southeast corner of Block E. One garden wall has been recently replaced by rendered concrete blockwork. Tubular metal handrails run down the centre of the stairway and single rails are attached to the side walls.
\nBlock E (1958-59): Timber and brick school building with clerestory windows; Open-web steel floor trusses
\nBlock E is a two-storey, timber and brick building, set on an east-west axis, with a corrugated metal-clad gable roof and north-facing verandah. The slope of the site has been cut and retained with a concrete wall to accommodate the building. The first floor, which contains classrooms and a staff room, is supported on lozenge-shaped columns and open-web floor trusses. The building has face brick end walls and ground floor enclosures, and the remaining external walls are clad in chamferboards. Large banks of timber-framed, top-hung awning windows with recent, fixed fanlights above run along the first floor southern facade.
\nThe ground floor slab is elevated above ‘Town Square’ and is accessed along the southern side by concrete steps leading to a central landing with tubular metal balustrades. Concrete pavements and pathways run around a large brick garden bed at the west end of the building to connect with the northern side of the ground floor.
\nDue to the sloping site, the first floor verandah is at ground level at the eastern end, accessed from the adjacent stairway via a concrete-paved, face brick entrance bay with a vertical timber louvre screen in the northern wall. A timber stair is located at the western end, semi-enclosed with timber-framed, wired-glass screens, with the lower panels coloured in red, yellow and blue. Below the western stair is a landing used as a seating area.
\nThe verandah has a low-pitched roof, set below clerestory windows (glass louvres) and is supported by round metal posts. The floor is timber and the ceiling is lined in flat sheeting with rectangular cover strips. Timber-framed bag racks form the balustrade, and are externally clad in profiled metal sheeting. Windows in the verandah wall are timber-framed double hung sashes, and all doors have been replaced.
\nThe interior of the first floor has walls lined in flat sheeting with rounded cover-strips below dado-level, and ceilings lined in flat sheeting. Early angled hylo-boards with inbuilt cupboards are retained in each of the classrooms. Panelled, two-light interior doors with original hardware connect some of the rooms.
\nThe ground floor comprises toilets at the eastern end, enclosed in face brick walls, and open play space with a concrete pavement floor scored to resemble square pavers, which extends north of the verandah line. The open-web metal trusses are exposed within the ground floor spaces and cantilever over the northern paved area. A timber bench is retained within the central, open play space. A store room is located beneath the far western end of the block, accessed by a boarded timber door. A 1980s brick-enclosed room (formerly a Textiles Room) is not of heritage significance.
\nBlock G (1958-59): Purpose-built (former Domestic Science building)
\nBlock G is a single-storey, brick and timber building, orientated on a north-south axis and standing on a brick base. It is clad in timber chamferboards and has a corrugated metal-clad, shallow pitched gable roof. The building contains a series of rooms of different sizes, including store rooms and a large cooking classroom, linked by a passageway along the western side. Large banks of timber-framed, top-hung awning windows with recent, fixed fanlights above run along the eastern wall, with some windows in the centre blocked off.
\nThe main entrance is via a gable-roofed entrance portico at the southern end. Semi-enclosed by face brick walls, it features a large timber-framed glazed screen in the southern wall, fitted with metal louvres and tall, wired glass panes. The portico contains a short flight of brick stairs with a tubular metal rail balustrade. A secondary entrance is via an open flight of timber stairs, also with a tubular metal rail balustrade, to a covered walkway on the north side, which links Block G with the ground floor level of Block E.
\nThe western passageway has a timber floor and is enclosed by profiled metal-clad bag racks and banks of wired glass louvres. The passageway roof is supported by metal posts, and the flat ceiling is lined with flat sheeting with rounded cover strips. The eastern wall of the passageway is timber-framed with modern fixed glazing above dado level, and banks of vertical glass louvres above. Internal walls and ceilings are lined with flat sheeting. The internal fitout and some partitions and doors are replacements, dating from the 1970s onwards, and are not of heritage significance.
\nA covered area with a flat roof supported by round metal posts and a concrete pavement floor links the southern end of Block G with Block C’s western staircase. A concrete-edged garden bed adjacent to the entrance portico has been modified to accommodate an access ramp. The west wing of Block G, including its connecting link, is not of heritage significance.
\nDriveways (1960-61)
\nThe bitumen entrance driveways from McCaul Street (north) and Ward Street (southwest) are edged with concrete curbing. The southwest driveway is partly edged by stone-lined retaining walls as it approaches blocks B and D.
\nGrounds
\nThe grounds are well established and contain numerous gardens and mature trees of a wide variety of species, both native and introduced. The steep, northern portion of the grounds retains a native forest area which forms an attractive backdrop to ‘Town Square’ and the northern entrance drive. Remnant patches of tall eucalyptus trees are found throughout the grounds.
\nTennis and basketball courts are located to the west of the 1950s complex. On the low-lying, flat southern grounds are a large Sports Oval (c1959) at the western end and open playing fields to the east, both fringed by mature trees. A low metal gate with lettering ‘I S H S’ is located at the north end of the oval.
","history":"Indooroopilly State High School (SHS) opened in early 1954 in response to post-World War II (WWII) population growth in Brisbane’s suburbs and the growing demand for secondary education. In 2016 Indooroopilly SHS retains its original complex of seven timber and brick buildings constructed during 1953-59: Block A (1953-54); Block B (1954); Block C (1954-55); Building A6 (1955); Block D (1957-58); Block E (1958-59) and Block G (1958-59). These buildings are constructed from a range of standard materials and structural methods employed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) during the 1950s, including: prefabricated Boulton & Paul timber units (blocks A and B); timber trusses (blocks A and C); and steel open-web trusses (blocks D and E). The buildings also feature differences in roof form, glazing, and verandah and stair arrangements that illustrate changes to standard school building types throughout the late-1950s. The school retains its organic 1950s site planning of long classroom blocks positioned in response to existing and man-made contours, spiralling around a high point in the centre of the steeply-sloping site. Blocks are connected by covered areas and walkways, and landscape elements include brick planter boxes, concrete stairs and pavements, a bitumen parade ground and roadways, retaining walls, gardens, mature trees, and sporting facilities such as a c1959 oval and mid-1960s basketball and tennis courts. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment.
\nThe suburb of Indooroopilly is located 7km southwest of the Brisbane CBD. Although the Indooroopilly area was surveyed as farm allotments in 1858, central Indooroopilly did not attract agricultural settlement to the same extent as nearby Fig Tree Pocket, St Lucia and Long Pocket; and its development was limited until the Brisbane to Ipswich railway line opened to the locality in 1875. In the late 19th century a small township developed near the Indooroopilly railway station, and a number of large villas were erected on the banks of the Brisbane River. By the 1920s further subdivision had created a busy suburb, and growth was also facilitated by the opening of the Walter Taylor road bridge [QHR 600181] in 1936.[1] Indooroopilly’s population (including Taringa) rose from 1029 in 1911, to 2048 in 1921, and 8565 by 1947.[2]
\nEarly schools near Indooroopilly included Toowong Mixed School (opened 1870, now Ironside State school, St Lucia) and Indooroopilly State School, opened in 1889.[3] The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[4]
\nAfter WWII, Indooroopilly was chosen as the site for a new state high school. In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering it to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after WWII, when secondary education was generally accepted as essential and was more widely provided for.[5]
\nIn 1954 it was reported that high school enrolments in Queensland had more than doubled since 1948, from 4500 to nearly 11,000.[6] The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’.[7] Queensland schools were faced with enormous overcrowding and a lack of resources because the Queensland Government and community saw education as a low priority and provided the department with only a small budget. The overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible.[8]
\nThe Queensland Government had a long-standing practice of developing standard plans for its school buildings, which helped ensure consistency and economy throughout the state. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, and standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy. Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation.[9] In the post-WWII period, the pressures of material shortages and rapid population growth forced the DPW to experiment with prefabrication and new, more efficient structural systems in order to keep up with demand for additional school buildings.[10]
\nIn an attempt to relieve the pressure on the existing state high schools in central Brisbane,[11] which did not have sufficient room to expand, a decision was made in 1950 to establish three new suburban high schools, which would commence with an initial intake of Year 9 pupils and grow over four years.[12] Reflecting the growth of suburbanisation and a move towards a decentralised population in urban centres, new high schools were located in suburban areas rather than the centre of town. This allowed for large grounds with ample room for sports facilities. The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but high schools also included purpose-built facilities such as science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums. These were also built to standard plans but were specific to their use and not a continuation of previous designs.[13]
\nThere was also a focus on the fit between the school and its neighbourhood, as well as site planning for expansion. In the early 1950s, architects developed master planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[14] A few years later there was a shift away from grid-like layouts to organic layouts which provided for growth and change. Classroom wings were connected to and fanned away from a central nucleus. Master planning schemes were focussed on the ideal solar orientation of buildings as well as their relationship to the natural contours and existing vegetation, resulting in building layouts that were more asymmetrical and open. The long, narrow buildings were positioned so that the spaces captured between them created playground areas and courtyards.[15]
\nIndooroopilly SHS was one of the three high schools planned to open in Brisbane in 1954, each with room for 250 students. The suburb of Indooroopilly was chosen so that the school could service the western suburbs, with Banyo SHS servicing the northern suburbs and Salisbury SHS the southeast suburbs, thus reducing the number of secondary pupils travelling to and from the city area.[16] Each school would have room for sports fields, and the buildings would be of brick and timber, with spacious well-lit classrooms, modern furniture, and provision for science laboratories, commercial rooms and libraries.
\nBy May 1950 the Department of Public Instruction had identified a satisfactory site for establishing a high school at Indooroopilly. At that time, Indooroopilly was growing rapidly, with house building extending towards St Lucia.[17] The proposed site, which eventually encompassed 29.7 acres (12ha), was situated on high ground at the eastern edge of Indooroopilly’s suburban development, and was ‘handy to St Lucia Fiveways and Indooroopilly railway station’.[18] A mixture of bush and scrub at the northern end, and low lying, cleared land traversed by a creek at the south end, it included parts of farm portions 38, 39 and 42, originally granted to Thomas Lodge Murray Prior.[19] A pre-1936 farmhouse (which was retained by Indooroopilly SHS until at least 1969) stood at the centre of the site, accessed by driveways from Lambert Road to the south and McCaul Street to the north.[20]
\nThe various land parcels needed to form the high school reserve were acquired by the Department of Public Instruction by early 1951. The northern part of the school site – part of Portion 38, consisting of 4.8ha – located south of McCaul Street and between Turner and Magor Streets, was resumed for school purposes by a proclamation dated 22 February 1951.[21] The southern part of the school site, located north of Lambert Road and between Carnarvon Road and Magor Street, absorbed Turner Street (unformed) to the south of Ward Street, plus four land parcels. The largest of these, 3.5ha of land which included parts of portions 38 and 39, was resumed for the school by the February 1951 proclamation.[22] Another 1.6ha was also added to the southeast corner of the school grounds.[23] In addition, a small parcel of 0.03ha near Lambert Road was resumed for the school by the February 1951 proclamation.[24] The site of the western half of the later school oval, 1.7ha of land that was formerly resubdivisions 487-527 of Portions 38, 39 and 42A (a road reserve), was purchased by the Secretary of Public Instruction in January 1951.[25] This part of the school grounds already possessed a concrete cricket pitch by 1936, which was later replaced by the school oval.[26]
\nThe request to commence construction of Indooroopilly State High School was given in July 1953 by the Director General of the Department of Public Instruction (Herbert G Watkin) to the Under Secretary of Public Works. Expenditure of £26,494 for the erection of the first section of the school was announced in September 1953, and clearing work at the site began in October 1953.[27]
\nIndooroopilly SHS opened on 2 February 1954, with one classroom building (known as Block A in 2016), erected on high ground near the centre of the site. The opening enrolment comprised 167 Year 9 students.[28] The building itself combined structural systems and materials typically used for school buildings at that time. The upper floor of the block was constructed from prefabricated Boulton & Paul timber units, while the ground floor structure comprised DPW-designed timber floor trusses at the western end and brick walls at the eastern end.[29]
\nResponding to materials shortages and population pressures post-WWII, the DPW imported a British building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. Based on an 8ft (2.4m) planning and construction module, the prefabricated elements in the Boulton & Paul system included ceiling panels, roof trusses, banks of awning windows, and 4ft wide wall panels. The buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1951 and 1958.[30] Timber framed and clad, they had a verandah as circulation and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classrooms faced south. The stairs and verandah ends were often semi-enclosed with glazed screens. The building could be lowset or highset and had extensive areas of timber framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[31] The flexibility of the Boulton & Paul system meant that the number of classrooms per block could vary in number to suit the needs of a particular school, and classrooms could also be used to extend existing blocks or form part of new blocks in combination with other structural systems.
\nFrom the early 1950s the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings, which were similar in form and layout to the Boulton & Paul buildings but not prefabricated: long, narrow, timber-framed buildings with a gable roof, north facing verandah with posts that extended from ground level to roof line, semi-enclosed stairs, and extensive areas of glazing to the verandah and southern classroom walls.[32] This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[33]
\nIn 1954 the type was improved by replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that spanned the width of the classrooms above and provided an unimpeded play space.[34] This truss system, introduced to support Boulton & Paul prefabricated units, was subsequently adopted for conventional timber-framed school buildings. The trusses were distinctive for their tapered legs.[35]
\nBlock A was orientated approximately east-west, with the eastern end angled towards the south. The upper floor contained six 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classrooms and two teachers rooms. Three of the classrooms were interconnected by large folding timber doors. A semi-enclosed staircase attached to the verandah was located at the western end. The ground floor was completely enclosed, with toilets, locker rooms and store rooms within the brick section at the eastern end; a ‘Students’ Space’ in the centre; and three classrooms at the eastern end – a Commercial Classroom, Science Lecture Room, and a Science Laboratory. Two store rooms were located between the science rooms. The timber floor trusses were visible within the classrooms and students’ space. Banks of awning windows along the southern classroom walls looked out over the low lying grounds and surrounding neighbourhood, while the verandah faced higher ground to the north that would eventually be levelled and turned into a courtyard.[36]
\nThe school was soon extended with the addition of a second building (known as Block B in 2016), which also incorporated Boulton & Paul prefabricated units for the upper floor, but the west end and brick ground floor were purpose-designed by the DPW.[37] Work on Block B was approved in January 1954, and it was erected during 1954.[38] The new building was linked to the east end of Block A by a raised walkway, and was orientated with its eastern end angling towards the northeast, following the contours of the site. Shorter than Block A, Block B originally housed manual training and administration.
\nWhile standard designs predominated in the 1950s, non-standard schools were also constructed, generally in Brisbane and the metropolitan areas where the population was stable and brick supplies guaranteed. Often substantial buildings with extensive use of brick and concrete, these schools introduced many innovative ideas which influenced later standards. Brick was progressively used more frequently in high schools for end walls, and was also commonly used to enclose toilets and stairwells and for landscape elements.[39]
\nIn Block B, the Boulton & Paul section of the building contained a Sheet Metal Room at the eastern end and a Woodwork Room, with a store room and Saw Room in between. On the western side of the Woodwork Room were store and staff rooms. The purpose-designed west end of the upper floor was narrower in width. It contained an internal staircase, a small store room, a Waiting Room, and the Principal’s Office, which was located in the southwest corner. The brick ground floor comprised toilets at the eastern end, a Timber Store, and a large Change Room with bench seating around the edges (temporarily used as a Trade-drawing Room in 1956). The western end was semi-enclosed, originally designated as a Students’ Quiet Area. In the southwest corner, a thick concrete column supported the Principal’s Office above, and the overhang of the gable roof was supported by steel posts.[40]
\nThe landscaping design of Indooroopilly State High School introduced new ideas in the integration of external built landscape elements (such as stairs, planter boxes and pavements) with adjacent functional areas.[41] As the school grew, spaces between buildings and at the ends of blocks were be purpose-designed to address ground level changes, improve circulation, and create gardens, seating and play areas for the students. Between blocks A and B an entranceway was created beneath the connecting walkway. A two-storey brick wall ran along the southern side of the walkway with metal lettering –‘INDOOROOPILLY STATE HIGH SCHOOL’ – attached above an opening. The entranceway was fronted by a concrete pavement and steps with adjacent planter box. Early class photographs show students arranged in rows on these steps, with the entranceway visible in the background. Projecting perpendicular to the walkway on the north side was a tall brick planter box and adjacent set of timber stairs with tubular metal handrails. A flag pole was attached to the north face of the planter box.[42]
\nIn 1954-55, a third classroom wing (known as Block C in 2016) was added to the site, to the north of and parallel with Block A.[43] On the upper level, it was a standard DPW timber school building type,[44] comprising four 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classrooms, one larger 32ft by 24ft (9.7m by 7.3m) classroom (designated as a Commercial Room), a north-facing verandah with clerestory lighting above the verandah roof, and a semi-enclosed stair with purpose-designed roof at the western end of the verandah. An internal staircase at the eastern end led to an elevated covered walkway, which linked the eastern ends of blocks C and A. The lower level of Block C was predominantly open play area supported by round concrete columns, with a locker room (supported by timber trusses) and a brick cloak room at the eastern end. Due to the steep slope, the ground floor was cut into the site with a retaining wall along the north side of the play area. This made the verandah accessible from ground level at the eastern end, via a short flight of concrete steps flanked by brick planter boxes.[45]
\nA second stage of Block C and landscaping works were constructed in late 1955. A 24ft by 44ft (7.3m by 13.4m) classroom, designated as a Drawing Room, was constructed between blocks A and C at their western ends, forming a link between them. Orientated approximately north-south, this addition (known as Building A6 in 2016) had a shallow gable roof, extensive glazing along the eastern wall of the upper floor, and high level windows along the western wall. The ground floor was open play area with bike racks at either end and access to a bicycle storage room under the western end of Block C. Supported mainly on round concrete columns and brick end walls, an opening in the western wall had a special feature – lozenge-shaped concrete columns that supported four large ‘round the corner’ doors, that allowed the underfloor area to be sealed off from westerly winds (doors now removed).[46]
\nLandscaping works included the formation of a flat, bitumen parade ground in the newly created courtyard between blocks A and C. To address ground level changes between the blocks, a long set of concrete steps ran from a planter box at the northeast corner of Building A6 and curved around to run parallel with Block A, before ending at a right angle in line with the girls locker rooms. Below these steps the ground was concrete pavement, scored to resemble square concrete pavers.[47]
\nAs more buildings were added to the site, rooms in earlier buildings were converted for other uses. For example, in 1954-55 the western end of the ground floor became the Chemistry Lab, Physics Laboratory and Science Lecture room, while the Students’ Space became a Library and Reading Room. The western classroom on the first floor became a Physics Lecture Room.[48]
\nThroughout the late 1950s the school continued to expand to successively accommodate all four high school years. A new two storey block which incorporated the latest structural system of steel open-web joists (known as Block D in 2016) was built north of Block B, in two stages, during 1957-58.[49] From 1957, steel open-web joists that spanned further and removed more understorey stumps replaced the use of timber trusses. This structural system was employed with reinforced concrete piers to support large loads at minimal costs.[50] This was further refined in 1959 by replacing the concrete piers and open-web joist with a steel portal frame that was employed extensively in the 1960s and 1970s.[51]
\nOrientated north-south and cut into the slope, the upper floor of Block D was at ground level along the western side, with a battered concrete retaining wall forming the western wall of the lower level. The upper level was of the same standard timber classroom type as Block C, with a west-facing verandah and clerestory lighting above the verandah roof. When completed, it contained seven identical 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classrooms, all interconnected by a single door adjacent to the eastern wall. Brick-enclosed stairwells were located at either end of the block, leading down to a large recreation area with a concrete floor. Along the open eastern side were lozenge-shaped concrete columns supporting the steel open-web joists. By late-1959, parts of the lower floor had been enclosed to form temporary classrooms.[52]
\nA second, larger courtyard area was created north of Block C by the addition of two more blocks in 1958-59 – a Domestic Science block (known as Block G in 2016) and a classroom block (known as Block E in 2016).[53] In order to construct them, however, the area had to be lowered and flattened, with excavation works taking place during 1958. Some of the fill was deposited in the western school grounds, where tennis and basketball courts were later formed.[54] The level of the new courtyard (known as ‘Town Square’ in 2016) was the same as the ground floor of Block C, which meant that the concrete steps and planter box at the east end of Block C’s verandah were demolished.[55] Blocks E and G were arranged at right angles to each other and formed the northwest corner of ‘Town Square’. Block G, the smaller of the two, was oriented north-south with its western wall approximately in line with the west end of Block C. Block E ran east-west and part of its lower floor was cut into the slope.
\nBlock E was constructed using standard timber school building construction types[56] with steel open-web trusses supporting the first floor. It had a north-facing verandah, with clerestory lighting above the verandah roof, and contained four 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classrooms and a 12ft by 24ft (3.6m by 7.3m) teachers room. A semi-enclosed timber stair was located at the western end of the verandah. The eastern end of the verandah was at ground level and had a concrete-paved entrance bay with a vertical timber louvre screen in the northern wall. The ends of the building and part of the ground floor were constructed from brick. The ground floor was largely open play area, with the pavement extending north of the verandah line, surrounded by a concrete retaining wall.[57]
\nBlock G was a single storey, gable-roofed building on a raised brick base, with its floor level slightly lower than the ground floor of Block E. It had a passageway enclosed with glass louvres along the western side, and contained classrooms of different sizes for Domestic Science, including a Dressmaking Room, Dining Room, Cookery Room and Lecture Room. A purpose-designed brick portico, glazed with metal louvers and fixed glass, formed the entrance at the southern end, and by 1961 a covered area linked it to the western end of Block C.[58]
\nThe school grounds continued to be improved throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the scrub northwest of the school buildings had been cleared, and the bush to the northeast had been thinned out to a scatter of trees. In the low-lying southwest corner the school sports oval was formed and a properly laid-down cricket pitch constructed.[59] This was followed in 1960-61 by the formation of new bitumen access driveways – one leading from McCaul Street (at the northeast corner of the site) to the northeast corner of ‘Town Square’; and one from the intersection of Turner and Ward streets that ascended the slope along the southern sides of blocks A and B, and curved northwards to pass between blocks B and D. Further bitumen driveways formed a loop around ‘Town Square’.[60]
\nIn 1960, the area around Block E was re-landscaped to provide better circulation. This included new pathways, stairs, retaining walls and garden beds. Toilets were constructed under the eastern end of the building (within sub-floor space) and a new, wide pedestrian stairway, with adjacent garden bed and planter boxes, was also constructed adjacent to the east end of Block E, linking ‘Town Square’ to a pathway that led north to McCaul Street. By 1964, two concrete pathways had been constructed across the central lawn of ‘Town Square’, converging near the base of the stairway.[61]
\nBy 1960, the school had a population approaching 800 students. Student numbers continued to grow, with a sudden increase in 1964, when Year 8 students were transferred from the primary school system to become the first year of high school.[62]
\nChanges were made to the 1950s buildings over time, new buildings were added to the site, and improvements made to the grounds. A tuckshop was built under the west end of Block C by 1963 (since removed), and a science block (Block F in 2016) was built in 1965. The room under the east end of Block C was also partitioned in 1968.[63] In the grounds, two cricket practice wickets (extant in 2016) were built just east of the oval by 1963; levelling work occurred west of the school buildings in the 1960s, and two basketball courts and four tennis courts opened in 1965.[64] New trees were also planted to the north of Block E. During the 1960s the creek in the southern part of the school grounds was progressively filled in, and underground stormwater pipes were laid, from the east side of the oval to the east side of the grounds.[65]
\nFurther alterations were made to the 1950s buildings in the 1970s and 1980s. A two-storey building was added to the west of Block G in c1972, and Block G’s interior was reconfigured. Around this time a small Armoury room was constructed beneath building A6. The centre of the ground floor of Block D was enclosed for an Arts and Crafts room and a covered walkway and courtyard area were added along its eastern side.[66] In 1979 the first floor of building A6 was remodelled to become a junior science room, with a storeroom constructed at the north end.[67] The first floor rooms at the east end of Block B were reconfigured to become two classrooms and an office in c1981 (at some point the internal staircase in the west end of Block B was demolished and the space merged with the adjacent office). A textiles room was constructed on the ground floor of Block E by enclosing the southwest section of the play area in c1984. On the ground floor of Block C, a new tuck shop was constructed in the centre of the play area and a stationary and book store at the eastern end in c1984.[68] The lower floor of Block D was converted for different uses in the 1980s, including metalwork and woodwork shops.[69] By 1989 other minor changes to partitioning had occurred in blocks A, B and D.[70]
\nAdditional school buildings have been constructed around the 1950s complex on the lower ground to the west, south and east. These included: Block H (administration), a demountable building (west of Block E), and a large assembly hall (west of Block C) by 1977; and Blocks J (manual arts), I (library), K (music, Block L in 2016), and a science building (southeast of Block F) between 1979 and 1986. Demountable buildings were also temporarily used by the school in the 1970s and 1980s, including one placed near the east end of Block C.[71] Other buildings were added to the school between 1986 and 2016, in an outer arc. Alterations to the 1950s buildings and landscape elements since 2000 include the refurbishment of the toilets in blocks A and B, replacement of the roof sheeting of blocks A, B, C, D, E & G, and the rebuilding of the Block E southeast garden retaining wall with rendered concrete block.[72]
\nImprovements to the school grounds included the planting of a ‘Rainforest’ area east of Block F in the early 1980s. In the 1990s the grounds were progressively developed and improved by the Grounds Committee, led by Deputy Principal Lorna Whelan. The committee’s projects included planting “up to 100 or more trees” around the time of Arbor Day. In recognition of her contribution, in 1999 the entire school grounds were named ‘The Whelen Reserve’.[73]
\nThe school held a belated official Opening Ceremony on 5 July 1988, with the opening performed by the Hon. Brian Littleproud, Minister for Education.[74] In 2004 a school history book was published to celebrate the school’s 50th Jubilee.[75]
\nThe school remains a scenic part of Indooroopilly, and the 1950s buildings and landscaping remain at the heart of the school. It is important to the area as a focus for the community, being the venue for numerous social, sporting, and educational programs and events.
","criteria":"Indooroopilly State High School (established in 1954) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs (constructed 1953-59) that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities.
\nIt is important in demonstrating the pattern of provision of secondary education, on new sites with expanded facilities, across Queensland in the 1950s, a time of enormous growth.
\nThe layout of the classroom blocks, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, reflect the mid-1950s introduction of organic master planning, which responded to the site contours and provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nBlocks A and B incorporate Boulton & Paul timber units, which demonstrate the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period.
\nBlocks A, D and E incorporate structural systems (timber trusses Block A, steel open-web trusses blocks D and E) that illustrate the evolution of Department of Public Works designs during the mid to late 1950s to allow for unimpeded play space under highset timber school buildings.
\nBlocks C, D and E illustrate the adaptation of standard Department of Public Works designs to suit the specific site conditions and functional requirements of Queensland schools from the 1950s.
\nThe school’s built landscape elements, including stairs, pathways, planter boxes, and pavements, illustrate the introduction of new ideas about integrating buildings and functional areas with their setting, and demonstrates the evolution of landscaping design at Queensland schools during the 1950s and 60s.
|Indooroopilly State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state high school of the 1950s. These include its master-planned site incorporating long, narrow buildings, linked around open-ended courtyard spaces; and generous, landscaped grounds with shade trees, assembly and sports areas.
\nDemonstrating organic 1950s site planning principles, the core of the school retains its asymmetrical layout of long, narrow classroom blocks arranged organically to follow the contours of the site, form courtyard spaces and achieve ideal solar orientation.
\nThe Boulton & Paul classrooms of blocks A and B are good, intact examples of their type, and clearly demonstrate the characteristics of prefabricated construction methods through the expression of their modular construction of 4ft (1.2m) wide wall panels. Other characteristic features of this type include: a gable roof; a verandah for circulation, with glazed screens at the ends; standard classroom size of 24ft by 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m); and large banks of timber-framed windows to maximise natural light and ventilation.
\nThe buildings with timber floor trusses (Block A) and open-web steel floor trusses (blocks D and E) demonstrate two iterations of standard Department of Public Works’ structural systems that were introduced in the 1950s to provide unimpeded play space beneath classrooms. The buildings incorporate good, intact examples of their structural type and the visibility of the trusses is retained.
\nThe upper classroom levels of blocks C, D and E are good, intact examples of a standard Department of Public Work timber school building type. Characteristic features of this type include: a verandah for circulation, with glazed screens at the ends; large banks of timber-framed windows, to maximise natural light and ventilation; clerestory lighting above the verandah roof; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms.
\nBuilding A6, Block G and the west end of Block B are good examples of purpose-designed buildings that were constructed, where required, to meet the specific functional and spatial needs of schools. Originally designed to accommodate Drawing (Building A6), Domestic Science (Block G) and the Principal’s Office (west end of Block B), these buildings remain largely intact and are an integral part of the 1950s master plan.
\nThe intact built landscape elements, including brick planter boxes, concrete stairs and pavements, bitumen roadways and parade ground, retaining walls and gardens, demonstrate the innovative landscaping concepts of the 1950s, which sought to improve the functionality and aesthetics of school playground designs.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nIndooroopilly State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1954 and generations of students from Brisbane’s western suburbs have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Indooroopilly and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650036,"name":"Dalby State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"28B Nicholson Street","suburb":"DALBY","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-08-19","description":"Dalby State High School occupies a 7.6 ha, levelled site that is located approximately 600m northwest of the Dalby CBD. The site is primarily accessed from Nicholson Street (southeast); and is bounded by the Warrego Highway (southwest), the Dalby-Glenmorgan railway line (northwest) and a light-industrial property (northeast). The school retains a complex of six 1950s buildings (and part of a seventh), located in the southeast corner of the site and linked by covered walkways, with a playing field to the northeast and perimeter shade trees.
\nThe significant buildings within the school complex are:
\n· Block A (eastern end) – one 1953-4 Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Building (formerly used as a domestic science building), and a section of a second Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Building (1954-5, formerly used as a manual training building);
\n· Block B (eastern end) – a 1953-4 Boulton and Paul Prefabricated Timber School Building;
\n· Block C – a 1956-8 Timber School Building with timber floor trusses;
\n· Block D – a 1954-5 Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (formerly used as the intermediate school);
\n· Block F – a 1958-9 (former) administration building and library; and
\n· Block J – a 1958-9 Brick Veneer Vocational Building.
\nEvidence of early site planning of the school grounds remains and is typical of Queensland schools during the 1950s, with the long, narrow, buildings linked by covered ways around open-ended courtyard play spaces. Highset, timber-framed Blocks A (north), B (centre) and D (south) have north-facing verandahs and are arranged in a staggered, parallel formation, orientated slightly east of north, linked by an axis of highset covered walkways. Adjacent, Block C is orientated slightly further east and is connected to the western end of Block D by a lowset entranceway. Blocks J and F are single storey brick-veneer buildings; Block J to the northwest is at a right angle to Block C, and Block F is next to the main entrance and faces Nicholson Street.
\nBoulton & Paul Prefabricated Buildings (Blocks A & B)
\nBlocks A and B are long, highset, prefabricated timber-framed buildings with gable roofs that continue over the north-facing verandahs. A first floor covered walkway connects Block A with Block B to the south. Both blocks have later extensions to the west (Block A, 1977; and Block B, 1962), which are not the Boulton & Paul type and are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building exteriors are clad in timber chamferboards, including the southern and eastern sides of the understoreys, with the Boulton & Paul sections clearly distinguishable from later sections by vertical timber strips that define each panel of the prefabricated wall units on the first floor. The eastern end of Block B is clad in modern corrugated metal.
\nLarge areas of timber awning windows, with fanlights, line the southern Boulton & Paul walls, with brackets attached to the mullions and supporting the overhanging eaves. The verandahs have timber floors, continuous timber posts, flat-sheeted raked ceilings and enclosed balustrades, which are either clad in chamferboards (Block A) or profiled metal-clad bag racks (Block B).
\nThe Block A-B walkway aligns with the similar Block B-D walkway to the south. The highset covered walkways have continuous timber posts, railed balustrades, timber floors and flat roofs with flat-sheeted ceilings.
\nThe understoreys have concrete floors, and combine open play space with enclosed areas for various uses. The floor structure of the classrooms above is exposed, with timber bearers supported on concrete piers. Windows on the eastern and southern sides are a combination of louvred (Block A) and latticed (Blocks A & B).
\nBlock A
\nBlock A includes one Boulton & Paul building to the east, and part of another Boulton & Paul building to the west, and retains its original chamferboard-clad northeast corner verandah balustrade, and bulkheads approximately halfway along the verandah indicate the location of the former domestic science laundry. The verandah is accessed by modern metal-framed stairs, and is enclosed with lattice and metal mesh above the balustrade. Windows along the verandah wall have been replaced with modern aluminium-framed sliding sashes, with fanlights. Classrooms have half-glazed, boarded doors.
\nThe first floor contains two classrooms to the east of the covered way, and two offices to the west, which have a hallway containing steps up to the adjacent extension. The passageway connecting the covered way with the verandah has been relocated to the west, into the remaining section of the second Boulton & Paul building (former manual training), around modern store rooms. An opening formed in the partition between the classrooms has a modern concertina door. The classroom walls are flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips, and the ceilings have been relined lined with plasterboard.
\nThe understorey contains a tuckshop (1965-77), office and store rooms. The walls are clad in a combination of timber chamferboards, V-jointed (VJ) tongue-and-groove (T&G) boards, timber battens and flat sheeting, and the interiors are lined with flat sheeting, some areas with rounded cover strips.
\nBlock B
\nBlock B has timber stairs positioned at either end of the verandah, with the understoreys of the stairs clad in chamferboards. The stairs have railed timber balustrades, which are also retained on adjacent sections of the verandah. The verandah walls have double-hung sash windows, with awning fanlights, and modern flush-finish doors.
\nThe first floor contains three classrooms and two store rooms to the west of the covered way, and a staff room to the east. Classroom interiors have flat-sheeted walls, with rounded cover strips, and modern suspended ceilings.
\nThe understorey contains a classroom and student café, separated by a store room. The enclosures are clad and lined with flat sheeting, with cover strips to the interiors.
\nLater Extensions
\nThe later western extensions are similar in form to the original buildings, but are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\nThe Block A (1977) extension is set slightly higher, and has a wider verandah. The understorey is enclosed with face brick; a narrow passageway separates it from the 1950s section.
\nThe Block B (1962) extension has a flat-sheeted verandah wall with vertical louvres over fixed glazing. The understorey is partly open.
\nHighset Timber School Building with Semi-enclosed Stair (Block D)
\nBlock D is a long, highset, gable-roofed building with semi-enclosed stairs at either end of the north-facing verandah. The exterior is clad in chamferboards, including the stairs and the eastern, southern and western sides of the understorey. An original gable-roofed projection to the north is at a right angle to the main building and connects with the covered walkway to Block B. An adjacent ground floor covered walkway connects with Block F to the east.
\nThe southern wall has large areas of timber awning windows and the verandah wall has double-hung timber sashes, both with fanlights. The verandah has full height (continuous) timber posts, timber floors, raked ceilings and enclosed bag rack balustrades, which are clad in profiled metal. Classroom doors are half-glazed and boarded.
\nThe first floor contains five classrooms and a staff room, with the three central classrooms divided by original timber-panelled folding partitions. The interiors are lined with flat sheeting, with rounded cover strips above dado height and on the ceilings. The northern projection has double-hung timber sash windows, and contains adjoining office and store rooms.
\nThe understorey combines open play space and enclosed areas for a staff lounge (western end) and store room (northern projection). The floor structure of the classrooms above is exposed, with the timber bearers supported on concrete piers. The understorey floor is concrete.
\nA lowset, skillion-roofed uniform shop (former entranceway, 1956) connects the western end of Block D with Block C. The walls are brick, with fixed glazing and battened sheeting flanking a modern flush-finish door. A concrete slab with faceted corners projects south of the entranceway, and has a rectangular modern skillion-roofed awning over. An enclosed cantilevered walkway along the northern side connects the first floor verandahs of the two adjoining buildings; it is clad in corrugated metal and has high-level fixed windows. The interior is flat-sheeted and the ground floor has a modern suspended ceiling.
\nTimber School Building with Timber Floor Trusses (Block C)
\nBlock C is a long, gable-roofed building supported on open timber floor trusses. Built in stages, it comprises: four highset classrooms and a cloakroom (1956) at the eastern end; a single highset classroom to the immediate west (1957); and a single first floor classroom and two ground floor classrooms at the western end (1958).
\nThe exterior is clad in weatherboards, including the eastern and southern sides of the understorey. The southern wall has large banks of awning windows along the first floor, and the ground floor classrooms. High-level window openings on the southern side of the eastern understorey are lined with lattice. The two-storey end wall and piers supporting the 1958 extension’s verandah are face brick. The gable roof of the 1958 extension continues over its verandah, while the earlier verandah has a lower, flatter roof, supported on continuous metal posts and set below clerestory lights on the verandah wall.
\nThe verandah is accessed via metal-framed stairs, and has timber floors and bag rack balustrades that are clad externally with profiled metal. Classroom doors are half-glazed, and double-hung sash windows, with fanlights, line the chamferboard-clad verandah and northern understorey walls. The western classrooms are distinguishable from the earlier classrooms by their narrower verandah chamferboards.
\nThe classrooms are separated by fixed partitions, with 2-light panelled timber doors at the southern end. The interior walls and ceilings are flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips (above dado height on the first floor). Classrooms retain cupboards under sloping whiteboards.
\nThe understorey features exposed timber floor trusses, visible in both the classrooms and the open play space at the eastern end. Block C is connected to Block J to the north by a ground-floor covered walkway.
\nBrick Veneer Vocational Building (Block J)
\nBlock J is a long, single storey, brick veneer building with an open web steel portal frame. The building retains its four classrooms, with a passageway along the western side that aligns with the covered way connecting with Block C. A lowset former storage/office wing surrounds the northwest corner.
\nThe low-pitched gable roof of the wing and the skillion roof of the passage are set lower than the gable-roofed core, with clerestory lights between. The roofs are clad in corrugated metal. The eastern and western sides of the building are clad in profiled metal below sill height. Windows on the eastern side of the classrooms comprise modern aluminium-framed sliding sashes, with a continuous fanlight, shaded by an exterior high-level louvred metal awning. New doors have been added to the eastern side of the classrooms. Windows on the western side of the passageway, the clerestory and the wing have been removed (at the time of inspection in mid-2016) for replacement.
\nThe interior has been altered, with the removal of some walls, and the addition of some new partitions. The classrooms have modern suspended ceilings and walls sheeted in plasterboard, concealing and enclosing the open web steel portal frame. The fabric added in 2016 is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nAdministration Building (Block F)
\nBlock F is a long, single storey, brick veneer building with a low-pitched gable roof. In 2016 it is used as a student services building and comprises: a central entrance lobby and waiting area; two large and one small offices / meeting rooms to the southwest (former open-plan library), with a passageway along the northwest side; and two small office / meeting rooms (former Principal’s Office), and a store room and kitchenette (part of former waiting room and an original store room), to the northeast.
\nThe main entrance from Nicholson Street is indicated by a flat-roofed metal-framed canopy and a stencilled, poly-chrome painted concrete slab; it has stained timber-framed wired-glass doors, with sidelights. A ground floor covered walkway connects the western side of the lobby with Block D to the west.
\nThe southwest section has banks of timber-framed awning windows on the southeast side (with fanlights) and along the passageway (clad above externally in profiled metal). Some of the timber-framed awning windows on the northeast wall have been replaced with metal-framed sliding windows.
\nThe interior walls and ceilings are predominantly flat-sheeted, with rounded cover strips. The lobby interior combines flat-sheeted and face brick walls. The wall between the two large southwest offices (1972) is clad in stained timber-veneer. The doors are a combination of painted, stained timber-veneer and half-glazed.
\nOther Structures
\nNon-significant 1950s building elements include post-1950s understorey enclosures, and modern windows, doors, partitions, cupboards, wall and floor linings, suspended ceilings and kitchenettes. Other buildings, structures, pathways and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, with sporting facilities including a generously sized playing field/sports oval at the eastern end of the site, with perimeter shade trees.
\nThe school buildings are set back from the Warrego Highway, with an open lawn between. A row of mature trees line the Warrego Highway boundary, the oldest being closest to the corner, and a mature bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris) is situated adjacent to Nicholson Street. An mature tree is also located north of the west end of Block A’s 1970s extension.
\nThe entrance to Block F retains an area of stencilled, poly-chrome painted concrete slab. The main entrance from Nicholson Street, northeast of Block F, is landscaped with modern pavers and garden beds that contain a range of shrubs.
\nA decorative metal archway (possibly pre-1961), set on modern concrete plinths, frames a pedestrian entrance from the corner of the Warrego Highway and Nicholson Street, featuring ‘DALBY STATE HIGH SCHOOL’ in metal lettering.
\nThe splayed open courtyard spaces between the 1950s buildings, which were formed as part of the 1950s planning, are sealed in bitumen, with large areas finished with modern synthetic turf and sheltered by modern open shade structures.
","history":"Dalby State High School (SHS) opened on its present site in 1954, due to overcrowding at Dalby State School (est.1861) – which had accommodated a secondary department (or ‘high top’) since 1914. In 2016 Dalby SHS retains six 1950s buildings, and part of a seventh, which demonstrate the evolution of standard government designs: the eastern half of Block A (Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Buildings, 1953-5); the eastern section of Block B (Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber School Building, 1953-4); Block D (Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair, 1954-5); Block C (Timber School Building with timber floor trusses, 1956-8); Block F (administration building, 1958-9); and Block J (Brick Veneer Vocational Building, 1958-9). It also retains its 1950s site planning; covered links; and paved areas associated with Block F; along with a sports oval and mature perimeter trees. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment.
\nThe traditional land of the Barunggam people, Dalby was established with European settlement of the Darling Downs from 1840. Laid out in 1852, Dalby was resurveyed and named in 1853, and its Town Reserve was declared in August 1855. The first urban land sales were held in 1857, and Dalby became a municipality on 29 August 1863.[1]
\nThe growing town soon required a school. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[2] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[4]
\nA school was built in Dalby by public subscription by early 1859, and the Dalby National School (later Dalby State School) opened on 1 June 1861 on Cunningham Street.[5] In September 1861 the locals voted to transfer the building and land to the Board of Education, to become a vested national school.[6]
\nTransport improvements had a major effect on the prosperity and growth of Dalby. The extension of the western railway line from Toowoomba to Dalby in 1868 led to a boom in the town, which had a population of 3500 by the mid-1870s. However, Dalby’s population plummeted to 1500 when the line was extended west towards Roma in 1877, and people followed the railhead. Farming was initially inhibited due to a lack of rain, and without refrigeration agricultural produce could not be delivered to distant markets.[7] By 1885 the population was 1296, and this had only recovered to 1416 by 1901.[8] Dalby's population recovered in the early 20th century due to the Queensland Government’s enforced break-up of the large pastoral stations, and its construction of branch railway lines, which encouraged closer settlement. Dairying and wheat cultivation expanded, and the development of agriculture led to secondary industries in Dalby. However, the rural economy of the area remained predominantly pastoral until after World War II.[9]
\nAs Dalby grew, so did the state school. A secondary department opened in January 1914.[10] In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II.[11]
\nOver three decades, enrolment at the Dalby State School’s high top slowly rose, from 16 students in 1915 to 41 in 1944.[12] Domestic science classes were also added to the secondary department in 1922, and woodwork and commercial courses followed in 1927. Pupils from the wider district outside Dalby also attended these vocational classes, some of which were held at night.[13] Vocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; this evolved after World War I into a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated.[14] Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced in 1928. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.[15]
\nAlthough closer settlement boosted agriculture, prickly pear cactus was a serious impediment for farmers in the Dalby district, until it was eradicated by the introduction of the moth Cactoblastis cactorum to Queensland in the late 1920s. As a result, Dalby experienced renewed growth and prosperity, and its population reached 3500 in the mid-1930s.[16]
\nThere was further expansion of agriculture in the Dalby District after World War II, due to the Soldier Settlement Scheme, which lead to an influx of young farmers. During the 1950s grain and wheat silos were constructed around the district, and a new flour mill was opened in Dalby. There was a related expansion of secondary industries, and an extensive home building program in the town. Dalby’s population reached 4385 in 1947, and 6182 in 1954, with an acute housing shortage in town by 1955.[17]
\nDalby State School’s enrolments grew in step with the town, and extra classrooms were added in the 1940s and early 1950s. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[18] Enrolment at Dalby State School rose to 491 by 1945, and to 1024 by 1954. Leslie F Diplock, head teacher of Dalby State School from 1946, and State Member for Condamine from 1953, was instrumental in pushing for a new high school.[19]
\nA decision was made to provide a state high school for Dalby in July 1953, and building plans were prepared by the Department of Public Works (DPW) the following month.[20] However, a site plan had previously been prepared in 1952.[21] From their introduction, the design of high school buildings was the responsibility of the DPW. The first high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings. The first purpose-built high school buildings were constructed in 1917.[22]
\nIn the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. The grounds were large, greater than 12 acres (4.8ha) providing ample room for sports facilities. The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but high schools also included purpose-built science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums. These were also built to standard plans but were specific to their use and not a continuation of previous designs.[23]
\nAlso, there was a focus on the fit between the school and its neighbourhood, as well as site planning for expansion and ideal solar orientation. In the early 1950s, architects developed master planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[24] This concept was replaced a few years later by architects planning for growth and change. There was a shift away from grid-like layouts to organic layouts. Nuclear plans were designed, centred on an administration/reception building with classroom wings connected to and fanning away from the nucleus. The primary focus was the ideal solar orientation of buildings. Interest was also shown in developing schemes that related to the natural contours and existing vegetation. Unlike the more formal and symmetrical plans of previous periods, new plans were developed that tended to be asymmetrical and more open. The long, narrow buildings were positioned so that the spaces captured between them were triangular, opening out into the landscape.[25]
\nAt Dalby, the site chosen, northwest of Nicholson Street, was previously a 23 acre (9.3ha) Reserve for Park and Recreation, of which 20 acres and 19.3 perches (8.1ha) were gazetted as a school reserve by 1955.[26]
\nThe early development of the school reflects the 1950s shift in emphasis from grid-like layouts towards more organic planning strategies, which provided for ‘ordered growth from a nucleus’.[27] The initial school buildings consisted of four highset timber-framed buildings near the corner of Nicholson Street and the Warrego Highway – arranged in three parallel wings staggered one behind the other, aligned just east of north with verandahs along the north sides, and linked by an axis of highset covered walkways.
\nThe southernmost wing (originally called Block A; Block D in 2016) was for the intermediate school and administration, and this building consisted of (from the west) three 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classrooms and then two 20ft by 24ft (6.1m by 7.3m) classrooms; with a 16ft by 24ft (4.9m by 7.3m) library and reading room at the east end. The three middle classrooms were separated by folding doors. The administration section, attached off the north verandah, included a principal’s room and an assistant teachers room.
\nThe high school wing (Block B originally and in 2016) consisted of a small store room and assistant teachers room at the west end; a science room, a lecture room, and a classroom; then a hallway linking to the covered ways; and a commercial room at the east end of the wing – each of the main rooms being 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m).
\nThe vocational training wing (originally comprising Blocks C and D, now called Block A in 2016) consisted of two buildings: the eastern one was a domestic science block (originally Block C), with cooking and dressmaking classrooms in the centre, each 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m); with a teachers room and girls change room at the east end, and a dining room and laundry room at the west end of the block. The western building was the manual training block (originally Block D, of which only the east end survives in 2016), which had a sheet metalwork room and a woodwork room, each being 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m), with a store and teachers room at the west end, and a store and wood machinery room at the east end of the block.[28]
\nPlans of the semi-enclosed understories of the buildings included a health services room under the assistant teachers room in the administration section, and a drawing room under the east end of the intermediate wing. There was also a timber storeroom under the east end of the manual training block.[29] All the buildings had horizontal boarded cladding and large banks of hopper windows facing south.[30]
\nThe high school wing and domestic science block were built in 1953-4, followed by the manual training block (completing the vocational training wing) and the intermediate wing in 1954-5.[31]
\nThere were differences in construction methods between the wings. The high school wing (Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber School Building) and the domestic science and manual training blocks (both Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Vocational Buildings) of the vocational training wing at Dalby were imported buildings.[32] Responding to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom, the DPW imported a British building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. Based on an 8ft (2.4m) planning and construction module, the prefabricated elements in the Boulton & Paul system included wall panels, ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1951 and 1958.[33] Boulton & Paul buildings were timber framed and clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The stairs to the verandah were often semi-enclosed. The building could be low-set, or highset with a play space underneath, and had extensive areas of timber framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed. Natural ventilation and lighting was abundant. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[34]
\nThe intermediate wing was a Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair. From the early 1950s the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings, which were similar to the Boulton & Paul buildings but not prefabricated.[35] These buildings were also highset timber framed structures with the understorey used as covered play space. The principal type was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. [36] A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north facing verandah running the length of the building, with full height timber verandah posts that extended from ground level to the roof line. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed – with awning (top-hung) windows to the southern elevation, and double-hung sashes to the verandah wall. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[37]
\nThe new Dalby State High School opened 2 February 1954, with an enrolment of 67. At this time the floor was still being laid for the domestic science block, and electric lighting was not yet installed.[38] The school was then officially opened on 4 September 1954 by the Minister for Education, GE Devries, who noted that enrolments in state secondary schools had doubled from 5000 to 10,000 in the previous 5 years. He also stated that the buildings at Dalby were well ventilated, with a large amount of window space, and a generous floor area. At the time of the official opening the high school had an enrolment of 49 students in Form III and 21 in Form IV, and the manual training block had not yet been built. Grades 7 and 8 would transfer to the new school when the intermediate school building was completed. [39]
\nSoon after the official opening a working bee was held on the school grounds. Seventy trees, including athel pines, silky oak, and other pines, plus Dalby myalls, and iron bark, were planted on the frontages to Nicholson Street and the Warrego Highway, and by December 1954 a playing field area had been mown, ploughed and harrowed, ready for rolling. [40]
\nGrade 8 moved to the intermediate school at the new high school in 1956, followed by Grade 7 in 1957.[41] The idea of creating an intermediate level of schooling emerged in Queensland during the late 1920s. This was intended to be a transition between primary and secondary schooling. Intermediate schools also offered vocational subjects: manual training for boys and domestic science for girls.[42] By 1961 there were 654 intermediate and secondary students at Dalby State High School, which taught academic, commercial, industrial, home science and agricultural science courses.[43] However, the intermediate section only operated from 1956 to 1963. Grade 8 became part of the high school in 1964; and in 1965 Grade 7 returned to the state school.[44]
\nThere were a number of changes and additions to the school in the late 1950s. In 1956-7 a highset Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (Block C in 2016) was added, at a slight angle, to the west end of the intermediate wing. Around this time the library/reading room space at the east end of the intermediate wing was converted into a teachers room and store.[45]
\nBlock C represented an evolution of the DPW’s standard 1950s design, replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that spanned the width of the classroom and provided an unimpeded play space. This type was also often fitted with clerestory windows above the verandah roof. [46] The building at Dalby was designed to have six classrooms, each 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m), with a cloakroom between the fourth and fifth (from the east) classrooms, and a northern verandah. However, the two western classrooms and cloakroom of Block C were not built by mid-1957, and the westernmost classroom was not added until 1958, when two additional classrooms were also added under the west end of the block.[47] In the semi-enclosed understory of Block C, drinking troughs were located along the southern wall, and a raised concrete platform was located at the east end.
\nAn entrance link, with stairs up to the northern verandahs, filled the angle between the intermediate wing and Block C. This entrance was constructed in brick and had a skillion roof, and glazed double doors flanked by fixed glazing. The reinforced concrete slab floor extended outside to the south and was surrounded by boiler-plate flower boxes (not extant in 2016). Two brick flower boxes were also created to the rear (north) of the entrance link, and the western box survives in 2016.[48] The original fan-shaped awning has since been replaced by a rectangular awning (post- January 2013).
\nEntry to the school has changed over time. A 1957 plan shows a pathway running directly from ‘Dalby-Kogan Road’ (the Warrego Highway) to the link between Blocks D and C, which was labelled ‘proposed entrance’. The caption read ‘Essential classroom accommodation has been provided here without the architectural emphasis to be derived from entrance and other features such as have been planned for this school.’ This plan also shows an entrance from Nicholson Street, east of the intermediate wing – about where the current pedestrian entrance is.[49]
\nThe pathway (not discernible in 2016) from the Warrego Highway to the entrance link is visible in a 1961 aerial photograph, as is a path (extant in 2016) from the intermediate wing to the corner of the Warrego Highway and Nicholson Street. The current metal arch at the corner, which reads ‘DALBY STATE HIGH SCHOOL’, may date from this period, although the concrete base under the arch was added after 2007.[50]
\nOther improvements at Dalby SHS in the 1950s included tennis courts, extant southwest of Block C by October 1958, and by this time there were also two toilet blocks north of the vocational training wing, and a school oval to the northeast.[51]
\nThe Queensland Government continued its focus on vocational education during the 1950s and 1960s. New standard types were developed including a brick veneer, concrete slab-on-ground and steel portal frame structure for manual training in 1958.[52] A new manual training building (Block J in 2016) was built in late 1958-9, north of the west end of Block C, linked to the latter by a covered way.[53] The Brick Veneer Vocational Building at Dalby contained a staffroom, switch room and store in a skillion roofed section at the north end, with two woodwork rooms and then two sheet metal rooms to the south (each 30ft by 25ft [6.1m by 7.6m]), and a passageway along the west side. The roof was a low gable with clerestory windows between the passage roof and the main roof. There were awning windows on the east side. [54] The portal frames were to be of concrete or steel (the latter was used) and the wall cladding of face brick and metal.[55] The school complex now formed a ‘U’ shape, angled slightly inwards at the top (north).
\nA new administration building (Block F in 2016), also built in late 1958-9, was linked by a curved covered way to the lower level of the old administration section.[56] Block F originally consisted of a library and passageway at the south end, a lobby, and then a principal’s office and store. The building was brick veneer with a low gable roof of corrugated iron. There were paved areas either side of the building, and a cover was added over the paving at the front entrance c.1959. In the former administration section north of the intermediate wing, the assistant teachers room was expanded to absorb the old principal’s office.[57]
\nAt the time of the construction of Block J and Block F, the DPW noted that as ‘one of the first of the new High Schools, Dalby suffered from the demand for austerity inescapable at that time, but each succeeding addition effects marked improvement and the buildings are gaining aesthetically in the process. The most recent additions add the weight of bricks and mortar in such judicious degree that the ‘temporary’ atmosphere of earlier years is being displaced by a new academic atmosphere of controlled vistas and scholastic dignity.’ The new administration building also provided ‘a permanent entrance to the school’.[58]
\nDalby State High School continued to require additions and extensions during the 1960s-70s. In late 1961 Australia’s first commercial oilfield was discovered at Moonie, southwest of Dalby. Although a hoped-for refinery at Dalby never eventuated, the town received some economic benefits.[59] As local dairy farming declined from the 1960s, beef cattle replaced cows, and Dalby also became the centre of Australia’s largest reception, distribution and processing centre for grains.[60] In 1963 Dalby had a population of 7500, with 2365 school pupils (at the state school, state high school, St Columba’s Convent and the Christian Brothers College).[61]
\nIn 1960-1 a 40ft (12.2m) addition was made to the west end of the original manual training block (Block A in 2016), consisting of an agricultural science classroom and storeroom. A general purpose workroom, change room with shower, plus a store, were built immediately underneath. The remainder of the manual training block was converted to domestic science, with a kitchen and dressmaking room. The former wood machinery room at the east end became a dining room, and the former teachers room at the west end, adjacent to the new extension, became a rest/fitting room. [62]
\nNew toilet and shower blocks, connected to the original vocational training wing by a covered way, were added north of the school buildings c1961, and c1962 a 72ft (22m) addition was made to the west end of Block B, then known as the ‘science wing’. The extension included a physics demonstration room; physics store room, and physics laboratory.[63]
\nBy 1962 the room at the east end of the intermediate wing was a classroom, and Block J’s rooms were labelled as (from south to north) two drawing rooms, then metalwork, then woodwork.[64] In 1965 a tuckshop was built under the east end of the original domestic science block (Block A in 2016), and c.1968 a new science block was built east of the toilet blocks and Block A. By this time, Block E also existed north of Block A.[65]
\nBy 1971 a new amenities block had been added northeast of the toilet blocks and by this time the school appears to have had access to a recreation area north of the railway line. Although this land belonged to Napier Bros Limited from 1975, it remained as grass playing fields until c.2003.[66]
\nIn 1972 Block F was reconfigured, when the library was divided into a sick bay, deputy principal and principal’s offices, and the former principal’s office at the northeast end of the building was allocated to a clerk-typist. The walls of the former principal’s office were pushed southwest into the lobby area, while the adjacent store room was altered and also extended southwest into the lobby area, with a small kitchenette formed at the northeast end of the storeroom. The same year a boys locker room was added to the understory of Block B, and a girls locker room was established in the ground floor of the entrance link between Block C and the former intermediate wing, and the flower beds under the entrance awning were removed at this time.[67]
\nBy 1975 there was a ‘great hall’ near the western corner of the school, and a library north of E block; the 1961 toilet blocks had been replaced by extending of the 1971 amenities block, and there were demountable classrooms west of J block and basketball courts northeast of the 1968 science block.[68] In late 1976 plans were drawn for a new locker room and two more classrooms (these were not extant in 2016, and may not have been built) to the understory of Block C, east of the existing two classrooms; while the entrance link between Block C and the former intermediate wing was converted into a storeroom, and a sports store and animal store were added under the 1950s section of Block B.[69] By this time most of the western building of the original vocational training wing was no longer indicated on plans, presumably meaning it had been demolished. [70]
\nThe reason was a fire in April 1976, which had caused $100,000 in damage to the school,[71] and a new building (constituting the western half of Block A in 2016) was constructed in 1977. This replaced all but the easternmost part of the original manual training block. The internal corridor leading from the covered way was moved west, into the remaining section of the manual training block, which was also used to form part of a new textile store and laundry room. At this time the original domestic science block was formed into two textile rooms, with a store and two fitting rooms between them, and the partitions for the small rooms at each end of the block were removed, along with the windows at the east end of the block.[72]
\nChanges in room use also occurred from the late 1970s into the 1980s. In 1978 the old administration rooms north of the former intermediate wing were converted into boys and girl’s health rooms, with obscure glass windows, while the former health services room downstairs became the guidance officer’s room. In 1983 the science room at the west end of the original section of Block B was converted to a computer room, while the wall between the former store room and assistant teachers room was removed, creating an annexe to the west of the computer room. In the late 1980s Block J’s southernmost two rooms were converted to Graphics rooms, with a woodwork room and a metalwork room to the north, and the staff room to the north became a store room.[73]
\nBy 2016 a number of other buildings had been added to the school, including a music block (c1987) northwest of Block C, and a new manual block northwest of Block J by 1990; a new home economics block west of Block E, with new tennis courts further west, and a new administration building northeast of Block F by 1998; and a small building north of Block E by 2004.[74] In 2011 a trade training centre was added northwest of the hall, and by 2013 there was a new building northeast of the 1960s science block and the library had been extended. A Year 7 building was constructed west of the music block in 2014.[75] In 2016 Block J was renovated, with new interior linings, new windows to existing openings, and new doorways to the eastern side.
\nThe size of the school was slightly reduced in 1996, when the western corner was excised into the road reserve to create a carpark, to the school’s current 7.6ha.[76] The Dalby Agricultural College, which opened in 1979 just northeast of the town, was acquired by Dalby State High School in 2011, becoming its ‘Bunya Campus’ with a residential college and working farm.[77] In 2016, Dalby SHS continues to operate from its original site on Nicholson Street. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there.
","criteria":"Dalby State High School (established in 1954) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities.
\nIt is also important for demonstrating the pattern of provision of secondary education across Queensland in the 1950s, as it incorporates all the features associated with secondary education – a high school, an intermediate school and vocational training facilities.
\nThe layout of the administration and classroom buildings, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, reflect the early 1950s introduction of master planning, and the subsequent shift from grid-like layouts around a central axis towards more organic planning strategies, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings (1953-5) demonstrate the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period. The former domestic science block also reflects the Queensland Government’s focus on vocational training as a way of ensuring the state’s economic prosperity.
\nThe Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (1954-5) and Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (1956-8) represent the evolution of Department of Public Works designs during the mid to late 1950s, based on features of the Boulton & Paul buildings.
\nThe former administration building and Brick Veneer Vocational Building (both 1958-9) represent a move away from the austerity of the early 1950s to a more permanent aesthetic, incorporating masonry elements. The former administration building, with its entry canopy and poly-chrome painted concrete paving, provided a formal entrance to the school.
\nThe Brick Veneer Vocational Building also represents the Queensland Government’s ongoing emphasis on vocational training.
|Dalby State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state high school of the 1950s. These include its 1950s site planning; range of highset or lowset timber-framed and brick veneer buildings of standard and individual designs; and a generous, landscaped site with shade trees, and assembly and sports areas.
\nFollowing 1950s site planning principles, the school includes six 1950s buildings (and part of a seventh) that all contribute to the general concept of long, narrow buildings linked around open ended courtyard assembly and play spaces. The four earliest buildings are arranged in a staggered parallel formation of three wings, linked by an axis of covered walkways, while the three later buildings are arranged and linked in a more organic manner.
\nThe former administration building; the former entrance link between the buildings addressing the Warrego Highway; and the covered links between the buildings, are characteristic of 1950s school design in Queensland, providing a ground level administration facility connected to the school by a covered walkway, with other walkways linking the classroom blocks.
\nThe highset timber teaching buildings are all good, intact examples of their type and retain their: highset character with some covered play space under; timber-framed, lightweight construction; gable roofs; north-facing verandahs for circulation; large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows, with fanlights; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings also clearly demonstrate the characteristics of prefabricated buildings through the expression of their modular construction in the external cladding.
\nThe connected Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair and the Timber School Building with timber floor trusses demonstrate two iterations of the Department of Public Work’s standard designs: the first on concrete piers; and the second incorporating timber floor trusses for unimpeded play space. The building on trusses also retains clerestory lighting above its northern verandah roof.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nDalby State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Dalby community. It was established in 1954 and generations of Dalby students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Dalby and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650037,"name":"Harristown State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"341-367 South Street","suburb":"HARRISTOWN","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-08-19","description":"Harristown State High School occupies an 11.16 ha rectangular site that is located in the suburb of Harristown, on the western edge of Toowoomba. The site slopes gently down towards the north, and is accessed by a slightly curved driveway leading from South Street at the southern end of the site. The site is also accessed by Hennessy Street (east) and is bounded by Stephen Street (north) and Concordia Lutheran College (west). The school retains a complex of seven buildings (1954-1961, some with later extensions) linked by covered walkways, with courtyard assembly and play spaces between the buildings, located in the southeastern corner of the site. The landscaped grounds are well established, and include mature trees, and playing fields at the western and northern ends of the site.
\nThe seven significant buildings within the school complex are:
\nEvidence of early site planning of the school grounds remains and is typical of Queensland schools during the 1950s, with splayed, long and narrow buildings linked around courtyard play spaces and centralised around a nucleus. Blocks B, C, D and the Administration Block are arranged in a staggered, approximately parallel and axially east-west formation, and Blocks K and L are approximately perpendicular to Block B on a north-south axis. The covered links between the Administration Block and the west ends of Blocks B and C, and between the east end of Block B and Blocks K and L, are also evidence of early site planning.
\nWith the exception of the Administration Block and Oslo Lunch Canteen, the blocks are long, timber and brick buildings with profiled metal-clad gable roofs. Most external walls are clad in timber chamferboards, with some featuring face brick end walls, and face brick and glazed stair enclosures. Most soffits are lined in flat sheeting with rounded cover strips, and all bag racks are timber-framed with profiled metal exterior cladding. All metal-framed windows are modern and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nAdministration Block (1957-8)
\nThe Administration Block is a lowset, single-story, timber-framed and masonry structure that is sheltered by a low-pitch gable roof clad in profiled metal sheeting. The building is comprised of two wings: the original, 1957-8 wing to the north; and a later, c1985-6 wing to the south (the southern wing is not of cultural heritage significance). The exterior of the northern wing is generally clad in metal sheets, with stone walls featured in the southwestern corner and a facebrick feature wall forming the eastern elevation. Original angled concrete steps, concrete pavers and two face brick flower-boxes have been retained in the northwestern corner of the building, and a concrete garden plot survives east of the building, south of a raised concrete slab.
\nThe original open-plan internal layout of the northern wing is discernible, although lightweight partitions now enclose some of the former circulation and waiting areas. The wing is accessed via two internal corridors: one that runs along the southern edge of the wing, and another, separated by an exposed stone wall, that runs north-south at the western end of the building. The southern corridor has been extended to the west through an opening cut in the stone wall. Opening off the southern corridor are eastern toilets and a cleaner’s room, a central (eastern) sick bay, a central (western) office space and a western printing room. Two office spaces are located west of, and modern walls enclose an office to the east of, the western corridor. Interior walls and ceilings are lined in flat sheeting and plaster, with the exception of the exposed stone walls. Modern carpet and linoleum lining the floors and modern cabinetry are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nWindows retained in the building include timber-framed awnings and louvres. All doors are modern replacements; with the southern location of the door to the southern toilet moved to the west (the original location is identifiable through retained framing).
\nTimber School Building with timber floor trusses (Block B; 1954)
\nThe Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (Block B) is a two-storey building that has north-facing verandahs and a timber floor truss system supporting the first floor. Western and eastern timber stairs provide access to the first floor verandah. The chamferboards are vented at the apex of the gable-end walls and face brick walls enclose the ground floor western amenities (now rendered on the northern face) and ground-floor portion of the western stair. The southern eaves are supported by timber brackets. The stairs are enclosed in large, timber-framed screens of fixed and wired glazing – the eastern stair has been relocated from its original position, and has a brick flower box to its north.
\nThe verandah has a low-pitched roof that is set below clerestory windows and is supported by continuous (ground to ceiling) timber posts. The ground floor verandah has a concrete slab floor and a flat, profiled metal ceiling; while the first floor verandah has a timber floor and a ceiling lined in flat sheeting with rounded cover strips and raked at a low angle. Bag racks form the northern balustrade, with timber three-rail balustrades located adjacent to the stairs.
\nThe interior of the first floor is divided into six classrooms with a narrow office at the western end. The ground floor comprises western amenities, eastern classrooms with dividing store rooms, and central classrooms (enclosing a former open recreation area). The walls and ceilings of most classrooms are lined in flat sheeting with rounded cover strips, and timber portal trusses are visible within the ground floor spaces. Modern carpet, tile and linoleum floor linings are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nTimber joinery has been retained throughout the building, including banks of timber-framed, top-hung awning windows with centre-pivoting fanlights to the south; half-glazed and panelled timber doors within classrooms, and V-jointed (VJ) timber board-lined interior doors within the bathrooms. Most northern windows remain in the same location, but are modern replacements and most louvres on the ground floor north wall have been replaced with fixed lights (marks within the timber frame indicate the original fixed-louvre configuration). All verandah doors and most verandah windows are modern replacements and door openings between the central classrooms on the first floor have been enclosed with flat sheeting (timber framing indicates their former locations). An early laboratory teaching desk is retained in the easternmost ground floor classroom, and early metal pendant lights are located in the easternmost first floor classroom. Some classrooms also retain cupboards with sloping whiteboards above.
\nTimber School Building with open web steel floor trusses (Block C; 1959-60)
\nThe Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses (Block C) features face brick and profiled metal-clad end walls, and an open web steel floor truss system supported on lozenge-shaped, concrete columns. The ground floor spaces and stairs at the eastern and western ends are enclosed by face brick walls and the southern eaves are supported by timber brackets. There is a concrete garden box north of the eastern stairs. The building’s verandahs face northwest, and the masonry addition that connects to the western end of the first floor verandah is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe verandah has a low-pitched roof set below clerestory windows; with the ground floor verandah featuring a concrete slab floor rising in height at the western end, a profiled metal-clad ceiling, and exposed cantilevered trusses. The first floor verandah has circular metal posts, flat sheet-lined ceilings and bag racks that form the balustrade.
\nThe first floor contains six classrooms separated from a larger eastern classroom by a narrow store. The ground floor interior comprises eastern amenities, and a former recreation area to the west that is now enclosed to form a large storage and office space and a classroom. The floor-level of the storage and office space is set above the remainder of the floor, and the easternmost toilets have been converted to locker enclosures, with timber framing retained and indicating their original location. Most walls on the first floor are lined above dado level in flat sheets with rounded cover strips, below dado level in flat sheeting, and the ceilings are of plaster. The ground floor walls are generally face and painted brick or are lined in flat sheeting. Trusses are exposed in most ground level rooms, although some have been boxed in with plasterboard. The former Physics laboratory retains a timber-framed rolling blackboard.
\nWindows to the south and east are generally banks of timber-framed awning windows, with the southern windows including centre-pivoting fanlights, and those to the north are timber-framed double-hung sashes. The clerestory windows are timber-framed with centre-pivoting sashes, and windows to the amenities are timber-framed louvres. Timber half-glazed and panelled doors connecting the five westernmost classrooms and the two easternmost classrooms and store are retained. All doors to the verandah are modern replacements.
\nOslo Lunch Canteen (1959)
\nThe Oslo Lunch Canteen stands to the south of the west end of Block C. It is a small, rectangular building with southern, eastern and western walls of face brick below sill height and fixed, wired glazing above. The northern wall, including windows and doors, is an addition and is not of cultural heritage significance. All double-hung sashes and metal window grates are also modern.
\nThe interior comprises a single room, with a ceiling lined in flat sheets with rounded cover-strips, and painted brick walls. The carpet floor lining is modern.
\nTimber Vocational Building, former domestic science (Block K; 1955, extended 1963, 1972)
\nThe former domestic science Timber Vocational Building (Block K) is a lowset, single-storey, timber-framed building with a western verandah. Its northern end-wall is clad in vertical timber weatherboards, the southern end-wall is facebrick, and the eastern eaves are supported by timber struts. The building is accessed via small timber and concrete stairs to the west and north and a modern concrete ramp to the southwest. There is a brick flower box on the northeast corner of the building.
\nThe verandah has a raked ceiling lined in flat sheets with rounded cover strips, square timber posts and bag racks that form the balustrade. The floor is timber, with the exception of the southern end, which is of coloured concrete.
\nThe interior comprises a northern classroom (formerly two): separated from a large, central domestic science (home economics, some dividing walls removed) room by a western store (with a small eastern extension); and two southern classrooms separated by three store rooms (two of which were formerly fitting rooms). The walls and ceilings of the northern classroom and domestic science room are plastered, while those in the southern classrooms are lined in flat sheeting. Some classrooms retain cupboards under sloping whiteboards. The southern wall of the southernmost classroom is face brick. Carpets and linoleum floor linings are modern and not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe eastern wall has a large, continuous bank of timber-framed awning windows with centre-pivoting fanlights; and the western wall contains timber-framed double-hung sashes with centre-pivoting fanlights. Doors throughout the building are modern replacements, with some verandah doors boarded over with flat sheeting.
\nTimber Vocational Building, former manual training (Block L; 1955, extended 1957, 1959)
\nThe former manual training Timber Vocational Building (Block L) is a highset, single-storey, timber-framed building that is set on concrete stumps, and has an western verandah. The southern wall is face brick and extends beyond the building and out to the east; and the eastern eaves are supported by timber struts. The understorey is used as storage space and is enclosed with rendered masonry walls and timber battening. Access to the building is via southern timber stairs, northwestern concrete stairs and a modern ramp at the southern end of the building (the ramp is not of cultural heritage significance).
\nThe verandah has a timber floor, timber posts, balustrades formed by bag racks and a raked ceiling clad in flat sheeting. The northern end is enclosed in wired, fixed glazing.
\nThe interior comprises four classrooms, with two store rooms connected to the southern side of the southern classroom. Doors connect the two southernmost and the two northernmost classrooms. All interior walls are lined in flat sheeting (the two southernmost classrooms have rounded cover strips). The ceilings of the two northern classrooms are of plaster and those in the southern classrooms are lined in flat sheeting with rounded cover strips. Most classrooms retain timber-framed rolling blackboards, or cupboards under sloping whiteboards.
\nThe eastern wall has a large, continuous bank of timber-framed awning windows with centre-pivoting fanlights; and the western wall contains timber-framed double-hung sashes with centre-pivoting fanlights. The three northernmost classrooms retain early timber half glazed and panelled doors, with interior doors in a similar style also retained between classrooms. Panelled, high-waisted timber doors are also retained. Modern doors to the southern ends of the southernmost classrooms are recent replacements and are not significant.
\nBlock D – Timber School Building with Steel Open Web Floor Trusses (Block D; 1961)
\nThe Timber School Building with Metal Open Web Floor Trusses (Block D) is a long, two storey building with cantilevered metal open web floor trusses supported on rectangular concrete columns and a northern verandah. The eastern and western end walls and some ground floor enclosures are facebrick, with the remainder of the building’s exterior clad in flat sheets and profiled metal. Concrete stairs, located at the eastern and western ends of the building, provide access to the first floor verandah and classrooms and have metal handrails.
\nThe first floor verandah has a timber floor, square timber posts and bag racks that form a balustrade; while the ground floor verandah has a concrete slab floor, profiled metal ceiling, circular metal posts and bag racks. The first floor verandah walls are of recent flat sheeting.
\nThe first floor contains three (formerly four; wall removed) central classrooms, with store and staff rooms to the east and west. Walls have been added to the central classroom to form a store room; and a wall has been added to one of the eastern store rooms to form two spaces. The ground floor comprises a central store room, classroom and tuckshop, with eastern and western toilets, and store rooms located south of the stairwells. A brick wall has been removed from the classroom space, and a modern partition has been added at the eastern end to form an additional store room. A recent wall also extends the tuckshop to the north. Interior walls are generally line with flat sheets with rounded cover strips and plaster. Facebrick walls are exposed in the stairwells and amenities. Floor trusses have been boxed over with plasterboard in some ground floor spaces.
\nThe first floor retains some early panelled and half-glazed timber doors to the verandah, although most interior door openings have been boarded over or are modern replacements. Some timber-framed louvres and awnings have been retained in the southern elevation; although all fanlights and verandah windows are modern replacements.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established, with sporting facilities including a large oval, which is marked by a curved post and rail timber fence, west of the main school building complex; four early tennis courts to the north of the oval; and three playing fields at the north end of the school grounds.
\nThe splayed open courtyard spaces between blocks B and C, and C and D, which were formed as part of the 1950s and early 1960s planning, are sealed in bitumen and are used as open play-space. Metal-framed shade structures with profiled metal roof cladding and concrete slab floors form covered connections between the significant school buildings.
\nA curved entrance driveway, running approximately northeast from the South Street school entrance to the Administration Block, is lined on either side by an avenue of established trees. Other mature trees, planted during the school’s first 15 years of operation, are located along South Street; in an east-west line south of Block J; and in a line extending southeast from the end of Block K.
\nA decorative metal archway set on concrete plinths is located at the Hennessey Street entrance and features ‘HARRISTOWN STATE HIGH SCHOOL’ in metal lettering. To the south of the archway are two brick piers at an older entrance.
\nOther Structures
\nAll other buildings and structures within the heritage boundary are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Harristown State High School (SHS) opened on its present site in 1955, due to post-World War II (WWII) growth in the population of Toowoomba and its suburb of Harristown. In 2016 Harristown SHS retains seven buildings initially constructed during 1954-61, some with later extensions. These include Block B (Timber School Building with timber floor trusses, 1954); Block L (former manual training Timber Vocational Building, 1955, extended c1957, 1959); Block K (former domestic science Timber Vocational Building, 1955, extended 1963, 1972); the northern section of the Administration Block (1957-8); Block C (Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses, 1959-60); an Oslo Lunch Canteen (1959), and Block D (Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses, 1961). The school also retains its 1950s site planning; covered links between the Administration Block and Blocks B and C, and between Blocks B, K and L; early brick or concrete flower boxes adjacent to the Administration Block, and Blocks B, C and K; a curved driveway from South Street; pedestrian gates from Hennessy Street; sports oval; tennis courts; northern playing fields; and mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since establishment.
\nThe establishment and growth of Harristown SHS is a direct result of the growth of Toowoomba, Queensland’s largest inland city. European settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. At the junction of two routes to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps through the Main Range, the small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842 as a stopping place for pastoralists and travellers. Six kilometres to its north-east was an area known as ‘The Swamp’ – renamed Toowoomba by 1859 – which was first surveyed in 1849 as 12 suburban allotments of Drayton. [1]
\nToowoomba grew rapidly, due to its superior land and water supply, support from squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, an easier route to Brisbane via The Toll Road. Toowoomba was declared a municipality in July 1860, and by the 1861 census it was clear that Toowoomba had eclipsed Drayton.[2] The railway arrived in 1867 (connecting to Brisbane in 1876), and Toowoomba’s economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing outlets, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were centred on the town.[3] Toowoomba was also popular as a summer retreat for the colony’s elite. It was declared a city in 1904.
\nToowoomba was an early centre for education, with the first National School (later Toowoomba South State School) opening in 1865.[4] National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[5] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[6]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[7]
\nThe first school in Harristown was a state school, located about 2km southwest of the centre of Toowoomba, opened in 1911, south of South Street (just southeast of the later SHS site).[8] At this time Toowoomba’s population was 10,636.[9] Harristown had been established when subdivisions from the Harristown Estate were sold from 1902.[10] Overcrowding at Harristown State School soon led to the opening of an Open Air Annex building at the school in 1915, and the school was increased to five acres in size in 1919.[11]
\nHarristown State School’s enrolment continued to rise after WWII, increasing from 237 in 1947, when the school was already overcrowded, to 630 in 1960.[12] This reflected Toowoomba’s post-war population, which rose by 30% between 1947 and 1957, from 35,194 to 45,900. Its municipal boundaries expanded; suburbs developed, and amenities and services increased. Growth in its primary and secondary industries also increased, construction projects provided a boom for the local building industry, and tourist numbers grew. Improvements to the Central Business District (CBD), delayed by WWII, began in earnest in the 1950s.[13]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[14]
\nIn 1953, the Acting Head Teacher at Harristown State School reported to the Department of Public Instruction (renamed the Department of Education in 1957) that there was considerable building activity in the Harristown area; that more families were moving into the ‘Stephen St Hut area’, as previous families moved out; and that ‘the greater part of the Harristown population consists of young families’.[15]
\nThe Stephen Street Hut area was a former military camp. During WWII, two Australian defence facilities, 3 Advanced Ordnance Depot (AOD) and 6 Advanced Workshop (AEME), were established just east of the Gore Highway, to the northwest of the later site of Harristown SHS. The camp for 3 AOD (west of the Gore Highway) was occupied by squatters by 1947, while the Workshop camp’s buildings (north of Stephens Street, northeast of the school site) were leased to the Queensland Housing Commission from about 1949 to 1954.[16]
\nPost-war population growth, including the construction of Housing Commission homes in Harristown, not only impacted on the Harristown State School, but also led to a state high school being established opposite, to the north of South Street.
\nIn Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after WWII when secondary education was generally accepted as essential and was more widely provided for.[17]
\nIn the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. In 1954 it was reported that high school enrolments had almost doubled since 1948, from 4500 to nearly 11,000. About 50 sites had been acquired, most with an area of 20 acres, and by 1954 there were 30 state high schools.[18]
\nToowoomba State High School (est. 1919) was no longer sufficient for the city’s secondary student population. In late 1954 Queensland’s Education Minister, George H Devries, noted that state high schools would open at Innisfail, Harristown, and Southport in 1955, as the ‘pressure of enrolments had made the establishment of high schools necessary at these three centres’. At Toowoomba, ‘the technical and high school was now so large that it was necessary to establish a separate high school’.[19]
\nReflecting the growth of suburbanisation and a move towards a decentralised population in urban centres, new high schools were located in suburban areas rather than the centre of town. The grounds were large, providing ample room for sports facilities. The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but high schools also included purpose-built science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums. These were also built to standard plans but were specific to their use and not a continuation of previous designs.[20]
\nAdditionally, there was a focus on the fit between the school and its neighbourhood, as well as site planning for expansion and ideal solar orientation. In the early 1950s, architects developed master planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[21] This concept was replaced a few years later by architects planning for growth and change. There was a shift away from grid-like layouts to organic layouts. Nuclear plans were designed, centred on a reception building with classroom wings connected to and fanning away from the nucleus. The primary focus was the ideal solar orientation of buildings. Interest was also shown in developing schemes that related to the natural contours and existing vegetation. Unlike the more formal and symmetrical plans of previous periods, new plans were developed that tended to be asymmetrical and more open. The long, narrow buildings were positioned so that the spaces captured between them were triangular, opening out into the landscape.[22] The layout of Harristown SHS appears to have been organic in form, from the beginning.
\nThe Harristown SHS site was reserved c1950, and included 21 acres (8.5ha) of land east of Hennessy Street, between South Street in the South, and Stephens Street in the north.[23] This school reserve, Portion 907 (R1014), absorbed a surveyed road (Rivett Street). A neighbouring 6.6 acres (2.7ha) to the west was purchased by the Secretary for Public Instruction in 1950, forming the current 27.6 acre (11.2ha) grounds. [24] Just west of the SHS site was ‘Redlands’, a brick residence built in 1889 on 28 acres for Edmund Wilcox. This land had been dedicated as Concordia College, a co-educational Lutheran Boarding School, in 1946.[25]
\nThe construction of Harristown SHS was approved in September 1954, at a cost of £44,014, and the first building (called Block B in 2016) was ready for the start of the 1955 school year. [26] Although a July 1954 site plan of the school shows an Administration Block to the west of four school buildings (three of them grouped around an assembly area), a curved access driveway from South Street, a sports oval, and four tennis courts, in May 1955 Block B was still the only building on the bare school grounds, and the oval was not yet formed.[27] The 1954 site plan also shows an ‘existing flagpole’, just north of where Block B would be built.[28]
\nFrom 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings. These buildings were high-set timber-framed structures and the understorey was used as covered play space. Introduced in 1950, the principal type (F/T4) was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[29]
\nIn 1954 the type was improved by replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that spanned the width of the classroom and provided an unimpeded play space. This concept was further refined in 1957 by replacing the timber truss with a steel open-web joist that spanned further and removed more understorey stumps. This structural system was employed with reinforced concrete piers to support large loads at minimal costs.[30] This was further refined in 1959 by replacing the concrete piers and open-web joist with a steel portal frame that was employed extensively in the 1960s and 1970s.[31]
\nBlock B was a Timber School Building with timber floor trusses. This type, built from 1954-60, was highset with either 21ft (6.4m) or 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms, and often had clerestory windows above the verandah wall. Their timber-framed floor trusses provided play space underneath the building.[32]
\nBlock B initially included (from the east end, ground floor) a science lecture room; a store and science store; a science laboratory; an open student recreation area; a cleaner’s room, switch room, and girls lavatory; and a boys locker room, boys lavatory, and a staff lavatory. On the upper floor (from the east) was a commercial room 32ft by 24ft (9.8m by 7.3m); then four 24ft (7.3m) square classrooms with folding partitions between them. Two temporary staff rooms with temporary partitions occupied a fifth classroom space, and at the west end of the building there was a temporary principal’s office and waiting space, occupying a future cloak room, 24ft by 12ft (7.3m by 3.7m). An 8ft (2.4m) verandah ran along the northern side of the building, with enclosed hat and bag racks, and stairs at each end; the west end stairs were enclosed with brick and glass, while the stairs at the east end were temporary.[33] There were centre-pivoting clerestory windows between the northern verandah roof and the eaves; and probably louvre windows in the verandah wall. The southern windows were either centre-pivoting or awning (top-hung) windows.[34]
\nHarristown SHS soon included manual training and domestic science wings. Vocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; and after World War I this led to the establishment of a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated.[35] Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced in 1928. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.[36]
\nTwo Timber Vocational Buildings were constructed at Harristown SHS in 1955. This type, built 1954-5, was usually highset on timber or concrete stumps, with a verandah, and was externally clad in chamferboards.[37] Both buildings were located to the east of Block B, almost at right angles to the earlier building.
\nThe first to be constructed was the manual training block (Block L in 2016), northeast of Block B. Block L was highset on ground sloping down to the north, with brick walls to the east and south sides of the undercroft. Large banks of centre-pivoting and awning windows on the east side were sheltered under strutted eaves. There was a store and staff room in an 8ft (2.4m) section at the south end; then a sheet metal room 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m); and a woodwork room 32ft by 24ft (9.8m by 7.3m). There was a 6.5ft (2m) wide verandah on the west side, and awning windows on the east side. Bike racks and a timber store were located under the west side of the building. [38]
\nThe domestic science block (Block K in 2016), was lowset on sloping ground, with brick walls to the east and north sides of the undercroft. Located southeast of Block B, it had a lecture room 24ft by 20ft (7.3m by 6.1m) at the north end; a cookery room 24ft by 20ft (7.3m by 6.1m); small dining, fitting and staff rooms in a 12ft (3.7m) bay; and a dressmaking room 24ft by 20ft (7.3m by 6.1m) at the south end. Blocks K and L were joined to the east end of Block B by a covered and paved area, with a flower box at the northeast corner of Block K. Around this time the present steps down from the first floor of the east end of Block B were added, enclosed in brick and glass with a flower box to the north. There was a 6.5ft (2m) verandah along the west side of Block K, to which awning windows (not extant in 2016) were added c1957, between the verandah posts. [39]
\nHarristown’s new Administration Block was a result of growth at the school, ‘where an administrative unit of this pleasing character [had] become necessary’.[40] The Administration Block (the northern section of Block Z in 2016) was added to the west of Block B c1957-8.[41] Connected to the northwest corner of the ground floor of Block B by a covered way, it included concrete paved indoor-outdoor areas; a raised concrete dais and a garden plot to the northeast; male and female toilets at the east end of the building; two staff rooms to the west; offices for the Principal and Deputy Principal at the west end of the building; and two brick flower boxes and a raised area of concrete pavers outside the northwest entrance. The building was sheeted with metal, with stone feature walls at the southwest corner and a brick wall at the east end, and had clerestory windows on the south side.[42] The use of stone was a deliberate move to improve the aesthetics of the school. In 1959 it was noted that, as high schools grew, they needed ‘elements of maturity’, the aim being ‘to develop pride in the school and to supplement academic education with desirable aesthetic experience’.[43]
\nThe school continued to grow, requiring additions in the late 1950s. A new 24ft by 24ft (7.3m by 7.3m) classroom was added to the north end of the manual training Timber Vocational Building, Block L, in 1957; along with bike racks underneath. Stairs at the north end of the verandah descended in front of the temporary masonite sheeted wall used at the north end of the block. Although floor plans at this time showed two additional rooms, the second (northernmost) room was not built until 1959. [44]
\nA new classroom wing (Block C in 2016) was also constructed c.1959-60, set at an angle to, and north of, Block B and an assembly area. Block C was a Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses. This type, built 1957-60, was highset and timber-framed, with classrooms either 24ft (7.3m) square or 24ft by 21ft (7.3m by 6.4m). Like the timber floor trusses on earlier buildings, the open web steel floor trusses provided unimpeded space at ground level. Timber awning windows were used extensively on southern walls, with louvres to the verandah wall (at Harristown, double-hung sash windows were used in the verandah wall instead). External cladding was chamferboards.[45]
\nWhen completed, the ground floor of Block C included: a store under the stairs (which were enclosed with brick and wired glass, with a flower box to the north) at the eastern end of the building; girls toilet and locker room; store and staff toilet; covered recreation and assembly area; and a dais (raised area) at the west end. There was also seating set around the perimeter of the open areas. The upper floor, from the east, included: a physics lab 32ft by 18ft (9.8m by 5.5m); cloakroom and store; a physics lecture room 24ft (7.3m) square; then five 24ft (7.3m) square classrooms. A 6.5ft (2m) verandah ran along most of the north side, excluding the east end. The upper floor was supported on open web steel trusses and lozenge-shaped reinforced concrete columns; and brick walls were used at the ends of the building, for parts of the ground floor, and for enclosing the stairs; with metal cladding elsewhere. There were awning windows on the south side, double-hung sash windows to the northern verandah, and clerestory windows above the verandah roof. Block C appears to have been built in two stages: the western four classrooms first, with the remainder added c1960. [46]
\nThe manual training Timber Vocational Building, Block L, was also extended to the north in 1959, with a new 24’ (7.3m) square classroom; and concrete steps and a flower box (latter not extant 2016) were added at the north end of the verandah.[47] In the same year a new section of covered walkway was constructed between the Administration Block and the west end of Block C, with the addition of a health services room at the west end of the upper floor of Block C, west of the stairs; and an Oslo Lunch Canteen to the south of, and separate from, the southwest corner of the ground floor of Block C.[48] The lunch canteen was initially built with three half-height brick walls (being open to the north) with fixed wired glass windows over (to the west, south and east) and the north side has since been enclosed.[49]
\nOslo canteens offered healthy lunches, based on the Norwegian nutritious lunch movement.[50] A trial of the ‘Oslo lunch’ in a Victorian school in 1940 found that the lunch, which included a salad sandwich on wholemeal bread, a bottle of milk and a piece of fruit, helped children gain weight, increased their energy, and assisted the healing of minor wounds. The program soon spread around Australia.[51]
\nIn 1961 the complex of school buildings was extended further north with the addition of another Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses (Block D in 2016), north of, and connected by a covered walkway to, Block C. Block D had two floors, with brick end walls and metal wall cladding. The ground floor included open space around a tuckshop; with a library and library work room to the east; and toilets, cleaners rooms and stairwells at each end. The first floor had four classrooms in the middle, with store rooms, staff rooms, locker rooms and stairwells at each end. By 1961 the oval had been formed west of the school buildings, and basketball courts constructed south of the oval. [52]
\nHarristown SHS needed more room in the 1960s, especially since Grade 8 students were transferred to Queensland high schools for the 1964 school year.[53] A number of new buildings and additions were thus constructed in 1963. An additional classroom block (Block A in 2016) was constructed south of Block B;[54] a new manual training block (Block M in 2016) was added north of Block L;[55] and the domestic science Timber Vocational Building, Block K, was extended to the south – two new dressmaking rooms were added, and the existing southern (dressmaking) classroom was reconfigured with new partitions, to incorporate the north end of a new classroom and a new fitting room, store and staffroom. The existing cookery room was extended to the south, and a laundry was created on the site of the old dining room. A new covered way linked Block K to Block A.[56]
\nA two-storey science block (Block H in 2016) followed c1965, to the west of Blocks C and D, although it was not present in a July 1965 aerial photograph. The latter showed the school had seven blocks (Blocks A, B, C, D, K, L and M) by mid-1965, plus the Administration Block. Five rows of long, narrow structures, north of a vehicle entrance from Hennessy Street to the north of Block M, were probably bicycle sheds. [57]
\nThe school grounds had had also been developed by 1965. The oval had tennis courts to the north (extant 2016) and basketball courts (not extant in 2016) to the south. There were also gardens and/or paths between Hennessy Street and the link between Blocks K and L. There was a pedestrian gate to Hennessy Street in this vicinity, marked on a 1972 plan, and two brick piers survive in 2016. [58] Just north of the brick piers, there is another pedestrian gateway in 2016, with a metal archway reading ‘Harristown State High School’, mounted on concrete plinths.
\nThe school grounds also included shade trees. By 1965 there were trees planted either side of the curved driveway from South Street; along South Street east of the driveway; south of Block A; in a line heading southeast from the south end of K Block; and north along Hennessy Street from South Street. Trees were also planted along the street frontage west of the South Street entrance driveway by 1971.[59]
\nHarristown SHS continued to expand from the late 1960s, with a new classroom block (the west end of Block E in 2016) built in 1966, and extended to the east in 1969. [60] An assembly hall (Block G in 2016) was also built c1967.[61] A library (Block J in 2016) was constructed, south of Block A, in 1970-1.[62]
\nBy 1971, when the population of Toowoomba was 59,524, the ground floor of Block B included two classrooms in the former open student recreation area. The western central staff room of the Administration Block was divided into a typist room and store area. Block C’s ground floor covered recreation area and assembly area was enclosed for a TV room at the west end, a projection room, then a ‘temporary only’ girls locker room at the east end; while the western dais was ‘temporary only’ boys lockers.[63]
\nThe domestic science Timber Vocational Building, Block K, was extended in 1972, again to south, with a new dressmaking room, plus two fitting rooms and a storeroom. The northern dressmaking room in the 1963 extension was converted into a cookery room, and a new partition was added to form a dining room south of the cookery room in the 1955 section of block.[64] A toilet block (Block F in 2016) was constructed north of Block E between 1972 and 1974,[65] and the school’s three northern sports fields and embankments were also formed c1974.[66] A music centre (Block N in 2016) was constructed southwest of the Administration Block c1979;[67] and the Administration Block was extended to the south c1985, with changes to its original room configuration occurring at this time.[68]
\nAlthough more buildings have since been added to the school, the complex of 1954-61 buildings with later extensions remains at the core of the school. In 2016, Harristown SHS continues to operate from its original site on South Street. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there. With over 1500 students, it is the largest secondary school on the Darling Downs.[69]
","criteria":"Harristown State High School (established in 1955) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities.
\nThe layout of the administration and classroom blocks, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, reflect the early 1950s introduction of master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (1954) and the two Timber School Buildings with open web steel floor trusses (1959-60, and 1961) represent the evolution of Department of Public Works designs during the mid to late 1950s to allow for unimpeded play space under highset timber school buildings.
\nThe former domestic science and manual training Timber Vocational Buildings (both 1955) reflect the Queensland Government’s focus on vocational training as a way of ensuring the state’s economic prosperity.
\nThe northern section of the Administration Block (1957-8) represents a move away from the austerity of the early 1950s to a more permanent aesthetic, incorporating masonry elements.
\nThe Oslo Lunch Canteen (1959) is important surviving evidence of the spread of a Norwegian ‘healthy lunch’ movement through Queensland’s schools in the post-World War II (WWII) era.
|Harristown State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state high school of the 1950s. These include its 1950s site planning; range of highset and lowset timber-framed teaching buildings of standard and individual designs that incorporated understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and a generous, landscaped site with mature shade trees and assembly and sports areas.
\nFollowing 1950s site planning principles, the school includes five classroom blocks that all contribute to the general concept of splayed, long, narrow buildings linked around open ended courtyard assembly and play spaces, fanning out from the Administration Block.
\nThe ground level Administration Block, the covered links between it and Blocks B and C, and between Blocks B, K and L, and the courtyard spaces between the buildings, are characteristic of 1950s school design in Queensland.
\nThe Timber School Building with timber floor trusses and the 1959-60 Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses are both good, intact examples of their type and demonstrate two iterations of the Department of Public Work’s standard designs: incorporating timber floor trusses for unimpeded play space under the classrooms, and later using steel trusses to achieve the same effect. Both buildings retain their: highset character with visible trusses under; large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows, with centre-pivoting fanlights; clerestory lighting above the northern verandah roof; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms.
\nThe former domestic science and manual training Timber Vocational Buildings both retain their timber-framed construction, set on stumps, with verandahs.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nHarristown State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Harristown community. It was established in 1955 and generations of Harristown students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Harristown and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650038,"name":"Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area","alternate_name":"Ravenswood Goldfield","street_address":"Reserve bounded by School Street, Cemetery Road, Railway Street and Burdekin Falls Dam Road","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2016-10-14","description":"The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area occupies an area of approximately 50ha in the north Queensland town of Ravenswood. Bounded by Elphinstone Creek to the north and west, and School Street and Kerr Street to the east, the landscape consists of an expanse of undulating modified ground punctuated by mullock heaps, tall brick chimneys and other scattered ruins. There are 12 former mine and mill sites dispersed across the area, and Chinese sites including a temple and associated pig roasting oven are concentrated in the vicinity of Deighton Street to the north (refer Figure 13: Site Plan).
\nThe Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is surrounded to the north, west and east by Ravenswood township. Significant buildings adjoining the landscape include Ravenswood School and Residence [QHR 600455], Ravenswood Ambulance Station [QHR 600445], and the Railway Hotel [QHR 600443]. An active mining area around the Buck Reef West open cut (1987) occupies the southern extents of the historical mining landscape.
\nWhile individual ruins have been subject to deterioration, they continue to illustrate characteristics of their former function. Collectively they are a physical legacy of the complex and innovative history of mining in the area. Elements that have been relocated or adapted for modern use are of lesser significance than in-situ elements; however, they provide evidence of historical change and contribute to the significance of the overall mining and settlement landscape. Modern mining infrastructure, modern mullock heaps, fencing and the Buck Reef West open cut mining operations are not of heritage significance.
\nThe following description is based on a site visit undertaken by EHP in October 2015.
\nRavenswood Mining Landscape
\nThe Ravenswood Mining Landscape has been formed through various phases of alluvial and reef mining activities from the late 1860s to the 1960s; however, the majority of surface evidence of mining infrastructure dates from the New Ravenswood Company era (1899-1917); and subsequent intermittent small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919-60s). Judge’s Mill and the Partridge and Ralston Mill date from the 1930s.
\nThe former General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh and Sunset No 1 Mines are situated on the northern edge of the modern Buck Reef West open cut and, along with the former Grant and Sunset Extended mine to the south, are wholly or partly within the active (restricted) mining area. To the north, the former Sunset No 2, Grand Junction and Little Grand Junction Mines, along with the Deep Mine and Mill, Judge’s Mill, Partridges Mill and adjacent Mabel Mill Tailings Treatment Site are publicly accessible.
\nFormer Grant and Sunset Extended Mine (c1902 - 1930s)
\nThe most southern of the mining landscape sites, the former Grant and Sunset Extended Mine (refer Figure 14: Site Plan) retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era and small scale mining from the 1930s including:
\nThe mine shaft is located to the northwest of the winding engine site. It was reconfigured (c1988) for modern use and has a concrete collar, metal grid and cage surround, as well as modern concrete headframe footings and machinery foundations nearby.
\nThe area has been subject to earthworks and vegetation clearance. Two disturbed concrete headframe footings have been moved to the southwest of the winding engine site. Both are square in plan and have a 0.5 metre diameter hole through the centre, with metal bracing within. One footing retains remnant timbers.
\nA ramped earth structure is situated to the north of the mine site; it is supported at its western end by boulders, corrugated and plate metal sheeting, and substantial round timbers (possibly reused headframe timbers).
\nFormer General Grant Mine (c1869 – 1930s)
\nLocated north of the Grant and Sunset Extended mine, the General Grant Mine (refer Figure 15: Site Plan) is prominently positioned on a ridge overlooking the mining landscape. It retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era and small scale mining from the 1920s-30s including:
\nThe area has been subject to earthworks and vegetation clearance. Disturbed mullock, and concrete mounts and footings are visible across an elevated area to the east of the winding engine site that has been bulldozed. Part of a second square brick chimney stack (twenty courses high) lies amongst the upturned concrete mounts.
\nTwo disturbed concrete headframe footings are located in the low-lying area between the General Grant and Duke of Edinburgh Mines.
\nFormer Duke of Edinburgh Mine (c1869 – 1940s)
\nLocated on a ridge to the east of the General Grant Mine, the Duke of Edinburgh Mine (refer Figure 16: Site Plan) retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era and small scale mining from the 1920s to 1940s including:
\nA modern fence that defines the boundary of the active mining operations traverses the mine site. Access to the caved underlie shaft and workings to the east of the headframe site is restricted.
\nFormer Sunset No1 Mine (c1869 – 1940s)
\nLocated on a ridge to the west of the General Grant Mine, Sunset No1 Mine (refer Figure 17: Site Plan) overlooks the Sunset No2 Mine to the north. It retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era and small scale mining from the 1920s to 1940s including:
\nAn earth mound at the centre of the site indicates the location of the former underlie shaft headframe, and an area of disturbed mullock extends down the northern slope of the site. A large flattened clearing extends from the northeast to the northwest of the site; indicating the location of the former Sunset No 1 mullock heap (treated and removed c1983).
\nFormer Sunset No 2 Mine (c1869 – 1940s)
\nLocated at the centre of the mining landscape, to the north of Sunset No1 Mine and south of Grand Junction Mine, Sunset No 2 Mine (refer Figure 18: Site Plan) is situated at the intersection of Sunset Street and Grant Street (both unsealed). It retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era, and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps from the 1920s to 1940s including:
\nAn area of mullock extends to the north of the tailings treatment site; it includes a large heap situated between Sunset No 2 Mine and Grand Junction Mine to the north.
\nFormer Grand Junction Mine (c1901 - 1950s)
\nLocated off Sunset Street, to the north of Sunset No 2 Mine and south of Partridges Mill, the Grand Junction Mine (refer Figure 19: Site Plan) retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era and small scale mining from the 1930s to 1950s including:
\nTwo small earth mounds are situated to the northeast of the chimney. An unsealed track traverses the site, between the fenced shaft and the winding engine mounts.
\nFormer Little Grand Junction Mine (c1901 - 1940s)
\nLocated near the intersection of Siggers Street and School Street road reserves, the Little Grand Junction Mine is situated on a rise to the southwest of the former Ravenswood Ambulance Station. Little Grand Junction (refer Figure 20: Site Plan) is the most southern of three mine shafts in the immediate vicinity, with a fourth shaft down the hill on Deighton Street. It retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era and small scale mining from the 1930s and 1940s including:
\nSmall, disturbed mounds of mullock are situated to the north and west of the shaft.
\nFormer Deep Mine and Mill (c1902 - 1919)
\nLocated on the eastern fringe of the mining landscape, the Deep Mine and Mill (refer Figure 21: Site Plan) is situated on a west-facing slope off School Street. It retains evidence from the New Ravenswood Company era, and sporadic processing following renovation of the mill in 1919, including:
\nMine site (south)
\nMill / battery site (north)
\nMabel Mill Tailings Treatment Plant (c1904 - 1917)
\nLocated on the northern fringe of the mining landscape, between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek, the Mabel Mill Tailings Treatment Plant (refer Figure 22: Site Plan) is an extension of the Mabel Mill [QHR 601206] to the north of the creek. The site retains evidence of mineral processing from the New Ravenswood Company era including:
\nFormer Partridge and Ralston Mill (c1938 – c.1965)
\nLocated to the immediate west of the Mabel Mill Tailings Treatment area, the Partridge and Ralston Mill (refer Figure 22: Site Plan) is situated between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The site retains evidence of intermittent mineral processing from the late 1930s to 1960s including:
\nFormer Judge’s Mill (c1938 – 1940s)
\nLocated in the western extents of the mining landscape, the Judge’s Mill site (refer Figure 23: Site Plan) retains evidence of the Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate’s mineral processing activities from the late 1930s – early 1940s including:
\nAn earth ramp and crushed ore deposit is situated to the south of the strongroom. The site is traversed by an unsealed road and a crushed granite walking track.
\nChinese Settlement Area
\nThe Chinese Settlement Area dates from the 1870s to the early 20th century. While the settlement area included market gardens along Elphinstone Creek, the remaining physical evidence is concentrated south of Deighton Street and comprises the ruins of a temple, adjacent pig roasting oven, and associated archaeological features and artefact scatters (see Archaeological Evidence).
\nFormer Temple (c1874)
\nThe temple remnants are located south of Deighton Street and comprise a series of concrete, stone and earth platforms with overall dimensions of approximately 22 metres long and 10-11 metres wide (refer Figure 24: Site Plan). The temple is orientated roughly north-south. From north to south the five platforms comprise:
\nA disturbed earth mound is situated to the south of the temple foundations. It is has stone and brick inclusions and random-rubble stonework to the eastern end.
\nFormer Pig Roasting Oven
\nEighteen metres to the northeast of the temple foundations are the remains of a brick and stone pig roasting oven (refer Figure 24: Site Plan). The structure (approximately 5 x 2 metres) is aligned east-west. The upper section has collapsed and it currently stands at 1.1metres high. The eastern end of the structure features a cylindrical brick and mortar hearth with stacked render framing the opening. The remaining structure is less formal in construction, comprising random-rubble stone and earth that has collapsed to the west.
\nSetting and Landscape Features
\nElphinstone Creek winds across the north and west of the mining landscape, which is traversed by a network of unsealed roads and walking tracks. The area has been cleared of remnant vegetation and regrowth is dominated by chinee apple (Ziziphus mauritiana) and rubber vine (Cryptostegia grandiflora). Stands of various eucalypt species have been planted in an area that extends to the north of Duke of Edinburgh and east of Sunset No 2 Mines.
\nMuch of the ground surface has been modified by the historical and subsequent mining operations. Mullock heaps punctuate the undulating landscape, most notably in the vicinity of the Grand Junction, Sunset No 2 and Deep Mines. A total of five prominent brick chimneys are dotted across the landscape. They have a range of stack types: three square; one round and one octagonal, and are a distinctive feature of the place.
\nViews are afforded to, from and across the mining landscape from a range of vantage points. Several of the mine sites (General Grant, Sunset No1, Duke of Edinburgh and Deep Mine) are elevated and offer panoramic views across the mining landscape and the town. Views from lower vantage points and along the tracks also offer glimpses of nearby and elevated features in the surrounding landscape, in particular the prominent brick chimneys.
\nArchaeological Evidence
\nArtefacts associated with mining infrastructure and operations are concentrated amongst the ruins of the mine and mill sites, including: bottle glass; ceramics; bricks; and metal containers, cables, fixtures and fittings.
\nModerate density scatters of industrial and domestic glass and ceramic artefacts extend across the ground surface to the east of the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant, along Elphinstone Creek. A sub-surface concentration of black and green glass bottles is evident in an eroded gully within the Mabel Mill tailings treatment area.
\nHigh density artefact scatters associated with the Chinese temple and oven site include glass, ceramics and metal. There is some evidence of cooked bone fragments to the immediate west of the eroded oven.
\nAn area to the south and west of the temple site contains several higher density concentrations of domestic artefacts accompanied by flattened sheets of kerosene tins, buckets, kettles, and drystone wall and platform features, which indicate the location of habitation sites. Ceramics of Chinese origin are evident at some of these sites. A narrow (0.85 metre) brick lined shaft, possibly a well, is located on the south side of Deighton Street, near the former intersection with School Street.
\nAn area containing evidence of possible alluvial mining is located immediately south of Judge’s Mill and to the west of Sunset No 1 Mine. It comprises a gully with a regular channel cutting to the base (possible water race) and small earth mounds deposited along the banks. Artefact scatters extend along the banks of the gully and include ceramics, bottle glass and wire cut nails.
\n","history":"
The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is situated south of Elphinstone Creek and to the west of School Street and Kerr Street, in the town of Ravenswood, about 85km south of Townsville and 65km east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main mining periods, prior to modern open cut operations (1987 onwards), were: alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868-72); attempts to extract gold from sulphide ores below the water table (c1872-98); the New Ravenswood Company era (1899-1917); and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919-60s). In 2016 the Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area contains surface structures from eight mines: the Grand Junction, Little Grand Junction, Sunset No.1 and Sunset No.2, Deep, General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grant and Sunset Extended mines, as well as the mill associated with the Deep mine, and the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant (most structures dating from the New Ravenswood Company era). It also includes remnants of two treatment plants (Partridge and Ralston’s Mill, and Judge’s Mill) from the 1930s; and the Chinese settlement area (1870s to the early 20th century, covering the first three mining periods at Ravenswood).
\nThe place contains important surviving evidence of: ore extraction (from underground shafts) and metallurgical extraction (separation of gold from the ore) conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield’s most productive reefs during the boom period of the town’s prosperity (1900-08); later attempts to re-treat the mullock heaps and tailings dumps from these mines; and Ravenswood’s early Chinese community, which made an important contribution to the viability of the isolated settlement and was located along Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area also has the potential to reveal evidence of early alluvial and shallow reef mining, as well as domestic living arrangements on the Ravenswood goldfield. It is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of north Queensland’s mining booms, and has a special association with Archibald Lawrence Wilson, who established the New Ravenswood Company and improved both ore and metallurgical extraction processes on the goldfield.
\nSettlement and mining in north Queensland
\nEuropean settlement of the Kennedy Land District in north Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including ‘Ravenswood’ and ‘Merri Merriwa’.[1] Townsville and Cardwell were both established north of Bowen in 1864.
\nHowever, mining, not pastoralism, proved to be the main catalyst for European settlement of north Queensland.[2] In 1865 the founders of Townsville offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield, and gold rushes occurred in the region from 1866.[3] Mining employed 19.8% of the north Queensland population in 1868, and 50% by 1876, before dropping to 15% in 1911.[4] Although gold mining attracted people to north Queensland, alluvial finds of gold usually led to temporary townships, whereas underground reef mining held the promise of more stable and permanent settlements.
\nAlluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868-72)
\nAlluvial gold was discovered south of the later site of Ravenswood, in tributaries of Connolly Creek on Merri Merriwa Station, north of the Burdekin River, in late 1868.[5] Prospectors soon established ‘Middle Camp’ (later Donnybrook) on Tucker’s Creek, and ‘Lower Camp’ on Trieste Creek, with about 700 miners on the field by early 1869.[6] Further north, in April 1869, the goldfield’s richest alluvial discoveries were made in three dry creek beds close to the site of Ravenswood: Nolan’s, Jessop’s and Buchanan’s gullies.[7] Despite these finds, many miners soon left for the rush to the Gilbert River (over 300km west of Townsville).[8]
\nThe parent reefs of the alluvial gold found in April were located about the same time as the exodus to the Gilbert – the General Grant being discovered first, followed by the Sunset. Both were visible above ground level, and both reefs would play an important part in the future prosperity of Ravenswood.[9] In the next 40 years, nearly £3 million of gold would come from the reefs ‘in the little triangle between Buchanan’s Gully [just east of Macrossan Street], Jessop’s Gully [southwest of the town] and Elphinstone Creek’.[10]
\nOther reefs were soon found north of Elphinstone Creek, and in Nolan’s Gully;[11] and meanwhile, reefs had been discovered at Middle Camp.[12] However, a lack of water meant that miners did not establish ‘Upper Camp’ (later Ravenswood) near the General Grant and Sunset reefs until October 1869, after a storm temporarily resolved the water issue. By this time, most miners had returned from the Gilbert.[13] The three camps on the goldfield had a population of 600 by January 1870, most in Upper Camp.[14] Work was slowed by a lack of water, until rains in February 1870 enabled panning and sluicing, the results of which confirmed that Ravenswood was the first significant reef mining goldfield in the northern half of Australia.[15]
\nHowever, the miners needed to crush the quartz ore to extract gold. The first machinery for this purpose, WO Hodkinson’s five stamp crushing battery, the Lady Marion (or Lady Marian) Mill, was operational at Burnt Point (south of Upper Camp) from 18 April 1870.[16] The first month’s crushing results caused ‘an even greater “rush” than that … caused by the discovery of the alluvial gold’.[17] A second battery was operational in Upper Camp in August 1870, when the goldfield’s population was about 1200.[18]
\nOfficial recognition of the goldfield and settlement soon followed. Government Geologist Richard Daintree visited Upper Camp in August 1870, and the Ravenswood goldfield (about 300 square miles) was proclaimed on 3 November 1870.[19] By this time, the goldfield had a population of about 2000, and Upper Camp had 10 ‘public houses’, with six public houses in Middle Camp.[20]
\nThe Government Surveyor, John von Stieglitz, arrived in November 1870, but was too late to impose a regular grid pattern on the settlement. Instead he formalised the existing plan, which was centred on the crossing of Elphinstone Creek by the main road (Macrossan Street), with tracks radiating out to the various diggings. Most commercial buildings were located along Macrossan Street. The resulting juxtaposition of mining, habitation and commerce gave the town its distinctive character.[21]
\nThe town was proclaimed on 19 May 1871, with an area of one square mile (259ha).[22] This was later expanded to four square miles (1036ha) on 13 July 1883.[23] Although gold had been discovered on Merri Merriwa Station, the name Ravenswood, after the run located further southeast, downstream on the Burdekin River, was preferred.[24]
\nIn 1871 the population of the goldfield was 900, with over half being in Upper Camp/Ravenswood,[25] and by the end of 1871 there were five machines in Ravenswood.[26] Hodgkinson’s mill had been moved into town, to a site just north of Elphinstone Creek, and was renamed the Mabel Mill [QHR 601206].[27] In 1871 the town had 30 licensed hotels, although these were referred to as ‘shanties’ and did not offer accommodation.[28]
\nBy this time Ravenswood also had a Chinese population, due to an influx of Chinese miners who had been forcefully evicted from the Western Creek diggings near Gilberton in mid-1871. At least three of the hotels of 1871 had Chinese licensees.[29] The first Chinese had arrived in north Queensland in 1867, during the rush to the Cape River, and there were 200 Chinese looking for alluvial gold at Ravenswood in 1871.[30] In January 1872 it was estimated that there were about 1500 Chinese present on the Ravenswood goldfield, and a matching number of Europeans.[31] As the Chinese focussed on alluvial gold, and also provided other services, they were tolerated at Ravenswood, because the Europeans were now focusing on reef mining.[32] The quartz reefs were originally worked at shallow depths by means of a windlass (hand-wound rope and bucket), or a horse-powered whip or whim (using poles, ropes and pulleys) raising the ore from shallow shafts.[33]
\nExtracting gold from sulphide ores (c1872-98)
\nDespite its promising start, in 1872 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a ‘period of depression’,[34] as its most important mines reached the water table at about 70ft (21m) deep – starting with the Sunset in 1871, followed by the General Grant, Black Jack, and Melaneur in 1872.[35] Although the oxidised quartz (‘red stone’ or ‘brown stone’ quartz) close to the surface yielded its gold to traditional methods of mechanical crushing, below the water table the gold was in fine particles, which was not easily recovered by mechanical means. It was also mixed with sulphide ores; mainly iron sulphide (pyrite, or ‘mundic’ ore) but also sulphides containing lead, copper, zinc, arsenic and antimony, which interfered with chemical treatments such as amalgamation (amalgamating the gold with mercury; then heating the resulting amalgam in a retort to vaporise the mercury)[36] and chlorination (exposing roasted, concentrated ore to chlorine gas, and then precipitating gold out of the chloride solution).[37] A process that worked on the ore from one reef might not work for an adjacent reef, due to a varying distribution of different types of sulphides. In addition, even if a process worked on a small scale, it could be uneconomical on a larger scale, given the price of transporting fuel to Ravenswood for smelting, or transporting concentrates for smelting elsewhere.[38]
\nOnce the mundic had been struck, ‘mining was \"worse than dull\" as the field grappled with the realisation that to break below the waterline, the days of the individual miner were over and the time of companies was looming’.[39] The 1870s was a decade of major gold discoveries in Queensland, and miners keen on quick profits had plenty of new goldfields from which to choose.[40] Many miners joined the rushes to Charters Towers (1872) and the Palmer River (1873).[41] Charters Towers soon overtook Ravenswood as the most important inland town in north Queensland; and the Hodgkinson rush (southwest of Port Douglas) in 1876 also drew away miners.
\nHowever, Ravenswood grew during the 1870s and 1880s, despite the goldfield’s ‘refractory’ ores, and ‘mundic problem’. The goldfield had a population of 950 in 1877 (with 50 Chinese), rising to 1100 in 1880 (including 250 Chinese), and 2000 in 1883 (including 300 Chinese; with 190 working the alluvial, and 10 quartz miners).[42]
\nThe 1877 Pugh’s Almanac listed one Chinese hotelkeeper (out of seven hotelkeepers) in Ravenswood, and one Chinese storekeeper.[43] The Chinese, as well as working alluvial claims and operating hotels and stores, were employed as wage labour in some mines; worked as roasters and chlorinators at the Mabel Mill; and operated 24 licensed gardens on the Ravenswood goldfield in 1883.[44] Chinese gardens were vital in providing fresh vegetables to north Queensland’s goldfield populations.
\nFor 19th century diasporic Chinese communities such as Ravenswood’s, the establishment of specific cultural settlement areas, or ‘Chinatowns’, that ‘provided a range of sacred and secular services, including temples, stores and accommodation’, was an important aspect of community building.[45] Deighton Street, west of Macrossan Street, was the centre of Chinese life in Ravenswood. There were two eating houses close to Macrossan Street’s bridge across Elphinstone Creek, in the 1870s;[46] and market gardens were located between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek, as well as north of Elphinstone Creek, interspersed amongst several crushing machine operations.[47] There was also a temple south of Deighton Street. Temples were not just places of religious worship; rather, they were an integral part of a Chinese village. ‘They were places to meet, to check one's horoscope before embarking on a new venture and places where ancestors were venerated’.[48] As well as being a place where the community could worship at any time, major gatherings were held at temples on festival days, with feasts and processions. The Ravenswood temple appears on an 1874 survey plan, making it the earliest known Chinese temple in Queensland. [49] The nearby pig roasting oven is also a rare example of its type, and demonstrates the usual spatial arrangement of temple and oven, for community feasts.[50]
\nRavenswood continued to develop during the 1880s. By 1885, the Ravenswood goldfield had an estimated population of 2294 Europeans and 227 Chinese, with 1490 Europeans and 148 Chinese located in Ravenswood itself.[51] Ravenswood at this time had four Chinese storekeepers, and two Chinese produce merchants, but all six hotel licensees were European.[52] The Ravenswood National School [QHR 600455], which began in late 1873,[53] had an average attendance of 110 students in 1878, and reached its peak enrolment of 390 by 1889.[54]
\nThe 1880s were also a period of experimentation in metallurgical (gold extraction) technology. In 1883, the only method for dealing with sulphide ores was stamper mills and rotary buddles (which used water and gravity to separate and concentrate the crushed ores),[55] but later Ravenswood ‘was the first place where the chlorination process and Wilfley tables [developed 1896, to shake the ore and separate out different sized particles] were used in Queensland, and probably the first place where the cyanide process [dissolving fine gold in a cyanide solution, and later precipitating the gold out of the solution] for extracting gold was used in Australia’.[56] Other techniques attempted included fine grinding (using ball mills), roasting (burning off the sulphides), and smelting (prohibitively expensive, as it required high temperatures and thus a lot of fuel). By 1888 a new company at One Mile Creek, formed by Duncan and Peter Macintyre, had adapted an abandoned Cassell’s patent plant (a version of the chlorination process which was applied and failed in Ravenswood in 1886), to work on a ‘secret process’ (cyaniding).[57]
\nRavenswood mining continued to be viable, although only a (fluctuating) percentage of the gold was being recovered from the ore. In the mid-1880s there was even a temporary increase in the goldfield’s production, due to good returns from the Sandy Creek mines on the John Bull reef.[58] For the next eight years, the principal producers of the district were the General Grant, Sunset, New England, Wild Irish Girl, Melaneur and John Bull reefs, plus the silver lodes of the One Mile (at Totley).[59]
\nRavenswood’s economy survived the 1880s due to the development of silver mines at Totley [QHR 600457], a township established about 2km north of Ravenswood. The silver mines opened c1879-80,[60] and Richard King floated the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Ltd in 1882 – the year of Ravenswood’s lowest gold production between 1878 and 1898.[61] Silver prices were high during the 1880s, and the Totley mines encouraged the Queensland Government to approve a branch railway line (off the Northern Railway between Townsville and Charters Towers) to Ravenswood in 1882 (completed 1884).[62] The railway meant that some gold ores could be crushed, concentrated and sent for treatment at the Aldershot works just north of Maryborough or overseas to Swansea, in Wales.[63] However, all silver mining had stopped by 1891, due to falling silver prices and over-expenditure on treatment plants.[64]
\nGold mining at Ravenswood continued during the 1880s and 1890s. Hugh Hawthorne Barton, who had operated Brothers Mill on Elphinstone Creek from the late 1870s, took over the General Grant, Sunset and Black Jack mines, and the Mabel Mill (and later the Melaneur and Duke of Edinburgh mines), and floated the Ravenswood Gold Mining Company in 1887, with £100,000 in capital.[65] From 1884 to 1896 Barton’s group was the largest and most successful operation in Ravenswood, its profitability assisted by the railway, economies of scale, and flexibility in ore-treatment methods. Barton utilised roasting, chlorination (by 1889), and smelting, and employed Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill. Along with their market gardens along Elphinstone Creek, Chinese employment at the Mabel Mill also influenced the location of the Chinese settlement area in Ravenswood.[66] Meanwhile, the landscape was being altered by mining. The need for timber for boilers and for timbering-up mine shafts led to the loss of native trees in the locality, and goats also helped shape the landscape by eating regrowth.[67]
\nBy the mid-1890s, Barton was in debt to the Queensland National Bank, and his properties were seized in 1896, with the General Grant, Black Jack and Mabel Mill being let on tribute (where a party of miners worked a mine, while giving the mine owner a percentage of any results) in 1897. The tributers refused to employ Barton’s experienced Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill, leading to disastrous attempts at chlorination.[68] However, the goldfield’s production was boosted in the late 1890s when work resumed on the Donnybrook reefs for the first time in 20 years, and the Hillsborough (Eight Mile) reefs were taken up.[69]
\nThe New Ravenswood Company era (1899-1917)
\nRavenswood’s boom period of gold production (c1900-08, with 1905 the year of highest production) is reflected in the town’s surviving mining infrastructure and commercial and public buildings. This boom occurred due to the efforts of Archibald Laurence Wilson (1852-1935). After gaining a diploma in mining engineering in Edinburgh, and working in New Zealand and on the Palmer River, Wilson arrived in Ravenswood in 1878. He was publican of the Silver King Hotel in Totley in the 1880s. As manager of the John Bull mine at Sandy Creek in the mid-1890s, he raised capital in London and installed a cyanide plant.[70]
\nWilson later travelled to London in 1898, where he floated both the Donnybrook Blocks Mining Syndicate and the New Ravenswood Company in 1899. Wilson was the General Manager of both companies, under their London directorates.[71] Until 1917, the New Ravenswood Company was the largest mining operation on the Ravenswood goldfield. Registered with a capital of £50,000, the company purchased the General Grant, Sunset, Black Jack, Melaneur, and Shelmalier mines, and the Mabel Mill, from the Queensland National Bank (and later obtained the Saratoga, Duke of Edinburgh and London North mines),[72] and initiated a new era in ore and metallurgical extraction. Using British capital, Wilson introduced modern machinery to work the mines, and effectively reshaped Ravenswood’s landscape. Wilson was known as ‘the uncrowned king of Ravenswood’.[73] He was also Chairman of the Ravenswood Shire Council for some years, and was later on the Dalrymple Shire Council, until he resigned from poor health in 1934.[74]
\nFrom 1900, both the Sunset and General Grant (also known as the Grant) mines were redeveloped by Wilson. These became the key earners for the New Ravenswood Company; by 1903 the two mines employed about 205 men, and were ‘the “backbone” of [the] town’.[75]
\nThe Sunset reef, which runs roughly northwest-southeast through the Ravenswood Mining Landscape, was the largest producer on the goldfield (almost a quarter of the total). It produced 14,722oz of gold from 1870-94,[76] and by 1900 it was worked from an underlie (an inclined shaft, following the dip of a reef) branching off from a vertical shaft 130ft (40m) deep. It was stated at this time that the reef had ‘much the same history as the General Grant, the two being generally worked together’.[77] By 1903 the New Ravenswood Company had extended the underlie shaft right up to the surface,[78] where a headframe was constructed to haul ore directly up the slope. The Sunset’s yield of ‘free gold’ (pure gold not combined with other minerals), which could be extracted at the Mabel Mill, peaked in 1904, then fell slowly. In 1905 an average of 170 men were employed at the mine.[79] In 1908 the reef was being worked by the main underlie shaft, 900ft (274m) deep (Sunset No.1); and a vertical shaft, 556ft (169m) deep (Sunset No.2).[80] As the Sunset reef was worked in conjunction with the General Grant and the Duke of Edinburgh reefs in the New Ravenswood Company era, its exact total production of gold is hard to calculate; but from 1876 to 1912 the reef probably produced about 177,000oz of gold; and probably most of the 22,000oz that the company extracted from 1912-17.[81]
\nThe General Grant, one of the most productive reefs on the goldfield, running roughly north-south just east of the Sunset reef, was worked almost continuously to the late 1880s, and periodically thereafter. By 1895 returns had diminished, due to the small size of the reef and its highly refractory ore.[82] In 1900, the General Grant had a vertical shaft to 110ft (34m), and then an underlie of 610ft (186m), the bottom of the latter being 450ft (137m) below the level of the shaft mouth; but operations were ‘almost completely suspended’ as the New Ravenswood Company concentrated on the Sunset reef.[83] To 1900 the General Grant had produced 23,651oz of gold; and after crushing of ore from the mine resumed at the beginning of 1903, it was treated with ore from the Sunset. [84] On average, 40 men were employed on the mine in 1905.[85] In 1908 the power house for both the Sunset and the General Grant mines was situated on the General Grant lease, with three Cornish boilers.[86] By 1912 the General Grant had produced about 36,000oz of gold.[87]
\nTo the east of the General Grant was the Duke of Edinburgh reef, running roughly northwest-southeast. This was one of the early reefs discovered on the goldfield; and in 1872 it was identified by Warden TR Hackett as one of the 28 principal reefs.[88] It was worked in several episodes prior to the 1890s, and was re-opened in 1891, producing 1286oz of gold during 1891-95.[89] In 1908 the mine was taken over by the New Ravenswood Company, and was reorganised as an underlie shaft with haulage machinery from the Golden Hill mine, being worked in conjunction with the General Grant until 1917.[90]
\nAlong with his modernisation of the goldfield’s best mines, Wilson also abandoned chlorination at the Mabel Mill, increased the mill’s crushing capacity to 30 stamps (by 1904), and introduced the first Wilfley tables to Queensland. Crushing resumed in January 1900.[91] Wilson improved metallurgical extraction by ‘postponing amalgamation of the free gold till the great bulk of the sulphides [had] been removed by concentration’.[92] The ore was crushed in stampers without using mercury. Then, using the Wilfley tables, the heavier Galena (lead sulphide ore) and free gold was separated from the lighter sulphides. The free gold and galena was then ground in Berdan pans with mercury, while the remaining sulphides (containing iron, zinc and copper) were dispatched to the Aldershot works (near Maryborough) for smelting.[93] In 1902-3, a raff wheel, 14.5m in diameter, was built at the Mabel Mill to lift tailings (post-treatment residue) up to a flume, which carried them over to the south side of Elphinstone Creek, where they could be treated with cyanide.[94] The cyanide works (of which remnants still remain south of Elphinstone Creek) was erected c1904.[95] A 21m long girder bridge was constructed across the creek to carry steam water pipes and electric cable from the Mabel Mill to the new works, which eventually comprised two Krupp ball mills and 12 Wilfley’s tables.[96]
\nDue to the New Ravenswood Company’s efforts, the goldfield’s production increased between 1899 and 1905. Gold recovery increased from 18,016oz in 1899 to 24,832oz in 1900 and to 42,465oz in 1905.[97] The New Ravenswood Company paid impressive 50% dividends to its shareholders in 1901, 1902 and 1904; and 75% in 1903.[98]
\nThe productivity of Ravenswood’s mines during the New Ravenswood Company era was also reflected in the goldfield’s population, which rose from 3420 in 1901 to its peak of 4707 in 1903. The 1903 population included 215 Chinese, 89 of these being alluvial miners. [99] In 1905 two Chinese were listed as ‘storekeepers and grocers’.[100]
\nThe population increase led to a building boom in the first decade of the 20th century. Hundreds of new houses, the town’s first two brick hotels – the Imperial hotel [1901; QHR 600446] and the Railway Hotel [c1902; QHR 600443] – as well as brick shops such as Thorp’s Building [1903; QHR 600452], and the brick Ravenswood Ambulance Station [1904; QHR 600445] were constructed in this period; the use of brick being spurred by the threat of fire. The New Ravenswood Company also rebuilt the mining landscape in and around the town, with expansion of the Mabel Mill, and new headframes and winders, magazines, boilers and brick smokestacks erected beside all the principal shafts.[101]
\nHowever, not all Wilson’s ventures in this period were successful. In 1902 he floated Deep Mines Ltd, with a capital of £100,000,[102] to sink a shaft east of the New Ravenswood Company’s leases. This mine (also within the Ravenswood Mining Landscape) was an ambitious attempt to reach a presumed intersection of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth. Using the capital raised, Wilson built a model mine and mill. The shaft was started in late 1902-early 1903, and construction work on the buildings and machinery was completed later in 1903.[103] The mine reached 512m, the deepest on the goldfield, with extensive crosscutting and driving, but only about 240oz of gold was recovered.[104] No ore was crushed at all in 1908.[105] By 1910 a new shaft was being sunk ‘near the western boundary’; but the mine was abandoned in 1911, and never worked again.[106] Wilson’s London investors lost at least £65,000.[107]
\nThe Deep’s mill, built nearby and operational by 1906, was a smaller version of the Mabel Mill, with gravity stamps, Wilfley tables, and a cyanide plant. Its site, adjacent to the mine, ran counter to the normal practice of siting mills near water courses. With the failure of the Deep mine, it milled ore from other mines until about 1917.[108]
\nAnother mine, the Grand Junction, was located north of the New Ravenswood Company’s most productive mines, in the Ravenswood Mining Landscape. The Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company was formed in 1900, and a shaft was sunk in 1901 (probably the No.1 shaft on the Grand Junction Lease No.520). In 1902 another exploration ‘deep shaft’ (No.2) was sunk at the southwest boundary of the Grand Junction Lease No.503.[109] The Grand Junction mine was another failed attempt to locate a presumed junction of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth; by 1908 it was owned by the New Ravenswood Company.[110] Total production was about 425oz of gold.[111]
\nSlightly more successful was the Grant and Sunset Extended mine, at the southern end of the Ravenswood Mining landscape. This was a deep shaft sunk by the Grant and Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, a Charters Towers-owned company with Wilson as its local director.[112] During the 19th century, small mines had been operated in the Rob Roy reef, to the southeast.[113] The Grant and Sunset Extended was floated in 1902,[114] the intent being to locate the General Grant and Sunset reefs south of Buck Reef. The plant and buildings of the Yellow Jack mine, southeast of Ravenswood, were re-erected on the site.[115] The shaft was down 70ft (21m) in 1902 and 930ft (283m) by 1908, with 50 men employed at the mine by the later date.[116] The mine closed by 1910, but was worked on tribute until 1917, with about 15,000oz of gold obtained over 1904-18.[117]
\nThe boom period at Ravenswood did not last. As well as losing money on the Deep and Grand Junction mines, the New Ravenswood Company faced the closure of the Aldershot works in 1906, and declining yields from 1908 to 1912. Although Wilson experimented with flotation (agitating crushed ore in oil and water, and extracting fine gold particles on the surface of air bubbles) and cyanide processes at the Mabel Mill, it was too late to save his company.[118] The Shelmalier had closed by 1904, the Black Jack in 1909, and the Melaneur in 1910. By that year, the General Grant, Sunset, Duke of Edinburgh and London North (obtained 1910) were the New Ravenswood Company’s only producing mines.
\nFew new buildings were constructed in Ravenswood after 1905. The hospital closed in 1908. That year the goldfield’s population consisted of 4141 Europeans (including 2625 women and children) and 181 Chinese (including 94 alluvial miners).[119] This dropped to 2581, including 92 Chinese, by 1914.[120]
\nIncreased costs and industrial disputes in the 1910s hastened the end of the New Ravenswood Company era. During a miner’s strike between December 1912 and July 1913, over lay-offs, the fresh vegetables and business loans provided by Ravenswood’s Chinese community helped keep the town going.[121] Although the miners won, it was a hollow victory, as the company could only afford to re-employ a few of the men. World War I (1914-18) then increased labour and material costs for the New Ravenswood Company. The London North mine closed in 1915, and on 24 March 1917 the New Ravenswood Company ceased operations; ending large-scale mining in Ravenswood for the next 70 years.[122]
\nBy 1917, the Ravenswood goldfield had produced over 850,000oz of gold (nearly a quarter coming from the Sunset mine), and 1,000,000oz of silver;[123] making it the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland, after Charters Towers, Mount Morgan, Gympie and the Palmer goldfield. Ravenswood was also the second largest producer of reef gold in north Queensland, after Charters Towers.[124]
\nSmall scale mining and re-treatment (1919-60s)
\nAfter 1917 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a period of hibernation, with intermittent small-scale attempts at mining. In 1919, Ravenswood Gold Mines Ltd took over some of Wilson’s leases and renovated the Deep mine’s mill, but obtained poor returns.[125] Ravenswood Gold Mines also worked the Duke of Edinburgh from c1919 to 1930, with good returns reported in 1924.[126] The General Grant and Sunset were also worked on a small scale from 1919-21,[127] while the Mabel Mill continued to provide crushing services for the limited local mining.[128]
\nConsequently, Ravenswood’s population declined and the town shrank physically. In 1921 the town’s population fell below 1000, and by 1923 there were 530 people left, including 8 Chinese.[129] During the 1920s, prior to the closure of the railway branch line to Ravenswood in 1930,[130] hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away. By 1927, only the two brick hotels remained operating as hotels.[131] The Ravenswood Shire was abolished in 1929, and by 1934 only 357 people remained in the town.[132]
\nDespite this decline, some gold was still being extracted. There was a small increase in gold production between 1923 and 1927,[133] and due to the gold price rise of the 1930s, some mines were re-worked and efforts were also made to treat the old mullock heaps (waste rock from mining) and tailings dumps with improved cyanide processes. Between 1931 and 1942, 12,253oz of gold was obtained from the goldfield, the peak year being 1940.[134]
\nA number of companies were active in Ravenswood in the 1930s-early 1940s. In 1933, the North Queensland Gold Mining Development Company took up leases along Buck Reef and reopened the Golden Hill mine, and the following year their operations were taken over by Gold Mines of Australia Ltd. The 1870s Eureka mine (near the Imperial Hotel) was revived by James Judge in 1934.[135] In 1935 the Ravenswood Concentrates Syndicate began re-treating the Grant mullock heaps in the remaining stampers at the Mabel Mill, and dewatering the Sunset No.2 shaft; while the Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, with James Judge as manager, dewatered the Grant and Sunset Extended shafts (which connected to the Sunset, General Grant and Duke of Edinburgh shafts), and re-timbered the Grant and Sunset Extended, General Grant, and Sunset underlie (No.1) shafts.[136] The London North mine was reopened by RJ Hedlefs in 1937,[137] and Basque miners were working the Sunset No. 2 shaft at this time.[138]
\nThe Little Grand Junction mine, located at the intersection of Siggers Street and School Street, on the old Grand Junction Lease No.520,[139] was operated from 1937-1942 by local miners Henry John Bowrey and John Thomas Blackmore.[140] Five men were employed at the mine in 1940.[141] The shaft had apparently been sunk previously by the Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company; and Bowrey and Party reconditioned it and extended the existing workings.[142]
\nIn 1938, Archibald and Heuir set up a mill on the bank of One Mile Creek to treat mullock dumps, and the Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate (formed 1937, with James Judge as manager) began treating the mullock dumps of the Sunset mine in late 1938.[143] The same syndicate also dewatered and reopened part of the Grant and Sunset Extended;[144] and the Grand Junction mine was reopened by Judge c1939-1942.[145]
\nThe Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate’s (Judge’s) mill initially consisted of 10 head of stamps obtained from the Mother Lode Mill at Mount Wright (northwest of Ravenswood), powered by a diesel engine. The ore was crushed by the stamper battery, concentrated with Wilfley tables, and then either treated with cyanide or sent to the Chillagoe smelters. Initial success with some rich ore led to enlargement of the mill to 30 stamps in 1939-40.[146] A Stirling boiler and a 250hp engine were also obtained from the Burdekin meatworks (Sellheim), and a rock breaker, elevator and conveyor were installed.[147] However, the upgraded mill proved to be overpowered and required a lot of timber fuel; the brick foundations used for the machinery were not strong enough; and the best ore from the Sunset had already been treated, so the mill closed early in 1942 and the plant was moved to Cloncurry.[148]
\nAlso in 1938, Maxwell Partridge and William Ralston installed a new plant south of Elphinstone Creek, to the immediate west of the Mabel Mill’s old cyanide works, to re-treat the old tailings with cyanide. A ball mill, filter and other plant were purchased from the Golden Mile, Cracow in 1939, while later that year a suction gas engine and flotation machine were also installed.[149] This operation closed c1942,[150] and the coloured sands on the site today are residues from the flotation process: the yellow sand is from the floatation of iron pyrites; the grey sands are copper tailings; and the black material is zinc tailings.[151]
\nThere was limited activity on the goldfield in the late 1940s to early 1960s. The Empire Gold Mining Syndicate treated mullock dumps from The Irish Girl, London, and Sunset mines from 1946 to 1949, as well as some of the dumps from the Grand Junction (1947).[152] The Duke of Edinburgh mine was briefly reopened by Cuevas and Wilson in 1947, and the Cornish boilers on the site (one with the maker’s mark ‘John Danks & Son Pty Ltd makers Melbourne)[153] may relate to this (unsuccessful) operation.[154] Percy Kean reopened the Great Extended mine at Totley in 1947, and later purchased Partridge’s mill in 1951 to use it as a flotation plant to treat the silver-lead ore from Totley, adding a diesel engine, stonebreaker, Wilfley tables and classifier.[155] The Totley mines closed in 1954,[156] although the Great Extended mine was briefly sub-leased by Silver Horizons No Liability, in 1964.[157] Partridge’s mill was closed c1965.[158]
\nOther attempts were made in the early 1950s to rework old sites. A Townsville syndicate led by Leslie Cook and George Blackmore reopened the Grand Junction mine in 1951, but it soon closed.[159] James Judge also recommenced gold mining at Donnybrook, but closed in 1954;[160] while 900 tons of tailings from the Deep mine’s mill site were taken for re-treatment at Heuir’s cyanide plant in the early 1950s.[161]
\nA new industry
\nIn the 1960 and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population shrank to its nadir of about 70 people. At the same time, there was a growing nostalgic interest in old towns in Australia. In 1968 the landscape of Ravenswood was described in romantic terms: ‘Mute testimonials are the numerous mullock heaps which dot the countryside; the rusty remains of steam engines; stampers which were used to crush stone; and collapsed cyanide vats… Derelict poppet-heads…stand above deep, abandoned shafts. Colossal columns of chimney stacks rise majestically from the entanglement of rubber vines and Chinese apple trees.’[162] Some locals realised that preserving the town’s surviving historic buildings and structures was necessary to attract tourists and create a new local industry.[163]
\nFrom this time onwards the town’s mining heritage was seen as an asset. The National Trust of Queensland met with locals in 1974, and a conservation plan for the town was published in 1975. Later, the town sites of Totley and Ravenswood were both entered into the National Trust of Queensland Register. Comments from an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) trip to northern Australia in 1978 included ‘[Ravenswood]…is one of the most evocative (gold towns of Australia) and this must be preserved. A policy of “all that is necessary but as little as possible” must be strongly pursued’.[164] The increased population of north Queensland, longer paid holidays, improved roads and the rise of car ownership after World War II, all increased visitation to Ravenswood, as did the completion of a road past Ravenswood to the Burdekin Dam, in the 1980s.[165] As a result, the town and its mining landscape have been represented in brochures, art and photography. In particular, the landmark qualities of the tall brick chimneys are a distinctive feature in representations of Ravenswood.
\nModern operations
\nHowever, gold mining recommenced at Ravenswood in the 1980s, due to a rise in the gold price and the efficiencies gained from open cut mining and modern cyanide metallurgical extraction processes.[166] From 1983-86 the Northern Queensland Gold Company Ltd conducted agglomeration heap-leaching (spraying a sodium cyanide solution on previously mined material heaped on a plastic membrane), in the process removing a landmark tailings dump at King’s mine in Totley, and mullock heaps from the Grant and Sunset mines.[167] In 1987 Carpentaria Gold commenced open cut mining of the Buck reef (the Buck Reef West pit) near the old Grant and Sunset mines on the south side of the town. Later, pits were dug further east along the reef. Some underground mining was also undertaken from the Buck Reef West pit until 1993, which broke into the old workings of the General Grant, Sunset, and Duke of Edinburgh mines. The old headframe at the Grant and Sunset Extended was demolished in 1988, and replaced with a new steel headframe, which was used until 1993 and then removed.[168] The Melaneur-Shelmalier-Black Jack-Overlander reef complex, on the north side of the town, was mined as an open cut 1990-91, before being backfilled as a golf course. The Nolan’s Gully open cut commenced in 1993.[169]
\nAlthough modern mining revived the economy of the town, it did not replicate the building boom of the early 20th century.
\nThe heritage significance of Ravenswood’s surviving mining infrastructure was recognised in a 1996 Queensland Mining Heritage Places Study by Jane Lennon & Associates and Howard Pearce; and a 2000 Conservation Management Plan by Peter Bell. In 2006, the population of Ravenswood, the oldest surviving inland town in north Queensland, was 191.
The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is important in demonstrating the historical development of gold mining in Queensland. The Ravenswood goldfield (discovered 1868) was the first significant goldfield in north Queensland, the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and an Australian leader in metallurgy.
\nThe mining landscape, including the ruins of 12 mines and mills punctuated by mullock heaps, is a physical legacy of the complex and innovative history of mining in the area. It contains important surviving evidence of mining operations conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield’s most productive reefs during the boom period of the town’s prosperity (1900-08). It also retains important surviving evidence of the evolution of mining practices, in particular the range of innovative technologies developed to extract gold from sulphide, or mundic, ores.
\nThe Chinese settlement area, which dates from the 1870s to the early 20th century, is important in demonstrating Chinese involvement in the exploitation of natural resources and the evolution of mining settlements in Queensland. It retains important physical evidence of Ravenswood’s early Chinese community, including the remains of the earliest known Chinese temple in Queensland and an adjacent pig roasting oven.
|The remnants of the temple (the earliest known in Queensland) and pig roasting oven are rare surviving evidence of Ravenswood’s Chinese community, which constituted an important but little-known part of Ravenswood’s history. The temple and pig roasting oven site is a rare surviving example of the combination of these two elements in a Chinese settlement in Queensland.
|The extensive mining landscape - its surface ruins, artefact scatters, and potential alluvial and sub-surface workings - has the potential to reveal information about late 19th and early 20th century mining practices and treatment processes.
\nThe medium and high density artefact scatters, some domestic in origin and associated with evidence of habitation, have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the occupants and their material culture, and the proximity of industrial and domestic life in a remote goldfield settlement.
\nThe rare Chinese temple and oven site, and associated artefact scatters, has the potential to yield information regarding early temple and oven construction methodology, the relationship between the two elements and their function in the community.
\n|
Characterised by its broad sweeps of modified ground, and collection of ruins from diverse mining and processing practices, the Ravenswood mining landscape is an excellent example of a historical goldfield. It retains the ruins of eight mines and four mills that are collectively important in illustrating the principal characteristics of reef gold ore extraction and metallurgical extraction sites from the late 19th and early 20th century.
\nThe mine sites retain evidence of caved shafts, winding plant and engine mounts, and brick chimneys - key elements in layouts that demonstrate the ore extraction process. The mill sites retain evidence of their stamp battery and ball mill mounts, strong rooms, Wilfley table mounts, cyanide plants, settling tanks and tailings - complex assemblages that demonstrate ore crushing, concentrating, and other metallurgical processes required to extract gold from the mundic ore for which the Ravenswood goldfield was renowned.
\nThe Ravenswood Chinese settlement area is important in demonstrating the characteristics of Chinese community settlements at north Queensland goldfields. Located close to Elphinstone Creek, along which the Chinese community were active in the cultivation of fresh produce, it is a specific cultural settlement area situated on the periphery of the main retail precinct of Ravenswood. It retains the ruins of a temple and adjacent pig roasting oven – physical elements in a spatial arrangement that demonstrate the social and cultural practices of goldfield Chinese communities.
|The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area, a distinctive, heavily modified landscape punctuated by brick chimneys, mullock heaps and other remnant mining structures, is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of Queensland’s mining booms.
\nThe place expresses the complex history of mining in the area and has picturesque qualities that can be experienced from a range of vantage points. The strong visual impact of the landscape is further enhanced by its close proximity to the town and its surviving historic building stock.
\nViews of the place and in relation to the town have been represented in brochures, postcards, art and photography. In particular, the landmark qualities of the tall brick chimneys are a distinctive feature in representations of Ravenswood.
|The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area has a special association with the work of Archibald Lawrence Wilson, Ravenswood’s most notable entrepreneur, whose New Ravenswood Company is associated with the development of the gold mining industry in north Queensland, and gave significant impetus to the economic and social development of the region.
\nWilson’s involvement in raising capital in London had a significant impact on the physical appearance of the landscape through the establishment of numerous new mines and the modification of earlier mines in the early 1900s, evidence of which remains visible across the landscape.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650042,"name":"Norman Park State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"68-88 Agnew Street","suburb":"NORMAN PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-04-07","description":"Norman Park State School occupies a 1.05ha site in the Brisbane suburb of Norman Park, approximately 4km east of the CBD. Located within a suburban residential area, the school is bounded by Agnew Street to the southwest, School Street to the southeast, Hipwood Street to the northeast and residential properties to the northwest. At the core of the school is the original complex of four brick classroom blocks and one timber classroom block, constructed between 1900 and 1934. The core occupies a high point in the terrain with extensive views to the west and south. The school grounds step down via a series of retaining walls towards the bounding streets, and a playing field occupies the southeast end of the site (the lower playground). The main entrance to the grounds is via a formal pedestrian stairway on Agnew Street, with secondary entrances around the school perimeter and vehicular access provided from Hipwood Street. The school grounds are well established and contain a number of significant mature trees and landscaping features such as Depression-era retaining walls, a playing field and a school bell.
\nThe five significant classroom blocks are positioned close together and linked at their corners by verandahs and walkways. These blocks are:
\n· Block A (central block), Urban Brick School Building (1900)
\n· Block C (southwest block), Urban Brick School Building (1900)
\n· Block D (northeast block), Open-air Annexe (1915)
\n· Block B (southeast block), Depression-era Brick Addition (1934)
\n· Block E (northwest block), Depression-era Brick Addition (1934)
\nBlocks B and E, constructed in the 1930s, were designed to complement the school’s original Urban Brick School Building, of which only blocks A and C were completed in 1900. Block D is a former Open-air Annexe with semi-detached teachers room, and the only timber building of the five. All blocks are two storeys, with hipped roofs clad in corrugated metal sheeting. With the exception of Block B, which has two levels of classrooms, all blocks have open play space on the ground floor.
\nBlock A, Urban Brick School Building (1900)
\nBlock A comprises two classrooms, a northeast verandah, and two offices (formerly a hat room and teachers room), separated from the classrooms by verandah passageway. Access to the first floor is by two sets of timber stairs, located on either side of the offices.
\nThe walls are constructed from orange-red brick with buff brick banding and dark glazed bricks to arched lintels over original door and window openings and throughout the understorey. Some external walls, including the main facade, are strengthened by buttresses with bevelled tops of buff brick. The verandahs and floor and roof framing are constructed from timber. Windows have either stone or concrete sills, and windows inserted or modified from the 1930s onwards have horizontal concrete lintels.
\nThe main (southwest) facade is characterised by the double gable front of the two offices, which feature circular vents at the gable apexes. An early rainwater head survives at the gable valley, and the attached downpipe is positioned to match early photographs. Two large banks of windows on the first floor are sheltered by skillion window hoods with timber battened cheeks. Both the gable eaves and underside of window hoods are lined with V-jointed (VJ) tongue and groove (T&G) boards.
\nThe building has a combination of original and later timber-framed joinery. The windows to the first floor of the main facade comprise two rows of four original windows – the outer ones fixed and the central ones horizontally centre pivoting. A third row along the bottom (inserted in 1953) are casements and taller in proportion. A similar arrangement of sashes exists in a smaller window in the southeast wall. Windows in the side walls of the classrooms comprise two fanlights (top), three horizontally centre-pivoting windows (centre) and three casements (bottom), most with original hardware. Sashes are a combination of original fabric and later additions. Former windows in the southwest and northeast walls of the classrooms have been enclosed with brickwork, but retain their arched brick lintels and stone sills. Doors to the classrooms retain their two horizontally-pivoting fanlights.
\nThe understorey has brick arches beneath structural walls and square brick piers supporting the timber classroom floors and northeast verandah. The corners of all piers and arch are rounded. The ground is laid with bitumen. Beneath the offices are two store rooms, accessed by c1930s battened doors. These rooms retain traces of their former use as toilets, such as the concrete floor slab, timber partitions in the northwest room, and highset louvred windows in the external walls.
\nThe northeast verandah has a raked ceiling lined with VJ, T&G boards; square timber verandah posts; and a spandrel lined with vertical boards at the northwest end.
\nWhile the timber access stairs are largely modern replacements, they both retain an original timber archway with vertical batten screen above at the upper landing. The passageway running between the classrooms and offices has face brick walls and a flat ceiling lined with VJ, T&G boards.
\nThe classrooms have coved ceilings lined with VJ, T&G boards and evidence of two centrally-located circular vents (now enclosed). The masonry walls are rendered, with lines scored into the render to resemble wide skirtings. Sections of two single-skin timber partitions divide the two rooms, and contain early joinery: two three-light double-hung windows with two-light fanlights; and a two light fanlight over the door to the northwest classroom. Both rooms have timber picture rails, and the partitions have lambs tongue-profile skirtings. The offices have plaster-lined walls and flat ceilings lined with VJ, T&G boards.
\nNon-significant elements of Block A include: walkways along the northwest and southeast sides of the building; infill roofs over the access stairs and walkways; bag racks to the northeast verandah; air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; modern doors and replacement fanlights; and modern partitions and cabinetry.
\nBlock C, Urban Brick School Building (1900)
\nBlock C has the same construction method and aesthetic treatment as Block A. It comprises two former classrooms with verandahs on the southeast and northwest sides. Access is via the southeast verandah, which links to the northwest end of Block A, and a set of external stairs to the northeast corner.
\nThe northeast and southwest elevations are of face brick, with buttress supports and large windows to the classrooms on the first floor. The eaves are unlined, and the exposed rafters are notched at the ends.
\nLike Block A, the large windows are a combination of timber-framed casements, vertically centre-pivoting and top hung fanlight sashes, dating from different periods and most with original hardware. Former windows in the southeast and northwest walls have been enclosed with brickwork, but retain their arched brick lintels and stone sills. Doors in the southeast and northwest walls retain their two horizontally-pivoting fanlights and low waisted double doors, one of which has original hardware.
\nThe understorey has a bitumen ground surface and the same arrangement of brick arches and piers as beneath Block A. The southwest end is partially enclosed for staff toilets (western corner, beneath the verandah) and a store room (beneath the classroom). The store room retains traces of its former use as toilets, including the concrete floor slab, timber enclosing partitions, and highset louvred windows in walls inserted between the external arches. The store room is accessed by a timber batten gate and a pair of relocated, early panelled timber doors. The staff toilets are accessed by a braced and ledged timber board door. The layout of the toilets matches 1930s plans, however the fitout has been modernised.
\nBoth verandahs have square timber verandah posts and raked ceilings lined with VJ, T&G boards. The southeast verandah retains sections of three-rail balustrade with dowel balusters. The southern end of this verandah is enclosed. The northwest verandah is enclosed with weatherboards and timber-framed, four-light sliding sash windows. The enclosing walls are lined on the interior with VJ, T&G boards.
\nThe former classrooms (used as staff and resource rooms in 2016) have coved ceilings lined with VJ, T&G boards and the northeast room retains a circular ceiling vent with fretwork panel. The masonry walls are rendered, with lines scored into the render to resemble wide skirtings. Sections of two single-skin timber partitions divide the two rooms, and contain an early doorway with a two-light fanlight. The northeast room has timber picture rails and lambs tongue-profile skirting to the partition. The southwest room has undergone alterations, including relining of the timber partition, the installation of a suspended ceiling, and the creation of a doorway in the northwest masonry wall. The uppermost level of windows is concealed by the suspended ceiling.
\nNon-significant elements of Block C include: the suspended ceiling and modern wall linings to the staff room (former southwest classroom); air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; and modern doors, partitions and cabinetry.
\nBlock D, Open-air Annexe (1915)
\nBlock D is timber-framed, clad in timber weatherboards and stands on square brick piers. It comprises two large classrooms with an enclosed verandah along the northwest side, and a semi-detached teachers room with a hipped roof. Access is via the verandah, which links to the northeast corner of Block A, and two sets of timber stairs on the northwest side. A two storey classroom extension to the northeast end of the block (constructed 1957) is not of heritage significance.
\nThe block’s original use as an Open-air Annexe is evident in the external cladding, with the vertical timber posts of the wall structure visible between weatherboard panels. Windows in the southwest wall are 1920s timber-framed, six-light sliding sash windows with long, four-light fanlights above. Windows in the southeast wall have been replaced with c1950s timber-framed awning windows. The teachers room has sets of paired, three-light casement windows, with those on the northwest side sheltered by a timber-framed skillion hood with angled brackets and battened sides. Eaves along the southeast and southwest classroom walls and to the teachers room are unlined.
\nThe southwest side of the understorey is enclosed for girls, boys and staff toilets. Walls within the understory are timber partitions of vertical VJ boards with lattice screens above. Wall and toilet partitions at the southwest end date from the 1930s, while those at the northeast end are 1979 additions in a similar style. Exterior infill walls between piers are of concrete block with high-level louvre windows. The play space has been modified, with modern carpet lining the floor and roller doors installed between the perimeter piers so the space can be enclosed.
\nThe verandah is fully enclosed with weatherboard cladding and modern glazing, apart from a small landing at the top of the southwest staircase, where a small section of three-rail balustrade with dowel balusters survives. It retains its raked ceiling with VJ, T&G board linings. The wall between the verandah and classrooms has been largely demolished and/or reconstructed to create large openings.
\nThe classrooms retain vertical VJ, T&G board linings to the perimeter walls and sections of the former verandah wall. The central partition contains wide, folding timber doors (c1950s). The original ceiling is concealed behind a modern suspended ceiling.
\nThe teachers room has a pressed metal ceiling with square ceiling vent, and walls lined with vertical VJ, T&G boards. The location of the original door is evident in the lining of the southeast wall.
\nNon-significant elements of Block D include: a modern verandah addition to the north side of the teachers room; sun-shading screens to the southeast side; modern partitions, roller doors and floor coverings to the understorey; suspended ceilings to the classrooms; air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; and modern doors, glazing, partitions and cabinetry.
\nBlock B, Depression-era Brick Addition (1934)
\nBlock B was designed to match Block C in its size, layout, materials and aesthetic treatment. It comprises two classrooms on the first floor, with verandahs (now enclosed) on the northwest and southeast sides, and a large classroom on the ground floor with a ground floor verandah on the southeast side. The ground floor level is lower than the understory level of the other blocks, with brick retaining walls and stairs at the northern and southern ends of the block separating the southeast corner of the upper playground from the understorey level. Access to the first floor is via the northwest verandah, which links to the southeast end of Block A, and a stairwell in the northeast corner of the southeast verandahs.
\nThe building is constructed from glazed, dark red bricks, with orange brick banding and details to the southwest and northeast elevations. The verandahs are timber framed and clad in timber weatherboards. Like Block C, the end walls have shallow buttresses and the unlined eaves feature exposed rafters with notched ends. Windows in masonry walls have concrete sills and doors have horizontal concrete lintels. Windows to the enclosing verandah walls are either timber-framed, three-light casements or modern aluminium sliding windows.
\nWindows to the first floor classrooms are timber-framed and of similar proportions to Block C, with a combination of timber-framed casements, vertically centre-pivoting and top hung fanlight sashes, with original hardware. Ground floor classroom windows are three-light casements with square fanlights above, sheltered by timber-framed, skillion hoods with angled brackets.
\nA walkway beneath the northwest verandah links with the adjoining understorey areas and has a concrete floor and square brick piers with rounded edges supporting the verandah floor above.
\nThe ground floor verandah is partially enclosed with brick walls at each end, to create a hat room (now storage area) at the southwest end and enclose the timber-framed staircase at the northeast end. Timber posts with stop-chamfered edges support a weatherboard-clad panel spanning between the two walls. The verandah has a concrete floor, face brick walls, and a flat ceiling lined with VJ, T&G boards. Coat hooks attached to horizontal timber rails remain attached to walls throughout the space. Doors to the classroom are modern replacements; however, the southern doorway is an original opening with fanlight. The staircase has a timber batten balustrade and timber newel posts with angular-shaped tops.
\nThe ground floor classroom has plaster-lined walls with timber picture rails. The ceiling is spanned by two bulkheads and is lined with flat sheeting with cover strips arranged in a square pattern.
\nBoth first floor verandahs have raked ceilings lined with VJ, T&G boards, and face brick walls to the classrooms. The southeast verandah has an original store room at the northern end, accessed by a timber board door, and a 1950s storeroom in an original hat room enclosure at the southern end, accessed by a high-waisted panelled timber door. Doorways in the centre of each verandah wall retain their timber-framed fanlights, and the southeast door retains its double timber doors with original hardware. Large openings have been created in the northwest classroom walls, supported by steel beam lintels.
\nDividing the classrooms are two timber-framed, single-skin partitions clad in vertical VJ, T&G boards. Large openings have been created in both partitions, however they retain original door and window openings with fanlights above, and one panelled timber door survives in the southwest classroom. Remaining classroom walls are rendered, with timber picture rails. Ceilings are lined with flat sheeting with covered strips arranged in a square pattern, and retain lattice ceiling vent panels in the centre.
\nNon-significant elements of Block B include: metal gates to the ground floor verandah; air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; and modern doors, glazing, partitions and cabinetry.
\nBlock E, Depression-era Brick Addition (1934)
\nBlock E comprises two large classrooms on the first floor (formerly three), a southeast-facing verandah (now enclosed), and an open understory with later classroom enclosure at the southwest end. Access is via the verandah, which links to the northwest corner of Block A, a set of timber stairs at the northeast end of the verandah, and via Block F, which adjoins Block E on the northwest side.
\nConstructed from the same dark red glazed bricks as Block B, Block E is plainer in style, without buttresses or brick banding details. The verandah is timber-framed and supported on square concrete piers. Windows in masonry walls have concrete sills, and doorways and later inserted windows and doors have horizontal concrete lintels. The northern end of the verandah is partially-enclosed with brick on both levels. A southeast-facing dormer window with three window bays is located over the centre of the building.
\nClassrooms windows in the northeast and southwest walls are three-light casements with two-light fanlights above, sheltered by timber-framed, skillion hoods with angled brackets. Non-significant windows inserted in the northwest wall in c1958 include high-level louvres and large, double-hung sashes with rectangular fanlights.
\nThe understorey has a concrete floor, rendered ceiling, wide brick piers or solid walls below the classroom walls, and square concrete piers down the centre. Brick piers, buttresses and openings have rounded corners, and sections of early timber seating survive along the northwest wall. The southwest end of the space has been enclosed with modern brick infill, partitions and glazing to create a music room; and a store room has been created beneath the northeast end of the verandah.
\nThe verandah has a raked ceiling lined with VJ, T&G boards and face brick walls. A former hat room at the northeast end has been enclosed to form a store room. Three original doorways retain their fanlights, however a bank of windows has been removed to create a large opening.
\nThe classrooms have rendered walls with timber picture rails and lambs tongue-profile skirtings, and ceilings lined with flat sheeting with cover strips arranged in a square pattern. Lattice ceiling vent panels have been removed and infilled. Bulkheads indicate the location of former folding partitions between classrooms.
\nNon-significant elements of Block E include: modern partitions, infill walls and metal gates to the understorey; bag racks and aluminium windows enclosing the verandah; air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; and modern doors, glazing, partitions and cabinetry.
\nOther buildings
\nA classroom block (Block F) and a swimming pool lie to the northwest of the core complex, and a large, multi-level classroom building (Block G) and a Hall and amenities block lie to the southeast, adjacent to the playing field. None of these buildings or their connecting walkways are of heritage significance.
\nRetaining walls and stairs
\nA series of retaining walls and stairs separate the various levels of the school grounds. Along the Agnew Street boundary are c1935 cast in-situ concrete walls incorporating T-shaped formal entrance stairs near the centre and a staircase with Art Deco-style concrete archway near the southeast end, leading down to the playing field. The walls are topped by chainwire fencing and adjacent concrete spoon drains provide drainage. At the northwest end, the wall adjoins a rectangular concrete structure, formerly used as a septic tank.
\nRunning perpendicular to the base of the playing field stairs is a c1935 high, cast in-situ concrete wall that spans the width of the school grounds, separating the upper and lower playground levels. Concrete spoon drains run along the top and base of the wall, which is topped by chainwire fencing. At the northern end the wall meets a second set of concrete stairs and a stepped concrete retaining wall along the Hipwood Street boundary.
\nAround the core complex are walls and stairs constructed at different periods. Running parallel to Agnew Street in front of blocks C and A is a low wall and spoon drain at the top of a sloping bank, constructed c1935. Concrete stairs ascend this bank in line with the Agnew Street entrance stairs and the centre of Block A’s main facade. Perpendicular to the bank at the southeast end is an earlier brick retaining wall and stairs adjoining the southwest end of Block B. Matching brick retaining walls extend in an L-shape from the northeast end of Block B, ending in set of stairs. From these stairs, a c1950 stone-lined sloping bank wraps around two sides of Block D and continues along the northeast side of Block E. Concrete stairs ascend this stone bank between Blocks D and E.
\nAll other retaining walls and garden beds throughout the grounds are not of heritage significance.
\nGrounds
\nThe school grounds contain mature trees, including a large fig (possibly a weeping fig, ficus benjamina) and two camphor laurels (cinnamomum camphora) planted along the Agnew Street boundary behind the retaining wall; and a large fig and camphor laurel at the southern corner of the playing field.
\nThe playing field is a large raised and levelled platform edged by embankments and trees on the southwest, southeast and northeast sides.
\nAn old school bell is mounted on a metal pole located in a garden bed between blocks C and E. Also in this area is a memorial plaque commemorating the centenary of Norman Park State School, unveiled on 10 June 2000.
\nViews
\nDue to its high position, extensive views of suburbs to the south and west and towards the Brisbane CBD are obtained from the school grounds along Agnew Street; and to the north and northeast from the grounds along Hipwood Street. The Agnew Street entrance, flanked by mature trees which frame views towards Block A, makes an important contribution to the streetscape.
","history":"Norman Park State School (SS) opened on its present site in 1900 due to population growth in and near the Brisbane suburb of Norman Park. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. In 2017 Norman Park SS retains its core complex of five buildings: Blocks A and C (Urban Brick School Building, 1900); Block D (Open-air Annexe, 1915); and Blocks B and E (Depression-era brick additions, 1934). The school grounds also retain brick and concrete retaining walls, stairs and fences (1930s, 1950s); a playing field and mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment.
\nThe suburb of Norman Park lies adjacent to the Brisbane River and east of Norman Creek, which was first bridged in the late 1850s. Part of the traditional lands of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples, the area was settled for farming from the 1850s, and in the 1870s it was a popular picnic spot. In 1886 the Queensland Deposit Bank and Building Society Limited purchased the land on which Norman Park SS was later built, and subdivided it as part the Norman Park Estate. Although estate subdivisions were sold off from March 1887, the suburb remained sparsely populated until the interwar period, when stormwater drainage of low-lying flood prone areas was commenced. By 1935 about 35% of land blocks were occupied.[1]
\nDevelopment of the Norman Park Estate was assisted by improvements in transport. The Cleveland railway line, opened in 1889, passed through the suburb; while the Belmont tramway, opened in 1912, branched off the Cleveland line north of the Norman Park railway station. In 1903 a replacement bridge over Norman Creek allowed a new tramline to run along Wynnum Road (then called New Cleveland Road) to a terminus east of Norman Creek. This tramline was extended towards Morningside in 1924.[2]
\nAlthough development of Norman Park was slow initially, there was sufficient population in the area by the late 1890s to lead to pressure for a school. At that time the nearest state schools were at Kangaroo Point and Bulimba, a considerable distance away.[3] The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[4]
\nA Norman Park school building committee was formed at a public meeting on 11 June 1897, and an application for a state school was made on 2 September 1897. The site proposed for the new school was on ‘a dry ridge’ between Hipwood and Agnew streets. On 9 December 1898, the Secretary for Public Instruction approved establishment of the school, so long as the site could be purchased at a reasonable price. The initial school reserve (R.872) consisted of 22 subdivisions, totalling 2 acres and 32.4 perches (0.9ha). The land was purchased by the Secretary for Public Instruction in early 1899 for a discounted price (£660 instead of £940), which the estate owners accepted due to the likely improvement in value of the surrounding land that a new school would bring.[5]
\nInstead of a standard timber school, Norman Park’s school building committee requested a brick school, on the same terms as East Brisbane State School; which involved a one-sixth contribution by the community to the building cost. In April 1899 the Works Department presented estimates for the school in either brick or timber, and the building committee again chose brick. Tenders were called, and in November 1899 the tender of Charles Miller, for £2023 and 14s was accepted, with the school, a teacher’s residence, fencing and gates to be completed in five months.[6]
\nThe Urban Brick School Building constructed at Norman Park was individually designed by the Department of Public Works. Brick school buildings were far less frequently built than timber ones, being only provided in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly-increasing populations. All brick school buildings were individually designed with variations in style, size, and form, but generally retained similar classroom sizes, layouts and window arrangements to timber schools to facilitate natural light and ventilation. However, compared to contemporary standard education buildings, these buildings had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.[7]
\nAs shown on an April 1899 plan, the Urban Brick School Building comprised two blocks (Blocks A and C in 2017) linked at right angles, with a third, unbuilt block intended to complete a U-shaped arrangement in future. Each block contained a single large classroom, 40ft by 24ft (12.1m x 7.3m), with 10ft (3m) wide verandahs on each side. A hat/cloak room and teachers room, both measuring 20ft by 13ft 6 inches (6.1m x 4.1m), projected towards Agnew Street off the southeast block’s verandah, with entrance stairs on either side. The open understory had space for play areas, tanks and lavatories. The completed school could accommodate 305 pupils, with 120 in each classroom; 50 on the L-shaped verandah, and 15 in the teachers room.[8]
\nExternally, the red, face brick walls were relieved by light brick banding and dark brick arches and lintels. Verandahs and landings were of timber and protected by lattice screens. Windows were generally pivot-hung sash windows, with those to the teachers room and hat room sheltered by hoods with decorative timber struts. The gabled and hipped roofs were sheeted with corrugated iron and had ventilation fleches. According to the Public Works Annual Report of 1901 the school was constructed on similar lines to New Farm and East Brisbane state schools.[9]
\nA school residence was located in the centre of the school grounds, facing Hipwood Street, backing onto two unpurchased subdivisions facing Agnew Street. This meant that the school grounds were effectively cut in half. Boys and girls toilets were located alongside the northwest boundary of the school, behind the classrooms.[10]
\nThe completed school was opened on 7 July 1900 by the Minister for Education, JG Drake. It was reported that the school was ‘grandly situated on the summit of a hill, and though its immediate surroundings are in the bush, it commands a populous and growing neighbourhood’. The total cost was £2723 16s, with local residents to pay £493 1s 11d. The initial enrolment of 52 students grew to 174 by September 1900.[11]
\nIn May 1908 a tree planting day was held at the school to celebrate Arbor Day, during which Mr JD Story (Under Secretary for Public Instruction) expressed his pleasure that an attempt was being made to beautify the ‘naturally magnificent’ school site. An important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools, and Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline and developed aesthetic tastes.[12]
\nIn 1914 the school finally obtained the two subdivisions in the middle of the school reserve. Enrolments had reached 330, with settlement in the district growing rapidly. [13]
\nTo accommodate a class for infants, an Open-air Annexe (Block D in 2017) was added to the school in 1915, connected to the northeast verandah of Block A. Open-air Annexes were introduced as a standard design in 1914 in response to contemporary medical theories related to the need for high levels of natural ventilation and light for health. [14] The Open-air Annexe type was developed in metropolitan areas and built as an addition to existing school complexes to relieve overcrowded classrooms. It comprised a timber building with one solid wall (the western verandah wall) and three open sides enclosed only by adjustable canvas blinds. Ideally, they were highset, to increase ventilation and provide shelter underneath. By the 1920s Open-air Annexes had proved to be inadequate as the open sides provided limited weather protection and climate control, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. As a final refinement of the design, canvas blinds were replaced by sliding sash windows in new and existing open-air schools and annexes throughout Queensland. Use of the Open-Air Annexe type was discontinued from 1923.[15]
\nThe Open-air Annexe at Norman Park was constructed by FJ Corbett for a contract price of £739. It was a standard design with three open sides, and it was positioned at the northeast corner of the Urban Brick School Building where there was sufficient space for the length of the building and the northwest-facing verandah could accommodate a semi-detached teachers room. The single classroom measured 51ft by 25ft (15.5m by 7.6m), with seating for 70 students, and had a coved ceiling sheeted with pressed metal. The verandah was 10ft (3m) wide, with a semi-enclosed hat room at the northern end. The teachers room measured 15ft by 12ft (4.6m by 3.7m), with stairs on either side. The building stood on brick piers, with a concreted play space underneath.[16]
\nBlock D was opened on Saturday 16 October 1915 by the Minister for Public Instruction, HF Hardacre. As with other Open-air Annexes, the blinds were replaced with sliding sash windows and boarding c1922, due to complaints from teachers and parents about children being exposed to bad weather and unable to see their work when the blinds were closed.[17]
\nIn the 1920s there was concern about a lack of level parade ground space behind the Urban Brick School Building.[18] In 1929, 32 perches (0.08ha) of additional land was acquired at the northwest corner of the school reserve, allowing the toilets to be relocated there.[19] A basketball court had been built at the corner of Hipwood and School streets by June 1923. By 1925 there was an average of nearly 600 children attending the school, as the extension of tram lines through Norman Park had ‘caused a large number of people to build in the vicinity of the school’.[20]
\nMajor ground improvements and extra accommodation were provided at Norman Park SS during the 1930s, due to the pressure of overcrowding (630 enrolled in 1932) and an increase in government spending.[21] The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. Even before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings and grounds improvement works.[22] Extensive funding was given for improvements, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls.[23] In June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power and embarked on a large public building program that included new buildings or additions at schools.[24]
\nDepression-era work at Norman Park SS included the construction of new toilets in 1932, located beneath Block C (girls and female teachers), Block A (infant girls and boys and male teachers) and Block D (boys). The toilets were enclosed externally by infill walls and high-level louvre windows, and timber partitions internally. A tall, concrete septic tank was constructed in the western corner of the grounds and was operational by 1 January 1933. However, the tank was decommissioned after sewerage lines were connected to the school c1937.[25]
\nTwo new brick blocks (Blocks B and E in 2017), sympathetic in design to the 1900 Urban Brick School Building, were also added to the school and opened on 28 July 1934.[26] Block B was connected to the southeast end of Block A and featured decorative details to match Block C. It contained two classrooms on the first floor and one double classroom on the ground floor. The first floor had verandahs on the northwest and southeast sides, and a stairwell at the northeast corner led down to a ground floor verandah on the southeast side. Block E, which was highset with understorey play space, was connected to the northwest corner of Block A. It had three classrooms separated by folding partitions, and a southeast-facing verandah with a semi-enclosed hat room at the north end. Both blocks had hipped roofs of corrugated iron; Block B had a roof fleche and Block E had a dormer window over its central classroom.[27]
\nFurther classrooms were created by dividing the original classrooms in Blocks A and C with new central passageways linking the verandahs. Windows were also modified to comply with the new ideal of providing natural lighting for students on their left hand side. Windows to the verandahs of Blocks A and C were bricked up and additional windows inserted in the end elevations of both blocks. The school now consisted of five connected blocks – four brick and one timber – containing 11 classrooms. [28]
\nWorks to the upper school grounds during the Depression-era improved circulation and stabilised the steep site. Brick retaining walls and concrete steps were built to the north and south of Block B c1933-4. The school residence was removed at this time.[29]
\nIn late-1935 a high retaining wall was built along Agnew Street, with a T-shaped set of entrance stairs aligned with the front of Block A. In addition, a high retaining wall between the upper (northwest) and lower (southeast) sections of the school grounds was added at this time, with stairs at the Agnew Street and Hipwood Street ends. Low, stepped concrete walls were also added along Agnew Street, southeast of the high retaining wall, and along Hipwood Street. All 1935 retaining walls were of cast in-situ concrete and topped with chain wire fences. Between the Agnew Street retaining wall and the school buildings, a sloping bank was added, topped with a surface drain and a two-rail steel fence and ascended by centrally placed stairs.[30]
\nMost non-military building work in Queensland ceased during World War II (WWII), but air raid shelters (slit trenches) were dug at Norman Park SS in 1942 on the lower playground. At this time there was also a tennis court on the lower playground, on the Agnew Street frontage adjacent to the retaining wall. [31]
\nThe lower grounds remained roughly landscaped, with eroded banks and collapsing timber fences, until at least 1949-50. At this time it was proposed to grade the slopes to the streets and fence the playground. A battered (sloped) wall of stones set in concrete was constructed below the southeast and northeast elevations of Block D; and by 1957 the concrete wall along Hipwood Street had been extended to the northwest, past a vehicle entrance, to incorporate a pedestrian entrance and steps.[32]
\nChanges to the school buildings in the 1950s improved natural lighting and increased classroom numbers and storage space. The former cloakroom and head teachers room on the southwest side of Block A became staffrooms in 1953, at which time casement windows were inserted below the original pivot windows to improve natural lighting. A storeroom was enclosed at the south end of the first floor southeast verandah of Block B that year. In 1954 the northwest verandah of Block C was enclosed with sliding sash windows to create a library; the ground floor classroom of Block B was partitioned to form two rooms; and Block D’s classroom was partitioned with folding doors. A two-level addition, with a classroom at each level, was made to the northeast end of Block D in c1957; and two highset classrooms (Block F in 2017) were added to the west of Block E in c1958.[33]
\nAdditions and changes to the school were also made from the 1960s to the 1980s. A swimming pool was built in the northwest corner of the school and officially opened 31 October 1964. A retaining wall was built nearby in c1969. By May 1969 enrolments had dropped to 315 pupils due to the transfer of Grade 8 to high school (1964), and the opening of Seven Hills State School in 1960.[34]
\nBy 1975 further verandah enclosures had taken place at the south end of Block C’s southeast verandah and the south end of Block B’s northwest verandah. In 1977 the southwest classroom of Block C was modified to accommodate a speech therapy resources room. In 1979 the toilets under Block D were extended to the northeast, resulting in the 1930s toilets beneath blocks A and C being converted into store rooms. In 1980 Block B’s first floor southeast verandah was enclosed, and by 1989 an external walkway existed along the northwest side of Block A.[35]
\nChanges after 1990 included the painting of a mural on the Agnew Street retaining wall in 1997, and a major refurbishment of Block D’s interior in 1998, including the enclosure of the verandah and new large openings in the classroom walls.[36] A new building (Block G in 2017) was added to the lower playground in 2004-5, on the site of the tennis courts, and the hall northeast of Block G was constructed between 2009 and 2011.[37]
\nThe school celebrated its centenary in 2000, with the publication of a school history, and the creation of a Centenary Garden. In 2017, the school retains its early complex of five classroom blocks and its Depression-era retaining walls, fences and steps, set within landscaped grounds with mature shade trees. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community where generations of students have been taught.
\n
Norman Park State School (established in 1900) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Urban Brick School Building (1900) represents the culmination of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size and elevation by the Department of Public Works (DPW), and also demonstrates the growing preference in the early 20th century for constructing brick school buildings at metropolitan schools in developing suburbs. The changes to the window arrangements in c1934, which allowed natural left hand lighting of newly formed classrooms, were a result of changing educational philosophies at that time.
\nThe Open-air Annexe (1915) demonstrates the medical and educational theories of the period, which valued fresh air and natural light; and is important in demonstrating the development pattern of incorporating open-air classrooms into existing school complexes. The enclosure of the annexe in the 1920s demonstrates the final adaptions to the open-air classroom type to improve its functionality.
\nThe Depression-era additions (1934) and the brick and concrete retaining walls and steps (1935) are the result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe large, suburban site with mature trees and a playing field demonstrates educational policies which promoted the importance of play and a beautiful environment in the education of children.
|Norman Park State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees and assembly and play areas; and teaching buildings of standard and individual designs by the Department of Public Works that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation. The school is an excellent, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising a range of building types dating from 1900 to 1934 and incorporating later alterations.
\nThe Urban Brick School Building (1900, Blocks A and C) is an excellent, intact example of an individually-designed Urban Brick School Building. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of these buildings through its highset form; linear layout, with classrooms and teachers rooms accessed by verandahs; undercrofts or understoreys used as open play spaces; and loadbearing, masonry construction, supported by face brick piers and arches. It also demonstrates the use, by Urban Brick School Buildings, of stylistic features characteristic of their era, which determined their roof forms, decorative treatment and joinery. Typically, Urban Brick School Buildings are located in suburban areas that were growing at the time of their construction.
\nThe Open-air Annexe (1915, Block D) retains its highset, timber-framed structure; sections of 1920s infill glazing; classroom width; northwest verandah (now enclosed); and intact, semi-detached teachers room.
\nThe Depression-era additions (1934, Blocks B and E) are individually-designed masonry classroom blocks designed to complement the aesthetic of the Urban Brick School Building and complete the school’s symmetrical layout. They demonstrate the principal characteristics of Depression-era brick school buildings through their two storey form; high-quality design and materials; face brick exterior; and linear layout of classrooms, accessed by verandahs.
|The early 20th century core of Norman Park State School has aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes as a well-composed complex of buildings unified by their consistent form, scale and materials. The symmetrical layout of these buildings remains intact and demonstrates a continuation of site planning ideals initiated by the siting of the original Urban Brick School Building in a prominent, central position at the top of the sloping grounds. The individually-designed brick school buildings have considerable architectural value for their high-quality materials and decorative features. The core's setting is beautified by mature trees and formal landscaping elements such as retaining walls and stairs.
\nThe school is significant for its contribution to the Agnew Street streetscape. Standing on an elevated site, with the main façade framed by mature trees and accessed via a sequence of formal entrance stairs, the school is an attractive and prominent feature of the area. Extensive views of the surrounding suburbs and of the Brisbane CBD are obtained from the school grounds.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically have significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nNorman Park State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established in 1900 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Norman Park children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its suburban district and is a prominent community focal point.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650043,"name":"New Farm State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cnr James & Heal Streets","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-04-28","description":"New Farm State School occupies a 1.25ha site in a residential area of the suburb of New Farm, approximately 2km northeast of the Brisbane CBD. The school occupies a levelled site on formerly steeply-sloping terrain, and is primarily accessed from Heal Street to the northwest. It is bounded on other sides by James Street to the southwest, Annie Street to the southeast, Kingsholme Street to the northeast, and is bordered by residential properties to the southeast and northeast. A cul-de-sac terminating Hawthorne Street to the southeast provides a secondary access point to the grounds. The school comprises a small complex of buildings, with the most prominent being an Urban Brick School Building (Block A, 1901, extended 1908-09 and 1939) at the western corner of the site, fronting Heal Street. To the southeast of this is an Open Air Annexe (Block B, 1919, extended 1972). The school grounds are well established and contain mature trees and landscaping features, such as pre-1940 retaining walls, a playing field, a school bell and various early furniture items.
\nUrban Brick School Building (Block A, established 1901; northeast and southwest wings extended 1908-09; second storey addition to central and southwest wings 1939)
\nThe Urban Brick School Building is a substantial timber and masonry structure, comprising three wings in a U-shape configuration around a central teachers room and small courtyard. The main northwest (central) wing fronts Heal Street, and is linked at its southern and eastern corners to the other two wings, which extend in a south-easterly direction. The central and southwest wings have two storeys of classrooms and the northeast wing has a single storey. All wings have an undercroft, which contains largely open play space. The building is constructed of load-bearing, red face brick walls laid in a Flemish bond; and features contrasting bands and voussoirs of a lighter, cream-coloured face brick.
\nThe Dutch-gable roofs of each wing are clad in corrugated metal sheeting and have ventilated gablets. Two sets of dormer windows are located in the north-facing roof plane of the northeast wing. The central wing features a prominent roof fleche in the centre of the roof, in the form of an octagonal ogee roof supported by miniature columns and topped by a finial. Most soffits are lined with v-jointed (VJ) timber boards.
\nEach wing has verandahs on their inward and outward-facing sides. The connected inward-facing verandahs provide access to the classrooms and circulation between the wings. Vertical circulation is provided by several sets of stairs of various dates, which are generally connected to or located within the verandahs. Early stairs and stair configurations include external timber staircases at each end of the inward-facing verandah of the central wing (by 1938), and an internal concrete staircase at the eastern corner of the southwest wing (1938).
\nMost inward-facing verandahs have square timber posts with timber post and rail balustrades, and timber and concrete floors. The first floor verandahs have flat, corrugated metal-lined ceilings, except for the northeast wing which has exposed decorative rafters and timber beaded board ceilings. The second floor verandahs have raked ceilings lined with timber beaded boards. All outward-facing verandahs have been enclosed with timber weatherboards, flat metal sheeting and louvre windows (c1970s). Non-significant elements of the verandahs include modern floor linings and the 1970s verandah enclosures.
\nThe undercroft level is largely open play space and features semi-circular brick arches and columns, all with rounded corners to above head-height. The floors are concrete slabs. The central wing undercroft has been enclosed to form a classroom/teaching space and toilets, with some early timber infill partitions and windows surviving within arches along the northwest side and enclosing the toilets. Sections of the northeast and southwest wings have been enclosed to form a tuckshop and storage spaces, with some early timber partitions surviving. Recent partitions and roller doors in the undercroft are not of heritage significance.
\nThe first floor internal layout is symmetrical, and the second floor layout of the central and southwest wings essentially mirrors the first floor below. The central wing comprises two classrooms on each level, bookended by former hat and cloak rooms (the northeast rooms have been converted into a stairwell, the southwest rooms are used as office/teachers rooms). The first and second floor teachers rooms, which project into the central courtyard, remain intact, and an early sink is located on the verandah wall of the first floor teachers room. The two southwest wing levels comprise two classrooms at the northwest end, separated from a third classroom at the southeast end by a hallway (former hat and cloak room) linking the inward and outward-facing verandahs. Modifications to the second floor level of this wing include the removal of the southeast wall of the hallway (to create a larger classroom) and removal of sections of the southwest verandah wall. The northeast wing contains a large room (used as a library in 2017) at the northwest end, and a southwest classroom that incorporates the former hallway space (which has had its southeast wall removed).
\nMost internal spaces have plastered walls with VJ timber-clad interior partitions and timber picture rails. The ceilings of the first floor classrooms are flat and lined with flat sheeting with painted timber battens. Bulkheads are exposed within the classrooms, and the northeast wing features decorative ceiling roses. The second floor ceilings are generally coved, with the exception of the teachers room which is flat, and are lined with beaded timber boards.
\nMost early timber joinery survives, including: double-hung sashes with awning fanlights to verandahs; casements with awning fanlights to gable end walls; casements to stairwells; arched windows to the undercroft of the central wing; dormer windows to the northeast wing; panelled double doors with stop-chamfered detailing and awning fanlights above (many retaining early hardware); panelled, folding timber door partitions between some classrooms in the central and southwest wings; and half-glazed partitions within the southwest wing. Most windows have wide concrete sills and lintels. Timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad window hoods shelter windows on the southeast elevations of the northeast and southwest wings. Tall window openings on the southeast elevation of the northeast wing have had their sashes replaced.
\nEarly timber furniture and honour boards are retained within the building, including: a silky oak memorial cupboard dedicated to FJB Marin (Head Teacher 1922-23), a silky oak medicine cabinet and an early safe within the teachers room, various honour boards (with the earliest dating back to 1901), and an early metal school bell on the southwestern verandah of the eastern wing. A foundation stone plaque is set into the northwest end wall of the northeast wing.
\nOpen-air Annexe (Block B; 1919, extended 1972)
\nThe Open-air Annexe is a highset, timber-framed building, located southeast of Block A and orientated perpendicular to James Street. It stands on tall brick piers and is clad in weatherboards. Both the Dutch-gable main roof and smaller gable roof over the teachers room (extended 1972), which projects from the centre of the northwest elevation, are clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The gablets feature louvered timber vents and the gable end of the teachers room has decorative batten infill attached to the bargeboards. The soffits are lined in flat sheeting. An enclosed verandah runs along the northwest side of the building, accessed via timber stairs on either side of the teachers room. Weatherboard cladding and banks of timber-framed louvre windows (1972) enclose former large openings in the northeast, southeast and southwest walls.
\nThe undercroft of the building is largely open play space, with some recent enclosures forming storage spaces and offices. It has a concrete slab floor and the floor framing of the storey above is exposed. The piers are constructed from variegated face brick, and those supporting the addition to the teachers room are of orange brick. All recent undercroft enclosures, including timber battened screens, are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe verandah has a raked, VJ timber board-lined ceiling (which flattens adjacent the teachers room); square timber posts; and timber floors. The verandah wall is single-skin with externally-exposed timber stud-framing and lined internally with tongue-and-groove (T&G), VJ timber boards. Hinged ventilation boards survive at the base of verandah walls. At the ends of the verandah are former hat rooms which have been enclosed by partition walls to form a store room (northeast end) and an entry to a classroom (southwest end). Non-significant elements of the verandah include modern linoleum floor linings; added partitions, and bag racks and louvres enclosing the verandah.
\nThe teachers room is accessed from the verandah and contains a single room. The walls and flat ceiling are lined in VJ timber boards. The former location of the northwestern end wall (prior to the 1972 extension) is clearly identifiable through a break in the ceiling lining.
\nThe main interior is divided by recent partitions into four classrooms (formerly two). The classroom spaces feature coved ceilings lined in VJ timber boards, exposed metal tie rods, and timber floors. Most walls are lined in VJ timber boards, although the lower sections of the northeast, southeast and southwest walls are lined in flat sheeting (indicating the extent of former openings).
\nSurviving timber joinery within the building includes: double-hung sash windows with centre-pivoting fanlights to the verandah wall; high-level and wide centre-pivoting windows to the verandah wall; and casement windows to the northwest and southwest elevations of the teachers room. Corrugated metal-clad, timber-framed window hoods with decorative cheeks shelter the windows to the teachers room, and a panelled timber door to the teachers room has been retained.
\nNon-significant elements of the interior include the partitions (including folding doors) between classrooms, and modern louvre windows, doors, and carpet and wall linings.
\nWorld War I Memorial (1923)
\nA concrete and brick World War I (WWI) Memorial stands in the western corner of the site on a circular concrete slab. The memorial comprises a square, red brick pillar with a white-painted concrete cap topped by a metal flagpole. The pillar cap has the words ‘IN LOVING MEMORY OF SCHOLARS WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR’ marked in black lettering around the sides. Fixed to the pillar on the eastern and western sides are marble tablets, inscribed with the names of New Farm State School students who died during WWI. Stone laurel wreaths adorn the northern and southern sides. Extending from all four sides of the pillar are low brick plinths capped with concrete, which are aligned with the cardinal points. A small concrete and sandstone plaque in between the southern and western plinths is a recent addition. A surrounding open lawn area, edged by gardens and trees, forms an attractive setting for the memorial.
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well established and include mature trees and early retaining walls (pre-1940). Due to its elevation, the James Street side of the site has impressive views toward Brisbane City.
\nSeveral mature figs (Ficus sp.) and camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) stand between the Open-air Annexe and James Street, and at the western end of the Heal Street boundary.
\nPre-1940 retaining walls which stand: to the southeast of the Open Air Annexe (1931); northeast of the Urban Brick School Building, along the Heal Street boundary and the former Hawthorne Street boundary (1935); and along the James Street boundary adjacent to the former tennis court site, are concrete. Other retaining walls constructed from cut stone, stone blocks and concrete are located along the James Street and Heal Street boundaries.
\nNon-Significant Elements
\nA swimming pool southeast of the Open-air Annexe; playing field northeast of the Urban Brick School Building; preschool southeast of the swimming pool; and all other buildings, structures and pathways within the heritage boundary are not of heritage significance.
","history":"Located two kilometres northeast of the Brisbane CBD, New Farm State School was established in 1901 to meet the educational needs of the growing suburban community. It retains an Urban Brick School Building (1901, extended 1909, 1939); an Open-air Annexe (1919); and a World War I Memorial (1923); set in landscaped grounds, with sporting facilities; early retaining walls (pre-1940) and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the New Farm community.
\nOriginally the lands of the Turrbul and Jagera people, European settlement began at New Farm when a farm was established to supply the convict settlement founded on the present site of the Brisbane CBD in 1825. In October 1843, after the convict settlement closed, Government surveyor Henry Wade began surveying the land between Fortitude Valley and the Brisbane River into large allotments. Following their sale from 1844, residences were established. Subdivision into smaller allotments occurred in the 1880s when Brisbane’s population more than doubled due to immigration.[1]
\nThe need for a state school at New Farm resulted from extensive urbanisation and population growth in the area in the final decades of the 19th century. Improved transportation with the opening of an electric tramline down Brunswick Street in 1897, and industrial development, such as the CSR Refinery (QHR600261) in 1893 and the first Teneriffe Wharf in 1907, made New Farm a popular residential area.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nIn 1899, the Department of Public Instruction approved a request for the establishment of a school at New Farm, for which residents agreed to contribute one sixth of the cost of the erection of the new state school. Acting on the Department’s behalf, the chairman of the New Farm State School Building Committee, businessman Thomas Welsby, secured land for the school site from a number of owners, at a cost of £1087.[4]
\nPlans were approved in 1900 and the contractor, Thomas Hirons, commenced work in May 1900. The foundation stone was laid on 7 July 1900 by the Minister for Public Instruction, the Hon. James G Drake. The total cost of buildings, fencing and interest amounted to £3,571, of which parents contributed £634.[5]
\nNew Farm State School’s 0.8ha site comprised eight allotments, giving a 80.5m frontage to Heal Street and 28.7m frontages to Hawthorne and James streets. From Hawthorne Street to James Street the site fell 6.1m. Designed to accommodate 392 pupils, the Urban Brick School Building (now called Block A) had a U-shaped layout; comprised three large classrooms, measuring 7.3x12.2m with 4.9m ceilings, and 3m verandahs on all sides; with an adjacent 3x2.7m cloakroom; and a room for the Head Teacher. The rolled, galvanised-iron roof incorporated Boyles patent roof ventilators with specially made external casings. The rooms were accessed via stairs on each side of the building. The undercroft, comprising buff-coloured bull-nosed brick pillars and semi-circular arches with an asphalted floor, provided wet-weather play space.[6]
\nIn the first decades of the 20th century the Queensland Government implemented a campaign of construction of large public buildings. This included substantial brick or timber school buildings. Brick school buildings were far less frequently built than those of timber – being only used in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly increasing populations. Like Queensland’s private schools, technical colleges and schools of arts, all brick school buildings were individually designed with variation in style, size, and form. They were given generous budgets, resulting in impressive edifices. Light and ventilation was still a primary concern for the architects but, compared to contemporary standard education buildings, they had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.[7]
\nNew Farm State School commenced on its current site in January 1901, with 582 pupils enrolled. It was officially opened on 21 January 1901 with: the Chief Justice, Sir Samuel Griffith; the Minister for Education, the Hon. James G Drake; the Hon. John McMaster; the Under Secretary for Public Instruction, John G Anderson; Chief Inspector, David Ewart; Chairman of the school committee, Thomas Welsby; all committee members; Head Teacher, Arthur Outridge; and a large number of local children and parents in attendance.[8]
\nHowever, the school building was inadequate to accommodate the immediate school population, which reached 650 by 1903. Consequently, classes were held on the verandahs and under the school building. To address the need for larger play grounds, two adjoining 16-perch allotments were purchased in 1905. For some years this area was used as a rifle range by the school cadets.
\nAn additional classroom was added to the eastern end of both the northeastern and southwestern wings of the building in 1909, at a cost of £1,189. These extensions were designed to match the existing structure, being red brick with stone and buff dressings. Each comprised a 24x24ft (7.3x7.3m) classroom with 10ft (3m) verandahs. A plan dated September 1912 detailed alterations to undercroft archway enclosures, including new sashes, six-light casements and part-glazed double doors, which were part of improvements, repairs and internal painting to ‘basement’ classrooms.[9]
\nAs enrolments climbed sharply to 918 pupils in 1917, the need arose for a dedicated infants school to overcome overcrowding. This was achieved with the building of an Open-air Annexe (now called Block B) in 1918-19, after two adjacent allotments with residences were purchased for £1200 to provide sufficient grounds. The Open-air Annexe, constructed at a cost of £1,813, was opened on 15 February 1919 by the Minister for Education, Herbert F Hardacre. The building was positioned to the southeast of the Urban Brick School Building. Set on brick piers, the highset timber building contained two large classrooms, a verandah to the northwest and an attached teachers room. It had a Dutch gable roof of asbestos slates. Its southeastern, southwestern and northeastern sides were open above balustrade level, and the posts and valances to those elevations were of decorative timber.[10]
\nOpen-air Annexes were introduced as a standard design in 1913 by the Department of Public Works.[11] This design was developed in response to the contemporary medical belief that adequate ventilation and high levels of natural light were needed for health; coupled with the need to build cheap, portable schools. The Open-air Annexe type achieved maximum ventilation and natural light. It contained one large room with only one wall, the western verandah wall. The other sides were open, with only adjustable canvas blinds for enclosure. Ideally, they were high-set, thereby increasing the ventilation and providing further shelter underneath.[12]
\nMany Open-air Annexes were constructed across Queensland, but they proved to be inadequate and were discontinued in 1923. The open sides provided limited weather protection and climate control, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. All Open-air Annexes in Queensland were modified to provide better enclosure.[13] Accordingly, the blinds of New Farm State School’s Open-air Annexe were replaced by sliding sash windows in 1924.[14]
\nA memorial to commemorate the 24 former New Farm State School students who had died during World War I, was organised by the school community and unveiled by the Governor of Queensland, Sir Matthew Nathan, on 2 February 1923. Located in the southwest corner of the school grounds, the memorial comprised a red face brick pillar with a concrete cap, upon which a flag pole was fixed. On two sides of the pillar were marble tablets inscribed with the names of the students who died during World War I; with stone laurel wreaths on the other sides. Radiating out from the column were four face brick plinths, aligned with the cardinal points and set at a lower height to the pillar. Into each, a drinking fountain and basin was set. The memorial was erected by Lowther and Sons, Monumental Masons, of Brisbane.[15]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890 with trees and gardens planted to shade and beautify schools. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[16] At New Farm State School, a tennis court was constructed in the southeast corner of the school grounds by September 1928. By 1931 a retaining wall at the eastern boundary had been erected and in 1935 retaining walls and fences were erected along the Hawthorne and Heal Streets’ boundary. Other early retaining walls were erected in the school grounds before 1940, such as those adjacent to the tennis court. By 1936 trees were planted to the west of the tennis court and along the southwest boundary of the school grounds, facing James and Heal Streets.[17]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.[18]
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government had initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work programme by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings. By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme. Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element. At New Farm State School, relief workers dug rock from the Hawthorne Street side of the grounds to create a level play area for the children c1931.[19]
\nIn 1939 further additions to the school were made to accommodate the growing student population. A second storey was added to the northwest and southwest wings of the Urban Brick School Building, comprising five classrooms with adjacent hat and cloak rooms. A new teachers room on the first floor and head teachers room on the ground floor were also constructed. Lighting and ventilation was improved as windows, fanlights and doors were altered or replaced. A larger play space was created when the entire understory was cleared of walls and partitions, with the exception of the girls’ lavatory. The total cost of this work was £5430.[20]
\nLike many Queensland state schools, New Farm was affected by World War II (WWII). The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. Major alterations, renovations and additions to most schools in Queensland halted and New Farm State School undertook only necessary maintenance until the war ended in 1945.[21]
\nThe post-WWII period was a time of enormous population growth Australia-wide and was accompanied by a shortage of building materials. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the exponential demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended. At New Farm State School the two classrooms of the Open-air Annexe were divided into four and its windows were altered to include fixed panels and casements in 1949. A tuckshop and a library were also created within the existing Urban Brick School Building in the 1950s. In 1958, folding partitions were installed in three classrooms in the southwest wing to provide a space for school assemblies.[22]
\nFundraising by parents and friends of the school resulted in the building of a swimming pool, sited southeast of the Open-air Annexe, which opened on 29 October 1966.[23]
\nThe Urban Brick School Building was altered during the 1970s. The outer verandahs of all three wings were enclosed with flat sheeting, louvres and sliding windows: beginning with the southwest wing in 1971; followed by the northeast wing in 1977; and finally the northwest wing in 1979.[24]
\nOther alterations at the school included the renovation and re-roofing of the Open-air Annexe in 1972. The largest addition to the school was the construction of a pre-school, sited on the corner of Annie and Hawthorne Streets, in 1976.[25] Sometime after the World War I Memorial’s unveiling, the drinking fountains were removed, but it retained a flag pole, the original carved wreaths and the memorial tablets.
\nThe lack of a sports oval at New Farm State School, an important feature of Queensland schools, was redressed in 1991. The Department of Education secured adjacent land to the northeast from the Department of Main Roads. This land had been resumed for construction of a proposed central freeway to a bridge linking New Farm with Norman Park. Removal of houses and the partial closure of Hawthorne Street occurred in 1989. In March 1991 the official handover of the new school oval occurred, and in June pupils planted 30 trees around the oval.[26]
\nThe 1990s were a period of low pupil numbers at the school, falling to 167 in 1997. This resulted from the decline of industrial and commercial enterprises in the area as they closed or relocated; and to the suburb’s changing demographic as older houses were demolished to make way for blocks of units, which were not favoured by families. However, through initiatives such as the urban renewal and Building Better Schools programs, enrolments increased to 247 by 2001.[27]
\nSince opening in 1901, New Farm State School has served the community and provided a venue for events, such as school fetes, dances and social committee meetings.[28] The publication of school histories recognised the New Farm State School’s 75th and 100th anniversaries in 1976 and 2001.
\nThe school retains early furniture items in the former Head Teachers Room. These are: a silky oak memorial cupboard dedicated to FJB Marin (Head Teacher 1922-23), a silky oak medicine cabinet and an early safe. There are also honour boards (the earliest from 1901), and an early school bell on the southwestern verandah of the eastern wing.
\nIn 2017, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Urban Brick School Building and Open-air Annexe, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, playing areas, retaining walls and mature shade trees. New Farm State School is important to its suburban district as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events have been held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"New Farm State School (established in 1901) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains fine, representative examples of government designs, which were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, and a war memorial, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, early retaining walls, and mature trees.
\nThe Urban Brick School Building (1901, 1909) represents the culmination of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size and ventilation by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and also demonstrates the growing preference in the early 20th century for constructing brick school buildings at metropolitan schools in developing suburbs.
\nThe second floor additions to two wings of the Urban Brick School Building (1939) and playground levelling (c1931) are the result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s, which stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe Open-air Annexe (1919) demonstrates the medical and educational theories of the period, which valued fresh air and sunlight; and is important in demonstrating the development pattern of incorporating open-air classrooms into existing school complexes. The enclosure of the annexe in the 1920s demonstrates adaptions to the open-air classroom type to improve its functionality.
\nThe World War I Memorial (1923) is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in this major world event. War memorials are a tribute from the community to those who served and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nThe large, suburban site with mature trees and sporting facilities demonstrates educational philosophies that promoted the importance of play and a beautiful environment in the education of children.
|New Farm State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Queensland state schools with later modifications. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard and individual designs; and generous, landscaped sites with mature trees, assembly and play areas, retaining walls and sporting facilities.
\nThe Urban Brick School Building is an excellent, intact example of its type. The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of an Urban Brick School Building through its highset form; linear layout, with classrooms and teachers rooms accessed by verandahs; undercrofts used as open play spaces and additional classrooms; loadbearing, masonry construction, with face brick piers to undercroft spaces; gable or Dutch-gable roofs with roof fleches; and decorative timbers to verandahs, window hoods and gablets. It demonstrates use of the stylistic features of its era, which determined roof form, decorative treatment and joinery. Typically, Urban Brick School Buildings are configured to create central courtyards, and are located in suburban areas that were growing at the time of their construction.
\nThe Open-air Annexe is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. It retains its highset, timber-framed structure on brick piers; classroom widths; western verandah (now enclosed); and semi-detached teachers room.
|The Urban Brick School Building at New Farm State School has aesthetic significance due to its beautiful attributes: symmetrical layout; high quality materials, face brick exterior, elegant composition, finely crafted timber work, and decorative treatments.
\nSited on high ground above James Street, the school has extensive views across surrounding suburbs and to the Brisbane CBD. Attractive views of the school buildings are attained from the east.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nNew Farm State School has a strong and ongoing association with the New Farm and district community. It was established in 1901 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of New Farm and is a prominent focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650044,"name":"Ascot State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Pringle Street","suburb":"ASCOT","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-04-07","description":"Ascot State School occupies a 1.816ha, sloping site within the residential suburb of Ascot, approximately 6km northeast of the Brisbane CBD. The rectangular site faces and is primarily accessed from Pringle Street to the north; and is bounded on other sides by Anthony Street to the west, Massey Street to the south and residential properties to the east. The school buildings are located on the elevated, western end of the school grounds, and a large playing field occupies the lower, eastern portion of the site. Fronting Pringle, Anthony and Massey streets, three connected Urban Brick School Buildings (blocks A, B and C) are set in a U-shape configuration and are the earliest and westernmost of the school buildings. The school grounds contain a number of significant mature trees and landscaping features, including a courtyard (between blocks A, B and C), mature trees and a playing field. Block B contains rare educational murals on its classroom walls.
\nThree Urban Brick School Buildings (blocks A, B and C)
\nThe three Urban Brick School Buildings (blocks A, B and C) are individually designed, masonry and timber structures, which have terracotta-tiled gable and Dutch-gable roofs. The gable ends and gablets have decorative timbering set in front of circular roof vents; and prominent fleches protrude above the roofs. The three buildings are symmetrically arranged in a U-shaped plan, with Block A located centrally to the west (running north-south); Block B to the south (running east-west); and Block C to the north (running east-west).
\nThe buildings range from a single storey with an undercroft (open space) at the west to two storeys at the east, reflecting the slope of the site. Block A has a single storey, which is lowset at the west; and the ground underneath has been cut to form an understorey (enclosed space).
\nThe first floor of blocks B and C are aligned with Block A. Blocks B and C both have open undercroft spaces at the west and understorey spaces at the east. The first floor of the buildings generally have rough-cast finished masonry walls with red face brick dressings, and red face brick walls to the undercroft and understorey level. The first floors of the blocks are connected by a continuous verandah which runs to the north of Block C, east of Block A and south of Block B. Various stairs provide access to the verandah; with two enclosed by face brick walls and forming the eastern ends of blocks B and C.
\nThe verandahs on each level provide access to the interior spaces. The first floor verandahs have raked ceilings lined in timber v-jointed (VJ) boards, timber floors, square timber posts, timber post-and-rail balustrades, and brick verandah walls (some have been painted). Some sections of single-skin, weatherboard-clad timber walls (former hat racks) are retained; and teachers annexes are connected to the verandahs of Block A and Block C. Block B’s verandah features a scalloped valance, eaves with exposed rafters, and timber-framed, wired-glass partitions at the eastern and western ends. Verandahs to the understorey level have flat ceilings lined with profiled and corrugated metal sheets, concrete slab floors, face brick columns and face brick verandah walls. Bag racks and modern louvre windows that enclose the verandahs are recent additions and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe interior spaces of the three blocks are linearly arranged, with almost all classrooms and offices leading off verandah spaces. On the first floor, Block A contains three classrooms of a similar size; Block B has six classrooms; and Block C has four classrooms, with two withdrawal rooms separating the outermost classrooms from innermost classrooms. Blocks B and C are each terminated at the eastern end by a store and staircase. The classroom spaces generally have plastered walls, timber picture rails, and plastered ceilings with painted timber battens, and ceiling vents. Most partition walls between classrooms have been partially removed, with remaining early sections featuring VJ timber board linings. Skirtings are of concrete and timber picture rails are featured in most rooms.
\nBlock A’s teachers annexe comprises three small offices / store rooms (the outer two are of a lighter construction). Block C’s teachers room comprises a singular space, which has recently been divided by lightweight partitions to form toilet cubicles. The teachers rooms have plaster walls with VJ timber-lined ceilings; with the exception of the outer two rooms to Block A’s teachers annexe, which have flat sheet-lined walls and ceilings.
\nThe lower level of blocks A, B and C comprises an undercroft at the west, and understorey at the east. Block A is mostly open play space, with an early enclosure at the northwestern end, and enclosed store rooms beneath the teachers rooms. The western ends of blocks B and C are mainly open play space with early toilet / amenities enclosures. The eastern end of Block C has three classrooms, with the two easternmost divided by a folding partition (now removed), and terminated by an eastern staircase with store located under the stairs. Block B features two classrooms, with the easternmost being of a double classroom width, and eastern stair with store room under. The floor level of the easternmost classroom is tiered at the western end (former seating platforms relating to the use of the room as a One Teacher School). The classroom spaces generally have plastered walls, plastered ceilings with painted timber battens and concrete skirtings. All undercroft spaces feature face brick columns, which are rounded below head height.
\nRare surviving early educational murals of painted text and images, on topics such as tourism, transport, farming, sugar cane, and Australian states, are painted directly onto the bulkheads and walls of classrooms in Block B. Most feature a detailed image with adjacent wording. Murals to the understorey classroom of Block B have been covered, although it is likely that these survive underneath the recent paint.
\nMost early timber joinery within the building has been retained, including: double-hung sash windows with awning fanlights to verandahs; casements and centre-pivoting windows with awning fanlights (some angled) to exterior walls; fixed louvres to the understorey level; dual timber panelled doors with stop-chamfered detailing and centre-pivoting fanlights; tall, centre-pivoting fanlights over verandah doors, and panelled, folding timber door partitions between some classrooms in Block B. Most windows feature horizontal painted concrete sills and lintels. Timber-framed, terracotta-tiled hoods shelter windows on the northern sides of all blocks, and on the western side of Block A.
\nModern partitions, joinery, carpets and linoleum are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Features
\nThe school grounds are well established and comprise various mature trees, hard-scaping and courtyard spaces. Retaining walls and stairs terrace the site, down to a playing field at the east. Recent buildings are generally visually unified with the older school buildings through the use of red brickwork and tiled roofs.
\nA set of concrete stairs (1963) on the southern side of the playing field and a smaller set south of Block B, to the west of the swimming pool, provide access to the site from Massey Street.
\nA courtyard located between blocks A, B and C incorporates a covered play space, a modern sculpture garden and various mosaic artworks, none of which are of cultural heritage significance. A linear, paved and concreted space continues from the courtyard down to the playing field; and facilitates a visual axis across the length of the school site. Tall palm trees in the courtyard area are planted in rows, in line with the visual axis.
\nMature trees including Poincianas (Delonix regia), silky oaks (Grevillea robusta), ironbarks (Eucalyptus sp.), tulipwoods (Harpullia pendula) and Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) are concentrated along the northern and eastern boundaries of the playing field. A mature mango tree (Mangifera sp.) is located at the northeastern end of the playing field.
\nProminent views of the Urban Brick School Buildings are available from Anthony and Pringle streets over open play spaces.
\nNon-Significant Elements
\nOther buildings, structures, shade sails, pathways, play equipment, sheds and cricket nets within the cultural heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Ascot State School (established 1920) is located in the Brisbane suburb of Ascot, six kilometres northeast of the CBD. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains three Urban Brick School Buildings (Block A: 1920, Block B: 1928-34, Block C: 1923-39), which incorporate rare educational murals in Block B; set in landscaped grounds with a playing field, sporting facilities and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Ascot community.
\nTraditionally the land of the Turrbal and Jagera people, land at Ascot was sold as country lots in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and underwent subdivision from the 1880s after the railway line to the Eagle Farm Racecourse opened in 1882. However, most housing development occurred after the turn of the century, stimulated by the opening of the electrified tram to the racecourse, along the current Kingsford Smith Drive and Racecourse Road, in 1899.[1]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[2]
\nDramatic reform of the Queensland Education system began around 1909 and continued until the beginning of World War I. During this period a high school system was introduced, technical education was expanded, the University of Queensland was inaugurated, a teachers' training college was established, the requirement for a local contribution of construction costs for new schools was abolished, and the leaving age was increased from 12 to 14 years.[3] Although technically compulsory since 1875, school attendance was not enforced until 1900. Subsequently, student numbers rose across Queensland during the first 15 years of the 20th century.[4]
\nActions to establish a state school in Ascot commenced in 1914. The current site, bounded by Pringle, Anthony and Mayfield (now Massey) Streets, was purchased for a future school in May 1914 at a cost of £1400.[5] In December 1915 a public meeting, held to organise a state school at Ascot, established the prerequisite school building committee for that purpose. However, while the country remained at war there were insufficient funds to institute the school.[6]
\nApproval for the school, comprising an Urban Brick School Building, was given on 13 June 1919.[7] Brick school buildings were far less frequently built than timber ones, only being provided in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly-increasing populations. All brick school buildings were individually designed with variations in style, size, and form, but generally retained similar classroom sizes, layouts and window arrangements to timber schools to facilitate natural light and ventilation. However, compared to contemporary standard education buildings, these buildings had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.[8]
\nAscot State School opened on 24 May 1920 with 124 pupils enrolled. Its Urban Brick School Building (now called Block A) was an ‘attractive building of brick, rough-casted externally, plastered internally, ceiled with fibro-cement and roofed with tiles.’[9] Highset, it comprised three classrooms, verandah and attached teachers room. Each classroom featured a bank of windows, which allowed natural light to enter from the left side of the students, and had battened ceilings with a central ceiling vent. A photograph from 1920 shows casement windows, with fanlights, sheltered below window hoods and a tiled, gable roof with a central ventilation roof fleche. Verandah corners were enclosed with dark-coloured weatherboards, centred four-pane windows, and light-coloured, vertically-battened timber balustrades and trim. Costing £3,556, the school building was designed to accommodate 120 pupils.[10]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[11] From Ascot State School’s inception, there was an emphasis on creating a beautiful environment for the pupils, with the result that the school’s gardens were admired by locals and visitors.[12] However, Arbor Day was not observed during the first Head Teacher’s administration (Thomas Henderson, 1920-39) because ‘every Thursday the children [were]…given a practical lesson on the planting and culture of various plants and shrubs’.[13]
\nDuring Ascot State School’s first year, its school committee made enormous improvements to the school grounds. They established gardens, spray lines to water them, an impressive array of playground equipment on a terraced playground, a tennis court (located northeast of the school building on the Pringle Street side) and a swimming pool (60x20ft - 18.3x6m) located to the southeast of the school building and fronting Massey Street. The school’s tree-planting programme ‘strictly followed [a] plan, which allowed for only colourful flowering trees to be planted around the school ground’s perimeter i.e poinciana, jacaranda, silky oak and…South African red tulip tree[s]’.[14] However, the school’s small oval was a rough, at times boggy, site that took years to improve.[15]
\nIn the same year, enrolments at Ascot State School outstripped accommodation as subdivision and residential building in Ascot boosted its population. By April 1921, less than a year after opening, the school population was 310.[16]
\nMoney was allocated by the government for an additional wing in October 1922. This northern wing (now called Block C) was completed in the following year and officially opened on 20 October 1923. It ran perpendicular to the school’s first building, faced Pringle Street and was connected to the original building by a verandah. Similar in design and materials to the first building, it was brick with rough-cast external render. It provided three new classrooms and a teachers room, while the undercroft was divided into play space and a gymnasium.[17]
\nEnrolments continued to grow as Ascot’s population increased. In 1927 there were 568 pupils at the school and four classes were taught permanently in the undercroft. In response, the Department of Public Works (DPW) drew plans in 1927 for a new, southern block (Block B), which would form a U-shaped complex plan. [18]
\nOn 25 August 1928, Block B was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, Thomas Wilson. Built of rough-cast render and brick, it provided four extra classrooms on the upper floor level of the existing school and one underneath, each of which was 20x20ft (6x6m). The whole provided extra seating accommodation for 200 pupils. Folding partitions on the upper floor converted the classrooms into one assembly room. The undercroft was concreted. A photograph from 1928 shows the building had tiled window hoods, and banks of casement windows and centre-pivoting sashes with awning fanlights.[19]
\nCommencement of the Great Depression in 1929 halted fulfilment of further accommodation requests for the next three years at Ascot State School.[20] The Great Depression caused a dramatic reduction in public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. The Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power in June 1932 after a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. It embarked on a large public building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; hospitals and asylums; courthouses, police stations and gaols.[21]
\nExtension of Block C was approved and commenced in September 1932. Comprising two classrooms of 22x18ft (6.7x5.5m) with 10ft (3m)-wide verandahs and a hat room on two levels, plus lavatory facilities underneath, it accommodated a further 80 pupils and cost £1033. The design and materials matched existing work. In the same year, lavatories were also constructed under Block B, and a dressing shed added to the swimming pool.[22]
\nImmediately after the completion of the addition to Block C, more classrooms were required for the 707 pupils enrolled at June 1933, as the school’s 13 classrooms accommodated only 520 pupils. Plans for a major extension to Block B, which would complete that building for approximately £3,388, were approved in December 1933 and construction began early in 1934. The DPW’s Annual Report described it as a three-storied addition with separate entrances to each floor. The middle floor contained a single classroom 40x22ft, [12 x6.7m] designed as a one teacher school with a gallery for 36 trainees and a 10ft [3m] wide verandah. The top floor contained two classrooms, stairs, verandah, hat room and cloakroom. Folding partitions separated these and the existing classrooms. The floor of one of the new classrooms was raised 2ft 6in [0.76m] above the level of the floor of the existing classroom, which enabled it to be used as a stage. The new classroom, together with the four existing rooms, formed a large assembly hall when the folding partitions were opened. The cloakroom served as a dressing room behind the stage.[23]
\nIn 1935, less than a year after the completion of the Block B addition, the Head Teacher requested more accommodation. The disparity between the number of pupils and classrooms worsened, as work on addition did not commence until after May 1939, by which time the school population had risen to 822. With an authorised cost of £4,387, these additions to Block C completed the symmetrical layout of the school buildings. Constructed of brick and concrete with a Marseilles tile roof, the design utilised the fall of the land on the site to provide sub-basement, basement and ground floors. Accommodation comprised four classrooms, teachers room, cloak rooms, seating area and store, together with a concrete staircase at the eastern end of the wing and verandahs to the north. Each classroom had folding partitions to create a single room of approximately 60x22ft (18.3x6m). The extension accommodated 160 pupils.[24]
\nChanges to the grounds took place in conjunction with this addition. Concrete pathways were laid to all sides of the addition and concrete steps, and park rail fences were set on the banks between the terraces of the upper level. A new tennis court replaced the old one, which was encroached upon by the new extension.[25]
\nCommencement of the War in the Pacific during World War II impacted on schools. In January 1942, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended.[26] Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools. A photograph of Ascot State School in 1942 shows older male pupils digging slit trenches.[27]
\nTypically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[28] At Ascot State School, vegetable gardens were a special feature of the garden work performed by pupils. The produce was distributed mainly to Red Cross hostels and canteens, although later in the war it was sold for the benefit of Patriotic Funds.[29]
\nAfter World War II, Ascot’s population continued to rise, as did that of the school, which peaked at 1433 in 1959.[30] The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and to cope many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[31] A number of new buildings were added at Ascot State School between 1950 and 1960. Most have been replaced.[32]
\nAlong with the expansion of the school’s buildings came improvement and expansion of the school’s grounds. In 1955, extensive drainage and earthworks and development of the oval were planned. The Minister for Public Instruction requested that the Brisbane City Council (BCC) transfer its park land to the east of the school to the Department of Public Instruction. The BCC agreed to vest the land in the Secretary of Public Instruction as trustee in perpetuity, provided an undertaking was given ‘to develop, maintain and use the area during normal school hours as playground for the school children, free of buildings and fencing and allow the use of the area by the general public during other than school hours’.[33] The transfer took place in June 1956 and on 10 August 1956 the completed, upgraded Meibush Oval, named after a former school principal, was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, JCA Pizzey. The total cost of the project was £4087 including a government subsidy of £1577.[34] Further renovations of the oval were required in 1963 when, amongst other improvements, concrete stairs were built on the Massey Street side.[35]
\nWith the transfer of Grade 8 education to secondary schools from January 1964, the issue of insufficient classroom accommodation was largely resolved. However, further additions to the site and improvements to facilities and accommodation occurred in the ensuing decades. During the 1970s and 1980s a number of new buildings were constructed.[36]
\nEarly buildings were also altered over time. In 1970 extensions and alterations to the Block A teachers room took place. In 1977 the verandah of Block B was enclosed. In 1979 alterations to Blocks A, B and C were approved, as were plans for enclosure of Block C’s verandah. In 1980, provision was made for the janitor and cleaners in Block B, and all toilet blocks were remodelled and upgraded. The roofs of Blocks A, B and C were re-tiled in mid-1982. At the turn of the 21st century, as part of the Building Better Schools Program, classrooms in Block C were upgraded.[37]
\nThe school’s grounds also underwent significant improvements. In 1966 a larger pool replaced the earlier one. In the 1980s, landscaping of the areas between Blocks A, B and C, and the rejuvenation and extension of the adventure playground took place. In 2000, the tennis court between Blocks D and G was converted into a covered area and a new canteen added to the east of Block D.[38]
\nCommunity involvement in the school has been significant since the school’s opening. In the early years the parents established gardens, built playground equipment, and constructed a tennis court and swimming pool. Creating a useable oval occupied the school committee’s attention for many years. For about 10 years from c1923, the Ascot Show Society held its annual show in the Ascot State School grounds. Fancy dress balls were also held at the school in the 1930s. From the 1960s, through until at least the late 1970s, fundraising through walkathons was popular.[39]
\nIntroduced by the first Head Teacher at the school, murals were painted on classroom walls for educational purposes. The earliest, painted by a commercial artist, were in place by November 1930. Others were painted by Arthur E Guymer, while working as a trainee and as a teacher at the school in the 1930s. Murals of sheep- and cattle-raising, exports, mining, sugar growing and other industries were painted on bulkheads and classroom walls throughout the school. In the infants’ classroom, Brer Rabbit, Donald Duck and other characters were depicted.[40] Murals relating to Queensland industries, transport and tourism, Australian states and New Zealand remain in some classrooms of Block B.
\nIn 2017, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Urban Brick School Buildings, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, playing areas, and mature shade trees. Ascot State School is important to Ascot as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Ascot State School (established in 1920) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government-designed school buildings, which were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThree Urban Brick School Buildings (1920, 1923-39, 1928-34) represent the culmination of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size and elevation by the Department of Public Works (DPW), and also demonstrate the growing preference in the early 20th century for constructing brick school buildings at metropolitan schools in developing suburbs. Additions to Blocks B and C undertaken during the 1930s are the result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s, which stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe suburban site with mature trees, sporting facilities and other landscaping features demonstrates educational policies that promoted the importance of play and a beautiful environment in the education of children.
|The 1930s educational murals, painted on the interior classroom walls of Block B are, and have always been, a rare educational practice. Intact and distinctive, they are the only known murals of this kind in Queensland.
|Ascot State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school with later modifications. These include: teaching buildings constructed to individual designs; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nThe Urban Brick School Buildings are intact, excellent examples of individually designed Urban Brick School Buildings. They demonstrate the principal characteristics of this type through their highset form; linear layout, with classrooms and teachers rooms accessed by verandahs; undercrofts used as open play spaces and understoreys for additional classrooms; loadbearing, masonry construction, with face brick piers to undercroft spaces; and roof fleches. They demonstrate use of the stylistic features of their era, which determined their roof form, decorative treatment and joinery. Typically, Urban Brick School Buildings are configured to create central courtyards, and are located in suburban areas that were growing at the time of their construction.
|The Urban Brick School Buildings at Ascot State School have aesthetic significance due to their beautiful attributes: identifiable by their symmetrical layout; consistent form; scale; materials; elegant composition; finely crafted timber work; and decorative treatment.
\nThese buildings remain intact and demonstrate a continuation of site planning ideals initiated by the placing of the original Urban Brick School Building in a prominent position at the top of the sloping site. The beauty of the school's setting is enhanced by mature trees and formal landscaping elements such as retaining walls and stairs.
\nThe buildings are also significant for their contribution to the Anthony and Pringle Streets’ streetscape.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nAscot State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It developed from 1920 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Ascot children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its suburban district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650045,"name":"Buranda State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24 Cowley Street","suburb":"BURANDA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-04-28","description":"Buranda State School occupies a 2.78ha site in Buranda, a locality within the suburb of Woolloongabba, approximately three kilometres southwest of Brisbane CBD. The site is bounded by Cowley Street, Norman Creek and the Eastern Busway (south), Martin Street (northwest), Salisbury Street (northeast), Churchill Street (east), and light industrial and residential properties (west, north and east). The school shares its site with Narbethong State Special School, which is located at the northeast end of the site and is excluded from the heritage register boundary. Buranda State School’s significant buildings are located on a plateau in the southwestern corner of the site, edged by steep rocky cliffs along the western and northern sides. Access is via a main entrance from Cowley Street and a secondary entrance from Martin Street. Pedestrian access from the south is provided via a footbridge over Norman Creek. Situated adjacent to the Cowley Street entrance is the earliest remaining building – a Suburban Timber School Building (Block A; 1920, with 1928 extension). An early Swimming Pool, Dressing Shed and concrete terraces (1926) are located south of the eastern end of Block A. Other significant elements within the school grounds include a concrete retaining wall and stairs (1928-9), a stone retaining wall on two sides of the Swimming Pool (1926-7), World War II (WWII) Honour Boards in Block A (1944 and post-WWII), rock-edged gardens beds and walls (c1926-1936), and mature trees.
\nSuburban Timber School Building (Block A; 1920, 1928 extension)
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building (Block A) is a highset, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure. Orientated on an east-west axis, it comprises three, symmetrically-arranged wings – central, eastern and western – with two adjacent teachers rooms on the northern side of the central wing. The eastern wing is longer due to a two-storey extension (1928) to the eastern end, which has its first floor aligned with the 1920 building and the ground floor set at a lower level than the understorey.
\nThe three wings have Dutch gable roofs and the teachers rooms has a gable roof. All roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheeting and the gablets are infilled with weatherboards. The north-facing wall of the teachers rooms has batten infill to the gable and two timber-framed, skillion-roofed window hoods which retain original asbestos tile cladding. Ground floor windows along the southern side of the 1928 extension are sheltered by wide timber-framed, skillion-roofed window hoods clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The building’s raked eaves have exposed rafters and are lined with tongue-and-groove (T&G), V-jointed (VJ) timber boards. The building is set on brick piers and stumps, and a north-facing verandah, accessed by sets of timber stairs, provides circulation for the whole building. Non-significant elements of the exterior include: steel roofs over the eastern wing verandah stairs; roof-mounted solar panels; modern awnings to enclosed verandah windows; a deck area and ramp constructed on the southern side of the 1928 extension; airconditoning units; modern security screens to windows; and modern pipes and service conduits.
\nThe verandah has a raked ceiling lined in T&G, VJ timber boards; sections of surviving two-rail slat balustrade (other sections have been replaced by bag racks); and square timber posts that are linked by curved timber arches. All verandah walls are single-skin, with T&G, VJ timber board linings and externally-exposed stud-framing; with hat hooks attached to some walls. Non-significant elements of the verandah include: recent enclosures at the far eastern and western ends of the verandah; a store room adjacent to the west wall of the eastern wing; a replacement staircase and lift attached to the north verandah of the western wing; and a staircase inserted within the verandah space at the eastern end of the western wing.
\nIn 2017, the central wing comprises office and staff rooms (from west to east – the Principal’s office, administration office, sick bay and conference room), with original partitions removed and new partitions inserted. The teachers rooms are intact and contain two small offices. The western wing contains a double classroom space with the dividing partition removed and incorporates a section of enclosed verandah (used for after school care in 2017). In the eastern wing, all first floor rooms incorporate enclosed verandah space and have had the verandah walls removed. The 1920 section contains two former classrooms (used for staff and teaching purposes in 2017). The first floor of the 1928 section contains a double classroom (used as a music room in 2017) and a store room at the verandah end. The ground floor contains a single large room (used as a staff room in 2017) and the enclosed verandah retains the verandah wall and a former hat room at the verandah end. Interior spaces throughout the building retain bulkheads that indicate the original layout of dividing partitions. Most spaces have timber T&G, VJ board-lined walls and ceilings – the ceilings of the wings are coved and those in the teachers rooms are flat. The rooms retain their timber floor boards, simple timber skirting boards, exposed metal tie rods and latticed, square ceiling ventilation panels. Non-significant features of the interior include: a set of c1967 stairs leading down to the verandah of the 1928 section; recent carpet and linoleum floor linings; kitchenettes; and modern partitions, doors and cupboards.
\nA range of original and early timber joinery is retained throughout the building, including: high-level, centre-pivoting windows to the eastern and western end walls of each wing; double-hung sashes to the verandah walls (early additions); and double-leaf doors with tall horizontally centre-pivoting fanlights to most classrooms. Large banks of windows to the southern elevations are casements along the bottom row and horizontally centre-pivoting windows and fanlights above. Fanlights in the 1920 wings are set in inclined frames. Windows to the teachers rooms are tall, three-light casements with square fanlights. One set of original folding timber doors survives on the first floor of the 1928 section.
\nThe understorey has a concrete slab floor, with concrete surface drains, and glazed, brown brick piers with rounded edges. A low brick retaining wall runs along the northern edge of western wing with batten screens above, fixed between piers. Most of the understorey is used as open play-space, with the remainder enclosed by partitions to create classroom, store room and tuckshop spaces. An early enclosure which survives beneath the western wing (originally a pre-1939 art and music room) has timber walls lined with vertical VJ boards with timber-framed, four-light, horizontally centre-pivoting windows set high in the southern and western walls. Steel beams inserted to support the floor above were inserted c1940. An early braced and ledged timber board door survives in the eastern wall, and modifications have been made to the northern end of the room to create a separate uniform shop (such as replacing the timber windows with louvres). Beneath the 1920 section of the eastern wing are former toilets (now storerooms and a workshop) enclosed by timber walls lined with vertical VJ boards (west and north sides), brick (adjoining the 1928 extension) and rendered masonry walls (southern side). These walls retain timber batten doors and early fixed louvres in timber frames. Other understorey enclosures, including the tuck shop and storeroom beneath the central wing (c1967) and the store rooms beneath the teachers rooms, are not of heritage significance.
\nSwimming Pool with Dressing Shed and concrete terraces (1926)
\nDirectly south of the eastern end of Block A is a rectangular, in-ground concrete Swimming Pool, with a timber Dressing Shed along its northern side. The sloping ground between the pool and shed is terraced with a series of concrete retaining walls and stairs.
\nThe Swimming Pool, which measures 22.86m x 9.14m, has tiled edges and is surrounded by a concrete slab. Non-significant elements include the diving blocks, metal rails and ladders, and a smaller pool to the west (constructed c1971).
\nThe Dressing Shed is a long, rectangular building, lowset on concrete stumps and clad in timber weatherboards. The gable roof is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. It has a verandah along the southern side (overlooking the pool) with a timber floor, two-rail balustrade, and a single-skin wall, with T&G, VJ timber board lining and externally-exposed stud-framing. A doorway in the centre of the verandah wall is ornamented with a timber fretwork arch. All windows are set high in the walls – those in the north wall are fixed louvres in timber frames; windows in the verandah wall and end walls appear to be modern fixed or awning windows. Internally, a central entrance area is flanked by identical dressing rooms with shower rooms at each end of the building. Walls are lined with T&G, VJ timber boards and have a flat-sheet dado. The ceiling is lined with flat sheets with batten cover strips in a square grid pattern. Metal hooks and timber seating line the walls of the dressing rooms. Non-significant element of the interior include: modern tiles lining the floor and walls of the shower rooms; modern doors and shower fittings; and linoleum floor linings.
\nThe terraces comprise: two long retaining walls; a central stairway flanked by square concrete posts; an eastern stairway and pathway; a set of steps heading west from the lower terrace level; a section of wall heading south from the stairs; and garden bed edging adjacent to the Dressing Shed verandah. All walls and curbing have a rounded top surface. Round drainage holes are regularly spaced along the retaining walls. Non-significant elements of the terraces include metal fences and handrails, and steel posts supporting shade structures.
\nLandscape Elements
\nNumerous walls and garden features are found throughout the school grounds. A tall, battered stone retaining wall (1926-27) is located to the south and east of the Swimming Pool. To the west of the Dressing Shed are early stone-edged garden beds (1926). A low stone wall (c1934) is located along the south-west perimeter facing Cowley Street, part of an early garden scheme at the entrance to the school. A concrete retaining wall (1928-9) runs north from the 1928 extension of Block A, intersected by two sets of concrete stairs. Stone-edged garden beds are located on the north side of the teachers rooms and the eastern wing staircase (by 1936).
\nLarge mature trees, including fig trees (ficus, sp.), are located to the east of the swimming pool, north of the 1928 extension to Block A, and to the south and east of the Martin Street entrance.
\nA playing field on low-lying ground to the east of the main school complex is edged by Norman Creek and vegetation to the southeast, and an arc of school buildings and structures on the higher ground around the western and northern sides.
\nA large timber Honour Board (1944) and a smaller Honour Board (post-WWII) are hung on the eastern wall of the most easterly ground floor classroom of the 1928 section of Block A. These boards list the names of former students who served in World War II (WWII). A small timber Memorial, south of the large Honour Board, is dedicated to Adrian Blair, a former student.
\nAn early school bell hangs from a corner of the verandah eaves of Block A’s western wing.
\nOther Structures
\nAll other buildings, structures, pathways, shelters, playground equipment and sheds within the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Buranda State School, established in 1918, is located in the suburb of Woolloongabba, approximately three kilometres southwest of the Brisbane CBD. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains its Suburban Timber School Building (1920, 1928) with WWII honour boards (1944, post-1945); set in landscaped grounds with a Swimming Pool, Dressing Shed and terraces (1926); sports oval; retaining walls (1926-36); and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Buranda-Stone’s Corner-Woolloongabba community.
\nTraditionally the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people, suburban development around the Buranda State School site began in the 1880s. The nearby Stone’s Corner Hotel opened in the late 1880s and by the 1890s industries were established in the area. The Cleveland railway line ran to the north of the future school site from 1889 and from 1897 electric trams operated along Logan Road to Stones Corner. By 1908 the population had grown sufficiently for the Department of Public Instruction to commence planning a school to serve the district.[1]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[2]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[3]
\nBuranda State School was established as a separate Girls and Infants School (1918) and a Boys School (1920) to provide primary school education for the growing population in the locality of Logan Road. Its site, formed from Crown land, purchased land, and a South Brisbane Council quarry, was proclaimed as a school reserve in 1916. The timber Girls and Infants School building occupied high ground at the northwest of the site, and was accessed via Martin Street. The school’s name was taken from the nearby railway station. Establishment of the school was intended to relieve the enrolment pressure on East Brisbane, Dunellan, Junction Park and Dutton Park state schools.[4]
\nThe Buranda Boys School opened on 27 September 1920 with an enrolment of 173 pupils. Its Suburban Timber School Building (Block A), positioned in the lower southwestern portion of the site and accessed via Cowley Street, was a high-set, timber building with a continuous north verandah, and central, projecting teachers rooms. The building comprised a central wing with two side wings, each with a Dutch gable roof of shingle tiles and central fleche. It seated 320 boys in eight classrooms. The central wing was divided into four classrooms (21x20ft / 6.4x6.1m) and each side wing into two similar-sized rooms separated by fixed glazed partitions. The undercroft was utilised for play space and lavatories.[5]
\nThis building type, introduced in 1914, was the culmination of years of experimentation that solved many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size, which had plagued previous school designs, as well as providing the ideal, modern education environment.[6] From 1893 the Department of Public Works greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. In c1909 high-set timber buildings had been introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools.[7]
\nPrior to the widespread adoption of electricity and artificial lighting, achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings. From around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students’ left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[8] These features – large banks of south-facing windows and smaller classrooms – are retained at Buranda State School.
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and his recommendations stressed the importance of the adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[9] Arbor Day celebrations at Buranda State School commenced in 1918 and were conducted up to at least the late 1950s. By 1958 there were 63 planted trees alive in the school grounds.[10]
\nBuranda State School’s Committee undertook an active programme of fund-raising events to improve the school’s facilities. This included an annual combined schools’ fete, fancy dress balls, socials, euchre parties and excursions. One major outcome of its efforts was the school swimming pool (25x10yards / 22.86x9.14m) with dressing shed, goldfish pond and landscaping, completed for £1800 and opened debt-free. At its opening during a school fete on 30 October 1926, Alderman Lawry acknowledged that the baths were ‘a splendid record of voluntary work, teachers, parents and pupils all assisting in the hard work of clearing and excavating the ground….[while] the Public Works Department…suppl[ied] the materials’.[11] When opening the pool, the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, William Jolly, stated ‘Not only was it a perfect pool but the terraced lawns, flower beds, goldfish pond, and dressing shed created an environment which could not fail to inculcate a love of the beautiful in the children.’[12]
\nThe establishment of swimming pools in Queensland state schools was a growing trend in the early decades of the 20th century. The perceived benefits of learning to swim for pupils were expounded from 1915 onwards: as a particularly appropriate physical exercise during summer; of value to children’s physiques; and for water safety reasons to prevent drownings.[13] Earlier pools had opened at Junction Park (1910) (QHR650023), Milton State School (1914), Wooloowin State School (1916) (QHR601565), Ascot State School (1921), Cannon Hill State School (1921) (QHR602854). Wilston State School (1923) (QHR602855), and Windsor State School (February 1926) (QHR600991).[14]
\nA large section of the swimming pool’s retaining wall collapsed early in 1927, taking with it fencing and concrete floor slabs. Repairs to the wall were completed by M R Hornibrook for £150.[15] The rebuilt structure was described as a ‘battered stone retaining wall…approximately 10 feet (3.05m) from the baths on the southern side and eastern end…’.[16]
\nGrowth in pupil numbers at both Buranda schools resulted in extensions in 1928. The Boys School gained a two-storey addition to accommodate 80 pupils, which was approved in April 1928, with a cost of £2090. A school fete on 22 September 1928 celebrated its completion. This extension comprised two classrooms on each floor and the upper level rooms had folding partitions for assembly room purposes. Circa 1940, the area under the west wing was enclosed as a music and art room. Enrolments reached a peak with an average attendance of 1217 in 1934, leading to the opening of a separate Infants’ School, fronting Salisbury Street, on 30 January 1934, with 225 pupils. [17]
\nMeanwhile, the School Committee continued to work to improve the schools. Between 1926 and 1929 they erected a shelter shed at the lower tennis courts, improved drainage on the site, formed lawns and improved flower beds, and built a concrete retaining wall and steps near the oval (c1928-29). This is the retaining wall running north of the eastern wing of the Block A, which appears in aerial photography available from 1936. The sports oval and parade ground were completed by December 1934. A driveway, rockeries and flower beds for the Boys School Entrance, via Cowley Street, were completed by 1934. A remnant of this is the low retaining wall in the south-western corner of the site near the Cowley Street entrance, apparent on aerial photograph from 1936. Rows of fig trees near the Martin Street entrance appear on aerial photography from 1936.[18]
\nWorld War II affected Buranda State School in similar ways to other Queensland state school. In January 1942, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools. At Buranda State School about 1150 feet (350.5m) of these trenches were dug.[19] Typically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[20] Students at Buranda State School attended War Funds concerts at the City Hall; contributed to Red Cross Appeals and a Prisoner of War Fund; and purchased war savings certificates.[21]
\nIn recognition of former students of the school serving in the armed forces during World War II, the school community organised an honour board, which was funded by a swimming carnival held in March 1944. Unveiled on 25 July 1944 by James Larcombe, Minister for Public Instruction, the Honour Board displayed the names of 456 former pupils serving in the armed forces. The large (3.8x1m), timber board, has been mounted in the eastern-most wall of the eastern understorey classroom since at least 1993.[22] A second, smaller honour board, beside the large honour board, lists a further 14 former pupils who served during WWII.
\nAfter World War II, enrolments at the Buranda Schools fell from the 1930s’ peak. Total enrolments in 1959 were 798. Pupil numbers continued to fall due to developmental and demographic changes in the school’s catchment area. Families moved from inner city to outlying suburbs in this period; a large number of houses in the Thompson Estate to the west of the school were resumed for the construction of the Southeast Suburbs Freeway (1967-75); and residential areas underwent commercial development.[23]
\nThe school grounds were expanded a number of times over the years, increasing the site from 1.21ha in 1918 to 2.78ha in 2017, through the addition of land via road closures, land purchases and exchanges; and despite the sale of the former Girls School site.[24] Flood mitigation work to Norman Creek in 1958, straightened and widened the creek. A bend that ran through the school oval was filled and levelled, and land was transferred between the Brisbane City Council and the Department of Public Instruction, resulting in the current configuration of the school oval.[25]
\nFalling student numbers led to the combining of the Girls and Infants Schools, on the Girls School site in Martin Street, from January 1963 when the Buranda Infants School site was taken over by Narbethong School for the Visually Handicapped.[26] Buranda Girls and Infants School and Buranda Boys School were combined as Buranda State School on the Boys School site from 1 January 1967. Average attendance in 1967 was 314 pupils, but fell to 50 in the 1990s.[27] Buranda Opportunity School (later Buranda Special School) was established on the Girls School site.[28]
\nSometime between July 1974 and July 1979, the original Infants School building was demolished to make way for a new building for Narbethong School, which was opened in July 1979.[29] The Girls School building has also been demolished.
\nAlterations to the Suburban Timber School Building have taken place over time. Changes include enclosure of part of the east verandah of the eastern wing for a storeroom in 1980; and enclosure of the north verandah of the eastern wing, with demolition of its verandah wall and internal partitions to create larger classrooms.[30] In 1999 changes to classroom sizes in the central wing were made through removal of dividing walls.[31] In 2017 the Suburban Timber School Building is largely used for staff and office purposes.
\nCommunity involvement in Buranda State School has been continuous since its establishment. Annual combined schools’ fetes were held from the 1920s to 1939, and recommenced in the post-war period. Other fundraising and social events were popular in the pre-war period such as fancy dress balls, ‘socials’, euchre parties and excursions. The school’s 75th anniversary was commemorated with the publication of a school history and the holding of a school reunion.
\nIn 2017, Buranda State School continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Suburban Timber School Building, Swimming Pool and Dressing Shed, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, playing areas, retaining walls and mature shade trees. Buranda State School is important to its district as a key social focus for the community. Generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Buranda State School (established 1918) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent, representative example of a standard government design that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, honour boards, and an early swimming pool complex, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, retaining walls and mature trees.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Building (1920, 1928) represents the culmination of years of experimentation by the Department of Public Works (DPW) with natural light, classroom size and ventilation.
\nThe early Swimming Pool, Dressing Shed and landscaping (1926) reflect the growing popularity of children learning to swim for health and safety reasons. These features comprise a rare remaining 1920s swimming pool complex.
\nThe World War II Honour Boards (1944, post-1945) are important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute from the community to those who served and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
\nThe large suburban site with mature trees, retaining walls and sporting facilities demonstrates education philosophies which promoted the importance of play and a beautiful environment in the education of children.
|Buranda State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school with later modifications. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, retaining walls and sporting facilities.
\nThe large Suburban Timber School Building is an excellent, intact example of its type, with its symmetrical plan of three wings, highset form with play space beneath, Dutch-gable and gable roofs, continuous northern verandahs, large banks of south-facing windows providing classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation, projecting teachers rooms, single-skin verandah walls, and early joinery including one folding partition.
\nThe Swimming Pool and Dressing Shed in their landscaped site are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early state school pool complexes in size, form and layout.
|The Suburban Timber School Building at Buranda State School has aesthetic significance identifiable by its symmetrical layout; consistent form; scale; materials; elegant composition; finely crafted timber work; and decorative treatment. Views of the attractive north elevation of the building are obtained from the north.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nBuranda State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Buranda community. It developed from 1918 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Buranda children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650046,"name":"Bundaberg State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"37A Maryborough Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG SOUTH","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-06-22","description":"Bundaberg State High School occupies a large (9.76ha) site fronting Maryborough Street, approximately 1km south of the main centre of the Bundaberg. It is surrounded by residential development and its western boundary is defined by the North Coast Railway Line. The school buildings stand at the centre of the long rectangular site in a compact manner and are largely oriented to the north, which is diagonal to the site boundaries.
\nBlock D (1920)
\nBlock D is a large one-storey, highset, timber-framed building standing in the centre of the site, tightly crowded by other, later buildings to the north. It is symmetrical and comprises a long central wing of classrooms with its long sides facing north and south and it has a verandah running along the northern side providing circulation. This wing has a long gable roof and a wide, central entrance bay projects from the front, emphasised by a tall perpendicular gable roof projecting front and back. Originally the front entrance to the school, accommodating a head teacher’s room and a library and clerk’s room, the entrance bay has its own small, gable-roofed porch and, although it was originally open and verandah-like, it is now enclosed with weatherboards. It was reached from the ground via a branching stair that is now demolished. At either end of the long wing is a short perpendicular wing of classrooms that also has projecting gables front and back and their own separate outward-facing verandah. The building is clad with weatherboards generally, but is single-skin where the walls are protected by a verandah. The roofs are clad with modern steel sheets and have wide eaves lined with v-jointed (vj) boards above exposed rafters.
\nThe building employs simple materials and details with a focus on providing natural light and ventilation.
\nThe central entrance bay is emphasised by the greatest use of decoration, incorporating timber shingles as wall cladding at the gable apex, whereas the other gable ends have weatherboards, packed open to create gaps for ventilating the roof space behind. The gables have timber battening and shaped barge boards. The roof is surmounted by three large ventilation fleches; one above the central bay and one above each of the end wings. The fleches are open timber-framed elements and appear like bellcotes sheltering plain metal ventilators under bellcast spire roofs decoratively clad with patterned pressed metal sheets. The central fleche and is topped by a metal weather vane finial.
\nThe building has large banks of timber-framed windows, many of which face south, allowing a high level of natural light and ventilation into the classrooms. The window banks comprise a row of casements below a row of horizontal pivot sashes below a row of fanlights, which were originally inwardly opening hopper sashes but have mostly been fixed closed. The central bay has smaller areas of casement windows sheltered by hoods with timber brackets, as are the large banks of windows in the gable ends.
\nThe verandah is accessed by later steel stairs that replicate the form and location of the timber originals. The verandah has arched timber brackets between posts and the original timber balustrade is retained on the end wings but has been replaced by bag racks on the centre wing. The wall between the verandah and the classrooms retains original double-hung sash windows, some of which have fanlights, and pairs of timber French doors. However, some modern aluminium-framed sliding windows have been added, and some modern doors have been inserted or replaced original French doors. All but one of the original arched openings from the verandah into the former teachers’ rooms and hats and coats rooms have been removed and sheeted as these rooms have been incorporated into the classrooms by removing the partitions. This and the part removal of partitions between classrooms have resulted in large, continuous interior spaces. The end wings are more intact and retain the original layout although small alterations have been made to the ancillary rooms by removing partitions to combine them. The interior walls are lined with v-jointed timber boards (original) or plasterboard sheeting (modern). In parts, the rooms have an operable timber ventilation board at the wall base that is original. This appears to relate to the original locations of classrooms (ventilated) and hat and coat rooms (unventilated). The former head teacher’s room and the library and record clerk’s rooms retain original sheet and battened ceilings in a decorative pattern with a central latticed ventilation panel, but all other rooms have a modern suspended ceiling, behind which the coved timber board lined ceiling and iron tie rod probably survive.
\nThe central bay has an elaborate timber entrance door with side and fanlights of leaded and coloured glass and moulded timber panelling. The door itself has moulded panels and a large, textured glass pane, which is not original. A small sliding glass hatch from the entrance hallway into the library and record clerk’s room survives.
\nThere are original and early fixtures including ceramic sinks within the building.
\nThe understorey is largely open and the floor is a concrete slab with a perimeter spoon drain. The stumps are concrete (original) and there are notches indicating where a battened perimeter skirt (now removed) was fixed. The original enclosure for hand basins under the central entrance bay is retained although these have been converted to store rooms and all original toilet fabric has been removed from the interior. Other enclosures, under the building’s end wings, are later and comprise toilets (built 1940) and female changing rooms (1963). The toilets are highly intact with female toilets at the south end of the west wing and male toilets at the south end of the east wing, reflecting the former gender segregation of the technical classrooms under which they are located. They incorporate separate toilets and entrances for teachers and retain timber partitions and doors. No longer used, the female changing rooms are located north of the female toilets and have concrete shower partitions. The male changing rooms, previously north of the male toilets, have been demolished.
\nBlock G (1920, extended 1937 and 1956)
\nBlock G, originally a domestic science and woodworking building, stands behind (to the south of) Block D, separated from it by a bitumen parade ground. It is a lowset, timber-framed building comprising two perpendicular wings in an L shape. The earliest wing (built in 1920) faces north and has a northern verandah and a Dutch gable roof. Projecting from the front of this wing is a large lecture room (built 1937) also with a Dutch gable roof. The later wing (built 1956) projects forward (north) of the original wing at its western end. It has a verandah on its eastern and western sides and a gable roof. All roofs are clad with corrugated metal sheets and have wide eaves lined with flat sheets with timber cover battens.
\nThe building is clad with weatherboards generally but is single-skin (externally-exposed framing) where walls are protected by a verandah. The verandah of the 1920 wing retains its c1939 laundry enclosure at the eastern end, and projecting from the rear of this wing are two stove recesses clad with weatherboards, reflecting the original domestic science classroom use. The building retains its original fenestration with some windows having high sills, however, the original timber-framed casement and double-hung sashes have been replaced with aluminium-framed sliding sashes in all but a few locations. The fanlights above these sashes are also replacements.
\nTimber stairs provide access to the verandah and are original except for one steel replacement in the original location and configuration. Original post and rail verandah and stair balustrades are retained. The verandah ceiling of the earliest wing is lined with timber vj boards and in the later wing with flat sheets with timber cover battens. Evidence of the original verandah skylights on the western verandah is retained in the ceiling, however, these have been sheeted over and no longer permit high-levels of natural light into the former dressmaking classrooms of this wing.
\nThe internal layout is highly intact. The earlier wing comprises two large classrooms (cookery classrooms in 1956), separated by a narrow room (a dining room in 1956), and a large lecture room projection from the northern verandah. These rooms are accessed from the verandah via pairs of timber French doors with fanlights and have tall, coved ceilings braced internally with an exposed iron tie rod. The walls and ceilings are lined with timber vj boards and have ventilation panels that are sheeted over. The rooms retain picture rails and the stove recesses have been converted to cupboards with shelves. The later wing comprises two large classrooms (dressmaking in 1956) separated by a staff room that has been created by removing the original partitions that formed the small fitting and staff rooms. These rooms are accessed from the verandah via timber French doors with glazed panels and fanlights and have flat ceilings. The walls and ceilings are lined with flat sheets with timber cover battens in a decorative pattern.
\nBlock R (1956) and Block M (1959)
\nBlocks R and M stand to the south of Block G with Block M behind (to the south of) Block R. They are aligned with each other and are identical timber-framed workshop buildings comprising two long bays with south-facing sawtooth roofs. They have concrete slab-on-ground foundations and are clad with weatherboards up to window sill level with sheet material above that. The roofs are clad with corrugated metal sheets. A short covered walkway (1959) connects the two buildings at the eastern end. The buildings have large areas windows on all sides to permit high levels of natural light, however, the original timber-framed sashes have been replaced with aluminium framed sliding sashes in all cases except for four banks in the northern wall of Block M. The clerestory windows have been sheeted over or replaced with glass louvres. Block M retains original timber French doors and one pair of timber board doors large enough to permit big machinery. Block R does not retain original doors.
\nThe interiors have had partitions installed. Block R has been partitioned to accommodate offices and other small spaces and a suspended ceiling has been installed throughout except in the western end, which retains its original open, lofty spatial qualities. Block M has had much less partitioning (possibly early) but has had a ceiling installed throughout. Block M has also had a skillion roofed extension added to its northern side, which is not of cultural heritage significance. Two early ceramic sinks are retained in Block M.
\nThe Grounds
\nThe school complex comprises many other buildings and structures that are not of cultural heritage significance. However, the buildings are generally long and narrow and are oriented identically with their long sides north and south, not oriented to the street or boundaries. This has created a cohesive campus with many long narrow spaces between buildings. A large school oval is at the northern end of the site and a mature poinciana (Delonix regia) stands at near the boundary of the school on Maryborough Street near the intersection with Ruddell Street that marks an early entrance to the school.
","history":"Bundaberg State High School (SHS) was established in 1912, and was opened on its current site on Maryborough Street in Bundaberg South in 1921 as Bundaberg State High School and Technical College. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. Bundaberg SHS retains the first two timber teaching buildings constructed on the site: a large variant of the Suburban Timber School Building type (1920, Block D); and an early vocational building (1920, extended 1937 and 1956, Block G); plus two saw-tooth workshop buildings: Workshop No.1 (1956, Block R), and Workshop No.2 (1959, Block M). The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment, and Block D is the earliest surviving purpose-built state high school building of its type in Queensland.
\nThe European presence in the Burnett area, traditionally the land of the Kalki people, began with pastoralism in the 1840s and 1850s, while timber cutters arrived in the mid-1860s to work the coastal scrub. By the 1860s there were five pastoral stations on the lower Burnett River.[1] Selection of land around Bundaberg began in 1867 under the 'Sugar and Coffee Regulations' of the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1860, and the Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868 enabled the resumption of half of the Bingera and Branyan Runs in November 1869.[2] The site of Bundaberg was officially surveyed the same year.
\nBundaberg’s development as a port and service centre was boosted by growing coastal traffic and by its designation as the port for Mt Perry's copper mining from 1881. Surrounded by sugar plantations and the site of two sugar refineries, Bundaberg became an important sugar town. The first South Sea Islander (SSI) indentured labour arrived in Bundaberg in 1879 and the sugar plantation system reached its peak in Queensland in the early 1880s. However, large sugar plantations with their own mills and a SSI workforce were eventually replaced by European small farmers supplying central sugar mills.[3]
\nThe development of Bundaberg was accompanied by the establishment of secondary education facilities. Bundaberg possessed a private high school for girls from Feb 1893, which became co-educational c1910.[4] In Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. The first high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after World War II (WWII).[5]
\nThroughout the 19th century the only avenue for technical education in Queensland was the local school of arts. During the 1880s several committees established separate technical colleges and initially these colleges were conducted within existing school of arts buildings. The first purpose-built technical college to open was in Ipswich in 1901; and the Technical Instruction Act 1908 later empowered the government to take over existing technical colleges.[6] State government control of technical colleges in turn facilitated the combination of technical colleges and state high schools on the same sites.
\nIn accordance with the Queensland Government’s decision to provide free secondary education, in late January 1912 the first three Queensland state high schools were opened: in Gympie, Warwick, and Bundaberg. They were followed a week later by high schools in Mackay, Mount Morgan and Charters Towers. High tops were soon established at primary schools at Childers, Gatton and Herberton. In accordance with government policy, high schools were not opened in towns with existing grammar schools, although the government planned to take over any grammar schools at a later date.[7]
\nThe Bundaberg State High School was accommodated at Bundaberg Technical College, in a former Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES) laboratory building, on a small site, north of Quay Street and west of Maryborough Street. The technical college, established in the Bundaberg School of Arts c.1889, had relocated to this riverside site in early 1911.[8]
\nBy March 1912, Bundaberg SHS had an attendance of 97 pupils.[9] As the high school and technical college shared the same site, there was soon pressure to find a new home for the high school. The school’s first principal, BHC Krone, noted in 1914 that a 15 acre (6ha) reserve, which had been set aside for high school purposes, would be a suitable location, with more room for sports. This land was a Reserve for a Grammar School, gazetted in 1887, located in Bundaberg South, between Maryborough Street and the Railway, north of the Lady Chelmsford Hospital.[10] In 1916 the Minister for Education, HF Hardacre, agreed that the Grammar School Reserve should be used for the high school, while the technical college should have a new building on its current site by the river.[11]
\nThe high school was still operating at the technical college in late 1918, even though enrolments at both the high school and technical college were increasing, after a decline during World War I.[12] The Queensland Government eventually decided to build a combined technical college and high school on the Grammar School Reserve, and Public Works expenditure of £9,026 was approved in October 1919. The Technical College Committee later claimed it had always been opposed to moving to the new site, which it argued was too remote and dangerous for female students to attend night classes.[13]
\nThe first purpose-built high school buildings in Queensland were constructed in 1917 and were large, elaborate buildings that were variations of a standard design introduced in 1914 (the Suburban Timber School Building), as well as vocational buildings built to standard designs.[14] Suburban Timber School Buildings solved many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size that had plagued previous school designs as well as providing the ideal, modern education environment.[15] The type was timber-framed, highset with covered play space beneath, and classrooms were vented by a system of metal ducts leading to prominent roof vents. A continuous ventilation flap was also provided on the wall at floor level. Large banks of windows were set on the south side, to provide left hand natural light to pupils, and classroom wings were linked by verandahs. Larger examples had a symmetrical arrangement of wings. Classrooms were 22ft (6.7m) wide, and hat and coat rooms, plus teachers rooms, were provided.[16]
\nThe new Bundaberg State High School and Technical College building was a large variant of a Suburban Timber School Building. It was under construction in early 1920 when the Railway Department, which sought to build a locomotive depot on the Grammar School Reserve, was forced to back down in the face of public protest. The building was almost complete by December 1920.[17]
\nThe new school building (Block D in 2017) was officially opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, J Huxham, on 24 January 1921. Block D was set on concrete piers and was roofed with asbestos slates, with three large ornamental ventilating fleches on the roof, and decorative timber work to the three projecting gables. The central wing contained six classrooms, including a chemistry lecture room (with four large rooms and two smaller, for a total of 180 pupils); separate male and female teachers rooms, located between the first and second, and fifth and sixth classrooms; and separate hat and coat rooms for boys and girls (accessed off the verandah), partitioned off the northern part of the second and fifth classrooms and the teachers rooms. The ceilings were coved, with metal tie rods, and ventilation ducts ran between the ceiling vents and the fleches. A central gabled verandah annexe to the north had stairs up to an entry porch and hall, with a room for the head teacher on the west side, and for the record clerk and library on the east side. A verandah, with two sets of stairs, ran along the north side of the central wing, connecting with the verandah annexe’s entrance hall and two end corridors located between the central wing and the east and west wings, which were perpendicular to the main wing.
\nThe two end wings (which could accommodate a total of 100 pupils) had their own side verandah and stairs. The east wing contained a chemistry room, and a mechanical drawing and physics room, with a balance room, polariscope (used for examining substances) room and store between the main rooms. The west wing contained a bookkeeping room and domestic science room, separated by a fitting room and store. The understorey was open, except for under the verandah annexe, and some battening, and the floor was concreted. Male and female hand basins were located under the verandah annexe. Three additional piers were provided to support the balance table in the eastern wing (not extant, although their position is still discernible in the understorey’s concrete floor).[18]
\nBundaberg received the third purpose-built high school of the Suburban Timber School Building type, after Gympie State High School and Lockyer State High School, Gatton (similar new buildings were opened at both schools in 1917). As the original buildings at the latter schools were demolished in the 1950s, Bundaberg’s Block D is now the earliest surviving purpose-built state high school building of its type in Queensland.[19]
\nA smaller building (the eastern wing of Block G in 2017) was also constructed, as an annexe for cookery and woodworking classes, just to the south of Block D, with a parade ground between the two buildings. The annexe was lowset, with a Dutch gable roof which was sheeted with red fibre cement tiles. It had a cookery classroom on the east side, and a larger woodworking classroom on the west side. The interior had a coved ceiling with exposed metal ties. The walls of the woodworking room were unlined. There was a verandah on the north side, and a stair to the verandah led to a small, central, projecting bay with a gable roof. The walls were clad externally with weatherboards. The windows were casements, and two stove recesses, projecting from the southern elevation of the cookery classroom, had separate skillion roofs with short chimneys.[20] Although it predates standard designs for vocational buildings that were introduced in 1928, Block G shares a number of characteristics of the later buildings: it is lowset, timber framed, with a Dutch gable roof, a verandah, and a pair of stove recesses for the cookery classroom.[21]
\nThe spacious new grounds in Bundaberg South allowed the high school to finally have sporting facilities: a tennis court was opened in July 1921, and a cricket pitch was formed by December.[22]
\nDuring the 1920s some changes were made to the school buildings, and the size of the school grounds. Motor shafts were bolted to concrete foundations under the woodworking half of Block G c1921, and in 1923 the school reserve was increased to 17 acres, 1 rood and 33 perches (7.06ha).[23] In 1925-6 the old sugar laboratory was moved from its Quay Street site to the Bundaberg State High School and Technical College, east of Block G – where it was used for woodworking. Block G was then converted solely to domestic science use, with a lined and ceiled dressmaking classroom (and curtained-off dining area) replacing the woodworking classroom, and a new servery in the partition with the cookery room.[24]
\nDuring the 1930s, an Intermediate School was added at the Bundaberg State High School and Technical College, in a new building located southeast of Block G. The idea of creating an intermediate level of schooling emerged in Queensland during the late 1920s. Intermediate schools initially catered for years six and seven, and offered vocational subjects: manual training for boys and domestic science for girls. The first intermediate schools were established within existing school facilities at Warwick, Charters Towers, Mount Morgan and South Brisbane from 1928. The first purpose-built intermediate school building was erected in 1932 within the grounds of Warwick State High School. [25]
\nThe Intermediate School building (not extant) at Bundaberg, erected during 1933 and opened in February 1934, was another large Suburban Timber School Building: highset, timber, with three projecting gables and a central roof fleche.[26] Similar in size and plan to Block D, it was also symmetrical, with a northern verandah and verandah annexe, teachers rooms and hat rooms, plus six classrooms in the central wing, and two classrooms in each of its east and west wings. By 1933 a small building, an engineering workshop, also existed south of Block G, making a total of five teaching buildings at the school. [27]
\nOther changes occurred at the school in the 1930s. In 1935 more land was added to the school grounds, this time in the southeast corner, when 1 rood (0.1ha) was obtained, opposite Goodwin (now Watson) Street. This became the site of a janitor’s residence (not extant). In 1937 a domestic science classroom, with a coved ceiling and a tiled Dutch gable roof, was constructed off the centre of the northern verandah of Block G. A hat room was added to the east end of the verandah, and a teachers room to the west end. Minor changes to Blocks G and D also occurred c1939, when the doorways to two of the store rooms in the east wing of Block D were reconfigured, and the hat room at the east end of Block G’s verandah was converted into a laundry.[28]
\nBy 1940 there were toilets under the south ends of the wings of Block D (for boys and male teachers under the east wing, and girls and female teachers under the west wing). At this time there were 10 teaching buildings at the school – including four to the west of Blocks D and G, and two to the south of Block G and the old sugar laboratory (the old laboratory, the first home of the high school, was removed in the 1970s). By the end of 1940 the high school had an attendance of 183.[29]
\nMore buildings were added to the school in the 1950s. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[30] The Queensland Government also continued its focus on vocational education during the 1950s and 1960s. New standard types were developed, including a brick veneer, concrete slab-on-ground and steel portal frame structure for manual training in 1958.[31]
\nThe 1950s technical college workshop buildings at Bundaberg SHS are a reflection of the industrial economy of Bundaberg, with its foundries, sugar mills and distilleries. A timber-framed technical college workshop building (Workshop No.1, or Block R in 2017) was added south of the engineering shop to the south of Block G, during 1955-6, the first of a projected scheme for four workshops, in a north-south line, linked by covered walkways. Used for engineering trades, it was 100ft by 40ft (30.5m by 12.2m), with a twin sawtooth roof. Its clerestory windows faced to the south; and had concrete ramps to double doors on the north and west sides.[32] After WWII, similar sawtooth roofed technical college workshop buildings were constructed at Ipswich, Maryborough, Mackay and Cairns.
\nDuring 1955-6 Block G was extended to the north, at its west end. The new wing, with a hipped and gabled roof, had an eastern verandah (connecting to the original building’s north verandah), and a western verandah. There were two sets of stairs off the east verandah, and one off the west verandah. The 1920 building’s dressmaking room now became a second cookery room, with the dining area partitioned off, and new casement windows were added to the south elevation. The 1950s wing’s rooms, from the south, included: dressmaking, with a staff room and fitting room to the north; then another fitting room, for a second dressmaking room to the north.[33]
\nWorkshop No.2 (Block M in 2017), for Motor Engineering, was planned in 1955, south of Block R, but was not built until 1958-9. By this time the use of timber for technical college workshops was less common.[34] Block M also had a twin sawtooth roof; and ramps to two of its doorways, on the west and south sides. The two workshop buildings were connected by a covered way at their east ends. In September 1958 estimates were provided for partitioning workshop No.2 for a car electrics lab, battery room, store, diesel fuel lab, fitting shop, tool room, metrology lab, and vehicle workspace and general workshop area. A hydraulic hoist was also fitted.[35] A skillion extension was added to the north side of Block M in the late 1960s.[36] A third workshop was added south of Block M by 1964, but did not have a sawtooth roof.[37]
\nEnrolments at the high school rose in the 1960s. Year Eight students were taught at the high school from 1964, and by 1967 Bundaberg SHS was the second largest high school outside the Brisbane metropolitan area, and the fifth largest in Queensland.[38] As a result, the school continued to change from the 1960s, as multiple new buildings were added and old buildings were removed. Most additions have tended to match the northerly orientation of the original school buildings, giving the school its regular layout. Of the school buildings present in the late 1950s, only Blocks D, G, R and M survive in 2017. In 1963, changing rooms were added under the north ends of the east and west wings of Block D (only the north end of the west wing was still enclosed in 2017).[39]
\nThere were also changes to the school’s administrative structure during the 1960s. The Intermediate section of the High School closed at the end of 1963, and the technical college separated from the high school in 1965, with its own principal and administration.[40] Growth continued in the 1970s. By April 1973 the school had an enrolment of 1673, and in 1975 plans were made to convert the soon-to-be-vacated technical college buildings to high school use.[41] The use of the workshops also changed in the 1970s. In 1971 Block R was used for ‘Fitting and Turning’, and Block M for ‘Auto Mechanics’. By 1978, Block R was a gymnasium, while Block M was still used for manual arts.[42]
\nThe school grounds continued to expand. In 1978 there were four houses north of Boreham Street, while two tennis courts had been added at the east end of the north side of the street (1972). The current Boreham Street was formed further north by 1984, and the land formerly occupied by houses was added to the school grounds in 1988.[43]
\nChanges to the buildings and grounds continued from the 1980s onwards. In 1987 Block D was converted for use by the Commercial Department, and as a computer centre. By 2003 Block G was used for English, and Blocks R and M were used for Technical Studies; while the enclosure for hand basins under the verandah annexe of Block D, and the changing rooms under the north end of the block’s east and west wings, had become storerooms. The Intermediate School building was removed by 2003.[44] In 2013 the school grounds were extended south to Walker Street, absorbing Barber Park (the former Lady Chelmsford Hospital site).[45]
\nIn 2017 the school continues to operate from its 1921 site, and its grounds now cover 9.76ha.[46] The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there.
","criteria":"Bundaberg State High School (established in 1912 as one of Queensland’s first six state high schools, and opened on its current site in 1921) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nBlock D (1920), the oldest surviving purpose-built state high school building of its type in Queensland, is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government’s policy of providing free secondary education.
\nBlock G, the former vocational building (1920, extended 1937 and 1956), and the two sawtooth roofed technical college workshop buildings, Block R (1956) and Block M (1959), reflect the Queensland Government’s focus on vocational training as a way of ensuring the state’s economic prosperity. The three vocational buildings are also important in demonstrating the way secondary and technical education were interlinked in the early 20th century, with high schools and technical colleges operating from the same site.
|Bundaberg State High School’s Block D is the oldest surviving purpose-built state high school building of its type in Queensland.
|Bundaberg State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early state high school with later modifications. This includes generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, parade ground and play areas, sporting facilities, timber-framed teaching buildings of standard designs, classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation, and separate vocational buildings.
\nBlock D’s design is a variation of the standard design for Suburban Timber School Buildings and from the design of Technical Colleges of the time. Block D demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type through: its highset, timber-framed construction; an open understorey that accommodates a play area and toilets; symmetrical design with wings linked by verandahs; head teacher’s room, clerk’s room/library, and evidence of the two teachers rooms; lofty classrooms lit by large banks of windows on the southern side to provide left hand natural light to students; and a strong consideration for natural ventilation, including hinged wall ventilation flaps at floor level and distinctive roof fleches.
\nBlock G is a forerunner of the standard design for vocational buildings. It retains its lowset, timber-framed construction; a pair of stove recesses for the former cookery classroom; a verandah with a laundry enclosure; verandah circulation on the northern side; large areas of south-facing windows to the classrooms; and a Dutch gable roof.
\nBlocks R and M are technical college workshop buildings which retain their: large, timber-framed sawtooth roof form; robust structure of long spans creating open floor plans; large areas of windows providing high levels of natural light and ventilation into the interior; and robust use of materials suitable for a workshop environment.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nBundaberg State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Bundaberg community. It was established in 1912 and opened on its current site in 1921, and generations of Bundaberg students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Bundaberg and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650047,"name":"Coorparoo State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"327 Old Cleveland Road","suburb":"COORPAROO","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-06-22","description":"Coorparoo State School occupies part of a large, 3.252 ha site fronting northwest onto Old Cleveland Road, a main thoroughfare through the suburb of Coorparoo, four kilometres southeast of Brisbane CBD. Attractive views are had to and from the school and it is conspicuous in the area as it occupies the crest of a modest ridge, has long frontages to principal thoroughfares, stands directly beside the retail and civic centre of the area, and includes striking architecture, open playing fields, and impressive mature trees.
\nTwo remarkable Urban Brick School Buildings stand symmetrically and axially aligned with and facing the school’s front entrance on Old Cleveland Road – Block A (1942) in front of Block B (1928-33), connected by a two level enclosed walkway (1942). Despite being built nine to 14 years apart, Block A, Block B, and the walkway are a cohesive design with matching form, style, and material use. A playshed (1907) stands nearby and the grounds include retaining walls and terraced play grounds, and mature trees.
\nBlock A (1942)
\nBlock A is a symmetrical two-storey building set high on an enclosed undercroft level and has a tall hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. At the roof’s central peak is a prominent metal ventilation fleche with round cupola. The building’s facades are defined horizontally with three materials: smooth-rendered masonry with lined coursing at undercroft level; facebrick for the ground floor up to the sill level of the first floor; and painted pebble dash stucco above. The building character is softened through the use of attractive, simple, and low maintenance materials with minimal decorative features, including a restrained use of dark glazed bricks contrasting with the unglazed main body of the building and smooth-rendered concrete dressings, flat window hoods with scrolled brackets, and keystones. A triangular pediment at the parapet highlights the building’s central entrance and features the school name.
\nThe building uses are separated by its levels with an undercroft level of open play space below two levels of teaching rooms. The form of each level is also clearly defined by its use, comprising a central block of primarily teachers’ rooms and former cloak rooms projecting in front of a long wing of classrooms that have a stair well at either end. Connecting the two parts is a verandah providing circulation along the front (northwest side) of the long wing. The verandah has arched openings on the ground floor and square openings with a glazed brick balustrade on the first floor, however, both levels of verandah have been enclosed with later louvres and sheet material, which is not of cultural heritage significance. At either end of the verandah on the ground floor are secondary entrances reached via stairs from the front garden. These are highlighted by a porch with a semi-circular smooth rendered concrete hood. The front entrance and porches have an arched fanlight above timber French doors with panelling and bolection moulding. Mounted on the wall either side of the front door are marble tablets dedicated to two chairmen of the early school committee.
\nThe building layout is highly intact in its original configuration; although new lightweight partitions have been inserted in a number of places. The formerly open undercroft has been partitioned to create a tuckshop, toilets, and a storeroom but retains open areas with original perimeter timber seats and rounded corners to the brick pillars. The ground floor configuration is highly intact. It retains its front staff rooms either side of a short foyer entrance, however, the cloak rooms have been enclosed by a partition to create store or staff rooms. The wall between verandah/corridor and the classrooms retains large double-hung windows, fanlights, and timber French doors, however, the folding partitions that formerly divided all classrooms on this level have been removed to form a long space (used as a library in 2017). This space includes some later glazed partitions and a raised platform that are not of cultural heritage significance. The first floor is a similar layout to the ground and is also highly intact, however, two masonry partitions have been removed to make four classrooms into two. The classrooms on both levels retain their ceilings lined with sheets and battens, with those of the first floor having lattice ventilation panels. The stair wells at either end are intact, retaining iron balustrades and turned, clear-finished timber handrails and bare concrete stairs.
\nIn front of Block A is a modest garden, terraced via a cement rendered boundary retaining wall with pillars and metal palisade. A concrete path leads from the street through the garden on axis between flanking Poinciana trees (Delonix regia) in flat lawns before dividing to either side to reach a branching stair up to the front door. The broad concrete stairs have simple iron balustrades. Framing the northeast and southwest sides of Block A are concrete retaining walls and broad stairs up to the higher land behind. Projecting from the centre of the rear of Block A is a two storey covered walkway to Block B. The walkway is a facebrick structure with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It has open arches on the ground floor and is enclosed on its first floor with timber-framed casement windows with fanlights, which are an early or possibly original feature.
\nBlock B (1928-33)
\nBlock B stands on higher land behind (to the southeast of) Block A and matches it in materials, style, detail, height, and floor levels by omitting an undercroft. The building has a tall hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, topped by a metal ventilation fleche, matching Block A. Its form and layout is similar to Block A with a front block of classrooms and cloak rooms projecting in front of a long wing of classrooms with a stairwell toward either end. As in Block A, Block B has secondary entrances into the ground floor via concrete stairs with iron balustrades up to porches with round concrete hoods. The verandah on both levels is enclosed with later windows and sheet material, which is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nIn 2017 the building operates as administration and staff rooms for the school and four former classrooms have had lightweight partitions installed to create offices. Some doorways have been made in brick partition walls to connect rooms. The timber folding partitions of the ground floor end classrooms have been removed; otherwise the layout remains intact.
\nThe first floor contains classrooms and has had minor alterations to create larger classrooms. It retains two of three sets of timber folding partitions between classrooms, however, these have been moved and installed nearby into later partitions – the original four classrooms have been converted into three. Openings have been made in brick partitions and one cloak room has been incorporated into a classroom by removing the brick partition completely and closing it off from the corridor.
\nDespite these changes, the building is highly intact. It retains original fabric including timber French doors with fanlights and iron hardware, high-set casement windows in the wall between verandah and the classrooms, brass window hardware, timber batten and sheet ceilings with lattice ventilation panels on the first floor, and the stair wells retain bare concrete floors and steps with iron balustrade and turned timber handrails.
\nBlock A and B
\nThe interiors of Block A and B and the corridor link between them are simple and functional yet have a generous character with lofty ceilings and high level of natural light and large windows. Both blocks face north-northwest; correspondingly, the long wing of classrooms behind them face south-southeast, to which direction they have large areas of tall timber-framed casement windows with matching fanlights (although some windows on the southern side of Block B have been replaced with similar designs) allowing high levels of natural southern light into the classrooms.
\nPlayshed (1907)
\nStanding behind (south) of Block B is a timber framed playshed. It has ten timber posts and a timber framed hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. It stands on a concrete slab and has timber perimeter seats, which are later replacements. The posts bear notches that indicate former perimeter enclosure.
\nGrounds
\nThe grounds of the school are terraced to form large flat platforms. Behind (to the southeast of) Block B, these were originally parade grounds and playing areas but have had shelter sheds and other teaching buildings constructed on them, which are not of cultural heritage significance, although one open area remains. The terraces are formed via concrete retaining walls (c1928-1942) that show they were formed and poured in situ. The ground generally falls away behind Block B and stairs are incorporated to reach lower terraces. A small section of Brisbane Tuff retaining wall forms a small terrace near Cavendish Road.
\nOn the Old Cleveland Road boundary stands a retaining wall from the former Thompson Estate. It is a masonry wall rendered with roughcast stucco and has piers with moulded caps. Between the piers is a balustrade of two metal pipes and at the centre of the wall are steps up to the former gate, which has been blocked off.
\nThe school grounds contain mature trees, including: rows of camphor laurels (cinnamomum camphora) and figs (likely weeping fig, ficus benjamina). The trees stand to the southwestern side of the former Thompson Estate, at the boundary to and Cavendish Road and in a row away from the road, and lining the retaining wall of the playing field near Halstead Street. At some locations, these are in lines marking the former boundaries of the school grounds.
\nA sundial stands in the grounds in one of the large formerly-open playing terraces to the southwest of Block B (near the northeast corner of Block C). It has a sandstone base and the flat top holds a brass plate of the sundial although the gnomon has been removed. The side of the mount has a brass plaque reading ‘Wolff Park’.
\nOther buildings and structures are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nViews of the Brisbane CBD and surrounding neighbourhood occur from Block A and B and the school grounds. With its open setting contrasting with the suburban residential and retail streetscapes, with its large grassed oval and framed by mature trees, Coorparoo State School is an attractive and prominent element in the built landscape.
","history":"Coorparoo State School (established 1876) is located in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo, approximately four kilometres southeast of the CBD. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains two Urban Brick School Buildings (Block B: 1928-33; Block A: 1942) and a 10-post Playshed (1907); set in landscaped grounds with retaining walls and fences (1920s-1940s), a sundial (1932-35), sporting facilities, and mature trees.
\nTraditionally part of the land of the Jagera and Turrbul people, government auction of country allotments in the vicinity of the later Coorparoo State School began in 1856. A rural community developed and by 1875 residents proposed a primary school. Local landowner, Samuel Stevens, donated two acres (0.81ha) of land fronting Old Cleveland Road for the school site, excised from Portion 177.[1] The name for the school, a variation of the aboriginal name for the area, Cooraparoo, was proposed by the school committee.[2]
\nCoorparoo State School, comprising a low-set, two-room timber building with verandahs, and a school residence, opened on 31 January 1876, with 37 pupils enrolled. It cost £546 to erect, £95 of which was paid by the local community.[3]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to their maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[4]
\nThe Coorparoo district continued to grow during the 1880s as Brisbane’s population increased rapidly and moved to outlying areas, assisted by the development of public transport and the subdivision of land holdings. In 1887 a tramway was extended to Buranda, close to the western end of the Coorparoo district. In 1888 development had progressed so far that Coorparoo Shire, which included Stones Corner and parts of Holland Park and Camp Hill, was established. In 1889 the Cleveland railway line opened through the northern extent of Coorparoo Shire, adding to Coorparoo’s popularity as a residential area. Coorparoo Station was located about 700 metres northeast of the school. The concurrent increase in Coorparoo State School pupils led to the school building being extended in 1885, 1887 and 1889.[5]
\nHowever, development in Coorparoo Shire slowed after floods in 1889, 1890 and 1893 widely affected the district and the 1893 economic depression affected land sales. In 1900 there were fewer houses in Coorparoo than in 1890.[6]
\nNevertheless, improvements continued at the school. The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[7] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[8] There was a playshed on site at Coorparoo State School by 1887; located directly behind (southeast of) the school buildings. A new playshed, replacing the earlier one and in a similar position, was constructed by RS Exton for £176 8s in 1897. The final and only remaining playshed, with ten posts and a hipped roof, was constructed in late 1907 by James Price for £356.[9]
\nSuburban development in Coorparoo Shire accelerated after an electric tram extension opened in February 1915 from Stones Corner, along Old Cleveland Road, to Coorparoo State School.[10] Enrolments at the school continued to increase and an Open-air Annexe for infants was opened in October 1916 in the northeast corner of the site, following removal of the school residence.[11]
\nAfter World War I, Coorparoo experienced increased property sales and school enrolments. Between 1911 and 1921, Coorparoo Shire’s population more than doubled from 2804 to 6635 residences.[12] School enrolments continued to rise, resulting in overcrowding; with two classes taught in the playsheds and two taught under the infants’ Open-Air Annexe. As a result, in 1924, the fifth and last extension to the timber school was built.[13]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd had been critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[14]
\nAt Coorparoo State School, the small two-acre site provided only limited space for play and sporting facilities. To address this, more than 100 perches along Halstead Street were purchased in 1912. In 1925, the school acquired another 44.9 perches (.012ha) adjoining Tarlina Lane to the west of the school leading from Cavendish Road, while in 1926 the northeastern extent of the laneway was closed and adsorbed into the school grounds. In the same year, a further 32 perches (.081ha) of land adjacent to the Shire Hall on Cavendish Road, was purchased from the Brisbane City Council for play space. In the following year, the Department of Education purchased 12.6 perches (0.032ha) of adjacent land. This, in addition to the previous Tarlina Lane purchase, became the site of the school pool, which opened on 3 August 1928, having cost £2000 to build.[15]
\nMeanwhile, lobbying of the Department of Public Instruction by the school committee from 1926 for a brick school building to accommodate the rising school population resulted in approval for a rebuilding scheme comprising two linked, two-storey brick buildings, to be constructed in stages.[16]
\nThe Urban Brick School Buildings constructed at Coorparoo State School were an individual design by the Department of Public Works. Brick school buildings were far less frequently built than timber ones, provided only in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly-increasing populations. All brick school buildings were individually designed with variations in style, size, and form, but generally retaining similar classroom sizes, layouts and window arrangements to timber schools to facilitate natural light and ventilation. However, compared to contemporary standard education buildings, these buildings had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.[17]
\nThe first stage, constructed to the south-east of the existing timber classroom buildings, was completed and opened on 22 September 1928. The new two-storey wing (now called Block B) was 78x21 feet (23.77x6.4m) and accommodated 320 pupils. It comprised four classrooms on each floor with enclosed corridors. The classrooms on the first floor were divided by folding partitions to provide one large room (28x21ft/8.53x6.4m) for assembly purposes. The external brick walls above a string course were roughcast. Cavity walls were used which, combined with wide projecting eaves, provided temperature control inside the building. The construction was fireproof and soundproof between floors. It cost approximately £6009.[18]
\nFurther additions to the school grounds were made in 1929 when an adjoining house and land to the west on Cavendish Road was purchased from Collin F Wolff for £1400. The school committee paid £400 of the cost in return for the proceeds from the sale of the house for removal. The Wolff family also donated £150 to the school in appreciation of the school committee’s work in the interests of the present and future pupils of the school. The resultant playing area was called ‘Wolff Park’ and opened by Reginald M King, Deputy Premier and Minister for Works and Public Instruction, on 31 July 1929. At the same time, the Minister acknowledged the donation of a school bell by William Payard, a lifetime friend of the head teacher, GH Hinrichsen.[19]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work programme by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[20] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[21] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school ovals, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[22] As part of the government’s attempt to provide work for the unemployed, intermittent, relief work was carried out on the Coorparoo State School grounds. This work was inspected by the Minister for Public Instruction, RM King, in March 1932. Between 1932 and March 1935, the Committee employed a relief labourer on two occasions to keep the school grounds clean and tidy.[23]
\nWith continuing growth in pupil numbers at Coorparoo State School, further accommodation was required. The second stage of the rebuilding scheme commenced when the tender opened for erection of an additional wing in July 1930.[24] This section, on the Old Cleveland road side of the stage 1 brick building, was completed early in the 1931 and was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction, RM King. The two-storey addition comprised two classrooms, two cloakrooms and a teachers room per floor and accommodated 160 pupils. Its walls were of cavity brick, and cloakroom floors were concrete. The roof over the addition was finished with a fleche. Elevations were completed to harmonise with the existing building: brickwork above a cement bank course at first floor level was roughcast; and the face bricks below were finished with white struck joints. The extension cost £2337.[25]
\nAfter the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power in June 1932 with a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression, the government embarked on a large public works building programme. This was designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state. This building programme included: government offices, schools and colleges; university buildings; court houses and police stations; hospitals and asylums; and gaols.[26] Many of the programmes have had lasting beneficial effects for the citizens of Queensland, including the construction of masonry brick school buildings across the state.
\nThe programme enabled continuation of the rebuilding scheme for Coorparoo State School, warranted by the school’s average attendance having grown to 1100 in 1932. A tender by RJH Heaven of £1230 was accepted in May and the extension, to the eastern end of the stage 1 of Block B, was opened by RM King, MLA, on 29 October 1932.[27]
\nIn 1933, the fourth and final section of Block B, with matching toilet blocks, was completed. This section, to the western end of the stage 1 building, comprised two classrooms on each floor with a verandah and a balcony and accommodated 160 pupils.
\nThe completed two-storey, symmetrical building contained 20 classrooms and accommodated 800 pupils and was set a few steps above ground level, with no undercroft. Both levels had a northwest verandah/corridor which accessed two stairs and eight southeast facing classrooms. A central bay of two classrooms, two cloak rooms and a store room projected north from the verandah making a total of 10 classrooms per level.[28] The total cost of the scheme was £11,513.[29]
\nAlso, as part of the building programme, the whole of the available yard space was graded, and the main playing area south of Block B was bounded by concrete retaining walls. A chain wire fence surmounted the north and east walls and three broad flights of steps led down from the Parade Ground to the main playing area. At the top of each of these stairways was placed a tubular arch, designed by the Head Teacher, GH Hinrichsen.[30] A new tennis court and a new basketball court were completed in 1933. A retaining wall around the basketball court to its south and west was recorded on a 1936 site plan.[31] On 30 September 1933 RM King, MLA opened the fourth section of the Brick School Building, a second tennis court, two lavatory blocks, the concrete retaining walls around the playing field; and the tubular arches over stairways.[32]
\nOther improvements to the school grounds at this time included seven new palms, planted at the bottom of the Parade Ground on Arbor Day in May 1933, and many new flower beds and several hibiscus hedges, laid out by the Head Teacher with donated plants.[33]
\nWith the completion of Block B, the school committee’s attention focused again on increasing the grounds of the growing school. In 1934, 51 perches facing Old Cleveland Rd adjoining the western boundary of the school were purchased from MW Thompson for £1206, of which 1/3 (£400) was paid by the school committee. Removal of the house followed. The property’s fence and retaining wall on the Old Cleveland Road boundary and the mature shade trees were retained, while the land was partially graded for use as an infants’ playground. In the following year, the committee also purchased a 17 perch allotment adjacent to the new playground for £75 for inclusion in the infants’ playground. The playground was later named Hinrichsen Park after the Head Teacher.[34]
\nOther improvements to the school grounds between 1932 and 1935 funded by the school committee, included erection of a pergola, garden seats and a pedestal and sun-dial in Wolff Park. The school committee was also responsible for installing electric light in the school between 1932 and 1935.[35] In 1938, a rockery and watering system were installed. A fence with a pergola and steps leading down to the infants’ area were erected, and lawns and flower beds were established and 40 roses planted.[36]
\nIn June 1940, the Minister for Public Instruction advised that funding was available to build the final stage of the school’s rebuilding scheme. Drawings for the building, in keeping with the earlier proposed design, were completed by DPW architect, Gilbert Robert Beveridge, that month.
\nThe new brick building (now called Block A), located in front of Block B, formed the fifth and final section of the brick school. It comprised two floors with an undercroft play area, similar to other urban brick schools and Depression-era brick school buildings. Some buildings of the original school was demolished to enable its completion.[37] In January 1941 commencement of Block A’s construction, at a cost of £17,252, was announced by the Minister for Public Instruction and Public Works (Henry A Bruce).[38] Work on the building was well advanced by December 1941.[39] Teaching commenced in Block A on 24 August 1942.[40]
\nThe Urban Brick School Building provided accommodation for 370 pupils in nine classrooms: four on the first floor and five on the second. The Head Teachers room was on the ground floor with staff rooms and cloakrooms on each floor. The four classrooms on the ground floor were separated by folding partitions. The upper level classrooms were divided by solid masonry walls with central connecting double doors. Twin stairs led from the ground to the first floor central bay. Through a small portico and short hall (flanked by a teachers room and cloak room), a verandah corridor gave access to the southeast facing classrooms. Stairwells connecting the three levels were positioned at both ends of the building. The upper level replaced the portico, one teachers room, and the short hall of the lower level with a classroom. Block A was connected to the Block B centrally at ground and first floor levels by covered ways. Corridors, verandahs, balconies and cloak rooms had concrete floors; the remaining floors were of wood and the ceilings of fibro-cement. It replaced three timber classroom buildings located in front of Block B, two of which were to be moved to Wolff Park and used as Domestic Science and Vocational classrooms.[41]
\nSometime after completion of Block A, the surrounding grounds were excavated and graded and new retaining walls and fences provided.[42] A new Block Plan, dated 1940, showed removal of the existing concrete retaining wall and fencing in front of Block A (Old Cleveland Road frontage), replaced by a new wall, and a chain wire fence, and excavation of the the grounds to new levels. The retaining wall from the Thompson property was retained. The existing concrete retaining wall and fencing along School Lane were removed, and a new concrete wall and chain wire fencing, extending to the existing gates, were erected. Trellis fencing was erected above the retaining walls to the east and west of Block A.[43]
\nPrior to the completion of Block A, war in the Pacific region commenced in December 1941, resulting in the Queensland Government closing all coastal state schools in January 1942. Although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. The closed schools were sometimes occupied for defence purposes, and some schools remained closed ‘for special reasons’ after the rest had reopened.[44] Typically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[45] Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff.
\nCoorparoo State School contributed to the war effort in a number of ways. The Chief Air Warden held Air Raid Precautions meetings once a month. Commercial High School students, whose school in the city closed, came to Coorparoo for lessons in the buildings in Wolff Park. About 1941 Coorparoo State School was officially approved as a combined Decontamination and First Aid post. Initially the first aid post was set up in one of the old buildings, but after the completion of Block A, its basement was used as an Air Raid Post, set up with beds and medical supplies. An air raid siren was mounted on an electric light pole outside the school on Old Cleveland Road. Air raid practice was carried out at the school. Slit trenches were dug around the small playground facing Old Cleveland Road and sand bag trenches made along the Wolff Park fence. Ordinary needlework was replaced by knitting scarves and socks which were distributed to relatives of pupils on active service abroad. Five rugs were given to refugees. From February 1942, Australian soldiers recuperating at the Australian Army hospital at nearby Loreto Convent were given permission to use the school grounds and swimming pool.[46]
\nAfter World War II, the Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[47] This was the case at Coorparoo State School.
\nAfter removal of the relocated timber school buildings, a high-set timber building of three classrooms (now called Block C) was completed in 1950.[48] During the 1950s a number of additions were undertaken leading up to the school’s peak enrolment of 1600 in 1958.[49] A timber Infants School building was erected in Wolff Park in 1956.[50] A completely new Infants school building, on a separate site to the east of the school was undertaken in 1959-60.[51] The building was occupied by pupils and staff from 29 August 1960.[52]
\nAdditional playing space was also needed. Circa 1945, the Methodist Church, the owner of the Alexandra Home, located to the east of the school, granted permission for the school to use some of its grounds for sport and other activities at certain times.[53] Negotiations by the Department of Public Instruction with the Methodist Church to purchase the home, land and buildings of the Alexandra Home were finalised in October 1958.[54] A new cricket pitch was created on this land to the east of the school’s playing grounds.[55] In 1968 a school reserve R1394 (Lot 501 see Sl8907) was created, comprising the school site and the former Nicklin house (Queen Alexandra Home – Lot 501) and totalling 11 acres 2 roods 9 perches (4.67ha).[56]
\nPlans for proposed grounds improvements were drawn in July 1946. These included concrete paving, sewerage, and topdressing of the grounds, but their implementation was not completed until 1953, at a cost of £760 with the school paying half. The school was connected to the city’s sewerage system in 1953-54 at a cost of approximately £3075. The plan shows two timber buildings removed from the site of future Block C in 1950. At this time, the sun dial was located to the northeast of the future Block C.[57] In 1968 two new tennis courts and two new basketball courts were built.[58]
\nChanges to the Urban Brick School Buildings were made from the 1970s. In 1972 the verandahs were enclosed. In the following year, all four ground floor classrooms of Block A were combined and converted into a library.[59]
\nAt the beginning of semester 2, 1987 the Infant School and Primary School re-joined on the original Coorparoo State School site.[60]
\nMajor renovations to the school were undertaken from 1999. Dividing walls between classrooms in Block A were removed at this time. Three additional classrooms were created by extending and upgrading existing buildings in 2001. Between 2001 and 2003, the 1928 swimming pool was demolished for construction of a new music building on its site. A new swimming pool was located to the east of the former playing field on land excised from the Alexandra Home property. In 2003, a three-storey teaching block was constructed on the playing field site. A multipurpose hall was constructed front Old Cleveland Road in 2009; its construction coinciding with the demolition of the 1932 toilet block southwest of Block A. [61]
\nReconfiguration of the school grounds has taken place over the years, resulting in the current 3.252 ha site in 2017.[62]
\nThroughout the school’s history, social events to fund-raise and celebrate milestones have taken place. In 1933 a commemorative re-union dance to celebrate the school was held in the first school building prior to its demolition.[63] In 1936 diamond jubilee celebrations were held. The school’s 100th anniversary was celebrated on 10 April 1976. Part of the commemorations was the release of a video of a day at Coorparoo in 1943.[64] Another re-union of past pupils in 1994 attracted over 600 former students from around Australia.[65]
\nIn 2017, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Urban Brick School Buildings and 10-post playshed, set in landscaped grounds with sundial, retaining walls, fences, stairs and balustrading, sporting facilities, playing areas, and mature shade trees. Coorparoo State School is important to the Coorparoo district as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Coorparoo State School (established in 1876) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains excellent, representative examples of government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, landscaping features, and mature trees.
\nTwo Urban Brick School Buildings (1928-33, 1942) represent the culmination of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size and elevation by the Department of Public Works (DPW), and also demonstrate the growing preference in the early 20th century for constructing brick school buildings at metropolitan schools in developing suburbs. Additions undertaken during the 1930s are the result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programmes, which stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe suburban site with Playshed (1907), mature trees, sundial (1932-35), sporting facilities and other landscaping features demonstrates educational policies that promoted the importance of play and a beautiful environment in the education of children.
|Coorparoo State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school with later modifications. These include: teaching buildings constructed to individual designs; and generous, landscaped sites, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nThe Urban Brick School Buildings are intact, excellent examples of individually designed buildings of their type. They demonstrate the principal characteristics through their highset form; linear layout, with classrooms and teachers rooms accessed by verandahs; undercrofts used as open play spaces and for additional rooms; loadbearing, masonry construction, with face brick piers to undercroft spaces; and roof fleches. They demonstrate use of the stylistic features of their era, which determined their roof form, joinery and decorative treatment. Typically, Urban Brick School Buildings are configured to create central courtyards, and are located in suburban areas that were growing at the time of their construction.
\nThe Playshed is an intact, excellent example of a standard 10-post, hipped-roof playshed, designed to provide all weather play space for children.
|The Urban Brick School Buildings at Coorparoo State School have aesthetic significance due to their beautiful attributes: identifiable by their symmetrical layout; consistent form; scale; materials; elegant composition; finely crafted timber work; and decorative treatment.
\nThese buildings remain intact and demonstrate a continuation of site planning ideals initiated by the placing of the original Urban Brick School Building in a prominent position at the top of the sloping site. The beauty of the school's setting is enhanced by mature trees and formal landscaping elements such as retaining walls, stairs, gardens and a sundial with pedestal.
\nSited on high ground on Old Cleveland Road, the school has views to the Brisbane CBD and its Urban Brick School Buildings are also significant for their contribution to the Old Cleveland Road streetscape.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nCoorparoo State School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It developed through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of its suburban district and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650049,"name":"Milton State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Bayswater Street","suburb":"MILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-04-28","description":"Milton State School occupies a narrow, 1.02ha site along Bayswater Street in the suburb of Milton, two kilometres west of the Brisbane CBD. A fence line separates the school grounds from adjacent Gregory Park to the east, which is used by the school as their playing field. The school and park occupy the full extent of a triangular block bounded by Bayswater Street to the west, Baroona Road to the north and Haig Road to the southeast. The school buildings are located along the Bayswater Street boundary at the highest point of the school grounds, which fall away to the east and southeast. The most prominent building on the site is a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A, 1935-37) which fronts Bayswater Street. North of Block A is a timber building formerly used as a vocational training building (Block B, 1923, adapted 1936). Other buildings at the school - Blocks C, D, E and a Junior Learning Centre (constructed 2020-21) - are not of cultural heritage significance. The school grounds contain a number of significant mature trees, and landscaping features including retaining walls and stairs (1935-37), assembly and play areas and sporting facilities.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (1935-37), Block A
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is a long, two-storey building with a full undercroft. The building faces southwest and, as the undercroft is below the level of Bayswater Street, it is accessed via a wide walkway and steps to the main entrance in the centre of the first floor facade. Symmetrical in plan, the building comprises a long central wing with projecting entrance bay, flanked by shorter wings to the northwest and southeast, which are parallel but set back from the central wing. Secondary entrances are located at the corners of the intersecting wings, with stairs leading to first floor porticos at the front of the building, and ground floor porticos leading to the undercroft at the rear. A two-storey extension (1959-60) which adjoins the southern end of the block is not of heritage significance.
\nOrnamented with a Spanish Mission-style decorative treatment, the building is constructed from red face brick walls with rough-cast concrete render to the entrance bay walls and smooth render to undercroft walls, window sills and lintels, and panels below the first and second floor windows. The second floor has arched windows to the entrance bay, main façade of the central wing, and to the stairwells and corridors on the east elevation, constructed from semi-circular brick arches with brick or concrete keystones. The entrance bay features a cantilevered balcony over the main entrance door, accessed by French doors, and a decorative parapet with small louvred ventilation panel. An un-rendered version of this parapet also ornaments the northeast side of the central wing. Early iron balustrades survive on the balcony; along the entrance walkway; and to the secondary entrance stairs. The hipped roof is clad in terracotta tiles, and the raked eaves are lined with timber V-jointed (VJ) tongue and groove (T&G) boards. First and second floor windows along the northeast elevation are protected by hipped window hoods clad in terracotta tiles and featuring decorative timber brackets. The northwest and southwest end walls of the wings are largely blank. An early school bell is fixed to the underside of the first floor window hood in the centre of the northeast elevation.
\nWindows openings are regularly spaced and generally comprise three tall casement windows with square fanlights above. Arched windows have a fixed, semi-circular fanlight. Walls to the toilets in the undercroft have high rectangular openings which formerly contained fixed louvres in timber frames, however the glass has been removed and modern screens fixed to the outside. The main entrance double door, set back from the front façade, is a panelled, low-waisted door glazed with six-lights and retains early door hardware. The secondary entrance doors to the first floor have been replaced, but retain their original two-light fanlights with patterned glass.
\nNon-significant features of the exterior include: a lift attached to the northwest wall of the central wing; air-conditioning units, cables and ducting; modern downpipes and rainwater tanks; and modern doors, gates and screens to doors and windows of the undercroft.
\nInternally, rooms are arranged along the northeast side of the wings, linked by wide corridors along the southwest side. Vertical circulation is provided by stairwells at each end of the central wing. Next to the stairwells are rectangular rooms formerly used for play space on the undercroft level and hat and cloak rooms on the upper levels. The entrance bay contains rooms of varying size used for staff and office purposes.
\nThe undercroft contains toilets in the northwest and southwest wings and was originally open play space in the central wing; however, in 2017 the southern portion of the space is enclosed for a tuck shop and music room. This level has a concrete floor with coved edges, rendered masonry walls with rounded corners, and flat rendered ceilings. The toilets largely retain their original layout; partition walls (some with high openings with wire grille infill panels); and flat-sheeted ceilings with batten cover strips. However, doors and cubicles have been replaced, new partitions inserted in places, and some areas have been converted into storage space. Spaces beneath the entrance bay and walkway from Bayswater Street have been enclosed for storage space. Early timber benches survive along some walls in the corridors and play space. Non-significant elements of the undercroft include modern partitions, windows, doors and gates.
\nThe first and second floors originally contained ten classrooms each, but all have been enlarged by removing partitions and folding doors to merge adjacent classrooms, so that each floor has six classrooms in 2017. The former hat and cloak rooms have been merged with part of the adjacent corridor to form storage and staff rooms.
\nThe corridors have concrete floors with coved edges, plastered walls with an inscribed moulding line at shoulder height, and flat ceilings – plastered on the first floor; lined with flat sheeting and batten cover strips on the second floor. The stairwells have concrete stairs and iron balustrades with timber top rails and square, Art Deco-style posts. A timber Roll of Honour board is fixed to the southeast wall of the first floor, central wing corridor. The board is dedicated to those who served in World War I and lists 199 names of former Milton State School students who served. An early built-in timber cupboard survives in the teachers room on the south side of the first floor main entrance.
\nIn the classrooms, walls are generally plaster-lined with timber picture rails and lambs tongue-profile skirtings. Ceilings are lined with flat sheeting and ornamented by timber battens cover strips forming a grid pattern. Two square ceiling ventilation panels survive, one each on the second floor of the northwest and southeast wings. One set of original timber folding doors survives in the centre of the second floor central wing. The location of removed folding partitions is indicated by surviving bulkheads in other classrooms. Original timber double-hung windows with rectangular fanlights remain in the internal corridor walls. Most doors retain their rectangular fanlights. All doors on the first floor are modern replacements, apart from one set of double, part-glazed doors which have been relocated to the southeast wing (accessing the former hat room, now a cooking/staff room). Two identical doors are located on the second floor, accessing the former hat rooms. The second floor retains panelled, double doors with original hardware to most classrooms, and two early doors to the teachers rooms.
\nNon-significant elements of the interior include: air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; and modern doors, glazing, partitions and cabinetry.
\nTimber Classroom Building (1923) converted to vocational training building (1936), Block B
\nBlock B is a rectangular, two storey timber building located near the northwest end of Block A. The building stands on low concrete stumps and is clad in timber weatherboards. The Dutch gable roof is clad in corrugated metal sheeting, with louvred vents to the gablets. The raked eaves have exposed rafters and are lined with timber VJ, T&G boards. A verandah, now enclosed, runs along the southwest and northwest sides of the first floor, and an enclosed verandah runs along the northwest side of the ground floor. Access to the ground floor is via a two single doors – a main entrance in the centre of the northwest wall, and a secondary entrance at the eastern end of the southeast wall. Access to the first floor is via a main timber staircase to the southwest wall, and a secondary staircase at the northern corner. Windows are generally timber-framed, two or three-light casements, with fanlights above windows in the southeast wall. Windows in the northeast walls are fanlights alone, protected by skillion-roofed hoods with decorative brackets and clad in corrugated metal sheeting. A lean-to shed clad in weatherboards runs along the southwest side of the ground floor.
\nThe ground floor contains two rooms divided by modern folding doors. The walls and ceiling are lined with modern flat sheeting. Toilets occupy the enclosed verandah and have recently been renovated.
\nThe first floor contains two classrooms divided by a modern concertina door, with bulkheads and lines in the ceiling lining indicating the location of former partitions. The former southwest verandah forms part of the open classroom space, and retains its raked ceiling lined with timber VJ, T&G boards. Walls are lined with flat sheeting. Two sets of early double timber doors survive, as well as the classroom ceilings of flat sheeting with timber batten cover strips, arranged in a grid pattern. The northwest verandah contains a series of small rooms and store rooms, divided by partitions from different periods. It retains it raked ceiling lined with timber VJ, T&G boards.
\nNon-significant elements of Block B include air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, lights and other services; modern floor linings of carpet and linoleum; the toilets fitout; and modern doors, glazing, partitions and cabinetry.
\nGrounds
\nAround Block A are a series of concrete retaining walls and stairs (1935-37) constructed to level the ground and create assembly and play spaces. A high retaining wall along Bayswater Street is topped by a concrete fence with three gateways, including a decorative wrought iron set of gates at the main entrance in front of Block A. Sections of the metal balustrades between the concrete posts have been replaced. At the northern end, this wall and fence continues perpendicular to Bayswater Street in line with the end of Block A, and incorporates a set of steps leading down towards Block B. At the southern end, the wall turns at an angle and slopes down adjacent to a concrete ramp, leading to the swimming pool level.
\nBetween the northwest and southeast wings on the eastern side of Block A is a large rectangular concrete platform, edged by a low retaining wall and set of concrete steps on the eastern side. These steps and part of the wall are now concealed beneath a recently constructed covered play area. Modern seating and shade structures on the platform are not of heritage significance.
\nThe school grounds contain numerous significant mature trees, including: a row of six camphor laurels (cinnamomum camphora) and a fig (likely a weeping fig, ficus benjamina) along Bayswater Street, from the Baroona Road corner; a large fig of the same species in the courtyard north of Block A’s main entrance; another large fig south of Block A; a camphor laurel along the Haig Street boundary, near the corner of Bayswater Street; and rows of mature palms along the eastern school fence line, on the Gregory Park side.
\nViews of the park and surrounding neighbourhood can be obtained from Block A and the school grounds. Standing in an open setting, backing onto a park and framed by mature trees, Block A is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
","history":"Milton State School opened in 1889, as Rosalie State School, on its current site approximately two kilometres west of the Brisbane CBD. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. In 2021 Milton State School retains a Depression-era Brick School Building, retaining walls and stairs (1935-37); a re-purposed two-storey timber classroom building (1923); and mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment.
\nThe land north of the Milton Reach of the Brisbane River and southwest of the North Brisbane Burial Ground (used 1843-75, later Lang Park), part of the traditional lands of the Turrbal people, was outside Brisbane’s original town limits. Large suburban allotments were sold in the area in the 1850s. The suburb of Milton is named after Ambrose Eldridge’s ‘Milton House’ [QHR 600253], built near the river in the early 1850s when Eldridge was farming cotton. During the 1860s, the Paddington, Milton, and Auchenflower area consisted of large houses on acreage, but denser settlement later occurred due to the opening of the Southern and Western Railway Line to Ipswich in 1875; and Milton developed a mix of worker’s cottages, small businesses and industry. A distillery opened at Milton in 1871, followed by the Castlemaine brewery in 1878, and there was a population boom during the 1880s due to residential subdivision. The opening of a tram line from Petrie Terrace to Toowong Cemetery, via Milton Road, in July 1904, also promoted suburban development in Milton.[1]
\nA large number of residential estates were created in the 1880s, which soon led to pressure for a state school for Rosalie (today a locality in the suburb of Paddington, northwest of the suburb of Milton).[2] The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nThe effort to open a school at Rosalie/Milton accelerated when a committee was formed in February 1886 at a meeting of residents of the Rosalie, Oxford, Bayswater, Blackall, Lewison and Holmedale Estates. A small area of high ground on the west side of Red Jacket Swamp (later Gregory Park), part of an 1884 Water Reserve, was later chosen as the site of the school. Unlike alternative sites, this land was free.[4]
\nThe site of Red Jacket Swamp, which was drained by Western Creek, is today bounded by Baroona Road to the north, Bayswater Street to the west, and Haig Road to the southeast. In the 1880s the swamp was located in Toowong Shire, just south of the boundary with the Ithaca Division (1879-87, then the Ithaca Shire). Land to the west and northwest of the swamp was subdivided into residential allotments in 1879; to the north in 1886-7; and to the southeast in the early 20th century. However, in the 1880s Red Jacket Swamp remained undeveloped, and was a source of contention between the two local governments about who was responsible for draining and filling it. Waste-water runoff from the houses on the higher ground (in Ithaca) around the swamp had created an odorous health hazard.[5]
\nRegardless, the site was deemed suitable for a school. A one acre and 4 perch (0.4ha) Reserve for State School Purposes was surveyed off the Water Reserve in late 1886, and was gazetted in January 1887; with the remainder of Red Jacket Swamp (6 acres, 3 roods and 20 perches, or 2.8ha) gazetted as a Reserve for Recreation in July 1887.[6]
\nIn June 1888 the tender of James Loynes for a new state school at Rosalie, Milton, for £999, was accepted, and the first timber school building – comprising a single classroom, head teachers office, and front and back verandahs – was completed by February 1889. The Rosalie State School opened with an enrolment of 261 students on 18 March 1889, and had an enrolment of 422 by the end of the year. A second classroom was added to the north, perpendicular to the first building, by September 1889. The school soon changed its name, and the ‘Milton State School Committee’ operated by October 1889.[7]
\nThe school’s enrolment continued to increase, with average attendance rising to 850 by 1898. Additions were made to the school in 1891 and 1899; and two playsheds were built by early 1896.[8]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In late 1889 Milton State School was one of the first Queensland schools to hold an Arbor Day, and 65 trees, supplied free by the Department of Agriculture and including Moreton Bay and other figs, Bauhinia, Poinciana, and Jacaranda trees, were planted by students. The aim was to beautify the school grounds, and reduce the smell of stagnant water, using shade trees.[9]
\nThe school grounds were gradually extended northwards along Bayswater Street. In 1901, two roods and 0.3 perches (0.2ha) were added north of the school buildings; and another 47.2 perches (0.12ha), at the corner of Bayswater Street and Baroona Road, was added in 1920. This corner site had, from c.1892 until 1919, been the headquarters of the Milton Volunteer Fire Brigade (established 1888).[10]
\nIn February 1914 a swimming pool was officially opened at Milton State School, making it the second Queensland state school to have a swimming pool, after Junction Park [QHR 650023] in 1910. The Milton pool, funded by parents, was 40ft (12.2m) long, 16ft (4.9 m) wide, and 3ft 6 inches to 5ft 6 inches (1.1m to 1.7m) deep. Located at the south end of the school grounds, it was built by James Price for £250.[11] This pool was later replaced by a new reinforced concrete pool, built by Messrs William Collin & Sons and opened in November 1930. The new pool (extant in 2017) was 75ft (22.9m) long by 25ft (7.6m) wide, and 3ft to 7ft (0.9m to 2.1m) deep; and cost £1206. Parents again provided most of the funding.[12]
\nImprovements to the school’s accommodation also continued in the interwar period, as the population of Milton expanded. A new highset wing, with three classrooms, was added at the south end of, and perpendicular to, the first school building in 1919; and another wing was added in 1923, this time at the north end of the school. The latter building had six classrooms in two storeys, and cost £2500. In 1923 the average daily attendance at the school was 900-1000 students.[13]
\nImprovements to school facilities in the 1930s included tennis courts, located in the northeast corner of Gregory Park. By this time the park had been filled in and served as the school’s playground. The tennis courts were relocated, east of the swimming pool, between 1951 and 1955.[14]
\nHowever, the main change to the school in the 1930s was the construction of a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A in 2017) between 1935 and 1937. The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[15] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[16]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state.[17] The construction of substantial Brick School Buildings[18] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions. [19]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[20]
\nPlans of the new brick school, dated February 1935, show a long, symmetrical building of three parallel wings, comprising an undercroft with toilets and open play space, and two levels of classrooms, with teachers rooms housed in a projecting entrance bay in the centre of the main façade. The aesthetic treatment of the building incorporated Spanish Mission-style features, such as decorative parapets and semi-circular arches to the upper floor windows. The hipped roof and window hoods to the northeast facing windows were to be clad in terracotta tiles. Typical of these schools, classrooms were linearly arranged along one side of the building, linked by long corridors, and some classrooms were separated by folding timber partitions.[21]
\nConstruction progressed from early 1935. A description of the building by the Department of Public Works that year gave an estimated cost of £19,500, and stated ‘This building will replace the old school buildings on the existing site… The walls above the first floor will be of face brickwork, the base being formed in cement plaster… Retaining walls will be constructed on the street alignment and will provide a level area surrounding the building. The first and second floors will each contain ten classrooms, providing accommodation for 800 pupils… On each floor provisions will be made by means of folding partitions to throw four classrooms into one for assembly purposes’.[22]
\nOnly one of the old main buildings of the school survived the construction of the Depression-era Brick School Building. By January 1935 the two-storey 1923 timber building (Block B in 2017) at the north end of the school was ready to be shifted further north to make way for construction of the new brick school, which was being built on the footprint of the previous school buildings. Rather than demolish Block B, as it was only 13 years old, in 1936 it was remodelled to provide vocational training (domestic science and manual training) at the school, which had been requested by the school committee.[23] Vocational education was a Queensland Government priority to support the development of primary industries; this evolved after World War I into a variety of subjects. Vocational training within primary education began in 1895 with drawing classes and expanded to include domestic sciences, agriculture, and sheet metal and wood working classes. The subjects required a variety of purpose-built facilities and were initially gender segregated. In 1936 the Minister for Education permitted students to take vocational subjects in lieu of geography or history in the Junior Examination, increasing the subjects' popularity.[24]
\nThe remodelling of Block B included altering the internal partitions and partially enclosing the verandahs to create woodwork and sheet metalwork rooms and a teachers room on the ground floor, and cookery, dining and dressmaking rooms, a lecture room and a laundry on the first floor. The ground floor of Block B sat lower than the undercroft level of the new brick building, and the only access to the first floor was via an L-shaped staircase on the southwest side.[25]
\nThe new school, with a total cost of £30,000, was in use from March 1937, and was officially opened in May by the Minister for Public Instruction, FA Cooper. By this time 833 students were enrolled. Minister Cooper said that the new school ‘would stand for the next century or more’. [26]
\nAir raid shelters were constructed in Gregory Park, for students of Milton State School, during World War II (WWII). The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended.[27] Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools. The swampy origins of Gregory Park meant that, instead of digging slit trenches, heaped sandbags were used to form six above-ground trenches, each 110ft (33.5m) long. Students, parents and staff were all involved, with women sewing the sandbags shut. However, the school had to threaten that, as they could only teach as many children as there was shelter space for, those children whose parents had assisted with the shelters would have priority to recommence attending school.[28]
\nChanges continued to be made after WWII. Although enrolments declined, from 976 in 1951, to 563 in 1973, smaller classroom sizes meant new additions were still required.[29] In 1951, 3 roods and 10 perches (0.3ha) of land was removed from Gregory Park and added to the south end of the school (the site of the tennis courts until 2020). By 1951, palm trees existed along the school’s rear boundary with Gregory Park, and there were also mature trees along the northern end of the Bayswater Street frontage, and one at the south end of the school near the Haig Road pedestrian crossing. By 1960, a tree existed in front of Block A, north of the front entrance; with another just southeast of the same building. A three-classroom timber building (Block C in 2017) was added at the north end of the school by c1952-55. Part of the open play space in the undercroft of Block A was also enclosed as temporary classrooms in 1957.[30]
\nA timber and brick wing, with timber floor trusses, was also added to the west of the southern wing of Block A in 1959-60. This had a library on the first floor, two rooms underneath, and a verandah on the north side.[31]
\nBy 1960 cricket practice nets existed in the very southwest corner of the school, but new nets were later built northeast of the tennis courts c2012-13, partly in Gregory Park.[32] Asphalt was laid behind and in front of Block A c1962.[33] In the mid-1960s Block B was altered to become a Technical College. Partitions were removed on the upper floor to create one large room with smaller rooms on the now fully enclosed verandah, while the ground floor was altered for use as an optical mechanics room and watchmakers room, with additional storage created within the verandah. [34] In 1991 toilets were constructed in the ground floor verandah.[35]
\nSome minor changes were made to Block A from the late 1970s. The former cloakrooms on the first floor – by now a health room (north) and staff room (south) – were extended eastwards into the corridors of the north and south wings c1978, and the undercroft area of the entrance bay was also converted to three storerooms. By 1978 a tuckshop and a projection room had also been added to the southern end of the former open play area of the undercroft.[36]
\nAround 2000, the classroom configurations of Block A were changed. On the first floor, one classroom wall of the southern wing was removed to form one large and one smaller classroom; while the walls between the three classrooms of the northern wing were removed to create two classrooms divided by a folding partition. The four classrooms of the central wing were converted into two classrooms divided by small rooms containing wet areas and storage. On the second floor, the three classrooms of the southern wing were converted to two classrooms divided by a folding partition.[37] Later, a covered concrete extension was added behind Block A’s central wing (c2008), extending east from the 1930s retaining wall.[38]
\nFor the school’s centenary celebrations in 1989, a 1:15th scale model of first school building was built (extant 2017); a Centenary quilt was produced, and a Centenary Courtyard was created, south of the main entrance. There were 686 students enrolled in mid-2016.[39] In 2021, Milton State School continues to operate from its original site, and its Depression-era Brick School Building is a local landmark. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there.
","criteria":"Milton State School (established in 1889 as Rosalie State School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent, representative example of a standard government-designed school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building, retaining walls and stairs (1935-37) are a result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe 1923 timber building, adapted in 1936 for vocational training, demonstrates the pattern of relocating and re-purposing buildings at Queensland schools. It is the only surviving remnant of the earlier timber school complex at Milton State School.
\nThe World War I Honour Board (1916) is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials, including honour boards, are a tribute from the community to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Milton State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school built during the Depression-era. These include: a large brick school building, set within a landscaped site with retaining walls, mature shade trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nThe substantial Depression-era Brick School Building is an excellent, highly intact example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Depression-era Brick Schools, including: its symmetrically arranged two-storey form with an undercroft; high-quality design with ornamental features from one of a variety of styles; face brick exterior; terracotta-tiled roof; and projecting central entrance bay. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed by corridors, and an undercroft accommodating open play space and toilets.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size and face brick exterior, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Milton State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Standing in an open setting adjacent to a park and framed by mature trees, it is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMilton State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Milton community. It was established in 1889 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Milton children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Milton and is a prominent community focal point.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650050,"name":"Toowoomba East State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cnr Arthur and Mary Streets","suburb":"EAST TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-07-28","description":"Toowoomba East State School occupies a large, 3.37ha site in East Toowoomba, fronting Arthur Street to the north and bounded by Mary Street to the east. A substantial Depression-era Brick School Building, Block A, stands at the front of the school grounds, surrounded by mature trees and gardens. Attractive views are had to and from the school and it is conspicuous in the area due to its handsome architecture, open playing fields, and impressive mature trees.
\nBlock A (1936)
\nBlock A is a symmetrical two-storey building set high on an open undercroft level and has a hipped and gabled roof clad with tiles. At the roof’s central peak is a prominent metal ventilation fleche with round cupola, visible from the surrounding residential neighbourhood. The building character expresses a composed simplicity through the use of attractive, simple, and low maintenance materials with minimal decorative features, including extensive use of glazed dark face bricks internally and externally contrasting with smooth-rendered concrete dressings and plain, regular fenestration.
\nThe building comprises an undercroft level of open play spaces below two levels of teaching rooms and its facades are defined horizontally with three materials: smooth-rendered masonry with lined coursing at undercroft level; facebrick for the first floor up to the sill level of the second floor; and painted roughcast render above. The building form is a long wing of classrooms with a centre stairwell. A long corridor across the front (north) of this wing provides access to the rooms. The corridor has simple rendered balustrades with square balusters; it has square openings on the first floor and arched openings on the second floor. However, these openings have been enclosed with later glazing that is not of cultural heritage significance. Projecting forward of the centre of the corridor is an entrance block of primarily teachers rooms, and at either end of the long wing is a short perpendicular wing comprising a classroom, a former cloak room, and a stairwell. The central entrance block and the end wings are emphasised by front-facing gable roofs with timber battening, banks of multi-paned timber-framed casement windows with fanlights, and window hoods supported by large timber brackets. At the centre of the entrance block is a branching cement rendered stair with simple metal balustrades. It leads up to the front arched doorway, which is flanked by narrow window openings and shaded by a window hood that features a battened triangular pediment.
\nThe building layout is highly intact, retaining its original configuration. The undercroft retains original perimeter seats, metal grilles to openings, and rounded corners to the brick pillars. However, some new lightweight partitions have been installed to create storage spaces, which are not of cultural heritage significance. The undercroft play area is connected to bitumen-surfaced play areas in front and behind the building via multiple openings and broad concrete steps.
\nThe first floor configuration comprises a short entrance hall with teachers rooms either side, leading to the corridor and classrooms behind. The wall between the corridor and the classrooms retains tall, double hung timber-framed windows, and French doors with fanlights, and although some French doors have been replaced with later doors, the fanlights survive throughout. However, the partitions between the classrooms of the centre wing have been removed to create larger classrooms, with nibs and bulkheads retained to indicate their former location. New partitions have been installed in one classroom and to enclose the cloak rooms for further staff rooms, and in the centre wing to create larger classrooms. These partitions are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe first and second floors are very similar configurations, with identical removal of partitions and similar insertion of new partitions.
\nOn both levels, the classrooms feature abundant natural light, simple timber joinery, and lofty ceilings. The corridors, cloak rooms, stairwells, and stairwells have smooth concrete ceilings, which is the original condition. The classrooms of the end wings retain the original sheets and battens lined ceilings but those of the centre wing are lined with recent flat sheet material and have modern cornices. The stairwells have simple iron balustrades with moulded clear-finished timber handrails and concrete stairs.
\nAt the stair landing between first and second floors of the centre stairwell, a set of timber-framed, glazed French doors lead out onto a narrow balcony that overlooks a parade ground immediately to the rear of the building. Capable of only accommodating one or two people, the balcony is the centre and focus of the southern facade composition, emphasised by a small projecting bay with a triangular pediment at the roofline bearing ‘1936’ in raised, rendered numerals, and including a moulded rendered architrave that stretches up to the second floor window above, topped by a stylised ‘keystone’. The balcony is supported by scrolled rendered brackets and has a simple metal balustrade with an attached metal flagpole. It draws attention through its use of decoration on an otherwise simple facade and being centred under the tall roof fleche.
\nAttached to the western end of Block A is a high-set one storey classroom building, Block B (by 1956), which is not of cultural heritage significance. A doorway has been cut into the rear (south) wall of the first floor stairway at this end of Block A to connect through to the building.
\nGrounds
\nThe grounds of the school are largely flat with open playing areas and other teaching buildings. The boundaries of the school have mature trees, including camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) at regularly spaced intervals and other specimen trees, including jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia).
\nThe main front entrance to the school is emphasised with a metal arch with ‘EAST STATE SCHOOL’ in metal letters over a concrete path flanked by long, stone edged garden beds. This entrance is aligned with the centre of Block A.
\nOther stone edged garden beds stand around the base of Block A.
\nAt the rear of Block A is a large open bitumen-surfaced parade ground. This is a simple and plain area that provides an unfussy setting to and allows uninterrupted views of Block A, as well as an open and flexible playing and assembly space for the school.
\nAn early metal school bell stands on a tall post in the rear parade ground close to the southern wall of Block A.
\nOther buildings and structures are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nViews to Block A occur from the surrounding residential neighbourhood and Toowoomba East State School is an attractive and prominent element in the built landscape.
","history":"Toowoomba East State School (SS) opened in 1887, on its current site east of Queens Park [QHR 601607], to service the population growth in East Toowoomba at the time. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. The school retains a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A, 1936); set in landscaped grounds, with sporting facilities and mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment.
\nTraditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, European settlement of the Toowoomba area commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. At the junction of two routes to Gorman's and Hodgson's gaps through the Main Range, the small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842 as a stopping place for pastoralists and travellers. Six kilometres to its north-east was an area known as ‘The Swamp’ – renamed Toowoomba by 1859 – which was first surveyed in 1849 as 12 suburban allotments of Drayton.
\nToowoomba grew rapidly due to its superior land and water supply, support from squatters and land speculators, and, from 1855, providing an easier route to Brisbane via the Toll Bar Road. Toowoomba was declared a municipality in July 1860, and by the 1861 census it was clear that Toowoomba had eclipsed Drayton. The railway arrived in 1867 (connecting to Brisbane in 1876), and Toowoomba’s economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing outlets, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were centred on the town. Toowoomba was also popular as a summer retreat for the colony’s elite. It was declared a city in 1904 and by 1911 had a population of 10,636.[1]
\nToowoomba was an early centre for education, with the area’s first National School (later Toowoomba South State School) opening in 1865.[2] The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early/new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[4]
\nToowoomba East SS, opened on 17 January 1887, was established on a 2.5 acre (1ha) reserve for a National School at the corner of Mary Street and Margaret Street, which had been gazetted in 1872.[5] Although there was local pressure for a school in East Toowoomba from 1876, when fund raising by the community began, the population was not large enough to justify a state school. As a result of later population growth, the Queensland Government approved a school in East Toowoomba in October 1885. By this time the community had collected £200 of the £290 required as its one-fifth share of the £1433 construction cost, and the school was also initially referred to as Queen’s Park State School. The school consisted of a timber building set on brick piers, with two classrooms, close to the corner of Mary Street and Arthur Street. It was designed to accommodate 250 students, and had admitted 235 students by February 1887.[6]
\nGrowing student numbers – with 778 enrolled by 1927 – soon led to additions to Toowoomba East SS. By 1913 there were three timber buildings; a fourth (Infants) wing was added in 1928; and a fifth wing in 1932. A school residence, built in 1889, stood in the southeast corner of the reserve, fronting Mary Street; and a school bell on a stand was erected the same year.[7]
\nAs well as more buildings, the school required larger grounds to cater for growing student numbers. In 1926, 1.25 acres (0.5ha) of land was added.[8]
\nThe school was also beautified by tree plantings from 1888, including on the west side of the original school reserve and along its Arthur and Mary Street frontages. An important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[9] Twelve camphor laurels were planted along the west fence in 1898, to provide shelter from westerly winds and by 1922 Toowoomba East SS had ‘large camphor and other ornamental and shade trees’.[10]
\nThe school’s timber buildings were still not sufficient for student numbers, and in the mid-1930s a new brick school building was approved for Toowoomba East SS. The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[11] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[12]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state.[13] The construction of substantial brick school buildings in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.[14]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions. [15]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School Building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[16]
\nConstruction of the Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A in 2017) at Toowoomba East SS occurred during 1935-36, for a cost of £16,326.[17] The new building was sited parallel to, and facing, Arthur Street, after relocation of the old timber buildings. As the new building was only designed for 640 students, and enrolment was 1000 by the time it was officially opened on 8 May 1937 by JD Kane, the Member of the Legislative Assembly for East Toowoomba, it was necessary to retain at least four of the old timber buildings. These were relocated at a distance behind the new brick building to form a parade ground between them. The school residence was removed c1936.[18]
\nBlock A was constructed with three levels, consisting of an undercroft with two floors of eight classrooms above, for a total of 16 classrooms. The undercroft comprised play areas with concrete floors and drinking troughs and had openings leading out to the grounds via broad concrete stairs. The first and second floors had similar layouts. They comprised a long wing of six classrooms divided by a central stairwell. The eastern three classrooms had connecting doors; while the western three classrooms were separated by folding partitions, which could be opened to form a large assembly room. Each classroom was oriented so that students faced west to a wall-mounted hyloplate (blackboard) and had two large banks of windows on their south side, giving gentle southern natural left-hand light to students, forced to write with their right hand. A verandah-like, open corridor ran along the north side of the classrooms providing access. Projecting north from the corridor was a central entrance block. On the first floor this comprised an entry hall, reached from the front garden by a branching stair, with a head teachers and male teachers room, one either side of the hall. On the second floor, this block comprised a female teachers room and a cloak room. At each end of the long wing was a short perpendicular wing, comprising a stairwell, perpendicular corridor, cloak room and another classroom, which had north-facing windows and hyloplates on the east wall to ensure light from the ‘correct’ side. At the landing of the central stairwell between first and second floors was a balconette that opened out to the south side overlooking the parade ground behind.[19]
\nThe walls of the three storeys were differentiated, with painted cement render on the undercroft, exposed brickwork for the first floor up to the window sill height of the second floor, and painted cement render above that to the eaves line. Sunhoods, supported on substantial timber brackets, shaded all banks of windows on the first and second floors. The hipped and gabled roof was clad with asbestos cement shingles, and the three gables on the north side of the building were battened and clad with fibro-cement. A large ventilation fleche topped the centre of the roof above the entrance.[20]
\nDuring the 1950s further additions were made to the school’s accommodation and grounds. In 1955, additional land was added to the west side of the school grounds, resumed from neighbouring residential allotments. Later grounds extensions, to the west and south of the original school reserve, from the 1960s onwards, meant that by 2012 the grounds covered 3.4ha.[21] By 1956 a highset brick extension (Block B in 2017), with two classrooms had been constructed attached to the west end of the rear (south) of Block A.[22] This building was renovated in c2016, enclosing its verandahs and demolishing the wall between verandahs and classrooms to create larger teaching areas.
\nChanges were also made to Block A. In 1966, the cloak room at the west end of the first floor was converted into a Health Services room. In c1974, two classrooms at the east end of the first floor of the centre wing were used as staff rooms, while another classroom was used as the principal’s office, and another was divided in half by a partition to accommodate a store room and Health Services Room. One cloak room was converted to a store room while another was a converted to a work room. In c1979, the undercroft was partially enclosed with glass louvres and doors. The northern corridors were enclosed with glazing by 1997. In c1997, the centre wing was altered in ‘upgrading’ works. This involved partitioning the northern corridors on both floors to create practical learning areas; replacing the French doors from the corridor into the classrooms with a single wide door with a half leaf; demolishing partitions between the classrooms on both floors to create two classrooms out of each set of three; and relining the ceilings with flat sheets to provide fire proofing.[23]
\nChanges and additions to facilities since the 1960s have included: a school swimming pool (1966); new classroom buildings (1969-71); the removal of three of the early timber school buildings in the 1970s; a new library and a dental clinic facing Mary Street (1973); two pre-school buildings south of the swimming pool, near Margaret Street (by 1978); a Centenary Hall facing Arthur Street; covered ways south of Block A; and a new administration building north of Block A (1991). The last of the early school buildings, the 1928 Infants building (later designated the Clare Gormley Block), was demolished sometime between 2009 and 2011. In 2015, 807 students were enrolled.[24] Students utilise sports fields in Queens Park to the west, and the Clive Berghofer Stadium to the north.
\nIn 2017, Toowoomba East State School continues to operate from its original site, and its Depression-era Brick School Building is a local landmark. The school is important to the area as a focus for the community, and generations of students have been taught there.
Toowoomba East State School (established in 1887) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent, representative example of a government-designed school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building (1936) is a result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
|Toowoomba East State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school built during the Depression-era. These include: a large brick school building set in landscaped grounds with mature shade trees, assembly, play, and sports areas.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is an excellent, substantial, and intact example of its type, demonstrating the principal characteristics, which include: a handsome edifice standing at the front of the school; symmetrical two-storey form of classrooms and teachers rooms above an undercroft of open play spaces; a linear layout of the main floors with rooms accessed by corridors; loadbearing masonry construction; prominent projecting central entrance bay, and high-quality design to provide superior educational environments that focus on abundant natural light and ventilation. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of its era, which determined its roof form, joinery, and decorative treatment.
|Through its conspicuous position at the front of the school, substantial size and height, symmetry, elegant composition, restrained use of decoration, and fine craftsmanship, the Depression-era Brick School Building has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Framed by mature trees, it is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nToowoomba East State School has a strong and ongoing association with the community. It was established in 1887 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Toowoomba children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Toowoomba and is a prominent community focal point.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650053,"name":"Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site, Tinana","alternate_name":"South Sea Islander Hospital and Cemetery site, Tinana | Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough site","street_address":"cnr Genrich Road and Bluebell Road East","suburb":"TINANA","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2017-10-27","description":"The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site is located in the suburb of Tinana, across the Mary River from and approximately 5.5km southwest of the Maryborough CBD. The 19th century hospital site and cemetery reserve occupied Lot 5 M371033, Lot 1 RP880020 and Lot 1 RP880020, which slope down from the northwest to southeast and are bounded by Iindah Road (south), Genrich Road (west) and Bluebell Road East (north). However, the register boundary comprises two separate areas including part of Lot 1 RP880020 (cemetery, east) and part of Lot 5 M371033 (hospital site, west).
\nHospital site
\nThe registered former hospital site occupies 1.95ha in the northwest corner of Lot 5 M371033. Mature vegetation has been substantially cleared from the heavily disturbed site, with the exception of some scattered and perimeter eucalypts, and grass cover comprises thick, waist high weed species such as Blady or Kunai grass (Imperata cylindrical) and Snake Weed (Stachytarpheta spp.).
\nVisible evidence of the 19th century occupation includes three rectangular concrete chimney bases, positioned in a triangular formation and orientated roughly parallel to Bluebell Road, and isolated artefacts and scatters.
\n· The northern chimney base (detached kitchen) is the largest of the three and comprises a 4.37m (east-west) x 1.96m (north-south) concrete slab, with surface concentrations of mortar and scattered bricks on top and around. Outlines visible on the centre of the slab indicate the location of the former fireplace / boiler structure or partitions.
\n· The south-eastern chimney base (hospital building) comprises a 2.16m (east-west) x 1.72m (north-south) concrete slab, with surface traces of mortar and brick. Freshly broken pieces of concrete from the southwest corner of the slab indicate the possible use of heavy machinery in clearing the site.
\n· The south-western chimney base (hospital building) comprises a 2.18m (east-west) x 1.73m (north-south) concrete slab, with surface traces of remnant mortar.
\nArtefacts distributed across the hospital site are generally highly fragmented, comprising scatters and small isolated pieces of ceramic (predominately domestic, with traces of possible medical earthenware), glass, butchered bone, brick and clay pipe. Artefacts in the vicinity of the dam (former waterhole), to the southwest of the chimney slabs, include stone tools and freshwater mussel shells (Velesunio ambiguus).[1]
\nCemetery
\nThe historical cemetery reserve comprises 0.476ha in the northeast corner of Lot 1 RP880020, and the register boundary covers the northern 0.78ha of the lot, which includes a 10m buffer to the west and south to account for the potential for burials and other subsurface features to exist outside the reserve.
\nThe lot has been developed as a private residence, with a house, sheds, lawn areas and landscaped gardens to the north, bamboo along the western boundary, and a modern dam surrounded by various eucalypts to the south.[2]
\nOther Structures
\nHouses, sheds and other modern structures within the heritage boundary are not of cultural heritage significance.
\n
[1] EHP, Preliminary Archaeological Assessment of the Former South Sea Islander Hospital Site, Tinana, 2017.
[2] Lot 1 RP880020 was not accessed during the archaeological surface survey.
The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site at Tinana, formerly named the Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough, and originally comprising 13.18ha, is situated between Iindah, Genrich and Bluebird Roads, at Tinana, approximately 5.5km southwest of Maryborough. The hospital officially opened on 19 December 1883 and closed on 31 December 1888. One of only four central hospitals built for the treatment of South Sea Islanders (then called Pacific Islanders or Polynesians), the site is a rare and important remnant of the response by the Queensland Government during the 1880s to the high death rate among indentured South Sea Islanders. The former ‘Polynesian Cemetery’ site has the potential to yield new information that will contribute to a greater understanding of the role and treatment of indentured South Sea Islander workers in Queensland's history. The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site has a special association with South Sea Islanders who, as indentured workers, made an important contribution to the establishment of the Queensland sugar industry, and has a special association with their descendants.
\nThe settlement of Maryborough in the traditional country of the Butchulla people, started in 1847 to serve the needs of the pastoral settlers in the district. Maryborough, with a population of 299, was declared a township in 1851. It was proclaimed a port of entry in 1859 and a municipality in 1861. From April 1861, land on the Mary River was sold for agricultural purposes, and by the end of the 1860s thousands of free immigrants had entered Queensland through the port of Maryborough. Supplying the Gympie goldfields from 1867 further boosted Maryborough’s growth.[1]
\nSugar cane was cultivated around Maryborough from the late 1860s. The first commercially viable sugar cane crop in Australia had been grown by Captain Louis Hope at Ormiston, Queensland in 1862 and by 1864 he had established the first commercial sugar mill in Australia. Cultivated primarily on plantations, sugar cane production spread rapidly to coastal areas to the north, such as Maryborough, Mackay and Bundaberg, where the warmer climate proved more suitable.[2]
\nA labour shortage existed in Queensland at the time and it was believed that labouring in the tropics was unhealthy for Europeans.[3] Therefore, an inexpensive, non-European labour force was sought by cane plantation owners (planters). The use of South Sea Islander labour in Australia began in the 1840s when Benjamin Boyd employed them as shepherds in lieu of convict labourers in the Riverina District of New South Wales.[4] The first group of South Sea Islanders brought to Queensland as indentured labour arrived at Brisbane on 14 August 1863 aboard Robert Town’s ship the Don Juan, and went to work on his cotton plantation, Townsvale (later Veresdale), on the Logan River.[5] Captain Claudius Whish employed Islanders on his property near Caboolture (QHR 645607, Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants), as did Captain Louis Hope on his sugar plantation at Ormiston, near Cleveland (QHR 600755, Ormiston House Estate).[6]
\nSouth Sea Islanders made a major contribution to Queensland's early sugar industry. Between 1863 and 1904, approximately 50,000 Islanders were brought to Queensland as indentured labourers, generally employed on three-year contracts bound by the current Masters and Servants Act 1861.[7] Most came from 80 islands in Melanesia, mainly those of present day Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. They made a vital contribution to the sugar industry by performing virtually all of the associated field work during the first phase of the sugar industry’s development. Most returned to their islands at the conclusion of their contract period.[8]
\nThe first South Sea Islanders employed in the Maryborough district arrived in November 1867 aboard the schooner Mary Smith, a month after the Gympie gold rush commenced. Most of this group of 84 men became employees of the Maryborough Sugar Company. The cost to employers of their travel to Maryborough was approximately £9 and their wages were £6 per annum (compared with wages for a European of £6 per month).[9]
\nBy March 1868, 2107 Islanders had been brought to Queensland, and were employed in various capacities including agricultural and pastoral work, and as servants in the towns. They lived and worked from Bowen to the Moreton Bay district, and west to Roma.[10]
\nThe need to protect South Sea Islanders from illegal practices became apparent soon after this trade in indentured labour from the islands arose. By 1868, there were reports that the recruitment of South Sea Islanders had devolved into kidnapping. At the least, there was coercion and deception involved in their hiring. The Polynesian Labourer Act 1868 was enacted to regulate recruitment. Under the Act, a government agent accompanied each recruiting ship to ensure all the regulations referred to in the Act were upheld, the Islanders were required to sign a contract for up to three years, and employers were required to pay them a minimum wage of £6 per year plus rations and pay for their return voyage home after completion of their contract. Deaths and desertions were reported to the nearest magistrate.[11]
\nBy 1870, sugar had become the third largest of Queensland’s crops, by area of cultivation. In 1872, 56 mills in Queensland were producing more than 6000 tons of sugar and 734,000 litres of rum per year, and sugar was being exported to other colonies. The labour shortage remained acute and the entire industry would have collapsed without South Sea Islanders.[12]
\nDuring the 1870s and 1880s there was ongoing public criticism and political debate about the use of South Sea Islander labour. Further Acts of Parliament were introduced to protect the Islanders from unscrupulous recruiters and employers. Inspectors of Polynesians were appointed to monitor Islanders’ health and welfare. The first Inspector appointed to oversee Bundaberg and Maryborough was employed in 1875 and also acted as the sub-collector of customs.[13]
\nConcerns continued to be raised about the living and working conditions, and the illness and death rates for South Sea Islanders. Complaints were made by successive Inspectors of Polynesians at Maryborough.[14]
\nIn January 1876, Richard Bingham Sheridan, Inspector of Polynesians at Maryborough, reported to the Office of the Colonial Secretary that South Sea Islanders were experiencing both harsh treatment and poor living standards. He alleged that some planters were deterred from trying to diminish the death rate by the prospect of saving both the cost of the labourer’s return passage and his accumulated wages if he died.[15] As a result of Sheridan’s charges, a select committee was established in September 1876 to investigate. Sheridan gave evidence about the medical neglect of the South Sea Islanders: ‘that medical attendance upon the Polynesians was greatly neglected; that there was no system of regular medical attendance; that numbers died without any medical man’.[16] Other witnesses, who were wealthy planters and members of parliament, reported favourably on the conditions for South Sea Islander employees.[17] The investigation did not result in legislation for improved conditions.
\nFollowing Sheridan’s resignation, Charles Horrocks became Inspector of Polynesians for Bundaberg and Maryborough from 1877.[18] He regularly inspected South Sea Islander accommodation and clothing, and weighed their food rations. Instances of large numbers of Islanders dying on individual farms were investigated, with the worst examples being Robert Cran’s Maryborough plantations of Yerra Yerra, Yengari and Irrewarra.[19] In 1879, the death rate amongst South Sea Islanders in the Maryborough district was 7.4%, compared with 0.9% for similarly aged European men between 16 and 30 years. During the previous five years, Cran’s estates had a mortality rate of 9.2%.[20]
\nOn 12 February 1880, the subsequent Inspector of Polynesians at Maryborough, Henry Reginald Buttenshaw, reported that Cran & Co’s properties had an exceedingly high death rate. On visiting the properties Yerra Yerra and Irrewarra, he found 60 Islanders ill with dysentery. Buttanshaw cited how local sugar planters benefitted financially by the death of an indentured worker. [21]
\nThe high mortality rate led to another medical investigation in 1880 when the Colonial Secretary, Arthur Palmer, ordered a departmental investigation into conditions in the Maryborough district. This was conducted by Drs Wray and Thomson who meticulously investigated the situation. They inspected Cran & Co’s plantations and seven other estates in the area for comparative purposes.[22] Their report blamed poor food, long working hours, polluted water, and a lack of proper care for the sick, for the high death rate.[23]
\nThe doctors advised of ‘an urgent necessity for a complete and efficient system of inspection’ at all levels. Their recommendations included ‘the speedy erection of a Central Polynesian Hospital in each district, presided over by a qualified medical practitioner’. Horrocks, who had suggested this system three years earlier, had also devised the means for its financing, through a fee paid annually by employers for each indentured South Sea Islander, with the wages of deceased servants likewise diverted into public funds.[24]
\nThe resultant new Act, the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880 set limitations on the age of recruits; their living conditions; medical service and ration provisions; and the work they could undertake. Islanders could only be employed in tropical or sub-tropical agriculture, including the cultivation of sugar cane, cotton, tea, coffee, rice and spices.[25] This Act made medical care for South Sea Islanders compulsory and made provision for the construction of central hospitals, sponsored by the government and financed by the planters and other masters.[26] However, it took another three years for the first central hospitals, the Pacific Islander Hospitals at Mackay and Maryborough, to be constructed.
\nOrganisations outside Queensland also complained about the high death rate for South Sea Islanders. In 1879 the Aborigines’ Protection Society had contacted the Colonial Office directly about the excessive death rate for South Sea Islanders in Queensland.[27] In 1883 The British Medical Journal cited the Queensland Registrar-General’s annual report, which revealed that the death rate of South Sea Islanders was twelve times that of Europeans of the same age group, and requested investigation of the cause by the Secretary of State for the Colonies.[28]
\nThe period 1881 to 1884 marked the peak of the plantation system of growing sugar cane.[29] In 1881, there were 6396 South Sea Islanders living in Queensland. Of these, 1515 (23.69%) lived in the Maryborough and Wide Bay census district, comprising 1163 adult males, 55 adult females, and 269 male and 28 female minors.[30]
\nTwo central hospitals for South Sea Islanders, called Pacific Islander Hospitals, were built in 1883. They were funded by the Queensland Government, planters and other masters (all of whom paid 10s per South Sea Islander employee per annum to the Pacific Islander Fund, as stipulated by the Pacific Islander Labours Act 1880).[31] The first hospital opened was located at Mackay, the district with the largest South Sea Islander population. The second hospital was built at Tinana outside Maryborough. The Mackay Pacific Islander Hospital was reportedly ‘a good building, with large airy wards, on the same plan as, only larger than, the Maryborough hospital, and capable of carrying from 300 to 400 boys [sic]’.[32] Two more Pacific Islander Hospitals opened c1886, at Geraldton (Innisfail) and Ingham Hospitals, both comprising separate ‘Kanaka ward’ wings attached to the main hospital building, and with comparatively high bed densities.[33]
\nThe Pacific Islander Hospital for the Maryborough district was established at Tinana in late 1883. Specifications had been drawn up by the Department of Public Works in July 1882 and tenders for building the hospital and a resident surgeon’s residence were called soon afterwards.[34] The hospital buildings, chimneys and tanks were constructed during 1883 by contractor, Henry Neale, for £2762 10s.[35] Its construction progressed slowly because of a shortage of timber.[36] However, building was nearing completion in November 1883 when its first Resident Surgeon, Dr Charles H Clarkson, arrived to take charge of the facility.[37] The hospital opened officially on 19 December 1883, although Clarkson had already admitted some cases.[38]
\nThe hospital was sited on a 13.18ha site at Tinana bounded by Iindah Road and two unnamed roads to its west and north. It was intended to provide care for 50 patients. The hospital complex, at the time of its construction, comprised a hospital building and a doctor’s residence, built on the most elevated part of the site. The hospital building was specified as being built of ironbark or similar, supported by tarred ironbark or bloodwood timber stumps, and covered by a galvanised iron roof. The hospital building comprised two wards, a dispensary and a detached kitchen wing, connected by a covered way. The doctor’s residence, along with its detached kitchen wing and covered way, was built of similar materials, and located about 56 feet (17.2m) to the west of the hospital building. Concrete footings for the brick chimneys (hospital, residence and residence kitchen) and boiler mounts (2x 35 gallon boilers in hospital kitchen) were specified as being 15” (37.5cm) deep, with an embedded sheet of 24 gauge galvanised iron to receive the brickwork above. Both the hospital and residence buildings had separate earth closets (locations unknown) and eight 800 gallon (3637 litre) water tanks on timber stands.[39]
\nSoon after taking up his position, Clarkson reported to the Colonial Secretary on the building and made recommendations for improvements to it and the grounds, and about furniture needed for the hospital’s efficient functioning. Due to the necessity for isolation of violent or contagious cases, more rooms were needed than provided in the building’s current configuration.[40]
\nClarkson recommended clearing the thick timber that surrounded the buildings, and constructing: a two-rail fence on the three lines of road that bounded the site; a picket or light galvanised iron fence to divide the house from the main hospital buildings; and trelliswork around portions of the verandah for privacy. He regarded the hospital’s eight water storage tanks as inadequate to supply the probable number of patients. Furthermore, the tanks’ overflow travelled under the hospital building, which was wasteful and detrimental to patients’ health. He recommended that the hospital be connected to mains water from the Tinana waterworks on Teddington Road, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away, at a cost of about £180 per mile. This water supply would also enable firefighting.[41] Clarkson also required; to be sited ‘at a distance from the building: a washing shed; a four-stalled stable and shed; and a “dead house” [morgue] with [a] Zinc and Iron-lined table’.[42] The Colonial Secretary or his delegate marked these additional building requests as approved on Clarkson’s report.[43] Temporary sheds for washing were under construction by assistant wardsmen in December 1883.[44]
\nClarkson also pointed out to the Colonial Secretary ‘the necessity for the reservation of a piece of land as [a] Cemetry [sic]. The Maryboro’ General Cemetry [sic] being six miles distant…’.[45] A year earlier, the Tinana Divisional Board had proposed a cemetery reserve adjacent to the Polynesian Hospital, but a suitable site could not be decided upon.[46] As the Pacific Islander Hospital neared completion, the local Inspector of Polynesians (Thomas B Smyth) was arranging for ‘the provision of a cemetery to bury the remains of those who die’ at the Pacific Islander Hospital.[47] A reserve for ‘Polynesian Cemetery’ R314 was created c1891 in the northeast corner of the site and appeared on later survey plans and maps.[48] This implies that the reserved site was used for burials while the hospital was operating and a cemetery reserve was created after the hospital’s closure to protect those burials.
\nIn December 1883, Clarkson reported to the Colonial Secretary that he had appointed the staff for the hospital. These were: one married wardsman at £70 a year to commence his duties from 1 January 1884; two assistant wardsmen at 20s a week; and three South Sea Islander wardsmen, one at 12s per week and the others at 10s a week. The men were employed at the time in cutting firewood, making necessary alterations, filling up the closets, and building temporary sheds for washing and so forth.[49] Clarkson also advised that he had engaged a carpenter at 40s per week to subdivide the ward and to make the necessary fittings – table and other furniture.[50] On 2 February 1884 Clarkson advised that the subdivision of the wards was nearly completed, but the stable and dead house (morgue) and various internal fittings remained to be done.[51] He had also added four additional tanks instead of the proposed underground tank, and reported that ‘necessary drainage will give a supply to a natural water course which exists about the middle of the paddock and the labour mostly of our wardsmen will as soon as the clearing is finished be able to turn it into a water hole available for the paddock and also for supplying water for washing purposes’. [52]
\nIllness was still very common among South Sea Islanders at this time. Clarkson’s March 1884 report stated that due to the prevalence of dysentery and malarial fever there had been a large increase in the number of admissions, as well as a comparatively high death rate, with eight deaths that month.[53] Clarkson was transferred to the Mackay Pacific Islander Hospital in April 1884 and replaced at Maryborough by Dr J Raphael Joseph.[54]
\nWater supply continued to be a concern. By November 1884, the Committee of Management of the hospital resolved to request that the government have water connected from Tinana, noting the insufficient supply from only 12 tanks containing 800 gallons each and that ‘the open waterhole that was made is unfit for use, even scrubbing purposes, the water going into it being contaminated with the worst kind of filth viz the washings from the Hospital itself’.[55] Tenders were invited for drainage work at the Polynesian Hospital, closing 2 January 1885, which was undertaken by A Brown for approximately £197. [56] By 8 December, water pipes connecting the hospital to Tinana Waterworks were laid but the water pressure was very low.[57]
\nOther improvements on the site were made soon afterwards. In January 1886 a carpenter was engaged in the erection of a stable, coach house, wash-house, bath and an ornamental paling fence around the doctor’s residence. Stables were confirmed on the hospital site by April 1886.[58]
\nRegulation of the hospital’s procedures occurred in 1885. By-Laws for the hospital, established by the Colonial Secretary’s Office, Brisbane, and in effect by 12 August 1885, specified requirements for a range of processes and activities including Committee of Management meetings and inspections, hospital visitation, reporting and burials. Forms were provided, to be completed for the notification of admissions, discharges and deaths.[59] According to the hospital by-laws, patient burials were to be conducted by the hospital staff, with a permanent staff member required to sign the burial report.[60] This change was reflected in the death register from August 1885 onwards.[61]
\nIn January 1886, all members of the Hospital Committee of Management resigned in protest against the Resident Surgeon’s over-expenditure and unwillingness to reduce costs.[62] The Committee was also concerned by the death rate at the hospital, reporting that the number of South Sea Islander deaths in the Maryborough district had risen, despite the hospital, from 77 in 1883; to 105 in 1884; to 122 in 1885.[63]
\nIn March 1886, Dr Joseph, the Resident Surgeon, faced a board of enquiry charged with five offences concerning the running of the hospital – primarily inappropriate use of hospital resources and staff. The charges included: using the night wardsman as a gardener in the doctor’s private garden while an Islander performed the function of night wardsman; falsification of the patients’ death rate to lessen the figure; often neglecting patients for up to a week, leaving a wardsman to do his work; and taking items from the hospital store for his private use.[64]
\nThe enquiry was inconclusive and no new legislation was enacted, but it did reveal that the doctor was abusing his position, although there was no evidence he falsified the death rate. Dr Joseph was dismissed by the Queensland Government in April 1886 and Dr David Watkins O’Connor, the local Health Officer, officiated at the hospital until the appointment of Dr Francis Bowe as the Resident Surgeon in May 1886. [65]
\nMeanwhile the number of South Sea Islanders in the Maryborough district continued to reduce due to falling sugar prices and new legislation to limit inexpensive South Sea Islander labour and to break up large plantations into small holdings. An amendment to the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1880 banned South Sea Islanders from a range of work, and restricted them to menial jobs in agriculture and the Pacific Islanders Act 1885 sought to end the recruitment of South Sea Island labour by 1890. At 31 December 1886 there were 759 indentured employees (of a total of 10,165 in Queensland), down from 1215 adults in 1881. Through 136 arrivals, 53 deaths and 254 departures, it was estimated that the number of South Sea Islanders in the district would be 563 by 31 December 1887.[66]
\nIn 1887, Arthur Woodward, Inspector of Pacific Islanders and Officer-in-Charge of The Pacific Islander Labour Office, reported upon the Financial Condition of the Pacific Islanders’ Hospitals, and recommended that all the Pacific Islander Hospitals be closed because the cost of running them would exhaust the Pacific Islanders’ Fund, which paid for them, by 31 December 1887.[67] Maryborough’s deficit was estimated to be £6749 by the end of December 1887 and the other hospitals were also in debt. Woodward reported that while The Pacific Islanders Fund, was in credit for £2871 3s 11d, the four Pacific Islander Hospitals (Maryborough, Mackay, Ingham, and Johnstone) were in deficit of £19,079 16s 5d, estimated to increase to over £21,263 by 31 Dec 1887.[68]
\nNo action was taken until Woodward’s report for the following year repeated his advice. The Maryborough and Mackay Pacific Islander Hospitals closed on 31 December 1888.[69] Subsequently, the ‘Kanaka Ward’ at Geraldton (Innisfail) Hospital and the ‘Kanaka Ward’ at Ingham Hospital, which had opened c1886, closed in December 1890.[70] Of these four Pacific Islander Hospitals, only the Maryborough one had an adjacent ‘Polynesian Cemetery’ reserve and has not been totally developed in 2017; with the Mackay, Geraldton and Ingham sites operating as modern hospital complexes.[71]
\nAfter the closure of the central Pacific Islander Hospitals, South Sea Islanders were cared for in separate wards established at general hospitals, or were cared for at their plantations.[72] Maryborough sugar planters had met in January 1889 to decide how to care for their sick South Sea Islander workers and resolved to approach the Maryborough General Hospital and to petition the government to have portions of the Polynesian Hospital building, and its furniture, shifted to the Maryborough Hospital, as a separate ward, because the Maryborough people did not wish to have ‘the coolies mixed with the whites’ at the hospital.[73] Subsequently, in 1889, part of the Pacific Islander Hospital building at Tinana was removed and established at the Maryborough General Hospital as a ‘Polynesians’ ward’.[74]
\nMeanwhile, a large quantity of furniture and stores from the Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough was sold by auction at the Immigration Depot.[75]
\nA survey plan of the site from 1891 shows the hospital building and adjacent doctor’s residence located in the northwest corner of Lot 5 of Section 130 and orientated parallel to the northern lot boundary (later Bluebell Road). A waterhole is located to the southwest of the residence, which was surrounded by a square, fenced garden area, and was accessed via a made road that had a gated entrance on Iindah Road to the south. The Polynesian Cemetery Reserve, R.314, is identified as a 1 acre and 28 perch (4755m2) area to the northeast of Lot 4 of Section 130.[76]
\nIn March 1892, the remaining buildings were inspected for disposal, and a more detailed plan of the extant, and recently removed, structures was prepared. The hospital building comprised a long central ward, with north and south-facing verandahs and double-sided chimneys at either end; flanked by wings to the east (ward with partitions at northern end) and west (partitioned to form several rooms), each with verandahs that had enclosures (possibly lavatories) at the northern end. The detached hospital kitchen, which was connected to the northern verandah of the central ward by a covered way, had a south-facing verandah and contained three rooms, the largest central room with a chimney flanked by boilers. The residence comprised a square core of four rooms, the sitting room containing a chimney, with verandahs to the east, south and west (enclosed bathroom at northern end); and had a detached two-room kitchen to the north that contained a chimney and was connected by a covered way.[77]
\nThe disposal report noted that a portion of the hospital building (west wing), down-piping and guttering, all 12 tanks and stands, the roof of the covered way, and kitchen and ward partitions, had been removed. The residence was recommended for reuse as a Police Station at Tinana, and was subsequently rebuilt at Gympie Road for that purpose. The cladding used for the verandah enclosures matches that of the detached kitchen. Material from the hospital building was used for the associated police cell built on the Tinana Police Station site.[78]
\nA total of 363 patients died at the Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough between 1883 and 1888.[79] Prior to the establishment of Pacific Islander Hospitals, South Sea Islanders were buried on the plantations on which they worked or in the ‘non-Christian’ or ‘coloured section’ of general cemeteries. [80] In January 1876, Richard Bingham Sheridan, the Inspector of Polynesians for the Maryborough district, said in his report to the office of the Colonial Secretary: ‘…I am led to believe that the interment of a South Sea Islander in no way differs from the burial of a dog or any other carrion. As I am informed, a hole or grave is made in the most convenient place, the body, as soon as possible after it has ceased to breathe, is rolled in the blanket in which it died, and put in the shallow resting place without further care or ceremony.’[81] While the Maryborough Cemetery [QHR 600689] does contain a small section in which South Sea Islanders were reportedly buried, there are no known records of South Sea Islander burials at the Maryborough Cemetery between 1883 and 1888.[82] Given the distance (6 miles/9.6km) to Maryborough Cemetery from the Pacific Islander Hospital, it is likely that some, if not all, of the deceased patients were buried in the adjacent Polynesian Cemetery Reserve.
\nThe Pacific Islanders Act 1885, which aimed to end recruitment, was repealed in 1892 on economic grounds. However the Pacific Island Labourers (Extension) Act 1892 further barred South Sea Islanders from construction work on plantation roads and tramways. Nevertheless, the plantation system was gradually supplanted by the central mill system serving small cane farms worked by European labour.[83]
\nAfter Federation in 1901, two pieces of Commonwealth legislation put an end to the South Sea Islander labour trade: the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901. The former initiated the various policies that came to be termed the 'White Australia Policy' by excluding all non-European immigrants. The latter legislation ended recruitment of South Sea Islanders from March 1904 and started their deportation after December 1906. Up to 1908, around 7000 people were deported. About 1200 were granted residency, and an estimated 1000 others stayed on in Australia without residency approval.[84]
\nOn 30 March 1911, Lots 4 and 5 of Section 130, the land comprising the former Pacific Islander Hospital, Maryborough (excluding the Reserve for Polynesian Cemetery), were sold to William Nichols, who was subsequently issued a Deed of Grant in September 1914.[85] The land changed ownership a number of times thereafter. In 1972 the Reserve for Polynesian Cemetery was redesignated as Portion 134 and subsequently sold at public auction to the owners of Lots 4 and 5 in late 1972 or early 1973. In 1994, the former cemetery site and adjacent allotment to its west were reconfigured to increase the size of the former Portion 134 to 1.148 ha. [86]
\nOver time, modification of the former hospital and cemetery site has occurred, in association with various occupation and land use practices. A residence, flanked by paddocks or enclosures to the west and south, was established to the south of the former hospital buildings by 1940.[87] The made road from the former hospital to Iindah Road was still evident, though the central portion of the alignment deviated to the west of that indicated in the 1891 survey plan. Mature vegetation in the vicinity of the residence and to the north and east of the made road had been substantially cleared. By 1957 the residence was no longer extant, and the lot containing the former cemetery reserve, and an area in the southwest corner of the site, had been substantially cleared of vegetation, the latter reportedly used as a gravel quarry.[88] Further clearing of vegetation across the northern centre of the site was evident by 1964, along with the addition of a dam to the immediate south of the former cemetery reserve.[89] A house was constructed on the northern side of the former cemetery reserve by 1994, and further structures, vegetation clearance and landscaping has occurred across the northern extent of the site in recent years, including a dam excavated in the vicinity of the historical waterhole.[90]
\nIn 2017 the former Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site comprises three allotments – Lot 1 RP880020 (east, cemetery reserve); Lot 2 RP880020 (centre); and Lot 5 M371033 (west, hospital and residence site).[91]
\nAn archaeological surface survey of the former Pacific Island Hospital site (Lot 5 M371033 and Lot 2 RP880020 only) was undertaken in May 2017. The site was found to be heavily disturbed but some structural and artefactual traces of the former complex were identified. These were concentrated in the northwest corner of Lot 5 and included three concrete slabs that correspond with the configuration of chimney bases for the hospital building and detached kitchen, as indicated in the 1892 plan, as well as small isolated fragments and scatters of ceramic, glass, butchered bone, brick and clay pipe. The type and range of ceramics were limited but generally consistent with domestic activities, including possible high-status vitrified ceramics in the vicinity of the doctor’s residence, although some of the heavy earthenware could relate to medical purposes. Two lithic artefacts and freshwater mussel shells (Velesunio ambiguus) in the vicinity of the dam (former waterhole) could potentially predate the hospital era or relate to South Sea Islander peoples adapting traditional technologies and food sources on site. Several timber posts, generally consistent with the description of the timber rail fence erected around the hospital reserve, were observed. No historical artefacts or features were located on Lot 2, other than a timber post on the southern boundary. Overall the fragmentary and decontextualised nature of surface finds, which were difficult to accurately date, general absence of substantial building debris and apparent lack of rubbish pits, broken bottles or dense artefacts scatters that are normally found at late 19th and early 20th century occupation sites, has resulted in low (Lot 2) to moderate (Lot 5) archaeological potential.[92]
\nA surface survey of Lot 1 RP880020 was not undertaken due to access restrictions. Historical records indicate that this former cemetery site has high archaeological potential. Archaeological investigations at and around the site, including the use of non-invasive methods such as Ground Penetrating Radar, have the potential to clarify the presence, nature and extent of burials, which along with the identification and analysis of associated artefacts and features could address broader research questions that relate to: the treatment of deceased patients and burial practices at the hospital; mortality rates, gender and age; spatial distribution and arrangement of graves – whether patients were buried individually or communally; evidence of traditional South Sea Islander cultures in burial practices; comparative studies with plantation burials; and broader late 19th century social attitudes towards South Sea Islander indentured workers.[93]
\nThe place was nominated for entry in the Queensland Heritage Register in 2017 due to its importance to the South Sea Islander community and to highlight South Sea Islander history and association with the site.[94]
\n","criteria":"
The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site (1883-88), located at Tinana, is important in demonstrating the response by the Queensland Government during the 1880s to the high death rate among indentured South Sea Islanders employed in Queensland’s important sugar industry. As the site of one of only four ‘central hospitals’ built exclusively for the treatment of South Sea Islanders; and one of the two not attached to a general hospital, it is a rare and important remnant of this government initiative.
|As a rare example of a ‘Polynesian Cemetery’ reserve attached to a 19th century Pacific Islander Hospital, the place has the potential to yield new information that will contribute to a greater understanding of the role and treatment of South Sea Islanders in Queensland's history.
\nArchaeological investigations at and around the former cemetery reserve could clarify the presence, nature and extent of burials, which along with the identification and analysis of associated artefacts and features could address broader research questions include: the treatment of deceased patients and burial practices at the hospital; spatial distribution and arrangement of graves; evidence of traditional South Sea Islander cultures in burial practices; comparative studies with plantation burial practices; and broader late 19th century social attitudes towards South Sea Islander indentured workers.
|The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site has a special association with Queensland’s South Sea Islander community, who are descendants of those who came to Queensland as indentured labourers between 1863 and 1904. Now an archaeological site, it represents the loss of South Sea Islanders to illness and injury as a result of their labour to establish and develop the Queensland sugar industry.
|The Pacific Islander Hospital and Cemetery site has a special association with the South Sea Islanders who, as indentured workers, made an important contribution to the establishment and development of the Queensland sugar industry. Over approximately 35 years, thousands of South Sea Islanders worked in the Maryborough district, and 1964 were admitted to the Pacific Islander Hospital at Tinana; where 363 died.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650057,"name":"Morningside State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"67 Pashen Street","suburb":"MORNINGSIDE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-04-24","description":"Morningside State School occupies a 1.986ha, terraced site in the residential suburb of Morningside, approximately 3.8km east of Brisbane CBD. Fronting Pashen Street to the north, the school is bounded on other sides by residential and commercial properties (east and west), and Stephens Street and Palm Square (south). The site steps down from the east, with the complex of significant school buildings and structures primarily aligned with the highest sections to the east.
\nFeatures of Morningside State School of state cultural heritage significance are:
\nDepression-era Brick Infants School Building (Block A; 1937)
\nBlock A is a symmetrical, masonry structure of one storey, highset on an understorey. The building faces Pashen Street to the north and is approximately rectangular in plan, with protruding enclosures to the east and west. It is elegantly composed and ornamented with modest Art Deco-style treatments and its red-brown face brick exterior is contrasted by painted render dressings. The building has a Dutch-gable roof, clad in terracotta tiles and featuring vented timber gablets.
\nAn entrance bay projecting from the centre of the northern elevation is reached by an imperial concrete stair. It has a stepped and rendered parapet that features the words ‘MORNINGSIDE STATE SCHOOL’ above a framed entrance door. The north and south elevations have regularly spaced banks of windows with fanlights, sheltered by continuous terracotta tile-clad window hoods with timber brackets. A singular bank of windows is centred on the eastern and western elevations, with high-level windows to the understorey.
\nThe first floor layout comprises a short entrance hall leading to a perpendicular central corridor (that runs east-west). To the north and south of the corridor are classrooms and teachers rooms, now used as staffrooms and offices. At both ends of the corridor are enclosed hatrooms (now storerooms) and stairwells lead down to the understorey.
\nThe understorey is aligned with the ground level. Modern lightweight partitions (not significant) have been added to form additional classroom space in the former open play space. Toilets and store rooms are located at the eastern and western ends.
\nFeatures of the Depression-era Brick Infants School Building (Block A) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Depression-era Brick Infants School Building (Block A) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSectional School Buildings (Block B, 1927, extended 1958; and Block D,1927, extended 1954)
\nThe Sectional School Buildings are timber classroom buildings orientated on east-west axes, parallel to Pashen Street. The buildings are partially highset to compensate for the sloping terrain. Each has a Dutch-gable roof, with a gable to the eastern ends (indicative of 1954 and 1958 extensions).
\nThe mostly north-facing verandahs are connected and run the length of the buildings. They are generally accessed via timber stairs (modern replacements connecting to early landing locations), with the eastern ends of the buildings accessed from ground-level. Hatrooms are located at the northwest corner of Block B and in the southwest corner of Block D (remnant), and bag racks have replaced some balustrading.
\nOriginal coved ceilings survive in most early classrooms. Extensions at the eastern ends of the buildings can be identified by flat ceiling and wall linings, and taller window banks with differing sill heights and later joinery / mechanisms on the southern sides. While most interior partitions between classrooms have been removed or modified to form larger teaching spaces, locations of original partitions can generally be identified though wall remnants on the northern and southern walls and bulkheads.
\nThe understoreys that are accessible are mostly used for storage.
\nFeatures of the Sectional School Buildings (Block B and Block D) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Sectional School Buildings (Block B and Block D) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nHighset Timber School Buildings (Block E, 1956; and Block F, 1956-7)
\nBlock E and F are long timber classroom buildings, highset on concrete piers, with understoreys. The buildings have gable roofs, and verandahs run along the west (Block E) and north (Block F) sides. Timber stairs access Block F’s verandah, and the Block E links to the verandahs of Block D at the north and Block F at the south.
\nBlock E comprises two classrooms connected by a recent concertina door (within an original folding door opening). Block F has four classrooms, each connected by doors at the southern ends of the room partitions (some partitions have been partially removed, with wall nibs and bulkheads retained).
\nThe understoreys of the blocks primarily comprise open play space, and some later enclosures have been added (not significant).
\nFeatures of the Highset Timber School Buildings (Block E and Block F) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Highset Timber School Buildings (Block E and Block F) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape Elements
\nThe school grounds are well-established and are terraced along the northern side of the site with concrete and stone retaining walls and steps. The southeastern boundaries of the site comprise open-cut stone excavations – a remnant of a former quarry site.
\nPashen Street frontage and retaining walls:
\nA concrete retaining wall forms a fence along the Pashen Street boundary and features decorative, Art-Deco-style piers at the entrances. Timber formwork impressions are set within the concrete.
\nTwo retaining walls with concrete stairs stand between Pashen Street and Block B (by 1959), and to the northwest of Block B (formerly between Block C and Pashen Street, by 1960). The wall to the northwest of Block B is battered, with stones set within the concrete, and the wall between Block B and Pashen Street is of concrete.
\nThe setback and open space between Pashen Street and Blocks A and B afford views of the buildings from the street and contribute to the place’s prominence and streetscape presence.
\nTennis courts and playing field:
\nTwo tennis courts (1939) stand in their original location at the northwest corner of the site and have been resurfaced. An open playing field (1960s) is located south of the tennis courts.
\nWar Memorial:
\nA painted concrete WWII memorial (unknown date) stands within an Anzac memorial garden (2014) east of Block B, and is dedicated to the Rats of Tobruk.
\nOpen assembly areas:
\nFormer assembly areas to the north and south of Block A, and between Blocks B and D, and west of Block E / north of Block F, retain their open character, allowing light and ventilation to adjacent interior classroom spaces.
\nFeatures of the landscape elements of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the landscape elements not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Morningside state School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMorningside State School opened in 1926, on its current site at 67 Pashen Street, Morningside, about 3.8km northeast of the Brisbane CBD. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains: two connected Sectional School Buildings (Blocks D and B, 1927, extended c1954 and 1958 respectively); a Depression-era Brick Infants School Building (Block A, 1937); plus two connected Highset Timber School Buildings (Block E, 1956; and Block F, 1956, extended 1957), set in landscaped grounds, with a poured-concrete retaining wall (1939) to Pashen Street, tennis courts (1939) and a WWII memorial to the Rats of Tobruk. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Morningside community.
\nTraditional country of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples, the suburb of Morningside was once within the area of the Bulimba Divisional Board, and later the Balmoral Shire Council, before being absorbed into Greater Brisbane in 1925. Farming, dairying and related industry initially occurred in the district.[1] The later school site was part of a farm surveyed in 1857 and subdivided into residential allotments in 1863.[2] Residential development in Morningside was facilitated by two transport improvements in particular: the opening of the South Brisbane to Cleveland railway line in 1889; and the extension of the electric tram line (from just east of Norman Creek) to Barton Road, Hawthorne, by May 1925.[3]
\nLocal population growth (from 495 in 1911, to 1806 in 1921), prior to the tram line extension, led to pressure for a school at Morningside in the early 1920s. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[4]
\nIn July 1922 a committee visited the Minister for Education, John Saunders Huxham, to ask for an infants school, given that children were walking long distances to existing schools at Cannon Hill (est.1915), Norman Park (1900) and Bulimba (1866). A shortage of government funds meant that the Morningside masonic hall (actually a converted residence) on Agnes Street had to be rented as an interim measure, and the Morningside Provisional (Infants) School No.1803 opened there on 28 May 1923.[5]
\nBy this time, a site for a state school for Morningside on Pashen Street had been chosen, and the community continued to push for the construction of a school.[6] The nine allotments which made up the original school grounds (consisting of 2 acres/0.8ha) between Pashen Street and Stephen Street, west of Howard Street, were obtained by the Secretary for Public Instruction in December 1924.[7]
\nIn July 1925, the Department of Public Works was asked to prepare a plan and estimate costs for a school building (Block C in 2018) to accommodate 200 pupils.[8] The new building was a Sectional School type. Attention to improving light and ventilation to achieve an optimum classroom culminated in 1920 with the Sectional School type, which proved very successful and was used unaltered until 1950. The Sectional School type had only one verandah, typically on the north side, allowing the southern wall, with a maximum number of windows for natural light, to be unobstructed. The building was designed so that the blank western wall was removable. As the school grew, the western end wall could be detached and the building extended in sections (although no western extensions occurred to Morningside State School’s Sectional School Buildings). This led to the construction of long narrow buildings of many classrooms – a distinctive feature of Queensland schools.[9]
\nThe construction of the new school was announced in October 1925, and its cost by the end of June 1926 was £3163. The infants school vacated the masonic hall shortly before the Morningside State School opened on 16 August 1926.[10]
\nThere was immediately a need for additional accommodation at Morningside State School, which, although designed for 200 pupils, opened with an attendance of 350; rising to 475 by October 1926.[11] As an interim measure, 200 students were taught at the Morningside School of Arts hall in 1927.[12] Two new wings at Morningside State School, also Sectional School Buildings, were built by December 1927, east of Block C, at a cost of £4600: Block B (north wing) and Block D (south wing). They were officially opened on Saturday 25 February 1928. By this time, the school enrolment was 600, with the school’s three buildings only designed for 440.[13]
\nThe three teaching buildings were of similar construction: each was a highset timber-framed and -clad building with a Dutch-gable roof, and 8ft (2.4m) verandahs to the north, west and east sides. Block C also had two gabled teachers rooms, each 15ft by 12ft (4.6m x 3.7m), off its north verandah. All three buildings were higher set at their west ends, due to the slope of the ground. Classrooms (five in Block C, and three in each of Blocks B and D) were all 21ft by 18ft (6.4m x 5.5m), and were designed for 40 children, with double doors linking the classrooms. Each classroom had casement windows on the south side, blackboards to the west, double-hung windows and a double door to the front verandah, and a square vent in their coved ceilings. Block C originally had hatrooms in its northern verandah corners; whereas Block B had hatrooms in each verandah corner apart from the southwest, where the west verandah was linked to the north verandah of Block C. Block D had hatrooms at the southern ends of its east and west verandahs, and plans showed it was originally set at a higher elevation than the other two blocks, with steps from its north verandah leading down to the east verandah of Block C.[14]
\nEfforts to improve the school’s facilities continued. Three 35-perch (885m2) allotments on Pashen Street (in 2018 the site of the swimming pool and tennis courts) were purchased in 1928-9.[15] In late 1929, a fete was held to raise funds to beautify the grounds with shade trees, and plans were drawn up for another Sectional School Building, this time of two storeys, to the west of Block C. The tender of W Alford was accepted in May 1930, for £1111.[16]
\nThe Department of Public Works noted: ‘Owing to the rapid growth of the Morningside district [Morningside’s population rose from 1806 in 1921, to 4919 by 1947] it became necessary to make a second addition to this school, and on account of the fall in the ground a two storied [sic] building was found to be more suitable and economical. The addition will comprise two classrooms on each floor, in size 21ft by 18ft [6.4m x 5.5m], erected on concrete piers joined to the existing building [Block C] and having verandahs 8ft [2.4m] wide on the north, east and west sides. Accommodation for 160 more pupils will be provided’.[17] The new building (Block L in 2018) was opened on 25 October 1930, at the annual school fund-raising fete, by the then Minister for Public Instruction, Reginald M King.[18]
\nIn the early 1930s, land was added to the east side of the school, when an unformed section of Howard Street, plus two allotments which were the site of a council quarry (the latter consisting of about 75.25 perches/0.2ha) were obtained by the Secretary for Public Instruction.[19]
\nThis new land became the site of the next addition to the Morningside State School, a Depression-era Brick Infants School Building (Block A). Infants schools were constructed in Queensland from 1891. In the 1930s, infants schools were sometimes built using brick, as smaller varieties within the Depression-era brick schools type, which were commonly larger and not for infants. Brick infants schools were built at Windsor [QHR 600991], Yeronga [QHR 650025], and Morningside.[20]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders and embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[21] By mid-1930, men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[22] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. At Morningside State School, relief workers built two grassed basketball courts (later the site of the swimming pool), and some of the school’s retaining walls.[23]
\nIn June 1932, the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, and the purchase of local building materials.[24] The construction of substantial Brick School Buildings[25] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open understorey and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the understorey was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions. [26]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set.[27]
\nBlock A at Morningside State School was red face brick, and had a tiled Dutch-gable roof. The understorey had lavatories, a store room, and an open play area. The first floor accommodated: two teachers rooms, both 21ft by 12ft (6.4m x 3.7m); two 50-pupil classrooms, both 22ft by 21ft (6.7m x 6.4m); and three 40-pupil classrooms, divided by folding partitions (two were 21ft by 18ft (6.4m x 5.5m), and one was 24ft 6 inches by 18ft (7.5m x 5.5m)). On either end were enclosed 10ft (3m) wide verandahs with hatrooms.[28]
\nBlock A, which cost £7500, was opened by the Minister for Public Instruction Frank A Cooper on 9 October 1937.[29] In 1939, a small dry stone wall on the Pashen Street boundary, in front of Block A, was replaced by a poured-concrete wall.[30] Retaining walls with steps were at some point added south of the 1939 Pashen Street wall, forming two level, terraced platforms in the upper part of the school: the eastern wall and steps (in front of Block B) existed by at least 1959; and the western wall and steps (in front of Block C) by 1960.[31]
\nIn July 1939, tennis courts (extant in 2018) were officially opened by the Minister for Public Education and Works, Henry A Bruce.[32] This event was soon followed by the outbreak of World War II on 3 September 1939, which had its own impact on the school grounds. After the entry of Japan into the war in December 1941, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended.[33] Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff.[34]
\nIn March 1942, a call went out for helpers to come to Morningside State School to double the existing 280ft (85m) of slit trenches (located south of Block L) at the school. During the war, female students also sewed and knitted items for the Australian Comforts Fund, and the Junior Red Cross Circle took gifts to a military hospital. In addition, the understorey of Block A was fitted out as an emergency hospital for air raid casualties. In 1944 an Oslo Lunch room, based on the Norwegian nutritious lunch movement, was established under Block A and was upgraded in 1947.[35]
\nAfter the war, more accommodation was required at the school, as the population of Morningside rose (from 4919 in 1947, to 8271 in 1954). In 1949 enrolment at the school was 840.[36] The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education between the late 1940s and the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and unprecedented population growth. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[37] Two three-classroom temporary buildings were added to Morningside State School between 1949 and 1951.[38] A classroom, 24ft by 21ft (7.3m x 6.4m) was also added to the east end of Block D c1954, with the removal of the east verandah, and a classroom of the same size was added to the east end of Block B in late 1958.[39]
\nTwo permanent buildings were also added to the school. From 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings. These buildings were highset timber framed structures and the understorey was used as covered play space. Introduced in 1950, the principal type was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[40]
\nBlock E (two classrooms) and Block F (three classrooms) were added to the school in 1956, south of Block D. Block F was extended to the west by one classroom in 1957. The classrooms were a standard 24ft by 21ft (7.3m x 6.4m). Other changes to the school in the late 1950s included: enclosing under Block C’s eastern teachers room for a new health services room; installing new hat and bag racks on the north verandah of Block B; enclosing the west verandah of Block C for a new staff room; and enclosing the upper west verandah of Block L for a store room.[41] Also in the late 1950s, the open space between Blocks C and F became the main assembly area, with new paving added to the south of the existing paving near Block C; the space between Blocks B and D was paved as a parade area; and spaces to the north and south of Block A were paved for winter and summer assembly areas respectively.[42]
\nAdditions continued in the 1960s and 1970s, despite a drop in enrolments when Grade 8 was removed to high school in 1964. A swimming pool, funded by the efforts of the school and parents, was constructed west of Block L by November 1964. The school grounds were also extended to the west in the mid-1960s, creating the school playing field and expanding the grounds to a total of 1.99ha. In 1972, plans were drawn for a new fire escape to the upper northern verandah of Block L, and the enclosure of the western verandah of Block L was extended onto the northern verandah to create a male staffroom. In 1973, a toilet block for senior boys and girls was constructed south of Block F; a dental clinic was built c1978 and Block J was built c1979 south of Block A, replacing the earlier temporary classroom building.[43]
\nFrom the 1980s, further structures were added to the school grounds, including covered play areas, and changes were made to existing buildings. In the 1980s, a tuckshop was added under Block F and a pre-school was created under Block A. In the late 1990s, under the Building Better Schools program, changes were made to classroom partitioning in blocks B and C, creating fewer, larger classrooms. In the 2000s, further partitioning was added to the understorey of Block A.[44]
\nIn 2014 an ANZAC memorial garden was created at the east end of Block B, with a small WWII Memorial (date unknown) commemorating the Rats of Tobruk being relocated there from the southeast corner of the school. Constructed as a small replica of a monument built in 1941 by Australian Divisional Engineers in the Tobruk Cemetery, Libya, the memorial is of a stepped, Art-Deco design and stands on a stepped plinth.[45]
\nIn the early morning of 16 October 2018, a fire destroyed two Sectional School Buildings, Blocks C and L, and a walkway connecting Blocks B, C and D. The western end of Block B was also damaged. To enable remedial works to be undertaken, the school was closed for a week and students were accommodated at Balmoral State High School. Three temporary buildings, containing six classrooms, were subsequently installed on the netball courts east of the playing field as an interim measure for classroom accommodation.[46] In 2020, a new, three-storey Learning Centre was constructed in place of Block C, fronting Pashen Street, and landscaping works were undertaken.[47] Like-for-like reconstruction was also undertaken to the damaged, western end of Block B, and comprised works to: the roof and Dutch-gable end, walls, some framing, and verandah details (including its floor, ceiling, balustrade and hatroom with salvaged hooks and backing rail). A salvaged southern window was refurbished, a new northern stair replaced the existing, and a new walkway connecting the western ends of Blocks B and D was constructed.[48]
\nIn 2024, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains two Sectional School Buildings, a Depression-era Brick Infants School Building, and two Highset Timber School Buildings, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, playing areas, retaining walls and mature shade trees. Morningside State School is important to Morningside, as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. A school history was compiled for the school’s 50th anniversary in 1976.
\n","criteria":"
Morningside State School (established in 1926) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick Infants School Building (1937) and concrete retaining wall to Pashen Street (1939) are a result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe Sectional School Buildings (1927) are important in demonstrating the evolution of Department of Public Works (DPW) timber school designs to provide adequate lighting and ventilation; equally recognising educational and climatic needs.
\nThe Highset Timber School Buildings (1956-57) are important in representing the continued evolution of DPW timber building designs during the 1950s.
\nThe World War II (WWII) memorial commemorating the Rats of Tobruk is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in WWII. War memorials are a tribute from the community to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Morningside State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school of the early to mid-20th century, comprising teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick Infants School Building is an excellent, substantial, and intact example of its type, demonstrating the principal characteristics, which include: a handsome edifice standing at the front of the school; symmetrical two-storey form of classrooms and teachers rooms above an understorey of open play space; a linear layout of the main floor with rooms accessed by a corridor; loadbearing masonry construction; prominent projecting central entrance bay; and a high-quality design that provides superior educational environments focusing on abundant natural light and ventilation. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of its era, which determined its roof form, joinery, and decorative treatment.
\nThe Sectional School Buildings are good, intact examples of their type. Principal characteristics include: their timber-framed construction; highset form with play space underneath; Dutch-gable and gable roofs; blank end walls; connected northern verandahs with single skin verandah walls and double-hung windows; large banks of south-facing casement windows (replaced in Block D); hat rack enclosures; timber joinery; and coved ceilings, with metal tie rods and square lattice ceiling ventilation panels. The original classroom sizes are still readable, due to the surviving nibs and bulkheads.
\nThe Highset Timber School Buildings are good, intact examples of their type and retain: their timber-framed construction; gable roofs; highset form with concrete piers and play space underneath; verandahs for circulation; glazed screens at verandah ends; double-hung windows to the verandahs; and large banks of timber-framed awning windows to the rear elevation (east, Block E; and south, Block F).
|Through its substantial size, materials, symmetry, elegant composition, restrained use of decoration, and fine craftsmanship, the Depression-era Brick Infants School Building has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution, and is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMorningside State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Morningside community. It was established in 1926 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of Morningside children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Morningside and is a prominent community focal point.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650058,"name":"Ashgrove State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"31 Glory Street","suburb":"ASHGROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-04-24","description":"Ashgrove State School occupies a 2.805ha site in Ashgrove, approximately 5.5km northwest of Brisbane Central Business District (CBD). Facing Glory Street and Waterworks Road to the south, the site is bounded on other sides by Woonga Drive (east); Otonga Road and a residence (north); and a carpark, nature reserve and creek (west).
\nThe school comprises a complex of buildings and structures, the most prominent of which is a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A; 1938, extended 1947, and 1959), located in the southwestern corner of the site, addressing Glory Street. It is conspicuous in the area due to its handsome architecture and substantial scale. A Boulton and Paul Prefabricated Building (Block B, 1953, extended 1956 to a Department of Public Works design) is located northwest of Block A. Other important elements of the school include a memorial flagpole (1951) to the southeast of Block A, a playing field at the eastern end of the site and mature shade trees.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (Block A; 1938, extended 1947 and 1959)
\nBlock A is a substantial masonry structure of two storeys, with an undercroft level. The building has a hip roof clad in terracotta tiles, with a central metal roof fleche. The eaves are lined in sheets and battens with lattice vents. The building comprises a range, running east-west; a short eastern wing projecting to the north (undercroft); and a western extension built in a more contemporary style and aligned with the range. In the centre of the building is an entrance bay (projecting south) and a short wing (projecting north). The entrance bay frames the main entrance to the building and features a pediment and a crosshead over the doorway. An arched window on the second floor is centred with the doorway and the words ‘ASHGROVE’ and ‘EST 1877’ are painted below. Terracotta-tiled window hoods with decorative brackets run the length of the front elevation of the range and shelter the first storey windows. A split stair provides access to the first floor entry foyer within the bay, and a secondary entrance is located at the eastern end of the building, via concrete stairs.
\nThe building is elegantly composed with classical detailing and has rendered decorative elements on the first and second floors. A rendered base forms the undercroft level. The load-bearing walls of the earlier sections are of red-brown face brick with white tuck pointing, and are relieved by brown face brick pilasters and window sill-height rendered string courses. The walls and pilasters of the western extension are rendered (except for a band of face bricks below the first floor window sills; and metal sheet spandrels below the second floor window sills). All pilasters have simple, rendered capitals. Bricks on the northern elevation of the eastern wing are keyed in line with exterior and verandah walls (in anticipation of extension).
\nThe interior layout is generally repeated on the first and second floors, and access to each floor is provided via central, eastern and western concrete stairs that have timber and metal balustrades. On each level, the four earliest classrooms (1938) stand to the east of a central foyer (first floor) and office (second floor). Five classrooms are to the west, with two adjacent to the foyer (1947) of equal size, and the three westernmost (1959) longer. Offices and store rooms are within the central short wing (1947). Most classrooms retain original bulkheads (which indicate the original layout), and lattice ceiling vents are to the 1938 and 1947 sections of the second floor. Most classrooms and offices have plaster walls, timber-framed floors, and sheet and batten ceilings. Skirtings are generally stepped, and most classrooms retain picture rails. Some verandah walls have been removed to increase classroom space; with bulkheads retained.
\nVerandahs (now enclosed with metal-framed windows) run along the northern side of the building, separating the classrooms from stairs and northern wings. They have polished concrete floors, face brick balustrades, and flat ceilings (with those on the first floor battened).
\nThe undercroft (formerly open play space) is enclosed with modern partitions. It has a concrete slab floor, face brick piers stop-chamfered above head-height (some are rendered), exposed ceiling framing (1938 and 1947 sections) and open-web metal trusses (1959 section). Early toilets are at the eastern and western ends of the building and in the eastern wing; and store rooms are adjacent the central stair. The toilets have plaster and V-jointed (VJ) walls, flat sheet-lined ceilings with rounded cover strips, and VJ timber partitions.
\nEarly timber joinery retained throughout the building includes: casement and awning windows with fanlights to the exterior; double-hung windows with fanlights to the verandah walls; and panelled doors with fanlights. The eastern stair features a large northern screen of fixed and louvered windows. Most windows and doors retain their awning fanlights and early window and door hardware. Folding partitions have been replaced with fixed partitions.
\nA clear-finished ‘Honour Board’ timber cabinet stands in the corridor of Block A, recording the names of Ashgrove State School scholarship winners from 1939 to 1947. Lettering on the front states it was, ‘PRESENTED BY A.M. JOLLY. ESQ’.[1]
\nBoulton and Paul Prefabricated Building (Block B; 1953, extended 1956 to a Department of Works (DPW) design)
\nBlock B is a long, highset, timber-framed building with a corrugated metal-clad, gable roof that continues over the north-facing verandah. The eastern end, comprising two classrooms, is of a prefabricated Boulton and Paul design (1953) and the western end, also two classrooms, is of similar Department of Works (DPW) design (1956). All classrooms are accessed via the verandah, which has stairs at the eastern ends of both sections. The building is clad in timber chamferboards, including the eastern, western and western half of the southern sides of the understorey. The Boulton and Paul section is clearly distinguishable from the DPW section by its vertical timber strips within the wall lining that define each panel of the prefabricated wall units, timber brackets that support the southern eaves, and the higher window sills to the southern elevation.
\nThe interior layout comprises four classrooms that have flat sheet-lined walls with rounded cover-strips, and flat sheet-lined ceilings. The timber skirtings and cornices are narrow.
\nThe verandah has timber floors, square timber posts, raked ceilings lined in flat sheets with rounded cover strips, and battened timber balustrades. The eastern and western ends have later enclosures that extend classroom space (west) and form a store room (east). Early metal cleats are attached to verandah posts (for blinds now removed).
\nLarge banks of timber-framed awning windows with fanlights are located in the southern wall. The Boulton and Paul section retains an internal timber safety rail and brass window stays. Windows to the verandah wall are timber double-hung window with awning fanlights (Boulton and Paul) and centre-pivoting fanlights (DPW section). Timber-framed windows to the understorey are louvered and fixed. Early timber panelled and French doors are retained.
\nThe understorey is largely open play space and the western end has later enclosures forming store rooms. Posts along the southern side are concrete with rounded corners, those along the northern side are timber, and the remainder are steel. The floor is a concrete slab and timber wall framing is exposed to the interior.
\nLandscape elements
\nThe school grounds are well established with mature shade trees, particularly along the site boundaries, and sporting facilities including a generously sized playing field at the eastern end of the site.
\nThe open character of the space between Glory Street and Block A affords views of the building from the street and contributes to the place’s prominence and streetscape presence.
\nA flag pole (1951) is to the south of Block A has a concrete and metal base with a plaque engraved with the words ‘IN COMMEMORATION OF JUBILEE YEAR 1951’.
\nFeatures Not of State Heritage Significance
\nThe former Depression-era brick toilet block (1947) and face brick entry gates are not of state-level significance. Other elements not of state-level heritage significance include recent: windows (including aluminium-framed windows enclosing Block A’s verandah and louvre fanlights to the western end of Block A), doors, partitions, verandah enclosures, floor linings, suspended ceilings (to Block A’s entry foyer), blinds to Block B, understory enclosures, fixtures and fittings. Buildings, structures, shade sails, pathways and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary not previously mentioned are not of state cultural heritage significance.
\n
Ashgrove State School, established 1876 on a site opposite the current school, is situated 5.5 km northwest of the Brisbane CBD and opened on its current site in 1925. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains one Depression-era Brick School Building built in stages (Block A: 1938, 1947, 1959), a playing field partially formed by relief workers and a Boulton and Paul prefabricated building and its Department of Public Works extension. (Block B: 1953, 1956).
\nAshgrove was traditionally part of the land of the Turrbal people. Government auction of the small farms here began in 1856. In January 1876, a public meeting was held at St John’s Wood [QHR 601506], the home of George Rogers Harding, with the intention of establishing a local school. Harding, a barrister and later a Supreme Court Judge, had substantial land holdings in the area. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to their maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. Residents donated £120 and Harding donated land for the school. Two acres (8093m2) situated on Portion 667 bounded by Waterworks Road and Glory Street at their intersection with Coopers Camp Road, was transferred to the Secretary for Public Instruction in May 1876.[1]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[2]
\nThe Ashgrove State School was officially opened on 4 November 1876. It was the first school built following the introduction of the Education Act 1875, which created the Department of Public Instruction and provided free primary school education to children aged from 6 – 12. This small timber school cost £678, £104 of which was contributed by local residents. The opening ceremony was performed by the Minister for Education, the Hon Samuel Griffith. The site included a teachers residence. Poet James Brunton Stephens was the first Head Teacher when classes commenced on 22 January 1877. [3]
\nThe school building was extended in 1896 and in 1922. The Waterworks Road tramline was extended to Oleander Drive in 1924; concurrent with the subdivision and sale of the Glenlyon [QHR 600049] Gardens Estate by developer TM Burke. The Dorrington Park and Frasers Estates along Enoggera Creek, were also subdivided at this time. In July 1924, the school committee was advocating a new modern school.[4]
\nIn March 1924, the minister had approved a land transfer offered by Burke, whereby the original school site would be transferred to the developer in exchange for five acres (2.02ha) on the opposite side of Glory Street. The school building was removed and relocated across the road to the new site on the northern side of Glory Street in 1925. The school building was enlarged for the official opening on 31 October 1925.[5] Burke then acquired the original school site and subdivided it in 1926. The rapid expansion of Ashgrove saw the population increase from 144 in 1911 to 2500 in 1926. In August 1927, a further 800 housing allotments in the St Johns Wood and Royal Park estates were released. The Ashgrove School celebrated its jubilee in October 1927 with a fete aimed at raising funds to beautify the new school grounds.[6]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme work programme managed by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings. By mid-1930, men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools,[7] creating many large school playing fields. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element. The 1930 school fete raised funds to continue work on the school grounds, having already built a tennis and basketball court, with a football field and cricket pitch being developed at that time. Tree planting appears to have been minimal, with the state government discontinuing the subsidy for tree plantings in schools in 1931.[8]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power through a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state.[9]
\nIn June 1935, the Director of Education approved plans for a new brick school building for Ashgrove. Early plans were drawn up by AJ Moase of the Department of Public Works (DPW) in 1936, with more detailed plans produced in February 1937; both sets of drawings approved by the Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor, AB Leven. Construction approval was given in April 1937.[10]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[11]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School Building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features within the overall set. These styles, derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts; Spanish Mission; and Neo-classical. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features. Other schools of this type were built in nearby. Oakleigh and Ithaca Creek [QHR 650022] state schools both opened in 1934.[12]
\nThe new Ashgrove State School building (Block A) was opened by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, EM Hanlon on 19 March 1938.[13] The two storey brick school, plus undercroft, was planned to be built in stages. Phase one of the brick school, costing £6884, included four classrooms 19ft by 21ft (5.8m x 6.4m) and a cloak room on each floor to accommodate 360 pupils, with the undercroft housing an office for the head teacher, large play area, drinking troughs and seats. It did not include the entrance foyer. The classrooms were connected by folding partitions, which could open to provide assembly areas. The building was roofed in terracotta Marseilles tiles. The future remaining portions were planned to accommodate 880 pupils, with the intention of completing the original plan of an E-shape form facing Glory Street. The building was not completed to the 1936 plan, with the eastern end only having a one-storey (understorey) section and the western end later being built to a similar, but not matching, plan.[14]
\nIn March 1937, the Department of Education began negotiations with Brisbane City Council (BCC) to acquire part of the 3.4chain (68m) wide gully on the eastern boundary of the school (Portion 715 – originally part of Woonga Drive), and a one chain wide (20m) strip of the quarry on the western side to expand the playground. Access, but not ownership, was approved for the strip of the quarry. Portion 715 was surveyed in 1938 and transferred to the school in 1939. Woonga Drive was formed adjacent to the school by filling in the gully; including the retention of some trees along the new eastern boundary. Fill was procured from the quarry, financed by the Department of Education, with relief workers undertaking the labour, funded by the DPW. Funding for intermittent relief workers in school grounds was wound-down from September 1938, with the intention of creating full time positions for workers. This left the Ashgrove playground in a dangerous state, according to a news report in October 1939. The government quickly allocated funds to employ 30 men for four weeks to complete the work.[15]
\nIn early 1939 the old school building was moved back across Waterworks Road, to a new site (534 Waterworks Road) for the Crèche and Kindergarten Association’s first pre-school in Brisbane. By July 1939, the Ashgrove State School committee was seeking the construction of the second section of the brick building. This was delayed by the outbreak of World War II (WWII) two months later; the only construction at that time being the digging of slit trenches in the playground in January 1942.[16]
\nWhile there was an intention to complete the brick building at the end of WWII, the shortage of materials impeded the process.[17] Bricks were ordered from the Newmarket Brickworks [QHR 601357] in September 1945, but the brickworks site had been occupied by the army during the war and was yet to resume production. Instead, two additional temporary timber classrooms were added to the site in September 1945.[18] Overcrowding was occurring, with 120 new pupils enrolled in 1947.[19] The brick building was extended during early 1947 at a cost of £8871. It included an entrance hall, head-teachers room, two classrooms on the ground floor, teachers’ rooms and classrooms on the first floor, with a larger play area and a storeroom in the undercroft. The new male and female toilets and septic system, originally planned in 1945 were completed in 1947.[20]
\nBy February 1950, Ashgrove State School was in need of temporary classrooms following the initiation of the first prep classes, which generated an extra 90 enrolments.[21] The DPW’s post-war difficulties in procuring architects, tradesmen and building materials led to the use of temporary structures. The DPW imported 95 prefabricated school buildings, providing 106 classrooms, from Boulton and Paul Ltd of Norwich, England in 1951. They were erected at many schools across Queensland through to 1958. By 1996, there were 42 remaining buildings in Queensland. Nine of these were identified as having potential state significance in 2008. [22]
\nBoulton and Paul buildings were timber-framed and -clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. They had prefabricated wall and ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings, erected on concrete piers placed at 8ft (2.4m) centres were generally highset, providing play space underneath, and included semi-enclosed stairs between the classrooms and ground level. The buildings had extensive areas of timber-framed awning windows which provided more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed. Natural ventilation and lighting was abundant. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[23]
\nThe Ashgrove State School’s Boulton and Paul building (Block B) was completed by 1953. It was extended during 1955-56 with two DPW designed classrooms on the western end of the building. The DPW design replicated the existing Boulton and Paul structure, although with higher window sills. The glass screening at the western end of the verandah was relocated to the western end of the extension at this time. In 1954, lavatory facilities were extended on the northern side of the ground floor of the eastern end of Block A. The one chain (20m) wide strip on the western edge of the campus was acquired by the Education Department in 1956.[24]
\nThe post-WWII period was a time of architectural experimentation. In this new era, educators considered the brick buildings of the 1930s too severe and unsuited to modern educational ideas. They demanded up-to-date, ‘flexible’ buildings of light construction using materials that were easy to clean. New designs were developed that borrowed from the successes of the Boulton and Paul buildings and included more and larger areas of glazing throughout, glazing-enclosed stairs, a floor truss system that eliminated the stumps of the understorey and created unencumbered play spaces, and larger classrooms. The next extension to the Ashgrove State School demonstrated this evolution in school design.[25]
\nIn 1957, plans for an extension to the brick school building were produced. Face bricks remained difficult to procure. This new wing, an amended, more modern version of the original 1935 plans, was constructed in a combination of brick, rendered brick and ribbed panels, with awning windows to the south, and was completed in 1959. It comprised three additional classrooms (20, 24 and 26 ft (6.10, 7.32 and 7.92 m) wide) to the first and second floors, and toilets and open play space to the understorey. The northern elevation did not fulfil the intended E-shape footprint of the original plans. Instead, a stairwell was constructed on the northwest corner of this extension, fully enclosed with glass and louvres. A northern verandah connected to the verandah of the earlier section, providing access to the stairs and classrooms, and was enclosed with metal-framed fixed glass.
\nOther changes occurred at the school from the 1950s. In 1954, the school began fundraising for a swimming pool; completed in 1957. In 1960, enrolments peaked at 820 pupils (797 in 2016). Sewerage was connected in 1963 and the toilets were rearranged. During the late 1960s a concrete block retaining wall was built in two sections between the playing field and the school grounds. The large fig tree on the southeastern corner of the grounds appears to have been planted in the early 1960s. A pre-school was built in 1973 and a dental clinic built in 1978. The 1947 male toilet block was substantially altered through its conversion to an art room in 1991.[26]
\nChanges were made to Block A during 1996-7 including: the replacement of folding partitions on the second floor with steel stud partitions, new windows enclosing the verandahs, the part-removal of verandah walls at the western end of the building, and the part-removal of verandah walls to the easternmost classrooms.[27]
\nIn 2002, the school grounds were extended, with the acquisition of a further 517m2 in the northwest corner of the grounds. Multi-purpose court 1 adjacent to the pool is the site of a tennis court built by the school committee in the late 1920s. While there are a number of shade trees planted throughout the school campus, none are considered to be of state heritage significance.[28]
\nAshgrove State School has commemorated its centenary with a publication in 1977 and its 125th anniversary with a subsequent book in 2002. [29]
\nIn 2018, the school continues to serve the Ashgrove community as it has since 1877; and from 1925 at its current site. In 2018, the school retains its Depression-era Brick School (1938, extended 1947 and 1959), the Boulton and Paul building (1953) and its DPW extension (1956), the playing field, levelled by relief workers, set in landscaped grounds. The school community continues its fundraising activities to support the school’s educational, social and facilities development as it has done for generations.
\n
Ashgrove State School (established in 1876) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government-designs that were an architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds, assembly, play and sports areas.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building (1938) and the initial formation of the school playing field, are a result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression. Extensions made to the building in 1947 and 1959 comply with the intended original plan. The 1959 extension reflects a later educational philosophy and architectural style demonstrated in larger classroom size and increased natural light and ventilation.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building (1953) demonstrates the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth during the post-WWII period. The Department of Public Works-designed (DPW) extension (1956) demonstrates the influence of Boulton & Paul buildings on subsequent Department of Public Works school designs.
|Ashgrove State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early to mid-20th century Queensland state schools. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government Department of Public Works (DPW); and generous landscaped grounds, shade trees, assembly and play areas and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, comprising a Depression-era Brick School Building and a Boulton & Paul Building, both with Department of Public Works-designed extensions.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is an excellent, substantial, and intact example of its type, demonstrating the principal characteristics, which include: a handsome edifice standing at the front of the school; symmetrical two-storey form of classrooms and teachers rooms above an undercroft of open play spaces; a linear layout of the main floors with rooms accessed by corridors; loadbearing masonry construction; prominent central entrance bay, and high-quality design to provide superior educational environments that focus on abundant natural light and ventilation. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of its era, which determined its roof form, joinery, and decorative treatment. Its 1959 western extension demonstrates a re-interpretation of the 1937 design to meet standards of the time.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Building (1953) is a good, intact example of this standard type. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics through: the expression of its modular prefabricated construction in the external cladding; its timber-framed, lightweight construction; one-storey, highset, gable-roofed form with open play space underneath; open verandah for circulation; classrooms (24’x24’), flat internal wall linings; and large banks of lowset timber-framed windows in opposing external classroom walls with their distinctive fall-prevention bar and window stays.
\nInfluenced by the Boulton & Paul type, the DPW-designed extension (1956) is a good, intact example of its standard type, demonstrating the principal characteristics including its: timber-framed, lightweight construction; one-storey, highset, gable-roofed form with open play space underneath; full-height timber verandah posts running from ground level to the eaves; open verandah for circulation; classrooms (24’x24’), flat internal wall linings; and large banks of timber-framed awning and double-hung windows in opposing external classroom walls.
|Through its conspicuous position at the front of the school, substantial size and height, materials, symmetry, elegant composition, restrained use of decoration, and fine craftsmanship, the Depression-era Brick School Building has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Framed by mature trees, it is an attractive and prominent feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nAshgrove State School has a strong and ongoing association with the community. It was established in 1876 through the fundraising efforts of the local community, with generations of Ashgrove children taught at this school. Relocated in 1925 and the new grounds established through community support, the place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Ashgrove and is a prominent community focal point.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650059,"name":"Wynnum State High School","alternate_name":"Wynnum State High and Intermediate School | Wynnum High and Intermediate School | Wynnum High School","street_address":"Peel Street","suburb":"WYNNUM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-06-28","description":"Wynnum State High School occupies a large, 3.74ha site in Wynnum; a suburb approximately 15km east of Brisbane CBD. Originally facing Wynnum Memorial Park to the northwest, the site is bounded on other sides by a railway line (northeast), Peel Street (southeast) and Buderim Street (southwest). Primary access to the site is from Peel Street via a tree-lined Memorial Avenue (1919), which runs north through the centre of the site, past a playing field and to a Suburban Brick School Building (Block A, 1943). Block A, the oldest and most notable building within the school complex, faces northwest away from Peel Street and to Wynnum Memorial Park (although this visual connection is now somewhat obscured by later buildings). The grounds are well-established and include a former parade ground (c1953) and mature trees. Timber honour boards dating to the school’s opening year (1943) are featured in Block A.
\nSuburban Brick School Building (Block A; 1943)
\nBlock A is a highly-intact, long, narrow, masonry teaching building of two storeys, with an understorey. It is approximately rectangular in plan, with its long sides facing northwest (front) and southeast (rear), and has a terracotta tiled hip roof. A projecting portico in the centre of the front elevation frames the main entrance, and reinforces the symmetrical and balanced aesthetic of the building. The building is accessed via a central concrete stair with heavy, stucco balustrades.
\nThe building is elegantly composed with classical detailing. Constructed from load-bearing brick walls, it has stucco decorative elements to the first and second floors, and stucco walls and piers to the understorey scored to resemble ashlar coursing. The face brick walls of the first and second floors are relieved by darker face brick pilasters and stucco lintels, sills, string courses, and pilaster capitals and bases.
\nThe stucco portico has a pediment supported by tall square pillars and giant-order Ionic columns. Raised lettering on the entablature reads ‘WYNNUM HIGH AND INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL’ and the pediment features heavy stucco accents and dentil detailing. The front and rear elevations have regularly spaced banks of windows, separated into bays by pilasters. Two stairwell bays project from the rear elevation and have large pediments with stucco details.
\nThe interior layout is generally repeated on the first and second floors, with access between the three levels provided by a stairwell toward either end of the building. Primary circulation from these stairs and through the upper two floors is via a long corridor that runs along the northwest side of the building. Originally enclosed at the northeast end (for first floor domestic science storage rooms, and a second floor balance room), the corridors now extend the full length of the building, with the former enclosures generally identifiable through bulkheads and wall nibs. The northeast end wall of the corridor has also been cut through to allow access to a recent elevator. With the exception of the front entrance bay (containing a first floor foyer with flanking administration spaces, and a second floor classroom and teachers room), the classrooms and stairwells are on the southeast side of the corridor. A first floor classroom has a raised floor (designed for use as a stage) and is accessed via a separate small concrete stair with timber and metal balustrade, adjacent the southwest stairwell. Most classrooms and offices have timber-framed floors and the corridors have concrete floors.
\nThe understorey retains its long, enclosed classroom (former workshop) and adjacent store room at the northeast end of the building. The open play areas in the centre and at the southwest end have been enclosed for classrooms and stores. Most toilets (formerly adjacent to stairwells) have been removed, reconfigured or replaced with offices divided by recent lightweight partitions. The floors are concrete.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nGrounds and Landscape Features
\nThe school grounds are well established with a variety of mature trees. Of particular prominence is the Memorial Avenue (1919), comprised of mature hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) to either side of an entrance drive. The Memorial Avenue runs from Peel Street into the school allotment. It has been shortened from its original configuration (the avenue formerly extended into the northeast side of the Memorial Park) and is now partially obscured by recent school buildings. Some mature trees survive disconnected from the original avenue (in Lot 378 RP226441 and in the adjacent park).
\nOther mature shade trees on the site include a fig tree (Ficus sp.) to the west of Block A, and a Weeping Fig (Ficus Benjamina), pine tree (Pinus sp.) and camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) to the north of the Music and Science Block (Block I).
\nThe former Parade Ground (c1953) on the southeast side of Block A allows important views to be obtained of the building. It is an open space, defined by its bitumen surface, and has a low stone Retaining Wall (1955) along its southeast edge.
\nViews to, from, and between Block A, the Memorial Park and Buderim Street are of importance to the school’s prominence, planning and setting. In 2018, most of these views are obscured by recent school buildings, but a small view corridor west of Block A (to / from the Memorial Park and Buderim Street) has been retained.
\nFeatures not of State-level Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Wynnum State High School not of state-level heritage significance include:
\n","history":"
Located approximately 15 km east of the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD), Wynnum State High School (SHS) was established in 1942 as Wynnum State High and Intermediate School. It retains a Suburban Brick School Building (Block A, 1943), set within landscaped grounds including a stone retaining wall (1955), mature trees, and a World War I (WWI) Memorial Avenue (1919). The school has a strong and ongoing association with its surrounding community.
\nOriginally part of the lands of the Turrbal people, non-indigenous settlement of the Wynnum-Manly district occurred in the 1860s when two sugar mills, Lota and Wyvernleigh, were established.[1] Agriculture became the principal occupation of the district, while the Wynnum foreshore became popular with holiday makers and holiday homes were constructed along the bay.[2]
\nThe site of the future Wynnum SHS was sold as the 98-acre (39.66ha) Portion 77, in 1864. Its subdivision into housing allotments quickly followed the construction of the Cleveland railway line, which reached Wynnum and Manly in 1888 (opened to Cleveland in November 1889) and provided a major impetus to closer settlement.[3] In 1889, local government for the area became centred on Wynnum when Kianawah Division was excised from Bulimba Division.[4] The district expanded rapidly over the next 20 years, leading to the establishment of the Town Council of Wynnum in 1913. The area became known as a seaside resort and the Wynnum and Manly foreshore area became increasingly popular with day visitors and holiday-makers. It was incorporated into Greater Brisbane in 1925.[5]
\nWynnum Memorial Park, originally a 21-acre (8.49ha) reserve located between Wynnum and Manly, was set aside for showgrounds in 1918. First known as Russell Park after the then mayor, Richard Russell, it was renamed Memorial Park when the memorial avenue, accessed from Peel Street, was planted in 1919. Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, Governor of Queensland, opened the Memorial Avenue and planted its first tree on 27 July 1919. ‘Some sixty trees were planted by…kin of fallen soldiers.’[6] The Wynnum Town Council purchased the park land in 1923, and the reserve was used as a showground, sportsground and recreation area for residents in the Wynnum-Manly area.[7]
\nPrimary schools were established in the growing district: at Wynnum North (1882), Wynnum Central (1896), Manly (1910), and Wynnum West (1922),[8] but Queensland governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering post-primary education to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities.[9]
\nIn Wynnum, a high top, called Wynnum SHS, operated at the Wynnum Central School between 1918 and 1921, drawing students from a wide catchment.[10] However, the high top closed in June 1921 due to insufficient enrolments, forcing students to travel to Brisbane State High School.[11]
\nCommunity advocacy for a high school in the Wynnum-Manly area continued. Land was purchased in 1929 for an intermediate school, for which a building was designed by 1933, but construction did not proceed. Finally, in March 1938 the Minister for Public Instruction (Frank A Cooper) announced an Intermediate School would be built at Wynnum as soon as a suitable site was obtained. It was to be followed by a high school.[12]
\nThe idea of creating an intermediate level of schooling emerged in Queensland during the late 1920s. This was intended to be a transition between primary and secondary schooling. Intermediate schools catered for years 6 and 7, and offered vocational subjects: manual training for boys and domestic science for girls.[13] The first intermediate schools were established within existing school facilities at Warwick, Charters Towers, Mount Morgan and South Brisbane from 1928. By 1937 there were 11 intermediate schools in Queensland, most were accommodated through re-use or remodeling of existing buildings.[14]
\nIn 1939, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) completed negotiations with the Brisbane City Council (BCC) to exchange Primrose Park for a portion of Wynnum Memorial Park as the site of the new school. One of the deciding factors in the choice of location was the memorial park’s proximity to the Manly Railway Station. For many years, the Memorial Park had been used by the Wynnum Horticultural and Industrial Society, but more recently had been used exclusively as a sports venue.[15]
\nBetween the announcement of the intermediate school in 1938 and its plans being drawn in April 1939, the government decided that both intermediate and high school functions would proceed together. The school would be Brisbane’s first suburban state high and intermediate school.[16]
\nAlthough not constructed as part of the Depression-era program, the Wynnum Intermediate and High School’s Suburban Brick School Building reflected the design influences of many of the buildings from that program. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open understorey and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep and accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the understorey was used for covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[17]
\nBy the end of 1939, preparations were in place for the construction Wynnum State High and Intermediate School on a site of just over two acres (0.81ha), excised from the Wynnum Memorial Park, which included most of the memorial avenue.[18] The Wynnum High and Intermediate School building was to be sited at the east end of the Memorial Park.[19] The school’s narrow road frontage to Peel Street meant siting of the school building to address the street, which was feature of Suburban Brick School Buildings, was not feasible. Instead, the Wynnum building spanned the widest part of its allotment and faced the Memorial Park, enabling unobstructed views of the impressive, classically inspired building from the park, and vice versa.[20]
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW) was responsible for the design of high school buildings from their introduction in 1912. The first high schools were established within existing technical colleges, utilising their buildings. Purpose-built high school buildings were constructed from 1917 and were large, elaborate buildings, which were variations of a standard design introduced in 1914, as well as vocational buildings built to standard designs.[21] Queensland high schools also included purpose-built science laboratories, domestic science buildings, workshops for woodwork and metal work, libraries, and gymnasiums.[22]
\nWynnum’s planned two-storey brick and concrete building, with understorey, had a colonnaded entrance portico forming a central feature and a Marseille tile roof, finished with a fleche. It was designed for 626 pupils. Within the building were 13 classrooms for general tuition, accommodating 516 pupils. In the understorey was accommodation for a manual training workshop for woodworking and sheet metal classes for approximately 20 pupils. The understorey also housed lavatories and store rooms, with the remainder utilised as play area. The first floor accommodated a domestic science section for approximately 20 pupils, with rooms for cooking, dressmaking and laundry work, plus a fitting room and small dining room. On the second floor were two rooms for commercial subjects, a science laboratory, balance room and a lecture room for approximately 70 pupils. The first and second floors also housed the Head Teachers room, two teachers rooms and four hat and cloak rooms. Folding partitions were fitted in first and second floor classrooms and a stage was included at the western end of the first floor.[23] The grounds around the building were excavated, levelled and graded as required, and necessary surface drains formed.[24]
\nOn 23 January 1941, the Minister for Public Works and Public Instruction (Henry Adam Bruce) announced that the government had approved expenditure for the erection of a High and Intermediate School at Wynnum by the DPW. By the end of June 1941, construction of the school building had commenced. The corner stone for the Wynnum SHS building was laid on 21 August 1941 by the Minister for Works and Education (H A Bruce), in the presence of William L Dart, MLA for the district. [25]
\nThe entry of Japan into World War II and the commencement of the Pacific theatre of war with its threat to Australia, meant construction projects in Brisbane, including Wynnum High and Intermediate School, were reviewed to determine whether they should proceed.[26] Work on the Wynnum High and Intermediate School did continue and in February 1942, the completion of the high school portion of the building was announced. Intending pupils were advised to enrol, although the Queensland Government had closed all coastal state schools in January 1942.[27] Most Queensland schools reopened on 2 March 1942.[28]
\nWhen high school pupils commenced at Wynnum SHS on 2 March 1942, the roof was under construction and there were a few usable first floor rooms, but none were completed. Water had been connected and the septic system installed, but there was no power. There was no equipment for classwork or recreation. Domestic Science or Manual Training students went to Wynnum Central State School for those subjects.[29] As at other Queensland state schools, slit trenches were dug to protect students from air raids. At Wynnum SHS, male pupils dug these trenches in the area occupied by the swimming pool in 2018. Air-raid drills were conducted and windows were taped.[30]
\nWork on the school building (Block A) was completed before intermediate school pupils joined the high school pupils at the Wynnum High and Intermediate School in 1943. The school was officially opened by the Minister for Education, Arthur Jones, on Saturday 17 July 1943.[31] A newspaper report of the event recorded: ‘The school has supplied a long felt want in the district, and has obviated pupils having to travel to Brisbane. It is probably one of the best situated schools in the State. [It is b]uilt on rising park land with a ready-made sports oval and grandstand...’[32]
\nCommunity involvement and school fund raising were important factors in the development of the school. Fancy Dress Balls became a popular annual event from their commencement in May 1945, while school fetes were regular and important fund-raising events for the school from 1950.
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools.[33] In 1947, the Wynnum State High and Intermediate School’s Parents and Citizens Committee (P&C) outlined its plans for improving the school grounds. These included: acquisition of more land including that occupied by the adjacent Commonwealth drill shed; the building of a parade ground; a retaining wall behind Block A to check erosion; creation of properly made roads within the school area; and the planting of 60 trees. Once the war-time slit trenches had been filled and levelled, with the assistance of a government subsidy, the immediate provision of tennis courts on that area became a priority and were completed in 1951.[34]
\nThe addition of land to the school grounds came to fruition in 1949 and 1950. In July 1949, 0.45ha adjoining the school along the railway alignment was added.[35] The school absorbed a further 1.68ha from the east end of the Wynnum Memorial Park in 1950 for its school sports oval. [36] The remainder of Wynnum Memorial Park, (5.63ha) continued as a reserve, providing play and sporting facilities for the local community and the school.[37]
\nWork on the school grounds was a priority throughout the 1950s. Serious consideration was given to the ‘treatment of the grounds in front of [Block A, which] calls for careful planning and consideration if the natural advantages of the setting are not to be lost. The main front of the school faces and overlooks the Memorial Park and it is considered that a lawn and garden treatment of this area of the grounds would still further improve the setting’.[38] Subsequently, a number of shade trees were planted and pergolas erected in front of Block A by the school’s P&C. The area to the east and south of the main building was bituminised c1953 for use as a parade ground. Erosion of the embankment formed behind Block A when the site was levelled for the school building, led to the construction of a stone pitched wall and a new set of concrete stairs in 1955. Approval for the school’s sports oval was given in May 1955 and it was reported that its formation was approaching completion in 1957, as was the part-stone facing of the bank to the oval. However, a year later the oval was still incomplete and students could not take part in organised sport.[39]
\nThe DPI was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education between the late 1940s and the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[40] At Wynnum High and Intermediate School, increased student numbers led to overcrowding and a shortage of classrooms. To alleviate this, the school used the Manly Drill Hall (located on Commonwealth land, southeast of Block A) from 1 August 1949 until 19 February 1951.[41] In the early 1950s, a two-storey timber block of classrooms was erected to the east of Block A, which was later designated Block B.[42] In December 1953, it was announced that four additional classrooms were to be built.[43]
\nThe school population continued to grow, reaching 1000 by the school’s 20th anniversary in 1962; however, the opening of a second high school for the bayside district at Wynnum North in 1964 eased the population pressure.[44]
\nFurther buildings were added to the site during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960, there were three classroom buildings to the northeast of Block A.[45] During the 1962-63 financial year, a manual training building was added to the northeast of the site.[46] A senior science block was added during the 1966-67 financial year.[47] The school assembly hall, designed by Conrad and Gargett, was opened on 13 March 1971 by the Hon A M Hodges. It was located on the site of the drill hall, which had been purchased c1967, and cleared soon after April 1969.[48] During the 1970s, Block F was extended, and Block G was built, a Machine Annexe was completed and a Music and Science Block (Block I) erected. A new library was officially opened on 3 April 1976.[49] By July 1976, the school comprised the Suburban Brick School Building (Block A) and Blocks D-I, plus an assembly hall, and a modular machine annex. Blocks J, M and N and a school pool on the former tennis court site were subsequently added to the school grounds.
\nAlterations and repairs have been made to Block A since its completion. Repointing of brickwork took place in 1955. Repairs to the school’s front door, and to ceiling joists, wall plate, roof rafters and battens, cover strips and cornice, and fibro ceiling in the chemistry laboratory were undertaken after a fire in November 1958. [50] Alterations included: infilling under Block A to create an Oslo Lunch tuckshop in 1960,[51] conversion of a hat and bag room on the second floor into a staff room in 1964;[52] creation of a senior mistresses room on the first floor and a girls rest room on the second floor, to the north of the south staircase, in 1967.[53] In the same year, the roof fleche was removed because of dry rot.[54] Enclosure of the middle section of the understorey had occurred by the 1970s.[55]
\nBetween 1972 and 1992, the P&C focused on extensions to the school oval and cricket practice wickets, and solving drainage problems. Raising money for the construction of a half-size Olympic swimming pool and new basketball courts, and associated landscaping were the focus during the 1970s and 1980s, with funds raised through ‘walkathons’. [56] To celebrate the school’s 50th anniversary in 1992, a school history was written.[57]
\nOver time, the north extent of the Memorial Avenue has been disturbed and the views between Block A and the Wynnum Memorial Park have been diminished by the addition of buildings and landscape elements. By 1976, No 1 and No 2 buildings were sited over the north extent of the Memorial Avenue and a site plan for Wynnum SHS from 1998 showed a demountable and a multi-purpose shelter over that area. [58] In 2018, a single storey toilet block (Block C), a single-storey office building (Block J), and a two-storey multi-purpose building (Block M) disturb the north extent of the Memorial Avenue. Views between Block A and the Memorial Park are diminished by the location, size and form of Blocks C, I, J and M and mature trees.[59]
\nIn 2018, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Suburban Brick School Building, set in landscaped grounds with a Memorial Avenue, sporting facilities, assembly and playing areas, and mature shade trees. Wynnum SHS is important to the Wynnum-Manly district as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Wynnum State High School (established 1942 as Wynnum State High and Intermediate School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent example of a government designed Suburban Brick School Building (1943), which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with the provision of assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe World War I (WWI) Memorial Avenue (1919) is important in demonstrating the community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials are a tribute from the community to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Wynnum State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. The school comprises a Suburban Brick School Building constructed to a government design. This element is set within a generous, landscaped site that retains mature trees, assembly and sporting facilities including a playing field.
\nThe substantial Suburban Brick School Building is a good, intact example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type, including: its two- storey form, with an understorey; symmetrical, high-quality design that features classical detailing; loadbearing face brick construction; and hipped roof. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed by corridors; banks of south-facing windows in classrooms, providing light and ventilation; and an understorey formerly used as an open play space. Typical of this building type, the Suburban Brick School Building was located in a growing suburban area at the time of its construction.
|Through its elegant external and internal composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size, face brick exterior and high quality materials, early timber joinery and decorative metal work, the intact Suburban Brick School Building at Wynnum State High School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works (DPW) sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building’s assertive massing, classically-influenced and symmetrical design, elegant composition and impressive portico featuring giant-order columns contribute to its beautiful attributes. Standing in an open setting overlooking Wynnum Memorial Park and framed by mature trees, it is an attractive feature of the area. Views to and from the building are an important aspect of its aesthetic significance.
\nThe WWI Memorial Avenue of hoop pine trees (Araucaria cunninghamii), running from Peel Street through the grounds of Wynnum State High School to the Wynnum Memorial Park, is a landmark in the streetscapes of Peranga, Peel and Buderim Streets and visible from high ground in the vicinity.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nWynnum State High School has a strong and ongoing association with its large surrounding district. Established in 1942, generations of pupils have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the community and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
\nThe Memorial Avenue has an enduring and special relationship with the community as a memorial since 1919 to those from the district who served in WWI.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650060,"name":"Ironside State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"378 Swann Road","suburb":"ST LUCIA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-07-27","description":"Ironside State School stands on an approximately triangular 1.8ha site in St Lucia, 4.5km southwest of Brisbane CBD. The site is bounded by Swann Road / Hawken Drive, the main thoroughfare of the area, which runs along the southwest (front) of the school. Central Avenue and Ironside Street are to the east and north, with a short boundary to residential properties on the northwest.
\nThe school buildings form a complex on the centre and highest part of the site around a landscaped central courtyard. The front building is a substantial Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A). It is the most prominent and impressive building on the site and can be viewed from many points in the surrounding neighbourhood.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A (1935-59)
\nBlock A is a long, H-shaped face brick building with painted concrete dressings and a multi-hipped roof clad with tiles. Its long sides face approximately north and south and it is symmetrical around a central entrance. It has a generous open space around the building on all sides to allow unimpeded natural light and ventilation to all interior rooms. It has two storeys of classrooms with an undercroft at the east end of the building. The undercroft walls are finished in stucco, scored to mimic ashlar coursing. Originally partially open, it has been fully enclosed to accommodate classrooms. The staged construction of the building in different periods is legible with slight variations in the brick pointing.
\nThe front (south) elevation features regular banks of timber-framed casement windows on both classroom levels. A short wide stair leads from the driveway to the main entrance, which is a projecting porch with an arched front doorway featuring the school crest and raised lettering ‘IRONSIDE STATE SCHOOL’ in stucco. A similar entrance is on the west side of the building but that on the east side has been replaced.
\nThe layout of the classroom levels comprises a series of classrooms on the southern side accessed by a long verandah on the north, terminating at a stairwell at either end of the building. The interior walls are plaster with beading at dado height. Classrooms have timber floors and the verandah floors and stairs are concrete, coved up to the walls. On the first floor, parts of the wall between classrooms and verandah have been demolished as have some partitions between classrooms, including timber folding partitions; however, cover strips and bulkheads indicate their location. Later partitions have been inserted on all levels.
\nFeatures of Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFront Entrance Forecourt
\nThe open play area and vehicle driveway in front (south) of Block A forms an open forecourt to the building and an impressive setting to the elegant and formal architecture of Block A. This open space allows views to Block A from the main thoroughfare of Hawken Drive and Swann Road.
\nThis open space also has features of state-level cultural heritage including:
\nOther Features
\nAll other buildings, sports facilities such as the multi-purpose (former tennis) courts, structures, vegetation, and landscapes are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Ironside State School, established in 1870, (as Toowong Provisional School and later renamed Toowong State School, Indooroopilly State School, and Indooroopilly Pocket State School) is located in the Brisbane suburb of St Lucia, about 4.5km southwest of the central business district (CBD). It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. The school retains a Depression-era Brick School Building (1935-59) designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW), with landscaped front entrance forecourt (1953-4) and mature trees (pre-1946, pre-1955). The school has a strong and ongoing association with its surrounding community.
\nOriginally part of the lands of the Turrbal people, non-indigenous settlement of the St Lucia area commenced in the 1850s. By 1859 the whole St Lucia-Taringa peninsula had been divided into 22 farm lots used for crop farming and cattle grazing.[1] In 1871 a sugar mill and refinery were established in St Lucia Pocket, with local farmers supplying cane.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3] The first attempts to provide schooling in the St Lucia locality were private initiatives dating from 1864.[4]
\nIronside State School opened as ‘Toowong Provisional School’ in a temporary building on
10 October 1870, with 42 pupils enrolled.[5] Provisional schools were introduced in 1869 for smaller communities that could guarantee a student population of 15 (later reduced to 12). Provisional schools were once very common and many state schools began as such, on the same or on a different site. These schools generally occupied temporary structures on non-government land. The Government supplied the teacher and school books, but did not fund building construction.[6]
In the same month that Toowong Provisional School opened, the Board of Education called tenders for a new timber schoolhouse and residence, designed by the architect Richard Suter.[7] Drawings show a one-room timber school house with a porch, constructed with external studding. [8] The Toowong Provisional School re-opened on 21 February 1871 on the site of the current Ironside State School, which had been provided by major landholder Thomas Murray Prior.[9] The buildings stood on cleared high ground at the southwest corner of the 0.92ha site, facing Swann Road, and the teachers residence stood behind (to its east). The community donated £86, with the expectation further funds would be raised to cover the £100 required by Government for establishment of the school.[10]
\nWith the opening of railway stations at Toowong, Taringa (West Milton), and Indooroopilly (Witton) in 1875, the surrounding district became more attractive for residential development. Toowong Provisional School was redesignated as ‘Toowong State School’ in 1875 due to the growth in its pupil numbers and by 1879 there were 146 students enrolled. The school was renamed ‘Indooroopilly State School’ in 1881, following the construction of a new primary school in Toowong in 1880 to meet demand in that area.[11]
\nDuring the 1880s, farms surrounding the school were subdivided in response to Brisbane’s population growth, but poor road access and no public transport made the land on the St Lucia peninsula uncompetitive and land sales were slow.[12]
\nDespite owner Murray Prior’s intention to donate the school’s land, and his attempts to do so, the school site was sold to architect Richard Gailey in 1884, as part of Portion 24 (38 acres/11.58ha).[13] Gailey transferred the school site, comprising 0.923ha, to the Secretary for Public Instruction in March 1884.[14]
\nThe school was renamed ‘Indooroopilly Pocket School’ in 1888 following the establishment of a new Indooroopilly State School on Moggill Road.[15]
\nBrisbane’s 1893 flood devastated the low-lying areas of the St Lucia peninsula, and the area remained a small semi-rural community for a further 50 years.[16] Nevertheless, pupil numbers at the school increased enough to warrant additions to the school building in 1895. Additions and repairs to the school were also made in 1908.[17]
\nTo reduce confusion with Indooroopilly State School, Indooroopilly Pocket State School was renamed ‘Ironside State School’ in 1905, which was the name of a neighbouring estate.[18]
\nIn the early 20th century there was strong demand for land as the population of Brisbane grew thirty-fold. The land around Ironside State School was subdivided for residential development in the early 1920s, boosting pupil numbers.[19]
\nThe school grounds were extended during the 1930s to provide space for new sporting facilities. In early 1934, a number of residential land parcels to the east of the original School Reserve were transferred to the Crown. This land was formally gazetted as an extension to the State School Reserve in June 1934, bringing the size of the school grounds to 1.51ha.The additional land was formed into the school’s playing field between 1936 and 1946.[20] The site of the district’s earlier private school (sub 3), located south of the state school was added to the school in 1937. It had been dedicated as a road (Portion 253) in 1927. The road closed in 1937 after its acquisition by the Crown. Land to the south of the road (Subs 894 and 895 of Portion 25) was also added.[21]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders and embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.[22]
\nIn June 1932, the Forgan Smith Labor State Government came to power with a campaign advocating increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers and the purchase of local building materials.[23] The construction of substantial Brick School Buildings[24] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.[25]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical layout and a prominent central entry. Ideally, the classrooms would face south with the verandah or corridor on the north side, but almost all brick school buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[26]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School Building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and preferences, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; Art Deco, with monumental entrances, stylised and stepped decoration, and strong horizontal and vertical lines; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, aesthetic treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[27] Several of the brick schools were constructed in stages, balancing demand with the availability of resources; and some schools were never fully completed.
\nIronside State School’s Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A) was designed by Thomas Robert Gladwin, a Brisbane-born architect who had worked for the DPW from 1924 and was one of the team of architects designing interwar brick schools.[28] The building was constructed in four stages between 1935 and 1959, in response to population growth in the suburb as well as difficulties procuring materials, including bricks, in the years immediately after World War II (WWII).[29] The school was one of the more modest designs in the family of brick schools, although all the key features of the type were incorporated.
\nThe first stage of construction comprised the undercroft and part of the ground floor level including the front porch, one classroom to the west of the porch and three to the east.[30] The DPW Annual Report for 1935 noted:
\n‘This new building is being erected on the site of the old school. The work at present under construction has four classrooms and will provide accommodation for 168 pupils. Provision has been made for … two [additional] classrooms on the same floor …, which will increase the accommodation to 256 pupils. Provision has also been made for the addition of a second storey containing seven classrooms which will further increase the accommodation to 552 pupils.
\n‘The building is of brick … with a tile roof. Up to the ground level the brickwork is plastered and lined to imitate stonework and serve as a base to the face brick walls above. The section at present under construction has classrooms, teachers’ rooms, cloakroom entrance porch, hall and corridors on ground floor, and advantage has been taken of a sloping site to provide an enclosed and concreted play area under [a] portion of the building; here also a separate porch and hall with concrete stairs leading to ground floor have been provided.’[31]
\nThe original timber school was intended to remain as classroom accommodation after completion of the first stage of the 1930s school, but it was sold in 1936 and moved off-site.[32]
\nBlock A was opened on 16 November 1935 by Frank A Cooper, Minister for Public Instruction.[33] Located on high ground, facing Central Avenue, it had a standard linear plan of classrooms running east-west, symmetrically ordered either side of the central entrance hall, with a teacher’s room on each side of the hall.[34] The classrooms beyond the teachers’ rooms were 21ft (6.4m) wide with large banks of casement windows facing south and were accessed from an 8ft (2.4m) verandah to the north. The four central classrooms were in pairs, each room 19ft and 19ft 8¾in (5.79 x 6.01m) long, and separated by folding partitions. The classrooms at the ends of the building were 19ft x 24ft (5.79 x 7.32m). A cloakroom and staircase projected to the north at each end of the building.
\nConstruction was of brick and reinforced concrete, with cavity brick used on the walls exposed to the weather. Classroom floors were timber, spanning reinforced steel joists. The verandah floors, hallway floors and stairs were concrete, while the verandah balustrades on the north elevation were timber. The slope of the land accommodated a play area in the undercroft at the east end, with fixed windows and mesh screens on the south elevation. A spoon drain ran round the perimeter of the building.
\nBetween the late 1940s and the 1960s, the Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[35] Ironside State School’s pupil numbers rose after WWII due to these causes and the transfer of the University of Queensland to St Lucia in 1946, bringing its associated academic community.[36]
\nFurther post-war accommodation at Ironside State School was provided through additions to Block A and new buildings. Plans to complete the Block A building scheme were drawn in 1946. Two classrooms on the western end of the ground and first floors were completed in 1947.[37] Two further classrooms and a narrow teacher’s room were added to the central section of the first floor in 1948.[38] When the upper floor was added, terracotta tiled hoods supported on timber brackets were installed over the windows at ground floor level. In 1955, plans for the temporary enclosure of the Block A undercroft were drawn.[39] This included modifying the existing window sashes on the south elevation from fixed to opening. Another three classrooms were built on the eastern end of Block A, completing the first floor and the building scheme in 1959. All additions were in accordance with the original design concept. While Block A was being completed other classrooms were built to the north, however, these buildings have since been removed.
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days, which were celebrated in Queensland from 1890, instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary schools, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts.[40]
\nDevelopment of the grounds of Ironside State School followed the construction of Block A and the addition of land to the site. These works were primarily funded by the School Committee and later by the school’s Parents and Citizen’s Association (P&C); with subsidies from the State Government.
\nBetween 1936 and 1946, a playing field was formed on the land added to the site in 1934. In July 1939 labourers employed under a job-creation scheme were working on the school grounds.[41] In June 1940 a tennis court was opened on the western boundary, followed by a second tennis court to its north in 1951-52.[42] A basketball court was constructed in 1956 southeast of Block A and in 1958 the swimming pool was opened on the southeast corner of the site.[43]
\nPlans were drawn in October 1952 for landscaping of the site. The tree located southeast of Block A (Eucalyptus sp) in 2018, which appears in aerials of the site from 1946, was noted on this plan.[44] A tender for the construction of porphyry walls, concrete steps and paths, brick walling, decomposed granite paving, wire fencing and a driveway was advertised in 1953. This work, which included the current entrance driveway, and a brick retaining wall with garden bed that ran from southeast to northeast around Block A, was completed in 1954. Re-erection of the existing flagpole on a new concrete base occurred at this time. The current brick gateposts were in-situ by 1955. A bitumen assembly area to the south of Block A was formed in the second half of the 1950s, but no longer exists.[45] In 2018, a section of brick retaining wall and garden bed southeast of Block A, the flagpole, driveway and brick gateposts are extant.
\nAlterations to Block A have been made since its construction. In 1985 the play area in the undercroft was altered.[46] In 1996 the upper floor verandah was enclosed.[47] Doors from the landings at each end were upgraded for fire, and windows onto the landings were filled with glass blocks. Sunscreens were fixed on the north elevation under the eaves to shade the windows enclosing the verandah.[48] The undercroft was upgraded for an office, practice room and rehearsal room, including enclosing the north wall with louvres, removing internal timber partitions, casting new concrete floor slabs and altering doors and installing a new ceiling for fire protection.[49]
\nApart from Block A, all the current school buildings date from 1960 onwards.[50]
\nThroughout its history, Ironside State School has had a close association with the St Lucia and district community. Between the 1930s and 1950s, fancy dress balls and fetes were popular fundraisers, mainly for improvements to the school grounds. In later years, the P&C conducted fetes, dinners, and free dress days as fundraisers. [51] The school’s anniversaries have been marked with a diamond jubilee celebration and a published school history in 1930; a centenary history in 1970; and a further history publication in conjunction with celebrations for the 125th anniversary in 1995.[52]
\nIn 2018, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Depression-era Brick School Building (1935-59), with landscaped front entrance forecourt (1953-4) and mature Eucalyptus spp trees (pre-1946, 1950s). Ironside State School is important to St Lucia as a key social focus for the community. Generations of students have been taught there and many community events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Ironside State School (established as Toowong Provisional School in 1870) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The school retains an excellent, representative example of a Department of Public Works (DPW)-designed Depression-era Brick School Building, which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies during the interwar Depression; set in landscaped grounds with provision of assembly areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building (1935-59) is the result of the State Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression. Its completion in stages between 1947 and 1959 was in response to enormous population growth in the post-war years.
\nThe suburban site with mature trees, sporting facilities, and other landscaping features including front entrance forecourt with terracing, flagpole, entrance gates and gateposts demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Ironside State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school built during the Depression-era. These include: a large, intact, brick school building, set within a landscaped site with mature shade trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nThe substantial Depression-era Brick School Building is a good example of its type and retains a high degree of integrity. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of Depression-era Brick Schools, including: its symmetrically arranged two-storey form, with an undercroft; high-quality design with ornamental features; face brick exterior; terracotta-tiled roof; and projecting central entrance bay. The building has a linear layout, with rooms accessed via verandahs.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size and face brick exterior, the Depression-era Brick School Building at Ironside State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the DPW sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Standing in a prominent location, with views to the building from Swann Road and Hawken Drive, it is an attractive and highly visible feature of the area.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nIronside State School has a strong and ongoing association with the St Lucia community. It was established in 1870 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of St Lucia and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650061,"name":"West End State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"24 Vulture Street","suburb":"WEST END","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-04-24","description":"West End State School occupies a 1.9ha site in West End, 1.2km southwest of Brisbane’s CBD. The school occupies an entire block and is bounded by Vulture Street to the south (to which it fronts), Jane Street to the north, Horan Street to the east, and Hardgrave Road to the west.
\nA substantial Depression-era Brick School Building (1936) stands to the front of the school grounds, facing the main entrance. It is conspicuous in the area due to its handsome architecture and substantial size. The school grounds have been levelled, with stone-pitched and concrete retaining walls on the boundaries. The school also has mature trees, a WWI memorial drinking fountain, and a large grass playing field.
\nDepression-era Brick School Building (1936)
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building is a symmetrical two-storey building, highset on a undercroft. It is ‘E’ shaped in plan with its long flank facing south to Vulture Street and its centre aligns with the main pedestrian entrance. It comprises an undercroft level of open playing spaces and toilets below two levels of teaching rooms and has a hipped roof clad with metal sheets. At the roof’s central peak is a prominent metal ventilation fleche with round cupola, visible from the surrounding neighbourhood.
\nThe building character expresses a composed simplicity through the use of attractive, simple, and low maintenance materials with minimal decorative features, including extensive use of face bricks contrasting with smooth-rendered concrete and plain, regular fenestration. The elevations use smooth-rendered masonry for the undercroft and face brick on the first and second floors, with rendered sills, lintels, capitals, and frieze. The face bricks are mid-red with white tuck pointing with prominent architectural elements in dark bricks with darker mortar. Throughout the building, the brickwork includes moulded bricks with rounded corners at body height. The building’s eaves are lined with sheets and battens. The building has timber floors in the classrooms (with large steel floor beams in the undercroft) and concrete floors in the circulation spaces and teachers rooms.
\nThe building form is a long wing with a short perpendicular wing at either end that projects north. These wings have been extended further north by one large room on each level. Providing access to the rooms, a long open verandah runs across the rear (north) and returns at the end wings, terminating at the extensions.
\nReached by a split, cement rendered stair with iron railings, the front elevation has a projecting central entrance portico with four double-height rendered concrete columns. These support a deep entablature and cornice with ‘WEST END STATE SCHOOL’ in raised letters. Large, regular banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights run the length of the front elevation. The windows of the first floor are sheltered by a continuous rendered hood with elaborate scrolled brackets. The main entry into the building is via a pair of tall timber-framed doors with bolection moulded panels and a glazed fanlight.
\nThe side elevations (east and west) of the original portion are blank except for timber-framed casement windows into the cloak rooms and stairwells. The rear elevation has a projecting central block accommodating teachers rooms and a stairwell with a tall, arch-headed window of fixed timber-framed panes.
\nThe sides and rear elevations of the end wing extensions (1974 – west, and 1984 – east) are complementary in character, materials, and composition, however, they do not mimic the detail of the earlier portion. Their roofs and eaves lines are continuous from the earlier portion, although the building bulk is slightly greater and they do not continue the open corridors. They have a rendered basement level and a face brick first and second floor and bays defined by double-height dark brick pilasters, similar to the earlier portion but they have aluminium-framed casement windows with fanlights sheltered by metal hoods. The open undercroft area of the 1984 extension has been partially enclosed with face brick to form a tuckshop (1992). The interiors of the 1974 and 1984 extensions are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe corridors on first and second floors have a concrete floor with coved edges and a spoon drain on the outer edge. The ceilings are lined with sheets and battens except for the central area, which is smooth-plastered with a moulded plaster cornice. The wall between the corridor and rooms has timber-framed two-leaf, panelled doors, timber-framed double-hung windows, and glazed awning fanlights. Some doors, windows, and fanlights have been replaced or closed over.
\nThe first and second floors comprise classrooms, teachers rooms, and former hat and cloak rooms that have been enclosed to form store rooms and further teachers rooms. The rooms have smooth-rendered walls with an inscribed skirting line in the teachers rooms and former cloak rooms and moulded timber skirting boards in the classrooms. The door and window openings are square-finished without architraves. Original and early brass door and window hardware is retained throughout. The ceilings are sheet-and-battens with a square timber cornice with those of the second floor retaining a central timber lattice ventilation panel.
\nThree stairwells provide vertical circulation and have fixed multi-paned windows; the windows in the eastern stair have been replaced with glass blocks. The stairs are concrete and have decorative iron balustrades with a moulded, clear-finished timber handrail. In the stair halls the perimeter of the concrete floor is coved to the wall and a small store room is located under the western stair.
\nOriginally open play spaces with toilets at both ends, the undercroft has been partitioned to form store and workshop rooms by chain link fences and brick and timber partitions – the introduced partitions are not of state level cultural heritage significance. The floor is concrete and the walls are rendered. Low-level timber seats are fixed to the walls. The original toilet spaces have been refitted (the introduced fixtures and fittings are not of state level cultural heritage significance), however, one small section of original timber partitions is retained in the western end male teachers toilet. All undercroft windows have been replaced with glass louvres, which are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nWWI Memorial Drinking Fountain (1930)
\nStanding on the ground at the front entrance of the school is a WWI memorial drinking fountain, aligned with the centre of the Depression-era Brick School Building. It is a round pedestal cast using white stone and black cement terrazzo. It does not have a faucet or drain cover and no longer flows. It bears two identical plaques with the inscription:
\nThis fountain was erected by the residents of Kurilpa in memory of those who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918 Unveiled 24.4.1930 by J.P. Fry Esq. M.L.A. for Kurilpa
\nOne plaque has been added to the fountain later, presumably from one of the two other fountains that were built at the time. It is identifiable by its more recent screws.
\nLandscape Features
\nA stone pitched retaining wall stands on the Vulture, Horan, and Jane street boundaries.
\nA cement rendered masonry stair with a wrought iron double gate and cement rendered pillars stands at the centre of the Vulture Street frontage of the school. It is the main pedestrian entrance and leads down into the front garden.
\nAn off-form concrete retaining wall (1947) stands on the school boundary, wrapping the Hardgrave Road and Vulture Street corner. A metal pipe and chain wire fence standing on top of the wall is not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nA large grass playing field occupies the northern part (rear) of the site and is bordered by trees on the boundary of the school ground. The trees and field are a contrasting open green space in the closely-developed inner city surroundings. Early jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) stand on the Jane Street boundary.
\nA mature fig tree (Ficus sp.) stands near the corner of Vulture Street and Hardgrave Road.
\nFeatures Not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nAll other buildings, structures, and landscape features including shade sails, pathways, and sheds within the cultural heritage boundary and floor coverings, air conditioning, verandah screens, fixtures, and fittings in Block A not previously mentioned are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"West End State School (established 1875), located in the inner Brisbane suburb of West End, about 1.2 kilometres southwest of the central business district (CBD), is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains a Depression-era Brick School Building (1936, extended 1976, 1984), set in landscaped grounds including a Memorial Fountain (1930), mature trees and perimeter retaining walls (pre-WWII, 1947). The school has a strong and ongoing association with its surrounding community.
\nTraditionally part of the land of the Turrbal and Jagera people, land in the vicinity of the West End State School site was sold by the colonial government as suburban allotments (of about 1-10 acres) from the 1840s. A map from 1844 shows the site of the West End State School designated as a cemetery. Subdivision of suburban allotments at West End into housing sites commenced in the early 1860s. The unused, five-acre cemetery site was converted to a reserve for a state school. [1]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to their maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers.[2] West End State School – comprising a brick school-house, accommodating the girls, boys, and infants schools – opened on 16 August 1875, with 236 pupils enrolled. The R G Suter-designed building was erected by F Chapman and cost approximately £1650.[3]
\nBy the 1880s further residential subdivision in the West End area had led to overcrowding in the school.[4] Tenders were called for a new timber State School for Boys in July 1884. This was built facing Hardgrave Road and was opened near the end of August 1885.[5] The original brick school building became the Girls and Infants School. A large fence constructed through the centre of the grounds separated the two schools.[6] A timber addition on the western side of the brick building (Girls and Infants School Building) was constructed in 1892.[7]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd had been critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day was celebrated in Queensland from 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[8] At West End Boys, Girls and Infants School, 12 trees were planted by the boys on the first Arbor Day, held on 1 August 1890: four bamboo (unknown genus and species), three silky oak (Grevillea robusta), two Moreton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla), and three Phytolacca. Within a year, four of the trees had perished. However, another 15 trees were planted in 1891 and further trees were planted in subsequent years.[9]
\nAlthough the 1893 floods affected all the shoreline around West End and slowed development in the area, both the suburban and the school population continued to rise leading up to the 1930s. West End became a popular residential area due to its close proximity to the Brisbane CBD, local employment, and transport options. Trains ran from South Brisbane (Melbourne Street) railway station, which was the terminus for all rail services on the south side of the Brisbane River, from 1884. An electric tram service along Vulture and Hardgrave Streets opened in 1898, placing most residents and workers within easy walking distance of a tram stop. This service was extended to the St Lucia ferry at the end of Hoogley Street in 1929.[10]
\nWest End State School continued to grow as the suburb developed. Circa 1924, timber teachers rooms were added to the verandah of the Girls and Infants Building, and an extension was added to eastern end of the building. Around the same time, the 1884 Boys School was extended to form an ‘L’ shape.[11]
\nIn 1930, three black terrazzo Memorial Drinking Fountains were presented by the Kurilpa Ladies’ War Memorial Committee to each of the three schools comprising the West End State School. The fountains were dedicated to the victims of World War I at a ceremony held on 24 April 1930 to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Anzac Day.[12] Two identical plaques on the only remaining fountain read: ‘this fountain was erected by the residents of Kurilpa in memory of those who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918. Unveiled 24.4.30 by J P Fry, Esq. M.L.A., Member for Kurilpa’.[13]
\nThe Great Depression, which commenced in 1929 and extended well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[14] By mid-1930 men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools under the scheme.[15] At West End State School, the school committee, with assistance from unemployment relief gangs organised by the DPW, converted the school grounds into ‘suitable sport areas’ over a two year period ending in March 1931.[16]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power with a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state.[17] The construction of substantial Brick School Buildings in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.[18]
\nOvercrowding at West End State School, where enrolments totalled 885 pupils by the early 1930s, led to a deputation of concerned parents meeting with the Minister for Public Instruction (F A Cooper) in November 1934. On 20 December 1934, the DPW announced that approval had been given for a ‘Rebuilding Scheme’ at the school.[19]
\nPlans for the Rebuilding Scheme were drawn in 1934-35. The DPW architects involved were Nigel L Thomas, William J Moulds and Gilbert R Beveridge (assistant architects).[20] The brick building contained 17 classrooms to accommodate 730 pupils. Allowance was made for future extensions to the east and west wings to ultimately accommodate 890 pupils. It comprised an undercroft (containing lavatory blocks and lay areas), a first floor (containing eight classrooms, cloakrooms, head teachers office and teachers room) and second floor (containing nine classrooms, cloakrooms and teachers room). Three classrooms on each floor had folding partitions which when opened formed assembly rooms. The floors of play areas, lavatory blocks, porches, corridors, cloakrooms, and internal and external stairs were of concrete. The building aligned with the Vulture Street frontage and replaced the 1875 brick building. Its preliminary cost was estimated at £16,030.[21]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type, exhibiting many common characteristics. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.[22]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[23]
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building at West End State School (now called the Main Admin Building) was completed in 1936 and occupied on 30 June of that year by the amalgamated West End Girls and Boys Schools.[24] The building was officially opened on
28 November 1936 by the Minister for Public Instruction, F A Cooper.[25] The Telegraph newspaper reported the Depression-era Brick School Building had cost £20,410.[26]
In 1937, two of the school’s earlier buildings, located behind (north) of the Depression-era Brick School Building were renovated for £1600 for domestic science and manual arts training, which had not been offered on site previously.[27] The first Domestic Science and Manual Arts classes commenced in 1938.[28]
\nThe West End Infants School remained separate. It relocated to the old Boys’ School (1884 Timber Building) facing Hardgrave Road, after extensions and the addition, to the southeast corner, of the relocated (c1924) infants school extension. A new fence separated the Infants’ School from main school grounds.[29]
\nDuring World War II, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended.[30] Slit trenches, to protect the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff. At West End State School, trenches were dug in the play grounds by parents, past pupils, wardens and United States soldiers.[31]
\nTypically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[32] Air Raid Precautions (ARP) meetings were held at West End State School.[33] Like other Queensland schools and communities, West End State School students and the wider community fundraised and donated useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[34]
\nUpgrading of the school grounds took place after World War II. Concrete retaining walls were built on the corner of Vulture Street and Hardgrave Road in 1947. The work included new chain-wire, timber-framed fence above the new retaining wall and along the boundaries of Hardgrave Road, Jane and Horan Streets. The pre-existing, angled, rock-faced, retaining walls to the Vulture, Horan and Jane Street frontages were retained, and the fencing along the remainder of the Vulture Street frontage was not changed at this time.[35]
\nAfter World War II, West End State School enrolments continued to grow and the multicultural nature of the school became established as the proportion of West End’s population born overseas increased. By 1950, West End had a substantial Greek population and became known as ‘Little Athens’.[36] West End’s overseas-born population numbered about a third in 1971. Greater ethnic diversity was apparent by 1981. Vietnamese migrants had taken up residence in West End and outnumbered Greek-born residents. Cypriots, Lebanese, Turks and Egyptians also had a strong presence, as well as residents from Britain, Ireland and New Zealand, and the indigenous population.[37]
\nAdditions were made to the Depression-era Brick School Building, comprising a western wing extension in 1976 and an east wing in 1983-4.[38] These additions complied with the intent of planned extensions to both ends of the building, as drawn in December 1934, but not the original floor plan. The proposed extensions were located north of stairwells at each end of the building.[39]
\nThe 1976 extension accommodated one large room on each level: a ‘general activity’ room on the undercroft level; a library on the first floor; and a music and movement room on the second floor. The plans were prepared by the DPW and varied from the original plans in several ways. The side verandah was not continued along the projection. Instead, the new rooms occupied the full width of the wing. The floor of the first floor room was higher than the original to allow a higher ceiling in the undercroft area, thereby requiring steps to access the first floor extension. These changes are reflected in the elevations, with sill heights and banding not matching the original. However, the extension matches the height of the original so that the roof profile is consistent. The extension is contemporary in style but complimentary to the original in form.[40]
\nIn 1983-84 the Depression-era Brick School Building was extended with a projection to the eastern end of the building, to plans prepared by the Department of Works in early 1983. This extension matched the earlier 1976 extension, including the change in floor level to the first floor and lack of continuation of the verandah, but was slightly larger. It also incorporated the same brick finishes and detailing, and was contemporary in style but complimentary to the original building in form. The first and second floors accommodated one large room each for ‘double teaching areas’. The undercroft of this extension remained open after completion, but a portion was designated as ‘Future Tuckshop’ on the plans. The tuckshop was completed in 1992 when the end bay of the open basement was enclosed with brickwork.[41] Further alterations to the Depression-era Brick School Building, as part of the ‘Building Better Schools’ program in 2000, included installation of kitchen areas.[42]
\nIn 1995, the West End Primary School and West End Infants School were amalgamated and the dividing fence between them removed.[43]
\nBetween 1988 and 1997, a masonry portico was added on the north side of the Depression-era Brick School Building, leading to the central staircase.[44]
\nIn 2018, as well as the Depression-era Brick School Building, the original, heavily modified, 1884 boys school building, with the 1924 girls school extension attached, remain on site. Modern buildings have also been added to the site. A school swimming pool, on the Hardgrave Road side of the school, opened in 1990, and the pool stadium was constructed in 2000. Only one fig tree (Ficus sp.) planted before World War II survives, located in the rainforest area in the southwest corner of the school grounds. Nearby is the remnant trunk of a large fig tree (Ficus sp.) planted in the school’s courtyard and mature well before World War II, which was felled by a storm in November 2014. Three trees of the same species, planted on the northern (playing field) boundary between 1946 and 1960, also remain (unidentified sp.).[45]
\nThroughout the school’s history, community and social events to fund-raise and celebrate milestones, have taken place at the school.[46] School anniversaries have been celebrated and fetes have been conducted throughout the school’s history. In 1951, the West End State School Diamond Jubilee fete and the unveiling of a memorial plaque took place in the school grounds.[47] The P&C Association continued to organise school fetes in the school grounds to raise funds for school amenities.[48] The school celebrated it centenary anniversary in 1975 and to commemorate its 125th anniversary in 2000, published the school’s history.[49]
\nIn 2018, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its Depression-era Brick School Building, set in landscaped grounds with Memorial Fountain, retaining walls, sporting facilities, assembly and playing areas, and mature shade trees. West End State School is important to the West End district as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
\n","criteria":"
West End State School (established in 1875) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland.
\nThe place retains an excellent example of a Depression-era Brick School Building, which was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building (1936) and the creation of the school playing field are the result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nExtensions made to the 1936 building in 1976 and 1984 comply with the intention of the original building plan, but reflect later educational philosophies and architectural styles demonstrated in larger classroom size and increased natural light and ventilation.
\nThe World War I Memorial Fountain (1930) is important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials are a tribute from the community to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|West End State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs; and a generous, landscaped site, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school is a good, intact example of a suburban school complex, including a Depression-era Brick School Building with later extensions.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building and its extensions, designed by the Department of Public Works, is an excellent, substantial, and intact example of its type. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics, which include: a handsome edifice standing at the front of the school; symmetrical two-storey form of classrooms and teachers rooms above an undercroft of open play spaces; a linear layout of the main floors with rooms accessed by corridors; loadbearing masonry construction; prominent projecting central entrance bay, and high-quality design to provide superior educational environments that focus on abundant natural light and ventilation. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of its era, which determined its roof form, joinery, and decorative treatment.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size and materials, the highly intact Depression-era Brick School Building at West End State School has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe building is also significant for its streetscape contribution. Framed by mature trees, the building’s assertive massing, classically-influenced design, and elegant composition contribute to its dignified presence as an attractive and prominent feature in the streetscape.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nWest End State School has a strong and ongoing association with the West End community. It was established in 1875 through the fundraising efforts of the local community and generations of West End children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of West End and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650062,"name":"Warwick State High School","alternate_name":"Warwick Technical College / Warwick Intermediate School","street_address":"Palmerin Street","suburb":"WARWICK","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-06-28","description":"Warwick State High School occupies a large (2.6ha) site fronting east to Palmerin Street, the main thoroughfare in Warwick. It is bounded on its other sides by Victoria Street to the north, Guy Street to the west, and other community buildings to the south.
\nThe seven significant buildings within the school complex are:
\nThe buildings form a cohesive family complex through their shared material palette, scale, and well-considered arrangement around an open bitumen courtyard.
\nThe open courtyard affords the surrounding buildings natural ventilation and light, views between, to, and from the buildings, and clear space for pedestrian circulation. Later covered steel-framed walkways and shade structures are not of state-level heritage significance.
\nAttractive views to the buildings are had from Palmerin and Victoria Streets and the buildings are highly visible within the townscape from surrounding vantage points. The grounds are well-established and include a mature front garden on Palmerin Street symmetrically laid out in front of Block A, and featuring concrete paths and garden beds with original granite edging, twin cypress pines at the front boundary, lawn, and shrubbery.
\nBlock A: Technical College classroom building (1915)
\nBlock A is a highly-intact symmetrical, two-storey masonry teaching building. H-shaped in plan, it has well-composed elevations comprising a granite base, face brick walls on the lower level and a stucco upper level. It has a tall hipped roof clad in tiles with ventilated eaves and a prominent metal ventilation fleche. Large, timber-framed, double-hung windows with stone lintels are regularly spaced around all sides. The front entrance is emphasised by elaborate sandstone dressings and a striking carved stone school emblem. A small entrance vestibule retains an early iron security shutter, encaustic tessellated floor tiles, and a large clear-finished timber and glazed front door with glazed fanlight.
\nThe internal layout of both levels is similar, retaining original rendered partitions and wing walls with scribed skirting board line and timber ceiling lining and cornice. Timber window and door architraves, as well as window hardware survives. The ground floor layout comprises a short entrance hall which leads to a perpendicular hallway with teaching rooms opening on either side. A wide concrete stair stands at the rear (west side) of the building with an iron balustrade and moulded, clear-finished timber handrail. It provides access to the first floor, which has a similar layout. Few openings have been made in the original plaster partitions on both levels, however, lightweight partitions (not significant) have been inserted to make former large classrooms into smaller administration and teaching spaces. The building has timber floor framing generally with suspended concrete slab floors in the circulation spaces with Linoleum and carpet floors (not significant) placed over.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nA highly-intact, two-storey toilet block stands to the rear (west) of Block A, connected by a short first floor timber-framed walkway. The walkway retains V-jointed (VJ) timber board ceiling lining, post brackets, balustrade and lattice. The toilet block has face brick and stucco walls, highset timber-framed windows and a hipped roof clad in tiles. An original metal fire escape stair is attached to the rear (west) wall, and a half-buried concrete septic tank (1923) stands immediately south of the toilet block.
\nModern additions including the floor lining, urinal trough, toilets, basins, and cubicle doors are not of significance.
\nBlock B: Workshops Block (1914)
\nBlock B is a highly-intact, two-storey, symmetrical, masonry building, formerly used for manual training workshops. It has face brick and roughcast stucco walls with brick quoining to the corners and a tall hipped roof clad in tiles with vented timber louvered gablets. Timber-framed double hung windows with stone sills are regularly-spaced on all sides: some have been closed up to accommodate construction of the North Connecting Wing. The ground floor is a suspended concrete slab and the first floor is timber-framed, supported on large steel I beams stamped DORMAN LONG + CO LTD - MIDDLESBOROUGH - ENGLAND. The building includes an early roughcast stucco and brick chimney, a gantry crane on the roof above the large first floor doors, and white tuck pointing survives on some walls.
\nA timber-framed verandah runs along the east side (front) with original small weatherboard-clad enclosures at the south end on both levels (originally lavatory rooms). The enclosures have early but not original timber-framed casement windows. The remaining verandah has been enclosed and a wide stair added on the first floor: these later alterations are not of state-level heritage significance.
\nA small single storey face brick annexe with skillion roof (the former kiln room) is attached to the building on its west side.
\nThe internal layout of the building comprises a single large former workshop space on the first floor, whilst the ground floor has been divided into smaller spaces.
\nThe original stairs have been demolished and access to the first floor is via a stair in the adjacent North Connecting Wing and via a recent external stair on the west side of the building. A stage has been inserted at one end of the first floor. The external stair and stage are not of state-level heritage significance.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nBlock C: Intermediate School Building (1932)
\nBlock C is a highly-intact, two-storey, symmetrical masonry teaching building with a tall hipped roof clad with tiles, ventilated eaves, and a prominent metal ventilation fleche. It has a granite base, face brick and roughcast stucco walls, and smooth-finished concrete dressings with ground floor quoining to corners and windows. The building faces north and has a projecting central bay, which accommodates toilets and teachers rooms. This is flanked by two entrances sheltered by tiled awnings with large timber doors with glazing. The north and south elevations feature large regularly-spaced banks of timber-framed casement windows with awning fanlights. Toothed bricks on the south corners indicate planned but unbuilt extensions. The building has concrete floors in the circulation spaces and toilets, and timber-framed floors in the classrooms and teachers rooms.
\nThe internal layout of both floors comprises a central corridor that runs from east to west and provides access to rooms on either side: a series of standard width classrooms (21ft) on the south side, and bathrooms and teachers rooms on the north. At either end of the corridor is a concrete stair with iron balustrade and timber handrail. The classrooms of the ground floor have had the folding partitions between classrooms replaced with fixed partitions, which are not of state-level heritage significance. Doors and windows in the ground floor verandah wall have been removed.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nSouth Connecting Wing (1958)
\nThe South Connecting Wing is a highly-intact two-storey teaching building linking Blocks A and C. It is L-shaped in plan and has a tall hipped roof clad with tiles, and has ventilated eaves. It has a hybrid concrete, steel I-beam, and timber structure. It faces east to Palmerin Street with face brick and roughcast stucco walls, a recessed ground floor entrance with panelled timber doors emphasised by freestone quoining, and pairs of timber-framed double-hung windows.
\nThe south elevation has face brick walls and is extensively glazed with banks of timber-framed awning windows with fanlights and crimped metal sheet spandrel panels.
\nA timber-framed first floor verandah runs along the inner side (north and west) of the building, connecting with the circulation spaces of Blocks A and C. Bagracks form the balustrade which is clad in crimped metal sheets and has been enclosed later with aluminium-framed windows that are not of heritage significance. The verandah wall is rendered and has timber-framed double-hung windows with brick sills.
\nThe layout of both floors comprises classrooms and former storerooms to the south of the verandah, with a former medical room (ground floor) and teacher’s room (first floor) to the east. A short front entry hall with concrete floor has a concrete stair with steel balustrade and timber handrail up to the first floor. One partition between classrooms on the first floor has been removed.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nNorth Connecting Wing (1959)
\nThe North Connecting Wing is a two-storey teaching building connecting Blocks A and B. It is a long narrow building with a shallow-pitched skillion roof clad with metal sheets. Its long sides face north and south and are extensively glazed with banks of timber-framed awning windows with fanlights and a crimped metal sheet spandrel. At the west and east end of the building is a face brick stairwell with large steel-framed windows with wired glass. The building fronts Victoria Street with an entrance comprising a concrete apron and timber-framed double doors with glazing. An original entrance awning has been demolished and replaced with a larger steel awning. This and other awnings and an adjacent fence are later and not of state-level heritage significance.
\nThe first floor is supported on steel open-web trusses on concrete columns exposed within the ground floor rooms, however, some columns have been removed. The layout is not intact, with its original partitions mostly demolished and new partitions inserted to a different configuration. Wall linings and first floor ceiling linings are not original.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nBlock D: Science and Toilet Block Extension (1968/69)
\nBlock D is an intact two-storey teaching building extending from the west end of Block C. It is long and narrow with its long sides facing north and south and has a gable roof clad with metal sheets. The first floor is supported on a hybrid system of steel open web trusses on concrete columns (1964) exposed within the ground floor spaces, and steel beams and posts (1968/9). The ground floor comprises an open play area and a large toilet and showers block. A stair at the west end of the building provides access up to the first floor. The first floor comprises a verandah running along the north side providing access to a series of former science classrooms on the south side. The verandah has square timber posts and a solid balustrade clad with flat sheets. The ground floor has face brick and roughcast stucco walls between concrete columns with high-level windows of glass louvres with face brick sills. The play area has a concrete floor and is shielded by a patterned breeze block wall. The first floor walls are flat sheets with cover strips and the long sides are extensively glazed with louvres and fixed glass. The eaves are ventilated.[33]
\nThe layout of the ground floor toilets and showers is highly intact, with masonry partitions dividing the large space into separate boys and girls toilets, change rooms, and showers, staff toilets, janitor room, and cleaner room. The floors are concrete. The ceilings and trusses are lined with recent corrugated metal sheets, which are not of heritage significance.
\nThe first floor classrooms are separated by narrow former preparation rooms which directly access classrooms. Partitions and the verandah ceiling are lined with flat sheets. A suspended celling has been installed in the first floor rooms, which is not of state-level heritage significance.
\nFeatures of state-level heritage significance also include:
\nBlock F: Former plumbing workshop building (1963)
\nBlock F is an intact one-storey brick veneer plumbing workshop building. It has a concrete slab floor and a steel portal frame. Its roof is clad with metal sheets and has an east facing clerestory window with metal-framed glass louvres. The eaves are lined with flat sheets. The end walls (north and south) are face brick with large double doors. The side walls (east and west) are extensively glazed with banks of steel-framed awning windows with louvre or fixed glass fanlights and crimped metal sheet-clad spandrel panel. A small gable-roofed block projects from the north elevation, accommodating a staffroom, a narrow pipe store room with door, and a materials store with double doors. Two extensions (c1978 and c 2001) have been added to the west side of the building. The windows along this side are mostly retained but are now internal.
\nThe layout is intact, comprising two large workshops connected by a double door with glazing. The floors are concrete and walls are lined with flat sheets with D-shaped cover strips. The workshops’ ceilings have been lined with corrugated metal sheet, which is not of state-level heritage significance. The workshops retain early timber-framed work benches.
\nFeatures not of State-Level Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Warwick State High School not of state-level heritage significance include all other features not previously mentioned, including:
\nWarwick State High School opened on this site in 1914 as the Warwick Technical College and High School, accommodated in new buildings; having relocated operations from an earlier site in Guy Street. It grew to include Queensland’s first intermediate school in 1929, accommodated in a new building in 1932, and developed further to cater for increased high school enrolments in the 1950s and 1960s in new buildings. The buildings were purpose-designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and form an attractive cohesive group of state educational buildings from the early to mid-20th century. These are:
\nPrior to non-indigenous occupation, the open country of the Darling Downs, named by Allan Cunningham in 1827, had been carefully and deliberately maintained by its Aboriginal owners[1] in an annual pattern of controlled burns to preserve pasture for native grazing animals. Non-Indigenous occupation of the Darling Downs, began in 1840 with the Leslie Brothers who were closely followed by other graziers. The town of Warwick, which grew to become the business centre for the southern Darling Downs, was surveyed by James Burnett in 1849, with the first sale of crown land in July 1850. Warwick was declared a municipality in 1861 and was subsequently transformed from a squatters' town into the principal urban centre of this prosperous pastoral and agricultural district. The construction of the railway linking Brisbane, Toowoomba, Warwick and the tin mines of Stanthorpe reached Warwick in January 1871, and fuelled further development. As Warwick grew, its local industries remained related to primary production including: flour milling, butter and cheese production, bacon processing, sawmilling, coach and wagon works, followed in the 20th century by motor repairs and engineering works. All of these industries required a skilled workforce.[2]
\nThroughout the 19th century, the only avenue for technical education in Queensland was through the local schools of arts where courses in trades were conducted. The quality and variety of instruction depended on the competence and enthusiasm of committee members. During the late 1880s, several committees established technical colleges in existing school of arts buildings, but as the range of courses and number of students increased, separate accommodation was necessary. Queensland’s first purpose-built technical college opened in Ipswich in 1901 [QHR 600586], followed by Warwick (1906), Mount Morgan (1909) [QHR 600005], and Toowoomba (1911) [QHR 600851]. Reflecting the importance of the mining industry to Charters Towers, a school of mines was established in there in 1901 [QHR 600402], which fulfilled a similar role to a technical college.
\nIn the early 1900s the Queensland Government began to take a more active interest in technical colleges. In the late 1890s through to 1914, Queensland's manufacturing sector grew substantially, creating a need for a more skilled workforce in a variety of trades.
\nThe Board of Technical Education was established in 1902, replaced by a Technical Education Branch within the Department of Public Instruction in 1905, and the Technical Instruction Act 1908 empowered the government to take over existing technical colleges. Locally managed technical colleges gradually came under departmental control and the government also established new colleges in several centres, including Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Mackay.[3]
\nTechnical education in Warwick began with the formation of a school of arts, which initially met in the courthouse before establishing itself in a building in Palmerin Street in 1869. A technical college began in the School of Arts boardroom in 1895. This space was soon inadequate and a site was acquired on the corner of Fitzroy and Guy Street where a new building was opened in 1906, financed through local subscriptions. A two-storey extension facing Guy Street was completed in 1909.[4]
\nConcurrently, an approach had been made to the Minister for Public Instruction to offer high school education in Warwick at the technical college. This phase of education was referred to as a Day School. The Warwick Day School began classes in the Guy Street technical college on 1 July 1910. Warwick was the first town in regional Queensland to have a technical high school under government control. The Warwick Technical High School was officially opened on 8 August 1910. It was noted that during the previous 4.5 years, £5812 had been spent on technical college works in Warwick, £2450 of which were raised locally and that the college had been handed over to the government free of debt.[5]
\nDemand for further education was high and by December 1910 it was evident that a new site was needed for a larger technical college and high school. After a local referendum in September 1912, two acres (0.8ha) of land was resumed from Cunningham Park in 1913 for a new technical college and high school.[6]
\nQueensland prosperity grew in the first decades of the 20th century from a mineral boom and agricultural pursuits, enabling the government to implement a campaign of construction of large public buildings.[7] This included substantial brick or timber school buildings. From the beginnings of purpose-built education buildings until the 1950s, brick school buildings were far less frequently built than those of timber. If brick was employed, it was only in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly-increasing populations. Like Queensland’s private schools, technical colleges and schools of arts, rather than being built to a standard plan, all brick and some timber school buildings were individually designed with variation in style, size, and form. These few were given generous budgets, resulting in impressive edifices. Light and ventilation was still a primary concern for the architects but compared to contemporary standard education buildings, these buildings had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.[8]
\nQueensland Government Architect Thomas Pye called tenders for the new Warwick Technical College and High School buildings in July 1913. HD Miller’s £11,500 tender was accepted in August, but the contract was later awarded to Donald James Hutchings. The foundation stone was laid 28 February 1914 by the Queensland Governor, Sir William McGregor.[9]
\nThe main Technical College and High School building (in 2018 named Block A) was a two-storey masonry structure on a Greymare granite base, with a Marseilles tiled roof with a fleche. The walls were face brick and roughcast stucco with Yangan freestone dressings. A carved sandstone coat of arms over the doorway featured the motto of the school: ‘Virtute et Labore’ (by hard work and excellence), carved by the Art Master Charles Astley. The interior, with its wide entrance hall with reinforced concrete staircase, provided teaching space for commercial subjects, chemistry, and a lecture and examination hall. The building included a two-storey toilet block joined by a first floor walkway. The block had an iron fire escape stair and a concrete septic tank was added to the rear (western side) of the block in 1923.[10]
\nA separate two-storey Workshops Block (in 2018 named Block B) was built prior to Block A, standing to its west. It was completed in May 1914 when classes commenced, while earlier Technical College in Guy Street, remained in use for some time. Block B housed a blacksmithing and plumbing workshop and two forges on the ground floor, with a carpenter and joinery workshop and a geometric drawing room on the first floor.[11]
\nBoth buildings were heated by gas, and served by electricity, with synchronised clocks. The buildings cost in excess of £12,000 and were officially opened by the Queensland Governor, His Excellency Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, in October 1915. The school buildings complemented existing substantial masonry structures in Warwick, many also built using Yangan freestone.[12]
\nEducational reforms between 1909 and 1914 resulted in the introduction of high schools, expansion of technical colleges, inauguration of the University of Queensland, and initiation of a teachers training college. Warwick was fast becoming a ‘school town’, with the opening of a number of private boarding and day schools from 1912 offering primary and secondary education. These included: Our Lady of the Assumption College (1893, high school from 1912) [QHR 600953], St Joseph’s Christian Brothers College for boys (1912); Church of England Girls School (1917); Presbyterian Girls’ College (1918); Scots College (1919) and the Slade School (1926). The Queensland Country Women’s’ Association provided hostel accommodation to students attending Warwick State High School from January 1928. [13]
\nArt Master of the Warwick Technical College from 1908 was Charles Astley (1869-1929), an accomplished artist and musician. He learnt woodcarving from Edith Robinson and taught art classes on behalf of the technical college at Milton Ladies College (Pringle Cottage) [QHR 604945], Tannymorel, Clifton, Stanthorpe, and Killarney. He began teaching china painting in 1914, which required kiln firing, so he also initiated pottery classes. Warwick acquired a pottery kiln in May 1918, prior to Brisbane’s Central Technical College where pottery had been taught since 1916. The first kiln was located on the ground floor of the workshops block but Astley had difficulties with this kiln. A new imported kiln was purchased in 1922 and a small brick lean-to room was added to the rear (western side) of the workshops block, costing £75 and built to accommodate it. This kiln was connected into a pre-existing chimney.[14]
\nWarwick Technical College, under Astley’s direction, pioneered the teaching and production of pottery in Queensland. This was more than a decade prior to the inclusion of ceramics courses in institutions such as the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Astley’s students’ pottery work was exhibited in the Brisbane Exhibition in 1921 and 1923 and he submitted a display to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium in 1924, for which he received a bronze medal. Astley’s health failed, and following a brief time during 1925 when he established the art department at the Rockhampton Technical College, he was forced to retire at age 56, and died in 1929. Many of his works are retained in private collections, and some are held in the Queensland Art Gallery and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. [15]
\nThe next phase of the development of the school campus came with the introduction of an intermediate school. This concept emerged in Queensland during the late 1920s, as a transition between primary and secondary schooling. Intermediate schools catered for years six and seven, and offered vocational subjects as well as a transition towards the Junior (Year 10) and Senior (Year 12) Certificates. Junior Certificates were available for General, Commercial Industrial, Home Science, Agriculture or Art. The completion of Senior could lead to enrolment at the University of Queensland, which at that time offered 25 scholarships per year. The intermediate system operated until the early 1960s. [16]
\nThe first state intermediate schools were established within existing school facilities at Warwick, Charters Towers, Mount Morgan and South Brisbane from 1928. In February 1929, the Minister for Education, the Hon. TW Wilson, opened the first intermediate school in Queensland at the Warwick Technical College and High School. The first group of 98 students were housed in the top storey of the workshops block. The top floor of the old Technical College in Guy Street was used for manual arts training. Queensland’s first purpose-built intermediate school was opened in Roma in December 1929.[17]
\nA new purpose-built Intermediate School building, the second in Queensland, was erected at Warwick Technical College in 1932 (in 2018 named Block C). It was designed by DPW architect Harold Parr and built by Thomas R Porter for £7866. It was situated at right angles to the existing buildings, overlooking Cunningham Park, and was built to a complementary design. The two storey building had a Greymare granite base with face brick and roughcast stucco walls, stucco quoins, bands and architraves, and a tall hipped roof clad with tiles with a central metal ventilation fleche. The ground floor comprised four classrooms separated by folding partitions to allow conversion for assemblies, teachers room, and toilets. The first floor had two classrooms, a drawing, and a science room, teachers room, and toilets. The classrooms on both levels, were on the southern side of the building with banks of large casement windows enabling high levels of southern light and natural ventilation. The Minister for Education, the Hon. FA Cooper, officially opened the building on 7 October 1932, and classes began in November.[18]
\nBy 1937, there were intermediate schools established in Brisbane South [QHR 601222] (1929), Mount Morgan [QHR 650005] (1929), Roma (1929), Charters Towers (1929), Gatton (1933), Gympie (1933), Bundaberg (1933), Mackay [QHR 601911] (1933), Brisbane North (Kelvin Grove) (1935), Maryborough Girls and Boys [QHR 600697] (1936), and Ayr [QHR 601574] (1936). Most were accomplished through re-use or remodelling of existing buildings. Six buildings at Roma, Warwick, Mackay, Bundaberg (demolished), Ayr, and Brisbane North (Kelvin Grove) were purpose-built structures.[19]
\nFrom 1948, land parcels approximately 300m to the north of the school, close to the river, were gradually resumed to provide new school land separate from the main campus. From 1950, a committee of parents, staff, and past students had fund-raised to convert this paddock into a sports field; named Hamilton Oval in 1951. In 1954, further land was acquired to establish an agricultural school. Both land areas were later amalgamated.[20]
\nThe campus was connected to the town’s sewerage system in 1943. This necessitated a number of changes of fixtures and fittings of most plumbing items throughout the school.[21]
\nIn the late 1950s, two two-storey connecting wings were built; a north wing between Block A and B and a south wing between Block A and C, within the school’s restrained 2 acre (0.8ha) site. This created an enclosed courtyard campus. From 1 July 1957 construction began on the South Connecting Wing between Blocks A and C at a cost of £19,693. The project included the re-use of freestone removed from the window openings of the technical college building, cut and dressed to be reused in the new wing, and was designed to have ‘sympathetic consideration of the aesthetic relationship’ to the existing structure in order to ‘preserve its integrity’. It housed science labs on the ground floor and classrooms on the first floor. It was completed by 1 March 1958.[22]
\nWork began immediately on the North Connecting Wing between Block A and B. This link, with large banks of awning windows, was designed by consulting architect Jim Leven. The wing, built in brick and timber, cost £28,064 and was likely completed by December 1959. It did not repeat all design elements of the early structures but was consciously designed so as not to detract from the existing structures. Three classrooms were provided on the ground floor with art, drawing, and dressmaking accommodated on the well-lit first floor. Both connecting wings illustrate DPW’s commitment to improved lighting and ventilation for schools at this time. The upper floor of Block B was used for woodworking with bench accommodation for 32 students. Timber was stored in the loft. The ground floor was to be converted for welding, plumbing and metalwork.[23]
\nCunningham Park, occupying the land adjacent to the school, was used for sporting activities by the public and school community. The school constructed a tennis court and cricket pitch within the park during the 1930s (in 2018 two multi-purpose courts remain). The EJ Portley Olympic Pool opened in October 1957 in the southeast corner of Cunningham Park. In August 1964, the two acre (0.8ha) site was gazetted as a Reserve for School Purposes (R. 484). In 1966, the Warwick State High School Parents and Citizens’ Association (P & C) requested control over this land, because Hamilton Oval was too far away for lunch-time sport and recreation.[24]
\nFurther additions were made to the school in the 1960s. A Plumbing Workshop (in 2018 named Block F) was completed at the commencement of the 1963 school year. The 98 ft (30m) by 38 ft (11.5m) slab on ground brick veneer and steel portal frame building, with east-facing skylight cost £17,500 and comprised two large workshop rooms, one for metalwork and one for plumbing. This was built to a standard type developed by the DPW. The north-south alignment of this building provided easy access for materials delivered directly from Victoria Street into a large door facing the street. Concurrently, the intermediate school ceased to exist with the demise of the Scholarship exam.[25]
\nThe Education Act 1964 was a turning point and the first major update of Queensland education's governing legislation since 1875. Effectively, a new era of state education evolved, requiring new architectural responses. The Department of Education (as it had been renamed in 1957) continued to give the responsibility of building design to the architects of the DPW. In 1964 construction began on a new brick and timber Science and Toilet Block extension with (in 2018 named Block D) extending from the west end of Block C. Extensive ground floor toilets and showers were built first (1964-65), costing £20,475, and science laboratories with preparation rooms were subsequently added to the first floor (1968-9) costing $70,420. The series of south-facing classrooms had large banks of windows to provide ample natural light and ventilations and were accessed by a long northern verandah. Minor alterations were made the west end of Block C for connecting access. The new building was built to a standard DPW plan, which included steel open web floor joists to provide unencumbered space underneath. This space was generally open for recreation, but at Warwick’s small site it had to accommodate much needed toilets and showers.[26]
\nThe construction of Block D highlighted the diminishing recreational space on the school campus. The P & C sought the allocation of Cunningham Park to the school, which led to: the cancellation of the Recreation Reserve (R.269 – Cunningham Park); extension of the school reserve (R.484) and creation of a new reserve on the south western side of the park. The swimming pool was in a separate reserve. These were all gazetted in November 1968. The extension of the school reserve 8.9m to the west allowed for the construction of a new science wing at that time.[27]
\nIn July 1977 Warwick State High School officially acquired the adjacent land (Lot 2 W30131 – previously reserve for playground) as part of the high school and the campus grew into this space. With new educational philosophies from the mid-1960s-1980s, government policies and functional requirements combined with new architectural styles, materials and technologies, the evolution of standard designs became more fragmented. Rather than ‘improving' on the previous designs, architects began to design with inspiration drawn from new precedents. Fundamentally, timber construction was no longer favoured and buildings were no longer predominantly highset.[28]
\nFund-raising began for the construction of a hall in the early 1970s. The Great Hall was completed in 1977 and a First Year Centre in 1978. This was built on vacant land between Block C and the council swimming pool. This building blocked any views of Block C to and from Palmerin Street and the former Cunningham Park, which it originally overlooked. The beautification of the school grounds during the late 1970s and early 1980s have been credited to the principal Bob Rasmussen and his family; particularly the maintenance of the gardens facing Palmerin Street.[29]
\nIn c1978 Block F was extended to the west and the ground floor of the North Connecting Wing was altered to accommodate additional art classes, including the demolition of columns and the wall between classrooms and the corridor. A new library building was completed in 1986.[30]
\nWarwick State High School continued to provide technical education evening classes for tradesmen into the 1980s, until the establishment of the Warwick TAFE College in 1988. The conversion of the upper floor of Block B into a drama theatre in the early 1980s saw the carpentry work shop benches transferred to Block F. In c2001 a second extension was made on the west side of Block F to accommodate increased manual training facilities. A new art/science block was completed in 2006. In 2004 the school site merged Lots 1 W30106 (school site) and Lot 2 W30131 (its playground reserve acquired in 1977) creating Lot 3 SP171821.[31]
\nThe school celebrated its centenary in 2002 with a significant publication acknowledging the history and achievements of the school. In 2016, the school enrolments for Warwick State High School were 893. In 2018 Warwick State High School continues to operate from its original site and retains its two storey brick Technical College and High School building, Workshops Block, Intermediate School and 1950s North and South Connecting Wings, and former Plumbing Workshop and Science Wing with Toilet Block extension. It remains the only state high school in Warwick and is a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. [32]
","criteria":"Warwick State High School (opened on this site in 1914 as the Warwick Technical College and High School) is important in demonstrating the provision and evolution of state and technical education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains excellent, representative examples of government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nWarwick State High School is an early example of a state funded education institution of regional importance, which has been at the forefront of the provision of secondary and technical education in Queensland, as demonstrated by Technical College and High School Buildings, Main Building, Block A (1915) and Workshops Block, Block B (1914); and Queensland’s second purpose-built intermediate school building, Block C (1932).
\nLater high school buildings (South Connecting Wing 1958 and North Connecting Wing 1959, Block F 1963, and Block D 1968/9) are excellent representations of the continuum of years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size, and ventilation by the Department of Public Works (DPW) to produce an ideal educational environment.
|Warwick State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state high school and technical college complex developed from the early to the mid-20th century. The principal characteristics include: high quality, durable buildings designed by the DPW; separate buildings for specialist departments with subject-specific classrooms; classrooms and buildings for vocational education; classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation facilitated by open space around the buildings; separate toilet blocks/areas; and prominent gardens on the main street close to the centre of town.
\nBlock A (1915), the Technical College and High School classroom building, demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 20th century state technical college and high school teaching building in Queensland. It is highly intact retaining its: custom design in a confident classical style; landscaped front grounds and grand facade prominent on Palmerin Street; high quality materials and craftsmanship; a variety of classroom spaces designed for specialist classes; an attached separate toilet block.
\nBlock B (1914), the Workshops Block, demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early 20th century state technical college and high school workshops building in Queensland. It is highly intact retaining its: restrained style and material use complementary to the main building; location standing separate from the main building to minimise noise disruption and dissipate heat from the forges and kiln; large open workshop spaces with minimal and durable internal finishes; large door access and gantry crane to the first floor; and kiln room (c1922) with chimney.
\nBlock C (1932), the Intermediate School building, demonstrates the principal characteristics of a state intermediate school building from the interwar period in Queensland. It is highly intact retaining its: confident classical style with well-composed elevations; high quality materials and craftsmanship; a series of south-facing classrooms of a standard size with high levels of southern light and natural ventilation; and teachers rooms.
\nBlock F (1963), the high school Plumbing Workshops building, demonstrates the principal characteristics of a state high school vocational training building from the mid-20th century in Queensland. It is highly intact retaining its: location standing separate from the main building to minimise noise disruption; brick veneer, concrete slab on ground, and steel portal frame construction with vented clerestory; large open workshop spaces with minimal and durable internal finishes; large door access; and high levels of natural light and ventilation.
|Warwick State High School (Blocks A, B, C, and the North and South Connecting Wings) is highly intact and has external aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes. This well composed complex of two-storey masonry buildings is unified by the harmonious form, scale, materials, and fine craftsmanship, laid out around an open courtyard setting with views between buildings. Blocks A and C have dominant roof fleches.
\nThe DPW sought to convey a sense of progress and permanence through the designs, which provide a notable streetscape contribution to Palmerin and Victoria Streets.
\nThe school is an important local landmark, highly visible within the townscape from surrounding vantage points, including views from the northern entry to the town and along Palmerin and Victoria Streets. Over many years Block A has been the subject of photographs showcasing the beautiful masonry buildings of Warwick.
|Schools and technical colleges have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nWarwick State High School and its precursor institutions, have been at the forefront of technical and post-primary education in Queensland since 1895. Local fundraising supported the construction of the new purpose-built Technical College and High School (1914-15), boosting the importance of Warwick as an education centre for the southern downs region.
\nWarwick State High School has educated generations of students from Warwick and the surrounding districts for more than a century, and it remains a focus for the community, which continues its support of the school.
|Warwick State High School has a special association the life work of nationally renowned and accomplished artist Charles Astley (1869 -1929), who pioneered the teaching of pottery in Queensland technical colleges.
\nHis close association with this school is the result of his employment as Art Master from 1908 to 1925. Astley is responsible for the carved sandstone emblem above the entrance to Block A, and the kiln room of Block B.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650063,"name":"Mitchelton State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"47 Glen Retreat Road","suburb":"MITCHELTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-08-23","description":"Mitchelton State School occupies a 3.19ha site in Mitchelton, a suburb approximately 8.5km northwest of Brisbane CBD. The school is accessed via Glen Retreat Road to the southeast, and is bounded on other sides by Mimosa Street (northeast), Turnbull Street (northwest) and a creek (southwest). The school retains a complex of five highset buildings with a highset Administration Bridging Wing, located at the south end of the site and connected by covered walkways. The grounds are well-established and include a northern playing field and northeastern tennis courts.
\nThe features of state-level cultural heritage significance within the school complex are:
\nThe site planning is typical of Queensland schools from the 1950s; with the long, narrow buildings linked by covered walkways and surrounded by open-ended courtyard play spaces. Blocks A (south), B (central) and C (north) are arranged in a staggered, parallel formation, orientated slightly east of north with north-facing verandahs. Blocks D and E (orientated further toward the east, with northeast-facing verandahs) are connected to the western ends of Blocks B and C, and are in parallel alignment.
\nBlock B (1952), Block C (1952, extended 1954), Block D (1958, extended 1959) and Block E (1957): Highset Timber School Buildings with semi-enclosed stairs
\nBlocks B, C, D and E are long, highset, timber-framed teaching buildings with gable roofs. The buildings have north-facing verandahs (Blocks D and E orientated further east than Blocks B and C), accessing southern classrooms. Stairs at the east and west ends of the verandahs (except the west end of Block D, which was relocated and replaced with a smaller stair with the 1958 extension) are semi-enclosed with timber-framed screens and fixed windows.
\nThe interior layouts of the buildings are as follows:
\nThe understoreys are used as play space. The layout of their enclosures are as follows:
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance within Block B, C, D and E include:
\nAdministration Bridging Wing (1952)
\nThe Administration Bridging Wing is a highset, timber-framed office building with a skillion roof. A central walkway provides access to the offices and connects Blocks B and C. The southeast end is the earliest and most significant section, comprising two office spaces (formerly three), with an entryway and toilet.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance within Block A include:
\nBlock A: Boulton & Paul (1953, extended 1954); with DPW extension (1954)
\nBlock A is a long, timber-framed, prefabricated teaching building with a gable roof and long sides facing north and south. Standing on piers, the building is almost level with the ground on the north side, but is highset to the south (due to the sloping terrain). A northern verandah accesses a series of southern classrooms, and a single room (former library, 1954) extends north from its west end.
\nThe west end of the building, comprising four classrooms, a break-out space and store room (formerly five classrooms and a hat room – the west classroom is an early addition), is of a prefabricated Boulton and Paul design. The east end, comprising two classrooms and a break-out space (formerly three classrooms) is of a similar DPW design. The easternmost classroom (1971) is a later addition. Some partitions have been removed to reconfigure classroom sizes.
\nThe gable-end walls extend to the understorey, and an early eastern enclosure forms an art room. A timber screen (1961) along the north length of the building, shields a rock-face.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level heritage significance within Block A include:
\nCovered Walkways
\nRaised, covered walkways connect the verandahs of Blocks B and D; and Blocks C and E. They have timber floors, corrugated metal-clad skillion roofs, balustrades of metal pipe and chain wire, and V-shaped circular metal posts.
\nA ground-level covered walkway extending between Blocks A and B has a corrugated metal-clad skillion roof and timber posts.
\nCourtyards
\nOpen courtyards between Blocks A and B, B and C, and D and E, are characteristic of the 1950s planning. They are used as open play-space.
\nRecent artificial turf, stone seating, concrete-edged planters, concrete slabs, basketball goal posts, and a timber school sign within these spaces are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nLandscape Features
\nThe school grounds are well-established, with sporting facilities including a large playing field at the northern end of the site.
\nMature leopard trees (Libidibia ferrea) and a fig tree (Ficus sp.) stand either side of the Glen Retreat Road entrance. An additional mature leopard tree is between the playing field and Mimosa Street.
\nFeatures not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Mitchelton State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMitchelton State School opened in 1916 as Groveley State School. Located approximately
8.5km northwest from the Brisbane CBD, the school (Years 3-8) moved to its current site in 1952, while the infants school (Years 1-2) remained at the former site until 1986. The school comprises an early 1950s master-planned school site with asymmetrical placement of buildings. Six buildings from the original planning scheme remain: a Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Building – Block A (1953, extended 1954, and 1970); Highset Timber School Buildings with semi-enclosed stair – Blocks B (1952), C (1952, extended c1954), D (1958, extended 1959) and E (1957); a timber Administration Bridging Wing (1952, extended 1970) connecting Blocks B and C; and connecting walkways between buildings. The buildings are set in landscaped grounds with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Mitchelton community.
Originally part of the lands of the Turrbal people, the future site of Mitchelton State School was sold by the Queensland Government in May 1864.[1] A farming community developed in the Mitchelton-Keperra area, which featured vineyards and wineries.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3] Groveley State School, established for the children of the surrounding farming community, opened on 9 October 1916 on a 2-acre (0.81ha) site purchased from Sarah Jane Keylar and located on Samford Road, north of the current school site.[4]
\nAlthough intended for transportation of dairy and farm produce, the opening of the railway line extension linking Gaythorne to Mitchelton (on the Dayboro branch railway line, now Ferny Grove line) on 2 March 1918, stimulated subdivision of farming land for housing.[5] The first of these interwar housing estates, on sale from May 1918, was stage one of the Groveley Lodge Estate, adjacent to the Groveley State School.[6]
\nGroveley State School was renamed Mitchelton State School in 1923.[7] The population of the school grew due to housing development in Mitchelton, and a larger school site became necessary. In 1935 the Department of Education resumed about 6.5 acres (2.63ha) south of the school, for this purpose. This land on Glen Retreat Road was reserved as R1426 in 1937.[8] Plans were prepared for the new school site, however, it did not move until 15 years later.[9]
\nThe outbreak of war in the Pacific region in December 1941 affected Queensland schools. The Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended.[10] Typically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[11] This was the case at Mitchelton State School.[12]
\nAfter World War II, the Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[13] The overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction, faced with overcrowding and a lack of resources, was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible.[14]
\nThe population of Mitchelton and its adjacent suburb, Keperra, doubled between 1947 and 1954 and this was reflected in the growth of Mitchelton State School’s enrolments.[15] Pupil numbers increased from 331 in 1939 to 657 in October 1950. Temporary classrooms were added in 1947 and 1949, but overcrowding continued.[16] The community requested that work on the new school for Mitchelton commence and in 1951, the Department of Public Works announced it would build six classrooms on the new Mitchelton State School site.[17]
\nPost-war, the Department of Public Instruction focused on more appropriate siting of new schools within their neighbourhoods, as well as site planning for expansion and ideal solar orientation. In the early 1950s, Department of Public Works (DPW) architects developed master planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[18] Educationalists argued that the ideal orientation of classroom buildings was 10 degrees east of north, with verandahs protecting the northern side and classrooms facing south. This led to the construction of school buildings that were oriented in relation to the sun rather than the site boundaries.[19] The original positioning of Mitchelton State School’s buildings, with three parallel connected wings orientated this way to the sun, are evidence of these planning considerations.[20]
\nThe DPW introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings from 1950. These buildings were high-set timber framed structures with the understorey used as covered play space. Introduced in 1950, the principal type, the Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair, was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. The stair connected the understorey to a north-facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This building type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[21] Plans for the first buildings of the new Mitchelton State School – Blocks B and C (both of this type) and a Administration Bridging Wing – were drawn in September and October 1951 and built in time for commencement of the 1952 school year.[22]
\nBlock B had a north-facing verandah and classrooms on the upper level, with open space on the ground level providing a covered play area for students. The southern side had large areas of casement windows with fanlights, while the northern verandah wall had double doors with glazed panels and double-hung windows with fanlights. The classrooms were 21ft wide (6.4m) and separated by timber partitions, some with large folding doors to combine classrooms and some with central double doors. The partition layout incorporated narrow hat rooms between classrooms. The building was supported on timber stumps with short timber bracing walls. The ground floor was only partially concreted and there was a lavatory at the western end. The verandah stair at the western end was partially enclosed with glazing. Verandah balustrades were timber rails.[23]
\nBuilt to the north and parallel to Block B, Block C was almost a duplicate of Block B but with variations to the verandah stair at the western end and it lacked the eastern-most classroom.[24]
\nThe Administration Bridging Wing, comprising a raised and covered walkway, linked Blocks B and C at their western ends. It was enclosed along most of its western side and had high-level windows. Opening off the eastern side were the Head Teacher’s office, medical inspection room, female staff room, and toilet. The Head Teacher’s office opened through double doors onto a small, east-facing balcony. Contemporary drawings of the buildings show a flagpole near this balcony and the area between the buildings labelled “ASSEMBLY AREA”.[25]
\nOn 29 January 1952, the Year 3-8 students commenced the school year at the new 3.2ha site, while the renamed Mitchelton State Infant School (Years 1-2) remained at the previous school site.[26] The cost of building the new school was £22,580.[27]
\nResponding to materials shortages and the enrolment pressures of the baby boom, the Department of Public Works proceeded in 1953 with the proposed future wing (Block A) shown on the original plans, which was sited to the south of Block B and connected by a covered walkway. Comprising three classrooms, this wing was a pre-fabricated building system imported from British manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. These buildings were erected at many schools across Queensland between 1951 and 1958.[28]
\nBoulton & Paul buildings were timber-framed and -clad, had verandahs for circulation, and a gable roofs. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classrooms faced south, but they were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The building could be high or low-set and had extensive areas of timber framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms. Almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed. Natural ventilation and lighting was abundant. The classroom size of 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m) was larger than most previous classrooms.[29]
\nMitchelton State School’s Boulton & Paul building was extended in 1954 by three DPW-designed classrooms to its east and one Boulton & Paul classroom to its west. North of the western classroom, an extension was built for use as a library.[30] Block C was extended by one classroom to its east by 1954.[31]
\nAnother Highset Timber School building with enclosed stair, Block E, was constructed in 1957, to the west of Block C, to which it was connected by a short, raised walkway. The building faced more to the east than previous buildings. It had a northern verandah on the upper level, was clad with chamfer boards, and had a gable roof. Two of its classrooms, which were 21ft (6.4m) wide, were separated from each other by large folding doors. The verandah had a balustrade of bag and hat racks, and the stair at the eastern end was enclosed by a glazed screen. The walkway between the buildings was steel-framed with v-shaped columns, fabricated from steel pipe, and wire mesh balustrades. Underneath was open play space for pupils.[32]
\nSimilarly, Block D, also a highset, timber building, was built to the west of Block B, to which it was connected by a raised walkway. Parallel to Block E, it was clad with chamfer boards, and had a gable roof. The building was mostly enclosed around the perimeter underneath for students’ play space and had a northern verandah and classrooms on the upper level. The southern side had large areas of hopper windows and the northern verandah wall had double doors and double-hung windows with fanlights. The verandah had a balustrade of bag and hat racks and the stairs were partially enclosed with glazed panels. The classrooms, which were 21ft (6.4m) wide, were divided from each other by a timber partition which had a connecting door at the southern end.[33] A western extension to Block D, of two classrooms, was completed by September 1959.[34]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools.[35] For planting on Arbor Day in May 1957, the Head Teacher, William Grant, ordered four Weeping Figs, three purple Bauhinia (Bauhinia purpurea) and two Leopard Trees (Libidibia ferrea).[36] In 1960, aerial photography showed evidence of a planting scheme on the Mitchelton State School site, along the Mimosa Street and Glen Retreat Road boundaries, as well as the retention of mature trees northeast of Block C. The school playing field and two tennis courts were formed by May 1958. The swimming pool and associated dressing shed were erected by 1964.[37]
\nIn the 1970s, plans for a number of alterations to the 1950s buildings were drawn; the resultant changes are not considered to be of state heritage significance. An extension to Block A, comprising one classroom on its eastern end, was constructed after September 1970 and completed by May 1971.[38] An extension to Block D to its east, along its connecting walkway, was drawn for a female staff room.[39] Plans were also drawn for alterations to partitions, and door and window locations in the Administration Bridging Wing.[40] In 1973, the Administration Bridging Wing was extended to the west of its corridor to provide accommodation for administration, with removal of a partition installed in 1970.[41] Plans for an addition to the administration area between Blocks C and B were drawn in August 1974.[42] In 1975, the Administration Bridging Wing was further altered to extend an office to the northwest side for the Senior and Infant Mistresses.[43] In 1976 Block D was extended for a tea room and the Administration Bridging Wing was altered, with an extension to the sick room to the east and the Health Services room to the west.[44]
\nThe 1970s also brought additional buildings to the site. A two-storey classroom block (Block F, south of Block D) and an Administration Block (adjacent to Glen Retreat Road) were constructed by 1975.[45] These are not considered to be of state heritage significance.
\nIn 1986, Mitchelton State School and Mitchelton Infants School were combined on the present state school site.[46]
\nIn 1998, alterations were made to Blocks B and A. Demolition of internal partitions, removal of glazing and construction of two partitions in new positions, with concertina doors, took place in Block B. In Block A, there was demolition of internal partitions and the verandah wall of the 1970s classroom and enclosure of that classroom’s verandah, removal and replacement of doors, and removal of glazing.[47]
\nMitchelton State School became one of Queensland’s first Independent Public Schools in November 2013.[48] In 2016 it celebrated its centenary anniversary, by publishing a history of the school, and bringing together staff, students, parents and community members who contributed to Mitchelton State School during its first century.[49]
\nIn 2018, the school continues to operate from its 1950s site. It retains a Boulton & Paul Prefabricated Timber Building with additions; four Highset Timber School Buildings with semi-enclosed stairs; a timber Administration Bridging Wing; and connecting walkways, set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, retaining walls and mature shade trees from the 1950s planting scheme. Mitchelton State School is important to Mitchelton, as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Mitchelton State School (established 1916; on its current site from 1952) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with provision of assembly and play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe layout of the administration and classroom blocks, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, reflect the early 1950s introduction of master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building (1953, extended 1954) demonstrates the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period.
\nThe Highset Timber School Buildings with semi-enclosed stair (1952-59) with Administration Bridging Wing (1952) demonstrate the evolution of Department of Public Works designs during the 1950s, based on features of the Boulton & Paul buildings.
|Mitchelton State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school of the 1950s. These include its 1950s site planning; range of highset timber-framed buildings of standard designs; and a generous, landscaped site with shade trees, and assembly and sports areas.
\nThe site planning is intact and important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of 1950s Queensland state school master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus. The five 1950s buildings at Mitchelton State School contribute to the concept of long, narrow buildings arranged in a staggered, parallel formation fanning out from an administration wing; linked by covered walkways around open-ended courtyard assembly and play spaces.
\nThe highset timber teaching buildings (Blocks B, C, D and E, 1952-59) are good, intact examples of Highset Timber Teaching Buildings with semi-enclosed stairs, and retain their: highset character with covered play space under; timber-framed, lightweight construction; gable roofs; north-facing verandahs for circulation; large banks of south-facing timber-framed casement and awning windows, with fanlights; 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms; and stairwells semi-enclosed with timber frames and fixed windows.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Building (Block A, 1953-54) is a good, intact example of this standard type. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics through its: expression of the modular, prefabricated construction in external cladding; timber-framed, lightweight construction; highset, gable-roofed form with play space underneath; northern verandah for circulation; 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms, flat internal wall linings; and large banks of timber-framed awning and double-hung windows with fall-prevention safety rails and window stays.
\nInfluenced by the Boulton & Paul type, the DPW-designed extension (1954) is a good, intact example of its standard type, demonstrating the principal characteristics including its: timber-framed, lightweight construction; highset, gable-roofed form with play space underneath; northern verandah for circulation; 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms, flat internal wall linings; and large banks of timber-framed awning and double-hung windows to classrooms.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nMitchelton State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Mitchelton community. Established nearby in 1916 and relocated to its current site in 1952, generations of Mitchelton students have been taught at the school. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Mitchelton and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650064,"name":"Gympie State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"1 Everson Road","suburb":"GYMPIE","lga":"GYMPIE REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-09-21","description":"Gympie State High School occupies an 11.04ha sloping, elevated site, bounded by Cootharaba Road, a main thoroughfare heading out of Gympie, to the east; and Everson Road to the west. The school’s buildings are clustered in the northern half of the site, with two sports ovals to the south, and one oval to the north.
\nFeatures of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock B (1955-56) and Block C (1956-57) – Timber School buildings incorporating timber floor trusses
\nand
\nBlock D (1958-59) and Agricultural Science extension to Block D (1960-61) – Timber School building incorporating steel open web floor trusses
\nThese highset timber-framed and -clad classroom buildings incorporate floor trusses supporting the first floor to provide an open ground floor for covered play or classrooms. They have gable roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets and are positioned around a broad open courtyard. Long verandahs provide access to a series of classrooms and the verandah and opposing classroom walls are highly glazed, providing a high level of natural light and ventilation to the interiors. The buildings are divided into regular, repeated structural bays defined by their trusses and the short, gable ends of the buildings have face brick extending across both levels.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Gymnasium (Block K, 1933-37)
\nBlock K is a one-storey rectangular lowset building. Its walls are clad to sill height with weatherboards and it has a gambrel roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The gablets have fixed metal ventilation louvres and a weatherboard-clad windowless dormer rises out of the roof at the west end of the building producing a taller internal area.
\nThe roof is supported by 12 sturdy timber posts standing within the building.
\nFeatures that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nTemporary Classroom Building (Block T, 1951)
\nBlock T is a one-storey rectangular lowset building. Its walls are clad with timber vertical jointed (VJ) boards with no bottom plate and it has a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. A verandah runs along the north side (front) with hatroom enclosures at either end.
\nOriginally comprising two classrooms, the partition has been removed to make one large space, although a bulkhead remains.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAll other features not mentioned are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Gympie State High School, established in 1912, opened on its current site in Gympie in 1917. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains: two Timber School Buildings with timber floor trusses (Block B, 1955-56, and Block C, 1956-57); a Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses (Block D, 1958-59) and its Agricultural Science extension (1960-61); a former partially enclosed gymnasium (Block K, c1933-37); and a Temporary Classroom Building (Block T, 1951). The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Gympie community.
\nGympie, part of the traditional lands of the Kabi Kabi people, was established after the discovery of gold in October 1867. The alluvial gold was soon exhausted and shallow reef mining commenced in 1868, followed by deep reef mining from 1875. During 1881 Gympie’s mines began yielding large amounts of gold. An intensive phase of underground reef mining followed, facilitated by the injection of capital into mining companies for machinery and employees. Local gold production peaked in 1903, and Gympie was declared a city in 1905. As gold production declined to cessation c1927, Gympie was transformed into a service centre for its highly productive agricultural district, noted for dairy farming and fruit-growing.[1]
\nBy 1912, Gympie had four state primary schools.[2] That year, it also became the site of one of Queensland’s first three state high schools. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 had provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, but it was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system.[3] In late January 1912 state high schools opened in Gympie, Warwick, and Bundaberg; followed a week later by high schools in Mackay, Mount Morgan and Charters Towers.[4]
\nIn January 1912, Gympie State High School’s first students were accommodated in a building at Gympie Central State School.[5] This building was soon overcrowded. In 1914 the Gympie City Council donated 7.55ha of land, known as Tozer Park, for a new high school. This land (Portion 19, R670) was located west of Cootharaba Road, and south of Tozer Park Road. An additional 4.01ha of land (Portion 21, R689) was then obtained just north of Tozer Park, to provide level ground on which to site the school building.[6]
\nThe first two purpose-built high school buildings in Queensland were opened at Gatton and then Gympie in 1917, and were larger versions of a standard design introduced for primary schools in 1914.[7] To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. These were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy.[8]
\nConstruction of the new Gympie State High School occurred between August 1916 and May 1917. Classes commenced on 3 September and the highset timber school building was officially opened on 19 October 1917, during Gympie’s 50th anniversary celebrations, with an enrolment of 146 students. A separate carpenter’s workshop and store (the manual training building) was located south of the school building.[9]
\nGympie State High School’s facilities were improved in the 1920s and 1930s. A caretaker’s residence was built in 1920;[10] and the first school oval (in 2018 named Hangar Oval), was constructed through the fundraising efforts of the school’s Sports Committee, and officially opened in 1931.[11]
\nThe grounds of purpose-built high schools were larger than those of primary schools, being over 4.8ha, and provided ample room for sports facilities. For many years school committees had to raise funds for construction of such facilities, which included tennis courts, gymnasiums and swimming pools. Teachers in the 1950s requested that high schools include gymnasiums, but these did not become a standard design or inclusion until after the 1960s.[12]
\nGymnasiums were regarded in the late 19th century by Victorian society as a way to maintain physical fitness and beauty, and pursue self-improvement (and ‘Muscular Christianity’) in the industrial age. Typical gymnasium equipment included ropes and rings; parallel bars, horizontal and sloping ladders, wooden horses and mats. Gymnasiums were provided at Queensland state schools, where the community could afford them, from the late 1870s.[13]
\nA gymnasium was built at Gympie State High School in the 1930s. In 1933 the school’s Sports Committee planned to erect, with their own funds, a ‘partially enclosed sports shelter shed’, that could be used as a gymnasium and for social functions (with a preliminary estimated cost of £260), and the Committee requested design assistance and building supervision from the Department of Public Works. This was approved in July 1933 and the gymnasium was built sometime before its gymnastic equipment was installed in 1937. The gymnasium (in 2018 named Block K) accommodated Intermediate classes during the school day – Gympie having become a High and Intermediate School in 1933 – and was used as a gymnasium during lunchtime and after school.[14]
\nDue to increased student numbers, there were soon other additions to the school. During 1939 and early 1940 the manual training building was extended to the east, and a new domestic science block was erected to its northwest. Additions were also made to the main school building.[15]
\nAfter World War II (WWII), enrolment at the school increased above the previous peak of 327 students, resulting in further buildings.[16] Two were added to the school in the late 1940s-early 1950s. The first was a War Memorial Pavilion, sited on the north side of Hangar Oval, which was opened on 27 August 1949 by the Queensland Governor, Sir John Lavarack (the pavilion was demolished in 2010).[17]
\nThe second new building was a two-room Temporary Classroom Building with a gabled roof (in 2018 named Block T). This was built between the main building and the domestic science block in early 1951, and was initially used for commercial classes.[18] Only a relatively small number of Temporary Classroom Buildings were constructed between 1943 and 1951. This standard type, of which Block T in Gympie is a good example, was introduced as a temporary solution to the exceptional growth in student numbers during WWII and the immediate post-war period, when skilled labour was scarce and materials were in short supply. They were small timber buildings, lowset on concrete posts and had skillion or gabled roofs. External walls were clad with vertical tongue and groove (T&G) timber boards and the rear wall had casement windows with operable fanlights sheltered by a simple hood. Accessed from a verandah, the type comprised two classrooms 21ft x 18ft (6.4m x 5.4m).[19]
\nDuring the early 1950s the gymnasium continued to be multi-purpose, being used for Intermediate school assemblies and singing; folk dancing and choir practice for High and Intermediate students; as a shelter shed on wet days; for verse speaking, concerts, drama, the annual flower show, and entertaining visiting sports teams.[20]
\nBy May 1954 there were 259 Intermediate and 255 High School students attending the school, with one Intermediate class using the gymnasium.[21] However, on the night of 18 May 1955 the main school building burnt down due to fire breaking out in a chemistry room.[22] As a result, the surviving buildings had to be used for general classes. The gymnasium was enclosed to form three classrooms and a laboratory. The Temporary Classroom Building was moved to the south of, and between, the manual training and domestic science blocks, to allow for the construction of new school buildings. The Intermediate students were temporarily transferred to the Central State School.[23]
\nPlans were also drawn for two new classroom blocks (in 2018 named Blocks B and C) and an administration wing (demolished in the 1970s) in 1955. These were constructed in three stages between 1955 and 1958, and formed a ‘U’ shape, open to the northeast.[24] An assembly area, which is still an open space in 2018, was formed between the new buildings, occupying the site of the destroyed 1917 school building.
\nFrom 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced and developed new standard plans for school buildings. These buildings were timber-framed structures with a gable roof, highset on stumps, and the understorey was used as covered play space. Classrooms opened off the northern verandah and had extensive areas of windows.[25] In 1954 the type was improved by replacing the proliferation of stumps with a timber truss that spanned the width of the classroom and provided an unimpeded play space. This concept was further refined in 1957 by replacing the timber truss with a steel open-web joist, supported on reinforced concrete columns.[26]
\nBlock B, a Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (1955-56),[27] was used for high school students and had seven classrooms on the first floor, all with double doors to the northern verandah, and four of the classrooms were separated by three sets of folding doors; with the seventh classroom, at the southeast end, separated from the other classrooms by a cloak room. The understorey of Block B included, from the northwest end: a store and girls lavatories; an open recreation and assembly area; a commercial room; medical services room, switch room and store.[28]
\nBlock C, which extended northeast from, and perpendicular to, the northwest end of Block B, was also a Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (1956-57) and was used for Intermediate students on the first floor, and High School students on the ground floor. It had a drawing room at the southwest end of the first floor; then a library and reading room; and an Intermediate staff room, with an enclosed corridor along the northwest side of the building. The ground floor included, from the southwest end: a science lecture room; a physics lab; two store rooms; and a chemistry lab. Blocks B and C were connected by a concrete and brick stairwell to both levels, and also had brick end walls as fire stops (northwest end of Block B; both ends of Block C).[29] The high quality of the buildings was recognised at the time and Blocks B and C were chosen as examples of notable High School architecture in ‘Buildings of Queensland’, a 1959 publication recording Queensland’s architecture produced by the state chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.[30]
\nThe one-storey Administration Block (c1957), which extended northeast from, and perpendicular to, the southeast end of Block B, was connected to the latter by a covered way which also provided an entrance from Cootharaba Road.[31]
\nAs the new buildings were completed, classes moved there from the older school buildings. By 1957, the Temporary Classroom Building was being used to store library books and as a boys locker room, since there was a new commercial room under Block B. Later, the Temporary Classroom Building became a storeroom for the groundskeeper. However, the gymnasium continued to host classes until the late 1970s, when it was again used as a gymnasium for a period.[32]
\nThe school also gained a classroom block for Intermediate students (in 2018 named Block D), east of the northern end of Block C.[33] The first section of Block D, constructed after May 1958 and occupied in 1959, included four classrooms on the first floor, each with double doors to the northern verandah, which had a metal-sheeted balustrade and a separate roof with clerestory windows above. The west end of the building was brick. The understorey contained an open play area, under open web steel trusses which were supported on lozenge shaped concrete columns.[34] Three more classrooms were added to the east end of Block D after November 1958, while a brick Boys toilet block, with lockers and showers, was added at the west end of the understorey.[35] By 1982, a passageway had replaced part of the second classroom from the east end.[36]
\nIn 1960-61, a two-storey Agricultural Science wing was added north of the east end of Block D. This gable-roofed timber-framed building, with open web steel trusses and brick end walls, was linked to Block D on both levels by a covered glass and metal covered way. On the ground floor, from the south, it included: a store room, work and machinery room; and change room. On the first floor was a store room and a classroom opening off the western verandah.[37]
\nDuring the 1960s, a number of new buildings were added to the school, resulting in the gymnasium being relocated further south – due to the construction of a two-storey senior science block (Block J).[38] Around 1962, a tuckshop was added under the east end of block D, and in 1967 the Temporary Classroom Building was still being used as a library.[39] By 1965 the school taught 1036 high school students.[40]
\nContinued development during the 1970s meant that the Temporary Classroom Building was relocated further west, due to construction of a three storey classroom block (Block H), which also resulted in the old vocational buildings being moved southwards (the domestic science block was demolished soon after). In the same decade the easternmost classroom of Block B was removed when a new two-storey administration block (Block A) replaced the 1950s administration block.[41] New buildings continued to be added to the school during the 1980s and 1990s.
\nChanges also occurred to the older buildings in the 1980s. The internal partitioning of the 1930s gymnasium was reconfigured c1987, to change it from one large and two small rooms (at the east end), to two large classrooms, each with a smaller partitioned space in the southern corner.[42]
\nIn 2018, the school continues to operate from its 1917 site. It retains its two Timber School Buildings with timber floor trusses (Blocks B and C); and a Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses (Block D) with an Agricultural Science extension; the former gymnasium (Block K); and a Temporary Classroom Building (Block T). Gympie State High School is important to Gympie, as generations of students, from Gympie and nearby rural areas, have been taught there. School histories were compiled for the school’s 60th anniversary in 1982, and its 100th anniversary in 2012.
","criteria":"Gympie State High School (established as one of Queensland’s first high schools in 1912, and opened on current site in 1917) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains excellent, representative examples of buildings that were responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nThe two Timber School Buildings with timber floor trusses (1955-56, 1956-57), and the two Timber School Buildings with open web steel floor trusses (1958-59, 1960-61), represent the evolution of Department of Public Works designs during the mid to late 1950s to allow for unimpeded play space under highset timber school buildings.
\nThe Temporary Classroom Building (1951) is a product of the exceptional growth in student numbers after World War II, when skilled labour was scarce and materials were in short supply. It is a good, representative example of this pattern of development.
\nThe former gymnasium (c1933-37), which was later used as classrooms, represents the emphasis on sport and fitness at Queensland state schools, and the early pattern of local communities having to raise the funds required to provide sports facilities.
|The Timber School Buildings with timber floor trusses (Blocks B and C) and the Timber School Buildings with open web steel floor trusses (Block D and its Agricultural Science extension) are good, intact examples of their type and demonstrate two iterations of the Department of Public Work’s standard designs: incorporating timber floor trusses for unimpeded play space under the classrooms, and later using open web steel trusses to achieve the same effect.
\nThe buildings retain their: highset character with timber or open web steel trusses; gable roofs; face brick walls and crimped metal sheet and chamferboard cladding; verandahs for circulation; timber-framed double hung windows (Blocks B, C and D), or metal-framed glass louvres (Agricultural Science extension) to the verandah; timber-framed pivoting clerestory windows above the verandah roof (Blocks B and D); large banks of timber-framed awning windows with timber framed pivot fanlights on the opposing walls; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms (Blocks B, C and D).
\nThe Temporary Classroom Building is an intact example of its type. It retains: its gable roof (characteristic of 1949-51 examples); lowset timber framed structure; north facing verandah; timber sash windows to the verandah; casement windows with fanlights over; vertical jointed (VJ) board cladding; and a bulkhead indicates the position of the original wall between its two 21ft (6.4m) x 18ft (5.5m) classrooms.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations. The former gymnasium is the result of community fundraising efforts to provide sporting facilities for Gympie children.
\nGympie State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the Gympie and district community. The school was opened on its current site in 1917 and generations of Gympie children have been taught there.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650065,"name":"Spinifex State College Junior Campus","alternate_name":"Mount Isa State High School | Mount Isa Intermediate School","street_address":"6-12 Fifth Avenue","suburb":"MOUNT ISA","lga":"MOUNT ISA CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-08-23","description":"Spinifex State College Junior Campus occupies on a 5.66ha site on the ‘mine side’ of the Leichhardt River, 1.2km southwest of the centre of Mount Isa. The large site gently slopes to the east. The complex of buildings stands on the higher west part of the site, with large playing field on the lower, east half. The Head Teacher’s Residence faces Fifth Avenue, standing away from the teaching buildings.
\nThe school is bounded by Fifth Avenue (south) to which the school fronts, Fourth Avenue (east), Third Avenue (north), and by residential properties (west).
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLayout and Courtyards
\nBlocks J, F, G, H, and I are long and narrow teaching buildings with long sides facing north and south. They are laid out fairly symmetrically either side of an axial Connecting Link, except Block J (the former Manual Training Building), which is not connected by the link and stands alone to the north.
\nThe buildings are positioned to form open-ended courtyards between them for student play space and activities. The courtyards are flat and a large concrete retaining wall with steel pipe balustrade and concrete stairs stands on the southern side of Block I. The courtyards’ trees and ground surfaces are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nConnecting Link
\nThe Connecting Link (constructed in regularised modules) forms a central axis connecting Blocks F, G, and H, and wraps the north face of these buildings to form a broad covered ‘Lunch Area’ immediately north of their verandahs. The link and lunch areas have a concrete floor and comprise regularly-spaced metal posts supporting an almost flat, timber-framed roof clad with metal sheets. The ceiling is lined with flat sheets without cover strips. A row of openings above the roof of the lunch areas (formerly enclosed with glass louvres) provides further light and ventilation of the verandah.
\nBlocks J, F, G, H, and I (Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings)
\nBlocks J, F, G, and H are intact one-storey, lowset on concrete slab floors. Block I is two-storey – the first level is the Hawksley portion, highset on concrete posts and steel beams to a DPW design. The former open play area of the ground floor of Block I has been mostly enclosed to form additional classrooms.
\nThe buildings are long and narrow, with northern verandahs accessing a series of classrooms on the southern side, and have gable roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. The verandah wall and the opposing classroom wall are highly glazed with operable windows to permit high levels of natural light and ventilation.
\nBlock H has had no changes to the partitions between its three classrooms. Only very minor changes have been made to the partitions between classrooms of Blocks F, G, and I. Block J has had its original classroom partitions removed and a modern one inserted (2019) to create two classrooms.
\nFeatures of Block J, F, G, H, and I also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block J, F, G, H, and I not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nHead Teachers Residence (Department of Public Works Standard Residence Type ‘D’)
\nThe Head Teachers Residence is an intact, modest, one-storey highset timber-framed and -clad residence standing in a defined house yard facing Fifth Avenue. The understorey is enclosed on the perimeter with spaced horizontal planks. It has a gable roof with a perpendicular gable over the front bedroom clad with corrugated metal sheets. The front balcony enlarged in c1961 to a standard DPW design is also intact.
\nFeatures of Head Teachers Residence also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Head Teachers Residence not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nOther Features of Spinifex State College Junior Campus Not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nAll other buildings, landscape elements, and structures on the school are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"Spinifex Junior College was founded in 1953 as Mount Isa State High School serving the mining town of Mount Isa. It is located on the west side of the Leichhardt River, about 0.75km south of the main mine site and 1km southwest of the central business district. The site includes five Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings (1954-60), a Connecting Link (1955-7), and a Head Teachers Residence (1956), built when the town was rapidly evolving from a mining settlement of itinerant workers to a substantial regional company town supporting families. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Mount Isa community.
\nThe Mount Isa area is part of the traditional lands of the Kalkadoon people. Located about 820km west of Townsville, the town is situated within an extensive mineral-rich area stretching from south of Cloncurry to west of Burketown. The Mount Isa mining field was discovered by John Campbell Miles in 1923, who named the place after his niece Isobel. An early analysis of the ore revealed a very high lead content. It later also produced silver, zinc and copper. A rudimentary town developed after Mount Isa Mines Ltd (MIM) was floated as a company in January 1924. A township was surveyed on the east side of the Leichhardt River and soon included a police station, courthouse, hospital, hotels, post office, and banks. The Townsville-Duchess rail line (1912) was extended to Mount Isa in 1929. [1]
\nMIM created its own township on the western side of the river, close to the mine, with company stores, bank and recreational facilities, while the commercial centre remained on the eastern side. This created two settlements: Townside and Mineside. A convent school was established in 1932 between these two settlements. High school classes were offered at the Mount Isa Mines State School from 1937.[2]
\nThe local Member of Parliament, AJ (Norm) Smith wrote to the Minister for Public Instruction in 1945, advocating a merger of the two state schools to establish one central state school, combined with a technical college and a high top (the pre-cursor to a high school, utilising existing school infrastructure). While the primary schools remained separate, this letter, along with the growth of the town, the development of MIM and its need for trained staff, served to initiate the foundation of a high school.[3]
\nDuring World War II (WWII), MIM initiated policies favouring the employment of married men and began building houses for married employees, providing barracks for single men. After WWII, a large housing construction project was initiated with the Queensland Housing Commission. The town’s tent houses [QHR 600742] and corrugated iron dwellings were replaced with houses built in timber (some were recycled army buildings) or locally manufactured concrete bricks. Employee numbers grew from 1025 in June 1947 to 2550 in June 1952.This sharp increase was a direct result of the meteoric rise in the price of lead, as profits rose from £150,000 in 1946 to £500,000 in 1947, and £1,457,000 in 1947-48. This profitability resulted in the establishment of a lead bonus whereby employees were paid an additional few pence per shift, as a share in these profits. The lead bonus reached £5 per week in 1947-48, and £17.5s during the Korean War in 1951, making Mount Isa a very attractive proposition to workers. By 1955 MIM was the largest mining company in Australia and by 1960 Mount Isa produced 60 per cent of Queensland’s mineral wealth and employed more than 50 per cent of the state’s mining workforce.[4]
\nMIM continued to support long-term employees by employing their family members, while simultaneously demanding higher education standards. In the 1950s, the Apprenticeship Board required the completion of Year 8 for electrical apprenticeships and grades 6 or 7 for other apprenticeships. MIM required the Junior Public Exam (Year 10) for electrical apprentices and the completion of Scholarship (Year 8) or Sub-Junior (Year 9) for all others. This policy created a demand for secondary education. A 1949 report from the inspector of Secondary Schools and Technical Colleges advocated the establishment of a new intermediate and high school in Mount Isa with technical classes attached. The inspector noted that there were 60 apprentices employed in the mines, a further four in the town, and that the mining company would hire a further 100 if they were available. Enrolments in the three primary schools had grown from a total of 458 in 1945 to 771 in 1949. The establishment of a high school was regarded as urgent.[5]
\nIn 1950, the Department of Education acquired a nine-acre recreation reserve (a former football field), and an adjacent five-acre mining lease was surrendered by MIM, totalling just over 14 acres (5.66ha). Department of Public Works (DPW) architects produced plans for the new timber school on the site and called for tenders for its construction in late 1951. These plans were not fulfilled. Instead, in August 1952 it was announced Hawksley prefabricated aluminium buildings would be used.[6]
\nPrefabricated buildings from Hawksley Construction Co. of Gloucester, were ordered by the Queensland Government for use in schools in response to the materials shortage and construction pressure of the post-WWII baby boom. The buildings employed an aluminium structure, external cladding of ribbed aluminium sheets, and aluminium-framed awning windows. Components used techniques developed during WWII in aircraft manufacture including pop-riveting, and synthetic gaskets and sealants. As a consequence, these structures had an industrial aesthetic.[7]
\nThe DPW assembled the buildings highset or lowset, and with a verandah for circulation accessing a series of classrooms. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classrooms faced south. The extensive, operable glazing provided abundant natural light and ventilation. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms. The DPW ordered 27 Hawksley buildings comprising 90 classrooms, which began to arrive in Queensland in late 1952. The local Mimag magazine praised the choice of the Hawksley buildings because of the rapidity of construction.[8]
\nAt Mount Isa, the first Hawksley building was erected quickly, completed by 25 March 1953, accommodating the high school during the day and technical classes at night for apprentices. The second Hawksley building was completed by the start of 1954 and accommodated the principal’s office and science classrooms. The third (Block J, Hawksley Unit Type ‘A’) was completed by June 1954, with its concrete slab floor laid by MIM. It was a manual arts classroom building and included a woodwork room, sheet metalwork room, and trade drawing room. The fourth was completed in 1955 (Block F, Hawksley Unit Type ‘G’) and accommodated two general classrooms and a library. The fifth was completed in 1956 (Block G, Hawksley Unit Type ‘B’) and accommodated domestic science classrooms. The school held night classes for more than 100 students (mostly MIM apprentices) and adult education classes in shorthand, typing, and bookkeeping were offered. A fete held in June showcased the achievements of the students including the cooking from the new domestic science wing.[9]
\nThe buildings were laid out on the site at regular intervals along a central spine created by a covered link. The link was built in stages as the buildings were added and they included covered ‘lunch areas’, a broader section of the link on the north side of the buildings that included seats for students.[10]
\nThe high and intermediate school was established at a time of transition for Mount Isa, which became a prosperous regional centre increasingly occupied by families. 300 new homes were built by late 1954. However, a housing shortage remained in Mount Isa in the early 1950s and government employees had difficulty finding housing. The first principal of Mount Isa State High School agreed to the appointment only if housing was provided, which it wasn’t, and he soon transferred out. In September 1954, the subsequent principal requested a government house and a standard teacher’s residence (Type ‘D’) designed by the DPW was built by May 1956. This was a modest timber-framed and -clad highset building with three bedrooms and was built facing Fifth Avenue away from the teaching buildings surrounded by a fenced house yard. The house was slightly modified in c1961 to provide a larger front balcony, to a DPW design that was a standard ‘improvement’ to this type.[11]
\nMIM had direct involvement with the school’s establishment and provision of facilities and fostered education in the town. The company provided school furniture and sport equipment, surveyed the site to provide for the playing fields and school buildings, and MIM staff were employed as technical teachers. From late 1955, MIM offered secondary education and university scholarships for science and engineering students, with priority given to children of MIM employees. The company needed qualified workers in both technical and commercial subjects and the 1960 school magazine revealed that more than one third of the school’s past students were employed by MIM as assayers, apprentice electricians, boilermakers, fitter and turners, clerks and clerk-typistes.[12]
\nThe township continued to consolidate and include further civic amenities and by late 1957 Mount Isa State High School officially became a technical college and a class II high school. A sixth Hawksley building (Block H, Hawksley unit type ‘C’) was built in late 1957, accommodating two general classrooms and a commercial classroom. A seventh Hawksley building (Block I, of an unidentified type) was built by the beginning of 1960. It was built as a two-storey building with the Hawksley component used for the first floor and comprising four general classrooms. The ground floor accommodated open pay space and a classroom and store room, which were converted to a physics classroom and store in 1961. The construction of this building included a large concrete battered retaining wall to its south to create a flat platform for the building.[13]
\nOver time the school grew to include further buildings. These included: a second teacher’s residence (by 1962); a trades’ workshop (1965); science building (1967-8, demolished c1990s); a general classroom building with canteen (c1968, extended c1971); a new manual arts building (1971); homecraft building (1973); library and administration block (1974); and science building (1977, demolished c2002), for which the first two Hawksley buildings and the adjacent connecting links were demolished. A new Technical and Further Education (TAFE) College was built elsewhere in Mount Isa and the school no longer provided technical college-level education and those buildings were converted for flexible classroom space in 1973. A multi-purpose hall was built by 2002.[14]
\nIn 2003 Mount Isa State High School became the Junior Campus of Spinifex State College. The Senior Campus was established on the site of the former Kalkadoon State High School on the east side of the town. In that year MIM was taken over by Anglo-Swiss Company Xstrata, which merged with Glencore in 2013. Both companies continued to provide local apprenticeships and university scholarships, while the school has continued its trade training programs.[15]
\nIn 2018 Spinifex State College Junior Campus retains five Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings (Blocks J, F, G, H, and I, 1954-60), the most extensive complex of Hawksley buildings known in Queensland. The school also retains Covered Links (1955-7) and a Head Teachers Residence (1956).[16]
","criteria":"Spinifex State College Junior Campus (established in 1953 as Mount Isa State High School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard school buildings that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies.
\nIt retains five Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings (Blocks J, F, G, H, and I – 1954-60) and a Connecting Link (1955-7), an extensive, rare, and representative example of the adoption and deployment of prefabricated systems imported for schools by the Queensland Government from 1952, in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the period.
\nThe Head Teachers Residence (1956) is a representative example and product of the Queensland Government’s policy to provide accommodation for married male head teachers as an inducement to teach in rural areas.
|Highly intact, the five Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings are rare surviving examples of imported prefabricated Hawksley School Buildings and are the only known examples of Hawksley unit types ‘A’ (Block J), ‘B’ (Block G), ‘C’ (Block H), and ‘G’ (Block F) in Queensland, with a fifth building of an unidentified type (Block I). The school is exceptional as the most extensive known complex of Hawksley buildings in a Queensland school.
|The Hawksley Prefabricated School Buildings are excellent, rare examples of their type and demonstrate variations of the standard unit types. Highly intact, they retain their: prefabricated aluminium-framed and-clad structures; gable roofs; verandahs for circulation; 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms; subject specific ancillary rooms; and extensive banks of aluminium-framed awning windows to maximise natural light and ventilation.
\nThe Head Teachers Residence is an excellent intact example of a standard type of residence designed by the Department of Public Works and built in schools across Queensland from 1952 to 1959. The principal characteristics of this type includes: highset, timber-framed and -clad construction with a gable roof; located in an open residential yard facing a street; modest provision of internal space with three bedrooms, lounge, dining, bathroom, and kitchen; banks of awning windows; and internal partitions and ceilings lined with flat sheet material and cover strips.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nSpinifex State College Junior Campus has a strong and ongoing association with the Mount Isa community which has supported the development of the school, both physically and financially. It was established in 1953 and generations of students have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the Mount Isa region, supported by Mount Isa Mines Ltd (MIM), and as a focus for the community.
|Spinifex State College Junior Campus has had a long association with MIM, which provided the impetus for the establishment of a high school by increasing the education standards required for apprentices to gain employment in the mines. MIM provided part of the land on which the school was built and supplied furnishings, equipment, and sports facilities. MIM offered university scholarships to students of this high school and actively promoted education in this company town, as well as providing ongoing support in funding improvements to school facilities since 1953.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650066,"name":"Redcliffe State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr Klingner Road & Oxley Avenue","suburb":"REDCLIFFE","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-31","description":"Redcliffe State High School occupies two sites east and west of the intersection of two main thoroughfares in Redcliffe, Oxley Avenue and Klingner Road. The east site is 3.37ha and comprises a complex of buildings and a stand of mature trees on the north edge standing inside the school allotment on the boundary with Klingner Road.
\nThe features of state-level significance are:
\nBlock A
\nBlock A is a one-storey, slab-on-ground administration building facing west to Oxley Avenue.
\nFeatures of Block A of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state level significance include:
\nBlocks B, C, and E
\nBlocks B, C, and E are standard classroom buildings, highset on concrete pillars with open-web steel floor trusses supporting the timber-framed first floor. Blocks B and C are highly intact. The buildings are two-storey, long and narrow with long sides facing approximately north and south, positioned to form courtyards between them for student lunch and activity space. They feature extensive areas of facebrick across both levels and have gable roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. Verandahs run along the north side of the buildings, connecting to stairs, breezeways, and covered links, and a series of classrooms and ancillary school rooms along the south side. Both long sides are extensively glazed with operable windows and fanlights to permit high levels of natural light and ventilation.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level significance include:
\nBlock D
\nBlock D is a slab-on-ground one-storey vocational training building and is highly intact. It is boomerang shaped with a large wedge-shaped vestibule at the elbow separating two manual arts workshops from a third large manual arts room. The rooms have a gable roof with a steel open-web portal frame, exposed internally. The vestibule, originally open-ended but later enclosed, has a lower skillion roof and is used as a manual arts lecture room. The building has a covered way on its western side that links from the covered stair of Block C to a freestanding covered way through the courtyard to Block B.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level significance include:
\nBlock F
\nBlock F is a slab-on-ground one-storey former vocational training building built to a standard floor plan. It is a long narrow building with its long sides facing north and south and has a covered walkway on the north side accessing a series of classrooms on the south side. It is timber-framed with facebrick veneer walls and the walkway wall is clad with narrow chamferboards. It has a gable roof over the classrooms and a separate, lower roof over the walkway with banks of north-facing metal-framed glass louvres between the two roofs opening into the classrooms. The building is attached by its eastern end to Block E via an open breezeway that has a connection to Block B via a covered way. The original roof sheets and the north and south windows, fanlights, and doors have been replaced (some within the original openings). The original internal partitions have mostly been demolished and new partitions inserted to form general classrooms. The internal linings have been replaced with flat sheets with no cover strip.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level significance include:
\n
Block G
Block G is a slab-on-ground one-storey vocational training building to a standard design and is highly intact. It is a long narrow building with its long sides facing east and west. It accommodates a series of workshops accessed by an external walkway along the west side. The structure is a steel portal frame with an east-facing clerestory window of metal louvres into the classrooms. The exterior is clad with crimped metal sheets and facebrick, which defines the building’s corners. A gable-roofed projection on the south end of the building accommodates a small staffroom and storeroom. The east and west sides of the building have large banks of steel-framed awning windows (some fixed closed, an original condition) and glass louvre fanlights.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level significance include:
\nCourtyards and landscape features
\nThe school complex includes courtyards and open spaces to provide abundant natural light and ventilation to the buildings and accommodate student play, lunch, and activity space.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level significance include:
\nRedcliffe State High School opened in 1958 as the first state high school on the Redcliffe Peninsula. The school retains its seven original school buildings built between 1958 and 1962, which were designed by the Department of Public Works to provide abundant natural light and ventilation for optimal educational environments. These standard buildings are arranged on the site according to 1950s nuclear master planning ideals, providing outdoor courtyard assembly and play areas and retaining pre-existing mature trees. The complex includes three vocational training buildings, built between 1959 and 1962.
\nThe Redcliffe Peninsula is part of the traditional lands of the Kabi Kabi people, and was briefly the site of a convict settlement at Redcliffe Point (1824-5).[1] A 23,000 acre (9302ha) Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve, which included the peninsula, was declared in 1861, followed by the sale of farm portions from 1862. Some coastal portions were subdivided for ‘marine villas’ in the late 1870s-early 1880s, when the peninsula was promoted as a resort, but few subdivisions were actually occupied at this time. Steamers initially provided the main access to Redcliffe, with jetties constructed at Woody Point (1882) and Redcliffe Point (1885). By 1890 steamers were bringing 10,000 day-trippers and holidaymakers per year, although there were still only 352 permanent residents on the peninsula in 1891. [2]
\nRedcliffe did not develop as a residential centre until road transport links improved. The ANZAC Memorial Avenue [QHR602693] was opened from Petrie to Redcliffe in December 1925, and the population boomed after the Hornibrook Highway Toll Bridge [QHR601246] was opened in October 1935. The population of the Town of Redcliffe (declared in 1921) grew from 8871 in 1947 to 18,000 in 1959, the year the City of Redcliffe was declared, and this strong growth continued into the 1960s.[3]
\nThe earliest school on the peninsula, the Humpybong Provisional School, opened in Clontarf in 1876. Humpybong State School opened in Margate in 1909, and the peninsula’s first private secondary school, Soubirous Convent School, opened in 1951; but the peninsula would not have a public secondary school for another seven years.[4] The Queensland Government had instituted a high school system in 1912 but high schools remained few in number until after World War II.[5]
\nThe site of Redcliffe State High School was once part of Portion 226 of the Redcliffe Agricultural Reserve.[6] By 1905 2.26ha of land at the northwest corner of this portion was a Reserve for Railway Purposes.[7] In 1936 the unused railway reserve was leased by Claude AM Reid, of Lone Pine in Indooroopilly, who opened a koala park and zoo on the site in October 1937.[8] The former railway reserve and koala park was gazetted as a ‘Reserve for a State School’ in 1945. The government also acquired 6.5ha of the northern part of the showgrounds, opposite the school reserve and west of Oxley Avenue, in 1947 for a school sports ground.[9]
\nAnother decade passed before a high school was built. In 1954 it was reported that high school enrolments in Queensland had more than doubled since 1948, from 4500 to nearly 11,000.[10] An enormous demand for state education began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’.[11]
\nPlans for the first four school buildings at Redcliffe State High School were prepared by the Department of Public Works (DPW) in August 1957.[12] During a period of high demand for more classroom accommodation, from the mid-1950s DPW architects introduced school master planning, a concept to plan for controlled growth and change. During the period emphasis shifted away from grid-like layouts to nuclear layouts, centred on a nucleus of core facilities. The plans balanced the need for correct orientation and an appropriate response to contours and existing vegetation. Generous courtyard spaces between classroom wings were used for assembly and play areas. Redcliffe State High School followed this nuclear master planning approach.[13]
\nThe school opened in 1958 with 107 students. By May that year only Block C had been constructed, set in a cleared section of the treed school reserve – and some trees which predate the school survive in 2019.[14] Blocks A, B, and D were completed by mid-1959.[15]
\nBlock A was a one-storey, slab-on-ground administration building constructed at the front of the school on the west side of the complex, facing Oxley Avenue. It had an asymmetrical gable roof and a splayed feature wall leading through large doors into a foyer at the north end of the building. The building accommodated: three offices (for the Principal, Deputy Principal, and staff); toilets; staffroom, and a store. The corridor featured school honour boards. A large dais at the rear (east) of the building faced directly into the understorey of the adjacent Block B, which was open and two steps lower.[16]
\nBlocks B and C were built to a standard design (Timber Framed School Building incorporating steel open-web floor trusses).[17] From 1950 the Department of Public Instruction introduced new standard plans for school buildings designed by the DPW. These buildings were high-set timber framed structures and the ground floor ‘understorey’ was used as covered play space. The principal type was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north-facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation.[18] In 1954 this type was improved by replacing the proliferation of stumps in the understorey with a timber truss that provided an unimpeded play space. This concept was further refined in 1957 with a steel open-web joist, set on reinforced concrete piers, that spanned further and removed more understorey stumps.[19] Blocks B and C at Redcliffe were of this latter type, which had a standard classroom size of either 24ft (7.3m) square or 24ft by 21ft (7.3m by 6.4m).[20]
\nBlocks B and C projected east from each end of Block A, forming a courtyard which widened towards the east. Block B was connected to the rear (east) of the northern end of Block A. It was a long, narrow, brick veneer, timber-framed building with its long sides facing north and south. It had a gable roof and was highset, with an open play area in the western half of the ground floor and a female ablutions block (lockers, toilets, and showers) in the eastern half. The first floor was supported by exposed open-web steel floor trusses on concrete columns, with a cantilevered portion supporting a northern verandah that had a bagracks balustrade. Protruding stairwells on the north side, enclosed with brick and glass, gave access to each end of the verandah. The first floor included a small staffroom and six classrooms, including: a physics lecture room with tiered gallery; physics lab; physics store/balance room; and four standard classrooms (three of which were initially used for domestic science classes). The rooms were well-lit and ventilated with awning windows used extensively on the southern wall, and double-hung windows in the verandah wall with pivoting clerestory fanlights above the verandah roof.[21]
\nBlock C was similar to Block B and was attached by a partially-enclosed covered area to the south end of Block A. The ground floor accommodated: a library; chemistry lecture room, lab, and store room; and male ablutions. The first floor had a northern verandah accessed by stairs at both ends; the east end stairs were enclosed with fixed glass. The verandah had a section of fixed glazing at its west end. The first floor accommodated: a small general classroom 24ft by 15ft (7.3m by 4.6m); four standard-sized general classrooms (three combinable by large folding doors); and a commercial room, 32ft by 24ft (9.8m by 7.3m). It was described as having ‘clean, simple lines, characteristic of new schools’.[22]
\nThe east ends of Blocks B and C were connected to Block D, a vocational training building. Standard, purpose-designed vocational buildings were first introduced to high schools in 1928.[23] The Queensland Government continued its focus on vocational education during the 1950s and 1960s and a number of new standard building types were developed for manual training from the late 1950s.[24]
\nBlock D was built to a standard building type, the Brick Veneer Vocational Building.[25] It was a one-storey, concrete slab-on-ground building with an open-web steel portal frame structure. The building oriented its long sides east-west and a covered walkway ran along part of the west side. Varying from the standard, it was slightly boomerang-shaped with an open-sided, wedge-shaped ‘vestibule’ at the elbow and two classrooms at either end. It had a skillion roof over the vestibule and gable roofs over the classrooms. The northern classrooms were 25ft by 25ft (7.6m by 7.6m) drawing rooms and the southern classrooms, for woodwork and for sheet metalwork, were both 25ft by 30ft (7.6m by 9.1m). At this end was also a timber store, saw bench room, and corridor. The rooms were well-lit and ventilated with banks of awning windows with fanlights of glass louvres on the eastern side, and double-hung windows and a clerestory of glass louvres above the walkway roof on the western side.[26]
\nAn open-sided, steel-framed covered way connected the covered walkway of Block D north to the end of Block B, capturing a wedge-shaped courtyard between Blocks A-D. This open, flat area was used as an ‘Assembly Area’ and had a bitumen surface. A small courtyard area to the side of this space, between Blocks C and D, had a concrete-edged triangular garden bed in its centre.
\nRedcliffe’s population increased to 23,500 by 1963, and increasing enrolments at Redcliffe State High School resulted in the construction of three new buildings in three years – Block E and F during 1960, and Block G in 1962. Blocks E and F were built north of, and parallel to, Block B.[27] Block E was built to a standard type similar to Blocks B and C. It was a long, narrow, brick veneer, timber-framed building with its long sides facing north and south. It had a gable roof and was highset. The ground floor accommodated two locker rooms, an open play area with a tuckshop, an armoury (for military cadets), and small storerooms under the stairs. The first floor was supported by exposed open-web steel floor trusses on concrete columns, with a cantilevered portion supporting a northern verandah with a bagracks balustrade. The first floor had six standard-sized classrooms, with folding doors between two pairs of classrooms, and a ‘services room’ at the east end. The verandah had projecting stairwells at each end, enclosed with brick and glass.[28]
\nBlock F was built to a standard floor plan layout for home science classes, and was a one-storey, concrete slab-on-ground, timber-framed vocational training building with a gable roof. It was a long, narrow brick veneer, timber-framed building with its long sides facing north and south and was attached to the west end of Block F via a breezeway. It had a verandah on its north side with bagracks and a hat and coat area at each end. It had a dressmaking room with fitting room; storeroom; staffroom; laundry; dining room; cooking room; and lecture room. The rooms were well-lit and ventilated with awning windows and fanlights used extensively on the southern wall, and double-hung windows in the verandah wall with louvred clerestory windows above the verandah roof. There was a small concrete flower bed north of the east end of the building. A covered walkway was also built at this time to connect Block E across the courtyard to the east end of Block B.[29]
\nBlock G was built to a standard type (Brick Veneer Vocational Building with skylight) east of Block D. It was a one-storey, steel portal-framed building with an east-facing clerestory roof.[30] It was long and narrow, with its long sides facing east and west and a covered walkway along the west side. The building accommodated woodwork and drawing rooms. A small staffroom, store, and machine room were accommodated in a small projecting annexe with a gable roof. The rooms were well-lit and ventilated with banks of awning windows, fixed glass panes, and fanlights used extensively in the east and west walls, and via the clerestory, which had metal blade louvres and was positioned centrally over the work rooms.[31]
\nWith the construction of Block G for woodwork and drawing, Block D was converted for use as two sheet metalwork rooms and one art classroom. Minor alterations included enclosing part of the covered walkway using some relocated original windows and walls, removing partitions, and sheeting over the western windows of the former drawing rooms. This work was planned in late 1961.[32]
\nBetween 1962 and 2018, other buildings were added to the school, including: Block H (1963), an extension at the east end of Block B for science and general classrooms; Block J (1965) science classrooms; Block K (1972), general classrooms (extended 1973); a P&C assembly hall (1977, replaced 2014); and a library, Block L (1979).[33] Buildings were also constructed on the ‘Western Campus’ on the opposite side of Oxley Avenue after 1981.[34] After a 13-year-old student, Caitlin Hanrick, was killed while crossing Oxley Avenue in December 2006, a pedestrian bridge was constructed to link the campuses; opening in October 2008 as ‘Caity’s Crossing’.[35]
\nChanges to the early buildings have occurred over time, including: adding more toilet cubicles at the east end of Block B (c1963); adding enclosures and partitions under the east end of Block E (c1971); and enclosing the vestibule of Block D for a further art room (1979).[36] Later changes included extending and refurbishing Block A to the north for more offices (1981); converting Block E to Domestic Science and Block F to general classrooms (1982), both of which involved considerable internal alterations; and two small extensions were added to the east side of Block D (1984). Block A was refurbished again in c2001 and in c2002 the ground floor of Block B was altered to include a uniform shop (by remodelling part of the toilets); and a cybercafe was added on the ground floor of Block E, by enclosing some of the open space adjacent to the tuck shop, which had by then been extended one bay to the west. In 2004 a ground floor locker room in Block C was converted into a technology and interview room.[37]
\nThe school grounds have also increased in size over time. By 1974 the school reserve had been expanded to 3.13ha to incorporate an opportunity school established to the east of the high school in 1964.[38] A residential lot, south of the school, was added to the grounds in 1980, providing access to Irene Street, and in 1989 land was added at the northeast corner of the school grounds, to create a total area of 3.37ha.[39]
\nSince its establishment, the school has been the focus of community events, such as fetes, and a fashion show was held in 1977 to raise funds for the first assembly hall.[40] For the school’s 50th anniversary in 2008, a DVD was compiled with a collection of photos, documents and newspaper articles from the school’s history.
\nRedcliffe State High School, established in 1958 as the first state secondary school on the peninsula, has played an important role in the Redcliffe peninsula community and continues to do so. Generations of students have been taught there. In 2019 it retains: Blocks A to F, which, as a complex, represent an excellent, intact example of 1950s master planning; plus Blocks D, E and G, three examples of vocational building types. A number of mature trees on the site in 2019 may predate the school.
","criteria":"Redcliffe State High School (established in 1958) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with mature trees and assembly areas.
\nIt is also important as a demonstration of the Queensland Government’s provision of substantial high schools on new, master planned sites in booming population centres across Queensland in the 1950s, a time of pronounced population growth.
\nThe layout of the administration and classroom blocks, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, reflect the mid-1950s introduction of organic master planning, which responded to the existing contours of the site and provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe three vocational training buildings (Block D 1958-9, Block F 1960, and Block G 1962) reflect the Queensland Government’s focus in the 1950s and 1960s on vocational training.
|Redcliffe State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state high school of the 1950s and 1960s. These include its: site planning; range of highset and lowset timber and brick teaching buildings of standard designs that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and a generous, landscaped site with mature shade trees and assembly areas.
\nThe school site planning is intact and illustrates the school master planning concepts introduced by the Department of Public Works in the 1950s, comprising long narrow classroom blocks (Blocks B, C, D, E, and F 1958-60) linked around open-ended courtyard assembly and play spaces, connected to a core administration building (Block A 1959).
\nBlocks B and C (Timber Framed School Buildings incorporating steel open-web floor trusses) are good intact examples of their standard types. The buildings retain their: highset form; trusses; open play space underneath classrooms; north-facing, open verandahs; abundant natural light and ventilation of the classrooms; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms.
\nBlocks D and G (Brick Veneer Vocational Buildings) demonstrate the principal characteristics of state high school vocational training buildings from the mid-20th century in Queensland. They are highly intact, retaining their: brick veneer, concrete slab-on-ground, and steel portal frame construction; vented clerestory; large, open workshop spaces with minimal and durable internal finishes; and high levels of natural light and ventilation.
|Redcliffe State High School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1958. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Redcliffe, with generations of children taught at the school, and it has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and the Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650067,"name":"Wavell State High School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Telopia Avenue","suburb":"WAVELL HEIGHTS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-07-27","description":"Wavell State High School occupies an 8.72ha site in Wavell Heights, 7.8km north of the Brisbane CBD. The large site is on a high ridge, which slopes gently south. The complex of buildings stand at the northern end and highest part of the site, with a large playing field occupying the lower, southern half.
\nThe school is well-integrated into the planned layout of the suburb, which is primarily residential. There is a strong relationship between the school entrances and the scale of the streets with quiet streets favoured for access. Telopia Avenue, a minor residential street, rises to terminate at the school on the centre of its north boundary and forms the main entrance. Other minor residential streets terminate at the east and west boundaries of the school, forming secondary entrances. There are no formal entrances on the southern boundary, Edinburgh Castle Road, a busy main thoroughfare.
\nFeatures of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLayout and Courtyards
\nThe school layout is highly intact. The axis of Telopia Avenue is carried through the school site and the early buildings and open spaces between them, circulation paths, and the playing field are arranged symmetrically around or with regard to the axis. Later buildings do not follow this pattern but do not encroach on the original layout.
\nA wide pedestrian path leads from Telopia Avenue to the centre of Block A, along the axis of the site. It passes under a two-storey concrete covered link that bears ‘WAVELL STATE HIGH SCHOOL’ in large raised letters. Block A accommodates administration and is on the centre of the axis in the middle of the group. Fanning out from Block A and connected to it by two-storey covered links are classroom buildings: Block C, D, and E on the east side, and Block F, G, H, and J on the west side.
\nThe buildings are long and narrow with long sides facing approximately north and south. They are positioned to form wedge-shaped courtyards between them, which accommodate lunch areas and space for student activity. The open spaces are of state-level cultural heritage significance, however, the trees, vegetation, garden beds, paved areas, and small shelters, are not.
\nThe buildings are two-storey except Block J, which has a partial third level understorey due to the fall in the land. They are timber and loadbearing brick structures with gable roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets. Generally, verandahs run along the north side, connecting to stairs and covered links, and a series of classrooms and ancillary school rooms are on the south side. Both long sides are extensively glazed with operable windows and fanlights to permit high levels of natural light and ventilation. The buildings are divided into regular, repeated structural bays defined by face brick piers that extend across both levels on the southern side. The short, gable ends of the buildings have face brick extending across both levels.
\nElements of Block A, C, D, E, F, G, H, and J of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nElements of Block A, C, D, E, F, G, H, and J not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock A (1960)
\nBlock A accommodates administration use and is the ‘front door’ of the school. A wide open-air foyer with a concrete stair up to the first level has been enclosed with glazing, as has the first level verandah. The verandah walls have been demolished on both levels and replaced in the same position with new walls with different window and door configurations. The southern wall on the ground level has been mostly demolished but that of the first floor has been mostly retained, although the glazing has been replaced or removed.
\nThe large rooms of the ground floor have had lightweight partitions inserted to create small ancillary rooms. The partitions of the first floor have been demolished and new lightweight partitions inserted to a new layout. Original staff toilets are at either end of the building on the first level.
\nElements particular to Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nElements particular to Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock C (1960) and Block H (1960)
\nBlock C and Block H are approximately mirror images of each other standing either side of the central axis.
\nThey are long classroom buildings high set on concrete piers that support steel open-web trusses of the first floor.
\nThe eastern half of Block C is not original, having been built to replace the original demolished due to subsidence, and is not of state-level cultural heritage significance. This replacement is similar to the original but is slightly longer and has a different arrangement of spaces on both levels, however, it follows the general footprint of the original.
\nThe ground and first floor layouts of Block C are not intact, with original partitions demolished and new partitions inserted, the open play area of the ground floor has been enclosed, the verandah has been enclosed for most of its length, and the verandah wall has been demolished to enlarge the classroom. Doors are not original. The southern elevation retains original timber-framed fixed glazing, panels of sheet material, and metal-framed glass louvres fanlights. Some windows have been replaced.
\nThe original open play area of the ground floor of Block H has been enclosed to form further classrooms and the original classroom has had its partitions demolished. The layout of the first floor is mostly intact, although an opening has been made in a partition to combine two classrooms and a partition has been inserted into a classroom at the eastern end of the building. The interiors of both levels have been relined on walls and ceilings with flat sheet material.
\nElements particular to Block H and the original portion of Block C also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock D (1960) and Block G (1960)
\nBlock D and Block G are approximately mirror images of each other standing either side of the central axis.
\nThey are long, high set classroom buildings accommodating large ablution blocks (showers, toilets, and changerooms), and former open play areas (now enclosed for classroom spaces. The first floor accommodates a series of classrooms and ancillary teaching spaces. Supporting the timber-framed first floor, the ground floor has concrete piers with steel open-web trusses (over the former open play area), and loadbearing brick walls, steel open web trusses, and steel posts (ablutions block).
\nThe eastern (Block D) and western (Block G) gable end elevations have original small unglazed window openings.
\nThe layouts of both ablutions blocks are intact, retaining original timber-framed cubicle partitions and doors and masonry partitions. Expressive, glass-enclosed stairs at the ends of the buildings provide access to the first floor. An original enclosed stair on the western end of Block G has been demolished and replaced by a steel-framed two-storey covered link.
\nThe first floor verandah walls are clad with narrow chamferboards and the verandah balustrades are bagracks. Some windows have been replaced to a different design. The first floor doors into classrooms of Block D have been replaced with doors to a different design but those of Block G have been retained.
\nThe first floor layout of Block D has had alterations to the classroom partitions to create larger classrooms but that of Block G is highly-intact.
\nIn both buildings, the interiors of both levels have been relined on walls and ceilings with flat sheet material.
\nElements particular to Block D and Block G also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nElements particular to Block D and Block G not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock E (by 1966) and Block F (by 1966)
\nBlock E and Block F are approximately mirror images of each other standing either side of the central axis and are both highly-intact, long, high set classroom buildings. The ground and first floors accommodate classrooms, store rooms, a janitors’ room (originally a locker room, Block E), an open play area (Block F), and staffrooms. Standing on ground floor concrete slabs, they have steel portal frames supporting timber-framed first floors. The portal frames have tapered beams supporting cantilevered verandahs. Expressive, glass-enclosed stairs project north from the verandahs at either ends of the buildings, providing access to the first floors. The stairs stand in low garden beds. The original concrete garden edges are retained in Block F but have been replaced with large stone blocks in Block E.
\nThe verandah wall windows of both buildings have been altered to a different design within the original timber framing.
\nIn Block E, the ground and first floor layouts are intact, except one lightweight partition has been inserted into a classroom of the ground floor, one small opening has been made in two partitions of the first floor, and at the eastern end of the first floor a short length of the verandah has been enclosed and the verandah wall has been demolished to accommodate a larger classroom.
\nIn Block F, the ground floor layout is intact, retaining two sets of original large folding doors between classrooms. The first floor layout has been altered with the demolition of partitions and the insertion of one lightweight partition to create larger classrooms.
\nIn both buildings, the interiors of both levels have been relined on walls and ceilings with flat sheet material.
\nElements particular to Block E and Block F also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBlock J (1961)
\nBlock J is a highly intact, long, high set classroom building standing between Block G and H. The building includes a tall concrete retaining wall forming an eastern upper terrace at the level of the ground floor and a western lower terrace at the level of the basement. A broad concrete stair links the two terraces. The basement, originally an open play space enclosed along the southern perimeter, has been fully enclosed and partitioned to form smaller ancillary school rooms. The building has a mixed structural system: basement concrete slab, posts, and beams; ground floor concrete slab, and steel posts and beams; and a primarily timber-framed first floor. The verandahs are cantilevered on tapered beams and have bagracks balustrades. The building has two concrete stairs enclosed in face brick with stucco panels and large wired glass windows. The western gable end wall features rough concrete tiles and a face brick edged garden bed.
\nSome verandah wall windows have been altered to a different design within the original timber framing. The ground and first floor layouts are intact, although one partition has had a concertina door inserted to combine two classrooms and doors have been inserted in two other partitions. The interiors of all levels have been relined on walls and ceilings with flat sheet material.
\nCovered Links (1960-66)
\nThe covered links between the buildings are highly intact. Most are two-storey, concrete-framed with unpainted concrete or timber floors, have metal balustrades, and have ceilings lined with sheets and battens with original ceiling light fittings. The links off Block J retain original timber framed enclosures on the western side of the ground floor, although the large windows and wide double doors have been removed.
\nPlaying Field (1960)
\nThe playing field is a large and flat grassed field for sport and play activities. It includes small sports sheds that are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\n
","history":"
Wavell State High School opened in 1959, on its current site at 70 Telopia Avenue, Wavell Heights, about 7.8km north of the Brisbane CBD. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains: an administration building (Block A 1960, F/T7); seven classroom buildings (Block C, D, G, and H 1960, F/T7; and Block J 1961, Block E and F 1966, F/T8); covered links (1960-6) set in landscaped grounds, and playing field (1964). The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Wavell Heights community.
\nWavell Heights was part of the traditional land of the Turrbul speaking people. The area, first known as West Nundah, was characterised by dairy farming and pineapple growing. By the 1920s a portion of the farming land close to Sandgate Road had been subdivided into small lots intended for residential development. Encouraged by its relatively close proximity to the Nundah Railway Station, which was approximately a 1km walk away, many new houses were built in the interwar period.[1] A great deal of the area, however, remained farmland.
\nBy the early 1930s an active progress association had been established in the district. In the early 1940s the association lobbied to have the suburb officially defined and to have the name changed. Through a series of public meetings, several suggestions were made, including Beverley Heights, Avon Hill, Inala, and Wavell Heights. A poll was taken and Wavell Heights proved to be the most popular. With the Lord Mayor’s and the postal authority’s approval, the name of the area was officially adopted in 1941.[2] The new suburb’s namesake was British Field Marshall Archibald Percival Wavell, who at the time was the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial forces fighting in the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, and Crete. Later in World War II (WWII) he served as Commander-in-Chief of India.
\nIn the immediate post-WWII era some of the undeveloped land in Wavell Heights and Chermside was acquired by the Queensland Housing Commission. This was a time when Queensland was experiencing a major population increase resulting in a severe housing shortage. It is believed that up to 100,000 Queenslanders lived in temporary housing between 1946 and 1960.[3] In 1947, the Housing Minister, Mr William Power, acknowledged this need for housing and assured that the Queensland Government was building houses as quickly as possible. Priority for new houses was given to those living in tents or huts, then for families forced to live apart due to the housing shortage, and finally to those who were sharing accommodation with others.[4]
\nIn August 1947, the Queensland Housing Commission was planning to spend £500,000 on a housing project for Wavell Heights; 450 houses were to be constructed on the 100 acre (40.4ha) site situated between Gympie, Rode and Hamilton roads. At the time, it was deemed to be the Commission’s largest housing project. Following contemporary town-planning principles, the housing project was to be undertaken with the cooperation of the Department of Public Instruction and the Brisbane City Council, who would be essential partners in delivering services and infrastructure, including schools,[5] ‘features of the scheme were reservations for a shopping centre, parks, sports ground, state school, and child welfare centre’.[6] Once constructed, the houses were swiftly tenanted. The population of Wavell Heights increased substantially with an estimated 2000 people moving into the area.[7]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction delivered on its promise to build schools in the area with the Wavell Heights State School being opened by 1950. Closely following this, a Catholic primary school was also built in Wavell Heights. [8] It was quickly apparent, however, that a high school would be needed for the area.
\nIn Queensland, governments were slow to establish state secondary education, considering this to be of little relevance to Queensland's primary industry-based economy. The Grammar Schools Act 1860 provided scholarships for high-achieving students to attend elite grammar schools, although few were awarded. It was not until 1912 that the government instituted a high school system, whereby separate high schools were established in major towns or, where the student population was too small, a primary school was expanded to include a 'high top'. High tops were an economical measure that provided essentially the same education while utilising already established facilities. In Queensland generally, high schools remained few in number until after WWII when secondary education was generally accepted as essential and was more widely provided for.[9]
\nIn the 1950s the number of high schools in Queensland increased significantly. The grounds were large, greater than 12 acres (4.8ha) providing ample room for sports facilities. From their introduction, the design of high school buildings was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works (DPW).[10] The general classroom buildings were the same standard types as used for primary schools but those for high schools included rooms with minor alterations for science laboratories, domestic science classes, workshops for woodwork and metal work, and libraries.[11] The buildings were designed to reflect educationalists’ modern requirements, favouring ‘lighter, loosely grouped, flexible’ buildings.[12]
\nAlso, there was a focus on the fit between the school and its neighbourhood, as well as site planning for expansion and ideal solar orientation. Educationalists argued that the ideal orientation of classroom buildings was ten degrees east of north, with verandahs protecting the northern side and classrooms facing south. This led to the construction of school buildings that were oriented in relation to the sun rather than the site boundaries.[13] New school buildings were constructed using modern materials and featured modern colours.[14]
\nIn the early 1950s, architects developed master-planning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[15] This concept was replaced a few years later by architects planning for growth and change. There was a shift away from grid-like layouts to nuclear plans, centred on a reception building with classroom wings connected to and fanning away from the nucleus. The primary focus was the ideal solar orientation of buildings. Interest was also shown in developing schemes that related to the natural contours and existing vegetation. The long, narrow buildings were positioned so that the spaces captured between them were triangular, opening out into the landscape.[16]
\nIt was in this period the Department of Education acquired just over 21 acres (8.5ha) of land in an elevated and undeveloped area of Wavell Heights. In September 1958 the Director-General of Education announced that the Executive Council had approved the construction of six new high schools for Queensland, which included Wavell State High School.[17] The Courier Mail reported in September 1958 that ‘sufficient accommodation was expected to be ready at the new Wavell State High School for classes to start on January 27 next … the school, in Edinburgh Castle Road, would have academic, commercial and industrial courses’.[18]
\nAt Wavell Heights, the DPW produced a site master plan for a central core of buildings and playing field. The buildings were laid out symmetrically on an axis from Telopia Avenue at the northern high ground and the playing field was at the southern low ground. Entrance gates were at the surrounding residential streets with vehicle entrance across the northern high ground. The plan comprised a central administration building with four classroom buildings radiating out from it. The buildings had north facing verandahs and south facing classrooms, connected to the administration building by covered links.[19]
\nIn November 1958 construction work began on the first building on the site, the Manual Training Building (Block B). The school was scheduled to receive its first students at the beginning of 1959, however, Block B was not complete by then. To address this, a timber school building was moved from Oakleigh State School to Wavell State High School. Considered a temporary structure on the site, it consisted of three classrooms and an office. All were occupied by the end of January 1959.[20] Initially, there were 122 students and five teachers, with classes taught in the three classrooms of the timber building. Due to the lack of facilities at this time, science classes were held in the principal’s home garage situated beside the school in Childers Street.[21] By May 1959 classes were held in the Manual Training Block.
\nIn February 1959 work commenced on the Chemistry wing (Block D), which at the time of its completion in January 1960, consisted of three classrooms, and a chemistry laboratory, lecture room, and store.[22] The construction of the Administration block (Block A) began in August 1959 and was occupied by January 1960. A new Physics wing (Block G) and the Home Science wing (Block C) were completed by the end of 1960.[23] These new wings were built to a standard type (F/T7) – highset timber-framed buildings incorporating steel open web floor trusses.[24] The new school was officially opened on the 14 May 1960, with the opening ceremony being well attended by the school community and dignitaries, including the Minister for Education, Jack Pizzey.[25]
\nFurther building work was carried out in 1960 and 1961, with the construction of two general classroom buildings (Block H and Block J). The DPW reported that ‘the design has been kept in harmony with the existing buildings to which the new block (Block J) will be connected by covered ways’.[26]
\nIn 1962 Block A was altered with the conversion of a first floor classroom into more administration space and a ground floor extension was made to accommodate a library at the rear (south). In the same year Block C was altered to accommodate dressmaking by enclosing part of the ground floor.[27]
\nAs enrolment numbers increased through the 1960s, so did the need for additional classroom space and in 1963 the construction of a new Science wing (Block E) and another General Classroom wing (Block F) had commenced and was completed by 1966. These new wings were a standard type (F/T8) – highset timber-framed buildings incorporating a steel portal frame.[28] The 1970 student numbers reflect the school’s need for expansion with 1476 enrolments at the beginning of that year.[29]
\nThe original design of the school incorporated an expansive playing field at its rear (south), backing on to Edinburgh Castle Road. Work began on the playing field in October 1959. The surface and drainage of the playing field had been a constant source of concern for the school. Works to the surface were requested by the Parents and Citizens Association, and in August 1964 these were carried out. A previous arrangement between the DPW and the Main Roads Department had been made whereby testing of heavy equipment was carried out on government owned facilities that required improvements.[30] Works to the playing field became an opportunity for the training of Main Roads workers with new equipment. In August 1964 the Courier Mail reported that ‘the Main Roads Department will hold a ‘school’ today – and the Wavell Heights High School will get a new oval in the process’.[31] Further work was undertaken on the playing field in this year and had been completed by the late 1960s.
\nA 25m swimming pool, located between the school buildings and the playing field was proposed by the Parents and Citizens Association as early as 1965. The pool had been completed by 1969.[32] Over time, other sporting facilities have been added to the site, including basketball courts.
\nSeveral other buildings have been constructed on the school site, including the library building (1969-70), the music block (Block M, 1975), and the assembly hall (1979). In 1966 the former Oakleigh State School timber building was removed from the school.
\nMinor alterations have occurred to the buildings over time. In 2001 Block A was refurbished and a two storey extension was added to the south side. Block B was extended in 2006 and again in 2017. In 1977 the verandah of Block C was enclosed. In 1985 Block H was altered to accommodate further classrooms by enclosing the ground floor. In 1997-8 half of Block C was demolished due to subsidence and rebuilt. In 2001 Block D was refurbished removing partitions to form a new layout. Also in 2001 Block J was altered to accommodate a gymnasium by enclosing the basement, and small openings were made in partitions of the ground floor. In 2002 a fire damaged the eastern end wall of Block J and it was repaired to match its previous appearance.
\nVery little tree planting took place within the school grounds prior to the end of the 1960s.[33] Between 1964 and 1969 substantial groundworks were undertaken at the school, which included the bituminisation of some courtyard areas, laying footpaths, and landscape work at the entrance of the school.[34] In 2001 further landscaping work was undertaken to the entrance of the school, which included forming a circular driveway and stairs down to the buildings.[35]
\nWavell State High School, established in 1959, has played an important role in the Wavell Heights and district community and continues to do so. Generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.
","criteria":"Wavell State High School (established 1959) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities.
\nAs a representative example, it is also important in demonstrating the pattern of provision of secondary education on new sites in booming suburbs across Queensland in the 1950s, a time of pronounced population growth.
|As an intact example, Wavell State High School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a 1950s Queensland state high school. These include: an ordered site layout; cohesive arrangement of interconnected teaching buildings of standard designs by the Department of Public Works (DPW) that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and a generous, landscaped site with assembly areas and playing field.
\nThe site layout of the buildings, covered links, open spaces, and playing field is a particularly extensive and intact example of late 1950s Queensland state school master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus and allowed for change in response to the booming post-war population. The school includes seven classroom buildings that contribute to the concept of splayed, long, narrow buildings linked by covered ways around open ended courtyard assembly and play spaces, fanning out from an administration building.
\nBlock D, E, F, G, H, and J (1960-6) are good, intact examples of their standard types, timber-framed school buildings incorporating steel open web or steel portal frame floor trusses for unimpeded play areas under the classrooms. The buildings retain their: highset character; trusses; north-facing verandahs and south-facing classroom windows; and 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms.
|Through the extensive and intact rational masterplan and cohesive qualities of its buildings and landscapes, Wavell State High School is important for its aesthetic significance. It has beautiful attributes brought about by its symmetrical and axial layout of long buildings radiating from a central administration building, separated by open spaces, and unified by consistent form, scale, and materials. The buildings have a stylish composition, restrained use of decoration, and a minimal material palette.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nSince its establishment in 1959, Wavell State High School has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Wavell Heights and is a prominent community focal point.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650070,"name":"Waaje Fire Tower No.4","alternate_name":"Waaje Fire Tower #4","street_address":"Barakula State Forest","suburb":"BARAKULA","lga":"WESTERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-01-25","description":"Waaje Fire Tower No.4 is located in Barakula State Forest (SF), which covers 283,500ha. Set on top of a hill in a small clearing about 407m above sea level in the Great Dividing Range with a view over the surrounding forest, the tower is about 80km by road north-northwest of Chinchilla.
\nA ‘Type G’ four-legged timber fire tower, Waaje Fire Tower No.4 has four single-length grey ironbark (Eucalyptus paniculata) circular poles fixed with through bolts to steel straps set in concrete pad footings. The four concrete footings are about 1.22 m square in plan and the height from the top of the footings to the top of the cabin deck is around 30.5m with an overall height of approximately 34m.[1] The poles, set about 5.5m apart at the base, lean inwards towards the top of the tower.
\nThere are eight braced sections to the tower above an unbraced bottom section. The eight braced sections each have rectangular-cut timber diagonal braces bolted across the outside of each face of the tower between the rectangular-cut timber horizontal bracing of each section. There is no diagonal bracing between the legs within the structure.
\nNine flights of timber internal parallel stairs with timber handrails and small cantilevered timber landings on the outside of the poles at the end of each flight originally allowed access up the tower on the north side. The lowest flight of stairs has been removed to prevent access to the tower. The top flight of stairs passes through a rectangular hole cut in the cabin’s external deck, which is supported by a system of bearers and joists fixed to the main tower. The deck is surrounded by timber guardrails and metal diamond wire mesh. There is a small radio antenna mast fixed to the northwest corner post of the deck.
\nThe cabin, which has a hipped, corrugated metal-clad roof with wide eaves, gutters and downpipe, is estimated to be 2.7m2, with an internal ceiling height of 2.4m, and has glass louvre windows on all four sides above half-height timber walls. A doorway from the external deck into the cabin is set in the north corner of the east wall. The interior of the cabin could not be inspected in 2017 but drone footage shows a map table in the centre of the cabin and compass bearings painted around the internal walls under the windows. Most timber is in good condition, apart from the stairs, the cabin’s external decking floor boards and the guard rails.[2]
","history":"Waaje Fire Tower No.4, located in Barakula State Forest (SF) over 60km north-northwest of Chinchilla, is a four-legged timber (Type G) fire tower with cabin, with single-length grey ironbark poles and a total height of approximately 34m. It was erected in May 1964 by Arthur Leis, for the Queensland Forestry Department, to help pinpoint fire outbreaks within valuable native forest. It was the first Queensland fire tower to exceed 30m in height, and is now the tallest surviving intact four-legged timber fire tower, the tallest Queensland timber fire tower with single-length poles, and the last intact 1960s four-legged timber fire tower. It and the other staffed fire towers in Queensland have been rendered obsolete by a shift to using remote camera surveillance to detect fires, instead of on-site human observers.[1]
\nBarakula SF, established in 1907, was part of Queensland Government’s efforts to conserve native forests for sustainable forestry. Of Queensland's natural resources, timber was the most obvious and abundant to the first Europeans, and the timber industry played a vital role in the economic development of Queensland,[2] while also providing its most important building material. From the earliest days of non-Indigenous occupation, Queensland’s native timbers were exploited; by timber getters, as well as by settlers clearing agricultural or pastoral land. The first timber reserves, gazetted in 1870, were aimed at protecting timber for future railway use.[3]
\nEfforts began in the late 19th century to save the timber resource from being totally exhausted. The Crown Lands Act 1876 prohibited cutting of certain species on vacant Crown Land or pastoral leases, and placed girth limits on cutting pine and cedar, while the Crown Lands Act 1884 enabled the Queensland Government to reserve State Forests on Crown Land, and seek royalties from licensed timber getters on Crown Lands. However, these laws could not compete with the dominant philosophy of the time, which was to promote settlement and development. By 1885, there were 161 Timber Reserves (covering 636,484ha) and 16 State Forests (81,980ha) but the 1880s were also boom years for timber exploitation in Queensland.[4]
\nDuring the 1890s there was increased concern that government revenue was being lost to unregulated timber exploitation.[5] The creation of the Forestry Branch in 1900 within the Lands Department represented a shift in approach. While the responsibility for leasing timber reserves and reservation of Crown Lands for forestry initially stayed with the Lands Department, the Forestry Branch became responsible for reforestation, research, land acquisition, the control and prohibition of fires, surveys, timber harvesting and marketing (including roads and logging), sawmill licenses, and (eventually) national park management.[6]
\nPhillip MacMahon’s appointment as Director of Forests (1905-10) marked the beginning of professional forestry in Queensland, and Minister for Lands Joshua Bell introduced the ‘State Forests and National Parks Bill’ in November 1906. This allowed the permanent reservation of Crown Land for State Forests and National Parks, within which alienation of land was prohibited without an Act of Parliament, although there were special purpose and occupation licenses. Holders of leases and licenses could not cut timber without authorisation. The State Forests and National Parks Act 1906 took effect on 1 January 1907.
\nThe quality of the ironbark trees in the Chinchilla District had been commented on in 1906 by FW Wade, State Forest Ranger, when he inspected the country north of the Western Railway between Chinchilla and Miles.[7] The main trees in this area at the time were narrow-leafed ironbark (Eucalyptus crebra), spotted gum (Eucalyptus maculata) and red and black cypress pine (Callitris spp). Ironbark (a fire tolerant hardwood) and cypress pine (a fire sensitive softwood) were already being cut, with new sawmills opening in the area.[8]
\nOn 8 June 1907, a Reserve for a State Forest was created in the Dalby and Taroom Land Agent’s Districts, under The State Forests and National Parks Act 1906, covering 479 square miles (306,560 acres or 124,060ha), in the counties of Newcastle, Auburn, Lytton; and the parishes of Coondarra, Goldsmith, Malcolm, Macdonald, Ballon and Burncluith.[9] This State Forest was the largest in Queensland and it remains so in 2017, covering 283,500ha.[10]
\nBy 1912, a 25 mile (40km) long railway had been built into the State Forest, from Chinchilla, in order to obtain hardwood sleepers for the railways, and the terminus was named Barakula, the Aboriginal term for ‘Big Timber’. A State timber mill was also established at Barakula, and the State Forest was called Barakula State Forest by 1927.[11]
\nDuring the early 20th century, there was increased government concern about the depletion of native timber supplies. Under NM Jolly and then EHF Swain as Director of Forests (1911-18, and 1918-32 respectively), the Queensland Government established native softwood (hoop pine) plantations and attempted to regenerate native forest areas. The Forestry Branch applied silvicultural (forest cultivation) improvement regimes, including ringbarking old and unproductive trees, regeneration burns, and slashing new growth competing with seedlings.[12] Under Swain, offices were established in six forestry regions: Atherton, Brisbane, Bundaberg-Rockhampton, Gympie, Maryborough, and Dalby (Barakula SF lies within the latter).[13]
\nPart of the work of the Forestry Branch, and its later incarnations, was protecting plantations and State Forests from fire.[14] Consideration was given to the need for effective fire protection as early as 1911, when it was discussed at an Interstate Conference on Forestry held in Sydney.[15] As the new Forestry Branch initially had few resources, fire protection was limited to roads and firebreaks, with fire spotters operating from natural high points and trees. During the 1930s, the Forestry Branch applied a fire exclusion policy, where fire breaks were created adjacent to the forest to be protected, with no burn-offs within the State Forest or reserve. The early detection of any wildfires within the protected forests was thus vital. This policy continued into the 1940s and 1950s but a series of bad fires in the 1950s and early 1960s led to a reappraisal of the exclusion policy (which had led to a build-up of dry fuel for fires) and a change to controlled burning in suitable weather.[16]
\nThe requirement for early fire detection in Queensland led to the construction of lookouts, lowset fire cabins, and cabins on towers, which would work alongside improved communications, firebreaks, fire huts with water tanks, and access roads for fire-fighting.[17] The first official lookout station was at Observation Hill, at Goodnight Scrub west of Bundaberg, in 1931. A 15m high four-legged timber fire tower with a cabin and telephone was built in 1933-4 at Wongabel, the first of its kind in Queensland; and the first standard design timber ground cabin, Watalgan Fire Cabin No.4, was built in the Littabella Forest Reserve in 1935.[18]
\nThe first fire observation (FO) structure built in Barakula SF was Barakula Fire Tower No.1 (1938, demolished), which was a four-legged timber tower, 15m high, with a forestry cottage nearby; and the lowset timber Turkey Mountain Fire Cabin No.6 was built in 1940 (since removed), about 51km west-southwest of Waaje Fire Tower No.4.[19]
\nFrom 1930 to 2003, 129 timber or steel FO structures were built in Queensland, with 66 surviving by 2004.[20] Although Queensland’s fire towers were built as far north as the Atherton Tableland, most were located along the coast from Brisbane and Toowoomba north to Bundaberg; and in a north-south swathe to the west of Toowoomba.[21]
\nThe early fire towers were built with timber and were usually designed by the men who built them. Large timber poles (preferably grey ironbark, Eucalyptus paniculata) were used for the legs (a single pole per leg, or poles spliced together for taller towers), which added stiffness and strength in high winds. Tall trees with a straight bole (trunk) and a minimal ‘pipe’ of dead wood in the centre were used in fire tower construction. They were dressed by removing the branch stubs and straightened by trimming the outside of any bend with a broadaxe.[22]
\nOriginally, the poles were set directly into the ground but later they were bolted to steel brackets set in concrete footings, as first occurred in 1941 at Beerburrum. The towers were generally sited where there was dense, high quality and fire-susceptible timber worth protecting and they required road access to near the centre of a forest or a high point. The height of the tower was determined by estimating the height of the mature trees it would need to see over. Initially, this involved sending someone up a radio mast with a camera.[23]
\nOne of the men who constructed Queensland’s fire towers was Arthur Leis, who built 28 towers between 1957 and 1987, including Queensland’s first three-legged timber tower, Mount Binga Fire Tower No.4 (1967, 31.8m) near Cooyar, and the three-legged timber Jimna Fire Tower No.10 [QHR601814], Queensland’s tallest fire tower (1977, pole length 44m). Leis designed the first three-legged tower after being that told the four-legged towers were getting too expensive to build. The triangular structure of three-legged towers provided more strength, with fewer components. The fire tower construction process followed by Leis included: forming a small clearing at the tower’s site with a bulldozer; choosing anchor trees to guy (rope) the poles in an upright position until they were fastened in place; transporting the poles to the site to be dressed; bolting wales (horizontally fixed timbers) and braces (diagonally fixed) between pairs of legs, with this carpentry, as well as construction of the cabin, occurring on the ground; raising a ‘Sampson’ pole, which was used to help haul up the other tower legs; and then adding the stairs and cabin.[24]
\nTower design has changed over the years. Internal stairs were used instead of ladders from c1940. The earlier cabins were entered by a trap door in the floor but later external cabin decks were added (from 1958 at Mount Borumba) and doorways from these decks into the cabins soon became the sole point of entry (for example at Waaje Fire Tower No.4). Queensland’s first steel fire tower (four-legged) was built in at Lemon Tree Hill near Cardwell in 1966 and the last (and tallest) four-legged timber tower, Yuleba Fire Tower No.1 (36.6m), was built at the Amoolee Departmental Purposes Reserve the same year. With the move to three-legged timber towers, spliced poles became the norm, rather than single-length poles. The last three-legged timber fire tower was built in 1987 at Wolvi.[25]
\nThe early detection of a wildfire was more important to successful firefighting than firebreaks and the sooner the location of a fire was accurately pinpointed, the better. The tower cabins were manned by fire spotters with two or more towers working in tandem to locate a fire. Each cabin contained a map table with a 1:50,000 scale map (centred on the tower and marked with 360 degrees) and some had photographed or painted panoramas around the internal walls under the windows naming visible landscape features. A fine wire ran from the centre of the map to the ceiling. When smoke was spotted, the observer could stand behind the table and align the wire with the base of the fire and read the compass bearing from the degrees written on the cabin walls. The distance to the fire was estimated based on known landmarks, the sighting was added to the tower log book and a radio or telephone was used to communicate with other towers or the forestry base. Once a second tower took a bearing on the fire, its exact location could be confirmed by triangulation and fire fighters and equipment could be dispatched to the correct spot.[26]
\nThe increased demand for timber during and after World War II meant the Queensland Government pursued a reforestation policy after the war. Declining extraction of native hoop pine and bunya pine from the early 1940s was replaced with plantation pine, native cypress pine and hardwoods.[27] Fire tower construction also continued, to protect the new plantations, and a bad fire season in 1957 boosted fire detection efforts. In 1963 Barakula Fire Tower No.2 (four-legged timber, 15m, demolished) was constructed in the Barakula SF.[28]
\nIn 1964 Waaje Fire Tower No.4 was erected in the Waaje logging area of Barakula SF, on a section of the Great Dividing Range with a view over the surrounding forest. The tower could be staffed after lightning storms or during high fire danger periods. A ‘Type G’ four-legged timber fire tower, Waaje Fire Tower No.4 had: four single-length poles fixed to steel straps set in concrete footings; eight braced sections; internal parallel stairs with landings and handrails; and external deck access to the cabin, which had wide eaves. Built by Arthur Leis, with a pole height of about 30.5m, it was the first Queensland fire tower to exceed 30m in height and to have sole access into the cabin from the external deck rather than via a trapdoor in the cabin floor. Its total height, including cabin, is estimated at 34m. The project was also the first and only time that Forestry used a rigging firm, and a series of photographs, dated May 1964, recorded the construction. A scenic montage of the viewed landscape (up to 50 km away) was reportedly painted around the ceiling wall to indicate notable features, compass bearings and distance (not extant in 2017). [29]
\nAnother fire tower was soon opened in Barakula SF. In 1970 the Minister for Lands, Vic Sullivan, opened Coondarra Fire Tower No.5 (three-legged timber, 40.3m high, also built by Arthur Leis) about 25km west-southwest of Waaje Fire Tower No.4. The two towers worked in conjunction to pinpoint fires. In 2017, the cabin and part of the structure of Coondarra Fire Tower No.5 was in the process of being moved to the Chinchilla Historical Museum in Villiers Street, Chinchilla.[30]
\nDespite the existence of fire towers, errors could still be made in fire detection. During the 1965-66 financial year, a fire in the Waaje logging area caused $6,500 worth of damage and ‘thick dust haze caused experienced lookout observers to over-estimate grossly [sic] the distance of this fire, and it was not fought until it was quite large after ground reconnaissance established its location’.[31]
\nOther towers related to fire-fighting were built in the Barakula SF but these were steel and did not include cabins: Mount George Fire Tower No.7 (four-legged steel tank stand tower, 15m), and Wongongera Fire Tower No.8 (four-legged steel tank stand tower, 21.2m) were built in 1968 and 1982 respectively.[32] By 2003, there were also fire huts and tanks in the O’Donnell, Fairyland and Hurdle logging areas.[33]
\nBy 1980, when Queensland had 3,715,823ha of State Forest, the Dalby Forestry District contained 974,700ha (next biggest area was in the Rockhampton District, with 685,740ha).[34] In 1989, the Forestry Department was amalgamated into the Department of Primary Industries (called the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in 2017), becoming the Queensland Forest Service and in 1995 the commercial and forest management functions of the Department were separated into the Resource Management Business Group and the Forestry Group. The Forest Service's activities in plantations, native forests and quarries were fully commercialised under the new Forestry Group.[35] By the late 1990s, the Department of Primary Industry Forestry was responsible for commercial operations on 4.7 million hectares of Queensland’s publically owned forest estate, including 180,000ha of plantations.[36]
\nIn the late 1990s, a Comprehensive Regional Assessment of forests in the southeast Queensland bioregion was undertaken as part of a joint Commonwealth and Queensland effort to form a Regional Forest Agreement (to balance conservation and sustainable use). A heritage inventory of infrastructure on forestry land, which occurred as part of this process, was later extended to the Southern Brigalow Belt bioregion in 1998-99. A joint Department of Primary Industries (DPI Forestry) and Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service) project in early 2003 attempted to identify and assess the heritage values of Forestry infrastructure on State land in the Brigalow Belt bioregion.[37]
\nA Fire Observation Structures Heritage Project assessed the heritage values of all FO structures in Queensland, short-listing the most significant. In 2004, six FO structures were recommended for consideration for nomination to the Queensland Heritage Register. These included: Danbulla Fire Tower No.2 (1968, four-legged steel, 18.3m); Mount Allan Fire Tower No.5 (1954, four-legged timber, 9.6m); Yuleba Fire Tower No.1; Turkey Mountain Fire Cabin No.6; Cordalba Fire Tree Lookout (batten laddering added to a tree in 1935); and the Jimna Fire Tower No.10.[38]
\nIn 2016, Turkey Mountain Fire Cabin No.6 was moved to the Chinchilla Historical Museum.[39] In 2017, the restored Mount Allan Fire Tower No.5 is open to public access as part of the Conondale Range Great Walk while the cabin and part of the structure of Yuleba Fire Tower No.1 has been moved the Maranoa Regional Council’s depot in Yuleba, prior to development a tourist attraction. The heritage-listed three-legged Jimna Fire Tower No.10 was declared structurally unsound in 2004.[40]
\nWaaje Fire Tower No.4 was not included in the 2004 list of recommended places, although it was noted as being ‘in excellent order, in use and well maintained’ when it was inspected in 2001. It has since been closed and the first flight of stairs has been removed to prevent access.[41] With the removal of the Yuleba tower, the Waaje tower is now the tallest remaining four-legged timber fire tower in Queensland, and therefore the tallest tower using single-length timber poles. It is also the only intact example of a 1960s four-legged timber tower (all 1960s four-legged timber towers other than Yuleba and Waaje have been demolished).[42]
\nOf the 65 timber four-legged fire towers built in Queensland from 1933 to 1966, 17 survived in 2004, and six of these, including Waaje Fire Tower No.4, are still in-situ in 2017.[43] The towers have been rendered obsolete, as there has been a shift to using remote camera surveillance, mounted on steel structures, since 2002. This is due to the difficulty in sourcing new timber poles and the lower operational cost of unstaffed towers.[44]
\nIn 2017, the Barakula SF continues to produce cypress pine[45] and the disused Waaje Fire Tower No.4 is the only surviving in-situ timber fire tower of the four built in the forest. Although the Barakula SF is currently owned by the Queensland Department of National Parks, Sport and Racing, the tower is the property of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
","criteria":"The timber industry has played a vital role in the economic development of Queensland. Waaje Fire Tower No.4 (1964) is important in demonstrating the evolution of the management of timber resources by the Queensland Government, through the use of staffed fire observation structures to protect valuable stands of timber in State Forests from wildfires; and the associated evolution of timber fire tower design between the 1930s and the 1960s.
|As the tallest, surviving, intact four-legged timber fire tower in Queensland, Waaje Fire Tower No.4, with single length poles, represents the culmination of the evolution of four-legged timber fire tower design and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a timber fire tower. Sited on high ground, with expansive views over dense stands of forestry timber, Waaje Fire Tower No.4 retains: four single-pole grey ironbark (Eucalyptus paniculata) timber legs, fixed to steel straps set in concrete footings; eight braced sections; internal parallel stairs with landings and handrails; radio antenna mast: and external deck access to a cabin with wide eaves. Internally, the cabin retains its map table and compass bearings painted on the walls.
\n","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650071,"name":"Endrim and the Woodstock Road Tram Shed and Track","alternate_name":"Arlington | 'Boss' Badger's residence","street_address":"28 Woodstock Road","suburb":"TOOWONG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-03-23","description":"
Endrim and the Woodstock Road Tram Shed and Track front Woodstock Road, Toowong, approximately 5km southwest of the CBD.
\nENDRIM
\nEndrim is a substantial timber-framed and -clad house standing on the highest part of its 3678m2 grounds. The house faces north to Woodstock Road and its large front yard falls steeply to the north, terraced to form gently sloped lawns, separated by steeper earth berms. From its position, the house is afforded attractive views to the surrounding suburbs and the distant CBD, access to prevailing summer breezes from the northeast, and favourable solar orientation. The grounds are heavily planted on its boundaries, providing a sense of lush privacy, featuring impressive camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) and poincianas (Delonix regia).
\nEntry from Woodstock Road is via a gateway into a narrow stair well comprising stone-lined walls and concrete treads, leading up to the lower front garden level and then to another narrow concrete stair toward the front of the house. The gateway comprises tall stone pillars topped by concrete spheres and a decorative wrought iron pedestrian gate. Two sets of matching vehicular gates provide entry from Sherwood Road: one set stands on land originally part of the Endrim land parcel but is now part of another residential allotment – 6 Woodstock Road (Lot 4 on RP50607).
\nThe house is high-set and has a rectangular core clad with chamferboards, sheltered by a wide wrap-around verandah on its front (north) and (east and west) sides. It has a large, complex, hipped roof clad with corrugated metal. The roof is continuous over the verandah, with wide eaves battened to provide ventilation of the roof space. Large weatherboard-clad hipped roof dormers projecting on the four sides of the roof house the rooms of the first floor. The western and southern dormers have tall timber-framed casements. Those of the eastern dormer have been replaced with a large set of French doors onto a balcony (c2000), which is not of cultural heritage significance. The northern dormer has large timber-framed double-hung sash windows flanking a central door onto a narrow unroofed balcony nested within the roof above the former front entrance. The balcony was not inspected and its age or significance was not determined. Projecting from the roof beside this narrow balcony is a recent skillion-roofed dormer (c2000), accommodating an ensuite, which is not of cultural heritage significance).
\nThe centre of the front verandah has a wide projecting bay (the former entrance). An angled verandah piazza on the northeast corner and a rectangular broad verandah at the western end provide generous spaces. The verandah has square timber posts with moulded collars and capitals: either side of the original front entrance the posts are paired. The verandah valance is clad with weatherboards on the exterior and lined with v-jointed (VJ) boards on the interior. The verandah ceiling is flat, lined with VJs, and has a moulded timber cornice and cover strips.
\nA semi-detached service wing stands on the western side of the house, connected via the western verandah of the main house to form a breezeway. A timber lattice screen and door shields the breezeway from Sherwood Road. The service wing has a Dutch gable roof, clad with corrugated metal sheets and has generous battened eaves. A verandah wraps its southern and western sides and has been enclosed – the enclosure is not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThere are two tall facebrick chimneys with simple corbelled detailing: one rises from the main house and one from the service wing.
\nThe perimeter of the understorey is screened by a skirt of alternating diagonal panels of timber battens. Arched openings provide access under the house. The excavated understorey is retained by a stone wall to form a flat dirt floor. The subfloor structure comprises steel tram rail posts and facebrick pillars. The posts and pillars support a grid of tram rail beams that are paired where under the outer walls of the house and neatly housed into the chimney. The rails are stamped ‘DICK KERR & CO PHOENIX 1884’ and have evidence of wear consistent with their former use as tram tracks. From the subfloor beams upwards, the structure appears to be conventionally timber framed.
\nA small room of unknown use, accessed by double doors, stands independently under the house comprising part-height brick walls. Nearby is an early metal hot water system comprising a water tank and heater with a metal flue feeding into adjacent chimney breast. The tank is stamped Smith Faulkner and Co. It is unclear if the system is proprietary or custom made or if it is/was also connected to electricity. A wine cellar has been formed in the understorey with a stair up into the ground floor of the house, none of which is of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe impressive main entrance is located centrally on the north elevation, within the octagonal bay. It comprises a wide, glazed and panelled door with side and fan lights framed by moulded architraves and a simple ‘entablature’ that recurs as a motif above doors and windows throughout the house. An early electric doorbell is missing its button.
\nThe interior layout is intact with VJ lined partitions and ceilings, moulded timber skirting boards, cornice, architraves, and dado rails. A transverse hall divides the ground floor of the house in half from east to west, separating the principal rooms (on the northern side of the house) from the secondary rooms (on the southern side). The principal rooms (entrance hall, dining room, and drawing room) are separated by wide sliding pocket doors and when opened, the three rooms form a large space the entire width of the house. The rooms include decorative ceilings and finely-crafted timber joinery with that of the dining room retaining its clear finish, revealing the high quality of its craftsmanship and material. The ceilings of the ground floor are 3.8m (approximately 12 feet) high.
\nThe house retains large double-hung sash windows and timber-framed glazed French doors with fanlights. The dining room has a handsome fireplace with a clear-finished timber surround that includes glazed tiles, shelves, and mirror.
\nThe house retains a variety of early light fixtures and an early ceramic corner sink with cast iron apron and a pressed metal splashback.
\nA stair in the entrance hall and another, similar but less detailed secondary stair in the transverse hall provide access to the first floor, which accommodates bedrooms and a bathroom. The walls and ceiling are lined with VJs and have moulded timber skirtings, architraves, and cornices.
\nThe breezeway separating the main house from the service wing includes a ‘laundry stair’ down to the yard. This is a very narrow and steep timber stair with battened sides and a battened door at its base with an early rim lock. This recess has been enclosed and a floor inserted over the top of the stair to seal it off and it is no longer useable.
\nThe interior of the service wing core has been altered and is now one large space. The walls and ceiling have been relined, however, it retains a double-sided chimney breast with a wide kitchen fireplace and wash tub hob. Part of the now enclosed verandah that wraps the service wing has been incorporated into the room by demolishing part of the verandah wall.
\nAn early door and catwalk over the laundry stair from the kitchen leads into the western broad verandah. This large space has been relined, none of which is of cultural heritage significance. An early door provides access onto the front verandah.
\nThe floor boards of the ground floor are recent, have been laid over the original boards, and are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nWOODSTOCK ROAD TRAM SHED
\nA tram shed stands in the unmade road reserve of Miskin Street, at the intersection with Woodstock Road. Miskin Street is steeply sloped and the shed stands on a flat concrete slab cut into the slope.
\nThe shed is an open-sided, rectangular, freestanding pavilion with an unlined hipped roof supported by robust corner posts with curved bracing brackets. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheets and has eaves that overhang the posts on all sides.
\nAt the rear of the shelter is a timber-framed infill panel between the upper part of the posts lined with flat sheet material and timber cover battens.
\nTwo seats to a standard design stand under the roof, both facing the street. They comprise a timber plank back rail and seat on a timber frame. The posts of the shelter and the seats stand on modern steel stirrups which are mounted into the concrete slab.
\nWOODSTOCK ROAD TRAM TRACK
\nA tram track is embedded under the bitumen road surface within the Woodstock Road reserve. It is located south of the centre line of the road, within approximately 10m of the front of the tram shed. The track comprises steel rails approximately 1.4m (approximately 4feet 8.5inches) apart embedded in an even, exposed aggregate concrete pavement. Also embedded is a standard stormwater tram rail drain, which is a steel grate that spans between the rails and drains the grooves in the rails. The physical termination of the track is approximately aligned with the eastern edge of Miskin Street.
","history":"Endrim (originally Arlington) and the Woodstock Road Tram Shed and Track are located in Toowong, approximately 6km west of the Brisbane CBD. It comprises the terminus of a passenger tram line, completed by the Brisbane Tramway Company in 1904; Endrim, a residence built above the Toowong terminus in 1906 by the Brisbane Tramway Company for its General Manager Joseph Stillman ‘Boss’ Badger; and a passenger waiting shelter shed, built at the terminus in 1924 by the Brisbane Tramway Trust at the request of the Toowong Progress Association. Together they demonstrate the evolution of Brisbane’s settlement and the influence of the Brisbane tramway system and Joseph Badger on the spread of suburban development.
\nPassenger trams began operating in Brisbane after the Tramways Act 1882 was passed, allowing a local authority or private company to construct, maintain and operate a tramway. The Metropolitan Tramways Company (MTC) was granted a construction order for a line from Woolloongabba to Breakfast Creek in April 1884. Steel rails were ordered from English steelworks Dick Kerr and Co, laid from January 1885, and full services started in May 1886.[1] Residents petitioned the company to extend tramlines to the suburbs, with lines opened to Bulimba, New Farm and Boundary Street in 1886. In 1892, after a legislative amendment, MTC received permission to convert the tramway system to electric power. However, the company encountered major financial difficulties, and shareholders agreed to sell MTC in December 1893.[2]
\nThe Brisbane Tramways Company (BTC), created by a London syndicate in 1895, purchased the MTC later that year and took over tram operations. It quickly embarked on electrifying the tramway system, engaging American company General Electric (GE), which sent engineer Joseph Stillman Badger to Brisbane to oversee the project. Badger had commenced his career in telephones before moving to railway engineering for the Edison Company in 1890. Intending to make the Brisbane tramway system ‘an exhibition one for Australia’,[3] Badger ran the first electric tram on 21 June 1897, just over a year after his arrival. Badger accepted the position of General Manager of BTC and moved his wife Carrie and two sons to Brisbane. Their first home was Bellevue, a rented house on Miskin Street, Toowong.[4]
\nUnder Badger’s management, the electric tramway system expanded across Brisbane. Horse-drawn tram rails were replaced with weightier rails, accommodating heavier rolling stock. Local councils petitioned BTC for extensions to encourage settlement in previously undeveloped suburbs. Tramlines could reach areas not serviced by railways, and the mere promise of a tram service sparked land sales and population growth. Between 1898 and 1900, lines were extended to Paddington, New Farm, Ascot, West End and Ipswich Road.[5]
\nAn extension to Toowong was discussed from 1900. BTC’s preferred route ran too close to the railway, so Badger proposed a variation ‘along Norwood Street instead of Dean or one of the other streets’.[6] Notably, Badger’s Bellevue had frontage to Norwood Street. The tramline was ultimately run along Milton Road to the Toowong Cemetery, opening in July 1904, and up Dean Street to a terminus at the intersection of Woodstock Road and Miskin Street, opening over a month later.[7]
\nBadger and BTC promoted the tramways heavily in the early 20th century. Their innovations included ‘picnic trams’,[8] which could be hired for special events; tram daytrip suggestions for tourists; and tram rides around the suburbs for visiting dignitaries. BTC also offered to supply electricity to areas along tramway lines, installing a demonstration electric light on a 75-foot (22m) tower on Miskin Street.[9]
\nAmidst BTC’s growth, Badger moved into boarding accommodation in the city while his wife and sons lived in America for the boys’ education. In 1905 BTC employees acquired an 1870s villa, Collina, and its nearly two acre (7456m2) elevated site, fronting Woodstock Road and adjacent to the Toowong tram terminus. Badger and his housekeeper resided in Collina from around June 1905. In 1906, with Carrie Badger and their youngest son due to return to Brisbane, construction began on a new house to replace Collina. The designer of the house is not known.[10]
\nThe house has a number of unusual features which reflected its ownership by BTC and occupation by Badger. Unconventionally, its subfloor structure (posts and beams) was tram rails. The rails, stamped ‘DICK KERR & CO PHOENIX 1884’, were from the first order for MTC’s horse-drawn tram system and had been removed as part of BTC’s electrification upgrade. Badger had personal and professional interests in electrical innovations, serving as member and president of the Queensland Electrical Association and inventing electrical devices to use in the tramways. Features of the house which were likely installed for Badger include an early electric light system and fittings and a hot-water system with parts manufactured by Brisbane foundry Smith Faulkner and Co. These would have been uncommon elements in a Queensland home in 1906.[11]
\nBTC’s Superintendent of Buildings, William McLean, called for tenders for excavating and levelling a site in Toowong, likely for the Badgers’ residence, in April 1906. In May 1906 Badger approached the Toowong Town Council and offered to plant ornamental trees on Woodstock Road. By mid-July, advertisements for the sale of a house were referring to ‘Mr Badger’s new residence’ as a nearby landmark.[12] A tennis court was built in the grounds some time before 1909, and a motor garage was added before 1913; Badger, a motoring enthusiast, was an early member and later president of the Royal Automobile Club.[13]
\nCarrie Badger returned to Australia in September 1906, taking up residence in the newly-named Arlington. She undertook charity work, taught Sunday school, and hosted socials at Arlington, including tennis events and an afternoon tea in Arlington’s ‘pretty gardens’ for the Russian consul and his wife.[14] Struck down by sudden illness in 1909, she died in July, and was buried in the Toowong cemetery.[15]
\nAlready somewhat controversial, Badger became a polarising figure after his wife’s death. Well-educated, energetic and credited with the tramway system’s success, he was a symbol of cosmopolitan progress and was a member of one of Brisbane’s elite social circles. He determined where tramlines would be constructed, influencing the development of Brisbane’s suburbs. However, he was also renowned for his authoritarianism. Answerable only to shareholders, he held unquestioned power over BTC and its employees. While Badger paid for employees’ medical care where necessary, BTC workers were amongst the lowest paid in Australia. Attempts to form a union were resisted with threats of unemployment, and Badger forbade uniformed employees from wearing Australian Tramways Employees Union badges.[16]
\nTensions between Badger and BTC employees climaxed in 1912. On 18 January 1912, 480 of 550 BTC employees donned union badges in a coordinated show of strength, and were suspended or dismissed from duty. Approximately 10,000 people protested the ‘lockout’ that evening. Representatives of 43 unions unanimously agreed to hold a general strike, declared 30 January 1912. The pro-union Strike Bulletin reported this as the ‘first simultaneous strike in the world’. Earlier simultaneous strikes had been held overseas, but the Brisbane General Strike appears to be the first in Australia, involving around 20,000 unionists. Businesses closed and tram services ceased. 3,000 special constables were sworn in to help control the unrest. Marches intensified into riots, with conflict between protestors, non-strikers, and police. Guards were posted at Arlington, accompanying Badger to and from work, and Badger reportedly threatened to shoot anyone who came onto the property after dark. Badger eventually dismissed the guards and relocated to temporary accommodation in the city. The height of the strike came on 2 February 1912, later known as Baton or Black Friday, when armed police charged a crowd of protestors. Reports described the violent scene as ‘unprecedented in the history of Brisbane’.[17] The strike ended after six weeks. The Commonwealth Court of Arbitration later ruled Badger had no authority to prevent workers from wearing badges.[18]
\nBadger was granted a long leave of absence after the 1912 strike, and travelled to America. Arlington was transferred to Christina Gore, of Yandilla station, in July 1912. The house was renamed Endrim after the Gore family’s properties in Ireland and Parramatta. In 1916 the house was transferred to Phyllis Trude, nee Gore, wife of tea company manager (and later Spanish consul) John Elworthy Trude.[19]
\nBadger returned to Brisbane with his new wife, Australian-born Marion Starling. They lived in temporary accommodation at the West End tram terminus, but soon moved to Northam, a rental property at the Paddington tram terminus (no longer extant). Badger negotiated an extension of BTC’s ownership of the Brisbane tramway system, due to end in 1917. Authority for the tramway system was handed to the 12 affected local authorities as the Brisbane Tramways Trust (BTT) on 1 January 1923, ending the last privately-run tramway system in an Australian capital. Badger retired and returned to America.[20]
\nIn 1924, the Toowong Progress Association petitioned BTT for a shelter shed at the Toowong terminus. BTC had not provided sheds as standard at stops or termini, but some were approved at the request of local authorities or associations. BTC had declined to build a shed at the Toowong terminus in 1915. BTT, however, engaged contractors Brown and Broad to build six sheds in Brisbane and New Farm in 1923. BTT agreed to construct Toowong’s terminus shed in March 1924, to the same design as the 1923 sheds. This standard design was later called the P.1008 Standard Waiting Shelter Shed in Brisbane City Council (BCC) plans. The Toowong shed was finished by July 1924.[21]
\nControl of the tramway system passed to BCC in 1925, which implemented upgrades and extensions. In 1933-34 BCC's distinctive technique of mass concrete tram tracks was first used extensively in Queen Street. Steel ties were used instead of sleepers, with the whole track set flush in a solid concrete ‘pavement’. These concrete tracks required less maintenance and formed an excellent road surface for other vehicles.[22]
\nEndrim remained well-known as Badger’s residence. By 1922 rumours had begun that Badger had extended the terminus to Woodstock Road for his own benefit. In 1924 the house was described as an ‘ideal home, built by Mr JS Badger many years back’ in an article which referenced its shingled roof and ‘rusticated’ walls and noted that its high stone wall and ornamental iron entrance gates provided a ‘pleasing contrast to more modern homes’.[23] In 1954 a letter to the editor of the Courier Mail mentioned ‘Mr Badger’s old home in Toowong’[24] as one of the most notable remaining shingle roofs in Brisbane, though the roof was replaced shortly afterwards. Newspaper articles in the 1920s and 1930s also praised the gardens, highlighting the silky oak and jacaranda plantings. Trude was an enthusiastic gardener, and used flowers from the property as decoration in numerous socials, teas and wedding parties held at the house between the 1930s and 1950s. Her ‘lovely garden’, featuring flowering annuals against green lawns, was one of a number included in the Sunday Mail’s gardening column in 1936.[25]
\nTrude sold parcels of her land between the 1930s and 1970s. The first, in 1934, was on the corner of Woodstock and Sherwood Roads, which included one set of the house’s gates. Alterations to the house included the demolition of its branching front stair and construction of a garage (approved in 1956) and swimming pool (1968). The house featured in a 1964 Woman’s Weekly article when it hosted a family wedding reception.[26]
\nTram services on the Toowong line continued until 1962, serving residents and tourists visiting Mt Coot-tha. The impact of a major fire at the Paddington tram depot, increasing private car ownership, urban sprawl stretching into areas unconnected to the tram system, and lack of investment in technological developments saw trams replaced with buses throughout Brisbane. The Toowong line was one of the first to be replaced with diesel buses, before the entire system was discontinued in 1969.[27]
\nEndrim’s land was subdivided further and sold in the 1970s. Minor alterations occurred to the house. The service wing verandahs were enclosed and in c2000 the east bedroom of the first floor was altered to include an ensuite in the roof space (involving a skillion roofed dormer on the northern side) and a new balcony was added to its eastern side. In 2017 Endrim remains in private ownership.
","criteria":"Endrim (originally known as Arlington) and the Woodstock Road Tram Shed and Track are important in demonstrating the evolution of Brisbane’s former public tramway system, a vital mode of public transport between 1885 and 1969; the expansion of which determined patterns of settlement in Brisbane.
\nEndrim, built in 1906 by the Brisbane Tramways Company for its general manager, Joseph Stillman Badger, responsible for electrifying and upgrading the tramway system, is the only known company-provided housing for Queensland tramway employees. Former 1884 horse-drawn tram rails, used as integral structural members supporting the house, further illustrate the close association of the house with the tramway.
\nThe Woodstock Road Tram Shed (built 1924 by the Brisbane Tramways Trust as a standard passenger waiting shelter) is an early, representative example of the standard sheds constructed in Brisbane. The concealed Woodstock Road track is the terminus of the Toowong line and demonstrates the expansion of the tram service.
|Endrim is a fine, intact example of an elite early 20th century Queensland house and retains the principal characteristics of this type:
\nThe tram shed is an intact example of a tram passenger waiting shelter built in Brisbane during its tram era. It retains the principal characteristics of these structures, including: standing adjacent to a tram track; freestanding open-sided pavilion form with generous sheltering roof; being built to a standard design, and; incorporating standard waiting seats.
|Standing on a high ridge within a leafy suburban landscape, the house with its wide encircling verandah, picturesque multi-angled roof, decorative interiors, and generous garden with mature trees and stone and iron gates, is highly intact and important for its Federation-era aesthetic. Notable for its excellent craftsmanship including particularly fine timber joinery, it features a skilful arrangement of generous and refined living spaces evoking a sense of sophisticated suburban domesticity. Striking views to the immediate suburban landscape and distant CBD are provided from its verandah and rooms and picturesque views to the house from its front and eastern garden.
|Endrim was built for, and has a special association with, American Joseph Stillman Badger (1851-1934), general manager of the Brisbane Tramways Company from 1897 to 1914 and then managing director to 1922. Badger was instrumental in the early electrification and expansion of the Brisbane tram network, an important advancement of this prominent and integral public transport system. During this period he was the catalyst of the Brisbane General Strike of early 1912, the first simultaneous strike in Australia, and an event of particular significance in Badger’s life and his association with the Brisbane Tramways Company.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650072,"name":"Somerset Graves Site","alternate_name":"Somerset Jardine Cemetery","street_address":null,"suburb":"SOMERSET","lga":"NORTHERN PENINSULA AREA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-01-25","description":"The Somerset Graves Site comprising Lot 7 SP104552 is located immediately inland of the northern section of Somerset Bay, Cape York. Within the lot are two areas of graves: the north grave area and the south grave area. Due to dense vegetation (which is not significant) the north grave area is not visible from the south grave area and vice versa. The north grave area contains the graves of two pearl divers and the south grave area contains the graves of Jardine family members. The south grave area is accessed by a sand track which connects to Somerset Road. The north grave area is accessed from the beach of Somerset Bay or a narrow sand track from the south grave area. The north grave area, located directly inland from the beach of Somerset Bay, has experienced considerable sand deposition. On the track between the two grave areas is the Kennedy Memorial Monument.
\nTwo marked graves were identified within the north grave area. According to a 1987 survey by the Material Culture Unit of the James Cook University[37] a third unmarked grave is located between the two marked graves, however, due to considerable sand accumulation the unmarked grave was unable to be identified. The first marked grave, located in the north-western section of the north grave area belongs to “Cancan”. The grave consists of a marble headstone 50.5cm wide and 92cm high from the current ground level. There is a transverse crack across the headstone which is held together by fencing wire and a star picket. There are the remains of bounding beach rocks around the grave, however, only the eastern extent, located 310cm from the headstone, is clearly discernible. The headstone has the following inscription:
\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF CANCAN - ( A GOOD MAN AND TRUE ) - DIED JUNE 21. 1890 - AGED 32 YEARS.
\nThe second marked grave of the north grave area belongs to Kobori Ichimatsu. The grave is located in the middle of the southern section of the grave area. The grave consists of a concrete cenotaph, placed on a stepped base which is wider than the cenotaph and has a height of 33.5cm. The cenotaph is 24cm by 24cm wide and 61cm high. The top articulation of the cenotaph is chamfered. The monument is not placed in the centre of the concrete base but appears to be deliberately offset, although this may be the result of repair work. The cenotaph is surrounded by local beach rocks in an elliptical shape approximately 1.4m (north/south) by 1.9m (east/west). The monument has been painted in a white lime wash. There is an inscription on three faces of the monument (the east, south and west faces). The inscription is in Japanese and has been painted black. The black paint has discoloured the monument face. The following is a translation of the inscription:
\nSouthern face - Kobori [Family name] Ichimatsu’s [First name] grave
\nEastern face - Meiji Forty Two [forty second year of the Emperor Meiji – which is the year 1909] spring died
\nWestern face - Wakayama prefecture Higashi [east] ___ city - Nishi Mukai village - Kobori [Family name] Otomatsu [First name] built
\nThe Kennedy Memorial Monument is located on the track between the north and south grave areas. The monument consists of a concrete slab on a stepped concrete footing on a beach rock base. The concrete slab is 91.5cm wide by 59cm deep and 121cm high. The monument appears to be pre-formed concrete and is painted in a white acrylic paint. The concrete footing is cracked on the south-east and north-east corners. The top, eastern and northern faces have been discoloured by lichen. The slab has a slight lean towards the north. There is a bronze plaque on the eastern face commemorating the Kennedy Expedition. The plaque has the following embossed inscription:
\nEdmund Besley Court Kennedy J.P. with a party of 12 men landed at Rockhampton Bay 24 May 1848 to explore Cape York Peninsula. He was fatally speared in December 1848 at Escape River within sight of his goal. Six of his companions died at Waymouth Bay and three near Shelbourne Bay. Faithful aborigine Jackey-Jackey, E. Carron and W. Goddard were the only survivors. Unveiled 13 December 1948.
\nThe south grave area contains the remains of Jardine family members. There are four marked graves and one memorial. Only one grave has an inscription indicating who is buried in the grave. The first marked grave, located at the northern extent of this grave area consists of a roughly carved stone grave marker painted with a white lime wash. The headstone is 27cm wide (at its widest point) and 48cm high. There is no inscription on this grave marker to identify its occupant; however, from the size of the grave it may belong to a child. The grave is surrounded by beach rock and is approximately 170cm long by 101cm wide. Within the rock surrounds is a soil fill decorated with a circle of iron chain, shells (mainly oyster shells) and pieces of coral have been placed within the chain circle. Historical references refer to a fence made out of old ships' timbers and anchor chains surrounding the site[38]; several of the graves, including this northern one have been decorated with thick iron chain. The grave is separated from, and orientated perpendicular to the other graves in this area, along a north-south rather than east-west orientation.
\nThe next most northerly grave is considerably larger than all the other graves in this area, measuring 430cm (north/south) by 447cm (east/west). According to family knowledge this grave is a family plot and belongs to Frank Jardine (southern section of the grave) and possibly Sana’s mother (northern section of the grave). The considerable size of the grave supports this. The grave has a concrete border. Within the concrete border are rocks, and the centre of the feature appears to be a soil fill. It is possible that the concrete was added to reinforce the boundary rocks.
\nNext to this large grave is a memorial to Frank Jardine and Sana Jardine. The memorial is set on a beach rock footing. Set on top of the footing is a concrete base with short concrete posts reinforced by metal, located around the edge of the base which is 94cm by 91cm wide. A chain has been used to surround this base and the links in the chain have been placed over these short posts. Within this base is a concrete cenotaph. The cenotaph appears to be pre-cast and has a stepped base of three levels which has been painted with white acrylic paint. On the northern face of the base of the cenotaph is a bronze plaque which is inscribed with:
\nA.D. 1924/B.L. Jardine.
\nOn top of this base is the cenotaph which appears to have been designed to look like a brick stack. There is a large crack along the northern face of the monument. The cenotaph (including the base) measures 124cm high. Each face of the cenotaph contains a rebated space for a bronze plaque, but only two plaques on the southern and northern face remain.
\nSouthern plaque:
\nIn loving memory of my dear mother. Died 21st Sept. 1923.
\nNorthern plaque:
\nIn loving memory of my dear father. Died 10st March. 1919.
\nThe memorial is believed to have been placed between the graves of Frank and Sana Jardine. The identification of their graves is supported by the remaining plaques of the memorial – the southern face plaque is dedicated to Sana and faces what is believed to be Sana’s grave, and the northern face plaque is dedicated to Frank and faces what is believed to be Frank’s grave.
\nThe grave on the southern side of this monument is believed to be Sana Jardine’s grave. This identification is based on family knowledge. This grave is enclosed by regular concrete blocks painted with white acrylic paint. Within these blocks are beach stones – most apparent at the western and eastern extent of the grave. The grave measures 264cm long by 183cm wide. The grave has a soil fill with coral pieces placed within the grave area.
\nThe final grave of the south grave area is the only one with an inscribed headstone. It belongs to Cholmondeley Gordon Vidgen, Sana and Frank’s grandson, who died in December 1962. The grave is surrounded by pieces of irregular, broken concrete blocks. The extent of the grave delineated by the concrete blocks is 300cm long by 180cm wide. The grave has a soil fill and a plaque has been placed at its western extent. Above the plaque is a small glass vase. A chain, similar to that used in other graves of the site (and may be related to the chain that originally surrounded the site) has been placed around the plaque. The plaque has a cross engraved onto its southern edge. The marble inset into the concrete plaque has the following inscription:
\nDec. 1962. Here lies Gordon Vidgen. True son of the North. Always remembered by his wife and children.
\nBoth grave areas are surrounded by reinforced concrete posts which create two rectangular enclosures around the grave areas. Four posts surround the north grave area and 10 posts surround the south grave area. The posts are painted white. There are tubular steel rail openings in the posts. Barbed wire is evident through the openings of some the posts in the south grave area. The style of the posts varies, possibly indicating replacement over time.
","history":"The 2379m² Somerset Graves Site, on the northwest edge of Somerset Bay, Cape York, is known to contain seven marked interments, including the graves of Francis (Frank) Lascelles Jardine (1919), three members of his family (c1901, 1923, 1962), two pearl divers (1890, 1909), and an unidentified grave; as well as a memorial to Frank and Sana Jardine (1924); and the Kennedy Memorial Monument (1948). The site is a remnant of the original settlement of the town of Somerset, established in 1864 as a joint venture between the Queensland and British governments as a port of refuge and refuelling depot. The known burials date from 1890 to 1962. The site has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of Somerset’s inhabitants and burial practices. It has a special association with the Jardine family, early settlers of Cape York.
\nWith its establishment on 10 December 1859, the new colony of Queensland acquired over 5000 kilometres of coastline extending as far north as Cape York Peninsula. The colony's first parliament passed a resolution in 1860 favouring direct connection with England via the Torres Strait. In December 1861, Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-99), Governor of Queensland (1859-67), described the necessity for a station in the far north of Queensland. From a naval and military point of view, a post at or near Cape York would be valuable, due to the establishment of a French colony and naval station in New Caledonia. Bowen informed the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the government of Queensland would be willing to undertake the formation and management of a station at Cape York and to support a civil establishment there.[1]
\nOn 27 August 1862, Bowen left Brisbane on HMS Pioneer to select an eligible site for the proposed settlement. The chosen site, opposite Albany Island, was named Somerset, in honour of the first Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Somerset.[2]
\nTenders were called for the construction of government buildings in March 1863, a town survey was undertaken in July 1864 and the Town Reserve of Somerset was established on 8 July 1864.[3] A survey plan dated 13 March 1865 included Parcel 24, within which the graves are located. Parcel 24 comprised approximately five acres (2.02ha).[4] The first Somerset land sale was held in Brisbane on 4 April 1865 and a second sale took place on 2 May 1866. Land parcels sold at these auctions were about one acre (0.405 a) in size, so did not include parcel number 24.[5]
\nEarlier, in February 1864, John Jardine (1807-74) was appointed Somerset’s first Police Magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands and in July 1864 he was appointed District Registrar for the District of North Cook.[6] An early sketch of Somerset by Jardine shows the Government Residence, Police Magistrate’s House and Customs House on the southern side of Somerset Bay, and Marines’ Barracks and the Medical Superintendent’s House on the northern side.[7] Henry Simpson succeeded Jardine as Police Magistrate in 1866.[8] The Marines were withdrawn in 1867 and replaced with Native Police.[9]
\nJohn Jardine was the father of Francis (Frank) Lascelles (1841-1919) and Alexander (Alick) William (1843-1920) Jardine who, between May 1864 and March 1865, undertook an overland expedition from Rockhampton to Cape York which was described at the time as, geographically, ‘solving the question of the course of the northern rivers emptying into the Gulf of Carpentaria of which nothing was known but their outlets. It has also made known…how much … or rather, how little, of the \"York Peninsula\" is adapted for pastoral occupation, whilst its success in taking the first stock overland, and forming a cattle station at Newcastle Bay, has ensured to the Settlement at Somerset a necessary and welcome supply of fresh meat…’.[10] The Jardine River was named after them by order of Governor Bowen.[11] For their pioneering exploratory efforts the Jardine brothers were made Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society and awarded the Society’s Murchison Award, in 1886.[12]
\nSeveral Indigenous groups occupied this region prior to contact.[13] In an 1896 report to the Queensland Government, Archibald Meston estimated that in the 1870s the Indigenous population between Newcastle Bay and Cape York was around 3000. At the time of writing his report, he believed that the population had fallen to around 300.[14] This rapid decline was caused by a number of factors, including introduced disease, exclusions from traditional hunting grounds and frontier violence.[15] Reverend Frederick Charles Jagg, a missionary at Somerset appointed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,[16] gave an indication of the relationship between European and Indigenous peoples when he reported in 1867 that ‘The aborigines have been described as the most degraded, treacherous and bloodthirsty beings in existence by the present Police Magistrate, and those whose only idea is to shoot them down whenever they were seen’.[17]
\nFrank Jardine was appointed as a Magistrate in December 1867 and as Police Magistrate and Inspector of Police at Somerset in April 1868.[18] In 1869 he held the positions of District Registrar for Somerset, Police Magistrate, Clerk of Petty Sessions, Inspector of Police and Postmaster.[19] He married Samoan woman, Sana Sofala, in 1873 and the couple had four children: Alice Maule Lascelles, Hew Cholmondeley (Chum), Bootle Arthur Lascelles (Bertie) and Elizabeth Sana Hamilton.[20] Frank Jardine’s tenure as a government officer in Somerset was not without controversy. The local Indigenous population was dispossessed and there was hostility between them and the Jardine family; both during Frank and Alick Jardine’s expedition to Somerset, and during the years of the settlement. Jardine was also suspended for a time from his duties as Police Magistrate whilst being investigated in relation to using his position to obtain a pearl diving licence.[21]
\nSomerset became redundant as a port once a safer shipping route to the Torres Strait was found and a settlement on Thursday Island was built from 1876.[22] Frank Jardine continued to live at Somerset, maintaining the police residence until his death there in March 1919.[23] During this time, Jardine continued to maintain a beef cattle herd; was engaged in the pearling industry; and created a coconut/copra plantation at Somerset. Due to Somerset’s isolated location the Jardine family provided assistance and hospitality to travellers and seafarers, for example, Jardine aided the survivors of the Quetta shipwreck in 1890.[24]
\nJardine was buried in the south area of the Somerset Grave Site in 1919, and his grave protected by a timber fence. His wife, Sana, who died in 1923, was buried nearby.[25] A memorial to Frank and Sana Jardine was installed in 1924 by their family. In 1935 the graves of Frank and Sana Jardine were described as lying side by side, surmounted by tombstones and surrounded by a fence made out of old ship’s timber and anchor chains.[26] Buried in close proximity is Frank Jardine’s grandson, (Cholmondeley) Gordon Vidgen (1903-62).[27] Other graves in this part of the Somerset Grave Site are said to be of Sana’s mother (c1901) and possibly two children.[28]
\nJardine was not the first to be buried in the Somerset Grave Site (labelled section one when the parcel of land was leased as Special Lease 2894 in early 1920 by Frank’s son, Bertie Jardine).[29] The earliest known burial was that of Cancan, a pearl diver, dating to 1890. Japanese pearl diver Kobori Itchimatsu was also buried there in 1909.[30] Both graves are situated in the north area of the site. The pearl diving industry was important in Torres Strait and to the Queensland economy, and came to be dominated by Japanese divers after 1891. Kobori Itchimatsu came from the village of Nishi Mukai in Wakayama prefecture, an area that provided 80 per cent of the 7000 Japanese who left their country to become pearl divers.[31]
\nThe Kennedy Memorial Monument, also within the Somerset Graves Site, located beside the path between the north and south areas of the site was unveiled on 13 December 1948 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Edmund Besley Court Kennedy’s unsuccessful exploration of Cape York Peninsula.[32] The monument comprises a concrete slab on a concrete footing with a bronze commemorative plaque on its eastern face.
\nThere is limited evidence about other burial sites at Somerset. The principal source for information about them is Frank Reid (1884-1947) who gives conflicting information about the number and location of burial sites. His book, based on a visit to Somerset c1917 and published in 1954, provides a map of the cemetery sites at Somerset and on Albany Island – showing that the lone grave of Captain Archibald McAusland (22 Mar 1874) is located on high ground to the east of Somerset Bay, while about 40 European graves exist in a hill-side cemetery outside the boundary of the township, to the west of Frank Jardine’s residence and south of the Somerset Graves Site. However, the text accompanying this map and a newspaper article from 1937 quoting Reid, talk of only one other cemetery site at Somerset in addition to the Somerset Graves Site, and imply that McAusland was buried with the other Europeans. Reid states the interments in the second cemetery are: two Royal Marines, several Burketown residents, who were brought to Somerset to recover from fever, but who died soon after arrival, and Madame Boisse, wife of a commandant at New Caledonia.[33] Public records show other deaths occurred at Somerset, including the two infant daughters of Somerset’s medical officer, Dr T J Haran, RN.[34]
\nFollowing the death of their parents, sons Bertie and Chum leased section 12 (on which the former Police Magistrate’s house was located) and section one under special lease arrangements. In 1948, the area under Special Lease 2984 (section one) was described as having been leased by Bertie Jardine for ‘sentimental purposes, where his father and mother were buried…’[35] At this time, section one was incorporated into R.10, a Reserve for the Benefit of Aboriginals, which also included the Somerset town reserve. In 1973, R.10 was reduced in size and become two lots, including Lot 43 Plan SO65 (which included the Somerset Graves Site). Finally, in July 1999, Lot 43 Plan SO65 was cancelled and the current lot, Lot 7 SP104552 was created. This newly-created lot captured all known or marked graves.
\nIn 2011 the Angkamuthi Seven Rivers, the McDonnell Atampaya and the Gudang/Yadhaigana groups made an application for native title determination over the Northern Peninsula Area Regional Council and Cook Shire areas, covering an area of approximately 685,642 hectares. The determination was handed down on 30 October 2014. Lot 7 SP104552 is contained within the exclusive areas of the determination.[36]
\nIn 2017, the Somerset Graves Site remains as a remnant of the once-important regional centre of Somerset. It is the burial site of Frank Jardine, a well-known far north Queensland identity, members of his family, and other identified and unidentified members of the isolated Cape York community.
","criteria":"As a remnant of the Somerset settlement, the Somerset Graves Site (1890-1962) is important in demonstrating the early initiative of the Queensland Government to create a settlement and port on Cape York for maritime, civil and military purposes. From 1864 until 1876, Somerset acted as the regional centre for Cape York. Afterwards it remained one of the few Cape York settlements available to provide assistance to travellers and seafarers. This early settlement was also the site of conflict between Europeans and traditional owners; and was associated with the pearling industry in the Torres Strait, and early attempts at pastoralism and agriculture on Cape York.
\nThe pearl divers' graves in the Somerset Graves Site are representative of the important and hazardous Queensland pearling industry, which operated from the 1870s and relied upon a multi-ethnic work force.
|The Somerset Graves Site has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of Somerset’s inhabitants and burial practices. There is limited information about the deaths and burials of Somerset’s inhabitants. The Somerset Graves Site is known to contain seven marked graves and at least one unmarked grave and it is possible that a larger number of Somerset’s inhabitants were interred at this site. Archaeological investigation of the graves site has the potential to reveal the presence, nature and extent of burials at this site, their spatial distribution and arrangement, as well as the burial practices of the diverse inhabitants of the settlement.
|The Somerset Graves Site, which includes the known graves of at least three Jardine family members, has a special association with the Jardine family, who were closely connected with the European exploration, settlement and development of Cape York from 1864 until the mid-20th century.
\nMembers of the Jardine family had a lengthy, and at times controversial, connection to the area. John Jardine snr and his son Francis (Frank) Lascelles Jardine held important government positions based at Somerset. The Jardine brothers, Francis (Frank) Lascelles and Alexander (Alick) William, were early overland explorers from Rockhampton to Somerset, bringing the first cattle into Cape York. As a result of this feat, the Jardine River was named after them, and in 1886 they were made Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society and received its Murchison Award.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650078,"name":"Feniton","alternate_name":"Fenton | Almaden","street_address":"388 Bowen Terrace","suburb":"NEW FARM","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-07-27","description":"Overview
\nFeniton is a highset detached timber house located at 388 Bowen Terrace in the inner Brisbane suburb of New Farm, 2.8 kilometres from the centre of Brisbane on a 1,292m2 allotment. Built in 1906, this substantial dwelling set in spacious grounds, is in an Arts and Crafts style and demonstrates a high standard of design and quality. It has distinctive features that are characteristic of the domestic works of Robert Smith Dods and contribute to its aesthetic significance. It retains:
\nSetting
\nFeniton stands on the rear half and highest part of the allotment, facing southwest and sloping to Bowen Terrace with rear access off Oxley Lane to the northeast. It has a generous setback providing privacy and affording views to and from the house and Bowen Terrace across the garden. The siting of the house close to the northwest boundary optimises the natural light and ventilation to the principal external spaces – the piazza and front verandah.
\nExterior
\nThe house has a proportionally large, steeply pitched hipped roof with projecting gables over a front entrance porch and over a wide verandah ‘piazza’ on the east corner (original stairs removed and reduced in overall size c1938). Two tall, brick chimneys (originally facebrick, now painted), venting the kitchen and drawing room/main bedroom fireplaces are distinctively utilitarian in design with simple, rectangular shafts and flat rendered cornices. The eaves are lined with either fibrous sheeting or tongue-and-groove v-jointed (vj) boards, which also line the verandah ceilings (the extent and detail of original eaves linings is unknown).
\nAlthough it is offset to the south, the dominant, projecting entrance implies symmetry to the front elevation through a classically derived pedimented gable supported on four posts. The large entrance porch with verandahs on both sides is accessed by a wide L-shaped stair. (One flight of the originally bifurcated stair and an overhead trellis have been removed and newel posts replaced).Across the porch, a wide pair of doors with decorative arched fanlight centred between bay windows to the dining room and drawing room, opens into the entrance hall. Original applied decoration was limited to a heavy timber dentil detail to the eaves, mouldings to the large, oval louvred wall vent and front door surround and simple verandah brackets. (verandah brackets have been replaced with ornate brackets and post mouldings added). All verandahs have a simple battened balustrade and handrail detail. (Handrails are comparable replacements to the original design and some balusters have been replaced but match existing).
\nA narrow northerly-facing verandah extends along the rear of the house to the east corner where it widens to form the piazza. Vertical timber louvres are fixed along this verandah above the battened balustrade providing privacy and solar protection to the bedrooms. The verandah and piazza walls have exposed framing and are lined with vj boards. A bay window from the main bedroom projects into the piazza (reduced c1938) which was a key feature designed as an outdoor living room to take advantage of the best aspect for light and ventilation.
\nCross ventilation is also a clear consideration in the detailing of the house. Large French doors, wide windows and fanlights above door openings throughout provide for continuous air flow.
\nContributing to the solid appearance of the house are oversized posts which support all verandah areas. Walls are generally clad with weatherboards. Original, narrow weatherboards with mitred corners are confined to the upper walls; the understorey walls, which provide the visually firm attachment with the ground are clad in wider weatherboards. The understorey at the rear of the house is lined with timber battens. Along the northwest side is a small verandah clad in weatherboards to handrail height, which has been enclosed with casement windows above. A timber stair leads to a path to the rear gate.
\nInterior
\nThe floor plan incorporates a level of symmetry within an asymmetrical layout comprising living, sleeping and service zones. The entrance hall is formal and symmetrical with double doorways (doors to the drawing room have been removed) opening into a generous dining room on the left (northwest)and larger drawing room on the right (southeast) which opens onto the piazza. Through the finely detailed archway at the end of the entrance hall, a perpendicular hall provides access to the best bedroom and dressing room and leads to the spacious back hall. The kitchen, enclosed northwest verandah and two bedrooms open off the back hall. The northwest verandah has a laundry (a later addition) at its south end, and a stair to the back yard at its north end.
\nIn the service area of the house, partitions between the kitchen and pantry rooms have been removed and the kitchen fireplace is partially rendered. A large window between the kitchen and back hall has been enclosed; and the back hall stair and cupboard opposite, removed. The back hall retains a glazed fanlight to the service verandah; the doors below have been removed.
\nUnder the kitchen in the west corner of the understorey, accessed by the (removed) stair from the back hall, is the former laundry, which retains a concrete slab with spoon drain and evidence of a removed corrugated iron wall lining formed in the slab edge. The chimney breast in this space has a void and piping for a copper. Extending across the front of the house is a store room lined with recent sheeting which adjoins a workroom in the south corner lined with recycled vj boards that have been refixed upside down. This room, located partially within what is thought to have been Theodore’s library, has concrete upstands around its perimeter. No definitive evidence of the library survives.
\nThe walls of the dining room, entrance hall and transverse hall are lined with clear finished hoop pine vj boards to picture rail height and painted above – a characteristic lining and finish of Dods’ interiors. Also characteristic are built-in cupboards; in the dining room, there is a built-in sideboard[1] and shelves and cupboards either side of the bay window. The north (former maid’s) room has a painted vj lining and the remaining rooms have been relined and plaster cornices installed. An unusual feature in the drawing room and best bedroom is the evidence of flush-jointed wall linings which provided for a wallpaper finish and an early plaster lining in the bedroom bay window. Another unusual feature is the presence of a fireplace in the bedroom. Early joinery includes multi-paned double hung windows, wide multi-paned French doors and six-panelled doors with splayed panels and two-panel operable fanlights above. Casement windows are later additions.
\nSignificance of features
\nAll 1906 fabric and design features are of state level significance, including concealed linings and decorative finishes.
\nFeatures of the exterior of the house that are not of state level significance include:
\nFeatures of the interior of the house that are not of state level significance
\nFeatures of the grounds that are not of state level significance include:
\nThe highset timber residence located at 388 Bowen Terrace, New Farm, originally called Feniton and later Almaden, was built on just over half an acre (approximately 2036m2) of land in 1906-7 for the Trude family. Designed by the renowned architect Robert Smith (Robin) Dods, the residence was subsequently occupied from 1916-27 by Edward Granville Theodore, Premier of Queensland from 1919-25. The property was reduced by one third in 1938, and in 2018 Feniton remains a private residence. Feniton is a surviving example of Dods’ first quality timber houses from the middle period of Hall & Dods’ practice 1901-09. With its generous setback and views to and from Bowen Terrace, the house is important for its Federation aesthetic, successfully combining Arts and Crafts and Classical elements, and also has a special association with EG Theodore, a person of importance in Queensland’s history.
\nThe New Farm area was traditionally the land of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples. After the Moreton Bay penal settlement was established on the Brisbane River in 1825, in the late 1820s food was grown on the river flats between today’s Merthyr Road and the southeast end of the New Farm peninsula.[1]
\nFollowing free settlement of Brisbane in 1842, the New Farm peninsula was surveyed and sold in the 1840s for cultivation and livestock, as well as residences for Queensland’s pastoralists, merchants and politicians. In the late 1850s, subdivision of allotments overlooking the Shafston Reach of the Brisbane River, at the northwest end of Bowen Terrace, resulted in the construction of villas for Brisbane’s business leaders during the 1860s, and more of Brisbane’s wealthy inhabitants moved to New Farm in the 1870s.[2] The subdivision of New Farm intensified during the 1880s, and transport improvements also encouraged closer residential settlement. Horse-drawn trams ran along Brunswick Street to just past Langshaw Street by 1895, and the electrification of this line occurred in 1897.[3]
\nDespite subdivision into smaller allotments, the area of New Farm between Brunswick Street and the Shafston Reach maintained grand homes on properties covering multiple subdivisions. Described in 1906 as the province of ‘the attractive homes and trim gardens of many of Brisbane’s most distinguished citizens, who enjoy all the advantages of country air and surroundings within a twopenny tram ride of the city proper’, Bowen Terrace and Moray Street included affluent residents drawn from the judiciary, politics, civil service, the church and business.[4] Feniton was one such residence.
\nThe site of Feniton was once part of Eastern Suburban Allotment 15, a block of 4.6ha extending from Brunswick Street southwest to the Brisbane River, which was subdivided in 1874 as part of the Langshaw Estate – advertised as occupying ‘the very finest position about the city or suburbs for gentlemen’s Villa Residences’.[5] After passing through the hands of various owners from 1875, three subdivisions of the estate, totalling 3 roods and 34 perches (3895m2), were by October 1881 consolidated under the ownership of Henry James Oxley, a well-known Brisbane accountant.[6]
\nBy July 1880 Oxley had built his home Mossleigh at the north corner of Bowen Terrace and Langshaw Street, with the remainder of his property, to the northwest, used as his garden. After Oxley’s mortgagee obtained the property in 1905, just over half an acre – 2 roods and half a perch (2036m2) – of Mossleigh’s garden was sold to John Elworthy Trude in 1906.[7]
\nTrude (1869-1952) was born in Poughill, Devon, England, and by April 1891 he was working in Brisbane as the local manager for Australian tea merchants Atcherley and Dawson. In July 1906 he married Phyllis Emlyn Gore, a member of the pioneering pastoralist family of Yandilla Station on the Darling Downs.[8]
\nThe Trude’s new house at 388 Bowen Terrace was named Feniton, after Phyllis’ family home at Yandilla and an earlier Gore residence at Parramatta. Tenders for the house were called in July 1906, the tender of £980 from Louis Hammer, a building contractor of Deagon, was accepted, and the house was under construction by the end of August 1906. [9]
\nFeniton was designed by architect Robert Smith (Robin) Dods (1868-1920), principal of the Brisbane firm of Hall & Dods. Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, Dods lived briefly in Britain before coming to Brisbane in the late 1870s. He later trained as an architect in Scotland and England under a number of esteemed architects who were working in the Arts and Crafts idiom. He returned to Brisbane in 1896 and started in practice with architect Francis Hall (of John Hall & Son) as Hall & Dods. In 1904, Dods was also appointed Diocesan Architect for the Church of England’s Brisbane Diocese. [10]
\nThe practice of Hall & Dods produced a wide range of accomplished buildings and was credited with achieving an 'architectural revolution' in Brisbane. Dods was responsible for most of the design within the firm, integrating contemporary British design philosophies with the traditions of Queensland housing and the requirements of a subtropical climate. In 1913, Dods moved to Sydney to join the firm Spain Cosh & Dods, maintaining his Brisbane association with FR Hall for several years. He died in Sydney in 1920. Dods was one of the few Australian architects to have his work published in the United Kingdom, and has been acknowledged as ‘one of the most significant early 20th century Australian architects' and as a rare practitioner of the Arts and Crafts style in Queensland.[11]
\nArts and Crafts was an international design movement flourishing between 1860 and 1910, its influence continuing into the 1930s. The style championed traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often applied medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. Arts and Crafts architecture is characterised by solidity and heaviness through well-proportioned solid forms, wide porches and prominent steep roofs. The texture of ordinary materials is expressed in the detailing and building composition is asymmetrical.[12]
\nThe most noticeable characteristic of Dods’ Queensland houses was a general feeling of solidity and substance. This was established through a generous roof continuous over the verandah; enclosed or screened understorey to give the house a visually solid base; oversized individual elements; and dark coloured materials to give the house a weighty gravity. Chimney elements were generally tall and flat, topped with a plain rectangular shaft.[13]
\nThe composition of facades and circulation routes is a more nuanced element of Dods' houses. Facades often only implied symmetry. Entries were often off-centre or perpendicular, emphasised by wide and expressive entry stairs. Projecting bay windows and corner fireplaces were recurrent elements, and these features are present in Feniton.
\nThe health and comfort of the occupants were major considerations in Dods’ designs. Living spaces were well-oriented and internal layouts permitted cross ventilation. Other ventilation devices included wide window and door openings, ventilated gables and ridges, and ventilation fleches. Door fanlights were often solid hinged panels, where not on an external wall. The houses were often provided with generous, considered service spaces including back halls and wash houses. Dods houses are also notable for their informal spaces, including verandah ‘piazzas’, a generous verandah area suitable for informal occupation and usually given a northeast aspect. Dods’ piazzas were a principal external space, designed for the Queensland climate.
\nInteriors included fine decorative timber joinery and panelling. Fireplace surrounds and built-in cupboards were also a feature. Offices and halls, dining and drawing rooms often had pine boards up to the picture rail stained in a colour to simulate mahogany. This finish was used also on doors and windows as well as skirtings and architraves.[14]
\nFor the Trudes, Dods designed a highset timber house with verandahs on three sides. It was sheltered by a large, steeply-pitched hip roof with a projecting gable over a front (southwest) entrance and over a piazza on the rear, eastern corner. The roof featured two tall, projecting, face brick chimneys and a ventilated ridge. The walls were clad in timber weatherboards, which were mitred at corners and extended down to the ground-plane, concealing the understorey. Exterior timber detailing was restrained and reinforced the solidity of the house, with oversized timber posts and curved brackets to verandahs.[15]
\nThe formal entry to the Trudes’ house was via a bifurcated front stair leading to the front verandah and an impressive entry hall. Feniton included: generous living and entertaining areas, including the piazza, which was connected to the garden via a stair; two bedrooms (plus dressing room) at the rear; kitchen; utility rooms; and servant’s quarters. A back hall off the kitchen had internal stairs to the laundry in the understorey.[16]
\nDods designed gardens as a setting for his houses. They featured formal parterre gardens, terraces and walls, flower beds, tennis courts, hedges, topiaries, flowering ornamental trees, and geometric path and lawn layouts. In locating a house on its block, Dods considered the size of the site and of the house, the fall of the land, the orientation and outlook, the setback from the street, the location of any drive, the garden, fences and gates.[17]
\nAt 388 Bowen Terrace, Dods’ sited the residence so it had a large garden to both the front (southwest) and side (southeast). Feniton faces Bowen Terrace but is set well back (25m) on the site’s shallow slope; this approach was also used for the Dods-designed Lyndhurst in Clayfield (1896) [QHR 601841], which has since lost most of its large front garden; and Kitawah at East Brisbane (1911) [QHR 601023].[18]
\nFeniton forms part of a group of major works or ‘first quality houses’ of the middle period of the Hall & Dods practice (1901-09), a group described as comprising ‘most of the interesting houses designed by Dods’. Of these, six timber suburban examples survive. Out of all of Dods’ suburban residential works (193 designed), at least 53 are known to survive in 2018.[19]
\nThe Trudes were living at Feniton by April 1907, and a dance was held there on the evening of 17 July, celebrating the first anniversary of their marriage.[20] In August 1910 a garden party was held with more than 100 guests.[21]
\nIt is not known if Dods designed a landscaping scheme for the garden of Feniton, but family photographs show that by 1908 the garden layout had been established, with lawns, garden beds, recent plantings, timber front fence with gothic pickets in concave panels, and front gate. A pathway also led from Bowen Terrace towards the southern corner of the house, and to the front entrance porch and piazza.[22]
\nThe Trudes lived only intermittently at Feniton from late 1913, periodically occupying Endrim in Toowong [QHR 650071], during absences of Phyllis’s mother and sister who had moved to Brisbane after the death of her father, Gerard Ralph Gore.[23] In the Trudes’ absences, Feniton was rented to a Mrs King in 1913-14, and to Allan Jaffrey, Queensland Manager of Australian Estates in 1914-15. The Trudes finally settled at Endrim in 1916.[24]
\nFrom 1916 Feniton was rented by Edward Granville (‘Red Ted’) Theodore (1884-1950), MLA for Chillagoe, Deputy Premier, Treasurer, and Secretary for Public Works in Queensland’s TJ Ryan Labor Government. Theodore, a former union organiser and miner, entered the Queensland Parliament in 1909, aged 24.[25]
\nTogether with his wife Esther, nee Mahoney, and four young children, Theodore occupied 388 Bowen Terrace for most of the next decade. In May 1918, the year before he became Premier, Theodore purchased Feniton, which he had already renamed Almaden (or Alma-den), after the mining town near Chillagoe, North Queensland, where he had his first major victory as a union organiser in 1908 (the Etheridge Railway Strike).[26]
\nEsther used the garden for fetes and other fund-raising activities as part of her work for philanthropic and patriotic causes. On 7 October 1916 a brass band as well as singers and other musicians performed in the garden at her fete for the war effort; and in August 1918 Esther invited a large party of guests to another fete at Almaden, this time in aid of the bachelor’s stall at the coming fete for St Patrick’s Church.[27]
\nSome changes to the gardens occurred under the Theodores, who increased the density of planting with trees, shrubs and flower beds, including a greenhouse in the front garden and a vegetable garden behind the house. By 1924 the front path from Bowen Terrace had been concreted. A 1930 photograph of the house shows flower beds in the front and southeast side gardens, with one palm tree near the southern corner of the house. A brick front fence with infill timber pickets existed by 1934, and a small addition to the northwest side of the house had been added by the 1930s.[28]
\nTheodore also constructed a study and library for his book collection under the southern corner of the house and the front verandah. The large garden setback at Feniton would have afforded Theodore some privacy as he worked in his study under the house. To provide day-lighting, casement windows were cut in the weatherboard cladding of the understorey, and were protected by a continuous window shade. The front half of Theodore’s study and its windows was later removed, with only a possible rear wall surviving under the house in 2018.[29]
\nWhile residing at Almaden between 1916 and 1927, Theodore implemented important social, industrial and constitutional reforms in Queensland. As TJ Ryan’s Treasurer and Secretary for Public Works, he established an arbitration system and state employment bureaux, and enacted legislation to provide for workers’ compensation and regulate working conditions and accommodation. He also established a series of state enterprises, including butcher shops, fish shops, cattle stations, sawmills, mining ventures and a hotel. During World War I, he was instrumental in the Ryan Government’s campaign against military conscription. In 1922, he completed Labor’s campaign to abolish Queensland’s Legislative Council, with Queensland becoming the only Australian state with a unicameral legislature.[30]
\nTheodore decided to enter federal politics, resigning as Premier in February 1925 to contest the federal seat of Herbert in north Queensland. Unsuccessful in his bid, he moved to Sydney in 1927 upon winning the NSW federal seat of Dalley at a by-election that January.[31]
\nTheodore attempted to sell Almaden, but was unsuccessful and so rented it out for several years. In 1929-30 the house was rented by Norah Burrows, who ran it as a guest house called Garden of Kama, which she advertised as a ‘magnificent home’. From June 1930 the house was rented by Louis Emanuel (Lee) Steindl, a former Maryborough brewer, who resided there with his wife Gertrude, nee Brennan, and Gertrude’s unmarried sisters, Florence and Winifred Brennan.[32]
\nIn March 1933, Almaden was sold to the Steindls, who during their occupation created a display garden containing flower beds of annuals, which had made the garden a local tourist attraction by 1934. Severe drought conditions and watering restrictions in 1936 negatively affected the display garden. The Steindls also used Almaden to host parties and dances. [33]
\nIn 1937 the Steindls subdivided the property, and in 1938 they sold 29.33 perches (742m2) of the southeast garden, which became the site of a two-storey brick house (built c.1940) at 404 Bowen Terrace. The sale of this land required the partial demolition of the piazza of Almaden, and its stair, and also separated Almaden from its former pedestrian entrance in the front brick fence, and the concrete path from Bowen Terrace. The Steindls, left with 1 rood, 11.14p (1293m2) of land, constructed a new front entry gate toward the northwest end of the front fence, with a new path to the front stair of the house.[34]
\nBy 1979, the front entry porch and piazza had been enclosed with casement windows and doorways, and the southeast leg of the front stair had been removed.[35]
\nAfter Gertrude Steindl’s death in 1971, her daughter Vera inherited Almaden. The house was sold in 1988 to Albert Kuceli, who had founded Kuceli Real Estate in New Farm in 1965.[36] Kuceli reopened the front entry porch and piazza and made other changes internally, while leaving the panelling and joinery of the principal rooms intact. The cladding below the front verandah and most of Theodore’s study was demolished, with similar cladding added in line with the internal wall of the front verandah.[37]
\nKuceli made major changes to the gardens, including planting palms along the northwest boundary of the front garden, jacarandas on the southeast side of the front garden, adding a pond and fountain, forming new garden beds with stone or brick edging, and laying new brick paths. What had been an open front garden with some flower beds in 1942, and a few trees and shrubs by the 1960s, was lushly treed by the 1990s – resembling the time of the Theodore’s occupation. Kuceli also replaced the former vegetable garden area at the rear with a swimming pool in the early 2000s.[38]
\nBetween 1979 and 2018, windows to the kitchen were removed and replaced by casements, and the adjoining section of wall was reclad to match existing fabric. Internally, the kitchen and back hall walls (including the wall, window and door that divided them and a store cupboard) and some bedroom walls were plastered over and corkboard laid over the floors. New skirting boards were installed in these locations. The pantry joinery and walls were removed and the area incorporated into the kitchen. The dressing room adjacent to the main bedroom was renovated as an ensuite and walk-in wardrobe. Some mantelpieces and mouldings which had previously been painted were stripped and refinished with clear varnish. [39]
\nFeniton was added to the Brisbane City Council’s Heritage Register in 2000. Following Albert Kuceli’s death in 2009, the property passed to his partner Carole Kotowski, who sold it to Judith Noble in 2012. The property was sold to Georgina Lalor in 2013, and to Strathallan Pty Ltd in 2015. In June 2017 the property was transferred to Dave & Dunc Pty Ltd. [40]
\nIn 2018 Feniton continues to be used as a private residence, and retains most of its Dods’ features and its Arts and Crafts aesthetic, including its solid and substantial form, dominant and steeply pitched roof, distinctive chimneys, materiality, partially enclosed understorey, well-proportioned rooms, interior timber joinery/mantlepieces, timber interior linings, generous verandahs and rear verandah louvres. It also retains its large front setback from Bowen Terrace, with views to and from the street.
","criteria":"Feniton (1906-7), a surviving example of nationally acclaimed architect Robert Smith (Robin) Dods' 'first quality' suburban timber houses from the middle period of Hall & Dods' practice 1901-09, is important in demonstrating Dods' contribution to the evolution of Queensland's architecture.
\nAs a substantial, architect-designed house, which was constructed for John Elworthy Trude, a director and local manager for Australian tea merchants Atcherley and Dawson, and set in a large garden, Feniton is important in demonstrating the lifestyle of Brisbane's prosperous elite in the inner suburbs of Brsibane during the early 20th century.
|Feniton, a substantial residence designed by influential architect Robin Dods, is a fine, largely intact example of Dods’ high quality residential work, which is characterised by a pervading sense of tradition, solidity, and an honest use of materials. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of that work, retaining its steep, hipped, dominant roof; pedimented gables; generous verandahs and carefully orientated piazza with a northeast aspect; oversized timber elements and openings; mitred weatherboards; pleasing proportions and restrained decoration; and finely-detailed, clear finished joinery, including built-in timber furniture. Its siting, detailing and unconventional but rational planning optimise views, cross ventilation and solar orientation.
|Sited well back from Bowen Terrace, with views to and from provided across a large and attractive garden setting, Feniton is important for its Federation aesthetic, successfully combining Arts and Crafts and Classical elements in a pleasingly proportioned asymmetrical highset house with dominant roof, wide verandahs, piazza with a northeast aspect, and visually firm connection to the ground. Largely intact, it demonstrates, internally and externally, fine architectural quality and skilful arrangement of generous and refined formal and informal spaces that evoke a sense of an earlier, gracious lifestyle.
|Feniton, occupied by Edward Granville ‘Red Ted’ Theodore (1884-1950) as his family home from 1916 to 1927, has a special association with the life and work of Theodore as his place of residence and work when he was Premier of Queensland (1919-25). Theodore renamed Feniton ‘Almaden’, after the site of a strike victory during his union career. As Premier, Theodore implemented important social, industrial and constitutional reforms in Queensland, including state intervention in the economy and completing Labor’s campaign to abolish Queensland’s Legislative Council, and is a person of importance in Queensland’s history.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650080,"name":"Kelvin Grove State College","alternate_name":"Kelvin Grove Road Provisional School | Kelvin Grove Boys State School | Kelvin Grove Girls and Infants State School | Kelvin Grove State School | Kelvin Grove State High School","street_address":"L'Estrange Terrace","suburb":"KELVIN GROVE","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-08-23","description":"Kelvin Grove State College is located in Kelvin Grove, an inner city residential suburb of Brisbane, about 3km northwest of the city centre. The college stands on a high point in the terrain near a major road, Kelvin Grove Road, and adjacent to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Kelvin Grove campus.
\nThe college comprises two adjacent campuses facing L’Estrange Terrace to the northwest - the Junior School (1.571 hectares) bounded by L’Estrange Terrace, Kelvin Grove Road, School Street and Tank Street; and the larger Middle and Senior School (7.76 hectares) bounded by L’Estrange Terrace, Victoria Park Road, Boundary Road and Herston Road. A closed section of Victoria Park Road runs between and connects the campuses, with a public footpath retained along the Junior School boundary.
\nThe Junior School campus site is approximately square in shape with buildings located around a combined playground and sports field. The ground slopes away to the south, and steep, tree-lined banks run along the northeast and southeast boundaries.
\nThe Middle and Senior School campus site slopes steeply down to the east and southeast, resulting in a terraced landscape with an oval occupying the lowest ground in the northeast corner. The triangular-shaped Middle School section of the campus is separated from the Senior School by a driveway running from L’Estrange Terrace to Victoria Park Road.
\nThe buildings and features of cultural heritage significance are:
\nJunior School campus
\nMiddle and Senior School campus
\nSite planning and views
\nBlock JA (1950)
\nBlock JA is a three storey building with a hipped roof and a projecting entrance bay that overlooks a triangular forecourt. Due to the slope of the land, the ground floor level is concealed from view from the main (northern) approach. The building’s distinctive plan form is symmetrical along an axis running from the main entrance at the northern corner of the site. The building comprises a long central block that terminates with ends angled at 45 degrees, in line with pathways radiating at 90 degrees from the main entrance. The entrance bay protrudes from the building and has flat parapet walls concealing its hipped roof. The external walls have a strong horizontal emphasis due to continuous window sills and horizontal window hoods linking the banks of windows.
\nThe upper two storeys contain classrooms connected by a corridor along the northern sides. Classrooms occupy the long central portion, with staircases, staff rooms and store rooms located in the angled ends of the building. The ground floor contains enclosed play areas in the centre and toilet facilities in the ends. The entrance bay contains a staircase; resource and store rooms on the upper storey; entrance hall, administration and staff offices on the middle storey; and store rooms on the ground floor.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nNon-significant elements include the glazed door leafs of the main entrance doors, administration desk in the entrance hall; access ramps; a connecting roof to Block JB; and plywood dividing walls in understorey play area.
\nBlock JB (1955)
\nBlock JB is a two storey, gable-roofed building that addresses L’Estrange Terrace and is aligned with the southwest side of Block JA. Formerly a classroom block, the upper level of Block JB is used as a library in 2017. A tuck shop and storage rooms have been inserted in the covered play area underneath.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nLandscaping features associated with Blocks JA and JB
\nThe original 1948 landscaping layout in front of and around Block JA remains intact. It comprises a symmetrical layout of lawns, pathways and stairs in the forecourt and a playground at the rear.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nSignificant landscaping around Block JB includes an extension of the pathway in front of Block JA, edged by a concrete retaining wall topped by tubular steel handrails; and a linking pathway to the WWI Memorial Gateway.
\nWorld War I Memorial Gateway (1919, 1952)
\nThis gateway is located approximately halfway along the L’Estrange Terrace boundary of the Junior School. The lintel (1919) is made from concrete in the form of a scroll and bears the words ‘HONOUR OUR BOYS’ and the dates ‘1914’ and ‘1919’. The supporting posts and wing walls (1952) are of plain, smooth concrete and feature square end posts with chamfered, angled sides and peaked tops.
\nBrick Entrance Gateway elements (1930)
\nThis gateway stands at the southwest corner of the Junior School site, on the corner of L’Estrange Terrace and School Street. It is a modern reconstruction, at a smaller scale, of the 1930 brick gateway. The significant elements are: the large, horizontal concrete lintel; peaked concrete caps on the wing wall end posts; and two marble plaques set into the front face of the gateways piers.
\nSchool bell (1870s)
\nThe original school bell is mounted on a concrete post near the entrance to Block JA.
\nBlock SA/SB (1952)
\nBlock SA/SB is a two storey building with a hipped roof and a curved entrance bay that links two long wings to form a V-shaped plan. The building sits on a high point in the terrain and is approached by a series of pathways and steps leading to a triangular platform in front of the main entrance. The plan is symmetrical along an axis running from the main entrance at the northwest corner of the site, with the two wings parallel to the bounding streets - L’Estrange Terrace (Block SB) and the closed section of Victoria Park Road (Block SA). The concave, curved facade of the entrance bay is topped by a flat parapet and features a projecting entrance porch with a flat concrete roof and glazed front wall. Windows to the upper floor of the entrance bay have thick concrete mullions which align with the columns of the entrance porch. The external walls of the wings have a strong horizontal emphasis due to continuous window sills and horizontal window hoods linking the banks of windows.
\nThe entrance bay contains reception areas and staff rooms. The wing of Block SA contains classrooms on both levels and toilets at the southeast end of the ground floor. Block SB has classrooms on the first floor and administration offices on the ground floor. Circulation is via two staircases at each end of the entrance bay, and long corridors through the wings – the northeast (rear) side of Block SA and the northwest (front) side of Block SB. Original staircases at the ends of each wing and toilets on the ground floor of Block SB have been demolished in order to link with the 1960s extensions.
\nThe exterior remains largely intact, however the internal layout has been modified within the original concrete frame to create the administration and reception areas. Most walls between classrooms and the corridors have been removed.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nNon-significant elements include the lift and connecting walkway; aluminium door and window joinery; steel-framed awning roof on brick piers around the rear (courtyard) walls; porch and entrance doors on northwest elevation of Block SB; infill walls between original brick piers in former ground level play areas; and infill walls forming offices and rooms in the entrance bay.
\nLandscaping features associated with Block SA/SB
\nThe original landscaping layout in front of and around Block SA/SB remains intact. It comprises a symmetrical layout of pathways, planter boxes and stairs leading up to the main entrance and a courtyard at the rear.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nNon-significant elements include brick walls and an access ramp at the main entrance corner, and garden beds, trees and a rectangular shelter shed in the courtyard.
\nBlock SA Extension (1961) and Block SC (1961-63)
\nIn their dimensions, structure, materials and room layouts Block SA Extension and Block SC are typical early-1960s high school classroom blocks, but the exteriors have been modified to complement the style of the early-1950s buildings. These modifications include the hipped roofs clad in terracotta tiles, and the brick-enclosed ends of the blocks, punctuated by single rectangular windows with projecting concrete frames.
\nBlock SA Extension has been extended in line with Block SA along Victoria Park Road, and is linked to it by a stairwell and secondary entrance. Block SC has been built at a right angle to the end of Block JB, with a corridor, toilets and a stairwell in the brick-enclosed junction. Linking Blocks SA Extension and SC across the courtyard is a covered walkway. Both blocks are two storey, with verandahs providing circulation along the courtyard-facing sides of the blocks.
\nThe classrooms occupy both floors of each block, with a tuck shop on the ground floor of Block SA Extension. The original layout of large rooms with narrow preparation areas between is still evident.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nNon-significant elements include vents in the eaves linings, the covered way to Block G, and the tuck shop fitout.
\nBlock SD (1961-63)
\nBlock SD is located along the Victoria Park Road boundary. It is a long, narrow building with an understorey below the northern end (now enclosed). Six work rooms are arranged along the northeast side, separated by a wide, open corridor from a row of rooms containing service and store rooms and toilets. Entrances are via double doors at each end of the corridor and one in the centre of the southwest wall.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nNon-significant elements include attached lean-to roofs and covered walkways, and the understorey workshops, including infill walls and glazing.
\nClosed section of Victoria Park Road (closed c2003)
\nThe road is lined with mature trees, and the road surface and a public footpath are retained.
\nNon-significant elements of all school buildings include:
\nKelvin Grove State College, established as a primary school in 1875, underwent a major redevelopment in the 1950s to create separate primary and infants schools that were regarded as leading examples of school architecture in the post-war period in Queensland. In 1960 the infants school was converted into a high school and the grounds were expanded. The two schools amalgamated in 2002 to become an independent public school with junior, middle and senior campuses. The school complex retains significant 1950s and 1960s buildings set within landscaped grounds including entrance gateways, purpose-designed forecourts, assembly and play areas, and a pedestrianised road.
\nKelvin Grove is a suburb of Brisbane, located approximately three kilometres northwest of the city centre, and was the traditional country of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples. The area was developed primarily as a residential suburb from the 1860s.[1]
\nKelvin Grove Road School, 1875 - 1887
\nLocal residents began fundraising for the establishment of a primary school on the Northern Road (renamed Kelvin Grove Road in the 1880s) in 1874 and a 1.66ha site (Portion 274) was set aside by the Board of Education.[2] Kelvin Grove Road School was opened on 3 May 1875, costing £600 with a community contribution of £150. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. School facilities also provided a venue for a wide range of community events.[3]
\nKelvin Grove Boys State School and Kelvin Grove Girls and Infants State School, 1887 - 1950
\nThe school grew in 1886 when a separate boy’s school was built on a triangular site excised from Victoria Park on the other side of Victoria Park Road. The girls and infants school remained on the 1875 site and the schools reopened on 7 November 1887 as Kelvin Grove Boys State School and Kelvin Grove Girls and Infants State School. The school bell from the 1875 school was moved to the boys school after 1887.[4] The school grounds were beautified by tree plantings on Arbor Day from the 1890s until the 1930s.[5]
\nIn 1918 a World War I (WWI) honour board was unveiled in the boys school to commemorate the contribution of Kelvin Grove students and staff. It listed the names of 168 teachers and scholars and one nurse.[6] In 1919 a memorial gateway was constructed at the main entrance of the boys school, on the corner of L’Estrange Terrace and Victoria Park Road. It was designed and built by D Walker of Kelvin Grove and cost £24, which was raised by subscription. Made from reinforced concrete, it featured an ornamental lintel bearing the words ‘HONOUR OUR BOYS’.[7]
\nTo beautify the school grounds, in 1930 a brick and concrete gateway was constructed at the southwest corner of the girls and infants school. It was officially opened on 6 June as part of Arbor Day celebrations.[8]
\nIn 1930 it was reported 757 girls and 527 boys attended the schools at Kelvin Grove, and the girls and infants school was described as the largest in Queensland. Some of the accommodation pressure on the timber school buildings was relieved in 1935 when the North Brisbane Intermediate School opened nearby, accommodating the two upper classes from each school.[9]
\nDuring World War II (WWII), the boys school was occupied by the army.[10] Site improvements were carried out in 1946 when new fences and concrete retaining walls were constructed around the school perimeters, including along the boundary with Victoria Park Road.[11]
\nKelvin Grove State School, 1950 – 2002, and Kelvin Grove State Infants School 1950 - 1961
\nAfter WWII the existing timber buildings had become inadequate to cope with the growing student population at Kelvin Grove. In nearby Victoria Park, permanent huts constructed by the Allied forces had been converted into temporary housing in what became the second largest temporary housing settlement in Brisbane. By 1950 Victoria Park was the impermanent home for 460 families, which placed a high demand on the Kelvin Grove schools.[12]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education that began in the late 1940s and continued well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’, as well as a shortage of architects and skilled tradesmen.[13] In order to cope, by the early 1950s the Department of Public Works (DPW) had developed new standard timber school buildings that were quick to construct, and also began importing pre-fabricated building systems from overseas. Construction of large masonry school buildings, which had been commonplace during the inter-war period, was no longer favoured, and only a few were completed in the immediate post-WWII period.[14]
\nIn April 1947 the Minister for Education, T A Williams, announced that two new, brick, co-educational school buildings would be built at Kelvin Grove to replace the old timber buildings – a primary school on the site of the girls and infants school and an infants school on the site of the boys school.[15] In November 1947 a design concept and site plan were prepared by architect Leslie Sturmer Jacobson, an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA), who was one of four newly-arrived British architects recently recruited by the DPW. The new buildings were conceived as a complementary pair, addressing opposite corners of the intersection of L’Estrange Terrace and Victoria Park Road. They were to be modern in appearance and feature prominent central entrance bays – rectangular for the primary school and curved for the infants school.[16]
\nThese buildings were designed at a time of transition, when the large Depression-era brick schools were being criticised for their appearance and unsuitability to modern educational philosophies. Queensland school design was changing in response to international influences, including that of the British Board of Education, which advocated adaptable designs in a less formal style, with the option for future enlargement. Educationalists wanted schools that were constructed of modern materials with attractive and modern coloured interiors. In the DPW design office, the design influences of the new British and other émigré architects were being adopted. While the majority of school buildings continued to be built to standard plans, some individually-designed masonry buildings were constructed, typically in areas of stable, suburban and urban populations. An evolution of the Depression-era brick school buildings, they were generally substantial structures of brick and concrete that introduced many innovative ideas that found their way into standard plans. For example, brick was progressively used more frequently in high schools as standard. New brick buildings were stripped of revival-style ornamentation in favour of a simpler, more streamlined aesthetic, with new features such as horizontal concrete window hoods introduced. For the Kelvin Grove schools, the concept plans and site layout for the schools, designed by Jacobsen, were further developed by other DPW architects, who prepared the detailed plans.[17]
\nThe primary school building was built first at a cost of £54,000. Features of the design included excellent natural lighting and ventilation, a medical inspection room and a visual education room. On 30 October 1948, at the laying of the foundation stone, the Minister for Public Works, William Power (MLA for the district), who had been instrumental in getting support for the project, said that the school would be the most up-to-date in Australia.[18]
\nThe primary school building (called Block JA in 2018) opened on 29 January 1950 and accommodated up to 460 students. It was a linear building with angled ends, arranged symmetrically along a diagonal axis from the northern corner of the site. Two levels of classrooms addressed the front of the school while a partially below-ground understorey level, containing toilets and play areas, opened onto the rear playground. The entrance bay contained a stairwell, entrance hall, the head master’s office, and a medical inspection room on the ground floor; a visual education room and projection room on the first floor; and store rooms in the understorey. Circulation was via a corridor along the northern side of the building so that the 10 classrooms (6.7m x 7.2m) received southern daylight. On each classroom level, folding doors separated the three middle classrooms and two large cloakrooms occupied the wedge-shaped spaces in the angled corners of the building. The ends accommodated stairwells; staff common rooms on the ground floor; open-air teaching balconies on the first floor (enclosed prior to the completion of the building); and staff toilets in the understorey. The windows were linked by continuous concrete sills and horizontal hoods which gave the building a streamlined, horizontal appearance.[19]
\nConstruction of the infants school building (known as Block SA and SB in 2018) commenced in 1950. It cost £55,700 and was opened by William Power, now the Attorney General, on 17 May 1952.[20] Due to the angular site, it was V-shaped in plan, with two classroom wings linked by the curved entrance bay, which contained a kindergarten room at ground level. Professional training for teaching infants developed in Queensland around 1891, however the first purpose-built state infants schools (from 1911) were not notably different from other classrooms of the period. Frequently, open-air annexes (a standard type, introduced in 1914) were added to existing schools as infants’ classrooms. Special designs for infants developed in the 1930s incorporated a large kindergarten room where children sat in a circle around the teacher, a practice that continued after WWII. Only two other masonry infants buildings were built around the same time as Kelvin Grove, at Bardon State School (1947) and Brisbane Central State School (designed 1949, completed 1952) [QHR 600312].[21]
\nOn completion, the Infants School at Kelvin Grove accommodated up to 440 infants. On the ground floor of the entrance bay, the main door led into the large kindergarten room and side entrances were located adjacent to two stairwells. The wings contained play areas that opened onto the rear playground, and toilets at the ends. The first floor accommodated eight classrooms (6.7m x 7m) and two cloakrooms in the wings, with teachers rooms and a medical room in the entrance bay. Circulation was via a corridor that ran along the northern side of each wing so that classrooms received southern daylight.[22]
\nThe design of both buildings included landscaping works to create formal front forecourts and defined main entrances from the corners. The forecourts comprised symmetrical layouts of concrete paths, stairs, lawns, and garden beds. Asphalted play and assembly areas were built at the rear of the buildings.[23]
\nThe schools received praise in newspapers and other publications for their amenity and modern design. The infants school was described as ‘roomy and bright’, and that it represented ‘a departure from the ordinary style of construction’. The Courier Mail stated, ‘Brisbane’s modern new State schools should make for happier, healthier learning…’, and the Telegraph claimed the school was ‘officially regarded as the best State primary school in Queensland architecturally.’ The Architecture, Building, Engineering journal ranked the infants building as one of the best state schools in Australia.[24]
\nOn completion of the Infants School, the original school bell (1870s) and the WWI Honour Board were moved to the Primary School. The 1919 memorial gateway lintel was also moved to the primary school site, along L’Estrange Terrace, and re-erected on new concrete posts.[25]
\nIn 1953 four classes of pupils returned to the Kelvin Grove primary school due to the closure of the North Brisbane Intermediate School. During 1955, a new brick building (called Block JB in 2018) was built adjacent to Block JA. It accommodated three classrooms over an understorey and featured a glazed front porch. Its external appearance complemented Block JA by using similar materials and fenestration.[26]
\nKelvin Grove State High School 1961 - 2002
\nIn 1960 approval was given to convert the infants school into a state high school. Enrolments had dropped to under 200 at the infants school and under 700 in the primary school due to the closure of the Victoria Park housing settlement. Infants classes were transferred to the primary school, and the infants school site was extended into the adjacent reserve to the east, to provide space for new buildings and sporting facilities.[27]
\nThe first new classroom block built was an extension to the southern wing of the former infants building (part of Block SA in 2018, referred to as Block SA Extension in this report). It accommodated a tuckshop and chemistry classrooms on the ground floor and domestic science classrooms on the first floor.[28]
\nKelvin Grove State High School opened 23 January 1961 with an enrolment of 344 students, some of whom had to be accommodated in temporary classrooms built into the understorey of Block SA/SB. Enrolments had risen to 850 by the start of the 1962 school year; and to 886 by 1963.[29]
\nA second extension to the former infants building was built at a right angle to the northern wing (called Block SC in 2018) and was completed in early 1963. This accommodated toilets, locker rooms and staff rooms at the junction, physics and general classrooms on the ground floor, and commercial, art, and general classrooms on the first floor. A covered walkway was also built to link Block SA Extension and Block SC.[30]
\nThe plan form that resulted, with buildings one room wide with verandahs for circulation and angled around an open-ended courtyard, was characteristic of the organic planning principles first adopted by the DPW in the 1950s, where classroom wings were connected to and fanned away from a central nucleus. Master planning schemes were focussed on the ideal solar orientation of buildings as well as their relationship to the natural contours, resulting in asymmetrical building layouts. Spaces captured between buildings created playground areas and courtyards. At Kelvin Grove, the former infants building was retained as the nucleus and main entrance to the high school.[31]
\nThe new buildings had expressed concrete framework with lightweight infill panels, and incorporated contemporary materials and fenestration, such as ribbed metal panels, awning windows and adjustable louvres. Their tiled gable roofs and facebrick ends were complementary to the school’s 1950s buildings. The main entrance to Block SA Extension, through the stairwell at the junction with Block SA, incorporated a tile-clad wall and a raised planting bed with decorative brickwork. The classrooms (7.3m wide) were linked by verandahs with bag rack balustrades, and standard arrangements of classrooms, storerooms and facilities were provided for specific subjects.[32]
\nThe steeply sloping site of the high school required major ground works to prepare it for development. By c1963 a driveway was built to the east of Block SC, running from L’Estrange Terrace to Victoria Park Road at the intersection with Tank Street.[33] During 1963 the Parents and Citizens Committee assisted with the terracing of the valley to the northeast of the high school, enabling the construction of tennis courts, basketball courts and an oval.[34]
\nA large, brick veneer manual training building (called Block SD in 2018) was built to the southeast of the other buildings, along Victoria Park Road, between 1961 and 1963. Built as a modified version of a standard early-1960s plan, it accommodated six workshops (woodwork, metalwork, and drawing rooms, each approx. 9.3 x 8m) male toilets, machine room, store room, and staffroom. It was a long narrow building with a steel portal frame structure and clerestory windows. It was predominantly of brick construction with lightweight infill panels of crimped metal and glazing. Normally single storey, at Kelvin Grove a partial understorey, accommodating an open recreation area, was added to the building, due to the slope of the land.[35]
\nOn 30 April 1963, the high school held a function to celebrate the official opening of the school. Over the following decades, further high school buildings were constructed to the east and southeast of the c1963 driveway.[36]
\nIn c1977 alterations to Block SA/SB were carried out. The ground floor play areas were enclosed and partitioned to form staff offices (Block SB) and classrooms (Block SA). Partitioning of the former kindergarten room formed a reception and administration area, and partitions were removed from the first floor of the entrance bay to form a staff common room.[37]
\nIn c1984 Block JB was altered to form a library on the first floor. Folding partitions between classrooms were removed and the wall between two classrooms and the corridor was demolished. Further alterations occurred in 1990, including demolition of the remaining corridor wall.[38]
\nIn 1995 and 2003, part of the southwest corner of the primary school site was resumed for road widening. Consequently the 1930 brick gateway was relocated further back on the site. It was reconstructed from modern brickwork and is smaller in size, but retains the 1930 concrete lintel, post caps and marble plaques.[39]
\nKelvin Grove State College 2002 – present
\nIn 2002 Kelvin Grove State School and Kelvin Grove State High School were merged to form Kelvin Grove State College. A ‘Junior School’ occupied the former primary school site; and a ‘Middle School’ and ‘Senior School’ shared the former high school site. As part of the merger the school entered a considerable ‘renewal’ program, including alterations to existing buildings and construction of new buildings.[40] Alterations were made to Blocks SA/SB, and SC to accommodate the Middle School, with some verandahs enclosed and internal partitions removed and rearranged. Additions included an awning roof built along the courtyard side of Block SA/SB, and ramps and a lift for equitable access.[41]
\nIn c2003, the section of Victoria Park Road running through the school was closed and all but a public footpath amalgamated into the former high school site.[42]
\nIn 2018, Kelvin Grove State College continues to operate from its original sites and retains its 1950s and early-1960s masonry buildings with their associated landscaping. It continues to grow, and has long-established reputation for academic excellence.[43] It is a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Kelvin Grove State College (established in 1875) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of government-designed school buildings that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with sporting facilities and assembly and play areas.
\nThe school retains two representative examples of post-World War II (WWII) suburban brick state school buildings (Block JA, 1950, and Block SA/SB, 1952) that are important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland state school architecture in the post-WWII period, and were lauded at the time as being exemplars of the Queensland Government’s new approach to school design.
\nThe World War I (WWI) Honour Board (1918) and WWI Memorial Gateway lintel (1919, relocated 1952) are important in demonstrating the school community’s involvement in a major world event. War memorials are a tribute from the community to those who served, and those who died. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Kelvin Grove State College is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a post-war suburban primary school complex and a 1960s suburban high school complex. These include: two distinct site planning arrangements; a range of high quality masonry buildings designed by the DPW; and a generous, landscaped site with assembly areas and sporting facilities.
\nBlocks JA (1950) and SA/SB (1952) and their forecourts demonstrate the principal characteristics of a post-war school site plan, being arranged symmetrically along an axis and featuring prominent central entrance bays. The high school extensions to Block SA/SB demonstrate the principal characteristics of organic site planning principles developed in the 1950s, with their asymmetrical layout of long, narrow classroom blocks fanning away from a central nucleus, and arranged to follow the contours of the site around an open-ended courtyard.
\nBlocks JA, JB (1955) and SA/SB demonstrate the principal characteristics of purpose-designed, post-war masonry classroom blocks, with their two or three storey form with ground floor play areas (some now enclosed); high quality design with restrained ornamentation; facebrick exterior; and terracotta tile roofs. The building interiors contain typical linear layouts of classrooms, staff and store rooms, accessed by a single long corridor along the northern side.
\nHigh school additions Block SA Extension (1961) and Block SC (1961-63) demonstrate the principal characteristics of early-1960s, masonry high school classroom blocks, with their roof form and aesthetic treatment modified to complement the style of Block SA/SB. The principal characteristics of this type include: expressed concrete framework with lightweight infill panels of ribbed metal and glazing; brick-enclosed ends of the buildings; banks of awning windows; large classrooms linked by verandahs; fixed glazing and combinations of vertical and horizontal louvres to verandah walls; bag rack balustrades; and standard arrangements of rooms and facilities for specific subjects.
\nBlock SD (1961-1963) demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early-1960s, brick veneer manual training building, with its facebrick exterior; lightweight infill panels of ribbed metal and glazing; banks of awning windows and louvres; steel portal frame construction; southern-facing clerestory windows; metal roof cladding; and large work rooms.
|Kelvin Grove State College is important for the aesthetic significance of blocks JA and SA/SB and their forecourts, as they demonstrate beautiful and expressive attributes.
\nDesigned as a complementary pair to be viewed from the intersection of L’Estrange Terrace and Victoria Park Road, these buildings display the beautiful attributes of symmetry and legibility, and are united by their consistent form, scale, high quality materials and aesthetic treatment. Appreciation of their front elevations is enhanced by being set back behind formal, triangular forecourts and approached by a symmetrical layout of pathways and stairs. The buildings and their forecourts remain highly intact and provide an attractive and impressive entrance to the school.
\nThrough their composition and aesthetic treatment, the buildings are expressive of a new phase of school design in Queensland in the post-war period that embraced modern architecture and rejected revival styles. The highly intact exteriors are carefully detailed, with a strong horizontal emphasis, minimal embellishment, and distinctive entrance bays. When complete, the buildings were highly praised for their modern design and amenity, and were described as the best examples of school architecture in Queensland.
|Schools have always played an important part in Queensland communities. They typically retain significant and enduring connections with former pupils, parents, and teachers; provide a venue for social interaction and volunteer work; and are a source of pride, symbolising local progress and aspirations.
\nKelvin Grove State College has a strong and ongoing association with the surrounding community. It was established on the Junior School site in 1875 through the fundraising efforts of the local community, has expanded to include both primary and high school education, and generations of children have been taught there. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the community and is a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social and commemorative events with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650081,"name":"Kuranda Fig Tree Avenue","alternate_name":"Avenue of Ficus Microcarpa and Ficus Obliqua trees","street_address":"Coondoo Street","suburb":"KURANDA","lga":"MAREEBA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-07-27","description":"Kuranda is a small town on the Barron River in the Atherton Tableland surrounded by rainforest hinterland approximately 19km northwest of Cairns in Far North Queensland. The Coondoo Street fig trees span the 430m length of the street between Arara Street and Therwine Street and are located on both sides, forming an impressive avenue effect when viewed along Coondoo Street due to their curtain roots, substantial trunk, and overarching canopies.
\nThere are 27 mature fig trees of the varieties: Ficus Microcarpa, the Small-fruited Fig (9); and Ficus Obliqua, the Small-leaved Fig (18) – refer Boundary Map 2. Both varieties are strangler figs and. The trees range in height from 13m to 30m, with the majority reaching close to 20m and above. Many of the trees have extensive aerial roots which stretch from the branches to the ground creating a curtaining effect. The circumferences of the trunks vary, from 2.7m to 19.6m. The canopies of the trees spread out over the street creating a shaded passageway over many sections of the street. The spread of the canopies vary in size from 9m to 26.5m with the majority stretching over 16m.
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nKuranda is a small hinterland town approximately 19km northwest of Cairns in Far North Queensland. The avenue of mature fig trees which line the main street of Kuranda, Coondoo Street, were planted by the Woothakata Shire Council in the early 1930s to beautify the street and enhance the town’s appeal to visitors. The trees were planted at a time when Kuranda was experiencing exceptionally high tourist numbers. Kuranda was, and continues to be, one of Queensland’s most popular tourist towns.
\nPart of the traditional land of the Djabugay speaking people, Kuranda was surveyed in 1888 in anticipation of development which would accompany the arrival of the railway [QHR 600755]. Kuranda, situated at the top of the Macalister Range, became the principal station after Cairns when the line opened in 1891 and remained so until the railway extended to Atherton in 1903.[1]
\nThe line encouraged agricultural development and by the 1890s several farms had been established in the area. Large amounts of timber were hewn and provided the early settlers with an income; coffee was grown for a time and there was also dairying and cattle grazing.[2] A small township began to develop close to the railway station and by 1895 was described in the Post Office Directories as the “centre of a large agricultural district with rich alluvial scrub soil. A favourite resort for tourists and others visiting the Barron Falls”.[3]
\nThe railway proved to be the impetus for tourism to flourish at Kuranda. Travellers from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne came to Cairns by ship and caught the train to Kuranda.[4] The renowned scenic qualities of the railway led to the recognition of the area’s tourist potential. Marketed in the south as a winter destination, the tourist season in the Cairns region generally stretched from May to October, which avoided the cyclone season.[5]
\nThe Kuranda railway station stood between the Barron River and the small settlement of Kuranda at the rise of the hill and by 1888 the road from the railway station up to the township was called Coondoo Street. This street swiftly became the town’s high street.[6] By 1895 Kuranda could boast the railway station, provisional school, butcher, stores and the Kuranda Hotel. [7] In 1910 the small community opened the School of Arts hall in Coondoo Street.[8] From 1920 Kuranda was part of the Woothakata Shire.[9]
\nBy the early 1910s Kuranda had become one of Queensland’s most popular tourist attractions, with many visitors arriving by rail daily.[10] The completion of the Brisbane-Cairns railway link in 1924 (called the ‘Sunshine Route' from 1929) provided another option for reaching Cairns.[11] This also meant an increase in tourist numbers to Kuranda.[12]
\nThe main attraction that brought tourists to Kuranda was the Barron Falls, described as early as 1885, “in flood time the Barron Falls throw even immortal Niagara into the shade”.[13] The train line from Cairns to Kuranda took tourists past the falls, where the train would stop and passengers were able to walk along the bridge to view the falls.[14] From here it was only a short 1.5 mile (2.4km) ride to Kuranda Station.
\nOnce at Kuranda, several other attractions had been established to take advantage of the flow of tourists; two rainforest parks, the ‘Fairyland Tea Gardens’ (1914) and ‘The Maze’ (1923) were situated across the Barron River where tourists were taken over by punt.[15] Another popular attraction was Frederick Pankhurst Dodd’s entomology collection. Popularly called ‘the Butterfly Man of Kuranda’, Dodd began showing his extensive collection of butterflies and insects to the public from his home on Coondoo Street in 1910 for a small fee, leaving visitors “amazed at their wondrous beauty, and altogether at the vastness and variety of the collection placed before us”.[16] This collection was to prove to be one of the most important in the country and was donated to the Queensland Museum after Dodd’s death in 1937.[17]
\nA picture theatre opened in 1923 and in 1928 a bridge was built over the Barron River which connected the town with tourist attractions on the other side of the river.[18] In 1926 the Cairns Range Road, renamed Gillies Highway in 1934, was opened, providing vehicle access to Yungaburra and Atherton from Gordonvale.[19] The construction of the Barron Falls Hydro-electric Power Station (1932-35) attracted more tourists and provided the town with electricity.[20]
\nSeemingly unaffected by the harsh economic climate caused by the Great Depression, visitor numbers to Kuranda peaked in the early 1930s; Kuranda had become the ‘winter playground of the Southern tourist’ with visitors flocking to the small town for either day trips or for longer holidays .[21] In 1932 it was reported that the Queensland Tourist Bureaus in Melbourne and Sydney were experiencing record levels of bookings and the shipping companies conveying the tourists up the coast were also solidly booked. To cater for this demand, the winter tourist season in this year, which usually began in May, was officially started in April. [22]
\nIn the 1920s and 30s a series of promotional booklets were published by the Queensland Government’s Tourist Bureau, encouraging southern and overseas visitors to North Queensland. Titles such as ‘North Queensland: Australia’s Richest Territory’, ‘North Queensland: The Cream of the Continent’, ‘Winter Tours in Queensland’ and ‘Queensland is Different’, celebrated the major attractions in the region.[23] As one of the region’s most popular tourist destinations at this time, Kuranda was featured widely in these publications. Evocative descriptions of the village included phrases such as “the gardens glitter with colour and brilliancy” and “the varied beauty of the little tourist township among the clouds … offers a charming introduction to the magnificent scenery on the … Tablelands”.[24]
\nAdding to this experience was the Kuranda Railway Station which featured award winning gardens. By 1931 it had won the annual Railway Department’s station garden competition nine times.[25] The station’s reputation as a regular winner also contributed to the town’s appeal as a tourist attraction and in 1931 it was stated in the Brisbane Courier “that is why Kuranda railway station is winning for itself a world-wide reputation, which ultimately must benefit Queensland”.[26]
\nAmid this activity, a local councillor, Robert James Bartley, recognised the potential for the main street of Kuranda, Coondoo Street, to be one of the most attractive in the Cairns region. When tourists arrived at Kuranda they were greeted by the stunning gardens of the railway station. As they walked up the hill to Coondoo Street, it was envisaged that this scenic greenery be continued through the small town.
\nThroughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, principles of town planning, influenced by the ‘Garden City’ and ‘City Beautiful’ movements, began to be adopted by some local councils in Queensland.[27] Street-tree planting was a part of this as a way of enhancing the urban landscape as well as providing shade, particularly in the harsh Queensland summers.[28] The Main Roads Commission envisaged the benefit of planting avenues of trees along main roads across Queensland in the interwar period. The motor car had become more accessible and affordable to many and the potential for the State to benefit from these tourists was recognised by the Commission which implemented a scheme to not only improve the roads, but to also beautify them with street-tree plantings[29] In North Queensland, trees were planted along the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in the early 1930s.[30] In 1932, the importance of street-tree planting in a town planning context was emphasized in the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland, which stated “the planting of trees in streets should be vigorously and systematically undertaken, for nothing relieves the often monotony of street lines and gives such a sense of rest and refreshment as the appearance of a beautiful avenue of trees”.[31]
\nIn June 1931 the Cairns Post reported that “Mr J. Bartley, Councillor Woothakata Shire, has finalised arrangements for the planting of a row of trees on each side of the main street in Kuranda”.[32] The varieties chosen were two types of figs, the Small-fruited Fig, Ficus Microcarpa, and the Small-leaved Fig, Ficus Obliqua. Both varieties were strangler figs. The third variety chosen was the African tulip tree (Spathodea Campanulata) due to its floral display when in bloom. These varieties were considered to thrive in a tropical environment such as Kuranda. Frederick Dodd, ‘the butterfly man of Kuranda’, donated the African tulip trees as the flowers were attractive to butterflies.[33]
\nBy July 1931 tree guards and holes for the trees had been installed along Coondoo Street, with the Northern Herald reporting “a further step forward in the beautification of Coondoo Street is the completion of the erection of the tree guards and the digging of holes ready for the planting of the trees”.[34] The plantings had been completed by September 1931 and Councillor Bartley was congratulated for his foresight.[35] The trees, planted along the full length of Coondoo Street, between Arara and Therwine streets (430m), thrived in Kuranda’s tropical setting. Residents of Kuranda began to complain to the Woothakata Shire Council about the need for the trees to be pruned as they had begun to overhang the footpath and caused pedestrians inconvenience. It was requested that the work be carried out before the start of the tourist season. The work was eventually completed in August 1937. [36]
\nDuring World War II organised tours in the Cairns region ceased.[37] Urgent road works had been carried out on the Cairns to Kuranda road by mid-1942 to provide decent vehicular access to the Atherton Tableland for the military. Prior to this the road was little more than a rough track. [38] This was to prove to be a boon for Kuranda in the postwar years as it allowed visitors to drive up to the Barron Falls rather than having to rely on the train.[39]
\nImmediately following the end of the war, Kuranda was once again one of the major tourist attractions in North Queensland. In 1946 it was reported that visitor numbers equalled those of the late 1930s.[40] The Tourist Bureau offered organised tours and in 1949 the ‘Tropic of Wonderland Tour’ was reportedly heavily booked[41] and other tours such as the ‘Grand Tour’ were advertised in full colour advertisements in national magazines such as the Australian Women’s Weekly.[42]
\nIt is unclear when the African tulip trees were removed, but this may have been a result of one or numerous cyclones that frequently damaged the township.[43] Several of the trees were also removed for road improvements in 1949.[44] A succession of aerial photographs ranging from the early 1950s to the 1980s demonstrate the trees’ strong contribution to the townscape. The trees in the 1950s were clearly large and numerous along both sides of Coondoo Street. By the 1980s through to the late 1990s the figs had matured further and their expansive canopies and large trunks created an impressive tree-scape along the main street.[45]
\nVisitor numbers to Kuranda by rail reflect the ongoing popularity of the town as a tourist attraction, with 37,350 passengers in 1967, 47,200 in 1970 and 105,316 in 1980.[46] In 1995 a major attraction, the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, was completed, travelling from Cairns to Kuranda over the rainforest and Barron Falls. The Kuranda terminal is located close by the railway station, ensuring the thousands of visitors to the town continue to walk up the hill and into Coondoo Street via Bartley’s tree-lined streetscape.[47]
\nIn the late 1990s Coondoo Street underwent a major revitalisation project by the Mareeba Shire Council. Low stone and concrete walls were constructed around the mature fig trees for protection and aesthetics, a reflection of the value the community and visitors place on the trees. Other landscape features were installed at this time including garden beds, pavement treatment and street furniture.
\nThe Kuranda Fig Tree Avenue, planted in 1931 as a civic beautification scheme by the local authority, retains 27 mature trees. The avenue continues to be an important element of the streetscape, valued by the local residents and visitors alike. The trees contribute to the character and tropical beauty of the street and are often photographed by visiting tourists.
","criteria":"The Kuranda Fig Tree Avenue (established 1931) is important in demonstrating the development of tourism in Far North Queensland in the interwar period. Planted to beautify the main street of the town, the avenue illustrates the intention of the local authorities to enhance the tourist experience in Kuranda, which was a major attraction at both a state and national level.
\nThe avenue of fig trees are a good representative example of a civic tree planting scheme of the interwar period, a time when town planning principles were being adopted throughout Queensland by local and state government authorities, in particular the beautification of civic spaces.
|Kuranda Fig Tree Avenue, an avenue of mature fig trees lining the main street of Kuranda, is important for its contribution to the streetscape and for creating a sense of shaded tropical beauty. Intentionally connected to the celebrated tropical gardens of the Kuranda Railway Station, the canopies of the trees create a physical and visual tunnelling effect along many parts of the street and contribute to Kuranda’s distinctive tropical character. The expansive trunks of many of the trees and the extensive aerial roots which stretch from the branches to the ground are often photographed by visiting tourists. The avenue of trees are significant for their scenic and landmark qualities.
|Planted in the early 1930s through the efforts of local council and community benefactors, the avenue of fig trees is valued by residents throughout the Atherton Tablelands and Cairns districts and by the large numbers of visitors to the town as an important signature of the Kuranda townscape. The trees have been valued by the community and visitors since the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650083,"name":"Laurel Bank Park","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"cnr West Street, Hill Street and Herries Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA CITY","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-11-30","description":"Laurel Bank Park is 4.3ha public park used for recreation, gardening and public events, and located approximately 800m southwest of Toowoomba Railway Station [QHR 600872]. The formal entrance to the park is via West Street (west), with other sides of the site bounded and accessed by Hill Street (north), Laurel Lane, residential properties, and disability support services (east), and Herries Street (south). The park is largely an open space with turf, garden beds, established trees and buildings.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance within the park include:
\nfootpaths and site arrangement, including axes and sightlines through the park from surrounding streets
\nLandscaping
\nThe park landscaping is manicured and includes established exotic and native trees, shrubs, flowering plants, and expanses of lawns.
\nLandscape features also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nspecimen trees:
\nOther established trees, including, but not limited to:
\npalms:
\n\n
hedges, including:
\nFootpaths and Site Arrangement
\nTwo footpaths run through the park and define its geometric and formal site arrangement. They are the primary circulation routes, providing strong sight-lines to and from the surrounding streets and through the park. They run between:
\nCommemoration Gates (1934)
\nThe Commemoration Gates are centred on the West Street boundary, marking the formal entrance to the park. The gates comprise four blue-stone pillars with squared stone capping of a lighter colour and wrought iron gates. They commemorate SG Stephens.
\nTwo stone plaques, dated 30 October 1932 (park gifted to the city) and 30 June 1934 (gates opened), are mounted on the two central pillars.
\nFloral Display Area (pre-1943)
\nThe Floral Display Area is an approximately rectangular space at the northwest end of the site. A focal point of the park, gardens in this area are regularly reconfigured, themed, and bedded with flowering plants for display (particularly for Toowoomba’s annual Carnival of Flowers).
\nFeatures of the Floral Display Area also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLaurel Bank Croquet Club (1935-1939)
\nThe Laurel Bank Croquet Club is located on the southwest side of the park. It comprises a croquet clubhouse (1938) with two croquet lawns (1935) to the northeast and northwest.
\nThe clubhouse is a rectangular, timber-framed structure, set on a stone base and sheltered by a hip roof with a projecting northern gable. Externally, it is approximately symmetrical and its northern verandah is approached by small stairs at the east and west.
\nFeatures of the croquet club also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\ntwo croquet lawns, with their:
\ncroquet clubhouse, with its:
\nMess Hall (former) (c1943-45)
\nThe Mess Hall (former) is located at the northeast end of the site, east of the Floral Display Area. It is a single-storey, prefabricated, timber-framed hall, of the Allied Works Council’s ‘CA’ type. The building is approximately ‘T’-shaped in plan, has perpendicular gable roofs, and remains in its original location, which is uncommon. It is accessed via a northern verandah, with secondary entrances to the east (concrete stair) and west (recent ramp). A brick chimney protrudes from the east end of the building. Evidence of its prefabrication is visible in the roof trusses (internally exposed at the south end of the building), paired eaves brackets, and notches in timber floor joists.
\nThe interior comprises a dining room (former) and recreation room (former), entered via the front verandah. Located at the west, the dining room is the larger of the two spaces and features a raised platform at the south end. East of the dining room is the recreation room, and south of the dining room is a servery (former canteen), kitchen and store rooms (former scullery and store).
\nOriginal additions to the standard mess hall plan include: a front verandah enclosure forming a ticketing office; toilets and store rooms south of the recreation room (excluding some recent toilet partitions); and an enclosure to the southeast verandah.
\nFeatures of the Mess Hall (former) also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of State-level heritage significance
\nFeatures within Laurel Bank Park that are not considered to be of state-level heritage significance include:
\nLaurel Bank Park is a 4.3 hectare public park situated approximately 900m southwest from Toowoomba’s CBD, bounded by Herries, West and Hill streets. The park was donated to the city of Toowoomba in 1932 by local resident Samuel George Stephens (junior), after almost thirty years of developing the beautiful gardens. Within the park are many cold climate mature trees considered of horticultural importance. Two croquet lawns and a croquet clubhouse were added to the park in the 1930s. During World War II (WWII) the park was used as a United States Navy (USN) submariners’ rest and recreation camp, and the intact Mess Hall (former), is the only building remaining from the camp in the park. Since the 1930s, the picturesque park has been a major tourist attraction in Toowoomba and this continues today.
\nThe Toowoomba area is the traditional land of the Giabal people.[1] The area was surveyed and sold for private development in 1853 and named Toowoomba in 1858. In July 1865 the first section of railway line in Queensland was opened to Ipswich, and by April 1867 a railway line reached Toowoomba. In 1887 Toowoomba was proclaimed a town.[2]
\nAt an elevation of 700m above sea level, Toowoomba experiences cool temperatures throughout the year. The climate has enabled certain species of trees and plants, unable to be grown in warmer areas such as Brisbane, to flourish.[3] By the early 1920s the town was increasingly known as the ‘Garden City’, due to the large number of beautiful and well-established private gardens, its extensive street-tree plantings dating to the 1870s, and numerous landscaped parks.[4] Civic pride has been fostered by Toowoomba residents through their gardens and parks, reflected by the establishment of a series of garden competitions and festivals which took place from the early 1900s until the end of World War I.[5]
\nThe Stephens family were important Toowoomba pioneers. Samuel George Stephens (senior) arrived in Toowoomba from Wales in 1863. SG Stephens played a role in the town’s progress. A successful businessman, he was one of the owners of the Darling Downs Gazette and a founder of the Darling Downs Building Society. Philanthropic pursuits included involvement in the establishment of the Toowoomba Grammar School, the Toowoomba hospital, the fire brigade and his parish church.[6] One of his major endeavours was the garden at his home ‘Llanwyn’, also in Herries Street, considered one of the most beautiful in Toowoomba at the time.[7] His son, Samuel George Stephens (junior), who was born in Toowoomba in 1872, inherited his father’s love of horticulture. Educated at Toowoomba Grammar School, he joined his father’s business, becoming managing director in 1909. He continued his father’s philanthropic commitment to community and charitable causes including the Toowoomba General Hospital, the Toowoomba Cemetery Trust, the Toowoomba School of Arts committee, and as a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty.[8]
\nIn 1904 Stephens purchased two lots of land totalling approximately 1087m² on Hill Street, West Toowoomba. Over the next 12 years he incrementally acquired another 44 lots creating an area of approximately 4 hectares, and removed existing houses from the properties.[9] By 1918 the majority of the block bounded by Hill, West and Herries streets was in Stephens’ ownership.[10] As the land was cleared, Stephens transformed it into an extensive garden which by 1934 was considered to be one of the most beautiful in Toowoomba.[11]
\nAs early as the mid-nineteenth century, there was a focus on the importation of exotic plant species to Queensland, attested by the establishment of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society in 1862 as well as several botanic gardens including the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens (1855). The foremost intention was to test the propagation potential of certain species that may be commercially suitable for Queensland’s fledgling agricultural industry. Trials on ornamental trees for civic and domestic spaces were also undertaken and these gardens became places of passive recreation for the public.[12]
\nDuring the interwar period, as suburban expansion increased throughout Australian cities, residents moved away from the crowded inner-city suburbs and into newly subdivided housing estates. A new focus on gardening emerged and the nursery industry boomed. There was a demand for both imported, exotic species as well as for native varieties. Specialist nurseries catered for this burgeoning demand.[13] Stephens established his garden amid this renewed vigour.
\nFor almost 30 years Stephens worked tirelessly in his garden, designing its layout and displays, and planting and maintaining it.[14] He aspired to establish a garden that would give pleasure to people, rather than cultivating plants of commercial or scientific value, as was often the case in Queensland’s botanic gardens.[15]
\nStephens imported a wide variety of exotic, rare and valuable tree, plant and flower specimens for his garden. Contemporary reports described the gardens in 1932, as ‘a comprehensive collection of rare shrubs and plants, Japanese and Chinese importations … there are 5000 gladioli, comprising 400 kinds, and 2000 daffodils, consisting of 30 varieties. The bulbs total 25,000. Beds of flowers and trees are picturesquely arranged among well-kept lawns’.[16] As it developed, the garden was admired by Toowoomba residents[17] and Stephens soon became known to many as ‘the man of flowers’.[18] In 1932, when asked to comment on Stephens’ garden, the curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens [QHR 600067], Ernest William Bick, declared it was ‘the largest and most varied collection in Australia’.[19] Numerous species of oak, cedar, maple and palm trees were imported for the garden and many of these species were, at the time, considered to be very rare in Australia.[20] Over the years, Stephens supplied the Toowoomba hospital with his flowers.[21]
\nIn 1932, Stephens gifted the garden to the people of Toowoomba as a public park.[22] The official opening ceremony on the 31 October 1932, was attended by Stephens, the Mayor, FJ Paterson, and several other dignitaries. The Mayor, on behalf of the citizens of Toowoomba, accepted the deeds, and his wife declared that ‘Mr Stephens had not spared time, money or experience in making the garden one of the most beautiful in Australia’.[23]
\nOn handing the garden to the Council, Stephens made several stipulations. The first was to have the park named ‘Laurel Bank’ as he did not want it to be named after him. Another was to allow a portion of the park to be used for tennis, croquet or basketball; no sport, however, was to be played in the park on Sundays, Good Friday and Anzac Day. Flowers from the park would continue to be supplied to the Toowoomba hospital.[24] At the time, it was reported that the improved property was valued at £10,000.[25]
\nTo memorialise this generous donation to the city, commemoration gates were erected by the Council at the entrance to Laurel Bank Park in 1934. They consisted of locally-quarried bluestone pillars with decorative wrought-iron gates and 2 commemorative plaques. The official dedication ceremony was held in June 1934 and was attended by the Mayor, JD Annand, and his wife. Stephens also attended and stated that ‘Laurel [Bank] Park was given to the people of Toowoomba for their benefit for ever’.[26]
\nThe donation of the park was a gesture uncommon in both the history of Toowoomba and the state. Other parks and gardens developed privately and now owned publically were generally acquired by the government, including Newstead Park, Brisbane [QHR 602265] and Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens at Indooroopilly [QHR 602838].[27] Stephen’s gift differed, as the fully established park was a donation to the Council; at the time, it was declared one of the most generous donations for Toowoomba and Queensland.[28]
\nFollowing agreements with Stephens and the Council, the Laurel Bank Croquet Club was formed in 1934 and was the third croquet club in Toowoomba.[29] It was agreed that a portion of Laurel Bank Park would be dedicated for two croquet lawns and a clubhouse. Fundraising for the club began almost immediately with garden parties and fetes held in the park. Two lawns were laid by March 1935 and timber benches installed.[30] Much of the work was undertaken as Depression-era relief work, provided by the Council.[31] The official opening ceremony in March 1935 was attended by Stephens, who was given the honour of striking the first ball, and stated that he hoped ‘the members would have much happiness and pleasure in using them’.[32]
\nAfter much effort, funds were eventually raised to begin the construction of a clubhouse to the design of architect Matthew C Williamson.[33] When completed in 1938, the new clubhouse was described as ‘a compact, cream-painted building, finished with touches of brown … it stands in a picturesque setting on green lawns, shade trees and flowering shrubs’.[34] The official opening on the 7 May 1938 was attended by Mayor Annand, state minsters and aldermen, as well as Stephens and Williamson. Timber seats around the lawns had been built by 1936 and the creepers to shade the seats also planted that year.[35] Timber fences surrounding both lawns were complete by 1939.[36]
\nToowoomba was considered a mountain retreat for those attempting to escape the heat and humidity, abundant in other parts of Queensland.[37] To re-invigorate the city’s tourist potential a promotional campaign was carried out in 1931 by the Toowoomba Tourist Bureau ‘for the purpose of making an effort to attract visitors’.[38] The campaign proved successful and by 1938 Toowoomba experienced record numbers of tourists.[39] Over the next decade, a guidebook of several editions was produced.
\nLaurel Bank Park was one of the main attractions featured in the guidebook. Stephens’ generous donation to the city was always noted, as were the extensive and important plantings, ‘nowhere in Australia is to be found a finer collection of Japanese flowering plants ... There are trees and shrubs in Laurel Bank Park not to be found anywhere else in Australia’.[40] In 1940 the Darling Downs Centenary Souvenir, 1840-1940 featured Laurel Bank Park as one of Toowoomba’s most attractive parks.[41]
\nFollowing the United States of America’s entry into WWII, Brisbane became the strategic centre for planning for the South West Pacific Campaign. Military camps and infrastructure were swiftly constructed throughout Queensland and thousands of US and Australian troops awaited deployment to the Pacific.[42] Facilities for troops on rest and recreation leave (R&R) were also established. In Toowoomba, the US Navy (USN) built two R&R camps for submariners – one in Laurel Bank Park and the other in Newtown Park.[43] The main R&R camps for the USN were situated in Coolangatta, on the Gold Coast, but these do not survive.[44]
\nIn Laurel Bank Park, a series of temporary timber camp buildings were erected in the northwest and southeast corner of the park. A mess hall was also built on a lawn situated behind a curved avenue of palm trees fronting Hill Street. The camp could accommodate up to 100 enlisted men.[45] The construction of the camp buildings was organised through the Allied Works Council (AWC) and carried out by the Department of Public Works.[46]
\nThe design of the Mess Hall (former) followed the AWC’s standard design, the pre-cut ‘CA’ type, which was widely used throughout Australia.[47] The basic module of the ‘CA’ type was for sleeping or stores huts and could be adapted to other uses. It was rectangular in plan, raised on stumps, made with a timber frame, various wall claddings and a gable roof. They were designed to be made of readily available local materials and constructed by local contractors using common building techniques. Tens of thousands of ‘CA’ type huts were built across Australia during WWII. At war’s end, the Commonwealth Disposals Commission sold many of ‘CA’ huts, which were either relocated or demolished.
\nStephens died in 1944 before he could witness the park returned to its pre-WWII beauty. In September 1945, his sister, Miss MR Stephens wrote a letter to the Town Clerk conveying her brother’s sadness over the military buildings in the park, and stressed that these structures should be removed. She was sure the citizens of Toowoomba ‘would rejoice to have Laurel Bank again as a place of rest and beauty’.[48]
\nBy 1947 the majority of the camp buildings had been removed from the park. Many of them were relocated by the Council to a site a few kilometres away on the corner of West and Fanny streets, to be converted into homes for the aged.[49] Others were sold to various church and community groups and moved off site.[50] The Mess Hall (former) was retained in the park as a community hall. It was initially used by the YWCA and the West Toowoomba Progress Association and later as a dance venue and for wedding receptions.[51] The hall continues to be an important community centre in Toowoomba.
\nIn a public meeting in the Toowoomba town hall in September 1949, a decision was made to revive the garden competitions and festivals.[52] The first ‘Carnival of Flowers’ was held in October 1950 and was a resounding success, with more than 50,000 people lining the main street to watch the opening parade.[53] Since then, the carnival has continued every year and is visited by thousands of people from around the state and the country. It is Queensland’s longest running annual festival.[54]
\nLaurel Bank Park featured as a main attraction during the carnival with the Council planting thousands of flowers in the park for the event.[55] In the 1951 souvenir brochure, the park was included on the official programme with a band scheduled to play in the park on Sunday afternoon.[56] In subsequent souvenir brochures, the park was also featured as an attraction not to be missed.[57]
\nWithin the park are numerous horticulturally important cold climate trees Stephens imported from other countries. Several of these have been identified in the National Trust of Australia’s Significant Tree Register; an Oak (Lithocarpus Spp), Mori Oak (Quercus Morii), a Bristle-toothed Oak (Quercus Acutissima), an English Oak (Quercus Robur), and an avenue of Chilean Wine Palms (Jubaea Chilensis). All of these trees are identified as regionally important.[58] Laurel Bank Park is also listed on the Australian Government’s Directory of Australian Botanic Gardens, along with Toowoomba’s Queens Park and Botanic Gardens [QHR 601607].[59]
\nIn 1980 the Scented Gardens were established in the southeast corner of the park. It was an initiative by the Toowoomba City Council and the Rotary Club of Toowoomba East to provide a scented garden for people with visual impairments. The rose garden, wisteria arbour, picnic shelter, viewing platform, southern toilet block, children’s playground and topiaries were introduced to the garden in the 1990s.
\nIn 2018, Laurel Bank Park is a prominent attraction for locals, tourists, and horticultural enthusiasts and is listed on the Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor and Southern Queensland Country travel websites as one of the ‘top things to do’ in Toowoomba; with the park particularly popular during the city’s annual Carnival of Flowers.[60] The Laurel Bank Croquet Club continues to be a valuable community sporting facility close to the centre of Toowoomba. Stephens’ collection of important trees are considered to be of high horticultural value. The traditional layout of the gardens continue to reflect Stephens’ intention for the park to be a place of rest and beauty.
\n\n
\n
\n
\n
","criteria":"
Laurel Bank Park is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland’s private gardens and public parks. A privately owned garden established in 1904 by prominent Toowoomba resident, Samuel George Stephens, the property was gifted to the Toowoomba City Council in 1932 for use as a public park, providing rest, beauty and passive recreation for residents and visitors.
\nLaurel Bank Park retains important surviving evidence of the early layout of the park, including pathways, mature plantings and formal gardens, and long-term recreational use by the croquet club (1934).
\nLaurel Bank Park is important as a fine example of botanical amenity horticulture and the popular practice of importing exotic horticultural specimens during the early twentieth century. Many mature trees in the park demonstrate these practices, being cooler climate specimens imported from places such as China, Japan and South America.
\nThe Mess Hall (former) (1943-45) is an important example of the Australian and United States military’s requirements for the provision of rest and recreation camps for troops during World War II (WWII). The Mess Hall (former) is a good, intact example of a ‘CA’ hut, built under the Allied Works Council’s prefabrication programme.
|Laurel Bank Park’s collection of mature and established cooler climate trees is thought to be most extensive in Queensland, and as such is uncommon. Many horticulturally important specimens planted by Stephens by the 1930s are considered significant, including several varieties of oak, cedar and maple trees and Chilean wine palms.
|Laurel Bank Park is important as an intact and representative example of a Queensland park established in the early twentieth century. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type through its: formal site configuration; axial paths; open lawn areas; mature trees and landscaping, often planted in avenues; floral arrangements; formal entry gates; and the provision of passive recreation facilities (evidenced by a croquet clubhouse, croquet lawns, and a regularly-reconfigured floral display area).
\nThe Mess Hall (former) is an intact example of a prefabricated mess hall, constructed by the Allied Works Council for the United States military during WWII. The building remains in its original location and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type through: its prefabricated construction; gable roof with gable end vents; external cladding of timber chamferboards and flat sheets; timber stumps with metal ant-caps; timber-framed casement windows; internal wall and ceiling linings of flat sheets; timber floorboards; and large recreation and dining spaces, serviced by a kitchen, canteen, bathrooms and stores.
\nLaurel Bank Croquet Club in its form and layout is a good, intact example of a croquet club, demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type through its: domestic-scale clubhouse, which provides shelter, amenity and a social space to club members, and the storage of equipment; and two manicured croquet lawns with perimeter fencing and shaded seating.
|Laurel Bank Park is aesthetically important for its beautiful attributes. The well-composed, attractive park provides a harmonious setting of mature exotic and native trees, flowering plants bedded in formal arrangements, hedges, lawns; original Commemoration Gates (1934); and open space; with views and vistas along landscaped avenues, axial pathways and from surrounding streets.
\nThe strong aesthetic appeal of the park is demonstrated through the extensive and continuous use of images of the place in publications and travel guides promoting it as a beautiful park in Toowoomba and Queensland since the interwar period. Its popularity as a major tourist attraction in Toowoomba is particularly evident during the Carnival of Flowers, when its flowering displays are extensively photographed and appreciated by both the local community and tourists.
|Laurel Bank Park has been highly valued by the Toowoomba community and horticultural enthusiasts since SG Stephens gifted the park to the city in 1932. As one of the city’s major attractions, it has a longstanding association with the city’s annual Carnival of Flowers festival, Toowoomba’s premier cultural event and Queensland’s longest running festival. The park’s continuous use as a place for passive recreation has been sustained since the 1930s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650084,"name":"Wee MacGregor tram and rail complex and the former towns of Ballara and Hightville","alternate_name":null,"street_address":null,"suburb":"KURIDALA","lga":"CLONCURRY SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-03-01","description":"The Wee MacGregor tramway and rail complex and the former towns of Ballara and Hightville (c1909-1929), is located approximately 17km south of the Barkly Highway, roughly halfway between Mt Isa and Cloncurry. The place comprises the ruins of the:
\nSet in the Argylla Ranges, the terrain varies from south to north, being relatively low and flat around Ballara and increasingly hilly, steep and elevated towards and beyond Hightville, with expansive views offered from vantage points at Hightville and north of the tunnel. The rocky landscape is traversed by dry creeks and gullies, and vegetation includes Spinifex, Acacia and Eucalypt species.
\nWhile the ruins have been subject to deterioration and some disturbance, they continue to illustrate characteristics of their former functions and relationships. Collectively the remnant earthworks, structures, archaeological features and artefact scatters are a physical legacy of early 20th century mining transport infrastructure and associated occupation in the area. The place has the potential to reveal important information about the construction and operation of remote mining transport infrastructure, and the people who lived and worked there.
\nThe following description identifies significant features evident along the former tramway formation, and at the railway terminus and town sites, and is based on a site visit undertaken by DES in October 2018. Refer to place maps 1-9 for feature locations, areas of archaeological potential and previous surface disturbance.
\nBallara railway terminus
\nLocated north of the former town of Ballara, the railway terminus comprises: the former railway line, which aligned approximately east-west, and continued west from the former Ballara Station, past the freight platform and to just west of the ore transfer stage; and a former turning triangle formed by sidings that curved north from both the tramway and the railway towards former maintenance buildings.
\nFormer railway line and turning triangle
\nThe route of the former railway line (tracks removed 1929) is evidenced by a cutting, at and west of the former station, and several culverts between the turning triangle and ore transfer station. From near the freight platform and westwards has been graded for use as a modern dirt road.
\nThe former turning triangle is evidenced by earthworks including: a 50m long curved embankment, aligned northwest to southeast and located approximately 80m northwest of the railway station; and a 65m straight embankment, aligned north-south and located 140m north of the freight platform, with a culvert midway.
\nFormer Ballara Station and freight platform
\nThe former Ballara Station (east) and freight platform (west) are of similar construction and situated approximately 110m apart; both are positioned on the south side of the railway line and aligned east-west. Along with the maintenance buildings, they retain concrete building footings with 150-205mm thick off-form concrete wall bases that have rebated tops and embedded metal bolts, to which the (possibly prefabricated) building superstructure was fixed. Platforms have 600mm x 65mm thick precast concrete bullnose capping in 1.2m lengths.
\nFormer Ballara Station:
\nFormer freight platform:
\nFormer maintenance buildings
\nA collection of footings from former maintenance buildings are aligned north-south and located either side of the northern end of the former turning triangle:
\n
Other archaeological features and artefacts
A range of metal artefacts including rail wagons / ore bins are scattered around the terminus, and evidence of occupation includes sites to the west and northwest of the turning triangle.
\nOre transfer stage
\nThe ore transfer stage aligns east-west and comprises parallel stepped cuttings from the former railway (south, lower - recently graded) and tramway (north, upper) alignments, separated by a substantial concrete and earth platform that is flanked by a drystone retaining wall (east) and a curved embankment (west).
\nBallara to Wee MacGregor tramway formation
\nThe overall trajectory of the winding tramway formation between Ballara and the Wee MacGregor Mine is southeast to northwest (as constructed). From the ore loading stage the formation continues west approximately 400m, through relatively low, flat terrain. After a tight curve, the formation winds north, following and crossing a creek line, then to the east of the Hightville Cemetery (not part of QHR place), and includes the abutments of several bridges. The formation continues through the increasingly steep and elevated terrain, around the eastern and northern sides of Hightville, where the former Wallaroo Mine line branched to the northeast. North of Hightville, the formation passes through a tunnel and a series of tight curves form a loop around a hilltop at the northern end, finishing to the east of the former Wee MacGregor Mine.
\nWhile the tracks are no longer extant (removed 1921), the tramway formation is evidenced by earthworks including over 40 embankments and cuttings, drystone walls, culverts and eight bridge abutments. The scale, design and construction of these features ranges in response to the varying terrain, maintaining an optimal tramway gradient.
\nModern graded roads follow and cross parts of the formation, and have disturbed the surface in some areas.
\nCuttings, embankments and drystone retaining walls
\nCuttings and embankments along the tramway generally comprise straight and curved linear alignments, cut into and built up from the rocky contours and approaches to creek crossings. Relatively shallow cuttings and low earth embankments, some with local drystone pitching, are prevalent in the southern half of the formation, where there are numerous former bridges, while earthworks responding to the steeper terrain to the north combine more substantial cuttings, embankments and drystone retaining walls. Most embankments, and some cuttings, incorporate concrete culverts, often with stonework surrounding the outlets.
\nDeep, straight cuttings, through bedrock, approach the north and south tunnel entrances; erosion has raised the ground level of the southern cutting.
\nDrystone retaining walls are generally constructed of random-coursed local stone. In the tight curves of the northern loop they are several metres high and retain the benched earth formation.
\n\n
Former bridges
\nBridge remnants generally comprise off-form concrete winged abutments and rectangular concrete pier footings, with rebated edges (abutments only) and exposed metal bolts for fixing the timber structure. Abutment walls are generally 2.7-2.8m wide (plus angled wing walls of varying lengths) and spans range from 4.67m to 26.2m. The concrete has aggregate of varying size, including smooth creek pebbles. Former bridges from south to north include:
\nTunnel
\nAlong the tramway between the Wee MacGregor Mine and Hightville, the 77m long unlined tunnel through MacGregor Hill is orientated northwest-southeast and has rough-finished off-form concrete portals at both ends.
\nCulverts
\nConcrete culverts are evident along the length of the tramway formation. The majority are pre-cast concrete pipe culverts, some with stone surrounding the outlets, of varying sizes (approximately 300mm-750mm diameter) and single and double-pipe configurations.
\nTwo substantial off-form box culverts are located at the railway turning triangle and near the approach to Wee Macgregor Mine. They have rectangular openings flanked by angled concrete wings and a drystone retaining wall surround (northern culvert only).
\nFormer store and office
\nA former store and office is located east of the tramway formation, at Hightville, near the branch line to Wallaroo. Aligned north-south, it comprises a rectangular 13.5m x 6.3m two-tier building footprint of earth platforms surrounded by stone that is loosely coursed in some areas. The lower tier (west) is 2.5m wide, and the upper tier (east) is 3.8m wide and divided into two (7.2m and 6.2m) rooms; it is 400mm high, with several courses of stone at the southern end.
\nOther associated features and artefacts
\nEvidence of occupation dotted along the tramway includes a possible well, earth / stone platforms and hearths, and associated artefacts.
\nFormer town of Ballara
\nThe surveyed (1914) town site of Ballara comprises former Ainscow Street, which is orientated approximately east-west, and former Peberdy and Knox streets running perpendicular to the south. A Police Reserve (gazetted 1915) was located at the western end of former Ainscow Street. Evidence of domestic and commercial premises, concentrated along former Ainscow Street, includes earth, stone and concrete building foundations and platforms, and associated glass, metal and ceramic artefacts.
\nThe site of the former manager’s residence, on the northern side of former Ainscow Street, comprises concrete building footings for an L-shaped building core, with verandah post footings on the northern, eastern and southern sides. All footings are off-form concrete, with embedded metal bolts and brackets for fixing the superstructure. The core is 12.8m x 4.7-5.5m, and has a concrete slab floor and 230mm high wall bases that outline four rooms. Concrete steps, offset by 5.7m at the eastern end, are 650mm high and have evidence of light green paint.
\nA row of apparent shops and/or dwellings, visible along the southern side of former Ainscow Street in historical photographs of the town, are evidenced by an alignment of building footings and associated artefacts. From west to east they include:
\nFormer town of Hightville
\nLocated to the west and southwest of the tramway, the mining town of Hightville included: former Fountain Street, which followed a ridge in a north-south then northwest-southeast alignment; former Warrick Street, which zig-zagged to the northwest around a Police Reserve (gazetted 1918) and partly followed Wattle Creek; and Knox Street, which ran southwest off Warrick Street.
\nIn contrast with Ballara, Hightville was surveyed (1913) several years after it was established (c1909) and evidence of occupation can be found both within and to the north of the surveyed town; it includes earth and stone platforms, hearths and footings, and associated artefact scatters from domestic and commercial premises, as well as a town dump to the south. The building remnants appear less formal than those at Ballara and are constructed using predominately locally sourced materials.
\nOccupation sites located within the surveyed town, in the vicinity of former Fountain and Warrick streets include:
\nSeveral former dwelling and nearby dump sites are located west of the intersection of Warrick and Knox streets:
\nOccupation sites located to the north of the surveyed town include:
\nThe town dump comprises a collection of four distinct deposits (3.2m x 6.4m, 4.8m x 5.5m, 2.6m dia., and 2m x 3.3m) of predominantly green glass bottles and tin cans. There is some evidence of recent disturbance from shallow excavation. A survey cairn is located on a hill to the west of the dump.
\nFeatures not of State-level heritage significance
\nModern graded road surfaces, concrete slabs, fencing and interpretation signage are not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
","history":"‘The Wee MacGregor tram and rail complex and the former towns of Ballara and Hightville’ is located in the Argylla Ranges between Cloncurry and Mount Isa in North West Queensland, in the traditional country of the Kalkadoon people.[1] Constructed during an early 20th century boom in copper prices, the place includes the sites of two abandoned mining towns, Hightville and Ballara (surveyed in 1913 and 1914 respectively); the former western terminus (near Ballara) of a private 3ft 6in (1.1m) narrow gauge railway line, constructed 1913-14; and the route of an associated private 2ft (0.6m) gauge tramway, constructed 1914-15, between Ballara and the Wee MacGregor mine. The complex includes a 48m long ore transfer stage (c1914), and a 77m long tunnel (1914-15).
\nThe town of Cloncurry was surveyed in the 1870s to support the local mining and pastoral industries. Pastoralist Ernest Henry had discovered copper nearby in 1867 and established the ‘Great Australia’ (or Great Australian) mine. Part of the area was proclaimed a goldfield in 1874, and the Cloncurry Mining District (later the Cloncurry Gold and Mineral Field) was proclaimed in 1883.[2] Copper was discovered south of Cloncurry in 1884, and a town was formed in 1898 called Hampden (later called Kuridala) [QHR645604]. At Mount Elliot [QHR645612], south of Hampden, copper was discovered in 1899 and mining commenced in 1906.[3]
\nThe absence of a railway initially hampered the effective exploitation of Cloncurry’s mineral resources. The closure of the Great Australia mine in 1887 meant a proposed railway from Normanton was diverted to Croydon (1888-91), but when copper prices rose in 1905 the Queensland Government decided to extend the Great Northern Railway west from Richmond, and the first construction train reached Cloncurry in December 1907. [4]
\nMining activity was increasing on the Cloncurry field even before the railway arrived. By March 1906, copper had been discovered as an outcrop at the Wee MacGregor lease, west-southwest of Cloncurry.[5] The Leichhardt Development Syndicate was formed in October 1906 to develop the Wee MacGregor ‘group’ of mines, which included the Wee MacGregor, Grand Central, Wattle, and Wallaroo leases, and two months later MacGregor Cloncurry Copper Mines (the MacGregor Company) was floated in London. Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Ltd, and Mount Elliot Limited, two companies which later dominated the Cloncurry field during World War I (WWI), were also floated in 1906. [6]
\nBy October 1907 there were three prospecting shafts on the Wee MacGregor lease. That year, with a population of 650 miners (almost double that of 1906), the Cloncurry field produced 5.6% of Queensland’s copper.[7] By July 1908 the MacGregor Company was employing 70 men, not including mine officials, and during 1908 a telephone link with Cloncurry was established and tenders were called for a mail service.[8]
\nBy 1909 a settlement, including company offices and a store, was developing near the Wallaroo mine, located about 1km southeast of the Wee MacGregor mine. That year John Frost constructed the MacGregor Hotel on the site of Hightville. The hotel was listed under ‘Hightville’ in Wise’s Post Office Directory of 1911, although the town of Hightville was not surveyed until November 1913.[9]
\nIsolation threatened the economic viability of the Wee MacGregor group of mines. Ore was first drayed to Cloncurry along a rough road in May 1909, but this form of transport was uneconomic.[10] One option for the MacGregor Company was to build a private mining railway, as had been done elsewhere in Queensland.[11] Such railways were part of a wider pattern in Queensland during the late 19th-early 20th century: the construction of private and local government railways and tramways to transport the products of primary industry.[12] However, the MacGregor Company could not afford a private railway to the closest point on the Mount Elliott Railway, 39km away.[13]
\nAnother option was for the company to contribute towards a state-owned railway, as had occurred with the railway from Cloncurry to Mount Elliott, via Hampden. The cost of this railway, which opened in 1910, was split 50/50 between the Kidston Government and The Mount Elliott Company.[14] In September 1910 the MacGregor Company proposed a branch line from Malbon, on the Mount Elliott railway, under similar terms, and the government agreed to split the cost of a line survey and plans.[15]
\nIn June 1911 the MacGregor Company sought government support for a shorter branch line, this time linking to the state railway being built southwest from Malbon towards Sulieman Creek. Government officials were sceptical about the profitability and lifespan of the Wee MacGregor group of mines, despite the company estimating reserves of 100,000 tons of ore (most from the Wee MacGregor mine). Instead of a 50-50 funding arrangement for a state owned branch line, the government agreed to rent the MacGregor Company the rails they needed to construct a private line.[16]
\nQueensland’s Railways Commissioner, Charles Evans, inspected the proposed route to the Wee MacGregor mine in July 1912, and the Railway Department’s Engineer, Percy Ainscow, proposed a ‘no-frills’ railway, with a 10ft (3m) wide formation, reduced earthworks, less side drainage, cheap concrete culverts and the minimum of bridges.[17]
\nThe company’s branch line was proposed at an opportune time. In 1912, the Cloncurry field produced 45% of Queensland’s annual production of copper, with annual copper earnings now exceeding gold’s earnings. There were 1485 copper miners on the field, which was the ‘foremost producer of copper in the State’.[18]
\nThe Wee MacGregor Tramway Agreement Bill was introduced to Parliament in November 1912. It proposed that the MacGregor Company pay for the construction and maintenance of a private 3ft 6in ‘tramway’ (actually a narrow gauge railway), 24 miles and 40 chains (39.4km) long, from the Malbon to Sulieman Creek Railway to a terminus at or near the Wee MacGregor mine. The Commissioner for Railways would provide steel rails, fish plates, fastenings, sleepers and other permanent way materials. The company would pay 5% per year ‘rent’ on the cost of the materials supplied by the government, which had the power to acquire the line.[19] By 2 December 1912, the company involved in the proposal had become the Hampden Company, which purchased the Wee MacGregor group of mines from the Macgregor Company for £108,750.[20]
\nDespite the Labor Party’s concern about a company gaining a competitive advantage from a private railway line, The Wee MacGregor Tramway Agreement Act 1912 was passed on 4 December 1912. Walter Paget, Minister for Railways, noted the difference from previous private sector-government railway agreements, with less government exposure to risk.[21]
\nWork started on the 3ft 6in railway in early 1913, supervised by Ainscow. MacGregor Junction (Devoncourt), on the Malbon to Sulieman Creek railway, was the location of the main construction camp. The steepest grade for the railway was 1 in 40, with a minimum curve radius of 5 chains (100m). By April 1913 about 200 men were employed on the project.[22]
\nThe railway was planned as far as the Wallaroo mine, located east of the town of Hightville,[23] but in late 1913 the Hampden Company decided that, due to the steep, difficult terrain near Hightville, the railway would be shortened, with the terminus now 22 miles, 49 chains (35.9km) from MacGregor Junction. The remainder of the route to Hightville, and beyond to the Wee MacGregor mine, would now be traversed by a 2ft gauge tramway, which could accommodate tighter curves and steeper grades than the railway. [24]
\nA railway station and goods shed were constructed on the northern side of the town of Ballara, where a triangular junction was located. Ballara, situated at ‘Lady Lease Flats’, was surveyed in June 1914. A sale of town lots was scheduled for 14 August 1914, with upset prices for the quarter acre (0.1ha) lots ranging from £10 to £30. The outbreak of WWI led to the sale’s cancellation, and by the time a sale of 36 lots was held on 24 February 1915, prices had trebled.[25] Facilities at Ballara included a Post Office, established in late 1914, and a police reserve was gazetted at the west end of the town in 1915.[26] A district hospital was established by August 1918, on 5 acres north of the turning triangle. The Ballara Hotel existed by 1918, although it burnt down on 27 April that year, and again in April 1919. A state school was approved in May 1919, and opened in July 1919. A cemetery reserve was also gazetted, northeast of the hospital reserve, replacing the previous cemetery south of Hightville.[27]
\nHightville slowly declined after the 1913 decision to shorten the railway and relocate its terminus to Ballara, although a sale of 45 town lots still occurred in May 1914, with prices for a quarter acre (0.1ha) ranging from £5 to £25. As well as the Macgregor Hotel, Hightville had a butcher by 1913; a storekeeper and postmaster by 1914; and a boarding house by 1915. A state school was also approved in May 1917, and sites were reserved for the school and police in 1918. By 1917, however, Hightville listings were included under ‘Ballara’ in Wise’s Post Office Directory.[28] When the MacGregor Hotel burnt down in 1914, its replacement, the former Cosmopolitan Hotel from Ravenswood, was moved to Hightville, and later to Ballara. The school and its pupils moved to Ballara in 1919.[29]
\nThe 2ft tramway ran west from the triangular junction at Ballara, over a raised concrete ore transfer stage, past the terminus of the railway, and then curved north. It passed between Hightville and the Wallaroo mine, and proceeded to the Wee MacGregor mine – a total route of about 3.8 miles (6.1km). A short branch tramway ran to the Wallaroo mine. Ore was transported via the tramway from the mines to the ore transfer stage, where it would be tipped from trucks on the tramway down into trucks on the railway. The railway would then convey the ore to the Hampden smelters (operational 1911). As the tramway was not part of the 1912 agreement, the company funded construction and purchased its 28 pound rails and steel sleepers.[30]
\nBy 5 May 1914 all earthworks, bridges, drains and rails for the railway were completed to the terminal yard at Ballara, although the station building and earthworks beyond the station weren’t finished.[31] The railway was operational during May 1914 and was officially opened to the public in July 1914, yet it was of little use for moving ore until the tramway was completed.[32]
\nThe tramway was under construction in early 1914, with earthworks extending for two miles (3.2km), and the ‘first five bridges and drains’ nearing completion, by 5 May 1914.[33] Between Hightville and the Wee MacGregor mine a 77m long unlined tunnel, with concrete portals, and a 1 in 22 grade towards the mine, was constructed through MacGregor Hill. The tunnel was nearly completed by January 1915, with rails laid 5 chains (101m) through it by 11 March 1915. [34]
\nThe tramway was transporting ore by 31 May 1915.[35] It had cost £11,005, and had curves as tight as 2 chains (40m) radius.[36] The tunnel remains the most westerly railway tunnel in Queensland, and the 47.9m long, 2.65m high ore transfer stage is unique as the only recorded tramway-to-railway ore transhipment platform in Queensland.[37]
\nThe Annual Report of the Under Secretary of Mines for 1915 stated that ‘a 2-ft gauge tramway, four miles [6.4km] in length, from Ballara, connects the MacGregor and Wallaroo Mines with the main line, and carries 50 tons of ore per day in three train loads to Ballara, conveying firewood, mine timber, and general stores as return loading’.[38]
\nThree trains a week had run along the railway from 25 May to 15 June 1914. However, the start of WWI on 4 August 1914 led to a temporary halt to mining, as German buyers held the contracts for the sale of copper. Only one supply train a week was run to Ballara until early 1915, when the Allied demand for copper revived mining and railway activity.[39] Around 300 tons of ore was railed from Ballara each week during the war, and annual passenger numbers peaked at 4533 in 1916.[40]
\nWartime copper prices boosted the fortunes of the whole Cloncurry Gold and Mineral Field. The London market price for copper rose from under £60 a ton to £84 10s during 1915, and the Cloncurry district produced 53% of Queensland’s copper that year.[41] During 1916, copper prices rose from £85 to £150 a ton, and in September 1917 British Munitions authorities fixed the price at £110 5s. The Cloncurry field produced 63.2% of Queensland’s copper in 1918, when the total population of the field reached 7795.[42]
\nCopper prices dropped after the end of WWI, falling from £112 per ton in December 1918 to £75 per ton in April 1919. By March 1919 it was reported that the price slump and a scarcity of workers had ‘dealt a knockout blow to all’, although a new shaft was still being sunk on the Wee MacGregor mine. [43] Copper production on the Cloncurry field fell in 1919, and only one train a week ran to Ballara, with 2170 tons of freight carried during the year – a 90% reduction from 1918.[44]
\nCopper prices were £72 a ton at the end of 1920.[45] This, along with high overheads, caused the closure of the Wee MacGregor mine in November 1920. Tenders were invited in December 1920 for purchase of the ‘MacGregor Mines tramway’, including ‘about 4 miles of 2 foot gauge tramway, built of 28lb. steel rails, iron sleepers, locomotive and ten bogie trucks’. The tramway’s rails were removed during 1921 and stacked at Ballara. The train service to Ballara dropped to once a month from February 1921, when there were still 17 families in the town, plus ‘copper gougers’ (small mine operators) in the area. During 1921 the railway only carried 199 tons of freight.[46]
\nTrain services to Ballara were maintained by the government throughout most of the 1920s. In October 1922 a service from Cloncurry to Ballara ran on alternate Wednesdays. The discovery of a large silver-lead deposit at Mount Isa in 1923 raised hopes that the railway could be extended from Ballara to Mount Isa, but the line was constructed from Duchess instead. Services to Ballara alternated between a weekly and a fortnightly schedule until early 1927, when regular services ended.[47]
\nThe MacGregor Junction to Ballara railway survived for a short while longer, as 38 tons of minerals and 10 tons of other goods were carried in the 1928-29 financial year, from Pindora siding.[48] The rails between MacGregor Junction and Ballara were removed in 1929, and were stacked at Malbon. There were complaints that a final train was not even sent out to evacuate 30 copper gougers and their families.[49]
\nAfter the mine’s closure in 1920, Ballara’s decline was inevitable. In 1920 Wise’s Post Office Directory listed a district and a maternity hospital at Ballara; plus a school teacher; butchers; refreshment rooms; stores; a boarding house; a station and post master; and the MacGregor and Ballara Hotels. By 1927 no names or institutions were listed under Ballara.[50]
\nAlthough the tramway and railway had closed, and Hightville and Ballara were abandoned, copper gougers retained an interest in the Wee MacGregor area over the following decades. In 1954, prospectors also discovered uranium deposits at Ballara. Several concrete slabs at the site of Hightville date from the early 1970s, during a period of renewed mining activity at the Wee MacGregor mine, and in 2018, exploratory drilling work was underway at the mine.[51]
\n","criteria":"
The Wee MacGregor tram and rail complex and the former towns of Ballara and Hightville (c1909-29), which includes the well-engineered route of a 2ft (0.6m) gauge tramway and the terminus of a 3ft 6in (1.1m) narrow gauge railway, is important in demonstrating the major role of copper mining in the Queensland economy in the early 20th century, and the importance of railways to the economic viability of remote mines.
\nThe place demonstrates the pattern of primary industry-based, private and local government railway and tramway construction, which flourished in 19th century and early 20th century Queensland. The construction of the 3ft 6in railway from MacGregor Junction (Devoncourt) to Ballara was an early example of government-private sector co-operation in building mining railways.
\nThe short lifespans of the tramway (1915-21), the railway (1914-29), and the towns of Hightville (c1909-20) and Ballara (1914-26) are representative of the temporary nature of many mining towns and associated railways in Queensland, and their vulnerability to fluctuating commodity prices.
|In its form, layout and materials, the ore transfer stage, an integral element in the operation of the complex, is rare as the only known historic tramway-to-railway ore transhipment platform constructed in Queensland.
|The Wee MacGregor tram and rail complex and the former towns of Ballara and Hightville has the potential to reveal important information about early 20th century remote mining transport infrastructure, activities associated with its construction and operation, and the people who lived and worked in this ephemeral mining landscape.
\nArchaeological investigations of the extensive tramway formation and adjacent railway terminus may address important research questions relating to: layout, design, material and construction responses to the remoteness and physical challenges of the local environment, including comparison between the surveyed and constructed tramway route; and the design and operation of dual-gauge mining transport networks.
\nThe Ballara and Hightville town sites may facilitate detailed studies relating to the social dynamics of the community and its development, interaction, and decline. Archaeological investigations, including comparative studies, can inform understandings of domestic and commercial activities, living conditions, the layout of the settlements, construction methods and the use of materials.
|The place is an example of an early 20th century Queensland mining railway complex. In its surviving fabric the place retains: evidence at Ballara of railway buildings, a triangular junction, and the terminus of a railway line, with cuttings, embankments and culverts. It also retains the route of a tramway, from the triangular junction to the Wee MacGregor mine, and its associated infrastructure, including: an ore transfer stage; a tunnel, which is the most westerly railway tunnel in Queensland; plus bridge abutments and piers, culverts, cuttings, embankments and stone retaining walls.
|The ruinous nature of the Wee MacGregor tram and rail complex, set in a remote, sparsely-vegetated and rocky landscape, evokes a sense of isolation, abandonment, and the hardship of the lives of those who lived and worked there. The picturesque qualities of the ascending formation can be experienced from a range of vantage points along the tramway route.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650085,"name":"Enoggera State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"235 South Pine Road","suburb":"ENOGGERA","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-02-01","description":"Enoggera State School occupies a 1.38ha flat site in the suburb of Enoggera, approximately 6.5km northeast of Brisbane’s CBD. Fronting South Pine Road to the south, the school is bounded on other sides by Laurel Street (north), residential properties (east) and a church (west). The school comprises a large complex of buildings, with most of the teaching buildings located at the southwest end of the site.
\nThe features of State-level cultural heritage significance within the school complex are:
\nLater (post-1950) extensions to the significant buildings are not of State-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe earliest of the buildings (Blocks A, B and D) stand in a ‘U’-shape, facing south and forming a courtyard fronting South Pine Road. The later of the significant buildings (Blocks C and E) stand symmetrically to the north of Block A, replicating building forms of the earlier buildings (Blocks B and D). Together, the complex of significant buildings is ‘H’-shape in plan, with Block A located centrally, and each of the other buildings connected to its corners via verandahs: Block B to the southwest; Block to the northwest; Block D to the southeast; and Block E to the northeast.
\nSuburban Timber School Buildings (Block A, 1916) (Block B, 1916) (Block D, 1931) (Block C, 1939) (Block E, 1950)
\nBlocks A, B, C, D and E are gable-roofed, timber-framed teaching buildings that are typical of the Suburban Timber School Building type. All of the buildings are rectangular in plan and are highset on tall piers – the pre-1931 buildings generally have face brick piers and the post-1931 buildings have concrete piers (some are now painted). No original ventilation fleches remain.
\nTeaching and administration spaces are located on the first floor, with sheltered play space to the understorey (the toilets, tuckshop and most store rooms are later enclosures). Two teachers rooms project diagonally from inner sides of the verandah intersections of the earliest buildings (Blocks A, B and D), and an additional teachers room projects east from the east verandah of Block C.
\nAll interior spaces are accessed via verandahs and the remaining timber stairs are generally in their early locations. Block A has verandahs to the south, east and west sides. Blocks B, D, C and E all originally had verandahs on their east and west sides, although some have been modified:
\nThe interior layouts of the buildings are as follows:
\nOther features of cultural heritage significance in relation to Blocks A, B, C, D and E include:
\nLandscape Features
\nThe school’s main entrance is centred on the significant buildings, with a concrete footpath leading from South Pine Road to the central stair of Block A. This footpath is intersected by a perpendicular footpath leading to Block B and Block D.
\nViews of the significant buildings from South Pine Road are important, particularly those from and across the front entrance footpath.
\nA turfed playing field is located at the northeast end of the site.
\nFeatures Not of State-level Heritage Significance
\nFeatures at Enoggera State School not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Enoggera State School, established on this site between Laurel Street and South Pine Road in 1871, comprises a number of timber school buildings dating from 1916; including suburban timber school buildings, Blocks A & B (1916) and Block D (1931); Sectional School buildings; Block C (1939) and Block E (planned 1940, built 1950). The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Enoggera community.
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[1] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. The inclusion of war memorials and community halls reinforced these connections and provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[3]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[4]
\nA meeting to establish a school in the Enoggera District was held in the Enoggera Hotel on 5 September 1870, and a school committee was formed. While in the early years of school establishment following the Education Act of 1860, local committees were required to raise one third of the cost of the school, this requirement was relaxed in 1864. The Enoggera School Committee raised £60 by April 1871, although a further £10 was required for construction to commence. The committee resolved to raise this money immediately. The Education Office called for tenders in May 1871 for a school house and teacher’s residence; the final cost amounting to £287.[5]
\nThe school was on the traditional lands of the Turrbul people and origins of the name ‘Enoggera’ have been variously reported as a corruption of Euogra meaning, ‘song and dance’ (place of corrobboree), ‘place of waters’ or ‘place of breezes’. Early European settlers of the 1860s planted orchards and vineyards. A transport route evolved following the discovery of gold in Gympie in 1867, when prospectors and their bullock teams travelled through Enoggera and on to what is now Old Northern Road (previously Great Northern Road) to Gympie. The opening of cattle sale yards at Newmarket in 1877 also added impetus to growth and development of the region. [6]
\nThe Enoggera State School was opened 24 August 1871, with a ceremony attended by more than 70 people. The school committee acknowledged the contribution of Timothy Corbett and James Mooney who contributed financially to the school buildings, as well as each donating an acre of land: Sub A, Portion 5 (Corbett) and Sub 1 Portion 6 (Mooney). Mooney died before his donation was registered and his land transfer did not occur until 1882. The school building was a timber structure, forty feet by twenty feet, with a verandah and the timber school residence to the west of the school. All structures were built within Sub A Portion 5, because the school did not have ownership of the adjoining parcel (Sub 1 Portion 6). The contractor was Edward Lewis of the Pimlico Shops; a timber workshop in Albert Street. Tenders were called for a playshed for the school in August 1877.[7]
\nThe school hosted a public meeting in January 1885, advocating the extension of the railway through this important farming area, enabling farmers to get their crops to the Roma Street Markets. This line, originally intended to reach Samford, was built as far as Enoggera in February 1899. Meanwhile, an additional room was added to the timber school in late-1885. Arbor Day was held regularly at the school in the 1890s and early 20th century, although no mention was made of the species of trees, nor the location of the plantings in the press reports. Ongoing repairs, additions and alterations to the school buildings occurred during these years.[8]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction acquired another four suburban allotments to the east of the school reserve (approx. 1821 m2) in January 1913. In December 1914, the under Secretary for Education, J D Story, promised that Enoggera would soon be in possession of a new brick school building. The war intervened, and in September 1915, the Minister for Education announced that a modern timber school would be built instead. A brick school was estimated to cost £5000 and a timber one could be built for around £2852.[9]
\nThe new school building was a showcase of the revised design elements of Department of Public Works (DPW) designs. From 1893 DPW greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators and consequently it became central to the design and layout of all school buildings.
\nIn c1909 high-set timber buildings were introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. This type was introduced around 1909 and was constructed until approximately 1920.[10]
\nFrom around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students’ left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed. This often meant a complete transformation of the fenestration of existing buildings. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[11]
\nThe years of experimentation culminated in the 1914 introduction of the suburban school type (C/T8) that solved many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size that plagued previous school designs, as well as providing the ideal, modern education environment.[12]
\nThe new Enoggera State School (type C/T8) was opened on 7 October 1916, by the Minister for Education, J F Hardacre. Concurrently, a roll of honour was unveiled, honouring more than 50 committee men, teachers and scholars who volunteered to serve in the war. The Minister described the school as the same type as Cannon Hill State School [QHR 602854] which had opened the previous year. The Enoggera School faced south onto South Pine Road, whereas the Cannon Hill School faced north. The timber building on brick piers, had asbestos slates on the roof, and pressed metal coved ceilings. The two main classroom wings (Block A on an east-west axis and Block B to its west) were placed at right angles to each other, with smaller wings housing hat and cloakroom and teachers rooms, placed diagonally at each veranda end, creating a part courtyard effect. The plans for the school indicate that Block A was divided into three classrooms with ‘accordion petitions’ and Block B into two classrooms. The north wall of Block A , which had no verandah, contained high windows at each end and a large bank of windows in the middle providing left hand light to pupils in the middle classrooms. The large windows on the gable ends provided left hand light to the other classrooms, the classrooms were 22 ft (6.7m) wide and each allowed for 40 pupils. Each block had a prominent central ventilation fleche linked by ducts to ceiling vents. The school at that time had an enrolment of 230 and the new buildings could accommodate 250. The site was planned so another wing could be added in the future. In 1917, the original 1871 school building was gifted to the community for use as a School of Arts.[13]
\nThe school committee inaugurated an annual fund raising event in 1923 to provide for the construction of tennis courts and tree planting. Tennis and basketball courts were built on the north western corner of the site. By July 1925, the school needed to expand further. The school committee approached the minister for Public Instruction, Mr T Wilson, MLA, seeking a new teacher’s residence and the removal of the existing one from the centre of the playground. The School of Arts (1871 school) remained on the school grounds until late 1925 when it was relocated to its present position at 349 Wardell Street; by that time jointly owned by the RSSILA and re-erected as a Memorial Hall. Tenders were called for the removal of the old school residence in November 1925. The school committee held its third annual fund raising event in a recently completed gymnasium on the site in February 1926. The tennis and basketball courts were reportedly recently upgraded.[14]
\nBy 1925 the school which was designed for 320 students, had enrolments of 450 and classes had to be held on verandahs and in the hat enclosures. A new wing was required, but not immediately provided. Tenders were called in August 1930 for the new wing, and outbuildings; J Wight of Milton the successful tenderer at a price of £98/10/-. While the new structure matched the existing wing, fulfilling the site layout design developed in 1915, it did not include the pressed metal ceilings featured in the earlier buildings due to financial restraints. The building (Block D) opened in March 1931. The final cost was £1105, but two classes still had to be accommodated on verandahs. Accommodation pressures were eased with the opening of the Everton Park State School (known as Bunyaville) in 1934.[15]
\nEnoggera State School celebrated its diamond jubilee (one year late) in November 1932, attended by parents and past students. The school grounds were extended by 1821m2 to the east in April 1935. A fete was held in October 1936 to raise funds for continued improvements to the school grounds. The committee had already provided a tennis and basketball court, and a concrete cricket wicket. By mid-1937, the committee was advocating the construction of another wing for the school. The local MLA Mr G Taylor advised that finance had been approved for this addition in November 1937. It was not completed until 31 July 1939 at a cost of £1810. The new wing (Block C) provided two more classrooms, a teacher’s room with hat room and was roofed in red fibre cement slates. It was built on concrete piers and was cemented underneath. This wing was built to the northwest of the 1916 buildings, linked to existing verandas and parallel to the western boundary of the school reserve.[16]
\nFollowing the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and the escalation of WWII into the Pacific region, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942. Although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended.[17] Slit trenches, for protecting the students from Japanese air raids, were also dug at Queensland state schools, often by parents and staff. Only two teachers and four parents turned up to help did the trenches at Enoggera in January 1942.[18]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education between the late 1940s and the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Brisbane had grown from a population of 326,000 in 1939 to 425,000 in 1951, and new housing estates were developed around Enoggera and elsewhere. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended. In 1948 the Department of Education built four temporary classrooms and two army huts were sourced to provide four more classrooms to accommodate 240 extra students.[19]
\nApproval for the expenditure of £3890 for Enoggera State School was given late in 1949. Enrolments by that time were 685 students. The original 1941 plan was fulfilled with the construction during 1950, of another building comprising two classrooms (Block E) on the north east corner of Block A. A new fence was built in 1950. A prefabricated Boulton and Paul classroom was added to the south east corner of the Block E in 1952. The three earliest buildings (Blocks A, B & D) which were roofed in asbestos slates, were reroofed in 1953 and the decorative roof fleches removed. During late 1954, the interiors and exteriors were painted. One acre of land opposite the school in South Pine Road was acquired for new tennis courts, funded by the efforts of the Enoggera State School Welfare Association. This project was completed in October 1954 and a demonstration match by local tennis stars was held at the opening event. School enrolments had reached 900 by 1954.[20]
\nIn August 1954, additional classroom building costing £7266 was planned for the Enoggera State School, replacing some of the temporary army huts. This building faced South Pine Road and was an extension to Block D comprising four classrooms and a library completed in 1955. In 1956, an addition of similar design was added to the Boulton and Paul structure on Block E, comprising five classrooms. Further additions in 1957 included a new classroom to the southern end of Block B and new toilets serviced by a new septic system: boys’ toilets under a new classroom at the northern end of Block E and girls’ toilets under the library at the eastern end of the Block D 1954 extension. Another new classroom was added to the northern end of Block C in 1958. The school had an enrolment approaching 1000 by 1959. The Welfare Committee began fundraising to build a pool.[21]
\nChanges to the education system occurred in 1963 with the abolition of the Scholarship Exam and the transfer of Year 8 to High School. The Department transferred the 1956 northeastern wing (Block E extension) to the Everton Park High School in 1965.The school site and the tennis courts site were re-gazetted in April 1966 as Reserve for School Purposes (R.758), comprising 1.66ha.[22]
\nThe pool was built on a site in the northwest corner of the school yard – the site of the early tennis courts. The pool was completed in 1968, but the filtration system took a further year. The pre-school was planned and approved in 1973. Land was acquired for a pre-school building along Laurel Street in December 1973 and March 1974, totalling 1822m2. The pre-school opened in 1975. School enrolments were dropping back to the level of the 1920s. In 1978, the school properties on either side of South Pine Road were re-gazetted as R.758, Lots 1052 and 1053 on Sl8734. By 1985, enrolments were 250 students. When enrolments dropped to 120 in 1995, it meant the school was no longer entitled to a non-teaching principal. An area in front of Block D, (13.6m deep and 59m wide) was added to the road reserve in November 2000. A new multipurpose court was built to the east of Block D facing South Pine Road during the 2000s. In 2015, the school disposed of the tennis courts site on the southern side of South Pine Road (Lot 1053). Approval for the sale was given in June 2013 in order to fund the construction of a hall. The Enoggera State School Performing Arts Centre was built during 2016 on the site of the former pre-school; pre-school having been replaced by prep in 2007. Year 7 moved to high school in 2015. By 2017 school enrolments were 300 students.[23]
\nIn 2019, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains a complex of five Suburban Timber School Buildings, with play areas, sporting facilities and courtyard spaces. The school is important to Enoggera, as a key social focus of the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Enoggera State School (established in 1871) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Buildings, Blocks A & B (1916), Block C (1939), Block D (1931) and Block E (planned 1940, built 1950), represent the culmination of years of experimentation with light, classroom size and ventilation by the Department of Public Works. These standard government designed school buildings were an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies. The school reflects the development of Enoggera, as it evolved from a 19th century farming community to an early 20th century suburban community.
\nThe large suburban landscaped site, including playing field and sporting facilities, demonstrates educational philosophies that promoted the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Enoggera State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a suburban Queensland State School complex. These include: teaching buildings constructed to a standard design by the Department of Public Works that incorporate classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation, verandahs and covered play spaces; standing on landscaped grounds with sporting facilities, and assembly and play areas.
\nThe Suburban Timber School Buildings (Blocks A, B, C, D and E) are good examples of their type and have a high degree of integrity. They demonstrate the principal characteristics, including: a symmetrical plan of rectangular, gable-roofed, timber-framed wings, highset with play space beneath, and connected via continuous verandahs; verandahs with arched timber brackets and hat enclosures; projecting teachers rooms; coved ceilings of pressed metal and V-jointed (VJ) timber; deliberate placement of windows to light classrooms from the student’s left hand side; and passive ventilation features including ceiling vents, and continuous vents at floor level (to Block A and B).
|Enoggera State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1871. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Enoggera, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and the Parents and Citizens Association.
\n","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650087,"name":"Dutton Park State School","alternate_name":"Woolloongabba State School | Woolloongabba Boys State School | Dutton Park Boys State School","street_address":"112 Annerley Road","suburb":"DUTTON PARK","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-11-30","description":"
Dutton Park State School occupies a 2.036ha site in Dutton Park, a suburb approximately 2.67km south of the Brisbane CBD. The school is accessed via a driveway connected to Annerley Road to the west and a walkway connected to the Boggo Road Busway to the east. The site is bounded on its other sides by a train line (northeast) and Dutton Park Police Station (south). A complex of teaching buildings stand on the eastern half of the site, with a large playing field occupying the western half, bordered by mature trees along Annerley Road.
\nFeatures of state level cultural heritage significance of Dutton Park State School are:
\nBlock B: Open-air Annexe (1916, relocated to current site 1935 with alterations 1925, 1936, 1954 and 1985)
\nBlock B is a timber-framed, highset Open-air Annexe teaching building with a Dutch-gable roof and long sides facing north and south. The building has a north-facing verandah (now enclosed) accessing three, southern classrooms.
\nFeatures also of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level cultural heritage significance comprise all alterations and additions post 1936, including:
\nBoys and Girls Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks (1936)
\nThe Boys and Girls Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks are two, highly intact, symmetrical, single storey toilet blocks that are located at the north and southeast site boundaries, respectively. They have well composed elevations comprising concrete plinths, in-situ concrete walls with high openings with timber batten screens, and hipped roofs. The Boys Interwar Concrete Toilet Block is larger and rectangular with its long sides facing northeast and southwest. The Girls Concrete Toilet Block is also rectangular with its long sides facing north and south. Each has a front entry accessed by concrete stairs with metal pipe railings and balustrades. Original access openings are to the short sides of the blocks, although these have been boarded over along the back entries.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape Features
\nThe school grounds are well-established, with sporting facilities including a large playing field occupying the western half of the school site.
\nMature fig trees (Ficus benjamina) and cocos palm trees (Syragrus romanzoffiana) stand along the western, Annerley Road boundary of the site.
\nFeatures not of State Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Dutton Park State School not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\n","history":"
Dutton Park State School is located in the suburb of Dutton Park, approximately 2.67km south of the Brisbane central business district (CBD). It was established in 1884 as Woolloongabba State School on the northern side of a large school reserve. In 1886 the school was divided into Woolloongabba Girls and Infants State School, using the existing buildings, and the Woolloongabba Boys State School, established on the current Dutton Park State School site. Renamed Dutton Park Boys State School and Dutton Park Girls and Infants State School in 1910, the schools amalgamated in 1935 as Dutton Park State School, on the boys school site. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains a rare Open-air Annexe (1916, now called Block B) and two intact Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks (1936); set in landscaped grounds with mature trees, play areas and sporting facilities. Dutton Park State School has a strong and ongoing association with the Dutton Park community.
\nEuropean settlement of the Dutton Park area proceeded slowly. From the 1840s, farms were established near the Brisbane River. Land in the vicinity of the later Dutton Park school site was surveyed in 1863 for future government uses. By 1883 there were about ten residences along Gladstone Road, most on large allotments on the ridge overlooking the river. In 1883, the new Brisbane gaol on Annerley Road (formally Boggo Road) [QHR601033] opened, as did the Diamantina Orphanage, located to its southeast. Residential subdivision of land, from large land holdings around the future school site, occurred during Brisbane's 1880s land boom. As transport became available, more people moved to the district. A railway station opened at Dutton Park (called Boggo Junction station, now Dutton Park station) in 1884. The first horse-drawn bus service linking Dutton Park with the city commenced in 1890 and was replaced by electric tram along Gladstone Road by 1908, which stimulated rapid development of the area. In 1914 the suburb was named in honour of Charles B Dutton, Secretary of Public Lands between 1883 and 1887.[1]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past students, parents, and teachers.[2]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting and ventilation.[3]
\nIn 1882 the Woolloongabba community united to raise money for a school in the area, as existing schools at Kangaroo Point and South Brisbane were considered too far away. With the assistance of Simon Fraser, M.L.A., their efforts came to fruition. A four-acre (1.62ha) site bounded by Annerley and Park Roads and Merton Street, was granted and construction of the school began in late 1883. Woolloongabba State School opened on 1 September 1884, with more than 400 students.[4]
\nEnrolments at the school quickly increased. Within a few months, the average daily attendance was about 555 students.[5] Consequently, it was decided to separate the school into a Girls and Infants school, and a Boys school. In 1884, the school reserve was extended by four acres (1.62ha) to the south to accommodate the new boys school building. Work commenced on the Woolloongabba Boys School, sited on the southern portion of the school reserve, in 1885. It opened on 5 July 1886 with 353 boys enrolled.[6]
\nIn 1889, 1.5 acres (0.61h) of land was resumed from the school reserve for re-alignment of the Cleveland railway line, dividing the Girls and Infants School (north of the railway line) from the Boys School (south of the railway line).[7]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[8]
\nWoolloongabba (Dutton Park) State School participated in Arbor Day from 1890. In 1892 the children planted trees on both sides of the railway cutting. Closure of part of Annerley Road in 1907 provided additional land to the school grounds. A contemporary pupil reported that a row of palms was planted along the Annerley Road boundary by the whole school in 1908.[9]
\nIn 1910, the Woolloongabba Girls and Infants State School and Woolloongabba Boys State School were renamed the Dutton Park State School for Girls and Infants and the Dutton Park State School for Boys.[10]
\nDue to the need for more accommodation, an Open-air Annexe (now called Block B) was constructed at Dutton Park State School for Girls and Infants in 1916.[11] Open-air Annexes were introduced as a standard design in 1913 by the Department of Public Works (DPW) in conjunction with the Department of Public Instruction.[12] This design was developed in response to contemporary medical thought related to the need for adequate ventilation and high levels of natural light for health, coupled with the need to build cheap, portable schools. Dr Eleanor Bourne had been appointed the first Medical Inspector of Schools in 1911 and under her instruction the relationship between classroom environment and child health was given prominence. Subsequently, school architecture evolved through iteration and experimentation to improve interior light and ventilation. The Open-air Annexe type achieved maximum ventilation and natural light; it comprised one large room and had only one wall, the western verandah wall. The other sides were open with only adjustable canvas blinds for enclosure. Ideally, they were high-set, thereby increasing the ventilation and providing further shelter underneath. The design was praised by educationalists as conducive to the good health of students.[13]
\nDutton Park State School’s Open-air Annexe was opened by the Minister for Education, Herbert F Hardacre, and the Home Secretary, John Huxham, at an official ceremony on 29 July 1916.[14] The building was 51ft x 21ft (15.5m x 6.4m) with a 10ft (3m) west-facing verandah; while a 5ft (1.5m) gangway along one side of the Annexe connected it to another building. The Open-air Annexe, a highset timber building on brick piers, had a Dutch-gable, iron roof, and a verandah with decorative timber brackets to its six-bay of perimeter posts. The interior had a coved ceiling lined with pressed metal. The building accommodated 140 students. Constructed by day labour, the open-air annexe cost £969 19s 3d, including its embanked site and furniture.[15]
\nHowever, Open-air Annexes proved to be inadequate because the open sides provided limited weather protection and climate control, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. The building type was discontinued in 1923, after many had been constructed across Queensland. All were modified to provide better enclosure. In 1925, the Dutton Park Girls and Infants School’s Open-air Annexe was enclosed with sliding sash windows, a typical modification of Open-air Annexes in Queensland schools in the 1920s.[16]
\nIn the 1920s and 1930s, substantial changes to the school grounds occurred. In 1925, the railway cutting that divided the Dutton Park schools was widened, requiring relocation of the northern wing of the original 1886 boys school.[17] In 1927, the school reserve was extended to the south, through resumption of a triangular portion of the gaol reserve.[18] In the following years, improvements were made to the grounds including drainage, fencing, and landscaping, and a pedestrian pathway was created along the southern boundary of the school, which is now the driveway from Annerley Road.[19] In 1930, nine Depression relief workers employed under the Queensland Government’s Unemployment Relief Scheme, administered by the DPW during the Great Depression (1929-1930s), were improving the playing grounds and preparing a playing field.[20]
\nIn 1933, concern about decreased enrolments at the girls and infants and boys schools led to discussion by the school committee of amalgamation of the schools. It was proposed that, due to the recent improvements to its grounds and modernisation of its classrooms, the boys school should be the site of the amalgamated school.[21]
\nBy 1934, the decision to locate the Dutton Park State School at the boys school site had been made. Plans to accommodate the increased student population were created in 1934. These included extension of an existing building to provide an extra classroom and a teachers room; relocation of the Open-air Annexe (1916) to the boys school site; and construction of two concrete toilet blocks.[22] The Girls and Infants school site, north of the railway line became an opportunity school.
\nThe Open-air Annexe was relocated to its present site, and re-oriented to face north, in time for the commencement of the 1935 school year. A drawing shows the building contained three classroom separated by folding partitions with doors, verandahs on three sides and hat rooms at the ends of verandahs. The side verandahs (east and west) were additions. Along the north verandah wall, doors were relocated into new openings, and a double hung window with fanlight was added. A new, VJ timber-lined ceiling replaced the pressed metal one. Stairs were centrally located from the verandah.[23] Toilets were added to the understorey in 1936.[24]
\nFrom January 1935, the Dutton Park schools were amalgamated as Dutton Park Primary School, with 755 students enrolled.[25] To provide up-to-date amenities to the newly combined school, two sewered Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks were added to the site in 1936 at a cost of £1637. Detached brick or concrete toilet blocks were an uncommon addition to schools at this time, as detached toilet blocks were more likely constructed using timber, and most Depression-era Brick School Buildings included toilets in their understorey.[26] Similar designs were produced in the same year for Babinda State School and Southport State School. They were lowset, single-storey structures, with concrete entry stairs. The elevations were well composed, comprising concrete plinths, in-situ concrete walls with high openings with timber batten screens, and hipped roofs. The interiors comprised VJ timber-lined and –panelled partitions, and timber batten screens and doors.[27]
\nThe addition of these toilet blocks resulted from the Queensland Government’s plan to improve toileting amenities and sewerage connection at state schools during the Interwar period, and resulted from two government programmes. A DPW building programme to connect metropolitan state government buildings, including state school buildings, to the Brisbane City Council’s sewerage system, commenced about 1924-25. Its aim was ‘to bring all sanitary conveniences up to the approved standard and to connect them with the Council’s sewerage system, thus providing both the economical and hygienic advantages of the sewerage installation’.[28] The second initiative was the Queensland Government’s Works Programme from 1932 to revive the building trade during the Great Depression, which included £250,000 allocated for the construction of new buildings throughout the State, including sewerage installations at schools.[29]
\nAn aerial image shows the school playing field had been completed by 1936, and a line of mature palm trees, delineated the school’s Annerley Road boundary.[30]
\nThe commencement of the Pacific theatre of war during World War II (WWII), in December 1941, with its threat to Australia, resulted in the Queensland Government closing all coastal state schools in January 1942. Most schools, including Dutton Park State School, reopened on 2 March 1942, but student attendance was optional until the war ended.[31]
\nTypically during wartime, schools were a focus for civilian duty. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[32]. In November 1942, Dutton Park State School children were collecting aluminium as part of the school’s war effort. Students had already supplied 10 tons of rubber for salvage and grown 20,000 lettuce and cabbage seedlings in the school grounds. The fully grown vegetables were collected by the Red Cross.[33]
\nAfter World War II, enrolments (Prep to Grade 5) at Dutton Park State School (485 students in 1945 reducing to 366 in 1951) were ‘comfortably accommodated in the existing classrooms’.[34] However, after Intermediate Schools for Year 6 and 7 students in Queensland closed in 1953, the Dutton Park State School’s enrolment increased to 571 students by 1955.[35]
\nTo accommodate growth in enrolments, further changes to the Open-air Annexe were made in 1954, when the side, (east and west) verandahs were enclosed, and the side walls of the eastern and western classrooms were opened onto the side verandahs. The stairs were replaced with a new set of stairs, which were reoriented to face the opposite direction, and another set of stairs was added along the same elevation. The sliding windows (1925) on the southern elevation were retained and a casement window was added at each end of the enclosed verandahs. The hatrooms in the southeast and southwest corners were lined internally to match the classroom spaces. On the east and west ends of the north verandah, the verandah railing and floor fascia were removed and enclosed with stud walls to sill height with fixed, clear glass above to the top plate to create space for hats and bags, including hat and bag hooks under the window sills along the verandah wall. Additional double-hung windows were added to the northern verandah wall to form pairs of windows. Internally the coved ceiling form was retained, and the floors of the end verandahs were raised to be level with the classroom floors.[36]
\nAdditional improvements to the school grounds were made in the 1950s, when trees were planted for shade purposes. From 1953, most of the trees (Ficus spp.) along the Annerley Road boundary and those at the foot of the playing field steps were planted by the children on school Arbor Days.[37] A land exchange with the Boggo Road gaol in 1971 swopped a portion of land on the southeast of the site, adjacent to the railway reserve, for a portion to the south of the school.[38]
\nA fire in October 1973 destroyed the entire original 1886 Boys School Building. The Open-air Annexe, Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks, and Blocks A and E survived the fire. In 1975, two classroom blocks (Blocks C & D) were built to replace the destroyed building.[39]
\nFurther changes were made to the Open-Air Annexe. By 1985, bag racks had been added on the northern verandah, another set was added, and the partition doors were replaced with folding doors. In 1985, the northern verandah was converted into a wet room with sinks inserted at either end, vinyl flooring was added, and some windows and doors removed from the verandah wall.[40] By this time, the understorey toilets had been modified and a groundsman’s quarters added.
\nThroughout the school’s existence, there has been community involvement in Dutton Park State School and the school has been the focus and site of community events. School fetes were held from c1911 and a fancy dress ball was held annually from c1935.[41] The school’s 50th Anniversary Jubilee was commemorated in 1935, with celebrations and a school reunion, held in conjunction with the official opening ceremony of the re-amalgamated schools.[42] In 1984, the school’s centenary was marked with school open days, a reunion dinner, a school fete and the publication of a school history.[43] Another school history was published in 2009 to commemorate the school’s 125th anniversary.[44]
\nIn 2018, Dutton Park State School continues to operate from its early site and has an enrolment of about 340 students. It retains a rare Open-air Annexe and two intact Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks, set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, and mature trees. The school is important as a key social focus for the Dutton Park community as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Dutton Park State School (established as Woolloongabba State School in 1884) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies set in landscaped grounds with provision of play areas, sporting facilities and mature trees.
\nThe Open-air Annexe (Block B, 1916) is a representative example demonstrating the medical and educational theories of the period, which valued fresh air and sunlight. The enclosure of the annexe in 1925 demonstrates standard adaptations to the open-air classroom type to improve its functionality.
\nTwo Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks (Girls and Boys, 1936) and the initial formation of the school playing field (1930) are a result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.
\nThe suburban site with mature trees, and play and sporting facilities, demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Dutton Park State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard Government designs that have classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; generous landscaped grounds with shade trees and play areas; and toilet facilities.
\nThe Open-air Annexe (Block B, 1916) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its standard type designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and is a rare example. These characteristics include: highset, timber-framed construction; single skin verandah wall; northern verandah (now enclosed); internal, VJ timber linings; and coved ceiling with steel tie rods and VJ timber lining with timber lattice ceiling vents.
\nThe Open-air Annexe is also important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of later, typical enclosures made to the standard type, including weatherboard cladding (exterior), VJ timber lining (interior) and timber-framed windows.
\nThe Interwar Concrete Toilet Blocks (Girls and Boys, 1936) are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of toilet blocks built on school sites during the interwar period, and are highly intact examples. These characteristics include: their discreet locations on the boundaries of the school site; lowset, single storey, in-situ concrete construction; concrete plinths; concrete entry stairs; VJ timber-lined and -panelled partitions; timber batten screens and doors; and hipped roofs.
|Dutton Park State School has a strong and ongoing association with former students, parents, staff members and the surrounding Dutton Park community. Operating since 1884, generations of students have been taught at the school. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Dutton Park and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650088,"name":"Hamilton State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Oxford Street","suburb":"HAMILTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2018-11-30","description":"Hamilton State School is located at the eastern end of the Brisbane suburb of Hamilton, approximately 6.3km northeast of the city centre. It occupies a rectangular, 0.81ha site bounded by Oxford Street to the west and Windsor Street to the east, within a residential area on the south side of Doomben Railway Station. The site, accessed from Oxford Street, is beautified by mature trees lining the street boundaries, and the grounds include a forecourt, tennis court and rear parade ground.
\nFacing Oxford Street and centrally located on the site is the only building of state-level cultural heritage significance, Block A (1907, Urban Brick School Building). Significant building fabric includes the 1945 additions and alterations.
\nBlock A, Urban Brick School Building (1907, with 1945 additions)
\nBlock A is a highset, brick and timber building with an undercroft. It contains four classrooms on the first floor linked by verandahs along the length of the east and west sides. Both verandahs have a centrally-located teachers room, and are accessed by two sets of timber stairs, positioned on either side of each teachers room. Parts of the undercroft are enclosed and contain store rooms, toilets, an Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) room, and a tuck shop.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGrounds
\nThe school has a tradition of boundary tree plantings and the grounds retain numerous mature trees, including weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) and camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) along the Oxford Street boundary; and weeping figs, a Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla) and Moreton Bay chestnuts (Castanospermum austral) along the Windsor Street boundary. A mature leopard tree (Libidibia ferrea) stands in the south-eastern corner of the grounds.
\nA multi-purpose sports court on the site of the original tennis court lies to the north of Block A. An open parade ground extends from the east (rear) side of Block A. On the west (front) side of Block A is a forecourt area that is landscaped with an established, 1970s scheme of gardens, trees and paths.
\nThe flat and largely open site allows attractive views of Block A from Oxford and Windsor streets, framed by trees.
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nNon-significant building elements include: Louvre windows to the classrooms; 1998 verandah enclosures to the east verandah; concertina folding doors; flat linings to the west verandah ceilings; post-1945 roller doors, partitions, doors and toilet fitouts to the undercroft; modern floor finishes and cabinetry; and lights, fans, solar panels and air-conditioning systems.
\nNon-significant elements of the grounds include: the 1945 former boys toilet block, (adjacent to the southern boundary); other buildings, structures and sheds; gardens; pathways; fencing; shade sails; and playground equipment.
\nNon-significant features within the road reserve include: the footpath, road surface, kerb, and all other road infrastructure.
\n","history":"
Hamilton State School, opened in 1907, is located in the riverside residential suburb of Hamilton, 6.3km north-east of Brisbane’s central business district (CBD). The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It comprises an attractive Urban Brick School Building (1907), set in landscaped grounds with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Hamilton community.
\nLocated within the traditional lands of the Turrbal people, the school site was part of more than 65-acres (26.3ha) purchased from the New South Wales government in 1843 by Captain John Clements Wickham, the Government Resident in Brisbane until 1859. Subsequent to his death in 1864, his trustees subdivided the land and a ‘monster land sale’ of the Wickham Estate at Hamilton was announced in the press in April 1885.[1] Between December 1886 and March 1889, the 20 residential allotments that later formed the school site, totalling two acres (0.81ha), were purchased by Henry Charles Cleeve, a commission agent. He was declared insolvent in 1891 and the property was transferred to Mary Jane Hampstead in 1892.[2]
\nThe suburb of Hamilton, initially accessed via Eagle Farm Road (later Hamilton Road and now Kingsford Smith Drive) from the convict-built Breakfast Creek Bridge, was noted by the 1860s for its fine villas and gentlemen’s estates sited on elevated land.[3] The Queensland Turf Club established its racecourse nearby from 1863, and the Hamilton Hotel, which gave its name to the suburb, opened around that time.[4]
\nThe availability of transport from the city made the area attractive for residential development, with much of it subdivided by 1895. The railway to Eagle Farm Racecourse opened on 3 September 1882. Horse-drawn bus and tram services to the city were also available, and in 1899 were replaced by an electric tram service terminating at the end of Racecourse Road.[5] Hamilton was managed by the Toombul Divisional Board from 1883, but by 1890 was a separate division, becoming Hamilton Town Council by 1904.[6]
\nThe closest state school for Hamilton residents was the Eagle Farm State School on Nudgee Road, which had operated since 1864. It was considered too distant from the growing population in the new subdivisions, and in poor condition. A request for a new school in the Eagle Farm-Hamilton area was made in 1899. Hampstead’s land was purchased by the Department of Public Instruction in January 1900. Representatives of the Eagle Farm School Committee met with the Minister for Education to request a new school be built on this Hamilton property, financed by the sale of the existing Eagle Farm School. However, the Education Act 1875 required the community to provide one fifth of the cost of the school. By 1905, the committee had raised the required funds and plans for a brick building had been produced by the Department of Public Works (DPW); but construction did not proceed. In 1906, the head teacher at Eagle Farm State School advised that 70 per cent of students lived on the south side of the railway line and were walking long distances to school. When the government finally agreed to proceed with a school at Hamilton in May 1906, it was on the proviso that the Eagle Farm State School be closed. This did not occur and the latter remains operational as the Hendra State School, having been renamed in 1908.[7]
\nTenders were called for a new brick school at Hamilton in July 1906. The successful tenderer was Alfred Henry Barltrop, a local builder who was on the Eagle Farm State School committee and had recently repaired that school. Barltrop’s tender was for £1531. His brother William, also a builder, was secretary of the Hamilton School Committee, which organised local member Andrew Petrie, M.L.A. to officially open the new school and hoist the Union Jack on the school flagpole on 16 March 1907.[8]
\nThe Urban Brick School Building (now called Block A) constructed at Hamilton State School was individually designed by the DPW. Brick school buildings were built far less frequently than timber ones, only being provided in prosperous urban or suburban areas with stable or rapidly increasing populations. All brick school buildings were individually designed with variations in style, size, and form, but generally retained similar classroom sizes, layouts and window arrangements to timber schools, to facilitate natural light and ventilation. However, compared to contemporary standard education buildings, these buildings had a grander character and greater landmark attributes.[9]
\nBlock A provided accommodation for 243 pupils in two classrooms. The building was 80ft by 25ft (24.3m x 7.6m) and built 7ft (2.1m) above the ground, with the area under the school asphalted as a play space. The brick walls were arched on the lower level allowing access to the undercroft. Verandahs on the east and west sides of the building were 10ft (3m) wide. Exterior walls were rough-cast rendered on the upper level, and plastered internally. The classrooms were separated by a glazed partition. The school grounds were fenced and there were four water tanks, one located beneath each corner of the building. The design of the school was described as combining the latest ideas in state schools and responding to the climate better than any other school in the state. It had an excellent system of lighting and ventilation, incorporating dormer windows and a prominent ventilation fleche.[10]
\nTeaching commenced at Hamilton State School on 19 March 1907 with 190 students enrolled. However, an inspection in 1916 showed that it was overcrowded, with children being taught on the verandahs and underneath the school building in a makeshift classroom. This was due to population growth. In the Hamilton Town Council area, the population increased by 81 per cent between 1911 and 1921. The school inspector suggested that the temporary classroom be converted into a permanent one by inserting windows into the walls to allow more light and provide shelter from westerly winds. Subsequently, in 1917 the southern end of the undercroft was partially enclosed to create a classroom for infants. Plans for an extension to the school were made, but never executed.[11] Prior to 1940 the north end of the east verandah was enclosed to create a teachers room.[12]
\nToilet blocks had been added to the site by 1930 with a girls block on the northern boundary and a boys block on the southern boundary.[13]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[14]
\nArbor Day was celebrated at Hamilton State School from at least 1912. By 1925 there were 39 trees planted in the school grounds including: Weeping figs (Ficus benjamina), Moreton Bay chestnuts (Castanospermum austral), Cocos or Queen palms (Syragrus romanzoffiana), Macadamia nut trees (Macadamia integrifolia), Camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora) and Candlenut trees (Aleurites moluccanus).[15] Aerial photography dating from 1936 shows extensive tree planting along all boundary fences, except along the eastern half of the southern boundary.[16] In July 1941 a pergola over the front steps of the school building was completed at a cost of £4.[17]
\nThe commencement of the Pacific theatre of World War II (WWII) in December 1941, with its threat to Australia, resulted in the Queensland Government closing all coastal state schools in January 1942. Most schools, including Hamilton State School, reopened on 2 March 1942, but student attendance was optional until the war ended.[18]
\nTypically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. Students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[19] During 1943, male pupils at Hamilton State School cultivated vegetables and flowers in the school grounds, which were sold to raise money for the war effort, while female pupils knitted socks, mittens, and rugs for the Red Cross.[20]
\nChanges to the school were planned at the end of World War II. In February 1945, it was announced that sewerage would be installed and the classrooms remodelled. This work was funded during the 1945-46 financial year, at a cost of £4,046. It included dividing the two classrooms to create four; new hat room enclosures at the verandah ends; changes to the size and location of windows; and the construction of a new brick teachers room off the centre of the rear verandah, with a concrete floor underneath. Gas and electric lights were to be installed.[21] A new male teachers lavatory and store room were built beneath the 1907 teachers room, and toilets for girls and female staff in the undercroft. The c1930 girls toilet block was demolished by May 1946, and the boys toilet block was replaced in the same location by May 1946.[22]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education between the late 1940s and the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[23] A temporary building of two classrooms was constructed for the school during the 1949-50 financial year. A series of other temporary buildings were constructed on the school site, and later removed, as enrolments changed.[24]
\nA number of changes were made to the undercroft of the school building in the late 1970s, including enclosing beneath the east teachers room to create a health room (now a tuck shop), and the construction of a store room.[25]
\nAlso in the 1970s, the native tree garden on the west (Oxford Street) side of the school building was planned and planted by students.[26] In 2018, the boundary planting scheme from pre-1936 are largely retained along the eastern and western boundaries, and a mature Leopard tree (Libidibia ferrea), planted by c1960 is located northeast of the interwar boys toilets.[27]
\nThroughout the school’s existence, it has been the focus and site of community events. The school became the home of the Hamilton Progress Association, inaugurated in September 1907. The school grounds hosted a variety of carnivals and fêtes to raise money for the School of Arts, St Augustine’s Church and for the school, as well as school break-ups.[28] Other early fundraising events held included a moonlight boat trip to the river mouth in 1908, and a fancy dress ball in 1913.[29] Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, fancy dress balls were held annually.[30] This tradition recommenced c1949 and was maintained until the 1970s when they were suspended.[31]
\nOther additions to the site have been made. Hamilton State School showed a strong interest in sport from early in its history, with a netball court on-site by July 1925 and a tennis court in situ by May 1930, both on the north side of the school building.[32] A parade ground was created east of the school building by 1967.[33] The tennis court was converted to a multipurpose court by 1998.[34] The site of the netball court gained a new purpose in 2012 when a federally funded library-adminstration block was constructed in the northwest corner of the site, adjacent to the tennis court.[35] A preschool building has been added in the southwest of the grounds.
\nAlterations to the classrooms and east verandah of Block A were carried out after October 1998. Two of the 1945 partitions were replaced with concertina screen doors; large openings were cut into the eastern classroom wall; and most of the east verandah was enclosed, however, in order to preserve the original timber balustrade, the walls were stepped back. The undercroft toilets were renovated and reconfigured in 2006. The infill walls enclosing the 1917 undercroft classroom (used as the Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) room in 2018) have been removed and replaced with new partitions and roller doors.[36]
\nIn 2018, Hamilton State School continues to operate from its original site and has an enrolment of about 117 pupils. It retains an Urban Brick School Building with beautiful attributes and streetscape presence; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, and mature trees. The school is important to Hamilton, as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Hamilton State School (established in 1907) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an excellent example of a Department of Public Works-designed school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with provision of assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, and mature trees.
\nThe Urban Brick School Building (Block A, 1907) represents years of experimentation with natural light, classroom size and ventilation by the Department of Public Works. It also demonstrates a growing preference in the early 20th century for constructing brick school buildings at metropolitan schools in developing suburbs.
\nThe suburban site with mature trees, and play and sporting facilities, demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Hamilton State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: purpose-designed teaching buildings by the Department of Public Works that incorporate undercroft play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and landscaped sites with mature shade trees and assembly and play areas.
\nBlock A (1907) is an excellent, intact example of a purpose-designed Urban Brick School Building in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, which include: its highset form; linear layout, with classrooms and teachers rooms accessed by verandahs; undercrofts used as open play spaces; loadbearing, masonry construction, with face brick piers and arches to undercroft spaces; and stylistic features characteristic of its era of construction, which determined its roof form, decorative treatment and joinery. Typical of Urban Brick School Buildings, it was built in a suburban area that was growing at the time of its construction.
|Block A (1907) is highly intact and has aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes, through its symmetrical layout, elegant composition, decorative treatment, and high quality materials including face brick and roughcast render.
\nThe school is an attractive feature of the area and is significant for its streetscape contribution. Set back from the street behind a forecourt, Block A’s setting is beautified by mature trees, which frame views of the school from Oxford and Windsor streets.
|Hamilton State School has a strong and ongoing association with former pupils, parents, staff members and the surrounding Hamilton community. Operating since 1907, generations of students have been taught at the school. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Hamilton and as a focus for the community.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650089,"name":"Buderim Mountain State School","alternate_name":"Buderim Mountain Provisional School","street_address":"8-42 Main Street","suburb":"BUDERIM","lga":"SUNSHINE COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-03","description":"Buderim Mountain State School stands on a 6.06ha site in the centre of Buderim, a town stretching along the ridge of Buderim Mountain, Sunshine Coast. The town landscape is hilly and treed and concentrated along Main Street, the principal thoroughfare. The school site fronts Main Street one block east of the main retail area. It comprises a complex of school buildings at the western end and a large sports oval at the eastern end with an extensive forest of mature trees between.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock B (Temporary Classroom Building, 1951 extended 1954)
\nBlock B stands in the complex of school buildings and is an intact, small, lowset timber-framed and -clad, two-classroom building with a gable roof. It is oriented with its long sides facing northwest and southeast and has a northwest-facing verandah providing access to southeast-facing classrooms. Its two phases of construction are expressed in subtle but legible ways.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock C (High Set Timber School Building, 1959)
\nBlock C stands in the complex of school buildings and is an intact, small, highset, timber-framed and -clad, one-classroom building with a gable roof. It is oriented at an angle to the other school buildings in order for it to orient north. It has a verandah on the northern side accessing the south-facing classroom.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMemorial Gate (1953)
\nA war memorial gate stands on the school boundary at the western end of the grounds, providing access into the sports ground from Main Street.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMemorial Sports Ground (1936-48) with embankment (1936-48)
\nA large, flat, manicured grass sports oval occupies the western half of the school grounds. Bordered by mature trees, the flat, manicured, and open lawn is a strikingly attractive and landmark feature in the hilly, treed landscape of the town.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMemorial Arboretum (by 1948)
\nAn impressive stand of trees occupies a substantial area of the school grounds, wrapping around the sports ground on its north and east sides and forming a strikingly vivid feature. It comprises hundreds of mature pine trees planted closely together, some in plantation rows, without any understorey plantings. The majority of the trees are hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) and the ground surface is natural earth.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nMature Trees
\nAs well as the trees of the Arboretum, the school grounds include other mature trees of state-level cultural heritage significance. These trees are:
\nAll other trees and garden features, vegetation, paths, garden beds, and retaining walls are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nViews
\nThere are attractive views to the sports oval, boundary camphor laurels, and the Arboretum from Main Street, forming a prominent element of the streetscape. There are also distinctive and attractive views from the Memorial Gate and the western side of the sports oval across the open flat lawn to the Arboretum, a route used for Anzac Day processions.
\nFeatures of the Place Not of State Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of the place not of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBuderim Mountain State School was established in 1875 as Buderim Mountain Provisional School on a nearby site before moving to its present 6.06ha site in 1887 in the centre of town. The school retains two 1950s teaching buildings that were standard designs notable for their abundant provision of natural light and ventilation – Block B (1951 extended in 1954) and Block C (1959). An important feature of the school is its mature trees, including its extensive pine forestry plot and arboretum planted as a war memorial in the late 1940s. The arboretum, sports grounds, and memorial gates are components of a broader ‘War Memorial Community Centre’, established in 1945 by the Buderim community as a ‘living memorial’. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe traditional owners of the Maroochy District, within which Buderim is located, were the Gubbi Gubbi language group, including the Nalbo, Kabi Kabi, Dallambara, and Undanbi. The mild sub-tropical climate and rich volcanic soil of the region supported abundant vegetation and food. Europeans first explored the Maroochy District in the 1820s. The native forests became a steady source of income for settlers during the 1870s and 1880s, but Maroochy settlers needed to be versatile to ensure their selections remained economically viable. By the mid-1870s, sugar cane was grown extensively in the area, with planters utilising South Sea Islander labour. Buderim Mountain sugar planters John Fielding and his son-in-law Joseph Chapman Dixon, established the mountain's first sugar mill in October 1876.[1] Other crops grown in the area were bananas, citrus, pineapples and ginger. Queensland's coastal areas north of Brisbane, and the hinterland, developed rapidly in the 1880s. Buderim, a settlement which developed to service the local farmers, was established by the late 1880s.[2]
\nBuderim Mountain Provisional School, the first school in Buderim, opened in 1875 on a site several kilometres east of the current school site, and was attended by students from all over the district.[3] Attendance at the school grew and by 1887 a new school was constructed on the current site closer to the town’s centre and renamed Buderim Mountain State School.[4] The building became inadequate and in October 1916 a new school building (Block A) was officially opened.[5]
\nIn 1911 Reginald George Bartlett was appointed head teacher at Buderim Mountain State School. With an interest in agriculture, Bartlett began a program of experimental planting at the school to teach the children farming techniques with a focus on finding suitable crops for the district. In 1913, this work was commended by the Under Secretary of Education, JD Story, who highlighted the school’s focus on fruit cultivation.[6]
\nDespite the importance of the rural sector in the Queensland economy, rural education and training was slow to develop. In 1850 the first president of the Brisbane School of Arts, WA Duncan, urged that an industrial school be established to instruct boys in the ‘theory and practice of agriculture and horticulture' but no action was taken until the 1890s.[7] In 1897 the Queensland Agricultural College was established at Lawes near Gatton. It provided training for young men in the arts of agriculture and related sciences.[8] The college was under the control of the Department of Agriculture and Stock and was part of a wider scheme of introducing ‘scientific agriculture' to the colony that also included experimental farms and travelling model dairies.[9]
\nWithin the school system, a limited form of rural instruction was introduced in syllabus changes made in 1905 and 1915. The principal avenue of instruction in primary schools was via project club activities such as livestock raising (pigs, calves, and poultry), bee keeping, milk testing, and forestry. In 1917 a rural school was established as an adjunct to the Nambour State School. The success of this venture prompted the expansion of rural schools and courses in Queensland.[10]
\nAs part of the Nambour scheme, four schools (termed ‘linked schools’) in the immediate district contributed to the rural school project – Buderim Mountain, Mapleton, Woombye, and Yandina. All these schools had head teachers with an interest in agriculture. In March 1917 all five head teachers met at Nambour State School prior to implementing the project, ‘the main idea underlying the establishment of the rural school system was to give a practical trend towards scientific agriculture, and so prepare a training ground, as it were, for the Agricultural College at Gatton’.[11] It was agreed that each school would cultivate certain crops thought to be suitable for that particular area. Buderim Mountain was initially allocated the cultivation and observation of bananas, thought to suit the mountain’s conditions. The other schools would concentrate on growing crops such as pineapples and citrus fruit.[12]
\nBartlett left Buderim Mountain State School in 1920 to work as an Assistant Instructor of Banana Culture in northern New South Wales.[13] Buderim Mountain State School ceased to be involved in the rural school scheme and by August 1920, the entire linked school scheme had been abolished by the Department. The overall rural school system continued, however, with 29 rural schools established throughout Queensland by 1939.[14]
\nAlthough the Buderim school was no longer an official ‘rural school’, it continued to place some emphasis on agricultural education. From the 1920s, a project club existed. Crops such as strawberries and cabbages were planted and the children received ‘instruction on cultural methods, control of pests and diseases, and soil physics’.[15] In 1932, at the request of RL Prest, Instructor in Fruit Culture, an experimental plot of six different varieties of Macadamia trees was planted in the grounds. The children were to care for the trees and monitor their progress to find the most suitable variety for the district.[16]
\nIn 1936, tenders were called for the construction of a teachers residence for Buderim Mountain State School.[17] This replaced an earlier 1886 timber residence.[18]
\nBy 1919 an Anzac Memorial Park Committee had been established in Buderim, which approached the Department of Public Instruction to obtain 2.5 acres (1ha) of the school grounds to establish a public Anzac memorial park and sports ground. This request was granted under the proviso that the land remained government-owned. The committee planned to plant memorial trees to its fallen soldiers of World War I (WWI) adjacent to the proposed sports grounds as a memorial.[19]
\nHowever, ground works did not begin until the 1930s. In 1936 working bees were held which ‘have effected a clearance of the rubbish and undergrowth in the lower part of the school ground where it is intended to make a sports oval’.[20] Although only part of the grounds were improved at this time, it was enough to enable sports such as football, cricket, and tennis to be played.[21]
\nAt the end of World War II (WWII), several prominent Buderim Mountain community members took further steps to establish a fitting war memorial for the town. In late 1945, the Buderim War Memorial Community Centre (BWMCC) was established. The philosophy behind the movement was to create a ‘living war memorial’ to honour the men and women from the district who had served in both WWI and WWII. It was to be a decided move away from the standard monumental war memorials which were erected throughout Australia following WWI, as the president of the committee, W Chadwick stated: ‘those of us who have lived through the aftermath of WWI know only too well the thousands of pounds that were spent on memorials of cold stone which never have or will be of any direct benefit to the ex-serviceman’.[22] The objectives were clear: ‘To assist in the rehabilitation of returned men and women by drawing them actively into the social life of the community; to educate both adults and children in the ideals of community living and common citizenship; to provide by goodwill and example a pattern of living they hope to see spreading not only through the State, but through the nation and onwards to other countries’. Their motto was ‘Service to Commemorate Sacrifice’.[23]
\nFollowing the devastation caused by WWII there was a strong ideological shift toward establishing living memorials to commemorate those who died in the war.[24] This was not exclusive to Australia; Britain, the United States of America, and Canada supported the creating of living memorials. The Buderim Mountain community embraced the idea of a living memorial. In practice, it was proposed that support services, amenities, sporting facilities, and entertainment venues be established on the mountain for the use of ex-service men and women, and the whole community.[25] By October 1946, the committee had achieved a series of improvements in Buderim: a Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic; a mountain bus service for pensioners and invalid servicemen; a community hall with billiard and reading room; picture shows; sporting clubs including tennis, croquet, cricket and football; and a theatrical group.[26] By mid-1948 the committee had added a concrete cricket pitch to the sports ground, and built two community tennis courts (replacing the 1930s court) and a shelter shed at the western side of the oval.[27] In 1952 a croquet lawn was built beside the original tennis courts.[28]
\nArbor Day had been an important event at Buderim Mountain State School. Many of the mature trees within the grounds were planted as Arbor Day trees, including numerous camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora).[29] On Arbor Day, 1945, 100 Pinus taeda trees, commonly known as loblolly pines, were planted in the school’s forestry plot.[30] Forestry plots were the product of after-school agricultural clubs, introduced in 1923 at primary schools, under the ‘home project’ scheme. Curriculum driven, these clubs had a secondary commercial value as well as disseminating information and helping to develop a range of skills. The Department of Primary Industries provided suitable plants and offered horticultural advice.[31] School forestry plots were seen by the government as a way of educating the next generation about the economic and environmental importance of trees, as well as providing testing grounds for new species.[32]
\nIn addition to the ongoing improvements being undertaken throughout the Buderim district by the BWMCC, in July 1946 a proposal for the establishment of an ‘arboretum’ was adopted. It was hoped that ‘the laying of an arboretum planted with suitable trees … will add beauty to an already fine natural setting’.[33] In December of that year this came to fruition, with the planting of a further 600 trees, comprising 10 species, in the reserve beside the sports ground and the recently planted pine forestry plot at the school. The Buderim War Memorial Arboretum was planted by a large number of community members, including 50 children from the school, and would ‘serve to perpetuate the memory of those who served in the last two wars’.[34] The pine forest was included as part of the war memorial.
\nEnrolments at Buderim Mountain State School grew in the postwar era and new classroom accommodation became necessary. In 1951 Block B was constructed. This was a lowset, timber-framed and -clad building with a gable roof and a north-facing verandah. It was a ‘temporary’ building, built to a standard type (E/T5), and accommodated only one classroom. The building had abundant natural light and ventilation through banks of timber-framed casement and double-hung windows and fanlights. In 1954 Block B was extended with a second classroom on its eastern end, matching the earlier section in form and detail. A set of French doors was inserted in the partition between rooms and a small hatroom enclosure was on the east end of the verandah.[35]
\nIn July 1953 memorial gates were added to the entry of the memorial sports ground on Main Street. The gates formalised the entrance and consisted of four low bluestone pillars with decorative timber gates, turnstile, and a plaque with the inscription ‘We Will Remember Them’. The official unveiling was held on 3 July 1953 with visiting dignitary, Hon. Josiah Francis, Minister for the Army, opening the gates. All materials for the memorial gates were donated by locals.[36]
\nIn 1959 another classroom building, Block C, was constructed. Highset on concrete posts, it was a timber-framed and weatherboard-clad building with an 8ft (2.4m) wide verandah on the north side used as circulation to a single, south-facing classroom 21ft wide x 24ft long (6.4mx7.3m). The earlier buildings on the site had been built parallel to the site boundaries but Block C disregarded this and was built at an angle to face directly north, which was characteristic of the standard type.[37] Designed by the Department of Public Works, the type (High Set Timber Building with Semi-enclosed Stair, F/T4) was introduced in c1950 and built into the 1960s.[38] This type was typically long buildings of multiple classrooms and it was planned for Block C to be extended on its eastern end with further classrooms but this did not occur.[39] Block C included typical variations of features introduced into later versions of the type – a bagracks balustrade on the verandah and louvres in the verandah wall.[40] The understorey had a concrete floor and was used as semi-enclosed covered space with a perimeter bench seat. The southern and verandah walls were extensively glazed, providing abundant natural light and ventilation to the classroom.
\nIn 1957 a tennis court was constructed near the school, on the eastern side of the sports ground.[41] In the 1960s another tennis court had been built adjacent to the original two. Between 1990 and 1993 the original two tennis courts were demolished, leaving only the later courts. A public swimming pool replaced the demolished courts, while the remaining court was refurbished and another added beside it. Between 1997 and 1999 the croquet lawn was demolished to make room for a large road roundabout.[42] In 2016 the teachers residence was removed.[43]
\nBlock A (1916) has had considerable changes made to it and is not considered to be of state level cultural heritage significance. From the 1970s, other buildings were constructed at the school which are not of state level cultural heritage significance and include Block D (1972), toilet block and covered play area (1973), Block G (1975), Pre-school centre (1977), Block E (1982), tuckshop (1987), administration block (1990), amenities block (1993), several modular buildings.[44]
\nIn 2019 the BWMCC continues its important community work in the spirit in which it was founded. Known today as the Buderim War Memorial Community Association, its headquarters are located in the former post office on Burnett Street. The memorial gates, sports ground, arboretum, and pine forest play important roles in Buderim’s annual Anzac Day commemorations, with the march travelling through the gates to the pine forest, where the service is held in the cool shade of the trees. This demonstrates the strong degree of community association that continues in 2019.
\nBuderim Mountain State School has played an important role in the Buderim Mountain and district community since 1875 and continues to do so. Generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.
","criteria":"Buderim Mountain State School (established elsewhere as Buderim Mountain Provisional School in 1875) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of standard designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with play areas, sporting facilities, and mature shade trees. Designed by the Department of Public Works to optimise natural light and ventilation, Block B (1951 extended 1954) and Block C (1959) were standard designs introduced to address post-war population increases.
\nThe Buderim War Memorial Arboretum (1945-46), sports ground and facilities (initially established in the 1930s by the Anzac Memorial Park Committee) (1930-1957), and stone memorial gates (1953) were a large component of a broader ‘living memorial’ which was established by the Buderim Mountain War Memorial Community Centre (BWMCC) following World War II (WWII) to commemorate those from the district who fought in World War I and WWII. War memorials are a tribute to those who served, and those who died, from a particular community. They are an important element of Queensland’s towns and cities and are also important in demonstrating a common pattern of commemoration across Queensland and Australia.
|Buderim Mountain State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: teaching buildings designed to standard government designs; and a generous landscaped site with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nBlock B (a Temporary Classroom Building) is an intact example of its standard type. It retains: its gable roof; lowset, timber-framed structure; north-facing, open verandah with bagracks; banks of timber-framed operable windows, French doors, and fanlights providing natural light and ventilation; and two 21ft (6.4m) x 24ft (7.3m) classrooms.
\nBlock C (a High Set Timber Building with Semi-enclosed Stair) is an intact example of its standard type. It retains its: highset, gable-roofed form with semi-enclosed, covered play space under; timber-framed and –clad construction; north-facing open verandah as circulation to south-facing classroom; bagracks verandah balustrade; large banks of north and south-facing windows in classroom walls providing abundant natural light and ventilation; and 21ft (6.4m) x 24ft (7.3m) classroom.
|Buderim Mountain State School is important for its aesthetic significance brought about by its large manicured grass sports ground fringed by mature trees, a beautiful and conspicuous landmark in the main streetscape of Buderim. With attractive views to and from the place, and within the grounds, this setting includes a picturesque processional route from the memorial gates, across the open sports ground, into the closely-planted, soaring trees of the arboretum – a strikingly evocative, contrasting sequence. This route forms the final length of public commemorative war marches through the town and location for memorial ceremonies.
|Buderim Mountain State School has a strong and ongoing association with the wider Buderim community, and with former pupils, parents, staff members of the school. Established in 1875, generations of Buderim children have been taught at the school and it is important for its contribution to the educational development of Buderim and as a focus for the community.
\nSince their establishment, the War Memorial Arboretum (1945-6), sports ground (1930s-46) and memorial gates (1953) continue to play a significant role in the Buderim community’s commemoration ceremonies, including Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. It represents the broader ‘Living Memorial’ established by the BWMCC that continues today as the Buderim War Memorial Community Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650091,"name":"Silkstone State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Molloy Street","suburb":"SILKSTONE","lga":"IPSWICH CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-03-29","description":"Silkstone State School stands on a large site in the suburb of Silkstone, approximately 2.5km east of the Ipswich central business district. Bounded by roads on all sides, the school occupies an entire town block except for the northeast corner, where the former head teacher’s residence, standing in a separate house yard, is now a private residence (not part of the QHR place). A complex of teaching buildings stands on the middle of the site with a playing field on the north and south sides.
\nThe features of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSite Layout
\nThe impressive, symmetrical form of Block A is revealed at the end of an attractive 180m long walk along a path from a front entrance gate on Glebe Road, through a tree grove to a formal garden and forecourt on axis with the centre of Block A.
\nBlock A (1915), Suburban Timber School Building (C/T8)
\nBlock A is a large symmetrical timber-framed and -clad building with a prominent gable roof surmounted by three tall ventilation fleches. Highset on tall face brick pillars, it is E-shaped in plan with centre and end wings projecting north to the building’s front. The building has wide verandahs, with sweeping timber brackets and battened balustrade, that are the primary circulation. At the building’s rear (south) is a small projecting porch with flanking stairs and battened timber work.
\nThe building has been converted to administration use and has had seven of its ten large former classrooms divided by partitions to form smaller offices with suspended ceilings. The original lofty coved ceilings lined with pressed metal have been removed in some locations but are retained in at least four classrooms.
\nDoors and windows have been altered over time and include double-hung windows (c1992) onto the verandahs that mimic traditional detail.
\nFeatures also of state cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nLandscape Features
\nFront Entrance Gate (1957)
\nA metal front entrance gate stands on the Glebe Street boundary and is the formal entrance to the school. It comprises metal side posts (which have replaced the original brick pillars), short decorative metal gates, and a decorative metal overhead arch bearing the school name.
\nFront Entrance Path (by late 1920s)
\nA straight concrete pedestrian path runs from the front entrance gate through the formal garden to the forecourt in front of Block A. The path is shaded by a grove of trees (existing here prior to 1946). The trees are an informal mixture of mature and immature or short-lived species including jacarandas, figs, palms, eucalypts, and melaleucas: none is of state level cultural heritage significance individually, however, their general location, form, character, and composition is.
\nFormal Garden (by 1928)
\nThe formal garden is a large shield-shaped open grassed space enclosed by a low wide hedge. It is bisected by the front entrance path, which also branches to encircle it on the outside of the hedge on both sides. It has a central circular garden bed. Modern bench seats, the hedge, and all other shrubs are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nForecourt (by 1928)
\nThe forecourt is a flat area immediately north of the centre of Block A with a curved, branching concrete path from the front entrance path to both stairs of Block A. The layout is original but surfaces are modern.
\nThe flagpoles, small memorial stone, and hedge are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nNorth and South Playing Fields (1915)
\nThe north and south playing fields are large grassed recreation fields for play and informal sport.
\nModern playground equipment, water tanks, goal posts, cricket pitch and practice nets, and the sports shed are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nTennis Court (1918)
\nA tennis court stands east of the front entrance path in its original location and size. It has a concrete surface surrounded by a tall chain link fence. Its appearance blends with the overall landscape and its surface colour and markings are not conspicuous.
\nThe fence, surface, and sports equipment are not of state level cultural heritage significance.
\nTrees
\nAdditional to those mentioned earlier, trees of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Place Not of State Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of the place not of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSilkstone State School was established in 1915, originally on a 9 acre (3.6ha) site, 2.7km east of the Ipswich CBD. More land was added to the school between 1946 and 1948, totalling the size of the school at 13 acres (5.3ha). The school retains an excellent example of a Suburban Timber School Building (Block A, 1915) set in landscaped grounds with mature trees and playing fields. In continuous operation since its establishment, it has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe Ipswich area was the traditional land of the Jagara people.[1] Free European settlement began in the area in 1842 and it developed as a mining town and river port for Darling Downs pastoralists, becoming a municipality in 1860.[2]
\nCoal mining was one of Ipswich’s premier industries and by the turn of the century several extensive coal mines employing large numbers of miners had been established on the Ipswich coal fields, several kilometres east of the city’s CBD. The largest and most profitable mine by this time was Aberdare, owned by former Welsh miner and prominent Ipswich entrepreneur, Lewis Thomas.[3] Miners and their families, many of whom had come to Australia from Wales, lived in the suburbs near the fields, including Blackstone, Bundamba, Newtown, and Silkstone.[4] This close-knit mining community celebrated their Welsh culture, establishing one of Queensland’s earliest Welsh churches [QHR 600548] in Blackstone in 1886. One year later they held the first eisteddfod, heralding the beginning of this continuing tradition in Ipswich.[5]
\nTo service this population, Newtown State School was established in 1882. As enrolments grew the school became overcrowded and residents in neighbouring suburbs, particularly Silkstone, whose children attended the Newtown school, appealed to the Department of Public Instruction for a school of their own. The department decided to construct a new, larger school for the area, replacing the Newtown school.[6] In 1914 it purchased a 9 acre (3.6ha) hilltop site, overlooking the surrounding area, for the new school.[7]
\nUnder the stewardship of the Department of Public Works (DPW) and its staff of some of Queensland’s most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced through an evolution of standard designs.[8] In the early 20th century, with a growing concern about child health in education, the DPW evolved its school building designs with recommendations from medical professionals on light and ventilation. Notably, high-set buildings were introduced c1909, providing better ventilation as well as informal teaching space and a covered play area in the understorey. This form became characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous, hinged ventilation flap on the wall at floor level to increase air flow into the classroom and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased temperatures.[9] Windows were considerably enlarged and sills were lowered to provide a greater amount of light into the room. These windows were provided to one wall of the classroom only, the wall to the left hand side of the student, and any other windows remained small and very highset. [10] Smaller classrooms in serial arrangement were preferred as they were easier to light well and correctly. The lighter and airier interiors met with immediate approval from educationalists.[11]
\nThe early twentieth century experimentation culminated in the 1914 introduction of the Suburban Timber School Building type, solving many of the problems of light, ventilation, and classroom size that plagued previous school designs, as well as providing the ideal, modern education environment. The grandest of the standard timber designs of the time, and including all of the lighting and ventilation techniques developed, the type was used for large, model, or high profile schools in growing suburban areas. It was not extensively deployed, lasting until around 1920. It was this new type that was chosen for Silkstone and it would be the most substantial built.[12]
\nIn May 1915, a marble tablet requested by the school committee was laid at the school by the Minister for Public Instruction, JW Blair, on the centre of the understorey wall of the building, which was still under construction.[13] Amongst other dignitaries present, was the Under-Secretary for Education, JD Story. The ceremony was well attended by school committee members, parents, and future students. The minister proclaimed that ‘the people were about to have a new school on most modern lines, erected on one of the finest sites in Queensland … It was for the sake of the child that the new and improved style of school building had been introduced’.[14]
\nThe new school was officially opened on 4 December 1915. Initially called the Silkstone-Newtown School, by August 1916 it was formally named Silkstone State School.[15] The opening ceremony was attended by the Minister for Public Instruction, HF Hardacre, as well as other dignitaries including JD Story. Amidst a large crowd of staff, parents, students, and community members, the Minster declared Silkstone State School ‘one of the most beautiful schools, if not the most beautiful wooden school in Queensland’.[16] Further, he stated ‘the development of a series of architectural schemes had resulted in the present building, with its excellent provision for light, ventilation, and sanitation’.[17]
\nThe new school building (Block A in 2019) was believed at the time to be the most innovative school design in Queensland, surpassing the much-celebrated Cannon Hill State School [QHR 602854] that had been opened only two months before (also a Suburban Timber School Building).[18] Silkstone State School stood on an elevated site, overlooking the district and to the distant southern mountains. It was a weatherboard structure with a 6ft 6in (1.98m) tall, open understorey of brick piers which included concreted play areas and small ‘lavatory stands’ (hand washing basins). The building had a gabled Marseilles tile-clad roof with ventilation fleches and decorative timber work. It accommodated ten classrooms, separated by tall, glazed timber folding partitions with ‘hyloplate’ (blackboard) panes, allowing the spaces to be combined.[19] The building had 10ft (3m) wide verandahs on one side of the classrooms only. A head teacher’s office and separate staff room were accommodated in a small central front projecting block.
\nThe classrooms had abundant natural light and ventilation. They had 15ft (4.5m) high coved ceilings lined with decorative pressed metal and ventilation grilles connected via ducts to the roof fleches. The verandah walls had a hinged ventilation board at the base and windows in this wall were very highset with 8ft (2.4m) high sills. Other than these windows, each classroom had one wall with a large area of windows, sheltered by an external hood. The desks and hyloplate were arranged in relation to this window so that light from it fell on the left hand side of the student. These large windows were lowset (3ft/0.9m sills), an ‘acid obscured glass’ bottom sash, and a fanlight that was fixed open. In this way optimum, single source light was provided yet a student’s view outside was blocked.[20]
\nA timber-framed and -clad teachers residence was also built on the northeast corner of the site in 1915. The total cost for both buildings was £4629. The Minister explained that ‘the influences of surroundings were so valuable that the Department was doing well in spending sums of money in beautifying architecture’. He believed it would benefit the characters of children as well as being a credit to Queensland. [21] The school was one of the largest in Queensland at the time with Block A designed to accommodate 528 students.[22]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sports facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools and schools celebrated Arbor Day from 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[23]
\nFrom its beginning, Silkstone State School had a strong and active school committee which successfully implemented major improvements over many years. On 20 April 1916 the committee held an Anzac Day ceremony at the school featuring a flag raising ceremony on a recently installed flagpole donated by the Minister for Railways and fabricated in the Ipswich Railway Workshops. The school bell was also donated by the Ipswich workshops, with the pole on which it sat, donated by the Camerons, a prominent Ipswich family.[24] The day was attended by teachers and students and patriotic, moral lessons were given. Arbor Day was first celebrated at the school on 1 May 1916 and repeated in September that year. Both were well attended and Ipswich City Council donated many of the trees. Students were tasked with preparing the ground prior to planting. Following the initial ground preparations, the holes were deepened using gelignite donated by the Aberdare Collieries and detonated by local miners.[25] Many trees were planted in the grounds and each teacher from the school was given the opportunity to name a tree; several were named after Department of Public Instruction administrators and others after former head teachers.[26]
\nThrough the school committee’s fund raising efforts and a ‘successful garden fete’ held in the school grounds, in 1918 two tennis courts were laid south of the teacher’s residence. The courts were revenue-producing, leased to sporting groups on Saturdays and hosted local and interstate competitive matches in the following decades.[27]
\nEnrolments grew and in 1922 a new infants school building was built at a distance south of Block A. As with Block A, the infants school was designed on the most modern lines to provide the best learning environment for the children.[28]
\nThe school committee was active in the interwar years. Through its fundraising events it completed grounds improvement projects in the school, often with volunteer labour. This included a swimming pool in 1927,[29] a path from Glebe Road to the front of the school laid by 1928, and a fernery and aviary in 1928. In 1929 the committee built a large gold-fish pond with elaborate central fountain in the front formal garden and decorative timber archways at the garden entrance.[30] The committee purchased a film projector in 1933 for educational films for the children, making Silkstone State School the first Queensland school to install this innovative teaching technology.[31]
\nIn 1934 Block A’s roof tiles were replaced with corrugated metal sheets, which was also performed on the teachers residence the following year.[32] In 1937 the infants school was extended. During the Great Depression, further groundworks were undertaken by relief workers including cementing paths, fence maintenance, and building stone retaining walls to create terraces including terracing the northern playing field between Glebe Road and Block A was terraced into three flat fields.[33]
\nThe school grounds were extended westwards in 1947 when the land fronting Prospect Street was gradually acquired, affording the school a complete block. This comprised multiple land parcels and the relocation of a house off the site in 1948.[34] Soon after, trees from the Ipswich City Council’s nursery were planted along the Prospect Street boundary.[35]
\nBy 1951 enrolments at Silkstone State School had reached 1000 students.[36] To accommodate this, new classroom buildings were constructed between 1950 and 1963: Block E, three classrooms (1950); Block M, a temporary three classroom building (1951); Block D, five classrooms (1955); Block C, four classrooms (1956); and Block G, two classrooms (1963).[37]
\nIn 1954, a survey of Ipswich state schools praised Silkstone as having ‘one of the best’ playing areas that left ‘little to be desired’. Silkstone was then the ‘biggest state school in the area with an enrolment of 1100’ and had ‘a playground area recognised as one of the best in the state’.[38]
\nFor the school’s 75th anniversary in 1957, a decorative metal entrance gate with brick pillars was constructed on Glebe Road. It was unveiled in November of that year by the Minister for Education, JCA Pizzey, and a plaque was laid to honour the occasion.[39]
\nIn the 1960s the local Lions Club planted a row of pencil pines along Molloy Street boundary on the east side of the south playing field.[40]
\nFurther buildings were added over time. A canteen was built in 1969. In the 1970s a preschool unit (Prep in 2019), classroom building (Block H in 2019), and library building were constructed. In 1996 a new classroom building (Block B in 2019) was built west of the library. In 2008 two large new brick classroom buildings (Blocks J and K in 2019) were added on the southern part of the North Playing Field (by this time the North Playing Field had lost its retaining walls dividing the different levels) and a modular building for Outside School Hours Care was added between the residence and the tennis courts. In c2010 another modular building was added for prep classes and a new large multi-purpose hall replaced the earlier hall. Some of the mature trees planted along Prospect Street in the late 1940s were removed for this building.[41]
\nDeliberately lit fires caused considerable damage to the school. The first in 1996 destroyed a 1950s classroom block.[42] The second on 21 September 2009 destroyed the 1922 infants school buildings.[43]
\nOver the years the fernery, aviary, the garden’s archways, fish pond, and fountain were removed. The brick pillars at the Glebe Road entrance were removed and replaced by steel posts. However, the decorative ironwork was retained. Most of the stone retaining walls in the school were also removed, including the terracing on the north playing field.
\nChanges have been made to Block A over time. By 1948 enclosures were made to the verandahs and understorey and in 1973 the teachers rooms were extended.[44] In 1992 the building was partially converted for administration use with the removal of folding partitions and pressed metal ceilings from these rooms and addition of suspended ceilings and partitions to form small offices. Some high-level windows were removed, doors and windows were rearranged, and new double hung windows were added. In 2009 some external stairs were demolished, verandahs were opened up with reconstruction of original verandah details, a lift was added to the central projecting wing, and further partitions were added.[45]
\nIn January 2015 the school residence was sold, becoming a private residence.
\nSilkstone State School, established in 1915, has played an important role in the Silkstone and district community and continues to do so. Generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. With its strong Welsh heritage, Silkstone State School has a long history of involvement in eisteddfods and over the years has achieved many awards for choral work.[46] The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.
","criteria":"Silkstone State School (opened 1915) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains an outstanding representative example of a standard government design that was a response to prevailing government educational philosophies. The Suburban Timber School Building (Block A, built 1915), the most substantial example of its type, demonstrates the evolution of timber school design, including experimentation with light and ventilation, by the Department of Public Works.
\nThe school’s generous, elevated site and formal layout including entrance garden, mature trees, and open fields for play and sport demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Silkstone State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school of the early 20th century. These include: a teaching building of standard design by the DPW set in a landscaped site with mature trees, gardens, and play and sport areas.
\nBlock A is an outstanding, intact example of a Suburban Timber School Building and demonstrates the principal characteristics of this type. These include its: impressive, highset timber-framed and -clad construction; open understorey accommodating play areas; facebrick understorey piers; symmetrical design with classroom wings linked by verandahs; sweeping verandah brackets; teachers rooms; hat and cloak rooms; and a strong consideration for natural light and ventilation, including elevated classrooms with open understorey, high level windows and fanlights, lofty and coved ventilated ceilings, hinged wall ventilation flaps at floor level, and distinctive roof fleches.
\n|
Silkstone State School has aesthetic significance for its picturesque qualities created by the carefully composed relationship between Block A and landscape features of the place. Standing on the centre and highest part of the site, Block A is reached via an axial pedestrian path from a decorative entrance gate, through a grove, to a formal entrance garden and forecourt that reveals the building’s impressive form.
\nBlock A has a sense of pleasant simplicity and order through its elevated symmetrical form, dominant roof with prominent fleches, wide verandahs, extensive well-crafted timber work, and coved pressed metal ceilings. The building is enhanced by its setting with vistas to and from the building across the open, treed grounds.
\nThe grounds include lines of mature boundary trees, and large grassed playing fields to the north and south, which creates an open verdant character within the surrounding close residential development.
|Silkstone State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1915. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Ipswich, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650092,"name":"Allan State School (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"280 Sandy Creek Road","suburb":"ALLAN","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-03","description":"Allan State School (former) occupies a 8094m2 largely flat site in the locality of Allan (formerly known as Sandy Creek), approximately 8.5km northwest of Warwick in the Darling Downs. Fronting and accessed by Sandy Creek Road to the southwest, the site is bounded on all other sides by agricultural properties. Now a residential property, the place retains a complex of former school buildings and structures, remnants of play equipment and spaces, and landscape elements.
\nThe features of State-level cultural heritage significance within the complex are:
\nMost of the buildings and structures are located at the southeast end of the site, with the playing field forming the western portion of the site and the Shed and Enclosure standing in the northwest corner. The Suter Teaching Building and the Suter Teachers Residence are aligned parallel to and facing Sandy Creek Road to the southwest. North of the school buildings, the Playshed stands adjacent to the former tennis court. The grounds are divided by fences into sections: the school to the east, the residence yard in the centre, and the playing field to the west.
\nSuter Teaching Building (1872, extended 1886)
\nThe Suter Teaching Building is a highly-intact, lowset, timber classroom building (former), sheltered by a steeply-pitched gable roof with a broken-back over front (southwest) and rear (northeast) verandahs. Accessed via central stairs, the verandahs are largely open, with the rear verandah semi-enclosed at each end.
\nThe interior comprises a single classroom (former), accessed by central doors from the front and rear verandahs.
\nFeatures of the Suter Teaching Building of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Suter Teaching Building not of state-level heritage significance include: double-hung sashes within gable end wall windows; door leafs within original opening to front verandah wall; V-jointed (VJ) timber-lined store room enclosure at west end of rear verandah; rainwater tanks and associated PVC pipework; metal stumps; timber stairs; metal handrail to rear stair; and boarding over an original window opening in southeast gable end wall.
\nSuter Teachers Residence (1872, extended 1886 and 2017)
\nThe Suter Teachers Residence is a lowset, timber residence that has an open verandah to the front (southwest), an annexe and a 2017 addition to the rear (northeast), and a mostly-detached 2017 extension to the side (northwest). The building has a dual-gable roof, with a broken back over the front verandah, and perpendicular gables over the rear annexe and addition.
\nThe various stages that the building was constructed and extended include:
\nFeatures of the Suter Teachers Residence of State-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Suter Teachers Residence not of state-level heritage significance include: 2017 extension and addition; interior plaster wall and ceiling linings; linoleum floor lining; aluminium-framed windows; replica rounded metal window hoods at north end of southeast elevation; modern kitchen fitout; and non-original electrical, sewerage and gas fittings, and associated ducts and grills.
\nPlayshed (1954)
\nThe Playshed is a 6-post, timber-framed, rectangular sheltered play space. It has a corrugated cement sheet-clad hip roof, and the roof framing is exposed to the interior.
\nFeatures of the Playshed of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the Playshed not of state-level heritage significance include: corrugated metal-clad enclosure (southeast side); and concrete slab floor.
\nLandscape Features and Play Equipment
\nThe Suter Teaching Building and Suter Teachers Residence are highly visible and prominent features of Sandy Creek Road. With vistas from the road across an open front lawn, the buildings read as a pair, set within a rural landscape.
\nThe Playing Field, located directly south of the Shed and Enclosure, is an open grassed area, separated from the former school buildings by a fence.
\nAn early netball hoop is located at the north end of the Playing Field. It comprises a roughly-hewn timber post, with a metal hoop fixed to the top.
\nThe timber frame of an early swing is located between the Suter Teaching Building and Playshed. The framing includes two tall, roughly-hewn timber posts connected with a timber beam. Some early metal fixings and chains are attached to the beam.
\nRemnants of the tennis court include two timber net posts, with metal hooks. The extent of the former tennis court is now grassed.
\nFour early timber posts along the east boundary mark the original extent of the grounds: two are located at the corners of the lot boundary, one is adjacent a chicken coop and one is near the swing set. Other early timber fence posts are along the playing field section of the Sandy Creek Road boundary. The two-rail timber fence with wire mesh along Sandy Creek Road has been reconstructed to match its c1929 design.
\nA commemorative stone (1992) is located near the entrance gate from Sandy Creek Road to the school yard, marking the 120th anniversary of the school, and its opening and closing dates.
\nA mature silky oak tree (Grevillea robusta) survives between the residence yard and playing field.
\nFeatures not of State-Level Heritage Significance
\nFeatures within the grounds of Allan State School (former) that are not of State-level cultural heritage significance include: other buildings and structures not previously mentioned (including timber wash house, chicken coop / shed), recent water and sewerage tanks and associated pipework, recent fences, driveway and its surface; and trees and vegetation not previously identified.
","history":"Allan State School (former) was originally named Sandy Creek and established in 1872 on a 2 acre site (0.8ha). Situated approximately 10 km west of Warwick, on the Darling Downs, the school retains an excellent and highly intact example of a Suter-designed school building. The teachers residence, also Suter-designed and constructed at the same time as the school, is considered to be the only known example to survive in Queensland. Prior to the school being closed in 1967 and sold to private owners, it had been in continuous use since its establishment and was the focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe traditional owners of the Warwick District were the Githabal language group.[1] Early European explorer and botanist, Allan Cunningham, first visited the the Darling Downs, in 1827. Thirteen years later, grazier Patrick Leslie, with and a large party, set out from Penrith to explore the Darling Downs. In 1840, he pioneered the first pastoral runs on the Downs, Toolburra and Canning Downs, and established the important wool industry in the region.[2] Agriculture was also introduced to Sandy Creek in this era when closer settlement began, and a small, but thriving, farming community emerged.[3]
\nBy 1869 there were almost 200 people residing in the Sandy Creek district including families with small children.[4]The closest schools were in Warwick, a considerable distance for a child to travel each day. To overcome this problem, the community made a request to the government for a school, ‘if there was a school established here it would not only offer a chance for educating our little ones, but we might retain their services at home, which are found to be so valuable on a farm, both in the early morning and after school hours at night’.[5] Sandy Creek farmer, Michael McKone, donated 2 acres (0.8 ha) of his 37 acre (15 ha) property for the school, with frontage to the road to Sandy Creek from Warwick (Sandy Creek Road in 2019). McKone and other community members donated funds to assist with the construction of a school.[6]
\nThe request was successful, and in November 1871 tenders were called for the construction of a school and teachers residence for Sandy Creek.[7] The successful contractors were Warwick carpentry partnership, William Wallace and William Marshall who were to ‘perform, execute and complete all the works required in erecting and finishing a school house and teachers residence at Sandy Creek in accordance with certain plans and specifications prepared for the purpose by Richard George Suter of Brisbane, Architect, and to provide furniture and also a tank and pump for the same’.[8]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[9] Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[10]
\nSuter was a private architect commissioned from 1865 by the Board of General Education to design school buildings. After 1868, Suter was responsible for most of the Board's buildings until 1875. In his timber school designs, Suter incorporated an ‘outside studding’ - construction technique whereby a building with timber stud framing was clad only internally, creating a distinctive exterior of exposed framing similar in appearance to half-timbered construction. Suter recognised that in a relatively mild climate a timber wall essentially half an inch thick would provide adequate enclosure and permit quick dissipation of interior heat. To achieve architectural pretension, the hardwood frame and softwood linings were stained and oil finished in different colours and diagonal or crossed bracing members were introduced not only for structural integrity but for expressive and decorative effect. Suter is credited with being the first to use this technique in Queensland.[11] Outside studding for school architecture was continued by Suter’s successors for another 50 years[12] and the technique was transmitted throughout the colony, becoming popular and used in countless non-education buildings. As an architect in the early years of the colony, Suter was prolific despite only practicing for approximately 10 years in Queensland and had a strong influence on the establishment of Queensland architecture.[13] Suter’s standard designs were widely used by the government as an easy way to provide education facilities in the face of limited budgets and a growing population. The reuse of designs diminished the need to pay Suter additional architectural fees and the relationship between Suter and the government became strained. Suter continued as approved architect until 1875 when he was replaced.[14]
\nAlthough Suter’s Brisbane school buildings were of brick construction, in rural areas Suter designed timber-framed school buildings. Initially, his designs were simple, lowset, structures with gable roofs, rectangular in plan with a small porch. When first built, the Sandy Creek school (Allan State School) was a one-room timber school, with externally exposed timber framing, hardwood shingle roof, and small entrance porch facing the road, with no verandahs or rear door.[15]
\nMost Queensland state schools incorporated a teachers residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, the government policy applying to male teachers (only) from as early as 1864. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. From the outset, teachers residences were built to standards regulated by the Board of General Education rather than to specific designs which varied according to the architects responsible.[16] These residences were similar to the vernacular Queensland house with few, if any, education-specific requirements or features.
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works’ architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the state, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teachers residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The teachers residence at Sandy Creek was built to the west of the school and originally shared the same distance from the front boundary as the school. When first built, it was a small timber two-room house with rear kitchen, including fireplace, a hardwood shingle roof and front verandah.[17]
\nThe school was opened on the 13 May, 1872 with an enrolment of 24 students. Both buildings had cost £304 to construct.[18] In December 1872 tenders were called for the construction of a fence around the playground and a fireplace for the teachers residence.[19] In October 1873 it was recorded that 41 children were on the roll. [20] By 1878 this increased to 60 children and the school inspector reported ‘the pupils are clean, pretty steady and attentive, well-behaved and docile’. [21] The paddock west of the residence became the playing field with a cricket pitch, netball hoop and shed and enclosure added at a later date.
\nDespite the general acceptance of Suter's designs, they did receive some criticism from school inspectors, particularly the exposed studding, as many schools had to be clad externally later or have verandahs added to protect the walls. Hand basins were rarely supplied in rural schools, a much criticised design flaw. A rear door leading to the verandah was not provided, requiring one to be cut later. Suter’s design was also criticised as being uniformly defective in ventilation. Inspector John Anderson complained in 1875 of the ventilation quality and suggested new techniques. Inspector AJ Boyd was critical of the lack of appreciation of tropical requirements, claiming that all school buildings were designed for cold climates. [22]
\nSome of these problems were addressed when Suter introduced an ‘improved plan’ of his school building and teachers residence designs in 1873. The ‘improved plan’ added front and rear verandahs, which provided hat rooms and additional play and classroom space to the teaching buildings. This began a distinctive design solution of “classroom and verandah” that continued through evolution until at least the 1960s. [23] Other problems with Suter designs would be addressed in subsequent designs by other Department of Public Works architects, and typically, existing Suter buildings were altered to provide better internal conditions. [24]
\nAs the original design of the Sandy Creek school had not included a verandah, it became apparent that one was required to help reduce the heat during the summer months, give protection to the children from the sun and wind, and improve light and ventilation. In 1878 the school inspector reported to the Colonial Architect’s Office that the school ‘has a porch in front of the school which must be taken down … there is no door to the back of the building’.[25] Additions recommended were for the construction of front and rear verandahs and the inclusion of a back door.[26] This work, however, did not take place at this time and in 1883 the school committee made a request to the Department of Public Instruction (the department) for the construction of verandahs and stated that ‘we were now prepared to contribute our share towards their erection’.[27] It was not until 1886, however, following further requests from the school committee that the improvements were carried out and tenders were called.[28] Subsequently, the front porch was removed and front and rear verandas with timber balustrades and stairs were built. A door was also introduced to the back verandah. By 1878 the school was known as the Sandy Creek State School.[29]
\nIn 1885 the school committee requested additions to the teachers residence for the construction of two new rooms. The committee had been successful in raising £21 to contribute to the cost of the extensions.[30] This, and the addition of a new chimney had been completed by June 1886.[31] The two new rooms were added to the front of the residence, with the original two rooms becoming the rear gabled section of the building. The front verandah was shifted from the original section to the front of the new addition.[32] In 1896 both the school building and residence had their roofs sheeted with corrugated iron. In 1930 the teaching building’s timber floor, which was in great need of repair, was replaced.[33]
\nSandy Creek remained a bustling agricultural centre in the late nineteenth century with three hotels.[34] In 1899 a small, timber Anglican Church, St Matthews, was constructed adjacent to the school.[35] When the railway line was extended from Warwick to Goondiwindi in 1904 a railway siding was built to Sandy Creek. It was, however, named Allan Railway Station rather than Sandy Creek. Its namesake was William Allan (1840-1901), successful Sandy Creek district pastoralist and well-respected Parliamentarian.[36] In 1917 a community hall, the Allies Hall, was constructed in Sandy Creek which became the centre for social activities in the district for several decades.[37]
\nIn 1929, at the request of the school committee, the department approved the school’s named change from Sandy Creek to Allan. Prior to this, the school committee expressed their concerns to the department in relation to the school’s name; ‘Sandy Creek’ was often confused with other districts of the same name, causing mail delays, and as the railway station was called Allan, the school should be also.[38]
\nArbor Day had been an important event in the school calendar at Allan State School. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[39] In September 1928, the curator of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, William Ernest Bick, supplied six trees for Allan State School, at the request of the head teacher, Austin Corcoran, for that year’s Arbor Day celebrations.[40] Continuing with the tradition, in September 1948, it was reported in the Warwick Daily News several trees had been planted at the school for that year’s Arbor Day, and one was planted by an original Sandy Creek pupil, Mr Dippelsman, aged 76.[41] The mature silky oak tree (Grevillea robusta) situated behind the teachers residence may be an Arbor Day planting.
\nA major event in the history of the school was the celebration of its Diamond Jubilee in May 1932. It was reported in several newspapers at the time, including the Warwick Daily News and the Queenslander that it was attended by up to 400 people, 200 of which were past pupils. A souvenir booklet, outlining the history of the school and listing past teachers and pupils was distributed to all who attended. The celebrations included a luncheon held in a marquee erected for the occasion at the school, a picnic, sports program and an evening ball in the Allies Hall. The school building itself was described at the time, ‘the original school building, to which verandahs and a porch only have been added since its erection 60 years ago’.[42] Dignitaries, such as the Mayor of Warwick attended and photographs of past and present pupils were taken at the front of the school.[43] Subsequent celebrations were held at the school in 1947 for the school’s 75th anniversary and in 1951 for its 79th anniversary.[44] In 1992, the 120 year anniversary of the school was celebrated, and commemorated with a history booklet and a commemorative plaque placed at the front of the school, which lists its opening and closing dates.[45]
\nIn 1954 a playshed was built in the school grounds. This followed several requests from the school committee to the department from the 1930s to the 1950s.[46]The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[47] Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[48] One year after its construction, the Allan State School playshed was enclosed to protect the children from the strong westerly winds in the winter months.[49]
\nIn 1956 electricity was installed in the school building and the residence.[50] In 1960 alterations were made to the residence when the front verandah was enclosed, providing an extra two rooms. In 2017 this was reopened and elements including the balustrade and verandah posts were reconstructed. Other than that, very little change has occurred.[51]
\nBy the 1960s enrolment numbers had dropped to fewer than 26 pupils and in 1966 there were only 11 students attending.[52] The department reported that ‘consideration is at present being given to the possibility of the closure of the Allan State School as a result of transport of children to a Warwick school’.[53] In 1967 the school was closed and the following year the property was sold into private ownership and was subsequently established as a farm.[54]
\nIn 2017, the Allan State School (former) changed ownership and during that year, renovations were undertaken to the Suter Teachers Residence. These renovations included a gable-roofed extension to the southeast of the rear annexe, and an addition to the northwest side of the building. The bathroom was converted into a hallway, and the kitchen to a bedroom; and a new kitchen and pantry was installed. The dividing wall between the 1886 addition’s rooms was removed, with bulkhead retained. Most wall and ceiling linings were plastered, except for a beaded board ceiling to the 1886 addition’s rooms. A c1952 enclosure of the front verandah was re-opened, and the verandah was largely reconstructed to the early detailing. The following year, in 2018, the Suter Teaching Building was re-levelled, with original timber stumps retained where viable. [55]
\nIn 2019 there were only three Suter-designed timber teaching buildings entered in the Queensland Heritage Register: Waterford State School (QHR 602672), Mutdapilly State School (QHR 602840) and Morayfield State School (QHR 602839). The teachers residence is the only known surviving Suter-designed teachers residence in Queensland.[56]
\nThe school site has changed little since the school was first established in the 1870s. In 2019 it remains in private ownership, the house is used as a private residence, and the teaching building is used as an office. The former school evokes a sense of the past and is a reminder of the way generations of Allan State School children went to school. Operating from 1872 to 1967, Allan State School, has played an important role in the Allan district. Generations of students have been taught there and many social events held at the school since its establishment.
","criteria":"Allan State School (former) (established in 1872 as Sandy Creek Provisional School) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education, and its associated architecture, in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies and later became standard. These buildings are: a Suter Teaching Building (1872, extended 1886); a Suter Teachers Residence (1872, extended 1886); and a Playshed (1954).
\nThe Suter Teaching Building and its extensions represent the early development of standard Queensland school classroom building types by the Department of Public Works architects, and the commencement of years of experimentation with light, classroom size and ventilation.
\nThe Suter Teachers Residence is important as early, representative evidence of the Queensland Government’s policy to provide accommodation for married male teachers as an inducement to teach in rural areas and to provide a resident caretaker on the site.
\nThe Playshed, playing field and sporting facilities are representative of Queensland Government’s recognition of the importance of play in the education of children.
\nReserved for school purposes in 1872, the place demonstrates the establishment and development of closer settlement in the Warwick district, an early agricultural and pastoral area in Queensland.
\n|
Highly intact, the timber Suter Teaching Building at Allan State School (former) is rare as one of four known surviving intact examples of the approximately 65 buildings of this type constructed.
\nAs a pair, the Suter Teaching Building and Suter Teachers Residence are rare as the only known surviving example of a Suter-designed timber school building and teachers residence complex in Queensland, and as the earliest known surviving pair of a school building and teachers residence built concurrently by the Queensland Government. Together the pair are exceptional, demonstrating a high degree of integrity through their retention of historical form, configuration and setting.
|Allan State School (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of early Queensland state schools, including building designs by the Queensland Government, set in a generous site with play areas, sporting facilities, and a mature tree.
\nThe Suter Teaching Building is an excellent, highly intact and rare example of its type, with typical early alterations for improved light and ventilation. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of a Suter teaching building, including: its lowset form with gable roof; single-skin, timber-framed construction with externally exposed studs and bracing; and single-room classroom space with narrow windows. The early alterations, including front and rear verandahs (1886), exterior cladding in timber weatherboards, and corrugated metal roof sheets, are typical modifications made to this building type following the introduction Suter’s ‘improved plan’ in 1873.
\nAs the only known example of its type surviving in Queensland, the Suter Teachers Residence is a rare example of its type, with typical and early alterations. The building demonstrates the principal characteristics of a Suter teachers residence, through its: lowset form; interior layout comprising a core of sleeping and living spaces, with a rear kitchen annexe; and coved ceilings to interior rooms. Early modifications include: the 1886 extension for increased accommodation; weatherboard and chamferboard exterior cladding; and corrugated metal roof sheets.
\nThe Playshed is a good, intact example of a standard 6-post Department of Public Works-designed playshed. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type through its hipped roof with exposed timber framing; timber posts and braces; timber perimeter seats; and partially enclosed sides.
|As a cohesive pair of timber buildings from the 19th century, Allan State School (former) is important for its contribution to the locality and its evocative qualities.
\nSet back from and aligned with the adjacent road, the Suter Teaching Building and Suter Teachers Residence possess an ordered simplicity and unified composition of scale, form and materiality; which are complemented by the rural landscape setting.
\nThe former school buildings, largely unchanged from their 19th century form and preserved in their original configuration and setting, evoke a sense of nostalgia for the simplicity of Queensland’s rural schooling experience in the past.
|Allan State School (former) has a strong and ongoing association with past pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use from its establishment in 1872 until its closing in 1967. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the Sandy Creek / Allan district, with generations of children taught at the school. It has served as a prominent community focal point and gathering place for social events, with widespread community support.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650094,"name":"Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former)","alternate_name":"Rewan Horse Breeding Station (former) | Rewan Police Horse Stud (former) | Rewan Remount Breeding Station (former) | Rewan Station","street_address":"Rewan Road","suburb":"REWAN","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-31","description":"Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former) is located approximately 64km southwest of the Central Queensland town of Rolleston. Positioned on a rise, on the north bank of a creek bend, the station complex is accessed via Rewan Road to the east. It retains three timber-framed buildings that are associated with the occupation and operation of the early 20th century police station and horse stud.
\nThe features of state-level cultural heritage significance of the station complex are:
\nStanding in their original locations, the buildings are oriented facing northeast and are roughly aligned along a northeast to southwest axis: the Commissioner’s Cottage, facing and visible from Rewan Road; the former Meat House approximately 20m to the rear of the Cottage; and the former Stables approximately 35m further to the southwest.
\nCommissioner’s Cottage and its fenced garden (1911, extended post-1932)
\nThe Cottage is a lowset, timber-framed and -clad building comprising an original (1911) gable-roofed core. It has a later (post-1932) skillion-roofed extension to the rear (southwest), which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe core is rectangular in plan and has an L-shaped verandah wrapping the front (northeast) and side (northwest, part former bathroom). The skillion verandah roof is set below and at a shallower pitch to the gable. The core contains one room, but retains evidence of its original two-bedroom layout in the form of the top-rail of the (former) dividing partition and separate doorways accessing the front verandah. A window and doorway opening are also retained in the rear (southwest) wall.
\nA garden occupies the area at the front of the Cottage; it retains garden beds with stone edging and is fenced on part of its original alignment (parallel with the Cottage front and a return at the northwest end).
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural significance of the Cottage are:
\n
Former Meat House (1918)
The Meat House is a lowset, timber-framed and -clad building with a pyramid roof. Square in plan, it comprises a one-room core (former butchering room), surrounded by overhanging eaves supported on rough-hewn, round timber posts.
\nThe core has a thin concrete slab floor on a raised platform of earth and undressed stone. It is accessed by a single door and has high-level screened openings for ventilation on all sides.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural significance of the Meat House are:
\nFormer Stables (1911)
\nThe former Stables is a long, narrow, lowset, timber-framed building with a skillion roof that slopes down to the long-sided front (northeast). It is one 13ft (4m) stall in width and enclosed on the southeast, southwest and northwest sides.
\nTwo enclosed rooms (former stallion stall and feed room) are at the southeast end of the building; an open-plan area (former open-fronted dray shed and three partitioned stalls with post-and-rail fronts) is at the centre; and two partially enclosed rooms (former enclosed buggy shed and stallion stall) are at the northwest end.
\nThe intactness of the building reflects its continued use as part of a working pastoral property, with sections of original timber slab and post-and-rail construction deteriorated, demolished or replaced.
\nOriginal and early fabric is concentrated at the southeast and northwest ends, and includes horizontal timber slab walls and framing, and earth and timber (former feed and buggy rooms) flooring.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural significance of the Stables are:
\n
Features not of state-level cultural heritage significance
All other buildings, structures, and features on the site are not of state level cultural heritage significance, including:
\nRewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former), located approximately 64km southwest of the town of Rolleston in the Springsure district of Central Queensland, was established as a police horse stud in 1909. Comprising 108,000 acres (43,706ha) at its largest, the reserve was home to up to 771 horses and up to 2850 cattle until its closure in 1934.[1] It retains former Stables (1911), the former Commissioner’s Cottage (1911) and a Meat House (1918) from its stud era. Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former) is the only remaining former police horse stud in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government’s policy of breeding horses, which were essential as transport, for the Queensland Police Force between 1904 and 1934. It has a special association with the Queensland Police Force, an important organisation in Queensland history.
\nA police presence in the geographical area that became the Colony of Queensland began in 1843, not long after free settlement commenced in the Moreton Bay region. The Police Act 1863 created a centralised system under a Commissioner of Police, who controlled the Queensland Police Force (QPF) and the Native Police. The commissioner headed a hierarchy of inspectors and sub-inspectors who were in charge of sergeants and constables working in police districts throughout Queensland.[2]
\nUntil the mid-20th century, horses were essential equipment for the QPF. From 1864 the care of police horses was regulated and any town with a police station also had a police horse paddock. The QPF also supplied horses for ceremonial occasions, such as the 1901 proclamation of the Commonwealth, the visit of Imperial troops in 1901 and the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of York in 1927; as well as for the Royal National Association show in Brisbane. Horses were purchased for the QPF by the commissioner or by inspectors for their own districts. The care and replacement of police mounts was a significant part of the police budget each year.[3]
\nSeveral factors provided the impetus for the Queensland Police Department to begin a horse breeding program. By 1904, Commissioner of Police, William Edward Parry-Okeden (Commissioner 1895-1905), was urging that the QPF breed its own horses to overcome the high cost of purchasing suitable ones. A good horse cost between £7 and £10. These horses were scarce due to stock losses during the Federation Drought (1898-1902); demand for horses during the Boer War (1899-1902); and because agents of the Indian, Japanese, Dutch and American armies were competing in the Australian market for remounts. Meanwhile, the QPF’s need for horses remained high, as a significant proportion of its horses were old and needed replacing. The QPF in 1904 numbered 888 men including trackers, and over 1000 horses.[4]
\nIn 1904, the QPF commenced breeding remounts for its mounted police at Woodford, 79km north of Brisbane, using a 2130 acre (863ha) Reserve for a Police Paddock (formerly part of Durundur Station). Stallions were hired for stud work at Woodford between 1904 and 1908 for between £20 and £30 per stallion per year. Costs were kept down by growing feed on-site.[5]
\nWhen the Department of Public Lands wished to dispose of the reserve as Agricultural Farms and Perpetual Lease Selections, the QPF, under Commissioner William Geoffrey Cahill (Commissioner 1905-16), decided it would continue to breed its own remounts.[6] Efforts to secure another, larger site near Brisbane were unsuccessful, but a suitable location in Central Queensland was found.[7] In 1908, the Commissioner of Police announced he had obtained ‘a very fine reserve at Carnarvon (named ‘Rewan’) of 78,000 acres [31565ha], resumed from the Consuelo leasehold for the purpose of breeding police remounts’. Rewan Station, situated about 160 miles (257km) north of Roma and 95 miles (153km) south of Springsure, the nearest railway station, was proclaimed as a ‘reserve for stud farm for breeding police horses’ in April 1909. Additionally, Rewan was to operate as a police station, conducting patrols in the district.[8]
\nThe nearest town to Rewan was Rolleston, established in 1862, at the crossing point on the Brown (later Comet) River that teamsters used when travelling between inland districts and Rockhampton. The town site was surveyed in 1865 and later named after Christopher Rolleston (1817-88), a local landholder.[9] A branch railway line to Springsure opened from Emerald in August 1887, improving transport to the district.[10] In the first two decades of the 20th century, the large pastoral leases in the Springsure district (within Bauhinia Shire from 1902) were resumed for closer settlement.[11]
\nRewan Police Horse Breeding Station commenced in mid-1909 when the Woodford horses, together with all available mares owned by the QPF in the various police districts, were transferred there. These totalled 76 mares, 37 geldings and 24 foals. Three stallions were purchased: ‘Mack’ (£215), ‘Libertine’ (£157/10) and ‘Bonny Boy’ (£63). Another 35 mares were purchased from Jimbour and Salisbury Plains Stations, and breeding operations commenced in the 1909 breeding season.[12]
\nAt the time of the QPF’s takeover of Rewan in mid-1909, some improvements were already on site. These included a 5-room, iron-bark slab stockman’s hut, suffering from white ant attack, and other out-house buildings, which were ‘rough and not considered of any value and should be pulled down’.[13] A good stockyard was sited on a sand ridge behind the stockman’s hut, which after repair would meet the stud’s requirements for some years. Fencing consisted of about 25 miles (40km) of outer boundaries and two horse paddocks, which were in a poor state of repair.[14]
\nRequirements to make it habitable and functional were: accommodation for staff, animals and equipment; a telephone connection for the property to function as a police station; and boundary fencing. The work was undertaken by the police constables, who cut the trees, pit-sawed the timber, and erected the buildings.[15] By the end of 1909, mustering yards had been erected and fencing had commenced. By December 1910, the existing slab stockman’s hut had been repaired for constables’ quarters, and a house with detached kitchen was erected for use by Acting Sergeant John Joseph Campbell, who was in charge of the stud and the remount breeding program.[16]
\nStables were erected about 100 yards (91.4m) behind the Sergeant’s Quarters. The building was 78ft x 13ft (12.8m x 4m), with a skillion roof of iron, with guttering to its front. The frame was sawn timber, with dressed split slabs for its walls and partitions. The Stables were divided into two stalls for stallions 14ft x 13ft (4.3m x 4m), one at each end of the building; a forage room 10ft x 13ft (3m x 4m); a buggy shed; a dray shed; and three stalls each 8ft x 13ft (2.4m x 4m). The buggy shed was enclosed by two hardwood doors. Immediately in front of the two stallion stalls were two substantial yards.[17]
\nA windmill was erected near Carnarvon Creek, where there was a good quantity of water, about 200 yards (182.9m) from the Sergeant’s Quarters. Water was pumped into a 2000 gallon galvanised iron tank erected behind these quarters, on a stand 9 ft (2.7m) high. Pipes from this tank lead to the Sergeant’s Quarters and both stallion stalls.[18] A Meat House, for meat processing, was also erected, as an essential component of the station.
\nThe accommodation for the two to four Aboriginal Queensland Police Force trackers employed on Rewan between 1909 and 1934 was inferior to that provided for other staff. An image from c1909-17 of one residence shows a dirt-floored, slab-walled and bark-roofed hut, with boughs and rocks used to hold the roof in place.[19] Their accommodation in 1920 was described as ‘big, comfortable and waterproof huts’.[20] The trackers on Rewan are known to have undertaken horse- and cattle-related duties, and fence- and yard-building. Elsewhere in Queensland, trackers performed kitchen duties, cared for horses, checked fences and looked for trespassing stock.[21]
By early 1911, a second dwelling had been constructed southeast of the Sergeant’s Quarters, to accommodate the Commissioner of Police and other government officials when they inspected the property. Initially it was called the Commissioner’s Cottage, but was later referred to as the Officers’ Quarters. This timber-framed and -clad building with verandahs to its north and west elevations, had a corrugated metal roof with acroteria, and post-and-rail verandah balustrades. [22] As it was intended for periodic short-term use by official visitors, it comprised only two bedrooms and a bathroom. By the end of April 1911, the Sergeant’s Quarters and the Commissioner’s Cottage, along with well-tended gardens to the front, had been fenced in with 124ft (37.8m) of painted picket fence, including two wicket gates and two large double gates, at the front and the back of the buildings; as well as 369ft (112.5m) of split paling fence.[23]
Periodic visits by officers of the QPF and the Home Department, and dignitaries took place.[24] The first occurred in April 1911, when Chief Inspector Frederic Urquhart reported excellent progress had been made in building, fencing, clearing and ring-barking on Rewan. As intended, Rewan also served as a police station and patrols were being made.[25] Urquhart recommended doubling the herd of cows and adding 50 mares and another stallion before August 1911, and further fencing.[26]
\nAdditions were subsequently made to the stud. Horse numbers rose to 331 by 31 July 1911, then to 400 by 31 July 1912. In 1913, the thoroughbred stallion ‘Turkish Lad’ was purchased at the National Exhibition in Brisbane and sent with 12 mares to Rewan, and two further mares were purchased from Eulolo and Roxborough Downs Stations. By 1914, the number of stud mares had reached 215.[27]
\nRewan-bred horses were first supplied to the mounted police in 1912, when 69 trained remounts were provided. The Commissioner of Police reported that in the 1912-13 financial year the cost of purchasing horses for the department had decreased by £500, and he expected Rewan would produce well-bred horses in fair numbers in the future.[28] In 1913 there was praise for the 20 Woodford- and Rewan-bred horses sent to Brisbane for use in escort work in the metropolitan area.[29] In June that year, 17 horses from Rewan were also despatched to Longreach.[30]
\nFarming activities commenced on Rewan in 1913. In June, a new timber shed stored its crop of pumpkins. Farm implements were sent there, to enable ploughing of 13 or 14 acres (5.7ha) of land for lucerne and other crops, including oats.[31]
\nHowever, during 1915 and 1916, environmental factors hampered Rewan’s development. Drought halted agriculture and reduced foal numbers, while dingoes killed calves.[32] Flooding late in 1916, which destroyed three tons of panicum hay at Rewan, ended the drought.[33]
\nAfterwards, the stud resumed its breeding success. During 1916, 56 remounts were allocated for duty, valued at £840.[34] In the 1916-17 financial year, 70 remounts were sent out for duty to various districts (value £1050), and there were 669 horses on Rewan Station.[35]
\nIn July 1916, the Home Secretary, the Hon. John Saunders Huxham; John Christian Peterson, MLA; and the Under Secretary of the Home Office, William J Gall, inspected Rewan Station and requested a report on improvements required to make the property viable, and their approximate cost.[36] Subsequently, the addition of cattle and a stallion to Rewan’s stock was approved, resulting in the purchase of the stallion ‘Lord Elderslie’, for £156.10, in May 1917.[37]
\nImprovements to Rewan buildings, approved in September 1916, were carried out by the Department of Public Works during 1918, using timber sourced from Meteor Downs. The buildings included a new Meat House, erected at a cost of £150. It was constructed with its door in a location that differed from its DPW plan.[38]
\nThe 1920s were filled with praise for Rewan’s horses. During his Queensland visit in 1920, Edward, Prince of Wales requested to see the world-famous Queensland troopers and their mounts. He congratulated the Commissioner of Police (Frederic Charles Urquhart, Commissioner 1917-21), Inspector Carroll, and Sub-Inspector Campbell, who supervised the police stud, saying he much admired the horses.[39]
\nOfficial inspections continued in May 1921 when the Home Secretary, William McCormack, accompanied by J C Peterson, MLA for Normanby, and W H Gall, the Under Secretary of the Home Department, visited the Central district and spent two days inspecting Rewan. At this time there were about 600 horses and 1300 Shorthorn beef cattle on the property.[40] In October of the same year, the new Commissioner of Police, Patrick Short (Commissioner 1921-25), also inspected Rewan Station.[41] During 1921, 112 horses were sent from Rewan to various districts as remounts, the highest number provided in one year during its lifetime.[42]
\nImprovements to the stud in the 1920s included reroofing the hay shed and additional stables with second-hand, galvanised iron (1922) and the addition of 30,000 acres of leasehold land from Consuelo Holding, north of Rewan (1922).[43]
\nWhile Rewan concentrated on providing remounts for the mounted police, the motorisation of Queensland and the wider world was progressing rapidly. The QPF was failing to keep up, largely due to budget constraints. Successive Commissioners had tried to provide more modern transport. In 1896 Commissioner Parry-Okeden introduced bicycles for patrols, which were slowly distributed around the colony. However, at a cost of about £13/bike, they were more expensive than horses. Bicycle numbers reached 96 in 1914, but many were old and worn out and funds were not available to replace them or increase their numbers.[44]
\nBetween 1917 and 1924, Commissioner Urquhart advocated the introduction of motor cycles to supplement bicycles in country districts and requested 50, but realised the expense prohibited their purchase.[45] Finally, in 1925 three motor cycles with side cars and 21 new bicycles were acquired, mainly for use in the metropolitan area. Motor cars for the police headquarters were hired as needed.[46] Increasingly, police used their private vehicles at work.[47]
\nBy 30 June 1926, police horse numbers had fallen to 758 and the Commissioner of Police stated: ‘It is obvious that motor vehicles are filling calls that were formerly met by horses...’.[48] The QPF purchased two motor vans to transport prisoners in 1926 and by 30 June 1929, 12 motor cycles were in use.[49] However, it was not until after Cecil James Carroll was appointed Commissioner of Police (1934-49), that motorisation of the QPF proceeded rapidly.[50]
\nEnvironmental threats made the latter years of the 1920s difficult for Rewan Station. Successive drought between 1926 and 1932 affected the breeding, breaking and handling of horses, and delayed distribution of remounts in 1927.[51] In November 1929, fire threatened Rewan from the north and west for over three weeks and required about 18 men to subdue it.[52]
\nNew stock was added to Rewan’s stud in the late 1920s and praise continued for its horses, although QPF horse numbers continued to fall, reaching 616 on 1 July 1929. Notably, in August 1929, the well-known racehorse and sire, ‘Had-I-Wist’, grandson of the 1890 Melbourne Cup winner ‘Carbine’, was presented to the State Government by the Commonwealth authorities and sent to Rewan Station as a stud horse.[53]
\nPraise for Rewan horses continued to be received in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1927, ‘The Duke and Duchess of York expressed very high appreciation of the police horses which formed part of their escorts, and members of their party also commended the remounts, stressing their ‘symmetry and tractability’.[54] The Governor General of Australia and the Governor of Queensland, Sir John Goodwin, also ‘praised the class of remounts forming the escorts’.[55] In 1929, the Governor inspected ‘Had-I-Wist’ and about 16 police horses bred at Rewan at the Petrie Terrace police depot and expressed his satisfaction with the quality and appearance of the horses.[56] In 1932, Governor Sir Leslie Wilson and his daughter were enthusiastic about 13 Rewan-bred police horses paraded at the Petrie Terrace depot.[57]
\nDespite such praise, from 1929, members of the Queensland Parliament, the Queensland Police Union and Queensland newspapers criticised Rewan Station and the police horse breeding program. In the Queensland Parliament in 1929, the Home Secretary, J C Peterson (1929-32) was questioned by Thomas Alberto Dunlop, (Independent, Rockhampton), about the high cost of salaries and allowances, and forage for horses at Rewan Station.[58] In 1930, Arthur Jones (Labor, Burke) questioned the Home Secretary about the annual cost of running Rewan Station and its total cost since establishment.[59]
\nFrom 1930 to 1933, the Queensland Police Union conducted a concerted campaign against the Rewan stud and in support of motorisation of the QPF.[60] Queensland newspapers quoted Queensland Police Union Journal articles stating that police thought Rewan Station was a ‘white-elephant’.[61] The Telegraph advised that ‘The Government [should] view this matter seriously and have it dealt with purely from a business, utility and economic viewpoint’.[62] The Police Union continued its campaign to close the police horse stud into the first half of 1933 and appeared to exaggerate Rewan Station’s costs. The Evening News quoted the Police Union’s June meeting that hoped authorities ‘would have no hesitation selling the Rewan horse-breeding establishment, which was costing upwards of £50,000 a year [actually about £3470], a wasteful expenditure in a futile effort to prop up antiquated methods and ideas’.[63] In June 1933, the Home Secretary (Edward M Hanlon) was expected to confer with the Police Commissioner (William H Ryan, 1925-34) about the closure of Rewan Station.[64]
\nA galvanising factor in Rewan’s fate was the conviction of its officer-in-charge, Sub-Inspector Campbell, for tax fraud and his dismissal from the police force in August 1933. Thomas Jones, superintendent of the farm home for boys at Westbrook, was sent to Rewan to take charge.[65] His report on Rewan Station outlined the history of the breeding program and provided advice about future strategies. He found no misconduct in the management of the government’s cattle and horses. He advised that the station needed fencing and building repairs, and ringbarking. He concluded that:
\nRewan should be ringbarked and given a chance. The policy laid down when the place was first started was an admirable one and if carried out properly Rewan would be today ... doing well what was intended it should do. I... have no hesitation in saying that Rewan has not had a chance of carrying out its programme.... If it is decided to carry on it would not be difficult nor expensive to place the property under practical working conditions.... Had proper inspections been carried out the place would have been improved in every way instead of being allowed to drift.[66]
\nHowever, in the economic and political climate of 1933, Jones’ advice was not taken and the stud’s closure was announced in October 1933. The state was experiencing the worst worldwide economic depression since the 1890s. State-owned enterprises in general were out of favour after the failure of the Labor government’s State Enterprises initiatives (1915-1925).[67] Although Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station was not part of that scheme, there was a popular view that the Government should not run business enterprises. According to Home Secretary Hanlon, Rewan Station had cost £60,000 over its lifetime for a return of £33,000.[68] The reasons cited for the police horse stud’s closure were: its location was too inaccessible for regular inspection and regular control by officers of the department, and it had not produced horses suitable for North Queensland work.[69]
\nIn 1934, Rewan Station was divided into two pastoral properties and allocated by ballot. The value of improvements on Rewan Station at the time of its sale was £1570.16.[70] The building improvements were: the Commissioner’s Cottage comprising two rooms, bathroom and front verandah; Sub-Inspector Campbell’s Quarters comprising eight rooms, with front and side verandahs; Single Constables’ Quarters comprising two rooms, front verandah, small kitchen and an improvised room on the back verandah; a Meat House; three huts for native trackers’ accommodation; stabling accommodation for the stallions; and a number of sheds and yards.[71]
\nThe stud horses, cattle and plant were disposed of by September 1934. Of the horses: 39 went to Springsure as Police remounts; 34 were forwarded to Woorabinda Aboriginal Settlement; 12 were sold locally; and 263 were herded over the Carnarvon Range for auction at Charleville on 12 September 1934. During the journey, 25 died or were destroyed including the valuable stallions, ‘Had-I-Wist’ and ‘Ercanil’, and 11 foals; and 5 went missing (strayed or died). Of the 1464 cattle on Rewan Station: 121 were sold to Lakes Creek Meatworks; 13 bulls were sold to John Rewan Campbell of Rolleston; 1300 were transferred to Woorabinda Aboriginal Settlement; and 30 died. The proceeds of the livestock sales were £1240.6.10. Plant and loose tools were transferred to Woorabinda Aboriginal Settlement and to the Springsure Police Station to be used in police stations.[72]
\nDuring its lifetime, Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station bred, trained and supplied 1029 remounts to the QPF.[73]
\nBy the end of the 1930s, the QPF’s horse breeding program was remembered more positively. The Wingham Chronicle & Manning River Observer newspaper stated in 1938: ‘At Rewan some of the finest horses used in the Queensland Police Force were bred’.[74] In his 1941 obituary, Patrick Short, former Commissioner of Police (1921-25), was credited with making great improvements to Queensland police horses through the Rewan stud.[75]
\nFrom 1934 to 2019, Rewan Station has operated as a 17,500ha cattle property. In 2019, it retains three buildings from its former role as a police horse stud: the former Stables (1911), the former Commissioner’s Cottage (1911), and the Meat House (1918). These are the only built remains of a former police horse stud in Queensland and are important in demonstrating the Queensland Government’s policy, between 1904 and 1934, of breeding horses for the Queensland Police Force, an important organisation in Queensland history.
","criteria":"Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former) (1909-34), is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government’s policy of breeding horses, which were essential as transport, for the Queensland Police Force between 1904 and 1934. The place retains important surviving evidence of this rare police horse stud, which was constructed and maintained primarily by members of the Queensland Police Force, including: the former Stables (1911); the former Commissioner’s Cottage (1911); and a Meat House (1918).
|As one of only two police horse studs established in Queensland, and the only one with surviving structures, the Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former) is a rare example of a function that has always been uncommon.
|Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station (former) has a special association with the Queensland Police Force, an important organisation in Queensland history since its establishment in 1863. The Queensland Police Force established the stud in 1909, built most of its structures, and conducted the stud for 25 years to breed, train and supply horses to the Queensland Police Force for police work throughout the state, at a time when horses were vital to policing.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650095,"name":"Roadvale State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"111 Roadvale Road","suburb":"ROADVALE","lga":"SCENIC RIM REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-31","description":"Roadvale State School occupies a 4.29ha site in Roadvale, a rural township in the Fassifern Valley, approximately 35km south of Ipswich. The school site is located 2km east of the Roadvale township centre, and addresses Roadvale Road to the north with rural properties bounding all other sides. The significant school buildings are located in the northwest corner of the site.
\nThe heritage boundary incorporates the northwest corner of the school site (total area of 1629m2). Features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe two structures stand in their original locations, in alignment with each other and set back an equal distance from Roadvale Road.
\nFerguson Teaching Building (single classroom type B/T4) (Block A, 1889)
\nBlock A is a lowset, single-storey, timber-framed and -clad teaching building, with a gable roof. Along its long sides, the building has front (north) and rear (south) verandahs (now partially and fully enclosed, respectively). The building is accessed via a small timber stair centred with the front verandah, at the end of a footpath aligned with the school entrance.
\nThe interior of the building comprises a former teaching room (now an administration office and staff room, divided by a non-significant part-height partition), with the single former classroom space clearly identifiable. Windows in the gable end walls provide natural light and ventilation to the interior.
\nEvidence of the changes made over time can be read in the building fabric, particularly at the joins in weatherboards in gable end walls where verandahs have been enclosed, and where original fabric survives from hat room enclosures within the rear verandah.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPlayshed (1899)
\nThe Playshed is a 10-post, timber-framed, rectangular sheltered play space, located directly east of and aligned with Block A.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Playshed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLandscape features
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nViews
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance within the school site are:
\nFeatures Not of State-Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Roadvale State School not of State-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nRoadvale State School, located 8.5km north of Boonah and 65km southwest of Brisbane, was opened in 1889, soon after closer settlement commenced in the district. The school was established 2km east of the small township of Roadvale in a rural setting. It retains an 1889 Ferguson Teaching Building and an 1899 Playshed. Its grounds are surrounded by open farmland. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been the focus for the local community as a place of important social and cultural activity.
\nRoadvale forms part of the traditional land of the Yuggera Ugarapul People.[1] When European settlement began in the area in the 1840s, large pastoral runs were established and the district became known as the Fassifern Valley. In the 1870s several of these were divided and made available for closer settlement. In the Roadvale area, German settlers cleared the land and began farming.[2] As rural settlement increased throughout the Fassifern Valley, a railway branch line was constructed in 1886-87 to provide an efficient means for farmers to transport produce to markets in Brisbane and Ipswich. The line branched from Ipswich to Dugandan via Boonah, and a station was built at Roadvale.[3] This proved a catalyst for further settlement in the Roadvale area, attracting more immigrants, mainly from Germany, who established farms.
\nThe small township of Roadvale emerged to provide goods and services to the farmers. By the early 1900s Roadvale had become a bustling centre in the Fassifern Valley and boasted three hotels, several stores, banks, a post office, bakery, blacksmith’s shop and a butcher.[4]
\nIn the 1880s, as the population in Roadvale increased, so too did the need for a school. Although there were several earlier schools established in the district, including Blantrye, Milbong and Milora, all were several miles from Roadvale and the children found it difficult to travel that far every day. As a result, attendance at these schools by children from Roadvale was inconsistent.[5] The settlers at Roadvale recognised the value of education for their children and in 1888, following the formation of a school building committee, an application was submitted to the Department of Public Instruction (the department) for a separate school for Roadvale. The department was assured that there would be at least 46 enrolments, with an age range from five to fourteen years.[6]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875. The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the department. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[7]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[8] When the application was made for a school at Roadvale, the community had raised £70 and by November 1888, £130 had been raised. A 2 acre (0.8ha) site on Portion 141 was donated by Roadvale settler, Rudolph Beitzel, with the department’s assurance that he would be reimbursed £24 for the land. This occurred several years later. [9]
\nInitially, the department had reservations about a school at Roadvale, due to the number of schools in the district. However, following further requests from the Roadvale community, and consideration of the potential growth of the area, the department approved the construction of the school.[10] On 7 February 1889 tenders were called for ‘the erection of new state school buildings at Roadvale’.[11] The successful contractor was Charles Newman and would cost £610. The announcement was made in the Brisbane Courier: ‘the Government having decided to establish a state school at Roadvale, near Blantyre, have accepted the tender of Charles Newman’.[12]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[13]
\nThe new building at Roadvale State School was built to a standard design (B/T4) that had been introduced in 1880 and constructed across the colony until 1893. Employed by the Department of Public Instruction, Robert Ferguson was responsible for school building design between 1879 and 1885 and he was the first to give serious consideration to the ventilation of interiors.[14] Into the low-set, timber-framed buildings Ferguson introduced a coved ceiling and vented the roof space, improving internal temperatures. The number of windows and their size was increased; however, they were few in number and sill heights were typically over 4'6\" (1.3m) above floor level, well above eye level of students. Modestly-decorative timber roof trusses were exposed within the space. Built to this standard design, the new school building at Roadvale State School was a lowset, timber-framed structure with gable roof, verandahs front and back, and modest 'carpenter gothic' timber detailing. It had a single classroom space, naturally lit and ventilated by windows on the east and west gable-end walls.[15]
\nIn 1885 Robert Ferguson was replaced by his brother John Ferguson who continued to implement his brother’s designs until John’s death in 1893, when responsibility for school buildings passed back to the Department of Public Works.[16] The Ferguson period (1879-1893) is distinct and marked by extensive redesign of school buildings including associated structures and furniture. The Ferguson brothers’ designs were reflective of education requirements of the time, responsive to criticism of previous designs, revolutionary in terms of internal environmental quality, technically innovative, popular and successful and provided a long-lasting legacy of good educational design.[17]
\nRoadvale State School was opened on the 14 November 1889 with William Seeley appointed the school’s first head teacher, and an enrolment of 31 students.[18] By 1899 this had increased to 51 students.[19] A teachers residence was also constructed in 1889. Unfortunately, this was destroyed by fire in 1917.[20]
\nThe school became the centre for the Roadvale district’s social life with dances, fund-raising events and community group meetings held in the school building. In 1904, following the construction of the Roadvale School of Arts on the main street of town, many of these activities were then carried out in the new hall.[21]
\nIn 1899 the Playshed was built. The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was needed. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[22] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[23] In 1948 the Roadvale State School Playshed was partially enclosed with iron sheeting which had come from the recently closed Obum Obum State School’s playshed, and in 1956 the playshed floor was concreted.[24]
\nA major problem that affected the small township of Roadvale was the lack of an efficient water supply. In the late 19th century it had been reported by the school inspector, that ‘there is no water … the inhabitants of the scrub have to cart water from the Teviot Brook’.[25] By the turn of the century, most residents and businesses had erected water tanks. A crisis unfolded in the town on 29 October 1915, when a fire began in the Humphreys and Tow store on the main street. The district had experienced particularly dry and hot conditions and the fire quickly spread to neighbouring businesses and homes. With water tanks running low, effectively fighting the fire proved challenging, ‘Roadvale was particularly unfortunate in this matter, as it had not water supply beyond the tanks, and these must have been fairly low from the protracted dry spell’.[26] The fire destroyed most of the buildings in the main street including several stores, the Royal Hotel, the Royal Bank and its manager’s residence, and a number of houses.[27] Although some of the buildings were rebuilt and businesses re-opened, the township’s prominence as a district centre had been diminished.
\nFrom as early as the late 19th, and into the 20th century, Arbor Day was celebrated at Roadvale State School with tree planting, sports activities, luncheons in the playshed and dances held at night.[28] The early plantings are no longer extant. Other social and fund-raising events held at the school included concerts, picnics, sports days and fancy-dress balls.[29]
\nFrom November 1920 until the end of January 1921, the school was temporarily closed due to a diphtheria outbreak. The district medical officer reported twenty students carrying the disease. Four of the children became sick. The school became a temporary isolation hospital, with the parents of the afflicted children providing the beds and other comforts to the school while the children recovered. A nurse was provided by the Health Department. All four children recovered, and following a thorough sterilization of the school, it was reopened for the 1921 school year.[30]
\nRoadvale State School’s enrolments remained steady throughout the early 20th century with an average of 30 students enrolled per year. In 1939 the school celebrated its Golden Jubilee (50th anniversary). A committee was formed to organise the celebrations, and in October 1939 an invitation was published in local newspapers, ‘Roll Up!! Roadvale State School, Golden Jubilee Celebrations … Past scholars, all friends welcome’.[31]
\nThe celebrations were held on Saturday 11 November 1939 and attended by up to 500 people, including 26 original former pupils. Speeches were made by visiting dignitaries including two state parliamentarians and the Chairman of the Boonah Shire Council. A lunch was served in the decorated Playshed and a temporary marquee was set up beside it. The local Milbong brass band provided the entertainment. After lunch a roll-call was held, with the names of all the original pupils present read out; speeches were then made. As the day was held on Armistice Day (Remembrance Day), two minutes of silence was observed. Only a few months before the Golden Jubilee, war had again broken out in Europe, and in his speech, EB Maher MLA reflected the community’s concern, ‘Let us hope and pray that Divine Providence will animate the hearts and minds of rulers in Europe, so that the present struggle will come to a speedy end’.[32] Ten years later in 1949, the school celebrated its Diamond Jubilee in a similar fashion.[33] For the school’s centenary in 1989, celebrations were held at the school on Saturday 11 November, a commemorative plaque placed in the school grounds and a school history published to commemorate the occasion, Roadvale State School Centenary, 1889-1989.[34]
\nThe teaching building (called Block A in 2019) remained largely unaltered until 1970 when it had a small enclosure made on its northern verandah for a new store room and library, and all of its windows were altered to increase internal lighting conditions. Banks of awning windows with flat sunhoods replaced the original windows on the gable ends, doubling the window areas here, and banks of glass louvres replaced the windows in the southern verandah wall. The windows of the northern verandah wall were removed and closed over. Designed in 1965, this alteration also included replacing the length of the north verandah balustrade and bagracks. In 1978 the front verandah was further enclosed for a wet area space at the east end and the verandah wall between it and the classroom was opened up. In 1987 the front wall between it and the classroom was opened up.[35]
\nOther small buildings were added to the site over time. In 1975 a modular building (Block B) was constructed behind Block A and in the 1990s and 2000s two more modular buildings were constructed on the site (Block C and D).[36] In 1982 a teachers residence (constructed c1957) was moved from Nerang State School to Roadvale to the site beside the school.[37] In 2019, the school encompasses a 4.29ha site, having been extended to the south east in 1994.[38]
\nRoadvale State School has played an important role in the Roadvale district community since 1889 and continues to do so. Generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and teaching building since its establishment. The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.
","criteria":"Roadvale State School (established in 1889) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies. These buildings at Roadvale include: a Ferguson teaching building (Block A, 1889) and a Playshed (1899), with play areas.
\nThe Ferguson-designed, timber Teaching Building demonstrates an early standardised design that sought to address the practicality and comfort of school buildings; with later modifications that improved natural lighting and ventilation.
\nThe Playshed is representative of Queensland Government’s recognition of the importance of play in the education of children.
|Roadvale State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school, including building designs by the Queensland Government, with play areas. The school is a good example of a modest country school.
\nThe Ferguson Teaching Building (Block A, 1889) is a good, intact example of a Ferguson-designed timber country school building and demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its lowset form with gable roof; front and rear verandahs; timber-framed and –clad construction; vents to the apexes of gable end walls; lofty classroom of original width and length with coved ceiling; exposed timber tie beams; and early timber joinery.
\nThe Playshed (1899) is a good, intact example of a standard 10-post Department of Public Works-designed playshed. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type through its hip roof with exposed timber framing, timber posts and braces; and it’s surrounding of open space.
|Roadvale State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1889. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Roadvale, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made though repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650096,"name":"Geebung State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"250 Newman Road","suburb":"GEEBUNG","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-31","description":"Geebung State School occupies a 4.05ha site in the residential suburb of Geebung, approximately 12km north of Brisbane CBD. Positioned on a rise, the school is accessed via Newman Road to the east, and is bounded on other sides by Ellison Road to the south and residential properties to the north and west. The school retains a complex of three highset teaching buildings with a highset Administration Bridging Wing, located in the elevated northeast corner of the site and connected by covered walkways. The grounds are well-established, with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and a playing field to the west.
\nThe features of state-level cultural heritage significance within the school complex are:
\nSite Planning
\nThe site planning is typical of Queensland schools from the 1950s; with the long, narrow buildings linked by covered walkways and surrounded by open-ended courtyard assembly and play spaces. Set higher than and visible from Newman Road, Blocks C (south), D (central) and E (north) are arranged in a staggered, parallel formation, orientated slightly east of north with north-facing verandahs.
\nBlocks C and D: Boulton & Paul buildings (1953, extended D-1953, C-1954); with DPW-designed extensions (C-1955, D-1960)
\nBlocks C and D are long, highset, timber-framed, teaching buildings with gable roofs. The buildings have open play spaces on the ground floor and south-facing classrooms on the first floor, accessed by north-facing verandahs.
\nThe prefabricated Boulton & Paul (B&P) sections comprise the eastern extents of both buildings: Block D – three classrooms and a store room (former hat room); and Block C – six classrooms (western classroom combining former head teacher, teacher and hat rooms). Single room-width extensions (Block D with understorey classroom), at the western end of the B&P sections, are of a similar DPW design.
\nThe first floor and full-height gable-end walls are clad in timber chamferboards, with the B&P sections distinguishable by vertical timber strips that define the prefabricated panels.
\nThe understoreys are open to the north. The enclosed southern sides are clad in a combination of chamferboards and vertical weatherboards (B&P only). Understorey bracing walls, located adjacent to original south-facing openings, have a diagonal boarded finish.
\nEarly timber stairs at the east and west (Block D only) ends of the B&P verandahs are semi-enclosed with a combination of chamferboard cladding and timber-framed glazed screens. Concrete stairs access the understoreys.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance within Blocks C and D are:
\nBlock E: Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (1956, extended 1957, c1958)
\nBlock E is a long, highset, timber-framed teaching building with a gable roof. The building has a north-facing first floor verandah, accessing southern classrooms. Stairs at the west end of the verandah are semi-enclosed with timber-framed glazed screens.
\nThe first floor interior layout comprises six classrooms at the west end, separated from two classrooms at the east end by a passageway that contains timber stairs and connects with the ground-level covered walkway to Block D (due to the sloping site). The classroom at the east end extends the full width of the building.
\nThe understorey is used as play space. Enclosures include a classroom at the west end that features exposed timber trusses, an adjacent room, and walls along the north and south sides of the understorey. South-facing openings access an adjacent concrete walkway and retaining wall.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance within Block E are:
\nFormer Administration Bridging Wing (1955, incorporating 1953 covered walkway)
\nThe Administration Bridging Wing is a highset, timber-framed building with a gable roof. It is located along the east side of, and incorporates, the south end of a raised covered walkway between Blocks C and D.
\nThe first floor contains an open-plan computer room (former male and female staff rooms, and former walkway) and a server room (former head teacher’s room), with an adjacent east-facing balcony overlooking the courtyard below. The enclosed understorey contains the former north-south walkway alignment and a former medical room in the northeast corner.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance within the former Administration Bridging Wing are:
\nCovered Walkways
\nCovered walkways connect the Administration Bridging Wing and Block D, and Blocks D and E. They have corrugated metal-clad roofs and timber posts.
\nThe raised covered walkway between the Administration Bridging Wing and Block D has a gable roof and open understorey. The upper-level has been enclosed with (non-significant) flat sheeting, glass louvres and metal security grilles.
\nThe covered walkway between Blocks D and E has a skillion roof, timber floor and post-and-rail balustrades. The south end is lowset and has concrete steps, with adjacent planter boxes, that connect to Block D at ground level. The north end is flanked by timber-framed glazed screens and connects with the first floor of Block E, bridging the concrete retaining wall and pathway below.
\nLandscape Features and Views
\nThe school grounds are well-established, with mature trees and sporting facilities including a large playing field (c1955) on the western side of the site. Standing in their original locations, Blocks C, D and E are surrounded by open space. There is a direct visual relationship between the structures.
\nOpen courtyards between Blocks C and D, and D and E, are characteristic of the 1950s site planning. They are used as open play-space and for assembly.
\nOpen space between and around the buildings facilitates natural light and ventilation, as well as views of the buildings in their original arrangement from Newman Road to the east.
\nMature fig trees (Ficus sp.) stand to the east of Block D and southeast of Block C, and a group of four mature mango trees (Magnifera indica) stand near the southeast corner of the school site.
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance at Geebung State School are:
\nGeebung State School, which opened in 1953, is located in the residential suburb of Geebung, approximately 12km north of Brisbane’s CBD. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains its 1950s site planning; two Boulton & Paul Buildings (Blocks C, 1953, extended 1954; Block D, 1953, extended 1953), with Department of Public Works (DPW)-designed extensions (Block C, 1956; Block D, 1960); a Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (Block E, 1956, extended: c1957, c1958); a highset timber Administration Bridging Wing (1956); covered walkways (1953, 1956); and set in landscaped grounds with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities. The school has a strong and ongoing association with its surrounding community.
\nThe 10-acre (4.05ha) school site is located within the traditional lands of the Turrbal people. This site was used for agriculture from 1866 until its resumption for school purposes in 1949.[1] Geebung remained predominately a farming community, growing fruit and vegetables, until after World War II (WWII). Thereafter, residential subdivision flourished in response to population growth resulting from immigration and the post-war baby boom. Industrial development in Geebung, to the north of the North Coast railway line (established in 1888), also occurred after the war. Geebung’s population grew rapidly from 807 in 1947 to 7000 in 1954, making a primary school necessary.
\nPlans for a school were drawn by the DPW in 1951.[2] In the early 1950s, architects developed masterplanning concepts that influenced the design and layout of the whole school. Initially, these plans were broadly based on regular and symmetrical plan forms around a central or prominent axis.[3] Geebung State School’s site planning reflected this concept. The buildings were located on the highest point of the school site. They were aligned roughly east-west and parallel to each other, linked by covered walkways, and with play and parade space between them.
\nAt this time, the overriding concern for the Department of Public Instruction was the need to build school buildings as expeditiously and economically as possible.[4] Responding to materials shortages and the pressures of the baby boom, the DPW imported a British building system from manufacturers Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich. These modular buildings were constructed at many schools across Queensland between 1951 and 1958, including at Geebung State School.[5]
\nBoulton & Paul buildings were timber-framed and -clad, with a verandah for circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and classrooms faced south, but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. The building could be high or low-set and had extensive areas of timber-framed awning windows, providing more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed. Natural ventilation and lighting was abundant. The classrooms were 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), larger than most previous classrooms.[6]
\nGeebung State School’s first two buildings (Blocks C & D) were of this type. Block C, to the south, was a highset timber Boulton & Paul Building comprising three classrooms of 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), plus a teachers room and a head teachers room. Block C connected to Block D to its north via a highset, covered, timber walkway 52ft 4ins (15.95m) long. Block D comprised: one classroom, 24ft x 24ft (7.3m x 7.3m), and a hat room. Both blocks had trussed roofs and were supported on stumps and metal posts, with stairs within the verandah space.[7] The southern elevations comprised banks of awning windows. On the north elevation were verandahs with continuous posts, and balustrades of timber rails. Partitions with central doors connected classrooms. Underneath was play space, with timber bracing walls and vertical boarded enclosures to the south elevation.[8]
\nWith its buildings completed in time for the commencement of the 1953 school year on
27 January, the Geebung State School opened with 223 pupils.[9] Construction had cost £12,780.[10] Electricity was not yet connected and the school grounds were unfenced and un-landscaped.[11]
At the official opening of Geebung State School on 29 August 1953, performed by Attorney-General William J Power, accompanied by local member, Herbert F Robinson, MLA for Sandgate, it was announced that a further £1000 would be spent on ground improvements and the addition of two classrooms.[12] These classrooms were added at the eastern end of Block D by November 1953, completing the original building plan.[13]
\nThe school population continued to rise rapidly, necessitating further classroom accommodation. Between 1954 and 1960, the buildings were extended multiple times, in a style consistent with the original Boulton & Paul buildings, forming a cohesive complex. Block C was extended by two Boulton & Paul classrooms to its east by September 1954, in accordance with a plan drawn in November 1953.[14]
\nPlans were drawn in September 1954 for the addition of a Head Teachers Office, and male and female staffrooms attached to the covered walkway between Blocks C and D; and of a new classroom to the western end of Block C.[15] Conversion of the covered walkway into a Bridging Administration Wing had been planned as early as 4 March 1952, and was a typical location for an administration building in a 1950s site plan. The DPW-designed classroom addition to Block C demonstrated the influence of Boulton & Paul Buildings on subsequent school design. The additions were completed by March 1956. Unlike Boulton & Paul buildings, these were not modular. [16]
\nIn March 1956, plans were drawn for the addition of a third classroom block (Block E) comprising three classrooms, 21ft (6.4m) wide, and a connecting timber Covered Walkway to Block D, which was lowset at the south end and highset at the north end, bridging a concrete pathway and retaining wall that ran along the south side of the Block E understorey. Also planned was a Medical Room beneath the north end of the Administration Bridging Wing between Blocks C and D. Block E was supported on concrete stumps, with open space beneath for play. The building had a north-facing verandah with hat and bag racks. However, the eastern-most classroom extended across the building’s width to form a classroom 16ft x 29ft wide (4.88 x 8.84m).[17]
\nThis building was constructed to the standard plan for a Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair, introduced in 1950 by the Department of Public Instruction. This type comprised a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north-facing verandah running the length of the building. The building was a highset timber-framed structure and the understorey was used as covered play space. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[18] The building at Geebung State School cost £12,233.[19]
\nWith the school population still rising, by April 1958 Block E had been extended by three classrooms (24x21ft) to its west, at a cost of £7127.[20] Block E was extended again, by two classrooms to the west, in the financial year to 30 June 1959, with the end classroom supported on timber trusses.[21] Block D was also extended, by one DPW-designed classroom to its west, in 1960, which unlike the earlier Boulton & Paul sections had crimped metal-clad bag rack balustrades to the upper verandah.[22] A new classroom was created beneath this western one, to a plan approved in July 1961.[23]
\nBy May 1962, a further wing to the south was planned. It was drawn parallel to Block C, to which it connected by a covered walkway to its north.[24] This wing (Block B) was on-site by
7 July 1964, but its alignment with Block C formed a V-shaped courtyard, which reflected mid-1950s master planning rather than the school’s early 1950s site plan.[25]
Alterations were made at the western end of Block D after June 1967 to create new classrooms on the first and understorey levels and new stairs on the northwest corner.[26] A further addition, comprising one classroom to the first and understorey levels, was made to the western end of Block D in 1967.[27]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Also, trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools.[28] Mature trees, including two Fig trees (Ficus spp.) and four Mango trees (Mangifera indica), were retained on the largely bare Geebung State School site. By July 1955, a large playing field was formed to the west of the school buildings.[29] Tennis courts and a swimming pool with change rooms and seating (east of the tennis courts) were on site by 1968. By April 1976, the school grounds also included an adventure playground (northwest corner), and basketball courts (south of the playing field).[30]
\nOther additions to the site have been made. These include: amenities blocks (west of Block C, by July 1964); a dental clinic (south of Block B, c1978); a pre-school (on the corner of Newman and Ellison Roads, by March 1985); and an activities centre (west of Block B, by June 1980). An Assembly Hall was added, on the previous site of the amenities blocks, by November 2011.[31]
\nAlterations to the significant buildings have occurred over the life of the school. Plans for additions to the western extent of the Administration Bridging Wing were made in April 1978 and the structure is evident by May 1981.[32] Bag racks were added to the upper verandahs of the Boulton & Paul sections of Blocks C and D sometime between 1960 and 1988.[33] Refurbishment of the Administration Bridging Wing and alterations to two classrooms in Block D, for a staff room and new corridor leading from the Administration Bridging Wing, were made c1989.[34]
\nThroughout the school’s existence, it has been the focus and site of community events. Fund-raising through annual school fetes began in its first year, coinciding with the official opening of the school on 29 August 1953. Other fund-raising initiatives included auctions, bottle drives, a Highland Gathering at the school and a ‘Queen competition’ sponsored by the Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) in 1967.[35] In 2003 Geebung State School’s golden jubilee was commemorated with a monument erected near the Newman Road entrance to the school site.[36]
\nIn 2019, Geebung State School continues to operate from its original site and has an enrolment of about 320 pupils. The school retains its 1950s site planning and intact 1950s buildings conforming to standard plans; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, sporting facilities, and mature trees. Since its establishment, the school has been important to Geebung, as a key focus for the community.
","criteria":"Geebung State School (established 1953) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with mature trees and provision of assembly and play areas and sporting facilities.
\nThe layout of the buildings and associated open spaces reflect 1950s master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings: Blocks C (1953, extended 1954) and Block D (1953, extended 1953) demonstrate the introduction and adoption of imported prefabricated systems by the Queensland Government in response to acute building material shortages and population growth in the post-World War II period.
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW)-designed extensions to Block C (1956) and Block D (1960), the Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair, Block E, (1956, extended c1957, c1958) and the Administration Bridging Wing (1956, incorporating 1953 covered way) demonstrate the evolution of DPW designs during the 1950s, based on features of the Boulton & Paul Buildings.
\nThe suburban site with mature trees, assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities, demonstrates the government’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Geebung State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school of the 1950s. These include: 1950s site planning; a range of highset timber-framed buildings of standard designs; and a generous, landscaped site with shade trees, and assembly, play and sports areas.
\nThe site planning is intact and important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of 1950s Queensland state school master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus. The three long, narrow buildings are arranged in a staggered, parallel formation fanning out from an administration wing; linked by covered walkways around open-ended courtyard assembly and play spaces.
\nThe Boulton & Paul Buildings (Blocks C and D, 1953-54) are good, representative examples of this standard type. They are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics through their: expression of the modular, prefabricated construction in external cladding; timber-framed, lightweight construction; highset, gable-roofed form with play space underneath; northern verandah for circulation; semi-enclosed stairs with timber-framed glazed screens; 24ft (7.3m) wide classrooms; flat internal wall linings; timber-bracketed eaves; and large banks of timber-framed awning and double-hung windows, with fall-prevention safety rails and window stays.
\nThese Boulton & Paul characteristics are replicated in the subsequent DPW-designed extensions, Block C (1955) and Block D (1960), but without the modular prefabricated construction and fall-prevention safety rails, and with subtle variations in detailing.
\nThe Highset Timber Teaching Building with semi-enclosed stair (Block E 1956-c58) is a good, intact example of its type, and retains its: highset character with covered play space under; timber-framed, lightweight construction; gable roof; north-facing verandah for circulation; semi-enclosed stairs with timber-framed glazed screens; and large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows, with fanlights. Block E demonstrates two iterations of the type: on concrete piers (1956-c57); and incorporating timber floor trusses (c1958).
|Geebung State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1953. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Geebung, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. Contributions to its operations have been made though repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650097,"name":"Duaringa State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Charlotte Street","suburb":"DUARINGA","lga":"CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-31","description":"Duaringa State School occupies a 4.45ha block in the small rural town of Duaringa, located c90km southwest of Rockhampton, on the Capricorn Highway. The school buildings are grouped together at the eastern end of the long, rectangular block, which slopes gently downward in a north-westerly direction. A variety of trees are scattered across the site, with denser clusters of trees and plantings along the front boundary and around the school buildings. A tennis court (pre-1933 site) and two playing fields (formed 1963-1971) occupy the centre of the school grounds. Between the two playing fields, a line of trees demarcates the original western boundary of the school site. The main entrance is via Charlotte Street to the north, with a secondary entrance from Elizabeth Street to the south. Fenced off areas, containing a preschool centre (1975, non-significant) and a swimming pool (1989, non-significant), occupy the eastern end of the grounds, along Edward Street.
\nThe features of state-level cultural heritage significance within the school complex are:
\nThe two buildings stand in alignment with each other, set back an equal distance from Charlotte Street. Both are visible from Charlotte Street, however a later, non-significant classroom wing (Block B) to the northwest of Block A partly blocks views of it. The residence stands to the east of Block A within a fenced yard, and a visual connection between the two buildings is retained.
\nBlock A (1899)
\nBlock A is a single classroom building with an open west verandah and an enclosed east verandah. Non-significant classroom blocks to the west of Block A are linked to its west verandah and form a U-shaped courtyard.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nElements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: concrete and steel post stumps; enclosing walls on the east verandah; bag racks to the west verandah balustrade; louvre windows; timber awning windows; external fixed shade screen to the north wall; flat sheet wall and ceiling linings; built-in shelving; floor coverings; flush doors; and lighting and air-conditioning systems.
\nTeachers Residence (1899, with 1934 verandah addition)
\nThe residence faces north and is accessed by the front verandah and a rear entrance at the southeast corner. It comprises a four-room core of three bedrooms (one originally a sitting room) and a living room (former dining room); a rear wing containing a kitchen, pantry, store room (original bathroom) and bathroom (former servant’s room); an enclosed dining verandah between the core and rear wing; and an enclosed verandah along the eastern side (added 1934, enclosed 1937).
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nElements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: the rear laundry shed; water tanks and stands; security screens enclosing the front verandah; timber boards screening the underfloor area; flat sheet linings to eaves; enclosing wall at west end of dining verandah; non-original windows to bathroom, toilet and kitchen; aluminium sliding windows and security screens; aluminium awning windows; louvre windows; flush doors; flat sheet linings to walls and ceilings; floor coverings; enclosing walls of toilet; bathroom and toilet fitout; kitchen fitout; and lights, fans and air-conditioning units.
\nGrounds and views
\nIn 2019, Block A and the teachers residence remain in their original locations.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nElements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: all other buildings, sheds and structures; gardens; pathways; fencing; shade sails; playground equipment; and the current court surface and fencing to the tennis court.
","history":"Duaringa State School, which opened on its current site in 1899, is located in the small town of Duaringa, approximately 90km southwest of Rockhampton. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture, as it retains an Early Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School Building (Block A, 1899), with a contemporary Large DPW Teachers Residence (1899), set on a large site with an early tree planting, play areas and sporting facilities.
\nPart of the traditional land of the Gaangalu people,[1] the town of Duaringa was surveyed during the summer of 1875-6 as part of the westward extension of the Central Railway (originally called the ‘Great Northern Railway’), which had opened from Rockhampton to Westwood in 1867. Duaringa, previously known as ‘Colo’ or the ‘Dawson Seven-mile Camp’, was settled by Europeans in the 1860s as it was at the junction of two roads. Prior to that it had been a meeting place and a burial ground for the Gaangalu people. After a flood in early 1875 inundated the railway construction town of Boolburra, on the east bank of the Dawson River, the population relocated seven miles (11.3km) west to the Dawson Seven-mile Camp. This was surveyed and renamed Duaringa. When the railway opened to Duaringa on 28 March 1876, the town became the railhead for local wool shipments. A town reserve of four square miles (10.4km2), resumed from the Nundubbermere pastoral run, was declared on 30 October 1878. After the railhead moved west, Duaringa survived due to the local pastoral and timber industries, and was the administration centre for the Duaringa Shire Council.[2]
\nA provisional school opened at Duaringa on 3 June 1879, in a slab hut with a bark roof, on a site north of the railway which had previously been rejected as a school reserve.[3] The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[4] However, in 1892 the Duaringa provisional school was referred to as ‘a wretched tenement’, with 30-40 children in a building meant for 25. Although a building committee for a state school was formed in October that year, concerns about Duaringa’s permanence meant that an application for a state school was deferred, and instead the provisional school building was extended.[5]
\nFollowing increased confidence in the future of the town, in October 1898 a committee was elected to raise funds for the state school. In May 1899 the tender of JC Thomson, of £869 for a new school building and residence, was accepted. The school’s site, east of Edward Street and south of Charlotte Street, was 5 acres (2ha) by 1899.[6] The local community produced the required one-fifth of the building cost, and the new state school was completed in October 1899 and occupied the next month.[7] The front verandahs of both new buildings faced north, towards Charlotte Street.
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation.[8]
\nThe school building at Duaringa (known as Block A in 2019) was an Early DPW Timber School Building. From 1893 the DPW greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators.[9] The timber-framed school building at Duaringa was lowset on stumps, and had a hipped roof with a central ventilation fleche, with the roof extending over the front and rear verandahs – both 9ft (2.7m) wide with a balustrade of timber rails. The rear verandah also had 4ft (1.2m) long semi-enclosed hat rooms, with hand basins, at each end. The single classroom’s interior measurements were 31ft by 18ft (9.5m by 5.5m); it had a coved ceiling; central double doors and two sets of three tall windows in each of the single-skin verandah walls; plus high banks of 14 windows to each end wall. The building was originally orientated so that the front verandah faced north.[10]
\nA school residence was built at the same time, and appears to be an early version of the DPW’s Large Timber Residence.[11] Most Queensland state schools incorporated a teacher's residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas, and provided onsite caretakers. The detached teacher’s residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to adapt to modern needs and styles.[12]
\nLike the school building, the residence at Duaringa had a hipped roof with a matching central ventilation fleche, and was timber-framed and lowset on stumps. It consisted of a four room core (two bedrooms on one side, sitting and dining rooms on the other), with an 8ft (2.4m) wide front (north) verandah, while a 7ft 7 inch (2.3m) wide dining verandah separated the core from a kitchen wing with a gabled-roof, which contained the kitchen (with stove recess), a store, bathroom and a bedroom. There was a separate outdoor earth closet (EC). The interiors were lined with wide, tongue and groove (T&G) beaded boards, and the windows protected by timber, skillion-roofed hoods. The Duaringa residence is closest in form to a standard type that was built by the DPW from 1903 to 1914, but the fleche and the narrower width of the dining verandah are characteristic of its earlier date of construction.[13]
\nThe school soon became the focus of community events. By April 1900, when the average school attendance was 73, a ‘Christmas-tree show and competition’ was held in the school building, on Easter Monday night, to raise funds for wounded soldiers in South Africa (the Boer War).[14]
\nAdditions were made to the school grounds during the early 20th century, including a playshed, for which a tender was accepted in July 1901; and fencing of the school grounds occurred in 1904.[15] In 1911 a lawn tennis match was played between a visiting family and a local team ‘on the school court’, and by 1933 the tennis court site (extant in 2019) had been completed, with the school committee holding euchre parties and dances to raise funds for the court and tennis equipment.[16]
\nChanges to Block A to improve light and ventilation occurred in 1934, when average attendance was 43.[17] Annotations on 1934 plans indicate that the school building was rotated on the spot so that its front verandah faced east. Other alterations included removing the windows from the verandah walls; enlarging the area of windows in the end walls by lowering the sills and inserting new fanlights; and providing new window shades. This alteration to the end wall windows only occurred at the (now) northern end. A future extension of the southern end of the building, shown on the 1934 plan, did not proceed. The seating in the classroom was rearranged to face in two separate directions, so that the north and south windows were to the left of the students.[18] These changes accorded with the philosophy of the time. From around 1909 windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students’ left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages; this presupposed that all students were right-handed.[19]
\nThe residence was also upgraded in 1934, with the addition of a verandah on the east side, with new stairs at its south end replacing the eastern steps of the dining verandah. The windows between the dining and sitting rooms and the new verandah were replaced with French doors.[20]
\nIn 1934 the school building and residence are both shown on a plan with small fenced gardens to their north. The school grounds at this time also included: a driveway towards the residence from Edward Street; a washhouse near the southeast corner of the residence; three earth closets south of the school buildings; a playshed west of the school building; a horse paddock in the northwest corner of the grounds; and a tennis court, 118ft by 50ft (36m by 15.2m) in size was located in the southwest corner of the grounds, about 100ft (30.5m) from George Street.[21]
\nSchool grounds were an important component of Queensland state schools. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[22]
\nArbor days at Duaringa State School were celebrated with picnics, sporting activities, games, and by planting trees in the school grounds. During the very first Arbor Day in the year after the school opened, a bottle tree was planted, and was still extant in 1951. A photograph of the school building taken prior to it being rotated in 1934 shows open grassed areas with eucalypt trees scattered across the site, and ornamental trees with dense foliage planted around the east and north sides of the school building. Trees were sometimes sourced from far afield, for example, two trees planted at the 1938 Arbor Day celebrations were obtained from the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.[23]
\nVery little change to the buildings occurred at Duaringa State School between 1934 and the late 1950s, [24] although the eastern verandah of the residence was enclosed c1937.[25] Lights and electricity were installed at the school in 1956, and in 1958 a ‘new bathroom’ was added to the residence’s kitchen wing, in the former bedroom.[26] The first additional teaching building (called Block B in 2019) was erected in 1959, when the school’s average attendance was 57. Block B was erected northwest of Block A, which by this time had a small store enclosed at the north end of its east verandah. Blocks A and B were connected by a covered walkway. In 1962 Block B was raised and extended to the east (staff room with store under) and west (classroom), with a new covered way to Block A.[27] Block A was also altered in 1962, with louvre windows added to the east and west walls of the classroom.[28]
\nMore buildings were added to the school from the mid-1960s. A toilet block was installed in 1966, west of Block B, along with a septic system. A water closet was added to the bathroom of the residence at this time. A new highset teaching block (Block C in 2019) was built southwest of Block A in 1971, when the school’s average attendance was 101.[29]
\nThe school’s grounds were also augmented, being extended to the west in 1963, increasing the total size of the school to 7 acres (2.8ha). There was a cricket field on the additional land by 1966, and a bitumened parade area existed north of Block B (no longer extant).[30]
\nA variety of trees were planted in the school grounds over the decades, particularly along the front boundary and around the school buildings. A 1962 site plan plots the location and species of a number of trees, most of which no longer survive. However, one survivor is a mature Schotia brachypetala (also known as a parrot tree or kaffir bean) near the northeast corner of Block A. Schools in the Rockhampton region are reported as planting Schotia trees for Arbor Day in the 1930s to the 1950s. It is likely that this tree at Duaringa State School is a surviving Arbor Day tree from around this time.[31]
\nMore additions and changes to the school’s buildings occurred from the 1970s. A pre-school was built east of the residence in 1975; and Block C was extended to the west c1976, at which time Block A was converted into a library.[32] A new garage was added northeast of the residence by 1981, and in 1983 the wall to the eastern verandah of Block A, south of the store room, was removed, along with the louvre windows and double doors, while the verandah was enclosed with louvres and timber. A swimming pool was added to the southeast corner of the grounds in 1989, and a pottery shed was built between the residence and Block A by 1998.[33]
\nIn the first weekend in June 1979 the school celebrated its centenary since opening as a provisional school. Past pupils and staff attended, and buses were provided from Rockhampton. On the Saturday there was a procession from MacKenzie Park to the school, where the Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, opened the celebration after lunch. This was followed by displays, performances, an afternoon BBQ and a Centenary Ball at the school. A gymkhana (horse events) was held at Duaringa on the Sunday.[34]
\nThe school grounds were extended west to Albert Street in 1981, absorbing seven more allotments of Section II, and a final allotment in Section II was added in 1986, forming the current 4.45ha.[35] In 2017 the school had an enrolment of 22 students.[36]
\nIn 2019, the school continues to operate from its 1899 site. It retains its original 1899 paired school building and residence, a tennis court in its pre-1933 location, and a mature schotia tree. Duaringa State School is important to Duaringa and district as a key social focus for the community, as generations of students have been taught there and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Duaringa State School (established in 1899) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in large grounds with mature trees, play areas and sporting facilities.
\nThese standard designs include an Early Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School Building (1899), which demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings to provide adequate lighting and ventilation.
\nThe contemporary Large DPW Timber Teachers Residence (1899), an early version of a standard design, provides evidence of the Queensland Government’s policy of providing accommodation for married male head teachers as an inducement to teach in rural areas and to provide a resident caretaker on the site.
|Duaringa State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of an early Queensland state school complex, comprising a pair of buildings designed by the DPW, located on a large site with mature trees, play areas and sporting facilities.
\nThe teaching building (Block A, 1899) is a standard Early DPW Timber School Building which, through its form and surviving features, has a high level of integrity. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type, which include: its lowset hipped-roof form with front and rear verandahs; ventilation fleche; timber-framed and -clad construction; original bank of high windows; single classroom; coved ceiling; and alterations to improve natural lighting and ventilation.
\nThe teachers residence (1899) is a good, intact example of a Large DPW Timber Teachers Residence with a later verandah extension (1934). It retains the principal characteristics of its type, including: its lowset, hipped-roof form; rear kitchen wing with gabled roof; ventilation fleche; front verandah; original joinery and internal linings; and its layout of rooms, including a four room core and a dining verandah. The 1934 verandah addition (enclosed c1937) is a characteristic example of an alteration that was commonly made to teachers residences to meet changing spatial and functional requirements.
\n|
Duaringa State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1899. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Duaringa, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650098,"name":"Bedourie Pisé House and Aboriginal Tracker's Hut","alternate_name":"Pise House | Bedourie Mud Hut","street_address":"5 Herbert Street","suburb":"BEDOURIE","lga":"DIAMANTINA SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-31","description":"The Bedourie Pisé House and Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut occupies a 2133m2 site at the south end of Herbert Street, the main street running through the small west Queensland town of Bedourie. Both are freestanding buildings. The house stands toward the front of the site facing east to the street and the tracker’s hut stands at a distance behind it to the west, facing west, away from the house. A separate structure, the Bathhouse and its lean-to Generator Shed, stands to the rear of the pisé house.
\nThe Pisé House (1897)
\nThe pisé house is a modest, one-storey house. Built directly onto the ground, the building has an earth floor and thick rammed-earth walls forming a rectangular core. The pisé walls are lightly bagged on both sides. It has a timber-framed hip roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, which extends beyond the core to form an encircling, earth-floored verandah with timber posts. The posts and part of the roof framing timber is rudimentary ‘bush timber’ – timber logs and branches stripped of bark and still in the round.
\nThe building is symmetrical and has doors on three sides (southern, eastern, and western) and a large opening on the northern side, which has replaced a fireplace and its chimney in this location. It has no windows.
\nThe interior is a single volume, with no ceiling. A part-height timber-framed partition divides the space into two rooms of unequal size. The partition is dressed timber and is clad with ripple iron sheets.
\nFeatures also of state cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state cultural heritage significance are:
\nBathhouse and Generator Shed
\nThe Bathhouse and Generator Shed is a rudimentary, freestanding outbuilding located behind (west) of the pisé house. It is built in two parts: the bathhouse is slightly taller and the generator shed is a lower, lean-to structure. Both are built on the ground with timber-framed walls and shallow skillion roofs, all clad with corrugated metal sheets. The timber framing is basic and minimal and is a combination of bush and dressed timbers. The buildings do not have doors – their entrances face the pisé house and are simply gaps in the wall sheeting. The bathhouse has a concrete slab on ground floor and the generator shed has an earth floor.
\nThe interiors were not inspected.
\nFeatures also of state cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1947, removed to this site 2011)
\nStanding near the north side of the Bathhouse and Generator Shed is the Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, a single-room, one-storey, timber-framed structure with a gable roof. It is low-set close to the ground on short timber stumps and the walls and roof are clad with corrugated metal sheets in short lengths. Along the length of the western side, the roof extends to form an awning supported on timber posts set into the ground.
\nThe building has one window opening on each of its four sides. The east-facing window retains a timber-framed surround but does not retain window sashes; it is partly covered with a fixed corrugated metal sheet. The other windows, built without glazing, retain timber-framed awning shutters clad with corrugated metal sheets. It has only one door (timber boards), which faces west.
\nThe interior is unlined on the walls and ceiling.
\nFeatures also of state cultural heritage significance include:
\nOther features on the site
\nAll other buildings, structures, and features on the site are not of state level cultural heritage significance, including:
\nThe Bedourie Pisé House was built in 1897 as the residence of Mary Brodie, local landowner and proprietor of Bedourie’s Royal Hotel. The use of pisé (rammed earth construction) was an uncommon form of building in Queensland. The building was used as a dwelling, a council meeting place and possibly a temporary hotel, but fell into disrepair before being purchased by the Diamantina Shire Council and restored in the early 21st century. Moved to stand behind the Pisé House in 2011, the Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut was built at the Bedourie Police Station in 1947 as lodgings for police tracker Doctor Jack and his wife Norah. The shelter is typical of the accommodation standard built for Aboriginal trackers employed by the Queensland police in the 20th century.
\nThe small, isolated town of Bedourie is located near Eyre Creek in the Channel Country flood plains of central western Queensland, approximately 1,130km west of Rockhampton and 1,182km north of Adelaide. The town is on the edge of the traditional lands of the Wangkamadla, Pitta Pitta, Mithaka, and Wangkangurru people. These people retained important knowledge of soaks, vital in the often dry country, and used the major rivers, particularly the Georgina River, as water supply, travel route, and source of Dreaming stories.[1]
\nThe area now encompassing Bedourie was a meeting place, exchange centre and distribution area for pituri, a hallucinogenic plant containing high levels of nicotine. The country between the Georgina and Mulligan rivers was the primary source of pituri, which was used in hunting, ceremonies, and recreationally. This placed it at the centre of an important trade route, with people travelling hundreds of kilometres to the area to exchange high quality stone axes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa, medicines, and sea shells for pituri. The route was also significant for social and ritual trade, where songs, ceremonies, and knowledge were exchanged.[2]
\nFollowing European expeditions, pastoralists occupied the Channel Country in the 1860s, stocking runs with cattle and sheep from South Australia. From 1884 Afghan cameleers, following the Aboriginal trade routes, transported goods from the newly-opened Maree railway station in central South Australia, along the Channel Country rivers to Birdsville and Cloncurry. Afghan trading towns sprang up near the present sites of Birdsville and Bedourie, supporting camels transporting stores north and drovers moving stock south to the Adelaide sale yards.[3]
\nIn 1886, a township reserve named Bedouri – reputedly meaning ‘dust storm’ – was proclaimed on Eyre Creek. After locals advised of the flooding risk, a new site was chosen further north, on the road from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Adelaide. Situated about two days’ journey from Boulia in the north and Birdsville to the south, the township was one of six small settlements which became important refreshment and supply sites for surrounding pastoral stations and drovers bound for Adelaide. Blackall merchants AJ Haylock and Co established a general store and hotel in the yet-to-be proclaimed and surveyed township, importing building materials to the sparsely vegetated area. The survey of the township, completed in 1888, shows the location of the hotel, its kitchen, stable and horse yards (Allotment 1 of Section 1), and the store (Allotment 2 of Section 1), but no other structures.[4]
\nBedourie developed slowly, with the hotel at its centre. A publican’s licence was issued for the Bedourie hotel, named the Royal, in May 1888, but AJ Haylock and Co advertised the hotel and store for sale or let two months later. The businesses were still unsold in May 1889, when the Bedourie town sites were offered for sale in Birdsville. Eleven allotments, including the hotel, store, and future site of the pisé house, were purchased by Mary Dolan. Born Mary Ballard circa 1858, she had been raised in hotels in Victoria by her twice-widowed mother. In 1883 she married Andrew Carey Dolan, the manager of Breadalbane Station, on the Georgina River, and the couple moved to Birdsville. Andrew Dolan died in 1887, leaving Mary with one child and an £800 estate. The purchase of the Bedourie town land, particularly the hotel and store, enabled Mary to provide an income for herself and her daughter. Mary’s acquisition of the hotel also mirrored a tradition of female publicans in Australia, particularly of widows or deserted wives. Hotel keeping was one of the few occupations women could pursue in the 19th century, allowing childcare from a home base, and granting them legal and economic independence.[5]
\nBy 1891, Mary had become the principal business operator and service provider in Bedourie. Although very few people lived in the town, her hotel served passing drovers, pastoral station occupants, and visiting racegoers who attended Bedourie’s annual horse races, which began in 1887. In addition to being the hotel proprietor, Mary was the town’s postmistress, storekeeper, butcher, and wine and spirit merchant. She also grazed two flocks of sheep around Bedourie, and owned the town’s boat. In 1890, she married John Gray Brodie, of Cluny Station, and the hotel, butcher, store, and wine and spirit businesses were transferred to Brodie from 1892. John Brodie, however, died in January 1895, leaving Mary with a further two children and a third expected. She continued to run the Bedourie businesses, inheriting them along with Brodie’s £500 estate.[6]
\nIn 1897, the value of two of Mary’s previously undeveloped sites (allotments 1 and 2 of section 5), leapt from £60 to £200. The allotments stood opposite the hotel and store on Bedourie’s main street. The hotel and store were destroyed in a storm in October 1897, and the building erected on allotment 1 of section 5 – a small pisé house – may have served as a temporary hotel as well as residence, until a new hotel and store were built in 1898.[7] It featured multiple external doors, and a large room with a fireplace at one end, similar to hotels in remote areas in South Australia.[8]
\nThe house employed an unusual construction method for Queensland, pisé de terre. Often known as pisé or mud construction, pisé de terre is an ancient building method in which loam (earth of low clay content) is rammed into temporary formwork to create rock-like walls. The compaction forces the soil particles together, requiring no additional strengthening. The method was traditionally used in Mediterranean, Central Asian countries, and parts of China, but fell out of use. It was ‘rediscovered’ in France in the mid-18th century, reaching England about 1787, the United States of America around 1810-5 and Australia from the 1820s. It was one of several earthen building construction methods used in Australia, including structures made from mud brick, stones within a mud matrix, cob, adobe, and pisé.[9]
\nWhile not widely used across Queensland, the method of pisé construction proved valuable in western Queensland, where building materials were difficult to come by. The limited vegetation provided insufficient material for construction, and while a sandstone quarry existed near Birdsville, allowing residents there to construct stone buildings, Bedourie, surrounded by desert sandhills and stony desert tableland soils, lacked a local stone cache. Pisé construction had several advantages, being ‘less than one-half the cost of Brick or Wood’, ‘equal in appearance and strength to any stone building’, and its material was ‘always procurable’.[10] Pisé had particular benefits in the arid climate of western Queensland: the buildings were not prone to deterioration, and were ‘cool in summer, warm in winter’. A wide array of pisé buildings were constructed in the Channel Country, including Birdsville’s first hotel; Windorah’s original police station (1884); hotels in Jundah, Windorah, and Canterbury; and homestead buildings at Diamantina Lakes, Cullwilla, Daroo, Palpara, Mornay, St Albans, Toorajumpa, and Monika.[11]
\nThe ease of construction was another advantage, with minimal equipment and expert knowledge needed. Information on erecting pisé buildings was easily procurable in the 1890s, with contemporary publications and newspapers providing detailed, illustrated instructions on the construction process. A pisé building could be constructed by a single person, though ‘a tradesman who understands the principle of the system and the materials’ was recommended. Publications emphasised the strength and durability of the buildings, so long as a large projecting roof was provided to protect the walls from the weather, with verandahs on all sides also recommended.[12]
\nIn 1899, Mary Brodie married her third husband, James Craigie, owner of Alderley station and ‘uncrowned cattle king’ of Boulia. Craigie relocated his business headquarters to Bedourie in April 1900, and Mary’s property was transferred to James in 1901. Mary briefly moved to Winton in 1902, where she owned and operated the Tattersalls Hotel, but returned to Bedourie in 1904. In her absence, the Bedourie Pisé House was leased to the newly-formed Diamantina Shire Council. Council meetings were held in Bedourie until March 1919, likely all in the pisé house.[13]
\nThe house was – and remained – one of the few buildings in Bedourie, which in December 1904 consisted of a public house, store, blacksmith’s shop, a few dwellings, and a police station. A bore was added in 1905. Despite its small size, however, Bedourie’s attractions drew regular visitors. A traveller in October 1910 described Bedourie as a ‘caravansary… an oasis in the desert’ with hospitality courtesy of the Craigie family, and the town was ‘a favourite resort of cattlemen’.[14] The hotel issued its own currency and the large race-going crowds were managed under the watchful eye of publican ‘Mother Bedourie’. ‘Mother Bedourie’ was compared with the ‘Eulo Queen’ Isabel Gray, also a thrice married publican who operated from a pisé building.[15]
\nJames Craigie died in 1912, and his property was transferred to Mary. Mary transferred her southwest Queensland property to pastoralist Sidney Kidman and retired in 1914 to Brisbane, dying there in 1941. Kidman had acquired a wealth of grazing properties along two major droving paths linking Adelaide and northern Australia, giving rise to his reputation as the ‘Cattle King’. By the time he acquired the Bedourie Hotel and pisé house, he was considering retirement. Kidman installed his cattle property manager, George Gaffney, as manager of the Bedourie Hotel, and Gaffney purchased the Pisé House in 1918, with a substantial mortgage of £1375.[16]
\nThe hotel and Pisé House remained in the ownership and occupation of the Gaffney family and descendants (including the Clanchys and Smiths) for the next several decades. The house, known variously as the ‘Mud House’, ‘Mud Hut’, or ‘The Cottage’, was the family’s residence through the school year. The generator shed and timber power poles behind the house were likely added during this time; Bedourie did not receive electricity until 1970, requiring residents to install their own generators to provide power.[17] A bathhouse was also added.[18]
\nIn 1940, the Bedourie Pisé House was recognised as one of the ‘coolest houses in Queensland’, thanks largely to its pisé construction. Postwar building material shortages sparked a revival in the construction form, which had dwindled in the 20th century, as the cost of importing building materials to western Queensland decreased. By 1911, only 61 pisé houses were identified of Queensland’s 125,800 dwellings. Despite the postwar revival, however, the number of Queensland pisé houses did not significantly grow, and weather, neglect or replacement took their toll on the older pisé buildings.[19][20]
\nBedourie grew from the 1950s, with an airstrip, new residences, and a school constructed. The Diamantina Shire Council re-established itself in Bedourie in 1954, building a new shire hall. The Pisé House occupants departed in 1971, and the house was transferred to the Diamantina Shire Council in 1974. The land was resurveyed and in 1996, new land parcels were created to the south of the existing township, contiguous with the site of the Pisé House and the hotel. By 2002, the chimney and fireplace had been removed, the verandahs enclosed with corrugated iron sheets, and the house had fallen into disrepair. The council began repairs and stabilisation works on the Pisé House in 2003. In 2019, the Pisé House site also includes the generator shed and a bathhouse.[21]
\nAboriginal Tracker’s Hut
\nPolicing in the Bedourie district began in 1882 with the opening of the Eyre Creek Native Mounted Police depot. Established in 1848, the Native Mounted Police was an armed retaliatory force engaged to displace and dispossess Aboriginal people of the land that European pastoralists intended to occupy. Aboriginal people had assisted the European expeditions to the Channel Country in the 1840s and 1860s, but in the 1870s, several violent incidents occurred in the district between Boulia and the border, including spearings of Europeans and Aboriginal deaths at the hands of the Burketown Native Police.[22] Pastoralists called for a police force in the area,[23] and the Native Police depot was opened at Eyre Creek, a short distance from the future town of Bedourie. The depot lasted six years, closing in 1888, and was replaced by a permanent police station in 1889. The station building, constructed c1890, was a simple corrugated iron-clad structure which served as the office, accommodation and courthouse. The station was staffed by two constables and two Aboriginal trackers.
\nIntroduced to Queensland police stations from 1874, Aboriginal trackers were engaged to find missing persons, trace criminals, and search for lost or stolen stock. Their abilities allowed them to trace paths indistinguishable to Europeans, providing vital services in remote and rural areas. Trackers had become part of the police forces across Australia after first working for Europeans in the 1820s, and the skills of Queensland trackers were particularly renowned. By 1896, 112 trackers were employed across the colony, though numbers varied from year to year. Most trackers were not local to their station, and from 1900 were drawn primarily from the Fraser Island and Durundur Aboriginal settlements. If married, the tracker’s wife would be employed in domestic work at the police station.[24]
\nThe initial police presence in Bedourie was short lived: only one tracker was recorded in Bedourie with the two constables in 1891, and all three had departed by 1893. In 1895, three police were despatched to Bedourie to re-establish the station, and a tracker was employed again by 1897. In 1900, he was one of 127 trackers engaged by the police in Queensland, the peak of tracker numbers.[25] The tracker’s role in Bedourie was largely deterrent: crime rates in the town were low, with few offences reported in the 19th and 20th centuries. The need for the station was questioned on multiple occasions, but local residents argued that the presence of a police officer and tracker discouraged crime in the remote district, and the station remained open. A series of trackers was employed at Bedourie, helping to locate a murder victim in 1908; a missing man in 1913; cattle in 1925; and a lost theatre troop in 1940.[26]
\nAs part of their employment, trackers were to be provided with wages, food, and accommodation. Wages were well below the average rate (and later well below the minimum wage), and food was supplied by the officer in charge of the station. No standard for accommodation was stipulated, and the accommodation provided across Queensland varied, from not being supplied, to bark huts or storage rooms within the police building, to a large brick building at Townsville. The Department of Public Works provided plans for tracker accommodation (called ‘huts’) at Burketown (c1906), Gilbert River (1908), Emerald (1917), Ingham (1927), Thursday Island (1928 and 1954), Toowoomba (1929), Almaden (1934), Cooktown (1935), and Mount Molloy (1936). None of these buildings appear to survive in 2019.[27]
\nWhen the Bedourie tracker’s position fell vacant in 1934, the police applied for the services of a new tracker. The Bedourie police horses had been transferred due to the lack of water in the area, and a tracker’s service was considered ‘essential’ in the absence of the horses. A 26 year old tracker in Boulia, Doctor Jack, indicated his willingness to take the position, and he was appointed in September 1934. Tracker accommodation had not been supplied at Bedourie, so Doctor Jack constructed a humpy for himself and his wife, Norah, out of bush timber and kerosene tins, which he erected on the police reserve in Bedourie.[28]
\nDoctor Jack had been recommended by the Boulia police as a ‘master horseman and splendid tracker’.[29] Over the next several years, his skills with animals were also recognised; and he was employed around the town on construction and repair work. [30]
\nIn 1945, while requesting verandah extensions to the Bedourie police station, the local constable described the conditions under which Doctor Jack had been living:
\n… there is absolutely no timber or iron in the present Tracker’s Hut, at this Station, which would be of any use in the proposed new hut. The present hut is a humpy… this humpy has been erected many years and is now in very bad state of repair, a lot of the kerosene tins having been blown away and the bush timber has rotted… There is no bucket shower at present supplied for the tracker, whenever the Tracker or his Gin [sic] desires to have a bath they are compelled to walk to the town bore, which is situated approximately half a mile from their camp.[31]
\nArchitectural plans for Bedourie’s new Aboriginal ‘tracker’s quarters’ were drawn in 1946 by the Department of Public Works. The quarters – described in police correspondence as a ‘hut’ – was a small, one-roomed, timber-framed building with a gable roof. It had a 9ft (2.7m) wide earth-floored verandah on one side and its walls and roof were clad with corrugated iron sheets. It was lowset and its single room was 14ft x 12ft (4.2 x 3.6m) with a timber board floor and no internal wall or ceiling linings. It had a single glazed window (casements) and three other window openings, able to be closed with awning-hung shutters of corrugated iron sheets, not window sashes. The hut was built 20 yards (18m) away from the main station building, on what transpired to be land outside the Police Reserve. The hut and police station verandahs built concurrently were erected in 1947 at a cost of £1,025.[32]
\nThe hut was occupied for approximately eight years. In 1954, Doctor Jack, now 50 years old and with a small child to support, requested to resign to take up a better-paying position as a stockman. His request was granted in 1955, and a replacement tracker found. The new tracker, after requesting that a double bed, mattress, mosquito net, and a portable radio be purchased for the hut, resigned in 1956.[33]
\nThe number of trackers employed in the police service had fluctuated through the 20th century, largely for economic reasons: budget cuts (on the part of police), and the availability of better conditions and wages for stockmen (on the part of the trackers). This was also the case at Bedourie, where the tracker’s position had often fallen vacant, but had eventually been refilled. However, tracker employment declined through the mid-20th century, falling to 68 by 1925, 34 by 1943 and 23 by 1958. The Bedourie tracker’s position remained vacant and the hut was offered for sale in 1961. The police station, which had become inadequate for requirements, was replaced at the same time. The old galvanised iron police station building was sold to the Clanchy family and relocated to Kamaran Downs Station. The vacant tracker’s hut was sold to Cedric Smith and removed to Ethabuka Station, northwest of Bedourie.[34]
\nThe tracker’s hut remained on Ethabuka Station until the station was sold to Bush Heritage Australia in 2004. It was sold to the Diamantina Shire Council and relocated to the site of the Pisé House in 2011.[35]
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut survives as one of the few tracker’s huts in Queensland. Other trackers’ huts extant in Queensland in 2019 include Birdsville trackers’ hut (built 1948), on the site of the Birdsville Courthouse [QHR 600460], and the Normanton trackers’ hut (unknown construction date), on the site of the Normanton Gaol [QHR 601501]. The Birdsville hut is similar in form and materials to the Bedourie hut, while the Normanton hut is timber-clad.[36]
\nIn 2019, both the Pisé House and the tracker’s hut serve as part of the tourist interpretation of Bedourie.
","criteria":"The Bedourie Pisé House (1897) is important in demonstrating the pattern of settlement along the pastoral trading routes between South Australia and western Queensland in the late 19th century. The Pisé House, the oldest building in Bedourie, reflects the significance of Bedourie as a commercial centre for the central-western district in the late 1880s, and reflects the pattern of early European settlement in far west Queensland. The house’s combination of commercial, residential and civic functions illustrates the rudimentary nature of early non-indigenous settlement in rural Queensland and the resourcefulness of its residents.
\nThe form, materials and fabrication technique of the Pisé House are important in illustrating house construction in remote areas. It is part of the late 19th century earth and stone building tradition of central Australia and western Queensland. The structure represents a variation on the Queensland vernacular ‘tin and timber’ construction to a more massive form, suitable for a harsh climate.
\nWhile removed from its original location, the Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1947) is a rare surviving representative example of the standard accommodation provided for Aboriginal trackers in Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the crucial role Aboriginal trackers played in policing Queensland, particularly remote areas of western and northern Queensland in the 19th and 20th centuries.
|Highly intact, the Pisé House provides a rare surviving example of pisé de terre construction, once common in central-western Queensland, where building materials were scarce. The house is one of only five known surviving 19th century pisé buildings in Queensland.
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut is exceptional as one of only three known surviving examples of this type of accommodation in Queensland provided for Aboriginal trackers by the Queensland Government between 1874 and the 1950s.
|In its design, materials and construction, the intact Pisé House has the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the few rare surviving 19th century examples of this built form in remote Queensland. Physical, documentary and contributory analysis could be undertaken to address research questions relating to the social and technical aspects of its construction, occupation and conservation.
|Highly intact, the Pisé House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a remote 19th century Queensland house built in response to harsh conditions and restricted building resources. This includes its: freestanding, hipped roof form and single-storey scale; use of locally-sourced materials for its main structure; simple, steep roof clad with corrugated metal sheets, overhanging for protective shelter; a verandah for additional outdoor living space; and simple interior amenity.
\nThe Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut is a rare surviving example and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the accommodation built for Aboriginal trackers in Queensland. This includes its: small size; lone room; low-set, gable-roofed form; timber-framed, single-skin construction clad externally with no internal lining; and bare interior amenity.
|The pisé house, with its thick earth walls, simple form, verandahs on all sides and a corrugated metal-clad roof, is strikingly simple in the Bedourie town and landscape. Built using local materials, it evokes a sense of the remoteness and isolation of the central western township, while reflecting the resourcefulness of the early European settlers.
\nThe basic size, form and materials of the Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut evokes a strong response to the living and working conditions of Aboriginal trackers employed in across Queensland in the mid-20th century.
|The Pisé House is important for its association with Mary Brodie (formerly Mary Dolan; later Mary Craigie) (c1858-1941), an early businesswoman in central western Queensland, who essentially founded the town of Bedourie. She funded the construction of the pisé house, and, following a tradition of unmarried or widowed female publicans, lived and worked in the Bedourie Pisé House and associated hotel for more than twenty years, providing essential services along an important travel and trading route between Queensland and South Australia.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650225,"name":"Allan Cunningham Monument","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cunningham Highway (Ipswich to Warwick)","suburb":"CUNNINGHAM'S GAP","lga":"SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2022-04-29","description":"The Allan Cunningham Monument (1927) is located on the northern side of the Cunningham Highway at Cunningham’s Gap, a mountain pass through the Great Dividing Range between Mount Cordeaux and Mount Mitchell. Situated at the peak of the pass surrounded by the sub-tropical rainforest of the Main Range National Park, part of the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, the monument faces south to the road and is visible from the final bend of the eastern ascent.
\nThe monument occupies a gently sloping elevated site, with a steep embankment down to the road on its southern side, and is accessed via walking tracks. It comprises a stone cairn in the form of an obelisk on a stepped cement-rendered base, standing within a low-fenced enclosure. Eight mature hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii, remainders of 11 planted in 1935) border the north, east, and west sides of the small clearing around the monument.
\nThe monument stands approximately five metres high and is three by three metres at its base. Three marble plaques fixed to the southern face of the obelisk and base commemorate the establishment of the monument and recognise the achievements of colonial explorer Allan Cunningham.
\nFeatures of the Allan Cunningham Monument of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Allan Cunningham Monument not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Allan Cunningham Monument, located 40km northeast of Warwick, was constructed in 1927 to commemorate the centenary of the explorer Allan Cunningham’s achievements in traversing the Great Dividing Range and documenting a pass through the mountains in 1828. Cunningham’s Gap, as it became known, had long been important to the Traditional Owners, the Yuggera Ugarapul People, of the Fassifern Valley, and would become the main connecting link between the Darling Downs in the west to southeast Queensland and its coast in the east. The monument’s construction coincided with the opening of a road through the pass, and it quickly became a tourist attraction, standing amidst the rainforest of the Main Range National Park.
\nThe valley between Mount Mitchell and Mount Cordeaux, today known as Cunningham’s Gap, had long provided a pathway for the Traditional Owner groups from the Darling Downs in the west and the Fassifern Valley in the east below. A Dreamtime story tells of the Yuggera Ugarapul People of the Fassifern Valley rounding up all the kangaroos and holding them in a fenced enclosure so no other clan could catch them. However, an old woman released the captured animals and as they bounded west across the range, they tore the gap between the two mountains.[1]
\nPrior to the arrival of Europeans in Queensland, the elevated and verdant grass plains of the southern Darling Downs, below what was to become known as Cunningham’s Gap, were the traditional lands of the Githabal People. Githabul were known for their careful and deliberate use of fire for the management and maintenance of the grasslands of the Darling Downs (often termed fire stick farming). The traditional method they used ensured the grasses and other plant species would regenerate and supply a reliable food source for the Githabal People as well as for game animals such as kangaroo and wallabies.[2]
\nAllan Cunningham (1791-1839) was an experienced, British explorer and botanist in Australia from 1817, joining both terrestrial and nautical expeditions with other explorers, such as John Oxley and Phillip Parker King, before leading his own expeditions through the country north of Bathurst and west of the Blue Mountains.[3] He made important contributions to both Australian exploration and to botany, and was highly respected by his contemporaries. He died in 1839 and five years later an obelisk memorial was dedicated to him in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, reflecting this esteem. Later, in 1901 his remains were moved from a Sydney cemetery and interred within this obelisk.[4]
\nIn April 1827, after gaining the support of General Ralph Darling, the new governor of New South Wales, Cunningham led a team of six men and eleven horses north. By early June 1827 they had reached the south-eastern edge of what became known as the Darling Downs and were immediately impressed by the lush plains that stretched far to the north, bounded by forested mountains to the east. Cunningham reported to the governor that:
\nFrom these central grounds, rise downs of a rich, black, and dry soil, and very ample surface; as they furnish an abundance of grass, and are conveniently watered, yet perfectly beyond the reach of those floods … they constitute a valuable and sound sheep pasture.[5]
\nThe British exploration party did not recognise that the grassy plains were the result of the Githabal People’s careful management of the southern downs country over generations.[6]
\nOn this journey, Cunningham named the Condamine River, one of the major waterways on the Darling Downs. He also identified a possible pass over the dividing range to the coast, which would later be known as Spicer’s Gap (QHR 601732). The party returned to Sydney in mid-June 1827. Just over one year later, in August 1828, Cunningham headed another expedition, with two bullocks, two servants and a driver, from Ipswich (then known as Limestone) and followed the Bremer River, a tributary of the Brisbane River, southwest. The expedition’s main purpose was to locate the pass that they found the previous year, but from the east side of the Great Dividing Range.[7]
\nAfter travelling for several days, the expedition arrived at the foot of the mountain range where they camped. Cunningham noted the presence of aboriginal people’s camps in the distance, ‘the smoke of natives’ fires was seen curling above the trees a little to the eastward of us, but these people kept themselves very quiet, not a voice heard, or a person seen’.[8] Cunningham and his men reached, what they believed, was the gap they identified the previous year from the west (Spicer’s Gap), but was, in fact, the pass known today as Cunningham’s Gap. On 25 August 1828, Cunningham climbed to the summit of the pass and beheld the Darling Downs below to the west; he later wrote:
\nWithout the smallest difficulty, and to my utmost surprise, we found ourselves in the highest part of the Pass, having fully ascertained the extent of the difficult part, from the entrance into the wood, to this point not to exceed 400 yards. We now pushed our way westerly through this extraordinary defile, and, in less than half a mile of level surface, clothed with thick bush of plants common to the Brisbane River, reached the opposite side of the main range, where I observed the waters fell westerly to Millar’s Valley beneath us.[9]
\nIn an 1832 Royal Geographical Society’s Journal article he wrote, ‘should the Gap, which had been discovered in the main dividing range … admit of a passage through that chain of mountains, the readiest point of access to the very desirable country on their western side would be from the shores of Moreton Bay and Brisbane River’.[10] Having achieved their goal to find the pass, the expedition returned to Limestone.
\nTwelve years later, grazier Patrick Leslie, with a large party, set out from Penrith to explore the Darling Downs. In 1840, he pioneered the first European pastoral runs on the Downs, Toolburra and Canning Downs, and established the important wool industry in the region. Other graziers (often called squatters) soon followed, with further pastural runs dividing and changing the traditional grass plains of the Githabal People. Agriculture was also introduced in this era when closer settlement began.[11] Increasingly, the traditional lifestyle of the Githabal People, as well as the other Traditional Owner groups throughout the Darling Downs, was disrupted and people were soon dispossessed, often violently, from their ancestral land.[12]
\nThe town of Warwick, which grew to become the business centre for the southern Darling Downs, was surveyed by James Burnett in 1849, with the first sale of Crown land occurring in July 1850. Warwick was declared a municipality in 1861 and was subsequently transformed from a squatters’ town into the principal urban centre of this prosperous pastoral and agricultural district.[13]
\nFrom the 1840s, Darling Downs pastoralists were faced with an expensive 800 kilometre trip to Maitland to carry wool to port and return with supplies to the stations. A direct route to the Moreton Bay settlement was needed. Leslie and fellow pastoralist, Arthur Hodgson, were able in 1840 to obtain permits from Governor Sir George Gipps, to have supplies sent to Brisbane; however, they still had problems with getting their stores from Brisbane over the Dividing Range to the Darling Downs. Several passes across the range to the Darling Downs had been cut from the 1840s: Gorman’s Gap was a short-lived crossing north of Toowoomba in the 1840s; Toowoomba’s Toll Bar Road provided a dray route up the range to Toowoomba from the 1850s; and a dray route over Spicer’s Gap (QHR 601732) was cut in the late 1840s.[14]
\nA rough road over Cunningham’s Gap, east to the Fassifern Valley below had also been made from the 1840s for drays carrying wool to Ipswich. To cater for travelling dray teams an inn, known as Jubb’s Woolpack Inn, was established in the early 1850s a few miles from the western ascent in Maryvale. However, by the mid-1850s this road was rarely used due to the steepness of the incline on the eastern side of the pass.[15] In 1854, Herbert Marshall wrote an account of his visit to the Darling Downs, over which they travelled through the Spicer’s Gap road, ‘The old road used to go over a place called Cunningham’s gap which was so bad that they had to lower the drays down with a rope, but now they have cut a new road south’.[16] Consequently, Spicer’s Gap became the preferred dray route over the range from Warwick until the early twentieth century, although it, too, proved to be a difficult one.
\nThe lush sub-tropical rainforest on the elevated slopes of Mount Mitchell and Mount Cordeaux, and through Cunningham’s Gap, had been appreciated by nature enthusiasts as early as the 1840s. Increasingly, timber-getters logged the slopes for valuable timbers such as red cedar (Toona ciliate). Inspired by the national parks movement, by the turn of the century many in the district began lobbying the government to protect these forests.[17] A national park movement was initiated in Queensland after 1879 by pastoralist, businessman and politician Robert Martin Collins following his visit to the United States of America, where the movement had commenced in 1870. This movement called for governments to reserve land in its natural state for the benefit of all people. Collins was instrumental in establishing Queensland’s first national park at Witches Falls, Mount Tamborine in 1908.[18] In July 1909 it was announced that 3100 acres (1254ha) at Cunningham’s Gap was to become a national park, and it was noted that ‘the area is on the western side of the range … many excellent specimens of staghorns and native vegetation exist within the area’.[19] The new national park, initially called Cunningham’s Gap National Park, included both Mount Mitchell and Mount Cordeaux.[20]
\nThere had long been debate regarding a preferred trafficable route to Warwick over the Great Dividing Range. By the early twentieth century, with the increased popularity of the motor car, Spicer’s Gap often proved dangerous and impassable[21] At this time, Cunningham’s Gap could only be reached by a bridle trail.[22]
\nAlthough railways were the priority, the rise of the motor car increased the need for an expanded and improved road network. The Queensland Main Roads Act 1920 provided for responsibility for roads and bridges to be shared between state and local authorities. The mission of the Main Roads Board, formed under this Act, was to develop a cohesive network of ‘main roads' partly funded by the state. Local authorities would fund half the cost, and would be the construction and maintenance authorities where possible. The priority for road construction was to join towns not linked by railways; to link farming areas to existing railways; and to build developmental roads to open Crown lands for closer settlement.[23]
\nThe interwar period saw a massive increase in car registrations and the revision of the Main Roads Act. By mid-1923 nearly 17,000 cars were registered in Queensland (rising to nearly 92,000 by 1934). As more people took to the car, the need for serviceable roads for motor vehicles became apparent. The Main Roads Acts Amendment Act 1925 abolished the Main Roads Board and formed the Main Roads Commission (MRC), and the board was replaced by John Kemp (formerly the Board's Chairman) as the Commissioner.[24]
\nIn the early 1920s the Cunningham’s Gap Road Committee was formed, made up of community leaders and residents from throughout the Warwick district. Their intention was to find means for the construction of a proper road from Warwick to Cunningham’s Gap and ultimately down the east slope of the range to Brisbane. The committee lobbied the State government to fund the project; however, this initially proved unsuccessful.[25] Preliminary investigations for a possible road to Cunningham’s Gap were undertaken by several locals, concerned that Warwick’s commercial prospects may be lost to Toowoomba if a direct and reliable road was not constructed.[26]
\nOn the Easter long-weekend of 1926, a working-bee took place following a call for volunteers by the road committee. Over 100 volunteers participated, with financial help donated through subscriptions. By the Monday, a drivable 3 mile (4.8km) road had been cut through the forest from the western base of Cunningham’s Gap to its precipice on the eastern side. On the Monday afternoon several of the district’s dignitaries visited the newly formed road by car and it was reported:
\nThat this meeting of citizens of Warwick and district, held at Cunningham’s Gap, this 5th day of April, 1926, desires to express its high appreciation of the efforts of the great band of voluntary workers who, in a spirit of devoted self-sacrifice and enthusiasm, have demonstrated the practicability of a road being constructed to the historic point which marked the crossing of the range by Allan Cunningham and the discovery of the Darling Downs about 100 years ago, and thereby making it further possible for the true realisation of the construction of the via recta route [direct route from Brisbane to Warwick].[27]
\nAlthough the forming of the road (as an unsurfaced track) was an achievement, it did not give free access to those wanting to visit Cunningham’s Gap, as permission was needed from owners of the properties at the base of Cunningham’s Gap in order to reach the new Gap road.[28]
\nIn conjunction with the road movement, the Allan Cunningham Centenary Committee, based in Warwick, was planning a fitting tribute for the 100-year anniversary of Cunningham’s crossing of the Gap. An extension of the Cunningham’s Gap road over the eastern side of the range to connect with the Fassifern Valley below was deemed appropriate. Additionally, a monument was to be erected at the top of the road to commemorate Allan Cunningham’s achievement of crossing the pass. The date for the opening event was 11 June 1927, incorrectly believed to have been the centenary date of Cunningham’s crossing (this was the date of the crossing of Spicer’s Gap, with Cunningham’s Gap being crossed one year later). Once again, subscriptions for funds were called for, as well as volunteers to construct the road extension.[29]
\nWarwick-based architects, Dornbusch and Connolly, were responsible for the design of the monument. This enduring, successful and productive partnership began in 1910 when architect, Conrad Dornbusch (1867-1949), joined the experienced builder and architect Daniel Connolly (1867-1948) in partnership, with their office in Palmerin Street, Warwick. The firm designed many of the district’s buildings including St James' Hall (QHR 600954); Langham Hotel (QHR 600957); St Mary’s Church in Warwick (QHR 600959); Johnson's Building (QHR 600960); Criterion Hotel (QHR 600962) and the shelter shed at the General Cemetery (QHR 602152). Connolly and Dornbusch were among the first architects registered by the Queensland Board of Architects in 1929, with their long running partnership ending with their retirement in 1945.[30] Both partners were active participants in the community with Connolly serving on the Warwick City Council for 25 years, including as Mayor in 1910 and from 1924-32 when the monument was constructed.[31]
\nBy April 1927 the plans for the monument’s construction were well advanced, with the Main Roads Commissioner, John Kemp, having chosen the site for its construction at the summit of the pass. Drawings of the monument were published in various newspapers at the time, which reported that:
\nIt would be on a rock foundation of rustic design and formed of the spalls [broken stones] over which Cunningham had walked. It would be erected on a spot in the pass from which a glorious survey could be made.[32]
\nThe foundation stone of the monument was laid on 7 May 1927 by Mayor Connolly and attended by a small group of dignitaries, district residents and the men working on the construction of the road. It was claimed that ‘the cairn will break with startling suddenness on the wayfarer who has accomplished the climb or is on the eve of descending’.[33] Embedded within the concrete was a jar containing documents such as current newspapers, lists of serving dignitaries of the local councils and the Queensland Government at the time, a list of names of the volunteers and contractors who were working on the project, as well as coins. There were also two gifts of several pounds to be placed under the stone.[34]
\nThe monument was complete by June 1927 and officially unveiled, as planned, on 11 June. Up to 700 people attended the opening ceremony which included dignitaries such as the Acting Premier, William Forgan Smith, and the Main Roads Commissioner, Kemp. The tall obelisk was clad in locally sourced stone spalls, said to symbolise the ground on which Cunningham traversed. Prominent at the height of the pass, the monument was described as ‘definite and rugged. It stands within an almost complete circle of trees, its grey shape sharply contrasting with the greens of the forest’. Several memorial plaques were included on the plinth, in particular a plaque dedicated to Allan Cunningham and his ‘discovery’ of the Gap.[35] In photographs taken at the time of the unveiling, the monument was situated approximately one metre above the road’s edge, which enabled visitors easy access to see it and its views.[36]
\nAlso, as planned, the road over the eastern side of the Gap was opened that afternoon, connecting the Fassifern Valley to the Darling Downs. Prior to the opening, another Easter working-bee had volunteers construct approximately 500m of road from the top of the pass down the steep incline to the east. The connecting part of the road to the bottom of the range had been contracted out.[37] Following the Acting Premier’s declaration that the road was open, the enthusiastic crowd cheered as the first car drove over the edge of the Gap and down the range.[38]
\nIn Queensland, during the interwar period to the mid-20th century, there was an enthusiasm in local communities for celebrating feats of colonial exploration which had facilitated European settlement of districts. The most popular way of marking these achievements at this time was the erection of commemorative objects dedicated to explorers and pioneers; these would often celebrate a centenary of the event.[39] These community-based commemorative objects reflected the inextricable link between exploration and the economic development of regions such as the Darling Downs.[40] They were simpler in form and decoration than statues and other monuments from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which predominantly celebrated the British monarchy and political figures from the Federation period and were built in prominent public spaces by the government seeking to bolster state and civic authority. Until 1970, such commemorative plaques, statues and cairns reflected predominantly Eurocentric views in their topics and designs.[41]
\nA widely adopted form of monument to colonial exploration built during the interwar period to the mid-20th century was the masonry monument, with shared characteristics including formalised cairn in an obelisk, pyramid or rectilinear form, made of stone and/or concrete, and including one or several commemorative plaques.[42] Humble in comparison to their late 19th to early 20th century predecessors, they were distinctively geometric and consistent compared to the relatively diverse range of monuments from the 1970s onwards. The Allan Cunningham Monument at Cunningham’s Gap proved to be one of the largest of these types of monuments from this period. Others include: another to Cunningham in Ipswich’s Queens Park (1934); one to Burke and Wills at the Dig Tree at Thargomindah (QHR 601073) (1937); the Captain Cook Monument at 1770 (QHR 601614) (1926); the John Oxley monument in Brisbane’s CBD (1928); in Bowen there is a monument to Henry Sinclair (1934); and several to Edmund Kennedy in Cardwell (1948), Cooktown (1948), and Mission Beach (1948). Monuments such as these do not tell the whole story of post-invasion history; increasingly monuments dedicated to colonial exploration have been contested, as the devastating impact of European settlement on Traditional Owner groups’ culture, traditions and ancestral lands is acknowledged more broadly in Australian society.[43]
\nIn July 1930 the road to Cunningham’s Gap was gazetted as a tourist road by the Queensland Government. This was welcomed by the local authorities in the district, aware that the Main Roads Commission would fund further road improvement projects. Tourist roads were introduced by the Main Roads Commissioner in 1930 to provide safe vehicular access to beauty spots such as ‘National parks, waterfalls and camping grounds at high elevation at various parts of the state’. The tourist road to Cunningham’s Gap was one of the earliest introduced in Queensland under this scheme. Others included the Bunya Mountains road and that to Tully Falls in North Queensland.[44]
\nAttracting tourists to the Gap and Warwick benefited the district’s economy. As a tourist road, the Main Roads Commission could employ workers from the Unemployment Relief Scheme to work on its construction and maintenance.[45] By 1932, a working party consisting of over 20 unemployed relief workers was making progress with the construction of the road from the base of the Gap, south-west to the intersection of the Warwick-Toowoomba Road, ‘[which] when complete a gravel road of nearly eight miles will lead to the top of the Gap’.[46] The Queensland Government gradually resumed land for the road from the private landowners through which the original track traversed.[47] By this time, the road on the eastern slope of the range ascending from the Fassifern Valley had become difficult to drive over, with the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ), which provided weekly Saturday reports to motorists, recommending caution before attempting the ‘rough and bumpy’ road over the Gap, and suggesting it would prove easier to cross the range via Toowoomba’s Toll Bar Road.[48] However, in 1935, the Main Roads Commission declared the road the Cunningham Highway.[49]
\nThrough the 1930s, the Forestry Department made improvements to the facilities in the national park adjacent to the monument. These included the clearing of an area near the monument for a carpark, installation of toilet facilities, shelter sheds and picnic areas, and the introduction of paths from the cairn up to both Mount Mitchell to the south and Mount Cordeaux to the north. Nature enthusiasts and tourists alike visited the Allan Cunningham Monument, which not only marked an historical event, but became the focal point from which bushwalks in the national park started and finished.[50]
\nIn 1935 members of the National Parks Association planted eleven hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) on three sides of the monument. The pines were intended to further recognise Cunningham’s contributions to exploration and botany. On his explorations into Queensland, Cunningham was the first to scientifically describe the hoop pine as a species; it was later named after him. The pines were planted to the west, north and east of the monument in a rectangular alignment.[51] In 2022 there are eight of these mature hoop pines remaining.
\nA sealed and reliable road from Ipswich to Cunningham’s Gap was constructed incrementally from the 1930s to the 1940s by the Main Roads Commission, and by 1949 had been completed, achieving the longed-for via recta route from Brisbane to Warwick.[52] To accomplish this, the steep grade in the road on the eastern side of the range to the apex at Cunningham’s Gap had to be reduced. Consequently, the cut was deepened forming large banks either side of the road and the monument now stood several metres above the road below. The sloping bank below the monument was clad in stone and a concrete and stone staircase was constructed approximately 10m east of the monument, to allow for pedestrian access to it from the road below. The road was declared open on 5 November 1949, in a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by many dignitaries, including the Mayor of Warwick, Alderman McCahon, and the Minister for Public Works, Housing and Local Government, William Power. Up to three hundred spectators also attended.[53] With the reliable and safer road, the Mayor of Warwick stated that ‘it will prove a magnet that will draw thousands of visitors in Warwick and districts each year, and that people residing in the south and south-west will not fail to avail themselves of this road and will travel via the historic and attractive city of Warwick when visiting the capital city and surrounding seaside resorts’.[54]
\nThe monument attracted visitors passing over the Gap as well as those enjoying bushwalks and picnics in the national park (later named the Great Range National Park). Over the years improvements have been made to the pathways and visitor facilities near the monument by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The monument has landmark qualities being easily seen when driving up to the high pass of Cunningham’s Gap, as it looks out to the Fassifern Valley below. In 2021, the Department of Transport and Main Roads undertook restoration and cleaning work to the monument, which included repairs to and re-finishing of the cement-rendered base and painting of the obelisk-shaped enclosure posts. In 2022, the Allan Cunningham Monument remains in its original location and continues to draw tourists.
","criteria":"The Allan Cunningham Monument (1927), built to commemorate the centenary of the first European to locate Cunningham’s Gap, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland history, as it marks the place where explorer and botanist, Allan Cunningham (1791-1839), traversed the Great Dividing Range in 1828. The passage he documented, from the southeast coastal plains, over the pass through to the Darling Downs, enabled its pastoral and agricultural development from the early 19th century.
\nThe construction of the Monument was driven by the local community who contributed half the cost of the memorial and the adjacent roadway, and assisted as volunteers in opening the roads to and past Cunningham’s Gap.
|The Allan Cunningham Monument is a highly intact example of a monument to colonial exploration built in Queensland between the interwar period and the mid-20th century. It demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type, including: visible location marking an important site in colonial exploration; freestanding, formalised cairn in an obelisk, pyramid or rectilinear form, in this instance a spall-faced obelisk, and surrounded by open space; durable stone and concrete construction; and commemorative plaques listing the name/s of explorer/s and a record of its construction.
|Situated at the peak of Cunningham’s Gap and visible from the final bend of the eastern ascent of the Great Dividing Range, the Allan Cunningham Monument marks the transition into the Darling Downs and is of aesthetic significance for its landmark and architectural qualities. An excellent work of the regional architectural partnership Dornbusch & Connolly, the visual appeal of the tall masonry obelisk, with its simple rustic qualities, is enhanced by its landscape context setting, enclosed within a memorial grove of hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii), named for Allan Cunningham who collected the first specimens, surrounded by the mountainous sub-tropical rainforest of the Main Range National Park, part of the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia.
|The Allan Cunningham Monument, including the memorial hoop pines, has a special association with the colonial explorer and botanist (1791-1839) who was the first European to document a pass in the Great Dividing Range from the southeast coastal plains through to the fertile plains of the Darling Downs in 1828. Erected in 1927 to commemorate the centenary of his finding the pass, and when a motor vehicle road through it was opened, the monument is located at what became known as Cunningham’s Gap.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650228,"name":"Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel","alternate_name":"Ernest Junction Tunnel","street_address":"797 Ashmore Road","suburb":"MOLENDINAR","lga":"GOLD COAST CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-03","description":"The Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel is located approximately six kilometres west of the centre of Southport on the Gold Coast. The surrounding suburb of Molendinar is a mixed industrial and residential area, bounded by the Pacific Motorway to the west and Smith Street Motorway to the north. The tunnel passes beneath Ashmore Road, just south of the intersection with Zane Street.
\nNo longer functioning as part of a railway line, the tunnel runs in an approximately east-west direction with a curve to the south in the eastern half. The tunnel is approached on both sides by cuttings with steeply sloping sides through densely vegetated bushland. In 2019, the western approach to the tunnel is a rail reserve and the eastern approach is a conservation estate known as Activity Crescent Reserve. The western tunnel portal can be accessed from Ashmore Road via a dirt track. The eastern tunnel portal can be accessed from the Activity Crescent Reserve.
\nRailway Tunnel (1885-89)
\nThe Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel is a 114 metres long, semi-elliptical, concrete-lined tunnel with a curvature to the south at the east end. It has a base width of 4.4 metres, a girth width of 4.6 metres, a crown height at its apex of 4.9 metres and a 1:66 gradient against north-bound traffic. The tracks and sleepers have been removed and the floor is earth.
\nThe rock cuttings that lead to each portal have a rough finish that is evidence of the dynamite blasting used to construct the tunnel. A section of stabilising stone coursing is located on the south side of the cutting at the western portal just outside the tunnel entrance.
\nThe concrete portals are faced with a smooth concrete render surmounted by a shallow projecting ledge. The stucco finish continues inside the tunnel at each end. There is evidence of soot and smoke staining on the tunnel roof.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: boulders placed at the entrances to the east and west portals; iron fixings attached to each portal; and graffiti.
\nSetting and views
\nThe track approach to the western portal is dirt with added gravel, while the approach to the eastern portal leading from the end of the concrete pathway is grassed, passing through an open area containing interpretive signage. The landscape and heavily wooded surrounds limit views of the tunnel to the immediate approaches to the rock cuttings and portals.
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: signage and seating in the interpretation area at the approach to the eastern portal; and all vegetation.
\n","history":"
The Ernest Junction Railway tunnel, in the Gold Coast suburb of Molendinar, situated approximately 6 km west of Southport, was constructed in 1889. Built as part of the South Coast Railway Line which ultimately connected Brisbane to Tweed Heads, it is one of the last remnants of this important railway infrastructure on the Gold Coast, and the only extant tunnel from a decommissioned line which was essential to the South Coast’s agricultural and tourism industries. The line was closed in 1964 and the rail tracks were removed from the tunnel.
\nThe Gold Coast district forms part of the traditional land of the Yugambeh People.[1] The Gold Coast was originally known as the South Coast. European settlement here began in the 1840s with a fledgling timber industry, which utilised large rivers such as the Nerang and the Tweed to carry logs downstream to the coast to be shipped to Brisbane or Sydney.[2] By the 1870s sugar had become the predominant crop, as selectors established farms throughout the Nerang district. A small township emerged and from 1871 Cobb and Co. coaches arrived regularly. Nerang Creek Heads, as Southport was known at this time, soon became a holiday destination for some of the colony’s elite, with several large houses built overlooking the sea. By the end of the 1870s numerous stores, a hotel and a jetty had been established and visitors could either travel from Brisbane by coach or along the coast by boat.[3]
\nIn the 1880s the popularity of Southport as a seaside holiday destination surged and it was soon the principal seaside resort in Queensland. The construction of major schools, banks, guesthouses and more hotels stimulated Southport's growth as a fashionable 19th century resort, as did the presence of the Governor of Queensland's residence in the 1890s.[4]
\nIn 1885 a rail line to Loganlea from Yeerongpilly was opened, and soon after reached Beenleigh. Subsequent requests were made to the government for the extension of the line to the South Coast. A detailed survey was carried out by the Department of Railways, and in 1885 Parliament authorised the construction of this railway line extension. The line would divide in two, with a branch to Southport and another to Nerang. Although the provision of transport for passengers to the holiday destination was an important factor, the foremost consideration was to provide efficient transportation for farm produce.[5]
\nThe line between Beenleigh and Southport/Nerang was named the South Coast Railway Line. The construction of the 30 mile (48 km) line was contracted to experienced railway builder, George Bashford in 1886.[6] Despite a good start, floods in January 1887 delayed the work, which resulted in Bashford becoming insolvent and disappearing. The Queensland National Bank then took over the project.[7] Along the line, 10 stations were constructed (with Yatala and Coombabah closing in 1891), as well as three substantial bridges over the Albert, Coomera and Nerang rivers.
\nOnly one tunnel was planned along this line. Initially known as the Southport Junction tunnel, it cut through a large hill between Coombabah and Southport Junction stations.[8] The tunnel was concrete, 114m long and located at a depth of 23m from the crest of the hill. It curved to the right just after its western entrance, providing no straight view through the tunnel.[9] Construction had begun by April 1887 when it was reported that: ‘a top heading has been driven from each end, and a shaft has been sunk midway from the crown. The tunnel consists of very hard rock and entails heavy work’.[10]
\nOn 1 July 1887, a tragic accident occurred when three of the men constructing the tunnel, McDuffy, O’Brien and Christidon, were buried by 3ft of debris following an explosion from the dynamite they were using to blast the rock. The three men ‘were attempting a second time to fire off a dynamite blast, it unexpectedly exploded’. O’Brien and Christidon survived the accident. McDuffy, unfortunately was killed.[11]
\nIn December 1888, further progress was outlined in the Telegraph which stated that the ‘tunnel is six chains long and is carried through hard blue rock. It is lined with concrete, the height being 15 feet above railway level. The hill, through which the tunnel is taken, is about 68 feet above rail level’.[12] The tunnel was completed by January 1889.
\nThe replacement of brick or stone with concrete for tunnel linings was a recent technical development in Queensland. The 1880s was an important period for the adoption of concrete for the construction of Queensland Railway infrastructure. Concrete was first used during the extension of the Southern Railway from Warwick to Stanthorpe (constructed 1878-1881) due to the influence of civil engineer Charles Lambert Depree. Resident engineer on the extension from 1875-1878, Depree is attributed with the design of concrete culverts, the Gorge Dam retaining wall and the Cherry Gully tunnel [QHR 601519] on the line.[13] The Cherry Gully tunnel was the first tunnel in Queensland to use concrete, however, it was partially constructed with brick. HC Stanley, Chief Engineer of the Railway Department, reported in 1880 that the use of concrete, instead of bricks, for the tunnel provided a considerable saving for the department.[14] Another saving gained by using concrete was the ability to utilise cheaper, unskilled labour to carry out the work, rather than skilled brick-layers.[15] The 1882 Normanby Tunnel (no longer extant) on the Brisbane exhibition loop was wholly constructed of concrete, followed by the Woolloongabba Branch Tunnel in 1884 (no longer extant).[16] The construction of the Ernest Junction Tunnel occurred at the same time as the fifteen built for the ascent of the coastal range for the Cairns Railway, although the South Coast line opened earlier.[17]
\nBy the time the Ernest Junction Tunnel was constructed, standardised drawings were used, with variations made to suit each individual tunnel.[18] For example, at Ernest Junction the tunnel’s dimensions and semi-elliptical portals were standard, however, the length and curve and gradient in the track differed from other tunnels. Other examples of the early use of concrete lining in tunnels are the Dalarcha Railway Tunnel [QHR 601522] (1890); the Yimbin Railway Tunnel [QHR 602637] (1910); and the Muntapa Tunnel [QHR 602594] (1913).
\nOn 25 January 1889 the line to Southport was officially opened. Dignitaries travelled from Brisbane to Southport station where they were greeted by several hundred people celebrating the occasion.[20] Six months later, in July 1890, the branch to Nerang was opened with considerably less fanfare.[21] Southport Junction Station was at the divide of the line, with the two separate branches, Southport (to the east of the station) and Nerang (to the south of the station), leaving from there. In 1890, the Southport Junction station’s name was changed to Ernest Junction Station, to honour the respected local Member of Parliament at the time, Ernest James Stevens. The name of the tunnel was also changed to the Ernest Junction tunnel.[22] Initially, all trains travelled to Southport from Ernest Junction. A separate branch shuttle was provided to take passengers to Nerang from Ernest Junction.
\nNot long after the opening of the Southport/Nerang line, representatives from the district requested the South Coast line be extended to Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. A coach service had been taking passengers from the Nerang station to the increasingly popular holiday destinations at Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. It was believed that a line extension would also benefit the farming communities along the requested railway line.[23] In December 1900 Parliament approved the rail extension, which was completed by September 1903. The opening was reported in the Telegraph which stated that the ‘railway to the Tweed Heads will be opened today without ceremony’.[24] It was hoped that the Tweed Heads line would eventually link up to the New South Wales rail network, however, this did not eventuate.[25]
\nThe new rail extension increased Ernest Junction Station’s importance. As the terminus for the three lines (Ernest Junction to Brisbane, Ernest Junction to Southport and Ernest Junction to Nerang and Tweed Heads) its new role was to divide trains arriving from South Brisbane, to provide separate services to and from Southport and Tweed Heads. A train from South Brisbane with carriages separately assigned for Southport and Tweed Heads passengers would arrive at Ernest Junction Station. The Tweed Head bound passenger carriages were detached and reattached to another engine, which travelled south to Coolangatta and Tweed Heads, via Nerang. The original train with passengers destined for Southport would continue east. Conversely, trains arriving separately from Southport and Tweed Heads would be combined to form a South Brisbane-bound train.[26]
\nWith the extension of the line to Tweed Heads, another concrete tunnel was constructed at West Burleigh in 1900. This tunnel was slightly shorter than Ernest Junction, being 87m. It has since been demolished to make way for road construction.[27]
\nAt the time the line was extended to Tweed Heads, surf bathing was becoming increasingly popular. Younger holiday-goers were choosing the more exciting and challenging surf beaches, rather than still-water resorts such as Southport. Due to the rail extension, Coolangatta attracted thousands of visitors, eager to visit the fashionable seaside destination. In 1903 just under 7000 passengers arrived at Tweed Heads Station and ten years later this had risen to 16,522 passengers. Guest houses and hotels were rapidly established at Coolangatta and over the border in Tweed Heads. Photographs taken at the time depict crowds of visitors disembarking at Tweed Heads Station for a weekend at the beach. [28] The extension of the line also provided farmers in areas such as Currumbin and Tallebudgera with an efficient means of despatching produce to Brisbane markets, or of sending milk and cream to butter factories in the region.[29]
\nSouthport, Coolangatta and Tweed Heads continued to be popular seaside destinations throughout the interwar period. During World War II the South Coast line provided transportation to American troops on Rest and Recreation Leave, with several large camps established at Coolangatta.[30]
\nThe motor car became more affordable and war-time petrol rationing ceased in the 1950s. The new trend for holiday makers was to drive to the coast, rather than take the train. From 1925 the Jubilee Bridge crossed the mouth of the Nerang River to the surf beaches later known as Main Beach, Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach, with the road extending down the coast to Tweed Heads.[31] Regular bus services between Brisbane and the South Coast, which had been established in the 1920s, were greatly improved in the 1950s.[32]
\nResidential development transformed the South Coast in the 1950s and early 60s, with developments including the canal estates at Surfers Paradise, as well as tourist-based facilities such as hotels and motels, all conveniently accessed by car. By the 1960s the South Coast was increasingly called the Gold Coast. The rail-line was situated at a considerable distance inland from these surf beaches and holiday centres. As a result, rail travel to the South Coast declined and the Queensland Government decided to close the South Coast line for economic reasons.[33]
\nAlthough the Coolangatta station was situated walking distance to the beach, unlike Surfers Paradise, the line from Nerang to Tweed Heads was closed on 30 June 1961. The Ernest Junction to Nerang line was closed in May 1964. The Beenleigh to Southport line, despite considerable community protests, was closed on 1 July 1964.[34]
\nAfter its closure and the removal of the tracks, the Ernest Junction tunnel was open for vehicular access until gates were placed on the eastern entrance. For several years the tunnel was leased by a business who used it to grow mushrooms commercially. In the late 1990s large boulders were placed at both tunnel entrances. The Ernest Junction Tunnel Friends group was established in 2014. It carried out extensive clearing of overgrowth, removed rubbish from the tunnel and installed interpretive signage at the site. Following the tunnel’s clearing, it has become a hub for artists, photographers, history and railway enthusiasts, film students, and community and activity groups.[35]
\nThe majority of the former South Coast line’s infrastructure has been removed since its closure. The Ernest Junction tunnel is the only extant tunnel and one of only three railway remnants of the line; the others are the Currumbin Creek Railway Bridge [Gold Coast City Council Local Heritage Register Entry No.0075] and the Nerang Station which has been moved to the Gold Coast Hinterland Heritage Museum, Mudgeeraba.[36] In 2019 the tunnel is part of a bushland reserve with walking tracks leading to the tunnel from the eastern approach.
","criteria":"The Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel (1885-1889), is important in demonstrating the development of Queensland’s railway network in the late 19th century. Built as part of the development of the South Coast line, the tunnel was a major engineering works on the line, and is one of its few surviving features.
|The Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel is an early and highly intact example of a single track, concrete-lined railway tunnel, a standard construction type used throughout Queensland’s narrow-gauge railway network from the 1880s to the 1930s. It retains the principal characteristics of its type, including: a semi-elliptical shape; bare concrete-lined interior; concrete entrance portals topped by a shallow horizontal ledge; and steep cuttings on the approach to each entrance.
|Hidden within a parcel of bushland adjoining modern Gold Coast suburbia, the Ernest Junction Railway Tunnel is an unexpected discovery that evokes feelings of surprise and mystery. The experience of approaching and passing through the curving tunnel has picturesque qualities due to the unfolding sequence of views, which is heightened by the strong contrast between the bright exterior and the cool, dark interior.
|As an early surviving, fully concrete-lined,19th century railway tunnel in Queensland, the place is important in demonstrating the innovative use of concrete as an economic and effective method of railway construction in the 1880s.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650229,"name":"Sarina Air Raid Shelter (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Broad Street","suburb":"SARINA","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-05-03","description":"The Sarina Air Raid Shelter (the shelter) is positioned near the northern end of the median strip of Broad Street, the main street and highway through the town of Sarina, approximately 25km south of Mackay. The grassed median strip is located between car park spaces and double lanes for north and south-bound traffic. The shelter is in the western half of the median strip, which in this location is about 20m wide. The Sarina State School is about 30m east of the shelter, and the town’s pre-WWII Post Office is about 40m to the northwest. In 2019 the shelter is used as office and storage space for the local council’s gardeners.
\nIt is surrounded by public infrastructure and mature trees (not of state cultural heritage significance).
\nAir Raid Shelter (1942)
\nThe above-ground shelter is a box-shaped, off-form reinforced concrete structure, approximately 10m long by 3.7m wide. It is orientated roughly north-south lengthwise, with its front wall facing west, about 7m from the street. The shelter accommodates a large main chamber, and one toilet closet at each end. These closets are set back 1.5m east of the main west wall, giving the shelter a symmetrical, fat ‘T’ shape. All exterior and internal concrete walls are 305mm thick, and the flat concrete roof is 152mm thick.
\nThe shelter has two entrances (one at the north, one at the south) with a small 90 degree corridor towards the rear of the shelter, formed by an internal blast wall (separating the corridor from the main space of the shelter). From the end of each corridor, there are 90 degree turns either into the main shelter space, or into the toilet closet. The main interior shelter space measures 4.6m between the internal blast walls, and 3m between the front and rear walls of the shelter. Evidence of bench seating survives within the main shelter space.
\nPost-war modifications include four openings cut through the east and west walls of the shelter to form windows (likely for the 1945 conversion to a women’s toilet).
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n","history":"
The Sarina Air Raid Shelter stands in the median strip of Broad Street (Bruce Highway) in Sarina, about 25km south of Mackay. It is the surviving one of two public reinforced concrete air raid shelters constructed in the street in early 1942. At this time Australia was at risk of air attack due to Japan’s entry into World War II (WWII). Built by the Sarina Shire Council as a half-size version of a standard Department of Public Works (DPW) concrete air raid shelter, the Sarina shelter was adapted for other uses after WWII. It is one of the most intact of its type (‘T’ shaped with toilet closets).
\nSarina, located on the banks of Plane Creek, is part of the traditional land of the Yuwibara people.[1] The Plane Creek pastoral property, established in the 1860s, was opened for selection in 1880, which facilitated the local sugar cane-growing industry. The town, initially known as Plane Creek, grew after the opening of the Plane Creek Central Sugar Mill in 1896, and was renamed Sarina by 1907. At this time Sarina possessed three hotels, a police station and Plane Creek Provisional School. The Sarina Shire was formed in 1912, breaking away from the Pioneer Shire. The railway reached Sarina from Mackay in 1913, and opened to St Lawrence in 1921, where it joined the North Coast line from Rockhampton. In 1924, 60 shade trees were planted along the median strip of Broad Street, a wide thoroughfare and former stock route, which is the main business street of Sarina. In 1927 a ‘power alcohol’ distillery opened next to the sugar mill, to produce ethanol from waste molasses. By 1933 Sarina had a population of 1747, up from 218 in 1901.[2]
\nWith the declaration of WWII in September 1939, the Queensland Premier's Department, as the agency responsible for co-ordinating civil defence works in the state, began implementing home security policies. Air Raid Protection Committees, usually consisting of the local mayor, inspector of police and government medical officer, formed in centres along the Queensland coast. As the threat of war with Japan increased, construction of public air raid shelters was planned in main centres considered vulnerable to air attack.[3]
\nOn 8 December 1941, the United States of America entered the war, following the previous day’s bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. Simultaneously Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. Three days after Pearl Harbor, two capital ships of the Royal Navy (HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse) were sunk by Japanese aircraft off the coast of Malaya. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) raised fears of air attacks on Australia. The first Japanese air raid on Darwin occurred on 19 February, carried out by aircraft launched from four of the six aircraft carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbour, plus land-based aircraft flying from the NEI. During early 1942 Japanese air raids on other targets in Australia seemed likely, and an invasion of Australia was also feared.[4]
\nAs a result, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in late January 1942. Although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. A policy of voluntary evacuation of women and children from Queensland coastal areas was also implemented by the Queensland Government on 27 January 1942.[5]
\nAnother result of the fear of air attack was the construction of air raid shelters. In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area (235 were eventually constructed). Order No.1 also required the owners of any building in the coastal areas, where over 30 people would normally be present at any one time, to build shelters within, or adjacent to, the building. Businesses such as hotels constructed shelters for their patrons. Queensland Railways (QR) also instituted a shelter-building program at its railway stations.[6]
\nOrder No.1 was applied state-wide, and another 24 local authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 19 of these local authorities were expected to construct a total of 133 surface shelters able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. A surface shelter was a self-contained external structure with the floor surface at or above ground level. Five local authorities, including Sarina Shire Council (SSC), were ordered to dig trenches. Standard designs for brick and concrete surface shelters, and for trench shelters, were sent to local authorities by the Architectural Branch of the DPW.[7]
\nHowever, as a result of a visit to Sarina on 24 December 1941 by State Government staff, instead of digging trenches, Sarina constructed two ‘half-size’ surface air raid shelters. The manager of the power alcohol distillery at Sarina was also ordered to construct a half-size concrete shelter. A report on the visit, by engineer Percy Ainscow of the Public Estate Improvement Branch, noted that ‘trenches were of no use in the town of Sarina [due to the wet ground, which was also an issue at Proserpine]. Approval was obtained for two small reinforced concrete shelters for Sarina, and authority to arrange for the erection of a shelter at the Power Alcohol Factory’.[8] Pairs of half-size concrete shelters were also built at Home Hill and Proserpine.[9]
\nSarina’s half-size air raid shelters were based on the standard DPW design (January 1942) for a reinforced concrete air raid shelter. Although the half-size version had the same wall and roof thickness, and the same size entry corridors and toilet closets, the main shelter space was half the length of a full-size shelter. The full-size standard shelter had 12 inch (30.5cm) thick walls, and a flat, 6 inch (15.2cm) roof (flush with the outside walls) – unless there was a risk of nearby buildings collapsing onto the shelter, in which case the roof had to be 12 inches. The outside length of the front wall of the full-size standard shelter, not including toilets, was 39ft 5 inches (12m); while the total length of the rear wall (including toilets) was 47ft 7 inches (14.5m). The shelter was 12ft (3.7m wide). In Sarina’s case, although the width was the same, the shelter’s front wall was 7.7m long, while the total rear length was 9.9m. The front walls of the toilet closets at each end of both the standard and half-size shelters were set back 5ft (1.5m) from the main front wall of the shelter, giving the shelters a symmetrical, fat ‘T’ shape. [10]
\nThe two entrances to both the full-size and half-size shelters were at right angles to, and just inside, the front wall of the shelter. Each entrance made a 90 degree turn into a corridor towards the rear side of the shelter. Each corridor was formed by a 12 inch thick internal blast wall (separating the corridor from the main space of the shelter) to one side, and a 12 inch thick wall to a ‘closet’ (containing a toilet) on the other side. From the end of each corridor, there were 90 degree turns either into the main shelter space, or the toilet closet, which was 5ft x 3ft 1 inch (1.5m x 0.94m) in size. Each internal blast wall had a recess through the top of its end for a lamp. The walls had angled corners (called a ‘haunch’ in plans) to the floor and ceiling, while the height of the interior space was 7ft 10 inches (2.4m).[11]
\nThe main interior shelter space in the full-size version was 30ft x 10ft (9.1m x 3m), with seating for 50 persons. This consisted of a central, double timber slat bench (set on five footings) for 30 people (15 facing each way); while a timber slat bench, for 20 people, was set (on seven footings) against the front wall of the main space, between the internal blast walls. In comparison, the half-size shelter’s main space was only 4.6m x 3m. In the full-size shelter, seven offset air vents (doglegged, to avoid splinter penetration) were formed through both the front and back walls of the main shelter space; and each toilet closet also had three offset vents, for a total of 20. The half-size shelter only had four vents in each wall of the main shelter space, for a total of 14 vents, including the toilet closet vents. [12]
\nBy 9 January 1942, the steel for Sarina’s shelters, which would be built by the SSC, was being cut and bent, and construction commenced around mid-January.[13] It was announced that the shelters would be 32ft x 12ft (9.8m x 3.7m) in size, with four rows of seats to accommodate 40-50 people. The first half-size concrete shelter was built in Broad Street ‘just opposite Kelly’s’ (in 2019 the National Australia Bank, corner of Broad Street and the Marlborough-Sarina Road).[14] The second shelter (the surviving air raid shelter) was originally planned for Central Street, near the railway crossing, but as QR was building its own (trench) shelters nearby, it was relocated to Broad Street, to the north of the first shelter: in front (west) of Sarina State School and within 50m of the Post Office.[15] The first shelter was finished by 14 February 1942, and the second by 28 February.[16]
\nThe number of shelters to be built, and the number of local authorities required to build them, was increased in January 1942. By 26 January, 26 local authorities outside Brisbane were expected to build 143 surface air raid shelters, with Tully and Redcliffe constructing trenches and Ipswich building a combination of surface shelters and trenches.[17] Ultimately, those local authorities outside Brisbane which had work funded by the DPW, built 133 shelters – 126 surface shelters, and seven underground (the latter at Bundaberg and Mount Morgan). In five cases (Atherton, Cairns, Gladstone, Mackay, and Toowoomba) the DPW built the shelters without local authority assistance. Some local authorities, like Brisbane, undertook and funded their own shelter building program.[18]
\nThe DPW’s construction program outside Brisbane cost £56,596; £30,929 worth of the work was undertaken by the DPW, and the rest by local authorities with funds provided by the DPW.[19] However, problems arose when the DPW asked the local authorities to pay half the total cost. Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, and Ayr denied liability for costs, and a Bill was passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The Ayr Shire Council claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid, as they concentrated people in one place, and would be a target for low-flying aircraft.[20]
\nThe SSC was also not happy having to pay half the total cost (£1124.17.1) of its two air raid shelters, claiming it was led to believe that the State Government would pay the full cost; it could have built cheaper shelters than the DPW’s design; and QR had been allowed to build timber trench shelters at the Sarina railway station. However, the SSC applied for, and received, a loan to cover its liability.[21]
\nAs well as building air raid shelters, the SSC undertook other Air Raid Precaution (ARP) measures in early 1942. By early January, shades had been put over street lights, and the fire brigade was testing water hydrants; householders had to have sand available to extinguish incendiary bombs, and government building windows were covered in cheesecloth.[22] In February, to raise funds for equipment for the local emergency hospitals, the Sarina ARP Organisation held a euchre party and dance in the School of Arts hall. In March 1942 the SSC requested 12 steel helmets for its Rescue and Demolition Squad. It later borrowed £1400 from the State Government for an emergency water supply.[23] Air raid drills occurred in March and June 1942, with one being a surprise test of the sirens which resulted in the public air raid shelters being rapidly filled.[24]
\nAs the threat of Japanese air attack diminished, Queensland’s public air raid shelters became unnecessary.[25] By December 1944 the Civil Defence Organisation (CDO) was permitting the removal of air raid shelters, with half the cost, once again, to be paid by local authorities.[26]
\nAlthough calls were made to remove the ‘unsightly’ trench shelters at the Sarina railway station, the SSC did not demolish the concrete surface shelters on Broad Street. By early December 1945, when the Sarina branch of the Australian Communist Party suggested converting the surface shelters to rest rooms for country visitors, the SSC had already let a contract to convert ‘the top shelter’ (the surviving shelter) into a women’s toilet and wash room, with water and electricity connected. The existing four windows, cut into the shelter’s walls, were probably formed at this time.[27] In 1947, the other public air raid shelter was converted into a public library with the addition of electric lights, doors and windows, and officially opened in March 1948.[28] In 1960 the SSC considered converting this shelter into men’s toilets, should it be vacated by the library, but this did not eventuate. After the library moved to the memorial hall, the former air raid shelter/library was demolished in 1979.[29]
\nOther known surviving public air raid shelters (‘T’ shaped, with toilet closets) are located at: Babinda [QHR 602743] (with a new concrete dividing wall added, for use as a public toilet); Gordonvale (northern end and toilet closet only); and the old court house, Gympie [QHR 602778] (one internal blast wall removed; converted to a sound recording studio). Queensland Rail air raid shelters (‘T’ shaped, with toilet closets) also still exist: one at Maryborough Railway Station [QHR 600702] (internal blast walls removed); and one at Toowoomba Railway Station [QHR 600872] (brick, internal blast walls removed). Elsewhere in Queensland, ‘T’ shaped public air raid shelters without toilets (entrances are set back and face the rear of the shelter, and the corridors make a single 90 degree turn into the main shelter space) survive at Landsborough Railway Station [QHR 602709], and Shorncliffe Railway Station.
\nPublic shelters without toilets (entrances are not set back, and the shelter is rectangular) survive at: Queens Wharf Road, Brisbane [QHR 600135]; Ferguson Street, Manly (timber building added above); and the Maryborough Court House [QHR 600714]. Although most of Brisbane’s public air raid shelters were demolished, 20 rectangular shelters, designed to have three or four of their walls removed at the end of the war for use as bus or park shelters, also survive.[30]
\nIn 2019, Sarina’s Air Raid Shelter (former) is used as office and storage space for council gardeners. It is one of the most intact surviving examples of the DPW’s standard ‘T’ shaped air raid shelter with toilet closets, retaining its two internal blast walls, complete with lamp recesses; and its two original toilet closets. Most of Queensland’s public surface air raid shelters were demolished after WWII, and surviving examples which retain their toilet closets and both their internal blast walls are now rare.
","criteria":"The Sarina Air Raid Shelter, a public air raid shelter built by the Sarina Shire Council in 1942, is important in demonstrating the impact of Japan’s entry into World War II (WWII) on Queensland’s civilian population, and the urgent Air Raid Precaution measures undertaken in 1941-42. It is a product of the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted in December 1941, which ordered Queensland’s local authorities to construct public air raid shelters.
|Although hundreds of public air raid shelters were constructed during 1942 in Queensland, few survive intact. The Sarina Air Raid Shelter is one of the most intact public air raid shelters of its type (‘T’ shaped with toilet closets) in Queensland.
|The Sarina Air Raid Shelter is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a WWII concrete surface shelter built for public protection in Queensland. The extant features demonstrate the design, solid construction and dimensions of a half-size version of the standard DPW public air raid shelter (‘T’ shaped with toilet closets). Surviving characteristics include: the reinforced concrete floor, walls and roof; angled corners to the floor and roof; air vents; two entrances; two toilet closets; two internal blast walls with lamp recesses; and evidence of its internal rows of bench seating. Its siting in an easily accessible location, within an area with a concentration of civilians – in this case in the main street of Sarina – is also a defining characteristic of public air raid shelters.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650230,"name":"Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station 385, Lytton","alternate_name":"Lytton Heavy Anti-Aircraft battery emplacement | Gun Station 385, 6 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery | 6 (385) Australian Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery | 385th Troop, 6th Australian Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery","street_address":"50 Pritchard Street","suburb":"LYTTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-06-28","description":"Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station 385 occupies an approximately 5180m2 rectangular site in Lytton, an industrial suburb on the southeast side of the Brisbane River mouth, approximately 14km northeast of Brisbane’s central business district (CBD). It is located on the western fringe of an oil refinery complex (c1963-present), and is accessed via private roads that lead into the complex from South Street. The heritage boundary is defined by coordinates aligning to a modern fence (not of cultural heritage significance), which separates the place from the oil refinery site.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe gun emplacements are in an arc configuration, radiating from the north to the southeast of the central command post.
\nCommand Post
\nThe command post is a reinforced concrete structure, formerly used as a central control point that identified and calculated aircraft trajectories, and distributed signals to the gun emplacements.
\nThe command post comprises an open pit with three connected compartments – for an identification telescope at the west, rangefinder at the north, and predictor at the south. The east side of the pit steps down to an underground, concrete-roofed plotting room, which has an escape hatch protruding from its north end. The command post is entered via an open narrow passage at the southwest side of the pit.
\nThe command post is largely over-grown by a tree at the west side of the structure, preventing access to the interior. The tree is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nGun Emplacements
\nThe four gun emplacements are octagonal-shaped, masonry and concrete structures of a standard layout, built to house and operate 3.7 inch (94mm) static anti-aircraft guns. They are located north, northeast, east and southeast of the command post.
\nEach gun emplacement comprises a central unroofed gun pit, with a single entry point through an open side that faces the command post. The other seven sides feature roofed ready ammunition lockers, accessed via door openings and divided into seven rooms by concrete walls. These seven sides and the ready ammunition lockers are concealed externally by formed earth revetments (with the exception of part of the north gun emplacement, where the west side of its revetment has been removed).
\nWhile no guns remain in place, their locations in the centre of the gun pits are clearly discernible through holdfasts (which would have attached to the hexagonal base plates of the guns’ static mounts).
\nBlock screen walls at the entrances to the gun emplacements have been removed.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSignificant views
\nThe place is located in an open, cleared setting and can be read as an intact complex.
\nImportant views include those to, from and between the Command Post and each Gun Emplacement. These views facilitate the understanding of the place’s historical function.
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of the place not of state-level cultural heritage significance are: the boundary fence; all vegetation, including those overgrowing the west side of Command Post and parts of the Gun Emplacements; recent graffiti; and recent moveable objects submerged in water in the Command Post’s Plotting Room.
","history":"Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Gun Station 385 was constructed at Lytton in 1943 to defend Brisbane against Japanese air attack during World War II (WWII), replacing a 1942 gun station at Colmslie. The Lytton area, on the southeast side of the Brisbane River mouth and part of the traditional land of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, has long played a part in the defence of Queensland. In 2019, Gun Station 385 is located within the Caltex oil refinery to the east of Fort Lytton National Park, and retains: four above-ground gun emplacements for 3.7 inch (94mm) anti-aircraft guns, consisting of octagonal gun pits, formed of cinder blocks and concrete, surrounded on seven sides by earth revetments; and a semi-underground concrete command post, comprising an underground plotting room and an adjacent open concrete pit with three compartments. It has the most intact gun emplacements of the eight known 3.7 inch gun stations active in Brisbane between 1942 and 1944, and is also one of the most visible and intact 3.7 inch gun stations in Queensland.
\nAlthough WWII started in September 1939, Australia was under little threat of air attack until late 1941. On 8 December 1941, the United States of America entered the war, following the previous day’s bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. Simultaneously, Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) raised fears of air attacks on Australia. The first Japanese air raid on Darwin occurred on 19 February 1942; and Broome, in Western Australia, was attacked on 3 March 1942. Japanese air raids on other targets in Australia seemed likely, and an invasion of Australia was also feared.[1]
\nDue to its position in the north of Australia, Queensland was at risk of land-based air attack (launched from airfields in the NEI or New Guinea), as well as attacks launched from aircraft carriers. As a result of the growing fear of Japanese air raids, the Queensland Government issued the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, which ordered the Brisbane City Council, and other local authorities near the coast, to build air raid shelters. All Queensland coastal state schools were closed in late January 1942, and although most reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. A policy of voluntary evacuation of women and children from Queensland coastal areas was also implemented on 27 January 1942.[2]
\nAir raid shelters were a passive defence, and Brisbane – as well as other ports such as Townsville and Cairns – also needed active defence of the type provided by fighter squadrons and anti-aircraft guns. After the first US forces arrived in Brisbane in the Pensacola Convoy on 22 December 1941, the city became a major supply base and staging point for the war in the South West Pacific, and the largest US naval base in continental Australia.[3] In January 1942 Brisbane became Base Section 3 of the United States Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA), headquartered in Somerville House [QHR 600305], South Brisbane. After General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA), arrived in Brisbane in July 1942, the city also hosted his General Headquarters in the AMP building at the corner of Queen and Edward Streets [QHR 600147]. General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander Allied Land Forces, had his Advanced Land Headquarters at the University of Queensland, St Lucia [QHR 601025]. Queensland played a major role in the build-up of troops and supplies for the joint US-Australian counter-offensive in New Guinea, which occurred after the Japanese advance was checked at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda track (August-September 1942).[4]
\nPrior to WWII, efforts to defend Australia from air attack included raising the 1st Anti-Aircraft Battery (at George’s Heights, Sydney), in 1926. This unit was later armed with British 3 inch (76.2mm) guns.[5] By the beginning of WWII in September 1939, four more batteries had been raised, and by the end of 1940 Australia’s anti-aircraft units were also equipped with 3.7 inch (94mm) guns, introduced in Britain in the late 1930s. Australia had manufactured 165 of these guns at Maribyrnong, Victoria, by November 1941.[6]
\nIn 1942, Brisbane’s HAA defence included US and Australian units, utilising both 3 inch and 3.7 inch guns, while Australian Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) units were armed with 40mm Bofors.[7] The US 94th Coast Artillery Regiment arrived in Brisbane on 29 March 1942, and sited its 3 inch guns at Heath Park (East Brisbane); Hendra; the Holy Cross laundry in Wooloowin; Amberley and Archerfield airfields; and Cannon Hill; it also deployed machine guns and searchlights at multiple sites around Brisbane.[8] Australian HAA units later replaced the US units at Amberley, Archerfield and Heath Park; but Australian factories were not able to produce enough heavy and light AA guns for Brisbane to receive an allocation of weapons until May 1942.[9]
\nThe AA guns were sited to defend Brisbane’s airfields (Eagle Farm and Archerfield), the US Navy’s submarine base at Teneriffe (established April 1942), and any other shipping on the river.[10] By July 1942 the Australian Army controlled three 3.7 inch gun stations, located at Colmslie (GS 385), Victoria Park (GS 386), and Hendra (GS 389), forming a triangle roughly centred on Hamilton; plus two 3 inch gun stations, at Amberley (GS 391) and Archerfield (GS 392).[11]
\nA map of gun stations in the Brisbane area, circa December 1942, shows there were five active 3.7 inch gun stations by this time. Three were located north of the river, at Victoria Park, Hendra, and Pinkenba (GS 388); while two were south of the river, at Heath Park (East Brisbane), and Colmslie. A 3 inch gun station was shown as active at Archerfield, while Bofors guns were deployed, close to both banks of the river, at 11 sites between Teneriffe and Pinkenba. Locations for 3.7 inch gun stations ‘under construction or construction about to commence’ included Balmoral Park (GS 387), Lytton (GS 385), and Hemmant (GS 390) – all south of the river. Notes indicated that the Colmslie gun station was to be moved to Lytton; and that Pinkenba was a mobile gun station, with a ‘static’ site to be built (where the guns would be bolted to a concrete base).[12]
\nDuring the war, other 3.7 inch gun stations were constructed in Queensland: at Townsville and Cairns, as well as at military airfields at Mareeba; Iron Range (now Lockhart River Airport); Jacky Jacky (now Northern Peninsula Airport); and Horn Island.[13] Although Brisbane’s gun stations never fired at enemy aircraft, Townsville’s guns engaged Japanese aircraft in May-July 1942;[14] and Horn Island was attacked a number of times between March 1942 and June 1943. Japanese aircraft carrier losses at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and the Battle of Midway in June 1942, prevented any Japanese carrier-borne air attacks on Queensland.[15]
\nIn 1943 GS 385 was relocated from Colmslie to the Commonwealth defence reserve at Lytton, on the southeast side of the Brisbane River mouth. The new site was within the former town of Lytton, surveyed in 1859 when a customs station was also established on the river. The town never thrived; Fort Lytton [QHR 600248], a coastal artillery fortification, was constructed to the northwest in 1880-82; while a military redoubt, to protect the rear of Fort Lytton from a land assault, was constructed east of the town in 1885, on Lytton Hill [QHR 601366]. The 120 acre (48ha) Lytton Defence Reserve was established in 1887, and was later enlarged, absorbing the town, which was resumed in 1891 and 1900. The defence reserve passed into Commonwealth ownership after 1901. A quarantine station [QHR 601347] was also established, south of Fort Lytton, in 1913-14; and Brisbane’s first airfield operated on the flats between the quarantine station and Lytton Hill from 1919-31.[16]
\nThe new gun station at Lytton, like most WWII Australian defence construction projects, was built by civilian labour, organised through the Allied Works Council (AWC). The AWC was formed in February 1942; and labour was sourced through the Civil Constructional Corps, formed in April that year.[17] Most of Brisbane’s HAA gun stations, including Lytton, were constructed by the Queensland Main Roads Commission, as requested by the AWC, with the Brisbane City Council also doing some work.[18]
\nQueensland’s static HAA gun stations typically consisted of a semi-underground command post, set to one side of a 180 degree arc of four octagonal gun emplacements, with about 100ft (30m) between the centres of the emplacements. There were also two to four earth-covered reserve magazines, set outside the arc of gun emplacements. Brisbane’s static gun stations were built with reinforced concrete or cinder blocks; and their gun pits could either be built above-ground (such as at Lytton), or set in-ground (such as at Hemmant). A gun crew usually consisted of 10-12 men.[19]
\nA typical command post included: an underground plotting room, entered from an external open pit which had separate compartments for a rangefinder, an aircraft spotter’s identification telescope, and a predictor. To be effective against a flying target which was moving rapidly in three dimensions, anti-aircraft guns needed to fire together, not individually. A predictor (a mechanical analog computer) was used to calculate where the aircraft would be when the shells arrived. It was manually programmed to follow a target, taking into account its course and speed, as well as the shells’ direction and velocity. This information was relayed automatically to the gun layers in each emplacement, so that all guns were trained on the same target area. The target’s height was deduced by the rangefinder, so that the fuses of each shell could be set to explode at the correct height. Without a predictor, a gun station was ineffective, but no predictors were manufactured in Australia until 1942.[20]
\nEach emplacement had an entrance corridor on one side, leading into the gun pit of the emplacement; a central group of bolts for securing the gun’s hexagonal metal base plate to the concrete; and surrounding lockers in the walls of the gun pit, for ‘ready’ ammunition, fuses etc.[21] Photographs of the Lytton gun station, taken in November 1943, show doors on each of the ammunition lockers in the gun emplacements; and pairs of cinder block walls within the entrance corridor to each emplacement – protecting the gunners from any bomb splinters from that direction.[22]
\nGun Station 385 at Lytton was a sub-unit of 6 HAA Battery.[23] Funding of £7000 was approved to construct a 3.7 inch gun station, consisting of four emplacements, one command post, and two ‘shell stores’ (reserve magazines), at Lytton in February 1943. One reserve magazine was built north of the gun emplacements, and one to the southwest. Later, another £4,430, for accommodation for 3 officers and 72 other ranks, was approved. The request for camp buildings, located north of the gun emplacements, included: a kitchen and mess for 75 people, all ranks; an administration building; a sleeping hut for 45 women of the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS); latrines, baths and laundry for the AWAS; and latrines, showers and ablutions (male), 30 all ranks. An existing house on the site was used as the officers’ mess. The gun emplacements, command post, and reserve magazines were under construction by May 1943; and the requested accommodation existed by May 1944, when the gun station’s earth cover (revetments for the gun emplacements and reserve magazines) was also present.[24]
\nThe AWAS, formed in August 1941, provided personnel to coastal artillery units from July 1942; and to Home Defence AA and searchlight units from August that year. The AWAS operated radars, predictors, height and range finders, telescopes, searchlights and engines, and undertook fire control, computing, plotting, and aircraft spotting duties. In artillery units, searchlight batteries had the highest percentage of women.[25]
\nGS 385 was in service by August 1943.[26] Partially manned by Volunteer Defence Corps (VDC) soldiers from this time, Brisbane’s gun stations were redesignated as Troops (Static), with their parent batteries under the command of Headquarters, Brisbane AA Group. By late 1943, 6 HAA Battery (Static) controlled the three 3.7 inch gun stations south of the Brisbane River: at Balmoral (387 Troop); Hemmant (390 Troop); and Lytton (385 Troop). North of the Brisbane River, 38 HAA Battery (Static) controlled the three 3.7 inch gun stations at: Victoria Park (386 Troop); Hendra (389 Troop); and Pinkenba (388 Troop).[27] The six active 3.7 inch gun stations now formed a rough oval with its centre south of Eagle Farm.
\nBy early 1944, when the fear of Japanese air attack had diminished, Brisbane was defended by 24 x 3.7 inch guns (in six gun stations); 12 x 40mm Bofors; and 21 searchlights (Townsville also had 24 x 3.7 inch guns; and Cairns 12). In March 1944, a report to the Commonwealth’s Defence Committee recommended reducing the number of anti-aircraft guns in Cairns and Townsville, as they were now out of range of Japanese land-based bombers.[28] In early 1944, VDC personnel formed complete ‘shadow units’, which could fully man the guns. From mid-1944 onwards, the AA groups in Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Newcastle, Port Kembla and Melbourne were disbanded, with all AA defences in Brisbane disbanded in late 1944.[29]
\nAfter the war, Brisbane’s defences were dismantled. By 1963, the Lytton gun station’s accommodation huts had been removed, although the gun emplacements, command post and two reserve magazines remained. That year several fuel tanks, part of a new Ampol refinery, were already under construction, to the north of the gun station.[30] The southwestern reserve magazine and the house which had been used as an officer’s mess were removed in the 1960s; the northern reserve magazine and the earth revetment on the west side of the northernmost gun emplacement were removed in the 1970s.[31] In 1990, Fort Lytton was declared a Historic National Park, after being relinquished by Ampol. The remaining refinery land, including the former GS 385, later became a Caltex refinery.[32] Photographs from inside the command post, taken in 2000, show caricatures of an Australian officer and a Japanese soldier, drawn on the walls.[33] In 2019 the grassed site of GS 385 is fenced off, within the refinery.
\nIn 2019, of Brisbane’s eight known 3.7 inch HAA gun stations, GS 385 at Lytton retains the most intact gun emplacements.[34] GS 390, south of Fleming Road, Hemmant [QHR 601353], is the next most intact.[35] GS 387, on the treed hilltop in Balmoral Park in Morningside, and GS 386 at Victoria Park, near the southern corner of the golf course, have both been demolished, but may retain buried elements.[36] There is no trace of GS 389, just east of Bannister Park in Hendra; GS 388, on airport land north of Pinkenba; the gun station at Heath Park in East Brisbane; or GS 385, east of the Colmslie Recreation Reserve.
\nGS 385 at Lytton, which retains its four gun emplacements with earth revetments, and its command post, is important surviving evidence of the anti-aircraft defences of Brisbane during WWII, and is a physical reminder of the threat posed by enemy aircraft during that conflict.
","criteria":"Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station 385, Lytton (1943) is a rare, representative surviving example of the anti-aircraft defences of Queensland during World War II (WWII), and is a physical reminder of the threat posed to Brisbane’s shipping and airfields by enemy aircraft. It demonstrates Brisbane’s role as a major supply and naval base, aircraft assembly and headquarters location during the war in the South West Pacific, when Queensland was the main staging area for the Allied effort in New Guinea.
|In its siting, planning and fabric, the intact Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station 385 has the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of WWII strategic defence measures for Brisbane. Comparative analysis with the few other surviving examples, and detailed examination of the features of the site, including the command post, four gun emplacements, communications infrastructure, and submerged or sub-surface features, could reveal important information about the design, operation and site-specific modifications of 3.7 inch heavy anti-aircraft (HAA) gun stations during WWII.
|Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station 385 is an excellent, intact example of an HAA gun station built in Queensland during WWII. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including: its configuration in a standard layout of a central command post with a radiating arc of gun emplacements; its construction in concrete and cinder block; its command post with an underground plotting room and an open pit comprising compartments for a range-finder, identification telescope and predictor; its gun emplacements with gun pits, ready ammunition lockers, and earth revetments (including surviving earth cover on top of the gun emplacements); and its strategic location, which allowed it to engage enemy aircraft using the river to navigate toward their targets.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion C | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650231,"name":"Yeppoon State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Tucker Street","suburb":"YEPPOON","lga":"LIVINGSTONE SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-08-21","description":"Yeppoon State School occupies a 10.9ha steeply sloping site on the northwest edge of the coastal town of Yeppoon, approximately 35km northeast of Rockhampton. The school is primarily accessed from Tucker Street to the east, and is bounded by the Yeppoon Railway (south; no longer in operation), Norton and Caroline streets (north), and residential properties (east, north and west). The school features a complex of teaching and administration buildings, connected by covered walkways and located at the highest part (northeast corner) of the site. Sloping down toward the southern playing field, terraces defined by retaining walls form platforms on which buildings and courtyards stand.
\nThe heritage boundary incorporates the eastern end of the school site (total area of 4.42ha). Features of state-level cultural heritage significance within the school complex are:
\nSite Planning
\nThe site planning is characteristic of master planned Queensland schools from the 1950s, with long, narrow buildings, linked by covered walkways and surrounded by open-ended, wedge-shaped courtyard play and assembly spaces. The buildings are in a north-facing alignment, arranged in a splayed formation with a central Administration Wing (former), and linked by a spine of covered walkways around courtyard spaces. The buildings and courtyard spaces follow the slope of the site, with terraces forming levelled building platforms. Of the significant buildings, Blocks A and B are at the highest level, with the terrain stepping down to Blocks C and D and the Administration Wing (former), and then down to Blocks E and F.
\nBlock A (1958); Block B (1958); Block F (1959) - Highset Timber School Buildings with open-web steel floor trusses [F/T7]
\nBlocks A, B and F are highset teaching buildings with north-facing first floor verandahs accessing classrooms on the south sides. Blocks A and B are connected by a central raised walkway and stair, and have stairs at the east and west ends, respectively. Block F is accessed via an eastern stair and a raised walkway links north from the west end of Block F to Block E.
\nThe first floor layouts are intact, retaining open verandahs with bagrack balustrades, and most original partitions, including the door between classrooms. The layout of each building is as follows:
\nThe understorey is largely intact and retains early toilet and end-wall enclosures, and exposed open-web steel trusses. Later enclosures to the formerly open play space are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Block A, B and F also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock C (1958) – lowset variation of Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair [F/T4]
\nBlock C is a single storey teaching building with a ground level, north-facing verandah providing access to two southern classrooms. The verandah has a separate skillion roof, which allows light to enter the interior spaces from clerestory windows.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance relating to Block C are:
\nBlock D (1929; extended 1950 and 1953, with 1957 understorey) - Sectional School Building [D/T1], extended with Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair [F/T4]
\nThe 1920s and 1950s phases of Block D’s construction are evident in the building fabric, with the Sectional School Building segment at the west end of the building and the Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair extension at the east.
\nBlock D is a highset teaching building with a north-facing (now partially-enclosed) verandah, and a series of south-facing classrooms. The understorey comprises open play space, original toilets and southern bracing walls.
\nMost classrooms have had dividing partitions removed to form one long room, and many wall and ceiling linings are not original. Block D’s interior layout and finishes, and verandah enclosures are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of Block D also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock E (1957) - Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair
\nBlock E is a long, highset teaching building with a north-facing first floor verandah, accessing southern classrooms. Stairs are at the east and west ends of the verandah, with timber-framed glazed screens semi-enclosing the adjacent verandah spaces.
\nThe first floor layout comprises five classrooms, with a former principal’s office projecting from the east end, separated from the classrooms by a walkway leading south to Block F. The verandah has been mostly enclosed, with parts of the verandah wall removed (former window locations) to expand classroom sizes (not of state-level cultural heritage significance). Bulkheads indicate the original layout.
\nThe understorey retains its original open play space, seating, bracing walls, enclosures for toilets, and former medical room.
\nFeatures of Block E also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nAdministration Wing (former) (1957)
\nThe Administration Wing (former) stands over a terrace, providing an understorey at its south end. It opens onto a covered walkway along its west side, which connects the understory of Block D with the first floor of Block E. An extension on its east side is not of state-level cultural heritage significance, and is identifiable by a change in roof form and wall cladding, and by internal wall nibs and bulkheads.
\nThe first floor contains a classroom (formerly two classrooms) that has had its eastern wall removed to open into the extension. The understorey includes two store rooms.
\nFeatures of the Administration Wing (former) also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCovered Walkways (1957-59)
\nCovered walkways form a central spine connecting Blocks B and D; Blocks D, E and the Administration Wing (former); and Blocks E and F. They have corrugated metal-clad roofs and timber posts that follow footpaths of concrete and timber floor boards.
\nA highset covered walkway links Blocks A and B and features a timber stair; glazed, timber-framed screen (some panels have louvres); timber floor boards to first floor; and post-and-rail timber balustrades.
\nThe covered walkway between Block D and E that forms part of the Administration Wing (former) has: a flat ceiling lined in flat sheets with square cover strips; square timber posts; a post-and-rail timber balustrade; and a timber floor to the highset sections and concrete floor to the lowset sections.
\nCourtyards (1957-59)
\nOpen courtyards for play and assembly spaces, located between Blocks A and C; Blocks B and D; Blocks D and E; and south of Blocks C and E, are characteristic of the 1950s planning. They generally have a bitumen surface; and their open nature enables the significant buildings to have a direct visual relationship to, from and between each other.
\nLandscape Features
\nThe school grounds are well-established, and incorporate open space around the significant buildings, which facilitates natural light and ventilation of the interiors.
\nConcrete retaining walls (1957-59) provide level platforms for the school buildings and adjacent courtyard spaces. They are located: north of Blocks A and B; between Blocks A and B and Blocks D and C; and between Blocks D and C, and Block E. The walls have concrete spoon drains at their bases, and concrete stairs provide access between levels.
\nConcrete-edged and walled garden beds (1957-59) are formed between Blocks A and B, and are incorporated in the retaining wall to the north of Block E.
\nA large playing field (1963), featuring a cricket pitch, is located at the south end of the site and is defined on the north and west sides by a formed earth bank.
\nThe main entrance (by 1970) into the school complex from Tucker Street is defined by a driveway with a bitumen surface.
\nFeatures not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Yeppoon State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nYeppoon State School, established in 1885 as a provisional school, is located in the coastal town of Yeppoon, approximately 36km northeast of Rockhampton. Located on its current site from 1957, the school retains seven timber buildings arranged in a layout typical of 1950s site planning. The buildings are: one Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (Block E, 1957); a Administration Wing (former, 1957); three Highset Timber School Buildings with open web steel floor trusses (Blocks A, B and F: 1958, 1958, 1959); a lowset variation of a Highset Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (Block C, 1959) and a Sectional Building with Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair extensions (Block D, 1929, extended 1950, 1953, 1957); connected by covered walkways; set in landscaped grounds with retaining walls, stairs and garden beds, and play and sporting areas. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the past and present school community.
\nPart of the traditional lands of the Darumbal People, a town reserve at Yeppoon (called Bald Hills) was proclaimed on 30 April 1868, in response to a petition by Rockhampton residents to the Surveyor-General for a coastal recreation town. Yeppoon was surveyed in 1872, and the first land sale held on 4 April 1873, but sales were slow as nearby Emu Park proved to be a more popular seaside resort. Nevertheless, pastoralists and selectors settled and developed the fertile and well-watered land around the township of Yeppoon. By 1878, the immediate Yeppoon hinterland had been largely developed for agriculture, with the surrounding area used for grazing.[1]
\nIn 1884 the Yeppoon Sugar Company commenced operations, with a large mill at Farnborough and 2000 acres (809.37ha) of land worked by South Sea Islanders. This industry boosted the town’s development. Sawmills were established, and fishing and oystering commenced. The township’s growth led to the opening of a provisional school at Yeppoon on 4 May 1885, with 15 pupils.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nBy January 1889, further population growth at Yeppoon had increased school enrolments to 60 children. Having surpassed the enrolment number required for establishment of a state school, Yeppoon State School [QHR 602404 Yeppoon State School (former)] was established. A new state school building replaced the provisional school building, on the same 1.75 acre-site (0.71ha) at the eastern end of Queen Street, close to the town’s centre.[4]
\nYeppoon and its district continued to develop in the decades leading up to World War II. As the result of lobbying, the government opened a branch railway line from Sleipner to Yeppoon on 22 January 1910. This line connected the town to the Central Railway Line, which linked Rockhampton and Longreach, boosting Yeppoon’s importance as a Central Queensland coastal resort.[5] Its settled populated also rose, reaching over 600 by 911. In August 1922, a hospital opened in Yeppoon and three boarding schools commenced in town between 1917 and 1940, serving the educational needs of Central Queensland. Yeppoon’s population reached about 900 by 1933. In 1939, the Scenic Highway between Emu Park and Yeppoon opened, stimulating further growth.[6]
\nDue to this development, pupil numbers at Yeppoon State School continued to increase, requiring further accommodation. In 1919, a second classroom building was added to the school site and in 1929 a two-classroom Sectional School Building was also erected.[7] This highset timber school building, designed to enable the building to be extended in sections by detaching the western end wall, was a common standard plan building form constructed by the Department of Public Works (DPW) in this period.
\nIn the immediate post-World War II period, the Yeppoon State School population increased from 348 in 1945 to 635 in 1955, seriously overcrowding both the school’s Queen Street site and its classrooms. This reflected the enormous demand for state education between the late 1940s and the 1960s, which resulted from immigration and the unprecedented national population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland’s Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for this demand. To cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[8] At Yeppoon State School, the Department of Public Instruction responded by acquiring a 42-acre (17ha) site in 1950, for future development. This was located on Tucker Street, about one kilometre northwest of the Queen Street site. Rather than immediately occupying the site, the Department extended the 1929 Sectional School Building by two classrooms in 1950 and by one classroom in 1953 of a Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair building type. [9]
\nOvercrowded conditions at the school continued and plans were approved in April and June 1956 for the new Yeppoon State School. In 1956 construction of two buildings (known as Blocks D and E) on the Tucker Street site commenced, with an estimated cost of £26,014, rising to £29,038 in the following year.[10] These buildings were joined at their east ends by covered walkways and a timber Administration Wing comprising two staff rooms.[11] Blocks D and E splayed out from the Administration Wing to form a wedge-shaped, open-ended courtyard, which was filled, graded and finished with bitumen to form a parade area.[12]
\nBlock D, the 1929 Sectional School Building extended in the 1950s, was relocated from the Queen Street school site and erected on concrete piers.[13] A northeast verandah was used for circulation and a room was added to its east end for a library. The understorey featured bracing walls, built-in seating, and a western toilet enclosure.[14]
\nBlock E, a Highset Timber School Building with semi-enclosed stair (the same type as the 1950s extensions to Block D), conformed to the new standard plans for school buildings introduced from 1950. This building type comprised a highset timber-framed structure with the understorey used as covered play space. It was a long and narrow building with a gable roof. A semi-enclosed stair connected the understorey to a north-facing verandah running the length of the building. Classrooms opened off the verandah and had extensive areas of windows; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed, allowing abundant natural light and ventilation. This type was the most commonly constructed in the 1950s in Queensland.[15] Block E comprised five classrooms with a store, a head teachers room at its east end, and a north-facing verandah. It was set on concrete piers, with the west end of the understorey enclosed for toilets, and the east end enclosed for a store and medical room.[16]
\nYeppoon State School opened on its new site in 1957, when grades 4-8 moved to the campus at the beginning of the school year. Grade 3 transferred during the year. The Infant School (grades 1-2) remained at the Queen Street site.[17]
\nThe population of the new primary school continued to increase and more buildings were constructed. Blocks A and B, built in 1958, to the north and northeast of Block D, were a refinement of the standard Highset Timber School Building type. Introduced in 1957, this type used an open-web steel joist that spanned further and removed more understorey stumps. This structural system was employed with reinforced concrete piers to support large loads at minimal costs.[18] Block A had a northwest-facing verandah, and two classrooms with a western store room. Block B had a northeast-facing verandah and had three classrooms with a store room on the west side of the easternmost classroom. These buildings were connected to each other by a covered walkway, which ran roughly east-west and featured a glazed screen. This walkway connection linked to Block D via another covered walkway, which ran roughly north-south.
\nIn 1958 a new secondary department (‘High Top’) opened at the Yeppoon State School, with Year 9 students. Additions for secondary classes were built in 1959 for an estimated cost of £6101.[19] In keeping with the Queensland Government’s continued focus on vocational education during the 1950s and 1960s,[20] a building that was a lowset variation of the Highset Timber School Building with timber floor trusses standard type, used for domestic science (Block C), was erected in 1959 and featured clerestory lighting over its verandah wall and two classrooms with a small staff room and a fitting room. Block C was located east of Block D and connected to it by verandahs and a covered walkway on the north elevation.[21] At the same time, a Timber School Building with open web steel floor trusses (Block F) was erected to the south of Block E. This comprised two classrooms, with its northern verandah connected to the eastern end of Block E via a covered walkway. [22] The Yeppoon Secondary Department was officially opened by Vin E Jones, MLA, on 4 September 1962.
\nThe siting of the buildings on the new Yeppoon State School campus reflected master planning concepts developed by DPW architects in the 1950s. During a period of high demand for more classroom accommodation, DPW architects introduced school master planning, a concept to plan for controlled growth and change. During the period emphasis shifted away from grid-like layouts to nuclear layouts, centred on a nucleus of core facilities. The plans balanced the need for correct orientation and an appropriate response to contours and existing vegetation. Generous courtyard spaces between classroom wings were used for assembly and play areas.[23] Yeppoon State School features open-ended courtyard spaces between Blocks E and D (parade ground), Blocks D and B, and Blocks C and A, and south of Block C.
\nThere was also a focus on more appropriate siting of new schools within their neighbourhoods, and ideal solar orientation. Educationalists argued that the ideal orientation of classroom buildings was ten degrees east of north, with verandahs protecting the northern side and classrooms facing south. This led to the construction of school buildings that were oriented in relation to the sun rather than the site boundaries.[24]
\nThe Yeppoon State School site slopes from north to south, necessitating cutting into the hillside to create building sites for the school buildings. Retaining walls dating from the 1950s, to the north of Blocks A and B, to the north of Blocks C and D, and to the north of Block E, were required and form part of the school’s landscaping.[25]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts.[26] Yeppoon State School completed its two tennis courts and a basketball court by 1961, playing field with cricket pitch in 1963, and its swimming pool in 1968. In 1987, a second playing field was developed at the Ranger Street end of the school site and named after the school’s longest serving principal, William (Doc) Noon.[27]
\nThe Yeppoon Secondary Department moved from the Yeppoon State School site to a separate campus in Rawlings Street in 1969-70,[28] freeing up classroom space for the primary school.
\nAlterations to the original buildings at Yeppoon State School have been made since the 1950s. Enclosure of Block F’s understorey occurred c1962, and this space was converted for use as a Tuckshop in 1972. Enclosure of the understorey of Block A for a janitor’s room took place c1972, and Block C’s verandah enclosure occurred c1980.[29] In 1971, the first floor of the former Administration Wing’s staff rooms was converted into an administration complex and the ground floor housed a storeroom. By 1998 the first floor was being used as Reading Resource Rooms and by October 2018 the building had been extended.[30]
\nAdditional buildings were erected on the site as the school’s population rose. The Infant School moved to the southeast corner of the Tucker Street site in new buildings from 1971.[31] Five demountables (Block M) were installed in the late 1970s. A new Administration Building was constructed in 1978. A Preschool Campus in Tucker Street commenced in February 1979 and was officially opened in July 1979. A Special Education Unit at the school was officially opened in June 1985. Between 1991 and 1992, Block I (classrooms) was constructed. A federally funded School Hall and Resource Centre (Library) was officially opened in 2010.[32]
\nEnrolments at the school peaked in 1992 with 855 pupils. Since then, pupil numbers have declined, resulting in two of the Block M demountables being removed.[33]
\nOver Yeppoon State School’s long history, it has had strong community involvement. An active Parents and Citizens organisation (P&C) raised funds for school improvements, and anniversaries of the school’s commencement have been celebrated. In 1939, the school’s 50th anniversary was celebrated with entertainments including a grand jubilee ball. In 1985, its centenary was recognised with a published school history. For Yeppoon State School’s 125th anniversary in 2010, a history of the school in photographs was published by the P&C.[34]
\nThe school grounds have been reduced in size since the school’s establishment, through alterations to its surrounding roads and subdivision of the site for residential properties. In 2018, the grounds comprised 10.9 hectares featuring an environmental studies area, two sporting fields, a swimming pool and a basketball court.[35]
\nIn 2019, Yeppoon State School continues to operate from its 1957 site and has an enrolment of about 320 pupils.[36] The school retains seven DPW-designed buildings arranged in a manner reflecting 1950s master planning, in landscaped grounds including retaining walls, stairs and garden beds, and play and sporting areas. The school is important to Yeppoon and its district as a key social focus for the community.
\n","criteria":"
Yeppoon State School (established as Yeppoon Provisional School in 1885, and relocated to its current site in 1957) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good, representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nIt is also important as a demonstration of the Queensland Government’s provision of schools on new, master planned sites in booming population centres across Queensland in the 1950s, a time of pronounced population growth.
\nThe layout of the administration and classroom blocks, the covered links between them and associated open spaces, demonstrate the mid-1950s introduction of organic master planning at state schools, which responded to the existing contours of the site and provided for ordered growth from a nucleus.
\nThe 1950s buildings at Yeppoon State School demonstrate the evolution of Department of Public Works (DPW) designs during this period. These buildings include the: Highset Timber School Buildings with semi-enclosed stair (Block E, 1957; and extensions to Block D, 1950, 1953 and 1957); Administration Wing (former, 1957); lowset variation of Highset Timber School Building with timber floor trusses (Block C, 1959); three Highset Timber School Buildings with open web steel floor trusses (Block A, 1958; Block B, 1958; and Block F, 1959).
\nThe large site with provision of assembly and play areas, and sporting facilities, demonstrates the Queensland Government’s recognition of importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Yeppoon State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school of the 1950s. These include its: site planning; range of highset and lowset timber-framed buildings of standard designs that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and a generous, landscaped site with garden beds, retaining walls, stairs, and assembly, play and sports areas.
\nThe site planning is intact and important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of 1950s Queensland state school master planning, which provided for ordered growth from a nucleus. The collection of buildings (Blocks A, B, C, D, E and F, and Administration Wing (former)) at Yeppoon State School contribute to the concept of long, narrow buildings, arranged in a splayed, north-facing formation with a central Administration Wing, and a spine of covered walkways linked around open-ended courtyard assembly and play spaces.
\nThe Highset Timber School Buildings with open web steel floor trusses (Blocks A, B and F) are good, intact examples of their type, demonstrating the incorporation of trusses into school designs to enable unimpeded play space under the classrooms. The buildings retain their: highset character with exposed trusses under; timber-framed construction; gable roof; north-facing verandahs for circulation; large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows, with centre-pivoting fanlights; and early classroom widths.
\nThe Highset Timber Teaching Building with semi-enclosed stair (Block E) demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its: highset character with covered play space under; timber-framed construction; gable roof; north-facing verandah for circulation; timber-framed glazed screens semi-enclosing verandah ends; large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows, with fanlights; early classroom widths and its understorey bracing walls, concrete posts, toilet partitions, and timber seating.
\nBlock C is an intact example of a Highset Timber School Building with timber floor truss standard type, varied to be lowset. Block C demonstrates the principal characteristics of the type, including its: timber-framed construction; gable roof; north-facing verandah for circulation; large banks of south-facing timber-framed awning windows; north-facing clerestory windows; and early classroom widths.
|Yeppoon State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1885. With over 130 years of association with the Yeppoon community, and over 60 years of operation from its current site, the establishment of the school reflected the post-war population boom of the area, which resulted in a strong community demand for state-run education. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Yeppoon, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. The strength of association is demonstrated through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650232,"name":"Allenstown State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Upper Dawson Road","suburb":"ALLENSTOWN","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-09-20","description":"Allenstown State School occupies a 3.75ha site covering a full city block in Allenstown, a central suburb of Rockhampton. The flat, rectangular site comprises a complex of teaching buildings at the western end and a playing field at the eastern end.
\nFeatures of the school of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFront Garden (by 1932)
\nThe Front Garden is the principal entry to the school and it forms a forecourt and open setting for Block A. West to east it extends from the front boundary of the school on Upper Dawson Road, to the front (west) elevation of Block A. North to south it extends approximately 35m from a netball court to an administration building (built 2007).
\nFeatures of the Front Garden of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Front Garden not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A (1939)
\nBlock A is the main building, standing centrally at the front of the site and facing west across the Front Garden to Upper Dawson Road. It is a three-storey, masonry teaching building, long and narrow, with its long sides facing west and east. It has a hipped roof and features a tall, central ventilation fleche.
\nThe front elevation is symmetrically composed and features classically-influenced design elements. It has a prominent centred entrance bay with a tall gable pediment and pilasters, emulating a temple front, and first floor entrance doors accessed by branching stairs.
\nSingle-storey sections at both ends of the building accommodate toilets. The ground floor is largely open for a play area, accessed through a series of large openings along both long sides. The first and second floors accommodate a series of classrooms accessed by a long corridor on the western side and stairwells at both ends of the building.
\nFeatures of Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nParade Ground (by 1948)
\nThe Parade Ground is a rectangular flat space on the eastern side of Block A, measuring approximately 50m by 19m. It extends the entire length of Block A (excluding the single-storey toilet blocks), and Block A’s ground floor open play area connects directly to the Parade Ground though a series of openings in Block A on this side. It stretches east to Block C, south to Block D, and north to Block B.
\nFeatures of the Parade Ground of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Parade Ground not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nClayton Memorial (by 1892)
\nThe Clayton Memorial comprises a stone urn standing on a stone pillar with inscription. It stands in the Parade Ground.
\nFeatures of the Clayton Memorial state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Clayton Memorial not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPlaysheds (1884)
\nTwo playsheds stand in the school grounds. These are open-sided, timber-framed, 10-post shelters with concrete floors and hip roofs. One stands on the southern edge of the school site near Margaret Street and another stands in the centre of the school site, south of the Swimming Pool. Both are highly intact.
\nFeatures of the playsheds of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the playsheds not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nSwimming Pool (1931)
\nThe Swimming Pool is a rectangular, concrete in-ground swimming pool standing to the northeast of the Parade Ground, near Caroline Street.
\nFeatures of the Swimming Pool of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Swimming Pool not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPlaying Field (1936)
\nThe Playing Field is a large, open, grassed, flat area at the eastern half of the school site. It is fringed by shade trees planted near the school boundary, contributing to the attractive landscape character of the field.
\nFeatures of the Playing Field of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Playing Field not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nViews
\nBlock A is a prominent building in the relatively low scale neighbourhood and is highly visible from all sides, contributing to its landmark quality in the flat landscape of the surrounding area.
\nViews of Block A of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nAllenstown State School, in Allenstown, Rockhampton, was established on its current site in 1877. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains: two timber playsheds built 1884; the Clayton Memorial, a sandstone monument to a teacher built by 1892; a Swimming Pool built in 1931; a Front Garden built by 1932; a Playing Field created in 1936; a substantial Depression-era Brick School Building built in 1939; and a Parade Ground created by 1948. The school is a prominent landmark in the area and has a strong association with the surrounding community.
\nThe Rockhampton area is traditionally part of the lands of the Darumbal people. After a short-lived 1858 gold rush, Rockhampton was proclaimed a town and declared a 'port of entry' in that year. Emerging as an important regional centre, The Municipality of Rockhampton was proclaimed in 1860 and it remained the principal port for central Queensland for nearly a century.[1]
\nAllenstown, a suburb 2km south of the centre of Rockhampton was named after William Allen, a merchant and leading elder of the Primitive Methodist Church. Allen purchased, subdivided, and sold land here in 1864. Houses, a store, and Patrick Egan’s Merry Jig Hotel followed. By 1873 the area had developed to the point that there were 50-60 school-age children, who walked between one and two miles (1.6 – 3.2km) to the already overcrowded school in William Street, Rockhampton.[2]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of early communities and integral to their success. People from the surrounding community often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[3]
\nIn February 1873, a school reserve of nine acres, 1 rood and 16 perches (3.78ha) was declared at Allenstown. A school committee of Rockhampton community members was formed in July 1875 and fundraising from the community began. Tenders were called for a timber-framed teaching building and teacher’s residence in October 1876, and Allenstown State School opened on 16 July 1877.[4] As student numbers immediately outstripped the building’s capacity, a wing was added to the existing building in 1879.[5]
\nIn 1884 two playsheds were built at Allenstown State School. The Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum. Playsheds were standard designs, free-standing shelters with fixed timber seating between posts and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open-sided with hipped roofs, and became a characteristic feature of early Queensland timber schools. [6] Although the school had sourced an original design for a long ‘double’ playshed from a Rockhampton architect in 1879, for both girls and boys, the Department of Public Instruction did not approve the design and recommended two playsheds (40’ x 22’6”/12.2m x 6.8m) of standard hipped roof design be built, supplied by the Department of Public Works (DPW). The two were built by Rockhampton contractor Wiley Holmes at the rear (east) of the buildings with one (for girls) near the north boundary and one (for boys) near the south. In 2019, they are two of four of the oldest-known extant playsheds of their type in Queensland.[7]
\nThe school grounds at Allenstown were beautified by trees, gardens, and playing fields from at least 1890. School grounds were an important component of Queensland state schools. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools, often for Arbor Day celebrations. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity.[8] To celebrate the first Arbor Day in 1890 at Allenstown State School, 27 trees (‘jacarandas’ and ‘bamboo’) were planted and small garden plots were added along Upper Dawson Road.[9] Students cultivated the plots and the best kept were awarded prizes at end of year celebrations from 1891.[10]
\nA memorial was added to the garden at the front of the school after the drowning death of teacher William Francis Nassau Clayton in 1890. By 1892 the sandstone monument was located ‘in this garden [on Upper Dawson Road]…in front of the entrance to it’, and comprised a pillar and urn, surmounted by a fountain, approximately 8ft (2.5m) tall, funded by Rockhampton school teachers and Allenstown students.[11] It was later moved a number of times within the school grounds, standing in three locations in the front garden until c1953, and then standing in at least two locations behind the school buildings, before it was moved to stand at the rear of Block A, near Block C, by 2018. Between 2006 and 2018 a new pedestal was carved for the monument’s urn, to match the original. At some time, the fountain was removed.[12]
\nWith the further development of the area in the early 20th century,[13] Allenstown State School expanded. New timber wings were added in 1899 and 1909, and the school buildings were raised and asphalt laid underneath in 1907.[14] From July 1913, the school offered high school classes, which appears to have been a short-term venture.[15] In 1915 a new building, an open-air annexe (Block C in 2019), was opened to accommodate infants classes.[16]
\nThe front garden was maintained and enhanced over time. Trees were planted here for Arbor Day in 1911; the school won the district’s second prize in 1911, and equal first in 1913, in the Department of Education’s annual ‘State School Gardens’ competition. By 1922 the garden beds had been removed.[17] From 1926 the Allenstown State School Help Association raised funds for school improvements, through three years of fetes held at the school. These improvements included ‘laying out a garden in the front of the school’.[18] The Curator of the Rockhampton Botanic Gardens offered his advice, and work commenced in early 1927.[19] The garden space was enlarged, and trees and shrubs were planted, donated by the Mayor of Rockhampton through the Botanic Gardens Trust.[20]
\nThere were other grounds improvements in the 1920s and early 1930s. By 1929, sports’ facilities for the school’s 630 students included ground ‘marked for football’, a concrete cricket pitch, two basketball courts and an ant-bed tennis court.[21] A school swimming pool opened in early 1931, and two red coloured concrete paths with black and white mosaic tile insets was laid by February 1932, forming a T-shape through the front garden and from Caroline Street to Margaret Street.[22]
\nBy the end of 1934, the Department of Public Instruction had approved a new brick building to replace the existing teaching buildings – except two, which were to be relocated within the site to accommodate infants’ classes.[23] The construction of substantial brick state school buildings during the 1930s, in prosperous or growing centres, was part of the Queensland Government’s commitment to provide unemployment relief during the Great Depression.[24]
\nCommencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, the Great Depression caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders. Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, begun by mid-1930. This work created many large school playing fields, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped.[25] These playing fields became a standard inclusion in Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[26] At Allenstown, relief workers were employed to fill the lower (eastern) area of the school reserve during 1936 to form a large, levelled playing field. In the school’s centenary year this was named the Tom Hogan Playing Field, after a former teacher and deputy principal of the school from 1952 to 1980.[27]
\nFrom 1932 the Queensland Government also embarked on an ambitious and important public building program to provide impetus to the economy during the Great Depression. The building program was designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials, and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings, which would be a long-term asset to Queensland, such as large brick state school buildings.[28]
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW) and Department of Public Instruction were extremely enthusiastic about the 1930s brick school buildings, which were considered monuments to progress embodying the most modern principles of the ideal education environment.[29] These Depression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type of school architecture, exhibiting many common characteristics. Frequently, they were two storeys of classrooms above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often had a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, and accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Some classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions, and other functions. Almost all Depression-era brick school buildings faced the primary boundary road, regardless of orientation.[30]
\nThe new Depression-era brick school building at Allenstown State School, to accommodate 512 students, was designed by the DPW. Construction commenced in late January 1938 and was finished in 1939.[31] Built in place of the earlier timber buildings but retaining the front gardens and its path, the building was a symmetrical, three-storey structure facing Upper Dawson Road in a Neo-Classical style. It accommodated open play spaces on the ground floor, with ablutions in single-storey blocks at both ends. Classrooms on the first and second floors – six per floor – were accessed by an enclosed corridor running along the front (western side). An entrance bay with branching stair projected at the centre of the front elevation, accommodating an entrance hall and teacher’s rooms on the first floor and a smaller, seventh classroom and teacher’s room on the second floor. On both levels, some classrooms could be connected for student assembly via folding partitions (four classrooms on the first floor, three on the second floor) and one first floor classroom had a raised floor and acted as a stage at the end of the assembly space. Cloakrooms and stairwells were at each end of the building.[32]
\nThe building was completed with rendered walls and had a red fibre-cement corrugated sheet-clad roof with a tall ventilation fleche. Construction materials were sourced locally wherever possible: the bricks were from JG O’Shanesy (Kabra brickworks) and steel and sand was locally sourced.[33]
\nThe new brick building was officially opened on 29 July 1939 by James Larcombe, MLA for Rockhampton, Minister for Transport and Acting Minister for Mines. A brass plaque bearing a portrait of the school committee patron, WH Rudd, was unveiled. Larcombe’s speech praised the ‘splendid’ new building as ‘a fine landmark [that] raised the prestige of the Allenstown district’ and symbolised ‘the dignity, the power and the beauty of education’, particularly in contrast to the ‘ignorant and barbaric’ actions occurring in Europe at the time.[34] The opening ceremony included a very successful and well-attended fete organised by the school staff and students. The building had been constructed using day labour, and by its opening had cost £21,691 – with a further £150 required to complete the work. The building was occupied after the August vacation, 1939. In 2019 it is called Block A [35]
\nTo accommodate construction of Block A, the three oldest timber school buildings were removed from the site but the 1909 building was retained and moved slightly to the east, behind Block A. The northern playshed was probably relocated at this time, and was re-erected at the centre of the school grounds, south of the swimming pool. In 1940, the 1909 wing was moved again, along with the 1915 open-air annexe (Block C), northeast to face Caroline Street. Both timber buildings were rotated and reconfigured for use by 180 infants.[36]
\nDuring the 1940s, cotton was grown in the school grounds by students and sold for patriotic funds during World War II (WWII).[37] The Allenstown State School Help Association decided to insert brass tablets in the main building to commemorate staff and past pupils who had served in both world wars.[38] On Friday nights in summer after the war, the swimming pool was used by the Allenstown Swimming Club, and in winter a boxing ring was installed over the pool for matches open to the public.[39]
\nAfter WWII the grounds were regularly improved, and by 1948 a parade ground had been established at the rear of Block A. [40] Characteristic of Queensland schools, the parade ground was a large open area for outdoor assemblies of the student body conducted by school staff.[41] In c1953 a circular garden with central flagpole and memorial plaque was added at the southeast corner of the parade ground to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. The parade ground surface was bituminised in c1955.[42]
\nAllenstown State School celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1952 with a well-attended day of speeches delivered on the parade ground, a concert, and games.[43] Soon after, the front garden was adjusted by staff members to have symmetrical lawns and gardens with a central path, building on the existing 1930s layout.[44]
\nOver time changes were made to Block A. The cloakrooms at both ends of the second floor were changed in 1969, with partitions added to form storerooms. By this time, a tuckshop had been added in the ground floor open play area.[45] In 1972, a library was opened in one first floor classrooms of Block A, called the Pat O’Shanesy Memorial Library.[46] By 1978 toilets were added to the second floor cloakrooms with windows cut into the side walls.[47] In 1978 the folding partitions were removed from the second floor, bagracks were added to the corridor on both classroom levels, and some plasterboard partitions were added to the first floor to form a staff room. This staffroom had expanded to absorb a neighbouring classroom by 1997, when the second floor included a new central wall and the removal of other walls; and the insertion of concertina doors, creating two large rooms divisible into four classrooms. Block A was reroofed in 1989. Changes to the first floor from 1997 created administration offices in the central part of the building, which became a single space in 1998.[48]
\nThe Rockhampton community has celebrated the long history of the Allenstown State School. On 16 July 1977 the school held an 8-day long celebration including a fete and open day and fireworks. A large commemorative stone with plaque was unveiled in the front garden by NTE Hewitt, MLA; between 2009 and 2019, the stone was moved slightly west in the front garden and rotated 180 degrees.[49] The school also published a centenary book.[50] In 1998 a plaque was added at the swimming pool, which was renamed the David Coughran Memorial Swimming Pool, in recognition of a teacher who had taught at the school from 1972-97. The school marked its 125th anniversary in 2002, with a number of celebrations held between May and July. The school also published a commemorative history tour of the site in 2009.[51]
\nIn 2019, the school continues to operate from its original site. It retains its two 1884 playsheds; the Clayton Memorial (by 1892); the 1930s Swimming Pool, Front Garden, Playing Field, and Depression-era Brick School Building; and Parade Ground (by 1948). Allenstown State School is important to Rockhampton as a key social focus for the community, and includes memorials to prominent community members associated with the school. Generations of students have been taught there, and many social events have been held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment.
","criteria":"Allenstown State School, established in 1877, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains excellent, representative examples of a Depression-era Brick School Building (Block A, 1939) and two playsheds (1884), which were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with gardens, memorials, and assembly and sport areas, including: a Swimming Pool (1931); Front Garden (by 1932); Playing Field (1936); and Parade Ground (by 1948).
\nThe place is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government’s state-wide relief work programs during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression. Constructed using relief labour, Block A and the Playing Field are representative examples of the type of work performed under the program.
|Block A is an excellent, substantial, and intact example of a Depression-era Brick School Building, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the type. These include: a handsome edifice standing at the front of the school; symmetrical three-storey form with two levels of classrooms and teachers’ rooms above an undercroft of open play spaces; a linear layout of the classroom levels with rooms accessed by a corridor; loadbearing masonry construction; prominent projecting central entrance bay; and high quality design to provide superior educational environments that focus on abundant natural light and ventilation. It demonstrates the use of stylistic features of its era, which determined its roof form, joinery, and decorative treatment.
\nThe playsheds are excellent, early, and intact examples of Department of Public Works’ school playsheds and are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the type. These include its: free-standing, open-sided shelter form; hipped timber-framed roof supported on braced timber posts; and timber perimeter seat.
|Through its elegant composition of formal and decorative elements, substantial size and materials, and fine craftsmanship, the intact Block A has aesthetic significance due to its expressive attributes, by which the Department of Public Works sought to convey the concepts of progress and permanence.
\nThe place is also significant for its streetscape contribution and as a landmark within the flat landscape of the area. Viewed from Upper Dawson Road, and the adjoining Caroline and Margaret Streets, Block A’s assertive massing, classically influenced design, and elegant composition are appreciable. Block A is set back from Dawson Road behind a formal and symmetrical Front Garden of the same period and both contribute to the school’s dignified and prominent presence in the streetscape.
\nImportant views to Block A and its fleche from within the grounds, including open, axial views from the Playing Field, reinforce the dominant presence of Block A within the school.
|Allenstown State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the wider Rockhampton community. Established in 1877, initially through the efforts and fundraising of the community, this early Rockhampton school has sustained its use for more than 140 years. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Rockhampton, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus, including memorials to school staff members, and public celebrations of the school’s anniversaries throughout its history. The strength of association is demonstrated through repeated community volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650233,"name":"Berserker Street State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Berserker Street","suburb":"BERSERKER","lga":"ROCKHAMPTON REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-09-20","description":"Berserker Street State School is located in the north Rockhampton suburb of Berserker, approximately 3km northeast of the city centre. The school is within a residential area and its 4.27ha block is bounded by Bedford, Berserker, Charles and Bawden streets, and by residential properties and Mcleod Park at the eastern end. The school addresses Berserker Street to the west, with the school buildings concentrated at the western end of the grounds.
\nThe original main entrance to the school is located in the centre of the Berserker Street boundary, centred on the earliest school building, Block A (Suburban Timber School Building (1917-18) with Ferguson addition (1888, relocated 1926)). The grounds are beautified by mature trees along the Berserker Street boundary, and a courtyard in front of Block A, which enhances views of the building from Berserker Street.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A, Suburban Timber School Building (1917 - 1918) with Ferguson addition (1888, relocated 1926)
\nBlock A is laid out in ‘U’-shaped arrangement of three rectangular wings around a courtyard, addressing Berserker Street to the west. Verandahs link the wings around the courtyard, and two teachers rooms project diagonally from the corners at the intersections of the wings. The three wings were constructed at different dates and have differences in their form, fabric and details:
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGrounds and views
\nThe school has a tradition of boundary tree plantings and the grounds contain several mature trees along the Berserker Street boundary, including one very large, mature fig (Ficus sp.).
\nOn the west (front) side of Block A is a landscaped courtyard area that allows attractive views to and from Block A’s wings, and of Block A from Berserker Street, framed by trees.
\nThe parade ground is a generous student assembly, circulation and play space that enhances the setting of Block A. Block A’s open understorey permits views between the parade ground and the front courtyard, visually linking the Berserker Street entrance with the heart of the school grounds.
\nViews and grounds features of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance
\nNon-significant features of Block A include: air-conditioning units; PVC downpipes and gutters; external shade screens to windows; walls and timber screens on the ground floor understorey level (remnants of former toilet blocks, north and south wings); stair balustrades; verandah bag racks; the store room at the east end of the south wing verandah; the lift (central wing); louvres and fixed glazing; awning windows; 1950s double-hung windows in the verandah wall of the central wing; non-original doors; non-original partitions and folding walls between classrooms; partitions in the north room of the central wing; built-in sinks, cupboards, shelves and other cabinetry; carpet and other non-original floor coverings; fans and lighting; flat sheet wall and ceiling linings; and suspended ceilings to south wing classrooms.
\nNon-significant features of the grounds include: palm trees in the front courtyard; all other trees and plantings; pathways; fences; signs; flag poles; seating; playground equipment; the shade structure over the Parade Ground; and all other buildings, walkways and structures.
\nNon-significant features within the road reserve include: street trees, the footpath, road surface, kerb, signs, power poles, and all other services, utilities and road infrastructure.
","history":"Berserker Street State School, established in 1917, is situated approximately 2.5km northeast of the Rockhampton CBD on a 4.27ha site. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. The school retains a good example of a Suburban Timber School Building (Block A, central and north wings, 1917-18) with a Ferguson Timber School Building addition (south wing, 1888, relocated 1926) and is set in landscaped grounds with mature trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place for important social and cultural activities.
\nThe Rockhampton area is the traditional land of the Dharumbal people.[1] The Archer brothers, who made a private expedition to the Rockhampton district in 1853, were the first Europeans to record and chart the Fitzroy River. The Archers were also the first European pastoralists to arrive in the area. Their establishment of Gracemere Station [QHR 600508] led to further pastoral expansion into the area. The Archers, who had spent several years in Norway, named the mountain range to the northeast of Rockhampton, the Berserker Range, after Norse Saga hero, Baresark.[2]
\nAfter the short-lived Canoona gold rush of 1858, Rockhampton was proclaimed as a town and declared a 'port of entry' in 1858. Following the gold rush, the town of Rockhampton developed as an entry and export town for central Queensland. Rockhampton emerged as an important Queensland regional centre during the 1850s and 1860s. The Municipality of Rockhampton was proclaimed on 15 December 1860. Rockhampton's development took on a greater prominence after the discovery of the mining wealth at Mount Morgan in 1882. The Borough of North Rockhampton, with a population of less than 1700, was established in 1883.[3]
\nNorth Rockhampton developed as a predominately working class area in comparison with the wealthier south side of the Fitzroy River. In 1881, a bridge was constructed linking the north and the south, which encouraged urban development on the northern side.[4] In 1899, the Alexandra Bridge [QHR 600799] was opened, linking north and south Rockhampton by rail over the Fitzroy River. At the time, a major North Rockhampton industry was the Lakes Creek Meatworks, located several kilometres downstream, providing a great deal of employment for residents on the north bank. The new railway bridge provided a means of efficient transport of cattle to the works.[5] By the turn of the century its population had steadily increased, and by 1911 had reached almost 3000 people.[6]
\nBy the early 20th century, several schools had been established in North Rockhampton, including Rockhampton North State School (1871), Lakes Creek State School (1872), Frenchville State School (1900) and Park Avenue State School (1901).[7] As the population of the district increased, efforts were made by the Department of Public Instruction to expand existing schools. The problems of overcrowding, however, persisted, and some children had to walk several miles to the closest school.[8]
\nA committee was formed to lobby the government for a new school in central North Rockhampton, and in 1916 the Minister for Public Instruction, Herbert F Hardacre, inspected a potential 5 acre (2ha) school site with the local minister, John Adamson. This government-owned land was situated on a sloping site over-run with prickly pear, scrub and feral goats. At the time, the vacant land was for sale. On inspection, however, the Minister concurred that the site was suitable for a school, was withdrawn from sale, and gazetted as a school reserve.[9].
\nTenders for the construction of the school were called in April 1916 with John Hutchinson awarded the £1961 contract. The school had almost been completed by November 1916 when the Morning Bulletin stated that ‘the building is indeed all that a modern school should be and the residents of North Rockhampton are to be congratulated upon having been given such a fine structure’. [10] The new timber school building, which could accommodate 148 students, contained three classrooms and two angled teachers rooms connected by a 10ft (3m) wide verandah, and was supported by brick pillars with a concreted play area underneath. Glazed folding partitions divided the classrooms and hat rooms were located at the ends of the verandah.[11] In 2019 this building forms the central wing of Block A.
\nUnder the stewardship of the Department of Public Works (DPW) and its staff of some of Queensland’s most innovative architects, school buildings became more advanced through an evolution of standard designs.[12] In the early 20th century, with a growing concern about child health in education, the DPW evolved its school building designs with recommendations from medical professionals on light and ventilation. Notably, high-set buildings were introduced c1909, providing better ventilation as well as informal teaching space and a covered play area in the understorey. This form became characteristic of Queensland schools. A new technical innovation was a continuous, hinged ventilation flap on the wall at floor level to increase air flow into the classroom and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased temperatures.[13] Windows were considerably enlarged and sills were lowered to provide a greater amount of natural light into the room. These windows were provided to one wall of the classroom only, to the left hand side of the student, and any other windows remained small and very highset.[14] Smaller classrooms in serial arrangement were preferred as they were easier to light well and correctly. The lighter and airier interiors met with immediate approval from educationalists.[15]
\nThe type chosen for Berserker Street State School was the new Suburban Timber School Building type, which was the culmination of the early 20th century experimentation with light, ventilation, and classroom size, and was regarded as providing the ideal, modern education environment. It was the grandest of the standard timber designs of the time, and included all of the lighting and ventilation techniques developed. It was constructed for large, model, or high profile schools in growing suburban areas, and was not extensively deployed, lasting until around 1920.[16] Other examples include Silkstone State School (1915) [QHR 650091], Cannon Hill State School (1915) [QHR 602854], and Enoggera State School (1916) [QHR 650085].
\nThe school was completed by the beginning of 1917 and Patrick James Griffin was appointed head teacher. In late January, the newly formed school committee sent an invitation to the Minster of Public Instruction, HF Hardacre, to officiate at the opening ceremony.[17] Disappointingly for the school community, the Minister could not attend, but made assurances that he would be present at an official opening ceremony in the near future. An ‘unofficial’ ceremony was held regardless in late January, attended by local dignitaries including Minister Adamson.[18] Classes began in February, and the school’s initial enrolment of 195 students had increased to 316 by the end of the year.[19] In September the school’s original name of Berserker State School was changed to Berserker Street, to avoid confusion with the Berserker Railway Station, located approximately 3km to the southeast.[20]
\nFrom its opening in 1917, the planting of trees in the school grounds was an important activity for the school community and students participated in Arbor day celebrations, an annual event in Queensland since 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land. Two types of fig trees had been planted by the school committee in 1917 and the following year the progress of these trees was noted, ‘an inspection of the shade trees planted on Arbor Day showed that the Moreton Bay figs had made splendid progress, but that the majority of weeping figs had died.’[21] A very large, early fig tree remains in front of Block A in 2019, and other mature trees along the western boundary, including figs and a schotia (Schotia brachypetala) are the earliest trees surviving on the site and illustrate the school’s tradition of planting trees around the perimeter of the grounds.[22]
\nFrom the outset, the school had problems with overcrowding as enrolment numbers continuously increased. In April 1918, the school committee wrote to the Minster of Public Instruction requesting extra classrooms.[23] This was approved by the Minister, and a £1390 addition, which now forms the north wing of Block A, was constructed soon after. It comprised two classrooms, divided by a folding partition, built on concrete pillars above a concreted play area. The DPW annual report from 1918 stated that the design for the school would be complete once another wing had been constructed to the south.[24]
\nAs predicted, enrolments at the school continued to rise and further classrooms were required. In 1926, the planned ‘U’-shaped arrangement of wings was completed when a timber building from Rockhampton North Boys State School was relocated to the site. In 1888 the Rockhampton North State School had been split into separate ‘boys’ and ‘girls and infants’ schools, and a new boys school building, constructed by Wakefield, McLean and Co, was completed by July 1888.[25] This building was built to a standard design by architect Robert Ferguson that had been introduced in 1880 and constructed across Queensland until 1893. Employed by the Department of Public Instruction, Ferguson was responsible for school building design between 1879 and 1885 and he was the first to give serious consideration to the ventilation of interiors.[26] Ferguson introduced a coved ceiling with exposed roof trusses and vented the roof space, improving internal temperatures. The number of windows and their size was increased, with sill heights typically over 4ft, 6in (1.3m) above floor level, well above eye level of students.[27] Examples of other surviving Ferguson schools include Roadvale State School (1889) [QHR 650095], Maryborough Central State School (1882) [QHR 601264] and Bundaberg Central State School (1890) [QHR 601533].[28]
\nThe Rockhampton North Boys State School building was low-set with a gable roof, modest Carpenter Gothic timber detailing, and a T-shaped plan containing two large 20ft by 50ft (approx. 6m by 15m) classrooms, with verandahs along the long sides. Queen post trusses were exposed within the classrooms, and the exterior featured decorative timber brackets; tall, narrow window sashes protected by hoods; and two prominent ventilation fleches. In 1926, the building was split into two, with the southwest classroom relocated to Berserker Street State School and the northeast classroom to Park Avenue State School.[29] In 2019 the Ferguson teaching building forms the south wing of Block A.
\nOnce relocated to Berserker, the Ferguson building was modified to suit its new location. Stairs and a hat room were removed from the north verandah and a new stair constructed to match the north wing. A connecting walkway was built to link the verandah with the southern hat room of the central wing. On the south side, a section of enclosed verandah was removed and a doorway filled in.[30]
\nBlock A surrounded a landscaped courtyard which was used as the original front entrance to the school. It includes a straight path from Berserker Street to the centre of the central wing, which has existed since the school opened in 1917. The courtyard has been beautified by different planting schemes and garden beds over time, and has been used for student assembly and as the backdrop for school photographs.[31]
\nIn the early 1930s, enrolment numbers continued to increase and two additions were constructed - a northeast wing containing two classrooms by early 1933 (now the western end of Block C); and a southeast wing containing three classrooms in 1937 (now the western end of Block B). Both additions were standard Sectional School Building types.[32] They were linked to Block A by raised covered walkways constructed along the north and south walls of the central wing. Windows in these walls were relocated to the east wall of the central wing, and classroom seating was rearranged so that daylight remained on the pupils’ left hand side. Other alterations to the central wing in 1937 included the insertion of a double-hung window with fanlight into the verandah wall of each classroom to improve light and ventilation, and the relocation of the southern classroom’s door.[33] The 1930s additions both underwent substantial alterations in later decades.[34]
\nDuring World War II, schools were typically a focus for civilian duty. With the entry of Japan into the war and the increased threat of enemy attack, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools between January and March 1942, and student attendance was optional until the war ended. At Berserker Street State School slit trenches for protecting the students from Japanese air raids were dug in the school grounds, and in 1942 students established and tended vegetable plots to contribute to the war effort. The Air Raid Precaution organisation also set up a casualty clearing station at the school in case of attack.[35]
\nImprovements to the school grounds in the 1930s and 40s included: the construction of two tennis courts (1936 and 1948, no longer extant); the acquisition of approximately 9ha of additional land to the northeast, with subsequent works to the grounds to create a playing field and cricket pitch; and concreting of the straight path from Berserker Street to the front steps of the school, completed by March 1945.[36] Funds for school improvements, equipment and sporting amenities were largely raised by the efforts of the school committee, Parents and Citizens Association and ladies social committee, who held fund raising events such as fetes and balls and made appeals to the Rockhampton community and businesses.[37]
\nBlock A’s understorey was partly enclosed by the construction of toilets beneath the north wing (girls and female teachers) and south wing (boys and male teachers) in 1947. These toilets were demolished after the construction of a new toilet block at the east end of the Parade Ground in the mid-1980s, with only the external concrete walls and a timber batten screen remaining in 2019.[38]
\nThe school underwent growth in the 1950s, requiring additions to accommodate increasing student numbers. The Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education from the late 1940s and well into the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. At Queensland’s overcrowded schools many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[39] In addition to the construction of new buildings, such as a separate infants wing (1951, extended 1956) and a teachers residence (1951), Blocks B and C were both extended to the west by five classrooms between 1953 and 1958. These additions resulted in long wings on either side of a bitumen-surfaced parade ground to form an H-shaped complex. The parade ground became the principal place of assembly at the heart of the school, and in 2019 it remains open playground space.[40]
\nFrom the 1950s alterations were also made to Block A. In 1954 the eastern windows of the south wing were removed and a new bank of timber awning windows inserted in the south wall. In 1957 some windows in the central wing’s verandah wall were replaced with timber double-hung windows. By 1963, part of the north wing’s balustrades had been replaced by bag racks. Alterations to the north wing in 1963 included a new dividing partition between classrooms and the insertion of banks of louvres within enlarged areas of windows in the verandah walls. In 1977, windows in the east wall of the central wing were replaced by fixed glass and louvres, and the north classroom was turned into a remedial resources room by the addition of a store room, wet area, and a new solid classroom partition. More recently, modern folding walls have been installed between the central and south classrooms of the central wing, and in the south wing to create two classrooms.[41]
\nThe school grounds were expanded again in the 1970s with the acquisition of approximately 12ha to the east and the subsequent closure of the through road, Bawden Street, in 1974. By the mid-1980s this land had been filled and graded to create a second playing field.[42] Later development has occurred around the ‘H’-shaped complex of Blocks A, B and C, but no further extensions to these blocks have been made since 1958. Blocks B and C have been altered by the enclosure of their verandahs and rearrangement of internal partitions, and a multi-purpose hall (2010) and kindergarten (2011) have been constructed on the earlier (late-1940s) playing field.[43]
\nBerserker Street State School, established in 1917, has played an important role in the north Rockhampton district community, and continues to do so. In 1992, the school community celebrated its 75th anniversary with the publication of the school’s history, and in 2017 the school’s centenary was celebrated with a public open day, an official ceremony during which a time capsule was opened, and a ball. Generations of students have been taught at Berserker Street State School and many social events held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.[44]
","criteria":"Berserker Street State School (established 1917) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good representative examples of standard government designs that were a response to prevailing government educational philosophies. The Suburban Timber School Building (Block A, central and north wings, built 1917-18), demonstrates the evolution of timber school design, including experimentation with light and ventilation, by the Department of Public Works.
\nThe school’s large, suburban landscaped site, including assembly areas, play space and mature trees, demonstrates educational philosophies that promoted the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Berserker Street State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a suburban Queensland state school of the early 20th century. These include: teaching buildings constructed to standard designs by the Department of Public Works that incorporate classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation, set in landscaped grounds with mature trees and assembly and play areas.
\nBlock A’s central (1917) and north (1918) wings form a good, intact example of a Suburban Timber School Building and demonstrate the principal characteristics of this type. These include its: highset timber-framed and -clad construction; open understorey accommodating play areas; facebrick piers (central wing); symmetrical design with classroom wings linked by verandahs; projecting teachers rooms; verandah hat rooms; and a strong consideration for natural light and ventilation, including elevated classrooms with open understorey, high level windows and fanlights, lofty and coved ventilated ceilings, and hinged wall ventilation flaps at floor level (central wing).
\nThe south wing (1888, relocated 1926) is a good example of a Ferguson teaching building with later alterations to complete Block A, and demonstrates the principal characteristics of the Ferguson type through its form, classroom size, materials, early windows, and surviving Carpenter Gothic ornamentation.
|Block A is highly intact and has aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes, through its symmetrical layout, elegant composition, decorative treatment, and high quality materials and craftsmanship.
\nThe school is an attractive feature of the area and is significant for its streetscape contribution. Set back from the street and surrounding a courtyard, Block A’s setting is enhanced by mature trees along the Berserker Street boundary, which frame views of the school from Berserker Street.
|Berserker Street State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1917. With over 100 years of association with the Rockhampton community, the establishment of the school reflected the rapid growth of the north Rockhampton area in the early 20th century, which resulted in a strong community demand for state-run education. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Rockhampton, with generations of children taught at the school, and has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. The strength of association is demonstrated through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association and other school committees.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650234,"name":"Rainworth State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"185 Boundary Road","suburb":"BARDON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-08-21","description":"Rainworth State School occupies a 2.868ha site in Bardon, a suburb approximately 4.2km west of the Brisbane CBD. The school fronts Boundary Road to the north and is bounded on its other sides by Main Avenue (south) and residential properties (east and west). The complex of teaching buildings stands on the north-eastern corner of the site, with a large playing field occupying the western half and tennis courts at the south-eastern corner.
\nFeatures of Rainworth State School of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Block C (1934): Depression-era Brick School Building
\nBlock C is a two-storey, brick teaching building that comprises only a small (east) end portion of an unfinished larger building. Surrounded by other nearby teaching buildings, its long sides face north (front) and south with a north-facing verandahs (now enclosed to form corridors). Entrances with porticos, are on the building’s north and south sides at the west end and provide access into a stair hall. The ground and first floors have similar layouts, accommodating two classrooms each, accessed from the corridor.
\nFeatures of Block C also of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Block C not of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Retaining Wall (1933)
\nDepression-era concrete retaining wall with concrete entrance stair runs along the north boundary of the site with Boundary Road. The wall is approximately 100m in length, beginning at the edge of the school driveway to the west and returning along the north east corner of the site.
\nFeatures of the retaining wall of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the retaining wall not of state level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Playing Field (1929-30)
\nA large playing field occupies the western half of the school site.
\nFeatures of the playing field of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the playing field not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Tennis Courts (1929-30)
\nTwo adjacent tennis courts are located in the southeast corner of the site.
\nFeatures of the tennis courts of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the tennis courts not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Features of the school not of state level cultural heritage significance
\nFeatures of Rainworth State School not of state level cultural heritage significance include:
\nRainworth State School, which opened in July 1928, is located in the residential suburb of Bardon, approximately 4.2km west of Brisbane’s central business district. The school demonstrates the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains the first stage of a Depression-era Brick School Building (1934) and a retaining wall with stairs (1933), set in landscaped grounds with play areas and sporting facilities. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the past and present community of Rainworth and its surrounding suburbs.
\nThe school site is located within the traditional lands of the Turrbal people. Called Upper Paddington, Bardon was surveyed in 1862, sold as country lots in the same year, and became gentlemen’s estates and farms. The future school site was purchased by Brisbane merchant, George Harris, in 1862 as part of an almost 54-acre (21.9ha) landholding. Residential subdivision of the Bardon area began during the 1880s, but progressed slowly until after World War I. The Rainworth Estate, part of Sir Augustus Charles Gregory’s former ‘Rainworth’ property, from which the locality of Rainworth derives its name, was subdivided and quickly sold in 1925.[1]
\nWith residential development came the need for a school. The Department of Public Instruction purchased two adjacent, elevated, well-drained allotments, comprising seven acres and 33 perches (2.868ha), for a school site in December 1925, at a cost of £1008 17s 6d. In July 1926 it was agreed that a school would be established. Prior to the school’s opening, local residents began clearing the school grounds.[2]
\nRainworth State School opened on 2 July 1928, with 253 students and five teachers. The new school was intended to relieve overcrowding at schools in surrounding areas and to serve the Rainworth, Rosehill and Soudan localities, and parts of Birdwood Terrace, Upper Paddington, and Bardon. It comprised two high-set timber Sectional Buildings (now called Blocks A and B) connected by a northern verandah. The buildings, of the most commonly constructed standard type at this time, comprised eight classrooms each accommodating 40 students. The building cost about £5374.[3] By December 1928, 317 children were enrolled.[4]
\nEasier access to the school for pupils and those attending functions, resulted from the opening of an extension of the tram line from Rosalie to the Rainworth Estate on 11 October 1930, terminating on Boundary Road near the western boundary of the school. Enrolments at Rainworth State School reached 415 pupils in October 1931.[5]
\nThe Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of public building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building program to provide impetus to the economy.
\nEven before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme, through a work program administered by the Department of Public Works (DPW). This included painting and repairs to school buildings.[6] Extensive funding was given for improvements to school grounds, including fencing and levelling ground for play areas, involving terracing and retaining walls. This work created many large school playing fields, which prior to this period were mostly cleared of trees but not landscaped. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element.[7]Under this scheme, men were undertaking grounds improvement works to 20 schools in the metropolitan area, including Rainworth State School, in the 1929-30 financial year.[8]
\nIn June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power from a campaign advocating increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public building program designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state.[9] The construction of substantial brick school buildings[10] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government’s commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.[11]
\nDepression-era Brick School Buildings form a recognisable and important type of Queensland school architecture, exhibiting many common characteristics. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, these buildings could be built in stages, as available funding permitted and student numbers required; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. This was the case at Rainworth State School.[12]
\nDespite their similarities, each Depression-era Brick School building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set. These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features.[13] The Chief Architect during this period was Andrew Baxter Leven (1885-1966), who was employed by the Queensland Government Works Department from 1910 to 1951, and was Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor from 1933 to 1951.[14] The DPW architects involved in the design of Rainworth State School were Raymond Clare Nowland and Harold James Parr.[15]
\nThe Department of Public Instruction and the DPW approved a brick school building scheme for Rainworth State School, in the expectation of growing pupil numbers in this developing suburban area. In March and April 1933, plans were drawn for two substantial brick buildings to replace Rainworth State School's existing timber ones. The centre line of the new building scheme was aligned with the existing steps from Boundary Street. The plan of the two buildings and the aesthetic treatment of the rear building to the south, which was to be constructed first, were similar to Coorparoo State School’s brick building scheme, designed in 1927 and implemented between 1928 and 1942. The Rainworth State School scheme was to be built in stages until ultimately containing 40 classrooms and accommodating 1200 pupils.[16]
\nStage One of the school scheme (the eastern section of the rear building) was a two-storey brick building (now called Block C). Its construction was completed during the 1933-34 financial year. The building was of fire-proof construction with external walls of facebrick and roughcast render, surmounted by a galvanised iron roof. It comprised two classrooms for 40 pupils each on both floors, providing accommodation for 160 pupils, plus a stair hall at the western end, accessed by north and south-facing entrances with porticos and short stairs. It had north-facing verandahs on both levels with arched openings at the ground floor and decorative concrete first floor balusters. Intended to be extended to the west, it included exposed keyed brickwork to facilitate future building.[17]
\nRainworth State School’s enrolments failed to achieve the growth expected by the Department of Public Instruction. Students often transferred to Milton State School, which had a swimming pool and offered vocational training from c1937, or to the Central Practising School in Spring Hill, which had a reputation for preparing students for scholarship examinations. The opening of the Petrie Terrace Opportunity Class in 1933, and St Joseph's Primary School in Bardon in 1938, also affected enrolments.[18]
\nConsequently, only Stage One was constructed. This non-completion of the building scheme was not uncommon among the public buildings in Queensland designed to be constructed in stages. Some examples are the University of Queensland Medical School [QHR601167]; the State Government Offices, Townsville [QHR 601385]; and the Depression-era Brick School Buildings at Ipswich North State School [QHR650021] and at Newmarket State School [QHR650020].[19]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts.[20] The Rainworth State School site was originally rough and hilly, with a creek running through the low-lying area at the southern end of the site. A level, open space to the north of Block A was utilised as a parade ground from the school’s opening day.[21] Between 1928 and 1935, the school was fenced; steps were dug into the steep embankment behind the school buildings; and tennis courts, and a sporting field were levelled and laid out. The DPW provided a concrete cricket pitch, and concreting underneath the timber school buildings was completed. Tree stumps were removed using explosives during a working bee c1929. Relief workers cleared and levelled the playing field and excavated the site for the grass tennis courts during the 1929-30 financial year.[22] A concrete retaining wall and steps to Boundary Road and along the northern part of the eastern boundary, were constructed by the DPW using day labour, between July and September 1932. A 100-foot-long (30.5m) section of the wall collapsed in September 1932 after heavy rain, and was rebuilt in 1933.[23]
\nThe commencement of the Pacific theatre of World War II (WWII) in December 1941, with its threat to Australia, resulted in the Queensland Government closing all coastal state schools in January 1942. Most schools, including Rainworth State School, reopened on 2 March 1942, but student attendance was optional until the war ended.[24] Air-raid trenches were dug at the school by parents and friends for the pupils.[25]
\nTypically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during wartime. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[26] At Rainworth State School in 1942, girls in Grade 5 organised a benefit concert and raised £1 for the Smokes for Soldiers’ Appeal. A concert was also held at the school to raise money for the mercantile marine. Proceeds from the Bardon-Rainworth Horse Show and Carnival, held in the school grounds, went to the Battle Stations Appeal.[27]
\nFollowing WWII, the Department of Public Instruction was largely unprepared for the enormous demand for state education between the late 1940s and the 1960s. This was a nation-wide occurrence resulting from immigration and the unprecedented population growth now termed the ‘baby boom’. Queensland schools were overcrowded and, to cope, many new buildings were constructed and existing buildings were extended.[28] At Rainworth State School, enrolments increased, but not to the extent experienced at other schools, and it was not until the late 1950s that enrolments exceeded 300 students, equalling the November 1938 level.[29]
\nFurther grounds improvements were made at Rainworth State School after WWII. The tennis courts were repaired and top-dressed in 1949. In 1952, parents filled in the air-raid trenches. Shelter sheds at the tennis courts were constructed and more swings and garden seats were added to the site in 1954. The parade ground fronting Boundary Road was bituminised in 1957. In 1958, the Parents and Citizens Association (P&C), arranged for the Post Master General’s Office (PMG) to use its bulldozers and graders, to widen and lengthen the school oval, fill-in a creek, put in a supporting/retaining wall, do groundwork for a basketball area and built an access road from the school to the playing field. In 1963, the tennis courts were given a new grass surface, drainage was repaired and a new umpire stand erected. In 1964, stairs to the playing field were constructed. In 1981, an Arbor Day celebration resulted in 500 trees being planted in the school grounds but many did not survive; while a Brisbane City Council grant funded a major upgrade of the tennis courts, which were sealed, extended by 2.4m, re-fenced and their drainage improved. Further upgrading of the tennis courts with synthetic grass, improved drainage and re-fencing occurred in 2000.[30] A mural was painted on the Boundary Street retaining wall in the 1980s, and was renewed in 1999.[31]
\nAlterations to Block C took place in 1984. These changes included enclosing the building’s north verandahs by: inserting new timber-framed windows; demolishing the brick ground floor spandrel panels and replacing them with metal louvres; sealing behind the first floor concrete balusters; and adding a concrete screed on the verandah floors to raise them to match the internal floor level. The keyed brickwork on the west elevation, where planned extensions were to connect, was removed, plastered and painted over. To accommodate a school library on the ground floor, a suspended ceiling was inserted and partitions were added in the east classroom to form a workroom and store. On the first floor, the two classrooms were converted into a double teaching area by making a large opening in the partition and introducing an accordion door. Concrete block partitions were added to the first floor stair landing to make a storeroom.[32]
\nOther buildings have been added to the Rainworth State School site and existing buildings have been modified over the life time of the school. In 1981, due to low enrolments, the Rainworth and Bardon State Preschools were combined, at Rainworth State School, resulting in Rainworth Preschool operating on a full-time basis, in a pre-school centre (Block P) built on the southern boundary between 1978 and 1980. In 1983, Block D, a two-storey building, was constructed to the west of Block C. Blocks A and B were extensively modified in 1984 with internal and verandah walls removed, the verandah enclosed using glass louvres, and a sports room and a janitor’s workshop built underneath. In 1986, Block D was extended and a demountable classroom building (Block E) placed on-site. In 1987, a new toilet block and store (Block I) was added to the site. The multipurpose building/OSHC was added north of the parade ground in 1998 and two more demountable buildings were added in 2001. A teaching building (Block N) was constructed in 2014. Prep Buildings (Blocks Q and R) were erected between 2004 and 2010. Blocks K (library and offices) and L (hall) were constructed in 2010. In 2013, Blocks H and J (2001) were removed and the parade ground changed from bitumen to synthetic turf.[33]
\nThroughout its history, Rainworth State School has been the focus and site of community events. The school provided a venue for the local community – sporting, religious, political, and leisure groups – with ‘grounds to play on, rooms to meet in, secure places for storage, equipment for hire and facilities for important community functions’.[34] In return, the community supported the school through donations. Fund-raising for improvements began with the school’s opening when a fete and a dance were held on site. Fancy dress dances and fetes held at the school from 1928 also raised funds. An early fund-raising purpose was sporting facilities.[35]Milestones in the school’s history, including 25th, 50th, 60th, 70th and 75th anniversaries, have been celebrated with commemorative events, souvenirs and a published school history.[36]
\nIn 2019, Rainworth State School continues to operate from its original site and has an enrolment of almost 600 pupils. It retains Stage One of a Depression-era Brick School Building and a Depression-era concrete retaining wall with stairs; set in landscaped grounds with play areas and sporting facilities. The school remains important to Rainworth and surrounding areas, as a key social focus for the community.
Rainworth State School (established in 1928) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a distinctive example of a government-designed Depression-era Brick School Building (1934) that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies; set in landscaped grounds with a concrete retaining wall with stairs (1933), play areas, and sporting facilities.
\nThe Depression-era Brick School Building, retaining wall with stairs, and the levelling of parts of the school grounds for a playing field (1929-30) and tennis courts (1929-30) are the result of the Queensland Government’s building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression. As the first stage of a larger scheme (ultimately unrealised), the building demonstrates the Department of Public Works’ policy of staged construction of Depression-era Brick School Buildings, to accommodate growth in pupil numbers, as funding became available.
\nThe landscaped suburban site with provision of play and sporting facilities, demonstrates the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Rainworth State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school of the Depression-era. These include: a government-designed Depression-era Brick School Building with two-storey form, high-quality design with ornamental features, and facebrick exterior, set within a 1930s landscaped site with a retaining wall and stairs, play areas, and sporting facilities.
|Rainworth State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in a rapidly developing residential area in 1928. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Rainworth and its surrounding suburbs within Queensland’s capital as they evolved over more than 90 years, with generations of children taught at the school. Since its inception, it has served as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. The strength of association is demonstrated through repeated local volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650236,"name":"Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Stumers Road","suburb":"MOUNT CROSBY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-10-25","description":"Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex occupies approximately 10 hectares of land in the two outer suburbs of Mount Crosby and Chuwar, either side of the Brisbane River, 24km southwest of the Brisbane CBD. The complex is organised into separate but adjacent connected zones that reflect the historical operations and key phases of technological development that have formed the place.
\nProcess Driven Layout
\nFreight, including coal to fuel the steam-powered pumping station, was transported from the west, initially carted overland (1892) then via a locomotive tramway (1913), with an electric winch tram (1914) used for the steep approaches to the river crossings (1899 bridge remnants, 1926-28 weir overbridge) that accessed the Pumping Station (1892) on the east bank. A branch line on the west bank curved south to a loading station for the aerial ropeway (1915) that spanned the river to convey construction materials to the treatment plant to the northeast.
\nThe flow of the river was managed by weirs (1902 south, 1926-28 north), and water from intakes (1892 south, 1926 north) on the east bank was pumped through to the Pumping Station wells, then north in underground mains (1892, 1914, 1923, 1948) to the reservoir and subsequent treatment plant. Within the Pumping Station, the engine room contained a row of water pumps set above the deep wells, initially powered by coal-fired boilers housed in the adjacent boiler house, and subsequently expanded and upgraded, including phased electrification (1938-51). A dedicated workforce to maintain and operate the Pumping station resided on elevated ‘Works Hill’ to the east, with access to the Pumping Station via a private road.
\nThe zones, and the features of state-level cultural heritage significance in them, are:
\nWestbank (Chuwar) – former resources supply area
\nBrisbane River – water supply and crossing
\nEastbank (Mount Crosby) – operations and workers’ residential area
\nViews
\nThe extensive site includes views of state-level cultural heritage significance. These are:
\nWestbank
\nOccupying a large pocket of land on the west side of the Brisbane River, the Westbank zone retains features and areas of archaeological potential from its historical use as the resources receiving and supply area for the waterworks. A later large water treatment plant has been built on much of the land and is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBrisbane River
\nThe Brisbane River is approximately 150m wide at this location and this zone retains features from its use as the water supply for the waterworks.
\nFeatures of the Brisbane River zone of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nWater Intake (1926) standing in the river near the east river bank, comprising a concrete water intake well, its tower equipment enclosure, and footbridge from the river bank to the tower.
\nFeatures of the water intake (1926) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the water intake (1926) not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nWeir incorporating a vehicle overbridge (1926-28) connecting the waterworks operations of Westbank and Eastbank, standing approximately 15m downstream from the water intake.
\nFeatures of the weir (1926-28) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the weir (1926-28) not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFish Ladder (1941), approximately 25m long, on east bank of river adjacent to 1926-28 weir, comprising a chain of rectangular stepped concrete ponds connecting the upstream and downstream sides of the 1926-28 weir. The lower portion of the ladder has been altered to reduce its width and demolish the lowest ponds.
\nFeatures of the fish ladder of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the fish ladder not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nRemnant Foundations of former cross-river coal dray bridge (1899, destroyed by flood 1927), located approximately 7m downstream of 1926-28 weir.
\nFeatures of the remnant bridge foundations of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nRemnant River Weir (1902, extended 1918), approximately 800m downstream from 1926-28 weir.
\nFeatures of the remnant river weir of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Brisbane River zone has potential for sub-surface features associated with:
\nFeatures of the Brisbane River zone not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEastbank
\nOccupying a large, steeply-sloping area of land on the east side of the Brisbane River, the Eastbank zone retains features and areas of archaeological potential from its use as the waterworks pumping operation centre (pumping station) and workers’ residential area. The Pumping Station stands on a large, flattened terrace adjacent to the river. The workers’ residential area is immediately east of the Pumping Station, on higher land (Works Hill) overlooking the station and the river. A private road winds its way from the overbridge, past the Pumping Station, up Works Hill through the residential area to meet Stumers Road, which continues past the remainder of the residences to the main centre of Mount Crosby, 400m east.
\nThe Pumping Station
\nThe steam-powered pumping station was expanded and upgraded over time, responding to the increased demands on the water supply and as new technology became available, including the transition to electrification (1939-51).
\nFeatures of the Pumping Station of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPump House
\nThe Pump House (1892-1949) is a large masonry building standing at the front of the site, addressing the bridge road to the north. It has many attached parts to its form, which expresses the original functions of the parts. The attached parts comprise: a Coal Store on the west side; a central Boiler House; two Economiser Houses on the east side (flanking the location of the former chimney, demolished 1958); and a tall Engine House on the building’s south end with a perpendicular tall Engine House Annexe projecting from the rear. A face brick wall (1921) of arches wraps the front and east side (Coal Store, Boiler House, and Economiser House), providing a robust and attractive, unified facade. This wall retains original metal downpipes, and square-headed windows and doors with timber-framed double-hung, multi-paned sashes and timber-framed boarded French doors with fanlights.
\nFeatures of the Pump House also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nForecourt (former coal receiving area)
\nFeatures of the Forecourt of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Forecourt not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCoal Store (1921). This single-storey building has a hipped roof clad with metal sheets. The building’s southern half has been demolished and replaced with a concrete frame and face brick structure for Well H.\\
\nFeatures of the Coal Store also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Coal Store not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBoiler House (1892, extended to the north 1921). Attached to and opening from the eastern side of the Coal Store, the Boiler House is a single-storey building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. A large concrete-framed and concrete block enclosure for Switch Room No.2 has been inserted under the roof of the southern half of the building.
\nFeatures of the Boiler House also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Boiler House not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEconomiser Houses (southern house, 1914; northern house, 1921). These two similar single-storey buildings are attached to the side of the Boiler House, which they serviced. They are separated from each other by a later storeroom (1958), which was built in place of the large demolished chimney they fed into.
\nFeatures of the Economiser Houses also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Economiser Houses not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEngine House (1892, extended 1913 and 1925). This tall narrow rectangular face brick building is attached to the south end of the Coal Store, Boiler House, and south Economiser House. It has a gable roof clad with corrugated metal sheets.
\nFeatures of the Engine House also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Engine House not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEngine House Annexe (1926, extended 1941). This three level building projects from the rear (south) wall of the Engine House. On the ground floor, it accommodates a switch room and Well G (in a part basement level), an internal stair up to a first floor former Central Control Room, and an external stair from here to a second floor former electrical workshop.
\nFeatures of the Engine House Annexe also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Engine House Annexe not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nOffice, Generator, and Workshop Building (1921)
\nThe Office, Generator, and Workshop Building (1921) is a single storey face brick building standing back from the front of the site. It stands on the east side of the Pump House, separated from it by a service road. It comprises three attached sections: a front (north) section accommodating offices with a large storeroom behind; a former Generator Room and Condenser Room (now one space) attached to the rear of storeroom; and a Machine Workshop attached to the rear of the generator and condenser rooms.
\nFeatures of the Office, Generator, and Workshop Building of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Offices of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Offices not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Storeroom of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Storeroom not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Generator Room and Condenser Room of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Generator Room and Condenser Room not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Machine Workshop of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Machine Workshop not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Office, Generator, and Workshop Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nWell G Fan House (1941)
\nThis is a small, square, single-storey, face brick building on a concrete slab. It is freestanding to the west of the Engine House Annexe, which houses Well G.
\nFeatures of Well G Fan House also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Well G Fan House not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nElectrical Substation (1948)
\nThis is a fenced array of external electrical infrastructure standing south of the Engine Room Annexe. The features of the Electrical Substation of state-level cultural heritage significance are those constructed in the 1940s.
\nService Lane
\nA service lane runs south from the front forecourt between the Pumping Station building and the Office, Generator, and Workshop Building. It is a wide clear lane to provide ample access into these buildings for large industrial equipment.
\nMovable heritage features
\nRemnant machinery, equipment, fixtures, and fittings are located in the Pumping Station building and its grounds. Those with provenance associated with the fabric or operation of the Pumping Station, tramway, and ropeway (from 1892 to 1949) are of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nSeveral movable features are located in the Flood Free Shed that stands to the southeast of the Pumping Station, on high land. The shed, surrounding concrete pad, and security fence are not of state-level cultural heritage significance, however, this area is used to store remnant machinery and equipment from the Pumping Station.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance of the Flood Free Shed are:
\nFeatures of the Pumping Station not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nWorks Hill
\nThis steep terrain is immediately east of the Pumping Station.
\nFeatures of Works Hill of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe residences stand on a ridgeline on the south side of the private road down to the Pumping Station. From lowest (west) to highest (east), these are: (closest to the Pumping Station) the Drayman’s Cottage; the four Fireman’s Duplexes; the Third Engineer’s House; and the Second Engineer’s House.[5] The Drayman’s Cottage and the Fireman’s Duplexes are similar in appearance and size but the engineer’s houses are grander in appearance and larger.
\nA row of mature fig trees (Ficus spp.) stand on the steeply sloping land behind (south) of the duplex (103 & 104), bordering a narrow service road on the Pumping Station land and shielding the houses from the station.
\nDrayman’s Cottage and Fireman’s Duplexes
\nThe Drayman’s Cottage is a small, timber-framed and -clad, single storey, two-bedroom freestanding residence with a hip roof.
\nOriginally identical, the four Fireman’s Duplexes (103 & 104, 105 & 106, 107 & 108, and 109 & 110) are small, timber-framed, single storey, two-bedroom semi-detached residences (with the exception of residence 104, which has a later (pre-c1925) third bedroom projecting from the rear). They have gable roofs and each pair shares a brick party wall.
\nStanding in modest yards and elevated on posts, the duplexes and the cottage have a similar four-room core and front and rear verandahs and the understoreys are mostly open with earth floors. The roofs are continuous over the verandahs and are clad with corrugated metal sheets.
\nFeatures of the Drayman’s Cottage and the Fireman’s Duplexes also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Drayman’s Cottage and Fireman’s Duplexes not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThird Engineer’s House and Second Engineer’s House
\nOriginally identical, the Third Engineer’s House (111) and Second Engineer’s House (112) are generous, single storey, timber-framed and -clad, two-bedroom freestanding residences. Elevated on posts, the houses have wide verandahs wrapping all sides. An attached kitchen projects from the rear. The understoreys are mostly open with earth floors. The roofs are continuous over the verandahs and are clad with corrugated metal sheets.
\nFeatures of the Third Engineer’s House and Second Engineer’s House also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Third Engineer’s House and Second Engineer’s House not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Recreation Area
\nThis sloping open area of land is approximately 3500m2 in the core of the Works Hill houses. Occupying part of Stumers Road road reserve, it is an irregular shape defined by the fences of the house yards and the road edge. It is grassed and has trees dotted across it forming an attractive setting. On the western corner of the area is a mature hoop pine. The other vegetation and driveways across it are not of state-level cultural heritage significance individually.
\nThe Recreation Area has potential sub-surface artefacts and features from the brief but intensive ‘day labour’ workforce, which camped on-site while constructing the Pumping Station.
\nThe Community Hall
\nThe Community Hall stands on the north side of Stumers Road, highly visible from and central to the Works Hill houses.
\nFeatures of the Community Hall of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Community Hall not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Works Hill not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nfeatures of the Stumers Road road reserve including road material, kerbs, gutters, lights, signs, electricity supply infrastructure (power lines and poles etc), and underground services
\n","history":"
Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex is located 24km southwest of Brisbane’s CBD. Established in 1892 by the Brisbane Board of Waterworks as a means of providing Brisbane residents with a reliable source of clean water, the pumping station is situated alongside the Brisbane River from which the water is taken. The complex consists of the 1892 pumping station and a series of contemporaneously built workers’ houses, which provided accommodation for employees. Associated infrastructure and industrial remnants throughout the site represent the pumping station’s technological phases. Mount Crosby Pumping Station continues to provide Brisbane and its surrounds with clean, safe and reliable water.
\nThe Mount Crosby district forms part of the traditional land of the Yuggera Ugarapul People. John Oxley first sailed up the Brisbane River in the early 1820s and named the area now known as Mount Crosby, Belle Vue. It was not until the mid-late 1850s that land at Mount Crosby began to be settled, with small farms emerging, and by the 1870s the majority of the land at Mount Crosby had been selected. Ipswich, the closest regional town, became the centre for supplies and market for the Mount Crosby farmers.[1]
\nThe provision of clean water to Brisbane residents had been a challenge for the municipal authorities for many years and in 1863, to alleviate this problem, the Brisbane Waterworks Act 1863 was introduced, which enabled the Municipal Council to construct reservoirs, supply water to the town and to charge for services, but allowed the Queensland Government to influence decisions with the establishment of a Board of Waterworks. The Enoggera Dam [QHR 6025458] was completed in 1866 and provided reticulated water to the town, and in 1871 the first of Spring Hill’s Service Reservoirs [QHR 600174] improved the supply of water to Brisbane residents. Further improvements to the water supply were made with the construction of the Gold Creek Reservoir in the early 1880s.[2]
\nAs the population of Brisbane grew and the water supply became increasingly stretched following a series of droughts, the Brisbane Board of Waterworks recognised the necessity for expansion of water infrastructure. In 1880, government hydraulic engineer, JB Henderson, recommended the construction of a pumping station at Mount Crosby, and in 1889 the Board’s chief engineer, Alexander Stewart, prepared plans for a new waterworks following the passing of legislation in 1889 (the Brisbane Water Supply Act 1889), when permission was granted to draw fresh water from the Brisbane River at Mount Crosby.[3]
\n1890-1902
\nThe new works were to be constructed on the site of a former farm, on an elevated portion of land above the river, and at the base of a high hill. A brick pumping station, installed with the latest coal-powered steam engines, would pump the water up the hill to a reservoir, where it could be stored before being gravity-fed through a large pipeline to Brisbane. It was reported in 1891 that ‘only about twelve months have elapsed since the first workman struck his pick into the side of the hill to form the site for the buildings, and now the completion of the works is close at hand’.[4]
\nThe contractor awarded the construction of the pumping station was Chamberlain & Wylie, with work commencing on the 1 August 1890. The Board appointed Joseph Stewart as Chief Engineer of the works; he would serve in this position until his death in 1919.[5] At the commencement of the work, Queensland was experiencing high levels of unemployment and it was estimated that more than 80 men were to be employed in the waterworks’ construction.[6] As initial work progressed well, in April 1891 the ceremony of laying the foundation stone was attended by numerous dignitaries, including the Colonial Secretary, Hon. Horace Tozer MLA, and ‘the stone being ready, and a raised platform having been erected for those present, the stone was laid on the left hand corner at the rear of the building’.[7]
\nWork progressed swiftly, and by December 1892 it was reported that the main brick buildings were complete, including the tall engine house, one-storey boiler house, and a 31.6m high chimney. All the bricks were locally made. There was also a timber coal shed, an office/operations room, and a timber weighbridge adjacent to the boiler house.[8] The steam-driven pumping machinery installed in the engine house was supplied by British company, Easton and Anderson Ltd., and the boiler house boilers were supplied by JW Sutton & Co., manufactured in their works at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.[9]
\nThe engine house was a tall building, aligned east/west and approximately 23m long and housed the pumping machinery. Inside the building, five circular concrete-lined wet wells (A, B, C, D and E - west to east), were dug to a depth of 36m into the ground from the ground floor of the engine house, each with a diameter of 2.4m. Within three of these wells (A, B, and C) the pumping equipment was held, with Wells D and E remaining vacant for future expansion. The pumps were ‘vertical, compound, tandem, direct-acting, condensing machines’, and were believed to take up less floor space than other types, as the machinery was designed to work in a vertical fashion, deep into the ground and high above it in the engine house. To service the equipment within the engine house, a hand-operated traveling crane was installed, running above the wells at a high level on parallel iron rails.[10]
\nThe boiler house was attached to the centre of the north side of the engine house and was aligned north/south. It was a 44m x 13.7m structure. The eastern wall was brick and the western wall featured open arches, which provided access from the detached coal store built at the western side of the boiler house. The design of the boiler house provided space for 13 boilers, although only 8 were installed. When working, the coal-fired boilers produced the steam that powered the pumping machines within the engine house. Water, drawn from the river at an intake constructed below the station, was forced through a pipeline up the steep incline to the reservoir, initially known as the High-level Reservoir, where the water was gravity fed down a series of pipelines to Brisbane.[11]
\nThe pumping machinery, being of the latest technology, was difficult to correctly install. To assist with this, as per the contract, in 1892 Easton and Anderson sent a company representative, Charles May, to supervise the machinery’s installation. May was also responsible for running the machines for six months following the start of operations.[12] After initial issues were quickly rectified, in June 1893 it was reported that ‘those dependent on the water supply at Brisbane will be glad to know that the machinery at Mount Crosby is at length working smoothly, and that a constant and reliable stream of good water is now flowing into the city from that source’.[13]
\nA stable means of coal delivery was crucial for the running of the station. All coal supplies came from the Tivoli coal mines, several kilometres away in North Ipswich. Initially, the coal was delivered by horse-drawn wagons, each capable of holding 3 tonnes of coal. The wagons crossed the river at Colleges Crossing, approximately 2.5km south of the pumping station.[14] In 1893, however, this bridge became a casualty of the flood. The coal then had to be transported across the river in punts, a costly and inefficient venture. In December 1893 the Board of Waterworks accepted a tender from Chamberlain and Wylie for the construction of a new bridge to be built over the river at the actual station. The bridge was completed in 1894.[15] Two years later, it was washed away by a flood, but rebuilt in 1897, only to be washed away again the following year. In 1899 a third bridge had been completed, which was thought to be flood-proof.[16] Drays continued to deliver the coal to the station across this bridge and it was estimated that between 3000 to 5000 tonnes were taken to the station per year.[17]
\nThe site chosen for the pumping station was relatively remote, with only rudimentary tracks to the station from Ipswich and Brisbane. Employee housing was a major requirement for the Board of Waterworks. When work began on construction, accommodation for up to 80 men was required and tents were erected on the slopes surrounding the construction works. ‘Dotting the hillside at every eligible spot, lies the calico township of Mount Crosby, in the midst of which the great brick chimney stack … rears its lofty head’. Temporary structures were also built for offices and a store.[18]
\nPermanent housing for the pump station’s employees was a component of the Board’s original intent and in January 1891, respected Brisbane architect, Charles McLay, was commissioned by the Board to design eight houses.[19] McLay, who had been responsible for the design of the Brisbane Customs House in 1889 [QHR 600156], called for tenders in January 1891, and awarded the contract to Robert Rutherford.[20] It was not unusual in the late 19th century and into the 20th for a company to provide housing for their workers if situated in an isolated location, as Mount Crosby was.[21]
\nFor the workers at the Mount Crosby pumping station a substantial brick chief engineer’s residence, two timber houses for the second and third engineers, four timber duplexes to house eight firemen and their families, and a small timber cottage for the drayman were constructed on a site beside the pumping station which became known as ‘Works Hill’. By December 1891, the three engineers’ residences had been completed, with the chief engineer’s house located on the rise at the northern side of Stumers Road (chief engineers’ house was demolished in the 1970s). The other two engineer’s houses were built higher up on the ridge of the hill and on the southern side of Stumers Road. One year later the remainder of the housing had been completed. Situated down the hill from the two engineers’ houses, were the four fireman’s duplexes, also on the south side of Stumers Road. Unusually for the time, the duplexes were not placed uniformly, facing a road, or within a grid layout, instead they followed the contours of the hill, each with a different outlook toward the pumping station or out to the high-level reservoir.[22] The drayman’s cottage, located closest to the pumping station and on the southern side of Stumers Road, was also complete by this time. In November 1892, the Telegraph reported:
\nOver a dozen very comfortable looking houses have been erected on the slope of the hill at the bottom of which is the pumping station. The second and third engineers occupy the first two houses on the left going towards the engine house, and the eight firemen are accommodated a little lower down the slope, the chief engineer’s house, an exceedingly nice brick cottage, being near the works, but opposite to the other houses. In this way all those engaged on the works live on the spot.[23]
\nThe decision of the Board to construct duplexes rather than detached cottages was unusual, and may have been for economic reasons. Due to the passing of the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885, which legislated the size of housing allotments to prevent an increase in slum conditions, in crowded, inner-city Brisbane suburbs such as Spring Hill and Petrie Terrace, duplexes and terrace houses were rarely constructed in Queensland after 1885. As all the land on which the duplexes were built was owned by the board, allotment sizes did not need to be considered.[24]
\nFor such an important plant it was imperative to have the majority of staff on hand. When first complete, the pumps were worked for up to 16 hours a day in two shifts, requiring constant attendance at the station, in particular the firemen, whose job it was to stoke the boilers with coal.[25]
\nThe chief engineer’s role was essential to the running of not only the station, but also the high-level reservoir and the main lines to Brisbane. Clear lines of communication to Waterworks’ offices in the Brisbane CBD were essential. Queensland’s longest telephone line at the time was installed, which ran from the engineer’s house to Brisbane. As was the case with much of the station’s machinery, the use of the latest technology demonstrated the importance of the station to the region.[26]
\nOther municipal water pumping stations with steam-powered equipment were established in Queensland at this time, including at Rockhampton (1873), Ipswich (1878), Toowoomba (1879), Warwick (1887), Maryborough (1880) and Charters Towers (1887) [QHR 601081]. All were smaller in scale than Mount Crosby, which remains the only large-scale pumping station complex remaining from this period with intact 19th century workers’ housing. The majority of these sites retain only remnants of the early stations. Maryborough (Tinana Creek) still pumps water, however, there is no longer any early fabric remaining on the site.[27]
\nIn 1893, a state school, located several hundred meters away from the pumping station, along Stumers Road, replaced a smaller 1882 provisional school, providing education to employees’ children.[28]
\n1902-1921
\nIn the early 1900s, Queensland experienced a severe drought that caused the Mount Crosby section of the Brisbane River to become a series of waterholes and almost ceased the flow of water down the river. Chief Engineer, J Stewart, initially took steps to alleviate this by sending men upstream to dig channels to release water. Further emergency measures were taken when a sandbag and clay weir was built just below the 1892 intake. A permanent solution was approved by the board in 1902 and a 3m high, concrete weir was constructed 700m downstream from the original intake.[29]
\nThe quality of the water delivered to Brisbane was often criticised, as it was frequently turbid and odorous. These concerns were voiced by the Central Board of Health who believed the water was not fit for human consumption. Following several reports undertaken by Sydney and American hydraulic engineers and bacteriologists, it was recommended that a plant be constructed to purify the water before its distribution. In 1910, the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board replaced the Board of Waterworks and approved the construction of a water treatment plant on Mount Crosby.[30] Works included the construction of two separate plants – the low-level treatment works, situated below the original 1890s high-level reservoir, and the Holt’s Hill filtration plant, at a higher elevation. The high-level reservoir was then used to hold water to be used as wash-water for cleaning the filtration plant’s sedimentation basins. This work had been completed by 1918.[31]
\nMajor improvements were also made to the pumping station at this time. Much of the equipment was deemed to be inefficient and tenders were called for its upgrading, ‘the proposed new pumping plant was of three units, each capable of delivering 6,000,000 gallons [27,000,000 litres] of water from the Brisbane River in 24 hours’. The accepted tender (albeit the sole tender) was Victorian company, Thompson and Co., with a total cost of £107, 641 for equipment and installation.[32] Three vertical steam engines were to replace the older three. Three wells (the original Wells C, D, and E) were converted into dry wells and widened to accommodate the new engines, reshaping them from circular to oval. One of the original wells (originally Well B) was converted into a lift well and retained. With the expansion of the wells, the engine house required extension northwards and eastwards resulting in a larger floorplate. A new 15 tonne hand-operated travelling crane was installed to service the expanded building and electric lighting was also installed in the engine house at this time.[33]
\nFour of the original boilers were replaced with more efficient Babcock & Wilcox boilers; this required a higher roof on the boiler house. On the east side of the boiler house was built a brick economiser house, adjacent to the chimney to accommodate economiser flues, components of the new equipment. The new pumps were operational by 1916.[34]
\nThe inefficient coal transportation system was also rectified at this time when approval was given by the Board for the construction of a tramway from the Tivoli railway station to the Mount Crosby pumping station. The new line was to be maintained and worked by the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board. Work on the 7km tramway had been completed by December 1913 at a cost of £31,000. The tramway was built to first-class railway standards. As it had been privately built, however, it could not officially be termed a rail line.[35] On the west bank of the river, a 30-tonne capacity weighbridge and small cabin was constructed at the rise of the steep embankment. While initial intention was for the locomotives to deliver the coal directly to the pumping station, the steep embankments on both sides of the river prevented this. As an alternative, electric winches were installed on each side of the river to haul the wagons across the bridge to the station. The tramway was continuously used until 1945 when trucks replaced it.[36]
\nThe construction of the water treatment plant on Holt’s Hill was difficult, due to Mount Crosby’s steep terrain. An aerial ropeway was installed from the west bank, across the river and over the rugged hills, ultimately landing at the apex of the hill at the water treatment plant. The aerial ropeway was powered by a steam engine installed on the west bank and situated slightly further downstream from the weighbridge; the loading station was located here as well. Operational by 1915, the ropeway hauled substantial iron bins to and from the treatment plant’s base, with an interim stop at the low-level reservoir. The bins were filled with gravel needed for concrete making, sand for the filtration systems and many other necessary materials, ‘with the delivery of the materials for a ropeway tramway passing over the hills switchback fashion, and connecting Holt’s hill with the gravel pits, a system which would accelerate construction work at the purification works’.[37] The ropes were suspended by timber trestles (up to 11.5m high) or steel trestles (up to 27m high), depending on the height required. The aerial ropeway was used until 1931, when the east bank trestle was damaged by a flood.[38]
\nIn 1919, a hall was opened. Situated up the hill from the chief engineers’ house, it became the social centre for the Mount Crosby community. Events such as balls, community meetings, church services and fundraising evenings were well-attended by the small Mount Crosby community. In 2019 the hall is used as a child-care centre.[39]
\nFurther work at the pumping station was carried out from 1920, with the construction of a freestanding, one-storey brick office, generator, and workshop building to the east of the pumping station building. It was designed to complement the brick pumping station. Administration offices, a bathroom, and large open store area were accommodated in the front section. Behind this was a generator room and adjacent condenser room, and behind this was a large machines workshop. The southern end of the building was not enclosed, providing easy access into the workshop.[40]
\n1922-1940
\nIn 1922, the Mount Crosby pumping station began supplying water to Ipswich. Prior to this, Ipswich had supplied its own water from a smaller pumping facility at Kholo, also on the Brisbane River, but due to Ipswich’s increasing population, supply became strained.[41]
\nThe remainder of the original pumping equipment was removed from the engine house at this time, with another three oval dry pumping wells constructed at the western end of the engine house, requiring further expansion of the engine house another 12.5m west. The original Well A was demolished but Well B, the lift, was retained. In 1925, a three-storey annexe was constructed, projecting from the rear of the engine house to house a turboalternator, used to generate electricity to the pumps at Lake Manchester, several kilometres away. The upper floors became electrical workshops, accessed by an external staircase.[42]
\nThe boiler house was extended to the north and a higher roof was added over this section; a second economiser house was built on its east side, beside the chimney, and a large coal store, accessed by tram rails that ran into the building, was added along the west side of the boiler house. These new buildings had attractive arched brick façades, unifying the different sections, and were completed by 1921.[43]
\nImportant work to construct a new intake was carried out in the 1920s. It was to be situated near the pumping station and 150m north of the original intake. The design included the construction of a concrete tower on the eastern bank of the river that would hold the associated equipment and strainer wells. From the intake tower, a 1.8m wide underground tunnel would convey the water to the station, where it was distributed to the various pumping engines. The new intake was completed by 1926 and the use of the original one ceased.[44]
\nAs part of these improvements, a new weir was constructed across the river between the 1899 bridge and the intake tower. The new weir incorporated a vehicle overbridge with a tramway to replace the older bridge. Electric haulage of the coal wagons was continued across the new overbridge, with the haulage winch shifted to the north on the west bank. The design of the weir allowed floodwaters to flow through concrete pillars and, theoretically, spare the overbridge from damage. Plans were approved in 1921 and the work was completed in 1925.[45] In February 1927, major flooding damaged the new weir and all but destroyed the 1899 bridge, with one report saying ‘the main course of the Brisbane River has been altered by a huge washaway that carried away in the flood many thousands of tons of earth, tearing a chasm 50 yards wide and 20 feet deep at the end of the composite weir and bridge, and leaving the railway swinging in the air like a clothesline’.[46] The floodwaters gouged out a large section of the west bank leaving a 76m section of tramline swinging in the air. The cost to repair the damage was considerable as the weir and overbridge required further extension and stronger footings at the west bank. This was completed in 1928.[47]
\nThe Brisbane City Council took over the Mount Crosby Pumping Station in 1928, following the dissolution of the Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board. It was then administered by the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage.
\nIn 1938, a three storey extension was made to the engine house annexe to house a new circular well, Well G. Two centrifugal pumps, capable of delivering 22.7 million litres of water per day, were installed in the well and the turboalternator converted to power the new engines. A small fan house to hold a centrifugal fan used to cool the engines was erected beside the extension.[48]
\n1940-2019
\nAn unforeseen issue arose following the completion of the weir, as mullet stock, once plentiful in the upper reaches of the Brisbane River, began to wane. The weir blocked their passage upstream, following spawning season when they had travelled downstream. Anglers on the upper reaches began to notice the depleted stock, and farmers were concerned with the higher numbers of leeches, previously controlled by the mullet as a food source, affecting the cattle. Heavily depleted mullet stock was likewise identified by the coastal fishing industry. Concern was raised by the Esk, Kilkoy, and Crows Nest shire councils. In September 1940, agreement had been reached between Brisbane, Ipswich, Moreton, Esk, Laidley, and Gatton shire councils to contribute to half of the £250 it would cost to build a fish ladder. The remainder would be paid by the State Fisheries Department.[49]
\nThe Brisbane City Council built the fish ladder on the east bank of the river below the weir. It consisted of a stepping series of concrete ponds over which the water cascaded. Each step held a fairly deep pool of water from which the fish would jump 23cm into the next pool, eventually reaching the top of the ladder and gain freedom in the upper reaches of the river. At this time it was reported, ‘lately fish ladders have been in the local news. They are familiar things abroad, especially in America, and now the Brisbane City Council and the State Government are combining to build one at Mount Crosby Weir’.[50] Although fish ladders were not a new concept, with many being constructed in the USA, Canada and New Zealand to assist salmon, the Mount Crosby fish ladder is the earliest known fish ladder in Queensland. The ladder had been completed by March 1941 and in late April the Fisheries Department reported to the State Treasurer that large numbers of young mullet were using the ladder, and stocks upstream were swiftly replenishing. The base of the fish ladder was damaged in the 1980s following works on the mains. [51]
\nAs World War II intensified following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the threat of a Japanese attack on Queensland was viewed by the authorities as likely. Protection of southeast Queensland’s foremost water supply plant was crucial, and in 1942, three anti-aircraft guns were placed strategically at high points around the station and a small military camp was set up between the pumping station and the low-level reservoir. At the same time, the water mains between Ipswich and Mount Crosby were patrolled. Windows on the northern and eastern facades of the pumping station were bricked-in. By 1943, the perceived threat had abated and all military installations removed.[52]
\nAnother era of considerable change at the station began in the late 1940s, with the plant’s complete conversion to electricity. A sub-station was constructed south of the engine house through which the City Electric Light Company supplied the plant. A central control room was installed on the first floor of the engine house annexe.[53] From the control room a door was cut into the engine house wall, and a steel mezzanine deck was built, on which a switchroom was installed. This deck extended almost the entire length of the engine house, 7.3m above the ground floor (later removed). All the steam-powered pumping equipment was removed in stages and replaced with more efficient, electricity-driven equipment. The boilers were also removed at this time. New pumping equipment was installed, each with the capacity to hold two pumps, rather than only one steam-driven pump, as was the case prior to electrification. Each pump was capable of pumping 49 million litres of water each day. With well G also in operation, the pumping station had the capacity to pump 365 million litres per day. The plant was fully electrified by 1951 at a cost of £287,000, with the Queensland Government contributing £57,400 and Brisbane City Council covering the remainder. [54]
\nThe official opening ceremony was held on the 30 March 1951, and was attended by dignitaries including the Premier, Edward Hanlon, and Brisbane Lord Mayor, John Beal Chandler. Prior to electrification, each shift at the station had required 20 men, but with the new technology, only two men were needed.[55] The control room became the centre for the plant and was described at the time:
\nHere, on a large curved desk top, the whole installation is represented diagrammatically, the electrical supply system and the motors and pumps and valves, and in this diagram miniature switches are incorporated. These switches control the whole of the operation, and from this point the operator can start and stop pumps or operate as he wills. Coloured lights, green, yellow and red, tell a constant story of the plant operation, so the operator standing at this desk knows exactly what is happening in all parts of the station.[56]
\nIn 1953, the generator room and condenser room, located in the 1920s building, were refitted as an electrical workshop. With the new capacity, a new intake was constructed in 1957, beside the 1920s intake tower. In 1958, the towering brick chimney was demolished and the resultant space in the façade bricked up to make a storeroom.[57] In 1959, a 4 tonne electric crane was added to the existing rails of the earlier hand operated crane (which was retained). Photographs from this period show the tram tracks had been removed from around the pumping station grounds, with coal not needed after electrification; however, they remained in situ on the 1926-28 overbridge. [58]
\nFurther enhancements were made to the station during the 1960s and 1970s, including the installation of pumps in Wells E and F. A second switchroom was built under the roof of the southern half of the former boiler house. In 1975 work began on a new well, Well H, resulting in the southern half of the former coal store being demolished and a new brick enclosure constructed in its place.[59] By 1963, the pumping station was providing 682,000 people with clean water.[60]
\nFrom the late 1950s to the 1970s extensive landscaping and garden improvements were carried out. In the 1970s, the ornamental front fountain was installed. A stepped retaining wall facing the river was also constructed at this time, and a disused pumping station building from Lake Manchester was re-erected on the southern hill above the station. The 15 tonne crane in the engine house was relocated to this building.[61] Since the 1970s, few alterations to the station’s fabric have been made. In 2019, Mount Crosby Pumping Station continues to provide Brisbane and its surrounds with clean and safe water. The Mount Crosby community plays a continuing role in the promotion of their history, with an active historical society and participation in annual events such as Brisbane Open House and the ‘Back to Mount Crosby’ days.
\nThe Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex has been an important part of Queensland’s industrial history since first established in 1892. Several important technological phases in Queensland’s history are reflected in the buildings, infrastructure, and industrial remnants. In continuous operation, the station has provided generations of workers with employment and accommodation in the adjacent worker’s houses, reflecting the importance of providing accommodation to company workers in remote locations in the late 19th century. The prominent waterworks operation, incorporating daily life as place of employment, residence, and recreation, and the relatively remote location, fostered a close-knit and social community of workers and their families.
","criteria":"Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex, established in 1892, is important in demonstrating the substantial infrastructure built to supply water to Brisbane. Through its alterations and expansions over time that increased and improved water supply, it is important in demonstrating the changes in water pumping technology in Queensland, from steam in the late-19th century, to electric in the mid-20th century.
\nThe high integrity of the place, retaining diverse layers of waterworks features from many periods, both remnant and operational, provides a rich illustration of the long and continuous operation of the waterworks from the site.
\nThe highly intact collection of workers’ houses built by the Brisbane Board of Waterworks in 1891-92 adjacent to its waterworks, are an important example of late-19th century workers’ housing in Queensland. The houses demonstrate the need to have a dedicated workforce available to consistently maintain and operate the historically remote steam-powered Pumping Station. The range of dwelling types reflects the hierarchy of employment positions, from the small drayman’s cottage and four fireman’s duplexes (1892), to the two large elevated engineers’ houses (1891).
\nThe fish ladder at Mount Crosby, built in 1941 using funds provided by six local councils and the State Fisheries Department, was a combined government effort to save wild mullet. It is important in demonstrating a coordinated government response to ensure the longevity of a native species essential to the state’s commercial fishing industry in south east Queensland.
|Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex is rare as the only known remaining example in Queensland of a pumping station complex established in the 19th century with intact 1891-92 workers’ housing, making this an exceptional example of its type.
\nThe complex with its diverse layers of waterworks features from many periods is rare and retains a high level of integrity.
|The extensive Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex has the potential to reveal further information about late 19th and early 20th century waterworks infrastructure and operations, the transition from steam to electric power, and the people who lived and worked there.
\nDetailed analysis of the Pumping Station – its layered building fabric and associated fixtures and equipment – has the potential to address research questions relating to early and evolving waterworks technology, layout, construction, materials and operation. Broader analysis of the associated weirs, intakes and rising mains, including archaeological investigations to determine the location, design and construction of the original intake and tunnel, has the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of early and evolving water management systems for large-scale water supply.
\nArchaeological investigations of the remnant tramway, winch tram and aerial ropeway infrastructure, including surface and sub-surface features, has the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the layout and operation of transportation systems associated with historically remote steam-powered waterworks.
\nThe collection of workers residences may facilitate detailed studies relating to the proximity of industrial and domestic life, and social dynamics of the community in the late 19th century. Analysis of the layout, design and fabric of the residences and associated landscape features could address research questions relating to: the rationale behind the hierarchical siting of dwellings; and how the unusual use of duplexes may have reflected operational conditions.
\nArchaeological investigations of the Recreation Area have the potential to reveal sub-surface artefacts and features that might inform on the living conditions of the brief but intensive ‘day labour’ workforce, which camped on-site while constructing the Pumping Station, including addressing research questions relating to consumption activities, the presence of women and children, and the layout and nature of dwellings.
|Highly intact and with a high degree of integrity, Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex is exceptional as an extensive Queensland public waterworks facility from the late-19th century with extensions and alterations to the mid-20th century for increased and improved water supply. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type through its: waterside location; weirs (1902-18 and 1926-28) and water intake (1926); Pumping Station (1892-1949); associated waterworks resources supply infrastructure, including coal tram cabin and weighbridge (1913), tracks (1913 and 1926-28), and remnant tramway embankments, cuttings, and aerial ropeway loading station (1915); and, at isolated sites of the type, waterworks-provided worker’s houses (1891-92) and social facilities (Community Hall, 1919).
\nThe Pumping Station is important as an exceptional example of a 19th century pumping station in Queensland with incremental changes reflecting the advancements in water pumping technology over 50 years. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type through its: wells (1891, 1913, 1924, and 1941); engine house and annexe (1892-1941); boiler house (1891-1921); coal store (1921); economiser houses (1914 and 1921); offices, generator, and workshop building (1921); and additions and alterations to accommodate electrification (1948-49).
|Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex is a landmark central to the area’s identity, with the substantial industrial pumping station, weirs, bridge foundations juxtaposed against the otherwise vegetated riverbank vista from the west bank.
\nThe place displays picturesque attributes with views unfolding along the winding, narrow private road, which connects the significant features. It provides shifting, attractive views to: the collection of matching, small timber houses and their yards; the hall; the large grassed and treed Recreation Area; the terraced gardens of Works Hill; the substantial pumping station with its attractive face brick facade and open, flat setting; and the waterworks structures built in and next to the Brisbane River – the intake tower, 1926-28 weir and overbridge, 1899 bridge remnants, and 1941 fish ladder.
|Established in 1892, Mount Crosby Pumping Station Complex has a strong association with past and present workers and their families, some of whom have generational links with the place. The once-remote site provided employment, housing, and recreation for the small community since the 1890s, and as such has played an important role in their lives. This continues to be demonstrated with events such as the ‘back to Mount Crosby’ day, held annually, and other events held by the Mount Crosby Historical Society.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650237,"name":"Harris House","alternate_name":"Cliffordene","street_address":"1 Clifford Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-07-26","description":"Harris House is a substantial, single storey villa residence in a Federation-era style. It occupies a prominent 0.19ha site on the corner of Margaret and Clifford streets, located within a mixed residential and commercial area on the western side of the Toowoomba central business district. Facing Clifford Street to the east, the house is elevated above street level and a wide staircase leads to the main entrance. The house is set within established gardens containing mature trees. In 2019 the property is undergoing repairs and renovations.
\nHouse (c1912, with 1935 and 1994 additions)
\nThe single storey house is of red face brick construction with a tiled roof, central roof lantern, and wide verandahs around most of its perimeter. The front (east) elevation is the most ornate, with a tall entrance portico the dominant feature. Rectangular bay windows are symmetrically placed on either side of the main entrance door, which has a glazed surround. The red face brick contrasts with extensive concrete elements and ornamentation.
\nThe rooms are arranged in a hierarchy with principal rooms in the front (east) section of the house, and service rooms in the rear (west) section. The front section contains four rooms, an entrance vestibule, a wide central passageway lit by the roof lantern, and a side passage leading to a south entrance door. Rooms on the south side of the central passageway were likely to have been bedrooms. The northeast corner room was likely a sitting or drawing room, with the dining room adjacent.
\nThe rear section contains a central passageway that leads to a west entrance door, with the original kitchen and a third bedroom on the south side. Former storage/servants rooms on the north side of the passageway are fitted out as toilets and a kitchenette (1994). A skillion-roofed, timber-clad addition in the northwest corner of the house (1935) contains two interconnected rooms.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nExterior
\n· Concrete foundations
\n· Double face brick exterior walls with pale tuck pointing
\n· Timber-framed roof clad in terracotta Marseilles tiles with decorative finials and ridge capping (replaced with new tiles in 2019 in similar profiles)
\n· Complex roof form, including paired hipped ends; a north-facing gable over the dining room; two matching east-facing gables; a projecting gable-roofed portico over the main entrance; a square central roof lantern; and separate skillion verandah roofs
\n· Roof lantern, including: timber framing; ogee roof form; corrugated metal sheet cladding; pyramid-roofed ventilation fleche supported by four small columns; four-light, timber-framed windows; and pressed metal internal linings
\n· Face brick chimneys with arched caps
\n· Concrete exterior ornamentation, including: roughcast render finish to portico, gables and verandah arches; a variety of mouldings; star and swag details to principal gables; scrolled brackets; moulded quoins at wall corners; and classical-style pilasters framing the bay windows
\n· Timber dentil bargeboard mouldings
\n· Concrete door and window lintels
\n· Timber, six-panel front door with timber moulding ornamentation, brass hardware including knocker, round handle and lock, and a timber finger plate
\n· Leadlight side panels and fanlight to the front door, featuring multi-coloured stylised birds on a clear oval background within a grid of green glass
\n· Leadlight side panels to principal windows, featuring multi-coloured floral, leaf and heart motifs on a background of green and clear glass in a grid pattern
\n· Original and early timber-framed windows, including: double-hung sash windows; two-light casement windows with two-light fanlight to the kitchen; and high-level windows in south and west walls
\n· Original and early window hardware
\n· Metal window hood over pair of windows in the north wall, including perforated metal fringe and two ornamental gables infilled with pressed metal
\n· Verandahs to the northeast, east and southeast sides, including: timber floor; concrete balustrade with round balusters; tapered, square concrete verandah posts; arched concrete verandah beams; and coved ceiling lined with V-jointed (VJ) timber boards and edged with timber mouldings
\n· Main entrance stairs, including concrete balustrade
\n· Evidence in the external brickwork of pre-1935 structures built against the southwest corner of the house, including traces of paint, wall and ceiling lines and weathering
\nInterior
\n· Concrete internal partitions
\n· Single-skin timber partitions lined with VJ boards in the western passageway and kitchenette
\n· Clear-finished timber board floors
\n· Plaster walls with rounded corners
\n· Timber joinery, including: wide moulded skirting boards to principal rooms; narrower moulded skirting boards to service rooms; moulded architraves, picture rails and dado rails; low-waisted, four-panel doors, some with timber finger plates; framed timber board door to rear (west) entrance door; part-glazed doors with coloured, figured glass panes; and rectangular, horizontally centre-pivoting fanlights with figured glass
\n· Original and early door hardware, including round timber handles
\n· Semi-circular arches to the central passageway with plasterwork ornamentation
\n· Arched openings to bay windows with plasterwork ornamentation
\n· High ceilings lined with pressed metal in a variety of patterns that show the hierarchy of rooms, including: bold, large-scale geometric or floral patterns to ceilings in principal rooms, the entrance hall, central passageway and the roof lantern; detailed cornices and borders to principal rooms, particularly the dining room; round ceiling ventilation panels with six-pointed star detail; and plainer, finer-grained patterned ceilings, borders and cornices to service rooms and other spaces.
\n· Traces of early paint schemes on walls and pressed metal ceilings and cornices
\n· Arched openings to bay windows, with Classical-style plasterwork ornamentation
\n· Corner fireplace to Main Bedroom, with an oak mantelpiece featuring a small inbuilt cabinet with an art nouveau-style motif carved into the door; an arched cast iron fireplace insert; and glazed tile-clad hearth
\n· Fireplace to the Sitting Room, with timber mantelpiece and surround; square cast iron fireplace insert; glazed tiles with a poppy flower pattern; and a glazed tile-clad hearth
\n· Fireplace to the Dining Room, with timber mantelpiece, cast iron fireplace, and blue glazed tiles cladding the surround and hearth.
\n· Surviving Kitchen features, including a cast iron cooking range, tiled hearth, and glazed wall tiles (tiles on the wall in the southeast corner indicate the location of a former sink)
\n· Ceiling mounted cords/pulls to operate lights
\n· A wall mounted gas light fitting in the rear (west) passageway, and circular wall mounts (fittings removed) in other locations
\n· Remnants of an early bell system
\n· Early fringed velvet pelmets to windows and doors in principal rooms
\n1935 addition
\n· Timber-framed, skillion-roofed form
\n· Brick piers
\n· Timber chamferboard cladding
\n· Timber floor and joinery, including lambs tongue-profile timber skirtings
\n· Part-glazed, panelled door and rectangular fanlight to the kitchenette, glazed with clear patterned glass
\n· Timber VJ board-lined walls with picture rail and narrow shelf
\n· Flat sheet ceiling linings with batten cover strips
\n· Two sets of relocated windows within arched frames, containing leadlight panels above three-light casement windows with figured glass
\nElements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: non-original paint colour schemes; the 1994 verandah addition along the west side and western end of the south side; modern gutters and downpipes; tiles cladding the main entrance stairs; verandah floor tiles in front of the main entrance door; modern timber reproduction doors and windows; tiled dado in the entrance vestibule and central passageway; mirrors; modern light fittings; the kitchenette and toilet fit-outs; air-conditioning units; and modern carpet and other floor coverings.
\nGrounds and views
\nHarris House is set back from Clifford and Margaret streets, and surrounded by gardens on the east, north and northwest sides. The gardens contain a number of large, mature trees, open lawns and garden beds. The location of some early pathways has been retained, now formed by modern materials. The house’s elevation above street level and corner location make it a prominent feature of the streetscape.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\n· Views of the house from Margaret and Clifford streets
\n· Open, garden setting surrounding the house
\n· Sloped earth embankment surrounding the eastern end of the house
\n· Location of the pathway from Clifford Street to the main entrance stairs
\n· Location of the steps and brick pathway from Margaret Street to the west verandah
\n· Three large, mature Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica) trees along the Margaret Street boundary
\n· A large, mature Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis) on the eastern lawn
\n· A mature bougainvillea (Bougainvillea sp.) near the northwest corner of the house
\n· A mature mulberry tree (Morus sp.) near the centre of the western boundary fence
\nGrounds elements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: fences along the Margaret and Clifford Street boundaries; modern signs, lights and pathways; the entrance driveway and carpark, and recent trees, plantings and structures.
\nNon-significant features within the road reserve include: a street tree along Margaret Street, the footpath, road surface, kerb, signs, power poles, and all other services and road infrastructure.
","history":"Harris House, a substantial Federation-era masonry residence, located at 1 Clifford Street in the regional city of Toowoomba, was constructed c1912, probably by its owner, Toowoomba building contractor Montague Ivory. It is important in demonstrating the development of Toowoomba as the principal urban centre of the Darling Downs region in the 20th century. Harris House also demonstrates the principal characteristics of a substantial early 20th century suburban villa residence and of Federation-era domestic architecture, and has aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes, picturesque qualities and streetscape contribution.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. The small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842, but was soon surpassed by a more desirable location six kilometres to the northeast, known as Toowoomba from the 1850s. Better suited to market gardening, with a more reliable water supply, and supported by squatters and land speculators, Toowoomba was incorporated as a municipality in 1860. Its rapid economic and social development was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements.[1]
\nToowoomba expanded rapidly from the late 1860s, becoming the main urban centre of the Darling Downs by 1888. The arrival of the railway in 1867 secured the town's development and subsequently made it the hub for the Southern and Western railways. The Selection Act 1868 brought selectors to the district, improvements to freehold estates, and revived trade with western areas. Toowoomba’s economy diversified to include numerous small-scale manufacturing firms, while the majority of administrative, service and other government and education functions for the surrounding region were established in the town.[2] Its progress was reflected in improvements to the physical environment, through important capital works projects, including the draining of its swamps, improved water supply, gasworks for lighting, extensive tree plantings and the initial development of Queen's Park. Earlier temporary structures were replaced with more permanent and impressive buildings.[3]
\nToowoomba experienced an urban land boom throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Newtown, its first working-class suburb, was created in the 1880s, while speculators extended the ‘shopkeepers’ residential areas to the north east of Ruthven, Russell and Margaret Streets, the commercial core of the town. Prosperous Darling Downs landowners, business-owners and professionals established residences in Toowoomba; and from the 1880s, the town acted as a summer resort for those seeking a cooler climate, including Queensland Governors.[4]
\nBy the turn of the 20th century, Toowoomba had outstripped the development of every other urban centre on the Darling Downs, with its population in 1901 equalling their combined populations. After the passage of the Local Authorities Act 1902, Toowoomba became the Town of Toowoomba on 31 March 1903, and on 29 October 1904 was proclaimed the City of Toowoomba.[5] The 1910s were a period of commercial and social expansion for the new city.[6]
\nThe land on which Harris House stands was purchased from the New South Wales government in 1852 by ex-convict and Bull’s Head Inn publican William Horton, as part of an approximately 32 acre [13ha] block.[7] Horton became Toowoomba’s ‘first, largest and most eager purchaser of land’.[8] In 1868, he sold the block to pastoralist and parliamentarian James Taylor, who was a major Toowoomba land speculator and advocate. Following Taylor’s demise in 1892, approximately 17.5 acres [7ha] of this land, bounded by Clifford, Margaret, West, and Hill Streets, was subdivided into 64 x 40 perch [1000sqm] allotments in 1899. John Hugh Munro purchased subdivisions 1 to 3 of this estate, the site of Harris House, but subsequently sold the land in 1909 to Toowoomba building contractor, Montague Ivory.[9] Earlier that year, Ivory had purchased adjoining allotments 4 and 5, while allotments 6 to 8 had been purchased in his wife’s name.[10]
\nIvory was residing in Toowoomba and working as a building contractor by 1901.[11] Born in 1861, he moved from Sydney to the Warrego region in Queensland c1892.[12] He lived in Charleville from about 1893, where he was a tobacconist and the treasurer of the Charleville Branch of the AWU, until c1900.[13]
\nIvory’s work as a building contractor in Toowoomba and Warwick during the first two decades of the 20th century included regionally important projects. In Toowoomba, he constructed a 75ft [23m] brick chimney stack at Perkins & Co. Brewery, Margaret St (1901) an additional storey on the Fire Brigade Building in Neil Street (1906); two additional wings for Crawford’s Freemason’s Hotel on the corner of Neil and Herries Streets (1906); and completed extensive alterations and additions to W Jones & Son’s malt house at Black Gully in Toowoomba in 1907 [QHR600852 Toowoomba Maltings].[14] In 1908, Ivory won the tender for additions and alterations to the Toowoomba Post and Telegraph Office.[15] During 1910-11 Ivory resided in Warwick for 12 months, constructing a brick department store for Messrs Barnes & Co [QHR 600956 Barnes and Co. Trading Place], before departing the town in March 1911.[16]
\nBy 1913, Ivory was living in Harris House on the western corner of Clifford and Margaret Streets (1 Clifford Street) and remained there until c1919, when the house was sold.[17] The designer and builder of the house are not known, but considering Ivory’s role in the building industry, it is believed he built the house for himself, as well as the adjacent houses at 3 Clifford Street and 256 Margaret Street. In 1919, Ivory reconfigured the allotments that comprised 1 and 3 Clifford Street to create three allotments, including an allotment to the west, which became 256 Margaret Street.[18]
\nHarris House was designed in an ornate style characteristic of the Federation-era. Federation style is a broad term used to describe the dominant style of Australia’s domestic architecture during the late 19th and early 20th century. This eclectic and highly decorative style, influenced by contemporary British and American examples, drew inspiration from a variety of historical styles, but most notably from Tudor or ‘Old English’ rural architecture. Sometimes described as ‘Queen Anne’ style, and more decorative than the concurrent ‘Arts and Crafts’ style, which focussed on honest expression of function and truthful use of materials, Federation style was used most extensively in New South Wales and Victoria. The typical Federation villa residence was a free-standing, single storeyed bungalow set within a generous garden. It had red face brick walls, with a complex roof form of hips and projecting gables, clad in terracotta Marseilles tiles, and often punctuated by picturesque chimneys. Floor plans were asymmetrical with protruding rooms, bays or towers, and the exteriors were enlivened by a wide variety of window types and shapes, and elaborate verandah detailing. Gable ends were decorated with timber and stucco ornament, and leadlight windows displayed coloured glass in flowing patterns, demonstrating the growing influence of Art Nouveau on decorative details. Regional variations of the style occurred, due to factors such as localised building traditions, the availability of building materials and individual tastes. In Queensland, the style was often applied to traditional timber houses with corrugated iron roofs, influencing their roof forms, timber verandah detailing and other ornamentation. Non-domestic buildings too, at this time, adopted an eclectic ‘Free Style’ of architecture that combined elements and details from classical, Romanesque, Art Nouveau, Queen Anne and Arts and Crafts styles, and utilised visually contrasting materials such as dark brick and light stone or stucco.[19]
\nHarris House was a substantial, red face brick, single storey villa residence with a terracotta Marseilles tile-clad roof featuring multiple gables, three chimneys and a central roof lantern. It was elevated by an earth embankment above street level and its front verandah was accessed by wide staircase that led to a tall, gabled entrance portico. The exterior was highly ornamented with concrete mouldings that contrasted with the red brick walls, including quoins to wall corners, pilasters framing a pair of bay windows, and scrolled brackets to eaves and overhangs. The formal floor plan located principal rooms at the front (east) end of the house, accessed by a wide central passageway lit by the roof lantern, and service rooms at the rear (west). A rear entrance landing and laundry were, at some early stage, built up against the southwest corner of the house. In addition to the lantern, daylight to the centre and south-western parts of the house was maximised by high windows in the south and west walls, and glazed fanlights to all doors.[20] The principal rooms were given high quality finishes and materials in popular contemporary materials and patterns. Surviving original or early features include plaster walls, timber floors and joinery, a variety of Wunderlich pressed metal ceilings and cornices, fireplaces with vibrant glazed tiles and ornate timber mantlepieces, leadlight windows with Art Nouveau-style patterns, and semi-circular arches with plasterwork ornamentation in the central passageway.[21]
\nIn 1919, Mary Kelly, wife of medical practitioner, Arthur F Kelly, purchased Harris House.[22] The house was known as ‘Cliffordene’ by the time the Kellys sold it in October 1921. The purchaser was John Mitchell Harris, who had recently married for the second time, to Malvena Sears.[23]
\nHarris, born c1862, arrived in Australia from Scotland in the late 1880s.[24] By 1893, he owned a residence in Mary Street, Gympie.[25] He was residing in Winton at the time of his first marriage in 1895.[26] In 1897, he was working as a journalist in Winton, while in 1898 he was the proprietor of the Winton Herald newspaper.[27] Between about October 1901 and 1905, Harris resided in Cairns, working as the manager of the drapery department of Burns Philp & Co, and travelling widely in North Queensland.[28] In April 1906, Harris purchased GP Merry’s drapery located in the Alexandra Building on Ruthven Street, Toowoomba. He built the business into one of the largest draperies on the Darling Downs, occupying the northern shop from 1906 until c1935.[29] He was a member of the Queensland Turf Club, Tattersall's Turf Club, and the Toowoomba Turf Club, and also a life member of the Toowoomba Royal Agricultural Society. Harris died on 12 July 1933 at Sandgate, aged about 71 years. He was survived by his widow and daughter, Neva (born 1925).[30]
\nIt is unknown if Harris made any major alterations to Harris House during his residence there, but by 1934 a bathroom with shower and indoor WC had been constructed on the south verandah.[31] The grounds of Harris House were well established by the 1930s and contained a number of features. A pre-1934 sewerage detail plan of the property shows that an earth embankment ran around the north, east and south sides of the house. A wide pathway led straight to the main entrance stairs from Clifford Street, and two smaller, parallel pathways led south from a Margaret Street entrance, past the rear of the house. A fernery was located in the northwest corner of the grounds and a garage and earth closet in the southwest corner. A driveway to the garage ran along the southern boundary.[32]
\nFollowing Harris’ death, the executors of his estate approved additions and alterations to Harris House to create a flat on the north side of the house. Architect William Hodgen drew up the plans in May 1934 and the work commenced on 26 November that year. By 24 January 1935, contractor George Conrad Strohfeldt had completed the changes, for a cost of £279.10, and the house had been repainted by his brother, Henry Martin Strohfeldt, for £24.10.[33]
\nThe flat occupied the original sitting room and dining room, which were linked by a new sleep-out built on the north verandah. The sleep-out was carefully detailed to preserve the existing verandah structure and balustrade, and featured arched leadlight panels above banks of casement windows. A section of verandah adjacent to the west side of the dining room was demolished, and a timber, skillion-roofed structure built in its place, containing a dining room, kitchenette and bathroom. This addition was clad in timber chamferboards and had V-jointed (VJ) board and flat sheet linings. A door was inserted to link the flat’s dining room with the service rooms of the original house, and a second laundry was created by dividing off part of the existing laundry.[34]
\nThe flat was tenanted by April 1935, when Mrs Cowan and her daughter, of Stanthorpe, were reported as having rented Mrs J M Harris's flat in Clifford Street. The flat was available for rental again in November 1938 when Mr and Mrs Harold Walsh stayed in the flat ‘for some weeks’ holiday in Toowoomba’.[35] Mrs Harris continued to reside at 1 Clifford Street until c1984. She passed away in 1988.[36]
\nAerial photographs show that by 1946 the gardens contained a dense grouping of trees and plantings in the northwest corner (in the vicinity of the fernery) and three mature Atlas cedars (Cedrus atlantica), along the Margaret Street boundary.[37]
\nFor a number of years leading up to 1990, the house was unoccupied and required repairs to cracked internal walls. Its picket fence had been removed and replaced with a metal fence.[38]
\nIn March 1991 plans were drawn by Anthony Kibble & Associates Architects to convert the residence into multi-tenancy offices. Alterations and additions included: a new bitumen driveway and carpark in the southwest corner of the grounds; the replacement of the verandah rooms, laundry and landings along the south and west sides of the house with a concrete verandah matching the existing front verandah; installation of toilets and a kitchenette; removal of the 1935 sleepout on the north verandah; relocation of the windows from the sleepout to the rear 1935 rooms; removal of the bathroom and kitchenette in the 1935 rooms; and other repairs and renovations, including painting the exterior.[39]
\nOn 15 October 1994, after completion of these alterations, the Honourable Mr Justice John Harris Byrne RFD, grandson of John Mitchell Harris, opened 1 Clifford Street as Harris House. A brass plaque adjacent to the front door commemorates the official opening. The building served as offices in subsequent years.
\nAfter the death of its owner, Neva Byrne, nee Harris, on 14 August 2014, the house was gifted to the National Trust of Australia (Queensland) (NTAQ).[40] By the end of May 2019, the NTAQ had retiled the roof, painted the building’s exterior, and plastered and painted the interior for use as offices and meeting rooms.[41]
\nIn 2019, Harris House is no longer a private residence, but retains a high degree of intactness. Its garden includes pathways and remnant mature trees. It is a good example of a substantial early 20th century suburban villa residence from the Federation era, which reflects the wealth and status of the major city of Toowoomba.
","criteria":"Harris House (c1912), a Federation-era villa residence, is important in demonstrating the development of Toowoomba as the principal urban centre of the Darling Downs region in the 20th century. During the late 19th and early 20th century, wealthy members of society in the region established substantial homes in Toowoomba, such as Harris House, reflecting their financial and social position.
\nThrough its setting, form, scale, high quality design, materials and aesthetic treatment, Harris House illustrates the lifestyle of Toowoomba’s prosperous residents.
|Harris House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a substantial, early-20th century suburban villa residence. A single storey, masonry house in a garden setting, Harris House is a fine and intact example of its type, displaying high quality workmanship and materials, and retaining its formal plan, with entrance portico, hierarchical arrangement of generously sized rooms, and surrounding verandah.
\nHarris House demonstrates the principal characteristics of Federation-era domestic architecture, and is a good and highly intact example of a masonry house in a Federation style in Queensland. Characteristics of this type include: its lowest form; asymmetrical plan with protruding bays and rooms; red face brick construction; complex roof form clad in terracotta tiles; elaborate verandah detailing; leadlight glazing to principal windows; and use of a wide variety of ornamental features derived from historical styles. The high quality interior finishes and fittings demonstrate popular contemporary materials and patterns, including a range of pressed metal ceilings and cornices, glazed tiles, and the use of art nouveau-style motifs for ceilings, mantelpieces and leadlight glazing.
|Harris House is important for the beautiful attributes of its composition and fine architectural quality. The symmetrical east façade is a well-proportioned composition of formal building elements including bay windows, ornamental gables and a tall projecting portico, which, in combination with the house’s elevation above street level and substantial front staircase, creates an impressive entrance sequence. Rooms are formally arranged around a wide central passageway, which is dramatically lit by a roof lantern. Largely intact, the generously sized rooms and spaces retain high quality fittings and finishes, including timber joinery, decorative plasterwork, ornate mantelpieces and pressed metal ceilings.
\nA grand, Federation-era suburban villa residence, Harris House is important for the picturesque qualities of its form, materials, aesthetic treatment and garden setting, including: its asymmetrical plan with complex roof form punctuated by gables, chimneys and a roof lantern; use of contrasting materials and colours, such as red face brick, terracotta tiles and light coloured concrete; its richly detailed ornamentation; and its attractive, generously-sized garden, which enhances views of the house from Clifford and Margaret streets.
\nThe house is visually prominent on its elevated corner site and framed by mature trees, including three large Atlas cedar trees, which make a substantial contribution to its Federation-era suburban villa setting.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650242,"name":"Chapel Street Bridge","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Chapel Street","suburb":"RAVENSWOOD","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2019-11-29","description":"The Chapel Street Bridge crosses Slaughter Yard Creek and is located on Chapel Street, approximately 100m southwest of the intersection with Griffin Street, on the northeast outskirts of Ravenswood, North Queensland.
\nThe bridge is approximately 4.2m long x 8m wide and constructed of red facebrick. It has a single-span semi-circular arch rib and low-height solid spandrels (side walls, north and south) with coping. The bridge deck is earth fill. Three bracing metal tie rods connect the spandrels across the width of the bridge, internal to the structure. The bridge abutments (east and west) have facebrick wing walls to channel water flow on the upstream (south) side and drystone retaining walls on the downstream (north) side.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe single-arch, red-brick road bridge on Chapel Street, over Slaughter Yard Creek, Ravenswood, was most likely constructed by the Ravenswood Divisional Board c1895-1900, to replace an earlier timber bridge and improve access between Ravenswood and the gold mines at Sandy Creek (and their associated town of Evlinton), located almost 4km southeast of Ravenswood. The Chapel Street Bridge is important in illustrating the importance of mining to the economy of Ravenswood during the 1890s. It is also rare as the only known example of an early brick-arch road bridge in Queensland.
\nRavenswood, part of the traditional land of the Birriah people, is located about 85km south of Townsville and 65km east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield, which included the John Bull reef near Sandy Creek, was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[1]
\nEuropean settlement of the Kennedy Land District in north Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including ‘Ravenswood’ and ‘Merri Merriwa’.[2] Alluvial gold was discovered in tributaries of Connolly Creek, on Merri Merriwa Station, in late 1868;[3] and in April 1869, the goldfield’s richest alluvial discoveries occurred in three dry creek beds close to the site of Ravenswood.[4] The parent reefs of this alluvial gold were soon located, but a lack of water meant that miners did not establish Ravenswood (initially called ‘Upper Camp’) until October 1869, after a storm temporarily resolved the water issue.[5] The first machinery for crushing quartz ore to extract gold was operational at Burnt Point (south of Upper Camp) from 18 April 1870.[6]
\nThe Ravenswood goldfield (about 300 square miles) was proclaimed on 3 November 1870, and the town of Ravenswood was proclaimed on 19 May 1871.[7] In 1871, the population of the goldfield was 900, with over half being in Ravenswood. The town developed on either side of Elphinstone Creek, and the first permanent bridge over the creek was constructed, of timber, in 1873.[8]
\nDespite its promising start, in 1872 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a ‘period of depression’, as its most important mines reached the water table, and difficult to process ‘mundic’ ore, at about 70ft (21m) deep.[9] Although only a percentage of the gold was recoverable from the mundic ore with the technology available at the time, Ravenswood’s mines continued to be viable into the 1880s.[10]
\nThere was an increase in productivity in the mid-1880s, due to good returns from the mines on the John Bull reef, located on the east bank of Sandy Creek, almost 4km southeast of Ravenswood.[11] The Chapel Street Bridge is a product of the success of the John Bull reef, and the resulting need for a road link between Ravenswood and Sandy Creek.[12]
\nWork on the John Bull reef, just south of the later site of the town of Evlinton (initially known as Sandy Creek), had occurred from 1879 – and by October that year crushings from a stamper battery on the John Bull were being carted into Ravenswood.[13] The John Bull Gold Mining Company Ltd (formed in 1881), worked the John Bull PC lease on the reef, while the John Bull Block lease, to the south, was worked by Hugh Hawthorne Barton and Andrew Trenfield by July 1882. A 15-stamp battery was erected on the John Bull Block in 1883, when it was reported that ‘Sandy Creek bids fair to become a very busy little place at no distant date’.[14] Although the John Bull’s ore was low quality, the reef was large, and it continued to produce well during 1884 – the year that the railway reached Ravenswood from Ravenswood Junction on the Northern Railway.[15]
\nBy 1886, the settlement at Sandy Creek was called ‘Evlinton’, and was part of a mail route.[16] Although Sandy Creek Provisional School, established in 1885, was renamed Evlinton Provisional School in 1886, the town of Evlinton was not surveyed until early 1890.[17]
\nA timber bridge was extant over Slaughter Yard Creek on Chapel Street, on the road between Ravenswood and Evlinton, by 1887.[18] This bridge was the scene of a fatal accident in August 1887, when Joseph Lane, a miner working at the John Bull Block, fell off his horse when it slipped on the bridge while he was riding into Ravenswood.[19] The Ravenswood Divisional Board is likely to have built the bridge, as after the Divisional Boards Act 1879, responsibility for local roads passed from Queensland’s Department of Public Works to local governments – although the State Government still provided grants and loans.[20]
\nThe John Bull reef remained one of the best producers on the Ravenswood goldfield from the mid-1880s to the early 1890s.[21] By October 1887, the John Bull Block was ’held to the extent of three-fourths by Messrs. [Kyle] Sidley and [Andrew] Trenfield’;[22] and in 1891, it was reported that the John Bull Block mine and mill employed 60 hands. ‘Although they put through a low-grade ore, the size of the reef and the great number of tons passing under their stampers (twenty head) give a live and busy appearance to their little township of Evlinton’.[23]
\nThe Ravenswood Divisional Board attempted to replace the timber Chapel Street Bridge in 1888. It sought a grant of £1000, to build bridges over the One Mile Creek (on the main road to Ravenswood Junction), and ‘over the crossing on [the] road to Sandy Creek, at which place there is a considerable amount of heavy traffic’. However, no grant appears to have eventuated at this time, as the government preferred that the Divisional Board borrow the money.[24]
\nThe bridge’s replacement was delayed when Evlinton’s prosperity was interrupted in the early 1890s. The John Bull Block had already extracted the best quality ore, and had continued issues with water ingress. [25] This led to a stoppage of work in 1892, which ‘caused an almost total desertion of the little township there (Evlinton), and a shifting of dwellings in here and elsewhere’.[26] The Ravenswood goldfield’s production in 1893 was its lowest since 1886.[27]
\nA revival in the fortunes of Evlinton and the John Bull reef occurred from 1894, when Sidley and Trenfield sold their mines and the St George (20 head) battery to Archibald L Wilson (1852-1935).[28] Wilson had arrived in Ravenswood in 1878, after gaining a diploma in mining engineering in Edinburgh, and working in New Zealand and on the Palmer River. He was publican of the Silver King Hotel in Totley in the 1880s.[29] At the end of 1893, Wilson travelled to London to float the John Bull property, and his syndicate purchased the John Bull mines, with himself as general manager, in April 1894. Digging of a new vertical shaft commenced in late 1894.[30]
\nGold bearing ore was struck in October 1895, at 626ft (191m) depth, and by 1896 the John Bull was considered the ‘chief mine’ on the Ravenswood goldfield. [31] Although the ore was low grade, and there were ‘oceans of water’ to pump out, Wilson had set up a cyaniding plant nearby, to treat tailings as soon as they had been crushed. He extracted 1800oz of gold from 5000 tons of ore during 1896; and supplying the 20 stamper battery with cordwood required ‘quite a little colony’ of timber-getters and carters. ‘Sandy Creek (Evlinton), with two public-houses, boarding houses, school, and its mill at work, present[ed] quite a lively appearance, particularly on “pay night”’.[32]
\nThe recovery of Evlinton in the late 1890s led to the construction of the current brick bridge on Chapel Street, between 1895 and 1900.[33] In May 1895, the Ravenswood Divisional Board asked for a £500 grant to repair several roads and their bridges, including the road from Ravenswood to Evlinton. ‘These are all main roads and lead to thriving mining centres, particularly the Evlinton and Old [?] roads, where there are several large gold mines being developed…. All the roads and bridges thereon…are almost untrafficable, particularly in bad weather’.[34] The expenditure statement of the Division of Ravenswood for the second half of 1895 refers to a £25 18s and 8p contract for a wall on ‘Slaughter-yard Gully’, while the statement for the first half of 1896 lists a ‘retaining wall at Slaughter-yard Gully Bridge’, for £25 18s and 9p, deducted from the ‘Main Roads Grant Account’. Later, £48 is deducted, for a bridge, from the ‘John Bull and Standard Road Account’ during the second half of 1900.[35]
\nConstructed of red brick, the Chapel Street Bridge has a semi-circular arch and low-height solid spandrels (side walls, north and south) with render-capped coping. Postholes formed in the coping suggest the bridge originally had a balustrade. The angled abutment wing walls on the upstream (south) side were designed to channel water flow during times of flood and, along with the stone retaining walls on the upstream (north) side, help stabilise the abutment embankments and roadway approaches (east and west).[36]
\nThe Chapel Street Bridge is a rare Queensland example of a brick-arch road bridge, where historically, due to an abundance of hardwood timber for bridge piers and decking, the preference has been for girder and truss types of timber, steel, or concrete construction – although early pipe culverts used brick, and some bridges used bricks for abutments or retaining walls.[37] Brick was also used in Queensland for railway bridge abutments and piers, retaining walls, and culverts. Early examples of brick culverts are found on the 1860s Main Range Railway (1865-7) [QHR 601480]. One example of a masonry road bridge in Queensland is a c1865 bridge at Dalrymple Gap on the Valley of Lagoons Rd [QHR 600393], which consists of stone retaining walls inset with a circular brick culvert. A 1930s arched road bridge across Little Crystal Creek at Mount Spec [QHR 602652] is faced in stone, but is actually concrete. Comparatively more common in the southern states of Australia, masonry arch bridges rely on their curved arch rib and end supports for stability, and characteristically have solid spandrels.[38]
\nThe bricks for the Chapel Street Bridge may have been locally manufactured, although quality bricks were available from Townsville, particularly after the railway reached Ravenswood in 1884. Most buildings in 19th century Ravenswood were constructed of timber, but bricks were used for mining infrastructure such as chimneys, flues, furnaces and engine mounts – so skilled bricklayers would have been available on the goldfield. At least one brick chimney existed by 1880, while a 56ft (17m) brick chimney was present at HH Barton’s chlorination works in 1888.[39] During 1891-92, the contractor Robert Mann locally constructed the bricks for, and erected, a 90ft (27m) brick chimney and furnaces, for the Australasian Gold Extracting Company (New England lease). Later, a block of timber commercial buildings in Ravenswood, lost in a disastrous fire in April 1901, was rebuilt using bricks, suggesting confident expectations of permanence for Ravenswood.[40]
\nHowever, the revival of nearby Evlinton in the late 1890s was a short-term phenomenon. Although Wilson was able to wring enough return from cyaniding the ore to pay the John Bull’s operating expenses, there was insufficient capital for development work. Wilson left for London in 1898 to seek investors for other mines, and although the John Bull Block mine had a record weekly crush of 298oz of gold from 198 tons of ore in 1899, the John Bull mines closed in January 1901.[41]
\nEvlinton vanished after the closure of the John Bull mines, although the town did not die immediately. A social and dance was held at Evlinton State School in 1916, in aid of Ravenswood Red Cross Society, when people from Ravenswood travelled ‘by motorcar, buggy etc’ to the function; and the school was also used as a polling place for elections, prior to its closure in 1921.[42]
\nAlthough the John Bull mines at Sandy Creek had closed, Ravenswood entered a new period of prosperity from 1900, thanks to Wilson. While in London, in 1899 he had floated both the Donnybrook Blocks Mining Syndicate and the New Ravenswood Company.[43] Using British capital, Wilson introduced modern machinery to work the main Ravenswood mines and the New Ravenswood Company effectively reshaped Ravenswood’s landscape. Wilson was known as ‘the uncrowned king of Ravenswood’.[44]
\nThe early 20th century revival at Ravenswood ended in 1917, after declining yields, increased costs, and industrial disputes.[45] On 24 March 1917 the New Ravenswood Company ceased operations, ending large-scale mining in Ravenswood for the next 70 years.[46] Up to 1917, Ravenswood was the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland, after Charters Towers, Mount Morgan, Gympie and the Palmer goldfield. Ravenswood was also the second largest producer of reef gold in north Queensland, after Charters Towers.[47]
\nAfter 1917 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a period of hibernation, with intermittent small-scale attempts at mining until the 1960s.[48] During the 1920s, prior to the closure of the railway branch line to Ravenswood in 1930, hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away; and by 1934 only 357 people remained in Ravenswood.[49] In the 1960 and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population shrank to its nadir of about 70 people. However, gold mining recommenced at Ravenswood in the 1980s, due to a rise in the gold price and the efficiencies gained from open cut mining and modern cyanide metallurgical extraction processes.[50]
\nThe Chapel Street Bridge was closed to traffic in the 1980s, but it survives as a physical reminder that the mines at Sandy Creek, once accessed via the road that crossed the bridge, were important to Ravenswood’s economy. In 2019, modern metal road guards block access to the bridge, which is located almost 300m north of the northern rim of Carpentaria Gold’s Sarsfield pit.[51]
","criteria":"The Chapel Street Bridge (c1895-1900) is important in demonstrating the development of the Ravenswood goldfield, the first significant reef mining goldfield in north Queensland and the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Built on the road connecting the mines of the John Bull reef at Sandy Creek to Ravenswood, the Chapel Street Bridge, as mining-related infrastructure, is important in illustrating the importance of mining to the economy of Ravenswood during the 1890s.
|The Chapel Street Bridge is rare as the only known Queensland example of an early brick-arch road bridge, a design form that has always been rare in Queensland.
|The Chapel Street Bridge is a rare and intact Queensland example of an early brick-arch road bridge. Characteristics of this type of transport infrastructure include: brick construction; open curved arch; solid spandrels; abutments; roadway approaches; and spanning of a watercourse or other physical obstacle.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650244,"name":"Blenheim State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"81 Blenheim Road","suburb":"BLENHEIM","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-02-28","description":"Blenheim State School occupies a 2.055ha site in Blenheim, a rural township in the Lockyer Valley, approximately 40km west of Ipswich. The school is located on the corner of Blenheim Road and Mount Berryman Road, and is bounded by rural properties to the south and east. The school buildings, including the adjacent Teachers Residence in a yard to the east, are located at the northern end of the site and front Blenheim Road. Playing fields occupy the elevated grounds to the south. A variety of trees are scattered across the site, with denser clusters of plantings along the roadside boundaries.
\nFeatures of Blenehim State School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlocks A (1935) and B (1944): Small Timber School Buildings
\nBlocks A and B are two size variations of a standard teaching building design. Block A is larger, accommodating a single 18ft x 30ft (5.5 x 9.1m) classroom, while the Block B classroom (now a staff room) is 18ft x 21ft (5.5m x 6.4m).
\nBoth are highset, timber-framed and clad buildings with gable roofs that are continuous over the front (east) and rear (west) verandahs. The verandahs (now enclosed) retain evidence of former hat room enclosures at their southern ends. Access to the verandahs is via stairs, which have been replaced (Block A, east stair in original location, west stair relocated to the south; Block B, stairs retain centred access but have been realigned).
\nThe classrooms have high coved ceilings with ceiling vents. Large banks of windows in the gable ends provide abundant natural light and ventilation. Doorways between the classrooms and former verandahs align with the original stair locations, ceiling vents and exposed metal tie rods, demonstrating axial planning (Block A, north of centre; Block B, centred). Some of the verandah walls have been partially demolished (Block A, east; Block B, west; bulkheads retained) to extend the classrooms.
\nUsed as open play space, the understoreys retain perimeter enclosures to the west and south that are clad in corrugated metal.
\nFeatures of Block A and Block B also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Blocks A and B not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nPlayshed (1900)
\nThe Playshed is an open-sided, timber-framed, former 10-post shelter with a hip roof. The posts have diagonal bracing members to the roof framing, which is exposed internally. One post on the southern side has three notches, possible evidence of an early former enclosure (now removed). Three posts have been replaced by an extension at the western end that accommodates a toilet block, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nFeatures of the Playshed of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Playshed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Teachers Residence (1935)
\nThe Teachers Residence is a highset, timber-framed and weatherboard-clad building set within an open house yard. The building faces north and has a hip roof, continuous over an L-shaped verandah (now enclosed) to the northeast corner; a front-facing gable roof projects from the northwest corner. Timber stairs provide access to the front verandah and an enclosed landing to the rear.
\nThe interior layout comprises three front bedrooms accessed via a central hallway, with a living room, kitchen, former store (now toilet, added 1978) and bathroom (layout reconfigured to extend bathroom into former pantry) to the rear. The kitchen retains its projecting stove recess.
\nThe understorey is enclosed with timber batten perimeter screens. An enclosed laundry in the southeast corner has flat-sheeted walls and a boarded door. Corrugated-metal water tanks on timber platforms, set on concrete stumps, are located to the south of the Residence.
\nFeatures of the Teachers Residence also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Features of the Teachers Residence not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
Landscape Features and Views
\nBlock A and the Teachers Residence (both 1935) stand in their original locations, in alignment with each other and set back an equal distance from Blenheim Road. Open yard space between Block A, the Residence and Blenheim Road facilitates views of and between them. Surrounding open space is also important to facilitate abundant natural light and ventilation to the interior of Block A and Block B.
\nThe Playshed stands to the west of Block A and retains adjacent open space that connects it with the playing fields to the southeast. Former views between Block A and the Playshed have been obscured by relocated Block B.
\nThe school grounds retain a variety of shade trees, including two mature trees along the boundary.
\nLandscape features and views also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures Not of State-Level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Blenheim State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n\n
","history":"
Blenheim State School was established in 1879 on a two-acre (0.8ha) site in the rural locality of Blenheim in the Lockyer Valley, approximately 72km southwest of Brisbane. The school is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. It retains its Playshed (1900), two Small Timber School Buildings (Block A, 1935; Block B, 1944, on site 1977) and its Teachers Residence (1935), set in spacious grounds with play areas and mature trees. The school has a strong and ongoing association with the Blenheim community.
\nBlenheim is situated within the traditional lands of the Yuggera Ugarapul People. Closer settlement for agricultural purposes commenced in this area after the sale of land resumed under the Land Act 1868 from the pastoral run Franklinvale (later Franklyn Vale), which had been established in the 1840s. Initially called Sandy Creek, Blenheim developed in the 1870s as a small, farming community about seven kilometres southwest of the town of Laidley. Farming commenced with growing maize, lucerne and potatoes, and progressed into dairying, as well as cropping, by the turn of the 20th century.[1]
\nWith closer settlement at Blenheim, came the need for a school to serve the community. A school committee was formed in 1875 and funds were raised for the establishment of a school. In June 1878 tenders were invited to erect a primary school at Blenheim.[2] Two acres (0.8ha) of land for the school site, located in a curve at the junction of Blenheim Road and Mount Berryman Road, was donated to the Department of Public Instruction by Martin Carmody, owner of Portion 120, who also conducted the mail receiving office for Blenheim.[3] By November 1878, the school building was rapidly approaching completion and the school committee was collecting money towards erection of a teachers residence.[4]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers. They provided a venue for a wide range of community events in schools across Queensland.[5]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[6]
\nBlenheim State School opened on 7 April 1879 with 44 children enrolled. During its first year, enrolments rose to 73 pupils with an average attendance of 40 to 50 pupils.[7] The school building immediately became a popular venue for community meetings.[8] A teachers residence was erected on the site and in 1883 an additional half acre (0.2ha) was added to the south of the school grounds.[9]
\nThe Queensland education system recognised the importance of play in the school curriculum and, as school sites were typically cleared of all vegetation, the provision of all-weather outdoor space was necessary. Playsheds were designed as free-standing shelters, with fixed timber seating between posts and earth or decomposed granite floors that provided covered play space and doubled as teaching space when required. These structures were timber-framed and generally open sided, although some were partially enclosed with timber boards or corrugated galvanised iron sheets.[10] The hipped (or less frequently, gabled) roofs were clad with timber shingles or corrugated iron. Playsheds were a typical addition to state schools across Queensland between c1880s and the 1950s, although less frequently constructed after c1909, with the introduction of highset school buildings with understorey play areas. Built to standard designs, playsheds ranged in size relative to student numbers.[11]
\nIn 1900, the Public Works Department approved the construction of a timber Playshed to cater for Blenheim State School’s students.[12] The 30ft x 20ft (9.14 x 6.1m) Playshed had a hipped roof supported on ten stop-chamfered and braced (corners) timber posts. Perimeter timber seats were fixed to the timber posts and had centred openings on the north and south sides, and the gravel floor had a kerbed surround.[13] The Playshed was built by Charles Cross at a cost of £76,[14] of which £15.4 was raised by the community.[15]
\nIn 1934, the Department of Public Instruction approved the replacement of Blenheim State School’s 55-year-old teaching building, teachers residence and earth closets, which were in poor condition and of outdated designs.[16] A new teaching building and teachers residence were constructed between November 1934 and February 1935 by contractors Arthur Thomas Taylor and Stanley Edwin Taylor, of Sherwood, Brisbane, for £408.17s and £548.7s respectively.[17]
\nBlenheim State School’s new teaching building (Block A in 2019), was a standard design ‘Small Timber School Building’. This type of building was constructed in Queensland between 1930 and 1946 and was a continuation of earlier types of small, country teaching buildings. The classroom width was generally 18ft (5.5m), and the building was highset, with two verandahs. The type was not designed for expansion, being built for a set number of students – either 24, 40, 60 or 80.[18] The new building, for 60 pupils, was completed in January 1935.[19]
\nPlans and specifications from 1934 show that the single classroom building was a timber-framed and weatherboard-clad structure, highset on tall timber stumps, with a gabled roof and verandahs on the east and west sides. The classroom was 18ft x 30ft (5.5 x 9.1m). Timber stairs provided access to the 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs, which had semi-enclosed corner hat rooms at the southern ends. Banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights and skillion window hoods were centred on the south and north gable end walls; the northern windows were to have ‘acid obscured’ glass. Doors from the verandah to the classroom were positioned slightly north of the centre, to accommodate two classes in the one room: a smaller, east-facing class to the north; and a larger, west-facing class to the south. This allowed for natural light to enter from the student’s left, espoused as an optimum arrangement by educators at the time. The ceiling was coved with an exposed tie rod and an off-centre latticed ceiling vent between the doors. The understorey provided sheltered play space and was partly enclosed with timber battens (southeast) and corrugated metal sheets (south and west); timber seats ran along the south wall and into the southwest corner. [20]
\nA function held to celebrate the opening of the new school building on 9 February 1935 was attended by dignitaries including the Under Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction, Bernard J McKenna, who officially opened the building; Sir Littleton Groom, MHR; Edmund B Maher, MLA; and shire council members.[21]
\nThe Teachers Residence was constructed on an additional one acre (0.4ha) of land adjacent to the school’s eastern boundary, which had been purchased for £15 from John Panzram, Jnr, in 1930.[22] The building was completed by 14 February 1935.[23] Most Queensland state schools incorporated a teachers residence on the site, particularly in rural areas. In Australia, only Queensland offered free accommodation to teachers, from as early as 1864, with the government policy applying to male teachers only. This was partial recompense for a low wage, an incentive for teacher recruitment in rural areas and provided onsite caretakers. Following World War I, teacher shortages were blamed on the inadequacy and shortage of teachers residences. Consequently, many new teacher residences were constructed across Queensland in the 1930s and again following World War II.[24]
\nResidences designed by the Department of Public Works’ architects, and constructed to the high standard demanded by the government, were typically of a higher-quality in design, materials and construction than most similarly-scaled private residences. The detached teachers residence was located within the school grounds at a distance from the teaching buildings, usually with a separate, fenced yard with gardens and trees. The designs ranged from one to four bedrooms and evolved simultaneously with the teaching buildings to adapt to modern needs and styles.
\nPlans for the residence at Blenheim show a standard 1930s ‘Teachers Residence’.[25] Built from 1929 to 1949, this type was a highset timber-framed structure, with a hipped roof with projecting gable at the front, and an L-shaped verandah to the northwest corner.[26] The interior comprised a core of three bedrooms and a living room arranged around a central hallway, with a rear wing that included a kitchen with stove alcove, storeroom, pantry and bathroom. French doors opened onto the verandah; and the six-light casement windows on exposed exterior walls had skillion hoods. Timber stairs accessed the front verandah and a landing to the rear, and an understorey laundry was located below the kitchen. Corrugated metal water tanks on timber platforms were located to the rear and side of the Residence.[27] When built, the Residence at Blenheim had a layout that mirrored its documented plan, with its L-shaped verandah positioned in the northeast corner.
\nFrom 1885 until 1941, the Blenheim State School’s Teachers Residence served as the settlement’s receiving office or post office, with the head teacher, or his wife, acting as the postmaster/mistress. Accordingly, in 1935, the post office (postal services and telephone exchange) was moved to the new Teachers Residence. It eventually closed on 1 May 1970.[28] Original and early telephone fixtures remain in situ, including a bracket and insulator on a former verandah post and a telephone bell attached in the understorey.
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. In the 1870s, schools inspector William Boyd was critical of tropical schools and amongst his recommendations stressed the importance of adding shade trees to playgrounds. Subsequently, Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[29]
\nThe grounds at Blenheim State School contain a number of mature trees. Arbor day plantings, undertaken at the school from at least 1892, have included Cyprus pines (Callitris sp.), camphor laurels (Cinnamonum camphora), jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), cedar trees (genus not identified), and Crow’s Ash (Flindersia australis).[30] At the time of Blenheim State School’s centenary in 1979, it was estimated that more than 40 trees and 20 shrubs remained in the school grounds from Arbor Day plantings.[31] Many of those trees appear to have been removed or died in the intervening years to 2019. On the western school boundary, a fig tree (Ficus sp.) and a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii), which predate a 1933 aerial, remain on site.
\nIn 1980, 0.64ha of land, located to the south of the Teachers Residence, was resumed for use by the school as a playing field.[32] This increased the school grounds to its current extent.
\nOver time, a number of changes have been made to Block A. In April 1943, the DPW supplied cement and subsidised the cost of gravel and sand for concreting under the school.[33] In 1956, a storeroom was created underneath and shelving was added to the room in 1962.[34] In 1958, a library was provided by enclosing the southern side of the west verandah, with awning windows and a new wall.[35] By 1977 the library was used as a store, the northern side of the west verandah had been enclosed for use as a workroom, and the stairs had been moved to the south.[36] Plans from that time also indicated the proposed enclosure of the east (front) verandah with glass louvres and weatherboards, new doors at the top of the stairs, and a large opening to be formed in the verandah wall.[37] The enclosed west verandah was used for administration from 1999, and the interior reconfigured into office spaces in recent years.[38] In 2015, an open-sided gable-roofed extension was added to the southern end of Block A, with doorways formed in the southern bank of windows and the former western hat room.
\nSome changes have been made to the Playshed. In 1950, its gutter was repaired and some sections replaced, while repairs were also made to the posts.[39] A toilet block addition was built on the western end of the Playshed in 1978 to upgrade toilet facilities on site. All existing wall sheeting was removed from the structure and re-used where possible. Weatherboard cladding was used on the exterior walls. The timber posts were cut off 100mm above ground and fixed with steel anchor straps set in concrete footings. Roofing to match the existing was used and gutters replaced.[40]
\nThe Teachers Residence has undergone some alterations, but remains very intact. The front verandah was enclosed in 1960.[41] General repairs to steps and the addition of flat sheeting to the bathroom took place in 1962.[42] All stumps have been replaced in concrete.[43] Changes to the rear wing include conversion of the storeroom to a toilet in 1978,[44] and later reconfiguration to incorporate the pantry into a remodelled bathroom. Rear windows have also been replaced with glass louvres and aluminium-framed sliders.
\nTo accommodate increased enrolments at Blenheim State School, a second Small Timber School Building was transferred to the school in March 1977, from the recently closed Woodlands State School, also in the Lockyer Valley.[45] This building, constructed in 1944 and designed for 40 pupils, had been transferred to Woodlands State School from Ropeley East State School after that school closed in 1955.[46] When built, the timber-framed, weatherboard-clad and gable-roofed structure was highset on timber stumps.[47] Plans show it contained a single 18ft x 21ft (5.5m x 6.4m) classroom, flanked by 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs on the east and west sides that had centred stairs and enclosed hat rooms at the southern ends.[48] Access from the east verandah was via a centred door, while the access from the west verandah was via a door in the hat room – to accommodate wall-mounted hyloplates for the west-facing class. The coved ceiling had an exposed tie rod and centred latticed vent. Banks of timber-framed casement windows with fanlights and skillion window hoods were centred on the gable end walls; the northern bank of windows was originally half the width of the southern, but had been widened by 1964.[49] After its removal to Blenheim State School, where it was sited southwest of the existing building, the Small Timber School Building (Block B in 2019) was given replacement stairs, concrete stumps and understorey floor; a replacement water tank; and both the interior and exterior were painted.[50] By 1999, the verandahs were enclosed for use as storage and staff areas, and a large opening was formed in the west verandah wall.[51]
\nThroughout its history, Blenheim State School has been a focus for its community. The school provided a popular venue for meetings and events.[52] In return, the community supported the school with fundraising through dances and entertainments, and assisted with working bees.[53] Blenheim State School commemorated its 50th anniversary jubilee on 1 May 1929 with celebrations attended by over 400 adults, including 22 of the school’s first pupils, as well as Sir Littleton Groom, MHR, and Lady Groom.[54] Arbor Day plantings in 1954 commemorated the school’s 75th anniversary and the visit by Queen Elizabeth II to Queensland. The school’s centenary in 1979 was marked by the publication of a souvenir history booklet, which included a history of the neighbouring Mount Berryman State School, which had closed on 24 May 1977.[55]
\nIn 2019, Blenheim State School continues to operate from its original site and has an enrolment of 65 pupils.[56] It retains its two Small Timber School Buildings (1935 and 1944), a Teachers Residence (1935), and a Playshed (1900), set in spacious grounds with play areas and mature trees. The school remains important to the Blenheim locality as a key focus for the community.
\n
Blenheim State School (established in 1879) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government education philosophies, set in large grounds with provision of play areas and mature trees.
\nThe two Small Timber School buildings (Block A, 1935; Block B, 1944, on site 1977) demonstrate the evolution of timber school buildings in providing adequate lighting and ventilation, and the provision of small teaching buildings in regional Queensland.
\nThe Teachers Residence (1935) is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government's policy of providing residences at country schools as a means of attracting teachers to remote areas.
\nThe Playshed (1900) and generous grounds with provision of shade trees, demonstrate the Queensland education system’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Blenheim State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include buildings constructed to standard government designs, and a generous, landscaped site with mature trees and play areas. The school is a good example of a small country school.
\nBlock A and Block B are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of Small Timber School Buildings designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW), and are good examples in two size variations. The buildings are intact, retaining their: highset, gable roof form; understorey play space; front and rear verandahs with hat rooms; timber-framed and -clad construction; single classroom with lofty coved ceiling; and large banks of operable windows to the gable end walls, providing abundant natural light and ventilation to the interior.
\nThe Teachers Residence is a good, intact example of a DPW standard ‘Type 3’ residence and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the type. These include its: highset, hip roof with front gable form; timber-framed and -clad construction with single-skin verandah wall; L-shaped verandah; layout of living spaces and bedrooms; early timber joinery and linings; and setting in a house yard.
\nThe intact Playshed demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its: hip roof form with exposed timber framing supported on braced, timber posts; and adjacent open space.
|Blenheim State School has a strong and ongoing association with former pupils, parents, staff members, and its surrounding community, through sustained use since its establishment in the developing agricultural locality of Blenheim in 1879. Founded due to the efforts of the community, Blenheim State School is important for its contribution to the educational development of the Blenheim district as generations of children have been taught at the school, and as a focus and venue for the community for more than 140 years. The strength of association is demonstrated through repeated social interactions, volunteer actions, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650246,"name":"Drayton State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"55 Brisbane Street","suburb":"DRAYTON","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-02-28","description":"Drayton State School is a small school in the locality of Drayton, on the south-western fringe of Toowoomba. It occupies a large, gently sloping site, fronting Brisbane Street, the former main thoroughfare of the area. A complex of buildings stands on the eastern half of the site and a large playing field occupies the west.
\nThe features of Drayton State School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A, Department of Public Works Timber School with Two Clerestory Lights, 1912
\nBlock A (1912) stands at the eastern edge of the building complex and is surrounded by open space. It is a single-storey, highset, timber-framed and -clad teaching building with a gable roof. It faces southeast to the main road across a treed front garden. Offset from the rear of the building are retaining walls cut into the slope of the hill. The building has verandahs along the southeast (now enclosed) and northwest sides and accommodates two classrooms. It has large windows on its gable end walls (southwest and northeast), providing high levels of natural light and ventilation to the interior. Access to the first floor is via a single set of stairs to the southeast verandah, and by a walkway and second set of stairs to the northwest verandah.
\nFeatures of Block A of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGrounds and views
\nIn 2019 Block A remains in its original location, fronted by open garden and play space that was historically occupied by formal gardens.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nGrounds elements not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: other buildings, structures and sheds; retaining walls; playground equipment; benches; pathways; covered walkways; fences and gates; signage; flagpoles; garden beds; and all other trees and vegetation not previously mentioned.
","history":"Drayton State School (established 1851 as Drayton National School) is located in Drayton, a locality on the south-western fringe of Toowoomba, on the Darling Downs in southeast Queensland. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The school retains its Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School with Two Clerestory Lights (Block A: 1912), set in landscaped grounds with a school bell (1852, installed c1880), date palms (1932) and a Cape Chestnut tree (1956).
\nDrayton State School is sited within the traditional lands of the Western Wakka Wakka People. Pastoral settlement of the Darling Downs commenced in 1840, and c1842 Drayton (initially called The Springs) began as a camping site near the intersection of Eton Vale, Westbrook and Gowrie pastoral stations, for those travelling from the northern Darling Downs to Brisbane. The settlement became the district's social and commercial centre. Town allotments were surveyed in May 1849 and land on Darling Street (allotments 9 and 10 of section 4) was set aside for a national school.[1]
\nIn pre-separation Queensland, education was provided initially by fee-charging religious schools and private academies. The standard of education varied and most of these early schools were short-lived. They catered principally for children in the main population centres of Brisbane and Ipswich.[2] A more organised approach to education commenced with Governor Fitzroy’s appointment of a National Board of Education in 1848. Modelled on the Irish system, the purpose of the Board was to provide state-assisted secular, elementary education for as many children as possible, particularly in isolated areas. The Board established and administered schools where parents contributed one-third of the building costs and guaranteed an average attendance of at least 30 pupils.[3]
\nDrayton townsfolk met at the Bull’s Head Inn in 1848 to initiate the establishment of such a school. A school committee was elected and fund-raising for a building commenced. Application was made for a suitable site and a ‘mixed school’, to cost £150. Drayton National School opened, on a one acre (0.41ha) site within its current grounds, on 16 August 1851, with 15 girls and 9 boys enrolled. It was the second of two National Schools opened in pre-Separation Queensland. The school operated throughout the 1850s with enrolments ranging between 24 and 65 pupils; except in 1855 when it lacked a teacher and temporarily closed.[4]
\nFollowing separation of the Colony of Queensland from New South Wales (NSW) on 10 December 1859, the Queensland Government introduced the Education Act 1860, which created a Board of General Education to oversee the development and administration of all schools in the colony. Assuming control of existing national schools, the Board aimed to establish a system of national schools similar to the NSW model.[5] Despite minimal resources and a shortage of teachers, the number of public or national schools increased from four schools in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[6]
\nAlthough the settlement of Toowoomba, which had been surveyed as the Drayton Agricultural Reserve in 1849, overtook Drayton as the principal urban centre of the northern Darling Downs by Separation, Drayton continued to grow. It formed a municipal council in 1862 and became the administrative centre of Drayton Shire in 1887. The town’s population rose from 321 in1861 to 983 in 1891.[7]
\nConsequently, Drayton State School’s enrolments also increased, to about 200 pupils in 1878, requiring more accommodation and facilities, and enlargement of the school grounds for a head teachers residence.[8] By 1880, the school bell, reportedly donated by St Matthew’s Church of England, Drayton (1859) and dating from 1852 when it was installed at the parsonage, had been hung at the school.[9]
\nIn 1908, one acre (0.41ha) of adjacent land was purchased for the school and the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) decided to construct a modern school building on this more level site.[10] The head teachers residence and the land on which it stood was sold in 1908.[11]
\nThe new school building (Block A in 2019), was constructed by contractor, A Barr, for £866 and completed in 1912.[12] The design was a standard plan by the Department of Public Works.[13] The building was highset on timber stumps and comprised two open verandahs (10ft / 3.1m wide) on either side of a single classroom (24 x 50ft / 7.32 x 15.24m). Its gable roof, sheeted with corrugated iron, had two ridge ventilators and two centrally located clerestory (skillion dormer) windows, facing opposing directions. The external gable end walls were clad in weatherboards and contained large areas of windows arranged in three rows of eight narrow sashes, shaded by timber hoods. The verandahs had hat room enclosures at the southwest end and the verandah walls were left unclad, with framing and bracing exposed. The verandah walls featured centrally located double doors with fanlights, high-level windows, and hinged ventilation boards along the base of the walls.[14]
\nAccess was via sets of timber stairs to the centre of each verandah, with the front (southeast) steps running parallel to the verandah and the rear (northwest) steps arranged perpendicularly, comprising a walkway and short flight of steps to the higher ground at the rear. A spoon drain ran around the rear and sides of the building and the ground beneath the building was concreted.[15]
\nThe classroom had high coved ceilings lined with pressed metal, and timber tie rods were exposed. Walls were lined with vertical jointed (VJ), tongue and groove (T&G) boards which were originally left unpainted. Dual desks sufficient for 120 scholars were provided, and an early photograph shows a stove standing against one wall.[16]
\nBlock A reflected changes in school building design introduced early in the 20th century. In c1909 high-set timber buildings were introduced, providing better ventilation as well as additional teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a notable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. This type was introduced around 1909 and was constructed until approximately 1920.[17]
\nFrom around 1909, windows were rearranged and enlarged to provide a greater amount of gentle, southern light into the room and desks were rearranged so that the light would fall onto students’ left hand sides to avoid throwing shadows onto the pages, which presupposed that all students were right-handed. Windows were larger and sills were lowered to let in more light generally. Smaller classrooms were preferred as they were easier to light correctly. Interiors became lighter and airier and met with immediate approval from educationalists.[18] At Drayton State School, Block A’s clerestory windows were a recently introduced feature, designed to improve light and ventilation in the centre of the building, and were characteristic of the building type chosen for the school. The building was also constructed with a remodelled window scheme approved after the building’s design had been finalised. This was a new arrangement of casement, swing and hopper windows, with transom, to improve lighting.[19]
\nOn 6 July 1912, the Minister for Agriculture (Hon. J Tolmie) officially opened the building at Drayton State School on behalf of the Minister for Public Instruction (Hon. K M Grant).[20]
\nAfter World War I (WWI) there was a decline in Drayton’s population despite the opening of the Drayton rail line in May 1915, but community involvement in the school remained strong, with improvements to the school grounds being a focus.[21] An additional 2 roods (0.2ha) of land was added to the Drayton school grounds in 1922 (allotment 5 of section 4).[22] During the Depression, relief workers levelled the tennis court site,[23] and funds were raised for a windmill and bore to supply reticulated water for the school gardens.[24]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as playing fields and tennis courts. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890, and trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[25]
\nArbor Day was celebrated at Drayton State School from 1890. During the interwar period, Arbor Day plantings augmented a new garden scheme. The school’s grounds were re-organised through fortnightly working bees in 1931, which repaired the front fence, realigned the front gate to Brisbane Street, laid a new gravel path and created an elaborate garden of flower beds and lawn occupying the land in front of Block A. Massed rose beds surrounded a central flag pole while two massive rose pergolas stood at each end of the path leading from the front gate to the school steps. Arbor Day planting in 1932 added a row of palms (Phoenix sp.) bordering the front fence.[26]
\nIn the late 1930s the school acquired further land for its grounds. In 1936 the School Committee leased allotments 1-4 of section 4 from the Drayton Shire Council and used this land in conjunction with allotment 5 of section 4, as a football ground.[27] In 1938-9, Lots 1-4 and 6 of section 4 (one acre / 0.4ha each) were added to the school grounds.[28]
\nIn July 1935, Block A’s single classroom was partitioned to create two smaller classrooms, (27.5ft x 24ft / 8.38 x 7.32m and 22.3 ft x 24 ft / 6.8 x 7.32m), with desks rearranged so that daylight entered on the left hand side of students. A doorway was inserted in the northwest verandah wall to provide access to the smaller (southwest) classroom.[29] A glazed door in the centre of the partition allowed the Head Teacher to monitor both rooms.[30]
\nWith the threat to Australia from the commencement of the Pacific theatre of war during World War II, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools in January 1942, and although most schools reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance remained optional until the war ended.[31] Typically, schools were a focus for civilian duty during this war. At many schools, students and staff members grew produce and flowers for donation to local hospitals and organised fundraising and the donation of useful items to Australian soldiers on active service.[32] At Drayton State School, the garden maintained by the Poultry Raising and Vegetable Growing Project Club established c1934, was enlarged to become the ‘War Effort Vegetable Garden’.[33]
\nThe post-WWII era brought change to Drayton and its state school. In May 1949, Drayton was incorporated into the Greater Toowoomba Area and the Drayton Shire Council ceased to exist. In 1947, Drayton’s population was 443 – about the same as in 1921.[34]
\nEnhancements to the school grounds also took place. A pine lot was planted on 30 May 1951 on the Rudd Street side of the school grounds, but was later removed to form a playing field on the site. A Cape Chestnut tree (Calodendrum capense), planted near the Darling Street entrance by teacher Grace Earle in 1956 as part of Arbor Day celebrations, is still thriving in 2019.[35] In 1963, three acres (1.2ha) were added to the school grounds on the eastern side of Darling Street.[36] The school grounds comprised 2.93ha, spanning both sides of Darling Street.[37] The parade area and pathways from the roadway to the school entrance were bitumenised in August 1958.[38]
\nFurther changes to Block A were made in the post-WWII period. Between 1950 and 1960 the roof fleches were removed.[39] New hat and bag racks approved in October 1958 were added. Before 1960 a doorway to the southwest classroom was inserted in the southeast verandah wall.[40] In 1961, the southeast (front) verandah was enclosed, with weatherboards to sill height and awning windows above, to form a library, staffroom, and storeroom; and a glazed screen was also added to the northeast end of the northwest (rear) verandah.[41] Between 1960 and 1975 the timber stumps were replaced with masonry piers, and louvred walls were added to the understorey. Classroom ceilings were lowered and lined with flat sheeting (potentially leaving the original pressed metal ceiling above), the understorey was reconcreted, and concrete pathways added. The clerestory windows were removed after 1975, possibly when the roof was re-sheeted, which was a common alteration.[42] In 1984 the hat room on the northwest verandah was enclosed to form a store room, and a set of stairs to the understorey was inserted through the northwest verandah floor, leading to a new covered way to Block B. An access ramp was connected to the northwest verandah in c1997.[43]
\nIn the late 1960s and 1970s the school’s enrolments rose, requiring additional teachers and classroom accommodation, namely, Blocks B (c1969, extended c1976, c1978) and C (1992), and pre-school buildings.[44] Town water, sewerage and a new perimeter fence were also added in the 1960s.[45] More recently, other buildings have been added to the site.
\nDuring the 1970s extensive changes were made to the school grounds. In 1977, the front of the school was graded and all existing shrubbery removed, except the palm trees on the Brisbane Street boundary. Native trees and shrubs were planted in their place to create an ‘environmental garden’.[46] The tennis court was levelled and sealed in 1978.[47] In 1987, extensive levelling of the netball courts occurred, retaining walls were constructed, and landscaping performed.[48] The grounds were also increased by 0.84ha through addition of Lots 23-26 of Section 4, along Rudd Street in March 1978.[49]
\nBeginning with fundraising for its establishment, the school has been the focus and site of community interest and events throughout its history. It provided the venue for fetes and celebrations such as school anniversaries and Drayton’s welcome home to its soldiers returning from WWI. The community has supported the school through donations, organising and attending events, working bees, and School Committee and Parent & Citizens Committee membership.[50]
\nMilestones in the school’s history, including its 90th, 100th, and 125th anniversaries, which were celebrated with commemorative events, souvenirs and published school histories. In 1950, several hundred former pupils attended the celebration of the school’s 90th anniversary as a Queensland state school; a memorial plaque marking the entrance of the original school building was unveiled by Drayton School Committee president, W Peak;[51] and later that year, a Memorial to Steele Rudd was erected in the school grounds.[52] Centenary celebrations were held at the school in March 1960, attracting over 1000 people.[53] In 1975 the school commemorated its 125th anniversary celebrations with a ball, and an anniversary publication.[54] In 2001, an updated history of the school was published.[55]
\nBlock A is one of only two known buildings of its type that remain in the ownership of the Department of Education in 2019. The other building, at Bald Hills State School, has been heavily modified.[56]
\nIn 2019, Drayton State School continues to operate from its original, but expanded, site and has an enrolment of 282 pupils.[57] It retains its 1912 Timber School building and its 19th century school bell; set in landscaped grounds with mature trees and play areas. The school remains important to Drayton and its district, as a key social focus of the community.
","criteria":"Drayton State School (established as Drayton National School in 1851) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a good representative example of a standard government designed school building that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in landscaped grounds with provision of play areas and mature trees.
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School with Two Clerestory Lights (Block A: 1912), demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings designed by the Department of Public Works to provide abundant lighting and ventilation.
\nThe landscaped school grounds, with provision of play areas and mature trees, demonstrate educational philosophies that promoted the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Drayton State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include buildings constructed to standard government designs that incorporate understorey play areas, verandahs, and classrooms with high levels of natural light and ventilation; and a generous, landscaped site with mature trees and play areas. It is a good example of a small country school.
\nBlock A (1912) is a rare and intact example of a Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School with Two Clerestory Lights, with later alterations by the DPW. It is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type, which include: its highset, gable-roofed form; timber-framed and -clad construction with single-skin verandah walls; open understorey play space; verandahs on two sides, with hat rooms; large windows with hoods to gable end walls; high-level windows to verandah walls; hinged timber ventilation boards at floor level; doors; interior linings; and c1935 classroom partition.
|Drayton State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1851 in the small rural township. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of the Drayton community for more than 160 years, with generations of children taught at the school. Since its inception, Drayton State School has served as a venue for social interaction and community focus. The strength of the association is demonstrated through repeated local volunteer actions, donations, and more recently, an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650247,"name":"Mount Sylvia State School","alternate_name":"Mt Sylvia State School","street_address":"6 Left Hand Branch Road","suburb":"MOUNT SYLVIA","lga":"LOCKYER VALLEY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-02-28","description":"Mount Sylvia State School is a small country school occupying a long narrow 1.2ha site in Mount Sylvia, a locality near Gatton in the Lockyer Valley Region. It is surrounded by large agricultural fields and the site is on the corner of Mount Sylvia Road (the main thoroughfare) and Left Hand Branch Road. Tenthill Creek, a seasonal watercourse, runs along the school’s western side. The school boundaries are planted with large ornamental shade trees and the school buildings generally stand in a cluster near the centre of the site.
\nThe features of Mount Sylvia State School of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A, Department of Public Works Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent (1912)
\nBlock A stands toward the front of the cluster of school buildings, facing north across a long playing field fronting Mount Sylvia Road. It is a small, timber-framed and -clad, single-storey, highset teaching building, with verandahs front and back (north and south), and it accommodates a single classroom. Its understorey has a concrete floor and is mostly open for covered play space. The building has a gable roof that is continuous over the verandahs, and large banks of operable windows into the classroom on its east and west gable-end walls. The building retains the original hatrooms at the western end of both verandahs, and the lofty single-classroom volume with coved ceiling.
\nFeatures of Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLandscape Features
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nViews
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures Not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nBuildings and landscape features of Mount Sylvia State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\n
Mount Sylvia State School was established in 1885 as the Blackfellow Creek Provisional School. Situated approximately 20km south of Gatton in the Lockyer Valley, the school retains a good example of a standard design timber school building (Block A, 1912). The school is surrounded by open farmland, bordered by two creeks, Blackfellow and Tenthill, and within its generous grounds are several mature trees, including a row of jacaranda trees. The school has been in continuous operation since its establishment and has been a focus for the local community as a place of important social and cultural activity.
\nMount Sylvia forms part of the traditional land of the Yuggera Ugarapul People.[1] The Lockyer Valley was first explored by Europeans in the late 1820s. Pastoral runs were established in the Darling Downs in the 1840s with the Lockyer Valley following closely. The Tent Hill run initially covered an area of approximately 30,000 acres (12,140ha) and included the district now known as Mount Sylvia.[2] With the government’s introduction of the Alienation of Crown Lands Act 1868, to encourage smaller-scale farming, Tent Hill run was partially opened for closer settlement. Selections along Blackfellow Creek were swiftly taken up, largely by German immigrants, and by the late 1870s, the Mount Sylvia district had become one of the most productive agricultural areas in the Lockyer Valley.[3]
\nThe provision of state-administered education was important to the colonial governments of Australia. National schools, established in 1848 in New South Wales, were continued in Queensland following the colony’s creation in 1859. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1860, which established the Board of General Education and began standardising curriculum, training and facilities, Queensland’s national and public schools grew from four in 1860 to 230 by 1875.[4] The State Education Act 1875 provided for free, compulsory and secular primary education and established the Department of Public Instruction. This further standardised the provision of education, and despite difficulties, achieved the remarkable feat of bringing basic literacy to most Queensland children by 1900.[5]
\nThe establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[6]
\nIn 1884 residents of Mount Sylvia’s small farming community lobbied the Department of Public Instruction (the department) for the establishment of a provisional school. Provisional schools were seen as a convenient means of providing an elementary education throughout the colony and soon became an integral part of the educational landscape. A provisional school could be opened with as few as 15 (later 12) pupils. The Board of General Education gave financial assistance to local committees to set up and maintain these schools. The local committee provided a building (often slab and shingle) and found a teacher, and the Board paid the teacher’s salary relative to the number of pupils.[7]
\nThe two closest schools to Mount Sylvia were more than five miles (8km) away, a considerable distance for children to travel each day. One acre (0.4ha) of land with Left Hand Branch Road frontage and situated above the confluence of Blackfellow and Tenthill creeks, was donated to the community, and with the approval of the department, the first timber teaching building was constructed by the Mount Sylvia community. The modest school was opened in April 1885 with an enrolment of 33 students.[8]
\nWhen first opened, the school was named Blackfellow Creek Provisional School. The name was changed to Mount Sylvia, however, as it was thought it may cause confusion with the two other schools previously established along Blackfellow Creek. It is believed the name was derived from the Queen of Romania’s nom-de-plume, Sylvia. At the time, two of the school committee members were reading one of her books, and proposed the school name be changed to ‘Mount Sylvia school’, with the surrounding district subsequently becoming known as Mount Sylvia.[9]
\nThis school served the community well for the next ten years. However, as further land was made available for selection and more farms established in the district, the school’s enrolments increased and it soon became overcrowded. The department recognised this and in March 1894 tenders were called for the construction of a new school building for Mount Sylvia.[10] Following a visit to the newly completed school in April 1894, the district school inspector reported that the ‘new building measures 24 ft by 14 ft with a 7 ft verandah in front’ and with the inclusion of a tank and stand, had a total cost of £50.[11] Following the completion of the new teaching building, the old building was shifted on the site and modified to become the teachers residence.[12] The original teaching building faced west and overlooked the creek.
\nDue to the rudimentary state of the first teachers residence, a new residence was constructed in 1902, built at right angles to and behind the 1894 teaching building. The four-roomed house with front verandah faced north and had a semi-detached kitchen behind.[13] In 1909, additions to the rear of the residence were made by the department.[14]
\nAs early as 1898, the Mount Sylvia community was eager to have the provisional school upgraded to state school status. Enrolments had reached 80 students and overcrowding had become an issue.[15] In 1894, there were 55 farmers listed in the postal records at Mount Sylvia, and by 1913, there were 68.[16]
\nAs districts developed, the department would generally raise provisional schools to state school status, with purpose-designed school buildings and teacher’s residences attracting better qualified and more experienced teachers. In 1909, by lowering the required minimum average number of pupils for a state school from 30 to 12, the department upgraded the majority of provisional schools to state school status, gradually providing these schools with new standard buildings designed and constructed to government standards.[17]
\nInitially, the department was reluctant to grant this to Mount Sylvia, as the portion of land on which the school stood was too small for the department’s minimal standard size for a state school. In 1911, the school inspector reported that the current site of the school was a precarious one, as Blackfellow Creek increasingly encroached upon the school’s land following floods, and had eroded the steep embankment. It was recommended that an adjoining 3 acre (1.2ha) lot fronting the road to Gatton (known as Mt Sylvia Road in 2019) be acquired by the department at a cost of £30 per acre.[18] The department approved this and tenders were called in September 1911 for the construction of a new teaching building at Mount Sylvia.[19]
\nThe builder awarded the contract was Gatton builder, RGC Hamwoods, at a cost of £425.[20] A builders’ strike delayed construction work. In March 1912, Hamwoods wrote to the department informing them of the difficulty finding willing hands, ‘I will admit the timber has been ready for some time but during the time of the late strike I could not get any men to go out into the country, nor can I get them to go yet’.[21] Regardless of these setbacks, work progressed and the new teaching building had been completed by the end of September that year.
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.[22]
\nIn c1909 high-set timber buildings were introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. This was a noticeable new direction and this form became a characteristic of Queensland schools. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. This type was introduced around 1909 and was constructed until approximately 1920.[23]
\nAt the opening ceremony of the new teaching building in September 1912 (Block A in 2019), the progress of the prosperous farming district and the quality of the building was applauded by visiting dignitary, Reverend Hayley of Toowoomba. At the time, it was reported that ‘the main building measures 31ft by 20ft [9.4m x 6.1m], and is placed on high stumps, with spacious verandahs back and front. The lighting and ventilation of the school-room have been done on the most up-to-date lines, and all fittings and appointments are of the latest and best, the school being undoubtedly the finest of its size in the Lockyer.’[24]
\nThe 1894 teaching building was subsequently sold by the department to local farmer, Mr Reisenleiter, for £36 and removed from the school grounds.[25] In 1916, a new teachers residence was constructed at a cost of £399. This new and larger residence retained the original residence’s semi-detached kitchen wing (the residence is no longer extant on the site).[26]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds and Mount Sylvia was no exception. From the school’s beginnings, there had been a focus on sport and outdoor activities. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. From the late nineteenth century, the planting of trees in the school grounds was an important activity for the school community and students participated in Arbor Day celebrations, an annual event in Queensland since 1890. Aesthetically-designed gardens were encouraged by regional inspectors, and educators believed gardening and Arbor Days instilled in young minds the value of hard work and activity, improved classroom discipline, developed aesthetic tastes, and inspired people to stay on the land.[27]
\nAs an agricultural community, Mount Sylvia was an enthusiastic participant in Arbor Day celebrations. In 1890, the first at the school was held and it was reported that ‘about twenty trees’ had been planted in the school grounds.[28] Arbor Day became a major community event for Mount Sylvia. Each year, celebrations brought the district together for a day of sports and picnics, followed by a dance in the school building in the evening, ‘visitors simply poured in from the districts around, and it was a pleasure to note the hearty handshakes and welcoming smiles as old acquaintances were renewed.’[29] Over the years, a variety of trees were planted in the school grounds, including camphor laurels (Cinnamomum camphora), figs (Ficus spp) and jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia).[30]
\nFollowing the 1910 celebrations, it was noted that the jacarandas in the grounds afforded considerable shade, ‘a long programme of races for the children and games of all sorts made the morning pass quickly, the school grounds forming a natural race track, and being sheltered by a fine lot of jacaranda trees, outdoor amusements could be indulged in under ideal conditions.’[31] In 2019, the mature trees throughout the school grounds continue to add to the picturesque setting of the school.
\nDuring World War II, schools were typically a focus for civilian duty. With the entry of Japan into the war and the increased threat of enemy attack, the Queensland Government closed all coastal state schools between January and March 1942, and student attendance was optional until the war ended. At Mount Sylvia, slit trenches for protecting the students from Japanese air raids were dug in the school grounds, under the jacaranda trees.[32]
\nEnrolments remained steady in the post-war period. Following the closure of several primary schools in the district, however, and a subsequent increase in enrolments, a new teaching building, Block B, was constructed to the south of Block A in 1971. Block A was then used as a pre-school. In 1983, a modular building was constructed to the south of Block B.[33] Minor changes were made to Block A over time, including enclosing part of the southern verandah c1959 for a library, adding partitions to the interior c1970, and subsequently removing the partitions and enclosing the remainder of the southern verandah c1980.[34] In 2019 Block A is used as a classroom.
\nMount Sylvia State School, established in 1885, has played an important role in the Mount Sylvia district community, and continues to do so. In 1935, the school held its jubilee celebrations with several of the original pupils attending, and ten years later the school’s diamond jubilee was celebrated. The school’s history was compiled in three publications commemorating the school’s 85th, 100th and 125th anniversaries respectively. Generations of students have been taught at Mount Sylvia State School and many social events have been held in the school’s grounds and buildings since its establishment. The school continues to be a centre for social, sporting and community events.[35]
\n
Mount Sylvia State School, established in 1885, is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains a good, representative example of a standard government designed school building (Block A, 1912) that was an architectural response to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in large grounds with provision of sport and play areas, and mature trees.
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent (Block A, 1912) demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings to provide abundant lighting and ventilation to provide a superior educational environment for Queensland children.
\nThe large school grounds and its mature shade trees and open grassed playing field demonstrate the Queensland Government’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Mount Sylvia State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: a timber-framed teaching building constructed to standard design by the Queensland Government set in a generous landscaped site with mature trees and play areas. The school is a good example of a small country school.
\nBlock A is a good intact example of a standard Department of Public Works Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent and demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. These include its: highset form with gable roof; open understorey play space; front and rear verandahs with hatrooms; timber-framed and -clad construction; single classroom with lofty coved ceiling; and methods to provide abundant provision of natural light and ventilation to the interior including its roof fleche and hinged ventilation boards, large banks of operable windows, and ceiling vents.
|Mount Sylvia State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1885. With more than 130 years of association with the Mount Sylvia community, and generations of children taught at the school, the school reflects the strong community demand for state-run education.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650248,"name":"Wellcamp State School","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"609 Drayton-Wellcamp Road","suburb":"WELLCAMP","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-03-27","description":"Wellcamp State School occupies a 3.2ha, flat site in Wellcamp, a rural locality located on the western fringe of Toowoomba, approximately 10km west of Toowoomba central business district (CBD). The school faces north to Drayton-Wellcamp Road, with the site bounded on the west by Wellcamp-Westbrook Road, and the south and east by rural residential properties. The significant school buildings are located in the northwest corner of the site, prominently located near the road intersection.
\nThe heritage boundary incorporates the northwest corner of the school site (total area of 1.2ha). Features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock A: Department of Public Works Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent (1911)
\nBlock A is a highset, timber-framed and -clad teaching building with a gable roof continuous over front (north) and rear (south) verandahs. The verandahs have been partially enclosed and part of the north verandah wall has been removed. Access to verandahs is via front and rear stairs (the rear stair is centred on the south elevation; and the front stair has been relocated from the centre to the west end of the north elevation). The roof fleche has been removed.
\nThe interior comprises a single classroom, with large banks of operable windows in the gable ends providing abundant natural light and ventilation to the space.
\nThe understorey is partially enclosed and used as open play space.
\nFeatures of Block A also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Block A not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nBlock L: Late Open-air school building (1918, moved to Wellcamp State School c2005)
\nBlock L is a lowset, single storey, timber-framed and -clad former teaching building. The building has a gable roof and features separate skillion hoods running the length of the gable ends. The main access to the building is from the east elevation (where a swing door and wall sheeting have replaced the original sliding door), and a door has been added into the south elevation for staff access.
\nThe interior comprises a single former classroom space (now administration), with a coved ceiling and a large bank of north-facing windows.
\nFeatures of Block L also of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of Block L not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nLandscape Features
\nLandscape features of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of Wellcamp State School not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nWellcamp State School was established in 1899 as Wellcamp Provisional School in Wellcamp, a rural area 10 kilometres west of the centre of Toowoomba. It retains good examples of standard school architecture (Block A, 1911 and Block L, 1918), set within spacious grounds with mature trees, play areas, and sporting facilities. In continuous operation since its establishment, the school has been a focus for the surrounding community as a place of important social and cultural activity.
\nPart of the traditional land of the Western Wakka Wakka people, the locality of Wellcamp was once within Westbrook pastoral station, leased by John Campbell in 1841. By 1864, the future site of the school, on Portion 115, was located in the northwest corner of the Drayton Agricultural Reserve, declared in 1861.[1] Portion 115, of 40 acres (16.2ha), was purchased by Mary McCleverty in December 1867, and by 1881 it was owned by James Paterson.[2] From the late 19th century, the district was used for dairy farming and agriculture.
\nWellcamp was established c1866 as ‘Williams’ Camp’, the main railway construction camp for the 47 mile (75.6km) section of the Warwick (later the Southern) Railway, between Gowrie Junction and Hendon. Located on Portion 113, east of Portion 115, the construction camp was named after Daniel Williams, the contractor for the section. Bisected by the railway line, Portion 113 later became the site of a railway station.[3] The Southern Railway was opened (through Williams Camp) to Hendon on 11 March 1869; to Warwick on 9 January 1871; Stanthorpe in 1881, and Wallangarra in 1887.[4]
\nThe name ‘Williams’ Camp’ was replaced by ‘Wellcamp’ c1878; apparently because there was a well at the construction camp.[5] A number of facilities were erected at or near the Wellcamp railway station over time, including a cottage for the gatekeeper, a station building, weighbridge and goods shed (c1883), loop siding, stockyards and loading bank; the Wellcamp Hotel (1908); and a small cheese factory (1917, extant 2019).[6]
\nDue to closer settlement in the Wellcamp district after the railway opened, the population increased and there was a need for a school. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Locals often donated land and labour for a school’s construction and the school community contributed to maintenance and development. Schools became a community focus, a symbol of progress, and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents, and teachers.[7]
\nTo help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed, an easy and cost-effective approach that also enabled the government to provide facilities in remote areas. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation.[8]
\nAn important component of Queensland state schools was their grounds. The early and continuing commitment to play-based education, particularly in primary school, resulted in the provision of outdoor play space and sporting facilities, such as ovals and tennis courts. Also, Trees and gardens were planted to shade and beautify schools. Arbor Day celebrations began in Queensland in 1890.[9]
\nThe first school at Wellcamp, located less than one kilometre west of the railway station, was a provisional school. These were provided where student numbers were insufficient to justify a state school. A committee was formed in July 1898, at a meeting in the railway gatekeeper’s cottage, to obtain a school. The school’s site, 1 acre (0.4ha) of Portion 115, was purchased from James Paterson for £5 and transferred to the Secretary for Public Instruction in January 1899.[10] Wellcamp Provisional School opened with 27 students on 27 February 1899, and its opening was celebrated with an Arbor Day picnic in May 1899. The timber school building was lowset, with a verandah at the rear.[11] In 1903, two more acres (0.8ha) of Portion 115 were added to the school grounds, although title for this land was not transferred until 1936.[12]
\nThe first school building quickly became the centre of Wellcamp’s social life, as a venue for dances, and meetings of organisations, including a committee in support of extending a telephone line from Toowoomba to Wellcamp, and farmers interested in forming a local dairy company. It was not the only local dance venue, however; in 1903 a concert and dance was also held at the railway goods shed, to raise funds for the school.[13]
\nIn May 1909, when it had 43 pupils, Wellcamp Provisional School became Wellcamp State School.[14] A teacher’s residence was moved from New Farm State School in 1910, and positioned to the east of Wellcamp’s teaching building. The original school building was then replaced in 1911, when enrolments totalled 63. Erection of the new building was approved in May 1911, with the local community to pay a fifth of the cost. The tender of A Barr, for £577 and 16s, was accepted in October 1911.[15] A dance was held in the completed school building in March 1912.[16]
\nThe new school building (Block A in 2019) was a standard type designed by the Department of Public Works (DPW): a Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent.[17] From 1893 the DPW greatly improved the natural ventilation and lighting of classroom interiors, experimenting with different combinations of roof ventilators, ceiling and wall vents, larger windows, dormer windows and ducting. Achieving an ideal or even adequate level of natural light in classrooms, without glare, was of critical importance to educators. In c1909 highset timber buildings were introduced, providing better ventilation as well as further teaching space and a covered play area underneath. A technical innovation developed at this time was a continuous ventilation flap on the wall at floor level. This hinged board could be opened to increase air flow into the space and, combined with a ceiling vent and large roof fleche, improved internal air quality and decreased internal temperatures effectively. This type was introduced around 1909 and was constructed until approximately 1920.[18]
\nBlock A was a highset timber-framed and -clad building with a gable roof, clad in corrugated iron. It had 8ft (2.4m) wide verandahs to the front (north) and rear (south), each accessed by a centrally located staircase, in line with sets of double doors to the single classroom, which was 31ft by 20ft (9.4m by 6.1m). The interior had abundant natural light and ventilation. Large banks of operable windows in the east and west gable walls, shaded by window hoods, and sets of highset operable windows in the south wall, shaded by the verandah, provided ample light and air. This ventilation was augmented by hinged timber boards in the verandah walls at floor level, and two vents in the lofty coved ceiling connected to a roof fleche. According to the plan drawn by DPW, hat rooms were proposed for the west end of both verandahs. The building was clad with weatherboards, except for the walls to the verandahs, which were single skin with framing exposed externally, and the interior walls and ceiling were lined with v-jointed tongue and groove boards.[19]
\nBlock A was immediately used for community purposes, including a banquet in honour of the President of the Queensland Farmer’s Union; a lecture on cheese factories; and dances in aid of school funds and the Toowoomba Ambulance Fund. Entertainment was also provided for Captain Jack Brown of the Australian Light Horse, while he was home on leave in October 1917.[20] A fete and sports carnival was held at the school in October 1925, the same month that the Federal Attorney General, Sir Littleton Groom, addressed voters at the school. The Wellcamp Queensland Country Women’s Association also used the school for meetings in the 1930s.[21] Arbor Days continued to be a social event for the community, with picnic lunches and plantings. The school’s 50th Jubilee was celebrated on 23 February 1949, with a large crowd on the grounds.[22]
\nAfter Block A was constructed, decades passed with few changes to the fabric of the single-classroom school. In 1914, approval was given to enclose underneath Block A on two sides, and in 1916 a storeroom was built under the southwest corner (this area is still enclosed in 2019). Permission to build a tennis court (located between Block A and the residence) was given in 1920, and the teacher’s residence was removed in 1928. The hat room at the west end of the rear verandah was incorporated into a storeroom in 1961. Enrolments were low in the post-World War II period (18 pupils in 1946; 25 in 1957), and by the 1960s the school still only consisted of Block A, with a number of mature plantings around the perimeter of the north end of the school, including Pepperina trees (Schinus molle). These trees’ branches were sometimes used for disciplinary purposes. A Parents and Citizens Association was formed in 1965.[23]
\nBy this time, the railway line from Gowrie Junction to Wyreema, through Wellcamp, had closed. When the route to Warwick was shortened in 1915 with the opening of a new railway line from Toowoomba to Wyreema via Drayton, traffic on the old line fell dramatically. The Gowrie Junction to Wyreema section finally closed on 1 December 1959, by which time Wellcamp Station had already been dismantled. [24]
\nIn the 1960s, the district was still dominated by dairy farms, with milk being supplied to the Toowoomba Unity factory. However, from the 1970s dairy farming declined, being replaced by beef cattle and grain crops, while subdivision patterns also changed. The opening of the Gainsborough Lodge horse stud nearby brought new families into the area, and enrolments at Wellcamp State School rose from 27 in 1973, to 40 in 1975, and 46 in 1983. The school celebrated its 75th jubilee on 23 February 1974.[25]
\nAs a result of increased enrolments, the grounds were expanded and new buildings were added to the school from the late 1970s. Five acres (2ha) of land was purchased at the southeast corner of the school c1980, creating the current ground size of 8 acres (3.2ha).[26] New buildings included a modular classroom building (Block B in 2019), erected northeast of Block A in 1977, and a new toilet block and septic system was installed south of the school buildings in 1978, replacing the previous Earth Closets. In the late 1970s, a new tennis court was formed on the former site of the teacher’s residence, and later a concrete block shelter shed (Block M) and a storeroom were added nearby. An adventure playground was built in 1986, and a practice cricket wicket, and a covered walkway between the school buildings and the toilets, were added in 1988. A building (Block D) was moved to the school, opening in 1994 as a ‘community room’, located south of Block A; and a shed was added south of the toilets by 1998. [27] Block R was added north of Block B c2009-11, and a new tennis court was built in the southwest corner of the school c2013-16, when Block N was built on the southern end of the 1970s tennis court.[28]
\nAlterations to Block A also occurred from the 1970s. In 1973, the P&C requested the enclosure of the rear verandah, although this was deferred due to restumping and concreting under the school. The majority of the front verandah of Block A was enclosed for a library in 1976, with the stairs moved to the west end of the verandah. The building was reroofed in 1982, and in 1983 permanent seating and a storage shed were approved for underneath the building. A health room existed on the rear verandah, east of the central stairs, by 1983. In 1999, a store room wall was removed from the west end of the rear verandah, and the remainder of the verandah west of the health room (an office by 1998) was enclosed as a Practical Learning Area, with new rear stairs and landing. By this time Block A’s banks of windows in the gable end walls had been replaced within the original openings.[29] After 2006, a suspended ceiling was added to the classroom space; but there is no evidence that the original coved ceiling, lattice ceiling vents and metal tie rods have been removed.[30]
\nIn c2005-6, another early DPW-designed building, Block L, was added to the school, just northwest of Block A.[31] Small and lowset, it was a late version of an ‘open-air’ building, originally constructed in 1918 for Tangkam State School (1918-61), southwest of Oakey.[32]
\nOpen-air school buildings were introduced as a standard design in 1913. This was developed in response to contemporary medical concern for child health and, under the direction of the newly-appointed Medical Inspector of Schools, Dr Eleanor Bourne, the relationship between classroom environment and child health was given importance. Dr Bourne advocated abundant ventilation and high levels of natural light in classrooms. Open-air school buildings achieved maximum ventilation and natural light, having full height walls only on the west side, and half off the south side, of the building. The other sides were partly open, enclosable with canvas blinds. However, this proved to provide limited weather protection and climate control, and the canvas blinds deteriorated quickly. Consequently, later open-air school buildings were designed with fixed and sliding windows instead of blinds, and a sliding door on the south side. Late Open-air school buildings were discontinued in 1923, and all earlier examples in Queensland were modified to replace their blinds with windows. [33]
\nThe building at Wellcamp State School is a Late Open-air School Building. As a variant within this type, it was designed with a gable roof instead of the usual hipped roof, and louvered vents and shingle cladding at its gable ends.[34] At Wellcamp, its original west wall faces south. At some point the doorway configuration of the building was altered; the sliding door at the east end was replaced with a swing door and wall sheeting, while the door at the west end was removed, and a new door was added on the south side. The shingles at the apex of the west gable end survive in 2019. Block L is rare as one of only two known extant examples of the Late Open-air type in Queensland, and the only one with a gable roof with louvered vents and shingles.[35]
\nIn 2019, Wellcamp State School continues to operate from its 1899 site. It retains its two early standard buildings (Block A and Block L), set in grounds with a playing field and mature shade trees. The school has played an important role in the Wellcamp and district community and continues to do so.
\n
Wellcamp State School (established as Wellcamp Provisional School in 1899) is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture in Queensland. The place retains good representative examples of standard government designs that were architectural responses to prevailing government educational philosophies, set in large grounds with provision of sport and play areas, and mature trees.
\nThe Department of Public Works (DPW) Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent (Block A, 1911) demonstrates the evolution of timber school buildings to provide abundant lighting and ventilation.
\nThe Late Open-air School Building (Block L, 1918, originally from Tangkam State School, relocated to Wellcamp c2005) demonstrates medical and educational theories of the period, which valued fresh air.
\nThe large school grounds and its mature shade trees and open grassed playing field demonstrate the Queensland Government’s recognition of the importance of play and aesthetics in the education of children.
|Block L, a Late Open-air School Building, is rare as one of only two known extant examples of its type in Queensland.
|Wellcamp State School is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland state school. These include: timber-framed buildings constructed to standard designs by the Queensland Government; and generous, landscaped sites with mature shade trees, and play areas. The school is a good example of a small, country school.
\nBlock A is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, a Department of Public Works Timber School Building with Fleche and Floor Vent. Its integrity is demonstrated by its highset form with gable roof; open understorey play space; front and rear verandahs with hatrooms; timber-framed and -clad construction; single classroom; and methods to provide abundant provision of natural light and ventilation to the interior including its hinged ventilation boards and large banks of operable windows.
\nBlock L is a rare surviving example of a Late Open-air School Building, and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type. These include: its lowset form on stumps; timber-framed construction; single classroom space with timber sliding and fixed windows providing abundant natural light and ventilation to the interior; V-jointed (VJ) timber board cladding; and (evidence of) a large sliding door in one end wall. As a gable-roofed variant of a Late Open-air School Building, it also retains louvre vents in the gable ends, and a shingled gable.
|Wellcamp State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in 1899, when it was founded due to a strong community demand for state-run education. The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Wellcamp, with generations of children taught at the school, and its service as a prominent venue for social interaction and community focus. After its establishment, the school quickly became the centre of the community’s social life; and the strength of this association has continued to be demonstrated for more than 120 years through repeated volunteer action, donations, and an active Parents and Citizens Association.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650249,"name":"US Army Radio Receiving Station (former)","alternate_name":"Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) Facility | Capalaba Receiving Station","street_address":"362-388 Old Cleveland Road East","suburb":"BIRKDALE","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-06-26","description":"The US Army Radio Receiving Station (Former) comprises two small buildings standing in a clearing and a radio aerial array in a large, lightly-forested area in Birkdale, 18.5km east of Brisbane CBD. Accessed via Old Cleveland Road East, the main thoroughfare of the suburb, the buildings are reached via an access road through the forest. The clearing is rectangular, approximately 4250m2, and the buildings stand in its centre. The radio aerial array stands approximately 120m to the northeast within the forest.
\nFeatures of the US Army Radio Receiving Station (Former) of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nReceiving Station Building
\nThe Receiving Station Building is a one-storey, low-set face brick building with a gable roof. It is long and narrow and its long sides face northwest and southeast. On all sides are a series of openings for windows and doors with a large loading door in the northeast wall. A low-height sub-floor space with a dirt floor is accessed from the southwest end of the building.
\nThe building includes a variety of techniques to passively boost natural ventilation of the large Equipment Room, which accommodated banks of large, heat-producing machines. While all original equipment has been removed, the original layout is intact and the original functions remain legible.
\nFeatures of the Receiving Station Building of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Receiving Station Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nGenerator Shed
\nThe Generator Shed is a small, square, one-storey concrete slab-on-ground outbuilding with a skillion roof. It stands to the northeast of the Receiving Station Building and the service yard. It has large double doors facing the service yard on its south-western side and accommodates a single room formerly for a generator, which has been removed. On its southeast side are concrete pad supports that originally held a metal fuel drum to power the generator.
\nFeatures of the Generator Shed of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Generator Shed not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nClearing
\nThe Receiving Station Building and the Generator Shed stand in a gently sloping clearing in the forest. The Access Road terminates at a service yard between the two buildings. The remainder of the Clearing is open and grassed.
\nFeatures of the Clearing of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Clearing not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nRhombic Radio Aerial Array
\nThe Rhombic Radio Aerial Array stands to the northeast of the clearing, within the forest. It comprises four tall metal masts in a stretched (kite-shaped) rhombus formation. The array is large, encompassing an area of approximately 9000m2 (approx. 220m from top to bottom masts and 80m from side to side masts) and it is oriented with its acute points approximately northwest and southeast (top and bottom masts). Originally in the large cleared field across the whole site, the array is now surrounded by a young regrowth forest.
\nThe masts are circular hollow section steel posts that diminish in circumference as they rise and include a ladder of steel foot pegs. They stand on concrete footings and are stayed by wire cables with concrete footings. A wire cable runs around three sides of the perimeter of the rhombus, connecting the tops of the masts (the wire on the fourth side is not extant).
\nA cleared, straight path leads from the centre of the array through the forest to the clearing. Along it runs a line of short metal posts with concrete footings supporting a cable at their top.
\nFeatures of the Rhombic Radio Aerial Array of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Rhombic Radio Aerial Array not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nAccess Road
\nThe long Access Road runs from Old Cleveland Road East through the light forest to the Radio Receiving Station clearing. It is the only road access.
\nFeatures of the Access Road of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFeatures of the Access Road not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe US Army Radio Receiving Station (Former), comprising two small buildings and the location of a rhombic radio aerial array in a large, lightly-forested property is located in the suburb of Birkdale, approximately 18.5km southeast of Brisbane CBD. Originally farmland, the site was requisitioned by the United States of America (US) Army during World War II (WWII) for the establishment of a vital radio receiving station. Constructed in early 1943 by the US Signal Corps (Signal Corps), it became an integral part of the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) Campaign General Headquarters’ communications network, under the direction of US Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur. As part of the then technologically advanced global Army Command and Administration Network (ACAN), the US Army Radio Receiving Station was one of the main centres for radio communications during the South West Pacific campaign. The station worked in conjunction with the Hemmant Transmitting Station, located 9km northwest. At war’s end, the Commonwealth’s Post Master General’s Department (PMG) took over the station. It continued to be used as a radio receiving and frequency testing facility until its closure in 2017.
\nBirkdale, originally part of Capalaba, is part of the traditional land of the Quandamooka People.[1] One of the first places in the Moreton Bay district where country land was sold after Separation was the locality of Capalaba. Although situated several miles southeast of Brisbane, it was close to Cleveland, the once-favoured port for the colony. Due to its fertile agricultural land, it was swiftly settled. A mail service from Brisbane to Cleveland commenced in 1861 and the town of Tingalpa was surveyed on the Brisbane side of Tingalpa Creek in 1863. The land on which the receiving station was eventually established was part of James Willard’s 1860s selection. This land was bounded by Tingalpa Creek on the west and by the Cleveland road on the east. Over the years, the property had several owners including Rosemary and Doug Cotton, who purchased the property in 1941.[2]
\nAlthough WWII started in September 1939, Australia was under little threat of air attack until late 1941. On 8 December 1941, the United States of America entered the war, following the previous day’s bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. Simultaneously, Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) raised fears of air attacks on Australia. The first Japanese air raid on Darwin occurred on 19 February 1942; Broome, in Western Australia, was attacked on 3 March 1942. Japanese air raids on other targets in Australia seemed likely, and an invasion of Australia was feared.[3]
\nAfter the first US forces arrived in Brisbane in the Pensacola Convoy on 22 December 1941, the city became a major supply base and staging point for the war in the South West Pacific. In January 1942, Brisbane became Base Section 3 of the US Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA). After General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, SWPA, arrived in Brisbane in July 1942, the city also hosted his General Headquarters in the AMP building at the corner of Queen and Edward streets [QHR 600147]. General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander Allied Land Forces, had his Advanced Land Headquarters at the University of Queensland, St Lucia [QHR 601025]. Queensland played a major role in the build-up of troops and supplies for the joint US-Australian counter-offensive in New Guinea, which occurred after the Japanese advance was checked at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda track (August-September 1942).[4]
\nPrior to the United States’ entry in the war, the Signal Corps had been developing a technologically advanced global signal beltline to enable secure communications to be sent to bases throughout the world quickly and reliably.[5] The Army Command and Administrative Network, ACAN, was developed in Washington DC by the Signal Corps Army Communications Service. Previously, the main means of signal communication was by Morse code, which was slow and labour intensive.[6] ACAN used high-speed radio signal transmission over multiple channels, which could send and receive large volumes of military messages to stations established throughout the world.[7] At the centre of ACAN was the Message Centre in Washington, station WAR. With the US entry in the war, work on the global network of stations was swiftly undertaken by the Signal Corps. By mid-1943 major ACAN stations had been established in San Francisco, London, Algiers, Accra, Cairo, Asmara, New Delhi, Hawaii, and Brisbane.[8] Linked to this network were smaller stations radiating radio or wire communications to every outlying command post. Major ACAN stations could make contact with remote areas of the conflict quickly, securely and reliably.[9] At the time, ACAN was hailed ‘the greatest unified military communications system ever developed’, and only the US Army had it.[10]
\nCentral to ACAN was the use of semi-automatic radioteletype machines. These machines revolutionised signal communications. By using high-powered, single-sideband transmitters (another innovation), messages could be sent and received between ACAN stations. The message was typed on a keyboard that produced a print out of the message while a tape was perforated with the cryptic message, fed into an enciphering machine and on to the radio transmitter. The message was then sent via powerful radio waves to the receiving point, where a second teletype machine automatically enciphered the message onto perforated tape. The last step of the process automatically printed the message on a sheet of paper. The system was capable of sending one message to multiple ACAN stations, as well as being able to send multiple messages out simultaneously on the one channel. It was fast, reliable and most importantly, secure. This technology also enabled teletypewriter conferences between major command centres. With the use of a projection screen, the typed incoming message could be displayed to a group within a room, who could then respond immediately. In 1944, a round-the-world message was recorded as taking only 3.5 minutes.[11]
\nThe ACAN network established major stations on an equatorial beltline, which included the United States, Australia, China, India, Africa, and the Middle East. This was deemed preferable to stations closer to the poles, where magnetic interference weakened radio waves. Following the loss of the Philippines’ Manila ACAN station (WTA) in early 1942, Australia’s first ACAN station was installed in Melbourne, where General Headquarters, South West Pacific was initially established. By June 1942, plans for the relocation of the ACAN station from Melbourne (Base Section 4) to Brisbane (Base Section 3), and the establishment of the Capalaba receiving station were underway.[12] Soon after, the Brisbane station, WVJJ (later WTO) replaced Melbourne’s station, WTJJ.[13]
\nBase Section 3 headquarters was swiftly established at Somerville House [QHR 600305], a requisitioned private girls’ school in South Brisbane. A central ACAN station was installed to ultimately link all communication signal lines in Brisbane, including secret military intelligence, to General MacArthur’s headquarters in the city. Once all the Brisbane ACAN stations were complete, MacArthur had direct, swift and secure communication with Washington DC and other major international ACAN stations.[14]
\nConducive to clearer reception, ACAN stations were generally built on swampy ground that provided an earth mat for antennas. Ideally, the stations were constructed well away from built-up areas to limit signal interference.[15] In the Brisbane area, several sites were requisitioned by the US Army for the ACAN network. Land at Capalaba (now Birkdale), Redland Bay, Hemmant and Rocklea was chosen. The majority of land on what was known as Willard’s farm, at Capalaba, was requisitioned by the US Army in 1942 for the establishment of the Capalaba receiving station. The site was relatively isolated and swampy, with Tingalpa Creek as the western boundary.
\nBy mid-1943 the Australian network had been completed, with the major receiving station at Capalaba, the major transmitting station at Hemmant, another transmitting station established at the Redland Bay Golf Club (the first transmitting station before the station at Hemmant was built), and another receiving and transmitting station on Oxley Creek at Rocklea.[16] Brisbane became the ‘nerve centre of the Southwest Pacific ACAN system’.[17]
\nThe brick receiving station building and generator shed at Capalaba had been completed in early 1943 with the radio equipment fully installed and operated by the US Signal Corps’ 832d Signal Service Company.[18] Some of the station’s equipment, including the aerial poles, was manufactured in Australian factories.[19] The Allied Works Council were responsible for the construction of the brick building, the generator shed, the access road and the water supply.[20]
\nThe austere brick building was designed with reinforced brick walls and concrete lintels that could withstand a bomb blast. Internally, the building was divided into two sections by a brick firewall with metal door, in anticipation of an attack. The equipment room with wide entrance door was situated at the eastern end of the building. The western part of the building held the kitchen, lavatory, bedroom and office and a further communications equipment room. Cables ran underneath the building, and in the eastern Equipment Room they ran within cable cavities in the concrete slab, accessed by a series of trapdoors. The small generator shed located to the east of the receiver station building held a Cummins diesel generator to be used if the main power supply was lost. The entrance to the facility was via a long access road from Old Cleveland Road (Old Cleveland Road East in 2020) where a guardhouse and gate was situated (no longer extant). The 630m-long access road ensured the facility was isolated and could only be accessed by authorised personnel.[21]
\nEssential to the ACAN network were the powerful antennas used to transmit and receive communications. The Signal Corps used Rhombic aerials, the most effective at the time, which could send and receive radio waves over very large distances. These aerials consisted of four high poles, up to 100ft (30m) tall, positioned far apart in open land and connected by wires to form a diamond shape. Each one was angled toward an overseas station, for example to San Francisco (station WVY).[22] At Capalaba, initially six Rhombic aerials were installed around the open paddocks, as well as several smaller, less powerful aerials known as double doublet aerials.[23] As the war in the Pacific intensified and the Allied forces progressively gained ground over the Japanese, an increased number of command posts were established, each connected to the ACAN network. Improvements in radio equipment at Capalaba in early 1943 also intensified the amount of communications able to be received. It was estimated that in late 1942 Brisbane received 100,000 groups per day. By early 1943, this had risen to 250,000.[24]
\nThe Capalaba station was one of the most important receiving stations in the ACAN network as it was the direct line from Washington DC to SWPA headquarters, where messages were received within minutes of being sent. From Washington, messages were sent via wire cable to San Francisco and then by radio transmission across the ACAN network direct to Capalaba. The received messages were then sent to Base Section 3 headquarters and ultimately to General MacArthur’s headquarters, ‘Commanders separated by oceans and continents could exchange questions and answers instantaneously, deciding major problems in a matter of minutes’.[25] By mid-1943, Capalaba was receiving eight command and administrative circuits from San Francisco, Hawaii, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and the China-Burma-India theatre (CBI).[26]
\nMessages received at the Capalaba station and sent to Base Section 3 headquarters were not sent via radio waves, but by wire cable. In August 1942, at the urgent request of the US Army, the PMG constructed a direct cable line from the Capalaba station site to Base Section 3 headquarters.[27] Further installations were also installed at the transmitting stations at Redland Bay and Hemmant for an initial cost of £12,000.[28]
\nSecure telephone communications between SWPA headquarters, Washington DC and other command centres was critical. By 1943, the Signal Corps, based on technology recently invented by the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York, had developed a ground-breaking communications system known as SIGSALY. This secret system encrypted conversations between command centres, including SWPA headquarters (where the equipment was installed in the basement of the AMP building). SIGSALY ensured complete security and pioneered digital transmission and pulse code modulation. [29] The Capalaba receiving station played an integral role in the SIGSALY system as it received the encrypted conversations and relayed them to General Headquarters.[30]
\nThe US Army continued to operate the receiving station at the end of the war. The other receiving/transmitting station at Rocklea had been vacated in July 1945, followed soon after by the transmitting station at the Redland Bay Golf Course. Neither station remains. The Hemmant transmitting station was transferred to the PMG and continued to be used as a radio station until sold to private owners in the 1980s, who converted it into a house.[31]
\nAfter the war, negotiations were undertaken by PMG to acquire the Capalaba station, which had been leased by the US Army. The PMG purchased the station building, the equipment and the aerials from the US Army.[32]
\nAdditionally, the PMG intended to compulsorily acquire the majority of the farmland for communications purposes.[33] After lengthy discussions with the owners, the Cottons, the PMG acquired approximately 159 acres (62ha), being most of Portions 46 and 41, and subdivisions 1 and 2 of Portion 42. The Cottons were compensated £2000 by the Government.[34] By late 1946, the US Army had left the Capalaba station.
\nThe station was then occupied by both the PMG’s Engineering branch and its Wireless branch. The work carried out at the station was to monitor radio signals to ensure the clarity of both civil and emergency services’ radio frequencies. This important work was carried out by the PMG until 1975 when telephone, radio and television broadcasting was taken over by Telecom.[35] As radio technology advanced throughout these years, the equipment within the station, as well as the numerous aerials planted throughout the site, was replaced or upgraded. Within the receiving station building the original equipment room was divided into smaller spaces by partition walls.
\nIn 2005, the site was transferred to the newly-named Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, which operated the site until its closure in 2017. The majority of equipment was removed from the station at this time. The Cummins diesel generator was also removed from the generator shed. In 2019, the site was sold to the Redland City Council and the buildings remain empty in 2020.
","criteria":"The US Army Radio Receiving Station (Former), built 1943, is a rare, representative surviving example of a military communications facility established as part of the United States of America (US) Army Communications Administration Network (ACAN) during World War II (WWII). It is important in demonstrating the central role Queensland played as a military communications centre during WWII. The receiving station was vital to the South West Pacific campaign as it provided fast, direct, and secure communication to General Headquarters in Brisbane, from overseas command posts.
|The US Army Radio Receiving Station (Former) is rare as one of two purpose-built ACAN stations in Queensland and is the most intact and distinctive example.
|The US Army Radio Receiving Station (Former) is an intact and rare example of a WWII ACAN radio receiving station in Queensland. Purpose-built, in its form, materials and layout it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including its: remote secured location with access via a guarded private road; situated away from built up areas and on swampy ground conducive to good radio reception via large rhombic radio aerial arrays; utilitarian building robustly built to withstand attack; provision of large equipment and communications rooms and domestic quarters, arranged to isolate functions; high levels of natural ventilation to primary equipment room; wide entrance doors to allow access for large radio equipment; and a generator shed for backup power.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650250,"name":"Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre","alternate_name":"Mackay War Memorial Swimming Pool","street_address":"2 Milton Street","suburb":"MACKAY","lga":"MACKAY REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-06-26","description":"The Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre (1963) occupies a large site at the western edge of the Mackay central business district. It addresses a main thoroughfare, Milton Street, to the east and is bounded by Victoria Street to the north, undeveloped land to the west, and Gordon Street, a major entry point to the city centre, to the south.
\nThe features of state-level cultural heritage significance within the complex are:
\nThe Entrance Building stands near the centre of the Milton Street boundary, with the Plant Building located to its north. The Olympic-sized 50m Swimming Pool is located immediately behind the Entrance and Plant buildings, and the curvilinear Wading Pool to the southwest of the Entrance Building. Between the pools and the Entrance Building are formal landscaped lawns, garden beds and paths. To the south, west and north of the pools are open lawns and a variety of mature trees, including rows of palms around the perimeter.
\nEntrance Building (1963)
\nThe Entrance Building is a long, single-storey, brick and concrete building with a butterfly roof. It has an expressive, mid-century modern style featuring angled walls and contrasting use of materials. It has high levels of natural ventilation provided by bands of high-level, fixed, horizontal concrete fins along the east and west walls.
\nThe plan is largely symmetrical, and contains a central entrance, offices and refreshment kiosk, with changing room wings on either side (male changing rooms to the north and female to the south). Angled walls in the main entrance foyer direct patrons towards the changing rooms, which are accessed through built-in metal turnstiles. Each changing room wing contains a shower block near the centre of the building, a changing area with open roof in the middle, and toilets at the far ends of the building. The refreshment kiosk faces the pool area and is accessed through the central office.
\nFeatures of the Entrance Building of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Entrance Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nWar Memorial Mural and Plaque (1963)
\nSet into the front wall of the Entrance Building on the south side of the main entrance is a large, rectangular mural constructed from a mosaic of square glass tiles. It has a grey border, edged in black, containing the words ‘DEDICATED TO THE FALLEN OF MACKAY AND DISTRICT’ in the top panel and ‘LEST WE FORGET’ in the bottom panel. The side panels have brass wreaths attached. The central image is a landscape scene featuring stylized depictions of three Australian servicemen (representing the navy, army and air force), a Lancaster Bomber plane, a battleship, a submarine, an Owen submachine gun, a Christian cross, a dove, and the Southern Cross. In the background, light and medium blue tiles represent the sky and sea respectively, yellow tiles a ray of sunlight, and green tiles the hills of New Guinea.
\nOn the opposite side of the main entrance is a rectangular brass plaque signed by the mayor, J Binnington, commemorating the official opening of the Memorial Swimming Centre by the Hon. CW Davidson OBE on 14 December 1963.
\nEntrance Building exterior landscaping (1963)
\nAdjoining the east and west sides of the Entrance Building are original landscaping elements.
\nFeatures of the Entrance Building landscaping of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Entrance Building landscaping not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nPlant Building (1963)
\nThe Plant Building has a complementary aesthetic to the Entrance Building and stands on a similar street front alignment. The entrance is through a recessed doorway in the centre of the south elevation, and non-significant additions have been made to the western side. The interior comprises a large main room with two smaller side rooms, one of them a former shower; and two open-roofed filter bed compartments, accessed from above by a hatch in the roof of the large main room. An original store room, accessed via an external door, is located at the northern end of the western elevation.
\nFeatures of the Plant Building of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Plant Building not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n50m Swimming Pool and Wading Pool (1963)
\nThe 50m Swimming Pool and Wading Pool remain in their original locations and retain most of their original tiles.
\nFeatures of the pools of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the pools not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormal pool landscaping (1963)
\nThe formal landscaped area around the pools and between the pools and Entrance Building includes concrete pavement pools surrounds, curved and straight paths, curvilinear lawns, and amenities such as benches and drinking fountains.
\nFeatures of the formal pool landscaping of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the formal pool landscaping not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGrounds
\nThe grounds to the north, west and south of the formal pool landscaping area, which comprise open lawns, mature shade trees and perimeter plantings of palms, provide outdoor recreation space and an attractive backdrop to the pool complex.
\nFeatures of the grounds of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the grounds not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre, Mackay, opened in December 1963 as a ‘living memorial’, a war memorial which combines remembrance with community amenity. It honours all those from the Mackay district who lost their lives fighting in World War I or World War II. This public asset was constructed with an Olympic-sized (50m) pool, children’s wading pool, an entrance building, and a plant building, set in generous landscaped grounds. A war memorial mural made of Italian glass mosaic tiles is set into the front wall of the entrance building. The place has a strong and ongoing community association, and is important in demonstrating the historic pattern of war memorial swimming pool construction which peaked in Queensland during the 1950s-60s.
\nMackay, part of the traditional land of the Yuwibara people,[1] was surveyed in 1863 and developed as the centre of a major sugar-growing area. Following the devastating cyclone of January 1918, Mackay enjoyed a period of substantial growth. In 1938, the Forgan (Road) Bridge replaced an 1880s bridge across the Pioneer River, and in 1939, the new Mackay Outer Harbour was opened. Queensland’s first bulk sugar handling terminal opened at this harbour in 1957.[2]
\nDespite its growth and prosperity, the citizens of Mackay waited until the 1960s for a public swimming pool. Earlier proposals, either for swimming enclosures in the Pioneer River or baths on land, were made from at least 1879, but none came to fruition.[3] One option utilised by keen local swimmers was a swimming hole on the north side of the river between the river wall and Cremorne.[4]
\nSea bathing was popular in Western culture from the late 18th century, for health and hygiene reasons. Competitive swimming also developed during the 19th century, and increased in popularity in the early 20th century. In 1896 swimming was included in the modern Olympic Games (men only, until 1912), and in 1908 the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) was formed to standardise the rules for swimming, diving and water polo and ensure the direction of Olympic Games competitions for those sports. Swimming was given further impetus by the 1924 Olympic Games held in Paris, which set the 50m Olympic standard for pool length.[5]
\nIn Queensland, swimming for health, recreation and sport has a long history. A bathing house (for private subscribers) was erected in the Brisbane River at ‘the Government Garden’ in 1849, while the first floating bath in the Brisbane River was constructed in 1857.[6] The first in-ground public baths in Brisbane, the Spring Hill Municipal Baths, opened in 1886 [QHR 600313], and the first state school swimming pool in Queensland was opened at Junction Park, Brisbane in 1910 [QHR 650023]. Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley Baths, on the site of the earlier Booroodabin Baths (1901), were rebuilt in 1925-26 to the Olympic standard length; and Queensland’s first 50m pool outside Brisbane was opened in Dalby in 1936 [QHR 602564]. Australia’s gold medals in swimming at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics increased interest in the sport, and 50m pool construction.[7]
\nMackay also sought an Olympic-sized pool. In late 1944 the Mackay City Council (MCC) employed architect Dr Karl Langer to design a town plan, and his May 1945 plan included a swimming pool near the centre of Mackay, as well as swimming pools in several of the six neighbourhoods he envisaged.[8]
\nThe MCC, however, preferred the current site of the Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre for a freshwater swimming pool. In 1947 Langer provided coloured perspective drawings and sketch plans for a pool 165ft by 50ft (50.3m by 15.2m), ‘to be constructed on the area at the end of Victoria and Gordon streets, with the entrance opening on to Milton Street’. The site was expected to cover 2ha ‘when reclamation is completed’.[9] This land was previously part of a 2.6ha ‘Reserve for a Public Park and Recreation Ground’, declared in 1881 at the western end of the Mackay CBD.[10]
\nLanger’s 1947 perspective drawings included a long, low entrance building, with a hipped roof and an observatory balcony overlooking a rectangular 50m pool to the west, with a narrow, rectangular wading pool south of the 50m pool. A café at the southern end of the entrance building overlooked a dance floor/skating rink and a sound shell. The MCC resolved that Langer should proceed with working plans for the pool.[11]
\nThe push to construct a swimming pool received a boost at a public meeting in March 1950, when a committee was formed. It was noted that 25% of the district’s school children could not swim and that tourists also needed facilities.[12] By July 1950, when plans were approved, Langer’s design had evolved to include an L shaped pool.[13] However, the full concept never came to fruition, as the MCC was unable to borrow funds for the project. In June 1952, the new Labor city council cancelled Langer’s project.[14]
\nA new effort to obtain a 50m pool was soon started, prompted by the drownings of two local boys during 1953.[15] A public meeting on 30 March 1954, called by the Mackay Trotting Club and attended by 15 local civic and sporting bodies’ representatives, elected a committee to investigate construction of the pool. It was hoped that, after community fundraising, the MCC could apply for a government subsidy, build an L-shaped pool initially, and add supporting facilities later.[16] A subcommittee was formed to examine Langer’s plan alongside the plans (and costs) of public pools in other towns, including Dalby and Townsville. In April 1954 the Mackay committee expressed a desire that Mackay’s baths ‘be erected as a memorial to Mackay members of the forces who lost their lives in World Wars I and II’.[17]
\nThe concept of a swimming pool as a war memorial was related to a debate which had occurred in Australia after World War I (WWI), on the nature of commemoration. WWI memorials took a variety of forms in Australia, including honour boards, stone monuments and tree-lined memorial avenues; as well as utilitarian (useful) structures such as gates, halls, clocks and (less commonly) swimming pools. Most Australian localities decided on a monumental approach (60%), with only 22% choosing utilitarian buildings (mostly halls) and 18% choosing the compromise position of utilitarian monuments – including a clock on a cenotaph, for example. In Mackay a cenotaph was unveiled adjacent to the Sydney Street Bridge in 1929 (later moved to Jubilee Park).[18] From 1927 to 1973, gifts of over £1 for public war memorials were tax deductable, which assisted fundraising for memorials.[19]
\nThe argument over whether the local war memorial should be monumental or useful was repeated all over Australia after WWI.[20] Some communities solved the problem by building two memorials: one utilitarian, and one monumental. For example Bundaberg, as well as unveiling a digger statue in 1921, opened its Returned Soldiers Memorial Baths (30m length) in November 1923.[21]
\nWhen it was time to commemorate World War II (WWII), utilitarian memorials were more popular, and were supported by the Returned Sailors’, Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA). Such memorials included halls, libraries, meeting rooms, council chambers, lawn bowls clubs, playgrounds, hospitals, and kindergartens. Fewer monuments were built to honour those who served or fell in WWII or the wars that followed. Typically, tributes were added onto or near existing WWI monuments. Mackay has several forms of monumental memorials to WWII, including stone plinths near the WWI cenotaph; memorial gates at the corner of Malcomson Street and Willis Street in North Mackay (1952); and a Rats of Tobruk monument at Queen’s Park, East Mackay (2001).[22]
\nOne form of utilitarian memorial rare after WWI, but more popular after WWII, was a public swimming pool, usually paid for by a mixture of municipal and tax-assisted private funding.[23] War memorial elements, designed to distinguish memorial pools from their non-memorial brethren, could range from including ‘memorial’ in the name of the pool, to plaques, flagpoles, war-related objects on display, or trophy guns next to the entrance.[24]
\nA number of war memorial public swimming pools were built in Queensland’s towns and cities after WWII, prior to Mackay’s. As well as the Tobruk Memorial Baths in Townsville ([QHR 601575, opened 1950), other memorial pools included those at Aramac (1952); Mitchell and Stones Corner (Langlands Park) (1955); Hughenden and Richmond (1956); Cecil Plains (1959); Gympie, Rockhampton (Lion Creek Road), and Toowoomba (1960); Corinda, Ipswich, and Maryborough (1961); Cairns, Chinchilla, Ingham, and Longreach (1962); and Goondiwindi (7 December 1963).[25]
\nWhile each pool complex was individually designed, they all included a standard-sized swimming pool (25m or Olympic-size 50m); an entrance building containing separate changing rooms for men and women (some with partly open-air roofs, which was believed to kill germs and aid in the drying process); and an open, landscaped site with pathways, lawns, trees and bench seating. Many also incorporated a shallow wading pool for children. The entrance building was often symmetrical, constructed from solid materials like brick and concrete, and change rooms had high-level windows or ventilation (eg. breezeblocks, louvres, etc). Circulation through the building was carefully organised, directing the sexes through their own changing rooms and out to the pool area. In line with contemporary architectural trends, some buildings were designed in an expressive, mid-century modern style, with features such as flat or butterfly-shaped roof forms, selective expression of materials and structural systems, and a horizontal, streamlined aesthetic.[26]
\nMackay’s City Engineer and his staff drew up the plan for a swimming pool that was approved by the ‘Mackay swimming baths investigating committee’ in June 1954. The inspiration for its layout and construction was Townsville’s Tobruk baths. A ‘Mackay and District War Memorial Baths Committee’ was later formed at a public meeting in January 1955. The projected cost by then was either £86,000 for an L shaped pool with amenities, or £75,000 for a rectangular pool and amenities. It was hoped that some money could be raised from public donations, and that the Queensland Government would also offer a 25% subsidy – but the MCC’s inability to borrow the remainder of the money again stalled construction.[27]
\nLocals were not ready to give up on their pool, and in late 1957 the Mackay Rotary Club decided to raise funds.[28] In January 1959, 250 men from the RSSAILA, Rotary, Jaycees, Royal Australian Air Force, and Mackay Swimming Clubs began canvassing the city area to ascertain support for construction of War Memorial Swimming Baths.[29] By December 1961, the Mackay swimming baths appeal was less than £4000 short of its £20,000 target, and an Art Union raffle, with a house as first prize, was held to raise the remainder, being drawn in May 1962. The resulting proceeds exceeded the target.[30]
\nConstruction began at the Milton Street site in March 1963, after the loan application was successful and a subsidy was provided. The site was gazetted as a 1.6ha Reserve for Local Government (Swimming Pool) Purposes, from 9 August 1963.[31]
\nThe new facility had a 50m, eight-lane swimming pool, a children’s wading pool, and generous landscaped grounds, all designed by the Mackay City Engineer’s office. However, the entrance building was designed by local architect Russell Gibbins. Gibbins established his architectural practice in Mackay in October 1954, having previously worked on the Gold Coast. He was known for designing in a contemporary, modernist aesthetic, with one of his most prominent projects in the region being the Mackay Harbour Board Building (opened 1966, demolished c2015).[32]
\nAs depicted in Gibbins’ August 1959 concept sketches, the entrance building was a symmetrical, brick and concrete building with a butterfly roof and banks of high-level, fixed, horizontal concrete fins providing ventilation to the changing rooms. It also featured a protruding front porch and flagpoles to the street frontage, a kiosk at the rear, and a manicured landscape with palm trees.[33] Some elements were not constructed, including a large fountain, a diving platform, a second storey above the kiosk, and flanking decorative screen walls at either end of the building. The internal layout of the entrance building was symmetrical, with a central foyer and office with ticket counters, and the one-way circulation pattern was controlled by turnstiles. The changing rooms comprised a large changing area, with an open-air section of roof in the middle, with benches (including terrazzo privacy screens in the female section), showers and toilets. The toilets included a separate section only accessible from the pool area.
\nThe memorial elements of the design were located on the street-facing side of the entrance building. The name ‘Memorial Swimming Centre’ was fixed to the entrance portico fascia in large lettering. On the wall to the left of the main entrance was a 2.7m by 1.5m mural made of Italian glass mosaic tiles, designed by Gibbins, and built by Bill Smith, a local stonemason, plasterer and tiler, who was also a returned serviceman.[34] It included figures representing the Australian Navy, Army and Air Force, a Lancaster bomber, a battleship and a submarine, an Owen gun, the hills of New Guinea and the sands of Egypt, while in the background the sun shone on a dove of peace and the Southern Cross. Bronze wreaths were attached on either side of the mosaic, which included the words 'Dedicated to the Fallen of Mackay and District, Lest We Forget’.[35] A bronze plaque commemorating the official opening of the Centre was attached to the opposite wall, and three flagpoles were positioned off-centre from the entrance on a small front lawn.
\nThe curvilinear children’s wading pool with a small fountain was located to the south of the 50m pool, with the area between the two pools and entrance building landscaped with concrete pathways and curved lawns, edged with small shrubs. Palm trees were planted around the perimeter of the complex, with other trees on the lawn areas around the pools. Other features around the pools included six light poles, timber seating with concrete bases and metal-framed sun shades, drinking fountains, and two spectator stands on the west side of the 50m pool. A plant building, including two large open-roofed sand filter beds, was located to the north of the entrance building. The plant building was designed to match the entrance building, with identical concrete fin windows; although it did not have a butterfly roof. The Mackay City Council coat of arms ornamented the east facade. The original colour scheme of the complex, as seen in Gibbin’s 1959 concept sketches and 1960s photographs, was predominately white, blue and yellow; with yellow used on the fascia of the front and rear porticos of the entrance building, and the bench seating and spectator stands. Similar tones of blue and yellow are present on Gibbin’s mural.[36]
\nThe ’Memorial Swimming Centre’, which had cost £90,000 (£22,000 of which was raised by the community) was officially opened on 14 December 1963, by the Postmaster-General and Federal member for Dawson, Charles William Davidson.[37] In his speech, Davidson noted that the Centre had been established as a memorial to those who lost their lives in two wars, ‘but it was also a memorial to those who served their country and returned. What was important was that it was a living memorial – something that could be used and not just looked at’.[38]
\nSince 1963, there have been some changes at the Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre, but the layout and main elements of the complex remain.[39] The Entrance Building has undergone minor changes and upgrades, including the conversion of the externally-accessible male toilets into an equitable access toilet and changing room, and the creation of an opening between the two sections of the female toilets (c2000). The supporting metal posts and timber rafters that crossed the open-air sections of the changing room roofs have been removed, while the fixed concrete fins in the north and south end walls have also been removed and replaced with concrete breeze blocks (post-2006). The flagpoles in front of the entrance building were removed post-2006. The Plant Building has had two extensions to the west, and a clubroom building was constructed to the north of the Plant Building between 1982 and 1987. Two viewing stands on the west side of the 50m pool have been removed, with their supporting concrete slabs remaining.[40]
\nMore swimming pools have opened in Mackay since 1963, as the population of the urban area increased from 16,809 in 1961, to 77,293 in 2011.[41] In 2020 the Mackay War Memorial Swimming Centre continues in use and remains valued by the community for its role in aiding remembrance, and for its role in facilitating competitive swimming in Mackay.[42] It retains its Entrance Building, with its original signage and mural; 50m and Wading pools; Plant Building; and its original layout of paths, lawns and tree plantings, along with original seating.
","criteria":"The Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre (1963) is important in demonstrating Queensland’s involvement in a major world event. In its form, fabric, materials and layout it is an important example of a post-World War II (WWII) utilitarian war memorial: a ‘living memorial’ with a dual role of providing commemoration and a community facility.
\nThe Centre is also important in demonstrating the pattern of increased public swimming pool construction after WWII, and the associated increased popularity of competitive swimming in this period. Memorial pool construction peaked in Queensland during the 1950s-60s.
|The Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre (1963) is an intact example of a memorial swimming pool complex from the 1950s-60s. In its form, style, materials and layout it is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of this type. This includes its: dual role as a public asset providing commemoration and a sports and recreation facility; central location; Entrance Building; Plant Building; 50m Swimming Pool; Wading Pool; site layout incorporating formal pool landscaping; and open grounds for recreation space.
\nThe Entrance Building retains its: expressive, mid-century modern style featuring angled walls and butterfly roof; memorial signage, mural and commemorative plaque; symmetrical layout; high-level windows; separate male and female changing rooms, partly open-air with privacy partitions in the female changing room; office and store rooms; refreshment kiosk; and evidence of its former circulation pattern, including original turnstiles.
\nThe Plant Building, designed to complement the Entrance Building, retains its original form, materials and high-level windows.
\nThe 50m and Wading pools remain in their original locations and retain their form and materials, including original tiles. The formal pool landscaping area retains its: open environment; concrete pavement pool surrounds, original layout of lawns, concrete pathways, spoon drains and garden beds; concrete and timber bench seats; and early drinking fountains. The wider grounds retain their open landscape character of lawns, mature shade trees and perimeter plantings of rows of palms.
|The Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre is important for its aesthetic significance. Retaining a high degree of integrity, the complex displays attributes of cohesion and legibility through its unified mid-century modern aesthetic treatment and materials; and the arrangement of components including buildings, pools, and landscaping elements in an attractive open landscape setting fringed with mature trees and palms.
\nThe war memorial mural, located prominently on the front wall of the Entrance Building, demonstrates expressive qualities for its commemoration of the Mackay community’s contribution to WWII, and its high quality design, materials and craftsmanship.
|The Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre is highly valued by the community for its symbolic, cultural and social associations, having a long, special and enduring connection with the people of Mackay and the surrounding district as a living war memorial.
\nCommunity meetings, lobbying, fundraising and donations played a key role in the realisation of the Mackay Memorial Swimming Centre. As well as its role in remembrance, the Centre has provided a safe swimming environment and community recreation space, and has contributed to the development of competitive swimming in Mackay.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650251,"name":"Queensland National Bank (former)","alternate_name":"City Hall (former)","street_address":"72 Mosman Street","suburb":"CHARTERS TOWERS","lga":"CHARTERS TOWERS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-06-26","description":"Queensland National Bank (former), Charters Towers (1891) is an elaborately-detailed, two-storey former bank building, prominently-sited on Mosman Street at the head of its T-intersection with Gill Street, the two main streets in the central business district of Charters Towers. The building faces east, directly fronting the street, and is a conspicuous and attractive contributing element in the surrounding townscape, which is characterised by late nineteenth-century masonry buildings. The site is bounded on other sides by a commercial property (retaining the earlier, timber Queensland National Bank building) to the south, Edmeades Park to the north, and Rutherford Lane to the west.
\nFeatures of the place of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nQueensland National Bank Building (former, 1891)
\nThe Queensland National Bank Building is an intact, substantial masonry structure. Rectangular in plan, the building’s front (east) half is two storeys, the rear (west) half is single-storey, and a small single-storey strong room protrudes from the southwest corner of the rear. A single-storey extension (c1990s) has been made at the rear and is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe front elevation is symmetrical, with a central pediment and main public entrance into the former bank. It features ground and first floor colonnaded verandahs and is ornamented with Classical details. A private entrance into the former bank manager’s residence, on the first floor, is accessed via a narrow lane to the south side of the building.
\nThe original interior layout of the ground floor reflects the bank operations, with separate areas and circulation for bank customers, bank employees, and the bank manager’s residence. The main entrance is via an ornate central entry hall into the banking chamber, which is a large and impressive room with high ceilings. Accessed from the chamber are the manager’s office, and gold room, each with two entrances – one for bank staff and ones for customers. At the rear of the banking chamber are offices, a verandah (now enclosed), and two strong rooms, one of which retains its early vault door and safe. The manager’s residence on the first floor is accessed via a private stair hall, which also has a short private hall directly into the banking chamber. The first floor rear verandah has been enclosed (enclosures to both the ground and first floor rear verandahs are not of state-level cultural heritage significance).
\nThere is evidence of modifications made to the building to accommodate its use as City Hall (c1948-49). These include alterations to lettering on the Mosman Street elevation, installation of desks and partitions to the ground floor, and modification of finishes and demolition of partitions to form one large space for council chambers to the first floor.
\nThe original and early features of the Queensland National Bank Building are of state-level cultural heritage significance and include:
\nFeatures of the Queensland National Bank Building (former) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews
\nThe Queensland National Bank Building (former) is a distinctive and attractive feature of the Charters Towers townscape, contributing to its commercial character of intact nineteenth century buildings. Views of state-level cultural heritage significance to the building are of the front elevation from both Mosman and Gill streets.
","history":"Queensland National Bank (former) was built in 1891 in Charters Towers, a city located approximately 107km southwest of Townsville in North Queensland. It replaced an earlier 1880 timber bank building and was designed by prominent Queensland architect, Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, at the peak of the Charters Towers gold rush. The grand masonry building expressed the confidence and wealth of Charters Towers at the time. When the bank was closed in the early 1940s, it became a workers’ club established by the Trades and Labour Council. This was not a success and in 1948, the property was acquired by the Charters Towers City Council and used as the City Hall, relocating from the earlier town hall in Gill Street. It continues to be a centre for local government administration.
\nCharters Towers forms part of the traditional land of the Gudjal People.[1] It was established after gold was discovered at the foot of Towers Hill in December 1871, leading to the proclamation of the Charters Towers Goldfield on 31 August 1872. The settlement began with a number of shops and hotels along a track, which became Mosman Street, with the population reputedly 3000 by August 1872. In 1877 the one square mile comprising Charters Towers, centred on Mosman Street, was declared a municipality.[2]
\nIn the 1880s, Charters Towers continued to prosper and grow, becoming the most productive goldfield in Queensland. The completion of a railway line from Townsville to Charters Towers in December 1882 boosted the town's prosperity, by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials.[3] Procurement of gold from the deep seams of Charters Towers required substantial machinery to crush quartz and sink shafts. This required working capital to finance machinery and to pay the wages of workers employed on these time consuming processes. The Queensland Gold Fields Act 1874 and Gold Mining Companies Act 1875 allowed for combinations of leases, claims and syndicates in order to work their leases at great depths. The legislation also underpinned the establishment of permanent settlement, which would attract capital investment to the field.[4]
\nWith the influx of wealth into North Queensland, several financial institutions recognised that establishing banking facilities in these mining centres would prove profitable, including the Queensland National Bank (QNB).[5] The QNB was the first and most successful of the three Queensland-owned nineteenth-century banks. As the colony's most powerful banking institution, the QNB dominated the Queensland economy. It was established in March 1872 by an influential group of prominent Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or inter-colonial control. It commenced trading on 3 June 1872 at its first office in Brisbane. The bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage and branches opened in quick succession. By early in 1874 the bank had 10 branches. In 1878, the QNB opened a branch in London, while one in Sydney opened two years later. In September 1879 Thomas McIlwraith (Queensland Premier 1877-83, 1888, 1893), a director of the QNB, persuaded Parliament to confer on it the whole of the Queensland Government's banking business. By 1880, the bank held 40% of the total deposits and advances in Queensland, a higher proportion than any other bank in any Australian colony. Despite financial scandals and a brief suspension of operation during the 1890s, the bank exclusively held the government's account for 42 years, until 1921.[6]
\nAs early as 1872, requests had been made to the QNB’s Board of Directors by Charters Towers’ residents ‘inviting them to establish a branch of their bank at Charters Towers’.[7] A petition with 800 signatures was sent to the board, which decided to establish a QNB branch in June 1873. A further two branches would be opened; one in the nearby mining settlement of Millchester, and one in Townsville, which served as the mines’ port town.[8] The first to open was Charters Towers in July 1873, closely followed by Millchester and Townsville respectively.[9] Other banks in Charters Towers at this time included the Bank of New South Wales (1872) and the Australian Joint Stock Bank (1872), with the QNB purportedly ‘the most popular, and deservedly so, as but for its assistance, the field could not have attained, for a considerable time longer, such a state of prosperity’.[10]
\nIn the early 1880s, the gold mines in Charters Towers continued to have high yields and the town prospered. In the main streets, more substantial structures were built, reflective of the confidence in the town’s success at that time. In July 1880, following the QNB’s purchase in 1876, of two adjoining lots with frontage to Mosman Street, a new timber bank building had been completed. It was designed by Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, and built by local contractors, Fraser Brothers. Although not as grand as the masonry QNB building constructed in Townsville in the late 1870s, also designed by Stanley, the new structure was nonetheless an attractive addition to the Mosman Street streetscape, and the Northern Miner claimed ‘the permanence and stability of Charters Towers appear to rest on as sure a foundation as those of Townsville’.[11]
\nThe wealth of the Charters Towers goldfields grew in the following years, particularly following the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London where specimens of Charters Towers gold were featured. Almost immediately English investors seized the opportunity to be part of the Charters Towers gold prosperity. Mining companies were formed, managed by Charters Towers' mining agents and share-brokers, and while some shares were held by English interests, many local people prospered through their investments, leading to an expansion of banking facilities and mining exchanges. Banks and gold buyers purchased the gold and minted it into sovereigns in Australia and England. The sovereigns were held in the vaults of banks in Melbourne, London, Berlin, and New York and then shipped to pay international debt.[12]
\nBy 1889, Charters Towers was producing 1/6th of all of Australia’s gold, and Queensland became the most productive gold producing colony in Australia.[13] Enormous amounts of gold were purchased by banks such as the QNB, which played a vital role in this process of wealth creation and distribution.[14] At this time, the QNB had 14 branches on the Queensland mining fields. Charters Towers and Gympie were the premier mining branches transacting more than half of the bank’s mining business. Their aggregate deposits and advances exceeded £0.5 million, making them highly profitable branches.[15]
\nBy the early 1890s, Charters Towers (known colloquially as ‘The World’) had grown to be the second largest centre in the colony, after Brisbane, with a population of almost 25,000 people.[16] Amidst this optimism, the QNB desired to better reflect its prominence as one of the town’s primary banks by having a new, grand bank building constructed. It was hoped it would rival other stately banks that had been constructed in the centre of town, in particular the Bank of New South Wales (QHR 602804) in Gill Street, which had been built in 1889.[17] Stanley was engaged to design the new QNB building.
\nFDG Stanley was a gifted and prolific architect. He was Queensland Colonial Architect between 1873 and 1881, and in 1888 became the inaugural president of the Queensland Institute of Architects. He designed many large and prestigious public and commercial buildings, including a number of banks.[18] These include the Australian Bank of Commerce (former), Charters Towers (QHR 600407), Westpac Bank, Cooktown (QHR 600419), Ipswich and West Moreton Building Society, Ipswich (QHR 600574), Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Mackay (QHR 600671) and the Australian Joint Stock Bank (former), Maryborough (QHR 600693). In early 1891, Stanley accepted the tender from North Queensland building contractors, Spane and Hansen, to erect the new QNB bank building for £4595.[19]
\nFrom November 1890, whilst the construction of the building took place, a temporary bank was set up in commercial premises on the corner of Gill and Deane streets.[20] The QNB’s 1880 timber building was sold to the Union Bank of Australia and moved onto the adjacent lot in 1890, then refitted as their bank building.[21]
\nIn the course of its construction, the Queenslander described the QNB’s new bank building as ‘palatial’.[22] By December 1891, the new masonry building had been completed and at the time, it was stated that ‘the building has just been erected at a cost, with the land, of nearly £9000, and is one of the architectural ornaments of the town. It is situated at the corner of Gill and Mosman streets, and therefore occupies a most central position’.[23]
\nQNB’s new two storey bank building was depicted in a c1895 photograph as a prominent feature of the street, with a symmetrical street elevation and Classical architectural ornamentation. Its street elevation had a central pediment and entry, and colonnaded ground and first floor verandahs, framed by corner pillars inscribed to appear as ashlar. The entablature over the first floor contained ‘QUEENSLAND NATIONAL BANK LIMITED 1891’ in large lettering, and a balustrade parapet concealed the roof from the street.[24] Early plans show the building provided banking facilities on the ground floor, including entrance hall, gold room, manager’s office, main banking chamber, stationery room, and a strong room; and the first floor accommodated a manager’s residence comprising two bedrooms, drawing room, and a rear verandah with bathroom enclosure.[25]
\nThe QNB retained its prominence as one of the city’s major banks in the early twentieth century. The downturn in mining from 1914 and its virtual cessation by 1917 contributed to a steady decrease in population during this time. A town that had boasted a population of 25,000 in 1900, when it was the second largest in Queensland, was reduced to just 13,000 by the end of World War I (WWI). Between 1914 and 1918 more than 900 homes and business premises were removed from Charters Towers. Many were dismantled and transported by train to Townsville or Ayr where they were re-erected. Others were relocated to various places in Western Queensland. Nevertheless, banking institutions remained in town in the interwar period to service the regional rural economy and included the Bank of NSW, Bank of Australasia, London Chartered Bank, Union Bank, Bank of Commerce and the Queensland National Bank.[26]
\nBy the early 1940s, however, this demand had waned and the Charters Towers QNB branch was closed.[27] In April 1943, it was announced in The Northern Miner that an auction would be held on 30 April that year, for the sale of the former QNB’s interior furnishings, ‘the whole of the office and bank chairs, tables, linoleums, on bottom floor, in addition to the whole of the superior and useful furniture … on the top floor (living quarters) of the bank’.[28] In May 1943, the sales agent for the property offered it to the Charters Towers City Council as a replacement for the original town hall in Gill Street, however, the council declined, deeming that there were more pressing priorities for ratepayer’s money.[29]
\nThe Trades and Labour Council purchased the property for £2000 in 1945 for the establishment of a workers’ club, to be named the ‘John Curtin Memorial Hall’.[30] For an annual membership fee of £1, workers and their families could use the club’s facilities, which would include a library, reading and rest rooms, refreshment bar (unlicensed, as it had been refused a club licence), billiard table, and a child-minding service in the backyard. This would enable mothers to leave their children in a safe and supervised environment while they shopped. Servicemen and women could attend the club free of charge.[31] The official opening ceremony was held 3 December 1945 amidst great optimism.[32] Ultimately the workers’ club was not a success and in February 1948, the property was acquired by the Charters Towers City Council to be used for a new town hall, which would replace the old and dilapidated 1880s town hall in Gill Street.[33]
\nNo alterations were needed to the building’s exterior and only slight alterations to the interior, to repurpose it for council administration uses.[34] By mid-1949, the former bank building had become the centre for the city’s local government administration and began to be called ‘City Hall’. The lettering to the first floor entablature was subsequently removed and the words ‘CITY HALL’ were added to the central pediment. The building also played host to many community meetings. Its prominent position on historic Mosman Street, with its intact nineteenth-century streetscape, ensured that the City Hall was featured in Charters Towers’ tourism information booklets and postcards.[35]
\nIn 2008, the Charters Towers City Council was amalgamated with the Dalrymple Shire Council to form the Charters Towers Regional Council. Some of the council services, once administered in the City Hall, were moved to the Administration Centre at 12 Mosman Street.[36]
\nThe Queensland National Bank (former) on Mosman Street has played an important role in the history of Charters Towers from the late nineteenth century to the present day. As a highly prominent and grand masonry building at the heart of the city’s commercial centre, it plays a vital role as part of its historic streetscape. It demonstrates the dominance and wealth of the town in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as Queensland’s premier gold field. In 2020, the building continues to be used by local government administration.
","criteria":"The Queensland National Bank (former), Charters Towers (1891), is important in demonstrating the development of mining in Charters Towers, a major contributor to Queensland’s wealth and its largest gold producer by the 1890s. In its form, fabric, materials and layout, the place illustrates the vital role of financial institutions in the process of wealth creation and distribution on nineteenth-century Queensland goldfields.
\nThe place is an important representative example of a grand masonry bank constructed during the peak period of gold production, when Charters Towers’ prosperity was reflected in the erection of more permanent and elaborate buildings in its central business district.
\nAs Charters Towers’ City Hall from 1948, the place is important in demonstrating the provision/evolution of local government in Charters Towers, a major regional centre. This is illustrated through early alterations to lettering on the Mosman Street elevation, installation of desks and partitions to the ground floor, and modification of finishes and partitions to form one large space for council chambers on the first floor.
|The Queensland National Bank (former), Charters Towers, designed by renowned architect Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, is an excellent representative example of a late nineteenth-century masonry bank building in regional Queensland. Through its intact form, fabric, materials and layout, the place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, including its: location in a central business district; prominent street presence with an elaborate and decorative street elevation; masonry construction; high-quality design with Classical architectural treatments and ornamentation; fine interior materials and finishes; and hierarchical layout of rooms comprising a banking chamber, impressive entry hall with elaborate finishes, strong rooms with safe, offices, and private manager’s residence with separate entrance.
|The Queensland National Bank (former), Charters Towers, has aesthetic importance for its expressive and beautiful attributes, and its streetscape contribution. Through its Classically-styled architectural treatments and ornamentation, symmetrical and elegant composition of the main elevation with central pediment and elaborate colonnade, and high quality exterior and interior materials and decorative treatments, the place conveys the concept of financial stability, permanence and prosperity sought by financial institutions of this era. These expressive attributes have been sustained through its civic use as City Hall, Charters Towers’ main local government building since 1948.
\nVisually distinctive and finely composed, the place is a major contributor to its townscape setting, sharing a similar form, scale and materials to a suite of large masonry nineteenth-century buildings in the central business district of Charters Towers. The place features prominently in views from Mosman Street, and important views of the place unfold from Gill Street towards the intersection with Mosman Street.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650252,"name":"The Fort","alternate_name":"Regina Coeli Retreat | St Mary’s Retreat","street_address":"199 Fort Road","suburb":"OXLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-09-25","description":"The Fort comprises a detached riverside house and its setting in Oxley, approximately 10.5km southwest of Brisbane CBD. Accessed from Fort Road on its southwest side, the house stands on a large allotment near the edge of a steep bank of the Brisbane River and has spectacular panoramic views spanning northwest to northeast. The setting of the house comprises part of the surrounding house yard and part of the adjacent public park, which was originally part of The Fort’s large property.
\nFeatures of The Fort of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe House (c1882)
\nThe house is a single-storey lowset timber-framed and -clad structure. It faces north toward the view and has a square core with a hipped roof surrounded by a verandah with an ogee roof. Projecting from each end of the south verandah are matching pyramid-roofed service wings and a face brick chimney projects from the core’s roof. A cross is mounted on the centre ridge of the main roof and the kitchen wing’s chimney (western side of the house) has been converted to form a grotto.
\nThe front (north) verandah is open to the view and the northern verandah wall is symmetrical, retaining original step-through double-hung windows either side of an entrance door. Parts of the east, west, and south verandahs have been enclosed (in stages, likely pre-1906) to form a number of smaller interconnected rooms and some have had the verandah wall demolished and the enclosed verandah incorporated into the core.[34]
\nInternally, the core comprises a large front entrance room, which is used a chapel (formerly two rooms – drawing room and bedroom) with an altar at the east end in the enclosed verandah and a small choir alcove in the enclosed north east corner verandah. The core’s two rear rooms are a former dining room with fireplace, and a former bedroom, which has been partitioned to form two passageways and two bedrooms, incorporating the enclosed eastern verandah. The core’s ceilings are notably high. The western service wing comprises a former kitchen (now dining room) and the eastern service wing accommodates two rooms and a short open verandah (the two rooms are possibly a former storeroom, now passageway, and a bathroom, now office). The former cellar under this wing has been replaced by a concreted open space.
\nFeatures of the house of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the house not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Setting – Grounds, Views, and Mature Trees
\nThe house is approached from the southwest from Fort Street via a long drive arriving at its western side. It stands roughly in the centre of its large house yard, which comprises terraced lawns dotted with mature ornamental trees. To its north, the land slopes steeply down to the Brisbane River waterline and is lightly-forested, permitting distant northerly views from the house and northern grounds.
\nOther mature ornamental trees stand in the adjacent public park that indicate the extent of The Fort’s former property size. These trees line the Fort Street boundary and stand near a former, pre-1936 entrance.
\nFeatures of the setting of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures of the setting not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n‘The Fort’, located at the north end of Fort Road in Oxley, Brisbane, is a c1882 timber house situated on a high bluff on the south bank of the Brisbane River. It was constructed for the retired pastoralist Henry William Coxen (1823-1915), one of the early European settlers on the Darling Downs, on a 9ha property he had purchased in 1865. The Fort was sold to the Corkran family in 1906, then to the Passionist Order of the Catholic Church (the Congregation of the Passion, or the Passionists) in 1955, at which time the property became the Order’s only Queensland retreat (monastery), and a base for their local community outreach. It is officially known as St Mary’s Retreat. The majority of The Fort property, not including the house, was sold to the Brisbane City Council (BBC) in 2005, and is now The Fort Bushland Reserve.
\nOxley, traditionally the land of the Turrbal and Jagera people,[1] is about 11km south-west of the Brisbane Central Business District. In the 1850s the area was known as Boyland’s Pocket, after the pastoralist Thomas Boyland, and in the early 1860s it was subdivided into small farms. Churches, a post office and a hotel were built in the 1860s, near the road between Brisbane and Ipswich, and Oxley Primary School opened nearby in 1870. Although the completion of the railway between Brisbane and Ipswich in 1876 boosted settlement in the district, Oxley remained largely rural until after World War II, with two small areas of settlement: one near Ipswich Road, and the other to the north near the Oxley railway station.[2]
\nIn January 1865, the site of ‘The Fort’ (Portion 189 in the Parish of Oxley) consisting of 22 acres and 1 rood (9ha), was purchased by Henry William Coxen and William Sim of ‘Bendemere’ for £59 15s. Located on the south bank of the Brisbane River, less than 1km northwest of the later location of the Oxley railway station, the land was transferred to Coxen alone in 1866.[3]
\nHenry William Coxen (1823-1915) was born in Croydon, England, on 3 March 1823.[4] In 1838, aged 15, he travelled to Tasmania with his uncle and aunt, noted ornithologist John Gould and his wife Elizabeth (nee Coxen), where they were guests of Governor Franklin. They soon moved to New South Wales. After learning about sheep and cattle management on various stations owned by his paternal uncle, Stephen Coxen, and under the tutelage of his uncle Charles Coxen, Henry was sent north in 1842 to the Darling Downs, where Patrick Leslie and his brothers had begun European settlement in March 1840.[5] Accompanied by Lieutenant Irving, three men and an Aboriginal boy, Henry took two drays and 300 head of cattle and selected ‘Jondaryan’ station in the northern Downs on behalf of his uncle Charles.[6]
\nHenry returned to England in 1845, to work for a mercantile firm. He married Mary Ann Shelton in London in January 1848, and after some time in the Cape Colony (South Africa) the couple returned to Sydney in April 1852. He then took up further pastoral stations in what became Queensland, becoming the owner or part-owner of at least 17 large grazing leases, including Bendemere near Yuleba. He divorced in 1865, and married Margaret Moorhead in Victoria in February 1866. Henry disposed of his pastoral interests, and he and Margaret had returned to England by 1867. After unsuccessful investments in foreign securities and the South African sugar industry, Coxen and his family returned to Queensland in 1880.[7] By this time, Henry and Margaret had four children.[8]
\nCoxen built his house ‘The Fort’ c1882, on the 9ha of land he had purchased in Oxley in 1865.[9] In May 1882, architect Andrea Stombuco sued Coxen for full payment for his preparation of plans and specifications, and taking site levels, for a building for Coxen at Oxley. Stombuco claimed he had been contacted by Coxen in September 1880 to give an estimate for a four-roomed house. Stombuco then drew up his plans, based on sketches received from Coxen, and called for tenders, with the lowest received being £1001.[10] Unhappy with a measurement error on a drawing of a large shed (probably the stables) at the property, which had led to an overestimate of the quantity of timber needed, Coxen employed architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley to revise Stombuco’s plans for the house, and had received a new estimate for the house of £810 from a contractor in Toowoomba. At the time of the court case ‘the building [presumably The Fort house] was now being erected in accordance with the new drawings and specification’. Coxen won the court case.[11]
\nFDG Stanley (1839-97) was an architect in Queensland 1862-97. Rising to Colonial Architect in 1873, Stanley was responsible for ambitious, substantial public buildings in Brisbane and regional centres of the colony, including schools, banks, churches, hotels, shops, and civic buildings such as Brisbane General Post Office (1871-2) and Telegraph Office extension (1876-9) [Commonwealth Heritage List 105521]. His work is distinguished within early Queensland architects, and his high profile and prolific output has been considered formative in Queensland architecture.[12]
\nIn 1882, Stanley was in private practice and at the height of his career, designing the Queensland National Bank’s headquarters (1880-5) [QHR 600153], and opening a branch office of his practice in Maryborough. During this period Stanley also designed substantial residences, including Sidney House, 1882; Villa for Robert Hart, 1883; Whinstaines, 1886; and Tighnabruaich, 1889-90 [QHR 600229].[13] The Fort was considerably more modest.[14]
\nIn 1932, Florence Eliza Lord described The Fort for The Queenslander newspaper: ‘Its outer walls are formed of wide horizontal boards, and the inner of vertical ones. The house was originally built without a hall of any kind, the four main rooms – the drawing-room, dining-room, and two bedrooms–opening into each other. There are two verandah bedrooms, and a verandah running between two wings projecting from each end of the back of the house. The wing on the right as one steps on to this back verandah from the dining-room comprises the kitchen… and the other contains a storeroom, bathroom, and–in the Coxen’s time–a spare room and Mr Coxen’s office. The three latter all open onto a verandah connecting with that previously mentioned. The store-room opened on the other side of this wing, and below it was a cool cellar…’[15]
\nThe house was located near the highest point on the property, with a sweeping view over the Brisbane River. The remainder of the property, which sloped down to the south, was a mixture of treed and open space by 1936.[16] For affluent Queenslanders, residing on spacious properties on hilltops, or near the river, and away from the crowded city, was a common practice, and The Fort’s site achieved all of the above. [17]
\nDuring 1883 and 1884 Coxen purchased more land to the east of Portion 189, on which he built two more houses: ‘Eddystone’ and ‘The Slopes’ (neither extant).[18] Eddystone and The Slopes were described by FE Lord in 1932 as being similar in construction to The Fort, although without rear wings.[19] Eddystone was located amongst trees on the ridge to the east of The Fort, while The Slopes was located on a cleared terrace, down a slope to the east of Eddystone.[20]
\nWhile living at The Fort, Coxen was active in both the Freemasons and in local politics. He was a Justice of the Peace, a board member of the Yeerongpilly Divisional Board (Chairman 1889), and later a board member of the Sherwood Divisional Board (which split from Yeerongpilly in 1891), and its Chairman in 1902. Margaret Coxen died during a visit to Sandgate that year.[21] After he sold The Fort in 1906, Henry lived at Slopes, where he died in 1915.[22]
\nThe Fort house and 9.4ha of property was offered for sale by auction in February 1906, at which time it had 15 rooms, along with a garden of 2 acres (0.8ha), stables, stockyard, laundry, and outbuildings, and ‘one of the most beautiful views around Brisbane’.[23] In May 1906 the Fort and 12.6ha of the property was transferred to Thomas Knight Corkran (1852-1937), an Irish-born Catholic, educated at the Marist College in France, who had joined the Queensland police in Western Queensland in the 1870s.[24]
\nThomas Corkran ran a dairy herd on the land, which included a dam and a well (dug by Coxen) in the small valley to the south of the house. According to Thomas’s daughter Olivia, during the Corkran period of ownership The Fort included a hall, lounge, dining room, six bedrooms, bathroom, storeroom and kitchen; there were cedar doors and some double walls in the house, and ‘two huge rooms for the men’. The ceilings of The Fort were also unlined when the Corkrans purchased the property, according to Olivia. The Corkrans used its cellar as a dairy, housing a cream separator; and Thomas Corkran built a separate laundry at the rear of the house. The Corkran family used Eddystone Road (previously known as Coxen’s Lane) to access The Fort from the east, and they also had an entrance from Fort Road, west of the house, in addition to the original entrance, further south near the stables.[25] In December 1912, subdivision 1 of Portion 189, 2 roods (0.2ha) at the corner of Fort Road and Cliveden Avenue, was transferred to Gertrude Letitia Corkran. A house was built on this site, but had been removed by 1936. By this time, there were mature trees along the Fort Road approach to The Fort residence, including north of the southwest corner of Portion 189, inside the entrance by the stables, and to the immediate north and south residence, and some of these trees survive today.[26]
\nAfter Thomas Corkran died at the Fort in January 1937, subdivision 2 of Portion 189 (21 acres, 3 roods (8.8ha) was transferred to members of the Corkran family, before being sold to the Provincial of the Congregation of the Passion in Australasia, for £6000, in June 1955. Subdivision 1 of Portion 189 (0.2ha), and subdivisions 1 to 4 of Portion 188 (3.4ha), were later transferred to the Passionists in April 1962.[27]
\nThe Passionist Order was founded in Italy in 1720 by St Paul of the Cross (Paolo Danei Massari, 1694-1775). The Passionists, Catholic missionary priests who ‘live in community’ (in a retreat, or monastery), promote the memory of the passion of Jesus. They combine a monastic life of prayer and contemplation with missions and outreach to the communities in which they are located. The Passionists conducted a mission to Stradbroke Island, the traditional land of the Quandamooka people, from 1843-7, the first Catholic outreach to the Aboriginal people of Queensland. The Order later returned to Australia at Marrickville, NSW in 1887. In 2020 the Passionists have a presence in 59 countries, and one Passionist province covers Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Vietnam. In Australia, the Passionists are located at St Brigid’s in Marrickville, Sydney; Holy Cross, Templestowe Melbourne; Endeavour Hills, Melbourne; Glen Osmond, Adelaide; St Joseph’s Church, Hobart; and St Mary’s Retreat (The Fort) at Oxley.[28]
\nThe purchase of The Fort by the Passionists was part of a mid-1950s expansion of the Order, which included sending missionaries to Papua New Guinea in 1955, and Passionists to St Kilda in Melbourne and Hobart in Tasmania in 1956. The Passionist Provincial, Xavier Bates, along with Father Placid and Archbishop James Duhig of Brisbane, scouted Brisbane looking for a site for a Passionist retreat in late 1954, selecting The Fort. Archbishop Duhig formally approved the Passionists’ application to open a house (monastery) for a Passionist community at Oxley in December 1954, and Fathers Placid and John moved into The Fort on 1 April 1955. They were soon joined by Fathers Anselm, Gregory, Hilary, Ignatius and Brother Anthony, and all worked on tidying up the house and grounds. A front room of The Fort was turned into a temporary chapel, and old sheds and stockyards were pulled down, except for the stable building (which was dismantled in 1956, and moved to its present location east of the house) and a small shed. The lookout in front of the house, overlooking the river, was formed in April 1955, and a new wing was added to the rear of the house, running east, with four bedrooms, and a washroom and toilet block.[29] The Corkrans’ gable-roofed laundry was moved and attached to the southern end of the west rear wing (in 2020 there is a skillion-roofed kitchen in this position).[30]
\nOn 6 November 1955, the first mass was celebrated on a new high altar in the chapel, and Archbishop Duhig formally visited The Fort (initially known as the Regina Coeli Retreat, and later St Mary’s Retreat, but commonly known as The Fort) on 2 August 1956, and blessed it. The first public Sunday Mass was held in the chapel on 3 February 1957. Ministries performed by the Passionist community at Oxley have since included Youth Retreats, Family Group, Chaplaincy at the Canossa Hospital (from 1960), School Chaplaincy, assisting at local parishes and the Cathedral of St Stephen, Supplies, Missions, and Retreats. Celebrations are often held in the grounds, including Music under the Stars, Christmas Eve mass and other feast day celebrations, and Mission stalls (markets for charity) are also held on the grounds. Passionist priests stay at The Fort on their way to other locations.[31]
\nOther changes to The Fort house and grounds during the years of Passionist occupancy have included: a new driveway, from near the former site of the stables, to a circular drive on the west side of the house (in the late 1980s this driveway was concreted, and a new entrance was formed, midway between the two pre-1936 entrances from Fort Road); two cannons being located at The Fort between c1963-71 (one mounted on a concrete slab west of the house; the other mounted on concrete blocks east of the lookout), before they were traded for a figure of Christ on the Cross; and the conversion of the Sacristy (southern part of east verandah) into two visitor’s rooms in 1977, by removing the wall between the core and the verandah. In 1982 a pergola was built between the two original rear wings of the house, with a deck added in the late 1980s. Also in the late 1980s, the 1950s accommodation wing at the rear was extended further to the east. In the early 1990s, due to the growth in numbers of members of the public attending, Sunday Mass was moved into the former stables, known as ‘The Shed’, which has since been damaged by two fires, including one in December 2005.[32]
\nIn 2005, most of The Fort’s grounds (10.6ha), were purchased by the Brisbane City Council, after the local community objected to plans for housing on the land, and it is now the Fort Bushland Reserve. This includes regrowth on the areas cleared for dairy farming, and was initially infested with invasive weeds.[33]
\nThe 1880s house built by Coxen, and 1.8ha of land, remains a Passionist Retreat in 2020. The community of priests at The Fort has served the greater Oxley community for 64 years since 1956.
","criteria":"The Fort (c1882), a house constructed for the retired pastoralist Henry William Coxen, an early settler of the Darling Downs, is important in demonstrating the pattern of residential development in Queensland, and in particular the establishment of substantial estates by affluent Queenslanders, on high grounds, or near the river, on the suburban periphery of Brisbane in the 19th century. Early mature trees along the Fort Road approach to the place illustrate the extent of the original estate.
|Sited on a high bluff above the Brisbane River, The Fort is important for its aesthetic significance, brought about through the relationship between the house and its setting, with sweeping views of the river, Fig Tree Pocket peninsula, and the distant forested hills, Mount Coot-tha, and CBD high-rises. Viewing this panorama from the northern verandah and grounds, combined with The Fort’s secluded setting amidst mature trees and lawns, evokes a sense of contemplative retreat.
|The Fort has a special association with the Passionist Order for spiritual reasons as their only community of priests in Queensland. The house was adapted for their use as a retreat (monastery) in 1955 and has since served as the Order’s base for its Ministries, and the site of their public Sunday masses.
|The Fort has a special association with the early Darling Downs settler and prominent Queensland pastoralist Henry William Coxen (1823-1915), who established the house c1882 after his retirement from pastoralism, and resided there until 1906. While living at The Fort, Coxen remained active in the community, serving on local divisional boards and as a Justice of the Peace.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650253,"name":"Fortitude Valley Air Raid Shelters","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"East Street and Wickham Street","suburb":"FORTITUDE VALLEY","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-09-25","description":"The Fortitude Valley Air Raid Shelters (the shelters) are four rectangular, reinforced concrete structures in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. Three shelters are located on the northeast side of East Street, between Ann Street and Wickham Street; while one is around the corner on the southeast side of Wickham Street. In 2020 the three northernmost shelters are used as cover for parked motorcycles and scooters. They are surrounded by park landscaping, paving, and other park infrastructure and mature trees (not of state cultural heritage significance).
\nThe shelters (1942):
\nEach shelter comprises a floor slab, and a double-cantilevered roof slab supported by four concrete columns, orientated with their long sides parallel to the street. The roof slabs are about 12.2m long, and 3.8m wide, while the floor slabs are about 4.5m wide, and project beyond the roof slabs. The four central columns of each shelter are about 270mm by 465mm. The former location of removed walls, including the internal walls which formed entrance passages at either end of the shelters, on alternate sides, are noticeable on the floor slabs; and are often covered in a later cement render, or are indicated in brick payers (Southern Shelter, East Street only).[1] The underside of the soffit is stepped twice near the fascia on each side of each roof slab. There are also lighter markings on the underside of each roof slab, providing evidence of the entrance wall locations; plus indications of either former cable routes to interior lighting fixtures, or interior partitions.
\nFeatures also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nFour air raid shelters stand near the corner of East Street and Wickham Street, in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, which is part of the traditional land of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples.[1] Each shelter consists of a concrete floor, four central concrete columns, and a flat double-cantilever concrete roof. Constructed by the Brisbane City Council during early 1942, in the midst of World War II (WWII), these structures are among 20 surviving examples of public surface air raid shelters designed for post-war use as either park shelters or bus stops – after the removal of their brick or concrete walls. There are 27 public surface air raid shelters of all types, built by local governments, remaining in Queensland. The shelters in Fortitude Valley, the largest surviving group of public air raid shelters in Queensland, are important in demonstrating the impact of Japan’s entry into the war on Queensland’s civilian population. They were once arranged around the perimeter of a children’s playground established in 1922.
\nAlthough WWII started in September 1939, Australia was under little threat of air attack until late 1941.[2] On 8 December 1941, the United States of America entered the war, following the previous day’s bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. Simultaneously, Japanese forces launched assaults on Thailand, the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. The sudden fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 and the rapid Japanese advance through the islands of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) raised fears of air attacks on Australia. The first Japanese air raid on Darwin occurred on 19 February 1942; and Broome, in Western Australia, was attacked on 3 March 1942. Japanese air raids on other targets in Australia seemed likely, and an invasion of Australia was also feared.[3]
\nAs a result of the growing fear of Japanese air raids, the Queensland Government issued the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, which ordered the Brisbane City Council (BCC), and other local authorities near the coast, to build air raid shelters. The BCC was ordered to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Order No.1 also required the owners of any building in the coastal areas, where over 30 people would normally be present at any one time (such as hotels), to build shelters within, or adjacent to, the building. Queensland Railways (QR) also instituted a shelter-building program at its railway stations.[4] All Queensland coastal state schools were closed in late January 1942, and although most reopened on 2 March 1942, student attendance was optional until the war ended. A policy of voluntary evacuation of women and children from Queensland coastal areas was also implemented on 27 January 1942.[5]
\nOrder No.1 was applied state-wide, and another 24 local authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 19 of these local authorities were expected to construct a total of 133 surface shelters able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet away. A surface shelter was a self-contained external structure with the floor surface at or above ground level. Five local authorities were ordered to dig trenches. Standard designs for brick and concrete surface shelters, and for trench shelters, were sent to local authorities by the Architectural Branch of the Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW).[6]
\nThe number of shelters to be built, and the number of local authorities required to build them, was increased in January 1942. By 26 January, 26 local authorities outside Brisbane were expected to build 143 surface air raid shelters, with Tully and Redcliffe constructing trenches and Ipswich building a combination of surface shelters and trenches.[7] Ultimately, those local authorities outside Brisbane which had work funded by the DPW, built 133 shelters – 126 surface shelters, and seven underground.[8]
\nBrisbane was a prime target with a large civilian population. After the first US forces arrived in Brisbane in the Pensacola Convoy on 22 December 1941, the city became a major supply base and staging point for the war in the South West Pacific, and the largest US naval base in continental Australia.[9] In January 1942 Brisbane became Base Section 3 of the United States Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA), headquartered in Somerville House [QHR 600305], South Brisbane. After General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA), arrived in Brisbane in July 1942, the city also hosted his General Headquarters in the AMP building at the corner of Queen and Edward Streets [QHR 600147]. General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander Allied Land Forces, had his Advanced Land Headquarters at the University of Queensland, St Lucia [QHR 601025]. Queensland played a major role in the build-up of troops and supplies for the joint US-Australian counter-offensive in New Guinea, which occurred after the Japanese advance was checked at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda track (August-September 1942).[10]
\nThe BCC took responsibility for certain Air Raid Precautions (ARP) activities in Brisbane, including establishing a control headquarters for Essential and Emergency Services, known as BESOR, which communicated with the police ARP control centre in the basement of the Roma Street Police Station, on the corner of Roma and Ann Streets. The latter controlled the ARP wardens. The BCC managed rescue and demolition; installed and maintained the electrically-operated air raid sirens (operated by the Police); equipped first aid sheds; and constructed public air raid shelters while supervising the building of private air raid shelters. Above-ground salt water pipes were also laid along city streets to aid in firefighting.[11]
\nThe BCC constructed 235 surface air raid shelters, with seating, temporary lighting, and lavatory accommodation; the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, 9,950ft (3km) of trenches were constructed in public parks, including 8,400ft (2.6km) of slit trenches; plus covered trenches (either concrete-lined or formed with large reinforced concrete pipes) in the Botanic Gardens (1050ft or 320m) and Victoria Park (500ft or 150m). In addition to the public shelters, the BCC also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2, 3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built on Cairns Street and under the Story Bridge (between Rotherham and Baildon Streets), for Kangaroo Point shipbuilding workers, and five shelters (including three pillboxes and two concrete pipe shelters) were constructed on behalf of the Bridge Board, Bureau of Industry, at the Howard Smith Wharves [QHR 601781].[12]
\nBy mid-1942, of the BCC’s 235 public surface shelters, 177 were listed as ‘pillbox’ (which included 21 ‘special’, or site specific, pillboxes); plus 14 were listed as ‘bus stop’, and 44 as ‘park shelter’. The latter two designs were intended to be reused for other purposes after the war, through the removal of either three walls (bus stop), or four walls (park shelter), and leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and support columns or piers.[13]
\nThe designer of the reusable air raid shelters was Frank Gibson Costello (1903-87), who was a head teacher in architectural design and lecturer in town planning at Sydney Technical College, prior to his role as the BCC’s City Architect between 1941 and 1952. His variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the Council's shelter building programme. Costello later worked for the Queensland Department of Public Works, 1958-69, while also teaching at the Central Technical College (later the Queensland Institute of Technology) from 1959-1975.[14]
\nIn an address delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane 26 February 1942, Costello noted that if ‘the emergency for their use does not arise ... (unused shelters) ... are still there in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance’. He added that ‘I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war’.[15]
\nThe City Architect’s Office’s building projects after the war would include the Brisbane City Council Carpark on Wickham Terrace [QHR 601511]; libraries at Annerley, Chermside, and Toowong [QHR 602011]; the Toowong Swimming Pool, and the Centenary Swimming Pool (1959) [QHR 601240] in Spring Hill – which were all designed by James Birrell, City Architect from 1955 to 1961.[16]
\nCostello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage – but there were only palm trees near the shelters at the corner of East Street and Wickham Street during WWII.[17]
\nThe first of Costello's reusable designs was a shelter with double-cantilevered roof slab – called a park shelter. In a BCC Department of Works list (undated) of the shelters constructed by the BCC, these were labelled as ‘cantilever’.[18] They had four central columns supporting the roof slab, which allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was also an entrance at each end of the shelter, where an internal wall formed an entry passage – on alternate sides of the shelter. If the walls were made of concrete, the shelter’s dimensions were 40ft (12.2m) long, 12ft 6 inches (3.8m) wide and 8ft 6 inches (2.6m) high, while if the walls were made of brick, the dimensions were 40ft 9 inches (12.4m) long by 13ft 3 inches (4m) wide, by 8ft 6 inches (2.6m) high. The difference was due to the fact that, while the concrete walls finished at the soffit (underside of the roof) of the roof slab, flush with the fascia (edge of the roof), the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, while covering the fascia. The Second Schedule of Order No.1 had set a minimum wall thickness for air raid shelters of 18 inches (457mm) for stone, 13.5 inches (343mm) for brick, with 12 inches (305mm) for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least 4 inches (102mm) of concrete.[19]
\nCostello’s second reusable design was a bus stop shelter, with a single-cantilevered roof slab. These were designed so that three walls (brick or concrete) could be removed after the war, leaving a back wall and five brick piers at the front. Again, there were entrances at each end. A third design, a variant of the second, was built with a stone rear wall, three removable brick walls and six stone piers at the front. Only two of the latter appear to have been built – referred to in the BCC Department of Works list as ‘bus (stone)’.[20]
\nNumerous air raid shelters were built in Fortitude Valley, including five near the corner of Wickham Street and East Street. The latter group included one pillbox shelter (southeast of the other four, at a right angle to East Street), and four park shelters, each designed to hold 70 people, and all with concrete walls.[21] These five shelters were completed by mid-1942. They were built around the perimeter of a children’s playground, established by the BCC in 1922, and managed by the Queensland Playground Association (formed 1913). The Queensland Playground Association also managed other parks in working class suburbs of inner Brisbane, including the Neal Macrossan Playground in Paddington, 1918 [QHR 601787], and the Bedford Playground in Spring Hill, 1927 [QHR 601786]. The public air raid shelters were never needed, as no Japanese air raids were conducted on Brisbane.[22]
\nMost of the Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of WWII. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. Of the 235 public surface air raid shelters built by the BCC, 21 survive in 2020 and are still owned by the BCC: one, a special pillbox (of 21 built), survives on Queens Wharf Road [QHR 600135], while 20 are Costello’s reusable shelters (of the 58 built). The removal of their blast walls, as planned, gave them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.[23]
\nOf the 20 surviving reusable public surface air raid shelters, 17 are of the park shelter design. Most of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while only a couple used brick.[24] Two examples of the bus stop design survive, at Newmarket and Newstead; plus one example of the bus (stone) variant survives on Turbot Street, at King Edward Park.
\nThe walls of the four park shelters at the corner of Wickham and East streets were removed according to plan after WWII, while the nearby pillbox shelter was demolished. A BCC carpark was built on the playground site in 1959, and later photographs show cars parked under the former air raid shelters. The northwest half of the carpark was redeveloped in the 1990s, and in 2020 three of the shelters are used as cover for parked motorcycles and scooters. All the shelters are in a narrow park, and are surrounded by later gardens or paving. The mature trees near the shelters, apart from a palm tree between the central and northern shelters on East Street, post-date 1981.[25]
","criteria":"The Fortitude Valley Air Raid Shelters, designed and constructed by the Brisbane City Council in early 1942, are important in demonstrating the impact of Japan’s entry into World War II (WWII) on Queensland’s civilian population, and the urgent Air Raid Precaution (ARP) measures undertaken in Brisbane during 1941-42. They are a product of the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted in December 1941, which ordered Queensland’s local authorities to construct public air raid shelters.
|Although hundreds of public and private air raid shelters were constructed during WWII in Queensland, they are now rare. In 2020, 27 public surface air raid shelters constructed by Queensland local governments are known to exist.
|The Fortitude Valley Air Raid Shelters are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the reusable ‘park shelter’ public surface air raid shelters built during WWII by the Brisbane City Council. Characteristics of this design include its: siting in an area with a large concentration of civilians, solid construction and dimensions, reinforced concrete floor, four central concrete columns, and a flat rectangular concrete roof.
|The Fortitude Valley Air Raid Shelters are durable examples of innovative design and use of concrete technology during WWII. The shelters demonstrate the secondary uses that were a key part of the original design intent.
|The Fortitude Valley Air Raid Shelters, the largest surviving group of public air raid shelters in Queensland, are important as examples of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office, which over time has made a substantial contribution to the built environment of Brisbane, and particularly the work of Frank Gibson Costello (1903-87), City Architect between 1941 and 1952.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion F | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650256,"name":"Maryborough Baby Clinic (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"445 Kent Street","suburb":"MARYBOROUGH","lga":"FRASER COAST REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-12-04","description":"The Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) is located in the Maryborough central business district at the corner of Kent and Lennox streets. Domestic in scale and appearance, the building faces southeast toward Kent Street and is sited in an open yard providing views to the building from Kent and Lennox Streets. The baby clinic is a strong contributor to the streetscape of late 19th century and early 20th century masonry civic buildings of a similar quality of design and detail.
\nThe Maryborough Baby Clinic Building (former) is an intact single-storey concrete building with a roughcast finish. It is approximately T-shaped in plan and has a hip roof with a prominent fleche at the centre of the ridge. The front (southwest) elevation is symmetrical with a central recessed entry porch flanked by two pairs of Tuscan order columns. The main entrance is from the front porch, accessed via a central cascading stair, which leads to the central waiting hall.
\nThe interior layout reflects the building’s use as a baby clinic with former doctor, nurse, retiring and treatment rooms opening from a large central waiting room. Leading off the central waiting room, a short hallway accesses a sink room and kitchen at the rear (northeast) of the building. The doctor’s room is connected directly to the treatment room and from there through to the sink room.
\nMinor alterations have been made to the building over time which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance. The linen presses (cupboards) in the waiting hall have been altered to open in to the rear rooms. The nurses’ room store and adjoining toilet have been combined by demolishing the partition between, creating one larger room. Original sinks have been removed and some doors replaced. A small extension (1960s) has been made to the rear of the building, requiring the infill of the rear windows.
\nFeatures of the Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nMaryborough Baby Clinic (former) was built in 1924, and is situated on the prominent corner of Kent and Lennox streets, opposite the Maryborough City Hall (QHR 600698). Following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922, which was part of a movement to improve the health of mothers and babies, the clinic was one of ten regional clinics built by the Queensland Government throughout the state in the early 1920s. Constructed to a standard, high-quality design by the Department of Public Works, the Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) remains highly intact. The clinic served the Maryborough community until its closure in the mid-1990s.
\nMaryborough is a regional centre 215km north of Brisbane, and forms part of the traditional land of the Butchulla (Badjala) People. The original township of Maryborough was situated further west upstream on the Mary River, after wharves were established there in 1847-8, to provide transport for wool from sheep stations on the Burnett River. In 1852, the growing town was gradually relocated further downstream where ships were able to better navigate the river. Development followed, and by March 1861 Maryborough was declared a municipality. During the late 1860s and 1870s, Maryborough developed rapidly as the port for the nearby gold rushes in the Gympie area.[1] By the 1920s, Maryborough had a population of more than 10,000 people and was a major regional centre.[2]
\nIn the mid-19th century, deaths of children under five comprised 50 percent of all deaths. While this had been reduced to 11 per cent by the turn of the century, this was still too high. Dysentery, diarrhoea, cholera, diphtheria and typhoid were the main causes in the late 19th century. Mrs Mary McConnel, formerly of Cressbrook Station in the Brisbane Valley, initiated the establishment of the first children’s hospital in 1878 in Brisbane, the second such hospital in Australia. The first resident medical officer for the Brisbane Children’s Hospital, Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner, was appointed in 1889. Turner’s early work was in the eradication of diphtheria. Through his collaboration with Brisbane doctor LN Ashworth, their use of the antitoxin led to a significant drop in the death rate from diphtheria between January 1895 and November 1896. Other significant medical advances made by Brisbane based doctors include the identification of hookworm as the cause of filariasis, the introduction of a test to identify typhoid and the identification of lead in paint as a significant factor in lead poisoning of children, an issue which required a long public campaign to reduce the lead content in paint.[3]
\nDespite these advances, infant mortality still remained high, being 10.68 per cent of all deaths in 1892 and 10.91 per cent in 1901. Diarrhoeal disease was still a major factor and there was a higher death rate during the summer months, many of which could be attributed to poor infant feeding. Dr Turner embarked on another public health campaign, in educating mothers in the hygienic preparation of food, particularly for those infants not breast fed.[4]
\nThe early 1920s heralded a major public health campaign by the Queensland Government following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922. As part of a national and international movement to improve the health of mothers and babies, baby clinics were established throughout Queensland.[5] Under the stewardship of the Department of Public Works (DPW), a standard design for the Queensland regional baby clinic was produced.[6] Based on this plan, ten regional clinics were built. These included Rockhampton, Townsville (demolished), Ipswich, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Gympie, Mackay, Charters Towers, Warwick and Maryborough. The Rockhampton clinic was the first to be opened on Saturday 27 October 1923. It was described in the 1924 DPW Report:
\nA compact tile-roofed one-storey reinforced cement plaster building of attractive design, containing waiting hall 16 ft by 16 ft; a doctor's room 12 ft by 11 ft; treatment room 13 ft by 11 ft; retiring and nurse’s rooms 11ft by 10 ft with water closet, lavatories, store, press etc. Modern fittings and furnishings have been installed throughout and a septic system provided for conveniences.[7]
\nSpecifications for the Rockhampton Clinic are indicative of those used for the standardised designed clinics. They were domestic in scale, included Classical architectural treatments to the street-fronting elevations and included interior treatments that were hygienic and easily cleaned. Generally, the foundations were altered to suit individual sites, but essentially the same elevations and floor plans were adapted from the original plan. Some clinics had a bathroom added adjacent to the kitchen if the nurse lived on site, and others had a tool room included, adjacent to the sink room, to enable the gardener to maintain the grounds.[8]
\nThe government was eager to have a baby clinic established in Maryborough, to serve the major regional town and its district. Following a visit in March 1923, the Home Secretary, Mr William McCormack, identified an appropriate site for a new baby clinic - a vacant lot on the corner of Kent and Lennox streets, adjacent to the stately Maryborough School of Arts (QHR 600701) and opposite the grand Maryborough City Hall (QHR 600698).[9] Between 1876 and 1908, this had been the site of the first town hall. The old town hall had become dilapidated, and amidst community support, removed from the site in 1908.[10]
\nIn 1910, the vacant lot was granted by the government for a new technical college. By the early 1920s, however, this was yet to be constructed.[11] In April 1923, it was announced that the former college reserve would be the site for a new baby clinic.[12] Following the completion of the plans by the DPW, the construction of the clinic began in late 1923 and finished by September 1924. The official opening ceremony, attended by several dignitaries including the Assistant Home Secretary, MJ Kirwan MLA, was held on the afternoon of Saturday 13 September 1924.[13] The new clinic was described in the local newspaper:
\n[The clinic] will be of reinforced concrete, with the partitions of the same material … the roof will be of Marseilles tiles, and will be surmounted by a fleche … which will add to the ornamental effect as well as provide for utility. The frontage of the building will be to Kent Street and will stand about 10 feet from the footpath. The clinic will contain several rooms, the dimensions of the whole building being 40 feet frontage and 37 feet in depth. A porch entrance will be provided and off this will be a waiting hall … [there] will be the doctors’ and nurses’ rooms, treatment room, retiring room, and a kitchen and sink room, while the various conveniences will be provided for.[14]
\nTwo nurses were appointed for the clinic, with Ms MA McLean in charge. The doctor for the clinic was Honorary Medical Officer, Dr HC Garde.[15] An attractive timber fence, which had been built as early as 1910, was in good condition and retained.[16]
\nThe establishment of baby clinics throughout Queensland was financed through the profits of the state run lottery, the Golden Casket, established in 1920. The Maternity Act 1922 sought to decrease the death rate for mothers and babies; to increase the birth-rate; to expand outback settlement and to train mothers how to care for children and essentially develop a healthy population. The Act also initiated the establishment of a network of free maternity hospitals throughout Queensland, managed under the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund.[17]
\nIn response to the high infant death rate at the turn of the 20th century, Queensland’s first baby clinic had opened in Brisbane in 1908 and was attended by Dr Turner, who saw up to 100 babies a week, free of charge.[18] Following a conference on child welfare in Sydney in 1916, representatives of women's organisations, benevolent societies and the Crèche and Kindergarten Association lobbied the Home Secretary, John Huxham to establish a network of baby clinics in Queensland. In August 1917, he announced that three clinics would be built, which was later expanded to four. At that time the first baby clinic had just been built in Victoria, while New South Wales already had eleven. All were based on the philosophy of New Zealand doctor, Frederick Truby King, which promoted breast feeding, the training of nurses in maternal and infant welfare and the education of mothers in domestic hygiene.
\nA national agenda for public health and social reform was implicit in the growth of the town planning movement. The second Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane in mid-1918 included a display illustrating the proper care of babies. The organiser of this conference was Charles Edward Chuter, an officer of the Home Secretary's Department, who was to have a significant impact on local government and on the health system in Queensland. He had managed the finances of the Brisbane General Hospital from 1917, and sought the means to implement the social policies of the recently elected Labour government of T J Ryan. Chuter established the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund, which was financed through the Golden Casket Lottery. He also had significant input into the drafting of the Maternity Act 1922. The decision to operate a regular lottery from 1920, with the profits deposited into the Hospital Trust Account, financed a major building program in maternity hospitals and baby clinics.[19]
\nThe first government baby clinic in Queensland opened in a rented cottage in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley (Brisbane) on 8 March 1918, managed by Matron Florence Chatfield of the Diamantina Hospital. Three more clinics opened shortly after at Woolloongabba, Spring Hill and West End. Nurse Chatfield travelled north in October 1920, seeking suitable sites to build clinics in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton, preferring a central location, close to the shopping areas and close to public transport. She also sought support from at least one doctor in each town to act as the Honorary Medical Officer, attached to the clinic.
\nBetween October 1923 and November 1924, new baby clinics were erected at Rockhampton, Townsville (now demolished), Ipswich, Toowoomba, Cairns (now demolished), Bundaberg and Maryborough. A new Fortitude Valley Clinic, replacing the Brunswick Street clinic, opened in 1924, and included a training school for nurses. The training centre staff had been educated in both New Zealand and Sydney and the centre produced eight graduates in 1924 and eleven in 1925.[20]
\nOnce in operation, the centrally located Maryborough Baby Clinic proved a valuable facility for both mothers from Maryborough and those from surrounding districts. The work of the nurses was to give advice:
\nto expectant mothers in matters regarding their own health and that of their babies, before and after birth; to visit all newborn infants within their districts so far as possible; to distribute leaflets and invite the mothers to visit the clinics; to encourage natural feeding of infants … to advise medical or hospital treatment for such cases as may need it; and to educate the women of Queensland in mothercraft, so that the next generation will be stronger, wiser and happier.[21]
\nAccommodation for one nurse was provided in the clinic building. As well as tending to mothers visiting the clinic, the nurses were expected to make home visits to those unable to travel into Maryborough. There were also branch baby clinics set up in Pialba, Biggenden, Howard and Childers, with a nurse from the Maryborough clinic visiting once a week.[22]
\nIn 1924, it was reported that the establishment of baby clinics in Queensland was proving to be a success with ‘40,356 attendances at clinics’ throughout the state.[23] Specifically, in December 1927, the Maryborough clinic recorded 629 new births for that year, with the rate of infant mortality decreasing.[24] By February 1930, attendances at the clinic had reached 726 per month.[25]
\nIn 1940 the Kent and Lennox streets corner of the clinic site was truncated by the Maryborough City Council in an attempt to improve traffic safety. It was agreed that the existing fence would be realigned to accommodate this.[26] By the early 1960s, this timber fence was deemed beyond repair by the DPW and was subsequently replaced with the current tubular pipe-framed chain wire fence in 1960.[27]
\nIn 1965, a rear extension was constructed to provide extra room for the clinic. It consisted of a new laundry, bathroom and public toilet. Minor alterations were made to the clinic building at this time including changing the use of one of the rooms for extra accommodation for the nurses.[28] In 1977, a carport was built at the Lennox Street side of the clinic. The clinic continued to serve the Maryborough community until its closure in the mid-1990s. [29] It was then leased to several commercial tenancies until the property was sold to the Fraser Coast Regional Council in 2020.[30]
\nThe Maryborough Baby Clinic (former), established in 1924, following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922, played a central role in the health and wellbeing of mothers and their babies throughout the Maryborough district for more than 70 years. The clinic is a highly intact example of the Department of Public Works’ standard design for regional baby clinics. Prominently sited, the finely designed building makes a positive contribution to the streetscape of Maryborough's civic centre.
","criteria":"The Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) (1924) is important in demonstrating Queensland’s response to the movement to reduce infant mortality and improve maternal health during the 1920s, by providing health care to babies and their mothers and education in infant welfare and domestic hygiene.
\nConstructed and operated as a Queensland Government initiative following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922, the Maryborough Baby Clinic was established as the base for providing vital material and infant health services in the Wide Bay region. In its form, fabric, materials and layout, it is a representative example of a Department of Public Works standard design regional baby clinic.
|In its form, fabric, materials and layout, the Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Department of Public Works standard design baby clinic of the 1920s. Highly intact, these include its: central location; domestic scale and form with modest classical influences; symmetrical front elevation; masonry construction with timber-framed hip roof and prominent ventilation fleche; open front porch; functional layout comprising central waiting hall, doctor’s office, treatment room, sink room, kitchen, nurse’s room, and retiring room; and use of robust materials with simple detailing including roughcast render, terracotta roof tiles, moulded timber joinery, flat sheet ceilings with decorative timber cover battens and glazed doors and multi-light casement windows and fanlights.
|Highly intact, the Maryborough Baby Clinic (former) is important for its aesthetic significance brought about by its beautiful attributes and contribution to the streetscape of the city. Through its skilful use of classical architectural stylistic features, symmetrical composition, open central porch with columns, hip roof with fleche, the building is an attractive, well-composed design.
\nThe place stands on a prominent corner within a collection of impressive late 19th and early 20th century civic buildings clustered at the centre of Maryborough. Views to the building’s street elevations, and particularly its porch and fleche, are obtained from Lennox and Kent streets. The building is an important contributor to the streetscape through its modest proportions, use of classical architectural style, symmetrical composition, solid materials, hip roof with fleche, and street-facing porch with columns.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650257,"name":"The Downs Club","alternate_name":"Downs Club Inc","street_address":"15 Mylne Street","suburb":"TOOWOOMBA","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2020-12-04","description":"The Downs Club is a highly-intact, purpose-built private men’s clubhouse standing prominently on a generous site immediately west of the Toowoomba CBD. The site has streets on three sides – Margaret Street to its south, Mylne on its east, and Isabel on its north. Still used for its original purpose, the clubhouse stands at the southern end of the rectangular site with an attractive garden setting. It has had two extensions on its northern side (1972 and 1989) and a Function Lawn (1989) is to its north. Two small outbuildings are to the rear (west) of the clubhouse – the Steward’s Room (1909), and the Former Stable (1900) with its Garage Extension (from c1912).
\nThe features of the Downs Club of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nClubhouse (1900) and its Two Extensions (1972 and 1989)
\nHighly intact, the original section of the clubhouse is an impressive single-storey building in a Federation-era style with asymmetrical massing and form. It is a loadbearing brick structure with timber-framed floors and roof, and the exterior walls and tall chimneys are face brick. It faces east, has an L-shaped timber verandah on its front and southern side, and a complex main roof of projecting hips and gables and two tall spire-like lanterns. Attached at the rear is a rectangular room (the Members’ Bar), which has a separate hip roof with lantern and overhanging awnings on its north and south sides.
\nThe front entrance is via a wide, brick-lined stair, through an arched entrance porch with a gable roof, into a small square vestibule. The vestibule has doors into various parts of the clubhouse, controlling access depending on member status. A secondary entrance to the site is via a small side gate from Margaret Street which leads directly to the Washroom on the end of the southern verandah, which also controls access.
\nThe internal layout comprises a central hall with rooms either side. On the south are the two largest rooms: the Reading Room and the Billiards Room, which can be combined via a folding partition. On the north is the small Stranger’s Room at the front (for non-members), and a large Banquet Room, comprising two joined rooms. At the rear is the Members’ Bar.
\nThe original section’s windows, doors, and circulation routes are noticeably designed for privacy control, reflecting its original private club use. Its interior decorative treatments are relatively-restrained, although this is amplified by the rooms’ complex spatial forms.
\nFeatures of the Clubhouse’s original section (1900) of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Clubhouse’s original section (1900) not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGents’ Toilets Extension
\nDoors from the Billiards Room and the Members’ Bar lead to a small Gents’ Toilets Extension. It is an early addition built to the rear of the building, with entrance doors that match the original section. Its exterior is face brick and it has timber-framed double-hung windows and a flat roof.
\nFeatures of the Gents’ Toilets Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Gents’ Toilets Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFunction Room Extension (1972)
\nAttached along the northern side of the original section of the clubhouse is the Function Room Extension (1972), a single-storey structure with a cellar and a flat roof. Its exterior is face brick and combines architectural details that mimic the original section as well as details contemporary with its construction. It is accessed from the clubhouse’s northern rooms, and from the exterior (west and north) for loading and staff entrances. It accommodates a large Function Room to the front (east) and to the rear of this is a Ladies’ Toilets, Kitchen, Storeroom, and Office (with stair to cellar).
\nFeatures of the Function Room Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Function Room Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nCentenary Room Extension (1989)
\nThe Centenary Room Extension (1989) is a single-storey structure attached to the north side of the Function Room Extension. It is a face brick building with flat roof. It accommodates a single large function room, the entire north wall of which projects out as a bay window with a conservatory roof. Access into the room is from a large opening in the Function Room Extension and from the exterior through large sliding doors in the bay window. These doors lead out the long expanse of the Function Lawn, which forms the backdrop of the Centenary Room.
\nFeatures of the Centenary Room Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Centenary Room Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nSteward’s Room (1909)
\nThe Steward’s Room (1909) is a small, single-storey timber-framed and -clad building standing to the rear of the clubhouse near Margaret Street. It is elevated from the ground and has a small brick enclosure to its understorey. It has a hip roof clad and a central metal pot-bellied flue (Marks patent). Its two windows facing Margaret Street have been sheeted over. A window on the opposite (north) side has two pivoting casement sashes (Marks patent). Entrance to the building is via a door on the east side and the west side is blank.
\nThe interior was not inspected.
\nFeatures of the Steward’s Room of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Steward’s Room not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFormer Stable (1900, moved within the site 1909) and Garage Extension (c1912)
\nThe Former Stable and its Garage Extension stands to the rear (west) of the clubhouse, near and north of the Steward’s Room. It is a small single-storey building built on the ground. It comprises two sections – the original stable, and later extension discernible by joins in the timber members.
\nThe original skillion-roofed timber-framed stable comprises the rear (west) half of the building. Its western wall has been partially demolished and replaced with a concrete block wall and a large caged opening has been made in the southern wall.
\nThe garage extension is the eastern half and continues the skillion roof line to double it in size and accommodate vehicles. The extension is part timber-framed and part face brick, suggesting it may have occurred in two stages.
\nThe interior was not inspected.
\nFeatures of the Former Stable and Garage Extension of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Former Stable and Garage Extension not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nGrounds and Garden Setting
\nThe clubhouse has a manicured garden on its Mylne and Margaret Street sides, providing an attractive setting. To the north of the site is the Function Lawn, a lawn for garden functions. To the west of this is a large bitumen car park, accessed from Isabel Street. Parts of the boundary are lined with a mature camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) hedge.
\nFeatures of the Generous Grounds and Garden Setting of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Garden Setting not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews
\nFrom Margaret and Mylne streets The Downs Club is highly visible and its prominence is emphasised by its striking architecture.
\nViews of The Downs Club of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nThe Downs Club, is situated in a central location in Toowoomba on the corners of Margaret, Mylne and Isabel streets. Constructed in 1900 as the second clubhouse for the exclusive gentlemen’s club, the Downs Club (established in 1889), the stately brick building with generous grounds and gardens, reflects the members’ desire to convey a sense of prestige,, exclusivity, and privacy. Designed by prominent and innovative Toowoomba architecture firm, James Marks and Son, the club was modelled on the principles of 19th century British gentlemen’s clubs and showcases the firm’s characteristic architectural features. Within the grounds is an original stable (1900) and a detached Steward’s Room (1909). In 2020 the Downs Club continues its tradition as a gentlemen’s club.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. The small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842, but was soon surpassed by a more desirable location six kilometres to the northeast, known as Toowoomba from the 1850s. Better suited to market gardening, with a more reliable water supply, and supported by squatters and land speculators, Toowoomba was incorporated as a municipality in 1860. Its rapid economic and social development was influenced by local residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements.[1]
\nAs Toowoomba progressed in the 1870-80s, a commercial centre emerged. The construction of a police station and post office near the courthouse firmly established the upper (eastern) end of Margaret Street as a government precinct. By the 1880s the Russell, Ruthven, and Margaret Street block (western end) was pre-eminent as the commercial centre of Toowoomba.[2] Banks, retail stores, hotels, and commercial businesses flourished as the population of the town increased. The surrounding pastoral properties depended on these businesses to provide services and products. Visits to town often became social occasions.[3]
\nThe first gentlemen’s club in Toowoomba was established by a group of wealthy squatters (pastoralists with large holdings often termed ‘Pure Merinos’) in the early 1860s, eager to have their own private club in town, where they could stay overnight and socialise with other men of similar social standing. Just prior to this, in 1859 the prestigious Queensland Club (QHR 600113) had been founded in Brisbane. Once established, the new Toowoomba club became known as ‘The Union Club’, with a stately clubhouse constructed on Russell Street (Clifford House (QHR 600857) in 2020). Only the wealthy could afford membership fees, ensuring the club’s exclusivity. This was, however, short-lived, and by 1870 the building had been sold and the club dissolved.[4]
\nBy the 1880s in Toowoomba, the dominance of the squattocracy in Darling Downs society had been supplemented by a wealthy and influential professional and business class.[5] A desire emerged amongst men in both the town and pastoral districts, for the establishment of a new gentlemen’s club.[6] At a meeting held 20 July 1889 in the Club Hotel, the decision was made to form such an association. The club was to base their rules on those of the Queensland Club and membership would consist of a four guinea entrance fee (just over £4) and an annual subscription of two guineas for town members, with country members (those who lived more than 10 miles (16km) from Toowoomba) to pay approximately half this amount. Although not as expensive as the Queensland Club’s membership at the time, which was £12 per year, it was still a considerable sum.[7] The club was a private club for men of distinction and provided a social and recreational venue for those with common interests and socio-economic backgrounds.[8] Initially called the ‘Darling Downs Club’, it began with a membership of 44. By July 1890, this had increased to 66.[9] One could only become a member if voted in by the members, thus ensuring exclusivity. The first president of the club was AJ Boyd, Headmaster of the Toowoomba Grammar School (QHR 600850). Members included ‘Pure Merinos’ such as MF Ramsay of Eton Vale Homestead (QHR 600391) and WB Slade of Glengallan Homestead (QHR 600007). Several doctors, solicitors and politicians were also amongst the first club members, including the Minister for Railways at the time, Hon. HM Nelson.[10]
\nThe Darling Downs Club’s first club rooms were within the Club Hotel. These were specially built for them, to a design by Toowoomba architect James Marks, described at the first annual meeting as ‘the billiard room, card-room, and general room’, with all the furniture, including a Burroughes and Watts’ of London billiard table, paid for by club funds.[11] By the mid-1890s the club was better known as the ‘Downs Club’. As membership continued to increase, the club’s accommodation proved inadequate. Problems had also arisen when members did not receive adequate service from the hotel staff.[12]
\nThe construction of a new clubhouse was deemed essential and in January 1900 a property on the corner of Margaret and Mylne streets was purchased from James Taylor jnr, a founding member of the club and the son of prominent Toowoomba resident, James Taylor. The property totalled 2 roods (0.2ha), consisted of 5 lots (L16-20 RP16262 in 2020) and cost £500.[13] Architects were invited to submit designs in early 1899, for a brick clubhouse that would not cost more than £1000, with a five guinea prize for the successful firm. Two Toowoomba based architecture firms, James Marks and Son and William Hodgen, submitted designs - the former becoming the winner.[14]
\nOn 26 August 1899, James Marks and Son called for tenders ‘for the erection of a Club Building in Margaret street, for the ‘Downs Club’.[15] Funds were raised for the £1526 clubhouse through a debenture scheme, with each member offered £5 debentures. Work on the new clubhouse commenced swiftly and by May 1900 the building had been completed. To celebrate the opening of the clubhouse, a ball was held.[16] The event was featured in the social pages of the newspapers, ‘The Downs Club ball on Thursday evening was a brilliant one. Everything went off with the greatest e´clar. The reception rooms were beautifully decorated’.[17]
\nThe Downs Club was modelled of a 19th century British gentlemen’s club, as was the 1884 Queensland Club building in Brisbane (QHR 600113). Clubs were established throughout the British Empire at this time in an attempt to affirm members’ affiliations (perceived or actual) with Britain, through the social and recreational traditions held by the club. Food, drink, and convivial company with like-minded gentlemen attracted members. Many clubs also offered overnight accommodation.[18] Of utmost importance in the design was the provision of members’ privacy, exclusivity, and prestige. Only members were permitted into the ‘inner sanctum’ of the club rooms, which generally included a reading room, smoking room, card room, billiard room, club room, and dining room; guests were known as ‘Strangers’ and relegated to a strangers’ room close to the entrance, but apart from the main club rooms, ensuring members’ privacy. If guests were allowed into the club proper, they were required to sign a book and were allowed only limited access. Stewards were employed to police this tradition and to provide service to members. Clubs also offered their members recreational activities including team sports.[19]
\nWhen first completed, the one-story brick Federation era-style clubhouse, situated on the rise of the hill on the corner of Margaret and Mylne streets, conveyed a sense of prestige and distinction, which followed the tradition of gentlemen’s clubs both in England (in particular London) and colonial clubs throughout the British Empire.[20] The layout of the club ensured control of the members’ and non-members’ spaces from inside and privacy from outside. An entrance vestibule separated the clubhouse from the outside world, and connected separately to a strangers’ room at the front of the building. Heavy double doors led into the club rooms via a stately central hall. The luxuriously appointed rooms included the reading room, billiards room, small washroom, and banquet room. To the rear of the clubhouse was a detached timber auxiliary building with the kitchen, a (steward’s) bedroom, and storeroom. There was also a modest timber stable at the rear. The club did not offer overnight accommodation to its members.[21]
\nIn February 1909, a large fire broke out at the rear of the clubhouse which destroyed the timber auxiliary building, the ‘flames quickly got hold of the back rooms, built of wood, comprising a kitchen, bedroom, and a storeroom….Luckily the wind was blowing strongly from the east, and assisted in keeping the flames entering the main building’.[22] The brick clubhouse was not damaged, nor was the stable. Following the fire, the club purchased a 16 perch (405m²) block to the rear of the clubhouse from James Taylor.[23] On 13 March 1909, tenders were called by architecture firm HJ Marks and Lane, for ‘Additions and Alterations to the Downs Club’.[24] Costing £455, the work included the relocation of the stable to the newly purchased rear lot and the construction of a separate timber steward’s room, with its own small cellar, beside the stable. A cellar was also constructed beneath the brick clubhouse. It is likely that the members’ bar at the rear of the club was constructed at this time.[25] Also in this year, camphor laurel trees (Cinnamomum camphora) were planted along the fence line, and would be manicured to become a hedge. A timber fence was constructed at this time to replace an earlier one.[26]
\nThe architecture firm James Marks and Son, responsible for the design of the clubhouse, comprised father and son architects James Marks (1834-1915) and Henry (Harry) James Marks (1871-1939). It operated from 1892 until 1910. James had commenced practice as James Marks, Architect in Toowoomba by the early 1880s and was successful, being responsible for notable and high profile buildings in the Downs region. Born and trained in Toowoomba, his son Harry was a highly creative and inventive designer, and together, the practice continued James’ success and was responsible for a variety of further impressive buildings. These included Rodway (QHR 600868), St James Parish Hall (QHR 600856), St Luke's Church Hall (QHR 600866), additions to the Toowoomba Maltings (QHR 600852), and Harry’s own family home ‘St Rest’ (known as Gladstone House in 2020 (QHR 601303)). James retired in 1906, and Harry briefly practiced as HJ Marks and Lane (1909-10), calling tenders for the 1909 additions to the Downs Club. The practice under its various names has been described as dominating the architectural profession in Toowoomba for more than half a century.[27]
\nHarry Marks was also described as being gifted with inventive genius. He devised and patented a number of architectural elements, including roof ventilators, windows and a method of stucco wall construction.[28] His designs included many of his patented inventions and other architectural devices such as roof lanterns and high ceilings that focused on the provision of natural light and ventilation to the interior. His architectural style has been described as ‘stylish exaggeration’ with ‘little surface decoration’ relying more on the ‘proportions and massing of the roofs and rooms’.[29]
\nThe Downs Club exemplifies James Marks and Sons’ work and in particular, Harry Marks’ design influence. Privacy was foremost, and windows in the clubhouse at eye level were few and relatively small. Additionally, there were no French doors on the verandah, limiting access. This possible lack of light and ventilation was countered by including impressive double barrel-vaulted ceilings with tall lanterns and brightly lit voids, high-level semi-circular windows, fanlights above internal doors, Harry’s patented pot-bellied flues for ventilation, and his patented pivoting casement sash windows, obscured with textured glass.[30]
\nIn the 1910s the club expanded by purchasing four adjoining vacant lots, totalling 1 rood 24 perches (approximately 1620m²) to the north on the corner of Mylne and Isabel streets, from James Taylor.[31] In October 1914 tenders were called for ‘the laying down of two ant-bed tennis courts at the Downs Club’ on these lots.[32] Once complete, the tennis courts were made available to associates of members, including females, with the proviso that they ‘not use any of the Downs Club premises, or any part thereof with the exception of the tennis court proper and the approaches thereto’.[33] Camphor laurels were planted along the boundary of the newly acquired property, again manicured as hedges. The stable was extended at this time to include a garage for cars and in 1916 a cricket bowling green was laid.[34]
\nThroughout the club’s history, cricket matches had been held between other gentlemen’s clubs, including the Queensland Club (QHR 600113) and the Warwick Club (established in 1896). Bridge games and billiards tournaments were also held, usually ending with a club dinner.[35]
\nIn the 1920s further improvements were made to the clubhouse, including replacing the front timber entrance stairs with brick ones. The stable/garage was also extended at this time, reflecting the growing use of motor vehicles in the 1920s. In May 1928 the club held a lavish ball attended by 200 guests. The clubhouse was described at the time:
\nIn the card and reading rooms, which are connected with folding doors, bowls of beautiful gladioli were used … in the large lounge, with its high domed roof, there was a wreath of lovely roses … the spacious hall was grouped with palms … and in the billiard room, where there was a big cosy fire, the mantel was massed with … dahlias.[36]
\nIn the 1950s minor changes were made to the club interior, including painting, kitchen upgrades and an extension to the bar in the members’ bar. It was not until 1972, however, that any major changes were made to the clubhouse when a large addition was constructed along its northern side to accommodate a new function room and kitchen. This new wing was designed with a parapet and bay window on the Mylne Street side, copying those of the original building. Changes to the club rules at this time allowed members to invite female guests for lunch in the new functions room and the extension included a ladies’ toilet. In 1985 the tennis courts were removed to accommodate a function lawn, and entrance pillars were erected at driveway from Isabel Street. The Downs Club became an incorporated association in 1988.[37]
\nAs the club approached its centenary celebrations in 1989, a new garden room was constructed to the north of the 1972 function room, known as the Centenary Room. This enlarged the function space considerably and a locally designed and made leadlight window, bearing the club’s name, was installed in the front wall, to commemorate the occasion.[38]
\nThe Downs Club, established in 1889, continues its original use as a private gentlemen’s club. The 1900 brick clubhouse, designed by James Marks and Son, incorporating Harry Marks’ innovative architectural features, set in generous grounds, has played a role in its successive members’ social and recreational lives since the late 19th century. Although still a private club, in recent years the Downs Club has opened some of its facilities for venue hire to the public for occasions such as weddings.
","criteria":"The Downs Club (1900) is important in demonstrating the establishment of exclusive social institutions for wealthy males in colonial Queensland, based on British cultural traditions. Its origins and continued use as a traditional gentlemen’s club are illustrated in its form, materials and layout.
\nLater extensions to the clubhouse in 1972 and then in 1989 (to mark the club’s centenary) illustrate the continued operation of the club into the late 20th century and reflects its expanded use and access.
|In its form, fabric, materials and layout, the Downs Club is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built gentlemen’s club of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Highly intact, these principal characteristics include its: central location with dignified street appearance; privacy control measures (hedged garden setting and floor plan arrangement separating members and non-members); high quality design, construction, and furnishings; and provision of strangers’ room, leisure and games rooms (reading, billiards), rooms for shared drinking and dining (bar and banquet rooms), facilities for members from ‘out of town’ (washroom, stable/garage), and service facilities (steward’s room).
\nDesigned by James Marks and Son, the Downs Club is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of the work of this important Toowoomba architecture firm, notable for its prolific and high quality body of work in Queensland. Many of the firm’s principal characteristics are demonstrated at the Downs Club including its: skilful and creative architectural design; emphasis on natural daylight and abundant ventilation to the interior; complex interior spatial forms; and use of Harry Marks’ patent windows and flues. Highly intact, the Downs Club is an excellent example of the firm’s work.
|The Downs Club is important for its aesthetic significance. Viewed from Margaret and Mylne streets, it has a dignified street presence, standing prominently in a hedged garden setting in central Toowoomba. It displays beautiful attributes through its: well-composed design in an expressive Federation-era style; complex asymmetrical roof form punctuated by gables, chimneys, and roof lanterns; striking internal spatial forms with vaulted ceilings and interconnected rooms; and cohesive use of high-quality materials, finishes, and decorative treatments.
|The Downs Club is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative achievement in architecture. As an excellent and highly-intact example of James Marks and Son’s work, a firm renowned for its design and technical expertise and innovation, the clubhouse demonstrates a skilful use of Federation-era style, with striking internal spatial forms, and the firm’s own patented windows and flues.
|The place has a special association with past and present members of the Downs Club as the organisation’s headquarters and the principal venue for its social and recreational activities continuously for more than 120 years.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650262,"name":"Reconciliation Rocks","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Cnr of Sherrin Esplanade and Adelaide Street","suburb":"COOKTOWN","lga":"COOK SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2021-05-28","description":"Reconciliation Rocks occupies a large site at the northwest edge of Cooktown (traditionally part of Gangaar/Gungardie) in north Queensland. Located adjacent riparian mangroves at the mouth of the Endeavour River (Waalumbaal Birri), the place is accessed via and extends into the Adelaide Street road reserve at its east. To its other sides, the site is bounded by the junction of Sherrin Esplanade, Adelaide Street and Furneaux Street (to the north), mangroves (to the north and west), and a grassed area (to the south).
\nThe place comprises an outcrop of granite rocks, separated into two sections by a central former railway cutting (1884; formerly a part of the Cooktown to Laura Railway) that runs north-south through the site. The eastern outcrop forms part of a rolling, grassed hill, and the western outcrop rises abruptly at its eastern (cutting) side and is comprised mostly of rock. Both outcrops narrow toward their north and south ends. An informal path runs through the former railway cutting. The place stands in an open, largely natural setting.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\n","history":"
Reconciliation Rocks is the site of the first recorded peaceful resolution of conflict between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans. Part of a broader site on which prolonged contact and cultural exchanges occurred between Guugu Yimithirr bamangay (people) and European explorers from His Majesty’s Bark (HMB) Endeavour in July 1770, the rocks was the place where conflict between the groups over turtles was reconciled on 19 July. The rocks site was modified in the 1880s when a railway line was surveyed through the rocks. Re-enactments of the Endeavour’s time in Cooktown began in 1959. The re-enactment was updated in 2009 to reflect the role of the Guugu Yimithirr bamangay, reconciliation and the rocks site, and in 2018 commemorations and re-enactments began to be held at Reconciliation Rocks.
\nGungardie or Gangaar (Cooktown) is located within Guugu Yimithirr (or Yimidhirr) country, occupied continuously since at least 37,000BP.[1] The Guugu Yimithirr nation is comprised of 32 clans with a common language and a complex system of familial and social lore and law. The nation includes land from Yuku Baja (Annan River) in the south and Princess Charlotte Bay in the north. The area around Gungardie was home to the Waymburr clan of the Guugu Yimithirr,[2] but land between the south bank of Waalumbaal Birri (Endeavour River) and Yuku Baja was neutral ground accessed by both the Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji nations for gun-gaar (white quartz), used in male initiation ceremonies.[3] The neutral ground was sacred land where blood could not be spilt, and was used for gatherings and to settle disputes.[4]
\nFor millennia, the Guugu Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji practised land management and careful, sustainable resource use of their country.[5] Most people were also multi-lingual, due to the diversity of the shared ground around Gungardie and linguistic variations between the clans.[6]
\nThe first recorded sustained contact between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans occurred at Gungardie in July 1770. In August 1768, HMB Endeavour was despatched from England to Tahiti, via Rio de Janeiro, to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus. The bark,[7] captained by Lieutenant James Cook and with a contingent including botanist Joseph Banks, arrived in Tahiti in April 1769 for the June transit. Cook had been entrusted with secret orders from the British Lords of the Admiralty to search for and chart ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’, known in Europe as terra australis incognita.[8] Cook opened the orders in Tahiti, and Endeavour embarked on its expedition for the southern landmass.[9] After charting the New Zealand coast, the Endeavour crew sighted land (the east coast of Australia) in April 1770. They followed the coast north, stopping briefly at various harbours and coves to survey the land and attempt contact with people.
\nOn 11 June, Endeavour struck a reef off Cape Tribulation, about 50km south of Gungardie, and was badly damaged. ‘[H]ere begun all our troubles,’[10] Cook wrote in his journal, as the crew nursed the injured bark into a nearby harbour (Waalumbaal Birri) over the following eight days. On 18 June, Endeavour landed near the neutral gun-gaar ground and was moored ‘along side of a Steep beach on the south side’ of the harbour, then warped a little further inland and upended for repairs.[11] The Endeavour was fixed within eleven days, but unfavourable tides stranded the bark in the river until August 1770. Cook, Banks, and the crew used the time to explore the area and restock the ship’s stores.[12]
\nReports of the Endeavour had been carried up the coast to the Guugu Yimithirr bamangay (people)[13] before the bark’s arrival in Waalumbaal Birri. Badjala and Dulingbara people on K’gari had watched the progress of the ‘mysterious white-winged object’, and the passage of the ‘strange large canoe’ was reported up the coast from Cape Tribulation.[14] The Guugu Yimithirr bamangay were accustomed to passing traders from Torres Strait Island and Makassar (now Sulawesi, Indonesia) looking for bêche-de-mer and shells,[15] and initially ‘considered these boat people like others who came and went would not cause problems.’[16] The Endeavour crew who disembarked on the river bank were white skinned (except Tahitians Tupaia and Taiata[17]), and their skin colour and direction of travel was associated with wangaar (ghosts or ancestor spirits) in Guugu Yimithirr spiritual culture.[18] Moreover, the crew had arrived and established a camp on the neutral ground on the southern side of the river. The Guugu Yimithirr people adopted a strategy of cautious observation; women moved to the northern bank, while the men observed the actions of the Europeans over the next several weeks:[19]
\n… the Bama-ngay would have watched the ship come in and pull up …They wouldn’t have known what it was. They would have been talking amongst themselves and saying, what is this thing? They would have had all kinds of conversations amongst themselves trying to figure out what was going on. The Waymburr Bama-Gaay, that’s this mob, they were all up the river. Because it blows in June, the wind comes and the rain comes so there was nobody here. All this time, our Bama-Gaay from across the river, they looked and they saw this ship come in. Before that the Kuku Yalandji mob down at Cape Tribulation, the Yalandji coast, they would have seen Captain Cook sailing up the coast too. Because he pulled into Weary Bay before he came here to Cooktown. So, they watched, our Bama-Gaay watched for over a month.[20]
\nThe Europeans were keen to make contact. Cook had been instructed to ‘endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance’[21] with any indigenous people he might encounter, but attempts at communicating with people in Kamay (Botany Bay) ended with conflict and other attempts at stopping points along the coast had met with limited success.[22] Since the Endeavour’s foundering they had sighted people from afar, and on 7 July Banks and a small group had approached a fire in the hopes that the people ‘who we had so long had a curiosity to see well, were there’. They found the people had departed, and Banks reported himself ‘disapointed of the only good chance we have had of seing the people since we came here by their unaccountable timidity.’[23] On 8 July he wrote that people had approached the ship, ‘but not come to them; Yesterday they had made a fire about a mile and a half of and this morn 2 had appeard on the beach opposite to the ship.’[24]
\nAfter three weeks of careful observation, the Guugu Yimithirr Bama made contact on 10 July. Four Guugu Yimithirr men entered Waalumbaal Birri from the northern shore, and two approached the Endeavour by canoe. Once they were within distance the Europeans threw to them ‘cloth, nails, paper, etc, etc,’ and finally a fish, which the men received, according to Banks, with ‘the greatest joy imaginable’. All four men met the Europeans on shore near the Endeavour and stayed until dinner time. They exchanged words, repeating the Europeans’ language after them, but the crew and interpreter Tupaia could not understand the Guugu Yimithirr men.[25]
\nThe Guugu Yimithirr Bama returned to the Endeavour the next day with a fish for the Europeans,[26] and over the next nine days, the groups exchanged food, goods and language. ‘[They] seemed to have lost all fear of us and become quite familiar,’ wrote Banks.[27] A group of five men came to the camp early on 12 July and stayed with the Endeavour crew for the rest of the morning. During several meetings they accepted trinkets from the Endeavour crew, gave gulka (spear) demonstrations when requested (described by Banks as ‘lance throwing’[28]), and taught the crew a number of words in Guugu Yimithirr. Cook, Banks and botanical artist Sydney Parkinson recorded more than 130 of them in their journals. These included body parts, animals, natural features, and a small number of phrases, including one believed to mean, ‘I’m going to tell you something.’[29] The Guugu Yimithirr bamangay introduced themselves to the Europeans by name; Banks recorded one (Yaparico) and Parkinson nine in their journals.[30] The names indicated that the men came from several different clans within the Guugu Yimithirr tribe, as well as one Kuku Yalanji bama.[31] On 14 July the Endeavour crew hunted an animal they did not recognise; they received the name gangurru from the Guugu Yimithirr people, transcribing it as ‘kangaroo’.[32]
\nOn 18 July, a group of Guugu Yimithirr men again approached the Endeavour. They boarded the bark and noticed a large number of turtles on the deck.[33] Turtle taking was managed sustainably by Guugu Yimithirr bamangay, and the breeding grounds from which the Endeavour crew likely took the turtles was part of a sacred songline.[34] Cook noted that the men ‘took more notice of these [turtles] than anything’, though Banks saw nothing amiss.[35] For the Endeavour crew, turtles were a valuable source of nutrition for the long voyage back to England, and the journal-keepers expressed delight at finding them. Female turtles were preferred as they kept better on long voyages than males,[36] but in Waalumbaal Birri marmiingu (female turtles) were vital for ongoing resource management.[37] The turtles on the bark, taken in large numbers and without permission, violated Guugu Yimithirr cultural laws:[38]
\nAt that time, the ship had already been loaded with the tents and gun powder and all the stuff that was taken off the ship. It was already reloaded and ready to sail off. But they had to wait for the right wind to blow them out of the harbour. So they came on board and you know what they saw on the boat? Turtles. 13 turtles on board. That’s a lot of [ngawiya] to get, and to have on the boat, but they needed the turtles to take them back to England again. But you know where they got those [ngawiyagaay] from? Boulder Reef. Egrit, Boulder and Unchartered, Boulder is the more Northern one. A round ran coral, shaped like a boulder, some stick out on the high tide. In 1770 on those boulders there was a lot of [ngawiya]. They didn’t spear them, they just went and picked them up off the reef and put them in the boat and took them back to the ship. When our Bama-Gaay saw all those turtle on the boat, they got very, very angry. They wanted to throw things overboard, but they were stopped. Then they marched off the boat, left angry.[39]
\n… one morning ten of our men were invited to inspect the visitors’ boat. To their horror, they saw a number of turtles on board, presumably taken from our waters… To our Bama it became an offence. The sharing code was broken. They should have got permission from us as the owners or custodians.[40]
\nThe bamangay departed without taking action. Later that day,
\nNgamu Yarrbarigu an elder of the clans called all the members together to discuss the day’s events. A strategy was agreed on. Ngamu Yarrbarigu and a number of men would visit the stranger’s camp the next day and every effort would be made to make peace, because our Bama now knew that the visitors possessed a spirit which was more powerful than they had experienced. Next morning before our Bama left camp, a customary ritual was performed by the Elders. Each man was wiped with sweat from the armpit of the Elders – ‘ngaalaan thuulngal’ – and our women chanted – ‘ganhil gunday’. This was for them to be protected, to practice self-control and to leave camp with a blessing.[41]
\nTen Bama returned to the Endeavour on 19 July. Their spears were left in the care of two others while they boarded the bark. ‘They soon let us know their errand which was by some means or other to get one of our [sic] Turtle,’ Banks wrote. Banks refused the request to return the turtles, and the men applied to another crew member. This was also refused. The men attempted to take the turtles off the Endeavour, but the crew deterred them. Angered, the men left the bark.[42]
\n‘Immediately upon their Landing,’ wrote Cook,
\none of them took a Handful of dry grass and lighted it at a fire we had ashore, and before we know’d what he was going about he made a larger Circuit round about us, and set fire to the grass in his way, and in an instant the whole place was in flames…as soon as they had done all this they all went to a place where some of our people were washing and where all our nets and a good deal of our linen were laid out to dry, here with the greatest obstinacy they again set fire to the grass which I and some others who were present could not prevent until I was obliged to fire a musquet load with small shott at one of the ring leaders which sent them off.[43]
\nCook ‘had no musquet with him,’ wrote Banks,
\nso soon returnd to fetch one for no threats or signs would make them desist. Mine was ashore and another loaded with shot, so we ran as fast as possible towards them and came just time enough to save the Seine by firing at an Indian who had already fird the grass in two places just to windward of it; on the shot striking him, tho he was full 40 yards from the Captn who fird, he dropd his fire and ran nimbly to his comrades who all ran off pretty fast. The Captn then loaded his musquet with a ball and fird it into the Mangroves abreast of where they ran to shew them that they were not yet out of our reach, they ran on quickening their pace on hearing the Ball and we soon lost sight of them.[44]
\nThe Europeans put out the fire, and Cook realised ‘one [of the men] must have been a little hurt, because we saw a few drops of blood on some of the linnen he had gone over’.
\n[T]hey did not go far from us, for we soon after heard their Voices in the woods, upon which Mr Banks and I and 3 or 4 More went to look for them and very soon met them coming towards us. As they had each 4 or 5 darts, and not knowing their intention, we seized upon six or seven of the first darts we met with.[45]
\n… on seeing us come with our musquets they again retird leasurely after an old man had venturd quite to us and said something which we could not understand. We followd for near a mile, then meeting with some rocks from whence we might observe their motions we sat down and they did so too about 100 yards from us.[46]
\nWhen our Bama confronted the strangers, each had four spears. The Elder Ngamu Yarrbarigu carried one spear which had no barb. Our elders were afraid to do anything that might result in the spirits of our departed ancestors being upset, in case Cook’s mob were indeed Wangaar or reincarnations of our ancestors. And so, with this doubt and fear in their minds, they used discretion, deciding against any rash actions.[47]
\nAs the groups faced one another at the rocks, the Guugu Yimithirr people offered the Europeans peace:
\n…a little old man came out of the bush. He got sweat out of his arms, he blew it, he was mumbling something, and he came forward, with a spear, with a broken tip. He came forward and Cook recognised that that man was making peace. You know why he was making peace? Because he was a Waymburr Elder. Cook called him a little old man. He made peace here because he was following the Lore. The Lore says that was not blood to be spilt on this part of Country. So, they stuck to their laws. The Bama men were frustrated. Cook and his crew had taken so much from this land, from the rivers and from the seas. They’d taken lots of things. The Guugu Yimithirr people were hospitable to Cook, but when they did the wrong thing by taking too much [ngawiya] they got very angry and frustrated. And they couldn’t do anything, they couldn’t turn around and spear them. You could imagine, Cook had muskets, something they’d seen them kill birds with. To stop them from having a big clash and creating a war this little old man came forward and he reconciled by doing it. This here, taking sweat from under your arms, is called [Narrla Mumdamaay]. You’re being smeared with sweat. In the old days people would go up to welcome somebody by taking [Narrla] from under their arms and rub it all over you. And they didn’t have deodorant before! So, sweat [narrla] was a very important thing, because that was the smell of you. So, your ancestors would recognise you.[48]
\nNgamu Yarrbarigu said to Cook’s men: Ngahthaan gadaai thawun maa naa thi hu ‘We come to make friends’. Sensing that the strangers were not sure of their intention and did not understand what their leader, Ngamu Yarrbarigu, said, our Bama then put their plan into action. They withdrew to an outcrop of rocks, where it is possible that more Bama were positioned. There they placed their spears on the ground and sat down. At this point, Cook may have become aware that his life was in danger. However, diplomacy was used by both sides. It may be that the caution on the part of the Guugu Yimithirr saved Cook’s life. A cautious agreement was reached.[49]
\n‘The little old man now came forward to us carrying in his hand a lance without a point,’ Banks wrote:
\nHe halted several times and as he stood employd himself in collecting the moisture from under his arm pit with his finger which he every time drew through his mouth. We beckond to him to come: he then spoke to the others who all laid their lances against a tree and leaving them came forwards likewise and soon came quite to us.[50]
\nThe actions of elder Ngamu Yarrbarigu,[51] described in Banks’ journal as the ‘little old man’, both asserted his cultural governance of the area[52] and calmed the conflict. Gathering sweat was a personal and welcoming gesture that allowed ancestors to recognise people,[53] and the use of sweat to mask the scent of others was a custom, ‘so that our spirits will believe that you’re one of us, they’ll look after you, hold you tight and keep you safe’.[54]
\nCook ‘return’d the Darts we had taken from them, which reconcil’d everything’,[55] and the Guugu Yimithirr introduced the Europeans to three additional men who were part of the group. Banks reported the exchange of further ‘trinkets’ before the groups walked back to the Endeavour. ‘They could not be prevailed upon to come on board,’ wrote Banks. ‘They stayed about two hours and then departed.’[56]
\nThen Ngamu Yarrbarigu told his men to leave their spears and follow the strangers towards their camp-site. There were some men who wanted to have a close look at the boat but they agreed to be more cautious. They stayed for a while and then left. Before leaving to board their canoes, our Bama agreed between themselves that the things that the strangers gave were to be got rid of and that no further contact was to be made and that the visitors should have freedom of movement.[57]
\nThe following day, Banks wrote, ‘No Indians [sic] came near us but all the hills about us for many miles were on fire and at night made the most beautifull [sic] appearance imaginable.’[58] The neutrality of the ground had been breached by the spilling of blood, and the fires were likely a cleansing action.[59]
\nThe Endeavour crew attempted departure on 20 July, but were hampered by a strong wind. The Europeans spent the next sixteen days hunting and collecting specimens while they waited for conditions to improve, but further interactions with the Guugu Yimithirr were limited. On 22 July, a group of men cooking around a fire received a lost crew member for about half an hour before directing him back to the Endeavour.[60] ‘In botanizing today on the other side of the river’, Banks wrote the following day,
\nwe accidentaly found the greatest part of the clothes which had been given to the Indians left all in a heap together, doubtless as lumber not worth carriage. May be had we lookd farther we should have found our other trinkets, for they seemd to set no value upon any thing we had except our turtle, which of all things we were the least able to spare them.[61]
\nWhile this sustained contact and knowledge of cultural practices between Guugu Yimithirr and Europeans occurred, after voyaging further north, on 22 August 1770 on Bendanug (Possession Island), Cook ‘took possession of the whole Eastern coast’ explored by the Endeavour ‘in the Name of His Majesty King George The Third’.[62]
\nThe Guugu Yimithirr encountered another European expedition in 1819-1820,[63] but no further reports of Europeans were made until the 1870s. Following the discovery of gold at the Palmer River, a European settlement was established at the mouth of the Endeavour River, to serve as a port town for the goldfield.[64] The settlement, named ‘Cook’s Town’ or ‘Cooktown’ by its inhabitants, was situated near Grassy Hill, not far from the Endeavour campsite. Residential allotments and a post office reserve were surveyed near the rocks where the Guugu Yimithirr and Endeavour crew reconciliation had taken place.[65] Interactions between the Guugu Yimithirr bamangay and European settlers in the following years contrasted starkly with the 1770 contact.[66] In 1884, the rocks were gazetted as part of a reserve for a railway connecting Cooktown to the goldfield.[67] The railway line was constructed through the rocky outcrop, dividing it into an eastern and western section. The railway was closed in 1961 and dismantled,[68] and the site was gazetted for recreation.[69]
\nIn 1959, the Cooktown Progress Association began an annual re-enactment of the arrival of Cook and HMB Endeavour and the 1770 encounters, later forming an official Re-enactment Society. In 2009, the re-enactment was reworked to include the Guugu Yimithirr perspective of Cook’s arrival.[70] Interpretative signs were installed at the rocks in 2012,[71] and the rocks site was increasingly recognised as a symbol of shared history and the power of reconciliation.[72] Gungardie / Cooktown was the first recorded site of prolonged interactions between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans. The encounters and contact at Gungardie generated one of the first written recordings of an Aboriginal language, and provided the origin of the word ‘kangaroo’. The event at Reconciliation Rocks, reconciling the misunderstanding and conflict between the parties, was initiated by the Guugu Yimithirr Bamangay and accepted by Europeans, who were under instructions to show the Aboriginal peoples every civility and regard. Books, papers and websites recounting the story of the reconciliation were published in the 2010s, and the site was named ‘Reconciliation Rocks’.[73] The Cooktown community began fundraising for statues to commemorate the reconciliation.[74]
\nIn 2019 the Australian Prime Minister visited the site in anticipation of proposed celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the Endeavour voyage.[75] Commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the reconciliation was held at the site on 18 July 2020.[76] A large festival was planned but postponed due to the COVID19 pandemic.[77] A National Museum of Australia exhibition, Endeavour Voyage: The Untold Stories of Cook and the First Australians, highlighting the events at Reconciliation Rocks, was launched in April 2020. Artworks and a short film, The Message, both depicting the reconciliation, were commissioned for the exhibition.[78] In 2021, Reconciliation Rocks remains a site of interpretation and commemoration.
","criteria":"Reconciliation Rocks is important in demonstrating the evolution of both Queensland and Australian history, as the place where Australia’s first recorded act of reconciliation took place between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans, after conflict that followed several days of cultural exchange and contact at Gungardie or Gangaar (Cooktown) in July 1770. Peace was instigated and offered by the Guugu Yimithirr Bamangay (people) and accepted by the crew of His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour at the rocks on 19 July 1770 after a dispute over turtles on neutral ground, in violation of cultural law and lore. The event is unique in Queensland’s history.
|Reconciliation Rocks demonstrates a unique aspect of Queensland’s cultural heritage, as the only recorded site of conflict resolution between Aboriginal and European peoples prior to European invasion and occupation of Queensland.
|Reconciliation Rocks has a strong and special association with the Cooktown community. Many Aboriginal members of the community are descendants of the Guugu Yimithirr Bamangay who encountered Cook and the Endeavour crew in 1770. The community has expressed and demonstrated pride in and value of the site as a place of immense significance that reflects the complex cultural structure of the Bamangay, the story of Australia’s reconciliation and the place of the first recorded act of reconciliation between Aboriginal peoples and European explorers. Commemorations and re-enactments have been held annually by the Cooktown Re-enactment Association since 1959, with a growing understanding and recognition of the role of the Bamangay since 2008. Commemorations have been held at Reconciliation Rocks itself since 2018. This value also is expressed through the use of the site for modern acts of interpretation, storytelling and continuing reconciliation. The 250th anniversary of the reconciliation was recognised in 2020 through art, movies, exhibitions, and onsite events.
|Reconciliation Rocks has a special association with the Guugu Yimithirr elder Ngamu Yarrbarigu, recorded as initiating the reconciliation. Despite cultural misunderstandings and hostilities, Yarrbarigu offered peace and it was accepted by the European explorers at Reconciliation Rocks.
\nReconciliation Rocks and the activities that occurred there also have a special association with Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks on their 1770 voyage along Australia’s east coast, as recorded in their journals.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650263,"name":"Eagles Nest Camp, Redwood Park","alternate_name":"Eagles Nest Swagmen's Rest Camp","street_address":"Old Toll Bar Road","suburb":"REDWOOD","lga":"TOOWOOMBA REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2021-03-26","description":"Eagles Nest Camp (1930) occupies a 2.65 hectare site within the larger Redwood Park, an area of predominantly open eucalypt forest located on the eastern escarpment of the Great Dividing Range. The camp is sited on ground that slopes down to the northeast, and is bounded by the Redwood Bridle Trail on its southwest side and the Eagles Nest Trail on its southern side. It comprises a collection of elevated earth and drystone building platforms and associated landscape features, and remnants of the former vegetable gardens and stockyards.
\nFeatures of Eagles Nest Camp of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nCamp location, layout, landscape and setting
\nPositioned on the fringe of Toowoomba but within walking distance (3km) to the city, the camp’s location and open eucalypt forest setting reflects its historical use as a place of respite for travelling unemployed men. The camp grounds were historically cleared of vegetation, with the exception of shade trees and gardens tended by its occupants, and its elevated position and steep topography offered attractive views across the Lockyer Valley to the east.
\nIn 2021, remnants of the camp visible amongst the regrowth vegetation and accumulated sediments illustrate its former layout and relationships between features. The building platforms are positioned on the higher ground, and the former vegetable gardens and stockyards are located on the lower ground to the northeast.
\nThe building platforms are laid out with the large mess hall and kitchen at the southern end, situated between two rows of accommodation huts and other amenities that extend southeast to northwest in gentle arcs along the hillside terrain. A rubbish dump associated with the camp is located along the creek, south of the mess hall and kitchen.
\nThe camp retains remnants of its terraced and sloped ground forms, stone-cobbled and -edged paths, and stone-edged garden beds. Built and tended by the occupants, these landscape features illustrate their efforts and pride in the appearance of the camp.
\nFeatures of the camp location, layout, landscape and setting of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nMess hall and kitchen remnants
\nThe mess hall and kitchen remnants comprise a large (approximately 9m x 14m long) earth platform with its long sides facing east and west. Sited on sloping ground, the elevated platform has drystone retaining walls (approximately 1m high) along its east and south sides.
\nStone stairs indicate the eastern entrance to the former mess hall structure (approximately 6.5m x 8m, no longer extant) that originally stood on the platform, with the former kitchen structure attached to its northern end. Later removed, these timber-framed former structures were clad in corrugated metal, corn sacks and flattened kerosene tins.
\nVegetation clearing and archaeological excavations undertaken in 1994 revealed the extent and general layout of the mess hall and kitchen platform, along with stone-edged gardens and a stone-cobbled entrance path at its southern end. These features remain extant, concealed by protective fill.[50]
\nFeatures of the mess hall and kitchen remnants of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nHut remnants
\nThe hut remnants comprise at least 17 elevated earth platforms with drystone retaining walls, roughly arranged into an upper and lower row. The upper row (Huts 1 to 8) extends from west of the mess hall and kitchen remnants, curving southeast to north along the sloping terrace. The lower row (Huts 9 to 17) extends from east of the mess hall and kitchen remnants, curving southeast to northwest around the western side of the vegetable gardens.
\nThe former hut structures (varying sizes, no longer extant) that originally stood on the platforms were single storey and skillion-roofed, with doorways generally facing east. They were constructed using bush timber frames, and clad in corrugated metal, corn sacks and flatted kerosene tins. Most were square or rectangular in plan and used as sleeping quarters for the men, although some may have been washrooms, latrines or garden sheds.
\nAccumulated soil and regrowth vegetation around the hut remnants have obscured their extents (horizontally and vertically) and plan forms. However, visible surface features indicate their location and general arrangement. Hut platforms 9 and 12 are larger than most, and Hut 12 platform is L-shape in plan.
\nFeatures of the hut remnants of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nVegetable gardens and stockyard remnants
\nThe vegetable gardens and stockyard remnants comprise an area of cleared land that was originally used to grow vegetables to supply the camp. The stockyard is rectangular in plan and located on the eastern side of the gardens.
\nFeatures of the vegetable gardens and stockyard remnants of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nArchaeological potential
\nHistorical evidence and previous archaeological investigations indicate the camp had extensive landscaping beyond what is currently visible, as well as latrines and other amenities. Potential remains to identify these and other features of the camp through further archaeological surveys and physical investigations.
\nAreas where potential archaeological evidence could contribute to a greater understanding of the layout and functions of the place, and the activities and living conditions of its occupants include:
\nNon-significant features
\nFeatures of Eagles Nest Camp not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nEagles Nest Camp is a 2.65 hectare site, located within Redwood Park, a bushland reserve situated on the eastern side of the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range. Gazetted a sanctuary for native birds in 1911, Redwood Park soon became a valued recreational park, where Toowoomba residents and visitors could experience nature and enjoy the views over the valley below. In late 1930, a small portion of the park became a makeshift camp for unemployed men, impacted by the Great Depression. Known as the Eagles Nest, it was established by prominent Toowoomba resident and philanthropist, Dr Thomas Price, as well as other concerned residents, to alleviate the hardships experienced by these indigent men. Wholly constructed by the occupants, the camp soon became known as one of the best of its type in the country. Archaeological evidence of the camp remains in the park. Redwood Park remains a valued nature reserve for Toowoomba residents and visitors.
\nEuropean settlement of the Toowoomba area, traditional country of the Giabal and Jarowair people, commenced in 1840 when squatters occupied pastoral runs on the Darling Downs. The small settlement of Drayton evolved from 1842, but was soon surpassed by a more desirable location six kilometres to the northeast, known as Toowoomba from the 1850s. Better suited to market gardening, with a more reliable water supply, and supported by squatters and land speculators, Toowoomba was incorporated as a municipality in 1860.[1] In 1855 the Toll Bar Road was opened and the traffic that soon came to use this route facilitated the expansion of Toowoomba.[2]
\nRapid economic and social development was influenced by local Toowoomba residents who strongly promoted the prospects of the town, and political representatives who successfully lobbied for government funding for civic improvements.[3] In 1871, approximately 13,500 acres (5463 ha) of land on Toowoomba’s eastern escarpment was reserved as the ‘Toowoomba Town Common’ by the colonial government.[4] By the 1880s there was a growing anxiety amongst several Toowoomba residents, concerned that a 2000 acre (809ha) portion of this land was to be alienated by the government for private sale. The bushland, a highly valued and picturesque nature reserve, extended along the escarpment’s eastern ridgeline to the base of the range and overlooked the Lockyer Valley below.[5]
\nIn 1888 a petition, signed by more than 250 of Toowoomba’s male residents, was sent to the Minister of Lands, Henry Jordan, requesting the 2000 acre (809ha) site be given to the municipal authorities in trust to ensure its continued use as a recreational and natural public park.[6] The requested land to be placed in trust encompassed what was to become Redwood Park, Picnic Point and Adjacent Parkland (QHR 601205) and Jubilee Park. The petition appears not to have been acted on and the bushland remained Crown Land.[7]
\nIn October 1910, the Queensland Government declared a 500 acre (202ha) bushland site, previously part of the Toowoomba Town Common reserve (which would become Redwood Park), a ‘Reserve for the Protection and Preservation of Native Birds’, under the Native Birds Protection Acts, 1877 to 1884.[8] This was followed by the reserve being proclaimed a park in early 1911 and subsequently named Redwood Park by the Toowoomba City Council.[9] At the same time, Picnic Point and Jubilee Park were also declared reserves for birds.[10] Ten years later, as further legislation was introduced in relation to the protection of both birds and animals, under the Native Birds Protection Act 1921 and the Animal and Birds Act 1921, stricter rules concerning the safeguarding of vulnerable fauna ensured Redwood Park’s reputation locally as a haven for native wildlife, ‘the penalty for anyone killing or capturing native birds and animals in these reserves is up to £20’.[11] Under these acts, honorary rangers/officers were appointed by the government to patrol the reserves.[12] Several were appointed for the Toowoomba region including two prominent Toowoomba residents, EC Bernays (solicitor) and Dr Thomas Price (medical specialist, philanthropist, aldermen and mayor from 1918-19), both of whom were committed to the preservation and protection of Toowoomba’s flora and fauna.[13]
\nBernays proved to be a keen advocate for the establishment of a fauna sanctuary in Redwood Park, believing it could become the premier example of this type of tourist attraction in Queensland. He proposed that the 500 acre park be surrounded by a chain-wire fence for the protection of the native fauna within the park.[14] The council was supportive of this scheme in principle, and several examples of marsupial release in Redwood Park were reported in the local newspapers. Funding for the fence, however, did not eventuate at this time.[15]
\nEagles Nest Camp
\nDuring the interwar period Toowoomba was the regional centre of the Darling Downs. The impacts of the Great Depression emerged in the early 1930s as unemployment rates escalated. An increasing number of unemployed, itinerant men travelled either on foot, or by rail, across the state looking for employment. Between 1929 and 1933 Queensland Government policy stipulated unemployed single men, not working on relief projects, would not be able to draw state government funded emergency rations from the same centre in successive weeks. This forced them to move onto the next town, often many miles away, in order to demonstrate they were seeking work.[16] The term ‘swagmen’, used to describe itinerant men walking around the country, or ‘waltzing Matilda’, seeking work in nineteenth and early twentieth century Australia, was applied to these men who were compelled to travel long distances. Once in regional towns they would sometimes be provided with a meal (generally from charitable groups), sign up for intermittent relief work, or receive their meagre rations. In 1930 there were 1920 itinerant ‘travellers’ receiving rations in Toowoomba which soon became known to these men as a ‘good town’, referring to the services available to them and the reception from towns’ people.[17] Makeshift camps sprung up in some of the town’s parks and under bridges, prompting concern from residents and local government, anxious, not only about the safety and health of citizens, but also the welfare of the men, especially when they had to contend with Toowoomba’s cold winter nights.[18]
\nThe hardships experienced by the ‘swagmen’ was described in the local newspaper, ‘suffering intensely for want of sufficient and proper food, with rags for clothes, boots falling to pieces and no shelter; dejected from the endless search for work they could not find, most of them a few years ago were our heroes in Flanders and on Gallipoli’.[19] Several leading Toowoomba citizens, including Dr Thomas Price, empathised with the men and endeavoured to assist them. In March 1930, a small group of swagmen camping beside an old cattle dip, close to the Toll Bar Road, were moved on by authorities due to a tick infestation. ‘Hungry, dejected, poorly clad and shelterless’, a large canvas tent was loaned to them by the 1st Toowoomba Girl Guides, under the direction of Dr Thomas Price’s wife, Hester, providing them with temporary shelter.[20] Food was also supplied to the men, ‘they were obviously going to pieces because of bad and insufficient food and exposure … some were breaking out into sores – evidence of scurvy’. [21] More was needed to help the swagmen. Dr. Price, with the help of other locals, offered assistance to set up a camp for the unemployed men. Ideally, it was to be self-sufficient, where they could rest, have decent meals, and be given work to restore spirits.[22]
\nWith the support of the Toowoomba City Council, a 2.5 ha section of land on a slope in Redwood Park was transformed into the ‘Eagles Nest’ camp. A sign was erected on the Toll Bar Road pointing to a bush track leading to the camp which read ‘Eagles Nest Swagmen’s Rest Camp’.[23] Materials, tools and other helpful supplies were given to the men by Dr Price and supporters, and by mid-1931 they had erected a small group of huts including ‘the sleeping hut, with 16 bunks, dining shed, galley, shower, meat safe, water supply, and so on … built by the swagmen’.[24] A large vegetable garden was also cultivated as part of the camp. Over the months the camp expanded with the erection of separate accommodation huts built from old flattened kerosine tins and cornsacks. By June 1933, six had been erected and in November there were a dozen accommodation huts housing one, two and four bunks. In December 1933 the camp was described in Truth: ‘The huts comprise two kitchens, dining rooms, showers, workshop, and a fly-proof closet – with a dozen sleeping huts ... Water is laid on from a mountain spring and gives a plentiful supply to kitchen, showers, gardens and water trough’.[25]
\nA large galvanised iron shelter shed was moved into the Eagles Nest camp in January 1933. It had been erected by the council and the Social Service League in Bridge Street outside Toowoomba’s CBD in July 1932, to provide more shelter for homeless men.[26] The relocation of the shed followed complaints about a rise in petty crime, attributed to the itinerants in town; the shelter was unsightly; and too many of the men were remaining in the city for too long, ‘they were coming in droves and for the welfare of the city they should be made to go further on’.[27] Once relocated to the Eagles Nest, this shelter shed became the mess/dining hall. Many of the men housed in the Bridge Street shelter then moved to the Eagles Nest camp.[28]
\nThe contrast between the town’s attitude toward the men staying at the Eagles Nest Camp and the problematic camps in town is reflective of society’s attitudes at the time of the ‘deserving poor’. These were unfortunate people who wanted to work but were unable, as opposed to the ‘undeserving poor’ who were able to work but chose not to.[29] In 1933 the Daily Standard stated that the Eagles Nest ‘camp works because of its friendly spirit and comradeship, and because of the recognised principle that a man should work for what he gets’.[30] The camp was seen as a worthy endeavour, as reflected in the many newspaper features touting its merit, and the respectability of its occupants. The self-constructed, self-sufficient, temperate, clean camp was viewed favourably - and it was just far enough away from the centre of town to alleviate uneasiness.
\nCamps for the unemployed were not a rarity in Australia during the Great Depression. The almost unsolvable problem of providing shelter to homeless, unemployed men was often left to the men themselves, who would establish unofficial makeshift camps in public parks, showgrounds, under bridges, or in dilapidated and vacant buildings. Often the camps were seen by residents and local authorities as an unfortunate eyesore, but one that was usually tolerated due to the sad situation those in the camps found themselves. Occasionally, however, the camps would be disbanded by the authorities following complaints. Throughout Queensland there were many of these camps. In Brisbane there were large camps housing several hundred people in shacks, humpies and lean-tos including in Victoria Park, Dutton Park, Moorooka, Tarragindi, and Mayne Junction. There were camps in Townsville, Charters Towers, Cairns, Gympie and Warwick. Often they would have a co-ordinated camp committee to organise food, cleaning and discipline.[31] The squalid and temporary nature of the camps, vacated once better times arrived, have consequently left little remaining evidence of this fragment of history.[32]
\nDr Price stated that the men at the Eagles Nest Camp came from all echelons of society, even university academics, who, due to the economic crises could find no work. He stressed that most of the men were returned servicemen, ‘ordinary decent men just hungry for work’.[33] For Toowoomba residents, keen to help the deserving swagmen, Eagles Nest proved itself worthy of receiving charitable gestures, unlike the troublesome camps in town.[34] Community support and donations for the camp came from groups including the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides (of which Dr and Mrs Price were leaders of respectively); local businesses such as cafes and butchers; and charity organisations, often including the Social Service League. Local farmers also loaned several cows and donated a few pigs and chickens.[35]
\nThere were strict procedures to adhere to if staying at the camp. Firstly, men could only stay at the camp for a fortnight or so and then had to move on. Whilst at the camp they were given shelter and food and could rest. Each man would give a portion of his ration order to the camp. They were expected to contribute to the running of the camp by working in the garden, kitchen or generally around the camp. If someone was given intermittent work, a fraction of the earnings would go back into the camp. A notice board outside the dining mess stated the three rules:
\n1. Men staying must abide by the man in charge.
\n2. No intoxicants are allowed to be brought into the camp.
\n3. Be sanitary and clean, and keep camp tidy.[36]
\nThere were comforts such as hot showers and fresh running water, pumped in from a nearby stream. A library and a gramophone with records were donated by community members, as well as clothing and boots. A site manager oversaw the running of the camp and was one of only two permanent residents at the camp; the other was the secretary; both were invalid ex-servicemen. Approximately 35 men could stay at the camp at any one time, however, this fluctuated.[37]
\nA scheme to assist the men and the camp’s finances was arranged by the Toowoomba City Council, with a voluntary toll for drivers on the rough Toowoomba-Helidon Road. Men from the Eagles Nest Camp worked repairing the road and in exchange, ‘the money will be used to pay the camp expenses of single unemployed men, who have agreed to fill in all ruts’.[38] Other relief work was provided clearing the range road of lantana. Surplus fruit and vegetables and chopped firewood produced at the camp was donated (never sold) by the men to unemployed Toowoomba residents and their families, as well as to the local hospitals.[39]
\nIn 1935, features of the camp were described in the Telegraph:
\nSet deep in the basin of the hills … a first glimpse of Eagle’s Nest reveals a cluster of little pink-walled abodes, interspersed with white buildings, picked out with remarkably well defined footpaths lined with white stones, with here and there a bed of multi-coloured flowers … nestling at the foot of the little dwellings, spread out like a bright patterned carpet in green, with rich black loam as a background and healthy green passion vine as a fringe, is seen the tidiest vegetable garden on the Downs.[40]
\nA series of photographs of the camp taken in the mid-1930s present a well-cared for camp with a series of small huts on platforms, spaced out over the slope under tall trees, facing east with a view out to the valley below. Cobbled footpaths with white-washed stone edging traversed the camp and stone-edged flower beds appeared in front of many of the huts, including the mess hall. Stone retaining walls terraced the camp and the large segmented vegetable garden was verdant with crops. Along one of the terraces the words ‘Eagles Nest’ was laid out in white-washed stone.[41]
\nThis Toowoomba retreat from the swagmen’s harsh existence on the road was extolled in many newspaper articles and magazines throughout Australia, including the Brisbane Courier, Sydney’s The World’s News, rural NSW’s Richmond River Herald and Northern River Advertiser, Rockhampton’s Evening News, Mackay’s Daily Mercury, Truth, The Australian Women’s Mirror and the ABC Weekly. In August 1934 the camp was visited by the Minister for Labour and Industry, Mr MP Hynes, who showed a keen interest in the project.[42]
\nIt was approximated in 1935 that 1500 men had stayed at the camp since its beginning:
\nThose Toowoomba residents who have made this camp possible may like to know that around many camp fires all over Australia are men who look back on the few days spent in Eagle’s Nest as a bright patch of sunlight and peace in the midst of a very stormy and troubled time – Yours, Eagle’s Nest Camp.[43]
\nIn 1938 the Main Roads Commission began work on redirecting the Toll Bar Road up the range at a lesser grade, north west along the edge of Redwood Park. The completion of the new road was to coincide with the Darling Downs’ centenary celebrations in 1940.[44] The idea of establishing a fenced animal sanctuary in Redwood Park was revived and funding sought from the Queensland Government to assist with the erection of a 3.5 mile (5.6km) boundary fence. It was hoped that the sanctuary would become a tourist attraction for Toowoomba, as well as contribute to the conservation of native fauna. The cost for the project was estimated at £2780, with £1000 granted by the Queensland Government, provided the funds were used specifically for the construction of the fence and water supply for the animals. Toowoomba City Council was to pay for all other expenses which included a caretaker’s cottage, public toilets and water tank.[45]
\nThe new Toll Bar Road, also to be known as the Toowoomba Highway, was officially opened on 29 January 1940, attended by several dignitaries, including the Minister of Works, Mr Bruce, and the Mayor of Toowoomba, JD Annand. The establishment of the animal and bird sanctuary in Redwood Park was announced at the ceremony, ‘which would be one of the show places of Queensland’.[46] The fence had been completed by the end of 1941 and a series of advertisements were placed in local newspapers for donations of native animals, in particular koalas, for the park. A caretaker/ranger was appointed who resided in a newly-built cottage situated close to the Toll Bar Road entrance to the park. An entrance drive from the road was also constructed and funded by the Main Roads Commission.[47] Unfortunately, the tourist attraction was not a success, and by 1955 all structures including the caretaker’s cottage had been removed. The perimeter fence fell into disrepair and so too did the entrance drive.[48]
\nIt is unclear when the Eagles Nest Camp was vacated and the structures removed, however, it is likely that it coincided with the establishment of the sanctuary and the beginning of World War II. In 1994 remnants of the camp were exposed during vegetation clearing in the area, and an archaeological investigation was carried out by the University of Southern Queensland on part of the former camp site, funded by the council. The earth and drystone platform foundations of 19 structures were identified, along with numerous paths and stone-edged garden beds, and the location of the vegetable gardens and stockyards. The mess hall and kitchen platforms were excavated to reveal their layout, and a dump site along the creek produced a range of glass, ceramic, metal artefacts, including crockery sourced from Toowoomba businesses, and recycled and repurposed items. In 2021 remnants of the camp remain in Redwood Park.[49]
\nOver the years Redwood Park has been used by groups such as the Boy Scouts and as a training ground for the military in the 1950s and 1960s. In 2021, Redwood Park remains one of Toowoomba’s valued nature reserves and is a popular recreational destination for nature lovers and bird watchers. The Friends of the Escarpment Parks group continue to care for and maintain the park in cooperation with the Toowoomba Regional Council.
","criteria":"Eagles Nest Camp, 1930-c.39, is important in demonstrating the economic and social impact of the Great Depression in Queensland. Established with assistance from the Toowoomba community as a place of comfort and respite for itinerant unemployed men compelled to travel to seek work, the camp became self-sufficient with accommodation huts, communal structures, landscaping, vegetable gardens and stockyards. It became renowned throughout Australia during the Depression as an exemplary camp for unemployed swagmen. Located on the fringe of Toowoomba in the bushland setting of Redwood Park, the camp retains important surviving physical evidence of its occupation.
|Eagles Nest Camp is rare as the only known example of a Great Depression-era unemployed itinerant men’s camp in Queensland with surviving fabric and layout, and is distinctive as a well-organised example, wholly constructed by its occupants.
|Eagles Nest Camp has the potential to contribute knowledge that will lead to a greater understanding of Great Depression-era camps in Queensland, their occupants and their associated activities and infrastructure.
\nArchaeological investigations of the extensive camp site – its surface remnants and potential sub-surface features and artefacts – may inform understandings of the layout and functions of the place, construction methods and the use of materials, the nature and extent of landscaping, and the social dynamics and living conditions of this ephemeral community.
\nArtefact scatters and deposits along the creek bank, including bone, glass, ceramic and metal items discarded during the occupation of the camp, have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the occupants and their material culture, the origins and recycling of resources, consumption activities and the day-to-day activities of camp life.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion C","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650265,"name":"Ward 13, Dunwich Benevolent Asylum (former)","alternate_name":"Sibelco Training Room | CRL Training Room","street_address":"8 Mallon Street","suburb":"DUNWICH","lga":"REDLAND CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2021-04-30","description":"Ward 13, Dunwich Benevolent Asylum (c1889-93) is a modest, lowset timber building standing near the centre of Dunwich on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island. Constructed prior to the formation of the existing surrounding roads, the rectangular building stands on an angle within its allotment, roughly following along the sloping, grassed terrain with its long sides facing northeast and southwest. Its core is surrounded by a verandah on three sides and has a timber-framed hip roof continuous over the verandah. Originally symmetrical and accommodating a long single dormitory room, almost half the building (the southeast end) has been demolished (1947-55), truncating the roof at this end into a gable.
\nThe building has single-skin timber wall framing, with studs and diagonal bracing exposed externally, clad on the internal side by chamferboards. Windows are on both long sides in a repeated pattern fitted between every fifth and sixth stud.
\nThe building does not have a front and originally had entrances into the interior at either short end. It retains its entrance at the northwest end, and later entrances have been made on the northeast and southwest sides. The remaining half of the long dormitory has been divided into two spaces by a later partition and the northwest room retains its lofty ceiling, lined with beaded boards on the rake of the roof, exposing the timber tie beams.
\nThe southwest verandah has been enclosed with chamferboards to form smaller rooms, with a large opening made in the verandah wall into the dormitory and all original window openings on this side closed over with chamferboards. The chamferboards of the verandah enclosure, the southeast end wall, a small lean-to enclosure on the southeast end of the building, and the internal partition match those of the verandah walls, and may have been reused from the demolished portion of the building.
\nFeatures of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\nFeatures not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe former Ward 13 was constructed c1889-93 as a ward for male inmates of the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, which was operated by the Queensland Government on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island from 1865 to 1946. The asylum was Queensland’s first and largest institution for the destitute, accommodating people who, due to age, unemployment, illness, or mental or physical disability, could not support themselves. In 1946 the asylum’s inmates were transferred to ‘Eventide’ at Sandgate; Ward 13 was then used by sand mining companies; reduced in length between 1947 and 1955, and converted to a conference/training room in 1986. In 2021, it is the only known in-situ example of inmate accommodation at a government benevolent asylum in Queensland.
\nThe site of the benevolent asylum at Dunwich, also known as Goompi, is part of the traditional land of the Quandamooka people, on the west side of Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island.[1] Prior to the asylum, Dunwich had been used by Europeans during the Moreton Bay Penal settlement era (1824-39), when there was a garrisoned out-station (1827-31, QHR 602139) at Dunwich. A mission to the Quandamooka people by the Passionist Order existed at Dunwich from 1843-7; and a quarantine station, located on high ground northeast of the causeway, operated from 1850-66. The convict-built stone causeway of the outstation [QHR 601021] and the buildings of the quarantine station were later utilised by the asylum.[2]
\nThe asylum at Dunwich was an Australian version of the English poorhouse, established to house and feed those members of the community who were unable to provide for themselves. During the 19th century and early 20th century, poverty was seen as the fault of the individual. Charity recipients had to be ‘deserving’, i.e. respectable, grateful, and obedient; and, if possible, work to help ‘earn their keep’. Institutionalisation (’indoor relief’) was seen as one solution to poverty, and government aid was provided to various private charity groups, such as benevolent societies.[3]
\nIn 1844 the Moreton Bay Benevolent Society formed as a charity administered by citizens, with some government funding. The society was given responsibility for the Brisbane hospital on George Street in 1858. This became known as the ‘Brisbane Hospital and Benevolent Asylum’, as hospitals of the time were also used as a place of relief for the destitute. In 1861 the Queensland Government passed the Benevolent Asylum Wards Act, awarding funds to all Queensland hospitals to set wards aside as benevolent asylums.[4]
\nFrom 1863 the Brisbane hospital committee sought to separate the hospital from the benevolent asylum, and in 1865 it rejected the idea of a separate benevolent asylum building on the grounds of a proposed new hospital on Bowen Bridge Road. The hospital committee wanted an immediate solution to overcrowding at the existing hospital; so responsibility for the benevolent asylum was transferred to the Immigration Department. In May 1865, some inmates of the benevolent asylum were sent to the vacant 1860s buildings at the Dunwich quarantine station, under the charge of Dr Jonathan Labatt. However, the continuing intermittent use of the quarantine station for vessels meant that inmates were moved between Dunwich, Brisbane and South Brisbane, before finally moving back to Dunwich in November 1866.[5]
\nThe asylum at Dunwich, the first and largest Government-run benevolent asylum in Queensland, was the last resort for people experiencing poverty who had no other means of support, including their families.[6] Its remote location was considered a useful way to keep these people away from the temptations of alcohol and out of sight of polite society.[7] Theoretically, both admission and discharge of the elderly poor was by request.[8] The majority of inmates were from unskilled or low-skilled occupations; 60 years of age or older; and male, with females fewer than 11.7% of total admissions. Dunwich drew its inmates from across Queensland, although the opening of ‘Eventide’ (meaning the end of the day, or the evening) at Charters Towers in 1929 reduced the number of males admitted to Dunwich from Western Queensland.[9] It has been estimated that during the 19th century, 25% of Queensland men older than 65 were in the asylum, before this dropped to 10% in 1901 as the total number of older people in Queensland increased. The statistics for men aged over 60 at the asylum are 5% in 1891 and 4.5% in 1901.[10]
\nAs well as Dunwich, and Eventide in Charters Towers, there were three ‘Government homes for aged women’ in Queensland by 1929: The Hospice, South Brisbane; the Brodribb Home, Toowoomba; and the Rockhampton Benevolent Asylum, although these three were small institutions.[11] By 1943, there were four Government benevolent asylums: Dunwich, the Brodribb Home, Eventide at Charters Towers, and the Rockhampton Benevolent Asylum. No early inmate accommodation remains at the latter three sites.[12]
\nMost people younger than 50 were sent to Dunwich because of specific chronic illnesses or disabilities, rather than age or poverty. At various times the asylum housed people suffering from leprosy, diabetes, cancer, and tuberculosis; ‘inebriates’ (alcoholics); unemployed people; people with epilepsy; people with mental or physical disabilities, including vision impairments; and orphans or the children of inmates.[13]
\nHospital wards and a ‘blind’ ward were built at Dunwich. A lazaret (for inmates with leprosy/Hansen’s disease) was also established on Adam’s Beach, on the south side of Dunwich, in 1892 (moved to Peel Island in 1907), and a tented camp for ‘consumptives’ (tuberculosis patients) was set up at Polka Point, north of the female division, in 1904.[14]
\nQueensland’s first Inebriates Institution, for the confinement of alcoholics, was located within the asylum, from 1899-1910 and 1916-1946. Inmates were committed, under the Inebriates Institutions Act 1896, at their own or their family’s request, or because of repeated convictions for public drunkenness.[15] Amongst the younger inmates were returned soldiers of World War I, committed to the Inebriates Institution as early as 1916, and these men were the majority of admissions to that facility, housed in Ward 91/2 of the asylum, from 1918-24.[16]
\nThe diversity of ages and mental and physical conditions of the inmates meant the facility was overcrowded and difficult to manage. Superintendents at Dunwich had broad powers over the inmates and, as the local government representative, over the Quandamooka people on the island. However, they had limited power over visitors to the island.[17]
\nThere were two major enquiries into the asylum, which had some effect on conditions at Dunwich. An 1884-5 inquiry into the asylum led to several reforms: a separate female division; the appointment of Superintendents with medical qualifications; and a set of regulations for the asylum, after passage of the Charitable Institutions Management Act 1885. The Act made inmates, or their relatives, with means, liable for their costs; inmates could also be directed to work if capable, and could be punished for disobedience of the regulations ‘by way of fine, solitary confinement, hard labour, or deprivation of food or comforts’. A 1905-6 inquiry, due to accusations of neglect, later led to (although not specifically recommended) extra buildings, food refrigeration, and a steam laundry.[18]
\nUntil the 1900s, inmates able to work provided most of the asylum’s workforce, undertaking positions of responsibility in the wards and administration, and odd jobs such as cleaning, mattress stuffing, wood cutting, nightsoil removal, grass cutting, gardening and minor maintenance, boot repair, candle making, shepherding, and working in the mess and kitchens. Inmates were also involved in food production, as the government attempted to offset some of the asylum’s expenses through fishing, crops (hampered by poor soil), and keeping dairy cows, pigs, sheep and poultry.[19]
\nHeavy work for the asylum was undertaken by members of the Quandamooka people, who lived at Myora, and later at the One Mile, both north of the asylum. Quandamooka men sourced firewood, dug graves, and unloaded the supply ship. Other jobs included herding, working in the dairy or piggery, and tracking lost or escaped inmates. Quandamooka women worked as servants, maids, and assistant nurses. In the early 20th century some Quandamooka men held trade and skilled jobs, including on the supply boats and in the electricity generating plant (electrification occurring at Dunwich c1928).[20]
\nAs the asylum relied on the cheap labour of the Quandamooka people (initially paid in rations), a longstanding and complex relationship developed. The Quandamooka people were subject to the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897, and were placed under the control of the asylum’s superintendent, who could theoretically exile them from the island or ban them from the asylum grounds; yet because their labour was critical to asylum’s operation, the Quandamooka people living on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island were less repressed and controlled than Aboriginal peoples living in Queensland Government Aboriginal Settlements such as Barambah (Cherbourg) and Taroom.[21]
\nIn its 80 years of operation, the asylum admitted 21,000 people, with inmate numbers rising each year until the early 1900s. During the depression years of the 1890s and 1930s, and the Federation drought, the asylum was in heavy demand. Admissions per annum rose sharply in the late 1890s-early 1900s, just before and after World War I, and in the mid-1930s. The number of inmates passing through (‘relieved’) during any one year peaked in 1903, at 1589 relieved in total.[22] The annual death rate averaged 10.9% per year, based on total admittances.[23] Between 1901 and 1925, anywhere from 1.8% to 4.8% of inmates also ‘ran away’ annually, mostly by failing to return from approved leave on the mainland.[24]
\nThe steady increase in the inmate population between 1865 and 1903 meant that accommodation space, and the requirement for new wards (most for male inmates), was always an issue at the asylum. As well as wards, tents were also utilised in periods of high demand, and trusted inmates could build their own huts, or live outside the asylum.[25]
\nThe first buildings used by the asylum were five from the quarantine station.[26] By 1879, there were 10 main buildings other than the superintendent’s quarters.[27] The number of wards fluctuated over time, as new wards were built, buildings were converted to wards, and old wards were converted to other uses or demolished.
\nThe Dunwich asylum ward buildings and their layout were designed by the Queensland Government’s Department of Public Works to a ‘pavilion plan’, a mid-19th to early 20th century health and architecture theory. From the 1860s to the 1930s, almost all Queensland hospitals were based on these principles. Wards were separated into detached pavilions, which were long and narrow, and typically accommodated a single large dormitory with high levels of natural light and ventilation. They were laid out in a regularised pattern, often symmetrically or around shared outdoor spaces, on open elevated sites to catch breezes. The wards were usually timber and incorporated wide wrap-around verandahs, and had open space on all sides. Those at Dunwich adhered to these principles.[28]
\nMales and females were housed separately at Dunwich, even if they were married. A new female division opened to the northwest of the main complex in 1886 – the same year a timber jetty was built at the end of the causeway, to enable landing of supplies at any state of the tide, which were delivered by horse-pulled tramway to a storeroom, and later the 1910 laundry/kitchen complex. No new accommodation was built in 1887, and in 1888 a laundry was converted into two male wards. [29]
\nWard 13 is not present on an 1885 plan,[30] but a major building programme of 11 new male wards was undertaken between 1889 and 1893. During this period, the number of inmates present at the end of each year rose from 542 in 1889, to 792 in 1893.[31] This was a result of both increased admissions and decreased discharges during the economic depression of the 1890s.[32] The annual reports of the asylum in the 1890s complained that a number of unemployed men who entered Dunwich did not leave because there was no work for them; and they could not be compelled to leave, even if they were able bodied.[33]
\nThe wards at Dunwich were long, narrow timber buildings with encircling verandahs and galvanised iron hipped roofs, and some also had roof ventilators. Through doors in both short ends, they accommodated a single open room with windows on either long side between the beds against each wall – in times of overcrowding, a row of beds could be added down the centre of the room, or on the verandahs. An 1888 plan, most likely for the new ward constructed by Fitzwilliam Williams in 1888-9, shows a ward 90ft by 22ft (27.4m by 6.7m), with 7ft (2.1m) verandahs on four sides, and a central set of steps to each verandah; eight windows along each long side, and a doorway at each end. Ward 13 appears to be similar in design to this plan.[34]
\nAs mentioned, further wards were erected by 1893, including Ward 13 – although the latter’s exact construction date is unknown.[35] Ward 13 is labelled ‘19’ in a c1905 plan, and ‘13’ in a c1908 plan, which indicates the numbering system evolved over time.[36]
\nThe wards at Dunwich were very basic. Inmates had little space and limited privacy; each inmate was allocated a bed and a bedside locker. Mattresses were stuffed with grass from Peel Island. Inmates were responsible for airing and washing their own blankets, but evidence to the 1905–6 inquiry indicated that this was rarely enforced, with bed bugs and mites being prolific.[37]
\nA site plan from December 1913 (Ward 13 still labelled as such) illustrates the development of the asylum at the time of its peak, including the female division; 23 numbered male wards; and a new mess hall [QHR 601163], opened in October that year. The asylum was on the high ground in a 'u' shape around a lower lying open community space (in 2021 the public reserve) which fronted the beach, with several rows of male wards on the high ground (the site of the Dunwich shops in 2021) west of the square of wards around the laundry and kitchen.[38] By 1917, there were 22 single room male wards (657 beds), 7 female wards (147 beds), a tent section (80 beds), and the tented consumptives’ camp (30 beds).[39] By 1942, when a site plan shows Ward 13 as “Ward 4’, there were 20 wards in the male division, and 5 wards in the female division.[40]
\nCoupled with poor funding and unqualified staff, asylum conditions were often considered appalling. In 1904, the typical diet for inmates was a plate of hominy (dried corn, softened), bread and tea for breakfast; boiled beef with potatoes (or rice) four days a week, with stew three days a week, for dinner (midday meal); and bread with molasses, and tea, for ‘tea’ (evening meal). There was a lack of vegetables, and fish was often rotten, until refrigeration was introduced to Dunwich in 1912.[41]
\nContemporary media coverage of the asylum fluctuated between positive and negative, from considering it a tranquil island paradise with good food, to a grim prison marked by deprivation.[42] The consensus amongst modern researchers is that the experience was demeaning, and infantilised the inmates. As Joseph Goodall stated, ‘The overwhelming majority of [Dunwich] inmates deserved more charity than they received. They were sent to Dunwich not because they were needy, but because they were unneeded, to live out their last few years in a dull existence of physical austerity and spiritual barrenness which few of them questioned. This was the most tragic thing of all: that they themselves, convinced they deserved nothing more, went quietly and gently into the night’.[43]
\nFor inmates who did not have a job, the daily routine hardly changed over the lifetime of the asylum. A description from a Sunday Mail article in 1934 stated: ‘One day is much like another at Dunwich. A bell rings at 6 a.m. to waken the community, and they prepare for breakfast at 7.45. Then they may read or fish, play cards or swim, until their dinner time at 12.45. The tea hour varies according to the time of year, but is served as a rule about 4.45 p.m’.[44] Inmates of the non-hospital wards had to be out of their ward from breakfast to late afternoon. There was a curfew and ‘lights-out’ in the wards at 9 pm.[45]
\nThroughout the existence of the asylum, the Quandamooka people remained an indispensable part of the workforce, and after a long campaign and the assistance of the Australian Workers Union, the Aboriginal male labourers achieved award rates for their wages in an agreement with the Queensland Government in 1944 – more than 20 years before Aboriginal workers in the pastoral industry received equal pay (1968).[46]
\nDespite gradual improvements to conditions at Dunwich over time, the institution reached the end of its usefulness after World War II. During early October 1946, after minimal notice, the inmates were transferred to the former RAAF Station at Brighton, Sandgate, which was renamed 'Eventide'. Staff remained at Dunwich until June 1947, dismantling the asylum, which was then officially closed.[47] Ward buildings were sold and either relocated on site or to the mainland. The 1907 church, and the 1913 men’s mess building, both survived [QHR 601163], with the latter becoming the Dunwich Public Hall. A former police lock-up and some staff housing is also extant in 2021.[48]
\nWard 13 is the only inmate accommodation to survive in-situ in 2021. What was left of the asylum was surveyed in September 1947, with a new road grid for the town surveyed in 1948.[49] Ward 13, which at the time of the 1947 survey retained its full length, was left for the use of the sand-mining company Titanium and Zirconium Industries (TAZI), which acquired prospecting rights for rutile and zirconium in 1947, and was later granted mining leases.[50] By 1955, a large, corrugated iron building had been erected west of Ward 13, and almost half of the southeast end of the former Ward 13 had been removed. By 1958 a new processing plant had been built, incorporating the 1910 laundry and kitchen buildings, to the south and east of the ward.[51]
\nWard 13 was used as a kitchen, and then as the base for the Dunwich Pottery/Ceramic Group, until Consolidated Rutile Ltd, which took over the lease in 1985, renovated Ward 13 as a training centre in 1986.[52] Mineral sand mining on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island ceased at the end of 2019, and the site of Ward 13 is due to be remediated in 2021 by Sibelco (owner of Consolidated Rutile) prior to the transferral of the site and Ward 13 to the ownership of the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation.
","criteria":"Ward 13, Dunwich Benevolent Asylum (former), constructed c1889-93, is important in demonstrating the Queensland Government’s response to the care and treatment of the aged, homeless and destitute in the late 19th century. The asylum operated on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island from 1865-1946 and was the first and largest institution of its type in Queensland. Ward 13, the only in-situ example of inmate accommodation at the asylum, illustrates the spartan nature of the accommodation provided, which reflected the Government’s minimal expenditure at Dunwich.
|The Dunwich Benevolent Asylum was the largest government institution for Queensland’s aged, homeless and destitute between 1865 and 1946. Ward 13 is the only known in-situ example of inmate accommodation at Dunwich, and the earliest surviving example of benevolent asylum inmate accommodation in Queensland.
|As a surviving building of the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, the former Ward 13 has a special association with past inmates and staff members of the asylum, and their descendants, including the Quandamooka people of Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island.
\nThe asylum could not have functioned without the labour of Quandamooka men and women throughout its c.80 years of operation (1865-1946). With the assistance of the Australian Workers Union, the asylum’s Aboriginal male labourers were granted award wages in 1944 – more than two decades before Aboriginal workers in the pastoral industry.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650270,"name":"Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church","alternate_name":"St Luke’s Presbyterian Church","street_address":"64 Spence Road","suburb":"WAVELL HEIGHTS","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2022-09-09","description":"Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church (1966) is situated in the suburb of Wavell Heights about 10km north of the Brisbane CBD. The church stands facing (east) to Spence Road set back from the road behind an open yard, a hall is located to its north (1952) and another hall to its west (1956). Both halls are not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nDesigned in a bold Modernist architectural style, the church is highly intact. The church is a single storey slab-on-ground building with a symmetrical pentagonal plan form. It has a low, folded metal-clad roof form with a tall, narrow spire at its centre. The roof appears to float above the low face brick walls of the church, the opening between wall and roof filled with glazing. The roof line extends over a crescent driveway sheltering the main entrance and forming a porte-cochere.
\nThe entry of the church features a floor to ceiling glazed wall with two large double doors. Brick paving matching the colouring of the church’s walls continues from the driveway and into the entry porch. The porch is divided from the nave of the church by a wide screen of coloured leadlight glazing with an entry to the nave either side. Inside, the nave is broad and modest in scale, its ceiling is pale and folded with a skylight lantern at its centre, the base of the spire. a choir alcove is nested at the centre of the eastern end of the nave and carpeted aisles lead to a raised sanctuary at the far (western) end with seating areas either side of these. All glazing to the nave is amber coloured and fills the space with golden light, the lantern at the centre of the ceiling also casts a spotlight. A door either side of the rear wall of the nave open to separate rear rooms - the committee room (south) and vestry and flower room (north). The south-western and north-western corners of the building both have small courtyards sheltered by timber pergolas.
\nThe church retains many of its original fittings and furnishings including original red cedar joinery (pews, planter boxes, and cabinets), downlights and pendant lights. Although slightly altered, the original pulpit, communion table, baptismal font (all removed from their fixed bases), hymn book cupboard (Umbrella stand removed), and memorial and notice board (notice board side shortened) remain in the church.
\nThe church is very intact with only minor alterations and additions including: the addition of a toilet to the southwest courtyard, addition of aluminium frame doors between the lobby and nave and new floor finishes to the nave, vestry and committee room.
\nFeatures of Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church not considered to be of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nWavell Heights Presbyterian Church (1966), in Wavell Heights, Brisbane, is a pentagonal brick church set within a church complex with mature trees. Built in a post-war suburb, the Modernist-style church resulted from the Presbyterian Church’s post-war building program, and its desire to remain relevant to contemporary society. Its plan, lighting, and furniture arrangement were designed to give the congregation a sense of community and involvement in the service, through gathered worship.
\nWavell Heights, part of the traditional land of the Turrbul people, is located west of Sandgate Road, north of Kedron Brook. Prior to the 1940s, most of the area was characterised by dairy farming and pineapple growing, although by 1917 there were some residential subdivisions. The area was known as West Nundah until a public poll in July 1941 selected the name Wavell Heights, after the British General (later Field Marshall) Archibald Percival Wavell.[1] The suburb grew rapidly in the immediate post-World War II (WWII) era. Undeveloped land in Wavell Heights and neighbouring Chermside was acquired by the Queensland Housing Commission, on which by August 1947 it planned to build 450 houses. At the time, it was the Commission’s largest housing project, and it increased the population of Wavell Heights substantially.[2] The Wavell Heights Neighbourhood Society was formed in 1947, and later established a community centre on Edinburgh Castle Road. A non-official post office opened on 4 December 1950,[3] and three schools, including a high school, opened in the late 1940s and 1950s.[4] Although the suburb possessed several churches established in the 1930s, post-WWII growth resulted in a timber Presbyterian church hall being opened on Spence Road in 1952.[5]
\nThe Presbyterian Church and the site at Wavell Heights
\nThe first Presbyterian congregation in Queensland had formed in 1849, and the first Presbyterian Church opened on Grey Street, South Brisbane, in 1851. Other Presbyterian churches opened in newly settled areas of Queensland, and in 1863 Queensland’s Presbyterian congregations combined into a Synod and the Presbyterian Church of Queensland (PCQ) was formed.[6] By 1954, the top four Christian denominations in the Metropolitan area of Brisbane were: the Church of England (34.33% of the population); followed by Catholic (24.35%); Presbyterian (10.74%); and Methodist (10.57%). Presbyterians also made up 11.7% of Queensland’s population at this time.[7]
\nPresbyterian congregations in Queensland were formed into charges, under a minister, and a charge could include one or more church congregations. Before a fully sanctioned charge was formed, ‘Home Mission’ charges could be established by Home Missionaries.[8] The Nundah Charge, which later covered Wavell Heights, held its first service in January 1932, and was a fully sanctioned charge by the end of 1935.[9]
\nThe Spence Road site of the 1952 Presbyterian church was part of a 10 acre 30 perch (4.1ha) undeveloped block that had been acquired by the PCQ for £4,500 in 1947. The site was originally intended to become an auxiliary hospital, connected to the planned St Andrews War Memorial Hospital in central Brisbane, but despite a cairn of remembrance being dedicated on the Wavell Heights site in September 1949, the auxiliary hospital did not proceed, and most of the land was subdivided for housing in 1972.[10]
\nThe auxiliary hospital plan had included a church, hall, and manse (house for a Presbyterian minister) in the northeast corner of the 4ha site, and this aspect of the project did proceed.[11] The first meeting to form a Presbyterian congregation at Wavell Heights, chaired by the Reverend RJE Martin (then Minister of the Nundah Charge) was called by the Nundah Presbyterian Session on 27 January 1949. The use of one acre (4,047m2) of the hospital site for the Wavell Heights church buildings was later obtained from the Medical and Social Services Committee of the PCQ.[12]
\nThe growth of Queensland’s churches and the influence of Modernism, 1950s-60s
\nThe decision to build a Presbyterian church at Wavell Heights was part of wider trends in Brisbane during the 1950s-60s. The 1950s were a prosperous time in Queensland, with low unemployment and a growing sense of optimism. There was also renewed religiosity across most denominations throughout Queensland.[13] In addition, the population of metropolitan Brisbane grew by 36% between 1950 and 1960, and new housing estates and new suburbs developed. There was a rapid increase in housing density to the west, south, and east of the intended Wavell Heights hospital site between 1946 and 1951, and to the north by 1958.[14] The number of Presbyterian communicants in Brisbane also increased by 54% between 1947 and 1961, from 5351 to 8247; while Presbyterian Sunday School enrolments more than doubled in the same period, from 4201 to 9155.[15]
\nThis increase in communicants was accompanied by a marked improvement in church finances. In Brisbane, the total income of Presbyterian parishes rose from £96,000 in 1954 to £230,000 in 1960.[16] The financial position and building programme of the Wavell Heights congregation during the 1950s was assisted by the principle of ‘stewardship’, or regular donations by churchgoers – and the PCQ had set up its own Committee on Stewardship by the late 1950s.[17]
\nThe growth in Brisbane’s population, church attendance, and improved church finances resulted in the construction of new churches in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1950 it was reported that ‘as Brisbane continues to expand rapidly in all directions, more churches, halls and Sunday schools are being built or planned to cope with the growing population’, and that a £1,000,000 building programme was planned by Brisbane religious denominations.[18] By the late 1950s, ambitious building programmes were resulting in new churches, halls, and houses for ministers in new suburbs, while older timber churches in established suburbs were replaced with brick churches.[19] During the 1950s at least 178 new church buildings opened in Brisbane, followed by at least 160 in the 1960s. The rate of church construction in Brisbane declined after 1964, along with membership in Christian churches.[20]
\nThe 1950s was also a period of substantial change within Christian denominations throughout Australia, as they sought to remain relevant to modern society. Coupled with their expansionary building program, this led to a radical departure from established architectural traditions. Reflecting international trends, church designs moved away from historical revival styles and became increasingly influenced by Modernism.[21] However, it was still expected that a church would be recognisable as such, resulting in a wide range of variations combining traditional church elements, symbols, and functions with new construction techniques, materials, and forms.[22] As the 1950s progressed, traditional church building forms adopted further Modernist features, such as modern brick and metal details, and shallower roof pitches, while retaining traditional spaces, configurations, and motifs. These trends continued into the 1960s, with new roof forms and plan shapes.[23]
\nThe Presbyterian building program at Wavell Heights
\nThe Wavell Heights congregation did not immediately commission a Modernist brick church. The first building erected on their land facing Spence Road was a timber ‘church hall’ (church). The stump-capping ceremony was held on 5 May 1951, but due to building delays the first service was not held until 11 May 1952, and the church hall was officially opened and dedicated on 31 August 1952. The Sunday School which was established in the church hall in June 1952 proved popular, and a second timber building, a Kindergarten (Junior Sunday School) hall, was constructed behind the church hall, with volunteer labour from the congregation, and dedicated on 18 March 1956. By 1957 there were 341 children in the Sunday School, with a teaching staff of 31, and around 200 families were affiliated with the church.[24] Wavell Heights soon became its own fully sanctioned charge, St Luke's Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church, in October 1959, with its own minister.[25]
\nFurther church buildings were added. A manse was completed, on a separate lot south of the church hall, in October 1959. The manse was designed by local architect Ray Smith, who in March 1957 had been appointed ‘Advising Architect’ to the Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church.[26]
\nA new brick church followed in the 1960s, although construction was delayed due to issues of design and budget, and changes of architect. Sketch plans for a multi-purpose building were presented in October 1961 by Ray Smith, with an estimate of £18,000,[27] but this idea had been abandoned by September 1962. Smith was then asked to design a new church building, with a budget of £20,000,[28] and plans for a brick building with two levels were submitted in November 1962 with an estimate of £22,000.[29] Tenders for this closed on 20 December 1963, with the lowest being £36,621.[30] A new design was consequently sought, and the firm of Cross and Bain was appointed on 4 November 1964, with James (Jim) William Gibson (1932-2018), who had joined the firm in 1956, nominated as project architect.[31]
\nJames Gibson, church design, and the renewal of worship practices
\nWhile working for Cross and Bain, Gibson designed almost 20 Queensland church buildings (plus other unbuilt schemes) between 1957-77. These were mainly in Brisbane, for the Presbyterians, Church of England and Methodists.[32] An inaugural member of the Queensland Presbyterian Assembly Architectural Committee (1963-77), and its convenor for much of this time, Gibson advocated changes to church design within Queensland’s Presbyterian and Methodist churches. He was also well known within both churches, attending and speaking at events, and was involved in merger discussions prior to the formation of the Uniting Church of Australia in 1977, even designing the logo for the new organisation. In 1977 he became a member of the Uniting Church Architectural Advisory Panel.[33]
\nIn 1967 he prepared the book ‘Except the LORD Build’, a manual of building for Presbyterian congregations for the Australian Presbyterian Church. Gibson's manual was approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland in May 1967.[34] Through this manual it was hoped that ‘the community may realise that the design of Presbyterian buildings is motivated by Christian purpose and that Presbyterian places of worship and activity stand as silent witness to the faith we profess’.[35] It stated that the design of a church should be based on how the congregation worshipped, and their preferred locational arrangement of the choir and furnishings (font, pulpit, communion table, pews), rather than adopting traditional church forms (i.e., a rectangular nave), and trying to insert all the functions of worship. The manual also asserted that a church should utilise modern materials, methods of construction, and design techniques, ‘simple in concept but capable of having an impact on the community’.[36]
\nGibson also believed that the interior design of a church should reflect 20th century reformist principles and worship practices, and he adopted contemporary ideas for gathered worship spaces, with the congregation closer to the minister than in traditional church plans. The aims of the liturgical renewal movement in the Catholic Church, which promoted a closer relationship between clergy and laity, and more congregational involvement in the liturgy (ritual of public worship), were largely implemented at the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (Vatican II) of the Catholic Church (final session 1965), and had an effect on Catholic Church architecture; while reformist principles were also reflected in the changing architecture of Protestant churches.[37]
\nTo facilitate gathered worship, the 1967 book advocated Presbyterian church designs with no barriers between the minister and congregation, and that people should also be involved in the service and ‘close to the centre of the action’, no further than ‘five or six pews’ from the minister. As the Sacraments were of equal importance to the Word, the communion table and pulpit should also be close together, with the font nearby, while the choir and organ should be closer to the congregation, such as near the entrance. Gibson believed that once an internal arrangement of furniture which enabled the congregation to be more involved and closer to the minister was decided, then new external shapes for churches could emerge, with more equal (less rectangular) dimensions.[38]
\nThe design of the new church at Wavell Heights, besides being illustrated in ‘Except the LORD Build’, closely followed the principles Gibson promoted, and reflected the progression of his designs. It successfully combined a number of his ideas,[39] including adapting international designs for the local climate, and his approach to contemporary church design and worship practices, such as concepts of gathered worship, equality of the Sacraments and Word, and association of the choir with the congregation.
\nIn 1965 Cross and Bain’s design by Gibson was approved, working drawings prepared, and tenders called. The lowest tender of £15,488 ($30,976), from Macquarie Constructions, was accepted.[40] Construction commenced in early 1966, but work halted when the builder ran into financial difficulties and a liquidator was appointed on 5 April. On 6 May 1966 the second lowest tenderer, Thomas & Provan, was awarded the contract to complete the building, for $32,990.[41] To make room for the new church, the 1952 church hall was relocated northwards and its understorey enclosed with brick, to provide accommodation for the Sunday School Kindergarten, while the 1956 Kindergarten hall remained in its original location.[42]
\nThe new church, a one-storey structure, was set back from the street, aligning with its neighbouring residences, which reflected a shift in suburban church architecture in Queensland towards designing buildings that were more similar to residences in materials and scale.[43] In accordance with the principles of renewed worship practices, the building’s pentagonal plan was topped with a folded roof and ceiling to create an inclusive worship space. The rows of pews were set to either side of the sanctuary, rather than directly in front of it. A narrow spire with a skylight at its base was placed centrally over the baptismal font, which was positioned in the centre of the nave, between the sets of pews. Careful attention was paid to natural and artificial light so that more prominence was not given to the sanctuary rather than the congregation that gathered around it. Glazing consisted of deep amber glass set in black steel window frames, and the organ and choir were located opposite the sanctuary and adjacent to an enclosed entrance porch, separated from it by a screen of random-patterned, coloured glass. The pulpit and the communion table were placed side by side, on a common marble base, to reflect their equality within Presbyterian worship.[44] The red cedar (Toona ciliata var. australis) furniture was custom-designed designed by Gibson and made in nearby Northgate by Maunsell’s.[45]
\nThe evolution of Presbyterian ecclesiastical architecture in post-WWII Queensland
\nA number of plan shapes were used in the 1960s by church designers to facilitate renewed worship practices and particularly to create a sense of gathered worship. As an example of this evolution in plan shapes, Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church marked a distinct shift in Presbyterian Church design.[46] More than 40 churches were opened by the PCQ between 1950 and 1977, when the Uniting Church was formed. Of these, 16 were opened in the 1950s, 22 in the 1960s, and only 3 opened in the 1970s. Those from the 1950s typically had historical architecture with some modern influences (Coorparoo Presbyterian Church, 1951) with further simplifying of historical features in the second half of the decade as demonstrated by Roma Presbyterian Church (1955). Churches like Wynnum Presbyterian Church (1959) marked a change to churches becoming modern in styling; however, they retained their traditional spaces, configurations and motifs in simplified forms, and this trend continued in to the 1960s with other examples like Stanthorpe Presbyterian Church (1963) and Holland Park Presbyterian Church (1965). Other Presbyterian churches in the 1960s experimented with more distinctive and modern forms (St Andrew’s Presbyterian Memorial Church Innisfail, 1960 [QHR 602332], and St Andrews Presbyterian Church Mount Isa, 1960). Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church (opened 19 November 1966) and Stafford Presbyterian Church (opened 1 October 1966)[47] marked another change in Presbyterian Church architecture, being the first two Presbyterian churches in Queensland to include broad naves with seating gathered closer to the minister in response to renewal of worship practices. The church at Stafford included seating on three sides of the minister.[48] However, the architecture of Stafford Presbyterian Church was simpler than at Wavell Heights; it had a square plan form without features like large windows of coloured glass or a folded roof form, and it also did not receive the same degree of publication in the periodical Australian Presbyterian Life. These concepts of responding to renewed worship practices were further developed throughout the remainder of the 1960s (Kenmore Uniting Church, 1968; St George Presbyterian church, 1968) and into the 1970s (Weller’s Hill Presbyterian Church, 1970).[49]
\nThe new church at Wavell Heights
\nConstruction was completed early in November 1966 and the new church was dedicated on the afternoon of Saturday 19 November, while the interior furnishings were dedicated the following morning. It was reported that a ‘five-sided church whose unusual features do not end with its exterior appearance had its two-stage blessing completed yesterday morning’.[50] Notable features included the proximity of the congregation to the pulpit and communion table, with no single person ‘more than five seats away’ from either (there were four blocks of six rows of pews), and the church’s feeling of ‘togetherness’ and its family atmosphere. The interior was ‘bathed in a golden light, from amber panes of glass’, and the red cedar furnishings ‘were chosen to augment the effect’.[51]
\nThe church was built and furnished for approximately $55,000 ($36,000 plus furniture), the majority of the cost met by a £20,000 ($40,000) loan from the Bank of NSW, which was eventually repaid from congregational offerings.[52]
\nThe new church received three mentions in Australian Presbyterian Life in 1966-7.[53] In June 1967, the periodical noted: ‘all commented favourably on the “gathered around” seating arrangement [...] to conduct worship in this building, or to be one of the other worshippers in the service, is to begin to understand what it is to belong in a community – the beloved community of Christ’s people.’[54]
\nIn 2022, only minor changes have been made to the church since its completion. These have included the addition of air-conditioning, the addition of aluminium-framed glazed doors between the porch and nave to facilitate this, and replacement of original carpet with new carpet. In 2020, a new freestanding universal access toilet was added at the southwest corner of the church, replacing a pergola. Stormwater pits were removed from the southern side of the building, replaced by a new full-width concrete path laid in 2015. In 2013 the marble-clad base of the font was replaced with timber, and made portable, and in 2020 the marble-clad common base of the pulpit and communion table was replaced with separate steel frames, although the pulpit and table remain adjacent. Some of the original timber pews have been removed for storage in the 1952 church.
\nIn 2022 Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church has remained in continuous use for its original purpose as a place of worship, and as a venue for baptisms, weddings and funerals, with the construction cost of the church long since repaid by weekly offerings from the congregation. A Korean Presbyterian Church, the Brisbane Logos Mission Church, also worships in the 1966 church.
","criteria":"Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church (1966), a highly intact Modernist-style church in a suburban setting, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Presbyterian Church architecture in Queensland during the post-World War II (WWII) period. By the late 1960s, Presbyterian Church architecture in Queensland featured cohesive design responses to the renewal of worship practices. The place is one of the earliest products of this movement and a good representative example of these design responses, as demonstrated in its built form, detailing, and layout.
|Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a post-WWII Modernist church in Queensland. Architect-designed and highly intact, this importance is evident in its: all-encompassing and unified Modernist aesthetic; restrained materials palette; traditional Christian spaces (nave, sanctuary, lobby), and motifs (coloured and leadlight glass, steeple) presented in non-traditional forms and layouts (low, folded roof form; pentagonal plan form; and broad, modestly-scaled nave with gathered layout); and original furniture (red cedar pews, pulpit, communion table, hymn book cupboards, and noticeboard).
|Retaining a high degree of intactness and integrity, Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church has aesthetic significance for its beautiful and expressive attributes, which are derived from its architectural design qualities. These attributes express renewed worship practices of the Presbyterian Church and include an all-encompassing and cohesive Modernist style; distinctive form; scale sympathetic to a suburban setting; symmetry; restrained materials palette; minimal use of decoration; and manipulation of light with amber coloured glass illuminating the nave, the roof lantern permitting a central light from above, and placement of artificial lighting.
|Architect James (Jim) William Gibson (1932-2018) is a person of importance in Queensland’s history. As a key advocate for the incorporation of the renewal of worship practices into Protestant church designs, Gibson had a notable role in the evolution of post-WWII Modernist church design in Queensland.
\nWavell Heights Presbyterian Church has a special association with Gibson, as its built form, detailing, and layout represents the culmination of his ideas and, as a result, the place is an important example of the architectural principles he advocated.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650272,"name":"Carpenter Hall House","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"86 Main Avenue","suburb":"WILSTON","lga":"BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2021-12-10","description":"Carpenter Hall House (1986-2018) is a tower-like, timber-framed house in Wilston, approximately 4km north of the Brisbane CBD. The house stands on two allotments (totalling approximately 809m²) fronting Main Avenue to the south with Silvester Street, an unformed road reserve, on its eastern side. Located on the southern slopes of the Eildon Hill Reserve, the land is steep, and the five-storey house stands on the rear (northern) part of the yard at its high point, affording impressive panoramic views. The house has two bedrooms, and its small footprint is surrounded by a lush sub-tropical garden setting, which stretches across into the Silvester Street road reserve.
\nStanding adjacent to the road in the front yard is a two-storey garage/art studio (2021), also designed by Russell Hall, which is not of state-level cultural heritage significance.
\nThe place is highly intact and has a high degree of integrity.
\nFeatures of the place of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nHouse
\nThe house is a five-storey, timber-framed and -clad, freestanding residence with a corrugated metal sheet-clad roof. Its incremental construction period (1984-2018) has seen a number of small changes made to it over time, either completing the original design, or corrections and embellishments to it, designed by Russell Hall. The building is well crafted, particularly in the use of Queensland timbers, and features architectural mechanisms to allow abundant ventilation of the interior while providing protection from the sub-tropical climate.
\nThe house is approached via a concrete vehicle driveway or adjacent tiled stair from Main Avenue in the south, up the steep slope of Silvester Street (east of the house), to arrive on the northern side of the house at a small terrace, the main entrance.
\nThe house stands on two flat terraces cut into the steep slope and retained by walls. The lowest floor is level with a small terrace on the southern side and the first floor is level with the northern entry, the main entrance. The building rises above this to a 12-sided, peaked roof, crowned by a cap that incorporates a multi-faceted, light-refracting prism and turbine ventilator. The building’s external walls comprise modular, single-skin timber wall frames with diagonal bracing members, forming an attractive lattice-like exterior skin. Wrapping this is a series of wide, galvanised metal-sheet fins, projecting from the walls and angled diagonally on the east and west faces of the house to shelter it from the low rising and setting sun.
\nThe house fuses traditional and non-traditional Queensland building materials, construction techniques, and detailing. It has an airy, romantic character brought about by its tower-like form, lightweight construction, open plan and room layout, its small floor plate size, attention to cross ventilation, and whimsical features such as triangular windows with vibrant coloured glass and leadlights, and the prism which casts large rainbowspectra through the house and into the garden.
\nThe shape of the floor plan of each level is based on two concentric 12-sided polygons. The floor plates occupy part or all of those shapes, and the geometry of the house is faceted rather than rectilinear. Its walls and partitions meet at angles (multiples of 30 degrees) to form a variety of faceted or wedge-shaped rooms. The plan layout is typically one room deep, open plan, with open doorways rather than doors, and incorporates a winding stair with generous voids to facilitate natural cross-ventilation and emphasise the flowing, complex spatial form and arrangement of its rooms.
\nLevel 1 (the lowest floor) accommodates a guest suite (bedroom, bathroom, and small sitting room) and laundry, and opens out onto the southern terrace via a secondary entrance to the house. Level 2 accommodates the main entry (on the northern side) and a kitchen and dining area. It opens out onto the northern terrace. Level 3 accommodates a living room and opens out on its northern and southern sides to raised decks. Level 4 accommodates the main bedroom, a walk-through dressing room, and ensuite bathroom. Level 5, the top of the tower, accommodates a sewing room.
\nFeatures of the house of state-level cultural heritage significance also include:
\n\n
Garden Setting and Views
\nThe house opens onto a lush surrounding garden through its many openings with tiled terraces on the northern and southern side. The garden is dense and provides a screening buffer to the neighbours, cooling outdoor living spaces, and open space on all sides of the house to facilitate abundant natural ventilation of the interior. The garden stretches eastwards from the house into Silvester Street, and incorporates the driveway and entrance stair winding up its slope.
\nPlanted and maintained by Jennifer Carpenter Hall since 1986, the garden has an informal layout and features many mature Australian native trees species, some of which were planted to match the timbers used in the house, including brush box (Lophostemon confertus), Queensland maple (Flindersia brayleyana), and silky oak (Grevillea robusta).
\nFeatures of the Garden Setting of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nViews of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nCarpenter Hall House (occupied 1986) is a five-storey tower-like residence at Wilston, approximately 4km north of Brisbane’s CBD. Built between 1984 and 1986, and completed incrementally until 2018, it was designed by Queensland architect, Russell Hall, for his sister, Jennifer Carpenter Hall. The timber-framed house is situated on an elevated hillside beside the Eildon Hill Reserve, and has extensive views south to the city. Hall used traditional Queensland materials and construction techniques in a modern way to produce a non-traditional building form. The exterior walls of the house use Hall’s patented wall frame system, prefabricated and assembled on site. The house embodies Hall’s architectural philosophies developed throughout his career, including expressive and extensive use of Queensland timbers, carefully considered natural light and ventilation mechanisms, as well as whimsical features such as a large skylight of fluid-filled prisms that refract colours and rainbow spectra into and out of the house. Highly intact, the house is an excellent example of the evolution of Queensland architecture.
\nPrior to European settlement, the area now known as Wilston was part of the traditional country of the Turrbal people. Non-Indigenous residential occupation of the area began when merchant, William Wilson, took up 300 acres (121.4ha) of land and built a stone house in c1876, which he called ‘Wilston' (QHR 600344) after his birthplace in Ireland. The later suburb, located between Newmarket and Windsor, took the name of Wilson's house. During the 19th century, Wilston remained a predominantly rural area.
\nSuburban growth intensified with the arrival of the railway at nearby Newmarket in 1897. In 1899 the railway line was extended to Enoggera and the town of Windsor, incorporating Wilston, was proclaimed in 1904. The train line to Newmarket station had a stop at Wilston, and settlement spread northwards from there to the desirable elevated slopes of Eildon Hill. The population of Wilston increased further following the establishment of the Grange electric tramway along Days Road in 1928.[1]
\nA reservoir was constructed in 1929 by the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board on Eildon Hill, situated between the suburbs of Wilston and Windsor. The hill had long been a popular vantage point for views around Brisbane and a favourite place for picnics and recreation. With the increasing population in the area, the Greater Brisbane City Council deemed it necessary to construct the reservoir to ensure residents had a reliable source of clean water. Once the reservoir had been completed in 1930, the hill was replanted and a formal drive to the top, with stately entrance pillars and gates, was constructed. Eildon Hill continued to be utilised by residents as a vantage point.[2]
\nIn 1924, following the earlier subdivision and sale of the land below Eildon Hill, Richard Avison, a railway employee, purchased Lots 130 and 131 of Portion 261, totalling 32 perches (809m²), and by 1929 a house had been built on the site. Avison resided in the address until the late 1940s, after which the property was sold to a succession of new owners. In 1981 Jennifer Anne Carpenter Hall purchased the property and in 1984 asked her brother, architect Russell Hall (1947-), to design a house for her.[3] By this time, the original house had fallen into disrepair and was demolished between 1981 and 1983.[4]
\nBrisbane in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a city attempting to transition itself away from the reputation it had in other states - a sleepy, unsophisticated, large country town. The conservative Bjelke-Petersen state government had been in power since 1968. In local politics, the long serving Lord Mayor, Clem Jones (mayor from 1961 until 1975), had encouraged inner-city development, with many new high-rise buildings replacing older ones.[5]
\nThe almost unabated building boom of the 70s and early 80s in the inner-city areas had resulted in the demolition of many of Brisbane’s older buildings. This came to the fore when the Bjelke-Petersen government had the Belle Vue Hotel, a grand Victorian-era iron lace building, on the corner of William and Alice streets, torn down in the middle of the night in April 1979, despite protests from the Brisbane community. In November 1982, another much-loved landmark, ‘Cloudland Ballroom’ in Bowen Hills, was clandestinely demolished in the middle of the night. In the suburbs, traditional character housing, or ‘timber and tin’ areas, were increasingly eroded, with developers permitted to replace the early timber housing with modern brick houses and the ubiquitous ‘six pack’ of brick flats:
\n[I]n Brisbane the building boom trebled investment and brought a population increase of 35%. Moreover, there was a significant change in the use of building materials – the climatically-adapted weatherboard [house] on stilts was discarded for southern-oriented brick and brick veneer.[6]
\nHomogenous home designs from building companies such as AV Jennings appeared in suburbs throughout the country, often with little appreciation of the climatic and environmental context of the place in which they were constructed. In Brisbane, a heightened focus on the protection of the city’s heritage (prior to heritage legislation) and a renewed appreciation of Queensland’s traditional timber houses - the aesthetics, materials, and construction methods - emerged in the community.[7]
\nThe Queenslander house developed during the 19th century as a response to the local subtropical climate, including the need for ventilation, dry open-air living space in summer, and termite control. It was generally elevated on timber stumps and had verandahs on some or all sides that shaded and protected external walls. Roofs were pitched and sheeted with corrugated iron. Timber (hardwood and softwood) was extensively used due to the abundant supply, and many houses were single-skin, with timber stud framing and cross-bracing exposed. Decorative features that screened the sun or ventilated the interior evolved over the decades.[8]
\nThe distinctive single-skin timber construction technique evolved in Queensland from the mid-1860s. In this period, architects Richard George Suter, working for the Board of General Education in Brisbane, and Richard Hugo Oswald Roehricht, as chief draftsman for the Great Northern Railway at Rockhampton, were exploring similar architectural ideas for what was initially called ‘outside studding’. Exposing the structural frame and the outside face of the internal lining to the exterior increased the architectural expression of buildings and allowed for economic construction. Schools and churches built using this technique were a key influence in the widespread adoption of single-skin timber construction throughout colonial Queensland.[9]
\nFollowing World War II, the traditional house broadly fell out of favour, with an increasing preference for modern residential designs and materials.[10] However, the 1960s gradually saw a renewed awareness and appreciation of the state’s architectural history, especially its distinctive domestic tradition. Architects such as John Railton, Graham Bligh and John Dalton are recognised as among the earliest designers whose work expressed these influences. Students at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Institute of Technology, taught by architectural educators such as Peter Newell, Ian Sinnamon and James Birrell, began undertaking surveys and research of traditional buildings as part of their studies, advocating for its qualities and retention of this architectural heritage.[11]
\nRussell Hall Architects was one of several firms that were, increasingly from the 1970s, taking inspiration from the traditional ‘Queenslander’ house to develop a contemporary expression for Queensland architecture. These were predominantly residences, although in an abstracted form.[12] Differing in execution and often experimental, the work of Queensland architects such as Hall, Rex Addison, and Gabriel Poole drew upon this tradition.[13] Characteristics they drew inspiration from included: materials (predominantly timber and corrugated metal sheets); form (elevated above ground, box-like, and having a dominant roof); construction techniques (lightweight stud wall framing, often single-skin); use of smaller repeated timber members (battens, slats, and lattice); provision of semi-outdoor spaces (verandahs, decks, courtyards, and outdoor rooms); and mechanisms to allow abundant natural light and ventilation of the interior while providing protection from harsh weather (cross ventilation, shaded operable windows, and wide overhanging eaves).[14]
\nRussell and Jennifer Hall grew up on a farm in the small town of Harrisville, in the Fassifern (now Scenic Rim) district. Russell received his education from Scots College, Warwick and Brisbane Grammar School (QHR 600124). He studied architecture at the University of Queensland and Queensland Institute of Technology (QUT in 2021), graduating in 1974. After working briefly in architect, James Birrell’s firm, Hall accepted a role with the Papua New Guinea Housing Commission in 1976 and worked in Papua New Guinea until 1979. On returning to Australia, he established his own architectural practice in Buderim in 1980 and then in Brisbane in 1986, as Russell Hall Architects. In 1991 Hall also established a sheet metal design and manufacturing business, Ripple Iron Curving Company, that produced high quality metal products such as street furniture.[15]
\nHall’s architecture has been described by contemporaries as inventive, rational and yet, romantic.[16] Hall’s houses employed traditional materials and forms, building scale and lot siting, and fitted well into traditional streetscapes. The typical Hall house is small, single skin, and with an unusually shaped roof with wide overhanging eaves for shelter from rain and sun. They are generally raised from the ground and are light and airy in character. They are connected to their sites and usually topped by a ventilator. The buildings use clear-finished timber extensively, especially on the interiors for floors, walls, and ceilings and the primary structural timbers were left exposed. Other examples of Hall’s work in Queensland include Hall House, Mons, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland (1982), which was built as his own home and used upturned tree trunks with exposed roots as the main structural support for the roof; Judge Residence, Camp Island in North Queensland (1988); Prasser House, Ashgrove in Brisbane (1984); the restoration and redevelopment of the Rialto Theatre, West End in Brisbane (1995); and the Varitimos Buildings on the corner of Boundary and Vulture streets, West End in Brisbane (1996-98).[17]
\nWork began on the Carpenter Hall House project in 1984-85.[18] The initial design submitted to the Brisbane City Council (BCC) for Carpenter Hall House differed to what was built, with the final design approved by the BCC in 1984.[19] The appointed builder for the house was Maroochydore based, Dave Berg.[20]
\nThe site sloped steeply to the south and was adjacent to the Eildon Hill Reserve to the north and east, with only one neighbour to the west. The new house would take up approximately 16 percent of the land to accommodate a large garden. The topography of the site allowed Hall’s design to make use of the northern sun and afford southern views toward the city.
\nThe decision to construct the house from timber followed Hall’s design philosophies of experimenting with construction techniques and materials of traditional Queensland houses.[21] His work in Papua New Guinea for the National Housing Commission had developed a technique that used exposed stud and single skin construction as a response to the consistent hot, humid climate, coupled with cost restraints.[22]
\nArchitectureAU described Hall’s design for the house in 2019 as:
\nA five-storey building…For the body of the house, he used a traditional nineteenth-century timber construction technique of exposed stud bracing, single-skin walls and tall timber stumps, which he wrapped in diagonal sunshades of galvanised steel that beautifully compliment the pattern of the timber structure. In terms of its materiality, the residence conforms to Queensland’s timber-and-tin building tradition. However, this is about all that is ‘traditional’ about this house.[23]
\nUnlike most conventional houses, Carpenter Hall House’s axes were vertical, rather than horizontal.[24] He based his design on the geometric shape of the dodecagon and in a 2013 interview, Hall explained his design:
\nIn laying out Jennifer’s house, I divided the thing into parts of 12, into a dodecagon … on her house, I thought, if I could make it look more like an overall sculpture, it’s an exercise in dodecagon, with final form being the full dodecagon which is the loft. The other ones [floors] are various divisions of a dodecagon, and then you’ve got to move through it, there was a fair bit done to try and make it interesting to move through … just by the staircases and the voids and how much area you have on this level… you can look through the house and look through 3 or 4 levels … so you get the feeling of, you’re not just a floor, a floor, a floor’.[25]
\nAt the top level of the five-storey house (Level 5) was the loft, fitted out as a sewing room and open to the prism skylight above; Level 4 was the main bedroom with ensuite bathroom; Level 3 was the living room; and Level 2 was the kitchen, dining, and main entrance to the house. Level 1 was another bedroom, bathroom, laundry, and a separate entrance. Connecting each floor were timber staircases with elaborate (and allegorical) timber balustrades. Throughout the interior of the house, polished Queensland timbers have been used, and windows include coloured glass and lead-light by glass artist, Norman Birrell.[26]
\nHall, a self-confessed proponent of imperial measurements, rather than metric, believed that the use of imperial has ‘a straight relationship with the human body’ and the design of the house was not only an exercise in numbers, but also an exercise in geometry.
\nHall used his patented wall frame system for the exterior walls of the house. This system ‘uses nail plates to join the wall framing members, to form a high strength, yet attractive timber frame. This enables factory production of wall frames which can also act as trusses, allowing the possibility of eliminating some bearers and footings’.[27] All were prefabricated in a factory in Maryborough, and Hall has stated Carpenter Hall House was the highpoint of the use of this technique.[28]
\nConsideration for comfort within Brisbane’s subtropical climate was foremost in the design of the house. Traditional Queenslanders incorporated sun-shading, including verandahs with wide overhangs, and natural ventilation through the house. Considered and innovative sun-shading was a key component, as Hall explains:
\nshading devices were installed to improve the climatic performance of the house and to reduce the need for maintenance. These are made from 16 gauge flat, galvanised steel which is folded, eliminating the need for supporting battens. The angles at which these awnings have been placed reflect the sun control needs to the various elevations.[29]
\nThe shade devices also provided the house a particular feature of its distinctive aesthetic.
\nThe verticality of the house assisted with the ventilation in the house with a turbine vent installed on the roof of the loft to extract hot air away from the voids.[30] Additionally, a cooling system was installed on the roof to spray water onto the roof to help cool the house.[31] The skylight at the top of the house was an inventive feature which used fluid-filled prisms to refract coloured light and rainbows into and out of the house.[32] The skylight was experimental and after several failed attempts to create a fluid-filled skylight that would refract coloured light, and with technical help from advisors from the QIT (QUT in 2021), the skylight was developed and installed. Although it was not entirely complete, Jennifer Carpenter Hall occupied the house by 1986.[33]
\nWhen referring to Carpenter Hall House, architectural critic, Graham Jahn described Hall: ‘his ideology resides outside the mainstream themes of wider architectural practice, especially in terms of metaphor, allegorical allusions and handicraft motifs’.[34] With a focus on traditional, craft-based methods, the interior timber work throughout the house reflects Hall’s philosophy.[35] An admirer of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi’s work, Hall embedded fairy tales and story within the design of the house – the tower design, staircase balustrades, and lead-light windows.
\nIn August 1987, Carpenter Hall House was featured in the Sunday Mail Colour Magazine’s ‘Design for Living’ section, which highlighted its innovative architecture to a broad audience. The house was described as a ‘castle in the sky…something special has happened to architecture. It has found its artistic heart’. The article included an interview with Hall who explained the design of the house and its creative features. Large photographs showcased the interior and exterior of the house, and the article also included the architectural plans.[36]
\nFurther work on Carpenter Hall House was carried out incrementally over the years to complete the final design, including the completion of the timber balustrades to the staircases c1992. Jennifer and Russell Hall declared the house complete in 2018.[37] In 2021 Hall designed a detached, two-storey garage and art studio in the garden at the front of the house, lower down the slope.[38]
\nThe extensive sub-tropical gardens surrounding the house have been planted by Jennifer Carpenter Hall over the years and consist of an array of predominately native Queensland species with a focus on attracting native animals and birds. The garden extends across the house lots onto the adjacent unformed road reserve east of the house, Silvester Street, which also contains the driveway and entrance stair to the house.
\nCarpenter Hall House has been included in many Australian architectural publications including books, journal articles and magazines. Titles such as Contemporary Australian Architecture, Eight Great Houses, Australian Architecture Since 1960, Architecture in Brisbane, ArchitectureAU, Houses, Architecture Australia, and International Architect have celebrated the house’s attributes and the architect’s creativity. In 2008 it was included in the Australian contribution to the prestigious Venice Biennale of Architecture.[39]
\nRussell Hall has been the recipient of several prestigious awards for the design of Carpenter Hall House. In 1988 Hall was awarded the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA), Queensland Chapter, Innovation Award for his patented wall frame system used on the house. In 2009-2010 the house was included on the Australian Institute of Architect’s (AIA) ‘Nationally Significant 20th-Century Architecture’ Heritage Register, and was described as an ‘extraordinary beacon of individual expression … an extremely inventive conception in pushing vernacular forms into unfamiliar geometry to produce a highly individual yet functional result’.[40] In 2018, after it was declared complete, Hall won an award for Carpenter Hall House in the AIA’s Queensland Architecture Award in the Residential Architecture - Houses (New) category.[41]
\nIn 2021, the house continues to be a private residence and remains highly intact.
","criteria":"Carpenter Hall House (1986), an excellent example of a late 20th century architect-designed timber residence, is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland’s domestic architecture. The house was designed by Queensland architect, Russell Hall (1947-). Through its form, structure, use of traditional materials (including timber and metal sheeting), design response to its setting, internal layout, and passive climate design features, the house is a distinctive and exceptional example of the way the state’s architectural profession was reworking the characteristics of traditional Queensland housing in late twentieth century architecture.
|Carpenter Hall House is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a late 20th century architect-designed residence inspired by traditional Queensland domestic architecture. Highly intact, the place retains the principal characteristics of this class of place including its: timber-framed and -clad structure with single-skin walls with diagonal bracing; pitched roof clad with corrugated metal sheets; climate responsiveness through broad roof eaves, sun shields, and abundant passive cross ventilation of the interior; and the provision of semi-outdoor rooms and garden spaces.
\nDistinct within this type is Russell Hall’s architectural work. Carpenter Hall House embodies architectural concepts Hall developed and refined over his career, including: Hall’s single-skin wall frames with diagonal bracing and gang-nail plates; extensive use of clear-finished Queensland timber; open plan layouts; dimensions based on the imperial system; and creative elements such as its allegorical stair balustrade, rooftop rain sprinkler system, and prominent rooftop crown with light-refracting prism.
|Carpenter Hall House is important for its aesthetic significance as a building of exceptional architectural quality. Highly intact, it possesses beautiful attributes derived from its symmetry, form, scale, materials, detailed and meticulous assembly, and careful manipulation of natural ventilation. It possesses picturesque qualities derived from the unfolding views to, and movement through, its faceted tower-like form in a lush garden setting, large sun shields angled and repeated across its exterior, open plan interior, and winding stair through voids.
\nThe refraction of light throughout the interior of the house and into its garden setting from coloured glass doors and windows and rooftop prism enhances the place’s picturesque qualities.
\nThe architectural quality of the house has been recognised by its extensive representation in architectural publications and it having received numerous architectural awards since its construction.
|In its highly intact form, materials, and details, Carpenter Hall House demonstrates a high degree of architectural excellence as an experimental design, finely tailored to the client’s specific requirements and interests. It is important for its cohesive aesthetic, high level of craft and creative detail, extensive use of Hall’s wall frame system, light refracting prism, and carefully considered mechanisms for abundant natural ventilation of the interior. Its extensive representation in publications and architectural awards since its construction are evidence of its recognition as a place noted for its creative and technical achievement in Queensland architecture.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion F","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650273,"name":"Ayr Masonic Temple","alternate_name":"Lower Burdekin Masonic Temple / Ayr Masonic Centre","street_address":"118-120 Macmillan Street","suburb":"AYR","lga":"BURDEKIN SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2022-02-25","description":"Ayr Masonic Temple (1935) is a highly-intact, two-storey building located at the periphery of the central business district of Ayr. It occupies a rectangular corner site fronting northwest to Macmillan Street with Mackenzie Street on its southwest side. It is prominent within the immediate streetscape due to its height, corner location, and architectural style, and is also visible from the public parkland, Anzac Park, across Mackenzie Street. The building features many Masonic symbols integrated in the architectural details.
\nThe building is rectangular with brick walls, timber-framed hip roofs clad with corrugated metal sheets, and a well-composed front elevation in cement render – a Neo-Classical temple-front in the Greek Doric order. The side and rear elevations feature fine face brick with regularly-spaced openings and cement render dressings. The blank rear wall is face brick and has an attached one-storey face brick service block.
\nThe building stands back from its front boundary behind an original front fence and flat front garden of lawn with central concrete path to the front door. The ground floor accommodates a large Ballroom/Public Hall occupying the entire width and length of the main block. A connection at the rear of this room leads through to the Supper Room in the service block. A winding timber stair at the front of the Ballroom provides access to the first floor, which accommodates a landing area used as an Assembly Room with a changeroom, leading into a large private meeting hall (Lodge Room).
\nConcrete portal frames span the large ground floor Ballroom, and the first floor roof reportedly includes cast iron members (not sighted) to span the large first floor Lodge Room and support its domed ceiling. The service block has a concrete floor and timber-framed roof.
\nThe openings of the first floor are smaller and have obscured glass, indicating the secrecy of the lodge meeting room within. Some openings of the Supper Room into the later extensions may be original.
\nThe place retains original furniture, fixtures, and fittings including Masonic ceremonial furniture.
\nExtensions have been made to the service block since construction, which are not of state-level cultural heritage significance. These extensions are accessed via openings in the formerly external walls of the supper room, some of which appear original.
\nFeatures of Ayr Masonic Temple of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nBallroom:
\nAssembly Room:
\nLodge Room:
\nMasonic fittings and furniture collection temporarily stored in 2021 within Ladies Dressing Room and extensions to Supper Room:
\nFeatures of Ayr Masonic Temple not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nAyr Masonic Temple (1935) is a grand, two-storey masonry building at the corner of Mackenzie Street and Macmillan Street in Ayr, one block southeast of the town’s main street, Queen Street. Replacing an earlier timber Masonic hall (1903) on the site, it was built as a temple for the Delta, Ayr, and Fuller Freemason lodges. As a large and elaborate masonry building, it demonstrates the growth and expansion of Freemasonry during the interwar period. In 2021 it remains an active Masonic temple for the Fuller Lodge.
\nAyr is located approximately 70km southeast of Townsville, near Plantation Creek in the Lower Burdekin River’s delta, in the traditional land of the Bindal people.[1] Pastoralism began in the Burdekin district in the 1860s; and the selection of land for agriculture, including maize growing and dairying, followed by the 1870s. Sugar cane was also being grown by 1880. Ayr, surveyed in 1882, grew as sugar farms, plantations and mills were established in the delta. The Ayr State School opened in 1886, and Ayr Divisional Board – previously part of the Thuringowa Divisional Board (1879) – was established in 1888. Based in Ayr, Ayr Divisional Board later became Ayr Shire Council in 1903, and Burdekin Shire Council in 1982. A private railway (Ayr Tramway), connecting Ayr to Stuart near Townsville, opened in 1901. At this time Ayr only had a population of 338 people. Although Cyclone Leonta damaged or destroyed most of the town’s buildings in March 1903, Ayr was rebuilt, and a butter factory opened in 1904. The nearby sugar-growing towns of Brandon and Home Hill were surveyed in 1882 and 1911 respectively. [2]
\nThe Burdekin district, along with the Herbert district north of Townsville, became one of the four main sugar-growing regions in Queensland – the Herbert-Burdekin region (including Ingham, Home Hill and Ayr). This region produced about 20% of Queensland’s sugar crop in both 1890 and 1940, and 40% in 2008. Although the Burdekin district had less rainfall than the Herbert district and the other sugar growing regions, water for irrigation was sourced from sub-artesian bores.[3]
\nWhen the Queensland sugar industry expanded during the 1920s and 1930s – even as the Great Depression was affecting most of Australia – the Burdekin district prospered as a result. By 1933, Ayr had a population of 4792 people, rising to 7000 by 1938. As the town grew, many notable public buildings were constructed during the interwar period, such as Ayr Shire Council Chambers (1922, QHR 601922); Ayr Court House (1936, QHR 601126); Ayr Post Office (1936); and Ayr State High School (1937, QHR 601574).[4]
\nAyr Masonic Temple is a result of the growth and spread of Freemasonry in Queensland. Freemasonry has been described as ‘a fraternal association of men, based on the principles of brotherly love, relief and truth. Membership in Australia is open to all men who profess a belief in a Supreme Being and are of good character’.[5] ‘Craft’, or ‘Blue Lodges’ confer the three Masonic degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. Additional degrees can be obtained if a Master Mason joins a chapter of the ‘Royal Arch’ Masonic organisation.[6]
\nMasonic halls or temples (the terms are interchangeable)[7] have similar architectural style influences and layouts to accommodate Masonic rituals. The front facade of Masonic temples often had Classical Greek or Roman architectural influences, as the five orders of architecture (three Greek: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and two Roman: Tuscan and Composite) are significant within Freemasonry. The main ceremonies are held in a rectangular room called a lodge room, designed to evoke the Temple of Solomon under construction (an allegory for the process of personal development and enlightenment of a Mason). The lodge room usually has high windows to maintain privacy, especially if it is on the ground floor of a building. Seating is arranged around the perimeter of the room, so all members can observe the ceremonies conducted in the open central space, which has a central mosaic ‘pavement’ (usually a checkerboard pattern). An elevated seat is located at the eastern side of the room for the Worshipful (or Right Worshipful) Master, the senior position in the lodge. Elevated, individual seats are also provided at the western and southern sides for the Senior Warden and the Junior Warden. The room usually contains an altar. The architecture, furniture, and decoration of lodges are rich in Masonic allegory and symbols. Among the most prominent symbols are the Square and Compasses, and the letter 'G'. Masonic temples often also contain social rooms, dining rooms, and other spaces.[8]
\nThe first ‘stationary’ Freemasons’ lodge in Australia (as opposed to a travelling lodge associated with a British naval vessel or regiment) was formed in Sydney in 1820: the Australian Social Lodge number 260 (Irish Constitution, or IC). Lodges were formed after being granted a charter under the constitutions of either the Irish, Scottish, or English Grand Lodges; with the first English Constitution (EC) lodge formed in Sydney in 1829, and the first Scottish Constitution (SC) lodge formed in 1844 in Melbourne. To allow a measure of administrative autonomy for the Australian lodges – given their distance from their parent Grand Lodges in the British Isles – the Irish, English and Scottish lodges soon formed their own Provincial Grand Lodges, with Provincial Grand Masters: the Provincial Grand Lodge of New South Wales (EC), in 1849; the Provincial Grand Lodge (SC) of the Province of Australia, in 1856; and the Provincial Grand Lodge (IC), in 1857. The three Constitutions in New South Wales later combined to form the United Grand Lodge of NSW, achieving full autonomy from their British Grand Lodges, in 1888.[9]
\nThe first lodge in Queensland, the North Australian Lodge (EC), met on 13 July 1859, at the newly opened Freemasons’ Hotel in Albert Street, Brisbane, after petitioning the Provincial Grand Lodge of NSW (EC) for permission. Three more English constitution lodges soon followed: the Queensland Lodge, Ipswich (Queensland’s first Masonic hall was later built in Ipswich), and the Prince of Wales Lodge, Brisbane, both in 1861; then the Leichardt Lodge in Rockhampton in 1862. The first Queensland lodge of the Irish Constitution (St Patrick, Brisbane) was formed in 1863, and the first lodge under the Scottish Constitution (St Andrew’s, Brisbane) in 1864. A Provincial (later District) Grand Lodge (EC) was formed in Queensland in 1862, and the other two Constitutions in Queensland both formed provincial grand lodges in 1866.[10]
\nMasonic lodges soon spread geographically throughout Queensland, following the extension of the railways and the formation of new towns, with each of the three Constitutions chartering new lodges, and sometimes sharing a common Masonic hall. In 1904, 25 Irish lodges and 14 Scottish lodges formed the Grand Lodge of Queensland (GLQ) to gain autonomy from their parent grand lodges in Britain. The lodges of the GLQ were then renumbered, and those lodges and any new lodges formed under the GLQ from 1904 to 1921 were consequently designated ‘Queensland Constitution’ (QC). Another 50 Scottish lodges, and 62 English lodges, however, refused to acknowledge the new organization, and continued under their respective District Grand Lodges until 1920, when they amalgamated under the Queensland Grand Lodge (QGL), in a transitional arrangement to facilitate a union with the GLQ the following year.[11]
\nIn April 1921, the United Grand Lodge of Queensland (UGLQ) was formed, with 14,000 members in 281 lodges. All the UGLQ lodges were then renumbered, in order of the date of their consecration. Given the large size of Queensland, two District Grand Lodges were soon created: the District Grand Lodge of North Queensland (1922) at Townsville; and the District Grand Lodge of Carpentaria (1924) at Cairns. A headquarters for the UGLQ, consisting of a Masonic Temple of four storeys plus basement, was dedicated in December 1930 on Ann Street, Brisbane, at a cost of £103,000, not including furniture and the land. (QHR 600074).[12]
\nThe membership of the UGLQ increased in the 1920s and 1930s, and dropped during World War II, before rapidly expanding. Membership was 22,196 in 1930; dropped to 17,190 in 1941, but recovered to 21,250 in 1946, and grew to 35,955 (in 469 lodges) in 1969. However, numbers later fell, to 24,103 members in 1990, and 10,375 (in 300 lodges) in 2009.[13]
\nThe first Masonic lodge in Ayr was formed in December 1896, when Delta 846 (SC) was consecrated and the officers of the lodge were installed: including Alexander Fraser as Right Worshipful Master, and Maxwell Henry Irving as Treasurer. A banquet was held at the Queens Hotel, Ayr afterwards. Initially, the Federal Hall or the Divisional Board Hall was used for lodge meetings. When the site of the current Masonic temple, half an acre (2023m2) at the corner of Mackenzie Street and Macmillan Street, was obtained by the Freemasons for £30 in April 1902, Fraser and Irving were listed as trustees.[14] The Delta Lodge’s members then erected a highset timber Masonic hall on the site, which was used for meetings from March 1903. When Cyclone Leonta levelled the towns of Brandon and Ayr that same month, the Masonic hall was one of the few buildings to survive in Ayr. Heavily damaged, it was repaired and consecrated in July 1903.[15]
\nBy 1911, Ayr’s population was 1236, and a second local Masonic lodge was formed in October that year: Ayr Masonic Lodge, 3588 (EC).[16] This was soon followed by a GLQ lodge consecrated on 5 July 1913: Fuller 61 (QC), named after a prominent Townsville Mason. All three lodges were later renumbered, upon formation of the UGLQ, as Delta 112, Ayr 211, and Fuller 228.[17] The Burdekin Royal Arch Chapter 378 (SC) was also meeting in Ayr’s timber Masonic hall by 1916, and later used the current Masonic temple.[18]
\nDespite its understory being available (and presumably enclosed) for use for public meetings by the 1920s, the timber Masonic hall soon proved to be too small, a fact noted after a dance there in 1931.[19] The three Ayr lodges, which had decided on a new hall in 1928, proceeded to raise funds for a new masonry building on the same site, through increased membership fees and assistance from the Ladies Masonic Committee, and it was reported in May 1934 that ‘in view of the rapid growth of the district and the great activity in building operations, considerable importance attaches to the decision … to proceed shortly with the erection of a new Masonic Temple’.[20]
\nThe new temple in Ayr was purpose built as the principal meeting place of the three Ayr lodges. The plans were commissioned by the Ayr Masonic Building Committee (also referred to as the Lower Burdekin Masonic Building Committee), chaired by Worshipful Brother Arthur Coburn, a former Worshipful Master of Fuller Lodge, and were approved in October 1934. It was claimed that ‘the new building … will be a distinct asset and a splendid addition to the number of modern structures which are going up in different parts of the town’.[21]
\nThe plans and construction of the Masonic temple were undertaken by Townsville builder, Harry Percival Lewer, who also built a number of concrete shops, and the Commonwealth Savings Bank, in Queen Street in Ayr during the 1930s.[22]
\nThe foundation stone for the new temple was laid on 9 December 1934, by the Right Worshipful District Grand Master of North Queensland, Arthur D Charge, with music for the ceremony provided by Ayr Competitive Choir, Ayr Male Choir; and Ayr Citizens’ band. A casket containing ‘the usual records’ was deposited ‘in the cavity under the stone’. The building was expected to cost approximately £4,000. At the ceremony, the District Grand Master noted that Masonic character was based upon four great cornerstones – belief in a Supreme Being; a desire for nobility of character; loyalty to the throne and Empire; and the principle of service.[23]
\nThe new building was two-storey, with an imposing Classically-inspired front finished in cement render and featuring giant Doric order pilasters. The ground floor accommodated a ballroom (also used as a public hall) 75ft x 34 ft (22.9m x 10.4m), with an adjoining supper room, 31ft x 27ft (9.5m x 8.2m) in an attached, rear, single-storey service block. The upper floor accommodated an assembly room 12ft x 34ft (3.7m x 10.4m) and an adjoining lodge room 60ft x 34ft (18.3m x 10.4m).[24]
\nAyr’s Masonic temple, ‘claimed to be one of the most stately and beautiful buildings of its kind in Queensland’, was officially opened and consecrated on 22 June 1935, with more than 300 brethren of the Masonic Order present, by the Pro. (acting) Grand Master of the UGLQ, the Most Worshipful Brother William Herbert Green.[25] The Townsville Masonic Choir provided music for the ceremony, which was also attended by Masons from Charters Towers, Home Hill, Giru, Townsville, Bowen, and Proserpine. It was reported that ‘the edifice is a valuable addition to the architectural progress of the town, and a sign of the enterprising spirit of the local members of the craft’, and that ‘both for size and architecture, the new Temple is the most outstanding building in Ayr, and taking into consideration the size of the town, it was acknowledged by the Grand Lodge Officers present … to surpass easily all other Masonic buildings within the jurisdiction of Queensland’.[26]
\nThe previous night, a Grand Jubilee Commemoration Ball had been held at the new building, with more than 500 guests, the supper being provided by the Ladies Committee in a large marquee at the side of the old Masonic hall, which had also been requisitioned for the purpose.[27] The old hall, which was sited next to the new building on its northeast side, was demolished in 1936 and some of its Masonic furniture moved into the new hall, including an altar, tracing boards, and Worshipful Master’s and Wardens’ pedestals, which are retained in the building in 2021. By 1936, there was a masonry and chain-wire fence in front of the temple (extant 2021).[28]
\nThe new Masonic temple in Ayr was one of the more impressive temples built in Queensland in the interwar period, especially given the relatively small population of Ayr. Most Masonic buildings of this period were modest, single-storey buildings constructed of timber, rather than masonry, and only a minority had classical detailing to their main façade. Of the 162 Masonic halls/temples still occupied by lodges in Queensland in 2005, 44 had been constructed from 1874-1917; 51 from 1919-40; and 67 were built from 1942-2004. Of the 51 interwar temples, 12 were masonry (built of brick, concrete or stone); and 10 of these had classical style facades or columns (as opposed to only two of the interwar timber temples). Other than Ayr, examples of interwar, masonry, classical style Masonic temples, of two stories or more (in use in 2005) included: Wynnum, Mackay [QHR 602731], Bundaberg (former drapery store), Longreach, Brisbane [QHR 600074], Townsville, Cairns [QHR 601539], and Innisfail.[29]
\nSince its construction, the new temple’s ballroom/public hall has been used for a variety of purposes. As well as annual Masonic Balls, these included weekly dances, dance classes, public and group meetings, functions, parties, wedding receptions, sport and craft groups, church services, and funerals. The grounds have also been used for community markets. Visiting dignitaries also attended Masonic or non-Masonic events at the Masonic temple, including Queensland Governor Sir Leslie Wilson, in 1936, and Labor Premier Vincent Clair Gair, in 1952. In 2021, the ground floor is used for parties, Taekwondo lessons, and by Scottish dancers.[30] The ground floor of the temple has also, in the past, been used by the now-defunct Ayr Order of the Eastern Star (a Masonic order open to both men and women), and in 2021 it is still used for meetings of the Home Hill Order of the Eastern Star, due to the closure of the Home Hill Masonic temple.[31]
\nFew alterations have been made to the building since 1935. Additions were made to the rear service block to add toilets by 1958, most likely after the town’s water supply and system was installed (post 1950), and storerooms in the late 1960s. Some of the windows of the lodge room were replaced with aluminium sliding windows in the 1990s, for improved ventilation.[32]
\nIn 2021, Ayr Masonic Temple is still used by Fuller 228. Ayr 211 (Ayr-Seaforth 211 from 1985) became defunct in 1997, and Delta 112 became defunct in mid-2021.[33] The building remains highly intact and retains a considerable amount of early Masonic furniture and fittings.
","criteria":"Ayr Masonic Temple (1935) is important in demonstrating the development of Freemasonry in Queensland. An imposing two-storey brick building, its design and construction illustrates the growth and expansion of Freemasonry during the interwar period, reflected in the erection of more elaborate permanent Masonic temple buildings, following the formation of the United Grand Lodge of Queensland in 1921.
|In its form, fabric, layout, and furnishings, Ayr Masonic Temple is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a purpose-built Masonic temple in Queensland. Highly intact, these principal characteristics include its: high quality design and construction; impressive front elevation; Classical architectural details; privacy control measures and floor plan arrangement separating members and non-members; provision of lodge room with central open space with checkerboard ‘pavement’, perimeter gallery of members’ seats, elevated dais seats and lecterns for the Master and principal officers, and prominent use of the colour blue; and architectural and decorative features of Masonic allegorical and symbolic meanings.
|Ayr Masonic Temple is important for its aesthetic significance as a highly intact masonry building in an impressive Interwar Classical style. It possesses beautiful attributes derived from its: well-composed and prominent temple-front; high-quality design and construction; symmetry, form, scale, materials, and decoration; and the integration of Masonic allegories and symbols into the design.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650277,"name":"Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark","alternate_name":"LEUT Bedwell’s Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark at Sandstone Point | Sandstone Point Datum Mark","street_address":"Shoreline off Bayswater Court","suburb":"SANDSTONE POINT","lga":"MORETON BAY CITY COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2022-11-25","description":"The Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark (1867) is located at the northern end of Moreton Bay, on the mainland side of the southern entrance to Pumicestone Channel (also known as Pumicestone Passage), which runs between the Queensland mainland and Bribie Island. Situated in the intertidal zone, the bench mark is accessed from Bayswater Court, on foot via stairs and a foreshore walking track.
\nThe bench mark comprises two broad arrows flanking a small ‘U’, arranged in a row running northeast to southwest and inscribed into the top surface of a horizontal sandstone ledge. The marks are below tidal inundation level and were originally filled with lead, which is no longer visible. The arrows point southeast and are set approximately two metres apart. The northeast broad arrow is 0.7 metres wide; the southeast broad arrow is 0.8 metres wide and more legible.
\nFeatures of the Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark not of State-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark was created in 1867, during the British Admiralty’s hydrographic survey of Moreton Bay. It consists of two broad arrows, both pointing southeast, on either side of a small ‘U’, inscribed on top of a sandstone ledge in the intertidal flats at Sandstone Point, west of the southern entrance to Pumicestone Channel. The bench mark is surviving physical evidence of the joint effort (from 1862) by the Queensland Government and British Admiralty to survey the Queensland coastline, which assisted shipping navigation, and in particular the survey of Moreton Bay (1865-8), which facilitated the development of Brisbane as Queensland’s most important port.
\nHydrographic surveying, which developed as a highly specialised branch of surveying in 19th century Britain, mapped the seabed and coastal features to enable safe marine navigation. It included establishing a triangulation network over the survey area, from the mainland to the sea or adjacent islands, with control points on coastal hills or headlands. ‘Coast liner' parties then conducted a land survey of coastal features, recorded high and low water lines, and took soundings to determine the depth and composition of the seabed.[1]
\nWhile the ‘mother' survey ship would take soundings in deep water, ‘chicks' (smaller boats, initially rowed and later steam powered) would run lines of soundings from the shore to deep water, using a lead line. Sounding positions were fixed and charted by reading sextant angles between the three nearest control points. Soundings were taken at all tide stages and later corrected for the tide height to create a common datum (a quantity or set of quantities that serve as a reference or basis for calculation of other quantities). The tidal observations were recorded by a tide gauge established nearby. During the survey the tides and datum were related to a permanent bench mark, for use in future surveys. [2] Bench marks were cut by a party who monitored the tides over a lengthy period of time, preferably at a sheltered area with calm water.[3]
\nBased on the definition contained in Bill Kitson and Judith McKay’s Surveying Queensland 1839-1945: A Pictorial History, and known surviving hydrographic bench marks in Queensland, a bench mark (sometimes called a datum mark) is a point, at a known elevation either above or below an adopted datum (usually sea level), marked on a natural or manufactured, durable, fixed object – or it could even be a particular part of an object.[4] In Queensland, ‘broad arrow’ symbols (used to denote a government survey from 1852) were cut on the side of a rock as an upward pointing arrow, or on top of a rock with the arrow lying horizontally (meaning the upper surface of the rock became the measurement point), as bench marks. Alternatively, metal disks were attached to a rock or concrete, or a broad arrow was cut into a tree. Often a line was cut, balanced on the point of the arrow, as the measuring point for the datum.[5] As well as at Sandstone Point, other confirmed examples of broad arrow bench marks cut into rocks are located in Cairns Harbour (Bessie Point, 1878, QHR 602833); Bowen (waterfront, 1887); and at Princess Charlotte Bay in the Flinders group of islands (1899, by HMS Dart).[6]
\nThe hydrographic survey of Moreton Bay, which spans the traditional lands and seas of the Quandamooka, Kabi Kabi, Jagera and Turrbal first nations peoples,[7] was part of a long-term effort by the British Admiralty to survey Queensland’s coastline and its harbours and rivers. In 1770 Captain James Cook in HM Bark Endeavour was the first British navigator to chart the coast of what is now Queensland. Admiralty surveys commenced after the establishment of the British Admiralty Hydrographic Office in 1795, and parts of Queensland's waters were charted and surveyed by a series of British navigators prior to Queensland's separation from New South Wales (NSW) in 1859.[8]
\nAfter Separation, more accurate charts were required as the new colony developed its ports. Coastal shipping was of vital importance to Queensland's economy at the time, given the geographical size of the colony, lack of all-weather roads, and the absence of a coastal railway. In 1860 Lieutenant (later Commander) George Poynter Heath, RN, was appointed as marine surveyor to Queensland's Surveyor-General's Department, and in his first year he surveyed the Maroochy and Mooloolah rivers in the Spitfire. In 1862 he was appointed Portmaster and Marine Surveyor of Queensland.[9]
\nIn 1860-61 Queensland entered into an agreement with the British Admiralty to split the annual costs of hydrographic surveying (then about £3000 per annum). The Admiralty would provide staff and instruments and publish charts, while the Queensland Government would provide the lodging, subsistence, and ‘means of locomotion' for staff.[10] The focus was on charting a safe shipping route along the Queensland coast, but the Admiralty surveyors could also assist the Queensland Government with its river and harbour surveys.[11]
\nThe Admiralty survey of Queensland under the agreement with Queensland began in 1862. Master (later Lieutenant, then Staff Commander) James Jeffery was appointed as Queensland's first Admiralty Surveyor and arrived in the colony in September 1862. He then hired a local vessel to survey the Great Sandy Strait, Hervey Bay, and the mouth of the Mary River, but soon persuaded the Queensland Government to have a surveying schooner constructed. HMS Pearl, a 60 foot 6 inch (18.44m) vessel built in Sydney, came into service in October 1863.[12] This vessel was rigged as a fore and aft schooner, was of 70 tons [71.12 metric tons] burden with a shallow draught, and left Brisbane to complete a survey of Hervey Bay in late October 1863.[13] Between 1864 and 1866 Jeffery surveyed Moreton Bay between Peel Island and Mud Island, Keppel Bay, and the outer route to Point Danger.[14]
\nJeffery’s survey of Moreton Bay began in mid-1865.[15] This survey, and its soundings of water depths, was important to the safe navigation of ships across the bay to the mouth of the Brisbane River. During the period of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement (1824-42), most ships that entered Moreton Bay were government vessels, and the preferred route was the southern entrance (also known as the South Passage) between Moreton Island and Stradbroke Island, and a pilot station was established at Amity Point on Stradbroke Island. To prevent smuggling of goods into the penal settlement, in the late 1820s a garrisoned depot was constructed at Dunwich, Stradbroke Island, for transhipping goods to smaller vessels before they were sent up the river to Brisbane. Although the northern entrance was known to be superior by 1838, it was still seen as easier to control shipping through the southern entrance.[16]
\nAs a result of there being a transhipment depot at Dunwich, during the convict period there was no need to improve access for larger vessels into and up the Brisbane River, by dredging channels through the bar at the mouth of the Brisbane River and the mud flats further upriver. However, the introduction of ‘free settlement’ in the Moreton Bay district in 1842 meant that settlers needed to import goods and export their produce, and, although small vessels could reach Brisbane, larger ships had to anchor in the bay, outside the Brisbane River bar, and have their goods and passengers lightered up the river. Although Brisbane was declared a Port of Entry in 1846, a Warehousing Port in 1849, and a customs house was built in 1850, no dredging of the river and its bar occurred before Separation.[17]
\nSome surveys of Moreton Bay had occurred prior to 1859, but these were not comprehensive. With the assistance of Lieutenant CB Yule commanding HM Surveying vessel Bramble, Captain John Clements Wickham (1798-1864), the Police Magistrate for Moreton Bay from 1842, had surveyed the channels into the bay from the northern entrance in 1846; and added buoys and beacons in 1847, in preparation for the closure of the South Passage as the main entrance. The pilot station had been moved to Cowan Cowan on Moreton Island in 1848. In other efforts to improve maritime safety, Moreton Bay’s first Harbour Master, Captain Frederick Freeman, had been appointed in 1847, and in 1848 more soundings had been added to the chart of the northern entrance by Captain Stanley. The mouth of the Brisbane River, and the anchorage outside the bar, had been surveyed by Yule in 1848, while the Cape Moreton lighthouse [QHR 600257] had been built in 1856.[18]
\nBy 1859, Brisbane was the most important trading port of the new colony of Queensland, having successfully seen off an early challenge by Cleveland Point, which was supported by Darling Downs squatters as the port for Moreton Bay. The value of the port of Brisbane’s trade during the 1860s well exceeded the second and third most valuable ports, which at that time were Rockhampton and Maryborough.[19] The main impediment to Ipswich – upriver from Brisbane and another rival port – effectively competing with Brisbane was the navigation hazard of Seventeen Mile Rocks, which were not cut through until 1865-6.[20]
\nAccess into the Brisbane River for larger vessels was improved during the 1860s. A channel was dredged through the bar at the river mouth by 1866, and one was cut through the sandbank near Fisherman Islands (to allow larger vessels to reach Lytton) by 1867.[21] Later, cuttings were made in the Upper Flats and Eagle Farm Flats of the Brisbane River by 1872, which allowed large ships to reach Brisbane’s wharves and proved to be a turning point in Brisbane’s rivalry with Ipswich.[22]
\nIn July 1866 Jeffery was replaced as commander of the Admiralty survey by Master (later Navigating Lieutenant, then Staff-Commander) Edward Parker Bedwell (1834-1919). Bedwell was born in St Heliers, Jersey, joined the RN in the late 1840s, served in the Crimean War, and joined the surveying service in 1857, where he worked off the coasts of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. He was posted to Australia as chief assistant to the NSW hydrographic survey in 1864, later taking charge of the Queensland survey.[23] By April 1867 it was reported that a map of the bay between Mud Island and Comboyuro Point (on Moreton Island) had been completed, with ‘Mr EP Bedwell, RN’ and his assistant, ‘Mr Bray’ having undertaken the ‘greater portion’ of the survey of that area.[24]
\nBy March 1868 the entire Admiralty survey of Moreton Bay, along with the coastline between Point Danger and a point 6 miles (9.7km) north of Cape Moreton, had been completed. During the survey the Pearl Channel, between the Central and Western Banks in the north of Moreton Bay, was documented, along with a harbour in ‘Pumice Stone Strait’. It was claimed that the harbour (presumably the anchorage inside the southern entrance to the strait), ‘being in the direction of one of the routes to the Mary River diggings [Gympie] and some of the principal sugar plantations, may become the seat of considerable commerce’.[25]
\nDuring the survey, a bench mark, consisting of two broad arrows and a ‘U’ cut into the top of a horizontal sandstone ledge in the intertidal zone, was established at Sandstone Point, in the traditional lands of the Kabi Kabi People.[26] A chart of Pumice Stone Strait (today known as Pumicestone Channel or Pumicestone Passage), published in 1868, noted that it had been surveyed in 1867 by Navigating Lieutenant EP Bedwell, RN, assisted by Navigating Sub-Lieutenant EHS Bray. This chart included the bench mark at Sandstone Point, and the chart’s title noted that the ‘Datum mark [bench mark] cut into ledge at Sandstone Point thus [two vertical arrow symbols] and filled with lead, is one foot [30.5cm] below HW Springs [high water spring tides] in August 1867 & February 1868’.[27] Spring tides do not refer to the season, but to those days twice a month in which the tidal range is greatest (with a higher high tide and lower low tide than usual), due to the linear alignment of the sun and moon with the Earth.[28] The chart, on which the soundings in fathoms (1 fathom being 6 feet, or 1.8m) were reduced to low water spring tides (the usual practice for depth soundings, as this was the lowest water depth that could be expected), also indicated that a tide gauge had been established at Toorbul Point, within the Pumice Stone Strait (just north of the current bridge to Bribie Island). The land near Sandstone Point was labelled as ‘wooded’, while ‘Bonney Farm’ was located at Toorbul Point.[29] In the 1870s, Toorbul Point became part of a sugar plantation owned by Captain Douglas Douglas Hamilton.[30]
\nThe Admiralty survey continued after the Moreton Bay survey was completed. From 1868 to 1879 Bedwell surveyed the coast between Cape Moreton and the north end of the Cumberland Islands (between Mackay and Bowen); the Brisbane, Mary, Burnett and Fitzroy rivers to their principal townships; plus Port Curtis and Bowen. The Bedwell group of islands southeast of Mackay are named after him.[31]
\nDuring the Admiralty survey of Queensland’s coastline, various ships were used. The 39 foot (11.89m) steam launch Sabina was built in 1872 to assist HMS Pearl, and in 1878 the 195 ton [198.12 metric tons] screw steamer Llewellyn was chartered to replace the Pearl.[32] Bedwell reported that the steamer could cover much more ground in less time than the schooner.[33] Other survey ships that operated in Queensland during the 1860s and 1870s included HMS Salamander, HMS Virago and HMS Basilisk.[34]
\nBy early 1880 Queensland had decided to withdraw from the Admiralty agreement for financial reasons, and the British navy officers, including Bedwell, were recalled to England. Total expenditure on the Admiralty survey in 1879 was £7961, of which the British government only contributed £2500.[35] However, the HMS Pearl continued to be used by the Queensland Government, undertaking a survey of ports and rivers in the Gulf of Carpentaria under the command of Captain CE Pennefather in the early 1880s.[36]
\nDespite the withdrawal of the Queensland Government from the joint project, the Admiralty continued its own surveying of Queensland waters, and the ships involved included HMS Alert from 1881, and HMS Dart from 1883. The agreement with Queensland was renewed in 1885, although this time the Admiralty accepted the larger share of costs, and the new Queensland gunboat HMS Paluma was lent to the Admiralty for survey work, charting the coast north of Bowen.[37] This agreement expired on 31 March 1895, but co-operation between Queensland and the Admiralty continued, as a bill was introduced in the Queensland Parliament in late 1894 to continue funding the Admiralty survey (while using a British ship) at a rate of £3270 per year, for six years from 1 April 1895.[38]
\nIn the late 1880s HMS Myrmidon assisted with surveying the Great Barrier Reef, and in 1897 HMS Waterwitch joined northern surveying operations. During surveys, Admiralty crews planted edible plants and released pigs and goats on islands for shipwreck survivors. After Australian Federation in 1901 the Admiralty continued to work off Queensland until c1926, using the HMS Dart, HMS Penguin, HMS Fantome, and HMS Herald. The Hydrographic Branch of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was formed in 1920, and Australia's first naval survey vessel, HMAS Geranium, began surveying the Great Barrier Reef in 1924.[39]
\nIn 2022 the 1867 bench mark at Sandstone Point, cut during the Admiralty survey of Moreton Bay, survives as a physical reminder of the early work of Queensland’s maritime surveyors, in particular the survey of Moreton Bay from 1865-68, which was important to safe navigation within the bay, and the development of Brisbane as a port. The bench mark is an enduring feature with a weathered patina from more than 150 years of tidal inundation, and provides a tangible record of sea levels in the 19th century, against which future sea level rises can be measured.
","criteria":"The Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark (1867) is early important surviving evidence of the British Admiralty’s hydrographic survey of Queensland's coastal waters, harbours and rivers, which became a joint initiative with the Queensland Government from 1862, and the efforts of the British Admiralty hydrographic surveyors, including Navigating Lieutenant (later Staff Commander) Edward Parker Bedwell, RN, who led Queensland’s hydrographic survey from 1866 to 1880. This survey was essential for safe shipping navigation, which was the principal means of early long-distance transport for the colony that facilitated the settlement of remote areas, and the economic development of Queensland.
\nThe establishment of a bench mark at Sandstone Point was an important step in the hydrographic survey of Moreton Bay in the late 1860s, which facilitated the development of the Port of Brisbane. The hydrographic survey produced accurate navigation charts, necessary to identify safe shipping routes through the bay to the Brisbane River.
|The Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark demonstrates the principal characteristics of a British Admiralty hydrographic survey mark in Queensland (its particular class of cultural place), including: inscribed markings (in this instance two broad arrows and a U shape) on a large, fixed, durable object near a body of water, either above or below inundation level, with a recorded elevation above or below a datum (in this case high water spring tides). Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark is important in demonstrating these principal characteristics because it is an early example and retains its integrity.
\n|
The Sandstone Point Hydrographic Survey Bench Mark has a special symbolic association with the British Admiralty hydrographic surveyors who measured and mapped Queensland’s coastal waters, harbours and rivers, from the 1860s to the 1920s, being tangible evidence of their skills and efforts that were important in facilitating safe shipping and the development of Queensland.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650281,"name":"Bundaberg Hospital Nurses' Quarters (former)","alternate_name":"Former Nurses' Quarters - Bundaberg Base Hospital","street_address":"273 Bourbong Street","suburb":"BUNDABERG WEST","lga":"BUNDABERG REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2024-06-21","description":"Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former) comprises a Nurses’ Quarters (1915-70) and adjacent Swimming Pool (1954) standing at the northeastern end of the grounds of the Bundaberg Base Hospital. It is located to the rear of the main hospital buildings, toward the Burnett River.
\nFeatures of state level cultural heritage significance include the:
\nNurses’ Quarters
\nThe Nurses’ Quarters is a two-storey, face brick building, constructed in sections at different times. It comprises a main, long front wing of nurses’ bedrooms and common rooms, which runs east-west and faces south to an internal hospital road. Wrapping around this wing is a broad verandah. Projecting off the rear of the verandah are short ablutions blocks, and a long, central wing of further nurses’ bedrooms and common rooms.
\nThe verandah of the building’s principal facades (southern and eastern sides of the main front wing) features polychrome face brick arches and piers, and timber posts, balustrades, and brackets. Access into the building is from the verandah via its many French doors.
\nThe building layout is considerably intact and its historical functions are legible. It retains original partitions in most areas with some minor alterations and demolitions. The long wings generally have central corridors with runs of cell-like nurses’ bedrooms and common rooms on either side. At the eastern end of the 1943 extension’s ground floor is the large former Recreation Room and at the northern end of the 1963 wing’s ground and first floors are former flats for the matron and deputy matron.
\nThe building’s extensions copy and reference earlier details and forms, and earlier fabric has been removed, re-used, and blended into new areas.
\nIn 2024, the majority of the building is used for hospital administration offices, equipment store, staff training rooms, and a small area of staff residential accommodation.
\nFeatures of the Nurses’ Quarters of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Nurses’ Quarters not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Swimming Pool
\nThe Swimming Pool comprises an inground, concrete pool shell in a garden behind (to the north of) the Nurses’ Quarters.
\nFeatures of the Swimming Pool of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures of the Swimming Pool not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nThe Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former) was built in 1915 to provide residential accommodation, recreation and education rooms for nurses employed and training at the hospital, and was extended over 50 years as nurse numbers increased. The building, with its extensions, was a response to legislative and judicial changes to nurses’ employment conditions through the 20th century. In 1954, a swimming pool was added beside the quarters under a statewide policy of improving recreational facilities at nurses’ quarters, in an attempt to address postwar nursing shortages. The building was occupied as living quarters and training space for nurses until 1992, when nursing education switched from practical to tertiary-based. Subsequently used for education purposes, in 2024 the building remains in use as administration offices and staff accommodation for the Wide Bay Health and Hospital Service.
\nEstablishment of hospital services in Bundaberg (1881 to 1914)
\nBundaberg is part of the traditional land of the Bailai, Gurang, Gooreng Gooreng, and Taribelang Bunda People.[1] Pastoral stations were established in the area from the 1850s. Bundaberg was surveyed in 1869 following selection of surrounding land after 1868 under the ‘Sugar and Coffee Regulations’.[2] Bundaberg’s development as a port and service centre was boosted by growing coastal traffic and by its designation as the port for Mount Perry's copper mining. Surrounded by large sugar plantations and the site of two sugar refineries, Bundaberg became an important sugar town.[3] The sugar industry propelled Bundaberg’s population growth from 950 inhabitants in 1878[4] to 2,323 in 1886.[5] Infrastructure was erected in south Bundaberg to serve the town’s residents and the surrounding regions of Woongarra and Gooburrum, a total population of around 4,500 people by 1888.[6]
\nIn February 1879, a fundraising appeal was launched to establish a hospital at Bundaberg.[7] Hospitals in 19th century Queensland were charitable organisations erected under voluntary schemes by local communities. They were funded by subscriptions from local residents, government subsidies, and fee-based treatment, and managed by an elected committee or board.[8] A Bundaberg Hospital Committee was formed, and in June 1879, a 3 acre, 3 rood and 30 perch (1.59ha) site, along the Burnett River in south Bundaberg, was reserved for the hospital.[9] A temporary hospital operated in the immigration barracks, before a purpose-built facility opened in March 1881.[10] It featured general, special, fever, and female wards, and a ‘Kanaka’ ward for South Sea Islander sugar cane plantation workers.[11]
\nThe hospital was staffed by a doctor/surgeon; a wardsman, and his wife and daughter who acted as matron and assistant matron respectively.[12] The staff performed a range of medical, administrative, and domestic duties, but only the doctor held medical qualifications. Nursing was in the process of evolving from an untrained role performed by women into a professional occupation undertaken by young women, with the first trained nurse employed in Queensland in 1885, and certified training courses slowly spreading across the colony’s hospitals.[13] When the Bundaberg wardsman and his family resigned in November 1898, the doctor encouraged the hospital board to ‘bring the hospital up to the times’ and appoint a registered matron and staff of trained nurses.[14] The recommendation was timely, as in 1899 the Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association (ATNA) was established and standardised nurse training and registration across Australia.[15] Hospitals which registered with the ATNA could employ probationers and trainees on a practical training course of between three and five years, depending on the daily average of occupied hospital beds. On passing examinations, trainees became nurses with qualifications recognised across Australia.[16]
\nThe Bundaberg Hospital Board engaged Matron Euphemia Bell from Sydney Hospital in late 1898, followed by a senior nurse, trained nurse, and probationers.[17] The hospital registered with the ATNA and commenced nurse training circa 1902.[18] New nurses’ quarters were built that year to accommodate the growing number of staff.[19] Probationers were regularly engaged by the hospital board, and, after a two month trial period, underwent a four year period of training to become certified.[20] Some remained employed at the hospital after passing their examinations.[21] Bundaberg was recognised as a training hospital by the Queensland branch of the ATNA (established in 1904) and the Queensland Nurses’ Registration Board (established in 1912 under the Health Act Amendment Act 1911), as nurse registration was formalised within the state of Queensland.[22] By December 1914, twelve nurses were employed at the Bundaberg Hospital[23] – a relatively large number of staff for a hospital of its size – and received favourable reports, such as in 1915:
\nAs for Matron Donaldson and her large staff of nurses from the head nurse (Sister Wilson) down to the latest probationer, they unite in making the stay of sufferers under their charge as comfortable and happy as exigencies permit.[24]
\nNurses’ quarters – 1915 section
\nAfter several years of maintenance issues,[25] the Bundaberg Hospital Board resolved to build a new hospital on a new site. It engaged local architect Frederick Herbert (FH or Fred) Faircloth, who had already designed some the hospital’s existing additions, including the 1902 nurses’ quarters,[26] to design the new hospital. Faircloth inspected hospitals in New South Wales and returned with a design for a two-storey pavilion-plan brick hospital in 1909.[27] The hospital site was re-gazetted in 1910, this time on a 7 acre, 8.4 perch site (portion 80), west of its former site, surrounded by Mulgrave, Takalvan and Bourbong Streets.[28] The new hospital was constructed between 1911 and 1914, the biggest construction project in Bundaberg to that date, and opened in July 1914.[29]
\nFaircloth’s plan had included accommodation for nurses within the patients’ building, but in 1913 the Hospital Board decided to construct a separate building for nurses’ quarters.[30] Faircloth, instructed to prepare new plans, presented the board with a design for a single-storey brick building with a bungalow roof. [31] The nurses’ quarters were situated north of the main hospital building, nearer the Burnett River and – as one nurse noted in later years – also close to the morgue.[32] The building faced east, and comprised two attached blocks. One held sitting and dressing rooms, and seven bedrooms for day nurses, the sister, and matron; the other featured four bedrooms for night nurses’ bedrooms.[33] Both were wrapped entirely by a verandah with louvred blinds, with a semi-detached ablutions block projecting from its rearward (north) extent. The interior layout of both blocks comprised a central corridor with rooms opening off both sides. The nurses’ bedrooms were likely 14’ x 10’ (4.2m x 3m), with larger rooms for the sister and matron. French doors opened off all rooms onto the verandah for additional space. The hip roof was continuous over the verandah and clad with corrugated metal sheets. The design was deemed to be ‘not only an acquisition to the new hospital, but will be greatly appreciated by the nurses, as in it every comfort and convenience have been provided for them.’[34]
\nFunding for the Bundaberg nurses’ quarters was partly provided by the State Government, partly by hospital subscribers, and partly by donations from the community.[35] The tender of contractors Messrs Anderson and Pomfret, for £1944 7s. 6d., was accepted.[36] Building was completed in March 1915,[37] and the nurses took up residence in April 1915.[38] The Assistant Home Secretary, visiting in October of that year, was pleased that the hospital committee had not overlooked accommodation for the nurses.[39] The nurses’ quarters were also the first building in the hospital to be lit by electricity, impressing the South Australian Inspector-General of Hospitals, who was on a tour of inspection around Queensland.[40]
\nNurses’ quarters at Queensland hospitals
\nStaff accommodation was an integral part of hospital infrastructure.[41] The concept of providing onsite accommodation for nurses grew out of the religious and military background of nursing, where inductees lived in cloistered or barrack accommodation.[42] Until 1921 there were no requirements to provide nurses’ accommodation at Queensland’s general hospitals,[43] but there were advantages for hospitals in doing so, and they were provided at most hospitals which employed nursing staff.[44] Good quality accommodation appealed to the middle-class, well-educated women who were increasingly taking up nursing,[45] and provided a level of care and protection perceived necessary for the young women living away from their homes.[46] Like cloisters or military barracks, onsite accommodation also allowed senior staff to monitor junior staff, both enforcing the hierarchies that were considered essential for a hospital to function effectively,[47] and the morality considered an essential part of nurses’ characters.[48] Finally, the provision of board and lodging could help justify keeping nurses’ wages low, without which hospitals could not afford trained nursing staff.[49]
\nPurpose-built nurses’ quarters were constructed at Queensland hospitals from the 1860s until at least the 1960s.[50] They ranged from rooms within the ward building itself, to large freestanding, multi-storey buildings. Over the 20th century, increasingly-larger nurses’ quarters were built at Queensland hospitals. Growing hospitals sometimes had a series of nurses’ quarters built in their grounds, or extended their existing quarters.[51] At some Queensland hospitals, the nurses’ quarters was the largest or tallest single building on the site.[52] They were sometimes described as landmarks within their towns,[53] and their foundation or completion were frequently publicised and celebrated with events attended by the public and dignitaries.[54]
\nArchitecturally, they were not standardised, and varied in size, style, form, and materials, often dependent on funds, staff numbers, and changing architectural fashions.[55] Typically, however, they were freestanding buildings toward the rear or side of the main hospital buildings, or attached but separated in a different floor or wing. The interiors accommodated cell-like bedrooms and shared amenities, including bathrooms, laundries, common or sitting rooms, and kitchenettes/tea rooms. Accommodation was typically organised into nursing hierarchies (trainees, junior nurses, senior nurses, sisters, and matrons), sometimes with separate common facilities, and grouped by wards and shift (day or night). Verandahs were provided as an extension to the bedrooms and living spaces, providing ‘breathing space’ for the occupants. Later quarters often provided self-contained ‘flats’ within the building for the matron and sub- or deputy-matron.[56] The provision of facilities varied little over the 100 years of nurses’ quarters’ construction in Queensland.[57]
\n1919 extension
\nBy 1918, Bundaberg’s nursing staff had increased to one matron, one sister and 17 nurses, beyond the capacity of the 11-room quarters.[58] An extension was proposed for the nurses’ quarters, to comprise three single bedrooms, dormitory, box room, and lavatory block.[59] Faircloth was again engaged to design the extension, and Anderson and Pomfret to build it at a cost of £1824 7s.[60] The President of the Hospital Board[61] and Canon Beasley (rector of Bundaberg Christ Church)[62] launched public appeals to raise funds for the extension, drawing donations from around the region, including Bundaberg residents, the Woongarra Farmers’ hall trustees;[63] the Millaquin Sugar Co; Olympia Pictures; the Girls’ High School; the Presbyterian Sunday School; a Walloon resident;[64] and a Barolin School euchre tournament and dance fundraiser.[65] The extension was built in 1919 and completed and furnished by January 1920.[66] Its completion made the quarters ‘an ideal building’ in the view of the Hospital Board.[67]
\nThe extension, at the western end of the 1915 quarters, continued the form, detailing, materials, and layout of the earlier section. It had a central corridor, rooms either side which opened onto a wrap-around verandah via French doors, and an ablutions block (the second for the building) semi-detached and standing at the northwest corner of the verandah. The three new nurses’ bedrooms were likely slightly larger, at 14’ x 12’ (4.2m x 3.6m), and were possibly for more senior staff. The extended roof was also a hip and clad with corrugated metal sheets.
\nThe hierarchy of spaces and the regimented nature of the nurses’ quarters was reflected in an incident in October 1924, when one nurse moved without permission from the eight-bed dormitory into another room. She reported the custom of ‘giving the last bed to a probationer’, with all nurses moving ‘up’ a bed while the most senior nurse moved up to the next room. The nurse, however, was evicted from her new bed by the matron, who submitted that the nurse had taken the bed and removed the possessions of a more senior nurse who was undergoing treatment in the hospital. The incident was a black mark for both the nurse and matron.[68]
\n1937 extension
\nChanges in hospital administration and nurses’ working conditions in the early 1920s considerably impacted staffing levels at the Bundaberg Hospital. In 1921, a Court of Arbitration judgment amended the nursing award, requiring ‘as far as practicable, separate rooms or separate cubicles shall be provided for each employee at their respective hospitals’. It also set maximum working hours; and provided additional leave entitlements.[69] While Bundaberg Hospital met accommodation requirements, changes to the latter conditions necessitated the employment of more nurses at the hospital.[70] By July 1921 the hospital had 32 trained and probationary nurses, and had requested an extra trained nurse and probationer to keep up with requirements.[71]
\nIn January 1925, the Bundaberg Hospital District was created under the Hospitals Act 1923. The district covered an area including the city of Bundaberg, and the shires of Gooburrum, Isis, Kolan, Perry and Woongarra (encompassing hospitals at Childers, Gin Gin, Mount Perry, and Bundaberg).[72] The Bundaberg Hospital served as a hub for the district, hosting up-to-date equipment (such as X-ray) and nursing training.[73] Bundaberg’s Lady Chelmsford maternity hospital was moved onto the site between 1928 and 1932 to provide maternity services.[74] The hospital’s services were also accessed by patients living outside the district, which kept staffing levels high.[75]
\nThe combined impact of the changes caused cramped conditions at the existing nurses’ quarters – by then known as the general nurses’ quarters, to distinguish them from the maternity nurses’ quarters – at the hospital. Two buildings from the Lady Chelmsford hospital (no longer extant) were repurposed for use at the general nurses’ quarters in 1932,[76] but the Hospital Board began to contemplate a further extension to the building. Plans were drawn up in 1935 by the Department of Public Works (DPW) to almost double the existing building by raising the existing roof and adding a second storey to the main wing of the existing nurses’ quarters. The resulting rectangular, two-storey section was 84' x 32' (25.6m x 9.75m) with a new two-storey, wrap-around verandah. The attached 32' x 22' (9.75m x 6.71m) single-storey block for night nurses bedrooms remained. The new storey added 15 new bedrooms, a large sitting room 24' by 19' (7.32m x 5.8m), and two new bathrooms and lavatory blocks above the older ones. The extension expanded the quarters’ capacity to 35 nurses, accommodated in dormitories and 28 bedrooms. In keeping with the 1915-1919 quarters, the building was constructed in face brick and concrete, at an estimated cost of £4,295.[77]
\nIn appearance, the extension took its cues from the earlier section, and removed and re-used earlier fabric for its new rooms. The new first floor layout followed that of the earlier ground floor, with a central corridor and rooms either side that opened via French doors onto the verandah, but omitted the dormitory in lieu of further single bedrooms. As such, the new nurses’ bedrooms were the same size as the earlier ones below. The earlier verandah was fully demolished and replaced at this time with the two-storey verandah. The new verandah was more elaborate on its east and south sides, with face brick arches to its ground floor and face brick piers and timber posts to its first floor (possibly reused from the earlier section). One of the larger 1915 rooms of the ground floor (likely a sister’s bedroom) was converted to a stair hall with the addition of a concrete, iron, and timber stair to the first floor, and an external timber stair was added to the rear (north) verandah.[78]
\nThe extension occurred when the DPW was overseeing construction of ‘a number of Public Hospitals buildings throughout the State’.[79] As increasing numbers of hospitals were brought under the Hospitals Act 1923 (and its successor, the Hospitals Act 1936), more public funding was allocated to hospitals across the state. The Great Depression also encouraged a works programme of hospital construction estimated to cost £273,000 (reaching £475,000 in 1938).[80] Not least amongst these was the construction of nurses’ quarters at public hospitals, which had accelerated since the 1921 Nurses’ Award. Nurses’ quarters were constructed or extended at more than 30 hospitals across the state in the interwar period, including examples at the Brisbane Children’s Hospital (1921), Lady Bowen Hospital (1923), Mundubbera (1924 and 1926), Herberton (1925-6), Laidley (1925), Alpha (1926), Atherton (1927), Maryborough (1928), Brisbane General Hospital (two further quarters, 1936 and 1939), Gladstone (1928), Mackay (1928), Barcaldine (1930), Biloela (1931), Warwick (1934), Mossman (1936), Gympie (1935), Cracow (1938), and large-scale extensions to existing quarters at Toowoomba (1927), Brisbane General Hospital (1931), and Maryborough (1938).[81]
\nThe Bundaberg Hospital nurses’ quarters extension was officially finished in August 1937, and nurses took up occupancy immediately.[82] The quarters ‘fulfil[ed] a long felt want, for the comfortable accommodation of the fine staff of nurses, for which the Bundaberg Hospital is noted’. [83] The extension ultimately cost £5,120, partly funded by a grant of £2,000 from the Golden Casket funds.[84] It was opened by Minister for Health and Home Affairs (EM Hanlon) in October 1937. Bunting was strung across the building while nurses in white uniforms formed a guard of honour for the visiting dignitaries.[85] The ‘attractive design’ of the building was ‘in keeping with the imposing block of buildings, comprising the Bundaberg General Hospital’.[86] The Minister also emphasised the ‘homely and comfortable’ nature of the quarters, [87] stating that, ‘they had no right to expect any girl to leave her home and devote her life to hospital service unless they could give her a home as decent and attractive as her own.’[88] The rooms were described as being ‘elaborately furnished’,[89] and the nurses expressed their gratitude.[90]
\nThe importance of the nurses was emphasised by chairman of the Bundaberg Hospitals Board, AE Atkin:
\nThe Hospitals’ Board fully realises the fact that it is one of its most important duties to provide an efficient nursing service…For efficiency it is essential to have contentment, and having that in mind, attention was turned towards housing the young ladies under ideal conditions. The local effort has resulted in the building of this, let me call it ‘home’, for such we want the nurses to feel it is. It is substantial, and is as comfortable as we have been able to make it.[91]
\n1943 extension
\nDespite the promise of comfort, extensions were immediately required to the nurses’ quarters.[92] The 1937 extension had not contemplated the staff increases which occurred through the 1930s, leaving nurses accommodated on the verandah of the brand-new extension. Plans for further additions and a new block at the hospital, totalling £30,000,[93] were postponed by the outbreak of World War II.[94] By 1940, however, conditions at the nurses’ quarters were ‘deplorable’:
\nEleven nurses are accommodated in one dormitory and one temporary shack, which has a hessian ceiling 7 feet from the floor. The night staff, usually about 10 to 12, have four bedrooms and are compelled to sleep on the verandahs and in the hot weather, in many cases, they do not get more than three to four hours sleep per day.[95]
\nThe Bundaberg nursing staff then totalled 53 trainees and 11 trained nurses, 13 of whom were accommodated in temporary buildings outside the nurses’ quarters. The nurses also lacked lecture space, necessary for training and examination, which had been partially taken over by the dental clinic. The Bundaberg Hospitals Board engaged architects Cook and Kerrison to design a further extension and reconfigure earlier layouts as necessary to accommodate 75 nurses, lecture and recreation rooms, sanitary conveniences, and ironing and tea rooms.[96] The estimated cost was £12,000, which the Board admitted was ‘extraordinary’ given the opening of additions just two-and-a-half years earlier, but it noted that the existing accommodation breached the nurses’ award.[97]
\nDespite the war, the Bundaberg Hospitals Board successfully applied for the work. It was authorised to borrow funds, and engaged Bundaberg contractor John Young to build the extension at a cost of £12,673, in April 1941.[98] The work involved minor alteration of partitions of the ground floor in the 1919 section to convert the dormitory to single bedrooms, the addition of a second storey on top of the 1915 night nurses’ block, and the addition of a long, two-storey wing extending eastwards off the front (eastern face) of the building that angled northwards at approximately its middle. Construction was undertaken between 1941 and 1943, with the building reported completed in October 1943.[99] War shortages forced the substitution of reinforced concrete walls for brick walls (likely referring only to the internal partitions). [100]
\nThe extension was a face brick building, similar to the earlier sections but simpler in its detailing. It extended the 1937 verandah around the new wing and included a new semi-detached two-storey ablutions block extending off the new verandah’s northern side. It extended the hip roof to match the earlier section. The wing’s interior layout also had a central corridor with bedrooms opening off both sides, and at the ground floor’s eastern end was a large recreation and lecture room that could be divided into two rooms by a large folding door. A second stair hall with a concrete and iron stair was at the part of the building where it angled. The architects had initially drawn plans for rooms 11’ x 8’3” (3.3m x 2.5m) which, although smaller than the existing bedrooms at Bundaberg, were larger than the newly-built bedrooms at Brisbane’s Lady Lamington, leading the Minister for Health and Home Affairs to suggest their size be reduced.[101] All bedrooms opened via French doors out onto the broad verandah. The extension was built over the front of the earlier building, shifting the main entrance from east to south.
\nLike the earlier quarters, the new quarters reflected both the hierarchy of nursing through its spaces and the regimented life in nurses’ quarters. This included the matron’s and sisters’ rooms being positioned near entrance doors, where incomings and outgoings could be easily monitored;[102] and the size of rooms, with senior staff rooms larger than trainees’ rooms.[103] The matron also had additional furnishings, though these were not necessarily elaborate or up-to-date.[104] Some nurses were accommodated in cubicles, rooms with only part-height partitions, a concept born out of 19th century approaches to providing ventilation.[105] One trainee, commencing at Bundaberg Hospital in the late 1940s or early 1950s, described her ‘cubicle-like room’ with ‘a door opening from the internal corridor, another onto the long verandah that skirted the quarters’, a combined wardrobe/dressing table, bed and wooden chair.[106]
\n\n
Swimming pool (1954)
\nWartime nursing shortages had flowed into the postwar era, leaving Queensland hospitals with more than 600 vacant nursing positions by 1946. Advertising campaigns were launched to encourage young women into the profession, and other incentives were contemplated.[107] Health and Home Affairs Minister Foley outlined a policy in 1947 that hospital boards should improve nurses’ accommodation, including lounge suites and chairs, wireless sets, pianos, laundry facilities, and recreation and off-duty rooms for nurses.[108] This was an attempt to entice trainees and trained nurses to apply for positions where conditions were acknowledged to be less appealing than other employment for young women.[109]
\nBefore World War II, common rooms were typically the only area provided for the nurses’ recreation, to sit down after a long shift, entertain friends on their half day off, or write letters. Outdoor recreation, like tennis courts, were less regularly provided, often only through the nurses’ instigation and their fundraising.[110] Bundaberg’s recreational facilities for nurses then included indoor sitting rooms and a recreation room, the latter added with the 1943 extension. A tennis court, funded and managed by the nurses, had been constructed in front (on the southern side) of their quarters in 1922 (no longer extant).[111]
\nIn 1948, the State Cabinet approved a £ for £ subsidy for public hospitals for constructing or maintaining swimming pools.[112] Rockhampton, Charleville, Cairns, and Richmond hospitals all planned for nurses’ swimming pools in the late 1940s,[113] while the Brisbane and South Coast Hospitals Board provided a nurses’ swimming pool at Brisbane General Hospital in 1958.[114] Bundaberg Hospital built a swimming pool in 1954, co-funded by the nurses, Bundaberg City Council, and Queensland Government.[115] A photograph of the pool taken c1970 show it as a rectangular, concrete inground pool, surrounded by a new garden near the nurses’ quarters on its northern side. It had a narrow concrete concourse around the pool, ladders into the pool on both long sides, and a diving board at its short northern end. A very low, decorative metal garden ‘fence' separated the concourse from the surrounding garden, which featured hedged shrubs and a closely-planted row of cypress pines along its western edge (no longer extant).[116]
\nA filtration plant was installed at the pool between 1973 and 1975, and the pool ‘proved very popular with staff over the summer months’.[117]
\n1963 extension
\nAdministrative, legislative, and social changes in the postwar era continued to impact hospitals. With all hospital districts brought under the Hospitals Act by 1944, Queensland was redistricted, and in 1945, Bundaberg was absorbed into the Wide Bay hospital district. The Bundaberg hospital remained the main hub hospital for Bundaberg, Gin Gin, and Mount Perry, under the management of the Bundaberg Hospitals Board.[118]
\nAs postwar material shortages lifted and the state’s population grew, additions, improvements and repairs were planned for hospitals across Queensland.[119] Nurses’ working hours were also finally reduced to a 40-hour week, again necessitating the employment of more nurses at hospitals.[120] A new wave of construction of nurses’ quarters occurred across Queensland, with 29 new quarters built and 14 upgraded.[121] The Bundaberg Hospitals Board had applied for funding for an extension to the Bundaberg general nurses’ quarters in 1948, citing a considerable increase in staff due to the shorter working week and expanded hospital services. The hospital again had insufficient rooms and cubicles to accommodate the staff, and the work was ‘urgently required in order to…avoid complaints from employees and their representatives.’[122] However, it was postponed as other urgent work arose, leaving nurses accommodated on the nurses’ quarters verandahs or in temporary RAAF huts on the hospital site.[123]
\nBy 1960 the nursing staff included sixteen 16 sisters and 74 nurses, and the Bundaberg Hospitals Board again applied to have the nurses’ quarters extended.[124] A new extension was designed by architects Goodsir and Carlyle.[125] The extension was a long, two-storey, face brick wing, extending northwards off the northern end of the former night nurses’ block. It had a central corridor running north-south with rooms on either side, with communal rooms and a stair hall on the west side, and bedrooms on the east, which opened onto a long verandah running along the eastern side of the wing. At the northern end of the wing were self-contained flats for the matron (ground floor) and deputy matron (first floor). The matron’s flat had a separate, private northern entrance. The eight bedrooms (four per floor) had built-in furniture, and the wing included a communal lounge, kitchenette, and ablutions, creating an additional 5,100sq ft (473.8m2) of floor space. SC Lohse’s[126] tender for £27,800 was accepted,[127] and the extension was scheduled for construction between March and September 1963.[128]
\nUnlike earlier extensions, Goodsir and Carlyle’s design did not take many architectural cues from the earlier sections. Designed in a postwar, Modern style, the wing had an orange face brick exterior, timber floors, and a low-pitched hip roof clad with metal roof sheets.[129] Its ceiling heights were lower than the previous extensions, and its two floor levels were at different floor heights from those of the earlier sections, requiring short stairs to be added to both sides of the former night nurses’ block to provide access. The new extension was officially opened by the Minister for Health, Dr HW Noble, MB, BS, on 23 November, 1963.[130] ‘No home was too good for the nursing staff which served Bundaberg so faithfully and well.’[131] The nurses moved into the new quarters in December.[132]
\nPost 1963
\nThe Nurses’ Award was changed again in 1963, granting nurses five weeks of leave per year, and requiring training courses to be held during hospital time, rather than the nurses’ spare time. This, once again, required larger numbers of nurses to be employed. By the 1970s Bundaberg Hospital had between 45 and 118 nursing students sitting their general examinations each year, and in the early 1980s approved staffing levels averaged 50 registered nurses and 86 general nursing students.[133] The expansion of specialised services in Bundaberg Hospital also pushed up demand, as the hospital was made the Base Hospital of its own region in 1977.[134]
\nChanges were made to the nurses’ quarters over time, to keep up with staff numbers and maintain accommodation standards. As the advantages of air circulation gave way to privacy concerns in the second half of the 20th century, partitions were raised to the ceiling to create single bedrooms from the nurses’ cubicles, with some sections converted in 1953-54 and the rest in the late 1960s.[135] General improvements (to the value of $22,000) were planned and undertaken between 1968 and 1970, including the extension of the eastern verandah outside the matron’s and deputy matron’s flats (1969);[136] and the conversion of nurses’ cubicles to rooms; extension of the nurses’ laundry; and the enclosure of the ground floor verandah of the 1963 wing with louvres to prevent ‘prowlers’ (1970).[137] The ablutions blocks were renovated in 1973 (replacing the baths, building shower recesses, tile floors and walls).[138] Renovations were carried out to the first floor in 1980 to modernise nursing accommodation,[139] and in 1985 to the ground floor to accommodate training rooms for the School of Nursing.[140]
\nAt the same time, focus began to shift away from onsite training for nurses. Offsite post-registration courses became available in Queensland from the 1960s, and tertiary courses were offered in place of hospital training from 1978.[141] Lecture hours were increased from the 1970s, but the four-year training course was reduced to three.[142] In 1969, registered nurses’ wages changed from ‘living in’ to ‘living out’, enabling nurses to find their own accommodation off the hospital site if they chose. Student nurses were required to live onsite until 1973, after which they could seek parental permission to ‘live out’.[143] This was not ideal for hospital management, as the nurses’ quarters provided access to a ready group of nurses for extra shifts if needed.[144] An estimated 40 nurses opted to live out when rents were raised at the Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters in 1978.[145] However, the quarters remained occupied until the final group of trainees graduated in July 1992.[146]
\nBuilding work was undertaken to the nurses’ quarters in 1986 and 1987, managed by TW Gatley, John Murchie and Sons and Lohse Constructions, included re-roofing, replacing the verandah floor boards of the early sections with large flat sheets, and rebuilding the brick pier of the first floor verandah using new bricks, costing $155,675.26. On completion of this project, the Bundaberg Hospitals Board expressed its ‘justifiable pride in the restoration of this magnificent building’.[147]
\nAccommodation for female workers
\nNursing was one of the few avenues of paid employment available to women in Queensland through the first half of the 20th century. Until the 1970s, the fields of women's work were limited to domestic work, inside or outside the home, paid or unpaid; retail shop work; clerical work; education; and nursing. Very small numbers of Queensland women were able to achieve professional careers in other fields, such as Dr Lilian Cooper (medicine), Dorothy Hill (geology) and Daphne Mayo (art), while owners of property could earn income through paid domestic work as hotel publicans or boarding accommodation proprietors. Factory work, available to women in southern states, was less practised in Queensland, where the manufacturing industry was smaller.[148] Paid employment was undertaken by unmarried women who sought independence, were vocationally inclined, or whose families were unable to support them. Retirement was expected on a woman's marriage, when she would take up unpaid domestic or charitable work, with a return to paid employment possible if she were widowed or deserted.[149]
\nWorking women living away from home were considered vulnerable to corrupting influences in boarding houses or on the streets. From the mid-19th century, charitable organisations established accommodation for women seeking employment, such as the Servants' Home (1863-1870) and Aboriginal Girls' Home (1900-1906).[150] Employers sometimes provided purpose-built accommodation for female employees: the Department of Education provided housing for teachers (both male and female); private and public hospitals provided nurses' quarters;[151] and domestic service workers resided in servants' quarters or rooms within private residences or at hotels.[152] In rare cases, accommodation was provided for retail and office workers, such as TC Beirne's Bulolo Flats (1934, QHR 602188). This accommodation fulfilled dual roles of protection and supervision, with acceptance of independent-living employed women gradually emerging through the 20th century.[153]
\nThe provision of onsite accommodation was a vital component of nursing. Nursing was an exclusively female profession until the 1970s, with caring for the sick considered an inherently feminine task.[154] Nurses were unmarried,[155] often young,[156] and were required to be of 'good fame and character' to be registered.[157] Onsite accommodation was desirable not only for training and staffing, but also for preventing young unmarried women from unchaperoned travel between the hospital and off-side accommodation.[158] Additionally, the provision of comfortable homes for nurses could entice women into nursing, compensate them for their dedication and sacrifice, and fortify them for their arduous work.[159] From 1911 and 1921 respectively, private and public hospitals were required to provide accommodation for nurses in their employment, and the design and layout of nurses' quarters reflected their accommodation of a single-sex workforce, deserving of comfort and supervision.
\n\n
Nurses at Bundaberg (and role of the quarters)
\nWith a staff of trained nurses since 1898, Bundaberg served as the main (and frequently only) training hospital for general nursing in the region from 1902.[160] The hospital was often reported as enjoying a good reputation as a nurse training hospital, with trained nurses undertaking postgraduate studies,[161] and trainees achieving good results in annual examinations.[162] Probationers came from across Queensland to begin their nursing training, including Innisfail, Monto, Nebo, Degilbo, and Croydon, with English emigrants in the 1950s.[163] The training hospital also provided ‘regional’ experience for nurses from larger or smaller hospitals. In 1969, the Bundaberg Regional Training School was established at the Bundaberg Hospital, enrolling nurses from Bundaberg, Monto, and Gladstone. An exchange programme of nurses was run between the three hospitals in the following years.[164]
\nOnce successfully trained, Bundaberg’s nurses remained at the hospital or travelled further afield, working as nurses or matrons in hospitals intrastate, interstate, and internationally.[165] Jane Bell, who replaced her sister Euphemia as Matron of the Bundaberg Hospital in 1903, became particularly renowned for her contributions to nursing in Australia.[166] Bundaberg Hospital nurses served in both world wars, and the pride of the Bundaberg community in its nurses was reflected through the erection of the Bundaberg War Nurses’ Memorial in 1949 (QHR 600365), on a site opposite the front of the Bundaberg Hospital.[167] Sarah Keenan, matron of the hospital from 1946 until 1970, was the inaugural head of the Matrons’ Association, a Fellow of the College of Australian Nurses, and undertook international studies; on her retirement, she was made an MBE for her services to nursing. Nurses who trained or worked at Bundaberg include an OBE and an AM recipient. [168]
\nNurses were held in high regard by the general public, both across Queensland and specifically in Bundaberg.[169] Expressions of gratitude for nurses’ hard work were published in media and provided to the Bundaberg Hospitals Board from earliest days of nursing at the hospital.[170] Journalists and newspaper correspondents sided with the nursing staff in public disputes between them and the hospital board, and defended them vigorously against criticism.[171] Fundraising for the nurses’ quarters was supported by the local community, and social ties to the community were reciprocated by nurses, such as through inviting members of public to use the tennis courts.[172]
\nThe nurses also formed close bonds with one another.[173] Trainee nurses were almost exclusively young single women;[174] and many trainees were significant distances from their homes.[175] Most of their time was spent at the hospital, either on duty, studying, or in their quarters, with time off the site restricted by a strict curfew. Much of this time was also focused on the quarters, which combined accommodation and professional development, with lectures/examinations often held in the same building.[176] Groups of nurses were photographed outside or on the steps of the quarters,[177] and social events were held at the hospital, particularly following the formation of a branch of the Student Nurses Association at Bundaberg Hospital, which organised social evenings, fetes, play readings, a film evening, recreational activities, and even a discussion with the hospital matron to raise nurses’ concerns.[178] In 1924, the unity of the nurses was demonstrated when 24 nurses resigned en masse in support of the matron and engaged legal counsel against the hospital board.[179]
\nAs practical training gave way to tertiary education in the 1980s, Bundaberg nurses began to attend registered courses at the Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education.[180] The final group of trainees began training at the hospital in July 1989, and in July 1992, the News-Mail announced the ‘end of an era’ as the 17 trainees completed the last three-year training at the hospital.[181] Residential accommodation for hospital staff was retained in parts of the quarters, while other sections were used for education, such as commencement of classes of the University of Queensland’s Rural Clinical School Bundaberg in the ground floor library of the former nurses’ quarters in 2004.[182]
\nAnnual Bundaberg Hospital nurses’ reunions were held from 2010-2013,[183] with nurses reflecting on the ‘nightly curfews, bedpans, short-sheeting beds and clandestine raids on the pantry’;[184] the friends they made in the nurses’ quarters,[185] and the ‘skills of patience and tolerance’ they learned while residing in the Bundaberg nurses’ quarters.[186] The reunion drew nurses from across Queensland and Australia,[187] and allowed former nurses to share their stories with current and future nurses training at the Central Queensland university.[188]
\nIn 2024, the former Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters is in use as administration and staff accommodation for the Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service.
Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former), built in 1915 and extended in 1919, 1937, 1943, 1963, and 1970, is important in demonstrating the vital role of the nursing profession in the provision of health care in Queensland. Nurses’ quarters were an essential part of Queensland hospital complexes from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, providing on-site accommodation for nursing staff. As nurses’ quarters built at a training hospital, Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former) accommodated probationers, trainees, and qualified nursing staff from the Bundaberg district and from across Queensland until 1992.
\nBuilt as nursing emerged as a trained profession, and extended in response to legislative and regulatory changes, Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former) is representative of the evolution of the nursing profession throughout the 20th century. The form, fabric, and layout of the quarters, including the swimming pool, reflect the social mores, the highly regulated and hierarchical nature of the nursing profession, and the legal and economic rationales that required qualified and trainee nurses, who for many years were exclusively female, to be accommodated on hospital grounds.
\nAs a place purpose built to accommodate female workers, Bundaberg Hospital Nurses' Quarters (former) is important in demonstrating the evolution of women's employment in 20th century Queensland, particularly of employer provision of accommodation for female workers.
|Bundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former) is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a Queensland hospital nurses’ quarters. It is a substantial and intact example that reflects the continuity of this class of cultural place across more than 50 years.
\nThe place retains its:
\nBundaberg Hospital Nurses’ Quarters (former) has a strong and special association with the probationers, trainees, nurses, and senior staff who lived, studied, and socialised there between 1915 and 1992. The quarters provided housing, education, and recreation space for trainees and qualified nurses employed at the Bundaberg Hospital, playing an important role in the lives of generations of Bundaberg-trained nurses. Their strong association with the place has been demonstrated through their fundraising activities for the quarters and swimming pool, expressions of attachment, and reunions held into the 21st century.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"} {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":null,"place_ref":650282,"name":"Atherton Arboretum","alternate_name":"Tropical Forest Research Station (former) Arboretum, Atherton | CSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre","street_address":"47-67 Maunds Road","suburb":"ATHERTON","lga":"TABLELANDS REGIONAL COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2024-08-02","description":"[Note, as the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation (the Department) has been unable to access the place, the following description is based on information provided to the Department and publicly available sources].
\nThe Atherton Arboretum (established 1971) is a large, living arboretum, primarily containing a collection of tropical forest plants, in Atherton, northern Queensland. The arboretum stands on a part of a 3.64ha corner allotment, bounded by Maunds Road (east), Grove Street (north) and residential properties (west and south). The arboretum is generally concentrated in the north and northeast ends of the site, with a smaller area of plantings along the southeastern side, and centrally at the southern end of the site (between buildings)[82]. Smaller areas of plantings formerly located along the southern, southwestern and western sides and adjacent to some buildings are no longer extant [83].
\nThe arboretum contains a variety of plants (primarily trees), most of which are typically endemic to Australian rainforests and sclerophyll forests. The plants are arranged within a 10m by 10m grid, which references a database in which specimen information is recorded. The arboretum retains approximately 889 plant specimens, including 422 species from 78 family groups [84]. The most highly represented family groups in the arboretum include: Myrtaceae (myrtles, 185 specimens), Lauraceae (laurels, 92 specimens), Arecaceae (palms, 53 specimens), Sapindaceae (soapberries, 55 specimens), Euphorbiaceae (euphorbias / spurges, 43 specimens), and Proteaceae (such as proteas, waratahs, banksias, grevilleas and silky oaks, 42 specimens) [85]. The specimens are tagged with a number that correlates to an accompanying database listing their taxon names, planting dates, locations of original collection, plant identification numbers in relation to the Tropical Rainforest Key, and plot numbers that correlate to the specimen locations within the grid map. An undetermined number of tags are no longer attached to trees. Of the 360 grid plots across the site, 163 contain a documented arboretum planting.
\nThe arboretum accommodates a number of plant species recognised as threatened (including being classified as ‘critically endangered’, ‘endangered’, ‘vulnerable’ and ‘near threatened’ in their natural habitats) in Queensland and Australian legislation, and a number of plants have restricted distributions outside of a cultivated setting [86]. Specimens recorded in the arboretum’s plant schedule (last updated 2014), and classified as such in 2024 include [87]:
\nFeatures of the Atherton Arboretum of state-level cultural heritage significance include:
\nFeatures Not of State-level Cultural Heritage Significance
\nFeatures of the Atherton Arboretum not of state-level cultural heritage significance are:
\nAssociated built features outside of heritage boundary include:
\nThe Atherton Arboretum was first planted in 1971 as part of the Tropical Forest Research Station, a joint Federal and State government initiative for the scientific research of North Queensland’s tropical rainforests. The planting of the Arboretum at Atherton was initiated by the station’s botanists to provide a ‘living library’ of tropical rainforest flora to assist scientists, both staff at the station and visiting researchers. Important discoveries of species unknown through non-indigenous knowledge, or their first systematic description and documentation, were made by the scientists on expeditions to often very remote rainforest locations, with seed and plant samples brought back to the station to be included in the herbarium. Plants in the Arboretum were derived from these samples and planted within an organised grid layout across the site and recorded in a database.
\nIn 1975 the station became the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Institute Organisation (CSIRO) Tropical Forest Research Centre and continued its research into tropical forest flora, among other scientific endeavours. Throughout this time the Arboretum was added to and carefully maintained. The centre became important in the scientific community for advancing tropical rainforest knowledge with many new, rare and endangered species identified and researched by the scientists at the station. The Tropical Forest Research Centre closed in 2022.
\nEuropean Settlement and Tropical Rainforests
\nPrior to European colonial settlement, its associated dispossession of the land that was central to life and spiritual beliefs, and destruction of traditional ways of life, the area now known as the Atherton Tablelands was and remains the traditional land of the Wadjanbarra Yidi People, one of the Rainforest Aboriginal Peoples of the Wet Tropics region, who have lived continuously in the rainforests for at least 5000 years. By developing specialised techniques, Rainforest Aboriginal People were able to process toxic and other plants for food which allowed them to permanently inhabit a tropical rainforest environment. This is unique in Australia. [1]
\nIn North Queensland, tropical rainforests were found on the coastline, fringing the Great Barrier Reef, and stretching inland approximately 70km.[2] From the 1860s rainforests were visited by European exploration parties, followed by timber getters attracted to the area by the density and size of the trees, in particular the prized Red Cedar (Toona Ciliata) and the Kauri Pine (Agathis Robusta).[3] By the 1870s the rainforests of the area were being exploited in the race for highly sought-after and profitable timbers. It was also the time when land began to be opened for closer settlement, resulting in further rainforest destruction to make way for pastoral and agricultural settlement on the Tablelands.[4]
\nOf Queensland's natural resources, timber was the most obvious and abundant to the first Europeans, and the timber industry played a vital role in the economic development of the state, while also providing its most important building material.[5] Significant wastage of precious timbers occurred through both timber felling and land clearing in the late 19th century in North Queensland. Initially, transporting felled timber to the coast was very difficult as there were only primitive roads. Instances of great waste occurred when timber getters began floating logs down the river systems to the coast during the wet season, resulting in the destruction and loss of much of the timber.[6] In the lower coastal areas, large-scale clearing of rainforest occurred when sugar plantations were established in the late 19th century; while on the higher ranges of the Tablelands, piles of cleared timber were simply burnt to make way for dairy and agricultural farms.[7]
\nAtherton, which takes its name from pastoralist John Atherton, was originally known as Prior's Pocket after Thomas Prior, a timber getter who was the first European to camp there permanently. The settlement grew to accommodate men engaged in lumbering operations.[8] From the mid-1890s Atherton's settlement increased and it became firmly established as the main centre on the Tablelands. Atherton provided the surrounding mining population with the bulk of its produce and its importance as a regional centre was cemented by the arrival of the railway from Cairns in 1903.[9]
\nRainforest botany and research
\nThe rainforests of North Queensland were recognised as botanically rich. Botanists accompanied exploration parties to North Queensland as early as the late 18th century, with plant samples collected and sent to European botanical collections.[10] The first Queensland Colonial Botanist, Walter Hill (appointed in 1859), accompanied George Elphinstone Dalrymple’s North-East Coast Expedition to North Queensland in 1873, collecting extensively from the rainforest.[11]
\nGovernment Botanist of Victoria, Ferdinand von Meuller, organised several early North Queensland settlers to collect specimens from the rainforest to send to him in Melbourne for study. In 1864 Meuller sent collector, John Dallachy, to North Queensland where he set up his base in the fledgling town of Cardwell. From there Dallachy spent the next seven years exploring the rainforest and extensively collecting specimens for Meuller. Unfortunately, in 1871, Dallachy contracted a fever and died while exploring the Herbert Vale area.[12]
\nIn 1881, Frederick Bailey was appointed to the role of Queensland’s Colonial Botanist and in 1889 accompanied Archibald Meston on his Bellenden Kerr exploration party to North Queensland where he collected and observed the flora of the region.[13] In the same year, the newly formed Department of Agriculture established the Kamerunga State Nursery in Cairns to experiment and trial tropical crops that may have commercial potential. Ebenezer Cowley was appointed the nursery’s first overseer in 1899 and became a prolific specimen collector in the rainforests of the Barron River, Cooktown, Daintree River, Port Douglas, and the Torres Strait. The specimens were subsequently sent to Bailey in Brisbane where they were added to the Queensland Herbarium.[14]
\nHerbariums had long been established in Europe, with famous ones, such as Kew Gardens in London, storing specimens from all over the world. In Australia, the Melbourne Herbarium (1853), under von Meuller, was the largest collection in Australia by the late 19th century. Plant samples were collected in the field, sent back to the herbarium, where they would be preserved, mostly by drying, mounted on sheets of paper, studied, categorised, and stored. Each specimen, known as a voucher specimen, included information about the plant’s identification, and where and when it was found. The Queensland Herbarium was first established by Walter Hill in 1859.[15]
\nThe North Queensland Naturalists’ Club (established in 1932), founded the North Queensland Herbarium in 1933, following encouragement by the then Queensland Government Botanist, CT White, to ‘form a local herbarium, and to collect plants assiduously … In this way, working in the rich flora of North Queensland, you cannot fail to make quite extensive additions to the knowledge of our flora, because the flora of North Queensland is far from being completely known’.[16] The collection was housed in the Cairns Botanic Gardens (QHR 602541). The club's collection grew from around 1,600 specimens in 1937 to about 5,000 in 1950, with an estimated final collection size of around 10,680 specimens.[17]
\nIn the 1890s there was increased concern from the colonial Government that revenue was being lost to unregulated timber exploitation. The creation of the Forestry Branch in 1900 within the Lands Department represented a shift in approach.[18] Subsequently, during the early 20th century, State Government concern grew in relation to the depletion of native timber supplies. Under Norman Jolly and then Edward Harold Fulcher Swain as Director of Forests (1911-18, and 1918-32 respectively), the Queensland Government established native softwood (hoop pine, Araucaria cunninghamii) plantations and attempted to regenerate native forest areas. Offices were established in six forestry regions: Atherton, Brisbane, Bundaberg-Rockhampton, Gympie, Maryborough, and Dalby.[19] Additionally, arboretums were established for experimentation of commercial timber species at Atherton, Dalby, Imbil, Warwick, Benarkin, Mackay and Rockhampton.[20]
\nIn Atherton, the Queensland Forestry Branch was established ca. 1914, with their offices located in Main Street.[21] Its responsibility was to manage indiscriminate logging throughout the tropical north. By 1914 reforestation was also carried out in an effort to regenerate the fine rainforest timber trees lost over the years. Silvicultural experiments saw the establishment of several timber plantations by the Forestry Branch in North Queensland. Additionally, scientific research programs were undertaken at the Atherton office to study rainforest trees and broaden the list of possible logging species, forest management planning, yield planning, forest hydrology and fire management practices.[22]
\nIn 1960, Forestry was made its own department.[23] By this time there were comparatively more careful controls placed on logging operations. Appointed foresters were trained in ‘tree marking’, and worked with the logging operations to identify tree species that were permitted to be felled, of which there was approximately 160 types. The forester ‘recorded the species, the size of the tree, gave it a number and indicated the direction in which it should be felled’.[24] Work undertaken at the Atherton forestry office assisted the foresters in the identification of rainforest trees.[25]
\nDevelopment of Ecological Research and Environmental Awareness
\nAlthough some of North Queensland’s rainforest flora had been collected and studied over the years, by the 1960s scientists realised that there were many unidentified and potentially undiscovered species of both flora and fauna. This was also the time when ecological science, that ‘pointed to the interrelated character of the natural world and conceptualised the environment in terms of ecological systems’,[26] was given more focus by scientific bodies and governments and drew greater awareness from the public.[27]
\nFrom the mid to late 1940s, the CSIRO appointed scientists to research rainforests in North Queensland, in particular tree and plant species that may have pharmaceutical benefits for humans, under the Australian Phytochemical Research Program. Leading this was ecologist, Dr Len Webb, who had begun carrying out surveys of the rainforests in 1944. By the early 1950s Webb and assistant ecologist, Geoff Tracey, were collecting specimens from the rainforests surrounding the Atherton Tablelands and sending them for study to the CSIRO laboratories, to universities, and to international herbariums, with the Courier-Mail reporting in 1953, ‘Since Mr Webb and forestry workers began their collections in the rainforests, 110 alkaloids alone, 60 new ones, have been discovered there (morphine, cocaine and strychnine are alkaloids)’.[28] Webb and Tracey were pioneers in rainforest ecology in Australia.[29]
\nThe CSIRO, initially the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry in 1920, and renamed the CSIRO in 1949, was established primarily to undertake scientific research relating to Australia’s primary and secondary industries. Its headquarters were initially in Melbourne; however, by 1927, there were 53 staff working throughout Australia. Fields of research included: animal and plant pests and diseases; fuel issues; food preservation; forest products; building materials; wool textiles; coal; assessment of land resources; atmospheric pressures; and metallurgy.[30]
\nAdditionally, within the Federal Government’s Forestry and Timber Bureau was the Forest Research Institute, with the head office located in Canberra. Research carried out by the institute was in silviculture and forest management and protection. By 1970 six regional research stations had been established in: Hobart (Tasmania), Mount Gambier (South Australia), Kelmscott (Western Australia), Traralgon (Victoria), Darwin (Northern Territory), and Atherton (Queensland). The Forestry and Timber Bureau’s Annual Report states that ‘at each of these stations the research programme is concentrated on problems which are of particular concern in, though not necessarily limited to, the region in which the station is situated’.[31] In Atherton, this was the study of North Queensland’s tropical rainforest timbers.
\nEnvironmental awareness in Australia grew in the 1960s and into the 1970s. In Queensland the fight to save the Great Barrier Reef from mining, oil drilling and over-fishing saw a national campaign for its protection led by increasingly influential environmental groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society, and the Queensland Littoral Society (renamed the Australian Marine Conservation Society). Public support grew and the 'Save the Reef' campaign attracted broad political support. The campaign’s success saw the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 by the Whitlam Federal Government, resulting in the formation of the world's largest marine protected area jointly administered by the State and Federal Governments.[32]
\nPublic concern over the depletion of Australia’s rainforests was also increasing. In Queensland, the State Government was resource and development driven, and considered the protection of the north’s rainforests from clearing for sugarcane, cattle, logging, and property development, anti-progressive. Environmental groups, including the Committee for the Preservation of Tropical Rainforest, founded by Queensland artist and environmental activist, John Büsst, and the Wildlife Preservation Society, established in 1963, by ecologist, Dr Webb and renowned Australian writer, Judith Wright, began pressuring the Federal Government for greater protection of the rainforests.[33]
\nIn 1965, following lobbying by the Committee for the Preservation of Tropical Rainforest, environmental groups convinced the Federal Government to engage Webb and Tracey to undertake the first systematic vegetation survey of North Queensland's rainforests. Joined by University of Queensland zoologists, Dr Jiro Kikkawa and Ian Straughan, the team spent two weeks in the northern lowland rainforests.[34] The survey resulted in the first ever scientific reference to the international significance of Queensland's lowland rainforests; the first proposal for protection of the full range of North Queensland forests; and the first actual protection of lowland tropical Queensland rainforest, albeit far less than that nominated for protection by Webb and Tracey.[35]
\nEstablishment of Tropical Forest Research Station, Atherton
\nIn the late 1960s an agreement was reached between the Queensland Department of Forestry and the Commonwealth’s Forestry and Timber Bureau to establish a research facility to study Queensland’s tropical forests.[36] In 1969, the Commonwealth Government’s Civil Works Program’s ‘proposed new works’ allocated $225,000 for the ‘erection of forestry research station’ in Atherton.[37] A 3.64 ha site in Atherton was purchased in 1970 by the Commonwealth on which the Tropical Forest Research Station was to be established. The site was formerly part of open farmland and building work began in 1970.[38] Prior to this, in January 1969, the Department of National Development sent the proposal for the station’s establishment to the Department of Works, and outlined the specific research activity that the station would be undertaking:
\nIn February 1970 Minister for National Development, the Hon. Reginald William Swartz, announced the establishment of the research station to the press:
\nA $225,000 Federal-state forest research station will be in operation at Atherton, in North Queensland, by the end of the year… It would cover the ecology of rain forests, the physical and chemical properties of rain forest soils, and the fertility levels of plant nutrients.[40]
\nBuilding work on the station began in early 1970 and on 21 October 1971 the Tropical Forest Research Station was officially opened by the Minister for National Development, with a plaque unveiled commemorating the event. The newly built research facility fronted Maunds Road and was a u-shaped timber building surrounded by covered walkways and an eastern courtyard. The design of the building is attributed to the Commonwealth of Australia Department of Works, Queensland Branch.[41] Included within the building was an herbarium.
\nThe first Officer in Charge of the Tropical Forest Research Station was scientist, Dr Geoff Stocker (1971-1985), and the first senior Botanist, Dr Bernard Hyland (1971-2002). Technical Officers with varying scientific backgrounds also made up the station’s research staff, and ‘the very structure of the research station was from its inception, built around three formal forest research groups, notably Botany, Ecology, and Soils Groups, each headed by professional appointments and supported by technical teams’.[42]
\nDevelopment of the Arboretum and herbarium
\nAn integral part of the research station was the establishment of a Tropical Rainforest Arboretum:
\nThe establishment of the Arboretum was from the outset of the research station in 1971, a definite and formal research project, with the considered objective of creating an accessible, living reference to the tropical forest flora of Australia’s northeastern rainforests and associated forest types.[43]
\nFormer scientists working at the station have stated that the purpose of planting the Arboretum at the station was:
\nTo support the development of systematic methods of rainforest tree identification and to create an easily accessible living resource to study the tropical moist forest flora of north Queensland. At that time, much of north Queensland was unexplored by western botanical science and field locations were remote, with limited access, particularly in the monsoon season. The establishment of an Arboretum at QRS would allow the continued study of newly discovered plants without needing to revisit remote and restricted locations in difficult, adverse conditions.[44]
\nThe first plantings were carried out in 1971 in the northeast corner of the site and followed a planned grid layout of 10m-by-10m plots that eventually covered much of the site not occupied by buildings, auxiliary structures, and driveways.[45]
\nAn arboretum is a collection of cultivated trees and plants propagated for scientific research, conservation and/or educational purposes.[46] The term ‘arboretum’ was first used in England in the mid 19th century when important arboretums were established including at Kew Gardens and Derby. In the United States of America arboretums were also established, including the world-renowned Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, established in 1872.[47] In Australia, several arboretums were established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, to research the success of various cultivated softwood pine-tree species for commercial plantations.[48] Characteristics shared by many arboretums include an ordered arrangement of plantings (often with an accompanying grid/site map), botanical labels placed on plants (which may reference an accompanying inventory), and associated voucher specimens retained in an herbarium.
\nThe Queensland Acclimatisation Society established several gardens that contributed to the development of the fledgling agricultural industry. It imported plants that had commercial potential and conducted experiments to determine if they could be adapted to Queensland's tropical and sub-tropical climate. The first garden was planted in early 1860s in Bowen Hills (QHR 601523), moving to a site in the outer Brisbane suburb of Lawnton in 1915 (QHR 602703). In 1921, the Sherwood Arboretum (QHR 602456) was established in Brisbane for the scientific study of forest timbers and public recreation, and in 1927 the Pechey Forestry Arboretum (QHR 601882) was established by the Forestry division of the Queensland Government to study viable commercial trees for logging.[49]
\nAn important component of the Atherton research station was its herbarium, which occupied the southwest corner of the main building. It was a long, rectangular room with a line of benches built along the south wall with an extensive set of windows for the provision of natural light. A series of movable shelving units stood in the middle of the room and stored the herbarium specimens.[50] The herbarium was a pivotal part of the research facility. As in other herbariums, the Atherton Research Station’s herbarium housed an extensive collection of voucher specimens studied by the scientists at the station, and informed the identification of new and rare species in Queensland forests.[51]
\nEssential to the scientific research being carried out at the station, field expeditions to often very remote rainforests were undertaken to gather plant material and other data. Contributing to this, between 1971 and 1980 twenty research plots measuring 0.5ha each were established in a range of forest areas from Mackay to Cape York Peninsular, for the collection of ecological and growth data. The plots were ‘specifically planned, long-term research plots designed to examine natural processes in rainforests rather than responses to, or suitability for, timber extraction’.[52] The strategy used for the research at the forest plots was:
\nSpecimens and plant material was brought back from field expeditions to the Atherton station for further scientific research, where they ‘were confirmed and processed by the botanist and staff, for the inclusion in the station’s herbarium, often including species with rare or remote distributions’.[54] Each voucher specimen would be allocated a universal herbarium number (internationally unique) ‘which presents a permanent and verifiable record of the associated living specimen’.[55]
\nFollowing best practice principles, triplicate voucher specimens of a particular plant included in the herbarium would be sent to other herbariums throughout the world, for example to the Herbarium Australiense (established in the early 1930s and renamed the Australian National Herbarium in 1984) in Canberra, to Kew in the UK, and to Leiden in Holland. Additionally, the Atherton Herbarium was included within the Australian National Herbarium as the country’s tropical plant herbarium. By 2007 (prior to the herbarium collection being integrated into the Australian Tropical Herbarium, and relocated to James Cook University, in Cairns) the herbarium held more than 120,000 voucher specimens housed at the research station.[56]
\nThe herbarium had a direct relationship with the Arboretum as many of the plants brought back from field expeditions were initially cultivated from seeds and cuttings (propagules) to a sapling stage in the station’s nursery and glasshouse, and then planted in the Arboretum for further study, to eventually ‘see them flower and fruit themselves over time, a living experiment if you like’.[57]
\nThe methodology used to plant the Arboretum was based on both ecological and practical factors. Within a grid, trees were planted so there would be space between to avoid growth competition, as well as for the crown and canopy development when the trees matured, as ‘you might plant a huge tree, then a medium tree, then a small tree around that particular grid so it didn’t cause problems in the future’.[58] Consideration of maintenance, such as irrigation and mowing, was also taken into account when planting.[59] According to scientists who worked at the station, the rationale behind the plantings:
\nwere subject at the time to thorough project planning and proper consideration of both scientific objectives and practical limitations. Practical, geographic constraints conferred by the nature and accessibility of the forest locations and the functional and biological diversity of the forest biota represented, ultimately determined the methods used to establish this living library on a scientifically sound and taxonomically reliable basis.[60]
\nWhere possible, up to three individuals of each species were established, subject to availability, each in different parts of the grid, in a bid to address potential effects of micro-site variability and to help counter any localised losses.[61]
\nThe plantings throughout the Arboretum were systematically recorded on a grid map with accompanying database, which recorded the taxon name, plot location, date planted, where it had been collected from, tag number, and the Plant Identification number in the Tropical Rainforest Key.[62]
\nThe Tropical Rainforest Key, first published in 1971, had been compiled by Dr Hyland, the senior Botanist at the Atherton Research Centre (1971-2002). Initially called ‘A Card Key to the Rain Forest Trees of North Queensland’, its original intention was to provide foresters with an accurate and extensive means of identifying trees in North Queensland’s rainforests. Over the years, through extensive botanic research, Dr Hyland added to the key, and it became the most comprehensive information system on North Queensland’s rainforest flora. Many of the specimens grown in the Arboretum provided botanic information used to develop this tool.[63]
\nCSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre 1975-2022
\nIn 1975 the ownership of the research station was transferred to the CSIRO and its name changed to the CSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre, under the Division of Forest Research.[64] Intensive scientific research continued at the centre and the Arboretum was continuously added to over the years, expanding across the site and following the grid layout. Most specimens in the Arboretum are endemic to the rainforests of North Queensland and the savannahs of Cape York Peninsula. Due to the very restricted distributions in the forests, some plants in the Arboretum are likely to be the only known existing cultivated specimens.[65]
\nThe Arboretum was an invaluable resource to the scientists working at the centre. The field expeditions to the remote rainforests could only be undertaken at certain times of the year due to the monsoon season and were not frequent.[66] The Arboretum allowed researchers to study living rainforest species throughout the year and closely observe plants flowering and fruiting, which often proved difficult to do in the wild.[67] In 1984, The Bulletin included a feature on the important work being carried out by the CSIRO at the Atherton centre:
\nThe team of six scientists, plus support staff is regarded as the only effective rainforest research group in Australia and probably the best in the world…simply because there is nowhere else with wet tropical rainforest, decent laboratory facilities and a stable political situation which allows continuous work by experienced staff. As rainforests are becoming a major international concern, the CSIRO has encouraged a flow of overseas visitors to admire the Atherton project.[68]
\nThe research centre and Arboretum became internationally renowned in the rainforest science community, with many researchers and students visiting it to study various aspects of tropical rainforest flora:
\nThe CSIRO research centre was acclaimed, for everyone around the world came and based their research, as it was the only place in the world where you could do that, so we had up to fifty people there at some stages just running around doing research.
\nA lot of really important scientists from around the world came and did short stints… a lot of them did use the arboretum just to help identify plants, as each specimen in the arboretum has a tag and an associated name, herbarium lodgement number, so you could look up the herbarium and see that ‘Atherton’ has a specimen of xyz and they could go out and see what it looked like in the real world.
\nAll the researchers used the arboretum as a library, if you like, a museum, to help with their research.[69]
\nFears for the destruction of Australia’s natural environment gained impetus in the early 1980s as conservation movements became better organised, increasingly vocal, and more influential; in Tasmania the proposed damming of the Franklin River triggered a large opposing protest movement that was successful when the Federal Government intervened and stopped the project in 1983.[70] In Queensland, the construction of the 34km Bloomfield to Cape Tribulation Road between 1983-84, through the Daintree Rainforest, triggered protests from environmental activists who were ultimately unsuccessful in stopping it.[71]
\nAlthough the protests failed to stop the road being built, requests for the nomination of the rainforests of North Queensland to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) for entry on the World Heritage List were made to the Federal Government. After considerable pressure from these groups, in 1984 the Australian Heritage Commission engaged the Rainforest Conservation Society of Queensland, led by Dr Aila Keto, to detail the significance of North Queensland’s rainforests. A detailed report was produced, Tropical Rainforests of North Queensland: Their Conservation Significance, A Report to the Australian Heritage Commission by the Rainforest Conservation Society of Queensland, which would ultimately form part of the nomination for World Heritage listing.[72] On 23 December 1987 the Commonwealth Government presented the nomination to the Bureau of the World Heritage Committee; and in December 1988, the Wet Tropics of Queensland were officially inscribed on the World Heritage List.[73]
\nAt the time, the Atherton CSIRO centre was at the forefront of rainforest research in the country. The ongoing studies in fields such as ecosystems, botany, soils, and fauna carried out over the years, as well as the extensive knowledge and experience held by the scientists at the centre, attested to this. According to scientists who worked at the facility, core data from research carried out there was provided for both the report and the nomination with contributors including Bernard Hyland, Geoff Stocker, Tony Irvine, Geoff Tracey, Graham Harrington.[74]
\nOver the years many journal articles and publications were written by the scientists working at the centre to share scientific data with the international science community, including publications in Biotropica, Commonwealth Forestry Review, and Journal of the Arnold Arboretum:
\nThe extensive list of scientific research publications and other outputs of the research station…clearly attests to a total research focus on the scientific understanding of the region’s forests, their taxonomic diversity and ecological functioning. This understanding over time, has proven almost exclusively of benefit to both forestry and to conservation management, including for enhanced, scientifically based protection of the region’s tropical rainforests, their diversity and functional relationships with the environment.[75]
\nSeveral editions of the Tropical Rainforest Key with the inclusion of additional information were also published.[76] The Atherton Arboretum was referred to in the Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation's 1985 publication A Report on the Collection of Native Plants in Australian Botanic Gardens and Arboreta, that states that the collection is an important one and does not function as a public garden, but as part of the research facility.[77] In 1991 the CSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre Arboretum Guide was compiled at the centre.[78]
\nIn 2007 the herbarium collection held at the centre was integrated into the Australian Tropical Herbarium and relocated to James Cook University, in Cairns. At that time the Atherton herbarium held more than 120,000 voucher specimens.[79]
\nIn 2009, the CSIRO website described the Atherton Arboretum as having ‘1300 trees, shrubs and vines representing approximately 550 species … documented in a database and readily available booklet’. It was ‘set up to showcase the diversity of plants in tropical Australia and allow easy access to these plants. Researchers, students, schools, naturalists and all members of the community are encouraged to use the facility’.[80]
\nThe Atherton Arboretum, planted continuously by the scientists at the centre from 1971, retained approximately 1190 plant specimens, including 539 species from 91 family groups. It is a living library of tropical rainforest flora that has assisted scientists, both staff at the station and visiting researchers, with important research on Tropical Forest plants. Important discoveries of unknown species were made by the scientists on expeditions to often very remote rainforest locations, with seed and plant samples brought back to the station, cultivated, and planted in the Arboretum. A number of plant species within the Arboretum are recognised in state and national legislation as being near threatened, vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered, and some of the plantings are likely to be the only known existing cultivated specimens in the world. In 2022 the CSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre was closed, and the site sold to a private owner.
\nIn June 2024, the remaining sections of the Atherton Arboretum contain approximately 889 plant specimens, including 422 species from 78 family groups.[81]
","criteria":"Atherton Arboretum (initial planting in 1971), located on the site of the former Atherton Tropical Forest Research Centre, is important in demonstrating the evolution of the scientific study of Queensland’s natural environment. Using samples collected by scientists from northern Queensland, that were propagated and planted at the research centre, the arboretum is a living collection of rainforest trees, and includes specimens that are threatened in their natural habitat.
\nAn initiative of both Australian and Queensland Government forestry departments (from 1971), and then as part of a CSIRO research centre (from 1975), the Atherton Arboretum represents the intensive collection and scientific study of specimens planted in the arboretum, which greatly advanced knowledge of Queensland’s tropical rainforest flora including its taxonomic identification and analysis.
|Atherton Arboretum is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its class of cultural place – an arboretum – through its being a living collection of cultivated plants specifically established for the purpose of scientific research; its ordered plant layout (in this case a 10m by 10m grid, originally set out by point marker posts); and its labelled botanical specimens (numbered tags that reference an accompanying database). Retaining a high degree of integrity, the arboretum comprises a comprehensive and large collection of tropical plant species, some of which are listed threatened species in national and state legislation.
\nThe arboretum is unique in representing a large proportion of the Wet Tropic rainforest tree flora, gathered together on the one site in a living, systematic, and fully documented design for scientific research.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}